by Ian Woollen
They heard someone breathlessly calling their names. It was Peter. He came running at full tilt and threw himself into his mother’s arms. He had just accidentally learned the true purpose of the sakhalinium device.
Finding himself locked out of the laboratory, a large new padlock on the door, he tiptoed along the servants’ passage to the diplomat’s study and overheard a conversation with Father Vlod. The sakhalinium was not going to be used to launch a moon rocket. The bomb was going to be used for a global takeover, after exploding the prototype to force people into submission.
Lubya urged them all to flee immediately. Mikel wanted to sneak back into the estate and disable the device, but with the laboratory padlocked, that would be impossible. Peter suggested hiking to the village to inform the constable, who would probably be drunk.
Suddenly, fate intervened in the form of two mice. A padlock on the door of the laboratory, or the pantry for that matter, meant nothing to mice in the diplomat’s house. Mice could enter and exit every room through any number of holes. While the diplomat and Brother Vlod pursued Peter, two mice ran into the laboratory. Using their sharp little claws, they climbed up the legs of the table, and chasing each other in circles, crisscrossed the telegraph key. Dot-dot-dash-dot.
The explosion sounded like a million timpani and then like the whoosh of a great waterfall and then like nothing as eardrums burst and the light took over, blazing, careening through the visible spectrum, colors beyond the known, leading to a mystical light that slowly crystallized into a shimmering curtain. It opened to reveal a bright sea of water lilies.
Chapter 71
The Bomb Within
Of course, that was not how it happened in reality. Time behaves strangely in quantum physics and the human mind. Sit back, sip your drink, and allow words and phrases such as ‘patient zero,’ ‘DeLorean,’ ‘centrifuge,’ and ‘missile-shield’ to summon up what they will. Trust that your evening libation tasted pretty much the same in 1991 as it does today. Pray that old Washington Irving was right when he said, “History fades into fable.” And if you are a member of gen-whatever for whom the word “fable” has no reference point, imagine that He Who Remains Classified, before going out to visit Anthony Wangert at the marina, studied up on Anthony’s published articles.
Perusing a piece titled, “Splitting the Social Atom,” the ambassador read the following:
Despite our need for an external enemy, for a place outside to focus our perception of threat, the real danger lies within. When the waste of society feels radioactive to us and we have no place to put it, when the last atoms of social cohesion are split by income inequality, prejudice, pollution, when the last atoms of the psyche’s cohesion are split by the excoriating demands of modernity, an individual consumer—our ‘atom’—not necessarily fueled by ideology, more akin to spontaneous combustion, will create an explosion that will be very aptly called, ‘a dirty bomb.’
A person like Kayla, for example. Long maligned, overworked and ignored, even here. After her mother’s abrupt departure, Kayla deepened her isolation from Ruby and the Wangerts. Her position at the hospital gave her pilfering access to radioactive medical waste—isotopes of cesium, iridium, cobalt-60, and radioactive iodine for thyroid patients.
She learned how to gather bomb-making materials from Vincent, who boasted and bragged about his big plans for massive destruction—plans that would obviously never happen.
Kayla filled her car with the toxic mix and parked it downtown on Indiana Avenue, a few blocks away from the tall buildings, so as not to limit dispersal.
The event occurred a week after Ward died, on the morning that He Who Remains Classified showed up at Anthony’s slip in the marina. Long swabs of sunlight reached across the boatyard and soaked up the condensation on decks and hatches. Halyards gently tapped at the masts. It was never too early in that marina. Gangplanks thumped through the night. The smell of coffee wafted from Anthony’s cabin.
“Ahoy, there, Captain Wangert,” the ambassador said. “Permission requested to come aboard.”
Anthony peered out and said, “Hold on, let me bring up the cockpit cushions.”
He Who Remains Classified signaled to his security detail to wait back at the chandlery office. Despite ‘No Wake Zone’ signs out in the channel, a passing crabber generated some roll that required Anthony to briefly hold the ambassador’s mottled hand, as he stepped across the bumpers and starboard railing and crumpled down beside the tiller.
“My sea-legs aren’t what they used to be,” he commented.
“Your maritime wardrobe is right up to date,” Anthony quipped. “Sharp tie. Are those little anchors?”
“Thanks, I’ve spent time on some very large yachts, but not much on a real boat, like yours.”
“You might want a hat for that sun. I’ve got a box stowed under here. And how about some coffee? Frankly, I didn’t expect to ever see you.”
“Black is fine,” the ambassador said. “I had to come after I heard about Ward. Did you write the obituary?”
“Hardest piece ever,” Anthony nodded.
“I liked the part about his cocktail mixing style. I knew him when he was at the height of his abilities.”
“He learned it early,” Anthony said. “For his parents, the cocktail hour was a blissful ceasefire.”
The two men allowed themselves a moment of ceasefire. The ambassador initiated a clink of coffee mugs. “For God, for country, and for Yale,” Anthony said.
“Did you know he turned me down for a job?” commented the ambassador. “That was before he met your mother. Nobody ever did that to me. I handpicked my people and prided myself on choosing the best candidates. At the time, I thought, hmm, I must have made a mistake in judgment. Then his call came about going to Moscow to rescue your mother. There was more to him than I recognized. What did he know about life that I didn’t? I wanted to know. Particularly as the fog of war started to take over mine.”
“You mean, Vietnam?” Anthony asked.
“I mean, the whole damn thing. There’s just as much fog in a cold war as a hot one. Maybe even more. I told you I’d look into the Sakhalin incident—”
Anthony interrupted, “Which, of course, was a lie. You didn’t have to look into it, because you were the one who ordered it. And as for the battle resulting from a probe of Soviet air defenses, it was more a probe of our own command structure. You guys wanted to know if the Gipper really was asleep at the wheel, because after that the shit began with the Contras in Nicaragua.”
The ambassador’s poker-face let him down slightly. His thin lips trembled. He said, “Look, I know Ward just died, but maybe you could show me a little respect.”
Anthony tied a blue bandana over his head. He answered, “Excuse me, yes, right now, as for the Sakhalin incident, I’m not actually that interested in whatever you came here to snow me with.”
“Because with Ward gone, I thought ….” The ambassador hesitated and broke off into silence. Anthony waited patiently for him to finish. He poured them each more coffee. The ambassador offered a shrug and an explanation for his lapse. “I’m so used to using words to, uh, disguise or, rather, complicate my intent, I mean, it can be difficult to … say what I mean.”
“I understand,” Anthony nodded. “If you’d like, we could take the boat out for a sail.”
He Who Remains Classified needed only five minutes of muffled phone calls to decide that was a great suggestion.
Released from his schedule and his blazer and tie, the pale, liver-spotted man settled in on the boat. Anthony started him off with some sunscreen. The ambassador gave his crewman duties the old college try. He untied all the mainsail stays and only lost one overboard. He ordered Anthony to give him more orders and he took them well enough. He wore a lifejacket. He kept the jib trimmed and the sheets coiled. They established a working rhythm and Anthony recognized that He Who Remains Classified was trying to make a good impression.
They sailed under the toll bridge and out past Coles Poin
t toward the bay, followed at an appropriate distance by a black Coast Guard vessel. At the mouth of the crane sanctuary, they took turns with the binoculars and chatted about favorite birds. The ambassador confessed a fondness for crows. He had quite a lot to say about varieties of feeders and seeds and believed strongly in year-round feeding. He asked about arrangements for Ward.
“He surprised us by specifying in his will that his ashes be interred up on Great Tusk,” Anthony answered. “We’re all meeting up there next week.”
“That island was important for your parents,” the ambassador said. “Your mother used to have this notion that she was going to retrace Chekhov’s trip out to Sakhalin Island. She once explained it to me as a landlocked Midwesterner’s fantasy about wanting some attachment to an ocean island. And she found it at Great Tusk.”
“You’ve been up there? You know the place?” Anthony asked.
“A little,” the ambassador replied.
Anthony ordered, “Hard to lee.” They slithered through a slow coming-about.
Anthony continued, “Yes, I’ve been wondering about that part of your story. Rusalka never went to Great Tusk. At first because her kids couldn’t travel and later because she was running Ward’s business while he was away in the summers. If you were really that hungry for a spy hole on my mother’s life, you must have had somebody up there too. Who was it?”
“You’ll never know.” The ambassador smiled, unrepentantly. He changed the subject with a question about Anthony’s recently installed wind vane auto-pilot. “Are you planning a cruise?”
“Testing it out for Maine this summer,” Anthony said.
Around noon, the Coast Guard vessel blew a horn and suddenly accelerated. The ambassador dug for his ringing phone, but lost it in the chop. Anthony threw out his bumpers and caught the line from the sailor at the bow. Two of the ambassador’s bodyguards boarded, while the other puked into a bucket.
The Coast Guard captain announced, “An attack, sir. Radiation.”
“Warheads?”
“No, a homemade device. Major evacuation underway. Indianapolis. All air traffic stopped.”
Anthony and the ambassador shared a moment of mutual consternation. The ambassador readied for his jump abeam. He said, “Thanks for the sail. You’re welcome to come and shadow me, for the next however many days this takes. Big story. That is, unless you’d rather continue sailing. It may be the only way to travel up for Ward’s interment.”
Anthony considered the offer. “I’ll keep going,” he said.
The Coast Guard captain interjected, “We’ll be stopping everything that floats.”
He Who Remains Classified ordered, “Assign an escort. I want this boat and this man to have secure passage up the coast.”
Chapter 72
Fallout
Duncan, Mary, and Ruby faintly heard the explosion from the highway. They were on 70-East, just starting out for Maine. Duncan glimpsed the fireball in the rearview mirror. He tightened his grasp on the steering wheel and said nothing, not wanting to rattle his mother.
Mary, clutching Ward’s ashes in her lap, turned and saw the plume of debris on the horizon. She felt catapulted back in time to a treetop in Irvington with her husband twenty years before with a plume of smoke on the horizon. Grief tortured her with sensory tricks. Ward’s voice, his face, his ghostly touch destabilized time and place.
“What is it, Mary? What are you thinking? Do you want to turn around?” Ruby asked. Her job on this trip was to keep Mary oriented.
Mary forced a smile, but did not answer. She had not spoken in a week. She knew it was a form of regression, a fallback to her mute early childhood. The muteness made things easier for now, creating a thin, familiar barrier between her and the world. She was not catatonic. She resisted more alarming urges. Responsive and functional enough, she bathed and ate and dressed in black and physically acknowledged everything that was said to her. Everyone hoped that the trip to Great Tusk would be therapeutic.
“What’s your opinion, Ruby? Do we keep going?” Duncan asked.
“Stay the course,” Ruby said.
A surge in eastbound traffic passing at high speed alerted Duncan to the crisis. Sirens grew louder. He turned on the radio. From all the jabber, he managed to determine that a panicked evacuation was underway and that the police were hampering it with checkpoints. The only clues from the bombsite were pieces of an old steamer trunk. Wind direction and velocity was a concern for Duncan, since the cloud seemed to be blowing eastward. After the twentieth mention of the steamer trunk fragments, Duncan briefly thought of Kayla. He said nothing, so as not to further disturb Mary and Ruby.
“There’s a roadblock at the Ohio border,” Ruby said, warily.
Duncan considered stopping in a rest area to steal a plate to replace his Indiana tag. Too risky, he decided. Instead, he turned off the interstate. “Where are you going?” Ruby asked.
“I’ve made this trip enough times, I can route us to Maine on the back roads. It’ll take longer, but we’re more likely to get there.”
The news travelled faster over the airwaves. Rob heard about the bombing at 10:30, roughly an hour after it happened. He was on the outbound mail boat. The beamy vessel pushed through five foot swells. As a hardened year-rounder, Rob no longer sat outside on the deck. The view meant nothing anymore. He huddled with the other natives heading over to the mainland for supplies or appointments.
Everyone knew Rob’s destination. Ninety meetings in ninety days. Actually, he was six months clean, but still looked to be in the throes of withdrawal. He gnawed on his hand-rolled cigarettes. His technique for joint rolling remained useful with his pouch of Drum.
He bummed a match from Marsden and appeared more interested in relighting his butt than in the crackling announcement of the bombing that came over the captain’s VHF. Everyone in the cabin knew about Rob’s Indianapolis background. The year-rounders stayed informed about the off-season lives of their summer residents and most had heard about Ward’s death. Rob’s non-reaction to the bombing report on the radio appeared extreme, even to these stalwart types.
“Aren’t you worried about your people out there?” Marsden asked. His long beard now contained blotches of white that could be mistaken for gull shit.
Rob shrugged. A gray veil of salt spray hit the windows. “They left this morning to drive out here. Although a lot has changed in my family, certain things remain the same. When driving to Maine, you hit the road by seven a.m. I’m pretty sure they got out of town in time.”
“Speaking of hitting the road,” Ranger Amos interjected, “did I hear you were out trying to fill potholes yesterday by Hangman’s Cove?”
Rob nodded. “The last batch of equipment donated to the fire department contained a cold-patch cooker. I gave it a shot. Didn’t work out too well, because everybody who came by was so surprised at the sight of someone actually working on the road that they drove—splat—through my freshly filled pothole and splashed my boots with tar.”
“Can’t remember the last time anybody filled a pothole,” Marsden said.
Rob said, “Right, nobody even remembers when the road was first paved. It’s like an ancient civilization from outer space came down long ago and paved the road on Great Tusk and nobody has any idea when or how.”
“Sorry about your boots,” Marsden said.
“It’s no big deal. I just keep repeating the Great Tusk Serenity Prayer,” Rob said.
“What is the Great Tusk version?” Marsden asked.
“It’s much shorter,” Ranger Amos explained. He had five years sobriety, and as Rob’s sponsor, was accompanying him to the 12-step meeting. “Only two words: ‘Screw it.’ ”
In an unheated room at the back of the Stonington Odd Fellows building, Rob forgot about the Serenity Prayer and soap-boxed the group of 12-step regulars yet again with his lament of lost love and betrayal. Some days it came out as more of a diatribe. Others, it swelled into a saga. Their stillborn baby. Geneva’s pos
t-partum transformation and flight. Every day the moderator, a retired sheriff, finally had to interject, “The horse is dead, Wangert.”
Except it wasn’t. The horse sprang back up every night, if not in his thoughts, then in his dreams. A stillborn baby who looked just like her. And Geneva’s post-partum depression symbolized by dark, rotting seaweed covering the roof of Miss Ina’s cabin. Geneva eventually beat the depression, but only by steeling herself with a belief that the baby’s death meant she should leave the island. Rob dreamed about his mother on his lap in the rocking chair, mouthing all the try-again advice that he and Geneva heard from every quarter.
Trying again too soon had been a big mistake. Every woman on the island had a miscarriage story and recounted it to Geneva in detail. She stopped working in their garden maintenance business, because each smashed-up mussel shell represented a tiny death. None of Rob’s distraction efforts took root. She blamed her body. She blamed his pot-smoking. Worst of all, Geneva blamed the island and concocted an idea that the baby had chosen to die, rather than live on this claustrophobic rock in the water.
Each telling of his story to the AA group brought out more. Rob admitted to feeding the problem by refusing to let her out of his sight. And he admitted to “catching some air” at the Hangman’s Cove bump, in an attempt to hurt himself. The more Geneva expressed her interest in taking a road trip to see New York City, the more intent he became on renovating Miss Ina’s cabin, building on a new room for trying-again. The betrayal came when she finagled him into going off-island for a few days to Wolf’s commune. The next thing he knew, she was in Montreal, staying with Quebecois cousins.
At the meeting, he blamed himself for ever taking her so far from home. “I should have never shown her Chicago,” he said. The moderator urged Rob to please try and weave in some insight into his drug dependency. Rob admitted, “As my highs became increasingly paranoid, I smoked more to douse it.” He saw marijuana betraying him the same way Geneva did, promising him a warm, special world and then disowning its existence.