The Sound of Echoes

by Eric Bernt

  She saw him touch the ink where she had signed her name and rub some of it onto his finger, staining it blue. This was all Caitlin needed to see. She knew that as mad and confused as he must be feeling, he was doing his best to carry on. For the time being, that was all she could ask.

  CHAPTER 35

  DAVID’S PLACE

  WOODSDALE, MARYLAND

  June 1, 7:32 p.m.

  Skylar stood over Eddie, admiring her surgical handiwork. She hadn’t stitched up a patient since medical school, and she had done it then only because it was a course requirement. She had always been much more interested in the workings of the mind than the body, but Harvard Medical School seemed to think it was important that all their doctors-to-be were capable of basic emergency medicine.

  Until now, she had never seen the point.

  Eleanor had located the supplies Skylar had requested from a nearby urgent care facility. The young nurse who answered the phone was willing to make a cash deal for certain items, as if she’d done it before, but was unwilling to approach the doctor on duty out of fear it would expose her proclivity for extracurricular income. Apparently, he was her father. For a $1,700 Venmo transfer, Eleanor purchased dissolvable catgut sutures (which, curiously, were made from the intestines of sheep or goats instead of cats); Betadine, an antiseptic; lidocaine, a topical anesthetic; propofol, a sedative; an IV bag and tube; several bags of saline; and rolls of gauze and tape for wrapping the sutured wounds afterward.

  They had met the young nurse at the rear of the facility, where the items were exchanged and the money transfer received. Butler asked how long it would be until her shift ended. Apparently misinterpreting his intentions, she answered that she got off at ten o’clock, which would be in four hours. Butler pointed his gun in her face and asked for the keys to her car. He told her not to report it stolen until her shift ended. Otherwise, the authorities would also find out about her supplemental income.

  After they put Eddie in the back seat and drove away in the nurse’s thirty-year-old Jeep Wagoneer, Skylar commented, “I bet that’s the last time she sells any more drugs off the books.”

  Butler shook his head. “Don’t try to make me feel better. What I did was wrong.”

  “What you did was necessary.”

  “It’s a slippery slope. Trust me.”

  He then realized Eleanor must be following them in real time, because she called them immediately. “I found a facility where you can do the surgery—it’s called David’s Place. It’s a residential facility for adults with special needs. Eddie should feel right at home.”

  “That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Skylar chimed in, a bit suspicious.

  “It’s intentional,” Eleanor corrected her. “You will need a place for him to recover. I figured it would be best if you didn’t have to move him.”

  Butler grinned, clearly appreciating the number of moves his counterpart was thinking ahead. “Eleanor, I want you to know I’m really starting to like you.”

  Skylar regretted having any doubt. “Me too.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.” There was a pause on the line. “By the way, my real name is Caitlin.”

  Butler glanced at Skylar, eyeballing her to make sure she appreciated what a big deal it was that Caitlin had revealed her identity. Skylar nodded. She understood.

  When they arrived at David’s Place, it was obvious the building had seen better days. Or, more accurately, better decades. The facility was ripe to be leveled. Butler and Skylar were greeted by two orderlies. One appeared to be at least seventy years old and walked slightly hunched over. His name, Roberto, was stitched on the lapel of his shirt to help the residents remember it. The other man was half his age and walked with a limp. His name, Zeke, also appeared on his uniform. “You all friends of Eleanor?”

  Butler nodded. “That’s us.” Whatever financial arrangements Caitlin had made with them, the two men were clearly motivated to help and moved with all the vim and vigor they could muster.

  They opened the doors for Butler, who carried Eddie. Roberto and Zeke led them down a hallway to an empty room with a bed and not much else. “You let us know if there’s anything we can get for you,” Roberto said. “We’ll be right down the hall.”

  They shut the door to give the new arrivals some privacy. Apparently, this facility had several empty rooms—which, given its appearance, wasn’t much of a surprise.

  Butler laid Eddie down gently and assisted Skylar as she prepared to stitch up his wounds. She ran his IV, adding propofol to the saline, then sterilized his leg wound, which was the more serious of the two. After injecting the area with local anesthetic, she began to stitch him up. Her hands moved with careful precision.

  Looking on, Butler couldn’t help but be impressed. “When did you say was the last time you did this?”

  She maintained complete concentration on the wound. “Medical school.”

  “If this is what you’re bad at, I’d like to see what you’re good at.”

  “If you ever want some therapy, just let me know. It would seem like the least I could do.” Her focus never deviated. In fact, the chitchat seemed to help her relax, much like doodling in the margins does for students during a long lecture.

  Given the number of stitches Eddie was going to need, that was a good thing.

  CHAPTER 36

  115 NORTH PENNSYLVANIA PLACE

  INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

  June 1, 8:17 p.m.

  Indiana senator Corbin Davis had been meeting for seventeen minutes with the director of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, who oversaw the thirty-five thousand miles of rivers that flowed through Hoosier terrain, as well as its nine hundred lakes. Today, the priority item on the agenda was the rising level of toxins being dumped into the Wabash River by residents of Ohio, where the waterway originated. It seemed that Buckeyes were increasingly viewing Indiana’s state river—the longest free-flowing one east of the Mississippi—as nothing more than a mechanism for removing their waste.

  Senator Davis flipped through the dozens of charts and graphs the director had brought with him to support his claims. “It’s too bad we can’t just reverse the direction the river flows in. Give them a taste of their own putrid medicine.”

  “That would require the good Lord jumping in to our little spat, and I’m not quite sure He’d abide.”

  The senator smiled, thinking that it all depended on what you offered up in exchange for the request. He saw the world through more of an Old Testament prism, which meant “an eye for an eye” was completely justified. “What about carrying the garbage back across the state line in dump trucks?”

  Now it was the director’s turn to smile. “I’ve already had my people price out what a convoy would cost.” He shook his head. “You don’t even want to know.”

  “Would be a hell of a visual, though, wouldn’t it? Especially if we dumped the shit right in downtown Columbus.” Davis enjoyed the thought of all the news coverage it would receive.

  “Problem is, it might not look all that different than it does now.” The director chuckled.

  Senator Davis joined in the laugh as his chief of staff, Bob Welker, entered quietly and stood by the door. He was holding two sheets of paper. He gave his boss a slight nod, which was their signal for “I need you privately.” Davis stood, signaling that his meeting with the state’s chief environmentalist was coming to an end. “I’ll give my counterpart in Ohio a call and see if he’ll take responsibility for this mess. If not, you know what we’re going to do?”

  “What, sir?” The director honestly had no idea as he shook the senator’s hand.

  “We’ll send one truck, just one, with the nastiest crap that’s flowing into our beautiful state and dump it right in front of their capitol building.”

  “In that case, I hope he hangs up on you.” He nodded to Welker as he exited.

  Davis’s chief of staff shook his head with admiration as he joined his boss on the couch. “It’s no wonder peop
le love you. Your knack for lighting a fire in everyone who works for you never ceases to astound me.”

  “Wait until I get the big job,” the senator said, referring to the presidency.

  Welker shook his head. “No need to gild the lily, sir.”

  Davis paused. “You’ve got that look you get when you’re about to share big news or tell me a big secret. Which is it?”

  “I can’t say with certainty yet, but I actually think it’s both,” Welker answered. “I just spoke to Walt Connell’s chief of staff, who said his boss had a curious ride in Air Force One.”

  “Curious how? They didn’t decide to disband the Freedom Caucus, did they?”

  “That’ll be the day. But his little tête-à-tête with the president was briefly interrupted by a call from your new benefactor, Bob Stenson.”

  Now Welker had the senator’s attention. “Was it, now?”

  “Seems that Stenson was calling to inform our chief executive that he may have a security problem at the White House.”

  “What kind of security problem?”

  “Some new type of threat—from space, if you can believe it. Stenson is sending a team to the Oval Office to scan it with some new device they’ve developed.”

  The senator processed the information. “Sounds like complete bullshit to me.”

  “To me as well. Seems like more of a ploy on Stenson’s part to get his men and this new device into the office.”

  It now hit Davis what his number one was suggesting. “Holy shit.”

  “I have a contact in White House security. When Stenson’s team passes through their system, he’s going to send me screen grabs of the team and this device.”

  “If it’s what I think it is—”

  His chief of staff finished the thought for him. “Something very big is being set in motion.”

  CHAPTER 37

  DAVID’S PLACE

  WOODSDALE, MARYLAND

  June 1, 9:01 p.m.

  Eddie’s leg wound required thirty-six stitches: eighteen internal and eighteen external. His head wound only needed twelve. By the time Skylar had finished tying off the last of them, ninety-two minutes had passed. “As long as we can keep him calm, I think those will hold.”

  Butler was impressed. “There were a number of times I could have used you back when I was in the military.”

  She nodded, appreciating the compliment, and breathed a sigh of relief. “I am absolutely starving.”

  “I’ll go see what our options are.” He left the room, practically knocking over the person who’d been standing on the other side of the door, listening to their every word.

  Butler instinctively adopted a defensive pose, then recognized that she didn’t represent a threat. “Can I help you?”

  The young lady seemed flustered. And embarrassed. She was in her twenties and wore a University of Maryland sweat suit with fuzzy pink slippers. She wore no makeup. Her hair was shoulder length, but not styled in any fashion Butler could discern. “That was Helena’s room.” Her voice was soft, not much above a whisper.

  “Who’s Helena?”

  “Helena was my friend. Very special, Helena. She was nice and kind and clean because she showered every day, sometimes twice.” Her cadence was inconsistent, almost like she momentarily forgot what she was about to say and then, upon remembering the words, pronounced them as rapidly as she could before forgetting them again. “But she died. Very sad. Did you know her, Helena?”

  Butler realized she must be a resident of the facility. He didn’t know if she was on the autism spectrum, like Eddie, or what kind of neurological issue she had, but it was clear to him that she was not what clinicians would describe as being in the neurological mainstream. “No, I didn’t.”

  “That’s too bad for you. Sorry. Maybe you already know someone like Helena, but I didn’t. I had only her. One Helena. So sad. Feels empty, you know, on my insides. Do you know that feeling?”

  He nodded. “I do.” Boy, he thought, do I ever.

  “You live here now, in Helena’s room?” the young lady asked expectantly.

  Butler smiled, utterly disarmed. There was something so gentle about her, so trusting, so delicate, but, at the same time, incredibly sad. “No, I’m just visiting.”

  “We don’t get many visitors, not here. No, not many. Very exciting, having a visitor. Dr. Davenport should make an announcement over the loudspeakers so that everybody knows.” She quickly turned to leave.

  Butler nearly grabbed her, when he remembered what happened the first time he touched Eddie—so he stepped around her instead to block her path. “My name is Butler. What’s yours?”

  “My name is Lolo. Well, it’s not my real name, but it’s what my mother called me when I was young because I had little brothers and sisters—two brothers and three sisters: Jake, Charlie, Marla, Francine, and Beatrice—and they couldn’t pronounce my real name, which is Lorraine, so they started calling me Lolo. That’s what everybody’s called me ever since. Lolo. Do you think it’s a funny name?”

  “No, I think it’s a nice name.”

  “Are you sure? Sometimes people say nice things when they don’t really mean them.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I like it because it’s easy to remember. I also think it suits you.”

  “Well, thank you very kindly.” She delivered the response with a slight southern accent, like she was repeating a line she had heard in an old movie. She then curtsied, holding the bottom of an imaginary dress.

  “Lolo, I would like to ask you a small favor,” he said with surprising tenderness. “Would that be all right?”

  “That’s hard to answer until you ask the favor, because what you think is a small favor might be a super, giant, big one to me. What’s-what’s-what’s the favor?” Butler took note of her nervous stutter.

  “Would you mind not telling Dr. Davenport, or anyone else, that I’m visiting, just yet?”

  She looked flabbergasted, like he must be joking. “Well, why not? I mean, it is kind of a big deal, you being a visitor.”

  “Because I’m not ready to meet anyone else just yet.”

  Lolo immediately nodded. “Oh. Okay. I understand. Meeting people can take a great deal of energy. In fact, meeting you is making me feel a little bit tired, I think. Right?”

  “Would it be possible for you to wait a little while before you tell anyone?”

  She gave the question time for serious consideration. “Yes, I think so. But don’t expect me to keep a secret like this for too long, because my head might explode. And you wouldn’t want that. I know I wouldn’t. Let me know as soon as you are ready to meet some of the other residents, Butler.”

  “I appreciate your understanding,” he responded sincerely.

  “Well, I appreciate your visiting,” she answered, clearly not about to let him have the last word. “Like I told you, this is very exciting.” She turned to go, this time heading in the other direction.

  “Hey, Lolo, would you happen to know where I might be able to get some food?”

  She whirled around with a look of absolute certainty. Of all the questions he could have asked, this was the one she felt most confident in answering. “Would I!”

  CHAPTER 38

  AMERICAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION

  ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

  June 1, 9:14 p.m.

  Stenson felt that his two most recent hires were two of the best he’d ever made. Enola Meyers was a small-town girl from Ohio who’d managed to get Georgetown University to pay for her education, both her bachelor of arts in economics and her law degree. Having a perfect sixteen hundred on her SAT and just under 67 percent of her DNA from Native American roots went a long way toward explaining why.

  That, and she was a national debate champion.

  Charlie Johnson had intelligence in his blood. Both his father and grandfather had worked for the CIA. The father had only recently retired from the agency after a stellar thirty-year career. Back in the early days of the AHF, he had applied
for a position and been seriously considered until his ongoing marital infidelities were revealed. It seemed that the man couldn’t even be faithful to his mistress.

  The son, on the other hand, was the picture of a devoted husband and new father. He and his wife had just had their first child, a daughter named Dorothy. Stenson had never seen a more dedicated husband and father, except perhaps when he looked in the mirror.

  As good as Enola and Charlie were separately, their real strength lay in their complementarity. Each was good at what the other wasn’t. They never fought over responsibilities. When a task was a toss-up, they literally took turns, much the way college basketball uses the possession arrow. They passed a dollar coin back and forth, designating whose turn it was.

  What made this coin unique was that it was a “Cheerios dollar,” a Sacagawea dollar from 2000 that had been inserted into a Cheerios box as part of a US Mint promotion to raise awareness of the new coin. Of the ten million Sacagawea dollars distributed over the next several years, only 5,500 were part of the Cheerios promotion. Enola still remembered the day she discovered it at breakfast and had considered it her good luck charm ever since.

  With Daryl Trotter and Jason Greers currently “off campus”—that was how American Heritage Foundation staffers referred to being outside the office, due to the sheer number of hours each of them spent inside the building—Bob Stenson decided to give his promising new hires their first operational responsibility. He wanted Edward Parks and his device located and acquired. Not by any public agency, but by private hands. Bounty hunters and the like. Ones they trusted.

  The director suggested they hire at least three teams to scour the vicinity of the interstate accident Parks had been taken from. The details were left entirely up to them. Stenson only wanted to hear from his newest dynamic duo when their mission had been completed. “Do not disappoint me.”