Interface (97 page)

"I see," Eleanor said. "White is good and black is bad."

"No," Mel said. "White is Willy and black is Eleanor."

The Chief had finished deputizing the men by now, and Rufus
Bell was beginning to stride up and down the room, perusing a list
of names, ordering men this way and that, forming them up into
several groups of various sizes.

Eleanor opened up the envelopes, took a black ball-point pen
(SKILCRAFT U.S. GOVERNMENT) out of her purse, and
started signing her name to documents. All of the documents in the
white envelope said:

Eleanor Richmond

Vice President, United States of America

All of the documents in the black envelope said:

Eleanor Richmond

President

Rufus Bell and Mel Meyer were dragging cardboard boxes across
the floor and shoving them across the concrete in the direction of
the various platoons that Bell had organized. The men began to rip
the boxes open and pull out T-shirts. They were all black, 100 percent cotton, extra large. On the front was a white star and the
words DEPUTY - D.C. POLICE. And on the back of each shirt
were the words

DEPT. OF
JUSTICE

60

Lines of authority were never especially clear in Washington,
D.C., where the jurisdiction of a dozen different law-enforcement
agencies all overlapped. The presence of so many people with guns
and badges made it impossible to figure out who was in charge of
what. So when men with guns and badges had gone to several
locations in the District of Columbia during the last few days and
laid claim to numerous parking spaces - some on the street, some in
parking
 
lots
  
of federal
 
buildings
 
-
 
there
  
had
 
been
 
disputes, arguments, even threats. But the issues raised could not have been untangled short of calling a convention of Constitutional scholars
and locking them all in a room until they made up their minds. The people who had the parking spaces won the argument. The decision
was sealed when those parking spaces were occupied by flatbed
semitrailer rigs with big GODS shipping containers on their backs.
One of them took up a position in front of the headquarters of
the Teamsters Union on Louisiana Avenue, only a block north of
the Capitol Building. From there, it had a direct line of sight across
Taft Park and Constitution Avenue on to the Capitol grounds; a
person could climb on to the roof of the truck and get a clear, side-
on view of President Cozzano delivering his inaugural address, not
much more than a thousand feet away.

Another GODS truck seized a position along Lafayette Park,
across the street from the White House. Others parked on
Fourteenth Street, in the shadow of the Commerce Department;
on C Street, in front of the State Department; in front of the
Treasury Department on Fifteenth Street; and in the parking lot of
the Pentagon.

Once the trucks were in place, they weren't likely to move. The owners - and the mysterious people who went in and out of the
containers on their backs - seemed to have an infinite fund of
bewildering paperwork, from various D.C. and federal agencies,
justifying their presence. Any authority figure, at any level, who tried to move those GODS trucks, would soon find that each one
had a lawyer living in the back, on call twenty-four hours a day,
complete with cellular phone and portable fax machine. These
were not just plain old lawyers either; they were asshole lawyers,
ready and willing to issue threats and talk about their friends in high
places at the slightest provocation.

And if things escalated beyond that level, each truck also had a
couple of imposing plainclothes security guards who would
emerge, crack their knuckles, flex their muscles, and glare threaten
ingly when anyone tried to get them to move. The only people in
the world who had the guts to confront these people were D.C.
meter maids, and so the GODS trucks stayed where they were,
accumulating stacks of D.C. parking tickets under their windshield
wipers but incurring no further retribution.

At eleven o'clock on the morning of Inauguration Day, Cyrus Rutherford Ogle could be found in the truck that was parked in
front of the Teamsters Building, a thousand feet from the inaugural
podium. He was seated in the Eye of Cy, keeping tabs on the
PIPER 100, and trying to reestablish radio contact with the chips in Governor Cozzano's head.

The radio transmissions were short-range, line-of-sight affairs
and so they were used to breaking contact whenever Cozzano
strayed more than a couple of thousand feet from the truck. But Cozzano had gone out of his way to be elusive this morning. The
listening devises secreted in his clothing and in that of this children
were not transmitting any sounds other than the soothing burble of
running water. The Secret Service had converged on Rock Creek
Park, hindered by a nightmare traffic jam, and found no sign of the
Cozzanos other than the abandoned clothes.

It looked a hell of a lot like a kidnapping. But the outgoing
President, and several news outlets, had received brief, untraceable
telephone calls from Mary Catherine Cozzano, assuring them that
everything was okay. She promised that her father would show up
for the Inauguration.

Ogle had been planning to reinstate contact with Cozzano's
biochip from the truck in Lafayette Square when he paid a call at
the White House, which was traditionally what an incoming
president did on Inauguration morning. Then, as the outgoing and
incoming presidents made their way down Pennsylvania for the
inaugural parade, control would be relayed to the truck at Treasury
and then at Commerce. Then there would be a blackout of several minutes as the motorcade proceeded down Pennsylvania.

But those moments of freedom were useless to Cozzano. He
would have to come to the Capitol eventually. As the motorcade
emerged from the shadow of the U.S. Courthouse, the truck at
Teamsters - Cy Ogle's truck - would be able to establish contact
with the biochip. From that point onward, Cy Ogle would have
full control through the inauguration.

William A., James, and Mary Catherine Cozzano emerged from
the Farragut West Metro station at eleven o'clock. They had
reached Pennsylvania Avenue before anyone recognized them.

The person who did was a well-dressed man in a trench coat,
with a neatly trimmed beard and very short hair, proceeding west
on Pennsylvania. He was standing at a street-corner waiting for the
light to change when he saw the Cozzanos coming toward him.
"Good morning President Cozzano," he said.

The light changed and all of them crossed Seventeenth Street
together. The Old Executive Office Building was on their right, the White House a stone's throw away.

"Good morning. How are you today?" Cozzano said.

"Just fine, sir, and you?"

"I'm great, thank you," Cozzano said.

"How's your head?" the man asked, as they reached the east side
of Seventeenth Street. They stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change. Across Pennsylvania, in front of the White
House gates, was a mob of cops and Secret Service. One of them
noticed the Cozzanos. Binoculars swiveled in their direction. A
Secret Service detail broke from the gates and ran toward them, plunging directly into traffic.

Cozzano looked at the man quizzically. "My head's fine," he
said, "why do you ask?"

"I need to know if they're controlling your brain with radio
waves," the man said, as the WALK light came on. "It's very
important for me to know this."

Mary Catherine's and James's faces fell into expressionless masks.
Crossing the street, they got between Cozzano and the man in the
trench coat, and stared at the man coldly. But Cozzano laughed
indulgently. "You know, there was a movie that I saw, at the
Tuscola Main Street Theater, when I was a kid, about mind
control. Some mad scientist had taken over people's brains and
turned them into zombies
..."

"Don't tell me another anecdote!" the man said. "I don't want
to hear any of your stupid anecdotes!"

"I'm just trying to answer your question," Cozzano said
cheerfully.

"Ever since they started controlling your brain, you can't think
any more - all you do is tell those heart-warming stories!" the man
in the trench coat said.

They were approaching the south side of Pennsylvania. James
pulled up close to the man and stared at him coldly. "You're out of
line," he said.

The man in the trench coat stared back at James, not intimidated
in the slightest. "I'm out of line, huh?" he said. His total lack of fear
unnerved James a little bit. James almost tripped over the curb.

Suddenly, the Cozzanos were surrounded by men in suits and
trench coats. Mary Catherine was startled for a moment before she
realized that they were Secret Service men.

Then she looked back at the strange man. But he was gone. "That
was weird," she said. "That man didn't show any of the external symptoms of an active psychotic. But he sure talked like one."

The presidential motorcade pulled out of the White House gates on
to Pennsylvania Avenue at 11:30
a.m.,
hung a right and headed for
 
the Capitol. Inside, distributed among several cars, were the
outgoing President, his wife, the outgoing Vice President and his
wife, Cozzano, Mary Catherine, James, Eleanor Richmond, and
her two children Clarice and Harmon, Jr. Eleanor's mother was
already in her place at the Capitol, attended by a couple of nurses.

The outgoing and incoming presidents sat across from each other
in the back of the presidential limousine and made small talk. The
motorcade wound around a couple of corners, getting past the
Treasury and Western Plaza, and finally pulled on to the long
uninterrupted stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue that ran straight to
the Capitol. William A. Cozzano bent down and peered through
the window, across the front seat, through the windshield, and
down to the Capitol, where the temporary podium was clearly
visible. Federal Triangle was on the right; half a bloc ahead rose the
towering spire of the Old Post Office.

Cozzano reached across his body with his left hand, grabbed the
limousine's door handle and popped the door open.

"What are you doing?" the outgoing President said.

"Quite frankly, I have no idea," Cozzano said. He jumped out
of the limousine, which was traveling at a slow jogger's pace. The
driver, seeing what was happening, braked the limousine to a stop.

"But-"

Cozzano leaned into the open door. "Don't worry," he said, "I think everything's going to be okay." Then he slammed the door
and strode southward across the intersection.

By now the entire motorcade had come to a halt. Mary Catherine
and James had jumped out of their limousine and run forward to
join Cozzano, who plunged directly into the crowd lining the
parade route. He was followed by a number of Secret Service agents;
but although the crowd opened wide to accept the Cozzanos, it
closed ranks behind them, forming a dense wall of bodies.

Large bodies. It seemed that this entire section of the parade
route was lined with men no shorter than six foot six, and no lighter
than two hundred and seventy-five pounds. The Secret Service
men tried to elbow their way through, but elbows had no effect on
these guys.

Eventually they got through by drawing guns. By that time, the
Cozzanos had disappeared. Again.

The Federal Triangle Metro station was half a block away on
Twelfth Street. Like all of the stations in the D.C. Metro system, it included an elevator for wheelchair users. Rufus Bell was standing
in that elevator, leaning against the door to keep it from closing,
and he had an empty wheelchair with him.