The Overseer

by Jonathan Rabb

  Sarah glanced out the window. Just below, the room jutted out beyond the scarp of the hill, the slope falling off in a tangle of trees and plants, the topmost awash in a glow emanating from an unseen column of lights. Sarah wondered whether it was meant to highlight the view or to maintain a careful watch on the most densely camouflaged access to the house.

  “How often do you have these little get-togethers?” she asked as she moved toward the fire to find a well-cushioned chair.

  “Those questions, I think, can wait for dinner,” said Sedgewick as he topped up Votapek’s glass and turned to Tieg.

  “One is sufficient for me.” He smiled, then turned to Sarah. “Eisenreich is always better over a nice piece of fish and some artichoke. I trust salmon is to your liking, Ms. Trent.” Tieg had situated himself on a leather sofa against the far side, more window than wall, with an equally stunning view of the surrounding hills. His legs were crossed, his hands holding the glass at his knees. Sarah looked over at him, a pensive figure, a far cry from the man described in the dossier she had read earlier that evening.

  “Anton is always quick to point out my little shortcomings.” Sedgewick’s smile elicited no reaction whatsoever. “One God? It seems to me the Greeks and Romans were far more sensible—they had hundreds to do their bidding.”

  “Their bidding?” Votapek laughed. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? We following God’s commands—something like that?”

  “Larry has a way of looking at things,” piped in Tieg, more for Sarah’s benefit than Votapek’s, “that makes conventional interpretation seem somewhat naïve.” Sarah noticed how different Tieg was from his television persona. No homespun aphorisms. This was a highly articulate man.

  “Not naïve, Jonas. Rudimentary perhaps, but not naïve.” It was Sedgewick’s turn to correct. “Monotheism has managed to keep a stranglehold on us for the last two thousand years. What we’ve failed to remember is that religion is a tool, a means to—”

  “Control.” Sarah’s interruption caused a momentary lull, none of the men ready with a response. Sarah kept her eyes on Tieg, the last of the triumvirate somehow more compelling than the others.

  After a moment, Sedgewick smiled. “Exactly.”

  Tieg seemed equally fascinated by Sarah, his stare locked on her.

  A pair of sliding doors suddenly opened, revealing a beautifully laid table. “We’ll continue this over the fish.” Sarah stood and led them up the steps. In the corner, George stood patiently.

  The guard waved Stein through. The exchange was the usual for the late hour, a few smiles, a passing reference to midnight oil before Bob moved down the wide corridor and into the elevator. He listened for a moment as he exited at the sixth floor to make sure the custodial staff had completed its nightly prowl. He then stepped to the left—silence as he continued past O’Connell’s office, the thick sheets of matted glass that framed the door reflecting the row of halogen lamps dimmed for the late hour. Never raised to full capacity, the light cast an even more somber glow than usual on the cream-colored wall.

  Arriving at his office, Bob slid the key into the lock and opened the door to the mayhem he had left behind less than eighteen hours ago. He tossed the keys onto a small leather footrest—one of the few areas not piled high with paper—and moved to the desk. Flicking on his own halogen, he crouched to his knees and began to fiddle with the combination lock of his safe, its top providing ample storage space for an odd assortment of books, coffee cups and half-filled bags of cheese balls.

  The stacks of papers within were a far cry from the mess scattered around the office. Three neat piles of manila folders waited patiently; Bob began to thumb through the second stack before pulling out a thick dossier, the word Restricted stamped in bold type across the front. Settling himself into the desk chair, he flipped through the first pages, a recent history of Sarah—an impenetrable section on post-trauma syndrome that showed no understanding of the woman he had just met. Pausing only once, he continued to fan his way back to the earlier sessions at Langley.

  He was scanning one page, turning to the next, when he realized that something was different, somehow wrong. He stared at the page, trying to see what it was, when he realized that the pages were sticking to one another, a sort of static cling making the peeling awkward. He flipped through the rest, the answer slowly dawning on him as he released the sheets. Xerox. Someone’s Xeroxed this file. He was certain, the texture retaining the electrical backwash that the flash of light on glass always produces. He stopped and looked at the stacks in the safe.

  Somehow, someone had gotten to the file; somehow, someone had found a way into his office, into his safe—the combination of which he changed each week—and had left everything in place, even the position of the second stack.

  All thoughts of his own vulnerability quickly vanished as he remembered Sarah, the immediacy in her voice: “In those passages, I’m everything they hate and fear. I’m the voice of reason.” He looked at his watch. Ten to three. Ten to twelve San Francisco time. She was already gone. She was with them. And he knew they had all the information they needed.

  There was nothing to do but sit. His chest ached with each intake of breath, his shoulders burned from the strain, but he felt it all, the wind shoot by, the sun on his face, the clawing in his stomach where hunger had replaced fear. His left arm lay limp at his side, the right again clutching at the case, the miracle of the last ten minutes still a blur.

  Xander tried to piece it together. He remembered his hand slipping from the rung, the sudden grip of an enormous hand on his forearm as he had been pulled back, his other hand finding the thick, gristly skin of the man’s neck, pulling down on it, only to have the weight teeter toward him as both bodies had flown from the platform. How the chain had found his hand, he would never know, but the iron links had somehow fallen into his grip, his hand quick to clutch at them as his entire body had swung off the platform, slamming into the underbelly of the train as the large man had disappeared from sight. The speed of the train had been all that had kept Xander horizontal, his feet straddling unseen rigging, enough to keep him elevated, enough to lend him the strength to pull himself back along the chain toward the platform.

  And then the real miracle. With his arms no longer able to contain the pain, Xander had felt his fingers begin to slip, the wind too much against his body. It was then that a pair of hands had reached around from the platform to pull him in. Thrust onto the ledge, Xander had looked up to see a face, a contortion of blood and flesh, the right cheek ripped, revealing shards of bone, the body a tangled amalgam of cloth and skin, chest heaving, each breath revealing the exposed wound of a broken rib. Drained of all vitality, the body had tripped back, feet collapsing underneath, head smacking against the steel of the train wall.

  A dying Feric, the computer case at his side.

  Now the operative sat hunched over a growing pool of blood, his mouth sucking for air as Xander began to inch his way closer.

  Dragging himself across the platform, Xander reached up to the handle of the car door and pushed his back into the heavy steel. Ignoring the pain, he reached across to Feric and the case and pulled them in, the door slamming shut as he laid Feric’s head on his lap. The two sat silently, the passing minutes bringing greater consciousness, the pain intense as Xander tested each limb—strains but nothing broken. Feric, however, remained still, his breath growing more and more erratic, dots of blood speckling his chin.

  Xander held tightly to the small broken body of the man who had saved him once again. This time, though, he knew it would be the last. No tears. Only anger, self-loathing as Feric’s breathing began to quiet, a gurgling sound rising from his throat. Hushed and staggered, the words began to form.

  “Get to New York … Sarah … contact number … in pack.” He coughed, his entire body convulsing at the shock, more blood finding the floor. “Throw me … from train.” His back arched, the last words forced through the pain. “They will expect …
to find me.” He lifted his arm to Xander’s shoulder, squeezed tightly, and then released; a moment later, his head fell lifeless.

  On the platform, the sun danced on steel as Xander cradled the lifeless mass to his chest. Fields raced by; the wind whipped at his face. He stepped to the ledge. Eyes staring straight ahead, he released, unwilling to watch as the small body crashed to the ground below.

  Find Sarah. It was the only thought his mind would permit.

  PART THREE

  7

  The rest, therefore, must attend to the practical.

  —ON SUPREMACY, CHAPTER VII

  XANDER STARED OUT at the crush of bodies, the platform beyond the window thick with the first early-morning commuters. He had lost all sense of time, the minutes since the attack frozen in tiny capsules of activity, each a disconnected strand of energy focused on necessity: retrieve the computer case; examine Feric’s pack; commit the contact numbers to memory. One after another, a simple list of tasks, each performed with numb ambivalence.

  And somewhere in a hazy past, he remembered having cleaned himself up within the cramped confines of the train rest room, a tiny corner insert with barely enough room for toilet and sink. A thick sweater had miraculously appeared in Feric’s pack and had quickly replaced the torn windbreaker. First, though, he had forced himself to mop up the blood in the corridor, most of the paper towel consigned to the small puddle left by a dying Feric. With even, measured strokes, he had scrubbed away the last drops before rinsing the towels in the sink, the rotelike activity enough to foster a few moments of calm. But they had been short-lived, the reflection in the mirror quick to remind him of the night’s events—hair blown wild, cheeks streaked with blood, eyes dazed and red. In those dark minutes, he had never felt so alone, the image of Feric fixed in his mind, fragile, broken, the contorted face resting on a bloodied shoulder, arms and legs limp in a cradling grasp. Weightless, lifeless. And then gone. What do I do now? What can I do?

  A strange sort of vacancy had come over him, the panic of isolation finding its match in the hollow stare reflected in the mirror—eyes that had grown somber and cold, distilled of both fear and compassion. He had seen those eyes before. In a tunnel. In Florence. And they had been hers. Sarah. Find Sarah.

  Now, as he sat alone in a first-class cabin—he had made the move an hour ago—the words echoed through his mind, an inner beacon against the bump and cluster of the early-morning crowds boarding the train.

  The door slid open, the sudden noise snapping his head to the right, his grip imperceptibly tighter around the case. A tall woman popped her head through, a timid nod as she pointed to the empty seats across from him.

  A week ago, he would have found his own reaction strange. Now his concern for his surroundings seemed almost second nature. He was learning. Trace the stare of an eye, the hat pulled too far down over a face. They are the sure signs. Feric’s words.

  “Sind diese frei, bitte?” The Schweitzerdeutsch accent was unmistakable.

  Xander’s shock passed without notice, his smile pure reflex as he nodded. She returned the smile and bustled two small boys through the door, each dressed in the gray flannels of traveling attire. Perhaps eight and ten, the boys had cheeks that revealed the puffy red of early-morning rousing, hair slick and exact under what had no doubt been a grueling comb, parts perfect to the twin cowlicks. They were impeccably well behaved, taking the two seats across from Xander as their mother sat down next to him. Removing two small books from identical satchels, they began to read, feet dangling above the carpeted floor, boots swaying in haphazard meter. They were an organized little family, silent save for the occasional flipping of a page. For a few moments, Xander allowed himself to blend into their world—ordered, kind, simple—the serenity broken only by the jolting start of the train and the coincident arrival of the conductor. Even he seemed to recognize the hushed quality to the cabin, peering over at the boys with a gentle smile, clipping tickets and returning them without a word. Sliding the door back, he moved off down the corridor, and the cabin was again silent.

  For the first time in days, Xander felt protected, safe. Without thinking, he closed his eyes, his thoughts drifting to a welcome nothingness.

  The dessert proved even more exquisite than the salmon, a fruit tart floating in a raspberry sauce, the taste prompting all four to purr in approval. At no time during the meal had Sarah shown the slightest hesitation in sparring with the three men around the table, egged on by the roles each took in response to her self-assurance: Sedgewick, the intellectual, finding in her a worthy adversary; Votapek, the intimate, playing up the bond from their first meeting; and Tieg … Tieg, the enigma. Sarah had yet to ascertain his role, uneasy with the detachment he maintained among such close associates.

  Sedgewick was the first to resume speaking as he swept his spoon through a pool of the red confection, his cheeks flushed from several glasses of wine. “Though I hate to admit it, Marx had it right—it’s a waste of time to try and define the day-to-day workings of the last stage in the process. Just set everything up, or at least allow things to move in their natural patterns so that a future is viable.” He lapped at the spoon. “Of course, I’m no Marxist, but it isn’t hard to pat old Karl on the back for having had the horse sense to refrain from offering some design for the future. Create the playing field. That’s all one can do.” He took a sip of coffee and sat back.

  “It’s been a long time since I read Marx,” said Sarah, “but I think he had some idea of what he wanted—communal property, the dictatorship of the proletariat. I find it difficult to believe that ‘creating the playing field’ would have been sufficient.”

  “Actually, it was,” responded Votapek, already in the middle of his second piece. “Marx did think it would happen on its own—capitalism would come crashing down all by itself. That’s where he made his mistake.” He wolfed down a healthy slab. “But you’re probably right. There’s no question that you have to have an idea of what’s best for the people, how to get the most out of them and how to stabilize them before you set out to create the playing field. Anyone with an idea for the future has to know that you can’t draw up the … let’s call them blueprints … until you see the space you’re going to build on. You have to clear the land before you set the foundations.” Clear the land, thought Sarah. Chaos at its most innocent.

  “A period of statelessness,” added Sedgewick, “to make sure that the foundations are correct. That seems to me a central maxim of the manuscript.”

  “You have to remember,” reminded Sarah, “that my familiarity with that book is far more limited than yours.” She had pressed the point a number of times in the last hour. “My questions—”

  “Are those that come from the onetime assassin of Jordan.” All eyes turned to Tieg, who was pouring a cup of tea. He had been quiet for several minutes, his words clearly timed to elicit the most effective response. “We’re well aware of that, Ms. Trent. We’re also aware that you see the world from a somewhat different perspective.” He put down the pot and looked at her. “General theories derived from a sixteenth-century manuscript aren’t likely to overwhelm or impress you, are they? You like to know how, when, not why. Or am I misinterpreting your part in all of this?” He took a sip.

  Sarah had not expected the question, nor the reference to her past. More troubling was the way Tieg looked at her, something behind the stare. “No, I think that would be a fair estimation.”

  “Good.” He placed the cup on its saucer. “The problem is, the how and the when have never been that important to us. Don’t get me wrong. The practical side is ultimately what drives us. I think we can all agree on that. But it can’t be our focus.” Looking at Sedgewick, he continued. “I really have no interest in what Larry is up to, nor he about me. I trust that when we reach a certain point, he’ll have accomplished everything he needs to accomplish so that we can move forward.” He looked back at Sarah. “Aside from that, our lives are brought together only by the why. That, wit
h some minor variation, is the same for all three of us.”

  Tieg had waited for the appropriate moment to instruct Sarah in the ways of Eisenreich. Unlike his colleagues, he showed no need to impress with allusions to grand theories or his own exploits. Of the three, he was the one to keep his cards closest to the chest. More than that, he seemed to be testing her. Twice during the meal, he had cut Sedgewick off so as to press her further for the details of her relationship with Eisenreich. Each time, she had parried with innocuous phrases, recalling her desire to remain on the periphery when it came to details. Only now did she realize how clever he had been, timing his interruptions so as to make sure that the conversation remained focused on the abstract. Evidently, he was not inclined to permit facts to enter the debate.

  “I’m not sure I’d put the why in those terms,” added Votapek, “but I agree it’s the search for permanence that ties us together.” He was not willing to allow Tieg to speak for all three. Sarah knew that had the situation been reversed, the more famous member of the trio would have sat in silence, his ego secure enough to avoid such obvious flexing. It troubled her to find such strength at Eisenreich’s core. “Order is about setting boundaries so as to encourage people—especially the young—to challenge their potential. That, naturally, demands structure, discipline, a bit of weeding out. Not everyone is capable of the potential I have in mind.” Sedgewick’s pretension had given way to Votapek’s eugenics.

  “Simply put, we have to get rid of constraints—old institutions—and throw everything into turmoil; that way, the cream can rise to the top. The great unwashed will have no choice but to recognize who their natural leaders are.” Votapek lifted his cup, his eyes momentarily locked on the undulating coffee within. “Only the best are capable of taming chaos—those who can harness its power and lead the unenlightened in new directions. The rest”—he shook his head—“teach them to follow. Give them toys to play with—greed, hatred, pettiness. Then create controlled battlefields for them—bigotry, fear, that sort of thing. Focus their energy on a common hatred and you have a satisfied, manageable mass. Institutions are merely an afterthought. A few innocents may get hurt, but that’s the price. With that, and with the right sort of technology, you can control them all very easily. Keep them busy and you allow real innovation to seize the day.” He put the cup down and leaned toward Sarah. “Cling to old institutions, and the best you can do is erect monuments to your own limitations, because that’s what institutions represent—our sense of workable boundaries. Then, when the truly remarkable do emerge, we stifle them because they tear at the very walls we’ve put up. They challenge us, and we destroy them.” He sat back. “The middle ground isn’t worth a thing, Ms. Trent. Our only choice—permanance through excellence.”