“Behind you across the street. In those trees by the children’s play area.”
Mom turned around and stared at the trees in question. I heard a cracking sound, then a bang like an explosion. Distantly among the trees someone yelped. Crashes, booms—leaves flew into the air—the sand under the swing set rose in a dust devil and swept into the foliage. A man’s voice screamed in rage. Dad came running out of the apartment. I saw Maureen hauling the kids away from the open front door. Ari drew the Beretta and jogged across the street, but before he reached the play area, we heard a motorcycle start up and drive off with a roar. Ari returned, and we all listened to the sound dying away downhill.
“I wonder what caused all that?” Mom said. “I sometimes think this place is haunted.”
“Deirdre, for the love of God!” Dad snarled. “When will you admit that you—”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Mom turned on him. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. He’s gone.” She scrutinized me one last time. “That jacket’s too big for you. I wish you’d get some clothes that fit.”
With a toss of her head she marched past us all into the building. Dad sighed, shrugged, and followed her. Ari muttered something under his breath in Hebrew. I didn’t ask for a translation.
We returned to our flat and work. Ari had his usual mysterious online research, and I had a case that I’d been working on for months, ever since I’d returned to San Francisco at the beginning of the year. I’d picked up the trail of the Chaos masters in the form of a would-be coven, a small group led by worshipers of the Peacock Angel, who were pretending to be practicing ritual magic to cover their drug dealing. They’d come from the deviant world level known as Terra Three, or as I called it for convenience, Interchange, because it contained a plethora of gates to other levels of the multiverse. Unnatural gates, that is—they’d been created by a disaster that had turned Terra Three into a radioactive hellhole.
I’d seen the disaster in a vision where I stood on some kind of height and looked down at a city. An enormous spray of energy, colored like the rainbow, fell into view from high above the Earth. When the rainbow lights finally disappeared, the buildings on the skyline glowed with an evil violet glare. As the sunlight faded into night, I smelled rotting meat, the overwhelming, gagging stench of corpses.
Not a happy vision, no. At first, the vision and the Chaos master case had seemed to have nothing to do with one another, but I’d found the link in the nature of the deviant Peacock Angel cult. Islamic clerics believed that this cult identified the Peacock Angel with Satan or Ahriman, both symbols of the principle of Chaos Unbound. Could their worshipers be good candidates for the authors of that terrible disaster? The hypothesis seemed plausible.
What on our world level was a small, weak cult might well have been a powerful force toward evil on some other world, capable of the destruction I’d seen. Another possibility was that the dark cult had found a home on Interchange after the gate creation, when the survivors reacted to the disaster with despair and cynicism. At the very least, the cult could be profiting from that despair. The society I’d seen there lived and breathed Chaos.
I’d reported the vision to the Agency weeks ago, but so far Seymour, our interpretation expert, had made no comment. I sent him a follow-up e-mail and learned the problem: he had yet to find a high-level astrophysicist who could be trusted to keep his or her mouth shut about the interpretation.
“No one in the Agency’s qualified,” Seymour told me. “I’m sure not!”
Bureaucracy again! I could understand and sympathize while still feeling frustrated. Annoyed, even—I’ll admit it. I did, however, realize that I had a possible way to run a cross-check on my own.
Another piece of the puzzle: I’d recently investigated a self-taught visionary named Reb Ezekiel, who had a direct connection to Ari’s family. He had psychic talents, and significant gifts at that, but he’d never learned how to check his internal perceptions against the outer world. He sincerely believed aliens who looked like cherubim were going to invade the Earth in a swarm of spaceships shaped like the Ark of the Covenant. Crazy? So you’d think, but I could see a different explanation. Maybe Reb Zeke had stumbled onto some real—though symbolically presented—threat to the cosmic Balance between Chaos and Order, like, for instance, whatever force had destroyed Interchange. Ambiguity again—the psychic’s curse.
Although he’d died of pneumonia a couple of months earlier, at one point in his career Reb Zeke had published a set of books about his visions. I spent two hours hunting around the Internet for copies but found none available anywhere, not on specialized sites, not on the big British rare booksellers, not even a pirate copy in a murky scan. On various book blog sites, several collectors of occult material commented on the lack. One person repeated a rumor that the publisher had been bribed to take them out of print.
Could I be seeing another feather from the Peacock Angel’s wings?
I included these theories in my daily report to the Agency. My failure to find Reb Ezekiel’s books left me with only secondhand versions of his prophecies. Fortunately, I had another source, if I could access it.
My contact for this source had gone downstairs to perform the horrendous series of exercises he did to keep in shape. I did my best to remain ignorant about Ari’s workout routine. In an hour or so, Ari came back upstairs and put his stinky gym clothes in the washer. He took a quick shower, started the washer, and grabbed a bottle of his favorite storm-gray sports drink from the fridge. With smiles and wiles I let him get comfortable on the sofa, but when he picked up his cram book, I struck.
“Before you immerse yourself in trans-world law codes,” I said, “there’s something we need to discuss.”
“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow.
“I really need to contact your mother.”
He dropped the book. Swearing in several languages at once, he fished around on the floor till he found it again. He clutched it in both hands and scowled at me.
“Why does that make you so uptight?” I said. “Do you think she’s going to hate me or something?”
“Quite the opposite. I’m afraid you’ll get along famously.”
“And?”
“You’ll hear all the ghastly stories of things I did when I was a child, the sort of things every man wishes his mother would forget.”
“I take it she told them to a previous girlfriend of yours.”
The scowl deepened.
“And I take it that means yes,” I went on. “But, look, I don’t want to ask her about you. I want to ask her about Armageddon and Reb Ezekiel. Itzak Stein told us that she was part of the inner circle on the kibbutz. She must know the details of the visions. I can’t ask Zeke, after all.”
“Right. Being as he’s dead.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, I won’t mention our relationship. I’ll use my cross-agency identity, and so I’ll just be yet another government agent asking for a debriefing about the rebbe and his weird retro kibbutz. She should be used to it by now.”
Ari sighed and contemplated the ceiling. “Too late for that.”
My turn for the “oh?” and I put some force behind it.
“Well,” Ari went on, “I do occasionally send her an e-mail. It’s the least I can do, keeping in touch. She is my mother. She appreciates hearing from me.”
“Yeah, and I applaud you as a dutiful son and all that, but what do you mean, too late?”
“I told her I’d met the woman I was going to marry. It’s the sort of thing mothers want to hear, isn’t it? And we are engaged.”
“Yeah, but I am not going to marry you. I’m not going to marry anyone.”
“I know that. I didn’t know it when I sent the e-mail.”
I decided against kicking him. After all, I did want something out of him.
“Okay,” I continued, “I get it now. When I contact your mother, she’s going to treat me like your intended. And you figured I’d be furious when she gushed about it.”
/>
“Something like that, yes. She’s not really one for gushing.” He hesitated briefly. “Are you furious?”
I sighed and consulted my mental state. “Annoyed, but not furious.”
“Aha! A step in the right direction.”
I ignored that comment. “But look,” I said, “speaking logically and all, I really need to know more about Reb Zeke’s visions. There’s a possibility that he picked up on something real unpleasant coming our way. She can probably tell me what I need to know. I told you about the vision, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so suppose Reb Ezekiel was correct about an interstellar invasion force heading for Megiddo. Wouldn’t Israel have need to know?”
Ari stared stone-faced. “Do you really think—” he began.
“I don’t know what I think. That’s why I need to consult with your mother.”
The stone face transformed into droop-eyed martyrdom. “Oh, very well,” he said. “I suppose you want her e-mail address.”
“Yeah, exactly that. Do you know if she has video conferencing capability?”
“I don’t, no, but you can ask her. I doubt if she has a scrambler or an encryption system at her end, though. Itzak might be able to figure out how to rig something up here that will protect the data there.”
Ari wrote the e-mail address of his mother, Shira Flowertree, on a sticky note and handed it to me. She’d been married twice since leaving Ari’s father. When I asked Ari about the current husband, him of the unusual moniker, he responded with an inarticulate growl.
“Er,” I said, “I take it you don’t like him.”
“You’re quite right. He’s a vegan.”
“They can sometimes be annoying, yeah, but—”
“It’s not the only thing. Look at his sodding name. What was wrong, I ask you, with Blumbaum? Not good enough for him, so he had it legally changed. Besides, he wears clothes made from handwoven fabrics.”
“Sounds like he belongs in Berkeley.”
“That’s not a recco in my book.” Ari made a sour face. “Berkeley or Glastonbury. Hard to say which is worse.”
“I’ve only been there once, but I liked Glastonbury.”
“You would! But as for Lev, I dislike the way he wormed his way into my mother’s life. Popped up out of nowhere, and the next thing I knew, he’d moved in with her.”
“Where did she meet this guy?”
“At an astrology class.” Ari looked more sour than ever. “In Hampstead.” He ostentatiously opened the cram book and glared at a page. I figured the subject of Mr. Flowertree had been closed.
I had an e-mail account separate from the Agency site, though it was heavily encrypted in its own way. When it came to writing the e-mail, I decided that I could humor Ari a little or at least refrain from embarrassing him. I opened by telling Shira how happy I was to have her son as a partner, then got down to business. I figured I was safe in assuming that she had some psychic talents of her own and would thus understand about the ambiguity inherent in Reb Ezekiel’s vision of Armageddon.
“I’m afraid that he might have seen some real trouble ahead,” I told her. “Not flying saucer people, but trouble nonetheless. I’m hoping you can tell me what sort of images and narratives he received.”
I’d just sent the e-mail when Spare14 called Ari. His higher-ups in TWIXT “would prefer,” as he put it, that I have official clearance before I’d be allowed to accompany Ari. We had an awkward three-way conversation on the subject that boiled down to protocol and procedures and Spare14’s supervisor’s justified fear that Y would cut up rough if provoked any further. Best I stay home, according to this mysterious higher-up, and TWIXT would provide a new bodyguard.
“No,” Ari snapped. “I’m her bodyguard. No one else need apply.”
“They’re being unreasonable, I know,” Spare14 said in a soothing tone of voice.
“So is my handler,” I said.
“We simply must know by tonight. Do you think you possibly can get him to act that quickly?”
“I’ll try.”
“I suppose that’s all any of us can do.” Spare14 paused for a sigh. “I’ll continue pursuing the matter on my end. Do let me know as soon as you learn anything further.”
I promised I would, and we ended the call. I returned to the computer and checked the time: not quite eleven, which meant two PM in Washington. I didn’t have a lot of time left for changing Y’s mind.
Ari drew the Beretta and wandered down the hall to look out of the windows in our bedroom, which gave a clear view of the garages out in back of the building. I thought he was just making his usual rounds, but I felt a danger warning when I heard him talking on his smartphone. He was calling the police. I took a few steps down the hall only to have him yell at me.
“Stay in the front of the building, but get away from the window!”
“Okay,” I yelled back. “But are you at risk?”
“Never mind that now! Just follow orders!”
“Yes, sir!” I added a sauce of sarcasm to the words. “On the double.”
He ignored it.
I went to the head of the stairs that led down to our front door and sat down on the top step. That way, I figured, I could always run outside if trouble came up the back steps. I could feel my pulse racing busily along while I wondered what in hell was happening. Not hearing gunshots was a good sign, but I would have preferred more information than that. I ran a couple of scans, including a Search Mode for danger. Nothing. I got up and went back to the hallway.
“Ari!” I called out. “I’m not picking up any threats.”
“I don’t care. Stay in the front of the building!”
I returned to the living room and heard sirens wailing. I placed them as coming down Moraga. The wailing grew louder, and I heard them turn onto our street with a screech of tires. A squad car and a small fire engine pulled up in front of our building. Ari came running down the hall, gun in hand.
“What—” I began.
“Suspicious vehicle, potential car bomb.” He barked out the words and pushed past me. “Follow me out. If someone shoots at me, duck back inside.”
Ari clattered down the stairs. He opened the door partway, showed himself, ducked back behind the door. No one shot at him. He flung the door open and raced out to join the police on the sidewalk. Since I could pick up absolutely no danger from anywhere, my pulse had steadied itself. I proceeded more slowly. The front door opened directly onto a small porch, the landing at the head of the stairs—these open to the sky—that led down to the street. I leaned over the stucco wall to listen.
The uniformed officers were taking the potential threat seriously. They drew their guns and followed Ari around the side of the building. Just across the driveway stood a big apartment house. When I looked up, I could see the people in the corner apartment on the second floor staring out their window. The crew from the fire department stayed on board their vehicle and waited out in the street. I did another scan: still no hint of physical danger, though I picked up danger of another kind with my normal senses.
I heard voices—angry voices—out in the driveway. One of them was Ari’s, and the other belonged to a woman who was practically screeching with rage. Curiosity drove me down to the bottom step.
“My sister’s car!” The woman bellowed. “Why can’t she park there?”
“I told you,” Ari snapped. “Restricted area.”
“There’s been nothing but noise and trouble since you people moved in! I don’t care if you are a damn cop.”
Time to intervene! I ran around the side of the building and saw what I’d feared to see. The woman, short, stout, blonde, and as furious as a banty hen when her chicks are threatened, was standing much too close to Ari. Her hands were on her hips and her face was scarlet with rage. So was Ari’s. The two uniformed officers stood uselessly nearby and merely stared at the pair of them.
“Ari!” I called out in a nonthreatening singsong. “Anger manageme
nt!”
Ari took a couple of steps back. I rushed in between them. The woman finally realized that the situation had taken a dangerous turn. She moved back and clamped a hand over her mouth. From where I stood I could see the offending vehicle, a small white sedan, parked parallel to and only a few feet from our wooden back steps and the plastic recycling and garbage bins.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “But don’t you realize that all these men are armed?”
“Oh, God!” she spoke through muffling fingers.
I ran a quick Subliminal Psychological Profile on her. Terror had replaced rage.
“Does that car belong to your sister?” I asked.
She nodded a yes. Her SPP revealed that she was telling the truth.
“I’m so sorry for the trouble,” I continued. “There have been death threats. Could your sister move her car around to your side of the back lot?”
She nodded, then turned and bolted for the open side door of her building. One of the cops snickered, then stifled it. Ari pointed at the white sedan.
“If that had been a car bomb,” Ari said to me, “the building would have caught fire.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure would have.”
“It was the way it’s parked,” he went on. “Very suspicious.”
“Maybe, except we’re not in Israel at the moment.”
Ari blinked at me, glowered, and let out his breath in a sharp sigh. I could feel that he had his rage back under control. The police holstered their weapons, and in a few seconds, so did Ari.
“I’ll let you finish up here,” I said, as cheerfully as I could manage.
I left before he could object. He’d called out the troops, I figured, and he could deal with them. When I reached the front steps, I did wave to the firefighters and yell, “All clear! Thanks!” before I hurried upstairs again. My hands were shaking from the close call—not from any hypothetical firebomb, but from Ari’s temper. I understood why his mysterious deep cover agency and Interpol both were letting him move over to TWIXT. He was one of their best officers in many ways but, in others, the proverbial loose cannon.
Even though the incident had been a false alarm, I could use it to my advantage. Before Ari came back upstairs, I called Y’s secretary and asked for another trance conference.