The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [117]
Instead, Genia reached inside her bathrobe to a thin composite cord circling her waist and unscrewed the halves of its hazelnut-size clasp. Then she ran a hand over the smooth edge of her desktop communications pad, sliding the nail-size stick she’d pulled from the locket—an encryption and voice-synthesizer board, one of a matched pair—into a slot. The other was plugged into a similar machine atop Senator Palmer’s desk. The encrypting algorithm driving the device was secure; the equivalent of a single-use pad, it changed every time both boards synchronized. Whenever she was in her house, Genia had the chip in its slot and returned it to its container around her waist when leaving.
Genia recalled vividly one evening at a Russian embassy gala dinner, almost three years before, when a stocky though distinguished Senator Palmer in an impeccable tuxedo had requested they dance. A little tipsy after two glasses of champagne and gliding over the polished timbers of the ballroom nestled in expert arms, she’d instinctively nodded when he’d whispered in her ear, “Would you change the way the DHS rules this nation?”
Two days later, after a routine appearance before a congressional select committee, she’d found a small box with a strange piece of lustrous black jewelry in her overcoat pocket. At first she took it to be a necklace, but printed on a flimsy paper folded inside the box were the instructions. Genia adjusted her bathrobe belt and smiled. She didn’t believe in coincidences. Senator Palmer, besides having a brilliant mind, had an unerring sense of proportion. The waist cord fit her perfectly.
It was ironic that Odelle Marino had been responsible for their choice of code names. Years before, Odelle had boasted she had the perfect headhunter and enforcer: Onuris. It had taken Genia more than a year to put Nikola Masek’s name to the moniker.
During their first communication via their ultrasecure line, Palmer had suggested they use suitable code names. When Genia warned about Onuris, Odelle’s freelance enforcer, Palmer had deadpanned, “I see. Then I’ll be Ra.” And, after a few seconds of silence, “And you are Horus, since Odelle is obviously Seth.”
In the process of deciphering the meaning behind Palmer’s words, she’d discovered his almost obsessive fascination with Egyptian mythology, and, from that instant, her respect for the aging senator’s phenomenal intellect had climbed to new heights.
Seth, the Egyptian god of chaos, embodied the principle of evil. His war with Horus lasted eighty years, during which Seth tore out his rival’s left eye. When Horus was pronounced the victor by a council of the gods and thus became the rightful ruler of Egypt, Seth was forced to return the eye of Horus and was killed.
On a first reading, the legend wasn’t too insightful and not awe-inspiring, except for how the council of gods settled the winner.
Seth was homosexual and had tried to prove his dominance by seducing Horus. But Horus placed a hand between his thighs to catch Seth’s semen before casting it stealthily into the river. Horus then spread his own seed on a lettuce leaf, Seth’s favorite food. After Seth ate the lettuce, they appeared before the gods to settle their feud. The gods first listened to Seth’s claim of dominance over Horus and called his semen forth, but it answered from the river. Then the gods listened to Horus’s claim of dominance over Seth and called his semen forth. When it answered from inside Seth, Horus was declared the ruler of Egypt and Seth’s fate was sealed.
After selecting a number residing in the tiny stick, the pad went through a flurry of beeps and pauses, until the boards synchronized when the receiver at the other end engaged the connection. Two letters, RA, scrolled across the pad’s screen to stop on its edge, a cursor slowly blinking.