by Phil Swann
“Yes, my lord,” the servant answered.
The old man stared at his valet. “You think me a fool, don't you, Timon?”
The servant did not answer.
“Agh! I know you do,” the old man said, his voice almost a growl. “Tell me, Timon, how long have you been in my employment? Twenty years? Thirty?”
“Nearly forty-five, my archon,” Timon answered.
“Forty-five years, indeed. All those years, every minute, you have always thought me a fool, a comical eccentric lost in his imaginary world. Don't deny it. I have been witness to your judgment. You never believed the song existed, did you? Or if it did, I could ever find it? Well, you were wrong, Timon, it does exist. And soon, it shall be mine. Look what I have begun,” the old man said, holding up a newspaper. “Behold my unstoppable power.”
The servant did not speak.
The old man dropped the newspaper, leaned back in his chair, and coughed slightly. “You believed it all a myth, a fantasy from the land of make believe. You thought I had made it all up in my feeble old brain. You doubted I could do it, didn't you? Well, what do you think now, Timon? Do you still think me a fool?”
Still, Timon said nothing in response.
“My divine family might be small, but I’ll put them up against your ridiculous holy club any day, Timon. We are some of the most exclusive people in the history of mankind. You might think your blessed ones behind the walls of the Vatican enjoy the same amount of exclusivity, but you would be wrong. Those simpletons are nothing! They are little more than a failed business venture. What do you think of that?”
Timon just stared at the old man.
“And its leader, ha! That silly old man is nothing but a CEO with a board of directors in funny hats. True, they have their own country and an enviable tax status, but they are nothing compared to my enclave. Have we been talked about in the press? Have our financial ethics been called into question? Have we been accused of sexual perversity? No. Also, unlike your club, as far as anyone knows, mine doesn’t exist. Quite the advantage, Timon. What say you to that?”
“I am not Catholic, my lord,” Timon responded calmly.
“Eck!” the old man spat, dropping his teacup and saucer onto the desk. “This tea is rubbish! Where did you get it? Probably from one of your useless relative's shops, I suppose.”
“My apologies, my archon.”
The old man unbuttoned the top of his sweater as tiny beads of sweat began appearing on his forehead. He coughed again and tried to sit up but couldn't. “Timon, I'm suddenly not feeling well. It's become very warm in here.”
“Again, my apologies, my lord,” Timon replied.
“Damn your apologies!” the old man wheezed. “I need to be sharp tonight. Go and get me a spoon of cod liver oil.”
“That won't be necessary, my archon.”
“Damn you, Timon, you're not a doctor. I said go and—” The old man interrupted himself with a sudden gasp for air. “Timon, I need help.”
“No, my lord,” Timon whispered, removing a pocket watch from his cummerbund, “you're doing fine.”
“Timon, I need a doctor,” the old man gasped, clutching at his chest.
“Actually, you don't,” Timon said, looking at his watch. “You see, my lord, I have poisoned you. And, if my watch is correct, which of course it always is, you'll be dead within two minutes.”
The old man's eyes became wide. He arched his back in his chair as a combination of fear and rage filled his increasingly ashen face. “The…the…tea?”
“Actually, no. It was the cognac. And, you are right, the tea is from my cousin's shop in Athens, so very sorry about that.”
“What…what—”
“The poison? I honestly don't know, my lord. But I was assured it is quite lethal…and painful. You see, my archon, right now you are having a heart attack. A very slow one but a heart attack nonetheless. The substance is completely untraceable, of course—not that anyone would look that hard for cause of death. My God, old man, you should have been dead years ago. Why couldn't you have just died before this nonsense you started got so out of hand?”
The old man struggled to form words, his mouth going dry and breathing becoming more labored. “My…my…people. They are expecting me to—”
“There are no people, you old fool. There is no one out there. No one is coming!” Timon shouted, raising his voice for the first time. “I canceled your little gathering weeks ago. There is no one.”
“But my work…what about my work?”
Timon only stared in reply.
The old man attempted to lean forward. “I am their hierophant.”
The servant named Timon Baros pushed the old man back into the chair, wedging his forearm against his chest. His face was inches from the dying man's face. “Listen to me, you old fool, and let these be the last words you hear. You are no one's hierophant.”
“I…I am a Kerykes,” the old man whispered back.
“Yes, you are a Kerykes. But I am an Eumolpidae. Did you hear me? Eumolpidae.”
“Timon? You…you are Eumolpidae?”
“I am,” Timon Baros replied. “And this stops right now.”
The color completely drained from the old man's face, but to Timon’s surprise, he forced a slight grin. “No,” he coughed. “It does not die with me. I am but the beginning, the sire to the Great Awakening. My legacy is written. A lifetime of details and matrixes have been measured and weighed. The world will be set right. The song shall be heard again.” The old man’s eyes rolled back, and with his last breath, whispered, “The song shall be heard, Eumolpidae. Praise be to…” and he was dead.
Timon Baros raised himself from the old man's lifeless body and straightened his jacket. He saw the decanter of cognac sitting on the sideboard. He walked across the room, removed a folded plastic bag from his pocket, and placed the decanter in the bag. He went to the balcony where the old man’s snifter was still sitting on the ledge and placed it in the bag as well. Lastly, he returned to the desk and picked up the small ceramic vase. He held it up and gazed upon its beauty. The gloriously rendered images were faded with time but still breathtaking. It was the most magnificent object he’d ever seen in his life. He released a long breath, walked across the room, took one last look at the antiquity, and then hurled it into the fireplace, smashing it into dust.
One final scan of the room, and he was content that all was as it should be. He picked up the telephone and dialed. “Yes, my name is Timon Baros,” he said, with a frightened urgency. “I am the personal valet to Lord Vardis Papadakis. Something terrible has happened. He's not moving. I think he has died.”
He listened for a moment.
“Yes, that Papadakis. Please send help.”
He listened again.
“Yes, that is the location. Please come quickly.”
He hung up the phone and considered the next call. After a moment, he lifted the receiver and dialed. The call was answered immediately. “It is done.” He listened and then replied, “No. We do nothing. We must be prudent. We are not sure what the maniac has actually put into motion and what is merely the fantastical delusions of an old man. If we’re lucky, the latter will be truer than the former. If it is not, then we will do what we must. I’ll be in touch.”
Timon Baros hung up the phone. He picked up the newspaper on the desk and stared at it. The unthinkable headline broke his heart. How had he let it get this far? How could he have failed so completely? He heard the sound of sirens in the distance. He should be outside when the ambulance arrived, he decided. And, of course, be appropriately distraught, a manner he was sure he’d have no problem manifesting. He let out a sigh, returned the newspaper in front of the lifeless corpse of Lord Vardis Papadakis, and left the room.
The headline read: AMERICAN PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED!
Part Two
Chapter Seven
Great Falls, Virginia
Three months after the assassination
Gus
tav Brahe loved this part of the Potomac. It reminded him of his childhood home on the banks of the Kalix River in Sweden. When he first moved to Washington, DC, he would drive out here once, sometimes twice a week. He’d park and just think. There was something about the water crashing over the rocks and slapping against the muddy shoreline that calmed him and empowered him into believing he could actually do the job he was brought here to do, a job he had coveted for decades. That seemed like a lifetime ago. It amazed him to think that in actuality it was only a little more than four years ago.
When the doctors gave him the news, he wasn’t shocked. He wasn’t even mildly surprised. There was no inner voice screaming out “why me?” No embittered rant on why God had done this to him. No guilty conscience telling him it was karma exacting cruel revenge on yet another flawed and all-too-human victim. No, there was none of that, because he’d been expecting it. Even though just six months earlier he’d been given a clean bill of health at his annual physical, he’d still been expecting it. So when the excruciating headaches began two months ago, he knew. The doctors couldn’t explain how it came on so fast. But he could. He didn’t, of course, but he could explain it.
Gustav turned up the volume on the car's stereo and closed his eyes. The music of the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman filled the car. It was so beautiful. He wondered why more people didn’t know of this great master. He thought about many things, ridiculous things. Like all those cocktail parties he never enjoyed but believed he had to attend. Sad things. Like missing his oldest daughter’s dance recital when she was in second grade, all because he had to be at some meeting in Lisbon…or was it Rome? He couldn’t remember now, so how important could it have been? There were funny things too. Like the time he made an entire delegation from China double over with laughter when he attempted to sing every verse of the Swedish National Anthem in Mandarin. But mostly, he thought about Abella. Sweet, beautiful Abella, his wife of thirty-five years. She had stood by him and followed him all over the world just so he could climb the ladder of success and become the important person he wanted to be. Oh, Abella, you deserved so much better.
As the music played, he rolled down the window and smelled the honeysuckle wafting through the air. Life is good. Then, with no fanfare or dramatics, he reached for the.357 Smith and Wesson lying in the passenger seat next to him, stuck the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
»»•««
Paris, France
Five months after the assassination
Without looking, Joëlle Côté bolted across Rue Saint-Honoré, causing motorists to slam on their brakes, narrowly missing the raggedy child. Horns blared and irate Parisians yelled obscenities out their windows, but Joëlle never broke stride. Instead, the young girl returned each expletive with an obscene gesture and a choice word of her own. At thirteen years old, Joëlle didn’t take shit from anybody. Besides, she was late.
The man who approached her last night in the Montmartre district of Paris had told her to be at the service entrance of the Hotel Du Louvre at eight thirty p.m. sharp—and then he handed her one hundred euros. He said there would be much more where that came from if she did what he asked. “Très bien,” Joëlle said, without even asking what it was the man wanted her to do. Once he told her, she was even more willing to take the job. After all, she had done far worse for far less…and never in a place nearly as fantaisiet as the Hotel Du Louvre.
The steel door in the alley was propped open, just as the man said it would be. Joëlle entered and saw the toilettes immediately on her right, again, just where the man had said they would be. She went in and found the small duffle bag behind the basin. Ten minutes later, Joëlle emerged looking nothing like the street urchin who entered. She wore a clean white pressed cotton blouse with a maroon plaid skirt. Her dirty and worn out sneakers were replaced with black patent leather shoes and white knee socks. Her hair was neatly combed back off her tiny face and tied in a ponytail. She waited as she had been instructed.
“Venez avec moi,” the man wearing the uniform of a hotel bellman commanded.
Joëlle followed the bellman around the corner and down the cold concrete hallway to the hotel’s service elevator. He pushed the call button, and the doors opened immediately.
“Douzième étage, salle 1267,” he said, handing her a plastic key card.
Joëlle nodded, stepped into the elevator, and pushed the button for the twelfth floor. Before the doors had closed, the bellman was gone. The elevator rose, and Joëlle suddenly felt the first pang of fear. If everything went as the man had said it would, then no problem. If it didn’t…well, she guessed she’d cross that particular bridge when she came to it. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Joëlle stepped out of the lift into another service corridor. She quickly located the doors leading to the hotel's guest rooms and headed for them with purpose. It was too late to turn back now.
The twelfth floor hallway of the Hotel Du Louvre was plush and reeked of elegance everywhere she looked. She had never seen anything so beautiful. Everything smelled so clean. Not clean like the hospital but clean like…a department store. Only better. Soft jazz music played, and small crystal lighting fixtures gently lit the entire length of the hallway. Joëlle felt the deep blue pile carpeting under her feet. It was the softest thing she’d ever walked on. She wanted to take her shoes and socks off and run her toes through it. Then she remembered the man being adamant about keeping to the schedule. But someday soon, she decided, she would return and run up and down the hallway barefoot for hours.
She reached room 1267 and started to knock on the door. Then she saw the plastic card in her hand and recalled what the man had taught her to do with it. She slid the card into the slot above the handle and quickly removed it. Sure enough the red light turned green. She lifted the handle, opened the door, and stepped in.
The room wasn’t completely dark, but the lights were turned down very low. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Once they did, she saw a stocky male figure wearing a white cotton robe sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Bonjour,” the man said with a funny accent.
Joëlle knew he wasn’t French but had no idea where anyone learned to talk like that. “Bonjour,” she replied.
“Parlez-vous espagnol? Or maybe English?” he asked.
“Oui. Some English,” Joëlle answered.
“Good. Come closer. Let me take a look at my sweet muchacha.”
Joëlle did as she was instructed and started toward the bed. She had only taken a few steps when the man leaped up.
“¿Qué demonios!” the man yelled. He reached beside the bed and flicked a switch. Suddenly the room was filled with light. “¡No eres más que un niño! You’re a goddamned child!”
Joëlle remained still and said nothing.
“I didn’t ask for a child. I no pervertido! Salir!! Salir!”
The man grabbed Joëlle by the arm and began pulling her to the door. That was her cue.
“Stop!” Joëlle shouted, falling to the ground. “Stop! Help me! Arreter! M'aider! M'aider! Tu me fais mal. I don’t want to do that! Don’t make me do that!”
He was dragging her across the floor by the forearm when the door flung open. Joëlle only caught some of what happened next. She saw la police enter the room, weapons drawn, all ordering the man to release her. She saw a look of terror on the man’s face just before someone grabbed her and whisked her out the door. She heard the man with his funny accent speaking very fast. The only word she could pick out was “no,” which he repeated several times over.
“Come with me, darling,” a policewoman said, taking Joëlle’s hand.
“I’ll take her down,” another policeman said, taking Joëlle’s other hand.
“Merci,” the policewoman replied.
Joëlle said nothing as the policeman led her away and back through the doors leading into the service corridor. The elevator doors were already open. It wasn’t until the doors had closed that she looked up at
the policeman. She couldn’t believe it. It was the man from last night.
“You did well,” the policeman said in English.
“Merci,” Joëlle replied.
The man reached into his coat and removed a large bulging envelope. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Joëlle took the envelope and looked inside. Her eyes nearly popped from their sockets. It was more money than she had ever seen in her life. I’m rich, she thought. I can do anything I want now. I’m set for life!
The elevator landed, and the doors opened. They both exited, walked down the service corridor, and out the steel door into the alley. The policeman put his hand on Joëlle’s shoulder and turned her to him. “I need you to do two things now. One, we never met. Comprendre?”
Joëlle nodded.
“And two, I need you to kick me as hard as you can, then run like hell away from here. I don’t care what I say, you keep running. Yes?”
Again, Joëlle nodded that she understood.
“Okay. Now kick me and get out of here. I never want to see you again.”
Joëlle didn’t have to be told twice. She kicked the policeman as hard as she could in the shin and bolted.
“Arrêter son! Arrêter son!” the policeman yelled, as Joëlle sprinted across the busy street.
People watched, some even pointed as a halfhearted attempt to aid the law enforcement officer, but no one even came close to stopping her. In less than thirty seconds, Joëlle Côté had completely disappeared from sight.
»»•««
Brussels, Belgium
Eleven months after the assassination
The last thing Isabella Fran wanted to do tonight was fly across the Atlantic. But she had no choice. Europe was exploding, and she had to do whatever she could to put the pin back in the grenade. Recent events had hurled the entire continent to the brink of a catastrophe the likes of which it had not seen since World War II. Entire countries, already leveraged within an inch of their fiscal life, were on the verge of complete collapse. Three of western Europe's largest financial institutions, two in Britain and one in Oslo, had already gone belly up within seventy-two hours of each other, and the great experiment called the Euro Zone was very near going the way of the dodo. And, on top of everything else, a complete idiot was now running the world’s only remaining superpower. If things could get worse, Isabella didn't want to know how.
