by Mick Farren
Harry Carlisle needed space to digest some of Dreisler's tale. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you've used your position as head of the deacon IA to thoroughly contaminate the government computer system. In two Sundays from now, total chaos is going to break out, and you're going to arrest Larry Faithful, Canadian tanks are going to come steaming over the border, and we're all going to live happily ever after. Is that correct?"
"Crude, but those are the basics. There are a number of other details, but that's the general intention."
"Are you crazy?"
Dreisler smiled blandly. "Never felt better in my life."
"This just isn't possible. One man, no matter who he is, can't topple a government."
"I have associates. Look at it more as the generals' plot against Hitler."
"They ended up hanging from piano wire."
"But we're not going to. You have to remember that none of this would be possible if the present government wasn't as corrupt, inefficient, and out of touch with reality as it is."
"I don't know."
"I'm not trying to convince you, Harry. I'm just telling you what is."
"So what are these other details?"
"Over the years, we've infiltrated a large number of subversive and heretic groups. Some we've busted, but others we've used – fed them disinformation, used them for setups, kind of like the FBI and the old Communist Party. They'll be causing their own bits of trouble on the day. More confusion."
"And the Lefthand Path? Are they part of this?"
"Heavens, no. They're much more sophisticated than that. I'm very proud of the Lefthand Path. It really is my own creation. The truth is that the Lefthand Path doesn't actually exist. That's why they were so hard to catch. We had a few fanatics in a classic cell structure to take a fall if ever we needed one, but as for the rest, it was a bunch of pros from the Canadian Secret Service. Mostly expatriate Americans."
"I spent fourteen months chasing your creation."
"We watched you. That's how I discovered that you were good. By the way, you're sleeping with one."
Carlisle was confused. "Sleeping with one what?"
"A pro from the Canadian Secret Service. Cynthia Kline is a Canadian plant. She's thinks she's doing deep cover for the Lefthand Path."
Carlisle was up from the bed and on his feet. "Cynthia?"
"Yes, Cynthia. But don't worry. It's not part of the plot. She just took a liking to you."
Carlisle sat down again. "Christ."
"She's also not doing anything particularly dangerous."
"Christ."
Dreisler gave him time to digest that piece of news. He had been sleeping with a woman who was part of what he had thought of as the enemy. Now he did not know who the enemy was or, by the same token, who his friends were.
"What is this, Dreisler? Some kind of psych workout? Tear me down and then rebuild me?"
"If you want to think of it that way."
"But Cynthia…"
"Will you forget about Cynthia Kline? You're not a teenager."
Carlisle suddenly became angry. "Okay, let's look at this lunacy from another direction. How in hell do you expect to arrest Faithful? He's always surrounded by a whole platoon of bodyguards."
"Actually it's comparatively simple. You may have noticed that over the last few weeks, I've arrested a number of senior deacons pending investigation. Over the next week or so, a lot more will be brought in. It's very easy once you start. Nudge one and the rest go down like dominoes. They're all locked into their petty conspiracies. By the time he sets foot on Liberty Island, the deacon chain of command will have been broken into its individual links. Any group that I don't command directly will have been neutralized by putting an idiot in charge. God knows there's no shortage of them. When Faithful arrives for the ceremony, his primary protection will be my people. He'll have only a handful of his regular guards. There will also be military present, but they won't interfere. Their colonel and I have an understanding that centers around some grossly compromising tapes."
The whole thing was starting to sound more and more plausible. Carlisle hated to admit it, but it just might work.
"Okay, so let's say, for the sake of argument, that you've got Faithful under lock and key. What happens then? You become president-for-life or something?"
Dreisler looked genuinely shocked. "You really have misread me. I wouldn't dream of becoming president or anything like it. I don't want to be on television all the time. I'm happy to remain in the shadows, just as I am now."
"The power behind the throne."
"What else?"
"And who'll get the throne?"
"Arlen Proverb will be offered an interim presidency. He'd head a committee of national reconstruction."
So that was the deal between Dreisler and Proverb.
"I thought you wanted to off the theocracy."
"It'll be a period of transition."
"And at the end of that?"
"Who knows? It's still very much a matter of playing it by ear. We'll certainly restore parts of the Constitution. Maybe even hold limited elections."
"Don't go hog wild."
"Don't worry, I won't."
"I take it that the only reason you're baring your soul to me is that you have some role planned for me in all this," Carlisle said, wishing he were wearing something more suitable to historic conspiracy than a hospital smock.
"It is rather obvious, isn't it? "
"And I have little choice about whether I accept it or not."
"That should also be self-evident."
Carlisle sighed. "So what's the role?"
Dreisler chuckled. "I want you to walk point for me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I estimate that there's up to a hundred men in the PD who'd follow you without question."
Carlisle shrugged. "Maybe."
"I want you to assemble a team that, on the day, can take control of the Astor Place complex. That's where we'll be bringing Faithful."
"My bosses might have something to say about that, from Parnell all the way up to the commissioner."
"I think you'll find you'll have no trouble from that direction."
ELEVEN
Mansard
The Day of National Reconciliation arrived in a shroud of yellow, pollution-heavy, morning fog. The Statue of Liberty stood aloof and silent, torch high, head and shoulders above the ground mist that obscured the island and hid the water clear out to where the ocean started. The fog brought with it an intense Sunday-morning silence that was broken only by the moaning of the horns on the Staten Island ferry and the desolate cry of seabirds above the hypnotic lapping of the waves. There was no rumble of traffic and no sound of human voices. In the mist, time seemed to be suspended, and it was possible to imagine sea-change ghosts lingering in ancient mariner loneliness.
Charlie Mansard shivered. He was up early. He had spent the night on the yacht that they had rented as a location headquarters for the production, but he had slept very little – partly because of the motion, and partly because he had Lynette with him, but mainly because of the preshow nerves that were now building to their final peak. Charlie sat in the welldeck behind the wheel-house, wrapped in a yellow slicker and nursing a cup of hot, black coffee and a large brandy. Lynette, wearing a thick, navy-blue fisherman's sweater thrown on over her skimpy black bikini, was up by the bow, leaning on the rail and staring into the mist.
"It's like the whole city just went away."
Mansard grunted. "I wish to hell it would."
Lynette grinned. "And leave you all alone to play with your toys? Come on, Charlie, you know you love an audience."
Charlie scowled. "Sure, I love them to death."
"Are you going to behave like a bastard right up until showtime?"
"Probably."
"You want to go back to bed?"
Somewhere in the mist there was the slap of a helicopter. Mansard looked up. "It's too late n
ow."
"That's not what you said last night."
Despite himself, Mansard grinned. "Last night was okay, wasn't it?"
"You always do get it up the night before a production."
By midday, the fog had thinned out to a dirty gray haze. On Liberty Island, the last preparations were in full swing. Cargo helicopters came and went in constant rotation, and gunships circled overhead. TV crews laid cable and positioned cameras while deacons, some with bomb sniffers, prowled the area. Caterers had started laying out the aftershow buffet for the president and his guests. The musicians were about to begin the sound check, and the two-hundred-piece live choir would start being ferried in by chopper. The whole process was being conducted under the hard, watchful eyes of soldiers toting M-25s and demanding passes from everyone who moved.
Charlie Mansard was greatly relieved that his part of the event was off the island and onto the water. The projector banks were installed on the four big bridging rafts, each of which was quite capable of carrying a tank. They were moored some two hundred yards out from Liberty Island, bobbing on a gentle swell as the riggers crawled over them making last-minute connections. The tugs that were going to tow the rafts to the starting point would arrive at two-thirty. In the hours between dawn and noon, the yacht had been transformed from Mansard's love nest to his flagship. The decks were full of his people, and there was a constant shuttle of small boats between it and the rafts.
Compared to the show they had put on inside the Garden for Aden Proverb, the four skywalkers that would go up the Hudson were fairly simple in terms of hands-on control. They were big, but they were in no way as complex as, for instance, the red mist and multiple apparitions that had been done for Proverb. Like the original Four Horsemen, the new figures were preprogrammed and, once started, pretty much ran themselves. Human intervention would be necessary only in the case of serious malfunction. That took a major weight off the teams who normally ran the manual and DNI controls, and the atmosphere on the boat was close to that of a party. Champagne was being served, and a number of the men had brought their girlfriends. Mansard had taken a very liberal attitude toward the project's government expense account. Nobody had complained about the receipts he was turning in by the truckload, so he just went on spending. "We may never pass this way again, so let's get as much as we can," he said.
Mansard had managed to exclude from the boat anyone who was not part of his own team. There were no military personnel and no one from the White House. That arrangement did even more than the champagne to enhance the sense of it being a day out. There was even some barely covert drug use. By the early afternoon, it was warm enough to sunbathe. Nobody was too particular about the size and modesty of their swimwear, and at one point a deacon gunship had hovered overhead, complaining by radio about the naked and near-naked people on the deck of the yacht. Mansard had instructed the communications operator to ignore it.
"What are they going to do? Blow us out of the water? They can't deprive Faithful of his show."
At around two-fifteen, Jimmy Gadd, who had not joined in the party but remained on the raft to supervise the checks and last-minute adjustments, called over.
"We've got the tugs on the radar. You should be able to see them in a couple of minutes."
Mansard moved to the rail and peered into the haze. He could not see the tugs, but it was good to know they were out there and on time. He turned his attention to the rafts. There was very little movement. Things were practically ready. The party noise behind him was forgotten. As soon as the sun went down, his crowning creation would blaze into life. He slowly rubbed his hands together.
"Just you wait, New York. Just wait until dark."
Carlisle
Carlisle stepped out of the car and looked around. The fog still clung between the buildings. It was so heavy and sluggish that he did not want to think about what it was made of. Reeves and Donahue were waiting for him, but he hesitated before walking into the building. Whatever happened, this was the last day. When he walked out again, the world would be different – if, indeed, he walked out at all. By the end of that day he could well be dead or a prisoner in the sub-basement. There might be a new regime, or he could end up in the middle of some uniquely weird product of Dreisler's warped imagination.
A gunship rattled overhead and Carlisle looked up, watching until it vanished beyond the skyline to the west. Vultures gathering? During his drive down to Astor Place, the city had looked as if it were in a state of siege. The streets were empty, even for Sunday morning. It was as if the people of New York, at least, put no trust in Larry Faithful's Day of National Reconciliation and its promise of sweetness and light. New Yorkers expected trouble, and they could not have been reassured by the massive show of official strength. NYPD, deacons, and the army were all out in force. Pharaohs and Patton vehicles rumbled through the echoing streets. Police cruisers and the deacons' Continentals sped across intersections with their sirens screaming, ignoring the stop lights. Large knots of riot police were gathered at strategic points, like Columbus Circle and Herald and Union Squares. With so much manpower on the streets, only a skeleton crew could have been left at Astor Place.
Harry Carlisle squared his shoulders and walked into the main entrance of the CCC complex. Reeves and Donahue fell into step beside him. At least the day would see the end of that particular nonsense. For the last week, they had been guarding him as if he were a celebrity or a politician. As the three of them walked in, Reeves carefully scanned the interior of the entrance hall. There were only the routine guards and receptionists.
"So this is the day?"
Carlisle nodded. "That's what they told me."
"What do you expect to happen?"
"Anything could happen. Just remember one thing: Be ready to duck. Don't get so far into anything that you won't be able to duck back out again."
"We'll be looking to you."
"That's the part I love."
Carlisle had been held incommunicado by Dreisler for another four days, supposedly for his own protection, but Harry Carlisle had given up trying to guess what Dreisler was up to. On the fifth day he had made a carefully choreographed return to work. From that point on, he had been guarded night and day in case the deacons took another crack at him. He had even been stashed in an Upper West Side apartment. He thought it unlikely that the Magicians would try again so quickly after their last failure, but it seemed as if not much was working according to logic anymore.
The situation between Carlisle and the deacons was a strange standoff. Probably every deacon in the city knew unofficially about the attempt to disappear him and the resulting deaths of Spencer and the others. Officially, however, the incident had never happened. Winters, the only survivor, could not file any kind of report without violating the Magicians' damn-fool blood oaths. Deacons shot him murderous looks when they passed him in the corridors of justice, but looks could not kill. They were enough, though, to make him glad of his bodyguard and to ensure that he spent most of his time in parts of the building that were solid PD turf.
When Carlisle, Reeves, and Donahue reached Carlisle's office, the two detectives faced their lieutenant, standing in front of his desk like men who wanted answers. For their own protection, he had told them nothing about Dreisler's plans. All they knew was that they were to assemble a clandestine force of trusted PD men and have them at Astor Place on that particular Sunday afternoon.
Before they could say anything, Carlisle held up a hand. "All in good time."
He had been carrying a brand-new, gray Samsonite briefcase. He placed it on the desk, keyed in the lock combination, and opened it. The case had an up-to-date and fully comprehensive set of bugblockers built into it. When Reeves and Donahue saw it, their eyebrows shot up. He touched all of a row of six red buttons. A galaxy of LEDs came on as all the blocking systems activated. If the deacons had his office bugged, as they undoubtedly did, they would no longer be able to hear a thing. They would know that he was using some
kind of jamming device, but their only real option was to come down and bust into his office. He was counting on the fact that they would be too busy with Day of National Reconciliation business to bother.
Reeves and Donahue exchanged glances, as if each was waiting for the other to start. Finally Reeves took the initiative.
"So what's the story, Lieutenant?"
"You mean, if I ask you to put a small secret army together for me, you want to know why?" Carlisle asked, sitting down. The levity was a crock – but he did not want to communicate his fear to the others. He was scared enough for all three of them.
Reeves shrugged. "It's human nature."
"So, do I have my army?"
Donahue nodded. "They're coming, just like you said, one at a time and in small groups. They'll all be in the building and ready for orders by three."
The two detectives waited. Carlisle leaned forward.
"Okay, here's the story. We've received information that a group of disgruntled, middle-echelon deacons is going to use today's extravaganza as cover to stage a coup."
Carlisle did not like lying to his men, but it was the only way to protect them. If everything came unraveled and they were all arrested, or if Dreisler pulled something unexpected, they would at least be able to say that they were only following orders. There was one other consideration. He may have reluctantly thrown in his lot with Dreisler, but he was in no position to explain the complex conspiracy to anyone else. He did not know it all himself. He really was walking point.
"They are going to use the expected disturbances after today's telecast as an excuse to arrest Faithful and declare a deacon junta. Only the PD, a handful of deacons, and some sections of the military can stop the deacons from seizing power."
"Where do we figure in all this?"
"If the deacons have control of this complex, they essentially control the city. We have to stop that. Now, it's in our favor that there's hardly anyone on duty in the building. On a prearranged signal, we will seal the entrances, take over the communication center, and arrest any deacons who want to make trouble. We have one other advantage in this apart from the fact that almost everybody is on the street. You may have noticed that Dreisler's people have arrested a large number of senior deacons in the last few weeks. Their chain of command is screwed, and the ones who are left will be without too much high-level direction."