by Thomas Perry
The next day Hank checked and modified his bugout kits. Each contained a few thousand dollars in cash, a Beretta Nano pistol with two spare magazines, and the licenses, credit cards, and passports of a Canadian couple named Alan and Marie Spencer. He set aside the two pistols with silencers he had taken from the two killers in Chicago. He loaded them and put them both in the nightstand on his side of the bed.
Just as he was finishing these tasks, Marcia came in. She could see that the kit he was filling now had a driver’s license with her picture on it, and the pistol. “What’s going on, Hank?”
“Nothing,” he said. “We’re in a good, comfortable place right now, where we have privacy and time. If we don’t use a little of it to get ready for trouble, maybe we’re not earning the chance to keep going. If we don’t earn it, maybe we won’t get it.”
Over the next weeks Hank prepared for events that might occur—another attack by-Libyan assassins, a raid by police with tear gas or flash-bang grenades, a house fire, a car accident, a neighbor who thought they seemed suspicious or recognized a picture that they didn’t know had been publicized, a robbery—anything that might put them in danger. He began to train Marcia to perfect her responses, so each of them would know what the other was going to do.
He bought an emergency rope ladder and kept it rolled up by their bedroom window and bolted to a six-foot pipe. He bought a pair of standard binoculars and a pair of night-vision binoculars. He studied the roads and the houses around the lake from the cabin’s upper windows. He explored the forested areas to pick out trails and dirt roads. In the evening he used the night-vision binoculars to pick out cars, pedestrians, boats on the lake, and animals moving along the trails.
Hank identified the routes a person could use to outrun or evade attackers. He favored the troughs of dry streambeds for invisibility. He looked for outcroppings and piles of boulders for vantage points. But always, he preferred the pine forests, which offered protection from above and floors of pine needles that wouldn’t hold a footprint.
Next he began to test the escape routes. For weeks he used their early morning walks to determine the viability of each route and to get Marcia to memorize it too.
When he was satisfied, he identified a series of rendezvous points where he and Marcia could meet if they got separated. The points were established all the way to San Bernardino and then to Los Angeles on the south and west, and to Las Vegas and Salt Lake City on the east and north.
When the escape routes had been settled and memorized, he kept looking for other ways to elude the chasers. He knew that the most likely hazard was that he would slip away and Marcia would be captured. A skilled interrogator could get her to reveal a great deal about him without realizing it. He was sure she would try very hard not to say anything, but eventually she would weaken.
She had been very useful so far. Having a respectable-looking woman with him made anybody who saw him assume that he had not come to rob them or pick a fight. Nobody brought a woman along when he had something like that in mind. He was also aware that he owed her some hope of escape if things got rough. And he couldn’t help knowing that having a second armed, healthy, and well-rehearsed person trying to escape when he did made his survival much more likely.
He hoped that if they were separated Marcia would do exactly what he’d trained her to do. She would run hard over familiar ground, expecting to rejoin him. He knew that when he didn’t arrive, she would be shocked. But after the shock wore off she would notice that she wasn’t wondering what to do next. She already knew, because he had drilled it into her brain.
He had forced her to memorize and practice the first parts of her route dozens of times. After that, her job was just a question of reaching a series of particular buildings in increasingly distant cities. As soon as she found herself really alone, her need to survive would take over. Once that emotion overcame her attachment to him, she would be okay. An armed, intelligent woman with two unassailable false identities, thousands of dollars in cash, and millions in banks could go pretty far without a man.
21
Julian’s eyes opened. He heard the phone buzzing, but it was too early for the alarm he’d set to be going off. He rolled to the side of the bed away from Ruthie and snatched it to turn it off. But as he did, he saw the number on the display. The area code was 202—Washington, DC. The phone buzzed again and he slid the arrow with his thumb and heard a voice like a tinny, distant radio voice. He pushed it under his pillow.
“Julian? Who’s that?” Ruthie said.
The tinny voice from the phone said something else, but he managed to click the OFF switch. “Go back to sleep, baby. It’s just my alarm.” Then he was up and moving. He rolled the clothes he’d left out into a bundle and hurried out of Ruthie’s bedroom and down the stairs.
He stopped in the living room and got dressed. The room was dark, and the world outside the windows was dark. The five-year-old white pickup truck he had bought after he returned his rental car sat in Ruthie’s driveway with a ghostly glow, waiting for him. As he dressed he noticed that against the glow the dents and marks showed up even more clearly. The street was empty and still, as though all the people had left town.
He sat down on the hassock in front of the easy chair to put on his socks and shoes. No matter what else was going on, he had told Joseph he would be at the farm by dawn to help bring in the broccoli. It was a big fall crop for the Carsons, and it was time to cut.
Julian made it out the front door before the phone vibrated again. He got into the truck and backed out into the street before he swept his thumb across the screen to answer.
“Who’s the girl?” It was Harper’s voice.
Julian said, “That’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Where are you, Julian? I get the feeling you’re in Jonesboro, Arkansas. You’re supposed to let us know where you are at all times.”
“Nobody said anything like that to me. In fact, nobody said anything to me. Everybody just left me in that building near the airport. And it’s been over two months since this phone has rung.”
Harper’s voice hardened. “It’s time to come in.”
“Come in where?”
“Fort Meade, Maryland. Drive in the Reece Road gate and tell them your name and that you’re expected at military intelligence. Anytime today will be okay.”
“I won’t be there. I have a previous commitment.”
“You want me to tell them that?”
“Yes,” Julian said. “I’m not a soldier and I’m not an agent. I’m an independent contractor.”
“All right. But I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you very soon,” Harper said.
“It won’t be today.”
“I’ll make your apologies for you, Julian,” Harper said. “But don’t lose your phone.” He hung up.
Julian drove out to the farm. When he turned onto the long gravel road to the farmhouse, he could tell that nobody else was up yet. Getting out of Ruthie’s house without letting the phone wake her had forced him to get out the door without breakfast or even brushing his teeth.
He parked his truck out of the way beyond the barn and walked to the house. He used the key that was up on the lintel to open the front door and then replaced the key. He turned on the kitchen light and began to make coffee and a large pot of oatmeal.
Coming home was not only to arrive in the house’s space. It was also to arrive in the house’s time, an unchanging moment around his eighth birthday. The thick china plates and cups all looked as they had when he was a small child, and the pans were heavy black iron and ageless.
When he had some oatmeal in a bowl and a pot of coffee made, his mother came in. “Good morning, Julian,” she said. She stepped up and kissed his cheek. “It’s so nice to have you around messing up my kitchen again.”
“It’s nice to be here.”
“You know, if you want to be with Ruthie, you could marry her and stay here with her. You wouldn’t have to drive all the way into town.
”
“But she would. She has a job.”
His mother shrugged. “I’ll bet she’d think about saving on the rent if you offered her a ring.”
He laughed, and then began to eat his oatmeal while she packed lunches for the day in the fields. After another minute Leila came downstairs, kissed her mother, took a bowl and filled it with oatmeal, and sat with her brother. After a few seconds Leila’s big eyes moved to the side to hold him in her sight without moving her head. “Julian, you’re looking a little peaked. I hope you haven’t been staying awake too late and missing your sleep.” She asked her mother: “Doesn’t he look skinny and tired?”
Her mother said, “Mind your own business, Leila. You don’t hear him complaining.”
“Oh, he might be. We just can’t hear it because he’s too weak.”
“Thank you for your concern,” said Julian.
“Concern about what?” Noah and Joseph were coming in the doorway. They picked up bowls and went to the stove.
“About nothing,” their mother said. “Leila is just being Leila.”
“She does that a lot,” said Joseph, and sat down to eat.
“All day long, practically,” Noah said.
Julian finished the oatmeal and coffee and stood up to rinse his bowl. When he’d set the cup and bowl in the sink, he took his lunch box and said, “I’ll drive out there and get the crew started on the broccoli. Did I see the baskets already in the stake truck?”
Joseph said, “Both stake trucks. We stacked them up so they’d be ready to go. We’ll take the other truck and meet you out there.”
“Good.” Julian went out and took the keys off the hook on the wall by the door.
Julian drove out of the yard and down the farm road to the broccoli field. He could see in the predawn haze that the broccoli was ready. The buds were firm and tight, but none of them was already in flower. It was a good crop. There would be side shoots to harvest for weeks.
Julian’s arrival caught the attention of the work crew, and they got out of their cars, took baskets and big knives out of the back of the truck, and went to the broccoli field. Julian joined them to help set the pace.
From long practice he took a single hard slice through each stalk at an angle and put the head in his basket as he moved to the next stem. It was smooth, flawless work. When the basket was full he loaded it on the truck and took another.
His brothers and sister arrived in the second truck within minutes and went to work around him. About once every two hours his cell phone would vibrate in his pocket a few times. He would take it out and look at the screen and then put it away unanswered.
They worked until the truck was full, and then drove it back to the barn and unloaded the baskets, placing them in neat rows. Then they got more baskets and drove back out.
At lunch Leila kept coming up with more and more outrageous theories about who Noah’s secret girlfriend was, ending up unable to decide between Mayor Constance Wittles and Judge Joan Harker. Noah asked Joseph whether the new aftershave he’d been wearing had been inherited from the world’s oldest lady, who had died in New Orleans at the age of 114 a week ago, or was a concoction of his own. Joseph told Leila that the pastor was collecting votes to move the church across town so Leila couldn’t sing in the choir, because her voice made the children cry during services. The only one everyone left alone was Julian.
He barely noticed. He worked with an intense concentration and speed that the Carsons usually adopted only when a frost threatened a crop. He worked tirelessly and spoke little. Every time his phone buzzed, the others watched his expression as he looked at the number and put it away.
When the sun sank and lost its power they didn’t stop. The broccoli would be in better shape if it was harvested at a cool temperature, and they wanted to finish the patch. They worked until nightfall and then got into the two loaded trucks and drove back up the farm road. This time they locked the trucks up for the night with the produce still loaded. They would drive the trucks into town to the predawn market for sale.
Julian made a special effort to say good night to his brothers and sister, his mother and his father. Leila looked at him with a puzzled look on her face, then hugged him. “I’ll see you when I see you,” she said.
Julian climbed into his white pickup and drove into Jonesboro. When he pulled up in front of Ruthie’s house, it didn’t look right. Usually when he arrived the lights in the house were few and dim, but the curtains were open. Tonight the lights all seemed to be on, but the curtains were closed. He looked up the street. Parked just beyond the corner he could see the front end of a big black SUV.
He sat behind the wheel of his white pickup and looked at the house. The short period of unreality was over. The past two months had been as though time had gone backward to when he was seventeen. He had not liked that period of his life, but ten years later, circumstances had put him back in the same place with the same people, and life felt right this time. He had been living in the illusion that he had another chance, and that this time things were different. Ruthie didn’t say no and go off with someone else.
How could he have let himself believe that this could be permanent? People didn’t get to redo their lives so everything was right. That was a delusion. He got out of the pickup, walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped inside. There were four men in Ruthie’s living room waiting for him.
He considered punching someone, but there was Ruthie, sitting on her couch five feet from Harper. He considered running, but there was Ruthie, looking up from the couch, searching his face for an explanation. He couldn’t leave her here alone with them. Two of them were men he had never seen before. They both had buzz-cut hair and that look that soldiers had in suits, like dogs stuffed into clothes.
Julian closed the door behind him and stood still.
Waters said, “Hello, Julian. It’s good to see you. We stopped by to give you a lift to the briefing.” He looked at Ruthie appreciatively. “Mrs. Straughan graciously allowed us to wait here for you.”
“Miss Davis,” she said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Harper. “Your divorce was so recent that I guess the records haven’t been updated.”
Julian looked at Ruthie. She was clearly waiting for him to let her know what was happening, and what he was going to do. He said, “I hadn’t planned on going anywhere tonight. Miss Davis and I haven’t had a chance to talk about it.”
Harper said, “Well, the time is running a bit shorter than we had anticipated. That’s really all I can say at this time. Miss Davis, I apologize again for the inconvenience and the lack of notice, but the country is at war.”
Julian said, “Let me get my bag.” He took Ruthie by the hand and led her to the bedroom.
Once they were inside with the door shut she said, “I thought you were out of the army, Julian. So how can they come and get you, like you were AWOL or something?”
“It’s hard to explain,” he said.
“It’s hard to explain?” she said. “That’s what you have to say to me after your friends bully their way into my house and sit right down like they own the place?”
“I told you the situation the first night I came here. I’m a civilian but I work for military intelligence. As soon as this is over, I’ll be back.”
She studied him. “I guess I’ve been stupid. You did explain the situation. You were here to have a short visit with your family and have a break from the secret, highly serious work you do.”
“It did start that way, but—”
“Good,” she said. “I hope I helped make your visit more fun. I’ve read how spies—I mean intelligence experts—like to have a new woman to sleep with whenever things get slow. But things seem to be getting busy again, so I’ll help you pack.”
She went to the closet and tossed his carry-on bag on the bed. Then she went to her dresser, opened the first wide drawer, and took out a neat stack of his underwear, and then a double handful of rolled socks, and set them
on the bed. “Good thing I washed your clothes today.”
“Stop, Ruthie,” said Julian. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Why not?” she said. “You seem to be great in a fight. Men come from God knows where just to tell me there’s a war on so you have to go.”
“Because I love you,” he said. “We’re finally together like we should have been all along.”
She seemed to be paralyzed for a second, and then she stepped closer so he could put his arms around her. Then her arms came up and she hugged him harder and harder while she cried. “Come home. Then we’ll fight.”
In another minute they were out of the bedroom. He followed Harper and Waters to the front door. When they stepped out he stopped. He put the keys to his pickup truck on the table by the front door, and said, “Bye, Ruthie.”
She whispered, “Bye.”
He stepped out onto the porch and then down the steps after Harper and Waters.
A big black SUV pulled up at the curb. Harper opened the back hatch and Julian set his bag on top of the others already in the cargo space. The two men he didn’t know waited until he was seated inside the SUV and then closed the doors and stepped back. Julian saw them turn and walk toward another black vehicle that had appeared a hundred feet away.
The SUV made a turn at the end of the block and headed out toward the Jonesboro Municipal Airport. Twenty minutes later, when the SUV pulled up in front of the terminal, Harper said something to the driver while Waters took his carry-on bag and went inside to get the tickets.
Julian and Harper got their bags out and went into the terminal. Waters came toward them holding three boarding passes, but he put them in his coat pocket instead of giving each man his own. Before the passes disappeared, Julian saw that the top one said Baltimore-Washington International.
The three men went through security and then walked to the far end of the concourse where only a few airport workers ever passed. They sat for a minute or two before Waters began. “Well, thanks for modifying your busy social schedule to join us, Julian. I figured you would man up and come along without a lot of coaxing.”