by Mark Alpert
“Do you have a photo of the detainee? For identification purposes?”
“We got a driver’s license photo from New York DMV and a photo from the jacket of some book he wrote. On the Shoulders of Giants, it’s called. We’re printing flyers now and we should be able to distribute them to our agents in the next hour or so. Don’t worry, he ain’t going nowhere.”
DAVID RAN UPTOWN ALONG THE Hudson River. After his escape from the FBI agents, he had one overriding impulse: to get as far away as possible from the complex on Liberty Street. But he was too anxious to hail a cab or hop on a subway, too worried about being pulled over by a patrol car or stopped by a transit cop. So he ran up the bike path that paralleled the river, blending in with the late-night exercise fanatics, the joggers and cyclists and Rollerbladers adorned with gleaming reflective strips.
He made it all the way to Thirty-fourth Street, more than three miles away, before he slowed to a halt. Breathing hard, he leaned against a lamppost and closed his eyes for a moment. Christ, he whispered. Christ Almighty. This can’t be happening. He’d spent five minutes listening to the dying words of a physics professor and now he was running for his life. And what had Kleinman said that was so goddamn important? Einheitliche Feldtheorie. Destroyer of worlds. David shook his head. What the hell was going on?
One thing was clear: The FBI agents weren’t the only ones who wanted Kleinman’s secret. Someone else had tortured the professor, someone else had attacked the complex on Liberty Street. And David had no idea who they were.
Alarmed by this thought, he opened his eyes and scanned the bike path. He couldn’t stay here. He had to make a plan. He knew it would be unwise to go to his or Karen’s apartment; the FBI probably had both places under surveillance by now. For the same reason, he couldn’t risk going to any of his friends or colleagues either. No, he needed to get out of New York City. Get some cash, get on the road, maybe figure out a way to cross the Canadian border. He couldn’t rent a car—the federal agents would quickly see the transaction on his credit card, then broadcast his license-plate number to every state trooper in the Northeast—but maybe, if he was lucky, he could get on a train or a bus without being noticed.
David found an ATM and withdrew as much cash as he could from his checking and credit-card accounts. The FBI would discover these transactions, too, but there was no avoiding it. Then he made a beeline for Penn Station.
As soon as he walked through the station’s Eighth Avenue entrance, though, he knew he was too late. The area in front of the ticket windows was swarming with police officers and National Guardsmen. At the entrances to the tracks the cops were asking every passenger for identification, and bomb-sniffing German shepherds were inspecting every purse, briefcase, and pant leg. Cursing himself, David headed for the other side of the station. He should’ve gotten on a train an hour ago at the PATH station downtown.
As David approached the Seventh Avenue exit, a fresh wave of police officers suddenly poured into the concourse and formed a solid line blocking the stairways and escalators. Oh shit, David whispered. One of the cops pulled out a bullhorn. “Okay, people,” he boomed. “Line up in front of the stairway and take out your drivers’ licenses. We need to see some ID before you can leave the station.”
Trying his best to look casual, David turned around and retraced his steps, but there were cops at the Eighth Avenue exits now, too. Exposed and panicky, he started looked for a hiding place, some newsstand or fast-food joint where he could duck in for a few minutes and gather his wits, but most of the shops on the concourse were closed for the night. The only places still open were a Dunkin’ Donuts crowded with police officers and a dismal little bar called the Station Break. David hadn’t seen the inside of a bar in years, and just the thought of entering the Station Break made his gorge rise. But this was no time to be picky.
Inside the bar, a dozen beefy, bearded guys in their twenties were cavorting around a table loaded with Budweiser cans. All the men wore identical custom-made T-shirts with the words PETE’S BACHELOR PARTY printed above a buxom silhouette. They were noisy as hell and had apparently driven everyone else out of the place except for the bartender, who stood behind the cash register with a disgusted frown. David took a seat at the bar, smiling, pretending nothing was wrong. “I’ll have a Coke, please.”
Without a word, the bartender reached for a cloudy glass and filled it with ice. David saw a pair of restroom doors at the far end of the bar but no emergency exit. There was a television on the wall, but the sound was turned off; a young blond anchorwoman stared soberly into the camera next to the words TERROR ALERT.
“Hey, she’s fucking hot!” one of the bachelor partiers yelled. He staggered to his feet so he could get a better look at the anchorwoman. “Oh yeah! Read me the news, baby! Come on, read it to Larry! Larry wants the whole story, baby!”
While his friends laughed uproariously, Larry approached the bar. He had a gut the size of a beach ball hanging over his belt. His eyes were bloodshot and manic, his beard was sprinkled with bits of popcorn, and he smelled so strongly of Budweiser that David had to hold his breath. “Hey, bartender!” Larry yelled. “How much is a shot of Jagermeister?”
The bartender’s frown deepened. “Ten dollars.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Larry thumped a fat fist on the bar. “That’s why I never come into the fucking city anymore!”
Ignoring him, the bartender gave David his Coke. “That’s six dollars.”
Larry turned to David. “See what I mean? It’s a fucking rip-off! It’s three times more expensive than Jersey!”
David said nothing. He didn’t want to encourage the guy. He had enough to worry about already. He handed the bartender a twenty.
“It’s the same with the titty bars,” Larry continued. “We just came from a place called the Cat Club? On Twenty-first street? The girls there wanted fifty bucks for a lap dance. Can you believe that? Fifty fucking bucks! So I said, Fuck this shit, let’s go back to Metuchen. There’s a club on Route 9, the Lucky Lounge? The girls there are just as good, and a lap dance is only ten bucks.”
David wanted to strangle the guy. The police officers and Guardsmen were closing in, patrolling just outside the Station Break with their German shepherds and M-16s, but instead of planning a way out of this mess, David had to listen to this jerk from New Jersey. He shook his head in frustration. “Excuse me, but right now I’m—”
“Hey, what’s your name, pal?” Larry stuck out his right hand.
David gritted his teeth. “It’s Phil. Listen, I’m a little—”
“Good to meetya, Phil! I’m Larry Nelson.” He found David’s hand and pumped it vigorously. Then he pointed at his friends. “These are my buddies from Metuchen. See Pete over there? He’s getting married on Sunday.”
The bridegroom was slumped over the table, his head nearly hidden by the Budweiser cans. His eyes were closed and one side of his face was pressed flat against the tabletop, as if he were trying to hear the rumble of the trains pulling into the station. David grimaced. That was me twenty years ago, he thought. A stupid kid getting soused with his friends. The only difference was that David hadn’t needed an excuse like a bachelor party to get hammered. During his last few months in graduate school, he drank himself into a stupor every night of the week.
“We were gonna take the twelve-thirty train back to Jersey,” Larry added, “but then the cops started checking ID and the fucking line stretched all the way across the station and we missed the train. Now we gotta wait an hour for the next one.”
“What if you don’t have any ID?” David asked. “They won’t let you on the train?”
“Nah, not tonight. We saw one guy, he said he left his wallet at home? The cops pulled him out of the line and took him away. It’s one of those fucking terror alerts. Yellow alert, orange alert, I can’t remember which.”
David’s stomach twisted. Jesus, he thought, I’ll never make it out of here. The whole damn country is looking for me.
&
nbsp; “The one good thing about all this,” Larry added, “is that I don’t have to work tomorrow morning. I got the evening shift this week, so I don’t have to show up at the police station till four in the afternoon.”
David stared at him for a moment, the unkempt beard, the beer belly. “You’re a cop?”
He nodded proudly. “A dispatcher for the Metuchen PD. Just started two weeks ago.”
Amazing, David thought. He’d found the one cop in the tristate area who wasn’t searching for him. At first he saw only the oddness of this chance meeting, but after a few seconds he also saw the opportunity. He tried to remember what little he knew about New Jersey geography. “I live pretty close to Metuchen, you know. In New Brunswick.”
“No shit!” Larry turned to his friends. “Hey, dudes, listen up! This guy’s from New Brunswick!”
Several of them halfheartedly raised their beer cans in salute. Their spirits were running down, David thought. They needed a pick-me-up. “Look, Larry, I’d like to do something for your friend Pete. In honor of his wedding and all. How about if I buy everyone a shot of Jagermeister?”
Larry’s eyes widened. “Hey, that would be great!”
David got off his stool and held his hands straight up in the air as if he were a football referee calling a touchdown. “Jager shots for everybody!”
Suddenly revived, the bachelor partiers let out a whoop. When David turned to the bartender, though, the man didn’t look too pleased. “Let’s see the money first,” he said. “It’s gonna be a hundred thirty.”
David pulled a thick roll of twenties out of his pocket and laid it on the bar. “Just keep ’em coming.”
KAREN LAY IN BED NEXT to Amory Van Cleve, the managing partner of Morton McIntyre & Van Cleve, listening to the odd whistle that came from the sleeping lawyer’s nostrils. This was the first time she’d noticed it, even though she’d been dating Amory for several weeks now. The whistle had three separate notes—F above middle C as he drew in a breath, dropping first to D and then to B flat as he exhaled. (Karen had studied music before going to law school.) After a while she realized why it sounded so familiar: they were the first three notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Karen suppressed a laugh. Her new boyfriend was just an old-fashioned patriot at heart.
He lay on his back with his manicured hands clasped over his chest. Karen slid closer to him, eyeing his full head of gray hair, his patrician nose and chin. He looked pretty damn good for a sixty-year-old, she decided. And even though he had some flaws besides the nocturnal whistle, even though his hearing was a bit weak and he wasn’t the world’s most vigorous lover, his good points made all these flaws seem trivial. Amory was dignified, mannerly, and cheerful. And best of all, he knew what Karen wanted. He knew what mattered to her. This was something that David had never seemed to grasp, despite three years of courtship and nine of marriage.
A siren moaned down Columbus Avenue. There seemed to be a lot of them tonight. Probably heading for a fire somewhere, or maybe a water-main break. She’d check the papers in the morning.
Of course she couldn’t blame it all on David. Karen herself hadn’t realized what she wanted until halfway through their marriage. When they’d met, she was a naive twenty-three-year-old, a piano student at the Juilliard School waging a losing battle against more talented contenders. David was five years older and already a successful professor in Columbia’s History of Science program. Karen fell in love with him because he was funny and handsome and smart, and she began to imagine the future they would build together. After their wedding she abandoned Juilliard and enrolled in law school. Jonah’s birth interrupted her studies for a year, but within a decade she was a senior associate at Morton McIntyre & Van Cleve, earning more than twice as much as her husband. Moreover, she knew exactly what she wanted now: a comfortable home for her family, a private school for her son, and a more prominent place in the city’s social circles.
Karen could forgive David for not sharing these interests—he was a scientist at heart, so he didn’t care about appearances. What she couldn’t forgive was his complete disregard for her desires. He seemed to take a perverse pleasure in looking as disheveled as possible, wearing jeans and sneakers to his classes and letting days go by without shaving. Part of it was his chaotic upbringing, no doubt. He’d grown up with an abusive father and a beaten, cowering mother, and although he’d fought hard to overcome that trauma, his victory was only partial. David became a wonderful father to his own son, but a very poor husband. Whenever Karen brought up an idea, he squashed it. He wouldn’t even consider moving to a bigger apartment or applying to private schools for Jonah. The breaking point came when he refused an offer to become chairman of the history department. The position would’ve given them an extra $30,000 a year, enough to renovate their kitchen or make the payments on a country home, but David turned it down because he said it would “interfere with his research.” Karen gave up on him after that. She couldn’t live with a man who wouldn’t budge an inch for her.
Oh, stop thinking about David, she told herself. What was the point? She had Amory now. They’d already talked about buying an apartment. A place on the East Side would be a nice change. Maybe a three-bedroom in one of those Park Avenue buildings. Or a town house with a roof garden. It would cost a bundle, but Amory could afford it.
Karen was so busy envisioning the perfect apartment that she didn’t hear the doorbell ring the first time. She heard the second ring, though, because it was accompanied by someone pounding on the door. “Mrs. Swift?” an urgent bass voice called. “Are you there, Mrs. Swift?”
She sat up in bed, her heart racing. Who on earth would come knocking at her door at this hour? And why were they using the married name she’d given up two years ago? Alarmed, she grabbed Amory’s shoulder and gave him a shake. “Amory! Wake up! Someone’s at the door!”
Amory rolled his head and mumbled something. He was a heavy sleeper.
“Open up, Mrs. Swift,” another deep voice called. “This is the FBI. We need to speak to you.”
The FBI? What was this, a practical joke? Then she remembered the phone call from a few hours ago, the call from the police detective asking for David. Was that it? Did David get himself into some kind of trouble?
She gave Amory another shake, a real solid one, and he opened his eyes. “What?” he croaked. “What is it? What’s going on?”
“Get up! There’s some men at the door! They say they’re with the FBI!”
“What? What time is it?”
“Just get up and see who it is!”
Amory sighed, then reached for his glasses and got out of bed. He put a maroon bathrobe over his yellow pajamas and tightened the belt. Karen threw on an old T-shirt and stepped into a pair of sweatpants.
“This is your last chance!” a third voice bellowed. “If you don’t open the door, we’re knocking it down! Do you hear, Mrs. Swift?”
“Now, now, hold on!” Amory replied. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
Karen followed him out of the bedroom but hung back a few feet. While Amory went to the foyer, she instinctively positioned herself in front of the door to Jonah’s bedroom. Her son, thank God, was a heavy sleeper, too.
Amory bent over a bit so he could peer through the peephole. “Who are you gentlemen?” he asked through the front door. “And what are you doing here so late?”
“We told you, this is the FBI. Open up.”
“I’m sorry, but I need to see your badges first.”
Karen stared at the back of Amory’s head as he squinted into the peephole. After a few seconds, he looked over his shoulder at her. “They’re FBI agents, all right,” he said. “I’ll see what they want.”
Karen started to shout, “Wait, don’t—” but she was too late. Amory unlocked the dead bolt and turned the knob. The next instant, the front door swung open and two enormous men in gray suits tackled Amory, throwing him down on his back and pinning him to the floor. Two more agents leaped over him and rushed in
to the apartment, a tall, broad-shouldered blond man and a thick-necked black man. It took Karen a second to realize that they were both pointing guns at her.
“Don’t move!” the blond one shouted. His face was tense, pale, monstrous. Without taking his eyes off her, he gave his partner a hand signal. “Go check the bedrooms.”
Karen took a step back. She felt the door of Jonah’s bedroom against her spine. “Please, don’t! I have a child! He’s—”
“I said DON’T MOVE!” The blond man came toward her. The gun shook in his hand as if it had a life of its own.
Through the bedroom door she heard footsteps, then a weak, frightened “Mommy?” But the agents didn’t seem to hear. Both of them were moving toward her now, their guns raised high and their eyes fixed on the door as if they were trying to see behind it. “STEP ASIDE!” the blond one ordered.
Karen stood there, paralyzed, not even breathing. Oh Jesus oh Jesus they’re going to shoot him! Then she heard Jonah’s footsteps right behind her and heard the brassy jiggling of the doorknob and in one swift motion she spun around and pushed the door open and threw herself on top of her son. “NO, NO!” she screamed. “DON’T HURT HIM!”
The agents stood over her, their massive frames filling the doorway, their guns pointed straight down, but it was all right, it was all right. She was covering every inch of Jonah’s body with her own. The top of his head was nestled under her chin and his shoulders were pinioned beneath her breasts. She could feel him shaking in fear and confusion, crying “Mommy, Mommy!” against the wood floor. But he was safe.
While the blond agent stood guard above her, the black one went inside the bedroom and opened the closet door. “Clear!” he yelled. Then he proceeded to inspect the other rooms. In the background, beneath the sound of Jonah’s crying and the agents’ shouts, Karen could hear Amory’s outraged voice. “What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. “You can’t search the place without a warrant! This is a clear violation!”