Gabriel's Stand

Central Avenue Publishing Edition

Copyright © 2014 Jay B. Gaskill

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

centralavenuepublishing.com

First digital edition

Created and distributed by Central Avenue Publishing, a division of
Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

GABRIEL'S STAND

ISBN 978-1-77168-009-7

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: Michelle Halket

Cover Photography: Courtesy & Copyright CanStockPhoto: silvertiger
Photoxpress: Maureen Dainty

Dedicated to reasonable, people-friendly environmentalists everywhere, with a personal disclaimer for all the businesses and organizations identified with or by “Gaia”, especially the many restaurants, gift shops, makers and sellers of health and nutrition products, clothing, spas, resorts, accommodations and the other businesses that use “Gaia” as a brand, product or service identification, or trademark: You are the good people for whom the Gaia symbol, name of the pagan earth goddess, represents something light hearted, healthy and life-affirming. This story was is not about you. Every good movement and trend has a dark side.

This cautionary tale is a work of fiction.

“All Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

US Constitution, Article VI

“My people, what have you done? While I was gone you have sold my country.”

Looking Glass, Nez Perce Chief

Part One: Genesis

“In the beginning…darkness…”

Genesis 1.2

Louise Berker was one of those rarest of young women. She was a beautiful, brilliant nerd, socially isolated, but unconsciously charismatic at the same time. Her back story was a teeming tangle of family dysfunction, energies, impulses and influences; a psychological crèche where idealism, mood swings, episodes of brooding resentment and happy expectation each fought for a dominant place on the stage of her mind. Berker's mind was a nursery from which something magnificently malignant or startlingly generous was sure to emerge.

The only constant was her hunger for consequence. Hers was the sort of background that a good biographer could mine long after the fact for intimations of her great accomplishments. After the story was told, the result of her potential for doing great good or great evil would seem inevitable. The course of history often turns on such pivot moments. The difference in Louise Berker's case was the power of a singular set of ideas falling into a hungry and vulnerable mind at just the right moment.

As it happened, Louise Berker's fall began during her frustrating, protracted work on a doctoral dissertation: an exploration of the toxic effects of modern technology. The pivot event was the collapse of a long distance romance with a revered icon of the environmental cause, a famous American professor and her dissertation advisor. When Louise discovered her lover's shameful secret, the professor was
in
flagrante delicto
. He had wired his brain into a cloud-based virtual reality – choosing his techno-addiction over her. It was a double betrayal of Berker personally, and of her ideals. Her fury quickly gave way to calculated revenge. Knowing that a quick disconnect from the apparatus would be fatal, Louise simply unplugged her lover from his game, killing him instantly. She covered her tracks at the murder scene, and left the country. A coroner would later rule the death as accidental. Campus rumors that the environmentalist icon had died of a techno-addiction would be squelched by a university spokesperson.

In the calmer, more deliberate aftermath of the killing, Berker's revenge sought a grander canvas, something less personal and more revolutionary. Berker's transformation took place under the psychological camouflage of a new environmental religion: the most potent toxin of the post technological age. Her first glimpse of a life engulfing purpose evolved from her desire to save humanity from their machines mutated into something much more malevolent: she would save the earth from humanity. The notion that humans were, in effect, a pathogen to be reduced and even exterminated became a quasi-religious fever with her, something carefully shared only among a small, like-minded cult of wealthy and powerful people.

Several years later, Louise—still an arrestingly attractive woman with short black hair and intense blue eyes—was sitting in an abandoned tavern in Hamburg, Germany. She sat quietly in a dark room facing an old man. A single candle lit the room. This was to be her final in-person briefing for a major operation in the United States.

“I understand that we will be killing some US Senators?” Louise sat calmly and waited for the confirmation. The old man she referred to only as the Baron smiled at her. He was dressed in pressed trousers and a rumpled white shirt, and slouched in his chair across from her. A formerly prominent public man, the Baron now worked in the shadowy world of the European Green Underground, using an assumed name like many others who had crossed over into eco-terrorism.

This evening was Berker's sendoff, her graduation. There were just the two of them, the guards stayed near the entrance, well outside hearing range. This would be her last formal contact with any of her European handlers. The parent terror organization, the G-A-N, would soon have a robust North American presence and enough power to carry out their mission, and any formal links to the European network would be severed. Berker's G-A-N team was ready. The assignation lists had been prepared and discussed; the passports and identity papers—some legal—had all been cleared.

“Why are we targeting U.S.
Senators
, exactly?” Berker asked.

“It's only a few Senators,” the Baron said, “and certainly not right away. It all depends on the political situation.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Louise, this is all part of the Longworthy plan. We have a Trojan Horse. A seemingly innocuous environmental protection treaty is to be signed by the American President and submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification. It will exploit a loophole in the American constitution. Through this means, and with your help, we will be able to stage a coup d'état. The stupid American politicians will never realize the takeover has even occurred until everything is well past a point of no return. When you leave here, you will take a detailed briefing paper. Study it carefully in private; then burn it. Longworthy and some other legal scholars believe that this ratified treaty will override any conflicting provisions in the US constitution. But in America, a treaty ratification vote takes place only in their Senate and only by a two thirds vote.”

“I think I now understand quite clearly,” Louise said. “The Trojan Horse must get inside the Senate's gate.”

“Exactly. No one will be allowed to get in the way of the ratification process. No. One.” The Baron spoke with quiet emphasis. “No senator, no public official, no citizen will be permitted to get in the way.”

The Baron was a calm, aristocratic presence. He sat across from Berker at the rough-hewn table, a bland, civilized presence that concealed the utter cruelty of his character. The air was stale. The flickering yellow light exaggerated the lines in the Baron's face.

Outside, a town clock struck four. As the Baron spoke, his pale eyes gleamed in the candlelight. Each word was as measured and dry as a teaspoon of cold ash.

“You are to leave tomorrow afternoon.”

“We are packed. The identity papers and passports are ready. We can go to the airport at a moment's notice,” Berker said.

The Baron regarded her carefully. “I see that you have a question about one of the profiles?”

“Yes. Why is Senator Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom on your list?”

“You wonder perhaps because he is a Native American?”

“Partly. But more so because he is an ally to the environmental cause.”

“But that may turn out to be a problem. Gabriel Standing Bear is a charismatic leader on the rise. Even though he is only a Senator from a small state, he has attracted a national following.”

Louise still looked puzzled. “Forgive me, but why target a leader sympathetic to our cause?”

The Baron looked at her as he would a small child. “He is a target for two reasons, Louise. Some environmentalists will object to our ultimate aims and he could be one of them. And, more to the point, we prefer followers to leaders.”

“So—”

“He has a bad case of integrity, Louise. His growing prominence and popularity will make him dangerous.”

“But only
if
he turns on us…”

“
When
he turns on us, Louise, when. We cannot conceal our real objectives forever.”

Berker thought it through for a second and sat up straighter in her chair. “Then better to kill him while he still is an asset. Frame the enemies of the environment. Make this Indian a martyr.”

The Baron smiled. “Too clever by half, my dear. Why prematurely discard our assets? We'll just take out some insurance. Virtuous men like Gabriel can likely be controlled through their children. He has a daughter, a student in Seattle, Helen Snowfeather Lindstrom. She is vulnerable to recruitment.”

“Then we will try to exploit her. Thank you for the guidance and your patience.” Berker attempted to hide her embarrassment.

“Very well, then.” The Baron got to his feet. “We are done here. At the end of the day, remember that not all of the targets will be obstacles, particularly as we begin to succeed in shaping public opinion. But some will eventually need to be removed with prejudice. Like your example, that Indian Senator. The trick is always to kill them in compromising locations, places that have the smell of scandal about them. And to take out one or two unrelated victims in the same area. It is possible to create such a bizarre crime signature that it overshadows even a celebrity's death.” His thin smile appeared briefly. “There is an art to this.”

“Political killing must never seem political, unless and until that is the whole point of the exercise.”

“Louise Berker, you were always my very best student. I will miss you.”

Several months later

It was one of those beautiful blue sky summer days in Puget Sound. Dr. John Owen's fishing boat, an older model trawler, had been freshly painted, electronically retrofitted and given remodeled sleeping quarters for the celebration.

The smell of coffee drifted out of the galley. Dr. Owen was at the helm next to his college friend, Senator Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. John Owen's wife, Rachael, was standing near the two men, while their only daughter, Elisabeth, a graduating medical student, and her new husband, Josh, a newly minted business major, were seated aft, staring into the open water.

Gabriel's wife, Alice Canyon Hawke, and their daughter, Helen Snowfeather, had emerged from the galley carrying steaming mugs. Just as Snowfeather turned to look back at the receding Seattle waterfront, she heard a gleeful whoop from her father's friend.

“Whale at three o'clock!” John shouted. Keeping one steady hand on the wheel, Dr. Owen pointed at a moving shape about 200 meters away.

“Thar she blows!” Gabriel shouted.

“I can't see it!” said Elisabeth.

“Come to the helm, white eyes!” Gabriel said, grinning with gleeful enthusiasm.

As Dr. Owen's boat lurched in a wave, his daughter, Elisabeth, shouted, “Look! It just spouted!”

“I saw that,” Gabriel said. Then the slick black shape dropped under a wave and seemed to disappear.

“Hey, that was even bigger than one of your trout, Gabriel.” It was Alice, who endlessly teased her husband about his fishing prowess.

“Just barely, my Princess,” Gabriel said. When Elisabeth came forward to hug her father's best friend around the waist, Gabriel kissed her on the cheek. “Do I get to call you Doctor yet?”

“You'd better, Red Man,” Elisabeth said, then they both chuckled. Elisabeth had just started her residency at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Her husband Josh, moved forward to take the wheel from his father in law and Elisabeth moved to stand at Josh's side, wrapping one arm around his waist. John and Gabriel moved aft, to sip coffee and catch up.

No one on Dr. Owen's trawler noticed the two women watching them from the Seattle shoreline. One stood next to a park bench near the popular clam chowder restaurant, supporting the other woman, who was standing on the bench, holding some equipment. Louise Berker adjusted her stance, keeping the high-powered, self-stabilizing binoculars centered on John Owen's trawler. The linked camera screen tracked the passengers, moving from face to face. No one on shore paid them any attention either; the pair appeared to be whale watching.
They're all so very clueless
, Berker thought.

Louise waited patiently for the Indian Senator or the drug maker, Dr. John Owen, to turn around for a full face shot. When Owen turned in her direction, several high resolution pictures were instantly captured.

The world's premier drug manufacturer, a key US Senator, and their families. Any one person on that boat would be excellent hostage material, but Standing Bear's daughter is the prize.

Berker felt good about her mission thus far.
In-country only months and the quarry is in my sights.

The two men were so deep in conversation that Berker regretted she was not a lip reader. She then captured her last images of daughter and mother. The face shot of Helen Snowfeather showed a young woman, possibly nineteen, with dramatically beautiful features. Then the image of Gabriel's wife, Alice Canyon Hawke, looking much like her daughter would after another twenty-five years and thirty pounds.

After her quarry had moved out of range, Berker lowered her spy apparatus, and studied the news kiosk display nearby. It was scrolling the headline of the day. She chuckled and pointed.

THE SIX YEAR GREENHOUSE GASES DECLINE CONTINUES…ERRATIC GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE CONTINUES…ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE WORSENS… Scientists are Puzzled

“Fools. They can't see it yet.”

“See what?” her assistant asked.

“Gaia's revenge,” Berker said. “Let them stay in the dark.”

Just before Dr. Owen's trawler moved completely out of sight, Berker captured the two men together in a single close-up. Nearby, the news kiosk prominently featured the latest issue of
Business Daily
. Dr. John Owen's face smiled back from the cover. The caption read:

John Owen, Edge Medical's Contrarian CEO: “What's Next On The ‘Edge' Of The New Medicine?”

Berker congratulated herself as she regarded the display on her camera.
My picture is a better likeness
. Dr. Owen was a sturdy man, with close-cut black hair, gray at the temples, and dangerously intelligent eyes.

Berker snapped the modified binocular into its case. Dr. Owen's fishing boat was gone. She turned to her companion, an intense looking woman in her twenties. “Cynthia,” Berker said, “we are done here for now. I believe you have that special office space to secure for The Sisters, and I have a trip to Boston where I'll be conferring with Mr. Fowler and his friends. Meantime I want a watch placed on Dr. Owen. When I get back, you and I will make a personal call on Snowfeather. She has real promise.”

The two women walked in silence toward Pioneer Square.

After Dr. John Owen's fishing boat had drifted out of Berker's sight, Alice Canyon Hawke took deep breath. It felt good to be among old friends and family. Safe on John's boat, Alice was feeling normal for the first time in weeks. Senator Gabriel Standing Bear and his family had joined John Owen and his family to celebrate a return to real life after a brutal mugging that put both Alice and Gabriel in a DC hospital months earlier. The Seattle trip was to be a vacation from everything, politics, crime, trauma, and a chance to reconnect with their daughter, Helen, who was a junior at the University of Washington. Discussion of the attack was not allowed. But when Alice had slipped down into the galley to clean up, she had allowed her mind to wander.
Damn
, she thought. Sharp memory fragments from that harrowing incident in DC had not yet lost their bite. She knew that eventually such memories fade…but apparently not just yet.

Ironically, of all of the disturbing aspects of the emergency that had brought Dr. John Owen and her daughter from Seattle to Alice's bedside, of the grim-faced police guarding her hospital room, of Gabriel's head wounds, of the frightened face of her daughter, there was no memory of the attack itself. The mugger's blow to Alice's head had erased all recollection of the incident, except the stunning sound of a gun fired at close range. The police account had filled in the chilling details…and Alice's nightmares were lighting up the dark cracks.

Her first post-assault memory was of the bright lights in the ER, blurred voices, a sense of being moved. Later she awakened in a room, having just opened her good eye, finding herself in a hospital bed, propped up slightly. When she had tried to move, she felt the pressure of the head bandage, the dressing over her right eye, and became aware of the pain in the right half of her face. Still puzzled and disoriented, she noticed the oxygen tubes in her nostrils and the drip line leading from her wrist to the IV tree beside the bed.

Later, after her right eye had recovered, she would look into as mirror and marvel at the persistent, deep bruises. On the boat in Puget Sound, her reverie broken, Alice glanced at her image in a tiny wall mirror. Unconsciously, she touched the area over her right eye; then she blinked.
Not a bruise or blemish.
Just memories
.

The trawler rocked slightly. “Alice, you okay down there?” It was Gabriel's voice from the deck. “I'll be out in a minute!” she shouted. “Don't spear a whale without me!”

Alice stepped out of the galley facing the stairs to the deck; then she hesitated.
Damn
. Her reverie wasn't quite done with her. She sat on a small storage chest.

Gabriel. A noise outside her hospital room had pierced her foggy mind. The doorway to her room was open. A bandaged man was sitting just outside. With a start she recognized her husband, Gabriel, in a wheelchair. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his left shoulder was in a sling. Her daughter was standing next to Gabriel in a purple sweatshirt and jeans. The girl's long, raven hair framed those arresting gray eyes from which nothing seemed to escape.

Then Alice had glimpsed John Owen, their old friend from Seattle. John was standing behind Gabriel and Snowfeather, gripping her husband's wheelchair. The three crowded in the doorway to Alice's room, pausing for a seeming eternity. The image of the three of them, inexplicable and poignant, would forever be engraved in Alice's mind.

Snowfeather broke the spell, holding the door open while John pushed Gabriel just inside the doorway. “Hey, Mom, you're awake!”

Dr. Owen immediately walked to Alice's bedside and studied the vital signs monitor. She could feel him gently check her wrist. “Do you know where you are?” Suddenly puzzled, Alice gave him a panicked stare. “This is a hospital, Alice. You and Gabriel were injured by a robber. You've been in and out of it for several hours. You do know who I am, right?”

“John,” she had whispered.

Dr. Owen leaned over. “Alice, you have some guests,” he said gently. He motioned back at Gabriel who was still in just inside the doorway. “Do you recognize this motley pair?” Gabriel's face was stricken with worry. Snowfeather was grinning. Alice managed a smile and raised one hand in greeting.

“You can come in guys,” John said. “She won't break.”

It took Alice several minutes to connect all the dots and even longer to see the picture they made.

John began speaking. “Alice, two nights ago, when you and Gabriel were going out to dinner, four muggers attacked you in front of an ATM. Gabriel had been waiting in the car. He jumped out, got into a fight with them, pulled two of them off you, disabled one, then…” John paused. “One of them shot him.”

“My God, Gabriel,” Alice whispered, “how badly…”

John held up a gentle hand to Gabriel, mouthing, “Let me tell this…” Gabriel nodded. “Your husband is a tough old Injun, Alice, and a damn lucky man. He took two shots. The shoulder wound wasn't serious: the bullet just missed his collar bone, a clean in and out.” Then John shook his head in wonder. “And there was a miracle. Gabriel survived a grazing head wound. The bullet actually cut a crease in his skull.”

“What?” Gabriel made a face.

Dr. Owen shook his head, a small smile appearing. “It really was a miracle…or a damn good imitation. Gabriel only lost consciousness for a few minutes. Not even a concussion. You were the one we've been worried sick about. I didn't get your good news until we got off the plane this morning. But when Snowfeather and I left Seattle, you were on the endangered species list. By the way, Rachael, Elisabeth and Josh send their love.”

“I'm no snail darter with the Sierra Club on my side, but I guess I'll live,” Alice murmured. She looked at her husband, and with a stronger voice, she asked, “How is my man?”

Gabriel leaned forward and took her hand. “I'm doing fine, Princess. I thought I'd lost you…” Gabriel was fighting tears.

“Who would do this to us, Gabriel?”

“The usual DC street thugs, I guess.”

“And you took them on?”

“I had no choice, Princess. Hey, I know, I know.” Gabriel said. “I should have ducked sooner.” Gabriel grinned.

“Not funny,” Alice said.

“Takes more than a thirty-eight to kill a bear,” Gabriel said.

“Don't talk like that, Gabriel. We could have both been killed.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“We need to get away from this terrible place.”

“You mean the hospital or DC?”

“Yes, both.”

Gabriel nodded again, tears streaming down his face. “We will,” he said.

“Promise me,” Alice demanded.

“I promise.” Gabriel said.

When Alice finally broke out of this reverie and climbed onto the deck of the trawler, she noticed John Owen and her husband studying her.
Promise kept
, Alice thought. John Owen smiled as if reading her mind.

No one was talking at the moment; each passenger seemed to have retreated to his or her own private space.
It's going to be that kind of an outing
, John thought as he looked out to the open water and slipped into his own memories.

John Owen was starting medical school at the University of Washington when he first met freshman Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. Despite the age difference, it was an instant buddy relationship that became a lifelong friendship.

Gabriel seemed to carry his depths with him guilelessly, like a child taking his
Marvel
comic book on his father's mountain lion hunting trip in order to hide a volume of Kierkegaard. It seemed that Gabriel's outer toughness was always betrayed by something suddenly soft or funny or startlingly deep…a lingering glance, a turn of phrase, a stance. John had long ago concluded that Gabriel Standing Bear carried more real depth than any guy he had ever met.

On a recent visit to DC, Dr. Owen had noticed a new painting in his friend's office. Senator Gabriel Standing Bear was looking out from the wall. That stocky torso, the white shirt, the bolo tie and Gabriel's gray braided hair were perfectly rendered. Like a modern Chief, John had thought. Gabriel's close-set, brown eyes were lit with the irrepressible twinkle John had seen so many times before. As John had stared at the painting, he imagined his old friend launching into another story. He noted the artist's signature: ACH. He later asked Gabriel who that was. “He really captured you, Gabriel.”