第38节

isum laughed dismissively. 'Why would anyone want to do that?" He

handed Steve his yellow hardhat and the borrowed toolbox.

Steve looked unconvinced. 'It happens, doesn't it?"

Chisum grinned and ushered him down the hallway and out into the

lobby.

'If it does, the boys in the Black Tower are not going to tell me."

He shut the entrance door to Unit Eight, led the way over to the

freight elevator and thumbed the call button. 'Relax. Listen - if

that place wasn't safe, I'd have made my goodbye speech on tv a long

time ago." Chisum was referring to the ritual confession of error made

by Trackers following a death sentence for a Code One offence and prior

to their televised execution by firing squad.

They entered the elevator and were carried downwards.

A fearsome thought struck Steve. 'Christo! What about those two guys

on duty outside the ward?!

Supposing they checked up during the night? They'll have reported me

missing!" Chisum waved him down. 'They didn't and they haven't.

What d'you think this is - amateur night?

You're looking at a professional. If I offer to fix something, I fix

it!" 'How?"

Chisum eyed him with a sly smile. 'How? Huh! Do you think I'm going

to let you in on all my secrets?

What're you aiming to do - muscle in on my operation?"

Steve managed a half-hearted grin. 'Some chance. No.

I'd just like to be able to square this with you one day but - where

I'm going..." His voice tailed off.

The elevator reached the service bay. Chisum patted Steve on the back

as they stepped out and walked towards the parked wheelie. 'Don't

worry. You'll be back up. Who knows? One day, you may find me asking

you a favour."

The President-General, George Washington Jefferson the 31st, stepped

out of the private elevator that linked his office in the White House

with Cloudlands, and walked to his desk. Jefferson was a

silver-haired, solidly-built man in his mid-sixties. He was a few

pounds heavier than his personal physician would have liked but he

moved easily, with the kind of straight-backed assurance you would

expect from the man at the top of an extremely competitive heap. His

medium tan made his pale grey-blue eyes look even paler. People facing

him always watched the eyes. They were the kind that could twinkle one

minute and turn to ice the next. When the light went out it was bad

news.

Though not an exact copy, Jefferson's office had been modelled on the

Oval Office used by the presidents of pre-Holocaust America. Like his

predecessors in the First Family, he liked to think he was keeping

alive the link with the great and noble traditions of the past; all

that was brightest and best in a once-great country that, one day,

would be reborn; would rise to even greater heights than before...

Two flags hung draped from crossed poles behind his chair, surmounted

by a large eagle carved from dark wood, its neck arched defiantly, its

wings half extended.

The flag to the right, when seated, was Old Glory, the other was based

on what had once been known as the 'rebel' flag; a diagonal blue cross

outlined in white on a red field. The cross carried nine white stars

representing the Inner State of Texas at the centre, flanked by the

eight Outer States and New Territories.

Two tall windows with wooden frames were set in the curving wall on

each side of the flags.

The President-General gazed for a moment through the windows at the

autumnal tints gracing his favourite computer-generated image of

pre-Holocaust New England countryside then, with a brief sigh of

regret, he settled down in his comfortable high-backed chair and

addressed his multi-screen video. 'Nancy... ?"

The head and shoulders of the Presidential aide on duty in the outer

office appeared on the big centre screen. 'Good morning, Mr

President."

The P-G nodded in reply. 'Is Fran there?" A needless question: no one

was ever late for an audience with the President-General. The question

was asked because the wielder of absolute power believed - again like

his predecessors - in the maintenance of a courtly, old-world

protocol.

'Yes, sir."

'Good. Ask her to come in. And Nancy ' 'Yes, sir?" said Nancy Reagan

Jefferson. Like most of the P-G's personal staff, she was a close

relative.