Single Combat

old Jim Street. Maybe

LockLever hoped to accommodate all sides while carving out a region of influence where the government had little or no influence.

'You mustn't think I'm against reconstruction in Wild Country, Mills. It'd bring law and order back to those crazies — on our terms. And LockLever could build those ten-kilometer thrill rides and restage the Battle of Britain there twice a day, just like they claim. But I can't trust 'em.'

'True,' Mills murmured. 'When LockLever owns foreign companies, foreigners have clout with LockLever.'

'Which reminds me that your own people have a little romance going with — um, what's that firm at the Turk Ellfive launch complex?'

Mills smiled. 'ECI; Electronics Corporation of Israel. Those, initials also stand for electronic counter intelligence, which was too near the truth. So they've changed it to Tuz Golu R & D, which makes their Turkish landlords happy.'

Very quietly: 'But they still do research with microwave relays, or so I am reliably informed. Any gadget that can project multichannel holo from a point in empty space would be ours, or Israeli. And it isn't ours.'

At last, Mills felt he was about to learn why he had been invited to Young's inner sanctum. 'Those Mex stratosphere relays,' he guessed. 'You think they're using Israeli equipment, Mr. President?'

The National Security Agency thinks so. And I want those rebel holocasts stopped! You seem the logical conduit for us to find out how it might be done.'

'My people tell me you've zapped one already,' Mills said, pleased to show how well-informed he was.

'Congratulations.'

'It's casting again.'

Mills shrugged. He was damned if he'd admit he hadn't known that.

'Let's understand each other,' said Young, evidently still clear-headed though his tongue played him false at times. 'You'll get the LOS site for trying to wangle us a media countermeasure. If you're successful, you could get the Schreiner land for IEE to develop — assuming you want it.'

Mills laughed ruefully. 'It's a great idea. Battle of Britain, eh? Some old Lockheed thinktank man is still plugging away in LockLever.' He shook his head in grudging respect, then grew serious. 'Sure, IEE could do it, if we can get that land. And if we can get protection without paying off Jim Street.'

'Our guess is that you could get a ninety-nine year lease from the owner, if the federal government allows some special tax incentives to Schreiner, and if you could convince the Schreiner family you'll keep it all unpolluted and mostly unraped. As for protection, just hire most of the locals and name the goddam place Wild Country Safari.'

'My God,' Mills muttered, thinking it over. For that matter, the ersatz Spitfires and Messerschmitts for a Battle of Britain show could carry live ammo, just in case. IEE could train those leathery Texas lunatics as maintenance people and let 'em carry sidearms.

And the gambling! IEE could thumb its nose at state laws in Wild Country. A refitted delta could ferry in six hundred high-rollers a trip and could run the games at it pleased. The LOS tower meant cheap power. Nothing need be said about the gambling. A replica of old Dodge City? That would be the first step Mills took after taking the place over.

Inside a year, the gambling sincity could be running at a profit. In two years, mach one thrill rides! Oh, yes, this was too good a thing to pass up. Mills needed something from which he could secretly siphon cash during the next year or so.

Because otherwise, the synthesizer factory would bleed him to death before it came on-line.

CHAPTER 26

Imagine the most complete array of RF sensors available to the National Security Agency to secure a President's lair against bugging. Next, imagine that guests are profiled, fluoroscoped, interviewed and voice-stress analyzed by NSA professional paranoids whose sole raison d'etre is to screw those who would try to screw Blanton Young.

With these conditions in mind, now try to imagine the frustration of the head NSA spook when Young's own personal screwing put the quietus on audiovisual security screens. The President might envy porn stars, but he did not propose to be one even for his own laconic gumshoes who had already seen everything and would not, presumably, have been scandalized to find that a widower President enjoyed a carnal tussle now and again, and again, and again.

Young was perhaps ignorant of the criticism Russell laid on Neitzsche. Paraphrased: it's okay to be tough- minded, provided you start with yourself. Or perhaps Young simply did not want any recordings of any deals inside his Granite Mountain apartment. It was this decision which permitted the raven-haired hotsy to circumvent Young's anti bugging array with basic equipment, ears and memory. The lissome lass lay flat on her belly in Young's bedroom and monitored the Mills meeting through a fresh-air duct that served both rooms. The early part of the evening had justified all her hours of patience. Yet the initial dialogue paled as good booze took its effect in the room just beyond…

CHAPTER 27

'… Told you we'd build the true Zion together four years ago, didn't I?' Young had now switched to brandy, and tended to use shorter words.

'You also said it would take some careful weeding,' said Mills, gauging his own alcohol capacity with care. 'But I wish you'd told me how much weeding you intended to do last week. Even with control of FBN, Mr. President, we've had a bitch of a time explaining away that rash of disappearances.'

'Couldn't be helped,' said Young, waving his goblet airily. 'Anyway, a good third of 'em were Mormons.

Who'd believe White House Deseret could possibly be involved?'

'Must've been a tough decision for you, of all people.'

'Shhhhit,' said Blanton Young, and glanced at the younger man with a half-smile. 'Not with true inspiration to guide. Mills, in the true Zion there won't be any room for a bunch of old farts wrangling over interp'tations of the word of God. Came to me in a meeting of the Council of Apostles one day. A rev'lation like a thunderclap; I was bein' tested.'

Somehow, Mills decided, a tiny ice cube had entered his bloodstream. 'You mean — Divine examination?'

Nod. 'A dozen old men, balkin' me at every turn. It came to me that the President of Streamlined America can't be wrong every time; that if Blanton Young was put in this office by a higher power, then a solid wall of opposition can only mean that wall is bound together by the devil's flaxen cord.' The zealot eyes burned past slitted lids. 'You follow me, Mills?' The President's face was choleric with remembered frustrations, his last words a rasp on old tin cans.

Until the past half-minute, Boren Mills had cherished the assumption that Young, whatever his failings, was bound to his Church; that ultimately he would be constrained by its tenets of fellowship and grace.

Mills's ice cube was now a frozen stalactite against his spine. 'I couldn't help noticing some, ah, changes in your, um, lifestyle. Are you saying you've decided to leave your Church?'

'I am the Church!' Mills realized with a start that he'd seen the same look on Eve's face when he asked for her amulet. 'The Council of Apostates,' said Young, relishing his heresy, 'is a test. I see that now.

And I have passed that test.'

Through his consternation, Mills saw that he was privy to a development so new that it had not yet become surrounded by rumor. With utterly no idea of what to say, he fell back on the hoary goad of interviewers and