Fiction 1, Chapters 15 & 16

Chapter 15

"I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.

Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing cloth

I'll use to carry thee out of this place."

First Henry VI, Shakespeare

WINTERBURN, ALBERTA:

"I wish you'd make up your mind."

"I'd rather change cars than change my plans for the next twelve to twenty years, Uncle," I said. "Just tell them it's got a 'tick, tick, tick' sound, and you don't like the color. Don't forget to switch the plates back, and keep the 'borrowed' ones to put on the new car later. O.K.?"

"All right. A four-door again?" John McGovern half-turned to go.

"You bet. We might need to move in and out of it in a big hurry." As usual, I was explaining things unnecessarily.

Mickey chimed in. "What do we do after that?" He was getting "antsy," after twelve hours without a fight or a car chase.

"What do you say? Would you rather snatch a Monsignor from the bosom of his Church, or go to a movie?"

"What's playing, besides the Three Stooges?" Mickey asked.

"You should have spanked him more as a kid, Uncle John. I think it's too late now to improve his character."

"I only wish you'd been a better example for him, Richard." With a clap of an Alpine hat on his head, the natty little con man walked out the door.

"We've got to snatch Tedeschi before I set up as Carter," I insisted. "After that, I may not be able to disappear for too long." Uncle John had returned with the new vehicle and we were all seated around in a council of war.

The general idea behind grabbing our boy Bruno wasn't to hurt him or even confine him for long. We wanted to talk to him privately about the murder of our cousins. If he was being tapped, he was being followed. Everybody knew where he was, and nobody knew where we were. And I wanted to keep it that way.

If we found that there was good reason to kill Monsignor Tedeschi, it would be a real quandary. He was not only a priest and a respected member of an influential order __the title of Monsignor in his case was no mere courtesy title, but a translation of his actual knighthood. As a Papal Legate, he had diplomatic status and immunity as well.

Add in Tedeschi's status as a player in what Kipling called "The Great Game," and he was sacrosanct. These days, the boys on each side go to the retirement dinners for every other side and trade anniversary cards.

Well, if Bruno had even a nodding familiarity with Sicilian proverbs, he'd appreciate the one that translates as, "Revenge is a dish best served cold." What we wanted now was to shake out the truth. I could wait awhile to act on it, if necessary.

The black box was a little too risky for my blood under the circumstances, calling a destination so close. Besides that, it's not good for youngsters to rely too much on complex technology they don't understand.

"How are we going to talk to him long enough to set up a meeting, Uncle Dick?" That was Mickey. Jack was talking in low tones with Allison up in the front seats of Jehovah's Chariot. Their relationship was either improving or deteriorating, but it was hard to tell which.

"Mickey, long ago before you were born, there was a Marlon Brando picture about kidnaping. It was around the sixties."

Mickey snorted, not very impressed with how old that made me until I mentioned that Brando had been thin. He quite sensibly refused to believe me about that, but was interested in one of the picture's ploys anyway.

What Marlon had done was go to a bank of telephones. Then he called the mastermind on one and the victim's family on the neighboring phone. When he got the second connection, he taped the phones together, earpieces to mouthpieces, and scrammed. That let the mastermind talk freely from a telephone at a different location, while the police were racing to the wrong place.

We experimented.

The volume was too low, so we tried the little amplifiers that hard-of-hearing people add on to the earpieces. They're held on by an elastic strap. One on each phone, and the connection was clear as a bell. Once the correct volume was achieved, we jammed the control. The howling feedback on maximum was atrocious.

Jack was at one site, with Uncle John and I keeping an eye on him again. Mickey was at another, playing Marlon. We used an added wrinkle. After Mickey taped the handsets together, he was to pour molasses over the whole thing, and then spray it with my can of skunk spray. That was to discourage the curiosity __or at least interference__ of passers-by. The connections were made, taped, sloshed and sprayed. Mickey made himself scarce, and Jack made a "meet" with our next target.

"Monsignor Tedeschi, please. This is Jack Geoghan."

"Hold on please. He'll be with you in a moment."

Within seconds, there was a baritone voice coming over the lines. It was not quite British; yet you couldn't say the accent was Italian either. I heard it on tape later and it stumped me completely.

"We should not discuss anything on the telephone, Mr. Geoghan. I would like you to come here to Mundare at once, so that we may talk together in privacy."

"I can't do that," Jack insisted. "It has to be a public place, in Edmonton."

"That is impossible." Tedeschi was abrupt, as if he would hang up then.

Jack was cool.

He waited.

After a few seconds, Tedeschi said, "Well?"

"At the West Edmonton Mall, Entrance 2. Eight PM, tonight. Walk toward the porpoises and expect surprises. Give me the plate number and a description of your vehicle, please."

"It will be a Lincoln, two-door, maroon. Please hold."

There were clicking sounds, while the good Monsignor tried to find out the plate number of the Seminary vehicle assigned to him. After a minute or so, he came back on line and gave it to Jack.

"Thank you, Monsignor. We'll be expecting you tonight at eight, sharp. Wear black pants, blue shirt and a light-colored sport jacket. We assume that you have a driver. He has to drop you off and stay with the vehicle near the entrance, or he could be hurt. And no tails. Or beacons, and that includes switch-ons and transponders. Got it?"

"Yes, but I think you are making a mistake, Mr. Geoghan."

"It's my neck, Monsignor."

Now this is second-hand from Morty; the scene at the local library. The CIA rushed to the site they had traced the conversation to, hands in their pockets or stuck into their jackets like Napoleon, nervously fingering gun-stocks and pistol grips. They looked wildly around for the public telephones.

And what did they find?

The nauseating sight and smell of two slimy, skunky pay-phones copulating. A middle-aged librarian __one with a bad case of the vapors, at that__ was screaming into the telephone on his desk at the local phone company.

He looked up at poor Morty and the other men who just power-walked into the library and accosted him directly.

"Well! It's about time that you got here."

Morty doesn't think it was very funny.

"Why do we have to wear masks, along with you?" Jack wanted to know.

"Look at it this way, boys. We know that he's going to meet me again, and we don't know that he's not going to meet you again. Then figure on the intimidation factor: him being surrounded by five people wearing masks, four of them silent."

I glared at them a little to emphasize the latter. There would be five because Allison had an attack of feminism. She had taken to my computer set-up beautifully and __with some on-line instructions I had written__ Allison was a key player in handling the fax and computer data that was still coming through each night, while the rest of us caught up on our sleep. But it wasn't enough for her; she wanted the fun parts.

"Then again," I asked sensibly, "what if I'm the only one wearing a mask. He's going to know that I'm afraid that he'd recognize me __either now or in the future; that he's either met me or he will meet me. That's not good."

Uncle John settled it. "All right, Richard. Let's just do it, boys. If we wait until he finishes explaining, we won't have time to get there."

"There" was, of course, Mundare. Where we had refused to go __an hour's drive east of the West Edmonton Mall, on which we had insisted. We left early in the day using both pick-ups, and rented a big van on the way out of town.

It was a kind of "party" van __one that had no side windows and a raised top__ with four low-backed swivel seats and a little table in the back. The front seats swivelled around too, and all the windows and the windshield had drapes. The drape for the front snapped on, while the others were already mounted on each side of their window.

An exhaust fan in a roof ventilator graced the van's top, but the heat must have been unbearable in the high summer, unless party-goers left the engine running and the A/C on high. This late in the year __in the north country__ it was comfortable enough.

Another stop at the Shack to buy a cheap megaphone, and we left the city.

At a Ukrainian center on the Yellowhead, we bought some local maps, three copies each, and food supplies. Then circling around to the Seminary on back roads, we started to scout the territory. I was driving the van and had the scanner with me, along with a CB. We already had a large scale topographical map of the area.

Lunch was terrific. The day was perfect for a picnic and that's exactly what we had. There was plenty of Labatt's and chips, a Ukrainian version of kielbasa and round loaves of farmers' bread. We had spicy mustard, a stringy cheese and a German-style potato salad.

Mustard and maps don't mix, we found; so we had the party first and the War Room conference afterwards.

Trust Uncle John to put his finger right on the problem. He pointed to the Seminary on the map, and said, "They're still going to be watching, nephew."

"I know, but I figure they'll pull most of their crew here out, to cover the roads to Edmonton, and then pick up Tedeschi's tail as he drives to meet us. This is mostly farm country around here, with some woods around the Seminary itself. What does that tell you about the competition?" I asked.

Mickey came up with some good answers. "They'll have somebody in the woods on foot in contact with somebody else in a car."

"Good, Mickey. Where do you think the car will be, then. In general, I mean."

He was a little puzzled, but Jack chimed in, "On a hill, where they can see the surrounding countryside."

"Sounds good, Jack. Let's look at the contour map."

None of them were familiar with interpreting the hachure patterns, or contour lines, so I did the honors. The country is best described as "rolling" there, but there were only three high points that had a good field of view around the Seminary along with line-of-sight communications to the immediate woods area. It took an hour to determine that, so they went on with the party while I worked it out. In my army days, I could have done it in thirty minutes. If my computer and scanner were with me, it would have taken two minutes. The principle is called ray-tracing, if you're interested, and it's also used to generate 3-D models out of two dimensional drawings.

My cousin the hunting cat __Jack__ did the honors in his pick-up. Within two hours, he had returned with the information we needed.

"There's only two of them; one guy on this ridge here in a Jeep," he pointed to a spot on the map where I then placed an 'X,' "and one other guy in the woods watching the front door. They're bored as hell at being left behind, and rag-chewing like crazy over their radios. I was close enough to hear both sides. The guy on the hill was lying on his back on the ground, sunbathing. The speaker on the two-way radio in the Jeep was turned up all the way with the mike hanging down the passenger's side. I've never seen such a lazy bum."

Jack still tends to shock easily at how incompetent people can be if you don't keep your eyes on them. He'll grow out of it, eventually.

"Well, what do you think we should do about them, boys?" I prompted.

Mickey was thinking of overwhelming the CIA men and disarming them. Jack __more practical__ was thinking pepper spray.

Uncle John was the most conservative. "I don't want them mixed up with those loafers at all," he said. "If they hurt them, the boys will be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. It's not worth it."

I agreed with his sentiments but not with his conclusion.

"Jack. Is your man packing?"

"No," he shook his head. "Not unless his weapon is in the Jeep."

"Is the Jeep motor running?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Steal it, would you?"

Allison had wanted to go with Jack __but in the end, I decided to accompany him. If any violence was required, it should be me taking the fall for it, and not one of them.

The pick-up was the best vehicle for the job.

Jack had decided against carrying a radio or the shotgun, quite sensibly in my opinion __so we had to make a plan and try to stick to said plan to the bitter end.

We did figure out a contingency plan, but not much of one. If Jack got caught, I would charge in like gang-busters. That meant the truck and I had to be in position before Jack made his move. A honk from me would distract the lookout and signal Jack that the cavalry was coming at the same time.

Jack left me about a half-mile south of the look-out, sheltered by some trees between us and the target zone. I wished him luck and he firmly __but quietly__ closed the cab door. The truck and I proceeded innocently enough beyond the look-out's field of view, and then turned north, to circle the CIA.

That has a nice ring to it, I thought, unreasonably bemused with the phrase. "...to circle the CIA."

Heading back south again, on the same road as the look-out, I crept along over each rise, trying to spot the Jeep's tail before being spotted.

Finally! There it was. I backed up onto the narrow shoulder and dismounted. Some creeping and crawling got me a good look at the opposition. Just our luck, the target was sitting in the Jeep, talking into the mike.

And Jack was lying under it. So much for Plan A.

And some contingency plan we had! If the driver heard me honk, he might back the Jeep around into a more defensive position. It could be he'd run over Jack, accidentally or on purpose. At best, he'd discover him and scram. Or there could be a gun in the Jeep.

It took a few minutes to come up with Plan C. If Jack's truck didn't "diesel" for awhile when the ignition was shut off, there might not have been any other plan at all.

The first thing to do was to quietly back up and turn around. About a mile back, I turned south again, stopped and unlocked the hood. A mud-hole provided protective coloration for the truck and concealment for the plates. The engine had to be left running, or it might not start again after I had finished with it.

First: de-tune the carburetor.

Second: using a folded dry rag for insulation, pull off two cables that fired consecutive spark plugs within the V-8 engine.

Third: limp back to the Jeep, spitting and farting, dropping mud-balls all the way.

Fourth: cut the ignition in one big "Bang," and pull in next to the Jeep, with a big snotty, sweaty handkerchief mopping my brow.

Fifth: Distract the target, while he absorbed a donation of Montezuma's other Revenge.

It actually worked out the way it was planned, more or less.

The clown from the CIA was still smiling at my predicament, when he realized that I was going to pull up next to him, and lost the shit-eating grin. He was stepping on the clutch when I pushed out the spray canister, the big red one that looked like an extinguisher.

May I offer you some Gray Poupon? Whoosh!

The canister shoots an aerosol solution, extracted from chili peppers, that closes down the mucous membranes for about twenty minutes. Ten minutes after that, you'll be fine; though you'll probably never want to eat Mexican or Szechuan food again.

He looked so peaceful there, like an infant sleeping. Red-faced, eyes all screwed up to closed slits and mouth mewing, breathing in short pants at about thirty a minute. Except for the coughing, the constant coughing.

Jack and I shook him down, taking everything. Then we pulled him over to the base of a tree, and sat him up against it.

The one-way transmissions of the Watcher in the Woods were pitiful. After an hour of no contact, he sent a message that he was headed for his regular pick-up point and hoped somebody would be there eventually. That spot figured to be reasonably remote; so he was out of the way too.

We used the time to find a good place to "disappear" the Jeep and take out the two-way radio, with its encrypter. That would serve to warn us of the CIA's return in force. But there were over seven hundred and twenty quadrillion patterns possible. No doubt that they'd follow policy and change to a new one, as soon as they realized we might be listening in. Or within twenty-four hours.

Then I found the key-loader under the Jeep's seat along with a one-time pad of code numbers. And whistled. Roughly the size of a calculator, the solid-state device is worth its weight in diamonds. It's the unit that sets the proper NSA code on the communications equipment, after which it's supposed to be locked up in the Bat-cave. Somebody in the CIA would hang for losing it and his boss would be hung, as well, for leaving it this far out in the cold.

I couldn't help but gloat. Five will get me ten, they own up to the hardware and conveniently forget about losing the codes.

Jack was pretty pissed-off about my tune-down on his truck, and spent about an hour working on it before he was back in a good mood again. At least, I think he was; it's hard to tell.

We prepared for the kidnaping. I called it, "the diversion."

The tactical decisions were up to Jack since he'd be the man on the spot. But he rightly took the universal Slim Jim that I'd loaned him as a broad hint to jimmy the target vehicle, the Lincoln, to lay his ambush.

Later __at the Seminary__ a young man in clerical black and a middle-aged man in a light-colored sports jacket left through a side door, approaching the maroon Lincoln that Jack and Mickey had staked out. My cousins were slouched in the back seat, dressed and masked in black already, when the two men approached the car in the dusk.

The priest, or brother, opened the passenger door for his charge, then walked around to the driver's side and got in. As soon as the motor turned over, Jack held my stun-baton to the back of Tedeschi's neck and grabbed his hair.

He told the driver. "Make a move and he's dead; then you."

From the side, out of the corner of an eye, the stun-baton looks like a suppressed pistol; you know, one with a so-called "silencer." But instead of a bullet, it delivers a paralyzing shock at well over a hundred thousand volts.

Mickey pushed the driver's door-lock button in with his left hand, while his right hand held my small can of pepper-spray ready to take out the driver, just in case.

The vehicle then left the Seminary parking lot, and proceeded northeast toward us. There would be more surprises in store for Monsignor Tedeschi on that cool evening.

Chapter 16

"Thou art reverend touching thy spiritual function,

not thy life."

First Henry VI, Shakespeare

When the Lincoln approached, I stepped out of the bushes to the roadside, already masked and with a flashlight in one hand.

The distance had been too great to keep posted by CB, so the shotgun was cradled in my arms and I was a little tense as the vehicle approached. My flashlight blinked three times and they stopped.

The driver got out first, under the gun. Then Mickey, who searched the man for weapons and tied him up. After that it was Tedeschi's turn to be searched, but not yet tied. He had already been given a drawstring bag for a blindfold, and it was loosely knotted around his neck.

We dumped the driver into the front right seat of the Lincoln. The RF meter was passed over the vehicle, the driver and Tedeschi. No bugs or beacons, but I kept it handy in case of transponder devices; that kind are "dead" until activated by a searching radio or radar signal.

Then Mickey moved the Lincoln, and its bound driver, about a mile down the road, well behind some bushes. We didn't bother with a gag; they're too dangerous, and it wasn't necessary. Uncle John pulled up behind the Lincoln, and followed it to retrieve Mickey. He'd dropped the boys off near St. Basil's, and had kept a friendly eye on their back trail since then.

When our Monsignor was put in the rear seat of the van, Jack tied a loop around his legs and anchored them to the chair base; that was just to make sure that all the surprises would come from us.

The jacket and shirt came off after that, and I went over the contents of all the pockets, including wallet and passport. The slash and impact scars on the Monsignor's short, lean torso were interesting, even distracting. Tedeschi had attended some unusual Benedictions in his time.

Then his hands were tied behind him and anchored in the same way, and by that time the others were back.

John McGovern, Jack, Mickey and Allison were seated facing the defendant from Rome, wearing dark clothing and loose-fitting black masks with eye slits. The turret lights on the side walls were pointed directly at the kidnapped man. A soft hiss emanated from the hijacked CIA communications gear, now surveiling on our behalf.

After a minute of utter silence, I walked softly on the grass to the back of the van, taking the megaphone. My face was still masked, although I didn't expect him to try to observe it. He gave a start as the back doors of the van were thrown open, exposing his back to the chill of the evening air. I looped the strap of the megaphone around my neck so that the handle rested on my chest, the mouthpiece just under my lips.

I double-checked that no one had moved the First-Aid bag from the back deck.

Uncle John leaned toward Tedeschi and scraped the edge of a straight razor along one side of his neck and jaw and cheek, so that the end was up under the bag __near the churchman's left eye.

Then in a shocking, slashing motion, John slit the draw-string and bag up the front. It sounded like a zipper being opened. There was a mirrored cabinet door over a little wet bar, and it was angled just right to see my subject's stunned features. He was blinking in the sudden brightness of the dome and side lights aimed at him. Less than medium height, medium build, gray hair, and a strong, rather than handsome face. Not a bad-looking man, though __except for the bags under his eyes. There were a double set under each. Hereditary, I believe.

I switched the amplifier on, listening for the slight hum. His back flinched again at the "click."

Then I whispered to him.

Other than his own voice, Tedeschi heard nothing more that evening except amplified sibilance. Like the voice a nocturnal snake might have had in a more vivid reality. It was questionable whether the Dooker Thorries would accommodate themselves to this medium or not.

It wouldn't hurt to try.

The Monsignor took the initiative.

He said to Jack, "Please make sure that the driver is released unharmed. He is only a novice and knows nothing."

The whisper replied, "You are responsible for his safety, not we."

-A threat to the innocent for any non-compliance, but not an overt one-

Tedeschi: "Who are you working for?"

Whisper: "Our world."

Tedeschi: "Then we are on the same side. Why do you do this?"

Whisper: "Our world. Not your world."

-It wouldn't do to get specific, and let him know what he should lie about, or which lie to tell us-

Tedeschi: "I do not believe that you are from outer space."

-A joke?-

Whisper: "We are neither ultra-mundane, nor ultra-montane, nor Gallican either."

Tedeschi: "If you will not say whom you represent, tell me want you want. Your learned puns are not very funny, or impressive."

Whisper: "They are as close to torture as we will come, Bruno. We ask the privilege of familiarity in exchange for that information."

Tedeschi: "Call me what you wish. What shall I call you, then? 'Whisper,' perhaps?"

Whisper: "That's very insightful, Bruno. Yes, we like that. But there are a few questions for you now. Please tell the truth; we are taking certain precautions now, and dislike disappointment."

The first "precaution" was a Velcro strap wrapped around his left upper arm; the second, a piece of adhesive tape with two pennies around his right wrist; the third, tape holding the cold end of a stethoscope between and below his shoulder-blades. Nothing was hooked up to anything.

By the way, Tedeschi couldn't tell whether the whispers were coming from the front or back, or whether more than one person was doing the whispering. Our masks were not form-fitting, more like opaque veils that would conceal any lip movement beneath.

Tedeschi: "Well?" -Bruno was impatient. Good!-

Whisper: "We are sorry, Bruno. We didn't mean to be rude."

Tedeschi: "Have you no further questions, then. If that is true, it will be disappointing."

Whisper: "We don't need to ask why, Bruno. Sorry, but we have no feeling of urgency to provide you with critical information by means of indiscreet questions. Tell us what you know of the Ukrainians, please."

Tedeschi: "They are good Catholics and good farmers of God's earth. They deserve better than their fate under the Aurora Compact, or these Devils who will destroy the natural order for all of us."

Whisper: "You are not including your fellow traveler, Zenkov, in that estimation, we trust."

Tedeschi: "The Russian? No. He is the worst kept secret in the Intelligence community. Only the Ukrainians accept him for what he pretends to be. It is a measure of their innocence."

Whisper: "And yet he is a priest of your Faith. But what of the innocents? How could we help the Ukrainians to avoid both evils before them? If we wish to, of course."

Tedeschi: "There is no way to avoid both. The Institute must be stopped for the sake of all, including them.

Whisper: "And the Compact. Is that really any better?"

Tedeschi: "Better than destruction or enslavement, at best, by the Institute. Yes! And better than being over-run by hordes of starving refugees and the brigands who will follow to prey on them."

Whisper: "Are you, then, so impressed by the abilities of nations to take effective action against the vagaries of a distant and uncertain future."

Tedeschi: "There is nothing uncertain about the ecological disasters coming to the temperate zones, nothing distant about a time-frame of twenty-five years, and nothing unimpressive about martial law."

Whisper: "Thank you for your candor, Bruno. We hardly need to tell you now that we have little knowledge of their long-term plans; although you and we do share some common knowledge. Tell us of the Farm."

Tedeschi: "They grow their mutated obscenities there, with the help of the farmers that they mislead."

Whisper: "Only that? But blood was spilled. Surely not over tomatoes."

Tedeschi: "Who knows what else they spawn in their demonic playground? Yes, there was a report that some missing boys were killed by a bear. But that had nothing to do with me."

Whisper: "You disappoint. We are not interested in this information as such, but in the degree of your veracity. Please reconsider and restate your answer acceptably. In some cases, a misstatement would be acceptable because we already know the truth, and are more interested in your 'spin,' what you wish others to believe. This is not such a case; we know much of the truth, and the matter is too basic to bother pondering the grand strategy behind any lies."

Tedeschi: "The boys worked for me for a short while; that is common knowledge. But I had nothing to do with their deaths, nothing."

Whisper: "You protest too much, holy one. What sins of omission come to mind. You could have saved them. No?"

Tedeschi: "Perhaps. At the cost of my own life, perhaps."

Whisper: "No matter. It was just an anomaly we were interested in; why you would report them missing, when you must have assumed that they would be killed as a result."

Tedeschi: "No! I was sure that they had been captured and I thought that the report might save their lives, if there was an investigation."

Whisper: "You disappoint again. Only a fool would expect their captors not to kill their prisoners and fake an accident, in order to forestall an investigation. You reported them missing only to protect yourself, and then you abandoned them to the others. Don't lie to us. It is unseemly and insulting; offensive."

Tedeschi: "You offend me! Who are you to be my judges?"

Whisper: "Perhaps we are of a lower court than you profess to, Bruno. But we have the power we need to punish, as well as judge, your mind and body. You are welcome to the higher jurisdiction for matters concerning your soul."

Tedeschi: "I thought you said that you would not hurt me. Do you not keep your word?"

Whisper: "It is surely your lack of intellectual precision that makes you such a poor liar. We implied that you would not be tortured for information. Nothing was said about death or other forms of punishment. You died to the world when we took you. If you wish to be reborn or resurrected, so to speak, we will take the trouble to do so, but only if you freely accept our grace; conform to our will. You will find the concept familiar, no doubt."

Tedeschi: "What do you want to know about their deaths, then?"

Whisper: "Nothing. We know who killed them, and how. That is of no concern. But we must confess that we do not know why, and that does disturb us. Your involvement and theirs. They died in your place, Bruno. We know everything else about the Farm and the Metis' and the Indians, much about your several dossiers. We know all about Emil Orlando and the other priest."

Tedeschi: "Now you are wrong. Zenkov has never been to the Farm."

-Interesting. Dupont knows of him but Tedeschi knows nothing of Dupont's involvement. Or is he playing dumb? Or would he care about the rest of the scheme at all?-

Whisper: "No, it is you who are wrong, but not about Zenkov. What did you get away with, Bruno? The boys helped you to penetrate the Farm, and then they were expendable decoys. No matter to us, but what could you have found there? They were fellow Catholics. What was worth their running the gauntlet of death among a strange people, in a strange land? What was it? Either tell me or die."

Tedeschi: "Kill me then, and accept eternal damnation."

Whisper: "In the face of such obstinacy, reason cannot prevail. Brothers, release this man. Take him from the van."

They left his hands and feet tied, but cut the cords that anchored Tedeschi to the swivel chair. Removing him from the seat, Jack and Mickey stood the half-naked man outside, allowing him to lean his back against the trunk of a nearby tree.

Whisper: "You may relax now, Monsignor. You will be free to go as soon as we have removed your bonds. Brother, please turn him toward the tree and then leave us. I will cut him loose."

Tedeschi: "He lies! He will kill me. Stop him for the sake of your souls."

But they had been forewarned that I might bluff him, and merely walked about a hundred yards up the road toward the hollow where the other vehicles were cached. The were as silent in their passage as the ghosts in a graveyard.

Whisper: "I really wish that you had believed me, Bruno. Sorry!"

I stabbed him.

Quickly, with the point of the knife piercing the skin and flesh, about an inch in, then, and greeting his right kidney. A momentary halt, to gather strength for the final thrust.

Tedeschi: "Stop!"

Whisper: "Why?"

Tedeschi: "How do I know that you will let me live afterward, if I answer your questions?"

Whisper: "How do we know that you will tell the truth? You are the enemy of our enemy, you should realize that by now. You have nothing to gain from lying, and we have nothing to gain by killing you, if you tell the whole truth."

Tedeschi: "Ask your questions then, Whisper. Time will tell."

Uncle John was furious. "You are nothing but a killer."

I nodded.

He said, "You would have stabbed him, a man of God."

"You are twice mistaken, Uncle," I corrected him. "He is a soldier. Of God, if you insist, but a soldier first and foremost. And I did stab him."

"But you would have killed him," he insisted. "And if you knew how Todd and Gary died, why are you risking our lives out here?"

"I'm certain how they died," I admitted, "and reasonably sure which faction killed them. I have been since Winnipeg, before you went to Elphingstoke and I interviewed Dupont."

Mickey was as confused as his father was shocked. "Why didn't you tell us, Uncle Richard, if you knew."

"I could say that nobody asked me, Mickey, but I won't cop out that way. Running the gauntlet is a very traditional Indian form of trial and punishment both. There seemed little doubt that the fatal injuries occurred that way."

Uncle John had simmered down a little. "And why aren't you absolutely sure which side killed them, if they died that way? It must have been the Metis' or the other Indians."

I shrugged. "The Farm could have used their security forces, or maybe goons like the lumberjacks you ran into, to do that to the boys and blame it on the Indians. But I honestly think that they were running a gauntlet of real Indians or Metis' when they received their death blows."

Jack understood. He turned to his father and said, "Suppose the guys at the Farm faked it to blame it on the Indians, Dad. They'd make sure the bodies got discovered by whites. But it was the Indians who turned them over to the cops. And then they tried to blame it on a bear. It figures to be them that killed the boys."

I nodded. "That sounds about right, Jack. But we can't just knock off a dozen Indians, and then go back to Baltimore. Which Indians? Why? The Indians aren't berserk. Todd and Gary weren't murderers or rapists."

We went on in that vein. Until we knew why, we knew nothing. I could guess the nature of those who dealt the death blows, but who was ultimately responsible for it? The killers were the ones who were the most responsible for the deaths, even if they had been a thousand miles away, when my young cousins breathed their last.

"Uncle John!" I insisted. "Did you look at Tedeschi's torso. Last night, I added a modest one-incher to that fine collection of scars that he sports. At least we found out what the boys died for, if not why."

He nodded, thoughtfully. "That's true, at least __about the scars. But knowing that Gary and Todd died for a couple of little glass tubes doesn't help a lot, Nephew."

At least it got me back to Nephew, I thought.

"If the Monsignor had known exactly what was in it, so would we. All he knows is: If you mix the tubes' contents, then the combination eats forest and craps topsoil in practically nothing flat."

Tedeschi had sent the tubes back to Rome for testing. But nobody back there would tell him, he claimed, exactly what the analysis had came up with that frightened them so, just a one-sentence summary of its intended purpose. Nevertheless, his orders were to stamp it out __at all costs.

But the wily churchman wasn't knocked off our list of killer suspects yet. He had planned and executed a raid on a far corner of the Farm, where an extraordinary biological agent was ready and waiting to be tried out.

Our cousins had been paid to stage an harmless diversion, which they had done with great success. The trouble was that Tedeschi didn't get away clean from his incursion. When the boys had circled around to pick him up, the security forces trailing him had picked up their trail, as well.

He claimed that he sent the boys off on their own, and tried to lead his pursuers away from their trail. Bullshit! Pure and simple. Not only because of Tedeschi's obvious self-interest in survival, but because of his mission. The Monsignor had the prize in hand. If he could have tied tin cans to their feet and pasted targets to their backs, he would have done it. Just like I might have if they were strangers. Maybe anyway; survival makes demands, as I have reason to know.

We released Tedeschi without further harm __after an hour of additional questioning. He got his shirt and jacket back, along with the contents of his pockets, and a free lift down to the Lincoln. His bandage had been bought with a pint or so of blood.

By that time __close to midnight__ we could hear the CIA starting to call their cows home. I decided boldness was the best tactic, and headed straight for the Yellowhead, Route 16, intending to proceed directly toward Edmonton. Our recklessness was tempered a bit by obscuring the plate numbers with a little judicious mud. We would split up in the city and take evasive steps there to lose any followers. Until then, there was safety in numbers.

Speaking of the CIA: On the way to the Yellowhead we probably passed a Company car going the other way at high speed. It stopped suddenly on the road and started to back around into a U-turn. There was nothing on the radio to tell us who they were, one way or the other.

They were apparently undecided about it, however, and finally proceeded back down the road toward the Seminary.

Two days later, I was still trying to organize most of what we had learned. It was a tiring business.

* * * * * * * * * *

When I woke up it was in the immediate past again, about a month after the kidnap and interrogation at St. Basil's. Sleep had overcome me for a while, in mid-story.

Looking around, I saw that the night had completely passed in the little chapel. My captive looked a little more the worse for wear in the morning light, although he did not complain. He was not able to move, of course. I issued him some more water to replace what he had pissed in his pants.

"How much longer do you give me?" he asked.

"I must be finished here by mid-morning. The plane will depart at noon. Better keep your questions short."

"What were these strange chemicals in the test tubes, then?" he asked.

"I think it would take a genius in biogenetics to explain that, and we'd both need a doctorate in the field to understand the explanation."

"Tell me a little more, anyway."

"All right, one test-tube contained a primitive life form, called a slime mold. It's a type of simple fungus that does not develop cell walls. The mold was deliberately crippled in three ways and enormously empowered in a fourth. One key gene had been deleted and the mold could not produce spores for reproduction, or even convert its food to energy without the protein manufactured by that gene. However, two other genes were altered to transform part of a supplied synthetic enzyme into that essential protein. Most of that test-tube was also occupied by enough of the enzyme to keep the mold alive and allow for a few minutes of constant reproduction when released in reach of a suitable food supply."

"And the other tube?"

"A retro-virus that invades the mold to slice and dice several other manufactured genes into its DNA. Also more of the synthetic enzyme." I halted belatedly and inquired, "Do you know what DNA is?"

He gave that supercilious laugh of his and told me that priests were not necessarily mentally retarded. "Go on, go on!" he added, with an impatient wave of his imperious hand.

The cool, solid touch of my shotgun reassured me that I was still in control. It was only a dangerous illusion, but I didn't know that then.

So the explanation continued. "The first gene involved in the secondary transformation prevents reproduction in the daughter cells that spore from the infected parent. Others produce new protein substances from the enzyme remnant and the outer coating of the virus. The new proteins are also enzymes that can quickly dissolve the cell walls and protoplasm, then tear apart the nucleus of any organic structure, in a process known as 'PCD,' short for 'programmed cell death'."

"Now it gets too complicated. I do not understand."

I could relate to that.

"Well, Priest; as inadequately as I comprehend such things, theirs was the best sort of genetic biological containment possible to prevent the uncontrolled spread of a disastrous reaction. You know, in case of what they call a worst-case scenario in some circles or a royal screw-up in monarchies. The deletion of a key gene altogether meant that there was no danger of a natural, repeat natural, mutation altering the modified mold in any way that would unchain it from the continued support of its creators."

"Would nothing else stop it?"

"Yes. Bare ground or concrete __not asphalt or tarmac, though; that's just more food. And it supposedly can't cross running water or sea-water. The enzyme and the mold cells themselves are heavy enough not to be airborne normally. And winds strong enough to carry them any distance, should thin them out enough to render the combination harmless.

The priest picked up on my inflections. "You stressed the word 'natural.' Why?"

"Here. Read it for yourself." There was enough light coming in through the back window for him to read the message printed in block letters. "This was recovered from a cabin on God's River. I think you know the one; two young men died near there because of you."

He made no answer and painfully bent his head forward to scan the last testament of a more repentant man than either of us.

I am Dr. Hans Jager of München, Deutschland. Anyone who finds this notebook is requested to notify the Deutsch Embassy, at once, of my captivity somewhere in this Gott-damned wilderness. I have been one of the chief scientists of The New World Institute at Elkprong, Alberta, and a member of the so-called Peer Review Group at that facility.

My field is not biogenetics or microbiology. It was my work, though, that developed suitable strong-rooting grasses that tie down topsoil and prevent run-off erosion. This step will be critical in the monsoon conditions that will prevail in much of the north-land within the next generation. And those grasses __runner-propagated Vetiver from southern India__ which also serve as a stable matrix for other crop species, are a great achievement, one that would have earned a Nobel Prize had I been allowed to publish my work. No one else could have bred it for this climate. And I have always used traditional techniques of selective breeding for my experiments. Only traditional techniques, I repeat.

I am not a party to this madness.

It is dubious at best whether these genetic modifications should be carried out at all, even in the laboratory. The most stringent safeguards, the P4 level of physical containment of the U.S.N.I.H. would not satisfy any sane person as to the safety of these procedures. To carry out such a recombinant transformation in vivo on a such broad scale is criminal folly of the worst kind.

An internal peer review makes nothing but a mockery of that process; the more so since they conceal our work from outsiders in the field. Nuss and Choi at Roche have already biogenetically altered the fungal blight of the American chestnut tree with no knowledge of our processes. God knows what will occur if other such recombinant procedures interact with those planned by the Institute. And who can know how many others act in secret, as we do?

They all must be stopped.

Remember

The priest finished with the last word "Remember."

"And did you also recover the author?" he asked in a weary way.

"No," I said. "Not even his body. The notebook was jammed into a crack on the underside of one of the bunk beds in the cabin."

"And will these fearsome things come to pass?"

I nodded. "Sooner or later, they will. If not the Institute, then others will decide __perhaps correctly, perhaps not__ that drastic technological measures are called for in order to preserve civilization. Naturally, there's a significant probability that those measures will do much more harm than good. So? What else is new?"

"Don't be flippant," he snapped. "It offends me."

I used my index finger to disengage the safety of the shotgun. "That's O.K.. I can live with that."

He ignored the gun and crossed himself.

"If what you say is true, Irishman, then this would be a good day to die."

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You are at Fiction 1, Chapters 15 & 16