The Watchmen

by John Altman

  His right hand moved across his ribs, finding the wound. The wound was below his left hand. His left hand was pinned to his chest; his chest felt like a very wet mouth. The vision of the falcon was fading, and he was back here, in the pantry, surrounded by broken glass and the stench of his own fear and the sharp odor of fruit, with his left hand pinned to his chest like a butterfly pinned to a mounting board.

  Another image came to him, with startling clarity:

  Hawthorne’s gun.

  He could see the components spread across the man’s bed, Hawthorne methodically polishing them one at a time. He could smell the gun oil. Then he saw the gun as it was now: lying inside the front door beside Hawthorne’s body, in a puddle of blood.

  He tried to stand; but the hungry mouth in his side was sucking air. He fell to one knee. He entered the pantry at a crawl, then pulled himself into the kitchen, using his right hand to drag his body forward.

  Blinding lights shone through the windows. The alarm wheeled like the falcon, looping around and around.

  The gun seemed very far away.

  He vomited. Then rolled over on the cold stone floor, landing on the hand pinned to his chest, hissing air. There was something else there, he realized—something between the knife and his heart. A small, hard metal object.

  The doubloon.

  He had forgotten he was holding it.

  He thought of the gun again; but then a figure was emerging from the pantry. The dark killer.

  He closed his eyes, and played dead.

  Before leaving the pantry, the assassin angled the blade into a mirror.

  The blade was slicked with blood. He wiped it clean on his sleeve, then looked again. The pantry was empty. So the strike had been even sloppier than he had realized. The man not only had lived but had been able to drag himself away.

  The one that mattered, however, was dead—Zattout.

  The alarm climbed, hovered, fell, and climbed again.

  He moved through the pantry, into the kitchen. Light glared through the windows, picking out fine details. A dead man on the floor. He had pulled himself from the pantry, only to expire here. From outside: shouting men and barking dogs.

  He headed for the living room, staying low and keeping as much as possible out of view of the cameras. The French doors opened into the backyard—his secondary escape route.

  Through the doors he saw soldiers. A half dozen, fanning out around the house. They would establish positions around the perimeter. Then what? Tear gas? He would not be here to see it.

  Before making his dash, he took a hasty inventory. The blade in his hand. The lock pick in his sleeve. Inside the bag strapped to his chest, a grappling hook on a length of chain.

  He breathed. Speed, but not haste.

  It was almost over.

  He would make it.

  But the gooseflesh on his arms remained. Beneath the determination was fear. Beneath the determination he was only a frightened little mouse, after all.

  Now the soldiers outside the house had stopped moving. They had taken positions, raising their weapons beneath the floodlit rain. Past them was forest; dogs; guard towers; high walls …

  A dull pop. Shattering glass. A tear gas grenade tumbled into the room, spitting.

  He went.

  He was through the perimeter before they could react.

  A round whizzed past his ear. Another pounded into the earth, sending up a spray of mud. He charged forward, making for the trees while keeping his head down. A dog was giving chase. But it was not on him—not yet.

  In the next heartbeat he was in the woods, in darkness. But a floodlight was following, trying to track him. And the dog was nearly upon him.

  He turned, raising his forearm, bringing up the blade behind it.

  The dog died with a whimper—but not before sinking its teeth through his sleeve, just above the slim metal bar that might have offered protection.

  Another round thudded into a tree, splattering bark. By then the floodlight had found him. But by then he was moving again, trying to withdraw the blade from the dog’s body and failing, leaving it behind.

  His arm was bleeding. He shut off the pain.

  He slipped in the wet mud, and regained his feet.

  Across a shallow brook. Two more dogs; he could sense their haunches tensing as they prepared to leap. Without slowing, he reached for the bag and tore it open. He found the grappling hook on the length of chain and pulled it free, turning at the same time. One dog was in the air, descending. He caught it on the side of the jaw with the hook. The barbed tongs sank into flesh, and the hook was torn from his grasp. Then the other dog was coming. He gave it the same arm he had given the first dog—already bleeding, already pulped. He jammed a gloved thumb in the dog’s left eye as its jaws clamped around his forearm.

  They rolled across the ground. The dog howled, blind but alive. He ripped his arm free. He found the grappling hook, withdrew it from the meat. Then spent a fraction of a second pulling the bag off his chest. He moved again, leaving the bag behind, holding the hook on the length of chain with both hands.

  To his right, beyond the fringe of forest: a group of men assuming firing stances. The floodlight found him again; a volley of bullets followed. He threw himself down, onto the wounded arm, crying out.

  Up again, and onward.

  The first wall rose before him. A guard tower fifty yards to the right, with an M63 Al inside, capable of firing seven hundred rounds per minute. But only if they could find him. And he was too quick for that, wounded or not.

  He used an underhand toss to put the hook atop the wall. Then he scrambled up, feet barely touching the stone, shoulder pulsing. For an instant he was poised atop the wall in the darkness between floodlights, with barbed wire curling around his feet. He was aware of the M63 swinging around to bear; but by then he was down, on the other side.

  He hadn’t been able to bring the hook along with him.

  The second wall therefore would present a problem.

  As he charged through the trees, his forearm and shoulder bleeding, his lungs burning, a story came to him.

  A man crossing a field encountered a tiger. He ran to a precipice and there he saw a vine. He took hold of the vine, swinging out over the abyss. Trembling, he looked down, and saw another tiger waiting at the bottom of the ravine. Worse, the vine could not sustain his weight. It was beginning to unravel.

  Then he saw a strawberry growing on the cliff face before him. Holding the vine with one hand, he reached out and plucked the berry free. How sweet it tasted!

  That was the story.

  Again he slipped, spilling down in the mud.

  Again he gained his feet, and advanced.

  They could not get over the first wall, even with the hook showing them the way. They were too slow, too weak. And now the second wall was looming …

  He flung himself at it, grabbing for the top, and—somewhat to his surprise—found purchase on the first try.

  Pulled himself up, his arm radiating agony where the dogs had chewed it, his shoulder screaming distress.

  But he was going to make it, after all.

  Past this wall, into the countryside. Then he would run as never before. He would avoid the roads. Their machines would not help them. He would use brooks to erase his scent, throwing off the dogs. There would be roadblocks. But he would get farther away than they thought possible, before acquiring a vehicle; he would avoid the roadblocks. And then what? The nearest border was Canada. Before crossing he would need to come into some money, and some identification. The bag had been left behind. But this was the land of plenty. Opportunities would present themselves.

  Then over the border, into Canada. Or would that be a mistake? It would be just what they expected: going for the nearest border. Perhaps it would be wiser to head south. The Mexican frontier was infamous for its lax patrols. Once he was out of this country, he would disappear. Not Europe—too close, too connected. South America, he thought. For a time. The
n east again—to find Rana. Or had she gone west? In the West, she had said, children play all day. They do nothing but play.

  He wasn’t concentrating.

  Men on the far side of the wall—taking aim.

  He dove forward, tucking and rolling, as gunfire sounded. Something scraped his temple. The world seesawed and he landed on his left side, missing his feet. The wind was knocked out of him. So it was over.

  Except the men were not firing again.

  Instead they were coming forwards—meaning to take him alive.

  Fools.

  He breathed. Regained his wind somewhat. One man was closing on him. The second held back, weapon leveled. Still the alarm shrieked; still the wind whipped bitterly, turning the rain into projectiles. Dogs were howling. But they could not get over the wall. They needed to go around, through the gate.

  He pulled himself onto his knees, then into a standing position. He staggered, playing up his dizziness. He showed them his back, putting his hands on his head.

  As the man reached forward, he stepped to the right with his left foot. He pivoted sharply, seizing the enemy’s hand—the cuffs there jangled—and lifting it. He spun the soldier around, pulling the arm down in a hammerlock, and used the enemy’s own shackles to secure his hands in the small of his back.

  He kept the human shield between himself and the other sentry. Now men were racing in their direction from the front gate. Tigers below; tigers above. And no strawberry to be seen. Only the rain, whipping across his hood, pummeling him.

  He bent, retrieved the pistol his prisoner had dropped, and shot the man standing before him.

  Then placed the barrel against his prisoner’s temple, and fired again.

  Voices, echoing through the rain. Floodlights wheeling, finding him. The dogs, hoarse and close. He dropped the body in his arms and took a single step. Machine gun fire tore up the earth in a furrow; he reversed direction.

  A rifle cracked. An adamant hand pushed at his leg; he lost his grip on the gun. The light stayed on him as his knee buckled.

  Then he was surrounded. A dozen men fanned out around him, with dogs straining at leashes.

  The circle closed with an odd, grand languor, as if he were a land mine that might still explode.

  He decided to goad the men into shooting him. Better death than capture.

  At the last instant, as hands were reaching for him, he pushed up. He went for the fallen gun, presenting his body as a target.

  The balance between him and this world was changing, even as gunfire spun him around. Something shifted dramatically; he was set adrift.

  Then dragged back to earth by grasping hands. Shackles closed around his wrists with a double click. They pawed at him with his lifeblood slicking their fingers, seeking to hold him down.

  He slipped out from between them, lithesome and sleek as mist.

  Then turned to look back at himself. His body was surrounded by soldiers and dogs, on ground soaked red. There seemed to be snow on the ground, beneath the blood. Then he realized: the red was not blood but pulsing light. And the snow was not in the place he was leaving. It was in the place he was going—the cold, icy place high in the mountains.

  They did not yet know he had escaped, one last time. They bent over him, applying pressure to wounds, calling for medics.

  But he had been too quick for them.

  He smiled. The mission had been a success. Zattout was dead. And once again, he had escaped.

  A vehicle was approaching. His body was being lifted onto a stretcher. Still they had not given up. The doors closed and the vehicle pulled away, siren blaring.

  But the assassin was not inside the ambulance. He watched it go and then turned to look again into the cool, icy place.

  He moved forward, into the chill.

  19

  The season for birding was drawing to a close.

  Over the past week Finney had twice glimpsed a Great Gray Owl during daylight hours: yellow eyes circled by finely detailed feathers, black chin bordered by patches of bright white. After breakfast he made his way into the fields behind the house, binoculars in one hand and cane in the other.

  He spent several fruitless hours pounding through the underbrush, searching for the owl. In early afternoon, a squall blew in and the prospect of bird watching no longer stood. He limped back to the farmhouse—limping more than he needed to, the doctor would have said—and went to his study. Then he sat in his chair, trying to come up with some other reason not to visit the cemetery today, now that walking in the fields was no longer an option.

  When he’d been a boy, his family had owned a golden retriever named Wendy.

  The name had been chosen by his mother, a devoted fan of Peter Pan. Some of Finney’s earliest memories centered around the dog—a sunny-dispositioned animal, with a tail that wagged so hard it could whip a red welt onto an incautious little boy’s skin. As Finney had become a teenager, Wendy had entered old age. Thunder had started to scare her. Each time a thunderstorm came she would retreat into a closet, to huddle alone in the dark. Finney had spent hours trying to coax her out. One day his father took him aside, put his huge hands on Finney’s shoulders—by then, as a teenager, Finney hadn’t appreciated the physical contact—and explained that maybe it would be better to leave Wendy alone. If the closet made her feel safe, why not let her hide in there? Think of it, he said, as her den.

  Finney didn’t know why he thought of that story now.

  Or perhaps he did.

  Since the day of Noble’s funeral, he had ventured from this farmhouse only infrequently, and never farther than town. After stocking up on supplies he’d come straight back to his study or his fields, tail between his legs.

  A frightened, cowering dog—making the sad transition from midlife to old age.

  The funeral had taken place on a gray, punishing morning; the heavy April rainfall had not yet paid off in May flowers.

  To the south of the cemetery was a miniature town, looking like a child’s replica accompanying a train set. After considering it for a moment, Finney turned to look at the cantor. The cantor was blowing his nose. He offered a slight, apologetic smile. Spring colds, that smile said ruefully. Then he pocketed his handkerchief and faced the two men standing by the graveside. “As we go through life,” he declared, “we give many kindnesses.”

  The man beside Finney listened with hands folded and head bowed. He was perhaps fifty-five, wearing a dark tailored suit and a glittering Rolex watch. To the best of Finney’s knowledge, he never had seen the man before. Might this be Noble’s brother? An uncle, or a cousin? Or some long-lost friend, come out of the woodwork to pay his last respects?

  “For many of these kindnesses, we claim to expect no recompense. When a neighbor asks if he may borrow a cup of sugar, we provide one for no reason except charity. Yet deep inside, we know that someday our situations may be reversed. Someday we may be the ones who require charity—who require a cup of sugar. Does this make our act less kind? No. But the purest form of kindness—the most selfless form of kindness—is one for which we know we have no reason to expect future reciprocation.”

  Finney felt brutalized by the words. Partly, the feeling came from the number of funerals he’d been attending in such a short space of time. The week before they had laid Thomas Warren to rest. The following week would be James Hawthorne, although Finney had yet to decide if he would attend the services. The cumulative demands of the dead on the living were making him resentful, querulous.

  “The kindness we now give to Arthur Noble is the purest form of kindness. In applying earth to his coffin, we are giving of ourselves. Yet since he has left this world, we know the kindness will not be returned to us. When you lift the soil, you will use the back of the shovel. This is because the shovel is not a tool when used for this purpose. Through its inversion, the shovel becomes a sacred object.”

  The man Finney couldn’t place wiped at his eye. A friend, a classmate, a teacher, a fellow spy? Or none of thes
e things—something Finney couldn’t even imagine. Amazing, he thought, how little he truly knew of Arthur Noble, who had affected his life so dramatically.

  “We do not wish to make the task easy for ourselves. Instead, we wish to make it difficult. Hence, the back of the shovel. In undertaking this difficult task, with no possibility of Arthur Noble returning the favor in the future, we are giving him the ultimate kindness—the ultimate blessing.”

  As the cantor turned to the shovel, Finney looked past the waiting hole in the earth, at the next row of graves. He saw three headstones: Margaret, Emily, and Elizabeth Hastings. Beside them, Judd Hastings and Marianne—“She served faithfully.”

  Beyond that row of headstones was another. Then another, and another. The graves did not quite stretch as far as the eye could see—the cemetery was a small, private affair—but they were far too numerous to easily count. And the names were far too plentiful to be remembered.

  Then the cantor was moving to the pile of earth beside the open grave. He turned over the shovel and scooped some soil onto the back. He tossed the soil onto Noble’s coffin, where it sprinkled softly. He looked up, found the eye of the man with the Rolex, and nodded.

  The man accepted the shovel, dipped it upside down into the mound of earth, and tossed dirt into the grave. He looked at Finney and offered the handle.

  Finney paused.

  He swallowed.

  He shook his head.

  Disapproval emanated from the cantor and the man. But neither said anything aloud. The cantor wiped at his nose with the handkerchief; the man with the Rolex jammed the shovel back into the pile of dirt.

  “‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness.…’”

  When it was over, Finney and the man with the ostentatious Rolex walked to their cars.

  The man introduced himself as Roger Ford, a classmate of Noble’s. He asked if Finney would care to have a drink in Noble’s honor. Finney agreed, grateful for the chance to offer some kind of acknowledgment of his mentor’s passing—an acknowledgment that stopped short of what the cantor had called “ultimate blessing.”