The Traveler fr-1

by John Twelve Hawks

  The Brethren placed all of their employees in one of ten security levels. Kennard Nash was a level one and had full knowledge of all operations. Dr. Richardson had been given a level five clearance; he knew about the Travelers, but would never learn about the Harlequins. Lawrence was a trusted level-three employee; he was able to access a vast amount of information, but he would never learn about the Brethren’s grand strategies.

  ***

  SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS FOLLOWED Lawrence as he left his office, passed down the corridor, and took the elevator down to the underground parking lot beneath the administrative center. When Lawrence drove out the gates of the compound, his movements were tracked by a global positioning satellite and the information was sent to an Evergreen Foundation computer.

  During his time at the White House, General Nash proposed that every American citizen wear or carry a Protective Link, or “PL device.” The government’s Freedom from Fear program stressed both national security and the practical aspects of the program. Coded a certain way, the PL device could be a universal credit card and debit card. It could access all of your medical information in case you were in an accident. If all loyal, law-abiding Americans wore a PL device, street crime might disappear within a few years. In one magazine ad, two young parents wearing PL devices tucked in a sleeping daughter whose Protective Link ID card was being held by her teddy bear. The ad slogan was simple but effective: Fighting Terrorism While You Sleep.

  Radio frequency ID chips had already been inserted beneath the skin of thousands of Americans-mostly the elderly or people with serious medical conditions. Similar ID card devices were tracking employees who worked for large companies. Most Americans seemed positive about a device that would protect them from unknown dangers and help them get through the checkout line at their local grocery store. But the Protective Link had been attacked by an unusual alliance of left-wing civil liberties groups and right-wing libertarians. After losing support from the White House, General Nash was forced to resign.

  When Nash took over the Evergreen Foundation, he immediately set up a private Protective Link system. Employees could keep their ID in their shirt pocket or hang it from a cord around their neck, but all the top employees had the chip inserted beneath their skin. The scar on the back of their right hand indicated their high status in the foundation. Once a month, Lawrence had to lay his hand on a plug-in charger. He felt a warm, tingling sensation as the chip gained enough power to continue transmitting.

  Lawrence wished he had known how the Protective Link worked during the beginning of the program. A global positioning satellite tracked one’s movements and the computer established a frequent destination grid for each employee. Like most people, Lawrence spent ninety percent of his life in the same destination grid. He shopped at certain stores, worked out at the same gym, and traveled back and forth between his town house and the office. If Lawrence had known about the grid, he would have done a few unusual things during the first month.

  Whenever he deviated from his frequent destination grid, a list of questions immediately appeared on his computer: Why were you in Manhattan on Wednesday at 2100 hours? Why did you go to Times Square? Why did you travel down 42nd Street to Grand Central Terminal? The questions were computer generated, but you had to respond to each one. Lawrence wondered if his answers went promptly to a file that no one read or if they were scanned and evaluated by another program. Working for the Brethren, you never knew when you were being watched-so you had to assume that it was all the time.

  ***

  WHEN LAWRENCE ENTERED his town house, he kicked off his shoes, removed his necktie, and tossed his briefcase on the coffee table. He had bought all his furniture with the help of a decorator hired by the Evergreen Foundation. The woman announced that Lawrence was a “spring” personality, so all the furniture and wall art were color coordinated in matching pastel blues and greens.

  Lawrence followed the same ritual whenever he was finally alone-he screamed. Then he walked over to a mirror and smiled and frowned and shouted like a madman. After his tension was released, he took a shower and put on a robe.

  A year ago Lawrence had constructed a secret room in the closet of his home office. It had taken months to wire the room and conceal it behind a bookcase that rested on hidden rollers. Lawrence had been in the room three days ago, and it was time for another visit. He pushed back the case a few feet, slipped inside, and switched on the light. On a small Buddhist altar he displayed two snapshots of his parents taken at a hot spring in Nagano, Japan. In one of the photographs, they were smiling at each other and holding hands. His father sat alone in the second photograph, looking off at the mountains with a sad expression on his face. On the table in front of him were two ancient Japanese swords: one with a handle that had a jade fitting, the other with fittings made of gold.

  Lawrence opened an ebony wood box and took out a satellite phone and a laptop computer. A minute later he was online and wandering through the Web until he found the French Harlequin named Linden in a chat room dedicated to trance musik.

  “Sparrow Son here,” Lawrence typed.

  “Safe?”

  “I think so.”

  “News?”

  “We’ve found a doctor who has agreed to implant sensors into the subject’s brain. The treatment will start soon.”

  “Any other news?”

  “I think the computer team has made another breakthrough. They seemed very happy in the dining room during lunch. I still don’t have access to their research.”

  “Have they found the two most important elements of the experiment?”

  Lawrence stared at the monitor screen, and then typed rapidly. “They’re looking for them right now. Time is running out. You must find the brothers.”

  13

  The front entrance to the four-story building that contained Mr. Bubble’s clothing factory was framed by two stone obelisks set into the red brick wall. Plaster sculptures of Egyptian tomb figures were in the ground-floor reception area and hieroglyphics were on the walls of the staircases. Gabriel wondered if they had found a professor to write real hieroglyphic messages or if the symbols had been copied out of an encyclopedia. When he was walking around the empty building at night, he would touch the hieroglyphics and trace their shapes with his forefinger.

  Each weekday morning workers began to arrive at the factory. The ground floor was for shipping and receiving, and it was run by young Latino men who wore loose slacks and white T-shirts. Incoming fabric was sent up the freight elevator to the cutters on the third floor. Right now they were making lingerie and the cutters stacked layers of satin and rayon fabric on large wooden tables and sliced through the fabric with electric scissors. The seamstresses on the second floor were illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Mr. Bubble paid them thirty-two cents for each piece they sewed. They worked hard in the dusty room, but always seemed to be laughing about something or talking to one another. Several of them had framed photographs of the Virgin Mary taped to their sewing machines and the Holy Mother watched over them while they stitched together red bustiers with little gold hearts dangling from the back zipper.

  Gabriel and Michael had spent the last few days living on the fourth floor, a storage place for empty boxes and old office furniture. Deek had purchased sleeping bags and folding cots from a sporting goods store. There weren’t any showers in the building, but at night the brothers went downstairs and took sponge baths in the employee restroom. They ate doughnuts or bagels for breakfast. A catering truck was parked outside the factory during lunch and one of the bodyguards would bring them egg burritos or turkey sandwiches in Styrofoam containers.

  Two El Salvadorans watched them during the daytime. After the workers went home, Deek arrived with the bald Latino man-a former nightclub bouncer named Jesús Morales. Jesús spent most of his time reading car magazines and listening to ranchero music on the radio.

  If Gabriel got bored and wanted a conversation, he went downstairs and ta
lked to Deek. The big Samoan got his nickname because he was a deacon in a fundamentalist church in Long Beach.

  “Each man is responsible for his own soul,” he told Gabriel. “If someone goin’ to hell, then there’s more room for dah righteous in heaven.”

  “What if you end up in hell, Deek?”

  “Ain’t gonna happen, brutha. I’m goin’ upstairs to the good place.”

  “But what if you had to kill someone?”

  “Depends on the person. If he was a real sinner, den I’m makin’ dah world a better place. Trash goes in dah trash can. Know what I’m tellin’ you, brutha?”

  Gabriel had brought his Honda motorcycle and a few books up to the fourth floor. He spent his time dismantling the bike, cleaning each part, and putting it back together. When he was tired of doing that, he read old magazines or a paperback translation of The Tale of Genji.

  Gabriel missed the feeling of release that came to him whenever he raced his motorcycle or jumped out of a plane. Now he was trapped in the factory. He kept having dreams about fire. He was inside an old house watching a rocking chair burn with an intense yellow flame. Breathe deep. Wake up in darkness. Michael lay a few feet away, snoring, while a garbage truck outside the building loaded a dumpster.

  During the day, Michael paced around the fourth floor while he talked on the cell phone. He was trying to hold together his purchase of the office building on Wilshire Boulevard, but couldn’t explain his sudden disappearance to the bank. The deal was falling apart as he pleaded for more time.

  “Let it go,” Gabriel said. “You can find another building.”

  “That might take years.”

  “We could always move to another city. Start a different life.”

  “This is my life.” Michael sat down on a packing crate. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and tried to wipe off a grease mark on the toe of his right shoe. “I’ve worked hard, Gabe. Now it feels like everything is about to disappear.”

  “We’ve always survived.”

  Michael shook his head. He looked like a boxer who had just lost a championship fight. “I wanted to protect us, Gabe. Our parents didn’t do that. They just tried to hide. Money buys protection. It’s a wall between yourself and the rest of the world.”

  14

  The plane chased the darkness as it headed west across the United States. When the cabin attendants switched on the lights, Maya raised the little plastic shutter and peered out the window. A bright line of sunlight on the eastern horizon illuminated the desert below. The plane was passing over Nevada or Arizona; she wasn’t quite sure. A cluster of lights glimmered from a small town. In the distance, the dark line of a river slithered across the land.

  She refused breakfast and the free champagne but accepted a hot scone, served with strawberries and clotted cream. Maya could still remember when her mother used to bake scones for afternoon tea. It was the only time during the day that she felt like a normal child, sitting at the little table reading a comic book while her mother bustled around the kitchen. Indian tea with plenty of cream and sugar. Fish fingers. Rice pudding. Fairy cakes.

  When they were an hour away from landing, Maya walked back to the airplane toilet and locked the door. She opened the passport she was using, taped it to the toilet mirror, and compared the image in the photograph to her current appearance. Maya’s eyes were now brown because of the special contact lenses. Unfortunately, the plane had left Heathrow three hours late and her facer drugs were beginning to wear off.

  She opened her purse and took out the syringe and diluted steroids used for a touch-up. The steroids were disguised as insulin supplies and the kit contained an official-looking physician’s letter that stated that she was a diabetic. Watching her face in the mirror, Maya coaxed the needle deep into her cheek muscle and injected half a syringe.

  When she was finished with the steroids, she filled up the sink, took a test tube out of her purse, and emptied a finger shield into the cold water. The gelatin shield was grayish white, thin, and fragile; it resembled a segment of an animal’s intestine.

  Maya took a fake perfume bottle from her purse and sprayed adhesive on her left index finger. She reached into the water, slipped the finger into the shield, and quickly removed her hand. The shield covered her fingerprint with another print for the digital scan at immigration. Before the plane landed, she would use an emery board to scrape away the portion covering her fingernail.

  Maya waited two minutes for the first shield to dry, and then opened up a second test tube for the shield that went on her right index finger. The airplane hit a patch of turbulence and began to bounce around in the air. A red warning sign went on in the toilet. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEAT.

  Concentrate, she told herself. You can’t make a mistake. As she slipped her finger into the shield, the airplane lurched downward and she tore the fragile tissue.

  Maya fell back against the wall, feeling sick to her stomach. She had only one backup shield and if that didn’t work, there was a good chance that she would be arrested when she landed in America. The Tabula had probably obtained her fingerprints when she was working for the design firm in London. It would be easy for them to insert false information into the United States immigration computer that would be triggered by a fingerprint scan. Suspicious person. Terrorist contacts. Detain immediately.

  Maya opened a third test tube and poured her only backup shield into the sink water. Once again, she sprayed the adhesive on her right index finger. She took a deep breath and reached into the water.

  “Excuse me!” The cabin attendant knocked on the toilet door. “Please return to your seat immediately!”

  “Just one minute.”

  “The pilot has switched on the seat-belt light! Regulations require all passengers to return to their seats!”

  “I’m-I’m feeling sick,” Maya said. “Give me one minute. That’s all.”

  Sweat trickled down her neck. This time she breathed slowly, filling her lungs with air, then slipped her finger into the shield and removed her hand from the water. Still wet, the gelatin shield glistened on her finger.

  The cabin attendant, an older woman, glared at Maya as she returned to her seat. “Didn’t you see the light?”

  “I am sorry,” Maya whispered. “But I feel sick to my stomach. I’m sure you understand.”

  The plane jumped again as she buckled her seat belt and prepared her mind for battle. A Harlequin who arrived in a strange country for the first time was supposed to be met by a local contact who would hand over guns, money, and identification. Maya was carrying her sword and knives concealed in the camera tripod. Both the weapons and the tripod had been manufactured in Barcelona by a Catalan sword maker who tested everything with his own X-ray machine.

  Shepherd had promised to meet her at the airport, but the American Harlequin was showing his usual incompetence. During the three days before Maya left London, Shepherd changed his mind several times, then sent an e-mail saying that he was being followed and had to be careful about his movements. Shepherd contacted a Jonesie, and this person was going to be at the terminal.

  “Jonesie” was the nickname for a member of the Divine Church of Isaac T. Jones. They were a small group of African Americans who believed that a Traveler named Isaac Jones was the greatest prophet who had ever walked the earth. Jones was a cobbler who lived in Arkansas in the 1880s. Like many Travelers he started out preaching a spiritual message, and then began to spread ideas that challenged the ruling structure. In southern Arkansas, both black and white sharecroppers were controlled by a small group of powerful landowners. The prophet told these poor farmers to break the contracts that kept them in economic slavery.

  In 1889, Isaac Jones was falsely accused of touching a white woman who had come to his shop to pick up some shoes. He was arrested by the town sheriff and killed that night by a lynch mob that broke down the door of his cell. On the night that Jones was martyred, a traveling salesman named Zachary Goldman had gone to the jail cell.
When the mob broke in, Goldman killed three men with the sheriff’s shotgun and two others with a crowbar. The mob overwhelmed Goldman and the young man was castrated, then burned alive in the same bonfire that consumed Isaac Jones.

  Only the true believers knew the real story: that Zachary Goldman was a Harlequin named Lion of the Temple who had gone to Jackson City with enough money to bribe the sheriff and get the Prophet out of town. When the sheriff fled, Goldman remained at the jail and died defending the Traveler.

  The church had always been a Harlequin ally, but the relationship had changed during the last decade. A few Jonesies believed that Goldman wasn’t really at the jail, but that the Harlequins had made up the story for their own advantage. Others believed that the church had done so many favors for the Harlequins that Goldman’s deed had been repaid years ago. It bothered them that other Travelers existed in the world, because new revelations should never supplant the teachings of the Prophet. Only a handful of stubborn Jonesies called themselves DNPs-an abbreviation for “Debt Not Paid.” A Harlequin had died with the Prophet during his martyrdom and it was their duty to honor that sacrifice.

  At the Los Angeles airport, Maya picked up her clothing bag, camera case, and tripod, then passed through immigration with her German passport. The contact lenses and finger shields worked perfectly.

  “Welcome to the United States,” said the man in the uniform, and Maya smiled politely. She followed the green sign for passengers with nothing to declare and walked up a long ramp to the reception area.

  Hundreds of people were pushed against a steel railing, waiting for arriving passengers. A limousine driver held a cardboard sign for someone named J. Kaufman. A young woman wearing a tight skirt and clattery high heels ran forward and embraced an American soldier. The woman was laughing and weeping like a fool for her scrawny boyfriend, but Maya felt a twinge of jealousy. Love made you vulnerable; if you gave your heart to another, they could leave you or die. And yet visions of love surrounded her. People hugged each other near the doorway and waved homemade signs. WE LOVE YOU, DAVID! WELCOME HOME!