Reckoning (26 page)

Stephenson tossed his cigarette to the floor, ground it out. "In any case, Hitler failed in his dreams. But it was a fiendishly close thing, I believe. Yes, what with his fanatical squads on their bizarre missions. And they were feared because they were, in truth, so fanatical. Even the mere appearance of an SS company in World War II signified that our enemy had launched a severe escalation of force."

Stephenson sighed, moved to step away, and then hesitated, turning to look at Kertzman. "Of course, you realize, we are just discussing history. But sometimes, I do believe, there is a place for such talk, don't you agree?"

Kertzman said nothing.

Sir Stephenson smiled. "Yes, Mr. Kertzman, I do believe there is. By the way, have you ever read The Will to Power by Nietzsche?"

Kertzman managed to shake his head. "No."

"An interesting book," the Englishman said steadily. "In fact, a dangerous book for those who hold to the dream of a super race."

Then Stephenson fell into a pedantic recitation, as if quoting
, "A dark and ruler race is building itself up. A race born to conquer, to destroy, to crush down the weak of the earth. The aim should be to prepare a transvaluation of values for a particularly strong kind of man, a being of superior strength and superior ability, a man most highly gifted in intellect and will. This man and the ruling elite with him will become Lords of the Earth—The Ultimate Beast of Prey."

* * *

An almost unheard sound, a faint computer beeping from the cabin's back room, caused Sarah to turn her head, and instantly she knew, somehow, that it was important. She stood, unmoving, in the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee that she had made to fight off sleep, but her mind was ignited by the sound, fast and calculating.

Beep, beep.

Instantly she moved. "Barto!" she yelled, not knowing why but sensing that she would have no time for a mistake if she was right.

She stopped in the open doorway of the cabin's third bedroom and saw that the computer, positioned carefully on a desk in the corner, had come alive.

The screen was lit with a message.

It beeped again.

She ran forward as Barto followed her into the room, alert, electric with energy. His wide eyes centered on the computer. Sarah sat down in the chair at the desk, stared at the screen to read the message:

SANDMAN/DRAGON ACK: COND

Breath quickening, understanding instantly that Jonathan Gage was not truly isolated in his life, Sarah typed a quick message into the computer.

GAGE IS INJURED

She began to hit Enter.

"No!" shouted Barto, grabbing her hand.

She turned towards him. "Why? This is what
Gage was talking about! He needs whoever is at the end of this line!"

Barto's breath was quick, his words quicker. It was as if they both knew they had a narrow window of time to respond to the message.

"Move aside. They're going to want a code," he whispered, sliding into the seat. "They're as careful as Gage. If we type something that's wrong, they might think it's some kind of trap. They won't come."

The computer screen beeped three more times. The message disappeared for a second, with a skip of Sarah's heart, and then flashed back.

"It's a code," Barto whispered, staring at the screen, the key board. "Sandman is sending, so Gage must be Dragon." He waited, said slowly, "But what is ACK? It must mean...
Acknowledge
! It means to acknowledge something!"

"His condition!" Sarah yelled. "He wants to know Gage's condition
! His status! He's trying to find out if Gage is alright! The answer is probably going to be a number or something he used in the Army!"

Barto was speaking fast. "But I don't know anything about the Army. What do we use? If we scare them off we won't hear from them again. We have to—"

Beep, beep, beep.

The message appeared once more.

Sarah closed her eyes, concentrating furiously, sensing that, if the sender waited any longer, the message would not come back again. Her mind was spinning. What was the international color for assistance? Orange. Unless... no, wait

"Type in yellow," she shouted.

"But—"

"Do it!"

Barto typed in "Yellow" and hit Enter.

The word Yellow was indexed below the initial message. A long pause. Then the computer screen beeped again.

J-O-QSL.

"Oh, no," whispered Barto. "What is that
!"

"Here!" Sarah pushed her hands onto the keyboard.

"Wait a second, Sarah!”

"
Be quiet
!" She fired the words into Barto's face.

His hands jumped off the keyboard.

"We'll never figure these games out!"

Then, deciding to take a chance, she concentrated on the key-board and began to type. Quickly she hit Enter and the message was sent, flashing across the screen:

GAGE IS WOUNDED. HE IS DYING. THIS IS SARAH. HE IS ASKING FOR SANDMAN. COME QUICKLY.

For a second the message remained on the screen, then the communication was broken. No response. An automatic program evaluation, not a message sent from the other end of the line, was displayed:

END OF TRANSMISSION

Barto released a deep breath, placed hands over his face.

Sarah bowed her head.

"Jesus," she whispered.

* * *

The shadowed room was cheap.

It even felt cheap, with a cheap bed, a dusty, battered desk, an old television, and nothing else. Kertzman felt it was right for him. It was a coward's room. A room built for a coward.

He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the locked door, watching the night through the sheer, curtained window. It was a moonless dark – a deep, silent, expansive blackness that scorned streetlights and neon to smother everything in a thick cloud of night.

It was the kind of infinite, breathing night that he knew in '68 when he could feel the jungle, the surrounding darkness
and knew something was out there moving towards him – somewhere close. He could almost see the shape, a man, part of the blackness itself, not a real thing, too silent to be real, coming closer, always at an angle through the forest.

Kertzman shook his head.

Yeah
,
you remember all too well don’t ya, old son?

He knew that he needed time to think, to figure this out, but he had been too tired for the haul back to Washington,
and too disturbed to take a flight, anyway. So he had driven north on Palisades Parkway until he turned, without any real reason, on to Convent. In a moment he had passed the imposing Rockland Psychiatric Center on his left with its ten-foot high, fenced perimeter and guarded entrances. And a half-hour later he located this small hotel at the intersection of Gilbert and Middletown.

Taking his briefcase, he used an emergency backup identification and cash, checking into a corner room. Then he sat for an hour on the edge of the bed, staring at the locked door, absently clutching an old, World War II-era Colt 1911 in his sweaty right hand.

Fifty-four years old.

I'm too old for this
, he told himself.
Seen too much from 'Nam to Dakota to the Pentagon. Too much of this. I ain't got the nerve no more.

Something told him he had used it all up.

Somewhere down the line, in some hellish battle he couldn't even remember, he had used up that best part of himself that, in the old days, would have given him the edge, would have helped him bull his way through this.

The gun wasn't comforting in his hand. It was a toy; a coward's answer to a fear that was way beyond.

Still, he gripped the checkered walnut handle, absently feeling the thin sheen of gun oil on the blue steel.

Seven shots. That's all he had. Seven shots.

Use six of 'em on the bad guys
, he thought.
Save the last one for myself
.

Kertzman laughed brutally, shook his head. He never thought it would come to this, never believed that he would crack. Not until Stephenson told him what he was truly facing.

Forces
, Carthwright had said.

People who make things ha
ppen …

Kertzman felt the sweat on his back and chest getting colder.

It would be easy to do. Just play the game and finish it. Find this guy, Gage, and step aside to let these people do what they have to do.

Walk away.

Superior beings. The best in the world at what they do. The strongest, the smartest. A master race.

He had denied the fear with Carthwright. Had denied it all the way down to New York, but then, listening to the Englishman in the church, something inside him, brittle and cold with a denied fear had snapped
– something he didn't understand.

The thoughts stayed with him, disturbing him, eating away at that unknown fiber of his soul that had always sustained him. He knew that somewhere out there, Gage was fighting these people. He would always be fighting. That's all he knew.

Gage was a warrior, a soldier, a survivor. Gage would never lay it down, never give up. He would fight them until they took him down hard and he'd make them pay for every inch. He'd force these so-called supermen to the edge of what they could endure, make them curse the day they heard of Jonathan Gage, Black Light, the U.S. Army or anything else.

Somehow Kertzman knew this wasn't really about national security or foreign policy. From the beginning it had been something
a lot worse. Kertzman had felt it when he was standing in the church, had seen too many of the mysteries coming together.

Something about it was vaguely nightmarish and unnatural; the seminary, the church, the old professor. Too many things that could never be connected to national interest. Even if someone, maybe Carthwright, wanted Gage dead because of Black Light, there was someone else going down here. Something
darker.

Kertzman's hand shifted on the .45.

A master race; the ultimate beast of prey.

Kertzman knew that what was on the line here was about a lot more than just surviving, living for another day. No, there wouldn't be any running away from these people. Because if he ran they would always have a hold over him. There would be no freedom, no peace, no way to live with himself. Not if he bowed his head, tucked his tail between his legs, and hunkered down like an ol' beat dog.

Kertzman absently licked his dry lips.

Something told him:
That ain't no life. Ain't no life 'cause every day you'll feel the eyes watching and you'll know they're watching a coward. You'll spend the rest of your life hiding what you really are.

Kertzman shook his head, the .45 hanging forgotten in his hand.

No
, he thought,
I won't live like this – not like
this
!

Dead
would be better than this! Dead ain't half so bad as this! At least I could live my last days in peace and respect and die with just myself instead 'a ghosts.

Kertzman sniffed, moving his head, loosening, and looked down at his hand, at the .45. He thumbed the hammer back on a chambered round, studying the Colt's blue-black gleam.

Just a gun. Nothing in it – nothing that he didn't put in there himself. And the surest way out of this wasn't going to be by a gun. He would have to outsmart them.

Then, slowly, with steady, gathering certainty, a game came to him; a game where he might find the truth and even get himself out alive at the same time
, although simply surviving this was by far a secondary consideration.

If he was gonna go out, he was gonna go out on his feet.

Just work the evidence, he thought. Work it hard, and make a good show. But don't put it all together, not really. They'll think you're doing your best, running this guy to ground. Only don't finish it. Don't look where he should really be. Mess up just enough so they'll never figure out that you're holding back. They'll know that you're not getting the job done, but they won't suspect that it's from a lack of trying. In the meantime, track this guy down on your own and find out what's really happening and take down the true bad guys.

A long time passed as Kertzman worked the details of the plot. But he wasn't sure if he could carry it off. He concentrated, replaying all the moments that meant something, trying to find where they had made a mistake. A lot of it was easy.

Milburn was a mistake. An obvious one. He was on the other side, probably since Black Light was active in the late eighties. And Radford couldn't be trusted. He didn't get volunteered for this because of "no reason."

He was in it for a purpose—somebody else's purpose.

Carthwright was a maybe, but Kertzman knew that would make it too easy.

The trick would be stalling everybody without arousing suspicions while he ran Gage to ground. If the investigation even came close to pinpointing Gage's safe house he would have to do some subtle misdirection
but not enough to arouse attention. And that wouldn't be easy. He could probably slide something past Milburn and even Radford. But Carthwright would be sharper and far more dangerous if he truly was behind this.