Extraordinary Powers

by Joseph Finder

  I uncapped the can of gasoline and gently poured it over the fertilizer powder. There was a great rustling among the teeming rats; sensing danger, they scurried away, turned ghastly little pirouettes, backed up into the recesses of the chamber.

  Gingerly, I packed the sensitized fertilizer into the rusty length of pipe, which I’d capped off by dropping in a stone just large enough to block off the end entirely. The pipe was about a half inch in diameter, which was about right. Into the nitrate I wedged the cartridge that I’d prepared.

  I surveyed my handiwork and felt a sudden desperate, sinking feeling that the jerry-rigged bomb would not go off. The basic ingredients were there, but it was wildly unpredictable, especially given how hastily I had assembled the thing.

  Now, with as much force as I could muster, I wedged the pipe into a crack in the ancient mortar between two stones of the wall.

  The fit was extremely tight.

  Yes. It might work.

  If it did not work … If it deflagrated instead of detonated, it would fail miserably, filling this minuscule space with toxic fumes that would overwhelm me, probably kill me. There was a possibility, too, that a misfire of the pipe bomb would maim or blind me, or worse.

  I placed the long two-by-four atop the protruding pipe bomb, the nail point just touching the base of the cartridge. Holding my breath, my heart thudding rapidly, I wrapped the filthy rag around my eyes, lifted the rock I’d used as a hammer a few moments before.

  Held it in my right hand directly over the nail in the two-by-four.

  And, pulling the rock back two feet or so, I hurled it with enormous force at the nail head.

  The explosion was immense, unbelievably loud, a thunderclap, and suddenly everything around me was a nightmarish glaring orange visible even through the dirty rag tied tightly over my eyes, a vicious hailstorm of rocks and fire, a cataract of shrapnel, and my entire world was a ball of crimson fire, and this was the last thing I remembered.

  PART

  V

  ZURICH

  Le Monde

  Germany Elects Moderate As Next Chancellor

  * * *

  Relief Sweeps World Capitals as Troubled Germany Turns Away from New Fascism to Select Centrist Wilhelm Vogel

  * * *

  BY JEAN-PIERRE REYNARD IN BONN

  Europe no longer has to fear the return of Nazism, as voters in the economically ravaged Germany voted overwhelmingly to …

  FORTY

  White, the softest, palest linen-white: I became aware of the color white, not the absence of color, but a full and rich and creamy white that soothed me with its stillness and radiance.

  And I became aware of soft murmurings from somewhere far off.

  I felt as if I were floating on a cloud, turning upside down, then right-side up, but I didn’t know which way was upside down, and I didn’t care.

  More murmurings.

  I had just opened my eyes, which seemed to have been glued shut for an eternity.

  I tried to focus on the murmuring shapes before me.

  “He’s with us,” I heard.

  “His eyes are open.”

  Slowly, slowly, my surroundings came into focus.

  I was in a room that was all white; I was covered with white, coarse white muslin sheets, white bandages on my arms, which were the only part of my body I could see.

  As my eyes focused, I saw that the room I was in was a simple room with walls of whitewashed stone. Was I in a farmhouse, or something like that? Where was I? An intravenous line fed into my left arm, but this didn’t look like a hospital.

  I heard an accented male voice: “Mr. Ellison?”

  I tried to grunt, but nothing seemed to come out.

  “Mr. Ellison?”

  I attempted another grunt. Again nothing emerged, I thought, but perhaps I was wrong. I must have made some sort of noise, because the accented voice now said, “Ah. Good.”

  Now I could see the speaker, a small, narrow-faced man with a neatly trimmed beard and warm brown eyes. He was wearing a thick, coarsely knit gray sweater and gray woolen slacks, a pair of worn leather shoes. He was thick around the middle, in early middle age. He thrust a soft, plump hand toward me, and we shook hands.

  “My name is Boldoni,” he said. “Massimo Boldoni.”

  With great effort I said: “Where…?”

  “I’m a physician, Mr. Ellison, although I know I don’t look like one.” He spoke English with a mellifluous Italian accent. “I don’t have my doctor’s costume on because I don’t normally work on Sunday. In answer to your question, you are in my house. We have several vacant rooms, unfortunately.”

  He must have seen the confusion in my face, for he continued: “This is a podere—an old farmhouse. My wife runs this as a guesthouse, the Podere Capra.”

  “I don’t…” I tried to say. “How did I…?”

  “You’re doing very well, considering what you’ve been through.”

  I looked down at my bandaged arms, and looked back at the physician.

  “You were very fortunate,” he said “You may have sustained some hearing loss. You suffered burns only on your arms, and you should be recovering quickly. The burns are not serious; very little skin has been burned, as you’ll see. You are a lucky man. Your clothes caught on fire, but they found you before the fire had a chance to do much damage to you.”

  “The rats,” I said.

  “No rabies or diseases or anything of the sort,” he reassured me. “You’ve been thoroughly tested. Our Tuscan rats are healthy specimens. The superficial bites have been treated and will heal very quickly. There may be slight scarring, but that’s all. I’ve put you on a morphine drip for pain relief, which is why you may feel as if you’re flying at times, yes?”

  I nodded. It really was quite pleasant; there was no sensation of pain. I wanted to know exactly who he was, and how I had gotten there, but I was finding it difficult to articulate words, and I seemed to be overcome with an inertia.

  “Gradually I’ll be reducing that. But now some friends of yours would like to pay a visit.”

  He turned around and knocked lightly a few times on a small, rounded, wooden door. The door opened, and he excused himself.

  I felt my throat begin to throb.

  In a wheelchair, looking weary and diminished, was Toby Thompson. Standing beside him was Molly.

  “Oh, God, Ben,” she said, and rushed toward me.

  I had never seen her look so beautiful. She was wearing a brown tweed skirt, a white silk blouse, the strand of pearls I’d bought her at Shreve’s, and the good-luck gold cameo locket her father had given her.

  We kissed for a long time.

  She looked me over, her eyes full of tears. “I was—we were—so worried about you. My God, Ben.”

  She took both of my hands.

  “How did you two … get here?” I managed to say.

  I heard the whir of Toby’s wheelchair as he approached.

  “I’m afraid we got here a little late,” Molly said, squeezing both of my hands. The pain made me wince, and she drew her hands back suddenly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “How are you feeling?” Toby asked. He was wearing a blue suit and a shiny pair of black orthopedic shoes. His white hair was combed neatly.

  “We’ll see when they take me off the painkillers. Where am I?”

  “Greve, in Chianti.”

  “The doctor—”

  “Massimo is entirely trustworthy,” Toby said. “We keep him on retainer—on occasion we need his medical services. Once in a great while we use Podere Capra as a safe house.”

  Molly put a hand on my cheek, as if unable to believe I was really lying there before her. Now that I looked at her closely, I could see that she was exhausted, with deep circles under her bloodshot eyes she’d obviously taken pains to cover with makeup. But she looked beautiful despite it all. She was wearing Fracas, my favorite perfume; I found her, as always, irresistible.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” sh
e said.

  “Me, too, babe.”

  “You’ve never called me ‘babe’ before,” she marveled.

  “Never too late,” I mumbled, “to learn a new term of endearment.”

  “You never cease to impress me,” Toby said gravely. “I don’t know how you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “How you managed to blow a hole in the side of that stone house. If you hadn’t done it, you’d probably be dead by now. Those guys were fully prepared to leave you there until you were eaten alive, or, more likely, died of fright. And certainly our people wouldn’t have known where to look for you if it weren’t for the explosion.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How did you know where I was?”

  “Let’s take this a step at a time,” Toby said. “We were able to trace your call from Siena in eight seconds.”

  “Eight? But I thought—”

  “Our telecommunications technology has improved significantly since you left the business. You have the ability to ascertain that I’m telling you the truth, Ben. I’ll move this damned chair closer if you like.”

  For the time being, his assurance was enough; in any case, even if I’d wanted to, I was too woozy to focus my mind.

  “As soon as we got a lock on where you were from the phone trace in Siena, we were able to get out here.”

  “Thank God,” Molly said. She continued to hold my hands, as if I would slip away from her if she didn’t.

  “I immediately secured Molly’s release, and she and I flew into Milan, accompanied by a few fellows from security. Just in time, I might say.” He smacked the arms of his wheelchair. “Not too easy, in one of these. Italy doesn’t have much in the way of handicapped ramps. In any case, we had a good warning system in place. Have I told you that if you place even a single tiny drop of water at the entrance to an ant nest—”

  I groaned. “Spare me the ants, Toby. I don’t have the strength.”

  But he continued, ignoring my interruption: “—the worker ants will run through the nest, making alarm runs, warning of a possible imminent flood, even pointing out emergency exits. In less than half a minute a colony will begin to evacuate the nest.”

  “Fascinating,” I said without much conviction.

  “Forgive me, Ben. I do get carried away. In any event, your wife has been supervising Dr. Boldoni rather closely, making sure you get the best treatment.”

  I turned to Molly. “I want the truth, Mol. How badly wounded am I?”

  She smiled sadly, yet encouragingly. Tears still shone in her eyes. “You’ll be fine, Ben. Really, you will. I don’t want you to worry.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “You’ve got first- and second-degree burns on your arms,” she said. “It’s going to be painful, but not serious. No more than maybe fifteen percent of your body.”

  “If it’s not serious, why am I rigged up to all this stuff?” I noticed for the first time that some peculiar bandage, affixed to the end of my index finger, was glowing red, like the extraterrestrial in E.T. I held it up. “What the hell is this?”

  “That’s a pulse oximeter. The red glow is a laser beam. It measures your oxygen saturation, which is maintaining at ninety-seven percent. Your heart rate is a little up, around one hundred, which is to be expected.

  “Ben, you sustained a mild concussion during the explosion. Dr. Boldoni suspected inhalation burns from the fire, which could have been trouble—your trachea can swell, and you can die, if you’re not watched carefully. You were coughing up some stuff—he was afraid it was charred pieces of your own trachea. But I took a good look—it was only soot, thank God. We’ve ruled out inhalation burns, but there is some smoke inhalation.”

  “So what’s the treatment, Doc?”

  “We’ve got you on IV fluids. D-5 one-half normal saline. With twenty of K at two hundred an hour.”

  “English, please.”

  “Sorry, that’s potassium. I wanted to make sure to hydrate you well, give you plenty of fluids. You’re going to have to have dressing changes every day. That white goop you can see under the bandages is Silvidene ointment.”

  “You’re lucky to have your own personal physician accompanying you,” Toby said.

  “Plus, you’ll need plenty of bed rest,” she concluded. “So I’ve brought you some reading material.” She presented a handful of magazines. Atop the pile was a Time magazine cover which featured a close-up photograph of Alexander Truslow. He looked good, vigorous, although the photographer seemed to have made a point of emphasizing the pouches beneath his eyes. THE CIA IN CRISIS, the cover line read, and underneath that: A NEW ERA?

  “Looks like Alex hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in ten years,” I observed.

  “The next picture does him more justice,” Toby said. He was right; on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, Alex Truslow, his silver hair neatly combed, was beaming proudly. “Can He Save the CIA?” the headline asked.

  Beaming proudly myself, I set down the thatch of magazines. “When’s his confirmation by the Senate?”

  “He’s confirmed already,” Toby replied. “The day after the appointment—the Senate intelligence committee was persuaded by the President that we need a full-time director in there as soon as possible. A lengthy confirmation process would just cause turmoil. He was confirmed by all but, I think, two votes.”

  “That’s terrific,” I said. “And I’ll bet I know who his two opponents were.” I named the committee’s most outspoken extreme-right-wing senators, both from the South.

  “Right you are,” Toby said. “But those clowns are going to be nothing compared to the real enemies.”

  “Inside the Agency,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “So tell me this: Who were the thugs masquerading as Italian cops?”

  “We don’t know yet. Americans. Private mercenaries is my best guess.”

  “Agency?”

  “You mean, were they CIA personnel? No—there’s no record of them anywhere. They’re—they were killed. There was a … rather fierce shootout. We lost two good men. We’re running prints, photos, and other essentials through the computers, see what, if anything, turns up.”

  He looked at his watch. “And just about now…”

  A telephone on a nearby table rang.

  “That should be for you,” he said.

  FORTY-ONE

  It was Alex Truslow. The connection was a good one; his voice sounded so clear it had to have been electronically enhanced, indicating the line was very likely sterile.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” he said.

  “God, and you guys,” I replied. “You look a little ragged on the cover of Time, Alex.”

  “Margaret says I look freshly embalmed. Maybe they chose such an unflattering shot because they ask if there’s going to be a new era, and they conclude: No way, this chap isn’t up to the task. You know—I’m such an old fossil. People always want new blood.”

  “Well, they’re wrong. Congratulations on the confirmation.”

  “The President really twisted some arms on that one. But more important, Ben, I want you to come back.”

  “Why?”

  “After what you’ve been through—”

  “I don’t have the goods yet,” I confessed. “You told me about a fortune—we’re on secure, right?”

  “We certainly are.”

  “Okay. You talked about a fortune, a missing fortune, but I had no idea the magnitude of it. Or its origin.”

  “Care to brief me?”

  “Right now?” I looked questioningly at Toby.

  He in turn glanced at Molly and said, “Would you mind terribly leaving us to talk for just a few minutes?”

  Molly’s eyes were red and swollen, and tears started down her high cheekbones. She glared at him. “Yes, I would mind terribly.”

  Over the phone, Alex said: “Ben?”

  Toby went on apologetically: “It’s just that we need to get into some rathe
r boring, technical things—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said coldly. “I’m not leaving. We’re partners, Ben and I, and I won’t be excluded.”

  There was a long silence, and then Toby said pleasantly, “So be it. But I have to count on your discretion—”

  “Count on it.”

  Over the telephone, and at the same time to Molly and Toby, I related the gist of what Orlov had told me. As I talked, both Toby’s and Molly’s faces registered their astonishment.

  “Dear God in heaven,” Truslow breathed. “Now it makes sense. And so damned wonderful to hear! Hal Sinclair wasn’t engaging in criminal activity at all. The man was trying to save Russia. Of course. Now, please—I want you to come back.”

  “Why?”

  “For God’s sake, Ben, these men who subjected you to that god-awful torture—they had to be employed by the faction.”

  “The Wise Men.”

  “Has to be. Nothing else makes sense. Hal must have confided in someone. Someone he depended upon to help him make the elaborate arrangements with the gold. Someone he confided in was a double. How else could they have learned about the gold?”

  “Same deal in Boston?”

  “Possibly. No, I’d say probably.”

  “But that doesn’t explain Rome,” I said.

  “Van Aver,” he said. “Yes. And you ask why I’m insisting you come back.”

  “Who was behind that one?”

  “On that I haven’t a guess. There’s no evidence to connect it to the Wise Men, though I can’t rule it out. Certainly whoever did it knew the details of your planned meeting with him. Maybe through leakage of cable traffic between Rome and Washington. Or maybe it was local—who the hell knows?”

  “Local?”

  “Through monitoring of Van Aver’s phone, maybe even the telephones of everyone at Rome station. You know, there’s a good chance we’re talking about some of Orlov’s former comrades. We may never find out for sure. You know, it’s odd.”