The War of Immensities

by Barry Klemm

  “Waal, to start with, it’s a convoy, ma’am, and you gotta have a permit.”

  “It isn’t a convoy. It’s just a lot of individuals who all happen to be going the same way.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I got my orders...”

  Lorna stamped her foot with frustration. Her eyes flared and her hair glinted fire in the sunlight. At least, that was what she hoped happened. “Captain, you can’t massacre people just because they want to go for a drive. How will you live with yourself, shooting down so many unarmed people?”

  “I just can’t stand by and let them break the law.”

  “You mean you can’t be seen to back down.”

  “I mean...”

  “Look, Captain, all you have to do is order your men not to shoot. You can explain it to your superiors that on the grounds that you didn’t believe the circumstances justified gunning down honest unarmed citizens.”

  “I guess.”

  “And then get your men out of the way because we don’t want to hurt any of them either and that rig is coming through.”

  “We can’t let you wreck all them cars, ma’am.”

  “Then move most of them. We’ll just dent a couple so you’ll be able to say you stood your ground but we broke through.”

  The Captain scratched his nose and screwed up his face, looking around in utter discomfort. The rig was roaring its engine. His men where all beginning to shout encouragement to each other as they levelled their weapons. “You ain’t bluffin’, are you ma’am?”

  “I assure you, it’s no bluff. These people are under a compulsion to move that they cannot resist and they are not able to back down.”

  The Captain thought it through again and came up to the same anxiety. “Waal, ma’am. I always enjoyed bein’ a patrolman better than this desk job. You got a deal.”

  “Maybe you could even give us an escort.”

  “Waal, ma’am. I ain’t so sure about that.”

  “And you can supervise it all from my helicopter.”

  “Heili-copter, ma’am. Why, in that case, you got a deal.”

  He hurried back toward the siege, waving his arms and shouting wildly. “Okay, hold your fire. Don’t nobody shoot nobody. Get these cars outa here. Leave those. Come on, snap to it. And for God’s sake, these are just plain folks so no firin’.”

  And the rig roared and ploughed through the fenders as the patrol men scattered. As the rig came by, it paused and Lorna swung up onto the tail, beckoning all behind her to follow.

  *

  Brazil and Sulawesi both straddle the equator and are at exactly opposite sides of the earth, but the Pacific Ocean is wide and along that line is almost the greatest possible distance between them. Moreover, since the part of Sulawesi inhabited by the sleepers there, and the section of the Matto Grasso to which the Japanese pilgrims and many enterprising Californians who wished to go now occupied, are both slightly south of the equator and the Earth being not round but an oblate spheroid, the east-west line placed them even further apart. The shortest way is south, via Antarctica, but of course that placed the European and American pilgrims, along with those few hundred the Kevin Wagner’s team relentlessly pursued in Japan, and Andromeda Starlight’s hordes, a vast distance away. The next best option, creating a great circle that passed through Sulawesi and Brazil and incorporating the locations of the other groups, was over the Arctic circle. And so the Focal Point moved north again, to locate itself near Prince Patrick Land, by coincidence almost exactly on the Magnetic North Pole.

  Harley Thyssen had forgotten to tell Brian Carrick about that until they discussed their plans by satellite telephone just a few days before the linkage. Which, on the whole was rather fortunate, for ignorance allowed Brian to misinform a lot of people of the direction the Italian pilgrimage would go, without having to actually lie to anyone. It might have been the only means by which a man like Brian Carrick could have perpetrated such a deception.

  For there were big plans made on the basis of Brian’s ignorance. The pilgrimage was to be combined with the state funeral of Christine Rice—Saint Chrissie as the media now always referred to her although no murmuring of beatification had officially emerged from the Vatican—and there would be a great possession. It would begin at the convent and make its way west (following the line of Brian’s mistaken belief) through Naples and on to Rome. St Chrissie, lying in state in an open coffin, would lead the pilgrimage for the last time. It was when Thyssen heard these plans on the news—he was busy at the time arranging matters in Brazil—that he had urgently called Brian and put him straight.

  “Don’t worry about it, mate. We can work around that,” Brian told him.

  Brian immediately called Severni and they quickly revised their plans. The pilgrims had filed by the body in the first few days after her death as she lay in state in the convent, but immediately that was done, a shop mannequin was substituted with a waxwork face provided by Severni, and the actual corpse was privately interred. The matter was carried off with the greatest secrecy and only three outsiders attended the quiet sad funeral— Felicity Campbell stood by the graveside with Harley Thyssen on one arm and Brian Carrick on the other. They stayed briefly afterwards, before hurrying away to their respective tasks. The secrecy prohibited the attendance of Lorna Simmons.

  When the time for the linkage came, the Italian pilgrims set forth, following the shopwindow dummy mounted on a stately carriage and pulled by two white horses. The pilgrims followed in the customary convoy of trucks and wagons and bicycles and motor-scooters and a few crowded cars and only the most acute observer might have noticed that there were twice as many of them as before. Outside Salerno, half the group broke away from the main procession and headed north through the mountains, toward the north coast road where they had travelled so many times before, but this time when the reached the coast, Brian Carrick had a sea-going ferry waiting to carry them away to Brazil.

  The fake pilgrims, diligently arranged by Severni, continued to follow the fake body of St Chrissie to Rome, where Cardinal Valerno had made the finest Papal funeral arrangements possible, with all due pageantry, for he, as much as anyone, had cried for Christine Rice. His guilt and shame consumed him and threw him into the work in a frenzy, for he had done what he had to do, what he had been instructed to do, but that did not make it right. When it was over, he had determined, he would quietly take his own life and leave the justifications of his actions to that higher court, to make of it what they might. He was prepared.

  As is happened, he need not have bothered, for one evening, just before the linkage was due, as he hurried through the colonnade of St Peter’s, where the wind gusted at his robes and scuttled the leaves on the terrazzo, a man stepped into his path. Luigi Valerno frowned, realising he knew the man but the moment that he took to recognise Fabrini was one that he could not spare. Fabrini, his drooping moustache gleaming with sweat, his eyes two spots of black fire, made a single upward thrust that took Valerno just under the breastbone and was firm enough to lift the cardinal onto his toes. The long blade penetrated unerringly into his troubled heart and then Fabrini made a series of jerks and twists with his hand, and the razor point of the blade tore Valerno’s heart and lungs to shreds.

  Fabrini released the bone handle of the knife and hurried on about his business, not even looking back to watch his victim fall. Valerno’s hand replaced the killer’s about the handle and, staggering backwards until he hit the wall, he pulled it out and threw it aside. It clattered ringingly on the marble floor. The red robes that they said were so to hide the blood did no such thing and it flowed a great red stain down the front of him. Valerno slid down the wall, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, his arms spread, until he sat, understanding what had been done to him fully, wondering how they were going to explain it. Then the pain exploded like a hand grenade within him, and that was what he carried away with him, screaming all the way to eternity.

  *

  Even the tone with
which the air-conditioning breathed throughout the building seemed to be whispering conspiracies. People here probably conspired over how much sugar they had in their coffee and whether they read the back page of the newspaper first. It was the US Embassy in Kuwait, where anyone who wasn’t a spy was not properly qualified for employment. The Deputy Ambassador, if that was what he was called and who he really was, was flanked by two very handsome young men in very nice suits. They might as well have been wearing armbands with CIA written on them, except Thyssen supposed they were something far more sinister than that.

  “It was good of you to come, Professor Thyssen,” the Deputy said.

  “Did I have a choice?” Thyssen asked flatly.

  The biggest earthquake in recorded history, 10.6 on the moment-magnitude scale, had hit northern Iran. Yet he had left Felicity in the coffee lounge at the airport, waiting for the Orion to be cleared to move.

  “I’m afraid that I have to inform you that permission for your team to enter Iran has not been forthcoming.”

  “I take it the Ayatollah has not yet admitted that the disaster occurred.”

  “They have called for aid and the United Nations, and indeed the US Government is responding. But the assistance of your team will not be required.”

  “According to whom?”

  “My instructions come direct from the highest level of the Iranian Government.”

  “Argue with them.”

  “Professor, your team is not undervalued in this situation, please understand that. But it is their country.”

  “It’s our planet.”

  “Not all of us are privileged to cross international boundaries as freely as your people seem to, Professor. But in this case, the wishes of the Iranians must be respected.”

  “And what if I chose to ignore them?”

  “Your aircraft will be shot down should it enter Iranian airspace. They aren’t kidding. And since your aircraft is unarmed, very slow and the only one of its type in the region, I doubt you’ll get very far.”

  “Have you spoken to President Grayson about this?”

  “The President is aware of the matter.”

  “Get him on the hot line. Let’s see if he’s willing to say so to me.”

  “That will not be possible... I hardly think an expression like hot line is meaningful these days anyway.”

  “Those people are in terrible trouble. The expertise of my team is superior to all other assistance they might be offered.”

  “With all due respect, Professor, the emergency teams in place have now had considerable experience as a result of working with your people and feel they will be able to cope.”

  “So we just sit on our asses and let innocent people die.”

  “We suggest—we strongly suggest—that you return to the United States immediately.”

  “I intend to. And I’ll be hammering on the White House door when I get there.”

  The Deputy half-turned to the man standing beside him, who immediately removed a long envelope from his inside pocket and presented it to Thyssen. Thyssen was able to ignore it.

  “This is a subpoena ordering you to appear at a Senate Inquiry into the activities of one Joseph Solomon, with whom we understand you are an associate.”

  “Waste of time. I’ll take the fifth to all questions.”

  “You haven’t heard the questions...”

  “No. But you have heard the answer. But in case I didn’t make myself clear, go fuck yourself, and you can stick your subpoena where the sun don’t shine.”

  “These gentlemen have been ordered to remove you to the inquiry by force if necessary.”

  “It won’t be necessary. I’ll be there. Somehow I suspect you won’t deliver the message with quite the same emphasis that I will.”

  16. THE JAPANESE PIMPERNEL

  Kevin Wagner grimly regarded the rag-tag bunch of people brought before him. Fourteen in number, a cross-section of humanity, Japanese style—men and women, old and young and three children of indiscernible sex. They were dirty and exhausted, dressed in rags, and shuffled as prisoners do when herded by armed soldiers. Captain Tonishu handed him a clipboard on which there was a long list of names, with crosses beside the fourteen that presumably belonged to these folk.

  “Where did you find them?” Wagner demanded coarsely of the police captain.

  “They were in Hondo’s Shrine, on Mount Fuji. They had run out of water and someone saw them when one of them tried to get to the spring.”

  Wagner nodded grimly. Poor bastards. If they irritated him beyond imagining, still, once confronted with the unfortunate reality of these folk, he shook his head in dismay.

  “There are three other groups of similar number, we think, hiding out in shrines. My men are searching them one by one, at this very time,” the captain continued.

  “Thank you, Captain. And again, thank your men for their efficiency. But once more warn them that time is running out.”

  “Only sixty-three escapees remain to be found. The locations of at least half of them are known to us. They will be found.”

  “And only eighteen days left in which to find them. Every last one of them, Captain.”

  “In time, they will all be found.”

  “In eighteen days, they will all be found, and on the plane and gone from here. It’s crucial.”

  “Yes, Mr Wagner. This I try to impress upon my men. But it is hard for them. They have found so many. There are so few remaining to be found. And they do not understand the reason for haste.”

  “Neither do I,” Wagner mumbled and the captain’s eyes widened. Wagner inwardly cursed and then strove to cover his error. “What I mean is, those who are not found will miss out on receiving the cure and may remain afflicted for the rest of their lives.”

  “Yes. So I understand.”

  “Okay,” Wagner said with a dismissive wave. “Leave these to us. Find the rest, and hurry.”

  The captain bowed obedience and Wagner nodded his head in faint reply. When the policemen were gone, Wagner did not need to do anything. Everyone had been through the procedure enough times to know what to do without being told. The geishas rushed into the room immediately and within a short time, the captives would be washed and dressed and fed. There was a doctor and two nurses to assure their health and administer injections. There were three Japanese officials on the fulltime staff to facilitate identification, passports, visas and other travel arrangements. There were gifts for all, to placate them and assure them that Project Earthquake would generously reward them for their co-operation. Within four hours, they would be processed and at the airport, ready for the next JAL flight to Rio De Janerio. Fifteen thousand, eight hundred and forty-one had travelled thus in the last two months, these fourteen plus sixty-three more and every sleeper would be gone. But the fewer the number became, the harder they were to find.

  Yet they all wanted to go, because they were vilified in their own land and Brazil promised a cure and an end to their torment. Those that held out did so for personal reasons—criminals more afraid of the police than the mobs, drug addicts afraid to be separated from their dealers, people who would not leave their dogs or other pets or get too far away from their favourite shrine, old folk who had never left Japan and were determined they never would.

  Only they had, since old people were easier to find. All pets were now transported with their owners. Japan’s first official heroin dispensary now operated in the House of the Golden Carp, there were temporary pardons arranged. It had been a phenomenal feat of administration and it had worked, except for sixty-three people hiding out for sixty-three reasons that no one had thought of yet.

  “These people are all of one family,” Tamiko, the counsellor, informed him, for all along she had been interviewing them in urgent terms. “The daughter was to be married next month. The family wanted to remain until after the wedding. The groom is not afflicted. It would be a bad omen to postpone the wedding.”

  “A month will be too late,
” Wagner told her. “Tell them the wedding need not be postponed. We will fly them back in time for, and meet all added costs for the inconvenience.”

  “I will tell them so.”

  With the wisdom of Solomon, so Wagner commanded. Promise them whatever was necessary to assure their co-operation—that was the way forward. He had no idea whether such promises could be kept. That would be up to his underlings. With a sweep of his hand, Wagner made a data bank full of such promises, all of them the easy way out of whatever situation they faced.

  “And see it is done,” Wagner told her.

  The girl bowed and left and the nurses came to lead the captives out. Sixty-three to go. Eighteen days. Wagner’s head buzzed. But not so much that he did not take the trouble to give them one last look over.

  He wanted to contemplate Miss Tamiko and the secret pleasures that they would share again that evening. Only vaguely did he mentally check the captives off as they filed out the door.

  He cursed, and immediately rushed through the doorway. “Keep them here!” he roared at Tamiko. He charged out onto the balcony and leaned out. In the car park below, Captain Tonishu was just climbing into his vehicle.

  “Tonishu, you idiot! There’s only God-damn thirteen of ‘em!”

  *

  It was probably for the best that Harley Thyssen was not required to appear before the Senate. Clyde Pascoe, the leader of the team of attorneys whom Joe had employed to undertake the case, was able to read a statement from Thyssen and that he wished to take the 5th Amendment and on those grounds did not wish to answer any of the Senator’s questions. The gentlemen on the high bench, seated all in a row like bottles on a shelf waiting to be knocked down by whomsoever dared, consulted, protested, but then adjourned. When they convened next morning, it was agreed that it would be sufficient that Professor Thyssen’s statement be read into the record.