by Ward Wagher
The Last Paladin
Ward Wagher
The Last Paladin
Ward Wagher
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 Ward Wagher
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781670385246
DEDICATION
To those who are determined to run from God until He is found
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
Thanks once again to Bob, who proofed the book under tight time constraints.
CHAPTER ONE
The lithe 27-year-old man seemed always in motion as he waited for the elevator to take him to the one-hundred-fiftieth floor of Wilton House in Chicago. His medium-length brown hair seemed perpetually disheveled, although he was otherwise neatly dressed. Being summoned to his father’s office held no great concern since it is a regular occurrence for him. It seemed to him as though his father had been finding fault as far back as he could remember.
The doors slid open and he bounded out, nearly knocking down a pert blond woman.
“RWB,” she said in greeting him with a dazzling smile.
“Hi Glacie,” he waved back as he moved down the hall in his usual striding pace.
“Going to the party tonight?”
He spun around and began walking backward. “Of course. Would not miss it. You are going to be there, of course?”
“I am looking forward to it,” she said.
“Are you going to dance with me?”
She laughed. “Of course not. I want to retain all my toes.”
He grinned again and nodded. He turned around and resumed walking forward down the hall.
Glacie Hitchcock watched the son of the Paladin as he headed towards his father’s office. The young man had a reputation in the Palatinate as a party animal, and having been to a few of his raucous parties, thought the reputation is understated if anything.
Ryan Ward Baughman, or RWB as he liked to be called, was popular with most of the younger people who worked at Wilton House. The governmental functions for the Upper Midwest Palatinate in North America on Earth have grown somewhat over several generations but still managed to fit in the 200-story monolith that was Wilton House in Chicago. The Palatinate had a history of government run by citizen volunteers, however the breadth of the influence of the Palatinate drove the Paladins to reluctantly develop a permanent, full-time managerial class to keep things running.
The two security people standing on either side of the door nodded to RWB as he palmed open the sliding powered door and entered the Paladin’s office suite. Holden Palmer, the Paladin’s personal secretary looks up.
“So good of you to come visit your father, Ward,” he says icily.
RWB leans over the desk and grasped Palmer by the side of the head. He then planted a wet kiss on Palmer’s forehead.
“Hey, Uncle Holden. Good to see you, too.”
Palmer pulls out his handkerchief and begins mopping his forehead. “I see you haven’t grown up any since we last talked.”
“When was that, Uncle Holden? Last week?”
“Let us suggest two months ago,” Palmer replied dryly. “I keep track of things like that.”
“Why, I believe you actually care.”
“Merely keeping track of the chief wastrel in the Palatinate.”
“Is Pop free?” RWB asked, pointing to the door. “I mean, he did ask that I come to see him.”
“He is not meeting with anyone else at the moment, so I suppose you can go in.”
Without another word, RWB slouched over to the door of the inner office. He touched the palm reader and the door immediately slid open.
“You haven’t changed the door codes, anyway, Pop,” he said cheerfully as he walked in.
The stocky bald-headed man stood up from behind his desk. “The prodigal returns.”
“I’m not a prodigal. I’m careful with my money and I see no need to change the way I live.”
Ryan Russel Baughman snorted. He had held the Paladin’s sword for sixty years and he had concluded that his son was the only thing he had not been successful in managing. Unfortunately, the boy had inherited his maternal grandfather’s estate, so there was no way the Paladin could cut off RWB’s spending money and pull him to heel. He studied his son and wondered once again where things had gone wrong.
The Paladin snorted. “You do manage your money well; I will give you that. What percentage of the estate have you spent?”
“Why Pop! I didn’t know you were watching. My portfolio is growing. It may double over the next ten years.”
“If you are still alive, Son. People who live the way you do have measurably shorter life expectancies.”
“But I will die happy, Pop.”
“And probably leave a lot of unhappy people alive to clean up after you.”
RWB rubbed his hands together as if brushing the dirt off. “At that point, it would not be my problem, now would it?”
The Paladin sighed deeply. “I suppose I would do about as well talking to the wall, Ward. There was another matter I wanted to bring to your attention.”
“Speak Master, your servant listens.” RWB folded his hands and bowed deeply.
The Paladin had to laugh. “You do that to me every time. Listen, I do not know if anyone has spoken to you about this, but your high-profile living has come to the attention of some people who concern me. We know that there have been conversations within the Carolina Free State’s intelligence group about you. And the Arabians are also aware of you.”
The balkanization of North America during the fall of civilization during the 2030s and 2040s had resulted in eight or ten nation-states. The people of the continent were fortunate in that they had not fallen all the way back to barbarism. The rest of the world was not so lucky. However, the Muslim states had survived and expanded across the Middle-East and North Africa, presenting a challenge to those who did not want to accept their sovereignty. Arabia was an aggressive, expansionist theocracy that accepted no compromise with anyone.
One of the self-assigned tasks of the Paladins was to keep an eye on Arabia and keep those people bottled up in their land so that they could not infect the rest of the planet. In the main, the Paladins had been successful in this task, although they could not relax their vigilance.
RWB looked out the window at the Chicago skyline and rubbed his chin. “Very well, the free staters are a bunch of bumblers. I should probably worry about the Arabians, but they really do not have the reach, do they?”
“The free staters are getting better. But, I agree, they should not be a worry if you pay attention. The Arabians operate under the philosophy that they only have to get lucky once. Life is cheap to them. They will spend it lavishly to nail somebody like the Paladin’s son.”
“This is nothing new,” RWB stated. “Did you call me all the way here just to talk about that?”
“All the way? Where did you come in from?”
“I was on Luna.”
The Paladin sighed again. “I do not even want to ask.”
RWB studied his father more closely. He noted the white fringe around the bald pate and the deep circles under the man’s eyes. He felt a cold chill down his back.
“Are you okay, Pop?”
“What? Yes, yes, I am doing as well as can be expected for a centenarian. Looking at the family history I am likely good for another forty or fifty years. If the Lord wills.”
The younger man gazed at his father for several seconds and then visibly shook himself. “Very well. I will assume you have told me if you were not the very picture of health. Now, what is it you wanted to tell me? The actions of the Free Staters and the Arabians are old news.”
“All right, I will come to the point. And this is not old news. The Arabians persist in inserting teams into North America. Their task is to eliminate our family.”
“Do you know this for a fact, Pop?”
“Actually, yes I do.”
“That puts a different spin on things,” said the son.
“Yes, it does. Other than me, probably nobody cares whether you live or die. For whatever the reasons, I really do not want to be a father who puts his son in the ground. It is understood that you and I have our differences. But I could not bear to see something happen to you.”
RWB could think of nothing to say.
“The reason I called you here, son, is that I am going to assign two security people to you.”
“Awww, Pop! We should not go down that road again. I do not need a pair of minders.”
“Then let us put it this way, son,” the Paladin leaned over the desk on his hands and glared at his son. “Your lifestyle presents opportunities to those who do not have the best interests of the Palatinate at heart. Many of the people in the Palatinate could care less what you do. But there are people who will take advantage of my son to influence the way I govern. I cannot allow that.”
“I think you are overstating the risk, Pop,” RWB said quietly. “This is a quiet planet.”
“Serpents do not make a lot of noise, son. This is not your father speaking, it is the head of state. And the head of state directs you to accept the assigned personnel to provide a level of protection.”
RWB now looked disgusted. “Pop, that is hitting below the belt. If I refuse a directive from the Paladin, I could be thrown in jail.”
“That has occurred to me, as well.”
“So, you are telling me you would do that?”
The Paladin just looked at him.
Finally, RWB threw his hands in the air. “Okay, I surrender. Who is the nanny going to be?”
The Paladin leaned over his desk and waved his hand over a contact.
“Yes, Sir?” came the disembodied voice.
“Holden, please send the two gentlemen in, please.”
“At once, Paladin.”
Two muscular men walked into the Paladin’s office.
“Allow me to introduce Singman Jones and Richard Cathay. They will accompany you during your travels. Gentlemen, this is Ward Baughman.”
The Paladin’s son stuck out his hand. “Please, call me RWB.”
Jones shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Sir.”
“I hope you will still be pleased later. Pop, I refuse to change my lifestyle to suit the guards. Do they understand this?”
The Paladin looked at Jones and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, we understand, Sir,” Jones said.
“Good, then you should get packed. We are heading for the Rockies for a ski vacation.” He looked over at his father. “Was there anything else, Pop?”
The Paladin cocked his head in thought, and then a sad smile crossed his face. “I suppose I could suggest you could do everyone a favor and break your neck on the ski slope. But then I would never see you again, and I wouldn’t like that.”
RWB laughed. “Talk about mixed emotions, Pop. I’ll see you next week. Come on guys, we have a shuttle to ride.”
With that, the young man swept out of the Paladin’s office. Ryan Russel Baughman stared at the door for a while and then looked down at his desk.
He prayed, Lord, I’ve done everything I know to do to bring my son to you. Perhaps that was my mistake. Okay, I leave him in your hands to do as you will.
And he scanned through the next item on his desktop and went back to work.
CHAPTER TWO
RWB stepped out of the shuttle into the knee-deep snow and spun around looking at the mountains. It was very cold, and a thin wind spun the snow into dervishes. He took a deep breath and then coughed from the cold air. Jones and Cathay stepped out of the shuttle as did the pilot, Fillip Smythe.
“Cold!” Cathay said.
“Nonsense, Richard,” RWB answered with a grin. “This is bracing. Just wait until there is a blizzard.”
“I have seen enough of those,” Cathay commented. “They are dangerous.”
“Only if you are out in one,” RWB replied. “But that is not something I would do willingly.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Cathay said.
Smythe hurried around to the cargo compartment and entered the code to open the hatch. He pulled out a couple of counter-grav come-alongs, which obediently hovered next to the shuttle.
“You gents want to help stack all this crud that RWB feels obligated to travel with, the sooner we can get inside the hotel.”
“Good idea,” Jones said. “You look like you need the exercise, Richard.”
Cathay grunted and walked over to the hatch. Smythe was already heaving travel totes onto the come-alongs. Jones walked over to help.
“Don’t let the man wander off,” he commented to the others.
Smythe chuckled. “RWB is going to do whatever he wants. The rest of us are just along for the ride.”
“That’s what scares me about this job,” Cathay muttered.
“Ha!” the pilot rejoined. “You two get to follow him down the slopes. I just have to keep an eye on the bird.”
Cathay gazed at the ski slope behind the hotel and shook his head. RWB was studying the slopes and the hotel and not paying attention to his entourage. He had seemed cheerful enough with the guards on the trip out to the Rockies, but now he looked around and then headed toward the hotel as though the others did not exist.
“I need to follow him,” Jones said, handing a tote to Smythe.
He began making his way through the snow towards the hotel entrance behind RWB. Smythe watched him go and looked at Cathay.
“If you need to go with your partner, I can take care of this. I’ve done it by myself often enough in the past.”
“Perhaps I should. Thanks, Fillip.”
“Oh, and Richard?”
The second guard looked back at the pilot.
“He never thinks to make hotel reservations for the rest of us. I usually keep the APU running on the shuttle in case we have to sleep out here.”
Cathay nodded and then turned to follow the others into the building. He hated jobs like this, but then again, the Pal
adin had not hired them for the easy jobs. RWB stepped up to the front desk of the hotel and was immediately handed a keycard to his room. He turned and sauntered to the elevator. Jones nodded to Cathay, who hurried over and stepped into the elevator just as the doors started to close.
RWB raised an eyebrow and grinned. “You are good.”
“Just doing my job, Sir.”
“Well, your job is to stay out of my way. I cannot do anything about the Paladin’s orders, but I plan to myself.”
Jones reached the desk and showed the clerk his ID. “Any possible way I can reserve the room next to Mr. Baughman?”
“I am sorry, Sir, but the house is full. Perhaps with a little advance notice, we could have accommodated you. Mr. Baughman is a favored customer.”
“I understand and thank you for your consideration.”
“You are very welcome. You are free, of course, to maintain your presence on the premises during Mr. Baughman’s stay.”
Jones nodded. “Thank you. One of us will be posted by his door at all times.”
When he got to the room, RWB tapped the door with his keycard and Cathay brushed past him into the room. He opened all the doors and checked the curtains. After giving the room an inspection, he looked at RWB.
“I will be in the hall outside the door, Sir.”
“Right. I did not plan on you bunking with me.”
“Of course not, Sir.”
Even with the counter-grav come-alongs, Smythe struggled to bring the luggage into the lobby. He stopped at the bell station.
“RWB’s baggage?” the uniformed hotelier asked.
“Yes.” Smythe panted.
“We will see that it is delivered to his room.”
“Thank you very much.” Smythe handed him a banknote.
“You let the hotel people deliver the baggage?” Jones asked as he stepped up next to Smythe.
“Not much choice, Mister Jones.”
“Since we are going to be working closely together, you can call me Singman, or Sing for short.”
“Right. I am Fillip. Rather than twiddling my thumbs in the shuttle, I thought maybe I would help you lads. You seem a trifle short-handed.”