by Jay Brandon
The chair seemed to fall faster. Jack had no reference points, because he couldn’t see anything. His arms were held firmly against his chest. He sensed a huge obstacle out there ahead of him, and was certain that the chair’s fall was going to end by slamming into a wall. Jack was screaming without knowing it. The chair accelerated faster and faster, eager to smash him. Things seemed to brush at him in the darkness. Every moment felt like his last.
Then his fall began to slow. The chair suddenly took a steep turn, which slowed it further, and it was sliding forward, to come to a stop. The chair fell over sideways, which completely terrified him, then its constraints popped free of his arms. Jack pushed against the wall in front of him and it gave way. He stumbled up and out into an alley. On the outside the walls looked like one of those old-fashioned freight elevators that come out of the ground. Jack staggered free of it and the doors closed, leaving him alone and completely disoriented.
He walked away a few steps, rubbed his hands over his face. It was November in northern Europe, and colder than January where he came from. Thin sunlight didn’t help. Jack had been up all night, most of it spent in Bruno’s sanctuary. He turned in a slow circle, trying to find a landmark.
A couple of blocks away a three- or four-story building, the tallest structure in this suburb, caught his eye. It was the most modern building in sight, glass walls rising out of the old, old town. The windows reflected the sights around them, so the building appeared to be wearing a coat of older architecture. It was an interesting effect, as if the building were hiding in plain sight. At night it would be nearly invisible.
The building held him. Three stories. Had he climbed that high through the ceiling? Somehow the building looked to him like Bruno, intrusive and secretive at the same time. The building was narrower at the top, in what could have been a penthouse. Or a control room.
As Jack watched, the top floor of the building exploded. It was a quiet explosion, self-contained, and if Jack hadn’t been staring right at it, he wouldn’t have known where the sound came from. The walls didn’t shatter and send glass flying. One window burst, but the others just collapsed inward, an implosion that collapsed that whole top floor in a matter of seconds.
That hadn’t just been an eject button Jack had hit. It had been a self-destruct switch. An emergency escape from Bruno’s sky bunker in case he was invaded by overwhelming force, and needed to get away and destroy his attackers.
Jack’s mouth fell open as he stared. The explosion would have been most thorough, he felt sure, destroying all traces of his old classmate’s renegade operation.
“Goodbye, Bruno,” Jack whispered.
He felt sure Bruno would have wanted it this way. He wouldn’t have wanted to live with defeat. In fact, this whole scheme might have been an elaborate suicide plot.
But Bruno had said something ominous. I have more back-up plans than you can count. Something like that. And at least one of those schemes might already have been set in motion.
Jack started running, looking for a phone and a car.
Rachel Greene’s eyes kept returning to the American contingent, standing befuddled. One woman was holding a drape of the presidential seal, the kind that would hang on a podium. “Stay here,” Rachel said softly, and walked across the square. The middle-aged woman holding the presidential drape began to watch her as Rachel drew closer. The woman was a little frumpy, but with efficient-looking arms and wrists. There was something familiar about her eyes, an insightful determination. She was the kind who would make the perfect executive secretary. While everyone else had lost their heads, she had remembered the seal, but now couldn’t think of anything to do with it.
“May I?” Rachel asked, holding out her hands. The woman’s faded blue eyes stared into Rachel’s soft brown ones. She looked puzzled and even a little angry, but she was used to taking orders. Her fingers eased their grip and she let Rachel gently pull the cloth from her hands.
“Thank you,” Rachel said, and walked on. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw Arden watching her. Are you so smart, girl?, Rachel thought. Do you know what I’m going to do? Jack had trusted this girl, at least to an extent, but Rachel did not.
The stage was already set up in front of her. There was no central podium, just eight chairs on the stage. A great deal of planning had gone into that arrangement. If the chairs were put in a line, two people would be on the ends, shuffled off to the sides. Someone would be central, someone not. There were other considerations. Israel could not be next to Syria, the U.S. not next to Britain. (They didn’t want to look too insider-ish.) War had almost broken out at the peace summit over the arrangement of the chairs. In the end—Rachel’s subtle suggestion to a chief of protocol—the chairs had been arranged in a horseshoe shape, with two up high and the others in two arms circling around, so that the ones on “top” were farthest from the audience and the two on the ends were closest, positions of prominence. This had satisfied everyone, and the various presidents pretended it had been a tempest over nothing, that they couldn’t care less where they sat.
Rachel mounted the steps beside the stage, walking slowly. Two Secret Service agents in the wings, along with security personnel from other countries, watched her closely, but there were no presidents on the stage, so who cared about a young woman providing window dressing?
Rachel chose one of the chairs near the top of the horseshoe and carefully draped the American presidential seal over its back, facing the audience. Now the chair was more prominent than all the others. It was dressed and they were naked. The chair also looked expectant. Let’s get on with the show. Rachel backed away, checked to make sure the seal was on straight, then walked quickly away.
She had done everything she could.
As Rachel walked back toward Arden, the character of the square changed. The American contingent looked pleased: a small victory for American diplomacy. The woman from whom Rachel had taken the drape smiled at her, then kept her eyes on her. Photographers from dozens of news organizations watched curiously, unlimbering their cameras.
The effect on the members of other nations’ representatives was most pronounced. The aides and attaches in the square began whispering to each other, then getting on phones and walkie-talkies. The confused, almost idle air of the square, a place where obviously nothing was about to happen, became purposeful.
The first head of state to appear on the stage, three minutes and forty-three seconds after Rachel had placed the presidential seal, was the French president. President DeVinces almost skidded to a stop in his haste, then checked himself to make sure his dignity was intact. An aide followed closely, but the president waved him away. With great deliberation, the French president seated himself in a chair across from the presidential seal, smiled out at the crowd, and waited.
The president of Israel was next, followed very closely by the president of Syria. The men exchanged words, apparently not unpleasant ones, and took their seats on either side of the chair adorned by the American presidential seal.
Within ten minutes all the chairs except one were filled. The British prime minister was the last one to take the stage, but he did so talking on a cell phone, perhaps as if in intimate conversation with his friend the American president. The P.M. seemed nonplussed for a moment to have only one chair to choose from, but then took the chair on one end of the horseshoe with good grace.
For a moment they all sat, smiling , posing. That’s when all the cameras went off. The next day the front page of every newspaper in the world would carry that picture: the most important heads of state in the world coming together to try to solve the world’s problems, with one empty seat among them, that seat prominently displaying the American presidential seal.
Then the presidents and prime ministers and premiers stopped posing and started talking. The Syrian and Israeli presidents leaned across the empty chair to chat amiably. England and Russia got into an animated discussion, the Russian president sweeping back her long blond hair at
one point. Germany, France, and China leaned close to each other, chatting and nodding as if they were all multilingual.
The conversations began to look less chatty and more purposeful. There were undisguised frowns, but no apparent angry words. Clearly positions were being taken, then changed. The conversational groups shifted. The heads looked thoughtful, forceful, flexible. Watching them—and the whole world was watching—anyone would have longed to be part of that conversation. It shifted and flowed. Apparently hearing something he liked, the British prime minister nodded, then got up and walked a few steps to the chair displaying the American presidential seal, sat in it, and engaged the Syrian and Israeli presidents in animated discussions, obviously conveying information, or perhaps an offer.
Now the American contingent was not pleased at all. The executive secretary frowned at Rachel. Then her gaze shifted and she looked puzzled for a moment.
Rachel took her place beside Arden and stood quietly, ignored by everyone else.
“My God,” Arden muttered. A compliment. Rachel nodded in acceptance.
“May I sit at your feet and be your disciple?” Arden added after a moment, looking around in awe.
Rachel turned to her with her hard look back in place. “No. And let me tell you why—”
Her cell phone rang.
Rachel answered, holding the phone tightly to her ear.
“Rachel,” Jack said, out of breath. “I got away. I’m on my way. I don’t know where Arden is, she was supposed to—”
“Don’t worry,” Rachel said tightly, not wanting to give anything away. But she could tell from the girl’s pleading eyes that she had known who was calling from the moment Rachel answered the phone.
Rachel started to tell Jack what had happened, but somehow he knew about the American president’s change of heart. “Something else is going to happen,” he said quickly. Obviously Jack was running as he talked. “Something to make it look like the president was right to leave. Some plot—”
“Jack, this is the most thoroughly checked-out site on earth. Unless there’s a missile strike on the way, there’s no way—”
“Then it’s something else. Bruno said he had back-ups, and I believe him.”
“Bruno? From school?”
Rachel looked at Arden as she talked. Arden appeared unsurprised by anything.
After a quick explanation, Jack said, “I’ll be there as fast as I can. We’ve got—”
“No!” Rachel and Arden said simultaneously. Rachel stared at the girl again. Either she had extraordinary hearing or she could read minds. Either way, it seemed useless to try to keep the conversation from her. Rachel eased the phone away from her head so they could both hear.
Then she told Jack, “You’re still extremely persona non wanted around here. If you rush over here now, it will look like you’re the security threat the president was warned about.”
“Damn.” Miles away, Jack skidded to a halt. When Rachel said something, he believed it instantly. There had been times in the past when he had failed to believe her, and he regretted nearly all of them now. “Then what can I—?” he looked around helplessly. “Where’s Arden?” he muttered. “Bruno thought she’d be here. Maybe if I could—”
“She’s here,” Rachel said quietly. Into the phone’s speaker Arden said, “Hello, Jack,” very softly. Then all three were silent for a moment. Arden cleared her throat, about to say something like, I’m glad you got away, but knew before she said it how lame it would be. The other two heard what she’d thought about saying and knew the same thing.
After a long moment Jack’s voice said from the phone’s speaker, “All right. Rachel, there’s something lethal there. You have to find it, stop it, and leave no sign that there was ever any danger.”
Rachel’s eyes swept the square. There was activity everywhere now, people moving, speaking, with dozens of security agents watching everything better than she possibly could. “Okay,” she said slowly, “and you can offer me—”
“I don’t have a clue.”
Arden chimed in, “He’s not good with people. Bruno, I mean. It couldn’t be someone he’s induced to do something. It must be a machine.”
“He was pretty good with you,” Jack said, with some bitterness, but it sounded feigned to Rachel. She looked again at the girl, in a different appraising kind of way.
“I never really—”
“Oh, right, you never bought into his—”
“Really I didn’t, Jack. I just wanted to find out what he was—”
“Sure. Arden the spy. And you didn’t bother to tell me what I was walking into because that would have…”
Their bickering sounded familiar to Rachel. And it gave her an idea. Speaking of Bruno, she said, “He’s good with the excluded.”
“And orphans,” Arden chimed in.
Jack had fallen silent.
“Outcasts,” Arden and Rachel said together, beginning to look around the square again. But how, out of all these people, could they spot the person Bruno had planted here?
“What? What?” Jack was saying into his phone. He felt very excluded himself.
A block away from him, those below-ground elevator doors opened again. A battered figure, stripped of mechanical arms and legs, crawled out into the alley. Then he fell onto his back and lay there, breathing in the free air.
“Give me a hint, Jack,” Rachel said into her phone. She and Arden were standing shoulder to shoulder, slowly turning in a circle, taking in everyone. “By land or sea or air? A bomb, you think? I’m telling you, there can’t be anything on or under that stage. It’s been checked so thoroughly, and I sealed off underground access to it myself. If there’s another killer plane on the way, surely the Air Force will give us some warning. Besides, if it’s one of these people, Jack there are too many. We can’t possibly—”
Wait, wait. Jack ducked his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, and thought. How, from miles away, could he stop a plan that Bruno had been brooding over for years? And do it so efficiently and quietly no one would ever know there had been a problem?
Because that was the way the Circle operated. More smoothly than the most accomplished magician. They vanished not only the lady but themselves, and any memory that there had even been a performance.
There was nothing. He had nothing. Bruno had too many back-ups. Someone there was either under his influence or perhaps even acting on a post-hypnotic suggestion, that would be triggered by an event bound to occur at the summit, such as the playing of a certain national anthem. But if Rachel and Arden disturbed the ceremonies, the president could use that to spin his retreat. And Jack wanted that retreat to have no justification at all, to be an utter whimpering flight in panic.
Well, maybe he couldn’t have everything he wanted. “Arden,” he said resignedly, about to tell her maybe to try to stop the band, or something else to disrupt the ceremonies.
Then he stopped. “What is it, Jack?” Rachel’s voice crackled out of his cell phone.
“Arden,” he said again, then more forcefully: “You’re not supposed to be there, Arden. Bruno thought you’d be here. He wasn’t sure he had you completely, but he damned sure thought he could predict you well enough to know you’d come in with me. In fact, maybe he never thought he’d turned you at all. Maybe he was convinced of your secret loyalty to me. So he counted on your being here.” Jack’s mind was spinning wildly now. He thought he understood Bruno. Bruno would never have confidence in any other human being; his face had told Jack that. He had manipulated Arden, yes, but how? Toward what end?
He started talking again. “There are only two ‘seats of power’—thank you, Arden—in this town. He wanted you to be here. That means—”
“He didn’t want me to be here,” Arden said. She looked around wonderingly. “But why not? What could I possibly—? Oh my God.”
She was staring at that executive secretary, as the woman turned to look out over the crowd. Her eyes didn’t settle on Arden, but Arden got
a good look at her for the first time.
“Orphans,” she muttered. “Outcasts.”
Arden was staring across the compound. She and Rachel were on a small rise, so they could see over the heads of the milling reporters, civilians, and security people. The middle-aged secretary from the American crowd was moving toward the stage. Her posture had changed. She no longer looked frumpy, or aged. She stood very straight, staring at the presidents on the stage. Her hands clenched and unclenched.
“There was something familiar about her,” Rachel muttered.
“Because you’ve met me,” Arden answered dreamily. “It’s my mother.”
Arden swayed as she stood. She couldn’t have been more stunned if a meteor had landed on her. She hadn’t seen her mother in years, but she knew this was she. Her young, slender, always a little frantic mother had turned into this slightly overweight, competent-looking professional. She had come to resemble her own mother, Gladys Leaphorn, the Chair of the Circle.
The group from which Arden’s mother had been excluded her whole life.
Arden hadn’t realized it at the time, but her mother Alice had spent years on the run trying to fill the craving she could never satisfy, the craving to belong, to be part of something important. Maybe she didn’t know the whole truth, but she felt its loss. Somehow Bruno had figured this out and had gotten to Alice. Arden knew it. He had tried to get to Arden, and had to a certain extent, but she had been prepared for him. Granny had rescued her from her feelings of being left out. She was not such easy prey for Bruno Benjamin as he had thought. But her mother had been.
The woman was no longer staring at the stage. She was moving purposefully, in her efficient executive secretary mode.
“They’ll stop her,” Arden whispered. “They won’t let her get near—”
“It doesn’t matter if they stop her!” Jack yelled into the phone. “If she looks like a legitimate assassin the president can say he knew about her. This is why he left. Rachel, there can’t be any disturbance! Do you understand?”
