After this cynical observation, Shield felt the residual enjoyment of the party drain away. Fatigue – for the party, for these people – settled into his bones. Time to call it a night.
“Tomorrow will be the tough part,” he murmured in the room he shared with Agent LeHaze. “We have the information, now we have to find some way of acting on it.”
She cast skeptical eyes towards him. “Or,” she paused. “Or, we could turn this over to the regular law enforcement agencies. The FBI, the Texas Rangers, hell, the Fish and Wildlife Department would work…”
“Fish and Wildlife, are you kidding me?” Shield gave up pulling off his left shoes and flopped back on the bed. “That agency is hopelessly compromised with Eisenhower appointees. Asking them to close down the Thulewaite Ranch is like asking Richard Nixon to run the Justice Department.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” said LeHaze, brightly.
“That’s not a wish,” he growled back and then exhaled sharply. Shield had a sudden sense of the enormous weight of events transpiring around him. His country was well in to the second half of the final century of the millennium, enmeshed in a war with seemingly no end. There were so many conspiracies and cabals running around that it was difficult to say who even had their finger on that infamous button. The further men like James Angelton and Hoover bored into the underbelly of America looking for Communists the more what they dredged up became the nation’s new topsoil. The reviled was becoming the norm, the values of freedom and personal liberty pressed down deep into the filth. Maybe only outlaws had the perspective for moral judgements.
Why was he on a mission against the AC’s? He knew in his heart that they were dangerous, that it was imperative to stop them, but the same could be said of a dozen other similarly improbable acronyms. This was life in the realm of the grey and ambiguous. Part of him wanted to be done with it, wanted it to be someone else’s problem.
“This is our burden,” he said simply. “And if we don’t do it, then no one else will bother.”
“It ever occur to you that maybe you shouldn’t bother?”
“If this is another attempt to denigrate the Section then you can stop right there.”
“I’m not denigrating anything; I want you to listen for a moment,” LeHaze eased herself onto the bed, watching him over her shoulder. “In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve always been a straight arrow.”
“I believe in freedom and progress.”
She lay near the foot of the bed, legs curled up “I do too.”
“You believe in privilege and advancement, which are not quite the same things.”
“Old arguments fall into old ruts,” her fingers smoothed a rumple in the sheets, “Maybe we should try some new ground.”
Shield plucked the bowtie from around his collar and draped it over the closet door. “Be my guest.”
“The Anti-Cerebrists, besides having a ridiculous manifesto do have some common reference points with our nation’s enemies.”
“Marx, Engles, Bakunin, and Goldman; yes, yes, your point?”
Her eyes sparkled. “So, other than the obvious fact that you draw a government salary, why should you be opposed? Or to put it more directly, there are plenty of other organs of this government concerned with beating back the Red Tide, why does the one anarchist agency feel the need to shoulder the entire burden?”
“You said this was going to be a new argument, so far it doesn’t sound that way. Our charter back in the Roosevelt days was pretty clear, our bonafides in the International Labor Movement make us the ideal vehicle for American values. Even you have to admit that the AC’s are bad actors. The CIA would just wipe them out or start ferreting out their obscure links with decent people. We do the job clean, neat and quickly.”
He caught her smiling at him. “I sound like a pamphlet, don’t I?”
“It’s amusing, I never said it was a joke.”
“Hah, hah.”
“Oh, come on Marcus,” she propped up her head. “Isn’t it awfully uncomfortable carrying around the entire world?”
He felt her gaze. The only light in the room was from a small pink lamp on the stand behind her. Lost in shadow, her face was a frame of glowing hair and a sad, perfectly curving mouth. He took a step towards the bed.
“There’s no reason you have to cut yourself off,” she said. “Not when you have someone here who wants in.”
He did not resist when she slid her hands up the lapels of his suit and pulled him down. He knew they were going to kiss, knew that was a bad idea, and decided he didn’t care. That momentary loss of control, of simply letting his body do what it wanted to do, was better than anything that followed. There had been women before, but never one able to reach inside him and exposed what he had so carefully sought to hide. She unlocked him, turned him inside out, and left him gasping for air, obliterated.
They nestled together, he brushing the strands of her soft hair away from her forehead as she lay on his chest. Every once in a while he would take his finger and run it carefully along the outside edge of her ear.
“Tomorrow,” she breathed, simultaneously making an observation and a question.
“We’ll wait until Frankie enters the pit,” he said, squeezing the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. “You should watch D, make sure she doesn’t get in trouble. Suliman is in deep, he’ll have to swim to the surface on his own.”
“Where will you be?”
“Trying to find where the bastards keep the snakes.”
Link to Next Chapter
Link to First Chapter
“Tomorrow will be the tough part,” he murmured in the room he shared with Agent LeHaze. “We have the information, now we have to find some way of acting on it.”
She cast skeptical eyes towards him. “Or,” she paused. “Or, we could turn this over to the regular law enforcement agencies. The FBI, the Texas Rangers, hell, the Fish and Wildlife Department would work…”
“Fish and Wildlife, are you kidding me?” Shield gave up pulling off his left shoes and flopped back on the bed. “That agency is hopelessly compromised with Eisenhower appointees. Asking them to close down the Thulewaite Ranch is like asking Richard Nixon to run the Justice Department.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” said LeHaze, brightly.
“That’s not a wish,” he growled back and then exhaled sharply. Shield had a sudden sense of the enormous weight of events transpiring around him. His country was well in to the second half of the final century of the millennium, enmeshed in a war with seemingly no end. There were so many conspiracies and cabals running around that it was difficult to say who even had their finger on that infamous button. The further men like James Angelton and Hoover bored into the underbelly of America looking for Communists the more what they dredged up became the nation’s new topsoil. The reviled was becoming the norm, the values of freedom and personal liberty pressed down deep into the filth. Maybe only outlaws had the perspective for moral judgements.
Why was he on a mission against the AC’s? He knew in his heart that they were dangerous, that it was imperative to stop them, but the same could be said of a dozen other similarly improbable acronyms. This was life in the realm of the grey and ambiguous. Part of him wanted to be done with it, wanted it to be someone else’s problem.
“This is our burden,” he said simply. “And if we don’t do it, then no one else will bother.”
“It ever occur to you that maybe you shouldn’t bother?”
“If this is another attempt to denigrate the Section then you can stop right there.”
“I’m not denigrating anything; I want you to listen for a moment,” LeHaze eased herself onto the bed, watching him over her shoulder. “In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve always been a straight arrow.”
“I believe in freedom and progress.”
She lay near the foot of the bed, legs curled up “I do too.”
“You believe in privilege and advancement, which are not quite the same things.”
“Old arguments fall into old ruts,” her fingers smoothed a rumple in the sheets, “Maybe we should try some new ground.”
Shield plucked the bowtie from around his collar and draped it over the closet door. “Be my guest.”
“The Anti-Cerebrists, besides having a ridiculous manifesto do have some common reference points with our nation’s enemies.”
“Marx, Engles, Bakunin, and Goldman; yes, yes, your point?”
Her eyes sparkled. “So, other than the obvious fact that you draw a government salary, why should you be opposed? Or to put it more directly, there are plenty of other organs of this government concerned with beating back the Red Tide, why does the one anarchist agency feel the need to shoulder the entire burden?”
“You said this was going to be a new argument, so far it doesn’t sound that way. Our charter back in the Roosevelt days was pretty clear, our bonafides in the International Labor Movement make us the ideal vehicle for American values. Even you have to admit that the AC’s are bad actors. The CIA would just wipe them out or start ferreting out their obscure links with decent people. We do the job clean, neat and quickly.”
He caught her smiling at him. “I sound like a pamphlet, don’t I?”
“It’s amusing, I never said it was a joke.”
“Hah, hah.”
“Oh, come on Marcus,” she propped up her head. “Isn’t it awfully uncomfortable carrying around the entire world?”
He felt her gaze. The only light in the room was from a small pink lamp on the stand behind her. Lost in shadow, her face was a frame of glowing hair and a sad, perfectly curving mouth. He took a step towards the bed.
“There’s no reason you have to cut yourself off,” she said. “Not when you have someone here who wants in.”
He did not resist when she slid her hands up the lapels of his suit and pulled him down. He knew they were going to kiss, knew that was a bad idea, and decided he didn’t care. That momentary loss of control, of simply letting his body do what it wanted to do, was better than anything that followed. There had been women before, but never one able to reach inside him and exposed what he had so carefully sought to hide. She unlocked him, turned him inside out, and left him gasping for air, obliterated.
They nestled together, he brushing the strands of her soft hair away from her forehead as she lay on his chest. Every once in a while he would take his finger and run it carefully along the outside edge of her ear.
“Tomorrow,” she breathed, simultaneously making an observation and a question.
“We’ll wait until Frankie enters the pit,” he said, squeezing the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. “You should watch D, make sure she doesn’t get in trouble. Suliman is in deep, he’ll have to swim to the surface on his own.”
“Where will you be?”
“Trying to find where the bastards keep the snakes.”
Link to Next Chapter
Link to First Chapter
Comments
Post a Comment