Born of hatred.

Changed by magic.
This time they're here.

Something is out there,

getting closer,
moving in the darkness,
growing ...

In ffuid Silence

TM

In the heartland of America, an agent for the Hoffmann Institute

has disappeared. As he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old
madman, his colleagues uncover a terrifying plot-one whose
roots lie in Nazi Germany but may reach to the highest seats of
world power.
 nan:
. Uf.11
·

(One)
In Hollow Houses
Gary A. Braunbeck

(11Do)
If Whispers Call
Don Bassingthwaite

(Three)
In Fluid Silence
G.W. Tirpa
(Four)

Of Ag�d Angels
Monte Cook
July 2001

(Five)
By Oust Consumed
Don Bassingthwaite
December 2001

(Six)

All Virtue Lies

G.W. Tirpa
April 2002
 \
· uARKOInR
' . l ,
.
. I �
I

.
I ..
,
'
, ,
', nA
 IN FLUID SILENCE
Dark•Matter"'
©2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual pe!$011$. living or dead. is
purely coincidental.

This book is protected under the copyright Jaws or the United States of America. Any
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are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

Made in the U.S.A.

The sale of this book without its cover bas not been authorized by the publisher. U you
purchased this book "'ithout a cover. you should be aware that neither the author nor the
publisher bas received payment for this "stripped book.·

"WAit Whitman•s Niece" quoted by kind pennission of Woody Guthrie Publications. Copyright
Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.
1¥rics by Woody Guthrie. Music by Billy Bragg.
Cover art by Ashley Wood
First Printing: l\4arth 2001
Libruy of Congress Catalog Card Number: ()().190767

987654321

UK ISBN: 0.7869·2033·5
US ISBN: 0.7869·1680-X
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 .A,.cknowledgments

Thank you Mary-Elizabeth Allen and Keith Strohm for even.

trying to unravel my German, and thank you to the evil geniuses
behind Dark Matter: Gary Braunbeck, Don Bassingthwaite,
Mark Sehestedt, and the really evil geniuses Wolf Baur and
Monte Cook.
For Richard E. Geis
 Dark Matter So Far

Michael "Fitz" McCain retrieves a jar containing frag­

ments of the brain of John F. Kennedy from a secret vault under
the National Archives in Washington, D.C., moments before the
building explodes.
Jeane Meara, an arson investigator for the Bureau of Alco·
hol, Tobacco, and Firearms, is sent to determine the cause of the
explosion but finds her theories as unwelcome as they are
impossible to believe.
Watching all this is the qu.iet form of Ngan Song Kun'dren,
an experienced agent of the shadowy Hoffmann Institute, a pri­
vate organization founded to investigate and stop the rise of the
Dark Tide.
Now the Hoffmann Institute's newest investigation team,
these three very different people are sent to Chicago. There they
must learn to work together when a supernatural force threat­
ens the life of a young woman and her unborn child-and threat­
ens the sanity of her husband. As the restless spirits of
Bachelor's Grove cemetery are laid to rest, Ngan, Fitz, and Jeane
may be starting to like each other....
 f.

·. i

w as it cold that day? .

It was November. People were wearing coats.
There was that woman in the red raincoat. Did he
see her? There were leaves on the trees, weren't there?
Was the side of the car cold? I can almost feel that
thin, cold steel feeling of your arm touching, resting
against the top of the car door.
The windows were down. The roof was off. I would
have felt the wind, cool and dry. Did he feel that?
Right now-and there is a right now, a now that
belongs to me, experienced by me, not him-right now
it's warmth. It's the same temperature as my blood, as
my body, my skin. I remember falling. I could feel that. I
can feel the dense wann against my eyelids. It's incred­
ible what you can feel with your eyelids. I never imag­
ined rd be where my most solid connection to the place
I was in was the feel of it gently resting against my
closed eyelids, but here I am.
Here lam.

1
 g.w. tlr p a

Me. Not him.

If there's a difference.
What did he feel? There were stories. The softness of a
breast every man in the world longed to feel, and there must
have been others, though only one familiar and reassuring.
There was the smoothness of the desktop, wide and impos­
ing. The smoother plastic of the telephone-a telephone with a
dial. I.can feel the tug at my cuticles-not pain but a comforting
discomfort that was so mundane in a time that isn't really so
·

long gone to be missed like that.

There was the feeling of a tiny hand in mine. Soft and warm
and depending on him-on me? Depending on him. No one
depends on me like that. No one with such small hands. A laugh
from them must have brushed his hair, his ear, his cheek. He
must have felt his children laughing.
He had pain. There had been an injury. I can feel the straight
back of the chair that helped. I wouldn't have to feel that pain if
it was an injury. That was his injury. That was his pain. Not
mine.
He'd have felt the wind on his face. Sea wind. Salt wind. Wind
from the ocean, across the deck of a yacht, not the wind coming
down a mountain. The wind would have been cold and damp, not
cold and dry. That was another difference. My cold wind has the
water frozen out of it. That cold wind is mine, not his.
It might have been cold that day. He'd have felt the cold rim
of the car door, even through his suit jacket. He would have felt
her hand in his, though by then was her touch accusatory? Was
it for the cameras and the illusion? She touched him by habit
then, didn't slie? Didn't her touch feel like habit then?
How could I know?
I can't know that.
That was him.
Could he feel the bullet enter his neck?
He must have. His hands went up and he could feel the
blood, couldn't he? It would feel warm and thick and pulsing like
what's pressing against my eyelids now. Is that what I feel now?
Is that what blood feels like?
 In f lul d 11 I e A ce

His hands went up, but could he feel by then, or was it

·
already over?
Could he feel the other bullet? The one that took his ear, the
whole side of his head off? He couldn't have felt that but I can
,

· almost feel it now. It would have been accompanied by wetness.

Everything worth feeling is accompanied by wetness. There
would have been blood and whatever else. I can feel his head
exploding even though it wasn't my head. It was his head, burst
like a balloon. ·
Her scream must have hurt his ear-the one still attached to
his head. He could feel his eardrum vibrate with the panic of it.
Panic can be a solid thing, like a moving wall. I can feel it. I can
feel the wall of it-the-wave rushing over, past, and through me.
I can feel her screaIIling.
It pushed him back and to the left, and I can feel my head
going there too, but goddamn it, it's not me. It was never me.
That was him. It was him.
He.felt the scream. He heard it, didn't he? And what the man
in the front seat said. What did he say? I can't remember. It was
simple words that anyone would say when they were sure, when
the sounds and the feel and everything else made it clear that
Oh
My
God
They're
Going
To
Kill
Us
All.
They. Us. AIL But not me. I wasn't there. That was him, that
was them, the four of them, the two hundred million of them and
more, but it wasn't me.
"They,• he said. He said, "They'.re going to kill us all." I can
hear it. The words echo in my head like a gift from his last sec­
ond to his second life. That's not possible. I've read that: I've
seen that in a movie, but I wasn't there.
 a .w. ti r p a

I'm not him .

He would have heard the scream even as he felt it. What

would that sound like? I can hear it. I can imagine it or remember
it. It's the sound of everything coming to a sudden, complete halt.
A sudden.
Complete.­
Stop.
Then silence like the scream of a lost child that ripped his
heart to shreds even as it too came to a jarring stop. I can feel
that too. How could I notfeel that?
I can hear my own heart beating now. It could be the warm,
dense something that's causing the roar in my ears, or it's stop·
ping me from hearing anything-stopping any sound from com­
ing in so my ears are compensating by listening to the mside.
That roar, the rushing, could be the blood pulsing through my
own skull. He would have heard his blood rushing out, not mix·
· ing through. Another difference between him and me.
But that would have been the last sound. He'd have had a
lifetime of sounds stored for me.
The touch of a child's breath would have been only one part
of the sounds of them. Laughter and tears and jokes that make
no sense. They'd have called out to him or been talking to them­
selves, playing with toys when they didn't think he was listen­
ing, or, better yet, didn't care if he was listening.
He'd have heard her voice and his own and his brother's and
another's. He would have heard a hundred languages spoken. I
can hear them all like a chorus of sighs. Some would be happy
to know where they'd both end up, others would recoil in horror.
I can still hear the blood rushing in my head.
I can hear words spoken in German.
"Sie sind hier unter fa!,sches Beglaubigungsschreiben gekommen,
aber Sie mochten irgendwie bleiben. •
I can't understand. He wouldn't have-everyone knows he
wouldn't have understood-but that doesn't make me him, or
him me.
"Siewollten, dass diese Landreise a!,sjede andere unterschiedlich
waren, aber in Ihre Lage,
vielleichtsollte es eine Landreisefiirzweisein. •
'
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

I heard those words.For two. That can't be-not really.

I've heard the sound of a voice from the farthest reaches of
the infinite and the sound of a voice from beyond the grave. I've
heard screams and whispers and lies and revelations. ·

So did he, I'm sure.

Mine make me different from him.
He heard the sounds of war. I've heard the sound of lies.
Which is worse?
I've opened my mouth to make those sounds-the sounds of
lies.Lies as bad as the ones told to me.Lies that tasted like
aspirin dissolving on my tongue. I've told lies that tasted like the
nape of a woman's neck and lies that tasted like nothing at all.
I've told lies that slipped out without substance or with a reality
·

solid enough for a taste.

I open my mouth now, and it pours in and tastes like Potenz.
It tastes like die Ausgang und die Anbruch des welt.
He would have tasted clam chowder. That was a joke from a
long time ago: clam chowder. Good chowder.
He wasn't a joke, though. There was never anything funny
about h-
I'm not breathing.
There's no air here.
If it isn't blood I'm in, it's certainly not air.
I'm alive.I have to be, but I can't be.
I'm drawing in what should be a breath through my nose, but
all that comes in is more of the same dense, warm something
that's pressing against my eyelids, roaring in my ears, filling my
mouth with tasteless nothing....
I can smell only memories.
Perfume, gunpowder, blood, rain on pavement, exhaust from
a jet engine ...
I can smell the food in the cafeteria at Yale. I can smell the
three-bean salad that came with my lunch but that I didn't take
because I hate three-bean salad. It smelled bad. It smelled like
three-bean salad. The three-bean salad was me, but was the rest
of it him?
The perfume was . ..? What was her name? She had red

. 5
 1 w. tl r p a
. .

hair, or brown hair, or maybe blonde hair. She had a laugh· he

couldn't remember the sound of. It might have been more than
one woman who wore the same perfume. It might .have been
Mar-
"Sie konnen die Poten.z riechen, konnen Sie nicht, Mikail?"
I remember someone saying that. You can smell the power,
can't you . . .
Michael?
· Me.
Not him-me. I don't remember what the "power" was or
what it smelled like. All I remember is ... not Jeane's perfume.
Does she even wear perfume?
And how do I know what he said?
How do I know what he asked me?
The words were clearly in German. It was Gernian, wasn't
it?
The world knew well enough that he didn't speak German,
so it couldn't have come from­
Nothing could have come from him.
I open my eyes, and there's nothing.
I'm sinking again.
I'm deep.
I've pulled in a breath of something too thick to be water, so
how could it be air?
When 1 expel it in a scream I hear nothing. I feel nothing
rattle in my throat.
Silence.
Darkness.
Nothing.
I can remember him, and I can remember me, and I can't be
sure which one was the movie and which was all too real. There
· was the thing underground, and the ghost in the cemetery, and
the jar full of­
The jar.
That's what he'd felt.
Thirty-seven years.
Thirty-seven years as pieces of himself-out of his body, in

8
 IR f lul d 1 I I e n ce

the jar. in the fluid, in the dead, dark silence of a vault under a
vault under a vault under a city full of vaults under vaults under
vaults.
Thirty-seven years.
Will I be in here for that long?
Have I been here for that long?
Is that what I took out, what I handed off, what I never
understood until it was gone? They must have put it in a vault
of their own, deep and locked away where no one could use
those pieces to make more of me.
That's where they got me. From that jar.
And that's where I've come back to.
Pieces, floating in fluid silence.

1
My hates have always occupied my mind much more actively and
have given greater spiritual satisfaction than myfriendships.
-Westbrook Pegler

Last night or the night before that,

I won't say which night
A seaman friend of mine,
I'll not say which seaman,
Walked up to a big old building,
I won't say which building,
And would not have walked up the stairs,
not to say which stairs,
Ifthere had not been two girls,
leaving out the names ofthose two girls.
-Woody Guthrie, "Walt Whitman's Niece"

I teach you the superman. Man s

i something to be surpassed.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Mein Langmut ist nunjetzt am ein Ausgang.

(My patience is now at an end.)
-Adolf Hitler, 26 Sept., 1938 .
 ;. :

.', N gan couldn't tell which was more a mess, the man's
office or his hands .
Fingers that were surely once graceful, long, and
tapered were now bulging with arthrii
t s. Veins made
them look as f
i they were made of wicker. Spots of
brown and even grey marred their color. They shook for
no other reason than their owner was an old man, and
old men have shaky hands. The nails were yellow for the
same reason.
His office was as cramped as every office Ngan had
ever been in. Offices, except ill television shows, were
always small. This one was lit by innocuous rows of
color-draining fluorescent tubes, The faint buzz of them
might explain, Ngan thought, why the world had gone
mad, except that the world had always been mad.
There were stacks of paper everywhere. Most of
them were white, with blocks of type making them
appear grey. There were sheets and pads of yellow legal
paper and other documents that hadn't started out

. 11
 I w . . ti r p a

yellow but had become yellow as years, then decades passed.

Ngan could smell the decaying paper even more strongly than
the oddly comforting smell of the decaying man. Considering the
nature of the old man's work, the fact that so many years had
passed was reassuring in itself.
The pile of paper in the center of the room concealed an old
oak desk. There was a telephone there, almost quaint in its two·
line simplicity. A clock radio on an equally cluttered credenza
behind the desk was nine minutes fast. There was a stain in the
middle of the faded tan. carpet that must have been coffee from
two or three years ago.
The walls were painted an institutional white that defied
description, opinion, or any response at all. There were framed
documents hung with little care on one wall. One was a plaque
engraved entirely in Hebrew, which Ngan couldn't read. The
smudged surface might have been gold but was probably
bronze. There was a diploma, a very old one, written in French.
The old man had attended the Sorbonne and had received the
degree in 1950. There were .others. Another degree, this one
from New York University. A "Certificate of Appreciation" from
Beth Israel Hospital. A certificate that had a very old photo·
graph of an old woman proclaimed to all the world that she was
a citizen of the United States of America. The woman's name
wa,s Tova Lieberman.
On another wall was a collection of photographs. There were
children dressed in clothes that placed them in the late nineteen
thirties or early forties. Those children must be in their seven·
ties or eighties now. There was a photograph of the old man the
way he looked maybe half a century ago wearing an Israeli army
·

uniform.
In the middle of the collection of photographs was an eight·
by-ten black·.and-white photograph of an American soldier, obvi·
ously circa World War II. The man's face was smooth and
innocent. His eyes sparkled with youth. His altogether ordinary
features made him look like a child going.to a Halloween party
dressed as a soldier.
Ngan stepped forward and looked at the photograph more

u
 II f lul • 1 1 I 1 I Cl

closely, but it revealed no secrets about the young man. He

heard a match strike behind him, and there was that sharp smell
of sulfur.
"I would.pffer you one,• Rabbi Ira Lieberman said, his voice
thickly accented with a sort of generalized European that was
!llsappearing from the world, "but I know you would say no."
Ngan smiled but didn't turn around. "I will accept someday,•
he said, "just to surprise you."
Lieberman moved so that his face appeared reflected in the
glass, like an old ghost hovering over the young soldier. "It can
be dangerous to surprise a man my age, Ngan, but I look forward
to it."
Ngan could see·a change in the reflection of Lieberman's smile,
and though he was about to turn around, he stopped himself.
"That is Thomas Francis Green,9 Lieberman said, "Corporal
sixteen when
Green of the Fifth U.S. Infantry Division. He was
that photograph was taken, a couple weeks or so after he lied
about his age and enlisted in the army because the radio reports
made it sound like the war was going to end. Thomas couldn't
bear the thought of missing it. Do you believe that? A young man
like that, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa?"
"He was a friend of yours?" Ngan asked, not entirely com·
fortable with the small talk but not wanting to rush the man.
Lieberman's face moved out of the glass, and he said, "I
hardly knew him, but I will never forget him. Corporal Green
made it into the army, made it to Europe, and did his part in driv·
ing the German occupation forces out of France. He saw things,
this young man, that he did not want to see, no matter how
much he thought he was ready for it or how heroic he thought
he was being. He went to war for all the right reasons-if there
can be good reasons to go to war. He fired his rifle in the direc­
tion he was told to fire it, marched in the direction he was told
to march, and never shirked his duty to God and Country. He
helped to save the world as much as any man ever did.•
Ngan nodded, knowing the rabbi well enough to know there
was a point coming in its own time.
"It was his unit that liberated Buchenwald on 6 April, 1945,"

.13"
 a .w. ti r p a

. Lieberman said, his voice still even and conversational. "That is

where the paths of Ira Lieberman and Thomas Green crossed, in
that part of Hell those poor boys stumbled into: They were told
to hate their enemy, and they did, but until that day, they
couldn't possibly understand what hate could mean, what hate
could be capable of."
Ngan turned around and faced the rabbi, who was leaning
lightly on a stack of papers on· the desk. The old man's eyes
twinkled from deep inside their wrinkled pockets, then blinked
away smoke rising from the cigar. Ngan let a breath escape from
his nose in a futile attempt to dispel the stench of the burning
tobacco.
"He showed you some kindness?" Ngan asked feebly.
Lieberman smiled, showing yellow teeth and a sincere jocu­
larity. "He and his friends freed me and the other Jews from
Buchenwald. ls that 'some kindness'? I think it was."
Lieberman motioned to a chair, the seat stacked with books,
and moved on stiff legs to a wooden desk chair.
"He sent you a picture of himself?" Ngan asked as he crossed
to the chair and began to stack the books gently on the floor.
"His mother sent that to me," Liebennan said, then grunted
as he sat heavily in the chair, "a few weeks after Thomas Green
killed himself."
Ngan stopped, a book-The Rse i andFall of the Third Reich­
in his hands . lie looked at Lieberman, who offered a reassuring
smile.
"There are things, I think," Liebennan said, "that once you
see, you cannot un-see. Young Thomas Green was a hero, but
the villaihs were worse than he thought they would be. They
showed him things he was too good, too innocent to live with."
"You keep his picture then," Ngan .offered as he sat, "to
remind you why you do what you do."
Lieberman laughed, expelling a puff of cigar smoke into the
cramped room. "I keep his picture," he said, "to remind others.
I lived for three year$ in Buchenwil.ld. That is not something you
forget, Ngan. The work I do is fuelled by that today as it was
"
fifty-six years ago.

14
 In f lul d 11 I e n ce

Ngan nodded and returned the rabbi's smile.

"It is always good to see you, my friend," Lieberman said,
leaning back in his chair, his round pot belly straining the but·
tons of his plain white shirt, his tie already loosened, "but I don't
think you came all the way from Washington, D.C., to talk about
Thomas Green, hmm?"
"I've come as far as Schiller Park, Ira,• Ngan said."They've
moved me to Chicago."
Lieberman's face brightened."Good news, this, yes?" he
said ..�This just happened?"
"I'm sony to say I've been here for more than five months,•
Ngan admitted.
"And it takes you this long to come visit your old friend,Ira
Lieberman?" the rabbi said, lifting one eyebrow in mock disap-
proval. "Such a shame." .
Ngan smiled and said, "There were ... unusual circum­
stances that required my attention,and the setting up of new
offices.•
"Unusual circumstances,• Lieberman said around his cigar.
"You and your unusual circumstances."
"There are always unusual circumstances, Ira," Ngan said.
"It is such that brings me here today, I'm afraid."
Lieberman nodded and said,"I will be of whatever help I
can, of course,but one day you should come see me just to talk.
I do value your insights.•
"And I yours,Ira," Ngan said with all si.Iicerity.
Ira Lieberman's office was in the basement of a synagogue
in the Chicago suburb of Skokie,Illinois. Few of the people who
came to the synagogue even knew the office was down there.
Lieberman didn't preside over any of the rituals that went on
above him. He tended files mostly, and he held onto and dis­
seminated information as necessary.Lieberman's work, ik l e
Lieberman himself, was growing old.Every year· that passed
made more and more of it obsolete. How long would it be before
the last Nazi war criminal, the last war veteran, the last camp
survivor was dead, claimed not by the bullet or the gas chamber
or the gallows but by time itself?
. 15
 u .w. ti r p a

"You have a name?" Lieberman asked.

"Hans Reinhold Erwiihlen," Ngan said in a clear voice. He
wasn't surprised by the reaction the name elicited in Lieberman.
The rabbi's face turned pale, and the twinkle disappeared
from his eyes. "Erwiihlen," he said. He took the cigar from his
mouth and, hand still shaking, found an ashtray resting off kil· ·
ter on a stack of spiral notebooks. He tapped ashes off the tip of
his cigar and looked at Ngan. "This is a name I was happy not
to have heard in a good many years."
"You know of him, then?" Ngan asked, unnecessarily.
Lieberman put the cigar back in his mouth and smiled at
Ngan. The twinkle came back to his eyes and Ngan found him·
·

self sighing in relief.

"Hans Reinhold Erwiihlen," Lieberman said, "was a close
friend and confidante of Adolf Hitler's-from the early days,
mind you, before the burning of the Reichstag, before the war. He
was a dangerous man, an ideologue. He actually believed all of
it, was perhaps the architect for much of what became the Thi!d
Reich. He held this position and that with the army, the Gestapo,
the Nazi Party. Hitler moved him around a lot, or he moved him·
self. There's reason to believe he was-Ah, I see."
Lieberman took a long draw from his cigar and coughed just
a little as he exhaled ·the smoke. Ngan tipped his head to one
side, waiting for Lieberman to finish. The rabbi stood and
crossed to a row of four metal filing cabinets, each a different
color, a different size, from the last. He opened the top drawer
in the second cabinet and fished around in it as he said, "I can
see why you would be interested in this one."
Ngan waited patiently as Lieberman lifted a plain manila
folder from the cabinet and opened it like a book. He fumbled in
his pocket and produced a pair of reading glasses, which he bal·
anced carefully on the tip of his nose. He shifted the folder for·
ward then back until it was obvious that whatever was written
there was finally in focus.
• 'The Jewish scourge has bewitched this continent for cen·
turies.' Erwiihlen himself wrote this in a Nazi newspaper in July
of 1935. 'These wizards can be defeated with bullets, but it will
18
 I I\ f lul " 'I Ie " tll

take a sorcery of our own to put an e .nd to the whole of them.' It

·might be the first time someone said, in so many words, that the
goal of the Nazi Party ought to be the extermination of the Jew­
ish people."
"By the use of sorcery?" Ngan said.
Lieberman looked up and regarded his friend with a devilish
smile. "Hitler himself was obsessed with that sort of thing ...
among his many obsessions. You saw Raiders of the Lost Ark,
yes?" He winked at Ngan and chuckled, then sat down again.
Ngan was not sure what Raiders of the Lost Ark was, but he
smiled anyway.
"Hitler was a maniac in many ways, I think," Lieberman con­
tinued. "He pressed for research into things ilke the atomic
bomb, the jet plane-which he built, by the way-missiles­
which he also built-but also this magical thing, that old ritual,
the other silly occult something. He had dreams of psychic
assassins. He actually sent agents out-and this at . the height
of the war, mind you-in search of the Holy Grail. The Holy
Grail . ..r
Ngan smiled, wondering if maybe he knew more about
· Hitler's examinations into the occult and how successful he
actually was than even Liebennan could guess.Ira Lieberman
wasn't generally concerned with ·Hitler's failed attempts to
retrieve religious and occult relics. There were very real, very
living men who had taken scalpels and Lugers to six million
Jews-men who were living in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, or
Cleveland. It was these people Ira Lieberman was concerned
with, and Ngan, like any reasonable, compassionate person, was
glad that someone like Ira Lieberman was looking for people
like that. The Holy Grail would take care of itself.
."Erwiihlen wrote quite a bit about the necessity for research
into the occult," Lieberman said. "He wrote even more on the
superiority of the Aryan race and the evil represented by the
Jews. He was dangerous not so much for what he did-I hon­
estly haven't been able to find out much about what he actually
did-but for what he believed.He believed, this one, very �e-eply,
in this mad ideology. He wrote, he gave speeches, he served on

l1
 · g.w. tlr,a

committees, but I don't think he ever fired a shot in the war.He

wasn't in any of the camps, at least not for very Jong. He was as
consumed with hate as any Nazi-more so, perhaps, than the
many opportunists who gravitated to the party when the winds
of c
hange
. began to blow in Hitler's favor."
Ngan nodded and said, "You never found him?"
Lieberman's face froze, his eyes stuck on Ngan's. Ngan was
instantly embarrassed, his face flushed, and he tried hard to
think of some appropriate apology, though he wasn't sure if he'.d
insulted the man or not. .
"We never looked," Lieberman said at last. "After the war he
disappeared, probably to South America. I have files from Israel
that detail a cursory examination into his post-war where­
abouts, but nothing conclusive was ever reported. All the leads
to Erwahlen tended to reveal paths to other Nazis-real war
criminals responsible for torture, murder, the Final Solution­
but never to Erwiihlen himself. Cooperation with other govern­
ments, especially Washington, in regards to this man was ...
limited."
"Limited?" Ngan asked.
Lieberman knocked ashes off his cigar again and smiled,
then winked in a manner some might mistake as condescending,
but not Ngan.
"The American military intelligence establishment was very
interested in certain high ranking German operatives after the
war. The Nazis had been fighting the Russians for some time,
after all, and when the war was over and Russia became the new
enemy, these people had use, yes?"
"I've heard that ," Ngan said. "It is true?"
Lieberman shrugged and said, "They'll never say they did,
but they did. And when they did, they set the same sort of false
trails that surround Erwiihlen.•
"So Erwiihlen started working for the American government
after the war?"
Lieberman shrugged again and took another deep drag from
his cigar. Ngan wondered how the man could keep from gagging
on the awful smoke.

18
 In f lul d a i I e n ce ·
"I don't see why, honestly,· he said. "Like I said, Erwiihlen
was an ideologue-a sort of propaganda tool in some ways-but
he wasn't a decision maker. His importance to the Gennan war
effort was minimal at best, and he wasn't involved in their intel­
ligence apparatus. I honestly don't see what use he would have
been to the Americans. Of course, he was no rocket scientist."
"So he just disappeared?" .
"lt was the end of the war," Lieberman said. "Europe was in
chaos. You'd be surprised how easy it was to get out, to get to
South America, or South Africa, or wherever you needed to go.
Many of them just blended back into German society under
assumed names. Germans weren't as quick to tum Nazi war
criminals in to the Americans or especially to the Russians, as
they were to give up their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis."
·so he could be anywhere," Ngan said.
Lieberman laughed and shook his head. He slid a photo­
graph out of the file folder and hande.d it to Ngan. It showed a
man in a simple black suit, a Nazi pin prominent on his lapel,
standing next to Adolf Hitler on the famous balcony of the
Eagle's Nest. In the bottom right-hand comer of the photograph
was the year: 1944. The man next to Hitler was as old then as
Ira Lieberman was now.
"He'd have been a hundred and thirty-three years old last
month," Lieberman said, spreading his hands in dismissal,

. 19
 ..
$ f
he took a cab because it would make sense or her
to arrive in one.
Jeane Meara had been undercover before, but
that had been a long time ago and then not for very long.
She posed as a fertilizer salesperson in hopes that a cer­
tain KKK splinter group i:night want to build a bomb, but
the suspected bombers were arrested for assault after a
bar brawl before they could buy the bomb ingredients
from ace fertilizer saleswoman Charlene Tisdale. A
search warrant turned up child pornography in the
house they shared, and that was it. Into the tender care
of the Tennessee prison system they went head first.
Jeane had never actually been in the same room With any
of them, tliough in two weeks undercover she managed
to sell more fertilizer than any of the real salesmen at
·

the farm supply company in Rutherford County.

,.- Jeane was determined to be.rather less successful in
that regard during this undercover turn .
The cab turned onto Fullerton Avenue from the
 1 .w. ti r pa

inbound Kennedy Expressway and went only two blocks east

before coming to a complete stop. Traffic down Fullerton was
unpredictable at best, and she opened her mouth to chastise the
driver for his choice of routes, but· she thought twice and
stopped herself. It was the most direct route, and if traffic was
bad here, it was likely bad everywhere. She was running early,
and, maybe most of all, she still needed a little time to psyche
her$elf up.
It was dark, but the street was well lit and the SUV behind
them was doing a good job of lighting the back seat of the cab.
Jeane opened the purse she'd bought earlier that day, after get­
ting the word that the mark had finally called. Th�re was a
small compact there, which she took out and opened. She was
sure her makeup was all right,though she.wasn't used to wear­
ing so much. She wanted to check it one more time, though, just
as an excuse to look herself in the eyes again and remind her­
self that she knew what she was doing.
She tilted the little mirror up, and her left eye came into
sharp, close focus. She blinked at herself and muttered, "I'm too
old for this."
" 'Scuse, Miss?" the driver responded, startling Jeane. She
fumbled with the compact and almost dropped it. "You say some-
thing?"
.
The driver's accent was unidentifiable-Middle Eastern,
probably. His skin was dark and his hair black. He smelled
strongly of Brut and tobacco.
"I'm sorry," Jeane said feebly. "Nothing. I was talking to
myself."
"To yourself, huhr the driver asked, apparently deciding she
wanted to have a conversation. The cab moved forward half it$
length. "When I am alone, or when sometimes I am driving, . l
talk to God."
Jeane nodded and smiled. She looked into the little mirror
again, hoping that if she appeared concerned with her makeup,
the driver would stop talking to her.
"Do you pray?" the driver asked her, taking her off guard.·
"I'm sorry?"
 In f lui d a I I e n ce

"Pray," he said again. "Do you talk to God?"

"I'm not, uh," she said, not comfortable with any aspect of
the discussion. "I'm not really religious.n
"Ah," the driver said as if he expected the answer. "Neither
is God. He's just God."
Jeane didn't have the slightest idea what he meant by that.
She turned her attention to the corner of her eye. She was
sure that lines would appear spontaneously in the cab ride,
but they hadn't. Jeane was thirty-nine years old and had the
skin of a woman half her age. She smiled when she reminded
herself that someone half her age would be considered a girl,
·

a teenager.
"This is funny?" the driver asked, and she looked up, meet·
ing his eyes in the rearview mirror. Jeane was relieved to see
that the driver was amused himself. His eyes twinkled in .the
reflected light from the big vehicle still behind them.
"No, no," she said. "I'm sony. My mind is wandering."
"You are thinking about the man you are going to meet
tonight," the driver said with supreme sell-confidence.
Jeane tipped her head to one side and smiled, then glanced
away from the rearview mirror. She was oddly embarrassed that
she wasn't actually thinking about the man she was meeting but
was thinking about herself. It wasn't something she was prone
to do, and she had never been too concerned about her age, but
this was something someone younger should be doing. The
mark would be expecting someone younger, whether he'd said
"elegant"·or not.
"How did you know I was meeting a man?" she asked the
driver, as much because she was curious about what made him
think that, as to take her mind off the fact that she was about to
pose as a forty-year-old hooker.
"Oh," the driver �d. still looking at her in the mirror as the
cab pulled forward. The traffic was beginning to loosen up. "Oh,
of course a beautiful woman k
il e you is meeting a man."
Jeane smiled and looked to her right. The cab passed a chil·
dren 's hospital, and she suddenly felt guilty about smiling at a
stranger's compliment after worrying .that she was too old to

n
 I w . . ti r p a

pull off an undercover stint as a "classy, upscale kind of

woman." That's exactly what he'd asked for. A classy, upscale
kind of woman who would sleep with him for fifteen hundred
dollars an hour. .
She looked back at the rearview mirror and saw the driver's
eyes again. The lust was evident in his dark stare, and Jeane's
face flushed. She looked out the window again and saw a street
sign that demanded quiet in a neighborhood of old brownstones
that must have cost a million dollars each.
The SUV found a place to park on the street and pulled in.
The back seat of the cab went dark, the driver turned his atten­
tion to the street, and Jeane closed the compact. She picked up
her purse and dropped it n.
i A flash of reflected streetlight
bounced off the gun in her purse, and she Sighed, happy it was
there, though if she had to use it, it would mean she'd failed
completely.
She set her purse down on the seat next to her as the cab
came to a stop at the intersection of Fullerton and Clark. The
light was red, and a group of well-dressed young punks were
crossing the street, obviously on their way to the club near the
cQmer.
She looked down and smoothed the lap of her black dress
and knew that if her face betrayed her age, her body certain1y
wouldn't. She was in excellent shape for all the right reasons­
not vanity, but because she might need to use her body as a
weapon. She had, and more than once.
She'd bought the dress that same day as well. at the same
time she'd bought the purse and the shoes. The shoes were not
at all comfortable and even less practical. She reminded herself
again that she wasn't going to run around any more than she
was going to shoot someone, but she didn't like the shoes any·
way.
The cab crossed the intersection, and Jeane looked up. She
met the driver's eyes again, and some of the lust had gone out
of them, but he was attracted to her still. She'd seen that look
before and had mostly discounted it.
"Not much further, Miss," the driver said.

24
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

She nodded and watched a couple of expensive high-rise

apartment buildings.go by. Ahead of them the cro\\'.ded buildings
of Chicago gave way to the open spaces of Lincoln Park. They
turned right just before they got m the zoo, but Jeane ceuld see
the sign just ahead of them. She grabbed her purse again and
sighed when she realized her palms had started to sweat. This
wasn't the sort of thing she'd trained for, though since joining
the Hoffmann Institute, most of what she'd been trained for
didn't seem to apply anymore.
·
The cab ca.me to a stop, and Jeane instinctively glanced at
·

the meter. "Fourteen dollars, Miss," the driver said.

Jeane found a folded twenty doilar bill in her purse and
handed it to the driver. "Keep it," she said, though the driver had
made no move to .reach for change.
She opened the door of the cab and the sound of the street
flooded in on a wash of cool spring air. She stepped out, careful
not to trip on the high heels. She straightened and took a step
onto the sidewalk as she closed the cab door behind her. The cab
didn't pull away immediately, and she looked back. The -Oriver .
was looking at her, all pretense of trying to mask his attraction
for her gone now. The look made her feel dirtier than she already
felt, so she turned away quickly.
The cab pulled away slowly, and she could tell the driver was
still looking at her.
The cab had brought her to the right place. Jeane looked up
at the building, then glanced at her watch. She wasn't too early,
so she drew her courage around her and went through the heavy
glass door into the little lobby.
There was a doorman who looked up at her with bored, yel­
low eyes. His black skin was speckled with grey whiskers, and
his teeth were startlingly white. He forced a smile and said,
"Ma'am."
He was obviously waiting for her to say something, so she
said, "Roger Fenton. I'm here to see Roger Fenton.ft
"Mr. Fenton is expecting you?" the doorman asked. His eyes
flickered up and down her tight body, and Jeane felt herself
cross her arms.

. !5
 a . w . tl r p a

"Joyce Mannering," she said simply, using the name the

escort service had told her Fenton wanted her to use. No one at
the service knew why he liked that name.
The doorman smiled and picked up a phone from behind his
little desk. He punched a number and waited patiently, offering
·

Jeane a condescending smile.

"Mr. Fenton?" he said finally. "Yes, sir, Joyce Mannering.
Thank you."
· The doorman hung up the phone and nodded at a single ele·
vator. "Press P, ma'am," he said.
Jeane mumbled a thank you and went to the elevator. The
doors opened only a few seconds after she pushed the up button,
and Jeane could feel the doorman's eyes on her the whole time.
She stepped into the elevator and turned around. The doorman
was looking at her, and it took his eyes a painfully long time to
move up to meet hers. The elevator doors closed just as they
made eye contact.
"Too old, my ass," she said when she was alone.
She pushed the button marked "P." The highest number
below it was twenty-six. So Fenton lived in the penthouse. A
penthouse on Lake Shore Drive. He could definitely afford the
fifteen hundred dollars an hour.
The ride up the elevator gave her the last few minutes she
needed to calm and gather herself. She sighed once, deeply,
when the light above the door showed a blocky P. When the ele·
vator doors opened, she was ready.
She stepped out onto a thick, freshly vacuumed carpet. A set
of six-panel double doors with shiny brass hardware stood right
before her. She turned as the elevator doors closed behind her,
and she couldn't help feeling confined, even abandoned, know·
ing the elevatOr was already sinking out of reach.
·
To her left a richly framed mirror reflected a well-lighted pie·
ture of herself. She was beautiful enough to get what she needed
from Fenton. The dress was working for her, and if all else
failed, she felt confident enough that she could kick the man's
ass. Still smiling from that thought, she pushed the little glow·
ing button at the side of the double doors.

H
 ln f tut d 1 I I e tt ce

She could hear a faint buzz from inside and expected to hear
a lock being drawn back, but the door just opened.
Fenton didn't lock his door. He opened it wide in the manner
of someone who knew the person who had rang, though of
course he didn't.
Roger Fenton was almost exactly average height, and his
grey hair was well groomed. He was wearing a suit, which
seemed somehow odd to Jeane, who'd fully expected him to
answer the door in the nude, in drag, in leather-anytlring. !he
suit was tailored for him and looked it. His tie was a solid
maroon color Ronald Reagan might have worn. He wore wire­
rimmed glasses over large, deep brown eyes.
He smiled, revealing teeth only a bit less white than his
doorman's.
"Joyce Mannering?" h e asked, obviously knowing the
answer.
Jeane smiled, let her eyes close halfway, and nodded.
"Please," he said, "come n
i ."
.JI: enton was what Jeane liked to think of as a Post
Industrial Gentleman. He was courteous and polite
and refined in a gruff, American way. He moved
quickly, but in a determined fashion. He was comfortable
in his own honie, but barely. He moved from room to
room like a teenager moved through a mall-knowing
full well where everytbingwas, but aware that it was all
put there by someone else.
His decorator might have used the term Post Indus·
trial Gentleman as well. The place was too full of furni·
ture that was too heavy for Jeane's more contemporary
tastes. The furniture was all wood, varnished to a high
gloss. Some of the pieces looked like antiques, but they
were more likely new pieces designed to look like
antiques.
The apartment was clean-professionally clean­
and there was none of the mundane evidence of the
place being really lived in. There was no clutter. There
were no magazines or mail laying around. There were

29
 1 .w. ti r ' a

no television remotes balanced on the arms of chairs, no half­

finished projects or empty glasses. When Jeane followed
him into the surprisingly enormous living room, she saw
that their shoes made footprints n i the bone-white carpet as

if it had been vacuumed every time someone walked across

it.
There was no TV or stereo in the living room, no computer
or any other sign of technology. There was a cabinet that might
have. been made two hundred years ago in Virginia but was more
likely only a couple years old. Jeane guessed the TV was hidden
in there. The penthot!-se was big enough that Fenton likely had
an office here, so that's where the computer would be, a fax
machine maybe, certainly a telephone.
One wall was dominated by French windows and double
French doors that opened onto a narrow terrace. Beyond was
the darkness of Lake Michigan at night.
Jeane kept her hand on the little purse ·and managed to
remember to walk in what she hoped was an alluring fashion.
The rug was thick, and the heels made her footing treacherous
at best. She compensated by standing in one place.
Fenton stopped, realizing she wasn't following anymore.
"We'll need to get some business out of the way, then," he said
with a smirk.
It took Jeane a second to process what he was talking about,
then she smiled and said, "That's okay. You have an account at
the service, and they told me you understood the, uh . . . pay
structure."
Fenton laughed. He had a pleasant laugh. He came closer to
her, and she fought back the impulse to shrink away. He was
handsome and obviously successful, smart and educated, but
Jeane couldn't imagine having to sleep with the man. She knew
too much about him already, and the sight of. him left a bad taste
in her mouth.
"We should start with a drink," he said.
He looked at her, waiting for her to say something. She
could smell alcohol-not a lot, but it was ther�n his breath.
He hadn't- had enough to dull his eyes or his. senses. Maybe

H
 In f lul d 1 1 I a n ca

just one or two after a long day at work.

"WIDe?" she said quickly, knowing she could fake her way
through a glass of wine without getting drunk.
Fenton smiled alid turned, crossing the room casually-he
was at home after all-to a small bar set with sparkling clean
glasses and an array of crystal decanters. "Red or white?" he
asked along the way.
"White," she said, though she preferred red. For some· rea·
son she felt that if she'd asked for red it would have revealed too
much of herself to him.. She was in character, and her character
drank white.
She scanned the living room, taking in details quickly: the
three other exits, the white furniture, all leather, the coffee table
with nothing on it, and the wall of bookshelves full of books both
old and new.
"I have a reasonable Chardonnay," he said, and she noticed
just the trace of an accent that might have been New York or
Philadelphia, but a long time ago. "If that's all right."
"That's fine," she said, still not moving, "thank you."
Fenton walked behind the little bar and bent to retrieve the
bottle. He placed it gingerly on the top of the bar and reached
down again. He was looking somewhere under the bar when he
said, "It's not chilled, I'm afraid."
Jeane shrugged, not realizing that he couldn't see the ges·
ture. He looked up, and she had to shrug again. She smiled and
knew it looked sincere because in a way it was. She couldn't
help being amused that he seemed genuinely worried that a
hooker enjoy her wine.
He returned lier smile and said, amiably enough, "You can

come in. I don't bite. I'm sure they told you about me at the serv·
ice."
They had. They'd told hei: that his tastes tended toward the
mundane. He insisted on white women with certain features. He
liked women with large breasts and athletic bodies. He like cer·
tain facial features, blue eyes mostly, but he was flexible on that.
None of the girls who'd gone with him reported anything violent
or kinky. It was all very ordinary.
 u .w. ti r p a

Jeane nodded and said, "The girls all said you were a gentle­
man." .
This made him smile. He found what he was looking for
under the bar-a corkscrew-and started to peel the lead off
the bottle of Wine. "The girls,• he said quietly.
He started to uncork the wine, and Jeane ventured a few
steps into the room. She stopped next to a long," white leather
sofa.
Fenton nodded at the sofa and said, "Sit, please.•
She sat, crossing her legs and making a point of not smooth·
ing down her skirt. She figured she should show him some thigh
·

to keep the illusion intact.

The cork came out of the wine bottle, and Fenton poured
three fingers into a gleaming crystal glass.
"You look like someone,• he said, putting down the bottle of
wine and taking up a cocktail glass. He opened a leather·
covered ice bucket and broke up some ice with polished silver
tongs. "Marilyn Monroe, I think."
Jeane smiled. She'd heard that before but had always
ignored it. Most of the men who'd said that had been the type
who talked to her breasts, not her face. She assumed, and still
did, that the comparison stopped there.
Fenton poured a good three shots of a golden-colored liquor
into the glass, then dropped a few ice cubes into it. A few sec·
onds later, Jeane could smell the whiskey in the air. He put one
hand on the bar and leaned on it heavily. He took up his drink in
his other hand and took a long sip, looking at her with eyes that
were coldly appraising. Jeane had seen men look at cars that
· ·

way.
"You've never had anyone notice the resemblance?" he
asked.
She shrugged. "Men see what they want to see,• she said,
trying to make it sound chatty and succeeding well enough.
"I've been told I look like Cheryl Ladd.".
Fenton's brow wrinkled and he said, "No, no, definitely
Mari l yn." He set his drink down and came out from behind the
bar, going to the bookcases. He went right for the book he was

3l
 ID f lul d 1 1 1 1 n ce

looking for and pulled off a tan, oversized hardcover. From

where she was sitting she couldn't see what was written on
the spine.
Fenton flipped through the book, looking for something in it ·
as he came across the room to her. He sat down in a chair across
from her, and Jeane suppressed a sigh of relief that he hadn't sat
next to her. He found the page he was looking for and nodded.
He set the book down on the polished coffee table and turned it
around so she could see the photograph there.
On the left-hand page were two columns of text. On the
right-hand page was a full-color photograph of Marilyn Monroe.
Jeane had never seen this picture. She wasn't too interested in
movie stars.
"Her hair is different, of course," Fenton said, "but there's
a- Jesus, I forgot your wine." He stood up and went quickly to
the bar as Jeane looked at the photograph.
Marilyn Monroe was standing on a beach, wrapped in a
green towel. She might have been naked underneath. She was
holding the towel closed with her left hand and h�lding a
glass of wine-white wine-to her lips with her right hand.
She was smiling and Jeane had to admit her own smile was
similar. She had the same inward slope to her teeth she
always thought she should have. had fixed as .a kid. Marilyn's
nose was pointed in a way similar to Jeane's as well. It was
obviously windy the day the photograph was taken, and Mar­
ilyn's bleach-blonde hair was disheveled and dirty. Her skin,
like Jeane's, was freckled, but not too badly.
"I saw a movie," Fenton said, placing the wineglass on the
table next to the book, "where there's a group of call girls
who've all had plastic surgery to make them look like movie
stars."
Jeane flushed and didn't want to look up at him. She looked
back at the photograph in. the book and noticed the simple cap·
tion: just the year, 1962.
"Don't get me wrong, of course," Fenton said. "I'm sure
that's not the case-you don't look that much like her, but-. . .
Anyway, I meant it as a compliment."

.33
 a .w. ti r p a

"You don't have to-"

"J know,• he said, cutting her off.
She looked up at him, and he took another long sip, pursing
his lips. The look in his eyes changed, and all of a sudden Jeane
really felt like a whore.
He smiled, and Jeane couldn't help thinking he knew he'd
demeaned her in a very real, though very subtle way, and he was
enjoying it.
"Have you been doing this for a long time?" he asked. "You
aren't young-don't get me wrong, you're lovely and I enjoy
mature, sophisticated, experienced women, but . . .•
"Six years,• she said, making this part up as she went along,
"give or take. I was a"-she almost said cop-"hairdresser for
a while, but I got a divorce. He got everything, and there wasn't
much, so after a while I got sick of living paycheck to pay­
check." .
Fenton nodded, obviously only pretending to understand,
and drank some more.
"What about your she asked, leaning back, letting her dress
ride another half an inch up her thigh. "What do you do?" .
"That makeup you're wearing,• he said. "What is it?"
Jeane knew to say, "Natura."
Fenton nodded and said, "I'm the chief operating officer of
Natura Industries."
Jeane feigned being m i pressed. "That seems like kind of an
oxymoron," she said.
Fenton 's brow wrinkled again, and he was just about to say
something when he swallowed the rest of the whiskey n i one
gulp.
·

Jeane felt uncomfortable in the silence. She knew she had to

keep him talking. "I mean,• she said, "Natura makes you think
'natural,' but 'industries,' well . . ."
He smiled and nodded. "You don't want to know what
that really is you're putting on you face," he told her with a
wink.
He put his empfy glass on the coffee table, and she reached
for it, brushing the rough skin of his fingers with hers. She

34
 In f lul d 1 I I e n ce

picked up the glass and stood. Her dress clung to her legs a
little and again she made no move to fix it.
"Can I get you another one?" she asked, letting her eyes
settle on his. ·
"Thank you,• he said.
She went to the bar walking carefully on her tall heels. She
knew he was watching her walk. She pulled the stopper from
the decanter of whiskey and poured a little more than he had
poured for himself over the melting ice.
"Six years," he said. "That lllUSt be a lot of men."
She didn't turn around. Jeane put the stopper back in the
whiskey decanter and took the top off the ice bucket.
"If you don't want to talk about it . . ." he said. "The other
girls probably told you I would bring it up. I like to hear about
. . . it's part of . . . what I want.•
She, dropped two ice cubes into the nearly full glass of
whiskey and turned, a smile fixed on her face.
"It's okay,• she said softly, not moving.
"You've been with all sorts of men,� he said, looking at her
body. "Men like me?"
"Sometimes.�
"Rich men?"
"Sometimes."
"You don't know, though,• he said, finally looking at her face,
"before you get to their houses or hotel rooms, what they look
like?"
She crossed to the chair and held the drink out to him. He
didn't take it at first.
"Lean over and hand it to me," he said, his voice suddenly
husky and threatening.
Jeane was sure she was smiling as she leaned foiward at the
waist. She handed the glass to Fenton and he took a long,
unashamed look down the neck of her dress at her black lace
bra. "No,• she. said, "It's not up to me.•
He looked at her eyes, and she stood up. "You've had sex
with niggers," he said.
Jeane had expected to hear something like that. Both Ngan

35
 g.w. tlr,a

and the woman at the service had prepared her for it, but still
she could feel her face turn red.
"Not if I can help it." she said, knowing it was what he'd
want to hear.

38
 · I '·I·
i -'t j f
l :1 • Ji
J. .J:
l ''.i I
i ,,J 1
. 'rl .
.
,

:. N othing about the experience was natural. Nothing

about it made any sense in any logical framework.
It was a purely American experience, hurling
through the air in a titanium tube that weighed 255,000
pounds. Regardless of the very real and obviously effec­
tive physics of lift and aerodynamics, it was simply coun­
terintuitive. Ngan, who lived on a level almost everyone
in the western world would consider impossible, fic­
tional, even silly, recognized the odd reversal, but he
couldn't seem to do anything about it.
The flight attendant was finishing her safety presen­
tation, an act that made Ngan feel only less secure. If
the airplane was safe to travel on, why was the mental
preparation for a crash so important to the passengers?
• . . . and, of course, your seat bottom will serve as a
flotation device in the event of a water landing," the
falsely pleasant woman concluded, •. . . however
unlikely that might be between Chicago and Washing-·
ton, D.C."

37
 u .w. ti r p a

A few of the people in the cabin chuckled at this wholly

inappropriate joke. Ngan was not one of them. Anyone with the .
slightest sense knew that a "water landing" was another way
of saying "crash," and a floating seat cushion might best serve
to make one's corpse easier to pull out of the water with a
hook. The image made Ngan wish for a b'urial at sea. Add to
that the fact that these supposed members of the crew appar·
ently had no idea that they would; in fact, be flying over at
least one of the Great Lakes, and Ngan felt somewhat less
than reassured.
"Our flight time today will be one hour and fifty-three min·
utes," the flight attendant added. "Please sit back and enjoy
your flight."
The plane turned onto the runway and the captain's voice
came onto the overhead speakers. "Flight attendants, prepare
for takeoff," he said. His voice was bored and that was only a
little reassuring.
Ngan pulled his feet back in toward the edge of his seat and
he felt the shoulder strap of his satchel catch on his left ankle.
He took a deep breath, noting how it shook as he drew it n i . ·He
could feel his heart beating, and his palms were wet.
The plane sat at the end of the runway for what seemed like
hours, but it was less than three minutes.
Ngan reminded himself that the plane was either going to fly
safely to Washington or it was going to crash. If it crashed, he
would have a few seconds, perhaps a minute, to gather himself,
then he'd just be gone. His life, and a hundred and ninety or so
other lives, would end. He could do nothing to affect the out·
come, so there was no reason to worry about it.
That's what his teachers would have told him, and Ngan
knew they'd have been right, but he couldn'tjust decide to stop
worrying. This is what western psychologists call a "phobia."
The plane began to move, and it accelerated fast enough to
push Ngan back into the rough, odd-smelling seat. He looked
across the aisle at another passenger, a woman in an expensive
suit. She was contentedly reading a·paperback novel-one of the
lawyer-in-danger variety that Michael and Jeane occasionally
38
 In f lul d • I I t I Ct

talked about. She was completely oblivious to the experience of

flying.
Ngan looked back out the window as the plane came up off
the runway. There was a moment when he felt completely cer·
tain that the plane would not make it off the ground, but of
course it did. The ground fell away, and the airport stretched out
below him. He saw planes parked outside of hangars, trucks
scurrying around warehouses, then a street, a lot full of rental
cars that looked tiny and grew smaller in pools of light from the
lamps on poles that didn't look so tall now. Ngan knew he wasn't
breathing, but he didn't bother trying to make himself start. He
looked back at the woman with her face buried in the book. She
was still reading, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary was
afoot.
He looked back out the window. They were passing over
high·rise office buildings. Ngan could see the expressway sys·
tem like arteries in an open chest. There was a low rumbling
noise, the sound of hydraulics and. a. thump. Ngan knew it was
the landing gear retracting, but the blood drained from his head
anyway.
The woman was still reading. Ngan found it impossible to
believe.
He didn't find the experience of air travel at all pleasant, but
it was at the very least remarkable. This woman, and so many
others on the plane, took this extraordinary experience for
granted. What could affect this woman? Hurling through the
stratosphere-tedious. What would make her stop and look n
i
awe like she should? It was awesome what they were doing,
what people were capable of, all in the name of convenience.
A whirring sound came from the wings, and Ngan felt the
plane drop. Again, the blood drained from his head, and he looked
out the window, sure he would see the ground rushing madly up
at them, but it wasn't. They weren't dropping, he reminded him·
self, they were just rising more slowly now.
A chime sounded, and Ngan jumped. This made him both
amused and disappointed with himself. The chime meant they'd
reached fifteen hundred feet. Ngan closed his eyes and took a

39
 a .w. ti r p a

deep breath. He held the breath for a three-count, then exhaled,

again silently counting to three. He breathed in on a three-co.unt,
held it for three, then exhaled for three, repeating the sequence
several times before being startled when the plane seemed to
roll over a bump. The luggage compartment above him rattled,
and Ngan went back to his breathing.
He had almost relaxed when another chime sounded. It had
the same sound as a warning in a car. It had that unmistakable
"pay attention" sound that Ngan could not possibly ignore. The
blood rushed out of his head again but not as quickly and not as
completely. They were at ten thousand feet now.
Ngan looked out the window and realized they must have
passed through clouds when he'd had his eyes closed. Below
them was a lumpy carpet of dark grey. The sky above and
straight out was black and speckled with stars. The quarter
moon was casting a pale shadow over the clouds, and the whole
thing was simply surreal. Ngan had no sense of where he was,
and that, maybe more than anything, unnerved him. Flying at
night was like being in an elevator for two hours. ·

They. began serving drinks, and the passengers who

weren't already obivious
l to their surroundings started to relax.
Ngan was going to be on edge the whole way, but he forced
himself to stop clutching the cold plastic armrest. He'd had a
death grip on it the whole time, even during !).is breathing exer­
cises. He let go and saw that it had made a red impression on
his palm. .
Deciding he would try to work, though he'd never been able
to think too clearly while flying, Ngan bent to open his satchel.
He fumbled around, trying to ignore his shaking hands, and
found a pamphlet printed on thick, glossy paper. He pulled the
pamphlet out, and a fear of a different kind washed over him.
"Something to drink, sir?" a woman's voice thundered over
the background noise, startling Ngan yet again. He was growing
tired of being startled.
He set a smile on his face and shook his head. The flight
attendant moved on to the next passenger with total a.pathy.
Ngan thought about changing his mind and asking her for a cup
40
 . In 1 lui d s i I e n ce

of tea, but he stopped himself. She had moved on, and it would
surely be an inconvenience for her to come back.
Instead, he. turned his attention to the pamphlet.
It was colorful, very professionally designed and printed. On
the front was a clear photograph of a huge, rustic barn. Next to
it was a silo and an American-style windmill. Trees scattered
the grounds around the barn and were covered in light green
leaves that made it obvious that the photograph had been taken
in the spring. At the top, in clean but ornate script were the
words Camp C�arity.
ClaritY:
The word had several meanings, and Ngan knew what the
retreat's organizers thought they meant when they used that
word. Ngan had achieved brief flashes of real clarity n
i his life,
and he couldn't m
i agine this place providing anything like that
experience to anyone.
Ngan shifted in his cramped seat and opened the pamphlet.
The plane shook as if in response. Ngan glanced out the win­
dow and saw the same uniform clouds below, and the same
sprinkle of stars above. The noise was a dull throb that Ngan
knew he'd be hearing for hours after they finally landed. He
looked down at the pamphlet and squinted, trying to read the
tight text there.
He reached up and turned on the little reading lamp above
his head. Fake yellow light washed over him like muddy water,
and he could see better but not well enough. He squinted at the
text again and read the headline: Motivational Excellence in an
Exclusive Setting.
i deed. The retreat was limited to white people,
Exclusive, n
though the pamphlet never said that in so many words.
Ngan read the sparse text again, to himself, of course.
Welcome to Camp Clarity.
Below that headline was a photograph of the sun setting
over rolling hills. Skeletal trees were black, silhouetted against
the pink and orange sky. The ground was covered in freshly
fallen snow. A thin, winding road disappeared into the distance,
lined on both sides by the silhouetted trees. At the edge of the

41
 f .W. tf r , a

road was a tasteful sign that, in the same script as on the front
of the pamphlet, read Cqmp Clarity and By Invitation Only.
The text below the photograph read:
Eight hundred acres in the peaceful rural setting ofSouthern Jlfi.
nois is 'the new pennanent site ofour unique executive training pro·
gram. Motivation and focus are the keys here, and only those
professionals who have already achieved a measure of success in
their chosen fields are invited to join us. At Camp Clarity, we don't
make winners out of losers, we tum winners into masters.
Masters, Ngan thought. He closed his eyes, rubbed them
lightly, then looked back at the pamphlet.
Ifyou 're reading this, it means you 've been identified as the sort
ofperson who is ready to achieve the highest level ofpersonal and
professional excellence.
As our guest you'll enjoy all the amenities of an all-inclusive
resort hotel. Our program is demanding, both mentally and physi·
cally, but when your busy day draws to an end, you 'fl enjoy ourfirst
class, all-suite accommodations, heated pool, and fell-service spa.
Our team of world-class chefs creates cuisine that any five-star
restaurant would be delighted to provide their customers.
Ngan sighed, imagining the scene around Camp Clarity's
pool. White skin turning red while billionaires achieved personal
and professional mastery. Regardless of the Institute's other
suspicions, that alone would make Camp Clarity worth closing
down.
Under the headline GoalS, Ngan found the most telling and
most chilling presentation.
You're a successful person. You've made money. You've tasted
success and everything it.has'to offer. Or have you?
At Camp Clarity we provide you with the tools necessary to rec·
ognize the insignificance of the success you've already achieved. A
bold claim? Do we mean to say that your success has been empty,
that you should give it all away?
The answer the pamphlet provided was a ham-handed,
uppercase NO! set in bold type.
The success you 've already achieved will get you to Camp Clar:
ity. What you learn at Camp Clarity will bring you higher than

4Z
 In f lul d s I I e n ce

you've ever imagined. We can let you into the world of your
dreams.
And then the most cryptic of all, a !in� that made the small
hairs on the back of Ngan's neck stand up:
-
Ask the man who gave you this pamphlet.
Ngan sighed again and avoided looking out the window. He
let his eyes wander over the edge of the tray table still hooked
into the back of the seat in front of him. The man next to him
fidgeted, his eyes closed as if he were trying to go to sleep.
Another man was coming down the aisle of the plane, walking
on uneasy legs in the light turbulence that Ngan was trying so
hard to ignore.
The man was wearing a dark grey suit, well tailored, that
looked like silk. His white hair was carefully combed back over
his pale scalp. Ngan noticed his blue eyes catching the dim yel­
low cabin light. Something about the man, who had emerged
'
from the first-class cabin trying not to look at any of the coach
passengers, made Ngan look down at the pamphlet again.
· He turned it over and i0oked at the photograph on the back.
A white man in his early seventies smiled back, and Ngan
flinched away from the image he'd looked at a hundred times.
Holding the pamphlet in his left hand, Ngan reached down
for his bag with his right hand. Tlie satchel had shifted again,
and he had trouble opening the flap with it under the seat in
front of him. He bent down farther, trying to get his right hand
under the seat, so he grabbed the top of the seat with his left
hand, crinkling the pamphlet a little. .
"Oh," a strange voice said, "I see you know Camp-"
The man stopped talking the second Ngan looked up at him,
sitting back in his seat empty-handed.
The man in the aisle was already pale, but what little color
there might have been there drained when he met Ngan's eyes.
The man looked at rather than in Ngan's eyes, and he drew in a
sharp little breath that was almost a gasp.
The stranger in the seat next to Ngan didn't seem to notice
the exchange and certainly wouldn't have worried about it if he
had. He continued trying to fall asleep.

43
 1 .w. tl r p a

The plane bucked, and Ngan reached out with his right hand
to steady himself. He grabbed the seat in front of him, and the
turbulence passed. The man in the aisle looked away, grabbing
the seats near him, though he seemed in no danger of falling.
"I beg-" the man in the aisle started to say at the exact
·
same time Ngan said, "I'm sony, I-"
Ngan smiled and nodded for the man to continue. The crys­
tal blue eyes finally fixed on Ngan's,for just a second, and a look
of unmistakable anger creased the man's brow. He turned away
from Ngan, back to the front of the plane, back the way he'd
come.
"It's all right, I . . ." Ngan said, but the man walked quickly
away.
More turbulence shook the plane, rattling the luggage com­
partments and making Ngan grab the seat n
i front of him again.
The strange man slid down the precise center of the aisle with­
out so much as tapping the top of any of the seats he passed.
Without a look back he disappeared into the first-class cabin.
Ngan was worried by the encounter. The strange man had
obviously heard of Camp Clarity. There had been the unmistak­
able air of. brotherhood and recognition in the man's voice. He
must have stayed there and attended their seminars and exer­
cises.
Realizing that the man couldn't do anything to him on a
plane at thirty thousand feet with a hilndred and ninety wit­
nesses made Ngan feel safer.than he'd ever felt on an airplane.
Remembering what he'd been doing when the man inter­
rupted him, Ngan bent down again. He'd managed to open the
flap before, and he found the file folder inside easily enough.
He leaned back, checking both sides for the man in the aisle,
who was nowhere to be seen. The man might be confused, even
embarrassed. Ngan found it safe enough to assume the man
would limit his wanderings to the first-class lavatories for the
rest of the flight.
Ngan opened the folder and took out a copy of the photo­
graph of Hans Reinhold Erwahlen and Hitler. As he'd done at
least a dozen times in the last day or so, Ngan held the pamphlet

"
 In f lul ll 1 1 l e -n ce

over the old photograph and compared Erwahl.en's circa 1940s

face with the little photograph on the back of the Camp Clarity
pamphlet.
Under the picture n
i the pamphlet was the caption: Hans
Erwahlen, Founder.
Ngan loo�ed from the pamphlet to the photograph and back
again, then c�osed his eyes and sighed.
It was the same man.
The same man who hadn't aged a day n i sixty years.
Jeane or Michael would have offered some explanation, to be
sure. Michael, in fact, had offered one just before he'd been sent
by the Hoffmann Institute to Camp Clarity three weeks before.
Michael thought the Camp Clarity Erwahl.eo was the Nazi's son,
and the resemblance, though striking, was mundane.
Lieberman's file made no mention that Erwahl.en might have
had children. He was never married and was always discreet in
his personal life.
Ngan looked at· Erwahl.en's blue eyes in the Camp Clarity
photograph, and his thoughts went again to Michael McCain.
When the order to investigate Camp Clarity came down from
Dr. Nakami at the Hoffmann Institute, there was only one clear
choice. Jeane was a woman, and though there was nothing that
said women were strictly prohibited, she would stick out like a
sore thumb at the very least. Ngan, of course, was not white so
therefore not welcome at all. It had to be Michael.
Discreet inquiries were made, and after what must have
been a thousand phone calls, McCain got in touch with Tom
Casale. Casale was an acquaintance of McCain's from D.C. and
had been told about Camp Clarity by an acquaintance of his own.
Casale .had attended one session at Camp Clarity and was of
great help in getting McCain in. Casale didn't know anything
about the Hoffmann Institute and had no idea that McCain had
ulterior motives. A few more days and a few more phone calls,
and McCain was sent an invitation to attend Camp Clarity.
Three weeks later, Ngan wished McCain didn't have so many
·

acquaintances.
Ngan had to entertain the possibility. however implausible or

45
 g .w. ti r , a

unpleasant, that McCain was dead already. Ngan had no evi·

dence that he was dead, but he was two weeks off schedule, ·and
this sort of silence was unlike him. All attempts to contact Tom
Casale had failed as well.

Michael McCain awoke with something licking his face.

The name Sparky leaped to his dull, half-asleep mind. That
was his dog's name, wasn't it? But Sparky died twenty years
ago.
McCain opened his eyes and bright light seared them, so he
clamped them shut. The dog stopped licking him for a moment,
startled probably, then started up again. He �as licking
McCain's bare chest now, moving down toward his stomach. He
could feel a thick, warm, viscous liquid covering most of his
body.
He tried to push the .dog away, but he couldn't lift his arm.
He'd never felt so tired. His head spun, but it was beginning to
clear. He opened his eyes again. The light wasn't so bad now.
He'd just been in complete darkness for a long time.
Walls came into focus, sheet metal over thick wooden cross
beams. The sheet metal was fairly new, and the treated wood
still had a greenish cast to it. .He looked down at the dog, and
his body convulsed all at once-not from any physicil cause but
from the shock of what he saw.
It wasn't a dog.
At first he thought it was a little child, but within the first
second or so McCain could see that this was no child. It was
barely human, if it was human at all.
It looked like a little man, old, wrinkled, skin turning brown,
streaked with grey. A wide flat nose dominated its face, and its
cheeks were pinched and drawn back. Its wide eyes were
closed. It had no hair.
Its tongue was as wide and as long as a big dog's, and it was
busily licking a thick, honeylike liquid off McCain's quivering,·
naked body. When McCain flinched away, the thing looked up

48
 In f lul d 1 1 I e n ce

and opened its eyes, revealing black pits that seemed to absorb
light. McCain opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came
out.
The . thing reacted to the non-scream by fluffing wings
McCain had mistaken for a grey leather coat. The wings were
like the wings of a bat.
McCain brought one hand up, his arm responding now, if
weakly, and the little creature scunied backward. It blllllped
into a steel barrel and tipped it over. A loud clang echoed in the
big, mostly empty space, loud enough that the little man covered
its ears with hands that were tipped by brown, prunelike fingers.
The golden liquid dripped from its twisted, bloated lower lip.
"Is this . . .• McCain managed to almost bark, •. . . hell? Am
I in hell?"
The little man, who must have been no more than a foot and
a half tall, folded his wings and said, "!ch verstehe Sie nicht. •
McCain knew what he said, not realizing that he wasn't sup­
posed to be able to understand German. He never studied the
language in school, never spent any time in Germany or around
Germans. But the little map had said: I don't understand you.
McCain wanted to know where he was, so he said, "Wo bin
ich?" though he still didn't remember ever learning to speak
German.
The little man tipped his head at McCain, as if the question
made no sense. McCain went over the words in his head and was
sure he'd said it right.
He propped himself up on one hand and felt rough concrete
under him. He was suddenly cold, and he drew his arms and legs
into him. The strange liquid spread over him like thick oil.
"Who are you?" McCain asked . the little man. "Wie heissen
Sie?"
"Nichts." the little man said, his voice surprisingly deep.
"Nothing?" McCain asked. "Sie haben keine Name? You have
no name?"
The little man took one small step closer to McCain, who
shied away, scraping his rear on the concrete before he came to
rest against a low stone wall behind him. The stone was as
 1 .w. tl r , 1

rough as the cement floor. McCain's body started to tremble,

shivering violently.
"!ch heij,e Nichts, "the little man said.
"Your name," McCain translated through chatteririg teeth,
"is Nichts."
The little man smiled, and McCain screamed, then screamed
again, only this time louder.

48
Welsh,� she said, "l think."
That made Fenton smile. Jeane sat back on the
sofa and glanced again at the photograph of Marilyn
Monroe in the book still sitting open on the coffee table
in front of her. Fenton stood up, taking his drink with
him, and began to pace the room, more preoccupied than
neivous. "You think?" he asked.
Jeane shrugged and asked, "Does it matter?"
It was Fenton's turn to shrug, though he seemed
uncomfortable with the gesture. "My great-grandparents
crossed over from England in 1893. My great-grandfather
was in the whaling business. On my mother's side it was
my grandmother who came over first, as a student from
France. She married my grandfather in Nantucket."
"So you're English and French," Jeane said.
"And you think you're Welsh."
Jeane didn't say anything, didn't take the bait. She
told herself that it was because she didn't think a call
girl would necessarily be honest about her background
(Q
 1 .w. u r ,1

with a client. In truth, though, she just didn't want Fenton to

know anything about her.
It occurred to Jeane that those two things were the same.
"Is that bad?" she asked, somehow thinking of the question
even after it passed her lips.
Fenton stopped pacing and looked down at her. Framed by
the bookcases, in his tailored suit, lie looked strangely aca­
demic. His face was passive. Jeane plastered a smile on her face
to which he had no respon�e.
"Of course that isn't bad," he said. "Christian?"
"Sorry?"
"Are you a Christian?" he asked, starting to pace agairi and
taking a sip from his drink.
"Lutheran," she invented on the fly, "but I haven't been to
church in a while."
Fenton shrugged that off and said, "I can m
i agine. That's not
important.•
"And you?" she asked, starting to believe that drawing him
out would be easier than she or Ngan had thought.
"Me?" he said. "I was Catholic."
"Was?" Jeane asked. "I didn't think you could stop being a
Catholic once you started."
This made Fenton laugh, and he seemed to relax. He came
back to the chair across the coffee table from her and sat down,
crossing his legs with a subdued flourish. He looked at her eyes, .
suddenly engaged by her in a way that made Jeane's skin crawl.
"A man can d.ecide," he said, "what club be wants to belong
to."
Jeane nodded and tilted her wineglass up to him in a sort of
salute. She almost drank the last of it, then took only a small sip
and held the glass at her chest. His eyes glanced down at it.
"Why did you ask me.before," she said, her voice quiet, "if I
ever . . . ?" Jeane almost panicked, realizing all at once she didn't
know how to say-
"If you ever went to bed with a nigger?" he finished for her.
She let her eyes stay on his but managed to keep her face·
blank. She took a chance by saying, "I don't like that word."

58
 In f tut d 1 I I e n ce

Fenton smiled and said, "They call each other that."

"l know," she said, "but-"
"But I'm a white man," he said. "A successful white man, so
I have to censor myself, is that it?"
"I didn't say that," Jeane said. She knew she should back off,
and tried. "It's not up to me. I'm sony. It's your house . . . your
dime. You can say whatever you want."
Fenton nodded, agreeing with her and amused by her at the
same tinie. The look sent a chill down Jeane's spine.
"White men are the last minority in America," Fenton said,
his voice .conversational though the sentence seemed somehow
rehearsed. "I have money, but I'm constantly told how to spend
it. I have influence, but I'm never permitted to exercise it. Any·
thing I say and do is suspect, and I'm constantly being asked to
apologize for the transgressions of other white men who were
dead a hundred and fifty years before I was born."
leane just looked at him, hoping he.would misconstrue the
look of anger on her face for something more seductive. He
winked at her, which didn't tell her anything.
"I don't expect you to be pu.re," he said, his. voice cold with
condescension, "in either body or soul."
"I don't get paid for pwity," she said, trying to make it sound
·

seductive.
Fenton seemed suddenly agitated. He stood, tapping the side
of his glass nervously. "You're not a Jew, are you?" he asked
abruptly. "You're not Jewish, or Muslim?"
Jeane laughed a little, and he looked at her sharply, so she
stopped laughing and said, "I told you I'm a Lutheran."
He stared at her for a long second, then looked down at the
floor, tapped his glass a few times, nodding. "It's important to
me that you be . . . white. I have to . . . You need to be white.•
Jeane didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say, in
character or not.
"It's all right," he said.
Jeane tipped her head at him, not sure what he meant. He
looked back at her, and the supreme self-confidence was back.
"You can be proud to be white," he said.

51
 a w . . ti r p a

"Who said I wasn't?" she asked, speaking quickly so she

could get jt out before she had a chance to get rattled or
offended.
He looked angry, but only for a second, before saying, "Good
for you."
"You sound like you're trying to convert me," Jeane said,
hoping to convey with her tone that she was hoping he was.
"I shouldn't have to," he said calmly. "More wine?"
Jeane all at once remembered that she was still holding the
all-but-empty wineglass. She had to make a quick decision. She
needed to stay sober, but why wouldn't a real call girl go ahead
and have another glass of wine? What would keep him talking?
She looked at Fenton's glass and saw that it was empty.
"Yes," she said, ."thank you."
She reached out the glass to him, and he took it. Their fin­
gers didn't touch. He knew he didn't have to seduce her.
"Don't you make cosmetics for black people?" she asked him
as he crossed back to the bar.
Fenton didn't break his stride in the slightest when he said,
"We sure do. It's a lucrative marketplace."
"So they're your customers, right?" Jeane asked, knowing
she was prodding him now. "Their money's green, so who cares
what color their skin is?"
Fenton poured her wine in silence. She knew he'd heard her,
but it didn't seem as if he was thinking about her question. He
knew the answer already-his answer. He popped the cork back
in the wine bottle and took up the whiskey decanter. He looked
up at her and said, "That ridiculous rock star, what's his name?
The one who likes little boysr
Jeane didn't say anything, though she know who he was talk­
ing about
"He has a skin condition that makes him appear Caucasian,
but only in irregular blotches," he said. "Afrolux, Ebonese-our
products for the 'African American' community-they all cause
this condition sooner or later."
Jeane tipped her head at him again, and he smiled while
pouring his drink. "You . . . "

5!
 In f lul d · 1 1 I e n ce

He laughed, and it was a broadly jovial sound. "We thought

it would be funny. You see, we never really tested that stuff as
much as the real products, the white products. No one really
ever complained, or if they did it was some incredibly impotent
expose in Ebony or something like that. No one gave a rat's ass."
He put down the decanter and picked up his glass. coming
back around the bar with a glass in each hand.
"You turn them white?" she asked, going ahead and letting
her confusion at the revelation more than seep through, letting
it cover her outrage.
Fenton laughed, coming toward her slowly. "No, no," he said,
"that's impossible. They're born niggers, and they'll die niggers.
We just make them . . . blotchy.�
Jeane forced herself to laugh, but knew it wasn't very con­
vincing. Fenton stopped and held her wineglass out to her. She'd
have to stand up to take it from him, so she did, assuming he
expected her to do so.
"They want to be white, you know," he said, "but they also
fear it more than anything."
Jeane took the wineglass from his hand and said, "Better
. hope Johnny Cochran doesn't find out." .
Fenton laughed at that too, obviously not the slightest bit
worried about that possibility.
"Eventually," he said, "they're going to want to fight. They're
going to get so sick of it . . . L.A. a few years ago was close."
"Then what?" Jeane asked him. "A race war?"
Fenton smiled and looked slowly once down, then back up
her body. His eyes all at once reflected the same lust she'd seen
in the eyes of the cab driver and the doorman.
·

"You have no idea," he said. "Bullets whizzing through the

ghettos . . . ."
"Bullets already whiz through the ghettos," she said. "Don't
you watch the news?"
Fenton chuckled and stepped around the coffee table to
stand no more than a foot in front of her. Another chill went
down Jeane's spine, and she felt confined and weak in 'her
impractical shoes and unfamiliar surroundings.

53
 1 .w. u r , 1

"I don't need to watch the news," he said, his voice husky,
his version of seductive. "1 make the news."
Jeane was just confused by that, so she sipped her wine.
"Is it true, what they say?" Fenton asked, letting it just hang
there.
"Is what true?"
"What they say about niggers and Jews," he said. "You've
had . . . experience, right? You've had an opportunity to observe
the relative . . . differences."
He will.ked at her and smiled, obviously taken with his own
cleverness. Jeane knew the question was meant to demean her
as much as any racial group. The physical desire was still burn·
ing in his eyes, even seemed to be increasing. It wasn't quite an
animal look. It wasn't that pure.
"Don't tell me you're shy," he said sarcastically, and Jeane
realized it had been a while since she'd said anything.
"I'm not shy," she said, then sipped her.wine to give herself
another few seconds to think. She thought she'd feel dirty pos·
ing as a hooker. This conversation was making her feel orders
of magnitude dirtier.
"I'd like you to teµ me," he said. He reached out to her, and
it took an enormous force of will for Jeane not to flinch away. He
touched her cheek with the tip of one rough finger. She looked
down, almost closing her eyes. His finger slid down her cheek
half an inch, then fell away from her face. "You have very soft
skin." .
"Thank you, " she said.
"That must be important," he said, "in your business. It must
be important that you keep yourself in a certain condition.·
Jeane nodded and looked him in the eyes again. He smiled
and said, "You're not going to tell me. That's okay. Other women
like you have, though I've gotten conflicting answers."
"Does it matter?" she asked him.
He looked very serious and said, "Tell me you prefer white
men."
"I prefer white men."
There was somethingabout the look on his face that said he

5'
 11 f lul C tl l1 I Cl

didn't believe her. "What do I get for my fifteen hundred dollars

an hour?" he asked.
Jeane shook her head and was about to tell him she didn't
know, then realized she had to tell him something.
"What do you want?" she asked.
He reached out and touched her cheek again, this time his
finger lingered longer. "I want the same thing you gave the last
Jew who paid you. What do Jews want?"
Of course, Jeane had no way to answer that.
Fenton let his hand drop. He looked at her with cold eyes
and said, "They almost killed them all, you know, the Jews.
Hitler came very close. Since then, every country in the world
has coddled them and given them whatever they want and more.
In years past, all over the world, the dark people were treated
the way the dark people should be treated, as lesser things.
They used to have whites-only drinking fountains. Now they
don't even have whites-only whores."
A wave of heat flooded over Jeane and her body tensed. Fen­
ton leaned in closer, and she could smell the whiskey on his
breath. Jeane had to push her bile down to stay in character.
"I need to make a living," she said lamely.
Fenton breathed out through his nose and said, "We all have
to make a living."
His hand ca.I!le up again, and this time she did flinch. He'd
touched her lightly on the breast, and when she flinched, he
flinched too. Anger flashed in his eyes.
"Do you let the Jews and niggers touch you there?" he asked,
his voice a growl. "Don't I get what they get for my fifteen hun­
dred dollars? My money's greenJoyce Mannering. 1 want you to
d_o me like you do all those damned ni-"
Jeane wasn't conscious of making the decision to punch Fen­
It was half a second, a tensing
ton in the face. She just did it.
and releasing of muscles, a snap of her elbow. a sting on her
knuckles.
Fenton went down pard, his right hand going up to his lip, his
left hand dropping the glass of whiskey onto the perfect carpet.
His right elbowbumped the table, and it slid away an inch or two.

55
 a w . . ti r p a

It hit Jeane just as fast that she'd screwed it up. She'd

known that she'd have to get herself out of there without actu·
ally having sex with him, but she hadn't planned on knocking
him out. She knew also that she hadn't gotten any useful infor· ·

mation out of Fenton. They already knew that he was a racist

and a white supremacist , but they needed more than that. The
black makeup conspiracy wasn't enough.
Damn it, she thought as Fenton hit the rug and rolled over
slowly, l screwed it up.
Fenton came to his knees and looked up at her. Blood was in
his mouth, had dripped onto the eggshell carpet. The smell of
whiskey was thick in the air. The look in his eyes was wild now,
animallstic, enraged.
Jeane was surprised that he was still conscious. She'd hit
him hard, and she knew how to hit people.
"That was a mistake, bitch," Fenton said, then spat blood
out onto the carpet.
Jeane knew he was right, but for different reasons.

58
·-.t'llte �
little man spoke too fast, an McCain's ears were
still ringing from his own screams, so he had trouble
understanding the rough, gravelly German. He was
able to pick up most of the words, but his head was spin­
ning, and the half-muttered phrases just didn't. register.
He didn't know who this little man was, didn't know what
he was doing in this strange place, didn't know what day
it was, didn't know where he was, didn't know why he
was there, ari.d didn't know how he suddenly could speak
and understand German.
He knew the strange, deformed little man's name
was Nichts, but McCain was afraid to talk to him. He
was afraid to even look at the creature. He thought if
he recognized that the little man was even there, it
would mean he actually existed, and McCain didri't
want that to be true. He couldn't remember ever having
a grip on reality, but he knew that such a thing was
possible. He knew that there was a normal, real world
that made sense, and though he didn't remember actually

. 57
 g .w. ti r p a

living in a world like that, he still longed for it.

The honey-colored semiliquid had mostly dried, but he was
still cold. Something like twenty minutes had gone by since he
woke up, and he wasn't feeling the slightest bit more normal.
Still, there was something that was starting to come back from
the recesses of bis mind, something struggling back to bis con­
scious self that was rebuilding itself neuron· by neuron. This
little man might not even be human, but something in the most
basic part of Michael McCain realized that right here, right now,
he was the closest thing to a friend he was going to get. Nichts
was the only one there. .
"Who are you really?" McCain asked, still not able to look at
Nichts other than in flashlike glances. He wasn't aware of the
fact that what he actually said was, "Wer sind Sie wahrhaftig?"
"/ch existiere um meinen Magister; der mich erschafjen hat, zu
servieren, " Nichts said.
McCain was instantly sure he didn't know what Nichts had
said, then came to a chilling realization. "You exist to serve your
master?" he asked in English, for sure this time. "ls that what
you said?"
The little man tipped bis misshapen head to one side and
said nothing.
"Don't you understand me?" McCain asked. "You don't
understand English?"
"/ch verstehe nicht, was Sie sagen, • Nichts said.
"Sie verstehen nur Deutsch," McCain replied, deciding he'd
better just accept the fact that he could speak German now.
1a, ja, " Nichts said. "!ch verstehen Sie nunjetzt."
The rest of the conversation was conducted in German.
"I don't understand who you are," McCain said, finding that
he could speak normally in the forejgn language without having
to translate bis own words in bis head.
Nichts looked at him with an indecipherable expression and
said, "How could anyone understand who he is?"
Rather than try to understand that, McCain asked, "What
kind of a person are you?"
"I am a homunculus,• Nichts said.

58
 In f lul d 1 1 I e n ce

McCain didn't understand that word. Maybe there were gaps

in his German vocabulazy after all. "I don't know that word," he
admitted, "but you don't seem . . . you're not . . ."
"I'm not human, true," Nichts said, "but you can't be con·
cerned with me."
McCain almost sighed in relief. He'd found his opening. "Of
course I'm concerned with you," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Nichts stepped back and his wings came up against the
sheet-metal wall. His eyes seemed to be hying to fend McCain
off. McCain knew when to back off, so he did. He looked down
at his still-naked body and scraped some of the yellow fluid off.
It felt cold and thick, but not sticky on his hand. He flipped it off
the end of his fingers and let it spatter on the floor. Nichts
leaped forward, startling McCain back. The homunculus quickly
and hungrily lapped the liquid up off the cement floor.
"What is that?" McCain asked.
He had to wait several minutes until Nichts licked up the
rest of the fluid. The homunculus finally looked up at McCain
with hungry eyes that made McCain think Nichts was going to
start licking him again. Nichts didn't move any closer, but
McCain pushed himself back up against the cold, rough concrete
wall as far as he could go. Some of the skin on his back was
scraped off, and it hurt, but he pressed in still.
"This is vril," Nichts said. "The master uses it to heighten
you."
"Heighten me?" McCain repeated. I don't know what you
"

mean."
"Before you spent your time in the vril, could you have spo­
ken my master's tongue?"
"So I was floating around in this stuff learning German?"
McCain asked dismissively.
Nichts looked at him with open confusion and said, "You
aren't done yet. The master will finish you, and you'll become
one of the rulers of the Earth."
McCain chuckled, and his head cleared all at once-finally.
He dug into one ear with the tip of his index finger and flicked
off a glob of the yellow stuff Nichts had called "vril." It didn't
59
 g .w. tl r p a

seem to have any sort of power or energy to it. It was just . . .

stuff.
"Why?" McCain asked. "Why me?" .
Again, Nichts looked at him, confused. He stepped back
another step and said, "You came here."
It was McCain's turn to offer a confused look. He didn't
remember coming here-wherever here was. Something told
him he shouldn't reveal that to Nichts. He was getting the sense
that Nichts wasn't understanding the details of what was going
on and would end up just getting confused. The little man
seemed to think McCain had come here intentionally to be
turned into some kind of "master." McCain's gut told him that
wasn't the case, but it might have been.
He had to stop coming off like he didn't know what was
going on.
"I'm having some trouble with my . . . with my memory,"
McCain said. "I'm getting flashes. It's starting to come back."
Nichts nodded and said, "It's a common side-effect of the vril
immersion."
"How long was I in there?" McCain asked. He scraped vril
out ofhis other ear and wiped it on the cement floor next to him.
He then concentrated on getting it off his lower stomach.
"Thirteen days," Nichts said.
That didn't actually mean anything to McCain. Again, he
thought it should, or had at some point in the past. Now, though,
that was just a number that didn't seem either long or short. It
was thirteen. It might have been a: million. He wondered sud·
den1y if Ngan would be missing him, then got stuck on exactly
who Ngan was and why it might matter that he might be missing
him. It was the first name McCain had thought of since emerging
from the vril, so he felt he needed some more information-some
idea who this man might be.
"What does Ngan think of that?" he asked Nichts.
Nichts shook his head and said, "I don't know Ngan."
"How could you?" McCain said quickly, reluctant to play the
master race card, but hoping it would cover him if Nichts having
heard Ngan's name would somehow be bad.

. ID
 In f lul • a I I e n ce

Nichts glanced off to one side, and McCain followed bis eyes.
Next to NichtS was a line of orange plastic barrels that were
stacked against the sheet metal wall in a row that must have
been fifty yards long. They were stacked up three high. They
meant nothing to McCain.
"Are you going to take me somewhere?" McCain asked
Nichts. He was suddenly curious about how long he was sup­
posed to sit on this rough conc:;rete floor in some warehouse
talking to a homunculus.
"Not yet," Nichts said. "I'll be told to when I'm told to, but I
want . . ."
McCain didn't try to finish Nichts's sentence for him. There
was something about the way the homunculus had started to
state an opinion, a desire of his own, that made McCain sure the
little man had never done it before, at least never out loud.
"Not long,• the homunculus said.
"We stay here until thenr he asked as conversationally as
he could.
Nichts nodded.
McCain didn't knowhow much time he'd have here, so he real­
ized he'd better start getting some idea where he was, so he could
remember it later when he made his . . . Would he have to make
a report? Why would he have to do that?
He could see that he was n
i a big steel warehouse. There
was the line of orange plastic barrels. Above him, maybe twenty
or twenty-five feet up, was the pitched ceiling and skylights of
mesh-reinforced glass. There were ceiling fans, but they weren't
on. It was still cold inside.
McCain scraped the cold vril from his groin and turned his
head. Nichts was looking at him but McCain made every effort
to ignore the homunculus. It was partly a continuation of his
playing along with this master race thing, partly embarrassment
at his nudity and the fact that he was trying to clean himself,
and partly because he had to examine the space around him.
He tried to look behind him, but all he could see was the
rough concrete wall. He looked up and saw that the top of it was
a foot over the top of his head. From the ceiling he could tell that

81
 g .w. ti r p a

he was maybe a quarter of the way across the side of the build·
ing. He knew he would have to stand to see the other three quar·
ters of the .way across.
He pulled his feet under him and tried to stand up. His legs
were weak and shaky, and he couldn't do it at first, couldn't even
begin to stand. He took a couple of deep breaths, concentrating
on his numb, twitching legs for a few seconds, then he just stood
up. He didn't have to use his hands. He rose up from the floor
and was standing. Movement caught his eye, and he saw Nichts
shy away and cower. Vril started dripping down McCain's legs,
pooling at his feet.
The wall was the side of a square pool or tank that domi·
nated the cent�r of the warehouse. About a foot and a half from
the top of the wall was the surface of a pool of golden liquid. It ·
was obviously the same stuff that McCain was still partially cov·
ered in. The surface was still and reflected the nondescript ceil·
ing, but it seemed to move slightly, bulging in the center, then
dropping as if a wave was rolling up and down at regular inter­
vals from the center of the square tank The tank had to be _at
.

least twenty-five yards on a side, filling the center of the large

open space. On either side of the central tank were two others,
slightly smaller, also full of the odd liquid.
The stuff had no smell at ·al.l The only thing McCain could
smell was dust and the plastic from the big orange barrels. On
the other side of the warehouse, kitty-corner from the first row
of barrels McCain had seen, was another row of the orange bar­
rels, also stacked three high. In the center of each of the short
sides of the rectangular building were oversized rolling doors
big enough to make McCain think he might be in an aircraft
hangar. The concrete floor of the building was almost exactly
·

the same size as a football field.

"How does this stuff . . . ?" McCain started to ask, then
wasn't even sure what he wanted to know. "How did I . . . ?"
"I can't tell you that," Nichts answered.
McCain turned to look at the little man. The homunculus
was holding a little black bo�. He turned it over in his hand, and
McCain saw that it was a cellular telephone.

Bf
 11 f lul • 11 It n Cl

"I do not know how any of this works," Nichts said, waving
the phone at the vril. "All I know s
i that it does. I am here only
because it does."
· McCain nodded at the phone in the homunculus's hand and
asked, "Is that for me?"
Nichts looked at it as if noticing for the first time that he was
holding something. "I don't know how to use it," Nichts said. "I
don't have anyone I can talk to."
"You were supposed to give it to me?" McCain asked.
"No," the little man answered, and his wings fluttered
behind him. McCain decided that gesture meant the homunculus
was nervous. McCain found it deeply unsettling, but he refrained
from screaming this time.
"You want me to make a call?" McCain asked, and even as
he finished talking, a phone number flashed across his memory,
and he knew it was Ngan's. He knew he should call Ngan.
"If he knows I gave this to you," Nichts whispered, "he might
destroy me . . . and you."
A chill ran down McCain's spine. His head went soft again,
and his vision blurred. He sat down, stumbling halfway so that
he fell hard on his rump, one leg twisted painfully under him. He
put a hand up to his forehead, and he could feel his sinuses fill­
ing with fluid.
"Who will destroy you?" he asked the homunculus.
Nichts stepped foiward, and McCain couldn't flinch away,
though he very much wanted to. He felt the phone being placed
in his hand.
"The master," Nichts answered. "The leader of the whole
Earth, Hans Reinhold Eiwahlen. Promise me you won't tell him
I gave this back to you?"
"Back to me?" McCain asked muddily.
"It is yours," the homunculus said. "Promise me."
McCain wrapped his fingers around the phone and said, "I
promise, Nichts. I won't tell."

. 83
 a .w. ti r p a

The directions Ngan had downloaded from the internet said

the 14.33 mile trip from National Airport to the restaurant in
McLean, Virginia, would take exactly thirty-five minutes. Any·
one who'd ever pulled out of an airport in a rental car at night
would know why it took him substantially longer.
The restaurant was different every time, and this one
sounded promising. It was less than five miles southwest of the
Central Intelligence Agency's Langley headquarters, but appar­
ently that was far enough away for Vanessa to feel comfortable.
Vanessa Richards worked in some capacity for the Agency,
but she had never told Ngan what that capacity was. At first he
was afraid that she. was a minor functionary like a human
resources clerk or the lady who watered the plants, but she'd
come highly recommended by the Hoffmann Institute, and she'd
made available important, useful, and accurate information in
the past. She always insisted on meeting in a public place,
always in person. That had been easier before the Hoffmann
Institute had moved Ngan from D.C. to Chicago. Ngan could only
hope what she had to say about Erwahlen would prove to be
worth the trip.
He found the ramp to 1-66 West and merged seamlessly into
the late evening traffic. The Vrrginia countryside was decideQJ.y
underwhelming, and it was night, so Ngan concentrated on the
road. He was well into the giddy, post-traumatic stage that
to be on the ground, the car
always followed landing. Relieved
felt reassuringly small, mechanical, and controllable. He decided
not to think about the flight back out in the morning. He was
happy enough to be on the ground that he succeeded in relaxing.
He kept to the right lane and made a game of keeping the
rental car at exactly sixty miles an hour. Cars passed him freely
on the left as if he were standing still, but Ngan felt no compul­
sion to go faster. Despite his trouble getting out of the airport,
he was still running early enough that he didn't have to hurry.
It occurred to him that he might have trouble finding a park-
ing place when he found the restaurant-assuming he had no
trouble finding the restaurant n
i the first place-and he· might
need more time.
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

He increased his speed to sixty-four and smiled contentedly

to himself.
The radio was off, and the only sound was the humming of
the car and the pop of the tires over seams in the road. Ngan
always liked the sound of driving at night. It was different than
the sounds of driving during the day. The sounds were clearer,
purer. Another car passed him, and the sound of it was like the
wind through the glaciers near his home in Tibet.
"I miss that sound."
It had been forty-five years since Ngan had been in Tibet, and
his memories of the place lay in the realm of half-remembered
dreams. When he was younger he could remember more, but he
always struggled with that time he spent away from the
monastery. It hadn't been long, and he had been young. He knew
it was real, had other proof ofthat, but his memory was clouded,
heavy, and unreal. Now, even the mundane memories. of the
Monastery of Inner Light were taking on that same weight.
A car passed him fast on the left. The swish of it startled
Ngan. He looked down at the speedometer and realized he was
only going fifty miles an hour. Blinking, he forced his head clear
and accelerated. He glanced at the speedometer again and was
passing fifty-five when the cell phone in his vest pocket rang.
He fished the phone out of his pocket and touched it on. He
could hear the sound of a frantic voice increasing in volume as
the phone came closer to his ear. He slammed t
i to the side of
his head when he realized it was -

"Michael!"
McCain didn't stop talking when Ngan said his name.
". . . floating around in Fliissigkeit. lch don't gerade wissen und
this guy hat Fliigel, Ngan . . ."

Ngan's heart skipped a beat at the sound of his name, but he

couldn't understand all of what McCain said.
". . . und es gibt dieser barrels all over the place, but I don't
weif!, was sie sind. So there's a lot of dieser Stoff, falls Sie Sorgen
haben. If that's why Sie haben hier gesendet . . . "
Ngan passed a sign that read VA-7 West Leesburg Pike 1
mi., and he realized that was his exit.

85
 1 .w. u r , a

• . . wherever it is I actually am, and anyway, es st

. i mir
bekannt, am welches Riickseite dieser Kerl standet, and there's obvi·
ously a lot going on here that's not at all right, and I'm not sure
what you have to do with all this, but I'm sicker. Sie sind etwas
verwickelt, um mich hier senden . . . n

Ngan pulled off to the shoulder, and there was a loud series
of crunching sounds as the. tires skidded to a stop on the gravel.
A passing car blew its horn for some reason Ngan couldn't quite
fathom.
•. . . so anyway, I'd really like you to tell me wie Sie wissen,
um eine Holle wie dieser zu ankommen? Do you want to know
whatr ·
"Michael," Ngan said, "tell me where you are."
"Well I'll tell you what, ich will die Holle dieser Mif!,geburt
iiu.f!,ern, und ich will aus dieser Holle entkommen, so do me a favor.
Will you do me a favor?" .
Ngan closed his eyes when the car came to a complete stop
and said, "Michael, please,• three times as McCain continued
without pause.
"Look up das Wort 'homunculus' am Lexikon because I'm talk·
ing to one, und he's einer iibele little-hey, listen, sorry Nichts,
·

aber /ch gotta muss bei dir ehrlich sein, Mensch, it's nicht artig, ich
stimme. Es tut mir leid, die Fliigel sind : . . well, the wings are
what they are, and that's something, aber die Zacken, I'd sage,
und air Holle, arrMren, Nga.n . . . listen . . . •
McCain paused finally, obviously confused, disoriented. Was
that German he was speaking? There was a hiss that Ngan rec·
ognized. McCain was on a cell phone too. Ngan put the car in
park. ·
"I have five sen$.es, Ngan. !ch kann sehen, hiiren, riechen,
beriihren, schmecken. I'm. cold, all right? Konnen Sie mich hear?
Ngan?"
"I can hear you, Michael," Ngan said, displeased with the
edge of panic he heard in his own voice. "Can you tell me where
you are?"
"I told you where I am," McCain said. ·
Ngan's heart skipped a beat. McCain had spoken directly to

Bl
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

him for the first time. "You're still at Camp Clarity?" Ngan said,
hearing the unintentional lilt of a question in his voice. •Are you
still at Camp Clarity?"
·"Clarity . . ." McCain mumbled, his voice now heavy with
exhaustion.
"In Lesterhalt," Ngan said. "Michael, what has he done to
you?"
McCain started laughing. It was a frayed, unsettling cackle.
"Can you get out?" Ngan asked.
"T.he neck," McCain said. •rasten Sie. Right, Nich- Oh . . ."
"Michael?"
There was no answer. Ngan could hear another voice deep in
the background but could recognize no words.
"Michael?" Ngan asked again, scared now.
"Listen," McCain said. "It's no big-"
McCain's voice was replaced by a hollow clatter then a
sharp, sustained beep that made Ngan pull the phone quickly off
his ear and wince with pain. He could hear the beep cut off, and
he put the phone back to his ear and said, "Michael."
Silence.
"Michael!"
The line was dead.
Ngan tossed the cell phone onto the empty passenger seat of
the car and took a deep breath. He signaled a left and waited for
a truck to pass. He had to meet Vanessa Richards at the restau­
rant in McLean, but immediately after that, he knew he would
have to find his way to Lesterhalt, Illinois. Something was hor­
ribly wrong with Michael McCain. Ngan had never known the
man to babble, and he seemed not to know where he was, what
he was doing, or even who Ngan was.
He pulled back onto the highway and squeezed the steering
wheel tightly the rest of the way.

. 87
 I
i
j .

-1) f all the things Jeane Meara thought she'd find her·
self doing that night, fighting for her life was not
one of them.
Fenton had come up from the floor fast and hard. He
swore at her as he piled into her chest like a football
player. The air went out of Jeane's lungs all at once, and
shewas pushed backward into the chair. On the way down
she knew she couldn't stop herself, so she'd better make
the most of it. When her backside hit the cushion, her right
foot came up and into Fenton's groin hard enough to make
him blow the air out ofhis lungs. She kept pushing him up
until he ended up flipping headfirst over her to land in a
jumble on the freshly vacuumed carpet behind the chair.
·· Jeane's brain went instantly to fight mode, though
she kept open the possibility that her kick had taken all
the fight out of Fenton and was prepared to stop. A
sense of calm washed over her, and for the first time that
night she was at. ease, confident in her ability to handle
the situation.

BB
 a .w. ti r p a

She didn't stop again to consider that she'd already mis­

handled the operation to. the point of utter disaster. She might
be able to convince Fenton that she was still a hooker, just a
hooker who's very sensitive to racist rhetoric, but she'd never
gain any of his confidence and would get no more iii.formation
from him. As it was now, she'd gotten none.
"That was fun," F_enton said as Jeane stood and came around
the chair. _

He was laying on his back on the carpet with his hands

under the chair. His lip was oozing blood but he was smiling.
"Look-" Jeane started to say, but stopped when the chair
hit her in the face.
She fell back but not down and let the chair roll off her,
though she knew she'd have a nice black eye in the morning.
She hadn't the slightest idea how Fenton had managed to throw
the chair. He was laying on the floor with no leverage. Though
the chair wasn't impossibly heavy, it was too heavy for him to
have thrown like that. He'd have been able to tip it over, but-
His fist smashed into her face, and this time she went down,
sprawlingover the coffee table and back onto the floor. She opened
her eyes and saw the sole of his shoe coming at her. She rolled
away and got to her feet without thinking. Running three steps,
she found herself behind the bar before her eyes cleared enough to
see farther. Fenton was standing next to the overturned chair and
off-center coffee table. His chin was tilted down, and he was look­
ing at her out of the tops of his eyes. His hands were at his side,
and they were shaking. Jeane took a deep breath.
"I've never killed anyone before," Fenton said, his voice
shaking and gruff.
Jeane could read his tone well enough. He'd never killed any­
· one before, but he fully intended this to be his first time.
- She almost tried to apologize, tried to salvage the situation,
but she knew all that would only make things worse. She had to
get out of there and decided that if she had to kill Fenton to do
it, she would.
"I think . . ." he said, taking half a step toward her. "I think
I want to break your neck. I think that's how I'll do it."

70
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He was between Jeane and the door. Behind her were the
French doors that led out onto the terrace, twenty-seven. stories
above Lake Shore Drive. .
She went over something like a plan n
i her mind, fast and
efficient, as she was trained to do. She would make an obvious
break for the door, let him come at her, then use his own
momentum against him. She'd kick and hit him in the groin as
many times and as hard as she could until he went down, then
she'd run for it.
She kept her face blank but glanced in the direction of the door.
His eyes followed hers as she stepped out from behind the little bar
and ran straight atthe door. He caine at her, reaching out with both
hands to grab her around the waist. Jeane stopped and her foot col­
lapsed under her. The high-heeled shoes-she'd forgotten the
damned shoes. She 'fell, twisting her ankle painfully, but it was a
fortunate accident. Fenton didn't expect her to stop and certainly
didn't expect her to fall. He tripped himseH trying to compensate
and sprawled clumsily to the floor.
-· Jeane made note of how slow he was even as she dropped
her right hand to the floor and spun her legs under her, kicking
off both shoes in less than one second. Fenton rolled over and
grabbed her left arm just above the elbow. Jeane heard herself
cry out at the touch-it was painfully tight. She grabbed one of
the shoes with her right hand and swung it at the hand holding
her ann. The spike heel came down hard on one knuckle. and a
loud crack merged with Fenton's pained yelp. He let go so fast
his hand knocked the shoe out of Jeane's grip.
"Bitch!" he shouted, "Nigger-loving whore!"
Jeanne snapped her head back fast into his face, and he
grunted and fell back. She got to lier feet, her pantyhose slip­
ping a little on the carpet and her ankle blazing in pain, but she
started to run. Fenton managed to grab one of her ankles and
Jeane didn't believe he was actually lifting her over his head, but
he was. She felt like a baby being thrown in the air. She flailed
with her arms in the air. His hand came off her ankle, and she
hit the ground just short of smashing through the floor-to-ceiling
windows.

71
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It wasn't possible. Fenton couldn't be that strong. He was a

middle·aged rich yuppie racist. Dangerous on many levels-the
systematic chemical poisoning of the African·American commu·
nity not the least of those dangers-but he wasn't that strong.
He couldn't be that strong.
"Whites only, Joyce Mannering, • he said. Fenton was
standing over her, his suit and hair all mussed. "The future will
unfold according to a plan. you know, but you'll miss it. You
could have been one of the mothers of the New World Order.
You could have . . . Well, that won't happen now. Not for.you."
He was picking her up again, and Jeane made herself snap
out of it mentally and physically. She whipped her body up and
to the side so fast her own head spun. She came out of Fenton's
grip and landed with a wince on her bad ankle. She brought her
other foot up, then down fast and hard onto Fenton's instep.
There was a satisfying crack from the foot and an even more sat·
isfying scream from the man.
Fenton didn't go down. He punched at her again, but the blow
was so slow it almost made Jeane laugh. She ducked under it
easily and brought an elbow into his belly that would have made
anyone double over. Fenton flinched a little but remained upright.
"You haven't been punished yet." Fenton said. He grabbed
Jeane by the hair and pulled.
She almost screamed but stifled t
i so it came out as a sort of
disappointed growl.
"When Erwiihl.en ascends, yo:u will all be punished, and we
will be purified.•
There was the name. Ngan's suspect: Erwiihl.en. They were
connected, he and Fenton. They suspected that much at least,
but that little confirmation was still not at all worth the damage
·

th.is complete failure was-

Jeane made the final decision to kill Roger Fenton right then.
She had a gun in her purse, but she'd left her purse in the
foyer. She'd have to get to the door to get her gun.
She twisted in his grip and could feel some hair come free of
her scalp. It hurt enough to make tears cloud her eyes, but she
was able to reach up between his legs and squeeze.

72
 In f lui d a I I e n ce

He rumbled out a guttural curse and let go of her hair when

she twisted. The second she was free of his unnaturally strong
grip she ran toward the door and grabbed for the purse on the
little table there. He was right behind her, grabbing at her feet
the whole way, and she kicked his hands more than once.
"What's in there?" he snarled. He almost got hold of one of
her feet, but her nylons were too slick for him to get .a good grip.
She felt the cool patent leather of the purse-in her hand and
dived forward, twisting. She came to rest with her back pressed
up against the door, and her right hand wentinto the purse. Fen­
ton was crawling up her, his hands bent like claws, his eyes wild
with rage and a sort of pure burning hatred she'd only seen once
in her life, and there was the flash of a memory.
A little girl, then the man with the long hair and the eyes and the
face that weren 't human anymore and smoke and screaming and the
realization that he wasn't what he said he was but the complete,
impossible oPPosite. . . .
The gun went off with a ringing bang that was more like a
ridiculously loud click in the confined space. Her ears rang, but
she heard Fenton say, "That's it-a gun!"
Jeane's head cleared, and she realized she wasn't in Waco,
realized that she'd found the gun in her purse and had shot
through the bottom of it. Fenton was still on her, and she knew
she'd missed. She squeezed the trigger again as Fenton batted
the purse away. Another loud bang, and the purse and gun flew
from her hand. The purse dropped to the floor next to them, but
the gun flew back over Fenton's head and into the living room.
Jeane brought her knee up into Fenton's groin, and the man
twitched and grunted. She did it again, and he rolled off her, but
he didn't stop rolling until he got to his feet. He didn't bother
looking at her. He looked back into the living room, scanning for
something-the gun!-and seemed to find it.
Knowing she had to get to it first, Jeane grabbed him by the
belt and lifted herself up even as she pulled him down, or tried
to. Fenton locked his knees and didn't fall back, but Jeane was
still on her feet next to him. They lunged at the same time, and
Fenton would have gone farther except that Jeane was still

. 73
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holding onto his belt. He hit the floor face first, bouncing his
chin on the carpet, but Jeane knew how to roll and still keep her
bearings. She felt the back of her hand brush his, then felt the
cold metal of the automatic on her palm.
Fenton scrambled to a standing position as Jeane continued
her roll. They made eye contact when Jeane got to her knees.
Fenton opened his mouth to say something, and Jeane squeezed
the trigger. A rose. of deep red blossomed on Fenton's stomach
even as the sound of the gun going off assaulted Jeane's already
stinging ears. Fenton was pushed back, lost his balance, and his
arms pinwheeled. He hit the French doors and went through
them as if they were breakaway movie props. The sound of the
glass shatt�ring was almost as loud as the gunshot.
· Fenton slid across the terrace on his back and stopped when
his head hit the concrete railing. Glass falling on the flagstone
terrace sounded like rain. Jeane stood up, still holding the gun
in front of her with both hands. She was breathing heavily,
almost panting.
Fenton stood. Jeane tipped her head to one side, and they
made eye contact. Fenton put his hand to his bloody shirt and
said, with all the pure conviction of a three-year-old child, "I'm
one of the winnersr
Jeane squeezed the trigger again, feeling a smile pull the
right side if her mouth upward. The bullet· caught Fenton high
on the left shoulder and flipped him over the railing so fast that
Jeane wasn't able too see the look on his face.
He didn't scream all twenty-seven stories down.

The man standing over Michael McCain was crushing the

cell phone under very expensive-looking heavy black boots.
McCain looked up at him. "I think I was done, anyway."
The man smiled, and McCain couldn't help but smile back.
The man was sixty, maybe seventy years old, with distinguished
lines creasing parts of his clean-shaven face. His white-grey hair
was cut close and neatly combed back. His nose, eyes, and lips

1'
 I1 f tull l 1 1 I 1 • ce

were small, fine, and his pronounced cheekbones gave him an

aristocratic air. He was wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal­
grey suit and a plain maroon tie made of shimmering silk. He
wore no jewelry of any kind, even a watch. His eyes were crys·
ta1 blue and sparkling with intelligence and something McCain
hoped was wit.
"How do you feel, son?" the man asked McCain. He had a
thick accent that made McCain realize the man was speaking
English.
McCain had started to feel worse right around the time he'd
stood up and looked over the pools of golden liquid. As he'd
babbled-and he was babblingbut hadn't been able to stop himself
or organize his thoughts-he'd slid back down to sit, still naked
and shivering, on the rough concrete floor. His head felt as if it
were packed full of cotton, and his eyes hurt like he had a fever.
"/ch will heimgehen, • McCain answered in German. "!ch
friere. •
"That will pass," the man said, "and when it does, you will
have arisen.•
McCain nodded, though he wasn't sure what he was nodding
for. He heard footsteps behind the man and said, "Nichts?"
There was a rustle of leathery wings from the other side, and
McCain saw the homunculus cowering next to the first line of
orange barrels. He turned back to where the footsteps were com·
ing from and saw four teenaged boys step up behind the man.
"Who are you guys?" McCain asked, pretty sure he was
speaking English again.
All four of the boys glanced at tlie older man and said noth·
ing. All four were wearing letterman jackets-a dull blue fleece
with white vinyl sleeves. Theywore numbers: two 'Ols, an '02,
and an '03. McCain always felt old when he saw high school
kids who were graduating after the turn of the centuzy, and
though he still wasn't sure where he was and what he w�s doing
there, he felt old again. That made him smile.
"Have you been taking care of me?" McCain asked the man.
There was a metal-on-metal sound, a click, and Mceain
noticed that one of the boys had cocked the submachine gun he

.15
 g .w. ti r p a

was canying. How could McCain have failed to notice that the
teenagers were armed?
The kid who'd cocked his weapon was smiling at McCain
with a mouth full of braces. These were corn·fed Midwestern
kids, football players, jocks, with dull expressions and a glint of
cruelty in their eyes that McCain hadn't seen since he was in
high school himself.
"I've been taking care of you," the man said, "yes."
"A:re you the bad guy?" McCain asked him.
One of the boys stepped forward and aimed his weapon at
McCain's head. McCain flinched and forced a smile and a rough,
almost barking laugh.
"Bad guy?" the man asked, placing a still hand on the boy's
shoulder and preventing him from splashing McCain's brain all
over the floor.
"Arger Kerl, • McCain translated, "Bosewicht. •
The man smiled and said, "My name is Hans Reinhold
Erwahlen."
That name somehow rang a bell with McCain. He sat up,
pulled one foot under him, and tried to stand. The boy with the
braces reached out and pushed him back, and McCain's head hit
the side of the pool. He swore, and pain and a flash of light
exploded behind his eyes.
"That was uncalled for, Jerry," Erwahlen said. "From a cer­
tain perspective Mr. McCain is correct. I am quite certain that
any number of people in this nai:ve world would think of me as a
villain. They will see soon enough, as will you, Mr. Michael
McCain of Chicago, Illinois, that they were mistaken."
McCain put a hand to his throbbing head and closed his eyes
tightly against the pain. The kid had pushed him hard. Very
hard. He slid his hand to the back of his head and felt something
warm and wet in his hair.
"Ah, see, now," Erwahlen said, "he's bleeding. That will be a
demerit for you, Jerry."
"Sony, Mr. E,• the kid said, his voice as dull as his cruel eyes.
"Yeah, Jeny," McCain said, his eyes still closed. "That was
bogus, dude."

78
 Ia f lul d 1 1 1 1 I Cl

"Man, shut the-" Jeny started to say, then stopped. McCain

opened his eyes and saw Erwahlen staring angrily at the kid,
who was looking at the floor with a look on his face as if he
might be relieving himself in his pants. ·

Erwiihlen met McCain's gaze and offered him a smile Ward

Cleaver might have offered the Beaver. The sight of it sent a
wave of cold trembling up McCain's spine, but he made himself
smile anyway.
"No hard feelings?" he asked, glancing back at the boy.
The teenager Jeny. didn't notice the look, just turned and
walked over to the wall, still looking down, sulking. The other
three boys kept their hands on their guns and their eyes on
McCain.
Erwahlen crouched in front of McCain, tugging gently at his
pants as he sank slowly and effortlessly. It struck McCain as
unusual that the man's knees didn't crack.
"I understand that you're cold," Erwahlen said to McCain,
the beatific smile still lighting his handsome face. "I understand,
too, that you think I'm a terrible person, ruled by my hatreds,
motivated by some kind of . . . what is it this year? Fear? Anger?
I haven't been keeping up with my Oprah Wmfrey."
Erwiihlen laughed, and the four boys-even Jeny-laughed
with him. They sounded like toadies.
"I think it's fear," McCain offered, trying to return the smile.
Erv.iahlen nodded and said, "Fear then. Still, it's not true. I'm
not afraid, and you don't have to be either, Michael McCain-or
shall I call you Fitz?"
"If you like,• McCain said, confused at first then recognizing
the nickn.ame.
"So Fitz it is,• Erwahlen replied. "You're going to go back in
for a while-"
"No chance in-" McCain said, stopping short when one of
the boys stepped forward.
"No, Patrick," Erwahlen said without looking back at the
boy. The kid stopped and took a step back, but he kept his gun
pointed at McCain.
"Hell of a goon squad you got there, Hans," McCain said.

n
 u .w. ti r p a

To his surprise, Erwahlen laughed, then winked at him and

said, "The next generation of the master race."
McCain realized Erwahlen wasn't joking, and it made him
· ·

shiver.
"I know, Fitz," Erwahlen said, "that you don't believe now,
but that's because you don't understand. My little friend Nichts
pulled you out too early. He'll be punished for that, of course, as
he'll be punished for giving you the telephone."
Nichts rustled again but said nothing. One of the boys looked
over at the homunculus with undisguised contempt. .
"I spoil my children, as you see," Erwahlen continued. "For­
giveness and a big heart are my weaknesses.•
McCain didn't believe him. "You're keeping me here against
my will, " McCain said.
Erwahlen smiled again, but all the friendliness drained from
it. "Your will shall have to change, Fitz," he said.
McCain thought of a quick comeback but swallowed it. His
head reeled, and he was having trouble lifting his arms.
Erwahlen turned to the boys and said, "Pick him up. Put him
back in the vril."
McCain said, "No," but they ignored him. He struggled, but
they overpowered him The kids were strong, and he was weak.
.

"You will see, Michael McCain," Erwii.hlen said. "You will

underst-" and his voice was lost when the vril filled McCain's
ears.

78
. ·1
...eane got out of the apartment immediately after
shooting Roger Fenton off the balcony. She took the
stairs down six flights before having to stop. She
sat on a step and breathed for six or seven long seconds.
She'd blown the whole operation so badly that she was
dumbfounded by the magnitude of her own failure. And
she was the.one they called Wonder Woman back at the
ATF? She wasn't even Foxy Brown.
She gathered her wits and decided to keep going
down the stairs. It seemed logical that one had two
choices when fleeing a crime scene. .You could either get
out of there as fast as possible-before anybody showed
up to throw you in jail-or you could hole up somewhere
and wait for things to cool down long enough for you to
leave after all the cops assume whoever did it is long
gone. Jeane was always amazed by how rarely the bad
guy was actually "long gone."
Taking the elevator would have been a mistake­
cameras. The stairs should take .long enough and get her

79
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closer to the back of the building. She'd have time -walking

slowly down twenty flights of stairs to think of a decent cover
story in case she was stopped by the cops coming out. She con­
sidered ditching the gun, but it had her fingerprints on it, and as
a fonner federal agent hers would be easy enough to trace. For
that matter she still had fingerprints on a wineglass, and other
things upstairs.
She stopped dead and looked at the door on the next land·
ing. A large 12 was painted on it.
Damn it, she thought. I have to go back.

By-the time Ngan made it to the restaurant-which was easy

enough to find-he was in no mood to eat. He arrived before
Vanessa Richards and was seated at a booth by a slight young
Asian woman who smiled in the sort of sincere way that Ngan
always noticed. He returned her smile and told her that he was
meeting someone. Her only reply was a slight bow. She walked
away quickly because a young couple had come in and was wait­
ing to be seated.
He opened the menu, which promised "Siamese CUisine," an
old-fashioned way of saying Thai food, and sighed. The phone
call from McCain had unsettled him all out of proportion, espe·
cially coiµing right on the heels of a flight, and Ngan felt his
nerves stretched tighter than they'd been in years.
He was glad Vanessa was meeting him Their relationship
.

had always been strictly professional, of course, but they always

shared the sort of casual conversations that most Americans
take for granted but Ngan rarely engaged in. Vanessa treated
him like a peer, in both age and work, though she was much
younger than him and worked for an organization not at all like
the Hoffmann Institute.
Ngan closed the menu and set it down on the strangely pat­
terned table in front of him. The tabletop was ike
l a kaleido­
scope frozen in a not terribly interesting pattern. A tiny
black-bud vase sat on the center of the table and held a couple

80
 II f lul • 1 I I t I ct

of delicate white flowers-a touch of class at odds with the gar·

ish tabletop.
Ngan let his eyes focus on a spot an n
i ch above the tabletop
and made his breathing as slow and deep as he could manage.
He lost all track of time, his mind closing off from the subdued
bustle of the small restaurant. He could feel his palms sweating
and concentrated on that physical symptom. His mind wanted to
travel, literally leave his body for some other place-something
Ngan had done often enough-but he held himself in, steadied
his mind, and felt his body fall into place.
When he opened his eyes he saw that a small pot of tea had
been set on the table, and two teacups sat next to it. One of the
cups was full of steaming green tea. He looked at the door, and
Vanessa Richards walked in as if she'd been waiting there for
him to look at her.
Ngan watched her speak briefly with the hostess. Vanessa
might have been a full twelve inches taller than the hostess,
eight inches taller than Ngan. She'd obviously gone home before
coming to the restaurant. At work she wore conservative suits.
Now she was dressed in loose-fitting bluejeans that still showed
off her long legs. Her sweatshirt told anyone who might have
been interested that she was a graduate of Howard University.
There were no rings on her thin-fingered, well-manicured hands.
On her feetwere brilliant white canvas deck shoes.
Vanessa looked up as she followed the hostess. She caught
Ngan's eye and smiled. Her teeth were white, and though a per·
fectionist might have thought she should have visited an ortho·
dontist her smile was delightful. Her skin was a perfect,
uniform milk-chocolate brown. She wore very little if any
makeup because she didn't need to wear any. Her hair was left
natural, but cut close to her scalp. She walked with her back
very straight. Ngan knew monks who had trained for decades
to achieve the sort of balance she exhibited naturally .in her
walk.
"I know," she said in a voice husky and deep when she got
to the table. "I have great natural balance.•
Ngan smiled as she sat across from him, fluidly sliding into

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the booth. The hostess flipped over the other teacup and filled it .
with a practiced grace that came from having done it over and
over again every night for years.
"It is a pleasure to see you again, Vanessa." Ngan said, still
smiling.
. The hostess put down the teapot and set a menu in front of
Vanessa, then turned and walked away without a word.
Vanessa inhaled through her nose for exactly three seconds,
then exhaled for five. It was something she always did before
she started talking to Ngan. He assumed it was her way of
steadying her nerves before she betrayed her oath and loyalty to
the Central Intelligence Agency. He knew she wouldn't tell him
everything she knew, but she always gave him accurate infor­
mation and always gave him what she called his "One Thing"­
one piece o°f information that would get her killed if anyone
found out she'd told him. It seemed to be something like a pro· �

fessional courtesy she felt she owed the Institute. Ngan had no
idea why, and he'd never asked her.
·"We should look at the menu," Ngan said.
Vanessa smiled, opened her menu, but didn't look at it. "So
they moved you to Chicago," she said, "the Wmdy City."
"Yes." Ngan said dryly, not looking tip from the menu, "I have
·

found it so."
Vanessa chuckled and looked down at the menu. Ngan
glanced up at her for half a second, then looked back down at
the menu.
"Here's one that has your name on it." Vanessa said, then
read from the menu, "Kai Kung Nga Ngarm. Sounds good."
Ngan smiled and said, "I wonder if there is a restaurant
where I could order a Vanessa Richards."
"No chance, honey," she joked. "I'm strictly home cookin'."
Ngan laughed with her, but he could feel himself forcing it.
He couldn't help thinking that Michael McCain was being killed
even as they joked about a restaurant menu.
"Volcano Chicken, then." he said.
Vanessa looked at him, smiling, then her face changetl,
·

growing just a little more serious. She'd noticed his anxiety.

82
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"What would Hans Reinhold Erwfiltlen order?" Vanessa

asked, winking at her own hamhanded segue.
"Royal Trout, I'd think," Ngan. answered and was pleased
when Vanessa laughed.
"Really, Ngan," she asked, not impatiently. "It looks like
ancient dead to me.•
Ngan shrugged and said, "Curiosity."
Vanessa smirked and took a sip of her tea.
"The Institute has wide-ranging interests,• Ngan said.
. Vanessa nodded, set dow:n her tea, and said, "There are still
people who think that was a volcano seven months ago."
Ngan shrugged. "It might have been a volcano. Volcano
Chicken, perhaps, with too much red pepper and curry."
Vanessa smirked again and said, "There are people-very
serious, important people-who want to move the capital. They
think there's a baby Mount St. Helens down there."
Ngan shrugged again, and Vanessa rolled her eyes. "Black
helicopters . •. .

"That wasn't us," Ngan said softly.

"No,• Vanessa said, very seriously, her eyes cold and hooded.
Ngan hated it when she got that look in her eyes. "No, that
wasn't you."
"Erwahlen was brought here after the war," Ngan said, bul·
lying the conversation back to cover his own agenda in hopes
that he'd get her to stop looking at him like that.
"Maybe he liked Siamese Cuisine,• she joked lamely.
"I flew in an airplane to talk with you tonight, Vanessa,•
Ngan said with a falsely wrinkled brow.
Vanessa put out her lower lip in mock sympathy. "For mer
Ngan smiled and said, •Anything for you, Vanessa.·
"SeriousJy, Ngan,• she said her eyes revealing real concern.
"You need to find some way to get over that. It's, like, thirty·
thousand times more likely you'll die in a,car accident."
Ngan shrugged and said, "I know."
Vanessa nodded. "So I did some digging around after you
called ·and found what little there is left to find. It was a long
time �go, and records from that time were all on microfilm or
83
 a .w. ti r p a

some crap like that, and of course it was the height of the Cold
War. . . ".

Ngan nodded but didn't say anything. Vanessa had many

interesting contradictions. Politically, she was rather conserva­
tive. Conservative in the sort of Invade Cuba/fed Kennedy-is-a­
communist·bent-on-the·destruction·of·the·American-Way-of-Life
kind of way that was getting thankfully rare in the post-Reagan
era. Socially, she was as liberal as they come. A black woman,
she certainly couldn't side with the traditional right, and she
always seemed devoid of religion, so she never fell into the
Christian right. She was committed to the mission of the CIA
and was an enthusiastic, Joyal agent. Still, she knew right from
wrong and would not tolerate it when the Agency did wrong.
"He did work for the Agency after the war," she continued,
obviously not happy with the whole idea of Nazi war criminals
working for the CIA but aware of the fact that there was noth­
ing she could do about it. "He advised on the Middle East and
other things, but that's where things get fuzzy. I have to admit
I'm not really sure what he did, and those records aren't in the
places you can look without someone noticing you're looking. I
saw some memos, though, that-"
The waiter appeared, as waiters are prone to, as if from
nowhere. Vanessa didn't bother trying to mask the fact that
she'd stopped in midsentence. The waiter noticed it, of course,
and looked at her with eyes that tried to tell her he was sorry
and he wished she would have kept talking because he was now
curious about what she was talking about, since she obviously
didn't want him to hear. Vanessa looked at him with eyes that
said, more convincingly, get the hell out of here.
"You rea<lY order?" the waiter asked, and Ngan couldn't help
th.inking the accent was fake, like Jeny Lewis as the Chinese
waiter.
Ngan watched Vanessa glance at the menu and saY, "Kai
Kung Nga Ngarm."
The waiter didn't write anything down. He kept his hands
behind his back. He looked at Ngan and asked, "And sir?"
"Volcano Chicken, please," Ngan said quickly.

u
 IR f 1111 � 1 1 1 1 I Cl

The waiter nodded and turned to go when Vanessa said,

•And a limeade for me, too, please."
He made eye contact with Vanessa again, nodded, said,
"Miss," turned, and walked away.
Vanessa watched him go, and Ngan watched Vanessa for
twenty seconds or.so before she turned to Ngan and said, "I saw
memos that made it clear that some pretty powerful people
really started to lose patience with this guy in the mid and late
sixties."
"He did something wrong?"
Vanessa looked at Ngan silently for a long time, and he
stared back at her. "This is your One Thing," she said.
He nodded for her to continue and took a sip of his tea.
"The nation of Western Sahara was having some trouble in
the late sixties, and the Agency took sides. The bad guys were
holed up in Guelta Zemmur and weren't going anywhere anytime
soon. The Agency, based on your boy's advice, decided to poison
the water supply in Guelta Zemmur. We don't do that sort of
thing anymore, but there you go."
"So they poisoned the water," Ngan asked, "and something
went wrong?"
Vanessa smirked and said, "Your guy decided not to stop
with Guelta Zemmur. He was stopped literally minutes from poi·
soning the water for all of Western Sahara. When he was con·
fronted by his superiors in the Agency, he told them he thought
it was a reasonable opportunity to begin to lessen the . . . how
did he put it? 'Overpopulation among the savages,' I think."
"Savagesr Ngan asked, puzzled by the term.
"Yeah, a real sweetheart,• Vanessa said. "He was taken off
the Saharawi situation and moved around from here to there,
mostly doing what they call 'high-level consultation,' which
means he sat in a room somewhere and thought about stuff."
"Thought?" Ngan asked. "About what?"
Vanessa sighed, shrugged, and said, "Whatever he wanted
to, I guess. He'd advise on organizational matters, y'know: Back
in Berlin these guys answered to those guys, the field com·
manders were authorized to do such and such, and the Agency

.5
 U .w. ti � p a

should do the same thing. Turns out he was a pretty crappy field
agent. Some of the guys they brought over after the war were as
loyal to Germany as any German, but weren't really ideologues.
They worked the war like soldiers, or like cops. This guy,
though, seems to have brought the racism, all that baggage, out
of Deutschland with him and was prone, like in Westem Sahara,
to actually go ahead and act on it."
Ngan sipped his tea again and looked up to meet·Vanessa's
cool gaze.
"Why do you care, anyway?" she asked him. "He's dead."
"Is he?" Ngan asked.
Vanessa's eyes narrowed. She almost looked angry. "The
Agency closed the book on him in '70."
"Closed the book on him?" Ngan a.Sked. "1970?"
"It doesn't go on anymore,• she said, "but . . . he was a Nazi,
anyway, right?"
"The CIA assassinated him?" Ngan asked, legitimately sur­
prised.
Vanessa smiled at him and closed her eyes, "We're in a pub·
·

lie place, Ngan, and not that far from Langley."

"I apologize," he said, lowering his voice.
"That was thirty-one years ago,• she said. "Why the interest
all of a sudden?"
"And you're sure they killed him?" he asked, still speaking
quietly.
Vanessa glanced to one side, then sat back in the booth and
smiled. The waiter appeared again, set a tall glass of bright
green limeade on a cocktail napkin in front of Vanessa, then
turned and walked away.
"I read the memo that ordered it," she told him finally.
"But you're not sure they succeeded?"
Vanessa chuckled lightly, then picked up her limeade and
took a sip. She smiled at'the taste of it and put the glass down
ge·ntly. "He wasn't hard to find, okay? Besides, he'd be dead now
anyway, even if he got away from the Agency, which I'm sure he
didn't. I saw a picture of him taken n
i El Aainn in 1969; he must
have been seventy.•

88
 II f lul � 1 1 1 1 I Cl

Ngan had seen a picture of him taken in Germany in 1940,

and he might have been seventy.
"I thought it was the A.D.L.'s job to find the hundred-year­
old Nazis rotting away in Chile or someplace."
"I talked to the A.D.L.," he told her. "They told me the Cen­
tral Intelligence Agency was suppressing information on
Erwahlen."
Vanessa smiled. "The Agency suppresses information on
everything, Ngan. It's dried blood. Ancient dead."
Ngan nodded and looked over to see the waiter coming with
their food.

17
 J� didn't take long for Jeane to remove any evidence
that she'd been in Fenton's apartment. She felt like
a criminal, of course, which in the eyes of the law,
she was. She'd killed Fenton in self defense and could
probably prove it in court, but she could never justify
why she'd been there in the first place. Likewise, she
never got the feeling from anyone at the Hoffmann Insti·
tute, includi.D.g Ngan, that they'd do anything to jeopard·
ize themselves in order to defend her.·
She was back in the staircase in only slightly better
shape than she was the first tillle she'd started down.
The police hadn't made it up to the penthouse yet, and
she'd managed to get in and out fast enough. They'd
probably come up n i the elevator a second after she
ducked back into the stairwell.
On the way down the stairs she thought of and
rejected over a dozen possible cover stories. When �he
got to the first floor, she still had nothing and still had
the gun in her purse. If she was caught with it, it would

BB
 U .w. ti r p a

be all the evidence they'd need to charge her with murder, but
for some reason she just couldn't stomach the thought of dis·
carding it. Would she shoot a cop if she had to to get away?
Would she shoot the doorman?
"I shot the sheriff." she sang to herself, "but I did not shoot
the deputy.n
She found the back way out, a cold steel door marked Emer·
·

gency Exit Oniy-Alarm Will Sound.

The alarm was more like a fire alarni than a security meas·
ure, but Jeane didn't want to risk it going off. The building could
be ringed by cops for all she knew, and those cops would be lis·
telling for exactly thatkind of sound.
She fished in her purse and found a Swiss Army knife. It
took a while to get the big metal box on the door off, but once
she was inside it, she knew exactly which wires to cut to disable
the alarm: the only wires. It wasn't exactly Fort Knox.
She sighed, hoping there wasn't a cop outside the door, and
put her knife away. She debated pulling her gun, then decided
not to. After taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she
pressed gently, slowly on the door handle and felt it click open.
A high-pitched whine startled her, making her gasp, and her
heart jumped in her chest-then she realized it was her cell
phone ringing.
She snatched it out of the little purse before it could ring a
second ti.me and whispered, "Speak," into the phone.
"Jeane?" Ngan's voice asked. "Is that you?"
"Ngan," she whispered. "I can't really-n
"It's hard to hear you," he said, speaking.loudly over dense
background noise. "I'm driving back to National Airport.
Michael is in serious trouble. My meeting here is finished, and I
will need you to meet me in Lesterhalt.n
•

�Lesterhalt?" she asked, daring to speak in an almost­

normal voice. "In southern Illinois?"
Jeane had no idea where the town of Lesterhalt was, exactly,
but she felt reason�bly sure that she could find it on a map.
·

Chicago was getting a little warm for her anyway.

"Yes," he said, a loud burst of static almost overwhelming

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 In f lul d s I I e n ce

his voice, "that's right. Meet me there as soon as you can."

"Fitz is in trouble?" she asked, "You're sure?"
"Yes," he told her. "I think things are starting to go wrong."
Jeane closed her eyes and pressed the phone tight against
the side of her head.
"Jeane?"
"I'll see you there," she promised. "Tomorrow."
"Good," he said, and broke the connection.
Jeane left the phone at her ear for a second, hearing Ngan
say, "I think things are starting to go wrong," over and over in
her head. He had no-
The phone disappeared from her hand, replaced by a blazing
pain in the side of her head. Her neck snapped back, and she fell
back and down like a sack of flour, scraping her right palm on
the stairwell's concrete floor. Someone had punched her in the
face-hard.
"Bitch!" Fenton barked at her.
She looked up, and there he was, suit drenched in blood. He
was holding his left eye in Vlith his 'left hand. It was hanging out
of his black eye socket by a twisted cord that looked like blood·
soaked yarn. He sneered at her, and she saw he was missing
teeth. He looked like someone who'd just fallen twenty-seven
stories to his death.
Except he wasn't dead.
�Fenton," she breathed, scuttling backward on the cold,
rough floor.
�ou," he breathed angrily, his voice low and bubbling, like
his lungs were full of fluid. "You were going to kill me? You came
·

to kill me?"
"No," she said, though she wasn't sure why. He kicked her,
and pain blasted from her hip, up her spine, and into her already
reeling head. Her vision went momentarily dark, and she fought
against losing consciousness as best she could. She fumbled for
the purs� and blinked, trying to spot it on the floor.
"I am going to burn you," Fenton growled. "I am going to
·

hurt you, bitch, and hurt you badly."

He kicked her again, and the pain made her sit up straight.

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 I .w. ti r p a

Something soft touched her back, and she knew it wasn't Fen­
ton. It was the purse.
His hand grabbed her shoulder, and his fingers squeezed her
so tightly she was sure they'd break the skin. She let him pull
her up, all the while fishing in her purse for the gun. She could
feel the hole already blown through the bottom, then felt the
gun. She curled her hand around the trigger and opened her
eyes, having just realized they were closed.
Fenton was smiling at her with a mouth full of bloOd and bro­
ken teeth. His left eye had finally fallen all the way out, and his
face was a featureless mask of dark red blood. He pulled his fist
back to punch her in the face, and she knew that, as strong as
he was, he would kill her with that punch.
He started to move his fist forward, and she brought the gun
up. She was fast enough by pure luck. She squeezed the trigger,
and there was a flash followed by a loud, sharply echoing bang
in the cramped concrete and cinder-block space. Fenton's fist
exploded.
He screamed more in anger than in pain, and Jeane brought
the gun up higher and fired again. Fenton's head burst into two
big and several small pieces. His body poured down onto the
floor in a pile of limp, twitching flesh.
Jeane didn't stop to put the gun away. Her ears were ringing
and her vision was still blurred. She stepped forward over the
body and fell into the door with enough force to open it.
She stepped out into the alley, and there was a three-inch
drop from the door's threshold to the alleyfloor. She tripped and
sprawled headfirst nto
i the cool, wet· alley. Gravel tore at her
arms and chin. She swore but kept her hand on the gun.
Bringing one knee up, she scraped it, too, on gravel and bits
of old broken glass. She was about to get up, then noticed some­
thing. At first, she thought that there must be something wrong.
with her eyes. The puddles in the alley were flashing alternat·
ing red and blue.
A foot fell next to ber bead.
"Fenton," she breathed, unable to believe it. He didn't have·
a head.

Sf
 Ia f lul d 1 1 le n ce

A heavy shoe kicked the gun out of her hand, and she felt a
knee press into the back of her neck. A stern, leather-gloved
hand took hold of her wrist. The grip was firm but not as
painfully tight as Fenton's. She blinked and saw the red and blue
light still flashing.
A man's voice, but not Fenton's said, "Right -there, lady,"
from somewhere above her.
"Got her?" another man asked.
She felt her hand yanked back, then another hand grabbed
her other wrist. There was a clicking sound.
"Obarsky?" the second man asked.
"Hold on," the other man said. Jeane felt handcuffs click in
place. "I got her."
"What . . . ?" Jeane managed to say, then blinked again. She
was starting to conie around.
She felt the man who'd·handcuffed her lean in closer, then
felt his breath on the back of her neck-breath that smelled like
pretzels-as he said, "Hey, let's just go ahead and say yer under
arrest, okay?"
"Damn it," Jeane whispered. Things were starting to go
wrong.

93
 : .

.
.

· 1 eane was still groggy when she felt herself dragged

across the alley, then lifted clumsily and stuffed
into a
The upholstery was vinyl---<:heap, cold,
car.

and uncomfortable. Jeane lifted her head, closed her

eyes tightly, then opened them. She was in the backseat
of a police car. There was wire mesh in front of her, clos­
ing the backseat off from the front, where a shotgun
stood barrel-up in a quick-release rack. There was a
little computer with a blinking green cursor. The driver's
side door opened, and something told Jeane to close her
eyes and pretend she was unconscious. There was noth·
ing she could say that would make anything better for­
her, but if she could hear what the cops had to say, she
might at least figure out how bad off she was.
"C'mon, kid." the· cop on the driver's side said, his
voice impatient, annoyed. Jeane could see his hand on
the door, his skin was pale, a little pink, and beginning
to wrinkle. "Look, just get in and trust me fer once,
would ya?"

95
 U .w. ti r p a

It was a Chicago accent, North Side.

·
The passenger side window was rolled down, so Jeane could
hear the other cop say, "Stan, this ain't goin' down like this,
man. This is my ass, too."
The other cop was black.
"Look," the driver said, his voice friendly, reassuring, "I'll
explain everything when we get outta here, okay? Nobody's
gonna give a rat's ass we bring dis bitch by-�
"Stan," the passenger said, "there was a shot fired, man. We
need to at least-"
"One time," the driver said. "We're supposed to be freakin'
partners, Robby; You can do this one thing fer me. Yer gonna do
one freakin' thing fer me ain'tcha?"
"Stan . . ."
"Aint'cha?"
There was a long pause, and Jeane could hear the sounds of
the city around them: cars going by, a horn, an airplane passing
overhead.
"Man," the passenger said finally, "I'm gonna regret this."
The driver laughed, a relieved sound. "You ain't gonna regret
nothin', Robby. Cross my freakin' 'eart."
"Man," the passenger said, "just get in the damn car."
Jeane kept her eyes closed, but she could hear the cops slide
into the car and close the doors. The radio squawked. The dis­
patcher quickly muttered something and was answered by
another unit who reported that they were going to. stop for cof­
fee. The dispatcher acknowledged that.
"She still out?" the white cop-Stan, Jeane remembered­
asked.
Jeane could hear someone shifting on the cheap vinyl bench
seat n
i front of her. "Looks like it," the black cop said. "She
could be fakin' it. You fakin' it?"
Jeane didn'tanswer. She kept her eyes closed and waited out
the lengthy silence that followed.
The car lurched forward, and Jeane heard one of the cops
·

shifting on the front seat again.

"Hey, man, " the black cop said. "1 go by Rob, okay? Not Robby."
98
 In f lul d 1 1 I e 1 ce

Obarsky laughed and said, "Yessir, Officer Rob Stewart, sir."

Stewart laughed, uncomfortably, almost devoid of humor.
Jeane opened one eye and looked out the left side window. They
were pulling out of the alley, onto Fullerton Avenue. A van
pulled in as they crossed the sidewalk. The side of the van very
nearly brushed against the side of the police car.
"Damn," Stewart breathed.
Jeane saw the driver of the van look at Obarsky and wink. ·

The driver of the van was hard to see clearly in the dark. A non·
descript white guy, maybe early thirties, wearing orange cover­
alls. As the van passed them Jeane recognized the logo painted
on it. She'd seen it at the cosmetics counter. Natura. Fenton's
company.
The van ground to a halt behind them, and Obarsky took a
sharp left onto Fullerton. A silver minivan had to screech to a
stop to avoid broadsiding them.
"Obarsky . . ." Stewart said, his voice m
i patient. "This is bad,
partner."
Jeane considered saying something. She could open her
eyes, sit up straight, and appeal to Rob Stewart. Obarsky
seemed to be up to something. Stewart was uncomfortable, to
say the least. Fenton must have-
But Fenton hadn't had time to call the police, especially not
a specific police officer friendly to his cause. So was Obarsky
working for the Hoffmann Institute? Was he sent to follow her,
i things went wrong? If that was the case, why
to pull her out f
was she n
i handcuffs? Also, wouldn't Ngan have told her about
that? Agents should know whether or not they have backup. It
had been obvious from the start of this now totally unsalvage­
able operation that she didn't have any backup.
Jeane had to admit she had no idea whatwas happening, and
the best she could do was ride it out and wait for an opportunity
to get the hell out of there.
She kept her left eye open just enough to tell that they were
headed west on Fullerton, away from the lake, back toward the
expressway.
"So where we goin'?" Stewart asked.

. 97
 g w. tl r p a
. .

Obarsky took a deep breath. "Just up this way a little, then

north on Halstead. Listen, Rob, th.is really ain't no big deal,
okay? Promise."
It was Stewart's turn to take a deep breath. He didn't say
anything.
The cool air rushing in through the open car window was
doing wonders for Jeane's physical and mental state. She could
feel herself coming around. She closed her le(t eye and let the
arr wash over her face. She listened to the police radio for some
clue about where she might be going with these two cops or
some mention of Fenton or a suicide or murder or anything.
"So," Stewart said after a very long silence, "I can't even
look in her purse and find out her name?"
"Her name is Joyce, okay?" Obarsky said. Jeane had to sup·
press a shudder. Fenton had n i sisted on calling her that. She
still had no idea why and less of an idea.how Obarsky could have
known that.
"Man . . ." Stewart said. "Look, Stan, she's all beat up, right,
and she had that gun on her. And I heard a shot, okay? She could
need medical attention. It ain't far to Northwestern."
"Hey, man." Obarsky replied. "She'll get to the hospital,
okay, and we'll check out the gunshot and alla that, okay? I just
gotta go by dis one place.•
"I ain't askin',• Stewart said, his voice full of resignation, trep·
i ation, and indignation. "Do what you gotta do, okay, but sooner
d
or later there's gonna be a brother needs a little somethin'. . . ."
"I hear ya., bro,• Oba.rs.b."Y replied jovia.lly. "Done dea.1, my
friend:"
Jeane let her head roll onto the window as the car took a
right off of Fullerton. She opened her left eye again and saw the
street sign pass. They went up maybe a block and a half north
of Fullerton on Halstead, then the car pulled off right and
bumped over a curb.
"Stan . . ." Stewart said, sounding really nervous now.
Jeane got scared all of a sudden, and without really taking
the time to consider her actions, she opened her eyes and said,
"Where are you taking me?"

98
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"Jesus freakin' Christ!" Obarsk:y exclaimed.

Jeane caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. His head was
almost spherical, his eyes looked black in the dark car. He had
a tight crewcut, and there was a roll of fat around his neck. He
wasn't wearing a hat.
"She's alive," Stewart said.
He turned in his seat to look back at her. He couldn't have
been any older than twenty-five, a fresh-faced black kid with a
shaved head in the style of Michael Jordan. He smiled, showing
white teeth.
Jeane met his eyes and said, "Am I under arrest?"
Stewart's face sagged. Instead of answering, he looked over
at Obarsk:y, who glanced at hill!, then stopped the car.
Jeane turned her head to look out the window. They'd come
to rest behind an eight-foot wall of newly poured concrete with
steel bars sticking out of it like the stalks of dead bushes. The
tires crunched gravel as the car almost slid to a stop. It was
dark, the whole area-obviously a construction site-lit only by
the headlights of the police car.
•Am I under arrest?" she asked again.
"Yeah ," Obarsk:y said, his voice sarcastic, bratty even, like a
petulant teenager. "Yeah, lady, yer under arrest."
Stewart sighed and shook his head. Obarsky looked at him
and their eyes met.
"Help me get her outta the car," Obarsky said.
Stewart just looked at him, hard. Obarsky returned the
younger man's gaze, and Jeane knew within the first second that
Obarsky was going to win. It didn't take much more than
another couple seconds for Stewart to look away and breathe, "I
will not lose this job, Stan:
"Yes, you will," Jeane said harshly before Obarsky could say
anything.
Both of the cops glanced at her, the looks on their faces
betraying their different feelings, different agendas.
"Help me get her out," Obarsky said flatly, then opened the
··
tloor.
The dashboard began to chime, and the light came on. It

.19
 u .w. ti r p a

wasn't too bright, but it stung Jeane's eyes, and she had to blink
to clear her vision. She could see Stewart looking at her. She
tipped her head and said, "It's your career, Officer Stewart."
He looked away immediately and opened his door. Obarsky
chuckled and got out, groaning as he straightened obviously
stiff knees. Stewart slid out rather more fluidly and opened the
rear passenger-side door.' Jeane didn't make a move to get out.
"Come on, lady," he said, his voice calmer than his quivering
eyes. "Just come on out." Then, more quietly, he added; "I won't
let him hurt you."
Jeane was at a loss for words.
Stewart reached in and took her, surprisingly gently, by the
right arm. She shifted in the seat and helped him pull her out.
Behind her she could hear Obarsky's heavy footsteps on the
gravel, walking slowly away from the car. Jeane stood up, Stew­
art holding her head so she wouldn't bump it on the top of the
car door as she came through it. It felt good to stand, and all her
minor injuries were starting to feel less urgent.
Stewart's grip· became a little tighter, a bit more insistent.
He turned Jeane around, and she could see Obarsky standing,
weight on his right leg, holding a big steel flashlight up in his
left hand. The light came on, and he kept it on Jeane's face.
Purple splotches appeared over her already dim view of the
scene, and she had to close her eyes. The handcuffs were tight
around her wrists.
"Stand her up against the wall;" Obarsky said, his voice tak·
ing on an edge now that might have been excitement or antici­
pation. "Over there. Facing the wall."
"Guys," Jeane said lamely, "come on, now."
Stewart was walking her slowly around the back of the car,
not saying anything. Jeane wasn't wearing the uncomfortable
shoes, and sharp gravel was poking into the bottoms of her feet.
"Damn it!" Obarsky shouted, his voice echoing off the newly
poured concrete walls. "Move her ass over there!"
"Hey-" Stewart started to object, then pushed Jeane faster
so she almost stumbled.
"Sony, man," Obarsky said. "Just get her over there."

100
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Five steps got them to within two feet of the wall. Stewart
turned Jeane to face the wall, then let go of her arm.
"Look," Jeane said, "both of you. You guys could really get
into a lot of trouble for this."
Obarsk:y laughed, and Je.ane could see Stewart move, maybe
instinctively-exhibiting his ability to tell right from wrong­
between her and Obarsk:y.
"You want me to search her?" Stewart asked.
"No, Rob," Obarsk:y said. His voice was quieter now, but
edgy, nervous. "That won't be necessary."
"Is that her gun?" Stewart asked.
Jeane opened her mouth to say something, to warn Stewart,
but she couldn't get a sound out before the gun went off.
There was a bright flash-Obarsk:y was closer than she
thought he was-and a loud, echoing crack. The wall in front of
her and to her left was splashed with black-red gore as if some·
one had thrown a bucket of red paint on it. Jeane turned to her
left in time to see Rob Stewart's headless corpse fall to its
knees, then onto its chest like a rag doll.
Obarsk:y was standing only at arm's length from Stewart. He
must have had the gun-Jeane's gun-pressed up against his
partner's forehead.
Jeane's mind took all this in in less than a se,cond, then
switched into survival mode that made time seem to pass more
slowly.
Her hands were still bound behind her back, so she knew
without having to think about it that sh� would have to disarm,
maybe even kill, Stan Obarsk:y with her feet alone.
Obarsk:y was looking down at the twitching corpse of his
partner, so he didn't see Jeane take one long step toward him.
He Jooked up, brought the gull up and pointed it at herjust as
she whirled into a high roundhouse kick, trying her best to com·
pensate for the odd effect on her balance the handcuffs �ad. She
succeeded well enough to make contact with Obarsk:y's hand.
The gun popped out of his grip, and he said, "Bitch!"
Jeane's right foot came down on the gravel, and she contin·
ued to spin. Her momentum gave her the speed and power

101
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necessary to bring her left leg up just as high. Her stockinged

foot smashed ink> the side of Obarsky's face hard enough to
knock him back a step, but not down.
Twisting n
i midair, Jeane catne down on both feet, facing
Obarsky. The old, fat cop looked more surprised than anything.
His left hand went up to his mouth, the flashlight beam waving
wildly around the dark construction site. He put the back of his
band to his bleeding lip, and Jeane saw his right hand go to his
service automatic, holstered on his belt.
Jeane kicked forward, snapping her knee and planting her
stiff toes between Obarsky's treelike legs. The air burst out of
his lungs, and the fla�hlight clattered to the gravel. The beam
spun, causing a strobing effect that J�ane might have found
unsettling if her brain were allowed to think that much.
Obarsky went down to one knee, and his right hand flipped
the strap off the top of his pistol.
Jeane kicked again with her left foot, knocking Obarsky's
hand away from his gun. He actually said, "Ouch!"
Hopping onto her left foot as it came down, Jeane kicked up,
twisting her body sideways to plant the sole of her foot tellingly
into the space between Obarsky's nose and his upper lip. His
eyes went wide, and he went down backward, his head snapping
onto the gravel. His elbow hit the flashlight, sent it rolling away,
and the look on his face was lost on Jeane.
Jeane scanned the ground in the darkness and saw a faint
reflection on the edge of the Sig Arms P232 380 automatic
.

she'd put in her purse for her first big undercover assignment
for the Hoffmann Institute. She took two fast steps in that direc­
tion and spun as she dropped herself hard on her backside.
Obarsky sat up slowly and drew his gun. Jeane saw it come
out of the holsterjust as her fingers closed around the gun. It,
like her hands, was behind her back.
"Game over, Joyce," Obarsky grunted as he slid a bullet into
the chamber of the gun. Jeane rolled forward, tucking her head
in tight. She rolled the .380 through her fingers as she came
around, and though she couldn't see what Obarsky was doiilg
now, she knew he was aiming his gun at her.

10!
 11 f lul � 1 I I t n Cl

She made an educated guess with her aim and squeezed the
trigger once in mid-roll. There was a flash and a bang, then a
wet sound and another shot.
Jeane let herself roll to one side, and she came around to see
Obarsky lying flat on his back. His gun was pointing up in the
air, his legs, torso, and hand were twitching. With the easy
action on his service automatic, his death spasms were making
him fire blindly up into the air. Jeane set her jaw, hoping the
dead cop's arm wouldn't fall over and cause him to finish his
mission posthumously.
With her teeth grinding, her eyes twitching at every flash,
and her ears ringing, Jeane counted a total of fifteen shots from
Obarsky's 9 mm.
When it was all over and Obarsky's body was still, she lay
there on the gravel and panted for a few seconds, listening to
the bullets tinkle back to earth like rain. She let go of her own
gun and struggled to her feet. Seventeen gunshots was going to
attract attention, and Jeane did not want to be found lying on the
ground in handcuffs next to two dead Chicago cops.
She sat down on Obarsky's chest and fumbled around behind
her for what seemed like forever. Sweat broke out on her fore·
head, and she felt bad, physically. Finally she found the keys to
the handcuffs and dropped them at least half a dozen times,
swearing each time, until she managed to get the cuffs
unlocked.
When her hands were free she picked up the gun, leaned into
the police car, found her purse, and got the hell out of there.

103
:: Ngan was in Mark's Old Time BBQ
Illinois, just as the sun was
in Lesterhalt,
setting. It had been a
complex trip, but one that he still found amazing. The
fact that he could come all the way fi:om Washington, D.C.,
and still beat Jeane there by several hours was a good
example of why he flew, no matter how it frightened him.
He read the stained menu with some degree of trep·
idation. The meal he'd shared the night before with
Vanessa Richards had been quite good, prepared well by
people who were proud of their work and eager to
impress. Mark's Old Time BBQ was content to pass the
last health inspection, limping along on "good enough"
for so long that they had stopped even caring what good
enough was.
There were onlytwo other occupied tables in th.e diner
that could have seated forty-as a yellowed sign thumb·
tacked above the door proclaimed: The decor could have
been described as "a year's worth of restaurant auction's."
Colors were mixed indiscriminately. There was no care

105
 g .w. ti r p a

taken with anything. Posters obviously given free by the distribu­

tors were tacked to some of the walls, sporting surprisingly unap­
petizing photographs of processed food with garish headlines like
"Enjoy Freshly Popped Popcorn" and "Gyros: A Taste of the
Mediterranean." It struck Ngan as particularly interesting that
popcorn was not actually available at the restaurant.
He took stock of the other patrons, careful not to stare or
even make his interesfknown. One tab.le was occupied by a fam­
ily that Ngan thought would be refugees if they happened to be
in any country but the United States. The father was a rotund,
.
greasy man in his mid thirties obviously employed in the lubri­
cation of some machine or other. His hands were black. Seeing
him stuff a beef sandwich into his mouth made Ngan wonder as
to the nutritional-value of motor oil and axle grease.
His wife was a profoundly sad woman packed n i to a too­
small sweatshirt th�t advertised some country singer Ngan had
never heard of. Her hair was long, stringy, and atypically
untended for an American woman. She was roughly wiping the
face of an angry-looking n i fant who was trying desperately to
avoid the crumpled napkin in order to stuff Cheerios into his
mouth With saliva-dripping hands.
The baby's older brother was a dirty-faced, emaciated boy
who was pretending his soft drink. cup was a gun. He was shoot­
ing the baby over and over again, annoying his mother but hav­
ing no effect on either the baby or his father. A light of violence,
anger, and need blazed from the boy's eyes. Ngan had seen that
look in Tibetan refugee children-had seen that look in a mirror,
but that was a long time ago.
Ngan looked down at the menu and read the description of a
Francheesie with no little confusion before he took in the other
table. It was a couple, no children. The woman was plump in the
way that centuries ago had been considered attractive. Her top
gave an unnecessarily detailed view of her ample cleavage and
advertised chewing tobacco. An odd product to be advertised on
a woman's top, though maybe not in southern Illinois.
The young man was a thinner, younger version ofthe greasy­
handed father at the other table. He seemed unhappy, as did his

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girlfriend. It was a common enough ailment, and the observation

didn't help Ngan get any sense of the peculiarities of Lesterhalt.
The waitress who brought him a glass of ice water and the
menu was pretty, thin in a genetic rather than sculpted way, and
limping. She forced a smile when she talked to him, and her eyes
betrayed a curiosity she was apparently too shy to do anything
about. Her name tag identified her as Sara, a name as nonde·
script as her face.
Sara was limping toward him from around the empty lunch
counter, and he looked up at her and smiled. She didn't return
the smile, just glanced at the door and a poster on the wall that
read "Hot Dogs!" Looking at the empty table behind him, she
took a little pad out of her apron. Ngan looked down at his
menu, not wanting to embarrass her with unwanted eye contact.
"Ready?" she asked him, obviously forcing the word ·
<;mt
through tight lips.
"I believe so, yes," Ngan said, still not looking up at her. "I
would like the B.B.Q. beef sandwich."
There was a silence and Ngan glanced up. She was looking at
him as if he'd just turned green and shot Roman candles from his
eyes. Ngan looked back down at the menu and felt his skin crawl.
"Barbecue,• she said, again trying to get the word out as fast
as she could. "Not B.B.Q."
"Yes.· Ngan said, nodding. "Forgive me."
"Anything to drink?" she asked. The unspoken subtext was:
"Please don't make me have to ask you if you want something
to drink."
"Water is fine," Ngan said, closing the menu and handing it
to her. "Thank you."
Sara touched the menu with one shaking, thin-fingered
hand, but didn't take it. Ngan didn't let go, and it seemed as if
the air pressure in the room suddenly doubled. Ngan sensed that
Sara had something to say.
The door opened, triggering the tiny rusted bell screwed to
the peeled-paint doorframe, and Sara jumped, almost yelped.
She snatched the menu from Ngan's hand and turned. She
looked up when Ngan did, and they both saw the teenage boys

101
 a .w. ti r ' a

swagger into the restaurant. She quickly looked down at the

floor and limped away as fast as she could. Ngan watched her
go. She got to one end of the lunch counter and stopped, seemed
to realize she'd gone the wrong way, then quickly limped to the
other side, where she tried hard to busy herself with something.
She looked up at the boys, and her face paled.
Ngan looked over at the boys, who strode with teenage ath·
letic confidence to the counter, still laughing about something
that must have happened or been said in the parking lot. They
were wearing the ubiquitous letter jackets, though the early
evening sun was quite warm. One of them happened to glance
Ngan's way, and he stopped so abruptly he almost fell over, tak·
ing his friend with him.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the one who saw Ngan breathed
quickly, taking his friend by the arm.
The other boy looked up, and a look of ange� passed over his
face when his eyes settled on Ngan. "What the hell do we have ·
here?" he asked, apparently addressing the first boy.
· They both took a step closer to Ngan, turning to face him,
their eyes dull but loaded with something Ngan thought might
be disgust. The boy who'd first noticed Ngan had the number '02
sewn onto his jacket. The other one was to graduate in 2003.
"You take a wrong turn , slope?" '03 asked.
Ngan got the feeling it was a rhetorical question. He decided
not to smile at the word "slope," though the epithet had always
amused him. It apparently was begun as a description of a facial
feature that maybe half the world's population had. It was a
meaningless insult, but Ngan took it as it was intended. .
"I am having dinner,• he said, aware that anything he might
say would be the wrong thing.
The boys looked at each other and smiled knowingly, greatly
underestimating Ngan's grasp of the situation. "Not here, zip·
perhead," '03 said, fixing an expectant look on his face Uiat he
certainly meant to be taunting.
Ngan did laugh this time. He thought the term "zipperhead"
might have originated in the Korean or Vietnam War. He had 'no
idea wbat it was supposed to mean. It was just silly.

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 In f lul • 1 I I 1 • ce

"Oh," '02 breathed then. "That's funny? Did I say something

funny?"
Ngan decided not to correct him, though it was in fact '03
who had said something funny. Instead, he gave a generic
response. "I don't want any trouble."
The young couple at the booth on the other side of the
restaurant had turned and were watching the exchange with
faces so passive they almost looked dead. Of the dirty family,
only the mother seemed to notice anything and even then only
glanced .up every other second as she continued to interfere with
her baby's feeding. The father might have been blind and deaf for
all he seemed to notice anything being said, and the little boy
was now sitting on his knees, pointing the straw from his drink
at the baby and malting noises like TV explosions.
The two teenage boys looked at each other, smiled again,
and walked quickly and with great determination to the edge of
Ngan's table. Ngan sat straight as he always did, and laid his
hands, palms down, on the sticky table in front of him. His eyes
fixed on a point between the two boys, where he could take in
both of them and register any movement from either.
"You don't want no trouble?" '03 said, dialogue repeated
from a thousand movies. "Well, chink, looks like trouble found
you."
Ngan was in Lesterhalt for two. reasons. He needed to find
Michael McCain and make sure he was safe, and he had to ver·
ify that the Hans Reinhold Erwahlen who was running Camp
Clarity was indeed the same man who'd advised Adolf Hitler in
matters of the occult. These boys could help him do neither of
those things directly, but a test of the stridency of their racism
and the townsfolk's willingness to stand up to them would tell
Ngan much about Eiwah.len's influence here.
"You are being rude," Ngan said, his voice steady, matter-of·
fact, as if he were pointing out that it looked ike
l rain. .
The boys laughed again, a haughty laugh dripping with mis·
placed self-confidence.
Ngan concentrated on his hearing, so he couldn't see what
Sara the waitress was doing. Re could hear her breathing. She

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was afraid but unwilling to intervene. The little boy made a

sound like a machine gun.
Ngan's eyes registered the movement, but it was the sound
of the gun coming out of the teenager's pocket that best regis·
tered on Ngan's now narrowed senses. It was a small-caliber
automatic that '02 pulled from the pocket of his letterman
jacket. He pressed it against Ngan's bald temple, holding the
gun a little to the side. The safety was off. The steel was cold
·
against Ngan's head.
This was not funny anymore.
Ngan heard someone-probably Sara-gasp. The baby's
high chair was pulled an inch or so closer in to his mother,
· squeaking on the cheap tile floor. Ngan could hear '02's heart
beating. It was loud, strong, regular. The act of putting a gun to·
a stranger's head was hardly exciting him at all. Ngan knew
from that sound that the boy was capable of killing him. It would
only take a flinch. The tiniest twitch of a muscle, and Ngan
would be dead.
Ngan listened for exactly that sound. If you listened care·
fully enough, if you were trained the way Ngan was trained in a
monastery in the thin, magic-rich air of Tibet, you could hear a
finger bend.
"If you're passing through, Charlie," '02 said, his voice as
loud as thunder to Ngan's tuned ears, "you pass through. The·
sun sets on your yellow ass in Lesterhalt, it won't see sunrise."
Ngan didn't move. He was still n
i a way only a very few
people were capable of being still. The gun came off his head,
. there was a hesitation, then it came back on again, a little less
cold this time.
Ngan listened to the finger, waiting to hear it begin to tense.
If it did, he'd disarm the boy first with his right hand, then go
·
from there.
The boy didn't tighten his finger. The gun came away from
Ngan's head, and he heard the boy slide it back into his pocket.
"This is a white town," '03 said.
Ngan said nothing, didn't look up. Rushing these boys into a
confrontation would gain him nothing and probably result in

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their deaths. It was an insignllicant victory for them, and Ngan

was perfectly content to let them have it. He almost sighed
when he realized that at that age it was possible to convince a
boy of anything. Ngan didn't know for sure that they'd come
under the influence of Erwahlen. It cost more than Ngan could
imagine either of the boys had to spend to attend Camp Clarity's
workshops, but . . .
The boys backed off, and Ngan didn't look up. He knew all
.he'd see was self-congratulatory smiles.
"Time for you to be on your way, gook," '02 said.
Ngan stood, not looking at either of the boys. He could feel
eyes on him, and he looked up and saw the waitress staring at
him as if he were the devil himself. She turned away from his
gaze so quickly that she knocked a coffee cup on the floor and
it shattered with an echoing crash.
The two boys clapped and whooped loudly, and '03 said,
"Good one, Sara!" as if the waitress had just scored a point n
i
one of their games.
Ngan opened the door and stepped through without looking
back. As the door swung open, the reflection of the little boy sit­
ting next to his bored, silent father swung into view. He was
pointing his finger at Ngan as if it were a gun, hls thumb pump­
ing up and down, pretend bullets ripping the funny-looking
stranger to bloody shreds in the boy's polluted imagination.
The door closed behind Ngan, shutting the laughs of the
teenage boys with it.

111
:�Cain came awake in a way he'd never experienced
before. Normally, it would take him as long as an
hour of heavy, groggy, half-sleep before he'd be able
to even climb out of bed. He would need to take a shower
and really wouldn't be coherent until after his first cup
of coffee. McCain was anything but a morning person. ·
His eyes popped open, and his mind was instantly
clear, like a computer coming up from sleep mode. He
went from black, blank, to full functionality in the space
of time it took him to open his eyes.
McCain was laying on his back. Above him was a
completely ordinary white acoustic tile sprinkled with
tiny black holes. The tiles were held up by a grey metal
grid. One of the two·foot by three-foot sections was a flu­
orescent light fixture that was dark. McCain was
instantly aware of the fact that he could see details of
the ·ceiling he ought not to be able to see in the nearly·

absolute dark of the room.

He turned his head to one side, feeling a soft cotton

113
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sheet against his face. He sat up and scanned the room. It didn't
take long. The room wasn't that big.
It had a sort of coUege dormitory feeling to it. The walls
were blue-painted cinderblock. Again, McCain was struck by the
fact that even in the darkness, he could teU the walls were blue.
On the other side of the room, which was maybe half again as
wide as McCain was tall, was a small, simple metal desk and a
secretary's chair. On the desk was a reading lamp and a clock
radio that wasn't plugged in. On the short wall behind him was
a cheap, five-drawer dresser made of dark brown pressboard. On
the wall in front of him was a steel door with an L-shaped steel
handle. A strip of yellow light was visible from under the door,
the only light in the room. The bed was an institutional twin­
sized bed of the same design McCain remembered sleeping on in
college.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and when his
feet touched the cold tile floor he realized he was wearing socks.
McCain looked down and saw that he was wearing brilliant
white, new sweat socks, comfortable cotton sweatpants, and an
oversized sweatshirt that was so new the tag scratched the back
of his neck.
He looked down at his chest and saw that the words Camp
Clarity were embroidered onto the shirt in a delicate script. The
sweatshirt and sweatpants were light grey and the embroidery
a deep maroon. McCain looked down again and saw a pair of
brand new canvas deck shoes sitting on the floor near his feet.
He reached down and pulled on the shoes, tying them with
fingers he thought should have been stiff but were perfectly
nimble. When his shoes were on, he stood and crossed to the
door. His hand was two inches · from the handle when McCain
was startled by a faint noise behind him.
He turned and heard it again. It was coming from above,
from behind one of th� ceiling tiles. It occurred to McCain to be
afraid, but he was happy to find that he wasn't. He watched as
the tile shuddered under the weight of something moving around
·
above it.
McCain turned back to the door and saw the light switch

114
 in f lul • 1 I I e n ce

next to it. The switch was turned down. McCain flipped it up.
There was a stinging flicker, and the single recessed light went
on. The tiny room was well lit by the single fixture.
The ceiling tile jumped a little. Whatever was up there might
have been startled by the light coming on. McCain waited
patiently, and after a second or two the tiJe was pushed aside
from above, opening a single comer of darkness.
The side of a head then an eye appeared, and McCain offered
the eye a smile. The eye in the ceiling narrowed, regarding him
with suspicion.
"Nichts," McCain said, his voice even, clear, and friendly.
The little homunculus said nothing, but the single eye
softened a bit.
"It's all right, Nichts," McCain said in perfect German.
Something tapped the floor in front of McCain, and he looked
down to see a single drop of blood on the polished tile, then a
second right next to it. He looked up at Nichts again, and there
was a black line-a shadow, maybe-tracing down the li_ttle
man's bulbous cheek.
· It was a tear.
Another drop of blood.
McCain knew the tears and the blood were one and the
same.
"
"Don't cry, McCain whispered. "It'll be all right."
Nichts's eye narrowed again, and another drop of blood
tapped the floor.
"He punished you, didn't he?" .McCain asked. "He punished
you for giving me the phone."
The eye stared at him without a sound, but McCain knew
Nichts was trying to say yes.
"Can't you come down?" McCain asked.
Again there was no answer. McCain waited. It took a long
time-an hour. McCain remained perfectly still the wnole time,
and a comer of his mind marveled at his abilityto do that­
him the
stand still · like that for a full hour. Nichts stared at
whole time. McCain wasn't going to beg Nichts to come down
out of the ceiling.

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Nichts pushed the ceiling tile back a little more-enough so

he could crawl through. There was a puddle of blood on the floor
below him that must have been five inches around.
The homunculus came out of the ceiling, and McCain smiled
at the sight. He crawled out and hung from the ceiling tiles by
the tips of his tiny clawed fingers and his even smaller clawed
toes. He held there for the space of a few heartbeats. hanging
from the ceiling by both hands and both feet. McCain could see
the wings that had so.unsettled him before, but he wasn't afral.d
now. How could he be afraid of this little man who had been his
only friend?
Nichts unfurled his leathery grey wings, and it was as if the
tiny breeze from them blew the last of the blocks from McCain's
mind. He knew who he was, had a good idea where he was,
remembered why he was there, and remembered clearly how
he'd gotten there.
Memories of the dreams in the silence of the vril came back
to him, too, and though they weren't always good dreams, the
memory of them made him smile. The fact that he could remem·
ber anything at all made him smile. The fact that he could speak
and understand German made him smile. The way he felt made
him smile. He could feel a change, a difference in himself, and
he knew it might take a long time for him to understand it-and
maybe he never would-but he had been changed and changed
for the better.
Nichts, still hanging from the ceiling. scuttled a few feet far­
ther away from McCain and turned his head to look at him.
McCain offered the little man a smile, but Nichts returnedit with
a scowl. The little man's already twisted face squeezed into
itself. He'd stopped crying, but there was still blood on him.
"I'm better now," McCain told the little man.
Nichts regarded him silently for a moment, then dropped so
he hung by only one foot, his clawed toes latched firmly in�o the
acoustic ti
l e.
"You called that stuff vril,• McCain said. "What is it? How
does it do what it does to people? How did it do this to me?" ·
Nichts dropped to the floor with his wings open and came

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lightlyto a rest just on the other side of the little puddle of blood
from McCain. The homunculus reached out a gnarled little hand
and touch·ed the blood with the tip of one clawed finger.
"Your eye was bleeding," McCain said.
The little man looked up at him and said, "I was crying.•
McCain didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. He
remained motionless. Nichts touched the bloody finger to his
own lips, and his face twisted into what McCain thought­
hoped-might be a smile.
"I was not made to cry." Nichts said, looking up at McCain.
"I can speak and understand German," McCain said. "I can
see in the dark, and I feel better than I've ever felt in my life.
How is this done, Nichts? How does he do it?"
The homunculus looked at him blankly and said, "I can't
know things like that. You feel the way you do because you are
chosen of God. I am not even a creation of God."
McCain almost asked the little man what he was talking
about, but he stopped when he saw another tiny drop of blood
tap the floor under Nichts. The homunculus noticed McCain
notice the blood and looked away, obviously ashamed.
McCain said, "I'm sorry, Nichts. He hurt you.•
"He does as he pleases,• Nichts said simply. "I was not
intended to have intentions."
McCain wasn't sure what that meant, but he felt sorry for
the little man anyway.
"You don't have anywhere to go, do you?" McCain asked.
Nichts looked up at him and said, "Go?" The little man's grey
Halloween mask of a face looked almost as sad as it did con­
fused.
"Why did you give me the phone?"
Nichts looked away and said, "I don't have . . . experience
. . . with . . ."
"Compassion?"
"Thinking,• Nichts corrected angrily.
A heavy silence passed.
"Vril doesn't have experience with being a liquid," the little
man finally said.

.117
 g .w. ti r p a

McCain's eyes narrowed, and he regarded the homunculus

with open confusion. Nichts didn't look up at him, so he didn't
notice the expression.
"What do you mean?" McCain asked.
,
"The master " Nichts said, "has made it a liquid. It wasn't
always. He has a way of making shapes. He is a great man, a
powerful man favored of God."
"You've said that."
"It's true."
McCain smiled and said, "And it's true about me? That I'm
favored of God?"
Nichts nodded, still looking at the floor, still bleeding.
"I don't believe in God," McCain said flatly.
Nichts looked up at him, his face as serious as any face
McCain had ever seen, and said, "Then you're favored of
Erwahlen. And Erwahlen's favor is enough."
McCain's heart sank. There were so many compelling rea·
part, a
sons why that shouldn't be true, but there was a large
strong part of McCain's mind that grew n
i creasingly excited,
delighted, proud of that idea.
"Favored of Erwahlen." Despite all McCain knew about Hans
Reinhold Erwiihlen, he was beginning to believe that Erwahlen's
favor might be enough after all .
It had been a long time since he'd been favored of anyone.
He was a man With no family, no ties to anything but a Hoffmann
Institute test tube. Favored of Erwiihlen. Favored of anyone.
Why.not?
"Why not?" he asked the little man.
Nichts looked at him curiously and said, "You Came here in
opposition to him."
McCain nodded. He had. He had come as an agent of the
Hoffmann Institute to investigate a conspiracy of white
supremacists, then do what was necessary to disrupt_ their
plans, but why should he? The Hoffmann Institute, Camp Clar­
ity, the Nazi Party, Mothers Against Drunk Driving . . .
"I don't know why I came here," McCain said quietly.
The little man reared up, startled, and unfurled his tiny

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batlike wings. McCain stepped back, surprised by the homuncu·

lus's strong reaction to what he'd said, then he realized.Nichts
wasn't startled by what McCain had said, but by the sound of
·

footsteps outside the door, approaching.

Without a word, the homunculus hopped into the air, beat his
little wings twice, and was back at the hole in the ceiling in the
blink of an eye, hanging· from the acoustic tile by his feet. He
curled his body and crawled into the little space. McCain
watched him go.
Nichts stopped and turned to McCain. "I don't get to decide."
Nichts told him, the obvious implication being that McCain did
· get to decide, but McCain wasn't sure that was true.
Nichts looked at McCain as he pushed the ceiling tile back
into place and disappeared. McCain could hear him scuttle away,
even with the sound of footsteps now loud outside the door.
A light sound of knuckles rapping on the door ca.tne from
behind McCain's head. He turned around and reached for the
doorknob but stopped before his fingers touched it. He looked
back and up at the ceiling tile that had served as Nichts's door
into the featureless room. He glanced down at the blood and felt
bad for Nichts, then was struck by the fact that he didn't feel bad
for himself, though he was a prisoner of a fascist conspiracy.
He turned back to the door and grabbed the handle lightly.
He was surprised that it turned easily. It wasn't locked. It
opened smoothly to reveal the tall, grey-haired man he'd met
before. It was Hans Reinhold Erwiihlen in a charcoal grey suit
and maroon tie.
•Ah,• Erwiihlen said, "Michael McCain. Good· morning. Are
you ready?"
"Ready?" McCain asked, meeting the man's genuinely
amiable, crystal-blue gaze.
"Yes,• Erwiihlen replied, "ready to begin your course of study
here at Camp Clarity. We'll be moving you to more comfortable
·
quarters, I assure you. You will be well taken care of.•
A thought exploded into McCain's mind, and a waterfall of
emotion followed it. Laced throughout the cascade was a vein
of suspicion he'd once thought was an admirable trait.

119
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Taken care of. Was it that simple? Was he that simple? Could
that do? Was that enough to make him . . .?
"You changed me," McCain blurted, his voice suddenly
ragged, his breathing all out of its normal rhythm. "That shit you
had me in, it-"
"It didn't do anything but make you better," Erwiihlen said
calmly, smiling. •All it did was take what was inside you already
and improve it. You are still Michael McCain. You're still the
same man you were when you crept in here with your self·
righteous agenda." ·
"I didn't . . ." McCain started to say, suddenly feeling ike
l he
had to defend himself. "You didn't improve my German."
This made Erwahlen laugh. McCain was all at once
delighted by the sound of Erwii.hlen's laugh. He found himself
smiling.
"An indulgence," Erwiihlen said, "the German. I hope it is
my only one. A father could expect his children to speak his
mother tongue, yes?"
A father.
McCain wasn't nearly that easily manipulated. No one with
half a brain could be that easily manipulated.
McCain went to the tall man and fell into a warm, tight, reas·
suring embrace. A tear came to one eye, but McCain didn't cry.
He didn't have to.

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 I.

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·: tlln ough the peephole in the door of the motel

room, Jeane's face looked puffy and distorted.
Her lips looked even fuller than they normally
did, and her makeup seemed badly applied. She was
wearing sunglasses, but it was al.most completely dark
outside.
Ngan opened the door. Jeane smiled just a little, and
said, "You always wear a suit.•
Ngan stepped aside and motioned for her to enter.
She nodded and stepped into the room, looking into the
comers like police officers are trained to do.
"I was told." Ngan said, "when I first came to this
country, that men wore suits."
"It stinks in here." was Jeane's disconnected reply.
She stopped in the middle of the room, looking. down
at Ngan's unopened suitcase sitting on the still-made
bed. The TV was off, and the only sound in the room was
an irritating rattle from the window air conditioner. Tlie
room was warm.

m
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Ngan closed the door and said, "I believe it's vomit. Vomit
and gasoline."
"You threw up?" she asked without looking up at him.
"No," he said, then, "Fenton?"
Jeane sighed and sat down on the bed. She was wearing loose­
fittingbluejeans and a plain white T-shirt that fit her tightly around
her large breasts. She waswearingnewwhite tennis shoes, and her
hair was pulled back from her face. She looked like a white Vane�
Richards. She was canying a nylon duffel bag emblazoned with the
logo of a shoe manufacturer. She dropped the duffel bag on the floor
and looked up at him. He couldn't see her eyes behind the sun­
glasses. There was a bruise on the side of her mouth.
"It didn't go well," Ngan started for her.
She laughed uncomfortably and looked down, then took off
her sunglasses. Both of her eyes were black.
"Back at the ATF," Jeane said, "there would have been a
hearing. A series of hearings."
"Is he dead?"
Jeane nodded.
"Anyone else?·
•Anyone else dead?" she asked.
Ngan nodded.
"Two Chicago police officers."
Ngan sighed and crossed calmly to the other bed. He sat
down slowly, not looking at her.
"Fenton has been using his cosmetics company to poison
black people," she told him quickly. "The makeup turns them
white . . . in patches."
Ngan nodded and said, "That is new information. I'll inform
the Institute, and we'll see what can be done." There was a
silence, then Ngan asked, "And?"
"He calls his hookers Joyce," she said.
"Joyce Mannering," Ngan confirmed. "A character from a ·

film played by Marilyn Monroe."

Jeane looked at him sharply and let loose a laugh that was
laden with relief, irritation, and nervousness. �He showed me· a
picture of Marilyn Monroe in a book."

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 Ia f lul d 1 1 1 1 n ce

"Did he?"
"Yes, he did," she said. "He told me I.looked like her."
"You do," Ngan said with a humorless smile. "Don't you think?"
Jeane shrugged, irritated with the irrelevance.
"Did he mention Erwiihlen?" Ngan asked, sensing her impa­
tience.
"In passing,• Jeane sighed and looked down at her duffel bag.
"Ngan," she continued, "I'm sorry. I don't know shit. I didn't find
out anything. He was a racist, but you knew that. He had a thing
for Marilyn Monroe lookalike hookers, but apparently you knew
that too. I guess he had connections with the Chicago Police
Department, but maybe only one, and that one's dead. He was a
rich, white racist who thought he was one of the chosen people."
Ngan nodded and said, "Did you see anything unusual? Was
there anything out of the ordinary about Fenton himself?"
Jeane laughed loudly for almost a minute. Ngan looked at
her with a half-smile the whole time.
"I shot him off a twenty-some-story balcony,• she said, "but
he didn't die."
Ngan stopped smiling. Jeane wasn't laughing.
"I got the hell out of there," Jeane continued, "but he was wait­
ing for me in the alley. He was all messed up, but he was alive. I
shot him in the head, then, so I assume he's dead. I sort of passed
out. That's when the cops got me. When we were driving away I
saw a van from Fenton's company pulling into the alley. The driver
of the van made eye contact with the white cop."
"And you shot this police officer?" Ngan asked.
"Yes, I did,• Jeane said, "but only after he killed his own part­
ner-a black guy, of course.•
"You learned a great deal, Jeane," Ngan said reassuringly. He
was sincere.
"Ngan,• she said, "I'm telling you the whole thing was blown
to hell."
Ngan shrugged and said, "It could have gone better, certainly.
The Hoffmann Institute has ways of explaining away dead bod­
ies, but not too many dead bodies and not too often. Still, Fen­
ton's having survived a fall like that was serendipitous."

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"You knew he could do that?• she asked.

"I suspected."
"You suspected," she said, "but didn't know?"
"We are investigating," he said. "We will 'know' when we are
finished investigating. n .

"Did you send me there to ki

l l him Ngan?" Jeane asked, her
,

voice stem.
"No," he said.
"Because if you sent me there to kill him -"

"l did not send you there to kill him," Ngan said flatly, "and
neither did the Institute."
"How did he do that?" she asked, still not entirely satisfied with
what she'd heard from Ngan. "How did he survive that fall? And he
was strong, too. Too strong for a man his-for a man any age."
"You will have to believe me when l say that l am not at all
certain how he managed that," Ngan said. l honestly do not
"

know, but again, that is why we're investigating."

Jeane stood suddenly and crossed to the cheap motel
dresser. She drummed her fmgers on the top of it. "This isn't just
some yuppie KKK."
"Apparently not," Ngan said, "though we had suspected that
is exactly what it was. This strength and ability to withstand
injury is new. I have no doubt it's related to the fact that at the
center of all of it is a man who hasn't aged a day in at least sixty
years."
Jeane turned around and looked at Ngan. "You said some·
thing had gone wrong with Fitz,• she said.
Ngan's face turned very grave, and he told her, "I received a
telephone call from him when l was in Virginia. He was con·
fused, delirious. He was speaking German and English mixed
together so I couldn't understand him."
"They're drugging him in there?" she asked.
"Possibly," Ngan said. "l don't know. He has not been report·
ing in the way he was asked to. n

"Jesus,n Jeane breathed. "This is so bad. n

"Not necessarily," Ngan said, though his voice made it obvi·

ous that he agreed with her.

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 In f lul d 1 1 I e n ce

"Well, we have to get him out of there," she said.

"Indeed," he agreed, "but unfortunately you have not been
invited, and I have been told that I am a zipperhead. This zip­
perhead status makes me unwelcome at Camp Clarity."
As if on cue, there was the sound of a car pulling up too fast
into the par.king Jot There was a squeal of tires, and bright
white light spun in from the cracks around the drawn blinds.
The car engine rumbled to a stop.
"Slope!" a voice shouted, low but with a squeaking edge to
it. It was the sideline bark of a teenage athlete.
Jeane crossed to the window and slipped back the blinds just
enough to see out.
"They're armed," Ngan, still sitting on the .bed, warned her.
Jeane drew the .380 automatic from a belt holster at her
back and slid the action back.
"Slopey-boy!" the teenager called out.
"They are offended by the shape of my eyes," Ngan joked.
"These are Erwiihlen's boys?" Jeane asked him.
"We told you not to sleep here, gook!�
"I'm not certain," Ngan said, "but I think it's a reasonable
enough assumption. The Hitler Youth-after a fashion."
"Are they capable of killing?" she asked.
"Yes." Ngan said simply.
"Will they kill me?" she asked.
"Come on zipperhead!"
"Maybe not," he said. "You are white."
Jeane, her eyes serious and glimmering in the reflected light
from the headlights and the motel room's yellowed lamp, looked
at Ngan. She slid the gun back into the holster, leaving a bullet
in the chamber.
"Vezy carefully," Ngan cautioned. "These are just boys, but
maybe just boys in the same way Fenton was just a man.•
Jeane nodded, turned the doorknob, and slipped out �e door
without opening it enough for the boys to see Ngan sitting on the
edge of the bed.
The headlights were bright, and Jeane squinted, holding up
a hand. The boys were driving a ten-year-old Camaro. The doors

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were open, and one teenager stood behind each of them. She
couldn't see their face-Si but she could tell they were wearing let­
ter jackets. She couldn't tell for sure if they were armed or not,
but she didn't think they were.
"Who's that?" she called to them, playing it cool at first.
"What the hell 1s this?" one of the boys-the driver-asked.
"You with the chink?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, fellas," Jeane said,
"but you're making a lot of noise out here, and people are trying
to chill out for the everung."
The boy on the passenger side looked up at the sky, a deep
indigo showing only three bright stars. It was after seven. The
scattered old buildings of Lesterhalt stood out on the perfectly
flat horizon in boxy silhouettes.
"You chillin' out?" the driver asked, mocking her.
"Tryin' to," she said. "What can I do for you boys?"
Both of them l.aughed, and the driver said, "You ain't half bad
lookin' for an older lady, but you talk like a rugger. Your old man
beat you up for that or something else?"
"That's not a very nice thing to say," she told him. "Why
don't you guys go find something else to do torught?"
The boys looked at each other, and the driver said, "Maybe
we could do you."
Anger flooded through Jeane, and she wanted to punch this
brat in the face. She choked it back and said, "Not in this life­
time, juruor, but thanks for making an old lady feel special."
There was a silence from the boys that Jeane didn't like, then
the driver said, "Are you rejecting me?"
Jeane didn't say anything, deciding on the fly to let him stew
on it for a minute.
. She saw the driver put rus tight foot up on the top of the
door. The window was rolled down. He straightened his leg,
and it looked like he was going to stand on the top of the door.
Jeane's hand went to her back and curled around the handle of
the gun. The boy sailed up into the air in such a high, long arc
it made Jeane gasp. ffis jacket ballooned out behind him , aild
he stretched his arms to his sides. He seemed to fly, crossing

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the thirty feet between the car and Jeane in the time it took her
to draw her gun.
The boy hit the ground in front of her, standing, and Jeane
leveled her gun at him. She didn't even see his hand come up. It
was just on her wrist as if he'd shot it out of a cannon. The boy's
fingers tightened on her wrist, and it exploded in pain. Her fin­
gers opened reflexively, and though she couldn't squeeze the
trigger, she didn't drop it.
"Now we'll see who-"
The boy stopped'talking, the braces on his teeth glinting in
the light from the headlights, when a siren roared into life. Jeane
had heard the sound before. It was a fixture of the Midwest and
Great Plains. It was a tornado siren.
Instinctively she looked up. She could see more stars now in
the indigo sky. It was clear. The warm spring air was still. The
boy looked behind him at the car, then let go of her wrist and
turned.
Jeane suppressed the sudden urge to shoot him in the back
of.the head. She'd been through a lot in the past several hours
but managed to maintain some self-control.
He walked quickly back to the car. The passenger had
already climbed in and closed the door. The driver didn't look
back at her. He just slid into the car, slammed the door shut, and
started the engine. The siren blared loudly.
"Hmm," Ngan grunted from behind her.
Jeane put her gun away, and the teenagers roared out of the
motel parking lot, squealing off into the darkness.

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=M'.:ccain allowed himself to be pulled along by the flow

of people. Erwii.hlen had moved away and simply
faded into the press of people that had appeared as
if from nowhere. A siren was echoing in the distance, but
the feeling of the people around him was one of excited
expectation, a calm exuberance that McCain couldn't
help but share. These men-and they were all men­
couldn't wait to get to wherever it was theywere going.
The corridor outside the little dorm room was as
featureless and underwhelmingly ordinary as the little
room itself. The walls were cinder block coated in thick
layers of off-white paint. The floor was dead grey
linoleum. There was a fire extinguisher, marked with the
appropriate signage, hanging on the wall a few feet
along the corridor. It had an inspection tag on it, and
· McCain found this completely reassuring. Someone had
to come and n
i spect the fire extinguishers-someone
from outside Camp Clarity. This was no prison; no eVil
genius's lair. This was just a place where people of like

129
 g .w. ti r p a

mind came to share ideas. McCain refused to think about the

ideas. If the fire extinguisher guy could come and go, those
ideas must not be so dangerous after all.
He thought of Jeane when he looked up and spotted a
sprinkler in the ceiling tile above him. This place was built in
accordance with fire codes. Jeane would have liked that, wouldn't
she? McCain remembered that Jeane u�ed to investigate arson
for the ATF. That was before she had been railroaded into work­
ing for the Hoffmann Institute. She had been railroaded. She
knew it. Ngan knew it. They all knew it. Jeane seemed happy
enough. McCain might have been railroaded into Camp Clarity,
but maybe he could seem happy enough eventually.
One of the men in the hallway bumped McCain's shoulder
and startled him. McCain looked over at the man, and his heart
jumped just a little. He was afraid. What kind of man did he just
bump into?
The man was shorterthan McCain, but not by much. He was
younger than McCain by five or six years. His hair was long, tied
in back by a rubber band. He had a beard as black as his hair.
He smiled., showing small white teeth and his eyes were soft and
friendly. McCain found himself returning the man's smile. This
was a young guy, a guy with long hair and a beard. He wasn't
some yuppie Wall Street guy or an old, grey-haired conspirator
wielding political and economic power from a dark, smoke-filled
room. This was a regular guy.
The siren faded away, and McCain continued to follow the tide
of white men around comers, up a short flight of stairs, through
a door into another corridor, then through a set of steel double
doors. A brass plaque above the doors read Fenton Auditorium.
Beyond the double doors was a surprisingly large auditorium,
with steeply angied rows of seats stretching maybe four stories
up. McCain thought the auditorium could easily seat two thou­
sand people. As surprised as he was by the crowd's destination,
he realized he would have been surprised no matterwhere they'd
brought him. Once he realized that, he started to look at the audi­
torium objectively. That lasted about two seconds, then lie
i ored it. It was precisely identical to every auditorium he'd
gn
130
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

ever been in in his life. The seats were upholstered in a rough

maroon fabric that might have been burlap. The backs of the
chairs were textured grey plastic. The carpet had a too-busy pat·
tern of maroon and neutral brown that had a way of disappearing
from the conscious mind immediately after the first glance. The
walls were painted white, and attached to them were squares of
the same maroon fabric as the chairs. McCain, like everyone else,
assumed the maroon squares had something to do with
acoustics, but he really had no idea why they were there and
couldn't care less.
McCain followed the rest of the men as they flowed into the
room and took theirseats. There was the general murmur of con·
versation. McCain could see some men shaking hands. One
laughed loudly, and there were a few amused chuckles. A couple
of men coughed, and there was at least one sneeze. They were
dressed in suits and T-shirts, flannel shirts and polo shirts They
, .

wore dress slacks and jeans. They had brown hair and blond hair
and red hair. Some were bald. The only thing they all had in com·
mon was that they were all white, and they were all men.
So the men were ordinary, rounded up from any city or town
in America. The room, like the hallway, was completely ordi·
nary, down to the attention to fire safety and the maroon and
grey seats. This wasn't some hidden volcano lair. Someone
bought this stuff. Someone built it from blueprints using mate·
rials easily purchased from reputable manufacturers. Workers
had been here-and inspectors, electricians, and plumbers.
A few rows down and to one side McCain recognized a famil·
i face, but he had trouble remembering the man's name. He
ar

was tall and thin with dark hair, wearing a navy blue suit and a
gold pinky ring. McCain was sure he knew this man and should
say something, but he cou1dn't-
Tom.
His name was Tom, and he had something to dp with
McCain's being here. Tom . . . Casale. That was it. Tom Casale.
McCain took his seat and was not at all afraid.
On the stage was a podium that had the simple script Cainp
Clarity logo on it. Behind the podium was a row of chairs-four

131
 g .w. t{ r ' a

of them. The back of the stage was a tall wine-red velvet curtain.
Three men in suits stepped up.onto the stage and smile-talked
to each other as the audience settled in. McCain was two-thirds
of the way up the auditorium and had a little trouble seeing the
faces of the men on the stage at first.
The three men sat down and stopped talking to each other. .
They were facing out toward the audience and McCain cohld see
their faces now. 1\vo of them were senators. McCain had spent
enough time in D.C. and always knew.enough people who knew
people who knew people. It paid to know who the players were.
One of the senators was a Republican from Illinois, the other
a Democrat from North Carolina. The third man was Albert Bar­
rington, the Secretary of Labor. He was a close friend of the
President's and a well-known moderate. McCain had heard him
speak at a Bar Association dinner in Baltimore. Barrington had
talked about every American's right to work.almost at the same
time as he talked about a corporation's responsibility to its
shareholders. He hadn't managed to walk the fence as much as
work it like an Olympic gymnast on a balance beain.
A spotlight focused on the podium, and McCain couldn't help
but look back at the source of it. At the top of the auditorium
was a teenage boy working the spotlight. He was standing stiff,
at attention, and his face had a sort of alien glow, a look McCain
had never seen on a teenage boy: reverence. McCain turned to ·
the stage, then back to the teenager.
Jerry. The kid's name was Jerry. As if the boy could hear
McCain's thoughts, he looked down. Their eyes met, and McCain
smiled. Jerry nodded, his face blank, noncommittal, then looked
back at the stage, tipping the spotlight just the tiniest bit.
McCain faced front and saw Secretary Barrington stand and
move to the podium. Applause thundered through the room. He
squinted into the spotlight then turned to the audience with a
practice·d smile. He waved, caught the eye of someon� n
i the
audience, and smiled and winked at whoever it was. He set his
hands lightly on either side of the podium and exhaled lightly. It
It was a way to
echoed in the microphone, and McCai11 smiled.
determine f
i the mkrophone was live without looking silly

lU
 In f lui d a l l l A CI

saying "testing one-two" or starting to talk without anyone

being able to hear.
"Gentlemen," Barrington said, waving one hand to still the
applause, which faded on command. "Thank you very much, all .
It's great to see so many familiar faces here, back for your sec·
ond, third, even fourth course of study here at Camp Clarity. We
all know what we're here for today, who we're going to have a
chance to hear speak."
Barrington stepped back, put a hand in a pocket, letting the
audience stare quietly at him.
"I don't have words," he continued, stepping back into the
microphone, his eyes fixed on a point far in the back of the audi·
torium. "I just do not have the words to describe what this man
has meant to me, what he's meant to my life. He's shown me . . . "

There was a pause of the perfect length, then he said, "But

you all know that. He's meant the same to you, or you wouldn't
be here today. I'm not going to yack all day. I'm here to intro·
duce Herr Erwahlen, and that's exactly what I'll do. Gentlemen,
our teacher, our �avior, our leader, and the great shining beacon
of the New World Order, Mr. Hans Reinhold Erwiiltlen."
The room exploded in applause. McCain's ears started ringing.
The row in front of him stood, and McCain found his view of the
stage blocked. He stood up, clapping, in time to see Erwahlen step
out from behind the curtain, smiling, his white teeth reflecting the
spotlight. McCain smiled. Someone in the audience whooped.
Erwahlen shook Barrington's hand, and the secretary looked
at him as if Erwahlen were his father. Erwahlen clapped him on
the shoulder, and Barrington moved to stand next to the two
senators. When Erwahlen got to the podium the three men sat
down, and McCain could tell it was rehearsed. Rehearsed, but
flawlessly executed. The room was still echoing with applause.
Erwahlen put one hand up, and the audience was quiet at
once. He raised his other hand, and they sat.
"Thank you all very much," he said, smiling that beautiful,
warm smile. "Vielen Dank zum alien. I'll speak in English to
honor the country that has been so good to us all-the country
that will be so much better to us in the years to come."

113
 g .w. ti r p a

An excited laugh spread through the audience.

"Let us take this opportunity to discuss the African savage
and his role in the world we have all set about to create."
The audience settled in to listen, some of them leaning for·
ward, eager to hear.
"The African people," Erwiihlen said, in casual, conversa·
tional tones, "are genetically inferior to the Azyan races. We know
this to be true, though there are so-called scientists who will try
to convince us that it is not. We're told over and over again that
the differences between black and white are cultural, or social,
not genetic. We're told that the Americari black is angry, that he
has been kept down by white society, that it is white society's
fault that he loots and bums his own neighborhood . . . on and on
and on. We know differently.
"You have all spent time exposed to the vril, to the power
that chooses its vessel. It chose you, like it chose me, because
we are worthy. It chooses only the best of any species, as was
the case since before recorded time. Vril has never chosen a
colored man, and it never will.
"They're different, aren't they?"
There was a murmur of agreement from the audience, and
Secretary Barrington nodded in an exaggerated way that
showed he was playing to the last row.
"There are differences in the chemistry of their bodies, as
much as the tenor of their souls. . From their pigment to their
endocrine system, their nutritional requirements and the
diseases they find themselves in danger from that pass us by.
We evolved differently, separate from them, and stayed separate
until the days of the slave trade when ill-mannered white 'mas·
ters indulged themselves with the help.n
This got a laugh.
"They are fine athletes, aren't they?" he went on. "They run
fast, lift heavy weights, have amazing physical enduran.ce, but
name one that was responsible for a fundamental breakthrough
in science or engineering. Name one black Newton or Bell or
Ford."
Erwahlen paused for effect, and McCain took the time to try

13'
 In f lul d 1 1 I e D ce

to remember the name of the man who invented peanut butter.

George something . . .
"There was George Washington Carver, of course," Erwahlen
said, "who brought us all the miracle of peanut butter."
A wave of self-satisfied laughter followed, and McCain
shrugged, feeling a itt1e
1 foolish. He was pretty sure Caiver was
responsible for more than peanut butter, but Erwahlen's sar­
casm played well to the audience.
"So much for the African-American contribution, eh?"
Erwiihlen said, smiling through the laugh that thundered
through the auditorium.
"You can teach a black man to bend to different cultural
rules. of course," Erwiihlen said. "You can teach a dog to shit on
a newspaper."
Another laugh.
"You can dress a black man in a suit, and he'll m\ike a pass·
ing lawyer, maybe even run for office. You can put shoulder pads
on him, and he will win your football game foryou, but what does
that mean? He's strong and easily adaptable, can be tamed, even
domesticated. The African can run and jump and carry things,
sing and dance and tell funny jokes, but a black man cannot lead.
He cannot do that. A black man does not have that spark that
truly sets us off from the cheetah, who can run, the monkey, who
can jump, the elephant who can carry. A black man can sing like
a bird, dance like a firefly, and, like a parrot, tell funny jokes he's
heard elsewhere. What animal leads? What jungle dweller
invents, creates, sets himself in the front and says to the world,
'I am master of all I survey and I will do anything-anything to
back that up.' "

The audience applauded again.

"If you own a football team . . . " Erwii.h.len paused, scanned
the audience then said, ·Ah, yes, there you are James. You can
use them, train them to perform on your field, but would you put
one at the head of your board of directors, or make him CFO?�
The grey-haired man Erwii.hlen was looking at shook his ·

head. smiling.
"I didn't think so." Erwahlen looked back up at the audience

135
 U .w. ti r p a

and asked, "Would you trust him with the future of your busi·
ness, your home, your nation, or your world?"
A murmur of "no's" washed through the audience.
McCain thought of a guy named Freddie Mitchell. Freddie
lived in the dorm with McCain their first year at Yale. He was in
pre·med, and he was good. If he wasn't at the top of his class,
he was pretty damned close. A week before lie was sent to Camp
Clarity McCain had read n
i an alumni newsletter that Frecidie
had been named to the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Med·
icine.' Freddie Mitchell was black, and his father was the comp·
troller of a successful publishing company n
i Philadelphia.
"We are not the chosen of God," Erwiihlen said, his voice
heavy, filling the auditorium with sheer importance. "We created
God. That is something no African savage could do.!'
The audience laughed again, and a chill ran down McCain's
back. A sweat broke out on the back of his neck when they
started clapping and he joined in. His head spun when he stood
with them, and his heart raced when Erwiihlen smiled.

138
i
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must be some kind of signal," Jeane said as the

tornado siren wound down, echoing into silence.
"They must use it to call people in."
"They?" Ngan asked.
She looked at him and scowled. He knew what she
meant-he always knew what she meant-but he liked
to pretend he didn't. He liked Jeane to say exactly what
she meant. It was an irritating trait.
"The Nazis, the Klan, the GOP," she said. "You tell
me."
Ngan smiled and folded his arms across his chest. He
looked up at the clear night sky and said, "A curfew,
maybe, enforced by Erwiih.len."
"No lynchings after seven?" she quipped. "Maybe
they're regrouping-rallying in the face of the y�llow
peril."
Ngan laughed loudly but said nothing.
•Are you cold?" she asked him.
"No," he replied, "I am worried."

137
 a .w. tl 1 p a

"About Fitz?"
Ngan sighed and said, "He could be dead alt:eady."
A car drove by, fast, heading the same direction the teenage
boys had roared off in. "We could follow the crowd, go fmd him, ·

and get him out of there by force." . .

"Against the .fascist army of armed teenagers?" Ngan said

quietly. "If that was all , I would have gone in after him myself."
"What else is there, Ngan?"
"Erwah.Ien," he said simply:
"You're afraid of him?� she asked, not believing he could be.
"Of course," he said quickly. "There is reason to believe that
Erwahlen is a sorcerer of no small skill. The style of magic he
has at his disposal is not entirely familiar to me. I cannot know
for sure how dangerous he might be."
Jeane let a long breath hiss out her nose. "A sorcerer?" she
asked.
"There might be some other name for what he is," Ngan
answered. "He might call himself a thaumaturgist, perhaps· a
wizard."
Jeane shook her head. "I'm going to go ahead and assume
you're joking about that, okay? I mean, Fitz has disappeared
into this rich white-guy asshole training camp, and you're telling
me the Great and Powerful Oz is behind it all?"
Ngan narrowed his eyes, tipped his head, and said, "The
Great and Powerful Oz? Is this a holy person?"
Jeane laughed. "When we get back to Chicago, we're going
to Blockbuster, first thing."
"I understand your perspective, Jeane," he said, apparently
realizing she was having some fun with him, "but where I come
from, we hold men like Erwiihlen in reverence. When they are
good, we honor them. When they are evil, we fear them."
"No offense, Ngan," she said, "but this isn't Tibet. This is
Outside Nowhere, Illinois, and I don't believe in wizards."
"Before we met," he said, "did you believe in aliens or
ghosts?"
There was a clatter of metal on pavement that made them
both jump. They looked to their left and saw a shopping cart

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overturned where the parking lot of the motel gave way to the
parking lot ofthe laundromat ne:s.t door. A woman was standing
over the cart, holding a laundry basket full of neatly folded
clothes. She bent down slowly, stiff, old, and .in obvious pain.
She grabbed a comer of the shopping cart and righted it quickly,
then herself a bit less quickly.
She was black, her tight hair dusted with grey. She weighed
easily as much as Jeane and Ngan put together and was wearing
a green paisley housecoat. Her shoes were new, plain white can­
vas tennis shoes that seemed odd on the little feet at the ·ends
of her massive legs.
The old woman looked up and caught Jeane's stare. A brief
flash of uncertainty-not fear-passed across her face. Jeane
was about to look away when the old woman winked, then
smiled. Jeane realized her own face was blank as she watched
the old woman put her laundry basket back into the shopping
cart and start pushing it into the motel parking lot.
"She noticed you," Ngan said. "You should speak with her."
Jeane turned to him and asked, "Why me?"
"She saw you," Ngan told her. "She smiled. You are a woman.•
"You're a minority," she said before thinking.
"I am Tibetan," he said. "There are far too few of us in Amer·
ica to be considered a proper minority, Agent Meara."
She hated it when he called her that.
"And woman," she said, "is nigger of the world."
Ngan smiled, said, "A wise Asian woman said that, I
believe,• and turned back to the motel room door.
Jeane didn't watch him go. She strolled as casually as she
could, intercepting the woman as she passed in front of the
motel doors. The woman watched Jeane approach with a wel·
coming, knowing look.
"Hi," Jeane said lamely.
"Good evening to you, ma'am," the woman said.
"Lovely night," Jeane said. She stopped a few feet from the
woman, who stopped walking as well.
"Tornado sirens were blowing," the old woman said. Her
voice had a tired, smoke-gravel edge. "Not a cloud in the sky.�

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"Yeah," Jeane said, looking down. "That was weird. What

was that?"
The old woman smiled and let her eyes hang on Jeane.
"You're a pretty thing, aren't you?" she said.
Jeane blushed and looked away, feeling like a three-year-old.
"Thank you, " she breathed.
"You're not from Lesterhalt," the woman said.
Jeane looked up at her. The woman's eyes were wide, expec·
tant. "No," she said. "You can tell?"
·
This made the old woman laugh. Her teeth were yellow, and
she was missing one on top and two on the bottom.
"Not that hard?" Jeane asked.
"Darlin'," the woman said, "a woman don't get to your age
and keep a figure like that in Lesterhalt, Illinois. You might have
been born here, Miss, but you been livin' city." ·

Jeane smiled, nodded, and said, "That's very observant of

you."
"My name is Edith, darlin'," she said, "and besides all that,
you're standing in the parking lot of a motel."
Jeane laughed and held out her hand. "My name is Jeane
Meara."
Edith took Jeane's hand and said, "Very pleased to make
your acquaintance, Jeane Meara. So what brings you to Lester­
halt, much less to this spot of blacktop talking to an old lady
like me?"
Jeane stopped smiling. She hated the drama of the gesture
· ·
and the change that came over Edith's eyes.
"Was that your friend back there?" Edith asked, her voice
slow �d deliberate. "The Chinese man . . . the one who went
back into the motel to give the womenfolk their privacy." ·

Jeane nodded and said, "We wor:k together."

"He's not safe here, Jeane Meara," Edith said quickly.
"I know," Jeane said. •A teenage boy put a gun to his head in
the diner earlier today."
. Edith nodded and looked down. "They'll kill him next time."
she said, almost whispering. "They're at their meeting now.
Y'all had best be on your way."

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Jeane's heart sank. She felt profoundly sad, though she

wasn't sure precisely why. "What's going on here, Edith? What
meeting?"
Edith looked up, smiled, tipped her head, and asked, •Are
you with the police, Jeane Meara?"
"No," she said. "No, I'm not."
"Too bad," Edith replied, smiling.
"Do you need the police?"
Edith put her hands on the cart and seemed about to take a
step forward, away from Jeane. She paused, though, and said,
"No, I guess not. Not in so many words. Is there a law against
going backward?"
"Going backward?" Jeane asked, honestly not sure what the
old woman meant by that.
Edith looked at herwith wet eyes. "When I was a young girl,
my daddy moved us all up from Tennessee after my uncle was
lynched. Hung this good, honest, hard-workin' man from an old
tree in the yard outside our church. I never knew why they did
it. My daddy, he never did say. 'Crackers are crackers,' that's
what Momma used to say, and that part of Tennessee was full
enough of them boys.
• 'Illinois,' my daddy said, 'fought for the North in the Civil .
War-was the home of Lincoln himself.' Daddy said we'd find
peace here, and you know what, Jeane Meara? We did. We did
find peace. A good many years have ·passed since then, I'll tell
you that, and it's been a fine place to live. A fine place."
"But?" Jeane prompted.
"You never did say why you were here," Edith said.
Jeane was taken aback by the question. She opened her
mouth to say something, but nothing ca.ine out. What could she
tell this woman? What did this woman already know?
"I work . . ." she said, pausing to think, "for a civil rights
group . . . sort of." ,
Edith laughed and said, "Girl, you lie like a possum plays
chess."
Jeane blushed again and said, "It's actually not too far fr6m
the truth."
-

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"Well," the old woman said, "if you're here with that Chinese
fella, I guess you're not from the hotel at least."
"The hotel?"
Edith nodded, the smile disappearing from her face and the
laugh disappearing from her voice. "Camp Clarity, they call it.
It's some kind of whites-only country club or something outside
town. It wasn't long after that place opened up that things
started to change around here. For the worse, I can tell you."
Jeane nodded and said, "That's why we're here."
She wanted Edith to know that someone cared enough to
come here and do something. Of course, Jeane didn't know what
they were actually going to do. The look on Edith's face made it
evident that the old woman didn't hold out much hope for their
success.
"Well, good for you, honey," she said quietly. "You and that
Chinese man are going to do what? Expose them? Put them on
the TV?"
"No, no," Jeane said. "Nothing like that."
There was a moment of hesitation where it was obvious to
Jeane that Edith wanted to hear more. Jeane had nothing more
to say.
"What about you?" Jeane asked. "Have you ever had a run-in
with these teenagers or anyone from Camp Clarity?"
"Oh, no, darlin'," she replied. "They don't have anything to
say to an ol' woman like me. There's been no cross butnin' or
anything like that. It's the same old same old in some ways,
y'know? Little intimidations here a.ad there-looks, whispers,
the word 'nigger' when you turn your back." She scoffed harshly
and said, "Little boys think a colored woman my age ain't never
been called a nigger."
Jeane forced a smile, then nodded for her to continue.
"Ain!t much else to say, darlin'. Town's up and gone cracker
is all. Guess it just happens sometimes, especially n i _a little
town like this that's seen its last factory boarded up and shipped
off to China or some such place. Ain't a lot for a white man in
Lesterhalt to do but feel sorry for himself."
"That sounds like an excuse," Jeane said.

14!
 tn t lul ll t I I e n te

Edith looked surprised. "It is what it is, darlin', and it'll be

what it'll be."
"Sounds like a Bible passage."
Edith laughed at that. "No, just horse sense. 'Sides, if they
all want Lesterhalt for their lily-white ·selves, they can up and
have it. I have a daughter lives in St. Louis. She's the manager
of a book store there. She went to college in Carbondale, got an
education, and kept the sense she got from her momma­
enough sense to leave this town behind. She told me I could stay
with her. I hate to be. a burden on my baby and all, but things
here have . . . Well, things here are what they are."
Jeane didn't know what to say.
"It's all right, darlin'," Edith said.
Jeane was embarrassed that this woman felt she had to be
comforting when she was being driven out of her home by the
sort of open racism most Americans thought had disappeared a
iong time ago. "I'm sorry, Edith," she said. "Is there anything I
can do?"
·1 don't know, darlin'." Edith said. "Is there anythingyou can
do, you and your Chinese friend?"
"We'll try," was all Jeane could say.
Edith smiled and said, "Well then, that's the best news I've
had in a while now."
"Edith, if there's anything you can think of that might help
us, anything you've seen or heard that's out of the ordinary, that
seemed . . . I don't know, impossible or strange, you come here
·
and find me, okay?"
Edith stared at her for twenty seconds or so, then said,
"They ain'tjust clansmen up there in that hotel, is they?"
"No," Jeane said, before she could second-guess herself and
not say what she was about to say. "No, they're not just clans·
men· up there, and it's not just a hotel.•
Edith looked into the distance in the directio.n Jeane knew
Camp Clarity lay. "I didn't think so," she said to the horizon.
"I've seen clansmen before. Seen my uncle . . . But this one, this
time . . ."
"What is it, Edith?"

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 a .w. ti r , a

"Darlin'," she said, "these boys have a plan. Know what l

mean, dear? A plan."
A cold sweat dampened Jeane's forehead as much as from
what Edith said as from the look in her eyes. "A plan?p
"Good night to you, darlin'," Edith said, pushing her cart a
step forward. "It's getting chilly for an old woman, and I still
have half a mile towalk home. You and your Chinese friend, you
be careful with these boys. They might not kill you, but they
will, sure as my great granddaddy picked cotton, kill him.p
"Good night, Edith," Jeane said.
"Good·bye, darlin'." Edith replied.
.., ,,. ·

'£ iwiihl.en's speech went on for another twenty min­

utes or so. McCain couldn't help feeling it was the
perlect length-practiced and efficient. When he fin­
ished there was a thundering standing ovation that just
went on and on. Eiwiililen finally walked off the stage.
and Secretary Banington went back to the podium.
"Wonderlul," he said, the audience fidgetingwith used
up excitement. "Just wonderful. Thank you all, and thank
you Herr Eiwiihlen. A couple of quick announcements
before we break up. Blue Group, you should proceed from
three to four. Group leaders, don't forget to file your
monthlies with the clerk. We'd hate to see anyone miss
out on anything. Regional group leaders should be aware
of new spread protocols. If not, please see Mr. Lemon."
McCain had no idea what any of that meant. . He
looked around the auditorium and saw men taking
notes, some nodding, others whispering to each other. .
Some had stood up. Still others were already filing out
of the various ex.its. The senators on the stage had

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stepped down and were glad-handing and back slapping at the

foot of the stage with a clumting crowd of white men.
"And that ought to just about do her for tonight, gentlemen,"
Barrington concluded with a stiff wave. "!hanks again, and
we'll see you next time."
Barrington stepped back from the podium, smiling widely,
and there was a smattering of applause. McCain stood up when
the man next to him did, and he realized he had no idea where
to go. He knew he'd never be able to find his way back to the
little dorm room the way he'd come, and he wasn't sure he
should go back there anyway. He found himself hoping that
Nichts �ould show up.
The man next to McCain nudged him with an-elbow and said,
"Looks like Barrington would ike
l a word with you, son."
McCain looked at the manwho'd nudged him. He was easily
eighty years old, dressed in a three-piece black suit and wire·
thin tie. He smelled of mothballs and stale cigars.
"I'm sony?" McCain asked lamely.
The old man's eyes, sparkling with misplaced vigor, glanced
at the stage, and he nodded. "The secretary,• he said.
· McCain looked at the stage and saw the labor secretary
looking up at him, smiling. When McCain caught his eye, Bar­
rington waved him down, his face welcoming and warm.
McCain looked down at his feet, negotiating the breaking-up
crowd carefully and slowly. He passed Tom Casale, and they
made brief eye contact, nodding to each other. Casale flashed
him a tiny smile, but McCain was still too out of sorts to return
it. In time he made his way to the stage, and Barrington held out
a hand. The secretary, still on the stage, towered a good three
feet above McCain. McCain reached up and took the man's
warm, soft, almost feminine hand and shook it firmly. Barring·
ton smiled and said, "Matt McCain." ·
"I'm sorry?" McCain asked.
"Matthew McCain?" the secretary repeated. "You're Matt
McCain from Chicago."
"Michael," McCain corrected. "It's Michael McCain, but
people call me Fitz.•.

ua
 In f IUI d 11 I e n ce

Secretary Barrington, still smiling, stepped off the stage and

landed lithely on the busy carpeting. Somethiri.g about the way
his body came to a stop from the short fall made McCain feel
uneasy.
"Michael, Barrington said. "Sorry about that. 1\ventyyears in
n

politics, and I still get people's names wrong. I should ask

Erwahlen·to toss me back in and work on the short term memory,
eh?"
He winked, and McCain forced a smile.
"Erwfiltlen wants us to get to know each other," Barrington
said. "Did you have plans for this evening?"
The question was so preposterous McCain had to laugh.

Jeane stepped back into the motel room, pushing the door
closed behind her. She reached back and turned the deadbolt.
"What did she have to say?" Ngan asked.
He was sitting straight on the edge of one of the beds-the
one farthest from the window. Jeane looked at him for a few sec­
onds, and his face remained passively expectant. She crossed
the room to the dresser and picked up her purse. Ngan remained
silent as she fished for her cell phone.
"The town," she told him, "has gone cracker. She's moving
to St. Louis, and I doubt she's the only person of color who's
likely to do that. She said that the boys are going to kill you
unless we leave now."
Jeane found her cell phone, flipped it open, and looked down
at the lighted display.
"I'm not sure what it means to 'go cracker,' " Ngan said, "but
I assume she meant that minorities are no longer welcome in
Lesterhalt.•
"Who's Lieberman?" Jeane asked, still looking at her.phone.
"From the ADL?" Ngan prompted.
Jeane looked up and nodded. "He's left an email message for
•
you on my account. n

"Yes," Ngan said. "I apologize. You know I dislike carrying a

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computer, but I knew we would be together and you would have

yours.•
Jeane sighed and said, "That's a rather convenient form of
Luddism. Reject technology, but always make sure you have a
wired friend nearby.•
Ngan smiled and asked, "What does he have to say?"
Jeane turned the phone off, set it on the dresser, and ctossed
to sit on the bed near the window. She picked her duffel bag off
the floor, reached in it, and pulled out a slim black laptop. She
glanced at Ngan, who was still sitting on the other bed smiling
at her, and woke the computer up. She clicked a little, typed a
little, and clicked a little more, then set the computer on �e bed
next to Ngan.
Ngan read the email from Ira Lieberman, then frowned.
"Bad news?" Jeane asked.
Ngan shrugged and said, "Surprising news. It seems that our,
Mr. Erwahlen actually advised against the Final Solution."
"A Mr. Erwahlen," Jeane muttered, then said more clearly,
"That wouldn't get him killed back thenr
"Indeed, it very nearly did." Ngan said. "The Gestapo was
convinced they'd assassinated him very near the end of the war,
but Erwii.hlen apparently escaped and found himself in the
hands of American intelligence officers.•
"Good for him," Jeane said.
Ngan nodded and stared at her computer screen a little while
longer.
"I'm hungry;" she said. "Ifwe're not·goingto go after Fitz, can
we at least order a pizza? I take it you never gotyour dinner."
"You're still working on Bachelor's Grove?" Ngan asked.
He didn't look up at her, but Jeane looked at him. The only
sound for a while was the faint hum of the laptop and crickets
chirping outside.
"I'm not satisfied," she said finally, "with the concl.usions
drawn by the investigation."
"I drew the correct conclus.ions, • Ngan said without the
slightest trace of wounded ·ego or defensiveness.
"I have a degree n
i chemical engineering, Ngan," she said,

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with more than a trace of wounded ego and defensiveness. "I

used to investigate arson, bombings, very serious crimes for the
federal gove
rnment. If you thought I'd be satisfied with 'it was
a ghost,' why did you hire me?"
Ngan smiled.
"I'm not a blind cynic," she continued. "That thing in the sew­
ers in D.C.-tell me it's a creature from another planet and, see­
ing what I saw. I'll happily accept that. After all, there are billions
of stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies . . . blah. blah. blah.
The mystery of the ages solved. But now I have to sign my name
at the bottom of a piece of paper that ends with a. ghost."
"Isn't that precisely what it was?"
"Maybe," Jeane said, "but that's not good enough. That's not
an explanation. That's like saying the Lindbergh baby was kid­
napped by a human. An investigaion t should specify exactly
which human and why."
"But the Lindbergh baby wasn't kidnapped by a h-"
"Just . . ." she interrupted, holding up a hand, "don't. Please
don't finish that sentence if you want me to stay on this freak
show merry-go-round."
Ngan smiled, and Jeane found herself laughing.
"Jesus," she breathed.
"So you're examining the nature of ghosts?" Ngan asked her.
"How they do what they do-live on after death, affect the world
of the living?"
Jeane sighed, staring at her reflection in the black TV
screen. "l think it's something electrical," she said. "A kind of
transference or looping of electrical impulses from the brain fnto
some other closed system . . . the roots of the trees in. the ceme­
tery, for n
i stance. The . . . um . . . ghost-Jesus . . . never really
exhibited any independent creative action. I think it was acting
somehow on pure instinct and base emotional responses that
were somehow transmitted from . . ."
She trailed off, noticing the way Ngan was looking at her.
· "I'll submit a new report when l have something more con-
·

crete," she said.

"I look forward to reading it," he told her with real sincerity.

1•9
 a .w. ti r p a

•A similar report on Erwiihlen's peculiar brand of alchemy will

. be most interesting as well."
"Alchemy, now?" she asked, irritated. "He's a wizard and an
alchemist?"
"These two things go hand in hand more often than not," he
said.
"Of course they do," she sneered. .
"If you could see this magic-experience it for yourself," he
asked, "like you saw the .alien in Washington, D.C .. or the ghost
in Chicago, would you believe?"
"That depends," she non-answered.
"Fenton falling all that way and surviving. . . ?" he said.
Jeane smiled and said, "There are ways that something like
that could be possible. Unlikely, sure, but more likely than magic
and alchemy."
"Indeed," he admitted, "and you are quite right that this is
why we hired you. An English inventor and author once said that
any suitably advanced technology would be indistinguishable
from magic."
"Arthur C. Clarke," Jeane said.
"Yes," Ngan said, smiling, "that was him . He is certainly cor­
rect. Maybe there is a scientific explanation for what we encoun­
tered in Bachelor's Grove. Perhaps there is simply some mixture
of chemicals that Erwiihlen is using to create this heightened
physical 1\ature. If that is indeed the case, the Institute will be
very happy to hear that explanation."
"Ngan." Jeane said with a sigh, realizing as she did it that
she'd been sighing altogether too much that night, "the only
kind of explanation is a scientific· explanation. By definition,
everything else is mythology;"
"Or faith?"
She smiled, shrugged, and said, •And the conversation ends
there."
"I am a Buddhist," Ngan said. "In my country they would call
me gomchen. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, and it
doesn't need to. It informs me, though, in the same way that
your degree in chemical. engineering informs you."

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"Look, Ngan," Jeane said, "I'm not trying to convert you, or

de-convert you, orwhatever. Science isn't a religion. It doesn't do
the same thing religion does or answer the same questions in the
same way. We live in a universe that has laws, that has rules that
really work and act on us every day. I saw what I saw in that
cemetery, and though I'd like nothing more than to write it off as
a hallucination, I can't. I have to figure out what was really going
on there. .If this guy Erwiihlen is creating Nazi supermen out of
yuppie cosmetics company chairmen and teenage wrestlers, fine.
I'm going to figure out how-exactly how."
"Perhaps we should order a pizza after all," Ngan said, then
winked at Jeane with good hUJJlor and bad timing.
She fought down the urge to slap him and said, "Fine . ..

Where's the phoneboo-?"

The gunshots shattered the window into a tinkling' shower of
sparkles and punched one, two, three, four holes in the thih,
cheap plaster walls. One came through the door. There was a
handful of distinct whistling sounds in the still air of the motel
room and a whole lot more less distinct ones.
Jeane threw herself sideways off the bed, landing on the
floor between the two beds. The carpet was rough and smelled
bad. She heard at least one bullet lodge in the bed and another
ping off the metal frame. She heard Ngan fall to the floor on the
other side of the inside bed, between it and the wall. The shoot­
ing stopped, and there was a squeal of tires.
·"Damn it," she said, angry with herself for not hearing the
car pull up. "Ngan, are you-?"
She stopped when she looked under the bed at Ngan. He was
laying on the floor, his head across from her feet. He turned his
head to look back at her, and their eyes met. He was breathing
. in short, rapid gasps. Jeane looked at his chest and saw blood
soaking into his shirt on at least two spots, growing like blos­
soming roses.
"Damn it," she said, and she stood up.

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The secretary of labor maintained an office at Camp Clarity.

It was in the same building, down a carpeted hallway from the
auditorium. The secretary led the way there. The teenage boy
named Jerry had come down from where he was manning the
spotlight and followed them, carrying the submachine gun and
eyeing McCain with pissy suspicion.
The office was big, the furniture new. There was very little
in the way of personal items there-the knickknacks that fill
most people's workspaces. It had a temporary feeling but was
comfortable. A wide picture window with venetian blinds pulled
up to the top looked out into a dark night sprinkled with distant
lights. Barrington sat at the wide teak desk and motioned
McCain to a comfortable leather chair. McCain sat. Jerry stoqd
·:.

: behind him.
"Does he have to stand there like that?" McCain asked7 let­
ting his eyes shift to one side to indicate Jerry. "He's making me
nervous with that thing."
Barrington looked up at Jerry and made a shooing motion.
McCain looked back and saw Jerry reluctantly shuffle to one
side. The gun was still pointed at the back of McCain's head.
"Kids with guns?" McCain asked facetiously, eyeing Secre·
tary Barrington.
"Jerry's eighteen years old," Barrington said, "aren't you,
Jerry?"
"Yes, sir," Jerry answered dully.
"Old enough to be tried as an adult," McCain said, "but that's
not much of a comfort." ·

"No, no," Barrington said calmly. "What I meant was that

Jerry's old enough to exercise his second amendment rights,
that's all. "
"There should be an amendment that makes pointing a gun
at the back of someone's head illegal," McCain replied. "Could
make for a less anxious citizenry.•
•All in due time, I'm sure, Mr. McCain," Barrington said
cryptically.
"Please," McCain said, "call me Fitz."
"Fitz it is," Barrington replied, "Where'd that come from?"

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"The ilickname?"
Barrington nodded.
"A bad joke," McCain replied. "An inside joke-a family
thing."
Barrington nodded, brushing the answer off and makllig it
obvious he didn't care where the nickname came from.
"Why am I here, Mr. Secretary?" McCain asked. "And why
aren't I dead?"
"Mr. Erwiihlen thought we might have a nice chat," Barring­
ton replied. "And Mr. Erwiihlen thought we might have a nice
chat."
McCain laughed.
"Seriously, Fitz," Barrington said, "we don't kill people
here."
"I see," McCain said dryly. "So Jerry's in charge of what­
opening cans?"
"Jerry's in charge of doing what he's told," Banington said.
"He's here to protect me, not to kill you."
"A step down from the Secret Service."
Barrington smiled and said, "You're quite an accomplished
smartass, Fitz. My compliments. Can Jerry fix you a drink?"
"No, thank you," McCain said. "Something tells me I should
stay sober."
"Good for you. A Diet Coke or something then?"
"Nothing," McCain said flatly. "Thanks."
Barringto� set his chin on his hand and his elbow on the
desktop. He stared at McCain for a few seconds, his brow knit­
ted in earnest, concerned interest. "What did you think of the
speech?" Barrington asked.
McCain shrugged and said, "Bullshit, delivered well."
Barrington smiled at McCain's honesty. "Very good," he said,
"most people in your situation would be kissing my ass."
"You want me to kiss your ass?" McCain asked sincerely.
"No, thank you," Barrington replied. "I really do want your
honest thoughts. I understand that what Erwiihlen said was
controversial. You know who I am, right? You know the position
I hold?"
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 u .w. ti r p a

"You're a cabinet member," McCain said. "You're the secre­

taiy of labor."
"That's right,• Barrington said. "I'm sure you have some idea
what would become of my career if all this came out on Hard
Copy or Nightline. I'd be run out of Washington on a rail-by
some of the men in the auditorium tonight, in fact.•
"So, why are you herer
Barrington sat up straight, then leaned back in the big leather
desk chair. His eyes never left McCain's. "Why are you here?"
"I asked you first,• McCain shot back.
Barrington laughed loudly, slapping the desktop. "That's ter­
rific, Fitz. Really.•
McCain· smiled, noticing how oddly at ease he felt.
"Fine, then," Barrington conceded. "I'm here because I have
a measure of foresight. Things are chan�g. and I believe in
being _ahead of the curve. I get a sense that you're the kind of
guy who likes to be ahead of the curve too, Fitz."
"You sound like an insurance salesman,." McCain said, mean­
ing it as an insult.
"I used to sell insurance," Barrington replied without miss­
ing a beat. "That was years ago, though, and I don't relish the
idea of doing it again."
"So you jumped in with the Nazis for the long haul," McCain
finished sarcastically. · ·

"We're not Nazis, Fitz:"

"Then what are you?"
Barrington's lips thinned. For just a second he was rattled,
angry. McCain knew he'd asked a question Barrington wasn't
prepared to answer.
"There's a question," Barrington said slowly, "that's often
asked in job interviews. I'd like to hear your answer to it."
"If you're going to ask me why I want to work at the Gap,
Mr. Secretaiy," McCain said, "it's because of the chicks." .
Barrington laughed loudly, the sound of it echoed against the
office's bare walls. "No, no," he said. "Nothing so specific. I'd
like you to tell me where you see yourself in five years.•
;McCain thought of a couple jokes but knew enough not to

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poke Barrington too much, too hard. "That's a difficult question

for someone from my generation to answer, Mr. Secretary."
"Give it a try."
McCain let a breath out through his nose. He looked at the
completely ordinary office furniture and said, "I'd like to not be
at a cross burning."
"Good enough," Barrington said. "How about ten years?
1\venty?"
"I guess my answer would be the same," McCain answered.
"I'm not sure why you need to know this."
"Will you still be working for the Hoffmann Institute in ten
years?" Barrington asked. The question sent a chill down
McCain's spine. "Will you still be working for them in twenty
years?"
"Maybe," McCain answered. "Unless some high school
wrestler shoots me in the back of the head first."
"Our high school wrestler won't shoot you in the back of the
head unless I tell him to," Barrington assured him, "and I have
no intention of telling him to."
"In that case," McCain said, "when I grow up I'd like to be
Don from Lost in Space."
Barrington squinted at him. obviously aware that McCain
was having some fun with him, but not really picking up on the
reference. "Don?" he asked.
"Sure," McCain said. "He was the pilot, really cool, dated Judy."
Barrington shook his head, smiling, and said, "Dan from . . . "
"Lost in Space," McCain provided. "And it's Don."
"Don it is then," Barrington said with a tip of his chin. "What
about thirty years, forty years; or fifty years?"
"If I'm alive in fifty years," McCain said honestly enough,
"and I am still able to go to the bathroom by myself, I guess I'll
have to be satisfied ·with that."
•An admirable goal, Fitz,• Barrington replied with a �owing
smirk. "Where will you be n
i a hundred years?"
Not that anything about the conversation so far had been
normal, but this question stopped McCain dead n i his tracks.
"2101, Fitz," Barrington said with the sort of knowing smile

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Ronald Reagan used to be famous for. "Where will you be the

first year of the twenty-second century?�
"Driving my jet car to my new job at Spacely Sprockets?"
McCain said, shaking his head at the absurdity of the question.
"I'd be a hundred and thirty-two years old."
"Hans Reinhold Erwi:ihlen is over two hundred years old."
Barrington said, with a weight in his voice that he obviously
intended to convey the gravity of that silly assertion.
"Who told you that?" McCain asked.
"Erwahlen," Bamngton answered.
"Do you believe everything Erwahlen tells you?"
"Yes," Barrington answered simply, "I do."
"Why?"
"Because he always tells me the truth."
McCain let Barrington sit there smiling at him for a few
seconds.
"You still haven't answered my question," Barrington said
after those few seconds had passed.
..Are you saying you can make me live to be a hundred and
thirty-two?" McCain asked.
"No," Barrington replied. "I can make you live a lot longer
than that-or, actually, Erwiihlen can. To be honest, I don't have
his . . . skills."
"How will he manage to do that?" McCain asked, really
wanting to know.
"Do you use a computer?" Barrington answered.
McCain· shrugged grandly; letting Barrington know he was
getting aggravated by the ambiguity of the interview. "Yes, I do."
"Do you know exactly how it works?"
"No," McCain answered, understanding the point.
"ErwabJen can do it," Barrington said.
McCain shifted in his chair and said, "Why don't you answer
that question, Mr. Secretary. Where will you be in a hundred
·
· ·

years?"
"I will be at Erwahlen's side, Fitz," Barrington answered
with no small show of pride. "I'll be one of the masters of the
·

New World Order."

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"Commandant of the new concentration camps?" McCain

pressed, then cringed inside, wishinghe could pull that back. He
couldn't use an angry Barrington.
But Barrington didn't get angry.
"I understand what you're thinking, Fitz," he said calmly. "I
really do. I thought the same thing when I first came-here, when
I was still the lieutenant governor of Rhode Island. All that
racist stuff, it informs us, but it doesn't rule us."
"So you don't believe all that stuff?" McCain asked. "All that
stuff about black people being genetically inferior?"
"Oh, no,• Barrington said. "That's all quite true. They are
genetically inferior. You're not convinced of that, after tonight?"
"After the speech?"
Barrington nodded.
"No, i can't say I am." McCain replied. "I heard a lot of argu­
ments, but no evidence, no real science."
Barrington smiled and said, "And if you had heard some real
scientific evidence, Fitz, would you have believed then? Would
you have even understood it, if Erwahlen had started getting
into chemical equations and all that?"
McCain smirked and said, "I would have tried to understand.
Maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe I'd still believe we're all just
people who do the best we can. Maybe I'd still believe that no
one deserves to die for the color of his skin."
Barrington put up a cautioning hand and said, "Easy, there,
Fitz. No one here said anything about killing anybody."
"They didn't have to," McCain answered, letting the anger he
was fe�ling soak through n i to the words. "Once you decide that
some group of people, whoever they may be, aren't as human as
you, the killing starts soon enough."
"What if I told you Hans Erwiih.len had the ear of Hitler sixty
years ago and fought against the camps, argued strenuously
against the Final Solution?"
McCain sighed and said. "Well, he'd have been . . . what . . . ten?
Most likely Hitler gave him a gummy bear and sent him on his way."
"I told you," Barrington said earnestly, "Erwahlen is over
two hundred ·years old."

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"1\vo hundred years old and a humanitarian racist?" McCain

pressed.
"I suppose so," Barrington answered, chuckling, "We don't
hate the lesser races, Fitz, and we're not asking you to. We
understand their place, and want to help them understand their
place as well, that's all."
"That's your New World Order?" McCain asked, shaking his
head. "Sounds more like the Confederacy."
Barrington literally brushed the comment aside with a wave
of his hand. "We won't go any further into that, okay?" he said.
"There will be all sorts of time, and I can assure you that when
you've completed the course you'll understand."
•And what if I don't 'complete the course'?" McCain asked.
"You will," Barrington almost whispered. He leaned forward
and looked deeply into McCain's eyes. "How do you feel, Fitz?
Physically, I mean."
"!feel fine." ·
"No.� Barrington said, shaking his head. "You feel better
than fine, don't you?"
McCain swallowed, disappointed to find his mouth and
·

throat dry like sandpaper. •1 feel tenific."

."You aren't afraid either, are you?" Barrington pressed gen·
tly but firmly. "You've forgotten about Jerry, haven't you?
You're not afraid of the teenager with the M4 pointed at the
back of your head. The thought of him back there interests
you, maybe offends you, but it doesn't frighten you, doesn't
panic you."
"No," McCain admitted, trying to look away from the too
close, too serious Barrington.
"How do you feel about Erwfiltlen?" the secretary asked.
"Erwfiltlen?" McCain repeated, hoping to avoid the question.
"Does he frighten you?" Barrington asked, sitting back
quickly, breaking the heaviness in the air.
"No," McCain answered quickly, but honestly.
"Does he offend you?"
McCain found that he couldn't answer that question as
quickly. He wanted to say yes but di dn 't think he could.

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Barrington didn't give him a chance to answer--0r so McCain

would tell himself later.
"Have you had a chance to see much of the grounds?" Bar·
rington asked.
"The grounds?" McCain answered. "No, not really. I remem·
ber a lobby, a reception desk, when I first came here, but after
that . . . no, I haven't seen the grounds."
"Hm Erwahlen would like you to look around, talk with
some of the guests, attend some of the seminars and work·
shops," Barrington said. "Would you like that?"
"You know why I'm here," McCain said, feeling he needed to
remind Barrington, though common sense dictated that he
shouldn't.
"We knowwhy you're here," Barrington said, "which is why
Jerry or one of his friends will be with you at all times. That
aside, you'll be free to roam the grounds. You see, Erwahlen
knows why you came. It's why you'll stay and how you'll leave
that interests him now."
"What does he really want?" McCain asked, his voice quiv·
·

ering ever so slightly.

"Erwahlen?" Barrington asked.
McCain nodded, not expecting an answer.
"A better world," Barrington said. "That's all."

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i
.

eam� burst out ofthe motel room, drawing the .380

automatic up and in front of her with both hands.
She held back the urge to start firing blindly into
the night and did what she was taught to do. She looked,
she listened, she identified a target.
But there was no target.
The tail lights of the car were pinpoints on the dark
road outside the pools of dull light in the motel parking
lot. A dog was barking. Jeane's jaw clenched.
She put the gun away and went back inside.
When she came around the bed and saw Ngan laying
on the floor on his back her first thought was that he
was dead. His eyes were open.
"They might come back: he said. Jeane jumped,
startled. "If they saw you run out, if they know you're
not dead, they might come back."
Jeane was at the door in two long strides. There was
a switch on the wall next to the ineffectual-lookiilg
chain. She slapped it down, and the lights went off. An

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orange glow from behind the cheap curtains and shafts of light
from bullet holes in the wall and door it
l the room, but only
barely.
"We need to get you to a hospital," she said, scanning the
dresser, the bed near the door, then the floor for her cell phone.
"I'm not sure," came Ngan's 'quiet voice from the space
between the bed and the wall, "that is a . . . a good idea."
Jeane tried to look at him but could see only the bed, the
wall, and a shadow between. "What do you mean? You've been
shot. You're bleed-"
She was discussing it-having another infuriatingly circular
conversation with Ngan. She realized she was standing no more
than eighteen inches from the motel room phone.
"l will be fine," Ngan's voice drifted up again.
"Put pressure on the wounds, Ngan," Jeane said, and
reached down for the phone. "Press down as hard as you can."
"Do not call the police," he said.
Jeane lifted the receiver and began to put it to her ear. "I'm
calling an ambulance."
"Can you be sure that Erwiihlen doesn't control the ambu·
lances, the paramedics, firemen, and police?" Ngan asked.
Jeane again looked over at the dark spot fo which he lay,
the receiver still in her hand, but she hadn't yet put it to her
ear. The thought made her wince. She was embarrassed and
angry by how often she was getting embarrassed and angry.
She was talking to the floor next to a cheap motel bed, negoti·
ating with a man who'd just been riddled with automatic
weapons fire about the nature and immediacy of his medical
care.
Jeane put the phone to her ear and ignored Ngan when he
said, "I have to insist that you not contact the authorities here."
There was a dial tone, sharply reassuring· in Jeane's right
ear. She reached a finger to the phone, aiming without �g
. for the nine. It would have been a simple thing. A shift in space
of a quarter of an inch or less. It would have taken virtually no
effort at all, normally. How many times had she dialed a phone?
She could believe a million times.

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 In f lul d a I I e n ce

Her finger wouldn't touch the nine. Her elbow wouldn't

straighten. Her arm wouldn't move.
"1hlst me, Agent Meara," Ngan's voice drifted to her.
She was in no pain. Her arm was not numb and was not par­
alyzed. She wanted to move it, wanted to dial 911, but her arm
· wouldn't.do it. Her arms wouldn't obey. lt was as if her one limb
had achieved some level of separate consciousness and was sim­
ply unwilling to dial the phone.
"Ngan . . ." she whispered.
"Yes," he answered, "it is me."
Jeane slammed the phone down, growling through tightly
clenched teeth. "Stupid, damned-"
"We have no time for that," Ngan interrupted her outburst.
"Get me up. They'll be back."
Jeane walked around the bed and stopped, looming over the
s.till prone form of Ngan. His shirt was soaked with blood that
looked black in the wan light. "Oh," Jeane breathed, "for God's
sake."
"Help me up," Ngan said.
"You'll bleed to death," she warned.
"The bleeding is already beginning to stop," he said. "We
need to get out of here before they come back to finish me and
start on you. I can take care of myself, but not here, not wedged
on this dirty carpet. You have to get me outside."
Jeane sank -to her knees quickly, her hands in front of her.
Even as she tried to figure out the best way to get him out of
that tight, dark space, she said, "I'll get you to a hospital."
"Where?" he asked. "Just drag me out by my feet."
"Won't that hurt you?" she asked, ignoring his question.
"Yes," he agreed. "I am sure it will hurt me quite a bit.
Please do it, so you can pick me up."
Jeane grabbed his ankles and looked at him with eyes wide,
needing to hear one more time that it was the right thing to do.
"Jeane," Ngan said, "I need your help, but I need your trust
just as desperately. If you take me to a hospital the doctors will
be compelled to report the gunshot wound. The police will be
notified, and I think it's safe to assume that Erwahlen has

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agents in the police department here. He might even possess

the entire department. Besides, I am not at all fond of western
hospitals.•
Jeane pulled hard and slid Ngan out ofthe space between the
bed and the wall. She, could see him grimace even in the dim,
uneven light.
"I have to ask you to trust me,• he said, his voice weaker
now, but his words carrying the clear tones of sincerity. "There
are ways to heal the body other than hospitals. From now and
for the next several hours I'm going to need you to trust me. If
I am wrong, and I die, it will-still not be your fault. Those boys
shot me, probably on Erwiihlen's orders. You did not. You also
tried to help me in the-"
"For Christ's sake, Ngan, " she blurted all at once, "shut up
and tell me what you want already before you bleed out.•
Ngan nodded but didn't lift the back of his head off the car·
pet. Jeane cursed herself for going along with any of this. She
was entirely certain that she was making a mistake that would
prove fatal to Ngan, She also knew he was probably right about
the police and hospitals. Who could know how far outside
Lesterhalt they'd have to drive in t>rder to escape Erwahlen's
influence. She'd nearly been killed by an Erwiihlen·owned cop
herself, and that was in Chicago, over three hundred miles
away.
- "Lift me up," he told her. "I know you're strong enough, Pick
me up and take me outside. Be sure to bring your bag. Leave
mine. Bring your telephone and your computer. Leave your car,•
Jeane reached over and grabbed her duffel bag and her
purse. She unzipped the duffelbag and stuffed her purse into it.
She found her phone and computer there.
"I need you to take me somewhere where there is real earth,
not floors or pavement," Ngan continued. "I need to be under an
open sky, You should find sonie trees, someplace where we can
be hidden, where people won't be able to see us."
Jeane slipped her hands under Ngan's slight form. His eyes
·

closed, She lifted him, rolling him into her chest.

"You're light," she grunted, standing.

18'
 · I" t lul d ' I I e " ce

"I will appear to have passed out," Ngan said, his eyes still
closed. "I will seem unconscious-even comatose, but please do
not panic."
Jeane felt warm, thick blood on her hands, soaking into her
top.
"I am not dying," he said. "Do not think I'm dying. Trust me.
Trust me, and wait."
Jeane sighed, and carried him out into the cool night air.

16i
 i
- J

a �
.et a lot of action, Jerry?" McCain asked the teena er
following him. "The Uzi work for you?"
"Just shut up, man," Jerry scowled. "This way.•
McCain glanced back to see Jerry nod at a side cor­
ridor. McCain turned the comer, and Jeny, gun in hand,
followed him. At the end of the little blank corridor was
a glass door, revealing darkness beyond.
"They let you in the bar here, Jerry?" McCain asked.
Jerry was taking him. at McCain's request, to Camp
Clarity's bar. Barrington had, after all , given him the
(escorted) run of the place, and the bar was always the
best place in any hotel to ·get a sense of the clientele.
McCain couldn't wait to get a load of the bar in this
place.
"Jerry?" McCain pressed when the boy didn't answer.
McCain pushed the door open and let it close on the
teenager, who caught it with a grunt and the clatter of
the gun on the steel door frame. The air outside was
cool, and there was a nice breeze. McCain realized he

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couldn't remember the last time he'd had a lungful of fresh air.
They crossed the short space between two buildings, their
feet scraping on gravel.
"Hey," McCain said, ·"you never told me if the Uzi worked for
you. If it does, I might pick one up for myself. What do you
think, the young·ladies dig on that?"
"It's not an Uzi, asshole," Jerry grumbled. "Just go."
"Really?" McCain asked, not looking back at the kid. "I
thought it was an. Uzi."
"Uzis are crap," Jerry said, "designed by a Jew. This is a
SITES M4 Spectre, man. Mr. Erwii.hlen wants us to have the
best."
"Who said that was the best?"
"Mr. Erwii.hlen."
McCain got to the door at the end of the gravel path and
stopped, his hand on the handle. "You want to shoot me, eh,
Jerry?"
Jerry stopped, brought the gun up to his eye and sighted
slowly, carefully down the barrel. McCain locked his eyes onto
the kid's.. He wasn't afraid. He knew Jerry wouldn't shoot him
unless he was ordered to.
"Why aren't I dead?" McCain asked him quietly.
Jerry stared at him across the gun sights.
"Oh," McCain said, "that's right. You only do what you're
told, right, Jerry?"
Jerry's right eye began to close just for a second, but not all
the way, then opened again. McCain leaned in toward the boy,
who edged the tip of the gun barrel up half an inch. His eyes nar­
rowed in warning. McCain could see sweat beading on the
teenager's forehead.
"The New World Order," McCain whispered in mock confi­
dentiality, "needs punks too, I guess."
Jerry let the gun fall, then looked down at the ground. He
glanced back up at McCain and his face flushed. McCain turned
and opened the door into the subdued, dimly lit bar area. He was
·
pleased to see that Jerry hesitated before.following him in.
McCain put Jerry out of his mind easily enough and took

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stock of the room. The bar was as ordinaiy and unremarkable as

the rest of what he'd seen of Camp Clarity. It was small, almost
utilitarian in its simplicity. It was dark, and the few seats were
all deeply padded leather armchairs. The bartender was a tall,
thin man with a shaved head. McCain crossed to the bar casu·
ally, hands clasped behind his back. He got to the bar and made
eye contact with the bartender. McCain was about to open his
mouth to order a dr4tk when he realized all at once that the bar­
tender was black. The man looked at McCain with dull, beaten
eyes.
"Scotch," McCain said, the word hissing out of his mouth on
a single breath.
The bartender nodded and turned his back, reaching for a
bottle. McCain couldn't bring himself to understand how this
man could be working here, then remembered what Barrington
had said about minorities knowing their place.
He turned and scanned the bar. There were six men sitting
in armchairs. No one was sitting at the bar. Two of the men were
sitting alone, the other four speaking quietly in groups of two.
McCain ignored the men who were talking. He'd come to the bar
to talk to someone, not intrude on a conversation.
It had occurred to him that other than Nichts bringing him
the cell phone, he hadn't spoken with anyone Erwah.len hadn't
arranged for him to talk to. Though it would have been easy
enough to assume McCain might by the bar, then stack the deck
with a handful of specially selected drinkers, McCain couldn't
think of a better option.
Of the two possibilities McCain picked the oldest. The young
one was a stern-faced yuppie nursing a bottle of mineral water
and staring intently at the screen of a laptop computer. The
older man was sitting next to a low tab.le on which sat a snifter
with half a finger's worth of brandy in it... He was smoking a
Cuban cigar, the blue smoke curing
l lazily around his head. He.
was dressed in a pale yellow polo shirt and stark white golf
pants. His new tennis shoes were neither gaudy nor old­
mannish, and McCain was happy to see that his socks were
white, not black.

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"Sir,• the bartender said from behind him.

McCain turned, saw his drink on the bar in front of him, and
the bartender's receding back.
All inclusive, McCain thought wryly.
With a silent Jerry in tow he approached the man with the
cigar.
"Hi," McCain said jovially. The man looked up, smiled, was a
bit unsure. "'.This might sound a little dopey, but this is my first
time here, and I'd really love to have someone to talk to. Can I
·
buy you a drink?"
The man glanced at Jerry, who was standing several paces
behind McCain, staring at him, holding the gun.
"Kids,• McCain said with a shrug.
"Even now in heaven,• the man said, "there are angels car­
rying s.avage weapons."
He ni dicated the seat across from him, and McCain sank
quickly into the soft leather chair.
"Jeny's no angel," McCain corrected, glancing back at the
boy. •Are you, Jerry?"
Jerry was looking down' at his gun, obviously attracted to its
cold, black steel lines. It didn't seem to McCain as if the kid
could hear him.
"Name's Pemberton,• the man said, holding out his hand.
McCain leaned forward, took the man's hand, and lied casu­
ally, "Widen. Greg Widen."
Pemberton sat back and folded his newspaper carefully, set­
ting it on the little table next to him. "You said,this was your
.first time here at Camp Clarity. Where are you from?"
"New Mexico," McCain lied again, choosing the most
unlikely place he could think of, a place it didn't look like Pem­
berton could possibly have ever visited, much less be from.
"New Mexico,• Pemberton repeated.
"Ever been?" McCain asked.
"To New Mexico?" Pemberton answered. "Can't say I've had
the pleasure. That's where the flying saucers crashed, isn't i�?·
A chill rippled through McCain, and he could feel the color
·

drain from his face:

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"Hey," Pemberton said, leaning forward and setting a hand

gently on McCain's knee, "I didn't mean anything-"
McCain recovered quickly and said, "Sorry, no . . . it's no big
deal. It's just that as soon as you say you're from New Mexico
. . . Anyway, I'm from Portales. That was Roswell where the fly·
ing saucers crashed."
Pemberton laughed in a way that made McCain think the
older man didn't believe in flying saucers. "Let me get that
. drink." he said.
Knowing it was paid for anyway, McCain smiled and nodded.
"Scotch," he said, "neat."
"Ah," Pemberton replied, •a gentleman's drink."
Pemberton held up one hand and snapped his fingers once,
loudly. The bartender looked up, and Pemberton held up two fin­
gers. The bartender nodded and poured from a very expensive
bottle of single malt scotch.
·

"So, Greg Widen of Portales, New Mexico," Pemberton said,

picking up the snifter with the little bit of brandy still in it.
"what do you want to know?"
McCain shrugged and, whi
l e Pemberton swallowed the rest
of the brandy, said, "I don't know. I mean, I heard the speech
tonight. It made sense. I mean, it spoke_ to me; and there's
Erwahlen. There's . . . you know. He has that quality. I mean,
thank God for Erwahlen, but . . . "
McCain couldn't really come out and ask all the questions he
wanted answered, so he hoped that Pemberton would ask the
questions for him, then provide the answers.
"I'll tell you this, Mr. Widen-" Pemberton said wistfully.
"Greg," McCain cut in, "please."
"Greg it is. People call me Skip."
"Skip?
"I know," Pemberton said with a laugh. "I'm a bit old to be
called Skip, right? Well, thanks to a promise made to an army
buddy on the battlefield of Appomatto:s:, my great-grandfather
called his first son Clembert, and the Pemberton men have been
·
named Clembert ever since."
"That's quite a handle," McCain said with a chuckle.

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"No shit, Greg," Clembert Pemberton III concurred. "My

grandfather went by Clem, the poor bastard, and my father
claimed Bert, so I was left, from a very young age, with Skip.
Oddly, it hasn't seemed to have had any adverse effect on my
·

success."
The bartender appeared w:ith the Minks on a small engraved
silver tray. He placed Camp Clarity cocktail napkins on the table
and set the drinks down on top of them. Pemberton didn't look
at the bartender the whole time, but he stopped speaking when
the black man was within earshot. McCain looked at the floor,
and the bartender walked away soon enough.
"So; Pemberton said, "what do you do there in Portales?"
"I sell used office furniture,• McCain lied, taking the occu-
pation from an old Tom Waits song.
"Any money in that?" Pemberton asked.
McCain shrugged, "Once you get past the tenth store, yeah."
Pemberton held up his scotch, said, "Good for you,• and
drank it down.
McCain smiled and took a small sip, wincing at the potent
whiskey's burn. Pemberton hardly seemed to notice his.
"So, Greg,• he went on, "you've come to Camp Clarity for the
first time. You've spent a little time in the vril?"
McCain nodded.
"You've spent a little time in the vril, • Pemberton continued,
"'and you're feeling good. You're a like-minded ndividual,
i you
admire Erwahlen, but you're looking for the inside scoop, eh?"
McCain shrugged and said, "I don't know, Skip, I'm just feel­
ing kinda like the new guy.•
Pemberton smiled, nodded, and said, "We were all new guys
at one point, Greg, but that won't last long. I think you'll find
.Camp Clarity to be the most welcoming place you've ever expe.
rienced. There is practically no place in the world I'd rather be.•
"It's an exclusive club," McCain tested. .
•And it's not just that,• Pemberton said. "Camp Clarity is a
. refuge, a school, a hospital . . . everything all at once. I can tell
you, Greg, that I've been to so many places that were, on a bas·e
1eve1, pretty similar to this. This executive retreat business is

11i
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getting bigger all the time, but at those places I learned crap
like time management and how to work with difficult people­
like I need anyone tell me stuff like that. Here, though, it's like
a whole different world. There's a richness to this place, both
spiritually and emotionally. It's very personal and can be very
powerful.
"Anyway," Pemberton added, "I'm not even sure how exclu­
sive it is anymore. Lots of new faces . . . Would you believe the
other day I was on a flight from Chicago to D.C., and I see a guy
in coach reading a pamphlet-a Camp Clarity pamphlet. I said
something to him, and he looks up, and would you believe it's· a
goddamned Chinaman? A bald little Chinaman with blue eyes! I
about shit my pants."
McCain made himself laugh and was sure he pulled off the
required level of genuineness. Blue eyes. An Asian man with blue
eyes. Pemberton was describing Ngan. But how could.that be?
"So," McCain said, changing the subject, "you're from
Chicago?"
�Just passing through. I run a company in Detroit you might
have heard of-especially if you like SUVs."
McCain lifted an eyebrow and said, "Not bad. What brought
you to D.C.?"
"Damn EPA," Pemberton scowled. "I've got a car powered by
rechargeable batteries that'll go ninety miles an hour for six
hours at a stretch. I can make 'em for four thousand dollars and
sell 'em for twenty, but the EPA is giving me problems about the
batteries."
"I thought the EPA liked that sort of thing," McCain said
naively, "electric cars."
Pemberton scoffed, saying, "Like hell. See, there's a certain
group of oil guys from Texas and Oklahoma who would rather
not see the internal combustion engine go away, and they own
the damn EPA."
"Can you do anything about that?"
Pemberton shrugged and said, "We'll see. Actually, that's
·

why I'm here. These particular oil guys are members.•

McCain squinted. "They're here?"

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Pemberton nodded and said, "Erwahlen's going to help us

work something out"
McCain blinked, smiled, and said, "He does that sort of
thing?"
Pemberton laughed in a waythat made McCain dizzy. He felt
his face flush, sweat break out on his forehead, and something
in his stomach twist.
"Ah," Pemberton said, "I get it. That's what you didn't under·
stand. Look, kid, this isn't some redneck hate group. This is the
future of the United States of America. This is the big time, my
friend."
"I never realized." McCain ventured, "that he.had that kind
of reach." Pemberton simply shrugged, waiting for McCain to go
on. "Can I ask you something, Skip?" he said, leaning in. "I
mean . . . something maybe a little personal, but I swear I don't
mean any offense."
Pemberton frowned, but his eyes smiled. "I'm all ears,
Greg."
·okay, so I'm doing pretty well with the stores and all, mak·
ing a decent buck, but you . . . I mean . . .
"

"I've made a couple dollars," Pemberton said with a slllirk.

"You nm the biggest corporation on Earth." McCain said.
.
Pemberton held out a hand, wobbled it back and forth in a
· so-so gesture, smiled, and said, "Fortune Five."
"Okay," McCain said, making Pemberton believe he admired
him. "So, why do you need all this? Why do you need this whole
'New Wotld Order. ' I mean, you're already on top."
"They say it's lonely at the top, Greg." Pemberton said,
reaching for the cigar that had been burning in the ashtray next
to him. " They,' in this case at least, are full of it. It's crowded
at the top. It's packed with wild dogs biting at each others' balls
every God blessed day. I started in the mail room. I honest to
God did. That was 1960. I was twenty-two years old. Forty-one
years, Greg. It's taken me forty-one years to achieve the position
I have. Now look at me. I'm an old fart. I've got lines of guys half
my age who can't wait for me to dtop dead. Is that what success
means to.you, Greg?"

17'
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

"I'm not sure what you mean," McCain said.

"You work your life away to gain a certain position." Pem­
berton said, "and when you finally achieve those goals, you have
how many decent years left? Ten? Five? One?"
McCain felt his skin crawl. Gooseflesh broke out on his tri­
ceps. "So if you can live . . ."

"If I can live as long as Erwfiltlen has lived," Pemberton fin.

ished for him. "I get to stay on top, not just get there, look
around for an inadequate handful of months, then drop dead. I
get to stay. I get to stay forever. All this 'blacks this' . . . 'Jews
that' . . . I couldn't give a rat's hindquarters for."
McCain sighed and dropped his head, hoping Pemberton
couldn't see his face.
"How do you feel, Greg?" Pemberton asked.
McCain looked up and saw Pemberton smiling down at him
like a knowing big brother. "It's actually getting harder . . ."
McCain improvised. "It's getting harder for me to understand
where I fit into all this, that's all. I mean, I sell used office fur·
niture in the ass-end of nowhere."
Pemberton offered a knowing smile, a shrug, and said,
"Erwii.hlen knows. Maybe-"
Pemberton stopped, looking up and past McCain's shoulder.
Mccain turned around in the big chair and looked over his shoul·
der. He saw Jeny look up, then stand up, fidgeting with his
weapon.
"Well," Pemberton said, "looks ike
l a friend of yours is here."
McCain turned around the other way and saw Secretary Bar·
rington crossing the bar. Jerry almost stood at attention. Barring·
ton ignored tlie teenager, his eyes set on McCain. Something
about the look on his face made McCain's skin crawl. Barrington
looked serious and dire, and all at once McCain was sure )le'd
overstepped his bounds somehow. Maybe the conversation with
Pemberton had gone too far. Maybe he wasn't supposed to talk
with Pemberton at all.
Barrington said he had the run of the place, but McCain
couldn't remember if he'd said it was all right to talk with the
other guests. Certainly a man like Pemberton was special.

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McCain was sure he was about to be punished somehow.

"Michael," Barrington said, his voice heavy and obviously
nervous.
McCain felt his blood run cold again, and he shivered. He'd
just had a long conversation with a very m
i portant and powerful
man who thought his name was Greg. McCain stood as .Barring·
ton came within reach of him. The secretary reached out, and
McCain made himself not flinch. Barrington put a hand on his
shoulder. The grip was both firm and gentle.
"Sit down," he said, "please."
McCain sat, still not looking at Pemberton.
"Listen, Michael," Barrington said, "I have something to tell
you, okay? It's bad news."
"What do you mean?" McCain asked, laughing uncomfort­
ably. "If I did anything wrong . . ."
"No, no," Barrington said, smiling in the way people do at
funerals. "That's not it at all. "
Barrington sighed, then looked up at the bar, lifted his chin,
made eye contact with the bartender, and nodded.
"Your friends . . ." Barrington said gravely. "Your Asian
friend and the woman were killed earlier tonight."
McCain felt his fingers and toes go cold. "What?" he asked
feebly.
"You had two friends," Barrington said, looking him in the
eye, "from the Hoffmann Institute. They were staying at a motel
in town, and there were some problems. I know this is going to
be hard for you, and you're going to have some trouble keeping
this in perspective and understanding our point of view."
The bartender appeared and put a shot glass in McCain's
numb hand.
"They're dead, Micha.el," Ba.rriJ:Igton said. "You're going to
feel bad about that. You're going to hate us all, but there will
come a time when you linderstand why that had to happen.and
understand why there was nothing we could do."
"They?" McCain asked.
"The Asian man and the woman," Barrington said quietly.
McCain downed the shot, and his eyes .blurred with tears.

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"Fitz," Pemberton said from behind him. "If there's anything

I can do . . . ."
McCain's head spun. His vision blurred.. Pemberton had
called him Fitz. Barrington had called him Michael, not Fitz.
Pemberton had never heard the name Fitz.
"Ngan," McCain whispered. "Jeane."
His eyes stopped tearing and all at once felt dry, his eyelids
heavy and soft. He closed his eyes, and flashes of yellow and
purple blazed through the darkness.
"Michael?" Barrington asked.
McCain felt the shot glass slip out of his siff,
t numb fingers.
"Michaetr someone, either Barrington or Pemberton, said.
He tried to answer, though he had no idea what to say, but
his mouth wouldn't open.
He was tired, and he wanted to go to sleep.
They drugged me, he thought. That's it.

177
;f.l'-.cCain awoke with a headache worse than he'd ever
experienced in his life. He was laying on his stom·
ach on a soft leather sofa, his left arm draped off the
side, hand resting on cold linoleum tile. His eyes were
dry, and they hurt.
He sat up, using both hands to muscle his body up
and around to sit with his feet on the floor. He was still
wearing the same clothes from the night before, the
clothes he'd found waiting for him in the little dorm
room.
He looked around the room, wincing once when his
eyes first moved. It was dark, but not completely. Along
one wall of the big room was a row of cabinets and a
black countertop that made him think of high school
chemistry class. There were sinks, a Bunsen, burner,
something that looked ike
l a little centrifuge. In the
center of the room were two steel gurneys with no mat·
tresses. Next to them was a wheeled tray on which sat
a gleaming array of surgical implements. It took

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McCain a blink or two to realize that there were bodies lying on

the gurneys.
McCain put a hand to his throbbing forehead and tried to
understand how he came to the conclusion that the people on
the gurneys were dead. Could you just look at someone and real·
ize that? He looked up at them again. They were still, not
breathing. That must have been how he knew they were dead.
· The corners of the room were dark, filled with shadows that
.
seemed almost solid. He looked up and saw that only a single
fluorescent tube was glowing. The room had no windows. The
light was directly over the gurneys.
McCain stood up, groaning, the room spinning. He stood in
front of the couch for a few seconds, his eyes closed, his hand
on his forehead. He breathed a few times, then took a step for­
ward. His head was beginning to feel better. He could walk with­
out falling down, so he did, to the edge of the nearest gurney.
"Oh, no," he whispered. "Ngan."
The man McCain had called "UncleAgain" was lyingface up,
naked and pale. McCain didn't bother counting the bullet
wounds. There were dozens ofthem, black and red, swollen pink
around them. The blood-and there must have been a lot of it­
had been cleaned up. McCain took a deep breath. Half of Ngan's
head was gone, but it was definitely Ngan. One blue eye was
staring straight up at the ceiling, dull, lifeless, and dead.
McCain stepped to the other gurney, though he knew what
he would find there-who he would find there.
Jeane was also laying in her back, also naked, her large
breasts hanging limply to the sides, her chest, all of her, still.
She'd been shot only a few times, but there was a hole in her
neck that McCain could have passed his fist through.
"Damn it," he said. "We made a mess of this one didn't we,
partners?"
A man cleared his throat from one of the dark corners of the
room, and McCain startled back, flipping the tray of instruments
with one hand and sending it clattering violently to the floor. His
already frayed nerves were stripped to the core by the shrill·
clatter that. echoed in the big, mostly empty, windowless room.

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"I beg your pardon," the man said, his accent thick. "I didn't
mean to startle you."
"Who is that?" McCain asked, his voice shaking and uncon­
trolled. "Who's there?"
Erwiihlen stepped into the weak light next to Jeane's dead .
body and looked down at her, his face sad, his eyelids heavy.
"This is not right," he said, passing a hand over the dead
woman.
McCain opened his mouth to scream a string of obscenities ·
at the man, but he stopped himself. He was alone now, sur­
rounded by the men who had already killed his closest friends in
the world. He was all that was left of what must have been the
i vestigation in the eighty-four-year history of the
most botched n
Hoffmann Institute.
"You are angry with me." Erwiihlen said, his voice soft and
condescending. "I understand that. I am sorry to tell you that
these are not the first people who have died. These are not the
last people who will die in the service of the future."
"The future?" McCain almost sobbed, not sure what to say.
"The future of humanity," Erwiihlen said. "The woman. Were
you in love with her? Did you have a relationship with her?"
McCain squinted at. him, shook his head, and said, "Jeane?
No . . . no, I didn't."
•And the man?"
•His name was Ngan," McCain said. "Her name was Jeane."
Erwiihlen just stared at him.
McCain took a deep breath and said, "Ngan was like a . . .
like an uncle to me."
. "Grow up, Michael McCain." Erwiihlen said.
McCain shuddered like a child and said, "You're going to kill
me too."
Erwiihlen laughed. "Not today, Michael. Not ever if you·take
a deep breath and start to listen to the people around you." He
waved a hand over Ngan and Jeane. "You're not in their club any­
more. You're in mine. Mine is better."
McCain said nothing but nodded because he wasn1t sure
what else to do.

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"I want you to have a look around," Erwii.hlen said. "You still
haven't had a chance to see what we do here."
"That's what Barrington said," McCain said, looking at the
floor.
"Secretary Barrington was correct," Erwii.hlen replied. "You
may see something that will help you forget this unfortunate
sadness."
McCain looked up at him and asked, "Can I leave here? Can
I go home if I want to?"
Erwii.hlen looked at him for a long time, then said, "No. I'm
sorry. If you let yourself understand Camp Clarity, you won't
want to."
"What am I going to see?" McCain asked, looking back down
at the floor. He realized then that he was avoiding the bodies
more than Erwii.hlen's eyes.
"The truth," Erwii.hlen said. "Isn't that why you came here in
. the first place?"
"I suppose it is," McCain admitted.
"Then follow me."
Erwii.hlen turned to the only door and walked out, his back
to McCain. McCain hesitated, but Erwahlen never slowed.
McCain sighed and knew he was actually afraid of being left
behind. Without looking at the dead bodies of his friends,
McCain followed Erwii.hlen out.
They went down another featureless corridor that ended in a
stairway up. McCain lost sight of Erwii.hlen again going up the
stairs. He heard a door open, then close, and came around the top
of the stairway. He went through the glass door there and into
bright sunshine and a cool spring morning. McCain didn't look
back at the building he came out of. In front of him was a cement
sidewalk that led to the edge of a big flat field of green grass. It
could have been a soccer field, maybe football, but with no goals
on either side or sqipes on the grass.
About two dozen men in casual clothes, some in sweats,
were gathered on the field. They were mostly broken up into
small groups, chatting with each other, obviously waiting for·
something. When they caught �ight of Erwii.hlen striding up to

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them in that solid, strong gait of his, they actually burst into
applause. McCain hesitated, missing a couple steps behind him,
but the clapping men didn't seem to notice McCain at all.
Eiwii.hl.en shook a few hands, smiling in his typically jovial
manner, and McCain came up behind him.
•very well, gentlemen," Eiwii.hl.en called ·out to the men on
the field. "Let us begin with two lines, facing each other." ·

The men scattered and quickly formed into two lines, sepa­
rated by about forty feet of freshly cut grass. They all seemed
anxious, excited, maybe a little scared. McCain recognized
Clembert Pemberton and a few men from the speech, including
Tom Casale. Jerry was there with two other boys, again armed
with submachine guns. Jerry was wearing a shoulder holster
over a Lesterhalt High School football T-shirt. A chrome-plated
automatic hung from under his arm.
McCain watched Eiwii.hl.en smile at Jerry, who beamed at the
attention. The older man held out his hand, and Jerry, smiling
sheepishly, pulled out the gun and placed it. gently onto
Eiwfilllen's outstretched palm.
Eiwahl.en turned and addressed the anxiously waiting men.
"You've all attained a level of ability that makes me so proud. !ch
liebe Sie alle. We have a very special guest with us today. He is
new to us. Michael . . . " Eiwahl.en turned to McCain and waved.
�Michael McCain, come over here."
McCain scanned the faces of the men on the field. They were
all staring at him expectantly. He had been singled out by
Erwahlen, and that obviously meant a lot to them-meant
everything to them.
"Kommen Sie her, Michael," Eiwahl.en said again, still smiling.
McCain sighed and walked up to within arm's length of
Eiwii.hl.en. He kept his eyes mostly on the ground.
"Take this," Eiwii.hl.en said, holding the gun out to him, grip
first.
McCain took the gun without even thinking about it. He
looked at it as if he wasn't sure what it was, but really he just
didn't understand what he was supposed to do. Of course; there
was a moment when he thought he could just shoot Eiwahl.en,

. 183
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avenge the deaths of Jeane and Ngan, take out this Nazi, this
hatemonger with one twitch of a finger-and put some kind of an ·
end to it. McCain didn't shoot, though, because even though
there was one really good reason, there were dozens of reasons
not to shoot.
"Please go over there, Michael,• Erwiihlen said. "Stand in
line over there.•
Erwiihlen pointed to the line of men forty feet away, and
McCain walked slowly there and took a place in line: The men,
including Pemberton, smiled at him and made room in the line.
Erwahlen moved to stand in the line across from McCain, the
other men parting to make room for him too.
"Aim carefully," Erwiihl.en said, "and shoot me.�.
"What?" McCain said, hoping his voice would carry the
distance.
"You heard me, Michael.•
McCain tipped his head, glanced at the smiling, anxious men
around him, and said, "I don't, uh, I don't think so."
There was a smattering of chuckles along the two lines of
men, and Erwiihlen grinned. .
"You can't shoot me, Michael?" Erwiihlen asked.
"Go ahead,• one of the men next to McCain said. "It's okay."
"You're stronger than that, Michael," Erwahlen said. "I
killed your friends. That doesn't make you angry enough to
shoot me?"
McCain looked up and met Erwiihlen's cheerfully taunting
·

gaze. "That's not funny; he said.

�I'm asking you to shoot," Erwiihlen said. "All these men
here have heard that. It's all right. You can shoot the man who
killed your friends. You haven't forgotten what they look ike l
already, stretched out on those gtirneys with holes all over them.
Gerade die Frau mit die groften Busen. •
McCain lifted the gun, leveled it at Erwiihlen, and held
. it
th�
A silence descended over the field, and McCain could feel
the tension of the men around them. They were excited, not
afraid.

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McCain let his arm fall and dropped the gun by relaxing his
hand. It fell to the grass without a sound. McCain could hear
two men near him sigh in disappointment. Erwah.len smiled
knowingly and said, "Tom. you take it."
Tom Casale bent down and picked up the gun.
"Fire when ready, yes." Erwah.len said, then started to
mumble something in a language McCain thought at first might
be German, but it wasn't. He didn't recognize any of the words­
didn't even recognize the language.
The gun went off, and McCain flinched, putting both hands
up to his ears in an instant. Erwah.len put up a hand, and McCain
tensed, sure that the man would drop within that single second
that seemed to be stretching on well past its boundaries.
McCain could see the bullet hanging in the air a foot in front
of Erwah.len's outstretched hand. Casale whispered, "That so
kicks ass. That is so kick-ass."
McCain looked at Casale as if he was an idiot, then turned
back to Erwah.len, who winked at him, still smiling. still holding
off the bullet with his palm. McCain felt his legs start to move. ·

He walked toward Erwah.len, his eyes fixed on the bullet.

No one said anything. McCain reached out, still not believing
it, and took the bullet between the thumb and forefinger of lJ.is
right hand. It was just hanging there. It bumed his fingertips
but he didn't drop it. He pulled it closer to his face, looked at i.t
closely, then let it roll lifelessly into his palm.
"There's more." Erwiihlen said.
McCain was still staring at the bullet resting on his out­
stretched palm when it floated up off his skin and hung in the
air.
"There's a man here under false pretenses." Erwah.len said
loudly, so that all of the men gathered there could hear him.
McCain's heart skipped a beat, and a cold sweat broke out
on his forehead. The bullet hung in the air in front of him.
"I've told you all." Erwiihlen continued, "that there are few
rules here, but what few rules we have must be followed very
closely so as not to endanger all of us. Is there anyone here who
can come to the defense of this man?"

185
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The silence that followed was painful and endless for

McCain, who was sure that any one of the .men· might betray
hini. Pemberton . . . why not? Casale . . . quite easily.
Erwiihlen sighed and said, "Please close your eyes. All of
you. All of you except Michael McCain."
As fi they were hypnotized, all of the men on the field closed
. their eyes. Erwiihlen looked at McCain and smiled, then glanced
at the bullet.
McCain swallowed in a dry throat and winced. "I-" he
started to say.
Erwahlen shook his head and held up one finger. The eyes
that had been so welcoming, warm, and paternal were cold now,
hard as diamonds. He pointed at Michael, then a few of the men
standing with their eyes closed. He pointed at Pemberton and
glanced at McCain.
McCain shook his head, and Erwablen smiled coldly.
"No," McCain said quietly, letting his voice sound pleading.
Erwiihlen shook his head and pointed at Tom Casale.
"He didn't know," McCain said quickly. "It's not his fault!"
Erwiihlen's face went solid and flat, his expression like the
face of a corpse. McCain shuddered.
Envahlen's eyes flicked to CaSale, and the bullet that had
been hanging in the air was gone. Tom Casale's head exploded
in a burst of dark red blood. A mass of greyjelly burst into gob·
bets of blood-soaked tissue as the man's skull scattered ike l
shrapnel. Shards of bone pinked against the faces, arms, and
chests of some of the men standing nearby. They flinched but
didn't open their eyes.
McCain looked away. The sound was actuallyworse than the
sight of it. There was no bang. No gun had been fired . . . this
time. Casale's head just popped.
"Darryl, Melvin," Erwablen said, "you can open your eyes
now.'"
Two men opened their eyes and looked down at the still·
twitching body of Tom Ca.Sale. Their faces were impassive, as if
nothing at all out of the ordinary was happening. They both
looked at Erwiihlen.
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 in f lul If s I I e a t1

"Take that away," Erwiihlen said to the two rr.

looked up, addressing the others. •Keep your eyes clo
they've· cleaned up.•
McCain put a hand to his mouth and worked at not ti
up.

1117
 .
'
"
. .

:i(>i� !i•.•;

. ;

:. N gan was drifting off, chanting deep in his throat and

being carried by Jeane, her voice ·fading. His body
was a blazing series of waves of agony. He couldn't
even feel the bullet holes anymore, nothingthat specific,
just pain wrapped around him like a burning blanket.
. "This is nuts, Ngan," Jeane said clearly. "You're pass­
ing out."
The sound of his own chant made it almost impossible
for him· to hear more. It felt good to do it, and lie was
happy to be able to concentrate enough through the pain
to maintain the chant, maintain the concentration neces-
·

sary to save his own life.

"You're bleeding too-" was the last thing he heard
before his secret spring fell into existence around him.
The Ascended Masters of the Monastery of I.nner
Light in a secret corner of the Himalayan nation of his
birth had taught him a secret few gomchen-few lamas
even-knew. In this plane of e)tistence that existed
nowhere but in �s mind he had built a place to come for
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 g .w. tl r p a

reflection, as a stopping-off point not unlike an airport for his

travels through an inner universe forgotten by "modern man." It
was a place where he could leave his body behind.
Everyone's secret spring was different. Ngan's was a cave.
Ngan had spent some of the most important moments ofhis life
in a cave in Tibet. It was a hemlitage inhabited by a long line of
lamas for century after century before Ngan was born and before
the Chinese came. Ngan's cave was based on this hermitage, but it
changed every time he came here, based on his needs for it.
This time, though, it looked too different:
Something's wrong, Ngan thought. This isn't right.
Every time, whether he came disturbed, content, curious, or
afraid, the secret spring was set in the same place. There were
walls-a natural cave on three sides, brick on the first with a
door so low even he had to duck through it. There was the
uneven floor littered with Tibetan linens, and the oil lamps loos·
ing a greasy smoke into the frigid air.
This time, though, the walls were gone and there was a gar·
den. The sun was shining, and though it was a Tibetan sun it felt
warm. He was in a garden of cheny trees and rose bushes. It was
an English garden but not an authentic one. It was based on a
fleeting memory from a glimpse of a picture from a crumpled,
windblown magazine, but to Ngan's eye it had always been per­
fect. He had been there before.
He looked around and saw that he was standing in a circle
of topiaries delicately carved from cheny trees. The ground was
littered with white blossoms. The trees were carved n i the shape
of men. He remembered the topiaries from the last time he'd
been here, but they looked different. Then there had been a cir­
cle of figures holding hands, locked in a child's game. This time
the topiaries were men, not children, taller than Ngan. They
were in rows, standing still and straight up at attention, looking
into the sky, as if waiting for orders from someone or SOill:ething.
Ngan stepped around one of the topiaries. He was curious
about the trees but Jess interested in them than the very living
person he knew he would find in this secret spring that was not
his own.
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 1 ·n f lul d sl le n ce

"Are you here?" he called gently.

"Over here," a voice answered.
Ngan turned and saw, kneeling among the fallen cherry blos­
soms between rows of topiary men, a tiny girl. She was beauti­
fo1, wrapped in a clean linen dress, her skin smooth and pink.
She looked different than the last time he'd seen her. She looked
healthy and safe and content. Ngan wished she werereal.
"Leah," he said, and she smiled at him. "How did you get
here?"
She shrugged and smiled, her blue eyes glining
t in the light.
"You brought me here."
"This was supposed to be my secret spring," Ngan said, fold­
ing himself down into a lotus position in front of her, "not
yours."
"It is yours," she said with a giggle. "It just looks like mine.
You!re bleeding."
Ngan almost flinched at the abrupt change in subject. He
looked down at his own chest and saw the blood soaking his
clean white shirt. He had been shot. Ngan unbuttoned his shirt
and slipped it off. There wasn't a mark on him.
"They're on those guys," Leah said, pointing with a straight
arm behind him.
Ngan looked over his shoulder and saw three of the topiary
. men set off from the rest. He slid around and watched them
solidify into flesh. The leaves folded into ·themselves and turned
the color of Ngan's skin. In a few seconds Ngan was sitting fac­
ing three nearly perfect duplicates of himself.
They were smooth, not completely formed. Each one had a
i a different part of its body. Ngan stood and
single bullet hole n
approached them. They seemed awake, and all three turned
their faces from him, averting their eyes.
Ngan stepped n
i front of the first double and looked closely
at the gunshot wound. .
"Deep into the triangularis sterni," he said, touching the
wound on the left side of the double's chest. "It missed the mam­
mary artery."
Leah giggled behind him and said, "You talk like a doctor.n
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He turned to her and smiled.

"Is that all you see?" she asked, tipping her head in a way
that made it clear the question was rhetorical.
Ngan tuned back to the doubles and stepped to the right to
stand in front of the second double. This one had a bullet hole
much lower in the front of its body, on the abdomen.
"The liver," Ngan said. "The bullet entered straight through·
the sirth and seventh ribs and into the right lobe of the liver,
lodging in the lobus quadratus. This should have killed me."
"It might yet," Leah said calmly, "but is that all?"
"No," Ngan told her, "there's the third one."
· He stepped to the third double and touched the red, swollen
hole that would have been only an inch or less from the second
double's wound if, as on Ngan's real body, all three wounds were
on the same midsection.
"That was a painful one," Leah said, her voice calm and as
devoid of sympathy as it was fear.
"Yes," Ngan said, not looking back at her, "that one hurt. It
tumbled in, tearing through the skin and shattering the seventh
.rib and bouncing down into the place where my stomach
attaches to my duodenum. It ripped my pylorus apart, taking the
hepatic ducts With it. n
"Where did you learn all that stuff?" Leah asked.
Ngan turned to her, opened his mouth to answer, then
couldn't. He had no idea where he'd learned it, that sort ofwest­
ern anatomical minutia.
"What are you going to do about those holes in you?" Leah
asked, apparently not requiring an answer to her first question.
"I can fix them here. . . ." Ngan started, then realized, "but
I'm not where I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going
to my secret spring, not yours.·
Leah smiled, giggled, and said, "I told you, this s
i your secret
spring. See? There's the tree thing." .
The little glanced to her right, and Ngan followed her
girl
eyes. Off to one side a section of the stiff topiary men was gone.
In its place was a tree, strange in shape and pattern, with leaves
and limbs of yellow and green. It sprouted up from the ground

19!
 In f lul d 1 1 I e n ce

from a base of fine, twisted roots in four stemlike trunks from

which sprouted numerous branches. The leaves of the tree were
teardrop shaped, paper thin, and each as long as one of Ngan's
forearms.
"It's beautiful, Leah," Ngan said. "Thank you."
Leah shrugged and giggled.
He had expected to see this in his own secret spring, but as
a finely woven tapestry hanging on a reassuringly dank cave
wall. Instead, here it was growing and alive before his eyes, per­
fect in its breeze-tickled reality.
"Better than a copy of Gray's Anatomy," Leah said impishly.
"Thls is what you really came for."
"Tile thangka," Ngan said. "Yes, Leah, I came here for the
Tree of Treatment."
"That's silly," the girl said, �to hear it in English like that."
Ngan smiled and stepped to the tree.
"You know how to read it," Leah said.
Ngan nodded .and took one leaf n i his hand. On the leaf he
saw two seated figures, one in a blue robe, one in an orange
robe. The man in the orange robe was taller and was reaching
out to the man in blue, whose back was to Ngan. The image
wasn't painted onto the leaf, though. It was part of the natural
pigment. The leaf grew that way. There was a similar. but differ­
ent picture on every one of the other leaves. The thangka was a
teaching device used in Tibetan medicine to remind practition­
ers of the art's major divisions.
Ngan sighed and said, "'lliangularis sterni . . . "

He turned back to the doubles, and all three of them made a

half-tum in his direction before slowly flinching away again. He
looked at Leah and saw that her blue eyes had turned to green.
"You recognize them," Leah said.
Ngan stepped to the first double, touched the wound with
one finger, and said, "Phlegm."
He pushed his finger into the hole and felt warm, wet flesh
pullitfarther in. The tip of his finger brushed hot metal, and he
drew the finger out slowly. The bullet, stuck to the tip o(his
blood-drenched finger, came with it.

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 g .w. tl r p 1 .

He held it up to Leah, and they shared a smile.

"The next one?" she asked him.
Ngan stepped to the second double and said, "Bile."
Again he pulled the bullet out with the tip of his finger, and
again he showed it to Leah, both of them beaming.
"He remembers," she giggled happily. "That's so good,
Ngan!"
Ngan turned to the third double, stood in front of it, and said,
"Wmd," and drew out the last bullet. "It is the three humors.
The three humors."
He dropped the third bullet to the cherry-blossom floor and
smiled at Leah. Her eyes were brown now.
"What color are your eyes really, Leah?" he asked.
She shook her head and leaned back, resting her weight on
both her thin arms, her hands bent behind her. "You don't
remember," she said.
Ngan's smile faded, and he said, "You're right, I'm sorry."
Leah smiled and shrugged, saying nothing, but her eyes held
all the wisdom Ngan had ever attained, all the patience and
purity of thought and spirit.
"How did you get here?" he asked.
She shrugged again and answered his question with a ques·
tion. "Who shot you?"
"A boy not much older than you," Ngan answered.
"Why?" she asked. "Drugs?"
Ngan was taken aback by that until he remembered where
Leah came from: the hard, drug-ravaged streets of Washington,
D.C.
"No," Ngan told her. "A very bad man is teaching some other
men to be as bad as him, and I want to stop them."
Leah smiled, a mischievous grin crossing her face, and said,
"Erwahlen triedto kill you because he's sensitive to the other.
He knows he needs to give his people an enemy to rally against,
or they will rally against each other. He's not afraid himself, and
he isn't teaching his people fear. He is beyond that. He saw that
fail in·Germany sixty years ago, didn't he? Then again during the
Cold War. Hate alone is a weak motivator, but if he combines
19'
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

hate for the other with real, personal power, he builds loyalty,
and with the loyalty of the right people there is little he couldn't
do. If they follow him because they love him and because he can
give them something they can't get from anyone else, added to
the perceived necessity to combat the other, they will do any­
thing for him. It's simple, brilliant, and most likely it will work."
Ngan stared at her silently, and she giggled. It was a
uniquely girlish sound that catne in sharp contrast to what she
had said-a speech of the sort Leah couldn't possibly have the
background and maturity to form on her own.
"You never told me why you're here, Leah," Ngan said, form­
ing several possible answers of his own 'to that question.
"I needed to remind you of the three humors," she said, "and
the thangka."
"How could I have forgotten that?" he asked, ashamed of
himself.
"You didn't," she said. "You've been in America for a long time,
and·they think differently. You were raised to ask questions, Ngan.
You know . . . What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
She held up one tiny, thin-fingered hand and slapped her fin­
gertips against the butt of her hand. There was a faint slapping
sound not un.like a clap.
"I'm an American," she said, "from the capital city. Can you
tell? I don't ask questions and ponder, I am asked questions to
which I devise an answer, one way or the other. It's that mind­
set that's responsible for the American flags still stuck here and
there on the surface of the moon, or the airplanes.whizzing over
your head every day. A Tll>etan might wonder what is on the
mind of a man on the other side of the world and look for the
meaning of that within himself. An Ameri<;an invents the tele­
phone, calls the man up, and asks him."
•Are you saying I've become an American?" he asked her.
"Would that be so bad?" .
Ngan looked back at the three humors and saw that the
wounds had healed. The first one seemed smaller somehow. It
started to <;ollapse on itself, and with a dull crack it split in"the
middle.

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He turned back to Leah and said, "You're not you, then. This
isn't your secret spring. It's mine."
Leah shrugged.
"You're a safe image," Ngan said, not trying to mask his dis­
appointment. "You're here to make me feel better."
"Or," Leah said, winking, "you're the safe image for me, and
this is my secret spring." She raised a hand to indicate the topi­
aries.
"Leah,• he asked, "are you all right?"
The smile went away from her face, and she looked down at
he floor of cherry blossoms. "You don't know," she said.
Ngan nodded, understanding that this wasn't Leah.
"You're not just an image, though," he said to the top of
Leah's head. "You have to have been brought here."
"Iwas brought here by you," Leah said. "You'll remember my
name."
Ngan said, "I should go."
"Not yet."
Ngan looked at the little girl with wide eyes. "Not yet?"
"Things out there move at different speeds," she explained.
"You need to wait here for your wounds to heal a bit more."
"You're right, of course," Ngan said, turning again to look at
the three humors.
The first one had transformed back into a topiary man, its
cherry-branch neck slowly bending back to look up at the sky
like the rest of the topiary men. The second was splitting open,
leaves folding slowly out from inside it. On the third, the bullet
hole was still closing, less red, smaller now.
"I'm worried that Jeane will take me to a hospital," Ngan
said.
"You asked her not to," Leah said, "and she promised she
wouldn't." .
That seemed to be enough for Leah, but it wasn·� quite
enough for him .
"She thinks you're killing yourself," Leah said with a wicked
smile.
Ngan smiled, glancing down.

UB
 \n f lu\ d 1 I Ie n n

The name came to him on a gently rushing wave, and he

in awe at the little girl sitting on the floor of
tipped his head
cheny blossoms.
"Grwa pa mngon shes can,"' he whispered. "The Monk
Learned in Abhidhanna. The Medicine Buddha."
Leah winked at him and giggled. It was a sweet, musical
sound.

lU
 : .

..
_ t llte sun had come up to find Jeane on the verge of
passing out. Under this patch of trees in southern
Illinois, she had sat in one place on a blanket of dirt,
dried leaves, moss, and the collected detritus of hun·
dreds of seasons. Her right hand was ·pressed over two
bullet holes in Ngan's abdomen, coated with blood that
was warm on her palm, cool and dzyi.ng on the back of her
hand. Her left hand pressed down on a third wound in
Ngan's chest, coated with blood the same way. She had
been sitting like that for almost eight hours, and just
about every part of her body was quivering with pain and
stiffness.
Ngan was still breathing, regularly and deeply. He
was asleep, but Jeane was still sure, had been sure all
night, that he was dying. He had three bullets in his gut
somewhere, and though it was possible-indeed had
happened-that he could be lucky enough that all tiu:ee
had missed killing him instantly, it was impossible for
him to simply recover on his own.

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She'd tried periodically to wake him up, but he never stirred.

His face was perlectly serene, as if he'd somehow abandoned it.
The thought crossed Jeane's mind more than once that he was
already dead, that his body was still breathing out of some auto·
nomic habit.
Tuith be told, she'd forgotten half the things that had crossed
her mind. The fact was that Ngan had told her to be patient, and
she had no choice but to be patient, but her brain had been rac·
ing all night. He might have been right that the local hospitals
couldn't be trusted, that the local cops might be nothing more
than a private security force for Erwahlen. If she called, the FBI
they'd either decide she was a crank or descend en masse on
Camp Clarity-another Waco. The Institute wasn't big on calling
the cops in any case, and Jeane didn't have a whole lot of friends
left in federal law enforcement anyway. She knew only two
people to call at the Hoffmann Institute: Emma, the secretary;
and Lily Adler, �gan's boss. What could either of them do from
an office three hundred miles away in Schiller Park? And they
wouldn't even be there until much later in the morning. Beyond
that, the Hoffmann Institute was still largely a mystery to her.
All she could do was sit and wait, but for what she had no idea.
Her muddy head reeled, and she almost passed out. Her
head bobbed down once sharply, sending a jolt of pain through
her neck that made her wince, woke her up a little, and made
her say, "God damn it,• out loud.
She put a hand. to her neck and felt the warm, thick wet of
Ngan's blood, and she flinched again. The movement didn't hurt
as b.ad this time. With a pained sigh, she put her hand back on
Ngan's seeping wound.
· Her palm touched something solid when she expected some­
thing· soft and wet. She jerked her hand away, afraid she'd
picked up something like a pebble when she'd moved her hand.
But that couldn't be. She'd only touched her neck-an earring?
She wasn't wearing any.
Jeane picked something shining and wet with Ngan's blood
off the edge of the wound. She held it close to her dry, stinging,
exhausted eyes. It was a bullet.

200
 In f lul d s i I e n ce
'

"What the . . . ?" she whispered, then cringed at that ridicu·

lous response.
She looked down at Ngan and saw one of the other bullets
rise to the surface of its black-red hole and slip in some col·
lected blood. She went to pick it off, but it slipped more in the
blood, avoiding her fingertips, and rolled off the side of Ngan's
bare stomach.
Jeane shook her head and blinked, hoping on some level.that
she had fallen asleep and was dreaming this. It wasn't possible
that this was happening. Gunshot wounds didn't pop the bullets
· out. On the other hand, it could mean that Ngan actually was
healing himself. A tired, groggy Jeane wasn't entirely sure if it
was all right with her that Ngan was somehow managing to
manipulate the laws of physics, even if it meant he wouldn't die.
The third bullet came out, and she brushed it off.
Something-something big-moved in the trees behind her.
· Jeane tried to spin but succeeded only in wrenching her back
and nearly falling over. She put her hand down to catch herself,
and Ngan's blood on her palm picked up a thick layer of dry dirt.
By the time she got her head around, she'd heard movement
again but still couldn't see anything.
She didn't know what kind of trees they were, but they all
looked the same. They were only just beginning to bud, and the
woods had a curiously black and white quality. She'd carried Ngan
for less than a mile from the motel. Their motel was on the edge
of town, and one didn't have to go too far out of Lesterhalt, Illi·
nois, to find open country. Trees had been a bit hard to come by.
The perfectly flat landscape ·had been given over almost entirely
to soy beans and was inconveniently devoid of hiding places.
She'd found this all-too-small stand of trees and stumbled
under the low branches, laying Ngan on the ground in the first
place she found that was big enough to accommodate them both.
She'd spent the rest of the night putting pressure . on his
wounds. During that time she'd heard the occasional odd
rustling of a squirrel here and a bird there, had brushed a
decent-sized spider off Ngan's leg, but hadn't seen or heard any·
thing that really startled her.

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She stared .out into the trees but still saw nothing. She lis·
tened intently and heard only a faint dry rustling in the weak
breeze, andthe sound of Ngan's soft, regular t)reathing.
"This sucks," she said in a clear voice that echoed in her own
ears.
. She'd been up all night, and her bodyhad pretty much given
up on her. Her legs were stiff, her neck was really stiff, her back
hurt, her elbows hurt, her shoulders burned, and her head
throbbed. Now, apparently, her mind was going on her too.
She turned back to · look down on Ngan and realized that
she'd stopped holding the wounds. The bleeding had stopped,
though, and she squinted at the bullet holes. They looked
smaller.
Something big moved behind her again.
She had left her gun on the ground next to Ngan in case she
needed it in a hurry, and this counted as needing it in a hurry.
She grabbed the gun and turned, the weapon out in front of her
at the end of a straight arm.
There was nothing there now, but she had heard something.
She inhaled, about to call out to whoever might be moving
. around in the woods, but stopped herself. She scanned the
woods and realized she couldn't see Ngan, who was behind her
now. Jeane didn't like not being able to see him.
She came up on her knees, ignoring the pain. Her gun shook.
She sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady herself, but only
marginally succeeded. She walked on her knees, then rolled
onto her behind, cros.sing to the other side of Ngan. A tingling
started in her legs. It was the most she'd moved them in too
many hours.
"Ngan," she said quietly but with force.
Ngan didn't stir in the slightest. His face was still perlectly
passive.
"Crap," Jeane whispered, strictly for her own benefit. .
It moved again, just off to her right, and she brought the gun
that way fa:st. She didn't see anything, just the trees and dirt and
brown underbrush.
A smaller rustle came from n i front of her, and she corrected

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the angle of her gun back in that direction. Sitting on the ground
in front of a tree maybe six feet away was a skinny grey squirrel.
Its bushy tail twitched once, and it looked off into the woods
with its black eyes at nothing at all.
·

A breath she didn't realize she'd been holding passed through

Jeane's lips. Her finger tensed on the trigger. She wanted to blow
that damned squirrel to smithereens just for having put her
through the last couple minutes-just on principle-but she
didn't. She closed her eyes and raised the gun, pulling her finger
out of the trigger guard. She changed her grip on the gun so she
was holding it by the barrel and clicked the safety on with her
thumb.
The sound was behind her. She looked up at the squirrel, and
it was running in the opposite direction. It leaped onto a tree
and scurried up into its highest branches in the time it took
Jeane to turn and see nothing again.
She was still holding the gun by the barrel and realized that
might be a mistake. She let the gun slide through her palm, and
when the sound came from her left and right sides simultane­
ously she jwnped and dropped the gun.
"Jesus," she breathed and grabbed up the gun.
Something moved behind her, and she fumbled for the safety.
She turned and saw nothing but trees. The sound was behind
her again, and she turned.
She expected to see a teenager with a submachine gun, or a
jack-booted Nazi with a Luger, or hooded clansmen with shot·
guns, or an army of angry squirrels bent on evicting her and her
messily bleeding companion from their little slice of squirrel
heaven. She expected anything, but got nothing. There was
nothing there.
"For God's sake, Ngan." she whispered, still scanning the
empty woods, "what did you get us into here?"
It was behind her again, then almost immediately to her
right. She stopped turning all the way around. She counted
maybe three of them, whoever they were. The sounds were
always two or three short rustles, like footsteps in the 'dry
underbrush. Jeane had never encountered someone-let alone a

l03
 u .w. ti r p a

group of someones-who were so bad at keeping quiet and so

· good at not being seen. Most of the trees were no bigger around
than the thickest part of one of Jeane's trim thighs. Whoever
was using them for cover, Jeane thought, must be-
lt peeked at her from behind a tree, and Jeane's blood went
instantly cold. She drew in a breath sharply that had a high, pan­
icked edge to it. She took in the face of the thing all at once. Its
skin was black, and its mouth was hanging open limply, reveal­
ing two rows of tiny triangular teeth, glistening in the bright
morning light. Its eyes were red and piercing but small, its nose
flat. It made a sound like fingernails being drawn across a
chalkboard, and Jeane knew she'd seen eyes like that before­
on a goat, on a man in a compound in Texas, in a painting in an
old church-and she screamed and fired her gun at the same
time. Then the thing was gone, and someone was holding her
wrist. She screamed again.
"They're here for me," Ngan said wider the fading echo of
· Jeane's scream and the single gunshot.
She looked down at him with wild eyes and saw that he was
holding the gun now. She had no recollection of his having taken
it from her.
"Ngan," she all but barked. "Ngan!"
"Yes, Jeane,· he said, looking into her eyes.
"What the- she started. "What the f-
n n

"Demons," he said simply; and her vision actually blurred.

"They're here for me, but there's nothing to worry about.· ·

"W-what the . . . ?" she stammered, knowing she wanted to

say something but having no luck getting her brain to function
on the level of conversation. "What . . . ?"
"They sensed that I was weak,• he said, pulling himself up
into a sittingposition. "They knew I was on the edge of worl4s,
and they made an effort to claim me.•
"What?"
·
· "They're not significant," he said, looking her in the eyes.
"They're angry with me from a long time ago. n

"What?"
"You're very tired," he said. "You've been meditating, but you

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didn't even know it. You were open to them enough to sense
them, but they couldn't have h� you. Still, it s
i unusual for you

to have been able to see one.•

"Ngan," Jeane said, trying to calm herself, feeling su:ddenly
like she had to go to the bathroom. "What-?"
"What you saw was something I enslaved when I was nine
years old," Ngan said calmly, •as part of my training at the-"
"What was thatfucking thing?" she finally asked, her voice
shrill, out of control. "What are you doing? What are we doing
here? You ?Qpped those g00dam.ned bullets out of you like . . .
like . . . How did you do that, and what have you been putting
me through all this for? You pass out, I'm sure you're dying­
maybe you still are-and then that . . . that . . . "
"Demon," he provided with a smile.
"Shut up!"she screamed at him, lifting her hand to smack
your
him across the face but not actually doing it. "Just s.hut
damn mouth! Shut up with all that chink bullshit, you-!"
She stopped talking and spent the next three minutes fore·
ing herself not to cry.
"You are angry about one thing, Jeane," Ngan said. "Tell me
what it is."
She felt a tear roll down one cheek, and she wiped it off fast,
hopefully before Ngan could see it. She forced a smile and
asked, "One thing?"
"One thing," Ngan said, "most of all."
Her mind was a complete blank, but still she said, "I'm angry
about five things. You didn't tell me how to help you. You got us ·

into something that's obviously too big for us. You sent Fitz in
there with tio way out. You tell me I saw a demon when you can't
know what I saw-there's no such thing as demons. Goddamn
it, Ngan! Ghosts, monsters, gods, and de-"
·she laughed n
i place of a sob and put her face in her hands.
"You said five things," Ngan said. "That was only four
things."
She looked up at him, meeting his odd blue eyes wjth 1).ers.
She'd never felt so exhausted, so drained of physical energy.
. "What?" she asked him.

f05
 u .w. ti r p a

"What is the fifth thing that you're angry about?"

She sighed, looked into the woods, and felt every tiny, downy
hair on her body stand on end. There was nothing there.
"I'm angry," she said, "that we're supposed fo be a team, but
you're not telling us that you're capable of things like this."
"Things like wh�t?"
She looked back at him, her jaw now tight with anger, and
almost growled, "You can heal yourself of fatal gunshot wounds.
You can stop me dialing a phone. You can . . .•
He looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish.
"We're supposed to be a team, Ngan," she said, wiping her
nose with the back of her hand.
"See," he said, "I told you you were angry about one thing:"
She looked up at him with every intention of smashing his
face in, but when her eyes met his she started to laugh. The son
of a bitch had the balls to laugh with her.

208
,

c. lembert "Skip" Pemberton knew how to stop a bul­

let in midair. McCain wasn't sure why he was more
surprised by this than Erwahlen's having done it
Maybe it was because Erwiihlen was supposed to be the
villain, was supposed to have some kind of, well, super­
power, for lack of a better term. It was unsettling
enough to think that Erwahlen was acting as mediator
between Pemberton's enormous multinational auto man·
ufacturing corporation and a cabal of oil company exec­
utives who were secretly in control of the Environmental
Protection Agency. The fact that he was, by all appear­
ances, teaching the(>e men to use magic made McCain
deeply afraid.
Erwahlen was spreading more than just racist prop­
aganda.
There was still blood on the grass and bits of brain
and skull where Erwahlen had caused Tom Casale's
head to explode. The two men, Darryl and Melvin, had
dragged Casale's body away by the ankles. The rest of

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the ·men had stood with their eyes closed, as n

i structed, .the
whole time.
McCain couldn't think of anything else to do but try to act
"normal"· when Erwii.hlen finally ordered the rest of them to
open their eyes and begin their exercises.
Pemberton was pleased with himself, though sweat was
pouring down his face. He smiled at McCain and wiped a sleeve
across his forehead. "Not bad for a siXty-three-year-old company
man, eh, kid?"
McCain shook his head, forced a smile, and said, "How n
i

God's name did you manage that?"

Pemberton smiled wider and looked at Erwii.hlen, who said,
"By paying very close attention, Michael. Mr. Pemberton is a
model student, focused, serious about his studies, and conscien- ·

tious about returning here on a regular schedule for treatments."

"Treatments?" McCain asked.
Erwii.hlen and Pemberton exchanged a knowing glance.
"So," Pemberton said, "you're name's not really Greg?"
Erwfilllen and Pemberton roared with laughter, slapping
each other on the back.
"Funny," McCain said, feeling a bit like a cow who'd been
tipped over ina field by drunk teenagers the night before being
led to the slaughter.
Erwii.hlen obviously noticed McCain's change in mood. "It
will be all right, Michael," he said. "You've seen a few tltings
today that you weren't expecting to see, a few things that
shocked you, but never fear, they'll seem ordinary, even com­
forting, soon enough. In time, you'll see."
"What do I have to do," McCain said boldly, "to get you to
stop saying that?"
"I am simply trying to reassure you," Erwii.hlen said.
"What do I have to do," McCain said, maybe a little less
boldly, "to get you to stop reassuring me?"
Pemberton held up a hand and said, "Easy, now, Mike. Let's
not say anything we'll regret."
McCain looked at him, and Pemberton looked so serious; so
offended on Erwfilllen's behalf that McCain found it ridiculous

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enough to laugh at. He laughed, and Pemberton and Eiwii.hlen

joined him. McCain felt like a fool, felt like he was over his head,
which he had been for some time.
"Ah, Michael," Erwii.hlen said, Pemberton hanging on his
every word, "don't be so upset. It's all really rather simple.
You're seeing conspiracies all around where there are none. It's
this simple: Over several decades I have worked very hard at
periecting a ·process whereby I refine a very ancient source of
energy we call vril into a liquid form. When a suitable human
subject, a pure homo sapiens, is exposed to liquid vril he
·
becomes mi bued with that energy to the extent that after some
training he is able to focus that energy outward to do things
ordinary people would consider impossible. I understand how to
make vril, and I can teach people how to use it so that they can
live longer, healthier, stronger lives, and harness some power to
use as they see fit. Iil exchange for that they render certain serv·
ices and cooperate with other like-minded individuals for the
betterment of the human race.
"Now," he finished, "is that so bad?"
McCain found himself standing there with his mouth open,
quite literally struck dumb. How could he have been expected to
have any kind of a response to that?
"Mike?" Pemberton asked, looking honestly worried.
"Why me?" McCain finally said. "Why weren't Danyl and
Melvin dragging me away?"
"Because people like you," Erwii.hlen said. "They trust you.
They do things for you. Tom Casale got you in here, didn't he?
Why? Because you asked him to."
"So I'm alive because you like me?" McCain asked.
Eiwii.hlen chuckled and said, "The word needs to be spread,
Michael. I need to identify proper candidates and get them here.
I need people like you."
"After I'm brainwashed," McCain grumbled. .
�Cleanliness is next to godliness," Erwii.hlen said with a
smile. · . .

McCain opened his mouth to say something but found he ·had

no words.

f09
 g .w. ti r p a

"Jerry," Erwiihlen said so quietly that McCain was sure the

teenager couldn't possibly hear him over the gunshots of the men
practicing stopping bullets.
Jerry ran toward them dutifully, though, and without hesita·
tion. He came to a halt near Erwiihlen and looked at the man
with wide, accepting, eager eyes.
"Jerry, my boy," Erwiihlen said, "take Mr. McCain to the cis­
terns and allow him an opportunity to see the vril. Take Patrick
with you."
Jerry nodded once, then looked at McCain. Only a teenager
could be capable of the sort of instantaneous mood shift Jerry
accomplished just then-from adoration to contempt. McCain
didn't shudder enough for anyone to notice, and opted not to say
anything. Jerry waved to Patrick, · who was holding a subma·
chine gun, and the teenager ran to Jerry's side.
"Michael," Erwiihlen said as McCain started to turn and fol­
low the teenager, "I won't tell you again that you will see."
"Thank you," McCain said, keeping his eyes on Erwiihlen as
long as he could before turning and following Jerry.
McCain could hear Erwiihlen and Pemberton talking behind
him but not what they said.
McCain didn't bother taunting Jerry or Patrick as they
walked. His mind was spinningwith all he'd seen and heard. He
obviously had enough to report now, had enough to bring back
to the Institute. He could leave now knowing that though the
investigation was a failure on an enormous personal level. He
had learned enough to . . .
To do what?
What would the Hoffmann Institute actually do about this?
What could it do? What did the Hoffmann Institute actually do
about anything? Could they stop Erwiihlen? Kill him? McCain
was no assassin. Would they expose him? McCain couldn't imag­
ine the story he had to tell making it past Hard Copy.
They passed along a sidewii.l.k that bordered a wide parking
lot. McCain had lived in enough apartment complexes to know
that. cars told you everything you needed to know about ·a
neighborhood.

no
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

There was a row of nearly a dozen long, black limousines,

none withlivery plates. There was a good collection of European
and Japanese luxury sedans, not a single .minivan, and more
than one of the big SUVs Skip Pemberton's company was so well
known for. As they went on a little longer, McCain started to
notice a few other, less expensive cars, a pickup truck that
might have cost eighteen thousand dollars brand new, a few
domestic full-sized cars-Camp Clarity's charity cases.
Before long they came to a huge, steel-sided building. There
was something vecy familiar about it, though McCain was sure
he'd never seen it before-at least not from the outside. It was all
very ordinacy. The building would have been at home in any n
i dus­
trial park, might have been used on a big commercial farm, or as
a warehouse. Therewere garage-style doors, but Jerry led McCain
up to a smaller steel door and opened it. Patrick hung back behind
them. It struck McCain as unusual that the door wasn't locked. If
thi� was the so-called "vril," it was the backbone of Erwfiltlen's
entire operation, yet here it was in an unlocked building next to a
parking lot where anyone could walk in.
Still not sure what they'd do about it, McCain filed that fact
away for the Hoffmann Institute and followed Jerry in. Patrick
didn't follow.
McCain realized he had been here before. It was the huge
room where he'd first come back to consciousness. It was the
room with the three huge pools of golden, flowing liquid, and the
rows and rows of orange plastic barrels lining the sheet metal
walls.
"That's it," Jerry said, his voice quiet and full of that dense
admiration.
"The magic goo that's going to change the world?" McCain
asked.
Jerry kept his eyes on the vril as it slowly churned, almost
caressing the insides of the huge cisterns. "People are going to
·

change the world," Jerry corrected.

· "Erwahlen tell you that?"
. "Who else?" Jerry asked, then turned to McCain and smiled
knowingly.

m
 1 .w. ti r ' a

McCain nodded and smiled back.

"You're not going to confuse me?" Jerry asked. "You're not
going to ask me a bunch of questions and try to screwwith my
head?"
McCain scoffed, and said, "You're head's been screwed with
enough, kid."
"I'm not that much younger than you," Jerry said petulantly.
"Don't call me 'kid.' "
"Gee,• McCain said sarc.astically enough that even Jerry
could pick up on it, "I didn't mean to offend you.•
Jerry looked back at the vril and sighed. "Fine, then. You
seen enough?"
"Not quite,· McCain said. "How many times have you gone in
·

there?"
Jerry shrugged, not looking at him, and said nothing.
,
"It's okay " McCain impatiently. "Everybody else has been
spilling their guts. Erwahlen wants me to be a member of this
club, and has been encouraging . . .•
He trailed off, realizing Jerry wasn't even listening to him.
"Er gehtjeden zehn Tagen dahfn, • Nichts perched atop one of
the orange barrels.
The homunculus was wounded again, stained with his own
blood. One wing seemed broken and hung down limply at the
little grey man's side. McCain still understood German. Nichts
had said that Jerry went in there every ten days.
"Nichts," McCain said, his voice reflecting his genuine hap­
piness at seeing the homunculus again. "!st alles bei sich in Ord­
nung?"
"Yes," Nichts answered in German, "I am fine.•
"Hey stubby," Jerry said, also in Gei'man. McCain was sur­
prised by the teenager's ability with the language, but then why
should he be? McCain could understand the language and speak .
it fluently having only been submerged in the vril twice. .
The homunculus looked at Jerry with narrow eyes and nod­
ded. "You are missing the drills, Mr. Jerry." Nichts said.
Jerry shrugged. "Erwahlen wanted me to keep an eye on
Urinerstreckeansteckung here."
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

"Urinerstreckeansteckung?" McCain asked with an irritated

smirk. He was pretty sure that meant "urinary tract infection.• ·
What a bizarre epithet. ·
"I can do that,• Nichts offered.
Jerry looked at the little man and chewed the inside of his
cheek, saying nothing.
"This guy is kind of-" Jerry started to say, but was inter·
rupted by Nichts.
"Where's he going to go?" Nichts asked, spreading his
stubby arms out wide.
Jerry sighed,. looked at McCain, back to Nichts, and said, "I
don't know."
"You love me too much, Big J," McCain said, smiling sugges·
tively at Jerry.
The teenager made it known that his skin was crawling, and
McCain tried not to take offense.
"I will explain it to the master,• Nichts said.
McCain looked over at the vril. It was easy enough to let it
seize control of his attention. If he was too forceful in trying to
get rid of Jerry, even the inexperienced teenager would pick up
on it and resist.
"Fine," Jerry acquiesced fast enough. I want to sit in on lev·
"

itation."
McCain pretended not to hear that.
"To be safe," Nichts said, "we can keep this between us. An
impromptu change in personnel allocation-"
"Can dangerously imbalance carefully planned resource
management," Jerry repeated by rote. "I'll be back in an hour.
Patrick is right outside."
Nichts nodded, and McCain didn't turn. He heard Jerry leave
while he was still wondering about the. things Nichts was say·
ing. He seemed more intelligent since they'd spoken last, only
twenty-four hours ago. That had to mean something. .
"Why are you here?" Nichts asked when Jerry was gone.
"I wanted to see it again," McCain said honestly, "now that I
know a little more about it."
"Vril is everything," Nichts said simply.

ns
 u ·.w. ti r J a

McCain turned his back on the cisterns and looked Nichts in

the eye. The homunculus shrank slightly Jrom his gaze, his
claws scuttling on the top of the plastic barrel.
"Vril," Nichts said, "made me. Or I -was made by Eiwiihlen
from vril. Can you understand that?"
"I think so," McCain lied,
Nichts smiled and shook his head. "I'm getting better at
knowing when people are lying," he said. "Imagine looking at
three cisterns like this. One is full of your mother's blood,
another your father, and the third God's.·
McCain thought of a few answers to that, but rejected them
all. Instead, he hoped to capitalize on the n
i timacy and make a
request. "Can you get me a phone?"
•A telephone?" Nichts asked quickly, obviously at a loss.
"A cellular telephone," McCain said, "yes."
"Erwiihlen stepped on it,• Nichts answered.
McCain smiled and said, "You're breaking free of him, aren't
you?"
"He ignores me more and more,• Nichts said, his eyes wide,
wet. "When he first created me, I was his favorite.. He taught
me, he protected me and relied on me at the same time. I would
have done anything for him as much because I wanted to as
because I was created to. He was my master, and I could refuse
him nothing, but why should I? Why should I refuse one such as
Hans Reinhold Erwahlen?"
"Because that's.what a slave should do,• McCain said quietly.
"You don't know anything about being a slave," Nichts said.
"No, I don't,• McCain replied, "but I know something about
being created. I know something about owing my life to some­
one I'm not sure I can trust."
"You are a. human,• Nichts said. "You are a complete being­
a born being. You can chose.•
"You might be surprised," McCain said. He turned back to
look at the undulating vril, his back to Nichts. He could feel the
homunculus staring at him, wanting to say something.
"Some of them only have to go in once a year now," the
homunculus said. "They're getting stronger.•

l1'
 in f lul d s I I e n ce

"Is that okay with you?" McCain asked flatly.

"If they get stronger?" Nichts asked. "No, but I'm not sure
why."
"There's a story," McCain said, ·�bout angels in heaven
fighting a war for the attention of God. Are you one of
Erwablen's firstborn angels thrown over in favor of fickle, nde­
i
pendent men?"
McCain expected Nichts to think about that for a long time
and was startled when he answered quickly, "I am Erwahlen's
only begotten son."
"I need a phone," McCain said just as quickly. "I need to get
word out. I can put a stop to this."
"No," Nichts said sadly, "I don't think you can. This isn't the
first time he's tried, and with every failure he's learned. He will
not be defeated this time:"
"Can I try?"
· Nichts looked at him with fear filling his strange eyes.
"Nichts," McCain said, "he killed my friends. Maybe the only
two real friends I had. Erwahlen had his boys kill them."
"You knowthis?" Nichts asked. "It would be unusual. Murders
attract attention-leave people missing who will be missed."
"Erwahlen showed me the bodies," McCain said. He could
feel his throat tightening.
"Axe you sure?" Nichts asked.
McCain nodded, wanted to say, "It was them," but he
couldn't. His eyes grew hot and wet.
"Did you touch them?" Nichts asked. "Did they fee\ right?
Did they vibrate?"
"Vibrate?" McCain asked. "What are you talking about?"
"Did you touch them?"
"No," McCain answered forcefully. "I didn't. I didn't touch
them."
"Then you don't know if they're really dead or not,," Nichts
said.
"I saw-"
"What Erwahlen wanted you to see," Nichts told liim.
"Erwahlen has a way with phantasms."

215
 g .w. ti r p a

"Phantasms?" .
"You may be right,• Nichts said, ignoring the question. "They
might be dead, but they might not be."
McCain sighed at the ray of hope that felt so false. "If they're
still alive," McCain said, "I need that phone even more."
Nichts stepped back again, his feet once more scraping the
top of the orange plastic barrel. "He beat me last time," Nichts
said. "I can- get n
i to the storeroom where he keeps everyone's
telephones, pagers, computers, and such. I crawl in through the
ceiling. It angers him when I do this, and his punishments are
. . . severe."
"Nichts," McCain almost pleaded. "What can I do? I need
that phone-any phone that works."
"Can you take me with you?" Nichts asked quickly, obviously
wanting to get it out fast.
"Yes,• McCain answered. It was a knee-jerk response, but he
damned well needed that phone.
"You have a place for me?" Nichts asked.
"The Hoffmann Institute," McCain said gently, "the place I
work for, the people . . . they have experience with this kind of
thing. They could help you.•
·
"To be their slave instead of Erwiihlen's?" he asked.
"No," McCain said, "never a slave. Never a prisoner."
Nichts looked at him for maybe the space of two or three
heartbeats, then said, "Wait here."

ne
� ·=
·.
':
"
.

·1e
.

ane looked at her blood- and dirt-caked palm and

sighed. She looked down at herself, wondering how
and where she could wipe the mess off. Her loose·
fitting blue jeans were dirty and wet in spots. The white
T-shirt that was already a bit tight on her was plastered
to her now with sweat and dew. It wasn't so much white
anymore as greyish-brown with a huge smear of Ngan's
blood from when she'd had to carry him. Her white
shoes were likewise caked with mud, bits of leaves and
small pebbles, and drops of blood here and there.
She wiped her palm on herje�s and closed her eyes.
She was a mess. She could feel the blood she'd gotten on
her neck drying, and she didn't even want to know what
her hair looked like. It wasn't in her eyes, so she let it be.
Ngan looked even worse, if that was possible. His
shirt was bundled up on the ground next to Jeane. Once
white, it was now soaked with blood and spotted witp.
dirt. There were holes ripped in it where the bullets
passed through, and some of the buttons had popped off

217
 g .w. · u r , a

when Jeane all but ripped it off him to get at his gunshot
wounds. His pants, simple grey linen suit pants, were wrinkled,
torn at one pocket, dirty, and bloody. One of his shoes had fallen
off, and torn pieces of dry leaves were stuck to his sock. His
other shoe :c.vas a remarkably clean black �gtip-not surpris­
ing since he hadn't walked into the woods. .
Ngan was sitting against a small tree, breathing deeply and
touching the wounds lightly with the n i dex finger of his right
hand. He seemed pale, was sweating, and was otherwise not
· entirely well. His eyes were puffy and red.
"It's not coming back," Jeane said, "that thing?"
"No," he answered. "It is gone, and I doubt you'll see any­
thing like it ever again."
"Good, because I'd hate to have the same hallucination ·
twice."
Ngan smiled, and Jeane tried not to look at him. "You seemed
so sure it was real," he observed.
She stood stiffly and stretched her back. There was a loud
pop that was followed by a surprisingly pleasant feeling. "Oh,"
she groaned. "I've been up all night. It's not at all unusual to
have hallUcinations from sleep deprivation. In school, my room­
mate once stayed up for seventy hours straight to make up a
term paper she forgot about. She was sure she saw Godzilla
from the window of our dorm room."
"Godiila l ?" Ngan asked, groaning as·he continued to inspect
the gunshot wounds.
Jeane sighed and allowed herself a relieved, if tired laugh.
Ngan had never heard of any such thing, and though Jeane had
been initated by that in the past she made the conscious deci·
sion right then to start finding it charming.
"Godzilla," she said, "is a giant dinosaur-monster from the
movies."
"Ah," he breathed. "So she was mistaken about seeing this
dinosaur at your college?"
Jeane laughed and said, "It was a tree across campus."
"I see,• he almost whispered, brushing some dried dirt from
his hands. "So it wasn't any sort of chink bullshit?"
ne
 In f lut d a I I e n ce

Jeane's face went red, and it seemed as if someone had

dumped a bucket of warm water over her head. She looked at
him, but Ngan didn't look up at her. He was brushing at his
pants in an offhand manner that made him look somehow noble,
like a character from a David Lean movie.
"Jesus, Ngan," Jeane said. "Look . . . I'm sorry about that,
okay? I was feeling strung out, a little pushed to the edge, so I
lashed out. It was stupid. I was stupid to say that. That's not
me."
"I believe 'chink' is an epithet for 'Chinese,' " Ngan said. He
looked up at her with a sly grin and the first hint of normal life
in his blue eyes. "I am from Tibet, so it twns out that's a differ·
ent sort of insult after all."
Jeane smiled and sighed in relief. "I'm sorry," she said. "I
·

didn't mean to imply !Jiat you were Chinese."

"Apology accepted, Jeane,• he said cheerfully. "Thank you."
"You are some piece of work, Ngan."
"Thank you," he said, "I think. Would you hand me my shirt,
please?"
Jeane bent, her back protesting all the way, and grabbed his
shirt. She threw it, and he reached for it. Ngan winced in pain
and failed to catch the shirt. Jeane moved forward as quickly as
her exhausted, stiff legs would allow, scooped the shirt up, and
handed it to him. He took it without looking her n
i the eye and
frowned at the torn, bloody mess it was.
"Good thing you didn't drag us out here in the winter," Jeane
said.
Ngan didn't respond. He slipped the shirt on and winced
when the still wet, cold blood touched his skin.
"So," Jeane said, stepping back from him as much to stretch
her legs as to give him space to deal with dressing himself, "now
what? You're alive-barely-but everything's gone to hell, and
here we are in the woods, exhausted, wounded, cold, �tiff, and
screwed on so many levels I've lost count of them all. What do
we do?"
Ngan, again wincing with pain, took the shirt off and set it
on the ground next to him.

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 . g .W. tl r J I

"Ngan?" Jeane prodded.

"We will need to put an end to this,• he said. "We need to find
Michael, get him out of.there, then get back to Chicago and file
a report."
"A report?"
"Yes," Ngan confirmed, "a report. We are investigators, sent
here to gather information.•
Jeane laughed. "That's. rich.•
"You disagree?"
Jeane didn't answer. She knew that he knew what she was
thinking.
"Do you feel up to fighting for your life, Jeane?" Ngan asked.
"I am still in some considerable pain and will not be entirely well
for many days. You have not slept. Michael is perhaps dead.
Shall we assault Camp Clarity? Face down the armed teenage
boys with your one pistolr
Jeane knew he was right, of course, and had never intended
to "assault" the place. The fact was, though, that if she filed a
report now, what would it say? She killed one man after getting
no real information except the poisoned makeup, which was
now sounding a bit more like urban legend. She'd shot a second
man-a cop-who was going to kill her. The town of Lesterhalt,
according to the only one of its residents she'd actually inter­
viewed, had "gone cracker." And all of it was the work of a guy
who might or: might not have once hung out with Adolf Hitler
and was now running a corporate retreat.
. That particular report would not only be unacceptably
devoid of useful, well-researched facts, but it would not be the
slightest bit flattering to any of the three of them. This report
would be as good as a letter of resignation. She knew Ngan
knew that too.
"We'll need-" she started, then stopped when Ngan tried to
stand.
He didn't get very far before he sank back down onto his
behind, his face pinched and wet with perspiration.
"You can't walk yet," Jeane said, allowing the disappoint­
ment to show through.

uo
 In f lul d 1 1 I e R Cl

"Not quite," Ngan admitted. "Forgive me."

Jeane stretched her arms up over her head, listening to her
elbows and shoulders grind and pop. "I could go batk· to the
motel." she suggested. "Get some clothes for you, the rest of our
stuff, my car . . ."
Ngan shook his head.
"No?" she asked him, though she knew he was right to
refuse.
Shots had been fired. They'd left the room in a shambles
with blood and bullet holes all over the place. Even if the cops
weren't working for Erwfiltlen, they'd probably be there. Jeane
could spend as much as a week or so in jail while. McCain was
God knew where and Ngan was dying in the woods.
She looked over at Ngan, and his chin was resting on his
bare chest, his neck limp. Jeanne's heart skipped, and a tingle
ran across her hairline.
"Ngan!" she barked.
He came awake fast, his head lolling back fast enough that
he almost banged it on the tree behind him. "Yes?" he said,
blinking. "I'm thirsty."
Jeane was thirsty too, of course, and was working hard at
trying to ignore that
"You passed out," she told him.
"Yes," he said very quietly. "I will do that from time to time
for the next few days or so." .
"Great," Jeane sneered sarcastically. "Maybe I can just-"
A phone rang and both oi them startled. Jeane looked around
the ground in ·their little patch of trees. It rang again.
"Come on." Jeane scowled. "Where the hell . . . ?"
"There-" Ngan said. .
She looked at him, and the phone rang again. He was point·
ing, so she followed the tip of his finger and saw her duffel bag
pressed against the base of a little tree. The phone rang a third
time as Jeane stepped to the bag, bent, and reached inside it.
Her hand came out with the phone, she flipped t
i open and said,
·

"Jeane Meara. Talk to me."

"Jeane," the voice on the other end of the phone said.

tfl
 u .w. ti r p a

Her body sagged all on its own, and she was afraid she was
going to fall.
"Fitz?" she asked. "Is that you?"
"Michael?" N:g�. still sitting on the ground, said.
"It's me." McCain said. His voice sounded strange, somehow
relieved in a way that made Jeane confused, made her have to
think about it. "You're alive." ·
"Alive?" she asked. "We're alive. How about you?"
"He told me you were dead," McCain said.
"Who?" Jeane asked. �Who told you that, Fitz?"
"You're all right?" McCain asked, ignoring her question.
"Ngan's been shot," Jeane told him. "He's managed to keep
himself alive, but he's lost enough blood that he could still be in
a lot of trouble. He needs help, but we're afraid to take him to a
hospital. Where are you?"
"Where are you?" he asked. "I might be able to help Ngan,
but you'll have to come here."
"Where?"
"Hold on." McCain said flatly.
"Hold on?" Jeane almost shrieked. "What do you mean? Fitz?
Fitz!"
Jeane felt as if her blood were suddenly boiling. She took a
step forward, took-her left hand off the tree, and balled her fin.
gers up into a fist.
"Fitz!" she shouted into the phone. "Michael!"

McCain ignored the static·filled squawk coming through the

borrowed cell phone and looked over at Nichts. The little man
was crouched on the cement floor at the edge of one of the huge
vri1 cisterns.
"I need your help," he said. .
Nichts took a step back and looked at McCain suspiciously.
His broken wing twitched. "I brought the telephone to you," the
homunculus said.
McCain smiled, held up the phone, and said, "Thank you. It's

!U
 Ia f lul d 1 1 1 1 n Cl

already been a big help. You were right. My friends are alive."
Nichts nodded: "Erwahlen is skilled with phantasms."
"Illusions?" McCain asked. "Is that what you mean?"
Nichts rubbed his hands together and squinted. "Phantasms.
Making the unreal appear real . . ."
McCain shrugged and shook his head. "I guess. Anyway, can
you help me get my friends here?"
"Here?" Nichts asked, his gravelly voice almost shrill.
McCain stepped forward and squatted down in front of the
homunculus; They weren't quite at eye level. "They're not dead,
but one of them has been hurt."
"This would be a bad, bad idea," Nichts whined, shaking bis
head and wringing his hands.
"We've come this far, Nichts. . . ." McCain said.
"Too far already;" Nichts almost whispered.
"My friend has been hurt," McCain said, "and hurt very
badly. The vril will help hi-"
"No!" the little man shrieked. His leathery wings unfurled,
and McCain startled back, falling on his backside, his hand com­
ing off the phone.
Jeane plainly said, "Damn it, McCain, you-!" before he
slapped his hand over the little speaker again.
Nichts wrapped himself ·in his wings, peering out at McCain
with one eye. "You have become insane here, Michael McCain of
Chicago. You will see to it that we are killed in a grisly, medieval
sort of way that will hurt and make us both afraid of-"
·

"Nichts," McCain tried to interrupt.

"You don't 'know what Erwahlen is like when you make him
angry,• Nichts continued. "You said you were going. to leave and
take me with you, so let's go! I never agreed to help you use the
vril. Only Erwahlen can decide who is immersed in vril. The
vril-"
"'The vril." McCain said loudly. "The vril may be the only.
chance my friend has. Erwahlen is just a man, buddy. He's just
some guy with a knack for chemistry or something. He's not God
Almighty. You've made steps to finally break away from. him.
.This is it, Nichts. It's ti.me to break all the way away."

!!3
 g .w. ti r p a

Nichts closed his eyes and said, more calmly, "ErWiihlen is

not just a man, Michael McCain. Have you learned nothing in
your time here? He is possessed of great power and influence.
He created me."
McCain sighed and looked at Nichts, really looked at him.
The little man had wings. This was no midget or "little person.• ·

Wer.e Nichts's wings an illusion? Was Nichts himself just an illu­

sion? Jeane and Ngan weren't really dead on gurneys riddled
with bullet holes. McCain understood why Erwiihlen would want
him to think his friends were dead. He'd want to cut McCain off
from his real life in hopes of replacing it with a new life more
suited to Erwiihlen's own goals. But McCain couldn't think of a
reason why Erwiihlen would create an illusion like Nichts. It
seemed to be having the opposite effect from the illusion of Ngan
and Jeane. Why would he give McCain a phone or create this
illusion of a little winged man? To trick him?
"Are you a . . . phantasm?" McCain asked.
Nichts slid his wings from around him and stepped closer.
He closed his eyes and bowed his head"and said quietly, "Touch
me."
McCain swallowed and reached out with one hand. Jeane
had stopped talking. When McCain's hand came off the phone
there was no sound. The tips of his fingers brushed Nichts's
shoulder. The homunculus's skin was rough but warm. He was
solid. He was real.
McCain blinked and said, "Sony, Nichts.•
"Erwiihlen,• Nichts told him, "is capable of more than merely
phantasms."
"You say that," McCain said, "and I don't know what you
mean. Erwiihlen 'created' you, Erwiihlen is the 'creator.' . . .
What do you mean by that, exactly?"
"I am a homunculus,• Nichts answered. It was plain from his
tone that he thought McCain was a little slow for asking. �You
don't know what a homunculus is?"
McCain shook his head.
"I believe he started with some pieces of a human or more
than one liuman."

224
 in f lui d s I I e n ce

"Pieces?" McCain asked.

"The little pieces," Nichts tried to explain. "The invisible
bricks that-"
"Cells?" McCain suggested.
Nichts nodded fervently and said, "He immersed these cells
in vril and by. a process I could never understand, he grew.the
shape you see before you now. Using another process that was
ancient knowledge a thousand years ago, he imbued the body he
created with a mind. He . . . wrote my thoughts into my mind,
gave me the spark of ife
l and the ability to hear; to se.e, speak,
feel, taste, and-"
"Come on. . . ." McCain shook his head.
"You can believe," Nichts told him, "or not believe, but here
I am all the same."
"But . . . why?" McCain asked.
"I am his familiar," Nichts explained. "I am his servant, in all
things. He created me because he could. He created me because
"
I had no will and so could be trusted implicitly.
"But something changed," McCain prodded.
Nichts nodded. "I will be bound to Erwii.hl.en in many ways,"
he said. "When he dies, I will die too. At the same instant. Still,
I have been able to think on my own more lately, as Erwii.hl.en
grows more and more bored with me. He has students now.
What need will he have for a familiar? What need will he have
for Nichts?"
McCain opened his mouth to speak, and he heard Jeane
shriek his name. His face turned red, and he held the cell phone
to his ear, but not too close. .
"Hold on," he said into the phone and put his left hand back
over it as Jeane started yelling at him again.
"I told you before, Nichts," he said to the homunculus, "that
I can get you out of here, and I can. But I'll need your help. My
friend who is hurt is a very important person in the H9ffmann
Institute. Nichts, you have to trust me that I will bring you with
us, but to get out of here, I have to get them in first."
"Erwii.hl.en will kill us both," Nichts said, nodding.

225
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. . ti r p a

"Damn it, Fitz," Jeane growled into the phone. "What in

God's name is going on? I've had enough of this. This damned
thing runs on a battery. I can't stand here all day and-" .
"Jeane?" McCain's voice sounded in the phone finally. "Is
that you?"
Jeane's blood boiled. He was doing it again. They were in a
very serious situation, and McCain was goofing around. Mean­
while, Ngan was just staring at her weakly, patiently.
"Damn it, Fitz." She scowled.
"Okay," he said, "listen up. I heard these things run on bat·
teries, so we don't have a lot of time to chit chat."
Jeane exhaled, pinched the bridge of her nose with two fin.
gers, and tried desperately not to burst into flames with anger
and outrage.
"I need to get you guys in here." he said. "There's this stuff
· I can't really explain-so you'll have to trust me-but it should
heal Ngan, make him as good as new-better even-but you're
i side. Describe where you are, and we'll
going to have to get n
see if we can't get you here."
"There?" Jeane asked. Ngan looked up at her, not having
heard what McCain said. "Fitz, that doesn't sound like a real
good idea. They shot at us. We need to get you out of there and
back to Chicago. Ngan managed to get the bullets. out. He's still
alive, but hurt-"
"There was some internal damage," Ngan said. "It will take
a long time to heal completely."
Jeane looked at Ngan as she said into the phone, "We need
you out of there, and we need to get out of here."
"Jeane," McCain said, "I know it sounds nuts, but you have
to get him in here. I doubt you've ever heard of this stuff, but I
can tell you from experience it's turning these guys into super­
men, and it could fix Ngan fast enough. All you need to do is get
in here, and we'll stick him in for . . ." McCain mumbled some­
thingJeane couldn't hear, then came back on and said, "A couple

228
 In f lul d 1 1 I e n ce

hours, maybe less-just to heal a gunshot wound or two, then

we can be on our way. All four of us, back to Chicago.•
"Four of us?" she asked.
"I met a friend in here," McCain answered. "He's the one
who's going to help get you in. Again, you're going to have to
trust me."
"Fitz," Jeane said, still looking at Ngan, who nodded at her,
"the thing in D.C.-what did the girl call the thing in D.C.?"
"Buddy," he answered quickly. "It's really me, Agent Meara.
Describe where you are."
"It's him," she said to Ngan. Then, into the phone, she said,
"Hold on."
"Jeane?" .McCain said, obviously taken by surprise.
Jeane moved a step toward Ngan and asked, "Can you walk?"
Ngan nodded and, practically climbing the tree with both
hands, his knees shaking, he stood.
"'Are you sure?" she asked him. "It might be a long way.•
"I can walk,• Ngan assured her. "Let's get Michael and get
this settled one way or the other."
Jeane smiled and put the phone to her ear. "Fitz," she said,
"we're in a little copse of trees about a mile and a half straight
south of the only motel n
i Lesterhalt, at the edge of a soy bean
field. Where are you? Do you have enough time for all this?"
Jeane could hear him talking to someone, the cadence mak­
ing her think he was repeating what she'd just to1d him n
i some
other language.
He callle back on and said, "Okay, this won't be easy, but we
can get you here. Do you know which way is southeast?"

U7
. It �
ours and dozens of short, battery-saving call later,
Jeane said into her cell phone, "Okay, we're at the
fence."
Jeane could hear McCain breathe a sigh of relief. She
looked over at Ngan, who forced a smile. He didn't look
good, but he didn't look much worse than when they'd
started. Their route through the bean fields of southern
Illinois had been a series of stops and starts as whoever
it was-Jeane thought McCain had called him �Neeks"­
reevaluated their position from Jeane's detailed descrip·
tions of fence lines, tree stumps, distant water towers,
and traffic noise. The fact that McCain needed to trans·
late everything she said into what sounded like German
didn't speed things up any.
Now they were at the fence that surrounded Camp
Clarity, the center of the whole mess. She had been
exhausted and barely able to stand when they'd first
started out, but the sunny, cool day and the wcilk­
supporting Ngan much of the way-had actually helped

2!9
 g .w. ti r p a

her. She still wanted to sit down, and she almost leaned against
the fence but stopped herself. There could be security measures:
alarms, even electricity, that would make that a bad idea. She
made eye contact With Ngan to make sure he didn't touch it
either. He was smart enough to draw the same conclusion, and
he kept his distance. .
Beyond the fence was a parking lot. Jeane wasn't surprised
to see that most of the cars were expensive, nice vehicles.
"What do you see?" McCain asked her.
"A parking lot," she answered quietly, scanning for people.
She heard voices in the distance but saw no one.
"If you look up," he said, "can you see a big generic-looking
·

building like a warehouse?"

On the other side of the parking lot was a building that fit
that description. "Yes," she said.
"Okay," McCain replied. "Go to your . . ." He was listening to
his friend again. "Go to your left. Follow the fence, but don't
touch it. It's wired."
"I figured that," she said, then looked over at Ngan who was
standing on shaking legs. His eyes were puffy and red. "The
fence is wired," she told Ngan. "We need to follow it left."
"To the back of the building," McCain added, having heard
Jeane pass the information on to Ngan.
"I can hear voices," Ngan said. "Men.•
"Me too," Jeane said, then to McCain: "We can hear men
speaking somewhere. It sounds like they're outside."
"Over the little hill past the parking lot to your right and
behind the low building with the satellite dish is a soccer field
where most, if not all, of the members are practicing," McCain
explained.
"Practicing?" Jeane asked.
"Practicing what?" Ngan asked her.
,
"Long story ". McCain said. "You'll want to keep an eye out
for one kid with a submachine gun. He should be around the
warehouse somewhere. His name is Patrick, if it helps. Are you
moving?"
Jeane told him they were, then repeated what he'd said to
230
 In f lul d · a I I e n ce

Ngan. They started walking along the fence line. Ngan stumbled,
and Jeane reached out to help him.
"You're very kind, Jeane," Ngan said, his pale, pained face
forming a crooked smile.
She sighed and said, "Thank you, Ngan. You're a . . . you're
a gentleman. And you're moving pretty well for a guy who was
shot three times less than twelve hours ago."
He smiled wider and increased his pace. She wanted to tell
him not to push himself but thought better of it. Ngan knew him­
self better than she could ever know him. If he could go faster,
·

he should go faster.
They followed the fence around and came to the back of the
big building. There were no doors on that whole long side of
the warehouse and a good thirty feet of dirt, brown grass, and
gravel separated the fence from the building.
"Are you at the back of the building?" McCain asked through
the phone.
"We're__:.• Jeane started to answer, but stopped when a
teenage boy walked around the corner of the building.
He had a vicious-looking weapon hanging from a shoulder
strap and was looking down at the ground. Jeane pulled her gun,
and Ngan touched her shoulder.
"No," he whispered. "They will all hear."
He was right, Jeane knew. One gunshot would bring the
whole crowd down on them. She looked Ngan in the eyes, and
he .gave her a look that made it obvious he had some kind of
plan. Ngan. stepped forward, almost to the fence, and put his
hands on a tree to support his weight.
"We see the kid," Jeane whispered into the cell phone.
"Careful," McCain warned quietly.
As if on cue, Patrick looked up. Jeane's breath caught in her
throat, but she kept herself from bringing her gun up to aim at
the teenager. Patrick did bring his gun up to his _shoulder,
though, and aimed at Ngan.
"Who the . . . ?" the teenager called, his voice trailing off
even as his left elbow sagged and the gun pointed slightly down.
Jeane followed Patrick's seemingly dead gaze to Ngan's

. 231
 u .w. ti r p a

eyes. The older man had the teenager enraptured. Jeane remem­
bered McCain describing Ngan doing something like this once
before.
"I need you to go to town for me,• Ngan said in a clear, level
voice that echoed against the side of the steel building. "Right
now."
"Town . . ." Patrick mumbled. His arms went limp, the gun
dangling, pointing harmlessly at the ground.
"Right now, Patrick," Ngan ordered.
The teenager nodded blankly, turned, and walked away, 9is­
appearing behind the big building.
"Jesus," Jeane said. "You need to teach me how to do that."
Ngan closed his eyes and staggered away from the fence.
"It's not that . . . easy," he murmured.
"Jeane?" McCain asked from the cell phone.
"He's gone," Jeane told him "Ngan . . . just sort of told him
.

to go away."
McCain chuckled and said, "The goat caught in the gaze of
the snow leopard?."
"Yeah," Jeane said, "something like that."
"He really needs to teach me how to do that," McCain said.
"Yeah," Jeane replied. "Anyway, we're clear."
"Good," McCain said. "Ni�hts should be there."
"Neeks?" Jeane asked. "What does lie-?"
The sound Jeane made was part gasp and part scream. She
didn't register Ngan's reaction. The creature appeared at the
fence line, and Jeane was sure it was another demon. This one
was smaller, uglier n
i some ways, and not as openly menacing,
but it wasn't human. It was grey and wrinkled and squat, and it
had wings like a bat.
She tossed the cell phone into. her left hand and drew the
.380 from the back of her jeans with her right hand.
Ngan grabbed her wrist before she could aim, let alone fire,
and drew her arm up. She almost elbowed him in the face before
she realized it was him She spun on him, heard McCain say, "Is
.

he there?" from the phone, and was sure that when $he'd tum
around again the little monster would be gone.

232
 In f lui d s I I e n ce

"Jeane," Ngan said, his eyes strong and compelling, "it's all
right."
Jeane turned and her lips pulled back from her teeth when
she saw that the monster was still there, cowering from her, hid·
ing behind one of its awful wings.
"I think this is Michael's new friend." Ngan said.
Jeane blinked at the thing and shook her head. From the
phone McCain said, "'falk to me, Jeane."
She put the phone to her ear and said, "Fitz."
"I'm over P,ere:· he said, his voice coming from the phone
and in person at the same time.
Jeane looked up and saw McCain come around from behind
the building. He turned his cell phone off with a beep and
smiled, looking at her first, then Ngan. The smile faded from his
face as Jeane turned off her cell phone. McCain looked them
both up and down.
"What happened to you guys?" he asked.
Jeane and Ngan both ignored the question. She was happy to
see him but was still more than a little unsettled by McCain's
new friend.
"What is it?" she asked. .
"That's Nichts," McCain said. "Don't. be afraid. There's noth­
. ing to be afraid of."
"It's a homunculus," Ngan said, letting go of Jeane's arm.
Ngan looked at the little creature and said, "You are a homuncu­
lus, aren't you, little one?"
·The thing McCain called Nichts tipped its head inquisitively
at Ngan, obviously not understanding.
"Don't bother, Ngan," McCain replied. He looked at Jeane
and said, "Nichts only speaks German. Say, 'Wir wollen eintreten,
bitte,' and he'll start digging."
"Wir . . ." Jeane started.
Nichts looked up at her, apparently recognizing th� word,
and it made Jeane jump. She almost brought her gun up, then
stopped herself and quickly tucked it back into the waistband of
her dirty jeans. She held her right hand up, still holding the cell
phone in her left hand.

233
 g .w. ti r p a

"You speak Germanr Ngan asked McCain.

"Wollen . . ." McCain prompted Jeane. He looked at Ngan and
said, "I do now. I have a lot to tell you."
Jeane swallowed in a dry throat and said, "Wir wollen . . ."
"Wir wollen eintreten, bitte," McCain repeated.
�Wir wollen . . . eintreten, bitte," Jeane said slowly, carefully.
The little man's face contorted into a smile, and he moved to
the fence. Jeane couldn't stop herself from taking a step back·
ward.
Nichts didn't notice. He bent down about eighteen inches
from the fence and started to dig, burrowing like a mole. Jeane
glanced over at Ngan, who-was watching the homunculus with
obvious fascination.
"When. he's done," McCain said, "you'll need to crawl under,
but whatever you do, don't touch the fence." -
"l don't know. . . ." Jeane started to protest.
Nichts was already half-buried in the loose dirt and gravel
under the fence. The hole was getting bigger by the second.
"We've come this far, Jeane," Ngan said. "It's less a leap of
faith than others I've seen you make in the short time we've·
known each other."
"that . . ." she stammered, "that's, uh, that's not the same
thing we saw n
i the woods?"
"No," Ngan said reassuringly. "This little man is nq demon.
He's not human, of course, but he is no demon. Michael is an
excellentjudge of character. If Michael trusts him, I see no rea·
son why we should not."
All Jeane could see nowwas the homunculus's wrinkled grey
feet sticking out of its impressive hole.
·
"this." Jeane said more to herself than to Ngan or McCain,
·
"isn't going to end well."

234
·� ti!tere were no demons here.
In the vril Ngan could feel no other presence. The
little link in the small sounds-and the brushing
touches that he had grown accustomed to in the world of
soid
l things was gone. He had studied what it meant to
be dead, and this was very much like that. He couldn't
use any of his senses. There was no temperature. There
was nothing to experience outside himself, so he turned
his attention inward.
There were things flying around like pollen or flower
petals, and the light had a golden-yellow cast. He
couldn't see, but there was a golden light.
Then Leah was there. Perfect again. Clean again.
Alive, happy, healthy, and whole again.
The breeze was coming from every direction at once.
The topiaries were there, not rigidly looking into the sky
again, but all arranged in a circle. Men looking outward
so that none of them seemed to be looking at any of the
others.

235
 u .w. ti r -·, a

"You're back," Leah said, her voice echoing in a way that

Ngan found unnerving.
He ·opened his mouth to reply, but found that ·he couldn't
form words. His mouth seemed full of something thick and
warm. He gagged on it, opening his mouth wide.
"It's okay, Ngan," Leah said, smiling at him . "Let it out."
She smiled at him and Ngan coughed. His knees gave out on
,

him and he collapsed to the dry grass floor of the topiary gar­
,

den. His mouth opened wide, and his throat tensed. His stomach
contracted, and it all came out.
Ngan had his eyes closed at first, then opened them when
he heard a thousand little clicking noises all at once. What he
saw made his stomach tighten more. Thousands of ants were
pouring out of him like vomit-thousands, hundreds of thou­
sands, maybe millions. They were small, no longer than the
width of Ngan's littlest fingernail, and a bright yellow-gold
color.
They scurried away quickly the second they touched the
ground, splitting off into orderly groups and heading out into
· the far comers of the secret spring.
"There you go," Leah said calmly. "Now you can talk."
Ngan looked up at her. Ants were already crawling on her,
first a few, then a few dozen, then a few hundred. She never
flinched, didn't seem to notice the ants at all.
"Busy," she said, an insane gleam in her eyes, "aren't they?"
Ngan opened his mouth to say something, but again he was
only able to vomit out another few hundred thousand little gold
ants.
When he · seemed to be finished, Leah said, "Okay, now you
can talk."
"Ants?" he asked her, tense and expecting his throat to hurt.
It didn't.
She shrugged and smiled. An ant crawled across her open
eye, and again she didn't flinch. "They're very efficient," she
said, "and very small. "
·Ngan stood, looking at the ground all around him The whole.

circle of topiary trees, the ground all around him, and the

f38
 In f lul d s l I e n ce

ground all around Leah where she sat cross-legged on the moss
was covered with ants. Some of them were carrying leaves.
Ngan remembered the name for ants like that. Leaf-cutter ants?
Not very creative, but clear.
He looked at the topiary trees, and something about them
seemed different.
"The trees . . ." he started to say. .
Leah giggled and said, "Neat, huh?"
"They're eating the trees?" he asked her.
"Look at them more closely," she urged him.
Ngan did as she asked and realized quickly-that the ants
weren't taking leaves from the topiaries in Leah's secret gar·
den, they were adding leaves to a new tree. They were building
a new topiary tree. The legs were already finished up to the
knees.
"How much time has gone by?" he asked.
Leah laughed, and he laughed with her. It felt good. It was
then that he realized that the pain in his chest was gone. He
touched himself where the worst of the three wounds had been.
Leah noticed and stopped laughing.
,
"You're going to be okay " she said. "I'm glad."
"Michael was right," Ngan said, letting his hand fall from his
·

chest.
Leah nodded.
"This vril of Erwiihlen's." he continued, "has definite healing
properties. If I stay in long enough I will be able to survive a fall
like Fenton did. This is extraordinary."
"Yeah," Leah said, apparently bored. "It's swell all right."
Ngan looked at her and offered a smirking grin. "You are not
Leah."
"We went over all that, Ngan," she answered.
"The Medicine Buddha?" he asked.
Leah just shrugged, still covered with ants.
"I would have healed in time. no?" he felt the need to ask.
Leah nodded and said, "You know you should have healed
faster. You should have been okay in the morning, but you
weren't because you knew you bad to come here. You needed to

. !37
 V .w. ti r ' a

still be sick, to still be weak, when you came to the vril. You
needed to be submerged. You needed to see it and feel it, touch
it and taste it and smell it. You had to experience it.•
"Why?" he asked.
"You know why,• was her non-answer.
The ants had the topiary man's torso finished.
"What are they building?" he asked.
"A man," she answered.
"What man?"
Leah giggled again. "You know what man.•
Ngan could literally hear something click in his mind, and he
said, "Erwiihlen."
"You'll need to stop him," Leah said. "Jeane's gun won't do
it, and if Michael's charm was enough, it would be over already.
The Hoffmann Institute will not stop him. You know you were
sent here to gather information; but you don't know what they
intend to do with that information, do you?"
"Leah," he said, "I'm not . . ." He tried to think what he was
trying to say, but wasn't he really saying what Leah was saying?
Wasn't she really him?
"Will they do anything. Ngan?" Leah asked.
"Or did they just want to know?" he asked himself.
"You already have some skills, Ngan," Leah said. "The vril
will give you more. You will have to kill him. You know that."
NThat was why I was sent here?" he asked.
The ants had finished the topiary-Erwii.hlen's arms.
"Jeane asked you," Leah said. "Michael thought about it."
"We're assassins?"
"You can be," Leah said. "You have some chance. Jeane will
help, Michael too, but in the end it will have to be you.•
"I am a gomchen," he said. "I am no assassin. I am a monk."
"Not any more, Ngan," Leah assured him. "You haven't been
for some time. The Hoffmann Institute is no monastery.".
The ants had started bui
l ding the topiary-Erwiihlen's head.
"I can't-• Ngan started.
"You have to," Leah said.
Ngan said, "With what? Empathy? That will kill this man

UB
 In f lul 11 s I I e n te

who's lived so Jong, eluding assassins from the Gestapo, the

CIA, and how many othersr
Leah shrugged and said, "No one ever said it was going to
be easy, Ngan, but it's up to you. Live in"Erwahlen's world or
kill him, because if you don't kill him, the world will be
Erwahlen's world. ·He doesn't understand what it is he's
brought into the world.· No one his age could, I suppose. It's a
power the human race will develop eventually, but this isn't
something like high density ceramics. It's something funda­
mental that you're better off figuring out on your own. Now, we
need to stop talking about this. He's found a way in, and his
ants are almost inished."
f
"He's found a-?"
"There you are,» Erwahlen said, interrupting Ngan.
Ngan spun toward the now completely formed topiary. It was
i the shape of a tall man with a square
a deep green, leafy bush n
jaw and barrel chest. The voice came from a place in the leafy
head where a mouth should be. Ngan could see no trace of eyes,
but he felt as if he was being stared at nonetheless.
"Yes," Erwfiltlen said. "Here I am."
Ngan sensed that the tree roan was smiling.
"I:Jans Reinhold Erwiihlen, I presume," Ngan said to the topi­
ary man.
"That's him all right," Leah said.
Ngan looked back at her. She was completely covered with
gold ants. The place where she'd been sitting �ross-legged on
the ground was a mass, a pile of the insects all crawling all over
each other.
"Ants," Erwahlen said. "That makes a certain amount of
sense, I suppose."
"Will they hurt her?" Ngan asked out of some reflex action.
The topiary·Erwiihlen replied, "They're trying to."
"I'm fine," Leah said, though her voice sounded different-
deeper somehow. "Don't mind roe."
"Ah," Erwiihlen breathed. "She's not real."
"Smarty-pants," Leah teased, her voice deeper still.
"How did you get here?" Ngan asked Erwiihlen, ignoring

ns
 a .w. ti r p a ·

Leah, who was an extension-a mo�e realistic extension in

some ways-of himself.
4This is my property,• Erwah.len replied, his tree arm ges­
turing to indicate the floor of the secret spring.
"No," Ngan said simply. "This place is mine, based on a
friend's, to be sure, but mine and mine alone."
"The vril," Erwiihlen corrected, "is mine. As is the right to
use it as I see fit, and make it available only to those I deem
worthy.n
"White men?"
"Not all white men," Erwfilllen corrected. "Not all of them
are worthy.•
4And who says whether or not they are worthy?"
"I do,• Erwfiltlen answered.
"Based on what criteria?" Ngan persisted.
�My own."
Ngan glanced back at Leah. The ants were beginning to
withdraw. He could see the top of her head. Her blonde hair had
turned black.
"You will answer questions for me," Ngan told the topiary·
Erwiihlen.
"I will tell you what it pleases me to tell you."
"Before I kill you, Mr. Bond. . . ." Leah drawled, her voice
loaded with obvious sarcasm, but then it wasn't Leah's voice ·any­
more. It sounded familiar to Ngan, but it wasn't Leah. It was a
man's voice.
Ngan looked at her sharply. He had no idea what she was
talking about. Who was Mr. Bond? How could she m�e a refer.
ence he didn't even understand if she 'was just a reflection of
·

him? And who was speaking through her now?

"Questions," Erwahlen said quietly, through his leaf and
branch throat. "I never said I was going to kill anyone."
"You will,• Ngan told him. "You have, and you will again. You
will kill, and you will enslave, and you will marginalize, because
you are a fascist.•
"That's a rash generalization.� Erwiihlen protested lamely.
"What do you know of fascism?"

24D
 In f lui d 1 1 I e n ce

"I am Tibetan," Ngan answered.

"And that makes you an expert?"
"I fled the Chinese," said Ngan.
"Then what do yon know of fascism?" Erwiihlen prodded. "If
you'd stayed, you would have found out."
"If it was bad enough to make me leave Tibet," Ngan told
him ,his anger rising, burning in him "that's all I need to know."
,

"So, you were afraid of the Chinese and ran away," Erwahlen
concluded. "Therefore you know all about what it's like to live in
a world unified under one pristine vision."
Ngan felt a chill run down his spine and had to admit he was
intrigued at the possible directions this conversation might lerut
him, but it occurer d to him that if Erwiih.len was here, he must
have come into the secret spring through some link in the vril,
might even be floating in the golden liquid alongside him. Jeane
and Michael were out there, and Er\viihlen knew he was in the vril.
"It's all right," Erwiihlen said. "I have no intention .of killing
Michael McCain or the woman. If I really wanted you dead, you
would be dead already. I like this woman you brought. She has
a certain quality I find appealing. She seems to come from rea­
sonable Aryan stock. It might be time to begin including women,
now that a solid base of strong men have be�n-"
"She won't have anything to do with you," Ngan interrupted.
•And you did try.to kill her. You tried to kill us both at the motel.
You came close to killing me, but Jea-the woman-survived
without a-"
"Jeane." Erwahlen interrupted. "You can say her name. 1 can
feel her name in you.n
Ngan said nothing. He had to think about the fact that
Erwahlen seemed to. be able to read Jeane's name from his
thoughts. Still, he recognized that Erwahlen hadn't addressed
the fact of the attempted murders.
"Your vril," Ngan asked, "will work on women?"
Erwahlen laughed and said, "It will work on anyone. I tell
my people it affects white men only because I want people ".'Jho
look like me and think like me around me more than people who
look and think differently. ls that so bad?"

241
 · a .,r. ti r pa

"Of course it is," Ngan said.

MAh.� Erwahlen returned, "spoken like a true American."
"I am Tibetan," Ngan felt the need to correct him. "I am !iv·
ing in exile."
"Indeed?" Erwii.hlen asked smugly. "The fact that you insist"
on making that distinction makes it obvious that you'd rather be
with other Tibetans, that Tibetans are better than Americans, or
white people, or black people or-"
"That is an interesting jump, Mr. Erwii.hlen," Ngan joked,
"but there are degrees of comfort and control, and though we all
would rather feel comfortable in our surroundings, some of us
are tolerant enough to-"
"Tolerant?" Erwii.hlen asked, the tone in his voice even more
superior now, as if he'd managed to manipulate Ngan into some
kind of incriminating admission. "So, you tolerate people who
aren't from Tibet? You merely allow them near you? Or do you
really welcome them?"
"Why are we having this conversation?" Ngan asked bluntly.
"I'm curious," Erwii.hlen admitted. "Honestly, I know I'm
going to win, and I'm curious."
"You want to understand me," Ngan said, "so the better to
command me?"
"Oh," the tree in the shape and with the voice of Erwii.hlen
answered, "I understand you, Ngan Song Kun'dren of the
Monastery of Inner Light. I understand you much more than you
realize."
"What could you know of me?" Ngan asked.
"What would a Bodhisatva know?" Erwii.hlen asked sharply.
Ngan shuddered and felt the ants flow around his ankles in
ripples. The Erwahlen-tree tipped its head down to look as well.
Ngan wasn't sure how to gauge the tree's reaction.
Ngan was deeply offended that a man like Erwii.hlen would
ever identify himself as aBodhsatva.
i For people of Ngan's per·
suasion, Tibetan and other Buddhists, a Bodhsatva
i was a most
special-person. A result of multiple rebirths, this holy man was
said to be capable of perfect concentration-a feat few collld
even imagine, let alone achieve. Ngan knew that a Bodhisatva

U!
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

was capable of bringing into being ten kinds of magical ere·

ations-especially phantasms of people and-
-and Michael had told him about the illusionary fonns of he
and Jeane dead on tables in Camp_ Clarity's morgue. A Bodhsatva
i
could create something described as a "beverage of immortality"
that was something with all the properties of Erwahlen's vril.
"So." Erwiihlen said to the top of Ngan's bowed head, "you
don't think someone like me should use that title, or you don't
think someone like me should actually achieve that state? Is.
that reserved for Tibetans? Do you include Indians, maybe, even
Chinese? Maybe, but certainly not white people. Certainly not
westerners. You have a smaller mind, a smaller scope than you
think, gomchen " . ·
Erwiihlen's use of Ngan's title was the thing that almost put
Ngan iii his place.
Alnlost.
Michael and Jeane were out there. If this man was�all the
heavens help us, Ngan thought-truly a Bodhisatva, they were
·
in even more danger than they'd feared.
"How did you know I was here?" Ngan asked.
"Where?" Erwahlen played dumb, and Ngan knew it.
Ngan refused to answer.
"The vril," Erwahlen said after only a few seconds, "tells me
all."
"There was no lock on the door," Ngan said. "It was remark·
ably easy to get under the fence. You allowed Michael free
access to it. For a creation so special, I'd think you would be
more protective."
Erwahlen laughed, and the leaves ofthe topiary tree rustled.
"You're not protecting it," Ngan concluded.
"No one can use it as well as I," Erwiihlen said. "No one can
understand it the way I do. No one outside Agharti, where it
flows in their air like light flows in ours, will ever be �ble to
destroy or even sully it. I don't need to protect something that
will never be anything but mine."
•Agharti?" Ngan asked. "The world within."
"You've heard of it?"
 a .w. ti r p a

Ngan chuckled and said, "It is a myth."

The Envahlen tree shuddered and said, "So is vril, and. yet
here we are."
"So the world s
i hollow and full of vril," Ngan said. "You've
been there?"
"I've seen their cities,• Erwahlen said.
"How do they feel about-"
"They don't care,• Erwahlen iterrupted. "The surface is
mine. They can have the inside."
Ngan hummed to himself and quickly assembled a wall in
the inside of his forehead, imagining stones and mortar. Another
ripple effect ran through the ants, and there was a loud whistle
like steam escaping as some million or so of them were boiled in
their own gold-colored exoskeletons.
"What are you doing?" Erwahlen asked.
Ngan built a stone room in a comer of his mind, a place he
knew Erwahlen couldn't go, and in that stone-walled room Ngan
thought the word: Pride. That was Erwahlen's weakness, and
that was how they were going to bring him down, how they'd
managed by luck and mistake and sheer force of will to get this
far. This man was so supremely self-confident that he left his
greatest treasure unguarded because he couldn't m
i agine the
possibility of anyone with the power, brains, and courage to
steal it from him. It was the mindset of someone who was
already the master of all he surveyed. But the fact was that
Erwahlen wasn't yet the master of all he surveyed.
Etwah!en was no Bodlrisatua. He didn't create vril. He got it
from somewhere he called Agharti. He took it from someone,
maybe refined it, but he didn't create it.
"Are you closing off from me?" Erwahlen asked.
The tree took a step closer to Ngan, who didn't flinch.
"Does that upset you?" Ngan asked, baiting him.
"It does," Erwahlen said, "but for different reasons t� you ·
think. I'm really not such a bad person, Ngan. You have jumped
·

to conclusions.•
"You hate," Ngan said, "and that has never led to a .positive
result."
 ID f lut d 1 I I e n CB

"Not when it's resisted with greater hate, no," Erwii.hlen

replied. "You don't have to love everyone to not be consumed by
hatred. Hate, used properly, can be a form of enlightenment.•
"You are a fool," Ngan said, not masking the pity in his voice.
Erwii.hlen's response was a reedy laugh. "Why are you
here?"
"To gather information.•
"Tell him,• Nakami said, and Ngan jumped.
He'd forgotten-the voice was Dr. Nakami's-but it came
from Leah. Nakami, head of the Hoffmann Institute, was there.
Or had Ngan subconsciously replaced Leah with Nakami
because he needed a figure of greater authority to provide sup·
port against Erwii.hlen?
"Tell me," Erwii.hlen demanded. "Why are you here?"
"To kill you," Ngan admitted. "We have to kill you.•
"You have to?" Erwii.hlen asked quietly. "This Hoffmann
Institute of yours has sent you here to kill me?"
"No,• Ngan said honestly.
"Then you decided on your own to kill me," Erwii.hlen con­
cluded. "Why? Because you hate me?"
"No," Ngan answered. "Because I love everyone else."
Erwii.hlen laughed again and said, "I could teach you to be
more selective.•
"No," Ngan said. "No, thank you."
"Well, then." Erwii.hlen sighed, "I will have to kill you first.
That's too bad. I liked your friend McCain. He rerninds me of a
man I had the pleasure of advising many years ago when I was
employed by the American n
i telligence establishment-such as
it was. It will wound me to kill him. It really will."
:ft1:ccain � d Jeane stood at the edge of the central vril
cistern and looked down at Ngan. He was floating,
arms spread to one side, legs drifting limply, maybe
three feet below the undulating surface of the golden
liquid.
"He's been in there long enough to have drowned,"
Jeane said, her voice betraying her utter lack of confi­
dence n
i the supposed magical qualities of the soupy
liquid.
"I spent a lot longer in there than he has," McCain
told her.
"So you said," Jeane sighed.
McCain glanced at her, then looked back down at the
hazy form of the suspended Ngan. They'd lowered Ngan
into the vril right away, then McCain toldJeane everything
that he'd seen, heard, and done at Camp Clarity. McCain
could tell by the look on her face when he first saw her.at
the fence, while he was speaking, and now, that she
wanted him to think she didn't believe him. McCain could
U7
 a .w. ti r p a

tell she did believe him, though. She was smarter than that. She'd
seen things, experienced things in connection with this case that
had to be explained somehow, and Jeane would never allow her
cynicism to keep her from being prepared for the unexpected.
"Michael McCain ab Chicago," Nichts said from behind them.
Jeane jumped a little, turned her head just a bit, but didn'f
look at the homunculus.
"Wie geht's?" McCain asked the little man.
"Das st
i sehr arg, " Nichts warned. "Es geht bevorstehend sehr
schlecht."
"What did he say?" Jeane asked.
McCain turned around and stepped off the edge of the cis·
tern, dropping heavily to the cement floor in front of Nichts.
"He said," McCain translated, "that things are going to get
very bad, very soon."
Jeane chuckled, but McCain kept his eyes on Nichts.
"Sorgen Sie sich nicht, Nichts," McCain assured him. "fetzt
nicht /anger."
"Do I need to know what you're saying?" Jeane asked, turn·
ing herself to face McCain.
McCain looked up at her and held out a hand to help her
down. She scowled at him and stepped off, landing more easily
than he had without touching his hand.
"I was just reassuring him," McCain said. "He's afraid:"
Jeane spared the homunculus a suspicious, unpleasant
glance, and Nichts withdrew a step from her. She looked up,
studying one of the rows of orange barrels.
"Let me know if he says anything useful," she said. "I need
to take a look at these barrels. Seems this place has a security
measure after all."
"What sec-?" McCain started.
"Er wif,t, das wir hier sind, " Nichts interrupted, his voice quiv·
ering with unconcealed, unashanied panic.
"Who knows we're here?" McCain asked. Nichts stared
blankly, and McCain realized he'd spoken English. "Wer wiftt,
das wir hier sind? Eiwfilll.en?"
"Natiirlicherweise Eiwfilllen!" the homunculus said.

248
 In f lui d a I I e n ce

"Wte?"
The homunculus put a wrinkled, callused hand to his own
face, and his whole body started to shake. McCain could see a
tear roll doWn Nichts's puffy grey cheek.
"Nichts,• McCain said quietly. "It's okay. Jn
ordnung. •
"Nein," Nichts sobbed. "Sie werden mil mir grollen. "
A chill ran up McCain's spine, and he almost yelled for Jeane.
McCain could tell Nichts was upset, maybe because he thought
McCain would be angry with him about something. McCain
couldn't think of anything that Nichts had done that would make
him angry-unless he'd put Jeane or Ngan in danger. McCain
looked up. Jeane was squatting next to one of the big orange
plastic barrels reading something written in small white print on
the side of the barrel near the bottom.
McCain realized that if Nichts thought he was going to be
angry, he was lucky he didn't know Jeane better. The little man
might have had a heart attack on the spot.
McCain wanted to reassure Nichts, tell him that he had noth­
ing to worry about, that Ngan was only going to be in the vril for
maybe another half an hour, then they would all be off.
"Nichts," McCain said calmly, "Es gibt nichts um zu sorgen.
Ngan wird vielleicht nur eine halbe Stunde im vrilsein, dann sind wir
alle weg. •
Nichts looked up at him, dropping his hand from his eyes. He
only glanced at McCain's eyes, then looked away. McCain had
seen ashamed before, but nothing like what he saw painted on
the homunculus's face then.
"Es gibt etwas anders bei mich, daft Sie wissen sollen," Nichts
said slowly.
Something else McCain should know about him? McCain felt
like his heart slowed down as if anticipating a shock.
•Es gibt etwas um einen Familiar zu sein . . . • Nichts continued.
There is something about being a familiar . . .
"Der SchOpfer . . . •
The creator . . .
"Erwahlen kann sehen, alles die ich sehe . . . • Nichts alniost
whispered.

U8
 g w. . ti r p a

"What?" McCain asked, feeling his face go pale. "Nichts . . ."

The homunculus told him that Erwfilllen could see what
Nichts saw . . .

"Horen was ich hare . . . " Nichts continued.

Hear what Nichts heard . . .
"Nichts . . . " McCain breathed.
"Er miif!,t nur sich konzentrieren, • Nichts said. "Er miif!,t nur
wollen." ·
So Erwahlen could use Nichts as something like a remote
camera. The old man could see what Nichts saw, hear what
Nichts heard, and all he had to do was concentrate. All he had
to do was want to. All he had to do was be was curious.
"Oh, Nichts, • McCain said, forgetting to speak German,
"that's just so bad. That's really something you should have told
me way, way, way before this. Sie sollten mich erzdhlen, Nichts.
Sie sollten mich sehrfriiher erzdhlen. •
"Sie haben nicht gefragt, • Nichts said defensively.
"I didn't ask?" McCain almost shouted. "!ch haben nicht
gejragt?"
Nichts held up a hand as if to ward off a blow; and McCain
was startled by the fact that he actually did have his hand up to
strike the homunculus.
"Oh, Jesus, Nichts." McCain breathed. "I'm sony. Es tut mir
leid. "
"Er hatte mich ignoriert, • Nichts said. "Vielleicht hort er nicht
zu. Vielleicht sieht er nicht . . . •
Nichts reminded McCain in a shrill, panicked voice that
Erwahlen had grown bored with his familiar of late, and might ·

not have been listening, might not have been watching.

"Es tut mir leid, okay Nichts?" McCain said, his hands in
front of him now, empty of malice or threat. "lclz bin selzr
reuevo/l. •
"This place is wired,• Jeane said loudly, startling both
McCain and Nichts.
They both looked at her; both looked confused. Nichts didn't
·

understand English. McCain just didn't understand.

"These orange barrels . . ." Jeane said, casting a cold,

250
 IR f lul d 1 I I e n ce

accusatory glance at Nichts before fixing an even colder glare on

McCain. "You couldn't guess what they might be?"
"Oh,• McCain sighed, his face blossoming bright red, "that's
bad."
"Our Mr. Erwahlen may be carelessly self-confident when it
comes to perimeter security,• Jeane said, sighting down the line
of barrels with a shudder. "but he's got a hell of a self destruct
system set up here."
"What's in those barrels?" McCain asked breathlessly.
"34-0-0 ammonium nitrate," Jeane said. Her face looked
pale.
"Ammonium nitrate?" McCain asked. "What's that?"
"Fertilizer,• Jeane said quietly, looking all around. There was
easily a couple hundred barrels.
"Fertilizer bombs?" McCain asked, also looking at the bar-
rels. .
"Was hat sie gesagt?" Nichts asked.
Both Jeane arn;l McCain ignored the homunculus.
"What can that do?" McCain asked, already suspecting the
answer. .
•Ask the people of Oklahoma City," Jeane said sternly. "It'll
take care of the evidence. Or prevent anyone else from using
this goop."
"That's great," McCain said, shaking his head to snap him­
self out of it. "It gets worse. Erwahlen probably knows we're
here and what we're doing. Nichts told me Erwahlen could see
and hear everything I thought I've been doing behind his back,
or most of it."
McCain was pwposefully vague. Jeane had made her mis­
trust and nervousness of Nichts plain, and McCain was afraid of
what she might do if she found out that Nichts was something
like a walking surveillance camera that her partner had been
performing to the whole time. .
"The fact that we're learning this right now, of course,•
Jeane said, her eyes practically firing lasers into McCain's head,
"is less than convenient."
·

"We need to get Ngan out." McCain said. "We need to get him

m
 u .w. ti r p a

out of there and hope he ean walk well enough to book from this
place right now. n •

"Was sagt sie?" Nichts asked.

McCain opened his mouth to answer, looked at Nichts, but
his voice caught in his throat. The homunculus wanted to know
what they were saying. There was a series of loud, echoing, .
tinny cracks that punctuated the bursts of dark red blood that ·

exploded all over Nichts's squat little body. The force of the sub·
machine gun fire sent Nichts sliding across the cement floor ·
between McCain and Jeane. The little man opened his mouth to
scream, but all that came out was a fountain of dark arterial
blood. He left a wide trail of gore on the concrete as he slid ten,
ifteen,
f twenty feet before coming to rest after a half spin.
McCain looked up to the source of the gunfire and locked
eyes with Jerry. The teenager gave McCain a smug scowl and
leveled the gtin at him.
McCain caught movement out of the comer of his eye and
sawJeane pull her automatic from the back of her pants, but she
kept the gun hidden.
Jerry shifted targets to her and sighted down the barrel as
Jeane brought her gun up in both hands, aiming.
Erwiihlen stepped up next to Jerry and held up a hand to
calm the whole room down. "Enough now," he said calmly, like
a vet talking to· an injured dog. "Ah, now, here we are. All
together at last. n

25!
 .. i
. .

:M:c Cain looked up and caught Jeane's eye. He saw her

let her right arm slide slowly behind her back. Her
eyes widened just a little, and McCain was sure she
was trying to ask him a question without speaking. The
problem was McCain wasn't sure exactly what it was
she was asking him. She might want to know if she
should shoot Erwii.hlen, or maybe she wanted to· know
whether or not this even was Erwii.hlen in the first place.
If he nodded would she know he meant to tell her
that this was Erwii.hlen, or would she think he meant to
tell her it was okay to shoot him? And why wouldn't it
be okay to shoot him? McCain knew full well that either
Erwii.hlen or the three of them were going to have to die
today, but he'd just seen Erwii.hlen and his people stop
bullets in midair. ...
Jeane narrowed her eyes at him, obviously unhappy
with his indecision, though only a second or two h?-d
gone by. She looked at Erwii.hlen, her hand still sliding
behind her back, and asked, "Who are you?"

i53
 g .w. ti r p a

Eiwahlen laughed. Jeny squinted angrily at McCain, staring

at him through the sights of his submachine gun.
"You have broken in here to steal my most prized possession,
a truly unique and beautiful thing beyond your limited compre·
hension," Eiwahlen said in his thickly accented voice, "and you
don't even know who I am?"
McCain said, "That's-"
"Hans Reinhold Eiwahlen," Eiwahlen finished for him, all
fatherly smiles and twinkling eyes.
McCain looked down at Nichts when the homunculus drew
one ragged, gurglingbreath n
i to lungs filling with blood. McCain
looked back up and met Eiwiihlen's stern gaze for just half a
second before the man turned to Jerry and nodded. McCain
tensed, waiting for the bullets to rip him apart, but instead Jerry
·

turned the gun on Jeane.

With a hissed obscenity, Jeane launched herself to one side
and high in the air. The first bullet blasted out of the flashing
muzzle of Jeny's weapon and whizzed harmlessly past the bot·
toms of her feet even as the next one came out of the gun.
Jeane fired back in midair just after the second bullet
brushed past her shoelaces andjust before the third came out of
Jeny's gun.
McCain's mouth fell open in fear and confusion, then he real­
ized what Jeane was diving for. There were continuous thick
concrete walls, three feet high, around each of the three vril cis­
terns. Jeane was diving for cover behind one of them.
Eiwahlen held out his right hand, and Jeane's first bullet
crackled to a stop six inches from the man's palm. Jeane fired
once more before she passed behind the concrete wall. Again,
Eiwahlen stopped the bullet in midair, saving himself or Jerry a
possibly fatal wound.
Jeane crashed to the floor behind the cistern wall, scraping
the skin of her left arm horribly and swearing all the. way,
"You're shooting in here you goddamn stupid moron-in a room
full of explosives!"
One' ofJerry's barrage of bullets pinged offthe top ofthe wali,
sending a puff of pulverized cement rolling into Jeane's eyes.

254
 In f lul d 1 1 I e n ce

"Gehen Sie umr Erwiihlen shouted to Jerry, who flinched at

"Erschlagen sie! •
the loudness of his master's voice.
He'd told Jerry to go around to the other side of the cistern ·

and kill Jeane.

"No!" McCain shrieked, standing and holding his arms up,
·

then immediately feeling ridicuJous.·

Jerry turned his sights quickly on McCain, but Erwahlen
grabbed the gun and brought it up and away. Jerry fired a few ·

shots into the tall ceiling and scowled.

Jerry Erwiihlen said, "nein. •
" ."

The teenager looked over at Erwahlen, surprised, but he

relaxed his arm. Erwahlen let go just as Jeane fired another shot
at them. Erwahlen brushed the bullet aside.
Jerry aimed at Jeane, and she fired at them againjust before
Jerry got off a four-round burst. Erwahlen stopped Jeane's bullet
and she had to duck behind the cistern wall as Jerry's barrage
gouged into the cement above her head.
"Stop him!" McCain screamed at Erwahlen, who looked at
him sharply.
The look in Erwahlen's eyes turned genuinely warm, gen­
uinely sorry. McCain's heart sank, but his anger quickly pushed
that emotion aside.
Jeane ignored the moment and unloaded the rest of her pis­
tol's seven round clip. Erwahlen stopped all the bullets in midair
and Jerry stood, completely out in the open, firing at will.
McCain could tell that the teenager realized Jeane was out of
ammo. He let the rest of his own clip drain, then quickly
replaced it with another. Erwahlen put a hand on Jerry's arm.
The teenager slid a cartridge into the chamber, but he held his
fire.
"It's all right, Jerry.• Erwiihl.en said in English. "Let's give
everyone a moment to breathe, eh? Michael?"
McCain looked at him and shook his head, his lip:; a thin,
tight line.
"No?" Erwahlen said with no little sarcasm.
Nichts drew in another long, ragged breath, and McCain
lookeq down at the homunculus. Nichts opened one eye, and it

!55
 g .w. ti r p a

rolled lazily to meet McCain's. A tear dripped outfrom under his

wrinkled, puffy lower lid.
"Nichts," McCain said. "It'll be okay. I can still get you out."
Nichts exhaled with a frothing fountain of blood, and he
slowly shook his head side to side.
"For goodness' sake, Michael," Erwii.h.l en grumbled, his
voice echoing in the big room, "please, don't tell me you're about
to shed a tear for a homunculus Of all things."
McCain looked up at Erwahlen when he felt a tear roll down
his cheek. Erwahlen flinched from the sight of it. McCain turned
back to Nichts quickly and said, "We're getting out."
Nichts managed to shake his head again, and McCain real­
ized the homunculus couldn't understand him.
"Nichts," McCain said, "!ch habe Sie uersprechen . . .. "
The homunculus's eyes went first, then his face, his neck,
his torso . . . as if he were dying a piece at a time. McCain's eyes
blurred with tears arid he sobbed once when he could see that
•.

Nichts was dead.

"Yes," Erwahlen shouted across the room, "all very sad.
Here you're crying, and I'm the one who spent-what?-forty
thousand marks in materials alone to make that thing.n
"That's enough, Hans," McCain said.
Erwahlen brushed McCain's ire aside with a flip of his wrist
and said, "Please. Enough now, Michael. You can't help your
friends at this point, but I still have a place for you here, a place
for you in the future."
McCain sighed and said, "You really are an extraordinary
man, Erwahlen. You could have been something. When you
speak, -people listen to you. They want to be near you and part of
your vision, but under it all there:s just nothing but a bitter, hate­
ridden demagogue, drunk with his own self-worth. 1 wouldn't
have anything to do with your future if my life depended on it,
you Nazi piece of shit. I guess my life does depend on it, too, so
there you go."
Erwahlen's face fell; and McCain blushed in response.
"You wound me, Michael," Erwahlen said. "You wound me
deeply. I'll have to have Jerry kill you. now. Though that will

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delight Jeny, it will make me feel very sad, and I will feel very
sad for as long as fifteen minutes. Then I will move on and
change the world to suit me. Last chance, Michael."
McCain opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
He just shook his head.
"Too bad," Erwahlen mumbled, then nodded to Jeny.
The teenager lifted the gun to his shoulder and started to
advance on McCain with long, confident, heavy-footed strides.
McCain held up a hand to shield his face. He knew he had maybe
three seconds at most to live, and he realized Jeane was still-
"Hey! Asshole!" Jeane said sharply, tearing Jerry's attention
away from McCain.
She had her left arm up with her bloody forearm in front of
her face. He'r gun was in her right hand, which was up next to
her right temple. Jerry turned toward her and she snapped her
right arm out, stepping forward at the same time. The gun actu·
ally whistled as it shot through the air, tumbling end over end.
Jerry flinched, and the gun hit him in the chin hard and bounced
to strike the top of his gun. The weapon came out ofJerry's hand
and clattered onto the cement floor, sliding a little bit in
McCain's direction when it bounced off Jeny's instep.
McCain dived for the submachine gun. He grabbed it with his
right hand, and without thinking he tossed it into the vril cis·
tem. There was a dull, bubbling splash, and the weapon was
gone.
"Fitz!" Jeane screamed. "I could have-"
"Bitch!" Jeny shouted over her.
McCain was still moving toward the teenager. With no plan
of action whatsoever, he smashed into Jerry's side. McCain's
momentum was easily enough to knock Jeny down, but when he
<;,aw the result of the tack.le he was pleasantly surprised. Jerry
sprawled all arms and legs into the low wall of the vril cistern
and was forced to back into a little comer. McCain skidded to a
halt with a painful scrape, maybe four or five feet from Jerry.
McCain looked up to see Jeane approaching fast. The look on
her face almost made McCain won:)r about Jerry. Her right hand
curled into a fist. Jerry turned up and saw her coming. A look of

t57
 g .w. ti r p a

purely childlike terror flashed in his eyes, and it sounded as if

he was saying something, but his lips weren't moving.
Jeane stopped in midstep and lurched forward sharply. There
was a sound like bending metal, then steel scraping on steel.
Jeane said, "Where did this-"
McCain looked up, rolling onto his back, as Jeane tripped
and cartwheeled in the air over him. She was wrapped in shin­
ing stainless steel bands. One of the bands was over her mouth.
Her nostrils flared. Her arms and legs were trapped, motionless,
and she hit the floor hard, rolling like a log and coming to rest
next to the still form of Nichts.
McCain couldn't begin to imagine where the steel bands had
come from or how Erwahlen had managed to do it, but he knew
it had to have been Erwahlen.
"Jeane-" McCain said, then stopped when Jerry kicked him
hard between the legs.
The air rushed out of McCain's lungs all at once and pain·
seared through his abdomen: Through slit-eyes, McCain saw
Jerry unfold himself from the corner of the cistern wall. The kid
was angry, incensed, and perfectly capable of killing. McCain
had had just about enough himself.
Shaking off the pain, McCain stood and faced Jerry. "Okay,
punk," McCain said in his best Clint Eastwood, "come get
some."
•Ah," Erwahlen said, his voice suddenly cheerful, "this will
be inter.esting."
McCain threw the first punch, surprising himself with the
sharp speed at which his arm snapped in the direction of Jerr:Y's
face.
The teenager dodged backward with a twist of his neck, and
McCain connected with nothing. Jerry immediately returned
with a punch of his own, and McCain reflexively launched him ­

self backward. The world spun around him and he realized he

,

was actually flipping backward. McCain knew he couldn't have

done that. He was only now able to shoot a basket from the
' ·
three-point line. He was no gymnast.
It must be the vril.

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 In f lul d a I I e n ce

McCain landed on his feet without a bounce. Nailed the dis­

mount, he thought.
Jerry set his feet wide apart and held his hands up in front
of him like a boxer. McCain smiled and cracked.his knuckles.
Jerry wasn't overly impressed. They started running toward
each other at the same time and leaped into the air. They met in
the middle, Jerry kicking straight out with 'his left foot, McCain
in a spinning kick with his right.
Jerry's foot slipped harmlessly along McCain's hip, but
Bone snapped aud.\'bly,
McCain's kick smashed into Jerry's jaw.
and a spray of blood peppered McCain's sweatpants as they
passed each other on the way down. McCain hit the floor solidly
again. Jerry skidded to a stop with a pained grunt.
The teenager's haiid went immediately to his jaw, and he
wrenched it hard, snapping the bones back into place. Jerry
groaned so loudly it was almost a scream. McCain took advan­
tage of Jerry's moment of weakness and skipped up to him
quickly, shooting in a series of fast, low kicks. Jerry dodged the
first three, then blocked the fourth, which sent a wave of pain
up McCain's leg.
Jerry snuck in a low punch to McCain's stomach and didn't
give any reprieve, following the stomach punch with one blow
after another to McCain's face and neck. McCain managed to
block roost of them, but a few got through, and his vision started
to blur with pain and sweat. Just to get Jerry off him, McCain
grabbed the kid's collar and sat back, bringing his leg up and
· rolling Jerry over him, flipping him up into the air. There was
another dull splash when Jerry fell sprawling into the vril.
Movement to the side caught McCain's attention, and he saw
Exwi:ihlen approaching the helpless form of Jeane, still wrapped
tightly in the steel bands.
McCain spun on Exwiihlen and had just opened his mouth to
warn him offwhen something hit him so hard in the back of his
head that it felt as if his eyeballs were goingto pop out. His body
lurched forward and bit the cement floor. The air was forced
from his lungs again, and his chin scraped painfully on the rough
surface.

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Erwii.h.len stopped speaking and looked up. His head contin­

ued ipping
t upward as if tracking something moving in front of
him. His mouth fell open n
i undisguised shock. McCain could
feel Jeny shift on his back and heard him gasp. Jeane spotted
whatever it was they saw and her eyes went wide. A strange yel­
low glow was gradually rolling up along the surface of Jeane's
eyes, like a bright yellow light bulb was being drawn up on a
- wire behind him.

"Hans Reinhold Erwiihlen!" Ngan's voice echoed in the big

room.
McCain twisted his neck painfully and managed to roll
through Jeny's vril-enhanced grip and turn his head the other
way. It was Ngan. He was standing encased in what must have
been some sort of vril bubble. It was a sphere of bright golden
semiliquid, like water released in a weightless environment. As
it did in the cisterns, the vril surrounding Ngan seemed to pulse
and undulate, almost writhing with a life all its own.
Ngan's face was as calm as it normally was. Still wearing
only his tattered grey suit pants, McCain could see that the bul­
let wounds were now completely healed. Ngan's blue eyes
appeared black in the gold-yellow vril, but they were wide and
alert. His brow was set in the way he set it when concentrating.
His hands were at his sides, but not completely, with maybe five
inches between his hands and hips.
"Hans Reinhdld Erwahlen, • Ngan repeated. "You are no Bod·
hisatva. You are no tulku or gomchen. You are hardly even an
alchemist."
"Half an hour in the vril,• Erwiihlen scowled, still holding
Jeane by the hair, "and you presume to tell me-"
"Yes," Ngan n
i terrupted. McCain was surprised Erwahlen let
Ngan speak. "You are a thief. Where did you steal this from, wi
z­
ard?" The way Ngan said that last word made it plain that he
didn't think Erwahlen deserved the title.
•Ants," Erwahlen said with a sly smile, "eh, Ngan?"
"You have a tiny mind, Erwiihlen," Ngan said simply, as if
·
discussing the weather. "This is not for you."
Erwahlen let go of Jeane's hair and stood. He looked at Ngan

Hl
 I .W. ti r ' I

with angry defiance. McCain was starting to feel something like

a spectator at a vezy crowded tennis match, having to twist his
neck painfully in Jerry's grip to follow this bizarre exchange.
Ngan stopped his slow ascent when his feet were perhaps
eight feet off the surface of the vril pool. Erwahlen looked up at
him and crossed his hands in front of his chest. He touched his
right ring finger to his right thumb and his left little finger to
his left thumb.
"Magic . . ." Ngan grumbled. It was as close to a sneer as
anything McCain had ever seen from Ngan.
The vril bubble n
i which Ngan was standing. quivered and
popped up a good six inches so quickly the motion hardly regis­
tered on McCain's vision. Ngan looked down at his feet, •then
looked sharply at Erwahlen when the vril bubble sailed back fast
and bounced off the far wall like a rubber ball. Ngan flipped for­
ward when the bubble started coming back toward the rest of
them. He looked as if he were on one of those Space Camp gyro
rides, but from the look on his face he was neither thrilled nor
amused.
"I control it!" Erwahlen shouted like a petulant child. "I con·
trol the vril! It's mine!"
Ngan held his hands out to his sides, eventually bringing
them level with his shoulders. Within three revolutions, Ngan
·

came to rest standing straight upright.

McCain felt Jerry relax just a little. Putting his hands under
him, McCain pressed against the cement floor and managed to
get a couple inches of air between his chest and the cement.
Jerry shifted his grip, and McCain pushed off with one hand. He
rolled over Jerry and onto his back. Jerry answered this by
releasing what had suddenly become more a hug than a choke­
hold. He punched McCain in the face again.
McCain's head bounced off the cement floor, and his ears
started ringing. Under the ringing there was a low, thrqbbing
hum that sounded out of place to McCain.
He looked up and over at Ngan, who was hovering only a few
feet away, still eight or nine feet off the ground. The humming
sound was coming from Ngan.

!&!
 In f lui d s i I e n ce

"What's he doing?" Jerry asked in a shrill, barely controlled

voice.
McCain wasn't sure if the teenager's question was directed
at him or Erwahlen.
Erwiihlen answered first, after a fashion. "Chant all you like
gomchen, and imagine your ants and your little girls and your
trees. The power I wield is real. It has force in this world as it
has in Agharti. You can keep your pondering mysticism." ·
McCain tensed under Jerry, but the teenager turned to look
at Erwiihlen. "You never taught him," Jerry said. "He's never
been trained! He's not even white!"
"It's all right, my boy," Erwahlen said. "The vril serves me.
This liquid exists in no other place, is formed by no other hand.
In the world beneath, in the forgotten cities of Agharti, even
they don't understand this magic like I do. Vril will power the
next stage in human evolution."
McCain had had enough of all this vril stuff. He had no idea
what Agharti was, or what vril was, or what it was going to do
for who when. He'd had enough of this mysterious syrup that
made everyone go mad for it. He'd readily admit that it made
him feel good. He'd been able to hear better, see better, fight bet­
ter since he'd been exposed to it, but steroids could do some of
that too, and he wouldn't pollute his body with those either.
McCain wanted whatever was left of the vril n
i his body out.
He wanted to be normal. He wanted to go home, and whether he
had a real family or knew where he came from and why dido't
matter anymore. Erwiihlen could embrace him and smile ·at him
and rem.ind him of the father he never had or the twin brother
he'd never know. Erwahlen could offer him everything from
power to acceptance, but so could Ngan and Jeane, if not the rest
of the Hoffmann Institute, and they weren't trying to take over
the world, or, from what McCain had seen so far, even advance
some specific political stance. .
If the time had come to make a decision, it was more clear
to McCain what that decision had to be than it had been since
he'd gone to Camp Clarity posing as the next yuppie corporate
white supremacist in line.

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 u .w. ti r p a

Jerry started to stand, his head turned to look at EiwfilJJ.en.

Ngan's chanting had grown louder now. Jerry had to shout over
it to be heard. "Herr EiwfilJJ.en?" he yelled, his voice quavering.
"He can't-"
McCain tucked his knees to his chest and set the bottoms of
his feet between Jerry's legs. With a mind more focused than at
any other time in his life, McCain rejected the vri1 still running in
his veins and forced it all to shed its energy through his legs. He
straightened both legs underneath Jerry and with an unsettllngly
feminine yelp, Jerry was propelled higher into the air than
McCain had even intended to throw him. He shot up like a rocket
and when he hit the skylight there was a sound like a high-speed
car accident.
By the time the first jagged shards of broken glass hit the
floor Jerry was gone from sight, having easily cleared the roof n i
a gentle arc. McCain flipped back over on his stomach, his arm
over his head, when he saw the glass coming down. He could
hear it falling all around him but couldn't feel any actually strike
him. He had a brief but terrifying thought that they had already
fallen on him and the cuts were either too big to feel right away
or a big piece had managed to sever his spinal cord, blocking the
pain from the other shards.
A hand protecting his eye, McCain peeked out and up and
saw glass falling all around them but not on either McCain or
Jeane.
Ngan·'s chanting was even louder now, and McCain rolled
onto his back again. Ngan's vri1 bubble was floating directly
above McCain's face, so close he could see the leaves stuck to
the bottoms of Ngan's socks.
Ngan had extended the size of the bubble to cover both
McCain and Jeane and protect them from the falling glass.
When the rain of shattered skylight subsided, McCain sat up
and shook I.tis head: Jeane was looking at him with narr9wed
eyes that demanded he take some action. Eiwiihlen had backed
off several steps and was studying .Ngan with one eye whi le
maintaining his own invisible umbrella, lest the glass cut his life
short .at barely over two· hundred. When the glass subsided,

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Erwfiltlen held his hands in front of his chest and closed his
eyes, obviously gathering strength.
McCain stood, with every intention of rushing Erwiihlen, vril
strength or no vril strength.
Erwfiltlen saw McCain approaching, and with a smug smile
born of indecision, he waved one hand out in the direction of
McCain.
McCain felt as if he'd been kicked in the chest by a horse. He
fell back, sliding to come to a stop again under Ngan's floating
vril bubble. McCain coughed, wheezed, and otherwise reacted
normally to a blow of that nature and severity-a blow that
Erwiihlen had delivered across a good twelve feet of empty air.
Ngan's chanting stopped abruptly. Erwiihlen's head snapped
toward Ngan, his eyes bulging and his face red. Erwfiltlen held
that pose for one heartbeat, then a second, then the top of his
head from his top teeth up past the bottoms of his ears, slid off.
Blood poured over the sides of the gaping wound like a glass
filled too high with water.
McCain could hear himself gasp, the echoes sounding clearly
in the now silent room. It didn't seem possible, but Erwiihlen
was most convincingly dead.
_The old man's body went rigid but didn't fall. It was ghastly
to look at, but it just stood there, not twitching, not falling over,
stubborn even in death.
"Damn it," McCain heard Jeane sigh.
Startled to hear her voice, McCain looked over at her. The
steel bands weren't there anymore, and it occurred to McCain
that, given what he knew about Erwahlen's peculiar brand of
magic, maybe they'd never really been there at all . She slid to a
sitting position and rubbed her face with her hands. When she
finally looked at him, McCain could see by her eyes that her
exhaustion was close to claiming her. She seemed completely
out of it.
"No!" Jerry screamed from the other side of the room.
McCain, Jeane, and the still floating but silent Ngan .all
looked up at him. The teenager, covered in bleeding cuts, shards
of glass, and bits of dirt and grass, was running toward them,

285
 g .w. · tt r ' a

his eyes fixed on the still·standitlg decapitated body of Hans

Reinhold Exwahlen.
McCain sawJeane notice that Jeny was going for something
in his pocket, and her eyes instantly cleared.
"Gun!" Jeane screamed, her tone making it clear it was a
habit drilled into her during years of law enforcement training.
}e°ny pulled something small and black out of his pocket as .
he came to a skidding halt not two steps from where Jeane was
sitting. Jeny never looked at her. His eyes were fixed on Ngan.
"Oh," Jeane said tiredly. "crap."
McCain could see she was looking at the little black box in
}eny's hand.
Unable to think of a reason not to, McCain asked Jeane,
"What's he got there?"
"The detonator," Jeane answered quickly.
"Damn straight," }ercy coughed, blood trickling out of his
swollen lips. "You put it back. Put his head back or I swear to
Christ I'll blow this barn sky high."
"He's dead, Jeny," McCain said, forcing himself to his feet.
"It's all over."
"Bullshit!" Jeny almost squealed, pointing at Ngan. "You put
it back. Right goddamned now!"
. Jeny held the detonator in his right hand. He held it up so
that Ngan, who was remaining completely quiet and passive,
floating there, could see it.
. "Jeny, man," McCain said, holding out one hand, "give it to
me, kid. lt's over. You can't put somebody's head back on. Don't
make this any-"
"He can put it back on," Jeny said, still holding the detona­
tor in front of his forehead. "When I first came here, I only had
onearm. I was in a car accident, and they took my arm. Herr
Erwahlen grew it back. The vril will make it right. The vril
will-"
"It's his head, Jeny," McCain n
i terrupted. "Think about it.
It's not an arm. There's a difference, vril or no vril." .
Jeane stood up on shaking legs, and Jeny took a step back
from her. McCain could sense that Ngan was slowly approaching.

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 In f lui d a I I e n ce

"It's not different,• Jeny maintained. "It's not different.•

�Michael," Ngan said calmly, "it's possible that our friend
Jeny may be right."
McCain glanced at Ngan who was staring at the standing,
headless body of Erwiihlen. He followed Ngan's gaze, and his
breath caught in his throat when he realized that there was
maybe an inch more head than was there a minute or so before.
"It's growing back!" McCain said, still unable to really
believe it.
Jeane took one big step toward Jeny, who was looking at
Erwiiltlen, the detonator still held up in front of his face.
"Sony guys," she said, then landed a solid, echoing head
butt onto Jeny's bleeding to'rehead.
McCain thought at first that she was hitting the detonator on
purpose, then he saw her eyes go wide when she realized Jeny
had tried to block the headbutt and had placed the detonator
between her head and his. The little black box was sandwiched
between Jeane's forehead and Jeny's. There was an audible
click. Jeane fell backward, eyes closed, having knocked herself
out. The teenager fell sprawling the opposite direction, and
McCain had just enough time to take in one breath before the
world went orange, gold, yellow, and red.
All of the orange barrels blew at once, and from deep inside
the inferno, there was no way for McCain to know exactly how big
the explosion was, but it was big-at least as big as the whole
warehouse. McCain could feel a strong, hot wind, and his vision
was overloaded by the brightness of the interior of the explosion.
Like the sight of a glass falling off a countertop, the explo­
sion seemed to take forever though the initial fireball was gone
in a matter of seconds. McCain could see both Erwiiltlen and
Jeny shredded by the force of the blast, and it was right then
that he began to wonder why he wasn't dead too.
He looked around and could see Jeane lying in the floor.
Another nice bruise was already beginning to show on her fore­
head, but she was breathing, wasn't being shredded by heat and
concussion. Ngan was there too, looking at him with a knoWing,
unashamedly self-impressed sDlile.

H7
 u .•. tl .r , .

"You're doing this?" McCain asked Ngan.

Ngan nodded and said, "I have limited control over the vril,"
Ngan answered.
The bright fireball was quickly giving way to a thick black
smoke that should have choked them to death. Deep in the
smoke McCain couJd see the shadowy outlines of what was left
(and there wasn't much) of the big building. Where the cisterns
were, McCain could already see mounds of broken cement floor
and·melting sheet steel-a formidable seal.
"I understand," Ngan said quietly, and McCain looked at him.
Ngan was looking out into the ruins at no one.
Ngan met the younger man's gaze and said, "Leah is in the
ruins. She told me that the power of the vril is waning. We
sh6uld be on our way."
McCain looked all around and saw no sign of anyone, let
alone the little girl from D.C. What could she possibly be doing
there?
Ngan laughed and said, "You're looking at me like I'm mad,
Michael, but if I told you I was the only one who could see and
hear her would that make you feel better?"
McCain didn't bother pursuing the issue. He could hear fire
alarms going off now and knew this would be a popular spot real
soon. He went over to where Jeane was lying and after only a
few gentle tries, he managed to shake her awake.
"They didn't go offr Jeane asked, groggy and confused.
"They sure did," McCain said, "and thanks for including us
in your very special suicide attempt."
She looked at him as if she was going to start explaining in ·
a loud, stem voice why she had every right to be offended by
that, then her eyes just softened.
"Hey," she mumbled, " I was tired."
Ngan led the way out of the still burning ruins, his globe of
vril around them growing smaller and more brown, less .gold,
with every footstep until it simply faded away.
They emerged into the parking lot soon enough. McCain,
Jeane, and Ngan, having found their way out of the ruins,
watched as a near-endless stream of luxury cars were stre�ing

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out of the parking lot. Clembert Pemberton passed by in one of

. his huge SUVs close enough for him to recognize McCain. Pem­
berton scowled at McCain, but kept driving. Secretary Barring­
ton was in the passenger seat, trying not to look at them. Jeny's
friends roared by in a Camaro and didn't notice the three of them
coming out of the barn.
The fence was gone, so after a few minutes watching the
invited guests evacuate, McCain and Jeane followed Ngan into
the already smoldering woods beyond Camp Clarity.
"Now what?" McCain asked when he felt far enough away
from Camp Clarity to speak.
Ngan looked up into the sky and saw stars beginning to
show themselves on a deepening sky. "Back to Chicago," he
said, "to file our report."
Jeane stumbled a little when he said that; but easily regained
her balance.
"Okay," McCain said, yawning widely. "I mean, what right
now?"
Jeane returned McCain's yawn but Ngan seemed i.Jllmune to
it.
"I have things back at the motel," Jeane said. "My car at
least I'd like to get back."
"So," Ngan said. "I believe the motel is this way." He poi.rited
into the woods.
Jeane shrugged and said, "They're all just leaving. If we go
back to the· motel are there going to be cops there? Teenagers
with guns?"
"Perhaps," Ngan said. "But perhaps not."
"Don't you love it when he says shit like that?" McCain said
to Jeane.
"Despite its seemingly remote location," Ngan said, "that
was a rather large explosion. There will be traffic as ·all those
men flee the area. there will be confusion, there will be ?-ttention
from neighboring towns. We have a better chance of geffin.g into
Jeane's car and drivillg away than we had sneaking through the·
back fence into Erwiihlen's vril cisterns."
Jeane forced a smile and said, "Hey, stranger things have

HB
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happened. We can't walk back to Chicago. Maybe Exwahlen was

as sloppy about sabotaging my car as he was about your access
to his private magic goo stash."
McCain enjoyed the first real laugh he'd had in days-maybe
weeks-then looked at Jeane and grew concerned.
She was using trees to keep herself standing.
"You're too exhausted to drive," McCain said flatly. "Give me
the keys."
Jeane sighed and shot McCain an unhappy look.
"See," she said to Ngan, "I told you this wasn't going to end
well."

UI
 1 .

� nd
� so it starts again. Each time a little closer, frus-
·

tratingly closer, then back here. I don't have to

describe it, do I? You've heard it all before. I've seen
it from the outside, and from the nside,
i and now so have
you.
I know I'm floating. The sensation is clear. It's mov­
ing in evecy direction at once, but so slowly it's like a
long roll up, down, left, right. I could be upside down,
but why would that matter?
There is no feeling, no sensation other than that
gently undulating suspension. There is no temperature­
no hot or cold. Isn't that what people have searched for
all along? That state of perfect physical detachment? I
remember things like air conditioning and electric blan­
kets. These are things to ward off the invasion of the real
world on our fragil e, imperfect cells. But here, in the vril,
I am protected. I am perfect.
I have no illusions about why I'm here. I can't remem­
ber eltactly how I came here. But I know why. I have

!71
 a .w. H r p a

failed, and so here I am again. My invention: an unlimited number

of second tries. It may take some time still for me to remember
what I was trying to do, but I know I'll have another-
There.
A sensation.
I can remember words that might apply: vibration, hum,
tickle, oscillation.
I can feel it i.t:i points that might be parts of a body, but it
seems unlikely that I have a body anymore.
Why would that be unlikely?
Why wouldn't I have a body?
There-there is some change. It's a differentiation in the
vibration, changes in the sensation. There was a word for that.
Ton.
Sound.
I've heard sounds before.
I've heard the stamp of boots and the sound of symphonies.
I've heard laughing and screaming and kind words and cruel
words.
This sound is like a chant, like Tlbetan-
No, that's not it. That's not what it is. Why would I have
thought that?
The sound is the sound of voices. Two people are talking.
Two people are having a conversation.
But they have no language. It's not people. I must be hear­
ing apes or whales vocalizing, baboons warning each other . . .
" . . . believed this in a million years if I didn't see it myself,"
one of the voices says..
People, not baboons. They're speaking a language I under­
stand. That's English. I understand them.
Do I have ears? I can hear them.
"I'm not kidding," another voice is saying-a woman, "that's
a planetary gear."
The other. voice is a man. He says, "Jesus, I think you're
right. They've solved the short-range repulsive van der Waals
·

interactions problem."
What is he saying?
272
 In f lul d a I I e n ce

"Oh, there's more,· the woman again. "See that line, there?
That set?"
A shuffle of feet. I can hear that.
The man says, "It's an SWNT. Holy crap. Where did they get
·

this stufil"
What stufil
What are they talking about?
I understand English, but I can't understand them. They
aren't making sense.
."Get a measurement of its resistivity,· the woman says. Is
she in charge?
"I've got point defects all over this thing and another one in
close proximity with precisely the same defects," says the man.
These people aren't talking about anything that bas to do
with roe.
Why am I here? Why are they talking about this in their non­
sensical English?
"Are you getting that?" The woman asks.
The man says, �us voltage-current characteristics . . . these
things are semiconductors, right?" But what does that mean?
"Depression near zero bias voltage," the woman tells him.
The man makes a sound like a breathy laugh, and he says,
"That's a Coulomb blockade. Oh, man."
"They're so small," the woman says, her voice conveying
something akin to rapture.
I can recognize that now?
l guess I can.
These people are excited about whatever it is they're talking
about that has nothing to do with me.
I stop paying attention because I know I'll be finished soon.
I'll be me again, n
i time, with a body. I should go back under­
ground. I should go back to Agharti and rest. I should go there
to remember the old ways, to feel the pure vril again.) should
go there and rest, and plan, and wait, then try again.
In Agharti, vril flows like light in the air, in everything all
arolind you, and it's been there forever and ever and ever. ·
They accept me there, though there's no reason for them to.

t73
 g .w. ti r p a

I'll go back down. Deep down and rest, deep down and
become me again-whoever that is.
They won't be looking for me there-whoever they are. They
dont even believe that Agharti exists. A world under their
noses, under their feet every day with power unimaginable . . .
and they just forget. It's not even a story now. Legends that
were a sort of history have been replaced by fiction now for so
long that no one sees truth in anything.
They've made aworld of lies, and they hate me because I tell
a truth of my own.
I will spend the time in Agharti that I need to spend, and I
will return.
· I will do this over and over again.
The woman is pretty in a restrained sort of way. The man
is-
l can see.
I can see them.
Everything has a golden yellow haze over it. I can see through
a haze of vril. It's the vril that's filling the mouth I can fee� now. I
have one hand-a right hand. I have eyes, and I can see.
'The man and woman are both wearing long lab coats. There
is a collection of generic putty plastic apparati and a small table
on which sits a laptop computer. I can't see too many details, but
I can see that they are looking at the computer and at the plas­
tic box ma.chines. A clear plastic tube full of vri1 snakes pa.st my
vision, somewhere outside in front of the people. The woman
draws some vri
l out of the tube with a syringe.
She looks at the liquid with appropriate reverence. The
·
woman is Asian.
Yes, I am disappointed.
They continue speaking about some small things that do
something, but I don't want to hear. They seem to be talking
about the vril, but they know nothing. They know nothing of my
· ·

creation.
They're talking about my wonderful elixir as if it's a ·collec·
tion of ants.
It's not ants.

274
 In f lul d 1 1 I e • C8

The Asian woman looks Japanese, and she says, "You could
get heterostructures like that by successive formation of differ­
ent sulphides."
'J.'he man nods. He's white. He's a white man.
The white man says, "It's in the literature. The Italian guys
wrote that up, but . . . "

The woman stops what she's doing and turns to look at the
man, who looks up from the computer.
He smiles, and she smiles back, then-yes, here I am. You
see me.
l try to speak but can't tell if I've opened my mouth. I can
feel the vril on my tongue.
He's looking right at me.
"Freaky, isn't it?" he says, looking at me.
l can't answer him.
The woman glances back at me but doesn't look me in the
eye. She looks away and hugs herself, arms crossed across her
chest. She moves away and changes shape. I know what that
effect is from. It's an optical illusion. She!s not really changing
shape.
I'm in a glass tank with rounded walls. The tank is full of vril.
I have a name.
I remember it.
You know it, don't you?
Hans Reinhold Erwiilllen.
1 am Hans Reinhold Erwiilllen.
"Oh, my Ood," the woman says. She keeps shifting away
from where I can see her. "He's here.·.
"What do we do?" the man asks, moving around like he'.s all
·
flustered.
He doesn't have time to decide how to handle himself. See
there? Someone is walking in.
I know this man.
I've seen him before.
What's his name? .
He has two other men with him. All three of them are·wear·
ing dark suits.

275
 g .w. ti r p a

"Um," the woman says, "Mr. P-"

"We don't have much time," one of the men says.
The man I'm sure I recognize says, "That's him?"
He's looking at me.
Who is this man? Does he work for me?
"Is he . . . ?" the man in the suit asks.
"He's alive," he woman tells him.
Yes, he is relieved. The man in the suit is relieved to hear
that I am alive. I feel good about that, but I have no idea why.
The man in the lab coat is standing, and he tells the man in
the suit, "It looks like cellular regeneration-way beyond any­
thing you'd call healing-but it's not."
"It's true then?" the man in the suit asks.
The woman nods, glances at me, but still won't look me in
the eye.
I want to speak so badly. They're talking about me like I'm
a museum exhibit.
"They're putting him back together one molecule at a time,"
the woman says.
She has to be lying, This is vril. Vril doesn't do that. There
is no "they" with vril-just one thing, just vril alone.
The man in the suit asks the man and the woman if I will
remember, if I will be normal.
They assure hiin I will, and that makes me feel better, but
I'm sure they don't know what they're talking about.
"It'll take time,• the woman tells him.
The man in the suit shrugs, looks me up and down in a way
that makes me angry, and says, "Time we have. But not today."
Without addressing the people in the lab coats, the three
men turn and walk quickly away. As they recede into the golden
hazed distance of the nondescript white room, one of the men
next to the man who seems so familiar speaks for the first time.
I can hear him say, "This way out, Mr. President."

IenD of'3 ·

fll
 11
(Four}
Of Aged Angels
Monte Cook

"They've been here for fifty some years, but they were here
before, too. Long ago, down the bottomless throat of time, they
came to the world, and they walked as gods through the forests.
The people of that time had no name for these ancient angels,
but they saw their effects. The caress of these gods put ripples
in the world like a child's light touch on the surlace of a pool."
For a moment-just for a moment-McCain was caught up
in his poetry. For that mor..tent, he believed that this really was
Jim Morrison.
"But then they left, for there was war in heaven," Morrison
said, looking at the ceiling. "Dark were the skies, heavy with the
conflict of birds as seen by a snake. When they fled back
through the doors, they left behind something cherished among
them-and among us since then, at least those few who knew
that it truly existed."
"What was it?" McCain asked, his voice barely a whisper
amid the darkness and stone.
Without a pause, Morrison told him, "The Holy Grail."

July 2001

©2001 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 Ulffi �­
lnvasion �ycle J. Robert King

The struggle for the future of

Pominaria has begun.
Book I
Invasion
After eons of plotting beyond time
and space, the horrifying Phyrexians
have come to reclaim the homeland
that once was theirs.

Book II
Planeshift
The first wave is over, but the invasion
rages on. The artificial plane of Rath
overlays onJ Dominaria, covering the
natural landscape with the unnatural J. Robert King ,
. .- .. ·�
horrors of Phyrexia.
February 2001
Book Ill
Apocalypse
Witness the conclusion of the world-shattering Phyrexian invasion!
'June 2001

MAGIC: THE GATHERING is a registered ttademark owned by Wizar<ls of the Coast, Inc.
02001 Wizall!s of the Coast, Inc.
 Venture 1nto the
FORGOTTEN REALMS
w.th these two new senes!

Semb1a .
GET A NEW PERSPECrIVE ON THE FORGOTTEN REALMS FROM
THESE TALES OF THE :USKEVREN CLAN OP SELGAUNT.

Shadow's Witness
Paul Kemp
Erevis Cale has a secreLWhen a ruthless evil is unleashed on Selgaunr,
the loyal butler ofthe Uskevren family must come to terms withhis own
i to save the familyhe dearlyloves.
dark past ifhe s

The Shattered Mask

Richard lee llyers
Shamur Uskevren is duped into making an assassination attempt on her husband
Thamatori. Soon, however, the dame ofHouse Uskevren realizes that all is not
as ii seems and tha! her family is in grave danger.
}UNE �OOI

.Black Wolf
Dave Gross
TheyoungTalbot Uskevren was theonlyone to survive a horrible
"hunting accident." NO\\\ infecred with lycanthtopy. the second son
ofthe Uskevren clan mustleam to control whathe has become.
NOVEMBER �()QI

The C1hes
A NEW SERIES OF STAND-ALONE NOVELS,
EACH SET IN ONE OF THE MIGHTY CITIES OF fAER0N.

The Ciry of Ravens

Richard Baker
Raven's Bluff- a viper pit ofscheme;, swindles, wizardry. and
fools masquerading a� heroes.

Temple Hill
Drew Karpyshyn
Elversult - fashionable and comfortable, this shining city ofthe heartlands
.
harbors an unknown evil b<?neath its streets.
SEPTElllllER �OOI

FoRGOneN REALMS is a registered trademark of Wizards of the Coast. Inc.

C2001 Wiiards of the Coast. Inc.
 About the Author

G.W. 'llrpa, the grandson of European immigrants,

was born in upstate New York in 1964. He now lives
in the foothills of the Cascades where he practices
taiji and writes. In Fluid Silence is his first foray into
the world of DARK•MATTER™. He can be contacted at
[email protected].

The Wizards of the Coast logo is a registered trademark owned by Wizards of the
Coast, Inc. DARK•MATIER is a trademark owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
©2001 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.