Unless Mills could offer some outrageous inducements, the IEE board might begin realigning companies like Latter-Day Shale. And Mills could find no inducements to sway some of those staunch upright Mormons. It was clear that Blanton Young's vision of Zion no longer coincided with theirs. If LDS voters found common cause with Catholics and Masonics, Mills would be wise to have his bags packed and his IEE stocks converted to faceted jewels. As his private phone buzzed, Mills was estimating that he might have six months to unload.
Lon Salter's holo image was that of a frightened man. 'Mills, I'm watching XEPN, the Mex station. Can you receive it?'
'We own FBN, Salter. I can get an Ellfive station if I like.'
'How nice for you, Your Arrogance. Turn on XEPN and pray that Young doesn't see a replay.' Salter broke the connection.
Frowning, Mills snapped on the holo; coded the illegal Mex station that catered so brazenly to the rebel Indys. He slouched in his chair, not particularly surprised to see the two-shot of Ynga Lindermann and homely old Jim Street. But his frown deepened as the audio gained strength.
'… knew about the explosive implants in those Army Intelligence agents during the war,' Street's gravelly voice insisted. 'But we could never prove those same agents were still in the field. Well, they are, under President Young's direct orders, and their primary job is still assassination.'
Lindermann was playing straight-woman. 'They certainly keep a low profile, Governor.'
'Hell they do, they wear the same uniforms as all the regular members of Search & Rescue.' Audible gasps from an unseen audience. Street pressed on: 'But they have extra equipment. Body bags. Silenced weapons. That mastoid-implant radio I mentioned. Whenever you see a lone S & R member, you may be looking at someone like him.'
As the old man nodded to his right, the holo camera zoomed back. Boren Mills sat bolt-upright, a chill beginning at his widow's peak and centipeding down his spine. Ted Quantrill sat beside Street, clearly uncomfortable in a full dress uniform of S & R. No matter that the uniform must have been faked for this broadcast; the psychological impact was enormous; charismatic.
The old man said, 'Of course some of them want out, but you can imagine what it's like to know your skull can be blown open anytime Young's people — they're called 'Control'—get the slightest suspicion that you could be an embarrassment to them. Young Quantrill had an incredible piece of luck, never mind the gory details, but somebody got that damnable thing out of his head before it exploded. And the instant he was free, he came hot- footin' it to us.' A sly smile: 'As all free Americans will, sooner or later.'
Lindermann glanced into the camera. 'A shameless political plug,' she said archly, as though she were not a crucial cog in the Indy media machine. 'I understand that he was pursued. Ted, how did you escape?'
Closeup of the uneasy young man in the sleek S & R uniform. 'Well, — they caught me,' he said, clearing his throat, trying to ignore the camera. 'I guess their mistake was in training us so well.'
Street, off-camera for an instant: 'They caught each other, Ynga. And it cost Young three of his best men, including two instructors. They got good Christian burials — better'n they deserved. The instructors didn't have those critic things in their heads but the young fella did. Chased Quantrill into a storm sewer and — well, I saw the body myself. Sure made a believer out of me. Poor fella was an olympic-caliber gymnast before the war; Kent Ethridge, his name was. Damn' shame he threw in with the wrong folks.'
'He didn't have a choice!' Quantrill's objection knifed through the old man's words. 'None of us did.' He seemed ready to subside.
Lindermann, sensing the young man's readiness to unburden himself, prompted him with, 'Would it be too painful to say how all that affected you, Ted?'
Quantrill leaned forward, hands on his knees, then looked directly into the camera. He had been sweating, but not now. Now he was willing to stare the holo camera down.
In his eyes was a look that saw beyond anguish, the scarlet pain burned out, leaving only a dull and apparently permanent rage in the impassive, too-youthful face. 'Okay, then.' he leaned nearer into the camera. 'You know about our mastoid critics. You know we're kept for killing — and they'd monitor our thoughts if they could. But nobody's told you what it does to us. I'm going to tell you now.'
A long pause, the green gaze unwavering, muscles twitching at the corners of his mouth as he framed his words. 'Think of the people you love the most; your brothers, sons and daughters, a wife or lover.
You've trained and grown together for years, saved one another from dying, held—', and here he paused, throat working convulsively, ' — held each other for comfort, knowing you must never —
'But you find ways to show it. And then realize you don't dare. There's always that fear in your guts that the training has been
'And the day comes when they force your own sweetheart to kill you, and instead she defies the entire system and gets you out of it all, knowing you don't completely trust her, knowing they may blow her away at any moment.
'And they do, the sons of bitches.' Softly, softly: 'They blow a piece of her head away and she dies, with no assurance that all of her love and trust and longing meant a God-damned thing to anyone else, including you. Including you,' he repeated, nodding into a ghastly self-accusation.
The studio was so quiet it seemed one could hear the slow blink of those eyes, dry and green and entirely without pity. 'And when someone offers you a chance to tell about it on holovision, you know you won't find words, there are no words, to truly explain how the bastards have hollowed out your soul and filled it with hate. But you know they monitor rebel 'casts.' The nostrils flared infinitesimally. 'They've made a death list naming a thousand innocent people, LDS and gentile alike.' The barest suggestion of something like a leer. 'They also know how well you can carry your assignments out. Who are they? Men like Lon Salter of S & R; Boren Mills of IEE; and their chief executive, your chief executive — President Blanton Young.
'Should they be surprised to hear that I have a little list of my own?' He was silent for two beats, his unwavering stare a promise of annihilation. 'Be seeing you,' he warned.
Old Jim Street's face was flushed and Ynga Lindermann appeared genuinely shaken. Quickly she put in,
'Mr. Quantrill's opinions are his own, of course. We'll continue with our next guest after these brief messages…'
Mills realized that the phone was clamoring for attention. Salter? Young? Shit, who cared? He was slumped down, as far as he could get as if trying to disappear into his cushions and no goddam phone was going to pry him out. Mills began to wonder if there was any cushion anywhere deep enough to hide him from that green-eyed maniac. He did not have six months to unload. If he was very, very cunning, he might have six days.
CHAPTER 61
The morning after Quantrill's broadcast, the Governor would not be swayed. 'You blew it, son,' he said in exasperation, swiveling in his high-backed old office chair to follow Quantrill's pacing in the room.
'They might think he's dead,' he jerked a thumb toward the silent Ethridge. 'But you? Ever 'pistol-packin' spook in Streamlined America will have an eye cocked for the noodlehead who threatened the life of the President on international holovision! And I'm not sure it was smart to let that little fella Mills know we've linked him to S & R. Nope; if I put you on that penetration team it'd purely jeopardize the mission. Besides that, there's things we need you for right here in Wild Country. And quit makin' those funny hand-signs to each other! Makes me gawddam nervous and it isn't polite.'
Ethridge: 'I was only telling Ted I'm better in a vertical shaft than he is, anyway.'
Quantrill caught and erased his grin. Ethridge had really said, '
The old man jabbed a peremptory finger at a nearby couch and Quantrill dutifully sat. 'Nobody's goin' after that computer until our own crypto fellas have sucked out all available information with that little radio you brought us, Ted. And even then, I'll scrub the mission if it looks like they've got another memory storage as backup.' Leaning back, balancing precariously, he stared at the cedar-beamed ceiling and mused, 'The great drawback in a
