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  Chapter 1

  PART ONE

  Friday, February 29th, 2008. Blue Mountain Lake, NY.

  Mr. Orville Johnson, semi-retired CEO of Nutley Enterprises, Ltd., a large chemical, pharmaceutical, and food services conglomerate, was not sure whether he loved the fifty acres of rolling woodland behind his “cottage” in the southern Adirondacks for their own sake, because they were his, or both of the above. He asked himself this question, as, all bundled up in a big green down parka, fur hat, Mukluks, and Nubuck boots into which he had tucked his green corduroy trousers, he crunched through an inch of snow in said woods. From his current vantage point behind a hillock about two hundred yards into the woods, all he could see of the big stone house was a finger of white smoke thrusting directly up into the blue sky. Mr. Johnson, having just eaten his lunch, was “obeying doctor’s orders” on this beautiful, clear, and cold, but windless, late February afternoon.

  “Well,” he silently answered his own question, “it depends who’s asking.” If it had been a stranger or one of his well-heeled tree-hugging neighbors, he would have unhesitatingly replied, radiating frankness, “Nature,” or “The Land,” perhaps adding, “of course.” If, however, it had been one of ten or twenty really kindred souls, he might just have winked or chortled. But he realized how unlikely it was that anyone in either category would ever ask him the question.

  Johnson’s knowledge of his wooded property was spotty, at best. He knew its exact dimensions, and where the boundary lines ran. He could tell you within a few dollars the current worth of the property, as either real estate or timber. He could even name a few of the trees, the obvious ones like oak, maple, and pine –or was it spruce? As for birds, if he saw the right one --say, a robin, sparrow, owl or hawk-- he could identify it, although he could not have done this from their songs or noises, with one exception: the fucking crows that cawed him awake at dawn almost every morning of every day he spent at the cottage -- in every season.

  Just then, Mr. Johnson heard a bird noise that was not only unidentifiable, but that he was certain he had never heard before. It was a sort of piercing whistle, so loud and so close behind him that it made him jump, then whirl around. As he whirled, a coil of rope hidden beneath a pile of leaves snaked around his right ankle, tautened, and flipped him head over teacup, swinging his round, solid, completely encased body, about a hundred-and-ninety pounds in all, twenty feet into the air. He then felt, but did not see, a strong hand yank the nape of his coat toward a branch of this tree –a beautiful, sturdy Gobbler Sawtooth Oak that still wore many of its leaves, albeit its yellow, winter ones.

  Mr. Orville Johnson felt the hand release his coat, but almost simultaneously, it seemed, he felt an equally strong arm encircle his neck, pulling him in closer to the trunk. A pinprick at the back of his neck, and he felt a sharp pain, then nothing. Neither his wife nor the cook, both inside the warm house, heard a sound, because the only ones he had made were a couple of tiny gasps and squeals.

  Friday, February 29th, 2008. Montreal, Canada; Glens Falls , N.Y.

  At 9:05 a.m., at the Station Centrale d’Autobus on Boul. de Maisonneuve in Montreal, a stocky man of medium height with cropped auburn hair and a matching, neatly trimmed beard had bought an Adirondack Trailways round-trip ticket to Glens Falls, NY. The morning was cold, as Montreal usually is in late February, twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit, with winds gusting up to thirty miles per hour. The man was dressed adequately, in brown corduroy trousers and a navy blue thigh-length down parka, but he wore no hat, because he wanted his hair color to be noticed.

  No reservation was required, and he had none. Since he had arrived at the station only a few minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart, and since there were several other last-minute customers on line behind him, his documents were given only a cursory inspection. They comprised a European Union passport; a two-year work permit, Group 21, Category 213, issued by the CIC (Citizenship and Immigration, Canada); and a certificate of employment with an engineering firm called Bulmer Engineering/Cowboy Consulting Company, headquartered in the small town of Bonnyville, Alberta. All three documents were in the name of Tomaz Goncalves. The Trailways clerk would later recall that M. Goncalves’s well-worn passport bore stamps from Canada, the United States, and four or five other non–E.U. countries.

  Paying for his ticket in Canadian currency ($88.43), M. Goncalves replied to the ticket seller’s polite inquiry regarding his purpose of travel: “affaires et tourisme.” He carried onto the bus two pieces of luggage, a medium-sized brown canvas duffel bag with a shoulder strap and a battered black attache’ case. Searched twice, by the Trailways employee at the curb where he boarded the bus, and then at the border by a U.S. Marshal, the duffel bag was found to contain a toiletry kit and assorted clothing, including a pair of boots and some socks and underwear. In the attache’ case were what appeared to be mostly work-related documents, such as blueprints, a letter of introduction, blank invoices, and a contractual agreement, all on company letterhead. There was also a detailed road map of the eastern United States. It occurred to the Marshal who searched M. Goncalves’s luggage to ask what use he planned to make of this map, but once again the line was long, and the traveler’s English was rudimentary, at best, so the officer did not pursue the matter. Nor was M. Goncalves asked by either the bus clerk or Marshall when he intended to return to Canada.

  The bus pulled up to the curb beside the small Glens Falls storefront depot exactly on schedule, at 1:20 p.m. Hefting the shoulder bag and carrying the attache’ case without visible effort, in the course of a two-mile trek through town to the only car rental agency, the traveler made three stops: at a delicatessen, a hardware store, and a camping supply store. At the delicatessen, he bought two sandwiches (roast beef, and ham and cheese, both with lettuce, tomato, and mustard), an apple, a banana, and a large bottle of water.

  “Paper or plastic?” he was asked, and, with a smile and a thick, Spanish-sounding accent, he chose paper. The clerk saw the man put the bag into his attache’ case. At the hardware store, he bought a sturdy hunting knife and fifty feet of clothesline; at the camping store, a black watch cap and a pair of Atlas (Canadian) 9 series, 30-inch, 32-ounce snow shoes, size 10E. According to the hardware and camping store clerks, these purchases all went into the duffel bag. He paid for everything with American money, almost three hundred dollars, in total. It was later inferred that this currency had been hidden in a spring-loaded compartment beneath the false bottom of the attache’ case. It was also inferred that the same compartment had held at least two black markers, several small laboratory or medical instruments, and a colorful rubber frog.

  Next, using a New York State driver’s license in the name of Jeffrey Rotunda, the man rented a white Ford Escort sedan, declaring that he would return it to this location within the week. He paid a deposit of $200 with a VISA card in the new name, returned the clerk’s wishes for a nice day (in unaccented American English), and put the duffel bag on the back seat, and the attache’ case, unsnapped, on the passenger seat. He then drove slowly out of town, heading northwest on State Route 28 toward Blue Mountain Lake, New York, which, as he knew, was sixty-four miles away, at the northern end of Adirondack Park.

  The two-lane highway had been plowed and sanded, and Mr. Rotunda expected to
reach his destination shortly before three. This would be his first visit to the scenic Adirondacks. Having read a great deal, and having looked at numerous photographs on the Internet, he anticipated (as he had told the Montreal ticket agent) that his visit would include tourism. Although traffic was light, he continued to observe the speed limits. After five more minutes, without taking his eyes off the road, he reached with his right hand into the case, felt for the water bottle, unscrewed the top, and put the bottle between his legs. Then, he randomly grabbed one of the sandwiches. Opening the aluminum foil wrapper, he hungrily and happily took his first large bite. It was the roast beef.

  Thursday, February 28, 2008. New York, NY.

  Recorded in several forms, including Geist, Geistmann, Geistbeck, and Geisthirt, this is a German surname. It has at least five possible origins and meanings. The first is topographical, and derives from the word geist, meaning ‘muddy’ or ‘barren.’ As such, it refers either to a marshy area, and hence somebody who lives in a village or even a single farm situated next to such a place, or as Geistbeck, from a place of that name meaning 'muddy river'. The second is from the word geiss, meaning ‘goat,’ and it is a pre-medieval occupational surname for a goatherd. The third is a robust nickname for a person considered by his peer group to be as stubborn as a goat, whilst the fourth is residential, and once described a person who lived at a house with the sign of a dove. House signs were the predecessors of house numbers, but did not always, by any means, have particular meaning. However, in this case, the dove was used to indicate the Holy Spirit, and therefore a house with a dove would have suggested that the inhabitants were of a religious or godly nature. The first recording of the surname was probably that of Heinrich Geist of Koln (Cologne), in the charters of that city in the year 1159. Fifth, and finally, in modern computer argot, geist means ‘bug’ or ‘spam.’

  A quick search turned up forty translations of the German name (Japanese, Balinese, French, etc.). Japanese, alone, had six translations: konpaku, rei, bourei, yuurei, youma, and go-suto (ha!). And Arabic? A circumlocution, of course: اسْم : روح . شَبَح . طيف’ اسْم : إنسان . رَجُل . بيدق الشطرنج . حجر الداما

  “Ha!” said Robinson, stroking his beard. “He chose a good name.” He scribbled some notes on a yellow legal pad, then resumed scrolling through the dossier.

  Geistmann, Episode Two

  GEISTMANN, Episode Two.

  Ron Singer

  Saturday, March 1st, 2008. New York, New York.

  At 9:30 a.m. Geistmann stood on a crowded sidewalk in front of the Whole Foods store on Union Square getting ready to shop for his lunch. He planned to eat it on the 1:05 pm AMTRAK Northeast Corridor-1 train, arriving 4:25, Union Station, Washington, D.C. He would have more than enough time to buy the food, do a little sightseeing, then make his way back to Penn Station.

  It was a clear, windless day in New York, with temperatures that Americans would call “seasonal.” Summer, he knew, was the one season when you definitely did not want to chance a visit to this city. The winter light was lovely just now, as it bounced off the older, granite buildings. He looked north to the massive gothic and moderne New York Life Insurance tower. Using a little mirror chip at the corner of his left eyeglass lens to see around to the face of the building, he checked whether they had fixed the big clock since his last visit almost six years ago. He glanced at his own watch and nodded his approval: 9:31 a.m., the clock was now correct to the minute. As for the huge new digital abomination just beside the violet-and-gold sculptural vomit on the wall half a block to his right ... never mind.

  A half hour earlier, at Penn Station, as a tall, slender African-American, Geistmann had bought his ticket and left his duffel bag and attache’ case in a checkroom. The attendant, a big soft white woman, probably Jewish, had looked almost apologetic as she hastily turned over the innocuous visible contents of the bag and case. Geistmann had surmised that she might have been feeling some sort of liberal guilt for searching the luggage of such a distinguished-looking “person of color.” That all lockers had been eliminated from U.S. airports, and train and bus stations, after nine-eleven-oh-one, he vigorously applauded.

  In early 2002, Geistmann had visited the Trade Towers site as a tourist, to see for himself. He found the huge crater deplorable. Had it really been necessary to wreak so much carnage just to get their point across? Whatever else you could say about this outfit, they definitely lacked finesse. Besides, along with Istanbul and Rome, New York was one of his favorite cities. You did not do such things to beautiful cities! Not even Paris, for that matter, the target of the insane proto- nine-eleven Algerian fanatics who had planned to fly a hijacked, fuel-laden plane right into the Eiffel tower. That bloody fiasco had taken place less than a year before Geistmann had struck his own, very different, blow. Had there been some sort of “fraudian” connection? He left that sort of thing to his pursuers and their hired half-wits.

  Was it boredom that had made him use one of his riskiest identities for the morning visit to Penn Station? “Mr. Donald Warburton, Secretary-General, Interpol (“Donald Warfield” being the man’s actual name). He had even flashed a hokey-looking official ID, which had drawn two stares and a “Yes, Sir!” As if men like Warburton/Warfield wandered around train stations by themselves! Now he found himself almost hoping that, by the time he returned to the station, the use of this identity would have prompted a phone call and a heightened alert. It would be excellent fun to enter the station again, this time as a male twenty-something suburban Suit, and to walk past the clusters of National Guardsmen and Guardswomen with their lovely, well-trained Alsatians. Would the name on his ticket get him stopped? If so, what would he do?

  Why was he acting this way? There was something about New York that, even more than usual, made Geistmann crave excitement. “Edgy” was the word for this place. Something about New York, like his other favorite urban conurbations, seemed to excite him. Once, also in 2002, coincidentally, in the central waiting room of the Brussels train station, he had been about to board the Thalys to Paris. Suddenly, he had emitted a loud bark, just one, from behind a temporary dry wall. As anticipated, all three Alsatians in his line of vision had pricked up their ears, but they did not otherwise move, and their stolid handlers did not react at all. Next time he tried this trick, if he wanted to set off a little pandemonium, he would squirt a little dog scent into the air to complement the barking.

  May, 2002. Brussels, Belgium.

  A male qualifier in the World Squash Federation Tournament of Champions abruptly withdrew after an (un-taped) qualifying match, which he had won. Meanwhile, a French player, seeded #1, was disqualified after testing positive for a banned substance, leaving the victory to a Moroccan, the 9th seed. The Frenchman, who was a celebrated anti-drug campaigner, vociferously denied the charge. It turned out that the qualifier had been lodged at the tournament hotel facility, where he presumably doped the Frenchman in his sleep. Interpol was able to obtain a verbal description of the culprit from a retired British military officer and squash aficionado who had watched all four qualifying matches. This description is thought to be the most accurate available description of Subject to date. You cannot really fake your height or build on a squash court. Player was approximately 5’11’’ (1.77 meters), wiry build, weight between 155-175 pounds (75- 79 kilograms), in the very top echelon even for squash fitness. Age: 30-35?

  Robinson: Huh!

  Saturday, March 1, 2008. New York, NY.

  The old woman was sensibly dressed in a long blue woolen coat with matching watch cap and gray New Balance running shoes. The loaded Parabellum, safety catch on, was in a vinyl shopping bag with a floral pattern, which in turn sat in the wire basket behind the handlebars of her walker. Unobtrusively using the walker to clear a path through the crowd of self-centered, oblivious shoppers, she selected a pre-packaged lunch of cheese, rolls, and fruit. Did old people really waste their money on these pre-packaged meals? Rich ones might, and the
market seemed full of them. Perhaps it was his earlier recklessness, but now Geistmann vowed to keep interpersonal contacts to a minimum, at least until he left New York. But, as he moved toward the checkout counters at the front of the store, he saw something that made him break his vow.

  Whole Foods has a checkout system designed to give shoppers a visible sense of justice. Whether you get on the express lines (ten items or fewer), or the “local,” a large, color-coded digital display of numbers on a hanging flat-screen panel in front, between the lines and the numerous cash registers, move the cordons of shoppers forward in strict order. To assist the innumerate and to discourage line jumping, an employee is also stationed below each of the two digital displays. A machine voice announces each number, and arrows (and the employee) point toward the correct bank of registers –somewhat confusingly, since the banks overlap, rather than correspond, with the local and express sections.

  Intentionally, and aware that anyone who noticed would credit it to the old woman’s myopia (she wore Coke bottle glasses), Geistmann got on the end of one of the four local lines. Even though these were half as long as the express lines, he knew the wait would be twice as long. He was fourth in line, and the sparse crowd in the store reminded him of how late New Yorkers were in getting started on weekend mornings. Nowadays, for that matter, this pattern seemed to obtain in most large cities of the rich world. When he was younger, the pattern would become less pronounced as you moved north through Europe. But by now, at least judging from the empty churches, shops and streets, even Danes and Germans appeared to spend their weekend mornings lolling, or doing whatever else they did, in bed. The laziest country of all was, of course, France, where, whatever day it was, no one other than the working classes ever did much work at all. Epater le bourgeoisie.