Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Minister Eschbach … now that your wife’s concerts are completed … we had hoped that you would be willing to tour the prototype of the Great Salt Lake City wastewater tertiary treatment plant,” suggested the heavier-set man beside Counselor Cannon. “That way, you could report to Minister Reilly on our progress in water reuse and the continued progress on meeting the goals of the riverine agreements.”

  Wastewater treatment? Minister Reilly might like that, but did I really care? “What did you have in mind?”

  “Perhaps early tomorrow. We understand that you will not be leaving until Wednesday.”

  “That might be possible.”

  “We had also hoped,” suggested the thinner, unnamed man, “that you might be free to see the water reuse section of the new stage-three synthfuels plant near Colorado Junction.”

  What half of the Columbian government wouldn’t give for me to see that. “I hadn’t even considered that possibility.”

  “We would be honored,” added Counselor Cannon.

  At that instant, I heard—or felt or sensed—something chill and menacing. A faint scream? A cold feeling gripped me. “Excuse me.”

  “Minister Eschbach … but …”

  I pushed past the wastewater man, sprinting forward and right into Llysette’s dressing room. I also ran into something else, barely getting an arm up in time, and that was enough to send me reeling back into the door.

  I staggered up, but the dark-shadowed figure literally disappeared.

  My head throbbed, and Llysette’s dressing room was empty. Her gown lay on the floor, and her dress was gone. So was she. A few drops of blood led toward or away from the corner of the room.

  I stood there fuzzily for a moment. No one had gone past me. Then I saw the air return grate, unattached and leaning against the wall. A man-sized section of the metal on the left side of the air grate ductwork beyond and behind where the grate cover had been cut out.

  I didn’t bother to wait for whoever it was who charged into the dressing room behind me but scrambled through the grate aperture and then through the opening in the air return duct and into a room filled with pallets of paper products or something. I almost tripped but half-ran, half-tumbled out that door into a back corridor—just in time to see two black figures sprinting down a ramp.

  I sprinted after them, but by the time I got to the lower garage, a steam van had hissed up the ramp and vanished into the darkness.

  A pair of Danites and a uniformed policeman pounded up behind me.

  “They’re gone.” I wanted to shake my head, but it might have fallen off if I had. I touched my forehead, and my hand came away bloody.

  I followed them back to a small conference room in the center, where Brother Hansen and two other blue-uniformed officers waited. I didn’t wait to be asked but dropped into one of the chairs. I just looked at Hansen. “I couldn’t catch them.”

  “This was on her dressing table.” A grim-faced Brother Hansen handed me an envelope. It had been opened, and that bothered me in a way.

  I looked at it. In block letters that could have come from any of a dozen difference-engine printers was inscribed: “MINISTER ESCHBACH.”

  The message inside was short—very short.

  You will be contacted. Be ready. We do not want your wife.

  I had a good idea what they wanted, and someone knew me well enough to understand that I was far more vulnerable through Llysette.

  “What has anyone discovered?” I asked tiredly.

  “Brother Jensen was surprised, bound, and gagged,” said Hansen coldly. “His keys were taken, with all the master keys.” Hansen seemed to have taken over the investigation, and the uniformed officers looked at him as he talked. “The steamer the kidnappers took was a common blue 1990 Browning, and the tags were covered. There are more than ten thousand blue 1990 Browning in Deseret. They wore gloves, it seems, and the security system was disabled on a lower garage door. Bypassed, actually. They wore standard staff working uniforms, and we think they wore flesh masks as well.”

  “In short,” I said, “they left no traces at all. What about the tools?”

  “They were all taken from the cribs on the lower levels. That was why they made the attempt tonight. They probably had all afternoon to get organized.”

  “No working on Saturday afternoons?”

  “Right. When did you last talk to Brother Jensen?”

  “Before the concert, I talked to him briefly, but he had some problems. Maintenance problems, I gathered, because he was briefing or listening to several workmen.”

  “Do you have any idea what they want from you?”

  That was the question I’d been dreading, in a way. I took a deep breath. “It could be anything. Something about government in Columbia, information about … people I’ve worked with.” I shook my head. “Most of that I’d think they could get from other sources. I’ve been out of government long enough that things have certainly changed. And why they’d kidnap Llysette I don’t know.”

  “There are some indications that they settled for her,” Hansen said. “You can’t think of anything else?”

  I could think of plenty. “Let me think about it. There’s probably something, but my wife’s been taken, and I’m not thinking too clearly.” That part was definitely true. It’s different when matters are personal. I’d found that out with the Nord incident and with vanBecton’s games last year.

  I stood. “So far as I can figure out, I’m not going to be contacted here, and I don’t know what else I can add.” My eyes went to Hansen. “How do I reach you?”

  He extended a card. I read it—“James V. Hansen, Bishop for Security,” and a wireset number. “I think we should meet tomorrow, Minister Eschbach. Perhaps around eleven tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “We could come to your suite. That might be easier.”

  “Fine. Eleven. Unless you find out something sooner.”

  “I’ll have Officer Young escort you back to your room.”

  I nodded and heaved myself to my feet. Fine operative you are, Eschbach. You can’t even protect your own wife when you knew there was trouble.

  Dan Perkins stood outside the conference room. He’d been waiting. “No one told me, and it took a while to find someone who knew.” He swallowed. “Minister Eschbach … I’m sorry. If I had known … this would happen … They wanted the concert … so badly. I just don’t see.” He shook his head.

  “It wasn’t your doing.” I shook my head.

  “I told them she was the best in Columbia.”

  “She is. But that’s not exactly your fault.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He paused again. “Can I do anything?”

  Somehow, I didn’t think so. I had the feeling that he was probably the only honest one in the bunch, and there was no sense in getting him tangled up. “Just make sure you put together the best recording that you can.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “I think Llysette will be all right. One way or another, though, the singing was important, almost everything at times, and she’ll want the recording.” I was trying to be positive, hoping that the kidnappers would keep Llysette alive long enough for me to ensure that she’d remain so. The fact that it was a kidnapping, rather than another assassination, gave me some hope.

  “I understand.” He worried his lower lip. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  Something he’d said earlier … I frowned. “You said they had wanted the concert so badly.”

  “When Brother Jensen found out that Dame Brighton was unavailable—she’d agreed, less willingly than Llysette, to sing two of my songs—he wired me. I wasn’t going to be the accompanist for Dame Brightman, you see. She has her own, some fellow named … I don’t recall. Jensen wanted to know who the best singer in Columbia was that he could get who could also sing at least a couple of my songs. I thought of Llysette, because of James Bird.”

  I waited. The name was familiar, but I didn’t
recall why.

  “He attended one of her master classes in New Bruges last year. James has a good ear, and he was impressed. I knew her by reputation, and she’d written asking for one of my arrangements. So I told Jensen all that. He asked if I would play for her.” Perkins shrugged. “When he mentioned the fee, I couldn’t say no, but I did push for the recording rights for us.”

  “Us?”

  “It was in the contract. Llysette and I split them fifty-fifty. He agreed without even a murmur, and that was unusual. Then I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks. He wired and sent a contract, with the notation that I’d definitely understated her ability and that the First Counselor would surely be pleased with the concert.”

  “I take it that such effusiveness isn’t exactly normal in their past dealings with you?”

  A wry smile crossed the composer’s face, and I got the picture. Daniel Perkins wasn’t exactly persona grata with the hierarchy in Deseret, but he was just well enough known that they’d had to tolerate him.

  “Your songs are well received elsewhere,” I pointed out. “And your operas.”

  “Elsewhere—that’s true.”

  More pieces fell into place—or more confirmation of what I’d already suspected.

  “I’d even bet that you haven’t had much trouble lining up international distribution for the recordings.”

  That brought another wintry smile. “I see you understand.”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “I shouldn’t be keeping you.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. But if there’s anything Jillian or I can do.” He handed me a card. “Anything.”

  “Hold good thoughts.” Very good thoughts.

  It had clearly been an inside job. Why had Llysette been given that particular dressing room? Jensen? Hansen? Cannon? Someone from the Revealed Twelve? But what did any of them have to gain? The problem was that I didn’t know Deseret politics well enough. I did know one thing. More than one person was playing for high stakes, very high stakes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The suite was empty—very empty. The thunk of the door echoed hollowly, but the sound of my boots was swallowed by the thick carpet as I walked to the bedroom. I took Llysette’s performing gown from the garment bag, holding it for a moment and wishing she were in it and I could hold her as well. Then I hung it up.

  I walked back to the sitting area and stood by the window, looking at the points of light. Great Salt Lake City—where Llysette’s career was supposed to have taken off. Great Salt Lake City—where events had confirmed, once more, that we never escaped our past, that we had to vanquish it again and again. And yet again.

  I closed my eyes. That didn’t help, and I opened them again.

  My thoughts were whirling because nothing added up—or, rather, too much added up. Hansen was in charge of security, apparently fairly high up, although I had no idea how high a bishop for security was, and he’d been involved from the beginning. That argued that someone had been worried early on. That worry was confirmed by our Danite followers and the constant surveillance.

  Yet someone had clearly bypassed everything, and Hansen wasn’t happy about it. That shone through, and it argued that if it were an inside job, he wasn’t on that part of the inside. The fact that Hansen had personally been half-watching Dan Perkins was another confirmation that Perkins wasn’t on the inside. Besides, Perkins had everything to lose from a plot that would hurt Llysette. She was literally his ticket back to respectability and financial security.

  The clippings and Counselor Cannon’s words indicated that he wanted to use Llysette—and me—as a lever for closer relations with Columbia. So who didn’t? The manner of Llysette’s disappearance argued that someone in the power structure didn’t agree with the counselor—either that or someone was awfully good at evading all the precautions set up by Jensen and Cannon and Hansen.

  Among my problems was that I didn’t know the power structure. Oh, Jerome had kindly provided me with names and bios, but they didn’t say much. The head of the LDS church, the “Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” was Wilford W. Taylor. He was also the President of the Kingdom of God in Deseret. Then there were the Twelve Apostles—or the First Presidency—depending on which hat they wore. But the real power there appeared to be the First Counselor, who, as speaker for the Quorum of Seventy and as counselor to the Apostles and the First Presidency, wielded power equivalent to that of, say, the Speaker of the House or a prime minister. His deputy was someone named C. Heber Kimball, who, as Second Counselor, ranked something like deputy prime minister.

  The other Apostles, as I recalled, had names like Smith, Young, Sherratt, Lee, Monson, Owens, and Orton. Some had biblical first names, others rather English varieties. Unfortunately, Jerome’s biographies didn’t provide many hints, and Cannon was the only one I’d met face-to-face—that I knew. I’d never been introduced to the pair with him at the Salt Palace. I should have asked, but I hadn’t been thinking. My head had been hurting—and still ached.

  With that reminder, I went into the bathroom and blotted away the dried blood … gently. The area around the cut was already swelling and would be very black and blue.

  The bedroom was just as empty as the sitting room.

  Finally, since I couldn’t sleep, tired as I was, and couldn’t seem to piece together much, I started assembling items, including Llysette’s hair dryer.

  Once I had what I thought I needed together, including fresh batteries in Bruce’s calculator gadget, I undressed slowly and climbed into bed. The faint scent of Llysette’s perfume didn’t help me sleep.

  Neither did thoughts and dreams about various terrorists I’d known. In the end, that part of me that was still Carolynne pleaded in Shakespearean quotes for me to seek refuge in sleep.

  I guess I did—for awhile—but I was awake with the sun, gray as it was through the inversion layer that again blanketed Great Salt Lake.

  After showering, shaving, and dressing, I looked at the silent wireset, then at the door. No calls. No notes. Then, it was Sunday, and no doubt a time of worship for all good—or radical—Saints.

  I was to be contacted. Wonderful. No one was going to contact me in my suite—that I doubted. So I went down to breakfast in The Refuge early on that Sunday morning. Two Danites waited in the lobby, one talking to the concierge, the other ostensibly using the wireset in the alcove off the registration desk.

  I was escorted quietly to a corner booth of The Refuge. For a moment, I sat there, not picking up the menu, but thinking of Llysette sitting across from me.

  Thinking about Llysette confined or tied up in some dark space or room didn’t help much, nor did the waiting. Lord, I hated waiting, good as I’d gotten at it in the Spazi. But it was different when it was personal.

  Special breakfast number two—a cheese and mushroom omelet—was what I settled on, sipping chocolate as I awaited my order.

  “Minister Eschbach?” The dark-haired man in the continental-cut suit smiled broadly as he slipped into the other side of the booth, seemingly oblivious to the Danites three tables away. His face was familiar, and he carried a small flat case scarcely larger than a folder full of maps or papers as he sat at the table. The case went on the linen between our places as he dropped into the chair across from me.

  I wanted to shake my head but forced a smile. “I should have guessed. What do you want?”

  “It wasn’t us, Johan.”

  “You didn’t take her?”

  “No. This was local, as you’ll find out in, I’d say, somewhere over an hour or so.” He smiled sadly. “Believe it or not, Johan, I had nothing to do with it. We don’t deal with families.”

  “And I suppose you had nothing to do with the attempts in New Bruges?”

  “I had nothing to do with that, either.” He poured water from the pitcher into the empty glass across from me, then took a long swallow.

  “Careful choice of the pronoun, Dietre.”

  Dietre shrugged. “I can’t stay l
ong. I’d suggest you tell the Saints that I recognized you from the concert and was congratulating you. By the way, she is the finest I’ve ever heard. And I have heard the finest. It is a pity that they must deal in such a … roundabout fashion.” He paused as the waiter set down my breakfast.

  “Would you like anything else, sir?”

  “Another pot of chocolate, thank you.”

  The waiter inclined his head and departed.

  “Always so Dutch you are, Johan.”

  “I could remark on your ancestry, but I’ll refrain. Still … it’s rather hard to believe that your … group …” I glanced toward the door but didn’t see any more Danites—or any motion from the pair at the nearby table. Then, they probably had orders to watch and not act unless I appeared threatened.

  “My … superior … doesn’t care much for you personally, Johan, but he’s no fool. Neither is his … leader, if you understand. They’d prefer that the present situation remain stable, but some accommodations could be made.” Dietre’s smile was wry. “These days, naval actions are all the rage, but some rumors have surfaced that General Lobos-Villas could have the south Kansas oilfields in less than forty-eight hours. Over the long run … not exactly desirable … except for enthusiasts of a ‘Greater Europe.’ Even our interests must bend to those of cultural diplomacy.”

  “You’re not here officially.” My stomach growled, and I took a small bite of the omelet, impolite as it may have been.

  “In Deseret, as officially as I can be. I’m an accredited representative of FrancoPetEx.” He nodded toward the folder lying on the table. “I believe you left that in the concert hall in your distress.”

  I looked at the plain black leather gingerly. “And?”

  “I found the contents most interesting, as I’m sure you did.”

  “This isn’t for free, Dietre. What do you want?”