But he hadn’t gotten more than fifty paces from the town square when a familiar voice called to him from behind.
“Lord Squigglebottom!”
Mercury sighed heavily, stopped in his tracks, and turned to face Benedict Arnold.
“I knew that was you, even without the ridiculous wig,” said Arnold, as he approached. It took Mercury a moment to process this statement. In fact he hadn’t been wearing a wig the last time Arnold had seen him. He’d merely been wearing his own hair (which he’d grown to shoulder length) pulled back in a ponytail. Currently he was wearing a brown wig which he thought made him look French-er.
“I’m actually undercover here,” said Mercury. “So if anybody asks, call me Monsieur Mercier.”
“But why…?”
“Don’t ask.” In truth, there was no good reason for the different aliases (in Virginia, he was a German industrialist named Hermann Engel and in New York he was a Dutch investor named Marcus Uittenbroek
[5]). It was often difficult to remember who he was supposed to be in a given location, but fortunately none of his portrayals of these different characters was particularly nuanced. In short, Messrs. Mercier, Engel, Squigglebottom and Uittenbroek shared every aspect of each other’s personas except for their names, nationalities and choice in wigs.
“What is your involvement here, Squig—er, Mercier? I find it very strange that a man of your station should be found amongst a gang of ruffians such as this.”
“Long story,” said Mercury. “I bought a colonial in Boston. Nice place, but a bit of a fixer-upper. I asked around a bit for some advice on home furnishings and I ended out here in the wilderness with Ethan Allen and the boys.”
“Cut the nonsense,” said Arnold. “Sam Adams and those guys may have fallen for your charade, but I never bought it. I don’t know who you are, but you’re no Lord Squigglebottom or Monsieur Mercier. Where do you people come from? Are you even people?”
“I’m sure I don’t—”
“I saw you fly, Mister. And it’s not just you. I know there are others. Like that Mr. Rezon. He’s one of you, isn’t he?”
“Mr. Reason?” asked Mercury, confused.
“Rezon. R-E-Z-O-N. Lawrence Rezon. Don’t play dumb.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re—”
Faster than Mercury could even blink, Arnold pulled a knife from his jacket and plunged the blade deep into Mercury’s chest.
“Ow!” shouted Mercury. He looked down at the knife protruding from his chest. A dark stain was spreading outward over his shirt from the wound. “What in the name of Queen Victoria’s third nipple do you think you’re doing?”
“Just a little test,” said Arnold. “You seem to be faring pretty well for someone who was just stabbed in the heart.”
Mercury gripped the handle of the knife, took a deep breath, and yanked it out. He dropped the bloody knife to the ground and then fell backwards, his eyes rolling into his head. He hit the ground with a thud.
Benedict Arnold ran to his side, cradling his head in his arms. “Lord Squigglebottom!” he cried. “I’m so sorry! I thought…”
Mercury’s lips moved as if he were trying to speak, and Arnold bent his ear close. “What is it, Your Lordship?” asked Arnold frantically. “Speak to me!”
A gurgle escaped from Mercury’s mouth, followed by two syllables. “Ass…hole…” Mercury gasped.
Arnold pulled back and looked at Mercury, who was glaring at him angrily. “Excuse me?” Arnold said.
“I said you’re an asshole,” Mercury repeated, sitting up and brushing Arnold’s hands away. “You can’t just fucking stab someone like that, even if they are immortal.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Arnold. “I was right!”
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Mercury, getting slowly to his feet. “Congratulations. I would have told you if you had just asked, you know.”
“You said you didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“I don’t!” shouted Mercury. “That is, I have no idea who this Rezon guy that you mentioned is.”
“Oh,” said Arnold. “Well, I’ll tell you all about him if you answer a few questions for me.”
“Hey, why didn’t I think of that?” said Mercury. “Oh, wait, I did. I was just about to suggest it when somebody stabbed me in the fucking heart.”
“Oh,” said Arnold sheepishly. “Sorry. That was pretty amazing, though.”
“Glad I could entertain you,” said Mercury. “Now, tell me about this Rezon character.”
Benedict Arnold told Mercury what he knew. Mr. Rezon, it turned out, was none other than Lucifer himself. Arnold didn’t know that, of course, and Mercury didn’t tell him. But it was clear from Arnold’s description—both of the man’s physical traits and his slightly creepy yet oddly persuasive demeanor—who Rezon really was. Evidently this Rezon had also been posing as a wealthy British aristocrat who sympathized with the Americans, and Arnold had somehow deduced a link between Rezon and Mercury. Rezon had gone to Arnold shortly after the incident at Lexington to persuade him to take the offensive in the coming war against the British. Lucifer, who had a number of sleeper agents in Heaven, had apparently come into the same intelligence regarding British troop positions that Mercury’s superiors had. So while Mercury was persuading Ethan Allen to attack Ticonderoga, Lucifer was trying to persuade Benedict Arnold to do exactly the same thing. Arnold, who needed permission from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, had taken a little longer to get his act together, and had been nearly beaten to the punch by Allen.
“I don’t understand,” said Arnold, after Mercury had done his best to explain what had happened (without revealing any highly classified information). “If you and Rezon are working together, why would you send two independent groups of men to take a single fort? It was sheer luck and determination that got me here before the Green Mountain Boys launched their attack. It seems like terrible planning on your part.”
“That’s the thing,” said Mercury. “We’re not working together. At least not intentionally. There are different factions among my people, some good, some bad. Rezon’s one of the bad guys.” Mercury hadn’t explained that he and Rezon were angels; he was technically not allowed to give that information to mortals, and in any case it would have just caused more confusion. He had told Arnold only that they were “supernatural beings from another world.” That seemed to satisfy him as much as anything could.
“So Rezon is a bad guy,” said Arnold.
“Correct.”
“And you’re a good guy,” said Arnold.
“Correct again.”
“And you’re both on the same side.”
Mercury frowned. “Well, I can see how you’d be a bit confused. To be honest, I don’t fully understand it myself. Usually Rezon and I are on opposite sides, but occasionally stuff like this happens. He wants war for his reasons, and Heav—that is, my bosses want war for their reasons. So I guess everybody is going to be happy.”
“So, Squigglebottom—”
“Call me Mercury.”
“All right, Mercury. What makes you a good guy, if you want the same thing as the bad guy?” asked Arnold.
“Um,” said Mercury. “It’s not that we want the same thing. Generally speaking, Rezon wants war and mayhem, while my bosses want, well, peace and not mayhem. But in this particular instance our interests are aligned.”
“And if I asked Mr. Rezon, would he say that he’s the good guy and you’re the bad guy?”
“I…” started Mercury. “Well, sure, I suppose, but that’s like, you know… not really accurate.”
“You seem like a smart guy, Mercury,” said Arnold. “Do these questions not occur to you?”
“Honestly, I try not to think about it too hard,” replied Mercury.
“It shows.” He turned back toward the town square, where Ethan Allen’s men were packing up. “Well, it looks like we’re heading out,” said Arnold. “Are you coming along for the attack?”
&
nbsp; Mercury shook his head. “You don’t need me. Between you and the Green Apple Gang, you’ve got Ticonderoga sorted. Anyway, I’ve got work to do elsewhere.”
“Stoking the fires of war with your buddy, Rezon?”
“He’s not my… fine, think what you want. Just take Ticonderoga, OK?”
Benedict Arnold smiled wryly and gave Mercury a sharp salute. Then he spun on his heel and walked back to the town square.
“Asshole,” muttered Mercury.
Chapter Seventeen
Somewhere in Wyoming; August 2016
“So now what?” asked Suzy. She, Eddie and Mercury were sitting in a booth at a diner in a small town somewhere in Wyoming. For the first fifty miles they had been airborne, the Tercel skimming low over the hills of eastern Idaho. They touched down on the highway outside of Idaho Falls and drove into town, where Mercury somehow convinced an old potato farmer to trade his Chevy Suburban for the Tercel and what Mercury claimed was a solid gold potato that looked exactly like Richard Nixon. Whether it was really gold Suzy couldn’t say, although it was certainly the heaviest potato she’d ever tried to lift. The resemblance to Nixon, though, was unmistakable.
The Suburban remained earthbound for the most part, but Mercury insisted on driving well over 100 miles per hour most of the time. She wasn’t sure if he was just punching the accelerator to the floor or using the so-called “interplanar energy” to push the Suburban beyond its normal limits. Whatever the case, they had somehow covered 300 miles in the past two hours, and Mercury seemed satisfied that they had put enough distance between them and the cabin that no one would be looking for them here. His concern had been that the F-15 assault would be followed up with a squad of angels. Angels could manage a top flight speed of about 500 miles per hour, making them significantly slower than fighter jets, but they posed a much greater threat. There was no way Mercury and Eddie could win a fight against five or six combat-trained angels.
“Don’t ask me,” said Mercury, in response to Suzy’s question. “I’m just here for the pie.”
Mercury had downed six cups of coffee and eaten four pieces of coconut cream pie in the ten minutes they’d been at the diner. Somehow Suzy found this more incredible than either the flying car or the gold potato.
“How can you stay so thin?” she asked incredulously. Mercury was built like a long distance runner.
“Angelic biology,” said Mercury.
“That’s no answer,” said Suzy. “You can’t violate the laws of physics. The food has to go somewhere.”
Mercury shoved a forkful of pie into his mouth and looked at Eddie, rolling his eyes and making the crazy finger motion with his other hand.
“Can we stay on the subject?” Eddie asked. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do. Obviously someone in the government has decided we’re a serious threat.”
“She’s the threat,” Mercury said around a mouthful of coconut cream. “You’re just some Internet conspiracy nutcase, and I’m a manifesto-writing kook. Damn it!”
“What?” asked Suzy.
“I left my manifesto back there in the woods. Can we go back?”
“That strikes me as a fantastically bad idea,” said Suzy.
“He’s right, though,” said Eddie. “We’re just a couple of unaffiliated cherubim. You’re the one they’re scared of, because you know all about Brimstone. They want to silence you, at any cost.”
“But I don’t have any proof of anything!” she said. “It was all on that thumb drive, which is either destroyed or in the hands of the government.”
“She’s got a point,” said Mercury. “What are they so scared of?”
“Us,” said Eddie after a moment’s reflection. “The three of us. They’re worried we’re going to go public.”
“What do you mean?” asked Suzy.
“Rosenberg and I called it the ‘nuclear option.’ Probably not a great name, given the circumstances, but that’s what we called it. A way of forcing the debate about the infiltration of the government into the open.”
“You mean go public about the existence of angels,” said Suzy.
“Yeah,” Eddie replied. “It’s never happened, not in the seven thousand years that angels and demons have been fighting it out on this plane. There have been rogue angels who have set themselves up as gods or used their powers for unauthorized purposes…”
Mercury seemed to be choking on a piece of pie.
“…but it was always generally agreed by everyone that no one’s interests are served by giving human beings definitive proof of the existence of supernatural creatures. But we’re desperate, and Michelle knows it. If Suzy reveals the truth about Brimstone, she’ll be dismissed as just another disgruntled former government employee with an axe to grind. But if we explain that the government is overrun with angels, and offer proof…”
“Proof of the existence of angels,” said Mercury. “What, like doing a press conference and bending a few spoons? Damn it!”
“Now what?” asked Suzy, exasperated.
“Left my trick spoon back there too. Are you sure we can’t go back?”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of levitating a Buick, but yeah.”
“Terrible idea,” said Mercury.
“Why?” asked Suzy. “It’s obviously what they’re expecting us to do.”
“Even worse,” said Mercury. “Never do what anybody expects you to do. The phrase ‘press conference’ is synonymous with ‘bullshit session.’ They’ll dismiss us as loonies and chalk up any miracles we perform to special effects.” He waved his fork at a TV screen hanging in the corner of the diner. “Take this chick here, for example, blabbering about terrorists and nuclear bombs. Do you think anybody believes a word she’s saying?”
Eddie and Suzy turned to look at the screen. A young blond woman was standing at a podium, addressing a group of reporters. She was saying “…thought to be a member of the terrorist group known as Chaos Faction. We have no information on her current whereabouts, but we do have solid intelligence that Chaos Faction has been planning an attack on a medium-sized American city. It has long been suspected that Cilbrith was involved in the theft of the Wormwood bomb, and law enforcement agents have had her under surveillance in the hopes of recovering the bomb. Early Friday morning however, she disappeared, apparently with the help of several Chaos Faction operatives…”
“Hey, you never told me you’re a terrorist!” Mercury exclaimed.
“I’m not!” cried Suzy.
A few of the diner’s patrons glanced over at their table, but didn’t seem to make the connection between Mercury’s comment and what was happening on the TV screen. One man complained that the press conference had interrupted the Cornhuskers game.
“Then why did the blond lady on TV say it?” he charged, pointing his fork accusingly at her.
“Brilliant,” said Eddie. “They smear Suzy, discredit the previous administration, cover up the Brimstone program, and create a mass panic, all in one fell swoop. Pretty impressive, in a Joseph Goebbels sort of way. And notice how they keep the threat vague, so they can justify doing whatever they want. I mean, they could probably institute…”
“…martial law in the following cities,” the woman on the TV was saying. “Albuquerque, New Mexico; Nashville, Tennessee; Modesto, California…”
“How can they do this?” Suzy asked. “It’s all lies! I didn’t steal the bomb! They lost it and built another one, and they still have it! I’ve never even heard of this Chaos Faction thing. What the hell is going on?”
“All part of Michelle’s plan to get complete control over the U.S., and then the rest of the world,” said Eddie.
“You have to admit, though,” said Mercury, “Blondie is pretty convincing. If I didn’t know better… Damn it!”
“What did you forget now, Mercury?” asked Suzy, irritated. “Your toothbrush?”
“No,” replied Mercury. “I just realized who that blond chick is.”
�
�It’s Gabrielle Gladstone,” said Eddie. “The White House Press Secretary.”
“Come on, Eddie,” said Mercury. “The blond bob fooled me too at first, and I’ve never seen her in a suit before. Picture her with long brown hair, and wearing a white robe. Oh, and carrying a big-ass trumpet.”
“Oh,” said Eddie, his face going white. “Oh, no.”
“What?” asked Suzy. “Who is it?”
“Her name really is Gabrielle,” said Mercury. “But you probably know her by the male form of her name, Gabriel. The archangel.”
Chapter Eighteen
New York and Philadelphia; 1776 - 1779
Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen and their men had little difficulty taking Fort Ticonderoga from the British. Not having been informed that the continent was soon to be ravaged by a full-scale war, the Brits were caught completely off guard and surrendered the fort with minimal resistance. Seven days later, Arnold and fifty men went on to raid Fort Saint-Jean in Southern Quebec. It was Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys who got most of the credit for these attacks, though, and Arnold’s failure to achieve widespread popular acclaim or the accolades of Congress despite his consistently bold and clever military maneuvers was to be the defining theme of his career.
After these initial successes, Arnold found himself charged with the impossible task of forestalling a British naval invasion by way of Lake Champlain. Not having a navy, the Americans found themselves at a considerable disadvantage. Undeterred, Arnold summoned carpenters, sail-makers and gunners from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and over the summer of 1776 managed to build a fleet of three schooners, two sloops, three galleys, and eight gondolas. Facing the British Navy with such a fleet was comparable to staring down a charging rhinoceros with a sock full of marbles, but Arnold was undeterred.
Mercury Revolts: (Book Four of the Mercury Series) Page 12