A Malevolent Manner (Patrick Pierce #1)

by William Scott

  *

  “What?!” Pierce exclaimed jumping up from his seat, confused by Lodges’ statement.

  “Schell was the most recent recruit before you,” Tiberius answered for Lodge, finally entering the conversation. “He was supposed to be our ally in the Hunt.”

  “But his character proved too ingrained. Within a short time I could tell he had become too comfortable with his surroundings to risk anything,” Lodge explained calmly. “We have files on all prospective recruits and he appeared to be the best suited to helping us. He had none of the deviant aspects as the others here or those in the recruiting files.”

  “Wait, I have a file,” Pierce observed immediately wary. “What criminal characteristic do I have? What am I doing here?”

  “We needed a true ally,” Tiberius said first. “Cleaver had become too powerful and was starting to act openly against Lord Lodge. For a place not susceptible to the ravages of time, we were running out of it.”

  “Ironic isn’t it?” Lodge offered lamely.

  “Let me see my file,” Pierce demanded, as he started pacing the room. “Why am I grouped in with the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazis?”

  “You’re the mindless bureaucrat,” Lodge replied bluntly as his eyes followed Pierce’s movements. “That’s the personality type that got you a file here. You have no agenda, merely to follow orders as they’re laid out to you. You have no creative ideas of your own and wish nothing more than a pat on the head for a job well done.”

  Pierce stopped suddenly, initially unwilling to hear the truth in the statement. But deep inside, he couldn’t deny the possibility it was true. Before arriving at the Manor his life had followed that path precisely. He never questioned orders, merely worked diligently and kept his head down. But he’d never done anything criminal in his life. Nor had he ever ignored or suppressed evidence of wrongdoing by others.

  “You were recruited early,” Tiberius offered, seeing the confusion on Pierce’s face. “We realized that if we recruited you when the file said you’d be most susceptible, it would be too late. Like Schell. But we needed to get someone who had a file here in order to avoid arousing too much suspicion. We even had Cleaver’s lapdog do the recruitment.”

  “We needed someone who could be pushed to greatness,” Lodge continued for his trusted aide. “You were the one truly good man in the files and you’ve proven that.”

  “So you grabbed me before I went bad?” Pierce asked quietly.

  “No, it’s not that simple. We brought you here to allow your true self to develop,” Lodge countered immediately. “Your true potential was wasting away as you lived your simple life and would have continued to stagnate, slowly turning sour over time.”

  “I want to see my file.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t show it to you,” Lodge rejected swiftly, knowing that the request had been coming. “It contains too much information about your future. You were supposed to be recruited fifteen years later than you were.”

  “I need to see it!” Pierce banged on Lodge’s desk with a closed fist. “I need to know what I become!”

  “Why do you need to see it so badly? The man in the file doesn’t exist and never will. As such I’ve destroyed it.”

  “You did what?!”

  “It has been destroyed,” Lodge repeated, calmly pointing to a dying fire to the right of him. Pierce ran over to the grate, only to find illegible charred pieces of paper scattered within. “After everything you’ve done and seen here, Commandant Pierce will never exist. You’re life has altered drastically from the path you were on. For the better I think.”

  “You talk about making things better,” Pierce replied icily with his gaze still on the burnt file. “But you’re still trying to play God. How bad must I have become for you to think I’m now a better man. Do you know how many people I killed before receiving your letter? Zero. Do you know how many people I’ve killed since? More than fucking zero!”

  “Those were necessary deaths Patrick,” Lodge gently responded to Pierce’s shouting accusation.

  “Necessary for whom? Not for me. If I was back in Ottawa I would have been happily oblivious. So tell me, what was I to become that is so much worse than the killer standing here now?” Pierce made his demand as he walked back towards Lodge’s desk, practically shaking in anger.

  “When you were supposed to be recruited you would have been a high ranking officer in the Royal Canadian Marshal Service. You were the commandant of a special prison for terrorists in Northern Quebec. The inmates were generally held without full process of the law or their guilt wasn’t yet proven in court.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, there is no Royal Canadian Marshal Service” Pierce mumbled in confusion before remembering the black uniform he’d worn. But the uniform alone wasn’t enough to convince him completely. “Something like that couldn’t happen in Canada, not the Canada I know.”

  “The Canada you know changed dramatically in the future,” Lodge continued, unhappy at having to relay the truth. “A few years after the date Tiberius and Drummond recruited you, a series of bombings took place in Quebec. They were immediately blamed on Islamic extremists angry over language laws and the banning of religious clothing. Anti-Islamic groups sprung up everywhere and the province descended into chaos. However it was soon discovered that the bombings were in fact the acts of radical Quebec separatists, using the chaos and anger to try and take power. The federal government moved in to calm the situation, however it only inflamed things. Think of the FLQ crisis multiplied by a factor of ten. Soldiers, police, bankers, judges, all of them targeted by bombs or ambushed by snipers. The authorities were fairly successful at capturing many of these home-grown terrorist at the beginning. But the criminals soon became just as adept at escaping captivity, with the authorities busy arguing over jurisdiction and unable to track them down.

  “Eventually a mid-level public servant wrote a position paper on the creation of a marshal service modelled after the American organization, but with greater power. They would track down and capture fugitives of the law, specialising on the separatists. The difference being that they would also be responsible for the creation and maintenance of special prisons for captured terrorists and fugitives.”

  “Who would have written such a thing?” Pierce asked incredulously.

  “You did.”

  The two words hung in the air between them for a minute. Pierce couldn’t reconcile the story he had just heard with what he knew of his own character. The idea of limiting a person’s freedom or liberty was repugnant to him. But a small voice in his head told him that the story had a ring of truth.

  “A number of your friends and colleagues had been victims of these escaped terrorists and you were in an angry state of mind. I imagine you wrote the paper in order to burn off some steam and never thought it would be seriously looked at. This was why I didn’t want to tell you,” Lodge offered apologetically.

  “What… What did I do, as Commandant?”

  “I have probably already said too much,” Lodge said, shaking his head in dismay.

  “Tell me,” Pierce demanded with quiet determination. The surrealism of asking about his own future didn’t register to him as he asked the question. He was too focused on the story, desperately needing to find out what he did. He wasn’t even sure where the desire came from. Part of him knew that that future was no longer possible for him. But another part of him worried that it would simply manifest itself in another way if he didn’t find out how ruthless he would become.

  “You were responsible for all of the inmates placed in the special prison,” Lodge began vaguely. But when Pierce shot him a frustrated glance, he continued with more precision. “Your job was to make sure those captured stayed captured in order to be used to provide information on their comrades. Was torture employed? Yes. Did you do anything personally? I doubt it, but I don’t know for certain. Those prisoners that did escape were hunted down under your supervision and apprehended with extr
eme prejudice.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that they were generally killed once captured,” Tiberius explained for Lodge who had become silent. “Poor encourager les autres.”

  “I have to go back,” Pierce replied immediately. “I have to go back and fix things.”

  “There’s nothing to fix, it hasn’t happened yet. Like Lord Lodge said, Commandant Pierce will never exist and the experiences you’ve had since arriving will ensure you don’t become him in future,” Tiberius argued. “We need you here, to recover from this current upheaval.”

  “Despite the seemingly magical properties of this island, I can’t live forever,” Lord Lodge declared solemnly to both men. “Patrick, I need you to take over for me when I go. I want you to be the Master of the Manor.”

  Lodge’s wish made Pierce even more conflicted. A part of him wanted to remain at the Manor, swathed in luxurious comfort. But another part of him felt an obligation to the place he called home and its future happiness.

  “I have to go back,” he repeated thoughtfully. “I understand that my future will no longer follow that old path. But it’s not about me anymore. As a young man I grew up proud to be a Canadian. I celebrated our contributions to medicine and science, and our role as peacekeepers. I relished our ability to withstand the hardships of winter and felt a tingle every time I heard Paul Henderson’s Summit Series winning goal. But I can’t idly sit here in this museum of malevolence when I could be saving my country from itself.”

  “You can do more good here than returning to your old life,” Tiberius continued his arguement. “The terrorist attacks will occur and a similar position paper will be written whether you return or not. But by staying here you can make a positive impact on a much greater scale. Think of all the good we could do from here!”

  “Look at how well your good intentions have worked so far,” Pierce rebuked angrily. “We barely stopped a madman from ruining history and now there’s an evil genius who’s gone missing!”

  “That’s precisely why you’re needed. The power of this place cannot be left in the hands of lesser men. But I won’t stop your return if that’s what you want to do,” Lodge allowed with disappointment.

  “That’s not what I want to do,” Pierce objected sadly. “I want to stay here for the rest of my life, living like nobility with the power to travel through time and see history first hand. But if I ignore all the bad things that will happen to my country in order to stay, won’t I be just as guilty as Schell in my inaction? And if I stay and try and manipulate history from the North Tower, won’t I be just as guilty as Bufford or Cleaver?”

  Lord Lodge merely sat silently and continued smoking his pipe in silence, his eyes staring at Pierce intently.

  “If you gentlemen have nothing further I’m going to go back to my rooms and get drunk with my friends. I think we’ve deserved it. I’ll make my decision in a couple of days when everything has calmed down and I’ve had time to think.”

  Lord Lodge and Tiberius accepted this as Pierce stood up and marched out of the room.

  “I told you he was the one,” Lodge proclaimed before returning to the documents on his desk.

  Chapter 33