Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  The FBI director stared at his friend. “Are you mad? The sonofabitch will either take you hostage or kill you.”

  “No. He has himself and his disciples as hostages. He doesn’t need me. And whatever else he is, he’s not a murderer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve done my homework on Koslow and his Olympians. They’ll only fight when attacked. Otherwise, they’re peaceful and nonaggressive. If they suffer from anything, it’s an apocalyptic vision that could lead to mass suicide. Which is right where they are now.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  Durning didn’t answer.

  “For God’s sake, Hank! You can’t do this. You’re the attorney general of the United States.”

  “I know who I am.” Henry Durning smiled. “That’s why I’m the only one here qualified to talk to Samson Koslow and God.”

  They stood staring at each other.

  “It just occurred to me,” said Durning. “That business of finding Vittorio Battaglia?”

  “What about it?”

  “On the outside chance I don’t make it back, you can forget about him.”

  Wayne’s eyes were blank.

  “I know I never did explain any part of that,” said Durn-ing. “But if I turn out to be wrong about Koslow, nothing about Vittorio Battaglia will matter anymore.”

  Henry Durning walked across the open fields.

  At first it almost seemed he was back in‘Nam, with the green, quiet menacing, the sun hot on his face, and a sense of hostile eyes watching him.

  Then he picked up the faint whirring sounds of the Camcorders and still cameras at his back and sides, and he knew exactly how different this was.

  Yet some of his fear was very much the same. Never mind what he had told Brian. He was dealing with religious cultists, zealots. Part of their theology was the theology of death. If you want to die for God, you have to be ready to kill for God. Also, with all their own dead and wounded, the Olympians would be seeing this by now as a holy war provoked by a repressive government.

  The attorney general pushed through high grass under a cloudless sky. He walked steadily past the agents, troopers, and deputies positioned along the government perimeter. He could feel their eyes on him.

  My army.

  Yet at one particular point, Durning came near to feeling more like a halfback who had caught a forty-yard pass and was running another fifty yards for the longest touchdown in the history of the team.

  Then he was past the last of their positions and there was only the heavy part ahead, with the steel-shuttered windows showing clear, and the gun muzzles aimed at him through their firing ports, and the solid, half-round logs of walls that could stop any rifle bullet made. But most especially there was the knowledge that at any second, depending upon the unpredictable impulses of fanatics steeped in a dogma of death and dying, he could be blown away.

  Durning just stared straight ahead, kept placing one foot in front of the other, and tried to read the air. Until, at a distance of about fifty feet, a massive door swung open and he saw the Reverend Samson Koslow waiting to greet him.

  A thin, middle-aged, shaggy-haired man with tired eyes, Koslow might have been the third-generation West Virginia miner he had started out as, with the coal dust freshly scrubbed from his face. Dressed in faded denim, he stood in the center of the open doorway, not moving from the spot until he had taken Durning’s hand.

  “Bless you for coming,” he said.

  Then Durning was inside, the door was closed and bolted, and he smelled his own excitement. When he turned, there was a world to see.

  The compound’s central building was cavernous, a great enclosed space in which the Olympian sect’s forty-three surviving men, women, and children had gathered to either live or die. Riflemen were on watch at the windows and gun-ports. Clusters of children were gathered in a far corner, shepherded by young women. Wounded lay stretched out on bare floors and bloodstained mattresses. The bodies of a man and woman were arranged side by side on a table. Candles burned at their heads and feet, and kneeling figures circled them in silent prayer.

  There was barely a sound, except for that of a baby crying. Dimly, Henry Durning wondered if it was the same child he had heard earlier on the telephone.

  At last he saw the worst, and his heart pounded and his mouth turned to flannel.

  He counted four of them altogether, one against each of the outside walls, where they stood like markers in a cemetery. Each made up of its own deadly conglomerate of dynamite and wires and detonators and five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline. Set off in concert, they were instant doomsday, total do-it-yourself obliteration.

  Very serious stuff, thought Henry Durning. If he’d had any doubts about the declared deadline before, he had none now.

  Koslow touched his arm. “Come,” he said, and led Durning to a small wooden table beside a window.

  A fragile, gray-haired woman brought two cups of water, set one before each of them, and walked away. Since their water had been cut off for days, Durning knew exactly how precious each cup was.

  “All right,” said Samson Koslow. “You’re here. You see us as we are. Nothing is hidden. So do we live or die?”

  “Too many have died already. I want no more dying.”

  “Then you’ll fold your tents and leave us in peace?”

  “It’s not that simple, Reverend.” Durning’s voice was soft, his tone and manner patient. He might have been speaking to a child. “There are still laws against shooting government agents.”

  “Not if the shooting was in defense of our lives, our liberty, and God. Not if the raid on our compound was unwarranted and unlawful. And certainly not if the attorney general understands justice as well as he understands the law and is willing to act accordingly.”

  They sat looking at each other. The religious leader’s thin face was reflective, ruminating, as if the complexities of their little discussion were already dragging after them the futures of forty-three lives.

  “Go ahead,” said Durning. “I’m listening.”

  “If I were a defense lawyer,” said Koslow, “I’d tell the jury my clients were victims of a wrongful attack designed as a publicity show by a desperate local FBI unit. I’d say—”

  “Wait.” The attorney general held up a hand. “You’re losing me. Please explain that.”

  “You mean you don’t know about these things?”

  Durning slowly shook his head.

  The reverend took a tiny sip of his precious water. “Well, maybe you don’t. You’re the attorney general and way up there next to God. The FBI is just one of your departments, and West Virginia is only a poor little state. You couldn’t be expected to know about every piece of petty downstream business.”

  “Then tell me about it, Reverend.”

  “The FBI’s Huntington office is facing tight budget hearings. They have to look good to keep from being closed down. So that’s what their unlawful search for illegal weapons and warrant for my arrest are all about.”

  “Why are their search and warrant unlawful?”

  “Because they had no hard evidence to back them up… only suspicions.”

  “Suspicions of what?”

  “That we’d converted semiautomatic weapons into illegal automatic ones.”

  “And had you done that?”

  “No, sir. But even if we had, and the illegal weapons were found, there’s plenty of case law that says no search can be justified by what it turns up. Or am I wrong?”

  “You’re not wrong. But how do you know all this?”

  “By reading about the law and believing it’s not only for lawyers.”

  Henry Durning sat with it. There was no sound anywhere and just about everyone appeared to be watching him. Those who weren’t were silently praying.

  “Did you tell these things to anyone?” asked the attorney general.

  “Of course.”

  “Whom did you tell?”

  “God an
d an anonymous voice on the FBI line.” The reverend studied the tips of his fingers. “I did much better with God. At least he sent me you.”

  The two men sat completely still.

  “Do you trust me?” said Durning.

  “I suppose as much as you trust me.”

  “I trusted you enough to walk in here alone. Didn’t I?”

  Koslow nodded. “Yes. You did.”

  “Then can you trust me enough to walk out of here alone with me?”

  “Under what conditions?”

  “That if everything you’ve just told me checks out, I’ll have you back with your people within twenty-four hours.”

  “With no charges filed?”

  “With all your reading you should know the law is more complicated than that. But I promise you this. If the original attack on your compound proves to have been unwarranted, you and your people will have nothing more to worry about.”

  Samson Koslow’s pale eyes were wet and angry. “You mean except for burying and praying for our dead?”

  Durning was silent.

  “I’m sorry,” said the reverend. “You didn’t deserve that. Without you, we’d all soon be buried. And with no one left to pray for us. Of course I’ll go with you.”

  The attorney general looked out the window and saw a bird rise from the tall grass. Vaguely, he was aware of the same baby starting to cry again. Or was it another?

  Not that it matters, he thought.

  It’s a baby.

  Henry Durning could imagine nothing sweeter than the way he felt at that moment.

  10

  FORTY-FIVE HUNDRED miles east of Huntington, West Virginia, in the Italian coastal town of Sorrento, Peggy Walters unlocked and entered the Leonardo da Vinci Gallery of Art at exactly 9:00 A.M.

  The gallery didn’t officially open for business until ten, when Roberta, Peggy’s assistant, arrived at work. But Peggy was always there at least an hour earlier. She needed the extra time for settling in. Each day was new for her. In an odd sort of way, she still felt like a transient.

  The small gallery faced the Tyrrhenian Sea. It catered mostly to tourists passing through town, staying at local hotels, or riding the ferries to and from Capri. Peggy represented and sold the work of perhaps a dozen artists, three of whom were actually Peter himself, painting under three different names and using three different techniques. Every six weeks or so, she traveled to Rome, Florence, and Palermo as Peter’s agent and sold more of his paintings there.

  The gallery was cool and still and carried a faint smell of the sea. Occasionally there was the mournful call of a ship’s horn in the distance. In the back office, Peggy put up her usual morning espresso and tried to catch up with her paperwork. She felt the emptiness of the place settle over and about her and suddenly shivered.

  For a moment she held herself still, breathing very carefully and taking as much air into her lungs as they could hold. Then the sense of chill passed and there was only the clamminess on her forehead. She patted it dry and began breathing normally.

  Fear.

  It could happen like that, stalling inside her, filling her with its shape until there was no air left for her to breathe. Nine years and she still never knew when or where it would hit or what might set it off. It could be no more than the sound of a man’s voice in her gallery, or the way a stranger looked at her in the street or maybe just a few stray bars of a song to which she and Henry had once danced.

  The persistent fear was only the residue.

  Of what?

  Henry’s love?

  The thought was coldly mocking. Even so many years after the fact, what remained with her most strongly of Henry Durning was of having passed through a carnal transaction with some sort of exotic, enormously appealing animal. The man was exciting. Everything about him was a passion. More than twice her age, and at that point perhaps the most celebrated of Wall Street’s golden ring of celebrated lawyers, he had swept her straight out of law school and into his firm, his bed, and his own shining aura of the senses.

  Henry Charles Durning told her once, seriously, that he could feel the soul of any living creature if he could just touch the tip of a finger to its heart. And she was so far gone by then that she was ready to believe him.

  Not even with the wisdom of hindsight would she call herself a fool. What she had been mostly, she supposed, was young, awestruck, infatuated beyond measure, and gutsy, curious, and uninhibited enough to try just about anything at least once.

  But where were the limits? Weren’t there always supposed to be limits?

  Evidently not for her. Not with the psychic bombardment of Henry Durning’s love exploding in and about her. Because with all his vaunted urbanity and sophistication, he never hesitated to use the lush, old-fashioned sentiment of the L word to push and persuade her into joining him in whatever happened to be the latest of his more bizarre erotic entertainments.

  She could almost hear his voice now. Come on, love. Don’t take it so seriously. It’s only fun and games.

  Some fun and games, she thought. All those bodies twisting and rutting about like a bunch of nesting snakes, all those hot, licking tongues boiling their way up from the devil’s own kitchens.

  Yet why fool herself? She could hardly lay claim to being the martyred innocent. Henry may have led her to the playing field, but she did her own playing. And while it was going on, there was always that incredibly wild excitement in it, and she never backed away. The shame, the self-disgust, the final tragic horror, came only at the end.

  Of course, she never told Peter about any of that. Even now… especially now, after nearly nine years as his loving wife and devoted mother to their son… she would sooner die than have him know the raunchy, deviant lust of which she had so enthusiastically proven herself capable. And if the worst of her recurrent fears ever materialized, dying was exactly what she might one day be called upon to do.

  Mean thoughts for a bright, summer morning.

  Was she getting more paranoid with time? The truth was, the only one she had to worry about there was Henry Durn-ing. And as far as her once-revered mentor was concerned, she was lying quietly at the bottom of the Atlantic.

  11

  GIANNI GARETSKY LAY listening to Mary Yung’s breathing from the other bed. It was soft and regular, and Mary was un-moving, but Gianni knew she was awake.

  They were in a motel in Dobbs Ferry, just off the Saw Mill River Parkway, and it was their first night together away from Mary Yung’s house. They had spent the day wiping her place free of blood and fingerprints and burying the FBI’s latest dead. Now they were here.

  There was still no way of knowing what sort of bulletin, if any, had been sent out on them, so Gianni was being cautious. Registering at the motel, he had left Mary in the car. Anyone who saw her face would remember it. They’d remember his face, too, but for different reasons.

  The lights of the parkway traffic flashed through the blinds. The sound came in like that of rolling waves. When the traffic occasionally died, the sudden silence and darkness caught Gianni’s chest.

  He heard Mary laugh softly.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “This is an all-time first for me.”

  “What is?”

  “Being in a motel room with a man but not in his bed.”

  “How does it feel?”

  “Luxurious. Also, a little lonely. Maybe even a bit insulting.”

  Gianni was silent.

  “Thanks for taking me with you,” she said.

  “They can kill you with me as easily as they can kill you alone.”

  She thought about it. “Maybe,” she finally said. “But since I’ve lived my entire life alone, isn’t it nice not to have to die that way.”

  It was always easier to lose yourself in crowded areas of large cities, so in the morning they drove straight to Manhattan.

  Gianni checked them into a giant Sheraton as Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Callahan, paid in advance for three nights with c
ash, and went up to the room alone. Mary knocked on the door and joined him ten minutes later.

  “Much nicer than Dobbs Ferry,” she said. “What do we do now?”

  “Start trying to find Vittorio.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “I don’t expect you to know. That’s my job.”

  “What’s mine?”

  “To stay inconspicuous.” He looked at her. “If that’s possible. Though I guess you can always put on dark glasses and make yourself up as a tourist.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?”

  “I’ll figure out something.”

  They stood considering each other.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  He hadn’t heard that since Teresa died.

  “When do you expect to be back?” Mary Yung asked.

  Nor that, he thought.

  “I don’t know. If I’m going to be very late, I’ll try to call. You do the same. Just don’t contact anyone you know. That’s important. No exceptions.”

  She nodded.

  “One last thing,” he said. “We need a danger signal. If I ever call you here or anyplace else and ask how things are, give me one of two answers. If everything’s fine, just say‘fine.’ But if there’s a gun at your head, say‘ never better,’ and I’ll know. If you’re the one calling, the same signal holds. OK?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked curiously abandoned as he left. Or was he imagining it?

  At a theatrical costumer’s on Ninth Avenue, Gianni took care of his camouflage needs with an iron-gray hairpiece, a matching moustache, and a pair of plain-lensed horn-rims that gave him the look of an aging accountant.

  Trick or treat. Still, it was strangely effective… almost as if he were being offered a furtive glimpse of himself, a full thirty years into the future. I should only live so long.

  Feeling much less exposed in his home city of suddenly faceless hunters, he went to work. His primary target was his onetime fat, curly-haired art school classmate, Angie Alberto, whose father, as reported by Don Carlo, had been Vit-torio Battaglia’s last assigned hit before Vittorio’s own disappearance. He had no idea what Angie could tell him about Vittorio, or whether Angie was even still alive and in the city. But he was all he had at the moment.