The Trigger

  'You're paying with cash?'

  Jeffrey Horton nodded wordlessly and fanned six twenty-dollar bills out on the check lane. The young grocery clerk's surprise was nothing new to Horton. Even in the small nowhere towns to which he had been restricting his visits, buying more than a few dollars of goods with cash marked one as, at best, an eccentric. Ever since thumbprint-secured debit cards had become the principal medium of exchange, the shrunken remnant of the cash economy belonged to small-time tax evaders, anti-establishment iconoclasts, debtors on the run, and other assorted cranks and petty criminals.

  Horton did not mind being thought of in that company. Indeed, his beard, now full enough to dramatically change the shape of his face, and unfashionably long hair invited the association. An unsavory image brought a certain kind of privacy - while people might stare and regard him warily, they were less inclined to approach and engage him in conversation.

  Besides, there was really no choice - green-palming was the only way to escape his notoriety. All but invisible in the digital transaction registers which could document most lives in startling detail, he moved through the Northern Tier states as a ghost, leaving as few traces of his passing as possible. He no longer used commercial transport of any sort, or public accommodations - his Nomadpop-up van conversion fulfilled both needs, and much more discreetly. He could go weeks without needing to use his identity, and months without hearing his own name.

  True, the periodic cash withdrawals did momentarily betray Horton's location to anyone with access to his bank records. But those withdrawals were always the last thing he did before hitting the road, supplies replenished, for a new and isolated locale which might be 500 klicks or more in any direction. He would then stay in that spot until his privacy was invaded or his supply of cash exhausted, at which point he would return to town and begin the process anew.

  He had been robbed once, by someone who had taken note of the thickness of his billfold and followed him back into the woods. He had had three close calls with bears, the last of which had found him wishing for a gun as a seven-hundred-pound black bear threw himself against the camper and tore pieces of trim and the spare tire off the rear door. He had been rousted by rangers and game wardens more times than he could count, though less often since he had acquired the 200mm widefield autocorrelating telescope.

  But none of those dangers was nearly as threatening as the prospect of reentering his old life. Even on the worst days, that option had no appeal, and he gave it little thought. The camper had become a cozy home base, especially now that he was working again.

  For the telescope had given him more than a plausible excuse for being where he was. It had allowed him to reenter the world of science in a comfortable way, challenging his mind and keeping his hands busy. He was still learning both the sky and the instrument, but had already begun taking advantage of the clear, still North Woods nights to go comet-hunting and count meteors.

  Beyond that, he had his books - a lifetime archive of fiction and nonfiction for which there'd never been time - and a Martin steel-string acoustic guitar which he'd always been too busy to master. When he got lonely for the sound of human voices, he could pull in a zonecast from the Netcom 9 platform or Canada's CBC-West satellite, or use his anonymizer and find a chat online. When he grew hungry for human touch, a truck-stop brothel was never very far away.

  If he could not quite call himself happy, he could at least take comfort in having found enough purpose to keep getting out of bed at the start of his day, and enough peace to get to sleep again at day's end.

  Then came the call that turned everything upside down.

  His comset was still configured to defer all calls to v-mail, and to automatically purge all mail with no priority flag. There were very few people who had Horton's current priority key - Lee, his family, Karl Brohier, the Terabyte business office, his lawyer, his accountant, his personal DataSearch librarian - and he still had the priority alarm disabled. Once every few days, usually in the middle of the night, he would check the queue of waiting messages, replying to some, archiving others, disposing of the rest.

  The message tagged as USGOV|TREASDEPT-MOST URGENT-TO:JHORTON had been waiting for two days before Horton saw it. Its envelope was double-encrypted, both Personal and Secret. Both bindings dissolved with no alarms, leaving a short but chilling v-mail.

  'Dr Horton, this is Agent Keith Havens of the Special Protection Division of the Secret Service. Please contact me immediately when you receive this message. Dr Karl Brohier is gravely ill, and insists on seeing you. I'm to arrange your transportation to the secure facility where he's being cared for.'

  Horton tried calling Brohier instead. There was a personalized message waiting for him.

  'Jeffrey - it's just my luck that when you finally do decide to call me, I'm indisposed. Count it as payback for making yourself such a hermit these last few months. Pour yourself a glass of wine - I'll call you back before it's gone.'

  It sounded like something that had been recorded a long time ago, and Horton did not trust Brohier's promise. He reopened the Havens message and clicked the SecureCall icon.

  'Dr Horton.' Havens was wearing an olive-green't-shirt, and his crewcut hair was matted. It was obvious he had been sleeping. Thank goodness. Where are you?'

  'Wisconsin.'

  'What's the nearest town?'

  'Eh - Grandview.'

  Havens looked away and squinted, as though at another display to the side. 'Chequamegon area?'

  'Yes.'

  'Do you have a vehicle available?'

  'Yes. A camper.'

  'Very good.' Havens looked back toward Horton. There's a civil airport at Hayward, on County Road Twenty-Seven. We can have someone there in two hours. They'll identify themselves to you with the codeword "Candyland".'

  'Like the game?'

  'Like the game.'

  'I'll be there.'

  Havens nodded approvingly. 'Dr Horton, there's a great deal at stake - personal considerations aside, it's extremely important to the security of the nation that we get you and Dr Brohier together in the same room. I strongly recommend that you try not to call attention to yourself while you're out there alone. Stay off the air - stay in your vehicle until you're contacted. You'll have answers to all your questions in a couple of hours.'

  It was a perfect set-up. Worry clouded Jeffrey Horton's thinking; it did not even occur to him to doubt the authenticity of the message. Though Brohier himself had never spoken of it, Horton knew from Lee's letters that the senior scientist was being treated for an enlarged heart, and that he had been 'swallowed up by Washington' after the successful Jammer tests.

  So neither the news nor the source of it raised any warning flags, especially since all of the security keys on the message behaved exactly as expected. When a dark blue SUV turned into the airfield's grassy parking area a few minutes after sunrise, Horton regarded it hopefully. When two men with military haircuts and a wary, alert bearing emerged and approached, Horton felt an eager relief.

  'Good morning, Dr Horton,' said the older of the two, bending at the waist to peer through the partially-lowered driver's window. 'We're your escort to Candyland. You can call me George.'

  At that point, Horton experienced his first and only quiver of uncertainty. 'I was expecting a helicopter, or something.'

  'It's en route - there was nothing suitable for this field at Grissom, so we had to go all the way to Scott for a C-12. You managed to pick a state where we don't have many resources.'

  'Sorry about that.'

  'It'll be fine. Are you ready to go?'

  Horton patted the soft-sided sport bag on the seat beside him. This is all I need.'

  'Good.' George jerked his thumb in the direction of his com-panion. This is Agent Loomis - he and another agent are going to drive your vehicle in, so you'll have it available to you when you're ready to leave Candyland. If you'd care to wait with me in the four-by-four, we can let them get started - they have a long drive ahe
ad of them.'

  'Of course,' Horton said. He climbed out, bag in hand, and surrendered the keys to Loomis. The papers are in the door pocket. Oh, and watch it - the parking brake sticks.'

  'We'll be careful,' said Loomis, who nodded - more to the other agent than to Horton - and clambered into the seat.

  Horton would end up replaying the next few seconds over and over in his mind. While he crossed the grass to the passenger side of the SUV, Loomis backed the camper out as if to leave. But at the last moment, he braked hard and stopped short behind the second vehicle, blocking the view from the main road.

  'Hurry, Doctor - we have company,' said George, grabbing Horton and shoving him forward. Horton did not resist, thinking that the agents were protecting him. The door in front of Horton flew open, and other hands reached for him and hauled him inside. Lying on his back on the floor, Horton looked up into the face of the man who had called himself Keith Havens.

  'Change of plans, Doctor,' the man said, and sprayed a bitter-tasting aerosol in Horton's face.

  The next thing he knew was blackness and silence.

  Jeffrey Horton's senses returned one at a time. At first, everything they told him only confused him. Even once the messages became persistent enough that he had to accept them as real, his staggered mind had trouble assembling them.

  He seemed to have no limbs. There was a constant roar, punctuated by creaks and banging. He was being violently jostled within a confined space made of hard, irregular surfaces. Burnt oil and mildew jousted in his nostrils. His face was frozen into a mask that had no mouth. He was in darkness, but there was light just beyond. There were voices, but none of the words made sense.

  Then there was a sound he recognized - car doors opening and slamming shut.

  And something that was not quite silence, but passed for it after the bath of noise in which he had been submerged.

  More door sounds, much closer.

  Sudden light, blindingly intense, as the blanket covering him was jerked away.

  A rush of clean, sweet air.

  At last, recognition: he was lying on his side in the rear cargo area of the SUV, wrists and ankles taped.

  'Dr Horton. Not too uncomfortable, I trust.'

  It was a now-familiar voice. Squinting out through the open rear doors of the SUV, Horton recognized the face that went with it. The duct tape across Horton's mouth would have prevented any reply, even if he had not still been too stunned to speak.

  'Get him out of there.'

  Two men moved forward, grabbed Horton's elbows, and hauled him out and to his feet. Horton's legs almost buckled under him; only the hands firmly holding him kept him upright.

  'It's time for a proper introduction,' said the man who had spoken - the man whose v-mail had precipitated everything. I'm Colonel Robert Wilkins, regional commander of the People's Army of Righteous Justice. And you, Dr Horton, are a prisoner of war.' ,

  It was only then that Horton could identify a sound which had been pushing at his awareness since the vehicle's doors had been opened - the intermittent sound of gunfire, coming from beyond the trees.

  * * *

  31: From Savage to Scholar

  'War is not the normal state of the human family in its higher development, but merely a feature of barbarism lasting on through the transition of the race, from the savage to the scholar.'

  - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  The tape came off Jeffrey Horton's ankles and knees, but remained on his wrists and across his mouth for the walk through the forest compound of the People's Army of Righteous Justice. Along the way, Colonel Wilkins said nothing, but allowed Horton to see enough to raise his already high level of apprehension to the level of near-panic.

  There were camouflaged vehicles - SUVs, pickups, one Hummer, and two vans - concealed under netting at the edge of the woods. At least three of them had mounts for automatic weapons. Others had metal-plate armor around their engine compartments, and flak batting on the doors and tailgates.

  The sounds of gunfire were coming from a marksmanship range with six shooting stations on one side of a sloping clearing and a banked-earth target barrier on the other side. Nearby, Horton caught a glimpse of a practical shooting course set up amongst the trees, with pop-up and drop-down targets in human silhouette.

  Even away from the ranges, there was plenty of firepower in evidence. Every adult male was armed, most with both a rifle and a sidearm. The rifles tended toward Colt AR- 15s and other military-style semi-automatics, though Horton spotted more than one true assault rifle. At the other extreme, several of the older militiamen had bolt-action deer rifles, and one short-legged, round-bodied gnome carried a Winchester lever-action carbine.

  In all, Horton counted at least twenty-six armed men and a dozen or more women. He heard children's voices, but the youngest person he saw was a boy of twelve or thirteen, and as he was armed, Horton counted him with the men.

  Above ground, there were two long buildings that Horton took for bunkhouses, a cook tent surrounded by split-log benches, a bathhouse, and a rank of portable toilets in drab olive green. The bunkhouses were old, and reminded Horton of a seedy summer camp. Summer camp for toy soldiers -

  Some distance from that cluster were two new steel sheds with guards posted outside. All the structures were hidden in the trees, invisible from above.

  At ground level and below, the compound boasted slit trenches on its perimeter, foxholes in its interior, and half a dozen low earthen mounds with metal storm-shelter doors. It was to one of these that Horton was led.

  Wilkins opened the single metal door, then turned back to Horton.

  'It can get a little close in there, and I don't want you choking on your vomit,' he said. Then, with one quick motion, he reached up and tore the wide band of tape off Horton's mouth.

  It took patches of beard and skin with it, leaving Horton gasping with sudden pain as the escorts pushed him through the open door and into the pit below. He rolled over twice, awkwardly, and ended up face-down in a dank, fetid mat of sodden wood chips and mud. When the door clanged shut above him, he was in darkness once more.

  By the time they returned for him, it was nearly as dark outside the pit as in. The cool night air that swirled through the opened hatch brought his own humiliating stink to his nostrils - he had lost the fight and fouled himself hours ago.

  'Get him out of there,' someone said from above, and hands reached down to grab him by the arms and drag him roughly up through the hatchway.

  'He's seriously skunky, Colonel. I pity the next person who has to use Shelter Six.'

  Horton swung his head around, searching for Wilkins. He found him when the Colonel spoke again.

  'Clean him up and bring him to the men's cabin,' Wilkins said, meeting Morton's angry gaze with a cool detachment. 'And then burn his clothes.'

  There were too many strong hands to struggle against. Horton was stripped, stood up against a tree, and doused with bucket after bucket of well-cold water. Then, naked, dripping wet, and shivering uncontrollably, he was quick-marched to one of the long houses and ushered inside.

  By the light of three single bulbs hanging below the roof trusses, he glimpsed a long wall of triple bunks, a desk with a comset, an empty rifle rack, and a silent half-circle of men awaiting him. In the middle was Wilkins, his expression unreadable.

  'Vincent, get Dr Horton a towel,' he said quietly.

  The balding man at the right end of the circle brought Horton a rectangle of cloth no bigger than a kitchen towel. Still shivering, Horton dabbed at his sodden hair and wet shoulders, trying unsuccessfully to forget his nakedness. As though reading Horton's thoughts with his coolly appraising gaze, Wilkins raised a hand in signal to someone standing behind him.

  'Some clothes for Dr Horton,' Wilkins said.

  The clothing was a prison-style jumpsuit in bright hunter orange, but Horton was grateful for it nonetheless. He was also puzzled by the consideration. Forcing him to stand there naked and chilled to the bone wo
uld have been more in keeping with the treatment he'd received so far - and probably recommended by whatever psych-war handbook Wilkins had learned his trade from.

  'Did you all know that Dr Horton and I have an acquaintance in common?' Wilkins asked, glancing sideways at his companions. 'Did you know that, Dr Horton?'

  'It's a small world,' Horton said with a shrug, refusing to be tempted into asking.

  'She goes by Pamela Bonaventure now - but that's her married name, right, Jeffrey? When she won her Olympic shooting medal, she was known as Pamela Horton.'

  Hearing his sister's name from Wilkins's lips made Horton acutely uncomfortable. 'Where would you know her from?'

  'Well, unlike you, Jeffrey, she's not in hiding. Our paths crossed at the NTSA Sport Pistol Nationals. She shot very well, considering she's only had the Weiss-Gushing for a few months.'

  The discomfort exploded into a fearful rage. 'What - have you ' been spying on her?'

  'No, hardly. We had a nice lunch together after the match, that's all.'

  'You?'

  'Why not me? And then we went out to the range and traded pistols for a couple of dozen rounds.' He laughed to himself. 'I'm afraid she very much had the advantage over me - the targets I practice with have bull's-eyes the size of a head.'

  'If you're trying to tell me you can get to my family, too -'

  'Get to your family - oh, no, Dr Horton, you misunderstand. I simply want you to know that we're aware of your background. We know that you and your family are shooters. We know about Pamela. We know that your father is a Life Member of the NAR.'

  'And what does all that mean to you? What does that have to do with my being here?'

  'It means that we're prepared to believe that you were an unwitting participant in Breland's great treason,' said the man sitting to Wilkins's left. He had a crooked nose, an American flag pin on the lapel of his dirty yellow shirt, and a restless right hand. 'It means that if you tell us you didn't know what they intended to do with your research, you'll find that we're disposed to believe you.'