I stared for half a minute longer then sighed. “I can’t exactly get mad at you for trying to protect the president.”
She smiled slightly. “I was hoping you’d see it that way.”
“So he’s going to be traveling there for the yearly gathering?”
She nodded. “From what I understand.”
“I’m taking a crew up there. We’re going to investigate the possession of Enrique Cruz and check on the status of his replacement. This mission falls squarely within our mission statement. Do you feel you should contact Harold?”
“I think he’ll be mad if I don’t.”
I let coldness bleed into my stare. I didn’t like the idea of any of my employees having another master, but I also understood the reality of it. That her husband depended on the Air Force for his pension put them in a difficult situation. Doris was great at her job. Knowing who she reported to and why made me feel as if I could manage it. And I would, right up until the point I decided I couldn’t.
I nodded. “Then you better let them know we’re going to be traveling.”
I returned to my office and found that Burgess had returned from the warehouse. I inquired about the Box Man and discovered that he’d made a full recovery.
“What exactly happened back there?” Burgess asked.
“Enrique was a Cerberus. You remember the three-headed dog that protected the dead from leaving hell and the living from entering? The NSA actively recruits and trains Cerberus agents for guard duty at certain locations. Looks like somewhere along the way he became possessed by a demon. He might have actually trapped it, then lost control of it somehow. After the NSA medically retired him, he then went home where his son-in-law tried a little Santeria on him to get whatever it was out of him.”
“And the blood egg?”
“It showed that it worked.” I punched my hand. “Had I suspected that, I could have spoken to the demon yesterday.” I shook my head. “Another missed opportunity.
“What now?” Gomer asked.
“Get some acquisition forms. We need to draw some weapons and cash from the Presidio. We’re leaving as soon as we have everything we need.”
“Am I coming too?” Burgess asked.
I glanced at Gomer, then turned to stare out the window.
“Hell, yes, you’re going, Marine,” he said. “Now get your ass in gear. Get to the boss’s apartment and grab his go bag, then get to mine and do the same. I want you back here within the hour. Is that clear?”
I heard the scrap of boots and a “Yes, sir,” then Burgess was moving rapidly out of the room.
I said without turning, “It’s always nice to be reminded that this is a military unit. Thank you, Gunnery Sergeant.”
“No problem, Colonel.”
MONTE RIO
July 8, 1970
Late afternoon
The drive from San Francisco to Monte Rio took a little over two hours in the requisitioned Ford sedan. We didn’t say much, instead listened to the Carpenters, Jackson Five and Three Dog Night as we watched the buildings give way to redwood forest. At one point we found ourselves singing the words to Mama Told Me Not To Come, which lightened the journey.
When we hit Monte Rio, we stopped at the Sinclair for gas and ice cold Pepsi Colas. Burgess and I leaned against the car, drinking, gazing out at the large green dinosaur on the gas station’s sign while Gomer asked for directions inside. The weather was hotter outside the city. Too hot for the black suits we wore, but we wore them just the same.
“I’ve heard there are places where they teach that the Earth is only seven thousand years old,” Burgess said, pointing at the green Brontosaurus on the sign. “They claim dinosaurs are made up.”
I nodded. I’d heard the same thing. I’d even met a creationist once. “Some people see science as another form of religion. The thing is that with science faith doesn’t matter. Whether you believe or not, science happens.”
“I’ve heard the same thing about God, too.” I saw him glancing my way to gauge the conversation. “We had no end of missionaries come out to Pine Ridge to cleanse us of our red man ways.” He chuckled. “When we said we’d gotten along fine without Him, they all told us He’d been taking care of us despite our willingness to be Christian.”
Since he’d opened the line of conversation I decided to ask, “Do you believe in God, Burgess?”
He turned to me with a half-smile. Probably the first time that an O-6 had ever asked him that question. “That’s a pretty serious question, sir. Do you believe in God?”
I considered this as I stared at the dinosaur. “I believe in something. Not sure it’s a god whose physical manifestation is a man wearing robes and a beard. With all the arcane craft we’re involved in, how can I not believe in something greater than ourselves?”
“So you have faith, then.”
I shook my head. “Faith to me implies giving up the option to disagree or disbelieve. Instead let’s call it dedicated curiosity.”
He drank the rest of his Pepsi and let out a belch.
A Trailways bus went by, its marquee stating it was heading to Mendocino. Interesting. I would have thought it would have been quicker to take the 101 to the 128. Instead, the bus was taking Highway 1, which made for a much longer, albeit scenic trip.
Five trucks carrying avocados picked fresh from the field roared past, heading in the other direction toward San Francisco.
Once the noise had receded I asked, “And what do you believe in?”
“We believe that the land has a spirit. Every blade of grass and every leaf has a spirit within it. Wakan Tanka is our creator. He has no form like your white god. Instead he is in everything.” Burgess chuckled again. “It’s funny. I remember my grandfather, who was raised in the old way. He took us to a place where later on white men would come and dig up the bones of a great dinosaur. We could see the mark of its head and its eye in the surrounding rock. My grandfather said that this was the burial place of a great creature that had once walked the land. He said it had been made by Wakan Tanka to remove those creatures who would do the Lakota harm. And once it had destroyed all of these creatures, it had chosen this spot to die, so that every generation of Lakota could go to it, and remember what it had done for us.”
Gomer jogged out of the store with a map in his hand. “I think I got it figured out. We’re about five minutes away from the guy’s house.”
I nodded to Burgess, finished my bottle, then slid it into the wooden box beside the machine. We got in the car and headed west out of the gas station. Burgess drove with Gomer in the passenger seat. I sat behind Gomer.
Eventually, Burgess turned down a shaded two-lane residential street.
“What happened to the creature? You said white men came and dug it up?”
Gomer turned in his seat, his eyes full of questions.
“Yeah, scientists from the School of Mines came, dug it up, put it back together, and sold it to a museum for millions of dollars that they put back into your school.”
“None of the money came to the tribe?”
Burgess gave me an Are you kidding? look in the mirror.
“Looks as if the great beast hadn’t cleansed the land of everything.”
Burgess nodded. “We say that all the time. If it had only waited for the white man to come before dying we’d never have had this problem.”
“What kind of dinosaur was it?”
“Tyrannosaurus Rex,” he said, as he pulled into a space by the curb in front of a single-story California white and blue craftsman. A yellow and white ’57 Chevy was parked in the driveway.
I couldn’t help grin as I imagined settlers in their Conestoga wagons running for their lives while being chased by herds of white-man-eating dinosaurs on the American Great Plains.
When we got out of the car, Gomer asked, “What was that all about?”
“We were talking about belief and God and dinosaurs.”
“However did you get to that?” Then he snappe
d his fingers. “The gas station.”
I nodded. We headed up the walk. “Do you believe?” I asked.
“Dinosaurs?” he asked with a smile. “Most definitely.”
“And God?”
“I was raised in the South. What do you think?”
“Churches on every corner?”
“And then some.”
We took the three steps to the porch. Burgess stepped ahead and rang the buzzer.
“What about the Chinese as a race?”
Gomer sighed. “My people spent the last two thousand years worshipping an emperor, then we were told our religion was socialism. We’re still getting over that. Trying to figure out how killing all of our teachers and scientists fits into God’s plan.”
Burgess rang the doorbell again.
Still nothing.
Gomer put a hand on Burgess’s shoulder. “Go around the side and see if he’s in the back yard.”
Burgess took off round the corner at a fast walk.
I nodded toward the car. “It’s unlikely he’s gone, but he could have gotten a ride, be taking a walk, or any number of reasons.”
He frowned. “Could also be that he’s dead, being held hostage and not allowed to open the door, or crushed beneath a fallen book case.”
“So you’re a glass half-empty person.”
“Actually, sir, I’m more of a glass totally empty person. If there’s something that could happen, I want to have thought of it ahead of time.”
“Isn’t that a little paranoid?”
“Did you know that the Chinese character for paranoid and prepared are the same?”
“Is it really?”
He glanced at me and grinned.
“I guess you’ll never know unless you can read Chinese.”
I couldn’t help grin as well. Getting to know Gomer Pyle after the death of Chiba had been slow. Looks like getting away from the office was just the thing we needed to break the ice.
The front door opened, revealing a breathless Burgess, his eyes panicked. “Back door was open. You got to see this.”
I glanced at Gomer.
He said, “Looks like it’s half-empty after all.”
We entered the home.
MONTE RIO
July 8, 1970
Evening
Major Everett Duncan, formerly a Cerberus working for the National Security Agency, sat in the center of his sofa in the living room, staring blankly at the empty fireplace before him. His chest moved, which meant he breathed, but that’s all he seemed able to do. His soft gray eyes could have been staring at a spot a thousand miles distant for as focused as they were. He had close-cut blonde hair and wore a rumpled gray suit, white shirt, blue tie. His long face seemed longer because of the way his cheeks sagged.
“I came inside and found him like this. Weird isn’t it? Think he’s on something?”
I shook my head. I strode to the coffee table in front of him and with Gomer’s help, pushed it aside. I knelt in front of Everett and checked his vitals. They appeared to be normal. His eyes remained unfocused.
I got up and looked around the room. It was clearly a bachelor’s pad. Nowhere could a woman’s touch be seen. A picture of a stream hung above the fireplace. Two other chairs along with a floor lamp completed the room. The mantel held a dozen knick-knacks. A table against the back wall held dozens more. It looked as if he liked to collect things from his travels. I saw pieces from Asia, Africa, and Central America.
I stood in the middle of the room with my eyes closed. The problem was it could be any one of the room’s objects. I just couldn’t figure out which one. I opened my eyes and saw Burgess picking up a vase.
“Put that down! Don’t touch anything.”
He looked hurt but put the vase down.
“What are you thinking, boss?” Gomer asked.
I shook my head. “I could be wrong, but something feels off in this room. It’s like something’s here in the space that shouldn’t be.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What do you know about demon possession?”
Gomer Pyle shook his head. “Nothing, really.”
“So here’s what I know. Demons can’t just walk around in this world. There’s some rule, call it God, call it whatever you want, but they just can’t do it. Good thing, too, or else we’d have thousands of possessed people on the streets doing the devil knows what. They can only exist within a pentacle or in an object or in a person.”
He glanced at Everett. “You think there’s a demon in there?”
“I do. And I think he’s locked in combat as we speak.”
“What can we do?”
“Two things.” I pulled out a piece of paper and made out a list, then handed it to Burgess. “See if you can find these around the house, then bring them to me.”
“Is it okay to touch them when I find them?” he said in complete seriousness.
“It’s only this room where something’s wrong, so yes.”
“What about me?” Gomer asked.
“Get on the phone and contact the officer on duty.”
“The Licking Boy won’t work,” he said. “Not if you don’t want things touched.”
“Which is why we need The Singing Girl. Do we know where she is?”
“No idea, but we’ll track her down.” He glanced at Everett. “How long do we have?”
I shrugged. “For all I know we’re already too late.”
“Then I better move,” Gomer said. He reached out for the phone in the room, then halted at the last moment. He grinned sheepishly. “I’ll see if there’s one in the kitchen.”
“Best you do that.”
* * *
The next three hours were filled with preparations. We removed the coffee table and the couch to clear necessary space. Someone turned on the television and we worked as it played through first a rerun of Hogan’s Heroes, then an episode of Lassie, then the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. We stopped and listened when President Nixon spoke before Congress, outlining that Native American Self-Determination was now considered U.S. Policy. The significance of this wasn’t missed and for the first time since American Indians had been placed on reservations, it was looking like they might be able to govern themselves. Burgess watched with heightened attention.
During this period I drew heptagrams on the floor and ceiling. Called ‘Devil’s Traps,’ heptagrams are more powerful than mere salt and cannot only bind and trap demons, but also force them to do one’s will. The two heptagrams I chose were ones I’d memorized from The Lesser Key of Solomon, or the Lemegeton, an anonymous grimoire that was discovered by a Franciscan Order in Spain five hundred years ago.
The one I’d painted on the ceiling in pig’s blood – provided by the local butcher – was the Grand Pentacle and was a summoning and binding heptagram. The symbol was actually three dimensional with two interlocking symbols. Written on the outside were the words THTOCX ORABALAIIA TISCAL GAONOSV TAHIIGEKSP TII OMEMARE NVGAREIA TEDATOlVONAOIO TLA, whose pronunciation and meaning had long been lost to time. Not knowing what they meant had little effect on their power however.
The heptagram on the floor, in which Everett Duncan now sat, was an amalgam of the Grand Pentacle with a Zoastrian magic circle at its center. Dating back to the seventh century, this too eventually found its way into the Lemegeton. Some of the Knights Templars dutifully recorded it in a cave in what is now Iraq, then brought it back to France. Inside the Zoastrian circle was the figure of a scorpion. Around it were the words in ancient Assyrian, “It is terrible unto the demons, and at its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its presence.” Called The Fifth Pentacle of Mars, it had the power to make demons obey.
I could only hope they were helping.
I delayed my incantations for an hour in the hopes that The Singing Girl would arrive. I was about to give up when lights lit up the front windows.
A few moments later the front door opened, and in stepped a dark-
skinned young woman, fury in her eyes. Enter Donka Dzugi – stage name Esmeralda Romenco. She wore a red shin-length dress and black high heel shoes. Her black hair hung down her back in broad curls. Gold hoops hung from her ears. She strode directly to me, her heels like rifle shots on the wooden floor.
“How dare you,” she said, raising her hand to strike me.
I grabbed her wrist before she could do any damage. “Come now, you know you made a deal.”
Somewhere between nineteen and thirty-five, she had the dusky features of the Romani. Dark eyes flashed beneath even darker eyelashes. Her sculptured cheeks rode high over a frown. “I was going to perform at The Filmore. Do you know how long it took to set this up? Years. I’ve been working years in order to be--” Then she paused. “Oh, what’s this?” She turned in the room and brought a hand to her chest. “Something is here, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “It’s why we couldn’t wait. Sorry about The Filmore. If we can help—”
She waved me quiet as she walked around the heptagram. “Is he...?” she asked, pointing at Duncan.
I nodded. “At least I think so.”
“I think so, too,” she whispered.
Mark Patterson stood in the hall beside Burgess. Mark had brought her and by his pained frown had been the object of her fury and scorn the entire way. This was the first time Burgess had seen this and I noted the keen interest in his eyes. Gomer Pyle, on the other hand, stood in the kitchen doorway, smoking a cigarette like a jailhouse felon, his hand covering the cigarette so it couldn’t be seen. Not that any of us cared, but Donka despised cigarette smoke because of what it did to her voice.
She began to hum, a tune like something I’d imagine from a gypsy lullaby, as she walked around the room. Her hands were cupped in front of her, almost in prayer, but ever moving. She paused at the mantel, then moved on, her voice becoming louder, the Romani words rounder and deeper. At a table against a wall, she bent over then turned her head like a bird might to regard a piece which looked African. Instead of staying, she straightened, her voice gaining energy, the decibels rising, until she was belting out words like it was a concert hall and the items in the room were her only audience.
SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest Page 21