'Maybe they built a dome too,' she said. 'Is that a possibility? Maybe they got the same kind of design just to make it easier. Could they do that, Irwin?'
'I guess so. If you found the contractors.'
Levine stared at her, cast a sideways glance at Barnside. 'Good work. We pass that over to the Bureau. There can't be that many people who can build one of those things.'
'Irwin,' she added. 'Mail me the plans for the dome, and the names of the contractors you used.'
'Sure.'
'So what are we getting from your guys, Dave?' Levine asked.
Barnside shrugged. 'You got the list. The President tied our hands a lot, you know. Insisting that this really was a Bureau job.'
'Yeah. I heard. But no one knows for sure they're inside the US.'
'I think,' said Helen, 'we have to assume that's a probability. We have no evidence that there is a foreign government in play here, and they surely would need that level of assistance to try to produce a dome abroad.'
'And here you just go buy it from the catalogue. Wonderful,' Levine grumbled. 'It doesn't mean we sit on our hands and watch this game go by. The priority's clear. We have to take every step to ensure nothing happens to the two remaining domes. Talk to the military, the politicals. See if we can get air exclusion zones, whatever, put around these things. And sweep every last inch of them.'
Barnside shook his head at Levine. 'We're not going to get an easy ride over any air exclusion requests. The President is taking this through the UN Security Council right now, they're in permanent session. He's not having an easy ride.'
'So we're the bad guys,' Levine grunted. 'Again. What's new? Pile everything you've got into those places. I do not want a repeat of Lone Wolf. Understood?'
They nodded. Levine gave her a baleful glance. 'I got a gut feeling Operations isn't going to get us out of this one, Wagner. The best they can do is keep the fire damped down. What about S&T?'
'We have things to work on. The possibility of the dome. Also the appearance of the Web site. That has to use some conventional network and IP addressing system. There are ways of cloaking your location, but we have people looking at it.'
Wolfit shook his head. 'I don't want to hold out unrealistic hopes, sir. These people know what they're doing. The idea they might leave a loophole that lets us find them through the Net has got to be a touch fanciful'
'Yeah,' Levine said. 'But no one's perfect. You give us somewhere to search. It's a start. I got to see the National Security Council now. I got more briefings on the go than minutes in the day. Dave, you take the FBI liaison meeting in the morning. Communicate anything of moment in it to Wagner straightaway. You hear?'
'Sir.' Barnside nodded.
Levine watched her, and she couldn't work out what he was thinking. 'You think this Shuttle idea has got some mileage?' he asked in the end. 'It's a hell of a risk.'
She didn't try to hide her doubts. 'We can probably get the thing up there in one piece. The problem is what we do then. Unless Lieberman can come up with something, it's pointless. We won't get anywhere near it.'
'Twist his arm,' Barnside said.
She thought about the deep, intelligent face she'd seen on the monitor. 'I don't think it works like that. He has to find his way there on his own.'
'Scientists,' Levine complained. 'Worse than working with goddamn movie stars. Barnside's right. Twist his arm. Do whatever you can. Then try to get some sleep tonight, the pair of you. It may be the last we get for some time.'
CHAPTER 22
Nature, Rising
She watched the needle go into her arm, closed her eyes, let her head go back, and sighed. Joe Katayama looked into her face, checked the dilation of her pupils, then felt her pulse. The morphine dose kept getting stronger all the time. It had to be watched carefully. And there were times too when he had to say no. They needed her in full control. She understood the system better than anyone. Outside, in the control room, they had enough pure programming skill to run a small corporation. But Charley had the vision, and the breadth of knowledge too. She could turn her hand to hexadecimal one moment, and offer an expert interpretation of the data coming through the feed on the sunspot cycle the next. They couldn't function properly without her.
She opened her eyes and understood the way he was looking at her. There'd been a time when the slow, warm comfort of sex had helped, but that was behind her now.
'Joe,' she said, and reached forward, stroked the tanned, muscular strength of his forearm. 'No more.'
She wore a white shift and lay on the large white bed, soaked in sweat from the heat that seemed to issue in waves from the white painted walls of the farmhouse. She had slept quickly, a deep, narcoleptic sleep, after Tina's death. When she awoke, she found Joe had curled up beside her and lay like a tight, foetal ball, looking so much younger, no cares, no fear in this place his sleeping being had found. She had watched his body, the way his chest moved slowly with each long, patient breath, and wondered at the space between them. Joe Katayama was ever-present in her life, she relied upon him for so many things, personal and physical, but practical too. Yet in some way she still felt he was a stranger.
Awake now, he was his old self, watchful, waiting, always ready to obey. He didn't seem disappointed by her refusal. 'Whatever you say. You feel worse? Is there less feeling?'
'It's partly that. But things move on, Joe. From now on I think we begin to leave the body behind. We start to get closer to the Mother. When we make love… it's like being back in the Garden, like Adam and Eve. But they were children, Joe. We're growing, changing. We need to focus on that.'
'You're right,' he said flatly, and slipped off the bed, pulled on his jeans, began to dress. Charley shrugged on the loose clothes that were still lying at the edge of the bed, let him carry her to the wheelchair, comb her hair, then push the chair to the bathroom.
Afterwards, she asked, 'How are they feeling?'
Joe Katayama thought about the others. They were, effectively, in his care now. Charley's ability to control them through anything but the force of her will was slipping. This didn't worry him. They were loyal, faithful. Or, to put it differently, they didn't think much beyond the confines of the farmhouse. All they saw of the outside world was what appeared on the monitors in the room, and these images were so distant, so intangible. Reality began and ended at the door of Yasgur's Farm. This was their great strength. He shrugged. 'They'll be fine. It shocked some people. Billy Jo. Anthony. The weaker ones.'
She smiled. 'You have to get rid of that way of thinking, Joe. Those days are over. It's not their fault they're shocked. We're all shocked. We all weep for Tina. And ourselves. But more than anything we weep for the earth. We're nothing next to her.'
'I know,' he said. 'I kind of told them that. Besides…' He hesitated.
'Besides what?'
'Where could anyone go? We're here. We're safe. If anyone tried to leave until it's time, I'd know.'
'You always think in terms of force,' she said, and wondered whether he resented the comment. 'It's not necessary any more, Joe. They won't do anything we don't tell them.'
'Maybe not.'
'It won't happen. They couldn't do it. And okay, if you like, you won't let it happen.'
She pushed on the rails of the wheelchair. Joe opened the door into the control room. It had a low, active buzz about it, people hovering over computer monitors, watching newscasts, printing out papers, posting them on the whitewashed walls. There were fans scattered throughout the room, setting up a perpetual hum of motion, a flow of thin air that scattered papers, made your sweat feel cold on your brow. Maybe it was like this in a war, he thought.