Blind Panic (5 page)

Wodziwob tied Charlie’s wrists, and then Cayley’s, and Mickey’s last of all. The four of them now stood together as if they were a chain gang. Cayley was quietly weeping, but the other three were silent, their heads lowered, as if they had already accepted what was going to happen to them. Mickey had not been too seriously burned, although the front of his hair was short and prickly, and his forehead and his nose were reddened; but he was shivering with shock, and his teeth were chattering.

“Now you must climb to the place where our people were forced to climb, and your people climbed after them, and murdered them all.”

Cayley sobbed, “Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you? I’ve never been here before! I don’t even know who your people are!”

“Exactly,” said Wodziwob. “You do not know who our people are because our people’s bones are lying buried in the dirt and their names have all been carried away by the wind. Now we will start to climb.”

The totem figure called Tubbohwa’e took hold of the rope and started to pull them past their Winnebago and up the slope toward the rimrock, which rose in front of them like a great dark wall. They kept staggering and stumbling and bumping into one another, but whenever they lost their footing, the totem figure called Tudatzewunu would forcibly wrench them upright again with those jointed wooden hands that gripped them as tight as a vise.

“I can’t do this,” sobbed Cayley as the gradient grew steeper and steeper and the rough scrub prickled and tore at their legs. “I just can’t do this. Please don’t make me do this.”

Charlie said nothing, but after the first fifty feet of climbing he was already wheezing for breath.

“Listen to him, man!” Remo panted. “He has asthma!”

But Wodziwob said, “Many of my people were sick, too, when they came to hide on this mountain. Many were women, and many were defenseless children, and many were old. But they all had to climb, regardless.”

From the sound of his breathing, he was obviously finding the climb as laborious as they were, but he doggedly plodded upward, and Tubbohwa’e kept on pulling the rest of them after him, scaling the loose volcanic rubble as though he were some monstrous black spider, with a deathly white face, and Tudatzewunu followed behind, to heave them up on their feet again, if they fell.

It took them more than two hours to reach the top of the promontory, and although the ground was still rocky and uneven and covered with loose volcanic shale, it began to level off beneath their feet. They could see nothing at all, only blackness, but they could feel the night wind blowing more strongly in their faces, and all around them they could hear the soft roar of thousands of pine trees, which surrounded the rimrock like the ocean.

Wodziwob stopped, and Tubbohwa’e pulled sharply at the rope to stop the four of them from climbing any farther. Charlie dropped to his knees, whining with asthma.

Wodziwob said, “It was September, one hundred fifty years ago, and three tribes had gathered here—Paiute, Modoc, and Pit River. Usually, they were enemies. But this was a Big Time, which happened once a year, when enemies would forget their hostility and come together for feasting, games, trading, and for marriages to be arranged between the tribes.”

“And what the fuck does that have to do with us?” Remo demanded, although he was still out of breath.

“It has everything to do with you,” Wodziwob told him. “Your white soldiers did not understand about Big Times even though they used to be common in California before the Europeans came. Because three enemy tribes had gathered
together, your soldiers assumed that they intended to attack them, and so they decided to wipe them out.

“But, tell me, if the tribes had been here to plot war, why did they have their women and children and their old people with them? If they had not had their women and children and old people with them, they would not have been forced to stay here at Infernal Caverns and fight. They would have melted away, like shadows, so that they could fight another day.

“Any soldier with any intelligence would have realized that. And any man with any humanity would have let these people go. But they murdered more than twenty of them, including women and children and old people, and that is a crime that still cries out for justice.”

“But it wasn’t
us
,” wheezed Charlie, in desperation. “It wasn’t even our grandfathers’ grandfathers.”

But Wodziwob took no notice. “Let me tell you what they did, these white soldiers. They took five prisoners, including Chief Si-e-ta. Their Indian scouts took thorn branches and pulled their eyes out onto their cheeks. Then they bound them together, and told them to walk to the edge of the rimrock and keep on walking.

“It is six hundred feet to the valley floor below.”

Mickey said, in a haunted voice, “You’re not expecting
us
to do the same?”

Wodziwob circled around them, prodding each of them with his finger. “If I did, would you not call that justice? What does it say in your holy book? ‘Life for life, eye for eye’?”

Cayley started to cry again, inconsolably, like a miserable child.

Wodziwob said, “Don’t you think that we cried, too, when
our
children were killed?”

Washington, DC

After twenty minutes, Dr. Schaumberg and Dr. Henry came into the room, followed by Dr. Cronin.

“David, the doctors are back,” said the First Lady, taking hold of the president’s hand.

Dr. Schaumberg approached the bed, holding up an ophthalmic scan, even though the president was unable to see it. He was lean and stringy, with a thinning gray comb-over and half glasses and a withered neck like an iguana. He cleared his throat and said gravely, “We have the results of your tests, Mr. President.”

“Well?” demanded the president. “What’s the verdict?”

“Mr. President—you have one hundred percent corneal opacification.”

“What? I have
what?
”

“Your corneas have become clouded,” said Dr. Henry. He was black and bulky, like a retired wrestler, with a bald, dented head that was polished to a high gleam. “In other words, the transparent lens covering your iris is no longer transparent.”

“Is it permanent?”

Dr. Henry shook his head. “We don’t yet know, Mr. President. First of all, we have to run a whole series of tests to find out what might have caused it, so we may send you over to the Washington National Eye Center. It’s highly unusual
for corneal clouding to happen so quickly and so completely, and without any warning.”

Dr. Schaumberg nodded in agreement. “In almost every case of corneal opacification, patients show very obvious symptoms before they lose their sight. For example, with any form of conjunctivitis, the eyes will be pink and sore and weeping for at least five to twelve days before the patient’s sight starts to be affected.”

“I had nothing like that, no soreness. I just blinked, and the lights went out.”

“Don’t you have
any
idea why it happened?” asked the First Lady.

“Corneal clouding can be caused by a whole variety of different conditions,” Dr. Schaumberg told her. “Conjunctivitis is one of them—but as we know, the president had no ‘pinkeye’ or other ocular irritation before his blindness occurred. A drastic lack of vitamin A can sometimes be responsible, but I doubt very much that the president is subsisting on a Third World diet. There’s Sjogren’s syndrome, which is associated with rheumatoid arthritis, but that’s very rare, and usually found among middle-aged women.”

“There’s trachoma,” said Dr. Henry.

“Trachoma?” said the president. “You mean that disease that African children get?”

“That’s the one, sir.
Chlamydia trachomatis.
But trachoma usually affects the cornea in several stages, and causes blindness only through a gradual process of repeated scarring and repeated healing. What happens is that—”

“All right,” interrupted the president, impatiently. “How long are these tests going to take?”

“At least three days. Maybe longer, depending on what we find.”

“Okay, then. I’ll have Doug Latterby clear my schedule, and I’ll be back here first thing tomorrow morning.”

“You’re not thinking of
leaving
, Mr. President?”

“Of course I am. I have a meeting in two-and-a-half hours’ time with the president of the Russian Federation.”

“David,” the First Lady protested. “You can’t meet Gyorgy Petrovsky if you’re
blind.
Kenneth will have to do it.”

“Oh, yes? And how are we going to explain my failure to show up at one of the most critical political meetings since the breakup of the Soviet Union? Are we going to tell the media that I’ve had a heart attack? Or a stroke maybe? That’s just as bad as going blind—worse. Or maybe we can announce that I simply forgot that Petrovsky was coming and went fishing instead.”

“Mr. President, I really have to advise you to stay here," said Dr. Schaumberg. “Your condition came on very suddenly—if we delay treatment it could get very much worse. Not only that, most conditions that cause corneal problems are extremely infectious.”

Dr. Cronin said, “That’s true, sir. They can be spread by hand contact, saliva or sinus secretions. I don’t think it would help our relations with the Russian Federation if you sneezed on President Petrovsky and
he
went blind, too.”

The president laid his hand on Dr. Cronin’s shoulder and eased himself down from the bed. “It’s a risk I’ll have to take. This meeting is a showdown about Russian criminal activities in the United States. We’ve been preparing our intelligence for three years at a cost of millions of dollars, and the only person who can face down Petrovsky is me.”

“How are you going to face him down if you can’t even see him?”

“I can wing it. If Doug Latterby stays close by, he can act as my guide dog.”

The First Lady said, “David—darling—I’m begging you. Suppose you go to this meeting and you lose your sight forever?”

“I ask young men to go to foreign countries on behalf of the United States of America, and to risk a whole lot more than their eyesight. This time, Marian, my country has to come first. And I can do it. You just watch me. I was elected
as the Can-Do Man. ‘If anyone can, the Can-Do Man can.’”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. President,” said Dr. Cronin, “you’re not only blind; you’re nuts.”

The president turned and stared over Dr. Cronin’s right shoulder. “Just this once, Andrew, I’ll pretend that I’m deaf, too.”

The president was waiting on the steps of the South Portico when President Petrovsky’s motorcade arrived. It was a warm afternoon, but the sky was gray and overcast, and it had just stopped raining, so the air was steamy and the limousine’s tires made a fat, wet sound on the asphalt.

President David Perry was well over six feet tall, barrel-chested, with a large rough-hewn head and dense iron gray hair. His gray, deep-set eyes always seemed to be narrowed, as if he were trying to focus on something that was just a little too far away for him to see. This morning, of course, he could see nothing at all. He was heavily built, but he worked out with a Marine trainer every day, so his waist was taut, and he swung his arms when he walked.

His wife Marian, standing close beside him on his left, was a petite woman with blonde-highlighted hair and a flat, pretty face that photographed well. This afternoon she was wearing a pink and white floral-patterned jacket and a pink skirt by her favorite designer, Peggy Jennings.

Doug Latterby hovered only inches behind President Perry on his right. His long, big-nosed face was usually relaxed and genial, but as President Petrovsky climbed out of his limousine, his mouth became tightly puckered and his shoulders hunched with tension.

“He’s walking up the steps now. He’s smiling at you. He’s holding out his hand. Raise your hand, extend it. More to the left. More to the left. That’s it.”

President Perry grinned and said, “Welcome to the White House, Mr. President. I trust you had a comfortable journey. Sorry about the uninspiring weather. Not like the
last time Marian and I visited Moscow, and you put on that spectacular blizzard for us.”

This was hurriedly and rather flatly translated, while President Petrovsky continued to smile and nod. He was a small man, with protuberant eyes. Marian Perry always called him Gollum.

“I prefer warm,” Petrovsky replied through his interpreter. “And don’t they say that a little rain has to fall in everybody’s life?”

After all of the formal introductions in the Diplomatic Reception Room, with President Perry’s dog, Sergeant, circling around and furiously slapping his tail against everybody’s legs, the president ushered Gyorgy Petrovsky along the corridor to the Oval Office. Marian Perry glanced at Doug Latterby as he gently nudged President Perry away from the wall, and Doug Latterby raised his eyebrows to show her that he was beginning to believe they could actually pull this off. After all, halfway through his second term, David Perry had been president long enough to be familiar with every turn along the way to the West Wing.

They sat in the Oval Office with President Perry flanked on one side by Vice President Kenneth Moran, and by Doug Latterby on the other. Secretary of State George Smirniotakis was also there, tugging out his large white handkerchief every now and then to blow his nose, and Warren Truby, director of the FBI, who Marian Perry had once described as “Herbert Hoover’s less cheerful brother.”

As the butler brought coffee and cakes and tollhouse cookies, Doug Latterby leaned close to the president’s left shoulder and murmured, “Petrovsky is slightly more to your right. That’s it. And keep your eyes a little lower.”

Eventually the doors of the Oval Office were closed, and President Perry said, “Gyorgy, I think we can cut to the chase. You’ve had all the briefing papers, but just for the record, the reason I’ve asked you here today is to ask for your active assistance. At least three highly organized gangs of
Russian criminals are bringing fear and corruption and a great deal of human misery to every major city throughout the United States.

“Once it was the Sicilians and the Mafia. Now it’s Russians and Ukrainians, and they’re into everything—drugs, prostitution, gambling, fraud, and theft on a scale such as we’ve never encountered before.”

Gyorgy Petrovsky listened to the translation. Then he said, “America has always advertised itself as the land of opportunity, where anybody can make good, no matter what their place of birth.”

“Oh, for sure,” said President Perry. “But there’s a heck of a lot of difference between making good and making off with somebody else’s goods. There’s a heck of a lot of difference between opportunity and extortion.”

Gyorgy Petrovsky shrugged. “Every orchard produces one or two bad plums. I cannot see how you can hold me personally responsible for the misdeeds of a few people who happen to have been born in Russia. You admitted them to your country, after all. It is up to your own law enforcement agencies to curtail their activities, and your courts to punish them. All I can say is that if you wish to impose on these people the severest of penalties, I will give you nothing but my blessing.”

“I’m afraid I need more than your good wishes, Gyorgy.” President Perry was finding it difficult to judge whether Gyorgy Petrovsky was being deadly serious or mildly sarcastic. “I need your active cooperation.”

Normally at this point, he would have stood up and walked behind Gyorgy Petrovsky’s chair, so that the Russian would have had to turn his head awkwardly around in order to reply to him. But now that he was blind, it was out of the question. He couldn’t afford to stumble or to lose his sense of direction.

“In particular,” he said, “we need to nail down a character called Lev Khlebnikov, who runs a highly sophisticated drugs-and-prostitution racket in New York City. So far we
haven’t been able to bring any charges against him, because nobody will give evidence against him. The most humane way that he deals with anybody who crosses him is to tie them over a mailbox, douse them with gasoline, and set fire to them.”

“I know of this man.” Gyorgy Petrovsky nodded.

“Then there’s Viktor Zamyatin, who operates out of Cincinnati. He’s not as powerful as Khlebnikov, but his activities are spreading all across the Midwest—labor rackets, protection, arson, prostitution, drugs. You name it, Zamyatin’s got his finger in it.”

“I know also of this man,” said President Petrovsky. “He is what you call ‘a piece of work,’ yes?”

“That just about sums him up.”

“So, what do you expect me to do? You want my security people maybe to kidnap these two men and spirit them back to Russia? I don’t want them any more than you do.”

“Of course not,” said President Perry. “But almost all of the money that Khlebnikov and Zamyatin make out of their illegal operations is being laundered through banks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We’re talking billions of dollars everyyear. I need you to clamp down on those banks and freeze any and all of their assets. Also, I need you to confiscate all of their property in Russia—houses, yachts, you name it. I want those two guys to be left with nothing but their undershorts.”

“This is easy to say, but not so easy to do. There are laws of confidentiality, even in Russian banking. Also, I would be seen as acting at the behest of a foreign power, which would not exactly enhance my presidential authority, would it?”

“Maybe not—” the president began.

“Little more to the left, sir,” Doug Latterby told him in an urgent murmur.

“Maybe not,” the president continued, adjusting his position in his chair. “But the damage that these two men are inflicting on the social and financial fabric of America is
such that if you are disinclined to cooperate voluntarily, I’ll have to consider persuasion.”

“Persuasion? You mean you are going to
lean
on me?”

“You can put it any which way you like. But if you continue to allow Khlebnikov and Zamyatin to launder their money through Russian banks, I intend to begin a systematic reduction of financial assistance to the Russian Federation. For every one billion dollars that Khlebnikov and Zamyatin spirit out of the United States, based on FBI estimates, I will order the withholding of ten billion dollars of aid, loans, and investments.”

There was a very long silence, interrupted by coughing and embarrassed shuffling. The president could only imagine what kind of expression Gyorgy Petrovsky had on his face.

“Gollum angry,” said Doug Latterby under his breath. “Gollum very,
very
angry.”

When at last he replied, Gyorgy Petrovsky sounded preternaturally calm, but even before his words were translated, the president could tell how furious he was. “I think we should adjourn this meeting. I require time to consider what you have suggested, and to talk to my deputies. After all, this has radically altered our relationship; don’t you think? I came into this room thinking we were political allies, equals.”

“We still are,” the president insisted. “Nothing has changed that.”

“You don’t think so? Allies don’t threaten one another.”

“Allies don’t allow the scum of the earth to rob the people who matter to them, and refuse to do anything to help.”

Gyorgy Petrovsky stood up. Doug Latterby cupped the president’s elbow in his hand to indicate that he should stand up, too.