Something in the way Cowens made this little speech struck me as false. It was like the way Bolton had talked about the referendum: forced, artificial. "Maybe," I suggested, "you've been a soldier too long, General. What if you're too used to carrying out orders from people like Bolton, and not thinking about the person who's giving the orders?"
His blue eyes appraised me. And then he laughed—a dry, humorless laugh that made me want to curl up and die. "Sands, that just shows how much you misunderstand me as well as everyone else," he whispered. He turned away then, and a few moments later we came to a stop in front of the jail.
* * *
The fiendish old jailer with the limp and the incomprehensible mutter took me away from the soldiers. "Hey, what about the handcuffs?" I said, but no one paid any attention.
The jailer carried a torch as he led me through the dark corridors. Our shadows loomed grotesquely on the walls. In the distance someone groaned. I felt as if I had entered hell.
He led me to a cell and locked me inside, then limped away. I sat on the edge of the cot, twisted the handcuffs, and felt fear clutching at me like the hands of the damned.
No one was going to save me from Major Fenneman this time.
I don't know how long I waited in the darkness, but it wasn't long enough. Eventually footsteps echoed in the corridor, and the jailer was standing outside, along with a soldier. The jailer opened the door, and the soldier beckoned. I got up and followed him. No words were spoken.
The soldier took me to the small, windowless room where I had been before. Inside, both Cowens and Fenneman were standing up, waiting for me. If possible, Fenneman looked even angrier than I remembered him. "I wonder if you wouldn't mind seeing about these handcuffs," I said to Cowens. "I don't think they're really necessary now, do you? One of your men has the key."
Cowens gestured to the soldier waiting by the door. "Take care of it," he murmured. The soldier disappeared down the corridor.
Fenneman shut the door. "Sit down," he said.
I obeyed. Fenneman and Cowens remained standing. They stared at me. "Where is TSAR keeping the president?" Fenneman demanded.
"I don't know anything about TSAR," I said. "I had nothing to do with the president's kidnapping. I don't have any idea where she is."
Fenneman leaned over and slapped me in the face. I closed my eyes; he had a powerful slap. When I opened my eyes, the naked light bulb hanging over the table glistened through my tears. Fenneman's face loomed behind it, large and red and angry. "What were you doing sneaking around the governor's house?"
"I told General Cowens what I was doing. I suspected Bolton of being behind all this."
"Weren't you in fact scouting the place out for TSAR? Aren't they in fact preparing to kidnap him too?"
"I don't know anything about their plans. What I told Cowens is the truth."
"But you told Bolton something else—that you were protecting him. So why should we believe you now?"
"Well of course I wasn't going to tell Bolton I suspected him of being a traitor."
"So you admit you're a liar."
"Oh, come on. You're wasting valuable time if you think you can find the president by hitting me and asking tricky questions."
Fenneman hit me again. "Don't tell me how to do my job. Now where's the president?"
"I don't know."
"Who else is a member of TSAR?"
"I don't know."
"How many members does it have?"
"I don't know."
He hit me again. The interrogation settled into a routine of questions and denials and pain. Fenneman was not subtle and not especially clever, I suppose, but at the moment I was not interested in reviewing his performance; I was interested only in the next time he was going to hit me. Where would he aim? How hard would it be? How much more could I stand? After a while I noticed that Cowens was gone. I wondered vaguely if perhaps he didn't enjoy this sort of thing. Or perhaps he realized they weren't going to get anything out of me. But thoughts of Cowens quickly floated away. They didn't matter. Only the pain mattered.
Eventually I must have passed out, because I don't remember an end to the interrogation. I just came to in my cell; sunlight was streaming in through a tiny window high up in the wall, and it was time to face another day.
I struggled up to a sitting position on my cot. I noticed that there was a tray on the floor with a roll and a cup of milk on it. I wasn't hungry, but after a lifetime of scrounging for food my instinct told me to eat when the opportunity presented itself. I reached down and picked up the tray; wasn't easy. The milk was warm; the roll was hard. My mouth wasn't cooperating. It wasn't one of my better breakfasts. I lay back down on the cot.
Time passed. I drifted along with it, content not to move, not to think. The absence of pain (more or less) is not boring, if the only alternative is more pain. After a while I noticed that my handcuffs were gone. That was an improvement, wasn't it? I stared at a tiny, faded message printed on the wall next to the cot:
I am in heer on a bum rap
The Wiz Kid '97
Staring at the message, I began to feel a kinship with the Wiz Kid, now no longer a kid, now almost certainly dead. And then I began to feel a kinship with all of the oppressed, dead and living. Like them, I didn't belong in jail; I didn't deserve to be tortured. How could someone do this to his fellow man? It was wrong; it had to be stopped.
In the aftermath of pain, this struck me as being quite profound. Henry Fisher would have been proud of me. But the Wiz Kid hadn't stopped it, and Henry hadn't either, and here I was, after all these years, waiting for the steps along the corridor and the rattling of the keys in the cell door and the silent summons. Fenneman is back in the small room. The pain is about to resume.
I closed my eyes, and I waited.
* * *
"Let's go."
I looked over at the soldier standing in the open door. "I am in here on a bum rap," I said to him. It didn't come out very well; my mouth still wasn't cooperating.
"I don't give a fat rat's ass," the soldier said. "Let's go."
I slowly got up from the cot and shuffled out of the cell. The soldier pushed me along the corridor. I stumbled forward, and eventually we reached our destination. Fenneman was waiting for me. As before, Cowens was also there; maybe his presence was required for the beginning of the ritual. He had shaved; he looked somewhat better. He appraised me as I slumped into the wooden chair. "You're not telling us what we need to know," he said softly.
"How can I? I don't know anything."
"And meanwhile your people are still at it," Fenneman said.
"What people?" I asked.
"You know what people." He tossed a piece of paper onto the table.
It was yet another typed message from TSAR. I read it.
You have till sunrise tomorrow to leave Boston.
Then the president dies.
The Second American Revolution
P.S. We now have the meddling reporter Gwendolyn Phillips.
She dies too, as will all who attempt to interfere.
I looked up at Fenneman. His arms were crossed. His florid face was expressionless. Could this be a trick to get me to talk? But what was the point? Maybe the Feds knew about my relationship with Gwen—she was the one, after all, who had written the story about the initial threat from TSAR—but this didn't seem like a good way of making use of that knowledge.
After all, this message was just more proof that I didn't have anything to do with TSAR.
So the message was real. I had gotten Gwen's interview with the president, and she had cracked my case. Sometime or other maybe I should ponder the irony of that, I thought. But not now. Not while Gwen was in danger.
She worried so much about me, about everyone who was close to her. It wasn't fair that she was the one who had ended up in trouble.
I was in trouble too, of course, but all of a sudden my trouble seemed trivial—a minor inconvenience, a misunderstanding, easily cleared u
p. Fenneman's blows stung, but they weren't going to kill me. I was sure, on the other hand, that TSAR—whoever, whatever they were—would kill Gwen, if it suited their plans.
And that meant I had to do something. Now.
"What do you have to say about this?" Fenneman demanded, gesturing at the paper.
I tried to think. "Look," I said finally. "I don't want to put up with any more of this. I'll tell you what you want to know."
Fenneman and Cowens exchanged a satisfied glance, and then Fenneman looked back at me. "All right," he said. "Start talking."
Chapter 16
I shifted in the wooden chair. "Well," I said, "it's like this." I paused. What exactly was it like? "The guy behind TSAR is, well..."
"Yes?" Fenneman demanded. Cowens stared at me icily.
"...well, it's Jim O'Malley."
"O'Malley?" Fenneman repeated. "The Charlestown boss? That's absurd."
"That's just what he wants you to think," I said. I had it now. One more theory, this time with absolutely nothing to back it up. "Everybody's been focusing on political groups, so no one thinks of someone like O'Malley. But imagine what would happen if the Feds just up and left Boston. Could a political group take over? No chance. O'Malley's organization is the second most powerful force in the city now—maybe in New England—and he'd just expand and take over everything if you guys weren't around to restrain him."
"And you're part of O'Malley's organization?" Fenneman asked.
"Sure. I do this private eye stuff on the side, but obviously no one can make a living at it. I used to work for Bobby Gallagher over in Southie, but he's just small potatoes. O'Malley is big-time. You work for O'Malley, you know you're going places. It was just a coincidence that Bolton hired me to find out about TSAR, but it turned out to be a perfect setup, or at least so we thought. I could keep feeding you people cockeyed theories, so you wouldn't see what was really going on."
I paused, waiting for a reaction. "I don't believe a word of it," Fenneman said. Wrong reaction. "O'Malley's not smart enough to pull this off."
"See, you just proved what I've been saying," I pointed out. "You underestimate him because you think he's just a small-time crook. Well, he's smart enough to be more successful than almost anyone else around here—smart enough to have Charlestown under his thumb and a piece of almost every deal in New England. So maybe it's time you reconsidered your opinion."
Fenneman glanced at Cowens, who didn't respond.
"Well," Fenneman said, "I guess it can't hurt to take a look over there."
"Yes it can," I responded quickly. "If you just send a bunch of soldiers to his headquarters, I guarantee you'll have one dead president on your consciences."
"Is that where they're keeping her?"
"Of course not."
"Where, then?"
I took a breath. "Look," I said, "I'm in enough trouble as it is. I don't want this to screw up. You go to Charlestown and get the president killed and you'll take it out on me, no matter how much I helped you. And the thing is, without me you haven't got a chance, even if I told you right now where she is. You're gonna be in enemy territory, and they have sentries all over the place. My idea is that I bring two or three of you over there in an unmarked car and show you the lay of the land. Then we can figure out a plan."
"Sure, and then you have us kidnapped, and you escape," Fenneman scoffed. "No deal."
Then Cowens spoke for the first time. "Where is she?" he demanded.
"See, unless you—"
He came over and slapped me. Not as hard as Fenneman, but the surprise counted for something. "Where is she?" he said in a whisper this time. "Nothing more happens until you tell us."
I stared at him. He was smaller and older and frailer than Fenneman, but somehow much more frightening. "Twenty-one Davis Street in Charlestown," I said. "It's an old warehouse."
I held his gaze. Private eyes have to know how to lie, even when they're frightened. I was doing my best. Finally he turned away. "Take a couple of men and go with him," he ordered Fenneman. "Check it out."
"But sir, this seems like a transparent attempt to—"
"Check it out," Cowens repeated. "If you are kidnapped, well, that will certainly tell us something, won't it? And if he's lying, we'll just bring him back here and get a little rougher with him. Understood?"
Fenneman did not look happy. "Yes, sir."
"Good." Cowens turned and left the room.
"You better not be lying," Fenneman said to me.
"Why would I lie?" I asked.
"Because if you are..." Fenneman didn't bother to finish the tough-guy thought. "Let's go," he said.
"I don't think it'd be a good idea for you to drive to Charlestown in your uniform," I suggested.
"Yes, yes."
"And I really could use something to eat before we go. The breakfast they gave me wasn't very substantial. I'd hate to faint on you."
"All right, we'll hire a chef and get you a gourmet meal. Satisfied?"
"Only trying to help," I muttered.
Fenneman called in some soldiers, who led me back to my cell. A little while later, the old jailer brought me a tray, this time with a softer roll and colder milk and a hunk of tasty cheese. It wasn't gourmet, but I enjoyed it.
Meanwhile, I did some thinking.
So far so good. The initial goal had simply been to get out of jail, and that was going to happen. I figured it would be easier to escape from the Feds once I was outside. But that had yet to be proved, and I had obviously put myself in more danger by making up the story about O'Malley. The fact was, I had no idea how to pull off the escape, just as I had no idea where 21 Davis Street was—or if Davis Street even existed. It was all too likely that I would end up back in that small, windowless room, with Fenneman furious at me and eager to demonstrate his fury.
Or maybe they would get tired of that game, and I would end up with a bullet in my back, and one more short, undistinguished life would be over.
That was a chance I had to take.
After a while the soldiers came for me once again. They brought me outside, where an ancient gray Subaru station wagon was parked in the courtyard. The sunlight made my eyes water; I felt as if I'd been in prison for years. Fenneman was standing next to the Subaru, wearing jeans and a jersey and looking uncomfortable. A gun was stuck inside the waistband of his jeans. Three other men, dressed in civilian clothes but—like Fenneman—obviously armed and obviously soldiers, stood nearby. "Nice day," I said to Fenneman.
"Get in the car," he replied.
I slid into the back seat, and two of the men joined me, one on either side. Fenneman got into the passenger side of the front seat, and the third man got behind the wheel. Four against one—and they all had guns. I wasn't feeling optimistic. "We're not very inconspicuous," I said. "No one in Charlestown is gonna be fooled for a second. We might just as well be flying an American flag and wearing dress uniforms."
"Shut up and tell us how to get to Davis Street," Fenneman said.
"Head for the Bunker Hill Monument," I said.
The driver started the car, and we pulled out of the courtyard. The car's shock absorbers had apparently been lost to history, and we jounced up and down as the soldier navigated the pot holes and other hazards of our journey. We hadn't gone a hundred yards before I began to feel sick. Maybe you weren't supposed to eat so soon after being tortured: one of those pieces of valuable information that I hadn't picked up in my life. "Is there some way we could keep from bouncing so much?" I asked.
"You wanted an unmarked car, you got it," Fenneman replied helpfully.
We were approaching Leverett Circle, where we would head toward Charlestown and away from downtown Boston. And that's when I had my idea.
I turned to the soldier on my right and raised a hand toward my mouth. "I—I think I'm gonna throw up," I groaned.
We bounced. The soldier looked at me in horror. "The guy's gonna throw up," he reported urgently to Fenneman.
We b
ounced again. I started making strange noises in my throat; I turned my head this way and that, looking for the best place to do my business.
The soldiers in the back seat squeezed up against the doors, as far away from me as they could get. It wasn't very far. "Sir?" they called out in unison to Fenneman.
"Stop the fucking car," he growled.
The car stopped, and the soldiers scrambled out. I scrambled out after them, awful noises issuing from deep inside me. "Watch him," Fenneman shouted.
Too late. I slugged the soldier who got out on my side, and he staggered back against the front door of the Subaru, so that Fenneman couldn't get out. The soldier reached for his gun, but I reached for it first, and I shot him in the shoulder. He screamed with pain.
The driver had gotten out by this time, and he and the other soldier ducked down on the other side of the car. Fenneman was struggling to get his gun out and shoot me through his window. I decided it was time to leave. Walking quickly backwards, I fired a couple of shots at the car, and then I turned and ran, keeping low to the ground. I headed for a building off to my left. I heard the Feds returning my fire, and I prayed that they were as incompetent at shooting as they were at most other things. No such luck. I felt a searing pain in my arm just as I slammed through the front door.
I looked down at my arm; it was bleeding, but the bullet had apparently just grazed me. I tried to think through the pain. I was not so easy a target now, but I was in hardly less danger. I could stay where I was and shoot it out with them, I thought, but I didn't know how many bullets I had left—and besides, Fenneman could just wait me out and bring in reinforcements. No, I had to run.
I took off down the corridor. Through a window I saw the towers of the Federal compound nearby. I couldn't have picked a better spot for them to get reinforcements.
The building was abandoned, as most office buildings still were; the rooms had been trashed, and most of the windows were broken. It smelled of stale urine and mildew. What had it been? A computer company? Insurance? Law offices? It didn't look like a particularly pleasant place to die. I had to get out of it.
The Distance Beacons Page 16