The Battle for Terra Two (4 page)

"What about Petersen?" asked John as Grady turned on the lights. It was a small room, just a maple bed with matching dresser, black footlocker and a small armchair. The walls were white, the floor brown.

"Captain Petersen was our last G2," said Grady, setting Harrison's bag on the footlocker. "Against orders he went to parley with one of the ganger chiefs. Some of him came back in a poncho.

"Can I do anything else for you?"

"No, thank you."

"Colonel Aldridge expects you at oh-eight hundred tomorrow, Major—level five, turn right. Office with the flags out front. Officers' mess is level three—just follow the herd."

"I will. Thank you, Captain."

"Good night," said Grady, pulling the door shut. His foosteps receded down the hall.

On the whole, thought John, slipping into the too-hard bed, I'd rather be with Zahava, in that little villa near Caesarea.

He dreamed of reporting to the CO's office, where a long line of John Harrisons waited, each dressed as a UC major. An argument broke out as to who was the real John Harrison—an argument growing louder until the office flew open and Guan-Sharick-the-blonde stepped out, wearing a UC colonel's uniform. The S'Cotar looked at them, then threw back its head and laughed and laughed and laughed.

It might all have ended much sooner, differently, had Hitler survived Wolfsschanze. Stalin's refusal to ratify the Basel Accord and his subsequent catastrophic use of biological weapons, uniting Germany and the Allies against Russia, would not have occurred had von Stauffenberg's briefcase been less well placed. The war would have been fought to its bleak conclusion, surely no later than mid-1946.

—
John Harrison
The Second World War: Key Variables and Consequences
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation, submitted to the Faculty of History, McGill University)

'' 'Reassigned Urban Command by order Lieutenant General Quentin Harwood, Director, Central Ingelligence.' " Colonel Aldridge unhooked his wire-rim bifocals, setting them down on John's file. "You must have stomped some big, hairy toes, Major. You were evidently very much in the general's favor, not long ago. The CIA did send you for your doctorate."

Tall, thin—gaunt, really, thought Harrison—Aldridge was a man of strange contrasts. The boxy white office was too small for his awards and memorabilia: diplomas (B.A., M.A., Ph.D., all history, all Harvard); a lacquer-framed Chinese calligraphy (Lao-tzu, 6th century B.C.E.), and a faded black-and-white photograph of a mixed group of U.S. Army and Wehrmacht officers beside a blasted T-32 tank. This last was captioned "The Ukraine. Summer, 1949."

"The general didn't care for certain arguments in my dissertation, sir. I was ordered here the day after receiving my diploma. My phone calls to the Agency aren't—weren't returned." John was fairly certain, from the way Guan-Sharick had structured everything, that General Harwood had long been replaced by one of the Illusion Master's transmutes.

"You're in good company, Major," said Aldridge. "Urban Command has few volunteers. Everyone starts fresh here—killers, rapists, deserters, intellectuals. Do your four years well and you'll get a good posting.

"Sit, please."

John sat.

"You know, Major," said Aldridge, leaning back in his chair, "the longer I'm at this job, the more I flirt with Marxism."

Aldridge's face held John: a craggy, weathered New England patriarchal face, seemingly lifted from a John Singleton Copley canvas and set atop the long, black-uniformed body. Colonel's eagles, silver star with oak leaf cluster and the Wehrmacht liaison ribbon lent the final incongruities. James Lowell Munroe Aldridge, soldier, scholar, Yankee; gauleiter of Boston, military governor of what remained of the Athens of America. An iconoclastic Boston Brahmin, Guan-Sharick had said of Aldridge.

"How's that, sir?" asked John.

"I come more and more to believe in economic deter minism, Major," said the colonel. "Why do you think anarchy's triumphed in so many of our cities? Why do you think we're here, an encircled garrison defending the remnants of civilization in the urban enclaves?" Soft, cultured, a hint of steel beneath, his was a voice made for the Socratic method.

There'd been a chilling note in Guan-Sharick's briefing about the consequences of free speech. John answered carefully. "The War, Colonel. We've never recovered from the War."

"The German War, the Japanese War or the Soviet War, Major?" He smiled indulgently. "Or do you mean the endless war preparations, the alleged Armistice that saps our resources, fueling a huge force that may never fully engage?''

John held out a pack of Lucky Strike Greens—the late Major Harrison had done two packs a day.

Aldridge shook his head. "Enjoy."

"Why is a man of your attainments an Urban Corps commandant, Colonel?" asked John, lighting a cigarette. "Many Canadian schools would welcome you."

Aldridge looked into his coffee mug, index finger thoughtfully tapping the faded red coat-of-arms etched into the side. "A man needs more than the pap of intellectualism to hold his life together. Duty is my cement, Major," He looked up. "It keeps me here. That and a sense of place. My people signed the Mayflower Compact, stood at Lexington, broke Pickett's charge, fought at Chateau-Thierry. Boston bred and buried, the lot."

He reached out, pressing a button.

"Know anything about our situation here?"

"Very little, sir."

"We're essentially a Norman castle, protecting the few from the many."

A young Wehrmacht captain came in, carefully shutting the door. He snapped a brisk salute at Aldridge. "At ease, Erich," said the colonel, returning it sketchily.

"Major John Harrison, Hauptmann Erich zur Linde of the Fourth Reich's Civil Order Unit. Erich's an exchange officer, here for a year. His experience in Southwest Africa is proving most helpful with the gangers."

John took the German's hand, shaken a bit by the field gray uniform and the jackboots—the Fourth Reich had obviously kept the Third's military dress.

"Erich's father and I served under Speidel. We crossed the Malinkoff Line together in '49." Aldridge pointed his pen at the photograph. "He's third from the left." John glanced at the picture. The younger zur Linde might have been his father's twin: tall, broad-shouldered, with the same square jaw and disturbingly resolute expression. Harrison supposed they also shared the same blond hair and blue eyes.

"Erich, I'd like you to give Harrison the tour. He's our new G2, with CIB experience. Let's hope his insight's as useful as yours."

"My pleasure, Colonel," said the young German. His English bore only a trace of Central Europe.

"See you tomorrow, gentlemen. Staff meeting at 0830."

The two saluted and left, leaving Aldridge to his reports.

The tour began over ruins and ended over cocktails. Leading Harrison to the rooftop heliport, zur Linde signed out one of the small recon choppers. Sliding into the pilot's seat, he motioned John to the copilot's seat. They lifted off and swung east.

The Hospital by daylight was a squat rectangle as bleak as its surroundings: windowless, gray concrete fronted and topped by the sandbags and razor wire. The rubble around it had been cleared from the hill on which it sat, providing a thousand-meter killzone. Landmine furrows puckered the slopes.

Away from headquarters, the ruins stretched for miles. Burnt and shattered tenements, stores, garages, factories, schools, all spilling into weed-choked streets. A forest of broken glass glinted in the noon sun. Once they flew over a rusting tank, its left tread gone, eighty-eight millimeter cannon cranked at an absurd angle. Nothing moved in the whole desolate landscape.

"Roxbury and North Dorchester are like this," said zur Linde, voice clear in John's headset. "Uninhabited since '68. South Boston, Jamaica Plain and Hyde Park are turf— ganger country. Not on our tour. They hit us in the enclaves, we hit them where they live. Otherwise, we stay clear."

Issued in August of '68, Executive Order 1016, the Soweto Order, had mandated photo IDs and travel documents for all residents of the proscribed areas. The day after 1016's promulgation, a fifteen-year-old Chicano in the Los Angeles barrio had Molotoved a UC registration point. Two days later, the cities were burning.

When it ended, air strikes, armor and rolling artillery barrages had laid waste much of urban America. Tens of thousands were dead, with most of the stunned survivors being herded aboard trains bound for resettlement camps in the Southwest. Those who'd hid, staying behind, learned to fight, turning their turf into death zones for the patrols.

Urban Corps had been formed in '70, mandated to restore order. Badly mauled by increasingly formidable gangs, UC had taken to merely patrolling turfs' perimeters, guarding the burbs and enclaves from ganger forays.

Reading it in a briefing book was one thing. Seeing the result was quite another. John sat numbly, watching the passing wasteland.

Coming to the shoreline, zur Linde turned north to the harbor. "Here we are," he said after a moment, bringing the chopper over the waterfront. John had a fleeting glimpse of a jammed marina, old warehouses upgraded to atrium-lobbied condos and chic market-stall boutiques, now filling with the lunch-hour crowd. Skillfully weaving between the tall office buildings, zur Linde set them down atop one of the twin Fed towers overlooking Government Plaza.

"Did you see the marina?" he asked later as they sat sipping Rob Roys in a Back Bay plaza dubbed Cinzano Bay. ("All these
tricolore
table umbrellas make it look like a red-white-and-blue bay.")

John nodded.

"I have a thirty-two foot Morganer moored there. If you'd like to go sailing, just let me know. I can fix you up with a date."

"Does everyone who works here live here?" John pointed his celery stalk at the passersby. Most were well-dressed, with the sleek, easy ways of early affluence. Except for a sharp-looking black woman sitting alone, the few minorities were waiting table.

"Many of the technos do." Zur Linde munched a handful of macadamia nuts. "Some come in from the burbs, but there's only one open road, an expressway with lots of checkpoints. Sometimes it's mortared."

"The gangers have mortars?"

"Not just mortars. Spandaus, claymores, bouncing ju-jus, TOWs." He eyed a leggy Japanese as she passed, blue silk dress slit almost to the waist, gaily colored boutique bag swinging from her left hand. A piece of war booty from occupied Japan.

The two sat silently, watching that dahlia-blue dress melt into Cinzano Bay.

"Why is UC headquartered between turfs?"

"Stupidity. Pride," said the German, signaling for another round. "They built HQ there years ago, just after '68, thinking all resistance was crushed. When the incoming rockets burst that myth, it was decided—by officers in Frederick, Maryland—to enlarge and harden all the regional headquarters, rather than pulling them back, losing face.

"You've seen the result—the Hospital." He polished off his drink, reaching for the next as it arrived.

"I have this recurring dream," he said, slouching down in the white wrought-iron chair. "The Hospital is being overrun by dusky hordes. It's night. I'm up on the roof, carnage all about me, machinepistol in one hand, knife in the other—Dietrich at the gates of Leningrad.

"Turning to Aldridge, I shout, 'It's hopeless,
Hen Oberst\
Permission to autodestruct?' "

Heads turned toward the two soldiers.

"He just stands there at the parapet, watching wave after wave of gangers surging up the hill in the glare of the arcflares. Finally he says, wonderingly, 'Now I know how Camus must have felt, seeing those ants swarming up from the graves in Algiers.' I always wake up then, soaked, stinking of sweat."

The German's breast pocket beeped. Annoyed, he pulled out a small paper, inserting the privacy jack. "Zur Linde," he said. The tiny crypto light glowed amber.

He nodded after a moment. "Understood. On my way."

Rising, he tucked the device away. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go.

"No, no," he waved John back down. "Finish your drink, have something to eat—the prime rib's very good— order an end cut. You might want to do some shopping over on Newbury. When you're ready, just go across to our Copley substation and requisition a ride back to HQ. They're always choppers on standby. Ciao."

"Ciao."

Zur Linde stepped past the planters walling the red-awninged cafe and was gone.

John ordered the prime rib and sat nursing his drink, wondering when the resistance would contact him.

"Hey, Major Harrison!" Walt Wenschel was rolling toward his table, clad in a great swath of three-piece pinstripe.

"Hey, Wenschel," said John as the chemist stopped by his table. "All settled in?"

"Sure am—big Beacon Hill town house for free, free maid, free car. God bless America."

"Amen."

"My lunch just came," said Wenschel, pointing three tables away, where a big plate of steaming clam linguine sat. "Care to join me?"

"Thanks, but no. I'm expecting someone." John smiled apologetically. "Take a rain check?"

"A what?"

"Another time?"

"Any time. Good to see you."

Sighing, John lifted his drink, draining the last of the vodka-and-tomato-juice.

A shadow fell across the table. Two UC troopers, corporal and sergeant, stood there, lean, pale kids with hard faces. The corporal had bad acne. John returned their salute.

"Sorry to bother the major, sir," said the sergeant. "May we see your ID?"

John looked around. A second set of troopers was checking the other side of the cafe. All carried those deadly little machinepistols he'd first seen at the airport. Schmeisser minimacs, he'd learned.

The diners presented their orange IDs with practiced boredom, hardly noticing the soldiers.

"Thank you, sir."

John put his green card away.

The troopers moved on to the next table as John's food arrived. Chewing, he watched the black woman at the corner table smile, open her lavender purse, take out a large-bore derringer and shoot both troopers in the face. The gunshots were still ringing as she leaped the low wall, turning to hurl back a small round something. It rolled clattering beneath a table.