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COUNTDOWN TO DOOMSDAY




Cassandra and Jake survived in the
urban wasteland that was Chicago. Waiting in constant readiness for the day
when war would break out again … with New York, Washington, perhaps Dallas.




Then the attack came without
warning. A limited atomic bombardment that threatened worse devastation.




With the Government of Chicago
crippled by panic, betrayal and murder, Jake and Cassandra were forced into
action alone.




But if it was too late to save their
city, it was not too late to save their love.












Thrive,
cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,

Expand,
being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,

Keep
your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

—Walt
Whitman







“We are each of us cities,” the Scholar sang.

George Weston spent the last minute
of his life waiting in line at a hot-pretzel stand in the middle of a crowded
Chicago intersection. He’d just given his order—two pretzels, hold the
mustard—when a cry from somewhere behind him made him look back.

The
crowd of people dispersed almost immediately, some shouting and shoving their
way off the curb, others merely shrinking back against gray-walled buildings,
huddling together and making no sound and looking up at the sky.

George
Weston took his lunch and turned away from the vendor’s stand. He squinted in
the midday light. Where had his wife gone? She’d been only a few feet away.

He
was aware suddenly of the scream of a woman, and, from somewhere a few blocks
away, that of a shrill siren.

George
Weston finally looked up, just in time to see the dazzling whiteness as it
descended.

How
absurd, he thought (for he was a man of some irony). How absurd I will look, a
smoldering husk with a ruined hot pretzel in each hand.

He’d
no more time to reflect on this particular image. The white heat enveloped him
now, first searing off his skin, then vaporizing the majority of his internal
organs.

He
was dead before the thing that had once been George Weston hit the pavement.

A
few minutes later, a Chronicler scurried up the walkway, dragging a thick
tarpaulin. Wordlessly, he covered the smoking remains; then, taking out his
notebook, he filed the death for Census.

The
crowd, over its initial fear, ventured closer to the body. Some averted their
eyes; most didn’t. A few went so far as to say a prayer. Only one among them
seemed near the point of hysterics, a pale gangling woman later identified as
Mrs. George Weston.

The
Chronicler looked up from his notebook and motioned for the citizens to move
on. Then, bundling his cloak of office about him, he disappeared among the
shadows and shapes of the dead buildings.

A
few blocks away, the siren’s whine grew faint.






1

Jake Bowman was in a lousy mood.
Even tonight, fully tilted on crazydust, with some bills in his pocket and food
in his stomach, Bowman found an excuse to look dissatisfied.

“Music’s
too loud,” he said, finishing his drink with a long swallow.

His
friend Meyerson stroked his beard and grinned, showing the NuPlaz caps he’d
blown most of his Service pension on.

“Music’s
too goddam loud,” Bowman said again, slamming his open palm on the counter top.
The bartender regarded him coolly, shrugged.

Meyerson
swung his good leg off the bar stool.

“Why
don’t we get a table, Cap? Away from the band.”

He
gave Bowman’s sleeve a tug, then hobbled across the crowded room. Bowman took
his glass and followed.

His
eyes glared through heavy lids. The bar was dim, and his brain seemed dimmer
still for the drugs and the anger. He was having trouble keeping the room in
focus. Keeping his life in focus.

He
took a seat next to Meyerson and leaned back in the chair.

Bowman
looked at his friend’s clay-ruddy skin, the points of his eyes, the gray
streaks in his beard. Meyerson was a dozen years older than he, and a real
warrior, if only half the stories were true. They’d met in a bar much like this
one a couple years before, with Meyerson doing most of the talking. The cobalt
had gotten him once, outside of Detroit, and that accounted for the withered
leg. Bowman didn’t know what accounted for the rest of him.

“Been
down the Center again,” Meyerson was saying. His head was drawn in between his
shoulders, and he was trying hard to look conspiratorial. “Doc says maybe next
month, Jake. I’ve been savin’ every damn nickel I can, but they practically
gotta smuggle the ’Plaz outta them labs, ya know? But Doc says maybe next
month. What do ya say to that, eh, Cap?”

“Sounds
fine, Phil. Sounds fine.”

“Fine,
he says. Jesus Christ!” Meyerson swiveled his head, laughing. “I’m talkin’
about gettin’ hold of a new leg, and he says it sounds fine!”

Bowman
was wondering how many customers the bar would hold. The place seemed filled
with Urbans, most of them young, many female. He found everything intriguing.

Shouldn’t
have blown all that dust.

Meyerson
rapped on the table.

“Hey,
Cap, I asked ya a question.”

“What?”

“I
said I got a question. How long ya been on this streak?”

“Goin’
for a record, Phil. Four straight nights so far, all piss and vinegar.”

“Christ,
you mean you been blowin’ four nights runnin’?”

“I
got a bet goin’ with One-Up Hansen. Bastard says I can’t blow a week’s worth.”
He grinned. “I say I can.”

“An’
I say you’re gone for sure, Cap.” Meyerson got up from the table, leaned across
on thick forearms. Bowman could read the scars. “You listen to me, Cap. You
just listen to Meyerson.”

Bowman
waved his glass absently, then stared, as though just remembering that it was
still empty. He lifted his head, searched through the noisy throng for a
waiter.

Meyerson
sat down again.

“Look
at you, for Christ’s sake, Cap. You’re still a young guy. I’m tellin’ ya, I
seen guys—”

Bowman’s
head was turned away.

“Shit!”
Meyerson kicked back from the table and got back to his feet again. Without
another word, he began walking awkwardly toward the exit.

Bowman
saw Meyerson’s lumbering form disappear among the dancers clustered on the
raised middle floor. He tried to watch them for a while, make the jerky
movements of their limbs meaningful against the harsh din from the bandstand.
He thought he could hear snatches of conversation from the floor, and the
nervous laughter of contacts made; and then there was the music, and all the sounds
seemed to come together, to bounce off the floor and the walls and strafe him
as he sank his chin into the cushion of his crossed arms on the tabletop.

Strafe
him.

He
saw the bodies of the young dancers become the bodies of young soldiers, saw
their limbs twitch in the rhythm of their own deaths, saw them flying—

He
looked up.

The
band was taking a break. He watched them place their instruments carefully on
wire racks. The dancers were leaving the floor, heading for tables, for the
long dark counter against the far wall.

Bowman
tried to remember if he’d been in this place before. The last few nights …

Four.
Four nights. Three more to knock off and he’d collect. Three more with the dust
burning inside him and giving him tilts, and then One-Up would be counting
fivers into his open palm.

Bowman
looked at his hands, clenched them into fists. He thought he could hear his
veins contracting as blood flowed.

He
was tilting. Full tilt.

The
pain would come later, and then remembrance.

The
warring …

He’d
never know what brought him to it, or why it turned out that he was so good at
it. There was the War, and everybody went into the War. But for him it had been
different. A discovery.

His
talents had not gone unnoticed. While still a relatively young man, Jake Bowman
had risen to the highly respected position of Assistant Tactics Coordinator in
the Chicago Service. Those had been the glory days, when the fighting was more
close-in, when the boundaries had yet to arrive at their present rigidity.

Moving
men and machinery for the purpose of achieving a specific goal was what Jake
Bowman had lived for, was what had made him whole.

But
to keep that wholeness would take more than memories. Which was all Bowman had
left.

He
glanced at the empty glass on the table before him. Alcohol on top of the
crazydust. Stupid bastard!

He
ordered another drink.

He
didn’t see the whore until she’d sidled up next to him. Bowman’s glance was
reflective. The whore was standard bar fare. Beaded designs on her tits.
Embedded turquoise. She was totally bald.

“The
only crime is inhibition,” the whore said with a smile. “I’ll have a gin and
tonic.”

Bowman
signaled for the waiter.

The
whore sipped at her drink.

“Are
you nice?” she said.

“I’m
told,” Bowman said. He finished his drink and pushed back his chair.

“Where
are you going?” the whore said.

“With
you.” He took her by the arm.

The
room upstairs was small and warm, womblike, with muted colors and muted sounds
filtering through the walls.

The
whore sat back on her ankles on the carpeted floor and drew him down to her.
Bowman fumbled with the clasp of her robe, cursing under his breath.

The
whore reached up behind her and flicked a switch. The room filled with an
aromatic mist. Bowman felt the sting of hundreds of crystalline prickles on his
bare chest and arms. Soon he would feel the sting everywhere, and with it the
desire, and the will.

He
tried to douse it with anger.

“Aphrodisia
Clouds are for lunks,” he said between tightened lips.

“Lunks
need love, too,” the whore replied, remembering a poster she’d seen once.

Bowman
didn’t want to hear about lunks then. Or about love. With the whore beneath
him, the stinging mists all about him, Bowman wanted only one thing.

He
wanted to get laid.

The
crystals turned to drops of silvery liquid and ran in rivulets from his body.
He wiped the wetness from his eyes and got up on his elbows.

The
whore rolled over beside him, making small sounds. Her hand smoothed the
sweat-matted hair on his chest, then drifted to his waist and began tracing
circles just below his navel.

Bowman
felt as though he’d swallowed his own bitterness. He made his mouth work.

“How
much?” he asked, reaching for his trousers.

“You
were wrong.” The whore took her hand away. “You’re not nice. Fifty will do.”

“It’ll
have to.” He tossed her the bills. “I need the rest to get stoned or drunk, and
to find someone to help me decide which.”

“Maybe
I’m for sale.”

“Maybe
that’s the trouble.”

She
sat up, her small breasts jiggling. She noticed the insignia on his belt buckle
as he dressed.

“Hey,
I know your thing now,” she said. “Why don’t you just find yourself a nice war
somewhere and climb down off the dust?”

Bowman
thought about hitting her.

Then,
thinking again, he walked out of the room.

The
Chronicler pulled back his hood and rubbed his eyes. His ledger lay open beside
him.

The
day had not been uneventful.

The
Chronicler undid the bindings of his cloak and began preparing for bed. Like
every Urban, he could not be in a room for very long, even one with which he
was familiar, without making a judgment as to its size and comfort. Urbans
craved space, and he was no exception, though he tried to keep his feelings
about such matters in check.

It
would not do for a Chronicler to crave very much of anything.

Still,
the prospect of advancement pleased him. He sat at his regulation desk, the
desire for sleep having passed inexplicably with the donning of his nightrobes,
and evaluated his chances. There were many Chroniclers. And so much depended
upon mere luck.

He
opened the ledger on his desk. The filing had been important, yes; but how much
more impressive had it been the only one.

He
looked down at the name written in the farthest right-hand column.

George
Weston.

That
was the problem. His had been the first death, but unfortunately not the only.
The Chronicler sighed, and had he a larynx he might have chuckled at the irony
of his own misfortune. Three deaths, three Chroniclers, three separate reports.
Just what Census needed. More paperwork.

Of
course, these deaths were different. Very different.

He
glanced down again at the name in his ledger.

George
Weston

No
matter how he’d lived his life, Citizen George Weston had achieved his true
notoriety in death. He and the other two Urbans. If nothing else, the
Chronicler reflected, history would remember them as the cause of Government’s
first emergency session since the War.

With
practiced ease, the Chronicler bound the ledger in Census-green ’Plaz and
affixed the seal of his office.

Then
again, he thought as he made his way toward the bedroom, who could say with any
certainty exactly what history would choose to remember?

Cassandra
Ingram’s lover had been lithe and inventive, and in retrospect ideally cast in
the role. He lay now in a tangle of sheets, hair straggling and black on his
shoulders. She had remained in the harbor of his arms, ignoring the insistent
buzz of the table clock, until duty forced her to rise.

As
she padded across the carpet to the bathroom, Cassandra had the fleeting
impresson of having walked out of the second-to-last chapter of a bad novel:
how to say what had to follow, from what well of sorrow and pain to dredge the
necessary tears.

She
leaned over the sink and splashed cold water and rubbed at her cheeks.

She
looked up. The daily inspection, a ritual that usually brightened her, failed
this morning. Cassandra Ingram was one of the few women who truly enjoyed
looking at herself; not out of vanity, but rather some unconscious recognition
of the rightness of her features—an evaluation that some constants remained
just that.

Cassandra
was almost tall, with hair dark and thick and often untidy, and deep dark eyes.
Of her body she was justly proud: well-formed breasts, high and full; a
slender, rounded stomach; near-boyish hips. The night before, her man had
called her a fine animal.

She
had let the remark pass, as befit her training.

Cassandra
heard his moans coming from the next room.

They’d
known each other less than eleven hours, she and this man, eight of which
they’d spent in bed. But still it would tear at her, the mutual parting, the
casual thank-you’s and goodbye’s. The breaking off of things was something she
handled badly, and probably always would.

She
shrugged and waited.

The
man had gone, and she was dressed in the light blue tunic of her Order. She sat
sullenly over her second cup of coffee, the early sun hazy through the lattice
of her kitchen window.

It
was a nice apartment, easily one of the best in the city. She’d had to use her
influence to get it, of course, though few Urbans could have afforded the rent
anyway. It had more space than she really needed, but she’d managed to fill the
rooms well with things that reflected what she was.

She
felt herself frowning.

What she was. Not who she was. For one such as she, they
meant the same thing. In most people’s eyes, at any rate. Perhaps in her own as
well.

She
held the emotion, the irritation, for just a moment. Then her being released
it, and it was gone from her thoughts.

She
got up from the table and went back into her bedroom. She pulled soft white
boots over her bare feet and calves.

Cassandra
had been on her current assignment for over a year now, and still it bothered
her. As far as she was concerned, Government was made up of crusty old men and
women whose decisions had next to nothing to do with her life, and yet hers was
the task of guarding one of its highest-ranking members. The job was both
unexciting and confining. It also involved adherence to a routine, another sore
point with her.

But
there was little she could do. Assignments in general were hard to come by,
especially in such peaceful times as these. Often she was reminded how grateful
she should be that she was working at all.

After
securing her apartment, she took the pneumatic down to the garage and signaled
for her car. In a matter of minutes, she was entering the Loop.

Traffic
was always bad this time of morning, but still she found herself unusually
edgy. It was as though the city were charged throughout with a kind of nervous
excitement, to which she was acutely attuned.

Chicago
was noisy. Diffused sunlight made ambient the gray shadows in which busy Urbans
walked and ran and worked. Buildings stood squat and brick-faced, many of them
unfinished, piles of raw material often crowding pedestrians off the curb. Very
few vehicles were new, of course, and every couple of blocks a stalled car
brought the already-slow procession to a halt.

Cassandra
braked at yet another blocked intersection. She hadn’t tinted the visors of her
Government vehicle; and though it was unmarked, a few passing citizens could
still spy her through the glass. Often they’d point. It was something else
she’d have to grow used to.

Cassandra
Ingram was a member of a unique sub-organization of the Chicago Service, the
Order of the Guardians. She wore, as she was required to do in public, the
light blue tunic that identified her as such. That marked her as one of an
elite group of men and women trained under strict and near-legendary procedures
for special duty in service to Chicago. That warned of the terrible instrument
of her body.

That
named her as the killing thing that was a Guardian …

A
few blocks up ahead, a group of Urbans finally succeeded in pushing a stalled
private sedan into the long-neglected brush of a vacant corner lot. Traffic
lurched into motion once more. By which point, Cassandra had already pressed
the stud on her dash that veiled the design and significance of her uniform
from view. She drove the remaining two and a quarter miles to Government Access
unmolested by the stares of Urbans.




2

There were few Scholars left in
Chicago. Most of them had been old even at the beginning, and singing of the
glories of History had proved too taxing during the War. And since that time,
there seemed less need to remind citizens of the reasons for their pride, the
source of their passion for Urban unity. These things they had, and seemingly
would for a long time, and now the reasons didn’t appear so important.

Reasons
were only important to Scholars, and of these there were few enough.

Clemmie
Della Sala looked up from her modest lunch to watch her son eat. William was
only thirteen, but already he’d grown man-sized and eager. His movements were
filled with impatience, even to the performance of such mundane tasks as
eating. Clemmie almost cried out at the relish with which he attacked his soup.

“Didn’t
they feed you in school this morning?” Clemmie asked, putting aside the lyre
she’d strummed absently during lunch for her son’s amusement. “It’s only barley
soup, and too runny anyway.”

“I
like it,” the boy replied, spoon poised in mid-journey. His hair was long, and
yellow rather than blond. As had been his father’s. “Besides, you know they
always ram a lot of food down our throats at school.”

“So
you tell me. God knows what’s in it, though.” Clemmie shook her head. When
she’d put William into the academy, she figured at least he’d eat well. It had
taken most of her savings, and what little remaining influence she had as a Scholar,
to get him enrolled.

William’s
eyes flashed knowingly. “Mrs. Filburn was at it again during break, Mom. You
woulda loved it.”

“Not
another flag-waver?”

The
boy nodded gleefully as he sat upright in his chair, wielding his spoon as a
wagging finger of authority. Clemmie had seen Mrs. Filburn in action; her son’s
impersonation was accurate.

“
‘You listen to me, boys and girls,’ ” he said, trying to keep his voice high
and thin between giggles. “ ‘The little children in Washington and New York are
starving. Every day, day in and day out, more little children just starve away
to nothing and die. So don’t you dare leave one single thing on your plate!’ ”

Clemmie
joined in as her son broke into hearty laughter. She reached across with thin
arms and hugged his shoulders. Her love for William was a constant that never
lacked for new discovery, and in moments such as these she felt totally happy.

Later,
as she cleared the table, she could hear him talking to himself as he sat
before the wallscreen, selecting entertainment tapes. She already regretted
having to leave him tonight, but she’d promised Phil Meyerson she’d meet him
after she’d sung for Citizen Clairmont and his guests.

Clemmie
Della Sala was in her early forties—slim, ivory-skinned and dark-eyed, and with
a kind of ebullient grace in her manner. She’d been one of the last schooled in
the singing and recitation of History, and one of the few women. The prejudice
for male voices had outlasted almost all others; had her father not been a
Scholar before her, Clemmie doubted now that she’d ever have been one herself.

On
more than one occasion since then, however, she’d seriously considered leaving
the art. She no longer felt the need to sing, and she was beginning to doubt
her ability to express the History in terms modern Urbans could understand and
appreciate. And soon there would be the universities Government promised, and
teachers to separate truth from myth, and present the result to more
sophisticated ears. The songs would end. Scholars would not be called by that
name any longer. They would become merely singers, old and distracting singers
with long, uncertain memories.

Clemmie
finished in the kitchen and settled once again in her chair. She stroked the
fragile lyre carefully, as always thrilled with the crystal tones of its
strings. What more fitting instrument to accompany a singer of History in the
telling of the glories and agonies of the city-states?

As
always, too, the joy returned then. The simple joy of melody and lyric, and the
forming of the two into song and remembrance.

Clemmie
waited until her son had sped out the door to return to school before lifting
her voice to its performance level, her head bending often to the curved arms
of the lyre, her eyes closed.

The
Scholar sang of the cities, and sang for herself.

The
people had been coming back to the cities for decades. As early as the 1980’s,
sociologists were calling the rush to the suburbs a failure. The urban problems
from which so many had run—crime, race, metropolitan decay—had merely followed
the runners into suburbia.

And
in their wake, urban redevelopment opened up both employment and residential
opportunities in areas where none had existed before.

Federal
funds were drawn off from suburban districts and channeled back into the cities.

Housing
and education, suddenly economically prohibitive in the suburbs, had become
standard commodities in the new cities.

Crime
dropped in most urban areas, to begin rising with the same immediacy in the
suburbs.

The
rush to the suburbs had left behind a vacuum which was filled—slowly at first,
and then with sudden swiftness—with Federal and state monies; there followed
widespread financial redevelopment, increased social services, and marked
technical and social innovations.

The
major cities became models of reorganization. Laws were revised, restructured.
All commerce was zoned to a specific sector; so was Environmental Control; so
was Pornography.

For
the first time in a centennial of this country’s history, the cities began to work.

And
the people came back.

Soon,
what the politicians had begun calling the New Alternative became instead the
new goal.

Suddenly
it was important to be called a citizen, to have urban pride; to become, in
fact, an Urban.

And
it was only natural that Urbans would wish to protect their cities, their
collective homes, what had come to be their great fortresses against ignorance
and want.

And
so, one by one, each city drafted plans to create a civic force, a militia, an
army.

And
each city’s government became stronger, more independent, autonomous.

Until
finally, the great metropolis of Chicago extended its boundaries, seceded, and
became an independent city-state near the turn of the second decade of the
twenty-first century.

What
recourse the now-fragmented Federal government might have had was undermined by
the subsequent rapid secession of other major cities—Dallas, Seattle, New York,
Boston—cities eager to guide their own destinies, rule their own territories,
answer to no foreign body.

The
warring started much later.

Scholars
would never come to agree as to the exact date the warring began; or the exact
reason. The pact formed earlier between Los Angeles and San Francisco was
understandable, though no cause could be given for their unified attack upon Dallas.

Most
of the city-states fell in the Great War.

The
devastation was complete, and unprecedented. Whole areas of terrain were
altered, destroyed. Natural and man-made boundaries crumbled. Mountains fell,
valleys filled with dead earth, flooded rivers swept away the forests. The
continent lay stripped of life.

No
monuments stood.

Later,
when Scholars were charged with the task, they would sing of such a war and its
fury.

They
would call it the Leveling.

After
forever, it ended.

Only
a few cities remained. Chicago, New York, Washington—perhaps Dallas and
Seattle.

Communication
among the surviving city-states was sparse. Each was only vaguely aware of the
condition of the others. Each could only guess the others’ populations, states
of repair, military capabilities. The only knowledge they shared was fear.

The
reign of the city-states had ended.

The
first reign.

For
the rebuilding had already begun …

Chicago
lay squat and shrouded.

Much
of the cityscape remained buried in rubble. Most streets were impassable.
Buildings were bent giants, hulking shadows of burned brick and sagging beams.

The
air was leaden, and filtered the sun, and its haze cast the city in an amber
halo.

The
skyline was jagged, alien.

But
then—

Organization
came.

Government.
Militia. Commerce.

The
urban machinery lurched haltingly back into operation.

Men
and women were treated for their wounds, mustered into service. Children were
rescued, cared for, educated.

The
dead were buried.

The
scientists and doctors and engineers and politicians were gathered. Plans were
made. Decisions were reached.

There
would not be another Leveling.

Chicago
must make ready, must build against the threat of the future. The threat from
the other city-states half a continent away, who even now might be stockpiling
arms for another war.

Government
spoke to the people on undamaged holoscreens throughout the city.

Chicago
must make ready!

The
Urbans responded.

And
in the years following the War, Chicago’s prime activity became the escalation of
its arms and the development of new weapons and defense systems.

And
urban pride grew stronger again, and with it standing armies, where those
trained in the tactics of large-scale warfare waited along with the
masses—waited as their fellow Urbans waited, in their city, in their homes, in
their offices and multilevel dwellings and great concrete halls.

Rumors
flourished continually, though Government did what it could to quell them.
Rumors about the intent and military potential of other cities. Rumors of
secret alliances, horrifying new weapons, traitors from within.

The
Urbans couldn’t be sure. So they had to be ready.

Chicago
was ready.

Isolated,
gorged with weaponry and animosity, primed for confrontation.

All
that was necessary was a catalyst. The first strike. The first extension of the
might of one city into the domain of another.

The
death of George Weston was that catalyst.




3

Cassandra Ingram stood before the ID
module and awaited verification. When she’d been cleared, she was mildly
surprised to learn that she was to report to Tactics.

“What’s
the big excitement?” she asked the sentry.

He
smiled and shook his head.

“You
know Gilcrest. Everything’s an emergency. Somebody probably spotted a kite
flying over the Lake.”

Cassandra
smiled back, as warmly as a Guardian may to a sentry. Then she stepped into the
pneumatic and descended to Main Level.

Government
existed in an underground labyrinth, six-tenths of a mile beneath the surface
streets of Chicago. Very few citizens ever saw the interior of Government, or
its subsidiary branches of Commerce, Tactics, Census, Environment and Police.
It was enough for the people to know that the city was governed, that the
machinery would continue to provide for their comfort and well-being.

The
pneumatic opened slim double doors onto the luminescent corridor of Main Level.
Cassandra got out and went the short distance through lighted bulkheads to
Tactics.

The
chamber was a large octagon, high-walled and flushed with the cold luminescence
of the labyrinth. A great oaken desk—and one of the few natural wood pieces
Cassandra had ever seen—stood in the middle of the room. A dozen chairs circled
the desk, the chair furthest from where she stood at the entrance to the
chamber occupied now by an old man in a vivid purple cloak. He was alone.














Copyright © 2012 by Dennis Palumbo.
All rights reserved.





No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.







www.dennispalumbo.com








Story Merchant Books




9601 Wilshire Boulevard #1202




Beverly Hills CA 90210



http://www.storymerchant.com/books.html

Penny Sansevieri - Online Book Tours

Penny Sansevieri, owner of Author Marketing Services, describes why online book tours are efficient, accessible, and effective. She also discusses how to conduct this kind of book tour.

The Messiah Matrix Five Star Review on Tome Tender

The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity
The Messiah Matrix
by Kenneth John Atchity

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publication Date: May 1, 2012
Publisher: Imprimatur Britannia and Story Merchant Books
ISBN: 0957218907 (Paperback)
Number of Pages: 550
Genre: Literary Fiction/Christian Fiction/Thriller/Adults
Available From: Amazon / Barnes & Noble













My Review:


Do we really know how much of history is truth and how much is slanted in favor of those who wrote it?


The
Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity is an intense and riveting
thriller that will leave you breathless at the end as historical secrets
from the past are uncovered, threatening to expose powerful religious
beliefs, doctrines and secrets as heavily veiled lies designed to
protect the Church in Rome. At the bottom of the tangled webs of deceit
may lay the answer to who is the real Christian Savior. Will centuries
of believers rest in the knowledge that Jesus IS the Christian Messiah,
or will the real answer come from ancient Rome, centuries before his
birth? Two people from completely different backgrounds will risk their
lives to expose the answer, no matter what it is.

Kenneth John
Atchity takes historical facts and contemporary fiction and pieces them
together to create a fast-paced mystery/thriller whose roots took hold
long ago, but are unearthed with the discovery of a single coin. Pairing
a newly ordained Jesuit Priest with a young and brilliant
archaeologist, Mr. Atchity deftly creates two perspectives that come
together well in the quest for hidden truths with richly detailed
scenes, including “flashbacks” to ancient times, in supposition of what
machinations were contrived for the history books.

Will some find
this book a little uncomfortable? Possibly, but this is a work of
fiction, based partially on historical facts and manipulations. I
believe the author intends to cause the reader to invest themselves
enough in this book to question whether history is always exact. One
does not have to believe all that is written, but to consider that there
is more intrigue in the world than often thinks and there always has
been. If you are looking for a book that will make you think outside of
the box, almost creating your own “subplots” or “what ifs,” The Messiah
Matrix could be that book you’re looking for! 



Description:



To what lengths would the Vatican go to suppress the secret origins of its power?

The Messiah Matrix is a myth-shattering thriller whose protagonists delve into the secrets of the past—and expose those who hide them still.

A renowned scholar-monsignor is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run in Rome. A Roman coin is recovered from a wreck off the coast of ancient Judea. It’s up to his young American protégé--a Jesuit priest--and a vivacious, brilliant archaeologist to connect these seemingly disparate events and unravel the tapestry that conceals in plain view the greatest mystery in the ecclesiastical world.

Together they pursue their passion for truth—while fighting to control their passion for each other.

What they uncover is an ancient Roman imperial stratagem so controversial the Curia fears it could undermine the very foundations of the Roman Catholic faith.

From the ancient port of Caesarea to Rome's legendary catacombs and the sacred caves of Cumae, this contemporary novel follows their exhilarating quest to uncover the truth about the historical existence of the real "Christian Savior."



I'd like to thank Kenneth John Atchity for providing me with this review copy in exchange for my honest review.

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Book Hostage Book Promotion: The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity

Today’s book promotion comes from Kenneth John Atchity and his book called The Messiah Matrix. If you like romantic thrillers, take a look below. You might just find another book for your “to read” pile!




Book: The Messiah Matrix

Author: Kenneth John Atchity
Genre: Romantic Thriller

Publisher: Imprimatur Britannia

Format: Paperback and ebook
Currently Released

Summary:  A skeptical young Jesuit meets up in Rome with a vivacious archaeologist who tempts his vows and joins him in an investigation that threatens to overturn their religious beliefs. The book predicted the pope’s resignation and the election of an Argentine Jesuit pope.


Q and  A:

The best thing about writing this book?
Finding out that what began as a fictional theory gained credence as I fitted the parts of the puzzle together.

Where did you get your idea for this story?
My classical training and research on the Catholic Church and the Roman Empire.

What would you tell aspiring writers out there?
That they should not waste a moment of their time agonizing. Write the story—sell the story!

What is your favorite book?
Homer’s Iliad.

Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate?
Coffee

Anything else that you want to add?

Garden-fresh tomatoes!

I want to thank Kenneth John Atchity for allowing me to promote his book on my blog. I hope this post has inspired you to go out and read The Messiah Matrix!

Guest Post: Memo to Screenwriters #3: Being Solely Identified by Your Scripts Leads to Permanent Identity Crisis by Nancy Nigrosh

 


Diablo Cody on the set of her directing debut, "Paradise"





Like so many others, Elmore Leonard, god bless him, praised writers for their “perseverance to just sit there alone and grind it out.”  Of course writers might think he was only referring to writing, especially when coupled with his memetic 10th rule: “if it looks like writing, re-write it.” Taking this credo too literally is certain to drive writers even further into the ivory tower of the introvert. Justified, indeed.

Elmore Leonard’s fans don’t have to have read his work extensively or at all, to uh, “know” him. He presents himself as a look-us-in-the-eye type, not some remote artist alone in a tower being celebrated from afar. In other words, Leonard exists to us as a man, not solely as a writer. His appeal extends beyond what’s on the page -- the other half of the career equation. Even an opposite icon like J.D. Salinger’s controlled seclusion and rejection of immortal author conventions are just as famous as the characters he created. We know what these writers look like. We can even imagine what their opinions on various topics might be. Even though they are no longer alive and writing, they still speak through the media in identities separate and apart from their work.
Elmore Leonard on stage in 2012 with "Justified" stars Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins.

I was recently asked about the difference between a screenwriter’s identity and a screenwriter’s voice. Simply put, in a screenplay it’s the “voice” collected into pages that’s put up for sale. If the writer’s persona has been left behind embedded in the pages, versus used portably as a sustainable tool the writer can re-use, then the writer has to start from scratch with every screenplay to gain back any kind of self referral as an artist. Imagine if the DIY self-published authors of today followed the technique traditionally used by screenwriters to simply type their name under the title as reference to authorship with no personal outreach to their readers.

Instead it’s typical for DIYs to directly engage with their readers, communicating whistle-stop style to gain converts. Tweets become campaign waves; blog tours, virtual handshaking -- which serve before or after any work is read to exponentially expand the writer’s off-page identity. DIY scribes understand that any discriminating buyer for their work will, without question, consult a website algorithm then mentally measure the writer’s metadata before making a purchase. In a contemporary Hollywood universe, any kind of screenplay buyer does the same.

Consider the more familiar difference in how a film director develops identity in a traditional film business scenario. There’s discoverable emphasis on the director’s background and training with critical analysis of themes associated with that director’s work. There’s an easy dialogue flow about where and how that director grew up; which filmmakers influenced them; who their mentors were. There‘s no expectation that a page they wrote or even piece of film they directed could solely speak for them by proxy. Directors aren’t conflicted about their human persona being a key component to their professional role. When they aren’t directing they’re visibly participating in far ranging community outreach to exercise their essential uniqueness and creative values.

If screenwriters demand exclusive evaluative focus on the pages they “just sit there and grind out” without including interactive public behavior to identify themselves as unique storytelling masters the way Elmore Leonard and some other writers do, the screenwriter’s identity becomes dependent on how that material fares in a finite Hollywood marketplace. In this traditional film business scenario the emphasis on material necessarily becomes about cost: the cost for the rights, cost of re-writing and cost of producing it. The page is what has value, not the man or woman who wrote it, who are bound to become less important. The ensuing professional relationship composition is calculated to take power away from the screenwriter.

Some folks might be waiting for the WGA to conduct a blind study to see if kick-ass public identity development works. It might be simpler and faster to take a look at Diablo Cody’s career or Tony Kushner’s.

Ms. Cody created a public persona different from the one she grew up with that she believed was more authentic. Working at an office, she started stripping while also blogging about it. Note that she didn’t blog in any way about a screenwriting career. She showed up online as herself and attracted the attention of an alert film producer, who encouraged her as a writer. Activist Tony Kushner also shows up consistently as himself. His opinion is often sought about topics of concern, not just Hollywood-centric ones. We know about these artists’ human personas, which not only influences their writing, but attracts the notice of their worlds at large, thus creating anticipation of their work.

Martin Ott's The Interrogator's Notebook - Five Day Giveaway Starts Today! 9/14 to 9/ 18

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the
answers.”

— James Thurber








LESSON 1




Mapping the Body 




In the beginning, there was not God.
There were men who questioned the nature of the universe. These
proto-interrogators did their jobs too well. Bold answers danced to life from
their imaginations. The best stories became religion, and these “truths” were
passed down through the ages.




Many
Gods were created. Many more questions were asked. Scientists queried time,
matter, and space. Explorers probed worldly limits. Philosophers wondered if
humanity existed. Only interrogators mapped each man, unearthing the savage
beauty within us, each truth a work of art.




In
the beginning, I was not much of an interrogator. I was still uncomfortable in
my man suit and did not yet appreciate the skill involved in harvesting
secrets. I was the youngest in my training platoon—still seventeen—on the
desert landscape of Fort Huachuca, Arizona, a place as alien as the moon after
growing up in a small town in Michigan.




Our
first training assignment was navigation. We were told that interrogators need
to be more certain of terrain than an Army scout. After you convince your
nervous subjects to open up, you chart their course backwards through time and
space to find their comrades, tanks, supply lines, and commanders.




Battles
could be won or lost based on an interrogator’s ability to navigate. I remember
racing with other trainees to find checkpoints in the heat and dust, armed with
a compass, canteen, and plastic-coated maps. I always made sure to finish near
the front of each race, choosing teammates with the smarts or speed to give me
some advantage.




This
exercise taught us how to read a map at a glance, sideways, upside down, and in
the dark. That way, when we culled the location of enemy units and compelled
our prisoners to jab at the map with dirty fingers, we knew where to send a
strike team. After a few weeks of navigation, each set of swirls on the map,
each hilltop was as unique as a smudged fingerprint. A ridge could be a
shivering spine. A valley was as distinctly endearing as a scar between the
nose and cheekbone. A dry riverbed might be a vein leading to the heart of the
matter. The real lesson, of course, was learning how to map the body.




My
own body was changing under the strains of a military regimen. I was voracious
and could not get enough food in the mess hall, and I was too keyed up to
sleep. We poured into the barracks each night like fish spawning over falls. I
slept with every female interrogator in my class who let me, beginning with a
brunette who climbed on top of me to lose her virginity and ending with a
lonely redhead who stole my phone card to call her boyfriend. I was learning to
control the world at a frightening and accelerating clip. I had a natural
intuition about people and a chip on my shoulder to prove my father wrong.




My
time in the Army was filled with war exercises, hobnobbing with commanding
officers and debriefing Russian defectors. I became a warrant officer at the
end of my second term and decided to return to Fort Huachuca to teach—my last
tour stop before joining the CIA. I was cocky for someone yet to see battle; my
powers of observation were bayonet-sharp.




I
could tell which of my trainees were worth a damn just by handing out maps, compasses,
and canteens. The best interrogators would size up their competition as much as
the environment. They were loners, even in a squad of smart alecks. By my
second class, I had moved all navigation to nighttime exercises to raise the
stakes and more easily separate those who were lost from those in control.




On
one exercise, I caught a pair of my students having sex. The yelps of the woman
betrayed them as her partner in crime thrust into her. She kept her arms in a
push-up position against a tree to keep her helmet from banging into the bark.
They saw me step into their clearing as they finished and pulled up their
pants, racing off before I could confront them. I was left with a conundrum:
inform the military or let it go?




In
the end, I left it up to fate. I informed my training platoon that two of them
had broken the code of military conduct and that they needed to interrogate
each other until the offenders were revealed. It took two weeks and a few hints
on my part, but the man finally broke down and confessed. He was transferred to
an infantry platoon, and my commander commended me on my using them for
training purposes. The woman went AWOL and I never heard what happened to her.
Perhaps she was caught when she came out of hiding to attend college, be
married, or obtain a credit card, or she stayed off the grid forever, a ghost.




I
never questioned my decision until I had sons of my own and thought about how a
youthful mistake could change the course of a life, or several lives. Truth
was, I had been arrogant, a victim of my cleverness. This woman would not be
the last person whose life I ruined as an interrogator.




*** *** ***

Norman Kross lowered his pen and
fastened the clasp on his leather journal. He’d begun the memoir, The
Interrogator’s Notebook, out of boredom. His early entries seemed more like
Dear Diary confessions, the jagged letters hooking stunted truths and letting
them writhe onto the page. Maybe he was just going crazy with a
once-distinguished career now in the crapper.




How
the hell did he, of all people, end up on the wrong side of the table?




The
rickety metal chair bit into his back as he studied the room’s exposed pipes,
peeling paint, and windowless interior. A damp smell reminded him of combat
boots after a day of humping through the brush. A yellow pad of paper and
ballpoint pen sat on a small folding table, prompting him to write a
confession. He’d been captured in an American museum with a French passport, a
diagram of the entrances and guards, and a packet of C4 residue. He was screwed.
Big time.




He
wanted absolutely nothing to do with the man who shoved the door to the room so
hard that it ricocheted and slammed against the back wall.




“This
is Rick—your worst nightmare,” the guard outside called out.




A
tall, muscular interrogator strode inside with the door quivering and shot his
prisoner eye daggers. This was the Silence technique, one that Norman had used
to great effect many times, though the knowledge of it did not help him. His
skin spilled sweat as though sliced, and wetness filled him inside and out.




Fifteen
minutes later, a second agent slid into the room—female, more commanding, with
a feral look in her eyes. She placed a mug of steaming black coffee on the
table.




“Now
you’ve gone and done it,” Rick taunted.




“This
is a mistake,” Norman said. Who knew what these two were capable of?




“Only
if you don’t talk,” the woman said tersely. “I’m Gretchen.”




“I
have nothing to say. I was framed.”




“Then
there’s no hope for you,” Rick said.




“If
you talk to us, I might be able to get you a lawyer instead of sending you
overseas to a prison you’ll never get out of,” Gretchen warned.




“What
was your target?” Rick pressed.




“You
don’t scare me,” Norman said. “I have rights.”




Rick’s
fist pounded the tabletop and overturned the mug. The hot coffee funneled along
a groove toward Norman’s seat.




“Don’t
you even think about moving!” Rick commanded, pounding his fist. The coffee’s
course along the scarred varnish surged forward. “I’ll set fire to you like you
terrorists did to the World Trade Center.”




“I
can’t control him,” Gretchen said. “He lost his brother on 9/11.”




Norman
stared at the expanding black puddle, which threatened to pull him into the
darkness. Was this what he deserved for the questionable things he had done as
an interrogator? His hands started to shake.




“Who
the hell do you work for?” Gretchen asked.




“It’s
a nice day for a barbecue,” Rick said.




“You’ve
got to help me help you,” Gretchen almost pleaded.




“You’ll
burn in hell.” Rick sneered.




The
first drips of coffee dribbled onto his pants. Rick picked up the table end and
slammed it to the ground again and again. Norman knew that they were being
monitored, but a shiver still went down his spine. These two were on the verge
of getting out of control.




Rick
growled, lifting the table as high as he could. The hot black stream flowed
onto Norman’s lap and he whimpered. Rick let go, and the table came crashing
down.




“Last
chance. Who do you work for?” Gretchen barked, her nose inches from his.




Norman
burst out of his chair and swooped up the pen from the puddle on the floor,
where it had fallen. He gripped it like a knife and propelled himself toward
Rick, his flushed face now ashen. Gretchen shrieked. Norman stabbed down at the
tablet on the floor as he carved out the name of his cell leader.




The
puddle of coffee drenched his knees, and he wailed as though he had lost a son.
He stared up into the camera and milked every moment for the group of student
interrogators. He wanted them to face their fears and themselves.

*** *** ***

“What the hell do you think you were
doing in there?” Kevin Vail admonished as though Norman were a naughty student
in their basic interrogation course.




Norman
did not look up from the desk given to him by a former ambassador to Russia.
Instead, he calmly addressed his fellow instructor. “Kevin, please come in and
take a seat.”




“I
asked you a question.”




“OK,
then. Stand if it suits you.”




“I
will.”




Finally,
Norman cocked his head and almost burst out laughing. His agitated colleague
rocked on the heels of his cheap leather shoes. Everything, from his lanky
build and pasty skin to the eye rings and cheap haircut, was the result of too
much time indoors with men serious about the wrong things. “Don’t you think
this is funny?”




“What
are you going on about?” Kevin was one of those Anglophiles who mixed in lingo
with decidedly American pronunciation.




“How
poorly you’re interrogating me,” Norman said matter-of-factly. “Of all people,
you should see the irony.”




“I’m
trying to have a conversation, mate. I’m trying to do my job.”

His
job. What was that exactly? They both taught workshops for a corporation called
Night Guard that provided training for private armies, security guards, and
interrogators. Although the name might very well have been used for an underarm
deodorant or feminine hygiene product, their services were no joke. The
“teachers” doubled as elite squads that could be purchased for the right price
and with complete anonymity.




“Do
you think I might have a second career as an actor?” Norman asked.




“Jesus,
you’re daft,” Kevin spouted angrily. “The protocol is there for a reason. Can’t
you take this seriously?”




Norman
turned his sea-green eyes, inherited from his Norwegian mother, toward Kevin.
“I’m deadly serious.” His father had always had called them witch eyes, and
Norman knew they were a weapon in his arsenal. The two men pushed their
eye-bulbs into each other’s grill, and disdain radiated from Kevin’s face. Who
could blame the guy? Norman was being an ass. No wonder so few of the staff
liked working with him.




Kevin
blinked first. “I’m going to have to report this incident.”




“Is
that what this is about?”




“As
instructors, we have an obliga—”




Norman
cut him off. “Were you scared for me?”




“Scared
of the paperwork I’d have to do if you got in a tussle.”




“Or
a donnybrook,” Norman teased, but it went over Kevin’s head. The blowhard was
completely unaware of how odd the English expressions sounded in his residual
Bostonian accent.




“This
isn’t funny, Norman. What do you think Lawrence would do to us if we got sued?”




“To
me … nothing. He has insurance,” Norman said carefully. “And me for a friend.”




“Are
you threatening me?”




“If
I were threatening you, Kevin, it would be more serious, such as, I know people
who could make you disappear off the face of the earth.”




“You’re
a real bastard. This isn’t a game.”




“It
isn’t?” Norman dipped his pen into a chipped mug labeled “World’s Greatest
Cad,” a white elephant holiday gift he received not long after he’d joined the
staff. Maybe it was from Kevin. “You mean there aren’t winners and losers?”




“People’s
lives are at stake here.”




“Exactly
right. Which is why I’m trying to push these trainees hard now, so they won’t
make mistakes down the line.”




“You
mean, like the mistakes you’ve made?” Kevin asked.




“Who’s
the bastard now?”




Kevin
didn’t answer; he just gave Norman a self-satisfied smirk, turned on his heels,
and left him in his office to brood. What the hell? This was no way for
instructors to act. Maybe Norman was damaged goods after being an interrogator
for so long and was lashing out from his frustration with teaching others with
far less talent. He’d heard the typical stories of athletes and artists, once
at the top of their professions, who viewed teaching as a shared form of
torture. He knew he was a difficult man in the best of times, and his current
moodiness was becoming a burden to everyone around him.




His
bombshell Russian wife, her volatile violinist father, and his two headstrong
sons stared at him from their framed family holiday photo. What did it say
about him that he wasn’t in it? He could easily chalk it up to traveling on
business, but this year that would no longer be the case. Did his family like
having him around now that he wasn’t traveling to the four corners of the globe
dissecting the truth for agencies with capital letters for names and lengthy
titles and operating procedures?

Death
still surrounded him, even in retirement. He felt the presence of Howard
Hughes, whose ghost watched over the building rented from the millionaire’s
long-dying company. Norman paced over to the window and swept his hand along a
wall with lead shielding. His workstation was formerly used to develop military
hardware and was designed to block Soviet spy gear.




He
looked out over the Boeings, Raytheons, and space weapons facilities
surrounding the airport in southwestern Los Angeles in a nexus of concrete and
spidery overpasses. Smoke spewed from the oceanside oil refinery and water
treatment facility in nearby El Segundo. Businessmen descended from airplanes
at LAX into a wasteland of dilapidated strip bars and aging Cold War complexes
with windows sealed to prevent the downtrodden from jumping.




He
spritzed Rogaine onto his scalp from a canister he kept behind AF Manual 64-3,
which outlined survival behind enemy lines. He patted the moisture into his
balding blond mop and returned the plastic container to its hiding place. He
did not need the window’s reflection to know that his close-cropped cut hid the
tinge of gray around his ears, or that the gel formed a helmet of hair to
distract from the thinning, or that his boyish good looks now stood on an
unwatched precipice. His retirement had driven him to odd quirks and a
discontent unlike any he’d known since boyhood in Alpena, a town known for its cement
plant, the syrupy stench from the wood pulp plant, and drunken fathers.

He
strolled out to reception, knowing full well that Lawrence had already left him
a cryptic message on his cell last night about meeting for happy hour. This was
just for show, as Kevin sat out in cubicle land, within earshot.




“Norman,
Lawrence wants to confirm tonight’s appointment,” Andrea said. Their current
administrative assistant was an anorexic workout addict who dated one of the
security squad members on the lower floors.




“Where?”




“The
Orient Express at six. You’re going to have to give me the skinny on that place
tomorrow.”




“Why?”
Norman asked, watching Kevin rustle across the aisle in his cramped workstation
with a sliding glass door like a cheap motel shower.




“Because
everyone wants to get in that place, silly. You have to be an A-lister.”

“So
I am,” Norman said, winking first at Andrea and then at Kevin as he made his
way to the first of the metal detectors and checkpoints in the facility. When
it came to security or secrets, Lawrence Michaels just wasn’t fucking around.




*** *** ***

Of course, Lawrence was late. Norman
shifted uncomfortably at a corner table in the Hollywood bar—a spot he’d chosen
so that he could people-watch—and took in his surroundings. The Orient Express
was austerely outfitted with train paraphernalia and photographs of
locomotives. The tables were bench style, with shiny vinyl checkerboard
veneers. Light fixtures spaced at regular distances beamed eye darts at him
from the reflection in the room-length bar mirror. Liquor bottles were stacked
along the gleaming oak shelves so evenly, reminding Norman of tiny soldiers in
formation.




The
owner, Phil, tended to his customers personally and mixed drinks that he
thought they should have—never what they asked for. This was part of the Orient
Express’s mystique. It was infrequently open and almost impossible to get into
and you could not choose your own poison. This combination had caused Phil to
toss and blacklist more than one celebrity who took umbrage with their
preselected cocktail. Beer and wine were not even options.




Norman’s
dark Puerto Rican rum and Coke was hitting the spot, and he had appreciated the
Rusty Nail Phil had made for a pair of bra models, as well as the owner’s
assertion that it would put hair on their chests. He was convinced that he
would have recognized more of the clientele if he were interested in more than
just the news, science, and history channels on television.




Footsteps
approached the table, the staccato rhythm of leather shoes signaling expensive
bodyguards. This could only mean one visitor—the owner of Night Guard, a Cold
War author who had reinvented himself as a patriot the same way Norman had
tried to as a teacher. Lawrence Michaels appeared in the main bar as an optical
illusion, filling the doorway at distance with his six-foot-five frame. His
shape was vaguely oval but not flabby, built up by a cadre of personal trainers
and rounded by his indulgence in French cuisine, Spanish wine, Cuban cigars,
and all-night poker binges. He dressed himself in multipiece suits like combat
armor, his impressive height and girth gliding through the world like one of
the vessels he wrote about in his once-famous military suspense novels. And
just like those dramatic atomic submarines or battleships, he had the potential
of leaving wreckage in the wake of a legendary temper.




Lawrence’s
press was often blown out of proportion. Norman appreciated his boss’s quick
wit and self-deprecation enough to overlook his boasting and moodiness. Lawrence
was an honest jackass, at least, which meant a lot to someone who had spent a
career hammering away at subterfuge. They had a friendship based on mutual
admiration, hidden pains, and bruised egos they smoothed over with boasting.
Lawrence instructed his bodyguards to fish him a drink and joined Norman at the
table.




“How
are the memoirs going?” Lawrence asked.




“I’m
not certain if they’re memoirs or a how-to book.”




“On
how to be a son of a bitch?”




“No.
Those would be your memoirs.”




“If
I ever wrote them, I think they’d have to label it fiction.”




Norman
laughed. “We all lie to ourselves.”




“Perhaps
some more than others,” Lawrence said. “Perhaps us more than most.”

Nowhere
was the distinction between truth and lies more blurred than in Hollywood.
While the political maneuvering behind the conflicts Norman had worked in
behind the scenes came a close second, it was second nature in entertainment to
build a story that cast the teller as hero in a tale of his own control. This
illusion was based on the fickleness of fame and connections with others
seeking the same. That did not mean the drama was any less real.




At
the bar, a haggard scarecrow of a man intercepted Lawrence’s cocktail and
walked it over. His eyes were like a cup of strong coffee drained too many
times through the same filter. His salt-and-pepper beard, slow movements, and
black suit and tie made it seem like he was in a black-and-white film from
another era.

“Hello,
Lawrence. Hope you like White Russians,” the man said with a voice like a kettledrum,
measured and deep.




“Owen,
why don’t you join us?”




“Fancy
meeting you here,” the man said, his tone rising even as he lowered his body
into a chair. Owen clutched a bulging manila envelope in his right hand the way
he would a child’s hand when crossing the street. It was clear that this was no
chance meeting. Lawrence had staged it. Owen’s puffy eyes, bruised voice, and
medicated movements hinted at someone in mourning.




“So,
Lawrence, are you going to cut to the chase and tell me who it is you want me
to interrogate?” Norman asked, downing his drink and letting the warmth fill
his belly. “Your friend needs help—the kind men like us provide.”




With
a shaking hand, Owen slid the envelope over to Norman. “He’ll do.”

Lawrence
beamed proudly. “I told you he’s the best.”




“He’s
going to have to be. The police cleared that bastard of all charges.”




Norman
already had a few questions but knew that he had to tread carefully.

“His
daughter’s name was Natasha Arnold,” Lawrence said softly. “And he thinks—”




“The
asshole killed her. Somehow. I don’t know how.”




Norman
recalled the news coverage from that infamous Fourth of July party, where the
daughter of famous horror director Owen Arnold had been found floating facedown
in a character actor’s pool.




“The
asshole is George Stark,” Lawrence said. “We want you to interrogate him.”




There it was—a name like a superhero in hiding. Stark had been investigated and
cleared of charges. The autopsy ruling had been accidental death from her
having downed too many sleeping pills and drinks and then slipping into the
water from a poolside chair.




Owen
looked Norman over and asked, “Are you a parent?”




“Yes,”
Norman said.




“Good.
Then you’ll understand that no father should stay up at night wondering if his
baby was murdered.”




For
once, words escaped Norman. What do you say to something as raw as this?




Owen
buried his forehead in his palm and muttered, “Thank you,” before stumbling to
his feet. The director shuffled outside, his monochromatic exit followed by
other patrons who obviously knew him and his story. There was a buzz in the
place.




“Why
the stunt, Lawrence?” Norman asked.




“I
had to find out for myself.”




“What?”




“If
Madrid had made you lose your edge,” Lawrence said.

“It
made me quit working as a freelancer, didn’t it?”

“It’s
not as bad as you think.”

“I
think a lot of people died,” Norman said.

Lawrence
paused and took a long sip from his White Russian. “I’ve been told I have
expensive tastes. I think you’re one of them.”

“I’ve
been worth every penny, every peso, every ruble.”

“True
enough … in the past.”

“What
does that mean?”

“What
do you think it means?” Lawrence shot back.

“Don’t
go passive-aggressive on me when you’re aggressive-aggressive with everyone
else.”

“Jesus,
Norman, aren’t you sick of babysitting yet?”

“You
mean teaching? I told Vera that I retired from being an interrogator.”

“Did
she ask you to stop?”

“No.
She asked me to be happy.”

Lawrence
slapped his enormous hands together, and the clang from military insignia rings
echoed for dramatic effect. “She might as well ask you to be prince of the
fairies.”

“I
think Peter Pan has that gig.”

“Hmm.
All that lad wanted to do was to thrash the bad guy and hang out with his posse
… just like you will on your new assignment.”




“I’m
too old for this.”




“Bullshit!
You’re experienced, like me.”




Norman
shook his head. “I messed up.”




“Stop
feeling sorry for yourself. This is the perfect rebound case for you. I need
this, Norman. I need to get back in with the Hollywood crowd.”




Lawrence’s
spy novels had sold fewer and fewer copies, and none of the past several had
been made into films.




“And
you need to send your boys to college,” Lawrence continued. “My instructors all
have to be working interrogators. You know that it’s the only way for us to
land government contracts.”




There
was no subterfuge here. Norman’s teaching gigs obviously came with strings,
favors he would need to perform to keep the checks coming in.




“You
can be a real dick sometimes,” Norman said.




“C’mon,
it’s not like I’m putting you in a war zone. Besides, Owen’s a friend.”

“You
mean you have friends not on your payroll?”




Lawrence
chuckled. “That’s better. We’ll put that razor tongue of yours to better use
than on the poor students in class.”




“You
heard about my last session?”




“Kevin
called to complain.”






“No
surprise there.”




“I’ve
got your back if you have mine,” Lawrence said.




“Tell
you what: I’ll look at the case file tonight and give you a buzz,” Norman
promised. “In the meantime, would you do me a favor?”




“Why
do I have the feeling this is going to cost me?”




“Only
someone’s pride. Assign me as the lead workshop instructor tomorrow. I think
it’s best to let Kevin watch a real pro at work for a few days until he gets
his nerve back.”




“I’m
glad I’m not your enemy,” Lawrence said and gave him a nod of affirmation. He
chuckled and pointed his callused index finger outward. A pen. A gun. A
handshake. He poked his finger against the scar on Norman’s temple, which was
as intimate as the two men ever got.




Lawrence
pulled a quill out of his coat, scrawled Norman’s name on the manila envelope
in a spastic cursive, and slid it over. His boss had purchased the quill from
Samuel Clemens’s estate. The writing tool was out of place in the twenty-first
century. Norman couldn’t help but notice the similarities between them—they
both were more comfortable with earlier times and quietly worried about
impressing others, even as they desired control over the world around them.
Lawrence’s passion had moved his empire building from books to movies to
private organizations like Night Guard. Norman’s own passion had become a lump
in his shoe.




“Call
me tonight after you’ve read the dossier and get your groove back,” Lawrence
said, finishing his drink, nodding at Phil, and heading for the entrance with
his bodyguards in tow.




The
folder felt cold and unnaturally heavy. Norman could feel the obsession of a
new case growing inside him, the dark seed taking root in the recesses of his
reptilian brain.




Lawrence
departed with a salute, and Norman felt a buzzing in his pants pocket. He
pulled out his phone and examined the cracked face. Vera had texted him as she
often did after work, when he got lost driving around Los Angeles,
contemplating the serpentine existences inside those rolling metal cages.




The
message was simple, without a smiley face or LOL. Two words: Game night.




*** *** ***

Not even a home-cooked meal could
take away the sting of the day, the argument with his fellow instructor, the
dossier stashed in his safe next to his notebook, and the feeling that he was
carrying secrets with him that could spread like a virus to his entire family.
How did he expect to be close to his wife and boys when he was locking a part
of himself away?




“Why
do you always get to be Colonel Mustard?” Paul asked, the elder son pulling on
the frayed sleeves of the Mellow Felon T-shirt he wore everywhere to advertise
his rock band.




Before
Norman could answer, his father-in-law, Ari the Elder, spat out, “Because he’s
a military asshole!” from in front of the television.




His
younger son, Ari, snorted, even though he and his grandfather shared little
else besides their names and the intensity of their expressions. Vera hissed at
her father and passed out the Clue cards on the coffee table she’d collaged and
varnished that summer with old National Geographic and Smithsonian
photographs. Paul shared his cards with his girlfriend, Corazon, a Filipino
punk-rock princess who spent most of her waking hours with them. Norman didn’t
really mind. Their two-story Spanish-style Silver Lake home had tall ceilings
and felt spacious even with his father-in-law bunking in a converted pantry off
their sun porch.




“Are
you hungry?” Vera asked him, having noticed how he had picked at his lamb at
dinner while draining several glasses of wine.




“Not
with you here.” Norman flirted even as three teenagers’ eyes rolled. Vera
smiled, her mischievous eyes, full lips, and lithe body still taking his breath
away after two decades. They’d been introduced in the nation’s Capitol when
he’d interviewed her father at the request of the NSA. The violinist had been
corresponding with a military relative in Moscow and had gotten flagged on a
random mail check. The letters back and forth were bizarrely coded, or else
garbled in complex emotions. Ari was haughty throughout the lengthy
interrogation. He claimed that an accomplished artist should be above reproach.
Vera, just home from Oxford, had been visiting her family. She served them tea,
cracked jokes, and buffered the tension.




After
Ari was cleared of charges, Norman used her father’s seat in the DC
Philharmonic as an excuse to check up on him … and her. On their first date
together, they ended up in bed. Vera told him later that she had confided
secrets to him that night she’d never shared with anyone before—how she used to
sneak peeks of her parents playing instruments without clothes, her first
sexual encounter with a famous conductor, the anger that had caused her to slap
a former friend after the minx had stolen her boyfriend.




To
gain her trust, Norman had shared private details about his own beast of a
father, his boyhood in Michigan, his mother’s death, and the loneliness of his
career in intelligence. It was one of the tricks of his trade, and yet it was
he who had been lost that night and the years following.




“Your
turn, moy volk,” Vera said, nicknaming him after the Russian animal that
most suited him according to her mood. So now he was a wolf? Probably not too
far from the truth, as he rarely lost board games and was particularly skilled
at Clue, which pissed off the boys to no end.




Norman
rolled the bones and took in the game play. Out of habit, he took advantage of
his location in the room. He leaned into the sofa with his back to the setting
sun, which aimed knives of lights into the eyes of the other contestants. He
barely listened to the idle chitchat about high school, Paul’s recent
triumphant gig, Ari’s even more triumphant play tryout, Corazon’s angry father
who swore in Taglish on her cell phone, Vera’s account of the close vote on the
international cookbook of the month on her favorite new blog.




Corazon
kept a close watch on his movements, but Norman had an advantage he wasn’t
about to share. Whenever his family made a guess and was shown a card, Norman
observed which quadrant of their checklist was marked. He also kept track of
the pattern of guesses, which tended to tell which items had been crossed off
their list. He could keep the details in his head as easily as those in a
dossier. Norman still retained almost total recall, an unfair advantage in
marriage, friendships, and board games.




Before
long, he’d solved most of the puzzle. He knew that the blowhard Professor Plum
had hung his victim, but it took him a few turns to isolate where. When it was
his turn, he stood and pronounced, “Professor Plum was a bitter man who one day
took his most promising student into his billiard room for a game. The young
man was so intent on aiming at the eight ball that he didn’t notice the rope
sliding around his neck. The professor won his game, just like I have.”




Norman
smiled as his exasperated family confirmed the results.




“You
cheated,” Ari said.




Vera
sighed. “Don’t be a poor sport.”




“He
had to have cheated. Because I was cheating and I still didn’t beat him. There
weren’t enough moves for him to narrow it down so quickly.”




“Luck?”
Norman suggested.




“Looks
like you can be lucky in cards … and in love,” Vera said.




“Bull,”
Ari said.




“Watch
your mouth, squirt,” Paul said, rubbing in the fact that he was not just older,
a high school senior to the freshman, but that he was almost a full head
taller, broader in the shoulders, and more confident. Paul, although named for
his mother’s fisherman grandfather, looked more like his violinist grandfather
with the sharp, dark features from their Russian-Jewish heritage. Ari was a
blond-haired miniature version of Norman and his mother’s side of the family.
Norman didn’t hit his final growth spurt until he was sixteen, so he had a
pretty good idea of the teasing that Ari must be getting—at home and in school.




“C’mon,
boys, easy now,” Corazon mocked in a surprisingly apt imitation of Norman.




“It’s
part of his strategy to make everyone fight,” Ari the Elder called out. “Look
at how often Vera and I argue.”




“That’s
because you’re ungrateful,” Vera said.




“Don’t
forget mean and ornery,” Norman added.







“I’d
like to change the game to something else,” Ari said. “How about Euchre?”




Norman
grinned. He’d gotten his family hooked on the card game almost everyone in his
small Michigan hometown played. They’d also adopted his penchant for fresh-picked
berries and beer-battered fish.




“There
are too many people,” Vera said. “I can sit out.”




Norman
rubbed her arm just above the elbow in a place he’d found drove her to
distraction. “Let me. I have work to do for a lecture tomorrow morning.”




“Don’t
let him fool you. He just wants to sneak away to his man cave,” Ari the Elder
muttered.




Before
he could get an earful from Vera, he grabbed the remote and turned up the
volume on a news story abuzz with reports of a subway bombing. It was El Mar,
the Madrid terrorist group named after “the all-powerful, righteous, and
dangerous sea,” or so their leader had said from behind a blue mask in the
now-famous videotaped recording. The group had taken responsibility for the
subway bombing beneath Plaza de España that had killed more than a dozen
soldiers, police officers, and commuters.




Norman
stood, mesmerized by the grainy image of smoke and debris, the horrified faces
in the crowd, and the caption: Infamous Terrorist Group Strikes Again.
Vera glanced at him worriedly, but he waved halfheartedly to his family to go
on without him as he disappeared into his den.




*** *** ***




The floor safe in the den yawned
open at Norman’s ankles. Inside was the dossier that Lawrence had handed him, The
Interrogator’s Notebook, a few old passports, and a Taser. He secretly kept
things from his family—that much the old goat Ari was right about—but what was
he supposed to do? They would never understand the circuitous path to truth
that he and his government sometimes traveled. The safe that stored his secrets
was like a metal mouth, threatening to clamp on and never let go.




He
reached in past the tumblers, pulled out the manila folder, and slid a rubber
band off a dossier that had been prepared by one of the top
private-investigation firms in LA. He hadn’t completely lied to Vera; he did
have a presentation for his class tomorrow, but that preparation would have to
wait until he’d had a chance to plumb the case file.




He
examined the heartbreaking photograph of Natasha Arnold. She looked like a pale
angel floating facedown in the pool. No one knew who had snapped the photo or
provided it to the tabloids, but it was the most dramatic case Hollywood had
seen in years.




The
police had found Ecstasy, cocaine, and alcohol in her system. B-list actor
George Stark, who’d played the role of an annoying guy in a least two dozen
major releases, had claimed ignorance of what she’d been doing throughout the
evening. A grand jury had refused to indict him, even though Owen Arnold had
pressured the police to dig up more evidence. Accidental death had been the
final verdict, and the case had been closed.




Norman
pulled out the victim’s diary, a pink journal with Hello Kitty stickers,
something a teenage girl might take to the mall rather than a chronicle of a
grown woman’s final thoughts. Norman read a passage at random: George made
me feel like I wore an invisibility cloak. He would track me by the sound of my
voice and footsteps, but he didn’t recognize my body, even when he possessed
it.




Natasha
had kept a journal just like he did, and it was filled with a messy jagged
pain. Norman knew from these few words that he was hooked.




He
called Lawrence and asked, “What if the actor refuses to talk to me?”




“Then
you’re not the interrogator that I think you are. Owen told me something
interesting about the guy that can help you.”




“What?”




“Aside
from being a twisted prick, Stark has this delusion that he is a
once-in-a-generation character actor. He studies for future roles by spending
time with deep, dark, twisted souls.”




“Are
you talking about me?” Norman asked. “How sweet.”




“Owen
thinks this nut job will want to talk to you.”




Norman
frowned. “Why in God’s name would he do that?”




“To
see how you tick. Not long before she died, Natasha told her father that Stark
got a kick out of mocking her with her own words.”




“Just
about every actor worth a damn in this town is crazy. Does Owen really think
that Stark is a killer?”




Lawrence
paused. “I don’t know. His daughter dated him for a while until he got a few
roles from her father’s connections. It wasn’t long after that that he dumped
her for some other starlet.”




“If
being phony were a crime,” Norman said, “we’d be filming every Hollywood
blockbuster out of the state pen.”




“It’s
more than that. Rumors on the set say this guy has a nasty temper.”

“But
no police record.”




“That’s
why we called you in, Norman. Stark has an answer for everything—all of it
glib. Owen wants to find out the truth, even if this bastard is beyond
prosecution.”




“This
isn’t about revenge, is it?”




“What
if it is?” Lawrence asked. “You’ll do the right thing here. I have confidence
in you.”




This
confidence was something that Norman used to share. He’d had a high opinion of
himself stemming from a long string of successes and had been completely taken
off guard when his interrogation of the El Mar cell leader had gone south.
Homeland Security thought that this prisoner would be the key to bringing down
the whole organization. The only thing was that Norman’s overconfidence had led
to the prisoner’s death and the US Embassy’s being blown up by a truck bomb the
next day.




He
could have stopped the blast, saved those lives. His self-imposed exile had
started while on the flight home. Now Lawrence was asking him to put himself
back in the game. Sure, the risks seemed low enough. A father’s peace of mind …
he probably had enough in him for that. Maybe he could find redemption for the
fallen soldiers, his wreckage of a career, and keep himself together long
enough to send his boys to college and retire with Vera in a style that she and
her father were accustomed to.




“OK,
you bastard. I’ll do it,” Norman said. “I’ll talk to the actor tomorrow. We’ll
probably never know the truth if he clams up.”

“My
friend, I know you’ll succeed, no matter the obstacles.”

Or
the cost . Norman hung up the receiver and
began sifting through the pink journal and the remains of a young woman’s life.







LESSON 2




Confessions of an Interrogator




A secret as large as killing a man
is difficult to keep. Sin is ingrained in us from childhood, even for those who
do not believe in God. So is redemption. One thing Americans love more than
heroes are rehabilitated heroes. Sure, we may whisk foreign citizens away to
secret prisons and torture them, but afterwards we recast ourselves as the
penitent warriors. For these acts, we confess our sins to the world and expect
a second chance to present itself.




An
interrogator’s confessional is more introspective and gradual. In the pages of
this notebook, my past rises to the surface—first fin, then shark. Am I a
patriot? A blunt instrument? Selfless or selfish? Before you cast judgment,
first imagine what it is like to have the power to absolve men of sins or damn
them.




Part
interrogator, part clergyman, I wield forgiveness in one hand and a .45-caliber
lightning bolt in the other. Like a priest, I am a conduit of a higher power,
the pistols on the belts of my guards no less potent because I ensure that they
are unloaded. After all, it’s the symbol of damnation that I want. The similarities
between a pistol and a cross are striking—both can be used for torture and
kissed in an act of contrition.






Copyright © 2013 by Martin Ott. All
rights reserved.





No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.
























The Interrogator's Notebook

by Martin Ott

Interrogator's table turns on him.