Circle of Wagons: The Gospel of Madness (Book 4 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  Toni also wrote down this part of his memories, of course not as it had been, and of course he did not reveal all of his motives. He tried to find a balance. On the one hand, he left himself standing badly enough that the general was still convinced that he had caught a real son of a bitch, because he already knew that. On the other hand, Toni avoided revealing his actual motives and also he trivialized his actions as selfish, but also naive and somewhat stupid.

  It took him quite a while to get the text the way he wanted it, because his head was still not working at full power. Sometimes he slipped the formulations or the right English words. It took several hours for him to properly document this part of his story, and just as he was putting the book aside, the hatch was torn open.

  Bright glowing light pricked his eyes, and against his will he was suddenly paralyzed.

  They came back for him. But he had written. Why did they come? Did they want to torture him again? He had done what they wanted, hadn't he? What else could he do? He would be willing to do anything so that they would not ...

  They didn't come for him. They threw something down. Something light. It made sailing movements when it fell. Then the hatch was closed just as brutally as it had been torn open.

  Toni looked up to the hatch paralyzed and hated himself for his miserable emotional reaction and for the fear it arose from. It took a moment for him to calm down, but finally he had gathered himself so far that curiosity in him gained the upper hand and he looked at what had been thrown at him.

  It was a page torn from a newspaper.

  In the weeks that he had spent here so far, he barely had acquired few chunks of the national language. But now and here, now he had enough time to study the writing.

  And he wanted to study it for exactly two reasons. Reason number one was the picture of the mine site. Two of the barracks were apparently burned to the ground, and in the foreground were policemen who had put on combat gear. The difference between the military and the police in this country was not very big anyway. Reason number two was that he saw a photo of himself printed there.

  That's me. At least the way I used to look.

  His face was found within a boxed area that stood out the accompanying text from the main article. They hadn't written much about him, just a few sentences. And then Toni discovered something else. Someone had scribbled something on the lower edge of the sheet with a ballpoint pen.

  They looking for you. They not find you. Better writing faster. General coming soon.

  They're looking for you. They won't find you. Write faster. The General will be here soon.

  What did that mean?

  A threat, that was obvious. The general will be here soon, so you better be done with your story when the time comes. They didn't need that newspaper clipping to make him aware of that.

  We threw this into your cell to remind you that there is also a life outside that you might be allowed to return to. But only if you're a good boy. Maybe not at all.

  At least that's how Toni interpreted the message. Unfortunately, the cover page of the newspaper was missing. No date, but if it hadn't been new, they might have used it earlier to influence him. This in turn meant that they must have received a supply delivery while he was asleep. Toni listened. Yes. There was the uniform humming of the diesel generator again. So they got fuel, too. If they was the case, they would certainly also have received alcohol or other drugs.

  At first, Toni thought this was a good thing. He thought that they were supposed to drink. If they did, they'd at least leave him alone. Maybe they'd even share some of their booze, who knows?

  But then he remembered the things he had seen drunken men do in a state of intoxication and was suddenly not quite so cheerful anymore. To distract himself, he tried to decipher the newspaper articles. He did not succeed completely, but he understood the rough content after a while.

  He was officially reported missing. The police was looking for him. Therefore the addition "they won't find you". He shouldn't get his hopes up. Basically, the short sentence said:

  "We are smarter. If we want, we can keep you here forever."

  Those damn maggots might even be right about that. The other, the larger article on the omitted newspaper page, reported on the escalation of the strike. Toni was not surprised at all. He remembered the first of three dinners with the American ambassador, while the strike was still taking place in a halfway orderly manner.

  He also should write down part of what had been said during these meals. The general knew that Toni had had contact with the American. Toni was sure he had sympathizers all over town. Waiters. Taxi drivers. Street vendors. Chambermaids. Receptionists. All that. Toni would have done the same in his place.

  By the time the messenger had delivered the compelling invitation, it had already been late in the afternoon. Toni, who had fulfilled his duties towards Vascotto with today's conversation for the time being, had gone to the bar of the hotel restaurant where they were supposed to meet. There he had first drunk water and then a glass of wine. The bartender apparently knew him from the newspaper and asked him about the state of the strike, and Toni patiently answered the man's questions. As he remembered the bartender's face, he was still quite young for the job and seemed to be suffering from a case of misguided hero worship as far as Toni was concerned. This picture opened a different memory.

  Toni hadn't been kidnapped from this hotel, he suddenly realized. The damn fund-raiser had taken place in another hotel, a much more expensive one. And then it occurred to him again how it had even come about that he and Herod had taken part in this gala.

  After answering the bartender's questions to his satisfaction and giving a sloppy blessing, he had waited at the bar and nibbled peanuts. At some point the ambassador had invaded the hotel restaurant with big noise, together with his wife and two bodyguards. They immediately spotted Toni in his short black shirt and worn, black trousers, and asked him to come to the table.

  It took quite a while for the ambassador to get to the point. The first hour of this conversation he spent in self-righteous gossip about the country and how important the influence of the West would be for further development. His wife probably knew this speech inside out, because she didn't miss any of the flat punch lines and laughed dutifully, shrilly and artificially in the right places. Everything about her was perfect, American Beauty through and through. Toni hated her for that until he noticed the numerous operation scars. From then on, she only disgusted him. A false being. Perfectly bleached teeth. Perfectly tanned skin. Lush cleavage and a taut belly. At second glance she looked much older.

  While Toni was writing down his observations, he remembered with quiet excitement how he had imagined hanging her from her fake tits and ripping her uterus out with rusty tongs so that she would never - for heaven's sake, haha - reproduce. With regret he had learned from the further course of the conversation that it was already too late for that. Either way, Toni stated that his first memory of the woman had been wrong. He hadn't wanted her, and he hadn't had her either.

  The ambassador must have noticed something, because for a short moment he interrupted his flow of speech and looked at Toni. Then he cleared his throat and got to the point. He congratulated Toni on his dedicated political work. He said that real idealists are very rare these days, and Toni agreed with him wholeheartedly, even though he knew that they both defined the word very differently. But then the ambassador asked him if he didn't know that the mining company that Toni's people were striking was an American company. Toni had to admit that he didn't know. He had simply not been interested enough, since he had expected a completely different outcome to the matter anyway.

  The ambassador continued. The strike would hurt America. And even worse. It would damage his personal reputation and cast a bad light on his work. The ambassador asked whether there was anything that could be done about the situation, and Toni examined the man. Suddenly he no longer seemed jovial, overly self-confident and fun-loving, but like a hungry
crocodile lurking in the river until the prey came close to drink. Toni decided to let him fidget a little and repeated the demands of the strikers. More money, rudimentary social security and better working conditions.

  Whether he was really so naive, the ambassador asked frowningly. He wondered if Toni didn't know this just wouldn't work. Then he listed a whole litany of costs that the mining company would have to pay for. Toni listened to him and nodded patiently. Then he just said:

  "We're talking about gold here, aren't we?"

  That was the end of dinner. The ambassador wished Toni a nice evening and left with his entourage. Toni stayed behind, drank two more glasses of wine, and thought about his position.

  The invitation to another dinner came as fast as it came as a surprise. Two days later, again in the late afternoon, an American limousine drove into the village and caused quite a stir among the inhabitants. The uniformed driver, a man of color of course, got out and asked for Toni, while his vehicle was surrounded and eyed by the curious children. The somewhat older man delivered the new invitation and took Toni with him to the city. He drove quickly and ruthlessly across the miserable roads and paths, and managed the distance in record time. Nevertheless, it was late when Toni got out of the foyer of the car and went to the same hotel restaurant where he had met the ambassador the first time. At that hour it was almost empty and the American and his entourage at the big table looked like an island of idiots as Toni walked towards them. They offered him a chair, and he sat down. At that moment he noticed that the staff that evening was all white. The ambassador must have rented the place. But more importantly, they obviously wanted to be among their peers. Toni remembered the tingling sensation he had felt at this realization. Something important was about to happen.

  With this assessment he had been absolutely right. He should be bribed. And with a sum which did not necessarily exceed his imagination, but which was certainly worth considering. His engagement with the Mafia boss Vascotto would have earned him this amount in about seven or eight years. The Americans seemed to be really serious about their gold mine, for whatever reason. Only later - much, much later, at a time when Toni had already gained a foothold in the Vatican - would he learn that it was not primarily gold that interested Americans.

  But now he asked for time to think.

  It was a delicate matter to drop the mask of the noble priest in front of one's negotiating partner. That's why he didn't do it completely. Loudly he wondered what good he could do for Merkanto with this sum, or for other underprivileged people in the world. He could not tell from the ambassador's face whether he bought his charade or not. In any case, he accepted Toni's request for more time, and under the bright, terribly false laughter of his wife, Toni left the restaurant. He could only remember the return journey in the limousine too well.

  There had to be some way to serve both masters, Toni had thought feverishly. One possibility that first occurred to him was to take the American's money, declare his original plan a failure, and use the money to build a mafia-friendly plantation elsewhere. He wouldn't even have to spend a tenth of the dollars in this country to get that done. But stupidly, he couldn't just stop his missionary work. He had to stay in the village if he didn't want to deviate from his great project. And he didn't want that. Under no circumstances. The ambassador had given him a week to think about it. To make the right decision, Toni needed to know more about the situation. He realized that it had been arrogant not to have done more research much earlier. He should do that as soon as possible. At first, he had had to get angry with Herod, who had waited curiously on the porch for Toni's return. He told him that the ambassador was thinking about a larger donation and had somehow fallen in love with their work. Maybe he'd have Italian roots. That wasn't impossible indeed. However, Toni added, turning to Herod, the ambassador was a great music lover. Herod was supposed to make sure that the children of the village would bring their version of Salve Regina to perfection. Maybe they could use it to give a decisive impulse. Herod was thrilled and very, very busy in the following time. Toni still wanted to murder him. Maybe one day he would, he thought, but then gradually a concept began to form in his head in which Herod could play a certain role.

  The next day Toni went to the gold mine together with the young men for the first time ever. The sight impressed Toni against his will. It was more like a quarry. No tunnels and caves, oh no. Here, huge excavators removed rock and soil and gigantic sorting plants searched for gold. The wound that was torn into the world here would not have healed in thousands of years. The strikers gathered with their banners, right where they were unloaded by the trucks, in front of the entrance to the actual factory premises. Of course, they were not allowed in until they were ready to work. The three man high, barbed wire reinforced fence, which enclosed the gigantic area in double rows, was additionally guarded by men with rifles. Toni was astonished to find that three quarters of the guards he saw were white. They all wore uniforms with a badge that Toni did not associate with any nation in the world. A private security company. They're all Americans. Even the colored ones among them. A short inquiry to his neighbor confirmed his assumption.

  Toni spent the day singing with his people and chanting demands. From the corner of his eye Toni saw two other press teams - one probably working for the only nationwide newspaper and the other for television - and waved them in. Awareness and fame could be a better life insurance than bodyguards in this country, and now, as Toni had already understood during the first meal with the ambassador, he had unwittingly pulled a very, very large dog by the tail. When he was done with his interviews and his gaze wandered over the mine again, something made him stop.

  There, behind the fence, he saw someone. He wore the same uniform as everyone else, but his body language made it unmistakably clear that he was someone who had something to say. The man had also been at the restaurant. Toni had noticed his cold eyes immediately. During the second dinner he had been standing relatively close to the table, leaning against the wall, like everyone else, but Toni that evening had already had the feeling that he didn't look quite as uninvolved and bored-professional as the other bodyguards. He had seemed more alert and interested. Also, his engagement seemed to be of a more personal nature.

  Toni hurriedly ran after the reporters and pushed some of the striking out of the way. He caught a cameraman by the arm and dragged him around to himself. Then he asked him who that American over there was and pointed to him. The cameraman could hardly believe that Toni hadn't known that the man was Brian Dubois, the acting CEO and senior partner of the Darkwater Cooperation. For some reason, the man has been here in Merkanto personally for a long time and has an eye on the affairs of the gold mine, although his company still offered its services in many other countries. Toni hastily thanked the cameraman and let him go his way.

  So he's a mercenary.

  In the evening, after he had used Imani to get rid of his tension, he lay awake for a long time and thought. By morning, he had devised a plan. All he had to do now was sell it to the ambassador. He had felt very confident at that moment.

  Toni's right hand, with which he had written, hurt him. He looked down at the sides. It was enough for today. Again he left the book where it was and withdrew into his sleeping corner. The sleep did not want to come to him, despite the tiredness. Toni began to fold little animals from Antoine's letters while he waited for death´s brother to come.

  He'd never heard them get the book before. Did they come with a ladder? With a rope maybe? Or did one of them just drop himself into his cell, and when he had done what he had come for, his comrades dragged him up again?

  In any case, it would be better if Toni would at least pretend that he was sleeping when the time came. That wouldn't provoke any blows.

  When would the General show up here?

  What exactly did this soon mean?

  How much time did he have left?

  If only he knew. If he ...

  One sound and it became
dazzling bright. Immediately Toni rolled to the side and stood asleep, as he had intended. Of course, the sudden movement caused him pain, and he had trouble not shouting out loud. But he succeeded, and in the following seconds he observed that they had chosen the last method. A man, Toni could only see his outline, let himself hang from the edge of the hatch and then fell down the last bit. He sprung up again in an elegant movement, looked around briefly, giving Toni a brief, searching look, and then deposited fresh food leftovers and a new bottle of water on the floor before reaching the book up and then being pulled back out of Toni's earth dungeon by strong arms.

  The hatch closed again.

  Toni was not sure whether they had interrupted or maintained their rhythm as far as food was concerned, but he was hungry. In his thoughts he had even been close to catching insects.

  In his last two wake phases he had probably already slept at this time. Not today. As quietly as he could, so that none of them would notice that he was slowly regaining his strength, seen relatively at least, he crawled over to his food. When he opened the bundle - this time it was another cloth, the old one they had left on the ground - he was surprised. Beside the old flat cakes and the sloppily gnawed bones there had been something else in the bundle. An envelope. Toni forgot his hunger and examined it. Antoine's handwriting, a letter. Of course it had been opened and read, but what was even more remarkable was the fact that they were still monitoring his secret correspondence, even though he had been in their hands for a few days already.