Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  I still couldn’t believe that they’d finally finished the Washington Monument after more than a century of dithering. Now they were talking about a memorial to Jefferson, but the Negroes were protesting, especially Senator Beltonson, because they said Jefferson had been a slave owner, not that there had really been that many slaves after the horrors of the Sally Wright incident. Speaker Calhoun’s compromise had effectively led the way to civil rights for the Negroes, and Senator Lincoln’s Codification of the Rights of Man had set an amended compromise in solid law. Personally, I still thought Jefferson had been a great man. You have to judge people by the times they lived in, not the times you live in.

  The same drizzle that had enveloped New Bruges the day before had reached the Federal District of Columbia, except it was warmer, steamier, unseasonably hot, even in the former swamp that was the Republic’s capital.

  I wiped my forehead on the cotton handkerchief, sweating more than I would have liked. At least I didn’t have to go to the congressional offices. Electric fans were their sole official source of cooling; only the White House was fully air-conditioned. That had been one of Speaker Roosevelt’s decisions—that air conditioning would only make the Congress want to spend more time than was wise in Columbia.

  As ceremonial head of state, of course, the president was obliged to stay whether he liked it or not. So he got the air conditioning, and so did the rococo monstrosity that housed his budget examiners. His budget reviews and public criticisms were about the only real substantive powers the president had. I had seen a lot done with budget reviews, and members of Congress didn’t like to seem ridiculous.

  As for the heat, the Congress made do with fans or left Washington, and the civil servants sweated. Of course, ministers did find ways to cool their individual offices, but no one talked much about it, so long as they spent their own money. In the 1930s, Speaker Roosevelt had also insisted that the growth of the various ministries would be restricted by the heat. I hadn’t seen that—only a lot of sweating civil servants. Anyway, how could one imagine a government much larger than the half million or so on the federals’ dole?

  I hailed an electrocab outside the station. “A dollar extra for a single ride.”

  “The single is yours, sir.” The driver opened the door. “Where to?”

  “The Ministry of Natural Resources, Sixteenth Street door, north end.”

  We passed the new Smithsonian Gallery—Dutch Masters—built to contain the collection of Hendrik, the Grand Duke of Holland. At least he had been Grand Duke until Ferdinand VI’s armies had swept across the Low Countries.

  Columbian Dutch, the oil people, had paid for the building. The Congress had approved it over my objections to the design—heavy—walled marble, stolid and apparently strong enough to withstand the newest Krupp tanks, even the kinds the Congress had shipped to the Brits and the Irish to discourage Ferdinand from attempting some sort of cross-channel adventure. Not that a gross of metal monsters had ever stopped any would-be conqueror.

  Besides, Ferdinand was through with conquests. The Austro-Hungarian empire was nothing if not patient. England would not fall until Ferdinand VII took the throne. By then, most of the ghosts in France would have departed, and the remaining French would be dutiful citizens of the Empire, happy with their taxes and the longest period of peace and prosperity in their history—bought only at the cost of thirty percent of their former population.

  Ghosting worked both ways—but basically too many ghosts hurt the locale where they were created. That was why ghosts almost stopped William the Unfortunate’s conquest of England, but not the Vikings or the early Mongols. They also stopped a lot of murders and slowed early population growth—second wives didn’t take too well to a weeping female ghost who had died in childbirth.

  I was probably being too cautious, but strange wire messages recalling former agents to duty and promising stranger assignments have a tendency to reintroduce occupational paranoia all too quickly. I could feel my chest tighten even as I thought about it.

  “Here you be, sir.”

  I nodded and handed him two dollars and a silver half-dollar.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  After offering my identification card to the guard—I’d never surrendered it—I walked to the corner of the building and took the steps to the basement, and then those to the subbasement. A guard sat at the usual desk around the bend in the tunnel.

  “Your business, sir?”

  He wasn’t a problem, but the armed sentry in the box behind him was.

  “Doktor Eschbach. I’m here to see Subminister vanBecton.”

  He picked up the handset, and I waited.

  “You are expected, Doktor.”

  I nodded again and walked down the tunnel under Sixteenth Street until I came out in the subbasement of the Spazi building. Another set of guards studied me flatly, but I just nodded. They were there to keep people from leaving, not entering. Officially, it was called the Security Service building, but it was still the Spazi building, with the flat gray ceramic tiles and light-blond wood paneling designed to hide the darkness behind each door. The smell of disinfectant was particularly strong in the subbasement.

  VanBecton’s office was on the fourth floor. I walked up, in keeping with my recent resolve to improve my conditioning, but I was still panting, and stopped a moment on the landing to catch my breath. Even on the fourth floor I could smell disinfectant, common to jails and security services the world over.

  The disinfectant odor vanished when I opened the landing door and stepped onto the dark rust carpet on the corridor leading to his office in the middle of the floor. Corner offices, for all their vaunted views, are too exposed.

  His clerk, though young, had a narrow pinched face under wire-rimmed glasses, and presided over a large wireline console. “Might I help you?” Her eyes flickered to the bearded man in the loud brown tweeds perched on one end of the leather settee. The bearded man glanced at me impassively.

  I extended a card to the clerk. There was no sense in announcing my name unnecessarily. “Minister vanBecton invited me for a meeting.”

  “Yes, Doktor.” She picked up one of the handsets and dialed. “The doktor has arrived.” She listened for a moment, then added, “Yes, sir.”

  I smiled pleasantly as she turned toward the bearded man. “Your meeting may be delayed slightly, sir.”

  The other’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded. I returned the nod.

  “Doktor, it may be a moment. If you would be so kind …”

  “Thank you.” I took the straight-backed chair in front of the dark mahogany bookcases. I picked up the Friday Columbia Post-Dispatch, since the fellow in brown English tweeds clearly had either read it or had no interest in doing so. There was another story on religious protests against psychic research, and more speculation about the full extent of Defense Ministry funding of such projects. I also enjoyed the story which speculated that Senator Hartpence’s private office in the Capitol had seen some very private uses, and which suggested that, improper as such uses might have been, a politician’s private life remained his own. How could it not be? Then again, perhaps even the mention of the incident might be a disturbing trend. Would the masses decide that they would buy more newspapers if such tidbits were more frequent?

  “Doktor? Minister vanBecton will see you.”

  She opened the door in the blond-paneled wall to her left, but did not enter, and closed it behind me.

  The office was almost the same, except that vanBecton had added an Escher oil in place of the copy of the Night Watch. It looked like an original, not that it surprised me much.

  “Good afternoon, Doktor Eschbach.” The man standing behind the wide, dark English oak desk gave me a half-bow.

  “Good afternoon, Minister vanBecton.” I returned the bow, and he gestured to the straight-backed leather chair facing the desk. I slipped into it, and he sat back down in the slightly overpadded burgundy leather swivel chair. The office was still th
at combination of Dutch and English—dark Dutch furnishings and English lack of spark—that created an impression of bureaucratic inertia. The windowsills were dark wood, not dusted frequently enough, reflecting the less astringent standards of the English-settled south.

  Gillaume vanBecton was a particular type of man raised from money and boarding schools. They are the ones who wear tailored gray pinstripes, their cravats accented in red, their graying hair trimmed weekly, their gray goatees shaped with that squarish Dutch cut to imply total integrity, and their guts almost as trim as when they once jumped over those lawn tennis nets they now only reach across in congratulating their always vanquished opponents. As they get older, they take up lawn bowling with the same grace as tennis, and the same results.

  I’ve always distrusted the vanBectons of the world. I hadn’t liked Hornsby Rogers, either, when he’d been seated behind vanBecton’s desk.

  If he had actually done a tenth of what he’d probably ordered, Gillaume vanBecton would have been a bright-eyed, ex-ghosted shadow—a zombie cheerfully pushing a broom for the city or hand-sorting glass for the recycling bins. Instead, he was the honorable Gillaume vanBecton, Deputy Minister for Internal Security of the Sedition Prevention and Security Service, in short, the number-two Spazi, the one responsible for all the dirty work.

  “I am at your disposal.”

  “I am pleased that you recognize that.” VanBecton smiled briefly.

  “I try to be a realist.”

  “Good.”

  “What is this ‘consulting’ assignment, if I might ask?”

  “It has to do with your Fräulein duBoise—”

  “Doktor duBoise?”

  “We have some concerns about who she really is.”

  “You don’t know? Perhaps I can help you. Her name is Llysette Marie duBoise. After obtaining her degrees, she apprenticed at the Académie Royale, then premiered in Marseilles, where she eventually sang and bedded her way into the roles she deserved and needed to support her family. Her mother died, and later her father was killed by Ferdinand’s troops. Because she had some stature, and because of some intervention by the Japanese ambassador, who had heard her sing, she was allowed to leave France—although not without, shall we say, some detailed interrogation.” I inclined my head politely.

  “How detailed, Doktor Eschbach?” VanBecton’s voice remained smooth, and he leaned back in the heavy swivel chair.

  “Enough to leave scars where they are not normally visible.”

  The subminister leaned forward again, but his eyes did not hold the smile of his mouth. “That would certainly seem to provide some indication that she has no love of Ferdinand. But … how do you know she isn’t an agent of New France? Maximilian VI—”

  “He’s a fifteen-year-old boy. We both know Marshal de-Gaulle runs New France.” I shrugged. “These days anyone can be working for anyone else. But, even assuming Doktor duBoise were an agent of New France, why on earth would she be in New Bruges?”

  “At first glance, that would seem odd.” VanBecton continued to smile. “Although Maurice-Huizenga has been known to recruit other … refugees.” He covered his mouth and coughed, and his hand brushed the top drawer. That was where Rogers had kept his gun, and probably where vanBecton kept his. Stupid of him, since, if murder had been anyone’s objective, including mine, vanBecton would have been dead before he could reach the weapon.

  “At first glance?” I decided to oblige him.

  “Don’t you think this whole business is rather odd, at least from the federals’ position? A former New Tory subminister returns to teach at a mere state university in a small town in New Bruges where he once spent summers. All very innocent until we consider that his position as a subminister was essentially to fatten his pension for his previous services to his country and to provide some consolation for the personal trials occasioned by his service. Then a refugee from the fall of France appears, a lovely and highly talented … lady, and she immediately becomes close to this widower, a man possibly—shall we say—vulnerable … Then another academic with a past better left not too closely inspected is murdered for no apparent reason.”

  “And might you tell me why Professor Miller’s past is better left not too closely inspected? Was she an agent of Ferdinand? Or perhaps of Takaynishu?”

  VanBecton smiled politely. “We actually are not sure, only that she was receiving laundered funds and instructions.”

  “What instructions? I’d rather not get in the way of a murderer trying to find out what you already know.”

  “She was instructed to find out what you were doing and to try to compromise you in a way to cast discredit upon the government.”

  “Someone seems to have looked out for me.”

  “No one that we know of,” vanBecton said blandly.

  “Perhaps it was fortuitous.” I offered another shrug. “Murders occur, but rarely are they openly investigated by the Spazi. That was just obvious enough to show your interest.”

  VanBecton steepled his fingers together. “A nice touch, I do believe. I trust that it will make Doktor duBoise more reliant upon your protection.”

  I didn’t have to force a frown. “I doubt that you are paying expenses merely to encourage Doktor duBoise to rely upon me. If anything, my traveling here right after the murder would make her somewhat suspicious.”

  “You will have to work to allay her fears, Doktor.” He smiled broadly, fingering the standard-issue pen.

  “But of course.” I returned his smile with one equally as false.

  “You can be quite convincing.” VanBecton cleared his throat before continuing. “According to Colonel Nord.”

  I held my temper. “Considering my patriotism cost me my son and later my wife …”

  “I am certain that Minister Reilly handled it as well as he could.”

  “… and that the Spazi blocked further treatment in Vienna, treatment she wouldn’t have even needed …”

  “You knew the risks. As we know, Doktor Eschbach, the Austro-Hungarians only claim to have an effective treatment for degenerative lung fibrosis.”

  “The Health Office of the League of Nations has verified it.”

  “The League of Nations also verified that General Buonoparte used no poison gas on the French strikers in Marseilles.”

  I forced a shrug of reluctant agreement. Nothing I offered would convince vanBecton. He was one of the true believers, and nothing existed beyond his narrow vision of the world. In a way, his attitude reinforced my reluctant support of Ralston, though I suspected Ralston, in his indirect way, was the more deadly of the two.

  “Does it really matter, Doktor Eschbach? We’re men of the world. Only perceptions count, not reality.” He smiled again.

  “And what else do you want?”

  “If you could trouble yourself to find out why Professor Miller was murdered, and why she wanted to discredit you—certainly in your interest—it would be helpful.”

  “It’s also clearly in your interest not to have me discredited.”

  “Not so much as you think, Doktor Eschbach. It could be merely embarrassing for us.”

  “I so appreciate your concern. I presume I will be hearing from you again.”

  “As necessary.” He stood.

  I followed his example.

  “I assume you know the way out.” He gestured to the rear door.

  “I have been here once or twice.”

  “I look forward to seeing you again.”

  “And I, you.”

  The narrow corridor had two one-way doors, both steelcored in steel frames, before it opened onto the main hall. The second door looked more like a closet door than one to an office. Overkill, in a way, given the guards in and around the building.

  Just to make matters a shade more difficult for whoever might be following me, I retraced my path back to the Natural Resources building, except I had to show my identification to the guard on the Spazi side of the tunnel. Then I went up to my old offices on th
e fifth floor.

  Estelle was there. She smiled as I walked in. “Minister Eschbach! It is so good to see you.” Turning to the black-bearded young man beside her, she added, “Doktor Eschbach was the subminister before Minister Kramer.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.” He edged back ever so slightly. Clearly, he had heard of me.

  “I should only be a bit, Stephan,” Estelle said brightly. “We don’t get to see Doktor Eschbach much anymore.”

  “I’ll check back in a few moments.” Stephan looked at me once more before he stepped past us and out into the main hallway.

  “How do you like being back in New Bruges?”

  “It’s definitely a change.” I laughed. “But not so much as I’d thought. The teaching is interesting. Other things aren’t that different. What about here?”

  Estelle glanced around, then lowered her voice. “It hasn’t been the same since you left. Everyone worries about whether the Hartpencers will go after them.”

  “Hartpencers?”

  “The Speaker put his own people everywhere—” She broke off and forced a smile as the door to the right opened. “Minister Kramer—do you remember Minister Eschbach?”

  “It’s good to see you, Kenneth. I hope the job is treating you well.” I gave a half-bow.

  “It has been an education,” my successor offered. “And Estelle has been most helpful.” He glanced toward her.

  “I understand. Perhaps the next time I’m in the Federal District …”

  They both nodded. I stepped into the corridor, then made my way to the Seventeenth Street exit. From there I took a cab up to the Ghirardelli Chocolatiers right off Dupont Circle. Llysette would enjoy some chocolates, even as a peace offering. The cab waited, for an extra dollar, then eased through the heavy afternoon traffic in a stop-and-go fashion.

  Up New Bruges Avenue, I could see the rising-sun flags where the massive Japanese embassy stood on one side of the avenue, less than two blocks above DuPont Circle. While I could not see it from the cab window, the embassy of Chung Kuo stood across from it, just as the two Far Eastern empires squared off across the Sea of Japan. I also could not see the cordoned-off section of the sidewalk where the ghosts of ten Vietnamese monks still wailed fifteen years after they immolated themselves there in protest. Still, I knew they were there, and so did the Chinese—not that it seemed to stop them. They seemed to like the reminder of the futility of protest to their endless expansion.