Maps of Hell

Forty-Five

Washington National Cathedral, the world’s sixth largest, was basking on the summit of Mount St. Alban, the city’s highest point. The late-afternoon sun was reflected strongly by the blocks of Indiana limestone, causing many of the people on site to wear dark glasses. The trees in the fifty-seven acres of gardens that surrounded the building were a picturesque mixture of russet, yellow and brown. The central tower of the structure topped three hundred feet, giving the Secret Service men and Army snipers a fine panorama. To first-time visitors to Washington attending the service, the cathedral was a surprising vision of the medieval, with pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses and stained-glass windows. There were perhaps not enough gargoyles on the walls to achieve the full Gothic effect, but the plentiful decorative pinnacles made up for that. From every gallery and vantage point, personnel in dark fatigues ceaselessly scanned the cathedral vicinity, weapons at the ready. The president and first lady, accompanied by six cabinet members, were expected in thirty-five minutes.

Inside the building, there was an atmosphere of controlled alert. Clergy from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, dressed in their most formal robes, moved about their duties with studied calm. They were accustomed to state occasions, even though there were more military and plainclothes security people around than they would have liked. This was the house of God, after all, and the United States’ greatest men were commemorated here, with separate bays for presidents and wartime leaders from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. By the north transept was a bay with a likeness of Martin Luther King Jr., proving that all men were brothers in this, the great stone tabernacle of the nation.

One of the six men in the honor guard flanking the high altar watched as a deacon made his final checks. The cleric took out a handkerchief and wiped a minuscule blemish from the surface of one of the hundred and ten carved figures surrounding the statue of Christ. Nearby, a stone from Mount Sinai had been encased in the floor. The guardsman looked up at the great rose window in front of him, the reds and blues of the glass illuminated gloriously. To his right, ranks of wooden pews led toward another rose window at the far end of the nave. By any standards it was a wonderful spectacle, but the soldier was unmoved. He had no time for a religion that saw all men as equal and gave encouragement to members of the subhuman races. He had seen the carving called Creation above the main entrance on his way in, mankind being formed out of chaos. That was a perversion of reality. The overwhelming majority of mankind had never, and would never, rise beyond chaos-that was the destiny only of the chosen few.

The members of the honor guard stiffened even more as their commanding officer approached. Everything had been rehearsed over and over again-there was no need for spoken commands. The organist started to play and service personnel representing all the minorities filtered into the cathedral from various entrances to take up their positions. The guardsman kept his eyes to the front, showing no emotion as various minorities, all the scum of the earth, formed up close by him-no doubt there would be Jews in attendance, too, they got everywhere. But no Germans. They weren’t a minority. They had been the U.S.’s biggest immigrant group, but now they were fully integrated-they had become part of the majority. They had even served in their hundreds of thousands against the Fatherland.

That mistake would never be repeated. The Fuhrer would see to that, starting today.

The security checks started long before we got anywhere near the cathedral. Chief Owen’s clearance got us through initially, with him vouching for me. But soon that wasn’t enough. We were asked to get out of the vehicle halfway up the slope that led to the great church, and I was patted down.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the perfectly turned out master sergeant said to the chief. “You and your…friend need special authorization for the ceremony. I can’t let you proceed any farther.”

“But it’s an emergency,” Rodney Owen said, taking out his phone.

I briefly considered trying to get into one the cars that were being allowed to drive on, but decided against suicide-the soldiers at the checkpoint had their assault rifles at the ready. I’d spoken to Peter Sebastian and he had said he would spread the word, but I hadn’t heard anything more. I crushed my nails into the palms of my hands. Karen, I thought. Our son…

“Chief Owen! Wells!”

I recognized Sebastian’s voice. I turned and saw the FBI man get out of a car on the other side of the checkpoint. He held up his badge.

“These two are with me.” He lowered his voice. “Code Treadstone 23.”

The master sergeant called it in and then waved us through.

“Thanks a lot,” I said, as we got into Sebastian’s car. “I thought we were going to be stuck there. What’s going on?”

The FBI man looked round at me from the front passenger seat. “Relax, everything’s under control. There’s almost as much security up there as there was at the president’s inauguration-secret service, army, marines, special forces, take your pick.”

I stared at him. “That’s the point. If people have been coffined…I mean, brainwashed like Marion Gilbert, they could be part of any or all of those. Did you make that clear to whoever is in charge?”

Sebastian nodded. “Of course I did. It was even passed to the president’s people. The man himself said he wanted things to go ahead as planned. The service is very important to him… Besides, it isn’t as if we have a lot of hard evidence about Marion Gilbert’s state of mind. I mean, I believe you, Matt, but you’ve got to admit, it’s all a bit circumstantial.”

I grabbed his arm. “Circumstantial? She killed four people, for God’s sake. And Rothmann came clean about the conditioning process.”

“To you, and you were a suspect for a while, with a lot to gain by blaming Marion Gilbert,” Sebastian said.

“Fuck!” I slammed my head against the seat back. “What more do you guys need? It wasn’t only Marion Gilbert who was brainwashed. Gwen and Randy took out the detectives.”

“I know, but you can’t blame the official channels for some healthy skepticism. Besides, you said that Rothmann got to you, too, Matt. Have you any idea how lucky you are to be here? If it wasn’t for Karen Oaten, I’d have left you at the checkpoint back there.”

I sat back, thinking about what he’d just said. “If it wasn’t for Karen? What do you mean?” He didn’t answer, keeping his eyes off me. “You bastard. You don’t trust her, do you? You think she could have been conditioned, too.”

Peter Sebastian turned to face me. “Think about it, Matt. You’ve already said that you’ve been affected by the word that the Rothmanns used-notice that I’m not repeating it. And you were in captivity for less time than Karen.”

“So what are you doing allowing her anywhere near the justice secretary, let alone the president.”

Sebastian looked away. “It’s not my call. I’ve told the director and he’s passed on my suspicions to his counterparts in the other agencies. The problem is, the justice secretary thinks Karen is a hero and we all know how much politicians like to be seen with their heroes. Your woman’s also a foreign dignitary. The last thing anyone wants today is a diplomatic incident.”

Rodney Owen leaned forward. “I still don’t get why you’re letting Matt here attend the service.”

The FBI man looked to the front. “I’m rather hoping he’ll have a beneficial effect on Karen Oaten-maybe put her off trying anything.” He shook his head. “Not that I expect her to. She had her chance at the party and nothing happened… Despite your fears, Matt.”

I was about to lay into him for his cynicism, but then I realized it was to my advantage-I desperately wanted to be with Karen, whatever happened.

The car was stopped at the final checkpoint by the cathedral. We got out and I watched as a convoy of heavy limousines swept past. Large men with wires coming from their ears scanned the area and then opened the doors. I caught a glimpse of the president and his wife. They waved and smiled as they went into a side door. I looked up and around. Above the gargoyles and pinnacles, I saw numerous black-clad personnel toting guns. It only took one of those to be a renegade shooter…

“Come on,” Sebastian said, heading toward the entrance the president had used. “It’s nearly showtime.”

My throat was dry and my stomach performing somersaults. I couldn’t have had a worse feeling if Rothmann himself had been on the door.

Karen Oaten sat down after the president and first lady had taken their seats at the front of the nave, three rows in front of the justice secretary and herself.

“I’ll introduce you afterward,” the diminutive woman whispered, with a broad smile.

Karen nodded and looked ahead. There were ranks of veterans in front of the high altar, many of them in wheelchairs, all wearing berets with badges on them. Each was accompanied by a family member and a young soldier with similar unit insignias. The veterans themselves looked bewildered, as if the ceremony was directed at younger selves they had long since left behind.

There was a slight commotion in the row behind her and Karen looked round. To her surprise, she saw people moving along and Matt taking the seat directly behind her. He gave her a smile, which she didn’t return. She had assumed, after his behavior at FBI headquarters, that he had been taken somewhere to cool down. What on earth had he been doing? He had put her off something, though she couldn’t remember what it was. Fortunately she had regained her composure as soon as the justice secretary invited her to come to the minority veterans’ service, saying that her presence would send a message to criminals and terrorists that the kidnapping of a police officer, no matter where she was from, would be given the highest priority by the administration.

And now, Karen thought, here was Matt again. She considered complaining to the justice secretary, but the ceremony was beginning. Besides, she would have to see Matt sooner or later to tell him that their life together was finished. She had other priorities for her son now. She knew a major event was about to change her life irreversibly. She was ready.

I was only half listening to the readings and prayers as the service dragged on, so disturbing was the way Karen had looked at me. It wasn’t that she gave the impression of some horrific intent, or that she showed any signs of being a different person from the one I loved. But that was precisely the problem. She was the same woman; she just didn’t seem to care about me anymore. She had glanced at me as if I was of no greater significance to her than a dust mite. I began to lose confidence in myself. Maybe I was the one at fault. Maybe I had never really loved her and had never wanted a child with her…

I clenched my fists and forced myself to concentrate on what was going on in the cathedral. From the pulpit, a minister in dark purple robes was preaching about the necessity of sacrifice in wartime and how gloriously members of the nation’s minorities had fulfilled that, particularly in the defining war against European fascism and Japanese militarism. I had a flash of the blonde woman who had been sacrificed by the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant at the camp. Had her death been justifiable in those terms? In any terms? Then the minister paused and I felt a tremor of anticipation that I couldn’t account for.

“But the regimes you fought against so bravely,” continued the man at the pulpit, “despite what you were told, were not evil. For centuries they were the bulwarks of civilization against the barbarian. As long ago as the twelfth century, the Holy Roman Empire was defended by the great German Fredrick I.” The preacher stopped again and looked across the rows of listeners. I was sweating, my heart racing. I knew what was coming-I had seen it in dreams and visions that, deep down, my mind had suppressed and that my conscious will had resisted, until now. “Also known as Barbarossa,” the minister concluded.

There were a few seconds of silence and then all hell broke its chains. There was a loud blast from the front of the cathedral, smoke and dust immediately obscuring the altar and its carved figures. Then automatic weapon fire started, shots coming from all directions. People dived to the floor between the pews but there wasn’t room for all to find cover and the screams of the wounded and dying filled the air. I rubbed my eyes, my mind clogged by disparate thoughts and images. Barbarossa-Rothmann had called that the default trigger and there were obviously plenty of people in the cathedral responding to it. Sweating, I tried to fight the coffining and keep myself under control. Looking ahead, I saw Karen. She was bending over the woman next to her, the justice secretary, and she was brandishing something. Getting up, I saw that it was a pen, but there was a vicious shaft like a small skewer projecting from it.

“No!” I yelled, dashing the weapon from her hand.

Karen turned to me, her eyes wide, and screamed a single word.

I couldn’t make it out in the rattle of gunfire and the cries of thousands of people.

She understood that and said it again.

“Gerty?” I repeated, a dim recollection swimming to the surface of my mind.

“Goethe!” Karen screamed back at me.

Immediately I felt my knowing self fly from my body, as it had on the Isolde. I was aware that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born 1749, died 1832, was the greatest of German writers-the author of novels, poetry and plays, including the incomparable poetic drama Faust-and the universal genius of his countrymen. But I also knew that Goethe was my personal trigger, the word that activated the deepest level of conditioning that lurked beyond all conscious control.

I watched as my body moved into action, completely indifferent to the bullets flying around-fire was now being returned by army and security personnel against Rothmann’s sleeper Nazis. My other self paid no attention to Karen, who was being held tightly by Owen and Sebastian, but pushed his way to the end of the pew. The central passage was crowded by people pushing toward the exits. There was a crush all round as veterans in wheelchairs jammed against current army personnel and guests. Groups of VIPs protected by their phalanxes of guards were unable to reach the cathedral doors.

Then I saw my programmed self catch sight of the scrum of men in suits that had formed beyond the front row of pews. There was a glimpse of the president, his arm around his wife. His mouth was moving, but it was impossible to hear his words.

And then the Matt Wells I didn’t know made his bid for glory in accordance with the perverted vision of the Rothmann twins and the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant. He smashed his fist into a female soldier’s face and grabbed her assault rifle. Switching to automatic fire, he pointed it at the group around the president and charged toward them, screaming like one of the Germanic warriors that had massacred the Roman Emperor Augustus’s legions nine years after the birth of Jesus Christ.

The tumult rose to a crescendo.

I was unable to stop my separate self rejoining the body that was intent on destroying the leader of the modern world.

Everything ended in darkness as I tumbled into a deep well.