Page 6 of Circle of Death
“I know it sounds impossible.Listen!I’m telling you the truth. I knew your ancestors. Your great-great-great-grandfathers. The men who passed their names down to you. They all worked for me—for the Shadow—back in the 1930s. You all grew up hearing the family stories. Iknowyou did. You know that Lamont Cranston and the Shadow are one and the same person.And I’m that person.”
Moe thinks for a second, then cocks his head. “Nah, you’re just some asshole with money to burn.” He turns to the others. “We’ve been pranked, fellas. This is a waste of time.”
“Hold on,” says Burbank, looking straight at me. “If you’re the Shadow,proveit.”
Of course, I figured it would come to this. But I didn’t want to spring it on them too soon. But now it’s my only chance of keeping them here.
“All right,” I say. “Watch.” Then I disappear.
“Holy shit!” Moe practically jumps off the sofa.
Burbank adjusts his glasses. “I’ll be damned.”
Jericho starts waving his thick arms around. “It’s a hologram!” he says. “It’s some kind of trick!” I reach out and grab his shoulder from behind. He whips around, fists up, staring into thin air.
The doors open behind me. Perfect timing. It’s Margo, carrying a trayful of cold beverages.
“I thought you gentlemen might be thirsty.”
I rematerialize and help Margo with the tray. Then I make the intros. “Jericho Druke, Moe Shrevnitz, Burbank—meet my wife, Margo Lane.”
“Yourwife?” says Burbank. “Lamont Cranston gotmarried?”
“Hard to believe, right?” says Margo. She holds up her left hand and wiggles her ring. “I was as surprised as anybody.”
Jericho plops down in a chair and starts mumbling to himself. “This cannot be real, this cannot be real…”
Moe steps forward, squinting hard at Margo. He leans in closer. His face lights up. “Goddamn!It’s true! I recognize you! I’ve seen pictures. From back then. I don’t know how, but—you’reMargo Lane!”
Margo puts her hand on his arm. “And I haven’t aged a day.”
CHAPTER 6
ENOUGH WITH GETTING acquainted. I lead the group over to a table with a simple video player. During the Confiscation early in the Khan regime, all mobile phones were disabled, and citizen access to the internet was shut down. The web is still not working, and computer software updates haven’t been available in years. So this is what passes for technology in the late twenty-first century—a basic 8K monitor with a slot for a video stick.
I tap the Play button. After a few seconds of static, an image pops on. I wave everybody in closer. “Take a look. This is why you’re here.”
It’s not a well-organized report, just a collection of short video clips, crudely edited and strung together. Some of the images are from handheld cameras, some from body cams. Most of the footage was taken secretly. It wasn’t meant to be pretty. It was meant to shock.
It sure as hell shocked me.
The first shots are from somewhere in Southeast Asia. Lush green mountains fill the background. In the foreground, just a few yards from the lens, men with flamethrowers are igniting rows of tall corn plants while villagers stand screaming and crying at the edge of the field. There’s no sound, which somehow makes it even more eerie and disturbing. After a jump cut, the flames spread across the field. Black smoke swirls all the way to the horizon.
“What the hell is this?” asks Jericho.
“Keep watching.”
After a jerky transition, the next scene shows a large desert oasis surrounded by men on horseback. The men are holding their reins taut, like they’re waiting for a signal.
A rider in a black headcloth waves his hand in a circle, unleashing the troops. They sweep through the circle of palms and lush grass at a hard gallop, driving the occupants out into the open. Old men. Young children. Mothers with infants. As the oasis-dwellers run, the horsemen chase them down. Leaning from their saddles, the riders hack with sabers and machetes, leaving separated limbs and mutilated bodies in the white sand.
“Jesus!” Moe is turning pale. Burbank turns away. Jericho is just getting angry.
“What’s happening?” he demands. “Whoarethese maniacs?”
“There’s more,” I say. I’ve watched the whole video dozens of times. It made me angry, too.
The next scene is grainy, shot at dusk. It shows a ragged line of teenagers, male and female, pale and wasted. Maybe two dozen. They’re standing shivering and naked on a stony beach, clearly terrified. A man with an electric prod walks behind them, stunning kids at random and watching them drop to the ground in grotesque spasms.
