by Blake Banner
But the very scientific revolution that was generating food on such a vast scale was also doing two other things: it was providing medical advances that were wiping out disease, increasing longevity by almost fifty percent, and simultaneously creating the greenhouses gases that would change the climate and bring drought and famine where before there was super-production.
The bitter twist was that by the time the droughts struck, the population would have grown from seven hundred million when Malthus was writing, to over seven billion, six hundred million today—and growing exponentially. Edward Wilson, one of Marni’s most powerful influences at Harvard, had said that, “the constraints of the biosphere are limited,” and that the Earth could sustain no more than nine or ten billion, and that was without factoring in climate change.
Omega had factored in climate change and decided that seven billion people needed to die, and the remaining six hundred million had to have their minds and their behavior controlled. That was, in essence, the Omega Protocol: the final protocol.
Were they wrong? Humanity was well on its way to becoming a plague of parasites—if it hadn’t already become one—you couldn’t argue with that. But if their assessment of the problem was correct, it didn’t mean their solution was.
I checked the clock on the wall. It was five past twelve. The sun was over the yardarm. I stood and poured myself a Bushmills, pulled a Camel from my pack and lit up, standing by the window, looking out at the lawn and the trees beyond. I had no solution for the world. I had no solution for humanity. But I did know two things: if human beings had anything of worth it was the freedom of their minds; a freedom that gave them the potential to be more than the sum of their parts. To convert human beings into slaves, into biological machines as Omega intended, was nothing short of an obscenity. And beyond that, whether Omega were right or wrong, I knew that sooner or later they would come after me and my family. And that meant simply that I had to go after them first.
I sat at my desk and looked at the list. It was clear it had to be one of the five members of Omega 1, in North America. I smiled: correction, four members in North America. Gamma was dead. Alpha and Beta could not be reached yet. They were too well protected. That left Delta, Samuel Cohen, and Epsilon, Aaron Fenninger.
I smoked and considered the names. I knew practically nothing about Samuel Cohen except that he was a financier from a very powerful family of bankers. But Fenninger I knew more about. Most people did. He was a writer, a director and TV and film producer. He’d started out twenty years earlier with a teen fantasy series that had not only made him fantastically rich, but had had a profound effect on teens and pre-teens. Thinking about it I began to see why Omega had opened their doors to him: Silicon Valley had created the delivery system, a man Fenninger’s talent and skill could create a culture be delivered to an entire generation.
Wasn’t that exactly what Goebbels had done in Germany, without the benefit of IT? Wasn’t it what the U.S. and U.K. governments had tried to do using the cinema? How much more powerfully and effectively could Omega do it using the vast, global IT network?
I put my finger on his name and said, “Aaron Fenninger: Kill One.”
A couple of calls found me his address in Malibu, and his office on Sunset Boulevard, in the heart of Hollywood. At first glance the Malibu mansion seemed to offer the best options, but I’d need a couple of days to scout around and make a plan.
I went to the gun room and thought about what weapons I would need. The essence of this operation would be silence, stealth. I smiled to myself. I wouldn’t be blowing anything up this time. Just move in the shadows, I told myself, find his rhythm and his routine, take him out and leave. Then move on to Delta, Beta and, finally, Alpha.
I selected the Maxim 9. It’s a damn ugly gun, but it has an integrated suppressor so it’s nicely balanced, it fits in a holster and will take any kind of 9mm rounds, sonic and sub-sonic in a 17+1 magazine. I also selected my two Sig Sauer p226s, and my fighting knife, the Fairbairn & Sykes, the best fighting knife ever made. As an afterthought I added my night vision goggles and my orange osage take down bow, with twelve aluminum arrows.
I then chose a selection of bugs, a couple of which had been sent to me by Philip Gantrie, the IT genius nerd my father had recommended to me before he died. I didn’t know his story, I doubted that anybody did, but he seemed to hate Omega as much as I did, and he had helped me several times in the past. They were micro-bugs, almost invisible to the naked eye, and used advanced cell phone technology to communicate with a cell you could install in your laptop, tablet, pad or phone. Something told me I might need one of them.
Then I sat and thought for a while about the different ways the job might play out and decided to take along a new addition to my arsenal: an especially adapted drone I affectionately called the Emperor.
When I had assembled my kit I went up to my room and packed some clothes, including the jeans and sweatshirts I used for working on my cars. I thought about renting some anonymous vehicle for the trip, but I decided in the end that anonymity was not as important as not being traced, so I decided to take the Zombie 222. It had the chassis of a 1968 Mustang Fastback, in matte black. But under the hood it had two electric engines delivering eight hundred bhp, one thousand eight-hundred foot-pounds of torque direct to the back wheels, instantly, driving it from 0-60 in just over one and a half seconds, with a top speed of 200 MPH in total silence. And that was what this operation was all about, I reminded myself. The silent kill.
Finally I went downstairs and stashed everything in the trunk of the Zombie, along with a set of fake, magnetic plates, and went to find Abi at the back of the house. She was standing in the kitchen doorway watching the gardener making a start on the orchard. Rosalia was chopping stewing steak with a large knife and there was a smell of warm olive oil, thyme and frying onions on the air. She had a small TV playing and she glanced at it as she worked. It was the news. There had been a bombing in New York, a new terrorist group calling itself the FMW. The reporter was talking into the camera and behind her I could see the offices of the Union Broadcasting Corporation with thick smoke billowing from its windows. She was saying, “…believe it or not, the group claiming responsibility are calling themselves the Free Mind Warriors, and claim that…”
I turned away and put my hands on Abi’s shoulders. She turned to face me and smiled. Her eyes searched my face for a moment.
“Are you going already? I thought maybe a day or two…”
I gave my head a small shake. “This is business that needs to be attended to straight away.”
“How long, do you think?”
I made a face like I was calculating how many board meetings I was likely to attend. “A week, not more than two.”
She nodded. “Call me, let me know how things are going, and when you’re on your way back.”
I kissed her and made my way to the hall. Kenny had brought the car to the front of the house and was waiting for me. He handed me two hundred Camels and a bottle of Bushmills.
“I thought these might come in handy, sir.”
“I’m pretty sure they will, Kenny.”
“We look forward to having you back soon, sir.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I went outside and climbed behind the wheel. The Zombie moved swiftly and silently out the drive and onto Concord Road, toward Weston, and from there west, toward California and the City of Angels.
Two
I left the Zombie on the top floor of the USC Shrine Parking Structure on Jefferson Boulevard at eight thirty AM. I took my kit bag and made my way down to the street in the elevator. At that time of the morning it was already bright and growing warm. I hailed a cab and told him to take me to the El Toro Guest House on Juniper Street, in Watts. I settled back for the half hour drive and watched the vast, sunny sprawl of long, wide avenues, palm trees and people who worked real hard at looking like they never worked hard at anything.
The driver looked at me in the m
irror a couple of times. “From back east, huh?” She was young and small, in a denim shirt, chewing gum.
I smiled. “Yeah, how can you tell?”
She waved her fingers around her face. “The pallor. Don’t worry. You’ll soon pick up a tan. New York? How about them terrorists, huh? Crazy motherfuckers.”
I shrugged and shook my head. “I heard something…”
“In New York, they wanna destroy the TV networks, and the movies and the Internet. Like life ain’t bad enough, now they wanna take away the fuckin’ TV. They bombed the fuckin’ UBC building. Crazy motherfuckers…”
I snorted. “Life without TV and Facebook, imagine.”
“Only things that shut my mother up. All I fuckin’ need. No TV…”
She kept up the monologue for another twenty minutes, until I started to wonder what would shut her up.
Juniper Street, like most streets south of downtown L.A., gave me the feeling it had never quite shaken off the desert. The road was wide, and the houses were widely spaced, surrounded by trees and palms that grew any old how and any old where. The buildings were low and broad, with corrugated tiled roofs and lime-washed walls in white and terracotta. They had the look of haciendas under a broad, blue sky.
El Toro Guest House was just one such building. There were no windows out front, only a heavy wooden door with a Mexican blanket hanging in front. On the left there was a tall, iron fence and beyond it a yard with tall palms shading an area of rockery, cacti and yucca.
I pushed past the curtain and inside the Mexican theme continued. There was a rough-hewn wooden reception counter on the right. The walls were salmon and yellow, uneven and hung with pictures that might have served as covers to the books of Carlos Castaneda. There was a rough pine coffee table, a few armchairs and a TV that was now dark and silent. The only thing out of place was the guy behind the counter. He didn’t look Mexican at all.
He looked up as I stepped in and his face had ‘I’m a son of a bitch’ written all over it. He was maybe six feet or six one, strongly built and in his late thirties. His hair was sandy and balding on top, which made him look like a Franciscan monk with a bad attitude and a broken nose.
I didn’t bother to smile. I said, “I need a room for a week. Maybe two.”
“Seventy bucks a night, up front.”
I nodded and looked at the pictures on the wall. “Yeah, here’s the thing. I lost my ID and my driver’s license. The replacements are in the post. I don’t mind paying extra.” I fixed him with my eye. “That’s no problem at all.”
He gave me a once-over, made a mental calculation and said, “Hundred and fifty bucks a night, up front.”
As I reached for my wallet I let him see the Sig in my waistband. I counted out a thousand and fifty bucks and as I put them on the counter in front of him I smiled. “Two things a man should never be without: a reliable weapon and reliable friends. I am fortunate to have both. If anybody should ever ask you, I was never here.”
He took an old fashioned Yale key with a paper tag attached to it by a rubber band. It had the number 32 written on it in thick black ink. He handed it to me. “Pal, I forgot you already. Out on the left, behind the yucca.”
I made my way through a patio tiled in broken terracotta with a small, unenthusiastic fountain splashing listlessly in the center. On the other side, beyond a potted yucca, I found a door that stood with my number on it. I let myself in, threw my kit bag on the bed and pulled up a slatted roller-blind to let in some light. Then I sat on the bed and called a number I had memorized before leaving Boston. It rang three times and a woman’s voice answered.
“Archer’s Private Investigations. How may I direct your call?”
“I need to talk to Mr. Archer.”
“May I ask your name please, sir, and what the call is about?”
“No.”
There was a brief pause. “Please hold. I’ll see if he’s free.”
After a minute a man’s voice came on the line.
“Archer.”
“Mr. Archer, I can’t discuss anything with you on the line. I need to come and see you this morning. This job pays well.”
He hesitated a moment. “It’s urgent, then…?”
“I need to see you this morning,” I repeated in a dead voice.
“Say, eleven o’clock? You know where we are?”
“I’ll be there.”
I stowed my stuff under the bed and made my way back to reception. He was still at the desk, reading a tabloid. I leaned on it with my hands. He didn’t look up. “I need a car: hire, buy. I don’t care. But I don’t want to waste time with documentation.”
He sighed and raised his face to study mine. “You gonna cause problems for whoever gives you the wheels?” I shook my head. “He picked up the phone and dialed. “Joe, it’s Don, from El Toro… Yeah, you too. Listen to me. I have a gentleman here.” He eyed me as he said it, like I wasn’t really a gentleman. “He urgently needs a car, but he ain’t got time to mess about with papers, you know what I’m telling you…? You got it. Now he is prepared to pay above the odds….” He stopped talking, listened, then jerked his chin at me. “How long?”
“A week.”
“A week…” He jerked his chin at me a second time. “Thousand bucks deposit, five hundred for the week. Two hundred finder’s fee.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Done. Don’t keep bleeding me, Don.”
I gave him two hundred bucks and he pointed past me. “Second on the right, past the church. Four doors down. Red Silverado. Joe’ll be there.”
I stepped out into the California sunshine, walked past the big, Spanish church and found Joe leaning on the hood of his truck, smoking a rollup. As I approached, he watched me with yellow eyes set behind tangled hair in a black, leather face. When he spoke it was like slow bubbling nicotine.
“This gonna cause trouble fer me? I don’t need trouble.”
“You don’t talk to anyone, you don’t get no trouble. Only cash.”
He studied me a moment through a trail of smoke, then gave a bronchial laugh. “Talk ’bout what?”
I gave him his money and he handed me the keys. “You get your truck back, Joe. I get my deposit back.”
He shrugged. “I told you, I don’t need no trouble, mister.”
I climbed in, slammed the door and fired her up. She sounded OK and I set off on the ten mile drive back toward downtown Los Angeles.
Archer’s Private Investigations was, despite the impression they tried to give you on the phone, a one man operation run out of a seedy office on the fifth floor of the only attractive building left on West Olympic Boulevard. It was a nice, eleven story granite block that looked like it belonged in a 1930s movie. It had a dark wood elevator, with shiny brass fittings and a concertina door, that rattled me all the way to the fifth floor. By the time I got there I was almost surprised to find that Archer’s Private Investigations did not have a door with frosted glass and gold lettering. Instead it had a fire door with a plaque on it that said ‘keep closed at all times’. It was propped open with a rubber wedge and inside I could see lots of sunlight and part of a melamine desk.
I stepped through into a small office with wall to wall beige carpet, a couple of steel filing cabinets, a door, and an attractive woman with intelligent, humorous eyes. She was sitting behind an unattractive desk that was trying to look like wood, and failing. The woman gave me a humorous, intelligent smile and I said, “I was hoping for slatted blinds and soft focus.”
“That’s extra, Mr…?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“Mr. Eleven O’Clock? What are your given names, Al Pass?”
I moved the smile to the side of my face and said. “Mind your own business.” I nodded toward the door. “Archer in there?”
“Sure, ask him to lend you some manners while you’re there.”
“I’ll do that.”
I knocked on the door and went in. It was like a replica of the other room, only behind the
desk there was a man in his fifties smoking a cigarette. He had the hard, steady stare of a cop. Behind him there were two large sash windows with views of Olympic Boulevard. I looked for a wooden coat stand and a hat, but there wasn’t one.
He stood and reached his hand across the desk. I took it and said, “Are you Archer?”
He shook his head and gestured me to a chair. “Archer retired and sold me the business. I kept the name. I’m Ted Wallace. I was a homicide Detective with the LAPD for twenty years. Do I get to learn your name now that you’re here, or do you want to keep playing the mystery game?”
I shook my head. “I don’t mind giving you a name. Will John Smith do?”
He smiled. “Sure, what can I do for you, Mr. Smith?”
“I want to put twenty-four hour surveillance on somebody.”
He looked a little startled. “Twenty-four hours…?”
“Have you got somebody reliable who can do shifts? I need to know if the target has a routine, and if he has, what it is.”
He thought about it a moment. “Yeah, I can do that. I got a guy who can do the late shift. If your target leaves his house, you want him followed?”
“No. I want you to stay on the house, note what time he leaves and comes back. It’s the house I’m interested in.”
“Sure…” He said it like I was crazy but he was too polite to say so. “How long you want me to sit on this place?”
“Maybe a week. I’ll want daily reports. I won’t give you any contact details. I’ll come to you.”
He sat back in his chair and sighed, watching me with narrowed eyes. “I’m a cop, Mr. Smith. I don’t want to get involved in anything…” He spread his hands.
“I don’t expect you to break the law, Mr. Wallace, and I don’t expect you to abet me in breaking it. All I want is to know the household routine, who comes in, who goes out and when.” He didn’t look satisfied so I sighed, like he was forcing the information out of me and said, “I have reason to believe he might have my sister there, and he may be holding her against her will.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’m kidding myself, but I need to know.”