Tapper, Jake - The Hellfire Club by Tapper Jake

Author:Tapper, Jake [Tapper, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, Politics
ISBN: 9780316472333
Google: -zA0DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 031647231X
Barnesnoble: 031647231X
Goodreads: 34329347
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2018-04-24T05:00:00+00:00

At that very moment, Margaret, Louis Gwinnett, and two other researchers were sitting cross-legged around a campfire, drinking soup from thermos mugs. They had set up camp between the surf and a string of ponies, which had been within sight until sundown. The researchers on Susquehannock Island reported via walkie-talkie that no ponies had yet made the journey from Nanticoke to their location; Gwinnett’s team was determined to be awake and watching when they did.

Nursing a flask of whiskey, Gwinnett talked campus politics with the two researchers from the University of Wisconsin, graduate students named Isaac Kessler and Matthew Cornelius. Margaret kept silent, fermenting in her marital angst. The moon was waxing crescent with only 3 percent visibility—Gwinnett hoped the cloak of darkness would help their mission in observing the ponies—so the stars shone particularly bright. Kessler, gazing at the constellations in the stars, misidentified Lupus, the eleven-starred wolf, as Lepus, the eight-starred hare. It was impossible for Margaret not to correct him.

“I learned about the constellations from my uncle,” she explained after rectifying his astronomical error. “He was a park ranger, and he loved to take my sister and me outside late at night—he said he was ‘teaching us the sky,’” she said. “For Lupus, he told us a very dark story about a wolf.”

“Children’s stories are always macabre,” Gwinnett observed. “I suppose it’s to prepare them for real life.”

“Seriously,” said Cornelius. “I was traumatized by Bambi and Dumbo. What’s Walt Disney’s obsession with killing off moms?”

“Dumbo’s mom wasn’t killed, she was just imprisoned,” corrected Kessler.

“There does seem to be a common theme of losing a parent, or both parents,” said Margaret. “Snow White and Cinderella lost their moms, hence the wicked stepmothers. And wasn’t Peter Pan an orphan?”

“What was the wolf story your uncle told you?” asked Gwinnett, nudging her and handing her his flask.

“It’s a weird one,” she said, declining his offer. “Golden apples are being stolen from a tree and the king sends his three sons—the youngest is Ivan—to figure out who’s doing it. They set out on horseback and come upon a sign and three paths. One path will lead to cold and hunger. On the second, your horse will die. On the third, your horse will live but you will die—”

“Oh, I know this story!” said Gwinnett. “It’s Ivan and the Gray Wolf! Does it end with the brothers chopping up Ivan but the Gray Wolf brings him back to life?”

“Yes! So awful for a child to hear!”

“That’s an old Soviet folktale,” Gwinnett said.

“Huh,” said Margaret.

“Watch out, Doc,” said Kessler. “Her husband’s a congressman. Talk too much about the Gray Wolf and next thing you know, you’ll be sitting before the House Un-American Activities Committee!”

“What does your husband think of McCarthy, Margaret?” Gwinnett asked.

“He hates McCarthy,” she said. “But he hates the Communists too.”

“Is he Democrat or Republican?” asked Cornelius.

“Registered Republican, but he kind of inherited that from his father, an admirer of TR. Truly not a particularly partisan man. He’s only been there a few months.

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