THE TRAVEL AGENT
by
Nicholas Waller
Bob
Kashi stared angrily at the window of the Manhattan travel agency.
Perfectly
shot display boards showed pristine white beaches in the Caribbean, the
magnificent blocks of the Pyramids, the sinuous ribbon of the Great Wall of
China, old mingling with new in the bustling streets of London. In front of
these stood models of fat jetliners; beyond were the ranks of terminals, eager
customers, helpful staff, shelves of brochures, grinning cutouts of false air
hostesses, clocks showing the time in twelve international cities and a
worldwide wall map studded with little twinkling red lights.
It
was a kind of pornography, and it lied as it beguiled but he wanted it still. A
weekend in Paris. Two weeks in Thailand. Latin America. Europe. The whole
world, made up and smiling joyously. Oh yes sir, very clean. Please give money
first, sir. $1598. $3998. $9998 for first class service.
Kashi's
first brick simply bounced off the glass. Annoyed, he found a heavy chunk of
broken paving and heaved it through the window. As the glass cascaded the alarm
wailed and he ran round the corner, straight towards two officers in a patrol
car.
"Captain
Carey, are you telling us that the air force is in fact scared of operating
fighter-bombers in this situation?" asked Director Maddens.
Keith
Brock, sitting next to him in the darkness, smiled.
"Admittedly,
it is a dangerous environment," said John Carey. His uniform buttons
flashed gold in the projector light as he put up an explicatory photograph.
"But the target - compact, occupying a narrow ridge, a lump at one end,
ravines three sides, peaks all round - is hard to hit at jet speeds-"
"Oh,
so now the guys aren't good enough?"
"No,
but..." Carey studied the spectacular but perhaps overused image: a
panorama of the mountains and clouds and semi-sub-tropical vegetation
surrounding the stunning man-made terraces of Machu Picchu. "You know,
that doesn't really do the place justice; you have to be there."
Maddens
shifted in his seat. "That's sorta what we're aiming to prevent,
Captain."
"Ahh,
yes of course." Carey put up a heavily contoured target map in place of
the photo. "So I propose a Special Force assault via Chinooks. Six support
Apaches take out the ticket office and hotel, neutralise the rail halt in Agua
Calientes, and move to secure the perimeter.
"The
troops are then dropped off to set shaped charges at key walls, rocks and
features. Covering fire required: minimal. We withdraw in good order, embarking
the ground troops while the support choppers deliver a series of timed
firebombs and air-to-ground missiles. Our tired but happy forces lift out and
away over the - Well. Should be over
in 8 minutes."
The
Captain stood proudly by his screen.
"Any
questions?"
Director
Maddens sighed. "I'm tempted, but it's unrealistic."
"Sir!
The target is evaluated as completely suitable..."
"I
know. I evaluated it. But I can't authorise this sort of high profile
operation. Draw up some plans limited to setting fires lower down the hillside;
they must sweep up naturally towards the site. No helicopters." Maddens
stood up heavily. "It may well be the most deserving target in Peru, in
fact the whole damn hemisphere, but we need more than a plausible deniability
of our involvement, we need a plausible impossibility that we could even think
of it in the first place. Dr Brock, I want a word."
As
the deflated captain packed up his presentation, Brock followed Maddens to his
office.
"DEA
or ATF, that guy?" asked Maddens as they sat down.
Brock
thought a moment. "DEA."
"Must
have smoked too many fields in Colombia. The USIA trainees aren't much better;
they're too Cold War, even now."
"Back
to Human Resources then. Looking for?"
"Not
gung-ho jocks who could bomb Baghdad tomorrow but have no real idea of our
mission. We need people who are instinctively in tune with our goals, that we
can train."
"Greens?"
"I
don't think so. It might compromise their preventive work - Antarctica, the Himalayas;
you know."
"Well,"
said Brock. "Then I have a lead I'd like to try out."
Bob
Kashi sat scowling in the bare interview room in the precinct station.
"I
don't deny what I did."
Keith
Brock leant back. "I know that. But I would like to know why you did
it."
"I
need to get out of here. I could lose my job."
"Well,
think of this as a possible career move."
"A
what?"
"We
know your resume... college, low-paid bookstore jobs. You're conscientious, but
you're also frustrated, unfulfilled, drifting..."
"Thanks."
"It's
not what you want."
"What
are you? a psychologist?"
"I'm
from a government agency."
"What
agency?"
"Sorry,
covert. It's classified."
"CIA?
FBI?"
"DEA
would be nearest."
"Drugs?
Why pick on me?"
"Not
drugs. And think of this as an evaluation, not an interrogation. Why did you
break the window?"
"It
was stupid, I know. I'm embarrassed about it; but - it costs $8000 for a tour
in Europe! $20,000 for a cruise!"
"You
can't afford it?"
"It's
all crap! It's all smiling bimbos and perfect weather... it looks great, but
it's a lie. People are fooled into visiting trash dumps they know nothing about
to get mugged by starving kids! The photos don't show that, they show an
idealised... Well anyway, it made
me smash one stupid window! so what?"
Keith
Brock smiled. "Though we might express it differently, I think we're on
the same wavelength."
Maddens
looked up from the seismic maps spread over the boardroom table.
"Umbria,
Italy," said Dr Andrea Schlimper. "The last series of tremors."
"And?"
said Maddens.
"They
caused plenty of damage. Stone-built towns like Assisi are just full of
frescoes poised to turn to dust in an instant. They're on a knife-edge, needing
just an extra little push - "
"I
assume we had nothing to do with the first series of quakes."
"True.
But we could do the extra push. Get Montefalco. Perugio. Urbino."
"How?"
"It's
a development of oil-seeking technology that sends out shockwaves; the
vibrations - "
"Hmmm.
Shockwaves can be traced. Keith?"
"She's
right; most of the buildings are ready to collapse."
"Are
they real?" asked Maddens.
"Generally.
There is the normal guidebook hype, misattribution of work to people like
Giotto, but I doubt its worth the effort of knocking them down."
"I
agree. Most Americans are visiting Italy for family reasons; this sort of operation wouldn't deter many."
"As
the towns will undoubtedly collapse by themselves soon," said Brock,
"we ought to boost our data capture programme."
"Dr
Schlimper?"
"It's
a great chance to test our new system - "
"Was
there anything else?" asked Maddens.
"My
ideas for Venice? or should I just throw them in the trash?"
"The
same criteria apply," said Brock. "It's sinking anyway."
"Actually
it's the Med that's rising, but we really can't afford to be complacent."
"Maintain
our greenhouse gas emissions and we'll be OK, eh?" said Maddens.
"Remember, US industry will profit from the large lagoon barrier project;
we'd lose more than we gained if we rushed events along."
Dr
Schlimper left, obviously irritated.
"If
we don't authorise some kind of a mission soon, morale's going to suffer,"
said Brock.
"I
know." Maddens looked at his agenda. "Your new guy next. Hope he's a
better bet."
Brock
spoke into the phone. "Send in Bob Kashi please." He sat back.
"Promising, in the long term. His motivation fits our profile pretty
well."
The
door opened. Anne Godwin, a USIA trainee in a crisp white short-sleeved shirt,
brought Kashi into the room. He smiled nervously at her departing back.
"What
do you know about the global tourist and leisure industry?" asked Maddens,
without preamble.
"Umm...
Not enough, I guess."
"It's
an enormous competitive business," said Maddens, leaning back. "Round
the world on Concorde, backpacking in Asia, Disneyland. You name it, it means
big investments, big profits. US tourist boards at all levels from federal to
town district promote our beautiful tourist destinations, coordinate friendly
facilities and generally help visitors to spend money in the many wonderful
American localities."
"I
see," said Kashi, guardedly.
"In
their turn foreign authorities entice our citizens by pushing their own
trinkets: landscapes, ruins, culture. You've seen the posters, the commercials.
The lure."
"That's
how I got-"
"It
may look open, legal, and public - but it's actually a bare-knuckle battle for
the traveller's buck."
"Um
- "
Maddens
looked at Kashi over steepled fingers. "You're probably wondering where we
fit in."
"Yes,
that's right."
"Policing."
"To
protect foreign tourists?"
"Not
exactly. Do you have a passport?"
"Er
- No."
"How
many Americans do?"
"I
don't know; half?"
"About
ten percent. Mostly, we stay home." Maddens leaned forward and looked
straight into Kashi's eyes. "We aim to keep it that way."
"Why?"
"If
half our citizens had passports, and half of those went overseas each year,
each spending maybe $2500 on accommodation, food, transport, gifts... that'd be
- Keith?"
"One
hundred sixty billion dollars," said Brock.
"My
God!"
"Leaving
the country," said Maddens. "Every year."
"That
much..." said Kashi.
"You
know what?" said Maddens. "That sort of money attracts criminals. Cheats. Americans
abroad can be naive. For every zero point one percent of the population that
stays here safely watching TV, we can stop at least a billion dollars flowing
out to benefit foreign parasites. That's the mission of the TEA."
"TEA?"
"The
Tourist Enforcement Agency."
"Charged
with the prevention of American tourism abroad," said Brock.
"This
isn't a UN thing, is it?"
"Absolutely
federal," said Maddens.
"Well,
I can see it would be worth it," said Kashi cautiously. "But how
would you do it?"
"Travel
restrictions," said Maddens. "Effective public information service
programmes. Interdicting popular foreign destinations."
"Interdicting?
That means attacking doesn't it- "
"Mr
Kashi," said Maddens. "Please leave us a moment."
"But-"
"Thank
you."
After
the door closed, Maddens sat back. "Is he too squeamish to be receptive to
the more active side of our work?"
"We'll
build on what he already knows: tourist marketing peddles costly fantasies.
When he's ready, I'll try the trip down the Nile."
"Risky."
"But
a big payoff if it works."
Brock
stood at the whiteboard, playing with a marker.
"What's
the best way to stop Americans spending money abroad?"
"Cut
up their credit cards," said Kashi.
"You're
being flippant," said Brock.
"Make
it illegal? Stop issuing passports? But you couldn't do that."
"Why
not? We are the US Government, after all."
"It's
unconstitutional!"
"The
middle classes would certainly raise hell if we did it. But suppose," said
Brock, looking at the ceiling, "we were at war with Germany, or
Cuba?"
"OK,
I understand, we'd stop our citizens travelling there."
"And
interfere with their right to pursue life, liberty, and the freedom to tour?
I'm shocked!"
"Yes,
I get your point."
"So
you concede that the law could be used to prevent US citizens taking holidays
in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon - "
"Well
who the hell would want to go there anyway?" asked Kashi.
"Ahh!"
said Brock. "You know, you might want to yourself, if it weren't for- Your assignment tonight: what
is far more effective than a legal ban on travel?"
Reading
reports in his room that evening, Kashi found himself impressed at what the
agency had helped accomplish.
Iraq
had Mesopotamia and Ur, the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Garden of Eden. Iran
was Ancient Persia - land of Persepolis, Isfahan, the Caspian Sea and the
finest caviar... they were ideal tourist destinations, steeped in the romance
of generations, Arabian Nights and the crescent moon hanging low over tents in
the desert. But you just didn't see them on the posters.
And
Lebanon. Small, but packed with history: Phoenicians and Alexander the Great;
Byblos, Tyre and Sidon, Romanised Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, the Cedars,
skiing, the vibrancy of pulsating Beirut... sounded wonderful: California,
Paris and elegant historic ruins all in one compact package. But when he shut
his eyes, the pictures that came to mind were Kalashnikovs and dismal refugee
slums, hostage-taking and fundamentalists, civil war and terrorism. Iraq:
Saddam Hussein, biological weapons and war. Iran; that was chanting hordes of
US-hating veiled women who drank no alcohol and inflicted medieval punishments.
Tehran or Miami, sir? You know, this year I'll go to Miami for the tenth time.
If he put his mind to it, how could he
characterise the world? Communism was a gift, of course; hostile anti-American
dictatorships enforced by humourless secret policemen. Post-communist Russia
was ruthless gangsters, inflation and unsafe airlines. China: Tianmen Square
and Tibet. Africa: famine, corruption, AIDS. India: food poisoning, riots,
poverty. Asia: pollution, traffic gridlock and financial irregularities. South
America: drug cartels, street kids, death squads. It was endless. No-one in
their right mind would want to go to any of these places.
So
what was going on? Did Brock mean that the US actually caused all these
atrocious conditions - AIDS in Africa and political instability in the Middle
East? Massacres in Rwanda? Famine? War? Pestilence?
By
the end of the evening his head was spinning. What was true, propaganda or lie?
Was the government of the United States managing the entire world in a vast
conspiracy designed simply to prevent American citizens spending their
hard-earned dollars abroad?
"Of
course not," said Brock when they met again. "It's impossible and
unnecessary. We'd never do anything like that. Well, apart from creating the
odd small fact on the ground. Take Lebanon; everyone knows we support Israel,
but we also fund Hezbollah as long as they stay camped round Baalbek.
"But
on the large scale, creating AIDS, Pol Pot, the el Nino effect and all those
other natural disasters would backfire horribly, even if it was possible. Our
Information Agency make the information available in easy to understand releases; the media do the all the
necessary demonising by themselves."
"Europe
seems to be tough work," said Kashi.
"Generally,
but you can still have a big impact with a little effort. Place a small bomb in
Berlin, blame Libya, retaliate - that translates into big drops in US tourism
all over Europe. It's the wired society; panics move fast, people stay
home."
"Doesn't
anyone ever demonise us?"
"We're
the Great Satan, an atheist morass of drugs, pornography, racism, lunacy,
mugging, mass murder, gluttony, gambling, perversion, and a
military-imperialistic-religious ambition to dominate the world."
"That's
crazy!"
"I'm
glad you think so."
"I
can buy that everybody misrepresents." said Kashi. "I just didn't
realise how successful it could be."
"Not
everything we've done has worked as well as islamophobia, which you could call
our star project, but even there we've had some relative failures. Did you
identify any?"
"Egypt
has a lot of tourists. Bali too?"
"Egypt.
Very important."
"Don't
tell me we pay for the terrorist attacks on US citizens there!" said
Kashi.
"It's
mainly Germans, Japanese. And it's risky to organise; those guys have an agenda
all of their own."
"If
they found out, the press would crucify you!"
"Listen;
there's a low intensity war going on, and Joe Blow doesn't want to know the
dirty work we do on his behalf."
Brock looked at Kashi as if coming to a decision. "News management
and opinion-forming is one thing," he said. "These days we're moving
much more into identifying specific targets for obliteration."
"Obliteration?"
"Yes.
Complete physical destruction."
"Isn't
that just - vandalism? Especially sites of historic value?"
"We
can't deny that under combat conditions collateral damage has been caused to
important places - Dresden, every Japanese city except Kyoto. Dubrovnik.
Carthage."
"We
fought World War Two to cut tourism to Carthage?"
Brock
smiled. "You could say there was a fortuitous impact on the tourism gap,
but we have no policy of destroying sites of genuine historical value. Well,
not yet, anyhow."
Kashi
smiled too, wanly. "How do I know that's true?"
"What
is the truth? Does the US perpetrate untruths? Not exactly. But lies are being
peddled by others; big ones. Our task is to seek them out and destroy them.
What do you know about Lascaux?"
"Lascaux?
nothing," said Kashi.
"Cave
paintings?"
"Oh,
umm, you mean prehistoric stuff?"
"Good
enough. There's a meeting this afternoon. You'll learn something."
Kashi
sat near the back with Dr Brock and looked round the seminar room. This was the
biggest group of people he had seen since joining the programme. Over there was
Maddens. Next to him sat a couple of lean military officers; behind them some
older academic-looking types.
And
there was Anne, one of a tight group of five short-haired young men and women
in short-sleeved shirts. He felt unprofessional and out of place by comparison.
"Who
are they?" he asked Brock in a whisper.
"USIA
- Information Agency trainees. And the two men right in the front; they're the
field agents."
They
had the weatherbeaten complexions of people who spent a lot of time outdoors.
Kashi looked at them closely; perhaps this branch would be where his career
took him.
"I'm
Mark Hojsack, this is Mark Wendell. Hi."
"Hi,"
said Wendell, while Hojsack put up the first picture: a wooded hillside. "Lascaux cave: two small
chambers near Montignac in southwest France. It is, according to the
guidebooks, a key example of paleolithic painting, dating back some 17,000
years."
Kashi
studied the simple yet bold paintings of elk, bison and chubby horses with
interest.
"The
legend is that in 1940 some boys found the prehistoric cave while out looking
for their dog. It became a tourist sensation after the war and had to be sealed
off in 1963 because the flood of visitors caused irreparable damage to the
paintings. In the 80s, a perfect replica - called Lascaux II, built in an old
quarry nearby - was opened. The pictures were recreated exactly. It gets up to
two thousand visitors a day."
"It's
a classic pattern," said Wendell. "We're asked to believe that an
ancient artifact that lasted perfectly preserved for seventeen millennia took
less than a quarter century to start crumbling away once it was
discovered."
Kashi
noticed that others in the room were smiling knowingly.
"You're
way ahead of us. Yes; Lascaux II is modern; but so is the original so-called
prehistoric cave - "
"You
mean it's a fake?" said Kashi incredulously, out loud. One of the USIA
women - Anne, unfortunately - sniggered. Kashi felt his face reddening.
"Precisely,"
said Wendell. "Lascaux was first secretly constructed in the late 1930s.
The materials used proved to be substandard, so they had to rebuild it; but
every last bit is twentieth century work."
"That's
a fine job," said Maddens. "You've exposed a great fraud on the
American people. Now, what do we do about it?"
"I've
had some preliminary thoughts for renormalising the sitation," said
Captain Carey.
"I'm
sure you have," said Maddens. "No doubt ones that would invite
disproportionate retaliation; the French are proud bastards. Do any of you
youngsters have a more reasonable suggestion?"
The
USIA group staying silent, Kashi suddenly felt it was time he took his chance.
"An
accident," he said. "The replica is in a quarry. Some old dynamite
could - go off? destroy Lascaux II and flood the original?"
Maddens
looked pleased. "Not bad... not bad at all."
Kashi
made a determined effort not to glance over to see if Anne was looking his way.
"Well
done," whispered Brock.
"We'll
consider specifics when we have fully evaluated the environment," said
Maddens. "But next on the agenda, Dr Andrea Schlimper will present a
technique for the seismic disintegration of Machu Picchu."
"Machu
Picchu is a fake?" said Kashi incredulously.
"I'm
afraid so," said Brock afterwards, over a coffee.
"Lascaux,
OK - it's smaller than a house. But Machu Picchu is huge! Isn't it the most
popular attraction in South America?"
"What
else do you know about it?"
"It's
the lost city of the Incas..."
"Hiram
Bingham, exploring Peru looking for the lost city, finds this unknown
site," said Brock. "Untrue; Bingham was a fraudster on a massive
scale. He built Machu Picchu, then discovered it himself."
"Why
don't we expose it as a fraud?"
"Who
would believe us? No doubt it has powerful friends."
"So
instead we'll vibrate it to pieces?"
"It
wasn't a priority while we had the Shining Path. But now a generated earthquake
would be ideal."
"Don't
you feel like just nuking it or something?"
"Sure.
But you know the answer to that."
"Yeah.
I guess international condemnation followed by some sort of retaliation."
Kashi sat up. "But has that really happened anywhere?"
"Remember
the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York?"
"Of
course; my home town."
"That
was a warning shot from the British."
"The
British?...no."
"It
was convenient for us both to blame Pakistani fundamentalists. But we know and they know we know."
"Wow...
Why, have we ever interdicted English places?"
"During
the SDI tests we used a satellite beam weapon on York Minster to start a
fire." Brock smiled. "Some people thought it was a bolt from God.
Anne Hathaway's cottage. Windsor Castle. Usually we're a lot more subtle with
them. For instance, we have a controlling interest in Stonehenge-"
"Is
that a fake too?"
"No,
it's just an unpleasant experience. Price gouging, busy roads, a urine-soaked
pedestrian tunnel, hard to see anything. But we have a nice little bookstore
there too."
"Don't
tell me - I used to work in bookstores. You get better views in an expensive
book?"
"Excellent!
So you'll appreciate why our government helps our corporations develop and
maximise income streams through the exploitation of copyright on information
about places like Stonehenge. Not just book publishing - there are big media
corporations in all kinds of knowledge rights fields from words to 3D navigable
VR models... Why struggle to see some old rocks in the rain when you can
download a digital version at home for a small fee?"
"So
film, tv, cable, music..."
"And
video, software, satellite communications, virtual reality; don't forget theme
parks. They're distributed, mobile, and hard to hit. Investing in the internet
and intellectual property protection is our strategy. Most foreigners invest in
old buildings and artifacts of dubious provenance."
"But
the copyright in real archaeological sites can't be held by US corporations -
can it?"
"Why
not? The Japanese owned the reproduction rights to the renovated Sistine
Chapel. Who adds the value? It's usually US taxes that fund archaeological
research; our scholars who write about them; our photographers take pictures,
our graphic designers build 3-D models, our businesses take the risks. They
should be compensated."
"What
about the country that owns the site?"
Brock
waved his hand impatiently. "An accident of history. Why should
undeveloped countries benefit simply because a thousand year-old building
happens to stand inside their hundred year-old borders? There are precedents in
oil and pharmaceuticals. If we can patent the blood of primitive tribesmen half
way round the world we can certainly copyright cut-away pictures of the Taj
Mahal."
"You
know, right now I find it a relief that some things are real enough to be
exploited." Kashi looked into his empty cup. "I want to be useful to
the agency, to you, but I've never been to any of these countries - how can I
tell what's fake or not? to me it's all just words and pictures and historical
disputes."
"It's
time you got out into the world," said Brock decisively. "There's
something going on in Egypt and I need to take a look."
Kashi
stood at the window of his air-conditioned 14th floor room in the Ramses
Hilton, looking out over the slow Nile as the sun set fatly in the polluted sky.
He felt excited, alive, his new US passport in his new back pocket and new
memories frothing in his brain.
Cairo
was not what he had expected, it was better. Sprawling, crowded, rushing,
bright, alien and dirty and packed with houses, wailing mosques, back alleys,
faceless apartments, official buildings, neon lights in Arabic, sad palm trees,
and thousands of frantic little dinged dodgem cars on double-decker streets.
The people were short and skinny, seething with a desperate energy on the verge
of madness. Bones of countless levels of past old cities seemed to lie just
beneath the uneven surface, constantly ground to dust by the daily passage of
millions of modern feet. The place oozed time from its pores and drains and
roofs, everything worn with age and discoloured through use. It was faintly
dangerous but fiercely alive.
He
craved the buzz of the street. Far below traffic jammed the bridges and roads.
Large international hotels loomed by the sluggish Nile, sparkling in the
gathering dusk, moored ships of refuge for company representatives and other
weary travellers. Above, catching the late sun, an airliner, lights blinking
purposefully, headed out across the dome of the world to who knows where -
London, Bombay, maybe even New York.
And
there, west on the purpling horizon, he could make out the hazy shape of the
pyramids at Giza, standing guard at the edge of the desert. He had got there
that morning, finally, and saw the man-made mountains close up, touched the
massive blocks that had been there four thousand years, and wondered at the
enigmatic Sphinx that had kept them company for so long.
In
the afternoon he had gone with Brock to the Information Agency office, where
they introduced his friend Anne to her first posting among the crisply short-haired,
short-sleeved staff. Keith stayed for discussions with managers while Kashi,
revelling in his deliberately underdressed, young-tourist field agent style,
had been sent alone to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square.
There
he saw for himself the artifacts of the ages: Tutankhamen's gold face and
treasures, walls of hieroglyphics, stacks of sarcophagi, rows of mummified and
dessicated bodies, the whole apparatus of boats to sail those silver-sanded
seas beyond death. For the first time in his life he felt the weight of the
countless generations of men and women who must have gone before him on this
earth.
He
checked his watch. Oops, late to meet Keith Brock in the bar at the Nile
Hilton.
Kashi
looked at his beer glass with satisfaction. "This may be disloyal, Keith,
but I don't want to be prevented from travelling."
Brock
laughed. "Had a good day?"
"Unbelievable.
Fantastic."
"Don't
worry. Like drugs and prostitution, tourism will always be with us. And the more Americans stay at home, the better
for you, eh? You don't have to share the sights with a load of fat old couples
from Iowa."
"Put
like that-"
"Protecting
them from fraud. Helping the Greens save the environment. And we get to travel.
It sounds selfish, but everyone wins, apart from a few criminals."
"I'll
drink to that."
Brock
raised his glass.
"So,
did you discover anything suspicious?" he asked.
"Fakes?
no," said Kashi. "The pyramids seem just too solid; almost like
they're natural..."
"Anything
else out there?"
"Well,
the Sphinx is having pretty obvious restoration work - is that what you
mean?"
"It's
a slippery slope and a matter of some discussion.... where does simple
maintenance shade into renovation and restoration, on through building
re-imagined structures from a few holes in the ground, and finally to
manufacturing complete frauds? But that's a big subject. Anything else? What
about the museum?"
"King
Tut? - His stuff looked great ... but I really can't tell old from new, antique
from modern. To me, it's all genuine. Completely. Sorry; did I fail some
test?"
"No,
don't worry, said Brock. "We let you go alone today for a purpose: so you
could see just how hard it is to judge. From now on you'll have us to guide
you. And this -"
Brock
passed over a small grey device.
"What
is it?" said Kashi, flipping it open.
"The
United States Information Agency Palmtop," said Brock, proudly.
"Great for field agents - all the history, tourist data, visa information
and foreign language phrases you could possibly need - without the
self-interested hype of the commercial tourist literature. Keep it with you at
all times. Download new data only at USIA offices. It will be your constant and
true companion."
"It
can tell me what's old and what's actually modern?" said Kashi, awed.
"It
is a database of what we know so far; and in time, what you too find out and
report."
"Oh,
wow."
"To
answer your specific question, apparent age is not a guarantee that a thing is
genuine. Even fakes can be old: duplicitous English monks in the 11th century
successfully faked King Arthur's grave at Glastonbury in order to attract
gullible paying pilgrims. Medieval European churches had enough relics of the
True Cross to build a ship or two. But take a moment to think from your own
experience: what is common to the Lascaux cave and Machu Picchu?"
"OK.
Nothing much at first sight - one's a French prehistoric cave, the other's a
hill town in Peru. Without checking, I would say they were both discovered this
century but had never been heard of before?"
"Yes.
Recent discovery is certainly a good indicator. That's why we remain wary of
places like Pompeii, Troy, Sutton Hoo."
"King
Tut was found in this century, so is he a fraud? Should I look him up?"
"We
don't know; it's still worth probing. That palmtop doesn't know it all. And
watch out for new things. When Iraq opens up we expect to see a lot more of
Babylon than ever before, perhaps even the fabled Hanging Gardens, which
probably never existed in the first place. And we're extremely suspicious that
Atlantis is going to show up again one day."
"Atlantis?
Isn't it fictional?"
"Possibly
not; the Greeks in Santorini made a claim for it. Some say it is in the sea off
Cornwall, others that it's on the altiplano in Bolivia; just ripe for a
latter-day Hiram Bingham. And the seven wonders of the ancient world, such as
the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos of Alexandria... I bet you within fifty
years someone will claim to have discovered them."
"What
about things that were always known and never lost? Like the Colosseum in Rome,
the Parthenon, the Leaning Tower of Pisa?"
"Some
may turn out to be recent improvements to an earlier structure. The ancient
Colosseum was said to hold over 150,000 spectators. We might find - without
much help from the Italians - that the original seated five thousand at most...
what we see today is impressive, but not strictly original. And the Parthenon
in Athens - probably first built of cedar wood, rebuilt in stone in the 18th
century."
"And
the pyramids?" asked Kashi, worried.
"No
more than fifty-feet high piles of mudbricks. What you visited today are
typically grandiose Victorian re-creations to see how far the engineering could
be pushed."
"You're
kidding!"
"Yes!"
Brock laughed. "Sorry, couldn't resist it. They seem to be the genuine
article."
"Well,
that's a relief."
"Remember.
The price of truth is eternal vigilance. Cleopatra's Needles were exposed as
recent objects only when we found they were crumbling so fast they'd have been
heaps of dust by Christ's birth if they'd been genuine. There's plenty more of
Egypt for us to check."
"How
can you possibly keep track of new artifacts appearing all over the
world?"
"Plato
chips."
"What?"
"It's
a form recognition technology, installed in networked photo-processing labs
around the country. Tourist snaps are automatically and covertly scanned; the
software prioritises targets and alerts us to novel items."
"You
guys think of everything."
Brock
smiled. "Now drink up. We leave in the morning."
The
vast sheet of water spread to the south, shimmering in the bright desert.
Kashi, standing near the great statues of Abu Simbel, checked the entry in his
USIA palmtop. It was dull and pedantically accurate: ancient Lake Nasser,
created between three thousand two hundred and three thousand three hundred
years ago when the Pharoahs built the dam at Aswan to regulate the annual
flooding of the Nile: the world's first significant water engineering project
The
journey hundreds of miles south along the winding river and into the increasing
heat had been a tremendous adventure for Bob Kashi, almost spiritual in its
impact. Luxor, Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Kom Ombo. In some nameless
place on the voyage downriver - far from any monuments - he had stood at a spot
timeless and profound and intensely fragile, like the Earth herself orbiting
her naked sun. The habitable country was so narrow, just a few hundred yards
across: brilliant blue water with white-sailed feluccas drifting downstream,
bordered on each bank by palm trees and irrigated crops in mud brown fields,
supervised by a dusty hamlet; beyond that lay only the pitiless empty desert.
Life here for a hundred and fifty centuries or more had been fixed to the
immutable wheel of the seasons.
He
felt as though he was tracking the history of the human race along the
umbilical of life; if he left Keith Brock here to his paranoid fantasies and
pressed further south he would reach equatorial East Africa and the cradle of
humanity itself a million years in the past. New York and supermarkets and
television and the internet and a thousand trivial aspects of modern life
seemed so far away, so ephemeral, so disconnected from the reality of the
world, which was about how to conjure sustenance from the soil and the water
and the burning light.
And
yet people found time to create the most magnificent expressions of hope and
immortality. Kashi turned to look up at the four huge ancient statues of Abu
Simbel, two each side of a dark entrance to a cool temple carved out of the
living rock. Enigmatic but proud, staring out over the lake as they had for
thousands of years, the enormous figures were at one with their cliffside. They
gave him a tremendous sense of peace and permanence.
"There's
something not quite right," said Keith Brock, coming up to him, worried.
"Keith,"
said Kashi, sadly. "What is it now?"
"The
shape of the hill, this cliff; doesn't quite match the rest of the landscape.
And there's a strange little door. See, to the right there."
"Can't
you just let it be? Feel the moment? It's probably nothing."
"Kashi,"
said Brock, forcefully. "We're here on a mission. Now, while I distract
attention, you investigate."
"But-"
"Do
it."
"OK!
OK!"
As
Kashi reached the unexceptionable door, two hundred yards behind him Brock fell
to the ground with a convincing cry, bringing officials and tourists walking,
then running.
The
door posed no problem to Kashi's new skills. With a quick twist and a shoulder
push he forced his way into a dark space where he could no longer see. He shut
the door against the blinding desert and let his eyes adjust.
As
they did he had the shock of his life: he was standing in a hangar-sized
building, a large artificial space defined in concrete.
In
the high ceiling a few small fluorescent lights burned.
Two
pairs of massive concrete buttresses obviously supported the weighty stone
figures outside.
A
big rectangular structure between them was clearly the outer shell of the
so-called temple area reached by the central doorway.
Steel
ladders and platforms must provide access to high places for maintenance
engineers.
Boxes
on the walls presumably housed light switches, climate control, fire systems, a
telephone.
The
statues and the temple and the entire hill comprised one big audacious fake, no
more than forty years old and brutally arrogant in its execution.
He
did not know how but he was outside in the hammering noon with his hands
gripping Brock's shirt until they pulled him off and quietened him down and
brought him back to the bus and to Aswan, back to Cairo, back to the modern
world, and he watched as he travelled as the people sailed their little boats
and picked dates and washed their clothes in the river and lived in poverty
among the ruins in a complex street theatre that did not fool him for one second.
A
week of mixed fortunes. An earthquake in Peru had caused damage to
Sacsayhuaman. Archaeologists at Halicarnassus said they had found the ancient
Mausoleum. During an attack by helicopter-borne drug agents in Cambodia, Angkor
Wat had regrettably been collateralised.
Investigative
Head (Asia Division) Bob Kashi, wearing check trousers and a Hawaiian shirt, a
camera resting on his expanding stomach, smiled as he folded his magazine and
walked stiffly across the Beijing Hyatt parking lot with his wife, Anne, plump
in her tight shirt and red-faced. It had been an interesting day out at the
Great Wall - thousands of Chinese tourists and quite a few Americans swarming
and gawping at the marvellous section of ancient defences.
Bob
and Anne knew that most of the two thousand miles of wall was a barely
recognisable heap of stones that could have been shovelled together in an
afternoon by children. Final proof, enough for Director Carey to protect
himself, was hard to come by amongst the inscrutable Chinese, but they were
working on it.
Entering
the lobby, Bob glanced at the Deng State Travel Services bureau and noticed
that the poster of New York - Statue of Liberty, Empire State and all - had
peeled off the wall in their window display.
"Hi!"
he said breezily to the crew-cut Chinese travel agent at the desk, trim in his
white short-sleeved shirt. "Your great picture of my home town has fallen
down!"
"I'm
sorry sir?"
"New
York! Fall down!"
"Oh
sorry sir! I'll see to it at once."
"I
bet you send a lot of tourists to New York."
"No
sir! The Chinese people prefer to experience the rich joys of their own
cultural heritage."
"Say
it ain't so! Why?"
"They
don't care to be murdered, sir."
Bob
rested against the counter, forcing a smile. "Son, they shouldn't believe
all they read about the USA."
The
agent leaned forward, his eyes hard and glittering. "Oh, but we think they
should. Sir."
------
©
Nicholas Waller 1998