“Let me see: I think in the next five minutes you’re going to”—I notice her neck muscles and shoulders tensing—“call DC and talk to State. Who will in turn talk to an officer from one of your government’s black agencies which do not exist, and then State will tell you what you need to know, which is that they’ve heard of me and you are to let me go. Or we can do this the hard way. You can refuse me entry, provoke a diplomatic incident, and then an agency which does not exist will arrange for your superiors to tear you a new asshole.” I lean back, cross my arms, and try to look confident. “Your call.”
It’s only about twenty-five percent bluff. I am on the books: the Black Chamber know who I am, and if I’ve come up on the CBP radar there’ll be a contact number in the office directory. What happens to her if she’s stupid or insane enough to phone and attract the Black Chamber’s attention is anybody’s guess—eaten by Nazgûl, spirited away to a detention center at the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, compelled to listen to Rick Wakeman until her brain melts—but I don’t really care. The Black Chamber will ensure that I cease to be a person of interest to the CBP. The only question that interests me is whether the phrase “of interest to the CBP” belongs at the end of that sentence.
(Aha, I can hear you asking, but what about the UK-USA intelligence treaty? Why didn’t Lockhart just call the Black Chamber and ask them to keep an eye on our turbulent priest? Well, there are several reasons. Firstly, our turbulent preacher is American; it’s even possible he’s one of theirs. Secondly, we’re really not supposed to give foreign agencies blackmail-grade information about the Prime Minister. And finally: they’re the Black Chamber. They’re not so much our sister agency as our psycho ex-girlfriend turned bunny-boiler.)
In the event, Ms. Smarty-Pants glares at me and calls my non-existent bluff. “Okay, that’s your choice.” Then she reaches out and picks up the phone and dials.
I am jet-lagged, tired, and—I will admit—a bit scared. I wait, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to simply let them declare me PNG and stick me on the next plane home. But it’s too late for that: someone answers the phone. “Sir, I’ve just taken custody of a traveler on the DSR watch list…yes, I’ll hold…hello? Yes, I have a traveler on the DSR watch list, he’s flagged as a POI to AGATE STAR…thank you, sir, yes, his name is Howard, Robert Oscar Foxtrot Howard, record number 908…”
She stops talking and listens for a couple of minutes, nodding from time to time. Her eyebrows furrow slightly. Then whoever’s at the other end of the line hangs up on her. She stares at the handset for a few seconds, almost angrily, then puts it down. “That makes no sense,” she mutters, as if she’s forgotten I’m there. Then she glares at me. “What are you doing here?”
“You’ve got my passport,” I say helpfully.
“I—” She blinks rapidly, then looks at the offending document, sitting on the desk. “Oh.” She looks unhappy about something: probably me. She pulls open a desk drawer, withdraws a stamp, and whacks away at a blank page in the passport. “Get out.”
“Am I free to enter?” I ask.
“Yes! You’re free to enter.” She’s angry—and clearly frightened.
Interesting; things have definitely changed since I was last here. “Aren’t you required to register me as an agent of a foreign power?”
Her pupils dilate. “No! Just go! You weren’t here, I’m not here, this never happened, nobody stopped you, go away!” She stands up and yanks the door open. “Nick! Escort Mr. Howard to baggage claim and see he gets through Customs without any delays! He has a flight to catch!”
Nick—Goon #3—looks puzzled. “Isn’t he under arrest?”
“No! His papers are all in order. Just get him out of here!”
Her concern is contagious. Nick looks at me and gestures. “This way, sir.”
And so I enter the United States with a Border Patrol escort—desperate to see me on my way as fast as is humanly possible.
What strange times we live in…
7. COMMUNION
PERSEPHONE HAZARD AND JOHNNY MCTAVISH ENTERED THE United States on Wednesday, twenty-four hours ahead of me. Their reception was somewhat different. Flying into JFK on the pin-stripe express from London City Airport, they bypassed the Immigration queue entirely: they had their passports stamped by an obsequious immigration officer during the refueling stop at Shannon, along with a dozen bankers and discreetly ultra-rich fellow-travelers.
At the arrivals terminal, they checked their bags onto a flight bound for Denver, paused long enough to shower and freshen up after the trans-atlantic leg of their journey, then headed to the gate for their five-hour onward connection.
Uneventful. Boring. Tedious. All good adjectives to apply to long-haul travel; much better than exciting, unexpected, and abrupt. With Johnny sacked out in the window seat to her right, Persephone leaned back in her chair and plowed determinedly through the bundle of documents she’d compiled before the trip. Homework. Everything her staff had been able to find about the Golden Promise Ministries. Everything about other organizations that members of GPM’s board of trustees held seats on. The whole intricate interlocking machinery of religious lobbying and fund-raising that wheeled around the person of Raymond Schiller.
Schiller was not an isolated phenomenon, Persephone noted. He had connections. Connections with John Rhodes III, a scion of Washingtonian blue-bloods and a pillar of The Fellowship—Abraham Vereide’s C Street prayer breakfast and power broker mission to the Gentile Kings. Rhodes had a visiting fellowship at the Institute for American Values, and sat on the board on the National Organization for Marriage. One of NOM’s board members, Chuck Parker—CEO of a Christian textbook publisher—also sat on GPM’s board. GPM was a sponsor of NOM, and Schiller had run pledge drives on his TV show, urging his flock to “stand tall and defend marriage.” Parker was a shareholder in Stone Industries, an arms manufacturer, and—
Persephone blinked. Uneventful. Boring. Sleepy. That was the problem with trying to cram while leaning back in a recliner with a tumbler of Wild Turkey at forty thousand feet: it was too easy to doze off. Johnny found this stuff interesting (his upbringing had, if nothing else, exposed him to some of the wilder reaches of fundamentalist Christianity) but she was making heavy weather of it, finding their feuds and arguments as arcane and recondite as Trotskyite ontogeny or cultist schismatics. Pay attention now. This stuff was—would be—important. Golden Promise Ministries, the Fellowship, National Organization for Marriage, True Path Publishing, Stone Industries Small Arms, Pillar of Fire International, the Purity Path Pledge League—they were all merging into a whirling tattered spiderweb of Christian Dominionist pressure groups and fund-raising organizations. Deeper connections to shadowy ultra-conservative billionaire sponsors were hinted at but coyly elided—nobody wanted to speak truth to the power to launch a million libel lawsuits.
Johnny honked, a sluggish bass. Persephone reached out and poked his shoulder.
“Yes? Duchess.”
“You were snoring.”
“Was I? Oh bugger.” He stabbed at the power button on his seat, then waited until it tilted up to Persephone’s level. “Something come up?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She closed the folder. Quietly, she added: “I make a sky marshal two rows ahead, over to the left, aisle seat. Dead-heading pilot to his right. Four businessmen, a retired couple, one woman and child. Am I missing anyone?”