Angels of Vengeance

‘Well, let’s see,’ replied Caitlin. ‘As I recall, Gatsby is us, Sergeant Milosz. All of us. As you say, perhaps one thing, perhaps another. Not really to be trusted.’

Milosz nodded sagely. ‘I see. I thought he was filthy rum Johnny who made free with other men’s women. Good thing for him to be shot in pool at end of book, no? It is what makes America great to be weeding out his sort.’

‘Who’s to know, Sergeant?’ Caitlin said as they rounded the corner and sped up, heading for Fort Hood. ‘Who’s to know?’

48

DEARBORN HOUSE, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

James Kipper was still uncomfortable hearing his own voice on the radio. He couldn’t help thinking of Kermit the frog addressing issues of national importance.

‘Oh, just get over yourself,’ Barbara told him. ‘You have a nice, deep presidential voice. You’re just not used to hearing it like everybody else.’

‘She’s right,’ said Culver, as he swirled a small measure of brandy in a crystal balloon. He was leaning an elbow on the mantelpiece over the drawing room’s fireplace. ‘You sound fine, Mr President.’

It wasn’t unusual for the Chief of Staff to still be working through the middle of the evening, but it wasn’t every night he joined the First Family in their private quarters either. He was here tonight at Kip’s insistence. Jed was one of the few people he could trust not to let due deference to the office get in the way of calling ‘Bullshit!’ when the call had to be made.

A brief fanfare of trumpets on the radio announced the start of his weekly fireside chat, which this Monday night they really were huddled around a crackling fire to hear - as were most people in Seattle and beyond, with wood- or coal-fired heaters. Now into the third week of December, you could smell the smoke in the air at night.

The trumpets still irked Kip. Every couple of weeks he tried to sell the producers on the idea of introducing his weekly pep talk with one of his favourite tracks: ‘Takin’ Care of Business’ by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. ‘But it’s appropriate,’ he’d protest when everybody said no. As always, the supreme executive power of the President of the United States of America turned out to be not so supreme after all. He’d eaten plenty of pizzas with way more supreme than he could ever call on. So trumpets it was.

‘Hi everybody,’ said Kipper on the radio, while Kipper in real life finished off the last two bites of his toasted ham and cheese sandwich. The President started the broadcast, as always, with a discussion on events of the last week. It wasn’t just a political catch-up. Kipper liked to chew over ‘the goings-on’ all around the country, and overseas if necessary. He liked to think that listeners might pay attention to him while he was talking about the budget or some legislative vote after they’d heard him discuss that week’s sports results, unusual weather and any WTF items in the news. Jed Culver was strangely indulgent about this, generally letting him have his way on the basis of ‘connecting with the average asshole’. Not how the former city engineer would’ve put it, but then Jed’s phrasing rarely was.

‘I hope you’ve all been keeping safe and warm during the weather we’ve been having,’ he told his listeners. ’And looking after each other, too. Whether you’re in the city or out on the frontier, if you have a neighbour or a family member or friend you think might need help, don’t sit around wondering. Reach out and find out.’

In the drawing room at Dearborn House, Kipper took a sip from his beer to cover another wince of discomfort. He did mean what he said on the radio, but he always felt awkward putting it into words, and even more awkward when reading the lines that Jed had added to his notes for the show. Fucking ‘reach out and find out’, who spoke like that? His Chief of Staff seemed able to read his mind, and shook his head as if dismissing any concerns before Kip had even voiced them.

Finding he’d finished his beer, and seeing his wife needed a top-up on her wine, Kip excused himself and hurried through to the kitchen. He didn’t need to hear himself mouthing platitudes about ‘reaching out and finding out’, but he did want to get back in time to listen to that week’s correspondence. It was his habit each week, again encouraged by Jed, to read three or four of the many letters written to him by his listeners, or as Jed insisted on calling them, voters. Although, since many of the letters came from children, that wasn’t entirely accurate. He grabbed a fresh Red Hook Ale from the fridge, and the ass end of a bottle of some French chardonnay that Barb had been working through, before hurrying back. He returned just as his radio self was finishing reading a letter from a small boy in Kansas City, an Indian migrant, who wanted to know why people at school were so unkind.

‘Well, Ravi, a lot of the time, when people are teasing you, or being mean to you, it’s not about you at all. It’s about them not feeling very good about themselves. And thinking, maybe, that if they can make somebody else feel bad, it might make them feel better.’

KILLEEN, TEXAS ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION

Why did she bother listening to this rubbish? Sofia was tempted to pull the tiny earphones out and throw them away in disgust. She often felt that way when listening to President Kipper’s radio talks. He was one of those men who was always trying to see the best in people, even when there was nothing good to be seen.

She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, huddling deeper into the armchair that looked out on the empty street. Her fourth, and she suspected her last, hideout. At least in Temple or Killeen. If she got out alive, she supposed that the rest of her life would be spent in hideouts.

‘If I could speak to those boys who are bullying you, Ravi,’ the President said, ’I would ask them just how tough they really are. Do you think they’re as tough as one of our Cavalry troopers chasing pirates out of the West Coast cities? Or one of our railroad men, like your dad, working right out in the wilderness, way past the frontier? Are they even as tough as old Mrs Cooper, the lady who wrote the last letter I read out, who gets up before the sun every morning to attend to her chickens, so she can take fresh eggs down to the militia post for all the men and women there who’ve been up through the night keeping her safe from bandits? What do you think, Ravi - do you think those guys at school are that tough? I don’t. But I’ll bet you are.’

Madre de dios, she thought, rolling her eyes in the darkness. No wonder Papa had despaired of the federales ever doing anything about the murder of their family. Or about any of the attacks down in Texas.

Sofia shook her head, causing the blanket to rustle loudly in her ears. One of the earplugs for her little transistor radio came out, but rather than pulling out the other one and giving up on the broadcast, she hunted around inside the folds of the blanket until she’d found it and pressed it back in.

It was a terrible thing to lose faith in someone. Not the worst thing in the world, of course, and Sofia Pieraro was well acquainted with the worst things in the world. But she felt keenly her disappointment with President Kipper. She had written him a letter once, just after they’d arrived in Kansas City. She’d told him exactly what had happened when the road agents attacked their farm, and of the atrocities she witnessed on the trail. And of how it had to be true that Jackson Blackstone was responsible for it all. But James Kipper had not read that letter on the radio. He hadn’t answered her questions about what he was going to do. He certainly hadn’t sent any tough Cavalry troopers down into the Mandate to chase the road agents away. Or even to catch them, and hang them by their necks, as her father and the Mormons had done.

She ate a handful of old, tinned fruit cake, washed down with a cup of metallic-tasting water. She was deep inside Blackstone’s territory, and could not afford the luxury of hot food or a camp light. Hunkered down in an empty house near the edge of Fort Hood, she had to be very careful about attracting attention to herself. It was possible, she had discovered, to move about the town during the day, but it was best to maintain the appearance of a dutiful servant running an errand. Having spent just enough time walking the streets of Killeen to build up a mental map of the place that she could relate to the actual maps she carried with her, Sofia preferred to remain in hiding. And this small, suburban bungalow, just one in a street that had been reclaimed from the Disappeared, was an excellent hiding place. The Texas settlement authorities were more organised than Seattle’s, and the entire street, and half of the subdivision in the streets around it, stood ready to accept the next wave of arrivals and settlers to Blackstone’s kingdom. There was no electricity yet, not that she would have used it. But water ran freely from the faucet and, praise be to God, it ran hot, thanks to the solar panels up on the roof. Even in winter they produced deliciously hot water at the turn of a tap. The first thing she’d done after breaking in and securing her new camp