“That portion of the game’s changed. This here has become much more ... well, entertaining.”
“Fuck you.” Still staring at Howard Abele, still watching him die. The little pain that had been in my shoulder was now gone. I felt nothing at that moment. Even the hope I’d been keeping alive in my heart and soul all this time had snuffed out. “They’re dead. I know they’re dead.”
“Oh really,” Simon said.
It sounded like he stepped away for a moment, then a new voice came on the line, Jen’s voice saying, “Ben? Oh God, Ben, is that you?” She sounded like she was about to cry, sounded like she was already crying. This was followed a couple seconds later by Casey’s “Daddy?” and I could actually see the tears in my little girl’s eyes, I could see them falling down her small and perfect face. “Daddy, please make the bad men stop.”
But then their voices were gone, followed by what may have been screaming, though it was impossible to tell for sure over the shrieking of Howard Abele and the wind. Then Simon was back, Simon who always had a grin in his voice, a grin on his imagined face, but who sounded completely and utterly serious right now as he asked:
“Do you want to see them again?”
I didn’t answer and continued watching Howard Abele.
“Well?” Simon said. “Do you?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Then follow directions like a good boy and you will. I know you don’t have the phone anymore—we traced it back to that off-ramp exit—but you still have the glasses, and that’s the only way we’re going to make this work. Remember, Ben, we’re friends now, and we trust each other. As long as you have the glasses on and I and everybody else can see where you are, that you’re coming in the right direction, then everything will be fine.”
“And what”—I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry—“what direction is that?”
“California. Smith River. Right back here to the Paradise Motel. It’s where Jennifer and Casey are. It’s where they’ve been this entire time.”
Howard Abele had given up trying to reach for his knees, had given up pretty much everything and just lay there now, tears all over his face.
“You’re lying,” I said.
“Am I? Well that’s just something you’ve got to decide on your own, because it’s the only way this game is going to end. You’re going to come here with Carver. I want him too. He and I have some unfinished business to work out, especially after tonight. You and Carver, nobody else, and we’ll know if you try to fuck around.”
Simon then went on to give me directions. It was over two thousand miles, but as long as Carver and I kept driving nonstop we would make it without any trouble. Also, he said, they were going to call off that press conference the FBI was supposed to have regarding my escape. They were going to change the story a bit, say how I did in fact try to escape and got killed in the process. They were even going to give the Anonymous Bomber a name, create him an identity, so anyone recognizing the blurry image as Benjamin Anderson could stop wondering.
“And as an extra bonus,” Simon said, “we’ve been rerouting the 911 calls for the past fifteen minutes. Should give you some extra time, but not much, so let’s not waste it.”
“That’s impossible. You can’t ... you can’t be that powerful. You just can’t.”
“It’s not me, Ben. It’s Caesar. He has more power than you could ever imagine. And right now he wants this game to come to an end. So yes, Ben, for your sake, I certainly hope it’s possible, because as of this moment you have forty-eight hours.”
“And then”—I had to swallow again—“then I get my family back?”
On the bed, Howard Abele turned his head to look at me, beseeching with me with his eyes to help him.
“Of course,” Simon said. “Only remember when I asked you before who you loved more, your wife or your daughter? I expect to have an answer by the time you arrive.”
Howard Abele, still staring at me with tears in his eyes, mouthed something I couldn’t make out.
“Why?” I asked, my voice cracking on that one simple word.
“Isn’t that obvious by now? Because when you get here you’re going to have to tell me which one you love more. The other one? Well, the other one you’re going to kill.”
Part Three
PARADISE LOST
53
It’s impossible to guess how many viewers there were at the beginning. Besides Howard Abele and all the rest of the Inner Circle, how many others had paid thousands and thousands of dollars to be given a direct link to watch my family’s suffering? One hundred? One thousand? Had they watched it all at home, in their dens while their wives or husbands read or watched TV or cooked in the kitchen, while their children did their homework or talked on the phone with their friends? Or maybe they’d logged onto this at work, knowing that their company’s firewall would never pick it up because this was a site that shouldn’t exist, a site that didn’t exist, and anybody catching wind of it wouldn’t find anything wrong if they were to try to look it up as well. Maybe they took their laptops and holed up in some hotel, where room service would bring them whatever they wanted. They put DO NOT DISTURB signs on the doors and logged onto the Internet and just watched and enjoyed the show while at the same time sneaking drinks from the mini-bar.
But once the Man of Wax supposedly shot a cop in Chicago and then was connected with an explosion down in Ryder, Illinois, how many more signed up? Those in the Inner Circle probably didn’t have time—or the money—to spend watching every game that took place, but there was just something about the Anonymous Bomber that was familiar to them, something that they had a hunch about, and so they contacted whoever it was they needed to contact. And what were they told? Sorry, as it always is with supply and demand, the normal price has gone up considerably, would you like to hear the new rates?
As my one-eyed escort—or Jerry, or the fucking idiot, whichever you prefer—had said, this had turned out to be one hell of a game.
So how many people across the country, across the globe, were glued to their computer screens when I raised the revolver loaded with blanks and started firing at Howard Abele’s head, I can’t say. Just as I can’t say how many people there were when I finally left Howard Abele’s room and walked back through the hallways, stepping over bodies and plaster and glass. As the Abele Mansion hadn’t been a known destination in the Man of Wax’s game, there hadn’t been any cameras around, no options to switch to a certain page to get a different viewpoint.
No, the only point of view was the one I saw, and for roughly fifteen minutes that point of view stayed constant. Staring at what was half a blank wall, half the stairs leading up to the second floor. Even now I wonder about those people logging onto the game right when that happened, having heard so many good things but then being forced to just stare at the wall and stairs. I wished I could have kept it like that, kept them watching it for hours (which no doubt a good majority of them would have done), but I couldn’t, not after my deadline of two days.
And so this is what you would have seen had you been one of those wealthy and powerful people in the world who had the dark desire to watch other people suffer; this is what you would have seen in the early hours of Sunday morning:
The stationary view of the wall and stairs shifting all of a sudden as the glasses are placed back on my face. Then the steady and constant bounce as I go looking for Carver.
I find him in the kitchen and explain to him about Simon, about the final part of the game, and how Simon wants him to come along too, demands it actually. And Carver, with the middle section of his body wrapped up, shakes his head, tells me no way. We argue about this for a little bit, the sound actually pretty good, the microphone in the front corner of the glasses picking up everything.
But Carver relents. He understands there is no choice in the matter. I’m going back to Smith River, California, regardless of what he does, and maybe Carver knows this and feels some kind of pity. He patches up my
shoulder and then we’re headed outside. The wind is still cold but not as strong, not as brutal, as before. We walk down the long drive, listening to the silence around us. Just as Simon promised, the 911 calls are being rerouted, giving us the extra time we need.
We decide to take the sedan. I wait in it while Carver explains the situation to the rest of the men, how they’re not supposed to follow. Minutes later Carver’s in the car, doesn’t say a word, and we pull away.
We leave Ronny and David and Bronson and Drew (as well as Larry, dead) behind. We leave Howard Abele and Olivia Kemp and whoever else invaded the mansion behind. We leave everything behind, saying nothing to each other, just driving in silence.
The sun is already rising by the time we cross the Mississippi and enter Iowa, but it’s to our backs, chasing us like we’re in a race. I’m the first one to drift off, slumped over in my seat, not reclining back because Simon wants to constantly see where we’re going, not the sedan’s ceiling.
Continuous highway, cars and trucks and more cars. Buildings and billboards and lights and more buildings. Clouds in the sky, the sun as it passes over us, more clouds.
Carver makes a stop just outside Iowa City to gas up. I’m still asleep, my head tilted just so that the audience only sees the gas station parking lot and nothing more. Then Carver gets back in the car and we continue driving.
In Omaha, I wake and we switch, so now it’s me driving, the audience with a good view of the dash and the steering wheel. One would think this is boring stuff but just as Simon says, the promise of what’s to come whets the audience’s appetite, keeps them watching miles and miles of highway, of an endless horizon. They’re holed up in their dens or offices or cubicles or hotel rooms watching and wondering everything I’m going through, because surely they’ve been told already what the final part of the game will be, what the Man of Wax is expected to do once he reaches his destination.
In Cheyenne, where I’d stopped and it first started to rain at the beginning of the game, we stop again to gas up. This time we go inside, grab some water, some snacks, then ask for the key to use the bathrooms around the side. There is no key, the woman behind the counter tells us, and I go first, enter the darkness until I find the switch and flick on the lights. Take a piss, not caring at all that everyone else who wants to is watching me pee, and then zipping back up and washing my hands, stepping back outside as Carver goes in to do the same.
Then it’s back in the sedan, Carver driving this time, the day wearing on, the sun heading closer and closer to the horizon. Neither of us has talked this entire time. We haven’t played the radio. There have just been the sounds of the car, the sounds of the road, the constant rush of wind every time one of us turns down our windows to smoke.
Maybe we do this on purpose, wanting to bore the living shit out of all the viewers, hoping that their minds will wander and decide to do something better with their time. Certainly I don’t want them to still be watching when I finally get to California, when I make my way up the highway toward Smith River and the Paradise Motel.
Of course, the majority of the audience probably knows this already and has walked away from their computers, gone to watch TV, check email, pay some bills, screw their significant others, do some shopping or laundry or both. They’ve already calculated how long it’s going to take me and Carver to reach our destination. They may even have alarms set on their watches or cell phones, may have notified the front desk to give them a wake-up call. They don’t want to miss what’s going to happen at the end of this game, because just as the Almighty Caesar has supposedly decreed, this has the potential to be an all-time classic, and they don’t want to miss out on the grand finale.
All the rest in between is simple build up, just drawing out the suspense. Highways and cars, deserts and trees, clouds and stars. Pit stops for gas, for food, for pissing and shitting.
This is what each and every one of the viewers saw as they watched from their special and secret places.
The following is what actually happened.
54
What seemed like a century ago I had woken up in room six of the Paradise Motel, my family gone, no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. That had been seven days ago, and here I was now again at the Paradise Motel. Only I wasn’t in room six. I wasn’t in any of the rooms. Now I was crouched on the beach side of the motel, Carver beside me, a rifle in my hands as the dark sky began to soften bit by bit by the rising sun.
We’d been here for close to two hours already, watching the motel closely, keeping tabs on the manager’s office and the two other rooms whose lights hadn’t gone out since we first arrived. Ronny and Bronson and David were with us, all spread out on different parts of the grounds. The night was silent, just the sounds of the early morning waves crashing against the beach, the occasional whoosh of traffic on the highway, the few early morning seagulls cawing from their perches.
Ever since we arrived I’d been going out of my mind with anticipation. Jen and Casey were in there, in one of those rooms, and I was being forced to stay crouched here in the dunes. That was why Carver wanted me close to him, because he knew my want, my need, to take off toward the motel, calling out my wife’s and daughter’s names. For seven days they’d been so far away from me, so far they might as well have been dead, but now here they were and I was being held back.
We were waiting for first light before we moved in. This had already been established with everyone, especially me. As far as Simon and everybody else was concerned, Carver and I were still on I-80, probably entering Nevada by now. We still had until about five a.m. Tuesday morning to reach the Paradise and none of the people here were prepared for us yet, and why should they be?
And so we waited, crouching in the sand by the tall grass, watching the motel.
The Paradise was U-shaped, the bottom part pointed directly out at the ocean, the two arms facing inland. There were no windows on the beachside, no sliding glass doors that opened onto small private patios, which seemed strange for a beach motel. There was, however, a kind of boardwalk that stretched out from the back, where weatherworn plastic chairs and tables sat upright and vacant. Between the boardwalk slats, weeds and grass had begun to sprout, looking as if they’d had all summer to grow and were now losing the will to live.
Ronny and Bronson were stationed on the other side of the motel, David across the highway with a sniper rifle. We’d kept in radio contact this entire time, though everybody had been mostly quiet. One guard was pacing the parking lot, going back and forth between the arms of the U. Occasionally he paused to light a cigarette. From where we were crouched we’d seen the red glow of the tip a few times already. There was also at least one person in the manager’s office. That would most likely be Kevin, who’d called me early Monday morning to give me my wake-up call.
There were two other rooms with lights on, but there was no way we could get close enough to see how many people were inside. One of those rooms, I knew, had to contain Jen and Casey.
Back home, the sun had already been up for close to three hours. People were getting up to take showers, to make breakfast, to get dressed for work. Life continued as it always does, a constant cycle that never stops. But here on the beach near the northern tip of California, the sun was just beginning to appear.
I kept glancing at Carver beside me. We hadn’t said anything for the longest time. Finally his eyes shifted to meet mine and we stared at each other. He nodded, touched his throat microphone.
“Everyone in position?”
Some light static from my own earpiece, then Ronny’s voice, confirming he and Bronson were in position. David’s voice followed a second later, confirming the same.
Carver glanced at me once again. I had to squint to see his face clearly enough. I hadn’t had my glasses in the past six hours, and while I’d gone longer without them, I didn’t think I could go much longer. I needed them, because I didn’t want to have to squint when I saw Jen and Casey again. I wanted to be ab
le to look at them without any problems and tell them just how much I loved them, how much I missed them, and how I would never let anything like this ever happen again.
“Okay,” Carver whispered, “we’ll go once David’s ready. David, the target in place?”
A pause, then David confirmed that yes, the target was in place.
“On your mark,” Carver said. He had a rifle strapped over his shoulder and now hefted it. I glanced down at the rifle in my hands, surprised by how comfortable I now felt holding it.
For a moment it was like time had stopped and the world held its breath. The waves continued to break against the shore, the sporadic traffic continued to drive up and down the highway, and the guard standing in the parking lot went to light himself another smoke. We watched him from where we were crouched by the beach, maybe fifty, sixty yards away. The tip of his cigarette glowed red as he sucked in all that nicotine. He never had a chance to blow it back out though, because in that moment David fired one shot. The rifle had a silencer, its dull clap drowned out by a tractor-trailer roaring past on the highway, but we heard the sudden intake of breath as the guard’s body jerked, then fell to the ground.
Carver, his hand to his throat mic, said, “Now.”
55
As the world continued spinning and the waves continued breaking and the light of the sun became brighter and brighter by the second, we rushed forward until we were almost touching the Paradise Motel.
It was Ronny and Bronson’s job to hurry into the parking lot where the guard had fallen to pick him up and carry him away, where they deposited his body in the sand and tall grass. Then they started around the front of the motel again, moving carefully right up on the walkway, peeking into the windows, trying to determine if any of the rooms were occupied.
We’d already established the ground rules: as long as whoever they found wasn’t my wife and daughter, they were free to be killed.
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