The Arena Man

Book 4: The Max August Magikal Thrillers

by Steve Englehart

Genres: Supernatural suspense; Contemporary Fantasy; Vigilante Thrillers

Synopsis

Legendary comics writer Steve Englehart returns to the adventures of Max August in The Arena Man, the fourth novel in his fantasy thriller series.

Max August was once a regular guy, before he learned the ways of magick and immortality and became a staunch crusader against the supernatural forces of evil. Though immune to the effects of time, Max is not indestructible, and now he must face the vast, worldwide conspiracy known as the Necklace.
Max has only a few allies in this fight among them: Pam, an apprentice in the alchemical arts, and Vee, a chanteuse with an uncanny knack for all things magick. But the Necklace is plotting a massive catastrophe fueled by the magical power of a demonic entity; using Black Ops helicopters to massacre tens of thousands of spectators in a domed stadium, re-awakening terrorist fears and destabilizing the U.S. government. Max will need all his magick, and all the help he can get, for him to have any chance to thwart the attack and survive to fight another day.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: February 19, 2013

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 368

Sample

Day One


MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 9:15 A.M. GREENWICH MEAN TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Max and Pam lifted off from Heathrow into scattered clouds, then a brilliant sky. British Airways flight 1542 was the day's first nonstop to Chicago, getting them in at 12:50 P.M. Central Time after a five-hour time change. As was their custom, they had the only two seats on the right in the last row of first class, they had new faces, and they had magickal shields around their conversation. Pam obviously wanted to talk, and as soon as they were airborne, she did.
"About last night…"
"Uh-huh."
"I believe doctrine states that power's just busting out all over at springtime." Pam's voice was carefully dispassionate. "And this year, the Sun's conjunct Uranus, to make it even more spectacular. It doesn't take an alchemist to see that power playing out last night."
"No," Max agreed, well aware that she was troubled by it. "But it takes at least an astrologer to know about it."
"D'you think Ken and Barbie timed their attack to take advantage?"
"Probably. I would have."
"Should we have been expecting them?"
"There was sexy stuff in the air last night, but that could have been us doing our ritual. An attack by incubus and succubus was certainly not probable."
"The whole male-female thing…" Pam mused. Her jaw clenched. "I remember when the Necklace made all their agent teams one man and one woman, because it made the teams more powerful."
"Yeah." He smiled at her in his breezy deejay way, refusing to join her mood. "Agrippa used to tell me the god of Spring is Pan, and Pan means ‘All.' We all feel his power. And then soon enough, we settle in as one half of All, either male or female, and we go looking for our other half. That's nature, and that's gravity—the eternal coming together. We're all built for relationships. It's the nature of a dual world, and it's powerful."
Pam nodded, her lips tight.
"Beyond that, though," Max continued, "there are four seasons, and four days midway between the seasons, and out of that comes the eight sabbats of the world—Yule, Imbolc, Spring, Beltane, Midsummer, Lughnasadh, the Fall, and All Hallows' Eve. The wise begin their counting with Zero, and in this case that's Hallowe'en, the Dark Void. Then Yule is One, Imbolc Two, and Spring is Three, when the world, which has been kept under wraps all winter, becomes three-dimensional again. Then comes the hidden number pi, the number that never ends.
"Now, Archimedes worked out pi as approximately three and one-seventh, around 250 BC, but before him, people guesstimated at three and one-eighth, and they were the ones working out an understanding of the year. If Spring is Number Three, and there are forty days to the next sabbat on Beltane, one-eighth of forty is five. Five days from spring, March 25, is an ancient festival called Lady Day. It's when ‘All' celebrates ‘all the girls.'
"There are ninety-three days to the next season, at Midsummer. One-eighth of ninety-three is eleven and a chunk. Eleven and a chunk days from spring, April 1, is the equally ancient festival of April Fools' Day, which is when ‘All' celebrates ‘all the boys.' Alchemists, though on one team or the other, celebrate both."
"I know all this," Pam said sourly. "You're just trying to divert me with your dazzling repartée."
"No, I'm saying an alchemist celebrates both, because that's how our world is set up, because both count. Sex is a given, so don't beat yourself up over a fundamental part of human nature."
"It was so fundamental I couldn't do anything to stop it, Max. Unlike you."
"So you're human, and not as far along as you thought you were. Welcome to the club. But alchemy's a path, Pam, not a teleportation. You're getting there."
"‘Getting there.' ‘Getting there.' I want to be there already!"
"One step at a time, cowgirl."
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 6:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Breckenridge ran on his treadmill, gloriously alive from his night with his diabola. The monitor in his private gym was secure on Channel Nine, the Necklace's intranet, so he conducted a lot of his consultations from there. Precisely at 6 A.M., as he did every day of the year, and had for nearly twenty years, he flipped a switch in a panel beside his hand and the image of Dick Hanrahan appeared before him.
"Good morning, Renzo," the old man said in his briefing voice. "Today is March 21, 2011, a Monday.
"The Brits took a shot at Qaddafi overnight, putting a missile in his compound, but he got away. Obama says he's not a target, and also says the U.S. expects to hand over military leadership to the allies within days.
"The Japanese say there's radiation in the food supplies around their four crippled nuclear plants, but eating it won't do anybody any harm."
"Can you believe we were going to detonate Yucca Mountain?" Breckenridge broke in. "This is much better, and it didn't cost a cent." He waved a hand. "Continue."
"AT&T plans to pay thirty-nine billion dollars for Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA to create a new U.S. mobile market leader, and raise their prices ten bucks a month, so Carole is dealing with the antitrust boys."
"For a lot less than when antitrust had teeth, I'm sure," nodded Breckenridge. "That's just a business expense now. Tax deductible."
"You want the numbers?"
"No. Tell me about August."
"The succubus and incubus failed."
"Jesus. When we actually do bring that guy down, it'll be epic. What about the Black Helicopters?"
"Wiped out a family in Montana and were seen. I chose that guy who yelled at you in Kalispell, but it could have been anybody out there in the sticks."
"Now that's the way we like it," Breckenridge said, beginning to breathe just a little harder. "Friday night, they'll set off an uprising, and it doesn't matter how large, because it will legitimize the act of rebellion, and the fear behind the act. One of those rebels will kill somebody, like that lunatic in Arizona. Maybe more than one. But it won't have anything to do with us."
Breckenridge's shoulders were swinging back and forth. "One act of true violence and the pot begins to boil. The uprisers want it to boil, want it to boil over. Normal people want it to stop, and most don't care how that gets done. We can handle that for them. We can hold the lid on the boiling pot, as hard as we have to. And then comes Twenty-Twelve. Jackson Tower, in his time as the wizard, was too old-school to learn Mayan magick, but the Mayan End Times fit my plan so perfectly it's like it was preordained. December 21, 2012, will be the capstone of my twenty years as Gemstone."
Hanrahan blinked, once. "Unless August and Blackwell keep interfering—especially this Friday."
"You give these folks a lot of credit, Dick."
"You don't know magick any more than I do, Renzo. They've got real power."
"True," said Breckenridge, "I don't know magick. But I know human beings, and that's all Max and Pam are. No more, no less. They're not gods."
"Neither are we."
"Exactly. We're all humans here, and we have real power, too. The difference is, we're worldwide, and they're just the two of them."
"They have some friends. Maybe as many as a dozen."
"Humans, too."
"Let's hope so." Both men cracked a smile, but Hanrahan had another objection. "They've hit us three times so far."
"And we've succeeded forty-five other times," Breckenridge said.
"That's three in less than three and a half years. And each of those three was big. That's too much, Renzo."
"All right, Max and Pam have to die. The plucky rebel sweethearts have to die, and sooner rather than later. But I can't worry about, or bet all my chips, on any one operation, or any one source of opposition. I've got my eye on all of them. We may take some flak but we're getting this ship to Twenty-Twelve."
"Most of our other victories were in the back rooms of Washington, Renzo. Based on what he's shown us, August could have disrupted a lot of those. I think he hasn't because he hasn't wanted to. He holds his fire so he can focus on what, frankly, we're focused on. He wants to hit us where it hurts. And I believe that the threat assessment is very high on something this critical."
"Which is what I have you for, and what I have Ruth and Franny for."
"Thank you for including me with them," snapped the old man.
"Jesus, Dick, lighten up. It is what I have you for. The Intelligence link in the Necklace gives me what I need to know, and the Ops and Ordnance links give me control on the ground. I trust all of you to do your jobs, so I can run the ship. Until we kill Max and Pam, we will suffer a higher than normal failure rate, but that rate is six percent and I can live with that. One of our failures was Yucca, but the Japs just handed us what we wanted, so let's scratch that one off. Two failures. What's that, four percent now. Dick, if you saw the world the way I do, you'd see a far more complex, and ultimately forgiving, place."
"I see facts," said Hanrahan sourly. "I see August and Blackwell continuing to live, and my analysis says he'll be interested in Black Helicopters."
"He would be interested, but how's he going to know about them?" Breckenridge used the pad beside his hand again, to stop the treadmill and lope to a halt. "Let's just make certain we do everything we can on our end. Then it's in the hands of the gods."
"Yeah," said Hanrahan. "Finally Renzo: tomorrow is Stamp Act Day."
"I know. Huzzah! All hail the Loyale Nine, my friend!"
"All hail the Loyale Nine!"
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 8:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Two hours later, Breckenridge stepped from his limo beneath Barker Chilton's spacious portico. It was a dismal, snowy day, but the portico's main purpose was to shield the arrival of visitors from non-Western satellite view. American and European satellites were recording a feed showing the Chilton estate with no visitors whatsoever.
In fact, there had been thirty-three arrivals and departures this morning. Porter Allenby, the Values link, and Nat Whitten, the new Politics link, had massaged the gathering in preparation for Breckenridge; he was the centerpiece of the affair so his arrival was timed to be last.
"Larry!" It was Chilton, striding forward to greet him, hand outstretched. For a nickname, Breckenridge preferred the "Renzo" his old friend Dick used; beyond that he preferred his given name. But this was trivial.
"Barker, how are you, old friend?"
"Excellent, Larry. Any problem on the flight?"
"No, I've had my pilot for a long time now. I hardly even notice flying." He turned toward the driver's window. "Roger."
The driver bobbed his head. The impression he gave was of solidity. Nothing would get past this man if it threatened the boss. Breckenridge said, "This is Roger, my pilot and driver."
"Your wingman," Chilton chuckled.
"Exactly."
"Nice to meet you, Roger."
"You, too, sir."
Breckenridge said, "One hour, Roger."
"Yes, sir." The limo moved smoothly to the parking area. Chilton led Breckenridge inside his mansion. There were thirty-three people there, almost all men. They broke into applause. Breckenridge flipped his palms up, humbly acknowledging it with a grin that said he wasn't humble at all. The applause went on for a while. He held up a palm and it died away.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I'm going to enjoy this day with you, and I'll tell you why. We are in the end days. The end of an era, ushered in by you. Soon those who share our beliefs will truly be the chosen ones, as the failures of the past, however noble, however sacred, will matter no more. There will be a new day, with only promise ahead—and don't we all wish we could speed that day?"
Cries of assent were heard around the room.
"Well, we can't. But it's coming, coming because of you. Some say it's at the end of next year. Now, we're not Mayan—"
"Not hardly!"
"—but maybe they found the end of days on their own, to prove Christ's dominion over all the Earth, for surely he is Lord of all the heathens as well!"
"Yes!" "Yes!"
"Everything is speeding up, and it's spinning out of control. Everything's new and then everything's obsolete within months now. The tape, the CD, the DVD, the Blu-Ray. The film in the theater and the film on Blu-Ray with the two alternate endings. You can never get to the end of it, and so now people, somewhere deep in their souls, want to get to the end of it. In their heart of hearts, all of America is thinking, ‘Can we just stop, please? Stop and let me finally find some work, let me enjoy my income, let me plan for the future, let me relax'—but I am certain that soon, maybe very soon, they will get their answer, and it will be ‘No!' Our time on Earth is played out, and there is a new day coming!"
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 8:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
The Ohio River runs through the chaotic mountains of West Virginia—a river mighty enough to carve a valley over time, a long, narrow, north-south stretch of lowland passing eternally lowering ridges. Within that valley is the city of Wheeling, which has spread as wide as possible across the valley, to hold the twenty-eight thousand people who live there. But once you leave the city and head back up into the mountains, the population drops off drastically. An inhabitant of Wheeling like Dick Hanrahan could find complete privacy there.
It was getting to be warm, early on the first day of spring, but at this elevation the snow still clung to the ground and the trees. Hanrahan had left immediately after briefing Breckenridge and driven his personal Ford Expedition, a forgettable gray-silver, up Route 647 until he reached a gated turnoff on the left. It went without saying that he had hidden cameras watching the road for two miles in either direction, checking the gate and the narrow road leading up and away behind it, now covered in snow. But as soon as Hanrahan opened the gate with his remote and disappeared around the first curve, the road turned black and dry, thanks to the heating units running beneath it. Hanrahan continued another three miles upward to another gate, opened that one, and went to the ridge. where the road ended in a circle wide enough to turn around in. He left the Expedition and walked a quarter mile on a snowy path through the woods, giving his state-of-the-art electronic and mystical scanners time to decide that he belonged here, that they should not kill him. The walking made his back feel better, so he had no desire for death. His desire went another way.
He came to a small, windowless cabin and let himself in. No one had been here since his last visit, his sensors said. He checked his watch, then went to the bar and turned on the coffemaker. It was still two minutes to Charley.
* * *
In Duluth, Peter Quince sat cross-legged in the center of the circles ancient wizards had inscribed in the wooden floor of the sanctum sanctorum in the cupola of the house on Lake Superior.
At least, what was left of him did.
His body had become no more than clouds of mist, pulsing with rhythms only it could hear. Half of what he was, was here now, in Duluth. The other half, augmented by all the power from the women on the slabs, was a mist above a plane, the highest realm he could imagine. Two lights shone high above him, throwing vague shadows through him into the gaping, putrescent hole at the center of the plane. But four lines led from that center, in four directions, in four colors. The blue line led to the right, into a blue veil.
The half-Quince moved in that direction, passing through the veil, and entered the soul of Charley Posner, a loan officer at Chase in Dayton. Quince had the ability to enter a few select people, and Charley was the best fit of "distance" and "suitability" when it came time for Quince to choose someone to meet with Hanrahan in the cabin. Charley, who ordinarily lived alone in Dayton, lay unconscious twenty-three hours a day in West Virginia, but every morning at 8:15 he sat up as Peter Quince.
He did so now. "Good morning, Dick," said Charley with Quince's Western accent. "Enjoy your coffee. I've gotta go pee." He stood up and walked directly into the bathroom.
Quince was a wizard, and Hanrahan accepted his weirdness because he was good at wizardry. In the two years that he'd held the position, he had provided a steady stream of magickal devices to help the Necklace, including the bone that the Black Helicopter mission was built around. Moreover, he was the only one of them to have personally fought Max August and Pam Blackwell. His insights into their characters and methods had allowed the Necklace to keep August and Blackwell from forestalling the Wisconsin attack.
All of that was why the Necklace made allowances, but Hanrahan had one more reason: he and Quince were conspiring to kill Lawrence Breckenridge.
* * *
Quince finished peeing. Even with wizardry, coffee is coffee, he thought. None today. But he lingered in the bathroom. He had no need to bow before Hanrahan, or any man, and he enjoyed these times when he could be the master and not the slave. Let the old man wait, and wonder what I'm doing in here.
But finally, he opened the bathroom door and Charley came forth, zipping his fly. "Where's Breckenridge this fine morning, Dick?" he asked his now longtime partner.
"Meeting with rich white evangelicals."
"As opposed to what?"
"All part of the buildup to Friday," said Hanrahan. "They'll give like crazy after Friday. He's very focused on Friday. Coffee?"
"No, thanks. So when I hit him Wednesday, he'll have to cram that crisis on top of Friday's mission—"
"—and Thursday morning, he'll be looking forward and backward, but not straight in front of him."
"That's the plan. And a good one it is," said Charley, "if you're right about him not suspecting you."
Hanrahan regarded him icily, but Quince/Charley didn't blink. "I've known him for forty-eight years," the old man said. "The only thing I don't know about Renzo Breckenridge is the cause of that strange noise I hear on my bugs—which I asked you about."
"I gave you my best answer on that, Dick," Charley responded impatiently. "It's a rejuvenation machine of some sort. Breckenridge's vitality is unnatural. Forget about it."
"I know for a fact that Ordnance didn't build him anything like that, and I find no record of any outside firm doing it, or of any wizard."
"But you wouldn't, would you? He's the Gemstone."
"And I'm Intelligence. So I would."
"Well, I found nothing on the wizard side, either. And after Thursday, it won't matter."
"I don't like loose ends," said Hanrahan.
"Then ask him, Thursday afternoon. You've got drugs."
"No, when I kill the snake, I kill the snake. And besides—I'll have a Necklace to run." The old man smiled his own reptilian smile. "Now, Peter, this will be the last time we'll be in contact before Thursday, unless something unforeseen comes up."
"We've foreseen everything."
"In all my years of espionage, I've never known that to be true. There's always something. And aren't you the one who says, ‘There are no cut-and-dried answers in magick'?"
"Yes, but trust in yourself, and the world will be ours!"
"Are you," queried Hanrahan, "giving me a pep talk?"
"We're partners, aren't we?"
Idiot, thought the old man.
Fool, thought the wizard.
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 7:26 A.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Peter Quince resolidified in Duluth. He opened his eyes. He was home.
Hanrahan doesn't suspect us.
"Then why haven't you engulfed him, Master?" Quince asked.
There's no magick in him—a major reason why he doesn't suspect. You are all I need here, my adorèd one.
He knew Belia'al was the Prince of Liars, but he'd come to enjoy the lies. "Thank you, Master."
I have had my way with great men since the days of the Patriarchs. I control one thousand humans, great and small. But never have I had my way with the world.
One thousand, Quince thought, preening. And I'm his favorite.
Control of your world is the ultimate response to the cruel and unjust fate that God imposed upon me. I have lusted after it forever. And now, finally, you and Hanrahan will seize control of the Necklace—then you will seize it from him. And I am you.
Quince's body shivered in anticipation.
God banished my brother Lucifer, creating me as an artifact of his arrival in the world of duality. Lucifer chose revenge through men's souls, but I chose men's minds. Belia'al laughed, deep in Quince's chest. And I win!
It was a conversation between two entities, but it all came from the one man in the room. Just a wizard being weird.
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 9:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Breckenridge excused himself from the center table and gave a small wave of farewell to the crowd as he made his way to the exit. Porter Allenby and Nat Whitten got up as well and followed him. It was not done with pomp and circumstance, but it was noticed, and appreciated. Breckenridge, Allenby, they were the leaders, charting the course for the movement, and they had to do what they had to do. It would be worrisome if the leaders had nothing better to do than sit and make small talk. It was as if Lawrence Breckenridge was the president of the United States.
Outside, he and the two other Necklace members retired to the Gemstone's limousine, now rimed with a thin skin of snow. It was a mobile security spot, tricked out with every device the military-industrial complex had devised, augmented by the cabal's time-tested magickal shields. Peter Quince had offered to improve the shields, but Breckenridge knew from Aleksandra that they needed no improvement and had turned him down.
Roger sat in front, his back to the dense shield that slid up between him and the rear compartment of facing seats. Breckenridge took the seat facing forward; Allenby and Whitten sat side by side across from him and the latter closed the side door with a satisfying chunk.
Porter Allenby always dressed in a well-tailored suit—which is to say, one that didn't quite fit. It enforced his image as a man of down-home values from the heartland of America, which was exactly what he was. He stayed forever in tune with public sentiment, ready to ride it wherever he wanted to go. He was a minister, but seemed more like a professor, and the fact that he lived in a liberal state like Wisconsin showed he wasn't really a partisan. Thus, Diana Herring's media pushed him on the public as a serious person. He was the third guest at the party, the guy she put on as the center of balance between the right and the left. The fact that he was right wing, too, served to demonstrate that the center belonged there.
Little Nat Whitten had a face turned leathery early from all the close-and-personal battles he'd waged in the halls of the Texas statehouse. It was not a face designed for television like Allenby's; it thrived in the halls, filled with smoke and man-sweat, where it wheedled and roared and cajoled as needed to get a deal done, and preferably one they could sell come November. But last year he'd come to understand that deals didn't have to be sold any longer, they could just be announced, and he jumped at the chance to play for bigger stakes with the Necklace, replacing Michael Salinan. He was not surprised to learn that Salinan had been the previous Political link; if he'd known such a post existed, he'd have been in his top two to hold it. But Salinan had disappeared and the position was open.
Though he showed none of it, Breckenridge was weighing Nat's every moment, even now. Breckenridge had been the Politics link in his time, and he'd picked every one since, personally—including Michael Salinan. So he refused to give Whitten his complete trust at this early date; and Nat would have distrusted any man who did. They understood each other. "Give the contributions list to Carole," Breckenridge told Nat. "The money's not important. Tell me about commitment."
"Very high," Nat said, looking at the Gemstone with camaraderie. "We're goin' all-in for Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Kansas, and Arizona. Everybody's pumped. There's strong pushback from the public, but those folks have no long-term strategy. If they stymie us here and there, we've still surrounded 'em, so the next time our ideas'll be well-known and long-held positions, not radical a-tall. I'd say our position is real strong."
"The governors and legislators may not be so sanguine about being cannon fodder," offered Allenby.
"They'll be taken care of if they're recalled. That's what think tanks are for."
"Ha! Then everybody'll be workin' for us—the governors as well as the slaves."
Breckenridge said, "Well, if any of the governors want to talk with me, set it up. We don't condone any backsliding."
"Sure. And then, come Friday, it's all forgotten. The Black Helicopters are the new Nine-Eleven."
Breckenridge looked at Allenby. "How's the mood?"
"Lots of unhappy people, fighting to hold on to their dreams. Not really ready to revolt, but the idea is out there. Problem is, revolt against what? Most think the rich are to blame, but how do you attack the rich? And the Tea Baggers think the liberals are to blame. So there's a lot of disjunction, a lot of unease, just below the surface. Ironically, the one thing holding it in check is the idea at the back of people's minds that the world ends next year, not this one."
"But after Friday?"
"Well, Black Helicopters have been a bête noir since the seventies. The original idea was that they belonged to the UN and would swoop down when America was converted to a one-world government. Unless they belonged to space aliens who were doing all the cattle mutilation. Their profile dipped somewhat when nothing further happened on those fronts, but they resurfaced in the nineties when Helen Chenoweth of Idaho charged they were being used to enforce the Endangered Species Act. ‘We do have some proof,' she said, but somehow she didn't produce it, so they faded again in the public awareness. But they've stayed on the crazies' radar right along, and if that proof were finally to arrive, it would be another Nine-Eleven—everybody would have to jump on board."
"On a ride t' nowhere," said Nat.
"Not nowhere," said Porter. "A frightened mob goes wherever you point them."
"All we're doin' is givin' them something to rebel against, on the road to Twenty-Twelve. They'll take it from there."
"More falling in line. More allegiance," agreed Breckenridge. "One big happy plantation."
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 12:55 P.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Eight hours and forty minutes after takeoff, Max and Pam touched down at O'Hare. They joined their fellow passengers on the long walk to passport control, and were waiting in line for customs when Max noticed a young woman two lines down. She had reached her customs kiosk and was having some trouble with the agent. He only had to extend his consciousness a little to hear their back-and-forth.
"You can't have my laptop or my cell phone," she was saying, trying to keep her voice under control.
"I'm sorry, miss, but it's the law," the agent said firmly.
"Nonsense!"
"Not nonsense. According to Homeland Security, you donated to Wikileaks."
"So?"
"So Wikileaks is under investigation, and since you support them, we can confiscate any evidence that may help pursue a case against them."
"My laptop? My cell phone? Wikileaks hasn't been charged with anything, and I don't work for them."
"You're holding up the line, miss. Please come with me to the interrogation room."
"I'm not going anywhere. This is bogus."
"It's the law. Now—"
Max had had enough. He ducked his head, concentrated for a moment.
The agent rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "Oh, go on through," he said, and stamped her passport.
The girl looked at him, but not too long. She grabbed her computer and phone and moved toward the exits as quickly as she could without attracting any more attention.
"These are not the droids you're looking for," Pam said at Max's side.
"Exactly," he said. "I just hope she's got sense enough to encrypt anything she wants to keep on a separate machine and leave it in America, because that'll happen every time she leaves the country and comes back."
"That is outrageous if she hasn't committed any crime."
"Well, a crime is whatever the government says it is, and the Necklace has been criminalizing whistle-blowers," he said. "I wish I could follow up with her … but we've got to get to Fort Wayne."
They came to their own line's kiosk. The agent looked them over, compared what he saw to the photos in their passports, and stamped them through. "Welcome home," he said.
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 • 1:30 P.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
13 Milky Way (Managing Alchemy)
Max bought a copy of Entertainment Weekly to shoot up current American culture—evidently, Charlie Sheen, Charlie Sheen, and Charlie Sheen—on their way to rent an Altima from a no-name agency outside the airport. They set off toward the Indiana Toll Road over some of the worst pavement he'd seen in a while. He tried to find Jim Rome on the radio, but apparently Chicago still didn't carry him, so he settled on B96 and sat back to dance with his shoulders to Jessie J's "Price Tag." He was well and truly removed from his deejay days at KQBU, but a good pop song was eternal. He can dance anywhere and any time, thought Pam, with affection.
They'd last driven the toll road in September of '09. Diana had given Max the nine cities in the Necklace at Midsummer, and first they'd gone to London to help Hoodoo look for Eva Delia, but when that had stalled after two months of no results, they'd flown back to America for the sceni