Dragons & Dwarves

  “Son, you better—”

  Agent Ts’ao raised his hand and said, “Mr. Maxwell is quite right. He doesn’t have to say anything.” He reached down, picked up a briefcase, and set it on the table between us. “We both respect the Constitution, don’t we, Mr. Maxwell?”

  I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this. “Goes along with my job.”

  Agent Ts’ao nodded. “And despite certain impediments to law enforcement, it goes along with ours.” He opened the briefcase and started removing folders. “The doctor and I agree, our current job is the protection of that document. He was not engaging in hyperbole when he mentioned a threat to national security.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve worked a political beat for a decade. I might not work in D.C., but I know that ‘national security’ is in the eye of the beholder.”

  Agent Ts’ao handed a stack of folders to the doctor and closed the briefcase. “It’s fair to reserve judgment.”

  I watched Ts’ao’s expression grow grave and the smell of incense in the air was heavy and stifling. “You weren’t brought here to be hassled, Mr. Maxwell. You are here because I believe that we need each other.”

  “Interesting premise,” I said. “Care to elaborate?”

  “You’ve been close to the people we’ve been investigating,” Blackstone told me. “You’re going to help bring them down.”

  “I see,” I said slowly. I looked from Ts’ao to Blackstone. “What exactly do I get for my civic mindedness?”

  Blackstone gave Ts’ao a look that said, I told you this was a bad idea.

  “You get two things, Maxwell,” Ts’ao said. “The first is a federal shield against anything that comes out of your unfortunate meeting with Mr. Cutler.” He leaned toward me. “You also get your heart’s desire, Mr. Maxwell.”

  “Which is?”

  He nodded slightly to the folders in Blackstone’s hands. “Information.”

  The air in the meeting room was so still, it was almost stagnant. There was little or no air-conditioning, and if there was any ventilation, it was hidden so well I couldn’t tell. I raised my hand to loosen the button on my collar, wincing as my injured hands fumbled with the button.

  To be honest, I was stalling. The wheels in my brain had shifted gears so many times in the past seventy-two hours that I felt like my mental transmission had been stripped. Objectively, I shouldn’t be hesitating; I had been on my way to the cops when they hauled me into the van. If anything, I should prefer the Feds, since no way in hell would they be tied up with a bunch of corrupt elven cops. All these guys had going against them were a traditional Clevelander’s bias against Feds, and the strong-arm method they’d used to pick me up.

  “What kind of information?”

  “You asked about our investigation. You’re interested in the death of a major public figure. Perhaps you’re also interested in what the Port Authority and the Rayburn administration are really doing with the Portal.” Ts’ao leaned back.

  Your path has been chosen for you by forces you’ve known and have not seen, and they fear your allegiance because the masters you serve are not theirs. The alliance they offer will not be an easy one.

  The Feds? Why not. I leaned back. “I’ll tell you what I’ve found out. But I won’t go into the identity of any sources.”

  Blackstone started to say something but Ts’ao cut him off. “That’s no problem. We understand about sources and methods, don’t we, Doctor?”

  Doctor Blackstone nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it.

  I must have winced again, and Ts’ao leaned forward. “You’re injured.”

  I pulled my hands down and said, “It’s nothing.”

  Ts’ao leaned forward, over the table. His arms were long enough to reach for my hands. He turned them palm upward. “I think we need a first aid kit in here.”

  I don’t think they were consciously doing good cop, bad cop. I don’t think Blackstone counted as a cop anyway. I think that the doctor was just naturally an uptight asshole, and Ts’ao was simply a little more subtle. Of the two, Ts’ao was the more dangerous. Like Baldassare, he had the glad hand down pat. He came across as genuinely sincere, and the fact is that he probably was. That did not, however, mean you could trust him. He’d be the first to tell you that the job came first. If he had to throw you to the wolves to do his job, he’d do it in a heartbeat. Though he’d probably apologize.

  However, I played the cards as they were dealt to me. I gave them the story of my life the past three days as Colonel Mustard did a field dressing on my hands. I told them the truth, and didn’t leave out anything except my interview with Baldassare and Theophane’s name. I gave them everything I’d learned about Bone Daddy and the elves. In the end, everything I had was going to make it into print anyway.

  After engaging in an hour-long monologue, I decided it was time for some quid pro quo.

  “Your turn,” I said.

  “Now wait a minute,” Blackstone said. “There are a few points I need to have clear here—”

  “No,” Ts’ao said. “Mr. Maxwell’s right. He’s been cooperating, and we should thank him for that.”

  Blackstone folded up his own notebook. “You’ve made it clear it’s your show.”

  Ts’ao turned to me and said, “What do you know about the way the Portal is currently being used?”

  “The city uses it as a source of income; there’s a steady flow of immigration both ways. There’s enough demand for tickets out of this universe to charge ten grand a pop. The Ragnan government has a similar setup sending people to this side. The city runs a quarantine camp at Burke Lakefront . . .”

  “You know of the prisoner release program?” Agent Ts’ao asked.

  “I’ve seen a few cases where they were given the option. It’s voluntary, more power to them.”

  Ts’ao nodded slowly. “Council gave judges the power to give nonviolent offenders a fresh start. A one-way ticket, though.” He leaned forward and said, “Where have the homeless gone, Mr. Maxwell?”

  “There’s been a dramatic upturn in the economy—”

  “You’ve never heard the rumors?”

  Of course I had. “Do you have any evidence of people going through the Portal against their will?”

  “As a reporter, I assume you realize that such a charge is difficult to substantiate.” Ts’ao told me. “The alleged victims leave nothing behind. And the city officials doing this are those least likely to break their silence. The fact remains, Mr. Rayburn’s administration has the power to disappear people, Mr. Maxwell. The right paper, signed by a local judge, can make someone cease to exist. No oversight, no appeal, no way to even determine if the choice isn’t made under duress.” Agent Ts’ao pulled a paper from one of the folders the doctor held. “We’ve made some studies—average time from sentence to Portal, three hours. Eighty percent plea the option without trial. Sixty without legal representation. More than half on misdemeanor charges that would mean probation in any other city.” He slid the paper over. “Care to see? It would make any third world dictatorship proud.”

  I picked up the paper. Needless to say, I hadn’t seen any statistical studies like this coming out of the local government. “This can be backed up?” I asked.

  “All public records,” Agent Ts’ao said. “Though as a reporter you might have a long wait before the city government responds to a FOIA request.”

  I shook my head. “No one has picked up on this story yet?”

  “You know why,” said the doctor, and he didn’t sound pleasant. “The interests it serves have the power to suppress any story they want in this town.”

  I shook my head. “There are other news outlets—”

  “Disney is negotiating with Cedar Point to put a theme park in Sandusky. They’ve got several billion poised to create a real ‘Magic Kingdom’ here. None of their news media outlets will ripple those waters. AOL Time Warner has too much invested in Disney’s programming to start another feud that threatens t
heir cable interests. Enough Microsoft stock is owned in this area—”

  “I get the picture.”

  “Do you?” asked the doctor.

  “Yes,” I told him. “That’s the same argument about corporate newsthink that I was hearing when I started in this business. It’s bullshit.”

  “And you’re part of—”

  Agent Ts’ao raised his hand, cutting the doctor off. “Let’s not go off on tangents here. The story is not necessarily being suppressed. Perhaps overlooked is a better word in this context.”

  It galled me being patronized like that, but I didn’t say anything.

  “There is more, Mr. Maxwell. Shall we hand you another journalistic coup? Doctor?”

  Doctor Blackstone laid one of the folders on the table in front of me. “Are you old enough to remember the Cuban boat lift? Castro’s last great, ‘fuck you!’ Rayburn and his equivalents across the Portal are doing a reprise.”

  The doctor opened the folder. I looked, half expecting what I saw: a full-color eight-by-ten glossy of a dead woman. Cops are nothing if not predictable, and typically throw horrible pictures in front of someone they’re questioning in an attempt to shake something loose.

  “Murder,” the doctor said unnecessarily.

  The woman had been violently abused and dumped in a wood-land setting. The color of the clotting blood and the deep bruises showed too smooth a transition for a digitized image. The photograph had been taken outside the area of the Portal’s influence.

  The doctor followed it with others, “Rape. Assault. Assault with intent. Reckless endangerment. Kidnapping. Murder. Murder. Assault. Arson. Aggravated robbery. Rape.” File upon file dropped in front of me, glimpses of criminal acts only subliminally registering. Finally, he looked up at me. “Shall I continue?”

  I looked over at Agent Ts’ao and shook my head. “You’re going to tell me that there is a point to this?”

  Ts’ao nodded and drew the latest folder forward and held it up. “This one’s Osric, being held in San Francisco for severely beating a prostitute when she demanded payment for her services.” Another folder. “Maynard, hospitalized after attempting to fend off a NYC cop with a broadsword.” Another. “Learoyd, attempting—I quote, ‘to fulfill an oath of vengeance to erase a slur on his character.’ He torched a club in Dallas after the bouncers ejected him.” Ts’ao looked up. “These men are all immigrants from the Portal.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “None of those incidents happened anywhere near here.”

  “Pointedly,” Ts’ao replied. “For every criminal exile that Rayburn’s administration sends across, another one comes back through. And unlike your elves and dragons and unicorns, a human being can leave the influence of the Portal.”

  The doctor slapped a hand on top of the stack of files. “These aren’t just criminals. They are the dregs of a society that doesn’t value human life, sees women as property, and sees violence as the first resort in a dispute. These men don’t know the rule of law, and what does the Rayburn administration do with them? Put them in quarantine at Burke, where they have a show camp for all the exotic characters that can’t leave the area anyway? No, because that would overflow the city’s resources. You know what’s done with them?”

  I shook my head, though I did have some idea. It was common knowledge that the Port Authority helped relocate people who could live outside the influence of the Portal. One of those little details that you never paid much attention to.

  “They’re given a change of clothes, fifty bucks, and a ticket on the next bus out of state. There isn’t even a cursory attempt at orientation and assessment.”

  “So you have a problem,” I looked at the two of them. “Shouldn’t the INS be dealing with that?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear their take on it.

  “Congress has,” Ts’ao said, “in it’s wisdom, passed a law that—currently worded—places the Portal and everything ‘inside’ it under the jurisdiction of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.”

  “Annexing an entire universe and making it part of the United States,” The doctor concluded.

  I nodded. “So these immigrants aren’t legally immigrants, are they? They’re U.S. citizens.”

  The doctor frowned. “Because of a badly worded law, hastily passed.”

  What they were telling me wasn’t really news to me. It was fairly well known that there were a few “problems” coming across the Portal. But a Ragnan native committing murder wasn’t much more of a story now than anyone else doing the same thing.

  Now if you start adding the courtroom statistics and the hint of a deal letting Ragnan send their criminals across, we started to get into interesting territory. “You said there was a deal?”

  Ts’ao nodded. “Are you familiar with Article Two of the Constitution?”

  “You’re going to point out that only the president—with advice and consent of the Senate—can enter into treaties and conduct foreign policy.”

  “Two things that Rayburn and the administration have been doing with Ragnan since the beginning,” Blackstone added.

  I nodded. It was a well trod argument. The Supreme Court had already decided under current law, the Congress effectively annexed the Portal and made it part of the United States. And, as far as jurisdiction went, the Portal and its “contents” were inside the Cleveland metropolitan area. Until that changed, Rayburn has as much right to negotiate with Ragnan as he does with Lakewood. I told them as much.

  Ts’ao raised his hands to his temples. I think I got him. “Do you understand the threat the Portal represents?” He pulled the Buddha toward him and frowned. “On the other side of the Portal is a foreign country of uncertain motives and alliance. The courts may not view it as a nation, but it still has the capacity to conduct covert activity that is against the interests of the United States.”

  “What are you getting at?” I asked.

  “The worst threat to this nation since the fall of the Soviet Union,” Dr. Blackstone said. He actually sounded serious.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You mean China?”

  Neither of them seemed to appreciate my humor. “It is a fact, Mr. Maxwell, which I don’t think you’ll deny, that the dragon Aloeus was fleeing an oppressive regime in his homeland,” said Agent Ts’ao. “And he was a key figure in establishing Mayor Rayburn’s policy toward the Portal.”

  I nodded.

  “Followed, shortly afterward, by the fall of that regime,” he continued.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Aloeus was no refugee. He was the highest-ranking guerrilla in a civil war. He negotiated with Mayor Rayburn the delivery of arms and advisers from the Ohio National Guard, arms that were used to overthrow a foreign government.”

  I shook my head. “How the hell could that be kept a secret?”

  “During the initial chaos after the Portal’s opening, it was easy enough to keep things under wraps—including the disappearance of a whole unit of National Guard troops, three Apache gunships, and four Abrams tanks.” Dr. Blackstone looked as if he was enjoying the look on my face. “You’re wondering why none of the Guardsmen gave their story to CNN? They were debriefed by Army Intelligence when they came back, and the whole episode was classified. Those men represent one of the few intelligence assets that our government has on what’s on the other side of the Portal.”

  Agent Ts’ao looked at me, sizing up my reaction. “The omnipotence of the Thesarch was tied to a vulnerability—an inability to anticipate the speed at which the invaders could move, and the damage that could be inflicted by nonmagical means. The tanks, the guns, the helicopters weren’t enchanted, so they weren’t a threat. His command and control was vulnerable, overt, and easily targeted because they were immune to any magical threat. In two days the Guard traveled to Ragman’s capital city. The battle lasted twenty minutes.” Agent Ts’ao steepled his fingers. “The guerrilla organization that masterminded that coup didn’t disband after that victory. They’ve remain
ed in place, on this side of the Portal, engaging in espionage and political subversion.”

  “That’s a lot to swallow,” I said. “Why would the Guard invade a foreign territory like that?”

  “Orders from the governor,” agent Ts’ao said. “After a two-hour meeting with Mayor Rayburn.”

  “Okay,” I said, “you still haven’t—”

  Agent Ts’ao raised a hand. “Shall I explain the threat to you? We have elements of a foreign regime in place here, a regime created by a violent overthrow aided by rogue elements of our own military. Despite the presence of magic, our own technological and military advances operate on the other side with a few exceptions—while the ‘magical’ advances of theirs fade in effect the farther one gets from the Portal.”

  Dr. Blackstone leaned forward. “We’re a gold mine to them. It isn’t a backward civilization we’re dealing with. It is as sophisticated as our own. If you hand them an AK-47, they’re capable of reverse engineering it and fabricating a copy. With magical aid they can sidestep the issues of machine tooling—in fact, with the right engineering knowledge, they can duplicate anything they want.”

  “Including weapons of mass destruction,” Ts’ao said.

  “Now you’re reaching,” I said.

  “We’re talking about an empire that has undergone unchecked expansion for millennia, and whose leader is traditionally just this short of an absolute god.” Dr. Blackstone looked grave. “Combine technological espionage that can bear fruit in months and weeks rather than years, with a sophisticated grasp of magic. If they get a foothold here—”

  There was a solid thump, and the Buddha rattled on the table.

  “What was that?” Agent Ts’ao asked.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  BROWN burst into the interview room. “Sirs, we got a problem.”

  There was another thump, louder now that the door was open. It was an odd sound, heavy, but not like an impact—more like a rush of air.