The instructions Nick gave to Harry were easy enough to follow. Harry waited at the Missoula airport for the limousine that would ferry him along with any other paying clients to the Fallen Angel. The excursion would be a colorful line item on his expense report. Agents often carried sums of cash many times their annual salaries. From the local agency fence, Harry withdrew only thirty thousand dollars, most of which he anticipated not needing to use. At the scheduled time, a limo van arrived. The driver then waited outside of the van for the clients to find him with a sign that read, “F. Allen.” Harry spotted the driver quickly but waited to see who else showed up. In a matter of minutes, two men came from the baggage claim area having arrived via air. They were both dressed as if they were ready for a hunting trip, but Harry could tell by their luggage that they more likely were headed for a five-star resort. Another man arrived in his own armored Escalade and left his driver and security detail behind. He was casually dressed, but his sunglasses and Rolex were on display for those who paid attention to details. The last man to arrive had the airport valet park his SLR. He was dressed like he had a high-powered sales meeting at the end of cross-country flight. Harry had augmented his own wardrobe in an attempt to fit in. He had ditched his standard suit for a look that telegraphed, “I’m the president of the most prestigious yacht club of my East Coast port town.” A captain’s hat was all Harry needed to complete the ensemble. Harry approached the driver.
“I’m F. Allen.”
The driver opened the door, and Harry stepped inside. The limo was immaculately appointed. There was a large flat-screen monitor displaying financial news at the front of the cabin. The four gentlemen who entered the limo earlier were already enjoying some cocktails. The windows in the cabin weren’t one-way mirror tinted; they were no-way tinted. You couldn’t see in or out. The only thing Harry could see in the windows once inside was his own obsidian reflection.
“We’re all having G and T’s. I can make you one…”
“Shane Hardy.” Harry answered the question the business traveler’s face was asking. “I’ll definitely take one please.” Harry extended his hand.
“Gary Wright,” he took Harry’s hand.
Gary continued, “This is Dolph Hauser, George Lund, and Greg Drakopolis.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Harry was positive George, one of the hunters, was a congressman from Colorado.
Dolph was about to ask Harry a question when the driver stepped into the cabin.
“Gentlemen, before we embark, I require the entrance fee from each of you.”
Each man but Dolph handed the driver ten one hundred dollar bills.
Dolph kindly explained why he didn’t have to pay momentarily, “I bought the annual pass.”
The driver smiled at Dolph and left the men to get behind the wheel.
Dolph stifled any more questions regarding the Fallen Angel itself, “Don’t any of you bother asking me about it. I don’t want to spoil it for you. You’ll be there soon enough.”
Dolph returned his attention to Harry.
“So Hardy, what’s your line?”
“Well, I doubt I’m anywhere near the same league as all of you. I started out small, selling mail machines for Pitney Bowes. Then I started flipping real estate. Now, I own, along with a few apartment complexes, six McDonalds franchises and a couple Chipotle restaurants. I love the carnitas. What can I say.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Hardy. You clawed your way up from next to nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say my parents were destitute, but yeah, I went to public school.”
“If you know how to earn, that’s all that matters,” Greg added to the conversation.
The discussion continued with each man contributing anecdotes proving the immensity of his testicles. Greg’s favorite topic was his women-juggling ability. Dolph liked to focus on his land transactions and how he always made a fool of the other guy. Gary laughed at everything and always had two cents to add to it. George remained fairly subdued. As a public servant, juicy personal stories were not what he wanted to share with the present company. Perhaps if they contributed a little to his next campaign, he could throw them a little bone by voting how they wanted him to vote. Harry contributed lots of random trivia that amused the crowd. Except for his background, Harry didn’t have to change much. His natural Harry personality worked in most scenarios.
As they talked, Harry had no idea which direction they were headed. None of the men knew. He tried to keep track but lost his bearings after his fourth gin and tonic. After over three hours and many very bumpy moments, the van’s engine finally stopped, and the door opened. They were in the middle of the wilderness. The afternoon sun sparkled from an impressive lake surrounded by an endless forest. The van had parked in front of a run-down lake house—the only lake house around. All the men but Dolph were surprised.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Dolph offered up with gusto.
Harry had to agree. He could understand the need to conceal the location now. If he had a GPS device on him, he would have made a note of the coordinates and returned for a quiet vacation. The other men didn’t seem as energized except for Dolph. Dolph kept laughing like a maniac who was about to hatch his fiendish plan. Harry could tell by Dolph’s behavior that the idyllic view before him wasn’t the final destination.
The men followed the driver into the lake house. The lake house was sparely decorated on the inside with relics from America’s pioneer days. There was a stone fireplace with a couple fur-covered divan chairs nearby for guests to warm themselves. In another portion of the house was a large wooden table surrounded by wooden chairs. There was a wood-burning stove next to a pantry cabinet. It was a couple steps up from camping in a tent.
“Gentlemen, please follow me.” The driver beckoned the men to follow him into one of the two bedrooms.
The room was small and simple. There were a few frames on the walls of landscape oil paintings and pages of Prince Valiant comic books. The driver lifted the mattress from the room’s four-post bed. He then removed the bed’s skirt and peeled back another layer of fabric to reveal a door to what must have been a hidden chest. He used an elaborate key to disable the industrial age lock and open the door. Inside was a ladder leading to complete darkness.
“There is only one way to go. The ladder is fairly long, but you will begin to see light when you reach the bottom. Your luggage will be waiting for you after a thorough inspection. Gentlemen, please.” The driver motioned his hand towards the opening.
Dolph was the first to take the plunge. Greg and George anxiously followed. Gary seemed a little apprehensive and put off by the prospect of entering a dark tunnel and using a ladder, so Harry took the opportunity to begin his descent. The air in the tunnel was uncannily fresh. Harry could find no difference in flavor between the air outside and the air in the tunnel. The air quality did not change much the deeper he went. The tunnel walls changed from wood to concrete. After nearly ten minutes and myriad sweat beads, Harry reached the bottom to find himself in a concrete chamber much like what he had seen in various subterranean government command centers. Dolph and the others were waiting.
“Do you think Twinkle Toes is going to make it?” Dolph pondered aloud.
“I heard that,” Gary yelled from above. He wasn’t far behind Harry.
The group of five assembled, they made their way down a long corridor lined with dim lights to a lone door accompanied by a security camera. The door opened to the warm glow of a red anteroom and a voluptuous cancan girl holding a tray of beverages. She used a blowtorch to light sugar cubes balanced on top of spoons on top of the glasses of green liquid. She then poured water over the glasses and stirred the sugar cubes into the fluid. Dolph picked up a glass, and each man did the same.
“They had geishas with sake last time. This is a nice touch.” Dolph’s excitement had not abated.
The absinthe rolled smoothly down Harry’s throat and had a nearly instant effect. Harry had never been described as giddy in his life, but he was as close to it then as he had ever been.
“Gentlemen, you’ve arrived just in time for our featured presentation of the evening. Please allow Bernard to inspect your person, and you will soon enter the world of your dreams.” The alluring girl had the slightest of French accents.
“I think I’ll just hang out in here with you, Darling,” Greg addressed the girl with his mock smoothness.
“Of course, monsieur, we can make an arrangement for later if you would like.”
Bernard frisked the men thoroughly. He was uncomfortably thorough. Dolph, Greg, and George handed over their sidearms into Bernard’s care.
As the double doors opened to the main hall, Harry remained baffled that he had never heard of the Fallen Angel until yesterday. The space before Harry was much vaster then he had anticipated. Tables of roulette, craps, and baccarat were arranged in a semi-circle around a dining and dancing area anchored by a small stage. A number of hallways snaked away from the main area. Along with standard electrical lighting, a large array of six-inch thick windows opened to the green waters of the lake to display dancing penetrating rays of sunlight. It was a speakeasy on a grand scale. It was as if the cabaret had come to a small western gold mining town in Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. A Massive Attack song was booming through the PA system. The men were mostly clients. They were foreign dignitaries, captains of industry, high-ranking officials, et cetera. The women were all employees. They acted genuinely interested in the men they kept company with tact no ordinary lap dancer or prostitute could duplicate. They were all beautiful in their own way. Some danced. Some danced a little more closely. Some groups of revelers dined on filet mignon or foie gras. Some dined on cocaine. Anything and everything was on the menu.
As Harry settled down at a blackjack table to turn his excursion into a possible profit center, another French-accented voice announced over the PA, “Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the main stage. One of our finest will expertly interpret the Dance of the Seven Veils as you have never seen before. Please welcome our very own sexy, sexy, sexy
Sadie!”
Most everyone stopped what they were doing. The tabla sounded, and Harry feasted on an uncommonly arousing display of dance. It seemed like every head turn and hip sway by the lithe dancer had been choreographed specifically to ignite Harry’s interest. With each veil that dropped, Harry’s desire grew. By the end of the dance, the dancer’s face still remained a mystery, but Harry had to meet her. He grabbed the arm of the first woman to walk by to find out how. Alas, not everything was on the menu. She was a dancer and nothing more. Harry was losing focus. He needed to get Ahern back on his mind and find the connection between her, the Fallen Angel, and Ru.
After quite few hands of blackjack and pestering remarks from Dolph and the other three, Harry was up a modest six grand. The woman Harry grabbed earlier returned to whisper in his ear, “She’ll see you. Follow the bluebird.” She pointed in the direction of one of the hallways.
Harry left the table immediately. He didn’t really have an idea of what he was going to do with the dancer. The first goal was to meet her and talk to her. As he walked down the hall, murals of wildlife migrating away from the main hall were a creative way to direct clients and identify rooms. As the army of animals thinned, Harry continued to track the little bluebird to the end of the hall. A picture of the bluebird was perched on the door of the last room. Harry walked in and waited. After almost an hour, the door opened, and the dancer entered. She removed her face veil. Harry was shocked and overjoyed.
“Angie! What the hell is going on?”
Angie Ahern continued to move purposefully towards Harry. She wrapped one arm around his back and one arm around the nape of his neck staring seductively into his eyes.
“Harry, you can have me. However you’d like, you can have me now.”
“Ahern. Very funny. You don’t have to put on a show anymore.”
“What’s wrong, Harry? Your greatest desire is right in front of you. You can have it, taste it, feel it, and you turn away. Don’t you ever get what you want?”
Ahern struck a nerve. Now Harry began to worry about not only Ahern, but his own ability to resist her apparent advances. She didn’t seem like she was joking. And Harry could never remember her being sadistically sarcastic.
“Ahern, I found your caduceus. You haven’t checked in. What’s going on?”
“Things are different for me now, Harry. The last time I used the caduceus, my CT unit failed. I saw things. I felt pain and pleasure beyond your imagination. It was like grabbing on to an electric fence and not being able to let go. The darkness stared at me and swallowed me whole. When I finally regained control, I thought I had lost my mind. I foolishly tossed aside the caduceus. Then they found me. I was originally looking for them, and they found me. They taught me about the gift I had been given and the origins of these objects we use to mentally scar others and strengthen ourselves. Do you have it? Do you have a caduceus?”
“Ahern, this is crazy. You have to leave here with me. I don’t know who these people are, but they’re screwing with your head.”
“Harry, when you see how powerful they are, and how powerful they will become, you will want to join them. Please join me. Look out into the water. Do you see that? They have been constructing it for many years. They built this place powered by nuclear energy to support it’s construction. Soon the dark ones will come.”
Harry looked through the thick glass and murky water at what seemed to be a large three-dimensional Celtic knot in the distance with a small opening below that connected the sphere to the underwater building they were in.
“Harry, I have given over my soul to them, but you can help in other ways. You can work within the agency to destroy impediments to the arrival. They will give you your heart’s desire—whatever it may be.” Angie caressed the collar of her blouse.
“Angie, this isn’t you.”
“Yet you’re talking to me and calling me ‘Angie’. If it makes you more comfortable, call me ‘Sadie’ then.”
Harry’s mildly inebriated mind grasped for ways to fix his predicament as his obsession stood before him. Ahern had been possibly brainwashed. There was no way he would be able to just leave after their recent conversation. “They” wouldn’t dare allow him. And Harry had no idea where in Montana he was. Montana was filled with bodies of water.
“I’m F. Allen.”
The driver opened the door, and Harry stepped inside. The limo was immaculately appointed. There was a large flat-screen monitor displaying financial news at the front of the cabin. The four gentlemen who entered the limo earlier were already enjoying some cocktails. The windows in the cabin weren’t one-way mirror tinted; they were no-way tinted. You couldn’t see in or out. The only thing Harry could see in the windows once inside was his own obsidian reflection.
“We’re all having G and T’s. I can make you one…”
“Shane Hardy.” Harry answered the question the business traveler’s face was asking. “I’ll definitely take one please.” Harry extended his hand.
“Gary Wright,” he took Harry’s hand.
Gary continued, “This is Dolph Hauser, George Lund, and Greg Drakopolis.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Harry was positive George, one of the hunters, was a congressman from Colorado.
Dolph was about to ask Harry a question when the driver stepped into the cabin.
“Gentlemen, before we embark, I require the entrance fee from each of you.”
Each man but Dolph handed the driver ten one hundred dollar bills.
Dolph kindly explained why he didn’t have to pay momentarily, “I bought the annual pass.”
The driver smiled at Dolph and left the men to get behind the wheel.
Dolph stifled any more questions regarding the Fallen Angel itself, “Don’t any of you bother asking me about it. I don’t want to spoil it for you. You’ll be there soon enough.”
Dolph returned his attention to Harry.
“So Hardy, what’s your line?”
“Well, I doubt I’m anywhere near the same league as all of you. I started out small, selling mail machines for Pitney Bowes. Then I started flipping real estate. Now, I own, along with a few apartment complexes, six McDonalds franchises and a couple Chipotle restaurants. I love the carnitas. What can I say.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Hardy. You clawed your way up from next to nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say my parents were destitute, but yeah, I went to public school.”
“If you know how to earn, that’s all that matters,” Greg added to the conversation.
The discussion continued with each man contributing anecdotes proving the immensity of his testicles. Greg’s favorite topic was his women-juggling ability. Dolph liked to focus on his land transactions and how he always made a fool of the other guy. Gary laughed at everything and always had two cents to add to it. George remained fairly subdued. As a public servant, juicy personal stories were not what he wanted to share with the present company. Perhaps if they contributed a little to his next campaign, he could throw them a little bone by voting how they wanted him to vote. Harry contributed lots of random trivia that amused the crowd. Except for his background, Harry didn’t have to change much. His natural Harry personality worked in most scenarios.
As they talked, Harry had no idea which direction they were headed. None of the men knew. He tried to keep track but lost his bearings after his fourth gin and tonic. After over three hours and many very bumpy moments, the van’s engine finally stopped, and the door opened. They were in the middle of the wilderness. The afternoon sun sparkled from an impressive lake surrounded by an endless forest. The van had parked in front of a run-down lake house—the only lake house around. All the men but Dolph were surprised.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Dolph offered up with gusto.
Harry had to agree. He could understand the need to conceal the location now. If he had a GPS device on him, he would have made a note of the coordinates and returned for a quiet vacation. The other men didn’t seem as energized except for Dolph. Dolph kept laughing like a maniac who was about to hatch his fiendish plan. Harry could tell by Dolph’s behavior that the idyllic view before him wasn’t the final destination.
The men followed the driver into the lake house. The lake house was sparely decorated on the inside with relics from America’s pioneer days. There was a stone fireplace with a couple fur-covered divan chairs nearby for guests to warm themselves. In another portion of the house was a large wooden table surrounded by wooden chairs. There was a wood-burning stove next to a pantry cabinet. It was a couple steps up from camping in a tent.
“Gentlemen, please follow me.” The driver beckoned the men to follow him into one of the two bedrooms.
The room was small and simple. There were a few frames on the walls of landscape oil paintings and pages of Prince Valiant comic books. The driver lifted the mattress from the room’s four-post bed. He then removed the bed’s skirt and peeled back another layer of fabric to reveal a door to what must have been a hidden chest. He used an elaborate key to disable the industrial age lock and open the door. Inside was a ladder leading to complete darkness.
“There is only one way to go. The ladder is fairly long, but you will begin to see light when you reach the bottom. Your luggage will be waiting for you after a thorough inspection. Gentlemen, please.” The driver motioned his hand towards the opening.
Dolph was the first to take the plunge. Greg and George anxiously followed. Gary seemed a little apprehensive and put off by the prospect of entering a dark tunnel and using a ladder, so Harry took the opportunity to begin his descent. The air in the tunnel was uncannily fresh. Harry could find no difference in flavor between the air outside and the air in the tunnel. The air quality did not change much the deeper he went. The tunnel walls changed from wood to concrete. After nearly ten minutes and myriad sweat beads, Harry reached the bottom to find himself in a concrete chamber much like what he had seen in various subterranean government command centers. Dolph and the others were waiting.
“Do you think Twinkle Toes is going to make it?” Dolph pondered aloud.
“I heard that,” Gary yelled from above. He wasn’t far behind Harry.
The group of five assembled, they made their way down a long corridor lined with dim lights to a lone door accompanied by a security camera. The door opened to the warm glow of a red anteroom and a voluptuous cancan girl holding a tray of beverages. She used a blowtorch to light sugar cubes balanced on top of spoons on top of the glasses of green liquid. She then poured water over the glasses and stirred the sugar cubes into the fluid. Dolph picked up a glass, and each man did the same.
“They had geishas with sake last time. This is a nice touch.” Dolph’s excitement had not abated.
The absinthe rolled smoothly down Harry’s throat and had a nearly instant effect. Harry had never been described as giddy in his life, but he was as close to it then as he had ever been.
“Gentlemen, you’ve arrived just in time for our featured presentation of the evening. Please allow Bernard to inspect your person, and you will soon enter the world of your dreams.” The alluring girl had the slightest of French accents.
“I think I’ll just hang out in here with you, Darling,” Greg addressed the girl with his mock smoothness.
“Of course, monsieur, we can make an arrangement for later if you would like.”
Bernard frisked the men thoroughly. He was uncomfortably thorough. Dolph, Greg, and George handed over their sidearms into Bernard’s care.
As the double doors opened to the main hall, Harry remained baffled that he had never heard of the Fallen Angel until yesterday. The space before Harry was much vaster then he had anticipated. Tables of roulette, craps, and baccarat were arranged in a semi-circle around a dining and dancing area anchored by a small stage. A number of hallways snaked away from the main area. Along with standard electrical lighting, a large array of six-inch thick windows opened to the green waters of the lake to display dancing penetrating rays of sunlight. It was a speakeasy on a grand scale. It was as if the cabaret had come to a small western gold mining town in Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. A Massive Attack song was booming through the PA system. The men were mostly clients. They were foreign dignitaries, captains of industry, high-ranking officials, et cetera. The women were all employees. They acted genuinely interested in the men they kept company with tact no ordinary lap dancer or prostitute could duplicate. They were all beautiful in their own way. Some danced. Some danced a little more closely. Some groups of revelers dined on filet mignon or foie gras. Some dined on cocaine. Anything and everything was on the menu.
As Harry settled down at a blackjack table to turn his excursion into a possible profit center, another French-accented voice announced over the PA, “Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the main stage. One of our finest will expertly interpret the Dance of the Seven Veils as you have never seen before. Please welcome our very own sexy, sexy, sexy
Sadie!”
Most everyone stopped what they were doing. The tabla sounded, and Harry feasted on an uncommonly arousing display of dance. It seemed like every head turn and hip sway by the lithe dancer had been choreographed specifically to ignite Harry’s interest. With each veil that dropped, Harry’s desire grew. By the end of the dance, the dancer’s face still remained a mystery, but Harry had to meet her. He grabbed the arm of the first woman to walk by to find out how. Alas, not everything was on the menu. She was a dancer and nothing more. Harry was losing focus. He needed to get Ahern back on his mind and find the connection between her, the Fallen Angel, and Ru.
After quite few hands of blackjack and pestering remarks from Dolph and the other three, Harry was up a modest six grand. The woman Harry grabbed earlier returned to whisper in his ear, “She’ll see you. Follow the bluebird.” She pointed in the direction of one of the hallways.
Harry left the table immediately. He didn’t really have an idea of what he was going to do with the dancer. The first goal was to meet her and talk to her. As he walked down the hall, murals of wildlife migrating away from the main hall were a creative way to direct clients and identify rooms. As the army of animals thinned, Harry continued to track the little bluebird to the end of the hall. A picture of the bluebird was perched on the door of the last room. Harry walked in and waited. After almost an hour, the door opened, and the dancer entered. She removed her face veil. Harry was shocked and overjoyed.
“Angie! What the hell is going on?”
Angie Ahern continued to move purposefully towards Harry. She wrapped one arm around his back and one arm around the nape of his neck staring seductively into his eyes.
“Harry, you can have me. However you’d like, you can have me now.”
“Ahern. Very funny. You don’t have to put on a show anymore.”
“What’s wrong, Harry? Your greatest desire is right in front of you. You can have it, taste it, feel it, and you turn away. Don’t you ever get what you want?”
Ahern struck a nerve. Now Harry began to worry about not only Ahern, but his own ability to resist her apparent advances. She didn’t seem like she was joking. And Harry could never remember her being sadistically sarcastic.
“Ahern, I found your caduceus. You haven’t checked in. What’s going on?”
“Things are different for me now, Harry. The last time I used the caduceus, my CT unit failed. I saw things. I felt pain and pleasure beyond your imagination. It was like grabbing on to an electric fence and not being able to let go. The darkness stared at me and swallowed me whole. When I finally regained control, I thought I had lost my mind. I foolishly tossed aside the caduceus. Then they found me. I was originally looking for them, and they found me. They taught me about the gift I had been given and the origins of these objects we use to mentally scar others and strengthen ourselves. Do you have it? Do you have a caduceus?”
“Ahern, this is crazy. You have to leave here with me. I don’t know who these people are, but they’re screwing with your head.”
“Harry, when you see how powerful they are, and how powerful they will become, you will want to join them. Please join me. Look out into the water. Do you see that? They have been constructing it for many years. They built this place powered by nuclear energy to support it’s construction. Soon the dark ones will come.”
Harry looked through the thick glass and murky water at what seemed to be a large three-dimensional Celtic knot in the distance with a small opening below that connected the sphere to the underwater building they were in.
“Harry, I have given over my soul to them, but you can help in other ways. You can work within the agency to destroy impediments to the arrival. They will give you your heart’s desire—whatever it may be.” Angie caressed the collar of her blouse.
“Angie, this isn’t you.”
“Yet you’re talking to me and calling me ‘Angie’. If it makes you more comfortable, call me ‘Sadie’ then.”
Harry’s mildly inebriated mind grasped for ways to fix his predicament as his obsession stood before him. Ahern had been possibly brainwashed. There was no way he would be able to just leave after their recent conversation. “They” wouldn’t dare allow him. And Harry had no idea where in Montana he was. Montana was filled with bodies of water.
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1 comment:
Thanks, Famous M, for letting me finish it up. It took a little longer than I thought it would.
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