by Ken Hansen
How could Huxley ask this without breaking protocol or flying back to DC? He looked back at Mayer. “You get more info from the Israelis to give us hope?”
Mayer looked his way. “The Israelis have suddenly become very cooperative, and we are now analyzing the device data they have provided. It’s early but it’s possible. There is strong concern about our other search detectors.”
“Any expansion of the program I’m not aware of?’
“Nope.” Mayer gave him a sour look. “Few months to a year. Pretty high tech shit.”
Huxley shook his head. Damn, the one UNGARD was 15 miles away from the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, protecting the approach to Washington and Norfolk. Without another… “So New York Harbor is exposed.”
“Fricken naked, unless we can rely on the CSI detectors.” Mayer said. “We have to find these nukes.”
“Israelis told me CSI might not detect them.”
“But they might?” Mayer asked.
“Not clear. Does it matter? These guys are obviously well funded. How much money would it take to get a CSI inspector to look another way in Shanghai? I don’t care if they are Americans. A good enough story and enough money and someone will look away. Anyway, it doesn’t take a container ship to carry a nuke, does it?”
“I suppose not.”
“If we can find Jinnah,” Huxley said, “maybe we find a trail to the warheads.”
“Not likely.”
“Why?”
Mayer looked at the road and then slowly turned his face toward Huxley. “Because two hours ago the Pakistanis found Jinnah near the Sulaiman Mountains along with all of the AWOL soldiers.”
“Great. Let’s talk to them.”
“That might prove difficult since they just dug them up from a shallow common grave.”
Huxley stared at the road ahead, holding back a tear. Jinnah dead. He had tried to act the hero, but…what a waste. No, not a waste. The Pakistani had died a hero, for without Jinnah how would they have discovered the missing warheads? The Ghost Leopard now had everything he needed to devastate two cities. Where would he stop? Hell on Earth? He looked up. He hoped Sonatina was right, for if there were such a thing as God, they just might need Him.
Secunda Secundae: Quaesitum
“We hear a cry of fear: terror, not peace.”
– Liber Prophetarum—Jer 30:5
“God does not change the condition of a people unless they change what is in themselves.”
– Liber Prophetarum—M 13:11
“He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”
– Liber Vitae—D 16:13
Chapter 43
He heard her pleas intermingled with the sound of rain splattering on the autumn leaves outside and smelled the subtle breath of slow decay that the drops now struggled so hard to wash away. But Yohanan could not help staring at the red fox’s head on the opposite wall. The trophy was one of many that decorated the ramshackle, one-room hunting shack now serving as his residence. Was his visitor the fox or the deer? They were both beautiful animals, and her outward appearance might suggest she could be either. There the similarity ended. A doe moved through the forest in silence and with amazing grace. It ate only the vegetation and bounded away when an unknown sound unsettled its peace. Though it clearly was not the smartest animal in the forest, it knew well how to love and be loved. The doe befit her nearly a year ago, before he had introduced her to the Demoseps. On the other hand, the fox was cute and cuddly looking, but its pleasant outward appearance hid the sly deception that permitted it to steal past canine guards into the coop to kill the hens for its food. The red fox was a relentless, patient and intelligent predator who could leave but a few fluttered feathers as the only remains of its prey. Yes, she has become the Fox and still cherishes the hunt. He laughed aloud.
“Why are you laughing? Are you even listening to me? It’s been months. Time for you to come back to the world, to the fight.” Decima said.
“I’m sorry,” Yohanan said, “I was distracted. Look, I hear you. I know you want me to return to Shenandoah and continue the Demoseps’ fight. It’s not possible for me anymore. I am so sorry for your father. Please forgive me. All I can do is stay here in his hunting shack and reminisce. He rescued me the last time, you know, when my own father died. How can I repay him now that I’ve killed him?”
“Damn it, for the hundredth time, you did not kill him. Hugleikr did. Or that traitor, Eliezer. Don’t blame yourself. You could not have known. We tried to do something good—to rid the world of an evil man. We failed. There will be other opportunities.”
Tomadus held out his hands to Decima and turned them around slowly so he and Decima could both see them clearly. “Can you not see the blood dripping from these fingers? I cannot go on.”
“By Jupiter, Yohanan, stop it! You cannot take the blame for this. Those Juteslams died at Hugleikr’s hands, not yours. Haven’t you seen the visi-scan tape? He must have known about the plan—he knew that old Viking ship would explode. He moved away from the ship, put on his helmet and ducked just as the torch was brought to the rail. He knew!”
“Of course, he knew,” Yohanan said flatly. “He always knows. He always wins. That changes nothing. Decima, when we set the explosives, we became responsible for everyone who died. Can you not see that? Did you not hear your father’s own words just before they killed him? He was the least responsible, and yet he could not stop saying he was sorry. Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Yohanan, you are calling my father a murderer. You are calling me a murderer.”
“No. You are not to blame. Your father was wholly innocent. It was my fault. I should have stopped it. I should have seen it coming.”
“Stop this nonsense and return with me to Shenandoah,” Decima pleaded. “There you can be with your friends and come back to yourself. We need you, Yohanan.” She stroked his hair and cheek, and then said softly, “I need you, Yoh. Please.”
He felt the string tighten inside his heart, the string she could always pull, but it would not matter today, for it pulled at nothing but a mass of misery. “Dec, I would return with you, for you, if I could, but I am paralyzed. I cannot leave this cabin. Not yet.”
“When, then?” she asked quietly.
“When my eyes stop burning with those images. I hope that will be soon, but for now they consume me. Please, let me be. I will return when I am ready.”
“All right. I’ll leave. But do not despair, Yohanan. Stop blaming yourself. No one else does, especially me.” They stood and embraced, and she walked out the door.
The next morning, another animal darkened his doorway. He grimaced and opened the screen door. “I didn’t think I would see you here.”
“Decima asked me to come,” Raanan said. “I’m her last hope to rescue you from this emotional abyss.”
Yohanan waved Raanan into the room and took a seat. He found his eyes focusing on the head of the bear on the far wall. Was that Raanan? No, black bears were actually pretty reasonable and gentle creatures given their size. Sure, you wouldn’t want to be their prey, but they could easily kill humans if they so chose, and yet they would usually run away. Or maybe that was Raanan. He talked tough, but he never really personally entered the fray. No, Raanan was more like a boa constrictor, slithering along the ground and sneaking up on his food and striking at the last instant, allowing his unwitting prey just enough of the fading moments of life to recognize the beast strangling her. But no snakes decorated the cabin’s wall. “What do you want?”
“I just want to help. Is this Quintillus’s cabin? How did you avoid the seizure by the Juteslams of all of Quintillus’s property?”
“This shack isn’t in their records. He bought it ages ago but recorded it under another name—didn’t want to be tied to the Demoseps. He came out here with me to avoid the crap the city dealt out. It was his refuge, but now it is mine.”
“You do not
need a refuge. You need to return to Shenandoah.”
Yohanan glared back at Raanan. “I’d as soon return with you as I would sever my left testicle.”
“Why are you so bitter with me? It was not my fault.”
Yohanan shook his head repeatedly. “Not your fault. Not your fault. No, you are right. It was my fault for being so stupid to blindly follow the pathetic plan of a plain fool. You draw up your little plots and they sound so damn cute, but you seem to forget that innocent people die from your mistakes. I should have seen it coming. No, I did see it, and I let it go anyway. That was far worse. That was inexcusable.”
The snake coiled back, hissing. “The pathetic plan of a plain fool? How was I to know that Eliezer was a traitor? How were you to know?”
“I keep hearing that Eliezer was a traitor, but I knew him well. How do we know he was a traitor?”
“You know he failed to show as planned,” Raanan said. “Right after the disaster, I caught him trying to skip out of Shenandoah and head to New Jutland territory. He had a stash of cash he could not explain. The only explanation was a payoff.”
Yohanan sat back, glaring at Raanan in disbelief. “Then bring him to me so I can question him.”
“He’s dead. I was overcome with rage and killed him on the spot for his treachery.”
Yohanan shook his head. “He was a friend. He was devoted to democracy.”
“No, he was a filthy traitor. A swift death was too good for him.”
“So you became his executor with no judge and no trial. Not very democratic of you. Do you think you are Hugleikr?”
“Sometimes democracy gets in the way of what is right in the moment.”
“And who are you to decide what is right? He’s a convenient scapegoat for your failure. A dead stooge tells no tales. Did you take his blood money as well?”
Raanan clenched his fists. “Are you suggesting that I had something to do with the massacre?”
Yohanan’s forehead creased and his eyes squinted slightly. “Not at all, but you are quite adept at shifting the blame for your failures. Maybe you want to kill me too.”
Raanan stood. “I won’t take this rubbish from you. You are a broken and beaten shadow of a man. No use to anyone, especially yourself.”
“Get the hell out of my shack, boa.”
Raanan squinted his eyes, shook his tilting head in obvious condescension, and walked out the door, slamming it hard.
Chapter 44
“I am looking for Isa, of that group, the Way. Do you know where he may be preaching?” Tomadus somewhat squeamishly asked the concierge of his hotel. At least he was in the Sunni Muslim Empire now, where looking for a man of God was not entirely out of place—if he had been of the correct religion. And in Toledo, in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, even Jews were not entirely out of place.
The hotel concierge screwed his face up, looking at him like he could no longer trust his overnight guest. “You aren’t one of those radicals hanging on his every word, are you? From the cut of your robes I can tell that you don’t belong with that wretched throng that follows him everywhere. Look, this is a respectable hotel. We don’t want any of that rabid element around here stirring up any trouble.”
Tomadus smiled gently. Even in Toledo, where there was some modicum of tolerance for more than one religious view, there were many who hated anything that threatened their status quo. “No, sir, I could not be a follower of someone I have never even seen in person speak publicly. I am just curious and thought it would be a nice little diversion today.”
“Well, that is understandable. Peculiar one, he is. I saw on his flyer that he is speaking at the south end of the old city, on the banks of the Tagus River. Not surprising that no mosque or synagogue will have him since his followers are all mixed up together. Imagine that!”
“South end?”
“Sure. About a twenty minute walk. Just go three blocks east and ten blocks south and you’ll be pretty close. Easy walk down the hill but a tougher walk back.”
“Gratias,” Tomadus said. A walk would let him soak up the mid-morning sun and give him more time for reflection. After all, what was he really doing here in Toledo? Sure, he could afford a short respite from his work. Stephan could handle many of the day-to-day details now that he had put together a substantial international marketing and distribution network. Moreover, since he had delivered the schematics to the Imperium, the pressure should be off for now—unless their technologists figured out his crafty little modification. He and the First Consul had grown closer as a result, and the Imperium seemed willing to help him in his business. So now he had a little time to take a breath, but why not take his physic-tech’s advice instead and travel to a fancy resort on the Mediterranean and relax? Because he knew he could not truly relax until he got to the bottom of these visions. From every angle that he had examined the problem, he kept seeing the man in the white robes.
Still, after Isa had uttered only a few strange words on the visi-scan to grab his attention, Tomadus had decided he should board an aeronavis and fly the 900 miles from Roma to see him speak in person? What could he hope to gain? Clarity? Sanity? The visions had begun when Isa had touched him. Then Isa had referred to the Light—the Light of Our Yesterdays. Isa had seemed to invite him personally to see him. Then over the last couple months the visions had grown clearer, more distinct. He could already recall so many things—so much intrigue, so much history, so much despair—from this other world and the strange investigator he seemed to be inhabiting. It was almost as if he had once lived there, sharing that man’s memories, yet the visions kept coming with no clear purpose. But this preacher Isa was at the center of this. Yes, Isa must be the key to solving the puzzle.
At least Tomadus had not acted rashly. He had spent the past couple months and a considerable sum—one hundred thousand talents—trying to figure out if Isa was just another con man using a supreme deity to make some coin off those pathetic souls so desperate to hear answers to questions they did not even know how to ask. But his investigators had found nothing illicit and nothing that even smelled of greed by this preacher.
The Way had its wealthy benefactors who provided resources to the movement, but as far as his investigator could tell, the money never came back to Isa or his close followers for any kind of personal use or gain. They lived practically like hermits, sleeping in tents, occasionally staying in the homes of supporters for a meal and a shower, and moved about the world generally by foot, though they would occasionally take busses or trains or even ships. The Way seemed utterly bereft of corruption of any kind.
So if this Isa were like Tomadus, if he could actually remember a different world as if it were his own, then he must have some other angle on this preacher business. Why else would he seem to copy a religious icon from Tomadus’s dream world? Isa’s purpose did not seem to be profit, so maybe he wanted power. Or was it something else? Having exhausted his investigation from afar, Tomadus had decided to find out for himself. And perhaps he might discover something about the light and these visions and find some way to purge the constant scourge on his psyche.
Tomadus arrived at the southern hillside and looked down the steep banks to the River Tagus. A man was standing on a small raft moored at the edge of the river. It acted as a makeshift stage at the foot of a natural auditorium. As Tomadus worked his way down and through a large crowd, he could hear every word spoken by the gentle man in white robes.
“Do not think you are holy because you have come to hear me speak. You are all sinners. Who among you can truthfully claim to have followed God’s will in all things? But do not despair. The greater the evil you have done, the greater the good you can do by returning to the Father. It has been said that those who take a life, which God has made sacred, who commit adultery, whoever does these things will face penalties, and their torment will be doubled on the Day of Resurrection, and they will remain in torment, disgraced. But it has also been said of these and other sinners, if they rep
ent, if they believe and if they do good deeds, they will have their evil deeds changed by God into good ones, for our Father is most forgiving, most merciful. People who repent and do good deeds truly return to the loving hands of our Father.”
As he heard this, Tomadus passed by a few men with turbans and robes speaking in Arabic. “He quotes almost directly from the Great Book, but calls Allah ‘Father.’ How strange.”
His companion answered, “He is speaking of Allah figuratively. His message is love, and he wishes us to see God as our loving father. Beautiful.”
As Tomadus made his way down the embankment, Isa continued to speak, his voice growing in volume and pitch. “Many who call themselves holy men or imams or rabbis have forgotten this: God forgives, for men are sheep and need a true shepherd to bring them back to their flock. How could your hapless shepherds forget what the Father proclaimed from above to his servant?
“Woe to the shepherds who have been pasturing themselves! Should not shepherds pasture the flock? You consumed milk, wore wool, and slaughtered fatlings, but the flock you did not pasture. You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured. You did not bring back the stray or seek the lost but ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and became food for all the wild beasts. They were scattered and wandered over all the mountains and high hills.
“I myself will search for my sheep and examine them. I will deliver them from every place where they were scattered on the day of dark clouds. I myself will pasture my sheep. I myself will give them rest. The lost I will search out, the strays I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, and the sick I will heal. Follow me and you will have rest. Repent, and our Father will be merciful.”
