Free Gabriel's Stand by Jay B. Gaskill Page B

Snowfeather loved her parents. But to her, Gabriel and Alice were hopelessly out of touch. Their unreasonable insistence on micromanaging her life even after her recent twentieth birthday was exasperating even if it was delivered with love. She understood their need for involvement, the attack on both of them and Rachael Owen’s death had made them all too aware of their mortality. But Mom and Dad were finally coming around and letting her find her own way—apart from them. After a few years of aggressive student activism for green causes, Snowfeather had become a public figure. Today’s invitation was among her rewards. Snowfeather was a featured guest at the next luncheon meeting of the University Club, with a place on the podium.
    She picked up her phone. Mom and Dad will be proud…
    â€”—
    At the same time that Snowfeather placed the call from her dorm room, Louise Berker was entering the service elevator in the subterranean parking lot in the Fowler Building in downtown Seattle. It was the same structure that housed Rex Longworthy’s law firm. Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and wearing a red bandanna over her hair, Berker turned a key and headed to a secure work area below. It would the first American meeting of her G-A-N support team. For public consumption, the G-A-N was a small-bore international alliance of NGOs dedicated to protecting the environment. To the public, the letters stood for Geo-Alliance-North.
    Deep inside, the G-A-N was a lunatic fringe cult, the Gaia Antibodies Network, based on the notion that humanity was a pathogen and Gaia, the Earth, was a living organism to be protected by any means necessary.
    The Gaia Antibodies Network consisted of three working divisions, but today’s meeting would be brief, and attended only by Berker’s personal team. These were the four loyalists who had followed her from Germany. They reported to—and were known by—Louise Berker alone.
    The four were waiting for her in a windowless cement-lined box. It was many times the size of the jail cell it resembled, furnished with hardwood tables, comfortable chairs, and two bathrooms. The new communications console was still in its shipping crate at the end of the room.
    Berker took the seat at the end of the large table. Her team consisted of three fit, hard-faced males and one equally buff female. Their given names had long ago been replaced by pseudonyms; the latter were supported by elaborately constructed identities; the former were never committed to writing.
    Gaul opened with the question the team had all agreed on. His American accent was flawless: “Will you need our help with the Senator’s daughter?”
    â€œNo,” Berker said, looking at each of the four in turn. “Stay in your cover identities until you are called. It may take me several months to recruit her.” Berker paused as if thinking something through. “I do have one vacancy among the Earth’s Sisters. Gaul and the other two males glanced at K. She was an attractive woman in her early thirties with very short, very blond hair. She specialized in killing. K smiled.
    â€œK, I want you to stop by the Earth Planet Book Store in Pioneer Square next week and apply for a job,” Berker told her. “All of you will find new training schedules in your lockers. Everyone: stay alert. Be discreet. Don’t ever call me on a cell or land line. I will contact you every few days in the usual way.”
    â€”—
    When Snowfeather arrived at the University Club for her special guest appearance, she found herself feeling surprisingly serene. She was escorted to the head table and seated next to the University President. The featured talk was being given by Vernon T. Farthwell, the first Director of the Gaia Foundation. Farthwell was a law partner of Rex Longworthy and the outgoing Vice-President of the Greenspike Coalition. His topic was: “The Coming Gaia Era.”
    Snowfeather