Colorado had mountains; Iowa was flat. Nevertheless, this place reminded Lessing of his boyhood: crisp snow, crackling cold, dark evergreens, leaden ice shimmering in the ponds and brooks they passed, a sky so blue that you could paint with it, as his sixth grade teacher used to say, back in some forgotten, antediluvian world, a world as lost now as sunken Atlantis.
He shook himself mentally and clicked his briefcase open. Inside, on top, lay a thick, folded rectangle of cloudily translucent plastic. He and Wrench had prepared everything in advance, including the typed note he now handed Mulder. It said: “Read carefully. The area (room, vehicle, outdoors) we’re in now may be bugged. This plastic tarp blocks transmitters, long distance mikes, and even lip-readers with binoculars. It unfolds to the size of a small tent.
Drape it over your and your hearers’ heads while talking. We will try to debug others first if possible.”
Mulder nodded. Morgan stared curiously at the array of tubes, vials, and miniaturized weapons visible beneath the plastic bug-shield in the briefcase’s grey-foam receptacles. It was obvious that he itched to talk, but Wrench waved him to silence. Even this car, its key neatly inside, could be a plant.
Lessing had chosen the proposed meeting place randomly, sight unseen, from the map. It turned out to be a rutted, snow-bound side road halfway up a mountain. In the summer the view would be glorious: craggy, verdant, and clean.
It would probably be the same long after the last humans had strangled in their own foaming, bacteriological broth.
The news they had picked up in Seattle was bad: many of the great Eastern cities were dead or dying; Houston and Dallas had been infected with a ghastly, bacteria-borne, botulin-like poisoning. Similar outbreaks were now being reported in Cleveland and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and Boston and Portland and Salt Lake City and Miami and a dozen other places. The nation was being held together only by the most desperate measures imposed by frantic police, National Guard units, and the military. In Detroit the FBI nabbed a man in the very act of emptying a vial of bacterial broth into a reservoir; the man swallowed the stuff and then leaped into the water anyway. Detroit was now off-limits to anybody not wearing an N.B.C. — nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare — suit. The Army estimated nearly a million deaths in Detroit already. The toxin was delivered through the water supply, but it killed more than just those who drank it— and those who came into too-close contact with the drinkers as they vomited and coughed their lives away; wherever it collected, in holding-tanks and sewers, it fumed and bubbled and emitted bacteria-laden mists. When a fire set off a sprinkler system in a discount store in Cleveland, a thousand people died. It was the same all over; Russia’s science had been almost as thorough as America’s in the megadeath department.
New York, Chicago, and Washington were cemeteries. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and certain other Western cities had so far escaped. Perhaps the enemy’s distribution system had failed on the West Coast. Perhaps it was just slower, and Death was still on his way.
Pacov had dealt Russia and Asia a grand-slam-home-run blow. The Russians had come right back in the next inning with Starak, however, and it looked like a rally for their team. The series was still up for grabs.
Who was spreading the toxins? The carriers were entering the United States along the drug routes: Miami and the Gulf Coast, the Canadian border, and the deserts of the Southwest. Morgan, who served as the American representative for one of the movement’s conglomerates, had heard that most of these people were a motley assortment: druggies with habits so heavy they would risk anything for a pop of smile-dust; the usual dispossessed Palestinians and Iranians; criminals, psychopaths, and madmen whose hatred and greed outweighed their instinct for self-preservation; and meres willing to escalate war beyond any usual “civilized” limit No genuine Russians had been caught thus far.
“There,” Morgan grunted. “Outram’s coming.” He pointed to the string of black and Army-green vehicles wending its way toward them along the snow-drifted slope.
After India and Ponape, the cold was breathtakingly painful. They disembarked into the chill air, Mulder bearing the mute-tarp under his arm. He reminded Lessing of some old movie star — was it Laurel or was it Hardy?… whichever the round one was — carrying a rolled umbrella.
A bear-sized man in a baggy, brown jacket with patch sleeves clambered out of the lead car. Outram had obviously not planned on an outdoors excursion; either that, or he anticipated a very short conversation. It was colder than the proverbial polar bear’s paws. Those behind Outram wore uniforms, dark overcoats, or fashionable ski-gear: soldiers, White House staffers, advisors, and Secret Service men. Two of the last-mentioned advanced, inspected Mulder and his plastic bundle, then waved him on. The press apparently had not been invited.
Wrench extracted a pair of binoculars from somewhere and began searching the slopes above and below the road. “Don’t suppose they’d let us examine Outram,” he grumbled. “What if he’s got bug-itis?”
“Forget it. Some things you can’t help.” A flash from one of the President’s escort vehicles caught Lessing’s eye. He motioned to Wrench, who swung his glasses around. The little man shook his head. Probably somebody shutting a car door.
A pair of Outram’s Secret Service kikibirds picked their way through the snow toward them. The one in front was red-blonde and ruddy-faced, cheeks splotched with scarlet beneath the cowl of his padded, blue ski-jacket. The other, an older man, took a position to the rear as backup.
“You!” the blonde one called. “You guys! You Mr. Mulder’s beegees?”
Lessing said, “That’s us.”
The man produced an electronic device, similar to Lessing’s own bug-detector. “Leave your weapons in the car.” He flicked a forefinger at Lessing’s briefcase. “Set that down there, in the snow by the fence post.”
They complied. The agent first went over the two of them, then the briefcase, and finally the vehicle itself.
“Something…” he muttered. “The car…”
They all heard the helicopter simultaneously. The sharp chuff-chuff-chuff of its blades smacked against the frigid air like hammer blows. Lessing twisted around, and Wrench fumbled with his binoculars. Thekikibird, too, raised his head, eyes slitted against the white dazzle.
The machine was a tiny, military Stinger 297-G, nicknamed the “hoppy-choppy” because of its maneuverability. It carried two people and was used mainly for reconnaissance, though it could be armed with small rockets and light automatic weapons. About a hundred meters away, Mulder and Outram pulled off their mute-tarp to stare upward. There was sudden activity around the fleet of official vehicles. A soldier ran toward Outram shouting.
It appeared that the helicopter had not been asked to the party. Newspapermen? TV?
No, the machine was armed! Lessing saw blunt, silvery rocket noses peeping out from launching racks under the fuselage.
Lessing took no chances. He shouted at Mulder to get away, get down, get under cover. Wrench joined in, and the Secret Service man began squalling into his communicator.
The helicopter was hostile. The pilot circled to target his missiles on Mulder and Outram below.
The second agent reached their limousine, braced himself against its roof, drew a big magnum automatic from his coat, and took aim. Morgan dashed forward, perhaps to help Mulder through the drifts, while the soldier did the same for Outram.
The President’s people were firing. Puffs of pale smoke jetted up from the line of automobiles, and the popping of small-arms fire slapped against the heights and echoed back down upon them. It would take Lessing too long to dig his sniper rifle out of its compartment in his briefcase. He could only flounder after Morgan and Wrench to draw fire away from Mulder— if indeed the hoppy-choppy was after him rather than Outram.