End Times

by P A Duncan

  “It seems you owe apologies all around today, and you will come here directly after school,” he said. “Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Popi,” she said, meek at last.

  “Go wait for me in my car. I’m taking you to school today, and we’ll chat.”

  She slouched into the garage, and two sets of eyes settled on him. Mai’s showed relief to have the burden shifted. Olga’s displayed her confidence in him. Such faith you inspire, he thought as he fished keys from the kitchen drawer. He fixed his firmest expression in place and headed for the garage.

  On purpose, he made the drive leisurely and took a longer route, to let Natalia stew for a while before he spoke.

  “Now, I want to know why you decided you had to speak to Olga and Mai the way you did this morning,” he said.

  “Mai was as bad.”

  “That’s not the subject. Why did you try to out-do her today?”

  “As if I could.”

  “But you tried anyway, and you’re avoiding the question.”

  “I don’t know, Popi. I didn’t mean it.”

  “That’s not good enough.” Boizhe moi, if he had to fly to Hawai’i and force his son to be a father, he’d do it, but right now, the problem was his. “Perhaps I ended our conversation about your father too quickly last night. If his behavior is bothering you this much and making you do such a prime imitation of Mai at her worst, I suggest you keep calling him until he answers and make him deal with your feelings, but you will not, I repeat, will not take it out on your family. Is that clear?”

  The adolescent mood swing went all the way over to tears, and she blubbered, “Yes, Popi, but you and Mums expect so much of me.”

  “We expect nothing you’re incapable of.”

  “But how can you know that when I don’t even know?”

  “Because we’re the grown-ups with the life experience.”

  “God, that’s exactly what she said.”

  “That should tell you something.”

  “That you always take her side, and it’s, you know, not fair.”

  “Nowhere is it written that life is fair, Natalia. That’s why growing up is one of the most difficult things to do.”

  He guided his Jaguar onto the grounds of Mount Vernon Middle School and made his way around buses, other cars, and students. When he stopped at the drop-off point, he held up a hand to stop her from leaving. “I’m disappointed in your behavior this morning. You need to think of a way to apologize to Mai and Olga, and it has to be sincere.”

  He needed to say no more. One thing he could judge was the sincerity of someone’s contrition. “I’ll pick you up after school, and it will be straight home. Here.” He handed her his handkerchief and told her to dry her face. When she blew her nose into it, he motioned for her to keep it.

  “I’m sorry, Popi,” she murmured. She gave his cheek a kiss and left.

  Her friends gathered around her, and judging from their aghast expressions, she’d given them the bad news. Two of the girls turned to glare at him.

  Espionage was child’s play compared with rearing children.

  When he re-entered the house from the garage, Olga handed him a cup of coffee and a toasted bagel.

  “Spaceba. Gde Maiya?” he asked.

  “In office. I hope you did not take shit from child.”

  “I didn’t.” At Olga’s skepticism, he added, “I’m not the pushover with her everyone thinks I am. I’ll pick her up from school and bring her straight home.”

  “I know I am only bodyguard, but Mai let debate go on too long.”

  “What would you have Mai do, Olga? Lock Natalia in her room?”

  “Ono rabotayet,” Olga replied—it works.

  “Sorry, you’re not at Lubyanka anymore.”

  “We could only hope until she is eighteen.”

  Alexei shook his head, sampled more of his coffee, and went into the office. Mai sat at her computer, frowning as she read. He paused behind her and studied what was on the monitor. Newsgroup pages on neo-Nazis, survivalism, Christian Identity.

  He sat in his chair at the desk next to hers, the arrangement, she’d said, an homage to Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. He rolled closer to her and touched her cheek. She pulled away from him.

  “I’m busy,” she said.

  “Stop being busy.”

  He turned her chair, and they faced each other.

  “Let’s talk about this morning. Now, Natalia’s behavior was unacceptable, but these debates between you and her are escalating.”

  “And?”

  “We need to discuss it. As a couple. As a family.”

  “Sometimes I miss the old you, the one who never bothered with emotional encumbrances.”

  “But now I’m so much more lovable. Natalia and I talked on the way to school. I think this is resolved on her end.”

  “She’s twelve, Alexei. This won’t be resolved for at least another half-dozen years.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  She leaned toward him. “Do we expect too much of her? I do not want to be those parents we see at riding class or soccer living their lives vicariously through their children.”

  “No, we don’t. Her father made her our responsibility. You were living up to that, even if I might quibble with engaging her in a debate.”

  “She needs to understand if she takes that tactic with me, she’ll get back as good as she gives. Or better. You overheard everything. You could have stepped in earlier.”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to interfere and undermine your authority in front of her. She’s smart enough to exploit any perceived division between us.” He smiled and rested his hands on her knees. “She was holding her own for a while. I could close my eyes and hear two of you.”

  “Lucky you. I’m not certain I’m up for this challenge, especially when the actual teen years aren’t that far away.”

  Alexei thought of the things Mai had overcome, had survived, and almost laughed that her thoughts about raising an adolescent had echoed his own.

  “I’m sure I must have given my guardian a run for his money,” she said, “so this must be payback. Maybe that’s part of the problem. That was so long ago, I can’t relate.”

  “Oh, you’re positively ancient, but I love you anyway.”

  The eye roll made him realize who Natalia had gotten that from.

  “You are such a sentimental sot sometimes,” Mai said.

  “Only about you.”

  He kissed her, lightly at first, but let it build. He broke the kiss and smiled at her. “Olga will have left for her class by now. Let’s go back to bed.”

  “At eight o’clock in the morning?”

  “That’s 0800,” he teased. “When the mood strikes, and we’re alone, we should take advantage of it.”

  7

  Power of the People

  Directorate Headquarters

  Somewhere near Washington, D.C.

  Those who had encountered or knew of the operational director of the United Nations Intelligence Directorate referred to him as “Number One,” “The Chief,” or “Boss.” The many enemies he’d made in his career probably had choicer names for him. but Nelson had boasted he’d been called a bastard in almost every major language and several hundred dialects around the world.

  He’d retired from fieldwork and become management years before after a mission went bad. Minus a kidney and with a knee and hip joint damaged so badly replacements hadn’t helped his mobility much, he found he’d made an excellent deputy director for The Directorate’s first chief. He’d made an even better director when that first one died on the job.

  The end of the Cold War had shifted The Directorate’s priorities, but his two top operatives, Mai Fisher and Alexei Bukharin, delved into fractional issues in Europe still. He had noticed Alexei no longer minded the intervals between missions, given the unexpected family life. Nelson envisioned a day in the not-too-distant future when Bukharin retired. What would Mai Fisher
do when that happened? Nelson suspected no one, not even Mai, knew the answer to that.

  Take her latest mission profile: America’s fringe right wing, militias, and neo-Nazis. In truth, almost mundane compared to the fractious Balkans or the violent IRA, but she had presented a reasonable case for a mission. Private armies were a problem anywhere in the world and posed a clear and present danger to any U.N. signatory, the United States included. That alone was enough for him to approve the mission. He would, however, fulfill his managerial duties and play Devil’s Advocate.

  Mai entered Nelson’s private office, Alexei behind her.

  “Good morning, Mr. Phelps,” she said, smiling as she invoked the old television program, Mission: Impossible.

  “Which one are you?” Nelson asked. “The cool, beautiful femme fatale or the dull thinker?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I suppose that means I’m the strong, silent one who always was captured and beaten to a pulp,” Alexei said.

  “I’ve never known either of you to be silent, especially when I wanted it,” Nelson replied.

  Mai glanced at her partner as they took the chairs across from Nelson’s desk. “Did we come here this morning to be insulted?”

  “Shh,” Alexei said, sotto voce. “Remember, we’re supposed to let him think he’s in charge.”

  “How silly of me to forget.”

  “Ha, ha. All right, you two,” Nelson said. “So, an attempted car-jacking leads to the conclusion right-wing conspirators are thinking about overthrowing the U.S. government.” He peered over his reading glasses at them. “That should be good for what? Two, three million dollars?”

  “At least four,” Alexei replied.

  “Okay, I read the mission profile,” Nelson said and looked at Mai. “What was it about this kid that put you onto all this?”

  “He exhibited a certain reluctance with the gun, and his ideas lacked originality.”

  “A forty-five in your face hardly seems reluctant.”

  “I said much the same thing,” Alexei said.

  Mai cut him a look but answered Nelson, “If you’re a true believer and have that kind of firepower, you shoot, take the car, and run. He asked for the keys and only pulled the gun after I stalled. During our talk at the police station, he sounded as if he were repeating something he’d heard from others but didn’t quite comprehend. I went home, engaged Analysis, and did some research of my own. To my surprise, the recent history and collaboration of some of the more organized groups stood out.”

  Nelson looked at his former partner. “Needless to say, you agree.”

  Alexei smiled. “Needless to say.”

  Nelson knew Alexei, as the senior of the partnership, wouldn’t have let this progress to a mission profile unless he believed the issue worth exploring. “For the record, tell me why you agree.”

  “As Mai said, when you look at the extreme right-wing newsgroups on the internet these factions have set up or participate in, you can see a definite shift toward a common cause,” Alexei replied.

  “Did Ruby Ridge come up in your research?”

  Both of them nodded.

  “The difference between Ruby Ridge and other, past incidents is this is the first time the leaders of these groups have agreed on an issue without insulting or threatening each other.”

  “The common focus,” Mai said, “is to collaborate on an action plan to address the ‘problem of the U.S. government.’ Unfortunately, so soon after Ruby Ridge, the government may be providing them additional fodder.”

  “Killeen, Texas?” Nelson asked.

  “The chat rooms and newsgroups are full of exchanges about Killeen,” Mai said.

  Nelson continued, “Listening posts have turned up some unusual communications traffic among the feds, the Texas National Guard, and some Army bases in Texas.”

  Alexei leaned forward. “Regarding what?”

  “Borrowing birds and horses.”

  The two men stared at each other, their long association letting them convey their thoughts without words.

  “Surely, the FBI knows what Posse Comitatus allows,” Alexei said.

  “To be sure. In its characteristic arrogance, the agency seems to be ignoring it.”

  “Excuse me,” said Mai. “Borrowing birds and horses? And what does the anti-tax group have to do… Oh, you mean the Posse Comitatus Act.”

  “There are indications,” Nelson said, “during the original February raid on Calvary Locus near Killeen in late February an ATF sniper fired from a National Guard helicopter—the birds, by the way.”

  “I couldn’t turn up any corroboration of that,” Mai said. “However, that’s what many of the right-wingers believe, based on information out of Cavalry Locus before the FBI cut the phone lines.”

  “The feds are being suspiciously quiet about that,” Nelson said, “which makes me a tad dubious. An ATF sniper shooting from a Guard helicopter might not be a literal violation of Posse Comitatus’ provision the military can only be used in this country for drug interdiction, but I think what’s key here is how the nut jobs have interpreted it.”

  “It will continue to feed their paranoia,” Alexei said.

  “Why haven’t more people objected that the country’s supreme law enforcement agency might be in violation of such a law?” Mai asked.

  Nelson said, “I think you’ll find the average American thinks the groups you’ve looked into, and especially the People of the Eternal Light at that church outside Killeen, are loonies. The FBI is making that easier by feeding the media all the salacious stuff about Isaac Caleb’s women. People don’t work themselves up for loonies, and they tend to trust the FBI over those loonies.”

  “What are the horses you mentioned?” Mai asked.

  “Tanks,” Nelson said.

  “For what?” Alexei barked his question.

  “I’ll forward you some intel we’ve dug up regarding CS gas and the fact the tanks the FBI wants to borrow can be converted to fire non-lethal rounds.”

  Mai and Alexei looked at each other, Alexei raising an eyebrow, Mai shrugging. Mai turned back to Nelson and asked, “Tanks and CS gas?”

  He sighed and said, “Yes, what does it all mean? Precisely what I want you two to find out.” He caught the glint in Mai’s eye.

  “We’re going to Killeen?” she asked.

  “Attorney General Sheryl Vejar remembered you from her brush with the cartels. The President signed the protocol this morning.”

  “Then, this whole briefing was unnecessary,” Mai said.

  “Of course not,” Nelson said, his grin cheeky. “It gave me a chance to see your smiling faces and to remind you to keep me in the loop. When I get an irate call from the Secretary-General who’s gotten an irate call from a head of state, I don’t like sounding as though I don’t know what my operatives are doing.”

  “We’ll have to be more circumspect than usual,” Alexei said. “These groups harbor an absolute hatred of the United Nations.”

  “Yes, no adding fuel to that particular flame,” Nelson said. “Also, some of these groups are generous political donors. Can you guess which party? Rhetorical question. I trust you to uphold the Charter, your oaths, and all that crap. Oh, and keep the pile of bodies to a minimum.”

  “These limitations of yours take all the fun out of my work,” Alexei said, smiling at Nelson’s joke.

  Mai rolled her eyes.

  Hands in a white-knuckle grip atop his desk, Nelson leaned forward and said, “If, after Killeen, this pans out into a broader mission, don’t head off unprepared. Learning about these right-wingers will make your skin crawl, but you have to learn everything about them. Explore every avenue. Read and study every bit of intelligence you can find. Take as long as you need. Don’t take anything for granted with these guys, and don’t ever, ever, be complacent when you encounter them. Clear?”

  Mai and Alexei glanced at each other, both speechless at Nelson’s passionate declaration.

  “Am I
clear?” he repeated through tight lips.

  “Perfectly,” Alexei said. “We understand.”

  Satisfied, Nelson said, “All right, have Analysis give you the detailed briefing on the People of the Eternal Light and be in Texas the day after tomorrow. The FBI will be expecting you. Now, out of here and let me do some real work.”

  Mount Vernon, Virginia

  Had things worked out differently, Mai would be checking the school schedule for her and Alexei’s children as well as for Natalia. She gave a brief thought of managing the logistics for five children ranging from the age of fifteen to an infant and decided dealing with Natalia’s schedule was more than enough.

  No parent-teacher conferences showed on the schedule, though spring break would be coming up in about a month. The Killeen mission might only be a few days, and nothing was scheduled that Olga couldn’t handle.

  Alexei came up behind her and gave her neck a gentle rub. “Anything?” he asked.

  “No. Soccer and riding. Same as usual.”

  “Let’s go talk to her.”

  When Natalia answered her door, she had the headphones for her Walkman on and quickly tugged them off.

  “I, uh, was doing homework while I listened to music,” she said.

  “That didn’t sound guilty at all,” Mai said.

  “I can do both.”

  “We’ll see when I check your homework,” Alexei said. “Sit down. We need to talk to you.”

  Her face a mask of dismay, Natalia exclaimed, “Oh God, you’re pregnant!”

  “What?” Mai said. “No, of course not.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Natalia said, “Thank God. That would be, like, totally embarrassing.”

  Pushing Balkan memories away, Mai said, “Sit down.”

  Natalia perched on the edge of her bed.

  “Mai and I have to leave in a couple of days for some work,” Alexei said. “We’ve checked your school schedule, and nothing necessarily requires that we be present for several weeks. Of course, Olga can reach us in an emergency, and we’ll leave the hotel number for you.”