Snapping his fingers, he said, “In the name of James Bond, Emma Peel, and Agent J, may a virtual reality image of a field-experienced CIA agent appear before me.”
A hologram of a man wearing a black business suit, black sunglasses, and a black fedora hat appeared before him. The CIA agent took off his glasses, letting his eyes swiftly sweep over the area, studying the empty mountainside.
He discreetly whispered in Paul’s direction. “Ah, the Aragonese Pyrenees. I played cat-and-mouse with a Russian agent here once, back in the 90s. No one seems to be nearby. So far, so good. What do you need?”
“I want to get to the States,” Paul responded in an amused tone. “And I don’t want to leave a trail that can be followed. Also, I don’t have any papers, passport, or money.”
The hologram nodded in understanding. “That makes it something of a challenge, so it’s a good thing that you are a wizard. Let’s see. First, I’d suggest you catch a plane and fly into Canada or Mexico. Then you can cross the U.S. border fairly easy.”
Paul grunted in irritation. So far, the CIA guy hadn’t told him anything that he hadn’t already figured out on his own. “In principle, it sounds easy enough,” Paul said sarcastically. “But how do I do that without a passport or money?”
The hologram shrugged. “What? You never saw that old Humphrey Bogart movie, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? You mined gold from the Himalayas. There’s gold in these mountains too.”
Paul jerked a little in surprise and kicked himself mentally. Gee, he must really be tired. He hadn’t even consider the possibility of mining gold here. And he had seen the movie, even if it was another one of those socially significant films that the critics raved about but for which he was indifferent. It might have helped if they’d thrown in a Yeti or a Sasquatch or two.
The CIA man went on, “And you only need a passport if you intend to fly as a passenger.”
Paul again jerked a little in surprise. “There’s another way to fly? Oh. You don’t mean....”
The Agent grinned. “As cargo. Yeah. I’ve done it a few times. It may not be comfortable, but you don’t need a passport, and you won’t leave a record of your flight, either.”
Giving him a dubious look, Paul said, “But won’t the cargo hold be unpressurized?”
The spy smiled smugly. “If you take the wrong flight, it might. Choose wisely, grasshopper.”
Paul minutely shook his head. “Okay. But I don’t like the idea of flying out of Spain, Portugal, or even France. Too obvious.”
“Then I suggest the Frankfurt International in Germany,” Merlin interrupted. Even Paul was surprised by the Middle Age wizard’s proposal. “It’s decently sized, and it even has clothing stores—which you obviously need—and provides connections to almost every other country in the world. And it’s far enough away not to be too obvious.”
“Where is the cargo terminal in Frankfurt?” Paul asked, intrigued by the whole idea.
“There are two of them,” came the quick reply from the CIA spy. “I suggest CargoCity Nord. It’s the larger of the two. Once you get there, you can check out the flight schedules. They’ll be posted.”
Paul thanked the CIA agent and let the hologram fade from sight.
With a nod, Paul thought about the plan and found no fault with it.
It had been quite difficult to mine gold in the Karakoram Mountains, but Paul had learned a lot about magical spells since then. Including the use of filtering techniques on portals.
“Merlin, I think I’ll search this area for gold. If I find any, I’ll use a filter setting on the portal, one that will allow atoms of gold through the portal but will let everything else stay underground.”
The old wizard nodded in appreciation. “It will let you keep energy expenditure low, since only the gold will be transported. Still, you should keep the distances short. Even doing an active scan for gold could expose your position here. You should keep the scans short-ranged and low-powered.”
Paul couldn’t agree more, and with his right hand against the boulder, he created a circular display in mid-air in front of him. “I’ll concentrate my search eastward. If I don’t find anything within a mile of this location, I’ll move a mile to the east and try again. If necessary, we’ll go all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. And the nice thing about the gold, if I find enough of it, is that I can keep some and use it for a second-rate talisman. Oh, I know. It won’t be nearly as powerful as a real talisman, but it will be much better than what I’ve got right now, right?”
“I suppose. In a pinch, as they say in this century,” Merlin agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. “By the way, all by itself, the gold would be called an amulet, not a talisman.”
“Gotcha. An amulet. A rose by any other name,” Paul muttered as he studied the display.
• • • •
The gathering of a sufficient quantity of gold turned out to be a straightforward and routine exercise. It was tiring, but quite successful. And it didn’t take all that long to achieve, either.
At noon, he finished with the prospecting task and used a magical spell to focus sunlight into a beam of energy to finish refining the gold he had gathered. The melted gold was then poured into several small molds made of locally gathered sand. He made one four-pound gold bar and a few small rings and items of gold jewelry. After cooling the finished products in a small mountain lake, Paul began portaling to the northeast, down out of the mountains, and into the hilly southern French countryside with its alternating thick forests and rolling farmland. He passed to the east of Tarbes but to the west of Toulouse. Indeed, he took care to avoid any and all human habitations, especially the large cities. His primary goal was to avoid attracting the attention of any wizards. True, according to Celeste, there were only a few hundred of them in all the world, but Paul didn’t know how many of those wizards might be in France. There was no point in taking any chances when such wasn’t necessary.
Portal by portal, he made his way towards Germany as the afternoon wore on. The skies were taking on an ominous overcast, the clouds gathering and looking more storm-like with each passing hour. Exhausted, thirsty, and hungry, he found refuge for the night in an old abandoned French barn twenty-five miles southwest of the German-French border.
As he curled up on the scruffy, but dry straw, he fell almost instantly into a deep, but troubled sleep.
• • • •
He awoke to the sound of light rain outside the barn. A heavy fog hung over the soaking wet countryside, the air dank and chilly. The dismal weather fit in nicely with his mood. He felt the urgent need to escape from Europe just as fast as he could manage it.
Three quick portals took him into Germany and two more after that into the outskirts of Frankfurt.
With quiet efficiency, he used magic to find and take him to three small jewelry stores around the metropolitan area. In each one, using falsified identification in the name of Hans Müller (the equivalent of John Smith in the States), he sold pieces of his fabricated gold jewelry as scrap. With more than €1,500 in his pockets, his next stop was to a discount department store.
In the store, Paul marched up and down the aisles, grabbing a variety of clothes in a willy-nilly fashion from racks, shelves, hangers, and bins, before tossing everything on a sales counter.
As an astonished clerk began to ring up the purchases, Paul drummed his fingers on the countertop and said, “Bitte, schneller. Ich habe ein Flugzeug erwischen. (Please, faster. I have a plane to catch.)”
When the details of the purchase were completed, Paul gathered up the shopping bags and smiled at the young man, saying, “Dank. Halten die Äunderrung. Ein Vergnügen, das Geschäft mit Ihnen. (Thanks. Keep the change. A pleasure doing business with you.)”
The young clerk frowned in puzzlement. “Sir, wie Sie wissen, diese Dinge werden Sie fit? (Sir, how do you know those things will fit you?)” he protested, watching Paul head for the exit.
But Paul was already pushing his way through the fr
ont glass doors.
• • • •
A quick trip to a local Asian shopping market allowed Paul to pick up some ziplock baggies and a few food items, namely soybeans, onions, salt, and garlic. Then, by portal, he dropped in at a local Kochlöffel outlet, where he bought three colossal cheeseburgers with extra-large side orders of fries and two jumbo soft drinks. Outside the building, he took a portal straight to the airport.
• • • •
Frankfurt International Airport was the third busiest airport in Europe, with four active runways, capable of servicing 65 million passengers per year. Even though LAX (which Paul was very familiar with) was larger, he was still impressed by Frankfurt’s size and how busy it was.
Dressed in a new set of clothing, carrying a small roll-around suitcase and his take-out order, Paul was standing in front of Terminal Building One, on the concrete median between the set of two-lane roads, watching all the buses and cars roll by, disgorging passengers by the score.
“Merlin?” he muttered under his breath.
The image of the old wizard appeared, floating an inch above the concrete. Several nearby pedestrians, startled by the sudden apparition, blinked in surprise and edged away quickly.
“So, this is progress,” Merlin said sarcastically. “Civilization is at its peak with air you can’t breathe, noise that deafens you, and streets filled with wheeled weapons to kill the unwary pedestrians. Isn’t it grand?”
“Whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, I suppose,” was Paul’s distracted reply. “Oh, please, Merlin, not the hat this time,” he said with a small shake of his head.
The cone-shaped hat popped out of existence. Paul glanced around, reassuring himself that they weren’t about to cause a riot. Though several people were still giving them doubtful looks, none were pointing fingers or screaming in hysteria. It seemed safe enough.
“Merlin, I have the food and money I need,” Paul stated quietly. “Can you show me where this CargoCity Nord is located? I feel very exposed here in this city. The sooner I am on my way, the safer I will feel.”
• • • •
The Frankfurt International Airport had a large cargo facility at the northwest corner of the complex, with connections to virtually anywhere in the world. Paul cautiously paused in the large hangar door opening of Building 451 of the Lufthansa Cargo Center, watching people in various uniforms perform a wide variety of chores, including driving forklifts, loading cargo bins, running through checklists on clipboards, inspecting customs stickers, and other sundry tasks. As Paul glanced around, he considered looking for a flight schedule, but then another thought intruded.
“Merlin, how closely do the wizards of Errabêlu control the various governments?” Paul asked, thinking furiously. “For instance, could they have Interpol hunting for me?”
The bearded wizard stayed floating in mid-air as he answered with a grim smile, “Absolutely. “They have their tentacles in all sorts of government agencies, including your CIA, FBI, NSA, and virtually every other alphabet soup of the United States government. Also in every similar agency in Europe and Asia.”
“So, they have access to a great many resources,” Paul observed, still deep in thought. “Then I really do need to get out of here ASAP,” he grimly stated. “And the CIA guy was right. Not directly to the United States. Too obvious. They could have someone meet every flight, even the cargo flights, when they arrive in the USA. I need a different destination, one that I have time to reach before they start looking for me here in Germany.”
After a brief search, Paul found a list of departing flights on a large display board. Ah, there was a Lufthansa Cargo flight, LH8222, a Boeing MD11BCF Freighter, leaving for Mexico City in just half an hour. Perfect! Paul casually waved his hand, and Merlin vanished.
“In the name of Claude Rains, Vincent Price, and Romulan warbirds, let a cloak of invisibility surround me, such that no one can see me or my shadow or hear me.”
The air around him darkened slightly, and he strode out of the building, heading for Flight LH8222, confident that no Normal would see him, let alone intercept him.
• • • •
On the flight apron, a ULD loader stacked with pallets of cargo boxes was approaching the side of a Boeing aircraft. Paul assertively walked over and climbed on, just as the pallet load was lifted upward. When the level was right, the operator below triggered the conveyor, sliding the pallets toward the hatch of the plane.
There were two workers inside who shifted the pallets onto rollers built into the plane’s deck, shoving each pallet deeper into the plane and then locking them into place with clamps. Carefully, Paul maneuvered around the two men and into a small space between two pallets. He wasn’t very comfortable, but there would be time to change positions later, after the workers were gone.
And that didn’t take long. Fifteen minutes later, they locked down the last pallet and left, closing and latching the aircraft’s hatch behind them.
Silence.
Paul eased himself downward to sit on the deck. Reaching into the food sack, he pulled out some french fries and began to munch on them. He now had plenty of time to eat. It would take most of the day, but by the day’s end, he would be in Mexico.
SEVENTEEN
Over the Gulf of Mexico
36,000 ft
January
Monday, 5:20 p.m. EDT
The eleven-and-a-half-hour flight was uneventful. Paul napped uncomfortably in the cargo hold, using his gold bar to keep a bubble of warm air around himself.
He also took the opportunity to think over his situation and the events of the previous two weeks, wondering what he should do in the long run. This whole business of magical powers had caught him by surprise, and so far, all he had done was react to things other people were doing. Yes, he had escaped from captivity and possible death, but for what purpose? Other than his freedom—-and yes, that was important in its own right—-what goal did he have? Survival was wonderful, but, he wanted to do more with his life and his newly acquired magical powers than just that. And it didn’t seem possible now to execute his original plan, namely, to wander the earth and help the needy. Obviously, the other wizards weren’t going to permit him to do that.
What were his options? Even if he could convince Ruggiero not to kill him, Paul wasn’t certain that he wanted to be associated with any of the other wizards. He drew the line at wholesale warfare for the advancement of science. That was too cold-blooded for his tastes. Celeste had told him that there were some wizards that had turned inward, hermits from the world stage. But that option seemed undesirable to Paul, like a dead end.
And then there was his present predicament. Paul was starting to wonder how much trouble he was currently in, exactly. He had fled from Ruggiero and injured the other wizard in the process, destroying his talisman. But so far, there had been no indication at all that anyone was really in pursuit. And perhaps they were not. Perhaps Paul’s tendency toward paranoia was overreacting. Yeah, sure, Ruggiero might think that Paul was a spy. But Ruggiero was just one of hundreds of wizards. The other wizards of Errabêlu might have told him by now to cool it, that Paul wasn’t worth a global manhunt.
Most decidedly, Paul was erring on the side of caution, which seemed to be the best policy for the moment. If later, when he reached the United States, there was still no sign of pursuit, then he might relax a bit and reevaluate his options. But for the moment, he had no idea what long-range goals were possible. He would need to consult some more with a super-intelligence before making any decisions like that.
• • • •
On the descent path, heading toward Benito Juarez International Airport, Paul was using a small magical display to look out of the plane at the surrounding mountains and Mexican countryside. He was watching the outskirts of Mexico City when Merlin’s disembodied head appeared in front of him.
Startled, he jerked backward, hitting his head against the unyielding pallet of cargo behind him.
&nb
sp; “Relax,” said Merlin in a reassuring tone. “I didn’t mean to affrighten you.” He glanced around. “Are there no chairs in this metal flying box? Is this what it means to be taken for a ride in this century?”
“It’s a long story,” Paul replied with a tired voice. “What’s up?”
Merlin tugged a little on his beard. “Red Alert. At least, I think that’s what they call it. Someone just used a portal below and ahead of us, probably at the airport, and judging from the energy involved, they came in from somewhere a very long way away. Could be as far as Europe.”
Paul nodded in understanding. So, that answered that question. He really was being chased. Was it Ruggiero doing the chasing or someone else? Did they know for certain that he was on this plane? Or were they just covering all the possible flights leaving from Europe? If it was the latter, then there must be a large army scattered across the globe, looking for him.
No matter who was after him, Paul was right to be paranoid. The chase was on, and just what would he do to evade them?
• • • •
Since he wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he tried to portal from the plane while it was moving at 550 mph, it seemed advisable for Paul to wait until the plane landed before he tried to leave. Of course, by that time, he might be trapped. They might be close enough at that point that they could detect any portal he might form, thus instantly knowing where he was. Perhaps, if he kept a low profile, he might be able to just sneak off the plane, using a minimum of magical energy. If they were just covering the bases here, whoever was looking for him might not be all that serious in their search efforts. As long as he didn’t draw any attention to himself, Paul figured he had a shot at leaving the plane, and then the airport, without his pursuers knowing that he was even in Mexico City.
Gripping the gold bar and his carry-on simultaneously was difficult with only one hand and without the aid of a magical spell, but Paul managed. The noise of the landing gear deploying told him how close they were. A minute later, the plane jerked hard, and there was a loud, but brief screech as the wheels touched down on the tarmac.
Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard Page 18