by Ken Hansen
She looked at him with wild eyes. “I pushed the button when he lowered the torch. How could I know?”
“Can we defuse it?”
Decima shook her head.
Forty or fifty men, women and children were already on the stage. The guard closed the gate and held back the rest. Hugleikr ceremoniously handed the torch to the Juteslam closest to the old Viking ship. Yohanan noticed that Hugleikr walked to the other side of the stage, away from the ship and torchbearers, replacing the protective Viking helmet on his head.
“Dear God, he knows!” Yohanan said. “The bastard knows and he is going to let his people die!” Yohanan began fighting through the crowd toward the stage.
Hugleikr gestured and nodded toward the torchbearer and spoke into the microphone, “Light our history! Light our destiny!” He seemed to duck to the side of the podium.
When the crowed roared, no one could hear Yohanan screaming, “No!”
A moment before the torch’s flame touched the rail, the oil’s vapor caught fire and the flame began moving up the rail toward the dragon’s neck. It disappeared into the back of the beast’s scaly neck and moments later appeared as eyes of the monster glowing a bright red, followed an instant later by flames shooting out of the dragon’s mouth.
A second later a fireball erupted at the side of the ship and instantly consumed the forty or fifty citizens of New Jutland. The horrible sound of the blast arrived a moment later, followed almost immediately by panic. Most of the crowd trampled over and through each other as they scrambled to escape the square, but a small group ran toward the front to help friends and family who lay dead or dying, smoldering on the burning stage.
Yohanan staggered back, his eyes staring at the mayhem that his hands had wrought, his heart consumed with guilt at the deaths of these innocent people.
Soon the speakers hanging to the left of the stage, for those on the right were ablaze, were filled with the now almost soothing voice of Hugleikr, “Calm yourselves, Juteslams. Do not succumb to the terror of these monsters. Do not panic; you are in no further danger. Emergency fire and medical personnel have already arrived. We will give the victims of this outrage medical attention and save as many as we can. Do not approach the stage, for you will only cause more harm to your kin. The medical staff needs space. The firefighters need space. Our guards are surrounding the square. Be assured—we shall find those responsible.” He continued in that voice for several minutes, and, gradually, the throngs began to obey.
Yohanan looked toward the stage. Twenty or so burly guards in full riot gear blocked the gate. In front of them stood the victims’ loved ones, who just a few minutes earlier had been reveling in the great luck of their family and friends being given a once in a lifetime opportunity to light the dragon. Now they wailed and swore and begged the guards for access to their departed friends, parents and siblings. But the guards would not budge.
Within the chaos, Yohanan noticed a boy of about fifteen, his face blackened by the soot of the explosion, with tears streaming down his face. His arms comforted a young girl of about seven, her red hair covered with soot. She was screaming over and over again, “Mommy! Daddy!”
A shiver ran down Yohanan’s spine. Frozen in place, he struggled to separate the pain of the present from the evils of the past. The two now merged in his mind.
A familiar hand caught him. A familiar voice shook him out of his stupor. “We need to get the hell out of here before the panic subsides,” Decima said. “Come on Yohanan, snap out of it!”
The two began moving at a rapid walking pace toward Konge Street at the southwest corner of the square—the planned rendezvous point the team had set well before hell had unleashed its fury.
As Yohanan and Decima reached the corner a few minutes later, they saw their co-conspirators waiting for them. The guards were still trying to stem the flow of people from the square, but had not yet succeeded. Dekanawida and Achak were standing near the statue of Mohammed, a full forty feet from the closest officer. All four would be away from the scene and free to escape the square in less than a minute.
The entire time Hugleikr had been addressing the crowd with reassuring words through the microphone at the left of the stage. But now his voice rose to a feverish pitch. “As I promised, we have already discovered one of the perpetrators of this terror. Bring him to the stage!”
Yohanan looked at his group. No one was missing.
They all turned around to see four guards dragging a man up the stairs and over to Hugleikr, beating him with their batons every step of the way. The man crumpled down at the feet of Hugleikr. Yohanan could not see the man’s face but could tell he was covered in his own blood and his hands were tied behind his back. The guards hoisted him up and faced him toward the crowd.
Though the stage was still too far away to see the details of the man’s face, Yohanan’s heart began to race. He reached into his costume and pulled out his binoculars and in one motion pulled off his helmet and put the binoculars to his eyes.
He saw the prisoner at first waver, but then, unable to stand, Quintillus fell to his knees on the stage.
“Who is it?” Decima barked, grabbing the binoculars from him and raising them to her eyes. “No!” she yelled. “No!”
Hugleikr stuck the microphone toward Quintillus’s mouth and his words became audible to the crowd, “I am sorry. I am so very sorry.” As tears streamed down Quintillus’s face, he closed his eyes.
Hugleikr walked away from Quintillus. “You have heard him, good people of New Jutland. By his own words he has condemned himself. By the power vested in me as Vice Regent, I hereby declare this man, Quintillus of Roma, to be a shaitaanist, beyond the protection of the law and the court of Skjöldr. He will be executed on this stage right here and now.” Hugleikr nodded to the guard, who then pointed his pistol at Quintillus’s head.
Yohanan looked at Decima and the others, searching their eyes for what he should do.
Achak was the first to speak, “They won’t shoot him now. They will torture him first to get our names. We are not safe here. We must go.”
Decima whispered, “He won’t do it. Even Hugleikr would not dare to execute Quintillus without a trial. He is protected by Roma. Hugleikr must be bluffing.”
Yohanan stepped forward and looked them in the eye, each in turn. “I’m sorry, but that is a risk I cannot take. Get out of here. Head back to Shenandoah without me. I owe this much to Quintillus.”
Yohanan turned and began working through the crowd, yelling “Stop! I confess! I am responsible, not Quintillus! Don’t kill him!” But the noise from the crowd drowned out his plea. Dekanawida grabbed Yohanan from behind.
Hugleikr, Vice Regent of the Kingdom of New Jutland, spoke once more, “You Demoseps have proven once again that you are nothing but murdering cowards! Well, here is what we do with murderers of women and children.” He hesitated only a second, then yelled, “Fire!”
Yohanan screamed, “No!”
The guard pulled his trigger and Quintillus slumped to the stage, the blood pooling on the boards lying beneath his temple.
Decima screamed and Achak put his hand over her mouth and began dragging her back toward the statue.
Yohanan was staring at the stage, shaking his head, muttering, “I killed him. I killed them. I killed all of them. Dekanawida turned Yohanan around and escorted him out of the square.
Chapter 26
“Another double Gladiator, neat.”
“Haven’t you had enough?”
Not nearly enough, Tomadus thought, trying to stare back at the bartender while his head bobbed from alcohol and exhaustion. When the bartender walked away from his slumping body and served clientele on the other side of the bar, Tomadus yelled, “How you get a drink around here?”
Tomadus pulled himself up and looked up at the visi-scan above the bar. Predictably, the Imperium-censored news was replaying the horrid Konverteraften Massacre over and over, decrying the villainy of the Demoseps, but not bother
ing to mention that Hugleikr had executed a Romanus citizen live on the visi-scan. They showed only the conflagration and the soothing voice of Hugleikr. Then a voiceover reported that a Demosep spy responsible for the carnage had been killed when trying to escape. There was no mention of Quintillus’s name at all. But Tomadus knew his new friend had died, because they showed Quintillus being dragged to the stage near the end of the report. He wondered if Yohanan and Decima were among those suspects rounded up by the Juteslams in the hours after the explosion.
Did it matter? He had failed. He had tried to silence the creature within through this meager effort at something good, but he had failed completely. Shaitaanism continued and this visi-scan report would undermine any attempt at lasting peace. The carnage would go on, and the world would say, “See, I told you those people are barbarians. Democracy turns them into wild, violent dogs that cannot be trusted. They murder the innocent. They kill the children.” And then they would put these horrible matters aside, away from their busy lives in Roma or the Aztec Empire, or the East Asian Empire, or the Three Empires, and they would act like it had never happened. It was just those crazies at the other end of the globe. Forget about it. Thank Allah for our own happiness. But they would remember—the next time somebody wanted to help the Tetepians or argued for democracy or tolerance for other religions or anything at all connected with any of the ideals of the Tetepians. No, they would say, they tried that in Tetepe and look what a disaster that was. Let them kill themselves. We’ll all be better off. And it looked like maybe they were right. Who the hell cares?
The creature in Tomadus’s gut began doing cartwheels on his stomach lining. What the hell? I did what I could. What more can you ask? And now, look at me. I disgust myself.
“Hey old buddy, how are your dreams?” It was Batu, pulling up a bar stool next to him. “Get me and my friend a couple more Gladiators.”
The bartender shook his head. “I’ll get one for you. He’s had enough.”
“Tomadus, you look terrible.” Batu set his pipe on the bar and rested his hands on Tomadus’s shoulders. “Dear Jupiter. How long has it been since you slept?”
Tomadus shrugged. “Days. The dreams. I can’t sleep.”
“Screw the dreams. You have to sleep, man. Come on, I’m taking you home.”
“No!” Tomadus flung his elbow to shake his friend’s hand from his arm.
“You are obviously upset. Is it that same dream?”
“No dream. Two worlds. I live in two worlds. You ever see St. Peters? Huh? Beautiful. Middle of Rome.”
“What?”
“Course you haven’t, because you’re stuck in this world.”
Batu shook his head. “You’re rambling nonsense. Let me get you home and we can talk about it in the morning.”
“No.”
“Suit yourself, but I’m not leaving until you do.”
Tomadus turned back toward the bar and fell off his stool, flat on the floor. Batu tried to help him to his feet, but he just stayed in a fetal position with his head between his hands, hoping it would all end.
The visi-scan reporter shifted to a different story: “Several members of the Way were arrested this morning in Neapolis for violating the Florentia Protocol. Released on bail this afternoon, the Way’s leader, Isa, once again spoke for the group and ended with a plea.”
Tomadus heard the voice of the gentle man in the white robes coming from the visi-scan above. “We have come as servants of veritas, but the Romanus hierarchy chose to arrest us for speaking the truth. What do they fear? We come from the Palestinian Province, and so have no earthly power, so what we say should mean nothing to them. And yet, our hands and ankles were bound. They tell us we must not speak of God to Romani in public. But how can we remain silent when so many souls cry out for help? The rocks themselves scream for justice, for love, for peace. I call to all of you who can see the light of our yesterdays and search for truth. Follow your yearning. Follow me, and I will lead you to paradise.”
Tomadus’s eyes opened abruptly. He sprung up like the arak had been washed from his bloodstream, staring at the visi-scan screen for a full five minutes, mouth agape. “The Light of our Yesterdays,” he repeated. “Could it be that I am not alone?”
“What are you talking about?” Batu said. “He’s just another cult crazy.”
“Don’t you get it? He sees what I see. He understands. The Light…the Light of our Yesterdays!”
“Tomadus, don’t look for easy answers to your troubles in the incantations of soothsayers. It is pure coincidence.”
“But he touched me when the light first started. He must be connected.”
Batu shook his head.
“I’m telling you, he understands me. ‘Search for the truth. Follow your yearning.’ It is the creature.”
“The creature?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, I wouldn’t. Let’s get you home.”
Tomadus smiled and nodded. “I think I can finally sleep.”
Second Part, The First: Contemplation
“We hear a cry of fear: terror, not peace.”
– The Old Testament—Jer 30:5
“God does not change the condition of a people unless they change what is in themselves.”
– The Qur’an—Thunder 13:11
“He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”
– The New Testament—Jn 16:13
Chapter 27
Huxley sat with his hands holding his face, his elbows resting on his desk. He did not hear the knock on his door, but the warm feminine voice pulled him out of his wallowing brainstorm. “Mr. Huxley, sir, is there anything I can do?”
He sighed deeply and smiled, looking up toward the door. “How about have a seat and cheer me up?”
Kira Sampson, a godsend of an assistant in good times and bad, closed the door and sat in one of the chairs opposite his desk. She had that earnest look of the naïve college grad still trying to figure out why her bubble had just burst.
Huxley looked down at his desk. “I suppose the news is flying around the office already?”
“News? It was more like a weather report: ‘Hurricane in the old man’s office.’ We couldn’t help but hear a bit of it. Am I next?”
Huxley grimaced, shaking his head. “Blount won’t hold it over you. I played the game a bit too close to the vest. ‘Reckless,’ he said. ‘Almost criminal.’ But you didn’t know about the phone contacts. The funny thing is, I’m not sure how he found out. I was playing ball with my contacts at Aman, so the Israelis had no interest in blowing this back on me. Maybe they let it slip in official papers. Anyway, he and the spy boys are not too fond of having me lead an investigation that has become so personal. Maybe if I’d told him earlier I could have convinced him, but now it’s too late. At least he didn’t take me off the thing completely.”
She tilted her head a touch to the side. “How could he? You’re the best investigator here, and everyone knows it.”
“Thanks. I’m tainted on this one. ‘Can’t think straight. Too much family history.’ So now I get to partner up with an old ‘friend’ from CIA, Ken Mayer. Unfortunately, he usually likes to bring a missile to a knife fight. He lacks subtlety and will try to go scorched earth and probably screw this thing up. At least he doesn’t know…”
“Know what?” she asked.
Huxley looked her directly in the eye for a few seconds. He needed her in his confidence. “Have you mentioned anything about Anwari to anyone?”
She shook her head. “I ran those searches myself.”
“Well, don’t. It may be a key to solving this thing, and Mayer would just bring him in for a deep interrogation and blow the lead. I suppose they could backtrack your searches, but why would they? No, just keep it to yourself. If it blows back, just tell them I told you Anwari explained the coincidences to me and I told you to drop it. Got it?”
Kira nodde
d slowly, her lips just hedging up on the corners.
Huxley flashed a confident smile back. She’ll do just fine. “Thanks. I probably should gather my thoughts. Run the contacts list I gave you through the pattern software and see if it comes up with anything. You can bet the spy boys are analyzing it already—had to download it to the boss this morning.”
As she closed the door behind her, Huxley ran his hand through his hair. Where would this go? Mayer was a perfectly competent operator, at least when a light hand wasn’t needed. But he didn’t want Mayer up his ass again like at CIA. You refuse to torture a guy and Mayer shines a spotlight on every little problem in your life and then declares you unstable. Asshole. Mayer had been undercutting him ever since Huxley had called out his CYA bullshit at CIA. The guy always made sure he never took the blame for anything. His story may have matched the official record, but that official record always seemed to vary just enough to mask the real truth.
By now Mayer was poring through the report Huxley prepared in the transport last night. Mayer now knew the nuclear connection to the Israeli chemist but not the precise source. They would try to respect that. He knew about the Vatican connection, but was there really anything there? And he knew Dracoratio (or Udani) and Pardus were now the main suspects. Huxley would get a call this morning requesting a personal debriefing. And then Mayer would try to take over everything. Huxley couldn’t let that happen, not when someone in the Agency had a big mouth—or worse.
Biting his lip and rocking on his heels, Anwari let his eyes dart around the street. “Sorry, Imam, but he’s gone. I saw him leave on a military helicopter last night. I have no idea where he is headed.”
“No worries, Abdul. He is home safe in DC. You have done your job well.”
Anwari tipped the bottom of the phone above his forehead and puffed the air out of his cheeks. Replacing the microphone by his mouth, he asked calmly, “Why? He isn’t done here, is he?”