The nurse woke Lauren and told her he was gone.
A few days later she accompanied his body back to France for burial.
Chapter Ninety-five
Bob’s funeral was held on a sound stage in Burbank, the crowd of mourners courtesy of the green screen process.
The brushed silver casket shimmered under the bright lights, in stark contrast to the gaping black hole next to it.
Mary and Katy sat bravely at grave side, red-eyed, sobbing, ruined. Trying to be brave. Mary dabbed her eyes with a linen handkerchief. Katy, her lips turned down at the edges, clutched something in her lap as she cried.
Father Paul officiated.
They only needed enough to edit together a two minute segment.
Traci Taylor was there to cover the funeral, an exclusive for Eyewitness Action News. She stood a respectful distance from the grave. Ronnie was a little closer, to capture the images.
Traci narrated quietly, “Earlier this morning, they laid to rest the ashes of their friend, Klaus Müller, in accordance with his wishes.” She paused. “Now, I believe they’re about to lower the casket into the— no, wait a minute, little Katy is getting up and approaching the casket.”
Ronnie zoomed in to follow the action as Traci narrated, “It looks like she’s going to lay something on top of it, possibly a flower or…no…it’s a plastic model of an insect. Oh, doesn’t that just break your heart? I’m not mistaken, that’s an antlion, which, in its larval stage, is known as a doodlebug. I’m told that was the nickname her father gave her when she was just a baby.”
Sitting in the darkness off-camera in a director’s chair, Klaus nudged Bob and said, “That’s a nice touch.”
Bob nodded. “It’s my favorite part.”
***
Bob had shaved his head and grown a goatee. Klaus sported a Vandyke and tortoise-shell glasses that took some getting used to after so many years wearing contacts.
They were sitting with Mary in the offices of Sight and Soundscapes Unlimited, a special effects firm in Los Angeles. They were going over the invoices. “Wait a minute,” Mary said, pointing at a line item. “How many cherubim did we get?”
The man on the other side of the desk looked at his copy. “I think we had twenty, plus ten seraphim, and the three guardian angels.”
“Right,” she said. “But this can’t be the per-cherub price, can it?”
“No, that’s for all of them.”
“All right, fine,” Mary said, flipping to the next page. “Now about the lightning and fire.”
The man chewed a bit at the inside of his lip. “I know, we went over budget but—“
”Yeah, well, about that…” Mary pulled off her glasses and said, “It was spectacular.”
“Oh, thanks.” His anxiety turned to immodesty. “We thought it was pretty damn—”
“Unfortunately,” Klaus interrupted. “The contract gives you only 10 percent wiggle room.” He tapped the invoice and said, “Not thirty.”
“Are you kidding?” The guy couldn’t believe they were chiseling him on this. “It looked like the Second Coming, for Christ’s sake. How about twenty-five?”
Bob glanced at Mary who nodded. “Fifteen,” Bob said.
“Twenty.”
“Fair enough.”
***
After settling the bill for special effects, Bob, Mary, and Katy drove Klaus and Audrey down to a restaurant near the harbor in Long Beach. They had decided to split up on the docks that night, agreeing it was best not to be seen in one another’s company for a while.
Agent Parker and Father Paul met them for dinner at The Crusty Crab. Agent Parker handed manila envelopes to Bob, Mary, Katy, and Klaus. “New ID’s,” he said. “Passports, driver’s license, Social Security numbers, everything you need.”
They were sitting in the bar, waiting for their table when Katy pointed up at the television.
Traci Taylor was standing on a dirt road in the Santa Monica Mountains. “We lost so much more than just talented people in those terrible days. We will never know what films, what beloved characters, what thrill-ride special effects were lost forever. The loss to our culture, indeed, to the entire world, can never be truly quantified.” She paused for a moment, turned her head slightly and said, “For Eyewitness Action News, reporting from the hills above Los Angles, I’m Traci Taylor.”
“I’ll bet a thousand bucks she wins a Pulitzer,” Agent Parker said.
“I think I’ll just send her the thousand bucks,” Bob replied. “We couldn’t have done this without her.” He raised his glass.
Later, over dinner, Mary turned to Agent Parker and asked if he’d made any plans now that he was a rich man. “I mean other than placing thousand-dollar bets on a whim,” she said.
Parker seemed troubled by the question. He looked at his scotch as if the answer might be hiding under the ice cubes. Finally he said, “You know, if you’d asked me a few days ago I would have had a different answer. But after the other night, the religious spectacle, and seeing all those people with so much absolute, unshakable, faith, I’m not so sure anymore. I’m thinking about going to a monastery.”
Father Paul spewed wine from his nose and mouth. “What?”
Agent Parker handed him a napkin. “Kidding,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment with a Realtor. Says she has just what I’m looking for in River Oaks.”
Katy said, “Are you still going to work at the CIA?”
He cracked a crab leg and said, “Haven’t decided.”
“Because I think that’s what I want to do after college.”
“You’ve got what it takes,” he said. “You want my advice? Learn Arabic.”
“Guh,” she said with a pained face. “As if.”
After dinner, they drove over to the docks. Klaus was taking Audrey on a cruise through the Panama canal to St. Thomas, where they would catch a flight to destinations unknown.
As they were about to leave, Agent Parker looked at Katy and said, “Call me if you’re serious about the CIA thing. I can arrange for an internship, if you want. Just keep your salary expectations low.”
“Thanks,” she said. “It’ll just be a few years. I need to learn to drive first.”
***
As the ship sailed, Katy walked alongside to the end of the dock, waving to Klaus and Audrey on the top deck. “Bon voyage!” she yelled.
Mary noticed that Bob seemed a little sad. She said, “You know, this isn’t the end of it.”
It caught him off guard. “The end of what?”
“Your dream,” she said. “I know you can’t just give it up. I don’t want you to. Someday you’re going to perfect the assassin bug and have the world’s first all natural pest control business.”
Bob looked at her and smiled. “You think?”
“I know.”
“But we should put it on the back burner for a while,” he said. “Just to keep the profile low.”
***
Father Paul returned to Seattle, where he retired from Saint Martin’s.
He bought a building on the south edge of downtown and christened it St. Elijah the Prophet Old Catholic Church, thus joining a loose community of Christian churches that had split from the Roman Catholics in the 1870s after a dispute about Papal infallibility.
He wanted to serve those rejected by the official church. He baptized the children of the unwed. He performed weddings for the divorced. He brought in a couple of priests who had left the church so they could marry and start families. He opened a day care and a health care center, and had professionals there to discuss family planning.
They passed the plate at every service. The congregants gave generously, since they knew St. Elijah wasn’t recognized by the Vatican and so wasn’t required to kick mon
ey upstairs to pay off the lawsuits. They knew the money would actually get to the poor. And this, they found comforting and more in keeping with what they believed Jesus had in mind.
***
Agent Parker’s real estate agent found the perfect house for him. It was a two-story, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath colonial on a nicely wooded acre. The new interior featured Brazilian cherry hardwood floors, granite counters, skylight, exposed brick, a new deck, gourmet kitchen, a new roof, and central air. Best of all it was a fifteen-minute drive to CIA headquarters.
He received a raise, a promotion, and a commendation for his brave actions in killing the two fugitives without any collateral damage. No one said it, but it helped that it was all done in front of a worldwide television audience, burnishing the reputation of the long beleaguered agency.
The promotion didn’t last long, however. Parker found that with financial independence came an inability or unwillingness to grovel, suck up, kiss ass, or generally take shit of any sort.
He retired a month later, opting to take a year off to work on a screenplay.
Chapter Ninety-six
A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the leak of Bob’s and Klaus’ names and the details of their work with DARPA, in violation of national security laws.
Judy Rendon and William Cooper were the first to be subpoenaed. Judy held out, refusing to testify, saying she was duty-bound to protect her sources and was willing to accept the consequences. In truth, she feared reprisal from certain radical ideologues and figured taking one for the team by spending a few months in jail would be amply rewarded in due course, not to mention the value of the subsequent book and film rights.
William Cooper, on the other hand, folded like wet cardboard. Threatened with a prison term for contempt of court and obstruction of justice, the tender, fleshy reporter started singing like a church choir, explaining how Charles Browning had not only given him the information on Bob and Klaus but had paid him two thousand dollars to write the story. His biggest regret, he said, was how cheaply he had sold himself.
Based on William Cooper’s testimony, Charles Browning was brought before the grand jury. He worked out a deal for immunity and played Judas to Joshua Treadwell’s Jesus—not the original Judas, the one thought to have betrayed the Lord, but the later Judas, the one discovered in the Gnostic gospels to have been in cahoots with Jesus all along.
The press played it up as a kiss-on-the-cheek betrayal, the immunity from prosecution his forty pieces of silver. But it had been in the works all along. Charles Browning would testify that he had leaked the information only after getting authorization from Treadwell to do so. This full disclosure got him off the hook.
When Joshua Treadwell was called to explain himself, he and his attorney trotted out an elegant end-run on the Classified Information Procedures Act, managing an effective gray-mail defense. They insisted that Treadwell would have to request and reveal copious amounts of classified information in order to fully defend himself.
The Special Prosecutor knew that denying access to such material would provide a jury with doubt about the fairness of the trial and leave them considering the possibility that the unreleased material might clear the defendant. A few months later, the government dropped the case.
After the ceremony where Treadwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work at the Department of Defense, he put his arm around his friend and said, “You did a heckuva job, Browning.”
Joshua Treadwell left DARPA to take a position as a political commentator for television and radio, quickly becoming a darling of the conservative media. He was a frequent guest on the Winston Archer Report and even sat in to host the show on occasion.
There was even talk of his own cable news show. The Truth According to Treadwell.
He became a highly sought-after speaker on the conservative lecture circuit, where he talked modestly about his martyrdom and being hounded out of his job because of his faith.
Treadwell got a million-dollar advance for his autobiography. When it was published, he set out on a book tour. Big crowds, too. First New York. Then D.C. Then, moving down the East Coast, Richmond. The fourth stop was Charlotte, North Carolina, where the marketing had been aimed at church groups.
Treadwell did his presentation followed by a short question-and-answer period, then the crowd lined up to get their signed copies.
An attractive young woman approached and shyly handed him the book. She was too intimidated to speak. Treadwell opened the book to the slip of paper with the woman’s name on it. He looked up and said, “Hi, Theresa, where’re you from?”
“First Baptist in Charlotte,” she said, blushing. “I think you’re the best.”
“Thanks,” he said as he scrawled his name. He handed her the book and she walked away touching his signature as if it were a holy relic.
Next in line was an older man with unruly eyebrows and a yellow WWJD bracelet. Treadwell asked where he was from. “Blood of the Lamb Presbyterian in Brevard,” he said. “Little town south of Asheville. I just wanted to thank you for all you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome,” Treadwell said, signing the book “God bless.”
Next in line was a younger man, maybe late twenties, clean cut and disciplined-looking. Treadwell smiled and waited for the man to hand him a book. But he just stood there, empty-handed.
Finally, Treadwell said, “Hi, where’re you from?”
The young man said, “Great Awakening Baptist Church in Ohio.”
“Ohio? Wow, that’s a long drive,” Treadwell said. “You know I think I’m scheduled to do an event in Columbus next week.”
“I know,” the man said. “This couldn’t wait.”
Treadwell smiled, assuming it was a compliment. “You have a book you want me to sign?”
“No, I came to tell you that I disapprove of your philosophy and your methods.”
Treadwell tried to be cordial, even if he didn’t feel he needed to be. He said, “Let me guess: you think I’m too conservative?”
The guy shook his head as he pulled his gun. “Too liberal.”
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