The Eye of Moloch (38 page)

“He appreciated all kinds of poetry, and if you’d all join me in a toast I’d like to share a bit of verse that he liked, from Guiterman. Dear old Dad once said this should be etched onto his tombstone and that may tell you something about him that you didn’t know. It’s called ‘On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness.’ ”

Going from memory, he recited the short poem.

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls

of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just

is ferric oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug

was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,

and I don’t feel so well myself.

There was some good-natured laughter from the audience at this, and Noah picked up and then tipped his water glass toward the urn beside him. “Here’s to my father, Arthur Isaiah Gardner, the man who elevated the art of lying into a weapon of mass destruction.”

As to whether this had been an insult or a compliment, from the looks on their faces the crowd seemed almost evenly divided. When they’d all taken their seats again, he went on.

“I had very little time to prepare these remarks, but I think you’ll all appreciate this story because I’m sure you haven’t heard it before. I’d like to tell you about the only time that my father ever hit me. Now understand, he paid others to hit me a number of times, and not so long ago, but this was a blow from his own hand, and that makes it special.

“When I was a child, after my mother’s death, my father and I lived alone. At the dinner table Dad would often present me with questions that he knew a kid my age couldn’t answer, which is to say, I couldn’t answer them to his satisfaction. This was what passed for light conversation between the two of us. I suppose if you want to be kind about it you could say it was his way of mentoring.

“These questions were hypotheticals mostly, on all sorts of subjects that were far beyond the grasp of an average middle schooler, and I failed miserably every time. It wasn’t fair but I tried my best. And then one night, after he’d had a particularly hard day at the office”—Noah glanced briefly over at Aaron Doyle—“probably due to some trouble with the boss, he posed one of these questions to me and for once it seemed like its answer was totally obvious.

“ ‘If you had a time machine,’ he’d asked, ‘and you could take a gun and go back to 1930, would you track down and kill Adolf Hitler?’ Now, the answer to that is clear, isn’t it? Of course you would. If you could somehow stop his evil before it ever got started, who wouldn’t? So that was my quick answer, yes I would, and when I said that he smacked me across the face good and hard. He wanted me to remember why I was wrong, I guess because he thought it might be important to me someday.”

Through the tall speakers on either side his voice was reaching them all, and by then all attending had grown somber and very still.

“Sure, Hitler murdered millions and he caused unimaginable
suffering. If he’d had his way he would have reshaped the whole world into a living hell straight out of his sick and twisted imagination. But we have to take care not to give that one man all the credit for bringing the world to the brink. It was all planned out, you see; the crisis in that country was years in the making—not unlike the one we find ourselves in right now—and that’s what opened the door for him. The times themselves finally demanded the rise of someone like him.

“The next world war was already inevitable, the Third Reich was coming regardless, and if it hadn’t been Adolf Hitler at the helm on the side of evil it would have been someone else. Maybe someone more accomplished at hiding and executing his final solution, maybe a far superior general, maybe a more cunning diplomat who could have strung the Allies along until his scientists had won the race to split the atom. Maybe a craftier politician who would have listened to his advisors and allied with the Soviet Union instead of invading them. If it hadn’t been Hitler, it very likely would have been someone even worse.

“So, no, you don’t go back and kill him, that was my father’s strong opinion.” Noah looked over at Aaron Doyle again. This time the old man didn’t meet his eyes. “Hitler was weak, and flawed, he wasn’t sane, and he also wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was. So, as much as you’d like to wrap your hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him, you have to let him live. Because Hitler, we could beat.”

The audience was absolutely quiet, with the only things audible being the gentle movements of the lake and the sounds of the surrounding forest.

“I’ll close on a personal note. I’m fairly sure our paths will never cross again. In fact after this performance and a conversation I just had, I’ve got a feeling I’m not too long for this life myself. That knowledge seems to have infused me with some freedom of speech that I’d forgotten I had, so I do hope you’ll indulge me for just another minute.

“I was a part of your alternate universe for a long time, though granted, only a small cog in the machine. While I was among you
I learned where all the bodies are buried, and a lot of them are buried all around us, right here. I know almost everything my father knew, and that’s probably enough to send most of you to Leavenworth for the rest of your lives, assuming, of course, that justice really is blind. But let’s face it, we all know that’s never going to happen.

“There were a lot of rewards for keeping your secrets, and I enjoyed every one of them. And then last year I spent just a bit of time in another world—the real one, I now believe—and after that, as comfortable as I’d been before, I didn’t ever want to come back.

“My father and I then found ourselves on opposite sides of a very important battle, but I was no match for him at the time. I was late to that fight and I may be out of it completely now, but despite what I’ve just been told by Mr. Doyle over there, I don’t believe it’s over.

“I may no longer matter, but if this is to be my last appeal before such an august and influential audience, let me leave you with this: You don’t belong here. This isn’t the country for you. Go find a place where the people welcome the idea of a permanent ruling class; there must be plenty of them out there, but it’s not here. Take your secret meetings, and your backroom politics, and your toadies in the press. Take your paranoid surveillance state, and your drones over the cities, and your warrantless wiretaps, and your kill-lists, all your socialist pipe dreams and your fascist puppeteering. Take your self-serving transhumanist vision of one borderless world, united under your thumb. That might be fine for others, I don’t know, but it’s not for us. Get out and take all your damned lies with you, including the ones I helped you tell, and go loot somebody else if they’ll have you. There’s no place for your kind here. And now, gentlemen, good night, and God bless America.”

He left the stage and walked up the aisle toward the path to the cabin, carried along by a swelling chorus of boos and hisses from the crowd that somehow felt better to him than any standing ovation ever could.

Chapter 46

V
irginia Ward caught sight of Noah as he was coming back up the trail from the memorial gathering.

She’d arrived much later than expected, but having finally found this strange place, she’d been watching and listening to the distant proceedings for the last few minutes. She waved as he got closer and he picked up his pace when he saw her and began to jog the rest of the way.

The after-funeral fireworks show had begun just a minute or so after Noah had finished his bold little speech. Judging by the upswing in the revelry among the high-born assembly down there, any impact of his parting words had been short-lived at best.

For what it was worth, though, even at this distance she could tell that he’d succeeded in convincing at least one person down there: he’d convinced himself. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Noah Gardner believed every word that he’d just spoken.

“Hi,” he said, as he came near. “I didn’t expect to see you until I got back to Colorado. What is it, do you have some news?”

“Nothing solid, I’m afraid. I found the place where I think Molly and her group were hiding out—”

“So did you bring her in?”

“No. Somebody else found her first. I got there after the fighting was done and there wasn’t much of anything left.”

“After the fighting.” He swallowed hard. “So I guess it’s true, then.”

“What’s true?”

“A man down there told me she was dead.”

“By any chance was that man Warren Landers?”

“No. It was an old scoundrel named Aaron Doyle. Same DNA as Landers, only several rungs higher up the ladder of the damned.”

“Aaron Doyle,” she said, frowning. “Kind of a recluse, and he’s big in finance, am I right?”

“Finance, currency manipulation, warmongering, genocide—turns out he’s big in a lot of things.”

“And he talked to you about Molly? Why would someone like that even know her name?”

“Because like any other cockroach, he’s scared of the light.”

“Interesting.” They stood at a crossroads and she pointed toward the uphill trail. “Are you staying up this way?”

“Yeah.”

“Walk with me.” As they started off she briefly scanned their surroundings; there was a vague feeling that they weren’t alone. In the late dusk she could see nothing of any concern, but the occasional booming flashes of the pyrotechnics overhead made her eyes reluctant to adjust to the dark. “You know, I’ve got a clearance that can get me into any room in the Pentagon, but these uppity bastards wouldn’t even let me go beyond that corner back there.”

He only nodded, and appeared to be engrossed in concerns of his own.

“I don’t think it’s true, Noah,” Virginia said quietly. “I think Molly got away.”

He stopped. “What?”

“Keep walking. I said I think—”

“You think she got away, or you know?”

“I don’t know anything yet, but I wouldn’t bring it up if I wasn’t fairly sure.”

He sighed, and showed a little relief as they moved along. “That’s good to hear.”

“When the news reported that your father had passed away I even thought there was a slim chance that she might learn of your furlough and be coming here to find you. But you still haven’t gotten any messages from her, have you?”

“No, and I hope I don’t. Why would she risk coming here?”

“I’ve got a theory about what she could be planning to do. It was something you said the other night, and if I’m right she might even try to get your help.”

“Well, I hope she stays away. Whatever’s about to happen to me I don’t want her to get anywhere close to it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

They were almost at the cabin steps, and he stopped and turned to her.

“Mr. Doyle made it pretty clear just now that my number’s up. I think it was only my father’s influence that kept me around this long, for whatever his reasons were. And what’s left of my father’s influence is sitting down there in an oversized pepper shaker right now. So I hope Molly doesn’t come near me, and it’s about time you walked away from all this, too.”

She studied him for a few seconds. “That’s not like me.”

“It’s for the best.”

“Okay, that’s your idea,” Virginia said. “Now here’s mine. I’ve been in touch with your family attorney, Mr. Nelan. Since you’re the only remaining member of the family you’ve become his top priority, and he seems sure that he can get you freed very quickly.”

“Really.”

“Really. So for tonight, I’ll call up some old friends. These are four
guys stationed downstate at Coronado, and they’re not just badasses, Noah, they
train
badasses. I’ll watch your back until they arrive, and then we’ll deal with your escorts and walk you out of here.”

He didn’t take long to think about his alternatives. “I like your idea better than mine.”

“Good.”

“And we’re taking the people I’ve got with me, too.”

“Of course we are.”

“It’s that easy?”

“I doubt it will be.” She flicked the retaining strap of the holster at her side and made sure the weapon there was ready beneath the cover of her light jacket. “But cross your fingers.”

They walked up the steps and he opened the door to the cabin. Despite all her experience, Virginia was frozen for a fateful instant by what she saw inside.

Two young women and an elderly man were huddled in the far corner. Four men in uniform were bound and gagged on the floor against the opposite wall. And there, in the middle of the room, with his pistol leveled at her chest, stood Thom Hollis.

“Down!” Hollis yelled, shifting his aim beyond and charging forward. She’d barely begun to react when gunfire erupted and she was struck from behind by the blunt burning impacts on her way down to the floor. She felt herself being dragged inside, saw Thom Hollis returning fire as he knelt between her and the door, protecting her, and then she watched him charge outside in pursuit of the attackers.