Gabriel's Stand (32 page)

Gabriel awoke with a start, after a fitful nap, one of several. The truck had traveled without incident from late afternoon in Salt Lake City, Utah to mid-morning in Oakland, California, then had maneuvered endlessly, presumably on the Port of Oakland shipping area, until it arrived in the loading queue. His body still ached from toe to crown from the rigors of his Idaho-to-Salt Lake escapade. The cargo container lurched again. The sound of a loading crane rumbled, and the converted container vibrated from corner to corner. He sat on the edge of his bunk, holding his ears. The room swayed slightly. A minute later, metal clanged sharply under him, as the container was dropped on the forward deck of the Sea Mistress in the Port of Oakland.

Gabriel stood slowly. His coffee cup had glided from one end of the tiny table to the other, caught by a raised edge. “Okay,” he said aloud to himself. “What's next?” As if in answer, the ship's horn announced departure. He felt the rumble of distant engines and the sense of gradual movement. After a minute, Gabriel cautiously started the coffee machine. Then he raided the tiny refrigerator for another breakfast packet.

An hour later, Gabriel sat in front of the blank screen.
No view from here
, he thought. It was going to be another long journey.

Four hours later, Gabriel checked his watch
. After dark.
He looked up at the ladder and the recessed metal ring in the ceiling. Standing on tiptoes, he caught a cord attached to the ladder, pulled, and the whole thing slowly descended to the carpet.
Aha!
Quickly, he put his full weight in the bottom rung; then stood in place, studying the hatch above.

There must be an emergency exit procedure,
he thought
.
Suddenly, the fear of being trapped, something he had suppressed for three days, boiled up in an eruption of claustrophobic panic. Gabriel climbed to the third rung and began frantically trying the bolts that circled the metal ring. Then, at one edge, he felt a cut in the carpeted roof. Forcing his fingers inside, he felt a metal lever.
Good.
He pulled. The lever snapped back with a sudden release of tension, and the metal ring became a crescent. Gabriel could feel ocean air. He climbed another rung and pushed up.

The hatch flipped open, and a circle of black sky opened to a torrent of a cold wind. Gabriel climbed further until his head fully cleared the hole. He stood—neither in nor out—his nose in the night wind, thinking of all the times he watched Fat Fox do the same in the trailer vent. Then he pushed up further, and pulled himself through the hole. It was a painfully slow process; his limbs had seized up following the Salt Lake exertion and the confinement had taken a further toll.

Gabriel sat for a blessed moment, his feet dangling into the hatch, and took the measure of his surroundings. He seemed to be completely alone. His cargo container sat at the edge of a tall pile of the things, six high, about eighty feet, he estimated.
Thank God they didn't put me on the bottom of that
, he thought. He was sitting forward, next to a mast, and could see the prow of the ship about fifteen yards ahead, lit by several deck lights on the edge. The roar of the ocean and the occasional slam of a wave against a metal bulkhead competed with the steady moan of the wind. But the sky was totally dark. It was if the ship were somehow suspended in space, surrounded by an imaginary ocean, a virtual one made of colossal sound effects. But Gabriel could smell the salt air. He briefly considered trying to climb down from this perch, using the nearby mast, but thought better of that idea right away.
What if I can't get back? Don't know who to trust.

The blast of the ship's horn startled him. Gabriel envisioned some giant metal sea monster.
Like a Saturday morning cartoon
. That reminded him of domestic life; and he winced with worry.
Alice. Snowfeather.
Gabriel tried to focus on his situation.
Can't help anyone right now. Too much time for introspection here…

When a heavy rain began to fall, Gabriel reluctantly dropped back inside.
How do I close this thing?
He tugged down at the lever. When that failed, he climbed up until he could grip the edge of the hatch. He pulled hard, then yanked back his hand and dropped his head.
Not very damn user-friendly
. But the hatch swung smartly shut over his head. Gabriel pushed the lever into its recess. “That was fun,” he said aloud.

——

The next night, an officer on the bridge noticed a lone figure standing on a cargo container near the prow. The wind was blowing in his long gray hair, and his jacket was flapping like a flag. A brilliant moon stood at nine o'clock. In the opposite sky, away from the lunar glare, stars were scattered like fractured ice. The man seemed to watched the stars for a while; then he turned to face the prow. “Captain, we have a passenger and he's standing …”

“We don't have any passengers.”

“But—”

“Leave it alone.”

The officer watched silently as the man stood for a while longer, then moved out of view. The officer was called away for a few minutes. When he returned, the man was gone.

——

On the fifth evening at sea, just after sundown, Gabriel was startled by the sounds of a sliding door, of men moving wooden cases and the clink of heavy bottles. As he sat up in his cot, he heard a sharp rap on the wall panel at the end of his den, and a muffled voice shouted, “Stand back!”

Moments later, the wall to his living room was yanked open by two strangers. “Gabriel!”
A familiar voice?
“Come on out, man!” Gabriel fastened his trousers and stepped through a small opening in the stacked honey, threading his way until he stepped outside onto the dimly lit deck. “John, is that you?” he asked.

John Owen was grinning. In the seeming eternity since they had last met in Seattle, John had aged. He was still tall, but stockier than before. His hair was almost white, and he had grown a beard. Gabriel stared at the man he had talked to almost weekly but hadn't seen in person for almost four years. “How come I didn't see the beard?”

“Even on the encrypted lines, we always use a digital facsimile of me. One of many precautions.”

“You okay, John?”

“Hell, yes. How are you?”

“Not much the worse for wear, considering the shape I'm in,” Gabriel said, shaking his old friend's hand. Owen's security officers began emptying the rest of cargo container, and collecting Gabriel's effects. “Whoa,” Gabriel said as they stood looking around the ship's cluttered deck. “Did I just shake your
right
hand?”

“Let's get inside where we can talk without shouting.”

Then the two men hugged.

Minutes later, Owen and Standing Bear were sitting in the Captain's quarters, sipping hot chocolate.

“For an old Indian, you don't look so damn bad.”

“A miracle of modern pain killers,” Gabriel said. “I finally looked in the medicine cabinet.”

“It's a white eyes' thing,” Dr. Owen said, chuckling.

Gabriel reached over to John. “Let me see that hand.” John held out his right hand. “You did lose it? Or was that just a story?”

“I did lose it. Right at the wrist. I left it as a souvenir with those Gaia fanatics. They wanted one hundred million dollars for it, figuratively speaking.”

“Is this one real?”

“Oh yes. Gabriel, this is not some transplant. This hand is genetically my own.” Owen flexed his fingers. “We used stem cell regeneration and a bit of guided cloning from my remaining hand. It's Edge Medical's own process. If it weren't illegal, we could do this for amputees everywhere. It took me almost a year of therapy to get it to work right, but it's good as ever.”

“I am impressed. Do you have the same fingerprints?”

Owen laughed. “Not exactly. But I'll be damned if I was going to let those bastards take away my body parts.”

Gabriel laughed.

“Were the accommodations okay?” Owen asked.

“The shower was like a car wash.”

“I thought you had one of those in your trailer.”

“With a timer and hot wax?”

“It's a white eyes' thing.”

“Speaking of white eyes. I'll bet they still have your hand.”

“Do you think?”

“Probably incorporated it in their cultic worship.”

Owen looked shocked.

“Just kidding. So, where is the Captain?” Gabriel asked.

“You didn't see any other crew, did you? They're preserving deniability. Of course one officer did report seeing this strange guy wandering around the deck at night.”

“I felt like that wandering mariner, the Flying Dutchman. I began to wonder if I'd ever see a friendly face.”

“We do this cloak-and-dagger stuff a lot these days.”

“You're good at being a criminal, John. It must come naturally.”

“Thank you.” Dr. Owen finished his cup. “Another white eyes' thing.”

“It is really good to see you, John.”

“Same here, Gabriel.” Then Owen looked at his watch. “We will need to leave the ship in ninety minutes. We brought along a Sat-cast unit. Are you are up to an appearance before we go?”

“My regular webcast?”

“I thought you might want to give your viewers an update.”

Gabriel nodded. “Something short, then?”

“Exactly. By the time they figure out you are out here in some ocean, you will be gone.”

——

The camera captured only a brightly lit circle on the deck. Outside that pool of light, dark waves twinkled in the moonlight behind Gabriel all the way to the horizon. The breeze was a distant roar in the microphone attached to his collar. His fringe leather jacket flapped in the wind.

“This is Senator Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. For the last several days, I have lived the life of a fugitive, and now I speak to you as a free man.

“I have told you about the dangerous clique who have hijacked the environmental movement and captured control of our government. For them, there was and is a deeper agenda. The Directorate was formed out of a small fanatical group of cultic worshipers. They live and breathe one chilling agenda: Human extermination.

“I will never forget how my beloved daughter, a proud member of the Indian Nations, came to me a week after she had seen the body of my friend, Senator Lance McKernon, tied to a tree surrounded by witches, a blood-thirsty coven led by Louise Berker who calls herself Tan. Snowfeather was crying when she told me. I still weep inside. The G-A-N assassinated Senator Lance McKernon in order to ensure the passage of the Earth Restoration Treaty. By this single act, they defined themselves and foreshadowed their agenda for all humanity.

“No tyranny imposed by lunatics can survive the courage and determination of ordinary people. The Commission and the entire Treaty enforcement apparatus were the takeover instruments of terrorists from the very beginning. But they have overplayed their hand. Your current leaders are terrified because they have become dependent on the good will of fanatics for their survival. But leaders can be replaced.

“This is my message. No one will survive if we let this go on.

“The resistance begins here. Now. It begins in the streets, in the boardrooms, in the classrooms, the coffee shops, the hospitals, the police stations, in your living rooms. Wherever two or three can gather together.

“Defy them. Hide your electronic and medical tools. Disobey their orders. Find the leaders among us who will stand up to them, and support them.

“Meet together. Rally together. Share the truth together.

“This is Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom.”

As soon as the equipment was packed up and loaded, Owen gestured to the black, military-style helicopter at the other end of the deck. Large fuel pods hung from the sides. “Come on Gabriel, we don't have any time to lose.”

Moments later, Gabriel Standing Bear looked out the bubble window at the cargo ship as it dwindled into the darkness. Soon its lights glimmered and winked out. Then there was only the faintly shimmering sea.

“Where are we going?”

“Home, my old friend. A long, long flight. To New Kona.”

After several hours in the air, John Owen's helicopter landed on another ship where Gabriel was able to sleep comfortably and eat real food. Three days later, Gabriel, John and a small crew re-boarded the helicopter at night. Several more airborne hours passed and then the New Kona beach first appeared as a ghostly band of silver against the black ocean, then resolved as moonlit whitecaps striking black sand. Jungle passed underneath, then a clearing lit by a necklace of yellow lights as the helicopter descended. Gabriel could just make out a small group of figures standing next to a van.

“We're home at last,” John said; his voice was distinct in the headphones over the whump-whump of the huge blades.

As the engine died and the blades slowed, Gabriel could see a familiar, but older, face. “Is that Elisabeth?” he asked.

“They do grow up,” Owen said thoughtfully. The door popped open and a rush of warm, moist air flooded in. It was one hour before dawn.

After Gabriel was shown his guest room, he was escorted to an early breakfast on a large verandah. The sky had just begun to glow over the small lava beach. Gabriel and John sat across from Colonel Bill Dornan, now Owen's chief operating officer and security head. Dornan, having just turned sixty-nine, seemed to be aging in reverse.

“Where exactly is this place?” Gabriel asked.

“You've guessed we're not in Hawaii. This island is way out in the Pacific Ocean,” Bill Dornan said.

“Not even on some charts,” John added. “We are about twelve hundred miles from any other significant land mass. “Best you not know the details.”

“Doesn't the Commission have an air force?” Gabriel asked.

“They control the leadership in countries that do, whenever it comes within the scope of their jurisdiction,” Dornan said.

“Which gives them the power to strike us,” John said. He sipped his coffee for a moment. “Let me get right to it. A lot has happened since you escaped. They've made some arrests. And they have just made a mistake that will cost them dearly: Someone in the G-A-N has killed Bishop Allan Gardiner.”

Gabriel paused to take that in. “When?”

“I just heard about it when we left to pick you up at sea. The police were asked to cover it up while the Technology Licensing Commission staffers tried to figure out how to handle the spin.”

“So it's going to be open war,” Gabriel said.

“It was inevitable. We couldn't survive forever in the shadow of this new regulatory regime. If we don't move soon, the Commission will eventually win.”

“You're right about that,” Gabriel said. “So do you have a plan?”

“Things have moved very, very fast since you got aboard that ship, Gabriel. Let's get some breakfast in you and we'll catch you up.”

——

When the dawn had lit up the ocean like a glowing lava flow, and Gabriel had stopped drinking coffee and started on a cigar, he stood and stretched. “I'm ready for all your news,” he said. “And I haven't forgotten that Snowfeather is in jail again.”

“Well, in no particular order, here it is.” John said. “They are using a combination of blackmail, extortion, biological warfare, and selective Stage Three confiscations. More clever than I anticipated.”

“TB 6 is showing up everywhere,” Dornan said, “and they are interdicting our antibiotic and vaccine shipments, and doling out the confiscated supplies to control key people.”

“Most people are still unaware we have cures for these diseases?”

Gabriel nodded. “What about Snowfeather? How will you get her out?”

“I'm working on it. I didn't have all the details when I first told you that Snowfeather was under arrest. Here's how it came down. Two weeks ago, I tried to get her a shipment of antibiotics. The handoff blew up, and she was arrested by NYPD. We do have friends on that force. So, for the time being, she is safe. Our lawyers have been trying to get her bailed out, but we are stalled temporarily.”

Gabriel carefully placed the cigar on an ashtray. “Where, exactly, is she is in jail?”

“In the Manhattan precinct where I have three personal friends, and you have one.”

“Sergeant Wilson Lean Wolf O'Shaunnesy?”

“The same. Only city custody for now, but bail was denied. They're holding off the Commission for the time being.”

“I've got to go back and help her. You'd do the same, John.”

“Yes, I would. The good news is that we now have the security recording of the Bishop's murder. This is leverage.”

“How did you get that?”

“Friends…”

“If it implicates the Directorate or the Commission, they will wet their panties, wondering when and how you will release it.”

“I'd like to threaten to release our recording in order to get Snowfeather out.”

“Thanks, John, but likely it won't work that way. You'll burn your law enforcement friends and give Longworthy and his crowd time to think of a way to discredit the recording. I say you hit 'em with it, and work hard to get Snowfeather out at the same time.”

“So we just run it?”

“Yes. And we hurry,” Gabriel said. “You saw what they were willing to do to stop my webcasts.”

“Gabriel has a point. They are cutting the fiber op cables,” Bill said. “They hope to squeeze web access to the point where only the compliant media is left.”

“Of course, web access uses multiple sources, including satellite, and the old style phone lines. Some of the backbone cables are intact,” John said.

“That will only get worse,” Gabriel said. “What could they do to hurt satellite television and internet?”

“They seem to have a staged plan to close the whole thing down bit by bit. People are losing bandwidth every day.”

“But, good for us, they are in a self-made bind,” Dornan said. “The Commission still needs at least one working path for its propaganda campaign—so they can't give up the basic com-infrastructure. But they desperately need to control the content.”

“While they are trying to silence talk of the pandemic, they've started confiscating some satellite receivers and dishes in the old Stage Three areas,” Owen said.

“If the scope and pace of those seizures expand rapidly,” Dornan added, “they are triggering information access panic.”

“I agree with Bill. They are moving too damn fast, Gabriel. Even since you escaped, there were seizures in the Salt Lake area, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, as well as Manhattan.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “That will work against them. People won't put up with this. It is stupid of them, moving so fast…unless they have an end-game plan. So, about my earlier question. Do
we
have a plan?”

“Yes…an evolving one. I have a safe house in DC from which you can carry on a lobbying campaign,” Owen replied. “Meantime, you have my word we'll get Snowfeather out. Even if I personally have to break her out.”

“The goal is Treaty de-ratification,” Dornan said. “Thurston Smith, Junior, the new Speaker of the House, has been talking it up.”

“So this presents a new problem,” John said. “Thurston Smith Senior is now in federal jail. With Snowfeather also in Manhattan jail, the G-A-N has two hostages.”

Gabriel pursed his lips. “When can you get them out?”

“Not sure…yet.”

“So we are stuck for the moment, Senator,” Dornan said. “By the way, no one seems to know where your wife is.”

“Which is good news. Trust me, Alice will be very hard to find.” Gabriel looked out over the railing at the distant waves. “Does the Senate have the power to cancel any treaty ratification?” he asked. “I mean, without the president's agreement?”

“My lawyers looked into that. It probably can be done, but not without the House,” John said. “Something like that was first done in July 1789, by Joint Resolution, repudiating the existing treaties with France. My people warn that it will probably take two thirds of the entire Senate, declared privately, before anyone will have the guts to stand up and be counted. And even with the House on board, we will need at least the passive support of the Administration.”

Gabriel frowned. “That's a hard, hard sell. President Baxter would have been an impossible sell because the original treaty was his baby. …And President Chandler? He's an heir to Baxter's legacy.”

“That SOB is a wimp, never known for courage, political or any other,” Dornan growled.

“Ah, but a very egotistical wimp,” Gabriel said.

“I agree,” John said. “His ego is on our side. We have heard that President Chandler resents Longworthy's arrogance and interference.”

“He might enjoy taking a shot at the Commission just to get back at Rex?” Bill asked.

“Maybe so,” Gabriel said, warming to the idea. “Can Thurston Junior deliver the House? Gabriel asked.

“The Speaker can deliver,” John said. “But not while the Speaker's father is in jail.”

“So is this checkmate?” Gabriel asked.

“We can't allow it,” John said quietly, “we will not allow it.”

Gabriel stood, taking his coffee cup to the railing. “What do we have to work with?” he asked somewhat to himself. Surf foamed against the beach, while a soft breeze stirred the orchid plants below. White clouds drifted in the brilliant blue sky. He took it all in and said softly, “We have reality on our side. The survival instinct.”

John regarded his friend. “The new pandemics will kill people, potentially in the hundreds of millions. I can't make enough drugs fast enough in one plant, even if I could deliver them. But the other pharmaceutical plants in the US were just locked up when the early retro orders were served. The research facilities padlocked but not decommissioned. Most of them could be brought on line as soon the Commission is out of business.”

“Unless the G-A-N blows them up,” Dornan said gravely.

“How long do we have?” Gabriel asked. There was a long pause. “I am in for the duration. I don't need any rest. Just send me back in the field as soon as you need to.”

“Good,” John said, letting go of his breath. “Good,” he repeated. “I'll figure something out today. We have no time to lose. No time at all.”

Part Three: The Trial

“Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Winston Churchill