Lessing’s memory finally yielded up a few faint images from the past, and he husked, “Yeah… sure. Haven’t seen you for a long time. New Orleans, wasn’t it? What’re you doing now?”
“Second looie, sir. Cadre’s Victory Battalion… brand new, like your own American Freedom Brigade. We’re down near Lake Tahoe, guarding lib-reb prisoners from Sacramento and Fresno until they’re handed on to PHASE.” The hero-worship in Easley’s voice was thick enough to pour over pancakes. He pointed back toward the clump of Cadre uniforms by the door. “Uh… could my friends come over and meet you, sir?”
“Fine. Glad to say hello.” Lessing was back in control.
“Prisoners?” Wrench asked sharply. “PHASE?”
“Yessir. Cadre-Commander Wrench, isn’t it?” Easley had met him too, but Wrench wasn’t “military”; he attracted fewer groupies.
“Aren’t lib-reb P.O.W.s supposed to be shipped immediately up to Oregon?” Wrench persisted.
Easley wasn’t interested. “Uh… yessir. They are. But we pass ‘em on to PHASE first for screening out the hard cases, you know. PHASE mostly sends ‘em on to Oregon… just keeps a few of ‘em, not P.O.W.s but some of the civilians, families, like.” He beckoned to his companions. “Me’n my buddies’re on leave… ‘till we start gettin’ prisoners in from San Francisco.”
“God damn it,” Wrench hissed. “Lessing, we have to talk.”
“Later.” He refused to think about the Cadre and PHASE.
Wrench read Lessing’s mood and let the matter drop for the moment. They greeted Easley’s friends, four young Cadremen who gawked, shook hands, and uttered stumbling courtesies. These were Lessing’s fans, just as if he were a Banger star, and they must not go away disappointed.
When dessert and coffee were finished Wrench went over to Easley’s table, and Lessing saw him pick up their check. Wrench had to be the greatest public relations man since P. T. Bamum!
They drove back to the hospital in a well-fed stupor. Wrench watched Patty’s escort take her up in the elevator, then he said, “Got to find the kid a home. She can’t live all her life in a hospital.”
Lessing grimaced. “I can’t take her. Another week, and I’m back with my unit. A military camp’d be no good for her.”
“Liese, I know you don’t have time… and no place for her either.” Wrench jabbed the elevator button. “Same here. Jennifer has a great apartment, of course…” he saw Liese’s look and smoothly changed gears, “but Jen’s lifestyle might not be suitable for a young girl, to put it politely.”
“Mrs. Mulder!” As soon as he spoke, Lessing knew he was right.
Liese nodded emphatically, and Wrench banged the button a second time. “Perfect, man! Patty gets spoiled rotten in the lap of decadent luxury! Let the Fairy Godmother stuff her with cookies and cake frosting! They’ll both love it!” He rubbed his hands together, then sobered. “Now we have another, more serious problem for discussion!”
Lessing sighed. His mood of gentle peace was fading fast. “Goddard and PHASE?”
“Yeah. Listen, why don’t you both come downtown with me to the corn-link at Party headquarters? We have to talk to Goddard!”
“Matter?” Liese asked. “Urgent?”
“You heard Easley? Lib-reb prisoners are supposed to go straight from holding camps back of our front lines to reorientation villages in Oregon. Goddard’s PHASE guys are screening them and taking some away. Why and where Easley didn’t know.”
“1 caught it,” Lessing said, “What the hell is that about?”
“Who knows? Lib-reb prisoners are military and Cadre business. PHASE doesn’t have the authority to grab prisoners.”
“Goddard can make up the authority. The lib-rebs emptied the jails all over the Southwest and Mexico to get troops. He can say that his boys are screening for criminals and escaped felons.”
“Yeah, I suppose he can,” Wrench mused. “Mulder persuaded Outram to make PHASE a Federal agency and let it coordinate all police functions across the country.”
“Dumb! Outram could’ve used the FBI… and saved us all from Bill Goddard!”
“Outram doesn’t trust the FBI. President Rubin packed it with smart-ass Eastern-Establishment lawyers who used to chase Outram’s right-wing friends around the block.”
“But prisoners?” Liese put in. “Civilians? Families? Why! Not partisans or saboteurs.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Lessing asked her. ‘“Special squads’ and necktie parties? Bill’s views on minority affairs start about a mile to the right from where Attila the Hun leaves off.”
“He wouldn’t do that!“she flared back. “We want trust! Nodeath camps! Party directive.”
“Okay, okay… green light! But if Big Bear Bill is doing what people used to accuse the Third Reich of doing, then he’s going to run smack into me. I never signed on for that kind of stuff!”
“Give Goddard a chance!” Wrench protested. “We don’t know anything yet! I’m going to put in a call to him. Then another to Mulder.”
Liese frowned. “Alan and I? Do?”
Wrench slammed the elevator button again. “You, Liese, have been with the movement a long time. You can talk to Bill. And you, Lessing, command the American Freedom Brigade. You can order your officers not to cooperate with PHASE until we know what’s going on!”
“Doing what with prisoners?” Liese rubbed at her bare arms as though she were cold.
Wrench answered her: “He could be doing just what Easley said: screening for hard cases, with everything legal and proper by the book.”
“He could also be playing water sports,” Lessing contradicted. “You know, fly prisoners out over the Pacific and see how they swim home.”
Wrench held the elevator door for Liese. “One way to find out. C’mon, let’s go down to my office.”
It was four o’clock before they reached Party headquarters opposite the old Public Safety Building on Third and Cherry. Twenty years ago this truncated pyramidal skyscraper of black glass and steel had been erected to house tentacles of the King County administrative octopus. After Starak the Army and the decontamination services had taken it over, although Seattle had missed being hit for reasons no one knew. Outram’s martial-law government then had occupied the lower floors for the next two years, while the remainder stayed empty. Now the building was refurbished, bright with American flags and Party bunting, and thronged with staffers on their way home from world.
Wrench shepherded them through the crowd, secured an elevator, produced a key, and pushed a button. The capsule-like car raced up the outside of the pyramid at stomach-clutching speed.
The doors opened on the twenty-fifth floor to reveal a square tablet of white light floating in the air. The hologram displayed letters of blue fire: PARTY OF HUMANKIND DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION. WHOM DO YOU WISH TO SEE?
Wrench said, “Director’s office.” The hologram changed to read: PLEASE LOOK INTO THE EYE-PRINT BOX ON THE WALL TO YOUR LEFT AND STATE YOUR FULL NAME.
They obeyed, and the hologram glided away down the corridor flashing FOLLOW ME, PLEASE in luminous red.
Wrench almost glowed. He said, “Neat, eh? And security all the way!” He pointed up at camera-eyes in the ceiling. “Eighty-Five is watching us… watching everybody. Hell, in a year or two we won’t need I.D. cards at all. Everything’ll be done with eye-and voice-prints.”
“Big Brother…”
“Bull. That’s gungo, as the Bangers say. Hell, America’s been under surveillance for almost a century: cops, the I.R.S., credit checks, Social Security numbers, the F.B.I., you name it. Moreover, Eighty-Five can sniff out most crimes right now without adding a single chip! All we’re doing is consolidating existing data banks. Today it takes twelve minutes to scan some jizmo’s records in fifty-one states and six foreign countries… a week for a big corporation. With every computer system shaking hands with Eighty-Five, we’ll have that info within seconds. But average folks won’t get hurt. And we’ll catch and convict the crooks, scammers, welfare frauds, and credit-card weasels. A lot of crime… from check-kiting to big, corporate hanky-panky… will be as passe as stage-coach robbery.”