“Keep it,” she said. “I’ve got a few more in my room. They had a fishbowl full of them on the reception desk in Helsinki. The more lights, the better the signal.”
Roscoe felt an obscure species of embarrassment, like he was a primitive, tacking up tin cans and string around a provincial backwater of a country. “Thanks,” he said, gruffly. “Hey, Marcel, you got us all lined up?”
“Got it.”
Only he didn’t. They lined up the first repeater and tested it, but the signal drop-off was near-total. Bad solder joints, interference from the microwave tower, gremlins . . . Who knew? Sometimes a shot just didn’t work, and debugging it in the frigid winter dusk wasn’t anyone’s idea of a fun time.
“Okay, pass me the next.” Roscoe breathed deeply as Marcel went back to the truck for the other repeater.
This one worked fine. But it still left them with a problem. “Didn’t you bring a third?” Roscoe asked.
“What for?” Marcel shrugged. “I swear I tested them both back home—maybe it’s the cold or something?”
“Shit.” Roscoe stamped his feet and looked back at the road. Sylvie was standing close to the truck, hands in her pockets, looking interested. He glanced at the hill and the microwave mast on top of it. A light blinked regularly, warm and red like an invitation.
“Why’n’t we try the hill?” Marcel asked. “We could do the shot with only one repeater from that high up.”
Roscoe stared at the mast. “Let me think.” He picked up the working repeater and shambled back to the truck cab absentmindedly, weighing the options. “Come on.”
“What now?” asked Sylvie, climbing in the passenger seat.
“I think.” Roscoe turned the ignition key. “Kid has half a point. We’ve only got the one unit, if we can stick it on the mast, it’ll do the job.” He turned half-around in his seat to stare at Marcel. “But we are not going to get caught, y’hear?” He glanced at Sylvie. “If you think it’s not safe, I’ll give you a lift home first. Or bail. It’s your call. Everyone gets a veto.”
Sylvie stared at him through slitted eyes. Then she whistled tunelessly. “It’s your ass. Don’t get into this just because I’m watching.”
“Okay.” Roscoe put the truck in gear. “You guys keep an eye out behind for any sign of anything at all, anyone following us.” He pulled away slowly, driving with excruciating care. “Marcel? Stick that bag under my seat, will you?”
The side road up to the crest of the hill was dark, shadowed by snow-laden trees to either side. Roscoe took it slowly; a couple of times there was a whine as the all-wheel drive cut in on the uncleared snow. “No fast getaways,” Sylvie noted quietly.
“We’re not bank robbers.” Roscoe shifted down a gear and turned into the driveway leading to the mast. There was an empty parking lot at the end, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a gate in it. On the other side, the mast rose from a concrete plinth, towering above them like a giant intrusion from another world. Roscoe pulled up and killed the lights. “Anyone see anything?”
“No,” said Marcel from the backseat.
“Looks okay to—hey, wait!” Sylvie did a double take. “Stop! Don’t open the door!”
“Why—” Marcel began.
“Stop. Just stop.” Sylvie seemed agitated, and right then Roscoe, his eyes recovering from headlight glare, noticed the faint shadows. “Marcel, get down!”
“What’s up?” Marcel asked.
“Crouch down! Below window level!” She turned to Roscoe. “Looks like you were right.”
“I was right?” Roscoe looked past her. The shadows were getting sharper, and now he could hear the other vehicle. “Shit. We’ve been—” He reached toward the ignition key and Sylvie slapped his hand away. “Ouch!”
“Here.” She leaned forward, sparing a glance for the backseat, where Marcel was crouching down. “Make it look like you mean it.”
“Mean what—” Roscoe got it a moment before she kissed him. He responded automatically, hugging her as the truck cab flooded with light.
“
You! Out of the—oh, geez.” The amplified voice, a woman’s voice, trailed off. Sylvie and Roscoe turned and blinked at the spotlights mounted on the gray Dodge van as its doors opened.
Sylvie wound down the side window and stuck her head out. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can fuck right off!” she yelled. “Fucking voyeurs!”
“This is private property,” came the voice. “You’ll have to get a room.” Boots crunched on the road salt. A holster creaked. Roscoe held his breath.
“Very funny,” Sylvie said. “All right, we’re going.”
“Not yet, you aren’t,” the voice said again, this time without the amplification, much closer. Roscoe looked in the rearview at the silhouette of the woman cop, flipping her handcuffs on her belt, stepping carefully on the ice surface. In her bulky parka, she could have been any state trooper, but the way she flipped her cuffs—
“Go go go,” hissed Marcel from the backseat.
“Vite!”
“Sit tight,” Sylvie said.
From the backseat, a click. A gun being cocked. Roscoe kept his eyes on the rearview, and mumbled, “Marcel, if that is a gun I just heard, I am going to shove it up your fucking ass and pull the trigger.”
Roscoe rolled down his window. “Evening, Officer,” he said. Her face was haloed by the light bouncing off her breath’s fog, but he recognized her. Had seen her, the day before, while hanging off the edge of the gorge, aiming an antenna Canadawards.
“Evening, sir,” she said. “Evening, ma’am. Nice night, huh? Doing some bird-watching?”
Made. Roscoe’s testicles shriveled up and tried to climb into his abdomen. His feet and hands weren’t cold, they were numb. He couldn’t have moved if he tried. He couldn’t go back—
Another click. A flashlight. The cop shined it on Sylvie. Roscoe turned. The concealer was smudged around her scar.
“Officer, really, is this necessary?” Sylvie’s voice was exasperated, and had a Manhattan accent she hadn’t had before, one that made her sound scary-aggro. “It was just the heat of the moment.”
Roscoe touched his lips and his finger came back with a powdering of concealer and a smudge of lipstick.
“Yes, ma’am, it is. Sir, could you step out of the car, please?”
Roscoe reached for his seat belt, and the flashlight swung toward the backseat. The cop’s eyes flickered behind him, and then she slapped for her holster, stepping back quickly. “Everyone hands where I see them. NOW!”
Fucking Marcel. Jesus.
She was still fumbling with her holster, and there was the sound of the car door behind her opening. “Liz?” a voice called. The other cop, her partner. Fourth and Walnut. “Everything okay?”
She was staring wide-eyed now, panting out puffs of steam. Staring at the rear window. Roscoe looked over his shoulder. Marcel had a small pistol, pointed at her.
“Drive, Roscoe,” he said. “Drive fast.”
Moving as in a dream, he reached for the ignition. The engine coughed to life, and he slammed it into gear, cranking hard on the wheel, turning away from the cop, a wide circle through the empty parking lot that he came out of in an uncontrolled fishtail, swinging back and forth on the slick pavement.
He regained control as they crested the ridge and hit the downhill slope back to the highway. Behind him, he heard the cop car swing into the chain-link fence, and in his rearview mirror, he saw the car whirling across the ice on the parking lot, its headlights moving in slow circles. It was mesmerizing, but Sylvie’s gasp snapped him back to his driving. They were careening down the hill now, tires whining for purchase, threatening to fishtail, picking up speed.
He let out an involuntary eep and touched the brakes, triggering another skid. The truck hit the main road still skidding, but now they had road salt under the rubber, and he brought the truck back under control and floored it, switching off his headlights, running dark on the dark
road.
“This isn’t safe,” Sylvie said.
“You said, ‘Drive fast,’ ” Roscoe said, hammering the gearbox. He sounded hysterical, even to his own ears. He swallowed. “It’s not far.”
“What’s not far?” she said.
“Shut up,” he said. “Okay? We’ve got about five minutes before their backup arrives. Seven minutes until the chopper’s in the sky. Need to get off the road.”
“The safe house,” Marcel said.
“SHUT UP,” Roscoe said, touching the brakes. They passed an oncoming car that blinked its high beams at them.
Yes, driving with my lights off, thank you, Roscoe thought.
Roscoe hadn’t been to the safe house in a year. It was an old public park whose jungle gym had rusted through and killed a kid eighteen months before. He’d gone there to scout out a good repeater location and found that the public toilet, behind the chain-link fence, was still unlocked. He kept an extra access point there, a blanket, a change of clothes, a first-aid kit, and a fresh license plate, double-bagged in kitchen garbage bags stashed in the drop ceiling.
He parked the truck outside the fence, snugged up between the bushes that grew on one side and the chain link. They were invisible from the road. He got out of the truck quickly.
“Marcel, get the camper bed,” he said, digging a crowbar out from under his seat and passing it to him.
“What are you going to do?” Sylvie asked.
“Help me,” he said, unlatching the camper and grabbing a tarpaulin. “Unfold this on the ground there, and pile the stuff I pass you on top of it.”
He unloaded the truck quickly, handing Sylvie the access points, the repeaters, the toolboxes and ropes and spray cans of camou colors. “Make a bundle of it,” he said, once the truck was empty. “Tie the corners together with the rope. Use the grommets.”
He snatched the crowbar away from Marcel and went to work on the remaining nuts holding down the camper bed. When he had the last one undone, he jammed the pry end of the bar between the lid and the truck and levered it off the bed. It began to slide off, and he grunted, “Get it,” to Marcel, but it was Sylvie who caught the end.
“Over the fence,” he gasped, holding up his end while he scrambled into the back of the truck. They flipped it over together, and it landed upside down.
A car rolled past. They all flinched, but it kept going. Roscoe thought it was a cop car, but he couldn’t be sure. He stilled his breathing and listened for the chop-chop of a helicopter, and thought that, yes, he heard it, off in the distance, but maybe getting closer.
“Marcel, give me that fucking gun,” he said, with deceptive calmness.
Marcel looked down at the snow.
“I will cave in your skull with this rod if you don’t hand me your gun,” he said, hefting the crowbar. “Unless you shoot me,” he said.
Marcel reached into the depths of his jacket and produced the pistol. Roscoe had never handled a pistol, and he was surprised by its weight—heavier than it looked, lighter than he’d thought it would be.
“Over the fence,” he said. “All of us.” He put the gun in his pocket. “Marcel first.”
Marcel opened his mouth.
“Not a word,” Roscoe said. “If you say one goddamned word, either of you, you’re out. We’re quits. Fence.”
Marcel went over the fence first, landing atop the camper bed. Then Sylvie, picking her way down with her toes jammed in the chain link. Roscoe set down the crowbar quietly and followed.
“Roscoe,” Sylvie said. “Can you explain this to me?”
“No,” Roscoe said. “Sylvie, you stay here and cover the camper bed with snow. Kick it over. As much as you can. Marcel, with me.”
They entered the dark toilet single file, and once the door had closed behind them, Roscoe pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on.
“We’re not going home ever again. Whatever you had in your pockets, that’s all you’ve got. Do you understand?”
Marcel opened his mouth, and Roscoe lunged for him.
“Don’t speak. Just nod. I don’t want to hear your voice. You’ve destroyed my life, climbing that tower, pulling that gun. I’m over, you understand? Just nod.”
Marcel nodded. His eyes were very wide.
“Climb up on the toilet tank and pop out that ceiling tile and bring down the bag.” He aimed the flashlight to emphasize his point.
Marcel brought down the bag, and Roscoe felt some of the tension leak out of him. At least he had a new license plate and a change of clothes. It was a start.
Sylvie had covered the bottom third of the camper bed, and her gloves and boots were caked with snow. Roscoe set down the trash bag and helped her, and after a moment, Marcel pitched in. Soon they had the whole thing covered.
“I don’t know that it’ll fool anyone who walks over here, but it should keep it hidden from the road, at least,” Roscoe said. His heart had finally begun to slow down, and he was breathing normally.
“Here’s the plan,” he said. “I’m going to swap the license plates and drive into town. Sylvie lies down on the backseat. They’re looking for a truck with three people in it and a camper bed. Marcel, you’re walking. It’s a long walk. There’re some chemical hot-pads in the first-aid kit. Stuff them in your boots and mitts. Don’t let anyone see you. Find somewhere to hide until tomorrow, then we’ll meet at the Donut House near the Rainbow Bridge, eight a.m., okay?”
Marcel nodded mutely. The snow was falling harder now, clouds dimming the moonlight.
Roscoe dug out the hot pads and tossed them to him. “Go,” he said. “Now.”
Wordlessly, Marcel climbed the fence and started slogging toward the highway.
They watched his back recede, then Roscoe jumped the fence with the trash bag. He dropped it in the back of the truck and hauled his tarpaulin bundle back to the playground side, then dragged it into the bathroom. It was too heavy to get into the drop ceiling, and the drag marks in the fresh snow were like a blinking arrow anyway. He left it on the floor.
He helped Sylvie over the fence, then hunkered down, using a small wrench to remove the plates from the truck. Sylvie crouched beside him, holding the flashlight.
“Did you know he had a gun?” Sylvie said, as he tightened down the bolts.
“No,” Roscoe said. “No guns. We don’t use guns. We’re fucking network engineers, not pistoleros.”
“Thought so,” she said, but made no further comment as he fastened the new plates in place.
Finally, he stood up. “Okay, let’s go,” he said.
“What’s the plan?” She paused, hand on door handle.
“The plan is to get away from here. Then figure out what to do next.” He glanced at her sidelong, calculating. “I think you’ll be all right, whatever happens. But that little idiot—” He realized his hands were shaking.
Sylvie climbed into the truck. Roscoe sat for a minute, concentrating on getting a grip on himself.
He drove slowly, starting every time he saw moving shadows, the headlights of other vehicles. One time the road took a bend, and he passed a police car, stationary on the shoulder. He nearly jumped out of his skin, but forced back the urge to put his foot down or even turn his head.
Give no sign, he told himself.
Sylvie sighed as the police car vanished in the rearview. “You’re going to go to the rendezvous, like you told him?” she asked.
“Yeah. More than the little shit deserves, but I owe him that much. We’ve got to sort this out together.” He tapped the steering wheel. “I’ll have to ditch the truck.”
“No.”
Roscoe stared at her. Sylvie’s face was half in shadow, half a flat orange washout from the streetlamps. “I don’t trust him. I think he’s a provo.”
“What?” Roscoe shook his head then looked back at the road. “He’s young, is all. A bit young.” They were not far from Main Street, and he began looking around for somewhere to park the truck. “Listen, we’re going to have to walk
a ways. You up to an hour on foot?”
“A hike in the dark? Yeah, I guess so.” Sylvie sniffed. “If you go to that Donut House, they’ll arrest you. You’ll go down as a terrorist.”
Roscoe didn’t dignify her paranoia with a response. Instead, he pulled over. “Open the glove box. There’s a can of foam cleaner and some wipes inside. Pass ’em over.”
“If you want.” She sounded resigned. Roscoe focused on polishing the wheel and gearshift handle. Old prints he didn’t care about, but he didn’t want to leave fresh ones. “There have been arrests you haven’t heard about.”
Roscoe opened his door and climbed out. The air was freezingly cold, trying to suck the life from his face and lungs. He picked up the trash bag from the back and paused, about to close the door. Instead he left it open, forcing himself to leave the keys dangling enticingly in the ignition. “You coming?” he asked.
Sylvie hurried to catch up. “There’s a guy called Dennis Morgan, on the Texas border,” she said quietly. “Don’t know where he is, the Feds won’t say—they pulled him in on firearms charges but all the warrants, search and seizure, went through a special FEMA courthouse that won’t talk to us. We tried FOIA notices and got denied. Dennis had no record of violent offenses, like you, he was just an unwirer, but they charged him with attempted murder of a Federal agent, then stuck him in a hole so deep we can’t find him.”
Roscoe slowed, hearing her panting for breath.
“
Secret trials, Roscoe, special terrorism courts. They don’t call them that, but all the records are sealed, and I can’t even find the defense attorneys in the goddamn phone book. ’S a woman called Caitlin Delaney in Washington State. They found kiddie porn in her house and a meth lab in her garage after they shot her resisting arrest, you know? They made her out to be some kind of gangster. She was fifty, Roscoe, and she had multiple sclerosis, and her backyard just happened to have line of sight to the Surrey side of the Canadian border.”
Roscoe slowed even more, until he felt Sylvie walking beside him. “FCC, Roscoe, they’ve been making sure we know all about these dangerous terrorists, did you know that? But I made some phone calls from pay phones to local stringers, had them do some digging. Unwirers are disappearing. Their turf gets too visibly unwired, then they vanish, leaving behind guns and drugs and kiddie porn. That’s the real story I’m here to cover. Roscoe, if you go to that donut joint, and Marcel is what I think he is, you’ll just vanish.”
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