c.10
They reentered the mess hall, where the crowd of breakfasters had only just begun to thin. Mears, moving at last like an elderly man, walked to the center of the hall, the Scalpers, Murphy, and Lana gathered behind him, and raised his hands for attention. The noise of conversation abated almost instantly.
“I have an announcement to make,” Mears said. “After many years of serving you as leader … I’m being betrayed by members of my own staff. These people are kidnapping me and plan to destroy the compound—”
His words were choked off by Jenna the Greek, who got an arm around his throat and squeezed.
Sato saw the situation begin to play out as though it were in slow motion. Men and women all over the mess began to stand, some of them, a handful, pulling out firearms and readying them, looking from one to the other as if to sort out the confusion. The Scalpers brought out their own guns; Sato had his own in hand before he realized it. In a matter of moments, the Scalpers stood in a circle, facing out, guns ready, against a superior and ever-growing number of people pointing guns straight at them.
“You dumb bastard,” Sato hissed. Then he raised his voice to be heard above the rising roar from the crowd. “Everyone, stay calm. Colonel Mears is not telling the truth—and I’ll tell you facts you can confirm.”
From the back of the crowd rose something glittering. Before Sato could quite recognize it as a bottle, one of the numberless old glass containers the Clover Compound residents used as drinking vessels, it crashed into the side of Jenna the Greek’s head.
It didn’t break. It made an unhealthy ponk noise, then fell to the floor and smashed. Jenna the Greek staggered, but kept her grip on Mears and her handgun.
Murphy raised his hands, trying to bring order. “Sato’s telling the truth—”
Mears got his hands under Jenna’s forearms and pushed, giving him a little room to breathe. “Murphy’s the traitor! He’s sold you all out! He just wants my job—”
Jenna tightened her grip, but with Mears’s hands in place resisting her, she couldn’t quite choke off his words.
Tactics flashed through Sato’s mind, instantly evaluated, instantly rejected as each one seemed likely to get everyone killed.
“Bubba’s real name is Eugene!” It was a female voice, and it was high and loud enough to cut through clamor filling the air.
Sato turned to look at the woman who had shrieked those unlikely words. It was Lana, standing on the bench of the nearest table, towering over those who surrounded her. She looked, her expression sorrowful, at a large white man whose hair and beard were a thick, consistent gray. “Isn’t it, Bubba?”
The clamor quieted a little, and Sato saw confusion on other people’s faces, confusion matching his own.
“How did you know?” Bubba asked. He sounded more surprised than pained by the sudden revelation.
“Raymond told me. In the library of his house, topside, where we go for privacy.” Before anyone could cut into her words, Lana spun, located another face, and said, “Maria, you got convicted for embezzling from Mears Enterprises. That’s how he knew you were good with inventories. Right?”
The woman she spoke to, a middle-aged Latina, looked stricken. “He said he would never say anything.”
“Well, he did, to me. He told me about everything. About all the private things you admitted to him.” Lana turned again, looking from face to face. “He told me about the compound’s secret operations, stuff you never knew about. And I told him I’d stay quiet, too. But I can’t, not if people are going to get killed for it.” Lana was crying now, her face seeking forgiveness from the people she addressed even as she spilled their secrets.
In Jenna’s grip, Mears was still struggling, but no longer talking.
Lana raised her voice once more: “And every time we talked up there, Skynet was listening. Lieutenant Sato showed us how. Skynet knows all about Clover Compound and is just going to use us until it stops getting information. Then we all get to die. Raymond just won’t admit that it’s true.”
Sato began to breathe a little easier. The faces of those in the crowd, hostile and deadly in their attention to the Scalpers a moment ago, were now turning to suspicion and bewilderment … directed against Mears, not them. Sato saw several of the handguns angle away from the Scalpers.
Mears uttered a final moan and his eyes rolled up in his head. He slumped in Jenna’s grasp. She lowered him to the hard floor—
Then he was up on his feet, pushing Jenna to send her staggering away. Sato and Nix lunged forward to grab him, but Mears was already among the crowd. A large man ducking out of Nix’s way stepped right into Sato’s path; Sato caromed off him and staggered back into a table, while Nix found himself jammed into the panicky crowd.
And then Mears was through the crowd, ducking down one of the numerous tunnels that entered the mess hall.
“Crap,” Sato said. He shoved himself to his feet and took a quick look around, evaluating the crowd.
Members of Clover Compound were shouting at him, at Murphy, demanding answers. But guns weren’t being pointed in their direction. The situation was chaotic, but the danger was defused. He ignored the people barraging him with questions.
“Jenna, stay with Lana,” he shouted. “Get a medic to see to your head.”
“My head’s fine—”
Sato tapped the rank insignia on his shoulder, personal shorthand for “Shut up and follow orders.” Jenna shut up. “Nix, can you find your way back to the high airflow chamber?”
Nix nodded.
“Get up there and keep Mears from exiting that way. Smart, J. L., main exit, ditto.” He turned to Murphy. “Any ideas?”
Murphy extended his hands, waving away the questions coming at him. “Pipe down, everybody. I’ll get to you.” He turned to Sato. “I don’t have a clue.”
“You think he’s going to run for it?”
“Not by any of the main exits. And to go out any of the emergency evacuation tunnels would be to open up a hole Skynet observers could detect.”
Sato shook his head. “Would that stop him? He’s got to admit to himself by now that Skynet knows about Clover Compound.”
“Yeah, but opening an exit that Skynet could see would precipitate an attack, wouldn’t it? I don’t think he’s selfish enough to get all his people killed like that.”
“So what’s he going to do? Where’s he going to go?”
“Probably his office, first.”
* * *
They marched into the office where Mears had conducted his first conversation with Sato. Someone had been there in recent minutes. The desk drawers were open. So was the door to a stand-up locker. Contents of both were disarrayed—papers and office supplies in one, jackets and outdoor equipment in the other—but they weren’t empty. “What did he take?”
Murphy looked over the desk drawer and shook his head. He pawed through the contents of the locker and said, “All his weapons and gear are still here. The only thing that’s missing here is a bottle of prewar sippin’ whisky. From his desk, I don’t know.”
The intercom on the desk buzzed. Murphy punched a button on it. “Murphy.”
“Uh, sir, we’ve had a communication from Outpost Four. They say they’ve found a stray. An injured girl.”
“From where?”
“She’s apparently not sure. They say she’s had a head injury and is still pretty confused. She gives her name as Gwendolyn Drew.”
Sato stiffened.
Murphy gave him a curious look. “Looks like you picked the right compound to start your search,” he said.
“Looks that way.”
There was a little suspicion to Murphy’s expression as he depressed the intercom key again. “Tell the outpost to bring her in, and to tell her she’s got friends at Clover Compound.”
“Yes, sir.”
Murphy straightened from the desk. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“You come here, wreck the whole order of our compound, hand the reins to me with a little advisory that I’ve got to close the place down and find something else to do after training for years to take charge here, and you can’t tell me?”
“That’s right.”
Murphy cursed. Then he returned his attention to the locker. “He didn’t take his outdoor gear. He’s not trying to run. He’s gone off somewhere private to get drunk.”
“Does he do that often?”
“Never.”
“What are his private places?”
“Well, there was his topside retreat.”
“Which you knew about.”
“Yeah, I knew about it. A second-in-command has to know where his boss is at all times.” Murphy didn’t look repentant. “There’s his bedroom. I sent a couple of guards there. Since they haven’t reported, it’s pretty clear he didn’t go there. There’s this office, and there’s whatever his current engineering project is … but he hasn’t commenced one in the last year. So that’s it.”
“No, no, no. Someplace has got to have some memories for him, someplace he’d want to revisit.”
Murphy thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. Maybe.”
* * *
Sato and Murphy marched down the long, unlit tunnel; only the beams of their flashlights offered any illumination. The place was dusty and silent. Here, more so than anywhere else in Clover Compound, Sato imagined he could feel the weight of millions of tons of stony mountain pressing down upon him.
From up ahead, distantly, came a call. “Good morning.” It was Mears’s voice, cheerful and unconcerned.
Murphy swept his flashlight beam back and forth, trying to spot the speaker. “Raymond, what the hell are you doing down here?”
“Visiting old friends.”
Finally Murphy’s beam caught Mears. The old man was sitting, a tall whisky bottle in his hand, and at first glance it looked as though he’d recently lost both legs at about midthigh, but it was a trick of topography and lighting. As Murphy and Sato got closer, it became clear that Mears was sitting on the far side of a hole, dangling his legs. The shaft, easily a dozen feet in diameter, appeared to descend straight down into the rock.
Finally Sato spoke. “So that’s Satan’s Hole.”
Mears raised his bottle, his expression merry, and knocked back a slug of its amber-colored contents. “It is. But it’s not as sinister a place as most of the people here make it out to be. I really only put two people down there over the years, mostly in the early days. Jake Kinney and Lawanda Beeker. They wanted to take control away from me, wouldn’t compromise, wouldn’t leave.” The old man shrugged. “I loved ’em both. I killed ’em both. My way or the highway, and all that. But they weren’t as good as you, Sato. Or maybe I’m just too old to fight off the coups anymore. Hey, that’s far enough.”
Sato and Murphy stopped advancing. They were now ten paces from the near lip of Satan’s Hole, and Mears was on the far lip, facing them.
“I don’t get it, Mears,” Sato said. “Why’d you run off if you were just going to sit down with a drink? You could have done that in your office without all the exercise.”
“I just told you. My way. My way. You ordered me to hand over control of the compound on your schedule, at your convenience—well, I didn’t. You couldn’t make me. You don’t order me, ever. I win. You lose. Still…” Mears shrugged. “I don’t plan to make things any harder than necessary. Murph, I wrote out a confirmation of my abdication and your appointment. I left it in the bottom airflow chamber in the main control cabinet. It should smooth out the succession.”
“So, what now?” Sato asked.
“I retire. I’ve been retired for thirty minutes. Feels pretty good. Now I take my ball and go home. You familiar with that phrase, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s the kind of thing people who don’t like to compromise used to say. No compromising, no sharing, no bending.” Mears held the bottle toward them as if intending to hand it to them. He grinned. “My whisky.” He dropped it. It fell for long seconds, and then there was the distant sound of glass shattering. “Hey, Lawanda, Jake, have a drink on me.”
There was strain in Murphy’s voice. “Raymond—”
“No, please. Don’t waste my time. I have an appointment. One thing, though. Tell that girl I really did like her. She can have anything of mine she wants. What she doesn’t want goes to you, Murph.”
“Don’t—”
Mears pushed off. He seemed to hang there in the air for a moment, his eyes big, evaluating these two lesser officers one last time, and then he dropped out of sight.
Sato and Murphy rushed forward. But even before they reached the lip, there was the sound of a distant impact from below—a meaty blow. Sato thought he could hear crunching and breaking noises mixed in.
They shone their flashlights down Satan’s Hole, but the beams were not strong enough to reach all the way to the bottom.