Don Pendleton - Civil War II Read Online Free Page A

rectangular tube and the gate opened to admit him. He shoved the card into a pocket and moved on to the upper deck of the giant aircraft. There, another plastic box awaited. He inserted his monetary card through a slot at the bottom of the box. An instant later it clicked out on top, bringing with it a thin rectangle of cardboard.
    Winston returned the AMS card to his pocket and glanced at his berthing assignment, printed on the cardboard. He grunted with satisfaction, noting that he had drawn a forward dayroom, which meant more head-space for one thing. He decided, once again that there were compensations for the F-VIP coding on his AMS card. The "F"—-indicating Federal—qualification to the VIP rating had usually managed to work against him, but the airlines must have known who was buttering their bread. And this was one time when Winston was prepared to appreciate it. He was unnerved, excited, his thoughts jumbled—and he needed that hour and a half of flight time to collect himself and try to pull together several years of casual observations of goings-on in Black America. Not one thing, standing alone, meant a damn thing. But. .. put it all together and ... it was enough to worry a guy.
    He located his room, a six by ten cubicle, closed the accordion-type plastic door and immediately undressed. He AMS'd his suit through the tube to the valet shop even before the big craft left the ground and as soon as the safety light extinguished, indicating that they were airborne, he stepped into the shower stall and refreshed himself.
    He could have been in a hotel room, for all the sensation of flight or even movement a guy got from these new supersomics. Had to hand it to the French—those people knew how to build flying machines. As Winston soaped down, he thought vaguely of the old lumbering airplanes of the eighties, the terribly inept, uncomfortable and dangerous cracker-boxes of the seventies and he was glad it was 1999. Imagine wasting half a day just getting from one coast to the other. He recalled his first air trip back in '70 or '71. He'd been about six. He smiled, remembering the excitement of that adventure. Some adventure! Two hours to get a thousand miles! Still, he had to admit, there'd been a vitality to that age. A vitality. Where had all the vitality gone? Had technological smoothness and monetary order sucked the guts out of the world?
    Winston hadn't experienced thoughts such as these for years. They bothered him. What was it Abraham Lincoln Williams had said to him on that chance meeting in New Orleans a few months earlier? Williams was supposed to be an urban lobbyist, and that was something that had never rung quite true for Winston. What was the sense in lobbying? Nobody on Capitol Hill gave a damn for black problems anymore. Williams would be the first man to recognize that fact. The blacks had screwed themselves completely out of the national political picture when they all went to town. The way the country was apportioned now, they couldn't even get a seat in the House of Representatives.
    Oh yeah, he remembered now what Williams had said to him. "There was a time," he told him in that quietly
    troubled voice he managed so well, "when the black man thought he had a friend in you, Mr. Winston."
    Well, shit! Winston hadn't turned the Negro's world over, they'd done it themselves. What the hell could they logically ask of anybody now? What was a guy supposed to do? Get up on a soap box and start preaching? And wind up with his ass nailed to a willow tree?
    Thanks, Abe, no thanks, you quietly troubled black bastard. The world has seen enough crucifixions, they're not getting Winston's ass too. They almost did once. Once, Abraham Lincoln Williams, you people damned near got Winston's ass. And for what? Screw you, Black Abe, and your Buck Rogers' ghettoes, too. You asked for them, buddy, and you got just what you asked for. Call me an Uncle Mose, eh?
    Winston turned off the shower, caught a glimpse of his