“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.
Modern revolutions pass through well-defined stages: (a) hostility to the ruling regime; (b) growing discontent and resistance; (c) increasing organization, including mutual-aid alliances between opposition factions and leaders; and (d) military activity, culminating either in victory or in defeat. Should a revolution succeed, three further stages ensue: (e) giddy celebration, chaos, and revenge as the symbols of the old “Establishment” are overthrown, experimental and often ill-considered reforms are tried, and previous leaders and other “criminals” are “brought to justice’; (f) a period of consolidation, ideological harshness, purges, and violence as the “old” continues to be rooted out and replaced with the “new”; and (g) a phase of rebuilding, softening, relaxing of stringent laws and “emergency ordinances,” possibly counter-purges of certain of the revolution’s less-palatable leaders, and reassertion of the old, dominant strains of the pre-revolutionary society. Phase (f) usually lasts a decade or two at most, while phase (g) continues until the state has once again fossilized, grown barnacles of bureaucracy and “tradition,” and itself become ripe for the next gang of disgruntled, idealistic rebels to come along. The National Socialist Revolution — for such it was — in post-World-War-One Germany went through exactly these stages. The military phase was bypassed, because the National Socialists successfully utilized the pre-existing electoral apparatus to gain power. World War II, whether due to German intransigence as the Allies claimed, or arising from unbearable pressures upon Germany, as Hitler argued, truncated the revolutionary process, lopping it off during stage (f): the period of greatest ideological zeal and severity. The historical image preserved of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis is therefore one of fanaticism and austerity. This reputation is not entirely deserved, since phase (g) — that of consolidation, amelioration, and reconciliation-never took place. Indeed, there were hints of the coming of phase (g) in the late 1930’s: economic progress and stabilization, attempts at restructuring the party and regularizing the delegation of authority, and the first fruits of a number of social reforms introduced by the Nazis. True, these features benefited the Germans and not the Jews or other minorities, but then “broadmindedness” is not to be expected during phase (f) of any revolution — witness the Soviet purges of the 1930’s and the guillotining of royalists in post-revolutionary France. Certain German developments were admirable: the restoration of the currency, industrial expansion, general economic prosperity (as proved by increases both in tax revenues and in profits), the construction of the Autobahn highway system, the end of the social unrest of the previous decade, etc. Indeed, Nazi institutions were copied by other nations, even by Germany’s foes, during the subsequent war. What would the Third Reich have become had it survived? Most traditional historians paint a might-have-been future of unmitigated blackness, tyranny, and evil; yet greater social good very often emerges from change, even violent and unhappy change, just as a better garden grows from soil that has been turned over, aerated, and watered. Most revolutions follow this process; why should it have been different with Hitler s Germany?
—A Consideration of Historical Universal, Udo Walter Petrie, Paris and New York, 2021
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Monday, December 15, 2042
Lessing shielded the notepad so that no concealed TV eye could see. Wrench had scribbled: “Needle bug in place-mat by coffee cups. Probably mike in wall outlet too. Somebody really wants to know. Leave?”
Lessing used the agreed-upon cue: “Mr. Mulder, the air in here is not good for your asthma. Perhaps President Outram wouldn’t mind talking during a drive… or at some place outdoors?”
Mulder glanced across the polished table at Sam Morgan, the sharply dressed young aide-de-camp from the American branch of the Party of Humankind who had accompanied them from McChord Air Force Base to Colorado. He asked, “Car, Sam?”
“Easy.” Morgan raised a slender eyebrow at the two stiff-faced soldiers who had guided them down into this subterranean labyrinth. They, in turn, glanced at each other and shrugged; the pasty-faced one picked up a telephone and whispered into its hush-piece.
Transport was not long in coming. The telephone shrilled, and they were led out through offices and galleries that displayed the same determined cheerfulness that Lessing remembered from Marvelous Gap. The effect was identicaclass="underline" efficiency, tastelessness, tension, and claustrophobia. This was NORAD headquarters at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex: miles of rooms and tunnels, observation and intelligence equipment, barracks and kitchens and storage chambers, a full complement of troops and vehicles and weaponry and state-of-the-art aerospace technology. The Born-Again presidents had added SDI control consoles and huge, wooden crucifixes.
And then somebody hit the world with Pacov and made the installation as useless as a firecracker underwater.
The main tunnel debouched into a long, dark chamber that stank of gasoline and damp concrete.
“Car park,” Morgan stated unnecessarily. “That must be the limo.”
On a whim Lessing said, “Take the other one instead… the black Titan over by the wall.”
“That’s General Anderson’s car,” one of their escort protested. “We don’t have the keys.”
Wrench prowled forward to peer into one vehicle after another. “Here’s one with the key still in the ignition.” “We can’t….”
“You just did,” Lessing said. “Tell the owner we’ll be nice to it We’ll have it back within two hours, and we’ll even pay for the gas.” “President Outram “
“…Will want to talk to our employer in utmost comfort and security.”
The two hesitated.
“Come on, you can get permission. Then have your people bring Outram in whichever car he wants,” Wrench urged. “Surround him with Secret Service. He can ride with General Custer’s cavalry for all we care.”
“General Custer? Who’s…? Oh…”
Wrench grinned.
Lessing unfolded a road map, peered at it, and jabbed a forefinger at a crossroad he had already marked with an “X” in preparation for just this contingency.
“This looks good. We’ll meet Outram here. It’s not far.”
The second soldier took out a pocket transmitter and muttered into it. The First stood glowering, suspicion clouding his face.
“Green light,” the man with the communicator conceded. “The President’ll meet Mr. Mulder where you say. A stroll in our winter wonderland.”
Once beyond the mighty entrance valves of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex the real world returned: no more shadowless fluorescents and whispering, secretive air conditioning; no odors of rubber and oil and ozone and whatever the perfumy stuff was that was supposed to make the air smell “outdoorsy.” Wrench drove, Lessing settled into the front seat beside him, and Morgan perched nervously in the rear with Mulder.