John Barnes - Directive 51

Norcross’s media people had given him access via his wireless to the plane’s satellite and roving land links. The box on the screen said it took a full minute, and 81 tries, for the whole transmission to go all the way through and receive an acknowledgment from 247NN.

A moment later Anne appeared in a corner of his screen. “Chris,” she said, “you have one of the best communication platforms still running in North America. We’d use our own planes, but they’re grounded with burst tires and shot electronics.” A burst of scrambled sound, and the picture broke up.

“Didn’t get that.”

“Sorry. Okay, quickly, e-mail from me has addresses of everyone who can receive finished product at all our affiliates. Send that interview direct to them. I’ve e-mailed them all to expect it. We don’t want them to miss it but I don’t know if we can”—another burst—“from here with our”—a shriek and a black screen for a long moment before the picture came back, much grainier. “Did you get—?”

He saw that her e-mail had come in, copied the list from it, and immediately sent out the finished interview again, as she had requested. This time it took 94 seconds and 139 tries, but it still went through. It took his e-mail, a simple short text telling her it had been accomplished, nine tries.

Abruptly, Chris laughed. Norcross, sitting on the other side of the lounge reading his Bible, looked up over his reading glasses. “Someone send you something funny?”

“Not exactly funny . I’ve just done my best interview ever and I got a big raise this morning, and probably the network will be gone before my next paycheck.”

Norcross nodded, turned, and called, “Robbie? We need a plan to deal with the disappearance of electronic money in the next forty-eight hours.”

Robbie, his economic advisor, sitting up from a nap, rubbed his face. “Right. Of course. So you need a plan in forty-eight—”

“No, I mean all electronic money will disappear for good in forty-eight hours. That’s what, ninety percent of the economy?”

“Old figure. Nowadays, more like ninety-seven percent.”

“We’re an hour from Reagan National. Have a plan when we land.”

Robbie groaned, but he sat down and unfolded his laptop. A moment later he looked up, and said, “I’m getting ‘Try again later,’ from all the Internet connections—which is about thirty line-of-sight stations. Better make that ‘our plan for what to do with the money already gone,’ I guess.”

Jason stayed low on the ridgeline and watched. He didn’t know why he was so stupid that he had to see what had happened to the commune.

Beth, he thought. Just couldn’t run out on you, babe, not while there was a chance you were still alive.

The main house had been burned to a hollow black shell. There were bodies in the farmyard, but without binoculars, he wasn’t sure who. He was pretty sure the one hanged from the barn pulley was Elton. Two men with rifles guarded the farmyard, so he couldn’t go down to look for clues.

A very soft voice said, “Hey.”

He turned. Beth had streaks of soot on her face and looked pretty sick. She sat down beside him. “We should get away from here. Then can you tie up my wrist?”

“Sure.” They moved cautiously back down from the ridge line, and he found a couple of thick pine sticks and, with some junk line from his pack, lashed together a sort of splint.

“Needs a real doctor,” he whispered, apologetically.

“You’ll do.” She kissed his cheek. “We better walk while I can. If you can find us somewhere warm for the night, that’ll help; I think I’m a risk for shock.”

They crept along the ridge trail, back into the state park. On the broad, well-marked trail, he asked, “How’d you know I’d be there?”

“It’s where you used to take me for sex, hon. About the only place where we could watch the commune to make sure no one was coming and still have some privacy. And if you’d went any place else, they’d’a catch you.”

They filled his water bottle and shared long drinks at the first public pump. “I think they’ll be looking along the roads,” he said, “but we can take this trail over to the camping area in the next drainage; won’t be a lot of hikers out and nobody’s gonna think of it as transportation just yet. Gonna be a long day, baby.”

She shrugged, and winced at how that pulled her wrist. “Then we better get going.”

They walked. After some time he ventured, “Uh, how’d you get away?”

“I fucked the three guys that took me off to kill me, and then cried, and promised no one wouldn’t ever know if they let me go. They didn’t really wanna kill me, I guess. Probably it was like their first lynching, and they weren’t real good at it, you know?”

“How did you feel about—”

“Like I feel about taking a big old painful crap when I really have to. Better’n not having done it. Prolly I’ll have bad dreams and stuff later.”

The sun was still high in the sky when they topped the ridge; Beth looked sick, but she seemed to be bearing up, and after he added a couple more sticks to the makeshift splint, she seemed to do better.

Somewhere, he figured, there’s a place we can blend in and not be looked for. I just hope we don’t have to join a mob and kill any Daybreak people, because I think if she had to, to live, Beth could do that. And I’m not sure I could.

Almost everywhere in the world, the first thing a cop does, when bringing a visiting cop into his territory, is to offer coffee, and any visiting cop to whom it is not allergenic death or spiritual anathema had better accept. “So,” Carlucci said, “I didn’t even know we had any future cops. What do you do, arrest crooks before they’re born?”

Bambi ignored the joke she’d heard too often. “I’m one of five DoF employees that have the power to make an arrest. Congress in their wisdom realized it was always possible we might stumble across some present-day crime. You’re lucky all of us didn’t come. This is the first real case we’ve ever had.”

“I guess that—” Carlucci’s phone rang, and he picked up. “Carlucci. Yeah, I—right. On my way. I’ll bring as much backup as I have. See if you can reach anyone en route and re-route them to give us some more backup. I’m on my way.” He asked Bambi, “You reasonable on the G-54?”

“Fully qualified.”

“Great. Follow me.” A few steps down the hall, he leaned into a room where two men sat on desks facing each other. “Terry Bolton, Larry Mensche, this is Bambi Castro, she’s badged with OFTA and coming along; gear up, and set Castro up with a Glock. Now, because we need to be rolling ten minutes ago.”

Bolton pulled on holster, coat, and all in one fluid motion; Mensche arose from a pile of papers, tucking away reading glasses as he went, and was halfway into his coat by the time Bolton was opening the arms locker on the wall. “Can you tell us what it’s about?”

“That number one high-priority suspect we were expecting? She, a couple AFIs, and a few Mexican Army GAFEs are all trapped in a DN-7 with collapsed tires on Imperial Avenue. Big mob that wants them to hand her over for a lynching.” Carlucci sounded no more excited than if he were talking about picking up muffins for a church breakfast.

Bolton handed Bambi the holster, three clips, and the G-54. She checked it out; perfectly maintained, of course. Carlucci was explaining, “—local patriots got wind and barricaded the 805 around exit 12A, which wasn’t too complicated since practically no cars are able to move, so they just dragged a bunch of stuck cars together to form a line across the freeway.”