Gabriel's Stand

by Jay B. Gaskill

  Gabriel hugged his daughter. As they parted, he could feel the dampness of her tears on his chest.

  “I’m so glad you are okay,” she said.

  “You’ve been watching my webcasts, then?”

  “Every one. Now drink some coffee.”

  “Great ratings,” Gabriel said, sipping his coffee, “but no sponsors.” He stared at his beautiful daughter and she stared back. Oh, that penetrating appraisal of hers. “So I see you stuck with it,” he said. “This preaching business.”

  “Not so much preaching. My day job is at the hospital. My night job is much more fun. Real, honest rabble rousing, Dad. The Human Conspiracy at work. Does Mom approve?”

  “Oh yeah, Alice worries and she approves.” Gabriel stood to stretch. “This is quite a setup here,” he said.

  “Three preachers, two rabbis, a lawyer and a Buddhist monk.”

  “Sounds like the opening of an old joke.”

  Snowfeather smiled. “And a Bishop who launders money from a drug dealer. It helps with the rent.”

  “This part is all yours?”

  “Almost. That door next to the bathroom cuts into Roberto Kahn’s quarters—Fred Loud Owl recruited us both at the same time. But I have my own kitchen.” Snowfeather stared at her father’s face. His twinkle was an unmistakable giveaway. “I know that look,” she said. “Out with it. You have some news,” she said with finality.

  “Well, I do have a surprise or two. Now get dressed. Jeans and something warm. We’re going to be outside for a while. Don’t take too long. My flight leaves at noon.” He was smiling.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Chapter 54

  In the taxi, Gabriel turned to Snowfeather. “A question has been really bothering me lately. Why isn’t there much more public opposition to these restrictions on medical technology? The new diseases are terrifying.”

  Snowfeather answered while looking out the window. “At the hospital, everyone is under orders not to speculate and not to complain. The Commission has quietly threatened careers, that sort of thing. They comply because they are wimps. The sad fact is that these are new pathogens and we just don’t have access to the new drugs that really work. The best of the old ones are ineffective. They work maybe a few days, a few weeks; then the pathogen is strengthened and even more people get sick and die. Everybody’s now thinking in terms of the great India plague.”

  “You mean: just let it burn itself out?”

  “Right. Like a big forest fire.”

  “Burning people. But there are new drugs. John Owen is smuggling more of them in every day.”

  “Really? Are they any good? I’d love to see some of them here,” she said.

  “The latest ones can flat out cure TB6.”

  “Oh Dad, we need these new drugs, yesterday.”

  ——

  The taxi let them off at the edge of Central Park. Dawn had leaked into the cloud-streaked patches of sky behind the east side buildings. Gabriel stood, looking up, entranced. “Beautiful, even here,” he said softly.

  “It is. Now what?” she asked.

  “Just one more minute,” he said, striding away. As she followed, she could see the NYPD kiosk, a faintly glowing island twenty yards in from the street.

  “Are we going there?”

  “Yup.” As they approached, Snowfeather could make out massive shapes lurking behind, near a cluster of trees. Horses?

  “Hello, Senator,” the officer said.

  “Wilson, this is my daughter. This is Sergeant Wilson Lean Wolf O’Shaunnesy, an old friend from tribal days. I’d trust him with my life.”

  “Hi,” Wilson said, shaking her hand. “They’re ready.” He pointed to the horses. “One black and one paint, both saddled and bridled.” Lean Wolf looked at Snowfeather. “I understand you are an excellent rider.”

  “Since she was five,” Standing Bear said, chuckling.

  “And not since I was sixteen.”

  “You forgot those pack horses,” Gabriel said.

  “They didn’t count, Dad,” she said.

  “I’d take the paint, if it was me,” Lean Wolf offered.

  “Come on, Princess, you never forget those skills.”

  Half an hour later, Gabriel led a short gallop through an open stretch of untraveled pavement; then they led the horses on a walk over damp grass. Snowfeather’s paint kept trying to stop to nibble on the grass. “Let’s hold up here for a moment,” Gabriel said, relaxing the reins. He stared ahead. “They are after me, you know.”

  “Does Mom know that?”

  “Of course. And she worries.”

  “Of course. I’m worried too.”

  “About me? I am being very careful.”

  “Is Mom still safe?”

  Gabriel nodded. “Safe enough. It’s you and me she’s most concerned about. I’m doing webcasts like crazy now.”

  “And you’ve become quite the cult figure, haven’t you? You really should get a sponsor.”

  “That’ll be the day.” He turned to face her. “They’re probably on to you, too.”

  “I doubt that,” she said lightly. “My new name and identity are working well. I also think that Louise gave up on me. She’s likely got bigger fish to fry than me. And I’ve been so busy at the hospital, I haven’t even worried about it. Oh, Dad, this TB6 is so awful…” The sun lanced through a crack in the clouds, casting a shaft of light through a space in the buildings at the edge of the park.

  “It’s the smallpox all over again, Princess. Edge Medical’s new drugs are starting to trickle in now. John’s people are getting past the blockade.”

  “Who’d have thought? Dr. Owen, an outlaw drug dealer. So, is John okay?”

  “Very much. He’s built facilities far out of the Commission’s way. We talk frequently on an encrypted line. Before you go back to your apartment, I’m going to give you a special way you can reach him. He wants to send you some of the latest antibiotics.”

  “Oh,” Snowfeather said softly. “Thank God.” Her eyes glistened for a moment. “To think we might be able to help…”

  Gabriel’s horse was standing in a pool of yellow light. Birds were chirping. A homeless man wandered into the meadow where the two horses and riders were standing, then retreated. “Boy, I have missed this,” Snowfeather said. “Being with you on horseback.”

  “Lean Wolf says he can work this out again for you—when you’re not in jail, of course.”

  “Hah. I was only arrested once for giving a speech. It’d be a lot kinder of him to cover my next bail.”

  “You are trying to stay out of jail, aren’t you? We want this hypothetical-someday grandchild to experience the out-of-doors…”

  Snowfeather chuckled. “So far, just that one arrest.”

  “I heard you are sticking your neck out on a regular basis.”

  “Helen Hawke is. Snowfeather has gone to ground. And you’re using your own name!”

  “Got me there. At least I’m in faraway Idaho. You’re warning neighborhoods about Retirement orders in the very heart of the Commission crackdown. That’s risky, Princess. Those people don’t like critics.”

  “And they just love you, right?” The two were silent while their horses clopped along a worn path through the grass. “What’s going to happen, Dad?”

  “It is a war, Princess.”

  “I see casualties in the hospital every day.”

  “God help the little ones. I just don’t know how you keep it up.”

  “Some days, I just can’t.”

  “Well, put in a good word for all of us, will you?” he asked. He pointed skyward.

  Snowfeather laughed. “Roberto points up there, too.”

  Chapter 55

  A few weeks later in Manhattan, reporter Max Cahoon found himself behind bars. He was allowed one phone call. It was to James Schlier, his former colleague, sometime drinking buddy, and somewhat reliable friend.

  “Jim, you asshole,
pick up. This is Maxwell Cahoon. I wasn’t kidding. Get down here tonight and make my bail. I’ll pay you tomorrow with interest. Thirty-third Precinct.”

  A few humiliating minutes later, Cahoon, an almost famous reporter for the Times, was led to his cell, dressed in jail orange. Because he knew the sergeant on duty, he was allowed, contrary to policy, to bring his small tape recorder with him.

  “That was my last free phone call until court,” Cahoon dictated. “Since then, I’ve been alone in this holding cell, grateful for my solitude—at least after I saw the company I could be keeping. Jim is not much of a friend, but he’ll bring my bail money. I’d do the same for him. We reporters stick together…especially these days.

  “Did I say my name? Maxwell Sherman Cahoon. You’ve probably seen my bylines. The Journal. The Times. The News services. You might remember my coverage of the McKernon assassination in Washington State and my series on the Vector Pharmaceutical bombing. But this isn’t about me.

  “Last night, when I first saw her, I had no idea who she was.

  “I had returned to Manhattan from DC, left my bag in a hotel and found my favorite bar. It was very late when I stepped outside and I was startled by the moving, wet grayness. The raindrops were invisible in the dark air until the passing headlights limned their trajectories in midflight. Around each street lamp, a silver halo formed out of cascading water.

  “Stop.”

  Cahoon paused his dictation, stretched his sore back; then he resumed, standing.

  “I had heard rumors, of course, but seeing her in person was a surprise. She was a small, but compelling figure, standing in the light of a street corner lamp. She was neatly dressed in a black blouse and long, black cape, her hood thrown back revealing a bright crimson lining and her shoulder-length black hair. A crowd had gathered around her, chanting, ‘Hawke! Hawke!’

  “Their faces were eager and expectant. I found myself staring at her striking gray eyes, high cheekbones and strong, intelligent face. My, she was beautiful! And a little familiar, like classically beautiful women are.

  “I surveyed the crowd. It swelled as I watched, all types, including a number of well-dressed professionals. Families with children. At least eighteen hundred people, I think, and scores more arriving every minute. They just poured out of the nearby buildings as if they knew this legendary Hawke woman, the renegade preacher, was in the neighborhood.

  “It was amazing to see. They pressed around her in a semicircle, spreading into the street on either side of her position next to the street lamp.

  “She began speaking softly and conversationally. I noticed her amplified voice was carried by several tiny speakers attached to a pole. There was a distinguished looking man, slightly older, holding the speaker pole. He was dressed in a gray, full length coat, a yarmulke on his head.

  “Her voice was clear. ‘Did you hear about the Stage raids in New Jersey last week? No? Has anyone heard about them?’ I saw a few hands go up.

  “‘Good. Tell your neighbors! A young man was shot to death by Commission agents. That makes five—that we know about.’ The crowd reacted.

  “‘This is the beginning of the real crackdown. Your neighborhood is next. Day after tomorrow at dawn. Here. A nine block area, starting on this corner, and running three blocks uptown and three cross town. If you live in this zone, you can say goodbye to your medicine, your electronic books, the smart prosthetics, and all the rest. Stage Three searches are very thorough. It will be jail—if they catch you holding.’

  “I knew I had seen Hawke before. But just I couldn’t access the occasion. Then she looked directly at me. We made eye contact and I nodded.

  “She smiled at me and changed the subject. ‘Remember the week after our Senate ratified the Treaty?’ She paused, studying the faces of the people who crowded around the streetlight. ‘I was only twenty-one then.’

  “A faint memory tickled at the edge of my mind. I really had seen this woman before. But where?

  “‘Now listen closely,’ she said. ‘From the beginning, everything that has happened was in the master plan of the Gaia Organizational Directorate. The G-O-D. Everyone in the movement took their orders: The Earth Restoration Alliance, The Greenspike Coalition—all of the groups took their orders from the same activists, whether they knew it or not. The Directorate even ran the G-A-N, which stands for Gaia’s Antibody Network. Terrorists by any other name. And their secret cult, the Earth’s Sisters, was a front for the G-O-D. The Sisters were the inner circle of the terrorist puppet master, Louise Berker.’

  “‘I knew six of the Earth’s Sisters very well.’ She paused for effect—the crowd was fixed on her every word. ‘And I learned from them how the G-A-N conspired to set off the worst ecological disaster in modern times in order to stampede the Senate into ratifying the Treaty.’

  “’How did I know? You see, as a student, I was an activist. Eventually I was in their inner circle. Just before the Treaty was ratified, I became one of the Earth’s Sisters.’ There was an audible reaction from the crowd.

  “‘In truth,’ she said, ‘my given name is Helen Snowfeather Lindstrom.’

  “Oh my God, I thought. This is my lead: Senator’s daughter turned demonstrator, turns against the cause…

  “As if on cue, somebody yelled out, ‘You are a traitor to Gaia!’”

  “’Gaia is not a living creature and certainly is not God. These are lies upon lies. These clever television commercials are a masterful con job: the scary examples, the promise of a beautiful future without technology? It’s a con because you and I won’t be there to enjoy it. The dirty little secret is that the Commission’s Retirement orders are kill orders.’

  “She was on a roll. ‘You doubt this?’ she asked. ‘Last month I saw what happens when you apply Retirement Confiscation to medicine.’ She finally located the guy who’d been shouting at her. ‘You there! Do you doubt this? Or do you even care?’ He was silent.

  “‘Remember the airborne staphylococcus infections of seven years ago? Pray it doesn’t come back. The antibiotic effective against Staph 5 was Retirement Confiscated last year. You think Staph 5 was bad?’

  “‘Tuberculosis 6 is far, far more contagious. And its progress in your body is very fast. What can I tell you about TB 6? At St. John’s Children’s Hospital, sixteen children, all under seven, died of a single disease—Tuberculosis 6. As of this morning, thirty more are about to follow them and the doctors and nurses can’t stop it. Then sixty. Then one hundred twenty. The geometric progression is really scary. We are seeing a doubling every three weeks. And it’s not in the news. But I know. Because I am there.

  “‘Want to hear the gory details? Nothing quite like this strain has ever appeared before. All the older versions of tuberculosis were relatively slow killers. But this form of tuberculosis incubates for about three days after exposure. A nearby sneeze can start an infection. Once you catch it, things go fast, producing a huge number of tubules in the lungs in the next three days, death within a week, ten days if you’re very strong.

  “‘Even the worst of the strains, TB 5, was still curable with a regimen of commonly available antibiotics. But it takes a brand new antibiotic technology to kill TB 6. The Commission has made it a felony to possess even a single dose. St. John’s ran out of the black market antibiotics that were partly effective against TB 6 three months ago.

  “‘Did I say the mortality rate is 100%? Did I also say it is completely curable in forty-eight hours? But only if your doctor can find the drugs.

  “‘Of course Commissioner Longworthy has all he needs for himself and his family.’ Her voice was acid. ‘I think about that a lot as I hold a dying child’s hand. Interested in prevention? Good vaccines exist for TB6. But don’t bother to see your doctor for a shot. The vaccines have also been seized.

  “‘Why would they do that?’ She paused again, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. ‘You don’t suppose they actually want to kill you?’ The wind kicked up, blowing her cape back. Do you kn
ow when the Retirement order was issued, taking out the treatments for TB6?’ She looked around the crowd, her anger seething. ‘At the first recorded outbreak. Did you hear that? The timing of that decision by the Commission is chilling.’

  “She paused. When she spoke again, her voice became subtly more menacing, an amplified whisper. ‘My people, the Sioux, the Nez Perce, and the Shoshone, all the Native Americans on this continent, were among the first major victims of accidental and deliberate germ exposure in history. Even smallpox can kill you if you lack immunity and there is no available treatment or vaccine. For Native Americans, it might as well have been the Bubonic Plague, except the people in Medieval Europe got off easy.’

  “She paused. Snowfeather held this audience in complete thrall… Even in the silence, I could hear only the background city noises. ‘So maybe you understand my anger. What more do you need?’

  “‘You know what they said in private, these Earth’s Sisters? I was there. I heard it.’ She paused. Other than the cry of a single baby there was not a sound from a crowd of two thousand people.

  “‘They said: humanity is a disease that has infected the world.

  “‘They said: curing the human infection is their crusade.

  “‘They said: the cure is genocide.

  “‘They said: our proper place is the grave.’

  “I couldn’t take my eyes off the crowd. Everyone, even the original heckler, seemed to be trapped in this woman’s spell. Then a distant siren sounded among the cacophony of traffic. Rain continued to streak past the street lamp. I shivered.

  “‘Yes we allowed our cities, our industries, and our technologies to damage the ecology. But we are learning from our mistakes. Do we deserve extermination by a select few?’

  “I was slow spotting the approaching cops. Snowfeather had already dropped from sight when those final words came out of the speakers. I had just begun to back away, seeking the edge of the crowd when agents and police poured out of at least nine patrol cars.

  “Oh what a spell this woman could weave. Her charisma, her electric effect on the crowd, was something else. Yes, I was afraid, but more for her…