A Creed for the Third Millennium Read online

  'Is that the crux of it?'

  She sighed, sat back, lifted her head and thought As she did Harold Magnus watched her narrowly, aware of subtle changes in her; she was not so snakelike, not so physically disturbing. Whatever had happened out there on the road in middle America had sucked her brittle.

  'I am a trained psychologist,' she said. 'Also a trained data statistician. Also a trained sociologist. However, I am not a psychiatrist, nor have I ever studied mental states on a one-to-one basis. I'm purely a group expert, and when it comes to predicting group behaviour in almost any given situation, I doubt I have an equal within government, possibly outside it as well. Yet one-to-one unsettles me. So I am aware that I may not be interpreting Dr Christian's thought processes correctly, you must understand. However, I'm sure you can appreciate why I don't want to bring in a psychiatrist to help me decide what's wrong with Dr Christian.'

  'Oh, indeed I can!' he said with feeling.

  'All I can tell you is how I feel. And my feelings about the man are that he is no longer quite stable. Yet — the actual concrete evidence is minimal. Delusions of grandeur? Aaaah… If so, not obvious. Ideas of reference? Haaah... I would say definitely not. Loss of touch with reality? Ummm... I would have to say no again. And yet — and yet — there is a change. Given the events of the past few months, it may be a logical change. His current behaviour might be bizarre, but his instincts are right on target, and his instincts guide his behaviour enormously. So there you are, back to square one again. Is he, or isn't he? All I can tell you is that I have made it my business to get to know him very well. And I am developing bad vibes.'

  Her answer panicked him. 'My God, Judith, are we going to fall flat on our asses with this?'

  Her given name again! Well, well. 'No,' she said, sounding sure. 'I will never let it get to that stage. However, I do think we — you and I — should make some contingency plans. Just in case. And we should be ready to act when and if it becomes necessary.'

  'I agree wholeheartedly. What do you suggest? Do you see any hint of what direction he's going to fly in if he does come apart at the seams?'

  'No.'

  'Then?'

  'I would like half a dozen — I don't honestly know what to call them, except what they call them in the movies! Heavies? Heavies will do, anyway. Half a dozen heavies close enough at hand to carry out my orders within five minutes maximum. No matter what those orders might consist of.'

  'Shit! You're not thinking of killing him?'

  'Of course I'm not! Anything but! To create a martyr would be disastrous. No, I just want to be prepared at all times to bundle Dr Christian away to an appropriate institution at a minute's notice, that's all. Which means the men you find me ought to be trained psychiatric nurses used to dealing with extreme violence and irrationality. They'll have to have top security clearances, and they can't be genuine Christian cult followers. The last thing we want is any kind of public scene. So these men will have to be really on the ball, ready if I snap my fingers to whip Dr Christian out of wherever he is before those around him even understand what's happened, and long before Dr Christian himself can make a fuss.'

  'You'll have the men on the plane to Chicago with you, but from there on they'd better have their own helicopter. It would also be best if you saw them yourself here in Washington and briefed them thoroughly. But don't worry. I'll find you the right men for the job.'

  'Good. Good!'

  'That's short-term. What about long-term?'

  'I doubt there is a long-term, because of one thing I am absolutely sure. He will never last the distance of the tour he plans to make. It keeps getting longer and longer, no thanks to our good Mr Reece, I might add. And, incidentally, I wonder what might have happened to Operation Messiah if he'd lost the election last November? I was so busy I never even remembered to vote! Anyway, the White House keeps adding towns to his itinerary, and after we left Chicago, Dr Christian began looking at the maps as well. Now he's adding towns!'

  'Shit!'

  'Yes, Mr Secretary, cartloads of the stuff. At the rate we're going, and given that from now until the end of March the blizzards are going to slow us down a lot, it is going to take Dr Christian another year to finish his tour.'

  'Shit!'

  'Yes, but you're sitting pretty in six inches of nice wet Washington snow. I'm the one with Dr Christian. And frankly, I do not think I stand a chance of lasting another year on the road. Luckily, I don't think I'm going to need to last. Because he won't last, sir. I know it in my bones. He is going to break into a million little pieces, and I just hope when it happens that he's in Casper, Wyoming, not in the middle of Madison Square Garden—' She broke off abruptly, knotting up with the beginnings of an idea, an amazing idea, an idea that took her breath away.

  'So what do we do?'

  'Actually I think his mood is better since Christmas, in spite of the new business of his picking yet more towns. When we left Decatur, en route for Gary, he announced he didn't think it was right to fly from town to town. He felt he ought to walk.'

  'In winter?'

  'Right! I dealt with it, or rather his mother did. She earned her keep that night, I don't begrudge the expense of toting her around too. You remember his father died in a blizzard? Well, when Mama found out he was planning to walk from Decatur to Gary, she went bananas. Right off her head. It was just the shock he needed to bring him to his senses. Since then, he's definitely been more amenable to reason. Thank God!'

  Harold Magnus held up his hand to silence her, and pushed his intercom buzzer. Helena? Some coffee and sandwiches, please. And bring your pad with you when you come, I want you to find some men for me.'

  The break was welcome, the food also; even if he had to eat sandwiches, Harold Magnus made sure he ate the best. As a result, Helena Taverner was obliged to keep breads and spreads in the little kitchen off her private rest room.

  However, it wasn't the break, the food or the coffee which caused Dr Carriol's spreading sensation of utter, happy, peaceful well-being. Washington and her own milieu were responsible. Suddenly she was back where she belonged, her mind was functioning the way it used to, her emotional and physical exhaustion had subsided. In short, she was feeling her old self again. And she understood how insidious, how dangerous, Dr Joshua Christian was to the ego and persona of Dr Judith Carriol. All those weeks of being in close proximity to him had shifted the centre of her being the way an irresistible gravitational field played with the light of the very stars in the firmament. What was more, she now realized how much she detested this bending effect, how uncomfortable and miserable she was when drawn into his sphere of influence. This was her life, this was her natural metier. Washington! Environment! And she began to wonder if she actually hated Joshua Christian; if she was continuing to grow in hatred of him with each day more she was forced to pass in his company. Her own private black hole.

  Harold Magnus had given Mrs Taverner her orders to begin negotiating with the mental health arms of the various Services in search of Dr Carriol's heavies; now he was ready to finish his discussion with the chief of Section Four.

  'You were saying that you don't think he stands a chance of lasting the distance,' said the Secretary, sliding down in his chair and watching Dr Carriol over the rim of his glass; he was concluding his scratch meal with a fine old malt whiskey.

  'Yes. Oh, I think he'll continue to do well as long as he's in the north. What worries me is when he moves south again. At our present rate of progress, he'll hit the thirty-fifth parallel around the first of May. And May further south will see gigantic crowds wherever he goes. I can't be sure how he's going to react with so many people going wild around him, but I imagine it will give his Messianic zeal an enormous boost. If he was a cynic, or he was in it for the money, or if this was a simple power trip, there'd be no problem. But, Mr Secretary, he is utterly sincere! He thinks he's helping. Well, of course he is helping. Immeasurably. But can you even imagine what it will be like when he hits L.A.? He'll
insist on walking, and there'll be millions of people out to walk right along with him—' She broke off, caught her breath audibly. 'My God! My God!'

  'What? What?'

  'An idea The germ of one, anyway. Leave it for a while, it's growing. Back to what I was saying. May. May is the cutoff point. We must finish Dr Christian's public appearances in May. It may be that after some first-rate treatment he'll come right again, in which case he can resume his tour where he leaves off.'

  'What are we going to do? Just pull him out and issue a statement to the effect that he's sick?'

  'I was thinking that, but not any more. Mr Magnus — what if we could finish with a bang instead of a whimper? It's been nagging away inside me ever since he went on Bob Smith, the germ of an idea. Blast-off!, I thought then. Not an endless publicity tour, but a long countdown to some cosmic blast-off. Think of it, Mr Secretary! A super-super-super last public appearance!'

  A grin was spreading across the Secretary's face. 'My dear Judith, you are wasted as a mere back room boy. At heart I suspect you are an entrepreneur. Because you're right. He ought to go out with a bang. A cosmic public appearance.'

  'Washington,' she said.

  'No! New York City!'

  'No! No! A walk, Mr Secretary! A walk! The one he has been dying to do ever since Decatur! A walk from one town to another, all the goddam way on foot. New York City to Washington D.C., in May. It's going to take some organizing, but let him have what he wants. Let him walk! From New York City to Washington in the spring, with the leaves coming on the trees, and those who have had to come back from the south just slipping into a new routine — man alive, what a walk! And for once we'll let him have his head. He can draw the people in all the way, from the Battery end of Manhattan to the banks of the Potomac. The march of the millennium.' She stiffened, suddenly all snake, eyes staring, reared back to strike. 'Oh! Oh! That's what we'll call it, of course! The March of the Millennium! At the end, he can address the crowd from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, say, or some place else near the monuments, where there'll be plenty of room for the people to gather to hear him. And after it's all over — we put him into temporary retirement in a nice quiet sanatorium.'

  'God! My God!' The Secretary for the Environment sat awed and a little frightened. 'A march that size, Judith? We'd have a riot on our hands!'

  'Nope. Not if we're properly prepared. We'll need lots of military assistance, that's for sure. To organize shelters along the way, first-aid stations, canteens, rest rooms, that kind of thing. And keep order. This country loves a parade, Mr Magnus! Especially one they can participate in. He can lead the people to the seat of the people. From where so many came in as immigrants over a hundred years ago to where they put their government. And why should they run riot? The atmosphere will be high carnival, not general strike. Have you ever seen a walkathon or a marathon or a cyclothon on a cool crisp sunny weekend in New York City? Thousands upon thousands of people, and never a trace of trouble. They're happy, they're free, they're out in the open air, they've left their griefs and their problems at home right alongside their wallets. For years all the experts have been insisting that the reason New York City has taken glaciation, the one-child family, lack of private transport and the rest so well is that New York City's local government has offered New Yorkers an alternative life style. So there you are. The March of the Millennium will be a cosmic walkathon, led by The Man himself. Face it, he's led the people out of a wilderness of pain and futility. He's given them a creed to live by that suits the times and suits them. So let him lead them in the flesh! And while he's walking from New York City to Washington, we can also organize a dozen other giant walks in other major centres across the country. Dallas to Fort Worth, for instance. Gary to Chicago. Fort Lauderdale to Miami. Mr Magnus, it will work! The March of the Millennium!'

  She had achieved the impossible; she had set Harold Magnus on fire with an impossible dream. 'But will he do it?' he asked, not quite able to abandon all caution.

  'Try and stop him!'

  'Your people — the Section Four think tank. We'd better get them started on the logistics at once. I'll see the President myself and sound him out. If he says it's go, it's go. Though I can't see him turning the idea down. Being re-elected for a third term seems to have given him a new lease on life; he's tasting success and he's beginning to see the history books calling him an even greater President than Gus Rome. Maybe his divorcing Julia helped too. I never thought he'd do that! Anyway, anyway. The March of the Millennium… A whole country on the move, literally and figuratively, to tell the rest of the world that it's finished with depression, it's gonna get there! Oh, man alive, what a beautiful, beautiful thing!'

  She got up, wincing. 'I had planned to stay a couple of days in Washington, but on second thought, I think I ought to get back to him, like yesterday. He's the one at the centre of the scheme, so it behooves me to keep him from flying apart until next May. However, I will try to pay a flying visit to Washington every weekend, if that's all right with you.'

  'Good idea. Things go better in Section Four when you're around, though I must say John Wayne is a good administrative replacement. If he had your brains on the theoretical side, he'd do fine.'

  'Then I'm very glad he doesn't have my brains.'

  He looked startled, then chuckled. 'Well, sure! I hope Helena can find your heavies tonight.'

  'I'll leave the moment I've briefed them, anyway.'

  'Judith?'

  'Yes, Mr Magnus?'

  'What if he doesn't last until May?'

  'Then the March of the Millennium goes ahead just the same. Why shouldn't it? Under those circumstances, we'll call it a vote of confidence in him by the people. You know, a kind of giant get-well card.'

  He giggled. Hallmark, eat your heart out!' Then, so typical of the man, he felt morally obliged to display a token revulsion. 'You know, Judith, you are the coldest-blooded bitch I've ever met.'

  Sat-is-fac-tory, Judith Carriol! You have just ensured the entire future of your career in Environment. No one will ever be able to knock you off this pedestal! Your grading is going to go up at least two notches this year. For the first time in over eight years that gross complacent ruthless old glutton Magnus has called you Judith! You are in! You are made. He's to the place where he's got to rely on you more than he does on himself. You will finally enjoy the in-service status your masculine predecessor in Section Four automatically enjoyed. Amazing how in this day and age, they can still find valid reasons for putting a woman down. Only not this woman! Not forever. This woman is better than the whole goddam male establishment of this town, and she is well on her way to proving it. This time next year you will have your own car driving you permanently to and from work, and you will have all kinds of perks, and you can go to the occasional art auction at Sotheby's, and — She stopped dead on the K Street sidewalk outside her entrance to Environment, where on her return from the White House her car and driver had been parked. Waiting for her to come out. Waiting to take her home. The driver had known his orders. It was close to nine o'clock. It was below freezing by ten degrees. It was just beginning to blow and snow. She was dressed for riding in a car, not waiting for the bus. And that fucking old bastard Magnus had sent her car away. On purpose? Of course on purpose! To put her in her place. Oh, I will get you for this, Harold Magnus! Halfway to the bus stop she was struck by the funny side of it, and burst out laughing.

  By the time Dr Carriol caught up with him, Dr Christian had made it to Sioux City, Iowa. Her stay in Washington had been longer than she wanted, for the psychiatric nursing heavies had taken time to round up, and she couldn't leave until they were properly briefed. Then she was delayed in Chicago for another day by a worse blizzard than usual, even for that icy Purgatory-on-Michigan. Luckily her six heavies — good men too, thank God — were whisked out of Chicago in their chopper minutes ahead of the blizzard. She, waiting for Billy, ended up waiting thirty-six hours.

  Dr Christian's day had just a
bout ended, along with his visit to Sioux City. So he and Dr Carriol planned to meet at the airport, where he and his mother would join her and Billy, and fly onward in the helicopter to Sioux Falls in South Dakota.

  All the way from Chicago to Sioux City, Dr Carriol fought her apprehension and her detestation of this mission, this way of life Dr Christian had foisted on her. How very lovely Washington had been, how cosy and welcome her house, how glad to see her everyone from John Wayne to Moshe Chasen had been. Between 'Tonight with Bob Smith' in Atlanta and the too-short visit to Washington just over, ten weeks had gone by. Ten incredible, exhilarating, sickening weeks. Ten weeks too many of Joshua Christian.

  Why then be so anxious to see him again? Why worry what he was going to say when they met?

  The Christians had not yet arrived when she and Billy landed, so she told Billy to put the machine under shelter, then come inside to wait in the warm. Given Joshua's fits and starts, he could be hours yet. It was snowing lightly as they entered the inhospitable small building which was all places like Sioux City had left in the way of airport facilities. No planes came to Sioux City any more; the actual landing strip was kept up only as part of the national emergency-defence network.

  Dr Christian came in about half an hour later, carrying a gust of snow with him, clad in his arctic explorer gear, and followed by about fifty or sixty people who apparently had walked with him in spite of the weather. Well, nothing new in that! Wherever he went, they came out to walk with him in any weather short of an actual blizzard.

  Though Dr Carriol stood up and waved, Dr Christian did not notice her and Billy against the far wall. He was too involved with his followers, who crowded around him as he stood half a head taller than any of them, one or two clucking as they brushed melting white flakes from his arms and shoulders. But though they did crowd round him, Dr Carriol noted (as she had noted many times before) that they had given him air space. A tiny indication of their awe and reverence. No one tried to mob him, tear at him and his clothes, as they might have done were he an actor or a pop star. It was enough to be close. Too much to touch.