Daniel was shaking his head. ‘How do you know she was there if you didn’t send her?’
‘I didn’t until you just confirmed it. Shamus talked to a McKinley Street neighbor of yours who had hosted the party from which your young ladyfriend wandered. The same young lady who announced, upon returning, that she’d just “come back from the Horsehead Nebula down the street” where she’d “sucked a young boy’s dick till his brain tore loose,” or words to that effect.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Dolly Varden. Shamus called to use her as a go-between again.’
‘Between who?’
‘I’m not sure. I think he just wants you to know he knows, see how you respond.’
‘So he thinks I told Brigit, or that she was an agent. An agent for who?’
‘I have no idea how he’s thinking, Daniel. Dolly says he’s gone insane – not obviously, but she has an unerring sense for madness. He’s evidently been drinking hard for the past year, and the whiskey, grief, and guilt have dragged him over the edge. It wouldn’t surprise me if he thinks I’m somehow implicated, having brought you into AMO and favored you as a student, or for any number of demented reasons.’
‘I have no response,’ Daniel said, ‘except to say I didn’t tell her anything. We hardly talked. She was stoned. Really stoned. And if she was an agent, she wouldn’t have gone back to the party and announced it.’
‘I think that’s a fair and measured reply for the circumstances. You can talk to Dolly directly if you want, or I can just radio your answer.’
‘Go ahead. I have other things to concentrate on.’
‘Indeed. The second blow job, for instance.’ And Volta proceeded to recount the sergeant’s savage humiliation of the young boy, and how he’d been tempted to vanish and intervene, and why he hadn’t, and then seeing the Diamond in the mirror.
Daniel listened, sickened, slowly coming to understand the Diamond’s importance to Volta. ‘I think I get it,’ he said when Volta concluded. ‘If the Diamond is like the one you saw in the mirror, then it in some way confirms your decision not to vanish and try to stop it?’
‘Or rewards it. But something like that, yes.’
‘I think I would have tried to stop it. I’m not judging you, though, or no more than I’m judging myself.’
‘Of course you are. Not that you can. I was at a point with vanishing – a point you haven’t reached, and perhaps won’t – where I felt certain that if I disappeared even once more, I would not come back. Which meant I could have only borne invisible witness to that boy’s degradation, just as helpless as I was locked in my cell. If and when you come to that point yourself, see how you judge me then.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Daniel said. ‘You sound defensive.’
‘Perhaps you’ve mistaken it for my annoyance at your glib judgments.’
‘Nope, I know that tone well. And really, I wasn’t criticizing your decision so much as …’ Daniel let the thought trail off, having realized Volta’s defensive tone had nothing to do with the decision he’d made in the cell.
Volta cocked his head. ‘Yes?’
‘The sergeant. Whatever happened to him?’
Volta nodded slightly and gave Daniel a weary smile. ‘I’m not sure if I should commend your insight or lament my transparency.’
Daniel waited for an answer.
Volta pushed his plate back. ‘The sergeant crawled under his bed, put his service revolver in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. This was four years later.’
‘Why?’ Daniel said.
‘Because I poured terror on his guilt.’
Daniel remembered Wild Bill’s mention of Ravens. ‘How did you do it?’
‘Slowly,’ Volta said. ‘It was almost a hundred days before he snapped, a hundred days believing that the kid’s ghost had sent me to exact revenge, a hundred days of raw fear to convince him justice would not be denied.’
‘I wouldn’t argue about the justice,’ Daniel said, ‘but it’s still murder.’
‘I won’t dispute your judgment – except to say AMO has been debating the fine moral points of the issue for centuries, and to no conclusion.’
Daniel was shaking his head. ‘No, not the fine points, just the fact: You drove him to do it. I can understand that. But why torment him? That’s different. That’s cruel. Why not just walk up and shoot him? A hundred days… that’s what I don’t understand. I just can’t believe you could do that.’
‘Could you, Daniel? Suppose your mother was set up, with cold premeditation, to be killed in that alley. What would you do?’
‘Try to find out who did it.’
‘Assumed. And when you were certain who’d done it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Daniel sighed. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘I didn’t either,’ Volta said, ‘till I found out. Let me tell you what I learned. I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not proud of it. I’m not ashamed. I never did it again. And I want you to know you’re the only person I’ve ever told. It wasn’t sanctioned by the Alliance; it was personal business. I obviously trust you’ll honor it as a strict confidence.’
Daniel said with a flash of anger, ‘Yes, sure, you know I will. But why are you telling me all this stuff about Shamus and the girl and that poor kid and killing the sergeant? Now, of all times? When I need to keep focused on the work?’
‘Because you’re the only other person who has vanished, and thus might be capable of understanding the particular nature of my decision and the state of mind in which it was made. And I’m telling you now because you’re going to see the Diamond, and perhaps be forced to make some impossible decisions, and I want you to know you’re not alone. Our ability to vanish changes nothing but our form. While it gives us a rare perspective, it offers no exemptions. It doesn’t make us wise or powerful or compassionate. And what understanding and compassion we do earn from our efforts only makes some decisions more painful – though perhaps we suffer them more gladly.’
‘Then what’s the point? A finer appreciation of inescapable suffering?’
‘No. The point is life. Its facts and meanings and mysteries.’
‘Okay,’ Daniel said breezily, ‘tell me the facts of life.’
‘I can offer a condensed version of the first statement of principles in the Emerald Tablet, ascribed to Hermes Trismegistos, the protoalchemist. “As below, so above. As above, so below. It is thus to accomplish the miracles of one thing.”’
‘“Miracles of one thing?” Shouldn’t that be “miracle”?’
Volta looked at Daniel and shook his head. ‘I wish that deer had kicked you harder; I really do. Maybe seeing the Diamond will help. Perhaps we should abandon our metaphysical inquiries and turn our attention to the more mundane task of stealing it.’
When the dishes were done, Volta spread a large map on the table. He used his pencil for a pointer. ‘As we now know, the Diamond is being kept at the White Sands Proving Ground. More exactly, right here, in the Tularosa Valley, roughly between the San Andres and Capitan Mountains in the old lands of the Mescalero Apache. The closest towns are Tularosa, Mescalero, High Rolls, and Bent. However, we have allies on the Mescalero reservation, so we’ll use that area for staging the raid, with our field headquarters in El Paso. So far, no problem.’
Volta replaced the map with an aerial photo of what appeared to be a volcano rising from a plain. Daniel interrupted: ‘It might save us time and explanation if you want to hear how I think I can steal the Diamond, whatever the defenses.’
‘I think it would be more efficient if I describe the security and you listen, judging its effects on your approach. You’ll have to know it anyway. Tell me when your plan is compromised, if it is.’ He pointed at the volcanic cone. ‘This is Sunrise Mountain, a cinder cone as you no doubt see, and though it appears taller, its elevation is five hundred forty-five feet – which would hardly qualify as a knoll around here, but then we aren’t surrounded by alkali flats.’ His pencil moved to a da
rk rectangular speck at the base of the mountain. ‘This is where the bad news begins. That speck you see is the entrance to a horizontal shaft that runs to the center of the mountain. It’s approximately seven hundred yards long, with a five-degree declination from entrance to center. At the end of the shaft is a large vault. The Diamond is in the vault.
‘What sort of lock?’
‘We’ll get to that. First, let’s go down the shaft, which has four separate checkpoints, each manned by a marine machine-gun crew. The guns are in concrete bunkers built into the tunnel. The watch changes every six hours, but the old shift stays in place until the new one occupies its positions, so the changing of the guards, traditionally a vulnerable moment in all security arrangements, is well covered.’
‘I’m beginning to see what was meant by “formidable defenses,” but none of that affects my plan.’
‘Keep looking.’ Volta slid a diagram of the shaft over the aerial photo. ‘There are four alarm systems in the tunnel, one at each checkpoint, each on an independent circuit, each monitored at Holloman Air Force Base twenty miles to the south, where, at any alarm, a squadron of F-15s and an entire company of marines in helicopter transports can be airborne within fifteen minutes – the jets perhaps sooner.’
Daniel said, ‘I don’t like that at all – not that it hurts my plan.’
‘Just on general principles then?’
‘Right. Especially the principle that a mistake could really be punished.’
Volta nodded. ‘Also, the airspace above Tularosa Valley is under routine radar surveillance from the air base, but only above five hundred feet, so a small plane or helicopter could come in under it, though again the margin for error is substantially narrowed.
‘Back to the shaft for a moment. It has tracks for electric carts to carry people and supplies. There’s been a lot of activity lately, technicians shuttling back and forth with equipment, and we’re concerned our information may already be outdated. I’m sure you understand the difficulty of close scrutiny, since there’s no concealed vantage point on the flats. So let me tell you for the first time now what you will hear from me a hundred times more: If you encounter anything that is different than expected, don’t try to improvise. Retreat; report; and we’ll revise the plan.’
‘Assuming mine wouldn’t work. I still haven’t heard anything that would prevent it.’
‘Well, we haven’t got to the bad part yet: the vault. It was custom built for the CIA by Seabrook Security. It’s a perfect cube, thirteen feet on a side, each wall composed of a two-foot slab of stainless steel.’
‘Great,’ Daniel said. ‘It’ll give me more room to work in.’
‘There’s more,’ Volta cautioned. ‘Each wall, except the door and the floor, is wired on the outside with an electrical sensor grid that can detect a pressure change of five hundred pounds per square inch and a temperature change of thirty degrees Centigrade. The door and floor are sensitive to changes inside the vault of five pounds p.s.i. and ten degrees Centigrade. Makes it difficult to blast or drill your way in. The grids are independently wired to each checkpoint, air base security, and a nearby CIA installation – and of course it’s a doubled system, sounding when it is broached as well as when it’s shut down by any other means than a coded sequence, which changes every day.’ Volta smiled at Daniel. ‘And how does your plan look now?’
‘Fucked,’ Daniel said disgustedly.
‘I’d have to infer you were planning to stay in the vault with the Diamond long enough that it would vanish with you.’
‘You got it. I figured I’d just walk into the vault and hang around for the thirty to forty hours you said it takes to capture an object in my force field, or whatever you call it. I guess you’d already considered that possibility.’
‘It crossed my mind, yes, but I rejected it even before I learned of the pressure-sensitive floor.’
‘Why?’
‘You risk yourself too much. Suppose you were in the vault when they came – as they often do – to take the Diamond to the CIA lab nearby?’
‘I’d vanish.’
‘And how long can you vanish for?’
‘Well, you saw me do twenty minutes, and I think I could do more.’
‘What if they stayed an hour? You’d be forced to reappear.’
‘But,’ Daniel countered, ‘not necessarily in the vault. I could go right out through the mountain, reappear, wait till they were gone, and vanish back into the vault.’
‘You might be spotted outside, since there’s virtually no cover. Besides, you’d have to break field congruence with the Diamond, forcing you to start over. It could be months before you had forty uninterrupted hours with the Diamond, and I assure you you’d be exhausted long before then. All assuming, of course, that forty hours would be sufficient to enmesh the Diamond in your force field. That forty-hour figure, as well as my purely speculative notions of intimate force fields and their powers, are based on my limited experience with ordinary objects. The Diamond, clearly, is not an ordinary object. You might well be taken into its field – a glowing six-pound spherical diamond likely exerts a considerable force.
‘Six pounds!’
Volta raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, you can check my calculations, but thirty thousand carats at two hundred milligrams per carat is roughly six pounds, or about the size of a bowling ball.’
Daniel said carefully, ‘This glowing – do you know the source?’
‘None of our people has seen it, and the information they’ve been able to gather is extremely sketchy. All we know is that light emanates from the Diamond. Very few people have actually seen it so far, and I gather they’re still having a difficult time believing it. Even the spooks are spooked. They seem to be divided into two equal factions. One faction thinks it’s some weird KGB espionage ploy. The second faction of U.S. Intelligence, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron, thinks the Diamond is from outer space, likely placed here as some monitoring device, though there’s some sentiment that it’s an artifact from a lost civilization, Atlantis being the leading candidate. In short, they know what the Diamond is made of, but they don’t know what it is, what it means, or how it can be real.
‘There’ve been some hard swallows and weak smiles in the intelligence hierarchy the last few weeks. Nobody is eager to assume responsibility. You know how bureaucracies function – their most compelling concerns are always “Who else knows?” and “How can we cover our asses?” Which right now works to our advantage, though we should act soon.’
‘How soon?’
Volta smiled. ‘I think the Hour of the Wolf on April Fools’ Day would be both propitious and appropriate.’
‘Not to mention whimsical.’
‘Appropriate,’ Volta repeated firmly. ‘But you’re entitled to your opinion, however misguided.’
‘I have to admit I don’t know what the Hour of the Wolf is, though it sounds good.’
‘It comes from the late Paleolithic, the Great Spirit tradition. It’s the hour before dawn, a time of particular magic for the hunter, a heightening of psychic powers. It’s also the time when other creatures, whether asleep or tired from a night’s feeding, are most vulnerable.’
‘I’ve sort of lost track of time here, but April First couldn’t be much more than a week away.’
‘A week from tomorrow.’
‘But,’ Daniel said innocently, ‘we don’t have a plan.’
Volta feigned dismay. ‘Daniel, you couldn’t possibly believe that I, the Great Volta, wouldn’t have a plan? Plans are my specialty. My delight. I’ll outline it. You listen for flaws.
‘From the drop-off point – as yet unselected among four possibilities – you hike seven to nine miles, packing all necessary equipment, across the alkali flats to the base of Sunrise Mountain.
‘You vanish and enter the shaft, moving directly down to the vault, reconnoitering as you go.
‘Inside the vault, you reappear. As you do, you leap in the air and attach yourself to the ceil
ing. Remember, all the pressure/temperature alarm grids are on the outside of the vault, with the exception of the floor and door.’
‘I remember that,’ Daniel broke in, ‘but what I don’t remember is how I attach myself to ceilings.’
‘A suction cup the size of a dinner plate will hold eight hundred twenty pounds.’
Daniel wrinkled his nose. ‘You mean like a toilet plunger?’
‘In form, but of superior design and materials. We have allies who can engineer the unusual on short notice. I brought it with me, in fact, so you would have ample opportunity to practice.’
‘Okay,’ Daniel said, ‘so I’m stuck to the ceiling with a suction cup.’
‘Actually, it’s attached to a harness; you’ll be in the harness.’
‘Like a spider dangling on a silken thread. I like that. So, what next?’
‘You gently attach a charge of plastique to the inside of the locking mechanism – it’s both combination and double-key – and set the timer, depending on this variable: the position and protection of the Diamond. If it doesn’t seem adquately protected – I’ll give you some guidelines later – you pick it up with another suction cup, this one double, molded back to back, and you attach it to a predetermined position on the ceiling, where, based on the calculations of our physicists, the blast will have the least chance of damaging it.
‘When the Diamond is secured, you vanish again, go back into the tunnel outside the vault, reappear, don a protective mask, and shoot two small canisters of nerve gas up the tunnel. It should deeply reassure you that Charmaine considers the gas among her finest work. A single whiff almost instantly paralyzes the voluntary nervous system, immobilizing the victim. It is also odorless and disperses quickly and evenly. Moreover, it penetrates every known gas mask. Yours, of course, is fitted with neutralizing filters. One thing I admire about Charmaine is her policy of never releasing a toxin until she develops a neutralizing agent. By the way, she calls this nerve gas Medusa Seven.’