End Time

by G. A. Matiasz

  The war, despite low American casualties, had given new life to Leftist virulence, a layer of clandestine activity parallel and sometimes in contact with crime, yet its own creature. With such anarchic proliferations as ‘Core ‘Gainst War, Hardcore Autonomy, Black dada Nihilismus, Black Gang, and Maximum Attitude in recent years, the potential for domestic terrorism against the war effort, a la the Weather Underground, had increased astronomically. That the riemanium might have been sold to a hostile power, and destined to be smuggled out of the country, was also a working possibility for Sumner and his superiors. Therefore, he needed to frankly question why it seemed so difficult to sell the idea of internal terrorism to Bay Area law enforcement and government.

  It had been two days of every police agency in the Bay Area scouring every lead, every snitch, every source, every back road, every vacant field, every vacant house and every vacant alternative. The media still regularly broadcast calls for public help in the case. Still, no riemanium. The domestic terrorism option figured more and more prominently in this case. The evidence so far spoke to this theory. The riemanium had never been at the safe house, and it still had not been found despite massive effort. Nobody offered to ransom it. It was as if a black hole had swallowed it. Or the political underground now had it.

  Aside from a minority of dissenting opinions in the NSC, the chain-of-command all the way to the top supported the Bureau’s investigation into the potential political dimensions to the theft. This insured that the local political establishments would eventually fall into line, despite their protestations and claims of local prerogative. The local police still treated the theft as a non-political crime however, as all their training and experience dictated. That he needed to change. But it was more than simple, conservative training that held law enforcement back, he felt. It also involved wishful thinking. Nobody wanted to deal with the terrorism option. None were comfortable with seeing the theft as a political issue. He needed substantive evidence, and soon, to continue what, privately, he now termed Operation Anvil of God.

  He trundled across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, bay waters steeped up with smoggy blue sky, and turned north on 101. Edward had cut his teeth and made his name in the Bureau on homegrown terrorism in the last third of the “90’s. The issue of abortion had remained a battleground throughout the 1990’s, with anti-abortion forces resorting to extremes confronted by the Clinton administration’s laws, regulations and Supreme Court appointments. California, the land of weirdos, UFO’s, and mass murderers, with a State constitutional privacy clause guaranteeing abortion; California turned up ground-zero for this extremist fringe’s more harrowing actions. A Catholic-based pro-life splinter group out of El Cajon, alienated by the Protestant fundamentalism of the anti-abortion mainstream such as Operation Rescue, took what they considered to be the next step. They formed the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus and in late 1998 the RAIJ bombed abortion clinics across the state, a campaign that culminated in kidnapping California’s Attorney General as the Devil’s Right Hand in March, 1999.

  One of those the Anti-Terrorist Headquarters assigned to crack the RAIJ had been a rookie named Edward Sumner. He himself was pro-life, but in this terrorist splinter, the anti-abortion movement had gone too far. Special Agent Sumner proved instrumental in tracking down and hammering the RAIJ, spotlighting himself in the FBI’s Operation Final Thunder. He earned his first big promotion at Headquarters. Too bad about the Attorney General.

  After the RAIJ case, Sumner helped to work up the Bureau’s initial post turn-of-the-century counter-intelligence programs directed against the anti-war movement gaining momentum. But Anti-Terrorist Headquarters was also worried about US Leftists sympathetic to the Mexican revolution giving “religious refuge” to Mexican politicals and terrorists who managed to sneak illegally across the US southern border, sometimes to disappear into this country’s seething Latin immigrant mass. So they assigned him the Sanctuary Movement. Edward called his campaigns of infiltration, disruption, legal prosecution, and extra-legal intimidation from the Rio Grande river to the Tijuana River and deep into Colorado Operation High Borders. Not only did High Borders decimate and fragment the Sanctuary menace, it slashed all illegal immigration across the US/Mexican border in half as well. His methods had been so effective that the Border Patrol adopted them in the face of the growing number of regular economic illegals fleeing poverty in northern Mexico and Central America. Kudos from the Director, and Sumner had snapped up the head position at Headquarters.

  He turned right, onto a Lucas Valley Road immersed in security suburbs, while running down to himself how he had used the last two days to seal off the Bay Area. FBI agents monitored every airport, train station, bus station and docking around the clock with portable radiation detecting equipment. The Bureau had just completed installing sensitive radiation screens along key highways, with any increase in background radiation levels triggering armed pursuit. He had muscled the Teamster’s, and the union was now muscling the membership on the riemanium. Edward had had the good sense to turn this perimeter work over to Marable for maintenance, concentrating his own efforts now on turning up the heat within that perimeter. Agents from other west coast field offices, arriving since last evening, would fan out across the Bay Area with the remaining local special agents, after Edward’s orientation at noon. He had to pull bureaucratic teeth to set this into motion, and he vowed to himself that this was merely the first wave. In all, he had mobilized a lightning response and show of strength, with the prospect of getting some sleep tonight.

  It is not just field agent wiring, he told himself. He was not delegating more because he was short-handed, and without anyone trusted enough yet to act as his lieutenant. Marable was adequate with handling the daily Bay Area and perimeter operations assigned him, but Edward was certain the old Negro had his job out of the affirmative action suits of the last decades. In any case, he had no intention of promoting Marable to San Francisco as was within his power. Washington appointed in all other circumstances. That process remained tried-and-true, with candidates culled from the ranks of the national bureaucracy on criteria more political than professional. Bottom Line it meant San Francisco would remain vacant for another week, perhaps two, while the wheels in Washington slowly turned. Bottom Line it meant, he had to cover.

  He had married twice and divorced twice, a child with each ex. Deftly, as if he had driven this way dozens of times before, Edward turned west just past Marinwood on County Route G18 for Alabaster, oaks and pine framing the road. He had never been able to make the family thing work, not even with his own family. He had joined the military to get away from his tyrannical father, a sensible alternative to patricide. He still kept in touch with Jane, his mother, but his father was as good as dead in his life.

  Edward pulled into the Motel 6 parking lot at 7:55 a.m. The bungalow was easy to find, thanks to Emerson’s directions. He could see two somewhat elderly individuals, a couple breakfasting, through the open curtains of the front window as he knocked on the door. The man, in his robe, answered the door.

  “Edward Sumner, FBI,” Edward almost said special agent. Instead, he produced his new credentials. “Are you Marcus Dimapopulos?”

  “Excuse me,” Marcus said, and reached for something on a table by a chair next to the door. He handed Edward a business card and shut the door. It read:

  MARCUS L DIMAPOPULOS

  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  HOURS: 9 AM-5 PM, MONDAY-FRIDAY

  CALL FOR APPOINTMENT

  And then it provided a telephone number. Puzzled, Edward knocked on the door again. Again, Marcus answered.

  “I don’t believe you understand,” Edward straightened his tie. “I would like to speak with Marcus Dimapopulos.”

  “That’s me, and I’m in the middle of breakfast,” Marcus said gruffly, “You did not make an appointment, so please return at 9 when my business hours start. I’ll talk to you then.”

  He shut the door again. Edward boiled u
p. His arm jerked up to knock a third time, until he thought better of it. The old goat was a stodgy, geriatric, old school PI. Edward realized he needed to humor him if he wanted to get anywhere. Part of having power was knowing how, and when, to use it, he realized. He left, got into his car and drove back across Driscoll Creek Bridge, to the Denny’s on East Main. He spent about twenty minutes on phone and fax transmitting instructions and orders around the Bay Area. Then he stepped into the diner for coffee and a poached egg on toast. When he returned at 9, Dimapopulos was exiting his front door, clipboard and pen in hand, dressed in a frumpy brown suit.

  “Ah, Mr. Sumner,” Marcus greeted the west coast director amiably, “You’re just in time to accompany me on my door-to-door.”

  “Excuse me,” Edward was again momentarily puzzled, “But didn’t Neal Emerson hire you to find the stolen riemanium?”

  Marcus proceeded to his car, and Edward had little choice but to follow.

  “A bit more mundane then that,” Marcus was quite cheerful, “Actually, I’m looking for the fifth suspect in Saturday’s robbery. Peregrine, or Michael Baumann, or whoever. Emerson and I are working on the assumption that when we find him, well find the riemanium. Or, at least be several steps closer to finding it.”

  “By going door-to-door!?!” Edward was astounded. The detective opened the passenger door for the FBI man.

  “From everything we know, this was his home base.” Marcus continued, his mood jovial. “So I’m taking the police sketch around to the local merchants and rental managers. Either he’s here, laying low, or he’s skipped and we can pick up his trail here. Either way, that means legwork in my book. Mr. Sumner, if you want to continue our conversation, hop in. I like getting started early.”

  Marcus did not tell Edward about his connection with Sampson. Or about all the work Gwen was doing sifting through computer data bases and media images. Or about the favors he was calling in right and left to push the investigation forward.

  “Oh, no thanks,” Edward smiled, queerly, “I believe I’ve heard all I need. Thank you for your time, Mr. Dimapopulos.”

  Marcus shrugged, happily, and closed the door.

  “Anytime you want to call,” Marcus said, smiling, climbing into the driver’s seat, “You have my card. And my hours.”

  Edward walked to his car as Marcus started his. The old bugger was classic, Edward thought and shook his head. He got in his auto as the PI drove out, waving at the FBI man. Let the old fart go door-to-door. The town undoubtedly had a peace movement. By second wave, Thursday, two special agents would be assigned to Alabaster, one to the community Left and the other to the state university Left. Edward would cover more ground in a day doing so than the old duffer would in a month. As he sped back down to East Bay, he worked the phone mercilessly.

  ***

  Greg woke before the alarm, Margaret’s fragrant warmth next to him. It was still before sunrise. A street light splayed through the parted curtains of the room’s window and over a collector’s item Toothless Mood poster. He had waken out of a dream, and could still grasp its outlines. Reverse Orpheus. He followed a woman in a long flowing dress up a long dark tunnel, toward a distant slice of sky. He felt, somehow, that he knew the figure ahead, a kind of “dream knowing” as he could not see her face no matter how fast he walked to catch up with her. Margaret? Janet? Rachel? With every step she was two further ahead and more gnawingly familiar. The alarm buzzed.

  “Got a class at 7,” he groaned.

  “No morning delight?” she pouted.

  “Hop into the shower with me, and we’ll see.”

  The fax from Larry read: 3:30, Redwood Eatery. Greg drove her home as her first class was not until noon. He let her off with a promise to call. As it was, he was five minutes late for his first class. Then school took over, solid and technical, until 2:50. He found Larry in the Redwood Eatery, the campus pub and one of his regular hangouts, propped at an inside table with a pitcher of beer, half consumed.

  “Bacon cheeseburger, quarter pound, double fries, and a coke,” Greg ordered before he strolled over to Larry’s table.

  “Grab a beer Greg,” Larry smiled, “Bring the pictures?”

  “Got em right here,” Greg patted a pocket in his backpack, “But no beer. Gotta study after this.”

  Halfway through his meal, he did take a glass and some brew.

  “What’s the plan?” Greg washed down the food with the beer.

  “ASP folks oughtta be here any minute,” Larry snuck a few fries, “Then we’ll ‘retire’ to an outside table. An outback table, for a little discussion.”

  The ASP crew—David, Beth, George, and Lori—sauntered in about 3:40. Greg and Larry stood, and their enlarged group walked out onto the pub’s fenced in yard. Larry had ordered another pitcher, and he carried it out with him, to George’s barely suppressed disapproval. David led the way up wooden stairs to the patio’s upper terraces. The sun warmed them through groved green pines, their needles and branches severing its light into dusty rays around them. A jay darted; a flash of blue. From a distance, ravens cawed. The upper terrace, the Pub’s outback, was actually three small platforms half-stepped up into the hill, and they climbed to the highest.

  It was not empty. Yakubu Tsikata, head of the ASU Black Student Union and a staunch cultural nationalist, Hector Guellermo, chair of the ASU MEChA and a worshipful Fidelista, and Chin Lee, President of the ASU Asian Pacific Student Alliance and a reconstructed Maoist, waited for them at one of the tables.

  “Welcome to the Mountain,” Yakubu grinned and broadly gestured with two hands. Only George caught the Jacobin reference, smiling slightly.

  “David invited us to sit in on your discussion,” Chin said, “As, um, revolutionary consultants.”

  “More like white middle class bullshit detectors,” Hector smirked.

  Greg gave Larry a strong, wary glance, and his friend shrugged. The PC police. The six white newcomers found chairs and arranged themselves around the table. The enveloping pines striated needles and sun up into sky lightly touched with clouds.

  “Now then,” David knitted his hands, “Larry says the two of you have something extremely important to share with progressive leadership on campus.”

  “First, I have to have everybody’s word that what we’re going to discuss won’t go beyond the people around this table. This is crucial. If word one gets out about this, we’ll all be in big trouble.” Larry said. When everyone verbally agreed Larry gestured to Greg, who unzipped his backpack pocket to pass around the pictures. Larry spun their fabrication about media-prominent Peregrine and “his riemanium.” A hawk’s cry screeched through the trees.

  “Why did this Peregrine contact you?” Lori’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, striking a match for her clove cigarette.

  “Um, he was, uh, one of Larry’s ‘customers’,” Greg thought fast. Since not everyone knew Larry’s business, some side conversations were required. “Real clandestine type otherwise.”

  “And he’s willing to let us make political use of the riemanium?” Beth asked.

  “To be precise,” Larry responded, “He’s willing to let us design a political package around the riemanium.”

  “What’s your suggestion, or his suggestion as to how we might, uh, ‘package’ this?” George asked, carefully studying each picture.

  “Put out a communique, say, from the Southern Mexico Solidarity Force,” Greg said. “Demand an immediate withdrawal of US troops from the Yucatan in exchange for return of the riemanium. Otherwise, the SMSF threatens to convert the riemanium into a nuclear weapon and detonate it in the Bay Area To give the US a taste of the total air war we’re raining down on the Mayan peasants.”

  Clearly, the riemanium, and the prospects for its use, were a show stopper. The pictures passed from hand to hand. Silence congealed around the table.

  “The intent of this, I take it,” Hector finally spoke, in meditative pose, “Is to throw a monkey wrench into the workings of the powers-that-be.
Increase the disruption and chaos on the home front. Unfortunately, this might result in just the opposite. A full-blown clamp down. You release that communique and for certain every Federal pig west of the Mississippi will be in the Bay Area. Enough pigs to give each Bay Rad his own personal shadow. Then again, increasing the repression might just spark a full-scale insurrection that much sooner.”

  “I know that the war is the big issue,” Yakubu took his turn, “But the war is an abstraction to a lot of people living in this country. It’s a TV war. A movie re-run. A nintendo game. If d be real intelligent of you all to link this up, not only to the war, but also to the shit coming down in this country right now. I mean, brothers are dying nightly on the streets o’ Oakland ‘cause of trigger happy pigs. The war in southern Mexico could end tomorrow, and the war in this country’s ghettos would go on without a pause. Thanks to the occupation army o’ pigs holding down people o’ color here at home.”

  “One question,” Chin asked, “If the US military did miraculously withdraw from Mexico, would this Peregrine return the riemanium?”

  “Yes,” Greg said, “I think so.”

  “It makes me uncomfortable,” Chin continued, “After all, you don’t have the riemanium. You’re not in control of either the riemanium or this mystery man. What if this Peregrine is arrested? He is wanted. A good bluff is a useful tactical ploy, but this goes beyond a bluff. Not only can’t you deliver on the threat of a nuclear weapon, you can’t even deliver on the riemanium yourselves.”

  The white students digested these criticisms for some minutes before Yakubu stood.

  “I know Hector an’ Chin an’ myself got a Cal-EOP battle we got to fight in fifteen minutes,” Yakubu announced. “They gutted the program last year. Now they wanna’ finish it off. So we’ll leave you all to your own devices.”

  Beth was the first to speak after the Mountain descended from the hill