Pulling The Dragon's Tail (26 page)

Campbell exhibits unique body language whenever
Skip prays to his deity, Father Abraham. She asked me for advice
about a technical problem with her RVT scanner.

Es: Es has left us temporarily on another
important security matter in Krakow, asking me to withhold the
information of her whereabouts from the others. However, she has
maintained constant contact with Skip. I am very fond of Es.

The words echoed in Thatcher’s ears: “I can’t be
your father. I can’t be your father. I can’t be your father.”
Thatcher Grady sat alone on the grass next to a lake outside one of
the cottages on the CHOFA center premises near Stonehenge in
southern England. As lake mist rose lazily skyward, Thatcher
fumbled for something in his pants pocket.

Sleep had eluded him the entire night. It had
been nearly a day since he’d arrived at the center. In a matter of
hours, Thatcher had gone from discovering that his long sought
after father was in denial of being Thatcher’s father, to narrowly
escaping sharks, to being a virtual prisoner of Nate and Es. It was
a familiar life-long roller coaster for him; first hopefulness,
then—always—gut wrenching twists and turns of bitterness and
despair.

Meanwhile, at a cottage around the perimeter of
the lake, about a half-kilometer from Thatcher, Nate also stared
out at the still morning water, which mirrored a stand of trees in
its cold blue visage.

“Eyes open, face to the sky. Help me, Father
Abraham.” After the clasped hand ritual, he sat down on the back
porch, shivering in the cold, clammy dampness. “Father Abraham,
show me the path You would have me choose.” But he already knew the
answer.

* * * * * *

An hour later, Nate walked with Thatcher along a
winding pathway. Mature hardwoods stretched in every direction. The
new growth of spring leaves created a soft fuzzy effect.

“How much do you know about my relationship with
your mom?” asked Nate.

The sharp reporter immediately noted the irony
that their lack of apparent age discrepancies made them appear more
like brothers than of father and son. “Not much. She pretty well
hid her past from me.” Thatcher cursed himself for comparing his
cadence and walking style with the man beside him.

“Well,” Nate offered, “let me fill you in. We
dated on and off for ten years in the ‘20s. We’d met in an
ecological conservation group. I gave frequent talks about the
consequences of global warming. Naturally she was impressed with
me.” He smiled.

“Naturally,” replied Thatcher with a
half-hearted smile.

“I have nothing but positive things to say about
McKinley. She was a lovely, charming woman. I once loved her very
much.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“Look, there’s always a ‘but’, and a reporter’s
always tuned to listen for whatever comes after the ‘but’. Therein
lies the drama.”

Nate was silent, listening to the crunch of dead
leaves underfoot.

Thatcher grabbed Nate’s elbow and they came to a
halt. “The real story I came for isn’t so much the drama of the
Alpha Group, but the story of me. I just want to call someone
Dad.”

Nate nodded and noted, “That’s quite the
incredible journey you’ve been on.”

Finally, Nate began a slow stroll and Thatcher
joined him. “We broke up a couple different times. We both found
other people. But we seemed fated for each other, meeting at
conferences by happenstance, and getting together again. But I was
beginning my spiritual search as, um, my own problems mounted.”

“I’ve also discovered that you had something to
do with End-Date research.”

He glanced nervously over to Thatcher. Trying to
be nonchalant without sounding evasive, he replied, “You know that
wrinkled old women have vivid imaginations. Look, like millions of
people, I’ve always been interested in the environment. McKinley
couldn’t handle that and called it off. I can’t really blame her. I
couldn’t handle myself, why should I expect her to try? Several
years after our break up I left the U.S., eventually finding my way
into the Church of Abraham.”

“But?”

“It wasn’t a pleasant break-up, everything
always ended in an argument.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“I think about February 2029.”

“For what it’s worth, I was born October 22,
2029.”

Nate stopped and faced Thatcher. “Look, I
suspected she was pregnant. I even asked her point blank, and she
denied it.” Throwing up his hands in disgust, he said, “Why am I
even telling you this? You could be trying to blackmail me. This
whole thing could be a set-up. I know next to nothing about you or
your motives.”

Thatcher was incensed. “I’d come halfway around
the globe to blackmail you, drain my savings, put my job in
jeopardy?” With the pitch of his voice rising, he said, “The only
problem is that you can’t deal with the notion that I’m your son.
Or maybe you can’t deal with the fact that you’re a father who
missed out entirely on his son’s youth. Or maybe you can’t deal
with your past with McKinley Harper? Well, I have to deal with all
that every friggin’ day! I’ve spent a lifetime looking for him— for
you
. If I’m this close, I’m not going to let you go. Do ya
see where I’m coming from?”

Nate had no reply to the pain etched across
Thatcher’s face.

“And now look at me,” Thatcher continued his
tirade. “I’m a virtual prisoner, and just when I was so close to
getting a new lease on life. You even confiscated my data chip. I
feel like an animal with a tracking device!”

He turned and marched defiantly up the path,
daring Nate to follow him.

Nate caught up to him. “Wait a minute. You’re
risking your job to find … your father?”

“Yeah.,” replied Thatcher sullenly, never taking
his eyes off the ground in front of him. “NetNews denied my
leave.”

“Regardless of our true relationship with each
other, it’s pretty amazing that you pulled off what nobody else has
apparently done; piece together the clues about the existence of
the experiment
. That alone makes a great storyline.”

“Ya want to hear more?”

“Why not? We seem to be stuck together for at
least a little while longer.”

Thatcher shared information about his formative
years, growing up splitting time between Minnesota and his mother’s
family business in Europe. “I was an only child. My mother came out
of the closet and lived with a woman for several years. Says men
drove her to it.”

At that Nate let out a chuckle. “Hope it wasn’t
me!”

“I never bought the lesbian thing. However, to
this day she hasn’t dated any more men, but neither is she living
with or dating any women. Early on, I got to travel a lot with her.
That’s where I learned new languages and cultures. When I hit high
school, I had trouble relating to my peers. I guess maybe I came
off as snobbish. Go figure. But my interests were also different
from most teens.

“When I was seventeen and on my way to college,
it hit me that I had begun searching for my father years before.
You know, casually looking at search engines and genealogical
records; stuff like that. Every country I visited I found myself
looking for him, wondering if he was here, hoping somehow to meet
him. Mom would always discourage my search. But I just kept looking
and pulled back from her. I’ve come to believe she’s the one who’s
running from her past.”

“Does she have any idea you’re here doing this
right now?”

“Oh! She’d die a thousand deaths. I turned my
interest in international studies into journalism. A perfect fit
for me to do investigative work, don’t ya think? Of course, we
overachievers with poor peer relationships skills are at great risk
for drug abuse.”

“Each generation seems to battle something,”
offered a sympathetic Nate.

“Well I’ve been battling that on and off for
years. It went from supermeth and crystals to the hi-tech stuff.
Did I hear right that Campbell works with computer-based and VR
addictions?”

“That’s right.”

“The anomie my generation feels, inheriting a
world that’s probably/maybe heading for an ice age, has a lot to do
with our drug use. But I’ve been able to cope by focusing on my
dream of finding Dad. And needless to say, when I found a link with
him and the rumored-to-exist anti-aging experiment, I redoubled my
efforts. I have to confess when I uncovered evidence that the
experiment was factual, I was so jealous. But then I realized, what
the hell’s the great advantage in living longer if the world’s in
such deep shit?”

“Good point,” Nate responded in an empathic
tone. “So are you still battling the hi-tech drugs?”

“I’m over the daily cravings. But I have my
moments. So anyway, I got a journalism degree online and on campus
at Northwestern in ‘50, and landed this dream job two years later
in New York. Even though the U.S is broken up into factions, New
York is still the best place to be for drama, intrigue, and
politics. And the perfect place to continue my quest for the
anti-aging experiment and you.”

“So how’d you get all these leads? I mean, Dr.
Hilliard covered his tracks pretty well.”

“Come on,” scolded Thatcher. “I’d never tell my
own mother—or father for that matter—what my sources are. But I’ll
tell you this, imagination or not, Ms. Zealand was quite an
interview. She was utterly fascinating, and utterly frustrating.
Most of her ramblings were paranoid, but that interview was the
final piece of the puzzle. She also talked about a society of
scientists called the Organization of Concerned Scientists, of the
Organ. Know anything about that?”

“Let’s just say I’m not denying or confirming
anything.” Nate smiled slyly.

They had nearly completed a circle around the
lake. Nate felt terribly guilty with what he had to say, but there
was no way around it. As much as his heart went out to Thatcher,
the reality was this: the reporter was mistaken on some things,
correct on others, and Nate was going to look out for his own
priorities.

“But Thatcher,” he sighed.

“There’s that ‘but’ again.”

With a heavy heart Nate continued. “Look. I’m
sorry that your search has to end like this. But I’m
positive
I’m not your father. No amount of talking will ever
change that. For security reasons, Es and I are in firm agreement
to keep you with us. We’re still unsure how to handle your
knowledge of the experiment. The transmitter you swallowed will see
to that. I think your enthusiasm to put your past together got you
to jump the gun.”

Thatcher’s shock was quickly overcome with
anger. “I can’t believe this shit. Yeah, I guess you not only have
no son, you have no past. You can’t just
not
deal with it! A
thousand years from now, it’ll still face ya. I’ll be gone, but
it’ll still haunt you. I can accept the truth. You obviously
can’t.”

A few hours later, Thatcher sat on the water’s
edge, stone-faced. Campbell approached him.

“Hi. How’re you doing?”

He looked up, glaring. “You’re a therapist, so
I’m sure Nate put you up to this. But I’ll play along. How am I? Ya
want the short or the long version?”

“Either one.” Campbell sat casually down next to
him.

“If your CLUES brain reader can’t pull it out of
me, I’ll just tell you the short version. Fuck my life!”

“That’s the short version, all right,” she said,
noting his uninviting body language. Thatcher was still as a
statue.
So cold and unloved
, she thought,
like my
own...
“Well,” she said, interrupting her thoughts and the
silence, “if you want to, just look me up.” She sauntered away.

When she had gotten about ten meters away, he
yelled after her, “Campbell. Please come back.”

She returned and sat down beside him.

“I guess I do need some help,” he said flatly.
“I never anticipated he’d reject me so completely.”

Campbell saw the body language of a desperate
man, a man who was slowly dying inside.

He reviewed some of the things he’d told Nate,
and how Nate just completely closed him off. After several minutes,
he glanced over to Campbell. “Have I put you to sleep yet?”

“Not at all. It’s a fascinating story; and
incredible how you and I are having this conversation about the
same man. Nate’s decision obviously hurts deeply. Anybody who cares
can see that.”

“Shit! Nobody cares!”

“I care that you’re in pain.”

“You may think you do, doctor, but you’ll never
convince me it’s just your ‘professional demeanor’ he replied
scornfully. “You don’t
really
care.”

She paused, watching some birds fly across the
lake. “I’m sorry you think that. Can I make a comment?”

“You sure as hell can’t make things any
worse.”

“I don’t think Nate’s rejecting you.

“Come again? You lost me back at the part where
you said he didn’t reject me.”

“Hear me out,” continued Campbell. “You
obviously have poured your heart and soul into finding your dad.
But look at things from Nate Kristopher’s perspective. Young, brash
reporter simultaneously breaks the secret to Dr. Hilliard’s
infamous experiment and says he is my son. In my opinion, you’ve
maybe just been naïve about this reunification fantasy.”

“Reunification fantasy?” Thatcher asked. He sat
up a bit straighter.

“Yes. Sincere as you appear to be, you’ve
nonetheless nurtured this belief that you could march right up to
him and say, ‘Here I am! Love me!’ You drop the name of Nate’s
former lover and claim instant son-hood
. And
you’ve also
propped yourself into a convoluted situation involving Gideon’s
Army, the End-Date, me, and Es. And that’s just touching the
surface.”

“Glory hallelujah! At least someone here vouches
that I’m not a blackmailer. Did you arrive at your conclusion
without the help of CLUES?”