The Veritas Conflict (66 page)

“We’ll do that.”

“And I got a message from Claire.”

The professor took his eyes off the beleaguered HCF students and looked at his TA.

Ian’s face was tight. “She sounded pretty excited, but she wouldn’t tell me why. She said she figured out the answer—whatever that means—this morning and was going to try to get a little more evidence. But she didn’t tell me what. She asked me to meet her here.”

“When?”

“In about fifteen minutes.”

“I wish she’d told you more. It sounds promising. If she’s not here in good time, then we need to reevaluate.” Mansfield put his hand on Ian’s shoulder. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

His attention returned to the HCF students. “Come on. Let’s go show our support and see if there’s anything we can do. We can get the stuff out of the car later.”

As they walked up, Alison approached the group from the other direction. She was
closely followed by a security truck carrying a bunch of maintenance men and a large folded tent.

Niles marched and shouted with fervor. He was tired after a night downtown, but he was not about to take a rest now. These proselytizers were unsafe, and it was his duty to rid the campus of their practices. People were noticing. Their message was being heard.

Perhaps now people would take him seriously.

He watched Alison walk back to the tables, followed by the truck. Maintenance men started unloading something heavy from the truck bed, and two security guards jumped out of the cab. He gestured to his people to shout louder. They had a right to protest, and they were going to exercise that right.

Alison was looking in their direction, talking with the guards, gesturing, her face sheepish.

Good. He wanted the proselytizers to be embarrassed. Wanted them to be humiliated that their tactics of harassment and fanaticism were being exposed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Niles saw two female students pass by on the nearby path. They were looking at the protestors and their signs curiously, as if they were exhibits in a zoo. His face reddened, and his shouts grew hoarse as the tendons stood out on his neck.

All these students just walking by. Not one truly appreciated what he was doing for them, the safety and tolerance he was ensuring.

A female security officer finished conferring with the zealots and stepped up to his group.

“Excuse me.” Her voice was no-nonsense.

He would have preferred to keep shouting—just to make a point—but the others all stopped quite readily and listened.

“The Harvard Christian Fellowship group has a proper permit to conduct a prescheduled activity on these grounds. I also show that a notice of protest was filed. Who is the spokesperson here?”

Niles stepped forward. “I am.”

“Good, good.” She clapped her hands together. “Here’s what we’re going to do, just so this is all orderly. We’re going to set up a half-tent—sort of a heavy canopy—for the HCF group so that people are free to visit their barbecue tables without harassment. And you all are going to maintain a distance of at least one hundred feet from the front of the tent.”

As the protesters groaned and complained, the officer raised her voice and pointed to an area in the direction of Harvard Yard. “We’ll set up a post for you over there.”

Niles balled his hands into fists and took a leveling breath. “You can’t do that. We have a right to be here!”

The officer crossed her arms. “Oh really? Why do you think so?”

“Because I have first amendment rights!”

“Well then, you and your first amendment rights can go stand over there.”

She started to walk away, and Niles saw red. She hadn’t even
listened
to him! The maintenance men were already swarming around the selected spot, shouldering heavy metal poles, tying ropes to large weights, straining to erect the bulky tent.

“We have rights!” he shouted after her, noticing with satisfaction that everyone within hearing distance was turning to stare.

“We have freedom of speech!” He waved his arms as she and the second security guard—a rather large man—approached with narrowed eyes. “We have freedom of association! And we have freedom to tell these radicals that they must take their loathsome attempts to convert people elsewhere!”

The female guard looked at Niles and said, “Your distance is now one hundred and fifty feet.”

The movers finished hefting the round of boxes into the truck, then turned to head up the stairs. One more load.

A heavyset man in a blue coat slipped around the side of the truck and gestured one of the movers aside just as he was about to enter the building. Another man in a black coat stood a short distance away, scanning the area with intent eyes.

The blue-coated man conferred with the mover for a minute, then took out his billfold and held out some cash. The moving man gave a quick glance around, then took the cash and stuffed it in an inside pocket of his work jumper.

The mover quickly reentered the building and walked nonchalantly into the room where his buddies were packing up stray boxes. He drifted toward the end where the girl was working and picked up a long box.

Claire started as one of the moving men tripped and dropped a long slim box on the desk right beside her. Papers went flying.

“Sorry about that, darlin.” He straightened the papers and leaned toward her. “Didn’t frighten you, did I?”

“No.” His lascivious eyes made her nervous. She gave a brief smile and turned back to her terminal.

He picked up his box, then walked slowly behind her chair. She could hear his
breathing behind her neck and tensed. She relaxed slightly as he continued on to the other side of the room, picked up more boxes, and carried them out of the room and down the corridor.

Ugh
. She shivered.
What a creepy man
.

The moving man loaded his boxes onto the flatbed, then told his comrades he was going to take a bathroom break. They nodded and turned back toward the office as he walked away.

The mover greeted the blue-coated man with a crooked smile and pulled a piece of paper halfway out of his pocket, then pushed it back in. He said something, shrugged, and held out his hand.

There was a long pause. Whatever he saw in blue-coat’s eyes, the mover quickly plucked the paper out of his pocket, handed it over with a brief statement, and scuttled back up the stairs.

The recipient called black-coat over and unfolded the piece of paper, holding it so his comrade could also read it. Both pairs of eyes went directly to a place halfway down the page where—amidst a jumble of text and numbers—a line of yellow highlighting stood out.

With a low growl, blue-coat tucked the paper into his pocket, then spoke briefly with his comrade. He made a short but urgent cell-phone call and received the authorization.

One of Niles’s friends pulled him over to the picket line the female security officer was setting up. She pointed to a pathway separating the protestors from the white canopy now rising from the lawn. She said something to Niles, gesturing. He didn’t hear it.

She nodded to the others, took a last look around, and walked back toward the barbecue.

Through a film of rage Niles watched the proselytizers smugly arranging their tables under the tent. Even in the short time the protestors had stopped chanting, several students had ventured under the canopy for hot dogs and soda.

Most of the freeloaders walked right back out again, paper plates in hand, and went on their way. But some stayed. He could see them sitting at the tables, foolishly chatting with the students working the barbecue.

The protesters held their signs up and tried another chant, but Niles could tell their resolve was weakening. The tent was in a prominent spot by Mem Hall, and the picketers had been relegated to a corner of the lawn.

A stream of people came from Harvard Yard heading for the science center. One person walked over to the protestors to cheer them on, but most students just ignored them. A few shot derisive looks in their direction.

Niles watched as two of his picketers glanced at each other, then handed back their signs and walked away.

“Come back!” He ran to stop them. “Back to your posts!”

“Come off it, Niles,” one said, moving away. “We tried.”

The other followed his friend. “No one cares, man. We’re busted. Take it up with the administration.”

Niles glanced back at the other picketers, who were again marching along their allowed space. Seething, he took a few steps toward the tent and stood squarely in the middle of the path that served as their dividing line. Students flowed around him, but he didn’t notice.

The barbecue tent now boasted a large sign inviting people in. Several more students had ventured under the white canopy.

He could see that right-winger Brad flipping burgers at the very back of the tent, talking with a young woman holding a bag of hamburger buns. The tall professor was walking around, patting shoulders, smiling and encouraging the illicit display. Near the front of the tent, Alison took a seat at a picnic table, sipping a drink and talking with two students.

Niles looked closer, his hand tightening around the picket sign he still held. Those were students from his marketing class! How had they fallen for this? He watched one accept a plate of cheese and crackers with a word of thanks.

He snapped the sign across his knee. They were
thanking
them! Was anyone thanking
him
for exposing their tricks, for warning the campus how unsafe these people were? No! They walked right into the Venus s-flytrap and
thanked them!

He turned back to the protestors. They were all gone. A pile of signs littered the ground.

The two men waited for several minutes, impatient, until the three movers returned, closed the back doors of the truck, and drove away. Then they climbed the stairs at a rapid pace and walked side by side down the hallway toward the appropriate door.

Blue-coat stopped short of the door and gestured to black-coat, who slipped inside the office and cast a quick glance around the empty reception area, the deserted cubicles.

“Clear.”

The two men strode down the corridor to the glassed-in room. They could hear
typing. Black-coat reached inside his jacket, and they stepped quickly to the doorway.

The clerk, sitting in front of one of the computers, looked up in surprise. “May I help you?”

Blue-coat dissembled with an effort, forcing a casual smile. “Actually, yes. We’re supposed to pick up our niece, and I’m afraid we’re late. Is she still here?”

“Man, what a bummer. You just missed her. She left less than a minute ago.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“I think she said something about a barbecue, but I don’t know where it was.”

Blue-coat tried to catch a glimpse of the computer screen behind the clerk. He let his brow furrow in apparent concern. “By any chance do you happen to know if she found what she was looking for?”

“Well, she was pretty excited about something.” The clerk smiled, shrugging. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

Blue-coat made a subtle gesture to his comrade. They stepped inside the resource room door and closed it.

The clerk looked startled as blue-coat advanced, smiling, his hand going to his jacket.

“No, you’ve been a great help.”

Claire looked at her watch, annoyed, and picked up her pace. Why did janitors always insist on doing their scrubbing in a way that blocked the most convenient door out? And always when she was in a hurry and couldn’t afford the extra few minutes’ detour.

She forced herself to calm down. The precious printouts were safe in her backpack, and the only reason she was so anxious was her eagerness to show Mansfield and Ian.

She breathed another prayer of exultation, her spirit almost giddy. They were close to an answer. She could feel it!

The two men left the building at a run and jumped in their nearby car, faces tight, intent. The girl could not tell anyone what she had found. There was a small parking lot in front of Memorial Hall that would work perfectly.

Stefan slipped out the door to Loker Commons in the basement of Mem Hall and walked up the outdoor steps toward ground level. A small parking area was on his left, and a large white tent rose on the lawn not far in front of him. When he was just above eye level with the ground and could see the tent clearly, he stopped.

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. He’d been ordered to watch this “learning event,” and contribute his energy. He wished his father had told him what was planned.

Niles’s pickup truck was in a parking garage all the way up by the law school. He didn’t even notice the walk there, and before he knew it, was in the truck on Everett Street, passing the law school dorms.

Someone strolled across the street in front of him, and he slammed on his brakes, swerving. He rolled down the truck window and shouted an obscenity at the top of his lungs. The pedestrian made a hand gesture and deliberately slowed his pace.

Niles stomped on the gas. The pedestrian leaped between two parked cars as Niles’s heavy bumper barely missed him. In his rearview mirror Niles saw with satisfaction that the pedestrian had run back into the road, shouting something after his truck.

These idiots thought they owned the road. Niles’s thoughts grew blacker. He pictured mowing down the smug pedestrian, pictured the self-righteous face plastered on the street. He replayed the image in his mind as he turned onto Oxford Street.

In the distance, a white tent rose at the end of the road.

Black rage pressed in on him, and he slowly pressed down the gas pedal, feeling the slow surge of power.

The two large men pulled up with a jerk in front of Memorial Hall, jumped out of the car, and headed toward the white tent on the lawn.

No sign of the girl, but they couldn’t see inside the canopy from this angle. Blue-coat gestured, and his comrade ran ahead to a good vantage point.

Black-coat scanned the cheerful crowds under the canopy, and his eyes narrowed. The girl was off in a back corner talking to the professor. How could they get both of them to leave the tent? He gestured blue-coat over.