by Blake Banner
* * *
We wound up in the Free State, a rustic basement on G St SW. It had only just opened. The place was almost empty and we were able to get a small table by the bare-brick wall, with a couple of high stools and a couple of draught beers. We sat in silence for a long while until she said to the table, “Why does he want us to marry?”
I stared at her beer for a moment, at her fingers holding it. “Would that be such an awful thing?”
She looked at me in astonishment and blinked. “If I were ever… If we ever married, Lacklan, I’d like it to be because we chose to, not because some weird-ass organization dreamed up by Chris Carter on a bad acid trip, tells us to.”
“I agree.”
“Why? What’s in it for them?”
I shrugged. “Control. With each of us operating randomly, doing our own thing, we were out of control. We did a lot of damage.” She held my eye and it was hard to read her expression. I went on, “You know ‘guerilla’ in Spanish means ‘small war’. If waged in the right way, it can do a lot more damage than a direct military confrontation, not only to the actual infrastructure of your enemy, but to their morale.”
“So you’re saying they want to convert us from wild guerillas into a small army that they can control?”
I nodded. “It’s what empires, ever since the Romans, have done. The Gauls, all of those Nordic and Celtic tribes, they were a pain in Rome’s ass, but they were too small and too quick to be effectively confronted by huge, slow moving armies. So they gave them incentives to consolidate, and then they employed them. They became some of the most effective legions in the Roman army. The British did the same in India and Africa, but they lost America because, here, they failed to do that. Bring the guerillas together into a force you can handle, then either destroy them or employ them.”
She sighed. “Literally marry them together.”
“Yup.”
“So I was right to avoid you for so long.”
“No. We need to act together. Marni…” She raised her eyes to meet mine. “I was wrong in London, when I said no. I wanted to protect you from what I had become. But I was wrong.”
Her eyes strayed. She nodded. “So what now?”
I stared down into the froth in my beer. It seemed to me to be clinging to the edge of the empty glass for dear life. I knew how it felt. I said, “Will you allow me to digress for a moment?”
She gave a small laugh. “Sure, it can’t do any harm.”
“I was in Afghanistan. We, the Regiment, we operate in groups of four.” I gave a small laugh. “We are recruited for our skill, resilience, commitment… all that stuff. But we are also recruited for being eccentric individualists. Not many people know that. Four eccentric individualists can do an immeasurable amount of damage to a Third Reich, a Soviet Union, ISIS, to any organization that wants to standardize human beings. It’s a very English way of looking at things.”
She nodded. “I get that.”
“It’s a long story, but, cutting to the chase, we were in the north of Helmand. We were attacked and we were separated. Sergeant Bradley, Bat Hays, and Nick Barns went one way, toward the extraction point, and I went another. I had to make my way south, back to Camp Bastion, through the desert, where there was no food and no water. So I had to make small raids on villages and farms that were trying to eke an existence out of the sand.” I paused and sighed, not sure myself what point I was trying to make. In the end, I said, “I was one man. All I was trying to do was survive. The regime of the Taliban demanded one thing, and one thing only, absolute observance of the Koran, absolute obedience to Allah and his prophet Mohamed. I was a bacterium. I was one, single organism that by its simple presence threatened the integrity of their entire body. Not by anything that I was doing, because all I was doing was stealing a chicken here, a tomato there, a canteen of water from a well. The threat came from the simple fact of my presence. Because I was an eccentric individualist, and my intention was to fight against their culture of absolute obedience.”
She studied my face for a long while, then said, “And only give up when you were dead.”
I nodded. “They want—they believe—that our marriage will make us easier to control. Let them believe that, Marni. But let our marriage be eccentric and individualist, and let our marriage be a virus in itself, that undermines the very fabric of Omega.” I hesitated, then went on, “Marni, because you are a mad scientist and I love you, because I am an eccentric individualist, and I love you, will you please marry me?”
She gave a small yelp and covered her mouth with her hands. The barman looked over and smiled. I saw tears spill from her eyes. I laughed, and she laughed and cried and reached for a paper napkin to mop her eyes and blow her nose. After a bit, she leaned across the table and took my hands. “Yes, Lacklan, I will.”
We talked then, and made plans. We ate, and talked more, about us, her and me, as unique, eccentric individuals, and what we wanted from our lives. Then we walked through the city streets, down the boulevards and avenues, strolled in the parks and the gardens. Indifferent to whether we were being followed or not, we made our path and we made our plans. And, as the sky turned to copper and the shadows grew long in that city designed by dreamers, libertarians, and Masons, two hundred and thirty years earlier, we fled. We hailed a taxi and fled, holding each other in silence in the back seat of the cab, traveling north and west, toward our temporary home, our refuge in the woods.
When we got there, my car was in the driveway. I felt a brief surge of anger at the thought of one of them driving my Zombie, as though they had somehow violated it. But I suppressed the feeling and told myself I would find the tracking devices later. There would be at least two, one for me to find, another for them to follow. Marni and I looked at each other and shrugged. Then we went inside.
Mrs. Henderson was there in the kitchen, and we told her our news, that we had got engaged. She was delighted and insisted on cooking us a meal that night. She lit the fire, though it wasn’t necessary, set the table with a linen cloth, a candle, and crystal goblets, and even retrieved a bottle of twenty year-old Burgundy from a wine cellar we didn’t know the house had.
At eight fifteen she placed a roast leg of lamb, a dish of roast potatoes, sautéed vegetables, and the wine on the table, gave us both a huge hug each, and cycled away into the gathering evening, ringing her bell and waving happily.
We stood on the doorstep and, after she’d gone, we kissed, for all the world to see. Then we stepped inside for our engagement dinner.
Twenty Three
As I started to carve, Marni dropped into her chair and buried her face in her hands. I kept carving, but after a moment I asked her, “Are you OK?”
She rubbed her face, then ran her fingers through her hair and heaved a huge sigh.
“Yeah. No. I don’t know, Lacklan. This… all this…”
“What about it? We discussed it. The least we can do is try to make it work.”
“I know, I know. And in theory, that’s fine. But I can’t shake the feeling that I am being a hypocrite. That I am somehow betraying my father.”
I handed her her plate with three slices of lamb on it. I smiled, though not exactly happily. “Do we have to do this now? We are supposed to be celebrating our engagement.”
She looked distracted. “I know. I’m sorry.” She helped herself to potatoes and vegetables and I poured the wine. When I sat down, I raised my glass to her.
“Here’s to us, and to the future.”
She stared at me for a long moment, hesitated, then raised her glass with little enthusiasm.
“To us.”
We drank and I set down my glass and leaned back in my chair while she started to eat.
“You know, I was in the Regiment for ten years.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“In many ways they were very happy years. I made very good, very loyal friends. They were more than friends, more than family. I could have stayed, made major or even colonel.
”
She was chewing, watching me. She sipped and said, “But…?”
“Two things conspired to make me leave and come back, buy my shack in Wyoming and retire from the world.”
“What were they?”
“In no particular order, I grew tired of killing. You develop an emotional callus after a time, but it’s strange, your own lack of feeling ends up nauseating you. You want to feel. You need to. And when I’d done my ten years, I decided it was time to stop.”
I paused, and she said, without looking at me, “And the other?”
“You. Five years earlier you came to London and asked me to go home, so that we could be together. I told you no.”
“That’s something I am not likely to forget, Lacklan.”
“I regretted it the moment I’d said it, and I have regretted it every day since then. When I left the Regiment, I had a hope, maybe it was more of a hopeless dream, that if I came back to the States, maybe, somehow, one day, we might come back together. It is the one thing that has kept me going all this time.”
She looked serious and laid down her knife and fork. “This should be a joyful occasion, Lacklan. You know how I feel about you. But we are not alone at this table. Ben is here with us, Dick Hennessy is at this table. The whole damned organization is listening to our conversation, recording every word we say so that they can use it against us if they need to. It’s fake. It’s not real.”
“Marni, we have been through this! We talked about it! We decided it was the only course open to us. We may as well make the most of it. Those were your words.”
“Well…” She took another deep breath. “Maybe I was wrong.”
I frowned. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know if I can go through with it. I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Lacklan! I am not a hypocrite!”
“So I am?”
“I didn’t say that…”
“What about Gibbons? You know what will happen to him if you back out?” She didn’t answer, just sat staring at her plate. I pushed. “They’ll kill him! And they’ll make it look like I did it!”
She turned on me, with bright, angry eyes. “This is war, Lacklan! You should know that! In war there is collateral damage!”
“Collateral damage! Are you serious? He is not collateral, Marni! He is a human being! A good man!”
“A good man that you were prepared to kill less than a week ago!”
“To save your life! Not to save my conscience!”
“Well, maybe I am a hypocrite after all!”
“Maybe you are!” I stood and threw my napkin on the table, went to the credenza and poured myself a whiskey. I took a swig and turned to face her. “What will you do? Escape back to England? Shack up with Gibbons in Oxford? Oh, no, he’ll be dead! You’ll have to find another academic to use! You know what they’ll do to me, right? After they have framed me for murder, they’ll kill me, too. So that’s two men you will have got killed, Gibbons and me, but hey, don’t let it worry you. At least your conscience will be intact.”
“You are one vicious, sarcastic bastard.”
I leaned forward, half-shouting, “You are going back on your promise! You are sentencing two men to death!”
She stood, shouting louder, “A promise made under duress to an organization that plans to exterminate and enslave the human race!”
I shouted back, “No! A promise to me! To stand by my side! To be my wife! And instead of honoring that promise you are sentencing me to death!”
“Oh for crying out loud, Lacklan! Enough with the melodrama!”
I stared at her. “Melodrama? Melodrama…? You are the one talking about exterminating and enslaving the entire race! We don’t even know if that’s true anymore! We have been offered the chance to change the direction Omega is moving in. You won’t even try! You won’t even give it a chance! You are so concerned with your fucking conscience, you are prepared to sentence two men to death and walk away from the one realistic chance we have of changing this organization!”
She didn’t answer. She just stared at me. Her eyes were resentful and her mouth was sour. I drained my glass and put it down. “You know what, Marni? I have had it with you. I have had it with chasing you, with your stupid way of doing things, with your lack of trust, with your screwed-up priorities. You killed my father, now you’ve killed me. Well, fuck you!”
I grabbed my jacket and my car keys and walked out of the house. I stood a moment in the driveway, looking up at the stars, feeling slightly sick. I lit a cigarette, climbed into my car, and slammed the door. I sat a moment, smoking and thinking, before I fired up the silent engines and pulled out onto the road.
It was a short drive, just fifteen minutes down MacArthur Boulevard and into the city. A left just before Washington Circle and I was on Pennsylvania Avenue. I pulled up outside her block and sat staring at it for a long time. It was a strange, red brick corner building, with arched windows and a jumbled tower at the top. Eventually, I lit up another Camel, pulled her card from my wallet, and dialed her number.
“Hello? This is Dr. Lara Banks. Who is this?”
“Hello, Dr. Banks. It’s Lacklan Walker.”
“Mr. Walker!”
I allowed an ironic smile into my voice. “I think when you’ve had a man kicked half to death, you’re entitled to use his first name.”
“Where are you? What do you want?”
“Don’t be afraid. I am not coming after you. Things have changed. Have you spoken to Ben?”
“Yes…”
“I’m in a fix. I need your help.”
“My help?”
“I know. Life is full of little ironies like that. It’s not just me. I think Omega will be grateful. Can we talk?”
She was silent for a moment, like she was thinking. Then, “Yes. Of course. Where are you?”
“Outside your front door. May I come up?”
“Yes.” Then, again, “Yes, of course, come on up.”
I hung up, flicked my cigarette out the window, and sat thinking for another minute before I climbed out and crossed the road. She buzzed me in to a luxurious brass and mahogany lobby, and I rode the elevator to the top floor. She let me in as soon as I rang the bell.
The apartment was a collection of vast, open spaces rather than rooms. The décor was all in black and white. The floor was black wood with a high polish, and white rugs were strewn here and there, apparently at random. The ceiling was paneled in white wood, and the walls were painted white, except for one, in the area where she had her sofas, chairs, and TV. There, one entire wall was white marble streaked with gray, and set into it was a black marble open fireplace. In the middle of the floor, a black dining table sat on a white rug, with twelve chairs set about it, and a white candle in the middle.
I stood looking around and she closed the door behind me.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No. I told you. I need your help.”
“It was brutal what you did to my nurses.” She came and stood in front of me, frowning up into my face. “And to Nurse Rogers. You raped her.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I missed the part where she said, ‘No.’ How much do you know about the deal Dr. Gilbert and I made with Ben?”
She shook her head. “Not very much.”
“There is a lot riding on it.” I gave my head a quick shake. “It’s impossible to overstate how important this deal is.”
“I see…” She gestured at the sofas. “Shall we sit? A drink?”
“Yeah, I’ll have the same as you, and if you don’t mind, I’ll watch you pour it.”
She poured the drinks, and after she had sipped, I took her glass and gave her mine. Then we sat.
“Dr. Gilbert has got cold feet. We had just got engaged, this afternoon. We’d reached an arrangement with Ben, with Omega, that on the face of it met with all our demands and theirs.” I hesitated. “Yours…?”
She nodded. “Yes.
I am Omega.”
I shrugged. “We were celebrating, and suddenly she started backtracking, getting hysterical, accusing me of betraying everything that we had fought for. I explained to her that she was putting my life and Professor Gibbons’ in jeopardy, but it made no difference. In the end, I walked out.”
She was frowning, like she was trying to understand what I was saying. When I’d finished, she said, “What I don’t understand, Mr… Lacklan, is why you have come to me.”
I sat back in my chair, crossed my legs, and returned her frown. “I would have thought it was obvious, Lara. You specialize in manipulating people’s minds. That is basically all about persuasion, or am I being naïve? I need you—Omega needs you—to persuade Dr. Gilbert, Marni, to honor the commitments she has made to me and to Omega.”
She combined a smile with a frown and made it look like skepticism. “OK, assuming for a moment that I believe you, which is not necessarily the case, why this miraculous turn around? A couple of days ago you were killing us off like flies. And today you are trying to persuade me to recruit Dr. Gilbert onto the team?” She shook her head. “That is not credible.”
I snorted. “It’s not credible and it’s not true. Believe me, Lara, if I had my way, I’d nuke the lot of you. But I am a realist, and the last phase of every war in the last two thousand years has been the phase of negotiation. I know when I am outgunned and out-maneuvered. I also know I can hurt you very badly—but I can’t win. So we negotiate. And through negotiation, maybe I can achieve my ends.”
She studied me for a few moments. Her expression had changed. She made a face and said, “You sound like a man who could be an asset.”
“That’s what Ben thinks, and it’s what I am beginning to think. But Marni thinks that is hypocrisy. I need you to change her perspective, make her see it differently.”
She spread her hands. “Well, do you want to bring her to see me tomorrow?”
“No. We haven’t got that long. It has to be now.”
“Right now?”
“Right now. If Ben and Hennessy find out about her change of heart, it could cost me and Gibbons our lives. And that is just the start of it.”