Chapter 14

Illusions and Cleansing

Steve sat at Marie's kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee, wondering to himself how long it had been since he'd so much enjoyed a sunrise and a simple breakfast. Marie sat opposite him. Her dark eyes studied his face.

"You are troubled. You are walking a knife-edge, yet you have already decided where your destiny, your allegiance now lies. Is this not so?" she questioned, her voice barely above a whisper.

He looked up, startled. Her eyes, flashing black, bored into his. Her face, mature and strong, appeared to his eyes as the most remarkable woman he'd ever encountered. She was a few years younger than he, yet she seemed ageless, infinite, perpetual. Her raven black hair spilled from beneath a simple silver headband in a cascade down her back, reaching to her waist. A thin silver chain held a mounted moss agate stone, polished and gleaming against her throat. The translucent gem contained a black form, the outline of a raven, its wings outstretched. Circlets of silver gleamed with obsidian stones, ebony ovals set in silver sockets, on her slender wrists.

He didn't answer right away. He knew where his allegiance, his duty rested. It was with these people, with their discovery. He was utterly convinced of the truth of Dee'rah's people, their need, and of the total dedication and nobility of Michael Hawthorne's quest. It was now his quest.

The problem was the agency. He faced the terrible necessity of becoming a double agent. He couldn't walk away from the agency. Nobody did that without the agency's blessing and guarantees issued upon pain of death. If he foolishly abandoned this agency assignment, they could descend on him and this mission with redoubled fury. There'd be no way for Michael to succeed.

He needed a screen, a cover to stall the agency, to keep them many steps behind while he and Michael somehow delivered the crystals.

"You think you are alone. You are wrong."

Her voice snapped him out of his worries and brought him back to her, looking at him with her steady gaze. What in hell is she saying, his mind asked before his mouth could open...

"I am now part of this, and now we are three. Your agency will not interfere. You must report to your superior, the Deputy Director who you worry so much about in your thoughts. Act normally, feed him small bits to satisfy his concerns, and devote yourself to helping Michael. Your superior will be no problem. My task now is to shield us while we three do what must be done." Marie smiled, a slight upturn of her mouth at the corners, but her eyes sparkled with mirth at Steve's sudden consternation.

"Yes, there are things I know that you believe to be impossible for one such as I to know. But twice now you have sat at the fire. Twice you have witnessed that which is not possible. Do you think such a small thing as this is not possible?"

Steve shook his head to clear his confusion; he blinked several times while staring fixedly down into his half-empty cup. He struggled to remain still, calm, and not to go running out the back door swearing curses into the morning light. Get a grip, you stupid sonofabitch! Think of what she's saying! Every damned word she speaks is the truth! Well, except for the 'agency will not interfere' business, maybe. He looked to her. He struggled to stay calm and soft-spoken as he answered:

"True. All true. Except, how can you know that the agency will not interfere?"

"Easy, my strong friend. I have asked the elders to intercede. They are dealing with the matter as we speak."

'Oh, Jeezus H. Christ!' Steve thought to himself, visions of the frail little man, half bent over in his age, and the tiny, age-shriveled woman with the incredibly strong, gnarled hands ... visions of them walking into the agency entrance, guards rushing from all directions with automatic weapons leveled at them... !

"My God, woman! What have you done?" he almost yelled at her.

"What needed doing. Please, do not worry." Marie rose from her chair, stepped over to the radiantly cheerful wood range, the fire's yellow flame winking through seams in the black cast-iron firebox. She fetched up the coffee pot.

"Refill?" she smiled down at him. He sat with his mouth hanging open, his unbelieving eyes locked on her laughing face.

The Deputy Director glanced up as his car approached the agency compound guardhouse where the marine on duty stood ready to check them through. He slammed against the front seat backs. He had not fastened his lap and shoulder belt. He hated the damned things. They interfered with his work while he reviewed reports and transcribed notes.

"Shit!" his driver yelled at the same moment the car nose-dived with panic braking. The deputy director stared out the windshield at the old couple standing in the road, waiting to be run down. They were ancient, tiny, dressed in native American beads and buckskins. Their faces looked like burnt umber, deeply creased. Their eyes stared forth from deep sockets, blazing with highlights, brilliant sunshine off gleaming black stones.

"Goddamnit all to hell! Where the fu..." The driver screamed and cursed as the heavy limousine's tires screamed in complaint. The ABS braking system shuddered in a rapid-fire series of braking jolts. The car was unable to stop before running them down but as unexpectedly as they had appeared, they dissolved. They disappeared.

The marine guard came running down the lane, frantically waving at the side window for the driver to roll it down.

"What the hell... ! What are you doing? Are you nuts? Why the hell did you slam on the brakes there, fool? You damn near got rear-ended by the General, coming up behind you!"

"At ease, marine! Didn't you see that old couple there, standing in the middle of the damned driveway? Why the hell did you let them stand here? This is a restricted area. What the hell were they doing here, marine?"

All went silent for a long moment. The marine visibly composed himself, stepped back and stood at perfect attention. He noticed the agency's deputy director sitting upright in the back seat, white-faced and visibly shaken.

"Sir! Begging pardon, sir! What old couple, sir?"

His day pretty much went down hill from there. He'd had his people working non-stop, trying to trace the dead Russian syndicate goons back to their source, and to dig out whatever had motivated the attack. He knew damned well that the old man behind Nikogda Snova was behind it, but knowing and digging out why were different things. Each way they turned led to a stone wall. Nobody would talk. Every faint lead took them to dead ends.

He'd had the devil's own time putting a lid on the Idaho affair. Thank God the local sheriff and county-seat press didn't want any more publicity than he did. He and they agreed that it was done, over with, and buried. And that was the best place for it. A simple phone call to one of Idaho's leading right-wing senators assured him that calls would be made to like-thinking Boise-based corporations and advertisers. What would have been major news became single column items buried on a back page near the classified section.

He'd owe that senator a big bite of the apple, but that was okay. The twisted idiot slept with a Winchester carbine under his pillow, and had been known to stand up in Senate chambers to claim that if the godless communist rebels in Central America weren't stopped in the jungles down there, the good citizens of Idaho would be standing on the north rim of the Snake River Canyon, fighting off the brown-skinned hordes when they invaded across the desert. God help us all if we ever get a majority of his kind of bigoted fool in the government, he thought.

Ah, damn, what a day, he muttered to himself as his driver let him off at his Maryland townhouse. He hardly glanced up as he unlocked the side door and stepped into the kitchen. He draped his jacket over a kitchen chair and reached into the fridge for a cold Australian Fosters Lager, a small weakness he'd picked up years ago during a navy deployment. Hardly glancing around himself, he walked straight ahead into the dining room and dropped his frosted mug. It slipped from his startled hand; beer and shattered glass erupted in a spray off the polished hardwood floor.

There, facing him across the room in front of the lace curtains of the French doors, that couple ... the ancient Indians who stood little taller than wizened gnomes. "Damn it! What the hell... !"

Then they were gone.

Rhys and Martha started the long drive back to Twin Falls before the second morning's dreaming around the ceremonial fire. They'd seen Dee'rah and Marie do their fire dance; they needed no further persuasion. The group decided that the mother and son would be most useful as anchors at home base. They would guard against strangers, deflect any inquiries and lead any watchers astray. And they would be a primary communication link. Michael and Steve would go into concealment to buy time while arrangements were made.

Michael, Steve, and Marie sat around the small table for lunch.

"What is this, the wise ones will deal with the deputy director?" Mike asked. He was equally disturbed as his new partner, but not nearly as impassive and silent as Steve.

"Just that," Marie answered. "They will advise that patience and caution reap bountiful rewards. Anger and haste will reap only sorrow and destruction."

"That's it? Just like that?" Mike stared at her, his mouth gaping open and shut like a carp struggling for oxygen in a stagnant pool. He must have sensed the scene he was making, for a second later his mouth snapped shut and he stared at Steve, who just sat there, stone-faced, his eyes showing a few mirth lines. Steve was beginning to enjoy this moment.

"Yes, just like that. Of course, they must first gain his attention," Marie replied, flipping her head to toss her rich black hair over her other shoulder. "More soup?"

Alfred Jameson didn't become agency Deputy Director by harboring personality flaws. He was solid, conservative, thoughtful, cautious, analytical, intuitive, and a host of other qualities that make a successful spymaster.

He was also a touch superstitious but he managed to keep that tiny flaw under control, until confronted with ancient Indians who popped in and out of his life unexpectedly as had been happening twice a day for the last three days.

The last time had been just about the end of it. He was walking behind the Director in the agency's executive lunch room, carrying his tray loaded with food, when he nearly walked right over the top of them. He'd glanced down at his plate of lamb curry, anticipating a leisurely lunch with his friend, when he saw two pairs of beaded moccasins below the edge of his tray. Startled, he glanced up and saw that he was about to crash into the two of them directly in his path. He yelled and stumbled to a stop, hurling his tray upwards over his head when he slipped and fell. Angry shouts erupted behind him. Several people were wearing the lunch he'd been anxious to sit down to.

The old couple vanished, of course. Vanished as quickly as he'd fallen. Nobody saw anything. Except the Director, standing there with a shocked look on his face, wondering if his old friend and trusted deputy had somehow cracked under the strain and was losing his mind. The Director saw no ghostly pair. All he saw was the angry faces of his officers, drenched in lamb curry and steamed rice, muttering expletives at the prone figure of his friend laying sprawled on the floor.

Jameson asked for and received the rest of the day off.

The Director pointedly advised that Jameson should take a little vacation time as well: "take the day off and the next week off, too. Go to a retreat for a week, maybe; get some rest and a little counseling, perhaps." The Director didn't mention the report on his desk from the commander of the marine detachment, the detailed account of his Deputy and his driver swearing at the gate guard about the "two old indians standing in the lane, trying to get killed," and the Deputy's angry accusation that the marine had been derelict in his duty by letting the two old people walk into a restricted area.

He didn't mention that the security cameras showed nothing to cause the big limousine to make an abrupt stop—a panic stop that almost caused a visiting three-star general's car to rear end them. There were no Indians. The guard, the General's driver, the General's aide riding in the front passenger seat, the General and his, ahem, busty blonde secretary ... no one saw anyone. It was like an episode of "Twilight Zone" but it wasn't funny. And now, this lunchroom incident. It was too much.

Alfred Jameson knew that he wasn't losing his mind. But he was severely rattled. This had to stop. His position of trust at the Director's side was in extreme peril. Another incident, and he'd be shuffled off somewhere to finish out his retirement, someplace deep in the basement sorting files and counting office supplies. They wouldn't fire him, of course, but he'd never see another sensitive case.

He relaxed back into his deep leather recliner, his stocking feet up on the footrest. Another frosted mug of Foster Lager sat at hand, safely on an absorbent pad on the small stand beside him. His memories were searching, remembering...

It was in Haiti. He was still an agent, not even senior grade. There'd been rumors of an insurrection, something more sinister than a simple overthrow of the Port au Prince government. This was rumored to be linked to terrorism, with an anti-American focus. Nobody in the government was taking it seriously; this was before the days of airplanes flying into tall buildings. But there were enough fears of the old Bolshevik bomber days that armed insurrections with explosives at hand warranted investigation.

He had insinuated himself into the underworld scene and saw things that still made his skin crawl. What he had always regarded as primitive superstition proved all too real in his experience. He saw people die for no cause, terrified and raving. He saw things performed in the shadows that no sane man would believe. He crept around the edges of the terror, he observed, and he became a believer. When he left Haiti, he knew that he would never return, not even if someone put a gun to his head. He believed. That is why he would never return.

So far this thing with the ancient Indian couple was harmless, nothing like he'd seen in Haiti. Harmless, but real. Obviously they were trying to get his attention. It was becoming quite apparent to him that if he didn't pay proper attention right soon, it might be too late for him. He doubted they wanted to talk to a file-shuffler in the agency basement.

He drained a long, cold draught from his mug, savoring the brew. He set it carefully back, reached down to the footrest lever and retracted it so his feet rested squarely on the floor. He sat up, composed himself, and said the magic words:

"You may show yourselves now. You have my attention!"

Three Musketeers

Michael had argued for the better part of an hour until Marie's steady, implacable determination that she was part of the team finally wore him down. He turned to Steve, quite exasperated and half upset with the man:

"A fine lot of help you've been, sitting there smirking—don't shake your damned head at me, I saw that smirk behind your hand several times—you could have spoken up, said something, helped me out a little here?"

"Me? Interfere? I thought you were doing perfectly fine! At least as well as I might hope to do. I knew first thing this morning, when Marie told me, and I quote: "I am now part of this, and now we are three." Then she proceeded to tell me things about my thinking and the agency, stuff she had no way of knowing. Hell, if it was some civilian off the street who told me all that, I'd have to shoot them for breaching national security!

"If you recall, we both lost that argument about the Elders confronting the Deputy Director. Lost, hell! There was no argument to start with! And you stand there, with your eyes bugged out and your neck all puffed up and red under your collar, and you tell me to take sides against Marie? Man, your brains must have gone soft when they had you under that oxygen mask in the ICU!"

Marie smiled. She'd barely said a dozen words during the last half hour as Mike argued and stormed that their mission was too dangerous for her to even think of joining them. Steve recognized her power and her new role with their mission; Mike was taking a bit longer. His chivalry and the fact that he hated working with women in dangerous situations was a handicap he'd have to overcome. Perhaps Dee'rah, the spirit woman, would turn his thinking.

Marie interrupted them by announcing, "They are finished. The elders have met Mr. Jameson and he understands. They will join us this evening for dinner."

Marie smiled at Steve and left the kitchen. The two men heard the front door open and close. Steve hurried to the front room, glanced out the window, and saw her slender figure striding down the path that led to the old couple's small shack. A white puff of smoke belched from the shack's chimney. Someone had kindled a fire in the cook stove.

He turned, stared at Mike, who stared right back.

"Okay, so we just let that one ride, too. Right?"

Steve moved over to his sleeping bag on its pad along the wall and stretched out upon it, pulling his baseball cap down over his forehead and eyes.

"Wake me when dinner's about ready so I can wash up, okay?"

While Steve caught up on his nap time, Mike took a long hike up the hillside and along the gentle rise of the ridge line winding in and out of the scrub growth, admiring the early summer scenes of the Okanogan hill country.

He was worried almost sick with concern now that he'd had time to run some possibilities through his mind. They had agreed that Rhys and Martha would return to their home in Twin Falls, that they would make it a base of operations. The more he thought about it, the less certain he was that they should stay there any longer than it would take them to pack a few things and go into hiding themselves.

He feared the Russian syndicate involvement. The fact they'd sent so many men and were so trigger-happy was nothing to be complacent about. It was an extreme move, even for them, and he was absolutely and totally convinced that the Russians, after losing that round in a total bloodbath, would gather new men and resources and would come back after him with a vengeance.

"Hell, if they could get away with it and they thought it was the only way to get to me, they'd take the whole damned high school student body hostage and shoot them one by one until I turned myself over to them! There's no way Rhys and Martha can stay anywhere those bastards might find them. They'll be dead in a week. Even if I turned myself over to them they'd still kill us all."

He walked back and forth along the crest of the hillside above the small compound, the cabin, the shack, and a few scattered outbuildings. A sweat lodge stood behind the elder's shack, dark smoke stains around the hole in its mounded roof. Dry and broken branches were piled nearby, ready for the next cleansing ritual.

"Cleansing! Shed the old skin, emerge with a clean new skin! That's it!"

Just then he heard Marie call from the back door. Dinner was ready. He glanced over to the shack and saw the old couple emerge, the stooped old man walking in front, dressed in faded blue jeans and a print shirt, wearing a wide-brim felt hat with a snakeskin hat band. The old woman followed two steps behind carrying a woven basket covered with a dish towel. She wore a faded gingham dress with a silver and obsidian-jeweled belt cinched around her waist. Her head was covered with a simple shawl that draped over her shoulders. As old and stooped as they were, they walked along the path with strong, steady steps.