by Tom Doyle
“They were setting me up for early retirement.”
“You’re paranoid. Where were you going?”
OK, I needed at least one ally, and that meant Hutch or no one. “I’ve been thinking more about who called my last mission.”
“That kind of thinking is outside your pay grade, Morton. Which is discharged.”
“We’ve got a vermin in the Families.”
“A craft mole?” said Hutchinson. “High-heeled nonsense. And even if true, it’s not the person you’re thinking.”
“I was set up, and now they’re trying to finish the job.”
“That sorcerer was a damned good farseer,” said Hutchinson. “It happens.”
“Not like this. Hutch, I’d swear those three Gideons are in the mole’s pocket. If somebody wants me out of commission, it can’t be good for craft and country.”
Hutchinson closed her eyes and spoke quietly through clenched teeth. “If I say there’s a mole, they’ll say it’s you.”
“I’m willing to take that risk,” I said.
“I’m not,” she said. She pulled out a long case. “I’ve got something for you.”
I opened the case with dread. It was the Purple Heart. “But I’m not wounded.”
“Not where anyone can see.”
“By that criterion,” I said, “a lot of other soldiers should have gotten this.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Hutchinson, “Keep it for them.”
“Yeah. OK,” I said. “You can keep it when I’m gone.”
“When you’re gone? What the hell is eating you?”
“Nothing,” I said. I couldn’t say that I would likely perish when I took out the mole, so I told her the other reason. “I had a minor foreboding this morning.”
“Not from doing craft?”
“No, not intentionally.”
Hutchinson closed her eyes and shook her head. “Morton forebodings. Battlefield diaries with the last entry reading ‘Today I died.’ Wills with the date of decease. Taking a suicidal mission because the command post was going to be blown up anyway. And dreaming those damned Lincoln dreams.”
“What the fuck, Hutch? I’m a little edgy and you’ve got me on the Lincoln train, first class?”
“Easy.” She reached out a hand to just touch my arm. “Any time frame on this foreboding?”
“It feels like there’s still some time.”
“Then we’ll do this through channels,” said Hutchinson. “I’ll check out Sphinx and these Gideons. I’ll get the spooky spooks at the Peepshow on it. They’ll see if anyone’s painting your crafty ass.”
“You’re going to tell Sphinx?” I asked.
“I’ve got my own contacts there,” she said.
“You said it yourself,” I said. “They might hunt me instead.”
Hutchinson fixed her maternal stare on me. “These aren’t the days of Roderick and Madeline. You’re my responsibility, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She stood up. “I’ll have intel start today. We’ll stop this thing before you see me next. And you’ll see me sooner than scheduled. My word on it.”
“And if Sphinx is behind this?”
“Then I’ll get you close enough to her to do what you do.”
Hutchinson offered her hand; I gripped it. The hand was cold. I asked, “Are you feeling OK?”
“Never better.”
“While you’re checking on me,” I said, “keep an eye out for yourself.”
“Another foreboding? Don’t worry. The Hutchinson tradition might be less colorful than your family’s, but once we’ve entered the service we follow the book, and we survive. So we’ll do this my family’s way. Watch yourself, and stay away from the craft. I’ll handle any bad guys, mundane or SPACTAD.”
But when Hutchinson left, I looked at my hand, and felt the inadequacy of a handshake.
* * *
That night, instead of the desert, I was standing at the prow of an enormous ship, all glowing white in the twilight, as if carved from ivory. The ship was gliding impossibly fast over an inert ocean. I could have spread my arms out and played Titanic, but no icebergs relieved the gray view. I would have welcomed a crash, even a sinking, anything to stop the fast-approaching, dark, indefinite shore, because there, the scarlet horror of the Red Death waited.
That wasn’t the greatest horror. At my side, in a diaphanous shroud billowing in the silent wind, stood Scherie. Our brief contact had tied her to my destruction.
I woke up, roaring “No!”
The Lincoln dream, and the Red Death, both Family omens of doom. Scherie and I didn’t have much time. The boat dream had only given Abe one day’s notice. Lincoln had been crafty alright, but a Morton was craftier. We might have a month, but no more, and a lot less if I had the second dream. The Red Death’s connection to Roderick and the Left Hand only confirmed the illness of the omen.
When I got out of bed, I avoided mirrors and the inevitable double image of life and death that Lincoln had seen. The Mortons have never made great knights errant. Damsels in distress were too often traps for the unwary. But I felt a greater need to protect Scherie, an innocent, than to save myself. I couldn’t see where this need had come from. My guilt about my last mission seemed a thing apart from this other emotion. As the morning went on, the urge to protect Scherie didn’t fade.
Was this simple attraction? I refused to believe in love or even intense like at first sight, and goddamnit I couldn’t afford it now. Instead, I told myself that a craftsman might feel a compulsion to save an ordinary man or woman who years later might do something extraordinary (even though I couldn’t recall a specific instance and no one in my family had ever done such a thing). Following this crystal-clear logic, it didn’t matter whether or not I was attracted to Scherie; I had to guard her. If I was going to do that while I tried to kill the mole, I would have to get close to her.
Under any other circumstances, this line of thought would have made my day.
I needed no similar logical contortions to believe that both Scherie and I were in imminent danger. Unlike a Greek tragic oracle, a Morton foreboding wasn’t a trick that pushed the hero toward his fate. My foreboding was a real warning of what would happen without an exceptionally strong and clever response, so ignoring it wasn’t a wise option.
So before I called Scherie, I needed another plan against Sphinx. Although I appreciated Hutch’s support, it would still come down to me versus the mole. I required a backup attack.
Grandpa appeared in the combat fatigues of the sixties. “I still say Sphinx isn’t your enemy. But if you want to sort this out, there’s a simple stratagem, honored in antiquity. When you’re totally screwed, throw a party. And make sure everyone comes.”
I laughed bitterly. “You want me to poison everyone? Or should I cudgel them all in a collapsed tent?” Grandpa had told many nasty bedtime stories about such parties, and besides being unacceptably bloody, the idea didn’t seem very practical. With the curse, I wasn’t sure I could kill anybody, much less a crowd.
“Boy, don’t be willfully stupid. You get them all here, you’ll find out pretty quickly who the rat is, assuming there is one. You’ll have to be improvisational, and surgically focused. It’s a Morton tradition: to make oneself fatal in death.”
Put this way, it made sense. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
I stood at the antique secretary desk and drafted an invitation: “You’re cordially invited to a belated celebration of Dale Morton’s retirement from the military. He’ll be leaving immediately after the party to tour America and the world. Please come to wish him bon voyage.” The pretense of a farewell would hide an ambush, or maybe a last stand.
I e-mailed this immediately to old West Point classmates and friends from mundane assignments. Ah! A twinge of the curse pain, or just conventional guilt? I would try to get them out before things turned tragic, but my enemy might kill a few of them while hunting for me.
The guests I really wanted, Sphin
x and her allies, wouldn’t receive this invite from me. But they’d find out about it, and realize that the party was their last best opportunity to complete the death magic that I felt on the horizon. They’d be dying to attend.
Thinking this gave me back my combat calm. Death was like an old scary friend: nothing to lose sleep over.
A slow knock at the door boomed through the House. Who the hell could that be? Someone who didn’t know or care about the gothic doorbell. Surely my enemies weren’t ready to strike here, on Morton ground. I readied a blast of wind for the House to unleash against anyone on the threshold. With no warning, I swung open the door. “Blow…”
Me away. On the warded stones stood Scherie, smiling, nervous. “Would you believe that I was just in the neighborhood?”
* * *
Major Endicott met with Colonel Hutchinson in her office, part of the secret H-ring deep below the heart of the Pentagon. This sick occult-shaped building drained Endicott’s health like a tropical jungle mission. Despite that, the Pentagon’s spiritual security exceeded anything on the planet. A plane could take down a towering skyscraper, yet leave the modest Pentagon relatively intact. Engineers explained, and the spirit kept its secrets.
Hutch’s small desk photos of smiling nieces and nephews contrasted with the grimness of their conversation. Against reason and expectation, Hutch still supervised Dale’s case, but under his father’s orders Endicott commanded the surveillance of the House of Morton. For the first time, Endicott and Hutch were consistently at odds.
Endicott expected he had been called in for a general protest against the surveillance, so he was surprised by Hutch’s actual question: “Why are those Gideons on babysitting duty?”
“I suggest you take that up with General Endicott, ma’am.” The general headed countercraft ops, or C-CRT, but Endicott was passing the buck.
“Michael, if I go to your father, nobody is going to be happy.”
“I picked those three because they’re the best.” He didn’t mention that Chimera had approved them, because one didn’t mention Chimera more than necessary.
Hutch tapped a thin set of folders on her desk. “Do you know anything about them beyond their files?”
“No.” Gideons weren’t good company.
“Aren’t Gideon hunter-trackers a bit overqualified for simple surveillance?”
“So far, Morton has tried to lose our tails and would have killed the mundane surveillance if the Gideons hadn’t arrived in time.”
“You’re confident in that report,” said Hutch, sounding skeptical.
“Yes, ma’am. You’ve heard that he made contact with an Iranian family?”
“Politically, they’re typical exiles. The father has worked for the CIA, and she was born here.”
“You don’t see a touch of Stockholm Syndrome?” asked Endicott. “Or that Morton may have been completely turned?”
“We examined him carefully for any suborning of his will.”
“This might be about character, not craft,” said Endicott.
“I know his damned character,” said Hutchinson. She paused, her eyes almost pinning Endicott to the far wall. “Look, Michael, you were right. That switch of operations in the desert was part of something going wrong. But whatever it is, I trust Dale. His line of Mortons has always been part of the solution.”
“Hutch, whatever’s going on, it would be a serious mistake not to keep the best possible eyes on Morton.”
Hutch nodded distractedly. “Yes. And even better eyes on those watching. Dismissed, Major.”
Back in his own office, Endicott sat in the shadow of a portrait of Abram Endicott, with his grizzled beard and iron face. On display below Abram lay Endicott’s sword with its decorated handle.
He phoned the general, and reported his conversation.
“I want you to go to Morton yourself,” said the general. “Play the dumb fundie. I want you to push every pagan and other button he has. Those Mortons have little self-control. He’ll let something drop.”
“Sir, doesn’t that risk driving him toward our enemies?”
“Don’t doubt it—he’s already there.”
* * *
Colonel Hutchinson thumbed through the limited files one more time. Craft practitioners usually bore the burden of extensive history, but these Gideons seemed positively mundane in their lack of background. She particularly mistrusted the neat and succinct file of their commanding officer, Captain Sakakawea. No normally accumulated career record should look like the well-edited work of one hand.
Once again, a Morton might be on to something big. No use hesitating—time to call over to Langley, to the man they called Eddy. Hutchinson had received many of Sphinx’s oracles through Eddy, and through other not-too-subtle hints suspected that Eddy was Sphinx’s minder at the Agency.
She picked up the phone, but no dial tone. Damn, the phones were out again? Especially here in H-ring, some of the tech seemed decades out-of-date. She might have to get hold of a technician from the Office of Technical Management (OTM). Craftsmen needed their toilets and computers (and phones) to work, and H-ring’s OTM saw to their needs. Its importance had grown with the use of IT in the Center. Hutchinson mused that, like their mundane counterparts, she and the older craft generation treated high tech like magic.
A knock interrupted Hutch’s impatient button pushing as she sought a working line. “Yes?”
An explosion of craft light, then darkness.
* * *
A male technician, not the usual IT youngster but around Hutchinson’s age, counted to ten to calm his emotions. Then he entered the colonel’s office. He smiled at her slumped form. “Ma’am, I’m here to fix you.”
CHAPTER
SIX
I looked out the door in the direction that Scherie was wagging her thumb. “Aren’t you going to invite your friends from work in for coffee?”
On the street was a black sedan, this time with tinted windows. In the right light, the silhouettes of two men and one woman in sunglasses made shadow play for the neighbors. The Gideons. Another time, I’d have mocked their obviousness too, but here the cliché was the message: Don’t forget that you’re being watched.
“Don’t worry about them,” I said.
“I’m not.”
But she was worried about something. Must be me. The House was putting on a show again; it smelled like incense and patchouli. Was she here for a date? Should I try to seduce her to keep her near me, so I could protect her? The thought was extremely attractive, but I was a solider, not James Bond. My motives were too mixed, and my own prospects too desperate, to go that route without much more thought.
“So, what brings you here?” I asked.
“Well, um, stop me if I get too stupid, but I think you can help me.”
“I’d be happy to.”
“I want to learn how to fight.”
“Oh.” My brain raced for something to say to hide my disappointment. Training her to fight would be a good way to keep an eye on her, and might help protect her, but she could get martial arts instruction anywhere. So, a question. “Who do you want to fight?”
“You heard my parents.”
“You want to help the opposition in Iran? You don’t think small, do you? Why do you think I could help with that?”
“Your family shows up as regular military online, but when my father talked about covert work, you didn’t deny it. And you’ve worked in the region.”
“Isn’t the Iranian resistance nonviolent?”
“Mostly. I want to help with the other part.”
I was in no position to help anyone pursue such efforts, particularly a mundane stranger. But if I went through the motions, that would certainly keep her close.
Then, Grandpa stumbled into the room. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Not now,” I mumbled.
“What’s that?” said Scherie.
“I think I may be able to help with that.”
�
�That’s … that’s great!”
“Do you have some time?”
“Now?”
“I need to take you someplace,” I said. “Your father mentioned knives, but do you own a gun?”
“No. I’ve fired one, but not my own.”
We drove the T-Bird to the southern waterfront. The black sedan didn’t follow this time, but I assumed we were watched. I told Scherie enough truths about my covert activities in the Middle East to keep her interested. “But those folks in the sedan are watching me to make sure I stay retired. So we’ll have to figure out some way around them. Stay away from them.”
As I pulled up a gravel drive, Roman Roszkewycz slouched outside the old office entrance to a condemned mill. He was balding with a ratty khaki beard that should have been a goatee. An expatriate Slav with a knack for the illegal and a fondness for Westerns, and the latest in a long line of fixers for my family, he took care of any mundane complications. I liked the rogue, and I sometimes envied his seeming freedom from all the duties I had to family and country.
Roman eyed Scherie with unmasked lechery. “Dobrý den, pardner. Who is charming friend?”
“Please set up the targets for me and charming friend,” I said. “And we’ll need to borrow your guns.”
“I set up little bunny and squirrel for friend to shoot?” asked Roman, miming bunny ears.
“Something with your shape will do,” said Scherie.
“Charmed,” said Roman, still grinning. He gave a little bow and went inside.
After I observed Scherie on a target run and made some minor corrections to her stance and technique, I gave a demonstration. Letting my craft idle in neutral, I fired. The feel of each weapon’s kick reassured me—simple physics, action and reaction, no magic necessary to concentrate shots in a target’s head and heart. This felt like West Point again, when I had trained without craft, saving my power to defend myself against anything truly heinous from the upperclassmen. Craftless training was a point of pride with us Mortons, and an essential discipline that might decide life and death for self and others.
But I had some necessary craft to perform as well. While Scherie took the next run, I invoked my enemy. See me now, Sphinx. See what I’m doing. Come to me, or I’ll be coming for you. To freshen the scent, I discreetly dropped a small bit of handkerchief stained with my own blood to the dusty floor. Perhaps this would bait her into the open.
