Shadow Knight's Mate Read online

  Other books by Jay Brandon:

  Deadbolt (1985)

  Tripwire (1987)

  Predator’s Waltz (1989)

  Fade The Heat (1990)

  Rules Of Evidence (1992)

  Loose Among The Lambs (1993)

  Local Rules (1995)

  Defiance County (1996)

  Angel of Death (1998)

  After-Image (2000)

  Executive Privilege (2001)

  Sliver Moon (2004)

  Grudge Match (2004)

  Running with the Dead (2005)

  Milagro Lane (2009)

  Shadow Knight’s Mate © 2014

  by Jay Brandon

  ISBN: 978-1-60940-391-1 (paperback original)

  E-books:

  ePub: 978-1-60940-392-8

  Mobipocket/Kindle: 978-1-60940-393-5

  Library PDF: 978-1-60940-394-2

  Wings Press

  627 E. Guenther

  San Antonio, Texas 78210

  Phone/fax: (210) 271-7805

  On-line catalogue and ordering:

  www.wingspress.com

  Wings Press books are distributed to the trade by

  Independent Publishers Group

  www.ipgbook.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brandon, Jay.

  Shadow Knight’s Mate : a novel / Jay Brandon.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-60940-391-1 (trade pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60940-392-8 (epub ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60940-393-5 (Mobipocket ebook) -ISBN 978-1-60940-394-2 (pdf ebook)

  1. United States—History—Fiction. 2. Conspiracies—United States—History --Fiction. 2. Terrorism—United States—History --21st Century—Fiction. 3. Secret Societies--International--Fiction. 4. United States--Politics--Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3552.R315R43 2014

  813’.54--dc23

  2013046754

  For Robert Morrow and Jan Morrow,

  great friends of long standing.

  PROLOGUE:

  Exit Interview

  Some historians subscribe to the Great Man theory of history. That occasionally an oversized personality comes along who changes world events from what they would have been without that person. George Washington, Napoleon, Alexander the Great. My little group believes in the person-just-outside-the-frame-of-the-picture theory of history. The unrecorded person who makes some small adjustment that makes all the difference.

  Can you give me an example?

  One of our greatest intrusions into American history was making sure Franklin Roosevelt ran for and got elected to a third term. 1940. A key point. We knew it. He was guided into forsaking the traditional boundaries of the presidency.

  Because he was considered essential? Because he was the only person who could guide America through one of its greatest crises? Because someone else might not—?

  No. Because of a man named Roger Billings.

  I’ve never heard of him.

  Exactly. Roger Billings was on the president’s staff, but you haven’t seen him or heard his name. If you did you didn’t notice.

  A key aide? A Congressional—

  A dog trainer.

  A what?

  Roger Billings was the caretaker and trainer of Fala. Have you heard of him? The President’s dog. A little scottie. You have seen his picture. The most famous one is of FDR down on the floor in the Oval Office, playing with Fala, coaxing him to take a biscuit. You haven’t seen the whole picture, which included Roger Billings standing a few feet away. A very slender black man of average height, waiting patiently to take the dog away after the President finished playing with him. So unobtrusive you could look at him and not see him. But the president was a very sociable man. While he played with Fala, he and Roger would talk. Idle conversation. Little nothings. And occasionally, very rarely, a little something. Roger Billings would make a hint of an observation. An offhand remark. And they hit home. The Japanese in the Pacific. The cliffs of France. Who seemed trustworthy, who didn’t.

  FDR had to remain in office because we had him. He was a great man, but that wasn’t the most important thing. We were right there with him. Never has a president of the United States been so devoted to an animal. Or so susceptible to suggestion. Roger Billings ended the Depression and won World War II. With help, of course.

  The interviewer was skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? Can you give me another example? Something more recent, perhaps.

  Okay. I’ll tell you one of our failures. Tom Hanks.

  Tom Hanks. You somehow failed to get Tom Hanks to—

  No. Tom is one of us. Unfortunately, not a very important one of us. He was supposed to be. He was being groomed for great things. He was recruited in his teens. I wasn’t involved, of course, I wasn’t born yet, but I understand great things were expected of Tom. He was supposed to achieve a very minor celebrity. People would vaguely remember his name as one of the stars of a short-lived TV show and a couple of silly movies. “Bachelor Party.” “Turner and Hooch.” But then came “Splash.” We have some pretty smart people on staff, but who could have predicted this? I mean, I love Tom, but honestly, would you pick him out of a lineup as a major movie star? That wasn’t supposed to be his destiny. He was supposed to go from minor actor to major behind-the-scenes player in the entertainment industry. Producer, recruiter, eventually perhaps right-hand man to a studio head. From which position he could influence what pictures got greenlighted, which ones didn’t. In case you don’t realize, that’s how world culture is formed. Tom, and we through him, were going to guide the world into certain realizations, certain beliefs. A golden age of world enlightenment. That was the theory. If we’d had our way, “The Terminator” would never have gotten made. But damn, he became a movie star. And now that he can’t move in public without attracting a crowd, what use is he to us? Oh, he does what he can, but he’s not in much position to influence events subtly.

  That was a lie, wasn’t it?

  Absolutely. Damn, how did you catch me? No, Tom—Mr. Hanks—isn’t one of us. How did you know?

  So you screwed up?

  Happens all the time, unfortunately. We’re fallible. We’re not all geniuses. Far from it. And we aren’t this monolithic army moving as one. For the most part the group encourages individual initiative. Each of us acts on his own, or in small groups. And we make mistakes. Sometimes minor ones. Sometimes big time.

  Tell me about one of the times when you screwed up.

  That one’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The one that got me here.

  Tell me…

  It started with her. Arden. Even in that extraordinary group, she was something special. And she ruined everything.

  Are you exaggerating again?

  Not this time. I’ll tell you….

  CHAPTER 1

  The little inn thirty miles outside of Paris wasn’t a place to expect a chance meeting. In fact, the American ambassador had come there explicitly to avoid seeing people he knew. He had a knotty problem to work out, one that was diplomatic, strategic, and even social, and didn’t want to be interrupted. He was a well-known man in the French capital—in fact, in many places around the world, but those little encounters wore on him, even though social encounters were a large part of his job. Now he sat having his third cup of coffee, looking up at the worn beams of the ceiling, beams that had been set there before the French Revolution, wondering how to keep Qatar out of the upcoming World Leaders Summit.

  It was a problem that had occupied him for days, and the decision had to be made today. Qatar had a new young prince who wanted to show his independence by standing up to the Saudis and of course the United States. It was a sort of national adolescent stage, challenging the last superp
ower. The ambassador didn’t want the summit turning into that kind of theater. So he sat and brooded and tried to soak up the old wisdom of this place.

  But the old atmosphere was abruptly disturbed by a passing American who nearly stepped on the ambassador’s toes as he carried his own coffee from the bar. The American, a thin young man of nondescript apperance, glanced down, muttered something apologetic, then looked more sharply at the ambassador.

  “Mr. Nicholas?”

  The ambassador sighed, but the gracious smile was already shaping his lips, the smile that had eased millions of dollars in donations out of rich men, charmed influential women visiting from the States, and in fact had probably helped him acquire his position. Certainly the gracious smile was a necessity of his job. Sometimes Paul Nicholas hated feeling that smile on his face.

  “Yes?”

  “Jack Driscoll. Hi. This is weird. Do you remember me? I was your son’s roommate one semester at Yale. We met at parents’ weekend. I was the one who did the, you know, the little magic act at the talent show.”

  “Oh yes. Jack. How are you? Are you here on business, or—?”

  Obviously not. The young man wore jeans, tennis shoes, a striped shirt covered by a gray hooded jacket. No way he was in business. Of course, he could have been some computer or Internet genius with a fortune already in the bank, which was why it paid to be nice to everyone, in spite of appearances. But Jack had the sort of slightly lost look of a man who would flash a lot of bills and remain unaware of the looks his wallet drew. His coffee cup clattered a little in the saucer he carried.

  “No, just touristing. There’s supposed to be some church around here—in fact, this is probably where people come to get away from other tourists. Sorry. Don’t let me interrupt. I’ll just go out on the—”

  “No, that’s all right. Sit down, Jack. I remember your magic act. Did the goldfish ever turn up again?” For a moment the ambassador welcomed the interruption. His thoughts were going nowhere but in circles anyway. There was something ingratiating about the young man, the way he stood already turned away, as if not expecting welcome anywhere, coffee cup sloshing a little, alone in a foreign country. Wasn’t it part of the ambassador’s job to help such people?

  The young man did sit at the round wooden table. He had a thin face with still a few childhood freckles, dark blonde hair, pale blue eyes. Looked very young but might have been in his mid-twenties. The ambassador gave him a short study then looked off across the room, his problem still occupying his mind.

  “You’re a diplomat, aren’t you, sir? I remember. Career Foreign Service, right? You know, you might be able to help me with something. I’ve got kind of a diplomatic assignment myself. Another Yalie friend of ours, Steve Reynolds—you probably didn’t meet him—anyway, he’s getting married this summer, and he’s asked me to help with the guest list. Well, specifically he wants me to figure out how to uninvite another guy from New Haven, a guy he was roommates with for one year and is still kind of friends with, but he’s one of those guys who’s, you know, not a jerk or anything, really, but kind of a trouble magnet—says the wrong thing to the wrong person, still drinks like we did in college, always—well, anyway, Steve is marrying this very nice girl, old New England family, Puritans only a couple of generations back, ha ha, or as good as, you know what I mean, and he just feels like Eddie carries too much disaster potential.”

  Paul Nicholas was amused by the rush of words. When people approached him with problems these days, it was obliquely, and always only after a courtship of ritual and greetings with the obsequiousness factor carefully calculated on both sides, never this baldly and certainly not this rushed. His smile had turned genuine. “But—?” he asked drily.

  “Well, yes sir, you get right to the point. But Steve does business with Eddie now, and in fact Eddie’s the one with the contacts. I mean, people do like him, they’re in the same business, he’s not somebody you can piss off just because—excuse me—”

  The ambassador was barely listening, the recitation having reminded him of his own problem. Besides that, his eye had been caught by someone much more prepossessing than the young American on his left. A young woman walking straight toward them, looking at Paul not with personal recognition but just as if she immediately knew him as someone important.

  In his years abroad Paul had learned to spot Americans, subliminally noting their aggressive walks, the way they held their shoulders, their clothes, their prolonged eye contact, other items of national character he couldn’t even describe. With this woman— little more than a girl, really, maybe twenty-one or -two—he wasn’t sure. She had the American confident gaze, but the way she held her long neck was somehow European, as were her clothes. She had pale skin, dark brown hair, very noticeable red lips even when she was barely smiling, as now, and unlined complexion, bright blue eyes under long dark lashes, and a nose distinctive enough in its length to give her whole face character. She walked up to the table, looking right at Paul the whole time, but when she stood directly in front of him, said, “Jack. You’re not boring someone else with this wedding business, are you?”

  There was a mutter of apology off to Paul’s left, but he was standing to take the young woman’s hand and say, “It’s no bore, Miss—”

  “Arden. Arden Spindler.” In French she apologized for her friend’s intrusion. She had a charming low voice that required Paul to bend toward her. He answered in French that the intrusion was welcome since it had allowed him to meet her.

  He waved a hand, also in French, and she joined them. The table was now a social occasion. The ambassador glanced from the woman to the young man. “And are you two travelling together?”

  “No,” Jack said quickly, while Arden rolled her eyes in a way that conveyed a more complicated relationship, enough to make Paul chuckle. “Just one of those chance meetings abroad, you know?” Jack added, sounding sullen.

  The young woman’s eyes were still on Paul’s. “But Jack’s been obsessing over this wedding problem so much that everyone who knows him even slightly has heard about it at enormous droning length.” She turned to him. “It’s easy, Jack. Just don’t invite the bore. And if he finds out about it later you tell him it was inadvertent, the wife’s family was in charge of the invitations, blah blah.”

  The sullenness of the silence to Paul’s left became more pronounced. Paul smiled as if performing counseling. “Doubtful that would work. Because it’s not just the wedding, there are the preparations. If as you say everyone who knows Jack knows he’s thinking about this, then trust me this—Eddie was it?—is going to hear about the wedding long before it happens and will probably even call up the groom to ask about it, maybe even expect to come to the bachelor party, and so forth.” Paul waved a hand again to indicate complications.

  “Yeah, Arden. You just think it’s simple because it’s not your problem.”

  “Well, then, get him a date who’ll keep him in line. Or get him invited to something else that weekend that sounds better to him. Mr. Ambassador, I’m so sorry. Come, Jack, let’s be off.”

  “Not at all, Arden. And call me Paul, please. So you two are here to see the Church of St. Benedicta?”

  “I’ve heard it’s nice. Authentic but not ostentatious…” Arden’s voice trailed off, her blue eyes fastened on Paul Nicholas.

  But he was now staring out the window. Suddenly he smiled. “Not a date,” he said.

  “No sir, like I said, Arden and I just happened—”

  “No, no. Your boorish friend. You don’t get him a date, you invite someone even worse than he is. Someone so outrageous it will make your Eddie not want to appear anything like him. You don’t uninvite one, you add one. Someone who’ll make the unwanted guest want to appear moderate by comparison. And we know who’s got the crazy end of the bench anchored, don’t we? Has had it staked out for years.”

  Add someone to the summit who would appear crazy and sullen, yet flamboyant. The young prince from Qatar would never want to appear
to ally himself with the crazy dictator, nor would he want to appear that man’s protege, as he unavoidably would if he took similar positions; he could only look subservient rather than independent. By adding someone even farther out the political spectrum, Paul would drive Qatar toward the moderate. The summit’s effectiveness might be damaged, but what was it going to accomplish anyway? It was a show. And even with the craziness factor heightened, the American President would appear more statesmanlike by comparison. Even if the young prince did make noise, the President would appear above it all. And that was the ambassador’s job, to create that impression.

  “After all,” Paul Nicholas laughed, “it’s only a wedding.”

  “Brilliant, sir,” Arden murmurred.

  “You inspired me,” the ambassador answered. “Thank you. Sorry, I have to run. Things to arrange. Goodbye, Arden. Enjoy your church. Be sure to take the stairs to the choir loft. Goodbye— Jeff, was it?”

  Jack only nodded. The ambassador rushed off between the tables, full of energy and purpose. After half a minute Jack turned his gaze on Arden. She smiled at him, blindingly. She really was a lovely young woman. Brilliant, too. With qualities that set her apart from anyone he’d ever known. He quite hated her.

  “That was neatly planted,” he said.

  “Thank you. You might have gotten there on your own.”

  “But what was really impressive was that you didn’t even know what I was pitching.”

  “It was pretty obvious.”

  He laughed. “The fact that you think it was—”

  She shrugged. “I caught a few words of what you were saying, I wondered what the ambassador would be doing here, not meeting with anyone, when he had the planning of the summit to worry about, so I guessed—”

  “Yeah. Thanks. I guess. I really didn’t want—”

  “Sorry. I just didn’t think you were selling it.”

  “Sure I was. I just hadn’t—”

  “No. He wasn’t listening. He wasn’t thinking. You hadn’t—”

  “I think he was. Maybe it was too—”