True Path

by Graham Storrs

He frowned. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

  “He’s holding my daughter.”

  “Shit.”

  They fell silent for a while. Sandra could see Vargas revising his previous assumptions. “What were you doing at the newspaper office?” she asked.

  “I had an appointment with the owner. I have an injunction I need to serve. I’m a defense attorney. Nothing religious, just plain old-fashioned crime.”

  “You don’t like the Church, do you?”

  Vargas smiled, leaned back, and casually looked around him before leaning close and saying, “You’re not from round here, are you?”

  “I live in England. I was brought here against my will. It’s a long story. My daughter and … her father came out looking for me and now she’s in Duvalle’s clutches and he’s in Polanski’s. And I’ve got to get them both out.”

  For the first time, his self-composure fell apart and he looked at her with genuine alarm. He dropped some money on the table and hustled her out into the street again.

  “Polanski? As in Zadrach Polanski, the resistance leader?”

  “Don’t you mean ‘terrorist’?”

  “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, right?”

  She said nothing, wondering what Polanski was to this man.

  “And you’ve met him?” He asked, before the obvious thought hit him. “Of course, he’s the one who brought you here against your will. But why? Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps he likes to be seen around town with the most beautiful woman in Washington on his arm.”

  Vargas winced. “OK, I’m an asshole, but I thought I was picking up a cute honey with an exotic accent, not the most dangerous woman in the country. I don’t think I should even be seen talking to you.”

  “You can always tell them I forced you at gunpoint.”

  “I’m not kidding. Polanski’s public enemy number one. Multiple murder counts, extortion, racketeering, blasphemy, sodomy, you name it. They’ve also charged him with worshiping false gods, corrupting minors, and plotting against the State.”

  “Like Socrates. Someone’s got a sense of humor.”

  He looked as if he hadn’t heard of Socrates but didn’t pursue it. “If you’ve been helping him, even unwillingly, I wouldn’t fancy your chances of getting out of prison before the end of the century.”

  She held out a hand. “Well, thanks for all your help. And the coffee. I’ll be fine on my own now.”

  He looked around nervously and wouldn’t take her hand. “No, wait,” he said. He seemed to be in some kind of turmoil of indecision. “Don’t go. I want you to meet some people. They may be able to help.”

  “Lawyers?”

  “Well, one or two are—oh, right. No, I don’t mean that kind of help. I mean something more … direct.”

  Sandra could hardly believe where this was going. “You mean you’re also part of some kind of underground resistance cell? You?”

  He seemed too agitated to take offense, but he managed it anyway. “What do you think, that we’re all just going to sit around waiting for this government to hand us our rights back? This is America. Land of the free. Or it should be. And it will be. Let me make some calls. I know people who can help you.”

  Sandra was reluctant to be blown off course by the first breeze she encountered. Vargas did not strike her as the kind of man who could help her in any way that she needed. On the other hand, his friends might be more useful, and she could certainly use some help from somebody. “And what would make your friends so keen to assist me?”

  “Information.”

  “About Polanski? I thought you were on the same side?”

  “My friends and I don’t like his methods.”

  Well, that makes two of us. “All right, you’ve got an hour to set up the meeting. I can’t wait any longer than that. And if this is a waste of time and the delay gets my daughter hurt, I’ll take it out of your hide, lover boy.”

  Vargas swallowed and nodded. Then he pulled out his compad.

  -oOo-

  The extraordinary meeting of the Friends of Democracy Society took place in the kitchen of a small apartment in the Washington suburb of Crystal City. Six people were in attendance plus Sandra, the guest of honor. Together they crowded out the little room so that Judith, the wife of the man running the meeting, could barely squeeze by them to make coffee and sandwiches.

  The society members were all men. John Vargas was the youngest at thirty-something with the rest being in their fifties and sixties, Sandra guessed. The chairman was the oldest, with a bushy gray beard and a mane of white hair. As the latest member to arrive settled down, he said, “Very well, we are quorate. The meeting is called to order.”

  As the chatter died away, the chairman scowled at “Brother Vargas” and demanded to know what he thought he was doing dragging everybody away from work. No-one was in a good mood. Each had shied like a startled horse when arriving to find Sandra there. They muttered and grumbled about exposing their society to outsiders and putting people’s lives and families at risk.

  “Brothers,” Vargas began. “This lady is Sandra Malone, a foreigner from the United Kingdom. She has recently been a prisoner of our friend Zadrach Polanski. Her husband is still a captive of the so-called resistance.” Sandra didn’t bother to put him right about the husband part. “Her daughter, meanwhile, is being held by the Reverend Duvalle.” Everyone seemed suitably shocked. In fact, he had to raise his voice over the growing rumble of excitement from his fellow Friends of Democracy. “On the basis of what she has told me, I believe Polanski is planning direct action in the near future. Obviously this is a matter of great importance for our society.”

  “Agreed,” the chairman said in a strong voice that silenced the room. “Now, young lady. Tell us what you know about Polanski’s plans and what your involvement has been.”

  Sandra looked around the table at the stern, earnest faces and then said to Vargas, “What the fuck is all this? You told me there were people here who could help. I don’t see anybody here who looks like they command a small army of assault troops. In fact, with all due respect to your secret society chums, it looks more like a debating society than a revolutionary council.”

  Pandemonium erupted in the little room and the chairman had to hammer on the table with his fist before the noise subsided.

  “If I may, Mr. Chairman,” Vargas said.

  “Mr. Vargas has the floor,” the chairman growled.

  “Sandra, I assure you, you are in the presence of a serious and dedicated group of men who are working at great risk to themselves and their families to provide leadership and guidance to the coming revolution. These are well-respected men who wield considerable influence in our society. The Friends of Democracy are the intellectual vanguard of the freedom movement in this country and, if anybody can help you, we can. All I ask is that you cooperate with us—and, perhaps, show a little respect and decorum.”

  “OK,” Sandra said, addressing the group. “Here’s the thing. Some arsehole called Duvalle is holding my daughter hostage—no doubt to make her idiot father do something he doesn’t want to do. Tell me how quickly you can break her free, and I’ll be as cooperative as a … You know, something very cooperative.” She watched them huffing and blustering for a count of five then stood up. She addressed herself to the chairman. “I thought so. All talk. Well, I’m sorry, Santa, but Polanski’s crazy fanatics have got you blokes beaten by a mile when it comes to revolutions. In fact, if you want to pursue your intellectual masturbation—sorry, vanguarding—past tomorrow, you should probably be on the next train out of town because I reckon Polanski is about to make his move, with or without me, and this place is going to be a bloodbath.”

  She took a step towards the door as the meeting erupted once more. Vargas stood up and moved to intercept her.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  He reached out to take hold of her. “Please, just wait. We really need to know what Pol�
��oof!”

  A lightning-fast jab to the solar plexus knocked the air out of him and he sank to his knees, looking like he might vomit on her feet. She grabbed him by the shoulder and heaved him aside. She could feel a powerful anger bubbling up inside. If she didn’t get away from this bunch of time-wasters soon, she’d waste another five minutes beating each of their red and outraged faces to a pulp.

  How could she have let herself believe that a self-important fool like Vargas could possibly help her? Right now he was just staring at her in disbelief. It was a measure of her own fear and desperation that she would listen to such a man. Well, she’d paid for it in lost time and with the knowledge that Cara had been in Duvalle’s hands for yet another hour. Furious with herself, and the Friends of Democracy Society, and with every goddamned puffed-up, stupid, self-aggrandizing man who ever thought for one second that his own power and prestige were more important than her daughter’s well-being, she grabbed the nearest of the brethren by the collar and drew back her fist for the sheer pleasure of spreading someone’s nose across their face.

  At that moment, the door burst open and a small, round man in a cowboy hat came rushing in saying, “Sorry I’m late everybody I—”

  The meeting froze in a tableau of shock and violence. A grin slowly spread across the little man’s face.

  Sandra dropped her intended victim and straightened up. She too was smiling. “Mr. O‘Dell,” she said. “You are just the person I need to talk to.”

  Chapter 20: Preparations

  Jay woke up with a new respect for the humble salami. In the right hands, it made a very respectable cudgel. So much so that he now felt as if his head had been crushed beneath a large rock for the past couple of hours. He attempted to rub his wrenched neck and discovered his hands and feet were tied.

  “Zak,” someone said, and Polanski’s voice said, “Sit him up.”

  Jay’s neck sent spikes of pain through his skull as Polanski’s sidekick, Peter, heaved him into a sitting position. He discovered he was on the floor in a small room—some kind of office. Polanski sat at a desk a few meters away. Peter settled into an armchair, watching Jay with an expression that said the young man would rather be stomping on him.

  “Got any aspirin?” Jay asked.

  Polanski smiled. “My friend Joseph was a bit enthusiastic. I thought he’d killed you.”

  “I hope you didn’t leave a tip.”

  Polanski turned back to his paperwork, no longer amused.

  “Tax returns?” Jay asked. He couldn’t think of anything better to do under the circumstances than bait the man.

  Slowly, Polanski turned back to face him. “Plans. From your reaction in the café, I take it that Sandra Malone might help me if Cara’s safety was at stake. Well, that’s good to know but it gives us the problem of how to get the child away from Duvalle and into my custody.”

  “You’re talking about a fifteen-year-old girl, Polanski, not some piece in a board game.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t worry about the suffering of one person. I’m trying to free millions of people—hundreds of millions. If you weren’t so close to this child, you’d probably understand my position.”

  “I understand all right. You’re so caught up in your fantasies of saving the world that you’ve lost sight of what an inhuman bastard you’ve become.”

  Polanski raised a hand. “No, Peter.” Jay glanced at the boy, who had jumped out of his seat and was now glaring down at Jay, fists clenched and lips drawn back. Polanski spoke to the lad in a calm, gentle voice. “Peter, why don’t you go and check on progress. Do the rounds. Make sure nobody’s slacking.”

  Without a word, Peter turned and left the room.

  “Quite a boy you’ve got there. You must be proud.”

  Polanski looked nettled. “You’re pretty quick to judge people. Let me tell you about Peter. His parents were farmers out West. They were raided by the FBI six years ago in one of their spot checks. They were both put against the wall of their house and executed by firing squad for possessing seditious, atheistic literature. The fact is, they found a stash of science books that the boy’s grandmother had hidden away in the loft. His parents didn’t even know they were there. Grandma had been a teacher at the local school before the Lord’s True Path took control, and she just couldn’t bear to part with them. They were just high school science books but she insisted they were full of knowledge that people had worked hard for hundreds of years to wrestle from Nature, and it wasn’t right to let them burn.

  “Peter hid in the fields and watched his parents die. He buried them himself and the next day he buried his grandma too after she took her own life over the guilt of what had happened. After that, he joined the local resistance and dedicated his life to killing as many government people as he could find. He was twelve years old when I found him—practically a wild animal. The Feds had him in a compound with other undesirable types, ready to move them to one of their labor camps. After I liberated him, he started following me around and I kinda took to having him nearby. He’s been a faithful comrade in arms and he’s very devoted. You should try not to insult me too much while he’s around.”

  “I’ll try to remember. And if you think I feel bad about what a crap life your pet rottweiler had, well, you’re not completely wrong. The thing is, how many wrongs add up to a right, Polanski? They shoot his parents. He shoots them. They shoot him. You shoot them. Where does it end?” Jay leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes to ease the pain in his head. “What the hell? You know all that and you do it anyway, ’cause you think there’s no alternative.”

  “There isn’t. What was the alternative to Stalin? What was the alternative to Pol Pot? You think we can talk our way out of this situation? The country is run by evil men. They surround themselves with evil men. They make sure only evil can prosper so that every position of power is filled with evil men.”

  “Stalin’s gone. Pol Pot’s gone.”

  “And Hitler’s gone too. And you know why? Because, eventually, people stood up and fought his regime. Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for thirty years. During that time his secret police murdered twenty million people. How long should we wait for the Lord’s True Path Party to fade away? How many people should we let suffer and die while we wait?” He stood up and began to pace in front of Jay. “You’re a fool and you think like a child. The world doesn’t change unless people make it change.” He seemed to be warming himself up for a full-blown rant. “This is why Europe has sat on its hands for the past thirty years and done nothing. It’s people like you. People who don’t give a damn how we suffer. People who want to sweep it under the carpet and wait for it all to blow over. Imbeciles and hypocrites who think that freedom and democracy are your birthright, that people didn’t have to fight and win them for you with blood and sacrifice.”

  Jay’s head was throbbing. “Can I say something?”

  With a growl, Polanski turned away from him.

  “I’m just a cop. I put away bad guys. At least, I was. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t speak for all mankind—or even Europe. I’ve got enough problems without involving myself in everybody else’s. So just gimme a break. All I want is to get my daughter and Sandra and go home.”

  Polanski didn’t move, didn’t react.

  “Don’t you have family? Aren’t there people you care about? Not just nations and ideas? Surely you understand?”

  Polanski went to sit down at his desk. He seemed weary and spent. “You want to hear about my family? Which ones? The dead ones in mass graves? Or the live ones in prisons and labor camps?”

  He studied the papers on his desk as if they might contain the answers. Then he sighed. “Tomorrow, I will do the only thing I know that might end this nightmare. God will judge whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing. But tonight, I will bring your daughter here and hope your friend Sandra loves her enough to save her life. I’m tired of arguing. I’m tired of trying to convince the timid and the selfish. I’ve sp
ent years talking—to men in bars, to groups in people’s homes, to crowds in barns and fields and town halls—and I’m sick of words. I’m sick of kindling that look of hope and excitement in people’s eyes and telling them, ‘Soon. Just have patience. Your day is coming.’ Well, the day has come. Tomorrow I say, ‘Enough. No more. This is the day.’”

  “I want to come.” Polanski no longer seemed to be listening, so Jay said it louder. “I want to go with you tonight to get my daughter.”

  “No.”

  “Are those the plans, on your desk? Is that what you’re working on?”

  “Yes, but you’re staying here.”

  “I was trained by MI5. I’ve served sixteen years with Europol, a lot of that on active service. I’ll be more use to you than a bunch of untrained zealots.” Polanski ignored him. “Duvalle’s a technology freak. Did you know that? I’m betting his headquarters is packed to the rafters with high-tech security, stuff you’ve never even seen before, stuff I know about.” Still no response. “For God’s sake, man. My daughter’s in there. She’ll be frightened and confused. She’ll need to see someone she knows and trusts, not a bunch of armed thugs in ski masks. And don’t give me another story about how emotionally damaged all your thugs are because, somehow, that’s just not reassuring.”

  “Shut up, or I’ll gag you.”

  Jay subsided, trying to think of a new approach, some way to appeal to the man, but he hadn’t found it by the time Peter returned and reported that things were going well.

  “Matthew says if they work through the night they’ll get it all back together,” Peter said. “There was something, some technical thing that got bent and they’re having to make a new one from scratch, and some of the computers got broke, stuff like that, but he’s got spares and backups and he says it’ll be ready on time.”

  “And the building?”

  “They’ve roofed over the lob site and put tarps and boards over the sleeping and cooking areas. If we don’t get rain tonight, there won’t be nothing that can’t be fixed up soon enough.”