Rude Astronauts (32 page)

Steinberg nodded and the pilot shook his head and looked away. Just then the rear cargo hatch raised open and a ground crewman pulled down the loading ramp. A handful of men and women tromped up the ramp and walked to the front of the aircraft. They pulled down the folding seats, barely taking notice of Gerhardt and Steinberg. One of them, a redneck with shoulder-length hair, glanced out through a porthole, then looked at Denny. “That the guy who’s running for president?” he yelled. Denny nodded and the redneck nodded back. “Sheeit, I shoulda gotten an autograph. Hey, Jake, gimme a cigarette!”

The guy he called Jake, who had a greasy mustache and wore a John Deere cap, fumbled in his shirt pocket for a pack of Marlboros. “Buy some yourself sometime, Al. Hey, Greg! Take us outta here, willya? This place gives me the creeps!”

“Lemme get rid of the VIPs first, okay?” The co-pilot leaned around to look at Denny and jerk his thumb at the open passenger hatch. “Get going!” he yelled. “We gotta go up again! Time to take the part-timers home and come back for feeding time!”

Before Denny could ask what the co-pilot meant, Gerhardt had grabbed both of their packs and clambered out of the VTOL, holding his straw cowboy hat down on his head against the prop-wash. Steinberg picked up the attache case containing the senator’s communications system and clumsily lowered himself from the hatch, then dashed out from under the rotors. As soon as he was clear, the engines roared to a higher pitch and the Osprey—Air Force surplus, dark grey with a scowling, cigar-chomping Albert Alligator from the Pogo comic strip stencil-painted on its fuselage above the words “
The Mesozoic Express
”—lofted into the air once again. Denny watched as the hybrid aircraft cleared the treetops, then the two engine nacelles swiveled forward on their stub wings to their horizontal cruise configuration and the Osprey roared away, heading east.

Steinberg turned around and scanned the compound in which he had just been deposited. Once, when the refuge had been open to the general public, this had been a big tourist attraction of southeastern Georgia: campgrounds, a picnic area, a visitor’s center and museum, a concession stand and a boat ramp. Now it looked like the last outpost of civilization on the edge of the Early Cretaceous period. The visitor’s center had been converted into a main lodge for the University of Colorado science team which presently used the place; the concession stand and picnic tables were gone, replaced by Quonset hut dorms, laboratories, generator shack and the chopper pad. Fresh stumps showed where trees had been felled throughout the compound, which was enclosed by a high fence topped with concertina barbed wire. Beyond the fence was the vast morass of the Okefenokee Swamp—and it didn’t look like the sort of place where Pogo Possum and Albert Alligator were likely to be found.

Eying the phlegm-like strands of Spanish moss dangling from the cypress trees on the other side of the fence, swatting away a bat-sized mosquito from his face, Denny Steinberg—legislative aide to Senator Petrie Chambliss, alumnus of George Washington University, owner of a two-bedroom condo in Georgetown and an antique apple-red ’68 Corvette Stingray which he’d rather be polishing right now—had to ask himself: How the hell did I get talked into this trip?

Because he had mentioned to Pete that he was once a canoe instructor at a Boy Scout camp in Tennessee, that’s how. And because the senator didn’t forget anything. And because if the man goes to the White House next year, Denny Steinberg wanted a new office just down the hall and that meant buttering up the presidential frontrunner whenever possible. Even if that entailed going along on a canoe trip in a godforsaken hellhole like this.

Chambliss was still talking to the project officials, his arms folded across his broad chest; he wore a faintly bemused smile on his face as he listened to them, probably because—if prior experience were any indicator—someone was overexplaining things to Chambliss. There was a natural assumption people made that, because Pete Chambliss looked like a barroom armbreaker, he also had the mind of one. At six-foot-four, with the muscle-bound build of a former Notre Dame linebacker, Chambliss did have the appearance of a former bouncer. When he had first taken office, his political foes on the hill had tried to smear him with the label “Conan the Senator” until it quickly became apparent that Petrie Chambliss was no Green Mountains hillbilly. Thuggish looks notwithstanding, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was now regarded as one of the most intelligent legislators in Congress. It was only when Chambliss ventured beyond the Beltway that he ran into people who equated physical size with lack of intelligence. That was a handicap in this race; in his sound bites, the big lug came off as King Kong trying to sound like Thomas Jefferson. The staff was still working on him, for instance, to be careful to use “isn’t” instead of his habitual “ain’t.” But so far, the polls hadn’t shown this to be a major liability. Considering that the Republican incumbent sounded like a squeamish English teacher from a prep school for girls, perhaps the voters were ready for—as one
Washington Post
columnist put it—“the reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt.”

Joe Gerhardt was standing about a dozen feet away with their backpacks, casually gazing around the compound. As Steinberg watched, the Secret Service man reached into the pocket of his denim jacket, pulled out a pack of Camels, shook one loose and stuck it in his mouth. Steinberg sauntered over, and Gerhardt held out the pack to offer him a smoke.

“No, thanks.” Denny cocked his head towards Chambliss. “Shouldn’t you be with your man?”

The two of them had met only this morning when they had boarded the senator’s chartered jet at Washington National. Instead of the normal business suit favored by the agency’s dress-code, Gerhardt was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and denim jacket. Otherwise, he had the bland, unnoticeable features of a Secret Service bodyguard. He didn’t look at Denny as he lit his cigarette with a butane lighter. “Nope,” he replied drily. “Not unless he changes his mind.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Remember when we took a pee-break at the airport? Well, the senator told me that, considering that this is his vacation and that Secret Service protection was something that had been forced on him, he would prefer it if I didn’t shadow him.”

Gerhardt exhaled pale blue smoke. “‘It’s okay if you’re nearby,’ he said. ‘But if you’re close enough to be able to tell the color of my piss, then you’re too close.’” He grinned and shrugged. “We aims to please.”

“Maybe you should be a little less considerate.” Steinberg lowered his voice. “In case nobody briefed you earlier, Pete’s been in the thick of some crucial events lately. There’s a lot of people who don’t appreciate his role in the strategic arms talks and a few would like to see him dead before he becomes president. We’ve got the death threats to prove that somebody out there means business …”

“The New American Minutemen Enclave. Uh-huh.” Gerhardt ashed his cigarette and cast a wary eye at the compound. “Yessir, this looks just like a NAME stronghold to me, all right.”

“Cute. It would be appreciated if you were a little more observant, okay? Like, do your job? Pay a little attention?”

Gerhardt nonchalantly blew smoke through his nostrils and looked down at the muddy ground. “Looky here, son …”

With his left hand, he opened his jacket a couple of inches. The butt of a submachine pistol stuck out from the holster suspended under his left armpit. “That’s an Ingram MAC-10,” he softly drawled, “and I don’t think I need to give you a lecture on its specs to show you I mean business, too. But if you don’t believe me, there’s a buzzard on top of that big cypress behind me, on the other side of the fence.” Gerhardt didn’t look around. “If you want, I’ll pick it off for you.”

Denny peered in the direction Gerhardt had indicated. The tree was about a hundred yards away and the turkey vulture in it was nearly invisible against the sleet grey sky; Steinberg saw it only once as it lazily stretched one taloned foot up to scratch its long head.

“That’s okay,” Steinberg said. “I’ll believe you.”

“Good. Then stay off my case. I know what I’m doing.” Gerhardt took another drag from his cigarette, dropped it on the ground and stomped on it with his boot before walking off. “The senator wants to start his vacation. I think I’ll join him.”

Chambliss was walking away with one of the officials. The other one, the woman, was walking towards them. Gerhardt politely touched the brim of his cowboy hat as she passed, then looked back over his shoulder at Steinberg. “Get the packs, won’t you, son?” he called out. “The man needs his bodyguard.”

Steinberg looked down at the three forty-pound nylon backpacks and the attache case piled on the landing pad. Gerhardt was through with playing porter; now it was his turn.

“Son of a bitch,” Denny hissed. He managed to pick up two of the heavy North Face packs and was struggling to grab the top loop of the third pack between his forefingers when the young woman, whose blond hair was braided down her back and who had the longest legs this side of a Ford Agency model, recovered the third pack from his fingertips.

“Let me get that.” Before he could object, she grabbed the third pack and effortlessly hoisted it over her shoulder. “Looks like your pal left you in the lurch.”

“Umm … yeah. Something like that.” Feeling vaguely emasculated, but nonetheless relieved to be free of the extra burden, Steinberg grasped the handle of the attache case. “I take it you’re with the science team?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied, starting off in the direction of the lodge. “I’m Tiffany Nixon, refuge naturalist. Team Colorado’s out at the Chessier Island observation tower. Bernie Cooper’s taking the senator and your friend out there now. We’ll catch up with them after we dump this stuff at the lodge.”

A few dozen yards away, Bernie Cooper—a thin, balding man in his early forties—was climbing into the driver’s seat of an open-top Army surplus Hummer, with Pete Chambliss taking the shotgun seat and Joe Gerhardt climbing into the rear. Gerhardt glanced in their direction and gave him a sardonic wave, then the Hummer started off down the narrow paved roadway leading to the side gate. Denny suddenly didn’t mind; he was trading one ride with an SS asshole for another with one of the most beautiful women he had met in a long time. Things were beginning to look up …

“Secret Service?” she asked.

“Hmm? Excuse me?”

“Your friend.” She nodded towards the departing vehicle. “Is he the Secret Service escort or are you?”

“Him. I’m the senator’s aide. He’s the one packing a gun.”

She frowned as they reached the lodge’s front porch. A second Hummer was parked out front. “If he shoots at one of my gators,” she said as she dropped the backpacks next to the pine railing, “I’m going to smack him upside the head with a paddle. C’mon inside and I’ll give you a gronker. Bernie had the ones for the senator and the other guy in his jeep, but I was supposed to take care of you.”

Tiffany opened the screen door and led him into the cathedral-ceilinged lodge. Ah, so, he thought as he walked down a short hallway past a couple of offices to a supply closet. This was the guide they were going to have for their canoe trip. “From what I hear, alligators aren’t the worst things we have to worry about out there,” Steinberg said nonchalantly, watching as she unlocked the door with a key. “If he shoots at any lizards, it’s going to be one of the big ones.”

To his surprise, Nixon gave a bitter laugh. “Okay by me. I didn’t ask for those monsters to be put here.” The naturalist turned on the light, picked a couple of yellow plastic cartridges the size of cigarette packs off a shelf, and handed one to him. “Clip this on your belt and switch it on when I tell you. You know what it’s for?”

Steinberg nodded. He had already been told about the reflex inhibitors. When the dinosaurs were still in their infant state, pain-inducers guided by Intel microchips had been surgically implanted in the pain centers of their brains. The tiny nanocomputers were powered by hemodynamic microgenerators which kept the batteries perpetually charged by the blood flow to the brain. The inhibitors—for some reason called “gronkers”—also held Intel nanochip boards, wired to short-range radio transmitters fixed to the same frequency as the receivers in the pain-inducers and, once switched on, were continuously transmitting a signal on that bandwidth.

If one of the dinosaurs came within a hundred yards of a person wearing an inhibitor, the aversion program hardwired into the microchip nestled deep within the dinosaur’s cranium automatically sent a painful electric charge into the beast’s nervous system … and if the big bastard didn’t get the hint and kept coming, the charge continued at quickly increasing intensity until, at approximately one hundred feet, voltage sufficient to knock it cold was delivered into its brain.

The idea was to allow the researchers to get near enough to the deinonychi to observe them at close range without imperilling themselves. Steinberg knew the technology was proven and sound, but it still made him uneasy to trust his life to a plastic box. Idly turning it over in his hand, he noticed a strip of white masking tape on the side; written on it was the name NIXON. “Hey, I think I got your … uh, gronker. Why do you call ’em that anyway?”

“Um? Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Tiffany was already clipping the other unit, marked STEINBERG, onto her belt. Once Denny had fastened his own inhibitor to his belt, she gave it a quick tug to make sure it was secure. “They all work the same,” she added. “Don’t worry about it. If the ni-cad battery dies, it’ll beep three times before it goes down. If that happens, tell one of us and we’ll get you out of there. Just don’t lose it, okay?”

“Why do you …?” he repeated.

“Because when they get zapped, they go ‘gronk’ just before they fall down.” She switched off the light, relocked the door and walked past him towards the front door. “Well, you guys came here to see some dinosaurs. So let’s go meet Freddie and his playmates.”

DANGER!

NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT!

Enter this area with EXTREME CAUTION! Stay on the roadways or the boardwalk at all times. Make no unnecessary noises. Do not smoke. Food is absolutely forbidden. Menstruating women and persons with untreated cuts or scratches should avoid this area.

Wear your inhibitor at ALL TIMES! In case of failure, proceed to this gate AT ONCE and LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY!

Log in when you enter the area and log out when you leave.

Failure to comply with any of these regulations may subject you to criminal prosecution under federal law, punishable by fines (up to $1,000) and/or jail sentence (up to 1 year).