Dagger Key and Other Stories

“No,” I said. “It’s no coincidence.”

Jenay’s face betrayed, I thought, an almost undetectable trace of amusement. I shaped the words, You knew, with my mouth and said to Elaine, “Tell Palermo to prepare a nuke. We may be able to pass Diamante off as some sort of terrorist incident. I doubt it, but it’s worth a try.”

“What’s happening?” Jenay asked as I switched off.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot. You know very well what’s happening.”

She was silent a moment. “Lucan’s forced your hand.”

I chose not to reply.

“It follows that he would,” she said. “Once he made his personal decision, he wouldn’t have let the opportunity pass. And if the Americans are involved…Are we facing war?”

I folded my arms, scarcely able to contain my anger.

“You have to tell me,” she said.

“If you want to continue with your pretense, call Elaine,” I said. “She’ll fill you in.”

Jenay put her hands on her hips. “I realize you’d like to think of me as an element of a conspiracy, but there’s no conspiracy. You’re our leader now. People are going to watch you, they’ll judge you by your actions. If I hesitate to give you my absolute approval, you shouldn’t assume that’s due to a conspiracy.”

“Judge all you want. I won’t be pressured or coerced any further. I’ve been maneuvered into a bad situation, but I may not do what Lucan wanted.”

“What Lucan wanted was for someone to take decisive action. Action he couldn’t bring himself to take, except in the way he did. He was well aware of his weaknesses. He used to tell me you were our hope. He saw in you a leader capable of making the kinds of decisions that we needed.” Jenay touched my forearm. “Whatever he’s done, he did it in part for you.”

“This? This selfish, indulgent act? This treason? Yes, I can see that.”

“Don’t be obtuse! However you perceive it now, it’s an opportunity to prove that Lucan was on the mark about you.”

“Right. He created this fucking disaster just to make my leadership skills bloom.” I went nose-to-nose with her. “He’s killed Skyler! And probably hundreds more! Once they were taken, I’m certain Skyler and his people did what was necessary to preserve our position. But that they were taken, an entire network, it implies the Americans have a means of defeating our mental control. Skyler’s people may not all be dead; a few may be in rooms somewhere spilling our secrets.”

“Well, then. You have your work cut out for you.” She said this flatly, as if to suggest it proved her point.

“Once this gets sorted out,” I said, “if it can be sorted out, I promise there’ll be an investigation.”

Jenay shrugged. “And you’ll have my full support.”

A searchlight swept over the nearby figures, bringing them to flashing life, and a helicopter descended out of the night, its rotors swirling the dust that lay everywhere and making conversation a chore. Jenay and I moved apart, waiting for it to land.

From directly overhead, the burning island and its immediate surround looked even more like a blossom. I thought of those gigantic Sumatran flowers. Corpseflowers. The helicopter veered inland, and we began passing over the darkened Calabrian hills. My headset crackled. The pilots’ helmets were silhouetted against the lights of the control array. Beside me, Jenay gazed out the window as I plotted the next days. Sleeper cells would have to be activated throughout the United States. Hundreds of individuals would be terminated, dozens of hard targets neutralized. I could feel the constrictions that Lucan had devised closing in around me, limiting the scope of my actions, enforcing a restructuring of my attitudes, leaving me to orchestrate the parameters of a new and improved holocaust. Thanks to him, we were entering a dangerous phase of history, one in which we would be more visible, thus more imperiled, than at any time since the Iron Age. This enlisted my paranoia and I imagined, not for the first time, that—unbeknownst to us—another group was monitoring our activities, and, above them, another group, and another, and so on and so forth. The universe as terrorist. Conspiracies of angels and demons. God the infinite suicide bomber.

“I’ve got Palermo on,” said the co-pilot. “The package is ready for delivery.”

“Have we reached a safe distance?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Patch them through to me.”