The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  He brings her back to the small cargo space in his attack helicopter and shows her two vests and pairs of pants, and another long case. Zara touches the vests, ironclad strong without the bulk, and says, “These better not be the crap they gave you Spetsnav people in Chechnya. You remember, the ones bullets passed right through.”

  Anatoly finally laughs again. “Who do you think I am? These are the latest prototypes. Class six vests and class five pants.”

  She waves Peter and Jean-Paul over. Out of the case, she pulls out a black cassock for her dear priest and says, “These vests will fit nicely under my dress and your new Russian-made cassock. Thank Catherine the Great for the Russians’ love of you Jesuits.”

  Peter asks, “Where’s my vest?”

  Zara glares at him with unsympathetic eyes and replies, “You will not need one. For if they shoot you, the object will detonate. It is for you to let them know this fact. Otherwise they will shoot you by accident.”

  Anatoly takes two ASh-12.7 urban assault rifles out from the case. Peter’s jaw drops. Hitting power of fifty-caliber bullets built for the FSB, Federal Security Service. Jean-Paul picks one up and asks, “Why would the Spetsnav be helping us here? Aren’t the Russians in Alexander’s back pocket?”

  Anatoly laughs. “Not everyone in Russia is a fan of Alexander.” He winks at Zara and adds, “Like me.” And he hands the other ASh to Zara, who refuses it, pointing to the AK-9 and VSS in the back of her truck.

  And the Russian laughs even harder. “You insult me about Chechnya, and look at what you are using. My old souvenir gifts of love to you.”

  With a hint of a smile, Zara says, “Old tech, yes, but they do the job. Do you have the grenade launcher I asked for?” And Anatoly pulls that out of the case as well. She says, “Okay. I think we are ready. I am going to find a little privacy to put your fancy vest and pants on under my dress.”

  Anatoly puts on his best version of puppy eyes and begs, “For old times’ sake, please, let me help you put these on?”

  Zara peers back at him with unempathetic dark eyes. “Anatoly, did I not tell you before that the shop is closed? No more touching the merchandise.”

  Her downtrodden Russian glares at Peter, who is busy trying to flex his arms and chest, and says, “Are you telling me you are turning me down for this silly bespectacled American twig?”

  Zara smirks at Anatoly. “Remember Zakhar the Crazed Crusher? That silly bespectacled American twig is the CIA’s equivalent. But even more crazed. He has a hairpin trigger between silly twiggy-ness and super crazed limb-ripping monster.” She winks at Peter. “They sent him here to keep me in line.” With skeptical eyes, Anatoly looks at Peter, practicing with his gun, as Zara goes behind her truck to change.

  As Zara gets ready to meet Alexander’s helicopter, Anatoly comes to her again, still undeterred by her off-putting behavior. He begs her to allow him to take her to the rendezvous with Alexander, for they would be both heroes of the State if they were to kill Alexander. She informs him it is not his destiny to bring her to her death. It is Peter’s. And Anatoly leaves in his attack craft to return to Georgia in complete despondency, scorned by this woman who somehow still controls his life.

  Two thirty p.m. comes, and Alexander’s helicopter arrives with full Russian air escort flying overhead. In the helicopter, Zara sits next to Peter. She takes his hands in hers as it takes off, squeezing as she confronts her childhood fear. She leans over to him and says, “I will never stop being afraid of these beasts.”

  Sensing maybe her compassion has returned, Peter leans over and asks, “Zara, please tell me, what did I do wrong? You’ve become more distant from me. It’s as if all that’s happened between us has disappeared.”

  Zara touches his cheek. “Peter, it is time for us to become distant. This is for real now. For keeps. This is that moment that will define all time to come.” As she sees him withdraw further in his sorrow, she takes his hand and punches it into her armor-clad breasts. “You cannot kill me with a shot here.”

  She takes his pistol, tucks it in his hands, and then places it against her head. “You have to shoot me in the head. The same as I did to Rona. It is what must happen to me for all that I have done.”

  Peter’s lips and chin quiver. “I can’t do that, Zara. Why do you need to die? What does Alexander want the object for, that you have to die to prevent him from getting it?”

  She replies, “He needs me for what I can do now. For my connection with the voice. You cannot let him have me and the object. It is one or the other. Or you may have to detonate the object so he has neither.”

  He cries out, “I love you, Zara. I can’t shoot you. We need each other.”

  The shop, once full of compassion and empathy, is now closed as Zara coldly takes out a detonator switch. “Remember the one I showed you when we landed in Siirt? Flip the knob this way, and it becomes a dead man switch. Your finger comes off, and it blows up the object. Flip it that way, it becomes a normal switch that you push to detonate.”

  He leans in to cry into her hair, but their helmets only clank. “But then if I detonate the object, we all die, don’t we?”

  Sensing he needs her compassion at this moment, she leans in to kiss him, but shaking his head, he pulls back away from her. And as if Alexander was in his head, he says, “That’s what you did with Anatoly. And what else did you do with him? And all the others. Did you use me like you used them? Except I was the stupid one who you denied sex. Was I only a way for you to talk to the voice? And now, it’s just time for all of us to die?”

  Zara licks her finger, touches his forehead, and rubs. As she sees him calming, she says, “I should be offended by what you have said, but I know you now, like you know me. You ask if what we have been to each other since we found the object is nothing? You have to look into yourself and decide what you trust, and what you will do when the time comes. You are the only man I trust who is not family. And my family feels the same. Roza and Maryam say you are family. What are you, Peter Gollinger? Family or foe? Or just a scared Little Boy?”

  She puts her hands back into her lap and stares forward.

  Peter takes her hand into his and says, “I would rather die than let you die. You must live through this. Only you can talk with the voice.”

  Zara, forever the mission leader, tests him and replies, “You mean I can talk with the aliens.”

  Peter shakes his head. “You talk with the one who will save us all. Except me, as I will die instead of you.”

  She takes a fresh magazine out and replaces the one in Peter’s gun. “This is a full fresh set. Repack rounds, as we poor Kurds cannot afford factory rounds. The top one has my name on it. You will know when that time comes. It is Xwedê’s will.” She pats his hands, picks them up, and licks and kisses his palms. She puts his hands back down and looks forwards, putting her game face back on.

  As their helicopter approaches Alexander’s appointed meeting spot, Jean-Paul, reading his MoxWrap, yells from the facing seats, “It has started. The Russian invasion fleet has sailed. The Americans have entered into war with Russia. The US fleet is taking positions. The Russians are readying bombers to attack the US fleet. The American F-35 and F-16 fighters are readying to launch. Alexander has timed this perfectly. Any later and our helicopter would have been shot down.”

  They disembark from Alexander’s helicopter as the crew unloads the object onto an awaiting forklift. Zara glances at her watch. Four forty. Perfect timing. Fifteen minutes to get her plan in play.

  Zara, Peter, and Jean-Paul follow the truck along a stone jetty jutting out into the Black Sea to where Alexander is waiting. His yacht is docked past a few white wooden buildings. Perfect cover for his men. The sky is cloudy with the smell of salt water mixed with the smell of impending death, which the residents of the multicolored five-story buildings across the highway from this jetty are oblivious to.

  Zara cautiously walks holding her AK-9 and carrying the grenade-equipped VSS in her backpack,
Jean-Paul with his 12.7mm urban antiterrorist weapon, and Peter with a detonator in his pocket and a carpet rolled up under his arm.

  Alexander awaits with the other object. Zara scans around and spots the multitudes of guards he has deployed in the same pattern as she designed for him for his other ambushes. With their object deposited next to Alexander’s, they stop within ten meters of Alexander when Zara raises up her MoxWrap, pointing at it. “Alexander, it is four forty-three p.m. In four minutes, it will be time for the Asr prayer. You cannot deny me honoring my faith.”

  As Alexander nods his consent, Zara rotates with her MoxWrap and then points towards Mecca. She signals where Peter should place the prayer mat. She signals Jean-Paul, who kneels with her to join her in prayer. And for the next ten minutes, Zara, the devout Muslim Kurdish woman, recites her prayer in silence with her Jesuit priest companion.

  Most of Alexander’s guards are standing up to watch this spectacle. As Zara finishes reciting her Asr prayer, she peeks around at Alexander’s protectors and nods at the black-cassock-gowned priest. Jean-Paul yells back at her it is only respectful that he performs the prayer aloud in Arabic. Zara retorts that only imams perform prayer aloud. As they get into a loud, heated theological debate, all of Alexander’s guards begin to laugh at this spectacle of a Catholic priest asking to perform an Islamic ritual in Arabic. Zara spies that even Alexander’s snipers have risen, even one with a distinctive double cleft chin, to get a better look at their performance, their circus, their very well-timed distraction, as four ninja-like ghosts slip around the pier, having arisen out of the Black Sea.

  Zara concedes to the priest in black and proclaims, “I have heard the voice Alexander seeks. And She assures us there is only one voice. Hers. One voice who guides all of us. One voice for both my people, the people of this Jesuit, the people of this American. The same voice with the same message.” And she and Jean-Paul perform the Asr prayer together again while the ninja ghosts silently and discreetly whisk away guards one by one.

  As the pair prays, Alexander has his two closest guards place the two halves of the object adjacent to each other but not yet touching. He walks around the newly arrived other half of the object and smugly smiles. His lifelong search, his father’s lifelong search, is finally over.

  Rising from the prayer mat, Zara nudges Peter to play his part. She whispers, “Just as I told you in my truck this afternoon.”

  Twisting the detonator switch to the dead man position, Peter holds it up, stares at Alexander, whose eyes now turn depths-of-the-seas dark at seeing him, and declares, “Alexander, our object is surrounded by enough high-powered explosives to make dust out of both of them.”

  And the clicks of many guns ring through the air as Alexander’s remaining guards take aim at him. Peter turns around slowly so the guards can see his thumb on the detonator and yells, “This is a dead man switch. You shoot me and you all die.” And as Peter talks, more of Alexander’s guards slowly disappear.

  Alexander waves his hand in a big arc to the side, and his guards drop their rifle aim off Peter. He puts on a fatherly face. “My boy, you have done well. Remember our conversation in Luxembourg? We are more alike than different on a deep intrinsic level. We both needed to find that woman on Jean-Paul’s medallion. We both needed our other half of the apple, who we found was Zara.”

  He looks at Zara with a loving face. “There was not a Zara of my generation, so I took Zara as my daughter. Peter, you have a sibling relationship with her, but you would like so much more. I forgive her for all of her misdeeds, for her follies, and even for her treacheries.” Alexander peers into Zara’s eyes with a loving smile, which then melts into something more sinister.

  He turns back to Peter. “You forgave her for all of her past badness, as she had said to you. You forgive her now, even though you know she has held back sex from you, the sex she freely gave to men who are your betters. You forgive her now even though she has used you, just as all the other women in your life used you. I love her very deeply for all of who she is, good and bad. You want to love her very deeply for all of who she is, but she won’t let you fully be with her. And you stand here in front of me now, still not knowing who she really is. And yet you hold my object hostage for a woman you do not know.”

  Alexander pauses to check his little Zara, who has not changed her game face, only watching the events happening around Alexander, one by one by one, in her peripheral vision.

  Focused solely on moving Peter to side with him, Alexander puts his hands out to Peter in an open gesture to join him. “My boy, Peter, you are like the son I could never have. The son with shared genetics of the originators. The son with whom I can help change the world for the better. Do you trust me, Peter, your alien genetic father? Or would you rather trust a priest who renounced his vows only to lie to you, to Zara, to the love of his life, the poor good Sister Magali?”

  Alexander now points to Zara. “Or a seemingly needy woman who hides her past from you, who hides her true motives from you? Who uses you without returning your love for her? I have done for you what I said I would. I have foretold to you things that have happened. Am I not the one you should trust the most here?”

  His eyes darken like the depths of the sea behind him, glaring into his surrogate daughter’s eyes, which reflect the exact same darkness. He asks, “My little Zara, what do you have to say to your Little Boy? Tell him that you will take him to your bed for real tonight. Like you did Anatoly. Like you did Dan. Like you did Zengo. Tell him that he will have with you what even his Sarah would not do.”

  Dead still, Zara does not drop her game face or her focus on what is happening around Alexander, weakening his position with each minute he pontificates. For she knows his needs for soliloquies and eggs him on, saying, “Keep talking, Sasha. Peter knows how bad I have been. He knows why I must die here today. He knows that I must die today at his hand.”

  Alexander realizes his exceptionally clever little Zara has “vaccinated” Peter by asking him to kill her, so he tries a different tack. “Peter, my boy, my son, who do you love the most in your life? Your grandfather, no? Why are you here? For me? For Zara? For your pappy? Your motives are the most noble of the three of you standing here. These supposedly newfound friends of yours, standing ready to kill me, ready to deprive the world of the wonders of these objects. In sharp contrast, you, Peter, you simply want peace for your pappy. Tell me, Peter, when Pappy dies, will his agony over his father and what he was, what he did or did not do, be gone? He will die with the agony that his father will forever be known as a Nazi conspirator, a war criminal, a pain he has harbored for all his adult life. So shameful he hid it from you until only three weeks ago. Which is more important to you? Freeing Pappy of his guilt-ridden pain? Or chasing the unrequited love of a woman who will not truly let you in? A woman you have only known for a few weeks?”

  Peter glances over at Zara with different eyes. Alexander has clearly gotten to him. But Zara does not take her focus off the situation around her as she says, “Peter, you know what we have seen together. You know what you have seen in me. It is all real. It is all true. You know what you have to do. Do it.”

  Peter looks back at Alexander with resignation and asks, “That’s a lot of talk. What can you really do for my pappy?”

  Alexander smiles and replies, “I can exonerate the father of your dear anguished pappy of all wrongdoing. You can bring proof to the world that your dishonored great-grandfather was in all actuality a Nazi resistance fighter, a hero of his times. For all times. My father and your great-grandfather discovered the secrets, ones with which we, you and me, Peter, can together bring true peace to mankind. Your pappy will die with the greatest inner peace knowing this. Your pappy does not believe in heaven, so all he has is the peace he might have upon his death. Let me help you in your mission, the reason why you are truly here today.”

  Peter looks at Alexander, who has just appealed to him on a level he cannot deny. He stares down at his arms, chest and
belly, so much more muscular and toned than three weeks before, with the gun in his belt, and then at Zara, who has had her eyes closed, saying something in silence, maybe her last words before she dies. He so wants her to compel him with her love and compassion into believing that everything Alexander is saying is mere lies. But Zara only peers at him with deeply cold, dark, piercing eyes, the same as Alexander’s, and says, “We are ready, Peter. Tell him what you want.”

  Alexander senses the cold-bloodedness in her voice and, knowing his little Zara all too well, scans around. His guards have disappeared. He turns back to Zara and smiles. “You have done well, my little Zara. I have trained you too well.”

  Zara answers, “Peter has more character, more resolve, more ethics than you give him credit for.” She looks at Peter just as coldly as she did before and glances upwards. “Peter, do what you believe is right, but do it now before it is too late.”

  Peter looks at the skies and the clouds that have gathered. Grey sad ones. Not angry ones, but sad, grieving ones, mourning the death to come of someone he loves so much. He glances back to the object and asks his pappy’s forgiveness for what he is going to do.

  He says to Alexander, “I will detonate our object if you don’t withdraw from here now. You lose. I lose. The world loses.”

  Alexander doesn’t flinch. With his frigid black eyes piercing into Peter’s soul, he says in a firm, fatherly tone, “I know you, son. You cannot destroy our world’s best hope for peace. You cannot kill Zara, no matter what she has asked of you. You only parrot her words, which she has beguiled you into saying. My son, Peter, why do you think you follow women around like you do? You followed Mei without a thought. You followed your beloved Sarah like a good puppy. You follow Zara blindly, no matter how she treats you. Your mother trained you to do so. It is what the mothers of the afflicted do. They make sure the male half of the apple is fully under the control of the female half. It is a pattern that has prevented mankind from truly benefiting from the full power of the objects. You can break this pattern, Peter.”