She had heard it while on Stage Three, one of the concrete domes of the hush-hush complex they called Sound Stage West. The complex had been built into the mountain overlooking the secluded valley of Santa Cruz Island so that news, non-news, and rumor could all receive their 'proper' processing in an emergency. The President, it was rumored, was not safely tucked into a maximum-security hole, nor was the Vice President. The stream of messages issued by the
White House press secretary only purported to come from the top. The rumor dealt with a brace of impact nukes and one of the provisioned caverns of Virginia's once-lovely Shenandoah Valley. If it was true — real non-news — then the Speaker of the House was now President of the United States.
Eve found the rumor worrisome. "Give me that towel," she said suddenly, and mopped herself as she climbed aboard the golf cart. "Put this thing in overdrive or something, Brucie; I want back inside."
"You've got time," he soothed.
"Have I? If our government goes belly-up, Bruce, the only thing left to glue this country together will be media. Tell me honestly: do you think Sound Stage West could take a direct hit?"
"So they say," he replied, intent on conning the vehicle. "Since three of NBN's top shareholders and a senator are here with their hotsies and luggage, I tend to believe it."
The big titties bounced with Eve's laughter. "Why is it that fags have all the brains," she gurgled rhetorically. Bruce merely smiled. He knew how to field a left-handed compliment, however poorly tossed.
Chapter Thirty
By nine PM Eve had finished her stint for NBN, a rack of lamb, a half-hour mimicking the lilting lingo of South Afrikaners for the government's impending plea to African neutrals, and a quick scan of Media's Games Governments Play. It was a curiosity and a commonplace that, for all her media experience and theory, Eve had never actually watched a news broadcast during its taping. Now, cloistered with five hundred others in an effort to maintain a 'business-as-usual' impression to holo viewers, Eve found herself in closer quarters. She needed merely to traverse a tunnel to emerge in the wings of NBN's Nightly News set. The item on the Amur crossing, she realized, was several hours old even though it was datelined on Thursday morning, RUS time.
In Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the Nightly News tape aired at midnight. Lieutenant Boren Mills had been awake for twenty hours; he damned the discomfort of his contact lenses, switching to bifocals in the privacy of his room in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters. His attention was only half on the holo because Mills already knew of the SinoInd invasion of the Amur region.
"… Shortly before dawn, this Thursday morning," said a young man in clipped British diction. In the distance sprawled mountains; a river glinted not far away, partly hidden by massive concrete apartment complexes of a typical small RUS city. At ten klicks' distance no flames were visible, but smoke roiled from rooftops. Mills guessed it must be Khabarovsk.
But the newsman continued, "Elements of the Chinese Third Army crossed the Amur River here, at Blagoveshchensk. Amphibious trucks towed primitive rafts filled with soldiers, protected by mortar fire. The Chinese met stiff resistance here and at Khabarovsk; but in several places along the six hundred kilometer front, CPA troops have driven thirty kilometers or more into RUS territory.
"The civilian population has been evacuated. The civil defense cadre of Blagoveshchensk remained behind and is inflicting heavy casualties on the advancing Chinese People's Army. A RUS spokesman has assured this correspondent that the CPA cannot hope to consolidate these temporary gains. He says the Chinese are using outmoded equipment that probably can't withstand modern RUS weapons expected soon from Vladivostok.
"But this morning, the CPA took portions of the old trans-Siberian railway north of the Amur. So, at high noon in Siberia, the CPA boasts an invasion and a vital rail link. The question is: can they keep either of them moving? In Blagoveshchensk, I'm Peter Westwood for the BBC."
Mills was wide awake now. As the news turned to Cana da's entry into the western rank of warring nations, he cudgeled his memory for the Vladivostok messages that had passed through his ELF channels. The RUS port city, within artillery distance of China, had taken such a nuclear shellacking that even its submarine pen entrances near Artem had collapsed. There was no longer any point in sending US subs there for repair or provisioning. Mills made a silent wager that China had more than an old rail link in mind. Strongly gifted with visual memory, he recalled that the Chinese thrust was generally northeastward. By driving to the Sea of Okhotsk they would also cut the big new Baikal-Amur railway — a truly crucial artery through Siberia which had cost twice as much as our Alaska pipeline.
Oil, iron, coal, even diamonds passed from Siberia to the coast on the new artery and if it were slashed, much of Siberia might bleed to death. Yes, Mills decided, the RUS was in damned big trouble if SinoInd forces could push a spearhead to the Okhotsk Sea. And if the RUS was posturing about help from devastated Vladivostok, that posture would fool no one — that is, no one but surviving Americans who found their media more believable each year.
Boren Mills had guessed already that Canada was ready to throw in with the good guys, even with her growing mistrust toward the fumbling RUS colossus that owned more Arctic resources and techniques than Canada herself. Mills did not care what Canada did, so long as she did not permit the US Navy to install the new ELF grid at Barnes Icecap on Baffin Island. The grid could be laid there cheaply and quickly, could be easily hidden there; but already, as a very junior and very efficient officer, Mills knew that he could give odds on his being posted there. Baffin Island! Mills groaned to himself and, as NBN turned to the siege of Guantanamo, began to snore.
Chapter Thirty-One
"Turn the durn thing off, Liza," growled the weather-beaten man on the pallet. "It's just wastin' power, and l can do without hearin' why the Mexes are neutral." The hand he waved toward the old portable TV was a ghastly contrast to the rest of his wiry body. The fingers were so grossly swollen by blisters that the hand seemed a cluster of long pinkish grapes. Way land Grange had not yet lost much of the sparse straight hair on his head, but swarthy skin already was peeling from his forearms. He closed his eyes, held his breath, lay back and faced the ageless stalactites overhead.
Louise Grange nodded to eleven-year-old Sandy, who snapped off the set. "You ought not to take off that cold compress, Daddy," she rebuked her husband softly.
"Ain't the hand that hurts," he grunted, now staring into the gloom of a cavern lit by a single candle that kept his wife's coffee warm. "Tryin not to lose my supper." His stomach muscles knotted again; he felt the cool damp rag caress his forehead, recognized the loving touch as his daughter's. Like her father, Sandy wasn't long on talk. But her soothing hands were quick and sure, and the girl always seemed to know where it hurt without being told. "Must be half-past twelve," he managed to say. "Time you was asleep, sprat."
"Daddy's right, Sandy," said Louise, nodding toward the pile of quilts and supplies they had carried from the scorched Blazer. "Make you a nice pallet, hon."
"Can I write in my journal?" Sandy's few words, moth-flutter soft as usual, managed to carry both acquiescence and pleading without a hint of protest.
"Just for a minute," her mother warned, redirecting a stray wisp of graying blonde hair that had escaped the bun at her nape. Louise and Wayland Grange exchanged eyebrow lifts, signals that passed for smiles in the laconic little family.