Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997 Pearl Publishing
Shadow
The Cowboy sat calmly in the corner of the room, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and blowing smoke-rings towards the ceiling, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings and the gravity of the situation he was in.
"We just want to ask you a few questions."
An epitaph for a tombstone, if the Cowboy had ever
heard one.
A man with eyes of cold, blue steel sat behind an
antique desk to his right, and to his left was a group of elderly
gentlemen trying their best to remain unnoticed. The Cowboy assumed,
from their somber, scholarly air, that these were the Masters
of Antiquity, renowned for their thorough knowledge of the detailed
history of mankind's existence from the very dawn of civilization
up to the present. A knowledge that included even those details
that were officially denied.
The man behind the desk sat completely still, watching the Cowboy
with a seeming indifference that only served to underscore his
penetrating air of focused attention. After thirty minutes or
so, the man seemed to conclude that anything less than a direct
approach would be a useless waste of time, so he asked the Cowboy,
casually, as a friend talking to a friend, the one thing that
only this man could tell him.
"Tell me Cowboy. Why the 'Parker Paradox'? Why that name, and not another?"
The Cowboy met the man's gaze and smiled, thought to himself for a moment, and grinned. He got out of his chair and walked to the desk, chuckling to himself, pulled a pint of Jim Beam out of his back pocket, made a ceremonial gesture of offering a drink to the man with eyes of cold blue steel, and then sat down on the edge of the desk.
"It's a pretty obscure reference. You must be the one they call the 'Shadow'"
The Shadow had read the man correctly. This was going to be a fairly straightforward conversation. He reached for the bottle the Cowboy had set on the table and pulled a shot glass out of the center drawer of the antique oak desk before him.
"No. They don't call me that. Only one
man ever did, and that was a long, long time ago."
The Shadow's face betrayed no hint of pleasure or displeasure.
He leaned back in the chair, sipping his drink. It was the Cowboy's
turn to talk.
The Cowboy sat silent for a long time. He wasn't avoiding the subject, or devising some elaborate story to throw the 'enemy' off-track. He was 'lost in thought', his mind traveling to a time and place that was long ago and far away.
"It took D'Shauneaux a long time before he finally
figured out why you let him live, you know. The whole 'Operation
Eunuchs' affair was so filled with false trails and subterfuge
that even D'Shauneaux forgot to look to simplicity for the answer
to all his questions.
"He finally got around to asking himself not, 'why am I alive?',
but rather, 'why am I not dead, like the others?'. That was when
he finally figured it out."
The Shadow leaned forward in his chair, elbows on
his knees, his chin resting on his hands and, for the first time
in a long and lonely career, he let down his hair and allowed
himself to ride the Nostalgia Express to a time and place that
was long ago and far away. He gazed up at the Cowboy, making no
attempt whatsoever to hide his interest in where this conversation
would ultimately lead.
The Shadow picked up the ball and immediately handed it back to
the Cowboy.
"Intriguing, but I'm from Missouri, show me,"
The Masters of Antiquity, the boss-hogs of scholarly
knowledge about anything and everything that had to do with the
annals of history, looked at each other in semi-amazement that
the Shadow could be referring to a colloquialism from a small
geographical area from the BC (Before Channel) era.
They had been called in to observe this 'interrogation' in the
hope that the man to be questioned would let slip some tiny detail
that would confirm his connection to a chain of mythological historical
events that had remained an unconfirmed mystery for as long as
could be remembered.
The Masters of Antiquity had been told to expect having to stay over for the night, working until the operation was complete, but they didn't have the slightest inkling that they would not be returning home the following night…nor the next night…nor the next.
If they were semi-amazed at the Shadow's reference
to an obscure proverb from the BC era, they were totally amazed
by the Cowboy's reply. He tossed out a phrase that they had never
heard before, but one which they recognized as an undeniable colloquialism
from the same time-period.
They began to write frantically, realizing that they were about
to hear details from an era that was still a mystery to even the
most astute scholars of Antiquity.
"Well", the Cowboy said, "I'm too drunk to sing
and it's too wet to plow, so I guess we're going to be here awhile."
The Cowboy gestured toward the near-empty pint of Jim Beam, and eased himself into a plump leather chair while the Shadow reached to the back of the liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel's with a personalized custom label on it that the Cowboy had first seen many, many years ago.
The Cowboy froze. He sat, stunned, staring at the bottle, at the label. Then he started to feel nauseous and had to fight to keep back the bile that started to rise to his throat.
Few have seen the Shadow smile, but he now smiled without restraint.
"No," the Shadow said, "there was
no point in killing him. He's of much more use to us alive than
dead. With a babbling, wild-eyed 'poster-boy for alcoholically
induced dementia' running around railing against us, it makes
your whole movement, and ours as well, look like a fabrication
of the lunatic fringe. By the time I left his house I almost doubted
our existence myself.
"I even suggested to the Council of Darkness that we put
Mr. Dos on our payroll. They were not amused."
The Shadow, however did seem amused, as he
continued,
"He made a great ceremony of presenting me with a gift from
his renowned private stock, smiling to himself at his own private
joke. He thought me a fool, walking ignorantly away from the greatest
threat against us-himself.
"I accepted his gift graciously and apologized to him for
any inconvenience I caused him. I told him that, although my suspicion
of him had been allayed, it was still my duty to keep an eye on
him from time to time. I almost smiled at my own private joke.
His madness is infectious"
"I never met the man, myself," the Cowboy replied, "but it sounds like he's living up to the legend."
He reached for the bottle and once again picked up
his account of Vice-Admiral Bubba D'Shauneaux's sudden and stunning
realization of what Operation Eunuchs had really been about.
"The way I heard it, the Vice-Admiral nearly hit the floor
when he realized that the others were dead because they didn't
know, and that he was alive because he knew.
"When you told him he was right about the Magic Circle, that it was just a myth, he was very relieved. He thought that you let him live because he didn't believe the Circle was real. When the rest of the people connected to the affair all died, he realized that his assumption was wrong."
The Shadow smiled and waited for the Cowboy to continue.
"It blew his mind that he was involved in an
investigation that was at such a high level of importance that
those who didn't know had to die so that there was no chance they
would ever speak of it to anybody else. And those who 'knew' were
not a threat because there was no way to speak of it, no way to
explain it to those who didn't know.
"He realized that those who knew the reality of the
'myth' were not a danger-not in the slightest-because the affair
was so enormous that there was nothing they could say to anyone
without being thought crazy, babbling fools…nothing that
they could do about it. He knew he would be watched day and night-that
any attempt to make contact with the Circle would place them in
great peril.
"He took over the operation of Pearl Harbor Computers with
that in mind. He knew that after that nasty affair in Moose Jaw
no one in the Magic Circle would ever attempt to contact anyone
having even the remotest connection to C.J. Parker or Pearl Harbor
Computers.
"It was the clearest message he could send to
the Circle to let them know that he knew of their existence, but
that he was a great danger to them."
The Cowboy paused to pour himself a shot and roll a cigarette.
"It's like when a lake turns over in the spring
and the warm and cold water change places overnight. The top goes
to the bottom, and the bottom goes to the top.
"Vice-Admiral D'Shauneaux understood that he was involved
in something that was not just at a high level, but at a level
that goes beyond comprehension…beyond normality. A juncture
where everything flips over and becomes its opposite."
The Cowboy looked straight at the Shadow, but past him, as if lost in a private memory, a thousand years and a thousand miles away.
"Uncle Bubba was never quite the same after
that"
The Shadow was stunned. The Cowboy was a nephew of D'Shauneaux? Impossible! It was nowhere in the records. Of course, the Cowboy had access to the InterNet, but the records were so highly secured that there was no possibility of tampering with them. Or was there? The Shadow raised his guard once again. Things were moving in a very dangerous direction.
The Cowboy seemed oblivious to the sudden change in the Shadow. He took a sip of bourbon and continued on as if everything was just the way it was before his reference to 'Uncle Bubba'.
"A paradox, that's what he called it.
A trail of mystery and intrigue that led to an old and trusted
friend who somehow turned out to hold the key that could unlock
the door to a puzzle that was capable of changing the fate of
mankind in an instant…in the proverbial 'twinkling of an
eye'. A man whose death didn't remove the threat to Gomez and
the Dark Allies' arcane plans for mankind's doom. A man whose
demise only made the threat more momentous and tangible.
"He called the situation 'Parker's Paradox' in the memory
of a dear, departed friend. When I ran into the Internet problem,
I thought it would be an appropriate gesture to name it the Parker
Paradox in Uncle Bubba's honor.
"Besides, calling it the 'Inaugural Enigma' would have caused
me problems…serious problems."
The Cowboy and the Shadow were staring into each
other's eyes, a direct connection with no walls between them.
They were alone in their own private universe. A galaxy where
there was no past, no future, only the present…and no need
for games. A universe of two-but where only one would survive.
The Cowboy took a long pull off the bottle of Jack
Daniel's and turned his gaze to the Shadow once again.
"D'Shauneaux never did figure out who you really are, you
know. He never knew that he had come face to face with Gomez…and
walked away alive."
The Shadow's stare hardened, turning barren and harsh, boiling with a violent fury. The Cowboy now knew he was right. He was staring into the gateway of the Desolate Place…he was gazing into the eyes of Gomez himself.
Knowing that he had the Shadow off-balance, he continued,
"You made a mistake letting D'Shauneaux live, you know. He
stood by and watched while you let C.J. Parker slip right through
your fingers."
Gomez felt the room spinning.
"You never should have sent that Mountie away for 'debriefing'. That was all a part of the plan.
"That's why your men never came back……I killed them."
Gomez shot out of his chair, his countenance vile, his eyes blazing with a raging fury of astonishment, terror and disbelief.
"P3! Procedure 3!" he shouted.
The Dark Allies charged into the room, mowing down
the Masters of Antiquity in one swift, efficient maneuver. Then
they turned and leveled their weapons on the Cowboy, waiting for
the man with the eyes of cold blue steel to give a signal-one
way or the other.
For the first time in a millennium, Gomez didn't know what to
do. Every fiber of his mind, body and emotions screamed at him
to remove the threat. The Cowboy…C.J. Parker…whoever
the hell he was…he must die.
Only eons of experience held him back, allowing him to hang on to his awareness of the small, clear voice that warned him to wait, warned him not to act hastily. Gomez paused, knowing that it was essential for him to act rationally and remain in control.
"Take him to Number Nine, Level Eleven,"
he roared at his men.
"His name is Arnold. Watch him as if your lives depended
on it," he warned them, his face growing sullen, his voice
deep and somber, "…because they do."
Gomez turned his back to them, dismissing them with
a wave of his hand. He needed time to think. Suddenly, everything
had changed.
The Cowboy groaned in pain as Gomez's henchmen slammed him into the back wall of the elevator. They had no idea who he was, but the Shadow's instructions had left no doubt that he was not to be killed, but to be watched scrupulously. The Dark Allies saw no reason, however, why they couldn't hurt him very, very badly.
The Cowboy tried to ignore the searing bolt of pain
that came each time they kicked him during the elevator ride to
the basement parking garage. He had bought himself some time.
It was a perilous game he was playing but he was still alive,
so it was a game that was working. The next move was up to Gomez
and the Cowboy knew he would move slowly and cautiously.
Arnold. He'd had worse names.
Chapter 16 - Shadow