Chapter 6

What Jules told me on those few minutes, made no sense at all. I had questions, lots of them, and he promised that people of a much higher authority than himself could fill me in with the details. All I'd gathered was that there was some kind of war going on. Not on communists, drugs, or terror, but a war with the forces of evil at large. I think I just shrugged, thinking that I didn't really care about that sort of thing as long as it didn't involve me; after all, there's wars going on all over the world all the time. Unfortunately, this specific war somehow did involve me, and perhaps not as surprisingly, Eileen as well.

"It's kinda hard to swallow, I know," he had said with a knowing, almost sympathetic expression on his face. For just the slightest moment, I thought he was referring to the sandwich, but that was just my stomach thinking for me.

I learned Steve had been working for these guys, the Normal Bureau, as an undercover agent taking part in what they called Operation Beetroot. He was positively psyched, sitting face-to-face with Jules Caesar who apparently was some sort of legend in the Bureau. I don't know if that was indeed the case, and what kind of feats had earned him that sort of recognition, but the look on Steve's face meant he was willing to do anything to get on Jules' good books. And I do mean, anything.

Somehow all that new information failed to materialise into something useful; for instance, could these guys with all their invisible supersonic helicopters and their oversized zap-guns make Falconi disappear from the face of the Earth, or at least help me open that damn vault without John's help? Hell, I'd even send them a postcard from the after-world if they somehow helped me get in, and then back out.

When I suggested just that, all I'd gotten was two sets of awkward looks, with Jules adding with some hesitation that "you'll be briefed by higher echelons". Maybe it wasn't exactly something on their list of top priorities, since they seemed preoccupied with a lot of weird demonic shit, but it was number one in mine. And I had this very distinct impression that 'briefed' actually meant 'jerked around'.

I heard then a chirping sound from what must've been the intercom. A syncopated, synthetic female voice announced:

"Touch down, in, thirty seconds. Prepare, to, disembark. Mind the gap. Mind the gap."

"We're here. Johnson, wards," he said, prompting Steve to jump up from his seat like a spring. He then opened a cabinet of sorts, revealing a large number of what appeared to be very silly hats, the kind the Pope wears. Steve put one on his head, and gave me one as well. I honestly felt we were going to some sort of Halloween party, or maybe one of those extravagant dinner parties held by eccentric rich folks where nothing was ever considered over the top. Jules insisted:

"Just a precaution, Mr. Barhoe. Please, put on the mitre."

"The what? You mean the hat?"

"These are highly specialized warding devices. They're a safety measure, and blessed by the Pope himself, hence the mitre design."

"Safety measure against what? Good taste?"

"Demonic entities and incorporeal creatures, sir," Jules said, and for the first time I detected a very serious and grave tone in his voice. The intercom chirped once more, but this time it was the pilot:

"Anchored, sir! We just got word, we gotta head for Missouri. Another imp infestation."

Jules pressed the intercom button and replied while pointing a very unfriendly-looking finger at the speaker:

"Don't you try and keep any as pets like the last time, I'm gonna go medieval on your ass, you hear me?"

"No, sir!" came back the terse, almost frightened reply. He then turned the door handle and let the door slide open. With a quick hand signal, Steve was the first one off. He quickly glanced left and right, as if in some sort of confusion, and gave a thumbs up. Jules then nodded to me, and I got off next. A warm summer breeze greeted me, and I felt my feet bury themselves in something soft.

The characteristic smell of manure became instantly prominent. Which was to be expected since we had landed on what looked like a cow farm; the fresh cow dung I had just stepped on was a dead giveaway. The blimp's engines went full throttle in a few moments, and it disappeared into the night sky like an immense phantom whale, leaving nothing but a faint haze and an imperceptible rustling noise behind it.

Jules urged me to move and I duly complied; he kept walking right behind me, while Steve lead the way, heading for what appeared to be a nondescript, pretty characteristic barn. The moon was full, and its light cast a silvery sheen over everything, except perhaps cow dung. A few yards away from the large, half-open barn door, the unmistakable length of a hunting rifle appeared, while the rough edges of a figure that still remained in the shadows could be roughly traced. Steve froze in his tracks and pointed hesitantly at his silly papal hat. The figure took a step forward, revealing himself to be a squat, short, fat old little fellow wearing a farmer's overall and a pair of boots twice his normal size. He shouted then with a voice that sounded like weasels making out in the woods:

"What's that nigger doing in my farm?"

Jules shouted in response, calmly and clearly, almost spelling out the words:

"Who the fuck, you callin' 'niggah', you redneck ... inbred trailer trash?"

The sudden and violent exchange of insults started and ended right there, when the old man uncocked his rifle and stood at attention before saluting Jules, who didn't as much as even look his way. Steve ushered us inside the barn, and before long we were walking in complete darkness.

I heard a knock followed by a dull thump, and then I heard Steve say in poorly concealed agony:

"I'm OK. I'm OK."

We stopped. Jules' distinctive voice echoed inside the spacious barn:

"Stupid redneck motherfucker."

"I'm a native Indian, sir."

"Not you, Johnson. That white-trash asshole on sentry duty."

"That was a sentry?" I asked in disbelief. No one bothered to satisfy my curiosity. Steve was also curious in his own way:

"What about him, sir?"

"What about - Can't he tell I'm Jules-fucking-Caesar?"

"We could've been fakes sir."

"Fakes? Why the fuck are we wearing these clown hats for then?"

"Regulations?"

"Fuck that," Jules said and I heard a clicking noise that soon turned into a whir. Before I knew it, the ground below us was moving, and we were smoothly riding down a shaft on some kind of a platform.

Warm spotlights around the edges of the platform lit up then, while soft hall music started playing. Jules started humming along, and Steve couldn't resist the urge to do so as well.

"You think you're a funny guy Johnson?" Jules said, giving off the aura that a positive answer would have been wrong. Steve stopped, lowered his head and kept looking at his feet like a scolded schoolboy, while I was fascinated by the amount of gems hidden away in the various layers of ground, making a mental note to myself to invest heavily in Topeka real estate, provided of course that I'd put all this nasty business behind me soon and live through it as well.

After a minute or so had passed, and while certainly the illusion of riding a perfectly normal elevator kept my mind adequately numb, I couldn't help asking Jules:

"Uhm, how deep is this?"

"Quite deep, sir."

"I meant, is this going to take long?"

"We're almost there sir."

"Why do you always build these sort of things underground?"

"I don't follow you, sir."

"Why not build a secret base on a mountain mesa? Or a deserted island? A huge flying base perhaps? Or an enormous ship?"

"Oh, you mean that. Cost, sir."

"You mean this is cheaper?"

"Everything below a depth of a thousand feet is US property."

"Everything?"

"Even the god-damn dinosaurs, sir."

"Dinosaurs?"

"You'll be briefed about that."

A polite little 'pong' was heard and we came to a very soft stop in front of a dull, plain looking steel door. Jules cleared his throat and said in a very loud and clear fashion, as if talking to someone hard of hearing:

"What's a niggah ... gotta do to, get some ... respect around here?"

To which promptly, as if actually responding to his voice, the door opened and revealed an immense well-lit space, with large balconies the size of plazas extruding from the rock, rigid superstructures extending from the ceiling downwards to scary depths, and uncannily curvy gangways crisscrossing like a metal knot.

It was perhaps unsurprisingly filled with people wearing the same stupid-looking hats as we were, milling about on foot, Segways, bicycles and even skates. It somehow reminded me of LAX on a bishop's annual convention, only this complex appeared to be a lot bigger. Jules stepped off the platform and showed the way, while Steve said with a proud smile, walking right behind me:

"Bobby my man, welcome to the Rabbit's Nest."

"Is that supposed to sound cool? 'Cause it's a lame name," I said, walking right behind Jules who led the way.

"I know, but don't tell Von Papen," whispered Steve.

"Von who? Why not?"

"Just don't."

"What's he gonna do? Shoot me?" I asked jokingly.

And then I realised Steve didn't answer 'no, of course not, don't be silly, he's not a Nazi or anything like that'. He just gave me a wary look and kept his mouth shut. And then I started feeling nervous again.

The Rabbit's Nest certainly looked impressive, even though it was in effect nothing more then a really deep and monstrously wide underground well. There were actually buildings sitting atop those balconies, as well as blast-proof doors scattered around the rock walls, large and small. There were all sorts of weird-looking people giving me the eye for no obvious reason, perhaps apart from the fact that I had this very miserable looking face on, feeling groggy, famished, and probably unable to resist the urge to use the bathroom pretty soon as well.

I didn't bother returning those looks, even though I felt I had every right to do so because of the silly hat. Steve had bothered to correct me too many times that it was called a mitre, and kept reminding me I should definitely not refer to it as a silly hat, especially in front of Von Papen whom I was supposed to meet shortly. Something about the whole affair told me it wasn't exactly going to be a social visit.

The name struck me as German; I was corrected once more to learn that he was half Austrian and half German, which further confused me. I couldn't help asking more odd little things that struck me as weird while we kept hopping from balcony to balcony, in a downward spiral ever deeper into the Nest's innards.

Steve filled me in as best as he could, but even he had no clear idea why there weren't any god-damn elevators around this place or why the place had an excessive number of waste baskets that were provocatively empty all the time. He did know though that the floor tiles were a mishmash of colours and types, a genuine mosaic indeed, not because of some flair of artistic design, but because they had used dirt-cheap left overs from discounts and sales as a cost-cutting measure.

Jules had kept silent for the entire time, curiously choosing not to participate in my impromptu orientation. I'd noticed he kept an eye on the both of us, and an especially keen ear on what Steve was saying, who in turn seemed to think a lot about what he could and couldn't say, choosing his words carefully. That didn't strike me at all as a very friendly work atmosphere. Not only that, but I hadn't seen nor heard of Eileen. When I asked about her, Jules hesitantly replied that she was being transferred to a different location. His words though had this hollow sound to them.

Now I consider myself a very capable liar, and as such I'm pretty adept at separating the wheat from the chaff; I can tell when a person is lying out flat, when he's just telling a small lie, and when he's lying like only a man in congress can. Jules was talking exactly like that; he wasn't exactly lying technically, but he wasn't telling me everything either. What I found somewhat comforting though, was that he acted and talked like he wanted me to know he wasn't telling me everything. And that only helped to tie my brain in a knot, not as large as the proverbial Gordian one, but still, definitely a pain.

The further deep down we went, the fewer the people moving about became. I could barely see the actual bottom of the well, but I thought I could glimpse a faint shimmer from below and at the very center of it, some sort of huge, bulbous shape. I asked Steve then:

"What's that thing down there? What's that shimmery thing?"

"That's the ... lake." said Steve, who was evidently right about to say something different.

"And what's that thing in the middle? Some kind of weird gazebo?"

"That's the ... That's were we're going, actually."

"You folks should really think about installing an elevator or two. I mean, I'm starting to get sore feet. How do you ever get things done around here?"

"What you don't understand is that this is just a sort of front HQ. Forty eight hours ago, it was sealed tight and quite empty of life, except of course for Von Papen and his personal team. There's probably a good reason there's no elevator," said Steve, shooting a couple of wary glances at Jules, who finally broke his silence to add: