Arnold wasted no time in betraying Washington’s trust, conspiring to meet with André to develop a plan for turning West Point over to the British. It was agreed that Arnold would furnish the British with descriptions of the fortresses and information regarding the disposition of the troops, as well as arrange for the American troops to be in positions such as to make capture by the British as easy as possible. And so it was that the British co-conspirator, Major John André, found himself riding across an open field just northwest of White Plains, New York, a scant three miles from the British lines, with his boots lined with stationery from the desk of Benedict Arnold.
A betting man observing this situation would have given at least ten-to-one odds of André reaching his destination and handing over the intelligence to Sir Henry Clinton. And given this eventuality, the odds of the British successfully taking West Point, forcing the surrender of 3,000 American troops, and winning the war for the British, would have been very good indeed. But history is riddled with accidents—fortuitous or calamitous, depending on your point of view—and one of these accidents occurred to Major John André. An objective observer might be forgiven for thinking that this particular accident was part of some grand plan by a divine authority to bring about an American victory. Or it might have been simply have been pure chance.
Or something in between.
“This way!” cried Mercury, steering his horse to the left. The other six men hesitated.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Long-Drink-of-Water?” one of the men called after him. “The tracks indicate the ruffians fled this way.” He pointed to the left.
“That’s a false trail,” said Mercury, straightening his war bonnet. “If I had a bead for every time I almost fell for a false trail, I’d own Manhattan. Follow me!” He charged off down the path to the left.
The men behind him grumbled but followed after. They’d been convinced of Mercury’s bona fides as a tracker when he managed to skewer a pigeon at three hundred yards with his eyes closed, but now so far he’d had little success in pinpointing the gang of ruffians the men had been chasing all morning. Some of them were beginning to doubt whether he was even a real Mohican. He wasn’t going to be able to keep up the ruse much longer.
Fortunately, he didn’t need to. “Look!” cried Mercury, pointing at a lone horseman crossing the field toward them. “Yon ruffian!”
There was no reason to believe the man was one of the ruffians they’d been chasing; there were half a dozen of them, and they’d been heading in the opposite direction. Still, a man traveling alone through disputed territory was worth investigating.
Mercury approached close enough to positively identify his target and then held back, allowing his compatriots to take the lead.
The stranger stopped short as the men approached and dismounted. He hesitated, but then smiled slightly as he noticed the Hessian overcoat worn by the leader.
“Gentlemen,” said the stranger. “I hope you belong to our party.”
“What party?” asked one of the men.
“The party of England,” replied the stranger.
“We do,” answered the leader.
“Very good,” said the stranger. “I must tell you then, that I’m a British officer, and must not be detained.”
“Is that right?” asked the leader. “Did I say that we’re British? I meant American.”
The stranger’s face went white. He swallowed hard. “Then I meant I’m an American officer.” He produced a passport signed by Benedict Arnold. “You must understand, I claimed to be British only because I thought you were.”
“Yeah?” said the leader. “And what’s an American officer doing this far from the American lines?”
“Please,” said the stranger. “You can have my horse. And my watch. Just let me walk the last few miles to White Plains.”
“I have a horse,” replied the leader. “And I already know what time it is. Search him.”
The stranger was stripped, and the papers were found in his boot.
The leader looked over the papers, which were damp from the stranger’s sweat. After a moment he held them to his nose.
“Smells like treason,” he said.
Mercury sighed and turned away, leaving the men to arrest Major André. He felt bad for the man; he was only doing his job, and he’d likely be hanged for it. As would Benedict Arnold, if he could be caught. After all Arnold had done for the American cause, it seemed grossly unfair to Mercury. How could one mistake wipe out all the good he had done? If only he hadn’t listened to Lucifer.
Having been through a lot of wars, this wasn’t the first time Mercury had witnessed such a betrayal, and at first he couldn’t figure out why this one was hitting him so hard. He had no personal interest in this war. He’d only seen to the capture of Major André because Heaven had decided that an American victory was definitely in their interest. If the British could take West Point with minimal bloodshed and end the war, it would have been fine with Mercury.
Ultimately he came to realize that he held himself personally responsible for Arnold’s moral failure. If Mercury had been able to come up with better answers to Arnold’s questions, maybe he wouldn’t have switched sides. Arnold had glimpsed the angelic machinations behind the war and must have felt like a puppet to forces beyond his control. If his mysterious benefactor had seen fit to change sides, who was Benedict Arnold to question him? Would it have changed anything if Mercury had told him that Rezon was really Lucifer? Lucifer was just a name, after all. Had he given Arnold any reason to trust an angel named Mercury over one named Lucifer? Angels and demons were all playing the same game. It wasn’t Arnold’s fault that he had seen through the charade.
Chapter Twenty-one
Grand Rapids, Michigan; August 2016
Zion Johnson made his way slowly across the rooftop of the Vanden Heuvel Building, flanked by four heavily armed men in gear that was designed to camouflage them against the gray gravel of the roof. He was moving slowly because he was using crutches, and in his left hand he carried a heavy black duffel bag. His right knee was completely immobilized by a cast, and with every movement pain shot through the whole right side of his body. It wasn’t hot out, but droplets of sweat were pouring down his brow. Zion Johnson wasn’t big on pain medication, particularly when he was working.
He could have had someone else handle this part of the job, but Zion Johnson wanted to see the mission through. He’d made sure that the bomb had fallen into the hands of Chaos Faction, and prevented the army truck that the terrorists had inexplicably driven across the country from being pulled over by any law enforcement agencies. With any luck, they’d driven to the coordinates he’d provided and were preparing the detonated the Brimstone bomb at the agreed-upon time. He mentally went over the note he had left them for the hundredth time, concluding for the hundredth time that the instructions could not possibly have been any clearer: the blueprints of the Vanden Heuvel were merely a ruse; they were to be left somewhere near Grand Rapids to lead the authorities to think that the terrorists had planned to attack the city. Meanwhile, the bomb would actually detonate harmlessly several miles away, scaring the shit out of the city’s half million residents but causing few, if any, casualties.
Sure, there had been that frustrating Internet exchange with the one called Nisroc, but Zion Johnson was fairly certain Nisroc was the dimmest of the group. That Izbazel didn’t seem so bad. Yes, he had bungled the truck hijacking, but everything had turned out OK. Except for all those dead men, of course, but they knew what they were getting into. Well, not exactly what they were getting into. It’s not like they knew they were guarding an illegal nuclear bomb whose owners had plotted to hand it over to terrorists. But they knew, in general, the sort of thing they were getting into. Anyway, that whole episode was the result of a simple misunderstanding. Izbazel had thought the men in the truck were just going to hand over the bomb without a fight. Zion Johnson had made a point of telling Nisroc the bomb would
be heavily guarded, but he hadn’t specifically told him that the guards would shoot at anyone trying to take the bomb. It was his own mistake, really. He’d have to communicate more clearly in the future.
This line of thinking let Zion Johnson to wonder, for the one-hundred-and-first time, whether his note had been clear enough. Realizing that he was engaged in a circular train of thought, Zion Johnson focused on his mantra.
Superior attitude, superior state of mind.
Superior attitude, superior state of mind.
Superior attitude, superior state of mind.
The four men had completed recon of the roof and the ranking officer gave Zion Johnson the all-clear sign. He nodded and signaled for the men to fan out across the roof. They did so, hiding themselves behind air ducts and vents so thoroughly that an ordinary person could walk within five feet without noticing anything amiss—not that an ordinary person had any reason to be strolling across the top of the Vanden Heuvel Building.
Zion Johnson set the duffel bag down in the middle of the roof, unhooked a walkie-talkie from his belt and held it a few inches from his face, surveying the empty roof. “This is Big Dog,” he said. “The package is in place and the roof is secure. Shut down the elevators and get some men in the stairwells. I don’t want anybody getting up here from below.”
Zion Johnson took a last look around. Nothing to do now but hope that this Mercury fellow takes the bait. He hobbled back to the stairwell.
Chapter Twenty-two
Grand Rapids, Michigan; August 2016
Nisroc moved quietly from desk to desk, emptying trash bins into the garbage bag hanging from a janitor’s cart. He liked this sort of work. It was soothingly repetitive. Good, honest work, too. Imagine what would happen if nobody ever emptied the trash bins. He shuddered to think. It would be nice if Chaos Faction could do more work like this, he thought. It seemed like a better way of making a living than blowing up noses, but then what did he know? Nisroc always seemed to get in trouble when he made decisions for himself. He was better at following orders.
As he reached under a desk to pick up an errant gum wrapper, he was jolted out of his ruminations by a loud squawking in his ear. He’d forgotten about the earpiece, and in his terror he jumped straight up, banging his head on the bottom of the desk.
“Nisroc, what’s your position?” the voice squawked.
“On the floor,” moaned Nisroc, holding his head.
“Well, get up!” said the voice. It was Izbazel. “Have you planted the bomb yet?”
Nisroc crawled out from under the desk and got slowly to his feet. Still holding his head, he spoke into the microphone hidden in his shirt. “Not yet,” he said. “I’m still working on the trash.”
“The trash?” asked Izbazel. “Forget about the trash and plant the bomb at the red X!”
“That’s the thing,” said Nisroc. “I’ve been all over this floor, and I don’t see the red X.”
“It’s not going to…” Izbazel started. “Never mind. Just leave the cart anywhere. It’s doesn’t matter if it’s not right on the X. It’s a nuclear bomb, for Pete’s sake. It’s going to take out the whole downtown area.”
“OK,” said Nisroc. After a moment he added, “Over and out.”
Nisroc wasn’t really very keen on the whole nuclear bomb idea. He didn’t quite grasp why anyone would want to take out the whole downtown area. It seemed to him that it would just make a big mess, and if Izbazel kept shuffling Chaos Faction from one secret mission to the next, Nisroc probably wouldn’t be around to help clean it up. Too bad. Nisroc liked cleaning things up.
He let out a heavy sigh and reached into the bottom of the big black garbage bag. Finding the little switch cover with his fingers, he pulled it open and flipped the switch.
OK, so that was done. The bomb was armed and it would detonate in thirty minutes. Plenty of time for Nisroc and the rest of Chaos Faction—who were waiting in a coffee shop down the street from the Vanden Heuvel building—to get out of the blast radius. In fact, Nisroc thought, probably enough time for him to empty a few more trash bins. He wheeled the cart to the next desk and leaned over to pick up the bin, which was brimming over with crumpled papers and yogurt containers.
The something struck him on the back of his head and everything went black.
Some time later, he regained consciousness tied to a chair inside what appeared to be a janitor’s closet. A single fluorescent panel overhead lit the small room. Judging from the brands of the cleaning products on the shelves, he was still in the Vanden Heuvel building, but it was impossible to say what floor. He thought he sensed someone behind him. He strained against his bonds, but they were too tight for him to wriggle free. Next he tried to grab hold of some interplanar energy in the area to weaken the cords, but found that something was interfering with his efforts.
“Not going to work,” said a man’s voice. It sounded strangely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “I’m not going to let you get a handle on the energy,” said the man.
“What do you want?” asked Nisroc. “I was just doing my job.”
“Doing your job!” cried a woman’s voice, which he didn’t recognize. How many people were in this supply closet? She went on, “You know who else was just doing their job? The Nazis!”
Nisroc thought about this for a moment. He supposed it was true. The Nazis must have had janitors, after all. What if all the janitors in Germany had refused to empty the trash bins of any Nazis? Eventually the offices of the Third Reich would have been so clogged up with papers and banana peels that the whole war machine would have shut down. Was that what the woman was implying? That by emptying the trash bins on the thirty-fifth floor of the Vanden Heuvel Building, he was facilitating some vast enterprise of evil? Pangs of guilt struck his heart, making it hard for him to think. This is what always happened when he started thinking for himself.
“We know about the bomb,” said the woman. She walked around to stand in front of Nisroc. Nisroc felt like he should recognize her, like he’d seen her on a TV show recently. She didn’t look like an actress, though. She was kind of short and a little too well-padded to be the lead in a TV show. She might have played the fat friend, but she wasn’t quite heavy enough for that. She was in that awkward range of height-to-weight proportion that put her squarely in the demographic that made up seventy-five percent of the female population that wasn’t allowed to be on television. Also, her hair was purple.
“Oh, the bomb!” exclaimed Nisroc. He had forgotten about the bomb. He wondered what time it was.
“Don’t play dumb,” snapped the purple-haired woman.
“I’m fairly certain he’s not playing,” said the man, walking into view. Nisroc was confirmed in his belief that he had met this man before. It was when he and Ramiel were guarding that condo in Glendale, the one with the interplanar linoleum portal.
“Hey, you’re…” Nisroc started.
“Ederatz,” replied Eddie. “Used to work for the Mundane Observation Corps. You can call me Eddie.”
“Who do you work for now?” asked Nisroc.
“A better question is, who do you work for now?” Eddie replied.
“Well,” said Nisroc. “We call ourselves Chaos Faction.”
“What?” asked the woman. “You’re Chaos Faction? The terrorist group?”
“Not just me,” replied Nisroc. “There are four of us. Well, there are more, but most of us are in prison.”
“So,” Eddie said. “Michelle has her agents working with Chaos Faction, to make it look like the bombing is an act of terrorism.”
“Michelle?” asked Nisroc hopefully. “You mean the Michelle? So we’re the good guys, then.”
“You’re about to detonate a nuclear bomb in the downtown area of a major city,” the woman said. “Does that sound like something the good guys would do?”
Nisroc frowned. It did sound pretty bad when you just came out and said it like that.
A phone rang and Eddie pulled it out of
his pocket and answered it.
“Yeah,” he said. “On the roof? What does it look like? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, that’s what I thought too. OK.”
He hung up the phone.
“Did he find it?” asked the woman.
Eddie shook his head. “He says there’s a black duffel bag on the roof.”
Nisroc’s brow furrowed. He didn’t know anything about a duffel bag on the roof. Izbazel never told him anything.
“But you don’t think that’s it?” asked the woman.
“Mercury thinks it’s too obvious,” said Eddie.
“Isn’t that the point? They planted the bomb right where we expected them to.”
“Mercury thinks it’s a decoy. If we try to grab it, Michelle’s agents will swoop in and arrest us. He also says there’s a Balderhaz field emanating from somewhere near the top of the building.”
“A what?”
“There’s a device called a Balderhaz Cube that prevents angels from performing miracles within a given range. It complicates our efforts to dispose of the bomb.”
“But you said you don’t think the bomb is on the roof,” said the woman. “So where is it?”
“Ask Mr. Just-doing-his-job,” said Eddie.
Nisroc bit his lip. He wasn’t happy about the whole nuclear bomb situation, but his feelings of loyalty to Chaos Faction made him reluctant to divulge the location of the bomb.
“Look,” said the woman. “You seem like a decent guy. My guess is that you just got mixed up with the wrong crowd. I know how it goes. I was on the team that helped build that bomb. I didn’t fully realize what was going on until it was too late to stop it. But it’s not too late to keep the bomb from going off. You just have to stop following orders and do the right thing.”
Mercury Revolts: (Book Four of the Mercury Series) Page 14