Chapter Twelve

THE SEARCH

Climbing the steps to a Writers House on an Ivy League campus to post flyers, in the realm of the enemy, the leader of the ULA notices a sudden smell or chill in the air. He studies the movie-backdrop expanse of slate-gray clouds overhanging the city.

When he steps back outside, the cautionary feeling lingers. He's been betrayed so many times, on so many occasions almost destroyed,, that he's developed a sixth sense about such things. There isn't, really, anything different in the air. It's instead an accummulation of minute changes which have been building. Several key unanswered e-mails. Cryptic remarks from people. A suddenly cancelled meeting. This moment, an extra car or two upon nearby streets. A chill from the overall literary environment which surrounds the place.

The ULA's rebellion has been tolerated, but the amused, mildly irritated tolerance has ceased. The band of literary rebels have once too-often crossed the line between being merely quirky and becoming a genuine threat to the network of established literary gangsterism which dominates the racket; which controls most of the territory.

The ULA's unique position is to be feared and hunted by all sides, gangsters and literary police alike. Now word has come down from on high. Tolerance of any dissent is over. The mob bosses have lost patience. The shadowy figure above them in his wavering sanity has lost patience. The packs of destruction have been unleashed.

The ULA's leader-- front man more than leader, as the amorphous rebellion has no leader-- catalogues the things he needs, and where they are, how quickly he can get to them, what time a certain bus departs. He makes plans in his head to vanish as fast as possible within the shadows of this east coast city, or to leave it.