stuff is strictly NYC. These guys? Much bigger in the 80’s. Kind of on a down slope now. Think Mickey Mouse Club for Global Domination. Oh c’mon, lighten up. We’re fighting a losing battle here. Supporting a cause that’s already lost. What the hell. Have fun with it.” She went Cole Porter on him, breaking into song: “We’re a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop! But baby if we’re the bottom, they’re the top. Say ‘camembert’!”
Picking up a digital camera, she snapped a picture of a beleaguered-looking John, then turned back to the computer where she opened a new window onscreen and began mocking up a fake ID.
23 Poker Face
The white Humvee cruised smoothly along the restricted HOV lane, passing mile after mile of cars seemingly stitched together at their bumpers and going nowhere fast in the outer lanes. There was no scenery to speak of. The road ran through an artificial valley monotonously defined on either hand by bland high-rise apartments and nondescript office complexes. After about half an hour the car skirted the Potomac river for a brief forgettable stretch, then lost itself temporarily along Arlington streets and byways, before gliding to a stop at the rear entrance of an imposing Colonial Revival mansion. James came round to help Jane out of the car.
“Good morning, Mrs. Doe.” He bowed, gesturing toward the house. “And welcome to another day in paradise.”
“I haven’t had the first one yet,” Jane pointed out, noting the absence of fencing or other external security features. “I can’t very well have another.”
“Ah, but I am in a position to promise you an endless supply. The old rules don’t apply here, you’ll find.”
Jane paused to study the graceful French doors, surmounted by an ugly black surveillance camera. “Did they take it down?”
“Take what down?”
“The sign,” Jane said.
“The sign,” James repeated, trying to get her drift.
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
James nodded, comprehending at last. “That was the old sign. We’ve ordered a new one: “Abandon hope all ye who can’t get in.”
He ushered her into a largish sunroom that had been converted to a security post complete with monitors, computers, and weapons lockers. Through a doorway leading into the main house, Jane could see uniformed maids and other staff in business attire bustling up and down a long corridor, apparently setting up for a breakfast meeting – laying a refreshment table in the wide reception hall, setting out a coffee urn and china, ferrying stacks of folding chairs into a paneled room. A bittersweet waltz – Songe d’Automne? - filled the air with subdued gaiety.
“Senor Cristobal aqui?”
James addressed this question to a female guard who was sitting at a desk with her back to the door, listening to Lady Gaga and playing ‘Left Behind’ on her security monitor. The guard jumped up to snap a salute, the music blaring from her discarded headset.
Can’t read my, can’t read my
No he can’t read my poker face
Jane covertly surveyed the metal gun cabinets, which were not padlocked. James caught her eye and she flicked at a voile curtain dismissively, as though critiquing the decorating job. “I would have gone with the plantation shutters and the M16s, but hey, that’s just me.”
In the reception hall, a real live butler relieved them of their coats and James guided Jane to an immense wooden door that opened into a room that was half chapel, half library. He gave a peremptory knock and entered without waiting for an answer. A weak and watery light was beginning to fill the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on an east-facing front portico, but most of the illumination came from a roaring fire. Before the ravenous blaze stood a tall, shambling, pleasant-faced man in his late sixties.
“Reverend Poe, Jane Doe.” The right Reverend Christopher Poe and Jane shook hands. Brisk. Businesslike.
“So you’re the little lady who was about to make the big war.” Behind Jane’s back, James waved his hands in warning; Jane looked quizzically at the Reverend, then turned to look at James, who had ceased his frantic motions, resumed a mask of calm, and taken a seat on a large leather sofa.
Turning back, Jane smiled sweetly and said, “So you’re the little man who’s about to take over the world.”
James leaned on the arm of the sofa and covered his mouth with his hand.
“Heavens,” Poe said, looking from James to Jane. “What an idea.”
“That’s not what you do here?” Jane persisted.
“The only thing we do here is the Lord’s work,” Poe motioned for her to take a seat beside James.
“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand your interest in me. I wonder if you’ve seen my resume?”
“Well you see it’s not about my interest, it’s not about me or about you, for that matter. It’s about all of us working together in the name of Jesus for the greater glory of God.”
“And the guns in the back room?” Jane prodded facetiously, pointing over her shoulder.
“Can you ask? An unfortunate sign of the times. You have already alluded to the fact that we have a special purpose and a special ministry. Our flock includes the very rich and the very powerful from every corner of the planet. Their safety and well-being is of course an overriding concern.”
“Of course,” Jane murmured.
“Also their privacy. The world being what it is, so endlessly divided and contentious, much of what we do must take place out of public view. To be effective - and to prevent misunderstanding. “
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?” Jane quipped.
When Poe answered, he spoke with an iron deliberation. “What happens in this house - never happened.”
A clock on the mantelpiece chimed the quarter hour. James cleared his throat and said, “Needless to say, Jane is here because we’ve agreed to let bygones be bygones. She’s ready to rejoin the fold, aren’t you, Jane?”
This assurance seemed to please Poe, who instantly reverted to his genial avuncular self. “One big happy family, that’s what we like to hear. The husband too, I trust?” His gaze shifted quizzically from James to Jane and back again. James looked to Jane for her answer.
“One big happy family,” she echoed, but with just enough irony to earn a sharp glance from James.
Just then, Sebastian Ball, a wooly-headed young agent Jane had last seen tied by telephone cords to a motel chair, stuck his head in the door. Glimpsing Jane, he stopped for a moment, confused. Then he addressed James, “Got a minute?”
James stepped around the door and Poe took the opportunity to seat himself next to Jane. He studied her in silence for a moment. Then said, appraisingly, “Yes. I see. This is the next step. “For he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God.” You’ve made the right decision and you can count on our gratitude. And our blessing.”
“She?” Jane interjected.
“She?”
“She beareth not the sword and so forth?”
“I personally have a fondness for First Corinthians: ‘Let your women keep silent,’ ” Poe remarked affably. Jane’s eyes began to sparkle dangerously, as even James could see half a room away. He abruptly ended his colloquy and made haste to rejoin the conversation. But Poe was done. “Welcome to the ranks of the chosen, Mrs. Doe.” He rose and made a shooing motion. “And now you children run along and make sure the trains are running on time. I see our guests are starting to arrive. And I need to brush up on my sermon.”
Through the windows, in the ugly dawn, foreign dignitaries, military brass, and business tycoons of many nationalities, along with their assorted female consorts, could be seen pulling up along the circular driveway in every kind of limousine. Despite the extreme cold, many gathered in small knots and paused to socialize on their way up the front steps.
Poe had already seated himself at a massive felt-covered desk that had the look and feel of an over-sized pool table. “We’ll have a cozy little
chat,” he promised, “when things aren’t quite so hectic.”
24 Bridge Burning
In the hacker cave under Murky’s Coffee, Nine Inch Nail’s “Just Like You Imagined’ clicked on. The room began to fill with eerie dissonant synth chords, corrected by a somber piano, driven forward by a drum intro of astonishing fury, joined at last by fearless guitars in a war against the eternal and the inevitable. Jen stood up.
“They’re playing our song.”
By no stretch of the imagination comfortable with the situation in which he found himself, John demurred. “Jen, I have to be honest. That,” he pointed at the computer displaying the mind-bending financial reports, “could be as bogus as hell.”
Jen agreed. “Could be. And the economy is alive and well. And your house is still standing. Look. This is not about conspiracy theory. This is about financial empire, power, and global arrangements. NAFTA? BIS? Yeah, I might as well be speaking Greek.” She slung a computer bag over her shoulder and started up the stairs.
“What about Jane?” John called after her.
Jen came back to face him. “Two things. If we don’t do this right here, right now, we may never have another chance and what comes next will make the current mess look like a birthday party at Baskin-Robbins.”
“That’s only one thing.”
“You can see we have enough dirt to do some damage, but it’s really only a tiny snapshot of a monster story. Half a bargaining chip is better than