“But why?” asked Xander, unconvinced. “Why would they have told you anything if you weren’t interested?”
“Ah, but I was interested … for a time. That proved most informative. They showed me bits and pieces of a manuscript, set up meetings with Messrs. Votapek, Tieg, and Sedgewick—and believe me, at the outset, I was very enthusiastic. I genuinely believed they had uncovered something that—how should I put this?—that could control the electorate without appearing to put a stranglehold on rights? Yes, I think that’s right. Something that would allow us the room to create effective policy without having to cater to public sentiment. That is, after all, the only way to get anything done.” He stopped. “My opinion troubles you, Doctor, doesn’t it?” His eyes squinted as his lips creased around the cigarette. “I offer no apologies. That, my young academic, is the simplest truth of politics. You won’t find it in any of your books.” He exhaled and laid the cigarette in the ashtray. “And so, when they came to me with their plans, I didn’t look horrified; I didn’t stand appalled by the deceptions they were ready to unleash. I embraced them.” He smiled. “Do you honestly think we tell you everything we do in Washington? Do you honestly think you would understand why certain compromises have to be made? The people—the myth you hold so dear—are, on the whole, indifferent, uninformed, and stupid. So why put them in the loop at all? Do you really think it was designed to be a democracy? Don’t be ridiculous. It was meant to be a republic, a system where the most capable represent the desires of the rest—whether that rest realizes what’s good for it or not. Without a little bit of deception, you’re doomed to mediocrity—”
“Obviously,” interrupted Sarah, “you and Votapek took the same correspondence course.”
“You might not like my politics, Ms. Trent, but you know I’m right.”
“Your politics,” broke in Xander, “are supposed to be about dismantling big government, giving power back to the people, or have I missed the point? It seems to me you folks on the Right are the ones who don’t want to tell the people what’s good for them, even when they don’t realize it themselves.”
“It’s a wonderful tactic, isn’t it?” Schenten nodded as he reached for the cigarette. “But do you think we’re giving up power by doing that? We’re simply letting the states deal with the petty quarrels. ‘Get government out of your backyard.’ It’s a clever slogan, isn’t it? Keeps them preoccupied with the minutiae. Actually, we’re taking their minds off the federal government, giving them something smaller to play with so that they leave us alone to handle the larger issues.”
“Such as?”
“Let government do what it’s best designed for—turn a maximum profit without having to worry about the few who can’t make it on their own. The more we focus the people’s interest on state government, the less they focus on the federal, the less they get in our way. Once you create a thoroughly disjointed electorate—a group of people concerned only with their own backyards—you can achieve great things.”
“So why weren’t you buying?” asked Xander. “Eisenreich makes all of that possible.”
“To a point. The difference is, I trust in the republic.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why? I might be an elitist, I might even insist that a modicum of deception can be quite useful, but I still believe in a balance of power—a real balance—among the few who truly understand the issues. Naturally, that means the people shouldn’t be allowed to poke their noses in at every turn. But it also means that the few who do run things must do so with an honest end in mind. A republic must be accountable to stability, permanence, progress, not to the whims of the poorly educated. Eisenreich eliminates the people, but unfortunately, he also eliminates the balance. In its place, he offers Star Chamber hidden beneath a veneer of republican virtue.Deception is one thing, Doctor, tyranny through cultivated bigotry quite another. I chose not to ally myself with that.”
“A dash of John Stuart Mill with a hint of Machiavelli.” Xander nodded. “A strange pairing, to say the least, as the cornerstones of the modern conservative movement.”
“Think what you will,” he answered. “It’s what’s best for this country.”
“So they blackmailed you,” said Sarah. “Why? Why not kill you?”
“Because, my dear Ms. Trent, at that point I had nothing that could harm them. I was never alone with the manuscript, never had time to make copies of my own, and never had any proof to link them to it. Moreover, they needed me … or rather, they found some rather clever ways to use me. My summer home in Montana has become a frequent spot for meetings, among other things.”
“Other things?”
“It’s where, I believe, they are organizing all of this. A compound of some sort, another school for those ready to turn the vision into reality. I haven’t been allowed back in over a year. Whatever it was, I became a very convenient subterfuge should anyone take an interest in Tieg, Votapek, and Sedgewick. Even the location of this house makes me a prime candidate for association with the Tempsten school. I often wonder if that’s what they had in mind all along. Throw people like you off the track. Evidently, it worked.” He paused. “That, however, seemed rather unfair.” He placed a small black book on the table. “So I took something of theirs.”
“The schedule,” said Xander. “When? How?”
“Very good, Doctor.” Schenten slid it across the desk. “It came into my hands about a month ago; how … how isn’t all that important, is it?” He watched as Xander began to flip through the pages. “According to the dates, the real fireworks begin in less than three days. I’m sure you’re aware that what happened in Washington and with the grain market was designed merely to test the waters. New Orleans, I believe, was a mistake. It wasn’t supposed to happen for another three days—part of something far more comprehensive.”
“Why haven’t you done anything to stop them?” asked Sarah. “If you knew we were out there, why didn’t you contact us? Three days isn’t—”
“Because, Ms. Trent, the moment I would have tried—the moment I would have shown even the slightest inclination—I would have been dead. Contact you? What a ludicrous thought. And where was I supposed to start looking? I knew you were involved. Beyond that … no, it had to be the other way round. As you’ll see, it’s all far too extensive, far too intricate to disrupt without striking at the core. I’d never have gotten that close.” He shifted the pillow higher up his back. “Somehow, you two have managed to elude them. I’m simply counting on the fact that you will continue to do so. You were careful breaking in, no one aware. You will be equally diligent on your way out. I therefore give you the schedule and wish you Godspeed.”
“The core?” asked Xander insistently. “You mean there is an overseer, one man behind it all?”
“Of course,” answered Schenten. “It is, no doubt, why you were chosen, Doctor. Why you—”
Glass shattered all around, lights extinguished in a hail of bullets. Xander lunged across the desk for Schenten, only to find himself grabbed and thrown to the floor between the wall and desk. Sarah crouched next to him, her gun an inch from her face, the book clutched in her hand as the library once again fell silent. Seconds passed before they heard it. Distant at first, then deafening, the sound of a helicopter erupting within the room, a spotlight tearing through the madly flapping curtains, its beam coming to rest on the heaving body of Schenten, his arms drooped to the side, his mouth wide in convulsions, blood blotted on his chest. A moment later, the light slid from the room, rotors retreating, the telltale sound of landing. Sarah pulled Xander to his feet and ran to the door.
There was no time to think, no time to consider the man or his words—“It’s why you were chosen”—only time to follow, to match her stride for stride, first to the stairs, then the sitting room, the sounds of rifle fire echoing from the front of the house as they leapt through the window to the grass below. Schenten’s guards were holding the men of Eisenreich at bay, giving their
own lives for a man only minutes away from death, their sacrifice granting still others a chance for escape. Sarah raced ahead, Xander after, the woods rising like a vacuum drawing them ever nearer. It was only when he saw Sarah dive to the ground that he remembered the fence. Tumbling forward, he careened into her back, ramming both of them to within an inch of the metal spikes. She pushed him aside and removed the clippers. He snapped his head toward the house and gazed at its darkened facade, the calm exterior masking the violence within. “It’s why you were chosen.” The words battered at him.
Light suddenly burst forth from every window as Sarah grabbed his neck and pulled him toward the fence. She had cut through.
The next minutes passed without thought, the back of her head leading him through the trees, a path where there was none, direction where he had lost all sense. The world behind them vanished, the questions faded, only darkness—endless and unrelenting—until, in the distance, the road appeared, a final dash for the car, the branches tossed to the side, doors slammed before the bite of the engine tore through the silence.
“Drive.” Grass turned to road as the car sped into the night.
O’Connell sprang from his perch, his gun held to his chest as he pushed his way through the branches, feet nimble on the rooted floor below. For a large man, he showed remarkable dexterity.
It had happened quickly, as he had known it would. Sarah and Jaspers had approached the fence, unaware of the two men racing out from behind the house, rifles at the ready. Within five seconds, the men had spotted their targets; within eight, each had dropped to a knee and was taking aim. But it had been O’Connell who had fired first, two pinpoint shots of his own, the silencer muffling all but the thwit-thwit, both men eliminated in less than three seconds. Their bodies had collapsed on each other, forming an odd triangle in the middle of the open field.
Now he was running, aware that others would soon be in pursuit, he more concerned with the two he had been sent to protect. The two. Jaspers had made it. There was an instinct there; Stein had been right.
Up ahead, a diesel engine ignited and O’Connell quickened his pace. Two minutes later, he emerged to the road, dashed across the pressed gravel, and pulled a small motorcycle from a makeshift pile of pine and wood he had built some five hours earlier. He heard the engine to his left; within fifteen seconds, his 250 cc rumbled in response. Sliding the gun into his jacket, O’Connell mounted his bike and released the clutch. The wind slapped at his face as he searched the night for taillights.
Sarah leaned out the window, her ears intent on any sound other than the gnawing cough of the Rabbit’s straining motor. At the same time, she scanned the sky, certain that the helicopter would appear, waiting for its searchlight to bounce along the tree line before targeting the car and its cargo. But nothing came, no sudden intrusions, only the hollow whistle of air beating against her face. She continued to search, uneasy with the silence, until the wail of a distant siren brought her attention back to the road. She pulled her head inside and glanced at the speedometer. It hovered at eighty, Xander’s hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
“Slow down,” she yelled over the wind, “and try to find a turnoff.”
Xander did as he was told, bringing the car down to a reasonable speed as they both hunted for an opening. The sirens grew louder and louder, a hint of flashing light beyond the next hill, when Sarah pointed to an almost-invisible breach in the wall of trees to their right. Xander shifted the car into second gear, its frame buckling at the deceleration, and turned the wheel sharply, lurching the Rabbit down the steep slope. After thirty yards of back-wrenching bumps, he flipped off the beams and cut the engine. Above, the screech of the siren continued to mount as reflections of red and blue danced along distant trees, ever closer, until, in a near-blinding flash, the lights cascaded overhead and then gone. Xander reached for the keys, but Sarah was quick to stop him as the sound of a second siren broke through; again, reflected blues and reds flew by. Waiting for complete silence, she dropped her hand and nodded. The wheels churned through the dirt as the car inched its way back to the road, the rutted ascent no less jarring in reverse. Within half a minute, they were tearing along at eighty.
“You’ll wait in the car while I go in for her,” said Sarah, her eyes once more searching the sky through the windshield. Xander muscled the car around a curve, his eyes fixed on the limits of the high beams. “Did you hear me?”
“I wait; you go.” The words were spoken in rote monotone. “Yes.”
For the next mile, they traveled in silence.
“She should be able to sleep in the back,” explained Sarah. “I don’t think she’ll be too much of a bother.”
“Fine.” Again silence.
Sarah turned to him. “What?”
He continued to stare at the road.
“Is it the schedule, Schenten, what?” She stared into his face, saw the tension in his jaw. “Does this have to do with what happened at the motel?”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” he asked, clearly oblivious to her questions, “that I’ve managed to survive through all of this?”
It took her a moment to answer. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess I’m just grateful.”
He looked over at her, then turned and took the car to ninety.
Another minute passed before she spoke. “What happened back there?”
He laughed in disbelief. “Happened? A man was killed. That’s what happened. A man just like Carlo, or Emil, or Feric. Schenten was just another to be sacrificed.” A controlled rage laced his words. “And, yet, through it all, I somehow manage to remain unscathed. Now, that’s strange, isn’t it? How do we explain that?”
She tried to understand. “What are you asking me?”
“I’m not asking you. … I’m simply asking. Yesterday, an hour ago, I would have been too frightened, too relieved to think of anything but my own survival. Then again,” the self-mockery more apparent, “I did write that neat little memo that gives me a purpose in all of this, didn’t I? That’s high on the erudition scale, isn’t it? Problem is, it doesn’t really count. Theory won’t explain why I’ve managed to survive to this point.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You want to believe you’re a killer—fine. You want to believe that in all of this, that’s your purpose, the reason you were chosen—”
“Slow down,” she broke in, uncomfortable with his tone.
“‘It’s why you were chosen,’” he barked. “Didn’t you hear what Schenten said, what he said about me?” He glanced over at her. “Don’t you get it? You’re not the only one who’s been handpicked to take part in all of this.”
“You think—”
“I don’t think,” he cut her off, his focus again the road. “I heard it, saw it in his eyes. Even he seemed surprised to find out that I had no idea.”
“No idea about what?”
“I don’t know. How I tie in. Why I was chosen. My purpose.”
“Chosen for what?” she asked. “By whom?” She started to reach for him, then stopped, her shoulders inching away. “You mean me?”
He glanced over at her. “What?”
“You said ‘chosen.’ I was the one who got in touch with you. That would seem to say that—”
“What?” For a moment, the anger and confusion faded from his eyes. “That’s not it at all. You’re the only reason I’m still holding on. I’ve told you that.”
“Then what do you mean?” she asked defensively.
He looked back at the road. “I don’t know.” The motel sign appeared on the left. Xander slowed and pulled the car into the driveway. “I stay. You go.” His tone was again distant. She stared at him, then opened the door.
O’Connell cut the engine and coasted to the top of the hill, guiding the bike onto the shoulder and the relative cover of the tree line. A hundred yards below, the Rabbit sat idling in the drive of a roadside motel, the passenger door open. He inched himself tighter agai
nst the trees, stopped, and pulled out a pair of binoculars as the sound of a helicopter rose from somewhere off to his right. But it was Sarah who drew his attention as she emerged from one of the rooms, a second figure at her side, bundled within blankets and pillows. He watched as both stooped and slid into the car, Sarah slamming the door as the VW accelerated to the road. An instant later, a set of giant rotors appeared hovering just above the trees. The copter banked to the right and swung low, its high beams lighting up the back of the speeding Rabbit, which now serpentined across both lanes. Rifle fire exploded from above.
O’Connell fired up the engine and surged out onto the road. With his right hand, he pulled a gun from his jacket, this one far larger than the small precision piece he had used to compromise the two men in the field. He squeezed the throttle and brought the motorcycle to within twenty yards of the bird, whose nose was edging ever closer to its prey. The rear rotor, however, was riding high and exposed, a position all too vulnerable to someone with a trained eye. Leaning into the wind, O’Connell raised his gun and fired.
The recoil from the shot forced him to swerve, the grassy ledge of the shoulder coming precariously close before he straightened himself out and regained the center line. Meanwhile, the helicopter had banked high, his bullets evidently having missed their mark, a second high beam now appearing to target him in its blinding attack. Shots cascaded from above, peppering the road around him and forcing him to careen from side to side, both his hands essential to the task. With another burst of speed, he raced to the bird’s underbelly, zigzagging with it so as to maintain his position directly beneath, the huge bulk unable to shake him. Again, he drew his gun. Again, he fired. This time, his aim was true. Smoke billowed from the fuselage as the rear rotor began to jump haphazardly from side to side. He slowed and let off several more shots. As if caught in a sudden updraft, the helicopter bounced high in the air, twisting on itself like a giant top out of control. She was going down. She would be forced to land.
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