Fiction 1, Chapters 21 & 22
"Canadian Shield" Copyright © 1993
Chapter 21
"For treason is but trusted like the fox
Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors."
First Henry IV, Shakespeare
CAROUGE, SWITZERLAND:
Marcus Bakker gazed upon the instigator of "Canadian Shield" and marveled, asking himself: How could this non-entity have been the catalyst for such an enterprise? With a snub nose and his buck-toothed overbite, the pot-bellied Uniat cleric looked more like a rabbit than a priest. That was especially so in the gray pinstripe suit that he wore in place of his customary cassock.
Anton Zenkov was certainly a contrast to the slender elegance of the Chairman seated behind his rosewood desk.
"Herr Bakker_____"
"Please, Father," the latter man said, "my Christian name is 'Marcus.' Or if you prefer, 'Mr. Bakker'." Zenkov instantly guessed which mode of address the Chairman preferred. "It was most kind of you to accept my invitation to visit corporate headquarters." Bakker had actually been surprised at Zenkov's insistence on a face-to-face.
"It was imperative that we meet," Zenkov said bluntly. "You must not accept the Soviet offer."
"But Father, you are the one who transmitted their offer to us, and __in any event__ there is no longer a Soviet." Bakker was being deliberately obtuse, toying with the formerly Russian, formerly Communist, always secular priest. "Your reactions are, perhaps, alarmist."
"You will never keep the loyalty of our Ukrainian-Canadian brothers in struggle, if those Communist dogs are allowed to buy their way into the New World."
Not for the first time, Bakker thought that the outstanding crime against humanity to be held against the Soviet Union was the tendency of their offspring __even so-called reformers__ to speak in cartoon bubbles. He remembered a quote, "Dr. Johnson, in calling 'patriotism' the last refuge for scoundrels, has surely overlooked the enormous potential of the word, 'reform'." He smiled to himself, unable to remember the source.
"Surely, Father, the dissolution of the former Soviet Union will dispel the prejudices of the past."
"Not the fierce resentments, not the memory of slavery and genocide, Mr. Bakker. If you want our New World to be a Lebanon, a Biafra, or a Yugoslavia, then surely" __he stressed "surely," playing upon Bakker's use of that word__ "you should yoke natural enemies in the harness of government. But, if you wish to avoid that, or a dis-enfranchised minority, like your South African blacks __then be loyal to those who are already loyal to you."
Bakker thought briefly, and then asked Zenkov, "What do you know of Afrikaaners, Father?"
"I know that they are descended from Dutch colonists who settled in South Africa before Napoleon's time."
"Then you already know far more than the average American or Canadian about the problem of South Africa. My ancestors settled first in the Capetown area __sometimes co-existing with, sometimes displacing the local Bushmen and Hottentot who lived there. When the English invaded after the Napoleonic Wars, the true Afrikaaners moved north into a vast unpopulated veldt to escape their cruel restrictions. The Zulu came into the region far later." Bakker conveniently ignored the fact that Holland had signed its colony over to England, and that __in fact__ the English had not invaded their new territory. The presence in southern Africa of the Nguni tribes __millions of human beings; farmers, builders, ironworkers__ perhaps millennia before the coming of the Dutch or the English, was conveniently omitted. By comparison, the warlike Zulu Empire __comprised of those same Nguni peoples__ was a Shaka-come-lately of the early nineteenth century.
"And_____" The rabbit raised an eyebrow. He couldn't have cared less about the history lesson.
"And, now the time has come for us to move again," the Chairman sighed. "We emigrated from the Low Countries, then again from Capetown, and we are prepared to do so now. Father Zenkov, do you know what percentage of our "Orphans" are of pure Afrikaaner stock?"
"One-hundred percent, perhaps."
"No, Father. It is less than fifty percent. The others are predominantly of English descent. Please understand that the die-hard reactionaries are stocking up on machine guns and nuclear bombs to re-fight yesteryear's war in yesterday's country, with modern weapons."
"And the rest of you____"
"Many will stay, convinced that the black man's need for the managerial skills of the remaining whites will protect them from the passion for revenge. I hope, but doubt, that will be the case. Those with the ambition to leave, the vision to follow a dream, and the intelligence to avoid the mistakes of the past will settle the New World of the future __as you call it__ and leave the past behind."
"That sounds very noble, Mr. Bakker, and I applaud your divination. But how does that translate into the language of the common people? My Ukrainians are the finest farmers in the world. Your Communists have consistently failed even to raise beets and potatoes."
"I do not wish to torment you with their presence, Father Zenkov." Nor __Bakker thought__ their undoubted blackmail of your KGB roots, you turncoat of many colors. "We have no intention of accepting their money, however vast the sum."
Zenkov's face twitched with a sudden interest. "How much did they manage to get away with?"
"They were offering twenty-five billion dollars over a five year period, although I understand their total take was four to five times that amount."
"Unbelievable!" The leporine priest embraced a universe of envy in his exclamation. "There was still that much to steal?"
"They were atypically provident. I believe that they had been stripping everything convertible to foreign currency from their economy __especially the KGB's foreign assets__ ever since Gorbachev writ with his moving finger on the Kremlin wall."
"Then, if that is the case, why send for me, Mr. Bakker? Just to tell me that you agree?"
"We owe you a great deal, Father Zenkov. It was your initial approach to our consulate that eventually brought our great venture into being. You were the first to take note of our common danger and champion our common cause." Bakker was not a man to put his subordinates down, even a twice-turned traitor such as this one in a venture as dubiously criss-crossed with unjustifiable means as Canadian Shield. If noblesse oblige were the only criterion for nobility, then Bakker would have been a veritable King of Kings. Habitually, therefore, he glossed over certain facts tacitly accepted by both. The Ukrainian-Canadians __the only people who trusted Zenkov__ were little more than a power base to him, and the South Africans and their survival represented no more than money in the bank to the man who had been an impoverished priest and underpaid KGB mole for so many years.
The formerly active spy still had to cooperate superficially with his old bosses, if only to avoid being discredited __or perhaps killed. But Bakker remained his only hope of eventual release from thralldom to Church and State.
The Chairman had occasionally wondered how the redoubled agent reconciled both roles in his hypocritical mind, and he was tempted to take some time to re-evaluate the priest's despicable, but predictable, motivations and probable course of action.
Nevertheless, in his own oblique way, Bakker merely resumed issuing his marching orders to the other man, in the guise of a dialogue. "How do you think your people would react to the presence of Northern Irish expatriates in our Northlands?" he asked.
"More Protestants?" The response smacked more of long-held bigotry than moral concerns.
"Father! You disturb me. We are here to avoid or correct the mistakes of the past. Had the Afrikaaners absorbed the Bushmen __instead of excluding them__ we might still have a tenable homeland today. Instead the brown bastards rank among our enemies, in turn to be displaced and held down by their black cousins from the north in their ascendancy."
"But, still!" Zenkov expostulated. "So many more Protestants?" Given his physiognomy, it seemed impossible for Zenkov to look more pained than his normal expression did, but he managed somehow to expand his homeliness exponentially to achieve that effect.
"Many of your Ukrainian and other Slavic parishes have several times traded their Catholicity for Orthodoxy and vice-versa, both in Canada and in Europe," Bakker said reasonably. "What is so abhorrent?"
"There is a history of dire conflict."
"Where has that not been the case, Father? There are no angels in line for admission to our Paradise Regained."
"I still don't know," the other man temporized.
Zenkov's reluctance now seems more like a toll-gate than a moral or intellectual barrier, thought Bakker. "Consider the example of Switzerland, Father. Three languages, three cultures, many religions, no conflicts. Just prosperity, and all due to trade, to capitalism."
"Are these English-Irish serious people then?"
"Very," Bakker answered.
"It's all right then, I suppose. English would be the common tongue in any event."
"Do you have any other concerns, Father?"
"Yes. Polewicz."
"Is that because he is Polish-Canadian?"
"What do you think of us, that we are all racists?" The priest sounded indignant.
"Sometimes that thought is irresistible, Father."
"No. The Poles are our cousins," the priest said. Bakker thought that statement to be an assertion, not a denial, of racism, but he said nothing. Zenkov continued, "But he is not professional. An amateur, really. Yet he has his own ambitions. We think that you are unfortunately blind to those failings. He has been reckless in his adventurism, and despotic in the pursuit of his own agenda."
When will the cultic jargon of Communism finally, mercifully die? That was Bakker's first thought. The second was that neither managers, nor scientists, nor artists are wise to become involved with garbage. The third stemmed from the basic premise at the root of every classic human blunder; that the absence of evidence of error is evidence of the absence of error. His "eye" on Polewicz had reported that the latter's ambitions were easily satisfied by absolute dominion within the limited sphere of authority granted to him.
It was only open-ended ambition among subordinates that concerned Bakker.
The Chairman put Zenkov off with one rationalization or another, and finally dismissed him gracefully without directly addressing any of the latter's concerns, except money. The "rabbit" wanted a bigger share of the carrot patch and got it. But in promises, not in cash.
Bakker knew how to wait.
ELKPRONG, ALBERTA:
Phaethon berated Langerhans, "What are you going to do about Lester? He seems to be completely out of hand."
The man addressed sat at his large desk, working. He put his pen down deliberately and focussed his full attention on the scientist. "What am I to do? Stop his salary? May I remind you that we were designed to be a troika, not a democracy? Polewicz has his own budget, his own staff and his own funds. Bakker can cut him off eventually, but the only way to remove him immediately would be by force."
"Yes?" Phaethon got his hopes up.
"Polewicz has all the force," said the financial manager, dismissing the notion outright.
"What can we do then, Theo? Bakker is interested in the Northern Irish. He sees them as new blood, the wave of the future. Manufacturing to supplement the timbering, farming and mining of the Indians and Ukrainians and South Africans. But, all Lester sees is that he has been humiliated."
"Are you really sure of this?" Langerhans demanded.
"Don't be naive. Do you expect him to acknowledge it? He's held himself incommunicado; that is enough of a declaration. He no longer even pretends to be responsible to the common cause."
"I have no jurisdiction here, Cecil."
"For God's sake, the first meetings of the Aurora Compact will take place in a few days. The Indian Council and World Council of Churches have made their plans for Winnipeg and Edmonton. We are committed. There is no going back, Theo. And you would have us be concerned about the letter of our contracts? In a matter of days, people may have to die in order for us to save many more. It is obvious that there will be civil war. You cannot hide behind a corporate charter in order to evade your responsibilities."
"Then you restrain him, if you are so concerned."
"With what, my friend? A Bunsen burner? Am I to threaten him with a bloody pipette?"
"That is much more precise and deadly than any audit that I could summon up. Bakker is responsible for Polewicz, not I: you must understand that. Listen, Cecil: we transmit to Carouge tonight. Formulate a memo about our unstable Security Chief, and I'll endorse it for transmission." He picked up his pen again to continue his entries, just as though he had solved Phaethon's problem.
"And what about Tedeschi and Carter. If Lester has his way, they are dead men."
"Tha's nae money oot ah' my bourse," the Scotsman said, in self-mockery. "Will you go without, if either of them is inconvenienced by a shortage of breath?" Langerhans was pleased at what he considered wit and not above a little rancor at his own humiliation on the night that Polewicz went over the edge.
Phaethon didn't take the hint. "Tedeschi's death would draw attention to our activities at just the wrong time. Carter, I have no knowledge about."
"Take my word for it, Cecil, he is no more innocent than the very Devil himself."
MUNDARE, ALBERTA:
The incense burned; voices were raised in chant and a holy Icon, held on high, led the way for the procession of saintly men that slowly, respectfully advanced toward the altar of God. The procession progressed in reverse in one aspect __from ancient patriarchs on to the bare-faced, callow striplings who would one day take their places in the forefront of His legions. Not one soul in that large chapel was less than intimidated by the need to placate His dire Anger __to call It righteous would be presumptuous. Not one mind or heart was less than absolutely devoted to the greater glory of God.
All those within the chapel were concerned with ritual.
Not so elsewhere.
"Yes, I am sure it was the same man." Tedeschi quickly paced back and forth along one wall in the Seminary's somber conference room, while the other two Roman-rite priests sat at the oval table in the center. Their simple black suits, white collars, and the plain white walls of the room set off the full magenta regalia worn by the Monsignor. They also were guests of the Ukrainian Uniat seminary, like the Italian, and not members of that Rite.
"Monsignor," the elder said, "this is a very serious matter that you propose, and the consequences of failure are great. Even if we succeed, there is no guarantee that anything will be accomplished with this dangerous stunt. Yes, it's true that there are some in the service of Opus Dei who are both proficient and experienced in the military arts. But I must strongly protest your deployment of them as strong-arm goons."
"You may protest all you like, Father," Tedeschi said impatiently. "The Order, with the approval of our Holy Father, has assigned this matter to the Crux Nigra for execution. And your organization WILL bear weapons at our command."
The men in black were discomfited at the reference in Latin, and Tedeschi __noticing__ chose to attribute their unease to the medium instead of the message. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am an old relic who occasionally forgets that Latin is long out of favor. I can only hope that you will forgive me."
He turned away.
But almost immediately, the Monsignor cast aside his mock humility. He spun around and raised his voice, rattling the glass-covered photographic portraits surrounding the three.
"You innocents! You upstarts!" he shouted, almost screamed. "The Black Cross has existed almost as long as the parent Order of St. John, as far back as the Crusades. And since the treacherous defeat of our Teutonic Knights, for almost six hundred years the power and the burden of Black on Red has been proudly borne in secret by the Hospitalers. It is not for you to question my authority or my orders. It is we, the Crux Nigra, who have fought the secret battles that keep Holy Mother Church intact. It is we, the last of the knightly orders."
Undaunted, the senior of the other two priests reacted __saying, "We acknowledge the expertise of the Dark Hospitalers in fighting rear guard actions. Nor would we dream of questioning your abilities in assassination or kidnapping. But what a pity it is that there are not more of you? Then you would have no need of less Godly allies like ourselves."
"How dare you address me so, Father Rankin? I find your sarcasm to be misguided and disloyal to our Holy Mother Church. God is on our side in this great conflict. These others are nothing but heretic or pagan scum who would join with the blasphemous Institute." His strong voice shook the large room with reverberations.
Tedeschi's pouched eyes looked like the business end of a double-barreled shotgun to the two Canadian priests so targeted, who were still making a determined effort to keep to the moral high ground.
"To risk further offense by quoting a Protestant, Monsignor," Rankin said, "it is not our place to assign God to our side, but rather to put ourselves on His side. There is not one Catholic alive today, with the possible exception of yourself, who wouldn't have been burned by the Church five hundred years ago for the heresy of knowledge. And possibly today, as well, if Cardinal Ottaviani were still alive."
Still pacing, Tedeschi batted the other's argument away with a dismissive swat of his left arm. "Bah! Words, nothing but empty words. You must understand: these scientists" __he spat the word out__ "would bring about the end of God's Creation to begin their own. Aside from the awesome risks of failure, can you imagine the terrible wrath of God that will fall on all, the perpetrators of this Evil, the sons of Satan, and the lukewarm like yourself who allow this to happen?"
The younger priest spoke up then. "The Church can afford no further scandal in this country, Monsignor. The affairs in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the revelations of the old Indian Schools, all these have left a legacy of bitterness between our laity and clergy. Can't you see what would happen if we were to be found out as kidnappers or murderers, as well?"
"I call you to a Holy War, and you prattle to me about a few priests and brothers who diddle their choir-boys. These Devils even use a false priest, an Antichrist, to lead our good Catholic farmers astray while you play with public relations." Tedeschi ceased his continual pacing for a minute, debating silently with himself about the comparative merits of persuasion and discipline.
Discipline lost.
He was forced to say, "It had been hoped that all would do their duty in Faith without the need for what I am about to show you." Traversing to where his briefcase lay on the other side of the table, he withdrew a video tape. "Father, would you please use the equipment along the wall to display this tape for us? It is, I understand, compatible with the player here."
Tedeschi then walked to the light switch at the doorway, prepared to turn off the lights at the other's signal. He did so and the image of a man in a lab coat began to lecture them from the television set in German-accented English.
It was a dry, but not a boring lecture, all the more terrifying for the lack of emphasis or inflection. Holding up a phial in each hand, very gingerly, the self-proclaimed biologist began to describe how the enclosed samples were analyzed under the strictest standards of isolation. After a few minutes, the basic mechanism of their biotic action was simply explained and the resultant effects on the immediate environment outlined.
A third of the way through the tape, the quality of the images changed considerably, for the worse. The scene was a wooded area; the day was cloudy and the image flat, lacking contrast.
A sub-title indicated the time and the date, along with a place name that appeared to be Slavic, though the alphabet used was Western, not Cyrillic. No ambient sound accompanied the woodland scenes, but a voice-over __not the first lecturer__ narrated the events in English.
An ordinary airplane opened the extraordinary action by spraying a large copse of evergreen trees much as a cropduster would function. Even as the spray landed on the tops of the trees, a change in the landscape could be noted. The treetops seemed to become fuzzy, out of focus or surrounded by a particulate fog.
The plane made another sweep, closer this time. The camera was visibly shaking a bit. The two priests could now see three humans in the field of view, whom they assumed to be associates of the cameraman __abandoning their observation points and running back toward the camera.
Within a few seconds, the camera was jerked around and faded to black. The next scene was from further away, and the others within it were still running away. The plane was coming around for a third pass and the scene faded again. This time, when the camera had been turned on, two of the associates could be seen struggling through a difficult swamp-like area. The footing under the standing water seemed to be especially treacherous, and the brownish fog was approaching them quickly.
The forest behind was forest no longer. The entire section of woods had been buried in a shroud __as if captured by an entire race of tent caterpillars. The difference was that the shroud was itself alive, consuming its supporting superstructure.
The narrator was explaining that the greater concentration of slime-mold at ground level would be consuming the roots and bases of the trees faster than the tops. Within a few minutes, that prediction was borne out, as the vaguely tree-shaped spires began to topple in utter silence. There was no room initially for individuals to fall to the forest floor. Instead they seemed to stagger and support each other, much like a lurching subway car full of drunks holding on for dear life.
It could have been time lapse photography, except that the hours, minutes and seconds displayed under the picture continued to advance at a real-time rate.
The fog quickly overtook the men as they struggled to reach safety.
In ten seconds they were naked. Their somber clothing had been reduced to shreds, falling away from their bodies in the mild breeze. A few seconds later, pallid skin was brown and leathery all over, and there were only two man-shaped mushrooms to consider. The hominid movements of both bodies mimicked a dance of joy __like the Chassidic Jews with their Torah scrolls__ whirling and swooping, rolling in the water and twirling in small circles.
Then the men, or whatever they were now, subsided. They not so much fell, as settled to the ground. What were formerly humans became hummocks of dirt. In silence, of course. Had there been screams, they were not recorded. The narrator had no words to describe what had occurred to the observers, and sensibly, did not try. Their transformation had taken no more than sixty seconds.
"Dust to dust..." the younger priest murmured. "May the souls of the faithful departed, Rest In Peace."
Neither of his elders joined him in "Amen."
In the background, the forest continued to dissolve. Now the narrator gave the technical designations for the mold, the retrovirus and the organic catalyst, an enzyme, that were the essential components of the aerosol mist __mind-numbing, jaw-breaking, unpronounceable names.
The kid gloves were off now. There was no danger of putting the audience to sleep. The two other priests and Tedeschi were itching all over, their skins a-crawl with the anticipation that the mold would escape from Hell and come after them.
The bland voice-over went on to explain that the recombinant slime-mold would continue to consume only the original sprayed area, until there was no more native material or supplied enzyme to be ingested. The primitive fungus, modified or not, could only live in the presence of the synthetic enzyme that had been sprayed in combination with it. That latter compound __not to be found in nature__ would be consumed by the mold cells in their digestive process and none of those cells would be able to survive after the supply had been exhausted.
Another control factor was built into what would ordinarily be the reproductive function of the modified mold. The original infected cells would continue to function following reproduction, but the offspring cells did not contain functional nuclei. They virtually disintegrated shortly after generation and thus served no higher purpose than excretion. The cast-offs did not become either functional spores or mature cells, and they were not even capable of producing more retrovirus.
The initial growth of the unmodified mold was fantastically exponential. The infection, however, by the accompanying retrovirus was much slower in the preliminary stage. Only at the maximum concentration of the original mold in the treated area, would the modification of that mold by the virus proceed at a more significant rate, until finally the entirely modified mold had no reproductive function. The slime-mold cells would exist only to eat and excrete __converting the supplied enzyme into a sort of universal solvent to destructure and dissolve any organic matter within the invasion zone.
When there was no more to ingest, they would die and return __like their food__ to the basic substances that would support new life.
The voice mentioned casually __as if it were unimportant__ that the mold had the ability to fix nitrogen in the process and no significant production of carbon monoxide, or dioxide, or Greenhouse hydrocarbons like methane would occur. All was conserved.
Endo- and exothermic reactions balanced each other almost completely, so there was only a moderate decrease in temperature overall within the initial twenty-four hours of application. And the acidic nature of the soil had been effectively neutralized. Much of the oxygen that had been bound up in the organic matter consumed was released in the process, and there was a caution about lightning or other sources of combustion.
The narrator faded out slightly as he read a list of biota and trace elements that would have to be imported before the new land could be successfully farmed __in the order of desired introduction__ and an estimated time for the expansion to a viable population of each species.
The lecture came back to full volume in the monitor. The Englishman now departed from a strictly technical analysis to predict the most likely technical scenario for completion of the project, given the capabilities already demonstrated.
The trace elements to be introduced would be primarily distributed by genetically engineered microbes, similar in concept to those used to clean up oil spills in the sea. Parts of Hudson Bay, with its shallow bottom and lower salinity, could be used to aqua-farm those microbes as well as others that would provide natural fertilizers for the new farmlands.
The announcer sounded no more excited at the end of his segment of the report than he had at the beginning.
The TV flicked off, then on again. The next image was of a flattened area, not at all resembling the prior scenes. The sub-title, now flashing, showed that twenty-four hours had passed and a crew of men in hermetically sealed suits walked over what looked to be a loamy soil. They were driving herds of pigs and goats across the fertile wasteland, and a dozen takes, over a week-long period, showed that neither the animals nor the food left on the ground for them were harmed.
Fade to black. The men in black glanced at each other in the dim room. Each knew what the other had to be thinking and feeling __about the ghastly deaths __about the awesome power that had been displayed. That power in the hands of fallible men would inevitably be misused, of course; if not deliberately, then accidentally. Or, what if __someday, somehow __the reaction didn't stop? What if it were used as a weapon? There was a chill in the room then and Father Rankin felt himself begin to tremble.
He remembered the sophomoric late-night bull sessions of his seminary days; atheists and agnostics had carried out their versions in Greenwich Village coffee houses. The topic? What would happen in the far future when Man __trembling, of course__ would creep into God's Domain and perhaps begin to dabble amateurishly in the creation of Life? What moral, ethical and philosophical crises would rend Mankind apart?
That question had never been answered to anyone's satisfaction. No one had bothered taking the time. Those who could answer it were too busy with their Creation. If there was ever a point in time when the see-saw obviously tilted toward Man as would-be Living God, it had come and gone so quietly as not to be noticed.
The priest shivered in the draught of the future.
After ten seconds, the set came back to life.
The sparkling White Miter and Shepherd's Crook, and the snowy robes associated with the Vicar of Christ On This Earth, seemed to light the whole conference room. A gentle face appeared to notice the audience gradually, and a calm, accented voice began to speak haltingly in English.
Ten minutes later, two men in black suits and white collars __who had been shaken to their souls and beyond__ knelt on trembling knees to renew their oaths as Soldiers of Christ before the Grand Inquisitor of the Black Cross.
ELKPRONG, ALBERTA:
Diana Stuart could feel the strain that pervaded Theodore Langerhans' every move, and even the stillness as he read the contents of the sealed envelope. When he had finished the six pages of single-spaced text, the unfolded sheets were tucked into a blue intra-company envelope. Later, he would scan them personally, run them through the OCR to turn them into electronic data, and place the tape cartridge into the encryption device himself.
This was one delivery to the message center that he would not trust to Security personnel.
But first:
"What sort of questions did Carter ask of you?"
Diana said, "Mostly about my work, sir. Out at Ungava Bay. We also covered some of the crop products that are being prepared for introduction to cleared forest areas. I promised to check on the quantities of seed available for distribution. If that's all right with you, that is. Is it?"
Langerhans guessed that Carter was interested in seed levels to establish a probable timetable for clearing and planting. It was amusing: since the slime mold had only been employed once __and in a remote area of the Yakut Autonomous Republic, at that__ Carter should be shocked more than impressed by the true figures. Forest clearance for farming by conventional means was a massive engineering project on any major scale, with a lead time in years.
Say what you would about Lester Polewicz, Langerhans thought, he had really kept a tight rein on security for the bio-genetic research they had carried out for the last four years. He was blissfully unaware that such attention to detail had called for several fatal accidents. Contract or no, researchers lived to publish and sometimes died in the attempt.
"By all means, young lady," the money manager said. "I would very much appreciate a description of his face when he reads the figures. Our seed crops are well ahead of schedule, of course."
Diana was not too pleased with being addressed as "young lady." But, given the accent that pointed up his foreign upbringing, she decided not to make an issue out of it.
"Unless you have anything else to ask, Miss Stuart, I have to be upstairs shortly. Is there anything?"
"No, sir," she answered. "I ought to get back to the lab anyway."
"Perhaps then, Miss, we might have an opportunity to get better acquainted in a few months. There are many tangled issues that will be resolved before long, and there will be more time for socialization then."
"Perhaps, Mr. Langerhans," she agreed noncommittally. "If that's all?..." She left without pausing for his confirmation. Her schedule called for her to spend the next few weeks either in Edmonton or La Jolla. Then four weeks on the boat and three lovely months at Scripps in Southern California. She laughed a little to herself as she pictured the awkward Scotsman "socializing" by himself with whatever he kept under his kilts, if he ever wore any. Aside from business, the closest he came to a personal life __as far as anybody knew__ was his love for fishing. And that he did alone.
At least he was single. Phaethon was a real lecher __even with a wife and five kids that he kept conveniently far away. Diana's thoughts turned to the more pleasant, and disturbing, prospect of spending the evening with Alan Carter. The thought of that smooth head between her thighs again made her shiver.
The lady from La Jolla hoped that Lester Polewicz wouldn't get so jealous this time.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA:
After observing Weiner's approach to the meet, and circling the area with the scanner on for a while, I stopped at his corner with the Chevy sedan.
"Hey, sailor. You're new in town, aren't you?"
Ignoring the contemptuous look of an overstuffed matron walking her poodle, Morty grinned and hopped in. I took off while he was still looking for his seat belt. The RF meter was dead as a doornail.
I gave him an envelope with the INRI paper, six sheets worth.
"There's no way to be sure they won't just fax this stuff," I told him, "but I think they'll go with a text scan, encrypted."
"I don't know what's in it, so I'll just be agreeable," Morty said.
"And here's a tape cartridge on the Farm for Bracken. It'll be sent to the R.C.M.P. in Ottawa in a few hours. By the way, have you heard from Mac?"
"Yeah, he feels bad about covering up the way he says he did."
"If you get a chance, tell him not to worry about it. I was getting paranoid myself with all the attention. Besides that, there must be a million things he's afraid of getting caught for __besides knowing me."
"Well, right now he's on the side of the angels. Hey, what's the guy behind us honking about?" Morty wanted to know.
"Just an asshole, with the wind blowing through. How's Bracken taking this?" Jack's truck had been there to check for tails. His approach and single honk was the all-clear signal. Then he peeled off to head for the airport.
You can't have too many spare license plates.
"Bracken almost sounded nice on the phone," Morty said. "It's frightening. You've never met him, so you've got no idea how far he's slipped lately."
"Slipped?"
"Yeah, he's gone off the deep end. Twitches and everything. The old Bracken would have fired my ass out of the Agency as soon as look at me, for what I did on Zenkov. I must have been nuts to listen to you. Instead he sends me out here to hold your hand."
"Well, it all worked out, Morty," I apologized graciously. "And your guy Bracken didn't exactly give me any choice in the matter, anyway. What's the matter with him?"
"He keeps on cutting himself."
"Well, blades are better than labor pains."
"What? You know, Dick, sometimes_____"
"Forget it, Morty. Poor joke."
If Bracken's ancestors had come from Ulster, I thought to myself, it would have been a good joke. A trifle obscure, perhaps. Thank you, Grandma; you can let up now.
"Well, it's good anyway, that he's taking this seriously now. I think I'm off the shit-list for a while, anyway."
"How come, Dick? I never figured that."
"He wants something from me. What else? And I had a pleasant talk with him. I think he realizes I'm sincere."
Morty wouldn't buy that, I could tell. But he didn't ask again. He hasn't survived so many uneventful years in the CIA, without knowing what subjects to avoid.
We made arrangements for him to carry around the cartridges with the decrypted data until I contacted him again, the same way. The second meeting would be off by seven blocks west and three hours later.
Before I dropped him off, Morty advised me to get my beard trimmed. I'm not sure, but I think he caught on to the wig and fake beard. I hadn't intended to rely on them to fool a friend at close range.
After he left, I changed micro-cassettes in my tiny tape recorder and carefully labeled the used one. Who knows? I might need a little leverage on him someday.
Later, when I switched identities and dumped the car, there was some interesting news at the front desk for me __in the form of a question.
"Excuse me, Mr. Carter."
"Yes?"
"Will you be extending your stay beyond, say, three days?"
"Probably. Why do you ask?"
"Well, the World Council of Churches, you know?"
"I know what, my man?"
"Well, you know. Their meeting starts at the same time as the Aurora Compact in Ottawa and Montreal. We'd really like you to reserve your suite here for that period, if you're going to be staying that long."
"Where will the actual meetings be held?"
"Oh, here, of course," he said. "We have all the facilities, and the churchmen get such a charge out of being right in the middle of the Mall, with all the entertainment and the shops, you know."
As always, I replied graciously. "Like Victoria's Secret, you know." Carter's American Express Gold Card relieved the Front Desk Manager (Acting) of his anxieties.
The worst part of all that traipsing around was that I still had to change back later to the Bearded One and get out to Glowing Embers for a little down-home God shouting and bible thumping at the Lord's lime-green, rolling Paradise on Earth.
You've heard of "buying the Farm." Well, I was going to "sell the Farm." Like the Brooklyn Bridge, it would be best to sell it twice-over; once to the Mounties and once to the CIA. What the hell! I'd file an exclusive for Laguna with "Awake!" or "The Watchtower," too.
No, I wouldn't. The Ranger/Winnebago was registered in Laguna's name. That kind of hubris could get me killed in some very good company.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA:
Polewicz was interviewing two of his men in one of the Institute's leased hotel suites __the one next to Diana's actually. They were reporting on several of Tedeschi's agents that had been spotted at the seminary and followed back to the city area. There was now a twenty-four hour surveillance being maintained on them, at least two of his men for each of theirs at all times.
But that took almost all of the plainclothes security manpower he had available. The hotel being too public for "wet" operations, he decided to move his headquarters to an isolated farmhouse he maintained on the outskirts of a suburb called Stony Plain. That location was completely unknown to the conventional Security staff of the Institute. The house was situated in the center of a property __about four hundred hectares__ that was almost completely filled with orchards.
It would be his own special operatives who would take the reports of their agents and any prisoners and convey them there __to Polewicz's "safe house." They also maintained the perimeter guard.
The security administrator coughed, the pain in his chest a hangover from that evening at the cocktail party. But he pushed the pain aside, along with the memory.
The big old house was fully equipped with the latest data and communications apparatus, and three holding cells and an interrogation chamber had been constructed in the basement. Polewicz hoped to break them in that night. A weight-training room, with its free weights and exercise machines, took up half the basement level all by itself. Like a dancers' rehearsal hall, one wall was almost fully mirrored, with a stretching bar mounted along its full length. The flooring consisted of oak planks over the basement's concrete slab.
A box stood on a shelf in a corner of that room. And in that box were several metal trays that contained certain implements, a few of plastic or glass, some of fiber, mostly of steel. No, they were not instruments of torture; though there were a few restraining devices, including conventional handcuffs. Still, they'd call for speculation on the part of anyone who found them. The devices could just not be dismissed; they were_____ interesting.
It had been overwhelmingly important to Polewicz to have someplace where he was in total control and the three-story Gothic mansion was just that, especially the basement. Selling the South Africans out had brought him this reward and would bring him much, much more in the future __if he was careful. One bad slip and the unstoppable slide could still begin.
Just three months before, Bakker had jumped down his throat about this property __accusing him of empire-building__ and it hadn't even been fortified then. He had played some games with the bitch, blindfolded her and brought her to the building for a little privacy. She'd loved it. Just the thought of dragging her down those stairs, blindfolded, gave him an erection again.
But he'd found Bakker's pipeline __his spy__ the hard way. Only the fancy footwork of the born weasel had gotten him out of that one.
This late in the game Lester Polewicz was nearly his own man again, though. Soon he would be invulnerable. And then he could always invite Diana Stuart over again, one way or another, when he got bored playing with the others.
Chapter 22
"...I have heard you preach
That malice was a great and grievous sin;
And will you not maintain the thing you teach,
But prove a chief offender in the same?"
First Henry VI, Shakespeare
EDMONTON, ALBERTA:
While I was dumping all my data on the Farm to the Mounties, there was some time to kill. I'd have given a lot to see their faces when it came in, but it might be weeks before they acted on the information, unless we goosed them. The Redcoats would be pumping Bracken shortly for whatever he had that wasn't in my report, though. And he wouldn't dare hold back. Meanwhile, I got to have a short heart-to-heart with Mickey.
"Uncle, what was it like for us in the old days. I mean before things got tight, like they are now."
I grimaced. "Hey, remember kid! I'm only ten or twelve years older than your brother, and I only got to live the Life part-time. There's a song about the Travellers that the Clancy Brothers sing. Ever hear it?"
"Yeah, it sounds like fun," he said. "That's what I mean. What was it like back then?"
"About the song, Mickey. Don't believe it. The years you're talking about were way before my time, but it's always been a hardscrabble life. Half the time your norch was in a sea of mud, and the local law, the shajooks, would be looking to throw your thoor in the reshpoon, just because you didn't belong to the country hantel, because you were free."
"It sounds better than sitting in some schoolroom."
"It was mostly boredom __either the boredom of manual labor or that of under-employment__ relieved occasionally by nagging uncertainty and gnawing anxiety. Why do you think your father wants you out of it? It's like that last Godfather picture, where Pacino wants to get his family away from the Mafia, and they won't let him."
"Christ, we're not that bad," Mickey swore.
"Depends on who you ask, kid. There's a lot of shit Travellers do to survive that we're not too proud of. Even your father and your brother, though they're both fine gentlemen, have compromised a few principles to put food on the table for the kids, or to buy gas to get over the county line. It's not always easy, Mick. You've got no idea how much your father had to sacrifice to keep you in school long enough to graduate. Just for starters, building a home in North Carolina so you'd have a place to go to school. Then he had to stay on the road himself and make a living for you all while you were growing up; sleeping in flea-bag motels for weeks at a time instead of being at home with his family."
"Well, a high school diploma don't count for much today, Uncle Richard."
"Mickey. Tell you what: just call me Dick, will you? I'm getting to feel my age enough, as it is."
"Ok, Un____ Dick."
"Thanks. At least with a diploma you can get more education if you want it. No diploma, no options. No college, or trade school, or even any decent manual job. Shit, you can't even get into the Army without a diploma. Not that many of our illustrious ancestors ever tried."
"What's this dookering?"
"I really don't know much about it, except what my grandmother taught me, when I lived with her. She was your great-grand-aunt, and that was in Newark, New Jersey __in the slums. Grandma was long dead by the time you came along, Mickey."
"What's it like, telling fortunes?" he wanted to know. His eyes lit up. He liked the damned idea.
"Bullshit. You want to get good advice for success, don't go to somebody who lives in a storefront or a trailer. She was illiterate, poor as a church mouse and she had a lousy marriage. Her children were unlucky to the point of tragedy; that's the only word for it. But she still had a reputation for giving good council to other people with her cards, I have to admit. I play with the Tarot once in a while; she got along with a regular deck."
"Where did she learn to tell fortunes?"
"Traveling around the U.S.A; from the old Traveller beuers at the campsites where they'd stop. She had come from Ireland when she was three, with her two sisters and two nieces; already promised to marry the five Quirk brothers eventually. Their parents set it up. And they were cousins, to boot, the men and the women __three of whom were also named Quirk. Or maybe I should say girls; Grandma was fourteen when she married."
"How did they meet?"
"Here and there; on caravans; at campsites. But the marriages were all arranged by letter."
"What about love?"
"Well," I waffled, "there was little love lost between them."
"What do you mean?" He wouldn't let it go. We've all been raised on love stories to the point where we've forgotten what a luxury the genuine article is.
"They hated each other from the first," I admitted. "Both of them would cheerfully have strangled the other after a short acquaintance."
"But they got married, anyway. Are you kidding me?"
"No, Mickey. When you're illiterate, an arranged marriage by letter is a big thing, like a contract. She went through with it. And they had six kids, not counting at least one that was still-born."
"So there was a happy ending, then."
"Do you ever wonder why we don't talk about them, Mick?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "It never came up, that's all."
"Someday, maybe when you'd be getting married or you're about ten years older, your dad would have had a word with you about it. Just once __maybe twice in your life__ you and he would talk about it, and then you'll do the same with your kids."
"What is it __something wrong?"
"You might say that." -Yeah, if you have a gift for understatement- "There's a good side: no big diseases. You've got to take an ax to the old folks to get rid of them. There's little cancer, and nobody seems to die of what little there is, anyway; at least not in the Quirk line. Generations of the Life have mostly weeded out those in the Family who would die young from natural causes, it seems."
Un-natural causes remained conveniently ignored.
"But there's a down side too," I went on, "a dark stain in the blood of the Traveller Quirks. Lots of times we don't understand what other people take for granted, our limitations. You know: it's like we own whatever part of the world that we're standing on. All of Gentleman Jim Quirk's relatives, especially his direct descendants, have some of that bad blood __the same blood he inherited__ in us."
"I don't believe in that stuff," Mickey said. "Maybe some sickness or another, but none of this 'bad blood'."
I wished that I could agree with him. The know-it-all took over then. I thought of a slogan I'd once seen: No matter how cynical I get, I still can't seem to keep up. With reality, I presume. "Mickey, there's too much evidence that a lot of what we think of as personality is in the genes, just like hair color, or blue eyes. Take identical twins __separated at birth__ never knowing each other; it's no big surprise that they'll look alike. Or act somewhat like each other. After all, the way we behave is partly determined by other peoples' reaction to us, and that depends an awful lot on how we look, doesn't it?"
The younger man nodded reluctantly, following the argument.
"What is strange, Mickey, is that their wives, and jobs and hobbies will often look alike too; __things like their favorite colors and songs__ way too often to be just pure chance. I figure twins raised apart are sometimes even more alike than those raised together because they don't have each other to react against, and it could be that their genetic personality components have more freedom to express themselves. Take my word for it; Jim Quirk is dead but his curse is not."
"Ok. So what happened with your grandmother and grandfather, anyway?"
"You can wait for it, Mickey. Believe me, you won't be happy to hear all about it when you do. Talk to your dad. It's his job to tell you when he thinks the time is right. How about making some coffee?"
There wasn't an awful lot on the videotape of the cocktail party at the Institute, just some mumbling in Phaethon's immediate circle about a symbiotic mold twenty-three and a retrovirus. I couldn't hear all of it even after it had been enhanced. And I certainly didn't understand all that I heard, but it sounded like they were talking about cancer in describing the effects.
Then back to the hotel, to wait for Diana. I was beginning to feel like the flic leading two lives in Irma la Deuce. And the apprehension was growing in me that John McGovern was not going to be too happy with my meddling in something that Mickey shouldn't have to worry about yet. Our heritage was and is on my mind too much, it seems.
But we had worse things to worry about __I just didn't know about them then.
Before I became Alan Carter again, I checked out the tap on Diana's room. An unused interior line was permanently accessing the Infinity Transmitter in her telephone, and a mini-cassette tape recorder tucked in behind the telephone conduits was hooked up to the tap, since I assumed that our room would be searched for such equipment, as well as anything else interesting. Everything that shouldn't belong was kept concealed in the pick-up cabs and car trunks, or carried around with us.
The cassette was full. How likely could that be? It was voice-activated, of course. I plugged in an earphone and listened to some of it.
Her room had an active anti-bugging device in it. There was nothing on the tape but a rush of "white" noise, electronically induced. The volume variations were sharp enough to have triggered the VOX circuit; the one that should have only activated the recorder if it detected a non-periodic sound like the human voice.
Was it a standard procedure because the Institute leased the room on a permanent basis? I wondered. Or did Diana have something special to hide? In any event, I pulled the tap. No doubt they'd sweep the room on a regular basis and find the device in her telephone handset. Nothing there to connect it to us, though. If I had the opportunity, I'd pull that too, but doing so wasn't worth taking even a slight risk.
UKRAINIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE VILLAGE, ALBERTA:
"Father Zenkov?"
The voice had come from the rear of the small meeting house, Kiew Hall, which had been made available to them for the occasion.
"Yes?" Zenkov's lapin-like features pretended only polite interest, but the hand and voice raised in question belonged to one of his own confidants, planted in the back of the audience.
That cool Sunday evening, the most influential Ukrainian-Canadian citizens of Alberta had been invited to discuss the ramifications of the Aurora Compact, not just the most prosperous farmers, but also Ukrainian-language newspaper editors and community leaders.
"Yes?" Zenkov prompted his stooge again. Shit, he thought, don't tell me the idiot has stage fright.
"What about compensation for our land, Father?"
"No matter what the government promises, there can be no compensation. The unnatural weather, ill-placed droughts and floods will beggar the economy of the U.S., and their dis-enfranchised will stampede north to overwhelm us in the millions. Those with the least, those on welfare, those on dope __those who rob and kill to survive__ they will be the first to show up." Sporadic cries of protest throughout the hall interrupted the priest. He held his arms up in placation and continued, "And, by the time the other eighty percent seek refuge, when all of their means have been exhausted, those people whom we might have welcomed as friends in need will be as desperate and as grasping as their forerunners. They will outnumber us ten to one. We ourselves will be at our wits end already to adapt to the changing conditions, to feed our own families."
A red-faced man at the front of the crowd yelled out, "The government would never stand for it. We'd fight before giving up a single hectare of land." Surprisingly, this opposition voice was also one of Zenkov's men.
"Outnumbered hundreds to one, against tanks, and planes, and atomic weapons? Look how Americans fear their own under-class there. A defense of our homes against the first of the refugees would be considered an attack on their country itself, and __after that first capitulation__ it would be too late."
He paused for effect and lowered his head, as if praying. Resuming in a few seconds, Zenkov raised his head, looking straight at his confronter and said, "My friend, you talk of war to a man of peace, to men and women of peace. That is not our way now and that must not be our path in the future."
There was resounding applause to that, starting from the back of the room. The only three women present were the most enthusiastic in their response.
"We must continue to invest in our future, the North Country. As you all know, for some years now we have been staking a claim to an ever increasing territory in the vast timberlands. There are still matching funds and mortgage money available for the purpose, and we must purchase about ten times the present area to eventually have a solid claim on the enclave that may someday be known as Galicia." Zenkov paused for the effect of that age-old name from their proud history to sink in.
From the front again: "How will we ever pay those mortgages back? The land will take years to reclaim and the soil isn't right for farming." The red-faced man asked what they all feared.
Zenkov pointed to him and said, "You raise two valid points. Do you mind if I answer them one at a time?" The crowd laughed at the mild, good-natured jest. If Bakker could have watched the bucktoothed priest handling the crowd, he would have more easily understood the his ability to influence important events.
The red-faced man gave the priest an abashed nod.
"The first is the question of land clearance," Zenkov said. "I have been working with the New World Institute in Edmonton. Many of you already know that. I am not at liberty to give you any details, but I assure you on my honor as a priest and a Ukrainian __on my mother's grave__ that a foolproof way to do so exists. And at a cost of less than twenty dollars per hectare. The same technology can be applied to road-clearing for preliminary access. The cleared land can be planted successfully after two months and a further investment of fifty dollars per hectare for sowing trace minerals where needed and transplanting life-forms such as appropriate insects and earth-worms."
"But the podzol soil, the acidity_____"
Zenkov didn't let him finish. "The Ph of the soil is close to 7 __neutral__ after the initial treatment is complete, and the soil is also adequately fertilized, as well. That treatment takes only twenty-four hours and can be handled by a single crop-duster, one airplane that can clear two thousand hectares -five thousand acres- in an average day."
"How can the soil be fertilized, Father? How? Out of thin air?"
Zenkov held up his arms to quell the seemingly endless repetition of that question in one form or another. "Exactly, my friend," he said. "The most critical ingredient is nitrogen, of course. The Institute has found a way to combine the lungwort lichen and reindeer moss so that we add nitrogen to our soil every time we plow it. There are already many years worth of potash and phosphorus in the humus produced from the decomposed trees and more is readily available from Saskatchewan and Hudson Bay. Water management plans for the area call for the construction of locks in addition to flood control dams on our rivers. The basic cost of transportation by barge, even up-river, is projected to be less than two cents per kilogram each thousand kilometers. The only motive force to be used will be flowing water and non-polluting hydroelectric power."
The resulting tumult drowned Zenkov out. He held his arms up to calm the crowd down, but the audience continued to discuss the astounding cost figures in little cliques for minutes. The priest gave up and took another sip of the water. He knew they'd be back to hear more. He wondered off to the side.
Zenkov hadn't told them what invention of the Institute had impressed him the most. They would have been frightened of the specialized microbes that needed no oxygen, absorbed targeted minerals from the sea and its bottom, and then died in the service of man. Their minuscule corpses, swollen with gasses they could not tolerate, then floated to the surface with their burdens to be harvested.
Others were weighted so heavily with valuable ores that they had to be dredged by the ton from the ocean bottom. Some processed their targets into insoluble salts without consuming them, and so continued to live on as their output was dredged.
Phosphorus, manganese, even mercury cleansed from the sea, and especially_____especially gold.
Gold! Zenkov hungered for that gold. Seeing that hunger, and others, Bakker had been careful not to mention that the particular bacterium that absorbed phosphates from the sea, a Citrobacter species, also loaded up with nine times its own dry weight of uranium in the process. That technology had been copied secretly from existing research at the University of Birmingham, in the U.K..
"Father!" They were demanding more of him now.
Power! Zenkov hungered for that power.
"Yes?" Zenkov knew the next question, even though the person asking it was not among his agents that night.
"Have you seen this yourself, and gone over all of the figures?" It was a newspaper editor __incredulous.
"Yes, I have." The priest lied, but only technically. He had seen the test video while in Carouge.
"Why has it been kept a secret, then?"
"Because it increases the value of scrub timberland a thousand times over. Can you imagine the Government of Canada allowing us to buy up the amount of land we need to survive at the current prices, if they knew? Do you believe that the United States would not immediately annex Canada if the financial powers that control Washington" __Zenkov looked around meaningfully__ "and Ottawa, were to learn the value of the people and the land that they have ignored so long?"
One of the editors present called out to the speaker, "Why are you dropping the secrecy now?"
The priest looked at the news group at the front of the room and raised the index fingers of each hand to get everybody's attention. "We do not drop the secrecy. We share our knowledge with you voluntarily and ask you to join us in keeping it confidential."
"But we are newsmen. We cannot cover up the truth." There was a quick, nodding agreement among the small news clique.
Zenkov was prepared for that. He had argued for the inclusion of the Ukrainian-language newsmen, and now used the same mixture of arguments that had satisfied the Institute as to his judgement.
The priest spoke softly. "Are you not Canadians? And Ukrainians? Are you not the parents of children who will starve or be enslaved by worthless foreigners? Are you not men who have helped to build a prosperous farming community, watching a horde of locusts approaching? And you know that the locusts will take everything you have built for your families and destroy it, even as they die because they will not plant and reap for themselves."
"But I am a newspaperman and a radio reporter. I have an obligation______"
"And I am a single, unconfirmed source who will deny what you report, as will my associates here tonight, if you betray our trust. And this would be the last time any of your constituency trusted you, in that event."
Zenkov took another pull at the glass.
His agent at the back of the room yelled out, "But, why now?"
"Why now?" the priest repeated loudly. "Why? So that our news friends can prepare for a story __so that they can prepare our people for a story to come that will shake our community to its very roots. It is with mixed emotions that I tell you this, my friends, but at the very time of the Aurora Compact meetings, an awesome event will occur. Even as a desperate Ottawa government prepares to sign over your lands to the Americans, we have information that the French of Quebec and the Indians of the northern interior provinces will separate their nations from the Confederation."
"How can you know this?"
"I have been told so by 'unimpeachable sources'." Zenkov exposed his upper incisors even more than normally in an expression that could have either been a smile or a grimace. "But I ask for nothing from you on faith. My only request is that you be prepared __and that you prepare other influential Ukrainians to support their movement."
"What?" "What in God's name_____" "What the hell_____" The confusion was a pandemonium; the reaction, one of astonishment.
Zenkov raised both hands for absolute silence, which took minutes to arrive.
"This is the answer to the second question: this is how you will pay back the mortgages. From that point on, we will be purchasing the land from the First Canadians, probably at a tenth the current asking price. The sale of our lands and homes in lower Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba will repay the new mortgages and leave billions for investment capital. The value of what we now own will skyrocket for a time as the croplands further south fail and we must immediately re-invest the money in land while it is still worth something."
Then he explained the benefits of dissolution to them. He displayed for them, verbally, his version of the future that would save their children and give them an opportunity to save the world for civilization.
Following his exposition, the priest of deception called for a common prayer to guide their efforts and asked for an Orthodox priest also present to lead them in it.
As the meeting closed __after everybody had their say__ Father Zenkov stepped up to the lectern again, and requested silence. He needed a clincher. "Friends, our Nation __Canada__ is not Ottawa. It is not merely a Confederation, nor is it to be found in parliaments, and certainly not in financial board rooms. Canada is the dream that belonged to the pioneers who founded this country, and we are the last of those pioneers." There was sustained applause which he hushed.
He continued, "Let the others destroy the ties between themselves, as they will. We will carry forward that dream, the dream of Canada. In the future, no doubt, we will sing another anthem_____in Ukrainian. That is our right, even our duty to our Mother tongue and culture. But before we leave tonight, I ask you to sing with me, perhaps for the last time, the anthem of our childhood_____ 'O Canada'."
And so they sang __holding hands__ tears streaming down their cheeks as they cried for the passing of their country. And while they sang, their hopes for salvation were collected and placed into the hands of the master of sedition and betrayal who sang and cried along with them, even as he counted the days and tasks remaining until he collected what was due him.
It would be a lot more than thirty pieces of silver, at any rate.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA:
The clear mirrored tiles behind the Jacuzzi must have been specially treated, because they should have been steamed up for at least two good reasons. One of which was the Jacuzzi, and the other was the reflected image of a naked Diana sitting on the edge of the tub, being lovingly soaped up by a human luffee. And while I was making sure that each and every lovely erogenous zone was spotless, she was merely washing my scalp.
The disparity of our labors soon seemed to distress her, and after much sighing and a few outcries from her, I found myself seated above the small pool, with Diana cleaning me up and cleaning me out. Turnabout is foreplay.
Anticipation is great, but nowhere near ninety percent of the pleasure.
While resting from our hygienic labors, Diana and I made some small talk, took another nap, and played another tune or two on each other. It was now taking me longer and longer, instead of getting that way. The hiatus was over and it was business as usual. More sack time; I'd see what came up in the morning.
The mirrors were there again. Even as I knew that Diana and I shared a large round bed in a pseudo-Roman room, part of me was looking into those cold mirrors, strangely lit with flickering fire.
There were two mirrors that I was slowly walking toward, around a slight bend. Only when I was within reach of whatever was in there, would I be able to see what it was. There was no turning back, although I desperately wanted to avoid a confrontation with the other side.
Closer and closer.
A man was walking toward me on the other side of the left hand mirror, a man with eyeglasses on, a hypodermic needle in one hand and a pillow in the other. His reflection threatened me in the other one.
I came close enough to the two mirrors, each with its menace, to see them as one, and pushed through to the other side. As soon as I did, I was lying down __outside my head now__ watching the man advance toward me in the dim light coming through the picture window.
A "pop" sounded from the doorway end of the room, and the front of the pillow-man's head suddenly had a big black patch in the middle of the forehead. I heard a "thump" from the wall above the bed and felt a spray of mist on my face. His eyeglasses disappeared and the patch turned to a fat exclamation point as the ink spread down toward the man's nose. Slowly he knelt first, and then tilted over toward my side of the bed onto the floor, quietly.
"Miss Stuart?" A whisper it was, one that sounded Dutch. The pistol slowly came into my field of view, preceded by a noise and flash suppressor that looked as big as a caulking gun __and followed by another intruder in the night. He made no noise on the thick carpet.
Diana went, "Mpph," or something like that. The second intruder, apparently reassured, turned to inspect his handiwork on the floor.
He might have saved my life, I suppose. But who can know these things for sure? So I made sure that the pistol was pointed away from us when I hit him over the head with the room phone. Sure enough, the gun went off with another "pop."
The clobbering and popping sounds had finally brought my companion around to something resembling a waking state. While she was trying to get it together, I delicately kicked the cocked pistol away from its owner's hand, and checked out the pillow and the needle. The pillow smelled like a sweet solvent on one side, probably chloroform. The hypodermic was empty, which sent a chill up my spine.
"Alan?" A tentative query. I didn't answer.
"Did you trip on something?" There was concern in her voice. I didn't answer. Once again, necessity made the decisions.
Anger? Hurt? Desperation? Regret? What was I feeling?
Nothing. Flat nothing.
"Are you all right?" Diana called. Again, no answer from whoever it was who was now me.
I didn't know how; I didn't know why, but Diana had betrayed me. Somehow.
It only took about thirty seconds of the pillow to put Diana back to sleep, and about five minutes of dressing and smearing anything my prints might have been left on. Remembering the spray, I wiped my face and hair with a washcloth, rinsed it carefully and took the Infinity Transmitter from the phone as I left.
It occurred to me to wonder whether the empty needle had been for both of us or just for one of us, and exactly which one. And then there was the "Miss Stuart?" to worry about.
John McGovern and I left like thieves in the night. There was no telling just whom the first intruder was after. The second seemed to be on Diana Stuart's side, whatever that was. I coached John with an alibi of our having been kidnapped at gunpoint, kept separately, and eventually released by unknown masked men. If we were picked up together, we had been released together; separately, if not. I didn't expect to need it, but you never know.
"So what was the needle for if it was empty then?"
"Only one reason to have it, Uncle. And that's to kill somebody with a minimum of fuss."
I explained to him about air embolisms, and while we headed for the motor home in the rented Chevy, just how the needle mark could be hidden in a crease or fold of the skin. He held the steering wheel and I held my hands to keep them still, which kind of made him nervous. He calmed his nerves and mine by talking a little too much. "You know, Richard, I was thinking that you were going a little overboard on that girl. I mean, that's not why we came here, and there are people walking around killing other people up here. Not really our type of thing, you know. And we like to see you have a good time, and all, but not if you're going to get yourself hurt. Or somebody else."
"Yeah, I was getting a little too deep into deep cover, as they say on television. Now I'd say that we've learned about as much as we can here, kicking chimneys. The Institute is blown to the Canadian government, and it's only a matter of time until they're taken down."
"And the Monsignor?"
"We have to walk away from him, anyway," I admitted, "and he certainly didn't kill the boys. The worst I can figure is that he got them involved in something that got them killed. He says it was Orlando that did it, as far as he knows."
"What now, then?" he asked.
"I vote we go back to Elphingstoke and wait for Orlando to take it on the run. What do you say? Then we take the kids and go home, John McGovern."
"Sounds all right to me."
I had the feeling that our Anglo-Irish bridges might be burning behind us anyway. Too bad, but perhaps a Traveller named Richard Quirk might find his way to La Jolla some day. It's possible! Maybe even likely. It could be I'll get my nose reset, while I'm at it. Maybe Diana had been on the up and up.
No, she hadn't, cried my soul.
"Let's get the hell out of here as soon as we can, then," I said.
"Good idea, Nephew. Speaking of fine ladies, there's one named Agatha that I'd like you to meet __that is, after you grow back some hair. I'd hate to scare her off with the family skeleton in our closet."
"I've been out of the closet for years, Uncle John."
When we got to the motor home we found nothing but four bodies, three of them dead.
You are at Fiction 1, Chapters 21 & 22