Senator Moriarty investigates Tannahill/Hanno who contacts the Unity. Lines of inquiry intersect until an incident brings events to a head. With Aliyat in hospital and Moriarty getting the FBI onto their trail, the immortals must act, must cooperate with each other and must also reorganize for the future. This is the last chapter before the future section of the novel which we have reread recently.
Flora and Hanno speak in French and in circumlocutions, by phone:
"'Parlez-vois francais?'"(13, p. 433) "Do you speak French?"
"'Oui.'" (ibid.) "Yes."
"'Desirez-vour parler comme ci? Pourquoi, s'il vous plait?'" (ibid.) "Do you want to talk like this? Why, please?"
And at the end:
"'-Bien. Bonne chance. Au revoir, esperons-nous.'" (ibid.) "-Well. Good luck. Until we meet again, we hope."
Knowing that Moriarty was after Tannahill had made Flora hang back from further contact with the latter. According to Hanno:
"'I gather [Flora] admires [Moriarty], because he's supposedly done things for the poor. She's been too busy to learn much history.'" (13, p. 434)
A patronizing attitude, indeed. Flora, an immortal black woman working with and among the poor, has made her own informed judgement about Moriarty. I take "...he's supposedly done things for the poor..." to mean that he has in fact done some things for the poor. Hanno assumes that anyone who has learned some history will share his politics. He should know that those who are historically informed regularly have very different politics.
Hanno honestly doubts whether the US would survive Moriarty's Presidency. So far - at least - it has survived every Presidency!
Moriarty says that:
"'...rednecks quack about the Second Amendment...'" (12, p. 431)
Hanno says that:
"'Since the Goetz case, the liberals have been out for blood.'" (13, p. 435)
Standard mutual contempt!
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