The War of Immensities (69 page)

“Yes, President
Grayson knew about the funding. He told me so personally.”

“The president
denies it.”

“It happened in
the Oval Office. Am I to assume such conversations are no longer
taped?”

“Not since
Nixon.”

“Very
wise.”

“Did you know
the source of the funding?”

“Of course not.
Grayson just said funding would be made available and it suddenly
turned up in our bank account.”

“And you didn’t
ask.”

“I didn’t
care.”

“And what
instructions did you give Mr Solomon in regard to the funds?”

“None.”

“Yet he was
acting under your orders.”

“At no time was
he under my orders.”

“I don’t think
the senators will be satisfied with that answer.”

“The truth
rarely pleases politicians.”

“But I thought
you were going to take the 5th Amendment?”

“I changed my
mind. I’m going to tell them the truth, the whole truth and every
bloody bit of the truth.”

“You’ll go to
jail.”

“Bad luck.”

“You’ll blow
your whole damned project right out of the water.”

“Yeah, and
Grayson and all you bastards along with it.”

On the eighth
day, they stopped interviewing him and he heard on the news that he
had taken the 5th Amendment by proxy. Apparently he was unable to
attend the hearing on health grounds. A mental disorder seemed to
be the nature of the complaint. Next day they brought him to this
nondescript building, not far from the Pentagon, he noticed. They
rode and elevator that plainly lied about what floor they were
going to and he was escorted down a corridor to an unmarked
doorway.

“In there,” the
secret service man said and Thyssen went through, and his guardians
did not. In the dimness, he waited for his eyes to adjust.

The room was
huge and might have been the control room at NASA. Rows of computer
screens offered the same screen-saver—that of a quietly rotating
earth viewed from space. Thyssen thought he must remember to get
one of those before he left. There were nine rows of tables, each
with ten operator positions, each row stepped below the next so at
they all had an unimpeded view of the massive screen facing them.
There was a map of the world, with tactical spots marked. The
locations of the eruptions were marked in red, the locations of the
sleepers were marked in yellow, blue circle indicated the Zones of
influence for each event, green indicated individual volcanoes,
white the predicted future locations. Which, he could immediately
see with a smile, were all wrong. But impressive, nevertheless.

He stepped
forward to the nearest monitor and touched the keyboard blindly.
The screen immediately offered his own version of the map. Stooping
only minimally, Thyssen moved the mouse and clicked on the red dot
over Japan. A regional map appeared with about thirty markers. The
red one was the House of the Golden Carp. Click on that and he got
a list, PEO looked promising and he tried it—Project Earthshaker
Operative, it meant and a complete dossier on Wagner appeared.
Thyssen, bent more severely over the table, refusing to sit in the
chair so that he had to reach over to get at the mouse. He backed
out and tried OSP. Right on—Outstanding Personnel. It listed the
nineteen Japanese sleepers that Wagner was yet to locate.

“Ten bucks says
he doesn’t make it,” a voice said quietly from the far side of the
room.

Thyssen raised
only his eyes and peered in the direction of the voice. It sounded
familiar, slightly, but when he saw the figure, it took him far
longer than it should have to realise who it was.

“I don’t know
you,” he said and returned his attention to the screen.

“I thought all
teachers remembered all of their students.”

“It’s an
illusion. All students are alike. You can tell the same story about
each of them.”

“What story is
that?”

“First they
know nothing. Then you teach them everything they know. Whereby
they grab their bit of paper, forget everything you said and sell
their asses to big business.”

“Some asses buy
more than others.”

“They’re all
for sitting and shitting.”

From across the
room came more laughter than the remark justified. “It is really
good to see you again, Harley. You don’t know how long I’ve waited
for this.”

“It only been
six months since you sold us out, Glen.”

“I didn’t sell
you out. I was hi-jacked. But then they offered me this. How could
I refuse?”

“Did I forget
to give my lecture on loyalty?”

“My option was
them or nothing. I took them. They pay well and the work is
interesting. And look at this, Harley. Look around you. And it’s
all mine.”

“Yeah. But who
owns you?”

“The
government. The duly elected government of this country.”

“You’re using
the taxpayer’s money to spy on my project and find out what I would
freely have told you anyway.”

“Bullshit,
Harley. You kept secrets. You didn’t tell us everything.”

“Sometimes I’m
forgetful.”

Glen advanced
now, three rows down and halfway around the room, but into better
lighting. He was nearly unrecognisable. The long hair, moustache
and wispy beard were gone, and the hippie duds were traded for
silken shirt and snappy trousers. When he stood with his hands in
his pockets, he looked like a model in a Calvin Kline
advertisement. He was handsome enough to make the cut as well.

“Look at all
this, Harley,” Glen said again. “All this is yours.”

“I wouldn’t be
happy here, Palenski. It’s too orderly. I like it messy.”

Glen pushed
some papers and files on the desk beside him and let them fall on
the floor. “We could mess it up a bit.”

“It isn’t a
matter of messing up. It the notion of things having a right place
that I object to.”

“Everything has
to be somewhere.”

“Yeah. And
where you last used it is where you’re most likely to find it.”

“Think of how
efficiently you could operate from here,” Glen said again. “Go on.
Try it.”

“I tried it.
It’s nice. But the price is out of my range.”

“Have a try.
It’s an awesome system...”

Thyssen,
standing straight, reached with a minimal finger and touched out
keys. He typed a code to open a dialogue box, inserted the user
name HORSESHIT after which a row of asterisks appeared as he
entered a password. Glen was able to press a single key to bring it
up on his own screen.

“It isn’t like
you to be vulgar, Harley.”

Then, after an
slight pause, the system jumped to life and encrypted data burst
onto the display.

“Shit, what’s
this?” Glen asked in amazed.

“It’s where I
stashed a bunch of private files on Val Dennis’s system,” Thyssen
said quietly.

Glen was thrown
for only a moment, but it was enough for Thyssen to see the point
was lost on him.

“You see. Like
I said. We got everything in here.”

“You bastards
murdered him for this.”

“Nobody
murdered him...” Glen sighed, but he looked back at the screen,
perplexed for an additional instant.

“Oh I see. He
stole his own data and gave it to the very people he opposed with
every microbe in his body and then he wrecked his own system and
beat himself to death.”

“It wasn’t like
that,” Glen said, but he needed to sit down to continue. “He was
done in a routine drug bust. He resisted and the narks did him
over. They showed their usual tidy housekeeping searching for his
stash until they found his fake security clearance which they
thought was real and panicked. That’s how we heard about it. We
went over and salvaged what we could of his data. We’d have given
it back to him, had he lived.”

“I wouldn’t
have thought it possible for someone to emerge from one of my
courses and still be so bloody naive.”

“Come on,
Harley. I was there at the time and saw it all go down. It’s the
truth. You gotta believe it.”

“I believe that
you believe it, Glen. You poor sorry bastard. The drug squad could
have busted Val any time they liked from the day he entered high
school. But they waited until the moment suited them best. Joe
demanded charges be laid but the fuzz couldn’t find any record of
any such raid. Then they went around there and found a closet full
of cocaine. Do you seriously believe they missed it the first time
when they went through the place like Typhoid Mary?”

“Well it wasn’t
done from here...”

“And you reckon
I should offer my services to folks who play the game that
way.”

Glen gathered
himself. He stood again and walked away from the incriminating
computer screen as if he suddenly feared contamination.

“You don’t have
any choice, Harley. This is the only game in town.”

“I can still
operate.”

“No you can’t.
Not when they’ve got the public thinking you’re a blood relative of
Fu Manchu.”

“You think I
haven’t been called crazy before?”

“Harley,
they’ll put you out of business, one way or the other.”

“Are you
listening to what you’re saying?”

“Yes, and I
don’t like it but its the way it is. This damn thing is too big and
too important to leave in the hands of one man. Even a great man,
like you, Harley.”

“And that’s the
reason why they want to stop me?”

“The days of
renegade individualism are over, Harley. You haven’t got a
chance.”

“There are some
things that are too big to be stopped, Palenski.”

“They’ll stop
you, right or wrong. You gotta face reality.”

“Fuck reality.
Who’s going to stop me? You?”

“You’ve
forgotten that you taught me everything you know, Harley. That
makes you a superseded model.”

“What you gotta
worry about, Palenski, are the things I forgot to teach you.”

“It doesn’t
have to be like this, Harley.”

“Oh yes it
does. In fact, this is the only way it could be.”

Harley, while
he spoke, touched up Japan again and then straighten with a
smile.

“Well, look at
that. Kev-baby’s found two more of them. You’re right. It is a good
system.”

“It’s an
unbeatable system, Harley.”

“Palenski, now
there’s one of those things I must have forgot to teach you.”

“What was
that?”

“It is in the
nature of all systems that they will fail in the end.”

The temple was
really only a platform with a few charred stone columns although
those columns were massive, more like an Ancient Egyptian temple
than something Japanese. The remarkable thing was that the columns
still stood, while the rest of the structure had collapsed and its
stones had been removed, probably for housing, centuries ago. But
now it was just this pile of stones along one of the less used
paths up Mt Fuji, about two thirds of the way to the summit. It had
been in ruins long before the recent eruption.

The captain had
the place surrounded but his men were relaxed, lounging about,
smoking and chatting or sleeping, paying little attention to what
was supposed to be a siege. Wagner frowned—time was running out and
surely these men should have been out there somewhere, hunting down
his last remaining fugitives. But he wasn’t about to try and tell
the captain his job.

These Japanese
were like a dog with a bone—once they got their teeth into a
captive, they weren’t about to let go. Unless his name was Katsumi,
who, Wagner had heard although not from the captain, had apparently
vanished completely.

But this man
was not The Yellow Pimpernel. This was an old priest who wasn’t
going anywhere, not to Brazil, not even out of the temple. The old
man, bald and wizened, sat cross-legged on the stone floor before a
brazier in which a small fire flickered, silent and seemingly
unaware of his surroundings.

Wagner squatted
down and tried to speak to the old fellow, but there was not even
acknowledgment of his presence. It was another one of those jobs
that the captain reckoned Wagner needed to see for himself before
he explained. For the moment, Wagner could not understand why they
didn’t just lay hand to the old bugger and drag him out. But of
course, it wasn’t so simple.

“It is his
lifelong mission to guard these stones,” the captain explained.

“Can’t we place
a guard until he gets back?” Wagner said, knowing that solution
would be far too practical to work.

“He must guard
them himself. But there is good news.”

“I’m always
suspicious of your good news, Captain.”

“The old priest
is dying, Mr. Wagner. He has Leukemia.”

“Does he? I
don’t suppose he’s likely to pop off in the next ten days by any
chance?”

“Every
possibility. He is not expected to last out the month.”

“But no
guarantee.”

“No
guarantee.”

“Has anyone
explained the situation to him?”

“Oh yes. He
fully understands. He prays continually that his life be ended
before the deadline. Is that the right word?”

“It was never
righter. So he wants to die, before the deadline, to help us
out.”

“That’s right.
But at present the gods have not obliged.”

“I’ve never met
an obliging god yet. Why don’t we help him out?”

“He suggested
that. He suggested we should shoot him.”

“Why don’t
you?”

“This is
another of your honourable jokes?”

“Yeah. You can
laugh any time you like.”

“It would be
murder.”

“I know. I
don’t suppose we can interest him in the idea of suicide?”

“No. This would
offend the gods.”

“I thought you
guys were deeply into bumping yourselves off.”

“Only when the
alternative is dishonour. Anyway, he must stay and guard the
stones.”