The Last Paladin

by Ward Wagher

  § § §

  Glacie Hitchcock propped herself on an elbow and gazed at her bed partner. “That was fun, RWB. We should do it again.”

  He clasped his hands behind his head on the pillow as he gazed at the ceiling and tried to decide how he felt. He had encountered Glacie in the elevator and embraced her on a whim. One thing led to another and here they were.

  “One must not get carried away,” he said. “I have other things I must do this afternoon.”

  “You’re the Paladin. You should be able to schedule your afternoon any way you want.”

  “What about you? Do you not have someplace you need to be?”

  “I will just tell Char I was feeling a little out of sorts and decided to call it a day.”

  “Does it bother you to lie to your boss?”

  She grinned. “I was a little out of sorts. And you were exactly what was required to put me back on the level.”

  He snorted and rolled out of the bed. She watched as he pulled on his clothing.

  “Who is she?” she asked.

  “Who is who?” was the response.

  “The girl you keep meeting at these parties?”

  He glanced back at her. “Is this something you need to know?”

  “I am curious,” the stocky blond said. “It looks serious to me. You did not stay at the parties very long. You did not come up for air until the next morning. And I have never seen you have breakfast with any of your friends.”

  “I do not know,” he replied. “Scout seems to just show up at these parties.”

  “Would it bother her to know about our roll in the hay this afternoon?”

  “I do not propose to tell her.”

  “What about me?” Glacie asked with a hint of plaintiveness.

  “You are a friend, Glacie,” RWB said. “We do friend stuff together. That is all.”

  “If my parents knew about some of the things us friends do, they would be horrified,” she said.

  “If it bothers you do not do it,” RWB snapped.

  “I did not say it bothers me.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose it bothers me a little afterward.”

  He shook his head and laughed at her. “You are really something, Glacie. And you are a good friend.”

  She smiled sadly as he walked out of his bedroom. He moved to the entrance to his suite and the door slid open. Two guards stood by the door in the hallway.

  “Does Smythe have the shuttle ready?”

  “Yes, RWB,” one of the guards replied. “He has clearance to leave at any time.”

  “Good. We should leave.”

  He walked quickly along the hallway to the elevator. He selected the top floor of Wilton House and the elevator carried them up another fifty stories. He then trotted up the short stairway to the rooftop shuttle pad. He trotted across the roof in the wind and blowing snow to where the shuttle sat idling on the pad.

  “Afternoon, Sing,” he commented as he buckled himself into his seat.

  “Afternoon, RWB.”

  The two guards who had followed him aboard slipped into the seats behind Jones. Smythe eased the shuttle up into the gale-force winds and pulled the nose up, feeding power to the turbines. Since this would be a suborbital flight, the pilot would be able to climb quickly above the weather. This evening’s party was in Capetown, which was nearly on the opposite side of the globe. The turbines and counter-grav took the shuttle to sixty-thousand feet where the reaction motors took over and boosted them to one-hundred miles high where they leveled out. Because of the counter-grav, relatively small amounts of fuel were required for the flight. Forty-five minutes later, they arrowed back through the atmosphere and dropped over the city of Capetown on the southern coast of Africa.

  The skyscrapers of Capetown were less imposing than that of Chicago. Although it was a modern city, the dwellers were not impelled to build as tall as the people in North America. It was summer in this hemisphere, and the weather was mild. Although the cooling climate had affected the entire globe, the winters here were less harsh than experienced in Chicago.

  Smythe stepped into the passenger cabin after the landing.

  “Be careful not to touch the skin of the shuttle when you disembark, people,” he said. “We came in a little hot and it will take some time for the bird to cool down.”

  “Can you refuel here?” RWB asked.

  “No. There is no space for parking, either. I will be at the FBO to service the shuttle. I can be here in ten minutes from whenever you call.”

  “Very well, Fillip. Thanks for a good flight.”

  Smythe nodded his head as RWB and the four guards stepped out of the shuttle. From just inside the hatch, he could feel the heat radiating off the skin of the shuttle. The atmosphere absorbed a lot of energy when someone descended at orbital velocities. His trip to the fixed base operator, or FBO would be much more sedate. The FBO would not be able to service the shuttle anyway until it cooled down.

  RWB rode the elevator to the ground floor and then followed the signs to the large hall that had been reserved for this evening’s party. The festivities had already begun. He quickly found a drink and a girl. He scanned the hall but did not see Scout. He mentally shrugged. He would have preferred her company for some reason but was philosophical about his choices.

  CHAPTER TEN

  RWB looked up to see Chaim Lewis sitting in the chair across from his desk. He jumped in reaction and scowled.

  “You are like a ghost, Chaim! How did you get in here, anyway?”

  “Through the door like everyone else. You were busy.”

  “And Holden just let you walk in?”

  The old spy-master chuckled. “Holden hasn’t tried to stop me in years. Your father told him that if I thought it was important enough to come for a visit, there was no point in forcing me to cool my heels in his office.”

  “Sensible of the old boy,” RWB mused. “But then again, he always was a sensible sort. And you know what Chaim? I really miss him.”

  “We all miss him.”

  “Was there a knife hidden in that?”

  Lewis glanced at RWB and laughed. “What do you think?”

  “I think you are playing head games with me.”

  Lewis shrugged. “There has been some conversation about your style around Wilton House. Many do not really know what to think of you. Everyone agrees you are doing much better than expected.”

  “You are not helping yourself, Chaim,” RWB growled.

  The other man grinned broadly. “You had Leonard Cord beside himself.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Truth be told, your father liked to micromanage things that interested him. And he was very interested in the infrastructure of the Palatinate.”

  “So, I airily waved my hand and told Leo to make the decision.”

  “Of course. Having responsibility delegated to him was outside of his experience.”

  RWB leaned back in his chair and scratched his ribs. “If he cannot accept responsibility, he has no business being in that position.”

  “I believe that is what Holden told him.”

  “I think I would have liked to have heard that conversation.”

  “All that is to say,” Lewis replied, “that when I tell you that you are not the man your father was, I mean that you have a style all your own. And, I think you will ultimately be a much more effective Paladin.”

  The Paladin looked uncomfortable and fidgeted slightly. “I do not know what to say.”

  “I simply made an observation, Ward. I have known you all your life and I have always been impressed by your intelligence. I think your father would be pleased.”

  “In spite of my partying?”

  “While he hated some of the things you do,” Lewis said, “I believe he was pleased with your ability to steer your own course in spite of the opprobrium you draw.”

  “Thank you, I think.”

  “But we are wasting time. I did have a reason for seeing yo
u today.”

  “You have a reason for everything you do, Chaim.”

  “Now, I must ask: was there a knife in that?”

  It was RWB’s turn to laugh. “You do that to me every time. Now what was it we needed to talk about?”

  “We have captured your father’s killers,” Lewis replied simply.

  RWB rocked forward and then stood up. “You caught them? How did you figure that out? How did it happen?”

  Lewis raised his eyebrows and looked down at the floor uncomfortably. “I would like to take credit for this, Ward. You should understand that we were more motivated to solve this than anything we have ever done before. In the end, though, our investigation came up dry. We had no idea how someone could have introduced the poison into your father’s system. It was frustrating.”

  “Yet you somehow came through.”

  “We did not come through,” the old man said.

  “But you arrested the killers.”

  “We had some outside help,” Lewis admitted

  “What kind of outside help?”

  “I received a message to my private account. The message was legitimate. It had the proper digital fingerprint, but no sender. Attached were two recordings of com conversations, plus a very well written analysis of what happened. It pinpointed the killers and the recordings provided the necessary evidence.”

  “What do you mean, legitimate?” RWB asked.

  “You know how easy it is to create a fake recording, right? You can do it in a few minutes, yourself, on your comp term.”

  RWB nodded.

  “The digital signature on the recordings could not be synthesized. The evidence was genuine.”

  “But you cannot send something like that without identifying yourself as the sender,” RWB protested. “It is not possible.”

  “It apparently is possible, Ward. And it identified the team of Arabians which had infiltrated the continent. And it told us where to find them. And they freely admitted it. They had been celebrating their success.”

  “What do we do now?” RWB asked. “How do we deal with them?”

  “What do you want to do now?” Lewis turned the question around.

  RWB sat down again and folded his hands on the desk and looked at his spymaster. “And this would be my decision to make.”

  “Very good, Ward. You arrived at that conclusion more quickly than I expected.”

  He glared at the older man. “Of course. However, you are obligated to tell me my options.”

  Lewis bit his lower lip and nodded. “That is correct. First let me tell you that the team of four young men is being held incommunicado, each in separate cells. Less than ten people know that we have detained this group. Only two other people know why we have them.”

  “So, we have the ability to handle this as we please.”

  “Perhaps I would not phrase it as such, but you are correct. You have several options. You could follow the example of the O’Blecks and have them deported.”

  RWB leaned down and placed his palm on his forehead. “Chaim!”

  “I did not suggest that was the best option. However, it remains a plausible alternative. Another option would be to announce their arrest and put them on trial. This is a capital case, so they would be executed, if convicted.”

  “How solid is that evidence?” the Paladin asked.

  “Right. Without a sender, a good lawyer could likely break the case against them.”

  “But everything would be legal.”

  “Correct,” Lewis stated. And then he continued. “The rule of law would be upheld and that would set a rather massive precedent to the Sphere of Man, regardless of the outcome.”

  “And if the judge did not convict?”

  “You would deport them afterward.”

  “I do not like either of those options,” RWB commented.

  “Me neither, however, that sums up the legal options.”

  “You are obviously leading to something, Chaim,” RWB said.

  “Perceptive as usual, Ward. The other option is that we announce nothing. We quietly execute the team and dispose of the bodies. The mystery of the old Paladin’s death would remain, but justice would have been served.”

  “What is the right thing to do?” the Paladin asked.

  Lewis cocked his head and smiled at RWB. “I am afraid that is your decision to make.”

  RWB sat in his chair and pondered for a few moments. “I suppose I could quietly have you executed and disposed of.”

  The spymaster grinned broadly. “Things like that have been known to happen. And it would provide a bit of irony to your life, Ward.”

  “We could give them a fair trial. If the judge decides not to convict, we could simply set them free in Chicago.”

  “How long do you think they would last?” Lewis asked.

  “Oh, I think they would get out of the courtroom and down to the esplanade. Pop was well-liked, you know.”

  Lewis nodded slowly, waiting.

  “But then we would have to arrest and try some poor citizen for having the guts to do something we obviously could not do.”

  “There is that.”

  RWB looked at his chrono and stood up. “I need to think about this. I will let you know tomorrow, Chaim.”

  He picked up his com unit and punched a combination. “Fillip, warm up the shuttle. We will leave as soon as I get up to the pad.”

  After disconnecting from his pilot, the new Paladin walked out of his office, leaving Chaim Lewis bemused.

  § § §

  This evening’s party was in the ancient city of Orlandia, Florida existed somewhere between an independent state and a vassal of the O’Blecks of the Carolina Free State. The temperate climate allowed access to the beaches during the short, warm summers. The winters were not as severe as everywhere else on the continent and this made the small nation a desired retreat for the small monied classes that still existed around the world.

  The party spread over a broad plaza that gave a view of the ruins of an ancient resort. The citizens of the town had arranged spotlights to adorn most of the more interesting ruins with multicolored tapestries. An array of free-standing open-air heaters brought a level of comfort to the venue as well as limited the size of the gathering. Outside of the heated area, the temperature dropped too quickly to allow any but the hardiest partiers to congregate.

  “You made it!”

  RWB turned to the willowy brunette that slipped up beside him. “Hello, Scout. I am glad you are here.”

  “I only just arrived and was hoping to see you.”

  “Here I am.”

  She slipped an arm into his and they wandered over to find refreshment. A brief wintry breeze swept across them and she snuggled in closer.

  “Would you like something to drink, or something else?” he asked.

  “I have already had a drink,” she replied.

  “What kind of Jane do you have?” he asked the bartender.

  “Black Dragon and Okie Smokie. Fresh cut and cured.”

  The bartender looked to be about twenty years old and was very tall. He eyed RWB curiously. The Paladin glanced around the party to see if he could spot his security. Cathay and Jones embodied the art of unobtrusiveness when covering him at the various parties. Following his conversation with Chaim Lewis that afternoon, RWB was more than usually aware of how someone could dramatically affect his life. It would not be difficult at all to slip something into a drink or a smoke and no one would be the wiser. Something like that had happened to his father and his guards had never spotted it. He wondered how Lewis had spotted it.

  “That Smokie will eat your lungs out from the inside,” RWB commented. “We will each have a finger of the Black.”

  “Right you are, Sir. Do you need ignition?”

  “Please.”

  “Oh, are those Billies?” Scout asked, pointing to a dish of tiny purple pills on the bar.

  “Yes, they are.”

  “I will have two.”
>
  “I recommend one, Lady,” the bartender cautioned. “Those can give you a bad trip in an instant.”

  “Better stick with one, Scout,” RWB added. “I took two one time and I did not come down for nearly twenty-four hours.”

  “Sounds like fun,” she giggled.

  “Listen to the man,” RWB said sharply. “Those can give you a really bad trip.”

  “I have done them before,” Scout asserted.

  RWB shrugged. “Whatever.”

  She took the two pills from the bartender and popped them in her mouth. She dry-swallowed and then picked up the finger of weed. Sticking the vanilla-colored cylinder in her mouth she leaned over the bar so the bartender could reach it with the igniter. She took a deep hit on the finger and gazed around the sky.

  “Oooh. Sparklies.”

  RWB laughed and grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the bar. “Come on, Scout. You have a line behind you.”

  The following afternoon in his hotel suite, RWB sat in front of his comp term and studied Chaim Lewis’s report. He was puzzled about how an Arabian team had managed to infiltrate all the way into the Palatinate’s capital. True, the incompetence of the O’Bleck family in the governance of the free state-provided immense aid, but it was surprising that Lewis had not intercepted them. The old spymaster had freely confessed his failure and shame but was also completely mystified as to how someone had identified them for him.

  His com trilled and he accepted the call.

  “Will you plan to return home this afternoon?” Jones asked.

  “Go ahead and eat, Sing. I may decide not to return to Chicago until tomorrow.”

  “Very well, Sir.”

  He tapped a small, three-dimensional button on his virtual display and checked the status of his dinner order. He glanced over at the bed where Scout was still in the arms of Morpheus and the Billies. The little purple pills were dangerously strong, and it was not unusual for someone to require the services of a hospital after taking the drug. He was, in fact, a little surprised to see them on the bar. The social circles he moved in freely partook all manner of alcohol and pharm, but most avoided the dangerous stuff.