The Distance Beacons Read online

  "Then why was a file started?"

  "Someone hears a name or a rumor and decides to start a file. If no more information is forthcoming, nothing gets placed in the file."

  "Do you have a record of who started the file, or when, or why?" I asked.

  Cowens shook his head.

  "This doesn't seem like a particularly efficient system, Bob," Bolton said. He seemed glad to have the attention shifted from his own mistake.

  The general's stare was approaching absolute zero. For all his deference to Bolton, it didn't look as if he was particularly fond of the governor. "There are limitations on manpower and other resources," he said in his softest, frostiest voice. "We do the best we can with what is available to us."

  "I'd like to take a look at your files," I said.

  Cowens glanced at me. Another impertinence from the local. "Out of the question," he replied.

  "Show him the files, Bob," Bolton said. "Show him whatever he wants to see."

  "Those files are highly confidential," Cowens pointed out. "This man is—"

  "This man has been hired to help us. And it looks to me like we need help. Understood?"

  Cowens assumed the blank expression of a military man following orders. "Yes, sir."

  Suddenly I was impressed with Bolton. He certainly didn't seem to have any problem handling the legend sitting across from him. Bolton stood up. "Good. Thank you both for coming, then. Sands, I expect a report before the president arrives—or as soon as you find out anything. If you have any problems getting people to cooperate, just let me know."

  I stood up too. "Yes, sir."

  General Cowens got slowly to his feet. He headed out of Bolton's office without glancing at either of us. I followed him, assuming he was going to carry out Bolton's order. I smiled at Lisa as we walked through the reception area; she ignored me. The guard at the door saluted as Cowens passed by.

  We waited silently for the elevator to come. Cowens wasn't the sort of guy I felt like starting a casual conversation with. When the elevator arrived, he pressed B, and we headed down to the basement. Cowens then led the way down a long, gray-tiled corridor. At the end of the corridor was a barred door; beyond the door a uniformed man sat at a desk reading a newspaper. Above the door was a hand-lettered sign that said "Records."

  The soldier jumped to his feet when he saw Cowens approaching. He unlocked the door and let us in.

  We stood in a large open area half-filled with battered green file cabinets. There were no windows, and the electric lighting was poor; the place felt damp and musty, like some abandoned cellars where I have spent the night in my time.

  "Sergeant Hennessey," Cowens said. "Governor Bolton has given this man permission to study the files related to dissident organizations and individuals. He is not, however, to remove anything. Understood?"

  "Yes, sir," Sergeant Hennessey said. He was a tall, hairless man with a cleft palate.

  Cowens turned to me. "And you are not to divulge the contents of these files to anyone else. If I find that you have, I'll throw you back into the army so fast you'll think you never took the uniform off. Understood?"

  "Uh-huh."

  Cowens stared at me. "You weren't a very good soldier, were you, Sands?" he said after a moment.

  I considered. "I was a terrible soldier," I replied. He nodded, his insight confirmed, and then he walked stiffly out the door. Sergeant Hennessey locked it behind him, then turned to me. "It's all yours," he said, and he went back to reading his newspaper.

  I wandered through the rows of file cabinets, looking for the 'T's. Finally I found a cabinet labeled "Tabard to Timothy" in pencil. I slid open the bottom drawer. It was crammed full of manila folders. I thumbed through them until I found the T's, and the folder for The Second American Revolution. As Cowens had said, it was empty. So now what?

  Just for fun, I looked through the S's. Did the government snoops have a file on one Walter Sands? Why, yes they did. I took it out and opened it up, eager to see what they had on me.

  There was nothing in it but the article my friend Gwen had written for the Globe about my adventure in England. I didn't know whether to feel annoyed or relieved. On the one hand, my pride was hurt. Hadn't I done lots of other things worth their attention? Did it take Gwen's article to make them notice me? On the other hand, surely it was a good thing not to be noticed. There was no telling when they'd decide to stick you back in the army.

  As I looked at my folder, something struck me. My name had been written in pencil, and the black letters were already smudged and faded with handling, even though Gwen's article was only a few weeks old. The tab on which my name appeared was soft and wrinkled. I got out TSAR's folder again. No smudges; no fading; no wrinkles. A nice, fresh, new folder.

  I closed the drawers and returned to Sergeant Hennessey, who looked up from his paper. "Through?" he asked.

  "Well, no, I've got a couple of questions I'd like to ask you, actually."

  "General Cowens didn't say anything about answering questions," the soldier pointed out.

  I raised an eyebrow. "All right, let's get him back down here and straighten this out," I said in my too-busy-to-put-up-with-this-nonsense voice.

  Hennessey shrugged. "Ask your questions. If I don't like them, you can go get him."

  Your typical helpful Fed. "Do many people come down here to look at these files?"

  Hennessey considered. "Enough," he replied helpfully.

  "Do you keep a log of the people who look at the files?"

  He shook his head.

  "Is there a list of people who are allowed in here?" Another helpful shake of the head.

  "Then how do you know who's authorized to look at the files?"

  "I know," he said.

  "Is anyone allowed to add a new folder to the files?"

  "If you're allowed in here, you can add folders."

  I pondered. "Well, thanks a lot," I said finally. Sergeant Hennessey went back to reading his paper. I thought about going upstairs to Bolton and getting him to make this guy cooperate, but I decided I didn't have things clear enough in my mind just yet. Instead I returned to the files.

  I couldn't think of any other angles to check here on the case, so I looked up what the Feds had on my friends. Nothing much. Gwen had some of her articles clipped out; the Globe was more or less anti-government, so I wasn't surprised that the Feds would keep track of its reporters. And there were a couple of items about a guy I knew named Linc, who had hated the government and had been more than willing to say so.

  But Linc was dead. I wondered if anyone was responsible for removing folders for dead people from the file cabinets. Not enough manpower, I supposed; not enough resources. It was more important to add empty new folders.

  "Quitting time," Hennessey called to me after a while. I shut the drawer and returned to the desk. Hennessey had the door open for me. "Someday," he said, "we'll get one of them big old computers running, and we'll really be back in business again."

  "I can hardly wait."

  Hennessey grinned. I headed back to the elevator while behind me he turned out the lights.

  Chapter 3

  It was a little early to go home, so I headed over to the waterfront. In the old days, apparently, the waterfront had been valued chiefly because the harbor was considered picturesque, and condos and hotels and restaurants jostled each other in the effort to get the best view. Now the condos and the hotels and the restaurants are all abandoned. People don't care about the view anymore; they care about the fish, and the wharfs are filled with the boats that go out and get the fish.

  Today I was interested in neither the fish nor the view. I knew that my housemate Stretch liked to run along the waterfront after work when the weather was good, and I figured I'd meet up with him there.

  Stretch's love of exercise struck me as being insane. Life is hard enough, it seemed to me, without making it any harder for yourself. But I didn't voice my opinion to him. Stretch is a man of firm beliefs, and no
thing is to be gained by taking issue with them. So I sat on a bench near the ruins of the aquarium and waited for a midget in his underwear to come jogging by.

  "Are you expecting a commission?" I asked when he finally appeared.

  He stopped and smiled. "Hello, Walter." He wiped the sweat from his tiny features. "Isn't it exciting?"

  "That I finally got another case?"

  "Well, yes, that too. But I mean, aren't you excited about the president corning to Boston?"

  "Oh. Sure. Is she going to bring a new sewer system with her?"

  Stretch is assistant director of sewers for the city. In a sense, this made him a Fed like Bolton and all the others; the city administration was separate from, but subordinate to, the Fed's regional bureaucracy. But in any case no one seemed to hold this against Stretch. No one dislikes sewers, and no one dislikes Stretch. "Of course not, Walter," Stretch replied. "But things are changing—can't you feel it? And they're changing because of her."

  We headed over to where Stretch had hidden his clothes and briefcase in a pile of rubble. Stretch trusted his fellow man, but not enough to leave his clothes out in the open. I started thinking about President Kramer. She was less clear to me than Bolton and Cowens, just as the goings-on in Atlanta were somehow less real than what happened here in Boston. I decided to risk a lecture. "Why is President Kramer so important, Stretch?"

  Stretch brightened as he pulled on his pants. It wasn't often that I expressed any interest in such matters. "President Kramer represents the new generation, Walter—our generation. The generation that's going to change the world." I imagine Stretch saw my eyes start to glaze, because he quickly started giving me some facts. "I mean, she's older than us—she was born before the War—but she's more a part of this world than the old world. You know what I mean?"

  I knew. "The other presidents have all been from the old world, right?"

  Stretch nodded. He was buttoning his shirt now. "They were good men, and they worked hard, and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude, but there's a difference. They were just trying to keep America alive. Oh, they had policies, all right. I mean, it was obvious we had to do something to increase the population and to improve medical care, and no one wanted any of those high-tech weapons anymore, even if we could afford them. But mostly the idea was to make sure that people recognized the government in Atlanta as the government, and to prevent all these little dictatorships and kingdoms and whatever from taking root."

  "And you think we can get beyond that now?"

  "Ann Kramer thinks so. And really, it's all a matter of attitude. If she can convince enough people to agree with her then, yes, the future is ours for the taking. We can rebuild the nation, and then we can help rebuild the world."

  He picked up his briefcase, and we started walking toward the house we shared with Gwen on Beacon Hill. We passed a mutant sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, his stumps extended in a plea for coins; we tossed a few into his cap. A VOTE YES poster was plastered on the wall of the building behind him. Stretch's optimism was as puzzling to me as his love of exercise. Where did it come from? Probably some sort of mutation; surely it wasn't rational.

  "And the referendum is the start?" I asked.

  "The president has already started, Walter. But the referendum will make her success inevitable, if enough people vote for it."

  "Do you think enough people will?"

  Stretch nodded, his eyes gleaming. "Now that Ann Kramer is coming, I'm sure of it."

  I couldn't help being a little envious of Stretch. Certainty must be a very soothing state of mind. We were silent for a while as we headed home.

  Gwen, Stretch, and I live in an old town house in Louisburg Square—once one of the toniest addresses in Boston, and still in possession of a certain Brahmin grandeur. But like everyplace else, our home has suffered the depredations of time and neglect, and is now just one more symbol of what has been lost. Unlike the Feds, we no longer have electricity or central heat, and, despite Stretch's best efforts, our sewer system is at best problematic. But people have survived before electricity and central heat, so who are we to complain? We aren't bluebloods, but we are alive, and that is more than can be said for the rich folks whose home we have usurped.

  Stretch and I smelled boiling chicken as we entered the once-elegant foyer. Gwen was home already, and it was her turn to make supper. "Hello," we called out, and she hurried from the kitchen and kissed us both. She lingered in my embrace and smiled at me. "How are you?" she asked.

  "Just great." Gwen felt good in my arms. We have been together for a long time. I may not be the most faithful fellow in the world, but I'm smart enough to know I'm one of the luckiest.

  "Walter got a case today," Stretch said.

  "True?" she asked, her smile widening.

  I nodded. "You may not be too happy about it, though."

  "Come to the kitchen and tell me."

  We followed her to the rear of the house and sat at the kitchen table while Gwen busied herself preparing the meal. Stretch poured a glass of cider and looked very pleased with himself. I was working for the government now. If only he could convert Gwen...

  "You've probably heard that the president is coming to town," I said.

  Gwen nodded. "They announced it this afternoon, but there were rumors before that."

  Bolton had been right, then: people outside the government could have known the president was coming. "Someone made a threat against her," I said. "A group called 'The Second American Revolution.' Ever hear of it?"

  Both Stretch and Gwen shook their heads. "There are a lot of bad people around," Stretch murmured. His tone suggested that this was a source of perpetual amazement to him.

  "Anyway, Governor Bolton wants me to find out about these guys, see if we can round them up before they do anything to President Kramer."

  Stretch was impressed. "I thought you were just going to be part of her security," he said. "But this is much more important."

  Gwen, with her reporter's training, started quizzing me on the details as she put out the boiled chicken and boiled potatoes and boiled carrots. She is not a very inventive cook. I felt a little uncomfortable giving her all the information—a private eye owes his client some confidentiality, after all, even if he doesn't like his case—but I found it impossible to hide anything from her. She's too good a reporter, I guess. "So you think it could be someone inside the government?" she asked after I had laid out what I knew.

  "Well, at least the hypothesis fits the facts," I said. "Someone goes to the records department and slips a folder into the file cabinet. Lo and behold, TSAR exists. He can't put anything into the folder, since nothing else exists but the name—and maybe he's afraid to forge any notes or reports, because it'd be easy for him to get caught. So meanwhile everyone starts looking for a phony group."

  "But the other hypothesis also fits," Stretch noted, loyal as always to his employer. "Someone started the folder because he'd heard the name of the group, and then there was nothing to put in it because nothing else came up. And that makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? I mean, why would someone in the government threaten President Kramer?"

  Bolton had asked me the same question. This time I just shrugged and ate a mouthful of carrots.

  "Of course," Gwen said, "there are plenty of Feds who think this referendum is a bad idea. And Governor Bolton is one of them."

  That was news to me. Stretch looked uncomfortable; it apparently wasn't news to him. "Why?" I asked Gwen.

  "Don't you read the Globe?" she asked.

  "Only your articles. The rest is too depressing. I'm apolitical, or haven't I mentioned that to you?"

  She smiled. "Well, surely you know the criticisms people have made of the referendum."

  "Who gets to vote," I responded. That was a tricky one for the Feds. Basically, there are three classes of people the Feds have to deal with. There are taxpayers—people who work for mainstream businesses or the government and have taxes withheld from their
pay just like the old days; Stretch and Gwen were taxpayers. And there are the people on the census rolls who don't pay taxes: the government knows these people exist, but has no way of extracting money from them, generally because they don't work for a business that has to depend on the government for services, and that therefore has to do the government's bidding; I am such a person. And then there are the rest—the people who have nothing to do with the government, who live shadowy lives in the suburbs or on farms far away from Bolton and his minions, and just want to be left alone.

  In the past, taxpayers have been the only ones who could vote, and then only for legislatures that had limited authority over purely local matters. But what good would the referendum do if voting was limited to this minority? Ideally it should be open to all, but if people weren't on some kind of government list, how could the Feds prevent them from voting more than once? So they opened up the voting to people on the census rolls But that left them vulnerable to the criticism that they were excluding a large segment of the population who would undoubtedly VOTE NO.

  "Who gets to vote is certainly a problem," Gwen agreed. "And there's also the problem of interpreting the results. People who oppose the government aren't going to believe the government isn't cheating, so what's the point of the Feds running this big campaign and then announcing that they received ninety-eight percent of the vote? Does anyone really expect the Feds to tell us if they lose?"

  "They've offered to let the opposition participate in counting the ballots," Stretch pointed out.

  "But even if the opposition were organized enough to run the referendum with the Feds, why should they bother?" Gwen replied. "They're better off simply ignoring it. For the referendum to have any value, people have to believe in the whole process. Otherwise it's just a public relations gimmick—and a pretty pitiful one at that."

  I was impressed with Gwen. Usually she says so little that you might forget how much she knows. "So the Feds win only if people think they've won," I said.