“And, sadder still, even if that one madman had been taken out of the world picture by some fortuitous happenstance prior to his final act of savage aggression, I’m dead certain that it would’ve been only a matter of time—likely a very short time, all things weighed and considered at that—before one of the other suspects or yet another aggregation of fanatics or lunatics did the same thing.
“And, saddest of all, in the world political and military climate of that era—every nation of any power or aspiration armed to the teeth, treatied to the eyebrows, trusting the sworn words of neither allies nor enemies but fully expecting treachery at any moment, scared shitless of annihilation, yet determined to take any attacker down into death with it—what finally happened to the world and its people was a foreordained outcome, the worldwide nightmare of billions of folks for decades of time that became horrible reality overnight.
“By the time of Senator Taylor Bedford’s tenure of office, it was become impossible for anyone to do anything to reverse the trends, save the nations from themselves, almost half a century too late. But my country the one nation that could have done something to help set the other nations and nations then unborn, undreamed of, on a different, less destructive course, didn’t; it let the brief chance slip by. The U.S. just let … hell, helped! … the juggernaut of global disaster start to roll, ignored by everyone until it had gained such momentum that no one, no nation or group of nations could’ve stopped it or even slowed it down.
“Eustace Barstow,” he thought, his lips shaping the words, soundlessly, a horde of bitter memories welling up from below his conscious level, “General Eustace Barstow might, just might’ve been able to do something, there very shortly after the beginning of the thing, of that juggernaut’s roll that took so much of the world and its people down into dark disaster, doom, death.
“He recognized the menace, the true enemies of all freedom, of all civilization, early on, before World War Two even was concluded in Europe, but those who even took him seriously mocked him and his aims, called him ‘superpatriot,’ ‘red-baiter’ and much, much worse, most people just ignored him, wrote him off as some variety of looney-tune and forgot him. And I, more’s the pity, especially so as I had experienced firsthand just what the foe was capable of in pursuance of its selfish ends, deserted him too, got to hell away from him and the army and set about getting married and falling into a pisspotful of money I’d done nothing to earn or even deserve, a fine and loving woman I deserved even less and four children I adopted and reared as my own. And the end of it was suffering and death for all five of them and uncounted billions more, and all because none of us few who might’ve helped the even fewer who knew, who could look below the surface or into the future, if you will, and see what must be unless it could be quickly brought to a screeching halt, would do so.
“Eustace at least was able to keep his freedom, his status, his life, despite his lifelong efforts to fight the menace, to convert others to his beliefs. Some of the visionaries were not so fortunate. Rudolf Hess was imprisoned for nearly half a century, the last twenty-one years of it in what amounted to solitary confinement, until at last the poor old man hanged himself. General George Patton, unabashable, suffered an auto ‘accident’ that proved fatal. Others, like Ezra Pound, were locked away for years in madhouses and there subjected to the spate of twentieth-century tortures known as ‘behavior modification’ or were rendered intellectually impotent through means of icepick lobotomies. Most were simply pressured or ridiculed into silence.
“Oh, if only I …”
A brace of his uncle’s bodyguards collected James Bedford’s luggage and effects and they arrived at the senator’s tightly guarded suburban residence at almost the same time as the elected legislator and his guest. James had been to the house in times past, but only for meals or small, informal gatherings.
While they had awaited the senator’s copter on the roof of his office building, he had said. “You could’ve been put up in one of the so-called security-guest areas of several of the bigger hotels in town, but security is relative in such places, I’ve found; why, only last month one of those wild-eyed terrorist types got into one of them long enough to thoroughly kill a Turkish businessman before being cut almost in half at the waist by a guard’s machine pistol.”
James Bedford sighed. “Armenian or Greek, this time?”
The senator shrugged. “Neither … that is so far known. No, the perp had jumped a ship in Baltimore Harbor two weeks before, a Turkish-registered ship, at that. But, clearly, someone or some group had brought him here, hidden him, armed him, briefed him, gotten him into and up there. The only certain thing is that he’ll never be persuaded to tell us anything now.
“No, the security-guest thing is obviously fallible, as full of holes as the proverbial Swiss cheese. My place, on the other hand, is about as safe as anyplace can be these days—protected by state-of-the-art equipment and a small but well-trained staff. Hell, James, it would take the likes of a platoon of air cavalry to get into the place, and even then they’d know damned well that they’d been in a fight.”
Over dinner, the elder Bedford said, “Actually, I should’ve thought to invite you out here, overnight, anyway; I don’t see enough of any of the family anymore, it seems, and, between mistresses as I currently am, there’s no one to talk to out here except servants or bodyguards I don’t suppose I could persuade you to phone and reschedule your appointments, then stay over until one of the agencies determines just who was trying to snatch you and why, could I?”
Chewing industriously at a gobbet of octopus, James could only shake his head.
The senator nodded. “I thought not, but it was worth a try to me.” His voice sounded a bit sad and wistful.
Finally swallowing, James asked, “What happened to … Sidonia, was it? She was your most recent, wasn’t she?”
His uncle smiled. “No, you’re a bit out of date. Sidonia met and wed an Argentine chap, that was almost two years ago; I gave her away at the ceremony, in addition to paying for her trousseau and for the minor surgical procedure that restored her hymen.”
“That did what?” James burst out, almost dropping his salad fork.
“Restored Sidonia’s hymen, my boy, gave her the semblance of virginity for her wedding night. You or I wouldn’t’ve given much of a damn, of course, but to certain cultures, such things are still extremely important,” Taylor Bedford replied before forking half a cherry tomato and a soupçon of greens into his mouth.
“Where in hell did she meet this antique gentleman?” asked James. “At a meeting of the Neanderthal Society?”
Chewing, Taylor wrinkled his brows in thought, swallowed, then shook his head. “Never heard of a Neanderthal Society, James, but then we both have our own narrow fields of specialities. No, I believe they met at some charity function of the Roman Catholic diocese. I think that was it.”