"Any other special orders, sir?"

  "Yes. Can the shit."

  She caught the slig t tug at the corner of his mouth,

  nh

  recognizing the smile that lurked beneath, She offered

  her own smile in response. "Got it," she said. "You,

  me, who else?"

  "You, me, Skip," be grunted, "Besides, you're wrong

  about the snow."

  She thought of the barren Arizona desert stretching

  awav from Indian's Bluff. Not more than an hour ago

  she'd been topside in the town, well above this sprawl-

  ing underground complex concealed from the world.

  No snow. No clouds. You didn't need to be a genius to

  figure out the rest. No snow here. By helicopter to the

  mountains and you had snow. She knew better than to

  prattle with unnecessary conversation. if it didn't serve

  a purpose, keep your mouth shut, Sbe smiled to her-

  82

  Martin Caidin

  "Know what you're going to say and let people think

  that you're an idiot. That's better than shooting off your

  mouth and proving you're a fool." Great, Dad, she

  mused, if only I could stick to that rule. Sometimes my

  mouth thinks on its own-

  She cut off the meandering within her head. "Twenty

  minutes," she tossed over her shoulder as she left for

  her quarters.

  "Nineteen, now," he threw back.

  She offered a theatrical wince. "ouch," she mur-

  mured, and left. The airtight door closed with a hiss

  behind her as she walked along the corridor of the East

  Wing. Jesus, it , s like being in Star Trek. Doors opening

  and closing by themselves. Microphones and receivers

  built into our clothes or worn on a necklace. Instant

  communications all the time. and anywhere. She shook

  her head with the simplistic marvels of the city beneath

  the town.

  I like that, she thought idly, walking along the car-

  peted corridor that reduced her footfalls to soft muffled

  sound. The city beneath the town. The locals had their

  own, very private joke about the two communities. The

  Indian's Bluff that the outside world knew, and Stavers-

  ville, the invisible city that nobody ever saw from above.

  It was true enough. Eons ago underground rivers had

  carved enormous channels and caves fifty feet below

  the desert floor, Stavers' engineers tracked down old

  rumors and proved their truth. Old mines once scratched

  and pawed at for silver and gold abounded in the re-

  gion. The perfect cover. Stavers' bought out the mines

  and renewed digging for gold. That proved to the locals

  he was mad. Loco.

  "Ate one tumbleweed too many," they said. But they

  didn't say it loud enough to be overheard because soon

  all of them worked for Stavers Mining and Engineering.

  Then they discovered Stavers' had bought them as well.

  Bought up their homes and stores and gas stations at

  prices they could never turn down. Bought the banks

  arid the realty companies (which hadn't done much

  business for years, anyway). Then he bought the town.

  DARK MESSIAIT

  83

  assigned people, was Indian's Bluff. He had it all: po-

  lice, security, fire, the courts. Nobody argued. They'd

  never seen so much money in their lives, They also

  signed contracts that guaranteed their silence about

  what was going on beneath their feet, where Stavers

  Mining and Engineering transformed the ancient river-

  beds and caves into a sprawling underground city of

  steel and glass, electronics and generators, computers

  and weapons arsenals, huge kitchen and inedical facili-

  ties, living quarters, and the kind of communications

  that kept Stavers and his tearns in realtime contact with

  anywhere in the world.

  Dr. Rebecca Weinstein had been through the entire

  complex. Stavers ordered that tour. She marveled at

  the films of a giant Ariane rocket launching from the

  eastern coast of South America; Stavers made it finan-

  cially worthwhile for the French to put up his own

  communications satellite. It sat out in space more than

  twenty-two thousand miles high in geosynchronous or-

  bit and he had twelve hundred channels to say what he

  wanted and to hear what he demanded.

  If you could think of it, and it had a worthwhile

  purpose, you could find it in the underground marvel

  Stavers created about his needs and wants. Machine

  shops, nuclear-generated power, huge underground ban-

  gars for more than thirty aircraft frorn smalljet fighters

  to international transports, it was all there. And that

  arsenal. That one was more a closed than an opened

  door. Oh, she knew about the rifles, inachine guns,

  assault weapons, chernicall agents@ the deadly toys grown

  men loved so much. But she knew only ruinors about

  the bigger stuff. Hints of nuclear weapons. She'd asked

  Stavers directly about that matter. just the idea of

  being buried beneath the desert with nukes chilled her

  to the bone.

  "I've heard you have atomic bombs down here,," she

  confronted him. "Maybe even bigger stuff * " She paused.

  Cold steel eyes looked back at her. Not a flicker of

  emotion. She shifted uncomfortably, the cold trickling

  down her back with tiny sounds of cracking ice, IT rn

  84

  Martin Caidin

  for the right words. -You told me to learn absolutely

  everything about you I could learn. You're looking at

  me like a pit viper about to strike a rabbit. Damnit,

  frankly, you're scaring the hell out of me!"

  The deep fire she'd seen beyond his eyes dimmed

  slowly but purposefully and she felt a bit more alive

  than the moment before. Now I know what it's like to

  be on the razor's edge, she thought wildly.

  I didn't hear your question," he said after his own

  thoughtful pause.

  11 1- 11

  And I don't want to hear it," he added, very softly.

  ose were the moments when she thought the real

  world had evaporated. That she existed in some monu-

  mental acade. And it was true enough. This division

  between the crackerbox town with nine out of every ten

  people being of Indian blood, and this sprawling under-

  ground complex- I have my own name for this place.

  And it's not Staversville. This is a real Potemkin Vil-

  lage, but the czar is Doug Stavers and he built it this

  way to fool the whole outside world.

  She pushed aside as much of the emotional and intel-

  lectual conflict as she could. Stick to what he hired you

  to do, she reminded herself. Attend his health and

  well-being and mind your own damned business, Don't

  let him probe too deeply into what you really are.

  And that was excellent advice. It was pure twenty-

  four-karat, great, sensational advice. The security sys-

  tem run by Al Ternplin was ruthless and permanent.

  Anyone who babbled about Indian's Bluff-which in its

  own way was the Potemkin Village for the underground

  complex-broke his or her unbreakable contract, That

  contradiction in terms was completed by eradication of

  the errant parties. Not only those who talked too much

  but those who had queried, or, simply listened.

  They all came down with fatal illness, disease or

  suffered the most incredible accidents. But they were

  always accidents. Al Templin wouldn't talk about his

  security system, but Skip Marden held few reservations

  where Rebecca Weinstein was concerned.

  -T --I, T-%-- " L_ . L -, I

  DARK MESSIAH

  85

  11

  seemed to attack rather than discuss verbally, it works

  this way. Doug's seen fit to put his life in your hands,

  see? That means he's also put your life in my hands.

  Something goes real bad with Doug, then you dance on

  the grill."

  "I don't like that," she said, surprised with her sud-

  denly vehement tone, She had all the effect of a fly

  hitting a mountain.

  "What's there to like?" He grinned as he shrugged.

  "That's the way it works, You knew that when you

  made the inside team. Doug trusts you. So do 1. That's

  why you're still breathing, and-"

  "Shove your threats up your ass," she snapped, in a

  fashion most uncharacteristic for herself. She felt as if

  she were battling phantoms made of stone.

  He sighed with forced patience. "When will you

  understand, Doe? We don't threaten. That's dumb. We

  make simple statements."

  She sought desperately to shift his emphasis. "You

  were telling me about people who talk too much and-"

  "Yeah, so I was," and he renewed the grin. He was

  into a subject dear to his heart. "They talk too much

  and we cancel their contract. You ever hear of the

  Great Tropical Scolopendra, Doc?"

  She shook her head.

  "Centipede. Big sucker frorn South America. It's got

  long hairs and they've got a powder on thern that causes

  the goddamndest pain you could ever imagine. Let one

  of those things walk across the arm of a sleeping man

  and he wakes up like his whole arm's been dipped in

  molten iron. He'll scream until his vo@@al cords don't

  work anv more and his arm is as dead as a block of

  wood. Iie can't stay still, he can't lie down, he's mad

  with the pain. Re runs around like a chicken with its

  head cut off, howling the whole time like a mad dog."

  He thought about past incidents. "Come to think of it,

  they also froth at the mouth, Like a damn dog with

  rabies. The whole point is that they'll do anything to

  get away from that pain. They'll run in front of a speed-

  ing truck. Throw themselves out of windows. If they

  --- __4- , _- @1-f f1l@mcpIvPz if thev oan get a

  86

  Martin Caidin

  knife, well, we had one guy who stabbed himself over a

  hundred times before he bled to death. Kept jamming

  that knife again and again into himself-"

  11 Spare me, Marden."

  A smiling death's head looked back at her. "No," be

  said softly. "You asked, I answer. But I'll wrap it up for

  you. We had a whore drop some of that powder on a

  guy's dick. He went mad in seconds. He grabbed a

  knife and cut off his own prick, and he killed the whore,

  and he ran down the hall in the cathouse, blood pump-

  ing fi-orn what was left of his dick like a fountain and he

  killed three more before he shoved the knife into his

  own heart.

  Silence hung heavily between them.

  "You're the doctor," he went on finally. "You get,

  say, a case like that for an autopsy. By the time you get

  the body the powder is so much dust like anything else.

  Not a trace of it. And there's nothing in the blood,

  nothing internal. So it goes down on the record books

  that the dude flipped out, went bananas, or maybe a

  poison spider or a scorpion got his ass. The point is the

  whole thing gets buried and forgotten." He chuckled.

  There's more-"

  I don't need-I don't want to hear any more," she

  said coldly.

  . You're a doctor. You cut up bodies. Slice them

  open, pull out organs and bones, right? You cut up

  cadavers for practice. You do stuff for a living that

  would make most people puke out their guts. And now

  you I ve got the willies because of what a little powder

  can do. "

  "The difference is that I try to save lives," she said

  angrily.

  "Little lady," Marden replied, leaning forward, "if

  you ever get a taste of that dust you'll never even try, to

  save your own life. Got it?" He laughed again. "Then,

  of course, there's traffic accidents. We bum 'em, crush,

  mangle, decapitate, you know, Doc."

  She knew. She'd worked emergency rooms, she'd

  been on the road as a paramedic; she knew. The craz 'y

  thinv,qhnia A Oi@ -- f4- flhi@ --11-1

  DARK MESSIAH

  81,

  brand of contract termination, thousands ofpeople tore

  themselves to bloody shards every day of the week in

  the normal, prosaic, "decent" world, She hated her

  own self-rationalization. Nothing performed bv this group

  in its enforced silence and isolation, in the total number

  of people it affected, could hold a candle to the drunks

  and the addicts ripping apart lives in normal life.

  She forced a switch in their conversation, "N/lind

  another questiort?" she asked, more hopefully this time.

  "Anything, babe.

  He talks like an old movie, for God's sake! "All this,"

  she gestured to take in the great underground complex,

  "has a purpose. I know that Stavers has airlines, shipping

  companies-"

  "Steel mills, electronics plants, aircraft factories, ship-yards, export-import, plantations, oil fields, mining, ar-

  chitecture and engineering," he added to her list.

  "And that's just touching the surface, isn't it?"

  "Uh huh. You could add casinos in Vegas and Atlan-

  tic City, mercenary forces for hire, and verv legit. He

  buys and sells weapons all over the world. You want the

  staff to fight a war? Come to Stavers Industries. You got

  enough bread and we'll fight the war for you@ @ 1. He

  laughed at her expression (if astonishment. "Hey, -it's all

  business, Doc. How the hell do you think the world is

  run. anyway?"

  "But but what does he do hem? I rnean, 11 she

  faltered, "I know he's -ot nh-s incredible empire, but

  what does he want?"

  Marden's expression was blank. "Anything. Ever,-

  thing," He paused a heartbeat. "Sometimes, nothing.-

  fie grew serious and it was the first time he'd shown a

  serious side without malevolence stirring within his

  words. "Christ, Weinstein, think of it. He owns rnedi-

  cal research centers and hospitals. Half the damned

  cosmetics industry in the country, Supermarkets,

  Churches and---"

  11C hurches?"

  "wh

  y not@" He was bonestly puzzled. "God's a hell

  -47 i-- @-.f qde 01" Vnfi(".4n

  88 Martin Caidin

  He rose to his feet and stretched. "Later, Doe. And

  close your mouth. You'll start catching flies like that."

  And now they were going to take a walk in the high

  snow of Arizona.

  It wasn't that simple. The snow Stavers sought was

  sixty miles away across rugged country in even more

  rugged mountains. Clad in the cold-weather gear Stavers

  had urged, she returned to the operations room to meet

  Stavers and Marden. Stavers had dressed in what she

  recognized as military mountain gear; plain, rugged and

  effective, a drab contrast to her own brightly-colored

  outer clothing. Marden stood silently to the side; it was

  impossible not to notice the heavy pack strapped about

  his shoulders or the weapons slung about his body. Her

  first impulse was to smirk at the lethal "toys." As quickly

  as she entertained that thought she dismissed it as

  stupid. How could she have forgotten their flight west

  in the Skua with a modified Russian bomber-not crewed

  by Russians-doing its very best to kill them all? Stavers'

  world was another planet.

  She watched as he studied an electronic situation

  map and a live television broadcast from some sort of

  aircraft. "You're clear T'Or the area," Templin said in his

  brisk manner of speaking. "Anything that's flying is

  either very high and traversing the area on a flight plan,

  or it, s got feathers."

  Marden moved forward. "Give me the IR plot," he

  ordered.

  Templin worked the electronic control console and

  the situation map flickered to a different readout. -Lri-

  frared shows only scattered life forms," Templin told

  him. "We've got high resolution on each target. What-

  ever you see moving out there has four legs and a tail."

  Templin turned to Stavers. "You'll have your usual

  chase chopper, of course. "

  Stavers; nodded. "When we put down I want both

  choppers to fly out."

  "But we cant cover vou if-"

  DARK MESSIAH

  89

  "And they come back here and they land," Stavers

  added quietly.

  .1 Damnit, boug, I can't-"

  "Yes, you can," Stavers told him, still quiet and

  businesslike. "Can and will. Don't break my orders."

  Templin clenched his teeth. "Yes, sir," He swung

  about in his chair. "But I am not shutting down high

  surveillance. "

  Stavers didn't bother to answer. He was already walk-

  ing toward the exit to the main vehicle roadway of the

  underground complex. Marden waited for Weinstein to

 

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