A Hideous Beauty

by Jack Cavanaugh

  “The history of angels.”

  “Yes, but more accurately, history from an angelic point of view.”

  “Always the professor.” Sue Ling sighed.

  “He wants me to write it down.”

  It took a moment for her to assimilate the news. She stared at him blankly, then said, “He’s changed his mind.”

  “I think it was changed for him.”

  “I see. Is this because of Grant?”

  “He didn’t say directly, but I think so.”

  “Are you going to do it?” she asked. “You know the risk . . . of course you know the risk. You know it better than anyone.”

  She was babbling. It wasn’t like Sue Ling to babble.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “It’s not me I’m worried about. I want you to move back on campus. Work on your dissertation full-time.”

  Sue Ling’s chair screeched loudly as she pushed it back abruptly and stood. “I don’t see that that’s your decision to make,” she said. “And it hurts me that you’d even suggest it.”

  “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. How can I concentrate on the project if I’m worried out of my mind about you?”

  She gathered up her books. “You’ll just have to find a way, because I’m not going anywhere. In case you missed the memo, this isn’t your personal battle. You’re not the one who determines who fights and who doesn’t.”

  The professor stared at her with sad eyes.

  Sue Ling grew angrier. “Don’t sit there with that hangdog expression of yours as though you have a say in this. You don’t.”

  She whirled around to leave.

  “I want you to reread Mr. Austin’s biography,” the professor said to her back. “Study it. Dissect it. Read between the lines. Grant told me Semyaza claimed credit for its publication. I want to know why.”

  Sue Ling turned back. Their eyes met in silent understanding. He was conceding. She accepted with a nod. “Don’t ever question my loyalty again,” she said, close to tears.

  “I won’t.”

  Sue Ling moved to his side. “This is really happening, isn’t it?” she said.

  “To quote Dante: ‘Whatever plot these fiends may lay against us, we will go on. This insolence of theirs is nothing new.’ ”

  Sue Ling sighed. “The world is crashing down around us and you’re quoting Dante.”

  “It’s who I am.”

  CHAPTER 11

  With my identity badge clipped to my lapel I approached the metal detectors at the White House. A queue of staff and personnel formed a line in front of me, routinely opening bags, purses, and briefcases for inspection. The chatter was the usual going-to-work banter, but restrained. There’s something about men with guns that puts a damper on things.

  I’d taken a cab straight from the airport, after spending a couple of hours chatting with security over plush-toy pranks and false alarms. Seeing Myles’s ghost onboard set off an alarm in my gut that had no snooze button. Time was short. The president was in danger. I had to get someone to listen to me.

  “Good morning, Mr. Austin.”

  “Jeffrey. You’re looking well.”

  The security guard was a large black man with a sweet grin. A man doesn’t usually say that sort of thing about another man, but it was true. Jeffrey’s grin was powdered sugar on strawberries, the perfect start to the day.

  Our usual banter involved an exchange of quips about football. I try to sound optimistic about the Redskins, while Jeffrey’s a Raiders fan. But football season was months away, so instead we exchanged pleasantries.

  I placed my bag onto the table next to the metal detector. There was nothing of consequence in it. It had already been through airport security at San Diego. As I moved to the threshold of the metal detector, Jeffrey glanced down at his clipboard. He frowned, then looked up at me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. I didn’t like it. He blocked my passage. “Please step out of line, Mr. Austin,” he said.

  I grinned, thinking it was a joke.

  “I hope you’re not going to call for one of your drug-sniffing dogs,” I quipped. “You could be charged with cruelty to animals. I didn’t take a shower this morning.”

  Hands like vise-grips grabbed my arms from behind while two of Jeffrey’s buddies flanked me. Nobody was smiling. Jeffrey’s hand rested on the butt of his gun.

  “Please step out of line, Mr. Austin,” he said again.

  “Jeffrey, it’s me!”

  Everyone in the vicinity had stopped talking. They were all looking at me, backing away as though I might go off any moment.

  Jeffrey snatched my bag from the table as his buddies escorted me to the door. He dropped my bag at my feet and ripped the identity badge from my lapel.

  “Go ahead, Jeffrey, do your worst,” I cried. “But I want you to know that no matter how much you torture me, I will never become a Raiders fan.”

  “Mr. Austin, I must ask you to leave the premises.”

  Not a trace of humor was in his eyes.

  “Is something wrong with my badge?”

  “Your credentials have been revoked.”

  “Not possible,” I said. “The badge worked fine three days ago when I had lunch in the cafeteria with half of the West Wing staff. I have clearance for the rest of the year while we promote the book. Call Chief of Staff Ingraham, I’m sure this can all be worked out.”

  “Mr. Austin, please leave.”

  “Jeffrey, cut me some slack here, will you? You know I’d never—”

  He gripped his weapon, but didn’t draw it. “If you do not leave willingly, Mr. Austin, I am authorized to consider you a credible threat and use whatever force is necessary to neutralize you.”

  “This is insane!” I shouted.

  The grip on my arms tightened to the point of real pain. Any hint of resistance and I’d be kissing tile with a knee in my back.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll leave. But it’s a bureaucratic mix-up, that’s all. And it’s not like this is the first time a bureaucratic mix-up has ever been made at the White House, is it?”

  That last part was to save face with the people standing in line. I didn’t know any of them. They didn’t know me. All the same, I had to say something.

  Jeffrey’s buddies shoved me out the door.

  So it had come to this.

  Bag in hand I stood at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House fence with the tourists and their cameras. In the course of writing my book I’d been in nearly every room of the White House. I could give tours. Now, I couldn’t even take a tour.

  The idea had crossed my mind—the tour—and I would have tried it had I thought it had a chance of succeeding. But with security alerted to my presence, I wouldn’t get ten steps inside the entrance.

  I flipped open my cell phone, giving the airwaves one last chance. I dialed the chief of staff’s office and got . . . I don’t know who I got, but as soon as I identified myself, I got cut off. I tried Christina’s cell phone. No luck.

  “Can’t be accused of not trying,” I said to no one in particular.

  I took one last lingering gaze at the White House.

  “If only I had wings,” I muttered.

  A lack of wings didn’t stop my bag from flying over the fence. I jumped to follow it and had one leg over the top when I felt something pulling me back.

  A Japanese man with a camera around his neck had grabbed hold of my coat. His eyes frantic, he let loose with a torrent of words, none of which I understood. What I did understand was the expressions of horror on the faces of his wife and children.

  “It’s OK! It’s OK!” I shouted at them. “I work here.”

  You had to admire the man. For all he knew I had a knife or a gun which I could easily have turned on him. Yet despite the potential danger, he did what he thought was right, and this probably wasn’t even his country.

  Our struggle caught the attention of other tourists. Some of them came running toward us to help the Japane
se man. My grip was giving way.

  “I have a bomb!” I shouted. “A bomb! I have a bomb!” It was the only thing I could think of that would make them back off.

  The Japanese man didn’t understand me. The other tourists did. They reversed course, slowly backing away.

  The man’s daughter understood. She shouted something at her father in Japanese, repeating it over and over. If she wasn’t saying bomb, she was saying something equally effective, because the man let go of me.

  I scaled the fence and dropped onto the grass and offered a reassuring wave to the Japanese man, his family, and a growing audience. “Everything will be OK,” I said to them.

  No sooner had I turned and picked up my bag than I heard them coming. Barking, actually.

  Dogs. I hadn’t counted on dogs.

  I heard snarls fast approaching and in stereo. They came at me from the left and from the right, so I ran forward.

  Didn’t get far.

  The next thing I knew my face was in the grass and my keister was a dog’s chew toy.

  “Can I have a pillow, or a chair with a cushion?”

  My plan had worked, though with unforeseen, painful complications. I was talking to the Secret Service.

  “It’s him, all right.”

  A copy of my book thumped onto the table, bio picture side up.

  The three of us were squeezed into a room barely big enough for the table—which was metal, dinged, and bolted to the floor. There were three matching dinged chairs. Mine was broken. The seat tipped forward right. It took constant effort to keep from slipping off it.

  The walls and ceiling and floors were painted sickening green, giving it all the hominess of a sensory deprivation tank. No air circulated in the room and both agents had a sheen of sweat. I was literally dripping after my little romp with the dogs on the grass.

  To get here I was dragged down so many windowless corridors and passageways, for all I knew we were in Philadelphia.

  My bag lay open on the table, its contents scrutinized. The deadliest item in it was a tube of toothpaste.

  The younger of the two agents was the one who went to get the book. He had a copy of it in his office. He had a rogue hair curl on his forehead that reminded me of Christopher Reeve in Superman. He and Reeve also had the same build. His name was Agent Phillips.

  “A good read,” he said of the book. “Austin did the president proud.”

  The other agent, who could have made a living as a model for Marine Corps posters, flipped through the book, not wanting to take the other agent’s word for it. His name was Agent Cunningham. “So, Mr. Austin,” Agent Cunningham said, “why do you want to kill the president?”

  “I don’t!” I said. “I’m trying to warn him of a possible threat, only for some reason, nobody wants to listen to me.”

  “So you violated the perimeter of the White House just to get our attention.”

  “I had no other choice.”

  “Have you ever heard of a phone, Mr. Austin?”

  I can sling sarcasm with the best of them, and I was tempted to engage him in the verbal equivalent of a food fight, but given the circumstances it might prove counterproductive, so I just answered the question. “Nobody would take my calls.”

  “And why is that, Mr. Austin?”

  “You’ll have to ask them.”

  Agent Cunningham’s unflinching gaze hardened. “Earlier today you attempted to enter the White House with an invalid pass.”

  “It smelled fresh this morning when I sniffed it.” Inwardly I cringed as soon as I said it. Hadn’t I just told myself I wasn’t going to do this?

  Agent Cunningham was not amused.

  I modified my answer. “I didn’t know it was invalid. I was under the impression it was good for the rest of the year.”

  Agent Phillips inched forward, signaling it was his turn to ask a question. “All right, Mr. Austin. You have our attention. Tell us about the alleged threat against the president.”

  Finally we were getting somewhere. I knew Agent Phillips liked me.

  “Can I have a pillow or something?” I asked.

  Two pairs of uncaring eyes answered in the negative.

  Given my discomfort, it was easy to be brief. I explained my trip to California, the speech, and my meeting with Myles Shepherd, leaving out the Twilight Zone special effects.

  Midway through my discourse Agent Phillips extracted a pad and pen from his inside suit pocket. He took notes and requested a spelling of Myles Shepherd’s name. “So, you sought out Shepherd. He didn’t invite you to his office.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Given your history of antagonism, why did you want to see him?”

  “To gloat.”

  “To gloat. You sought him out to gloat.”

  “Look, I’m not proud of it, OK? But yeah . . . I went there to throw my success in his face. Didn’t you guys have someone in high school that just . . . I don’t know, got under your skin?”

  Apparently not.

  “So you threw your success in his face and in return he told you he was going to assassinate the president.”

  “If you knew Myles Shepherd, it makes sense. You see, my success is because of the book. By attacking the subject of the book, Shepherd undermines my success.”

  Agent Cunningham wasn’t following. “So you’re saying Shepherd wants to kill the president because you wrote a book?”

  “Not exactly, but something like that.”

  “And that was the last time you saw Shepherd?” Agent Phillips asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  What else could I say? I’m a terrible liar and the men across the table from me are trained at spotting liars. They waited, wanting me to elaborate.

  “I saw him on my flight here.”

  That got their attention.

  “You’re certain it was him?”

  “Positive.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you confront him?”

  “I attempted to confront him, but he got away.”

  “Got away? During a layover?”

  “Not exactly.” Again, they waited for me to elaborate. “The flight was nonstop.”

  “Where did you attempt to confront him?”

  “In flight.”

  Agent Cunningham was shaking his head. “You attempted to confront him in flight, but he got away? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you alert flight personnel?”

  “I did.”

  “And how did they respond?”

  Clearing my throat, I said, “According to the flight attendants, Myles Shepherd was never on the flight.”

  Agent Cunningham sat back with a groan.

  Agent Phillips rolled his eyes.

  A chair scraped.

  Agent Phillips left the room.

  Agent Cunningham continued the interrogation. “In your opinion, is Shepherd capable of assassinating the president? Does he have the means? Access?”

  “Yes, he’s definitely capable of it. Most definitely. He’s boastful, competitive, highly intelligent, opinionated, and Machiavellian.”

  “Machiavellian?”

  “Scheming. Immorally ruthless. While I was in his office, he drugged me.”

  Agent Cunningham showed surprise for the first time. “Drugged you? With what drug?”

  Before I could answer, Agent Phillips returned. His lips were pursed. His jaw set. He slapped a manila folder down on the table and took a seat. “I made some preliminary calls,” he said, not bothering to ask if he was interrupting. “I spoke to—” He looked inside the folder for the name. “Fred Benson. Do you recognize that name, Mr. Austin?”

  “He’s the vice principal at Singing Hills High School.”

  “According to Mr. Benson, Myles Shepherd is dead. Are you aware of this, Mr. Austin?”

  “Dead?” Agent Cunningham blurted.

  Agent Phillips didn’t wait for me to reply.
“Mr. Benson says you were standing next to him when he learned of Shepherd’s death. That the car accident in which he was killed was broadcast live on local television.”

  Two pairs of experience-hardened Secret Service eyes bored into me, waiting for an answer.

  “That wasn’t his body in the car!” I said, defending myself. “Besides, that doesn’t change anything, does it? There are others involved in the plot and they’re still out there. They use code names.”

  Agent Cunningham said in all seriousness, “These coconspirators. Are they dead too?”

  Agent Phillips’s pad and pen appeared again. “Do you have the names of these coconspirators?” he asked.

  “I have possible code names.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Shepherd’s code name was Semyaza.” I spelled it for him. “As for the others, well, it’s conjecture based on research.”

  Agent Phillips sighed.

  “You see, Semyaza is the name of a lieutenant in an ancient organization, and from that I have deduced the name of the mastermind.”

  “Which is?”

  Hesitation. Again with the hesitation.

  The agents waited. Expressionless.

  “Most likely,” I said, “the code name of the head of the organization is . . . is Lucifer . . . Satan.”

  Agent Phillips’s pen dropped onto the table. He didn’t write the name down.

  After an uncomfortable silence, which to me was doubly painful because the place where the dog bit me was burning, Agent Phillips asked, “Did Shepherd give you any indication as to the identity of Satan?”

  I smiled. The question sounded funny. “Actually, yes,” I said, fidgeting, which hurt like crazy, “he told me that it was a waste of time to inform the president of the assassination plot because . . .” This is the part I hadn’t told anyone. But I had to tell the Secret Service, didn’t I? While I didn’t believe it was true for a moment, the information might provide a clue that could lead to the conspirators. “Because the president already knew about it.”

  The agents exchanged glances.

  Phillips said, “OK, I’ll bite . . .”

  I laughed at the unintended joke despite the pain.

  They didn’t laugh with me.

  “Exactly how would this information have reached the president?”