The US Cavalry had no idea how to treat her, and so she had spent the morning being given a tour of Fort Apache and its environs. Captain Lauderdale, the spare officer Colonel Younger had ordered to keep her out of trouble, had taken her outside the perimeter walls and shown her London Bridge, the red British telephone boxes, and what was left of The Old Dog and Duck Pub. Lake Havasu had sold itself as a tourist attraction before the Colorado River dried up. Chantal understood it was a typical ghost town, its residential area turning gradually to desert as the sand drifted in and the houses collapsed. In a thousand years, you would never know there had been a community here.
The bridge, transported stone by stone from England, was really falling down now. Lauderdale attempted a joke about it, and called her "my fair lady," but she didn't respond. She thought there was something creepy about the captain, and her training had taught her to trust her intuitions. She didn't have any measurable psi abilities, but she had spent so much time swapping synapses with the datanets that she had her moments, her occasional flashes of extranormal insight.
Spanning a channel of rancid mud and cracked, dry earth, the bridge did not look special. It was rather a bland design, with nothing distinctively British about it. There were wrought-iron lamp-posts, mostly twisted into half-pretzel shapes.
"The story goes that the people who bought it got the wrong bridge." Lauderdale said. "They wanted the one that goes up and down…"
"Tower Bridge."
"That's right. Tower Bridge."
Chantal examined shared heart graffiti etched into the stone, and looked towards the remains of the town.
"Does anybody live down there?"
Lauderdale looked both ways, as if afraid his superiors were listening. "Not officially, but there's a large detachment of men and women at the Fort, with no way to spend their pay and not much to do in their off hours…"
"So?"
"I am given to understand that there are…um…camp followers, and a bar or two, where they have…um…gambling."
A tumbleweed rolled lazily by. There wasn't much wind, so the things must mainly lie and rot.
"The place looks completely deserted."
"They come out at night, Ms Juillerat, and sleep during the day."
"Like vampires?"
"Yes, exactly like vampires."
From the look of distaste curling about his thin lips, Chantal guessed that Captain Lauderdale had little use for camp followers and gamblers. Perhaps he subscribed to one of the many repressive protestant doctrines running rampant here in the United States? She found it hard to keep them separate in her mind—Mormons, Josephites, Scientologists, Moonies, Seventh-Day Amish, Hittites, Mennonites, Danites, Disneyworlders, The Bible Belt—and imagined they themselves had the same problem. Being a Catholic was a lot easier since 'Vatican LXXXV' loosened things up.
"Where did the people go? The ones who lived here?"
They had found a skeleton dressed as an English policeman, half-buried in rubbish and sand, but few other signs of previous habitation.
"The nearest PZ, if they could afford it. If not, there are squatters' towns around most conurbations. Some take to the roads, like the okies in the '30s. They're the problem."
"I don't understand?"
"It's difficult to drive around the burned-out vehicles. Defenceless citizens should keep off the interstate."
From the outside, Fort Apache looked more like a mediaeval castle than the wooden stockades of the Old West. Its windowless walls were stone and steel, and the structure was tiered like an old-fashioned wedding cake. A few sensors, tiny at this distance, revolved on the roof, and the Stars and Stripes flew, hanging stiff from a rod. It was one of a chain of identical forts dotted throughout the Western States.
There was a noise, and Lauderdale drew his sidearm. It had been another stone falling from the bridge into the mud. The captain grinned without humour and holstered his weapon.
"You have to be alert," he explained.
"It's too quiet out there, you mean?"
"Huh?"
"In the films, that's the cavalry catch-phrase. Just before an Indian attack, someone says "it's too quiet out there" and an arrow sticks in him."
Lauderdale didn't crack a smile. Their senses of humour were noticeably out of sync. "I never liked Western films much, Ms Juillerat. Never liked films, really."
"Then what are you doing dressed up like John Wayne?"
The revived US Cavalry wore outfits modelled exactly on the 1870s styles. Lauderdale had a blue tunic, a modified stetson with the cav insignia and carried a Colt .45.
"It's just the uniform. I'm here to serve my country."
Most of the personnel Chantal had met at Fort Apache said something like that. They were proud that the US Cav was still an arm of the US Government, especially since it fought off the last privatisation plan. However, the organization was mainly involved in keeping the interstate routes clear for GenTech and the other multinats. She guessed that private citizens, like the modern okies Lauderdale had complained about, were mainly considered to be a nuisance. This was no era to be an innocent bystander.
From the bridge, they could see the approach road. A column was nearing the fort. Motorcyke outriders, a couple of cruisers, and a triple-jointed tanker.
"Here comes the water and the gas," said Lauderdale. "Supplies for a month."
"You really are cut off here?"
"That's right. Where there's no water, people don't live. This is not a natural community. We had pipelines, but the Maniax trashed them during the first days of the joint action."
"Ah yes, the Maniax. In Rome, I saw on the teevee about them. Children, were they not?"
Lauderdale spat, "savages!"
"They have been…pacified?"
"If you mean killed, mostly they have. The rest are in Readjustment Camps, or on the offshore penal colonies. You have the same set-up in Europe, I believe, You dump all your human garbage on Sicily."
"The European Community does. I'm not a Eurocitizen."
"The Maniax moved in after it started to break down. When it stopped raining, when food became scarce. The Maniax, and people like them. They sacked the towns that were losing it, raped and murdered at random, destroyed property, looted on an industrial scale."
"Their average age, I hear, was fifteen."
"Maybe so, you don't ask for a birth certificate when you're hand-to-hand with a genetically-engineered homicidal psychopath"
The Maniax were only the largest of the gangcults, Chantal had heard. By no means, the worst. She had been briefed back in Rome by her superiors on the groups she might come across. She had a special dispensation to commit suicide if captured by The Bible Belt, the fundamentalist crazies who viewed the world as a large-scale Sodom and Gomorrah and saw it as their duty to bring down the Wrath of God upon all sinners. She wasn't worried. She had been trained—in the language of the States, she was a "Proper Op”—and she could deal with most eventualities.
A bugle call sounded on the tannoy, and gates appeared in the hitherto seamless walls. The column crept into the fort like a maggot crawling into an apple. Barked orders carried on the still air. The last vehicle in the convoy was an open truck. People stood up on the flatbed, shackled together.
"More Maniak stragglers. Captain Badalamenti has the mop-up detail. We'll be bringing them in for months."
The prisoners were dragged off the truck and led into the fort by guards. One Mohawk-haired giant shouted defiance, and a Trooper struck her with something. There was a crackle and the Maniak fell to her knees, screaming.
"Cattle prod," Lauderdale explained. "It's the only thing they understand. Pain."
As the Maniak twisted in agony, the prisoners she was chained to were pulled off their feet. They fell badly, leg and wrist irons clanking. The grossly fat Sergeant in charge of the detail took the prod from the Trooper and touched it not to any particular prisoner but to a length of the chain connecting them. Sparks flew, and sixteen men and women screamed in unison.
"Pain, Ms Juillerat. They're experts at inflicting it. It's our job to turn things round."
"O brave new world…"
"I beg your pardon?"
"…that has such people in it!"
Brevet Major General Marshall K. Younger examined his reflection in the glass that covered the life-size portrait of Charlton Heston which had pride of place in his office. He tried to match his head and shoulders to the Ex-President's, and fell only a little short. You could do a lot with your body if you exercised regularly and took the Zarathrustra treatment, but, unless you wanted to become a complete cyborg, you were stuck with the bones you were born with. Younger wasn't ready for that yet. He thumped the sides of his stomach with both hands, relishing the way his tight fists bounced off leather-supple gut muscles. Younger stuck a foot-long Cuban cigar in his face, bit off and spat away the wet end, flipped his zippo and touched flame to the tip. He sucked thick smoke into his GenTech remodelled lungs.
"Ain't no way you're gonna give me cancer, you long brown bastard," he said to his cigar, puffing deeply, "so you can just give up trying to mug my alveoli."
It had been a simple treatment, and was available at a massive discount to serving officers in the Road Cav. The corp wanted the interstates open, and didn't mind throwing a few favours around to keep in with the law enforcement community. And as a brevet ranking, Younger was grateful for the perks of the trade.
Younger snapped off a perfect salute at Heston. Big Chuck had been the man who authorized the revival of the United States Cavalry. Before that, keeping the peace on the roads had been down to the Highway Patrol, and the interstates had been warzones. Now, Out West at least, you could guarantee your wrappers would get through. Big Chuck had done a hell of a lot for the country. His Moral Re-Armament Drive, and his Youth Pioneer Scheme had given the country some backbone again. And, of course, him and Senator Enderby had pushed through the Enderby Act and opened up the field of law enforcement to private individuals and organizations. The Cav wouldn't be here if it weren't for Enderby and Big Chuck.
Too bad about Senator Enderby. Younger had never believed anything those three Filippino houseboys had said on teevee during the MRA hearings, and he knew for a fact that the alleged monies paid by the Hammond Maninski and T-H-R Agencies to the Senator had been in the nature of remuneration for his work as a consultant with regards to the niceties of the law he had designed. But Big Chuck had let Enderby go to the wall. Younger bet the President had cried about it, but you had to put personal relationships beneath duty, service, your country and what was right. That was the only way to be.
There was a framed photograph of President North around somewhere, but Younger couldn't bear to put it where it showed. After Big Chuck, Solly Ollie was such a come-down. Heck, who needed a Prezz who couldn't cut it in the Marines and had to fall back on politics to carve himself a career?
Younger had been using his few minutes' peace and quiet to indulge himself. He had unlocked the cabinet in which he kept his leather-bound books. This was his private library, his one indulgence. On the spines, they all had titles like Statutes and Proceedings of the State of Arizona, 1989-1994 and Complete United States Cavalry Regulations, Vol. VI, but inside they were his kind of books. Every once in a while, he would haul one down and pick a page at random, then indulge in his most extravagant fantasies, assembling in his mind the makings of an orgiastic wallow in excess and voluptuousness.
Today, he had turned up one of his favourite peccadilloes. Potato dishes.
He ran through the variations. Creamed potatoes with soured cream and chives. Creamed potatoes with nutmeg. Stuffed jacket potatoes with garlic and herbs. Pommes de terre boulangere. Gratin dauphinois. Saute potatoes Lyonnaise. Saute potatoes Nicoise. New Jersey potatoes with fresh herb butter. Buffalo fries with rocksalt and guacamole.
He ran his fingers over the glossy illustrations. He checked off the ingredients against his mental inventory. His kitchen was reasonably well stocked for this ass-end-of-nowhere posting, but there were so many things he had not been able to get shipped out, even with his pull in the service. His mouth was full of saliva and smoke. He swallowed them both, and slipped the cookbook back into its space, locking the case.
He saluted Big Chuck again. The Ex-President would understand Younger's needs.
He checked his quartz digital pocket watch against the antique long-case clock from the original fort. It was time to make the rounds, time to prod the people who needed prodding and give a nod of approval to the personnel who didn't.
Outside his office, he accepted the salutes of several passing junior officers. Colonel Rintoon, his second-in-command, was waiting for him, clipboard tucked under his arm.
"Good morning, sir," he snapped.
"Morning, Vladek. Any surprises overnight?"
"Overdue patrol, sir."
"Hmmn. How long?"
"The full twelve hours. No radio contact. No distress blip. Tyree, Stack, and a T-H-R Op, Kling."
"Well, we can't lose one of our associates like that. Get a fix on their current position, and try to re-establish lines of communication. Anything else?"
Vladek looked at his clipboard. "Weekly convoy just in. Badalamenti reports sixteen pick-ups on the road. Maniax mostly, but we've got a stray Virus Vigilante, and a Psychopomp."
"The 'pomps are supposed to be history since that business at Spanish Fork."
"There are one or two left. Always are."
"It's not Jessamyn Bonney, by any chance?"
"No sir, I would have said. It's some low-rent ratskag. She barely shows up on the seedings."
"You've checked warrants on the intake. Anything outstanding?"
"The usual. Multiple homicide, driving without due c and a, line-running, highway piracy."
"Process 'em, and ship 'em out, then."
"Already taken care of."
"Good work."
Younger and Rintoon strolled through the fort, crossing the courtyard from the admin block to the Ops Centre. The space was enclosed, but three storeys tall. Cruisers and cykes were being stripped and serviced in the motor pool. Sergeant Quincannon was squarebashing some new recruits on the parade ground. Everybody who had a job was doing it, which was the way it should be.
In the centre of the courtyard was an imposing statue, symbolizing the heritage of the service. General Custer, Teddy Roosevelt and Trickydick Nixon, shoulder to shoulder, six-guns waving, with Dwight D. Eisenhower holding up the star-spangled banner behind the grouping. Some drunken Trooper had shot Nixon in the face. The culprit was still in the guardhouse, but Younger couldn't say he was entirely upset about the vandalism. The Ex-President looked a sight better without his ski slope nose, and Younger had never been convinced that he would have known what to do with the Buntline specials the sculptor had given him.
"What about our guest, sir?"
"The Italian woman?"
"Swiss, sir. She works out of Rome, but she's a Swiss national."
"Whatever. She's getting the tour?"
"Lauderdale's looking after her."
"Good man."
Sergeant Quincannon saluted as Younger and Rintoon walked by, and his troop raggedly followed suit. Younger bothered to return the Quince's gesture. The red-faced Irishman was just the kind of soldier he wanted in his command. He was three times the man drunk that most of the rest were sober. Which was a useful trait to have, since he was a frequent imbiber of Shochaiku Double-Blend.
"What do we do with her later? When she's seen everything?"
"Full co-operation, all down the line. That's come through channels, so don't get in her way. I understand it's international, so don't embarass the government."
"You mean we should…"
"Snap to and shape up, Vladek, snap to and shape up. She's a fully-trained Op, probably has more kills than Redd Harvest to her credit. Go along with her as far as you can. Just don't get us into trouble, okay?"
"Okay and affirmative."
"Good man."
The doors of the Ops Centre slid open, and the officers stepped in. The Trooper on the desk gave them retinal and palmprint checks, established that they were the people whose faces they were wearing and logged them in.
"By the way, extend my invitation to Ms Juillerat for dinner this evening. Also you and Hendry Faulcon, Captains Lauderdale and Finney, Doc King and Lieutenant Colosanto. That's boy-girl, boy-girl, boy-girl, boy-girl. I'll cook. Ossobuco. That's shin of veal in white wine with tomatoes, garlic, lemon, parsley and fresh-milled black pepper."
"I'll take care of that sir."
"Make her feel at home. Italian food. Of course, if she's Swiss, maybe I should switch to fondue bourgignon."
"That's your decision, Colonel."
They entered the despatch room. Personnel were at their consoles, tracking and logging. A map of the territory took up one wall. Dozens of lights moved on the map.
"Now," said Younger, "about that overdue patrol?"
They were back inside Fort Apache, and Lauderdale was explaining the day-to-day duties of the Road Cavalry to her. "We patrol the interstates regularly, keep in touch with the outlying settlements There are still some sandside communities out there. And there are motorwagon trains to escort, and convoys to keep track of. And, of course, there are the gangcults. Mainly, we just try and find out where they are these days. The wars are over. We don't seek to engage the enemy unless we have to. The recent joint action against the Maniax is fairly atypical. Some of the private agencies like to strut their stuff from time to time. It makes their customers think they're getting service."
They were in the motor pool, where the vehicles from the convoy were being worked over by oily mechanics. Lauderdale called over Trooper Grundy, an auto ostler, to show off some of the special features of the US Cav cruiser. Chantal listened politely, but didn't find out anything she hadn't learned from her researchwork.
"That's a nice machine you came in with, Ms," said the ostler. "A Ferrari?"
"Yes. It's standard issue."
"Your Agency must be well set-up."
"You could say that."
Lauderdale coughed. "If you'll come this way, Ms Juillerat, I'll show you our Ops Centre. It's the command module for the whole fort."
The captain led her into the central tower of the fort, and got her through the checkpoint. The girl at the desk asked for her details, but she flashed her authorization and the receptionist raised an eyebrow.
"Pass 'Go', collect two hundred dollars and Get Out of Jail Free, huh? We don't get many through like you. Did you have to sleep with someone important to get clearance like this?"
Chantal smiled. "I had to get married."
"Tough."
"It's very demanding."
The girl was filling out her badge. "You're telling me. I've been down the aisle three times. With me, it just didn't take."
She pinned the badge on Quintal's lapel.
"Right, take care of that. It'll open all the doors you're cleared to go through for you, but don't spill coffee on it or the thing shorts out and you'll be apprehended on sight as a security risk."
"I'll be careful."
Lauderdale guided her through the labyrinth. Smartly-dressed men and women hurried purposefully down the corridors. The air was full of communications. There were plaques, recording the names of cavalry personnel who had fallen in the line of duty. Trophies were mounted in glass cases. Geronimo's head-dress, Phil Sheridan's uniform, a canteen from Little Big Horn, a variety of arrows, a blood-clogged chainsaw from the Phoenix NoGo Campaign of Pacification, some dented hubcaps from Route 666, scraps of car bodywork with gangcult decals. Everybody was armed. As a child, watching television in Lucerne, Chantal had assumed that everybody in America carried a gun. Back then, it might not have been true.
"This is the Ops Centre," Lauderdale said, ushering her into a large, semicircular space dominated by an illuminated map. A sabre from the Battle of Washita was in a case over the map. Heads turned. Lauderdale saluted.
"Sir," he said.
A tallish, well-built man with an iron gray moustache returned the captain's salute. He must be in his fifties, but he looked fit enough to be a gladiator.
"Sir, this is Ms Chantal Juillerat, from Rome."
The officer extended a hand, which she shook.
"This is our commanding officer. Major General Younger."
"Brevet Major General Younger, Lauderdale. At your service ma'am."
"Thank you."
"You've been looked after?"
"I have."
"You like ossobuco?"
Chantal was fazed. "Why, I've never had it."
"Fine. You won't have anything to compare my efforts with. Eight o'clock sharp suit you? Dinner, I mean?"
Lauderdale, who turned into a statue with a steel backbone in Younger's presence, chipped in with "Ms Juillerat wanted to see our command centre, sir."
"Commendable, captain. Eight o'clock?"
"Certainly, Brevet Major General."
Lights moved on the big map, and people with headsets talked into their microphones. It was the kind of set Chantal remembered from teevee coverage of the space program in the late '70s, or from repeated secret agent shows from the '60s. The Man From UNCLE with Robert Vaughn, Mission: Impossible with Peter Graves, or Get Smart with Ronald Reagan. "What precisely are you doing at this moment?" she asked.
"Well, ma'am," began the Major General, "there are always many missions to keep track of. There's a GenTech convoy out of El Paso headed for San Bernardino. El Paso is the railhead for the vat-grown organs that come out of Mexico, and San Berdoo is GenTech's West Coast centre for transplant surgery. We're riding shotgun on a shipment of hearts, lungs and livers, I guess."
"GenTech are a major customer?"
The Major General looked stem for a moment. "The United States Cavalry doesn't have customers, ma'am. We are public servants. We're here for the taxpayers."
"I'm sorry. English is not my first language. Sometimes I make errors."
"Think nothing of it. You're right, GenTech do route much of their interstate traffic by us. I think that's a mark of confidence. The other corps do the same. And we do a lot of wagonmaster work."
"You shepherd the resettlers?"
"That we do. It's a tradition of the outfit."
"Do you have much connection with the Josephites?"
Younger paused. Chantal wondered if she had said the wrong thing, aroused his suspicion. Finally, he answered her, "no, not that much. At the first, we kept the route to Salt Lake open, but they have their own Ops now. I understand they do a decent job, but I'm not really up on the affairs of Deseret. I'm not sure if it's within our jurisdiction. It's only notionally part of the United States."
"Sir," cut in a woman at one of the tracking consoles. "We have a trace from Tyree."
Younger turned, and stood over the tracker, peering at the screen. There was a moving blip, travelling down an anonymous road.
"Put it up on the big screen, Finney."
Captain Finney, a plain, pleasant-laced person, punched some keys, and her picture took up the whole wall. There were placenames. Dead Rat, Friendly, Baker Butte, Poland, Crown King, Octave. The blip travelled last. It was the only thing moving.
"That's wrong," said Finney. "Tyree was supposed to swing by the Petrified Forest, check out Escadilla and come back by way of Tucson. She's in the Tonto Basin."
"You're sure it's her cruiser?"
Finney flicked some switches. "Double-checking. Yep, the radio's down, but the auto-recognition is still holding steady. She's moving flat out, pushing the capabilities of the cart if you ask me. That's Tyree all right. At least, that's her ve-hickle and it's not programmed for any other driver."
"Looks like we've got us a rogue. Vladek, muster some pursuits."
Colonel Rintoon got on the telephone, and scrambled some field units, ordering them to intercept. He held the receiver to his uniform chest and looked up at the screen, taking it personally.
Chantal was trying to follow this.
"Leona is true and blue, sir," said Finney. "She's Cav from the toes up. Something bad must be going down."
"I don't like this." Younger pulled out a cigar and chewed it unlit.
"Is this an unusual occurrence?" Chantal asked.
Younger chewed some more, and looked pained. "I should say so. You can't hijack a Cav cruiser. It shuts down unless you feed it your personal code, and it even double-checks your body heat pattern. There's only human error."
"And what exactly has gone wrong?"
"Sergeant Tyree—a good soldier—appears to have gone renegade. She's obviously not in pursuit of anything, and she's way off her course. She's twelve hours overdue on a return to the fort, and she hasn't called in since some time yesterday afternoon. She's got a Trooper and a liaison from Turner-Harvest-Ramirez with her."
"I have a response from a patrol," said Rintoon. "Conway and Mixter are up on Mogollon Mesa. They can come down and interface with Tyree and Stack. If they need help, Conway'll give it. If they've turned, Conway'll put an end to that."
Finney looked as if she was about to protest, but she let it go. Younger nodded, and Rintoon relayed the order. A new blip appeared on the screen, moving in a course set to intercept the original light.
"Who's the T-H-R guy? What do we know about him?"
Rintoon had the facts. "Kenneth Kling. A nobody. No record at all. He just has a nuisance value assignment."
"If Tyree is clean, it could be this Kling who's gone psycho on us."
Finney swivelled on her chair and tapped another keyboard. "I'll have his profile faxed in from T-H-R in Denver." A printer stuttered, and Finney tore off a strip. "Shit! Uh, sorry, sir. I mean, uh, we have a negative on Kling. He's in his peter position, no advancement possible, no initiative, no more than basic skills, no major kinks. Someone has handwritten "self-important sonofabitch" in the psychological evaluation box. This jack is one of nature's born hostages. No way could he be behind it."
The second blip was within twenty miles of the first, and closing fast. It was strange to see a potentially lethal combat reduced to a giant kiddie's board game.
"Lenihan, patch Conway through the p.a. system," ordered Younger.
A smart young lieutenant with a headset flicked some switches.
"…proceeding South-South-West…" crackled a male voice. "No visual contact as yet…"
"He means they can't see it," Younger explained.
The blips were getting close.
"…I have it…a cruiser, for sure, up to 150 per according to my clock…does not respond to radio transmissions…am pursuing parallel course…
The blips moved together, faster. The background mapscreen changed at the edges to accommodate the pursuit. The placenames they passed blurred.
"Make contact, Conway," said Rintoon.
"…proceeding…"
There was a tearing noise over the loudspeaker, then a feedback whine. One of the blips went out.
"We've lost Conway," said Lenihan.
"Lost?"
"Lost, sir."
"Lost contact?" asked Younger.
"No…" Lenihan's voice was nearly cracked. "Lost. We have a heat source, but no ve-hickle. Conway's cruiser has been destroyed."
"That's not supposed to happen. What could Tyree be packing that could do that much damage?"
"I'd have to run that through the computer and get back to you, sir. A battlefield nuclear weapon would do it, but that doesn't conform to the facts we have here. The best I can think of is a lethal malfunction in Conway's cruiser, and that doesn't fit the pattern either."
"Your runaway is slowing down," said Chantal.
The blip was dropping speed. The placenames stopped blurring on the map, and came into clear focus.
"Welcome," she said.
The blip was definitely travelling on a backroad to a place called Welcome.
"What's near Welcome?" asked Younger.
"Nothing," said Finney. "The original Fort Apache, from the Indian Wars, is out there somewhere."
"What's in Welcome?" asked Chantal. The blip was slowing to a halt.
"Let me see," Finney tapped keys. "It's still nominally inhabited. At least, it was last time we did a drive-by. There's a motel, operated by someone called Jonathan Behr, and something called the Silver Byte Saloon. That's more or less home to a chapter of the Gaschuggers…"
"Could they pull off a hijack?"
"No sir, they can hardly handle their own rigs, let alone anything of ours."
Chantal had a feeling that this was the thing she was here for.
"Is there anything else about the town?"
The blip was sitting there, flashing under the black letters of the name.
"Nothing, really. A couple of old-timers waiting to be killed. A large cemetery. No agriculture, no gas station. Used to be a Josephite Mission, but that's closed down. All gone to Deseret, I guess."
"I don't understand, ma'am," said Younger. "What are you interested in?"
"There's a church still standing," said Finney. "St Werburgh's. A Miguel O'Pray is down here as the pastor."
"A Catholic church?"
"I suppose so. It doesn't say. He's listed as Father O'Pray, that would make him Catholic, wouldn't it? I'm a sufi myself."
"Does it have a terminal?"
"Pardon?"
"A computer terminal. Is it on any of the datanets?"
"Uh, that's…um…classified."
"It wouldn't be classified if there weren't a terminal, right?"
"Um…"
"You're excused, Finney," said Younger. The woman looked relieved.
"Yes, there is a terminal. It's a community church. They feed into our communications web, and then Phoenix, Nogales, Lordsburg and El Paso. They're surprisingly well set-up."
"That's it," Chantal said. "The church. Welcome, Arizona."
Younger and Rintoon were still busy being befuddled.
"Gentlemen, get the clearance. I'm going out there."
There was a pause, as the Swiss looked to Major General Younger for approval. The c-i-c nodded.
"Lauderdale, help the lady out."
Lauderdale saluted. He realized his back was hurting from standing up so straight. He was unable to relax in the presence of a superior officer. It was a survival-oriented trait in the Cav.
"Sir, yessir."
Ms Juillerat was striding out of the Ops Centre. Lauderdale followed. He tried to look as if he were not fixing his gaze on her movements as she walked. The Swiss was undoubtedly in great shape.
Ever since he had drawn this assignment, he had been wondering who exactly this foreign woman was. He judged her to be in her mid twenties, but whatever she did she wasn't new to it. She had confidence to spare, and had demonstrated a wide variety of surprising areas of knowledge. She knew cars and she knew guns, and she was well-briefed on the workings of the Cavalry. He understood that she was brought up to speak French and Italian and that English was the language she learned when she had mastered Latin (!), Spanish and Japanese. Lauderdale could get by in Spanish, but that was it. Whenever the conversation strayed from purely professional matters, she developed zipped lips. She wore no wedding ring and gave the impression of almost unapproachable singleness, but she had told the order she was married. The only thing she had let slip about her past was that she had been brought up mainly by nuns, and educated in Dublin, Rome and San Francisco.
"You will have my car fuelled and ready?"
"It'll be done."
"Good."
Ms Juillerat was something in computers, he guessed. She had paid particular attention when being shown around the datanet hook-up and the information storage and retrieval system. But she had been very careful not to reveal who she was working for, and what her business with the Road Cavalry was. Considering her base of operations, Lauderdale wondered if she mightn't be mafia. The Cav had made stranger allies in the past—it was common knowledge they had a treaty with the yakuza to protect certain business interests in return for a restraint on the part of the Japanese—and that would explain her reticence when questioned about her outfit. Like the yaks, the mafia probably broke no more laws in the course of its business day than the average multinat.
There was certainly a predatory cast to her fashion model's features—large, dark green eyes; long, straight nose; full, little-girl lips; clear, pale complexion—and he could imagine her executing a gangland hit without distaste or compassion. Lauderdale was brought up in front of the teevee, and Ms Juillerat, from different angles, kept reminding him of actresses: Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in the way she held her shoulders, Charlotte Rampling, Nastassia Kinski, Zoe Tamerlis in Ms .45, Audrey Hepburn, Judi Bowker in Out of Africa, Irish McCalla.
"I'd appreciate it if your ostler checked out my onboard weapons systems and communications links. I've not had time to run a thorough field test, and I'd hate to be let down."
One thing Lauderdale was certain of, Chantal Juillerat was an Op. A top-of-the-line Op, like Redd Harvest, Woody Rutledge, Harry Parfitt or the Cav's own Captain Buffalo. She wore a black catsuit that showed her figure. She was well-rounded, unmistakably womanly, but lithe. He figured she would have the muscle tone of a young she-leopard. Her black hair was cut functionally short, and she carried herself like a fighter. She had the balance, and she had the reflexes. This would be one lethal little lady to tangle with.
"Have all your charts downloaded into my system. I only have the basic map software for the South-West. Rome may well be months out of date, and I think I'm going to need detailed intelligence."
He nodded. They were about the same height, but he had the impression that he needed three steps to keep up with her every one. He was getting a stitch, losing breath.
She wore no make-up, no jewellery except for a discreet silver crucifix on a chain round her neck. Her clothes bore no insignia, but gave the impression of a uniform. It was an outfit for fighting in.
They passed through the lobby. Ms Juhlerat handed her badge back to the receptionist. The girl told them to have a nice day, and was rewarded with a tight smile.
In the courtyard, Ms Juhlerat turned to him. "Get all those things done, and meet me at my car. I have to get some things from my room."
She strode off before he could answer.
He would not have liked to be standing in her way.
Chantal sat cross-legged on the floor of the room the Cav had assigned to her, and tried to centre herself. She held her hands together, and touched them to her lips. Meditation always helped her before she went into the field. She cleared her mind, made everything go away, and brought the mission to the fore. This was the zen moment, the perfect focusing of achievement, becoming and intent. The mission was all she needed.
In moments, she was refreshed, prepared. She understood other Ops achieved the same ends through the use of stimulants. Glojo, Kray-Zee pills, speed. This was purer, less risky. The only side-effects were spiritual.
She pulled the metal box out from under the bunk, and put it on the plain desk. It was electrically sealed, and she had to key in the correct number sequence to open it.
The box took a few seconds to think it over, and then the lid rose silently. Someone had once told her she treated the box like a priest treats the pyx, the container in which communion wafers are stored. She would like to think that was stretching the point, but had had enough lessons in humility and self-awareness to know there was truth in it.
"Body and blood of our redeemer," she muttered. "Father, forgive us."
Here, laid out in their velvet-lined inset depressions, were the tools of her trade. The skeleton keycards slipped into the pockets at her waist. The tinkering tools slotted into the ring of thin hoops above her knee. The shoulder pads—each loaded with three spare ammunition clips—slipped into her jacket and velcroed into place. The gunbelt laced at the front, and hung comfortably on her hips. The black-leather sheathed bowie knife—forged, like Jim Bowie's first model, from steel fused with star-born minerals from an asteroid—attached to her belt and thigh. The acorn-sized phosphorus fragmentation charges slid easily into the tight chambers of the belt. She tied her holster down. Then she took out her gun.
It was Swiss-made, a work of precision craftsmanship. Some invoked the name of Art, but Chantal thought of it as a tool. A beautiful, terrible, perfect tool. It was a SIG 7.62mm automatic, with a transparent grip of durium-laced glass. It was bulky, but well-balanced, designed to absorb the brunt of the shock of discharge. A two-handed gun, with fourteen rounds to the clip. The shells comprised bullet and solid propellant in one package, eliminating the need to eject cartridge cases. It could be set for automatic fire, but she prided herself on using it as a single-shot weapon. Hitherto, she had only ever needed one shot.
She heaved it, getting the balance again. The long hours of squeezing a medicine ball had paid off in the strength of her wrists. She passed the gun from hand to hand, reacquainting herself with its weight. It was like a part of her. She slid it into the holster and let it hang on her hip. She had been trained to walk differently when armed, so her weight was still dead centre. In the San Francisco dojo, she had punished herself on the parallel bars with a ten-pound lead weight strapped to her thigh Now, the gun, the belt, all the hardware, made no difference to her agility.
She checked her face in the mirror, drew her forefinger across her forehead, microscopically adjusting her hair, crossed herself automatically, and left the room.
She hummed to herself, "Back in the Saddle Again…"
Lauderdale had Ms Juillerat's car ready, and was carrying out her orders. Her requests, rather. It was hard to remember she was just a civilian. Her authority over him was purely provisional. Grundy whistled as he checked out the sleek, lowslung machine.
"Look at the lines, captain," the auto-ostler said. "That's Ferrari. They say if Michaelangelo had designed cars, he would have come up with the Ferrari."
It was an impressive beast. Lauderdale thought of himself as an automotive philistine. He could only distinguish the different makes because he had had to take an exam in vehicle recognition at West Point. A car was an engine, four wheels, a weapons system and an ally or an enemy in the driving seat. No more, no less. He was a fort officer, not a road man. His field was siege defence and crowd control, and his own machines—the regiment's cadre of armoured androids—were stored in their own area. He hadn't been out on a patrol since his cadet days. Recently, he'd been stuck with admin and liaison work. Sometimes, he thought of his androids with longing…
"She checks out just dandy," breathed Grundy with awe. "She's such a beauty, it'd be a crime to drive her in the dirt. Look at the shine. You could shave in that, you know, or tie a bowtie."
The car was a lot like Ms Juillerat. Beautiful, but dangerous. Perfectly shaped, perfectly calm, but with an awesome destructive potential. Reflective on the outside, but hiding everything. If this make had a nickname, it would be a plain chocolate expression, like Devil's Whisper or Dark Thunderbolt. He couldn't resist touching the ebony-mirrored skin. It was cool and hard to the touch, more like black ivory than steel. He shivered involuntarily.
"She's fuelled to the full, sir. She has a capacity like you wouldn't believe. The Italians sure can put one of these babes together."
The hood was up, and a techie had a cyberfeed hose jacked into the onboard systems. A red light blinked as information was fed into the mini-mainframe. This would be a clever machine, Lauderdale knew. If it had half the capability he suspected, it should be able to out-think a Cav cruiser without tapping all its resources.
"Who is this lady, sir?"
"No idea, Grundy."
The car had all it needed. The light flashed green, and the techie withdrew the cyberfeed. The hood closed like a clam. Its seam appeared to melt, as if the entire machine, doors and all, were moulded, from one piece of metal.
"I'd love to get into that."
Lauderdale nearly smiled. Grundy was in love.
"Imagine plugging into all those horses, and opening her up. That'd be a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
"Too right, Grundy. Younger would have you in the guardhouse for eternity."
Ms Juillerat appeared, her face unreadable. She was tooled up now, and walked like she was used to it. Her sidearm was something fancy with a for-show transparent grip. Guns, he did know. It was a SIG.
"Is the car ready?"
"Yes ma'am," Grundy said.
She smiled a sexless, humourless smile and thanked him.
"She's a true beauty."
"He's a he. At least, that's how he's programmed."
Ms Juillerat keyed in the entry code and the driver's side door hinged upwards like a wing. She stepped in and sank into the seat. There was a helmet on the dashboard, perched like a trophy between the steering wheel and the windshield. She pulled it on, and the controls came to life. There were more buttons, knobs, lights and gauges than you found on the average space shuttle.
Grundy slavered with undisguised lust.
Ms Juillerat took a CD out of the rack, and slid it gently into the deck. Lauderdale went round to the other side of the car, and waited for her to raise the door for him. It didn't happen.
"Sorry," she said, her voice amplified through a speaker positioned in a smooth hump on the roof, "but this is where we split up."
The driver's door hissed as it descended and locked.
"Major General Younger has detailed me to stay with you, to look after you," he blustered. "It was an order."
"Brevet Major General."
The engine turned over, and the whole car seemed to be animated. It stood there like a tensed muscle, working up strength.
"But…"
"Sorry, Lauderdale. I have my orders, too. This is a solo mission. See you in the movies…"
The voice clicked off, and music came on. An odd choice. "It's My Party, And I'll Cry If I Want To." Not the Leslie Gore version, The Chiffons' cover of the hit.
The Ferrari moved fast, and was gone through the double doors. A Road Runner cartoon trail of dust rose as it streaked over the displaced bridge towards the horizon.
"Who was that masked woman?" asked Grundy.
"I wish to God I knew," said Lauderdale. "I honestly wish to God I knew."