Fiction 1, Chapters 23 & 24

Chapter 23

"Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage

In rash attempts, beyond thy tender age,

Betray'd by pious love?"

Aeneid, Virgil

WINTERBURN, ALBERTA:

Earlier, Jack and Allison had gotten out of the pick-up and walked hand in hand to the motor home door. He used his key to unlock the door and opened it for Allison to enter first. They didn't turn the lights on because Mickey would be sleeping on the couch in the front of the coach. So Allison went on back, while Jack made a pit stop in the small bathroom.

Back in the bedroom, Allison cornered Jack as he entered through the sliding door and she pressed herself against him, her hands cupping the cheeks of his backside. He kissed her two or three times, gently, and then longer, deeper and more passionately, his fingers unbuttoning her blouse.

A soft noise outside alerted Jack. He placed a finger on her lips to warn her and glided around the windows to glance briefly out of each, while Allison retrieved the shotgun from the closet. There was a smash of glass from the front of the motor home.

"Get to the floor, quick," he said, in a soft tone that nevertheless brooked no opposition. Allison dropped without question and he did the same, crawling partway through the doorway to check out the front.

"What is it?" Allison's tone was soft __her voice anxious but controlled.

"Tear gas, to force us out. Stay low and you'll be all right for a minute or two. Go into the bathroom and lock the door. Wet a towel to put over your face for breathing, and even cover your eyes with it. They'll expect us to come out of the door on the sidewalk side. I'm going out the emergency window __on the other side__ with the shotgun. Wish me luck."

The emergency window, at that moment, was struck by a projectile that bounced off, but another tear gas grenade was lobbed through the partly open rear window. Pulling the window screen after it, it landed on the floor. Allison started to reach for it to throw it back, but Jack stopped her __ pushing her toward the bathroom door. They clung to each other for a second, before they took their stations.

He cautiously approached the grenade with a tentative hand. It was fiercely hot, too hot to touch without getting burned. To cover it with anything would start a fire. Tossing a clock through the window on the other side to mask any sound, Jack quickly lifted the lever-latch on the emergency exit window and rolled himself over and out __scurrying under the motor home as soon as he hit the ground rolling. He tucked himself up behind the wheels as much as possible __masking his silhouette__ while he took stock of his opponents.

There had been shots fired as he had exited, fortunately not on target. Just three in a burst on the way down, and another burst of three that had struck the tires. One man then __on that side. There were five shells, maximum, in the shotgun Jack cradled. He assumed the safety was "on" and pushed it "off." At least he hoped there were five, with a round in the breech. If not, his first shot would be an embarrassing little "click."

There! Half bent over, the gunman was trying to make out if Jack could be outlined against the general illumination of the overhead lights in the RV park. Jack lined up the tritium-tipped sights on the deer gun and pulled the trigger. The flash and noise of its discharge under the motor home was like a thunderbolt.

The targeted gunman was picked up and tumbled four or five feet further away, having taken the entire load of buckshot right in the chest. One down! But his machine pistol had been flung into the darkness and Jack dared not spend the time to find it.

Jack scurried around to the outside of the large tandem wheels as the underside of the trailer was raked by fully automatic fire, from at least two, perhaps three guns. He slung the shotgun over his right shoulder and __stepping on the top of the now-flat tires, grabbing an exhaust fan cover and a vent-pipe__ he quickly scrambled up to the roof of the RV.

Trying to keep flat and control his breathing, Jack unslung the shotgun and waited for his enemies to come around the trailer, looking. At least one of them would regret finding him.

But almost at once, there was the sound of automatic fire from the other side again. Jack could feel the impact of the slugs as they pierced the side of the coach body, and he could hear the ricochets of the bullets as they struck anything metal at an off-angle. Panicking for Allison and Mickey __and raising himself up to get the mass-assassin__ Jack briefly heard another gun firing from a different direction, felt a burning shock to his chest and a knock on the head.

And the battle was over.

The two surviving invaders consulted. "Corky's bought it. Now we've got to clean the whole nest out. You check the other side and make sure nobody gets away. I'll take the main door on this side. I'll shoot from the center to the back. You shoot from the back of the drivers door toward the front, and punch the lock off the driver's door. When you're ready, yell out __and wait for me to give the word. Then we dive in, make sure they're dead, and we get out. Stay low and don't shoot me when we go in. Got that?"

"Right," the other confirmed.

Easier said than done. RV doors are of sandwiched construction and open outward. Mine are locked with two deadbolts apiece. They made a sieve out of each door without being able to get either open. Finally, as the junior survivor looked at the senior, the latter signaled him to stop. They had each used a full magazine on the doors without positive result. No doubt an alarm had already been raised; although __at this time of year__ the secluded park was almost deserted.

"Let's get a tire iron from the trunk," one of them suggested.

"Ok. We can bring up the car to pick up Corky." They both turned away toward their automobile, which had been left about a hundred feet away. When they were halfway there, Mickey and Allison kicked open the main door of the motor home and stumbled blindly out, thinking the danger was past and desperate for fresh air.

The two assassins turned as one to execute their targets. When they saw Allison and Mickey blinded by tears in the lamplight, one of them said, "Oh, shit, Martin. They're only kids." The other nodded grimly without answering.

Nevertheless, they had both raised their guns to fire when two shadows behind them separated from the silhouette of their vehicle and assumed a handgun firing stance. No suppressors there. They'd been removed for the sake of accuracy and firepower __"night discipline" had already been compromised__ and laser spotters had been substituted. Clamped under the barrels of their semi-automatic pistols, below the slide, their ruby beams could not clear the bulky suppressor tubes when those were screwed into place.

Two backs, two red dots on them, two shots, two targets down, two head shots and kick the guns away. All by the book.

Allison and Mickey were quickly hand-cuffed from behind and thrown into the back of the car. Jack's body was ignored and a quick search of the trailer produced the backup diskettes and tape cartridges, along with several nine-inch reels of blank tape. But they had no way to know the reels of tape were blank. Then they were off cross-country in their four-wheel drive sedan.

We couldn't have pulled into the area more than five minutes later. I just didn't want to believe what we had found.

Uncle John was staring at his older son's body with its bloody head wound __half hanging off the roof. He was too stunned to cry. I picked up the dropped shotgun and cleared the action by ejecting a round, then reloading it into the tube again.

Checking the inside told me what I needed to know; that there was nothing and nobody left there that we cared about. I grabbed a couple of sheets and tied them together. The ladder mounted on the back of the motor home got me up to the roof, and I started to tie the sheets around Jack's chest, under the arms, to lower him gently down. Even I had more sense than to just pull him off the roof and dump him on the ground in front of his grieving father.

Jesus Christ! The blood over the front of his shirt was from a flesh wound across his chest, and the mess on the side of his head was mostly matted hair and blood from a crease on the right side of his skull. I didn't find anything else. He was breathing __although it was shallow__ and his pupils were pinpoints even in the dim illumination of the parking lot.

"John! Uncle John! He's going to be all right. Snap out of it. Grab him quick. We have to get him to a hospital." I took one minute flat to grab everything loose on the three dead bodies and salvage the two machine pistols I had found along with the remaining ammo and the shotgun. I reassured my uncle that the trailer was empty of bodies, that Mickey and Allison probably gotten away.

We left Jack at the Glenrose Hospital with a story about him getting hit by a load of pipe falling off a truck. By the time that they began to doubt it, I was gone.

John McGovern had yet to say a word, or do anything really but tremble. All the way to the hospital, he had stroked Jack's forehead, not really believing that Jack would live or that he would ever see his younger son again. A beaten man.

Like hell he was. After a couple of hours, when we still hadn't connected with the kids, the "Little Colonel" was all for grabbing the "machine-guns," and holding the Institute for hostage. We were in a newly rented motel room by then, but there were fall-back telephone numbers that Mickey and Allison both knew about.

Now all we had that was definitely not compromised was a shotgun, the two Ingram machine-pistols, ammo, some knives and pepper spray, a notebook computer, the brown "black box," and our heads. Well, I wasn't too sure about my head.

I tried logic on him, and after a long skull session, it worked. Say what you will about the stubborn old bastard __and I love him__ once you've explained something to his satisfaction, you don't have to do it ever again. It's tough to hammer something into him, but by the time he's accepted it he's definitely convinced. From then on, he's a hundred percent on your side.

"Uncle, we've got to disappear until we can figure out where the kids are and how to get them out." Once I convinced him that they'd start sending us fingers and toes __one at a time__ if they knew where to send them to or even if they knew we were paying attention, he bought the entire package. That also meant staying away from Jack in the hospital.

"John, we've got two things working for us. Polewicz is stupid, and Polewicz is stupid." That was tougher. I tried to explain how if Polewicz was so stupid, he could be winning and we were losing. Actually, I figured some organizational genius had come over from South Africa originally, and handed a top-flight team over to Polewicz in a turn-key operation. Big mistake. But he was taking our asses, two to nothing so far. There was no doubt about that.

The hard way to do it would be to trail Polewicz around, without getting tagged at it. I planned to put the CIA on that. The easy way was a long-shot. A computer virus. They had stolen my backups. Wrong!

My computers have their operating systems altered to encrypt my backups, and they install a special virus on them as well. The virus on each of the tapes and diskettes is canceled out when my systems, and only my systems, restore the data on them to their hard disks. My little electronic germ does some funny things to other computers, even if they only read my directory of files.

Well, we would see. A simple check of Laguna's account, periodically, would let me know when and if it had worked. I reminded myself to call the service in the morning, and let them know I was expecting anything up to a dumpster-load full of data. Oh yeah, and to buy a new gun-cleaning kit of the one-size fits all variety.

"Here's what happened, John," I told him. "This clown comes into Diana's room to kill somebody __me or Diana, presumably. Somebody else shoots him, somebody who didn't know I was in the room at all. Right? What's that tell us? Come on, Uncle, what? Ok. It tells us he was following the first guy, not me."

John McGovern was looking at me like I was from Mars.

"Then another group goes out to the motor home," I continued, "apparently following Jack, to kill people there, and they get themselves knocked off pretty much like killer number one. Very efficiently, too."

"So?"

Well, that's a little progress. "So killers one, three, four, five are probably connected to each other, and so are killers two, six and up, depending on how many took out the two we found at the motor home. Take a look at this." I held up a couple of bloody brown scraps of cloth with religious pictures and prayers on them. The scraps were joined by cloth strings that bound them together. "From killer five, the one that Jack snagged. A scapular. There's some kind of superstition __or maybe I should call it a tradition__ that you go straight up to heaven if you die wearing one. These are Bruno's boys, the bloodthirsty ones."

John fingered the blood-soaked scapular. He looked grimly at me and said, "It looks like the bastard took his test flight on it tonight."

Now I see where Jack gets it from. I know that deadliness sure didn't come from Aunt Molly.

"Killer number two, who took care of number one for me, had a South African accent. So he was from the Institute, following Bruno's boys around. The same with the ones who cleaned up the motor home wreckers. They were following the priests __or whatever they were__ and the priests were following Jack."

Uncle John just gave me a weary look. "That all right, Nephew, I'm not blaming you." Caught in the defensive act.

"Maybe you should, Uncle. We got careless at that party, and I think Tedeschi recognized Jack's voice from the kidnapping. I should have seen this coming." I should have, really.

"Spilt milk now, Richard. It was just bad cess. We'll just wait and hope you're right that the kids won't be hurt too badly if it serves no purpose. But when we find them, God help the men who took them." He spat on the carpet as though it covered their graves.

We went to sleep, or tried to.

MUNDARE, ALBERTA:

Later on that evening the three men of God, all of them now dressed in black suits and Roman collars, waited for the telephone to ring. The conference room at the Seminary of St. Basil had the extraordinary atmosphere of a War Room; although none of the customary appurtenances of tactical and strategic planning were present.

The resident instructors and seminarians had long since retired for the night, as the three anticipated a successful conclusion to the twin operations that had been planned for the evening.

The elder priest, Father Rankin, lit up a cigarette. "Who do you suppose they really are?"

Tedeschi grimaced at the cigarette smoke drifting toward him and replied, "What does it matter? Those who are not with us are against us."

"I seem to recall that there's a less paranoid rendering of that aphorism in the New Testament. It's probably significant that you chose the version that you did." Rankin may have been drafted but he had no intention of rolling over for the Italian Monsignor.

The younger priest was idly shuffling pencils when the telephone rang. He picked it up. "Yes?"

He gave the handset to Tedeschi, who listened quietly for a minute or two before grunting and replacing it in the cradle.

"Your men have apparently failed. Only one man has returned to the agreed rendezvous, and he appears to have lost his nerve even before he approached his target."

Rankin said, "That still leaves four men, Monsignor. Perhaps they are only delayed. After all, each is a combat veteran committed to your cause."

Tedeschi said, more in sadness than in anger, "Even now, you call it 'your cause.' Are you so proud, that the commands of the Holy Father mean nothing to you? If that is the case, there is no mystery about the fact that your men have fallen by the wayside."

"I think, Monsignor, that we place more emphasis on individual conscience in the New World than you do in the Old. Frankly, it's no surprise to me that good Catholics would balk at murder, no matter where the orders originated or under whose authority. I don't seem to recall that the Holy Father's endorsement included a roster of morally acceptable crimes to be committed."

Tedeschi banged his fist on the table, rattling the long-empty coffee cups and an ashtray. "Perhaps you are in need of a long retreat, both of you. Get out of here! Leave tonight and wait for further orders. Rest assured, they will strain neither your meager abilities nor your half-hearted commitment."

Both priests rose and left their oath-taker brooding over a silent phone in an empty room. Neither ever saw him again.

In the gray morning Monsignor Tedeschi picked up the telephone that had not rung more than once, and called a certain number in Scottsdale, Arizona. He admitted to himself that he had erred in allowing his concentration to be distracted by the Irishman. It was time to begin again and settle for nothing less than the utter destruction of God's enemies.

All of them.

Then he went for a walk. Even though he had stayed up the entire night, sleep would be out of the question for the moment.

LANGLEY, VA:

Bracken had spent a sleepless night reviewing the information contained on the tape cartridge.

Christ, he thought, this god-damned Aurora Compact was getting all screwed up. It had all started __for the CIA__ with a routine check of what Players were roaming around a territory that soon would be sensitive. If the meetings were being held in the States, the whole job would have been in Treasury's lap. But no! No such luck. The CIA would get the blame for all of this mess.

And now this latest "feeler" from the Tri-Lateral Commission. How would we feel about an unofficial penetration, possibly "wet", of a "major installation working on bio-genetic weapons," just outside Edmonton? Under the control of Tedeschi, no less. And the Merry Monsignor was asking for every war weapon short of tactical nukes, along with the most hardened of criminals to use them.

He could only hope that it was really aimed at the Institute and not some abortion clinic. But, it still seemed a lot safer for Bracken personally if he said "no" rather than "yes."

Weiner's intention __stated that morning__ to divert resources and put a day-and-night surveillance team on Polewicz was within his increased authority, and Bracken didn't have any choice but to back him up after the information he had brought in on the Farm. The Canadians were going bananas, and there was no option but to let Weiner field most of their inquiries. He put the best face on it that he could.

He grimaced as the bandaged hand struck the armrest of his chair. There was no way to stitch the webbing between the second and third fingers of his left hand and they were merely taped together, but it still hurt like hell.

A quick seismic study by the Canadians had confirmed Quirk's guess about the probable presence of underground labs and/or bunkers at Elkprong __and an emergency meeting of the Jasons, called by the DOD, had sent out for new underwear when they heard about a genetically altered slime mold. That had been another of Quirk's fortune cookies, now backed up by the "feeler" from the Commission.

Bracken was at the tail end of the roller coaster and all he could do was try not to get thrown out of his seat. The thought of personally taking control up there in the field was more than a little terrifying. If he went to Canada, that meant somebody else would be sitting at his desk, monitoring the situation from D.C., and that was not conducive to job security.

Shit, he thought, if I've still got a job when this is over I think I'll take a vacation. I just barely remember what that feels like.

Bracken's telephone rang with three little musical burps, and he picked it up to listen to a new report from the crew at Mundare. Somehow they hadn't yet gotten the word to channel everything through Weiner.

Bruno Tedeschi __Monsignor, Hospitaler and Papal Legate__ had been kidnapped right under their noses_____ again. The Chief wondered __almost idly__ if it was Quirk's doing.

Bracken felt a case of "the yawns" coming on, and sent the appropriate signal to his private secretary that he would be "in a meeting all morning." His unbandaged hand resolutely refused to open the small cabinet next to his desk/table; the one with the drawer that contained things like paper clips, staplers_____ and letter openers.

EDMONTON, ALBERTA:

"I didn't do it," I protested.

"Sure, you didn't."

"Honest, I didn't do it this time." The boy who cried "wolf" had gotten a better reception than I did for a while.

Morty and I were having coffee and a civilized sit-down in the local CIA headquarters, an empty office building that they were renting by the month. There were crates for desks and only folding chairs to sit on, but a full complement of telephones, faxes and copy machines had been moved in almost at once. That's Uncle Sam for you.

A large map of Edmonton was taped on one wall __centered between strip maps of the main roads leading in and out, for one hundred miles around. Polewicz had not yet been spotted, so there were no pins, or flags, or whatever on the map.

Bracken seemed to be hiding under a blanket in D.C., and everybody knew that he had given up trying to keep control. It looked like we wouldn't get either any interference or any help from him until the operation was over, one way or the other. Afterwards, he'd probably rush out into the middle of things shaking hands or laying about him __depending on how things had gone__ and hoping that nobody had noticed the captain's absence from the bridge.

Morty had invited me over and I took a chance that it wasn't a trap. After all, I wasn't doing so well on my own, anyway. As a present for him, I brought the key-loader and the NSA encrypter in a shopping bag. He handed it back. "Those Mattel toys get better and better, don't they?"

"Don't you want it?"

"Nah. It reminds me of the stuff my predecessor wrote off. Lost it in a landslide, he said. Bracken doesn't like loose ends, if you know what I mean."

"Ok by me, Morty."

Around noon, I left to get back to the motel and Uncle John.

"Nothing so far, Richard." He had been trolling for messages at the fall-back phone numbers, just in case Mickey and Allison had checked in. That was all we could do until Polewicz surfaced.

I filled my uncle in on Tedeschi's kidnapping and on Jack's condition at the hospital, which had been upgraded to "Fair." The CIA had arranged for a round-the-clock guard with the Edmonton Constabulary, which is quite separate from the R.C.M.P..

Like myself, John McGovern couldn't have cared less about what happened to the Hospitaler. That goes to show what we knew.

Chapter 24

"Till neither fires nor shining shores they saw.

Now seas and skies their prospect only bound;

An empty space above, a floating field around."

Aeneid, Virgil

STONY PLAIN, ALBERTA:

Mickey wished that there was something he could do to help Allison.

First, the attack; tear gas and gunfire. Then, cuffed with their hands behind their backs and bounced around the hard metal back of an off-road vehicle. After that, he and Allison were pulled out of the 4X4, or whatever, to be shoved into this haunted house left over from "Psycho."

And now he was in some kind of cinder-block cell, with just a bed to sit on, a sink and a toilet bowl. The lights hadn't been switched on in the little room, and his hand-cuffs were still in place. All that he knew about his prison had been discovered by banging his elbows or his head and barking his shins against hard objects. And using the toilet had been awkward the way his hands were cuffed. He briefly thought of Allison's narrower waist and wider hips, wondering whether she'd be able to push her jeans down the same way.

She was in the adjacent cell, but the walls were thick and insulated, blocking any conversation. That was all right. There was nothing to say anyway.

Allison was pissed; partly out of bravery, partly out of naivety. She was really going to have to use the bowl soon and she couldn't figure out how she was going to avoid messing herself.

Brought up in a free country in which the Law is respected, even the tear gas and gunfire of the earlier evening couldn't dispel the notion that __sooner or later__ a man wearing a scarlet tunic would ride into town and set everything straight. That single myth kindled both the bravery and the naivety in her.

Then there was Jack. Deep down Allison knew that Jack was either dead or wounded so badly that he couldn't help her; otherwise he would have killed her captors. But the girl mentally buried that thought, instead of her lover. She fully intended to get out of her current situation and get back to him on her own. And the Hell with everything and everybody who stood in her way. Jack needed her and nobody, but nobody, was going stop her. Not for long.

Lester Polewicz had good reason to be satisfied with himself that night. It was not yet midnight and three of his enemies were dead. The KGB had deposited the next installment to his Bahamian account. He'd also had word from Mundare that the old bastard, Tedeschi, had been snatched without a hitch __and Diana Stuart was now unconscious and in his power. Bakker might as well be deaf, dumb and blind, far away in Switzerland. And her disappearance would be blamed on the dead assassin in her room, or at least that man's presumed companions.

There was also an attractive young couple in his basement that he could use for bait, after he had stripped them of information.

He had someone's computer records to puzzle over, too. And that really was a puzzle. The enemy of his enemy should be his friend, but neither he nor the Institute had any unidentified friends. Perhaps he was like the tiger and the others were jackals and vultures; opposed to each other's interests, and opposed to his as well.

His total cost: One of his personal staff in the hospital with a mildly fractured skull, and considerable doubt about the man's statement that the unconscious Miss Stuart must have clobbered him while he wasn't looking.

He had instructed his guards to keep Tedeschi locked in an outbuilding elsewhere on the farmstead when he arrived. For all he cared, the churchman could stay there until he rotted.

Polewicz decided look over the computer records first, in the hopes of learning enough before the interrogations to give him absolute mental control of its subjects.

As he inserted the first mini-disk into the smaller disk drive of his Compaq, the Security Chief decided to play it cautiously. There would be no transfers from the B: disk to C: or D:, his hard drives. That way Polewicz avoided the risk of picking up a bug-laden program like those that had carried the Michelangelo virus.

First he called for a display of the B: disk directory, DIR B:. Then a browsing utility was used to sample the contents of the disk, calling up each file by the name given in the directory.

The results were disappointing. Each file had been encrypted.

Some such coding schemes would substitute any ASCII designation, including control codes, for the characters that were to be disguised. When that happened __Polewicz knew__ the computer would act crazy until it was shut off and restarted. Even a "warm boot," or reloading of the operating system and abandonment of user program control was often inadequate to get the machine working correctly again. At least that was his experience and he considered himself to be an expert user __as good as any programmer if he'd had more time to devote to it.

These files were really well behaved, he thought, but unfortunately useless to him in their present form. He decided to transmit one of the disks over to the Institute's big IBM in Elkprong, for transmission to Carouge via satellite. They could use their mainframe and state-of-the-art decryption software to plumb its secrets at the Home Office, if they wished. Once the first one was decoded, all that would be necessary for him to access them all would be the algorithmic key which they would supply.

It didn't matter to him, anyway. He'd done what his job called for, getting the intelligence data in the first place.

It would normally take at least twenty minutes to transmit the contents of that diskette, which held about a megabyte of data. The Institute's entire wide-area network used dedicated lines, high-speed modems and data compression techniques to reduce transmission time, but ordinary telephone lines still couldn't handle data any faster than that.

The communications software that was handling the transfer informed the operator in this case, however, that the elapsed time would be thirty minutes.

Lester Polewicz didn't notice an odd request for operator entry that appeared on the display screen about twenty minutes through his transmission, because he was in the kitchen making himself a protein shake. When the request went unanswered for twenty seconds, the computer broke the connection with the Institute and did three things only and it did them transparently __that is, it did not alert the user or update the display with its activities.

The Compaq computer called the central telephone exchange, via the modem, to find out its own phone number.

It dialed the 800 number of Gerardo Laguna and transmitted that number and the character "1," and hung up. Then, redialing the Institute and copying Polewicz's earlier protocol to re-establish the connection, it added a "File Transfer 100 Complete." to the bottom of the unchanged screen.

Afterward the little virus called in several larger viruses and worms buried within innocent-appearing text files on the diskette and inserted them into the operating system on the hard disk. They would lie dormant for the moment.

He was alone, the way he usually liked it. Just himself, and the free weights. They were his favorite, right in front of the mirror. His reps weren't really serious right now. They worked up some good sweat, but he was saving the real burn for tomorrow, when the fucking blonde whore would be awake. She could watch and then maybe beg for a little of what he could give her. This time she was absolutely in his power.

His cough still troubled him, a frequent reminder of his loss of face the previous Friday night. But as he continued working out, the memory and the slight pain both faded away.

Lester Polewicz continued his weight-training exercises into the night, naked. Afterward, he took a shower and caught some sleep, looking forward to the next morning.

"Lester, you are out of your league here. The radio is full of nothing else this morning but the abduction, in broad daylight, of a Papal Legate. Zenkov is up in arms. He claims that his Ukrainians are getting very nervous about it. I want you to call him and convince him that we had nothing to do with it. The whole Armageddon operation depends on this."

"Armageddon" was the code name of the tactical maneuver planned before the World Council of Churches meeting a few days away. Langerhans thought that he knew all of that plan.

Polewicz frowned at the telephone handset as he listened to the voice-mail message left for him by the administrator at the Institute. The he laughed at the thought that Theodore Langerhans would shit his pants when he finally learned the truth. He made a mental note to find a way to blame the kidnapping on the Indians as soon as possible, for some "spin-control."

Zenkov's Armageddon was absolutely essential to Canadian Shield as were Orlando's tasks, code-named "Montcalm" and "Riel", upcoming in Montreal and Winnipeg. There was no way out. He would have to meet with and reassure the good Father personally.

He placed the call. "Father Zenkov, it's good to talk to you."

Zenkov roared, "What the hell are you up to?"

"Father, please! Calm yourself. What are you talking about?" Polewicz tried to keep his voice smooth and untroubled.

"The kidnapping, you idiot. What are you trying to do? The Mounties_____"

"Father, I know nothing about this and __after all__ this is an open line. May I meet with you this afternoon? I'm sure you'll find that I really don't know anything about this. I have a present for you anyway, that I might as well deliver myself."

"Strathcona Farmers Market, the bus stop, at one o'clock. I'll be there all morning for a conference. Please be inconspicuous. You can drive me back to the parish house."

"Good," he replied. "I'll see you there then."

Polewicz hit the "flash" button and dialed an internal number, the one at the outbuilding where Tedeschi had been kept. Might as well see if the old bastard is still alive, he thought.

He was. As an afterthought, the Chief asked the guard if the Monsignor had been armed when he was picked up.

"No. He didn't have anything on him, except a wallet and a metal tin, with some cotton wadding and a couple of test tubes in it."

"WHAT?" Polewicz shouted into the mouthpiece. Then he made an effort to control himself and went on. "Bring it over here right away. And be careful with it."

In a few minutes, he was staring at the two sealed, unlabeled test tubes, speculating whether they could possibly be what he dreaded that they were. Until he knew the truth, the question of the test tubes would haunt him. But as long as he had the young couple in his hands, he might as well find out what they knew. Tedeschi might take days. He might in fact be impossible to crack __but the children would be easy. And the screams would fill Diana Stuart with an awareness of his power, his absolute control over her. He placed the tin and tubes in his desk drawer, then locked his office door. The two senior guards in the outer room were accustomed to that and didn't even look up from their work as he passed.

And the children were easy, very easy. Within two hours, he was through with them.

He hadn't gotten all the details he wanted before he had to stop, but enough to know that there would be a determined effort to retrieve his bait, and by whom. And that the penetration of Elphingstoke may have been deeper than he had thought, although some of that might have been disinformation.

There had been more than enough time later to call Orlando, who swore that the available supply of number twenty-three had not been disturbed. Still, Polewicz had given him instructions to double-check everything again, and signed off with a bit of a dig, "I think that it would be a good idea for me to talk with your friend Dupont, in person. Maybe when I get out there to check the bunker personally. Goodbye for now, Mansur."

I'd give a million just to see Orlando's face right now. Why not. I'll be able to buy anything I want now, he thought. But it was a bluff on his part. There was yet no way that he could independently inspect the bunker. Only Langerhans and Phaethon had the keys, both of them necessary to open the locks. Polewicz had managed to copy one but not the other; not yet.

EDMONTON, ALBERTA:

He had picked up Zenkov at the Market with ten minutes to spare __even after a leisurely bubble bath__ and never spotted the CIA five car tag-team on his trail.

"Here is the revolver, Father." Polewicz pushed a shoe-box across the BMW seat toward the priest. "There's also an oversized brown jersey glove to handle it with. You'll be meeting your target in the main terminal, so there won't be any problem with metal detectors. You must be sure that your men are on each side of you to mask your actions. There's no safety lock nor do you cock the hammer before you shoot. You'll notice that the hammer is shrouded so it won't catch on your clothing." He tried to slow down, aware of the staccato rhythm of his briefing. "Remember, you draw and shoot when you hear the Indian shouting. He'll be pushing through the crowd behind you. Then throw the glove and the gun down on the floor behind you."

"I know the routine," Zenkov said, impatiently. "You just make sure that the Indian shows up."

"He will. He's already in town and my men are keeping an eye on him now. They'll keep on doing that until he gets to the airport."

"I don't understand about the fingerprints. Won't the glove wipe his fingerprints off the gun when I am gripping it?"

"Yes, most of them," Polewicz agreed, "but they'd be wiped if it was him wearing the glove anyway. We sent him out on a public range two days ago to fire the gun; one he bought it himself in the U.S., with our money. Afterward, he was told to clean the gun without oiling it, and to load the bullets that are in there now. His fingerprints will still be found on the shell casings and interior parts of the gun. And the mate to the glove will be found in his motel room, along with the rest of the bullets in the box that these came in. We substituted another gun for this one, which he is commanded to leave in his motel room. It will be removed while he is at the airport."

"What is he expecting?" the priest asked, suddenly curious about the martyr he was helping to create.

"In the short run? That he will embarrass the Foreign Prelate who comes to his land to mock his native religion. He has an envelope with a note in it to deliver to the Patriarch. He wrote it himself. In the long run, he expects to become a sergeant in the First Canadian Police Force, when and if Nationhood for them becomes a reality. He knows nothing of the Institute or any assassination. But he thinks he knows of an Indian conspiracy. Actually, he's such an iconoclast that he might confess to the shooting anyway when he realizes the notoriety involved."

"Iconoclast? Are you making a religious joke with me?"

"No, Father Zenkov. I don't like humor or humorous people."

"Good."

"Absolutely not." Morty was adamant.

"Your guys would have picked me up, without any reservations," I protested.

"That's different. You had a connection to us __you aren't a Canadian __that was then, this is now."

I had given Morty the address that went along with the telephone number that had turned up on my message machine and he turned it over to the Mounties, which I had expected. What I hadn't expected was that they would sit on it. At least Morty had the place staked out, and when Polewicz had driven out, he had put a tail on him. There were quite a few more resources at his disposal on this day than his predecessor had enjoyed.

"The Mounties just won't pick up Zenkov on your say-so, Dick. Or Polewicz either, for that matter. The Institute is too prestigious, and right now, Zenkov is an especially hot potato."

"Splain this to me, Lucy!"

"He's going to be the flower boy at the wedding. They're planning this real tear-jerker when the venerable Ukrainian-Catholic Patriarch arrives for the World Council tomorrow. Zenkov gets to greet him at the terminal with a couple of million flowers and a couple of thousand Canadians of Ukrainian extraction."

I was physically bored and mentally worried, without an outlet for either. "What about Stony Plain, then," I asked. "The kids have to be held there."

Morty shook his head, saying, "It's no use. The Canadians have the gates covered, but they won't stop anybody from going in or out and they won't invade. They apparently found a video cassette in Tedeschi's personal effects when they were called in on his disappearance, and they're scared shitless about that slime mold thing.

"When they finally do get the nerve to move in they'll do it with flamethrowers, if you ask me. Maybe your cousins are there. -Allison had received a promotion, in the interests of simplicity- Maybe they're at the Institute or the Farm. Maybe they're in a ditch. Sorry. But the Mounties don't want to rock the boat until this Aurora Compact is over, if possible. And without their cooperation, we can't."

"Tell them for me," I said, "that the Aurora Compact is the key to their timing. The Institute is going to turn it into a shambles and destroy any international credibility Canada has left. You've got to stress that, Morty, and get them off their butts."

"They already know what you think about that. What good would it be to repeat it? There's no way that they're going to believe that the President of the United States or Russia, or the Prime Minister of Canada is going to be assassinated? Between their own bodyguards and the Mounties, they're as safe as they would be in a church." I had to laugh at the last, but he didn't ask and I didn't explain why.

"Is that really a quote, or is the wording yours, Morty?"

"It's a quote. Why?"

"Because everybody's assuming that this is some kind of movie, like 'Day of the Jackal.' Did it ever occur to anybody that it's the little things that count in the long run?"

"Oh, now you're going to wax historical on us. Go ahead, if it makes you feel any better."

"I've got no ax to grind here, Morty. You know that. I'd be happy to trade those two kids right now for the whole country of Canada, and if I could figure out a way to sell you all out in return for their lives, I'd do it in a flash."

Morty had the good sense not to take offense.

I thought for a moment and went on with the lecture. "You take the First World War. Arch-Duke Ferdinand. Does anybody think that Britain, France, Germany and Russia gave a damn about his life? Or his country, for that matter? All it represented was one little brick in an insignificant wall. But the whole house came down. Or Hitler at the start, before WW2, a two-bit little shit named Schicklgruber, an ex-corporal, ex-house painter, not even a German. When he got a few breaks, took advantage of other people's misfortunes and parlayed a talent for beer-barrel oratory into national prominence __everybody called him a genius, evil or otherwise. Then, after it all came apart, they fell all over themselves explaining why they had been right about him before, but how later he'd let their theories down by having a mental breakdown."

"So?" Morty's seen me through quite a few of my soapbox derbies, and he's learned that I'll lose track of my line of reasoning soon enough, even if I'm not distracted.

"So, it's the little things. Ferdinand was an insignificant aristocrat in a world where it was going out of style, and the guy who killed him was lower than a pimple on a private's ass. Hitler wasn't any fallen angel, either. He never had been anything more than a shit-head, with demented notions and one uncertain talent of dubious worth. Everybody around him at the beginning thought they could use him and then dispense with his services and discard him. Stalin was the same essentially."

"How about Genghis Khan?"

"At some point, he must have been just another sheepherder with a bad attitude."

"Not: great men bring about great events, or hard times cast up hard men?" Morty asked ironically.

"Let me tell you something about hard times: that sometimes during them even the most insignificant little bastards get the breaks, at least for a while. And when they do, their demented, blighted, dwarfed, petty little ambitions do more harm and cause more horror than all of the grand schemes of all the big thinkers in the world. And that probably includes God, and the Devil herself."

"Herself?"

"Catholic School for boys."

"Oh. Well, I'd give that a six, at best, on a scale of ten. Suffice it to say that Hitler had a lot more talent for speechifying than you do." He can be pretty pompous too.

"My point exactly, Morty."

But I did have a talent for kicking chimneys.

Jack was back. With Uncle John and myself, that is. And we had two machine pistols and a shotgun. How convenient. Two trinities. We also had some intelligence on Stony Plain from the CIA, and I thought we had a good way to sneak up on the bad guys.

"In a red balloon? Are you crazy, Nephew?"

"Why not? They'll hold three men and the pilot, or whatever he is. And they're not an uncommon sight here. The wind is from the west pretty steadily this time of year, and the rolling terrain's perfect for good flights and good landings. You're as safe as you'd be in your bed at home. It doesn't have to be a red one. It might be yellow or rainbow-colored, anyway."

Jack was interested almost despite himself. He chipped in, "And where exactly, are we going to find somebody crazy enough to drop us into an armed camp."

"First thing, Cousin: We know it's an armed camp; the balloonist doesn't. He'll think it's the usual piece of cake.

"Second: I'll give him some money and tell him it's for a movie or something, maybe a practical joke. It couldn't be safer or more routine for us all.

"Third: You've got to be a crazy man in the first place, to let yourself get blown around in a floating blow-torch."

STONY PLAIN, ALBERTA:

Twenty-one thousand dollars, even Canadian dollars, will accomplish a lot.

With a little advice and help from an economist friend of mine at Dun and Bradstreet, I arranged a wire-transfer to the Royal Bank of Montreal Branch in Edmonton for some walk-around money.

A bribe __a thousand dollars cash to a local librarian__ found us a flying circus, ready to go that afternoon. Once it was explained that Hollywood beckoned, nothing outlandish was out of the question, naturally.

For twenty thousand and full credit __just under the movie title__ we got one balloon in a hurry, one middle-aged English madman in a flying helmet and that long, white scarf I didn't wear with Dozer, two assistants and a flat-bed truck. It was just barely noticeable that the fellow's "r" sound tended to shade off into "w" just a bit, and he tended to avoid that consonant or over-stress it to compensate. His handle-bar mustache didn't help much to hide the fact either.

"Splendid, what?" he asked, and I couldn't help but wonder if this tall, skinny version of Teddy Roosevelt was putting me on. His big teeth were gleaming, the eyes bulged out a bit, and only the lack of a prince nez assured me that he wasn't an hallucination.

I reflected his smile right back. "Easily." Neither of us had really said a thing. Otherwise, we three passengers stood around scowling at each other, duffle bags at our feet, while we watched our funeral pyre being ignited.

The basket __if that's what they call it__ was on its side and the balloon was stretched out for its full height, or length, on the ground while the assistants were holding the opening clear of the thick six-foot jet of flame which threatened to engulf the whole works. Finally, the balloon began to fill up with hot exhaust gasses, and the bulbous end finally started to tilt up with its own buoyancy and a little help.

"God, this is magnificent," Teddy exclaimed. "Isn't it, chaps?"

"Couldn't be better, chum," I agreed.

You really couldn't look at the balloon too long. Not because of the flame; because of the color of the bag. It was hot-pink and when I turned away the rest of the world looked bilious green.

The take-off would be hairy, it seemed. We'd picked a spot where the wind direction would carry us over the center of the farmstead's many orchards; so that was all right. But the assistants would have to anchor us until we had enough buoyancy to literally jump into the air.

The mad balloonist's pop-eyed orbs would first cast worried looks at the combined weight of the three of us, and then evaluate some telephone poles about half a mile down-wind __after which they'd shuttle back to us again. At least, I hoped that the wires were for the telephone, and not power lines.

All right for him to worry about weight. He was my height, about six-two, and even in a cover-all, looked to weigh in at less than a half-a-fortnight's score of pounds, a mere ten stone. -Sorry, I get this way when I'm nervous-

The Roosevelt smile turned a bit sickly. "Awfully set on this, are we?" Now the "are" sounded a bit more like "awe."

He nervously gave each duffle bag a little tug to estimate its weight. No doubt about it, there was tension in the air and panic was spreading among the troops.

The sky was clear. No clouds, no lightning, no thunder. I might die this day, but not until I heard the thunder. Moving right up to the basket next to him, I grabbed his arm. "Let me lighten my load a bit, pal. Here!" I handed him the remaining fifteen thousand dollars in hundreds.

He pocketed it, looked at his watch and then, with a shiver, crossed himself and climbed aboard. "Weah wawf, then. It's now awe nevah, chaps. Into the bweech!"

Jesus! He sounds like Henry the Fifth, with a speech impediment. It was as good a time as any to go manic.

We hopped into the basket with varying degrees of reluctance, and as the assistants released the surly bonds of earth, we leapt up into the air_____ for all of thirty feet. Teddy hung on the propane-burner cord just like his life depended on it, and we almost scraped the ground more than once before we got high enough to clear the wires.

Luckily we passed over them just in the center between two poles. I'm reasonably sure that's the only reason we made it. Fortunately, at that height, the fall shouldn't have been fatal if we'd had to jettison the pilot. Good thing, too. As judgement calls go, this one had been almighty close.

Our target landing area __the fortified farmstead of orchards at Stony Plain__ was still a few miles off. We had launched from the closest accessible area due west of it, and that access was none too close. Within a few minutes we maxed out at about a thousand feet, according to the balloonist.

When the burner was on, it sounded like Niagara Falls, but we soon learned to ignore the noise. And when it was off, the silence was expressive.

There was no sensation of movement, except a rhythmic rocking as we slowly oscillated beneath the hot-air bag. It was just as though the ground was flowing under us, and not we floating over it. The rush of the wind, a constant before, was now still as we rushed along with it.

We were one with that invisible, untouchable wind, in and of our own element. Rolling farmland, buildings and the other works of Man only existed for our benefit above, to measure our uncluttered passage away from the setting sun. Between the redness of that sun and the color of the balloon reflecting it, we all looked like old-time Hollywood redskins.

It was an odd place and a strange time to find an experience of beauty that I had never known before. If that Alaskan shaman was correct, my path to this time and place had been guided by a spirit brother; what you might call a totem. Under my breath, I thanked Bear for showing me the way to this moment, whatever the outcome. But what a pity that it couldn't last forever.

The balloon was allowed to descend to around two hundred feet, plus or minus a lot.

As we came within sight of the target area, John, Jack and I squatted a bit to remain out of sight below. The first road perpendicular to our direction of travel marked the edge of enemy territory. Hopefully, we weren't going to screw it up and assault an innocent henhouse. Our basket was made of pipe framing and canvas sides lashed to it, so the three of us had a pretty fair view of the target area through the gaps.

I could hear the guards below as we crossed the property line.

"Hey, look at that!" they shouted, and "Wow!" and even one "Get a horse!"

There was no stone boundary wall, as at the Institute. This one was a diamond wire fence about twice the height of the guard at the gate, a wrought-iron affair out of Masterpiece Theater. Nasty sparkles glimmered from the broad top of that fence as we passed over it, malevolent in the dying sunlight. Four rows of barbed wire on top inclined inward __as in a prison. My ever-present too-ready contempt for Polewicz increased. The barbed wire looks neater that way, but it's almost useless in keeping penetrators out. One folded over square of heavy canvas will get a man over without a scratch.

We were now about one hundred feet in the air. It doesn't sound like much or even look very high from a balloon. If you're walking on the edge of the roof of a ten-storied building though, I guarantee that same one hundred feet looks a lot higher.

Jack took a count of men and vehicles to the left; I to the right. They had to be more discreet here than at Elphingstoke, but there were still at least a dozen guards in civvies showing, along with three Jeeps or their equivalent. All of the other guards had spilled out of a large shack at the gate when the one outside had yelled. Either they were sloppy and lazy in their duties, or they deliberately kept a low profile to avoid alarming the locals. It didn't matter which; skills get rusty and ambitions get blunted when they're not used.

Our view confirmed what the morning's overflight by some agency or another out of Denver had photographed, that inside the fenced area there was a clear, patrolled perimeter __it was a very wide gravel road basically. And there were other gravel roads suitable for vehicles criss-crossing the property. They were the boundaries for each individual orchard.

"Microphones, probably," I told the others. "Dogs not likely. Looks like shotguns in the 4X4's, but they'll have automatic weapons on call somewhere." I hoped that there weren't any mines or other booby traps inside the defense perimeter. My guess was that there weren't. Whoever had set Stony Plain up was nowhere near the paranoid military engineer that the architect of the Elphingstoke Farm had been.

"Damn." We were overshooting drastically. The burner cord had not been pulled for some time now, but we had just stopped descending. I looked up at the balloonist but all he could do was shrug.

We were now fifty feet high and going no lower; twelve miles an hour or so, according to the last weather report. The balloonist gave me another helpless shrug. And I gave him a tip at the knees to bring him down. Then I stood on him. This wasn't by way of being vindictive, mind you. The elementary precaution of reading a brochure or two had occurred to me earlier.

First: Close propane valve.

Second: Locate cable dependant from emergency rip-panel at top of the balloon.

Third: Pull the god-damned stitches out and gut the sucker.

The balloonist was shouting something, but I couldn't make it out __so I stood on his chest.

We hit tumbling. Not tumbling like trained acrobats; tumbling like dice in a cup, out of control. Fortunately our descent brought us below a line of tall trees and the ground-speed had dropped to about half of what it had been. It was still a rough landing, especially on the balloon. I gave Jack a concerned once-over, with his recent medical history in mind. He gave me the thumbs-up instead of the finger, which would put him between fair shape and good.

While John, Jack and I picked ourselves up, more or less unhurt, our balloonist still lay on the ground looking at his former pride and joy. The situation looked a lot worse than it really was. Except for the armed guards, of course. But he didn't know about them yet, so he shouldn't have been so melodramatic.

He rolled over on his hands and knees, just staring at me now, the goggles pushed up on his flying helmet, well over his brows. I tried to cheer him up. However, every time his unfocussed gaze met mine, it was clear in his eyes that all he could see was my pulling that wire.

"Don't worry," I reassured him, "it's going to be fine. You'll see. Oh, and by the way, when the guys with the shotguns get here, just stick your arms up as high as you can and surrender, Ok?"

That got through to him, anyway. He finally looked up at me in the present tense, the wide-open eyes as big as his goggle lenses. Not believing his ears, he had to test the offending word with his own undependable vocal apparatus to make sure that he understood me properly.

"Suhwender?" he cried. "Suh_____WENDER?" The Cheshire Cat mouth hung open, and his upturned goggles, eyes and teeth all looked demonic under the crimson sky. He just watched us then __still unbelieving the incomprehensible__ while we peeled back the duffle bags and checked our guns.

I nodded goodbye to him as he knelt there on all fours, and then turned away.

"SUH_____WENDER??"

Jogging off with the shotgun at port arms, Uncle John said, "Well, here we are, Richard. Now what?"

"Let's surround them."

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