"What are you talking to the Mexicans about? You giving them the rest of Texas?"
"You're going to have to get over this attitude problem, Harry. I'd always believed that you were a pragmatist. For your information, the Mexicans are going to do nothing. They've agreed to hold their position until the coup has established itself."
"And you trust them?"
Dreisler shook his head. "Of course I don't trust them, but I think we have a working understanding."
Carlisle cradled his head in his hands. "I don't know about any of mis."
"Believe me, Harry. This is going to work."
Harry Carlisle needed space to digest some of Dreisler's tale. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you've used your position as head of the deacon IA to thoroughly contaminate the government computer system. In two Sundays from now, total chaos is going to break out, and you're going to arrest Larry Faithful, Canadian tanks are going to come steaming over the border, and we're all going to live happily ever after. Is that correct?"
"Crude, but those are the basics. There are a number of other details, but that's the general intention."
"Are you crazy?"
Dreisler smiled blandly. "Never felt better in my life."
"This just isn't possible. One man, no matter who he is, can't topple a government."
"I have associates. Look at it more as the generals' plot against Hitler."
"They ended up hanging from piano wire."
"But we're not going to. You have to remember that none of this would be possible if the present government wasn't as corrupt, inefficient, and out of touch with reality as it is."
"I don't know."
"I'm not trying to convince you, Harry. I'm just telling you what is."
"So what are these other details?"
"Over the years, we've infiltrated a large number of subversive and heretic groups. Some we've busted, but others we've used – fed them disinformation, used them for setups, kind of like the FBI and the old Communist Party. They'll be causing their own bits of trouble on the day. More confusion."
"And the Lefthand Path? Are they part of this?"
"Heavens, no. They're much more sophisticated than that. I'm very proud of the Lefthand Path. It really is my own creation. The truth is that the Lefthand Path doesn't actually exist. That's why they were so hard to catch. We had a few fanatics in a classic cell structure to take a fall if ever we needed one, but as for the rest, it was a bunch of pros from the Canadian Secret Service. Mostly expatriate Americans."
"I spent fourteen months chasing your creation."
"We watched you. That's how I discovered that you were good. By the way, you're sleeping with one."
Carlisle was confused. "Sleeping with one what?"
"A pro from the Canadian Secret Service. Cynthia Kline is a Canadian plant. She's thinks she's doing deep cover for the Lefthand Path."
Carlisle was up from the bed and on his feet. "Cynthia?"
"Yes, Cynthia. But don't worry. It's not part of the plot. She just took a liking to you."
Carlisle sat down again. "Christ."
"She's also not doing anything particularly dangerous."
"Christ."
Dreisler gave him time to digest that piece of news. He had been sleeping with a woman who was part of what he had thought of as the enemy. Now he did not know who the enemy was or, by the same token, who his friends were.
"What is this, Dreisler? Some kind of psych workout? Tear me down and then rebuild me?"
"If you want to think of it that way."
"But Cynthia…"
"Will you forget about Cynthia Kline? You're not a teenager."
Carlisle suddenly became angry. "Okay, let's look at this lunacy from another direction. How in hell do you expect to arrest Faithful? He's always surrounded by a whole platoon of bodyguards."
"Actually it's comparatively simple. You may have noticed that over the last few weeks, I've arrested a number of senior deacons pending investigation. Over the next week or so, a lot more will be brought in. It's very easy once you start. Nudge one and the rest go down like dominoes. They're all locked into their petty conspiracies. By the time he sets foot on Liberty Island, the deacon chain of command will have been broken into its individual links. Any group that I don't command directly will have been neutralized by putting an idiot in charge. God knows there's no shortage of them. When Faithful arrives for the ceremony, his primary protection will be my people. He'll have only a handful of his regular guards. There will also be military present, but they won't interfere. Their colonel and I have an understanding that centers around some grossly compromising tapes."
The whole thing was starting to sound more and more plausible. Carlisle hated to admit it, but it just might work.
"Okay, so let's say, for the sake of argument, that you've got Faithful under lock and key. What happens then? You become president-for-life or something?"
Dreisler looked genuinely shocked. "You really have misread me. I wouldn't dream of becoming president or anything like it. I don't want to be on television all the time. I'm happy to remain in the shadows, just as I am now."
"The power behind the throne."
"What else?"
"And who'll get the throne?"
"Arlen Proverb will be offered an interim presidency. He'd head a committee of national reconstruction."
So that was the deal between Dreisler and Proverb.
"I thought you wanted to off the theocracy."
"It'll be a period of transition."
"And at the end of that?"
"Who knows? It's still very much a matter of playing it by ear. We'll certainly restore parts of the Constitution. Maybe even hold limited elections."
"Don't go hog wild."
"Don't worry, I won't."
"I take it that the only reason you're baring your soul to me is that you have some role planned for me in all this," Carlisle said, wishing he were wearing something more suitable to historic conspiracy than a hospital smock.
"It is rather obvious, isn't it? "
"And I have little choice about whether I accept it or not."
"That should also be self-evident."
Carlisle sighed. "So what's the role?"
Dreisler chuckled. "I want you to walk point for me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I estimate that there's up to a hundred men in the PD who'd follow you without question."
Carlisle shrugged. "Maybe."
"I want you to assemble a team that, on the day, can take control of the Astor Place complex. That's where we'll be bringing Faithful."
"My bosses might have something to say about that, from Parnell all the way up to the commissioner."
"I think you'll find you'll have no trouble from that direction."
ELEVEN
Mansard
The Day of National Reconciliation arrived in a shroud of yellow, pollution-heavy, morning fog. The Statue of Liberty stood aloof and silent, torch high, head and shoulders above the ground mist that obscured the island and hid the water clear out to where the ocean started. The fog brought with it an intense Sunday-morning silence that was broken only by the moaning of the horns on the Staten Island ferry and the desolate cry of seabirds above the hypnotic lapping of the waves. There was no rumble of traffic and no sound of human voices. In the mist, time seemed to be suspended, and it was possible to imagine sea-change ghosts lingering in ancient mariner loneliness.