The Hand of War

by Blake Banner

  But that’s not how it works. You live each moment as it comes. And then you die.

  He was waiting for me at the 97th Street exit, leaning against the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign, watching me. He looked lean, healthy, and cruel. I wasn’t surprised to see him. I had half-expected it.

  “Hello, Ben.”

  “Hello, Lacklan.”

  I went and stood at the crossing, waiting for the lights to change. He stood beside me. “Have you got anything to report?”

  “I don’t report to you, Ben. I keep telling you, but you don’t hear.”

  He ignored me. “Why was it Gibbons and not Marni?”

  I looked into his face. “Mind your own business.”

  The lights changed and we started to walk. “I’ve been patient, Lacklan. I need a result and I need it now, or I can’t keep protecting you.”

  “I don’t need your protection. You need mine and you know it.”

  He eyed my face as we walked, trying to read my expression. “Is she going to reveal her father’s research at the conference?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to her.”

  “What did Gibbons tell you?”

  “He said he wants to negotiate with Omega. He believes he can influence you and reach some kind of agreement.”

  We reached the far side of the road and I stopped. He faced me. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him he was stupid. I told him the only solution was to kill you all.” He frowned at me. I didn’t smile. “I told him the truth, that the only thing standing between him and Marni and death was me, and that I needed to talk to Marni.”

  His eyes made little darting movements over my features, like he was trying to read them. Finally, he said, “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d try to persuade her.”

  “Where is she?”

  I smiled, then gave a single, humorless laugh. “I don’t know, Ben. And if you try and torture it out of him I guarantee she won’t be there by the time he talks.” I sighed. “He wants guarantees, Ben. He believes, and so does she, that there is common ground between you and them, and some kind of compromise can be reached.”

  He nodded. “I am sure they are right. I keep telling you that, Lacklan. Isn’t it time you started listening?” He jerked his head in a northerly direction and said, “Have a drink with me.”

  He led me to Columbus Avenue by way of 105th Street, to a bar with bare red brick walls and rough wooden tables. He ordered two martinis and we sat. Neither of us drank. He leaned back in his chair to study me for a moment.

  “Lacklan, we are at a stalemate. You and Marni, and Professor Gibbons, can do Omega a lot of harm if she publishes her father’s research. You know that, we know that. You also know that we have the power to hurt all of you very badly. You know that we won’t flinch, and you know that we can and will kill you, without hesitation. Right there is the stalemate.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “That if we play chicken, if we keep on this course toward a head-on collision, you will die—all of you. We will be very badly hurt, but we will survive. And in time we will recover.”

  It was, in so many words, what I had told Gibbons. I sipped my martini. “I’d rather die fighting you, Ben, than live serving you. I know what that did to my father, remember?”

  He nodded. “Maybe there’s a third alternative.”

  I told him with my smile that I didn’t believe him, but I said, “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  “We, the members of Omega, Lacklan, are just people. We are not evil aliens from a parallel dimension, and we are not clones of each other. We are just people, and not everybody agrees with the way things are done. I am not going to stick my neck out and put myself at risk, but I will tell you that there are people, among the twenty-seven leaders, who would be willing to listen. For God’s sake, Lacklan, your own father was Gamma, and it was no secret that he had his doubts. We have one objective, and only one. That is to preserve the little of good that humanity has created, when the end comes. But how we achieve this end, we are open to new ideas about that. And I genuinely believe that the Twenty-Seven would listen to you and Marni, and Gibbons.”

  I sighed, letting him know that I was bored. “Words.”

  “OK. Let’s go one step at a time. Tonight, there is a cocktail party at the residence of Prince Mohamed bin Awad, in honor of the delegates and speakers at the UN conference.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Because he is the New York consul for the Awadi Arabian Kingdom, and his family have a vested interest in the outcome of the conference. The Middle East stands to lose a lot if the planet keeps getting hotter.” He shrugged. “Everybody south of parallel forty-five does, but let’s face it, nobody stands to lose more than a bunch of billionaires living in a desert and making money from oil. Climate change is not good news for them, right?”

  “OK, I see that.”

  “So they have an interest in this conference, at the very least as observers, but more likely as attempting to influence the speakers and the delegates.”

  I shrugged. “So why are you telling me this?”

  “Because Marni will be at the party, and I can get you on the guest list. I want you to go. Ambush her. Make her talk to you. Let us at least have a dialogue. We all have things to lose, and we all have things to gain.”

  He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out an invitation which he slid across the table to me. I stared at it and felt a hot pellet of excitement in my gut. I was going to see her, talk to her, and touch her, after all this time. I was going to see her that night.

  Three

  There are not a huge number of houses in the immediate vicinity of Central Park. This one was a neo-gothic monstrosity on East 79th Street that looked as though it had once belonged to Dr. Frankenstein. It had too many arches and gabled roofs, and Central Park as a back yard. I’d bought an expensive evening suit that afternoon, with satin lapels and a bowtie, and decided to arrive fashionably late, at twenty minutes to nine. But when I got there, there were still gleaming limos arriving out front and disgorging glittering people onto the sidewalk and the broad, stone steps that led up to the grotesque pseudo-Tudor arch over the doorway.

  There was a man at the door dressed up like Jeeves. He regarded me with a special kind of contempt he reserved for people who were not famous or billionaires. I showed him my invitation and he looked at it without touching it, like he might catch vulgarity from it. He gestured me toward the door with something that should have been courtesy but wasn’t, and I stepped inside.

  The inside was carpeted in red and paneled in oak, and populated by more of the same glittering people I had seen outside. I took a glass of champagne from a passing tray and moved through a set of double oak doors, half expecting a portcullis to drop on me from above. I figured there were at least a hundred people there, possibly twice that many. Most were in their fifties or sixties and many had the look of senior academics, or those strange creatures that hover in the gray area between academia, politics, and the military-industrial complex. They stood in small groups, smiling urbanely at each other, preening themselves, discussing exhibitions, concerts, and plays, accidentally dropping names, letting slip connections, like peacocks with important friends stuck up their asses, instead of tail feathers.

  Somewhere I could hear a chamber orchestra playing Mozart, and I headed in that direction. Nobody seemed to notice me, which suited me fine. I crossed one large room and entered another. By the size of it, and the checkerboard floor, I figured it was a ballroom. A small stage at one end held a string quartet with a clarinet and an oboe, all in traditional eighteenth century clothes. They were busily playing a selection of Mozart and Handel which made you want to grab the nearest woman and break into a crazy minuet. The crowd was more dense here, and I stood on the periphery a while, watching. But I couldn’t see any sign of Gibbons or Marni.

  I spotted a waiter approaching with another tray of champagne and
signaled him over.

  “Is there a bar where I can get a real drink?”

  He smiled. “Sure, other end of the ballroom, they got all the beer and spirits you want.”

  I put my glass down by a palm and negotiated my way through the throng to a long table covered in a white linen cloth, silver buckets of ice, white wine, and champagne. There was also a reassuringly large range of spirits. The guy in the white dinner jacket behind the table smiled. I said, “Give me a Bushmills, straight up.”

  While he poured it, I looked around. That was when I saw her. She was in a mauve satin evening dress and had her dark hair lifted into a knot at the back of her neck. She had a glass of champagne in her hand and was listening to Gibbons talk. There was a small group around them. A couple of the men looked Middle Eastern.

  I felt a jolt of cold anger inside. I ignored it and strolled over to join the group. Marni was the first to see me. She went pale and her eyes stared. I smiled down at her.

  “Hello, Marni. It’s been a long time. How are you keeping?”

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “Lacklan…”

  I was aware of Gibbons staring at me. The group had gone silent, smiling pleasantly, expectantly. I smiled back. “Professor Gibbons, how are you? Please don’t let me interrupt. Do carry on.”

  He stammered. “Yes, I…Walker. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “And yet, here I am!”

  The groomed and polished guy standing next to me held out his hand. “Salman bin Awad, how do you do?”

  I shook his hand. “Lacklan Walker.”

  “Professor Gibbons was giving us a most fascinating talk on political philosophy.”

  I smiled with my mouth while my eyes did something else. “He’s very good at that. He gets a lot of practice, don’t you, Philip?” He scowled at me and I took Marni’s elbow. “Please, carry on, I am just going to borrow Marni for a second. I promise to return her in one piece.”

  Gibbons flashed a look at her and she sighed. “I’ll be right back.”

  We stepped over to the wall and she glared at me. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Lacklan? What are you doing here?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “It’s nice to see you, too. What am I playing at? Well, you know what? I’ve been wanting to ask you a question. You see, there was this cabin outside Turret, where you kissed me, and where you were so worried that I had been hurt after I destroyed the sun beetle farm. Then I blinked, and next moment you disappeared and showed up negotiating for a seat at the Omega high table. I blinked again and, after I’d helped you escape, you killed my father. Now, however boring and inconvenient it might be for you and your academic colleagues, I think at the very least you owe me an explanation.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, the anger had gone out of her face. I noticed absently that the deep blue of her eyes looked deeper because of the color of her dress. She looked beautiful and for a moment, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of loss.

  “I’m sorry, Lacklan. The part of your story that you omitted was where you told me that your father had murdered mine. You hated your father, but I loved Daddy. He was my idol. And when I discovered that your father, whom I had trusted all my life, who had always been there for me and Mom, when I discovered that he had not only killed my father, but that he was a member of Omega…” She shook her head. “You can’t imagine what that did to me.”

  “I think I can, Marni.”

  She looked away. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. Of course you can.”

  “I am no stranger to betrayal.”

  She raised her eyes to meet mine.

  “I have been betrayed by just about everybody I have loved.”

  “Don’t say that, Lacklan.”

  “Why are you cutting me out?”

  She stepped close and placed her hand on my chest. “Please believe me, you are too dangerous.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t realize the power our enemies wield.”

  “I think I do. I think I know them a damn sight better than you do. How do you think I got into this party?”

  She frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that we need to talk. You don’t understand the danger you’re in, or what will happen if you release your father’s research at the conference. They will kill you, Marni, and they will kill Gibbons and they will kill me. We need to join forces. You have to stop running from me.”

  She was still frowning. “How did you get into the party?”

  “You remember Ben, my father’s personal assistant?”

  She nodded.

  “He is with Omega. I don’t know what his position is, but he carries weight.”

  Her frown had deepened. “But why did they want you to come… To talk to me? They wanted you to talk to me?”

  There was something like panic in her eyes. I gave her a moment, then said, “Look at me, Marni. Look at me.” Her eyes met mine. “As long as they think that I am looking for you, as long as they think we have a bond, your life is safe. The minute they decide that I cannot reach you, we are both dead. Do you understand that? You need to assimilate that fact. Because it’s the only thing keeping us both alive.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I see.”

  “They want you on board, but above all, what they really want is your father’s research.” I shook my head and narrowed my eyes at her. “What the hell did he discover, Marni? Why is his research so important to them?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment, examining my face. “You don’t know?” She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

  “How would I know? Why can’t you tell me?”

  “Not here. Lacklan, have you gone over to them?”

  She must have seen the anger in my face because she closed her eyes and raised a hand. “All right, I’m sorry!”

  “Marni, you’re accusing me of being a loose cannon, but you are panicking and you are out of control. You need to get a grip, realize who you can trust. And we need to start making a plan together, coordinating our efforts.”

  She nodded again. “Yes, you’re right. I have been so scared. I’ve missed you, but Lacklan, you scare me sometimes.”

  “Come home with me tonight.”

  “I…” She glanced at Gibbons. “I don’t know…”

  “Marni?” She looked back at me. “Come home with me tonight.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, all right.”

  “We’ll join them, chat for a while, then we’ll walk out together.”

  “What if they are waiting for us?”

  “They won’t be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they know I would kill them.”

  “Jesus!”

  “And that would attract too much publicity. They want to do this subtle and quiet. We’ll play on that.”

  She was staring at me with horrified eyes. “What happened to you in England?”

  “It wasn’t in England. It was in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in a hundred other places. If you stop running away from me, maybe one day I’ll tell you about it.”

  “What about Gibbons?”

  “He can come along if he wants to.”

  She hesitated. “OK…”

  “Come on, let’s go and be sociable for a while. And Marni?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be nice to me, OK?”

  She nodded. “I know, so we don’t draw attention.”

  “No, because I’m tired of being brushed off by you, and I like it when you’re nice.”

  She sighed and repressed a smile. We made our way back to the group. Gibbons was taking a break from lecturing, and Salman was speaking with an earnest look on his slim, handsome face.

  “With the greatest respect, Professor, despite everything that has been said about politics, the many volumes that have been written on the subject—it has been defined as both an art and a science—in
reality what it boils down to in the end is that it is a simple practice. And the practice is no more than the acquisition and retention of power. That is all politics is—‘how can I acquire more power, and how can I retain the power I have?’ And for both of these ends we need two conditions…” He paused and held up two long, delicate brown fingers. “One, the people over whom we exercise power must be divided, and two, they must fear some outside threat. It may be the Jews, or the Muslims, it may be the Communists or the decadent west, it may be the aliens…” He paused, holding his audience suspended from his arched left eyebrow. “…or it may be the environment! But as long as people live in fear of an outside threat, they will give their political leaders a good deal of latitude in how they are governed.” He smiled. “In how they are controlled!”

  A large man in a brocade waistcoat and a deep purple dinner jacket had moved up to us like a Spanish galleon in full sail, parting the sea of people as he went. He had a huge, leonine head, silver hair brushed back and a complacent smile on his face.

  “What you say is absolutely true, Salman. But it is merely the circus part of bread and circus. The virtue of the circus is to keep people’s attention focused on something other than the fact that their leaders are making free with their possessions and their liberties. There is no special virtue in a terrified populace. All you really need is a distracted one.” He turned his complacent smile on Gibbons and then Marni. “Professor Gibbons, Dr. Gilbert. Speaking of circuses and distractions, I believe you have some entertainment in store for us.”

  I felt Marni stiffen and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. Gibbons curled his lip. “Your Excellency, what a pleasant surprise to see you at a conference of this type. The rate at which your country’s rainforests are being depleted, one would be forgiven for thinking your government had no interest in climate change at all.”

  His Excellency chuckled the way a mountain might chuckle. “Climate change! Reds under the bed. We have other things to frighten our people with. But I’ll tell you what I am interested in…” He looked around at us one after another. “Screens!” He announced it as though he expected us to gasp. “Screens,” he said again. “You know, in 1955, the Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the last great fascist, was being conducted around the brand new studios of Television Española, due to be inaugurated the following year. Franco had been the supreme, authoritarian leader of Spain for some sixteen years by then. The fascist regimes of Italy and Germany had collapsed, the Allies had won the war, and there was a new mood of hope and liberalism in the world. So Franco was under a lot of pressure from his so-called technocrats to liberalize his regime. They wanted reforms, but Franco had been holding out, resisting their pressure.