Dark Chant In A Crimson Key

Chapter Seven

There was a message waiting for me when I returned to the hotel; it was brief, succinctly to the point, and both Garth and Veil had put their names to it. The message said, Stay put.

I found Garth and Veil's little communication to be off-putting and pretentious; I needed information, not orders. I considered calling one or both of them, then decided against it. It was almost midnight, too late anyway to consider moving to another hotel before morning, and I reasoned that Garth would have asked that I call if he'd had anything to report. I double-locked the door, jammed a straight-backed chair up under the knob, then went to bed.

Although I was exhausted, I slept only fitfully. My dreams were filled with violent, vivid images of branding irons, racks, electric generators, pincers, and cattle prods, and the blurred face of a mysterious man who could at once countenance the slaughter of innocent people, and who was a torturer himself who burned out men's eyes, but who would risk his own torture and death to right a wrong. That seemed a contradiction. John Sinclair himself was emerging as a contradiction, a paradox, a very dark and dissonant Chant in a crimson key of blood, pain, and death.

I awoke in the morning still tired, restless, and anxious, haunted by a sense of foreboding, convinced that still more terrible things were waiting to happen. I was in the eye of a maelstrom, and could see neither faces nor motives in the black winds that swirled around me. I picked up the phone, gave my credit card number, and called Garth's private number at the brown-stone. There was no answer, and his answering machine was not on. That annoyed me. Next, I tried Veil's loft, and a voice I recognized as belonging to Lee Miller, one of Veil's students, answered in the middle of the first ring.

"Lee, it's Mongo."

"Mongo! Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Where are Veil and my brother?"

There was a short pause at the other end of the line, then: "They're due to arrive at Zurich airport at eleven this morning, your time."

I said, "Shit."

"They said that if you called I should tell you that they're coming directly to your hotel, so just stay there, in your room. They have a lot of things to tell you. You should do absolutely nothing, and talk to no one, until they get there. They said to tell you that you're in a deep pile of shit."

"Wow. That's really great, Lee. It's precisely the kind of information I was hoping Garth could dig up for me. What flight are they on?"

"Swissair seventy-six, out of Kennedy." The other man paused, then added, "Mongo, you should know that Harper is with them. She insisted."

"Shit!" I said, and slammed down the receiver.

I'd asked Veil to ask Garth to do some digging for me, and what I was getting was a reunion, complete with the woman I loved. Three more potential targets for Chant Sinclair to aim at. It was just the kind of news I needed to start off my day.

I saw Garth, Veil, and Harper before they saw me. The three of them, striding briskly, emerged from the mouth of the wide corridor leading from Customs looking like two and a half grim-faced gunfighters marching down Main Street to face off with the bad guys. Garth and Veil, with their tall, lithe bodies and powerful physical presence, looked the part, but Dr. Harper Rhys-Whitney, the snake- and dwarf-charming love of my life, was barely five feet tall, and she looked very small and frail walking between my brother and Veil. I knew better. This small woman with the maroon, gold-flecked eyes and long, soft, silver-streaked brown hair was, in her own way, every bit as deadly as the two men who accompanied her. I wondered if she had declared to Customs the tiny, deadly krait she carried everywhere in a small wooden box in her purse. I doubted it.

This petite, explosive charge of a woman had spent many years with the Statler Brothers Circus, where I had met her, as a head-liner like myself, a fearless snake charmer. Now she was a research herpetologist, a world-renowned expert on venomous snakes who kept a thirty-four-foot reticulated python as a house pet. I loved her to absolute distraction, and the depth of my feelings, the loss of control over my own fate that implied, frightened me. I was still trying to figure out what to do about it.

Finally, Harper saw me. She came running across the terminal, threw her arms around me. As always, I had an instantaneous physiological reaction as I felt her lips on mine, her large breasts pressing against me. "Hello, sweetie," she whispered in her low, husky voice that always seemed so improbable in such a small body. "What nasty business have you gotten yourself into this time?"

It was a very good question. I was deliriously happy to see Harper, to be able to hold her in my arms, but I felt guilty for it, as if I were indulging my pleasure at risk to her life. "Harper, Harper, Harper," I murmured into her ear. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"You must be joking, Robby," she replied, releasing her arms from around my neck. "When I heard about the hotel massacre,

I just knew you had to be on the scene somewhere, probably being shot at. You need help. I was getting ready to fly over here on my own when Veil called. I just told him to wait for me. I flew my own plane to JFK, then came over here with him and your brother. Did you think I was going to just sit around in Florida while you were in trouble over here?"

"Foolish me," I said evenly, resisting the impulse to roll my eyes toward the ceiling. I satisfied myself with casting a grim and accusatory glance at my brother and Veil as they approached.

"I appreciate your wanting to keep me out of harm's way, Robby," Harper said, just the slightest edge to her voice, "but that's typical of your sexist thinking. Didn't I come in handy during that business with the loboxes and the circus?"

"Harper, I-"

"Since I've already saved your life once, I just thought you might like to have me around. I guess I'm the one who's foolish."

"Harper, I didn't want any of you here. There's nothing to do here but duck."

"Garth and Veil have important information."

"That's why phones were invented."

She tilted her head back slightly, sniffed. "Veil and Garth didn't argue when I insisted I was coming along. They both agreed they could use all the help they could get in handling you."

Garth and Veil had taken up positions on either side of us, and were standing very close as their gazes swept over the other people in the terminal. Seeing the two men together like this, working as a team to guard Harper and me, it would have been impossible for anyone else to detect the animosity that existed between them. Both of them had shoulder-length hair tied back in a ponytail, and they were about the same height; they might have been brothers.

By way of greeting, Garth put a large hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. Veil offered me a curt nod, then went back to surveying the people around us.

"Handling me?" I said, looking up at Garth.

"You heard right, brother," Garth replied gruffly. "True to your character and track record, it looks like you've executed a perfect swan dive into one deep pile of shit."

"That was Lee's line. So, naturally, you and Veil had to dive right in with me, bringing Harper along for the ride. Why couldn't you just do what I asked? I don't need handling."

"Mongo, right now you need handling more than anyone else in the world I can possibly imagine. You shouldn't have come to the airport."

"I made sure I wasn't followed."

"There are a lot of things you don't know that can kill you."

"I didn't need you to come to Zurich to tell me that, Garth. As I recall, I left you a shopping list of subjects to look into. You haven't had time to do any real digging, but now here you are."

"I cashed in a favor, and got somebody to open up the Forty-second Street library all night for me. I had three research assistants, and two librarians to run between the stacks. I found out enough-as much as I was likely to in New York. We're going to get you out of this business, Mongo, but you're going to have to back off and let Veil, Harper, and me take care of business from here on out. You're not going to be hunting anyone, which is what I know you think you're going to be doing."

"Bullshit. I don't need you to tell me what to do; just what you found out about the matters I asked you to look into."

"That's going to take some time, and this definitely isn't the right place. Right now, we have to get you out of this airport. We have reservations at your hotel, which is probably no more dangerous a place for you than anywhere else; the security guards there probably outnumber the guests. We'll go pick up our luggage and then take a cab into town."

"We don't need to take a cab. I've got a car."

"Okay," Garth said, nodding to Veil, "let's get out of here."

Garth and Veil continued to closely flank Harper and me as we went to the baggage area to pick up the luggage of my unwanted visitors. Then we headed to a side exit leading to one of the parking areas. Carlo had the limousine waiting for us at the curb, and he was standing by the open trunk. When he saw us, he hurried over, snatched the luggage cart from my startled brother, pushed it back, and began loading the bags into the car.

"What the hell is this?" Garth asked, turning to me. "You hired a limo?"

"Not exactly. It belongs to Cornucopia. I figured the least I could do to repay Neuberger for throwing me to the wolves was to use his foundation's car and chauffeur."

"Terrific thinking, brother," Garth said in a flat tone as he glanced at Veil.

Veil nodded curtly to Garth, then abruptly strode across the wide sidewalk to where Carlo was struggling to fit the last bag into the limousine's trunk. I started after him, but was stopped by Garth's firm grip on my shoulder. "Whoa, brother," Garth continued in the same emotionless tone. "You stay here."

I watched as Veil walked up to the old man who was my driver. Carlo smiled tentatively as they exchanged words, and then Veil put his hands on the man's shoulders, gently but firmly turned him around, pushed him up against the side of the car. First Veil searched Carlo's pockets, then began to pat him down. As Veil's hands quickly and expertly ran over his body, Carlo turned his head and cast me a plaintive, questioning look.

"Give me a break, Garth," I said, again starting forward, only to be pulled back with even greater force. "He's only a chauffeur, for Christ's sake."

"He works for the man who got you into this mess."

"Not directly. He's just a worker, an employee of the office here. He's harmless."

"Just like you once thought that Emmet P. Neuberger was just a poor, harmless, misunderstood, and bumbling fool, right? This newfound naivete of yours is not amusing, Mongo. How do you know what your chauffeur's real marching orders are? Even if he's not personally working against you, how do you know the car itself isn't bugged, or that it doesn't carry a transmitter that would allow somebody to follow you? As long as you allow that man to drive you around in this car, it's possible that whoever's trying to kill you knows your every move. And you say you don't need handling? You act like your brains have run out of your ears."

"He saved my life, Garth. He ran down the gunman at the hotel about one tenth of a second before he was able to drop a pound or so of bullets into me."

"So we'll send him a medal. The car could still be bugged."

Harper gently squeezed my hand. "Your brother and Veil are right, Robby. You can't afford to take any chances."

They were right, of course, and I felt more than a little chagrined at the fact that it had never occurred to me, even after it had become obvious that Emmet P. Neuberger had been using me very badly, that it was a risky business to be using Cornucopia's car and driver. While it was true that the car could have been bugged or outfitted with a signal-emitting device without the Italian's knowledge, I had instinctively liked and trusted Carlo, and still did. I was convinced he, at least, meant me no harm, and it made me decidedly uncomfortable to watch him being so rudely-if gently-treated by Veil. I looked away as Veil, having finished with Carlo, steered him off to the side before getting into the car to begin searching the interior.

"You owe your friend over there an apology, brother," Garth said in a low voice, shaking me slightly. "You're being childish as well as naive, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Oh, yeah? What do you know about it?"

"Enough to know you owe Veil an apology."

Harper said, "Veil told us about the conversation the two of you had before you left, when he tried to warn you off."

"Did he, now? Perchance, did he tell you what he knows about John Sinclair that he wasn't able to share with me?"

"No. But he did imply certain things."

"Well, bully for him. A number of people are now dead who might still be alive if I'd been more adequately prepared for what I was going to find over here."

Harper shook her head, said firmly, "Veil's not responsible for that, Robby, so stop talking like he is. He knows you, sweetheart, just like your brother and I do. Whatever it is Veil knows or suspects, I'm convinced there wouldn't have been any payoff for you in connection with the reason you came here, and it could have been dangerous information. He didn't want you harmed; he was just trying to protect you."

"I needed information, not protection."

"It wouldn't have helped you. Veil assured us of that, and Garth and I believe him." Harper paused, squeezed my hand.

"Besides, there was another reason he was reluctant to say more to you than he did. He was afraid of your brother."

"That's lunacy," I said, wincing inwardly as Carlo, standing off to one side as Veil painstakingly searched under and behind the seat cushions of the limousine, shot me another pained, questioning look. I again averted my gaze. "They may not get along too well, but Veil is no more afraid of Garth than Garth is of Veil."

"You should listen to Harper, Mongo," Garth said gruffly, "because she's right." He paused, glanced quickly at Harper, then looked back at me. "If you remember correctly, I once tried very hard to kill him. The tension between Veil and me is my fault."

"I remember all too well, Garth," I said quietly.

Garth said to a startled Harper, "Forget what you're about to hear; don't mention it to Veil."

Harper nodded. "You can talk freely."

I started to protest, not wanting the woman I loved to hear things that could conceivably put her at risk one day, but Garth ignored me.

"The reason I tried to kill him," Garth said to me, "was that I blamed him for involving you in the Archangel business and almost getting you killed. I damn well would have killed him, but-thanks to you-I wasn't able to pull it off. Veil could have killed me, and he had every right to after the way I'd gone after him, but he chose not to. And he's never forgotten my rather extreme reaction to his sucking you into that mess; he didn't want to risk creating a similar situation by telling you things that might set you off on various courses of action and get you into trouble. He tried to simply warn you off, but you wouldn't listen. He didn't think anything he could say would be of any help to you, but the information could have proved dangerous: He was afraid I'd find out he'd talked to you, and contributed to any danger you might be in, and that I might come after him again. You're right that he's not afraid of me, Mongo, but he was very much afraid that he might have no choice but to kill me if I tried to lay my 'mad big brother' number on him again, and his killing me might not set too well with you. Veil's a good friend, Mongo, and a very good man-the finest I've ever known, except for you. Like I said, you owe him an apology."

Veil had finished searching the limousine. It was obvious that he hadn't found anything, but it was just as obvious that he wasn't going to let that fact alter his and Garth's determination to get rid of Carlo. He took out his wallet to give the old man some money, but Carlo stiffened, shook his head, and backed away. Veil threw some bills through the open window onto the passenger's seat. Carlo hobbled around to the driver's side, paused with his hand on the door handle, looked at me. Then, in a gesture I found at once faintly ridiculous and profoundly sad, he waved to me. I waved back. Then Carlo got into the limousine, turned on the engine, and pulled away from the curb.

"It may not be so easy to make amends," I said quietly to Garth as Veil came back across the sidewalk toward us. "I said some pretty nasty things to him."

"Oh, I don't really think it's going to be a problem," Harper said brightly as Veil reached us, shrugged his shoulders to indicate he had found nothing incriminating on Carlo or in the limousine. "Now be a good boy and do what your brother says. Make nice to Veil and tell him how sorry you are."

"Right," I said, and proceeded to do so.

As the waiter brought our drinks to the isolated table at the back of the half-filled restaurant in downtown Zurich where we had gone to eat and talk, Garth took a notebook out of his pocket. He set the notebook down in front of him, but did not open it. "Anybody know how we can get hold of a gun or two around here?"

I looked at Veil, who shook his head. "Not in Switzerland."

"Just thought I'd ask," Garth said with a shrug. He tapped the cardboard cover of the notebook, continued matter-of-factly, "John Sinclair was born in Osaka, Japan, in nineteen forty-six to Henry and Anne Sinclair. The father was a midlevel career diplomat who'd gained a virtually permanent posting in Japan and had a reputation as having gone native, in a manner of speaking. He was a Japanophile. He'd been part of Mac Arthur's occupying army after the war, and he spent most of the remainder of his life there. According to one of the obituaries I read, the man became deeply steeped in Japanese culture and spoke the language fluently. Both the mother and father died under what were described as mysterious circumstances, when the son was nineteen years old, and there was some speculation that the couple had been murdered as retribution for the father having delved too deeply into the secrets and practices of certain mystical Japanese secret societies.

"John Sinclair's upbringing in Japan is shrouded in speculation and seeming contradictions; accounts differ, and there's a lot of obvious tabloid stuff that's fiction. However, I think we can safely assume that he was educated in the best American private schools there. He learned the language as a child, and so can be assumed to be fluent. Also, we can assume that the father arranged for him to begin learning the martial arts at a very young age. That's where he picked up his fighting skills. He attended graduate schools in both London and Paris and picked up the equivalent of a doctorate from the Sorbonne. His dissertation was on secret Japanese societies in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He enlisted in the United States Army after he received his degree and was subsequently commissioned.

"Whatever he did in Vietnam is still highly classified, and I didn't want to take the time to try to dig it out, but I think it's also safe to assume that he was involved in intelligence and covert military operations in Laos and Cambodia, like Veil. He was a super-soldier." Garth paused, sipped at his drink. He set the glass down, glanced at the man sitting on his left and my right, continued, "There were two men in that war who received a disproportionately high number of medals for exceptional bravery above and beyond the call of duty. John Sinclair was one of those soldiers. The other was Veil Kendry."

Harper reached across the table and squeezed Veil's hand. She waited until the waiter, who had arrived with our salads, went away, then said quietly, "That's very impressive, Veil. Robby is always talking about your incredible martial arts skills, but he never mentioned that you were a war hero."

There were several good reasons why dear Robby had never mentioned Veil's war record, which no longer officially existed; not the least of those reasons were the circumstances surrounding his dishonorable discharge engineered by the man who had been determined to celebrate an enormous political victory by killing his old enemy, Archangel-Veil Kendry. It hadn't worked out well for him. Although Orville Madison had very nearly killed not only Veil but also Garth and me, in the end it was Madison who died in a hail of bullets in a dusty congressional hearing room in the Old Senate Office Building. Kevin Shannon, President of the United States, had, for his own very good reasons, conspired to cover up the whole affair, and it was not a subject we wanted to talk about ever again, especially not to people we loved. Garth and I exchanged glances, and I was pondering ways to change the subject when Veil managed to at least steer it off into safer channels.

"I wasn't a war hero by any good definition, Harper," Veil said casually. "I was a war lover. Without boring you with too much of my personal history, suffice it to say that I was more than a bit mad back then. I loved the war, because that outlet for sanctioned violence helped me with a certain medical problem I suffer from, which is associated with brain damage I sustained when I was born. I dream vividly. Now my painting resolves the conflicts and enables me to function. But before I learned that I could paint in order to ease the pain, I picked up a lot of decorations in Southeast Asia simply because I usually managed to be where the fighting was; that's where I wanted and needed to be. That's a description of psychosis, not courage. Sinclair was brave, not psychotic-at least not back during the war years. Now. . well, I suppose there's no way of knowing."

I watched as Veil leaned back in his chair and sipped at his drink. What he had said wasn't true; as far as I was concerned, he was a war hero, by any definition. Psychotic or not, he had risked everything to save a village marked for destruction by his controller for political reasons, and it had been that act which had led to his dishonorable discharge and sentence of death. But those facts were hidden away in the larger labyrinth of secrets about Archangel that were best kept that way.

Garth turned to Veil. "How do you know this?"

Veil shrugged. "About Sinclair's head back during the war? I don't know for sure. What I do know is that he had a reputation as a top soldier. I wasn't interested in being any kind of soldier; I was only interested in killing."

Garth grunted, and for the first time he opened the small notebook in front of him on the table, referred to one of the pages. "You certainly got that part right about his being a top soldier. He was the youngest major the United States Army has ever had. Word was that he was being groomed by army brass for an eventual top post in the army after the war. In short, he wasn't exactly considered a loose cannon."

"And then one day he ups and deserts," Harper said quietly.

I nodded. "And the same army that had once considered him General Staff material now sent five Rangers after him with orders to kill."

Harper shook her head. "It just doesn't make sense. What could have happened?"

"I think he found out something he wasn't supposed to know, and then he had no choice but to split; he knew he was marked for death. I think he found out about Cooked Goose."

Garth looked up at me. "The thing you believe was a secret military operation."

"I don't know what it was-or is. I'm just guessing."

"Where did you hear about it?"

"A little bird from the CIA by the name of Duane Insolers dropped that name on me during the course of an Alice in Wonderland conversation we were having. He seemed absolutely convinced I'd come to Zurich on some secret mission of my own that was associated with the hunt for Sinclair. He just wouldn't believe the truth, so he kept trying to cue me with names and information so that I'd trust him-at least I think that's what he was trying to do. The subjects I asked you to look into came out of that conversation."

Garth tapped the notebook with his index finger. "Where's this Insolers now?"

"Beats me. What did you find out about Cooked Goose?"

"Not a thing," my brother replied tersely.

"Did you call Mr. Lippitt?"

"Sure."

"You think he knows?"

"Of course he knows. Mr. Lippitt knows everything. He was the source of information for what I just told you about Sinclair."

"But he wouldn't talk about Cooked Goose?"

"Nope."

"Did he give you a reason?"

"He said I hadn't given him sufficient reason to talk about it and that he couldn't see how the information could do you any good. Maybe you should call him."

"I can't give him a reason why I should know about Cooked Goose until I know what Cooked Goose is."

"He offered to help get you out of the country."

"I'm not ready to leave."

"He also offered some advice."

"Which is?"

"He said we should put as much distance as possible between us and Chant Sinclair."

I turned to Veil. "That advice somehow sounds familiar."

Veil said, "I can tell you about Cooked Goose."

I blinked. "What?"

"Operation Cooked Goose was a decidedly half-baked plan devised by a renegade faction of super-hawks in the CIA to assassinate other American hawks-pro-war politicians, writers, clergymen, and various cultural leaders."

Having delivered this announcement, Veil proceeded to begin eating his salad. I glanced at Garth and Harper. Garth actually looked stunned, which was a remarkable display of emotion for him. Harper looked uncomprehending, and I was sure I looked the same.

I tapped Veil on the shoulder. "Uh, you say hawks were planning to assassinate Americans who supported their position?" "Right."

"But why?"

"To discredit the doves by making it appear that the war had literally come home, just as some of them had openly called for. It was sort of an extension of Operation Phoenix, only in reverse. In addition to killing Vietnamese officials who supported the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, they would also begin assassinating American supporters of our war effort. It was in the last stages of the war, seven or eight months before the eventual evacuation of Saigon. By then it was obvious-to the hawks, at least-that it was the ground swell of opposition in the United States that was causing us to lose the war. The renegade CIA planners reasoned that if American public opinion could somehow be turned around, the military could stage one last, massive assault on the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese that might finally win the war. Cooked Goose was supposed to marshal that popular support by making it appear that the North Vietnamese and their allies had sent ninja-type assassination teams into the country. The thinking was that not even most of the die-hard doves would tolerate the fact that the North Vietnamese had sent assassins onto American soil to kill American leaders. Public opinion would shift, total victory would be demanded, and the full force of the United States Army could be unleashed to mount an all-out air and ground assault on North Vietnam. That's it."

"How the hell do you know this?" Garth asked, making no effort to hide his incredulity.

"An Army Ranger friend of mine told me all about it over drinks at a bar on Oahu. We'd both ended up there at the same time for a little R and R."

I was more than a bit incredulous myself. "How could that be, Veil? This Duane Insolers claimed he didn't even know what Cooked Goose was. He also said it was still one of the most closely guarded secrets this country has."

Veil grunted. "And with good reason, don't you think? The reason this guy talked to me about it was that we were both fighters, not planners, and fighters think differently from planners-it's always the planners of deals like this who are anxious to keep what they've planned a secret, usually forever. As you know, I had a reputation as a stone killer. The guy was drunk, he felt the need to talk to somebody about it, and he trusted me. Also, because of my reputation, he just naturally assumed I'd been recruited and was a part of it. He didn't believe me when I told him I wasn't, and he just kept talking. He thought Cooked Goose was a great idea. He was looking forward to being shipped back to the United States where he'd be an assassin for his country. He liked the idea of killing what he called pinko politicians and folk singers once in a while as a break from killing right-wingers, and he especially liked the idea that none of these people would be shooting back at him. Unfortunately for him, he never got to do any of it. He was one of the five Rangers sent after Sinclair when Sinclair took off. I'll bet five thousand of my dollars to your quarter that all five of those men had been recruited for Cooked Goose."

"Jesus Christ," I said softly as I felt my heart start to beat faster.

Garth pushed his half-finished salad to one side, turned to face Veil. "You say this man assumed you'd been recruited for the operation. Why did he think that?"

"Because of my combat record, but most of all because of my martial arts abilities. Remember that the killings were supposed to look like the work of specially trained ninja assassin teams, not shooters. Weapons of choice would be the garrote, dagger, shuriken, or sometimes just hands. I was good with all these things."

"But you hadn't been approached?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I really don't know, but my guess is that I didn't begin to fit the deeper profile of the kind of men they were looking for. Cooked Goose sounds like the sort of nitwit operation my CIA controller would have been in on, or maybe even helped to dream up, and he'd have told the people in charge of recruiting that I was hell on wheels in a jungle fighting situation, but that I was otherwise psychotic and unreliable-and he would have been right, of course. He knew that I needed violence and the presence of danger to keep myself going from day to day, and that I'd have no use for Cooked Goose, namely sitting-duck, targets. He understood that I was fighting for my own reasons, and these reasons had nothing to do with the political or military aims of the United States. My friend, on the other hand, was a super-patriot type who would not be able to see anything wrong with anything he did, just so long as he had been told by some authority that it was for the good of the country. My guess is that all of the recruits fit that psychological profile. I didn't, which is why I was never approached."

We all sat in silence, thinking, for a few moments, and then Garth said, "The planners approached John Sinclair."

Veil nodded thoughtfully. "I think you're probably right, but there's a big question as to why they'd do so. From everything I've heard about Sinclair, he didn't fit the profile of a Cooked Goose assassin either. He was one terrific fighter, all right, but he was above all else a real professional soldier. He would never abide assassinating our own public officials." Veil paused, looked around the table at each of us in turn, and it seemed to me that his glacial blue eyes suddenly seemed brighter. "Not only, in my opinion, wouldn't he have abided such a thing," he continued in a low voice, "but I think he probably would have tried to squash the program in any way he could. That could explain why he suddenly chose to become a deserter, and why five Rangers were sent to bring him to ground before he could do whatever it was he planned to do."

Garth and I looked at each other, and I said, "Yes. He'd somehow found out about it, and the planners were afraid he was going to blow the whistle. That's why they felt they had to kill him."

Veil nodded. "That's quite a scenario. Knowledge of Cooked Goose would still be incredibly explosive, and I think we can safely assume that the planners are still alive, most likely still in positions of power-as Orville Madison would be if he hadn't gotten cocky. These people will do anything to keep him from telling what he knows; by the same reasoning, our enemies would be most happy to provide Sinclair with a forum for doing just that-whether he wanted to or not. It could explain why all the various intelligence types are currently swarming in Switzerland. A lot of people want to get their hands on Sinclair, for "a variety of reasons. Sinclair could give the kind of history lesson that would open a lot of old wounds and maybe settle some old scores."

Harper, who had been sitting quietly and following our discussion with rapt attention, suddenly held up a hand. "Wait a minute," she said. "There's something missing here. We know this Cooked Goose business never came off, because I don't recall reading about any rash of assassinations in the U.S. toward the end of the war. Okay, it was called off because John Sinclair was still alive to tell people what was really going on. But things have changed, certainly for him. Now he's an international criminal hunted by everybody, including the United States. What would be his motive for continuing to keep silent about what happened, about why he deserted in the first place?"

Garth and I looked at each other, then at Veil. Veil shrugged, replied, "Unknown."

"Another question," Harper said. "Veil, you said you believe you were never approached by a recruiter because you didn't fit the profile of a Cooked Goose assassin, and you also said John Sinclair didn't fit the profile any more than you did. Assuming he wasn't approached either, how would he have found out about it?"

"Maybe the same way Veil found out about it," Garth offered. "Somebody already in the program told him about it."

Veil shook his head. "Highly unlikely. That Ranger talking to me in a bar on Oahu was a special situation. He and I were both crazy, in different ways. Not one of those recruits would have breathed a word about assassinating American citizens to a full-bird colonel who had a reputation as a straitlaced military man."

Garth inclined his head toward the other man. "Then maybe the planners did try to recruit him. After all, most of what we're discussing is pure speculation, including what you believe was the psychological profile of the men they wanted in the program."

"I think if s highly unlikely anyone ever tried to recruit Sinclair as a domestic assassin," Veil replied, his tone changing somewhat, becoming more distant. I looked at him. He was frowning slightly, as if another thought had occurred to him.

Harper laughed scornfully. "If the Cooked Goose planners did try to recruit him, it has to rank as one of the classic military misjudgement's of all time."

"Unless one of the planners had a hidden agenda," Veil said in a voice that had become even more distant.

"Meaning what?" I asked sharply. Suddenly, I felt excited, although I wasn't sure why.

Veil slowly exhaled, seemed to relax somewhat. He looked at me, smiled crookedly. "I just had a thought, but it's way out in left field."

"Left field? Give us a break. We're talking about an unknown game in a whole different kind of stadium. What's on your mind?"

"I was thinking about what Garth had to say about Sinclair's family, and the possibility that his parents may have been murdered for delving into something that was forbidden. He grew up in Japan, and he later wrote a dissertation on ancient, secret Japanese societies. Well, the same guy who told me about Cooked Goose in the first place also mentioned a rumor going around among the recruits that the CIA had laid out a whole lot of cash to hire, as an advisor, some old Japanese guy who was supposed to have been the world's most highly paid assassin. The way this Ranger told it, the old Japanese was supposed to be the spiritual leader of a secret society of professional assassins-old-style ninjas, if you will."

"It sounds like a ninja bullshit story," Garth said drily.

"Precisely," Veil said, and smiled. "Impressionable martial arts types love to believe and tell what Garth always refers to as ninja bullshit stories, and I laughed when I heard it. I thought it was a ninja bullshit story. Now, when I hear what Garth has to say about Sinclair's family and background, and in light of this discussion, I'm not so sure."

I leaned forward in my chair. "A connection between the ninja advisor and Sinclair?"

Veil nodded. "Or originally between the old guy and Sinclair's father. If both parents were killed because of the father's transgression, why not go after the son too?"

Garth looked hard at Veil. "You're implying that this Japanese guy, if he ever existed, would purposely suggest to the.planners of Cooked Goose that Sinclair be approached and told about the operation, knowing full well how Sinclair would react, and knowing that the planners would then decide he had to be killed?"

"Something like that," Veil replied with a shrug. "I said it was out in left field."

Garth shook his head, ran a large hand back through his thinning, wheat-colored hair, sighed heavily. "That scenario requires belief that this Japanese would accept an assignment from the CIA to organize and advise an assassination bureau, while all the time planning to risk sabotaging the entire operation just to disgrace and kill one man." My brother paused, quickly closed his notebook as two waiters finally approached the table with our food. Then he continued in a lower voice, "To use your words, that seems highly unlikely. Sorry, Veil, but it does sound like a ninja bullshit story."

I glanced at Harper, and we both nodded in agreement. Veil looked away, said nothing.