CHAPTER EIGHT
A Familiar Face
Denver, Colorado
Monday, November 26, 1951
After three days of on-again, off-again snow, the clouds had finally been blown away by a wind out of the west, and bright sunlight was streaming through the top portion of the tall narrow window on the east side of Cassie Aklin’s bedroom.
The sun hit Cassie in the face, and when she tried to open her eyes, it forced her to close them again. She brought one hand up to block the light as the other fumbled for the alarm clock. A quick peek confirmed what Cassie suspected. It was only 7:10, and she wasn’t due to get up until 7:30.
But there wasn’t any point in going back to sleep for such a short period of time, and the prospect of feeling the sun on her face as she walked to work made her want to get up. So Cassie turned off the alarm, swung her feet over the side of the bed, and began the process of getting ready for another day.
Cassie shared the tiny one-bedroom apartment with a woman two years older, who was in charge of the clerks working the night shift at the Denver Federal Center. So the twin bed next to hers was empty as Cassie showered, put on her makeup, and got dressed. As a psychologist employed by the Army and assigned to support SRPA, it was important to look professional.
So even though Cassie would have preferred to wear something more casual, she chose a dark blue suit from the three hanging in the closet. The jacket ended at her waist, and the long, slightly flared skirt fell below her knees. A crisp white blouse, plus some hard-to-find hose, completed the outfit. A pair of black high heels went into her leather briefcase and would replace her galoshes once she arrived in the office.
Breakfast consisted of tea, made from a bag that had been used twice before, and two pieces of toast smeared with a tiny bit of butter and some strawberry jam. Due to persistent food shortages the scrambled eggs and bacon she had once enjoyed almost every morning were a special treat now, and would constitute a good dinner if she could afford them. All of which seemed to run counter to what Secretary of Agriculture Seymore had said on the radio the day before.
He had referred to the shortages as “temporary allocation problems,” then “seasonal commodity anomalies,” and finally “transitory market fluctuations.” Not that it mattered much since the result was the same.
Cassie finished her second piece of toast and chased it down with the last of the weak tea, before washing the dishes and putting them in the rack to dry. Then it was time to put on her overcoat, slip her feet into a pair of galoshes, and pick up her purse and briefcase as she passed the table in the hall.
Locking the door behind her she made her way down two flights of stairs, through the small lobby and out the front door. It was only a few blocks from the apartment house located on Virginia Avenue to the sprawling Denver Federal Center where she worked. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, but stretches had been shoveled, making it easier to walk.
Even though it was a residential neighborhood, subtle signs of the war and its effects could be seen all around. Both sides of the street were lined with cars because, as people had been displaced from the northern states, many came south to stay with family or friends, filling Denver to the bursting point. Renters like herself added to the pressure, which left thousands with no choice but to enter one of the hastily constructed Protection Camps, or make a place for themselves in the shack-lands in and around Aurora to the east.
Reports from the shacklands painted the picture of a slum where people built shelters out of anything they could buy, salvage, or steal, and raw sewage ran through open ditches while people were forced to burn anything they could find for heat. Food was scarce, and medical care was nonexistent. The situation had led to a restriction intended to force as many people as possible into the Protection Camps.
Other signs of the war’s impact could be seen in the snow-covered vegetable gardens that had been planted on the parking strip, the gold stars displayed in the windows of families that had lost a father, son, or brother in the fighting, and the American flags that hung limply from porches, drooped from poles, and were tied banner-like between houses.
In order to reach the Center, as employees referred to it, Cassie had to cross Alameda Avenue. It was busy as usual—and she had to wait for a fifteen-vehicle military convoy to pass before she could hurry over. The two- and-a-half-ton six-by-six trucks threw waves of slush to both sides as they rolled by. The last five were open, with warmly dressed soldiers sitting in back, and some of them whistled.
Cassie waved as the convoy pulled away.
There was a great deal of construction going on beyond the center’s twelve-foot-high, six-foot-thick outer walls. Defensive towers had been erected at the corners and midpoint along each stretch of wall. They bristled with weapons, and at night there were high-powered rotating spotlights that the civilian neighbors hated.
Dozens of buildings made up the Federal Center, and she had even heard that a top secret facility was under construction at the very heart of the complex. There were lots of theories about what the new building would be used for, but those who knew weren’t talking, and guards had been posted to keep the curious away.
Regardless of the reason, hammering, sawing, and other construction-related din could be heard around the clock.
There were a number of gates, and because all the guards knew her, Cassie was permitted to enter with little more than a wave of her ID card. The Center employed hundreds of women, but they were outnumbered ten to one by the men, so Cassie drew some admiring looks as she made her way to what was called Central Hospital. It was much more than that, however, since it also housed the medical facilities required to support the burgeoning Sentinel program.
She belonged to a team of civilian psychologists who were paid to make sure all the Sentinels remained mentally stable—a task made all the more difficult by the fact that the soldiers were prone to medical issues associated with the inhibitor shots. Most were struggling to cope with combat-related stress, and were entirely cut off from their families—all of whom believed them to be dead.
Having passed all the checkpoints, Cassie approached her building. The brick and masonry structure had an art deco sensibility about it. Metal-clad doors opened into a large lobby with mural-covered walls and a wraparound reception desk with a stern-faced matron behind it. She sat under three clocks, each of which was associated with a different city. It was 12:00 in New York, 10:00 in Denver, and 9:00 in San Francisco.
Cassie breezed past the desk, followed a hallway to a bank of sleek-looking elevators, and was in her cozy third-floor office five minutes later. It was barely large enough for two people, but it was all hers, and a haven of privacy.
Her first client was already seated in her guest chair, and his name was Sergeant Marvin Kawecki.
Hale hated the Denver Federal Center, the hospital, and everything that went with it. Especially since the trip to Denver required him to leave the base where the preparations for Operation Iron Fist were well underway. But, as Major Blake pointed out, it was a good idea to get an inhibitor shot prior to going out on a major mission, and sitting down with one of the shrinks was part of the process.
The spinal injection was old hat by that time, and given the number of Sentinels in town to receive it, the procedure was rather impersonal as well. Just like everything else the military did. One by one the soldiers were taken into an operating room where they were ordered to strip to the waist. They sat on a metal stool while a nurse painted a wide swath of cold antibacterial solution over the injection site.
Then a balding doctor plopped himself down on a stool and injected small amounts of a local anesthetic into the area around the site. Moments later, having checked to make sure that the area was numb, he removed a 10cc syringe from a Mayo stand and positioned the needle between the L-4 and the L-5 vertebrae. As the needle went in, a fluoroscope allowed the doctor to monitor his progress via a black-and-white screen.
“Hold still,” the doctor admonished gruffly as he depressed the plunger, “or you’ll be sorry.”
Hale felt the pressure as the inhibitor was injected into his body, and was glad when the needle was removed. A nurse gave him a list of possible side effects, which the Sentinel wadded up into a ball and threw into a trash can on the way out. He’d experienced many of the symptoms in the past, and survived them. That was all he needed to know.
With the shot out of the way it was time to head up to the third floor for his interview with Dr. Alan McKenzie, an elflike man who was forever peppering Hale with questions about his childhood, interpersonal
