Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Thursday, December 23, 2060

“Patty’s plane gets in from Seattle at 1445,” Wrench said. “It’ll be good to see her again.”

Lessing sighed. “Yeah, and me with six months of work and a week to do it in!”

“The price of glory!” The little man ran his fingers through his hair. He had been luckier than Lessing, with only “distinguished” silver sideburns to show for what he happily proclaimed had been a “life of sin.” On the other hand, Lessing’s thin, ash-blonde locks were rapidly vanishing. As Wrench put it, “the fuzz was wearing off the cue ball.”

“Look at this!” Lessing waved a hand at his crowded desk. “Everything from applications for special exemptions from the eugenics laws to status reports on our bases in the Persian Gulf, to letters from the parents of Banger boogies whining that their kids can’t get their supply of snuffy-doo in the National Service highway-rebuilding camp in Montana, to articles on DNA experiments to improve the race…! I don’t see any of this anywhere in my job-description!”

Wrench rolled his eyes upwards. “You’re where the train stops and the buck leaves the tracks, as they say. The reason Simmons makes such a great President is because he knows how to get work out of assholes like you.”

Lessing grinned, and Wrench asked, “By the way, do you want me to squire Patty to the Presidential Christmas party tomorrow night?”

“You never learned to keep your paws off little girls, did you?” Lessing joked. “Yeah, you take her. You’re less dangerous than those Marines in the honor guard.”

“You mean Jenny Caw’s personal drum, bugle, and banging corps?”

Lessing chuckled. “Don’t be rude! Jen’s marrying Hans Borchardt in June.”

“So? Think that’ll slow her down?” He looked around for Lessing’s coffee pot; it was empty, already washed, and put away for the coming holiday. “Though maybe a good German can keep our Miss Caw in line!” Wrench made jocular spanking motions.

“Oh, chug it, will you! I’ve got an appointment with some special envoy from New Sverdlovsk. You want to come?”

“If it’s not going to drag on. What’s it about?”

“No idea. Grant got a call from their embassy asking for me. Urgent, immediate, like now’. He says go, I go. A ‘private briefing session,’ his secretary said.”

“Security going to let me in?”

“If I say so.”

“Then I’ll drift along and keep you company. I still have to move some paper to push our Martyrs’ Day bill through Congress. The Mulders “

It hurt to remember. Lessing said, “I know. The Mulders… and Bill Goddard, Gordy Monk, and a lot of others. Ten years, and we’re just getting around to honoring them. Later is better than never, I suppose, but not by much.”

“Has it been that long? Well, you can’t say it hasn’t been interesting: the unmasking of the Coalition; the coup that failed; the fighting; Korinek’s public confession; the destruction of their secret camps; the trials; the expulsion edicts. All that’s over now, buddy. We won’t forget… it’s in every school book… but it’s high time we moseyed on.”

“The backlash…” Lessing shut his mind against memories of trucks and tanks and soldiers, the chaos and confusion, the rioting, and the aftermath.

“Let it lie! The Jews are gone, off to Ufa and Kharkov and Kuybyshev. We run our enclave, and they run theirs. No problem, as long as they don’t monkey with us.”

“That’s just it: they do monkey. They always have. Their history’s like a roller coaster: start at the bottom, struggle up, get to the top, then a long swoop down to catastrophe, then begin all over again.”

“Like Santayana said: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’”

“Whoever Santa Ana was, she was wrong. Nobody really learns from history. Even those who know it have to repeat it. People just stick on another name, pretend it’s new and different, and go around again.”

“Now you sound like Hegel.” Wrench shut his eyes and quoted. “Something like: ‘People and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.’”

“You’ve been reading books again!”

“Nope, just World Classic Comics… their special philosophy number.”

“Anyway, the Jews nearly beat us this time. The roller coaster almost didn’t go into its downswing.”

“It was our own fault. We let it happen.”

“Right. We let ‘em get our sympathy, give us guilt trips, preach to us about their phony ‘Holocaust,’ and work their way into the fabric of our society. We should’ve been more vigilant! Whatlnever understood was the cooperation they got from some of our corporations, our politicians, our educators and intellectuals and publicists! Such people don’t even deserve to be called collaborators or race-traitors! ‘Just plain stupid’ says it better! You’d think simple self-interest would have rung a few bells.”

“It’s called coin, man! I’ll bet there were some Roman merchants in Jerusalem who cried over lost business when the legions flattened Solomon’s temple, ran the Jews out of Palestine, and started the Diaspora in the First place!”

Lessing hunted for his wallet in the clutter on his desk. “They never give up, though. Their enclaves in Ufa and Kharkov and Kuybyshev are booming, full of immigrants, looking for more room, and spoiling for a fight.”

“Always Lebensraum, the eternal pressure on every ethnos group. Expand or perish.”

“Some of ‘em want to expand right back here: first to the People’s Republic of British Columbia, or to Central America south of our holdings in Mexico, then eventually to sunny California, Florida, and Second Avenue!”

“More like Madison Avenue, Wall Street, and right here in the White House. But not with us watching the door.”

“We can’t always be watching. Our roller coaster goes up and down too, and they still have friends here. Their propaganda was really good: a lot of average folks don’t like to remember what had to be done during the backlash and the expulsions. Too much mushy, liberal brainwashing for too long.”

“There are times,” Wrench marveled, “when I believe in the transmigration of souls.”

“What?”

“You sound so much like Bill Goddard that it amazes me.”

Lessing started to wriggle into his uniform greatcoat. “I studied history the hard way, like Bill did. I just started later, and it took me longer, that’s all. I was always a lousy student.”

Wrench came over to help him; Lessing’s twice-wounded left arm had never completely recovered.

Together they trotted down the snowy steps of the Executive Office Building, returned salutes from the black-clad Cadre guards on duty, and took Wrench’s American-made Homeland-500 limousine. It wasn’t a long drive over to the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, but the winter had been exceptionally cold. Their destination had previously served as the embassy of Austria, but Pacov and Starak had altered the maps forever, and Borchardt had persuaded his Reunited German Republic to sell the place to New Sverdlovsk. They told their driver to come back in half an hour, stamped snow off their boots, and hurried inside. There they doffed their caps and coats and waited in an antechamber that was a memento of the building’s past. Eventually a pleasant-faced young woman came to escort them upstairs.

The room they entered was standard for embassy pomp and portentousness: a fireplace; matched-grain panelling of lustrous walnut; drapes of rich, burgundy damask; chairs upholstered in black leather; massive, oaken tables with carved lion’s feet; and a Persian carpet deep enough to lose your shoes in. Bottles, decanters, and glasses winked and glowed upon a long sideboard beneath a hero-sized portrait of Colonel — now Supreme General — Terence Bumham Copley.

“The old boy finally made it,” Wrench breathed admiringly. “No Napoleon suit, but you will note the heroic tilt of the chin, the far-seeing glint in the steely eyes, the hand just itching to crawl inside the coat lapel. Hell, Lessing, when I went to New Sverdlovsk to find you, old Copley didn’t have a pot to piss in! Now I’ll bet he decorates the basement of his outhouse with Czarist antiques!”

“Tain’t so. The best loot was up in Moscow ‘n’ Leningrad,” a voice behind them drawled. “‘N’ you jizmoes ripped that off! All us poor fuckers got was factories and industrial shit.”

They turned to see Johnny Kenow, dressed in the russet and black of the Army of New Sverdlovsk. Beside him, wearing the female counterpart of Kenow ‘s uniform, stood Rose Thurley. Both displayed the collar-pips of staff officers.

“Surprise, surprise…!” Wrench muttered. “Special en-voys…? More like hanky-panky at the top of the ladder!”

Rose looked much the same as Lessing remembered her: a bit thicker… dumpier, to be blunt… her cheeks more rounded, her short hair a mousier shade of red-brown-grey. Damned if she didn’t resemble a Russian peasant woman. Perhaps there was something to be said for environment over genetics after all. “Lessing…?” She ventured.

He moved toward her but stopped short. It had been too long. She opened her arms. “Hey, mate! Give us a good ‘un!” He closed the gap, took her in his arms, and bussed her soundly on the cheek. That was all he could ever offer her.

Kenow winked at Wrench. “What say we work us out a deal?” “What’re you dealing?”

“Whatever wets yer whistle, for starters. We got damn’ near everythin.’” He inspected the bottles on the sideboard. “Don’t try our vodka, though… I know what goes in it. See some scotch here… pre-Pacov stuff….” Glasses clinked.

“Lessing doesn’t drink anymore.” Wrench picked up a linen napkin and inspected the tray of canapes. “Which is what a beautiful wife’ll do to you. Being a bachelor, I occasionally take my joy in liquid form.” He raised his scotch to the light to admire the color.

Rose still held Lessing’s fingers in hers. She shook herself, sighed, and let go.

He smiled, trying for just the right mix of friendliness and distance. “I can’t stay long… got to get back and change clothes for the Christmas party tonight. Uh… you two want to come?”

Rose shook her head.

“Can’t,” Kenow replied. “We ain’t even s’posed to be in this country.”

“If you’d given me a day’s notice you were coming…!”

“Shit, I mean it, Lessing: we ain’t here. Rose’s in Germany… or her double is, a Lithu-friggin’-anian woman who looks more like her’n she does herself. She’s spendin’ Rose’s money buyin’ Christmas presents in Berlin. Me, I’m in New Sverdlovsk in bed with the Empress… you ‘member my wife… and the worst dinkin’ cold in all Rooshia. Not even Frank Lithgow… our ambassador… officially knows we’re in Washington.”

Wrench ran a curious finger over a huge, brass samovar, squinted into a lighted cabinet containing delicate copies of Faberge jeweled eggs, and pulled up short in front of Kenow. “Okay, folks, to hang it out on the line: what’s the scam? Why the secrecy?”

Both spoke at once. Rose won. “We’ve got photographs, documents, maps “

“Of what?” Lessing threw himself down in one of the leather armchairs. He looked surprised as it creaked, hissed, and slowly subsided under his weight.

“The Izzies, luv! The bastard Izzies!” Rose stumped over to a table at the far end of the room and returned with a leather-bound portfolio. ‘“Ere, cop this… ’ave a look!”

The aerial photographs and infrared pictures would require interpretation by experts, but the snapshots were straightforward enough.

“Whose rocket?” Lessing asked in hushed tones. He picked up the glossy to see better.

“The Izzies,’ what’d yer think? An* that’s a bleedin’ atomic warhead stuck on it like a wart on yer dink! They got a dozen of these poggers! Americans didn’t find and destroy ‘em all… some pre-Pacov SS-50 medium-range jobbies still in Central Asia, transport carriers ‘n’ everything. The Izzies bought ‘em from the Tatars or the dinkin’ Mongols or somebody. Mebbe they built their own, though there’s no proof of that.”

Wrench turned the photographs around. “Can’t be. We’d have had reports.”

“Bugger yer reports. It’s dead cert! We got better spies in Ufa and Kharkov than you got. The Brits have a decent bloke in Kuybyshev, though. They’ll confirm.”

“All right. Assume the worst. Who’s the target?”

“Us, who else? First we thought they was for the Turks, but we learned different”

Lessing felt adrenaline building up and blood starting to beat in his temples. He wanted to rub the bridge of his nose, but Liese had said that that always gave him away. Instead, he stroked the brass studs in the slick, leather upholstery of his chair.

He took a careful breath. “How do you know?”

“Here.” Johnny Kenow spilled a stack of documents and photographed pages out in front of him. “We lost three good ol’ boys gittin’ this.”

“You sure these missiles are nuclear? Not conventional explosive warheads?”

“Right there.” Rose pointed with a blunt fingernail at a paragraph of Hebrew script. “Translation’s pinned on it.”

“Never did learn their goddamned language,” Wrench mumbled. “You’re right. What’s this…? Nerve gas too?”

“Yup. We seen it” Kenow nodded energetically. “’Member Doctor Casimir?” Lessing grunted assent. “Well, he was a Jew, but we turned him… he come over to our side… and Copley sent him into Kharkov. You’d never believe what he brung out! The Izzies’re buildin’ a poggin’ war machine in there that could flatten New Sverdlovsk… and the Turks and the Pakis to boot! Mebbe even take out yer base in Moscow, if they wanna go that route.”

“Our Moscow office has already told us some of this,” Lessing said, a little uncomfortably; Wrench was looking at him. Cadre recon reports were need-to-know only, and the Secretary for Education and Information wasn’t always a member of that charmed circle.

Wrench scratched his jaw. “I have a question. Why me and Lessing? Why not go right to the top to President Simmons himself… call a cabinet meeting… bring in the Joint Chiefs… the whole song and dance? Lessing can’t do much for you; he’s a Cadre general, but he doesn’t have the authority to send troops or military aid. As for me, I can put your evidence on Home-Net and our other networks, but… well, I mean, what the hell…?” He trailed off, nonplussed.

“Me ‘n’ Johnny know Lessing,” Rose answered slowly. “He’s an old friend, like. We can talk to him. Copley knows him, too.” She looked embarrassed. “We wasn’t expecting you. Minister… um, Secretary… Wren, but you’re welcome.”

“What can I… we… do, then?” Lessing asked.

Rose held out a sealed envelope. “This here’s from Copley. A… a sort of announcement… and a request.”

Lessing opened it. He read for a moment, whispered, “Jesus…,” and passed it on to Wrench.

“Yup,” Johnny Kenow looked at his watch. “It’s all over. Right now Copley’s eatin’ dinner in what’s left of Ufa. There won’t be no Kuybyshev, neither. All of northeastern Izzie-land’ll be in our hands by this evenin, and the Turks’ll be in Kharkov, Donetsk, and Kiev. We’re keepin’ the Pakis happy by lettin’ ’em have Uzbekistan, Turkistan, Umbrella-stan, and a bunch of other Moehammedan ‘stans’ out east. They’ll keep an eye on the Indians… who’re too fungled with the Chinese and the rest of Asia to bugger us right now, anyway.”

Wrench laid the letter down as though it were a bomb itself. “A fait accompli, then? Copley sent you two to Lessing to smooth the way for his declaration of war.”

“It’s more’n a declaration,” Rose said defensively. “We already done it. The Jews in Russia’re gone… finished… fungled… croaked… as of 1200 hours today, your time. Whoever’s left’ll be taken care of by week’s end.”

“You’re sure? They… they won’t unzip Copley instead?”

“No bleedin’ way! Copley’s an experienced mere, and he don’t take chances! We sent in a three-pronged mechanized ground attack; we got us heavy air support… ours ‘n’ the Turks’… and we got nerve-gas canisters planted under Ufa’s city hall just in case. The Turks’ll find it harder goin,’ down at Kharkov, but they’ll make it.”

“God!” Wrench muttered. “Why couldn’t the Jews have let well enough alone?”

Lessing began to gather up the papers and photographs. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then dragged his fingers away. “A preemptive, surgical first strike, just like the Izzies pulled on the Arabs a few times.” He picked up a sheaf of documents. “We keep this stuff, right? It’s evidence of their intentions. I’ll give it to Liese’s publicity people right away, and we’ll have it on Home-Net before nightfall. I think we can promise you support.”

“They deserved it!” Kenow growled. “We didn’t do nothin’ to ‘em.’*

“Even if you did, I doubt if our ethnos group’ll make more than token objections. The world’s had it. Anybody as unpopular as the Jews have always been… Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Spain, every country in Europe during the Middle Ages, Russia, America, the Third Reich… must be doing something wrong! We’d have preferred peaceful… and separate… and distant… coexistence, but they never got the message. Now we don’t care anymore.”

“It’s too bad ” Wrench began.

“Don’t waste your pity!” Lessing snapped. “They wouldn’t waste any on you. Sure, it’s sad that innocent people have to suffer, but it can’t be helped. That’s reality! That’s Nature! You can’t save the dodo, the condors, and the other losers in the battle for survival. Species-extinction happens over and over, like rain in the summer-time. Forget ethics and morality and ‘do-unto-others.’ The Izzies said ‘never again!’ about the ‘Holocaust,’ but then they turned around and did to the Palestinians everything they claimed the Germans had done to them! They called it ‘self-defense’: war under the pretext of peace, oppression in the name of justice and stability! The Arabs were weak and went under, but we’re a different story. We’re going to make it, no matter who gets in our way.”

“I hear Bill Goddard again,” Wrench murmured.

“No, you hear me, Alan Lessing! There was a time when I’d have waffled and gone for ‘turn the other cheek,’ but not anymore! Now you hear me, and you hear our Party, our ethnos, our majority… our First Führer! You hear the past, you hear the present, and you hear the future! We are the future!”

Rose reached for Copley’s letter. “Uh… there was one more point, Lessing.”

“I saw it. Copley wants to bring New Sverdlovsk into the American union. He says you people already belong to our ethnos-group… Americans, Frenchmen, English, Germans mostly… and he wants statehood.”

Kenow blinked his close-set eyes. “Y ‘might say we’re payin’ our dues by unzippin’ the Izzies. That little service oughta get us inta yer club!”

“Fine by me,” Lessing answered. “I’ll put it to Grant, who’ll put it to the rest of the Party high command. Then it goes to Congress.

That’s all I can promise…. Oh, I assume Copley will export any minorities living in New Sverdlovsk?”

“Most’re already gone. We did have a coupla dozen Jewish meres when we started, but they all went over to Ufa, and now they ‘re opfoes… and likely thumbed.” He put down his glass. “And the Izzies caught poor old Casimir last month V thumbed him too, so we ain’t got no ‘Jewish problem’ at all, y ‘might say. We still got a few Asians, but they’re lookin’ at Manchuria or them little republics in China. Japs won’t let ‘em in… too pure ‘n* racially homogencyous. The fifty or sixty Blacks we had headed out for the Khalifa’s place in Africa last month, too. He wouldn’t take a couple of ‘em, though, ‘cause they was coffee-‘n’-creams.”

“We heard the Khalifa’s refusing racial mixes and interracial couples,” Wrench told Lessing. “He doesn’t want mongrels any more than we do. Only pure-blood Blacks in his Islamic paradise.”

“Still plenty of places for the poor suckers to go.” Lessing tucked the portfolio under his arm and moved toward the door. “Let ‘em go to Brazil, or the Caribbean, or any other place that’ll take ‘em. They are not coming here!”

“I’m glad to see Bill Goddard back,” Wrench whispered to Lessing. “I did sort of miss him “

Lessing answered him with a wry grin. He shookhands with Rose and Kenow and started down the stairs.

“Wonder if I c’n git me one of them black uniforms?” Kenow asked plaintively of Rose. “Sure’d look good in it! Mebbe git me a job in Lessing’s Treasury Department, too. Or Fort Knox…?”

“Not if he bloody-well knows about it…!” The door closed on her final words.