Glen Allen - The shadow war

For a moment Benjamin had no idea what to say, but after a bit more hedging, Benjamin had allowed himself to be… seduced seemed like the right word. But not by Jeremy's promise of exorbitant reward; rather, it had been the mystery of the thing, the sheer eccentricity of Jeremy's offer.

Of course Benjamin had heard of the American Heritage Foundation; it was one of the most prestigious and most secretive "think tanks" in the entire country. Young obscure scholars went into the Foundation-as it was known with a certain instinctual awe-and came out to appointments in the corridors of power that would otherwise have required decades of thankless service to obtain. And while the occupants of those corridors were elected officials and therefore merely passing through, the overseers of the Foundation were answerable to no one-or at least not anyone so lowly as a mere voter.

Ergo, any young academic would kill to gain entry into that world, and here Benjamin was being handed his opportunity on a silver platter.

But why him? And why now?

Thus had Benjamin's mind spun around the problem ever since he'd boarded a flight to Logan, rented a car, and begun his long journey across the length of Massachusetts, out to where the wealthy Boston Brahmins kept summer cottages the size of boarding schools and listened to classical music under the stars.

He glanced at his briefcase sitting on the seat beside him. Inside it were a few reference books to the Colonial Indian Wars-general stuff, as Jeremy hadn't been specific about his "muddle"-and his father's notebooks. Whereas Benjamin's area was early Native Americans, his father had instead concentrated on what he called "non-Native Americans"-the Puritans. He'd spent his entire career tracing the Byzantine sects and schisms among America's spiritual founding fathers, and just when he was completing work on a book, he and Benjamin's mother had been killed in a car accident, leaving Benjamin a small inheritance, and the large collection of his father's notes, which he treasured as a sort of family heirloom. And, while he doubted those notes would prove useful to Jeremy's work, bringing them along made him feel as though his father were along for the ride in this unlikely adventure. They were a kind of comfort-even though the ache he felt when he thought about his parents, about their sudden, violent erasure from this world… that ache knew no comfort.

Finally Benjamin found the exit, and thirty minutes later he sat at the end of a narrow, winding road, facing the Foundation's formidable entrance.

Nestled in a natural bowl of small, rounded hills, the Foundation was separated-or perhaps protected was a better word-from the outside world by acres of woods. The nearest settlement was a good half-hour drive away; even the summer mansions Benjamin had passed seemed vulnerable and declasse by comparison.

The Foundation was an expanse of manicured lawns, geometric flower gardens, strategically placed copses of oak and sycamore and maple trees, all with their leaves now glowing in the earthy tones of early fall, and a dozen buildings, most in a Colonial-style architecture of red brick, white trim, and copper-gabled eaves. It all looked more like an exclusive private school than a secret research institute.

Until one noticed the ten-foot fence that stretched around the grounds. A fence Benjamin was sure was electrified.

After passing through imposing wrought-iron gates and parking his car in a graveled driveway, Benjamin stood on the portico of the large, mansionlike edifice to which the gate guard had directed him. His briefcase clutched in one hand, he wondered again what on earth he was doing here. But then Jeremy would explain all that to him in a moment.

He squared his shoulders and entered the building.

Benjamin felt dizzy.

The circular foyer of the building was enormous, open all the way up to the domed ceiling some fifty feet overhead. A grand spiral staircase wound around the wall of the foyer, up to the second floor.

And then he noticed the mural.

Beginning where the dome joined the foyer's walls and stretching all the way down to the floor, the mural covered every inch of the walls. It reminded him of the WPA Depression-era murals that adorned the lobbies of so many American post offices, but the scale of this one was tremendous, overwhelming. He could make out people and machines and landscapes, all interlocked in ways both intricate and yet heroically simple. He saw light bending along the curve of muscle and polished steel surfaces, faces fixed in transports of calm determination.

He felt simultaneously proud and insignificant.

He wrested his attention away from the mural and looked around the foyer. Just opposite him was an office door with ARTHUR TERRILL, A.D. on a brass plate in its center. That was the person the guard had directed him to see.

He walked over to the door. Inside, he could hear voices, raised and apparently arguing. He hesitated, then knocked.

The voices stopped, there was a pause, and then the door opened. A short, thin man with large-rimmed glasses and carefully styled silver hair stood looking at him quizzically.

"Yes?" he said.

"Excuse me," said Benjamin. "I'm Benjamin Wainwright. I'm here to see Dr. Jeremy Fletcher?"

The man looked nonplussed for a moment, then shook his head.

"Of course, of course," he said, backing up, "I forgot all about you. Come in, come in."

Benjamin entered a large office with a great block of a desk to one side, armchairs here and there, a small couch, a Persian rug, walnut wainscoting, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves… He imagined now he was in the principal's office of this "private school."

"Arthur Terrill," the man said, somewhat perfunctorily shaking Benjamin's hand. He motioned for Benjamin to sit in one of two unoccupied chairs before his desk, then returned to his seat behind it.

"This will only take a moment, Mr. Wainmark," he said. "Please sit down."

"It's Wain wright, " Benjamin corrected. "Benjamin-"

"Excuse me, " said another voice behind Benjamin.

Turning, he saw a man sitting on a small couch that had been hidden by the open door. He was dressed in a light gray suit and matching tie, and in one hand was a glass containing amber fluid and ice.

"Benjamin Wainwright?" the man asked. Benjamin nodded. "Good." He took a sip from the drink. "I hoped we'd meet."

The man rose, came over and stood beside Benjamin, looking down at him. He seemed amused. He also seemed slightly drunk.

In all the time Benjamin was to spend with Samuel Wolfe, he never quite gained a single, fixed idea of his overall persona. Samuel was tall, and held himself so erect one's impression was that his manners came from another century. He could appear patrician and imposing one moment, relaxed and mischievous the next. His face had gone out of style in the thirties: a curving beak of a nose and large, intelligent eyes; eyes that encouraged an instinctual confidence. It suddenly came to Benjamin that Wolfe was a dead ringer for that actor he'd seen in an old black-and-white detective film… something about a "thin man"?

And then Benjamin realized Wolfe was extending a hand toward him, still with a drink in the other. He took it and felt the firmness of Wolfe's grip. Wolfe sat down in the other chair before Terrill's desk.

"This is Mr. Samuel Wolfe, a… security analyst," Terrill said, tapping a pencil on his desk and looking down at a fan of papers spread across the desktop's green blotter, "here to help us with an… unfortunate incident." He sighed. "And it's because of that incident that your services will not be required."

Now Benjamin was the one nonplussed. "Not required?"

"I'm afraid there's been a significant change of plans-"

"Significant!" Wolfe snorted, shaking his head.