Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER TWELVE

Thursday, December 11, 2042

Jennifer Caw tapped her sunglasses against the metal rim of the glass-topped beach table. “It was the Jews, I say. The Israelis, backed by their puppets in the United States.”

“Doubtful,” Hans Borchardt countered. “They’d kill their relatives who still live in Russia. Madness! Not even their most hawkish Jews would do that!”

“They might think a few hundred thousand lives were a fair exchange for knocking off their most dangerous enemy. Or they may have the antidote… vaccine, whatever… for Pacov. Smuggle that into Russia first, and the Jews there form a ready-made occupying force.”

“A handful, mostly untrained, women and kids, many old or infirm. Be serious, Jennifer!”

“Then, too, the Israelis may have had information we don’t. Maybe they saw a first strike as the only way out of a nasty situation. Remember the troop movements north of Iran a few months ago? There were Arabs or Pakistanis or Afghans caught inside Russian-controlled territory about the same time, weren’t there? Plenty of stateless assassins the Israelis could hire.”

“The big powers would never allow the balance to be upset! Neither an Israeli attack on Russia, nor a Russian thrust to halt the Israelis’ push through Iran… as long as they stopped at the Afghan border. The Americans and the Russians had this all worked out “

“Precisely why the Israelis might have used Pacov: a means to break the deadlock and get on with their expansion. A ‘surgical first strike.’ Tell nobody, and get the job done.”

“Too risky! They gain little…”

“Crap!” Jennifer popped her tongue against her teeth, one of her least ladylike habits. “Look at Eastern Europe now: empty, rich, and chock-full of loot all the way from the German border over to Siberia! Practically no defenses: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland a jumble of desperate refugees and practically no local authorities left; Germany struggling to keep the refugees from crossing her own borders; Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans harmless; Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in turmoil; China already gobbling up Mongolia and the east! Are you telling me that Israel doesn’t gain by this? She can grab giant hunks of Russian and Ukrainian territory before anybody else gets to ‘em! Lebensraum, Hans, Eretz Israel! Kosher delicatessens in Kharkov and Donetsk!”

Borchardt fussed with his white Club Lingahnie tee-shirt. His first acquisition on Ponape had been a monumental tropical sunburn. He pursed his lips and said, “The Americans will not let Israel do that. Already they ‘re helping the survivors. Some of their teams have reached Moscow: decon squads, doctors, epidemiologists… not occupation troops.”

“They’ll find excuses to stay. So will the British in Leningrad, the Germans in Kiev, and the Chinese in Vladivostok. First they become permanent missions, then colonists. After a while they own the place, like the Israelis on the West Bank eighty years ago.” The sunglasses ticked out a distracting rhythm against the tabletop. Jennifer Caw played to win, even in a friendly debate. “No, the Israelis came, they saw, they conquered… and they stayed. Mulder picked up a radio newscast yesterday that said three Israeli armored columns are already moving north from Tabriz through Tbilisi. Are they going straight up to Moscow? Or sending a spearhead northwest to Kharkov and Kiev? Or just grabbing everything they can reach?”

“No question it’s the Jews,” Wrench proclaimed from beneath his sun-hat. Lessing had thought him asleep. “Who profits from exterminating Russia? The West, right? And who runs the West?”

Lessing stayed motionless. The others mostly let him alone, but Wrench delighted in a little missionary work now and then.

Jennifer asked carefully, “You fought for the Israelis in Syria, didn’t you, Alan? You must know them well.”

“I was only a hired hand. A mere. No policy decisions.” He felt her eyes prying at the top of his skull. He refused to be dragged into these discussions. Give him something to do, and he’d do it. Debate was not his forte.

After a moment Jennifer went on: “It’s not fair to blame only the Jews, even if they do turn out to be responsible for Pacov. Others in the System profit as well: the great corporations, the banks, the big international combines… all those who gain from an American-Jewish hegemony over a half-empty world.”

“Half empty?” Wrench chuckled. “Like the old joke: the pessimist sees the glass as half empty, the optimist as half full. The Jews’ll drink the contents and keep the glass, too! And make sure the world loves ‘em for doing it. The ‘Chosen People’ value their lovable image. Oh, yeah, they’ll be kind to any surviving immunes, the women, and the kids. You’ll sec: they’ll turn it into the greatest dramatic mini-series ever seen on TV! One that makes you feel all warm and gushy inside.”

“We may be wrong.” Borchardt mused. “The Palestinians could have done this… or the Latin Americans, the Ethiopians, Afghans, or Salvadorans. God knows there are enough dispossessed and bitter people out there. Even the British or the French or some smaller nation…!”

“Or loonies right out of the funny-papers. Wrench scoltea. Borchardt fingered the nape of his neck gingerly. It was bright red. “Did you hear that some are blaming the neo-Nazis? If they knew about its, we’d top the list!”

“We’d have to be crazy!” Jennifer exploded. All the money we’ve spent to legitimize ourpolitical movement! Years of planning wasted! What do we want with a plague-ridden world… or an atomic cinder?” .

“Nazis make the best villains,” Wrench snickered. “When in doubt, punch out the least popular kid on the block! I’m sure they can work an evil Nazi super-scientist into their mini-series, a gang of black-uniformed SS troopers, a couple of death camps.”

Lessing grew bored listening. These people speculated and wrangled endlessly, the way monkeys picked fleas. They had been at it since leaving India a week ago, an aimless, meandenng safari that had taken them first to South Africa, where Mrs. Delacroix s friends warned her against remaining: not only out of fear of Pacov but because trouble was brewing with the Blacks again. Mulder had urged them to join him on Ponape, as remote — and safe— a spot as could be found in an increasingly unstable world.

They all had accepted. Mrs. Delacroix appeared pale and disoriented, and Liese stayed close by her side. Jennifer Caw was used to travelling around the world with no more detailed plan than tomorrow’s plane ticket. She was wealthy, Lessing learned, the offspring of two wealthy South American “Descendant” families. Her father had built up a computer empire in the United States.

Borchardt tagged along, due more to an infatuation with Jennifer Caw than out of fear of Pacov. His business involved liaisons between European and Third World corporations, and he spent much time on Ponape’s primitive satellite telecom hookup. Borchardt was also a “Descendant.” His ancestors had not fled Germany after the Second World War, however. They had hoped to live quietly until memories had faded, but they had reckoned without the tenacity of the Nazi-hunters and the media. Hans never discussed what had happened to them. Communists, liberals, centrists— nearly everybody— had political freedom in Germany, but not the far right, the offspring of those who had once proudly borne Germany s banners. They were still anathema.

Lessing sat up and shaded his eyes, squinting against the shimmering sand for a glimpse of Mrs. Delacroix and Liese. They had wandered off up the beach that fronted Club Lingahnie’s property on Madolenihmw Bay. Mulder’s corporate octopus had spent a bundle getting that beach sanded and landscaped. Ponape was a Micronesian “high” volcanic island and not the idyllic Polynesian coral atoll of the South Pacific romances. It rained almost every day here, and the low shoreline was covered with scraggly mangrove forest and tangled undergrowth.

Personally, Lessing thought that Mulder and his SS comrades had been slickered when they bought ClubLingahnie. Tonga, Tahiti, or Samoa this was not!

He heard a faint chanting: not wily natives but teenagers from the Club. Presently there were about nine hundred guests, mostly young people, from many countries and organizations. Felix Bauer, attired in shorts and an alpine hat with a red feather in it, was visible in the distance on the beachfront road, pacing a column of khaki -clad youths doing military drill.

Back off the beach, among the ever-present breadfruit trees, stood new dormitories and flats, administrative buildings, a recreation hall, classrooms, a radio tower, a private landing strip, swimming pools, a sports arena, and a full-scale hospital. Certain less-public facilities were concealed by the vegetation as well: an obstacle course, target ranges, an armory containing a surprising variety of modem weapons, and bunkers that served both as defenses and as practice military objectives. The island’s government, in the town of Kolonia to the north, smiled benignly and reaped the fruits of tourism.

Lessing sat back down again. He had nothing to do this afternoon. His own pupils, those learning guerrilla tactics and weapons, were on an archaeological field trip, building muscles helping the local historical society excavate the ruins of Nan Madol.

That was a fascinating place! Behind a two-kilometer-long breakwater stood a deserted city of stone platforms, with canals and channels between them big enough for canoes at high tide: a junior-size Venice. The walls of these platforms were constructed of huge blocks and columns of prismatic basalt, with cores of stones and rubble. Some of the platforms contained tombs, the remains of the Sau Deleur Dynasty that had gone extinct not long before the first Europeans arrived. Others served as foundations for temples, ceremonial sites, and priestly dwellings. Lessing had once picnicked with Liese within the brooding, enigmatic sepulchre of Nan Douwas, the mightiest of all of Nan Madol’s structures. They had sensed something of the remote grandeur of the ancient past and left early, well before sunset, by unspoken mutual coasent.

These days Lessing was having enough trouble sleeping as it was. Sometimes he dreamed of a bizarre corporation meeting in which he himself was honored as “Salesman of the Month.” It was never explicitly stated, but he knew what the company’s sole product was: death, packaged in pretty, little perfume bottles. In other dreams he walked amidst the tombs of Nan Madol, and the spirits of the vanished chiefs chanted and shook their plumed and feathered heads at him. Were there ghosts? Did the specters of the Russian dead communicate with the em, the spirits of old Ponape?

He had little religious training and even less belief. All he knew was that he was going out of his mind.

The current “president” of Ponape — the paramount chief, the nahnmwarki, to give him his archaic title, revived after independence and reinterpreted to fit the current “American democracy” political model — was fascinated by ancestral glories, real or imagined. Hence the archaeology at Nan Madol. The agonies of a dying Europe were far away, irrelevant to Ponape and the empty sweep of the Pacific.

Given time, Ponape might become a nation-state, a fledgling empire which would war with the distant islands of Truk or Kusrae. The drums would thunder as they had in centuries gone, and the war canoes would venture forth to repeat the world’s sad story one more time here in the Micronesian microcosm.

Liese appeared far down the beach. She came up to them, breathless, dark blonde hair, skin of golden bronze, and otter-sleek. Lessing admired her. There had been no need to explain about Jameela; Liese understood. Since arriving on Ponape she and Lessing had been friends. Just that and no more. The fire was banked, the coals buried. They both realized that it would take very little to make it blaze up again.

“Mrs. Delacroix,” she said. “Back to the house.” With the others Liese still spoke in choppy phrases; she was more relaxed when she and Lessing were alone.

“Any news?” Jennifer appraised her covertly: the look of the not-so-pretty second-banana eyeing the belle of the beach. Lessing was amused. People were the same everywhere.

“Radio says situation soon under control in most areas. Refugees from Russia being rounded up. Repatriated soon as the plague’s gone.”

“Well, hallelujah for that!” Jennifer said. “I’d hate to see Prague or Budapest or Vienna go the way of Moscow.”

“Some refugees broke through into Germany, though. Rioting and killing still going on.”

“Jesus!” Wrench breathed. Lessing echoed him and Borchardt hissed something in German.

“Mess,” Liese added unnecessarily. “Everywhere.”

“At least, nobody’s using nukes!” Wrench growled.

“No. Major powers trying to cool things. Enough dead now.”

The understatement of all time! Lessing saw ghosts again. The beach swarmed with Russians, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, American soldiers in tom and bloody, green uniforms. He wanted to cry out but could not.

The spectral figures swirled, accused, and disappeared, all but one which kept coming toward him: a pale, pink, old man, nude except for white shorts and thong sandals, a neckless, bald, ugly kewpie doll. It was Herman Mulder, stepping gingerly down onto the hot sand from the path that led to Club headquarters.

Wrench got to his feet to hand their employer a beach towel. “Sir?”

Mulder waved it away, although his forehead was bedewed with bright droplets. “News… terrible! Goddard’s on the radio now. Russians… somebody… hit the United States. Biological weapon!”

They all babbled at once.

“Struck Washington, New York, Chicago. Used the water supplies as the vector. A bacteria-generated toxin, something like botulin… as deadly as botulin, anyway… but the microorganism which releases it is aerobic and thrives in places, including the human body, where Clostridium botulinum can’t. And it’s highly contagious. God, so many dead…”

“My mother!” Jennifer screamed. “In Los Angeles… telephone…!”

“You’ll never get through,” Mulder outshouted her. “I tried. We’re not sure what’s happened. Los Angeles may be all right. Be patient, for God’s sake! Calm down! Nothing but military emergency broadcasts now anyway.”

Jennifer continued to wail.

“Help her, please, Liese! Goddard’s talking to some shortwave ham in Ottawa. Toronto’s been struck too, he says.”

“I’ve got to call my mother! ” Jennifer dug scarlet fingernails into ashen cheeks and dashed away, up the path toward the radio tower. Borchardt followed her.

Lessing discovered Liese in his arms. He had no recollection of putting her there. She pressed against him and husked, “You? Anybody in States?”

“Nobody I really knew any more. You?”

She shook her golden mane. “Same. Now?”

“God knows. Stay here? Wait it out? Become citizens of the sovereign state of Ponape?”

“Gone.” She began to shudder, then to cry. “Gone. All finished.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant. Their enterprise here? The Party of Humankind? Western civilization? The whole human race? Did little details matter?

Mulder was saying, “Properly delivered, eight ounces of botulin toxin could wipe out most advanced life on earth. Creating a new bacterium to do that job was the trick. This must be the Russians’ ‘Starak,’ their answer to Pacov. Their revenge!”

“Revenge?” Wrench groaned. “Surely not just revenge! They’d have to be crazy!”

“The old system bred insanity. Isn’t that what our movement is about? To unify, to establish order, to build a united world in which this could never happen?”

Lessing said, “Revenge, maybe; more likely just determination. You lose a battle, but you don’t give up the war. The enemy deals you a blow, you slug him back harder.”

“What the hell for?” Wrench cried. “To own a dead and destroyed planet? Shit!”

“What’s destroyed? It’s all still here. Lots of people gone, but so what? Piles of plunder! Economic goodies! Lebensraum, buddy, like you guys always say. We win, we get it all. You win, you do. God damn it, doesn’t that make sense?”

“Soldiers!” Liese whispered sadly. She sounded more mournful than accusing. She drew back out of Lessing’s arms to stare up into his face.

“Alan’s right,” Mulder told her. “That’s what any committed patriot would do: fight to the last. Defeat your enemy at any cost; then hope you have enough left to rebuild.”

“Anywhere else hit?” Wrench inquired.

“There’s a lot going on. Goddard heard that the British blew up a fishing boat in the Channel while it was laying down some sort of fog from aerosol tanks. They got the boat, but the winds still carried the stuff on over the English coast. No reports of deaths yet. The Chinese caught somebody too: a Latin American of some kind. He had an empty bottle.”

“What was in it?” Lessing asked.

“Vino,” Wrench couldn’t help snickering.

Mulder gave him a pained look. “They haven’t any idea. The mob got him first and tore him to bits. Goddard picked this up just before the news about Washington came in.”

“In vino Veritas; now it’s in vino botulinus!” Wrench’s small, handsome features resembled an embalmer’s masterpiece more than anything living. He hunkered down upon his beach towel and stared out to sea.

Mulder beckoned Lessing aside. “We’re going back,” he announced.

“What? Where?”

“To the United States. Guam, Hawaii, then McChord Air force Base in Washington state. From there to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado.”

“That’s insane!” Lessing cried. “What about the toxin?”

“I’ve been told that as long as one avoids contact with infected corpses and doesn’t drink unsterilized water, it should be reasonably safe. Anyhow, we pick up decon suits and a special escort plane in Hawaii.”

“May I ask, why?” He was treading on dubious ground; an employee — especially a mercenary beegee — didn’t question the boss.

Mulder said, “Ever heard of Jonas Outram, the Speaker of the House of Representatives?” “Yes, of course.”

“Well, he’s President pro tern now. Old Rubin and his cabinet drank water with their breakfast in Washington, D.C. The Vice President had a shower and a morning gargle in New York. Now they’re all dead. By American law the presidency passes to the Speaker of the House.”

“My God…!”

Wrench looked up and said, “One thing the Establishment never figured on! They threw Outram that post like you’d toss a bone to a barking dog. A little present to the opposition to make things look democratic. Now I’ll bet they’re sorry!” He began to laugh, shakily. “Except they’re thumbed.”

“Most of the government in Washington is gone,” Mulder said. “Who knows how many thousands… maybe millions? But Cheyenne Mountain has its own internal water supply, and the country’s defense command is safe. The Army’s declared martial law and called up all the National Guard units they can still reach. They’re trying to put it back together.”

“And you’re going to see Outram, sir?”

“He wants to see me. The movement, rather. All of the so-called right-wing parties. Get ready. We leave tonight.”

Mulder turned and strode across the beach toward the red roofs of the administrative buildings. From behind the screen of glossy-green breadfruit trees Lessing could still hear Bauer’s sharp marching cadence and the strains of “Lili Marlene,” sung off-key by a bunch of kids whose German was elementary.

The music still had a certain fateful ring to it.