Plight of the Transformer A fantastical novelette by Cheeseburger Brown

CHAPTERS 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8

1/8

Banks are banks are banks; tellers are tellers are tellers.

Unless, of course, one has a special relationship. It's at this point that we require a modicum of guile, craft and -- yes, even -- art. Where there's a special relationship it can be difficult to judge which details have become fixed in the client's mind: a habitually chewed fingernail, a particular flick of the eyes, a predictable lilt when speaking certain phrases, standing out against others dulled by repetition...

"Can I help the next customer in line, please?"

I was in Geneva. The weather was unseasonably brisk, a coolness that seemed to be intensified by the cold marble columns and intricately tiled, ice shiny floor of the opulent old bank on Rue de Montbrillant.

The frescoes were eighteenth century, Baroque revival. Gorgeous.

Swiss reserve contained the clientele, keeping them as aloof and cool as the ancient fixtures and the faces in the friezes. They did not chat amongst themselves. The prim dotards clutched their handbags, the slick executives held their a la mode briefcases, the servants and secretaries on their masters' business stood as still and lifeless as robots. There were no children.

Someone quietly coughed. It echoed.

Today it was my habit to hang my hat at a sixty degree angle from the left-most hook on the stand. Today it was my habit to fold my overcoat in quarters before tucking it under the counter. Today it was my habit to scratch the side of my nose whenever I felt that anyone was looking directly at me.

I rolled open the interlocked mesh of steel foil that curtained my telling window, then turned over the three-faced sign that advertised my availability. One of my oldest and most trusted customers approached immediately, ducking around the shuffling ancients. I smiled, and scratched at my nose.

"Goodmorning, Monsieur Beyda. How does the day find you?"

"Excellent, Monsieur Camenzind, thank you very much. How are your children?"

"Splendid," I told him. "Quite splendid indeed, monsieur."

"Good, good, good," he replied with a polite chuckle. He placed a black leather attache case on the counter and dialed in the combination to release the catches. "I'd like to move some funds around today, as we discussed. Have the proper forms come in?"

"Yes, monsieur, I have everything ready."

"There were no difficulties?"

"None at all, monsieur."

"Excellent."

I watched him as he arranged his papers behind the shield of the case's lid. His face was lined by laughter, crinkled about the corners of the eyes and mouth, etchings of jokes past. Though serious in an appropriately Swiss manner he struck me as a light-hearted man -- friendly, genial, quick to forgive. He was perhaps a few years older than myself, just beginning to go grey at the temples. His nails were clipped close, groomed smooth. His clothes were fine, designed by well-known names and fitted by well-known tailors.

There was nothing about him that would cause one to suspect the blood on his hands. There was no single detail that gave him away as a mass-murderer, a crazed political zealot, an ideological monster.

He seemed nice.

"I'll need your signature here, monsieur, and here," I said, sliding a form across the counter and indicating the lines for autography. He held the pen in his right hand, but was obviously left-handed -- the product of a classical education. Private tutoring in his home kingdom, no doubt.

"There," he pronounced, sliding the paper back at me.

I swivelled my computer monitor toward me and tapped at the keys. "Yes, yes," I said, affecting a pensive frown. "And now the destination passcodes, if you will, monsieur."

"Of course."

He unfolded a slip of crisp, off-white paper and pushed it toward me. I looked at it over the top of my bifocals as I entered the numbered strings into the system, stabbing the Enter key with a flourish at the end of each line. "Will you be visiting Syria this winter?" I asked carelessly.

"Naturally. And you, Giles -- you'll be taking the family to Aix-en-Provence?"

I nodded. "Quite so, monsieur. For my daughters it is the highlight of the Christmas holiday. They clamour for the lime springs. You've not been, monsieur, have you?"

"No, I have never been."

"Fair enough, monsieur, for I have never come to Syria."

"If you did, you would have my hospitality."

"You're very gracious, monsieur."

Similar conversations flowed through the other windows: the courteous banter of false friendship, the pleasantries of familiar strangers. This was the background bedding to the muttered formalities necessitated by the business to be done -- money to be wired to irresponsible sons at university, money shifted to satisfy the demands of taxation or the evasion thereof, money to refurbish the home or repair an automobile, money locked in travellers' cheques for travel, money funneled through a network of holding companies to finance the unspeakably merciless work of ideologue-butchers...

"It is done,mMonsieur," I said, looking up. "Would you care for a paper receipt?"

"Yes, please."

He slipped it into his attache case and then snapped closed the lid. "I cannot thank you enough for your assistance in this matter, Giles," he said. "The brothership is grateful."

"I am only too glad to help, monsieur. Is there anything else I can do for you this morning?"

"No, no, thank you. I have other matters that require my attention." He inclined his head in a slight bow. "Do take care, Monsieur Camenzind."

I bowed my head in turn. "And you, Monsieur Beyda. Until the next time."

"Until then."

As he pushed through the doors into the bright autumn day I rotated my sign to indicate my non-availability, then drew down the curtain on my window. The teller to my right frowned. "Is there something wrong, Giles?"

"Not at all," I replied with a wan smile. "I simply have...matters that require my attention."

"But you cannot close your window now. There are clients."

"Yes, of course," I said, putting on my hat and draping my coat over my arm. "I shall return presently."

"Monsieur Richelieu will be furious."

I stepped out from behind the counter and nodded in a friendly way to the queue of customers as I crossed the polished floor. I opened the door and stepped out to meet a breezy mix of exhaust, perfume and autumnal rot. I crossed the street and boarded a tram, then watched the bank slide away behind me forever.

As the tram jostled along, dinging its bell and shrieking on the turns, I gradually began to relax. I allowed Giles Camenzind's characteristic posture to ebb from my shoulders as I stood up straighter, stretching my arms beneath my suit. I loosened my tie and took a deep breath.

Idly, I wondered how long it would be before the bank received word of the whereabouts of the real Giles Camenzind. Indeed, M. Richelieu would be furious -- and bewildered, to be sure.

As should be clear to you by now, I am not Giles Camenzind.

I am a craftsman, a professional. I am an artist, my services for hire. I follow a hallowed tradition informed and augmented by modern tools in order to do my duty for the Crown. At any time, I am any man. My trade is deceit.

I am a transformer.

2/8

Castles are castles are castles.

They are boxes for the well disposed, should order fail. There is a certain pessimism inherent in the architecture: a castle stands in wait of attack. Its defenses are at worst ornamental references, in desperation starkly functional, and in the best of circumstances a sleight-of-light combination of the two.

My car meandered through the Home Park. I sat in the back. The driver had a boil on the back of his neck. Through the windscreen I watched Windsor Castle crest the horizon, banners limp in the still October morning.

Tourists queued by the King Henry VIII Gateway in their garish T-shirts and fluorescent hip-sacks, taking photographs and movies of one another while sipping soda pop through straws. Some turned to watch as we passed, squinting at their own reflections in the tinted windows. In another moment they were behind. We drew up to the Norman Gate entrance along the family's reserved path, slowing at the guard-house.

The driver's window hummed as it sank into the door. "Mr. Tennyson Smith, on appointment," he said.

The guard in grey, expressionless, checked his register and then nodded curtly beneath his tall black hat, gesturing to continue with an impeccably white glove.

I crossed the Upper Ward's quadrangle alone. The ground was soft from rain, the sky heavy and leaden. Brown birds scattered before me, then fluttered back down in my wake to resume hunting worms from the squelch.

I felt weightless. I always do, when I am myself. The occasions are always brief, but I enjoy them: I feel nude.

In the mirrors lining the family's private hall I caught sight of a stranger wearing the fair tweed suit from the very back of my wardrobe. I knew him vaguely from old photographs. In the man's aquiline profile I can recall myself as a careless boy, as a braggart teen, as a young officer...

It can be unsettling to forget your own face.

The chief steward showed me to an anteroom with tall windows overlooking the East Terrace from which the last residues of the morning fog were still burning off, diaphanous tendrils snaking between the low hills in search of shadow. I stood with my back to the door until patient, familiar footfalls drew near.

I turned, simultaneously bowing my head. "Your Majesty," I said.

"Mr. Smith," she replied. "Do sit down."

"Thank you, ma'am."

We each took a short sofa beneath a towering Rembrandt in a gilded frame, its many layers seeming to glow from between the glazes of coloured oil applied masterfully in the style of Da Vinci's sfumato. As I admired the painting a silver tea service was wheeled in by a lesser steward. The settings clinked as she arranged our cups. Upon her retreat we drew breath to begin our conversation.

"The Swiss affair has been resolved to our satisfaction," said the Sovereign as she cradled her steaming cup between her hands. "I should thank you for your role, Mr. Smith."

"No thanks are necessary, ma'am. It is my privilege to serve."

"Of course," she acknowledged, regarding her tea. "Never the less, we should not wish to take talents such as yours for granted, Mr. Smith. I feel obliged to share with you that MI6 has strongly petitioned to have you enrolled."

"A compliment, to be sure."

"Quite. I trust such prospects would not appeal to you, however."

"I have not changed my mind, ma'am, though you indulge my preference at your discretion."

The Sovereign gave me a brief, tight smile and then set aside her cup. I set mine aside, too. She said, "I must ask something of you, Mr. Smith."

"Please, ma'am."

"I must ask something of you that may fall outside the purview of your usual missions. I do so reluctantly, but inspired by great need. It has never been my wish to expose you unnecessarily to danger."

"I accept risk as my duty, ma'am."

"Indeed, Mr. Smith, and gallantly. However, in the scenario I am about to describe you would be obliged to operate independently. That is to say, Mr. Smith, that this is a solo assignment -- without support, and without any sort of the usual protections."

I hesitated, my mouth dry. I took a deep breath to sustain my stiff upper lip. "Am I to return to Iraq, ma'am?"

"No, Mr. Smith," she replied gravely, fixing me with her sharp eyes. "I am afraid this assignment is considerably more serious, and indeed more dangerous than anything the Iraqi theatre has to offer."

I swallowed, blinking away bad memories. "Yes, ma'am."

She picked up her cup again and sipped from it, her nose lingering over the rim. "You are aware, of course, that our House has a long history."

"Yes, ma'am."

"There are many secrets spread across the centuries, Mr. Smith, inherited by each successive legion of guardians. Even now our young princes are gaining their first glimpses of this shadow world. Before I die I will be obliged to initiate them with the knowledge they will need to captain these secrets, and until that day comes it is my sacred mission to see to the resolution of as many hidden wars as God will grant me the strength to, in order to lighten the burden I shall leave for my boys."

"They become excellent men as we speak, ma'am. I have no doubts as to their abilities. William is especially strong, in my opinion, and destined to become a noble leader in his time."

"I know you are fond of the boy, Mr. Smith."

"I admire him, ma'am."

"And he you. But neither William nor Henry understand a tenth of their coming responsibility. It is this old woman's bane to lessen it, in any and every way possible."

I frowned and looked up to object. "Ma'am --"

"Please, Mr. Smith," she said, raising one hand. "Do not attempt to play to a sense of conceit I do not possess, lest your compassion mispresent itself as pity. Pity, sir, is something for which we have no need -- nor the illusions it implies. I do not have long to walk this Earth. Let us not deny it, but rather let the fact inform us to make clear my motivation in this matter."

"Very good, ma'am."

The Sovereign sipped her tea again, then took a long breath. "My dear Mr. Smith, for how long have we been acquainted?"

"The better part of three decades, ma'am. And my father before me, since the war."

"Yes, quite. Your father was a remarkable man, and an exemplary Briton. We mourn him still."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"And yet I have never shared with him what I share with you today. He never had cause to suspect the history to which our House has been simultaneously privy to and a victim of, in this century or any other. Indeed, I am not free to speak plainly even now, but our need dictates that certain facts must come to light."

I sat up attentively.

The Sovereign continued after briefly licking her lined lips. "Mr. Smith, you must believe me when I tell you that not all men die."

I blinked. "I could not be sceptical, ma'am, for I know you never exaggerate. Still, I am perplexed."

"Arrest your reason and listen a while, Mr. Smith. This is not a sane tale, but it is an important one." She put aside her cup for a second time, then carefully stood. "Walk with me, Mr. Smith."

She offered her arm. I dashed to my feet and hooked it in my elbow, my skin tingling at such proximity to the Crown. Together we strolled the length of the anteroom, away from the private apartments and toward the hall. In silence we descended the steps. A brace of stewards stole up behind us and deposited a shawl over the Sovereign's shoulders as we crossed the threshold into the quadrangle.

"There is a war, Mr. Smith, being fought this very day, this very hour. It has been raging since antiquity, and I fear it will continue into William's future. Though many have fallen on either side you will find no mention of this war in any history, nor even the briefest anecdote reproduced in any credible account of the world's affairs. It is, as I have implied, a wholly clandestine conflict between nameless forces."

The fine gravel muttered under our heels as we strolled. The day was brightening. Traces of the tourists' voices were carried over the walls by a new breeze -- light, cool and temperamentally shifty.

The silence stretched. I cleared my throat. "To which side does Britain owe her allegiance, ma'am?"

The Sovereign pursed her lips. "Whichever side pities mortals more," she said, her voice flat. "We are insects to them. We are but collateral damage. They neither care for nor need our fealty or even our fear. Perhaps they once did, to forward their aims, but now their reserves of influence are without limit."

"I must know, ma'am -- who are these covert war barons?"

She stopped walking, and so did I. She looked me in the eye and whispered, "Mr. Smith, they are our masters."

I have lived many adventures and seen many things both spectacular and grisly, but I assure you without a word of a lie that I have never been so chilled as to hear my Sovereign concede her submission to greater forces more concrete than God, the Commonwealth, or propriety. Beneath my linens I broke out in a gooseflesh. "Our masters, ma'am?" I echoed quietly.

"I have said too much," she declared after a pregnant pause, then resumed walking. "I am bent by your sympathetic character, Mr. Smith. My longing to uncork the subject clouds my better judgement."

"I'm sorry, ma'am."

"It is not yours to be sorry. It is mine to be dutiful. I have sworn too many oaths to remember them all. You see now, don't you, how old I have become?"

I sighed heavily. "Dearest Bess, what can you tell me?"

She smiled again, this time allowing it to touch her cheeks in earnest. "I do so miss our conversations, Tenny."

"You are not alone in that."

She nodded once and then her expression hardened again. "There is a man, Mr. Smith. A certain man. He makes his home in the Veneto. His estate is a fortress, guarded by barriers technological and cunning, designed by an experience longer than England's memory." She hesitated, staring out over the Round Tower to the west. "In the estate is a library. In the library is a book." She stopped walking again and turned to me fully, a regal hand on each of my shoulders. "Mr. Smith, I charge you to retrieve this book."

I furrowed my brow. "A book, Your Majesty? Just a book?"

Her hands dropped and she clasped them behind her back as she resumed walking. I strode to catch up to her and then matched her pace. "Just a book..." she repeated airily, eyes distant. "I wish it were so."

"What is to be done with it, ma'am?"

"You shall bring the book to me, Mr. Smith. You shall speak to no person about it, nor show it to anyone save myself regardless of their rank or position. You must bring it to me, personally. Is that quite clear, Mr. Smith?"

"Quite clear, ma'am."

"You must not read the book," she went on. "You must not touch its pages, nor smell its binding. It must be wrapped in black cloth and conducted to me without delay. It can never be photographed or weighed. Its presence must never be suspected, its existence never inferred by any authority, great or small, secular or holy."

A flock of birds burst free from the field and took wing in concert, the sun-dotted shadow of their flock flashing over us. When they shrank into the sky we turned to look at one another again. The Sovereign was pained, and it hurt me to see her so.

"Ma'am," I said, stepping forward to touch her sleeve. "Bess," I said, looking into her eyes.

She turned her face and steeled herself. "Nothing has ever been this important, Tenny. You cannot conceive of what hangs in the balance, and I will not condemn you with that information. All you need know is that this -- this man -- must not find you, must not interview you, must not ever know his security has been breached or I swear the worst kind of retribution will come to Windsor."

I said nothing for a moment, my hand still on her sleeve. She sniffed and drew her mouth into a tight line. "Will you do it, Tenny?"

I smiled sadly and nodded. "My acceptance was never in question, ma'am."

She folded her parchment-paper hands before her and looked out over the walls. "You shall leave tomorrow, Mr. Smith."

"Thy will be done."

3/8

Ports are ports are ports; borders are borders -- travel is travel.

This is the new century, and the roads and waystations have eyes. Thus it was that I made the flight to the Veneto under an assumed face, one of a dozen generic personas I employ for general movement among the public while on assignment. Though disguised it was still my habit to play coy with any closed circuit camera. One never knows to where its vision may be networked.

The customs officer gave me a longer look than I would have preferred, but don't they always? He blinked his cow-like eyes and mumbled, "Business or pleasure?"

"Business, signore."

"What is the nature of your business?"

"I have been engaged to write a travel book."

"What is the planned duration of your stay?"

"Six weeks, signore."

The stamp came down. He folded closed my passport and slid it across the counter, into my waiting hand. I used to get nervous at borders, but any anxiety can be dulled by routine: I've crossed too many countries now to keep count or care.

I loitered by the baggage carousel for want of suitcases, listening to the conversations around me. I noted the particular vowels of the region's dialect and waited for the weather report to loop on the arrivals screen...

Airports are airports are airports.

On the shuttle to the train station I found a copy of yesterday's La Tribuna di Treviso under my seat. I chatted to a robust, country fellow about the football scores. I gave him the newspaper. Outside the windows we could see the steeples and domes of Venice blue on the horizon, and when we passed between cars we could smell the city's funk.

In the lavatory I effected a rearrangement of my disguise. I changed my tie. I shaved off my mustache with an electric razor, then rinsed the colour from my eyebrows. I exchanged contact lenses, altering the appearance of my irises from blue to brown. I moved the inserts in my mouth from my lower cheeks to my upper cheeks, and dropped my shoulders from their previous affection of tension. I relaxed my jaw and my hands, then stretched them out to find their new pose.

And, because I am a man like any other, I also took a moment to pass water.

I moved on through the train. I could no longer smell Venice in the whistling wind between the cars. Lush green countryside flashed by on the right side; the Adriatic glittered, drawing away behind the horizon to my left. The train swayed and roared as it passed through a hill. In the tavern I found a man to play cards with, and engaged him in idle conversations in order to exercise my new accent.

I let him win. He bought me a drink.

On the open-air platform at Portogruaro Station the man to whom I'd given my copy of La Tribuna caught me eying it as he prepared to toss it into a trash bin. "You want it?" he said.

"Thank you," I replied. "I would like to see the score."

"Take it. Some guy gave it to me on the train."

We nodded to each other and he went on his way. I folded the paper and threw it into the bin. I smiled invisibly, smiling on the inside. This is how I stay in shape, this is a jog in the park -- encountering the same man within an hour and having him look me in the eye without a glimmer of recognition.

A black taxi with bad shocks took me north out of Portogruaro to Pontevecchio in the countryside, leaving me within walking distance of a small hotel called Locanda al Fiume at which I had my lodging reservation. "Signore Lorenzoni?" said the plump girl when I set down my suitcases at the counter.

"Yes, that's me. How did you guess?"

She squinted shyly. "You just look like a Lorenzoni, I think."

"Fair enough. I'd like to check in, if you please."

My room had a view of a dry channel through which a river had once flowed. There were deposits of soda pop cans and Orangina bottles cluttering the grass-choked edges. While I watched a rabbit crossed the basin, stopping to sniff the air at halfway.

Out the window and into the mud would be my emergency escape route, should the unforeseen unfold. With that decision made to I set to unpacking and arranging my things...

I first saw my target the very next morning.

The beginning of any assignment is a quiet, meditative time. It is a romance between the subject and I, a slow courtship that begins with binoculars and parabolic microphones. I become acquainted, then consumed. The details dance in a cloud in my mind, flitting to and fro freely until snatched by my growing understanding to be locked into a pattern that will form the basis of the simulacrum.

Piece by piece, a virtual Doppelganger is woven: my toy, my puppet, my pet -- and then, eventually, my self.

The psychological arc is always the same and despite my wealth of experience with the process I am never able to pinpoint the moment when I stop thinking of the target as him and begin using me. An analytical part of myself retires in favour of a being driven by inspiration and instinct, drawing on a new set of reflexes now adopted as my own.

I call the transition the moment of thespian fluidity.

The romance is broken for spells, of course. At a certain stage it becomes necessary to make contact with the subject in order to observe him up close and test his reactions in response to specific prods. During this island I must unbecome what I have been becoming -- I must insert a wedge of distance and see him again as a stranger.

My librarian took a daily espresso over checkers each morning between eight o'clock and nine at a particular cafe on a particular street. I recognized him as soon as he came in, and I tracked him through the rising steam of my cup as he greeted the proprietor and lingered over the pastries under glass.

His name was Franco Alphonso Fiorio. He was fify-two years old, balding. His build was tall and slight but falling to fat in the belly, under the chin, over the kidneys, between the thighs. The weight had come on in recent years -- I could see it in the awkwardness of his walk, a gait in transition.

When he turned away from the counter with his espresso and danish I rustled my newspaper over the checker board on the table, then crossed my legs while clearing my throat.

"Signore," said Franco brightly. "Are you open for a game?"

"Absolutely," I said. "Sit down, friend."

We sipped and played. I studied him. He lit up a cigarette after his danish was gone and I invisibly frowned -- tobacco disgusts me, especially when I am obliged to smoke it myself. Betraying nothing I watched the way he smoked, cataloguing every mannerism of the important habit that would colour much of his physicality. For instance, whenever he ran his fingers over his head to tuck the tufts back behind his ears he always avoided using his index and middle fingers, so as not to leave yellow nicotine stains on his pale skin or white hair. The splayed shape he used as a hand-comb was particular, and I flexed my own hand in imitation of it under the table.

"I'm Franco," he said after he had won the game.

"I'm Paolo," I told him. "Good game."

"Are you Pontevecchian?"

"I'm originally from Florence. I've been living in England, however, for my work."

"What do you do?"

"I write travel books. What about you, Franco?"

"I'm a librarian."

"How wonderful -- we're both in the book business, in a manner of speaking."

"Yes," he smiled. "Books are my passion."

I did not spelunk after details of his employment. To adopt a life one is obliged to first build a firm foundation: before I could go about his ways as a librarian I first had to know how he went about as man. How often did he clip his fingernails? How did he hide a spontaneous erection? What distinguished his social laugh for actual mirth? How long was his attention span? How did he choose his wardrobe according to the weather? Where did he look when he was embarrassed?

After we'd finished our drinks we went our separate ways. Franco Fiorio would never see me again -- at least, not as he'd seen me that day.

Back in my hotel room I made my notes, memorized them, shredded them. I began cutting molds for the cheek and nose pieces I'd need, whistling as I whittled. Having observed the labels on his clothes I would go out the next morning to shop for a costume, stay in the next afternoon to apply spots of wear according to Franco's kinesthetics.

While I worked my Underwood did, too. It is a special Underwood, of course -- capable of typing away without my having to pay it any mind at all. This meant that from my room came the uninterrupted rattle and ding of a busy writer, leaving me to work and revise in peace. Every now and again I leaned over the cranked the thing up again.

"How's the book coming along, Mr. Underwood?" I asked in Franco's voice.

The typewriter had no discernible reply beyond more typing, the keys depressing and springing back in a soothingly random sequence...

After supper I had the chubby girl at the front desk send up a bottle of wine, then I sat by the window and practiced smoking Franco's brand of cigarettes. The sun was setting over Pontevecchio, the dry river-bed crawling into purple darkness. The smoke I exhaled turned golden when it floated far enough from the building to catch the last rays of the day, swirling and undulating, drifting and fading away.

I thought of Bess. I felt like Franco. For some reason, I remembered my mother.

Twilight came. I stabbed out the last cigarette and cleaned my throat with wine. Soon, this peace would end and exhilaration would come. Soon, I would transform and deploy.

I slept like a baby.

4/8

Men are men. Neither country nor era make a significant difference.

I considered this as I sat on the roof of a quaint bistro whose greasy fumes spilled from a battery of pipes beside my folding chair. In my lap I cradled a Hasselblad view camera whose over-sized lens was, in fact, the dish of a parabolic microphone. Fine-wired headphones ran from the back of the Hasselblad and plugged into my ears, my line to the curiously detached world of focused sound.

The dish was oriented toward a tavern across the street where Franco Fiorio was taking lunch with his pals Luigi and Marcello. The clink of their cutlery was a crisp and well-defined foreground, sounding as if the plates were right beside my ears. "Come on, Franco," implored Luigi, "we haven't been out for fun in a dog's age."

"I have to work, I'm sorry my friends," replied Franco, crunching a piece of bruschetta.

"Franco, it's Sunday."

"Uncle is preparing to receive guests. Everyone has extra duties. There's nothing to be done about it. I'll come next time, I promise."

From previous conversations it was already clear to me that Uncle was the master of the estate at which Franco served, though the epithet did not seem to connote a blood relation -- when the maids and drivers came into town on errands they also referred to the boss as simply "Zio."

"Uncle should give you a raise," noted Marcello. "You work too hard, Franco."

Franco chortled. "My friend -- when you love it, it's not work. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to be getting back to the estate. There's so much to do, and I mustn't keep Uncle waiting."

"Uncle, Uncle, Uncle," muttered Luigi. "Is he your boss or your wife?"

"Quiet!" hissed Marcello. "The game's back on."

"What's the score?"

"Quiet!"

At that point I was obliged to remove my headphones as the owner of the bistro climbed up the groaning iron fire-escape and sauntered across the loose gravel to join me. He wiped his hands on his apron and then planted them on his hips, sucking his teeth absently as he looked down at me. "So, you're taking good pictures, ha?"

"Oh yes," I told him with a polite smile. "I can see the whole town from here. I'm getting some wonderful exposures."

The owner nodded as he pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and tapped one free. After sticking it in his mouth he bent the pack toward me and raised his brow. I shook my head. He lit his cigarette and drew on it fiercely, his cheeks caving in. "You should take pictures of my bistro. Make me famous."

"I'd be happy to. It has great atmosphere."

"I'll give you a free coffee, ha?"

So I trundled down the fire-escape with him and pointed my microphone around the bistro, pretending to take pictures. I waived my light meter around and fussed over the composition. The free coffee was an excellent blend.

My mind, meanwhile, was racing: if Franco was working at the estate this afternoon instead of making his usual rounds about town, I would be free to take his place to test the strength of my disguise. As I put away my apparatus and finished off the last drops of the coffee I made my plan to drop by the bookseller Franco usually visited on Sundays in search of rare editions and new acquisitions.

I rushed back to my hotel.

An hour later I emerged from my room as Franco Fiorio. I buried myself behind a newspaper as I crossed the lobby, avoiding the front desk. As I stepped out the front doors I folded the paper under my arm and gave my attention to imitating Franco's stride. I nodded and smiled to the passersby on the street, as Franco was a genial sort.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Fiorio!"

"And a good afternoon to you."

The bookseller plied his wares from a cramped room beside the church. There was no sign. A small bell on the door jingled as I passed inside. The proprietor looked up and grinned. "Franco! I didn't think I'd see you today."

"I always have time for books," I said. "And for you, Bernardo."

"You should be especially glad of that today, my friend."

"Oh?"

"Your order has come in, at long last!"

I did an impeccable job of looking delighted rather than confused. "Splendid!" I crooned, rubbing my hands together.

Bernardo, who was fat, bald and smelled strongly of yeast, bustled out from behind his desk to plunder a pile of boxes by the back door, which he propped open to keep the air moving and ventilate his pipe smoke. In triumph he produced a plastic-wrapped hardcover that looked at least a century old, and placed it gingerly on the desk before me.

I withdrew a pair of spectacles from my breast pocket, perched them on my nose, and leaned forward in Franco's distinctive manner. Carefully I peeled back the plastic and read aloud the French title, "On Castor & Pollux, Their Influences & Roots in Popular Legend & Historical Fact."

"It's a first edition," said Bernardo, rocking back and forth proudly on his heels with his meaty hands clasped behind his back. "Rosalita found it at an estate auction in Avignon. She...well, my friend, she had to bid high."

"Whatever the cost..." I whispered reverently, "I'll pay it."

Bernardo smiled. "You never change, Franco. It's your addiction, books."

"Yes," I agreed, opening the tome's creaking leather cover. The title page gave the year of publication as 1802.

"But tell me -- why the sudden interest in twins? First Romulus and Remus, now Castor and Pollux. Do you have a long-lost brother you've never told me about?"

I looked up from the book and hesitated.

Bernardo began to nod, holding up his hands. "I know, I know: don't bother to lecture me again. When it comes to Uncle, your lips are sealed."

"I'm only trying to protect you, Bernardo," I claimed.

"I know, I know," he said again. "I can't help it. I'm a curious man, like you."

Satisfaction warmed me as I walked back to the hotel. I had interacted face to face with someone familiar with Franco and aroused no detectable suspicious: a clean performance through and through.

In a rare indulgence I elected to reward myself for a job well done, so I stopped for supper at the tavern for hot mushroom linguini and cold white wine. As I ate I leafed carefully through the ancient book, touching the pages only with the corner of my napkin -- this was not a precaution to avoid leaving fingerprints (since I haven't any) but rather to avoid tainting the paper with my skin's destructive oils. I read:

It is the contention of this author that Castor & Pollux were not merely the heroes of myth but represent actual historical personages who lived contemporaneously or pre-contemporaneously to the events ascribed with their involvement, a temporal conundrum whose plausible resolution shall become apparent upon the complete presentation of the author's theories.

And, loath as I am to admit it, I allowed myself to be lulled by the book such that the sun set behind the town before I noticed how many hours had gone, lost in the winding byways of history, mythology and inspired supposition knitted by the long-dead Frenchman.

So, like a rank amateur, I was caught unawares.

"Franco!" cried Luigi, slapping me drunkenly on the back.

"Franco!" echoed Marcello, plopping into the chair opposite me.

"Oh!" I said lamely.

"I thought you were working, Franco."

"I'm taking a break."

"In town?"

"Well --"

Luigi waved his hands and shook his head. "Who cares? Now you can't escape your friends, Franco. Come -- we're going to the cabaret."

"Oh, well now, I really ought to get back to the estate. Uncle --"

"Uncle, Uncle, Uncle!" mocked Marcello. "Come on, pay your bill. Let's go."

We took a taxi south into Portogruaro. My companions farted garlic and belched beer, tittering and joshing with me, regaling me with an inarticulate and meandering description of the end of the football game. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be celebrating or indignant, so I changed the subject. "Who's performing tonight?"

"When does the programme ever change?"

"Right," I agreed and then laughed as if I'd made a joke. Luigi and Marcello were drunk -- they laughed right along with me.

"I see what you did there," claimed Luigi.

"I don't get it," admitted Marcello, still chuckling.

The taxi left us in a winding laneway in a sorry district. We crossed the narrow road between puttering cars to approach a dim doorway beneath a bank of indecipherable neon twists. A beggar sat in their buzzing shadow, a cup in his gnarled hand, his face lost under a ragged hood. I didn't know if Franco would give a beggar a coin so I drifted slower, stepping behind behind Luigi to ask Marcello an empty question as he sauntered along.

Luigi tossed the beggar a coin, so I did too.

The cabaret was very small -- a close theatre packed with round tables, the chairs glutted to the rear of each to afford an unobstructed view of a humble stage fringed by faded velvet. Braces and trios of old farmers with weather-hard features and dirt-stained fingers nursed drinks in grimy glasses, ashtrays overflowing, cackling and bellowing at each other about football and Rome.

The girl from the front desk of Locanda al Fiume had their eyes. In her costume she looked curvaceous rather than chubby. As I glanced over she unravelled a feather boa from around her freckled shoulders and tossed it into the audience. The old men cheered.

I was deeply uncomfortable. Testing my disguise against an acquaintance like the bookseller was one thing -- spending an evening with the man's two best friends was another matter altogether.

Luigi found us a table and ordered a round of drinks. Cigarettes were lit, and I was obliged to follow suit. I grimaced internally -- bloody tobacco.

Now, there is an art and a science to remaining discretely sober while your companions imbibe. The key is simply a matter of timing: assuring that you drink out of step with others and subverting the process of ordering fresh rounds. One must always call for a new drinks before anyone is ready -- in this way it is you who scrutinizes the others' glasses to check their level and not the other way around. The best moment of cover comes when a man ends up with two drinks in front of him: as he polishes off the first in an effort to make way for the second he is thoroughly distracted, and your own drink can be quietly disposed of in a potted plant or even on the floor if need be.

"Another round, gentlemen?" I called.

"Already? You're a fish tonight, Franco!"

I helped to pile the empty glasses on the waitress' tray, including my own full glass. The chubby girl on stage wound up her routine with a flash of her round bottom and then slipped away into the wings. A new girl took her place, a dyed blonde with cigarette smoke skin and no hips.

In fairly short order my companions were irretrievably intoxicated. "I have to go," I told them.

"No, no -- stay!" they clamored. "It's early."

Through the fleece and gauze of another round they blinked at the stage, laughing at nothing. I excused myself to visit the lavatory, quietly scooping up my book and my jacket as I pretended to lurch drunkenly against the table, staggering into my chair. Luigi and Marcello cracked up laughing. I waved it off and stumbled toward the exit.

I walked right past the washroom, pulling on my jacket. I nodded to the doorman and pushed out into the cool night, raising my arm to hail a taxi from a line of them lying in wait beneath a streetlamp. A car drew up and I pulled open the door.

"Signore," wheezed the beggar, rattling his cup.

"I've already given you a coin," I muttered, putting the book into the back seat.

"Signore, I'm hungry."

The sky rumbled with distant thunder, and the air smelled wet. The poor fellow was in for a miserable night. With a frown I reached into my pocket and extracted another lira, then tossed it. It glanced off the edge of the cup and landed on the sidewalk. The beggar leaned over to retrieve it, his eyes on me. As the stuttering neon lights illuminated his face beneath the hood I could not help but make a little gasp: his ugliness was truly mediaeval.

"A thousand thanks," said the beggar, still watching me with a strange kind of intensity that unnerved me. He dropped the coin into his cup.

"Good night," I said. I slipped into the taxi and pulled the door after me. "Pontevecchio, please."

"Si, signore."

The rain started as we drove, clattering on the roof and running down the windows in streams that bent the headlights of the other cars.

Back at the hotel I carefully unpeeled Franco Fiorio from my body and face, shedding his clothes, his eyes, his nose, his hair. The day had been a mixed success: while I had managed to fool the target's friends I had done so at great risk, and allowed myself to be taken unawares. To myself I murmured, "Maybe I'm getting too old for this."

Having put down a firm foundation of Franco, the next phase of my mission would be to learn about the estate itself, to be assured that I would be able to penetrate each of the barriers to entry. There were only days left, and then my hour would come -- in and out in sixty minutes, then a train back to Venice.

The period of romance had ended, and period of action was near.

Before I climbed into bed I stood by the window and looked out over the rain-washed river-bed, its edges drooling, its middle pooling. Lightning flashed and I thought I saw something; I frowned and squinted at the dark, leaning out through the open frame for a clearer view. A moment later I had almost dismissed the notion as imaginary until lightning flashed again and I was able to discern a figure hobbling among the tall grasses, his passage bending the stalks and squelching in the mud.

The hooded figure looked up at me and I down at him. It was the beggar. My breath caught.

Lightning flashed once more. When the afterimages faded from my vision I searched the river-bed, but saw nothing. The rain became heavier, falling in opaque, scintillating sheets. I reluctantly pulled back into my room and cranked closed the glass against the spray.

I sat on the bed and furrowed my brow, deeply uneasy.

5/8

Order is order; chaos is chaos. Their shared border can be hazy.

In any other circumstance I would have aborted the mission immediately -- I had compromised my security envelope by being seen on an evening the target was occupied, news certain to be shared between friends; and I was being stalked by a ghoulish beggar who had managed to tail me directly to my base of operations.

Unacceptable. Utterly unacceptable.

But did I have any alternative? I was in the field without support, with none but the Sovereign to report to. I had no access to additional intelligence, no method to check whether the assignment's integrity had truly been punctured or whether it simply teetered on the verge thereof. I was close enough to smell the chaos, and it made me afraid.

The beauty of chaos is that it can throw you a line, via pat coincidence. The wonder of randomness is the unimagined permutation.

In my mind I thanked Christ the moment I saw Mick.

He did not, of course, see me. I was obliged to put my head above the surface by choosing to sit across from him at the cafe. He looked up from his newspaper frowning. "Listen," he groaned in American English, "if I want to play checkers I'll ask, got it? Is that alright with you? Jeez. I'm just trying to drink a coffee, you know?"

"How did you find the coffee in Basrat?" I asked lightly.

Mick squinted at me. "Where the hell is Basrat?"

"You came to my show. I'm in the theatre. We performed a tragedy, if memory serves: the tragedy of Major Frazer."

Mick drew his large hand across his stubbled cheeks, then pursed his lips. "Tennyson Goddamn Smith," he decided ruefully.

"Actually, the G is for Geoffrey."

Mick chuckled. "Holy Hell, how're you mixed up in all this?"

"All what?"

"Kiss my ass. You're hunting him, too."

"Him who?"

"I'm not a goddamn amateur, Smith. Jeez."

I sipped from my coffee and raised my brow. "Uncle?"

Mick blinked. "That means nothing to me. Is he your man?"

"He's the man my man orbits. You know me: I'm a bit part player."

He sighed and relaxed a measure, then sipped from his cup with relish. "That's good. We're chasing different tigers."

"Fine," I said. "Then we needn't discuss the matter further. Our paths are crossing without meaning. In that light, how nice to see you. You're looking well. How are the children?"

He shrugged. "I saw them at Christmas. They're getting big." He coughed over a smile. "You know you look like Super Mario, right?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Super Mario? You know. He's a videogame hero. Ever heard of Donkey Kong?"

"I'm afraid not."

"You're getting old."

"That's unkind. I can play thirty to seventy without serious prosthetics. Eighty, with make-up."

Mick laughed. "So what do I call you?"

"This face is Vincenzo Nunzio."

He passed his beefy hand over the table to shake mine. "Pleasure to meet you, Vince. I'm Reagan Anderson."

"Reagan Anderson?"

"What?"

"Honestly, that's the worst name you've ever had. Where do you come up with this garbage?"

"Jeez, I don't know, Smith. Some computer programme picks them out. What do I look like? An engineer?"

"You look like a lonely tourist."

"Bingo. Name of Anderson. Friends call me Ray."

"That's awful."

"Hey, at least I don't look like a videogame. Give me a break, Mario."

"Vincenzo."

"Whatever."

Franco walked into the cafe. Despite my consummate professionalism Mick saw the flick of my eyes. "Why don't we go someplace and have a drink?" I suggested abruptly.

Mick stirred his coffee with his finger, then tasted his finger. "That's your guy, huh?"

I stood up and gathered my jacket. "Let's not dally, Ray."

He grunted, downed his coffee, and pushed back his chair. "You buying?"

I nodded.

He grinned. "God save the Queen."

At the tavern we let our hair down a shade. We sat in a dim corner beneath a speaker playing tinny folk music, and under its cover we spoke English in quiet voices. Mick filled me in on how the Basrat caper unfolded after my exit and we both laughed like hyenas as we imagined what must have been going through Dick Cheney's mind when he had that bucket of camel manure dropped over his head. "The best part is," chuckled Mick, "nobody ever caught me. I got away with it clean."

"You're a sophomoric fool," I told him, still laughing.

"Yeah," agreed Mick. "Ain't I a stinker?"

We ordered another round. "Do you have an objective or are you scouting?"

"Scouting," he said, putting aside his glass. "Why, what's up?"

I shrugged and regarded my drink. "Let me level with you, Mick. I'm on a small footprint mission -- quite small, in fact. I haven't got a horn to blow but I'm afraid there might be some leakage."

"How serious?"

"I'm undecided. I'm being followed."

"Opposing man?"

"An ugly beggar. It's hard to imagine he's of consequence but it's equally hard to ignore the possible threat. I'm being tailed by a leper."

"You want me to run some interference for you?"

"Mick, it would mean a lot. Honestly, I have only four days left -- if you could keep this creature out of my hair, just until..."

Mick held up a hand. "Don't worry about it."

"You'll do it? I mean, do tell me if it's an imposition --"

"Forget about it," he grunted forcefully. "I'm at your disposal. I'm not on a schedule. And I'm hard-pressed to deny somebody's who saved my life once or twice, even if he is a stuck-up limey douche."

"I'm ever so grateful, Mick."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He drank again, then tapped out a Marlboro and lit it up, puffing thoughtfully. "You mind if I pick your brain a bit? Help me connect some dots?"

"If I can help, naturally."

"Does the name Solomon Habibi mean anything to you?"

"No."

"He was feeding me information from the inside, but I lost him in Naples."

"The inside of what?"

Mick chewed the inside of his cheek, then drew on his smoke again. "Shadow shippers."

"Say again?"

"It's a covert shipping network. These guys move anything anywhere. Borders are nothing. I'll be damned if I know how they do it. Sometimes when we manage to snag something it turns out they've gone to so much trouble and expense to cover it up it amounts to economic suicide. The only thing that makes sense, I figure, is they're running the high security jobs at a loss by riding them on the back of smaller jobs with fat margins. The only problem with that is, when you do the math, to make it work it must mean these guys are bigger than big."

"What are they shipping? Arms for Al-Qaeda?"

"Smith, that's the damnedest part. Sometimes it's arms but usually it's not -- it's a whole battery of industrial components and half of it isn't even controlled."

"So the secrecy itself is the key, rather than the contents."

"Right, exactly. But some of it's been downright weird."

"How so?"

Mick paused, rubbing his chin. He licked his lips and said, "If you can answer me straight, say so."

"Very well," I replied, leaning in.

He dropped his voice to a rustle: "Have you got any guys on the Moon?"

I blinked. "I'm sorry -- the Moon?"

"Yeah, Smith," he sneered irritably. "You know the thing -- big, white, floating in the sky at night. The goddamn Moon."

I chuckled drily. "I can honestly tell you, Mick, that as far as I know Britain is actively pursuing no projects on the Moon. You'll have to tell me why you ask, of course."

"Sure, I'll tell you. What the hell? We intercepted a shipment from the shadow network and seized a bunch of parts and aerospace sub-assemblies in August..."

"Is someone attempting to make a secure launch?"

"That's the kicker, Smith. I sent all the crap along to our boys in the lab, and they tell me the components are covered in a thin layer of lunar dust. Do you follow me? If it's a secure launch, it's already happened."

"Good Lord. That is peculiar."

"No shit. So now I'm here on a hunch. Basically, it looks like the shadow shippers have broken from their usual pattern. My guess is they're doing someone a favour -- bending their own rules to accommodate someone who doesn't take no for an answer. The operation is sloppier than usual, which gave me my in. Now I'm lying in wait until the delivery comes."

"What's coming?"

"No idea. But you can feel echoes of activity across their whole damn web. Something very important is coming through Pontevecchio soon, and I'm going to be here when it does."

I raised my brow and finished my drink. "There's more going on in this sleepy town than meets the eye."

Mick upended his own glass then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Smith, as far as I'm concerned the whole goddamn world is a sick whore in a milk-maid's dress -- the more innocent a thing looks the more work someone's put into making it look that way."

Together we walked back to my room at Locanda al Fiume and Mick helped me pack my things. We took a taxi across town to a quaint bed and breakfast called Con Maria sandwiched between the bus station and a vacant lot. "I'm up on the third floor," narrated Mick as he hauled my baggage up to the second landing. "I'm right over you, so knock something smart on the ceiling and I'll be in your lap before you can sneeze."

I unlocked the door to my new rooms and Mick dumped everything on the bed. He straightened and moped his brow with a hand-towel from the washroom. "You don't travel light, do you?"

"I can assure you I've brought only the bare necessities of my craft."

"Uh-huh." He popped a smoke into his mouth and lit up. "So what's on your agenda now?"

"This evening I'm scouting the entrance of the estate I must penetrate, to assure myself there are no additional security measures I haven't prepared for."

"You're a careful guy."

"Yes, I am. And you can abet my care by standing guard here to assure that the beggar hasn't followed us from Locanda al Fiume."

"And if he has?"

"I need you to keep him off my back tonight."

"You want me to capture him? Maybe we could find something out." He smiled darkly and cracked his knuckles.

"Let's not descend to the last resort without suitable provocation. For all I know he may have marked me for robbery, nothing more. Unless the situation changes, I recommend observation only."

"Yeah well, you know best, Smith. This is your bag. But..." he hitched up his shirt and removed a polished Magnum, checking the load. "...Just in case."

I pressed my lips together grimly. "I'm quite sure that won't be called for."

Mick shrugged as he replaced the gun. "You know what the Boy Scouts say, Smith: always be prepared."

"Indeed."

Thus reassured I went about my business, dressing against the drizzle and stowing my equipment in my slicker: infrared goggles, parabolic microphone, umbrella, bird-watching book. So prepared I spent the next three hours crouching amid the shrubberies outside the gates of Uncle's estate, its expanse invisible to me behind steep stone walls. I arrived in time to see the members of the day staff who didn't live on the estate exchange places with members of the night staff. Curiously, a crew of construction workers was also admitted through the gates at a late hour.

The entrance mechanism was elementary: visual recognition based on familiarity with the staff (and, doubtlessly, checked against records if need be) allowing access to a fingerprint scanner. Once cleared by the scan, the guest uses a magnetic key-card to clear the gate and any additional boundaries within the estate their clearance allows. All of this took place under the watchful eyes of dozens of closed circuit cameras.

A quartet of guards with dogs patrolled the wall, spaced out so that any given section was monitored by human eyes and canine noses no more than ten minutes apart.

A cakewalk, in other words. I had no serious reservations.

Upon my return to Con Maria I was concerned to see wet footprints on the landing before my door. My mood of optimism fizzled. I pressed my ear to the door, but heard nothing. Cautiously I crept away and proceeded to the third floor to tap on Mick's door. It was unlocked, but no one was inside.

I withdrew my parabolic microphone and aimed it out the window, through the floor, down the dark stairwell toward my own room. I heard nothing but night.

After tiptoeing back to the second floor landing I again spent a few moments listening to my room with the parabolic mic, my eyes closed. I could detect only a soft, regular drip. I concluded that I hadn't closed the faucet tightly enough.

No creature stirred.

I unlocked the door and slipped inside, then pawed through the unfamiliar darkness until I found the bedside lamp. Even before the light came my nose had found the disquieting metallic scent of spilled blood in the air.

Mick lay over the bed. His throat had been cut. His body was draining out onto the warped floorboards, a slow but steady stream working down his arm and dripping from the tip of his pale finger to sprinkle against the night-stand.

An insistent part of my mind cried: Abort, abort, abort!

I am accustomed to paying myself great heed, so without thinking another thought I unzipped my suitcase and began unloading my infrared goggles and bird-watching book into it, then swept my make-up kit together and dumped it in overtop. Next I swung around and threw open the closet to grab my overcoat.

I leapt back before I even knew why.

Someone knew how to be quiet enough to evade the parabolic microphone. Someone knew how not to breathe. And, as I stumbled backward into the night-stand, someone rose out from between the hangars.

The lamp fell. The bulb flashed and died.

I was halfway to Mick's corpse to feel for his gun before the someone swept over me, wrenching my arms behind my back and pressing my face into the pillow with a move as swift and expert as it was brutal. I cried out, but my cry was swallowed by the fabric.

My attacker leaned into me, his hot breathing just inches from my ear. "Now," pronounced a low, gravelly voice, "sit still and shut up, Englishman, or I'll pull out your organs."

The smell of his breath was beyond description.

The beggar had me.

6/8

Trouble is trouble. It isn't thrilling and it isn't a rush: it's just bad news.

I sat in a reading chair by the window, but I wasn't reading. My wrists lay in my lap, bound. My ankles were likewise tied, and knotted to my wrists for good measure. I was not gagged but I found I did not have much to say.

My captor, a beast of a man, was engaged in loading Mick's limp body into a long duffel bag. He muttered unrecognizable profanity under his breath as he fought to get the knees past the zipper. He winced and grunted and there sounded a loud cracking noise, after which Mick's legs bent freely if sickeningly. "There we go now," he coughed, wiping his muzzle on his hand as he turned about the room in search of his next task.

I said, "Should I be reassured that you've only the one duffel?"

He squinted. "Hah?"

"There's only one duffel bag. Does this mean I get to live?"

"Oh, sure. I mean, for a while. Most people end up dead sooner or later. Sooner, if you do dangerous stuff, like you and me are going to do. But I'll say nice things over the dirt when I bury you, Englishman, if it comes to that. Prayers even, if you want them."

The light was dim. I could barely see him. Outside the sky was beginning to pale in the east. Morning birds were already singing.

"What are you?" I asked.

He paused from wrestling the duffel bag across the bed. "You're rude, Englishman. Isn't it better to ask who a man is than what? I am that ugly?"

I held my tongue. "Who are you, then?"

"I'm Lallo. Who're you?"

"Vincenzo Nunzio."

"Liar."

"I'm sorry?"

"Don't lie to me. I'll pull off one of your fingers, to teach you a lesson. No dirty fibs for Lallo, right? Right, Englishman?"

"Right," I conceded. "My name is Benjamin Tourier."

He leered toward my face, grinning with a mouthful of stained, blocky teeth. "You've got a good sense of humour. I like that. Okay, now that we're done playing games why don't you introduce yourself like a civilized man?"

"A civilized man?" I echoed. "That's rich, considering the source."

"Eat shit. I don't care. I'll call you Englishman. You're at my mercy: you don't call the shots. I don't need your name."

"What do you need?"

He considered this, rubbing his lantern-like jaw with weather-worn fingers crisscrossed by scars. "I need to get into the house. You're going in there, I know. You're hunting the librarian, to copy him. You do a good job, so I'm coming with you. I need to get into the house, too."

"The house? Do you...do you mean Uncle's house?"

He frowned again, squinting at me. "Hah?"

"The staff call the master of the estate Zio."

Lallo seemed to smile. "You're stupid," he concluded. "There's no uncle. Zio's his name, a short name -- he's Ziusudra from his mother." He scratched his thatch of black hair and sniffed. "Maybe I got the wrong guy with you. I thought you knew all about this place. How're you going to get in the house if you don't even know his name?"

I shrugged, awkwardly since I was tied up. "I was counting on bluffing my way through with sir if the need arose."

"Shit," admitted Lallo. "You're brave, Englishman."

The sun peeked through the glass, a soft-edged amber reveal of my host. Where I had previously taken him to be merely ugly I could now discern that he was, in fact, ravaged. The skin on the back of his neck was twisted with healed burns, and almost every inch of his face was pitted, scratched, nicked or lined. His nose appeared to have been broken many, many times.

"What's happened to you?" I asked.

Lallo shrugged. "Pretty much everything," he said bluntly. "Okay, I'll take care of Mr. Dead Bones here and you sit there like a good boy, okay?"

"I'm a bit put out by that, actually."

"Hah?"

"The fact that you've killed my friend. It's distressing, you understand. You say you want to collaborate, but I'd like to point out that our relationship isn't exactly starting on good footing."

He shrugged again. "If you're not here when I come back, you'll be sorry. Okay, Englishman?"

I said nothing.

He pulled his hood over his head and then groaned as he hauled the heavy duffel bag up over his massive shoulder. In the growing light I could see that his cowl was encrusted with dirt and old food, bits of leaves and a spattering of sticky, congealing blood. "If you got to go," he said, "just go in your pants. I don't care how you smell."

I smirked tightly. "You're going outside like that? You're covered in blood. You'll be arrested."

He waved dismissively. "Nah."

"What will you do if you're questioned?"

"By police guys? No problem -- I kill them."

I grimaced and shook my head. "Christ, man, you can't just go about killing people willy-nilly."

"What -- killing just to kill people, for kicks? No no, I haven't done that for ages. Ah, youth!"

"Good Lord. You're a monster."

He smiled broadly at this. "I pursue a purpose, Englishman. So do you. How clean are your hands?"

I considered this after he had left. I had several hours to consider it. The pool of sunlight pouring in through the window crawled across the carpet, the clean square occluded by warped shadows of the knickknacks on the sill. The day's business began outside -- trucks and cars, shouts and laughter, barking dogs.

By noon I'd managed to rub my wrists raw without loosening my bindings an iota. Also, I was obliged by biological necessity to urinate in place. I sighed.

My captor returned empty-handed. He went to the sink and drank from the faucet like a dog, then dropped himself onto the bed and rubbed his right ankle with his left hand. Beneath the hem of his cowl I noticed for the first time that his right foot was made of wood with a torn rubber sole. "Bloody ankle," he muttered. "I need a new foot."

"You're in fairly rough shape."

"Yeah, I'm an old guy. Shit always happens to me."

I decided to keep him talking, to see what I could see and to ease him. "What is your age?" I asked.

Lallo chewed his lip thoughtfully. "Don't know. I didn't used to count. Not until later."

"Well, you must be at least fifty."

He snorted. "Yeah. At least."

"Do you remember much about your youth? Perhaps we could pinpoint the year."

"Oh, sure. Stuff was different back then. Like, all frozen. You know -- ice everywhere. But after a while things warmed up and then it was all water, water, water. People used to drown a lot, during the cracking times."

I furrowed my brow. "You've lost me. Where exactly did you grow up?"

"Spain," he said carelessly.

I shook my head and tried to find a steadier grip on the conversation. "So what happens now?"

He looked up at me. "Now we make our plan. When're we going to the house? How're you going to get me inside? I hope you've been thinking, Englishman. And I hope you're smarter than you seem."

"You have a most unusual accent. I can't place it. You certainly don't sound Spanish."

"Yeah, I don't care. What about the plan? How do you get in?"

"Me? Well, I'm...a transformer. I will go in disguise."

"You copy people, I know. So who're you going to copy on to me?"

"It's impossible. I could never get you inside."

"No, not impossible. There is no impossible today, or you die. You follow me, Englishman?"

"You're quite a ruthless character."

"I prefer to call it focus. Now, like I said, this isn't a question. It's your orders. You've got no other choices. This is it. You're going inside the house and I'm going with you, so now you've got to figure out a way to do it so I don't get caught."

"I notice you didn't say we."

"Hah?"

"I have to figure out how to avoid getting you caught."

"Right. I'm just being plain with you, Englishman. Once I'm inside the house I don't care about you. You do whatever you want -- run away, die -- whatever."

"Charming."

"Yeah okay, that's enough girly talk. To business, now. We make our plan."

I frowned, clucking my tongue. "Well, if we're going to do this," I conceded slowly, "I'll have to take a look at you. Undress, please."

Without a word he pulled the filthy cowl over his head and dumped it on the floor. The revealed body was squat and muscular, hairy and swarthy, a dense map of faded wounds. His back had been cruelly whipped, perhaps years ago. His torso was crossed by two sweat-stained leather straps that helped to position a right arm that was entirely artificial below the shoulder.

My eyes widened. "May I have a closer look at that arm of yours, Mr. Lallo?"

He shuffled closer, presenting the limb. It was a finely machined piece of modern workmanship, an elaborate but streamlined bundle of kevlar and carbon-fibre housing pockets of gel and gilded by rings of perspiration-tarnished titanium. He rolled the forearm and flexed his black fist.

I whistled. "My word...this is from the Zhang Workshop, isn't it?"

Lallo nodded. "How come you know it, Englishman?"

"I have many friends without limbs," I replied lightly. "It makes one rather a connoisseur of artificiality. I know, for instance, that only the richest and most well-connected can afford this kind of replacement. How did you get it?"

Lallo pressed his mouth together. "That's another story," he grunted.

"It's exquisite," I said, shaking my head. "Is it wired for feeling?"

"Oh yeah. This is the best one I ever had. It's strong and it does what I want. I can pick things up, and I can tell you if they're hot or cold or prickly or smooth."

I licked my lips. "It will be difficult to disguise. An artificial arm is a fairly standout characteristic. Tell me, do they know you at the estate? Does this Ziusudra know you?"

"Well, no and yes. I mean, we know each other, yeah, but he hasn't seen me for maybe like two, three centuries. He doesn't know my arm got wrecked."

"Unless someone told him about it," I added, glossing over the improbable span of time the monster had mentioned. He was ill, clearly -- his grasp on reality likely tenuous.

"Yeah, okay, maybe. So what do we do, Englishman?"

I looked down at my bindings. "I can't examine you like this. We'll need to do some make-up tests, first of all, to see what we can do with that skin of yours. Undo my arms and pass me the small valise on the dresser."

Lallo scratched his head again, squinting. "Don't start talking all French. I'm not so quick as I used to be. Do you mean this bag?"

"No, not that one."

"This?"

"No, no -- the burgundy valise with the silver clasps."

The naked giant frowned and put his hands on his hips. "Okay, where?"

"For Christ's sake, man, just let me fetch it myself."

He nodded and stomped over, then crouched at my feet and expertly undid the knots, freeing my legs and then my wrists. He watched me as I stretched out my limbs, making sour faces at the pain. I glanced up at him with an inquiring look and in response he stepped back to allow me passage to the dresser. He tracked my searching gaze, which is a compulsion most mammals cannot resist.

He who hesitates is lost.

In a single blink I had ripped the cushion from my chair and pressed it against my face as I launched myself at the window. The fabric was shredded by the breaking glass but I was not, and my next concern became landing. My stomach tickled as I achieved a brief moment of freefall, plummeting toward the sidewalk.

"Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ!" I whispered fiercely as I tumbled end over end.

I hit the roof of a taxicab and then rolled onto the hood. The car screeched to a halt which hurled me off of the hood and into a cart of fresh apples, chased by a hail of splintered shards from the window. Apples and glass rained to the pavement. "Mamma mia!" yelled the cartman.

I was dizzy, winded and numb with shock but that didn't stop me from staggering to my feet and bolting across the road, propelled by adrenalin. More cars squealed to a stop but I didn't see them, my vision targeting the opening of an alley ahead. I felt the cool shade as I plunged inside, stumbling against garbage cans and frightening a huddle of small cats or large rats.

I ran for all I was worth. I wanted to put every ounce of distance between myself and Lallo, the murderous creature, before my body gave out. My muscles were already cramping, upset after so many hours tied to a chair. I pelted on through the pain, my breath coming sharp and fast.

Ten minutes later I was inside someone's garden shed, wheezing and wincing as I crouched between a gasoline lawn-mower and a pile of dirty tarpaulins. A ceramic gnome looked down at me placidly from a wooden shelf. "Hallo," I said weakly.

In time my heart slowed. My ribs stopped aching as I drew breath. My punished calves ceased to throb.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'm definitely too old for this."

Thankfully, however, my reflexes were not so decayed as to fail in their life-saving service. Trained by dozens of instances of trauma my instinct of flight was well preserved and still potent -- at least, sufficiently potent to buy me whatever peace I now enjoyed, exhausted and soaked in my own urine, stared down by a gnome.

"Jesus Christ," I said again.

Methodical as I am few are more aware than I that there comes a time for action and, once identified, any refuge in consideration is forsaken. Getting out wasn't just about saving my own life -- though Mick's fate had made sufficiently clear that that was also a pressing issue -- but primarily about mitigating the damage Lallo could and would do to the integrity of Her Majesty's mission. To compromise myself was risk enough, let alone entering upon the critical phase handicapped by one whose loyalties were as easily anarchic as absent.

To abort was the only option. A clearer case I had never seen. And though I felt a fool, I knew the Sovereign would prefer to try again than try and fail. All I could do to avoid hopelessly polluting the waters was to get out while I could, and design a new strategy from a safe vantage.

How to get to a safe vantage remained vexing. I slid open the shed door and peeked outside. A crone was tending her tomatoes. She looked up.

"Good afternoon," I said.

"What are you doing in there? Get out!"

"I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

"Thief! Rapist! Vandal! I'm calling the police!"

"Yes, um, I'll just be on my way then. Cheerio!"

So I did a little bit more running at that point, hopping fences from garden to garden until I slid into a reedy creek and then splashed my way up to a farmer's field. Amid the fallen stalks of last season's harvest I lay on the ground and watched the clouds crawl by, listening intently.

Despite my many talents the root of any transformer's strength is in the simple disciplines of silence and patience. Now was a time to lie low and nurse whatever reserves I could bring to bear on my plight. I made myself immobile and invisible, a friend to the roots and the soil, my face pressed into the planet's damp skin.

I slept for want of darkness. When I awoke the sky was burnished and fading.

Given the state of my attire the only feasible transformation I could undertake would be to become a vagrant, much as Lallo himself had done, and then hitch as a hobo into Venice. As I walked through bristle-cut, winter browning fields toward the train station I did what I could to rearrange my clothes to look the part as thoroughly as possible. I found an empty wine bottle in a furrow and carried it with me as a prop.

I observed the station platform from the long grass beside the tracks. There were no passengers milling around but a stationman was coordinating the stacking of a half dozen large wooden crates. This was good news: it was easier to stow away on a cargo train than a passenger train.

The stationman checked his watch and then peered up the tracks northward. "See you tomorrow," called one of the workers. The stationman waved indifferently.

In the distance, a horn sounded.

I reached out and touched the rail. It was beginning to quiver. I tucked back into the bushes to wait. In moments the air was thrumming with the train's arrival.

The sun set. The train's headlamp cut the darkness, causing the shadows around me to warp and turn. Pebbles bounced. A rush of air washed over me as the train slowed, brakes squawking, and pulled alongside the platform.

"Hup, hup, hup!" clapped the stationman. Loaders from the train jumped down and began hauling the crates up into a boxcar.

In the meantime I slipped along the opposite side of the train, eyes tracking across each car in search of an opening. I stopped to try a sliding door but found it bolted, then continued scurrying.

I scurried right into the stationman, bouncing off his chest and knocking myself back onto the gravel. He pinned me with his flashlight and snarled, "Get the hell away from my train, scum! Get out of here! No freeloaders! Shoo!"

He nudged me roughly with his boot to bring his point home clearly.

I crawled to my feet and retreated as he continued to call after me. I paused on the far side of the station wall, leaning against it and feeling out the sore spot on my hip where the stationman had kicked me. The train sounded its horn again as the engine throttled up and it pulled away to the south, the sound Dopplering away.

The ensuing silence was deafening. Crickets chirped.

I wondered where I would sleep, and how I would go about making my next attempt. I was also very hungry.

As I wandered I heard what I at first took to be bees, but as I drew nearer I recognized the sound as motorbikes. Against the last light of the purpling sky I saw their silhouettes pop up and drop down, jumping the eroded furrows in a fallow field. The laughter and shouts of youth reached me.

Moving low, I slithered up the face of the next rise and peeked over. Four boys and two girls stood in a loose circle, drinking liquor, watching as two of their friends raced chortling bikes in wide, dirt-spraying circles. "Go, Sal! Go!" cheered one of the girls.

Two more motorbikes stood on their kickstands two furrows over. I started moving toward them, thinking perhaps I wouldn't take the train after all.

The closest bike had a set of keys dangling from the ignition.

"Thank you, Jesus."

When the two racers sped to the far side of the field and the youths turned to track them I chose my moment to slip up onto the bike. I knocked up the kickstand with my heel and then began walking the vehicle as quietly as I could, drawing it backward into the depression where I'd been hiding.

The tank sloshed. I judged that there was enough gasoline to get me to Portogruaro, at least. I thanked Jesus again.

And then, a cry: "Where's your bike, Marco? Holy shit -- where's your bike?"

I twisted the key and hit the starter. The engine coughed pitiably but did not turn over. Sweat broke out across my brow. I tried again, producing a sputter and a grumble. "Oh dear," I whispered, risking a look up.

The four boys on foot were pelting toward me, leaping between the furrows like gazelles. The sight of their apparently weightless shadows made me feel old.

I jammed the starter again and swore. The engine roared to life.

The bike skittered over the dirt in an uncontrolled arc as I fought for balance. Eight hands reached out to grab at me but I was propelled away just in time, cruising down the face of a small rise and then vaulting up the next, catching a bit of air. "Thief!" cried the boys.

The bike hit the ground and I throttled hard, tugged back as I shot over the bumpy ground leaving a spray of flying grass clods. I glanced in the mirror but darkness and vibration conspired to make the image unreadable.

I steered into a furrow and turned the bike to make a straight run for the railway tracks. I pushed the little engine to its limits. The field was a blur.

I decided I was going to make it.

A split second later my ear was able to discern a set of high-pitched buzzing sounds bearing down on me, barely audible over the roar of my own mount. The headlamps on the other two bikes came on, blinding me as they zipped directly across my path.

Bits of dirt rained over me. I swung the bike around to flee.

But they were faster, and more deft. I had not even completed my turn before they were both alongside me and an arm extended to catch me in the throat. For the second time that day, I was airborne.

I rolled into a ditch, coughing. I looked up to face the glare of their lights. The sounds of pressed grass informed me that the others had caught up. "We got him," said one of the boys.

"Nobody touches my bike," growled Marco, silhouetted by headlamps as he sauntered closer.

"I'm sorry," I said, and then Marco kicked me in the ribs.

"It's just some fucking bum," said Sal. "Let's pulp his ass."

"Definitely," agreed Marco.

And then six boys were surrounding me as I fought to cover my face with my hands. They kicked at me from all sides, screaming profanities. Their boots caught me in the back, on the shoulder, on my arms and legs. A rock bounced off the back of my head and I felt blood flow. "Please!" I sputtered, "I'm sorry!"

"Damn right you are," agreed Marco. He grabbed me by the hair and hauled my face into view, then punched me roundly across the jaw. And then again. And then a third time. I saw stars.

A moment's reprieve came. Five of the boys backed away as the fifth approached me with a steel tire-iron. One of the girls grabbed his arm and started to say something but was silenced with a hard look. The boy raised the tire-iron over his head and prepared to bring it down.

It took me on the shoulder, pain splashing through my torso like something spilled. Against my will, I howled. "No, no -- please," I begged desperately.

The boy raised the tool again. The others laughed. I tasted death, and I was afraid.

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"

The air sang as the tire-iron was swung. I flinched in anticipation of the blow.

It did not come.

I was surrounded suddenly by flashing shadows and overlapping grunts and then, finally, a piercing shriek. I rolled over to try to better appreciate the situation but all I saw was Sal propelled bodily through the air, crashing down with a nauseating crack that left him moaning feebly. Someone else gasped and then fell heavily.

The moon slipped out from behind the clouds, opening the field up to a wan, silver light.

It was Lallo. He was unstoppable. I watched him snatch the tire-iron out of Marco's hand and then turn it on the boy with a single, vicious swing. Marco was silenced by a repulsive liquid noise, and then he folded like a ragdoll. One of the girls was screaming and screaming. The other was running away.

Two of the boys had jumped on their mounts. Lallo surged up behind them and actually picked up the closest bike, rider and all, and gave a mighty grunt of exertion as he threw. The first bike hit the second and mowed it down like a bowling ball. Motorcycle parts flew in every direction, slicing the grass.

Sweating and breathing hard, Lallo rushed up to me and held out his artificial hand. "Get up, Englishman!"

I took the hand. He hauled me to my feet and then supported me as we fled, leaving behind a collection of shadows whimpering in the grass. Before even a dozen strides my battered legs failed me and I stumbled. Without breaking pace Lallo leaned down and scooped me up, tossing me over his shoulder like Mick's corpse.

I bounced as he ran.

For some strange reason I felt safe. I was reminded of being carried by my father, ferried to my bedroom half-asleep and careless, incurious and comforted. Even in my dazed state I could appreciate the irony of feeling so while being hefted by a homicidal monster, my kidnapper and saviour.

"How did you find me?" I managed to croak.

"I can track anything," he said.

When he slowed to a shamble I caught the sharp intake of breath every time he put his right foot down. "You're hurt," I whispered hoarsely.

"Nah," he muttered. "Just my ankle. It's broken again. Stupid shocks in the foot are all worn out."

"Can you go on? Put me down. Let me take a look."

"Forget about it. It always breaks. It's no big deal. I'll heal."

I lolled on his shoulder, giddy and disconnected. "Good Lord, man, what are you?"

Lallo snorted. "Don't you know anything, Englishman? I'm one of the long."

"The long?" I echoed.

"Yeah," he nodded wearily. "I go on and on and on."

The air was cold. Thicker clouds swept in and obscured any light. Lallo limped me through alleys and abandoned byways, sniffing the air and looking around constantly like a wolf on the hunt.

I broke out in gooseflesh.

It was not the air that chilled me, however. It was my recollection of something the Sovereign had said back at Windsor Castle, something I now understood differently in light of Lallo's claims. She said, "Mr. Smith, you must believe me when I tell you that not all men die."

And now, perhaps, I believed it.

7/8

Duty is duty. Despite complications, one must not lose sight of the goal.

This is the mantra I repeated to myself on the eve of action as I made my transformative preparations and likewise readied my collaborator for his role. Franco Fiorio, bless his heart, slept through the whole thing. This was appropriate: he had been goosed with enough tranquilizer to keep him horizontal until sunrise.

"This is risky," observed Lallo as he studied his make-up in the mirror. "We should just kill the library guy."

"Certainly not," I replied crisply as I timed Franco's pulse against my watch. "I am a Christian, sir. I am not a killer."

"You wear blinders, Englishman. You aid and abet. You're guilty."

"I do no such thing."

Lallo snorted. "You're aiding and abetting me, aren't you? There's killing on my agenda. Who else have you worked for? All saints with nothing to accomplish, huh?"

I closed my eyes and sighed as I straightened. "That is your aim here, then, is it? To kill?" I opened my eyes and stared at his reflection. "Who dies next?"

"Zeus," said Lallo darkly.

I furrowed my brow. "...Zeus?"

"Ziusudra, whatever. Yeah, I'm going to kill him good."

I pursed my lips. "What is his crime, in your eyes?"

Lallo spread his arms. "The same as mine, Englishman. He's long."

"That's a crime?"

"Yeah."

"How so?"

Lallo shifted in the chair. "It's unnatural. It's perverse. How can I explain it to you, a shortman? Live a couple of millennia and then we'll agree, you and me. What I've seen...what I've done..."

"Why don't you kill yourself, then?"

"In due time, Englishman. I have a job to do first."

"So you can die?"

"Why? Are you thinking about killing me?" he laughed. "Oh sure, we die alright. It just takes some extra killing. You should've seen me off Og. What a fight! That bastard just didn't want to give it up. In the end I had to grind his brains to pulp with a pestle and -- you know what? -- his body kept on jiggling for another hour after that. I mean, talk about stubborn."

"Og?" I repeated drily. "...As in Og from the Bible?"

"Yeah, that's him -- Og, Jababirat Commander of the Nephilim Armies. He always had such stinky breath."

"Wasn't he slain by Joshua at Edrei?"

Lallo snorted again. "Nope. I slew him in Boston, like last spring. He had a nice apartment. Still had stinky breath, though. Some things never change."

As Lallo would say, we had no more time for girly talk -- the hour was upon us. I came up behind the scarred goliath and tucked his wig into place around the edges, pushing his coarse black hair beneath a worm of glue, then combing over the transition to the beard. He frowned. "I look like Father Christmas. That could be a problem."

"Whyever for? Does Ziusudra have a grievance with Santa Claus?"

Lallo shrugged. "Don't know. Haven't seen Nick for a while." He paused, then smiled coldly. "...But I'll tend to him soon enough."

Duty is duty.

And guards are guards are guards.

The men in the gatehouse watched as our taxi drew up beside the tall estate fence which was festooned with iron rosettes, silhouetted against the twilight sky. The driver and I manhandled Lallo's wheelchair out of the trunk and unfolded it, locking its joints smartly. Then between us we hauled Lallo out of the car and settled him into the chair. I arranged a blanket over his legs, paid the driver, and then started pushing my charge up the hill to the gatehouse.

One of the guards wandered out to meet us. His name was Hector. He knew Franco well. "Hey," he called lazily. "Who's this?"

"Hector, this is my father, Alfonso," I said, wheeling up to him and kicking on the brake. "He's going to be staying with me this evening, as my mother has taken ill and is obliged to spend the night in hospital."

Hector looked uncomfortable. "It's some bad timing, Franco. You know that, eh?"

I nodded. "I know, I know. But what can I do? He's not capable of caring for himself. He's deaf, he's crippled, he's senile -- you must understand it's a matter of familial duty."

Hector leaned down and waved. "Good eve-ning, Sig-nore Fiorio!" He over-enunciated loudly, as if speaking to a child over a poor telephone connection.

Lallo looked up vaguely and mumbled, "Hah?"

"All things being equal I would have stayed in town with a friend," I explained, "but Uncle may require my services once the guests arrive."

Hector straightened, looking sympathetic. "Of course, Franco, I understand. But it puts me in a bit of a position, you see. We're on Security Two tonight -- everybody is supposed to have clearance. Even the gardeners can't come to trim the hedges until we grade down to Security Three."

I rubbed my chin pensively in Franco's manner. "I have an idea, Hector. Why don't you and Carlos keep an eye on him for me? He wouldn't be much trouble. Just tuck him in somewhere in the gatehouse -- maybe pointed at the TV -- and then call me when he soils himself."

"When he soils himself?"

I spread my arms helplessly. "Those prunes should be coming through him in about an hour. You'll be able to tell from the smell, but if there's any question just take a peek at his colostomy bag. Here, let me show you..."

"No, no, no," interrupted Hector hastily; "that won't be necessary, Franco. I think you should just take him inside yourself."

"Really? Be straight with me, Hector: I don't want you to get into any trouble on my account."

"No, no, it's fine," insisted Hector. "It's not like he poses much of a threat, does he?"

"Well, it's true that he can't get around without assistance -- he lost a foot to diabetes. And, of course, he can't hear a thing. He'll spend the evening watching game shows in my quarters."

Hector nodded and then called over his shoulder to Carlos, "Do we have any visitor badges?"

Carlos looked up from his sandwich and shook his head. "It's Security Two tonight," he shouted back, releasing a spray of shaved lettuce. "No passes."

"If it will make you feel better," I suggested, "why not escort us inside, Hector? You could stop in at my office and we'll have a little drink. What do you say?"

Hector sighed. "I can't, Franco. I'd love to, but Security Two means two men in the box at all times. You go ahead."

"You're a true gentleman, Hector," I told him.

Hector smiled and sauntered alongside us as we reached the gatehouse. Carlos pushed a biometric pad across the sill to me, and I pressed my index finger upon its face. The pad chirped and displayed a green light. I swiped Franco's security card in the slot. Carlos turned his key and the gate moved aside, a little rubber wheel at its corner skittering over the gravel.

I gave a nod to Hector and Carlos and then heaved Lallo's chair into motion. "That was close," he said quietly. "We almost had a babysitter there."

"You fool," I hissed back. "I wanted Hector to accompany us."

"Why?"

"Because I haven't any idea where the library is! I've never been inside the estate. Now we'll be left to wander around like idiots."

Lallo sniffed. "I don't care about the library."

An icy tone crept into my voice. "You'll care about whatever I care about for the time being, Mr. Lallo, as we are now within the bounds of the estate and I am a trusted member of the staff. If you threaten my mission I swear I'll have the entire security team on you in an instant. You may be hard to kill but I'll wager those automatic weapons look almost as daunting to you as they do to me."

He twisted in the chair to look at me. "You wouldn't, Englishman."

"I assure you, I would," I said flatly. "The shoe is now on the other foot, and you are at my mercy. One false step and I sound the alarm. My mission is delayed, yours ends."

He rubbed his chin ruefully. "You're a sneaky guy."

I tightened my mouth in a small, unkind smile. "I prefer to call it focus."

We stared at each other. The moment was broken when a yell sounded from behind us at the gatehouse. I froze. Hector yelled again, "Wait! Franco, stop!"

"This is it," whispered Lallo. "When he gets close, you distract him and then I'll snap his spine."

"You shall do no such thing," I whispered back. "Let me handle this, you oaf. Just keep quiet."

Lallo closed his mouth. Hector jogged up to us. "I'm sorry, Franco, but I just had the captain on the line and he says you do need an escort so they're sending someone down. You'll have to wait, I'm afraid."

"Very well," I conceded.

"Is your father warm enough?" asked Hector.

"How are you feeling, Papa?"

"Hah?"

"He's fine."

Five minutes later a tall, gawky adolescent in an ill-fitting uniform drew up to us in a humming golf cart. "Telly, will you escort these two gentlemen inside? That's Franco's father. Show him the proper respect."

"Yessir," replied Telly. He jumped out of the golf cart too fast and bumped his head on the roof, wincing as he rubbed the sore spot. "How do you do, Signori Fiorio?"

Hector and Telly loaded Lallo into the golf cart and then I showed the youth how to collapse the wheelchair. In another moment we were bumping along through the crisp night air, winding up the wooded face of the hill upon which perched the main house of Ziusudra's estate...

I have said it before, but it bears repeating: castles are castles.

This was one was disguised as a mansion. Through an ingenious mixture of trompe d'oeil and forced perspective the keenest aspects of the strategic architecture were minimized or given the appearance of frailty. A gossamer of apparent design indulgence masqued the robust defensive skeleton, the marriage itself a work of art. It was an exquisite transformation.

Ionic columns and ivy, pools and fountains populated by statues, trees planted in an organic diffusion of loose clumps and lines -- in truth, ready-made barricades, a moat, cover for maintaining the lines of communication for repelling an invasion fighting its way up the hill.

I had never seen the like, and I worried that I was up against such minds. Especially weighted down as I was by such meat.

As we drew nearer to the main house I caught sight of the front doors, nearly lost behind a cluster of guards and footmen -- and a couple of guards disguised as footman. Badly. I wondered how we'd get through it. I doubted we could.

The golf cart veered away. "We're going to go around the back, since your father has no pass," explained Telly.

"If we must," I agreed with an impatient sigh.

We rode on a narrow path through a grove of laurel trees which wound around to the opposite side of the compound, a site of much frenzied activity. A large black-walled sixteen wheeler had backed up to a loading dock, formation lights blinking, and members of the estate staff were directing the unloading of a large piece of cargo from within it. Voices echoed off the concrete. "Careful now -- easy, easy..."

I thought to myself: the shadow shippers!

The cargo was a large metal crate with a series of small, barred apertures in a row around the middle. Two red forklifts with spinning bubble lights atop them grumbled and buzzed as they worked the crate onto a pair of guide rails another set of workers were bolting to the loading dock floor. Their tools clattered and whined. They worked fast.

The crate shifted heavily against the rails. Something inside the crate shuffled and moved in response, animal grunts sounding from the dark apertures. Something wailed.

"Careful, you moron! Keep it level!"

Telly stopped the golf cart beside the next loading dock, then unfolded the wheelchair and helped me push Lallo up the ramp all the while helplessly stealing glances at the goings on. He absently swiped his keycard in the reader mounted on the wall and the dock door rolled up into the ceiling. Inside the loading bay a squadron of physicians awaited the crate, instruments at the ready. They all gave us a collective dirty look if we had yelled in a library or passed wind in church.

"Just what do you figure that is, Signore Fiorio?" Telly asked, eyes wide.

"It is Uncle's business," I said sharply. "We mind our own here, boy."

"Yessir," he said quickly, flushing. "This way, please."

We passed on into a series of concrete service corridors. I had no idea whether the youth was leading us to the library or to my quarters, but my fears were allayed when we arrived to find one connected to the other. The library itself was grand -- a high, vaulted ceiling with rows of shelves covering the walls, the books themselves housed in metal cases with clear plexiglas faces; stained-glass windows depicting scenes the night did not illuminate loomed between each bank of cabinets; a central island of sofas in an oasis of ferns arrayed around a gurgling fountain occupied a majority of the intricately tiled floor. It was at once a temple and a salon, a place to both worship books and to consume them in comfort and tranquility. A fire crackled in the hearth.

Telly stopped the wheelchair outside a wood-paneled door beside the fireplace. I stepped forward and opened it as if it were my business and found myself inside Franco's apartments -- the hearth was double-sided and the flames cast a mellow, ruddy light over a motley crew of dusty volumes on bowing shelves lining every wall.

"So, are you going to be alright? Can I get you anything?" asked Telly.

"Thank you, no. You are dismissed."

Telly smiled awkwardly, bobbed his head in acknowledgement, then turned and left, closing the door softly behind him. I looked to Lallo. He was already climbing out of the chair and rubbing his hip with a grimace. "Men were not meant to sit," he grumbled.

I gave him another tight smile, then consulted my watch. "Good luck," I said, then turned on heel and went back to the library.

I took my double of Franco's satchel off my shoulder and put it on one of the sofas, then shook off my coat. Franco's desk was at the far end, piled with more books. Behind the desk was a wall of tiny wooden drawers with a tall, rolling ladder in the centre: the card catalogue.

As I frowned at the markings on each drawer I heard Lallo shuffle up behind me. "So, what're you looking for anyway, Englishman?"

"A book."

"Yeah okay, I'm not that slow. What's it called?"

"The Jamijama," I mumbled as I found the marker from my memorized intelligence and began pushing the ladder over so I could climb to the right drawer.

"That's the title?"

"Yes. Do you know it?"

"I don't really read that much. Like, signs maybe. I'm not a book guy."

I grunted as I hefted myself up. "Shouldn't you be on your way? What about your agenda?"

"You trying to get rid of me?"

"Frankly, yes. There could be closed circuit cameras in here. There certainly are in the halls. For all we know the guards may already be rushing here to ask us why my father is walking and talking."

"I don't see any camera eyes. My gut says no."

"Yes? Well, if your gut were infallible you'd likely have two arms, wouldn't you? Go on, now -- get on your way, brute."

I slid open the drawer and flipped through the yellowed cards, some filled by precise, dense handwriting and some filled by faded typewriter text. The notations were in Italian, the titles in Greek, Latin, Akkadian, Hebrew...

And then I found it: IL GIAMIGIAMA : 54.309 N.

I pushed the drawer closed and slid down the ladder, startled as I almost ran into Lallo skulking at