Without Warning Part 26

"Look," McCutcheon said, instantly switching back to his usual calm and spookily cheery self. "They haven't been arrested as such. Just detained preventively."

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean, 'preventively'?"

Blackstone answered for him.

"To prevent them being arrested before they f.u.c.ked up so badly they really did get a lot of people killed."

"What? Like this morning?"

"Oh, grow up, Kipper," snarled Blackstone. "This is serious. We don't want to take over here. We don't want to take over anywhere. h.e.l.l, we're desperate for someone to tell us what to do, but n.o.body's putting a hand up. Everyone's arguing about f.u.c.king cookies."

"Bulls.h.i.+t, General, that's an exaggeration."

"No," said McCutcheon, tag-teaming him again. "It's a metaphor. For pointless, infuriating contention about complete f.u.c.king inanities. Like cookies, which I can a.s.sure you they did argue about, because somebody said they needed to start conserving food and so they spent three-quarters of an hour debating whether they were ent.i.tled to a packet of f.u.c.king Oreos at their meetings. This was just last Thursday, by phone hookup, during the worst of the pollutant storm. By phone hookup, Kipper. They were all at home. They could have eaten their own f.u.c.king cookies."

Kipper rubbed his tired, burning eyes, but it only made them sting all the worse.

"So what are you gonna do? Keep arresting people until you get someone you can work with? You gonna go all the way down to the dogcatcher?"

"If we have to," said McCutcheon. "But really, I've met that guy. He's a freak. Got that gimpy eye. Half of one ear chewed off. Wouldn't be a good look for the next president."

"President?"

"Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. We need a president. p.r.o.nto. If we don't get a handle on this situation, we're all going to h.e.l.l in a handbasket."

Kipper b.u.mped up against a filing cabinet, jarring his elbow on the corner.

"s.h.i.+t! Who the f.u.c.k talks like that? h.e.l.l in a handbasket?"

McCutcheon's eyes twinkled.

"Granny Mae McCutcheon. Eighty-six this year and still skinning her own beaver ... Oh, man, that didn't come out right. She's a trapper's wife. Or she was. Granddaddy McCutcheon pa.s.sed back in '92. It was Clinton that eventually killed him. Seeing that gladhanding c.o.c.ksucker take the oath, it was too much ..."

"Back on message, Major," said Blackstone. "Mr. Kipper. We have some command-and-control issues here, and elsewhere. Here it's bad enough, elsewhere it gets worse by an order of magnitude. That mess at your food bank this morning. That was a C-three issue. That's what happens when command, control, and communication breaks down. Blood. Gets. Spilled."

Kipper's head was reeling. He wondered if the heating had been turned up too high or if any contamination had made it into the building through the filters.

"Do you know anything about the line of succession, Kipper?" asked Blackstone.

"The line of what?"

"Succession," explained McCutcheon. "You know, the president gets whacked in a motorcade, the veep steps up to the plate and bam!-any hopes the enemies of freedom had of exploiting our temporary const.i.tutional be-fuddlement are right down the c.r.a.pper."

"Are you sure you're an air force guy?"

"Sure. Born and bred. Anyway, the line of succession. Focus, dude. Right? You with me? It's toast. We got nada. n.o.body. Everyone we could have tapped for the top job is gone. Everyone we've approached since is like 'Oh, no, don't ask me, I'm too f.u.c.king busy. I got this f.u.c.king cookie crisis exploding in my face here.

Kipper exhaled a deep breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding in. That probably explained his dizziness.

"So, what do you want me to do about it?"

"About that? Nothing," said Blackstone. "That's our problem for now. But this city is yours. Kipper, you're now on the executive committee. You and your department heads. I need you to do a better job running this place than we've seen so far."

"Whoa! Wait a second. That's a political position. Only elected officials can sit on the committee."

McCutcheon shrugged.

"Only elected officials on the civilian side. And they're all unavailable now. So General Blackstone is the senior member, and he's appointing you and the other department heads."

"What are we? Your good Germans?"

"No, you're the only people we can rely on to keep this place from falling apart," said McCutcheon.

"You don't get a choice, Kipper," growled Blackstone. "The days of easy choices are over. You've been drafted. You can either get with the program or you can f.u.c.k off and we'll find someone who will."

"Jesus Christ, you people ..."

"Yeah, wrestle with your conscience in bed, if you have to. But you need to decide whether you're going to help pull your city through, or walk away."

It was too much.

Kipper turned and stormed out the door.

Was it his imagination or did the Munic.i.p.al Tower seem to be even more overrun with military uniforms than he'd thought when he first came in? Kipper shook off the thought. No sense getting paranoid. A lot of the support staff were scurrying about on fast-forward. A few saw him and looked relieved, others seemed even more frightened and just put their heads down, hurrying past.

The soldiers didn't seem to be intimidating anyone. Indeed, some of them looked pretty well spooked, too. But their very presence, in full combat gear, including their weapons, was enough to put the zap on anyone's head. And what the f.u.c.k were they carrying arms for anyway, what did ...

Kipper pulled up in confusion. He'd been so angry, so unbalanced by the meeting with Blackstone and McCutcheon, that he'd stomped right around the corner into the planning department. Cursing quietly, he retraced his steps to the office of the city engineer, his office, a small suite of rooms behind a plain dark wooden door inset with marbled gla.s.s. It felt like a holy sanctuary right now. He pushed through, praying that he'd find no military people inside, with their feet up on his desk, guns lying on top of the filing cabinets.

He didn't.

Instead he found Rhonda, his secretary, a large and formidable African-American presence in a room full of frightened white folk.

"Kipper! Thank the Lord at last!" she cried out when she saw him. "We were beginning to worry that they'd arrested you as well."

"Not yet, Ronnie. Not just yet. So you've heard then?"

He smiled wearily at his team, or what was left of it. Barney Tench, his deputy and old college bud, who looked about as glum as Kipper had ever seen him; Marv Basco, the sanitation chief, a dead ringer for Larry from the Three Stooges; Dave Chugg, water, who looked a lot like Curly to Marv's Larry, at least when you stood them next to each other. And Heather. Sweet, fragile, freaked-out little Heather.

"Whoa. What are you doing here, darlin'? You should be at home."

"I wanted to come in," she said, sounding preternaturally calm. He wondered if she'd been medicated. Barney shrugged and shook his head.

"I dropped her at her apartment, Kip. But she talked some dumb grunt into giving her a lift back in."

Kipper sighed.

"Okay. Heather, I'm not sending you home again. But you shouldn't be here. You're in shock. Go and sit yourself down on that couch over there and do not get up again. Ronnie?"

His secretary nodded and bustled the girl as gently as she could over to the old brown couch in the corner. Heather didn't really protest or resist. When he thought about it, Kip understood. She had no friends or family in Seattle. Her work colleagues had been caught behind the Wave in Spokane. The only people she had left in the world were here, in this office. It would have been cruel to send her out again.

"So. You've heard about the council?" he asked.

They all nodded and mumbled that yes, they knew about the arrests now.

"Did you know you've been drafted?" he asked Basco and Chugg. "You're on the emergency committee now."

"No. n.o.body's told us anything," said Chugg.

Kipper rubbed his neck, which felt stiff and very sore. He noticed that he still had a smear of dried blood on the back of his hand.

"Well, I met the guy behind the coup d'etat a few minutes ago. General Blackstone."

"He's here?" asked Barney.

"Yeah. Hiding down in the deputy mayor's office."

"Did he have any explanation for this morning?"

"Said it was a f.u.c.kup, said we should get over it."

"Good Lord!" said Ronnie, who considered heck and gosh darn it to be pus.h.i.+ng the boundaries of decent language. "He said that?"

"Close enough," said Kipper, as he leaned back on his desk. "He pretty much threw everything back on us. Said if we didn't want the city to die, we'd have to step up to the plate."

"And what about the councillors?" asked Barney.

"I have no idea. He's got them detained for protection or some c.r.a.p somewhere. I dunno what that means, short or long term."

"Well, it sounds like this a.s.shole feels perfectly free to lock people he doesn't get along with," said Barney. "What'd you tell him, Kip?"

"I didn't give him an answer either way," he said, chewing his lip. "And I'm not happy. I'm a thousand f.u.c.king miles from happy. But he's right about one thing. No matter what we think of him, we have a responsibility to the city. We still need to get a handle on food distribution. As of right now there is no market solution to the problem of empty shelves because most of the market disappeared behind the energy wave last week. Priority number one is food. We have enough in aid s.h.i.+pments coming through if it's distributed rationally. If not, this city will die. It'll tear itself apart before we can work out how to feed ourselves."

He paused to look around. Heather had closed her eyes on the couch, but he had everyone else's undivided attention.

"I can't do anything about the politics. I'll talk to the army about letting the councillors go, but we have to proceed on the a.s.sumption that they won't. So, despite the fact that everything has changed, I don't see that anything has changed. We have a good plan to pull the city and the state through this. We just need to make it work. Which means we are going to need the military's help, no matter how difficult that might be to swallow for now."

Barney Tench shook his head firmly.

"I don't know about that, Kip," he said. "What these guys look like to me is fascists. My mom's family, way back when, they came from Croatia. You only got two types in Croatia. Fascists and commies. That's why Grandpa moved here. To get away from that bulls.h.i.+t. And arresting elected officials, no matter how useless, just because it's convenient. That's fascism. And I can't have any part of it."

"So what are you saying, Barn? You're going on strike? I need you, buddy. The city needs you."

Barney shook his head.

"You think I don't know that, Kip? My family lives here. Anything I won't do for you, I can't do for them either. But this dictatorial bulls.h.i.+t, I can't do. I'm sorry, man. Some things are just too important. I'll leave you a formal letter of resignation before I go. But I will go, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

Marv Basco dipped his head. "d.a.m.n," he said. "Do you think Barney's right, Kip? Do you think we should all just walk off until the army agrees to get back in its box?"

Again, Kipper felt the weight of everybody's anxiety and expectations settle upon him.

"I don't know, Marv. I got no f.u.c.kin' idea. But I do know that if there had been a truckload of soldiers at South Street this morning like there was supposed to be, a lot of people would have lived, instead of getting shot down. I admire Barney's strength of conviction, but I can't afford it. I've got half a million people to look after, to feed and shelter. Half a million terrified people at that, all of them looking over their shoulder at that wave wondering if it's gonna decide to gobble them up any time soon. The only reason most of them haven't bugged out overseas is that n.o.body's willing to come in here and get them. If we still had transport out of here they'd be gone. I'd be gone. n.o.body wants to be here, but here we are anyway, trapped. You ever seen what a trapped, hungry, frightened animal can do to itself? To anyone who gets too close? It's not pretty. So, if I can't get them out of here right away, I can at least do something about keeping them fed, and safe from the things I can guard against, like ma.s.s f.u.c.king psychosis."

He paused then, to calm himself down a bit. He was beginning to lose it, raising his voice and barking his words out. He sighed, and shook his head in apology.

"I'm sorry. But does anybody else feel like Barney? I need to know right now."

n.o.body answered.

The burning rain had closed in again, early in the evening. The army's weather guys told him it was due to an isolated pocket of toxins caused by a series of fires that had ripped through Portland two days earlier.

Kipper was glad of the weather in one way. It meant he couldn't see the glow from the Wave. It was visible at night, high up in the tower, as if the devil had thrown open a furnace door on the far side of the mountains to the south. It was a good thing most people couldn't see it-that Barb in particular couldn't see it. He was supposed to go out with some of Blackstone's people tomorrow to inspect the thing "from a safe distance." Whatever the h.e.l.l that meant. He didn't think he'd be telling Barb about that little day trip. Her idea of a safe distance probably meant Guam.

"I'll be going now, Kip, if that's okay with you?" said Ronnie. "I'll take Heather back to my place. She can sleep on our couch for a while. Poor child. She don't need to be alone."

Kipper turned fractionally and smiled at Ronnie.

"Thanks for staying and helping out, Ron. It was kind of a madhouse here today, wasn't it?"

"It surely was," she agreed. "And are you okay now, boss? Should I be pus.h.i.+ng you out this door to your beautiful wife and child?"

"I'll be leaving soon, don't worry. I got no appet.i.te for hanging around here at the moment. It's just that I have no choice."

Ronnie frowned at him.

"Don't talk like that, Kip. There's always choices."

"Yeah, but sometimes they all suck."

"Ha!" she laughed. "You sure you ain't a black man?"

Kipper pressed his face against the cool pane of window gla.s.s, beaded with millions of starry droplets of poison.

"Barney won't be the last one, you know."

"How's that?" asked Ronnie.

"A town like Seattle, people aren't going to stand for this takeover. And that's what it is, Ronnie. A military takeover, pure and simple. And I'm helping them do it. I should be stopping them."

"Oh, horse hockey! All you're doing is keeping people warm and safe and fed and watered."

"Keeping the trains running on time?"

"What trains?"

"Sorry. I was being obtuse. What I mean, Ronnie, is that I don't know I can hold this place together. The council, let alone the city. I wonder if we shouldn't be planning to get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge. I mean, look at that thing ..."

She kept her eyes on him, rather than looking at the eldritch glow coming from just over the horizon.