Baby touched the remote and the front door clicked open.
Gravenholtz walked in, stood in the hallway, dripping. “Colonel?”
“In here, Lester.”
Gravenholtz shrugged off his wet jacket, shook out his short hair. Same, exact orange-color hair as the kitty cat she had when she was a girl, the one that used to lick milk out of her belly button until her mother caught her.
“Colonel?”
Baby beckoned to him from the bed, lifted one leg slightly, the wedding dress rustling around her bare thigh. “You just missed him, Lester.”
Gravenholtz looked around. Checked the sentry through the security window. “Baby, this isn’t funny.”
“Yes, it is.”
Gravenholtz laid an info chip on the coffee table. “Here’s my daily report. Give it to the Colonel when he gets back.”
“The Colonel’s not coming home for a couple hours at least.” She stretched, her breasts falling free. “New sentries come on in about ten minutes, so you can slip out the back whenever you want, and they’ll have no idea how long you been here.”
Gravenholtz couldn’t take his eyes off her. Water trickled from his wet hair, hung off his earlobes like pearl earrings.
“Why don’t you take off those wet things before you catch your death,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Gravenholtz glanced out the window, then back at her. “Baby…I can’t.”
“You say that every time.” She slowly, slowly rolled her right nipple between her thumb and forefinger. “But, Lester…you always can.”
“Sorry to bother you at this time of night, Colonel,” said Moseby, “but you told me to call if I found-”
“I’m glad you did, Mr. Moseby. No apology needed.” The Colonel waved his aide back to the main tunnel, slipped through the narrow opening into the secondary shaft. Moseby was right behind him. “So, what did you find?”
“I’d rather show you, Colonel.”
The Colonel let Moseby take the lead, intrigued by the man’s enthusiasm. He shivered in his damp clothes as they walked on, the lights placed at intervals along the tunnels doing little to alleviate the gloom. Couldn’t blame Baby for not wanting to leave their bed and tramp around down here. Couldn’t blame her for not wanting him to leave either. He smiled at the memory of her in that wedding dress…He rubbed the cramp in his hip. She made him feel twenty years younger, thirty years, but that wasn’t the same as being twenty years younger. Some nights she damn near wore him out.
“The crews made great progress, as you can see,” said Moseby. “You should be proud of them, sir.”
“Yes…very nice work,” said the Colonel, not sure what Moseby was referring to.
Moseby tapped a portion of the wall. “This is where the cave-in was. The men removed all the small rocks and broke down the big ones with picks and chisels. Very delicate work. Didn’t want to use explosives or power drills that might collapse the whole structure.”
The Colonel glanced up. Shivered as he increased his pace to keep up with Moseby. He didn’t like being reminded how deep in the earth they were. How easily the whole mountain could come down on their heads.
They walked on through light and darkness, the electric bulbs spaced too far out for the Colonel’s preference. The floor tilted lower, made a sharp turn to the left. The tunnel was wider now, but it didn’t help. The Colonel glanced back, kept going, the only sound the echo of their breathing.
“Not much farther, Colonel,” said Moseby, his face in shadow.
“No problem.” The temperature seemed to be dropping by the moment, and though the Colonel shivered, Moseby seemed comfortable in a light sweater. Another sharp turn and the Colonel stopped. Mouth open.
“I know,” said Moseby. “I felt the same way myself when I first saw it.”
The colonel looked out on a vast cavern, at the center an underground lake at least a hundred yards across, flat as black glass. Moseby had placed spotlights around the perimeter of the lake, but their beams barely illuminated the inky water. No way to tell how high the cavern was-he couldn’t see the top of it, just the rough, rounded outline. “I…I had no idea it was going to be this big.”
“No way to know how deep it is-not yet, anyway,” said Moseby. “I just found it a few hours ago. You’re the only other person who’s seen it.”
The Colonel took a hesitant step forward. “It’s…it’s like a new world, isn’t it?”
“You’re more of a romantic than I am, Colonel. It’s thirty-five degrees, I know that much.”
“You have equipment for that?”
“I’ve got everything I need.”
“How soon can you get started?” The Colonel’s raised voice echoed back and forth across the cavern, and he shivered again, pushed his hands into his pockets. “You’ll need rest, of course,” he said, voice lowered, “but obviously, time is-”
“There’s something else, Colonel.” Moseby reached into his pocket, handed him a small blue enamel pin. “I found this at the waterline, half hidden in the rocks.”
The Colonel turned it over. The pin had an eagle etched in gold inscribed on it. He had never seen anything like it.
“I found other things too…a valve cut from an inflatable boat, probably sunk after they didn’t need it anymore…batteries. They were in a real hurry-”
“Who can blame them? What’s your point?”
“Sir, you told me I was looking for a box containing historical treasures. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation. Safely packed away in nitrogen containers, protected by the cold…that’s what you said.”
“That’s correct, Mr. Moseby.”
“You said they had been taken out of the National Archives during the troubles, taken out months before the atomic attack on D.C. by the federal police, moved here for safekeeping and facsimiles substituted for the originals.”
“Mr. Moseby, I don’t like your tone.”
Moseby turned, and the light glared off his black skin…the same color as the lake, his eyes just as cold. “Colonel, with all due respect, I don’t like being lied to.”
They faced each other in that underground cavern, and the Colonel felt the enormous weight of the earth bearing down upon him, grinding him to dust. He could hardly breathe. Could not even imagine the skill and strength it would take to slip into those icy waters and believe that he would ever come out again. He waited, not trusting himself to be able to lie his way out of it. Angry at himself for feeling the need to. “So…so you find a little blue pin and dare to accuse-”
“It’s not a pin, sir, it’s a badge, and it’s not FBI, it’s military.”
The Colonel tossed the badge or whatever it was back to him. “Obviously, documents of such national importance…invaluable pieces of history…” One of the searchlights flickered, went out, and he fought to control his panic. “The FBI must have asked for military support-”
“No, sir. That badge is two levels beyond top secret, reserved for a very small, very specific group of professionals. I’ve never seen one before, but it was described to me once. Grave Diggers, they call themselves. Private joke, because their work involves grave threats to national security.” Another spotlight flickered, but stayed on. Moseby closed in on the Colonel. “Grave Diggers do one thing and one thing only-they protect black-ice projects. The good stuff. World busters. The stuff presidents don’t trust to other politicians. So, tell me, sir…” Their faces were inches apart. “What the fuck am I really looking for?”
The Colonel looked out at the lake, waiting for the echo of Moseby’s voice to finally fade. “I wish I knew, son,” he said softly. “I wish I knew.”
Moseby nodded toward the lake. “Are you sure you want me to find what’s down there?”
The Colonel felt tired. Beyond exhaustion, or even his age…it was an ache, a weariness, a sense of everything he valued slipping away. “Too late now.”
“No, it’s not, sir. Let’s just…walk away. Tell the crew it was another false lead. Couple weeks more and you can shut down the whole site and go home. The people love you, sir, not just your men. Your territory…it’s practically half the state now…people know you’ll protect them, treat ’em fair and not take advantage. Not many places in the Belt you could say that about. The thing you’re looking for in the lake…it’s going to change everything. There’s a reason the old regime hid it away down here. A reason they didn’t want anybody to find it.”
“I know.”
“So let’s walk off.”
The Colonel shook his head. “I have responsibilities. There are certain…expectations I’m burdened by.” He looked at Moseby. “I’m not the man I used to be, Mr. Moseby, not nearly…but I have to pretend. Memory is a ravening beast, sharp of tooth and with a special fondness for the soft spots…the tender places.” He squared his shoulders. “Tomorrow morning, start searching the lake.”
“He’s coming!”
“Damn.” Gravenholtz pulled out of Baby, yelped as he caught his penis hastily zipping his pants.
Baby laughed. “I was just kidding.” Bent over the couch, wedding dress pushed up around her shoulders, she wiggled her bare ass at him. “Come on, cowboy.”
Gravenholtz cursed her.
Baby squeezed the back of the couch, bucking back and forth, whinnying softly. She turned her head, slowly rotated her hips against the cushions, showed off her sweet pinkness. She watched as he carefully lowered his zipper, wincing as his foreskin came free. She turned back to the window, gasped as he drove into her. No subtlety from Lester. No finesse. No foreplay.
Gravenholtz grunted behind her, fists grabbing at the wedding dress, crinkling the stiff fabric as he unleashed a string of obscenities.
Baby worked with him, enjoying his passion, directing him to all the best spots. She watched her reflection in the window, excited by her flaring nostrils as he lifted her off the couch with his thrusts. She moved her head back and forth, sent her hair swaying against her shoulders, a light tickle as Lester groaned and snapped at the air.
“You fucking whore,” spat Gravenholtz, “fucking…fucking whore.”
Baby pressed her ass back against him, felt him shudder.
“Fucking…fucking whore.”
Always the same thing with Lester. Men were so predictable. She felt him increase his pace, taking short little breaths. She examined her face in the window, bit her lower lip, opening even deeper for him. Always from behind, that was the best way for Lester. She had caught a glimpse of his penis that first time…and that was enough. Ugly, ugly thing, freckled and bent, a blue-veined monstrosity. She half closed her eyes with pleasure, giving in, imagining herself with other men…the young sentry outside. He stood there with his back to the glass, rain sluicing off him like a beast in the field. She pressed down on the base of Lester’s penis as he lunged into her, held him for a moment, tighter…tighter…tighter still.
“Fuck…” Lester burst inside her, a scalding eruption of anger and loneliness. He sobbed for an instant, slid out, and lay on the floor, gasping like a dying fish.
Baby blew a kiss to her reflection, turned around. She picked up his shirt from the couch, wiped herself with it, and threw it on his face. “You didn’t ask me if you could shoot that nasty stuff inside me.”
Gravenholtz raised himself up on one elbow, still panting, his face like a red balloon.
“Next time you ask permission, Lester Gravenholtz.”
He stood up, still wobbly. “Someday…I’m going to kill you.”
Baby shook her head. “Not unless I say so.”
Gravenholtz pulled on his pants.
“The Colonel’s gone into the mountain.” Baby crossed her legs, admired her tiny toes. “Moseby called and said he found something and the Colonel hurried right over.”
He shrugged on his shirt, stuffed it into his pants.
“Moseby brings that old-days weapon out from the lake, you best be ready to make yourself useful.” Baby tucked her legs under her, watched him finish getting dressed. “You’re going to have to move fast when the time comes.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I been thinking…”
“That’s my job.” Baby could see the anger bubble to the surface of his face like swamp gas. She should slow it down, take it careful-like, but Baby had given up on slow and careful a long time ago. She had Lester on a choke chain-give him any slack and he might bite a piece out of her, just ’cause he could. “You leave the thinking to me, Lester. You try it, you might pull a muscle.”
Gravenholtz balled those big old hands of his into fists.
Baby reached for him, kissed those fists, kissed each and every knuckle while he breathed hot and heavy.
Gravenholtz had to step away from her to find his tongue. “New…new weapon or not, I’m not cut out to be what you want me to be.”
“Sure you are.”
“It’s the Colonel’s command,” Gravenholtz snapped. “The men are shit-scared of me, that’s not the problem-they seen me break enough heads to jump when I say so, but as soon as my back is turned…” He shook his head. “No, they’ll charge into hell itself if the Colonel gives the word, but not for me. Me, I’m born to be the hard case, the second in command that gets things done and don’t take excuses.”
She saw the shiny red hairs sticking out from his shirt collar, and the sight disgusted her. “That really all you aspire to, Lester Gravenholtz?”
“Ain’t such a bad thing. Colonel could take over the whole damn country with this weapon, and I’d be right there by his side. So would you. We could still-”
Baby sighed. She smoothed her wedding dress down, arranged and rearranged it until it was perfect. She looked up at him, shook her head. “Oh, Lester…aren’t you tired of sloppy seconds?”