Operation Chaos

XXIV

We weren’t exactly under house arrest. The well-behaved young man who stayed with us was to give us what protection and assistance we might need. He made it clear, though, that if we to leave home or pass word outside, he’d suddenly and regretfully discover reason to hold us for investigation of conspiracy to overthrow the Interstate Commerce Commission.

He was a good warlock, too. An FBI agent must have a degree in either sorcery or accounting; and his boss wanted to be sure we didn’t try anything desperate. But at supper Ginny magicked out of him the information she required. How she did that, I’ll never understand. I don’t mean she cast a spell in the technical sense. Rather, the charm she employed is the kind against which the only male protection is defective glands. What still seems impossible to me is that she could sit talking, smiling, Bashing sparks of wit a across a surface of controlled feminine sorrow, waggling her eyelashes and leading him on to relate his past exploits . . . when each corner of the place screamed that Valeria was gone.

We retired early, pleading exhaustion. Actually we were well rested and wire-taut. “He’s sharp on thaumaturgy,” my sweetheart murmured in the darkness of our bedroom, “but out of practice on mantics. A smoothly wrought Seeming ought to sucker him. Use the cape.”

I saw her intent. A cold joy, after these past hours in chains, beat through me. I scrambled out of my regular clothes, into my wolf suit, and put the civvies back on top. As I reached for the Tarnkappe—unused for years, little more than a war souvenir—she came to me and pressed herself close. “Darling, be careful!” Her voice was not steady and I tasted salt on her lips.

She had to stay, allaying possible suspicion, ready to take the ransom demand that might come. Hers was the hard part.

I donned the cloak. The hood smelled musty across my face, and small patches of visibility showed where moths had gotten at the fabric. But what the nuts, it was merely to escape and later (we hoped) return here in. There are too many counter-agents these days for Tarnkappen to be effective for serious work, ranging from infrared detectors to spray cans of paint triggered by an unwary foot. Our friendly Fed no doubt had instruments ready to buzz him if an invisibilizing field moved in his vicinity.

Ginny went into her passes, sotto voce incantations, and the rest. She’d brought what was necessary into this room during the day. Her excuse was that she wanted to give us both as strong a protection against hostile influences as she was able. She’d done it, too, with the FBI man’s admiring approval. In particular, while the spell lasted, I’d be nearly impossible to locate by paranatural means alone.

The next stage of her scheme was equally straightforward. While terrestrial magnetism is too weak to cancel paranatural forces, it does of course affect them, and so do its fluctuations. Therefore ordinary goetic sensor devices aren’t designed to register minor quantitative changes. Ginny would establish a Seeming. The feeble Tarnkappe field would appear gradually to double in intensity, then, as I departed, oscillate back to its former value. On my return, she’d phase out the deception.

Simple in theory. In practice it took greater skill to pull off without triggering an alarm than her record showed she could possess. What the poor old FBI didn’t know was that she had what went beyond training and equipment, she had a Gift.

At her signal, I slipped through the window. The night air was chill and moist; dew glistened on the lawn in the goblin glow of street lamps; I heard a dog howl. It had probably caught a whiff of my cloak. And no doubt the grounds were under surveillance . . . yes, my witch-sight picked out a man in the shadows beneath the elms across the way . . . I padded fast and softly down the middle of the pavement, where I’d be least likely to affect some watchbeast or sentry field. When it comes to that sort business, I’m pretty good myself.

After several blocks, safely distant, I reached the local grade school and stowed my Tarnkappe in a playground trash can. Thereafter I walked openly, an unremarkable citizen on his lawful occasions. The night being new, I did have to be careful that no passer-by recognized me. At the first phone booth I called Barney Sturlason’s home. He said to come right on over. Rather than a taxi, I took a crosstown carpet, reasoning I’d be more anonymous as one of a crowd of passengers. I was.

Barney opened the door. Hallway light that got past his shoulders spilled yellow across me. He let out a soft whistle. “I figured you’d be too bushed to work today, Steve, but not that you’d look like Monday after Ragnarok. What’s wrong?”

“Your family mustn’t hear,” I said.

He turned immediately and led me to his study. Waving me to one of the leather armchairs, he relocked the door, poured two hefty Scotches, and settled down opposite me. “Okay,” he invited.

I told him. Never before had I seen anguish on those features. “Oh no,” he whispered.

Shaking himself, like a bear malting ready to charge, he asked: “What can I do?”

“First off, lend me a broom,” I answered.

“Hold on,” he said. “I do feel you’ve been rash already. Tell me your next move.”

“I’m going to Siloam and learn what I can.”

“I thought so.” The chair screaked under Barney’s shifting weight. “Steve, it won’t wash. Burgling the Johnny cathedral, maybe trying to beat an admission out of some priest—No. You’d only make trouble for yourself and Ginny at a time when she needs every bit of your resources. The FBI will investigate, with professionals. You could wreck the very clues you’re after, assuming they exist. Face it, you are jumping to conclusions.” He considered me. “A moral point in addition. You didn’t agree that mob yesterday had the right to make its own laws. Are you claiming the right for yourself?”

I took a sip and let the whisky burn its loving way down my gullet. “Ginny and I’ve had a while to think,” I said. “We expected you’d raise the objections you do. Let me take them in order. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but how can we be in worse trouble? Add anything to infinity and, and, and”—I must stop for another belt of booze—“you’ve got the same infinity.

“About the FBI being more capable. We don’t aim to bull around just to be doing something; Please give us credit for some brains. Sure, the Bureau must’ve had agents in the Johannine Church for a long while, dossiers on its leaders, the standard stuff. But you’ll remember how at the HCUA hearings a few years back, no evidence could be produced to warrant putting the Church on the Attorney Generals list, in spite of its disavowal of American traditions.”

“The Johnnies are entitled to their opinions,” Barney said. “Shucks, I’ll agree with certain claims of theirs. This society has gotten too worldly, too busy chasing dollars and fun, too preoccupied with sex and not enough with love, too callous about the unfortunate—”

“Barney,” I snapped, “you’re trying to sidetrack me and cool me off, but it’s no go. Either I get your help soon or I take my marbles elsewhere.”

He sighed, fumbled a pipe from his tweed jacket and began stuffing it. “Okay, continue. If the Feds can’t find proof that the Johannine hierarchy is engaged in activities illegal or subversive, does that prove the hierarchy is diabolically clever . . . or simply innocent?”

“Well, the Gnostics brag of having information and powers that nobody else does,” I said, “and they do get involved one way or another in more and more of the social unrest going on—and mainly, who else, what else might be connected with this thing that’s happened? Maybe even unwittingly; that’s imaginable; but connected.”

I leaned forward. “Look, Barney,” I went on, “Shining Knife admits he’ll have to move slow. And Washington’s bound to keep him on tighter leash than he wants personally. Tomorrow, no doubt, he’ll have agents interviewing various Johnnies. In the nature of the case, they’ll learn nothing. You’d need mighty strong presumptive evidence to get a search warrant against a church, especially one that so many people are convinced bears the final Word of God, and most especially when the temple’s a labyrinth of places that none but initiates in the various degrees are supposed to enter.

“Well, if and when you got your warrant, what could you uncover? This was no ordinary job. The usual tests for nigromancy and so forth aren’t applicable. Why, if I were High Adept Zarathra, I’d invite the G-men to come inspect everything that’s religiously permissible. What could he lose?”

“What could you gain?” Barney replied.

“Perhaps nothing I said. “But I mean to act now, not a week from now; and I won’t be handicapped by legal rules and public opinion; and I do have special abilities and experience in dark matters; and they won’t expect me; and in short, if anything’s there to find, I’ve the best chance in sight of finding it.”

He scowled past me.

“As for the moral issue,” I said, “you may be right. On the other hand, I’m not about to commit brutalities like some imaginary Special Agent Vee Eye Eye. And in spite of Shining Knife’s fear, I honestly don’t see what could provoke a major invasion from the Low World. That’d bring in the Highest, and the Adversary can’t afford such a confrontation.

“Which is worse, Barney, an invasion of property and privacy, maybe a profanation of a few shrines . . . or a child in hell?”

He set his glass down on an end table. “You win!” exploded from him. Blinking in surprise: “I seem to ’ve smashed the bottom out of this tumbler.”

“Finish mine,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

We rose together. “How about a weapon?” he offered.

I shook my head. “Let’s not compound the felony. Whatever I meet, probably a gun won’t handle.” It seemed needless to add that I carried a hunting knife under my civvies and, in wolf-shape, a whole mouthful of armament. “Uh, we’ll fix it so you’re in the clear. I visited you; that can no doubt be proven if they try hard. But I sneaked back after I left and boosted your broom.”

He nodded. “I suggest you take the Plymouth,” he said “It’s not as fast as either sports job, but it runs quieter and the besom was tuned only the other day.” He stood for a bit, thinking. Stillness and blackness pressed on the windowpanes. “Meanwhile I’ll start research on the matter. Bill Hardy . . . Janice Wenzel from our library staff . . . hm, we could co-opt your Dr. Ashman, and how about Prof Griswold from the University? ... and more, able close-mouthed people, who’ll be glad to help and hang any consequences. If nothing else, we can assemble all unclassified data regarding the Low Continuum, and maybe some that aren’t. We can set up equations delimiting various conceivable approaches to the rescue problem, and crank ’em through the computator, and eliminate unworkable ideas. Yeah, I’ll get busy right off.”

What can you say to a guy like that except thanks’