Hope of Earth (72 page)

“Yes sir,” Sam said with feeling. “I will tell them.”

“And Hugh—you have seen him recently?”

“Actually, Bry is the one of us who knows him best. Bry stayed with their family for some time, when he was young. But I think I would know Anne anywhere, by Bry’s description.”

“You would,” the lieutenant agreed. “It has been some time for me also. We were neighbors, and our children mingled. Perhaps we shall meet again, in due course.”

“I think Bry was somewhat smitten with her, though he was only eleven at the time.”

“She is that type of woman. And her daughter Mina is even more so, despite being adopted. A truly winsome girl.”

Sam had not met the lieutenant before, but found himself liking the man. There was a certain aura of intelligence about him that Ned would have related to.

“And I understand that in addition to your brother Bry, you also have a little sister, said to be a similarly lovely creature,” the lieutenant continued after a moment. He spoke obliquely, because they could be overheard.

“Yes.”

“Understand, I have no wish to intrude on the affairs of your family. But my men are a personal concern to me, and I wish to see none of them hurt, other than in the line of duty.” He smiled briefly, indicating the fleeting humor; of course he didn’t want anyone hurt in the line of duty either. “This little sister has an interest in someone?”

“Yes.”

“Even if someone has an infirmity?”

“Yes.”

“Not just because he is the son of a general?”

“No. She understands. She has her own infirmity.”

“I am glad to hear it, no offense intended.”

“I am glad you have an interest in the welfare of your men, sir.”

The lieutenant shrugged. “I have an interest in surviving an attack. Every man must be at optimum performance. The Germans are devising horrors we little anticipate.”

“My brother Ned believes that we are preparing to fight the last war, while the Germans are preparing for the next war.”

“Precisely. Therefore I hope it never comes to war.”

In ten minutes they returned to the lieutenant’s office. Lynn had changed, and was now in a baggy but dry uniform, seeming happy. She looked like a twelve year old boy rather than a sixteen year old girl.

“Now that your friend has taken so much trouble to visit you, Jacques, why don’t you give him a tour of the block?” the lieutenant inquired. “Let’s see how much you really know of our business.”

“Yes, sir!” Jacques agreed eagerly. “But my station—”

“I will cover for you. I could use the practice.”

“Yes, sir,” Jacques repeated. Then, to Lynn, “I will show you everything.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” the lieutenant murmured so that only Sam could hear. “He has already seen everything his friend possesses.”

Sam had to smile. Lynn was a beautiful girl, with one exception, and in the course of changing and drying she had surely showed all of it off.

They went to the firing chamber on the upper floor. This was right above the crew room. A soldier stood there with a two barrel machine gun pointing out an armored window.

Sam saw that he had a good view of the terrain outside; he would be able to riddle anything approaching on this side of the block. Except a tank.

“I read your thought, sergeant.” The lieutenant spoke to the man. “I am substituting for Jacques at the moment. What would we do if we saw a tank charging us?”

The man immediately swung his machine gun away to the right, clearing the window. Meanwhile the lieutenant unstrapped and pushed forward a larger gun suspended from a rail on the ceiling. “This is our forty-seven millimeter anti-tank gun,” he said, looking along its sights. “I think it would be a bold tank that charged directly into this field of fire.”

Sam had to agree. Tanks were deadly, but the gun was designed to take them out.

Jacques and Lynn appeared. “And this is my station,” the young man said. “We have a twin machine gun, which is our main anti-personnel weapon, and an anti-tank gun. So if the enemy tries to flank us, avoiding our weapons turrets, we can mow him down. No one will get past this post.”

The lieutenant turned to Sam. “Makes it all seem worthwhile, doesn’t it,” he remarked wryly.

Sam had to agree. “But my brother Ned wonders what will happen if the enemy goes around the line.”

The lieutenant nodded soberly. “I hope your brother has the ear of the higher authorities. We shall do our part, here, but will they do theirs?”

The question gave Sam a chill, as it always did.

“L
OOK AT THAT,”
B
RY SAID
. “They’ve got that new game on CD. Let’s get it.”

“No you don’t,” Lin protested. “We’ve got a budget.”

“I’ll buy it,” Jack offered.

Now Bry backed off. “No. She’s right. We don’t need to sponge off you.”

“Wildflower’s at the checkout,” Lin said.

They walked to join her, and Bry took the bag as she cleared the cash register. They went out of the store and out of the mall, walking home at a leisurely pace so as not to embarrass Jack. It was a nice summer afternoon in Washington, D.C:

But as they neared the housing project, a group of youths appeared. “Hey, bitch!” one yelled at Wildflower. “You trying to play white?”

Bry felt a chill. The gangs were getting worse. They were ranging out farther, and looking more constantly for trouble. These boys evidently took Wildflower for black, and wanted to make something of it. She was a Moslem from Egypt, and her skin was darker than some. So the gang was trying to reserve this territory for whites only.

“Just keep moving,” Bry said. “Maybe they’re just passing by.”

“Routine insults,” Lin agreed. “But we’d better hurry, just in case.”

But when they picked up their speed, Jack’s limp showed. The gang members turned to follow. “Hey, gimpy—what you want with that black slut? How much you paying her?”

“Don’t respond,” Bry advised. “Just keep walking.”

But it did no good. With two targets, the gang kids had enough to interest them for a while. They followed more closely, hooting, and some ran ahead to block off the entrance to the project. “Hey, doll!” one called to Lin. “Wanna make it with a real man?” He was evidently the leader, though he could not be more than sixteen.

They came to the intersection and tried to make the turn, but the gang kids stood squarely in the way. “Pay the toll, troll,” one said, reaching for the bag Bry carried.

Jack stepped across and knocked the hand away. The four of them shoved forward, brushing by the kids, entering the street leading into the project.

“Oh, gimpy’s tough!” one cried mockingly. “I’m scared!” Then he drew a knife.

All around them knives appeared.

It could be worse, Bry realized. Guns were increasingly common on the street. The main advantage of knives was their silence, but it was getting so that juvenile thugs no longer cared about noise.

“Run for it!” Lin cried.

They tried, but immediately two gang kids went after Lin, catching her by the arms. The others closed on the other three, their knives held forward menacingly. “You ain’t going nowhere, you turds,” the leader said. “You wanna get cut?”

They had to stop. Even if the other three made it to the project, Lin was caught and would pay the price. Bry noted that the inexperience of this gang was showing; many of the pejorative terms used were childish rather than savage. There was about as much bluster as action. That made it worse; if amateurs were getting this bad, what were the hardened professional gangs up to?

“That’s better,” the leader said, enjoying his power over them. “Okay, black bitch, you first: take it off.”

Bry realized that there was a protocol: humiliate the black woman first, while the others watched. To send the message: stay out of white territory. They might not be able to justify raping a pretty white girl, but a black one was fair game.

“No!” Lin cried.

“Make her scream,” the leader said without turning.

One of the kids holding Lin twisted her arm. She screamed.

Wildflower flinched. She knew what rape was like. She didn’t want Lin to suffer it. She started to take off her clothes.

“Hey, hey!” the boys said, smiling. They had seen that Wildflower had a nice figure; now they were eager to confirm its details, feeling very naughty. They were nevertheless working themselves up, and some of them would indeed try to complete the rape.

Bry looked desperately around, but there were no police near, and no one else was coming to their rescue. That was par for the course, at night. Now it was happening in broad daylight. What could they do? Even without the knives, the four of them would have been no match for the gang. Jack had a bad foot, Bry was holding the bag, and the two girls couldn’t fight.

Wildflower pulled off her red blouse, standing in skirt and bra. At age eighteen, she was a fine figure of a woman. “Yeah, yeah!” the kids agreed, ogling. They were young enough not to have had much actual sexual experience. They would have seen pornographic videos galore, but reality was much more compelling.

Wildflower waved the blouse over her head, like a flag. “More, more!” the boys cried gleefully.

There was the whistle of a bullet, followed by the sound of a shot from the project. The boys wheeled to look—and another bullet struck the road almost at their feet.

“Another time, bitch!” the leader cried as the gang members fled.

“You signaled Jes!” Lin exclaimed, catching on.

Wildflower nodded as she pulled her blouse back on. Then the four of them resumed their walk to the project.

Flo met them at the door. She was grim. “If I hadn’t heard you scream—”

“And if Jes wasn’t a dead shot with that rifle,” Lin said, relieved.

“You did nothing to provoke them?”

“We were just walking. But they didn’t like Wildflower’s color.”

Jes appeared, carrying her baby. She had fired from the upstairs window. The sound of the shots must have awakened the baby. But she had done what she had to do.

That night, when the men were home, they had a family meeting. “We can’t have this,” Ned declared, furious because of the threat to his wife.

“We can’t afford better housing,” Flo reminded him. “Anyway, the trouble is spreading to the ‘good’ neighborhoods now. The city isn’t safe. Soon no city will be safe.”

“And no town,” Dirk added. “Violence isn’t just for ghettoes any more.”

“Where else can we go?” Snow asked. She was foreign-born, like Wildflower, and was having trouble finding work.

“I saw something,” Bry said, remembering. “An ad. Maybe it’s for us.” He dashed to find the newspaper, searching out the section. “Here.” He gave it to Flo.

“‘Planned community looking for skilled personnel in the following occupations,’” she read. Her eyes skimmed across the listing. “‘CAD—Computer Aided Design.’” She looked up. “That’s you, Ned.” She returned to the list. “‘Heavy construction.’ That’s you, Sam. ‘Project organizer.’ That’s you, Ittai. ‘Large-scale cook.’”

“That’s you!” several others cried, laughing.

“What’s the small print?” Ned asked.

“There isn’t any,” Flo said. “There’s only a blind box.”

“A what?” Sam asked.

Flo smiled, briefly. “Sam, your age is showing. It’s a newspaper box, protecting the anonymity of the advertising party. There’s no way to find out who is behind it except by answering.”

Snow was interested. “But suppose you are looking for another job, and the ad is by your present employer? You could get fired, because—”

“Then you list a ‘destroy’ address: if your response is headed for the named company, destroy it instead of delivering it. You can list any number of such addresses, to avoid past and present employers, estranged spouses, aggressive creditors, government agencies—”