The Watchmen

by John Altman

  “Good,” Finney said.

  He watched for a few seconds, to see if the regression would hold. During that time, he saw it take even firmer root. The effect was eerie: a full-grown man manifesting the expression of a miserable, anxious child.

  For a few moments more, Finney studied the prisoner.

  Then he stood, very quietly. He let himself out and switched off the light inside the cell, plunging Zattout into darkness.

  16

  Outside the temple, black rock cut by veins of agate wandered down the mountainside. In the far distance a spume spray leaped from the lake, filling the air with mist.

  The gods were restless tonight, the master would have said. But the assassin looked at the spume spray and saw only the work of a strong wind. Closer to the arched doorway were twin butterflies, hovering motionless despite the breeze. There was a balance between the wind and the water, between the butterflies and the temple—but the gods had nothing to do with it.

  The master was seated before a marble shrine. For a few moments, the assassin watched from the temple’s doorway. Then he marshaled his courage and stepped forward.

  “I did not understand the lesson tonight,” he told the master’s back.

  The wind lowed through dark mountains behind him. At length, the teacher indicated with one hand that his pupil should come and join him on the cold floor. He spoke without looking away from the shrine, his tone as aloof as his eyes.

  “Little mouse,” he said. “You question everything.”

  The assassin held his tongue.

  “Half of your mind is not here,” the master went on. “It is in the outside world. You cannot take the lessons when only half of you is listening.”

  He felt a flash of shame. The fault was Rana’s, of course. Part of him had stayed with her. But one could not study beneath the master and have an expectation of returning to society. The ancient ways were not taught to be put to use in the outside world. They were used to settle ancient enmities—private ancient enmities.

  “Do not pretend,” the master told him. “Be honest with yourself. Always.”

  It came from nowhere—a vision.

  He tried to push it away. He needed to stay focused, to remain in a place of silence and solitude.

  But the vision, if that was what it had been, pressed itself back upon him immediately. Because he had not been honest with himself, he thought. Because he had avoided confronting certain questions directly.

  Why was he here—risking his life for a cause in which he did not believe?

  Be honest with yourself. Always.

  It was for Rana.

  Imprudent. Infantile. She would not even remember him. He was behaving like a lovesick child …

  … so be it, he thought.

  He would do the opposite of what he had been taught at the temple. He would use the master’s lessons for material gain, then to win the love of a woman. So be it. He would apply the ancient techniques to the outside world, without respect. And what was to stop him? There were no gods, controlling the wind and the water. He had waited for the rain. He had controlled the weather, after a fashion.

  But he felt wretched, lost. The compartment felt like a coffin. The gods were against him …

  … the gods had nothing to do with it.

  So much darkness, and cold, and wet. Any man would lose his focus, staring into such an abyss. But it almost was over. If he could keep his concentration for just another few hours, it would be over.

  Someone was in the compartment with him.

  The girl.

  Her body had bloated; she smelled of rotten eggs. The insects inside her body had spawned, multiplying. Soon her parchment skin would no longer contain them. They would spill out through her every orifice and climb over him, invading his own nose and mouth. And he would be trapped here, helpless, unable to move, as they laid their eggs in soft yielding hollows.…

  His concentration had broken.

  He forgave himself.

  He found the temple again. Past it, carved into the mountains, was the ice cave. He picked his way cautiously to it; and inside he knelt, and meditated.

  A hand fell on Thomas Warren’s shoulder.

  He lifted his head. It was morning, but still dark outside; rain continued to fall. He had come into the kitchen for some breakfast, fixed himself a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, and then promptly laid his head on the table, closing his eyes. And now someone was touching his shoulder …

  … he looked around, and saw the DCI.

  The director would not have come in person unless he had bad news. The bad news, of course, would be that Warren’s chance had passed. He would be removed from the operation, put out to pasture. If the director had not been friends with his father, the time would have come long before.

  “Tommy,” the DCI said. Beneath his thick glasses he had donned an avuncular expression, touched with regret. “Hanging in there?”

  Warren rubbed at his face, and nodded. He picked up the cold coffee and set it down again.

  “Looks like you could use some fresh air,” the DCI said. “How about a walk?”

  On the way out they passed Hoyle, Cass, and Moore, bent over desks with attitudes of extreme concentration. Without new results coming in, there was little work to be done—but judging from their body language, they were making stupendous progress. But of course they were, Warren thought. The principal had entered the classroom.

  They took umbrellas from the ornate stand inside the door and then stepped out into a cold drizzle. For the first turn around the block, neither man spoke. Warren felt himself waking up, bit by bit. The approaching sunrise was frustrated by the rain; gray dark changed to gray light in subtle gradations, like hardening wax.

  Halfway through the second circuit around the block, Warren decided it was worth trying to stave off the inevitable. “What brings you down?” he asked.

  The DCI looked at him knowingly.

  “We’re making progress,” Warren declared. He took out his cigarettes, juggling the umbrella into his other hand. He shot out a Camel Light, lit it, and coughed. “I realize the results haven’t been perfect. But you know what my father used to say: Problems are just opportunities in disguise …”

  “Results, Tommy?”

  “We’ve got a description. We’ve got a photo on every newspaper in the tristate area …”

  “And nothing to show for it.” A delivery truck was unloading on Sixth Avenue; men hustled cartons through the rain. “I’ll tell you what we’ve got. Brace yourself.”

  Warren braced himself.

  “We’ve got the media shining a bright light on the fact that we can’t even catch one man.”

  Warren considered arguing. As far as the media knew, the search was a police effort. But it seemed the wrong time to point that out.

  “We’ve got too many resources on this,” the DCI went on. “We’ve got our pants down around our ankles. Anytime the Bureau decides to take a kick, we’ve got our ass hanging out. It’ll make a hard target to miss.”

  Now would be the chance. Now Warren could broach a subject with the DCI—let me throw something at you, he’d begin, just to see if anything sticks.

  On the surface, he would acknowledge, yes, it looked bad. If he’d been the DCI, he might well have put himself out to pasture. But in fact, Warren had made advancements in the hunt. They were the kind of advancements that one needed to be very careful about phrasing aloud, however, because—frankly—they sounded absurd.

  I know where to find the man we’re seeking, he would say. Ready for this? The reason we can’t see him is that he’s too close for our eyes to focus. And the place we’ll find him is …

  … the safe house itself.

  Here the director would raise a derisive hand. But Warren would rush on, convincing him. He would not mention the half-dream, with the magician producing an axe while kudzu flapped against the barn. He would confine himself to hard facts. The fugitive had been eliminating the memb
ers of his cell. Why did a man kill every member of his own faction? To cover his tracks, of course. And who was the only remaining al Qaeda member even tangentially related to the cell? Zattout.

  The DCI would be skeptical. No man would seek entrance to that compound, he might opine—at least, no sane man. And if the man they were seeking was insane, he would not have eluded them until now.

  But Quinlan, Warren would answer, had provided the cell with information about compound security. Sketches, impressions, possibly even blueprints. If the intruder were armed with blueprints …

  But it wouldn’t stick. The director would think he had lost his mind, if he suggested such a thing. And Warren wasn’t completely sure he would be wrong. Better, perhaps, to bargain. Let the DCI remove him from the search effort. As long as he was allowed to retain control of KINGFISHER, he would accept the decision.

  “It’s finished, Tommy.”

  They were coming around the block’s final corner, returning to the brownstone. The DCI carefully avoided his eyes as he continued: “You had your chance. Now I’ve got to take it away from you.”

  Warren smoked his cigarette. Let me throw something at you, he would start, just to see if it sticks.

  But the DCI would not be convinced. “Let me keep KINGFISHER,” he heard himself saying instead.

  “I’m not sure the results we’ve gotten can justify that.”

  “Just a little more time. We’re close to breaking through.”

  “When’s the last time you looked in a mirror, Tom?”

  In fact, it had been just before breakfast—if one could call falling asleep over a bowl of cereal breakfast. The dark bags beneath Warren’s eyes had turned reddish purple, the color of bruises.

  “You need a vacation,” the DCI announced.

  “One more week.”

  The director shook his head.

  “Tommy,” he said. “You’re relieved. Get some sleep. Then get upstate and pack your things. Then go someplace warm for a while.”

  “And what happens when I get back?”

  The director’s pitying gaze contained all the answers Warren needed.

  “We’ll see,” he said, and then waved a hand, allowing Warren to move up the brownstone’s steps ahead of him.

  Ali Zattout stood on a spit of slippery rock, surrounded on every side by white-capped waves.

  The rock underfoot was treacherous, slicked with algae. Just below the surface, he could see serrated reefs. These would be the reefs on which his head would split open if he tried to move. He might achieve one step, or even two. Then his feet would slip out from under him; his arms would pinwheel. The last thing he’d ever see would be the cliffs skewing sideways—

  But he could not stay here. For the aschishin was coming for him.

  He knew it in the most secret place of his heart. He had no conscious memory of the words spoken by Louis Finney; yet they had penetrated to his core. Why would his captors be asking about the aschishin? Because his own brothers had hired the ghost wind to silence him. He could not blame them. Had their positions been reversed, Zattout would have done the same.

  And he would deserve his fate, when the ghost wind came for him. He had commiserated with the enemy. He had not given his full cooperation; he had given only a fraction. Yet it had been enough. And now he would pay for his weakness.

  He moaned: a complicated sound, of fear and shame and confusion.

  It was August and he was visiting the vacation home of a young man who conducted business with his family. The business was construction, and the young man owned a house on a tropical bay. A very rich house. This was where Zattout had walked across the slippery, algae-smeared rocks. One moment it had been all fun: high on champagne, paddling kayaks in a small bay, climbing onto the spit of stone. The next moment, the young man who owned the house had vanished along with the kayaks. Zattout could not swim back to the house alone. He never had learned to swim; this was his very first trip to a tropical chine. He had grown up on the Arabian Peninsula, and at seventeen had not yet traveled farther abroad than Syria, Pakistan, and Sudan. Yet now he was here, stranded on the spit of rock. He could not stay put—for the assassin was coming. But nor could he walk across those treacherous stones …

  The crescent-shaped scar on his right ear itched.

  His brothers surrounded him, catcalling. He was fourteen, and a virgin. But not for long. The French called it tournantes, or take your turn. As the youngest, Zattout had been allowed to go first. In a matter of moments he would lose his virginity—

  Then the girl’s hand came up, clawing at his face and catching his ear, tearing the skin and sending a bolt of pain into his skull.

  He wondered if he should take his own life. Then the itch might leave him in peace. But how would he do it? He could step off the rocks, into the water, and drown himself. Except he was afraid. He did not want to die. But he would die either way. Better, perhaps, to take the initiative …

  … but already it was too late.

  The aschishin had come for him.

  He moaned again, thickly.

  The presence in his cell was like a puff of air from a crypt, ethereal and mephitic. It had come in through the vent, through the cracks in the walls. Zattout couldn’t help himself. He began to murmur, prayers mixed in with pleas. Mercy, he said. Mercy—

  In the darkness he caught a glimpse of the figure. The man wore black: a black cowl, a black tunic. He would punish Zattout for his crimes against Allah. At this man’s hands, he would experience suffering unlike any he had feared at the hands of the Americans.

  Or was it all a dream? He was in the cell, with the man in the black cowl; but he also was standing on the slippery rock spit, trying to summon the courage to cross back to land.

  After the girl clawed at his ear, he backhanded her. Then his eldest brother stepped forward to take his turn, although Zattout had not completed the act. A dog was watching from a dusty courtyard. The dog was smiling, or so it seemed. Its tongue lolled out. A single bead of blood trickled down the side of Zattout’s head. The girl had wounded him. He would have a scar to show for it.…

  At one point, in his mid-twenties, he had built himself a spectacular screening room where he had watched movie after movie. The movies had come from Hollywood. He had enjoyed them all, sipping Moët or Cristal as he watched, with his arm around a beautiful woman, as often as not. But that had been a long time ago. Since then he had grown more religious. For a few years, before his capture, he had lived by a strict moral and social code. Yet inside, the part that liked Hollywood and fine champagne always had remained.

  Of course he deserved his fate. He had lived a life of material wealth, a life of sin. He had cooperated with the enemy. And now the ghost wind was here.

  The mongrel dog laughed at him.

  The bead of blood rolled down Zattout’s jawbone, onto his throat.

  Some cruel part of his mind tried to offer hope. Perhaps he could convince the assassin that he had not given his full cooperation to the Americans. Perhaps he could make it understood that he was sorry for what he had done. And perhaps the man would spare his life. He had something to offer, after all. He had seen the enemy camp from the inside. He had not told them much. Not the most important secrets. If only he could make the assassin understand this—

  Was he awake, or asleep? It didn’t matter. He could speak, in this state, without taking responsibility for what he said. He could open his mouth and let it all go, begging for his life. He had been set free. By the …

  … current, passing through his body …

  … by the trance state into which they had put him, these men who interrogated him …

  … that had been only a dream.

  He found spit, and moistened his parched tongue.

  “I told them nothing,” he said in Arabic.

  “You’ve betrayed us.”

  The words also were spoken in Arabic—a rough, pidgin version of the language.

  So it was real. The ste
aler-in was not one of them. He came from farther east; an outsider. But now he was here. Zattout shook his head. “I told them lies. All lies.”

  Only quiet, from the aschishin.

  Zattout sucked in a great breath. He found more spit, enough to form the words he needed. If he talked quickly enough—if he moved quickly enough—he could avoid falling off the rocks; he could avoid meeting his fate.

  He told the man everything, in a torrential, half-sensible jumble, stumbling over himself in an effort to convince the assassin that he deserved mercy.

  On the other side of the one-way mirror, Louis Finney watched.

  He couldn’t see clearly in the gloom; nor could he understand the words Zattout was speaking. But Hawthorne, in the cell with the man, wearing the black uniform and the hood, would understand. And the tape slowly unspooling on the table before him would catch the confused jumble, for future analysis.

  He had judged Zattout correctly: his fear of the words Finney had spoken, the prominence of his child-identity.

  The man talked ever faster. Desperate to tell everything, all of a sudden. As the effects of the shocks faded—as he began to regain his wits—he would come to realize that he had been tricked. But by then, at this rate, he would have told them everything he knew.

  Finney kept watching. His mouth was doing something strange, something it had not done in longer than he could remember. The sensation was so alien that it took him a few seconds to identify it.

  The strange twitching motion made by his mouth was the beginning of a smile.

  17

  Ali Zattout spoke until his voice turned hoarse.

  At times, during the four-hour recitation, he seemed almost rational; at other times he uttered nonsense. For one six-minute stretch, he did nothing but plead for his life. But when they pored over the results later that morning, sitting in the living room before the limestone fireplace, they found a considerable amount of hard information within the jumble. Tantalizing clues were scattered throughout—a blueprint for future interrogation.

  By the time the initial analysis was finished, Finney felt on the verge of collapse. His sinuses were clogged; his head throbbed. He went upstairs and lay down on his bed without bothering to undress. He slept for four solid hours, until two on the afternoon of May 1.