The man eased himself around, revealing a face veiled in smoke. Through the gray haze and glimmering light of the cigar, Ethan saw thin lips stretch into a grim smile. “Mr. Tannor, so glad you could join us. You’ve been out for a little while.”
“No thanks to your Gestapo.” It might be unsafe to mouth off like that, but with everything that had happened, it was doubtful he was at risk of death for throwing out a few caustic words.
The cigar lowered, leaving behind a swirl of smoke. “They are hardly the Gestapo.”
“Really? Your hit squad killed a man outside my apartment in cold blood – not to mention almost killing a police officer – two days ago. Or however many days it’s been.”
“I assure you, that man fired first. And Officer Bailey was lucky – we used non-lethal force; he was never in danger of death. Under other circumstances, I would not have my team compromised just for the sake of sparing an attacker. Please, take a seat so we may discuss matters. I’ll answer whatever questions I can.” He drew in deeply on the stogie.
“Thanks, but I’ll stand. I’m not in the habit of accommodating my captors.” Ethan took a moment to scowl at Jackman.
The Reaper flashed a devilish smile, indicating he wasn’t threatened by Ethan’s boldness. As quickly as the smile arrived it was gone and Jackman resumed his military bearing. He was squared evenly with the right side of a large desk in the middle of the room – a sign that he would be a permanent fixture during the impending conversation. His presence also served as a warning to Ethan, should he attempt a daring escape.
Ethan’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room and from the muted glow of the city’s backdrop he could see Cigar Man a little better now. He had jet black hair that was combed straight back and an equally dark yet neatly trimmed beard. The color looked unnatural – like it had been dyed recently. Not even the head of a covert military group was immune to the desire for youthful looks, it seemed. To each his own.
The silence grew for a few more seconds and Ethan finally spoke. “What’s this all about? Can I know why I’m here now? And what’s your name – I’d like to know who I’m talking to.”
The man grinned. “My name is Benjamin Wallace – and I do apologize for the abduction, but time is a factor here. I hope that after this discussion, your opinions of us won’t be solely based on our prior actions.”
Ethan’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of the man’s name and Tobias’s words came back to him. “You’ll come across an important name: Ben Wallace. Don’t bother searching for him, he’ll probably find you.”
He’d forgotten all about that part of the message until now. Here was another piece of his uncle’s strange puzzle coming into play. And this time, Ethan knew he would have some solid answers – finally. Inside, his anticipation of those answers grew to a fever pitch, but he didn’t let it show. Instinct told him to play it cool with this guy.
“Yeah, well – Ben, one of your men jabbed a needle the size of an elephant’s dick into my neck, so I’ll have to withhold a change in judgment for now.”
“Again, I express my regrets, but please hear me out.”
Do I even have a choice? Ethan almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation; despite the man’s politeness, Ethan wasn’t getting out of here anytime soon. But as long as this guy answered some questions, he might as well put any plans for retaliation on hold. Not that he had any such plans. His brain hurt too much for that type of mental exercise.
“Alright, whatever. What the fuck is going on?”
Wallace drew in a breath, and then turned back to the windows. He didn’t speak at first, gathering his thoughts. Ethan watched his reflection in the glass take another pull on the tobacco log, and then he finally spoke. “Are you familiar with the name Bernard Baruch?”
Ethan shrugged. “No. Should I be?”
“Many people don’t know him, but they are very familiar with a famous phrase he coined in the late 1940s.”
Where is this going? “And that would be?”
Ben faced him again. “He was a presidential advisor decades ago, but that’s not what made him so influential. His claim to fame came during a speech he gave at the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1947 –”
Ethan put up a hand to silence him. This was growing tiresome; he wanted answers, not a history lesson. “What does that have to do with your assault squad here?”
If Ethan’s interruption annoyed the man, he didn’t let it show. “If I remember the quote exactly, it went like this, ‘Let us not be deceived; we are today in the midst of a Cold War. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success.’”
The melodramatic way in which Wallace enunciated the words made his point transparent, and Ethan couldn’t help it – he laughed. “So he invented the phrase ‘Cold War’ – big fucking deal. What does that have to do with anything here? Besides, it’s nearly over.”
The expression on Wallace’s face resembled that of sympathy for a slow child. “No, Mr. Tannor. It is far from over.”
28 Mystery of the World
April 24, 1986, 4:23 AM
“You’ll have to run that by me again.”
Wallace gave a thin, hard smile. “The Cold War is hardly over. Things are in motion that can’t be stopped – troops are being rallied.”
For a moment, Ethan just gaped at the man. Is this guy serious? “What do the CIA and FBI have to say about such claims?”
“This isn’t something most people know, even within the intelligence community.”
“Of course they wouldn’t.”
“I fear you don’t fully understand the gravity of the situation.”
Ethan spread out his arms and shrugged. “I have no basis in fact for what you’re suggesting, except for a couple of run-ins with your thugs.”
Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Tannor, these are the facts: one, there is a select group of Russian extremists who call themselves Synov’ya Stalin – The Sons of Stalin – and they are determined to do what is necessary to ensure their victory; and two, the battleground is America.”
Ethan didn’t know what sounded worse – that this man spoke his words with such conviction that there was no doubt he believed what he said, or the ease in which the Russian words glided from his lips.
“Imagine a day when you walk outside your New York apartment and tanks are rolling through the streets – scenes that look like Dresden after the Soviets came through. It’s enough to make Sep–” He cut himself off and gestured to the skyscrapers in the distance. “I want you to envision those buildings, the very landmarks you see before you tonight, toppled to the ground.”
Ethan gazed out the tinted windows. He tried to picture the storybook fiction Wallace was selling, visualizing in his mind as citizens scrambled for their lives before armored forces that funneled them between buildings and took no prisoners. Jets and bombers ruled the skies, and the heavens themselves were blanketed in thick black dust. Bright white lightning scorched the clouds leaving scar-like trails against the dark void overhead.
Ethan was a natural bullshitter, so he could smell someone else’s bullshit a mile away. Whoever Ben Wallace really was, Ethan knew one thing: he wasn’t bullshitting. Granted, it was possible the man was simply a sociopath skilled at making people believe in his own fantasy. But Ethan didn’t think that was the case here. This scared him more than anything Wallace had already said.
He looked at Wallace. “So this group, The Sons of Stalin, they’re here in New York? Now?”
A curl of smoke drifted out from Ben’s nostrils and he nodded, dousing his cigar in the ashtray on the desk as he spoke. “We refer to them as the Red Hand, but they are one and the same.”
The familiar weight of cluelessness enveloped Ethan like a heavy blanket on a hot night, but some fragments were starting to cluster together. The message he’d begun to decode in his motel room – ?
??The Red Hand is victorious’ – came back to him. “How could this happen?” he said. “Shouldn’t we warn someone if this information you have is true?”
Wallace grimaced. “And there lies the rub. These are things that have not yet happened, but they’re unfolding as we speak. The only hitch is, we can’t stop it here – we must stop it before it begins.”
Something about the way Wallace phrased that last sentence triggered a red flag in Ethan’s mind. “Stop it before it begins? That sounds a little like –”
Wallace interrupted him with a raised finger. The gesture seemed oddly familiar to Ethan – like he’d seen it before, but in a different setting. “I’m speaking of things to come, Mr. Tannor, and a serious debate would not be heard by the United States, or any other country, for that matter. It would fall on deaf ears or there would be mass panic, but the result would be the same. We are doomed by the arrogance of a President who does not heed our warnings.”
“Ronald Reagan?”
“No. Abraham A. Bock. He couldn’t hold a candle to President Reagan. Abraham is a far leftist posing as a moderate. He pretended to care about the security of this nation’s citizens, but his policies stripped away their rights and bolstered the foundation for a second civil war.”
Wallace began to pace like a sentinel marching a slow cadenced step in front of The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. “Half the country reached the breaking point with government intrusion and unconstitutional behavior toward citizens. The other half – made up of the complacent and the dependent – viewed those who spoke out against Bock’s policies as the true enemy.
“It wasn’t North versus South, it became red states versus. blue states – literally. Chaos broke out in the streets, talks of revolution, trade between feuding states was cut off, petitions were signed for permanent secession from the union, and guerilla warfare tactics were carried out by anarchists and statists alike.
“The Bill of Rights meant nothing. Our fair President was attempting to rewrite the Constitution and he viewed the country’s military as an enemy – a threat to national security precisely because of their oaths to protect this nation. Bases were shut down and disbanded. Only those deemed loyal to Bock’s worldview were allowed to remain.”
Wallace stopped to draw breath – or perhaps collect his thoughts. Ethan couldn’t guess which, but if what the man had said was true, maybe he was reflecting on actual memories. Ethan’s mind was reeling as it clambered to catch up with the flow of information. By the time it did, Wallace was speaking again.
“We know that a country divided cannot stand, and sadly, while our country was at war with itself, The Red Hand emerged from the shadows and took us by surprise. We were unable to regroup and unite as one to launch a counteroffensive.” Wallace lowered his head, as if in prayer.
Ethan stood mute, stunned to silence. He wanted to ask questions, but couldn’t process the words into a coherent order. He glanced at Jackman, who remained as he had been before – rigid and alert, yet quiet. Ethan tried to read the man’s face, but got nothing. He looked back to Wallace, saw the seriousness of his expression, and at last words came to him.
“How is it you know all of this? You’re speaking of things that haven’t happened yet in the past tense. And who is this President Bock you speak of? I may not be a history buff, but that name’s not striking a bell as one of ours. What kind of mind trip are you on?”
Wallace gave him a forbidding smile that seemed almost sad. He chuckled softly. “A mind trip. If only it was that simple.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re from the future?” Ethan threw the option out there only because it was the most ridiculous thing he could think of. When Wallace didn’t dismiss or deny the accusation, Ethan blinked. “Are you fucking serious? Really? You think I’ll buy that shit? I’m outta here.”
He made to leave and wasn’t surprised to feel Jackman’s hand clamp down on his shoulder. Of course they wouldn’t let him just leave. Vise-grip fingers bit into his skin as he was turned back around to face Wallace. Ethan yanked his arm away. “Get your fucking hands off me,” he snapped.
Jackman’s answer was an impassive half-grin that made Ethan want to punch his face in, not once, but maybe a hundred times. He imagined destroying the bones in the man’s jaw, shattering his teeth as he laid into him over and over, perhaps breaking his own hand in the process but not caring enough to stop.
“Please, Mr. Tannor. There’s no need for such dramatics. Allow me to explain,” Wallace said.
Ethan pulled himself from the violent daydream. “Yes, explain – please explain; because from where I’m standing you look like an insane man with a lot of muscle and firepower.” Ethan motioned to Jackman and the door behind them to encompass the men in the outer room.
Wallace moved casually to his desk and picked up something from its surface. It appeared to be some type of portable screen – glossy, thin and flat, unlike the huge butt of the video monitors Ethan was familiar with. It seemed incredibly light as Wallace held it between two fingers and powered it on without the use of a cord. The screen lit up, casting a gentle glow on Wallace’s face.
“What is that thing?” Ethan asked, staring at him with suspicion.
“This is a TL-K5 series. But technically it’s just a tablet device, from many years away.”
TL-K5 series? The question rolled through Ethan’s mind, but what came out was, “What’s a ‘tablet device’?”
Wallace tapped on the surface of the machine as he spoke. “It’s like a miniature computer. This can process a thousand times or more information at a faster rate than a hundred of those clunky desktop models you’re stuck with in the department; more than the city’s mainframes too.”
Ethan barked out a laugh. “Okay, sure.” He shook his head, but was willing to play along for the time being. Still, that device does look very … future-y. Unease prickled through him.
Wallace looked up at him, one eyebrow quirked like he was about to let Ethan in on a deep dark secret. “Let me show you something.” He made a swiping gesture with his hand across the screen and up into the air like a wizard summoning a spirit from the Earth.
As though springing forth from the man’s fingertips, an image planted itself in the air before Ethan’s face. He jumped back, hands up in a defensive motion, eyes bulging. “What – what is that?” In his mind he yelled the question, but it came out as a hoarse whisper.
“This is the future, Mr. Tannor. Have a look.”
Ethan stared in amazement at the levitating show that unfolded halfway between him and Wallace, and his first thought was: Where’s the man behind the curtain? Where was the Great and Powerful Oz who controlled the witchcraft his eyes were seeing but couldn’t comprehend?
He snuck a peek at Jackman again, hoping to discover he was the one behind the crazy light show. But the man stood silently, hands clasped behind his back. His face held no surprise; it was obvious he’d seen this display before. Ethan looked back at the moving images, which appeared to be a collage of news clips.
He forced himself to focus on what he was seeing, to convince himself that these were just camera tricks or special effects. In the back of his mind he suspected he was asleep somewhere, the fluid from the tranquilizer still flowing in his veins and this was some sort of drug induced nightmare.
When he saw the face of Vice President George Bush float before him, hand on a Bible as he took the oath of office, his wall of resistance began to crumble. He watched silently as the United States went to war in the Persian Gulf and stared, transfixed, at other images that floated past. An older version of Arnold Schwarzenegger – a man he only knew as The Terminator or Conan the Barbarian – was standing in a suit and tie at a podium giving a speech, words at the bottom on that screen showing that he had become Governor of California. Momentous events and other horrors proceeded to unfold, and then came footage of tanks rolling through the streets of New York City. The Statue of Liberty bombed into pieces.
Etha
n looked away at that point, his jaw clenching. “Shut it off,” he growled.
Wallace complied, and the holograph closed in on itself, jetting back down to return to its point of origin. He stowed the tablet back inside the desk. “When diplomacy dies, anarchy will rule.”
For several beats, Ethan remained quiet, processing what he’d seen. Finally, he found his voice. “Alright, let’s say I do believe you.” That sounded lame, even to him. How could he not believe what he’d seen? Special effects in movie-making weren’t that sophisticated. Not yet, anyway. “So where do I fit into all of this?” He swept his eyes around the room, part of him still hoping to catch a glance of The Great and Powerful Oz playing tricks on him.
Wallace approached Ethan and stood within arm’s distance. “We need a candidate, and your record is more than par for the course. You joined the Air Force at nineteen, crossed from blue to green, and ended your military service as an Army Ranger. Shortly afterwards you began your police career and with the backing and influence of your uncle you secured yourself a spot as a detective in record time.”
Ethan averted his eyes to hide the unsettled feeling that came over him. The man wasn’t reading from a file, he was recounting Ethan’s life from memory.
Wallace continued, “You’re proficient in at least two forms of hand-to-hand combat, and according to your armed services vocation and battery tests you scored high enough for any position. Most of your military files are classified, but with the right phone calls I could have access to them. I doubt that’s necessary, though; considering the unit you were in, you saw your share of the battlefield.”
“So, you can recite my dossier, that’s phenomenal,” Ethan said, tasting bile on his tongue. He brought his eyes back around to Wallace. “But if you want me to take this on blind faith, you’re doing a horrible job. This is the second conversation I’ve heard in as many days that makes no sense.”