«Oh, didn’t I mention that?»
«If you did, my state of shock precluded my hearing it… Let’s start with the sealed archive materials. How?»
«Well, Sam, you’ve got to understand the psychological manifestations of those of us who toil in the vineyards of our government, both civilian and military. Try to comprehend the paradox in which we generally find ourselves after long years of service—»
«Cut the preamble horseshit, Mac,» Devereaux broke in harshly. «Spell it out.»
«We’re screwed.»
«That spells it out.»
«We make half, if that, of what we could make in the private sector, most of us believing that we’re making something else as important as financial gain. It’s called ‘contribution,’ Sam, real, honest-to-God contributions to a system we believe in—»
«Stop it, Mac. I’ve heard all of this before. You also have damn good pensions and retirement perks, like buying at PXs at half price, and generous insurance, and it’s damned hard to fire you if you’re no good at your jobs.»
«That’s a particularly narrow point of view, Sam, and applicable to the few, not the overwhelming many.»
«All right,» said Devereaux, sipping his coffee and looking hard at the Hawk. «I’ll concede that. I just got up from three hours’ sleep, I feel rotten, and you’re an easy target. Now, how did you get the archival stuff?»
«Remember ‘Brokey’ Brokemichael, not Ethelred but Heseltine, the one you hung that bum drug rap on?»
«If I live to be four hundred and ten, I’ll carry those preposterous names to my grave… If you remember, they, or he started me on my road to hell with General Lucifer by having me walk out of the data banks with a couple of thousand top-secret files.»
«Yeah, well, there’s sort of a connection in a way. You see, when the army wouldn’t give Brokey his third star—because of you, young fella, and the confusion over the names—he mounted his high horse and said ‘I quit!’ … Well, even the army has a conscience, as well as connections. You can’t cut loose a goddamned military legend and just let him fade away like that rich fruitcake MacArthur opined to Congress. I mean, Brokey didn’t sell his expertise to a foreign government like Manila and have a bundle in reserve. So the boys over at Defense scouted around for a job for old Brokey, something not too tough in the brain-scan department, but the kind of title that warrants a fair sum, so Brokey could augment his retirement pay, both of which he so richly deserves.»
«Don’t tell me,» interrupted Sam. «The Bureau of Indian Affairs. The big office.»
«I always said you were the brightest lieutenant I ever met, boy.»
«I was a major!»
«Temporary, and reduced in rank by Heseltine’s friends. Didn’t you read your discharge?»
«Only my name and the date of separation… So we have déjà vu; you and the insidious Brokemichael are really back in my life… Obviously, Brokey—honor-bound by comrades bonded in battle—saw fit to let some air into a few musty archive depositories and rummage through a number of sealed files.»
«Oh, nothing so random as that, Sam,» protested the Hawk. «A lot of research went into this investigation before that action was deemed necessary. Of course, the fact that Brokey was where he was had a kind of stimulating effect at the beginning, and I can’t deny that having access to all that centralized Indian history wasn’t a help, but months of research were required to uncover some mighty peculiar shenanigans that called for aggressive decisions.»
«Decisions like illegally breaking into the sealed archives without judicial appeals or warrants, which are available to any legitimate party with probable cause?»
«Now, son, certain operations are best carried out away from the floodlights, if you know what I mean.»
«Such as holding up a bank or breaking out of prison.»
«That’s harsh, Sam. Those are criminal activities; this is rectifying a great crime.»
«Who put it all together?»
«What do you mean?»
«Who wrote it? The structure, the verbiage, the arguments and appraisals … the concrete refutations of the status quo?»
«Oh, that wasn’t hard, just time-consuming.»
«What?»
«Hell, there are all kinds of forms to follow in the law books, and fancy language that complicates simple meanings to the point where you can go nuts trying to follow the nonsense, but it reads very official-like.»
«You did this?»
«Sure. I just worked backward, from the simple to the obscure, with a little heartfelt indignation thrown in.»
«Jesus Christ!»
«You’re spilling your coffee, Sam.»
«It’s a casebook brief!»
«Well, I don’t know about that, but thanks, son. I just took it one sentence at a time, cross-checking with all those law-school textbooks. Hell, anybody could do it if they’ve got twenty-one free months to write it in and their brains don’t blow out with all that mumbo-jumbo horse-shit. You know, sometimes it took me a whole week just to get down half a page so it sounded right… Now you went and spilled the rest of your coffee, boy.»
«I may also throw up,» said Devereaux with a quiver in his voice as he rose from the chair, his trousers stained throughout the pelvic area. «I am vapor, I don’t exist. I am merely an aspect of some undiscovered dimension where eyes and ears float indiscriminately in spirals, seeing and hearing but with no knowledge of form or matter, reality itself an abstraction.»
«Sounds fine, Sam. Now if you’ll throw in ‘whereas’ a couple of times, and a few ‘parties of the first and second parts,’ you could take it into court… You all right, boy?»
«No, I am not all right,» replied Devereaux in what could only be described as words spoken in a soft ethereal cadence. «However, I must heal myself and find my karma so as to struggle through another day and find the shadows in the light.»
«The shadows where …? You got funny cigarettes stashed away in that bedroom?»
«Speak not of things beyond your understanding, Sir Neanderthal. I am a wounded eagle soaring up into the sky for my final release from earth.»
«Hey, Sam, that’s good. I mean it’s real Indian talk!»
«Oh, shit.»
«Now you broke the spell, son. The tribal elders don’t countenance that kind of language.»
«Well, hear this, you Anglo-Saxon savage!» yelled Sam suddenly, close to losing control but abruptly pulling back to the vocal strains of his previous search for karma. «I remember Aaron’s words precisely: ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ that’s what he said, and ‘tomorrow’ in itself does not define a specific time. Therefore, as party of the second part whose opinions were solicited, I prefer to construe ‘tomorrow’ as having a wide latitude of hours, since the word fundamentally implies ‘toward morning’ but without prior restrictions regarding the rest of the day until darkness descends.»
«Sam, can I get you an ice bag, an aspirin—maybe a drink of that fine brandy?»
«No, you may not, you diseased plaguer-of-the-planet. You will listen to my determination.»
«Termination …? That’s my lingo, boy!»
«Be quiet,» continued Devereaux, walking to the hotel door and turning, the unfortunate coffee stain on his light-colored trousers having spread maliciously. «I hereby determine that the hour of our conference will take place post meridiem, the specific time to be mutually agreed upon with later communication by telephone.»