According to the progress shown, many of these initiatives were already well under way. The slide devoted to Finance showed a time line beginning in 1913, and its Window had moved nearly to the end. The screen for Education began at a point even earlier and was also well along. Advances in one, concerning surveillance, security, and the militarization of law enforcement, had accelerated radically in the years since 9/11.
There’s a difference between suspecting a thing and finally knowing it for certain. Noah felt that difference twisting into his stomach. You can hold on to the smallest doubt and take comfort in it, stay in denial and go on with your carefree life, until one day you’re finally cornered by a truth that can no longer be ignored.
“Look over there,” Molly said.
But he’d already seen it. While every other slide had shown advancement and slow progress over its individual time span, one hadn’t moved at all, as though its role in all this was simply to be ready and awaiting activation. Also unlike the others, its time line didn’t measure years or decades, but only three final days.
Unlike the others, this slide had no Overton Window. EXIGENT was the legend at the far end of the line, and it seemed there would be no question of public acceptance, no need to rally opinion on this front. Whatever it was, it would bring its own consensus.
“Casus Belli,” the heading said, and Molly’s translation was still fresh in his mind.
An incident used to justify a war.
CHAPTER 20
Outside the skies were still threatening, and to accompany the frigid light rain a wicked crosstown breeze had begun to blow. In that sort of weather almost everyone on the street is looking for a ride, so it took a few blocks of trying before Noah and Molly were able to hail an empty cab headed downtown.
When they’d closed the door the driver turned and asked where they were going.
“Ninth Street and Avenue B, by Tompkins Square Park,” Noah said. “And do us a favor,” he added, passing through enough of a tip to make his point. “We’re not in a rush, so just take it really, really easy, understand?”
The man in front took the money, gave a nod in the rearview mirror, and then signaled and pulled away from the curb with exaggerated care, hands on the wheel at ten and two o’clock, driving as if an inspector from the Taxi & Limousine Commission were watching from the shotgun seat.
Molly kept to her side of the car, looking out the window in silence as the ride got under way, but after a minute she reached across and found Noah’s hand to hold.
“There were no dates on those screens at the end,” Noah said. “There’s nothing to say that this thing is happening tomorrow, or next week, or next year.”
She shook her head. “It’s happening now.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I can see it. The economy is crashing, Noah. There’s no net underneath it this time. That’s why they’re rushing through all this stimulus nonsense, both parties. All the cockroaches are coming out of the woodwork to grab what they still can. It’s a heist in broad daylight, and they don’t care who sees it anymore. That’s how I know.
“They’ve doubled the national debt since 2000, and now with these bailouts, all those trillions of dollars more—that’s our future they just stole, right in front of our eyes. They didn’t even pretend to use that money to pay for anything real, most of it went offshore. They didn’t help any real people; they just paid themselves and covered their gambling debts on Wall Street.” She looked at him. “You asked how I know it’s happening now? Because the last official act of any government is to loot their own treasury.”
He couldn’t think of a thing to counter that, at least nothing that either one of them would believe.
“We’ll be okay,” Noah said.
“Who’ll be okay?”
“The two of us. And look, I’m not talking about any commitment you have to make, or a relationship, or whatever, I know we just met so let’s take all that out of the picture and not worry about it right now. I’m just telling you that I’ll help you, you and your mom, no strings attached.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Just give it some thought. I know, it would probably feel like some pact with the devil. I feel the same thing, but it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?
“Whatever happens, it isn’t going to hit everyone equally. A lot of people I know probably won’t feel a thing, and I’m set up to be okay through just about anything. So I’m just saying that we can fix it so you and your mother are okay, too.”
“You’re wrong—you won’t be okay. No one will. If they accomplish half of what we saw on those screens then money won’t protect you. Nothing will.”
She turned her attention back to the window and the dark, blustery night beyond the glass.
After a time her clasp on his hand tightened for a few seconds, but it didn’t really feel like affection. It was more like the grip a person might take on the arm of the dentist’s chair, or the gesture of unspoken things an old love might extend at the end of a long good-bye.
CHAPTER 21
When the cab pulled to a stop Molly opened the door and turned back to him as he paid the fare.
“Come on up,” she said. “See how the other half lives.”
The path to the entrance began with a forbidding metal gate at the sidewalk. The lock took quite a bit of finesse to operate. It looked as though it had been jimmied open more often than unlocked with a key. A dismal courtyard lay beyond the gate, and at the entrance a triple-bolted fire door opened to a sad little front hall lit by a single hanging lightbulb.
He followed as she started up three narrow, creaking flights; he took her occasional cues to avoid a splintery patch on the railing or a weak spot in the stairs. On the second floor the entrance from the landing was secured with a heavy chain and padlock. His first thought was that the door was blocked to discourage squatters, but considering the run-down, gray-market condition of the place, it was probably as much for the safety of the trespassers as a protection for the property itself.
Though the walls and windows showed signs of spotty maintenance the construction was haphazard and incomplete. None of the repair work seemed up to code, but little of the older, existing carpentry did, either. As they continued up the stairs, he saw sheets of plywood over broken windows, and bare studs without plaster here and there. Long, jagged cracks in the remaining walls warned of some structural weakness that might run all the way to the foundation. Random drafts swept up the dim stairwell, accompanied by ominous settling sounds and the distant clank and hiss of old steam heat.
When they arrived at the third floor Molly had her keys ready, and she set about unlocking several dead bolts on the unnumbered apartment door.
“How long have you lived here?” Noah asked.
“Not that long.” She tried the door, and had to put a shoulder to it to bump it free from its swollen frame. “It’s a little nicer inside.”
And she was right. In fact, across that threshold it seemed like they’d entered a whole different world. As she relocked the door he took a few steps in, stood there, and looked around.
Great effort had obviously been taken to transform this space into a sort of self-contained hideaway, far removed from the city outside. What had probably once been a huge, cold industrial floor had been renovated and brought alive with simple ingenuity and hard work. The result was one large area divided with movable partitions to form an impressively cool, livable loft. From where he was he could see a spacious multipurpose room off the entryway, a kitchen and laundry to the side, and what seemed to be a series of guest rooms toward the back.
Molly hung her keys on a hook by the door. “What do you think?”
“How many people live here?” Noah asked.
“I don’t know, eight or ten, so don’t be surprised if you see someone. They come and go; none of us lives here permanently. We have places like this all around the country so we can have somewhere safe to stay
when we have to travel. That’s my room over there for now, but hardly any of this stuff is mine.” She stepped into the kitchen, still talking to him. “Have a seat. I’ll make us some iced tea. Or would you rather have a beer?”
“The tea sounds good.”
“We make it pretty sweet where I come from.”
“Bring it on, Ellie Mae. The sweeter the better.”
He walked about midway into the front room and found a slightly elevated platform enclosed in Japanese screens of thin dark wood and rice paper panels. There were a lot of bookshelves, a dresser, a rolltop desk, and a vanity. But the space was dominated by a large rope hammock, its webbing covered by a nest of comfy blankets and pillows, suspended waist-high between the red shutoff wheels of two heavy metal pipes that extended up from the floor through the ceiling. This room within a room was lit softly by small lamps and pastel paper lanterns. The total effect of the enclosure was that of a mellow, relaxing Zen paradise.
A glance through the nearest bookcase revealed a strange assortment of reading material. Some old and modern classics were segregated on a shelf by themselves, but the collection consisted mostly of works that leaned toward the eccentric, maybe even the forbidden. There didn’t seem to be a clear ideological thread to connect them; Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals was right next to None Dare Call It Conspiracy. Down the way The Blue Book of the John Birch Society was sandwiched between Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book, Orson Scott Card’s Empire, and a translated copy of The Coming Insurrection. Below was an entire section devoted to a series of books from a specialty publisher, all by a single author named Ragnar Benson. Noah touched the weathered spines and read the titles of these, one by one:
The Modern Survival Retreat
Guerrilla Gunsmithing
Homemade Grenade Launchers: Constructing the Ultimate Hobby Weapon
Ragnar’s Homemade Detonators
Survivalist’s Medicine Chest
Live Off the Land in the City and Country
And a last worn hardcover, titled simply Mantrapping.
“Those are some pretty good books she’s got there, huh?”
It was only the tranquil atmosphere and a slight familiarity to the odd voice from close behind that kept him from jumping right out of his skin. He turned, and there was Molly’s large friend from the bar, nearly at eye level because of the elevated platform on which Noah was standing.
“Hollis,” Noah said, stepping down to the main floor, “how is it that I never hear you coming?”
The big man gave him a warm guy-hug with an extra pat on the shoulder at the end. “I guess I tend to move about kinda quiet.”
“I might need to hang a bell around your neck, just for my nerves.”
“Come on,” Hollis said. “Let me show you around some.”
The loft had more living spaces in back than Noah had first imagined. Some were for sleeping, others for working and meeting. In the room that Hollis identified as his own there was a low army cot, several neatly organized project tables, and a large red cabinet on wheels, presumably full of tools. All these things were arranged as though bed rest wasn’t even in the top ten of this man’s nighttime priorities.
“What is all this stuff?” Noah asked. One table was covered with parts and test equipment for working on small electronics, another was a mass of disassembled communications equipment, and a third was devoted to cleaning supplies and the neatly disassembled pieces of a scary-looking black rifle and a handgun. More weapons were visible in an open gun safe to the side, but his focus had settled on the nearest of the workbenches. “Are you making bullets there?”
“Making ammunition.” Hollis picked up a finished example and pointed to a spot near the grayish tip. “The bullet’s just this last little bit on her business end. That right there’s a .44 jacketed hollow-cavity; got a lot of stopping power.”
Arrayed around this bench were a number of labeled bins and jars, black powders of varying grades and grinds, a pharmacist’s scale, a tray of brass casings, and a hand-operated machine that looked something like a precision orange squeezer, attached to the tabletop by a vise.
“Why on earth would you want to make your own ammunition?”
Hollis sat, put on his spectacles, picked up the components of an unfinished cartridge, started working with the pieces, and then spoke. “Noah, do you like cookies?”
“Why yes, Hollis. We were talking about firearms, but yes, I do like cookies.”
“And which do you like better?” He’d placed the open powder-filled casing in the lower part of his hand-operated machine, fitted a bullet on top, tweaked an adjustment ring with the deft touch of a safecracker, and then rotated a long feed lever until the two parts mated together into a single, snug assembly. “Do you prefer those dry, dusty little nuggets you get in a box from one of them drive-through restaurants?” He removed the finished cartridge from the mechanism and held it up so Noah could admire its perfection. “Or would you rather have a nice, warm cookie fresh out of the oven, that your sweetheart cooked up just for you?”
“I see what you mean, I guess.”
“Oh hell, anything’ll do for target shooting, I suppose, but if I know what I’m hunting I can make up something that’s just exactly right, and she’ll fly straighter and hit harder than anything I could buy in a box from a store.”
“I’m not a gun guy, but it’s hard to believe it could make that much difference.”
“I’d say it makes all the difference.” After consulting his calipers Hollis made an infinitesimal adjustment to the press and returned to his work. “Go out sometime and wing a bull moose with a rifle you loaded for a little whitetail deer, and see what happens. Might as well just whack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.”
“I see.”
“You better see. Nothing quite like a pissed-off wounded moose chasin’ you across an open field to teach a man the value of the proper ammunition.”
Noah looked over the table again. In a stack near the other end a number of clear acrylic boxes were already filled with finished ammo. “How many of those things can you do in an hour?”
“With a one-stage press? I’d reckon somewhere between seventy-five and two hundred rounds.” Hollis looked up at him over the rims of his thin safety glasses, and smiled. “It all depends on my motivation.”
“Hey, boys,” Molly said. She’d brought a glass of tea for Hollis. “Catching up?”
“Yeah, we are. Hollis here was just making some helpful suggestions for the next time I need to shoot a moose.”
She patted her seated friend on the back. “I’m going to steal him for a little while, okay?”
“You two kids be good,” Hollis said.
There were other voices nearby, and Molly led him down the line of doorways and partitioned spaces toward the sound. At the end of this hall they came to a large room with a diverse group of men and women sitting around a long conference table. On a second look Noah saw that this furniture consisted of a mismatched set of folding chairs and four card tables butted end to end.
The people inside had been listening to a speaker at the head of the table but the room became quiet when they saw the newcomers.
“Everybody,” Molly said, “this is Noah Gardner. And Noah, these are some of the regional leaders of the Founders’ Keepers. You said you were good with names, so let’s put you to the test.”
She started at the near end of the table and proceeded clockwise with introductions around the circle. Molly pointed out each person and gave the historic pseudonym that he or she had taken on when they joined the organization.
“Did you get all that?” she asked.
“Let’s see.” He began where she’d ended and went around the other way. “That’s Patrick, Ethan, George, Thomas, Benjamin, Samuel, John, Alexander, James, Nathaniel, another Benjamin—Franklin or Rush, you didn’t say which—Francis, William, and Stephen.”
“Very good.”
“I owe it all to Dale Carnegie.” Ea
ch of the attendees had a book open, and from what he could see they all appeared to be similar in every way but their visible contents. “What did we interrupt?” Noah asked. “Is this a strategy session or something?”
“Not tonight,” Molly said. She motioned for the speaker at the head of the table to continue from where she’d left off. This woman, maybe ten years Noah’s senior, had been introduced as “Thomas.”
“Cherish therefore the spirit of our people,” the woman said, “and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and assemblies, judges, and governors shall all become wolves.”
These words were from the writings of Thomas Jefferson; though Noah hadn’t recognized them as such he could see the heading in the open book of the one sitting next to her as she spoke. This man was following along carefully, tracking the memorized text with a moving fingertip. She was delivering the passage with feeling and energy, not as the rote recitation of a centuries-old letter, but as if for the time being, she’d made Jefferson’s thoughts her own.
“It seems to be the law of our general nature,” she continued, “in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
There was an empty chair at the table with one of those little books in front of it. Molly picked up this book and waved a good-bye to the others as they prepared for the next speaker in line. She took Noah’s hand and led him from the room and back up the hall again.
“Aren’t they going to need that book?” Noah asked.
“No, this one’s mine.” She handed it to him. “I’m not like they are, though. They’ve each memorized a whole person, and I’ve just got little pieces of a lot of them. Mostly Thomas Paine, though.”