Epilogue

“Morning, Bill.”

“Good morning, Director. I hoped you could spare a few minutes for me.”

“Let me get a cup of coffee first. Help yourself. I can give you fifteen minutes, but I’ve got a meeting after that. What’s on your mind?”

“I’ve come across a possible problem, Director. One of our people”—a momentary look of distaste—”had a bright idea. He managed to spend more than half a billion dollars on a crack-brained scheme before anyone found out about it. I ordered an end to it as soon as I found out, of course. What if Congress had gotten wind of it? Disaster! The Army was also involved and they cleaned up their part, or at least I thought they did. I no longer think that’s the case.”

“Tell me more, Bill. You said one of our people did this? Is he still with us?”

“No, sir. He was an associate, not an employee, and he died in a traffic accident. Just one of those things. But he had the bright idea of sending an untrained man—God only knows what he was thinking!—to the Army. They sent the man to Afghanistan, and now they’ve lost him.”

“How can they just lose someone?” the director asked, puzzled. “I thought they were better than that.”

“Apparently not, sir. Wonder of wonders, this man actually completed a full tour as a soldier, even saw considerable combat. But they have no record of sending him back here, and now they can’t locate him so they’re wondering what to do. He’s our employee more than he ever was theirs, so they’ve handed the problem to us.

“It’s not certain how much this man, a warrant officer named Tagliaferro, was told about our special arrangement. It’s even possible that he knew nothing, that he believed he was a real soldier because as I said, the whole idea was poorly conceived. I thought the matter was finished after I shut down the School and the former commandant was killed, but now this loose end has cropped up.”

“Oh?” the director asked.

“Yes, Sir. There’s a report in the files from a General Adams, who thinks the man was killed or captured. At any rate, he hasn’t turned up, and the last report forwarded to us was dated more than a year ago. Apparently Tagliaferro just disappeared from inside a guarded military base. There was no sign of foul play, no record he ever left the base, but he’s gone. He just disappeared.”

“It appears there was more to this almost-agent of ours than anyone knew, Bill. We could always use a resourceful man like that. But are you sure he’s gone? And are we likely to become publicly involved?”

“We can’t be sure, Sir; the Taliban could be holding him for all we know, and they might try ransoming him. As for our involvement, only a few records remain but they might be enough to make the Army curious if anyone stumbled over them. If a reporter found something, it’s even possible this could involve us.”

“But if the remaining records were to disappear, there’s no way of anyone tracing this back to us?” the director suggested.

“That’s my conclusion, Director. If the man was captured and he somehow shows up later, we could discreetly make funds available to ransom him. We’ve done it before, via a transfer from a black account that’s not audited.”

“OK, Bill, make it happen, but put a note in the file before you inactivate it; say that I approved a reasonable effort to free the man if he ever turns up. As for any other records, talk to Josh; all those geeks he’s got, surely he’s got one that can purge the Army’s files! Have him clear every record that this man served or that we had anything to do with him. It’s just as well that other person you mentioned died. Traffic accident you said? Did we have anything to do with it?”

“No, sir. It really was an accident, a minor thing really and only a fender bender at that. There was an autopsy that concluded he had a heart attack.”

“I’ve got that meeting, Bill, so we need to wrap this up. Was there anything else, and can I depend on you to clean this thing up, make sure the Army won’t be asking questions that could embarrass us?”

“Certainly, Sir.”

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Bill. Send Andy in as you go out, please.”

Dismissed, Bill left and closed the door softly behind him. “You’re to go in, Andy. Is Josh part of this meeting?”

“No, Sir. Did you want to see him?”

“I’m sure he’s in his office, or his secretary will know where he is. I’ll just take the elevator and see him there. Have a nice day, Andy.”

“You too, Sir.”

Josh did indeed have a number of geeks in his department, and one made short work of the assignment; it wasn’t very challenging, after all, just search for the name, delete what came up, then do it again.

References began to disappear.

Soon, all the Army’s records of a onetime soldier named Tagliaferro were gone. Paper documents had already been transferred to electronic form months before, and the papers had been shredded. A few people might remember the man but their memories would fade in time. Only a single flagged electronic notice remained, this one in agency storage files. The reference’s alert would be triggered if the search string included the name Tagliaferro and was associated with other words indicating he had returned from captivity in the Middle East. If accessed, the alert would tell the agency to follow the supplied directions and look for a certain file folder, tucked away in the back of a seldom-used safe.

The folder was code named Combat Wizard, and it contained Tagliaferro’s reports of military activities where his paranormal abilities had been used. The reports had been generated by Tagliaferro and sent up through Agency channels. Most had never been read.

The man appeared to have an unusual ability, but it was so weak as to be virtually useless, and his activities did nothing to advance the agency’s intelligence-gathering mission. An analyst saw the first few reports, but soon learned to ignore them; he had more important things to occupy his time. Still, the agency owed him something; should a captive named CWO Tagliaferro ever turn up, instructions in the file would reactivate it. The agency’s people would do what they could to free the man.

The Combat Wizard file might be declassified fifty years hence, or possibly not; some files were too sensitive for public release, even after half a century. Such files were shredded and the electronic records deleted, especially if the file in question had never received public scrutiny.

But reactivation of the file was unlikely, given the circumstances. If insurgents were holding the man, they’d have mentioned it by now. Keeping the existence of prisoners secret was of no benefit to them. No, the man was almost certainly dead.

In the end, only an inactive file, locked in a safe, remained to show that a man called Tagliaferro, known to a very few as a ‘combat wizard’ in order to disguise his paranormal abilities, had ever been associated with the Agency. The file would remain buried in the archives and likely destroyed at some point in the future.

It was safer that way.

The story continues in Wizard at Work. An excerpt follows:

Chapter One, Wizard at Work

T and Shezzie had toured the Southwest, reconnecting with each other and renewing their strained relationship.

They spent a week in Las Vegas, then moved on. California had been fun and they had enjoyed San Francisco, but by mutual agreement they had avoided southern California. Surfer had spent much of his too-short life there before dying across the border in Mexico, a late victim of Henderson’s paranoia. T had attempted to recover the remains, but had been unable to prove family connections, so Surfer’s ashes had eventually been interred in Juarez. Just one more among the unknown and unwanted dead, in a city and nation with too many such.

They traveled up the California coast and passed through Big Sur, sleeping late, making love, dining in local restaurants. Leaving California, they traveled north to Seattle, remaining there for three days before heading southeast to the Utah desert. They marveled at the erosion surrounding the tall buttes that had once been part of the level surface, before ancient water and wind had carved the softer parts away and carried the sediments to the Sea of Cortez. Some had eventually made it all the way to the Pacific.

The Grand Canyon had fascinated too, but only for a day. In the end, it was another example of erosion and in magnitude less dramatic than what had occurred in Utah. They visited Yellowstone, but again only a day was needed before their interest flagged. They had seen too much in too short a time.

Jaded, they headed home to northern New Mexico. Possibly, if they’d come from the great plains, New England, or the Gulf coast, it might have been different; but they’d lived in New Mexico, which well deserved the nickname “The Land of Enchantment”.

New Mexico was, once again, gripped by drought and the Rio Grande was nearly dry, in fact was dry in stretches.

Conservationists worried about wild populations of the endangered silvery minnow. A captive breeding program had been established and might provide a restocking resource when the rains finally came, but there was no sign they would come soon.

Tall, cool pines and firs baked on he normally-humid mountain slopes. The standing trees, the ones that still lived, were as parched as kiln-dried lumber. No longer able to resist the onslaught, weakened trees fell victim to infestations of bark beetles. Many died, leaving great swathes of dead forest that fell victim to lightning-sparked fires that occasional extended into Arizona and Texas. New Mexico currently ranked as the state worst-damaged by the drought.

Shezzie became increasingly worried as they got closer to home. News reports had mentioned that local conditions around their home were grim.

The village of Jemez Springs was located in a pass north of the Jemez Pueblo and south of the town of Los Alamos. A short distance to the north and east of their cabin was Valles Caldera, the dormant crater of a super-volcano. It had been formed by the same geological processes that built the Jemez Mountains. There were still several hot springs scattered throughout the mountains, showing that the area was not geologically extinct but only quiescent. Forests within the region of the caldera were open to visitors, but how long that would last no one could say.

Bandelier National Monument also lay northeast of the village. The monument, established to preserve the cliff houses located above Frijoles Creek, sheltered a Native-American ruin that had existed long before the Spanish invasion.

The monument was now threatened, and portions of the national forest near there had been closed to visitors because of the extreme fire danger. Only a few miles south and easily within reach of a wildfire, their cabin lay inside the mouth of a canyon about a mile north of Jemez Springs. The slopes behind their home contained trees and brush that led directly to the dry forest above the rim.

T had driven back in near silence.

He’d heard the news reports that mentioned the fires, but kept his thoughts to himself. He was happy to be home, but for whatever reason his sleep was again troubled by nightmares which had begun almost as soon as the two men split up. Ray set about improving his relationship with Ana Maria, T had disappeared with Shezzie into the isolated town in the mountains of New Mexico.

When they left on the trip, the nightmares had subsided for a time. Shezzie hoped T could now begin to put whatever troubled him into the past, leaving the two of them able to resume their life together, but now they were back. T hadn’t mentioned them, but the evidence was obvious; night sweats, panic when he woke up in the morning, an exhausted and wrinkled face when they ate breakfast together, and the lingering sour smell of sweat from the night’s terrors.

The nightmares were not as bad for Shezzie as they were for T, but they were bad enough. She feared the other symptoms of PTSD had also returned with the nightmares, and she had no idea what to do. T refused to discuss whatever had happened in El Paso, Ray was silent as well, and neither appeared comfortable when she tried to open a discussion.

He had been restless that night, but appeared to calm down after Shezzie snuggled close. But the next morning, he was gone.

Shezzie noticed his absence as soon as she woke up. He hadn’t been gone long; his side of the bed was still damp from sweat. He wasn’t in the cabin and he hadn’t gone for a walk up the canyon as he sometimes did, because she soon discovered that his truck was also missing. She’d heard nothing, so perhaps he’d allowed the truck to coast silently downhill and starting the motor only after he was some distance away.

However he’d left, wherever he’d gone, Shezzie was worried.

She tried to comm him but he didn’t respond.

Had the trip been for nothing, their relationship fading as the PTSD once again forced them apart?

T held himself responsible for what had happened; he’d allowed Ray to become part of the violence that lived in his mind. But Ray did not blame T, far from it; he’d lost no sleep over the deaths of murderous thugs. T, however, knew nothing of Ray’s feelings, nor would they have mattered. Logic had never played a role in his depression.

Sleepless, he had unlocked his truck sometime after midnight. Shezzie was asleep. T didn’t want to disturb her; she’d lost too much sleep recently as it was. He allowed the truck to roll down the gentle grade until it reached the flats. Starting the engine, he’d left the cabin behind. He drove aimlessly through back roads for a time and finally found himself heading east on Interstate 40, which follows a long canyon eastward from the Rio Grande Valley as it leaves Albuquerque behind.

The first glimmers of dawn illuminated the landscape as T topped out above Tijeras Canyon. Tiring of the interstate’s sameness, he turned off onto old Highway 66. He refueled the truck, then turned south on state highway 337.

In one of the small towns, he found surprising amounts of graffiti. It was a moment’s work to erase every bit that he could see as he drove slowly through the town. An infuriated gang of taggers and a bemused group of residents would wonder what had happened, and for the first time in days T felt a smile crinkle his face.

He found a pull-off beside the highway and slept for an hour while lying stretched across the truck’s front seat. Continuing on his way after waking, he ate a late breakfast in Mountainair. Driving west on US 60, he pulled off to investigate an Indian ruin. Abo had once been a thriving pueblo and there was still the shell of a Catholic Church within the ruins, but the village had eventually fallen into disuse, crumbling after the native inhabitants moved away.

Why had they settled so far from the river that other Puebloans used to water their crops? Had they come here to escape enemies? The oldest ruins, quite primitive, were partially hidden by drifted sands and signs warned visitors not to approach.

T hiked the short trail through the monument, but avoided the ranger’s station. There were no visitors as yet, and the solitude suited his mood. Soon after, a warning buzz announced the presence of a large western diamondback and T spotted the reptile where it lay loosely coiled under the shade of a scrubby bush.

The snake, an ambush predator, might have been waiting for a mouse or rabbit to hop by. Equally, it might have sought to avoid direct sunlight because even this early, the day was warm. Moved by impulse, T reached out with his Talent and softly lifted the big snake. It was as thick through as his forearm and nearly six feet in length. Did the numbers of rattles tell the age of the snake, as legend had it? Or did a successful predator need to shed its skin more often, adding a new rattle each time it discarded the old skin? For whatever reason, the string of rattles was as long as T’s hand and they buzzed loudly.

The snake convulsed frantically in the air as it hung in front of T’s face. He took control of the forward end of the snake’s body and brought the head up until it faced him, mouth slightly opened, tongue flicking out to sample the air. A few inches forward of his face, the slitted eyes were poised. He closely studied them. A membrane slid across them, then returned to its slot.

The snake’s mouth opened wider. The fangs erected from resting grooves in the snake’s mouth, tiny droplets of venom sparkling in the morning sun. T attempted to read the snake’s thoughts, but picked up nothing. There were no thoughts or even emotions, not anger, nor hunger, nothing. Perhaps the snake functioned solely on instinct.

The rattlesnake found no purchase to support a strike or an escape. Frustrated, it coiled and uncoiled in the air, its heavy body knotting and muscles flexing under the scaled skin. Black rings, just forward of the whirring rattles, gave the snake its other common name: coon-tailed rattler. Tired of looking at the snake, T floated it away and gently released it near one of the partially-buried off-limits dwellings. The snake rapidly disappeared into a hole, perhaps the home of a western pocket gopher. If so, the animal would not appreciate its new tunnel neighbor!

Very likely, the angered snake would have folded back on its own length as soon as it entered the hole, head facing outward to defend against any threat. Behind it, the gopher, organic digging machine that it was, would quickly wall off the snake by throwing up a dirt barrier to plug the snake’s branch of the tunnel. In time, the snake would crawl out from its temporary refuge and resume hunting its normal prey, which might include the gopher after it left its tunnel complex.

T had felt no urge to kill the animal. Moving it away where it wouldn’t endanger human visitors was sufficient, because unlike T, the snake belonged here among the ruins. He completed the tour around the path and soon arrived back at his truck. He nodded at a family of four, who nodded back as he passed. One of the children called to him in greeting. He smiled, waved, and walked on.

The drive, or perhaps the incident with the snake, had reminded him that he was not alone in suffering from depression and PTSD. Other veterans had troubles too, some much worse than his. Many, unable to adjust to life after military service, ended up homeless.

Far too many killed themselves.

T took state highway 47 north, gassed up again in Los Lunas, then joined Interstate 25 north just past the Isleta reservation. The reservation casino was busy, judging from the cars in the parking lots.

He commed Shezzie as soon as he pulled onto the freeway to let her know he was heading home. He had worked his way through the worst effects of the nightmare by then, and he’d done it essentially by himself. Ultimately, that falls to everyone who finds himself troubled in similar fashion.

A combat veteran dealing with shock, any veteran or police officer who finds that the demands of duty have broken a marriage, even a prisoner or drug addict; T understood that rehabilitation does not come from others, it must come from within. By your own bootstraps you lift yourself. He drove north and arrived home by late afternoon, depression put aside.

For now.

Another murder was reported in Ciudad Juarez that night.

Bodies hanged from bridges, decapitations, even burning victims alive, these things the city had learned to take in stride as gang warred with gang. The usual victims came from the bottom of the gang hierarchy, soldiers in the wars who could be sacrificed without worry by those at the upper levels. There were always more of the gang-soldiers to be found. Money from drugs, sold to the Norteños, coupled with poverty among young Mexicans; the combination ensured that recruits would not be hard to find, and meantime ordinary Juarenses got on with their lives while wishing all of them would go away.