“What can I do?” I asked out of hollowness.

  Mannix chuckled. “Depends on what you know, what you are. Tell me and we’ll lay plans. Eh?” He cocked his head. Bonnie, who knew him merely as a political officer, to be invited to dinner now and then on that account, liked him. She said he ought to play the reformed Scrooge, except he’d be no good as the earlier, capitalist Scrooge, before the Spirits of the New Year visited him.

  “I’ve been studying your file personally,” he went on. “And I’m blessed if I can see why you should have gotten involved in this unsavory business. A fine young man who’s galloped through his promotions at the rate you have. It’s not as if your background held anything un-American. How did you ever get sucked in?”

  He bore down a little on the word “sucked.” That broke me.

  I’d never guessed how delicious it is to let go, to admit—fully admit and take into you—the fact that you’re whipped. It was like, well, like the nightly surrender to Bonnie. I wanted to laugh and cry and kiss the old man’s hands. Instead, stupidly, all I could say was. “I don’t know.”

  The answer must lie deep in my past.

  I was a country boy, raised in the backwoods of Georgia, red earth, gaunt murky-green pines, cardinals and mockingbirds, and a secret fishing hole. The government had tried to modernize our area before I was born, but it didn’t lend itself to collectives. So mostly we were allowed to keep our small farms, stores, sawmills, and repair shops on leasehold. The schools got taped lectures on history, ideology, and the rest. However, this isn’t the same as having trained political educators in the flesh. Likewise, our local scoutmaster was lax about everything except woodcraft. And while my grandfather mumbled a little about damn niggers everywhere like nothing since Reconstruction, he used to play poker with black Sheriff Jackson. Sometimes he, Granddad, that is, would take on a bit too much moon and rant about how poor, decent Joe Jackson was being used. My parents saw to it that no outsiders heard him.

  All in all, we lived in a pretty archaic fashion. I understand the section has since been brought up to date.

  Now patriotism is as Southern as hominy grits. They have trouble realizing this further north. They harp on the Confederate Rebellion, though actually—as our teachers explained to us—folk in those days were resisting Yankee capitalism, and the slaveholders were a minority who milked the common man’s love for his land. True, when the People’s Republic was proclaimed, there was some hothead talk, even some shooting. But there was never any need for the heavy concentration of marshals and deputies they sent down to our states. Damn it, we still belonged.

  We were the topmost rejoicers when word came: the Treaty of Berlin was amended; the United States could maintain armed forces; well above police level and was welcomed to the solid front of peace-loving nations against the Sino-Japanese revisionists.

  Grandad turned into a wild man in a stiff jacket. He’d fought for the imperialist régime once, when it tried to suppress the Mekong Revolution, though he never said a lot about that. Who would? (I suppose Dad was lucky, just ten years old at the time of the Sacred War, which thus to him was like a hurricane or some other natural spasm. Of course, the hungry years afterward stunted his growth.) “This’s the first step!” Granddad cried to us. “The first step back! You hear?” He stood outdoors waving his cane, autumn sumac a shout of red behind him, and the wind shouted too;, till I imagined old bugles blowing again at Valley Forge and Shiloh and Omaha Beach. Maybe that was when I first thought I might make the army a career.

  A year later, units of the new service held maneuvers beneath Stone Mountain. Granddad had been tirelessly reading and watching news, writing letters, making phone calls from the village booth, keeping in touch. Hence he knew about the event well in advance, knew the public would be invited to watch from certain areas, and saved his money and his travel allowance till he could not only go himself but take me along.

  And it was exciting, oh, yes, really beautiful when the troops went by in ground-effect carriers like magic boats, the dinosaur tanks rumbled past, the superjets screamed low overhead, while the Star and Stripes waved before those riders carved in the face of the mountain.

  Except—the artillery opened up. Granddad and I were quite a ways off; the guns were toys in our eyes; we’d see a needle-thin flash, a puff where the shell exploded; long, long afterward, distance-shrunken thunder reached us. The monument was slow to crumble away. That night, in the tourist dorm, I heard a speech about how destroying that symbol of oppression marked the dawn of our glorious new day. I didn’t pay much attention. I kept seeing Granddad, there under the Georgia sky, suddenly withered and old.

  Nobody proposed I go home to Bonnie. Least of all myself. Whether or not I could have made an excuse for…not revealing to her what had happened…I couldn’t have endured it. I did say, over and over, that she had no idea I was in the Stephen Decatur Society. This was true. Not that she would have betrayed me had she known, Bonnie whose heart was as bright as her hair. I was already too far in to back out when first we met, too weak and selfish to run from her; but I was never guilty of giving her guilty knowledge.

  “She and your children must have had indications,” Mannix murmured. “If only subliminal. They might be in need of correctional instruction.”

  I whimpered before him. There are camps and camps, of course, but La Pasionara is the usual one for West Coast offenders. I’ve met a few of the few who’ve been released from it. They are terribly obedient, hard-working, and close-mouthed. Most lack teeth. Rumor says conditions can make young girls go directly from puberty to menopause. I have a daughter.

  Mannix smiled. “At ease. Jim. Your family’s departure would tip off the Society.”

  I blubbered my thanks.

  “And, to be sure, you may be granted a chance to win pardon, if we can find a proper way,” he soothed me. “Suggestions?”

  “I, I, I can tell you…what I know—”

  “An unimaginative minimum. Let us explore you for a start. Maybe we’ll hit on a unique deed you can do.” Mannix drummed his desktop.

  We had moved to his office, which was lush enough that the portraits of Lenin and the President looked startlingly austere. I sat snug and warm in a water chair, cigarettes, coffee, brandy to hand, nobody before me or behind me except this kindly white-haired man and his recorder. But I was still gulping, sniffing, choking, and shivering, still too dazed to think. My lips tingled and my body felt slack and heavy.

  “What brought you into the gang, Jim?” he asked as if in simple curiosity.

  I gaped at him. I’d told him I didn’t know. But maybe I did. Slowly I groped around in my head. The roots of everything go back to before you were born.

  I’d inquired about the origins of the organization, in my early days with it. Nobody knew much except that it hadn’t been important before Sotomayor took the leadership—whoever, wherever he was. Until him, it was a spontaneous thing.

  Probably it hadn’t begun right after the Sacred War. Americans had done little except pick up pieces, those first years. They were too stunned when the Soviet missiles knocked out their second-strike capability and all at once their cities were hostages for the good behavior of their politicians and submarines. They were too relieved when no occupation followed, aside from inspectors and White House advisors who made sure the treaty limitations on armaments were observed. (Oh, several generals and the like were hanged as war criminals.) True, the Soviets had taken a beating from what U.S. nukes did get through, sufficient that they couldn’t control China or, later, a China-sponsored Japanese S.S.R. The leniency shown Americans was not the less welcome for being due to a shortage of troops.

  Oath-brothers had told me how they were attracted by the mutterings of friends, and presently recruited, after Moscow informed Washington that John Halpern would be an unacceptable candidate for President in the next election. Others joined in reaction against a collectivist sentiment whose growth was hothouse-forced by government, schools, and universities.

  I remember how Granddad growled on a day when we were alone in the woods and I’d asked him about that period:

  “The old order was blamed for the war and war’s consequences, Jimmy. Militarists, capitalists, imperialists, racists, bourgeoisie. Nobody heard any different any more. Those who’d’ve argued weren’t gettin’ published or on the air, nothin’.” He drew on his pipe. Muscles bunched in the angle of his jaw. “Yeah, everybody was bein’ blamed—except the liberals who’d worked to lower our guard so their snug dreams wouldn’t be interrupted, the conservatives who helped ’em so’s to save a few wretched tax dollars, the radicals who disrupted the country, the copouts who lifted no finger—” The bit snapped between his teeth. We stooped for the bowl and squinted at it ruefully while his heel ground out the scattered ashes. At last he sighed. “Don’t forget what I’ve told you, Jimmy. But bury it deep, like a seed.”

  I can’t say if he was correct. My life was not his. I wasn’t born when the Constitutional Convention proclaimed the People’s Republic. Nor did I ever take a strong interest in politics.

  In fact, my recruitment was glacier gradual. In West Point I discovered step by step that my best friends were those who wanted us to become a first-class power again, not conquer anybody else, merely cut the Russian apron strings…Clandestine bitching sessions, winked at by our officers, slowly turned into clandestine meetings which hinted at eventual action. An illegal newsletter circulated…After graduation and assignment, I did trivial favors, covering up for this or that comrade who might otherwise be in trouble, supplying bits of classified information to fellows who said they were blocked from what they needed by stupid bureaucrats, hearing till I believed it that the proscribed and abhorred Stephen Decatur Society was not counterrevolutionary, not fascist, simply patriotic and misunderstood…

  The final commitment to something like that is when you make an excuse to disappear for a month—in any case, a backpacking trip with a couple of guys, though my C.O. warned me that asocial furloughs might hurt my career—and you get flitted to an unspecified place where they induct you. One of the psychotechs there explained that the treatment, drugs, sleep deprivation, shock conditioning, meant more than installing a set of reflexes. Those guarantee you can’t be made to blab involuntarily, under serum or torture. But the suffering has a positive effect too: it’s a rite of passage. Afterward you can’t likely be bribed either.

  Likely. The figures may change on a man’s price tag, but he never loses it.

  I don’t yet know how I was detected. A Decaturist courier had cautioned my cell about microminiature listeners which can be slipped a man in his food, operate off body heat, and take days to be eliminated. With my work load, both official on account of the crisis and after hours in preparing for our coup, I must have gotten careless.

  Presumably, though, I was caught by luck rather than suspicion, in a spot check. If the political police had identified any fair-sized number of conspirators, Mannix wouldn’t be as anxious to use me as he was.

  Jarred, I realized I hadn’t responded to his last inquiry. “Sir,” I begged, “honest, I’m no traitor. I wish our country had more voice in its own affairs. Nothing else.”

  “A Titoist.” Recognizing my glance of dull surprise at the new word, he waved it off. “Never mind. I forgot they’ve re-improved the history text since I was young. Let’s stick to practical matters, then.”

  “I, I can…identify for you—those in my cell.” Jack, whose wife was pregnant; Bill who never spared everyday helpfulness; Tim…“B-but there must be others on the base and in the area, and, well, some of them must know I belong.”

  “Right.” Mannix nodded. “We’ll stay our hand as regards those you have met. Mustn’t alert the organization. It does seem to be efficient. That devil Sotomayor—Well. Let’s get on.”

  He was patient. Hours went by before I could talk coherently.

  At that time he had occasion to turn harsh. Leaning across his desk he snapped: “You considered yourself a patriot. Nevertheless you plotted mutiny.”

  I cringed. “No, sir. Really. I mean, the idea was—was—”

  “Was what?” In his apple face stood the eyes of Old Scrooge.

  “Sir, when civil war breaks out in the Motherland—those Vasiliev and Kunin factions—”

  “Party versus army.”

  “What?” I don’t know why I tried to argue. “Sir, last I heard, Vasiliev’s got everything west of the, uh, Yenisei…millions of men under arms, effective control of West Europe—”

  “You do not understand how to interpret events. The essential struggle is between those who are loyal to the principles of the party, and those who would substitute military dictatorship.” His finger jabbed. “Like you, Dowling.”

  We had told each other in our secret meetings, we Decatur folk, better government by colonels than commissioners.

  “No, sir, no, sir,” I protested. “Look, I’m only a soldier. But I see…I smell the factions here too…the air’s rotten with plotting…and what about in Washington? I mean, do we know what orders we’ll get, any day now? And what is the situation in Siberia?”

  “You have repeatedly been informed, the front is stabilized and relatively quiet.”

  My wits weren’t so shorted out that I hinted the official media might ever shade the truth. I did reply: “Sir, I’m a missileman. In the, uh, the opinion of every colleague I’ve talked with—most of them loyal, I’m certain—what stability the front has got is due to the fact both sides have ample rockets, lasers, the works. If they both cut loose, there’d be mutual wipeout. Unless we Americans—We hold the balance.” Breath shuddered into me. “Who’s going to order our birds targeted where?”

  Mannix sat for a while that grew very quiet. I sat listening to my heart stutter. Weariness filled me like water a sponge. I wanted to crawl off and curl up in darkness, alone, more than I wanted Bonnie or my children or tomorrow’s sunrise or that which had been taken from me. But I had to keep answering.

  At last he asked, softly, almost mildly, “Is this your honest evaluation? Is this why you were in a conspiracy to seize control of the big weapons?”

  “Yes, sir.” A vacuum passed through me. I shook myself free of it. “Yes, sir. I think my belief—the belief of most men involved—is, uh, if a, uh, a responsible group, led by experts, takes over the missile bases for the time being…those birds won’t get misused. Like by, say, the wrong side in Washington pulling a coup—” I jerked my head upright.

  “Your superiors in the cabal have claimed to you that the object is to keep the birds in their nests, keep America out of the war,” Mannix said. “How do you know they’ve told you the truth?”

  I thought I did. Did I? Was I? Big soft waves came rolling.

  “Jim,” Mannix said earnestly, “they’ve tricked you through your whole adult life. Nevertheless, what we’ve learned shows me you’re important to them. You’re slated for commander here at Reed, once the mutiny begins. I wouldn’t be surprised but what they’ve been grooming you for years, and that’s how come your rapid rise in the service. Clues there—But as for now, you must have ways to get in touch with higher echelons.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

  Mannix grew genial. “Let’s discuss that, shall we?”

  I don’t remember being conducted to bed. What stands before me is how I woke, gasping for air, nothing in my eyes except night and nothing in the hand that grabbed at my groin.

  I rolled over on my belly, clutched the pillow and crammed it into my mouth. Bonnie, Bonnie, I said, they’ve left me this one way back to you. I pledge allegiance to you, Bonnie, and to the Chuck and Joanlet you have mothered, and screw the rest of the world!

  (“Even for a man in his thirties,” said a hundred teachers, intellectuals, officials, entertainers out of my years, “or even for an adolescent, romantic atavism is downright unpatriotic. The most important thing in man’s existence is his duty to the people and the molding of their future.” The echoes went on and on.)

  I’ve been a rat, I said to my three, to risk—and lose—the few things which counted, all of which were ours. Bonnie, it’s no excuse for my staying with the Decaturists, that I’d see you turn white at this restriction or that command to volunteer service or yonder midnight vanishing of a neighbor. No excuse, nothing but a rationalization. I’ve led us down my rathole, and now my duty is to get us out, in whatever way I am able.

  (“There should be little bloodshed,” the liaison man told our cell; we were not shown his face. “The war is expected to remain stalemated for the several weeks we need. When the moment is right, our folk will rise, disarm and expel everybody who isn’t with us, and dig in. We can hope to seize most of the rocket bases. Given the quick retargetability of every modern bird, we will then be in a position to hit any point on Earth and practically anything in orbit. However, we won’t. The threat—plus the short-range weapons—should protect us from counterattack. We will sit tight and thus realize our objective: to keep the blood of possibly millions off American hands, while giving America the self-determination that once was hers.”)

  Turn the Decaturists over to the Communists. Let all the ists kill each other off and leave human beings in peace.

  (“My friend, my friend,” Mannix sighed, “you cannot be naive enough to suppose the Asians have no hand in this. You yourself, I find, were involved in our rocket-scattering of munitions across the rebellious parts of India. Should they not make use of trouble in our coalition? Have they not been advising, subsidizing, equipping, infiltrating the upper leadership of your oh-so-patriotic Decatur Society? Let the Soviet Union ruin itself—which is the likeliest outcome if America doesn’t intervene—let that happen, and, yes, America could probably become the boss of the Western Hemisphere. But we’re not equipped to conquer the Eastern. You’re aware of that. The gooks would inherit. The Russians may gripe you. You may consider our native leaders their puppets. But at least they’re white; at least they share a tradition with us. Why, they helped us back on our feet, Jim, after the war. They let us rearm, they aided it, precisely so we could cover each other’s backs, they in the Old World, we in the New…Can you prove your Society isn’t a Jappochink tool?”)