They wear tight pants. They know where the bodies are buried (most often because they buried them).
The unholy trinity: the survivors of the doomed German submarine U696, the scheming Reagan Men, and the Keh-Geh-Beh washouts went and hid where no one goes–the irradiated northern peninsula of Ignatius. From that cursed place and pack of jackals came the Lateral Lattice and Null Doors, the coup that killed the cosplay-comrade, and the nuclear blackmail supreme.
The Consortium is not a syndicate or a criminal organization. It’s the type of entity they leave the fuck alone. The consortium is not an intelligence agency, though every organization that spies has (at least) a person whose whole fucking job is to demystify the mytho-bullshit cloud that hangs around the word Consortium.
The Consortium is what old timers on Ignatius call a “Una”–a pit, a hole, dead air on the radio, a calamity-absence.
*
Ze Germans: Schnapps and Amphetamines (1944)
*
Conceived, planned, an imagined pup for the predicted wolf pack–the gaggle of submarines meant to choke the convoys out of the North Atlantic. The fleet that never appeared.
Early 1944, U-696 slid into the Elbe and slunk down river into the North Sea. Once there, it tried to sneak past all kinds Allied Naval and aviation forces doing allied things (like hunting U-Boats). The crew was terrified, resigned or both, but they pushed on because the captain was a political appointee, a “true believer” if you catch my drift. The man would’ve sailed his under-crewed and extremely-amphetamined boat right on down the river Styx, and would’ve volunteered himself and his men if not ordered.
Not two days at sea and the crew is tweaking hard, boat at about her max depth, an Anglo-American orchestra is depth-charge-drumming on everybody’s soul. It’s clear Cap’n Lost Cause is out of his depth, and something happens.
An event, intercession. The whole boat hummed, shimmied, shivered. Then the hull groaned and seemed ready to implode–the fabric of the metal dancing. The air cracked, and the men lost consciousness. Allied ships above heard the grizzly death of a ship and found the oil slick expected and sailed off to do Allied things.
Crew of U-696 came to on a maimed ship with a stuck rudder that listed some degrees to Starboard and could only turn that same direction. They circle sailed, the remaining sailors and the tweaked-out fascist captain, cork-screwing north toward a scrap of island.
When the boat finally beached itself, gashed and spent, cap’n and four sailors emerged. It could have been more, should have been more survivors, but again–political appointee. The captain was fascist inner circle die-hard, and his in with the boss was that they both loved this “wonder” drug (reader it was no wonder drug). The two were doing this drug together one night late in the war, great quantities of it. It was that long night that lead to his being given command of a brand new boat for an inglorious meth-addled charge through the gates of ‘Valhalla’ or perhaps a kick to Poseidon’s balls. The cap’n really thought he could solo the war in the Atlantic. It’s as if the chemical hubris that burned his brain and the great wave of dopamine would let he and his win the whole damn show.
That wave of exhausted neurotransmitters dropped the lost-causer and four on the shores of Ignatius, god knows where on Earth proper–for the island of Ignatius shifted position frequently and without warning during Dubbya-Dubbya Two. All five wandered into the forest, deep into the rough hills and dark woods at the heart of the island. There, among the hills that ripple the forest skin like the vertebrae in Leviathan’s spine, found a cave and path that lead past what you and I want to call reality. They found spaces interstitial and elsewhere. The sorts of things mortal-born beings (especially fascists) are not meant to find.
*
It’s pronounced Keh-Geh-Beh: Psychedelics, Hallucinogens, and Exotic Poisons (1960)
*
It is very capitalist to expect ROI–return on the reverse-cargo-cult investment. But it was not just Yanqui dogs trying to plant flags on the People’s Republic. No, no. Ivan (say: eh-VAHN) had skin in the game and dispatched the storied sneaks to sniff around the island that oddly kept other comrades at arms length. Comrade Fidel (not that one) was not comradely–not really itching to join the comrades in the Warsaw Pact. Far as Kruschev was concerned, one diva (Tito) was enough.
“It’s a People’s Republic for Christ’s sake!” Comrade Khruschev to a Party Stooge who shrugs violently all no-idea-boss “This stinks of Yanqui, bullshit!” and the flunky nods agreement, vehement agreement.
In went the KGB to see what there was to see. Most stuck to the capitol and doing what outsiders do: drink a lot and gamble and pay locals to fuck them. The goons soon spent-squandered the entirety of their operational funds on very uncomradely behavior. When they wired Moscow for more money the reply was curt. Clipped. Certainly not comradely, no not one bit: “Нет.” The Stooges did what they had to do, founded a transportation company in the capitol–cabs, motor-rickshaws, light freight, and later flying-boats for international reach. The former KGB men stopped reporting back to Moscow soon after.
The Rural Reconnaissance squad found the float farms and took copious notes for the Soviet Archives. The very grey men didn’t quite “come alive”, but they were less grey and almost poetic in their depictions of “true comradeship” and their awe at the organization and efficiency of even the most humble farming community. Within a year, the KGB men dispatched to the hinterlands “went native” and stopped reporting, same as their urban cousins.
*
Reagan-Men: Tight Pants and Cocaine (1984)
*
“Nobody holds a club over Ronnie’s head.” You’re goddamn right. (Woman’s voice on the tape, sounds like Nancy). Then Ronnie R is on the phone with Maggie and yadda-yadda they instigate a coup to topple Comrade-Commandant Fidel Mostly-Day. It takes all of 5 minutes and 39 seconds from “Get Mags on the line” to “We’re in agreement. The son-of-a-bitch has got to go.”
You gotta take my word for it. You won’t find this tape in the Reagan library or national archives. A Consortium bug in the oval captured the oblivious leader’s words and discreetly transmitted them interstitially to Ignatius–to the Consortium.
It’s not even the stroke of a pen, or a hushed plan in a smokey room. It was an international call that changed everything and didn’t change a thing for a few million people on the island. Ronnie wanted a quick coup, and privatization was the name of the game. So, cowboy president outsourced the state-toppling to a private organization that ran a fabulously lucrative business on an allegedly-communist island. Makes total sense in the only way either Cold War ever did: it didn’t. It made no fucking sense at all, but Fidel (our Fidel) vexed Reagan just as he had defied LBJ. The man Flaunted Nixon. The commie in uniform just flagrantly disrespected Jimmy Carter’s diplomatic efforts. Mr. Reagan was not having it.
That hole, North Null Site. The Consortium’s beating heart or soul (the organization and most of its members have neither). Nerve center, for the organization could be said to have nerve, gall, audacity. Ring Ring. Ronnie’s on the line. A liver-spotted hand, tangled root veined reaches for the red phone, raises it : “Mr. President, you were expected.”
*
Narrative Now: People’s Republic of Ignatius
*
The teenage sociopath (missionary’s kid) and the hostage argue back seat of a bug-bubble looking hatchback–the road-weary rental car. June and Todd had several talks with kiddo before the Ignatius Op about taking more responsibility in the family business. “Keeping a gun on the hostage while Mom and Dad navigate is what more responsibility looks like.” But You-You is as hungover as the rest of the adults in the car.
“I need a drink and a cigarette.” You tried to bite me when I let you smoke. “I have an obligation to attempt escape.” You’re an idiot. You bite me, I hurt you. And you’re a deserter. “No I am not.” Yes you are. “No. No! I am absent without leave for two more days, you little shit, and obliged to escape even if I gotta take a digit or two off your hand.” Say one more fuckin’ word.. “And you’ll do what, exactly?” You do not know when to stop, you dumb motherfucker.
Kid pulls the hammer back on the little pistol and mom’s bat-ears catch the click . Last straw. “Language young lady” and the Preacher’s Wife has two hands around the gun she’s rendering safe. She’s leaning back seat: “Look at me, Cal. Hostages are difficult. They want to try to get in your head to get away right?” Mom he’s right here. “I don’t care. Fuck him. Look at me.” You can swear?” Yes I can. You can’t kill him in a rental car.”
“You can’t kill me, you little…” June breaks Ulysses’ nose with the pistol. “What the fuck?!”
June continues: “You can’t kill him but Mom is sick of his shit, and we don’t need the hostage to be pretty.” Can I have my gun back? “No. You’ve lost firearm privileges, Cal” and mom hands her a small, discreet, contact-taser.
Narrator’s eye camera cuts to the view from the hood of the car and takes flight to the Ignatian sky. We fly skyward, god’s-eye. There is the shrinking bubble car diminished to a bug then a speck on the lonely four lane Coast Road that shrinks to line then twine.
Cinematic eye holds the whole great green beast of an Island. There’s the sound, Leviathan’s mouth, and the capitol cramped metropole-(ish) city looking like a scar on the Earth where the beast’s eye should be. We hang apex, satellite-height and hang there as a string of rope-fire commercial low-orbit cheapie satellites passes like a train at a rail crossing.
We fall, at terrible speed to hover over a town with a name most no longer remember. The locals call it Jeefer or G4. Ulysses used to call it home.
*
It’s late, long-late into the night when the rented bubble-car horn-honks the nightwatchman awake to slide into the armored car park edge of town. The capital does not sleep, and a few coastal towns in its orbit are what you might call rowdy, but the float farms ‘roll up the sidewalks’ or promenades if you prefer.
Todd caught ‘The Wanders’ on the road real bad and June too, and the Coast Road that’s a curved-straight-shot round Ignatius’ perimeter became an angry knot. June caved and gave Ulysses a little to drink. In return, he gave them peace. And when June bandaged his nose and held a cigarette to his lips, and when she leaned in for the “this is how it’s gonna be…” talk she didn’t even need the stupid man voice.
“He ok?” the watchman says gesturing to the man in the back seat with the bridge-bandage on his nose and the coat draped over him.
“Our friend is sleeping…”
“Okay, well uhhh…’ and the guard remembers he’s not guarding anything half way through the effort to finesse him. He lets the missionaries sneak their hostage past suspiciously-unwittingly, and saves his life in the doing.
There’s nobody out, but lamps stay lit on the promenade all night. It’s enough of a population to leave the lights on, but not enough of a town for anyone to be walking anywhere in the wee hours except for the four: fake missionaries, well armed, a teenage sociopath they gifted to the world, and their hostage Ulysses.
*
“Hi mom. I’m home.” in a tone bastard sad as the sad-bastard son that said it standing in his momma’s doorway.
“I can see that, and you’ve brought company, very rude company.” And Dezzy, the little devil-bird hisses and chirp-barks at the company and stomps her clawed feet. “Hush baby” to the little puffin.
“We are the opposite of rude. We’re also sick of your son’s shit, and we will hurt him.” Badly “Oh so badly, if you do not cooperate.”
“He’s not my son” Mom! What the fuck? And Rosa shrugs: “I waited all damn day for you. I got really high. Seemed like that might work.” Mom… “They wanna know about the Consortium and your idiot father. Come and eat” and they did.
The whip-chord woman with the grey-hair bun brings the soup-cauldron to proper temp–June watching her for ‘funny business.’ Todd went and found the old-shotgun, still kept ready with rocksalt and birdshot (for any occasion). And a sociopathic teenager and Dezzy the bird became friends–insomuch as one can befriend a sociopath or Ignatian Puffin.
Kiddo treats the thing like a cat, admires the ruddy red-and-white pattern and scratches its plumage. The thing purr-chirps when it’s not trying to take Cal’s fingers off.
The kitchen is Robinson Crusoe and 1950’s American futurist kitsch in a mint-mild-pink blender. The kitchen is the every-room of the house that’s a cottage. Bedrooms and toilet are the only things blocked by doors.
When the soup is ready, everybody’s portion (and cup for Dezzy). When Rosa has laid out the chilis and the sliced peppers and the hot sauce (she has a carrier), and they’ve cut Ulysses zip-tie bindings so he can eat. Only then does Rosa sit and speak: “I know why you’re here, and you’ll get what you want.” She takes a bite of her own cooking, the fire broth, the Long Soup. Rosa smiles at her work, for it is good.
Rosa continues: “You’re all going to shut the fuck up, and let me tell my story.” The nukes. “Yeah. We’ll get there.”
*
END IGNATIUS 4
ARCHIVES (WE CAN TELL YOU WHAT/WE CAN TELL YOU WHEN)
RECORD: IGNATIUS. TOPIC: CULTURE AND CUISINE.
RECIPE: LONG SOUP
1 FIRST GATHER 10 GALLONS OF WATER AND AS MUCH GARLIC AS YOU THINK YOU CAN STAND
**ERROR** RECORD CORRUPT