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For a major event watched avidly by untold millions of viewers, the TV production was atrocious, the lighting abominable, the video definition poor. Nebulously, .a booted foot groped downward from a silhouetted ladder, a backlighted, spacesuit-encumbered figure, wearing life-support equipment, felt gingerly for the LM’s dish-like landing pad. The astronaut hesitated for one heart-stopping instant, then stepped outward to lay a pristine footprint in ageless Lunar dust.
“Bravo!” Alessandro Volpone surged up from the white settee popping hoarse, benedictive profanities. He performed a little war dance across the luxuriant shag of his study. “Leonard,” he said, “I’m a man of guarded enthusiasms, but did you hear him? ”—one giant leap for Mankind‘.
Leonard Colo’s lips curved in a grudging smile. “They are much men, these astronauts, no doubt of that. But, will landing on the Moon open a practical technological door, or is it simply a very dramatic stunt?”
“Stunt!” In his mid-forties, Volpone was large-boned, robust, mahogany-tanned from hours of pool-side lounging at Foxhaven, the. Volpone family mansion. Bushy, high-arched brows framed his dark eyes, now smoldering with banked fires of speculative resentment.
“Stunt,” he repeated in the rich basso, rising full-flower from the depths of his broad chest. He studied his financial manager, chortling with gentle sarcasm. “Leonard you’ve just witnessed the grandest achievement ever sponsored by our human species, and all you can see is a carnival trick.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It is not,” said Volpone heatedly. “Blundering, victimized America has beaten those conniving vermin on the other side of the globe. The Moori landing itself may prove nothing. But attendant publicity will tip the pendulum of international opinion our way for a change. Mark me!”
“Twenty-five billion dollars’ worth?” asked Colo bluntly.
“Billions — trillions—cost be damned! Dare we assign dollar values to such milestones? Think of it, the Moon!”
“Dare we?” Colo’s fragile smile evidenced doubt. “You begin to sound like your father, Alex. For me, everything must equate in terms of dollars and cents. I observe the flow of dollars.”
“And provide a -pitiless sounding board for my wild schemes.” Volpone grinned hugely. “That’s your true talent, Leonard—and my single most valuable asset.”
“Thank you.” Colo’s voice was dry, colorless. “I admit that your latest ‘wild scheme’ has me a trifle concerned.“
Volpone sobered. “Our bid on the tube transit equipment?”
“Yes. I think your—our—bet rides on a doubtful entry, Alex. The horse may run well, if he’s ever allowed to leave the starting gate.”
Volpone pinched the bridge of his generous nose, hesitating beside the window to ponder the dim, twilit outline of a dense growth of maples, lining the road toward Lloyd Harbor, which framed a darker patch of Long Island Sound. “Calculated risks are connected with any proposal,” he said slowly. “Our competitors—tight, small-minded penny pinchers, every one—as well as the fuel and power interests, have fought adoption of the gravity-vacuum tube transit system with every conceivable weapon. But our Washington pipeline has leaked the fact that operational economy, plus low easement and right-of-way costs, have heavily weighted DoT’s trade-off studies in our favor.”
Volpone paused, glowering at the smaller man. “Be reasonable,” he requested humbly. “Our proposal cost less than two hundred thou. If only one segment of the Northeast Corridor Network actually gets built, we’ll show a handsome profit.”
Colo nodded sagely. “If the horse isn’t scratched.”
Alex Volpone sighed. “Leonard, Leonard, there are no sure things in this’precarious world. It has to be an excellent bet, a clean, tremendously efficient innovation in mass transit, tucked neatly out of sight subsurface, providing .aircraft speeds, near-foolproof safety, and gravity compensated acceleration-deceleration passenger comfort.
“You’ve watched the model work, listened to Dr. Seymour’s pitch on the compressor equipment we’re to build. Can you ask more than CompAir’s chance to participate in such a gigantic enterprise?”
“If the horse is allowed to run,” maintained Colo doggedly. “And if young Seymour’s blue sky approach proves feasible in this, the real world.”
“Again?” Volpone looked sharply at the dapper, elderly accountant. “Has Dr. Powers complained about Seymour again?”
“Powers, among others,” conceded Colo. “The R&Ds team is evenly split, pro-Seymour, and anti-Seymour. You can imagine what sort of working atmosphere that creates.”
“Hummph!” Volpone’s eyes narrowed. “Have Seymour stop and see me tomorrow morning,” he said, resignation in his deep voice. “I hired him on the strongest possible recommendation. But we’ll not suffer a maverick among our staff scientists, no matter how exceptional.”
“You’ve already spoken to him twice,” reminded Colo.
Volpone looked up, his thick brows knitted. “So J have,” he said firmly. “But I hired him personally, Leonard, this time, if he doesn’t settle down, I fully intend to sack him!”
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Arriving early Monday morning at his thirty-fourth floor mid-Manhattan lair, Compressed Air Corporation’s voluble board chairman exchanged greetings with only the elevator operator, the security guard, and the omnipresent Leonard Colo. At eight-thirty, a pair of commercial artists showed ,him some rough sketches of a stylized blue-and-silver foxhead device, encircled with the legend Volpone Enterprises, a name he’d tentatively chosen for the conglomerate, industry-wide holding company he planned to erect upon Comp-AirCorp’s firm foundation.
Volpone did not act overly enthused, suggesting a longer nose for the fox, and the label Volpone Industries The artists left, sounding discouraged. He leafed idly through his calendar, noting that Arne Seymour’s name had been scrawled in the eight-forty-rive slot. Seymour—a damned nuisance! The-young staff physicist’s bold audacity had rather intrigued him in the beginning. An interesting fellow, Seymour, if one overlooked his touchiness, his over weening ego, his obdurate reluctance, to take direction, and the insufferable bluntness which blossomed into outright rudeness upon the slightest provocation. But his overall effectiveness was unquestioned, Arne Seymour had but one style—attack! He assaulted major and minor assignments alike in the manner of a karate expert demolishing a column of bricks, neglectful of where the shards flew, or whom they might injure. Seymour met all objections to his highly original, unproven methods with scalding logic, with equations that proliferated- like epidemical bacteria cultures, and with stubborn refusal to consider what he un-blushingly referred to- as the “stupid” solutions of others.
Seymour’s mind, Volpone had discovered, was far-ranging and—ignoring his infuriating manner—possessed of an uncommon fund of general knowledge. But the man had absolutely no charm or tact, which was unfortunate. Volpone had looked forward to bringing Seymour around, to graduating him, so to speak, from the Volpone “school.” His father had bequeathed him definite views- about wasting potentially profitable raw material—human and otherwise. Thoughts of losing Seymour were galling, causing a pang of anxiety.
When his secretary buzzed to announce Seymour, moments later, Volpone covered the half-year marketing reports on his desk and leaned back, relaxed. The door to his paneled office was flung wide without benefit of a knock. The pale, thin physicist charged in as if the building were on fire, white shirt rumpled, carelessly knotted purple tie askew.
“Come in, come in,” invited Volpone needlessly.
Seymour augmented his other social graces with a total ineptitude for small talk. “You wanted to see me?” he demanded, his voice high-pitched, irritating, yet perfectly controlled.
“Er, yes.” Volpone sounded distantly amused. “Arne, you came to us—let’s see, nearly a year ago, isn’t it? Your technical progress has been exemplary. In fact, your performance on the tube transit studies tempted me to give you a lab of your own, .free rein to do pure research. How would that strike you?”
“I’d like it,” blurted Seymour.
“Fine, fine!” Volpone tugged fitfully at one earlobe. “In the meantime, I want you to prove yourself a cooperating member of our team here at CompAir. Dr. Powers feels concern—”
“Powers,” said Seymour, making it a simple statement of fact, “doesn’t know his ass from third base.”
Alessandro Volpone’s lips twitched, the pulse beat at his temple quickened. “I was about to say,” he continued, a burr in his voice, “that Dr. Powers is now sixty-three. He will soon—”
“If you’re going to fire me,” suggested Seymour, “get on with it. I have things to do.”
Volpone lurched to his feet, scooting his castered armchair into the unoffending bookcase behind him. He bowled his way around the desk. “You,” he growled, “are an intellectually arrogant, thoughtless, and thoroughly reckless young man.”
Seymour’s innocent blue eyes bulged behind thick lenses. “Now the vendetta,” he said, his face maddeningly immobile. “The” empire-builder, wounded in his only vulnerable spot—his pride.“
“Perhaps I am a prideful man,” admitted Volpone. “You may leave now, Seymour. I don’t care to listen to your apology, even if you have one in mind.”
“Apologize for what, the truth? All you care about is money.”
“Money!” Nostrils flaring, Volpone took firm hold of his temper. He began prowling between Seymour and the large picture window. “Truth,” he asserted, “is a fragile, intangible ideal, Money, on the other hand, is the diamond-hard pivot upon which this weary world spins. Money isn’t everything, no, but whatever’s second is quite some distance back. Someday soon, when you are without it, you may begin to appreciate the deeper meaning behind ‘money’.”
“Spend yours,” advised Seymour with a knowing’smile. “Enjoy yourself while you can. You probably have time left.”
“I fully intend…” Volpone folded his long arms. “Time left? What, in the name of sweet Ever-lasting, does that mean?”
“Why,” said Seymour in a beguiled tone, “I thought even tycoons read newspapers. Open your eyes! The US is preparing in Vietnam just as Japan, practiced in Manchuria thirty years ago, as Italy warmed up in the Ethiopian highlands. The USSR is getting ready in the Mideast, like Hitler did in Spain.”
“Preparing for… *er, nuclear war?”
“Hardly.” Seymour looked cunning. “Neither side wants that. Ours for obvious reasons, theirs because the wise old Soviet marshals don’t want to own a heap of rubble. As for China, guess. Or better, try to buy the answer with all your money.”
Volpone’s dark eyes glistened. “Do you believe this nuclear stalemate will continue indefinitely, or-?”
“Hell no! Only until the balance of power—and the odds—favor them. Brushfire wars will break out at high friction points like Southeast Asia. I suspect one’s brewing now in Israel. They’ll bleed us white, militarily, economically, morally. We’ll go fascist—a police state with all the trimmings—or go under.”
“Hm-m-m, not an entirely original speculation, but…”
Seymour waved his hands, excited at last. “They’ve already undermined our will to fight, our aggressive instincts. Look at the spreading use of narcotics, the conscription rebels, student militants, organized revolutionaries—minority, and otherwise. Social patterns like those don’t start by spontaneous generation, Mr. Volpone. How many millions of rubles do you suppose the Soviet Union spends annually on subversion?”
Volpone blinked repeatedly. “We’re straying far afield,” he said. “For a scientist, you make an entertaining prophet, Seymour. I wish there were time to listen to your philosophies.”
“There is a way,” said Arne Seymour smugly.
“A… way?”
“A sure way to defeat the stalemate, bring them to their knees. It’s certain, quiet, no muss, no fuss, unless they panic and push the button, Even then, we’ll have a few hundred thousand worthy survivors salted away. They’ll have almost no one. Here’s the clincher,” said the physicist, standing much too close to his employer. “There is no possible way for them to recoup the lead once we have, say, a four- or five-year headstart.”
“Fascinating.” Volpone edged away, scowling.
“It will take decades,” said Seymour, “and could cost ‘tens—even hundreds—of billions, but it will—”
“Billions!” Volpone’s laugh was “ caustic.
“I’m perfectly serious,” insisted the annoyed Seymour. “It’s a natural corollary to the interurban’t.ube transit concept. I was going to approach you after a few more weeks’ research, but…“ Seymour cleared his throat. ”I, uh, want to stay on at CompAir, Mr. Volpone. You’re smart enough, tough-minded enough, not to let silly moral considerations stand in your way. And you’re wealthy enough,“ he added.
“Why, thank you, Arne.” Volpone looked benign. “Am I to understand that you’re pleading with me to stay?”
Seymour nodded, staring fixedly out the window.
Alex Volpone laughed heartily. “Like hell you are! You’re demanding that I keep you.”
“Call it… what you will. Shall I tell you about it?”
Volpone shrugged. “My first inclination is to take you by the scruff of your scrawny neck…” He glanced upward at the office clock. “I have an important meeting in twenty minutes—at nine-thirty—which allows you just nineteen minutes, Seymour. It will take far less than one whole minute to fire you.”
“Good. We’ll use the conference, room,” said Seymo.ur over his shoulder. He disappeared through a side door.
Rocking his leonine head in wonder, Alex Volpone trudged after the physicist. He lighted a cigarette and settled himself behind the conference table with an air of heavy-lidded resignation.
Seymour pouched his cheeks several times in thought. “As you now,” he began, “Earth’s atmosphere consists of roughly twenty percent oxygen, seventy-nine percent nitrogen, and one percent argon, xenon, and miscellaneous gasses…”
Arne Seymour assaulted his subject unmercifully for thirty-one minutes. His excitement fed upon itself as the chalk squeaked ever faster on the green-tinted blackboard. Blue eyes blazed behind bottle-bottom lenses as, now and again, a small slide rule was whipped from a torn shirt pocket bulging with pens, pencils, and a six-inch scale mounted on a clip. A scrawled chain of sigmas, deltas, numbers and integral signs grew across the chalkboard in an unkempt pattern of symbolic logic.
Managing not to interrupt, Volpone soon became absorbed.
Minutes later, his secretary popped in, saying that the budget committee was awaiting him. He told her brusquely to have Leonard Colo chair the meeting in his place, that he was not to be disturbed, then motioned for Seymour to continue.
When at last Arne Seymour fell silent, wispy blond hair bedraggled, glasses coated with a thin film of chalk dust, it was seven minutes to twelve. Alex Volpone’s manner was solemn. He rose slowly, dark eyes hollow, placing a confidential hand on Seymour’s frail shoulder. “I want you to say nothing of this to anyone.”
“All right,” agreed the physicist.
“Arne, you will have your own facilities, and will henceforth report directly to me. We’ll do something about your salary, too.”
“Fine. Shall I definitize my data, refine my calculations?”
“Yes, yes.” Volpone waxed enthusiastic. “By all means, Arne. And please be certain to erase the chalkboard thoroughly.”
Volpone returned to his desk like a sleepwalker, swiveling his chair around to examine the smog-shrouded Manhattan skyline as if searching for something. “Merciful God!” he muttered plaintively.
Then his mood changed. He began humming ‘an operatic melody in his resonant, oddly unmusical bass. He hummed for half a bar with gusto, then launched into the opening passage of “Le Veau D’Or” from Gounod’s Faust. His heavily wooded voice ringing in his ears, he made up in gusty volume what he lacked in tone.
At last he subsided into thoughtful silence. What an incredible idea that arrogant young snot had come up with. But was it remotely feasible?
Volpone ruminated, noting that it was lunchtime. He would have prosciutto, crumbly cheddar, and large, torn chunks of Anton’s home-baked sourdough covered with sweet butter, some melon, perhaps, and a half-bottle of that splendid Chianti.
Thus fortified, he would drive home to Long Island and spend the afternoon walking about Foxhaven to mull Seymour’s startling proposal. By evening he would know, deep within his innermost self, if it was merely another chimerical teaser like so many others .he had run across in his career, or a tangible, attainable goal.
And whether he dared attempt it!
Alessandro ‘t Volpone laughed into his cupped fingers—a humorless, Mephistophelian laugh that hung in the seventy-two-degree, filtered air of his plush office like a vapor.
Straightening his cravat, he got up and confidently eased the door strut behind him.
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December, 1987
Major Lewis Craft woke with a sense of displacement. He was definitely not in his familiar room at the bachelor officers’ quarters in South Base, deep under Antarctica’s ice cap.
He propped himself up on one elbow and yawned. Things immediately fell into perspective. In the subdued light, random shapes metamorphosed into the characterless, utilitarian furnishings of a seventh-floor room in downtown Washington’s Statler-Hilton. He relaxed, skimming in reverse order the rapid flux of events which had brought him here, the long, dull flight from Oahu to the capital, the even longer, duller flight from Marie Byrd Land to Hawaii, the rousing send-off party at the officers’ club in South Base that had made him recipient of a throbbing skull, and his surprising receipt of orders to report to General Thayer at the Pentagon.
Craft threw back the coverlet, dropping his feet to the carpet Entirely naked, he stretched and bent to touch his toes, a compact,, muscular man who stood exactly six feet tall, with a boxer’s slope-shouldered stance and the slightly sway-backed, sacroiliac-lordosis condition which spelled “runner.” Cadet Lew Craft had Been a unanimous pick on everyone’s All America Team as middle linebacker during his last two seasons at West Point. Had he been a half-step faster at falling back to cover passes, the pro scouts would have kidnapped him. A first-round selection by San Francisco’s 49’ers, he’d resisted the professional football draft in favor of a Career in the US Army Corps of Engineers. He occasionally regretted this decision.
Craft went to the window, pushing aside musty-smelling gold draperies. Across L Street, the Sino-Sov Coalition’s somber embassy loomed next to the Washington Post building. He impassively studied huge Soviet and Chinese flags, hanging limp in the thin winter sunlight a half-block away where week-old, patches of snow lingered in gutters, on lawns and the roofs of buildings.
Craft let the drapery fall, crossed the room, flipped on,a light and went into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later he emerged, close-cropped dark hair plastered to his high forehead, a loosely wrapped towel wound around his middle. He snapped on the TV, lighting his first cigarette of the day, and crossed“ one thick-calved leg over the other, smoking and watching the newscast.
Mostly, it was dull stuff. Eddy Gerhardt, the fire-breathing Midwest evangelist, had successfully rescued hundreds of souls in a giant Christ Rally the previous evening. Soviet Ambassador Vasili Kirilov had again suddenly and mysteriously departed for Moscow on the midnight Aeroflot SST. Rioting had broken out afresh over Stable Population legislation, recently enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Blair, which limited offspring to 2.11 viable births per union. Craft wondered how even the most ingenious and law-abiding parents would go about having 2.11 children.
Finally a pair of items caught his full attention, a commentator’s analysis of “malaise,” the shortness-of-breath syndrome which had been driving indigenes of such lofty places as the Andean Plateau and Alta Himalaya ever closer to sea level, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of the Calais-Dover tube transit loop which linked the European continent, at long last, with England. Craft pushed the off-button and busied himself dressing, wishing there’d been time to have his uniform pressed. It looked like he’d slept in it, but would have to do, Pentagon generals, or no Pentagon generals.
He adjusted his tunic, squaring the engineer’s castles pinned to the lapels, gave a final swipe to his shoes with a specially treated paper strip he’d found in the bathroom, and grabbed his -cap and briefcase, leaving the room without a backward glance.
He checked out in the lobby, stopping for a hot-buttered roll and coffee in the grill, then made his way out into the chill of Sixteenth Street. It was cold, the breeze had a damp, “penetrating edge. The notion that he, newly arrived from a frozen continent, should feel discomfort on a mild winter day in Washington struck him as absurd. Craft hailed the first cruising taxi he saw, opening the door on the fly, and vaulted in before it stopped rolling.
The electric cab drove east several blocks, turning south on Fourteenth Street, and swept past the stone hulks of Commerce and Agriculture, bore right past the Jefferson Memorial, still showing evidence of minor ‘disfigurement suffered in last fall’s progeny taxation riots, then crossed Mason Bridge into Virginia.
The driver pulled up at the Pentagon’s river entrance. Craft suspiciously eyed two dozen protesters who orbited the broad walk, carrying signs and swinging their free arms to keep warm. Scowling faintly, he paid the hack, tipping less than generously.
The pickets converged. A spindly, pimple-faced kid carrying a sign advocating PEACE AT ANY PRICE! fell in step. “Hi, soljerboy! Goin‘ in there t’figure out better ways of killin‘ people?”
Craft maintained his leisurely gait. He was soon surrounded by sprightly fellows with mascaraed eyes, dressed in party-colored Renaissance tights, “old soldiers” of nineteen, wearing ragged fatigues with empty bandoliers circling their torsos, a few short-haired girls who affected no makeup and wore brightly colored women’s lib buttons commanding KID ME NOT!
Craft watched the guards at the entrance as he walked, guessing they wouldn’t interfere unless there was trouble. Thus far, no one had touched him.
A gentle voice at his shoulder breathed, “Let’s go somewhere and have some fun, honey. You won’t have any fun in that place.”
Craft looked the kid in the eye. “You’re too fem for me, Charlie,” he said lightly. “I’m for leather, whips and chains, y’know?”
It got a laugh. Someone yelled, “The Gay Nineties’re almost here!” And someone else called, “We’ll be ready for ‘em, won’t we?” Which got an even bigger laugh.
Suddenly Craft’s path was barred by a huge black man dressed in a leather greatcoat, a silk scarf, and jackboots. A growth of woolly hair the size of a basketball framed his solemn face. “Whoa, General,” he said softly. “Give us a minute of your time, hey?” He grinned down at Craft through a drooping, evil-looking mustache. “Not- uptight about me calling you ‘General’, are you?”
“Mercy, no,” said Craft. “I am a general.”
The grin disappeared. “You should complain,“ said the ”black man. “They’ve laid the golden oak leaves of a mere major on you.”
“I’m traveling incognito.” Craft stood perfectly still.
The black man chuckled. “A witticism, withal! It’s obvious that you’re a man of rare intelligence and wit, Major.”
“I'm very witty,” said Craft. “And I’m a general, remember?”
“Your pardon, General, sir,” apologized the other. His manner became overbearingly sincere. “I’d like to point out,” he said slowly and distinctly, “that you are a paid killer of innocents, employed by our fascistic state to do its dirtiest dirty work.
“I know—I mean I know—because I spent two years in the Mideast, helping pluck Israel’s chestnuts out of the fire. I’ve seen with my own glims what napalm can do (o an.Arab village. I’ve sworn an oath to do everything in my power to convince you, and others like you, that you’re nothing but paid mercenaries, employed by a warmongering, military-industrial elite who—”
“Imperialist lackey,” said Craft. “You forgot to call me that.”
The black man came a half-step nearer. The other protesters hung back, listening. “You are trying my patience, Major.”
“Your minute is up,” said Craft. “Stand aside.”
The black man frowned. “Stubborn!” He waggled his index finger in Craft’s face. “You’ve got to stay and rap with me, man!”
Lew Craft changed his briefcase to his other hand. When the black man reached out to stop him, he lowered his shoulder and drove forward with a lashing surge that emptied the bigger man’s diaphragm, dumping him on his butt among the pickets.
Craft strolled on toward the entrance, ignoring cries of, “Fascist pig!” and “Dum-dum soldier!” The guards were suppressing pleased grins when he gravely nodded and entered the Pentagon.
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Brigadier General Martin Thayer prided himself on his famous ancestor Sylvanus Thayer, one of West Point’s founding lights. To Craft, he looked much older than during their last meeting, three years before, as he acknowledged the fact that Craft was reporting as ordered by nodding toward the only other chair in his cramped cubby of an office, then resumed his writing.
At last he looked up, pushing aside a mound of paperwork. “Major Craft,” he said tiredly, “I understand that you were involved in a minor fracas outside the building a few minutes ago.”
“Yes, sir. Someone wanted to give me… a lecture.”
The general’s smile was bleak. “You were fortunate it ended so quickly. The news media love to cover a riot at the Pentagon. We urge all personnel to use one of the minor entrances, but you had no way of knowing that, of, course. I imagine you’re curious about why you were whisked away from South Base like this.”
“It did surprise me, sir.”
“Well it might. If your orders surprised you the reason behind them will astound you. You were promoted just two months ago. That, believe it or not, is the reason. Every competent man under my command seems to reach field grade only to disappear into the Department of Transportation’s maw.”
“I’m… I don’t follow that, sir,” said Craft.
“Damned if I understand it myself.” Thayer’s headshake was bewildered. “Someone’s pulling strings I’ve never learned the existence of, Craft. Unfortunately, you’re one of the puppets.
“DT has an awesome task on hand—riding herd on construction of the nationwide interurban tube transit system. Everyone recognizes that ITTS has Transportation overburdened, just now. Why, they can’t seem to find civilian engineers smart enough to pour you-know-what out of a boot, so they raid my command for bright field-grade officers like you, and never give any back.”
“Am I to understand that I’ll be working on the ITTS project?”
“Correct, Major, the Sacramento-Reno loop that’s abuilding under the Sierra Nevada out in California. You’ll be acting as consultant to DoT, 6n detached service for an indefinite period. Or even longer,“ added the general wryly. ”I allowed the first four men to go without bitching, then got up on my high horse and screamed about the fifth—letters to the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs, more letters to Transportation Secretary Jergensen, and Undersecretary Alex Volpone. And more letters up through echelons, which got me only a polite ‘go-to-hell’ note from some bean-counter in DoT, and a quiet word telling me to shut up from sorneone who shall, I assure you, remain nameless. Never seen anything like it in thirty-two years of service!“
Craft looked intrigued. “One of my pals at South Base—a Captain Archer—was promoted late last year, and—”
“A perfect case in point,” said the general, fuming. “Red Archer was number thirty-seven—something like that.” The general extracted a paper from Craft’s folder, examining it with unconcealed distaste. “We have another exercise to go through,” he said. “A secrecy oath, Major. Yes,” pursued the general acidly, “it seems your oath of commission won’t hold water in the face of a civilian job.” He let the document settle to his desktop as if it were unclean.
Major Craft skimmed it. Mostly mumbo-jumbo, it commanded his strict silence while performing DoT activities, “—such activities, and information pertinent thereto, are to be considered very highly classified, whose possession by unfriendly powers-would be detrimental to the best interests of the American people, and to their common defense.”
“Defense?” Craft looked up questioningly.
General Thayer grunted his disgust. “Buzzwords! Whoever wrote that thing threw in every authoritative sounding noun and verb he could glean from all of the security oaths ever devised. I doubt that any of it means much…”
The general broke off, rising stiffly. He came around the desk to stand near Craft’s chair. “Lew, off the record I’m a worried man.” His tone was low, confidential. “That gobbledegook is part and parcel of our nation’s -leadership vacuum. Oh, demagogues aplenty, but no clear-headed, decision-making leaders of, say, Roosevelt’s or Truman’s stamp. That goes for the Congress and Cabinet as well, I’m sorry to say, not to mention the military. I had occasion to visit the Academy -last month, classrooms and lecture halls filled with sloppy-dressed, sloppy-minded cadets whose minds were probably occupied by girlie magazines like Swinger, or the fleshpots of New York, rather than partial differential equations.”
Thayer sniffed his displeasure, folding his arms across his beribboned chest. “I studied your folder last night, trying to convince myself it was for the best, that DoT’s need was greater than our own.” He looked into Craft’s eyes. “It isn’t. No amount of rationalizing will make it so. In these times, when we import sixty percent of our petroleum—principally from the offshore fields in the South China Sea, right under the Sino-Sov Coalition’s nose—when civilian fuel is strictly .rationed and the military worries constantly about the diminishing supply, tapping Antarctica’s deeply stored mineral and petroleum wealth has become essential.
“Lew,” said the general, “you ranked seventh in your class—no small achievement, considering the number of hours you spent away from study because of football, More, you had the judgment and sense of duty to realize that football is only a game. I respect that.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re most welcome. But I wasn’t going out of my way merely to compliment you,” said Thayer. “My point is simply this, the theft of your abilities by DoT leaves a hole which is impossible to fill. Multiply that hole by the numbers of competent, skilled officers who’ve been snatched away to do God-knows-what, and it creates a gaping wound which may never heal completely.”
General Thayer leaned close. “Something’s going on—something big. And it’s connected somehow, with ITTS. I’ve chased leads right and left, chased them high and low. I’ve no notion what it is, or who’s responsible. But stay on your toes out in California. Use your wits. The finest definition of an engineer I ever heard was, ”a qualified schemer‘—someone who schemes day and .night about how to do it better, more cheaply, with fewer moving parts. Be a schemer, Lew. I can’t order you to violate that stupid goddam security oath, of course, but…“ Thayer trailed off uncertainly, looking sad.
“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, sir.”
The general grinned. “I’m sure you will. Did you sign that ridiculous thing? Ah, yes. OK, it goes into your file. You’re scheduled to report to the Sacramento DoT office ASAP, but I’ve amended your orders to include a fifteen-day de-lay-en-route. Your home is still in California, am I right?”
“It was kind of you to remember, sir,” said Craft. “My parents are both gone, but there’s… a girl.”
“Good.” Thayer looked pleased. “Well, enjoy the holidays.”
“Thank you, General.” Craft shook Thayer’s proffered hand. “It’s been a pleasure serving under your command.”
“The pleasure was mine purely mine, son.”
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Five hours later Craft was boredly watching the snow-drifted Nevada desert unroll sixty thousand feet beneath the great delta wing that stretched its titanium sheen outward into the stratosphere beyond his window seat.
Ordinarily, he would have studied the sunwashed immensity surrounding him and thought poetic thoughts. Today it irritated him, he wished the pilot would push the throttles to the firewall and make the aircraft march. The Lockheed SST was restricted-as were all commercial flights over the North American land mass—to subsonic cruise, thus avoiding the danger of plowing a sonic furrow across America.
Craft was thoroughly and completely fed up with flying. This cross-country junket, coming as it did hard upon the heels of his tedious journey from Antarctica, made him fidget in his narrow seat in“ the coach section of the half-filled bird. He’d tried to doze, then tried to interest himself in the torpid in-flight movie. He’d also attempted conversational overtures with ,the pert stewardess who served him tough roast beef and lukewarm coffee somewhere over the Midwest, feeling not at all surprised when she’d rebuffed him— probably because he was still in uniform. It had reminded him of the lines from Kipling that Red Archer liked to toss around after becoming adequately sloshed in the officers’ club at South Base, something about, ”makin‘ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep.“ Or, more in line with recent events,
While it’s Tommy this, an‘ Tommy that,
an‘ “Tommy, fall behind,
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when
there’s trouble in the wind—
And trouble in the wind - there seemed to be. Craft had been gone from the States long enough to feel out of touch, but could not imagine a tough old bird like General Thayer running scared of shadows.
There was a tangible feeling in the air, something more than was accountable to peace marchers, anti-birth-control rioting, or general civil strife. He had sensed it at the airport in Hawaii, in the streets of Washington, even here aboard the plane.
Restless, he walked up the aisle to the coach class lounge, rummaging through the magazine rack. Nothing caught his eye until a young, petite, rosy-skinned girl draped in a single strand of strategically placed Christmas bunting winked at him from the January issue of Swinger, the magazine for swingers.
Craft smiled to himself. He flipped pages to the table of contents where he found Betty Dancer’s miniature, smiling likeness. Betty, the original nudie cutie in the brightly ribboned swing that Swinger had made as famous as New Yorker’s Eustace Twilley, or Esquire’s Eskie, had posed for the masthead shot about,five years ago. He carried the magazine back to his seat and browsed.
It was the annual Christmas issue, replete with bawdy Santa Claus jokes, cartoons, and flat photos of unclothed, nubile young girls in one provocative pose or another. Youth! That was what Swinger was all about—the sale of youthful sexuality to young urban males who hadn’t the wit to realize they already owned it.
He returned to the logo shot of Betty Dancer in the swing—the same saucy grin, flying honey-blonde hair, pert breasts, flat tummy, and long,“ tanned legs. Craft studied her hungrily. His memory did nip-ups and his bowels churned in sheer want.
He and Betty had been quite serious at one time. It had ended in coolness and bickering dis-affiliation. Craft had promised to write, and so had she. Neither. of them had quite gotten around to doing so. Her “marriage” to Swinger had been the primary sore spot, aggravated when Lew asked her not to pose for any more nude photos.
Craft recalled the afternoon when she had told him she now worked directly for Hoo Hanford, Swinger’s millionaire publisher. Their magnificent argument about his “Victorian” attitude had severed things rather permanently. But Betty was now twenty-five, or thereabouts, her days of nudie centerfolds were long in the past. What the hell! She was probably married, with one or two children, by now. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to call and find out. Thoughts of Christmas alone in some dreary hotel room did not cheer him.
When the FASTEN SEAT BELTS and NO SMOKING signs lighted, he cinched his lap strap, hearing the conducted hum of servomotors as the flaps rolled backward and down, braking the SST into a nose-high landing approach attitude.
Moments later, the tandem trucks touched down with a scorching bark, and Craft sighed. He was back where he longed to be—on the ground.
==========
The pay phone in the boarding concourse had no video channel. Craft punched the once familiar code automatically, surprised that he still remembered it. “Swinger magazine,” said an affected feminine voice. “Merry Christmas.”
“Uh, a very Merry to you,” he said. “Can I talk to Betty Dancer, please?”
“I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Hanford is not in his office this afternoon. Would you care to leave a message?”
Craft pursed his lips. “I want Betty Dancer,” he said, “not Mr. Hanford. There’s a big difference.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. Miss Dancer is Mr. Hanford’s personal secretary, and I assumed… One moment, sir, I’ll connect you.”
“Thanks.” The girl had said “Miss” Dancer.
Two clicks and a buzz later, Betty’s warm contralto said, “Mr. Hanford’s office.”
“Hi,” he said. “This’s Lew.”
A sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line made him visualize Betty’s characteristic head toss—the little, unconscious movement that flicked her long blonde tresses out of her eyes. “Lew… you’re home?”
“Almost. I’m at Palmdale Intercontinental. I just got in from the East, and wanted to call and see if…“ Craft cleared” his throat. “I wanted to know if we could get together while—”
“Why, I… I’d be delighted.to see you. God, it’s been such a long time. Years! How have you been?”
“Fine, real good.” She sounded confused. Betty had never been an easy gal to fluster. “When,” he asked, “would be a good time?”
“Lew, I… Right away. Now.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Certainly I mean it,” she said. “Take the ITTS direct loop from Palmdale to the Civic Center, then catch the urban feeder to West Los Angeles. I’ll meet you at the Wilshire-La Cienega station in… Let’s see, about twenty minutes. All right?”
One thing could be said for Betty, feminine wiles formed no major facet of her character. She rarely played cutesy female games. Betty spoke her mind, though that could be a painful thing on occasion, too. “On my way,” said Craft. Then, after a short pause, he said, “Betty, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve thought about you a lot, too,” she said. “Hurry!”
“Twenty minutes,” he said, and hung up.
==========
December, 1987
“Public acceptance, gentlemen.” DoT Undersecretary Alessandro Volpone looked around him, waving a tiny dessert spoon for emphasis. “A decade of public use has proven the ITTS system—safe, quiet express service, adaptable to long or short haul transit. Passengers like the convenience, the absence of sway or what we call ‘elevator effect’.”
“It’s a marvelous way to get there,” agreed someone nearby.
“It certainly is.” Pleased, Volpone brushed back a shock of iron-gray hair, the remark had come from a slender black gentleman known in financial circles as “Black Midas.” A devotee of “sure things” by all‘ reports, he now voted a block of shares third only to Clyde Clinton’s large holdings, and to Volpone’s own fifty-seven percent, which the ’SEC had ordered held in trust while executing his present DoT duties. But it was Clinton who craved wary walking. Lying in the weeds all through dinner, Clinton had been awaiting the opportunity to attack.
And his chance was coming. A covert glance at his wafer-thin atomic-electric wrist chronometer showed that Volpone’s sixteen guests, now almost finished with dessert, would soon forgather in the - lounge for brandy and cigars—sixteen wealthy, influential men and women who would have him and Leonard Colo at the mercy of their calculating, rehearsed questions for an hour or so of agony. .
Volpone wiped moist palms on the napkin in his lap. His father had instituted the ceremonial wining and dining of principal shareholders prior to CompAirCorp’s third annual stockholders meeting in the late Thirties, “It soothes them,” his father had counseled, “making them less liable to attack your policies head-on from the floor when it matters.” Volpone could remember when the dinner had been pleasurable. Even ten years ago, when the conspiracy in which he was deeply embroiled had been less of a nightmare, he’d actually looked forward to describing corporate programs which never failed to earn bountiful dividends. Each subsequent dinner had been worse. Someday his incredible juggling act—borrowing from Peter to pay Paul—would come to light. There was no way to fend it off.
“I surely enjoy the tube,” said a lumberman hoarsely. “Ride - from Seattle to Spokane an‘ back every day, I do. Just like sittin’ on a soft, downy cloud, but I have trouble believin‘ the darned thing’s goin’ five hundred miles an hour.”
“I find it incredible myself,” said Volpone. “Perhaps we’re becoming spoiled, taking ITTS for granted.”
Muttered exclamations of assent traveled around the near end of the table. From the corner of his eye, Volpone saw Clinton look his way, something steely and unforgiving in his glance, and sensed it time to launch his warm-up speech. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “if we review the history of land travel, salient milestones become dearly pinpointed. Early wheeled vehicles allowed the building of towns and cities far from waterways or the seas. Then horse-drawn conveyances came along, enabling town dwellers to live in the rural countryside and work- in the city, farmers could market produce in high-paying population centers. There’s an adage, ‘When it’s time to railroad, railroads will be built.“ Technology evolved machine-driven vehicles—automobiles and trains-creating a mobile society, encouraging westward expansion in America.
“But this ‘progress’ brought along a series of curses, pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, noise, congestion, deterioration in cities marking the treasurehouses of our culture.”
Volpone paused, gauging their attention. “You’re politicking,” accused a voice. “Two years ago, when you were only a board chairman, your speech had more snap, even if it was the same speech.”
Clinton’s casual remark stirred a ripple of laughter. Volpone forced a grin. “I had much more time to rehearse it two years ago. Seriously,” he continued, “ITTS’s rationale is inescapable. When we first proposed building compressors for the earlier, less sophisticated prototype in the late Sixties, we were struck by the logic behind DoT’s trade-off studies.
“Consider a twenty-five by fifteen foot elliptical bore—a true pendulum arc—reaching thousands of feet underground, blending into controlled involute approaches tangent to the surface at either terminus. The same question always cropped up, What would be the astronomical cost of such geometrically accurate bores? DoT’s systems engineers looked at it from an overall systems standpoint, as a gestalt problem. Their answer was amazing, the cost-effectiveness of sending nuclear-powered boring rigs through the Earth’s crust proved far superior station-to-station to any other high-speed systems solution—between four and five million dollars per mile for a totally completed and equipped tunnel.
“There were no rights-of-way to buy, no eminent domain payoffs, no easements to declare, nor would there be the history of surface property devaluation traditionally created by unsightly, noisy surface rail lines.
“The boring vehicles—ultimately designed for inertial guidance-were developed by one of the oil tool companies, atomic borers, fusing rock at the ferocious pace of twelve feet per hour, while tungsten-carbide bits chewed a neat ellipse. Ergo, the tunneling problem was solved.”
“Then came this maglev business,” remarked the lumberman.
“Magnetic levitation,” said Volpone, nodding “Guidance and tram suspension are achieved by bipolar repulsion, without the concomitant energy losses normally induced by rolling wheel friction, or wheel flange roller-bearing friction. Maglev is drag-free—excepting minor eddy’current generation, plus minute drag from, the power wipers themselves.”
“It sounds ingenious,” ventured Black Midas. “We ride on magnetic currents, and are propelled by air.”
“Exactly.” Volpone warmed to his task. “Our compressors operate on a continuous duty-cycle, evacuating the side-by-side tubes to an average underpressure of 2.1 psi, allowing high pressure-low pressure differentials behind and ahead of the train respectively—the ‘blow gun’ principle. Squirts of quick demand, high pressure air are released in fractions of a second by means of computer-operated ports spaced along the casing walls. The beauty of this is that no propulsive energy device need be carried aboard the trains themselves, making each assemblage of cars a lightweight shell.
“There are secondary virtues,” he west on, “Aerodynamic drag effects and turbulence are greatly reduced in a semi-vacuum, hence the high velocities attained. And the underground system is relatively maintenance-free—complete environmental protection, with subsequently reduced corrosion in ferrous parts.”
“How about safety?” asked a gaunt, elderly woman across the table. “The notion of rushing along blindly makes me nervous.”
“Ah, but you aren’t rushing along ‘blindly’, madam,” corrected Volpone. “Each ten feet of casing is strain gauge monitored at a’central station. Every pneumatic valve, power distribution point, wiper section, and compressor station is visually monitored on closed-circuit TV.
“None of the unexpected hazards common to conventional carriers can occur, no traffic crossings, bridge washouts, snowdrifts covering the rails. Complete electro-pneumatic failure would cause your train to stop smoothly on its skids as the tube fills with air from automatically opened ports—a sort of ‘deadman switch’—though that’s never happened. Emergency lights will come on, a supply of compressed air, plus backup thruster bottles, ”will propel your train to the nearest emergency elevator shaft. You’ll still be home in time for dinner.“
“Well…” The lumberman waxed his hands reflectively. “All I know is it gets me from ray front door to the office in about two hoots an‘ a handshake. We take ITTS for granted, nowadays.”
There was a concerted scraping of chairs. “Thank you Mr. Volpone,” said Black Midas. “It was an absorbing account.”
“It was my pleasure, sir.”
Clinton was waiting to pounce, lighting a cigar and pretending to listen to what was being said around him. He dropped his eyes when Volpone herded Black Midas into the lounge.
Alex Volpone squared himself mentally, deciding it was better to get it over with. He confidently approached the group surrounding Clinton. “Gentlemen, did you enjoy yourselves at dinner?”
“First rate… excellent… very nice.” The muttered politenesses diminished. Clinton’s sulky baritone cut the air like a scalpel. “We should have enjoyed it, it cost us enough!”
“You’ve heard discouraging rumors, Mr. Clinton?” asked Volpone.
“It’s easy to guess what the dividend will amount to—peanuts!”
“I’m afraid you’re correct. The quarterly dividend will again be quite moderate,” admitted Volpone in a strained voice.
“I thought so.” Clinton’s lips compressed unforgivingly.
“I realize how disappointing that must sound.” Volpone lighted a cigarette, studying the, smoke. “The dividend will not be significantly larger than the last quarterly. Blame diversification, the plowing of profits back into expenditures for tools and materials. Our assets have increased five-fold in the past twenty months, new earth-moving equipment, conveyor systems, derricks, barges and tugs. And we have, I must remind you, ventured into deep ocean mining, cement and glass manufacture, hydroponic farming. We have spent millions on research, and pioneering is always expensive.”
“But,” objected Black Midas, “is growth our only prospect?”
“You mustn’t forget our large, continuing expenditures for ITTS air reduction equipment, either,” said Volpone, trying not to sound defensive despite oppressive odds. “When progress payments from DoT begin to roll in—”
“Growth is too fast,” insisted Clinton with heat, “too damned single-minded! I know you’ve stepped away to help Jergenson at DoT, but the fact remains, you should be home minding the store.”
Volpone rocked on his heels, smoking with outward calmness. “Gentlemen, we’ve undertaken a job projected to last another fifteen years—building a network of ITTS tubes linking population centers throughout the contiguous United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. We’ve now purchased, or constructed, all tools necessary to complete that job. The payoff is on the not-too-distant horizon. I ask your patience, VI’s backlog and potential profits are absolutely fantastic.”
“Fantastic, eh?” Clinton ground out his cigar. “OK, let’s see you field this one, I’ve had reports of continuing excavation on or near sites purportedly completed six months ago. Why, Volpone? Aren’t we meeting schedules?“
“A half-truth, Mr. Clinton.” Volpone’s deep voice was steady. “The scope of the job—which I admit appears peculiar—was altered slightly after the’contracts were let. We’ll soon receive a nice cost renegotiation fee on the enlarged portion of-”
“Enlarged?” Clinton’s eyes narrowed. “What’s enlarged?”
“I… didn’t mean in size,” Volpone hurried to say. “Let’s call it an expansion of performance criteria, rework will require supplemental electronic and electrical modifications that—”
“Strange,” said Black Midas. “Why would ‘electronic’ modifications require additional excavation?”
“Damned right it’s strange!” chimed Clinton. “You don’t ‘excavate’ electronic mods. Care to clarify that, Volpone?”
The industrialist cleared his throat determinedly. “The answer is a technical one. I’m not prepared to answer such questions at this time, but I do want to say—”
“I’ll bet you’re not!” Clinton thrust his jaw forward in vexation. “Two evasions out of two, you’re batting one thousand. Let’s take one more, just in the interests of science, Why is VI running so phenomenally high on long-term interest payments?”
“It’s because,” said Volpone immediately, “we’ve borrowed so heavily against phenomenally high long-term potential profits.”
Clinton looked as if he’d bitten into a wormy Apple.“But the goddam loans are pushing three billions, Volpone. The interest-plus-principal payments are staggering, yet your price-to-earaings-ratio is still fifty-to-one. That makes absolute nonsense!”
“I’ve explained the backlog of work, our accumulation of assets, the impending cost-plus-incentive-fee progress payments.“
Clinton was furious. “Two-bit quarterlies on an eighty dollar stock!” he said, the color high in his cheeks. “Damned poor management! You’ve squandered time, labor, profits. Why, it’s so obvious… if some dumb-ass buyers would come into the market and turn the price around just a little, I’d dump the whole rotten mess!”
Volpone sadly bowed his leonine head. “I can’t believe you’re serious, Mr. Clinton. You’ve got land, buildings, equipment that’s operating, earning a great deal of money daily. VI is solvent. You shareholders have earned a gigantic equity, and for you to—”
Alessandro Volpone found himself addressing the back of Clinton’s swiftly retreating thousand dollar suit.
Afterward, alone with Leonard Colo in the rear seat of the speeding limousine, he felt only all-encompassing weariness. The dinner had been a fiasco. Clinton had eaten him alive, not forgetting to spit out the skin and seeds. He closed burning eyes, the nightmare question rose to haunt him—a specter foretelling future troubles. “You don’t suppose that cobra knows, do you?”
“No,” said Colo. “He has no way of finding out.”
Volpone sighed. “You reassure me. What would I do without you?”
“You would probably go to jail,” said Leonard Colo.
Volpone chuckled tiredly. “A peaceful jail cell ,sounds delightful, just now,” he said. “Lord, if Clinton and the others discovered that my shares—supposedly held in trust while I’m acting for DoT—are mortgaged to the hilt, they’d trample us like a herd of elephants. I would lose Volpone Industries.”
“Nonsense!”
“It isn’t nonsense. I’d be forced to resign and reclaim my shares if it ever came to a proxy battle. You and I both know how impossible that is. Everything would some to light—everything.”
“Yes, you know it,” said Colo, “and I know it. But Clinton and the others don’t know it. I spent months and months mortgaging your securities. Only our… good friends invested.”
“Invested!” Volpone’s bass was laden with self-reproach. “I have wheedled, cajoled, begged, lied and cheated. I wonder how understanding our ‘good friends’ will be? They’ve thrown their money behind a worthy cause, true. But few of them will ever learn of it.”
“As have you, so you tell me,” reminded Colo.
Volpone’s shrug was eloquent. “I’m dry—almost completely dry. But not sorry. I would do it again, in exactly the same way.”
“I would shoot you first,” said Colo.
Volpone snickered. “Leonard, the world political Situation makes me thank everlasting God—and Arne Seymour—for the opportunity to do something concrete before it became too late.”
“World politics today is precisely what it has been for the past five thousand years,” said Colo dryly. “You’ll discover sympathy for destitute billionaires to be rather a scarce commodity, Alex. Especially for one who’s been convicted and sentenced on fifty or more counts of willful conspiracy to defraud.”
“Oh, you’re scoffing and cynical, Leonard. I would rather be imprisoned by a free society for flouting its laws than enslaved, or vaporized in the coming holocaust, by its enemies.”
“I beg you, no patriotic speeches,” pleaded Colo. “I’m too old, too tired for flag waving. I have watched you—helped you—dissipate an enormous fortune. Not through drink, gambling, or in any of The classic ways, but in pursuit of a madman’s dream.”
“A very competent madman,” modified Volpone.
“A madman, nevertheless, who advocates building expensive compressors and gargantuan air storage tanks in untold quantities at ruinous cost for ever and ever and ever…”
“You’re exaggerating. Remember, your madman’s dream is shared by myself and four of America’s most powerful men. Our present dilemma was created by people problems, not by hardware. Had Senator Stillworth been less ambitious, or Secretary Jergenson less obstinate in the matter of the Federal auto license proposal—”
“Whatever, Alex, whatever!” Colo waved his hands in frustration. “You must have your nose rubbed in it, eh? Very well. I’m in a position to know your personal finances. You will soon have. trouble meeting your daily household expenses. What about that?”
“True.” Volpone looked very dubious, very subdued. “Nearly everything is in the pot. Did I tell you I’m thinking of selling the yacht? Why should I be burdened with a yacht?”
“Because you love the yacht,” answered Colo sourly.
“Aa-a-agh! I haven’t set foot aboard the Spindrift since last year’s Bermuda cruise with Marissa. There are a few hundred thou-perhaps even a million—in the yacht, and quite a few millions more tucked safely away in Switzerland.”
“Switzerland?” Colo sounded surprised. “So, you’ve begun to keep things from me. No matter, I’m damned glad you have it. You badly need a cash buffer.”
“Most of it will go for debt interest, I want the collateral returned on my securities. Proceeds from sale of the Spindrift will keep Foxhaven going another four or five years.”
Leonard Colo turned slowly.
“And after these five years?”
“Afterward, if there is an after, we’ll find a way to cross that bridge. Please, I don’t feel up to an argument tonight.”
“As you will.“ The accountant lapsed into moody silence.
Absorbed in watching the lights of Flushing hurtle past across the less and less used Long Island Expressway, Volpone made a request. “Leonard, remind me to buy Marissa a Christmas present.”
“Certainly,” rasped Colo. “I’ll even lend you the money.”
Transportation Undersecretary Volpone guffawed, slapping his financial manager’s knee in delight. “Leonard, you’re ageless. You never change,” he said as the quiet-running electric limousine raced on into the night.
==========
December, 1987
Major Lew Craft rode a descending ramp into the long, spacious main concourse of Palmdale Intercontinental Airport’s ITTS station. He found a lavender-colored ticket kiosk labeled Los Angeles Civic Center, and dropped his credit card into a slot. The ticketing machine spat out the plastic card wrapped in a lavender ticket.
Another slideway carried him three levels downward. He stepped off into a correlated lavender branch vestibule—an artificially skylighted gallery containing rest rooms, benches, trees, and planters filled with bright-hued perennials. The lavender ticket admitted him through a floor-to-ceiling‘ turnstile which gave onto the boarding concourse.
Craft inspected everything with renewed interest, admiring the conscientious effort to keep all functional equipment completely out of sight. He had not used ITTS for nearly two years, the fact that he-would soon be employed at a similar installation made him aware of the nicety of furnishing, the appealing detail design, that had gone into this one. Nothing warned of an arriving train until a series of doors opened simultaneously in a hitherto muraled wall, exposing row upon row of the two-hundred-compartment train’s eight-passenger compartments, only ten of which were visible in this segment of the boarding concourse. Had these eighty seats been filled, he could -have either hunted through other segments, or simply waited for another train. There were many vacant seats, the ITTS trains ran seven minutes apart—exactly.
He stepped across the flush threshold, choosing an unoccupied seat. The entire eight-passenger module had automatically swung to a horizontal attitude when the inbound train reached the crest of its involute approach, running straight and level into Palmdale Station. The seats were deeply contoured, covered in glove-soft vinyl, with double armrests and semi-wraparound headrests. His body triggered a pressure-sensitive switch,-soft stereo music emanated from the headrest wings inches from either ear.
seconds later, an attention-commanding buzz warned of imminent departure, an inner diaphragm began drawing closed across the ovoid doorway. When no boarding or disembarking passenger interrupted the closing membrane, its sections joined, activating an interlock switch, relays closed along the train’s length,“ and the computer commanded all hermetic doors to roll down and seal. There was a sibilant hiss of air, then silence. He could hear only a muted whisper from the air conditioning.
Mild acceleration pressed Craft gently into the seat, easing off after perhaps ten seconds, followed by no sensation of movement whatsoever. The train, accelerating down the involute section of tube, “caused the compartment to cant unobtrusively, maintaining an attitude which kept the seat of his pants aligned with the axis of acceleration. But that acceleration was regulated computerwise to coincide with the gravitational nulling effect of falling down the tube’s descending pendulum arc. Deceleration at the far terminus would work in precisely the opposite way.
Craft knew the southern California network to be crisscrossed with many geologic faults.,and fracture zones, the Pacific Coast’s earthquake belt, a portion of the “ring of fire” girdling the Earth. As well as lesser known crustal fractures, the Mojave-Los Angeles trunk line penetrated the renowned San Andreas Fault, which had been excavated to form a large chamber filled with dampening material—no mean engineering feat in itself— hopefully permitting enough compliance, or elasticity in the casing-fault interface, to prevent tragedy in the event of a major quake.
Craft could have watched a newscast, or selected a minutes-old financial computer readout. Had this been a long haul interurban train, he would have had time to read a magazine, order a drink, or watch prerecorded entertainment.
Not very many minutes later, the seat of his pants told him mild deceleration forces were at work. Deceleration abated, then ceased. When the compartment door opened, he was exactly fifty-five kilometers as the crow flies from Palmdale Airport.
He did not ride all the way up to main concourse level in Los Angeles, pausing at a three-dimensional model of the entire complex to select one of the many suburban feeder lines color-coded to the city’s southwest quadrant. This time it was a vermilion kiosk. His vermilion ticket allowed him to board a commuter-jammed train. He stepped out minutes later at the Wilshire-La Cienega station, seventeen minutes after leaving Palm-dale.
This time he stayed on the slide-way, emerging into the main concourse lying directly beneath Wilshire Boulevard’s pedestrian esplanade, where clusters of tall palms and subtropical foliage were illuminated by translucent skylights set dramatically in the swooping planes and curves of a high, free-form ceiling. Craft let the broad central slideway carry him toward the far end of the mile-long concourse, watching the signs. He got off at the foot of an ascending ramp labeled La Cienega Drive.
He hefted his briefcase impatiently and searched the crowd, his uniform earning more than one casual glance from passers-by. But Betty was nowhere in sight. He was excited by the prospect of seeing her again.
Then he glanced upward and spotted her, there was a small catch in his throat as he watched her enter the descending ramp above him. Craft ran lithely up the downward moving ramp against the grain, causing pedestrians to dodge nervously out of his way. Betty Dancer’s eyes widened, she started to say something, but he caught her in his arms and swung her around, then simply held her, until-the ramp carried them down and deposited them at concourse level.
Betty ignored the many stares. “I’ve been swept off my feet before,“.»she said breathlessly, ”but not like that.“
“You never wrote to me.”
“Well, neither did you.” Betty disengaged herself.
“I… wanted to.” Craft guided her toward the ascending ramp. “I-meant to write, tried to write. I didn’t because…”
“I’m not married, if that’s what’s worrying you.” Betty smiled. “Marriage is… Marriage is obsolete.”
“Marriage,” he said, “will be obsolete when people are. obsolete, which may be sooner than we think.”
Betty caught her breath. “Oak leaves—you’re a major now!”
“Just an accident,” he said. “Betty, you look smashing.”
“But older,” she said ruefully. “Does it show?”
Lew Craft made no rejoinder, leering at her as they rode the - slideway leading to. the parking strip. He didn’t kiss her until they were seated side-by-side in Betty’s tiny electric runabout. She pushed him away after the second long kiss.
“Oh-h-h! High voltage, Major. I do like, but no encores. We have to get going, I’m taking you to a super Christmas party.”
Craft stroked her hair. “You can go to Christmas parties any time at all,” he said.
“Never out of season,” she pointed out.“It just isn’t done. Besides, Mr. Hanford needs me. And he’s the boss.”
Craft kissed her again. “I need you, and I’m the boss.”
“You’re a male chauvinist…” She ran her finger along the line of his jaw. “Sorry, Mr. Hanford’s still the boss, Lew.”
“Let Mr. Hanford find his own Sheila,” he said softly.
“Sheila?” Betty was intrigued. “Wherever did you learn that?”
“Um, I spent a month’s leave in Australia and New Zealand last fall, if you must know.”
“It sounds vulgar.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll bet only chippies are called ‘Sheilas’.”
“Negative. It’s a term of endearment.” Craft kissed her again.
“Oh-h-h!” Betty pushed herself away resolutely.“You stroll home and I leap into your arms…” She looked into his eyes for a dreamy instant, then impatiently flicked back her hair and turned the key, energizing the little runabout.
Betty wheeled rapidly to the surface and drove west on Wilshire, saying not a word until they turned into the underground garage beneath her high-rise Westwood Village apartment.
“Welcome home, Lew,” she said in a tender voice.
==========
It was after midnight when the runabout finally rolled up a limousine-jammed drive high in the Hollywood Hills. Publisher Hoo Hanford’s palatial mansion looked like a random set of glass boxes piled atop one another high above the San Fernando Valley’s lights. Craft studied the moderne, stylized Christmas tree blazing on the rolling lawn. He made a rude noise with his lips, a thumbs-down gesture. Betty smiled and squeezed his hand. Inside, the party was ‘in full swing—even for swingers.
Betty let him circulate while she hunted up her boss to apologize for being AWOL. Craft surrounded a double Scotch and felt more in the spirit of things despite his weird getup. Betty had stopped somewhere in the vast Wilshire District shopping maze, where no one ever slept, persuading him to buy something more suitable for a party than his uniform. Still sated with the smell of her hair, the smooth warmth of her skin, he hadn’t felt inclined to argue, picking out what he thought was a ghastly formal lounging tunic replete with spangles. and a frilly collar, bright orange form-fitting tights—declining the codpiece a salesman insisted went with them—and shiny, tasseled pumps. Five minutes on the terrace, where two dozen guests floundered drunkenly in the pool under a high bubble cover, convinced him that he was the most conservatively dressed man at the affair.
At least ten Santa Claus characters wandered about, Ho-ho-hoing! and ringing bells, having a helluva time pinching Hanford’s squads of Swingerettes, who wore next to nothing and wore it well, buoyed up in front by tiny uplift bras that clung magically to the underside of each breast. Deeply curved, abbreviated wisps of shimmering fabric accentuated the inner thigh line, making even the dumpiest girl look leggy and svelte. Above him, a nude Swingerette floated back and forth in a jazzy, ribboned swing.
Many nominally male guests wore Renaissance tights, now in vogue, Craft noticed, others favored the ruffled sleeves and starched collars of Beau Brummell. Not a few of the younger women wore sheer body stockings—with nothing but sheer woman underneath.
Beginning to enjoy himself, Craft was searching for a waiter when a petite Oriental Swingerette accosted him. “Major Craft?”
Craft leaned close, saying, “We’ve got to Stop meeting like this.”
The girl giggled. “Miss Dancer asked me to find you and invite you into the study. Please, will you follow me?”
“Anywhere!”
The Swingerette giggled again, leading him, bouncing and jiggling pleasantly, around clusters of laughing, drinking guests on the terrace. It was quieter indoors, they threaded their way across the stark, cavernous simplicity of the living room, and turned down a carpeted hall. The Swingerette knocked politely, standing aside.
Conversation broke off. Hoo Hanford excused himself and came forward, one hand outstretched. “Craft, good to have you back.”
“Great to see you again, Mr. Hanford.”
“Hoo. By all means, call me Hoo.”
A ruggedly-built, graying man seated on the sofa next to a demure looking woman grinned a boyish grin. “You’re hooting like a barn owl, old-timer,” he complained. “Bring Betty’s fella in here so we can get a look at him.”
Hanford took the pipe from his jaw, looking vaguely amused. Then he put it back again. “Major Craft,” he said around the pipe, “I’d like you to meet Virginia and Victor Lewellyn. Senator Lewellyn loves to put me down. I let him get away with it because he’s bigger than me. Besides, Vic’s our guest of honor tonight.”
The senator laughed good-naturedly, rising to shake hands. “My pleasure, Craft. Betty just finished telling us you’re newly arrived from the South Pole. Come fill your glass, she’ll be back.”
“Nice to meet you both,” said Craft. “Scotch, no ice, please,” he told Hanford, giving him his glass. “I, uh, didn’t get quite to the Pole,” he confessed. “South Base lies under the Whitmore Mountains in Marie Byrd Land, about five hundred miles from the Pole.”
“Of course —South Base.” Lewellyn regarded Hanford, genial torment in his grin. “You blew it, old-timer, South Base houses an experimental Earth resources project.”
“Naturally.” Hanford was nonplussed. “We ran an article about South Base not long ago. Happen to see it, Craft?”
Lew Craft looked sheepish. “I, no… I can’t seem to get past the pretty… pictures in Swinger,“ he said.
Lewellyn and his wife both roared with laughter. “Your readership speaks,” gibed the senator. “Give up articles and stories, Hoo, concentrate on more nekkid fillies.”J Hartford rattled the pipe against his teeth, making a point of ignoring Lewellyn. “What’s the main target at South Base, Lew?”
Craft sipped his Scotch. “Mostly petroleum, of course, though diamonds and anthracite coal were found back in the Sixties. The ice cap—about seven billion cubic miles of it—weighs down Antarctica with tremendous pressure, depressing the underlying land mass below sea level in places. South Base is slant drilling experimentally in spots where there’re only a few thousand feet of ice. In some places, the ice cap is fourteen thousand feet thick.”
“Whew! Sounds expensive,” said Hanford. “Very expensive.”
“Waiting until more accessible fields run dry might prove even more costly, now that we’ve lost the Mideast supply.”
Senator Lewellyn set down his glass. “Hell, everything’s expensive! As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I can tell you there’s not one government agency or bureau which isn’t drowning in red ink just now. There’s some justification for heavy military spending, what with the Sino-Sov Coalition’s saber rattling, but the real villains are State and Transportation. State spends billions on foreign aid, -while DoT has the transit project on its hands. And ITTS really costs a -fantastic amount.”
“I’ll be joining the ITTS program next month,” said Craft.
“You will?” The senator looked at Craft with new interest. “In what capacity, if I’m not too inquisitive?”
“As a consultant,” informed Craft. “My specialty is heavy equipment—earth-movers, nuclear boring rigs, that sort of thing. I’ve been assigned to the Sacramento-Reno loop that’s…”
Craft broke off as the door opened. Betty Dancer popped in, carrying a sprig of mistletoe. She held it over Craft’s head, pecking him on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Major mine. Did you meet the Lewellyns?”
“Sure did,” said Craft.
“Aren’t they dolls?” Betty took his arm. “Let’s go join the party, what say? Maybe you’ll be lucky and win a goodie, Lew.”
“A… goodie?” asked Craft, perplexed.
Hanford nodded affably. “We’re about to kick off the third annual Swinger Olympics, it’s been a popular feature of our Christmas parties—sack racing, three-legged racing, bobbing for apples, and so on. It may sound corny, but it’s fun.”
“Just like an Iowa pumpkin doins‘,” said Betty. “Wait till you see all those super-sophisticated swingers tossing a raw egg back and forth, stepping away from each other until it breaks in someone’s hand.” She opened the door. “Come on, all, a party needs its guest of honor.”
==========
Smiling, Hoo Hanford got up to follow them. “Stay a minute,” called Senator Lewellyn. He waited until he was sure Betty and the major were beyond earshot. “How well do you know this Craft?” he asked earnestly.
“Oh, we met occasionally when he and Betty were running around together,” said Hanford. “Why?”
“I’ve been looking for him—for someone like him—for quite some time.” Lewellyn became very serious. “Do you suppose Betty will agree to get the major to do some snooping for us?”
Hanford scratched behind one ear. “Probably. I imagine Betty could make Craft roll over and bay at the moon if she wanted to. But, why, Vic? He’s just an Army engineer.”
“He’s an inside man,” corrected Lewellyn, looking pleased with himself, “or will be when he reports to ITTS. You wouldn’t believe .the smokescreen someone’s thrown around the inner workings of ITTS, Hoo. That project literally eats like an elephant, and defecates like a flea. I hate mysteries. When the Senate Finance Committee can’t find out what’s causing the money drain, I worry.”
Hanford fiddled with his pipe, developing a faraway look. “Couldn’t you subpoena enough principals to find out?” he asked.
“Oh, we’ve tried. Alex Volpone, who’s a good front man for Jergensen in. DoT, testified some time ago, then took us on a personally conducted tour—inside the guts of the Washington-Baltimore loop, not just for a ride on the train. He impressed everyone with his expertise, but we learned nothing new. After separating out the obfuscations and drivel obtained in other hearings, little remained but a morass of technical reasons for over-expenditure.”
“Hm-m-m, I may assign one or two of Swinger’s bird dogs to it,” mused Hanford, sounding interested. “Maybe there’s a story.”
The senator made an annoyed grimace. “Hoo, if your staff included Dick Tracy and Sherlock Holmes you still wouldn’t get a story,” he said matter-of-factly. “That’s if Dick and Sherlock didn’t turn up missing afterward. A half-dozen private shamuses, two Naval Intelligence agents, and five or six Justice Department investigators have dropped from sight while sleuthing around ITTS.“
“Don’t be too sure, Vic, we have a handful of good men. Remember that story on Volpone I showed you?”
“Volpone makes fascinating copy,” said Lewellyn, “but a character study of Alessandro Volpone has nothing to do with finding out why ITTS gobbles dollars like an Open rat hole.”
Hartford shrugged. “What makes you think Craft could find out?”
“Because he’s an inside man,” repeated Lewellyn, “a professional military officer who’s above suspicion. I think Craft’s a good bet, he doesn’t say much, but he seems pretty darned bright.”
“OK, I’ll see what I can do, Vic. I’ll talk to Betty.”
“Major Craft looks familiar,” mentioned Virginia Lewellyn.
“You may have remembered Swinger’s All-America Team pictorial spread around ‘78 or ’79,” said Hanford. “He was a standout linebacker at West Point.”
“You mean he’s the fellow who turned down a pot of football gold to stay in the Army?” asked Lewellyn. “Hell, I remember him now, too. Better and better, Hoo, see what Betty says about it.”
“I’ll sic Betty on him,” promised Hanford. “C’mon, let’s party.”
Senator Lewellyn took his wife’s hand. “Maybe another sprig of mistletoe’s hanging somewhere, eh, Ginny? Could you stand a Christmas kiss from the old man?“
Virginia Lewellyn made a wry face. “I’ll spend the whole night shooing Swingerettes away from you,” she said resignedly.
“Deck them halls!” cried the senator happily.
==========
January, 1988
“Michigan Bluff,” remarked Arne Seymour, his breath steaming in the cold. “Not much of a place this time of year, is it?”
“It sounds rather like a card game,” said Alessandro Volpone idly. “Is that the name of the small town we flew over?”
“Michigan Bluff,” assured Seymour. “California’s Gold Rush began in a crossroads called Coloma about twenty miles over that ridge. We’re exactly half way between Sacramento and Reno.” Seymour peeled down the cuff of his mitten, glancing at his watch. “Where the hell is he, Alex?”
“Patience. He’ll be along directly.” Volpone lifted his face toward leaden skies hanging over the lightly forested, snow-clad Sierra Nevada foothills. “Parkinson is fetching him from the Sacramento Airport. They probably ran into snow flurries.”
Seymour puffed his cheeks, doing a little jig to warm himself. “I’m sure there’ll be snow here later today,” he said.
Both men wheeled toward a diesel growl above them as another seventy-ton bite of fused and pulverized rock started its seven-mile downhill trip toward the middle fork of the American River where the rail spur terminated. The newly cut rock would be taken ‘t to an automated Sacramento Valley plant producing both .cement and glass needed to build the many ITTS stations proliferating up and down the Pacific slope. The monster earth-mover crawled past them down the macadam road at a stately five miles per hour, on the flank of its huge bucket was stenciled a blue-and-silver foxhead device encircled by the legend Volpone Industries. Alessandro Volpone’s multibillion-dollar corporation had installed the gargantuan elevator which hauled slag and pulverized rock topside from steadily-burning boring rigs burrowing through solid granite more than a full mile beneath their feet.
==========
“They’re nibbling away down there,” mused Seymour, chafing his cheeks with mittened hands. “I imagine the air storage complex is almost finished. I want to look over—”
“Your mouth, Arne!” Volpone grabbed the other’s arm, exerting sudden, hurtful pressure. “Watch what you say, here in the open.”
The physicist winced. “Hell, no one’s within a half-mile of us!”
“That’s absurd. Modern eaves-dropping techniques are extraordinary. Last week I was shown a prototype laser windowpane pickoff device capable of modulating the vibrations induced in a pane of glass by low-level human speech, Clear, ungarbled reception, Arne.“
Seymour flexed his arm gingerly. “But we aren’t under glass.”
“Aa-a-agh!” Dark eyes clouded with anger, Volpone whirled to stare up at the mountains. “You’re impossible! Someone on that ridge could read your lips with low-power binoculars. Several people know I am here, several thousand would like to learn why.”
“You’re getting paranoid, Alex.” Seymour rubbed his arm. “Why are we here, by the way? Why chase around to ‘these… sites, talking to every new engineer the Army sends us?”
“Habit, my loose-mouthed friend. Thus far, personal acquaintance with high level strangers on the project has paid off handsomely.”
Seymour shrugged. “Parkinson works for us, doesn’t he? You didn’t bother interviewing him.”
Volpone had a gleam in his eye. “There’s a difference. Parkinson is actually one of Emmerson’s men, though nominally on our payroll.”
“CIA?” Seymour looked thoughtful.
“Of course. But, in addition to that…” Volpone regarded the physicist more as an object than a person. “Psychology is not your forte, Arne. Why not admit it.”
“OK, I admit it. So what?”
“So I like to think that it is mine.” Volpone scowled. “Put yourself in the place of this engineer. He was torn from another assignment, directed to report here by some superior who resented the theft of his talents. Our new engineer may be disgruntled, perhaps annoyed at having his love life disrupted. What will make him feel more important, more needed, than a personally conducted tour of the Sacramento-Reno… er, tunnel, by a Cabinet official?”
Seymour’s pale eyes twinkled. “You almost said—”
“Be silent! We both know what I almost said. You make me wish I’d left you in New York to play with your slide rule.”
Seymour giggled. “I like to watch you turn on the old oil, Alex. Here comes your chance.” Seymour pointed to the lowering sky.
The copter, a ghostly black teardrop, flirted momentarily with the overcast’s fringes, then popped down into clear air, thrashing overhead in a wide arc to descend a thousand yards away in the meadow beside the road. Two men jumped down, jogging heads-lowered beyond the rotary wing’s sweep. The copter’s fuselage was decaled in the familiar blue-and-silver foxhead logo.
Volpone studied the approaching men from afar. CIA Agent Parkinson,, supposedly a new Volpone Industries employee, was adept at playing the role of a likable, “hard hat” superintendent. The engineer accompanying him looked sturdy, capable of handling himself. Volpone had been pleased by the performances of the forty men whom he had caused to be spirited away from the Army. They had proven diligent and trustworthy—with several notable exceptions.
“Arne, let’s meet at the shaft head in about two hours,” said the industrialist, making it a subtle directive.
“Right, Alex.” Glad of the opportunity to get in out of the cold, Seymour turned and trudged toward the crest of the hill.
Alessandro Volpone strolled a few dozen paces down the road. “Ho, Parky,” he hailed. “Have a good flight?”
“Right nice, Mr. Volpone,” called the laconic Parkinson. “This here’s Major Lewis Craft. I told him you were visiting us.”
As they exchanged amenities, Volpone looked the younger man over. Craft’s bearing indicated strength of character, as did his firm handshake, establishing a rapport both men sensed immediately. Volpone spun the customary tale— his chance presence while on an inspection tour of ITTS facilities. Then Craft briefly related his recent duties in Antarctica.
At the first opportunity, Parkinson interrupted. “Pardon me, Mr. Volpone. Think I’ll hop an empty and ride back down below.“ ”Certainly, Parky.“ Volpone waved him away, smiling. ”Thank you for meeting Major Craft. I appreciate your trouble.“
“Nothin‘ to it, Mr. Volpone. See you later, Craft.”
“Well, would you like some coffee, Craft?” asked Volpone. “We can talk for a bit, then go below in the dig and look around together.” “Sounds great, Mr. Volpone.” “Wonderful! Let’s round up that coffee, then.” Volpone led the way up the road, his easy gait belying his years.
==========
The elevator had been designed to lift seventy tons of fused, powdered rock, passengers were negligible, incidental cargo. Volpone and Craft entered a small six-passenger operator’s cab that perched on the rim of the gigantic bucket like a teacup balanced giddily on the lip of a double boiler.
“Standardization,” commented Volpone, noting Craft’s interest. “The computers decided long ago that seventy tons was an optimum bite, both for raising and cartage. A boring rig’s nuclear torch and tungsten-carbide bits fuse and grind two hundred tons of reduced rock in little more than one hour, so there’s ample logistics time to run a single bucket to the surface and back.”
Craft gasped despite himself as the floor fell away beneath his feet. Empty, the carrier dropped with disconcerting swiftness. He grinned. “‘It’s fun,”When you get used to it.“
The huge elevator dropped steadily for minutes. Then subtle, ever-increasing pressure made their knees tend to buckle as the cab came to a smooth stop Volpone had taken a transistor-radio-shaped device from an inner coat pocket and was holding it near the double doors while pressing a stud with his forefinger. The doors rolled open, exposing a second set of heavy steel doors.
“We couldn’t be at bore level yet,” said Craft uncertainly.
“You’re observant,” commended Volpone. “This point is only about seven-tenths of the way down to bore level.”
The main doors rumbled open. Craft tensed, finding himself looking into the muzzles of a pair of submachine guns held by two sleepy-eyed United States Marines.
“Conestoga,” said Volpone in a quiet voice. The nearer marine brought his weapon smartly to port arms, the -other, maintained his watch on Craft. “This is Major Craft,” said Volpone, affixing a green-striped badge to his lapel. “He is reporting today. Mr. Parkinson will see that he> issued a badge and formally briefed later in the day. I’ll vouch for his presence now.”
“Yes, sir,” said The black Pfc. “Thumbprint, please, Major, sign your full name, rank, ACfO, number, and date of commission.”
After they had satisfied the marine guards, Volpone led the mystified Craft along a narrow granite passage disfigured by a sea of jack-hammer scores, turning right at the intersection of a longer, broader tunnel lighted by crudely strung construction lamps. As they walked, the distant growl of heavy equipment grew louder. The temperature was comfortable, ‘Craft doffed his coat.
Alex Volpone showed the major into an alcove hollowed from living rock. He closed the door and snapped on a light. “Over here, Craft. I’m sure your curiosity has been whetted by this cloak and dagger business which, I assure you, is quite necessary.” Volpone drew back a rude curtain from a large picture window, stepping aside to let Craft look his fill.
The chamber dwarfed the great hall at Carlsbad Caverns many times over. Arc lights set in the vaulted ceiling stretched almost to the vanishing point, illuminating the jumble of machinery, workmen, and equipment scattered across the vast floor. Squat, tracked vehicles carried crushed rock to a point beneath the window and disappeared from view, hundreds of workmen were busily erecting frame structures, preparing precast masonry walls, installing piping, slideways, paving. Along the side wall, rows of potted shrubs and trees waited to be set out.
Lew Craft turned to regard the industrialist quizzically. Outwardly nonplussed, his eyes were bright with curiosity. “I give up, Mr. Volpone. What is it?”
“A city, Major Craft.” Volpone’s smile was paternal. “We are standing above D Level—what might be termed the central square. There are three levels above us, and eight below.” He hitched a battered wooden chair around to face Craft. “As a professional military officer,” he began, “you are cognizant of the enormous strides Communism has taken in recent years. World War Two lent impetus to the USSR’s territorial ambitions, practically all of Eastern Europe fell under Marxist sway, followed by the Cold War, and Korea.
“But the Reds had only begun. Cuba and Chile fell to them, Vietnam toppled slowly, propped up for a time by American lives. Then Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, the bloody Philippine Revolution reversed the political polarity of a traditionally West-oriented society. The USSR even managed to bring Yugoslavia back into mainstream Communism after Tito’s passing. Then Peru, Ecuador, many South American nations are now teetering, deciding which light to follow.”
Craft himself was teetering back and forth in his chair. “You’re telling me they’re winning. Is that it?”
“They are winning.” Volpone was doubly emphatic. “A sober, proven fact which is obvious to even the most naive geopolitical philosopher. A fact, unfortunately, which at least five US administrations have refused to face. Until the passing of Mao Tsetung, we were confronted with only the Soviet menace. China remained an enigma, accusing the USSR of revisionist Marxist doctrine, engaging in endless border disputes with her neighbor. But after the Common Market signatories banded together to form the United European Nations, Russia made hasty unity overtures, Chinese and Russian differences vanished, if authentic differences ever existed. Joining in a common front against the Western democracies was cheaper for both the USSR and China.“
Volpone paused, marshaling -his thoughts. “Major Craft, an extrapolation of the curve plotting Communist gains since Cold War days points clearly to an approaching climacteric. A decisive confrontation seems unavoidable. The Sino-Sov Coalition, and their satellites, form an awesome, monolithic power bloc. They’ve successfully subverted other nations,, and made serious inroads upon yet others—including the United States, I’m sorry to say.
“Being chief signatory to the SEATO alliance forced us into a hopeless, untenable battle we could not hope to win in Vietnam. But that was merely a dress rehearsal for the Mideast War, which found the Arab world calculatingly armed and funded to mount a holy crusade against tiny, fiercely independent Israel. Israel survived—barely. But Islam fell under the Sirio-Soviet thrall in the end.“
Volpone waxed his hands. “Major,” he said slowly, “the National Security Council believes the world balanced on the brink of cataclysm. We don’t have twenty years, we’ll be damned fortunate to have twenty months.”
Craft’s eyes were slitted. “And we’re digging in, preparing?”
“Precisely.” Volpone’s nod was sober. “The National Redoubt under construction around us is being forwarded on a crash priority basis—a round-the-clock effort to provide safe haven for a representative sampling of our populace. People from every walk of life will be chosen, invited to move to California or Nevada, as nearby the complex as is practicable.”
“Chosen… by whom?” asked Craft.
“Final selection will amount to a lottery, really. Numerous candidates have already been screened and nominated. Those ultimately picked will be taken from the lists by computer—unique qualifications, age, family status, lifetime accomplishments, and availability being the prominent criteria. Archives will be kept in the redoubt’s lowermost area—M Level. The entire contents of institutions like the Library of Congress, plus still photographs, moving pictures, corporate business records, banking and financial “records, and so on, will be stored on microfilm.”
“How many people will the complex sustain?” asked Craft.
“Between seventeen and twenty-five thousand.”
Craft looked startled. “That many? For how long?”
Volpone smiled grimly. “Prepare yourself for a shock. They’ll be able to remain underground approximately twenty-five years.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” said Major Craft.
==========
Alex Volpone looked pleased. “Now ”you begin to see, why we had you pulled away from Antarctica, why I came all the way out here in order to talk to you personally. It’s a gigantic enterprise. I must try with every iota of persuasive power I possess to impress upon you the scalding importance of what we are doing here.“
“I… it seems unreal,” said Craft.
“It is a waking nightmare,” said Volpone. “But we felt a moral obligation to save at’least something, win or lose.”
“That’s… reasonable,” said Craft with less than complete assurance. “Mother of God! How do you propose to store consumables for more than twenty thousand people that long?”
“It isn’t necessary,” Volpone explained. “You see, the National Redoubt lies adjacent to the chordline run of the Reno-Sacramento Jeep. Think what that means, easy access from either the Nevada Side, on California, a believable cover story for thousands of workmen and engineers purportedly engaged, in ITTS i construction, a secret, isolated site, interdicted from thermonuclear attack by thousands of yards of solid, overlying granite. Our chief boons are all spinoffs from ITTS. My corporation manufactures compressor equipment. Guessing what other purpose those compressors are used for shouldn’t be difficult.”
Craft shrugged. “Storing air,” he said. “Or oxygen, if you take the trouble separating it out.”
Volpone clapped his hands. “You’ve confirmed my first impression of you, Craft. No, we don’t bother-isolating oxygen, not with Earth’s entire ocean of air at hand. We’ll store enough air within eighteen months—clean, filtered, smog-less air. Likewise water. The Sierra snowpack will be adequate, assuming we’re allowed this winter, and next, before… the climax. Air-driven turbines will provide wattage to throw away, backed up by an emergency nuclear power station. Tell me, does it begin to make sense?”
“I… yes. It’s pretty far out,” said Craft, shaking his head. “I want to think about it for a while. How about food?”
“Food is no problem, compared to the thirty-four mass-pounds of air each person will require per day. A six months’ supply of indispensable staples will be stocked. Another of VI's diversified product lines is hydroponic farming equipment. The techniques are established, our ‘tenants’ will grow their own food, raise stock animals and fowl…”
A light tap on the door caused Volpone to call, “Yes?”
One of the marines who had admitted them to the redoubt thrust his head in far enough to say, “Phone for you, sir.” He pointed to the squawkbox on the wall with the snout of his submachine gun. “You can take it here, if you want.”
“Thank you.” Volpone rose stiffly. “Excuse me, Craft. This should only take a minute.” He switched on the intercom. “Volpone.”
“Stand-by for voice check, sir,” crackled the speaker.
In a sing-song bass, Volpone chanted, “Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. Mary had a little lamb.”
He waited. Presently, the squawkbox erupted. “Thursday night at eleven o’clock.” There was a faint click. The line went dead.
Volpone turned, glancing at his watch. He eyed Craft speculatively, his manner suddenly distant. “I must apologize for this,” he said. “I’d intended for us to have dinner together and continue our discussion. Now, I’m afraid that’s impossible.
“Why don’t you wander around for a bit, Major, and get acquainted? Your temporary badge will admit you almost anywhere within the complex. When you’re ready, have the marines at the portal call down for Parkinson. Parky will see you to your quarters.”
“I think I will, Mr. Volpone,” said Craft. “It was really a kick meeting you like this and, uh, thanks.”
“The privilege was mine, Craft. I’m sure we can count on you.” Volpone held out his hand, beaming. “Good-bye.”
After the Undersecretary of Transportation closed the door, Craft went to stand before the window, pondering the movement of men and machines far below him. He seemed entranced.
“The Hall of the Mountain King,” he muttered under his breath.
Then he frowned. Today was Wednesday, January eighteenth. He speculated about what sort of person might be able to summon a big wheel like Alessandro Volpone with a single, cryptic phone call, for he recognized a summons when he heard one.
He thought about it for a time, then dismissed it with a shrug.
==========
January, 1988
“I wish you didn’t have to go out.” The lovely, raven-haired girl pouted, petulance in her voice. “You’ve been away three days, Alex. I’d so looked forward to our being together tonight.”
Volpone touched her hand. “Business, Marissa. I’ve no choice.”
The limousine drew alongside the curb on Adams Drive. The central Washington ITTS station had been built under The Mall, offset slightly so that near-surface arrival and departure tubes would avoid, sub-basement levels of the Capitol, as well as the Washington Monument’s underpinnings. It was thirteen minutes to eleven when Volpone kissed the girl and got out.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked in an injured tone.
“I’ll call.” Volpone smiled reassuringly, still holding her hand. “We’ll go to dinner—perhaps see a show.”
“Good night,” she said, turning away.
Volpone watched the limousine out of sight, then sighed and hurried to the descending ramp. He did not buy a ticket, making his way through the turnstile by virtue of an electromagnetically keyed DoT pass card which he dipped briefly into the ticket slot. The yellow slideway carried him to a boarding concourse labeled Central Baltimore, whose decor was also yellow.
Volpone quickly checked all ten visible cabs when the first arriving train’s row of doors flashed open. Few people got off, one or more individuals still occupied every compartment. He sauntered to another segment of the boarding concourse, found a vacant eight-passenger cab, and entered, activating the device he’d used to gain admittance to the California redoubt. The safety shells and outer door of his particular compartment closed immediately.
He relaxed through the first gentle surge of acceleration, then tugged out a collapsible spike antenna from the electronic keyer and depressed a second stud, watchfully studying the. lucent passenger information display. Suddenly the message read, AN UNSCHEDULED ONE MINUTE STOP WILL BE MADE FOR MAINTENANCE PURPOSES. PLEASE REMAIN SEATED.
Volpone waited patiently until much heavier than normal deceleration pressed him deeply into the seat. He braced himself as the cab rocked to a horizontal position, watching the door.
When diaphragm seals expanded to allow pressurization in the adjacent tube, the outer doors separated vertically. He bolted from the compartment, holding the keyer chest-high in front of him. This aspect of entering’the sanctuary always frayed his nerves. One whole minute was allotted for entrance, true, and should something go amiss there was always the opportunity of jumping back aboard the train before the tube diaphragms relaxed, the door sealed, and most breathable air whooshed away. Nevertheless, thoughts of stumbling, perhaps dropping the keyer, made him doubly careful.
Pressures equalized, the steel-sheathed portal opened. Volpone entered the redoubt with forty-two seconds to spare, sorting over in his mind the week’s passwords. “Pickaxe,” he said in his resonant bass, clipping on the green-striped badge.
“Yes. sir.” The marines lowered their weapons, ushering him briskly to an elevator marked Authorized Personnel Only. He used the keyer to command the elevator’s doors to dilate, gripping the handrail as the floor fell away beneath his feet. He emerged into a stark corridor more than six thousand feet beneath Laurel, Maryland.
Three men were waiting when the sanctuary’s door opened. Senator Raymond Stillworth, shaggy-maned and florid-faced, conversed quietly with his alter ego, United Television Network board chairman Nathanial Abrams. Dr. Rolfe Emmerson, who had been CIA Director under two preceding administrations, made coffee with saturnine concentration.
“Gentlemen.” Volpone drew out a chair, settling himself.
“General Patt’ll be late,” drawled Stillworth, regarding Volpone with the innocent, vacuous grin that masked a mind capable of cutting through side issues and non-germane detail like a rip saw. “The President called a fitfe drill at the White House, Alex. Patt’ll be along directly. How’re you keepin‘?“
“Not too badly, Ray,” admitted Volpone. “I was notified of the meeting out in California yesterday. Who ordered it?”
“Me.” Nat Abrams held one finger aloft in the manner of. a toddler asking permission to go to the bathroom. “The money situation’s still rotten as hell, Alex. I thought we needed a powwow.”
“I see. Did you manage to squelch that magazine article, Nat?”
“Not yet,” said Abrams. “I’m going to squeeze Hanford,” The publisher, slowly. He‘ll come around, leave it to me.“
Abrams then launched into a dissertation on money and its uses which utterly bored Volpone. The TV boss, a pipsqueak promoter at heart, had not the slightest knowledge or “feel” for making money work to -best advantage. Volpone found him repellent, disliking him in a casual, someday-we’ll-do-something-about-him way. .Volpone lighted a cigarette and listened with half an ear.
He was lighting his second cigarette, ten minutes later, when USAF Lieutenant General Michael Patt strode through the opening doorway and set his briefcase beside the table. “Good evening.”
“How y’all, General?” Senator Stillworth leaned back, pudgy hands clasped across his ample belly. “Nathanial here was goin‘ over the dreadful lack of capital we’re experiencin’ right now. Lordy, our little project surely does spend a potful!”
“You’d better bring me up to speed,” said Patt in a monotone.
Volpone liked the general every bit as much as he disliked Abrams. Ramrod straight, Michael Patt was all of sixty, he looked a robust forty-five, exuding that undefinable air of command Volpone knew was impossible to counterfeit. Despite his lack of a fourth star, Patt generated the Strategic Air Command and acted as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“In a nutshell,” said Abrams eagerly, “we’ve milked every cow in the barn twice-over. We’ve still got the shorts. Unless new money shows up, we’ll have to hold the line right where we are.”
“Just where are we, as of today?” asked the general.
Four pairs of eyes swung expectantly toward Volpone. “There are 3,250 districts in operation,” he said from memory, “with a thousand compressor sites in each dis-trict-3,005 sites , offshore, the remainder land-based. Call it 3.25 million compressors.”
“Which means?” asked Stillworth, squinting.
“Every twenty-four hours, about 7.02 times 1012 mass-pounds of compressed air is—”
“Alex for Chrissakes cut out the gibberish!” Stillworth wagged his head in frustration. “What’s that mean in English?”
Volpone regarded Stillworth narrowly. “Every day, we store some 3.5 billion mass-tons of compressed air,” he said clearly and distinctly, “less the minute fraction ITTS uses.”
“It sounds a helluva lot!” Stillworth scratched his shoulder. “Don’t suppose it amounts to a sizable dent, though.”
“Except at higher altitudes, no,” said Volpone. “We have a long pull before, the effects become noticeable at sea level.” “None of us’ll live that long,” said Stillworth wistfully.
“Aren’t we tracking our major milestones almost exactly?” inquired Patt. “Maybe it only seems to be moving slowly, Ray. My chief concern is that Sino-Sov agents may penetrate our activities before they can become effective. Have there been any red flags in your department, Rolfe?”
Emmerson cleared his throat, setting his coffee cup slowly and deliberately in the saucer. “There’s been no hint of penetration ”by foreign agents to date,“ he said in a thoughtful manner. ”Our people in China and the USSR have watched Closely for signs of a security break. “The ITTS cover story would seem to be working nicely for Lifeboat. As for Project Luft, our supposed oceanic radioactive waste disposal cover tends to shy people away. More, who is going to trot about measuring air intake at the various sites? Frankly, I’m much more concerned with keeping Army and Naval Intelligence, and the FBI, off our necks.“
==========
A debate began at once. General Patt took a stand in favor of toughing it out along the lines of the “game plan” laid down more than thirteen years before, whereupon the senator made a lamentable pun about “standing pat,” contending that hastening Luft’s fruition in some manner was the only viable alternative to building more compressors and storage tanks.
Rolfe Emmerson listened carefully, contributing nothing. Volpone decided to stay out of it himself, since Patt needed little help. He studied the senator covertly. The Senate Majority Leader’s incisive, country-boy drawl made him sound like some low-pressure auto salesman. It hadn’t always been so, Volpone reminded himself. In the past decade Raymond Stillworth had changed radically. Volpone remembered their lengthy conversations in times past, debating the responsibility of government to business, and vice versa and the tacky, long-gestating progeny taxation measure. Ray Stillworth had once been known as “Old Fog-cutter” on Capitol Hill—a noble sobriquet for a legislator of the old school, a southern knight who duelled with rhetoric rather than pistols, but in a fashion every bit as deadly.
Now Stillworth was aging, his former ruddy glow had given way to the broken-venuled complexion of a tippler, and his patient, career-long search for a path to the White House had transformed itself into a pell-mell dash toward political power at any price. Volpone had reason to believe that Stillworth now nursed dictatorial ambitions through his covert leadership of the ultra-right-wing American Rangers, which no one was supposed to know about.
Volpone had first been introduced to the barrelchested, silver-tongued senator at a party following the 1972 national convention, drawing him aside with showered compliments and explaining who he was. He clearly recalled Stillworth’s exact words, “Oh, ho! So you’re one of the fellas who’re buildin‘ those fancy underground tube trains.”
They’d gotten drunk together, Stillworth and Alessandro Velpone, getting along famously. Sometime during the evening, he’d invited the senator to weekend at his Long Island estate.
==========
Working in his office the following Thursday, Volpone had received a call from Stillworth’s secretary. The senator could be picked up at La Guardia on Saturday morning, if that was convenient. Volpone would have none of it, insisting upon sending his personal Jet to Washington to collect him.
Cordially greeting Stillworth when the plane landed, the drive out to Foxhaven had formed a good beginning. Stillworth had not said as much, but Volpone sensed that he was thoroughly impressed by the welcome.
All day Saturday—golfing, dining, lounging about the estate—had been wasted motion so far as Volpone’s purposes were concerned. But by late Sunday morning the senator had begun to let down his hair, his true feelings about the nation’s future sounding dour indeed. A student of history, Stillworth had delved. into the traditional evolution of Western cultures, frontier society to agrarian society, followed by a crude republic, then a shortlived democracy which degenerated into revolution and eventual dictatorship. He felt America was traveling the same rutted course, providing Volpone with excellent ammunition.
Their views on the threat posed by Communist territorial ambitions had dovetailed precisely. Alone on the terrace for sundowners, he'd taken a deep breath and told Raymond Stillworth of the grandiose programs he’d undertaken, remembering his numbness while awaiting the man’s reaction.
Stillworth had roared with laughter. “You’re gonna do what!”
It had taken the rest of their time together to convince him it wasn’t a joke. At the airport, just before the senator emplaned, they’d shakes hands. “It surely does intrigue me, Alex. Sounded like a screwball notion when you first told me, but-I do begin to see possibilities. Call me next week an‘ we’ll talk some more.”
Five months and eleven days later, working together in a hardsell, soft-sell tandem, they had solicited CIA Chief Agent Rolfe Emmerson, and Emmerson had paved the way for recruiting then-Brigadier General Michael Patt. But Stillworth, and Stillworth alone, had recruited Nat Abrams, saying “We got a military big wheel, an industrial tycoon, a government windbag, an‘ a super-spy. What we need bad is a media boss. Then we got ’em surrounded,”
Surround ‘em they had! In less than sixteen months the first redoubt came off the drawing boards, construction starting in late fall of 1973—this very complex, paralleling the Baltimore-Washington ITTS bore, the first-built segment of the Northeast Corridor Network linking all major population centers from the nation’s capital to Boston.
And Raymond Stillworth had provided the primary impetus, had been the driving force behind Project Lifeboat, as the redoubt system was known, in the early days.—
==========
“Well, Alex?” Eyes bulging, the senator was staring at him.
“Pardon me,” said Volpone. “I wasn’t paying attention, Ray.“
“Money, Alex,”- said Nat Abrams. “We’ve been racking our skulls, trying to come up with new sources of revenue. It’s that, or live with what we’ve got for a few months—years—then go like the hammers of hell later to catch up.”
“Luft? There can be no such thing as ‘catching up’,” rumbled Volpone. “I thought I made that clear. Luft works exactly like mortgage amortization. When you begin paying off a fully amortized loan, most money goes toward paying the interest. Gradually the principal curve steepens, during the last years, almost all of the payment is applied toward repaying the principal. Our timetable calls for expansion on an ever-slackening, but steady, never-ceasing scale. The frantic building pace we paid for so dearly in the beginning will earn tremendous dividends, but the ‘principal’ curve is still practically flat. We must maintain our projected manufacture schedule for both compressors and pressure vessels, or the base we’ve labored so long to create will be meaningless.”
“Hell’s fire! None of Us’ll live to see those ‘dividends’.”
“We knew that when we began, Ray,” said General Patt, irritated. “We weren’t thinking entirely of ourselves, were we?”
Swelling with anger, the senator started to frame a retort. He thought better of it and subsided. “OK, if any more tanks an‘ compressors get built, we gotta figure out a way’t‘pay for ’em. How about it?“
Abrams, awaiting his chance to regain stage center, said, “Alex, I’ve been running down the list of public, revenues. We’re mutually agreed, our private resources have completely dried up.” Abrams gave a nervous laugh. “Unless you have a few bucks tucked away somewhere…”
Alessandro Volpone scowled. “I have sufficient personal funds to meet household expenses for another year or two,” he said sternly. “I’ll be happy to bring in statements and invite each of you to match my contributions dollar-for-dollar.”
Stillworth wheezed with laughter, throwing back his head and clapping his hands with glee. Abrams barked appreciatively, while the general merely chuckled. Even Rolfe Emmerson smiled sadly.
“That’s kind of you, Alex,” gasped the senator. “A billionaire, invitin‘ us peasants to pony up an’ match the pot with him!”
“An ex-billionaire,” corrected Volpone. “But I’ve purchased something the entire gross national product couldn’t buy today. I’ve ‘helped create an irreversible advantage over conniving vermin who are cold-bloodedly planning our extinction. When the evil day comes, what will money be worth?”
It was quiet in the sanctuary for five seconds. Then General Patt said, “Lets go over that list again, Abrams.”
“Sure.” Abrams leafed through his papers. “We’ve never tapped Federal income, or sales taxes, or tried. Too many people and too many agencies are involved. We catch a dribble from public land rentals—parks, and so on—and a little more from faculty taxes.”
“Which’s that one?” demanded Stillworth.
“The rated earnings tax on a person’s trade or profession. We’ve also hit social payroll levies—social security, unemployment, health insurance—though that was a damned hard nut to crack. The senator opened some doors for us there.”
“The crooked senator,” smirked Stillworth.
“Then we come to the gravy,” continued Abrams. “Commodity tariffs, and consumption taxes—the value added tax on manufacturing, packaging, and distributing goods-have done us the most good.”
“Not forgetting the hundreds of millions we’ve siphoned from DoT’s legitimate budget over the years,” reminded Volpone.
“Uh… sure, DoT,” conceded Abrams. “All in all, the new progeny taxation should eventually provide the greatest source of public revenue in sight. What the hell, we set it up! But it isn’t being felt, nor will it be for a long time. People are really up in arms, thoughts of paying for the privilege of having chil—”
“The goddam Stable Population Bill short-circuited it, anyhow.” Stillworth glanced around the table, daring anyone to refute him. “First we make ‘em pay to have kids, then tell ’em they cain’t have but two even if they can afford it. Dammit, to me that don’t make a whole helluva lot of sense!”
When no one offered a comment, General Patt asked, “What new programs are in the offing?”
“Citizenship tax,” said Abrams. “protection tax—fire and police support levies—and the Federal auto license fees.”
“Y’might get the protection thing passed, what with riots an‘ longhaired scum meanderin’ about the streets,” said Stillworth impatiently, “but that ‘citizenship’ tax won’t fly. Letters would fill my office to the rafters if my constituents had to pay somethin‘ called a citizenship tax.” He looked questioningly at Volpone. “Federal auto licensin’ was your peanut, wasn’t it?”
Sourly, Volpone assured him that it was. “Secretary Jergenson showed me the door last week when I broached the subject again,” he told them. “He refuses to let his name be used as an endorsement, though I’ve done everything but get down on my hands and knees and beg.”
“Uh-huh. Win some, lose some,” philosophized Stillworth, inspecting the rock ceiling with a faraway expression. “Goose egg,” he said. “Anybody got any bright ideas?”
It had turned into a rather glum gathering. Volpone looked from Emmerson to the general, from Abrams to Stillworth. “I have some friends,” he said cautiously, “who might be persuaded to invest.”
“Friends?” Stillworth’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Seems to me we’ve kicked that melon around before, Alex.”
“We have,” admitted Volpone, “but never realistically.”
The senator snickered. “Your ‘friends’,” he said in a scornful voice, “may be the last bastion of American democracy, eh?”
General Patt looked perturbed. “Gangsters, Alex?”
“Businessmen,” corrected Volpone. “You’re thinking of the old days, General. Some of America’s most prominent families were established by slave traders, robber barons, pirates. My friends do have a similar heritage, but for many years they’ve been only businessmen, i assure you.”
“Crazy goddam notion!” Stillworth rudely banged his fist on the table. “I propose puttin‘ it to a vote, an’ good riddance.”
“After all, you did ask for suggestions,” pointed out Volpone. “As always, majority rules. Shall we vote?”
“One moment, Alex,” cautioned Rolfe Emmerson. “Will you have to give them full knowledge of our affairs?”
“Yes,” said Volpone. “No fish story would sway them, I’m sure.”
“But do you—can you—trust them?”
Alex Volpone smiled disarmingly.“I can and do, though it’s not easy to explain why. You have to know them as… I do.”
“Well, hooray! that surely is a convincin‘ argument.” Stillworth banged the table again. “I say we vote, dammit. A show of hands, all in favor of lettin’ Mr. Volpone put our necks in the wringer by sharin‘ our little secrets with his ’friends‘?” Volpone lifted his hand casually, watching Emmerson. The CIA Director’s features were placid, but the conflict in his eyes was plain. Rolfe Emmerson eventually raised his arm.
Which made Patt’s the deciding vote. Predictably, Abrams and Stillworth formed a common front. Disgusted, Volpone was about to lower his hand when the general reluctantly lifted his.
Stillworth was astounded. “I cain’t imagine you’re serious!”
“We’ve got to continue building tanks and compressors,” said Patt in a low voice. “Money is a must-horn anywhere.”
“But… from the goddam Mafia?”
“From anywhere,” insisted Patt. “The end justifies—”
“You’re pullin‘ my laig!” Stillworth cried. He shook his head angrily. “Well, I been beat before, an I’m gonna get beat again in the future, but… you gentlemen surely do surprise me.”
“You’ll find It’s for the best,” placated Volpone. “Unless I’m mistaken, we can count on a very significant contribution.”
Volpone felt the senator’s burning eyes upon him. “Let’s all pray you’re not mistaken, Mr. Volpone,” Stillworth drawled.
With a scraping of chairs, the meeting began to break up.
==========
February, 1988
A tarred road led from the main highway to a three-story rock gatehouse. An old. man wearing an officer’s billed cap came out slowly to examine the silent electric limousine with rheumy disinterest. He lifted the locking pin and rolled the wrought-iron gate aside, saluting gravely as the car squeezed through.
Under the tires, crushed pink -stone made a whispering reminder of the wealth required to own and maintain such an expanse of private land. The drive wound for more than a mile beneath a row of maples standing bare-limbed?, and stark against the buttermilk winter sky, paralleled by a spotless white rail fence. Beyond the fence were stretches of open meadowland where horses and cattle, grazed in the summertime.
The drive ended in a cobbled court partially .covered by a porte cochere entrance. Patinaed [sic] by age, though scrupulously kept, a Georgian mansion built entirely of field-stone looked down through diamond-paned windows. Five or six wide stone steps led to a fifteen-foot-high arched doorway where the butler waited.
“The stocky, unsmiling driver held the limousine’s door for his elderly passenger, whom the butler showed into a lofty vestibule containing giant mirrors, statuary, and floored in terrazzo. Beyond the vestibule, a cathedral-like parlor offered mahogany-paneled doors recessed in classic alcoves of carved stone. Monstrous chandeliers depended from a domed ceiling above twin balconies and the travertine chimney piece of a huge fireplace.
Alessandro Volpone descended the stair in a weary lope. “Vito,” he called, beaming, “you look well. Very well.”
“For an old man,” temporized Vito Vico, inspecting Volpone with candor. “You, on the other hand, seem very tired.”
Volpone’s laugh boomed through Foxhaven, sounding a trifle forced. “Come, let’s go into the library. We’ll have some of that Madeira you prize so and renew acquaintances.”
Don Vito Vico, Capo Mafioso of the largest “family” on the Eastern Seaboard, was not primarily known for his tact. “You said that our meeting was important, Alessandro. Business first?”
Crestfallen, Volpone watched the Don warm his hands before the blazing fire. Drawing out a hundred-millimeter cigarette, Vico inserted it carefully into an ivory holder with palsied hands. Volpone hurried to bend and snap his lighter, saying, “Vito, I’m in trouble. I’m forced 19 beg for help—a great deal of help.”
“Salud!” The Don smiled sadly, holding his wineglass aloft, trouble was an ancient, well-known adversary. “What are friends for but to help one another? And, the nature of your… trouble?”
Volpone sipped his wine. “Money,” he said unsteadily.
Vice’s craggy features remained expressionless, his lips pursed in a silent whistle. “I find that surprising,” he said. “For many years you have owned a large, prosperous corporation—”
“Which is deeply mortgaged.”
“I’m aware of that. We were amazed when Leonard Colo” came to us with the proposal to mortgage your holdings. I’ve no doubt that it was necessary, but… all right, you need money. What shall we expect in return, Alessandro?“
“Call it a guarantee that business will continue to prosper. Without money from you, I can’t… be sure.”
“Protection?” Vico’s lip curled in amusement.
Volpone chuckled tiredly. “That sounded absurd, I know. Forgive me. You’re right, I’m very tired this evening.”
“Take your time, explain the situation slowly. You remind me of your father the night he came to us pleading for money with which to begin- a new business venture he had in, mind.“
“My… father?” Volpone looked surprised.
The Don nodded. “It was 1934— the height of what people call the Great Depression. Many were without jobs.”
“My father included,” said Volpone. “He mentioned it often.”
“Your father included,” agreed the Don. “He had been unemployed nearly two whole years, no one was hiring engineers in those days. He told us of an itch to put a radical new air compressor design on the market. We tried to persuade him it was the wrong time, the wrong financial climate, but he was right, we were wrong.”
“Compressed Air Corporation!”
Vito Vico brightened with pleasure. “Knowing him, I’m not surprised that he never told you. We were paid back handsomely for our faith in your father. He was an honorable man, Alessandro.” The Don looked up at Volpone with a satisfied expression. “And you are your father’s son.”
“Thank you, Vito, I’ll try to live up to that.” Volpone took to pacing the carpeting, hands behind his back. He suddenly went to the hand-carved double doors of the library, glanced briefly into the hall, then closed and locked the doors. He came back to Vico, pulling an armchair’around to face him squarely.“I must tell you something in strictest confidence, Vito. It must not pass beyond these walls.“
Vico’s brows lifted. “You would pledge me to secrecy?”
“Even you, Vito.” Volpone leaned forward. “I must.”
“Walls sometimes overhear things,“ warned Vico.
“Not these. Foxhaven is one place I’m absolutely sure of.”
Vico stubbed out his cigarette, laying the ivory holder to one side! “Ml keep your counsel, Alessandro. Omerta.”
Volpone began his dissertation by tolling Communist gains since World War Two, being extremely well-versed through having lectured over forty Army engineers. Vico listened, without discernible emotion, extracting another cigarette after a time. Volpone lighted it for him, then resumed his narrative.
“Let me be certain that I understand you,” said the Don at last. “You, and this group of other important individuals, have taken, it upon yourselves to safeguard the US from attack forever?”
“Um, it’s much more involved than that,” said Volpone. “We’ve adopted both long- and short-term plans, Project Lifeboat to counteract the threat of thermonuclear attack, and the other to gain an ever-increasing advantage, over a period of many generations, which our enemies cannot hope to equal. Every passing hour gives us further advantage. We hope to develop Project Luft into—”
“Luft?” questioned the Don.
“The German word for air,” explained Volpone. “Luft will become a club in the hands of generations yet to come.”
Don Vito Vico sighed. “Hearing that from a lesser man, Alessandro, I would leave this house and never-enter it again. Why haven’t you approached the authorities with your schemes?”
“We tried twice with Lifeboat,” said Volpone. “It’s sad, but our government seems to have the attitude that no problem is too big, or too complicated, to be successfully ignored. But approaching certain selected officials did form the basis of our immediate safeguard—the ‘Lifeboat’ ‘redoubts.”
“Redoubts?” Vico frowned. “The word is not familiar.”
“It’s an archaic term,” Volpone told him. “In the days of cavalry and sabers, it described an earthwork, a rampart thrown up to protect the defenders of a military position.”
“I believe I understand. You convinced the government of the need for defensible hideaways against attack by atom bombs.”
“Correct, though they never became fully convinced, I’m afraid. The upshot was a series of Federal allocations with which to build two underground redoubts—the first adjacent to the Baltimore-Washington ITTS tube, and another we’re working on now out in California. You see, constructing and supplying the redoubts with breathable air goes hand-in-hand with building ITTS tubes. We’ve funded construction of… er, others on our own.“
“Others?” asked Vico, “interest in his voice. ”How many others?“
Volpone said, “In all, there are forty-one redoubts.”
The Don sat upright. “Forty-one! How big . . ? That is, how many individuals are to be saved in each of these… fortresses?”
“Each will accommodate fifteen to eighteen thousand computer-warned occupants in the event of attack,” said Volpone, “with added space for growth as children are born underground.”
“Children!” Vito Vico stared at the younger man for several seconds. “Alessandro, you would not jest with an old man?”
“Never Vito. It would’be an extremely unfunny joke.”
“In the names of all the Saints, how long must these poor… Lifeboat people remain in their holes in the. ground?”
“Years. Perhaps as long as twenty-five years—until the Earth above them cleanses itself of radioactivity.”
Vico passed through another lengthy period of silence. “And that is your ‘short-term’ safeguard— twenty-five years? They will breathe,” asked the Don in awe, “work, sleep, eat, and make love?”
“Deep down in-the Earth’s crust,” assured Volpone.
“I’m almost afraid to ask about your ‘club’ to hold over the heads of our enemies. Project Luft, is it?”
Volpone looked haggard. He leaned close to the Don. “Vito, our long-term solution is absolutely fantastic.”
“Alessandro, I believe you!” Vico shuddered slightly. “Remember, I have already had one mild heart seizure.”
Volpone became very sincere. “Fantastic both in concept, and as it’s being carried out. Funding Luft is the reason why I came begging to you this evening, continuing our air storage tank and compressor building programs is vital. It’s”… tell me, do you ride the ITTS trains often?“
Vito Vico had a dazed look about him. “Seldom. Driving out to see you this afternoon is the longest trip I’ve undertaken in weeks. Alessandro, can you really be serious about all of this?”
“Deadly serious. You’re familiar with the pneumatic-driven tube trains, aren’t you? Compressed air pushes the cars—”
“Vaguely familiar.” The Don waved his hands helplessly. “Your company manufactures the air compressors. Am I wrong?”
“You’re perfectly correct,” said Volpone. “But what very, very few people know is that we have also been building vast numbers of intake impellers and huge compressors designed too snatch air and store it at thirty-two hundred atmospheres in enormous pressure vessels constructed of steel and reinforced concrete.“
“Air,” guessed Vico, “for the underground people to breathe.”
Volpone’s smile was charitable. “In addition to that,” he said He started to continue, then paused. “Vito, have you heard of malaise, the respiratory complaint which recently drove the inhabitants of high altitude locales like the Himalayas in Tibet, or the high Andean plateau, down towurd sea level?”
Vico looked smitten. “I confess that I have not.”
“Malaise is a debilitating weakness caused by anoxia, the lack of sufficient air to breathe. It’s the first perceivable symptom resulting from Project Luft, our long-range program to slowly but surely deplete the Earth’s air blanket.”
Vico blanched. “You are stealing the Earth’s atmosphere?”
“Slowly but surely,” repeated Volpone solemnly. “Or at least a significant portion of it. No one will be protected, Vilo, except those fortunate, chosen few who will populate the redoubts. Carried to ultimate fruition, generations hence, Project Luft could depopulate the Northern Hemisphere, if not the entire Earth.”
Don Vito Vico made the sign of the cross on his frail chest.
END OF PART ONE - TO BE CONTINUED.