“Holy hell. Why haven’t I heard about this before?”
“SECNAV put a lid on it, even scrubbed the videos from the MCEN… something about delicate negotiations and helping the Chinese save face. You remember the Pacific Rim conference?”
“Oh, yeah. That was a few years before the coup. So, how’d you get her out of there?”
“I had nothing to do with it, and to this day, I have no idea how she pulled it off, because Colonel Feng was bigger, stronger, and at least as skilled as her. I mean, she was just a third year mid up against a seasoned soldier. By the time anyone outside the ring spotted the knife, he already had the complete upper hand, and there’s no way she could have held him off for long, with the blade inches from her face, and all his weight behind it. But then, in the twinkling of an eye, somehow she turned the tables on him. It was like, one moment she’s about to crumble under his onslaught, and the next she’s managed to duck under the blade, slash his ribs with it, and then jam it through his neck, from one ear to the other… all while he’s still holding the damn thing.”
“She killed him, right there in the ring?”
“Yeah, she’s a finisher.”
“Sounds like a marine to me. That’s what she did on Itbayat, isn’t it?”
Crichton picked up the last of the tempura, and reached for his glass.
“She did what I sent her there to do.”
“I’m sure we can find something for her to do in our… concern.” Lukasziewicz laughed as he considered the advantages such an operator might bring.
“Then you can see why we might not want her to be ensnared in the Agency’s web.”
“Maybe, but how can we prevent it? SECNAV has already made the request.”
“Can you stall?”
“Sure, a month, maybe six weeks. How would that help us?”
“The Commandant of the Marine Corps has discretion over staff appointments, right?”
“Yes, but only in the sense that I can put her name through to SECDEF’s final list without SECNAV’s review. But he can intervene if he gets wind of it.”
“I think, if you push it through in the next few days, with SECDEF in Rome next week for the summit, it may turn out the paperwork never finds its way to SECNAV’s office. This is one of those things Cardano just might be able to help with.”
Lukasziewicz laughed again. “You realize this means we’ll have to promote her to an O-4. Don’t you remember the last time we promoted her?”
“Yeah, she was pissed. I’ll take the heat for it, don’t worry. Just put her on my staff, and I’ll make sure she’s out of reach for the duration of Operation Talisman Blade. After that, it’ll be up to her. If she signs a new contract, we can’t shield her from whatever CIA has in mind… or she can retire free and clear, if she’s willing to give up her twenty.”
“It’ll be a loss to the Corps.” Lukasziewicz rubbed his chin as he turned his mind to the downside of their little plan.
“Knowing the agency, she’s already lost to the Corps. At least, we can make it worth her while.”
“It’s a good thing I’m retiring in the spring… because this smells a lot like a burning bridge.”
On the ride back to the base, Lukasziewicz reflected on the nature of Jim Crichton’s loyalty. “Even now, after three decades, he’s still watching out for George Kane’s kid. Yeah, he’ll make a trustworthy business partner.”
“What was that, sir?” Colón asked from the front seat.
“Nothing, Gunny. Did you find something diverting to do?”
“Yes, sir. What with all the Aussies arriving on base, Sailor Town is hopping.”
“I guess the whole city has an interest in the upcoming exercises.” Albuquerque Bridge slipped past the car window on the right, and Lukasziewicz watched a stream of sailors making the long, rather unruly march back to base.
Chapter 4
Morituri Te Salutant
“What are you doing?”
Emily called out to Li Li and Stone in a hushed tone. She’d just caught up with them, in a sub-basement of the Roman amphitheater in Trier. They’d been scratching graffiti into the stone wall of a cell probably used in a previous millennium to hold gladiators before they found death in the arena. A nearby sign in German seemed to announce some sort of prohibition.
“Don’t do that.”
Stone shrugged, but Li Li merely pointed to the many symbols and initials that had already been cut into the rock. “What about those? It’s not like lots of other people haven’t done it, too.”
Perry leaned forward to examine some of the etchings. “This one looks like Latin… morituri… something, I can’t quite make out this last bit.”
“Do you know what it means?”
“What am I, a Latin scholar?”
Emily punched his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you didn’t study it at whatever pompous private high school you went to.”
Perry rubbed his chin and tilted his head. “It might mean something like we… or maybe they who are about to die…”
“You mean like the gladiator salute – we, the already dead, salute you?” Emily grinned at him, pleased with her guess.
“I imagine the gladiators were fatalists, but I don’t think they had anything on you.
Emily grunted and scanned the other walls, and drew her fingers across an elongated, sideways X with a curled leg. The central groove showed white at the bottom, though the edges had taken on the rusty color that could be seen on the fieldstones around the city. “This looks like one of those fish symbols. Some of these look pretty old. Do you really think the gladiators left these?”
“They look too old to be from tourists.”
Emily glanced back at the symbols Stone and Li Li had made, and realized what they were. “These are Chinese characters.”
“What do they mean?” Perry asked.
“This one looks like the radical, tian, for sky or heaven… or maybe… ama.” Emily touched the lines that formed a wishbone with two crossbars – 天 – and glanced at Stone. “Is this yours? It’s so sweet.”
Stone nodded and Perry tilted his head for an explanation. Emily touched the other symbol, the one Li Li had drawn, 月, and said “yuè.”
“It means moon, Emmy.”
“Sky and moon… does it have a special significance?” Perry asked.
Li Li laughed. “It’s Granny and Emmy.”
“Granny?”
“Her full name is like this,” Emily said, and crouched to scrape two characters into the dirt floor – 天照. “It says, Amaterasu, the queen of heaven.”
“And she’s someone’s grandmother?”
Li Li giggled. “Of course, she is, silly. Princess Toshi’s.”
Even Perry had to laugh now. “You mean the little girl I carried on my shoulders at Itbayat?”
“The very same.” Emily popped up and kissed him on the cheek. “And don’t worry. She’ll remember your service when the time comes.”
Outside, in the sunlight, nothing remained of the benches that once formed the original seating area, other than a raised walkway around the central oval. But the grassy slopes of the surrounding bowl, some seventy or eighty meters across, still conveyed much of the acoustical effect Stone was interested in. He scampered from one spot to another, stopping only to wave his arms.
“It’s your turn,” Emily whispered, standing in the center of the amphitheater.
“How much longer do we have to do this?” Li Li asked.
“Hush. He’ll hear you.”
“Oy, Stone,” Li Li barked, and waved her arms back at him, and he let out a whoop and scampered further up the slope.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Emily cooed in one ear and snaked an arm across Li Li’s shoulder. With the free hand, she signaled to Perry, and he trotted over to deliver the bad news to the boy, that it was time to go.
Emily wanted to head back into town, since they’d already visited the cells beneath the stadium. At least initially, the mornin
g had been fraught with heavy questions. Would the arena invoke frightening memories of the children’s captivity? Thousands of gladiators spent their last hours confined beneath the stones and beams of this palace of pain, but little remained to suggest anything other than the architect’s achievements here. All the blood that had been shed above their heads had seeped past the stones long ago and left no trace. No spirits clung to the timber beams, howling an existential agony – at least none Emily could hear, and Li Li and Stone betrayed no sensitivity. It had been nearly ten years since Emily had rescued them from Colonel Park in Kamchatka, and thankfully any scars from the experience had long since scabbed over.
In any event, they weren’t here for that sort of soul-searching. Nothing harrowing. Andie had suggested a light vacation for the kids, something to take everyone’s minds off “the recent unpleasantness.” Yuki had taken to using this expression, thinking it would spare the children’s feelings, though they hardly noticed. For Emily, it had the opposite effect, recalling as it did the peculiar words of the Chinese president, when he described the coup attempt that had almost toppled his regime in the same words.
“People should just say what they mean,” Emily muttered to herself as she stared at the arch over the main entrance. Stone stretched his arms up to see if he could touch the keystone, and Perry nodded his head.
“It’s not true, is it, Emmy?” Li Li asked.
“What, sweetheart?” she said, trying to shake a sour mood out of her head.
“The keystone thing… you know, what Perry was just saying. Weren’t you even listening?”
Emily glanced quickly at Perry for help, and then looked at Li Li. “You mean does the keystone support the arch? Yes, I think that’s true.”
“Just imagine if it was only this single layer,” Perry said. “If the rest of the stones on top weren’t there, all the stones on either side would lean in toward the center.”
Li Li cupped her hands to try to picture it, and Stone held his arms above his head in a wide circle.
“The only thing that keeps the stones on one side from falling is the stones on the other side. See? To reach the ground, they’d have to pass through each other.”
“But couldn’t the heavier ones squeeze the other ones out?” Li Li asked. “They might get pushed out of the way, sideways or even up.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Perry said. “If it were only a single row, they might do just that. But if there are lots of rows next to each other…” – they were halfway through the passageway by this point, and he gestured to the ceiling to make his point – “…there’d be no room for them to move sideways, and if you stack lots of layers on top of the arch, the weight would hold all the ones below in place.”
Perry was enjoying the engineering lesson, and Emily didn’t want to steal this little bit of happiness from him, though Li Li was clearly losing interest. But Stone was fascinated.
“Maybe we should try to build one, when we get home,” Emily proposed, and Stone let out a little shriek. Perry cast a sidewise glance her way. It would be quite a chore to erect a Roman arch in the backyard, and the likely failures would give Li Li something to tease Stone about for days. But, in the end, they’d probably succeed, and it would give the kids a common project. Still, like any normal teenager, Li Li tried more and more to pull away from such things, inattentive to the sadness this might cause her brother.
Later, strolling around the market square near the Rathaus, or city hall, Perry observed from a discreet distance as Li Li and Stone negotiated with a street vendor and came away with a couple of “Schinkenkäsetosten mit Pommefrites,” which turned out to be grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with fries.
Signs posted haphazardly around the square seemed to announce some sort of event for 15:10, though Perry didn’t understand enough German to know exactly what it might be. The words Montagsdemonstration and Polimesse were printed prominently on several flyers over the letters DVU, along with what looked to him like figures dancing in traditional clothing. It didn’t help that the signs had been printed using the older, Gothic style lettering. Whatever it might refer to, they’d find out in a few hours.
Undeterred by the mystery, he took courage from the children’s success in finding food, and didn’t want Emily to mock him if he failed. So, he sought out a street vendor on his own. He found the children a few minutes later, sitting on the edge of the large fountain in the center of the square. A wasserspielen recurred throughout the afternoon, at the top of each hour – the sign on which this information was inscribed was easily transliterated into English – and he’d already seen the fountain send streams two stories high when they first arrived, and figured it would sprinkle, or soak, anyone seated nearby. He checked his watch and decided to risk sitting, and contemplated the sandwich roll he clutched in one hand with a suspicious eye.
“What’d you get?” Li Li asked.
“I’m not really sure. The guy kept saying Speckrollen, or something like that.”
“Looks like it has tomatoes in it.”
“… and mayonaise, I think.”
She giggled at his discomfort. “You may have to risk biting into it.”
Emily showed up a moment later, carrying a more elaborate meal in a sack, which she proceeded to unpack next to Perry. Several containers, one for soup, another held some sort of soufflé, and the last one a warm ham dish.
“You went all out, I see,” Perry said.
“All these places claim to have authentic Roman dishes, and I was curious. At least, I think that’s what eigentlich means.”
Li Li pricked up an ear. “What’d you get? Let me see.”
Emily passed the soup in front of Perry. “This is called tisana. It looks like lentils or barley, and those sausages smell like pine nuts, I think. Try it.” She handed the ham plate to Perry. “You might like this, ham with figs in some sort of sweet sauce. What did you get?”
Perry handed her his roll: “Speckrollen.”
Emily took a bite, and laughed. “It’s a BLT, and heavy on the B. You came halfway around the world, and this is what you want to eat?”
He gulped down a bit more of the ham and figs. “I’m liking this stuff just fine. It tastes like Christmas dinner.”
“Fine. You finish that, and I’ll have some of your wad of bacon. Stone, you should try this pear thing. It’s sort of like a pie, only peppery. You’ll like it.”
After lunch, the four of them wandered the streets of the city for a couple hours. The nearby Liebfrauen Basilika and the Dom Trier captivated Stone who wanted to stay and draw the scene. But Li Li put her foot down. Perry agreed to stay behind while Emily and Li Li headed to the shopping district.
It turned out that Stone was particularly interested in sketching the Porta Nigra, or Black Gate. The three-story structure, built in the 4th century, was all that remained of the massive city walls constructed under the orders of Emperor Constantine. Perry had no objection to exploring it, and even sitting on a bench as Stone sketched it. He noticed more of the mysterious DVU posters, and still had no idea what they might mean. He was content to await the girls’ return.
Traffic heading out of the city increased, and the noise of automobiles outside the gate began to reach Perry’s ear, just as Emily came into view. They retreated to the central market square, where the noise might be less, and there was plenty to occupy Stone’s pen. Even Li Li offered no objection to this plan. Her feet were tired and sitting on a bench in sight of the fountain must have seemed attractive.
The shopkeeper smiled as they entered, and they browsed his souvenirs and post cards. An elderly woman, probably his wife, scowled behind the counter. Was this the usual German brusqueness CJ had warned them of, or was it something more, a resentment of Emily for being Asian? Perry shook his head and examined the snow globes on the rack in front of him. Emily glanced out the front window at Li Li and Stone, who seemed content on the other side of the square, and motioned him over.
“Wouldn’t
your mom like something like this?”
“I don’t know, what is it?”
“It’s for holding soft-boiled eggs, silly. This side’s for the egg, and the toast goes here.”
“In, oder aus, Fräulein… bitte, in oder aus?” The shopkeeper reached for the roll-down security gate over the shop entrance.
Emily shrugged and glanced to Perry for help. “I don’t understand.”
“I think he’s closing up.”
“Bleiben sie hier, bitte, Fräulein.” He turned to the woman behind the counter, who scowled at him. “Für Sicherheit, bitte. Bleiben sie herin.”
“Closing up? It’s the middle of the day. Is he kicking us out?”
“Bitte, Fräulein.” The old man’s expression seemed sympathetic, Perry thought. The old woman grimaced, watching the scene. It might have been a smile, distorted by false teeth, for all he knew, but her eyes looked less than friendly.
The square had been almost deserted just a few minutes earlier, but a few people scurried past, and the muddled sounds of voices and feet caught his ear. Perhaps a tour bus had just disgorged its charges, who would probably have money to spend in the shops. But, then, why would the old man be so keen on closing his gate?
“Perhaps he thinks we’re shoplifters.”
Over her shoulder, Perry could see Stone sitting cross-legged, hunched over his sketchpad, while next to him, Li Li basked in the warmth of the afternoon and stared off into the distance. The two of them might almost have passed for a pair of Bedouins resting at an oasis from this angle, the way the sun glared on every surface, still shiny-damp from the latest spray of the fountain. Stone’s loose shirt and cargo pants, and somnolent posture fit the image, though Li Li’s tennis shoes and short shorts suggested something rather different, perhaps a beach holiday, as the light glistened off her jet black hair.
“Oh my God!” Emily had squirted away before Perry realized, and the old man called after her: “Bitte, Fräulein.”
Girl Stalks the Ruins Page 4
