“That’s a relief.”
“Okay, everyone, dinner is ready,” Sylvie says, wiping her hands and taking off her apron. “Let’s all line up. Howie, you pour the wine, and Grace, you tell us that story you’ve been threatening us with.”
Howie hustles around filling glasses while Grace starts on the details of the divorce that has been the talk of Raleigh for the last three months, keeping them spellbound with her story, her ribald, jocular delivery even coaxing a smile out of Donald.
Howie surveys his family grouped around the kitchen island as they listen to Grace’s tale, everyone smiling and full of good feeling—the way he always hoped their holidays would turn out. Howie picks up his glass and raises it in the air.
“To the Collyer family, to our continued health and happiness! I’m delighted to have you all here. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!” Feeling he’s on the verge of tearing up, he snatches a napkin off the counter.
“Hear, hear!” Bridey, Grace and Donald chorus, hoisting their glasses in return.
“Okay, everyone. Dinner’s ready, c’mon and get your plates,” Sylvie calls. The family packs in around the island, each taking a plate as they line up.
The grating ring of the telephone interrupts the clinking of china and glasses. Howie sneers at the beeping phone. “Who could possibly be calling on Thanksgiving Day?”
“I bet it’s a telemarketer. You ought to get yourself on that no-telemarketing list the government’s got, Howie,” Bridey says. “Donald and I did and we haven’t had a telemarketer call for three months.”
Howie puts down his plate and walks over to the wall phone. He grabs the receiver and answers gruffly, “Hello.”
Listening for a moment, he quickly responds, “Look, I’m sorry but we’re just sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner.”
Howie pauses, then says, “I beg your pardon, could you go over that again?” Sylvie watches as her husband’s expression goes from peeved to perturbed. Is it a call from the nursing home about his parents?
“Hang on a minute. Let me move to another phone,” he puts the call on hold. “You guys go ahead and start, I’ll make this as quick as possible,” Howie promises as he hustles down the hall.
“You heard your father, let’s go ahead and eat,” Sylvie says, handing Bridey a plate and waving her hand to indicate she should start serving herself.
“Won’t be the first time in this house a holiday dinner’s been interrupted,” Grace says as she helps herself to the creamed onions.
“Or the last, I’m sure,” Donald adds.
“Wonder who would call Dad on Thanksgiving?” Bridey asks.
“Maybe someone found a lost bomb digging in their backyard?” Donald cracks, chortling at his dig at his dad.
“Not funny, now eat your dinner,” Sylvie says, trying to smile but knowing inside that her son’s joke might have more than a ring of truth to it.
“I thought I cooked a wonderful dinner. Too bad you couldn’t enjoy it,” Sylvie says as she throws back the covers and climbs into bed. She’s miffed he took the call during dinnertime and sat staring off into space throughout the meal. “You didn’t fool the children either, they knew what the damn call was about.”
“The woman was beside herself,” Howie says, pecking away at the computer perched on his lap.
“Cripes sakes, Howie, it’s Thanksgiving and you had no business being all absorbed in some business at a VA hospital. Your mind was a thousand miles away.”
“I’m going up there tomorrow.”
“You’re what?” Sylvie whirls around to face him.
“In the morning I’m driving up.”
“We had plans to take Grace to see your mom and dad tomorrow.”
“You two go. Grace’ll understand.”
“Howie, this is nuts.”
“One of the nurse’s patients is trying to tell her something. Two days ago, she backed down his sedatives hoping it would make him more lucid, but when she went into the hospital this morning, she found that someone had upped them back to the original level. And she has no idea who.”
“What in the world does this have to do with you?”
“The patient’s telling her something about a lost bomb.”
“Oh, Howie, don’t tell me—“
“Look, if it smells funny, I’ll back off.”
“It already stinks to high heaven—lost bombs, someone messing with a patient’s prescription. Why don’t you just give Winn a call and let him handle it for you?” Winston Straub was Howie’s college roommate, went on to become a spy on the Soviets and then a top level CIA staffer. Straub prides himself on being in the know about everything. Great friends for the past thirty years, Howie and Winn are practically brothers.
“I will call Winn. But I promised this nurse I’d come up.”
Sylvie reaches up and turns off the light. She knows when her influence ends and her husband’s stubborn streak begins.
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
Howie doesn’t answer.
“Then promise me you’ll be careful,” she says, lightly patting him on the leg.
“I promise,” Howie says, in as honest a tone as he can muster, fully aware caution won’t do him a bit of good if he steps into a world of shit.
7
VA Hospital, Pittsburgh, Friday morning
Sharon Thorsen breathes a sigh of relief when she pulls into her assigned space. Priding herself on being a safe driver, she hadn’t noticed the car pulling out and narrowly missed sideswiping it. The driver leaned on his horn, made an obscene gesture and yelled something Sharon knew wasn’t complimentary. She crawled the rest of the way.
She’s a wreck and she knows it. All the girls at Thanksgiving dinner remarked on how distracted and out of sorts she seemed. And then she’d slept fitfully. At first troubled by the mysterious change in Risstup’s dosage, then tossing and turning the worrying about whether she did the right thing in calling Howard Collyer.
She checks her watch. Collyer would be arriving in two hours. What if the change on Risstup’s chart was a mistake? Could it have been a legitimate change with a reasonable explanation? Was it nuts to even imagine someone would want to shut Risstup up?
Collyer didn’t think so. But as understanding and helpful as he was on the phone, who’s to say this Howie Collyer isn’t a wild-eyed kook? A total stranger who she’d spent five minutes talking to, he could turn out to be a complete fruitcake.
Sharon climbs out of her Subaru, locks it and strides across the parking lot toward the side entrance, trying to look as determined and purposeful as possible. As if creating the illusion that she is in control will compensate for her rising panic. Frightened for the poor old man who’s tormented by a haunting memory from his past, yet at the same time knowing she might be getting in over her head.
In her uniform she attracts no attention, even though it is her day off. She walks down the hallway and takes the elevator to the third floor. Pushing open the swinging door, she strides down the row of beds. At first relieved to see the familiar form lying in his assigned bed, she’s alarmed when no gaunt hand lifts from the mattress, no smile spreads across his face.
Her hand darts for his wrist, her fingers expertly locating the artery. His pulse is weak. Grabbing his chart, she shuffles through the pages to find the most recent entries.
What she sees scrawled on the last sheet of paper chills her to the bone.
Howie Collyer was out of bed and sipping his first cup of coffee at five-thirty and on the road a half hour later. Six hours and twenty minutes is what his nav system told him. But it doesn’t know how fast Howie can go when he’s motivated. A pleasant fall morning, the temperature is higher than normal for just after Thanksgiving. Fifty-eight degrees and sunny.
He thinks back over the call during Thanksgiving dinner. Someone’s manipulating the patient’s prescription. When the nurse reduced his dose, he began to talk about the lost bombs. Yesterday the dose was mysteriously raised back up to the original level. Was t
he pilot beginning to come out of some kind of amnesia and they drugged him up again so he wouldn’t reveal any more?
Howie distracts himself with a book on tape he started on his last trip. A Mafia potboiler with blood and guts, tough talk and dime-a-dozen gangster molls with plunging necklines and six-inch stilettos. By the time the hero’s bumped off all the bad guys, Howie’s well into Pennsylvania. He catches the last of Car Talk on NPR.
As the two funnymen mechanics are signing off, Howie’s phone chirps. He checks the window, doesn’t recognize the number but the call is from a Pittsburgh area code.
“Mr. Collyer?” The voice on the other end is female and frantic. “Mr. Collyer? It’s Sharon Thorsen. Now I’m convinced there’s someone behind this.”
“Why do you say that?” Collyer wonders whether he should pull over. Even though he has a hands-free, going seventy-five on a highway crowded with trucks doesn’t make it easy to concentrate. “Hang on a minute,” he says to her, flicking his turn signal and changing lanes, slowing and pulling off into the breakdown lane.
“Okay, go on.”
The nurse continues, her voice increasingly shaky, “There’s an order on his chart to up his dose again—this time to a scary level. His heart won’t be able to tolerate it, I’m certain.”
Howie stops the car and turns off the engine.
“Where are you now?”
“About to jump out of my skin. They seem to know everything I’m doing.”
Collyer checks the screen on his direction finder. “I’m less than two hours away. Can you hang on?”
“I’m not sure. I’m worried to death.”
“Can you take his chart?”
“I guess.”
“They can’t shoot him up if they don’t have the chart, right?”
“True.”
“Okay, so grab the chart, stick it under your arm and get the hell out. Can you do that?”
“Okay, sure.”
“Head for someplace where we can meet. Don’t take your car, somewhere you can walk.”
“How about Starbucks?”
“What’s the address?”
Sharon Thorsen stammers for a couple moments.
“I need the address.”
“I’m sorry, Forbes and Atwood.”
“Forbes and Atwood. How will I recognize you?”
“Look for a nurse.”
“What if there’s more than one? Give me something else.”
“Some people say I look like Angelica Huston.”
“Sorry, but I don’t know who she is.”
“Okay—tall, long brown hair, sort of a narrow face.”
“That’ll do. I’ll see you in an hour and fifty, give or take a few.”
“Please hurry.”
“As soon as I can I’ll be there, now get the hell out of there,” Collyer says, hanging up and keying in the new destination, feeling the tension tightening up his shoulders as he pulls out onto the Turnpike. He swivels his neck to try to loosen them up. Howie knows Sylvie would kill him if she knew what he was getting into. But what else am I supposed to do? I can’t turn around and go home. Not with the trouble the nurse is in.
Howie quietly laughs. Who’s kidding who? He was hooked the minute the VA nurse told him she was caring for an Air Force pilot who was talking about a lost bomb. For all he knows, the pilot might hold the key to the weapon dropped off the New Jersey coast. For years he’s heard rumors about the Jersey bomb, scuttlebutt around the Building that it wasn’t jettisoned out over the Atlantic. People clam up quickly whenever he’s raised the subject, what does that tell you?
Howie checks his rearview and steps on the accelerator as he pulls out into the passing lane, taking the Accord up to eighty while keeping an eye out for cops. Last night, after talking with the nurse, Howie knew he might be heading up a blind alley. The old man could have a screw loose, or the nurse might be misreading the situation.
But now everything’s changed.
He takes it up to eighty, the hairs on his neck standing up, adrenalin’s making his heart hammer.
Someone has prescribed a fatal dose. That means a raw nerve’s been hit. And he has a good idea it’s somewhere in the massive five-sided building called the Pentagon.
8
ZTA house, Rutgers University, Friday afternoon
They start the party early as it’s for the kids who, for whatever reason—divorce, parents on a cruise—don’t go home for Thanksgiving or those who come back early to spare themselves the family scene. And even though school is officially closed, it’s always a blowout.
“Denny, Denny,” the girls shriek as they shimmy up to him, bumping and grinding against him to the hip-hop blasting out of the DJ’s speakers, their blonde manes flowing, their skirts tight and short, all suntanned legs and bouncing bosoms as they fondle his cheeks and glide their hands over his arms. Mehran’s the sorority’s own boy-toy and as much as it rattles Melanie, he plays it for all it’s worth.
While they get sillier and drunker on the lipstick-colored cocktails from the bar, Mehran paces himself with a beer and flashes his winning smile back at them, doing his best to keep up with his girlfriend’s frantic dancing. Neither blonde nor a size 6, Melanie knows she was last in the looks line, but the size of her dad’s wallet adequately compensates. He carts Melanie’s sorority sisters around in his jets and gives them fat discounts at his ritzy stores in Manhattan. So they put up with their pudgy sister with the bad skin and she lets them put their hands all over Mehran.
Though Melanie did draw a line when one of her sisters tried to lure him upstairs at an event two weeks ago.
“C’mon up and see my new flat screen, Denny,” Kristen, who was draped all over him, cooed in his ear.
Before Mehran was two steps up the stairs, Melanie was in her face. Grabbing Mehran’s hand, what starts as a tugging match soon becomes a raging catfight, Mehran standing on the stairs with Kristen, the blonde goddess, pulling on his right and chubby Melanie hanging on for dear life to the other. Both girls drunk out of their skulls and raging mad.
“Denny’s gonna be my fuckbuddy,” the blonde named Kristen slurred, swatting at Melanie while she planted a slobbery kiss on Mehran’s cheek.
“Fuck you, he’s mine,” Melanie blurted, yanking on Mehran’s arm.
“Fat pig!” Kristen snarled, tossing the dregs in her cup at her, half the purple drink splashing down Melanie’s front, wetting her neck and staining her blouse.
“Stupid whore,” Melanie raised her leg and kicked out but lost her balance and started to stumble. Mehran caught her in his arms before she tumbled. Regaining her equilibrium, she threw her arms around her boyfriend and shouted triumphantly at Kristen, “Tough shit to you, bitch.”
“Girls, girls, girls, that’s enough, c’mon, let’s go back to partying!” Mehran shouted, leading Melanie away from the stairs, through the crowd of revelers now hooting, whistling, clapping him on the back like he’d just come out of the ring after scoring a knockout. Of course, Melanie’s on cloud nine having faced down one of the blonde princesses who tried to take away her boyfriend. Pretty soon they’re back to drinking and dancing.
This party’s just like all the others, but he acts like he’s having the time of his life, grateful to be accepted as another foreign engineering student and to have a girlfriend with rich parents. She pulls out her credit card whenever he needs equipment or wants to go diving at the quarry south of town.
It’s just another hour and a half of partying. Then the same routine, he’ll help Melanie stumble back across campus, get her up the stairs and pour her in bed. Usually she tries to come on to him but seldom gets past fumbling with his fly before she passes out. Sex is mandatory in the morning but that’s after he’s had a chance to get a full night’s work done with no one looking over his shoulder. Engineering is the perfect cover since everyone knows those students are glued to their computer screens 24-7.
That night, he goes through the same ritual with Melanie.
Except halfway across the quad she leans over and pukes her guts out, then gets all blubbery and guilty about being drunk and begs Mehran not to think less of her.
Finally getting her into bed, he turns off the light, walks to the closet, turns on his computer and shuts the door behind him. Peeling through dummy websites set up for cover, it’s been three years, three long years, but is he maybe getting the news he’s been waiting for? His heart drumming in his chest, he makes sure he translates the coded message correctly. No question about it, something’s going on. Can’t tell for sure, but it’s a definite indication.
He sits back in his chair, one thought crowding out all the others.
His target’s on the move, could he be tracking a lost bomb?
9
Pittsburgh, Friday afternoon
Peeking through the window, she’s easy to spot, forget about the Angelica Huston business, she’s the only person in hospital garb. For downtown Pittsburgh, Howie expected the area to be bustling with businesspeople and Pitt students ordering up their afternoon caffeine fix to get them through to dinnertime, but the place is empty. He remembers it’s the day after Thanksgiving, everyone’s bound to be on break.
He strolls down the block, keeping an eye on the coffee shop. Then crosses the street, carefully surveying left and right. After ten minutes, he takes out his phone. It’s risky, but he has no choice.
“Leave Starbucks and take a right, walk two blocks and take a left,” he says when she answers, Then repeats himself, “A right, two blocks and then a left,” and hangs up before she can get a word out.
Seconds later, the door opens. Sharon Thorsen is in her late thirties or early forties. Looking frazzled as he expected, her hair mussed and face flushed, attractive but offbeat—not classically pretty. Tall and trim, with a longish pageboy, she scurries down the block, peeking over her shoulder more than Howie would have liked.
He crosses to her side when she reaches the second intersection. Though he knows Pittsburgh well, he’s never been in this neighborhood. Down the street, he spots a short order place, the kind with coffee and sweet buns in the morning, burgers and fries the rest of the day. He flips open his cell and touches the redial button. “See that luncheonette up ahead? I’ll meet you in there. Find a booth in the back and order coffee.”
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