The Putt at the End of the World Read online

  “Shit,” said Ned. He went quickly to the window and looked at the ledge, pondering an escape. But it was a long, sickening way to the ground, and Ned was not big on heights.

  “Calm down,” said Edna.

  “Calm down?” said Ned. “Calm DOWN?”

  “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” shouted Franklin. “I’M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU.”

  Ned warily approached the door. “You’re not?” he asked.

  “We don’t have time to fight over that whore,” said Franklin.

  “WHO ARE YOU CALLING A WHORE?” shouted Edna, striding to the door and yanking it open to reveal Franklin and, walking past in the hallway, Alan Greenspan, who nodded politely but did not in any way appear to register the fact that Edna was stark naked.

  “I’m calling you a whore, you whore,” said Franklin.

  “And what about your naked golf lady?” sneered Edna. “Was she showing you how to grip your putter?”

  “I didn’t touch her!” said Franklin. “She showed up in my fucking window!”

  “Oh, right,” said Edna. “You expect me to believe — Oh, hello, sir!” She gave a little friendly wave to Prince Charles, who was walking past with two bodyguards and trying, with zero success, not to notice Edna’s body.

  “Let’s get out of the hall,” said Ned, drawing Franklin into the room and closing the door. “Listen,” he said to Franklin. “We’re supposed to be professionals. We need to set aside our personal business here and get to work.”

  “Agreed,” said Franklin.

  “Okay,” said Ned, much relieved that Franklin was over his jealousy. “Now where do we stand?”

  “We’ve doubled the security at the estate perimeter,” said Franklin, whose plan was to kill Ned later. “We’ve added another perimeter outside of that, with constant patrols in the buffer zone between the two. We have two AWACS planes doing surveillance of the airspace in twelve-hour rotations, and have fighters in the air ’round the clock. Nobody, nobody can get in or out of here without our knowing it.”

  “It’s who’s already here that I’m worried about,” said Ned.

  “Aye, that’s our big problem now,” said Franklin. “That, and the fucking Semtex.”

  “That’s what it is?” asked Edna. “You’re sure?”

  “Aye,” said Franklin, not looking at her, still talking to Ned. “We don’t have the final results yet, but looks like the golf ball that blew up was from the batch we’ve been looking for. Looks like our boy Le Tour smuggled the plastique in that way — he just fucked up and left one ball in the lady’s bag.”

  “Lady?” sniffed Edna.

  “Whatever,” said Franklin. “Point is, Le Tour’s got enough of that shit left to turn this whole fucking castle into a crater. He’s on the grounds somewhere, and we’ve got to find him.”

  “And now he knows we’re on to him,” said Ned.

  “Maybe not,” said Franklin. “We’ve put out the story that we think the exploding ball was just a prank. So far, people seem to be buying it. Somebody inside this castle has to be working with that fucker Le Tour. We’re hoping our story gets to him. We’re hoping he lets his guard down.”

  “Let’s hope,” said Ned. “Meanwhile, what’s our plan?”

  “First thing,” said Franklin, “we search every fucking room in this place. Bates is throwing his big welcome banquet tonight; all the guests are heading there now. While they eat, we go room to room till we find the Semtex.”

  “And if we don’t find it?” asked Ned.

  “Then at least we know the castle is safe,” said Franklin. “We work the grounds next.”

  “Do we have explosive-sniffing dogs?”

  “They should be arriving downstairs” — Franklin checked his watch — “right about now.”

  “Let’s go,” said Ned, turning toward the door, glad to be back at work.

  “Right,” said Franklin, following.

  “I’ll catch up,” said the still-naked Edna. “Let me just throw some clothes on.”

  Neither man answered. The door slammed shut, leaving Edna alone. She moved to the door and listened for a moment, then walked over to a floor lamp standing near the window. She unscrewed the fastener holding the lampshade on, then removed the lampshade and set it down, exposing the bulb. She moved the lamp so that it was right next to the window, then turned it on. The bulb’s harsh light illuminated her body. Grunting, Edna raised the window and leaned out, feeling the cold rain on her breasts. She stood still for a moment, staring into the distance. Then she slowly raised her right hand and held it in front of her, using her thumb and forefinger to make the “okay” sign. She held it for a full ten seconds.

  Out on the rainswept bluff, peering through his binoculars, Le Tour saw the sign and smiled.

  “Ain’t we going to the banquet?” asked Jake Turmoil.

  “Not straightaway we’re not,” answered Billy Angel. “Not till I get my head right.”

  “I got nothin’ with me,” said Jake Turmoil, whose real name was Nigel Frimpett. He had been required to change it when he was hired as the head bodyguard to Billy Angel, whose real name was Harry Pudd. “You told me to leave the bleedin’ briefcase in London.”

  The briefcase contained enough high-grade cocaine to severely impair both houses of Parliament. Usually it was in the possession of a trusted member of the Billy Angel entourage, who was under strict orders never to be more than a few steps away from Billy Angel. It was a system patterned after the one used to make sure the president of the United States always had access to the nuclear launch codes, except that Billy Angel used his access a lot more often than the president used his.

  “I know we haven’t got the bleedin’ briefcase,” said Billy Angel. “I met somebody who’s gonna help us out.”

  “Who?” asked Jake Turmoil.

  “Woman,” said Billy Angel, who was used to being offered things by women. “We’re to meet her on the golf course, fourth tee, in ten minutes’ time.”

  “Christ, you sure?” asked Jake Turmoil. “There’s bleedin’ cops every — ”

  “I know there’s bleedin’ cops every bleedin’ where,” said Billy Angel. “That’s why were goin’ out in the bleedin’ rain. But I am fucked if I’m gonna go sit in that bleedin’ banquet next to Al bleedin’ Gore and listen to him babble about global bleedin’ warmin’ without first takin’ somethin’ for my bleedin’ head.”

  “Al Gore?” said Jake Turmoil, who did not follow current events. “The football player?”

  “Bleedin’ Christ,” said Billy Angel, heading out the main castle door into the rain.

  The rain was starting to drive Sheena crazy, dripping from her hair into her eyes, slowly soaking through her allegedly waterproof jacket and hood. The cold was also getting to her, especially her feet, which she knew were going to hurt like hell when they regained feeling, if they ever did.

  But what was really pissing her off was Le Tour, who for nearly thirty minutes had just stood there, smiling smugly, like a man enjoying a day at the beach. He had made it clear he wanted her to be quiet, but she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Will you please tell me what the fuck is going on?” she hissed.

  “Not now,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Now. I have killed people for you, and I have let you screw me, and now I am out here getting pneumonia because of you, and I want to know what is going on.”

  Le Tour sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “For one thing, I want to know why you let that golf ball explode.”

  “I told you. So that the fools would look for exploding golf balls.”

  “Yes, but why? Do you want them to find the Semtex? Why did we go to all that trouble to bring it here if we aren’t going to use it?”

  “But we are using it.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought we were going to blow this place up, with all those people in it. Isn’t that the whole fucking point? How do we do that if they find the Semtex?”
>
  Le Tour shook his head, a teacher disappointed with his pupil.

  “Sheena,” he said. “Think for a moment. Suppose we did that. Suppose we blew this castle up, killed all the heads of state, the pope, the media, everybody. Then what?”

  “Well, then, there would be, I guess . . . I mean there would be chaos,” said Sheena. “Worldwide economic collapse. Anarchy. Right?”

  Le Tour gave her a pitying look.

  “Sheena,” he said, “you are a smart woman, and you are wonderful in the bed. But you are also very naive.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Sheena, wanting to hate him for calling her naive, but undeniably flattered by what he’d said about her in bed.

  “I mean,” he said, “if we blow up this castle, if we kill all these so-called world leaders, nothing will happen. These people are figureheads. If we kill them, the world will be shocked, yes — everybody will say a terrible thing happened here, a tragedy. There will be many big, sad televised funerals. And before the coffins are in the ground, there will be new figureheads, no different from the ones we killed. Oh, they will make some noise, declare war on terrorism, but otherwise things will go on exactly as before. Because the institutions that these figureheads think they lead — the governments, the armies, the multinational corporations — have far too much invested in the way the world works now to let it be changed just because we kill these preening, self-important people who think they rule the world — these fools who came here, lured by their own vanity, to play a stupid game.”

  Sheena stared into the gloom, rain dripping into her eyes, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. Softly she said, “So we’re not going to blow them up?”

  “Maybe a few,” said Le Tour, “to reinforce the Semtex diversion. But no, that is not our plan.”

  “Then . . . what is our plan?”

  Le Tour looked at her for a few moments, as if deciding whether or not to trust her. Finally he said, “Think of a computer virus.”

  “What?”

  “A computer virus,” he repeated. “What does it do?”

  “It . . . it causes the computer to malfunction.”

  “Yes, but in a certain way. It does not destroy the computer. It takes over the computer. It infects it. It uses it.”

  Sheena was frowning at him, trying to see where he was going.

  “And if it is a particularly well-designed virus,” said Le Tour, “it uses the host computer to connect with, and transmit itself to, another computer, which in turn connects with — ”

  “I got that,” said Sheena impatiently. “I know how a computer virus works. What does that have to do with this golf tournament?”

  Le Tour smiled indulgently. “Imagine,” he said, “if you had devised a wonderfully sophisticated computer virus. If you wanted to do maximum damage with it, what computers would you want to infect? Would you want to infect little home PCs where children play video games?”

  “No,” said Sheena, thinking about it. “I’d want to infect the biggest, most powerful . . . wait a minute. We’re not really talking about computers, are we?”

  “No,” said Le Tour.

  “We’re taking about a virus that infects people.”

  Le Tour’s smiled broadened. He was proud of his pupil now. “Go on,” he said.

  “You’re talking about something . . . something like a virus . . . that will infect the world leaders here . . . something that will control their behavior, and . . .”

  “Yes?” encouraged Le Tour.

  “. . . something that they can pass on to others, after they leave,” Sheena said.

  “Very good!” said Le Tour.

  “My God,” said Sheena, thinking about it. “If you could control these people, and they passed the virus along to the people under them, and they passed it along to the people under them, in no time you’d control . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “. . . my God,” said Sheena, “you’d control the whole fucking world.”

  Le Tour’s smile was radiant now.

  “But how does it — ”

  “Ssssh,” hissed Le Tour, cutting her off. “They’re coming.”

  “I don’t see nobody,” said Jake Turmoil, peering through the rain.

  “She said she’d be here,” said Billy Angel, jumping up and down to keep warm. “Fourth tee. That bitch better not be . . . Oh, here she is. Hello, luv.”

  “Hello, Billy,” said the petite woman approaching them. She’d obviously been waiting in the rain for quite a while. Her hooded jacket was soaked.

  “So where is it?” asked Billy Angel.

  “That’s it?” asked the woman. “Just, where is it? No more sweet talk? I thought we were gonna get together, Billy. I thought you thought I was cute.”

  “Listen,” said Billy Angel, “I’m bleedin’ freezin’ out here and I haven’t got time for this shit. Just give it to me, okay?”

  Jake Turmoil stepped forward in a threatening manner, which, as Billy Angel’s bodyguard, was mainly what he did. “He says give it to him, bitch,” he said.

  “Okay, Billy,” said Sheena. “I’ll give it to you.”

  It took her just a hair over one second to break Billy Angel’s neck and another two to break Jake Turmoil’s. Usually she’d have been quicker, but her hands were almost numb.

  “Who’s the big one?” asked Le Tour, sauntering up.

  “Bodyguard,” said Sheena.

  “Ah,” said Le Tour. “Can’t be too careful.”

  It took them ten minutes to strip the bodies and bury them in a sand trap. In another two minutes, Le Tour had changed into Billy Angel’s ratty leather jacket and jeans. From a knapsack he produced a wig of blond curls, a small makeup case, and a flashlight. In five more minutes, with Sheena’s help, he looked astonishingly like Billy Angel.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “Could I tour as the rock legend himself?”

  “You probably have too much musical talent,” she said.

  He laughed. He was starting to like her.

  “Listen,” she said. “About this virus thing — ”

  “No time now,” he said. “Billy Angel is due at the banquet.”

  “Please,” she said, “at least summarize it. I’m risking my life here. I want to know for what.”

  “Okay,” said Le Tour. “I don’t really understand the details myself, but basically it’s transmitted eyeball to eyeball, like some kind of super-hypnosis. But to make it work, both the person transmitting it and the person receiving it have to be chemically altered.”

  “Chemically altered?” said Sheena. “How?”

  “You ingest this stuff, called TEEX, T-E-E-X. I don’t know what it stands for, but it’s some kind of extremely sophisticated neurological agent — tasteless, odorless, easy to hide in food.”

  “Like the food at tonight’s banquet,” said Sheena.

  “Very good!” Le Tour laughed.

  “So what does this stuff, this . . .”

  “TEEX,” said Le Tour.

  “Right, what does this TEEX do?”

  “It permanently alters your brain chemistry,” said Le Tour. “I couldn’t begin to comprehend the mechanism — some very smart people developed this — but essentially it changes your brain so that it can be programmed to send and receive commands through your eyes. Forever.”

  “Jesus,” said Sheena. “Who developed this?”

  “Now that’s something I can’t tell you,” said Le Tour.

  “It would have to be somebody with a lot of money,” said Sheena, thinking out loud. “Somebody who could pay for top researchers and keep them quiet . . . and it would have to be somebody who knew that all these world leaders would be in one pl — Jesus.”

  Le Tour was looking at her.

  “It’s Phillip Bates,” she said. “It’s Phillip fucking Bates you’re working for.”

  “You are a clever girl,” he said. He leaned over and gave her a genuinely affectionate kiss.

  He felt genuine r
egret when he broke her neck.

  Chapter Eight

  DIGITAL PRONATION

  by James W. Hall

  “Master Bates?”

  “I told you not to call me that!”

  Phillip Bates was standing naked in the center of his room, staring up at the extraordinary version of himself projected on the virtual reality window. The digital Bates was swinging a driver, a magnificent, flawless stroke, an amalgam of Zamora’s grip, Sprague’s backswing, Ben Hogan’s shoulder turn, and Rita’s hip snap.

  “Master Bates?”

  Phillip Bates turned to Edna Zuckerman. His male appendage was in a state of high agitation. The sight of himself swinging that perfect stroke was the most sexually charged experience Phillip Bates had ever known.

  “How many times do I have to ask you not to call me that?”

  “Do you think,” Edna said, “just for a moment or two you could hang a sheet over that thing?”

  She nodded in the general direction of Bates’s midriff.

  “I’m excited,” Bates said. “This is what happens.”

  “Looking at yourself gets you excited?”

  “Looking at myself do that,” he said.

  He stared up at the wondrous spectacle. His tee shot sailing hot and straight down the center of the fairway. Four hundred yards. Forget Tiger Woods. Forget Palmer and Nicklaus. Phillip Bates was the man to be reckoned with now. Phillip Bates could put that little white dimpled ball into cosmic orbit. He was going to make history. He was going to change the world as we know it.

  “That isn’t real, Master Bates. That’s a bleeding illusion.”

  Phillip Bates drew his eyes from the virtual reality window and gave Edna a long smoldering look. On lesser mortals that same look had been known to permanently shrivel sphincter muscles, requiring a speedy surgical response.

  “That, my dear Ms. Zuckerman, is the kind of uninformed, puerile judgment I’ve come to expect from you.”

  “But it’s fake,” she said. “It’s just fucking electrons dancing on a screen.”

  “Name me something that isn’t just electrons, Ms. Zuckerman. Go on, name one thing in the universe that isn’t composed of the very same materials as that. But then you couldn’t do that. Because there is nothing. And that’s exactly my point. Now take another look at that. Look at that stroke, look at the fluid power, the effortlessness and grace. Tell me, have you ever seen such athletic splendor before? Such sublime, extraordinary elegance? No, you haven’t. No one has. It has never existed before. Parts of that stroke have existed, yes. But not the stroke in its flawless entirety. And when the world sees that, when the world knows what Phillip Bates is capable of, my God, there’ll be no stopping me.”