“Hilda Traumen?” The Swiss Attaché for Environmental Policy looked up from her Washington D.C. desk, peering over her reading glasses with bright blue eyes. Hilda was a distinguished woman of seventy-five years. A bald woman with dead eyes looked back.
“Who are you and how did you get in here?” Traumen asked sharply, putting aside the morning’s recent courier delivery.
“Sorry to intrude,” Berker said. “You might remember me from a meeting in Bremen ten years ago.”
Traumen’s eyes narrowed. “Berker,” she said. “The G-A-N. Of course. But, the American authorities. You are—”
“Wanted.”
Traumen nodded gravely. “I suppose you are seeking sanctuary?”
“Not exactly. What I really need is your identity.”
Traumen’s face turned ashen.
——
It was a crisp, sweater-and-coat day; and the sky roiled with gray clouds, broken with slivers of blue. Luminaries filed quietly up the path on Mount St. Alban, stopping fifty yards from the towering Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Washington National Cathedral. The flow of Washington’s elite political figures and bureaucrats had backed up at the Secret Service screening points. Gabriel, Alice, Snowfeather and a small Gabriel’s Native American Honor Guard, selected by Dornan—vetted by Secret Service—and led by High Tree, had been pre-seated near the President in key aisle positions. Except for a handful of Secret Service officers, no firearms were permitted inside. Gabriel’s honor guard was permitted ‘traditional ceremonial weapons’ only.
“It’s such a lovely cathedral,” Hilda Traumen said to the Secret Service agent outside the door. “Just like the ones in Europe.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said to the lady he assumed was the Swiss Attaché. “It’s the sixth largest in the world.”
“You must be very proud,” she said. The agent was dressed in a neat navy blue suit. Except for the bulge under his jacket and an inconspicuous flesh colored ear piece, he could have been a parishioner greeting honored guests.
“May I examine your purse, please?”
Berker smiled, unsnapped the heavy leather purse, and held it up, so that the agent could look directly into the contents. “Just an old woman’s things,” she said, trying not to betray any strain from the bag’s extra weight.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, then turned away. Berker heard a hearty, “Hello, Senator!” spoken to the person next in line behind her.
I will need a seat toward the front, Berker thought, picking up her pace. She nodded benignly at the Very Reverend Darcy Stack, Dean of the Cathedral, who stood at the doorway, then hurried past the woman, making her way into the Nave. As she entered, Berker found herself in an uncomfortably huge space. The belly of a whale, she thought, glancing up at the rib arches that soared overhead. She strode up the aisle, passing the still empty rows. She selected a narrow spot on the center aisle, about seven rows back from the front. She smiled benignly as an elderly gentleman slid toward the center to accommodate her. Then she sat, still as a statue, white gloved hands neatly folded on her lap. She would be invisible for a while.
Senator Jacobs of California joined Senator Taft Castorini, President Pro-tem of the Senate, on the front row, to the left of the center aisle. President T. S. Smith, his wife, and Snowfeather were already seated on the front row, left of the aisle. Secret Service agents sat on either side and directly behind the President. Several more stood to the left of the pews, hands free at their sides, eyes relentlessly scanning the crowd.
President Smith’s father, Thurston Senior, sat next to Alice Canyon Hawke, and Gabriel Standing Bear. Dr. John Owen, looking pale but determined, sat to Gabriel’s right. The four of them were just behind the President and Snowfeather. Sitting on the aisle next to them was Roberto Kahn.
Four sturdy men, members of Gabriel’s “Honor Guard”, sat in separated pairs conspicuously wearing their tribal gear. They bracketed two aisles behind Gabriel, Alice and Thurston Smith. At the very rear of the cathedral seating, on the very last pew, nearest the exit, sat a distinguished looking Navajo man, his arms folded, a heavy satellite phone at his side. Fred Loud Owl had been tasked to get news to Elisabeth on New Kona.
The immense organ, whose pipes were visible in the choir section ahead, finished playing Bach, and began a rendition of America the Beautiful while the last of the guests found seats on the remaining rows. Silence gradually took hold as President Smith got up, and invited Gabriel Standing Bear and Dr. John Owen to join him at the front. Together, the President, Dr. Owen and former Senator Standing Bear proudly escorted Snowfeather to the right side of the transept.
As soon as the President, her father and John Owen had returned to their seats, Snowfeather made her way up to the Canterbury Pulpit—the ornate structure stood to the right of the aisle and rose ten feet tall. On both sides of the transept, media mavens bustled, jostling their cameras, mikes and earpieces, while the Secret Service kept a watchful silence. Snowfeather stood for a moment, looking down the full length of the Nave where the President and a good portion of the Washington elite were gathered. As she began the invocation, Snowfeather’s voice was strong and clear.
“This is how the twentieth century Russian Poet, Yetvushenko, wrote about the dying Soviet tyranny: ‘How sharply our children will be ashamed, taking their last vengeance for these horrors…’”
At Snowfeather’s first words, all remaining audience sounds fell quiet. Only a single muffled siren could be heard over her voice. It was as if the audience of bureaucrats and politicians who had come to honor this renegade activist and the occasion could somehow repair their damaged integrity by the force of silence.
Snowfeather continued with Yetvushenko’s words, “‘remembering how in so strange a time, common integrity could look like courage.’” Snowfeather looked out—the irony was lost on most of her audience. “We are gathered here not for vengeance but renewal, and to honor both the integrity and great courage of all the fallen.”