So... A mission was in the works, or possibly a change in the Standing Orders. Something big. Marcus alone. No help except from Mike. That meant they were not going to risk much... Just him.

The call also meant that he actually had to go and open the sub shop. All of them in the Richmond Office had to put in their time there, and all of them complained bitterly. Mike said their woes helped them fit into the crowd: it was part of their cover.

Two hours later Marcus chopped onions, holding a piece of bread in his mouth to prevent the tears, and wondering about the path that got him here: prep school at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, History and Political Science (Mamma Cum Loudly) from Columbia University. Arrest on Tour the year Jerry Garcia died, the Bargain, the Recruitment.

At first working for the Company had felt like selling out. It felt like he was working for the "bad guys." Mike was certainly a slippery bastard who would sell his own mother, (or more likely your own mother) to Afghan slave traders if it would help cover this month's hash shipment. But for all that he was OK, as long as you never got between him and whatever he wanted. You had to know how to play Mike.

"No," the man said, " it's not like that. We're not DEA. We don't nark anybody out, except for recruitment purposes." He didn't act like a cop or a bureaucrat or a drug head or anything in between. Marcus' sense of him was that he might be a monk or a mystic  who only visited real life occasionally to give pep talks to COFOs (Covert Operations Field Offices.) His name was supposed to be Shiva-something, but he reminded Marcus of Mr. Spock. Then he got warmed up.

"Change happens," he said, "and usually human power structures are not adept at coping with it. So rather than cope with it, they mobilize resources to prevent change from happening. This seldom works for any length of time, and usually renders the structures in question even more unable to cope with change than they were before.
This paralysis in the face of change has been the downfall of all the great empires of the past. Our job in a nutshell is to prevent it from happening to this one [he pointed to a post-card of the American flag tacked to the wall.] We do this by going into the place that change comes from and meeting it on its own terms. Where we can, we nip it in the bud. Where we cannot, we set forces in motion to minimize damage to the status quo."
"You have got to be kidding," Marcus said. "Change is like a force of nature. You can't control it. I can't control it. Nobody can control it!"
Shiva-Spock turned his inscrutable owlish face toward him, and said "Just because something has not been done before, it does not mean that it will not be done, when the time is right for it. Empires do not happen by accident, and they are not only the product of human pride, greed, avarice, slavery, and lies, whatever you may think."
If it was possible, his gaze became even more pointed. Marcus drifted momentarily in a universe of three: himself and those two owly eyes.
"Empires emerge because of the dream of what is possible when "I" and "you" becomes "we" and "we" grows larger from there. Empires are fed by the hope that one day the illusion of the individual ego will wither away, and each of us will no longer be prevented from accessing the akashic US."
"You sound like a New Age Maoist. You can't be serious."
"As you will," he said. "There is much to learn, and everyone must start somewhere."
"So let me get this straight: You guys are insane mystics who work for the government. I've gotta move your drugs and play your little secret agent games, AND sling these stinking subs in this stinking shop, or you'll put my ass in jail for moving drugs and playing games. Is that the deal?"

"What we offer is far better than you realize, and what we can threaten you with is far worse than you imagine, but at the crux, yes, you seem to grasp the essence of the deal."
 

2.
"So what do you know about the Book of the Revelation?" Mike asked.
This was later, over watery beer at the Sunny Day Cafe. Marcus cased the room before he answered.
Biker Without a Bike.
Poet without a Passion, Using Rage and Caffeine as Substitutes.
Goth Runaway Chick With Incest Vibe.
Semi Coherent Middle Aged Drunks, Two Male, One Female: Regulars.
He had checked the booth behind him before he sat down: an out-of-town band playing at one of the clubs, heavy into snake skin, looking generally underwhelmed with what they had seen of the scene.
Safe.
He shrugged.
Mike went on, "Well it looks like you don't take our Lord's prophecy seriously. Is it so?"
It was hard to tell when Mike was kidding. Marcus just looked at him.
"Well it doesn't really matter what you think or what I think. What matters is that there are a lot of people who take it very seriously indeed."
Marcus continued to look at him.
"And some of them are very powerful. It's good to know what is on the minds of powerful people, whether you agree with them or not."
Marcus said, "Yeah, I know, Ronald Reagan was planning for Armageddon as part of  US foreign policy. Stuff like that gets a momentum of its own. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy."
"So read it." said Mike.
"Right, boss." said Marcus.

* * *

    Actually, Marcus had read the Revelation of  John several times. First as a teen aged convert to Christianity, he had tried piously to decode the word of God. And later as a budding acid head he'd sat a whole night reading it and re-reading it, giggling. cursing, and shaking his head. He felt he already had a grasp of the essentials, but decided to re-read it One More Time, since it was for work.