Author's Note: This is a work of fiction. Anyone familiar with Baltimore and its surburbs will know that I took great liberties with the area. Likewise, the alphabet soup of government agencies, including those active in the war on terrorism and those I have created to meet the demands of the story. Even when settings, government agencies, and units are referred to by their true names, the incidents portrayed as taking place are entirely fictious. All names, businesses, characters, and events are either the product of my imagination or used fictiously.
Any resemblence to actual events, or to persons living or dead, is coincidental.
When I dream, I see the light. It's a prick at first, like a match struck in the middle of a park tunnel on a rainy night. The light flares, relentless and fast, scorching my vision. Nerve endings sizzle, yet within the light there is no heat. My world snaps and sinks under a cold, white wave.
I've dozed off in John Cook's truck. Breath leaves me, and I wake, coming out of the dream as though someone's pitched water in my face. I'm wrenched through the skin of it, blinking into the peach powder light of a Sunday morning in late November.
It's a little after 7:00 AM, I'm the last drop-off, the last man in the back of John's Explorer.
John cuts his eyes to the rear view mirror, no doubt aware I've had the dream. We're a four-man team and John's our leader. He doesn't know what I dream, but he knows I have one I don't like and he knows why.
He looks away sharply. We're crossing train tracks two miles from my doorstep in the Meridian subdivision of Paulston.
"Pick you up tomorrow, six sharp," he says.
It's his job to pick up the team. After the car bombing in 2005, our unit took over the old Armory on Bouten Street. Just off the Cross Mill extension, headquarters is a broad, brick five-story cube with a heliport and four ancillary structures that make up the joint-agency training complex built by the Department of Justice.
Under our headquarters swoops a garage built like a bunker, protected by steel and concrete. We don't use it like a commuter lot for our personal vehicles; we'd rather ride in with the team leader, as duty rotations tend to run long, hard days. And the next span is likely to be as long as the previous one, a week or more flying or driving up and down the East Coast. Meanwhile, we've got twenty-four hours to recharge, figure out how to get sleep before rendezvous at headquarters and we head out again.
John's blinker is ticking as he swings up Tulley Sreet. I straighten, reach across the seat for my tote. I'm wearing my gear under a windbreaker and sweater. The Glock's holster is a bulge on my hip. In spite of its dampness-wicking and fast-drying fabric, the black shirt under my jacket is stiff and sticky. I feel muscles protesting when I sit up, hard and swollen, knocking together like golf balls. My skin shifts on my bones, a stranger's.
John rolls to a stop at the bottom of a paved driveway in front of a postage-stamp lawn edged by azaleas and Rhododendrons, a rock garden in the middle. John, who relaxes in a one-floor efficiency a block from the North End Super Stop-N-Shop and a Home Depot, calls my place a tribute to domesticity. The old brick exterior with black shutters is a throwback to another era, quaint under broad-leafed, thorny vines. Suzanne, my lover, my wife, and the mother of my child, says the house has character, a story to tell. It feels grounded, inside and out, like nothing can break it. We couldn't afford it without two paychecks, a chance we took when we found out our daughter Hannah was on the way. The backyard is small but it's enclosed by a circuit of evergreens that hide an alarmed fence. The fence is my concession, the landscaped privacy Suzanne's. She's managed during my absences to keep the trees alive, to coax something green out of the ground back there.
I see five paper sacks full of leaves line the road, Suzanne's way of working off her issues. She's used to me taking one assignment at a time while she holds down a decent practice Monday through Friday in a tiny plaza across the street from Hannah's daycare. My commander normally keeps five teams in rotation. When things go well, free time is built in. I get to act as though I have a life. We're cycled so everybody stays fresh.
Recent events have changed that.
Suzanne has to do a lot on her own now. Somewhere, I worry, is a dart board with my face on it.
I open John's back door, slip outside, no good-bye. Funny, but he and I have taken to silence over polite talk, carrying the weight up front instead of down inside. Every take-down carries peril, that's what we do, but it's different now. Through the open door, I glance over the seat at John, and he gestures tiredly. See you soon. The time off is brief. Blink and we'll miss it. The war is here, and it has consumed us.
As he drives off, the guy next door pokes open his screen door, shuffles outside. He's halfway across the driveway before he's close enough to call my name without shouting. Earl Trute doesn't want to draw attention, but he wants answers. He can see I'm wearing gear under my coat, carrying my tote. Nothing on me says what I do, but he's aware I'm law enforcement and he knows my jurisdiction crosses state lines. Our four-year-old daughters play together. He must figure that counts for something.
"Noticed you haven't been around," the guy gasps through parted lips. Like the rest of us, he looks shell-shocked. He's probably not getting decent shut-eye. The TV is calling it crisis fatigue, presently a national epidemic. "Been busy?" he wants to know.
With one eye on the restful stoop in front of my doorway, I nod wearily in his direction. "Yeah, kind of."
Earl's on the balls of his feet, straining like his life depends on it. To him, it does.
"Well? We safe here? You didn't come home to get your family out of town, did you?" His frame is taut with anxiety.
"No, just home to sleep." I pass a swift look over the front of my house, its welcoming lines framed by Suzanne's bushes. She's inside, maybe wondering what's taking me so long to get up the walkway.
"Oh," Earl mumbles and pulls back. "So it's safe then?" This is almost a challenge.
"I'm not going anywhere anytime soon," I say. The problem is no place is safe. The new rules. If you want a guarantee, move to the Rockies. But stay away from Denver, because you never know. I spread my hands, try to look helpful. "Okay, look, they're opening up federal offices and the courthouses on Monday. Maryland's saying it wants kids back in school Monday, too." Some private schools and institutions of higher learning are waiting it out, mainly because their students have gone home to be with families. "That help?"
Earl looks at me like he's not sure. Maybe I laid it on too thick. No sense coming off like an emergency services commercial, the ones that tell you to stay calm before yielding their spots to primetime news airing satellite images of the remains of downtown Houston. I've started seeing the religious ones, the This too shall pass thirty-second messages that actually aren't half bad. You don't know what you can survive, my unit commander likes to say, until you survive it.
"Yeah, all right." Looking restless, Earl starts to bob his head and I escape.
Suzanne lets me in, goes up on the balls of her feet and puts her forehead in my neck. "Who was that out there, Earl?"
I nod, catching her around the waist. She feels good, her hair damp with the smell of herbal shampoo. She's got on her loose weekend jeans, the ones that ride low in the middle and gently graze her hips. Her feet are bare. Auburn hair lies against her cheeks and long down her back. My wife's eyes are green. There are places inside her eyes that keep me up at night and take away my breath. She can touch me across a room with those eyes, say my name, call me to bed. I've been away and I miss them.
"You sleeping yet?" I ask.
She comes down from her tiptoes, pulls away, and sighs, like, How am I supposed to do that?
I lower the tote carefully, signal, Wait a minute, and creep up the stairs as quietly as an old house will let me. Past the bathroom redolent with the steam of Suzanne's shower I find my daughter's bedroom.
This is what I need right out of the field, to see my daughter sleeping in a room wallpapered with dolphins and teddy bears. Hannah is willowy like her mother but with my height. She's got dark hair like me and she's got my blue eyes. The contrast, on Hannah, creates an exuberant beauty that shakes me to the core. Fortune has smiled.
She stirs. Yeah, sure. Daddy smells like the other world, the hard world in which people are politely excusing themselves to cry and puke in bathroom stalls so they can keep it together another eight hours on ninety minutes' sleep.
I get a hug for that, and a Daddy are you staying home?
I am today, sweetheart, I tell my daughter, my face in the plush wash of her hair. Little arms tighten around my neck. I want to just pick her up, walk the halls holding her in my arms for all the men and women in Houston and Tucson who can't find their daughters. Holding my daughter can blot out what I know and where I've been. It can beat back the blinding light that is, I firmly believe, my death reaching resolutely through the night to find me. I don't pick her up, but gently ask her to return to sleep.
She says she doesn't want to, but she'll try.
Suzanne hangs back, pulling up Hannah's quilt, whispering to her while I head to our bedroom. The light is low, just the metallic shimmer of the televsion and the shaded cider light of early morning in the bay window.
The carpet mutes the slog of my rubber-soled boots.
Suzanne comes up behind, easing past me. "How long are you home? You didn't say on the phone."
"Could be the full twenty-four hours, I don't know." I want a shower but the television is on and Suzanne's near it. It's a morning program, or it could be a special, coverage of the recent events in Houston, the massacre in Tucson. Ticker tape rolls across the screen with casualty estimates and the number of missing. Information in terms of square miles follows, underscored by blurry satellite images of ruin that cannot be processed with the human eye. I have not yet learned to look away. The feeling that comes to me is like the pad of tiny insects marching up my spine.
Suzanne follows my gaze. "They know what did it yet?"
They know, I tell her.
She picks up the remote, hesitates. She is looking at me now, wondering, I suppose, why I don't flinch from the images. Her training is in forensic psychology, how we met. She is a study of enigma, a magician who thrills to the puzzling vagaries of the mind. She needs to understand the hidden layers, and she needs to understand me.
An anchorman drones his lines in the low tones that accompany all aftermath footage. I wonder if he knows someone from Houston, has family in Tucson. I wonder that about everyone. It's safer to assume yes and proceed carefully. There's a ghastly undertone, too, a fatalistic umbrage. Is it over? Tucson was bad enough, and then on November 17, a few days later, Houston. One cannot speak the number of those who have died. The figure must be whispered, like a prayer. The television scenes are surreal, an introduction to an alien landscape. In the old world, none of this is possible. In the new world, my family might be next. Anyone's can be.
Suzanne presses the remote, tosses it to the old armchair on top of a pile of her everyday sweaters.
I turn my head to look at her. "The commander gave us leave, which means ..."
Leave doesn't mean I'm free and clear. I can't switch off the Palm Treo, can't get too far from it. I won't say this to Suz, not while I'm looking at her worried face, the face that says I seem a little worn out. At home she's had days of CNN and NPR, the office closed since the Houston incident, nothing but days of pictures of devastation on televsion. Unlike the local TV stations, cable networks never went off the air. Commercial phone lines are back, and Suzanne's just found out her brother is okay. She tells me this as she heads over to the window, pushes back the shade. She's heard from her mother, who's got enough of everything to last, she says. I just nod, my hands pulling at my top, getting at my belt. I have to get clean or evaporate in a mist of wrath, nothing but air to grab or punch and I don't want to feel what I'm feeling now that I'm home with her. I unload my pockets on my dresser, not saying much.
Suzanne keeps the shade down, pokes out her chin. "Your Mom and Dad called."
They're outside Portland, I wasn't worried about them. "Good," I say. "Supplies getting through?"
"Your mother says there's some rationing." Suzanne scratches her brow. "Price gauging is worse up there than here. She's paying six-fifty for a quart of milk."
I have no idea what a quart of milk used to cost, but I nod like I do.
"What was it then?" she decides to ask. "What hit us?"
I don't want to say, and I don't tell Suzanne about needing to make love or being afraid of spending the next few hours with my face against the upstairs bedroom glass wondering what I'd do if a fireball was coming at us, rushing at us, and I only had enough time to whisper her name.
"Gotta shower," I say.
Suzanne's gaze slides away. I get the feeling she wants to probe but now she's going to put that off. Something she sees when she looks at me, a warning.
From the shower I hear Suz's voice. Hannah's up, probably can't go back to sleep. I strain to hear what she's saying. Then I give up and lean into the spray, inhale the steam. The shower clock says I've been in for twenty minutes, then twenty-five. I still don't feel good in my skin.
The door opens. "Mitch, you want breakfast? I could make us something, just you and me." Evidently she's got Hannah in bed again.
"I'm okay, Suz." I see her past the shower curtain.
She hangs in the door, letting out the steam. "Then come to bed."
Yeah, go to bed. I've been up twenty-four hours, haven't slept longer than a few hours in a week.
I lean toward the tile, fold my arms, and rest my head on them. "The perpetrators were homegrown anarchists. Both cities were hit with ten-kiloton explosions somewhere about fifty feet above mean sea level, probably from the upper floor of a building. In Houston, they know what building it was and they think they know what floor. The terrorists used Pu-239 and an implosion method detonation."
My wife's head has cocked, but her expression remains unlined, neutral. She could be with a client, playing through the filter of training something that deserves serious contemplation. Her next question is clinical. "Is that classified, what you just told me?" She used to be a fed. She knows the rules.
"You betcha."
"You can't get weapons grade plutonium at the flea market, Mitch."
"Without doubt."
"Do they know yet where the terrorists got the 239?" Her voice has tightened. She doesn't want this answer. She's worried she knows what I'm going to say.
"We knew they had it. We've known for years. Before 9/11, Suz."
She groans, mentally crossing off every fringe group she's familiar with, save one. She worked on the multidisciplinary team that put together the Dietrich Waterman case in 2004. As an agent on the task force, she was read in on the Richmond Fields incident.
In 1994, the group calling itself One Nation crowned the top of the FBI's domestic terrorist list when the names of its founders, Moses Waterman and Harris Dean, came up after a physicist and a bomb technician went missing from the Richmond Fields experimental research facility with a quantity of Pu-239. This was not something well or widely known. At the time, I was a freshman at the University of New Haven and Suz was training with the behavior analysis unit at Quantico.
In the 1990s, One Nation aggressively recruited within the US military. The group preys on young men especially, youths disposed to the belief that a racially pure and economically and politically independent America is the true design of the founding fathers. According to One Nation, the so-called apologist cultures of the 70s and 90s eroded the foundation of a strong and venerable nation. Waterman especially believes that if allowed to continue, the policies of affirmative action, immigration, and international obligation will reduce America to a pot of slag dependent on foreign markets and the good intentions of outsiders. It is a question of the size of the pie, as in there isn't enough to go around. In a scenario involving a bunch of haves and have-nots, Americans should look to their own. The criteria for "true American," adhering to the usual hate-based exclusionary rhetoric, is not open for debate. Waterman and his cronies Harris Dean and David Walker go so far as to suggest the usefulness of extermination camps. The Waterman manifesto likens the policy of annihilating American citizens to the lifeboat principle. In a survivor situation, the less worthy passengers can and should be fed to the sharks.
Fifteen years ago, One Nation went underground. It's now 2009. Walker's dead, slain in an FBI raid at a training camp in Kentucky. Moses Waterman and Harris Dean remain at large. They do not proclaim their acts, yet they have played roles in the 2006 Sargent One hostage crisis, the 2007 bombing of the federal building in Jackson, Mississippi, the 2007 and 2008 assassinations of sociology professors, and the Baltimore, Maryland car bombings, including one that claimed the lives of three deputy U.S. Marshals. The domestic terrorist gurus fear a sizable chunk of the group's funding comes from bank robberies and the import and distribution of heroin, which its leaders are happy to see on the streets of inner cities.
I duck my head under the shower head, let the spray scald my scalp.
"They're hitting big cities." Suzanne is mortified. "They're going for maximum casulaties."
Cities Fall, I remind her, is the name of Dean's blackmarket how-to cookbook for achieving the correct world order.
"How are you doing, Mitch? Are you okay doing CT/CH on One Nation?"
"We've been bringing in operatives from every extremist group on our radar. It's an equal opportunity round-up." My unit does catch and hold for a joint-agency counterterrorism task force controlled by the Department of Homeland Security, but from Suzanne's perspective there's a message I'm not supposed to miss about One Nation. The way I'm connected to it.
CT/CH found Dietrich Waterman, nephew to Moses Waterman, five years ago in West Virginia when an associate stumbled into a clinic complaining of fatigue, nausea, and weakness. The patient was diagnosed with radiation sickness. Under federal law, the clinic staff was required to notify the FBI. My unit and several others did a "catch and hold" raid on the patient's last known address. The patient's roommate, Dietrich Waterman, stayed put one hour longer than he should have. It was a mistake that paid off in spades.
Suzanne spares no kind thoughts for the Watermans. "Who'd you round up?"
"We got a person they paid to handle their mail."
"Their mail?" She's wondering why One Nation uses the United States Postal Service.
"The word is they're mailing in demands, I don't know. I wouldn't figure Waterman for the negotiating type." I shake my head.
With Waterman, there's no middle ground. Every fed is a target. Every politician is a barrier. People are cattle, most of them not worth a piss even if they're on fire.
Thinking about it, I allow a black-and-white glossy of the crater in Tucson to hang about the stage of my mind. Two hotels and blocks of office buildings leveled at one in the afternoon. It was so hot at ground zero the stone became glass. People were vaporized. A shopping center, university, and downtown hospital-- they're gone. Gone, as in gone. You have to hold up a before picture and use a grid to know they used to be there. The air can't be breathed. The soil can't be touched. All the water must be brought in. If tears are like rain, it will rain forever in Tucson.
I clear my throat. "Suz, an anarchist doesn't care if a dairy truck is getting milk from Wisconsin to a five-year-old kid in Detroit. He doesn't care if the gas stations in Chicago are getting deliveries. He likes the idea of cars by the side of the road, no gas, and people crawling over each other to get out of southern Arizona so they can taste a glass of water they know is safe." I sweep hair off my forehead, gather a long, unsteady breath. "Anyway." This is the data that streams into my unit, the ways in which my country is failing. "For whatever reason, a few days ago they put my team on a letter box in Delaware with a guy's description. We snatched the target with a letter he was sending to a police precinct in D.C. I don't get to know what the letter said, but ... To answer your question, if you're an extremist group on the terrorist watchlist and you want to discuss your ideas in depth, the mail with its low technology is the way to go."
She's still puzzled. "The person you caught, does he know anything?"
"Far as I can tell, he's just a cog in the wheel. Somebody they hired. We need," I sigh, "more cogs. This is going too damn slow, my opinion." It's one thing to get your hands on weapons grade plutonium and keep it. It's another to cast the pit and machine the plutomium. The lenses have to be shaped and chemically pure. Plutonium, in and of itself, is toxic. You need highly specialized machinery to make it into a bomb, stuff the government is supposed to notice moving from one place to another.
Someone helped them. Many someones, at least a half-dozen people.
Someone knows.
Suzanne is wearing a frown.
I straighten my spine, roll my shoulders. "The real question is can they do it again."
"Can they?" she asks.
"Without doubt."
"How many times?"
"You mean, how many more times?" Taking into account the amount of Pu-239 missing from the lab at the Richmond Fields base in the 90s, the FBI's most conservative estimate says one more time. There are thinkers within the DOJ suggesting there could be two, possibly three additional devices in play.
Suzanne rolls away, a hand pinning back her hair. She stares quietly into the door frame. In a minute, "Come to bed, Mitch."
* * *
The sheets are clean. I can't get enough of them. The last time I lay down I was on an overused mattress, clothes and shoes on, looking up at the sagging bed springs of the upper bunk in a room we fondly refer to as the box on Bouten Street.
Suzanne scoots over, nothing on but underwear. The wall shades are still down. I trace her hair behind her ears, bring her mouth to mine.
"Tell me what you need," she whispers, when we part.
I have what I need, I tell her.
She is welcoming and moist. The strain in my back and shoulders runs off like water. I try to get all of her in my arms. She puts her mouth against my ear, whispering softly. This is the peaceful dark, heavenly shadows. It's never cold in the dark places of Suzanne's body, and in the dark places of my mind, when I close my eyes while I am inside her. I cannot imagine another place, another life when she breathes my name.
After sex, she lies still, her chest rising high and falling fast. She catches my hands one at a time and holds them up for scrutiny. This is a habit of hers. I wonder if she is contemplating the violence my hands have unleashed, how quickly they seize the butt of a Glock pistol or the stock of my P90, how easily they snap a handcuffed subject to his feet. When she releases me, she slips out of bed. I hear the whisper of her feet on the carpet, and then I drift away.
* * *
When I wake the sun is over the house and there is a small globe of skin and hair poised over my face, wide blue eyes staring curiously.
I snatch Hannah off her knees to the sound of delighed squeals and gently tickle her until she is belly laughing. When she is calm, she tells me Mommy said it was okay to nap with me. I realize it's after lunch and Hannah's had her play.
I say sure and she slips under the quilt. Hannah immediately reaches for my hand. It's a thing with the women in my family. I put my arms around her, never more glad of my strength than when I know my daughter is safe inside it. I want for her a world that's as pristine and pretty as the wallpaper in her bedroom. I am fairly certain that if anything happened to her, my life would be over, I wouldn't survive it.
In a little while I get up, shower, come back and watch Hannah sleep. Suzanne's got something cooking. I smell the sauce. Hannah smells it too. She wakes up and we head to the backyard, where she asks again if she can have a puppy.
"No."
"Why not?"
"You can't leave a puppy alone in the house all the time. It gets lonely."
She rolls her eyes. I've used this excuse before. "He can come to daycare with me."
"No he can't."
"Why not?"
I see now I've dug the familiar trench, but like any fool who thinks just because he's older he can con a preschooler, I keep trying. "The daycare doesn't let you bring puppies. It's a rule."
"Can I go to a daycare that likes puppies?"
"There isn't one."
"Yes, there is." She's not sure about this but the gears are turning, an idea for a new enterprise when she gets older, the first daughter and puppy daycare.
"No, there isn't." I see a flicker of hope for my chances.
"Then why can't I stay home and then the puppy won't be lonely."
The maw of the trench yawns. I go to it resigned. "Because you can't stay home all by yourself. You're too young."
"If you stay home too, I can. And then the puppy won't be lonely."
I look around desperately for help. "I can't stay home because I have to work."
"Why?"
"Suzanne! Is that the phone?"
Suzanne ignores the signal for reinforcements. She's got no back-up when I'm away. Why should she bail me out?
"Okay, sweetie, Daddy has to work because ... Daddy has to do his job. It's something Daddy has to do."
"Mommy says she has to do her job so we can have a place to live." An accusation. Sounds familiar. Clearly, I only go to work because I like to.
"Yes, well, Daddy has to help Mommy keep a place to live."
"But Mommy isn't gone so much. It's your fault the puppy can't come live with us."
"Suz, hon, is that the phone?"
* * *
We have dinner in the room fondly dubbed the family place. Hannah is too old for a highchair but too small for a grown-up dining table. So we have a small table with a chair for Hannah and cushions for Suz and me and we use the room for meals when we can, to make up for the time when we're apart.
I hardly taste the food. Weariness lingers, and I enjoy the sound of Hannah's baby voice accompanied by the mature tones of her mother's but I don't savor the details enough. We can die at any time, crossing the street, a car accident, hit by a stray or purposed bullet but it isn't at home that I think about my death. I've lost many moments and memories to the sin of forgetting to cherish them.
I was once the last man to enter a Suburban. I was once the man who left his cell phone in his locker, a rookie mistake. I was once the man who jumped out of the Suburban, leaving others wincing at my stupidity. I was once the man who, chagrined, jogged down a concrete ramp that seconds later quaked under the explosion of a car bomb. The light of the blast haunts me, not because I did not die with my team but because the reason I did not die at twenty-seven years of age, a new husband with a baby on the way, has nothing to do with skill, nothing to do with experience. It was a fluke caused by carelessness. It was a matter of chance. When I think about death, I want only a few things. If it is to be sooner rather than later, I want to die in a manner that does not haunt Suzanne and Hannah with fear that I suffered. I would rather think about why it's good to be alive, the backyard puppy debates, the hope that one day I will see Hannah graduate college, that I will walk with her in a church of unimagined beauty as she fulfills a love I pray will be as special as the one I have with her mother. At home, I am immortal, and so it's the little things that are lost in the wash of larger events, little things like the last meal I have in the house in Paulston.
The discussion at dinner is about Hannah's play dates, her friends, and what we're doing for Christmas. Are we going up north or do we try to get to New Mexico, where Suzanne's mother and brother live? Suzanne and I talk about this as lightly as we have in the past, for Hannah's sake, but as I stand with her later in the kitchen I tell her what I think.
"We shouldn't expect the roads to be easy to travel before the New Year, and that's even if Houston is the last incident." Hannah is in sight through the arch between the tiny den and the kitchen. She can't hear us. She's playing with a quartet of Tilly dolls, having a make-believe tea party, from what I can tell. "You got the problem of gas, roadblocks, and the real big problem that your mother lives in a big city and right now that's not making me feel good about heading her way on a holiday."
Suz listens, her gaze on the dishes she's scraping over the compactor. When she finishes, she says, "We could fly."
We can't afford to fly commercial anymore. I don't think recent events will make the problem of high airfares less of one.
"Or take the train," she's saying.
"Christmas is thirty or so days from now. This isn't over."
"What isn't over?"
"This. It."
"Not to mention the fact Waterman might remember your name one day since you managed not to get it inscribed on a grave marker four years ago. Unlike the other guys who arrested his nephew's sorry ass."
There is no satisfactory response to this. She hates the topic as much as I do. The problem is we hate it for different reasons.
She holds out a wet saucer. "Okay, I'll ask my mother to come to us."
"Better," I say.
"You're happier with her here?"
I take up a towel to dry the saucer she's handing me. "Pleading the fifth."
* * *
Sunday night, I fall asleep with Suz draped over my chest, her head under my chin. Wake up to the Treo jumping around the night stand. Inevitable. The clock says it's 2:10 AM.
I reach for it. "Yeah."
"It's John. Rise and shine. We're in play."
The world has begrudged me two lousy hours of sleep. "How far out are you?"
When he picks us up, I'm first. He comes straight up the parkway.
"You got twenty minutes," he says.
I put down the Treo. Suzanne rolls away, awake and tensed. Without talking, I pad to the bathroom, take care of myself, come out for undergear, boots, and black tactical wear, bottoms and top we call TDUs. I dress quietly. While I am buckling my belt, Suzanne flips onto her back and angles her face in my direction.
"You going to say good-bye to Hannah?"
I never wake Hannah when I'm recalled in the middle of the night. Her asking such a thing is bad karma.
She sits up. The only light comes from the open bathroom door down the hall. I can't make out her eyes, but I know that they are adamant, fierce.
I struggle to say something meaningful, something that will not lead to a quarrel. "I'll call you later ..."
"You always call, Mitch."
I grab the tote and heft it to my side of the bed. Then I circle the bed, gathering Suzanne in my arms. She rises toward me, her hands twining behind my neck. I lay her down and sit next to her a minute, just a minute, breathing with her and stroking her cheek.
She lifts away my hand, places her palm over my chest. "Hard and steady," she says about my heartbeat. "The adrenaline's already pumping." She's whispering. "You're already gone."
* * *
It's another world, climbing, alert at 2:30 AM, into the front seat of John Cook's SUV. He has a thermos of coffee in the front seat cargo bin. When I get older, John likes to say, I'll appreciate the chemical necessity of caffeine.
I tell him I'm high on life.
John finds that extremely funny. He's a divorced, forty-something career man, a graying desk-loathing strategist with no life besides the office and his teenage son. In addition to the stimulation of coffee beans, John worships the scintillating effects of a five-mile circuit through Heffern National Park. John is not a runner, he's a plodder. He hates track but give him some hills and valleys and he's home. He won't finish first but he finishes without sweating. It's the way he thinks.
"How was your day?" John asks.
I say the usual. "Short."
"How's the family?"
"Hannah wants a puppy."
John groans with sympathy.
"Suz wants me to quit."
John frowns. "How many times she go there this time?"
I do a mental tally. "Twice."
John comes up with a ratio. "You're on your way, kid. Six months and she'll have you in a monkey suit or divorce court, pick one."
I rub my forehead.
"Just sayin'."
"Next subject."
Cesar Barrera is next. His ex-wife lives in New York with his daughter. He's been wound up tight since Tucsun, worried about New York City in spite of prolific and public assurances from the govenor and homeland security director, who claim the Big Apple is safe.
"What'd they call us in early for?" Cesar wonders.
John says what he always says. "We'll find out in briefing."
A duffel bag thrown to his shoulder, Scott Metz waits on the street. He's thirty-five, single, a former Marine, Force Recon, the only military guy I know with no stories. Scott would rather talk about his childhood than his military career. Show Scott a weapon and he'll tell you what it is, who made it, what kind of ammo it takes, the velocity and accuracy of the ammo, and when to use it. He's an explosive expert, a tactical weapons expert, and he runs like his legs are pistons. When Scott smiles, it usually means something has gone wrong. Scott is an adrenaline junkie. Doesn't mean he likes the hard jobs. It's just the way he reacts to the flush of cortisol. He always knows what he's going to do when the stuff goes south. He's a machine.
"Hiya, boys," he calls from the backseat. "Got any coffee?" He chuckles dryly, knowing John never shares his coffee, and sucks from a bottle of spring water.
We're minutes out of downtown Wicklow.
The garage is shut off from outsiders by a card swipe and a metal barrier. Unless you work here, you can't get in. John parks on level three.
We head to the elevator, hauling our gear. John waves his ID at the elevator reader, presses the button for the bull pen. It won't be crowded there tonight, just the recalled men and Ben Cecere, unit commander.
Ben Cecere came with the new digs, all post-2005. The aftermath. A car bomber killed three deputies, my first CT/CH team, at the old headquarters, and when the paperwork was done they'd moved the unit, replaced the commander, and I thought they were going to replace me. I was offered transfer, even retirement. The way was cut for me, trauma-related stress, disability with a decent allowance, the chance to get right in the head on someone else's time. Desk duty, psychoanalysis, more paperwork games, that was my world after the killings. And then Ben Cecere took over.
"You want back out there?" he asked me in the sweatbox he called his office, just me and him. I was still hoping to get out of my twenties one day soon, he was an institutional icon, this big guy we called the Old Man, not a smile in him, looking at me straight when everyone else was trying not to have to look at me at all.
"Actually, yeah," I said. "Yes, sir."
"Tell me you can handle it."
"I can handle it."
We never talked about it again. The rest of the unit followed his lead and things got better for me.
The Old Man is strolling out of the john as the elevator opens up. He spends his good days making sure the district chief stays off our backs and coordinating teams. His bad days are spent at Quantico or Harrisburg and places like them keeping things moving. We love the guy. He glares at the overtime log but he hasn't forgotten what it's like to get dragged out of bed to sign for tactical weapons at 2:00 in the morning. I've seen a lot of upstairs jobs go to appointees, some with solid law enforcement backgrounds and some not so much. Ben grew with the grass. He's one of us, a field man.
I notice he's got his tote, and he's wearing TDUs. The commander is going with us.
* * *
The bull pen, 2:39.
The FBI has information about four apartments in a building at the crater in Houston. The management company, based in Florida, has yielded data. Some of it is useful.
Ben is pensive, taking the time to look each of us in the face. He does this in lieu of a "stay safe" speech. There's nothing safe about what we do.
Leaning against one of the desks, he aims a laser at the LCD projector screen, lets us look at the target, a high school physics teacher. Ben says the teacher's name, gives us the teacher's physical charateristics so we can try really hard not to shoot him. He tells us, too, the house in Baylor, Virginia presently sleeps two kids, age seven and thirteen, both boys. There may be two additional adult males in the house. There are no women, and the thirteen-year-old is most likely proficient with firearms. Local law enforcement has responded five times in six months to complaints the teacher is using firearms after hours on his property. Ben talks a bit about the property, how big it is, how far away the neighbors are.
He tells us how we're going to control road access. The back of the house is bordered by woods. Approaching that way means a side street drop-off, a cut through the woods, arrival at an open stretch about a hundred yards from the back door.
Local law enforcement won't be helping. Baylor is a small town. Can't know who is related to whom--
Ben breaks off. A couple of civilians have ambled in and hang out at the back of the bull pen. They are in their late thirties, early forties, earnest types able to blend into the background. Ben nods once, goes on with the briefing. The civilians work for homeland security.
"Metz," Ben says, "and Shetensky, you got the back. Looks like he has lights in the backyard. When we kill the power and the telco, you'll get your 'go'."
One of the DHS guys stands up straight. "Who's Metz?"
Scott looks over his shoulder, waves.
"Who's Shetensky?"
I put up my hand.
The DHS guy, raking a cap of dark hair with his fingers, gives Ben a look. "You got anybody with some years on 'em? This is a high-level op. No risk-taking will be acceptible."
Ben stares for a moment. "You through yet?"
The DHS guy looks like he isn't sure.
Ben says, "They're my two fastest deputies. Wanna know why that's important? Look at how much ground they have to cover. Soon as we kill power and telephone, the tango's alarm system is going to beep. That's my 'go' mark. I was inside that house, if I was a dirty son of a bitch, I'd think something might be up, my alarm system is saying I'm suddenly on battery back-up."
The DHS man throws up his hands and raises his voice, trying, interestingly, to appeal to our sense of self-preservation. "We think there may be explosives on the property."
"That is not a problem," Ben lies. Explosives are always a problem. They are a special joy on a night operation. That's why we train for it. "Metz is an expert in bomb safety."
Scott almost smiles. "Shit, boss, there's no such thing as bomb safety. That's like saying government intelligence."
If there is anyone in the room who didn't expect Scott's comeback, it's the DHS guys in the back. They shut up, let Ben finish.
A Black Hawk waits on the penthouse. We are airborn ten minutes later, cutting away from downtown lights, slicing through the sharp November dark toward the hills. Two Suburbans and two drivers ferry us from the guarded landing zone outside Baylor to the operation zone. There is, I know, a loose perimeter around the operation but I always feel we are more alone when we do CT/CH than on any other kind of assignment. We have bosses we never see, unforgiving ghosts with agendas we are not required to understand. There is no doubt that we, the field team, are expendable. When we fire our weapons to protect ourselves, we risk premature termination of the mission. If the target dies before there is an interrogation, the operation is a waste of the taxpayer's money.
As an added incentive, we know tonight we are bringing in a target related to recent events in Tucson and Houston.
I climb out of the SUV. This is the moment I let myself picture Suzanne. She is in her garden, looking back at me with her hair down and a question in her green eyes. I think, My God, you are beautiful. Then I let her go. She doesn't come with me on a mission. On a mission, I am someone she would not recognize.
Ben says the yard and woods've been scanned for trip wires. We're good to go. Our faces obscured by helmets, shields, and mandarin collars, Scott and I start our long swing through a thatch of woodland between the target and his nearest neighbor. It's to us to watch for specialized antipersonnel systems, like pressure plates and motion sensors. The air has a metallic chill. I can feel it under my nostrils, taste it. I am already loose. The jaunt through the woods starts the blood running warm and smooth. Scott navigates the uneven terrain in lead position, ducking past the bushes and flashing up again like he is born to the dark. We reach the wood edge, get down on one knee, our eye on the shadow of the house against the lesser dark of night.
Ben says into my earpiece, "Lady says hello. Lady says hello."
Scott lunges upward, taking off on the balls of his feet. I am behind, angling tightly for the nearer wall. In my mind, two units have lined up in front of this house. We don't particularly like house take-downs, not for catch and holds. A street snatch is so much easier. But it's a long way to a decent hour. The hours, in this new world, are precious.
Scott jams a wedge between the back door frame and the door and releases the spring. The door is old. The frame splinters and the deadbolt slides free. No need to move the door yet. Scott drops down, uses a mini-maglite to scan for wires. He waves to me. It's good. We can feel the thud of movement coming toward us. It's like a heartbeat, racing.
* * *
Upstairs, it is a Norman Rockwell painting. Country wallpaper, carved wood, the bedrooms scattered with the detritus of ordinary life. Magazines with ordinary pictures. I think I see Newsweek and Reader's Digest next to a cold television. Slippers by a closet, the remants of a bag of barbecue chips.
The target barely wakes up, a soft, middle-aged man fumbling for his glasses. He palms a partially bald skull, rubbing with distress, red-rimmed eyes unfocused. The boys are wide-eyed even when fully awake, likening the raid to something they've seen in a movie. They aren't afraid of us. They seem to understand there are rules that say we can't hurt them. The other adults are young men, early twenties. They share an upstairs bedroom that is sterile, just a few pieces of furniture and clothes in a tight closet. They surrender without a word, but they are rigid and hostile.
Downstairs, in the basement, are two men who did not register on the thermal scanner. They lie facing each other in a mingled pool of dried blood on large plastic sheets. Their hands are roped behind their backs. Knees and ankles are bound with duct tape. The sickening smell of mold, blood, urine, and feces drifts over the tang of heavy duty plastic. The bodies are blindfolded and gagged.
They've been dead a while, but not too long a while. Good-bye Norman Rockwell. I am sad but not surprised. I wonder if the slain men are colleagues or innocents. I wonder what it's like to feel rope on my wrists, knowing I'm going to die before it comes off. Meanwhile, the bodies make our civilian tag-along observers giddy. They confer with higher-ups on cell phones, then call in evidence technicians.
Once DHS assumes control of the scene, Ben gives the signal to clear out with our prisoners.
Scott and I have the seven-year-old. Our charge has lost his wide-eyed excited look. Separated from his brother, he's starting to shake.
The rule is we don't talk to our targets. The mission is classified, the people we catch are destined for long interactive sessions with PRCLA personnel.
Scott breaks this rule when he picks up the boy and tells him not to be scared. The thirteen-year-old, his father, and the houseguests are in flexcuffs. I don't know how the seven-year-old can stop being afraid, but I add my voice to Scott's, and then realize what I look like in my helmet and face mask, the TDUs under the tactical vest and body armor.
I whip off my helmet, assume my humanity.
The kid glances anxiously around his living room.
The room is full of technicians handling his property with clinical and purposed detachment.
The boy swallows and strains toward me, arms out.
I nod. Scott hands over the little boy, who is light as a bird against my armor. I tell the boy it's okay, which is of course a wretched lie.
As I leave the house, I see an agency technician scoop three sealed Tyvek envelopes, thirteen inches by nine inches, into a plastic evidence bag.
* * *
A second Black Hawk joins the first at the landing zone. Local law enforcement has found us. Their vehicles stripe the formidable helicopters with strobes, looking intimidated. Sharing nothing, the feds hold them back, implacable as gargoyles.
It's a thirty-five-minute flight to Fort Thorme. We land on the PRCLA side of the airfield and hover taxi to the PRCLA landing pad outside the building I know as Intake. It's a five-story complex with a facade as ancient as the Army side of the base. Inside, the Wash Room, or administration, looks a lot like CT/CH's digs on Bouten Street. It's done in industrial tones with hard furniture, floor tiles so old they'll never take a shine. Past Wash, that's the artery into PRCLA. The thirteen-year-old and the men disappear through the prisoner door, squeezed between their CT/CH escort, no one resisting. The Intake agents look at me, look at the boy, and point to a bench.
Scott and I sit with the kid. A few minutes go by. Scott heads to a vending machine, comes back with a bag of Doritos, a can of Coke. The kid shakes his head. He's starting to make unhappy sounds, deep breaths that rattle.
An image of Hannah. I push her from my mind. My daughter has done nothing to deserve to know a place like PRCLA exists, or that her father has brought a child three years older than she is to it.
A tall woman in a gray suit comes to the prisoner door and motions to me. I carry the boy to her. She won't take him. She turns on her heels, forcing Scott and me to follow. Scott has my gear, I have the boy.
The hall connects, on the north end, to a waiting room outside prisoner processing. I've gone that way before. The woman takes the south door, which leads to the PRCLA operations center. Scott and I have no clearance for operations. The woman doesn't stop, although she should know this. She strides down a narrow access between offices. The offices are support for what looks like three or four work groups tackling data with terminals and large LCDs. The work groups are eerily subdued, like staff huddled around watercoolers. The average age of these PRCLA agents looks about thirty, not what I expect. The war on terror, John jokes, will be won with technology, information. Field agents are irreplaceable, but the real warriors are information technologists.
The woman leads to a second door and into a corridor that resembles the brutal one outside Intake. She passes two gunmetal gray doors, stops at the third. The door has a proximity reader. She holds up her ID badge. Green light.
The door opens into the back of an auditorium. Tiered seats range outward and downward to a small stage and a giant screen. The seats are cloth, cushioned, and wide.
The room is occupied. Two older men in shirtsleeves, one in a sweater. A fourth man hovers in front of the stage over a table littered with paper. He is tall with close-cropped graying hair and a round, average face that makes me think of a department store manager. He wears a sweatshirt, pressed khakis, and immaculate brown shoes.
Behind him, unnoticed, runs a slide show on the big screen.
I look past the men to the screen, riveted. The Tucson crater. Images taken overhead in daylight. The skyline is visible, a smudge of pallor in the distance. Seventeen to twenty thousand lives ... My arm tightens around the little boy, and then I realize he is not Hannah, and that he is looking at the pictures too. I let him. His face is blank. Maybe he'll talk about the pictures, tell what he's heard his brother and father say about them.
He's traumatized. I want to care about that more than I do. I want to be the person who says, Wait a minute, this is a kid, but I am not that person. The kid is going to get an interrogator who will gain his trust, cut through the fear, and raid his memories. I am going to let that happen. It is, I tell myself, a new world.
It is at this moment one of the men below says my name. He says it this way, "Christopher Mitchell Shetensky," as though reading it from my birth certificate or the list of ingredients on the side of jar.
"Up here," I call out, because they are not looking my way.
The men had been speaking in a conversational tone. They straighten and turn, suddenly silent.
The woman strolls down to them. She whispers to the man in the sweatshirt, who, watching me, nods in her direction. He says, "You're Christopher Shetensky?"
For some reason, Scott tenses.
"CT/CH, Team Three," I say.
Another man, the one in the sweater, fingers something on the table. He lifts a document, hands it to the fifty-something guy in the sweatshirt.
The sweatshirt guy scans the document. "You're a goddamned hero."
I squint, figuring I've made some kind of short list for a crappy PRCLA detail.
"Sir?" I say.
"You caught Dietrich Waterman."
"I had help."
The guy's eyes dim, like he knows this. There's a flicker of empathy, what a law enforcement agent feels for a colleague who has survived his partners.
He points to one of the guys in shirtsleeves. This guy bounds up the steps and takes the boy from me.
The boy lets go without a fuss. I wasn't sure he would.
No eye contact from the man in shirtsleeves, just a tentaive half-smile and then he takes the boy down to the others.
The woman climbs to the door, her head back. In the hall, she says, quickly, "I'm Marie Varco."
Scott, who has not relaxed, says, "That's nice." And nothing more.
We head back through the operations center, take the north door into the prisoner center. The outer room is full of CT/CH personnel. The prisoners are in processing, no longer our responsibility. It's a toss if they'll be seen again. The Old Man and John are on their phones. Ben is expressionless, nodding. John is frowning.
John gets off his phone and comes toward us. "The Black Hawks are gone. We're stuck for a few hours till PRCLA can get them back."
This has never happened before. Cesar goes, "Fuck." He's hungry. Catches make Cesar hungry.
Scott is looking at me from the corner of his eye. He says, "The suits were talking to Mitch. What's up with that?"
"What suits?" John asks with a little interest.
"PRCLA agents," Scott says. Some of the PRCLA people are civilian contractors, some are spooks. We can't tell them apart. Getting to know the personnel in PRCLA is above our GS-- our government service pay grade.
The guys around us hear what Scott says. Small talk falls off. Faces swivel in my direction.
The Old Man picks up Scott's tension. He's off his phone. "What's doing, fellas?" he wants to know.
John is frowning again. "PRCLA was questioning Mitch."
I don't think that's an acurate represenation of the facts, but at the moment I suffer a deluge of fear so grounding it cannot be sustained. It feels like the dream of light, the nightmare. It feels like hearing a sound that has no sound, as the sound hammers my bones into concrete with a shiver of heat so fast and so hard it is impossible to breathe.
It's the woman. She said her name. Why would she do that when we were leaving?
John slaps my shoulder, a gesture of solidarity. "This ain't no thing," he says.
The door opens a short three minutes later. It's Marie Varco. She gazes into a room full of armed men in Kevlar, ballistic helmets in their arms. Her gaze lands on me. Then, and only then, does she look nervous.
"The operations chief," she says, "wonders if you boys would be more comfortable in the mess hall."
"Is there food there?" Cesar wonders.
"We can make that happen." She's accomodating. "Meanwhile"-- here it comes --"if Deputy Marshals Cook and Shetensky, accompanied by their unit commander, would follow me now ... I'll have my assistant take the rest of you upstairs."
Scott, two guys on Team Two, and Randall, the leader of Team One, edge forward, making a human barrier between Varco and me.
Ben strides over, puts an end to the mini-rebellion with a gesture. We all play for the same side here, his gesture means. He strides toward Varco, no hesitation.
John decides to do the same. "Mitch," he says, his hand out.
Whatever it is, I'm hoping Ben and John will back me up when I say no, I'm not doing it. Meanwhile, Scott holds up his fist. I strike his fist with my own, say I'll be back in a minute.
Varco takes my bosses and me through operations. When we reach the auditorium, I see it is now guarded by a man in urban camouflage utilities and combat boots.
Varco swipes her card, holds the door for us. The guard stays outside.
Ben goes first, doesn't stop until he's on the last tier, the one closest to the stage, in spitting distance of the higher-ups.
There are, I notice, more faces, including a blond man in a dark suit, who looks up and cries, "Whoa, all the guns. Why must there be guns?"
The auditorium seats a lot of men. The sweatshirt guy is there, and he smiles indulgently at Dark Suit.
"Sit down, Pete," he sighs. He points with his chin. "Meet CT/CH Team Three Leader, Deputy Marshal John Cook. This fellow here is Commander Ben Cecere. Ben's done some excellent work for us. And this is Deputy Marshal Christopher Shetensky. He and his team brought in Moses Waterman's nephew. Waterman retaliated by putting a car bomb in the team's response vehicle, showing, I might add, remarkable intel." I get a chill and a familiar weight in my bowels. "Shetensky got out of the vehicle to take a piss, missed the firewworks display by about ninety seconds."
Cricket, cricket.
Sweatshirt Guy stands up. His chair sighs, celebrating release from his weight. His slips his hands into his pockets.
"As everyone in the room is aware, we are dealing with a limited timeline and the possibility of a third detonation of a nuclear device in an American city. What you folks don't know"-- he raises his gaze to me --"is we've been in what may loosely be termed as communication with the parties responsible. Their mode of contact is, believe it or not, the United States Postal Service. They like it because it's low tech. And it's a one-sided conversation. There have been a series of demands centering on putting forth their ideology, the release of persons in custody, a monetary sum to be distributed to certain communities. We have kept pace with these demands, knowing that as we moved along there was, sooner or later, going to be a demand we couldn't meet. They know it as well. Psychologically and ideologically speaking, this barrier will become their criteria for a third detonation."
There is a hiatus. Ben twists his neck, studying Sweatshirt Guy.
"Tonight," Sweatshirt Guy says, "we intercepted three packages going to various points throughout the country. Somewhere in the United States is a One Nation operative waiting to receive, and then mail these pacakges to a District police precinct. We now know three steps in advance what One Nation is going to demand, and whether or not we can continue to play for time. Time, you realize, means we get closer to the third device."
I hear the vents kick on. A couple of the guys in the front have turned to look at John and me. Varco shifts around, meeting my eye.
I can't take it anymore. "You keep looking at me. What does this have to do with me?"
Sweatshirt Guy sits down at the table by the stage, drops his chin into his hand. "Moses Waterman would consider it a personal favor, worth, say, giving twenty thousand Americans another day of life, if the government would execute a very short hit list on his behalf."
I'm sure I misunderstood. "A short what?"
"He would like the United States government to terminate persons with whom he has a grudge. You're a name on his list."
I stop listening and dig out my cell phone.
Ben and John do the same.
John pauses long enough to shout, "No!" at me. We're on the same page, Ben, John, and I, so I do what he says.
John begins dictating orders into his phone: "Emergency relocation." He gives his code. I hang on his words, ready to supply details in case he needs them. He doesn't need them. He gives my address, tells the coordinator the subjects are Suzanne Shetensky, age thirty-six, and Hannah Shetensky, age four. Ben ends the call and says, sharply, to me, I'll tell you when.
If I call Suzanne before the marshals get there, I'll be telling whoever may be listening we are on the way. Knowing this doesn't get the ton of bricks off my chest. Hands on my hip, I am breathing like I'm running full bore up the side of a hill. Ben is talking hurriedly to the assistant district chief, explaining why an emergency relocation has been ordered for a deputy's family. Suz and Hannah will go to a safe house on the government's dime. They'll have a protection detail of U.S. Marshals.
While Ben wraps up his call, Sweatshirt Man slowly makes his way to me. I want to edge away but it's not that kind of scenario.
He offers his hand. "Alec Trudeau, Deputy Director of Operations."
"Nice to meet you," I say. I don't sound sincere, so I add, "I wish it were under other circumstances."
He nods like a guy unaffected by the oddities of human behavior. "I see the need for an ER, I really do, but it's not your wife and child on Waterman's hit list. He's got you in the crosshairs and mainly, if you want my opinion, as an afterthought. Not that you are an afterthought. He's got bigger fish to fry but I, uh, believe you are someone who has crossed his mind more than once or twice. Ever meet Moses Waterman?"
"No."
"A sociopath, can't be treated. Will respond only to a bullet in the head but we don't operate that way in this country. Human rights, while suspended presently in Tucson and Houston, are alive and well in Washington." Trudeau nods again as though this is a sad fact indeed. He swings around, descends smartly to his table by the stage. Addressing the room, "We're going to wait out the emergency relocation of Deputy Marshal Shetensky's family, which should take about ..." Trudeau glances up at John.
John says thirty minutes.
" ... thirty minutes. I have an interrogation to observe. Once we have that behind us, we'll proceed." Trudeau exits through a side door near the stage.
* * *
When John gets the call from the ER team, he signs to me. "They're in place."
I call home. Suzanne doesn't answer the first time. The second time she lets the phone go four rings. "You have to be kidding me," she murmurs.
It's not quite four in the morning. "Suz, I need you to listen. You listening, hon?"
"Mitch, I think you woke Hannah ..."
"Suzanne, listen to me."
Silence on the other end.
"There are marshals outside right now and they need you to go to Hannah's room, pick her up, take her downstairs, and go with them."
I hear the shift of the mattress, the change in her breathing. "What's going on?"
"That's for later. For now, go pick up Hannah, go downstairs, open the door, and go with the marshals."
"Now?"
"Right now."
"Are you all right?"
"I will be soon as they have you. I love you."
She clicks off.
John is holding his line open, waiting for the good word. Moments plod by. I am pacing, no longer aware of the auditorium or the PRCLA agents. Ben has come up to stand with John.
"Ah, good," John puffs into his cell phone. He glances at me. "We have them." Into the phone, "Call me with wheels up and wheels down. I don't want to know anything else." He means he doesn't want the city or state of the safe house spoken in cell phone communication. He will get that information when he returns to the office, provided Ben decides he needs to know.
My chest expands. I nod my gratitude to John, to Ben. As my knees weaken unexpectedly, I drop into a chair in the top row of the auditorium. With my family safe, I can stop and consider this list, this hit list, and what it means.
John and Ben have drawn off to confer. The rest of the audience waits for Trudeau.
The slideshow of the Tucson crater still plays. I blink and stiffen, wondering if I am growing used to the images. I don't want to. I don't ever want to get used to the images.
* * *
Varco's cell phone vibrates. She takes a call without speaking, her dark blond head nodding once. She stands and waves to the auditorium.
"Alec wants to take the briefing to the Green Room."
The civilians get up.
She waves again. "Commander, Alec needs a hand with a housekeeping issue. Can you and your personnel wait here?"
The Old Man's hands slip into his pockets. His expression is wary, and growing cold.
The PRCLA men file out the side door down by the stage.
Varco lingers to make a cell phone call.
I stay in my seat, cease to register the slides in the silence above me. I have folded my hands in my lap. When John sits next to me, I let my shoulders slump under what seems to be an indefinable weight.
For a palpable moment, it seems John is going to say something. He gets the message, though, that words are unnecessary. He hunches forward, fingers laced, elbows on his knees.
Trudeau comes through the door with two guys in suits I haven't seen before. He introduces one of them as his assistant in charge of operations. The other, he says, is his CT/CH liaison. He turns to the Old Man.
"Bill," he says, referring to the operations leader, "made an error we must correct. Instead of allowing your teams to leave, he created a situation in which a number of armed, tactically proficient soldiers in the war on terror have been placed in a holding pattern with no way home. How do I fix that?"
"Get us transport, we'll leave," Ben replies.
"Without Deputy Marshal Shetensky."
"They won't do that," Ben is sorry to say. "Not going to happen."
Varco cocks her head, her expression soft as that of a kindergarten teacher for a troubled child. "Where do you think you are, commander? We're not asking if your men will leave the base. We're asking how to facilitate their leaving with as little drama as possible."
Ben takes that in. "Get us transport. I'll stand down Teams One and Two. Team Three won't leave without their man, that's a hard and intractable fact. You'll have to disarm and arrest them."
I have turned in my chair to observe the exchange. "There's another choice. I can ask Team Three to leave."
John stands up. "I can arrange that." He and I are thinking the same thing. "We can arrange that, can't we?"
Trudeau gets the gist of our request, appears to have no issue with the solution.
"Of course," John says to Trudeau and Varco, "the boss and me, we're staying with our man."
"That's acceptible for now. However, I need your man's weapons."
John frowns. "What--"
Ben jerks his head in a gesture that stops John's protest. He says, "Do it." And then adds, "We're outside processing and this is a matter of national security." He means that on a typical operation we hold on to our weapons because we are restricted to processing, where no armory exists. From processing, we head back to the landing pad for transport. It's like working construction in somebody's backyard and stepping indoors to use the bathroom. It's considered polite to wipe your feet.
I get to my feet, unclip the P90. Trudeau's operations leader steps forward to take the weapon. I eject the magazine, check the chamber and selector switch and give my rifle over. The operations leader does a swift inspection and passes it to the guy behind him. I draw my sidearm, muzzle to the ground, hand it to him with the magazine out, the slide to the rear, and the safety on.
The operations leader goes, "No backup, Deputy Marshal?"
"No," I say.
"Carrying anything else that can be used as a weapon?"
I lift the Velcro cover on my knife sheath. He gives the knife to the guy holding my Glock and the P90.
"Lose the vest while we're at it." The operations leader's expression is neutral. It's not personal.
I go to work on my vest, leave it in the chair behind me. "Anything else?" I ask the room in general.
"I need your cell phone and radio equipment."
I do what he wants. "We done?"
Trudeau presses his lips together and points, telling the two guys he brought in to leave with my weapons. John and Ben, who are still armed, edge closer to Trudeau.
Looking me in the eye, Trudeau spreads his hands. "I don't know you and frankly I wouldn't know how to say this if I did. Statistically speaking, you're a number to me right now. There is no single piece of data more salient than that you are and will remain a single human being in an equation balanced by the lives of thousands. Are you with me so far?"
"One hundred percent."
"Commander Cecere is going to help me get your teams off base. That will leave two front line CT/CH operatives in my facility, not counting you. For now, that is acceptible. There are, however, choices I am going to remove from the table, effective immediately. The first is that you can depart this facility under your own power. You can't."
I say, "I understand."
"The second is that it will be up to you whether or not the United States of America complies with the demands of a fringe extremist terrorist organization. It won't be."
I stay silent.
"While you're here, you will do what my people tell you, and you will not interfere in any way with the operation of this facility."
"You didn't need to say that. Son of a bitch." I touch my upper lip, surprised to find it damp. "You didn't need to say that."
John grunts in agreement. Meanwhile, Ben folds his arms and says, "My man is capable of seeing the situation the same way you do, Deputy Director Trudeau. Don't treat him like he's a civilian. And Mitch, settle down."
Trudeau lets about ten seconds go by. "Should the proper people decide that in the interest of national security PRCLA must deliver a thirty-two-year-old law enforcement agent, father, and husband to a band of butchers, I am the son of a bitch responsible for coordinaing that god-awful scenario. I am also a cold son of a bitch, so I would appreciate it if you'd devote some time in advance to what you might want and what you think you'll need in the event we all end up fucked. Like most common forms of courtesy and compassion, that's beyond me. Am I communicating, presently, in a satisfactory manner, Deputy Marshal?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"Do you have questions I can answer in ten seconds or less?"
"No."
"Yes, you do." Trudeau starts to sidle away. "The time frame we're dealing with is problematic. We are talking about hours, not days. This will be explained to you by my staff."
I open my mouth, close it. "What are they trying to make the government do?"
"One Nation has provided instructions to drop you at a public location of their choosing. Their expectation is we will assign a person, one of us who in broad daylight and in view of the public will shoot you, leaving you on the street where, I can only assume, any number of earnest citizens and One Nation operatives will digitally record your death."
"Not gonna happen," John interrupts. "Will not happen."
I gesture, a plea to John to calm down. "How many people did they put on this list?"
"They're after six people, including you. You are the only one on the East Coast, which makes you my problem." He consults his watch. "Time's up. We've set up a space for you on our protective custody unit. Miss Varco and of course Deputy Marshal Cook will provide an escort." On his way to the exit, a little breathlessly, "Commander Cecere, I have intel for you."
* * *
"Where's your hardware?" Cesar asks.
Varco has taken John and me back to processing, where Scott and Cesar wait like prisoners of war. Their helmets are on the bench. The overhead light panels show the creases in their faces, worry lines. Scott's eyes have gone flat, the way he looks when you ask what he did in the Marine Corps.
He comes about hard to face us, hands on his hips.
Cesar's got his back to the far wall, arms folded. He's the one who asks if we're too late to make the transport.
I say, "You're not, because they're holding up one of the Black Hawks for you. I can't go with you, I'm in protective custody. One Nation's been writing to the government, that's just been confirmed. I'm on a hit list."
Scott uncoils, hands lowering slowly as he buys my explanation word for word. I've got no reason to lie to him.
Cesar's brow wrinkles. "What about Suz and the kid?"
"Already taken care of," John reassures the guys.
"Beautiful." Cesar is a fan of our work. "Okay, so you gonna get some time off, then, bro?" he asks me.
"That, and maybe some." I stare at him. "Just so you know, John and Ben have my back. The situation sucks, but it's not their fault."
"How long you in lockdown?"
"Till it's over."
"Oh, man." Scott uses one hand to grip the other. "What aren't you telling me?"
"I think the piece you're looking for is the nature of the threat."
"Spit it out."
"One Nation is only gunning for me in theory. They want the government to handle the detail. It's an either / or. Either somebody gives over my dead body or One Nation sets off another device."
To their credit, Scott and Cesar digest this quietly.
Cesar speaks first. "The United States doesn't give in to terrorists." He means this when he says it but I can't help feeling he's thinking hard right now about his kid in New York.
I know where he's coming from. I have a kid out there somewhere too. "That's factually incorrect," I remind, "but it doesn't mean, in this case, it will."
Scott spreads his feet. "I'm not leaving."
"You are most definitely leaving," I say. "For one thing, you can't contribute to a successful outcome because the decision to draw the line or give in isn't being made at Fort Thorme. Most importantly, I got to keep my cool or I'll go crazy. I can't do that worrying about you two. Will you do me a favor and wait this one out? John'll keep you in the loop."
John chimes in, saying he will provide regular updates.
Scott has cut his glance to Miss Varco. He doesn't speak to her, however. It is to me he turns, plaintive and desperately open. "What's the worst case scenario?"
"Wost case scenario, my country says yes to One Nation, I give up my life, and they bomb a third city anyway. That's the worst case scenario."
* * *
The protection unit is made from modified officer quarters adjacent to operations. The officers' quarters were once part of the old Army base. They're used now to keep informants worthy of debriefing at a PRCLA operations center in some form of comfort.
I get a single room with a rack, table, desk, and television. The bathroom is down the hall. John explains the protocol established by DHS for my situation, and for the other men on the list. Our situation has a code name but John declines to share such. Anyway, the protocol has many of the benefits one might enjoy if he were placed on suicide watch. There is a live CCTV feed, three cameras, which every room on the unit is wired for. That's non-stop coverage and no windows.
"Shit," I say when this is explained to me. I do an internal check. I'm numb, astonishingly so. I peek at my watch. It's getting close to five o'clock.
Marie Varco gazes around the room. "Alec asked me to bring you up to speed. Initially, we had a generous timetable. We forgot to mention that but remember we scored the demand packets in advance of their mailing. One Nation became aware of the Baylor, Virginia raid and our acquisition of the packets. In response, they made three calls from throw-away cell phones, the first one about ninety minutes ago. We're not displeased by this. If they stick with voice communication, they are playing our game and we're better at it. Unfortunately, One Nation is dictating a timetable that is significantly more agressive than the one outlined in the packets. That is what Alec meant when he said we had hours, not days."
"Leads?" I ask.
"We've tracked every call. They were made from different points in the country. The cell phones were purchased in Raleigh, North Carolina. They are pre-paid phones purchased with a throw-away Visa bought at a CVS in October. We know the date and hour the card was activated. Imagine our surprise when we found the video surveillance tapes missing for that day."
She's got my attention. A little ray of sunshine.
"That's good intelligence."
"You bet it is."
She's excited because it means someone working for One Nation had access to the store's security system, someone who has probably vanished. A front-line employee? A manager? When operatives brush against the lives of others, even when their names and personal data are fabricated, they leave behind crumbs.
A guard comes in, urban BDUs, no expression, armed with a Taser. He carries a digital phone and an encryption box.
Varco explains. "We have your wife on a special line."
A wash of relief, something like, Thank God, abruptly followed by a bolt of terror. This isn't a conversation likely to end well. "Oh ..."
John: "Refrain from asking where she is or what she's been told about where she's going."
"Yeah, I know how it's done."
John's on edge, and like Trudeau hinted the people around me are working without a script. No one has a clue what I'm feeling, if I'm scared, if I'm going to cooperate, and if I cooperate how long I'm going to cooperate before human nature and panic release something unexpected and unexpectedly unpleasant.
"Should I have the kitchen make you something hot?" Varco wonders while the guard plugs in the phone.
I sit on the bed, which is made up Army-style: government issue white sheets with a green wool blanket. "No, not now."
John: "Coffee?"
"No, I'm okay. You sticking around?" I ask.
"I'm not leaving you here. No way. Not happening."
"No, I meant in here, with me."
"Well, I figured you'd want to talk to Suzanne alone."
"Check in later?"
John suddenly looks uneasy. "Of course I will."
"See you in a bit," I say.
Still looking worried, he signals Varco. They walk out.
The guard picks up the telephone handset and speaks into it. "Yep," he goes. Then, "Yes, you can." He carries the phone to me.
I take the handset gently, put the phone on the bed.
The guard feels he has to warn me: "It doesn't dial out."
I cover the mouthpiece. "Yeah, okay, but after I was kind of wanting to order a pepperoni and sausage pizza."
Face flat as a brick, the guard strolls out.
Drawing the handset to my ear, "Hello," I whisper.
"Finally." A sharp exhalation follows, like the phone call has saved some poor bastard from getting his butt kicked. "You wouldn't believe how hard they made me work to get a call out to you." I hear the rustle of fabric, like she's getting up from a chair. "Are you in the middle of an operation?"
"No."
"No? What does that mean, no? You're starting to scare me."
I have to see her and I don't have a way to. Other men carry snapshots of their wives, their children in their pockets. I don't. She couldn't be a pocket girl, I used to think, because she was with the behavior analysis side of PRCLA in PRCLA's early days, before homeland security let in the spooks and contracted out the decision-makers and the liaisons. When we got married I put her photo on my desk. It was enough. In the photo she's wearing the yellow sun dress, her arms bare, that she put on the first morning of our honeymoon. We got a single weekend, that's it, after a fast ceremony with a justice of the peace. We used the little bit of time to go to New Hampshire. We stayed at a bed and breakfast and in the afternoon Suzanne bought flowers and seeds for a garden. We didn't have the house yet, but we knew we were going to get a place. Watching her in the greenhouse, I stared like a lost kid. I never knew she gardened. Up to that point, it was so much "work talk" with us that we hardly knew there were other sides to our lives. I saw her with the plants, the way her hands cupped them, the way she studied them, and thought, I married a woman who works in the earth to make something from nothing. My chest tightened and I needed to look away. When I looked back, I took her picture. It was the moment I saw love as constant and unyielding. The rest is an afterthought, like cream on pancakes and sugar on strawberries. We had, it seemed, taken one another on faith.
If I could see her face, I'd trace the skin at her hairline and fold myself inside her eyes. If tears were like rain ...
"Mitch, you there?"
"What I have to tell you is hard."
"I'd rather you did that in person."
"I don't think ... I can't, honey, not right now."
The air whooshes out of her. "Hold on. Hannah's in the room. I don't want to wake her, hold on." I hear the soft rustle of her feet, and then a man's voice asking something. She says, "I'll be right back." There's a click, a door closing. When she gets on the phone, her voice has tightened like a fist. "Where are you?"
Too far, I think. I see the dial of my watch. Not quite morning. My heart turns in on itself, pinched by fear and helplessness.
"It's classified, but here's the thing ..."
She breathes sharply, deeply. "I get nervous when you talk like that."
"One Nation sent a list with people it wants the government to--"
"And your name is on it. Wow. Of course it is. There's a shocker."
"I'm not the only one. There are other people on the list."
"Which makes everything so much better. A list, Christ."
I try to unkink my spine. What's the proper order of words? What does she need to hear?
"They're demanding compliance or they'll set off another device."
"I sort of got that part." A thump, maybe the ball of a foot hitting a wall. "Who has this piece, the Pentagon or the FBI?"
"Okay, the part you have to focus on is the way this fits the big picture--"
"My big picture has my husband and my child in it, don't talk about a big picture with me right now. Where are you?"
"They're holding me--"
"You're in custody, aren't you?" The thump again, this time louder. "This is you," she goes, her voice straining like she's not getting enough air, "trying to tell me my country is thinking about fulfilling an anarchists's wet dream ... And there's a big picture, you say. Okay, Mitch. Okay ... I'm having a difficult time working this from a big picture standpoint. I'm having a ... I'm having a ..." She breaks off, breaks off and just breathes long, gushing breaths for what feels like thirty seconds. And then she starts to cry.
My wife does not cry easily. I don't take it well when she does.
I yank the phone from my ear. "Suz," I whisper, hard, when I put the handset back. "Suzanne ..."
Hannah's voice reaches the phone, like she's on the other side of the closed door. "Mommy?"
God have mercy ...
"They haven't made up their minds," I tell Suzanne.
This produces a series of moans. "Tell them I need you! Tell them to let you come home!"
Tell whom? There's no one to tell. I'm one person. She knows this. She's played in the same yard, she's met the women and men who are speaking my name in the soundproofed paneled offices of their underground bunkers.
This is me, wishing desperately for arms long enough to hold her. "I know, baby, I know ..."
"What about you? Are you ..." She won't say scared. "Are you alone?"
"I'm fine. It's ... it's ..."
"We love you, we love you so much."
"I know you do. You guys are my world. It's going to be all right."
"Should I call Chris and Sarah? Do they know what's going on?"
"No, nobody knows. The marshals won't let you call my parents, not right now. Maybe later. Will you tell my parents for me, tell them I love them? Tell Rick he better look after them. Will you do that?"
"Daddy?" Hannah's voice, thin with alarm, comes right up against the phone. Suzanne has opened the door.
"Hi, sunshine." I try not to think, You have held your daughter for the last time but that is exactly the thought with which I contend. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"Daddy, Mommy's crying." Her soft voice conjures a younger child, a baby in the playpen, a toddler in my arms. "Did you make Mommy cry?"
With her mother already breaking down, it is inconceivable that Hannah should hear me stumble. I sigh. "I did, sweetheart. I said I was sorry and Mommy said it's okay."
"Mommy, Daddy said he was sorry."
"I know he is, sweetheart ..."
I am in the presence of perfect love. "Hannah, now, you be good and remember I will always love you."
"Are you coming to be with us now?"
"Soon."
"How soon, Daddy?"
How soon indeed? "Soon as I can."
Suzanne's voice comes back. "Work hard on that part, Mitch."
"If something goes wrong, if I can't make it back to you ... don't let her forget me, okay? Promise me."
"Do you think that's possible?"
This is what I know is possible. It is possible Hannah will call another man father. She is too young to resist the commitment and good intentions of a deserving candidate. Suzanne will choose another man. And she will make sure he is deserving.
" ... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry ... Suz, I love you ... It's okay, it's going to be okay ..."
The line goes dead. I don't know if it's a glitch or the PRCLA people saying I've been on the phone too long.
A few seconds later, the guard comes in, collects the phone, carries it away.
He leaves me to myself.
The room fills with silence, and it is with this silence that I stare down the tunnel in my mind, the long dark tunnel toward the light of morning. The horror in the light is revealed to me, a scouring fire that will pick clean my bones. Gripping my knees, I face it. As with all things temporary, there is a point beyond the light, a place to which I must pass in my good time. The light remains, but the dark behind it is no longer a wending mystery. The dark is only the last hours of night, and the light in my dreams becomes the sun rising.
* * *
The first time I wake, the little, sterile room is bright. There are two overhead panels and a desk lamp.
No dreams. I wasn't even aware I'd fallen asleep.
I slip off my watch. It's a few minutes before nine in the morning. I listen to the air handling unit. There is no other sound. I get up to turn on the desk lamp and switch off the overhead lights.
When I lie down, I've placed my watch on the night stand, removed the TDU top, loosened my belt and boot laces.
A few hours go by. I'm in and out of sleep, more out than in and wake to a woman's shape edging toward me in the semi-dark.
When she realizes I'm no longer sleeping, she backs up to the desk chair and sits down.
Shifting on the rack, I pull myself up. I smell the perfume in her hair.
Marie Varco has showered and changed her clothes. She crosses her legs, the lines of her face rimmed in the light from the desk.
"What time is it?" My voice is hoarse.
"Eleven." And then she says, "President Weir has shunned the dubious protection of deniability to personally explain to One Nation the biological function of inserting its finger up its collective ass. Which means he's said no to their demand."
I feel my head bob up and down but my body tingles with a chill. "Thank you."
"I don't think you mean that." In the semi-dark, Varco is distant. "I think you're one of the few people in this installation who appreciates what is at stake."
"Come again?"
She leans forward. "You're a soldier, not a politician. To you, this wasn't about politics, it was a math problem with people's lives." Tapping her skull with her finger, she sighs. "I heard what you said to your friends. Family aside, for a soldier, a problem like this is a no-brainer. Tell me the truth, are you more scared now than you were five minutes ago?"
"Maybe. A little." It doesn't matter what I think, what I feel. It didn't matter two hours ago and it won't matter a day from now. "Can somebody arrange transport to the safe house they're using for my wife and daughter?"
"I'm working on it, but ..."
"But what?"
"I haven't been told to execute." She uncrosses her legs and stands up. "Don't worry. If all goes well, you'll be with them by six this evening. You have my word."
"I'm not worried," I lie.
"Don't get out of this business."
I laugh, finally, and, I think, genuinely. "Farthest thing from my mind."
She chuckles at my answer. "Good luck," she throws over her shoulder before she leaves.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, the guard knocks. He pokes in his head, asks if I like Sprite, or do I want a Coke. I go with Coke.
Another thirty minutes passes. In this time, I've gone down a hall softened with daylight to the bathroom. I've relieved myself, washed up.
The guard knocks again. He's got two lukewarm bottles of Coke and a large pepperoni and sausage pizza.
"You gonna stay and eat this with me?" I ask.
The guard stays for a slice, and then his radio goes off. He tells me he has to muster outside the unit. I look at my watch. Noon on the dot.
Alone, I get down two slices before I close the box, start nursing the soda. I picture Suzanne's face when she hears the nightmare has ended. We voted for Weir. She'll get a kick out of that.
Thinking about Suzanne, I get up, switch on the TV. There's no remote. Only three channels work, and they are showing the same thing.
Information registers at different levels, in different ways. When I learned about Tucson and Houston, I felt fear. This one, the third one, cuts straight, like an old secret scavanged from dark depths, from a long ago moment and passed coldly from stranger to stranger right in front of my eyes. It is personal. It resonates one nerve ending at a time before severing them all with the efficacy of a woodman's ax. The cells in my brain flicker. The name of the place-- it is a city in North Carolina, home to Duke University, home to several hundred thousand innocents who thought when they got up Monday morning they had more than a few hours to live --the name of the city recedes, fading like an afterimage into the wide, glaring light of a new world. For the people of this city, the world has indeed been made over, redefined. A surge of light will never again mean security, warmth, fellowship. Light rains poison, and there are no good-byes.
My knees have started shaking. I look down at my legs, thinking they cannot be mine, they've been replaced with putty. The pulse in my neck, twanging like a weedwacker strip, brings my hand to my throat. The roof of my mouth waters.
There's a wastebasket and I locate it. This is where I am sick.
Outside the room, a guard-- not the one who delivered the phone and the pizza --jumps with alarm. I brush by him. Sometimes, events strip us of thought, even the ability to react. The guard doesn't know what to do with a man stumbling toward a bathroom.
In the john, I hug the porcelain in the middle of the three stalls. What's left of lunch geysers into my throat. The rest is work, muscles contracting, yo-yoing and lurching, the fist in my abdomen punching upward. There's no reasoning with the acid scouring the corners of my stomach.
At the end of it, I don't care where I am, I edge along the tile on hands and knees, escape the stall, reach the wall by the sink and draw my knees against my chest. If someone had spoken my name, I would not have known it. I am less skin and bones and more like a vibrating wire of ache, the inside of me clawed out to make room. I pull my head down by my neck. Here it comes. I know there are cameras. I know the guards are watching. Doesn't matter. I have to purge the fire behind my eyes and in my chest or I will never be able to stand, I will not be able to walk again.
Did God take them gently?
Will my turn come as quickly, and when I go, will I go in a swift flash of light?
The bomb in North Carolina changes everything.
I am surrounded by tile and porcelain, metal towel dispensers. A tiny dome in the ceiling means people are watching but I am as divided from them as a man in a tomb. Something is about to happen that defies my faculty to accept it, a rendering that will not start with me, and it will not end with me, but it will overtake me and I have no way to escape it. I have to face this, I have to, and until I can, I won't know my name, the names of the parents who took me in when I was too young to understand the words abandonment and nurture. I won't know the meaning of daughter and wife, the places I've lived and loved. I will only know the names of cities that have been incinerated.
I make myself think of Hannah. Maybe I want her name in my head because she is innocent, like the people who died at noon in my place. I see her in Suzanne's arms, nothing but a nose and eyes and the pink slash of her mouth pressed tightly as she dreamed her baby dreams in the hospital the day after Suzanne gave birth. I whisper her name, listen intently to the ferocious and desperate thunder of my heart. I don't want to die. Yet I am going to.
Not me by myself, no. I am not alone.
You are not alone.
It's okay, because in my life I was a two-day-old baby abandoned inside a brown cardboard box in the rough, open field between two housing developments in New Haven, Connecticut. It was July but it could just as easily have been November or January. And then instead of having a forty-five-year-old retiring police officer (who thought he was going to finish his life childless) give me his name, I would have died new, innocent, and alone in the ruthless cold. But it was July, not January, and I grew up thinking I was born Christopher Mitchell Shetensky, the son of a kind man and a kind woman. My younger brother Richard, Rick, is Hannah's godfather. In thirty-two years of life, I was called to meaningful work. I met a woman who whispers my name when she's sleeping. And in my life, I was given the reason and manner of my ending. It is too soon and the people who desire my end have no right to take my life, but I am not alone, am I, in this going young part. No, I'm not alone on this one.
What time is it?
I look at my wrist. I'm not wearing my watch. If I want to know what time it is, I'll have to ask.
I get up, wash my face. I pace a bit, letting the skin under my eyes get back its color.
It's time, now, to face the others.
* * *
The hall is full of security men in uniform. Though they say nothing, each guard manages a nod. There is eye contact and their faces are like mine, shifting unevenly between rage and desperation.
The pizza has disappeared. So has the wastebasket with vomit. The unopened soda sits damply on the table. The TV is off. The overhead lights are on.
Varco and Ben Cecere are present. Varco sits by the desk, Ben sits on the bed.
Ben stands when I enter. He is a little taller than I am, big through the chest and shoulders like John is, an icon to the junior staff. He has a few strands of hair left, which he brushes back. His face is square, his expression settled but not intractable. There's a frown of concentration that reminds me of a priest entering the confessional.
I need an answer fast. "Tell me Suzanne was no where near North Carolina."
Ben nods. "She wasn't."
I follow with another query. "Are the terrorists saying they can do it again?" Homeland security said One Nation had three devices, tops, but there are two agencies at war with this assessment.
Varco rises from the chair, eyes slightly wide, like she is trying to take in too much at once. It is with her eyes that she lays on me the death sentence, so what she says next isn't necessary: "Yes, they are saying they can do it again."
Heat cascades behind my face. I get a shimmy of electricity, a shudder in my gut that says, You have something difficult ahead.
Varco tilts her head to one side. "The execution of the list"-- I swallow --"is staggered. The first one just occurred in San Diego. It was for one o'clock, our time. I'm waiting for confirmation and to know if our units were able to identify someone in the crowd."
"There was a crowd." I swallow again. She is hard to listen to.
"Yes, there was."
I look for a place to sit. The chair is too close to Varco, the bed too close to the commander. I shove my hands in my pockets, stare at my feet, try not to let Varco and Ben figure out my vision is going blurry.
Varco's still talking. "I think, from the terrorists' perspective, the crowd is essential. A crowd allows them to plant their people. Let's not forget the psychological benefit to them."
What? What did she say? "The psychological what?" I've glanced up. My throat leaps like something's stuck in it. I'm speaking one notch above a whisper.
"The list killings are no different than the bombing of the cities. The victims haven't been accused, tried, and convicted of a crime. They, you, are statutorally innocent."
I am innocent. That's good to know.
Varco chatters on, but now her voice is growing tentative, the pace slower. "The message ... is aimed at the American people. It's saying, You're not safe. If the ... government is tasked to choose between evils ... It is saying that ... it will ... sacrifice individuals."
"It's always done that," Ben argues.
Varco waits until I look at her. A splotch of red appears on her cheeks. "The terrorists have demanded the next killing take place at two PM, Eastern Standard Time, in New Mexico." She stops.
I make her finish. "Me?"
"You're number three."
Another shimmy of electricity. "What time is it now?"
Varco shakes her head. She's suddenly unable to answer.
"Just a little after one," Ben says.
"Where, does anybody know where yet?"
"No, not yet," Ben says. "We don't know where and we don't expect to be told until there's just enough time to get there."
I glance at him. "You holding up okay?"
"I'm pissed as hell but not thinking too much about myself right now."
"What about John? Is he coming to see me before?" I look between Ben and Varco. Varco isn't any help. She's damp eyes, a mouth that is pressed so tight I'm certain her lower lip is going to start quivering soon. Not what I expected, but okay. I focus on Ben. "I know John," I warn him. "He needs to come see me."
Ben slowly shakes his head. "I don't know if that's the right thing to do."
"Hey," I say as I turn to Varco, startling her. I would not have bet she was one to shake easily, but then I would not have thought she'd talk social science and theory to a man she's just told he has to die. I look to her side, where her fingers twitch, and I reach for her, lifting her hand inside mine. "Thanks," I say. "Thank you."
Varco's lips move: "What for?"
A woman blows through the door in the uniform of an Army medical technician. She carries two syringes.
Silence descends. The tech puts the syringes on the table and then asks me to free one arm from the tactical undershirt. The sleeves are too long and too strong for her to raise, and the mock-neck collar is too snug to draw down. I release Varco and get an arm free. The technician swabs a patch of skin. Varco takes hold of my hand again, why, I don't know. She just does. I relax my hand a little but do not let go. Varco responds by tightening her fingers. There is a sad little smile on her face, like she's looking at a broken toy or a favorite painting. The tech pokes me with her needles, grabs her wrappers and syringes, and leaves as quickly as she came.
Varco clears her throat. "One was an anti-emetic. It should settle your stomach, so if you want to try to eat, you should be able to. The other was a sedative."
My arm stings. I release Varco's hand to wriggle back into my shirt. And then I ask for bottled water and John Cook.
* * *
It is a little after 2:00 when John comes to my room. I am sitting on the rack with my back to the wall. I have found something sacred in stillness, a rhythm between heartbeats and breaths that carries no consequence, no thought, a fuzzy composure due, I am sure, to the Army's drugs cutting through my bloodstream.
When John enters-- he comes in without knocking --when he enters, I look up suddenly, hitch my butt to the edge of the bed, grip the metal frame, and stand up.
"Nah, Mitch, don't get up. Sit down. Please."
I do, and when he searches my face I find it easy to meet his gaze. I see the man I've always seen, the man I know. It never occurs to me to fear him.
He drops into the chair. "You wanted to talk to me."
"I thought we could ..." My brain has been on idle and I need to locate the on switch, fire things up.
John lifts his chin as though he understands the difficulty. "You want to hear what specifics I've been given so you can get ready."
I look down at my hands, which rest heavily in my lap, overcome by inertia. "Something like that."
It is outside God's natural order for a law enforcement officer to gun down his brother. It is within our natural order, all things being equal, that only one man at Fort Thorme would ask for the job and get it.
John rubs his palms together. A patch of muscle pulses just above his jaw. "We've been told to head to Baltimore. In about ten minutes, we're going to take a helicopter to a secure landing site. We're in the dark as to the specific location, but I assume we'll be in driving distance when we land. So far, so good?"
"What's the number of dead in Raleigh?"
He leans back, avoids my gaze. His voice tightens. "Mitch, you don't want to hold onto the number of dead in Raleigh." A fast glance into my face, eyes narrowing with strain. "Raleigh wasn't your fault."
Now it's my turn to look away.
His chest swoops up all of a sudden, like he's hit on an idea and surprised himself. "How are your legs?"
It takes a second for me to get his meaning. Then I nod, because he's got every right to ask. "Okay, more or less." Not quite true. I say, "Better now than they will be. Been thinking about what happens when we get there."
"Feel the sedative kick in yet?"
"Yeah."
"Spit it out," he goes. "Just say it, whatever it is." But his voice trembles there at the end, and it's the warble that reminds me he's a man. He is a father, like I am. It's his life in the wind, right along with mine.
I can look at him now. "I want to do what's right by you, John. I want to--"
He stares. "If I have to, I'll carry you. All the way. I'm prepared to do that."
I feel my hands start to move, sliding up and down my thighs, life coming back to them. "I have to ask a favor."
"If I can do it, I'll do it."
"I don't want to be shot in the head." Glad that I've got that out, I sigh. "Suz and Hannah, they had a shitty good-bye. When the time comes, if they want to, they deserve the right to look at me without knowing there's a chunk of my skull missing."
John has stiffened. "Hey, Mitch, a double-tap to the chest means you bleed out. Ever seen a man bleed out from a gunshot wound?"
"As a matter of fact, I have." He knows I have. "You using the Glock?"
"You sure you want to talk about this?"
"I'm sure, brother. What ammo are you carrying?"
"Standard issue."
The hollow point rounds probably won't exit. They'll hit, flatten, and bounce around a little.
I reach for the bottle of water and gulp. The bottle in my hand, I straighten my spine, try to take the pressure off my gut. "Stay with me."
"Long as I can."
"If there's any pain--"
"Your way, there will be."
"If there is, I can deal with it sixty to ninety seconds. After that, shock'll kick in."
"Shock's no picnic either."
I've already thought it through. "Yeah, well, if this was only about me, I wouldn't be here. I would have taken care of myself an hour ago and that's a bet." I get a mental picture of Suzanne with Hannah, nobody there for them, and thousands of people with loved ones in Raleigh clinging to their televisions for information. "Do you honestly think my two minutes out there somewhere will end up being the worst thing that happens today?" I stare until I think we've reached the same page.
"All right," John says. "If things go okay up to that point, I'll let that be your decision. Deal?"
I nod my thanks. "You said double-tap to the chest. Are you planning to do it facing me?"
"Where you can see me but look away if you want to. If it was me, and you stepped around back, I'd turn. The only thing you're going to care about in the last few seconds is where the gun is. I'll be standing where you can see everything, unless you say otherwise."
"You know I'm better when I see stuff coming."
"Yeah, I do."
"Standing in front, okay. Say something first, like, Are you ready? If I can count on that, I'll do all right."
"Since I'm doing something for you, can you do something for me?"
"Ask me." I already know what he wants.
"When I say to you, you know, are you ready, can you turn your head or something, make it so I'm not looking in your eyes?"
"We're good."
"So. Now, after talking about it, you feel okay?"
"I actually feel a little better."
"They want you to wear handcuffs. I'm sorry, but I lost that one. They figured if you panicked, you'd make me work for it. When I said I thought I should be the one, they made handcuffs a condition. The alternative was to proceed with a Delta unit in my place. No way am I letting strangers take this road with you. You deserve better. You deserve to be with one of your own."
I squeeze the bridge of my nose. This is not a concern. Handcuffs? Yeah, okay. The room we're in is wired for sound, so I gesture: Do not worry about it. They, whoever "they" are, won't be with us at the place where my road ends, and John isn't capable of pointing a gun at me while my hands are cuffed behind my back. He isn't. He will shoot as long as it is on his terms, of that I am confident. Working within his set of rules, he will shoot because he knows that if he does not, someone somewhere with eyes on us will step up. If he fails, then my death will come from far away and it will be devastating to watch. Brutal, oh yeah. Effective, you bet. I won't know it, because I'll be gone in a New York second, but John will know it. He thinks I deserve better. I'll be standing with him, no cuffs, no drama, face to face like we talked about, so he gets through it.
John glances at his watch. "Somebody'll be in about five minutes from now. Your stomach's solid?"
"Yeah."
"Try to take a piss."
"I'm good."
"Tell God when you see Him I'm sorry."
I can say to him, finally, what I called on him to hear. "John, God already knows you're sorry. Last thing God wants, last thing I can take is you doing something that's not in the script." He starts to gesture, like, No, no, don't worry about that, and I frown. "Suzanne, she's going to want to talk to you, ask how it was, ask you a bunch of crappy little questions that will make you feel like hell and mean the world to her. Whatever you have to do, you make sure you walk out of there, wherever there is, and when you're ready, you talk to my wife. Tell her the whole goddamned truth. She can handle it. You hear me? She can handle it, it'll be okay."
He gets up and hesitates, his gaze lingering. I'm going to die, his look says, and he's going to die too. The way, for him, will take longer but if he doesn't get help, he's a suicide in twelve months.
"Five minutes, Mitch."
* * *
I glance at the watch. It's five minutes after John leaves that the guards come in. I put down the watch, dry my palms on my knees, and stand up.
The guard who brought the pizza motions with his hand.
My legs do well. I tighten my belt and walk over.
"We're providing an escort to the landing pad," he says. "It's cold outside, about forty degrees. One of the guys brought a coat, but the terrorists will make you take it off when you get where you're going. They're only allowing one layer of clothing. Makes it easier for 'em to spot Kevlar, blood packs."
I nod and take the coat. Outside, he's right, the wind bites. I slip my arms inside the coat. The sun is sharp but it's westering.
The Black Hawk is waiting.
Near the landing pad, Varco stands with Ben Cecere.
I walk over to them. "You tell Scott and Cesar?" I ask Ben.
"They didn't need to be told," he informs.
I put one arm over his shoulder and he pulls me into a hug. "I'm okay," I whisper.
His hand moves behind my head and squeezes. "I'll look after them, you have my word." He doesn't mean Scott and Cesar. He means Suzanne and Hannah.
We let go. I turn to Varco. I tell her, "You were right." And then I board the Black Hawk.
* * *
When we land I ask John the time. He says it's 2:40 PM.
Three Suburbans wait at the landing zone. John and I get inside the back of the middle one. Our driver is a PRCLA agent. He is dressed casually but his face is stone. A man just like him sits in the passenger seat.
A cell phone chimes. The passenger agent answers. He says, "Which side?" Then he says, "All the way to the top?"
When he hangs up, he turns around in his seat.
"We're going to the municipal garage on Thomas Avenue. They want you on the upper deck."
The Thomas Avenue garage services a shopping plaza, the Galleria, and an assortment of downtown office buildings, most of which will be empty in the aftermath of the Raleigh event.
From the upper deck, five stories high, one has an unobstructed view of First District's phalanx of glass towers. The towers, in turn, provide a direct view to the garage. You can be two blocks away and pick out your car on the top level if you're above the seventh floor in one of the buildings facing north between Thomas Avenue and First Street.
"We're getting eyes on it," the agent advises John. "More than we had in New Mexico."
We head downtown.
John, I notice, holds a pair of handcuffs. His Glock is in its holster. I sit with one hand loose in my lap, the other gripping the seat. I stare out the back window, but because my eyes are gummy and hot I have disconnected from the images sweeping by. My neck relies on the headrest while I concentrate on the snakes in my belly.
In ten minutes, using the Mount Olive extension, we arrive on First Street. Traffic is slow coming off the exit. The agents get nervous.
The driver says, "I see it," when Thomas and First intersect at a No Left Turn light. He barks an order into his radio microphone.
The lead Suburban hooks the left, guns his truck across the opposite lanes, and hits his brakes.
Our Suburban and the follower vehicle swing left like a VIP motorcade.
I sit up in time to see sunlight fade under a concrete roof. The Suburban stops for a ticket. A senior citizen in a parking booth looks up at us with despair, a look you get used to. He contemplates the state of affairs, wonders if there is anywhere safe to go.
The agent's cell phone rings. He answers, listens, and says, "Drive to the elevator on the first deck. Stop there. Our people have to get out."
When the Suburban rolls to a stop, I am slowly taking off the borrowed coat.
John is asking the PRCLA agent why the terrorists want us to use the elevator.
The agents don't know. They say, Just do it and remind John to keep his radio earpiece in.
The coat discarded, I ask if John's going to cuff me inside or out of the car.
"Now," he says.
I hitch forward, one hand out to him. He slips on one cuff. I slide my hand behind my back, fix the second cuff in place myself. He reaches toward the small of my back, checks my work. "Don't lean too far," he warns. We don't have enough room to double-lock the cuffs. If I put pressure on them, they will tighten.
One of the agents has opened the back door of the SUV. John slides down, turns, and holds his hand out to me.
I scoot over until he can grip my arm. He guides me to the ground.
The ground shifts like quicksand. I see sunlight slanting over the lower ramp, smell exhaust and rubber. There are only a handful of cars on the first level and there are bound to be less on the higher decks. The people, understandably, have fled home, many to pack automobiles and try to beat curfew and the roadblocks to get out of the city. A new world.
John's steadying hand moves up my back. We stand unmoving on the ramp. Then I hear his voice, huskier than normal: "Take a breath."
"I'm okay," I lie.
"Can you walk?"
"I'm good."
"Elevator's here."
I don't remember walking, did not see the elevator, and I never saw him push the call button.
"Can you make it?" he asks.
"Yeah, I think so."
The agents hover, looking at each other.
John waves them off. "I got you," he assures me. Leads me into the elevator. The doors groan shut.
I back up into the wall, clench my eyes.
"Can you turn around for me?" he asks.
I give him the angle he needs so he can work his key into the cuffs.
When the cuffs are off, "Feel like you want to puke, go right ahead," John says.
It's not puke swirling in my gut but teeth-bearing flesh-eaters. The pain is lacerating, a fear so profound that I wonder how anyone before me has contended with it. Sweat soaks my spine, my sides, and my neck. I blink, then squint as the elevator display flashes the levels dropping below us.
John, staring, taps his earpiece. He mouths the words, "Upper deck, we're here." His hand hooks my elbow but then as quickly as he touches me he lets go. He dips his forehead, frowning. "One step at a time, Mitch."
"Christ, I want this over with," I whisper.
"We'll make it," he answers. "I'm being told to walk straight to the south corner. That's up a ramp. Can you make it?" He's jabbing the door open button on the elevator panel, keeping the elevator from closing while he waits for me to get it together.
"You're not carrying me. Let's go."
Daylight flares past the elevator doors, striking the glass towers. There are no cars on the roof, but across Thomas Avenue a hundred windows glint, offering front row seats.
John says, "Look at your feet, don't look up." He plods along up the ramp, keeping to my side. He taps his earpiece. "They're telling me it's three o'clock."
We're on as soon as we get to the top of the ramp.
An image slices through my mind, and it is of Hannah sitting near a tree with flashing green and white lights.
The ramp levels. We're at the top.
John stops walking.
I stand beside him, glance to my right at a rectangle of sky above the nearby towers, look left and see the same. My feet shuffle until I'm facing John, two, maybe three feet between us.
"This is it, brother," he utters so quietly that I do not know how I hear him.
"I know," I say back, as softly.
His eyes glass over, not with moisture but with the imperturbability of a warrior. He mouths, "Are you ready?"
I never say yes, I never say no. Consent is not required. Somewhere a clock ticks brutally. The clock cannot be reasoned with, and it will not relent. Knowing this, John steps back, gives his weight to his strong leg, moves his weapon hand resolutely to his leather. I hear the rustle a holster makes when the weapon leaves it. I hear it, I don't see it, because I have remembered to close my eyes.
And then my eyes flick open in surprise. My frame has jolted twice and attempts, now, to remain upright. Light cuts across my vision, disorienting. My legs buckle and John dashes forward take my weight. He kneels with me, and when he is kneeling, helps me to lie down. This is something I see on a monitor, a stream of images that play days and days later, images beneath champagne sunlight from a great distance.
There are two videos, the one our side made, and there is the one that finds its way to the Internet.
John has folded over me. He mumbles, "Forgive me, forgive me," like a chant, and then he gets up, hurries around my feet to kneel on the opposite side. He changes position because he receives the instruction, "You're in the way," a relay from the terrorist who has connected to PRCLA to choreograph and videotape my death.
John is blocking his view.
Following instructions from PRCLA, John untucks my shirt, drags it up. The terrorist wants to see my perforated chest. For this to happen, the black undershirt needs raising. One Nation zooms in. John wipes my chest with my shirt. The punctures well with blood. What the One Nation operative sees must satisfy him, because the connection between PRCLA and the terrorist ends there.
It ends for him but not for me. For me, there is agony, the primal struggle to breathe that translates into raw, red panic when I get only a little of what I need. One of my lungs has collapsed and my throat clogs with blood. Every heartbeat is a stinging, ponderous hammer that says the system within which my heart functions is failing.
Sweat burns behind my ears, and I can feel blood pooling under my body. "Oh, God," I say, over and over.
And John says back, "I'm right here, man, I'm right here with you." He puts his mouth against my forehead, stays like that until I go into shock.
It's thirty seconds, give or take a century. Thirty seconds and shock wedges a nauseating distance between the ringing pain and my ability to feel it. The benumbed, ambiguous calm is terrifying but at least I am able to lie still.
Between ragged gasps for air I think I say, "Talk to me."
John's last gasp is: "Oh no--" And suddenly he jumps up. He backs up with his hands in the air.
There are twenty-seven 911 calls, twenty-seven people who, drawn for some reason to their windows to gaze out over Thomas Avenue, watch John lead me up the ramp. The 911 calls begin before a shot is fired, tentative statements that something may be terribly wrong on the roof of the garage.
One Nation had no control of law enforcement at the local level, so there was no conduit to Baltimore police, no warning of an operation that involved national security. I am inclined to believe One Nation enjoyed the arrival of cruisers, flashing strobes, John thrown to the ground, no word of protest, censured by brethren who think he is a despicable low-life.
I haven't any memory of the police officers or the paramedics. I remember the sky, and the darkness invading it. When the first police officer throws wide his first aid kit, on video I appear to have a fixed stare. He must be able to see that I am breathing. The video, however, paints a grisly effect, police officers circling a dead man. The first police officer puts pressure on my chest. He arranges my limbs and neck to maximize the movement of air into and out of my body. He puts a non-rebreather mask over my mouth and nose, then feeds a line to an oxygen cylinder.
The paramedics reinforce my airway and scoop me onto a backboard. John is, by then, in the back of a patrol car, watching desperately.
The nearest trauma center is Our Lady in First District, seven minutes away. In the ER, I am intubated and given fluids through IVs. John will not give my name, and I carry no ID, so I go to the operating suite as a Stat Pack, which is a new way to say John Doe. As a name, John Doe, it seems, is potentially common. My designation is Dakota, Brazil. For an industrious person it is relatively discoverable that I did not expire on the roof of the garage. As for the rest, PRCLA has a protocol. The medical record says Dakota, Brazil survives surgery but codes in post-anesthesia recovery. Time of death is 9:37 PM. His body goes to the morgue, and a patient named Ellis Reed, a male serviceman involved in a hit and run near the federal courthouse, is Lifestarred to the Naval Regional Medical Center in Bathesda. Ensign Reed goes to surgical intensive care, where he is insulated from visitors by a rotating team of armed civilians. The staff's confidentiality agreements and clearances are on file and up to date. Fourteen hours later, Ensign Reed opens his eyes for the first time, no idea where he is. The staff is advised to overlook that Reed won't answer to his name.
Meanwhile, CNN breaks a story about six men who died across America in response to a terrorist demand.
One victim is the former mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Another is a celebrity turned activist who produced, directed, and starred in a teleplay condemning a fringe extremist group.
Long before I begin exploring my environment through the twilight of a morphine haze, my image and the image of five men ranging from thirty-two to fifty-nine years redefine recent events. Social scientists on both sides flock to microphones, Monday-morning quarterbacking the decisions, the one before Raleigh and the one after.
It is two days before I grasp what has happened. And then I tell my protection detail I desperately need to talk to John Cook.
It is not arranged.
I am a relocation candidate, severed from the life that went before. It so happens that John is read into my ER brief. For that reason, and that reason alone, he is able keep an eye on Ensign Ellis Reed through the red sheets. When I vanish into the relocation program, my identity changes yet again. I should be lost, especially to a CT/CH team leader, but an unsigned Christmas card finds me every year, post-marked from the city on my new birth certificate.
I have no other form of contact with John, and this is as it should be.
When he holds my wife's hand at the graveside in Portland, John is brotherly and attentive. There is heavy security and surveillance photography, a precaution. There are media images. I have seen the photo of Suzanne in her chair under the tree accepting the American flag, which she draws tightly against her breast ... Hannah reaching for the flag, Suzanne bending her cheek to Hannah, and Hannah kissing her there. I cannot give to my wife and child rescue from the memory of loss. Because they were told certain things, they accepted the casket as delivered. It was not opened. No civilian touched it. But they were not told everything, and so they lived those graveside moments in earnest. They have been granted reprieve. Unlike others, they have joined me at the expense of their pasts in what is to become my future.
My mother, father, and brother, my teammates and neighbors believe the headstone for Christopher Mitchell Shetensky will stand forever over the ground that shelters my remains. There is nothing I can do that will not, that does not, put in danger the lives of my wife and daughters, that does not carry the risk members of One Nation will learn that I survived.
Allison Reed-- we'll call her that for now --lives with her husband and daughters Anna and Katie-- these are not their assumed names --in a town with a thriving university. Allison returned to school for her teaching certificate. She works with children in the elementary school three blocks from her cottage home. Anna Reed is a fourth-grader who once lay night and day in a hospital bed beside her father, giving thanks for his return to her world. She likes to finger paint. She especially enjoys painting her two dogs, Buckley and Xander. Katie is in diapers. She spends mornings with her father before getting handed off to Mom when Dad heads to the self-defense studio he opened downtown. The studio is a hit with university students and the sheriff's department.
No matter how often a TV special or television journalist finds reason to air the story of the six men who died in the aftermath of the Raleigh detonation, no one looks long or hard at Anna and Katie's father. No one, not even my physician, who has seen my scars, notes any resemblence to the deputy marshal who died in Baltimore in 2009. My guess is no one ever will.
There were no more bombings.
The media speculates One Nation had no more devices, has no more, and the threat of another nuclear detonation on American soil has passed.
The world is different.
We pay six dollars for milk while trucking struggles through new security and safety protocols to move their haul from city to city, state to state. President Weir did not seek re-election. Moses Waterman, Harris Dean, and the underground elements of One Nation, in spite of being the most hunted individuals on the face of the planet, remain at large.
The world is different, but some things remain the same.
When I dream, I see the light.
/end / r. c. charles
1 comments:
Great work.
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