Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (94 page)

 
          
"This
and that," Farrar said, smiling. "And you're wondering who sent me,
and what I'm up to, and no matter what I say you'll still wonder if you can
trust me."

 
          
The
waitress returned with a bottle and a glass and left again. Farrar seemed to
concentrate on pouring his drink to the exclusion of all else.

 
          
"Now
that we've gotten all that out of the way," Colin commented dryly,
"it seems we've reached an impasse." Perhaps it was the effect of
age, but he realized that he no longer had the taste for this sort of
cloak-and-dagger feint and double-feint, necessary though it might sometimes
be.

 
          
"Maybe."
Farrar did not sound particularly convinced of it. "I must say, we were
awfully surprised when you walked into Hasloch's office yesterday morning
—
and when you called last
night."

 
          
"So
was I," Colin said blandly.

 
          
The
voice at the other end of the line rattled back the number he had just dialed
with a robot's perfection. And waited.

 
          
Forty
years. An eternity in
Washington
politics. Colin had not
been certain the number would still be good at all. But this was the response
he'd been trained to expect, a long time ago in a world now dead. How long had
this number been kept active, a listening-post on the frontier of a war that
had never ended?

           
"This is Stormcrow. I have a
message for Kestrel. Tell him the dragon awakes." "Thank you for
calling, Stormcrow," the voice responded. Then the line went dead.

 
          
So
this was the sort of person who worked for Department 23 these days
—
assuming he had come in
response to Colin's call at all. Department 23 had been an outlaw operation set
up by the
OSS
as a
counter-Ahnenerfle
to fight Black Magick with
White. It had bound together occultists from a dozen different traditions in
the Free World's hour of greatest need, but now the days when the West had been
desperate enough to try such things were long past, and other forces were
ascendant in today's intelligence community. Farrar's presence might simply be
another kind of trap. He'd given Colin none of the half a dozen safewords and
countersigns that Colin remembered from the war; possibly he did not know them.

 
          
"Question
one: Why help me at all?" Colin asked.

 
          
Farrar
seemed to think about that for a moment, carefully choosing his words before he
spoke.

 
          
"I'm
here because you called me. Some jobs just need a lot of doing, don't
they?"

 
          
Colin
was still unconvinced, but part of him was wondering if Farrar's bona fides
were really important, in the long run. If Farrar were acting under Toller
Hasloch's orders, then anything he did to Colin would generate information for
whomever must next follow Colin into the serpent's nest. If Colin disappeared,
Nathaniel would know what he had been hunting when he vanished. Dylan would
certainly investigate
—
and more to the point in this particular instance, so
would his wife. Truth was ferocious where her family was concerned, and Hasloch
had threatened Pilgrim.

 
          
In
short, Colin's disappearance would cause a lot of fuss, both mundane and
occult, and Hasloch would be subjected to the sort of fifteen-minute notoriety
that could destroy years of careful planning ... or even drive him underground
once more. If Farrar were his agent.

 
          
Still,
Farrar might really be working for the modern incarnation of Department 23. He
was precisely the sort of person whom Colin's old allies might have sent
—
someone low enough in the
hierarchy of things to be immune to the Thule Group's infiltration of high
office.

 
          
"Let's
come to the point, young man. This isn't
Berlin
in the forties, and the
Cold War is over. You haven't told me who you are, or why you're here, or given
me a good reason why I should listen to anything you say. Undoubtedly you
already know anything I could tell you about Toller Hasloch
—
"

 
          
"If
you keep up with your old students it won't surprise you to hear that Toller
Hasloch is one of our inside-the-Beltway kingmakers," Farrar said, his
tone as chatty as if he were doing nothing more than passing on gossip.
"The Cincinnatus Group is an important power here on the Hill
—
a lot of people get their
appointments in line with its recommendations. A number of people owe its
chairman favors
—
and the type of people to whom Mr. Hasloch owes favors in
turn tends to disturb some people. People who still remember who you used to
be."

 
          
Who
I used to be. . . .
Farrar spun a pretty story calculated to fan the embers
of an old man's ego and convince him to go charging off into battle one last
time
—
to
use him, as ruthlessly as Colin had once used others, to win a battle, if not
the war.

 
          
"So
your friends don't like Mr. Hasloch," Colin said. "Well, I don't like
him much myself. But I've learned to live with things I don't like, Mr. Farrar.
I'm here for another reason. If your intelligence is as good as you'd like to
imply that it is, you'll know that I called at the Cincinnatus Group yesterday
to speak to Caradoc Buckland, not Toller Hasloch."

 
          
There
was a flicker in Farrar's pale eyes. "Mr. Buckland's not a very nice man.
A friend of his shot me once, so I'm in a position to judge. He's very good at
doing what he's told, though. I'd forget about all this and go home, if I were
you," he added seriously.

 
          
"I'm
afraid I can't do that," Colin said, and waited.

 
          
The
silence stretched for several moments, until finally Farrar broke it.

 
          
"All
right," Farrar admitted. "You've a right to be suspicious of me. For
what it's worth, my name really is Hereward Farrar. Who'd make something like
that up?" He smiled encouragingly, but Colin refused to be influenced. He
continued to wait.

 
          
"What
can I tell you that will convince you I'm on the side of the angels? I could
swear
—
"

 
          
There
was a candle on the table, burning deep inside a plastic-wrapped glass chimney.
Farrar cupped his left hand around it. His voice became deeper and more solemn,
and for a moment it seemed to Colin that the light filled his hand like a solid
thing.

 
          
"
—
I could swear by the Light
that if I am other than what I seem, I am not heir to the Dragon. Would that
help?" he added in his normal voice, and the momentary summoning of Power
Colin had sensed was gone.

 
          
"All
right," Colin said. It was confirmation of a sort: Department 23's code
name for the Thule Group had been the Dragon. And more important, no matter how
good an actor he was, no matter how diminished Colin's own powers were, Colin
knew that someone tainted by the Shadow could not summon Power in that fashion
without revealing his true nature.

 
          
Whoever
Hereward Farrar was, he was of the Light.

 
          
"If
you're proposing to help me, Mr. Farrar, I have a small shopping list. . .
."

FAUQUIER COUNTY
,
VIRGINIA
,
MONDAY,
OCTOBER 31,  1998

///
do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my
dear heart-strings, I'd whistle her off and let her down the wind, To prey at
fortune.

—
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
Othello,
III.III.260

 
          
THE
VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE WAS STILL BRIGHT WITH AUTUMN
—
THE RICHest colors were
past, but the landscape had not yet softened into the dun-browns of winter.
Tonight was All Hallows Eve, the night on which the Wild Hunt roamed the earth,
free either from Hell itself or from some harsh Celtic underworld. All Hallows
Eve wasn't truly a festival of Hasloch's cult
—
but Christian or pagan, the
spirits that would roam this night brought only danger and death
—
someone would die tonight.

 
          
And
if the one who died were Colin, then ten days from now, on the anniversary of
Krystallnacht,
Rowan Moorcock would also die.

 
          
Farrar
had been true to his promise of help. Colin had told him little enough
—
not even Rowan's name
—
but Farrar was able to
supply the information Colin needed: the location of Hasloch's temple.

 
          
Or
so Colin believed. Colin was gambling that Hasloch was important enough in the
American branch of the
Thule Gesellschaft
to have its inevitable unholy
place under his direct control. If he did, it would almost certainly be located
somewhere in his house, just as it had been thirty years before. He glanced
down at the dossier that lay on the car seat beside him.

 
          
Toller
Christian Hasloch, born
November 9, 1938
, in
Baltimore
,
Maryland
. Educated at the
University
of
California
at
Berkeley
and at Harvard. Traveled
extensively through
Europe
. Law practice in
New York
1966
—
1972. Served in an advisory
capacity on a number of obscure committees. Attached to
Berlin
Embassy 1973-1975- Joined
the Cincinnatus Group in 1975. Appointed chairman in 1986. Never married,
never arrested, no children, pets, or longtime girlfriends.

 
          
Residences:
a permanent apartment at the Watergate Hotel, and a country house, The Hallows,
somewhere off Route
66
between
Manassas
and Front Royal. That was where
Colin was heading now, in an anonymous sedan that could be any of a hundred
government cars. Farrar was driving. Cars with drivers were a common sight in
this affluent
Washington
exurb. A driver could
answer questions, divert suspicion, raise the alarm if needed. And Colin must
husband all his strength for the battle ahead.

 
          
The
Hallows was a rambling brick house that dated back to the turn of the century.
They cruised slowly past it and made a series of turns down winding country
lanes.

 
          
"It's
through that hedge," Farrar said, as if he were announcing the weather.
The sedan rolled to a stop at the side of the road. There was no other traffic.
The area's inhabitants had already left for their public and private sector
jobs
—
and
Colin expected Hasloch to be safely at his
Georgetown
desk as well.

 
          
"How
long do you think you'll need?"

 
          
"Not
long."

 
          
Colin
suspected that it would not be hard to get into the house. He had not told
Farrar about the crucifix, but even now it was a cold weight in the breast
pocket of Colin's jacket. It must be some sort of key
—
there was no other reason
for Rowan to have kept it, when keeping it was so dangerous in both the
magickal and mundane worlds.

 
          
"Good
hunting, then," Farrar said, as if Colin had given him a definite answer.
He picked up the newspaper that lay beside him on the bench seat of the sedan,
seeming to become as engrossed in it as any hired driver awaiting his master's
pleasure.

 
          
Colin
stepped out of the car. There was a break in the hedge, and he passed through
it, walking through the yard and across the terrace of The Hallows.

 
          
The
house, like the house of any rich man, was safeguarded in a number of ways,
from dead bolts and double-locked windows to an electronic link to a security
company and the police station. A cleaning service came twice a week, and a
cook
—
housekeeper
and butler were here on weekends, but on a Monday morning Colin could expect
The Hallows to be deserted. He did not worry about discovery in any event. An
arrest would serve his purposes far better than it would Hasloch's, and if an
embarrassing scene ensued, well, Colin no longer had anyone's honor to look to
save his own.

 
          
Though
he would have liked to have a Sensitive with him, Colin could think of no one
whose safety he would hazard by bringing them here. As he had told Dylan,
people who pried into affairs of this nature had a way of simply . . .
disappearing. At least he would make a more disagreeable mouthful than most.

 
          
The
attached garage had a door which opened easily to Colin's skeleton key
—
there was no alarm, and if
necessary he could have broken a pane in its window and gotten through that
way. It was a loophole that many homeowners left in their security, and
apparently Hasloch was no exception.

 
          
A
moment later Colin was inside the garage, safe from prying eyes. It was a
two-car garage, but both sides were empty. The back was piled with the usual
mundane clutter that any homeowner accumulates: lawn mower, snow blower, bags
of salt and mulch. Colin glanced at his watch.
9:45
.

 
          
The
door that led through into the house itself was far more secure: steel-core,
from the look of it, with both a key-bolt and an electronic touchpad. But the
LEDs on the touchpad were dark, as were the lights on the alarm box mounted
high on the wall beside the door.

 
          
Farrar's
doing? It was better not to stand around wondering about it, at any rate. The
fifth skeleton key that Colin tried dragged back the dead bolt, and the door
was open.

 
          
Pantry
. . . kitchen . . . dining room . . . each room he passed through was perfect
and deserted, like a museum exhibit. Despite the fact that the sentry system
was down, no one seemed to have come in answer to the alarm that must have been
sent. Colin passed quickly through the ground-floor rooms. None of them, even
the library, gave a hint of the person Hasloch truly was, the new-minted
creature of Evil called out of the stuff of the Shadow by those who trusted
their creation to see their plan through to its ultimate culmination.

 
          
A
wave of giddiness passed over Colin, so that he had to clutch at the doorframe
to retain his balance. He felt lightheaded, disconnected by a combination of
too much stress and adrenaline, and unequal to the task before him. It was as
if there were something here he did not want to face, some darkness. Suddenly
he was cold
—
cold as if he did not stand in a suburban living room but
instead within a crypt, a dark shrine cut into the living stone hundreds of
meters below the surface of the sun-kissed earth, before an idol that was the
mask of a god as yet unrevealed. . . .

 
          
He
dragged a handkerchief from his pocket, and with a trembling hand wiped cold
sweat from his face. In his chest he could feel his heart clenching and
unclenching, its blows as hard and distinct as if it were a prisoner pounding
against the wall of his chest for release.

 
          
He
fumbled in his jacket for his pillbox, placed a pill beneath his tongue, and
felt the painful hammering slowly ease. It came to Colin that all it would take
for Hasloch to win was for him to die, and that he might well die here, from
nothing more malignant than the inevitable failure of that balky beast, the
body.

 
          
It
was over half a century since he had last faced the united forces of the Shadow
in pitched battle. He remembered the date exactly: October 31, 1945, and each
Halloween thereafter had carried with it some threat, some echo of that eternal
battle.

 
          
Old
ghosts surrounded him now: dead comrades, summoned once more into battle by the
force of memory. Michael Jaeger
—
who had been reborn into Colin's life once more
—
Marian Shipton, David
Fouquet, Dame Ellen, Alison Margrave, Father Godwin, Nigel St. Clare, and
others he had known only by their codenames: Kestrel, Peregrine, Shrike.
Lamplighter. The Roman. Fellow soldiers in the Light, each of whom, in a
sense, had given his or her life so that Colin could stand here today and
strike in their name.

 
          
He
would not fail them.

 
          
Colin
concentrated on his breathing, willing his senses to steady. After a few
moments he took a deep breath and focused once more on his task, his hand
clenched around the black talisman in his pocket. Hasloch's
Temple
was here, and Colin was
gambling that Rowan was being held somewhere within it. Fortunately he had the
advantage of being able to count on Hasloch's colossal ego: it was unlikely
that he would leave the prize in anyone else's hands.

 
          
Now
all he had to do was find his way in. ...

 
          
The
cellar steps were behind a door in the back hall. No one would see a light from
the road. Colin flipped the wall-switch and made his way down the stairs. He
looked at his watch. 9:55. He wondered if Farrar were still waiting
—
and if so, how much longer
he would wait. At the bottom of the stairs, he shone his light around the
space, his mind straying to that other cellar, that other desperate search, so
long ago. Somehow it seemed as if they were both one moment, and all the years
between them an illusion.

 
          
There
was a locked door in the back wall of the cellar. Once he would have kicked it
down. Now he spent precious moments trying passkeys, infuriated by the tremor
in his hands, until he found one that would fit.

 
          
Beyond
the open door, darkness
—
and then slow illumination as the lights came up. There was
a faint smell of burnt charcoal, a whiff of incense. And beyond the door,
another door. An elevator, its door open, waiting.

 
          
It
made a certain ironic sense. The rich and powerful
—
and venerable
—
who were Hasloch's clients
and patrons would expect the most modern conveniences in their debaucheries.
But still, Colin hesitated to enter the elevator. It seemed too much like a
killing box.