The Company of the Dead (39 page)

“Cue Doctor Wells,” Hardas said.

“She hits an iceberg. She sinks like a stone. And within three years the world is plunged into the worst war it has ever known. We have dates, we have a hit list. We have the agenda of a psychopath.” He tossed the journal onto the sand before him. “I thought that was enough.”

“Enough for what?” Morgan asked.

“Enough to justify stopping him.”

“What
more
do we need?” Shine asked.

Morgan climbed to his feet, sniffing the air. He took a few steps towards the tarpaulin and the time shards cracked like dry twigs beneath his feet. He looked back from the darkness at Kennedy. “Christ. You did it, didn’t you?”

“Yesterday,” Kennedy replied.

“When?”

“Early afternoon.”

“
No
, damn it.” Morgan came stamping back to the fire. “When?
When
did you go to?”

“I’m getting there.”

“You’re taking your sweet fucking time.”

“We’re not talking about a stroll through the park here.” Hardas’s voice rumbled menace.

Morgan ignored him. “What did you see?”

Kennedy noted how tired, how worn, Hardas looked. He said, “Seeing isn’t always believing.” He gestured towards the tarpaulin. “This is beyond our understanding. It was beyond the understanding of the people who built it. This isn’t science, Darren. It’s magic.”

“Bullshit. When did you go?
What did you see?
”

“A year, nearly two,” Hardas said, and gazing at Morgan’s expression he added, “Into the future.”

The fire had died but no one seemed to notice. They might have thought the chill was brought about by Kennedy’s words alone.

“We were there for thirty minutes. The transition was smoother than we expected.” Kennedy glanced at Hardas, who nodded back stonily. “We went forwards about twenty months. We were aiming for eighteen.”

Doc shrugged.

“Has to be more reliable than that,” Morgan muttered.

“It will be,” Doc replied.

“When the viewscreen activated, it was all just black smoke and dust. Within moments it was caked all over the screen. Something kicked in, a low-level vibration, and the screen cleared itself. The smoke was still there. At first we thought it was an effect of the journey, but it stayed that way the entire time we were there.”

“And by
there
,” Morgan said quietly, “you mean right here, don’t you?”

“That’s right. The carapace was programmed to maintain the same location—which, of course, meant it had to move in order to stay in the same place.”

“You’ve lost me,” Shine said.

“Doc?”

“The Earth is hurtling through space. We’re constantly moving. Fast. If the carapace doesn’t compensate for that movement, it inserts itself into empty space. Or worse.”

Morgan was looking around into the shadows as if he could already see licks of black smoke in the darkness. Shuddering, he said, “It’s getting fucking cold.”

“Let’s get inside,” Kennedy said.

They shuffled into the adobe. A single light shone weakly from a lamp on the table. They huddled around it, scraping their chairs together into a circle.

“We made out some prefabs through the haze,” Kennedy continued. “A few of them resembled designs Doc and I have been working on, a couple I didn’t recognise, but they were all in ruins. Sand piled up against the walls, broken windows—”

“Maybe you went further ahead than you think?” Morgan prompted.

Doc shook his head.

“I mean, if you jumped further ahead than we expected—”

Hardas gave him a surprisingly compassionate look, actually reached across to squeeze his shoulder. He said, “No, Darren.” And just as swiftly, the mask dropped back into place.

Kennedy knew what the look was for. They had made a deal before disembarking from the carapace, on shaking legs. They would tell the others what they’d seen, but they wouldn’t tell them everything. And Doc... Doc could make what he wanted from the footage.

“Ruins and black smoke,” Morgan said.

“Major,” Shine asked hesitantly, “was there anything else? I mean, did you see anybody?”

That was a question of semantics. Did silhouettes etched onto the wall of a burnt-out shack count as “anybody”? How about white bones in the dust?

“We didn’t see anyone,” Hardas said. “And no one saw us.”

“We got a sample of the soil for testing,” Kennedy continued after a moment. “It’s still in the lab.”

“What do preliminaries show?” Morgan’s voice held no emotion now.

Doc had been examining the carriage portion of the model, rotating it in his hands. Without looking up he said, “The levels are through the roof. It’s hot—real hot.”

“Christ,” Morgan moaned. “Radioactive ruins. This just gets better and better. When does it happen?”

“We can’t possibly know,” Kennedy said.

“Sometime late next year, as close as we can estimate,” Doc said. “When the base is up and running.”

“Who would use atomics to bomb a place like this? I mean, I know this is
big.
The carapace and everything—”

“Calm down,” Shine said.

“No.
You
calm down.
Fuck
. Someone is going to destroy this place. Destroy everything.”

“We’re not going to let that happen, are we?” Kennedy said gently.

He told them all that he could. About the information acquisition devices, about the fact that despite thirty minutes of monitoring all radio and television bands they were unable to detect
any
transmissions. From anywhere on the planet.

A crater-ridden plain both recognisable and alien at once. Twisted metal and the remains of tanks ... and something else that had fallen from the heavens. White bones blanched by more than sunlight in the sand’s sluggish tide. Waste Land.

The journal alluded to future technology, to a world that had endured at least two global conflicts but at least endured. Yet all Kennedy had found was death and silence.

They didn’t shake hands that night, nor was any pledge sealed in ink or blood. But a pact was made. Silently, nodding to each other as they left the adobe and made their ways to the campsite, each made and confirmed his promise. World without end, hallelujah. Amen.

Kennedy had been talking for more than an hour. He spoke about the expedition to the carapace and beyond with a detachment that belied the fact that he’d kept this secret to himself for so long. It might have been coldness, that presentation of data with order and clarity. It might have been because he admitted to details he’d never revealed to Shine or Morgan or even Doc. More likely it was the sheer corrosive effects of the last few days. Regardless of the cause, the effect was undeniable. Lightholler finally found himself able to consider certain possibilities.

Consider
was the key word here. Anything more than that meant stepping beyond the bounds of sanity. It wasn’t the road to Damascus, but it was a start. Yet even consideration led to one unavoidable question:
If Kennedy’s words were truly gospel, did a world need to be sacrificed in order to be saved?

“My apologies for the delay,” Watanabe said, sliding into the seat next to Kennedy. His glance fell upon the open newspaper. “Is this where you get your information these days?” He traced an article down the page. “How are the mighty fallen.”

Kennedy let the comment slide. He said, “I didn’t know politics interested you.”

“Only when they impinge on my trade. In times of war, people get excited, foolish. Patriotism rears its ugly head and poor Watanabe goes a little hungrier than usual.”

“You really look like you’re suffering,” Lightholler murmured.

“Captain, tell me, are you a patriot?”

“Maybe,” Lightholler replied. “The lines have become a little blurred of late.”

“You’ve spent too much time with the major.”

“If you feel that way, why are you helping us?” Kennedy asked.

“I help you because you pay Kobe a substantial fee of which I will receive no mean portion. And because I believe that you might find a satisfactory end to all of this, before it has gone too far.”

Lightholler’s mind flitted back to Kennedy’s deal with the Shogunate. He wondered how such an end might look to the gangster, and envisioned an endless tide of rice paper and curlicued red-tiled roofs.

Kennedy spoke again. “The papers are calling me a murderer and a traitor.”

“I would be more concerned if they were praising you, boss. Kobe says he knows what you are, and what you might be capable of accomplishing. He is my
Oyabun
, you understand? If he tells me that a crow is white, then as far as I am concerned, it’s white.” He flashed them both his golden smile. “So far we have made good time, but you must never cease spurring a running horse.”

He looked at the tab and peeled some notes from a billfold, which he scattered on the table. “Let’s go. It’s my treat.”

“He’s so generous with my money,” Kennedy said to Lightholler, but his smile was one of relief.

They followed Watanabe to the door. He ushered them towards a tan Pierce Arrow sedan idling by one of the gas pumps. It had Tennessee plates. Watanabe climbed into the front seat.

Lightholler whistled softly, getting into the passenger seat.

“Nice ride.”

“Good enough for Babe Ruth,” Watanabe replied.

“Where’s your driver?” Kennedy asked, climbing into the back.

“Inconvenienced.” Watanabe threw an arm across the seat, turning to face them. “From here, it’s just me and you.”

Morning sunlight stole over the low hillside. To either side of the highway gravel gave way to dark green fields and pastures, the odd farmhouse breaking up an otherwise monotonous landscape. It was a little over an hour to the Nashville city limits. Kennedy saw two police cars on the highway and what may have been a third, unmarked, by the roadside.

Traffic was sparse, mostly heading south. Watanabe made a point of sticking close to a huddle of cars they’d caught up with outside of Lohman.

“I’ll be glad when we stop running,” Lightholler said, stretching through a yawn.

“That won’t be till Arkansas,” Kennedy replied. “Which reminds me...” He leaned forwards, tapping Watanabe on the shoulder. “I’m going to need to make a call.”

“Looking for more trouble, boss?” Watanabe tried to sound like he was interested, but he was too busy watching the road to muster any real enthusiasm. He strummed his fingers on the dashboard, then flicked on the radio. Hank Williams poured out of the speakers, singing about lost love.

“Torch and twang,” he called back. “Just in case you forgot where we are.”

They turned off the highway where a faded signpost indicated an older portion of road. Kennedy pointed to a phone booth outside a country store and Watanabe pulled over. Securing a position in the booth where he could view the car and still catch any movement along the road, he started slotting dimes.

The phone rang twice before someone patched him through. Tecumseh took the call. In lieu of updating the codes and acquiring a secure line, it would have to be a brief exchange. Kennedy asked for an update.

Tecumseh told him Morgan and Hardas were moving by sea. They would be in Savannah by nightfall. There was no word from Shine.

Kennedy said, “We’ve crossed the border. We should make the Rock by the twenty-eighth, sooner if we get a plane. It all depends on how long it takes us to link up with the others.”

“You’ll want to move fast. It’s getting busy out here. The Bureau shut down Alpha two nights ago. They flew in three squads of tactical agents. Trucks have been rolling into the joint ever since.”

“How’s the fade going?”

“We let them capture two hundred ghost dancers. The
Patton
’s doing fly-bys, but I think it’s watching Alpha. I’ve set watches along the perimeter. No one’s taken any interest in us so far.”

“What about Louisiana?”

“Same deal. Closed for business.”

“I’ll call in from Arkansas.” Kennedy rang off.

He went over the moves in his head, trying to impose some order on the chaos. Webster had connected him with Lightholler, and by default with the Brandenburgs, but the newspapers were only talking about the murders in New York. Why was Webster holding back on the accusation of treason?

Kennedy put a scenario together.
Webster sends tactical agents to close down the camps. He sends assassins to New York. He has Lightholler abducted. Lightholler is rescued and turns up at the Lone Star.

The moves were desperate, clumsy, but what if they were
meant
to look that way?

What if the kidnapping had been staged?

Kennedy peered out onto the street. Lightholler was leaning up against the passenger door of the Pierce Arrow, smoking a cigarette. Apart from the time he’d spent reading the journal, and a brief time on the
Shenandoah
, Lightholler hadn’t been out of his sight. Could he have been wearing a wire? Could the Lone Star have been bugged?

If Lightholler was working for Webster, he had the makings of a damn fine agent. He’d given nothing away.

But if you can’t trust your instinct
, Kennedy thought,
and instinct’s all you have to go on, then you’re finished
.

He caught Lightholler looking up at the phone booth. He returned the captain’s vague smile over gritted teeth.

Worse case scenario: Webster gets wind of the deal with the Shogun. He takes over the camps, thinking I may use the men against Confederate targets. He learns that they harbour a band of fanatics practising an outlawed religion. He finds them under-manned and thinks I’m already making my move. He frames me for the death of eight of his men. That way he can come after me with Union as well as Confederate enforcement agencies.

Kennedy put the remaining change in his pocket, opened the door to the phone booth and walked back to the car.

Worst case scenario
:
Webster knows about the carapace.