A Vial Upon the Sun

by James Codlin

  *

  Waro Moto was finding it more and more difficult to center himself through meditation or the study of calligraphy. He sat at a low, highly polished wood table, calligraphy brushes and inkpot before him, his bulk wrapped in a white robe. Having considered the matter carefully, he had reached the conclusion that he had allied himself with inferior people, and that they were responsible for destroying his harmony.

  From the beginning, he had harbored doubts about Takeshi Ishikawa, but had decided that since Ishikawa was racially pure—Japanese parents on both sides, emigrants from Japan to Brazil—and Ishikawa had married a woman equally racially pure, he could be relied upon as being Japanese. Now Moto knew the man was not capable of taking on the difficult decisions that were critical to properly execute a grand plan.

  Moto looked down at the translation of the Torquemada document entitled “The Fourth Angel,” which he had read twice in the past eight hours.

  Incredible.

  This man who had understood power so clearly was required to display a hypocritical humility in his life of service to the Christian god rather than showcase the honest arrogance that his ideas of power and control of inferior people justified. Torquemada’s plan had operated in the shadows of Europe for more than five hundred years, unseen and undetected by emperors, monarchs, political philosophers, and academics. And then this enormous plan had rotated to the smallest degree on an axis of fate that handed a vital aspect of its resources to Waro Moto.

  Of course, Moto had to remain in the background and allow the king of Spain and pope to prance and extol on the world’s stage, pretending that they were realizing their Hapsburg destiny of world Christian dominion.

  Let them think so.

  The sun was setting on a world that had been dominated by those of European origin, and as fit the new millennium, it was going to rise on the Asian world. There was only one nation equal to the task of dominating the planet: Japan.

  Waro Moto considered all of this and came to a decision on the question of Ishikawa. So many problems could have been so easily resolved if he had carried out the destruction of the airliner—either while it was flying or even better, after it had crash-landed. Nicolás Ibarra and his revolutionaries would have been blamed for the carnage. But Ishikawa’s weakness had prevented this cleansing action.

  Now only one other event could accomplish the same thing. Takeshi Ishikawa would have to die.

  *

  At Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City, Dubronski and Dennis Prinn went through seven levels of bureaucracy explaining why all their papers showed Manila to be the destination for the container, but here it was in Mexico.

  Dennis called a friend at El Excelsior, a Mexico City newspaper, who called someone at the Ministry of Commerce, who spoke to the customs agents. Dozens of rubber stamps fulminated on pages of altered documents, and fifteen minutes later a drayage truck loaded Dennis’s mobile communication center and drove out of the airport. Dennis led the way in his rental car, adjusting a small earpiece remotely connected to his phone.

  “Can you hear me?” Dennis asked.

  “Yes,” Lenin answered, transmitting from inside the container.

  “Where to?” Dennis asked.

  Lenin had a map of Mexico City unfolded on the table in front of him.

  Lenin directed Prinn to the Zócalo in the center of Mexico City, along the west side of the huge plaza, and then straight ahead on Tepeyac Street.

  “You should see a slender steeple of a church ahead,” Lenin said.

  “Yes, I do,” Dennis said.

  “That’s the church of Santo Domingo,” Lenin said. “Across the street—that’s looking east—you should see a building at the intersection that has a main entrance on a face that cuts diagonally across the corner. That’s the Casa Chata, which means ‘the barge,’ named after that snub-nosed corner. The first home of the Spanish Inquisition in the New World. I think that’s where we’ll find Martín.”

  *

  Dennis Prinn made another phone call, this time to a college friend who was the son of the owner of Latinovisa, the largest cable television system in Mexico and Central America. Dennis asked for a favor, the friend called his father, the father called a friend, and within a half-hour Dennis had a permit to set up his mobile ground station. Dennis had the drayage truck deposit his container onto the large patio of a building across the street from the Casa Chata.

  Dennis bustled around the outside of his station erecting antennas and connecting power cables. He went inside and addressed the group.

  “So, Professor, I think your best use of time right now is to hole up in my studio with Alejandra and pore through the documents. You need to be constructing your presentation on what is happening, who’s behind it, how, and why. It had better be good, or we’re just going to look like a bunch of silly buggers when this all breaks.”

  Lenin nodded. “Alejandra has already given me a good high-level summary of what she has in hard copy and on the drive, and during the flight we started cataloging everything. We will put something together for when the time comes.”

  “What will the rest of us do now?” Nicolás asked.

  “Assuming Lenin’s right about the site of the trial, we’re just a hundred meters from the transmitter,” Dennis replied. “They’ll be using a narrow beam aimed straight at the satellite to avoid any interception. But, by being this close and using a few crude tools I have along, we can ‘sniff’ the beam’s energy and we’ll know for sure that this is where Marty’s being held.”

  Dennis rummaged in an equipment cabinet, producing a dish antenna four inches in diameter as well as a small metal box. He put them on the table.

  “I need someone to get a look at the roof of the Inquisition building to see if there’s a dish antenna there. If there is, I need to attach mine to it. Let’s see… who has the skills to help me pull off something like that?”

  They all turned toward Nicolás.

  *

  Nicolás, wearing sunglasses and a Collingwood Magpies cap, came out of the container accompanied by Dennis. They crossed the street and walked along the south side of the building that Lenin had identified, noting its massive stone walls. At the street corner, they studied the angled facade and heavy wooden door with iron hardware, then turned the corner and walked the length of the east wall. Like the south side, there were many large windows overlooking the streets, but they had been painted a solid gray, making it impossible to see inside.

  The two crossed the street and entered the empty Santo Domingo church. Nicolás and Dennis made their way past the alcoves along the sides of the nave. Behind a confessional, they saw an iron gate that led to spiral stairs rotating upward toward the bell tower. Nicolás tried the gate and found it locked. He removed a pick from his pocket, unlocked the gate, and swung it open with a loud squeak.

  The two men jogged up the stone staircase, pushing cobwebs out of their path before arriving at the bright sunlight of the campanile. It was caked with years of dust, soot, and pigeon droppings. Both men hunkered down behind the waist-high wall and looked east toward the presumed Inquisition building. They could now see the entirety of the large square building that spanned an entire city block. A pyramidal roof tinted an opaque gray obscured their view of the courtyard in the center. A large parabolic antenna pointed straight upward from the roof.

  “If we can put this dish close to that antenna,” Dennis whispered, “we can tap into what they’re sending.”

  “Show me how to place it, and I’ll do it,” Nicolás said.

  *

  It was after two in the morning, and the streets around Casa Chata were deserted. Nicolás had watched the building from the church bell tower across the street since five in the afternoon to get a feel for any movements in and out. Around seven, a dozen men and women had come out the front door, quickly dispersing into the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. At nine-thirty, two priests had arrived by car and disappeared inside. After
that, there was no ingress or egress at all.

  Nicolás crossed the street, looked for observers, and shinnied up the drainpipe to the roof. He withdrew a transmitter-receiver with a carrying belt, an earpiece, and a microphone from his backpack. He wrapped the belt around his waist, fastening the Velcro. Nicolás pushed the tiny earpiece deep into his ear and clipped the microphone to his shirt collar. Then he pulled out a tube the size of a pencil and held it up.

  “Dennis, you read me?” he asked into the microphone on his shirt.

  “I got you, Lima Charlie. Here comes video.”

  Nicolás saw a pinpoint of red light on the camera and pointed the lens end at his own face.

  “You look like a wombat’s arse, Nico,” Dennis said.

  Nicolás smiled.

  *

  A block away, Dennis sat at the control console with Gina. Nicolás’s facial features on the monitor were clear but the image was jittery, with sporadic bursts of static and video noise.

  “Why is it doing that?” Gina asked.

  Dennis scowled. “You mean, why is the video feed from my tiny camera and makeshift relay not perfect? The one that I kludged together with parts I happened to have in my container studio that has been relocated thousands of miles without stopping to resupply with parts and gear that would be more fitting for an undercover operation, all while being chased by Japanese thugs and the reincarnated Spanish Inquisition? Next time I’ll be sure to break out the higher end HD gear so as not to offend your videophile sensibilities.”

  “Sorry I asked,” Gina said.

  “Ah, no worries, Gina. I’m just cranky nervous as all hell. If you and Lenin are right, we’re about to get a packet of video proof that the Inquisition is riding again.” He put a flash drive into one of his recording devices and switched it on. They watched the jumpy picture as the view shifted.

  “He’s on the move,” Dennis said.

  They saw the tile roof and then the dish antenna came into view.

  “I’m going to place your receiver antenna,” Nicolás said.

  “Bonzer,” Dennis said. “See the horn in the center of the dish? Fasten my receiver to the side of that.”

  The picture blurred and spun as the camera swung freely from the lanyard around Nicolás’s neck. After a minute the picture stabilized and Dennis saw the receiver being taped into place.

  “Looks good, Nico. As always, duct tape is fair dinkum.”

  Moments later, the opaque plastic cover over the patio area loomed ahead. Lenin came in from the bedroom area and stood behind them, watching anxiously.

  “I think that roof should be strong enough to support me,” Nicolás said.

  They watched as he stepped across the three-foot opening and laid down on the cover. The camera peered down inside the patio.

  *

  Nicolás watched two men with white clerical collars emerge from the building into the courtyard, talking quietly together and smoking. He looked for surveillance cameras or sentries. There were none, and the priests disappeared back inside after two cigarettes each.

  “I’m going down,” Nicolás whispered into the microphone.

  “Whoa,” came the reply in his ear. “This is way off-script, Nico. I was fine with getting in a little reconnaissance from above, but come on back to the container and let’s discuss next steps before you… ah, shit Nico!”

  Nicolás lowered himself to the ground using another drainpipe, ignoring the steady stream of profanities in his earpiece. He crouched and looked around. Straight ahead he saw a series of 21 doors, regularly spaced. Nicolás was sure that he was looking at the prisoners’ cells.

  “I’m going to check the cells to see if Martín is in one of them,” he whispered into the microphone.

  “Sure,” came the sarcastic retort in his ear. “It’s Nico’s world and we’re all just living in it, eh?”

  Nicolás smiled to himself. It was good to be fully in charge of his own actions again. He started down the line of doors, seeing light streaming from each of the doorframes, indicating that the interiors of the cells themselves were brightly lit.

  He pushed the miniature television camera through the space between the bottom of the first door and the stone floor.

  “Tell me what you see,” he whispered into the mic.

  “Cell’s about 4 meters by 4 meters, brightly lit, fluorescent tubes,” Dennis said in a resigned but focused voice. “There’s a bed opposite the door, a toilet and sink to the left. Point the camera up at the ceiling so I can see what’s up there. Slow and careful, as I’m almost sure there will be a surveillance camera.”

  Nicolás worked his fingers under the door, holding the camera with his fingertips. He stood it up on end.

  “Good on ya,” Dennis said. “High ceiling, about three meters—there’s the camera, upper right-hand corner in relation to the door. Stationary surveillance camera, wide angle—keeps the prisoner’s bed in the center. We’ve got a problem, Nico. From down on the floor, I can’t see who’s in the bed.”

  “Shit,” Nicolás muttered.

  “Is there anywhere higher on the door that you can push the camera through?”

  Nicolás looked over the doorframe and saw a space up at the top. He removed the lanyard from around his neck, lifted his arm, and pushed the camera part way in.

  “Okay, I can see the guy on the bed,” Dennis said. “It’s not Marty.”

  Nicolás crawled to the next door, and they repeated the surveillance from the top of the door.

  “Not him.”

  At the sixth door, Dennis said, “That’s him! That’s Martín. He’s asleep, not moving.”

  “Can you do anything about the surveillance camera?” Nicolás asked.

  “It’s an old colonial mansion with massive, solid walls,” Dennis said, “so all the wiring has to be on the outside. Can you see it?”

  Nicolás scanned the wall and saw plastic conduit attached to it. At regular intervals there were wires going from the conduit into a hole drilled through the ancient mortar.

  “I see it,” Nicolás whispered.

  “What do you want to do?” Dennis asked.

  “Just cut that camera for a minute or so.”

  “Could set off alarms,” Dennis said.

  “For sure they’ll send someone if it’s off too long, but maybe if it’s off for thirty seconds or so they’ll just think it was a glitch.”

  “Then don’t cut the wires,” Dennis said. “Just strip back some insulation and touch two of them together. They’ll still get a transmission from the camera, but it’ll be distorted from the short.”

  Nicolás studied the wires into Martín’s cell. He removed a knife from his pocket, reached up, and carefully peeled away the insulation from two wires. He flexed his hands several times, took a deep breath, and twisted the exposed wires together. There was no audible alarm. He removed the wooden bar and swung the door open. He stepped in, blinking in the brightness. His brother remained motionless, breathing slowly and deeply.

  Drugged, Nicolás concluded, and walked quickly to the bed.

  Dennis’s voice came through the headset, full of alarm and urgency. “A light came on at the front of the building—they know something’s up. Get out of there!”

  Nicolás scanned the room. There was nothing he could use as a weapon.

  “Another window lit up, and a yard light just came on,” Dennis warned. “Get out!”

  Nicolás watched Martín sleep. He wanted to just grab him and drag him out, but there was no time and no way he could get back up to the roof with the dead weight of his brother’s limp body. But he had to do something to improve their odds. He hadn’t come down here just to gawk at his sleeping brother without doing anything.

  Nicolás jerked his earplug out of his ear, pulled the microphone off of his shirt, and ripped off the belt with the transmitter. He tucked all of them under Martín’s pillow. The younger man groaned and his eyes opened momentarily, but they were glassy and unseeing.


  Nicolás went to the door, listened, opened it as narrowly as possible, and stepped out. He replaced the wooden bar, then pulled the wires apart, restoring the normal transmission. He raced back into the shadows just as two men in dark uniforms burst out of a doorway. They sprinted to Martín’s cell, tossed the bolt aside, and threw open the door. Standing in the doorway breathing hard, they gawked at the sleeping man. One looked up toward the surveillance camera. They made a call on a radio, backed out of the cell, and secured the door.

  *

  Nicolás burst into the communications trailer, pulling the cap from his head.

  “What’d you do with the camera and voice transmitter?” Dennis demanded.

  “I left them for my brother. We’ll call him through the radio, wake him up, and he’ll find the camera and microphone.”

  “And do what exactly? He is drugged and has no idea that we’re here trying to help him! He’ll be scared and disoriented and in all likelihood when he finds it he’ll pull it out from under his pillow in full view of the surveillance camera.”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else,” Nicolás said with a shrug.

  “Okay,” Dennis said. “What’s done is done. But can we please all try to stick to the fucking plan going forward? There’s too much that can go wrong!”

  Nicolás stared back, but didn’t respond. His entire career as a revolutionary had been based upon improvisation, but now was not the time to argue the point.

  Dennis shook his head. “We don’t have much time. It’s after three, and these religious nuts don’t sleep in.”

  “Well, then,” Nicolás said with a bit of a smirk. “Let’s get to work.”

  Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

  As dawn approached Dennis keyed his microphone. “Are you in position?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Nicolás said. “I found a good spot across the street. No activity so far.”

  Dennis looked at Gina, who nodded. He threw five switches and turned several knobs. Through the speakers Dennis and Gina could hear rhythmic breathing. The monitor in front of them was a dark gray.