Amerika (36 page)

Will put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I appreciate the thought, but do you want to go back?”

Billy seemed near tears; he silently shook his head.

“Devin indicate to you it was okay to give up the boy?” Will asked Clayton.

“The word from Devin was to take care of him. He thought that was pretty darn important.”

“Well then, by God, that’s what we’ll do,” Will declared, and Billy hugged him with relief.

At the House of Representatives, some members were drifting into the chamber, and others lagged behind in the cloakroom, watching the Heartland ceremony on TV. Marion Andrews was making her speech, and several of the members watched attentively as she proclaimed her dedication to freedom, justice, and progress.

Other members of Congress, indifferent to the Heartland spectacular, milled about, exchanging rumors about this emergency session that Petya Samanov had called. But the fact was that no one knew why they were there.

Finally, bells began to ring, summoning them to the chamber. They began to file inside. On the unwatched TV, a hundred thousand voices were chanting “Bradford, Brad-ford,” as Peter got up to speak.

Back at the Virginia mansion, Andrei gazed indifferently at the ceremony on TV. It was clearly the culmination of months of scheming and planning, but now it held no interest for him. All that mattered was what was happening in Washington, the “symbolic act” too dark for Petya to describe.

Andrei paced about the guest room. It was just down the hall from Petya’s big bedroom and, on impulse, he marched to the bedroom.

Petya’s bed had not been slept in. The uniform he had worn home at dawn was still on the floor, where he had thrown it. Andrei realized that Petya had come all that way just to tell him what little he had told him. He remembered their final embrace, like father and son. There had been something final to their farewell.

His eyes fell upon the tape cartridge half buried under Petya’s discarded jacket. Andrei grabbed it, examined the date scribbled on it—the night before— and knew at once what it was. It was Petya’s habit to tape-record all communications with the Kremlin—as the officials on the other end were also doing—as a means of self-protection. In his haste and fatigue, Petya had neglected to file this tape before returning to Washington.

Andrei ran back to the guest room, inserted the tape into a player, slipped on headphones, and began to listen. What he heard chilled him to the core.

This is not the Stalin era,
Petya was protesting, in Russian.

The choice between alternatives is yours,
another man said. Andrei recognized the voice as that of Nicolai Malkiev, the first deputy, a powerful, stubborn, and formidable man.

And if I refuse?

Many of us still prefer the detonations, Petya Petrovich. You know that. We have accepted your compromise and now you resist even that. If you do not act, someone else will, and your brilliant career will end in disgrace. Of what value is that? All we ask is that you do your duty.

This act may have the opposite effect. Upheavals . . .

It is your proposal, Comrade. The logic is quite convincing.

That was ten years ago. An alternative that never became necessary. Can’t you see? The Congress is without power, a mere symbol of former America.

Precisely. A potent symbol, one that can still rally people, can still be used against us. Do your duty, Petya, and return to Moscow to accept the honors you deserve.

Andrei grimaced in shock and horror. He remembered that ten-year-old contingency plan. They had joked about it, called it their Doomsday Plan. But this was no joke.

After a long silence, Petya said,
If I carry out the plan, then I have your word that Colonel Denisov will be permitted to function here, in my absence, with no further interference?

Must I say it again? Yes, you have my word. Barring some terrible disaster, Denisov will be given a free hand. You will have guaranteed his success.

All right, Comrade Malkiev. I will proceed. But I say again, this action is antithetical to the generosity and greatness of the Russian people.

And I say again that this Committee differs with you on that point.

I may not be able to return to Moscow immediately.

Don’t be foolish, Petya. End your affairs, romantic and otherwise, and return to Moscow. That is an order.

The tape ended. Andrei hesitated only an instant, then leaped to his feet and raced out of the gracious old mansion, toward the nearby field where his helicopter waited. With luck, he could reach the Capitol in fifteen minutes.

Just as Will decided on a hiding place for Billy, they heard the ominous clatter of helicopters. “You stay here, Dieter,” Will yelled, and the rest of them ran pell-mell toward the treeline. Sheltered by the trees, they ran and walked about a mile before reaching their destination, a hillside overlooking a pond, deep in the woods. Will knelt and tore at the earth with his hands until a wooden trapdoor was exposed,

“Thank God,” Alethea said. She kept looking around, half expecting SSU troops to appear.

“What is it?” Billy asked.

“A dugout,” Will told him. “We haven’t got much time for history right now, but when your great-great-grandmother and grandfather arrived in these parts, the snows had already started and there wasn’t time to build a cabin. So they dug this and survived their first winter in it. I reckon you can manage there a day or two—your dad and your uncle Ward used to play here all the time. Alethea brought you some food and water and we’ll bring more when we can. We’ll cover the top over with sticks and leaves but make sure there’s air getting through.”

“Dad, hurry!” Alethea pleaded.

Will lifted the trapdoor and shone his flashlight down into the darkness. “Okay, old hoss, climb in and don’t be afraid.”

Billy peered in uncertainly. “Might as well see what it was like a hundred and thirty years ago,” Clayton said.

“It ain’t the Waldorf Astoria,” Will said, “but it’ll have to do.”

Billy nodded solemnly and took the flashlight from his grandfather. Alethea hugged him, then Will, and the boy lowered himself into his hiding place. Clayton followed, asking Billy, “You don’t think they’re still in there, do you?”

Petya Samanov was greeted with polite applause as he rose to address the joint session. He wore the brown uniform of a general in the Soviet army, complete with his medals, battle ribbons, and Order of Lenin medallion. He also carried a revolver in a holster on his hip, as Russian officers often did in America. Those members who knew him personally could see how drawn, how haggard, he looked. He spoke from a few scribbled notes, gazing out at his audience through dark-rimmed reading glasses.

“Thank you for your indulgence,” he began. “You have been patient and cooperative in what we have all hoped would be as peaceful and easy a transition as possible.” Samanov hesitated, as though intending to add something to that thought, and then looked up. “My friends,” he continued, “I have learned much during my time with you, to appreciate much of who and what you are and have been. At one point in my life, I thought of America as an implacable enemy.” He paused. “I no longer feel that. Not because we happened to succeed and you happened to fail—but because I know you better, understand you better. Understanding is a long and difficult road. It requires closeness, a closeness which our two countries were never able to achieve.”

Samanov let his gaze ramble across the crowded room before he continued. “Our two systems are so different and in many ways possibly incompatible. But we are all of us human beings, after all not so different.” He moved his reading glasses further down his nose and pushed his notes to the side.

“But there are those who have not had a chance for the closeness—the understanding. When events are seen at a great distance—and seen only as extensions of policy—there can be no understanding. I beg you to cooperate, so that the opportunity for such understanding will be able to develop—somehow.

“I beg of you—in your own best interests, in the interest of peace, of your people—please accept the inevitable. However great the idea of your country, however noble those original purposes, this body no longer serves them. Please take this opportunity to disband this ...”

A few cries of “No!” rose up from the chamber.

“. . . and relinquish its power to the several administrative areas.”

Many Members of Congress were on their feet now, shouting their protests.

“And I must ask for an immediate vote,” Samanov declared, his voice rising.

“Vote, vote!” demanded the PPP delegation, but they were shouted down by cries of “No!” and “Never!”

Samanov gazed out sadly at the chaos, the long-quiescent remnant of democracy, and when he was sure there would be no vote, that a majority of Congress would not voluntarily disband, he turned and left the chamber. He was tom by conflicting emotions: admiration for their courage and sorrow for the price they would soon pay.

As Petya made his exit, an armed guard bolted the door behind him. Inside the chamber, various members attempted to leave, only to find all doors circling the room locked. The congressmen looked at one another in annoyance, then dread, as they realized that they were prisoners.

Petya stepped into an elegant hideaway office, once the domain of the speaker of the house, that boasted a priceless chandelier, Oriental rugs, a wood-burning fireplace with an ornate marble mantelpiece, and a massive oak desk that had once belonged to President Madison. He slumped at the desk. A Soviet army officer stared at him from the doorway.

“Sir, we are ready,” the officer said.

“Proceed,” Petya said, the word caught in his throat.

Peter had agonized over his speech for days, but once he reached the podium it all seemed natural. He hardly looked at his text; the words flowed easily before this vast multitude that filled the stadium and the millions more he knew were watching on TV. He felt wonderful, ten feet tall, and his conviction gave strength to the words he spoke. Andrei’s plan for the division of America could have found no more eloquent spokesman.

“Heartland is larger than most of the nations of Europe,” he declared. “Our productive capacity is unmatched, our potential unlimited. Our need is to break with the past, to assert our independence and resume our greatness.”

“What the hell’s he trying to say?” Will Milford demanded. He and Alethea had hiked back to the farmhouse and were watching the ceremony on TV in their kitchen.

“Regional pride, I think,” Alethea said. She was worried about Billy; his hiding place might be secure, but it was also monumentally depressing. Would he climb out of there and get himself caught?

“He ought to get to the damn point,” Will muttered.

“As in the past we were proud to be Americans,” Peter continued, “let us now be proud to be Heart-landers.”

“What is this Heartland shit?” Will grumbled. “We live in goddamn Nebraska.”

On the screen, Peter lifted his arms to the heavens. “I ask you, all of you, to join me in proclaiming our new identity, our future . . . Heartland! Heartland! Heartland!”

The throng in the stadium picked up the chant. The camera panned around, showing tens of thousands of midwesterners on their feet, their fists raised, chanting “Heartland! Heartland!”

As Aiethea shouted her anger at the screen, a line of black SSU vehicles was racing up the road. A moment later Helmut stepped from one of them and marched toward the house, his narrow face a cold mask.

The regular Capitol police had been sent home that morning when General Samanov’s crack Soviet troops arrived. Now they controlled the building. Explosives experts moved about its corridors setting their charges. Heavily armed troops dressed not in SSU uniforms but in guerrilla garb waited outside the doors to the house chamber where more than five hundred Members of Congress were captive. At a nod from their commanding officer, they threw open the doors to the chamber and stormed in, firing as they went.

Members of Congress fell to the floor, dead or dying. Others raced about, shouting for mercy, hiding beneath their desks, seeking refuge—but there was none. Soon the chamber was awash with blood, and still the carnage continued. Only PPP members were spared— herded out a side door—and a few others, women and old men for whose lives Samanov had been forced to negotiate. The massacre had not yet ended when subterranean explosions began, deep in the bowels of the Capitol, rocking the monumental old building that had stood like Gibraltar for almost two centuries.

Petya Samanov, alone in the elegant office, heard the explosions and the crackle of gunfire. The chandelier trembled as the blasts drew nearer. This was the darkest moment of his life. He had devoted thirty years to the study of America, and the past ten years to achieving a responsible Soviet occupation of its once-great rival. He had dreamed that the Soviet actions there would live in history as a monument to the wisdom and decency of the Russian people. Now all his dreams were shattered by hotheads in Moscow who understood only hate and power and inevitable destruction. They would have their victory, their conquest, their symbolic rape of a great nation, but generations yet unborn would curse the Russian leaders, would equate them with Attila and Hitler and other of history’s most despised monsters.