Day of the Delphi

by Jon Land

  Throughout both their stories, Carlisle had grown progressively more agitated and fidgety. He seemed alternately excited and shocked, accepting the tales the way one does when catching up with an old friend. By the time Kristen had finished, his gaze had become distant and withdrawn, full of nostalgia and longing.

  “Better than I thought,” he commented. “Much better.”

  “Whose side are you on, Mr. Carlisle?” McCracken demanded.

  “Why does this have to be about sides? I chose mine almost twenty years ago, in any case.”

  “Because you didn’t approve of the means. What’s changed?”

  “Only the very real possibility that they’re going to succeed.”

  “Obviously you couldn’t live with that twenty years ago.”

  “Different.”

  “Why?”

  “The desperation of today.”

  “No,” Blaine argued, “because you were a participant instead of a spectator. And from the inside looking out you knew what the subcommittee sought was all wrong. But now you’re on the outside looking in. They don’t scare you anymore because they can’t affect your own private world here beneath the city they want to own.”

  “This country needs what we have to offer it, Mr. McCracken.”

  “Not ‘we’ anymore, Mr. Carlisle—they. You walked away because you couldn’t stomach their methods. You knew the costs would outweight the benefits. The country would be losing more than it would be gaining. That equation hasn’t changed. If anything, the costs have grown even greater.”

  “And if we don’t pay them now, we may never have an opportunity to save ourselves again.”

  “Save ourselves by incarcerating those who disagree, who speak out? Save ourselves by restricting the very freedoms that define who we are?”

  “Necessary sacrifices!” Carlisle insisted. “I realize that now. If I had been smart enough to realize it back then—” He stopped suddenly.

  Blaine took a step closer to him, understanding in his eyes. “Fifteen years ago it was you who was sacrificed, wasn’t it? You didn’t walk away. You were forced out.”

  Carlisle’s lips quivered, uncertainty tightening his features. “We could have had it both ways. They wouldn’t listen. They were the Delphi, after all. The future belonged to them.”

  “The Delphi,” Blaine repeated, recalling Daniels’s mention of the term and Carlisle’s denying any knowledge of it last Saturday.

  “Named after the oracle in Greek mythology who was consulted by those in power before any action was undertaken,” Carlisle elaborated now. “And thus, to a great extent, its council determined the future. Our subcommittee took that name because in essence that was how we envisioned ourselves. When the commission disbanded us, we continued to meet in secret. The Trilat members thought controlling the White House would be enough.”

  “Carter showed them different.”

  “They were shattered, devastated. They had the power and it slid right out of their grasp.”

  “And right into yours.”

  “In terms of opportunity, yes. We knew that the only way to achieve the commission’s entire vision was for our man to come to power at a precise moment in time, a moment when the people were so discouraged and disgusted with the state the country was in that they were willing to accept anything to achieve change. I told the others we had to be ready, prepared to move as soon as that moment came.”

  “But the others didn’t want to wait, did they? They wanted to manufacture this moment to create history instead of merely reacting to it.”

  Carlisle nodded slowly. “It wasn’t necessary. If we had waited long enough, the outcry in the nation demanding the kind of change we represented would have happened on its own.”

  “And that’s when you parted company from them.”

  “I advised caution, reason. That’s all. They thought I had turned on them. There was no middle ground, no other choice for me,” he said regretfully.

  “They kept working toward the creation of their moment.”

  “The illusion of a revolution would be provided to set the stage,” Carlisle acknowledged, his thoughts coming together as he spoke through quivering lips. “Washington would be overrun, the President assassinated along with the bulk of Congress in an all-out attack. The result would be chaos, even anarchy, with the chain of succession rendered useless, leaving the way open for a special election in which the Delphi would have positioned a man to emerge victorious. After my … dismissal, I kept a close watch on them, never believing they would ever find the one element they needed to bring their plan to fruition.”

  “A worthy candidate,” Blaine concluded.

  “But then they found one,” Carlisle told him. “One of their own, in fact.”

  “Samuel Jackson Dodd,” Kristen said barely loud enough to be heard.

  “A man with a popular consensus and broad-based program already in place,” added McCracken. “Elected with a mandate allowing him to do whatever the hell he—and the Delphi—want.”

  “Charged with rebuilding a country shattered by the strike your Midnight Riders will be blamed for. I suspected as much after you mentioned Yellow Rose to me.” Carlisle’s eyes lost their surety. “Dodd will be given a blank check to bring about the changes the Delphi has been working toward for decades. But even that won’t be enough for them.”

  “What?” McCracken and Kristen spoke at the same time.

  Carlisle looked at McCracken. “Keep in mind that Trilateralism grew out of the belief that left to itself the United States could not accomplish the goals the commission had in mind for it. A concerted, unified effort on an international front had to be achieved to assure long-term hegemony. The commission groomed representatives in countries all over the world, focusing primarily on those nations rich in resources and manageable economies. The Delphi sought to help similar representatives achieve the same degree of control we sought here in the States. They—we—wanted foreign representatives who could themselves be manipulated, representatives who were more than willing to accept the Delphi’s aid in destabilizing their own nations and ultimately coming to power as well. The economies would thus come under a single, unified control.”

  “Thanks to a twisted international cabal,” Blaine concluded.

  “The members of which shared a large measure of the Delphi’s politics along with their ruthlessness,” Carlisle continued. “Groups that had already proven their willingness to do whatever it takes to gain control.”

  “Terrorists?” Kristen raised.

  “No,” said Blaine, before Carlisle had a chance to. “The Trilateral Commission and the Delphi were conservative by nature from the beginning, and their failures would have turned them even more conservative. So abroad they would have turned to those whose dogma was the nearest mix: the far right.”

  Carlisle nodded, impressed. “Precisely, Mr. McCracken. The Delphi needed such groups to achieve what they wanted, and only by accepting the Delphi’s help could these groups rise to power.”

  “How?” Kristen wondered.

  “You’ve already explained that yourself, miss.”

  “I have?”

  His blazing eyes pierced her. “Those nuclear weapons from Miravo.”

  McCracken’s spine stiffened. “Supplied to ultra-right-wing leaders who undoubtedly intend to make use of them to help them gain power in their respective nations, or at least to destabilize the current governments.”

  “Each of those shells from Miravo is two or three times more powerful than the ones dropped on Japan at the end of World War II,” Kristen noted dazedly.

  “And they will be put to good use, I assure you,” picked up Carlisle.

  “But you didn’t know this before today,” McCracken concluded. “You couldn’t have.”

  “No, but I did know the kind of people in whose hands the weapons will end up. You see, the notion of developing an international right-wing cadre dates back to my years with the Delphi. One of my final tas
ks was to act as liaison with the South African representative. A man named Dreyer.”

  “Travis Dreyer? Head of the AWB?”

  “No, his father, Boothe. But young Travis sat in on all the meetings. He took over the AWB after his father died.”

  McCracken considered the prospects. The AWB, which stood for Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), was a very well-armed, neofascist organization devoted in principle to maintaining apartheid and in theory to the eventual extermination of blacks. Its members were the reactionary offspring of the Afrikaners from Holland who had originally founded the system of apartheid. They would do, and very often had done, anything in the name of racial purity and their own interpretation of nationalism. In calmer moments they would parade around the countryside on horseback proudly displaying their trademark insignias, which bore a curious resemblance to swastikas.

  “Are you saying the nuclear weapons my brother saw being smuggled out of Miravo are going to end up in the hands of men like Dreyer?” Kristen said disbelievingly.

  The former member of the Trilateral Commission looked at her for several moments. “And what we will be witnessing as a result is a protracted World War III. Civil wars and hopeless entanglements will break out all across the globe. Radical right-wing groups, chosen for the very ruthlessness that makes it possible to manipulate them, will throw the balance of government into utter chaos worldwide. Conceivably it could all happen, the world could be unalterably changed, in a single day.

  “The day of the Delphi,” he finished.

  “And in spite of that knowledge, you sat here and did nothing?” Kristen scorned.

  “Because I could not help but acknowledge that the scope of the Delphi’s ambitions could allow them to seize control in a form purer and more direct than anything the Trilateralists ever imagined, and yet true to their original vision. That’s why I couldn’t help you stop it last week. That’s why I had to send you in the wrong direction. Because a part of me still believes in the sanctity of the vision, that Trilateralism holds the only means by which our way of life can survive.”

  “But another part of you still remembers that you were thrown out of the Delphi for speaking your mind, for daring to voice a dissenting opinion,” Blaine challenged. “That’s not leadership. Or if it is, only at the price of wide-scale nuclear proliferation. That wasn’t your vision. If it was, you’d still be with them.”

  Carlisle remained silent. McCracken continued.

  “You didn’t just walk away from them, you walked away from society. You had to, didn’t you? Had to because you knew the others would never have settled for simple expulsion. You posed too much of a risk. Your only chance was to disappear.”

  “There was nothing else I could do, Mr. McCracken.”

  “There is now,” Blaine said and looked at Carlisle until his stare was met. “They would have killed you, and you know it. They’d kill you now if they knew you were still playing watchdog. But the last card is yours to play.”

  “How?”

  “The Delphi, Mr. Carlisle. You knew they were wrong then and you know they’re wrong now. It’s been a long time, but most of them will still be there; enough anyway. You can tell me who they are. Help me stop their day from ever coming.”

  For a moment suspended in space and time, Carlisle stood frozen and expressionless, his mind wandering through the lost years. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he nodded.

  Back on Good Hope Street, a man hidden in the shadows between a pair of burnt-out buildings held the walkie-talkie against his ear and mouth.

  “We’ll be moving out now,” a voice told him.

  The man gazed again at the head of the alley where the huge Indian had been visible just an instant before. “Bring an army.”

  Sal Belamo was waiting just where Blaine had left him when he and Kristen reached ground level in the alley.

  “Looks like you just saw a ghost, boss.”

  “Close enough,” said Blaine. “Anything?”

  “Nada.”

  “Johnny?”

  “I can’t see him, but—”

  “We must get out of here, Blainey,” said Wareagle, emerging from the shadows.

  “Indian?”

  “Quickly.”

  McCracken didn’t question Wareagle further. Johnny turned and started back toward the head of the alley, the others falling in behind. They reached Good Hope Street and McCracken noticed instantly that the threatening young men they had passed en route here were gone. The night seemed to have grown even darker.

  Wareagle stiffened. McCracken slid Kristen behind him. They started down the sidewalk in single file. Suddenly a trio of massive floodlights snapped on at the east end of the block.

  “Holy shit,” gasped Belamo.

  “Get out the other way,” Kristen heard Wareagle mutter back to them. “I will hold them at this end.”

  Before they could even swing all the way round, though, more floodlights burned toward them from the west end of the block. The distinctive clacking of rifles being slammed against shoulders into the ready position echoed in the night. Then a pair of helicopters sliced through the dark over the rise of buildings, converging from the north and south.

  “Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!” a voice ordered through a bullhorn from one of the choppers.

  McCracken, caught in the spill of one of the floods, let his pistol fall to the ground. Belamo and Wareagle followed suit with their rifles. All of them raised their arms above their heads.

  “Do not move! Stay where you are!”

  “We make a run for it, boss?” Belamo whispered Blaine’s way.

  “One of us has to get out with a little present Carlisle gave me.”

  “Six snipers with Starlight scopes atop the buildings, Blainey,” Wareagle reported. “Under strong cover.”

  “Kristen,” Blaine whispered.

  “I’m ready. Tell me what to do.”

  She was their only chance. With the focus of the rifles unquestionably on the three of them, she might make it if they provided a significant enough distraction.

  “Johnny,” McCracken muttered. “Sal.”

  Wareagle nodded, shoulders tensing slightly.

  “Fuck,” rasped Sal.

  McCracken started to lower his hand toward the pocket containing the 3.5-inch floppy disk Carlisle had given him. Kristen was trembling, fingers held even with her shoulders.

  “Wait, Blainey,” Wareagle said suddenly.

  McCracken turned to follow the big Indian’s eyes. While the choppers hovered overhead, a phalanx of armed troops were approaching from the east end of Good Hope Street, boots clacking against the street. The man leading the way carried no gun. The soldiers behind him had theirs unmenacingly shouldered. The man in front came to within six feet of the tensed McCracken and saluted.

  “Sorry for the inconvenience, Captain. But this seemed the safest way to avoid a misunderstanding. I’m Colonel Ben Power.”

  Blaine returned his salute. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been addressed as captain, Colonel.”

  “Then let me be the first to welcome you back to the ranks. But enough small talk, Captain. You’re already late for an appointment I’m supposed to deliver you to.”

  “Appointment?”

  “With the President. Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “I thought it best we speak alone initially,” the President said to Blaine McCracken.

  The news that McCracken had been spotted by one of the teams assigned to watch for him had reached the President as he tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He dressed quickly, kept abreast of what was transpiring down on Good Hope Street in Anacostia, and was waiting in his office when Colonel Ben Power personally ushered McCracken in.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable,” the President said, offering him one of the matching wing chairs in his private office.

  “That’s a bit difficult for me.”

  “Under the circumsta
nces, I quite understand.”

  “Not just these circumstances, sir.” Blaine groped for the correct explanation. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the inside.” His eyes swept through the room. “Especially this far in.”

  “Your file forewarned me of that.”

  “How did your people find me, Mr. President?”

  “It begins with a tape … .”

  The President went on to explain how a former KGB chief’s bugging of the CIA director’s office had provided them with a recording of the final conversation between Tom Daniels and Clifton Jardine. The conversation had ended with the director giving tacit approval to Blaine’s utilization. Accordingly, the assumption was that Daniels had come to Rock Creek Park for a meeting with him.

  “At that point,” elaborated the President, “our thinking was that you could provide us with the specifics the recording left out.”

  “At that point, I didn’t know any more than you did. Less, even.”

  “We learned of your ‘appearance’ in the Coconut Grove the previous night and that it was Daniels who had expedited your release from police custody. Later we became aware of your near-disastrous plane ride back to Miami. Someone wanted you dead, very likely the same party behind the murders of Daniels and Jardine.”

  “They got two out of three.”

  “And you dropped out of sight. Not surprisingly, we were unable to find you. But we assumed the quest you were on could only lead you back to the capital, and we blanketed the city with men armed with your picture.”

  “You’ll need an army of men armed with more than that to stop this government from falling, sir.”

  The President stood up and grasped the back of his chair. “Who’s behind it? Just tell me that.”

  “Mr. President, how much do you know about the Trilateral Commission?”