The rest of the personae may be of lesser importance, but it is vital to remember that there are no small parts, only small players, and none of ours are in that ignominious category. Each carries forth in the grand tradition of Thespis, giving his and her all for the play, no matter how inconsequential the offering. «The play’s the thing wherein [we’ll] catch the conscience of the king!» Or maybe somebody.
PROLOGUE
The flames roared up into the night sky, creating massive shadows pulsating across the painted faces of the Indians around the bonfire. And then the chief of the tribe, bedecked in the ceremonial garments of his office, his feathered headdress swooping down from his immensely tall frame to the ground below, raised his voice in regal majesty.
«I come before you to tell you that the sins of the white man have brought him nothing but confrontation with the evil spirits! They will devour him and send him into the fires of eternal damnation! Believe me, my brothers, sons, sisters, and daughters, the day of reckoning is before us, and we will emerge triumphant!»
The only problem for many in the chief’s audience was that the chief was a white man.
«What cookie jar did he jump out of?» whispered an elderly member of the Wopotami tribe to the squaw next to him.
«Shhh!» said the woman, «he’s brought us a truckload of souvenirs from China and Japan. Don’t louse up a good thing, Eagle Eyes!»
1
The small, decrepit office on the top floor of the government building was from another era, which was to say nobody but the present occupant had used it in sixty-four years and eight months. It was not that there were dark secrets in its walls or malevolent ghosts from the past hovering below the shabby ceiling; quite simply, nobody wanted to use it. And another point should be made clear. It was not actually on the top floor, it was above the top floor, reached by a narrow wooden staircase, the kind the wives of New Bedford whalers climbed to prowl the balconies, hoping—most of the time—for familiar ships that signaled the return of their own particular Ahabs from the angry ocean.
In summer months the office was suffocating, as there was only one small window. During the winter it was freezing, as its wooden shell had no insulation and the window rattled incessantly, impervious to caulking, permitting the cold winds to whip inside as though invited. In essence, this room, this antiquated upper chamber with its sparse furniture purchased around the turn of the century, was the Siberia of the government agency in which it was housed. The last formal employee who toiled there was a discredited American Indian who had the temerity to learn to read English and suggested to his superiors, who themselves could barely read English, that certain restrictions placed on a reservation of the Navajo nation were too severe. It is said the man died in that upper office in the cold January of 1927 and was not discovered until the following May, when the weather was warm and the air suddenly scented. The government agency was, of course, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.
For the current occupant, however, the foregoing was not a deterrent but rather an incentive. The lone figure in the nondescript gray suit huddled over the rolltop desk, which wasn’t much of a desk, as all its little drawers had been removed and the rolling top was stuck at half-mast, was General MacKenzie Hawkins, military legend, hero in three wars and twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This giant of a man, his lean muscular figure belying his elderly years, his steely eyes and tanned leather-lined face perhaps confirming a number of them, had once again gone into combat. However, for the first time in his life, he was not at war with the enemies of his beloved United States of America but with the government of the United States itself. Over something that took place a hundred and twelve years ago.
It didn’t much matter when, he thought, as he squeaked around in his ancient swivel chair and propelled himself to an adjacent table piled high with old leather-bound ledgers and maps. They were the same pricky-shits who had screwed him, stripped him of his uniform, and put him out to military pasture! They were all the goddamned same, whether in their frilly frock coats of a hundred years ago or their piss-elegant, tight-assed pinstripes of today. They were all pricky-shits. Time did not matter, nailing them did!
The general pulled down the chain of a green-shaded, goosenecked lamp—circa early twenties—and studied a map, in his right hand a large magnifying glass. He then spun around to his dilapidated desk and reread the paragraph he had underlined in the ledger whose binding had split with age. His perpetually squinting eyes suddenly were wide and bright with excitement. He reached for the only instrument of communication he had at his disposal, since the installation of a telephone might reveal his more than scholarly presence at the Bureau. It was a small cone attached to a tube; he blew into it twice, the signal of emergency. He waited for a reply; it came over the primitive instrument thirty-eight seconds later.
«Mac?» said the rasping voice over the antediluvian connection.
«Heseltine, I’ve got it!»
«For Christ’s sake, blow into this thing a little easier, will you? My secretary was here and I think she thought my dentures were whistling.»
«She’s out?»
«She’s out,» confirmed Heseltine Brokemichael, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. «What is it?»
«I just told you, I’ve got it!»
«Got what?»
«The biggest con job the pricky-shits ever pulled, the same pricky-shits who made us wear civvies, old buddy!»
«Oh, I’d love to get those bastards. Where did it happen and when?»
«In Nebraska. A hundred and twelve years ago.»
Silence. Then:
«Mac, we weren’t around then! Not even you!»
«It doesn’t matter, Heseltine. It’s the same horseshit. The same bastards who did it to them did it to you and me a hundred years later.»
«Who’s ‘them’?»
«An offshoot of the Mohawks called the Wopotami tribe. They migrated to the Nebraska territories in the middle 1800s.»
«So?»
«It’s time for the sealed archives, General Brokemichael.»
«Don’t say that! Nobody can do that!»
«You can, General. I need final confirmation, just a few loose ends to clear up.»
«For what? Why?»
«Because the Wopotamis may still legally own all the land and air rights in and around Omaha, Nebraska.»
«You’re crazy, Mac! That’s the Strategic Air Command!»
«Only a couple of missing items, buried fragments, and the facts are there… I’ll meet you in the cellars, at the vault to the archives, General Brokemichael… Or should I call you co-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with me, Heseltine? If I’m right, and I know damn well I am, we’ve got the White House-Pentagon axis in such a bind, their collective tails won’t be able to evacuate until we tell ’em to.»
Silence. Then:
«I’ll let you in, Mac, but then I fade until you tell me I’ve got my uniform back.»
«Fair enough. Incidentally, I’m packing everything I’ve got here and taking it back to my place in Arlington. That poor son of a bitch who died up in this rat’s nest and wasn’t found until the perfume drifted down didn’t die in vain!»