The Golden Shield of IBF Read online

  She would need a spoken language spell, and very quickly, because the girl who wore the animal collar and overbound her breasts with leather was talking to her again and so was the half-cat, half-woman creature.

  Chapter Two

  It was stuffy in the back of the FBI field command vehicle, the Saturday afternoon sunshine defeating the air conditioning, aided by the heat inside generated from the banks of electronic equipment. A row of video monitors was running real time surveillance feeds from cameras hastily positioned to surround DragonCon’s principal venue and the other two buildings in question. Even a moment’s glance at the monitors confirmed that a seemingly unending stream of people, many of them costumed after their favorite characters in science fiction and fantasy, were busily entering, hanging out in front of or leaving the convention. The camera operators and two agents did nothing but study the monitors, looking for one particular face.

  So far, no one had seen that face and chances were good that the suspect they sought was still inside, mingling with the convention crowd. A third agent, monitoring the systems, could work a switcher and replay tape of the real time video feed. There had been one false alarm, but other than that not even a sign of the bomber.

  Tom Criswell’s fingers were a blur over his computer keyboard, hacking into DragonCon’s computer system. The BATF bomb specialist, Jim Sutton, was using a laptop—this was an FBI van and Sutton was BATF—for the purposes of getting all the background he could on William Culberton Brownwood, self-styled right-wing fanatical avenger. “Well, he’s never had a moving violation,” Sutton announced, “and his next door neighbor drives a Pontiac.”

  Alan Garrison’s attention was divided between listening to Matt Wisnewski, the SAC who was running the operation, and checking his weapons. “I’ll tell you right now, gentlemen,” Wisnewski said, “that I’d rather we use standard procedures to evacuate the buildings and isolate the suspect. And, no offense to BATF, Sutton, but I’ve always felt that the Bureau can best handle situations of this nature on its own.”

  “What you’re really ticked off about, Wisnewski, is that I called the U.S. Attorney and, for once in history, Justice listened to Treasury and decided there was a situation that couldn’t be played by the Bureau’s rulebook,” Sutton declared. “If we tried a mass evacuation, we’d lose our bomber in the crowd. If we checked every parcel and bundle and purse, the suspect would either detonate his device as a diversion to cover his getaway or slip out some other way because it would take fucking forever.”

  Without looking away from his computer screen, Tom Criswell remarked, “I’m in. This DragonCon convention? They’ve got over eighteen thousand registered attendees in three separate buildings that are all interconnected!”

  “It’s the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in the Southeast, one of the largest in the world, and Saturday is always the best attended day. I’ve never missed one. I was here last night, as a matter of fact, so I’ve already got my convention badge,” Garrison informed them.

  “By the time this is over, Garrison, that may be the only badge you’ll have,” Wisnewski cracked. “Just because you can blend in here with these science fiction people doesn’t mean squat, Garrison. And getting your BATF buddy Sutton here to go around me to the U.S. Attorney so that you can grandstand and try apprehending the suspect on your own is irresponsible conduct that we’ll discuss quite seriously after this is over. If the suspect uses his device and lives are lost, it’ll be on your head, Garrison, and yours, too, Sutton. The same if we lose him.”

  Wisnewski snorted again.

  The spare magazines for Garrison’s brace of SIG P-220 .45s were checked, both guns already secured in their shoulder holsters. Something he hadn’t been taught at the FBI Academy at Quantico but had been taught by some old friends who’d gone professionally armed all their adult lives was that the best way to disguise the presence of a gun carried in a shoulder holster was to carry two guns of identical or similar size in a double shoulder holster. This equalized the bulges.

  Garrison stood up. He was as ready as he could get, armed to the teeth and a wire under his shirt. Thank God, he thought, that the wire didn’t have to be taped on, because that meant shaving his chest or waiting for the inevitable pain of removing body hair along with the tape.

  Criswell asked a reasonable question. “How are you going to try finding this guy out of all these people?”

  Garrison answered, “I got down here for a little bit last night, like I said, and I was planning to come back this afternoon anyway and spend the rest of the day. I pretty much know where everything is, where the panels are being held, like that. If I can’t locate him during the day, he’ll show up where the crowds are at night. Saturday night there’s always Atlanta Radio Theater doing a live production and later there’s the masquerade contest.”

  Sarcastically, Wisnewski asked, “And do you dress up for this masquerade like all these other weirdos we’ve been seeing going in and out?”

  “No, I don’t. And, they’re good people, not what you called them.” Figuring he was in line for an official reprimand at any event, Garrison decided it was just as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. “But, now that you mention it, Matt, I did show up once in a blue suit just like the one you’re wearing, with FBI cufflinks just like yours. They wanted to give me a prize for the best Washington bureaucrat costume.”

  Sutton laughed.

  Before Wisnewski could respond, Garrison continued. “Most of the costuming you’re seeing on the surveillance cameras isn’t for the masquerade contest. People wear hall costumes and just live in character for a few days. It’s fun. Our guy might have knocked somebody over the head and stolen a costume. At first thought, that might make finding him harder, but it could make it easier, too, if I know what costume to look for. A lot of these folks will dress as the same character year after year.” What he didn’t tell Wisnewski, but had told Sutton, was that he intended to take certain people within the convention into his confidence, give them a description of the bombing suspect, and let them be extra eyes and ears. Because he had attended DragonCon ever since its inception, a lot of the people there—some of whom he didn’t even know by name, only by face—were people he cared about. If Wisnewski had his way and used standard Bureau procedures, Brownwood might indeed be desperate enough to detonate his device and take thousands of lives. It was a lose-lose situation from the starting gate, but Alan Garrison had to reconfigure it so there’d be at least some slight chance of winning.

  There were a few other details that Alan Garrison hadn’t bothered to mention to his boss, the Special Agent in Charge, Matt Wisnewski. Wisnewski had a personal policy against agents carrying more than two guns. Garrison had a third handgun in his right front pocket. Wisnewski strictly forbade any type of fighting knife, particularly a switchblade or push button, on the grounds that such a knife was the weapon of a street thug, not an FBI Agent. Garrison also carried two Benchmade AFO automatics.

  Garrison started out of the van. Sutton waved him a thumbs up.

  Criswell said, “You can do it, Alan. Be careful, huh.”

  Wisnewski shook Garrison’s hand, then looked away.

  The handshake thing from Wisnewski was spooky in the extreme...

  Bill Brownwood’s convention badge read, “Tim Castor,” a one-day pass with a name to match one of his fake driver’s licenses. Even though it wasn’t declared as such, the FBI would be handling this as a hostage situation. He was inside, with enough explosives in his backpack to bring down half a high-rise; the law was outside, with bomb disposal equipment, snipers, SWAT Teams and enough manpower to lay siege to the gold depository at Fort Knox. Brownwood found himself grinning. The New World Order would have given the secret orders that Bill Brownwood should not be taken alive, but be terminated with extreme prejudice while resisting arrest.

  He knew how the FBI and all the rest of the idiot United Nations stooge agencies worked. Manpower saturation rather than subtlety. The
y were waiting for him to grab a room full of hostages and make some demands. “Yo, Feds! I want pizzas up here now! And a million dollars and a helicopter and a police radio, or I see how big a crater ten pounds of homemade plastic explosives can make where this fuckin’ building used to be! And no damn anchovies!”

  The Feds couldn’t understand that they weren’t dealing with criminals, that they were dealing with freedom fighters. Would the men at Lexington and Concord have seized hostages and ordered takeout and a million big ones? This was a war. If civilians died, they died, casualties in the greater scheme of things. But a hostage situation would net him nothing at all. And even if he got a million dollars—which he would give to the cause—and got away with it, the computer strips hidden in the money could track him every mile he went.

  Brownwood didn’t want to stay in the building, but wanted to get out of it and on his way. There was a special place where he wanted to set his device, and a science fiction and fantasy convention wasn’t it. But the FBI would have surveillance cameras all around the area, watching for his face. He needed to get past those cameras without being seen and one of these costumes would be the perfect vehicle. They weren’t for sale. Books, swords, videotapes, jewelry, all of that was for sale in abundance. So were masks and clothing of all sorts—some of the clothes were disgusting, typical of the corruption liberalism had brought to America. But what he needed was a complete costume and there was only one way to get that...

  Swan supposed that, once her magical abilities had returned to full strength, she could get back to her own universe merely by summoning the magical energy in the air—she could feel that this place had such energy in abundance—and repeating the incantation which had brought her here, only completely backwards. That was, at least, the usual way of such things. There was, of course, the problem that she might return to exactly the same spot she had left, which would now be nothingness. Then, just like a mortal, she would die.

  Logic again came to her rescue, or at least she told herself that it was logic. If she had stood a span to her right or left in the instant when she left her universe, she would probably have arrived here a span to the right or left of where she had. So, if she made certain that when she used her magic to leave here and return to her own universe she was a commensurate distance from the spot where she had arrived (as if that paralleled the castle) to be well out of range of the Mist of Oblivion, she would be all right. On the other hand, if she had stood a span to the right or left before leaving her own universe, she might have come to still a different universe than this. That would mean that unless she left this universe from the exact spot where she had arrived, she would not return to her own universe. But if this spell had to be all that exact, logic dictated that she would return to her own universe within the Mist of Oblivion, in which case she would be dead. Under her breath, Swan muttered that word that Erg’Ran didn’t think proper for her to use.

  “What’s that mean?” It was her newfound friend with the studded animal collar and the short skirt who asked.

  “Oh, just a local expression where I come from,” Swan answered. The language spell had required little magical energy and was working remarkably well. She understood these people’s speech perfectly, and they seemed to understand her just as easily. The girl’s name was Alicia, and Alicia had been joined by her friend Gardner. Gardner was dressed even more strangely. He, too, wore an animal collar—usually worn by something called a dog, Swan had learned—and there was a leash attached to it, the end of which Alicia kept looped around her wrist. Gardner also wore something called handcuffs—they appeared to be rather flimsy seeming but nonetheless well-made manacles—on his wrists. They were linked together by a length of delicate chain. When Gardner firs joined them, Swan had asked Alicia, “Is he some sort of prisoner?”

  Alicia winked at her, announcing, “He’s a prisoner of love, honey!”

  Swan was uncertain what that meant, although she felt that she had the general idea.

  For some time, Swan, Alicia, Gardner and the half-cat, half-woman had been seated on a very comfortable staircase. Many strangely dressed persons went up and down its length. Some of the women were very beautiful, some of the men very handsome. This universe seemed like a nice enough place to visit, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to live in it. The future of Creath was her responsibility, as was the safety of the Company of Mir. Almost certainly, her spell which had protected the Company was dissolved when she made her escape. There was much to do.

  Periodically, Alicia would say, “I wish I could smoke.” At first, Swan was aghast that someone wanted to be set afire (despite Alicia’s bizarre appearance, the girl didn’t seem that strange). Later, Swan realized that Alicia wanted to set fire to something else, not actually smoke herself. But, it was hard to imagine Alicia with a pipe like the one which old Erg’Ran habituated.

  Alicia had been consulting what was called a mini-program. After a moment, she announced, “There’s a sword fighting demonstration. Sounds neat. Wanna watch?”

  “Sword fighting? Yes!”

  “Come on Gardner.” Alicia tugged at Gardner’s leash as she stood up. Gardner walked a little behind them as they wove their way through the crowded corridor. A creature covered in fur, with a horrible face and weapons of all types festooned about its body, passed by them and called out, “Hey, Alicia.”

  “Neat costume, Farley!”

  “So, everyone here is costumed as some character out of a book or—”

  “Book or movie or TV maybe,” Alicia informed her.

  The meanings of “movie” and “TV” were unknown to Swan, but she would somehow divine them.

  Their band wandered along many passageways, the sounds of speech and laughter filling the air. At one point, there was a doorway leading to the outside, and Swan accompanied her companions, Alicia proclaiming, “I gotta grab a smoke.”

  In fact, Alicia’s “smoke” was nothing like that of Erg’Ran, but a white paper cylinder, the ground leaves encased within it as they would be in the bowl of a pipe.

  “Drag?” Alicia asked her.

  “Drag what?” Swan answered.

  “You’re cool, Swan!” Alicia laughed.

  Swan remarked, “No, it is a little warm with this dress, actually. Where I come from, it is cold now, and snow is falling.”

  “The weather has really been crazy bad lately,” the half-cat, half-woman named Brenda announced.

  “Has it?” Swan asked. “Crazy” seemed to be a word describing mental aberration. Was the “weather” here, rather than a combination of natural forces occasionally tampered with by magical means, regularly controlled by some sorceress with evil intent? If that were so, did evil like that of her mother, Eran, the Queen Sorceress, exist throughout the universe?

  Swan and her friends re-entered the structure and wove their way along many more passageways until, at last, they reached a hall of some considerable size. From within, she could hear the clanking of swords beaten against shields, and Swan reached to the hilt of her own sword. At the entrance to the edifice, right after she had magically changed pieces of paper from her spell bag into looking like the thing called “money” so that she could pay for her membership, her sword was “peace-bonded.” A fibrous material, like a length of semitransparent vine or small intestine, was wound round the hilt of her sword and to a strap in the frog, to lock the blade in its scabbard. She was ready to magically break this peace bond should the swordplay from within the hall demand.

  Alan Garrison leaned deeper into his chosen corner near the doors, scanning the faces of everyone who entered, looking for William Brownwood.

  If Brownwood had a package with him of any kind, it would be the bomb. What if he saw Brownwood and there were no package, meaning that the device was hidden somewhere? At the very moment that he would see Brownwood, a chain of decisions would have to be made. Should he take Brownwood down, attempt to follow Brownwood until reaching a less peopled area, what? Should he call in backup on
the tiny radio that he wore? Should he attempt to arrest Brownwood—there were charges aplenty from which to choose—or should he go for an instant kill?

  Alan Garrison had never killed anyone. He’d come close to doing so on three occasions, once having to shoot a suspect twice in the chest in order to prevent the suspect’s killing of another agent. But the suspect lived, stood trial, was convicted. In the close confines of the convention, there could be no chances taken, especially considering the bomb.

  Wisnewski was right, perhaps, that this was a foolish move, going after Brownwood alone. But the other way, an evacuation and a siege, would either let William Brownwood slip through their fingers and use his explosive device, create a hostage situation of ridiculous proportions or force Brownwood to prematurely detonate his device out of desperation.

  “Hello, Alan! Good to see you. I hope you’re having a good time. I’m late for a meeting.” The dark-haired, bearded man who ran DragonCon greeted him with a smile, then began talking into a cell phone. As he continued past, he looked back over his shoulder at Garrison and added, “Gotta run. Let’s get together for a drink later.” And Ed Kramer was there and gone.

  “Hello, Ed! Good-bye, Ed!” Alan Garrison resumed his watch. He was finally rewarded, not with the face of a mad bomber, but with the face of an angel, the loveliest face he had ever seen. She was dressed as some sort of medieval fantasy character, so authentically attired in long midnight blue gown, grey hooded fur-ruffed cape and elaborately hiked sword that she must have spent either a ton of money or a ton of time creating the costume. Soft waves of impossibly beautiful auburn hair cascaded to her waist. Her features were at once delicate, yet strong, her cheekbones the kind that a high-fashion model would kill for. Her eyes were the softest, most strikingly beautiful grey-green color that he had ever seen. The convention badge that she wore read, “Swan Creath.”