Allan Folsom - The Machiavelli Covenant

"Concurrently I have been informed that similar arrests are underway in Germany and France. It is too early in our investigations to say more except that we anticipate that the detention of prominent persons in other countries will follow .

"To all of us this has been a thunderclap of surprise, horror, and revulsion. For myself and for the chancellor of Germany and the president of France it is also a personal and deeply felt wound of betrayal by close and long-trusted friends .

"Bad news does not travel well. Truth of this nature is both painful and ugly, but the same truth hidden away is far worse. In the coming days and weeks we will know more, and you will be kept informed. In the meantime we can only thank providence that we were fortunate enough to have found the beast and killed it before it began its slaughter .

"We need only look around us here at Auschwitz to be reminded of the terrible, harrowing price of fanaticism. We owe it to those who perished here, to ourselves, to our children and theirs, to make this cancer a disease of the past. It is something that together we can do .

"Thank you and good afternoon."

The president stared out at the audience for several seconds before turning to take the handshakes of Anna Bohlen of Germany and Jacques Géroux of France and then of the president of Poland, Roman Janicki. And then of the leaders of the NATO countries who came down one by one to greet him and say a few words and to solemnly take his hand.

For the longest moment Marten, like nearly everyone else-the guests, the security personnel, the media-stood silent. The president's speech had been no self-serving discourse, no political glad hand; he had spoken the truth as he had promised Marten he would. How and when and where the fallout would come-a firestorm of protest and outrage in the Middle East and in Muslim enclaves around the world, charges the president was mentally unbalanced and incapable of serving, furious denials and counterattacks by those arrested or revealed as they rallied their people behind them-was impossible to say. But it would come as the president had known it would from the beginning.

"I'm going to say some things that diplomatically might be better left unsaid," he had told Marten, "all the while knowing the reaction around the world might and probably will be ugly. But I'm going to say them anyway because I think we've reached a point in time where the people elected to serve need to tell the truth to the people who elected them, whether they like what they hear or not. None of us anywhere can afford to go on with politics as usual."

The president had asked Marten to come to supply moral support, but he hadn't needed it. He had his own clear vision of who he was and of the grave responsibility of his office. His "friends" had made him president because he had never made an enemy of anyone. It made them think he was soft and they could mold him any way they wished. The trouble was, they'd misjudged him greatly.

Marten took one last glance at the president and the leaders surrounding him. That was his world, where he belonged. It was time Marten got back to his. He was turning, starting to walk away, when he heard a familiar voice call his name. He looked up and saw Hap Daniels coming toward him.

"We're leaving. Marine One, wheels up from here in ten minutes," he said. "Air Force One, wheels up from Krakow in fifty. The president asked us to file a flight plan through Manchester. Drop you off there," he smiled, "kind of like a personal shuttle."

Marten grinned. "I've already booked a commercial flight, Hap. Tell the president thanks but I don't need the publicity. He'll know what I'm talking about. Tell him maybe sometime we can all sit down someplace for a steak and a beer. You and him and me and Miguel. The boys too, José especially."

"Be careful, he just might do it."

Marten smiled, then extended his hand. "I'll be waiting."

They shook hands and then Hap was called away. Marten watched him go, then turned and headed for the gate. A minute later he passed between the columns and looked back at the ancient wrought-iron sign above it.

Arbeit Macht Frei, Work Shall Make You Free.

The slogan had been the Nazis' idea of graveyard humor, yet aside from them, no one who saw it smiled much. But in his exhausted state the words crept through and touched Marten in an entirely unintended way, making him smile inwardly and shake his head at the irony of it.

It made him wonder if he still had a job.

• MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. THE BANFIELD COUNTRY

ESTATE, HALIFAX ROAD. MONDAY, JUNE 12, 8:40 A.M.

It had been two months to the day when Marten had told Hap good-bye and walked out of Auschwitz. If he'd been worried about keeping his job at Fitzsimmons and Justice, he needn't have bothered. By the time he had returned to Manchester that evening he had a half-dozen very recent calls backed up on his voice mail. Four were from his manager Ian Graff asking him to call him the moment he got in. The others were, respectively, from Robert Fitzsimmons and Horace Justice. Fitzsimmons he knew well from the workplace. Horace Justice, the founder of the company, eighty-seven years old and retired and living in the south of France, he'd never met. Still, he had messages from all three wishing him well and hoping he would be at work first thing the next morning.

The primary reason?

The president, it seemed, had placed direct calls to each man from Air Force One telling them how grateful he was for Marten's personal assistance during the last days and trusting that his unreported absence wouldn't be held against him. Indeed it wasn't. He was put immediately and full-time back onto the Banfield job, which between the arguments and changes of mind between Mr. and Mrs. Banfield, seemed to have been filled with more minefields than anything he'd encountered with the president. Still, he'd eagerly jumped back in and pressed on. Now, finally and at last, things were coming together. The grading had been done, the irrigation was in, the planting was beginning, and the Ban-fields were at peace. Chiefly because Mrs. Banfield was happily pregnant with twins and hence had shifted her time, opinions, and energy to preparing the house for their arrival. Happily too, Mr. Banfield, when he wasn't advancing his career as a professional soccer star, followed her indoors. All of which left Marten to supervise the remainder of the landscape work. Which was what he did while the world hung upside down in massive reaction to the president's speech.

The president had been right when he'd said things "might and probably will be ugly." They were from the outset and still were.

The United States, Washington in particular, was an on-going typhoon of round-the-clock media chaos. Political talk shows owned television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. The Internet was overrun with bloggers saying the president had gone off the deep end and was a nutcase, that he should be hospitalized or impeached or both. Conspiracy theorists everywhere were rife with their trademark "I told you so." Right, left, and center everyone wanted to know what this mysterious "Covenant" was and who belonged to it; what religion the president had been referring to; who had been burned to death in ceremonial rituals; how could the very distinguished members of the New World Institute have been involved with anything like the accusations he had made; where was the proof of any of it?

In the Middle East and throughout Muslim enclaves in Europe and the Pacific, things were no different. People and governments wanted details about this "genocide." In which countries and when was it to have taken place? How many deaths would have resulted? Who was to have occupied their lands? What else would've happened? What was the reasoning, the goal behind it? What had the members of this organization hoped to gain? Was the threat of it truly over? And finally, was this another arrogant move by an American president designed to provoke untold fear in the Islamic world, countering terrorist strikes against the U.S., Europe, and the Pacific with the nightmare threat of all-out annihilation?