Devil in the Wires (11 page)

 

Chapter 26

Things Change in an Instant

S
eddon said to meet him in a pub in Westminster, a downstairs bar just round the corner from the Abbey. There were wooden panels and booths with padded leather seats, and a man at the door who wanted to take my coat and called me “Mr. Copeland” in a way that seemed improbably familiar.

I looked at him. He had a small mouth and a large, bony nose. “Do I know you?”

“Mr. Seddon asked me to look out for you. He gave me a . . .
precise
description, sir.” The small mouth smiled. “He's in the booth to the left.”

“I didn't think I was that remarkable,” I said.

“Everyone's remarkable, sir. If you look closely.”

Seddon was there, all right. I could see him now, stretching out an arm, giving me a wave. So I went down to join him.

“Chris. You're looking well.” He signaled for a waiter; I was going to have a pint but he asked for two drambuies, “on the large side.” The waiter swept away his empty glass, which already seemed quite large enough, replaced it with two full ones, larger still.

“This looks serious,” I said.

“Oh no.” His large white eyebrows bounced up innocently. “Rather, I think, a celebration. Your new job.” He raised his glass. “Here's to it.”

He took a swig. His elbow jutted, arms long and spiderish. He seemed to have been folded into the seat, the furniture here as awkward for him as a badly fitting suit.

“Well, Chris. Well.”

He put his glass down, clasped his hands as if to tidy them away.

“I thought it a good idea to have our little celebration somewhere we can . . . speak frankly with each other. Without being overheard, or having it . . . on record. Yes?”

“Derek.”

“Derek is an invaluable organizer. I'd be lost without him. And, I think sometimes, the more informal venue offers greater opportunities to be . . . forthright with each other. Don't you?”

He downed his drink, called the waiter for two more. I had never seen him drink like this, and there was something in his manner that seemed more desperate than celebratory. The smile looked like a moment's lack of concentration would just wipe it from his face.

“It's a hard matter,” he told me, “being first in things.”

“Suppose. Always been an also-­ran, myself. It's easier.”

“Now, Chris. We both know that's not true. Besides, I don't mean coming first. I mean
being
first—­doing something first. It means taking all the risks, having to iron out the bugs.”

“Spotting the bugs that no one else has seen.”

“Precisely. You should know, I received proposals for your placement quite some time ago, as I think I may have hinted to you. Of course, I could have simply turned it down on your behalf, but . . .”

“But you wanted someone there to tell you what was happening.”

He inclined his head, then went on.

“I'll say this for the Americans. They are an enterprising ­people. Brave, optimistic . . . I believe the English were like that once. Sadly, no more. We had our turn trying to run the world, Chris. Now it's theirs. Perhaps they'll do a better job.”

“I thought the Chinese were on that one.”

“Oh, not yet. Not by a long way. Still -­ my point is this: where the Americans go now, we will go tomorrow. Politics, technology, economics. It doesn't matter what. You follow me?”

I nodded. “That makes sense.”

“We take their lead.” He raised his glass, saw that it was nearly empty, and placed it back upon the tabletop. “I've just come from a meeting. I'll confess that there were no surprises. The facility you visited . . . well, the plans have been drawn up, with a set of very interesting projections, too, assuming that they're accurate. I have to say, I was impressed. Soon these places will be everywhere, all over the country. Common as substations, I daresay.”

He folded his hands again, as if to hold them down.

“Things are changing. Furthermore, the ­people I have just been with are . . . not unhappy with the change. They think it will make everything a bit more stable, more . . . easily controlled. They see Field Ops as—­there was a phrase used. It was, I think, regrettable, but . . . the phrase was ‘bounty hunters.' I tried to correct the notion, of course, but, well. They've never forgiven the miners' strikes, you know, and half of them weren't even born when that was going on.” He nodded, he sniffed. “If we're not careful, Chris, we'll go the same way.”

His fingers interlaced, twisting round one another.

“It's a poor state of affairs, I don't mind saying. We had a system that worked. I know we'd have come to an end of it eventually, but I thought it would be years from now—­long after you and I were gone. And now—­”

“Progress,” I said.

“Is it? I wonder. I would like to be kept . . . fully abreast of all developments. Not just official reports. You understand? I would like to get a
feel
of how it's going there.”

“I can do that. And maybe you can do some things for me as well.”

“Such as?”

“Shailer mentioned an advisor. Got cagey when I asked him who it was.”

“Did he? You should be more persuasive, Chris. Can't let him stonewall you like that.”

“Last time I tried being persuasive,” I said, “I smashed up his apartment, and you had to put in a word with the New York cops, as I recall.”

“I don't suggest being that persuasive. But—­eyes and ears open, eh? Knowledge is power, after all.”

“You're worried.”

I had never spoken to him this way before; things between us had never been personal. His manner didn't usually invite it. He sipped his drink, then frowned, set it down.

“I'm not young, Chris. We imagine, as we get older, life will grow more settled. We will have found our place in the great scheme of things. Yet instead, what happens is, that life moves faster. Situations change—­oh, overnight. Everything one once had trusted and depended on is swept away and—­oh, I'm being maudlin. Won't do, eh? Let's have another drink. Though I will tell you this, Chris. GH9,” he said, referring to the Indiana site which had so violently concluded, almost taking Shailer and myself along with it, “it could so easily have been built—­well, not here, obviously. But there were sites marked out. In Inverness, Sutherland, Caernarvonshire . . . even Cornwall. I'm sure you can imagine . . .”

“They'll be like McDonald's,” I said. “One on every High Street.”

“And that may well be a great boon,” he feigned an optimistic look, “which I will not stand in the way of. On the other hand . . .”

“And Dayling?” I said. “What's he got out of this?”

Seddon saw the link immediately but didn't mention it.

“He's well cared for. We get regular reports from the nursing staff there. I believe he's calmer now. Considerable improvement, so they say.”

“They've given him his phone back.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“He's been texting me. He wanted me to go and see him. I never got around to it. I feel a bit bad about that, now.”

“I suspect that it was for the best, Chris. If he's so fixated on you.”

“I've got a few more days here. I was thinking—­”

“I'll send someone to see him. Familiar face, eh? Cheer him up a bit. Now. Let's have another drink, shall we? And try to lighten up a bit.”

I stepped out into the London air. Wet gray twilight had fallen to a soggy dark, every streetlamp with its own halo of rain. I would be gone for how long? Four, five months?

I spoke awhile with my ex-­wife.

“You talk as if you're going off for years,” she said.

“No. A few weeks. Months maybe . . .”

But like Seddon said: things change in just an instant.

M
y flight was booked. My papers were in order. No one came to see me off. I wanted it that way.

I slept an hour on the plane and woke up somewhere over Canada, the ground below just miles and miles of pure white snow—­the whiteness of a new world, the blank white paper of a new life—­

And Shailer waiting at the end of it.

 

Chapter 27

Big Time

“A
city this size will have fifty, perhaps a hundred sites already in existence. Some of them will have a reputation. Most won't. They will be places of worship—­churches, mosques, synagogues. But there will be others, too. Imagine harnessing the energy from, say . . .” Shailer looked about, as if he'd wandered from the script. Then a grin burst on his face. “A Cubs game? If we could tap into
that
?”

A faint rustle of laughter ran around the room. There was even a flutter of applause. This was Shailer's pitch meeting, and before him he had twenty of Chicago's main movers and shakers, each replete with drinks, finger food, and several billion dollars in the bank. Any bright entrepreneur would probably have killed for such an audience.

Shailer, mock-­modestly, lifted his hands for quiet.

“I know, I know. They'd have to win first.

“What we
can
say is this. If we continue to rely on fossil fuels and on nuclear power, within a very few years, the world we know will have ceased to be. There will be no more Cubs games. There will be,” and his voice dropped suddenly, “no electricity.” He eyed the ConEd delegate, sitting uncomfortably with his legs crossed, two rows from the front. “No light, no heat. No power. No gas. No cars, no ‘L', no Metra. No airport and no airplanes. In short, my friends—­there will be no Chicago. Let me repeat that. It's a hard concept to grasp, but I want us all to be completely clear on it.

“There. Will. Be. No Chicago.”

He let this one hang in the air. Then, half turning from the audience, he strolled over to the podium and made a show of straightening his papers, as if he'd finished for the day. As if the whole show had come to an end.

I'd seen him speak before, in Hungary, years earlier. He hadn't lost his touch. He was as good with ­people en masse as he was crude and sneaky and inept with them as individuals. He made you want to nod when he did, smile when he smiled, frown when he frowned. His manner was fast-­paced, lively, kinetic, and it hit the highs and lows just when it needed to.

He knew, as well, the power of making ­people wait.

He took his time, putting his papers in order. Then he turned, studying the audience a moment, as if he'd just recalled that they were there.

“Oh yes,” he said. “There is an alternative.”

It was a wonderful,
Columbo
-­like moment, though infinitely better dressed.

“Those sites I mentioned earlier. Places of power. The ancients knew about them. Native Americans, druids, prehistoric ­peoples, and up, into medieval times. They're like nodes on a global net of energy, an ecosystem in which every single one of us has a part to play. Nothing's lost in nature. What goes around, comes around. And for centuries, mankind has been storing up the seeds of its own salvation.

“That's right. That's not hyperbole, it's not superstition, it's not even faith. It's science, cold and hard and simple.

“You can call them gods if you want. Not God, with a capital G, but gods. Spirits, perhaps.
Genii loci
. I want to be very clear on this issue: there is no conflict between the practices of this city's many religious faiths and what we do. Often, we're asked to intervene by religious bodies themselves, to prevent a build-­up of power that can have—­in some cases—­rather disturbing consequences. When that happens, we go in, assess the situation, drain the surplus power, and convert it into usable electric energy; enjoyed, at some time, by each and every one of you. Whether you know it or you don't, you're already familiar with our ser­vices.

“But this power, too, is a finite resource. One day, it, too, will run out, just like coal, and gas, and all the other finite fuels on which this great city—­this great country—­indeed, all civilization—­has been built. Wind and solar power will never be enough to fill the breach.

“Fortunately, we have a better plan.

“We have a source of energy that will make any of our ordinary power stations look like a double A battery in comparison. We've set up a facility for something both stronger and far more enduring. Safe, cheap, reusable fuel. That's what I'm offering. Is anybody going to turn me down?”

I
n the following week, I sat through Shailer's speech a dozen times. There were permits to be granted, investors to be wooed, favors to be won, and good press to be curried everywhere we went. The speech changed with the audience. Variations on a theme. I reckoned about half of it was actually true. Or, anyway, that it was half the story.

What I was doing in it, I still hadn't worked out.

I wore a suit bought on Shailer's personal expense account. The cost of it scared me; the first time I wore it, I was terrified of spilling drink or food on it. I sat and smiled and held vague conversations with ­people whom I didn't know, and, because I'm a company man, too, and because I've got a job I'd like to keep, I said some nice things about Shailer and the Registry and everything that we were doing here. If I'd any doubts, I kept them to myself.

Besides, I found out, I was a hero. Of a kind.

I was the man who'd brought the god back from Assur.

Everybody seemed to think that meant something.

I had single-­handedly defeated rebels, fought off insurgents, and dealt the deathblow to a dark conspiracy of former Communists attempting to lay claim to Registry possessions.

And that was just the tamer version.

Everyone knew more about the whole damn escapade than I did, it seemed.

It wore me out. I have done many grueling and occasionally dangerous things, but nothing left me quite so wretched, mentally and physically, as the round of glad-­handing I went through on that first week in Chicago.

One morning I phoned Seddon, told him I'd had enough. I wasn't good at this. We both knew that. I pleaded illness and exhaustion, and Seddon, in his quaint, avuncular way, listened and made small, sympathetic sounds, then told me, “Oh, Chris. I am so sorry. But I can hardly pull you out now, can I? Everybody here's so jealous of you. I'll confess to a little bit of envy myself. So my advice to you—­enjoy it, hm? Enjoy it. It'll soon be over, anyway . . .”

“Not soon enough.”

There was silence for a moment. Then he said, “Was there anything else?”

“Goodbye,” I said, and walked into the nearest Starbucks to get ready for the day.

I met many ­people. I met more ­people. The list went on and on. I met the mayor, his secretary, and his secretary's secretary. I met his treasurer, his clerk, his ­people from the fire department and the department of law. I met the chief of police and, at several, frequently informal gatherings, I met various detectives, officers, and technicians who would one way or other be involved in safeguarding the project. (The worry then was terrorism; Indiana was too close in both time and distance to forget about; and it wasn't in my script to tell them what had really happened there.) I met reps from Comcast, Con Ed and the CTA, BMO Harris, the Small Business Initiative and JPMorgan Chase. I met directors of museums and theaters and producers of a half a dozen television shows. I met religious leaders. I met preachers, priests, imams, and rabbis. I met full professors and associate professors and provisional professors and some ­people who did not profess at all. I met so many different ­people that by Thursday I could no longer have told you who was president and who was floor sweeper. The faces blurred. The speeches blurred. I ate Mexican food, Chinese food, Polish food, and Middle Eastern food. I ate German food, Italian food, Korean food. And I fell asleep in a great bulging heap each night to wake again at 4 a.m., restless, overwrought and wondering what was still on the agenda for the next day.

I met more ­people than I met in months, doing my normal job.

One of them was Angel Farthing.