Fiction 1, Chapters 7 & 8

Chapter 7

"Better I deem it, if my kinsmen strike,

To face them weaponless, and bare my breast

To shaft and spear, than answer blow with blow."

Bhagavad Gita

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA:

We were taking a chance in staying together, but it had worked out all right and tomorrow morning we were leaving.

Three nights ago, there had been no tail coming down Route 6, to Winnipeg, and nobody waiting for us when we got there. So we succumbed to temptation and stayed at the same hotel in the central area of the city.

We were all jammed into my room. John and I were seated on the chairs, with the others sitting on the two double beds.

"All right, cousins, what have we got? Start at the bottom. Uncle John?" This was just the first day we got to Winnipeg and we were all tired.

"Where the hell have you been the last two days?"

"Brooding on the moors, like Heathcliff. What does it matter, Uncle. We're all here now."

"No sass, boy," he snapped. "We were worried about you disappearing like that. Have a little consideration, will you?"

"I'm sorry," I told them. "Just trying to get it all together, that's all. It won't happen again, I promise."

Another item to worry about when I assembled my conscience.

I said, "Let's start by summarizing what we put together a few days ago. We've had a chance to think about it, and I know that I've thought of a few more questions to ask. Uncle, would you like to start?"

"Well, boys, the Farm is big, ten thousand hectares; say twenty-five thousand of our acres. It runs about four miles of frontage __along the north side of the gravel road off Route 6__ and part of it borders on the big lake. There are about twenty Dutch guards who hardly ever leave. They've got some of their own women there __but every once in a while, a van-load of them goes to Winnipeg for a blast, a 'Trek' they call it. There are stories of trouble down there; hushed up, they say."

I looked at my notes on the clipboard. "Racial?"

"Yes, mostly Blacks. Not all one-sided, either."

"What was it again that you said? What the foreman called Billy Parker?"

"The lad said it was 'gaffer'."

"Could it have been 'Kaffir'?" I asked him.

"I suppose."

"What about their ages? All young?"

"Yes, twenties or thirties. Why?"

"Believe it or not," I said, "hardly anybody works there, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology. They're 'student volunteers.' From the," I had to look down at the clipboard again, "University of Agricultural Sciences of Alberta __at Edmonton. There's a mixed crew of local Ukrainian-Canadian and supposedly Dutch students working on a grant for bio-genetic research. It's co-administered by McGill University __in Montreal__ and some non-profit organization called The New World Institute __incorporated in Liechtenstein. At McGill the word is __even though the money is funneled through NWI__ the man behind the money is a guy named Bakker and a company called Morgen Industries in Geneva."

"If you say so, boy," he said wryly. "Shall I get on with it then, or would you like to dazzle us some more?" But he said it with an indulgent smile. Everybody humors me; it's humiliating.

"I'll try to restrain myself, Mr. McGovern, Sir."

I pretended to knuckle my forelock in deference, but I don't have one.

Uncle John picked up the thread again, "You asked us to talk about building trades and equipment and such. Some of the locals were hired as laborers when the place was built about six years ago, and a few stayed on. They remember big diesel-powered shovels, as well as back-hoes and underground power cables all over the place. The buildings that show are mostly single story cinder block, but there were lots of concrete mixers and reinforcing rod shipments. They had at least two dozen rowdies just on the heavy equipment, not counting truck drivers. It only took a summer to do and the contractor was from Edmonton, 'Triangle Construction'."

"What about the farmers?" I wanted to know.

"Well, they get along with the locals a bit better than the Dutch do," he granted, "especially the ones with kids. There's a sweet thing named Agatha up there, who used to teach their children before she retired. In the regular school, I mean, with the local kids. That's the law."

"What were they like?"

"They didn't mix well," he said. "Not mad or mean, just stand-offish."

"Did they speak any Ukrainian among themselves or wear any ethnic costumes on holidays?"

"Not that Agatha mentioned. It was just like they were warned pretty good, not to stand out, or show off. Just stick to business. They're only registered until January. The parents expect to be transferred at that time."

It went pretty much like that for two of the most irritating days that any of us had ever spent.

Mickey had mixed with some of their teenagers after school. Slick his hair down and shave him well, you'll get a good-looking choir boy. Jack didn't say much, but Allison had an awful lot of information that we didn't think to ask about when they were up in Elphingstoke.

They had provided a starting place for some inquiries and fleshed out and confirmed some from other sources.

"It's time to dazzle us some more, Richard," my elder cousin said sarcastically. "We're real tired of answering questions, while you just nod your head with that shit-eating maniac grin on your face. You're starting to look like that ghost-writer King guy in those credit-card commercials."

"That's 'manic,' not 'maniac.' But thank you kindly, anyway, Uncle. Here's what we have so far. Oh, and he's a horror writer, not a ghost-writer, sir."

"Sorry, Richard. I hope I didn't offend your fine sensibilities. Go ahead, please." He performed a mock bow. -I'm lucky it wasn't a curtsy, the mood he's in-

"All right, then. The Farm has at least twelve large underground buildings that our Frenchman says hold armaments and munitions. There are supposed to be two more depots about the same size as the Farm __one east, one west__ and both considerably north of here. Each is operating under the cover of a fish stocking station and aquatic research lab. He believes that the guns will be fully distributed before this winter sets in, maybe a few weeks."

"Guns?" They were shocked at that revelation, even though the priest hadn't been able to provide me with much of a specific inventory. Uncle John got up and paced around to try and work off some of his agitation.

"Yeah, guns," I confirmed. "The landowner of record at the Farm is a naturalized Canadian citizen named Emil Orlando. He manages the guard force at all three depots, although he lives at the Farm, full-time. Father Rene Dupont serves as his airborne chauffeur once a month, so Orlando can leave the protection of the Farm without attracting attention. Dupont is also a courier when necessary, as well as Orlando's tool for manipulating the Metis' and the Indians.

"The Institute must be doing something right. The Farm is actually raising semi-tropical strains of grains, vegetables and fruit there. And something called a Neem tree, that normally grows in India and Burma. It's got a natural pesticide that's better than DDT.

"I've got some more names, but not much information on any of the people that go with them. Here we go:

"Monsignor Bruno Tedeschi, not connected with the Farm or the Institute. Nominally a mid-level Vatican diplomat, he may be a trouble-shooter, or even their hit-man. And he's not even a Jesuit. He's investigating the Institute and our two cousins were working for him when they were killed, according to Dupont. Incidentally, that's it as far as anything Dupont knows, or so he says. According to the CIA, Tedeschi is now staying at a Seminary of the Order of St. Basil at Mundare __not far from Edmonton. He was tagged by The Company __or whatever they fondly call it now__ because of an inquiry from the Tri-Lateral Commission __in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's a semi-public policy group, think-tank and Intelligence agency, with rumored ties to several savory and unsavory groups.

"Dr. Cecil Rhodes Phaethon, British Commonwealth passport, nominally Rhodesian __Zimbabwe now, of course. PhD's in Molecular Biology from Johannesburg and Forest Sciences from Vancouver. About forty, brilliant. He's the project chief for the grant. Seventy-seven papers and over two thousand citations.

"Theodore Langerhans, originally a Scotsman, from the Hebrides, actually. MBA in Finance from Glasgow. A naturalized Canadian citizen. He's the financial administrator of the grant. Technically, he works for McGill. There could be something here for you, Uncle. He's had every fishing license that's ever been printed.

"Lester Polewicz __Orlando's boss__ hangs out in Edmonton. Born Vancouver maybe, about 1955. He has no more computer or paper trail than you or Jack, Uncle.

"Father Anton Zenkov_____"

John stopped pacing and exploded. "Not another bloody priest! They're coming out of the God-damned woodwork."

I tried to keep him calm and said, "I have to agree with you there, Uncle. That shortage of priests you hear about hasn't hit the Intelligence community yet. This one is a Ukrainian Uniat __that's a Catholic, not an Orthodox priest__ and apparently has all the right tickets to hold the job. Seminary and Holy Orders, and all that."

Mickey was puzzled. "What's odd about that?"

"Well, cousin, the CIA seems to be attending his Masses pretty regularly. They tagged him the first time after getting a report from an undercover source in Opus Dei, a Catholic lay group that might be very loosely described as a benign conspiracy. I can hardly believe they've bothered to penetrate it."

Zenkov's name had been added to the Watch list at the same time as "Ukrainians." And the source of the "anomaly" was the same, an alphanumeric code indicating an active operation. That was right after my inquiries had been tagged by the CIA. And Zenkov is a Ukrainian name; so I figured, what the hell, why not see what the connection was? And see if I had any connections left.

To explain, I have to go back to the morning of my arrival in Winnipeg.

"Hold on for a while, Mickey, I've got some explaining to do."

MacArthur Park might have jumped overboard and taken his oar with him, but there was still my "black box," a brown attache actually. I had decided to take a chance on a friend in the CIA, Morty Wiener, the Episcopalian Jew who founded the Company chapter of "Jews For Jesus," just as a lark. They have over thirty members now, and he can't figure out how to back-slide gracefully.

Morty introduced himself to me after I had fractured his predecessor's skull __that fact unknown to him of course__ and we had gotten on pretty well since.

The call was made from a library. Like the pay phones in most libraries, those were under-utilized and out of both eye- and ear-shot. The handset went into the foam cups, and I picked up the one in the case. It all works by superimposed audio tones, just like the 'beeps' that you get when you push the buttons. It's the combinations of tones that do the job.

It was simple. His office has an (800) number, and I have that and a PIN code __like an extension number__ that's the way a message is stored for him. With the same PIN, you can pick up a message from him as well, by pressing the "3" touch-tone button instead of the "1."

Just this: "It's Refugio, abrus precatorius alpha omega, pigeon drop."

I'll be damned if those words get tagged by any Watch List.

Look up the word "shibboleth," sometime, if you haven't run across it. Refugio figures prominently in our mutual history, mine and Morty's. It's a small town in Texas, and for some reason, it's pronounced "Refeerio."

The rest of the code is pretty self-explanatory with a good dictionary. It's not that the words can't be easily figured out, or wouldn't sound suspicious to a human being, but none of the components could possibly have been preset into the electronic ears that help to tickle the NSA Watch List.

We trade stuff like that back all the time. He's a student of the Classics, and I'm always trying to stump him; although I haven't been able to yet. I'd like to pass myself off as brilliant too, but I can't. Don't forget that I was calling from a library.

My friend would also know all about my being in trouble with his Firm, from his own mini-Watch List. Mac had showed him how to set one up, and also how to erase the audit copy of any message. If my call was kept short, there was no way that they could identify all of the circuits I was using, and trace the call back to the physical location.

And by evening, the information I needed was there. It started out with "In accordance with your directive, Mr. Blankenship, I have prepared reports on one Father Anton Zenkov and also Richard Quirk. Summaries follow...."

We had conducted a few unofficial discussions like that one before. He owes me his next-to-last promotion; the one after that, to Mac.

Morty and I hadn't actually taken any prisoners on that occasion; they had died too quickly. But, the Treasury Department was humiliated, and that's what counts. I think it bugs the hell out of the CIA brass that the name "Secret Service" is already spoken for.

The "pigeon drop" is an old scam where you switch some bait, money or jewelry, wrapped in a handkerchief or a bag. The sucker thinks he's getting the bait, but it's actually going somewhere else. Unless he called in a personal favor, Morty had probably spent all day trying to manipulate someone into asking him just the right questions over the phone. That's the only complicated part, and it's a safe way to do things.

It's good to know that I have at least one friend left in high places. The sending phone number signal was for a pay phone in Union Station, in D.C..

"Uncle Richard!"

"Yes, Mickey. I'm sorry. Where was I?"

"Zenkov."

I said, "Well now, Zenkov," __a little ponderously__ and took a few seconds to mentally review the highlights of Morty's summary.

"I'd like to get some sleep, nephew." The old guy was staring to get on my nerves more than usual. And there was a lot of detail yet to cover, without having to contend with sarcastic interruptions. But I should have realized the strain on him. He was essentially a professional loner who had planned on the need to be a leader, for once, and was now reduced to being a follower __in front of his sons, at that.

"All right, Sir John," I responded with like sarcasm. "He's an old Russian mole who has double-crossed the former Soviet Union, the Catholic Church, the Ukrainians, the First Canadians __that's Indians__ and the Canadian Government to form a conspiracy, with some renegade South African Fascists. This conspiratorial group calls itself 'The Orphans,' and they intend to foment an Indian uprising soon, code-named 'Canadian Shield.' Am I going too fast for you?" I was shouting a little at the end of my little speech.

I shouldn't have said it that way, I guess, but I'm still new to doing the right thing again and never have had many social graces anyway. He stalked out of the room, too furious to speak.

Mickey looked around uncertainly and said, "I'd better go with him, Uncle. He's liable to try and break something, and hurt himself."

Jack and Allison left without a word.

Jesus! I was lost and alone, the euphoria I had felt at Morty's aid entirely forgotten. Through it all, the loss of my family's support hadn't even been a consideration, until now. In good times, it would have devastated me. Now? Everything that I wanted to cry out choked up in my throat.

So, I decided to tie one on in a quiet sort of way.

Chapter 8

"for though the Love-Queen's onset in her might is more

than man can bear, yet doth she gently visit yielding

hearts, and only when she finds a proud unnatural

spirit, doth she take and mock it past belief."

Hippolytus, Euripides

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA:

Leaving the hotel, I walked around the city for awhile __and eventually found a bar seedy enough to deserve my patronage. I was armed, of course. The proper accouterments for slumming, the pepper spray and a boot knife.

It was a strip joint.

So I went in __to kill some time, if nothing else.

The dive had all the ambience of a bus station, except for the light level. Vinyl seating, vinyl covered table tops and more vinyl on the floors. Must make it easy to clean up periodic bouts of enthusiasm, I supposed. Flocked wallpaper of some color or another covered the walls. Yes, flocked.

The place smelled of pine oil, and a scent from the candles that dimly lit each occupied table. Their flickers were filtered through ruby-red glass lamps, wrapped in netting. The netting was vinyl, of course.

There might have been a dozen men in the bar when I entered, almost all of them sitting at separate tables. Fortunately, the tablecloths were hung lower than the patrons. It was hard enough to concentrate on the dancer, as it was.

Flashing strobes sparked to life fitfully and __once in a while__ colored spots went off here and there. No band; just recorded stuff, Light Rock. The featured dancer was still dressed in some type of street outfit, so her part of the show was just starting. I bought a light beer at the bar, and then sat down at a table over by the back wall, only a dozen feet away from the stage.

There were two other dancers among the audience, swaying and shimmying to the same music as the dancer on-stage. But these girls were already topless, and each was aiming her bobbing breasts at a surtaxed customer. In that poor light, those customers so favored had to peer closely at their moving targets __so that their heads were weaving slightly from side to side like cobras following an undulating flute.

When the song ended, the artist-in-residence walked over to the side of the stage and removed her dress. Placing it over the back of a bentwood chair, the girl lifted her knee to support one long, shapely leg and its high-heeled foot on the seat cushion. Vinyl, naturally. That left just a shelf-bra and a G-string on her, along with fish-nets and a garter belt. A filmy veil covered her breasts, but I could make out the dark outline of her nipples, just over the brassiere. The ladies-in-waiting either sat themselves down with their admirers, or they were floating around to other tables, working the crowd. Sooner or later, one of them would try me.

I wondered what I'd do then.

The dancer on stage was clicking her fingers in anticipation of the next record with one hand, while the other stroked her sleek thigh with an unconscious passion for the music. Then, the song started and the girl started to pirouette around the stage.

From a distance, she looked to be barely out of high school, and her veil would swing out from time to time, displaying bold young breasts. The brassiere wasn't there for support; there was no doubt about that. Every turn or two, a white spotlight would highlight her body in my direction, and I soon realized that I had been wrong about the darkness of her nipples. They were a deep cherry red. It could have been lipstick, I suppose, but it was very erotic.

It didn't matter very much when she dropped her lower garment, at least as far as the rear view was concerned. There hadn't been more that a thong back there anyway, tucked between high, firm cheeks, concealing no more than a line of scrimmage. The side of each swelling hip blended smoothly into the outside edge of a graceful thigh, and her well-defined calves tapered toward trim ankles. I didn't bother slavering over her feet; that's not an erogenous zone in my lexicon.

This was the first time since I had left the hospital that this subject had come up and I found my normal reaction to be comforting, but inconvenient at the same time. It was a relief to know that my plumbing still worked to original spec. but that dive was the wrong place at the wrong time for hydraulics.

Then there was somebody announcing the finale over the P.A. system. By the time that "Let's put your hands together guys, for the lovely Lita" hit the air, she was effectively naked and I was in lust with everything but her face. I hadn't even noticed the girl was blonde __until I saw that her pubic mound was covered with light chestnut curls, and looked up to check.

She seemed light, airy and very much younger than I, innocent of everything __especially clothing. Her face was ordinarily attractive, but just not qualified for the position of heading up the rest of that team.

Lita was going off-stage then, picking up some bills that the ring-siders had contributed when she still had a costume to tuck them into. At the end, there had only been the stockings and shoes __which both motivated and sufficed for tucking, I suppose. Yes, tucking.

Lita didn't have any talent __but then, Lita didn't need any talent. The winsome look, the dynamite body and the innocent air were enough.

She refastened the bra, stepped back into the G-string, and hung the dress on a hook near the stage. Wrapping the veil around her shoulders and breasts for the sake of modesty __no doubt__ the object of my desire headed straight toward my table. There was an electric thrill running up my backbone all the way to my head. My hair was standing straight up. And that was just in back, mind you. There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. -And it had been a long time-

"Hello, honey. Are you new in town?" Her voice was husky though not too low in tone, and there was a hint of musk in her scent from her exertions. As well as a trace of perfume.

"I will be, if it helps, pretty lady. Please sit down." I pulled out the chair to my left and turned mine toward it.

"That's sweet, babe. My name's Lita."

Lita reorganized the seating a little more thoroughly. Her chair wound up facing opposite mine, but almost side-by-side behind the table with me, and the back was toward the aisle.

I asked, "What do your drinks cost here, Lita?"

"Five dollars for the champagne cocktail and a dollar tip for the waitress. We can't drink any thing else while we work, eh?"

"That sounds reasonable."

She squeezed in and sat down, brushing my thigh with hers.

The waitress popped out of the darkness as if by magic and delivered it; a soda glass full of ice and ginger ale, of course.

"And it only costs you ten dollars for me to take this off and dance just for you. Wouldn't you like that?"

She briefly pulled the veil aside for a close-up of her fine, fine breasts. Both were high, round and firm, the right slightly larger than the other __neither too large nor too small. Her nipples and aureoles looked like little bulls-eyes. I could almost see them looking back at me. Proud, I would call them. What a Grapefruit Queen she would have made, in a warmer climate.

The veil fell back in place, but she moved her right hand up under it, to stroke the left breast with her palm, and tease the bulging cone at its tip with her fingertips. Her other hand rested on my left knee.

"And for fifty, or if you've got a credit card, I could do some more, you know, like this."

The hand on my knee was moving up to where I used to keep my soul, and she stroked my inner thigh in little circles, slowly creeping higher and higher.

Lita's right hand sloped down smoothly under the fondled breast, cupping it in her palm __then lifting it lightly from its shelf and weighing it, as she leaned in to rub it against my left triceps. I gave it a nudge, and it nudged me firmly back.

Her other hand had halted, waiting for change in the meter.

"Like some more, Honey?"

"How much more were you thinking of, Lita?" My voice was tight and rusty. Hell! Every thing was tight and rusty. Just imagine Show and Tell with Lita and her little hand-puppet.

She looked demurely into my eyes and smiled. Very erotic lips, too __full and wide, but shapely. "You know, they'll only let us give hand-jobs here anymore, but if I move this candle over here on the edge of the table, so you can see____and lick my mouth like this____"; her tongue delicately circled, moistening her parted lips, "you'd never know the difference. See? Doesn't it feel good already?"

That pink tongue circled those moist, naked, glistening lips again, leaving them gleaming in the candlelight. A new wrinkle in lip service had come along, just when I needed one.

"How about the money, Babe? Or a card, eh?" she suggested.

So much for innocence. Excuse me for a moment____

I didn't know what to reach for, or let go first, when this huge lummox sat down at the table across from me and grabbed my right hand. He must have weighed four hundred pounds and topped six and a half feet, not to mention two hundred centimeters. Or the motorcycle leathers and the chains.

There was a face in the dimness before me that looked like a light-skinned baked potato, full of lumps, seams and dimples occupied by some kind of little knotty things. But he smelled like toadstools.

I tried to be pleasant. "That's a nice skull you've got there, sir, very impressive. Would you mind letting go of my arm, please? I have a heart condition, and could go at any time now."

But the Son of Kong didn't let go of my arm. He started to prod and press it, bending it back and forth.

"I don't like to be nosy, but who ARE you and what the HELL are you doing with my arm?" I inquired politely.

"We're gonna arm-wrestle, little buddy."

Oh God! It was Hoss, and he wanted to play. He even had the same lisp Dan Blocker used to have, a slushy sound on the "s."

Lita ignored one peckerhead to address another, "Luther, you stop this right now. I told you, you're going to get me canned and we need the money now. What'll your mother say if we don't have the room-and-board money. He ain't even good-looking. You shouldn't be jealous of every poor schlemiel that can't get it up at home."

Schlemiel?

I started to get offended, but another look at Luther put things in perspective for me. Between the two of them, the pepper spray was out of reach.

"Oh, no!" he rejoiced. "Me and my buddy are gonna play some. Ain't we, ass-hole?"

There was a pained look on my face now, and it wasn't all acting. I clutched my heart with my left hand; croaking, "My pills! My pills, please!"

Luther's hand still grasped mine as I slipped to the floor behind the table, with only his strong right arm preventing me from breaking something vital. And my hand grasping his, of course.

Thank God for Luther.

Thank God for Luther, leaning, then lying across the table __his right arm outstretched, trying to keep me from dying on him before he could break me into little pieces.

Thank God for that tiny brain.

When I surfaced under his side of the table, it fell over and Luther with it __right on his head.

It's leverage, you see __plus the lifting power of the legs. While other kids were misspending their youth, I was hitting the physics books. I had to laugh at him lying there, and it was all in good fun, of course __not mean.

There he lay on his back, with the candle-lamp lying on his chest. It was still lit, and hot wax was pouring over the front of Luther's jacket. He rolled over and up onto his stomach, pulling his hands in under his shoulders, pushing them up.

Holy shit! He was trying to get up. Unbelievable.

Worse yet, he was going to make it. He bellowed. It was something unformed and indistinguishable.

There were so many choices; so many things I could do. It was very dark in there now, with only the flames of the burning candles to provide illumination. It almost seemed another place __in another time__ a mirror-image of another reality.

But this was a just matter of life, not death. I shook off the feeling of déjà vu and walked away. Fortunately, Lita's love-lorn admirer did not follow me through the night. I had a peaceful walk __alone__ back to the hotel.

I thought that I'd figure the rest of the world out after a good night's sleep. Wrong! It was much the same nightmare as I'd had many times before, familiar only within the context of those terrible visions, and forgotten in detail when I woke.

I was darkness, and in my element. The red flames were all around me now. And now was the time to strike, if ever; while he was still lying there on his back, like the one in flames __the wrong man__ nothing but a low-life anyway. Those arms were reaching again for mercy from the night sky, but this time I could hear him screaming. Merciful God, what's happening? It can't be the same man. It can't be! No!

But the flames! The flames from his chest.

He heaved and the candle loosened from the congealed wax on his jacket, and then rolled down his belly toward his face. Still lit, it turned away at the bulging neck, and fell on the floor between us. He batted at it with his paws and I kicked it away. He rolled over, away from me.

Look down. Look now. The knife is in my hand, ready to cut the man. The wrong man. It was Lita screaming, staring at the knife and screaming.

Who had it been then? It must have been the wrong man, the Burning Man. Oh, Jesus!

I ran like Hell, and each one of its demons ran after me.

The next morning, there was a knock on my door.

I got up slowly, and this time the memory of my nightmare stayed with me. Looking back now, I realize that it might have been the first time that I could face my fears in the light of day.

It was Jack and he came in alone. "You weren't joking last night, Richard, were you?" I was so accustomed to Jack's silence that his active interest took me by surprise.

He sat down on the chair. As always, he was then so quiet and still again that he could have been taken for part of the furniture himself. Allison was back in their room, sleeping. I managed to connect myself to the present.

"No, I wasn't, Jack. We're in the middle of a big mess and somebody else in the middle of this mess has been killing our family. It began with the murder of our boys, your cousins, but it won't stop there. I'm next. And then you three, if you're caught or connected with me.

"I'll get Dad," he said. Then he got a little awkward and cracked his knuckles impressively to bridge the gap. "But, open up some. O.K.? You're tighter than a condom."

Somehow, this normally somber man struck a chord within me that I had not known I could still play. "They're supposed to be tight?" I asked him.

We both laughed as he walked out of the small room to get the others. Jack would bring them back; there was no doubt of that. I laughed again __and laughed some more__ but it was all right by the time they did return.

"You are crazy, nephew," Uncle John started in. "You know that? We didn't come up here to write Cowboy and Indian movies or spy stories, boy. We're here to take home something to my sister besides the bodies of the sons she buried. Somebody's blood, maybe, or at least some kind of reason for how and why they died.

I tried to apologize but he would not listen.

"And you run off at the mouth, babbling nonsense while my sister cries all night and day with no sons to comfort her. Oh, we're wasting our time with you, we are. You've got a death wish, boy! Do you think we don't know that? You're wound tight as a drum, and you're bound and determined to find someone to kill you, even if you have to make him up and pull the trigger yourself."

I finally got to say, "Please, listen, all of you. You're right about me, I know."

I sat down suddenly on the straight-backed chair in the room, looking down at the floor with my head in my hands. The chair was in front of the mirror, so I got up again and turned it around. It took a minute, but I managed to go on.

"This isn't easy, Uncle. You're right on track about a lot of things, like my brains being scrambled. It's been like I was walking around dead, completely alone, not able to feel anything. But that was before I started losing the few friends I have left. It's different now."

When nobody else commented, I went on with my last stab at regaining their trust. "Ok. You're still basically correct. Don't rely on my mind. It's not working right. Trust your own, though. Give me a chance to lay it out for you."

This was it, all or nothing. I used my best Voice, the "Dooker thorry" of an Irish Traveller reading their fortunes.

"John McGovern____our lives and much, much more are at stake here. There is danger in this for all of us, and it may follow us home even if we turn away now. The threat to us comes not from our enemies now __they are still unaware of our presence__ but from those who are acting against them. They know I'm involved already, and they've got the resources to discover your identities, as well. Soon! Information is the currency of their trade, and any one of them could betray our identities to the rest. And they probably will, sooner or later."

Jack said, "Tell us who they are."

"The CIA for one, and the Vatican for another __that I know of. Then there might be a couple of other agencies, as well; the Mounties, the Tri-lateral Commission, possibly even what's left of the KGB. There's no way to know about any others yet."

Then, while his father leaned against the closed door, arms folded and looking only at his sons, Mickey took his turn at asking me a question.

"Uncle, why would any of them try to kill us, if we leave? We haven't done anything to anybody."

It was obvious that they were working together to get him out of his mood. It was also a touchy question for me. Torturing Rene Dupont, and then leaving him alive, had already potentially exposed and committed me to this struggle at the same time. I would either win __or lose__ and there is no middle ground between life and death. Even if the Institute didn't know who it was acting against them, the CIA would put two and two together without much trouble as soon as they got wind of it. And their secrets __like any secrets__ don't stay secret for very long.

My family could eventually be traced through me, so they were already committed because of me. But if I told them how that was so in detail, they would rightly shun me.

"I could give you a better answer," I confessed, "if I knew who killed our cousins and exactly why. They were good boys __a little rough around the edges maybe__ but they wouldn't have done anything bad enough being killed for. Honestly, they weren't the brightest boys in the world, either____" John McGovern snorted, but didn't try to interrupt me.

I went on. "If they were killed just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time __and I feel that they were__ then we are in even more danger, because we know so much more."

Uncle John snickered and said, "If you were a real dookerer, you could put a curse on the CIA and they'd never find us. Seriously, what do you want from us now, Richard?"

"Only to give you as much information as I can, and let you make up your own minds." A curse? A tinker's damn? Why not? I wondered. It's been done before.

"Go ahead then," he said, sitting on the bed with a show of patience. "Tell me more about the feathers and the war whoops, boy."

* * * * * * * * * *

"And did you curse the CIA?"

That question seemed to come out of mid-air, as I sat in the darkened chapel, lost in the web of my tangled story. I was very tired and hardly alert now. But I raised the shotgun from its resting place on the pew and placed it across my knees again, almost pointed at my prisoner.

He was not a hostage. It was a pity that no one really wanted to keep him alive, especially not me.

"In a way," I said wearily. "More precisely I called down a curse on whoever was the focal point of their interference. If by any miracle it worked, the power would not be mine. It would belong to another, my grandmother."

The priest was amused. "And was this focal point blasted to cinders by your borrowed potency, Wizard?"

"Irish curses don't work that way. They're traditionally distractions, irritants that cloud the judgement of others. Besides, I don't really believe in them. And even if I did believe, I was baptized as a child and could never hold that power personally. The old stories are specific there. Even in the days of the Draoi, the Irish Druids, twenty years or more of intensive study was necessary for a man to acquire it. Some women seem to have the power instinctively, though, even if baptized."

"Women such as your grandmother, presumably. Does this power come from the Devil, then?"

"You'd have to ask that of my grandfather, Priest. Don't worry, though, you'll be seeing him soon enough." I had spat out the word "grandfather."

"And what of your enemies? What were they doing while you were being so clever?"

In response, I gave him a few facts and played several tapes for him to listen to. I needed the rest anyway.

Odd, after all of this: The priest had such a look of horror on his face when the other Indian boy's death came up. Personally I thought it rather merciful in the way it was carried out. But you decide. Read on.

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You are at Fiction 1, Chapters 7 & 8