Superb halted, turned to Amanda. ‘Get The New York Times reporting machine for me on the phone, please.’
Picking up the phone, Amanda numbly dialled.
Ashen-faced, Maury Frauenzimmer swallowed noisily, put down the newspaper and mumbled to Chic, ‘Do you know which of us leaked the news?’ His flesh hung in wattles, as if death were creeping over him.
‘I — ‘
‘It was your brother Vince. Whom you just brought in here from Karp. Well, this is the end of us. Vince was acting for Karp; they never fired him — they sent him.’ Maury crumpled up the newspaper with both hands. ‘God, if only you’d emigrated. If you’d gone he never would have managed to get in here; I wouldn’t have hired him without your say-so.’ He raised his panic-filled eyes and stared at Chic.
‘Why didn’t I let you go?’
Outside the Frauenzimmer Associates factory building a news machine shrilled,’ … vast government secret! Der Alte a simulacrum! New one already being built!’ It began all over again, then, mechanically controlled by its central circuits.
‘Destroy it,’ Maury croaked at Chic. ‘That — machine out there. Make it leave, in the name of god.’
Chic said thickly, ‘It won’t go. I tried. When I first heard it.’ The two of them faced each other, he and his boss Maury Frauenzimmer, neither of them able to speak. Anyhow, there was nothing to say. It was the end of their business. And perhaps of their lives.
At last Maury said, ‘Those Loony Luke lots. Those jalopy jungles. The government closed all of them down, didn’t it?’
Chic said, ‘Why?’
‘Because I want to emigrate,’ Maury said. ‘I have to get out of here. So do you.’
‘They’re closed,’ Chic agreed, nodding.
‘You know what we’re seeing?’ Maury said. ‘This is a coup. A plot against the government of the USEA, by someone or a lot of someones. And they’re people inside the apparatus, not outsiders like Goltz. And they’re working with the cartels, with Karp, the biggest of them all. They’ve got a lot of power. This is no street fight. No vulgar brawl.’
He mopped his red, perspiration-soaked face with his handkerchief. ‘I feel ill. Goddamit, we’ve been brought into it, you and me; the NP boys will be here any minute.’
‘But they must know we didn’t intend — ‘
‘They know nothing. They’ll be arresting everybody. Up and down.’
Far off a siren sounded. Maury, wide-eyed, listened.
14
As soon as she understood the situation Nicole Thibodeaux gave the order for the Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, to be killed.
It was necessary. Very possibly the revolutionary clique had ties with him; in any case she could not take the risk.
Far too much was involved.
In a hidden courtyard of the White House a squad of soldiers from the nearby Army base did the required job; she listened absently to the faint, almost inaudible sound of their high-powered laser rifles, thinking to herself that this — the death of this man — proved how little power he had held in the Third Reich. For his death caused no alteration in her time, in the present; the event did not produce even a ripple of alteration. It was a commentary on the governmental structure of Nazi Germany.
Next, she called in NP Commissioner Wilder Pembroke.
‘I want a report,’ she informed him, ‘as to exactly what support the Karps are drawing from. In addition to their own resources. Obviously, they wouldn’t have gone ahead with this unless they felt they could count on allies.’ She eyed the top NP official with deliberate, rigorously calculated intensity. ‘How do the National Police stand?’
Wilder Pembroke said calmly, ‘We’re ready to deal with the plotters.’ He did not seem disturbed; in fact, she thought, he was even more self-possessed than usual. ‘As a matter of fact we’ve already begun rounding them up. Karp employees and executives, and the personnel of the Frauenzimmer outfit. And anyone else who’s involved; we’re working on that aspect, using von Lessinger’s equipment.’
‘Why weren’t you prepared for this by means of the von Lessinger principle?’ Nicole asked sharply.
‘Admittedly, this was there. But only as the most meagre possibility. One in a million, of the possible alternative futures. It never occurred to us — ‘
‘You’ve just lost your job,’ Nicole said. ‘Send in your staff. I’ll choose a new police commissioner from among them.’
Colouring, incredulous, Pembroke stammered, ‘But at every given moment there’s a raft of dangerous alternatives so malign that if we — ‘
‘But you knew,’ Nicole said, ‘that I was under attack. When that thing, that Martian animal, bit me it should have warned you. From then on you should have been expecting an all-out attack, because that was the beginning.’
‘Shall — we pick up Luke?’
‘You can’t pick up Luke. Luke is on Mars. They all got away, including the two that were here in the White House. Luke came and got them.’ She tossed that report to Pembroke. ‘And anyhow, you no longer have any authority.’
There was a strained, unpleasant silence.
‘When that thing bit me,’ Nicole said, ‘I knew we were in for a time of difficulty.’ But in one respect it was a good thing it had bitten her; it had made her alert. Now she could not be taken by surprise — she was ready, and it would be a long time before something, or someone — would bite her again.
Metaphorically or literally.
‘Please, Mrs Thibodeaux — ‘ Pembroke began.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t whine. You’re out. That’s it.’
There’s something about you I don’t trust, she said to herself. Maybe it’s because you let that papoola animal get to me. That was the beginning of your decline, of your career downfall. From then on I was suspicious of you.
And, she thought, it was almost the end of me.
The door of the office opened and Richard Kongrosian appeared, beaming. ‘Nicole, ever since I moved that A.G. Chemie psych-chemist down to the laundry room I’ve become fully visible. It’s a miracle!’
‘Fine, Richard,’ Nicole said. ‘However, we’re having a closed conference in here, at this moment. Come back later.’
Now Kongrosian made out Pembroke. The expression on his face at once changed. Hostility … she wondered why.
Hostility — and fear.
‘Richard,’ she said suddenly. ‘How would you like to be NP Commissioner? This man — ‘ She pointed at Wilder Pembroke. ‘He’s out.’
‘You’re joking,’ Kongrosian said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. In a way, at least. But in a way, no.’ She needed him, but in what fashion? How could she make use of him and his abilities? At the moment she simply did not know.
Pembroke said stiffly, ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, if you change your mind — ‘
‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘In any case,’ Pembroke said in a measured, prepared tone of voice, ‘I’ll be glad to return to my position and serve you.’
Thereupon he left the room; the door shut after him.
At once Kongrosian said to her, ‘He’s going to do something. I’m not sure what it is. Can you tell who’s loyal to you at a time like this? Personally, I don’t trust him; I think he’s part of the planet-wide network of conspiracy scheming against me.’ Hastily he added, ‘And against you, too, of course. They’re after you, too. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, Richard.’ She sighed.
Outside the White House a news machine squalled; she could hear it vending details about Dieter Hogben. The machine possessed the entire story. And it was exploiting it for all it was worth. She sighed again. The ruling council, those shadowy, ominous figures who stood directly behind every move she made, were undoubtedly thoroughly aroused, now, as if wakened from their sleep. She wondered what they would do. They had a lot of wisdom; collectively, they were quite old. Like snakes they were cold and silent, but very much alive. Very active and yet always obscured from sight.
They never appeared on TV, never gave guided tours.
At the moment she wished she could trade places with them.
And then all at once she realized that something had happened. The news machine was vending something about her.
Not about the next der Alte, Dieter Hogben, but some other Ge entirely.
The news machine — she went to the window to hear better — was saying that … She strained to hear.
‘Nicole dead!’ the machine shrilled. ‘Years ago! Actress Kate Rupert in her place! Entire governing apparatus a fraud, according to … ‘ And then the news machine moved on. She could no longer hear it, no matter how hard she tried.
His face wrinkled with confusion and uneasiness, Richard Kongrosian asked, ‘Wh-what was that, Nicole? It was saying you’re dead.’
‘Do I look dead?’ she asked tartly.
‘But it said an actress was taking your place.’ Kongrosian, bemused, stared at her, his face working with incomprehension. ‘Are you just an actress, Nicole? An impostor, like der Alte? He continued to stare, looking as if he were about to burst into grief-stricken baffled tears.