The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination (12 page)

N
ight had fallen ever so softly
in the tiny Village of Lily, as it does at winter’s end, surrendering a few shadows each evening. So no one noticed the shiny black troop transporter roll into the Church’s parking lot.

Inside their cozy basement, Pastor Scott and Gina were wrapping up an argument about the upcoming mushroom harvest. Tensions were high and positions strongly held, until they heard a noise.

Footsteps fell on the stone stairs, the side door opened, and two men in black fatigues entered and took up positions of their own.

Pastor Scott and Gina fell silent.

The men’s eyes were blurred by wrap-around face-shields that reflected the room in a chrome-smudge as they snooped here and there. They stopped at a mid-distance and mumbled something inside their helmets.

Gina squeezed her eyes into mere slits. She’d been here before. It had been a while, but she coolly transformed into a simmering tumor of hate. “Can I help you?” she said with friendly vigilance, as though she had them right where she wanted them.

They eyed her suspiciously.

A third man stepped in and stood next to the door as the sound of others started down the steps. The small insignia they wore over their hearts were nearly impossible to see in this light; a black heart one shade blacker than their fatigues was riveted to the chest pocket flap.

“What can we do for ya?” said Gina, calm but assertive.

A fourth man entered who appeared to be in charge, but was only the Driver. He ran interference for a much older man who entered with a confidence that unnerved Pastor Scott.

Gina was immune.

The older man was certainly in charge of the group, but not of their sort. He was average height and dressed in expensive civilian clothes: midnight-blue suit of the finest Scottish wool, matching turtleneck — pure cashmere. His heavy silk scarf was an unusual tartan plaid, held fast by a shiny pin. On his head sat a luxurious fur hat, a rare black badger version of those worn by the Russian Ski Patrol — extremely practical and the most expensive thing in the building.

The intruders scanned the room incessantly, but the dapper old man’s attention focused squarely on Pastor Scott and Gina. He moved about in high spirits, and chuckled when he stumbled on the uneven floor, showing a light-footed athleticism for a man of his age. He smiled and sat in the chair across from the desk, gesturing for his hosts to have a seat.

They declined.

He removed his hat respectfully, placed it very carefully on his lap, then said with an affable smile, “Good evening. My name is Efryn Boyne. How are you?” Every word dripped charm and deceit.

“We’re good . . .” they mumbled, a tick or two out of sync.

Efryn Boyne’s voice puzzled Gina. It was an odd mix of some very distinct accents — Baltimore/Philly, maybe Boston/New York, and something more exotic. She knew he was faking this accent to cover his real accent.

Pastor Scott didn’t notice.

“We were passing through your lovely village,” said Boyne. “Absolutely lovely. This is the real America.” The troop grumbled in the affirmative. “And you two are a hallmark of her glory.”

Gina embraced only two principles concerning silver-tongued strangers. Kill them. If you can’t kill them, placate them, until you can kill them. “Love springs eternal,” she said, wondering if a gun were handy.

“That’s what I love about the highlands. Its beauty breeds beautiful souls.”

Pastor Scott nodded. “How can we help you folks?”

Boyne spoke right up. “It’s a matter of the spirit, Reverend.”

“Pastor!” corrected Pastor Scott.

“Sorry. But might I bend your ear for a moment, Pastor? Pastor, is it?”

Pastor Scott played along. “And what is it that troubles you, my son?”

“First, let me apologize for my ignorance. Calling you Reverend. I am myself a Quaker. Thirty-six generations. We don’t have a clergy, of course. And I confess, I’m too lazy, and too old, to learn all those hierarchies and titles.”

“I understand,” said Pastor Scott. “Thank God for the consolidation. Now there’s only one Church, one hierarchy.”

Boyne bowed his head grudgingly — obviously not a fan.

“You have a question?” probed Pastor Scott — he could feel Gina’s radioactive attention zeroing in on him.

“Yes, yes indeed.” Boyne stretched his lips as though he were about to ask a favor. “One of our flock. Leviticus Tuke? You’ve heard of him?”

“Of course,” snapped Gina, pretending to be insulted. Cracking out of turn, by failing to acknowledge a local hero, would prove she was lying. “He’s a local hero.”

“He’s an international hero to my people. I’m sure you know he’s gone missing?”

The seemingly hapless couple nodded and tried to hide their suspicion.

“We’re searching for him. He might be hurt. He might be in danger. Kidnapped? You know he has a lot of money. And one of our brothers, Arthur Gager, he too . . .”

Gina seized the opening. “So you only want to help him? He’s a local hero, you know.” She dangled the bait.

“He’s a Friend and Fellow Traveler,” said Boyne, fondly. “I’ve known him since he was born. We are of the same Meeting.”

“You don’t want to hurt him?” she asked, poised to set the hook.

“We only want to help. We’re Quakers.”

“You don’t want to hurt him?”

“No.”

“You sure?

“Yes. I promise.”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“You swear?” She raised her right hand.

“I swear!” said Boyne, thoughtlessly raising his right hand.

Gina struck. “Well. I think you will find a clue if you look at the big chalkboard in the pavilion out in the square.”

“A chalkboard?” said Boyne.

Pastor Scott started to sweat.

“Yeah!” said Gina. “You’ll see two hundred and seventy-eight little white crosses. They’re not grave markers, or souls we pray for. It’s a score card.”

Boyne was not amused. The troop began to shuffle nervously.

“There’s a cross there for every corpse we left rotting in the woods, back when people like you came to visit regularly. Be careful. Very careful. You never know when there’s a gun pointed right at you . . . in these quaint little all-American type highland towns.”

Boyne put his palms to his chest. “People like me? Quakers?” he said, slandered.

“If you’re a Quaker,” chided Gina, “I’m the Queen of Cleveland.”

The Driver whispered, “Quakers never swear to anything.”

Boyne’s sporting smile dawned. He’d been played.

Gina had thrown her trump and now she’d have to bluff. “You know where the door is. And you better mind your manners. You’re surrounded and every road is booby trapped. Asshole.”

Boyne doffed his fur hat and headed for the door. His troop backed up the stairs, sweeping their retreat with gun barrels. “Tell Leviticus Tuke to call his distributor,” said Boyne, sucking the rest of his men along as though catching them in a vacuum.

Suddenly, Gina recognized the accent. Her eyes flashed and her mouth curled in a disdainful sneer. “Irish!” She bolted after them. Pastor Scott grabbed her sweater, but she tore loose.

The snappy military types leaped into their black-ops transporter as the engine roared. Gina ambled up the steps, fists raised, yelling, “We call him Levi, ’round here. He’s a local hero. You black-hearted Irish bastards!”

Efryn Boyne paid little attention, but he was developing a venomous dislike of this woman. He closed the rear door and slid into his command chair, which swiveled between two banks of monitors in his mobile control center. “Let’s make Pittsburgh by midnight. I want to find this . . . Brian Tessyier.” On a monitor before him, a portrait of a good-looking middle-aged man with longish, overly styled salt and pepper hair and goatee popped up. Brian Tessyier, Atmospherics Architect.

Boyne nearly fell out of his seat as the transporter lurched away from The Church. Gina’s yelling was having an extremely disagreeable effect on him. When she pounded on the back door his eyes blazed and he started to boil. He glared at her running after them through the large rear window. As the distance between them grew, she increased her volume. “And don’t come back, you, you, you cowards! Gutless bastard coward ass motherfuckers.”

The Driver rolled his eyes anxiously to the mirror and whispered, “Call the gravedigger.” No one called the Black Hearts cowards. No one.

Boyne’s lips curled in on themselves. He closed both eyes as one does when confronted with great shame. “She’s gone and done it now,” he said, no longer concealing his tony Irish brogue.

“Bollocks,” mumbled the Driver.

Gina was only a few yards away, but fading into a cloud of taillight-red dust, pounding her fist in the air and screaming, “You over-the-counter black-hearted scum!”

“I love these people,” Boyne said. “Salt of the earth.” He removed his marvelous fur hat and pulled a tiny 17mm machine pistol from it. He pressed his foot on the back of the door. It flew open.

“Better a coward for a moment,” he yelled, “than dead for the rest of your life.”

Gina disappeared into the swirling dust, still yelling hoarsely.

Boyne unloaded the full clip in a hopeful arc.

The yelling stopped.

M
acIan thought
it best to sit back and take in as much as he could as Tuke tried to explain the Massive to Commander Konopasek and Cassandra. He’d missed so much of what had happened to his country while he was away defending it. Tuke’s droopy blue eyes conveyed his exhaustion. A dusting of soft stubble ran up his neck and pallid cheeks and into a crop of pure white, flyaway hair. His speech was cautious and precise to an extent that gave him an air of constant restraint. The wildly outspoken Commander Konopasek obviously knew nothing about The Tuke Massive, or any of what now passed for games. “You started all this trouble over a game?”

“The Massive is not a game, Commander,” Tuke laughed. “Not in the sense you mean. Keeping everyone thinking it’s a game is a game in and of itself. The Massive started out as an old fashioned Save-The-World Social Game platform, from the last century. A Massively Multiplayer Online Game. I was never interested in games a player could win, but games that produced a result or solved a problem. Games that satisfied the player’s need to improve life, or make themselves better in general. Turns out that finding that kind of satifaction is fun. People love to see progress.

“But the Massive soon became self-enhancing and year after year accumulated more and more data at an ever increasing rate — unstoppable data momentum. Exponential growth, at zero marginal cost. And it’s sustainable. Built entirely of ideas.

“The Massive logs twelve billion player-hours per week. And the corporate theocrats who employ many of them haven’t even noticed. These players were raised on games by second-generation gamer parents and first-gen grandparents. The game world is a perfectly natural place for them to begin solving real world problems. Since no one else is interested.” Tuke grew pensive. “And let me tell you this. This is critical. The Massive has become continuously self-calibrating and self-correcting.” He grinned into a hopeful silence.

The triangle of heads bobbled. No, No, and maybe Cassandra.

He repeated, slowly, “Self-calibrating? Self-adjusting?” Tuke bit his lip and continued. “That has opened some possibilities we hadn’t fully anticipated, but had always hoped for.”

“Possibilities?” asked Cassandra.

“Yes. Possibilities. The potential for things not likely, until now. The ability to do things we couldn’t, or wouldn’t do before.”

“And that makes it?” sang Cassandra happily. She got it!

“That,” said Tuke, “makes it something people with power — fear.”

* * *

C
amille’s fingers
hovered over her keyboard. It wasn’t time to go back online. Not yet. She still didn’t know what questions to ask. She grabbed the courier’s pouch and backed away. She’d wait until she heard from MacIan before delving into this Massive thing. In the meantime, she’d go through the documents in the courier’s pouch.

She stacked the toner-plagued photocopies in piles on every flat surface in the office. It was difficult to categorize them. Few were in English, and their excessive decoration didn’t help. There were personal letters from those Quakers who’d brought their movement to the New World. Sentimental letters from husbands and wives separated by injustice. Wills granting what little was left of Quaker estates in England, after harsh penalties, fines and special taxes. Letters written by fathers to their sons moments before being hanged for crimes as specious as failing to remove their hats in the presence of their betters.

One pile drew her attention. It contained a series of marriage certificates, nuptials framed with stunning border scrolls. As she tapped and fluffed the edges of this pile, she noted a bulge in its center.

She thumbed through and found a yellow post-it note in her father’s hand stuck to one of the more official-looking documents. It read:

Searched the Schotsche Trouw Regesters and Begraftrothals of Rotterdam. Found wedding certificate of Aaron Tuke and Camillia Wondrice (1668) in the Quaker sanctuary of Delft. The address is Camillia’s house in the village of De Rotte, seven miles north of Rotterdam.

Camille smiled, certain her father had also been amused by her coincidental namesake, Camillia. She laid the pile on her father’s desk, settled into his big chair and flipped through it searching for the Tuke/Wondrice betrothal. Halfway through, she stopped at a marriage certificate signed by a delicate hand practiced in curlicues and cascading underlines. This document’s formal elements had been filled in by a clerk with a clear and easy to read stroke: dates, record numbers, addresses and such, which added their own charm and authenticity. But the signature on the bottom was somehow familiar, although it was to her eye almost illegible. She traced with her index finger what she thought the underlying letters might be, and to her and amazement discovered the bride’s new name, Camillia Tuke.

Camillia Tuke was suddenly smiling at her from another time, another rhythm, another idea — marriage sacred and eternal. The marriage certificate was a work of joy, reduced to a lowly photocopy. She could imagine what the original looked like on heavy paper smelling of perfumed ink, a little faded, but the scroll-work’s blues and hammered gold leaf enduringly crisp.

She turned it over and saw a note scribbled in the right margin:
See Aaron Tuke June 1670 letter to wife, Camillia.

She remembered having seen something in the letter pile with a similar cotton-candy signature as this marriage certificate. She shuffled through the letter pile, soon finding the one mentioned, by date.

Newgate Prison, 1670

Beloved wife and Love’s Gift,

Camille trembled . . . ‘Love’s gift?’

You have known me to be a man of moderation and certainly of no particular public attention until being called upon as Juror in the case brought by the Lord High Mayor of London against one William Penn, beloved son of Admiral Sir William Penn. The case against the younger Penn and the injustice ensuing from it defines our time. I am now myself only recently set free from imprisonment in Newgate, as were all of my fellow Jurors, who do now represent, in the fullness of our resolve, reason in retreat, victims of religious tyranny.

The younger Penn was arrested with great violence when, with William Meade, he did preach before a Quaker gathering. When Penn pleaded for his right to see in writing the charges laid against him and the laws he had supposedly broken, the judge, the Lord Mayor of London himself, refused — even though this right was guaranteed by the law. Despite heavy pressure from the Lord Mayor to convict Penn, we the Jury returned a verdict of “Not Guilty". The Lord Mayor then not only had Penn conveyed to jail again on a charge of contempt of court, but also the full Jury, including myself.

The members of the Jury, fighting our case from prison, have not merely prevailed against the Lord Mayor, but have managed to win the right for all English Juries to be free from the control of judges. Reason will out. Reason at last. Reason, thou art the fountainhead of justice.

Lo that we are all of us Finders, and as such are known to others as Quakers, and to our brethren as Friends and Fellow Travelers.

We are called by the voice within to find those who have or may one day find within themselves the living God, so that we might minister to their needs. We are certain, without the forced and unwanted intercession of ecclesiastical interpretation of our belief, that no amount of academic, clerical, familial, or political prominence makes one a minister. A minister is one who serves and who makes God real to others. It is God’s call to man and woman alike that makes them ministers, and nothing else. Nothing else. Nothing. For this pure and liberal stance, we are hounded from our homes and persecuted without mercy by a mindless cadre of effete clerics leashed to a foundering monarchy, shamelessly calling themselves Puritans.

They are to a man consumed by their avarice and conceit to a degree that blinds them to the growing number of the angry, truly wronged, and skeptical within their own congregation. They laugh at the tears of children made orphans by their cruelty. They confiscate our property to pay the cost of our own humiliation. Families are torn apart, son from father, to preserve the hard-won land and the necessities it provides, lest that land and sustenance too be taken away. Our sensible and obvious rejection of implicit obedience to their corrupt and self-serving institution is not only our right, it is our obligation to the spirit of Our Lord. We cannot but bear this burden of state and church upon our necks.

All strife and sorrow is inflicted upon us by the State-mandated Church of England and those vested interests and institutions that maintain it and benefit from its power. This cynical organ of man’s vanity in the name of God is an affront to all men who are blessed with his gift of reason and fair-minded judgment. The practice of self-aggrandizing ceremony and cryptic ritual staged within their obscene cathedrals, those vainglorious temples to excess, and their stifling constraint of thought are an affront to every word of our Lord and Savior.

Of all those blasphemies for which we are defamed, none gathers more ire and retribution than our true and fundamental belief that no one should be compelled to take any oath, or more importantly, be compelled to be baptized without their full and willing consent, and that newborn children are not of an age to grant or understand in their own hearts what baptism requires of them. The Church of England prefers instead to take control over each and every subject of their realm before they are of an age to consider for themselves whether or not they are called to that faith. It is that choice, a singular choice freely made, to choose to become one of the baptized that is the bedrock of our Fellowship. Any and all beliefs or practices a man may take unto himself must be of his own accord, informed only by his own reading of the scriptures, the wisdom born from the tribulations of his own life, and the voice he hears from within his own heart.

The right to choose how we address God’s light within is the fount that nourishes all Quaker belief. We cannot compel another to believe what we believe, nor can we be compelled upon the loss of our very souls to believe what others do. We cannot deny the voice inside. This principle, being the first principle, requires us to extend our belief concerning forced baptism to all areas of self-determination, and beyond to all other facets of our lives, and therefore cause us not to intervene nor judge the choices of others. But this freedom is anathema to a church indistinguishable from the state. The monarchy and those industries that would be struck down by a society that refuses its edicts, or thinks for itself, has no defense from our resolve.

It is my duty and solemn right therefore to renounce all ties to this State and its Church and to its agents and apologists, in this year of our Lord, 1670.

I have moved all holdings from my textile factories in Sheffield and sold the lands and property. I have sold all my holdings in and about the city of London and have converted all proceeds to Dutch Kroners to be held by the Bank of Amsterdam, for my use in establishing myself and you, my beloved wife, in the Village of De Rotte, a newly founded sanctuary for those who believe, as we do, in freedom of thought. We shall live there and lend our good fortune and charity to those whom we believe to be just and reasonable.

S
igned hereby
today by my own hand,

Aaron Tuke

A
aron Tuke
!

Camille melted into her chair, the four-hundred-year old letter settling slowly onto her lap. In better days, this letter would have seemed a sappy fiction. But her father’s death had opened a wound that was seeping sentiment. And this letter proved that everything she secretly held sacred was once real. How sad. A refreshing wind of cynicism lifted her spirits. There were no men like Aaron Tuke, and therefore no man for her. Love is a dangerous complication in a tenuous world. A potentially fatal distraction, at best.

She walked to the living room and looked across at Manhattan, anger welling up in her chest. Romance, one more thing sacrificed to the implicit greed of some faceless ideology. One more thing that ran out.
Uncertainty rules. Commitment unwise. Everyone’s on hold. The whole human race is waiting to see who and what will lead us out of the mess, or how it’ll end.

She calmed herself with fatal resignation. There hadn’t been a bit of progress for as long as she could remember.
Maybe there’s no such thing as progress. Maybe there’s no meaning or purpose or rhyme or reason to anything.
She braced herself on the arm of the couch. No man would ever send her such a letter as Aaron Tuke had sent to his beloved Camillia.

Wife and Love’s Gift . . .