by Greg Curtis
“Of course we're still on his hit list. And he knows not only that we have some secret repositories of angelic wisdom but we think he knows their locations. He knows the names of some of our members. He has copies we think, of some of the actual writings. Worst of all, we think he has information, maybe even documents showing when and where we've been forced to act to protect the secret of your existence. He can show the world that Diogenes is not a simple international body concerned with documenting and certifying antiquities. In short he has a smoking gun.”
“The knowledge itself is of course of no use to him. The writings we have are priceless, but ironically that also makes them worthless. People wouldn't believe them. The same is true of much of the knowledge we possess. What we know for a truth, others wouldn't believe. They'd call us mad.”
“However the evidence of how we have obtained that knowledge and what we've done with it is valuable. The evidence of your people's existence is more so since you are the living proof of everything that cannot be revealed. Secrets are his business. Dirty little secrets especially. Finding them out, using them for leverage, and ultimately releasing them. And at some point if and when it suits his purposes, he may well choose to reveal what he knows in some sort of media event. He could take down the Choir, the nephilim and us. He could turn the world into an inferno of religious insanity.”
“Normally he wouldn't risk revealing these things because he fears the Choir would stop him and he believes that your people are even more dangerous to him. He thinks you'll hunt him down and kill him. But he will risk doing it if it suits him. If he can do it quickly enough. Because he knows that once the knowledge is out there, the Choir couldn't stop him any more and they aren't into vengeance. And if he can leave your people in such disarray that you can't come after him then he's safe.”
“So then it becomes a question of whether it suits him. And mostly it wouldn't. A world in chaos is a dangerous world. He could end up stuck in unexpected war zones just like everyone else. After all, many of the countries with no extradition treaties are politically unstable. He could be bankrupted if he puts his money into an unstable country’s bank and the bank goes belly up. His property could be nationalised when countries become desperate for cash. Targeted by thieves if the countries suffer famine. And his playboy life could end in any of a hundred different ways.”
“But if he's already incredibly rich, with his cash based on – say – gold and diamonds, rare works of art and business empires when it happens? If the largest threat he faces isn't a dangerous world but extradition, and a stable world allows for that while an unstable one protects him from it? If he's safe from all his enemies? From the Choir, from the nephilim, from the intelligence agencies? Then releasing the information becomes a strategic move for him. It only becomes a matter of 'when' not 'if'.
“That's his plan. We're certain of it. For him it's about one more job. One final, huge heist that will leave him filthy rich for the last of his days. After that he’ll be looking to release all the information he has so that he incapacitates the Choir, the nephilim, Diogenes and every intelligence agency in the world that could pose him a threat.”
“We think he believes that that time has come. That's why he was so desperate to have the girl. Our sources have told us that the moment he found her he started moving serious money around. Contacting some of his underworld connections. We also expect that he's been trying to bend her will to his so that she will do whatever he wants without question. She is the one thing that will make whatever plan he has for making himself a billionaire possible. And the moment he's done that he'll throw the rest of us to the wolves. After all, what better way could he have for covering his tracks than leaving the entire world in chaos?”
“Chaos?”
That was the Choir's fear, always. Or it was at least one of them. But he'd never been so certain that exposure would cause such mayhem. People were adaptable. They got used to things. Garrick had always imagined that if the secret of their existence got out it would be bad for a while, but not terrible. But while he was sure that the world would survive, he wasn't so certain about the nephilim. Benedict wasn't the only one who would want to use them. And there would be others who would want to study them. Worse, many more would fear them. People feared what they didn't know or understand. And when they were afraid they did bad things. The world wouldn't end but his people might. After all, the gifts they had were mostly minor. Few of them could defend themselves against serious force. And if they could the Choir wouldn't let them use their gifts to do it. The fear of what exposure would do to him and his people was what had always kept him silent. Not the thought that it would destroy the rest of the world.
“If he does it right he could start half a dozen holy wars, destabilise the global economy and reshape geopolitical boundaries. Terrorism would abound. World religions would be in turmoil. Extremists would abound. The intelligence agencies across the world would be sent scrambling for years to come. Too busy with a thousand threats to hunt down one ageing thief.”
“That seems a little much.”
“You keep forgetting how much you know that others don't. How close you are to things that no one else even suspects. Just imagine what would happen if the presence of the Choir was not just known but proven? And with them, the existence of God? There is not a major religion on the planet that wouldn't be desperately trying to claim the Choir and God as their own. And if and when they learned that what they've been preaching for years isn't always right – well wars have been fought for much less. It would all be heresy and lies. And let’s not forget that some of the most religious countries in the world also produce half the world's oil. If they're in turmoil and oil can't be pumped, the world economy would collapse.”
“All the moves to secular political societies and democracies would be undermined. The actual words written would be far less important than the fact that there were words written in the eyes of those who seek power through religion. Doomsday cults would be everywhere preaching the second coming.”
Maybe she had a point; Garrick couldn't be sure. He was never sure about such things. Still, it seemed a long way to go from exposing a few nephilim to the end of the world stuff she was talking about. Then again, he'd lived with the knowledge of the Choir for nearly twenty years. Maybe he was too close.
But he knew there were no answers to be found in worrying about it. It was time to consider the more practical matters – and first on the list was that she had come to him for a reason. “And what do you want me to do about it?”
“What you're good at. Hunt. It's time to put Armando Benedict behind bars and stop him from exposing us.”
And where had he heard that before? Suddenly Garrick could completely believe she had spoken with the Choir. Cassie had also said he should hunt the man, though of course she'd said nothing about worldwide threats or acting on what he found. Only that he should make sure that the rest of his people knew the risk Benedict posed. Nor had she said anything about Diogenes.
“In case you missed it I'm crippled. I can barely hobble around, my arm is a mess, my leg is held together by bits of metal. I'm in no shape to start chasing bank robbers around. To add to that I'm on suspension until this entire mess is cleared up. I have no official power. Plus, I'm being watched by the press twenty four seven. Besides I passed the information about Benedict on to my people. There should be another hunter on his tail.”
He hadn't checked of course if there was. He'd passed on Cassie's warning, but after that he’d had no contact with the town. It had seemed safer that way when he was in the middle of an inter-agency snarl up and probably being monitored.
“There was. Sally Anne. But she had some passport issues that arose unexpectedly. Our guess would be that it wasn't coincidental. I told you, Benedict knows about your people and he certainly knows about the ones that are dangerous to him. Top of the list – hunters. Sally Anne was on his radar and the moment she made a move to fly to America he acte
d.”
Maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise that he knew about her. Sally Anne was an excellent hunter, but she had gone private twenty years before. She had tracked down some big criminals for the bounties on their heads and earned some very large rewards. She had made a name for herself. Even in Canada. But there were others in North America even if she was out.
“Anderson?”
“Broke both his legs in a skiing accident several months ago. He's probably in worse shape than you.”
Hearing that Garrick knew she was right. He remembered hearing something about the accident. He also remembered not understanding how it could have happened to a hunter. They were naturally gifted at finding the safe paths through any terrain. Land, air or water, they simply didn't make those sorts of mistakes. But the gossip was that Hercus had a drinking problem. Perhaps that was why Cassie was being so hard on him about his occasional beer?
“Saphron?”
Truthfully Saphron James would have been his first choice for this sort of thing until a few years before. He was an incredibly experienced and capable hunter. But he'd fallen off the radar a few years back while, travelling through Tibet. The last he'd heard was that Saphron was looking for some sort of spiritual understanding. It was a common journey for the nephilim. Always knowing that there was a God, but knowing nothing about him.
“Last we heard he was hiking through Northern India with no phone and no way of being contacted.”
Except of course by the Choir. They could have contacted him in a heartbeat. But they wouldn't. To do that much, to bring him in to hunt Benedict would be to use him as an agent. Their agent. And if he acted to prevent Benedict from doing something, even something reprehensible, it would be the same as if they had done it themselves. Cassie had only suggested that he hunt the man because he was already involved. And she hadn't suggested that he do anything more than observe him.
“Donovan?”
“He's a child!” She stared at him as if surprised he could even suggest such a thing, and maybe she was right to do so. Lucas wasn't yet twenty and that was young for a hunter to be out on his own. “You can't send a child after a monster like Benedict!”
Maybe she had a point. Benedict was cunning and if he knew as much as she said he did – as Cassie had implied – then Lucas would be in a world of trouble. Hunting was one thing. Capturing your prey was something else entirely.
Garrick sighed. “And I suppose you have a plan,” he said glumly, accepting the inevitable rail-roading.
Of course she did. Garrick knew that. She hadn't come to him without some sort of idea in mind.
“Of course. You're injured and you live alone. You're surrounded by a media circus. Why wouldn’t you want to get away and catch up with some friends? And what the media don’t know of course is that there are a number of gifted healers in Olmstead. It would be perfectly understandable if you were to take a few days away from this circus to spend some time with friends. No one has to know what you're doing. In the end I'm not asking you to arrest the man, just give his location to the authorities and give us the details of his stash. Then, while he's behind bars we can search for any evidence of the nephilim and the Choir he might have and get rid of it. We have enough people all over the world that whatever he's got and wherever it's stored, we can get to it in time with a little luck. All you have to do is find it for us.”
And there it was he thought. The thing she imagined he could do. But which he quite probably couldn't. He was a hunter, not a miracle worker.
“Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. I'm a hunter. I can search out his trail. I can undo his plans little by little. But mostly only his most recent plans. I can find places he's been or where he’s done something recently. But the trail has to be fresh. I can't read his mind. If he grabbed this stuff years ago and stashed it away for a rainy day, I'd never find it. If it's password protected I can't open it.”
“And he could still release it.” He told her that and watched her face fall a little. She had hoped he could do everything he'd just said he couldn't. She had been hoping for a miracle. A quick fix to her problems. But there were no quick fixes. Still, she wasn't without courage and she hid her disappointment quickly. He liked that.
“Besides theres always the blasted rules. If I gave you that information knowing that you would act to prevent Benedict from releasing it, you would be acting as my agents. The Choir won't allow that.”
“Then we'll just have to take that chance, watch his every move while he's in custody, and hope we can move faster and do better than those he tells, because he will probably try to release the information if he's caught. After all, if he's in prison he has nothing to lose. Actually a broken world might be useful to him in helping him escape. That's just the risk we have to take for getting him out of our hair. It's better than the alternative which is that he succeeds in his robbery and then releases the information however he wants without our being able to watch. That would be a total disaster. And we think he's close.”
“Our best option though is if we can stop him doing whatever he has planned for now and prevent him from getting to the girl without him getting arrested. If we can he'll be knocked back. He won't release the information – not immediately. Whatever information he has, its use to him is only for when he has succeeded and wants to remain hidden. It's to cover his tracks. Releasing it early and turning the world upside down will not help him. Unless of course he gets caught. At that point holding on to the information is of no use to him. He’d probably release it purely out of spite.”
Was she right? Garrick didn't know. He didn't know the man. He only knew the stories about him, and most of those sounded like fairy tales. But if she was right and Benedict was behind his shooting, then he had a score to settle with the thief.
“Have you talked to the Choir about this?”
“Of course, but in the end he's human.”
Garrick sighed a little. He understood instantly what she meant. The man was human and that meant the Choir would not touch him in any way. They would not prevent him releasing the information no matter how much it cost them. The most they would do was whisper ceaselessly into his soul about what a terrible thing he was doing. But the chances were that they'd been doing that for decades anyway and he hadn't been listening. Not many people did as far as he could tell.
On the other hand Cassie had come to him in the hospital and warned him about Benedict. That suggested the Choir had to be worried. Enough to warn potential victims even if it wasn't enough to ask them to act against him. Or maybe that there was something else going on? He could never be certain of that with the Choir.
“They could at least tell you where he is and what he's planning.”
But even as Garrick said it he watched his guest shake her head, her long dark hair flying about a little, and he knew they wouldn't do that either. It would violate their precious rules. He just wasn't completely sure which ones. Would she be interfering with the free will of a human called Armando Benedict? Or interfering with other humans' free will in the form of Diogenes?
If it was the latter he suddenly realised, he had a way around it.
“Cassie?” He called her, certain that she would hear him but not that she would come. The Choir did sometimes come to some of the nephilim when they called – if it suited them.
“No child.” Her voice came from just in front of him but the angel hadn't come with it – something that just wasn't as disconcerting as much as it once would have been. “I will not tell you simply so that you can tell Maricia. That would be no different to telling her directly.”
And telling her such a thing would be much the same as asking her to act, which in turn would mean that the angel was acting against a human through an agent. He understood that rule. She would not act directly and she would not act through an agent.
She sounded quite certain on that point, and maybe a little disappointed as well. As if he'd suggested doing something unethical instead of simply
trying to take a bad guy off the streets and protecting a lot of innocent people. Not that he'd even got as far as suggesting that. Actually he hadn't even managed to ask the question. He guessed he wasn't going to be able to. He was just going to be lectured to about the rules and his many failings.
“You have been spending too much time among the humans and not enough with your own people. You think these clever ruses are a good way of getting around the rules. They are not. Obedience to the law means obedience to its spirit as well. Or had you forgotten that?”
“I -.”
“ – He was just trying to help Cassie.” Maricia jumped in before Garrick could say anything stupid. “You know he has a good heart.”
“He was trying to take a short cut by breaking the rules. He is lazy and stubborn and too often prone to foolishness.”
“He had no father to help raise him and his mother has been in and out of care all his life. And for all that he still tries to do the right thing.”
“You do know I am sitting right here!”