by John Lutz
There must be no witnesses to what he’d been ordered to do.
This afternoon, when Arrnovich had reported to the major what had happened, the reply had been swift. The order had come down through the ranks almost immediately.
The order to do what was happening now beneath the tilted half-moon on this unseasonably warm night.
The villagers had been herded to where a tank with a bulldozer blade had gouged in the earth a five-foot-deep trench. They’d known what was going to happen. They’d also known the inevitability of it. There was no way to escape.
For a moment, one old man with a gray beard seemed to consider bolting for the nearby woods. He caught Arrnovich’s eye, then looked down at his worn-out boots and continued walking, his arm strapped tightly around the quaking shoulders of the young girl next to him. His daughter or granddaughter? Arrnovich hadn’t looked closely at the girl’s face. He didn’t want to remember her.
The shooting stopped.
The abrupt silence seemed to make the night suddenly cooler.
Arrnovich didn’t want to be seen like this, lying on his bag rather than facing what he himself had ordered. It was bad enough he’d chosen not to be present. Picking up his rifle and using it as a prop, he dragged himself to his feet.
The bulky form of his sergeant appeared in the night. “It’s finished, sir.”
Arrnovich knew the only way he could be sure his men would carry out the order was to have the villagers led into the trench. His troops would fire down at the huddled, frightened figures in the dark pit, killing not people, but mere deep shadows that stirred.
“Should we fill in the trench?” the sergeant asked. He was a large man with a burn-scarred face. His voice was so calm, after what he’d just done, what he’d seen.
“Wait until dawn,” Arrnovich told him, “when we can see what we’re doing.” But early, so aerial reconnaissance won’t be aloft yet and see and photograph what we’ve done here. “I’ll give the order when the time comes. Post guards near the trench till then, in case. .”
“Yes, sir. In case some of them are alive and try to crawl out.”
“Exactly, Sergeant.” You will someday make a better officer than I.
The sergeant told him good night, then withdrew.
Arrnovich didn’t worry about waking early enough to order the trench filled, then have brush spread over it so it couldn’t be spotted from the air. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. Tomorrow he’d have to count dead the people he’d counted alive today. He had to make sure every soul was accounted for.
Secrecy demanded it.
In the morning, when a thin layer of light was appearing in the dark sky above a distant line of trees, Arrnovich went to the trench. His eyelids seemed to be lined with sand, and there was a bitter taste in his dry mouth.
Nearby in the dimness loomed the huge form of the tank with the bulldozer blade mounted on it. It seemed to be looking on like some primal and innocent monster from the time of dinosaurs, the time before good and evil and guilt. The guards stood by silently while Arrnovich smoked a cigarette to cover the odor already wafting up from the tangle of corpses. He would wait until it was bright enough to see into the trench before conducting his final count.
In truth, it wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined. These were simply lifeless rag dolls, not the enemy, not real people. Not anymore. Dolls carelessly flung.
He moved to the very edge of the trench until the earth might have crumbled beneath his boots, risking falling in with the dolls. He made himself do that.
Then he began to count. It wasn’t easy because many of the dolls were intertwined. There was a female holding a younger figure that looked much like her. There was a doll with a gray beard that looked like the old man Arrnovich had cowed into submission with a glare last evening.
There was a wild-haired young woman who was shrouded in dark cloth, as if she’d tightly wound herself in a blanket to ward off the bullets.
Arrnovich counted. . Forty-three, forty-four.
Hadn’t there been forty-three yesterday?
He was sure there had been. He counted again, from another vantage point, even more carefully.
Forty-four.
All right, forty-four. So be it. In such carnage, what did it matter if there was one more corpse than anticipated? Certainly everyone left in the village was now in the trench. That was the important thing.
Arrnovich squinted up at the brightening sky. It was going to be a cloudy day, but still the NATO planes would soon appear.
He gave the order to fill in the trench, then lit another cigarette.
The roar and clatter of the tank’s engine filled the morning, and the behemoth lurched forward. Its steel blade sliced deep into the sloping pile of dirt. An acrid scent of burning diesel fuel hung in the air. The powerful engine roared louder as Arrnovich tucked his cigarette into the corner of his mouth; he breathed in smoke, breathed it out.
He watched the loose earth tumble into the trench, covering what he had done. It was all deep and dark now, dust into silent dust to become insignificant in the immensity of time.
After today, he would try never to think of it again.
18
New York, 2003
Nina Count was here because it was Newsy’s day off, insofar as somebody like Newsy ever had a day off.
She goosed the accelerator of her Ford Expedition so the big SUV shot forward and nosed into a parking space about to be backed into by a blue minivan with commercial lettering on its door. The station would have provided her with a car and driver, but Nina preferred to jockey her big, heavy-duty SUV, with its roof rack, winch, and fog lights. It helped her to foster the image of a real, working journalist, not just another TV talking head. Trouble in the boondocks? Nina was ready.
The minivan jerked to a stop, blocking traffic. Horns began blaring, ripping whatever calm silence Manhattan traffic had left of the quiet morning. A bulky, T-shirted man with a dark, seriously receding hairline got out of the minivan and began shouting at Nina, adding to the din. The morning belonged to the city now.
Nina placed her station logo and call letter plaque in the windshield and the man stopped shouting. She extended a nyloned leg, letting it linger, then climbed down from the SUV’s seat.
Mr. Receding Hairline saw who she was. It amused her to see his flush of recognition. His anger, his testosterone fit, passed from him before her eyes.
“Nina,” he said, almost actually grinning, “you oughta drive more careful. I’d hate to turn on the TV news and not see you.”
“Why, how kind of you to say!”
“We watch you-like, the whole family-just about every night.”
She smiled, walked over to the flustered man, and apologized for taking his parking space. “Press business,” she explained.
He assured her he understood, all the time rooting through his pockets for something she could write on. Finally, he extended a plastic ballpoint pen and a folded bill of lading so she could sign the blank back of the form. Next time, you get my parking space, she wrote, then scrawled her name. The guy absolutely loved it. He looked like he was going to have an orgasm.
He was still standing there, oblivious of the angrily blasting car and truck horns, as she strode into the deli where Newsy was waiting for her in a booth by the window. He’d phoned and asked her to meet him there. It always amazed Nina how much business and personal intrigue were talked in New York’s delis and coffee shops.
“You handled that neatly,” Newsy said, as she sat down opposite him. He’d only been drinking coffee, waiting for her before ordering breakfast.
“I don’t usually eat in hellholes like this,” she said, glancing around at the crowd pressing against the pastry display case in the warm deli. Men and women in business suits, tourists in denim and polyester, a few teenage kids stopping on their way to school, a couple of worn-down, cheaply dressed women who looked like weary hookers after a hard night, all pressed forward for bagels or Danish and coffee.
“It’s not a bad place at lunchtime, when you can sit and listen to conversation. It’s surprising what you hear. People let their guard down when they eat. It’s like they can’t chew and be careful at the same time.”
“Sound does carry well here,” Nina said, keeping her own voice low. “It’s like dining inside a drum. What have you got for me?”
“You want a cup of coffee? Maybe a cheese Danish. They’re great. Well, edible, at least.”
“I want out of here soon as possible.”
Newsy smiled. “Okay, Nina. Here’s what leaked my way. Ever hear of Royce Sayles?”
“I take it you don’t mean Rolls Royce automobile sales.”
“Nope. Sayles helped the cops here solve a series of murders about ten years ago.”
“Before my time as a New Yorker,” Nina said, thinking anyone in the TV news business who was here ten years ago would be in imminent danger of being fired. “Should I take notes?”
“Naw, I got it all written down for you.” Newsy pulled a quarter-folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and laid it on the table in front of her. It reminded Nina of the bill of lading she’d signed outside for the minivan driver. “You can read it when you get to the station. I know you’re rushed.”
“What am I going to read?”
“Ten years ago some fruitcake was killing people with what turned out to be an ice ax. The cops went to Sayles for help in finding the killer because he was a reasonably famous mountain climber.”
“There are only a few of those,” Nina said.
“Anyway, Sayles ID’d the weapon and helped the law track down the killer, who turned out to be an amateur rock climber.” Newsy took a long sip of coffee then placed his foam cup squarely before him. “Where this goes, Nina, is I learned Thomas Horn went to see Sayles a few days ago, spent a lot of time with him.”
Nina thought about that. She liked it. “So the police are consulting a mountain climber again. Makes sense, considering the killer has to be able to climb the sheer faces of buildings to get to his victims’ windows.”
Newsy leaned forward and spoke softly. “I figured maybe we show some mountaineering equipment, including an ice ax. Gives us an excuse to roll out the old tape on the ten-year-old killings. Juicy stuff, if I remember correctly.”
Nina was sure his memory would be accurate, if selective.
“Put something together on it when you come to the station tomorrow,” she said.
She stood up. “Thanks, Newsy.”
“I thought you might want it on the six o’clock,” he said. “If so, I can ride down to the station with you and get huffing.”
Nina thought that was a fine idea. “Bring your coffee, but put a lid on it so it doesn’t spill all over the upholstery. I’ve got a pad and pen in the glove compartment. We can write as we drive.”
Newsy liked that. News on the go, that was his life. Let the pretty faces and Nina, with her famous gams, do the on-camera work. He knew he was the guts of the station news. News on the go. That was Newsy’s dark religion.
After work, Marla walked from the Home Away down to Flicks and rented Hitchcock’s Vertigo. She’d already seen it several times but it still fascinated her. As a former psychoanalyst, she knew that its science was a bit improbable-the merging of necrophilia with fear of heights-but still it was sound enough.
Marla knew why she liked the movie so. It puzzled her, with its many layers of meaning, its star-crossed promise of love, and its fascination with death.
She had her evening planned. There was a Lean Cuisine in the freezer, which she’d prepare in the microwave in her apartment’s tiny kitchen. After dinner she’d settle down in front of the TV, plug in her movie, and switch on the VCR. Bernard Herrmann’s hypnotic score would take her away from her cramped, twentieth-floor apartment with its view of an air shaft, and its background noise of cooing and flapping pigeons that couldn’t be dislodged from the ledges outside her windows.
When she’d had supper and the movie was over, Marla sat slumped on the sofa and listened to the whir of the rewind. She thought about how much she’d love to have a drink. But she knew she wouldn’t. Not ever again, if she could help it.
No, not ever again! She could help herself. She’d been dry for the last two years.
She got up from the sofa. She went into the kitchen, refilled her glass of ice water, and got a wedge of lemon to squeeze into it. She plunked the rind into the glass with the cubes and clear liquid. It looked almost like a real drink now, the way the refracted light from the ice cubes played over the curved, clear glass. It looked like a lot of bars and nights that could have gone better, and some that couldn’t have gone much worse.
When Marla returned to the living room, Vertigo was still rewinding. The counter on the control panel was showing a blur of descending numbers, indicating the machine’s breathless speed.
Marla sat on the sofa and stared at the swift backward flow of numerals, the reversal of tape and time. Cause and effect becoming effect and cause. Consequences known ahead of time. If only it could be that easy. . editing life like editing tape.
She sipped her water with its faint tang of lemon and thought about bourbon and soda. About Thomas Horn.
All the things she couldn’t have.
Horn sat next to Anne in fourth-row-center orchestra, and watched the closing first act number of Mortgage and Marriage. Anne seemed to like the elaborately staged musical; Horn figured it would have a brief run. The male lead was miscast and had little voice, preventing the female lead and supporting actors from salvaging the play. The poorly choreographed dance numbers were a waste of wonderful talent, seeming more like exercise classes than Broadway dance numbers. The reviewers tried to warn us, Horn thought. The Time’s theater critic had been right. It happened.
The dancers in the chorus struck awkward poses while the athletic young man who played the bank’s loan officer did a series of back flips across the stage. Then the theater went dark.
Intermission, thank God!
When the houselights came up, Horn stood and stretched. Anne looked over at him and smiled. She did like this monstrosity of a musical. So did the people around them, who were talking and laughing and saying how good the first act was. It made Horn wonder. He whispered in Anne’s ear, then edged out into the crowded aisle to make his way to the lobby and join the line outside the men’s room. Unlike the stage, it was a place where people knew what they were doing.
As he emerged from the auditorium into the cooler air of the carpeted lobby, a man standing near the bar detached himself from the knot of people waiting to order drinks and came toward him.
Horn was astounded to see it was Luke Altman.
“Great first act,” Altman said, smiling.
“I’ve got to think,” Horn said, “that you being here is more than coincidence.”
“I thought Breaking the Code was still playing.”
“A spook with a sense of humor.”
“Not so unusual. Nothing’s funnier than geopolitics.” Altman reached into the pocket of his dark blue suitcoat and pulled out a letter-size white envelope. “While I happen to be here enjoying the show, I might as well give you this.”
Just as if you didn’t follow us here from home or the restaurant.
He handed the envelope to Horn, who accepted it and slid it into the inside pocket of his sport jacket.
“It’s a list of names,” Altman said. “Former members of that special unit you mentioned during our last conversation.”
“Why have you changed your mind?” Horn asked.
Altman shrugged. “Because I did a more detailed check on you, Thomas Horn. You’re a very capable fellow. And looking over your record, one can only conclude that you never give up. That even a stake through the heart wouldn’t make you give up. Since you’d probably get what you wanted, eventually, we thought we might as well give it to you up front and prevent you from making a lot of waves.”
“So you’re taking
the easiest course.”
“Oh, no. You wouldn’t want to know the easiest course.”
“You said former members.”
“Present members needn’t concern you. They’ve already been considered and cleared.” He smiled. “These men wouldn’t have the time or opportunity to commit civilian crimes.”
Horn knew he was probably right.
The lobby lights blinked. Act Two of the debacle was about to begin.
“We’d better get back to our seats,” Altman said. “I want to see if the cute young couple gets loan approval from the banker who does back flips.”
“I don’t look for a happy ending,” Horn told him. “At least not one anybody’d believe.”
“It’s your business to be cynical,” Altman said. “In my business we hope for long runs.” He turned and strolled toward the carpeted stairs leading to the balcony.
Horn knew this theater; there was a side exit on the landing.
He took what little intermission time was left to continue to the men’s room. He found an empty stall and had a preliminary look at Altman’s list.
Only nine names. Apparently, the members of this special unit stayed in the military, or often didn’t survive long enough to complete their hitch.
It occurred to Horn that his wasn’t necessarily the most dangerous profession.
He was the last one in the theater to return to his seat, just before the houselights died and the curtain rose. He caused quite a stir, trampling toes and asking to be excused over and over.
As the auditorium faded into darkness, he saw Anne glaring and smiling at him simultaneously, as if he were at the same time annoying and amusing.
He ignored her and what was happening onstage and thought back on his conversation with Altman out in the lobby. Altman had a subtle sense of humor you usually didn’t find in a spook. Give the bastard that.