by Ulf Wolf
He checked his watch again. Plus twelve minutes now. Stay focused.
He noticed that the wind had died down altogether. All right, he would make the final adjustment, it was part of the steps. A brief, minute calibration. Done. He re-trained the scope, left eye. All set. Checked the wind again, it stayed dead.
Checked his watch again. Plus sixteen now.
No wind. Left eye in focus.
Checked his watch again. Plus eighteen.
Three soft knocks.
At first he froze, then he melted into sheer focus. He verified his aim, her left eye. Perfectly still, the crosshairs, right on the left eye. Right there while she brushes away some strands of hair with her hand. He pressed the trigger to the half-way point, took a deep breath and slowly let it out while he slowly pulled the trigger home.
No one would have heard the shot, the silencer was that efficient.
She fell. A perfect hit. Of course. In fact, Wolfgang had never seen anyone collapse that instantly. Amazing. A little too instantly, if you’d ask him. Amazing.
Then he sees what he could not possibly see. The girl moves. Looks in his direction then directly at him and she points. And that spins the world from calm accuracy into instant catastrophe. From where they came he didn’t know, but suddenly the girl was covered by what must have been a dozen men. No chance for a second shot at all. Some of the men now looking in his direction, too, and pointing.
Scheisse!
His next impulse is to run, but he is too disciplined for that. The sequence, etched in this mind calls for collecting the casing, which he did. Calls for pulling back from the window and into the room, which he did. Calls for dismantling the rifle, which he did. And the tripod. And check around for anything else, and here the door flings open, crashes open really, and two, three, four armed guards, weapons drawn and trained on him rush in.
There’s nothing for it. He raises his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot,” he says.
:
After a vigorous search, the German police retrieved the hollow-point bullet from deep in the ground far back of the stage. The investigators, calibrating angles and placements, determined that had Miss Marten not collapsed when she did, she would surely be dead now.
Without a doubt.
While the media debate about the missing video footage continued on both sides of the Atlantic, the American side of it issued a strong and formal protest to the German government about security measures so lax that they could not guarantee the safety of an American citizen invited to lecture in Berlin. It was unacceptable. So all things American agreed.
The Germans took this rebuke with a very straight face (since they had been promised amble recompense) but were nonetheless truly embarrassed about having in fact failed the agreed-upon mission.
Both governments were also inspecting official video records of the incident, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the impossible had in fact occurred. The sequence had not been tampered with, both sides confirmed this. One of the television crews had the perfect angle: it showed Miss Marten addressing the crowd, now brushing a few strands of hair out of her face, then, with no interval at all, lying prostrate on the stage.
No matter how many times they replayed the footage, the shift (for it was not a move, they called it a shift) was instant. Standing up—lying down.
Asked about this Miss Marten pleaded utter innocence, she had no idea what they were talking about. She fell. No, she didn’t know why. Tired, perhaps, after the long flight.
If there was one blessing in being an assassination target it was that you’re not too pressed for answers, you are, after all, the victim, not the perpetrator.
In the end, the public view landed squarely on the side of outrage at the media who had, and so obviously, tampered with the footage. Many of the Internet posters of the same sequence begged to differ, of course.
The official word was finally handed down (coordinated to the highest level, for there was no acceptable explanation for the truth): yes, the video records shown had been edited to remove Miss Marten’s collapse. How well over a three hundred recordings had been equally—precisely so—edited was never addressed, not to anyone’s satisfaction, anyway.
:
Ananda finally reached George Roth on the phone, an audibly upset George Roth who kept repeating that he had warned them.
“I know,” Ananda said for the third time. “I know.”
“It’s got CIA written all over it,” said Roth.
“But the State Department has issued a formal protest,” said Ananda.
“Of course they’ll protest,” said Roth. “That’s the official, the perception level of government. Trust me, they were behind this all the way.”
“Will they try again?”
“Yes. Most likely.”
Ananda shook his head, this was spinning out of hand, while the Tathagata was not even upset about it. To be expected, was her much too flippant reaction.
“What do you suggest?” asked Ananda.
“Pack up and get back here. Now. Get out of Europe.”
“We’re all packed and ready, leaving soon.”
“And stay at home. Hire security guards. Don’t leave the house. They’re not going to bomb it.”
“She’s been invited to speak at the Sorbonne in Paris.”
“Turn it down, don’t go back to Europe.”
“She’s accepted the invitation. She insists on going.”
“What?”
“She’s very stubborn.”
“So I gather.”
“There’s no changing her mind.”
“She’s a fool.”
“I agree.”
“When is the Sorbonne engagement?”
“Not until the fourteenth of next month.”
“Try to talk her out of it. Really. You have to.”
“I will try. Of course, I will try.”
“Call me when you return.”
“Yes. I will.”
:: 117:: (Pasadena)
They were escorted the entire way from Berlin to their house in Pasadena by a small army of men, most of them German. These guys meant business and would have no accidents of any kind on their watch. Ruth complained she felt like cattle, something Melissa had to agree with, though she rebuked Ruth for being ungrateful.
Ananda didn’t mind, as long as Ruth was safe.
Once back, and once restored to some sort of normalcy—which took a few days—Ananda again tried to talk Ruth out of going to Paris, this time with the help of George Roth and Clare Downes who both had come over that afternoon.
“They guarantee my safety,” said Ruth.
“So did the Germans,” said Clare. “And they’re pretty expert at these things.” Then she looked over at Roth. “Then again, as George says, they were most likely in on it. So what’s to say that the French won’t cooperate with the CIA as well.”
“The French don’t like the Americans,” suggested Ruth.
“Don’t be flippant,” said Melissa.
“Don’t go,” said Roth. “That’s the only advice I can give. Stay here. Request police protection or hire a security firm to ensure it. Don’t leave the house. Not for a while anyway. I will see what else I can find out.”
“You still have access?” said Clare.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“I’m going,” said Ruth.
“Why on earth?” said Ananda.
“Because it will get more coverage than any lecture ever given,” said Ruth. “Because that is why I am here.”
“That is why you are here?” said Roth, clearly not understanding.
The others exchanged glances. That’s right, Roth had not been briefed. Somehow, in the excitement of things they had forgotten this.
When no one answered, Roth said, “What am I missing?”
They exchanged glances again, an unspoken “No, you go” tossed between them, none too eager to run with it. It finally fell on Clare.
“Yes.”
“Ruth, here, is the Buddha.”
George said nothing.
“Remember when she spoke inside you?”
George nodded, yes he did remember that, very clearly How could he forget?
“You saw the footage of the attempt.”
“Of course.”
“Do you think that it was edited?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So how do you explain, to yourself, her sudden shift from standing to lying prone?”
“I haven’t. It’s not possible. But I mean to ask her about that.”
“Well, that’s the answer.”
“What’s the answer?”
“She is the Buddha returned.”
“She is the Buddha returned.” George Roth more to himself than anyone else while he took a long look at Ruth Marten with the same intensity that he would study a section of the starry night sky, opening all his senses for patterns for what was truly there. And in that looking, Ruth quietly said within him, “I am, you know.”
“Holy shit,” said Roth.
“That’s one way of putting it,” said Ananda.
“I’m sorry,” said Roth, but it was doubtful he meant it. And not taking his eyes off of Ruth, not even to blink, said, “Are you telling me that the rumors, which I must confess appeared farfetched to me, are actually true?”
Aloud this time, Ruth said, “Yes.”
“How is that even possible?” said Roth, but again more to fill the silence than actually to answer a question, because the pattern he perceived made sense, felt congruous to him. The voice, she shifting, the voice that spoke within him, above all the voice.
If she sensed this, Ruth did not let on. Instead she said, “I’m not sure precisely how, just that it is, and that I am.”
Roth only nodded his reply this time, finally letting go her eyes, and looking over at the others. “And you knew this, of course?”
Nods all around.
Then he looked back at Ruth, “And you are still planning to go to Paris.” A statement made without much hope.
“Yes I am.”
“And how did you? The shift? The stumble, as you call it?”
“It’s one of these things I can do,” said Ruth.
He had no answer to that. Instead he said, “What can I say to persuade you not to go to Paris?”
“I am going, Agent Roth.”
“My question was, what can I say to persuade you not to.”
“Oh, I heard it fine,” she said. “I will keep my eyes open.”
“So there’s nothing?” said Roth.
“No, there is not.”
Again Roth looked to the others for support, especially Melissa. But this was ground already thoroughly trodden, that was the pattern he perceived. She was going then.
“Perhaps I can be of some help,” he said. Then added, “If I come along, I mean.”
“I would like that very much,” said Melissa, and Ruth nodded in agreement.
“I’d like to travel with you as well,” said Clare.
“Sure,” said Ruth.
:: 118 :: (Sorbonne)
The Sorbonne affair proved of a more manageable size, and less of a nightmare for security.
After the near-catastrophe in Berlin, the organizers changed their mind from a large off-campus, outdoor venue to the much smaller on-campus Centre Universitaire Malesherbes which only seated 500 odd people, plus another couple of hundred standing in the isles. To compensate, and to accommodate the well over one hundred thousand demands for seats, the lecture would not only be televised in all lecture halls throughout campus, but in all other auditoria and lecture rooms in schools throughout the city. He address was now being touted as a “city-wide” Paris lecture by the Sorbonne arrangers.
Roth was visibly relieved when he learned the details about the event, “Much easier to control,” he said, studying several maps of the auditorium—including the structural ones—surveying the room’s layout for weak spots. Finding none he returned the maps to the nervous official who wasn’t really sure who Roth was, only that he was ordered to give him all the assistance he required.
It was as he turned from the nervous official back to Ananda that something, or someone rather, caught his eye, a pair of eyes a little too searching, a little too cautious. And the face, only visible to Roth for a second, then turned blond back of the head, then it was gone, swallowed by the almost but not quite chaotic energy backstage.
“Well, that’s good,” said Ananda.
“Yes,” said Roth, more to himself.
“What is it?” said Ananda.
“Don’t know,” said Roth. “Not sure. Excuse me for a minute.” He set out to follow the one piece that didn’t fit this pattern, the one piece that sank and settled in the pit of his stomach, with weight.
Rounding a narrow corner, having expected to catch the back of that blond head again, he saw nothing: just a short run of a narrow corridor, five meters perhaps, then another door, which, when he reached it, proved to be locked. He turned, no one. He looked again at the door, looked closer at the lock, and saw what appeared to be fresh disturbance of the dust around the lock itself, some motes seemed to still hover wondering if settling would be safe yet: someone (with a key) had just gone through this door.
Roth returned to Ananda in a run, then looked around for the Sorbonne official assigned to him as a liaison. He spotted him at the far side of the platform talking to some of his colleagues. Roth made another brief run, “Follow me, please,” he said. And then repeated it when the man didn’t seem to comprehend. Then repeated it again as he grabbed the man’s arm. “Follow me, this way.”
When they arrived at the door, Roth asked, “Where does it lead?”
The guard pointed up. “The roof.”
“The roof, the outside roof?”
“No, not the roof, what do you call it, inside?”
“The ceiling?”
“Yes, up to inside the ceiling.”
“And it has been cleared?”
“Of course.”
“Someone just entered through this door.”
“No, that’s not possible. We entered through the other side, no one used this door.”
“Someone just went through here,” said Roth. “I’ve examined the lock.”
“Impossible,” said the man.
“Look,” said Roth. “I will speak to whomever I need to speak to, but you need to sweep the ceiling area again, someone’s up there.”
“Impossible,” said the man, apparently set to defend French honor to the bitter end. Roth saw the writing on the wall, turned, and ran back down the corridor and out onto the stage, looked for another white shirt with epaulets, saw one, but by then his own man had caught up with him, “Yes, okay, yes.” he said, indicating his change of heart but not admitting to defeat.
“Make sure they get this done before Miss Marten goes on.”
“Of course,” said the man, then walked—not quite ran—to the man Roth had spotted cross-stage. Roth followed, and heard the French version of his request, while being pointed at.
“Right now,” said Roth to the guy with a pair of ribbons on his epaulets, bossy ribbons. “Someone’s up there.”
The boss nodded, more concerned about the safety of their guest than about being right, and within a minute Roth saw a swarm of guards running past and—as he tagged on—run through the now unlocked door and up what seemed to be stairs. It turned out to be a narrow—one-man-at-a-time—spiral staircase. In less than five minutes they came back down, leading the blond—and upsettingly familiar—man between them. One of the guards was carrying a small, but very high-tech rifle, apparently taken from the would-be assassin.
The pair of ribbons on his epaulets, dark and now sweating, came up to Roth. “Thank you mister. I don’t know how we missed him.”
“You didn’t miss him; he just went up there a few minutes ago.”
The man shook his head, a this-is-very-bad, exasperated shake of disbelief. “There was never any access this way,” he said. “That was part of the protocol.”
Roth did not answer, partly out of American pride—he recognized the man and did not want to admit that someone from his side of the Atlantic was doing this; partly out of sheer apprehension. If one, why not two, or three?
“The rest,” he said to the man. “All clear?”
“Yes.”
“Can you check again, please?”
“Miss Marten is due on any minute.” He looked at his watch.
“Please,” said Roth, and the man nodded in agreement.
:
Roth found Ruth, along with Ananda, Melissa, and Clare Downes in a nicely appointed dressing room, or what had, on short notice, been pressed into service as one.
“They found another one,” he said as the burst into the room.
Four pairs of startled eyes asked the same question.
“Another assassin,” said Roth.
“Oh, my God,” said Melissa, and almost fell down. Clare Downes caught her, and eased her into a chair.
Roth turned to Ruth. “You have to cancel,” he said. “There could be others.”
“I thought everything was clear,” said Ananda. “They told us everything was searched and cleared.”
“I think they will say what they’re ordered to say,” said Roth. “This, believe me, is not good.”
Ruth said nothing for a breath or two, but stood stock still, appearing to be listening to some remote, faint sound. Then she said, “There’s no one else.”
Roth was about to protest again, stressing the danger she was in when he realized that she could indeed perceive danger, and did know. “I see,” he said.
Ruth smiled at him. “Thanks so much for your concern, Agent Roth. Well spotted.”
Roth believed he knew what she meant by that and relaxed a little.
“You’re still going on?” said Melissa, incredulous.
“It’ll be all right, now,” said Ruth. “Our local agent has seen to that.”
Ananda drew breath as to weigh in on the discussion, but changed his mind, knowing who he was dealing with. Clare Downes, too, seem reconciled with Ruth’s perception that all would be fine.