Your old men shall dream dreams,

And your young men shall see visions.

[Joel 2:28]

1. The Definition of Fate

The metal highway, two-lanes wide, hugged the mountain beneath the indifferent view of a gibbous Colorado moon, dividing ascent from descent.

Standing alone at a dead man’s curve overlooking Old Denver and New Columbia, a tall white-haired wanderer dressed in a tattered coat and Salvation Army castoffs surveyed the streets and buildings. Preoccupied, he just recognized the blue bleat of an automobile’s electronic horn in time to dive out of the way of a maglev two-seater that suddenly sailed through his lane at 186 MPH.

Out of control, his scarecrow body tumbled towards the foothills until the wanderer crashed into a stone with square edges.

“Uhn!”

Clinging to consciousness by a fingernail, he realized the stone was a headstone and he was lying, spread-eagle, on another man’s grave. More markers surrounded him, all scarred from over a century’s worth of weather and hoarfrost, and illuminated in chiaroscuro shades of silver and shadows by the moon.

Before blacking out, the wanderer glanced back to his headstone. The name and date were eroded, but the epitaph was as distinct as the day its words were carved:

A man’s character is his fate.

2. The Director of the BPM

The President of the United States, Thomas Nelson, leaned back in his chair.

“I need your support on this increase, Cork. Can I count on you?”

In a monolithic building three blocks away, the Director of the Bureau of Public Management, a handsome, apposite blonde man in his early forties, sat alone in his office and waited for the Secretary of the Treasury Cork Jergens to answer POTUS.

“Mr. President,” SecTreas said, “raising the discount rate one-half point right now seems to me premature.”

DBPM picked up the receiver to his secure telephone and dialed. His party answered on the first ring but didn’t speak. �liver it,” DBPM instructed then hung up. On his personal computer’s monitor, Jergens was listening to chief of staff Christopher Jones.

“Mr. Secretary, you cannot deny that all of the Federal Reserve Board’s statistical indicators show that the economy is running too hot. We need this half-point raise to stave off inflation.”

“All it will do, Chris, is force adjustable-rate mortgages to rise too high and swallow up too much disposable income. Greenspan tried this same tactic at the turn of the century. And what happened? He put the brakes on one of the most robust economic periods this country’s ever enjoyed.”

DBPM would have concurred with Jergens…if SecTreas was being sincere and not dancing the old Potomac Two-Step, a Beltway ritual transplanted to New Columbia when the federal government was moved here nine years earlier. The Fed would never approve POTUS’ request for a raise without Jergens’ O.K., making Sec Treas’ yea an article of trade Jergens intended to barter in exchange for political recompense.

Someone knocked on the door to the Oval Office, and POTUS’ secretary entered carrying a large leathern envelope with a small seal in the shape of an eagle. “This official dispatch arrived for you, Mr. Secretary.”

“Thank you. Excuse me, Mr. President.”

DBPM leaned back and watched SecTreas break the eagle and open the envelope.

Inside were photographs. Candid color photographs. Along with an unambiguous message scribbled on SecTreas’ own stationary.

“Uhn.”

DBPM inhaled when he heard Jergens’ grunt.

SecTreas, acting as gracefully as he could, told POTUS and Jones that the dispatch contained a prospectus that put the raise request in a different light. Jergens did not explain that, in truth, he doubted his wife Connie would appreciate seeing what the woman in the photographs—was her name Opal?—was doing to him with her mouth.

3. Walking After Midnight

The wanderer dreamt he was trapped inside a transparent dart, fired from a canon, hurtling toward the moon.

Spinning and reeling closer to the satellite, he watched its craters, seas, and mons coalesce into a man’s handsome but listless face. Then, as the dart plunged towards the moon’s forehead, the satellite’s features warped again until he was plummeting towards the shrieking mask of a living corpse.

The wanderer jerked awake, digging his fingers into the grave mound, the sense of falling pursuing him from the nightmare. His vertigo vanished when he felt grooves in the packed earth beneath his right hand. Lifting his head, he spotted three words recently scratched into the ground:

HOOKER

“OPAL WARRENS

The handwriting didn’t look like his. At least, he didn’t think it looked like his. To make sure, he scratched the same words beside the originals.

It wasn’t his handwriting, although the style was similar, like a family member’s might be.

Unconscious he was doing it, the wanderer scanned the cemetery for impressions in the grass, or scuffs in the dirt, or any tracks left by the three words’ author.

Nothing. It was impossible, but there was nothing.

A blood-red harvest moon was rising from behind the Rockies. Cicadas filled the chilling evening air with electric banshee wails. The scent of the conifers grew sticky and sweet. The wanderer, uneasy, erased the six words beside the grave with his palm, stood, then scurried away from the cemetery.

The wanderer had almost forgotten his nightmare by the time he reached The Warrens, the terminator where Old Denver rabbeted with New Columbia.

The memory of the corpse-faced moon was facing stiff competition from the vision of a blonde woman that had been burning a hole in the wanderer’s brain for as long as he could remember, a total of three days. A siren’s face beckoning him further and further into the ghetto’s crinkum-crankum of blistered tarmac, cracked pavement, and blasted buildings.

“Hey, brother.”

The wanderer saw a natty shady-haired man with sad, dreamy eyes and a bright, tranquil face standing in front of a picture window of a white elephant shop, The House of Endor, and, for maybe an eye-blink, thought he might know the stranger.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“That girl you’re looking for? She’s over there.” The stranger jerked his thumb in the direction of the nearest street corner, where a roly-poly Russian “businessman,” the Russian’s brawny bodyguard, and a flaxy prostitute with the siren’s face were engaged in street barter.

“Yes! That’s her! But how…?”

The stranger was gone. Staring back at the wanderer now was his reflection in the picture window. At least, he thought it was his reflection. The tatterdemalion gazing out at him from the dark glass was a dead ringer for his nightmare’s shrieking corpse.

“Who are you?” he asked himself.

On the street corner, the prostitute told the Russian, “Lookit, Tsezar, we set a price last night!”

“So be it, Opal.” Tsezar held up two plump hands and grinned. “You cannot blame me for trying, eh?”

“No—so long as you know when to quit.”

The wanderer stepped between the man and woman. “You can call it quits right now, Tsezar. This lady and I have business.”

“A friend of yours, Opal?” Tsezar did not look as polite as he sounded.

Opal, for an instant or two, speculated if she knew the intruder, but, “No, you’re…”

“Looking for an original sin. Let’s go.”

Tsezar stepped up as the wanderer grabbed Opal’s wrist. “Not so fast, my stimulated friend. You know my name, but I do not know yours.”

“I’m just a nobody.”

“A `nobody’? A `Peter Collins,’ eh?” Tsezar drew a pistol of impressive caliber from a shoulder holster. “Mr. Collins, go and satisfy your needs on Posner Street. You’ll find a healthier selection there.”

“Can’t. Opal and I have to talk. Now.”

“This guy’s nuts, Tsezar! I don’t know him!”

Tsezar glimpsed doubt in Opal’s eyes. “You are frightening the lady, Mr. Collins.”

“Shoot me in public?”

“This is Tsezar’s territory. I do what I want here. Besides, what kind of man would I be if I did not defend her?”

“I see. But you don’t want to shoot me.”

“I don’t? Guess again. I…” Tsezar watched a hypnotic light glitter around the nobody’s kaleidoscopic pupils. “I…I…I don’t.”

Tsezar’s bodyguard snatched the wanderer by the tattered coat’s lapels. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not sure really.”

Nearby pedestrians scattered. Who needed this kind of trouble?

Opal, forgotten, crept behind the bodyguard as she rummaged for something in her oversized purse. Not sure why, she cheered, “Hold `im, Shukov!” when she felt the .38 semi-automatic. Forcing herself, she jammed the semi’s barrel against the base of Shukov’s skull and pulled the trigger. The .38 tried to jump out of her hand and Opal screeched.

The wanderer covered his head, dodging the spew from Shukov’s exit wounds. When he dropped his arms, he saw Opal aiming at the entranced Tsezar and slapped the .38 out of her grip.

“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted.

“Have you lost your mind?”

Tsezar, forgotten, shook his head then saw his faceless bodyguard. “Shukov!” Woozy, he pointed his pistol towards the man and Opal. “Y*b*nna mat! You are a dead motherless…”

The wanderer dropped, rolled under the pistol, and kicked Tsezar’s jaw fast enough to SNAP! the Russian’s neck. Commandeering Tsezar’s pistol, he warned Opal, “Please don’t run. I’ll just catch you.”

Opal really did not know what to do. “Who are you?”

“I am hoping you can tell me. Here.” He presented Opal with the pistol. 𠇊 good faith offering.”

“`Good faith’? Right. Fat lot of good this did Tsezar.”

“Life is precious to me, especially my own. Besides, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t defend you?”

“Oh, you’re funny. Lookit, bub, I don’t know…hey!” Two tracers buzzed Opal’s face. Orange sparks blinded her for a second, but she didn’t have to see to know that the bullets had been fired by “A rover!”

A techno-nightmare—a coal-black whirling dervish of blades, gun barrels, and hydraulics—advanced towards the man and woman down the street.

“Run!” There was no escaping a rover, but, like the fox fleeing the hunt, Opal had to try.

The wanderer retrieved Opal’s semi and aimed like a duelist at the surveillance and enforcement automaton. “Just wait,” he told her. He fired one bullet and something sounding like glass shattered inside a tiny hooded vent in the middle of the rover’s head. “Now run.”

The pair sprinted into an alley, where Opal crouched beside the wanderer behind a fetid dumpster. He whispered, “There is more to you than meets the eye.”

“Look who’s talkin’! What’d’ya do to the rover?”

“Disabled its optic sensors. Not that it still can’t find us. Its audio and olfactory sensors are the envy of any bloodhound, so be quiet.”

They listened as the machine approached the alley.

The wanderer, in a hushed but confident voice: “If it finds us, I’ll draw it away from you.” And then Opal was sure she knew who this nobody was. But he can’t be here, she thought as the rover passed the alley, something else Opal couldn’t believe she was seeing.

“It’s gone,” the wanderer announced.

Struggling to appear cool, Opal put Tsezar’s pistol in her purse. “That was one slick trick. Suppose I oughta thank you.”

“You can do that by answering some questions.”

Opal leaned into the wanderer and found his shirt with her hands. “Talk takes time, and in my business time is money.”

“I rescued you from the rover, not to mention Tsezar’s wrath.” He kecked a bit at the smell of Shukov’s blood on her hands.

Opal didn’t seem to notice. “Well, you’ve got me there. Okay. Let’s go to my place.”

“Wherever. Let’s find some water first and clean the blood off your hands.”

She looked at him weird. “What blood?” Opal raised her hands and splayed her fingers. “There ain’t any blood. See?”

Craning his head back to escape the corrupt odor, the wanderer started to point to the handprints Opal must have left on his shirt, but there weren’t any.

She insisted, “My hands are clean.”

4. A Musical Request

Claire Goodwin sat alone in the first-class cabin of the Air France corporate rocket plane, trying to concentrate on Archer’s Revised Commentaries on Federal Statute Procedures. Flight time between London and New Columbia was 1 hour, 33 minutes, of which only 27 minutes remained to catch up on her Juris Doctor studies. A consummate professional, this was her penalty for checking her PDA every few minutes to review the latest international news updates on her Parisian kill.

“Pardon, mademoiselle.”

Claire glanced up from Archer’s.

A stewardess and a man dressed like a pilot looked down at her. The stewardess explained in French that the gentleman was the communication officer, and he held out a flash-phone and told Claire, “This arrived over the diplomatic channel.” Claire accepted the phone, thanked them, and stared at the Seal of the United States stamped on its lid until they walked away.

A classified fax! What for? she thought. Did we make a mistake in Paris? Every update I’ve read indicates we’re clean. Even so, to be certain, Claire reran the mission through her mind.

A marksman from the Deuxieme and I sat up nine blocks southwest from where Acosta was having his meeting, as the BPM instructed. She saw her and her companion, both dressed in camouflage grays and wearing protective eye and ear gear, stretched out on the Paris rooftop, staring down the Bausch and Lomb Tactical sights of their Barrett .50 BMG rifles. Rico Acosta! The Philippine’s primo eco-terrorist. Maniac made his mark in ‘06 by bombing the Louvre, supposedly to protest France’s Pacific oil drilling. Claire kept Acosta’s face framed in her crosshairs as she waited on her peer. Nineteen years later Acosta returned to Paris. Smuggled in, actually, to meet with representatives from the Russian mobs. The time had come for Acosta to pay for his crimes against humanity. The French marksman fired. The meeting was at the Hotel Robert Houdin, whose carbon-poly-steel conference windows are almost indestructible. Then Claire did. `Almost.’ Bullet #1 pierced a ½” puncture in one window, large enough for Claire’s 600 grain trailer to slip through. Like most of his victims, Acosta never knew what hit him.

“Remember the Mona Lisa, you greaseball,” Claire mumbled, proud of herself.

It was a perfect job. This has to be new business.

Raising the lid, Claire pressed her thumb on the quarter-sized scanner pad for DNA confirmation. A garble of pixels tumbled across the plasma screen until the encrypted message was deciphered:

LET’S SIP WHERE THE UNDERWORLD CAN MEET THE ELITE @ 20:00. F.Y.E.O.

“What the…?” Aslanbek?

It could only be him. And, if so, this was a request Claire didn’t want to play.

At eight o’clock, an incongruous man dressed in business formalwear and a tailored coat approached a derelict theater called Broadway on 42nd in the Warrens. On its marquee was the code:

C OSED FO BUS NES F R S LE

Using a lock pick, he opened the front doors and, drawing a handheld battery-operated torch from a suit jacket pocket, entered the dilapidated auditorium. He ambled down the center aisle, at ease despite the spooky peeling plaster and dirty cobwebs. When the man reached row F, a lithe shade slipped out from behind an aisle seat, snared him hard enough to bow his back, and stabbed a stiletto towards his throat.

“Wait, Claire! It’s me! Tom Edmund!”

If Claire had wanted to, she could have bled the man before he had had a chance to speak; but, even if that had been her intent, the cut of his physique—shorter and broader than Aslanbek’s—would have made her pause.

“Thomas? Are you crazy? I might have killed you!”

Edmund straightened his tie and laughed. “I’m sorry, girl. I forgot to consider you were expecting Aslanbek.”

“Did Saltev send you?”

Edmund placed the torch on a nearby armrest. 𠇊slanbek told me once you like Dom Perignon ’46.” With the panache of a Vegas magician, he pulled a split of champagne and two plastic cups from separate coat pockets. “Never tried it myself.”

Claire asked again.

“In a way. He requested that I fax you that message then meet you here if anything happened to him. By the way, what did that mean, `Where the underworld can meet the elite’?”

“It’s from Harry Warren’s 1933 title song for 42nd Street.”

“You mean that old Broadway show? Of course! Makes perfect sense now.” Claire didn’t bother to correct Edmund as he popped the cork and, holding the cups in the torchlight, poured them champagne. Arrested within the diffuse beam, the effervescent amber liquid appeared as beguiling as nepenthe.

“Stop the boxing, Thomas. Is Aslanbek dead?”

“S’truth, I wish I knew. I need you to find out.” He handed her a cup then sat down.

She almost answered without thinking. “I…I don’t work for you and Shadow Section anymore.”

“To my regret. You were a wonderful spy, girl. However, I’m not asking you as Shadow chief or for the BPM. I’m asking because Aslanbek trusts you with his life and I with mine.” He took a sip and didn’t seem to mind the bubbles. “Your ex-partner-slash-lover stumbled over a furtive organization that has infected our government. Probably the BPM, as well. I had my doubts as to the validity of Aslanbek’s information when I gave him the green light to investigate two weeks ago. He hasn’t reported in since, and my doubts are turning to fears.”

“Who else knows about this?” She sat on Edmund’s armrest.

“How many good guys, you mean? We’re it. From what Aslanbek reported to me this organization, Step Ten, has few conspirators, but they’re highly placed and their pervasiveness is staggering.” Edmund sighed before taking another sip, and Claire thought she glimpsed dread in his eyes. 𠇍o you recall D.C. being razed in 2016?”

“Huh? Uh…sure.” That was like asking her grandparents if they recalled Pearl Harbor or her parents September 11th. Nine years earlier a united front of domestic terrorist forces had devastated the capital. Washington was still burning when then-President Milton launched a two-prong retaliation, “To prevent anything like this from ever happening again.” First he signed a bill rammed through Congress that consolidated the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Nation Security Agency, Office of Homeland Security, and all state and local police agencies into one entity: the Bureau of Public Management. Then, instead of rebuilding, POTUS ordered the nation’s capital moved to a more defensible location outside Denver.

“And do you recall federal engineers constructing The Amphitheatre?” This was New Columbia’s Capital Hill and National Mall, surrounded by the Belt, a 20-foot high, 12-mile wall eternally patrolled by a battalion of 1,000 security troops.

“Thomas, why are you asking me all this?”

“Because, according to Aslanbek’s information, Step Ten took a hand in The Amphitheatre’s construction, where they have electronic eyes and ears everywhere.”

For three seconds, Claire couldn’t breathe. “My God.”

“Yeah…well…God helps those who help themselves. Will you find Aslanbek?”

“What about Step Ten?”

“One thing at a time. Slaying a Minotaur like Step Ten is no two-man job. We’ll have to wait until we know who else we can and can’t trust. All we can do now is concentrate on the problem at hand, and that’s finding Aslanbek.”

It was a good point. 𠇊ll right. Where should I start looking?”

“I suggest Aslanbek’s source, a slattern named Opal Chamberlain.”

Claire’s reaction beat her reflexes this time: she crushed her cup, splattering her and Edmund.

“Ah!” he yelped, swiping the champagne off his coat and suit. “I take it you’re familiar with the lady.”

5. A Toy in Blood

Opal’s address, N225 Hillcrest, was in New Columbia’s tory Smoot-Hawley district. When the wanderer entered her townhouse he repeated, “There’s more to you than meets the eye.” Opal said nothing, but thought, If only what met your eye was more than enough.

The man and woman talked the day away without getting anywhere. She made him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was nice. Opal had forgotten how nice it used to be. Then the wanderer, exhausted from his journey, fell asleep on the sofa. She went into the bedroom to call Step Ten, but found herself undressing and posing in front of the cheval glass instead, pondering, “What’s she got that I don’t?”

I’m the temptress in this tarot deck, Opal mused, brushing the face in the mirror with her right fingers while stroking the skin over her heart with the left. A succuba to make moral men forsake their families and service oaths. Men who desire me for my beauty, but never forget me because I’m not too proud to do what makes them feel good. A scowl slit her lips. But my chatoyant eyes and black velvet ways meant nothing to you, Aslanbek Saltev. Not when compared to your Ms. Goodwin’s raven hair and serpent’s tongue.

Opal glanced into the living room where the wanderer slept and her white Persian, Hope, was curled up, snoozing, on his stomach.

Oh, you finally came to me, but only after she refused to have you. That made me your second choice. Second best. And I refused to accept that. Sitting at her vanity, she tied her hair behind her neck then removed her contacts. Slipping on her glasses, Opal picked up a small cherry memory box. Preoccupied, she didn’t hear Hope’s groggy mew as the wanderer placed the cat on the floor. But I loved you, and satin chains are harder to break than a bad habit. Opal opened the box. So I tried, really tried, to elevate me in your eyes. That’s all I ever wanted, to be your first and only. She pulled out a photograph taken at the beach of her and a sable-haired man with moony eyes. Was that so wrong? Was what I did so terrible? She scratched the photograph, breaking odor pads in the paper, and inhaled the scent of sand and ocean breeze. “We could have been so good together.”

A knurly hand snatched the photograph.

“Hey! Give me that!”

“Who’s this with you?” The wanderer recognized the man from The House of Endor.

“That’s mine! Give me it, dammit!”

“There’s something written on the back,” he noticed. Words, in the same handwriting from the cemetery:

ELSINORE HOTEL

HAMILTON STREET

RM. 1715

“Who is this man? Tell me!” He twisted Opal’s ponytail, herding her to her knees.

“He’s nobody! Stop it!”

It was getting to be too much. His vision of Opal, the dark stranger, this photograph, the weird messages, and now—beginning when the wanderer stepped into the bedroom—a suffocating sensation that he had tumbled into his own grave. Enough was enough!

“No! You will tell me, Opal! Tell me everything!” His eyes kindled, numbing Opal’s thinking like codeine, and he took control.

DBPM was standing behind his desk studying a security camera’s long shot of New Columbia and the Warrens as two men entered his office.

“Director? You wanted to see us?”

The speaker, Rose, was tall and sinewy with a severe face and red hair. Rose’s companion, Stern, was bulky and muscular with coal-colored hair and a scar that split his left eyebrow and cheek.

“Come in.” DBPM retrieved a remote control from his desk and changed the vista on his flat-screen monitor to a still image of the wanderer and Opal. “This was taken 21 hours ago by a rover in the Warrens.”

Stern snapped his fingers. “Hey! That’s the whore who gave us Saltev.”

DBPM asked Rose then Stern if they recognized Opal’s companion. Neither did.

“I’ll ask again in a moment. First, some exposition. Opal Chamberlain was in the Warrens last night on orders to hard delete our pernicious friend Tsezar.”

The street scene changed to a morgue photo (“FORENSICS #45-99-0-1”) of the gangster’s naked cadaver, pale as Dover chalk, lying on a stainless steel table.

“Yeah?” Stern. “Good riddance to the fat Russian! Thought he was the Warren’s godfather. But why d’ya use an amateur?”

“To try Opal’s fidelity. She betrayed Saltev, true, but she exposed Step Ten first. The institute was compromised solely to impress her lover.”

Rose: “She thought she was recruiting Saltev, sir.”

“She was trying to compete with Claire Goodwin. As if she had a chance.” DBPM recalled the street scene as Stern commented, “Yeah. Goodwin’s a hard act to follow, but no harm done. Opal did right in the end. Saltev’s dead. We saw to that.”

DBPM screwed his eyes into Stern’s. 𠇊re you sure Saltev’s dead?”

“Yeah! I nailed him in the forehead with that…that…dart thing.”

“Stern means Dr. Polonius’ mind-auger, sir. And he did. And Saltev was dead when we delivered him to Polonius.”

DBPM nodded. “Please look at this.”

This time the street scene changed to a laboratory that had suffered a bomb blast. Bits and pieces of scientists lay scattered amongst shattered glassware and tech. The roof was blown out, its aluminum and steel alloy I-beams splintered and twisted. Through the breach stars spanned a cloudless sky dominated by a gibbous Earth.

“Our lunar complex is devastated. Polonius and his staff are all dead. And Saltev is missing.”

“What happened, sir?”

“Polonius was experimenting with the mind-auger. Don’t worry about the details, but Saltev may still be alive. However he probably looks different. So I’ll ask you again…” DBPM replaced the lab with A and B close-ups of two men, the wanderer on the right and a Human Resource file photo of Aslanbek Saltev on the left.

“Aw, geez,” Stern moaned. “They almost look like brothers.”

“Yes. I want you to find this stranger. Quickly.”

5. Séance

Sundry 11 o’clock newscasts prated from storefront windows as the wanderer rummaged the Warrens for the Elsinore Hotel. Preoccupied, he paid no attention to updates about the continuing police crisis in East Timor, President Nelson’s plans to meet with the Pan African Confederation, and the Fed’s decision to raise the Discount Rate one-half point. He didn’t even notice when he began following what sounded like echoes of discontent rebounding off the surrounding brownstones and shops. Echoes that brought the wanderer directly to the Elsinore and Hamilton Street, where troops of angry transients were gathering around bonfires set in trashcans stationed along the front walk of a ramshackle cathedral next door to the hotel.

One itinerant, a bearded brute, broke from the crowd and marched up the cathedral’s steps to confront its priest, a tough bulldog in his early fifties who was guarding the pointed arched doors.

“This ain’t some government shelter!” the priest barked. “You want charity? You’re gonna have to work for it!”

“Whoever heard of workin’ fer charity, Angerer?” the brute wanted to know. “The ol’ priest didn’t run things this way!”

“Father Keller ain’t the man at St. Ludmila’s anymore, Raptor! I am!”

Raptor stopped shy of the top step so he and Angerer were eye to eye. “You’re cruisin’ fer trouble, bub!”

The wanderer had heard enough: “Get out of here! All of you! This is a house of God, and you will respect it!”

Everyone within earshot saw a gaunt silhouette standing at the edge of the firelight, the eyes of the shade flickering a dark, smoky gold.

Incredibly, the crowd disbanded.

Angerer couldn’t believe it. As the sidewalk cleared, he rushed down the steps to confront his mysterious benefactor, but whoever it was vanished along with the crowd.

In the Elsinore’s shabby lobby, the wanderer approached the front desk, where a man who had almost mastered tucking in his shirt was on duty. 𠇎xcuse me, please, but I’d…”

The clerk glanced at the wanderer. “How’s tricks, Collinson? Been awhile.”

“`Collinson’? You know me?”

“Didn’t recognize ya’ at first, and I’m used to people changin’ sudden. The streets and the hard stuff do blindside most folks.” He reached for a key and tossed it to Collinson. “There you go. Your bill’s been paid for the month, as always.”

Collinson didn’t look to his hands. “Room 1715?”

“As always.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Trembling by the time the elevator reached the 17th floor, Collinson treaded carefully down the grungy corridor, located 1715, then stared at the door as he worked up the spit to insert the key. Opening the door, a blast of cold air warned him that this room was not vacant.

“Who’s there?”

“Hey, brother. Glad you got my message.”

Collinson turned on the lights.

Room 1715 turned out to be a suite, stocked with garage sale furniture. A door on the right led into the bedroom, which led into the bathroom, while on the other side French doors adorned with threadbare drapery opened out to a balcony. Seated on a couch beneath a frameless oval mirror was the man from The House of Endor and Opal’s photograph, legs crossed, fiddling with a stick match.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“My name’s Aslanbek Saltev. That’s Serbian, in case you were wondering. What I want is revenge. And you want answers. Shall we exchange favors?”

Rose and Stern began their search in Smoot-Hawley.

A couple of joggers and a dog-walker were the only people in sight as Rose rapped on the door to N255 Hillcrest. “No answer,” he told Stern, who replied, “Jimmy the door.”

Stern stepped between Rose and the sidewalk to block any pedestrian’s view, but Claire Goodwin could see what they were doing with her infrared binoculars and hear them with her directional microphone. Her mouth went dry when she recognized the pair as “stalkers,” the BPM Director’s Internal Affairs investigators.

Inside Opal’s townhouse, Stern shouted a friendly, “Yo, Opal! You home?”

Rose bowed to pet Hope as the cat ambled out the front door. When Opal didn’t answer: “Let’s check the bedroom.”

They found Opal sitting at the foot of her bed exhibiting the astuteness of a white zombie.

“Is she drugged, Rose? Why’s she naked?”

“I don’t know. Buzz the Director. He’ll want to know about this.”

“Opal told me a lot about you.”

Saltev considered his match. �ter you mesmerized her. You should have done that straight off. Boxing with Opal is a waste of time when she doesn’t want to tell you anything. She’s too foxy. On the other hand, leaving her in a trance was shrewd. So long as she’s on your leash, she can’t contact Step Ten.”

“The organization she betrayed you to.”

“Opal thought she could make me forget about Claire by recruiting me.”

“Opal was there when Step Ten killed you.” Collinson moved to the French doors.

“Helped ambush me in her boudoir would be more accurate.”

Collinson gazed through the gauze curtains at the Warrens, its maze of streets cast in silvery shadows. In the distance, behind the Belt, the BPM’s cyclopean office building rose above the other floodlit citadels of The Amphitheatre. New Columbia was spread out beneath the apathetic man in the full moon, who, in Collinson’s nightmare, might have looked like Saltev. “I’ve been having…I don’t know…déjà vu? Bad dreams? Can you tell me anything about them?”

“Yes. They’re memories.”

“You’re memories?” He didn’t wait for an answer. 𠇊nd are you a ghost? My ghost?”

Saltev smirked. “I prefer to believe you are my ghost.” Leaning forward, he placed elbows on knees. His face stiffened. �ter the ambush, Step Ten shipped me to the moon. A researcher there, Dr. Polonius, invented a mind-auger that, among other wondrous things, kills but sustains the corpse’s brain and body functions. I was its first victim. The plan was to use the auger to alter my appearance, supplant my life’s memories with false ones, and then revive my corpse, thus disposing of me and creating a vassal for Step Ten. When Polonius reanimated me, however, his auger tapped into latent transcendental powers imbedded inside the human brain. For lack of a better way of saying it, that was when you came about.”

Collinson listened but, in his mind’s eye, saw Opal’s bedroom. A red-haired man was pinning Saltev’s arms as some scarred thug shot Saltev in the forehead with a queer pistol. Then Saltev was lying inside a Plexiglas coffin being born towards a titanic door built into the base of a moon crater. The door led into a laboratory, where Saltev was strapped to a stainless steel table underneath a drill-like device mounted to the center of the roof. Collinson, somehow watching through Saltev’s undead eyes, peered out through surgical mesh as scientists toiled at machines and the device droned and smoldered. Saltev’s memories finished there…

…and Collinson’s kicked in. Memories of stumbling from the ruins of the lab, tearing mummy wrapping off his head, commandeering a personal transport, scavenging for clothes after landing high in the Rockies, and dogging the vision of Opal down the mountain.

“That’s how I can bend men’s wills.” Collinson faced Saltev, who told him, “Only the weak-willed. Losers like Tsezar, Opal, and those indolents mobbing St. Ludmila’s. Just yet you don’t know half the powers you possess. In time you’ll discover more, but not before you’re ready.”

“My fighting…shooting…how I knew to blind the rover! All reflex and unerased memories from your BPM training! But…who’s `Collinson’?”

Saltev spread out his arms. “My undercover identity. `Peter Collinson,’ a.k.a. `nobody’s son.’ The `Hyde’ to my `Jekyll.’ And this is Collinson’s roost. His `Soho address,’ as it were.” He pointed with the match. “Now its yours.”

“Why would I want it?”

“A private Swiss account pays for the dump. You’ll find extra cash and other necessities cached behind here.” He jerked one thumb at the oval mirror.

“I asked you a question.”

“You got answers. I want revenge. The men who killed me must pay. Life is precious to me, especially my own.” Saltev held out the stick match. “Now take this.”

“I don’t need a match.”

“Yes, you do. This match you need. Strike it and all becomes clear.” Saltev’s countenance softened. “Just start this one small fire.”

DBPM was engaged in conversation in the smoking room of The Amphitheater’s elite Diomedes Club when an attendant brought him a telephone and informed the Director there was an urgent call.

“Yes?”

“Stern here.”

DBPM waited.

“We’re at Opal’s. Her buddy’s not here. She is, but she’s out of it, maybe drugged.”

“I see. Go ahead and search her apartment then. Don’t disconnect. I’ll hold.”

Alone in suite 1715, Collinson sat on the couch and reflected upon the stick match as if it were Yorick’s skull.

“I’m not finding anything,” Rose informed Stern. “You?”

“Nada. I’ll tell the Director.”

Collinson pressed his thumbnail against the match head, not quite hard enough to snap the stick.

Stern told DBPM, “No good. Maybe we ought to cart Opal to a doc and question her.”

Collinson struck the match. Pain flared right through his skull.

Opal wailed, grabbing her head in her hands.

DBPM overheard. “What’s that?”

“Hold it! Opal’s going nuts.”

More of Saltev’s memories and some emotions slammed into Collinson and Opal. Heartbreak when he couldn’t accept Claire leaving Shadow Section and becoming an assassin. Opal’s succor, temptation, and betrayal. Outrage at his murderers and the traitor who ordered his death. And then, from who knew where, a symbol of hope: the specter of a cross towering atop an anonymous church overlooking a field of violence.

Rose and Stern gawped at Opal as she stopped keening. Her vacant gaze focused, lighting upon them as her fingers curled like talons.

“She okay?” Stern wondered after she quietly called the pair, “Killers.”

Claire overheard carnage.

Now what?

Forgetting her mission, she drew her pistol and, making herself as small a target as she could, mule-kicked N255’s front door open then rushed towards the source of the commotion.

“Freeze! Nobody…good God.”

Collinson, exhausted, got off the couch, the stick match a charred coil in his hand, smoke curling where the flame snuffed itself against his skin.

ȁWell…done…Opal. Good-bye.”

Opal, gory, bedraggled, sat Indian-style between Rose and Stern’s shredded corpses, staring at her hands. “Now I see the blood.”

“Ms. Chamberlain?” Claire lowered her weapon. 𠇍id these men attack you? Was Saltev here?”

Opal strained to see through a mental fog. “You’re her, aren’t you?”

“Was Saltev here?”

“He saw something on back of our photo. There wasn’t anything.”

Time to bring in the white coats, Claire thought as she heard a fly calling, “Rose! Stern! Report!” She tracked the calls to a cel-phone under Stern’s body. “Rose and Stern are dead. Who’s this?”

“I’m BPM Director. Who’s this?”

DBPM listened. “Oh, Goodwin! Excellent! Take charge of what’s happening and report to my office by midnight.”

DBPM hung up the telephone. A companion asked if anything was the matter.

“I’m beginning to think killing Saltev was worse then a crime. It was a blunder.”

6. Confessional, Part I

Father Angerer leaned on his mop and surveyed the inside of St. Ludmila’s.

He swallowed some blue words. This wasn’t the place to blaspheme, and, more, he didn’t want to discourage the few volunteers who had agreed to help him swab and sweep. Why in God’s name did Keller let things get this bad? And “bad” was an understatement. Scaffolding and plastic tarps veiled an entire nave wall from arcade to clerestory in a pathetic attempt to keep out the elements. Several panes in the rose window and stained glass had been patched with cardboard. The roof leaked. Most everything needed a good scrubbing or replaced.

The biggest problem facing Angerer really wasn’t what to do. It was where to begin. Angerer’s bishop had dispatched him to the Warrens not only rescue to St. Ludmila’s from entropy but its community from apathy, the cathedral’s state of decay an apt reflection of the condition of his new parish. Hope was in short supply in the Warrens, where faith was deemed a weakness and too many people, like the transients, only wanted to be cared for cradle to grave like cattle.

“Father! Lookit! It’s him!”

“Who, Ouija?”

“Tatters!”

Angerer lifted his face and saw his mysterious benefactor teetering in the chancel.

“Father, can you help me? I don’t know what to do.”

Inside St. Ludmila’s confessional, Father Angerer listened to Collinson. When the man finished, he said, “Son, what you say is crazy.”

“I’m not lying, Father.”

“Who said you were? But what you told me defines the sacrity of the soul.”

“Still, it’s true.”

“You sure about that? Okay, you dispelled a mob with your eyes. I’m not saying you ain’t different, but things could be different then what you think they are.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Look, a soul can’t be killed. A man may lose his identity, but he dies with the soul he’s born with, when it returns to God, its creator. Couldn’t Saltev’s spirit be a manifestation of your conscience?”

“My conscience? I’m not Saltev! I have his memories, but he’s not me!” Collinson paused to catch his breath. “He wants to be avenged. And I’ve done that. Pretty much. But I can’t go after the Director of the BPM much less Step Ten. Not alone. Taking on Step Ten was what got Saltev killed. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me.”

“It did happen to you. That’s what I’m telling you.”

“All right. Fine. So what?” Collinson lowered his voice. “I’m a new man now. A man afraid of dying. Again.”

“Can’t anyone help you? Your old love?”

“Claire might have, but Saltev was horrible to her. Life is precious to him, so he couldn’t fathom why she wanted to become an assassin. He told her she was cold-blooded and called her a monster.”

“Didn’t Saltev ever kill?”

“Only in the line of duty or self-defense.”

“Have you?”

Damn good question.. “Yes, Father. Avenging Saltev. The blood’s on my hands, even if you can’t see it.”

“Okay. Well, from where I’m sitting, you’re standing at the crossroads of two paths. You can follow the path on the right and continue this quest, or veer left, get out of Dodge, and start a totally new life. But I can’t tell you which path to follow. I can’t even suggest. This has to be your call.”

Collinson knew Angerer was right. And, as much as he wished otherwise, Collinson also knew he couldn’t forsake Saltev’s quest. Not if he wanted to live with himself. Spirit or no spirit, Collinson was who he was, and nothing had or could change that. Such was his fate. Still…

“Father, I’m afraid.”

“Fear isn’t always a bad thing, son. Only fools and liars are never afraid. Just don’t forget, whatever you decide to do, or whatever happens to you, you won’t be alone. You are never alone, and you can take that to the bank.”

Collinson, leaving the confessional, was amazed to find Angerer’s volunteers and dozens more people waiting for him, and confused when they started cheering.

“Tatters!”

“It’s him!”

“Tatters!”

“Hey, you were somethin’, man!”

“You nuked that mob, Tatters!”

Collinson heard Angerer calling to a woman standing at the front of the mass with her young son. “Ouija! What’s going on?”

The people quieted so she could speak. “These folk want to meet Tatters after what he done tonight.”

Collinson told them, “My name’s not Tatters,” but the priest explained, “Everyone I’ve met in the Warrens has an epithet. I’m guessing you picked up yours when you showed up in that tattered coat. Anyway, thank you.”

“Why? What did I do?” Collinson watched the people respectfully walk towards him, some holding out hands.

“I was beginning to worry this place was a lost cause. That nothing could bring the people into St. Ludmila’s again. I was wrong.”

As the crowd encircled the two men, the wanderer smiled.

7. The Dragon In its Den

Midnight.

Claire stepped into the private elevator to the BPM Director’s office. As the doors shut and the elevator ascended, she thought about Aslanbek Saltev. A few hours ago she had never wanted to see him again. Now she wished he was here. She wanted to know if he was all right. She wanted him to tell her that she was going to be all right.

Alone, Claire hummed Cole Porter’s “Luck Be A Lady Tonight.”

At a federal helipad on the Warrens side of the Belt, Tatters stepped out of the night and approached two security men.

“Excuse me.”

The security men turned and Tatters’ eyes blinded their wills.

A pilot succumbed next.

Soon Tatters was surveying The Amphitheatre from the clouds. Crossing himself, he tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.

Claire was still humming when she entered the DBPM’s office.

“Director?”

DBPM stayed seated. “Hello, Miss Goodwin. So good to see you. I’m going to ask you a question.” DBPM used his RC to recall the A and B close-ups of Saltev and the stranger on the monitor behind his desk. 𠇍o you recognize either of these men?”

“Uhn.” Why do you want to know about Saltev? And who’s the like-a-look with the white hair? “Uh…yes. The man on the left is Aslanbek Saltev, one of Thomas Edmund’s shadowmen.”

“This I know. The other?”

“I don’t know him. He resembles Saltev. I suppose they could almost pass for…”

“Yes. They could almost pass for brothers. An unlikely explanation for the resemblance.” DBPM swiveled the back of his chair towards Claire. “Saltev, as I recall, was an only child.”

“Yes, sir. He…was.”

Claire removed her stiletto from concealment as she watched the Director’s left hand set the RC on an armrest.

“I’ve read your on-scene report from Smooth-Hawley. Good job. Too bad about Rose and Stern. Your report fails to explain, however, why you were there.”

The stiletto’s lubricated blade came to attention, silent as a death rattle, but it was still too loud.

DBPM, holding a Beretta, swiveled back around and shot the palm of Claire’s knife hand.

She squealed, dropped the stiletto, and fell to her knees.

DBPM stood. “In quest of me, it would appear.”

Upon touchdown Tatters proceeded to one of the BPM’s private magna-rails, the only entry into the bureau’s monolith building. This time there were four security men to attend to, two preparing to board the magna-rail while the other pair strolled off.

“Night guys,” one man boarding said.

“You too, guys.”

Tatters let them see him. 𠇎xcuse me? Could a couple of you escort me to the Director’s office?”

All four men drew on him. “Hands up, rounder!”

“All right. But you don’t want to shoot me.”

DBPM kicked his wastebasket towards Claire. “Please drip into that.”

Crouched on the floor, teeth gnashed as she grasped her right wrist, she did as instructed.

“Did Saltev tell you about Step Ten?”

“Is that what you traitors call your social club?”

She was not going to tell him anything, and, aware of her reputation, he would have been disappointed if she did.

“Step Ten, Miss Goodwin, is the next logical step in the evolution of our government. Thomas Jefferson once asked, `What has destroyed liberty and the rights of men in every government that has ever existed under the sun?’”

“`The generalizing and concentrating of all cares and powers into one body.’ In other words, bureaucracy.”

DBPM nodded as he grabbed her stiletto. 𠇋ureaucracy is the permanent government. Politicians, cabinet members, even political parties come and go, but the bureaucracy goes on and on. Therefore the masters of the bureaucratic body guarantee their own precious liberty and rights.”

“And Step Ten wants to be the masters?”

𠇊re, Miss Goodwin.” He hurled the stiletto at the monitor. It stabbed Saltev’s image between the eyes. “We have been the masters of our fate for some little time.”

A new voice: 𠇍irector?”

Two security men stood in the door.

“What is this? My office is under security blackout!”

Something like a shade darted between the security men. 𠇍on’t blame them, Director!” DBPM was so sure and so startled it was “Saltev!” he hesitated.

Tatters grabbed the Director’s gun hand and throat. ȁSaltev’s dead! Just like you ordered!”

“Guards! Stop him!”

Tatters, eyes burning, hunched over DBPM. “You’re going to pay for that. Right after you tell me everything about Step Ten. Everything!”

DBPM jerked his gun close to his enemy’s left ear and snapped off two rounds.

A dull chisel impaled Tatter’s ears. He didn’t let go of the Director, but his grip did slacken enough for DBPM to push him away and aim at him.

“Who do you think you are? The Shadow? What happened to you, Saltev? Lose your mind along with your looks?”

Claire, forgotten, slid behind the men and, reclaiming her stiletto, crept towards DBPM. The Director, too late, sensed what she was up to. Claire snared him, bowed his back, and slit his throat. “The guards!”

“Are entranced. I haven’t forgotten them.” Tatters could just hear Claire in one ear as he watched the Director of the BPM struggle for breath, claw at his gullet, and die. “I’ll explain later. Let’s cover our tracks and get out of here.”

“Hold on! We can’t leave!”

“Sure we can.”

“Aslanbek, we have to talk. What did happen to you?” Claire suddenly felt light in the head as blood loss and shock began to overwhelm her.

“Ms. Goodwin, Aslanbek Saltev is dead. I’m sorry.”

“Aslanbek…? Dead? No. No!” Her legs failed her.

Tatters grabbed her. “Yes. All I can tell you is that he is so sorry for what he said to you.”

Before blacking out, Claire glanced up at the stranger.

“But I’m sure he’d also want you to know that he will always love you, and prays you have a happy life.”

Epilogue: As Time Goes By

A warm sun rose over the Rockies the next morning, where news of the murder of the Director of the BPM already had New Columbia and Old Denver abuzz.

“Who did it? And how?” were the popular questions on all the A.M. drive-time talk shows. All authorities handling the investigation would say was “No comment,” but an anonymous source had leaked that there were no clues, suggesting that the killing had to be the work of some sort of professionals

Claire Goodwin and Thomas Edmund could have answered “Who did it?”, but nobody knew to ask. And that was okay with them. For now. As for “And how?”, Tatters and Father Angerer knew that answer, but, again…

Aslanbek Saltev had been avenged, his betrayer driven mad and his killers dead. Of course Step Ten remained, but like Edmund told Claire, “One thing at a time.”

And Tatters, at least, had plenty of that. Starting this morning, he had all the time in the world.