The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day

by Patrick O'Brien

Bill laughed.

  “That’s pretty much a given, I guess. But lemme tell you what we need…” Bill outlined the plan.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. We just want you to be a polite host for a day or so. You’re a local environmentalist, and you’re in complete sympathy with the group’s goals. You might wanna get some of the literature and have it around. Also, if you have any hunting trophies over the fireplace, put them outta sight. Make yourself as convincing as possible. It’s all about role playing.”

  “I’ve done lots of that.”

  “Naval Intelligence, right?”

  “I expect you know all about me by now…”

  “We gotta know who we can trust, Punch. It’s just business.”

  “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a few kids hanging around for a day or so. I could keep them entertained with war stories and my rebellious ways. I’ll play up a conversion from an avid warmonger to a genuine peace-nik on the verge of becoming a vegetarian. That’s sure to create an aura of benevolence and goodwill.”

  Bill chuckled.

  “That’ll more than likely do it. But if they see those fly rods of yours, they might smell a contradiction of sorts.”

  “That’ll be the last obstacle between me and full-fledged vegetarianism. I’ll tell ’em it’s a daily struggle, like trying to give up cigarettes.”

  Both men laughed.

  “But tell me a little more about these people…I don’t wanna go into this a blind man.”

  “And we don’t want you to, Punch. So let’s get together…we’ve got some files you can read. What works for you?”

  Sometime later that day Bill and his partner drove up the mountain road to Punch’s cabin. When they got there, Punch took them out to the deck, which had a view through the trees of the fast-flowing creek below, and invited them to sit down in two wicker chairs. The two agents made themselves comfortable, and the three men talked.

  “There’s nothing fancy going on here, Punch,” Tom said, tilting his hat back and scratching his head. “We got straight dope on this group. We know exactly what they’re gonna do and when they’re gonna do it. And you can play your part whichever way suits you best…”

  “That’s right, Punch,” Bill said. “Our boy Rick is an ex-Marine trained in demolitions. You two can work out some kind of former relationship. Maybe you were part of the same operation in Kosovo. You don’t have to go into detail…keep it hush-hush.”

  “Or you’re part of a local environmental group he contacted. As a concerned activist yourself, and as someone who has a fondness for wolves, you’ve agreed to help out. You can familiarize them with the lay of the land, take them out around Art Jimson’s place so they don’t wind up in somebody else’s backyard. Just be a general source of information.”

  Punch tipped his baseball hat back and stroked his beard contemplatively. His first inclination had been to say no; to tell them that playing host to such a group might violate the sanctity of his mountainside Shangri-la. A vague apprehension stood in the way of committing himself. Retirement and all that it represented—the freedom to get up and the freedom to go to bed when he pleased, a daily routine of his own making, the quiet enjoyment of fishing in a cold mountain stream, and the general feeling of having few cares and even fewer worries—somehow seemed in jeopardy, as though he were about to tamper with the balanced and ordered state of being he had created for himself. Even all the assurances they could give him about life returning to normal afterwards didn’t mitigate the anxiety. Having worked undercover in the Navy, he understood only too well how nothing ever went exactly as planned; that more often than not something unforeseen could undo in a moment a well-thought-out scheme. There were no guarantees: a maxim the prudent operator always kept in mind.

  On the other hand, he could appreciate that an occasional spoonful of variety helped to maintain the balanced and ordered state of being he cherished. It kept things from getting stale. Retirement afforded him the opportunity to catch up on a library shelf of reading he had postponed for years. It also allowed him to bring home a panful of fresh trout any day of the week he liked. And the quietude of the evening, as he sat out on the deck sipping a whiskey and soda, amounted to a kind of therapeutic rejuvenation of the heart and mind that money couldn’t buy. Certainly, he had found his own little nook of contentment, a contentment too dear to let the noisiness of life interfere. Still, he had to admit to occasionally feeling a tug in the other direction. He supposed it only natural that a craving for a little diversion cropped up now and then.

  “Well, I might have to perform some kind of Oriental cleansing ritual afterwards—you know, burn incense—but, yeah, I suppose I can do it. But only for as long as it takes to get them steered in the right direction, an evening and part of a day.”

  “No more, no less. You get them out to ground zero, and we’ll take over…” Bill assured him.

  “Yeah, we’ll have ’em bagged and tagged and ready to haul off before they know what hit ’em…”

  “‘Bagged and tagged’?”

  “Figuratively speaking, of course.”

  “Besides,” Bill hastily added, “there’s no reason for them to associate you with any kind of double-cross, if that’s one of your concerns. If they blame anyone, they’ll likely blame Rick. He’s the guy that’s talked them into coming out here.”

  “He’s the ex-Marine. Tell me more about him…”

  Bill opened a file folder.

  “There’s a ton of information here, and you can read through it if you like. But the thing you wanna know most about him is that he’s a ‘burn-out.’ Whether because of drug use, alcohol, bad memories of his time in action, or a combination of all three, he’s like a spent cartridge. He doesn’t much give a fuck about anything anymore. And he needs the stimulus to keep going, massive doses of it. Like a lot of vets, he misses that adrenaline high, and he tries to get it from a motorcycle, a marijuana joint, in bed, or from rye whiskey. He got in with this group for just that reason—because it was like an exciting, slightly dangerous game. He’s no more concerned about the environment or the wolf population than W.R. Grace was about the effects of its vermiculite operation on the residents of Libby, Montana. But he’ll go along because his ass depends on it.”

  “That’s a code phrase, I take it?”

  “We got him by his balls, absolutely.”

  “What about the others?”

  Bill set Rick’s file aside and picked up one containing information about Heidi. He opened it to an eight by ten black-and-white photograph. The photograph showed her coming out of a Starbucks, a tall latte in her hand. She had on her customary black beret, cocked to one side, and a sleeveless jumper over a white blouse and a dark skirt. She apparently didn’t know she was being photographed because her focus was elsewhere.

  He handed the photo to Punch.

  “She’s the ringleader, huh?”

  “Graduated from Reed College in Portland. You either have to be pretty bright, have money, or be an alumnus kid to even get accepted. She majored in political science, worked on a couple of presidential campaigns, did some charity work, and finally got into the environmental movement. At this stage of her involvement, she seems to be pretty obsessed with it all, almost to the point of being pathological about it. As with many obsessive people, she’s also very controlling. I’m sure you’ll see that right away.”

  “Just runs the show, huh?”

  “She tries to run the group like a tight-knit guerrilla outfit, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Too much independence and not enough dedication. I suspect each member of the group has his or her own motive for being involved in the first place, motives that have less to do with the environment than with personal agendas.”

  “They connected up with any other groups?”

  “None that we can determine, though I suspect they’ve tried to model themselves on groups like Earth Liberation Front and PETA. They use a similar shock strategy
.”

  “Who else we got?”

  Bill produced another folder. A black-and-white photograph just inside the cover showed Carlos standing beside a sleek sports car, his hand on the door handle and looking over the top of the car, as though talking to someone. He wore a sports jacket and a white shirt, with the shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

  “This guy’s a bit of an enigma,” Bill said, giving the photo to Punch. “He’s got a typical Hispanic background…parents came over from Mexico and worked their way up. He graduated high school, worked construction for a time, then enrolled in college. Right now, he works as a loan officer, making more money than any of us. But he hangs out with this group and, as far as we know, takes part in most of its activities. I surmise that with him, more than anything, it plays to a desire to be part of the mainstream—the other group members all have solid middle-class backgrounds, and being with them gives him a feeling of acceptance. But…just my opinion.”

  “Good-looking guy, too. With a sports car like that and the kind of money those mortgage guys make, he oughta be out chasing señoritas instead of getting his ass in a sling.”

  “You’d think so. But, from what our informant tells us, he’ll be here right along with the rest of them.”

  “I’ll brush up on my Spanish.”

  The agents chuckled.

  “Better yet,” Tom quipped, “serve tacos for dinner.”

  They all laughed.

  “Couple more of interest…” Bill continued.

  He flipped open another file and removed another photograph.

  “This fella’s another peculiarity. He’s an ornithologist by training and teaches high school biology. I can understand his interest in the environment, but otherwise he doesn’t fit the profile of a radical activist…”

  Punch looked at the photograph. He noted Ralph’s slack-jawed, mild-mannered visage with its incipient double-chin and thinning hairline. He looked more like a kindly doctor, with a frank expression in his eyes, than someone apt to give serious consideration to blowing up a bridge or sabotaging a construction site. One might as well have believe one’s dad or uncle a serial bomber than the easygoing, peaceable guy one had always known him to be.

  Punch handed the photograph back.

  “No real take on him, either, huh?”

  “Not really. Not until we interview him, if it ever comes to that.”

  “Same with his girlfriend,” Tom added. “Here, take a look at her.”

  The black-and-white glossy photo of a smiling young woman with an upturned chin, a puckish glint in her eye, and a face framed in a pixie cut produced the same expression of disbelief. She could have been a high school cheerleader, a young starlet, or a receptionist new on the job and eager to please. Punch stared at her photo as though to reconcile what he saw with what the two agents were telling him about her.

  “A dead ringer for my kid sister, but she’s a bona fide part of the group, right along with the rest of them. Tough to figure.”

  “Hell, if I had a daughter, I’d want her to look like that,” Punch commented.

  “Got one more here for ya…”

  Jody’s dour, unsmiling face and tight lipped expression seemed to capture something of an inner discontent. She sat at a sidewalk cafe table and, hands folded in her lap, looked off to the side of her chair. She might have been listening to something she didn’t especially want to hear, or she might have been mulling over an unpleasant proposal. She had on the same French beret and turtleneck sweater she wore on most occasions, and her mannish wristwatch—that of a diver or an airline pilot—added a final touch of severity.

  “What’s her story?”

  “Catholic girls’ school. Mother was a high school English teacher, dad a lawyer. Used to be a summer camp counselor and taught English at the community college level. Wrote her master’s dissertation on John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Zeroed in on the male-female role reversal that takes place in the Joad family…”

  Punch laughed.

  “I read the book in high school,” he said. “I remember we discussed that. Just looking at her picture, it doesn’t surprise me that she’d wanna focus on that.”

  The two agents laughed knowingly.

  “I can’t speak to that part of her anatomy,” Bill said. “But, nowadays, you never know.”

  Handing the photo back, Punch scratched his balding head and looked out beyond the deck railing, through the growth of timber, to where bright sunlight gave a crisp definition to the silvery creek and its straggled array of dove-gray boulders along either side. Oftentimes, during the heat of day, towel and soap in hand, he might mosey down to its rock-strewn edge and, under the naturalness of an open sky, strip down to naked nothingness and bathe himself in its mountain freshness. In the beginning, a novel way of bathing, it had become, over time, a ritualized affirmation of something elemental and profound. Normally a man who eschewed the deeper, introspective maunderings of a philosophical kind, he had come to an intuitive realization that at such moments he somehow took on a oneness with his surroundings that Native Americans must have once felt, though without the baggage of modernity and self-consciousness.

  “Well, I’ll be real frank with you,” he said. “This isn’t my quarrel and my inclination is to avoid it. But Art Jimson’s become a friend of mine, so I’ll oblige you just to help him out. But keep me out of it otherwise. I’ll be a silent player, but nothing more.”

  “We’re not asking any more of you than that, Punch,” Agent Hammerstein said.

  “And, of course, you’ll be compensated for any expense and inconvenience.”

  “Fair enough…”

  Punch shook hands with the two agents and walked them to the door and out to their car.

  “Incidentally, what kind of time-frame are we looking at?”

  Bill had the car door open. He said, “According to our source, they’re all ready to leave. They’re just waiting for him to confirm things out here with his contact.”

  “That’d be me…”

  “Yeah. We’re gonna get back to him when we leave here and let him know it’s a go.”

  “Well, keep me posted.”

  Punch watched them drive up the gravel driveway and turn onto the dirt road that would take them back down the mountain and into Livingston. Standing by his jeep, looking up at the road, he waved as they went by. Then he went back into his cabin and closed the door.

  35

  Agents Hammerstein and McCullers had agreed to meet Rick in Troutdale for a final briefing. The two men had been there since six o’clock, the agreed-upon time, but so far no Rick.

  Agent Hammerstein looked at his watch for the fourth time in twenty minutes: he didn’t like to be kept waiting.

  “What the fuck’s keeping him?”

  “Traffic, maybe.”

  “Hell, it’s Saturday morning, Tom. How much traffic can there be?”

  He drank another swallow of coffee out of the sixteen-ouncer he’d picked up from Shari’s Restaurant. More than wide awake now, he needed for things to start happening.

  “Try calling him again, Tom.”

  Tom pecked in a set of numbers.

  He held the phone to his ear.

  He let it ring several times.

  “Nothing,” he said and clapped the phone shut.

  “Maybe he hasn’t figured out how to use his goddamn phone yet.”

  “The guy can blow up bridges. He oughta be able to figure out his cell phone.”

  “Let’s hope he’s got a good excuse. Otherwise, I’m gonna hang his ass to dry in the sun.”

  Another fifteen minutes passed before the van finally pulled into the parking lot and came to a stop two spaces away from the black Buick the agents were driving. As Rick got out and came around to the passenger door, Agent Hammerstein rolled down the window.

  “Where the fuck you been, fella? You been keepin’ the United States government waiting.”

  “Sorry, guys. I got a partner with me, and he’
s got a hangover. I had to spend time getting him outta bed and pouring coffee down him.”

  The two agents looked past Rick. They saw Peewee sitting in the van’s passenger seat. He was slumped back with a hat pulled down over his face and appeared to be asleep.

  “Who the fuck’s this guy?” Bill asked.

  “My partner. The whole thing was his idea. I could hardly leave him out of it. Besides, he wants to be in on the action. He’s been having wet dreams about it for a month.”

  “No shit?”

  “A real gung-ho trooper, huh?”

  “Tried-n-true.”

  The two agents exchanged a glance.

  “So, what you’re telling us, Rick,” Agent Hammerstein said, “is that you got a drunk for a partner, and that you didn’t have enough sense to call us in advance and let us know about the change. I mean, didn’t it occur to you that we might want to know you planned to bring someone else into it?”

  Rick shrugged.

  “I admit, Peewee likes his beer. But he’s okay. Battle-tested, and all that. We were together in Kosovo. We did a few numbers on the bad guys. He’s a hundred percent.”

  Agent McCullers leaned forward and took another look at Peewee.

  “Speaking of being reliable, how come you didn’t call and let us know you were gonna be late? How fuckin’ responsible is that? You didn’t even answer our calls.”

  “Low battery, I guess. I forgot to charge it.”

  “Yeah? Well, did ja forget anything else? Like, maybe a toothbrush or an overnight bag?”

  Rick grinned.

  “Don’t worry…I got everything—rifles, flashlights, even a grid map of the dude’s ranch.”

  “That’s a start…At least you got that part right. But tell us about this buddy of yours. Better yet, tell him to come over here. Tell him we’d like to meet him.”

  “I’ll have to wake him up.”

  “Open a can of beer and hold it under his nose…”

  “Hey, the guy’s sensitive. He might hear ya.”

  “Just get him over here, Rick.”

  Rick walked over to the van and knocked on the passenger window. Peewee sat up with a start and looked around. He saw Rick standing beside the van and rolled down the window.