It would prove to be his last unanswered question. José’s eyes flashed, but only for an instant.
“I am sorry, compañero,” Adolfo said, pushing back his chair. José stood when he did. The envelope lay inert, sealed and smug on the scarred tabletop.
“Viva la lucha,” Adolfo said. Long live the struggle. The two men walked away.
TWENTY-FIVE
The dark is raucous with crickets and frogs. On his way in from the coast Romulus imagined eerie silence here, in the middle of Nebraskan noplace. Monotonous rows of soybean and corn mock any notion of wildlife, however prosaic. The landscape’s motif is control. Yet the insects and amphibians defy expectation, thousands of them, judging from the sound. Tens of thousands. Their noise is welcome cover. Rough buzz and throaty croak rise out of the fields loudly enough, almost, to mask the thumping of his heart.
Romulus parked a mile north of the construction site, on the alley side of a strip mall. Following a crudely paved road, then striking out along a dirt rampart between adjacent fields, he crept up on the AgBio complex and now crouches at its border. He surveys the object of these last months’ focus, and the security kiosk that guards it at a distant edge of the lot. He feels colder than he ought to. The land has a dry, sandy smell: spent, almost sterile. In the vast agricultural plain, the research building’s six stories seem puny. Though he knows he should know better, disappointment gnaws at his sense of mission.
Romulus reminds himself that their target’s value is better measured by millions in grant proposals, dozens of corporate press advisories, trillions of seeds to be mutated in this klieg-lit island of concrete and glass. The building’s physical scale belies its significance. The facility has taken years and acts of Congress to be realized. Equipment for its labs is being trucked in daily, at staggering cost.
Lifting a pair of night-vision binoculars, Romulus looks to the surveillance camera he staked in a furrow some hundred yards to his right. He knows where he planted the gadget, but it takes a few moments to make out the dark-on-dark profile. When he turns back to the security kiosk, the lone guard is rising from his chair at its plate glass window. The uniformed man steps outside, and paces toward the facility proper.
It’s time.
Blood pounds in his temples. Romulus glances at the smartphone Chagall supplied. The screen shows a clear, yellowish field where the guard’s dark-uniformed blotch registered several frames before. Remote imaging isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t explosives either. As the device continues to download three still frames per minute from the planted camera, Romulus reflects that his coconspirator is a man of unexpected talents. He pushes aside the question of what he’s adding to their combined skill set. What matters is how he’ll recognize the guard’s position from the grainy screen image.
The guard appears to enter the building. Not what Chagall advised him to expect. The guard’s habit, wrote the saboteur, is to circle the perimeter first. Evidence that Chagall is not omniscient is oddly calming, even in this hour of extreme dependence. Romulus adjusts his ski mask.
By some quirk of the site’s acoustics, he hears the glass door snick shut. Romulus rises to his feet. Shouldering a heavy pack, stepping from clodded earth to the edge of the parking lot, he closes the distance to a utility entrance at the facility’s northeast corner. Romulus flattens himself against the building to wait for the guard to emerge. He sweats inside the mask. After a quarter of an hour the cell phone screen shows a shadowy figure several yards from the main entrance. Twenty seconds later the shadow is positioned halfway between building and kiosk.
Fitting the master Chagall provided into the door’s keyway, he torques counterclockwise. The key fails to turn. Romulus jiggles it in the lock to no effect.
Twisting it this way and that, he jams the key into the lock plate. Nothing. Beginning to panic, Romulus pulls it halfway free before jamming the key forward again.
It slips a millimeter farther in.
He stops, listens, lets himself sink back into sonic invisibility beneath the frog and cricket chorus.
Fully engaged, the key turns easily. He slips inside. The door pulls closed behind him, and Romulus sees the hallways are dimly lit, as Chagall foretold. The night noise is silenced. The only sound is a soothing electronic hum. The lights would come on now, the corridor would fill with uniformed SWAT goons, if Chagall had been luring him into a trap. The stillness remains unbroken.
Romulus pulls out the cell and checks on the guard. He now stands beside the kiosk, a blurry bulge at chest level suggesting a hand held to mouth. In the next frame the arm is positioned by his side. There’s a barely visible haze to the left of his head. The man is smoking, standing outside the kiosk, paying no attention to the monitors at his station.
Switching off the phone to conserve power, Romulus removes the stifling mask. He’s suddenly thirsty, longing for icy cold water burbling over stone. It has been an eternity since he last hiked an alpine trail. This brutally tamed place makes him crave wildness that tonight is echoed only in a menacing aspect, by this ridiculous burglary Chagall has imposed on him. He is watching himself act out a scene from a spy movie. The scene is surreal, yet it’s happening. If he were asked at this moment to explain what brought him here, Romulus would draw a blank.
He closes his eyes, collecting himself.
—
The utility room is suffused with a familiar glow. Romulus cracks a light stick and adjusts to its sickly blue gleam. He is relieved to be in this narrow space, surrounded by routers, blinking LEDs, the electromagnetic aura of signal surging through copper and glass. Bundles of gray Ethernet cable converge on racked patch panels. To his right, a bank of punch blocks connects thick fiber-optic coming in from the local phone company with sister cables that climb the risers. Blue coaxial cable transmits TV signal through the same conduit as the telephone lines, to jacks in the offices and labs. To the left of the television blocks, UTP cables feed signal from security cameras into a trio of multiplexers.
Donning a headlamp, Romulus examines the video routers closely. Cables and their corresponding ports are cryptically marked, but Chagall has instructed that connection OD6 is his man. “Outside door,” Romulus supposes.
The intercepting device is the size and shape of a laptop’s power brick. A metal box painted matte black, Chagall either made it himself or has friends in the espionage business. The box is soldered shut, and Romulus has been warned not to risk a self-wipe by poking or prying. The apparatus is necked and tailed with cable sheathed in the same bright yellow as the UTP coming in from the facility’s cameras. Chagall has also supplied a bypass line, its ends terminated by knobby, wraparound clips that decode magnetic pulse into underlying signal, then transform it back again.
He has rehearsed the splice on lengths of dummy cable to get a feel for the tools. Chagall suggested several possible placements. With gloved hands, Romulus explores the likeliest, behind two adjacent bundles of Cat 5 that run down the corner of the room. At chest level the bundles split toward their respective routers, but it looks like a spot near the ceiling is sufficiently shielded, out of an idle eye’s way. He stands in turn by the door, the phone box, the router bank, and the multiplexers to check the view. The overhead fluorescents won’t cast telling shadows that high on the wall.
Romulus prepares the leads for splicing. Stepping onto a stool meant for legitimate technicians, he carefully follows his cable toward the mouth of the west-wall conduit. He attaches the bypass, bracketing a stretch that passes behind a cluster of telephone wires. Flashing diodes confirm that the terminals are translating signal. He wiggles the bypassed strand to check one last time that he’s holding the right line, then severs it with a pair of diagonal cutters.
His hands tremble as he positions wires the thickness of pencil lead in the splicing tool’s maw. It’s touchier here than it was on the surface of a motel desk. Romulus is fully focused on the task. Place, set, squeeze. And again. He wraps the joins with electrical tape. Cable ti
es secure the device in position. He unclips the bypass. Stepping down from the stool, Romulus repeats his walk-around. He can’t see the interceptor, not even when he looks straight at it.
Placing a cell phone antenna is a simpler proposition. The device is a commodity, so common that its manufacturer doesn’t bother with serial numbers. Chagall has wired in a filter that leaves it network-visible only to the interceptor and Chagall’s smartphone. He shoves the device under a shelving unit, in a corner where rat poison would one day molder if the AgBio complex were fated to last. The antenna’s cable runs inconspicuously up the back of the shelves and plugs into a spare coverage-extension port.
Again, a visual inspection.
He gathers up his tools, the bypass device, clipped ends of cable ties, the still glowing chem light, and packs them all away. A last look around, methodically beaming his headlamp across the floor, along every horizontal surface. The electrical tape startles him when the light catches it, forgotten where he set the roll down on a shelf. He pockets the tape and steals out of the utility room, tiptoeing up to ground level.
From the stairwell, Romulus checks on his pal in the kiosk. The blurry blotch sits inert at his station. On the smartphone’s screen he taps a biohazard icon to launch Chagall’s diagnostic. A spew of log output rolls by, ending in an almost conversational message:
DEVICE TEST PASSED.
CONGRATS.
BE ON YOUR MERRY WAY.
Romulus is not out of the woods yet. More exactly, the bright clearing of the parking lot still separates him from the fields’ concealing gloom. There are no woods here.
Flipping back, he again checks the kiosk. Romulus has been inside the building for fifty-eight minutes. Hours remain before dawn rises over fields of genetically modified soybean. It could be an eternity before the guard’s next walkabout.
Romulus isn’t eager to wait. He wants out. He wants to haul his ass over the state line, to crack a bottle of jammy Zinfandel in his Podunk, Missouri motel room.
Staring up at the ceiling, he visualizes an overhead plan of the construction site. If he strikes out at a slant, bearing right, the building will stand between his line of retreat and the kiosk. Once the guard steps away from his monitors there’s no need to wait. Romulus can flee at the next nicotine break.
He slips into the ground-floor corridor and finds an alcove sheltered from the hallway’s sight lines. Three bars of cell signal. Leaning heavily against the concrete wall, he stares into the screen and thinks cigarette commercials toward the kiosk outside.
TWENTY-SIX
The late-afternoon sun streamed into the front room, silhouetting Brendan against the bay window. “Sure, I could be angry,” he said, pressing against the window’s frame hard enough to dent his forehead. “Or demoralized, or mystified. One way or another they demoted me from comrade to mercenary. Then they left me wondering who I was working for in the first place.”
He heard Allison set her coffee mug onto the table behind him. “Let’s not say more than we ought to,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. The walls have ears, or so we imagine. But what the fuck, Al? Either they’re criminals, and they insulted me with a bribe that works out to thirty cents for every hour I kept my mouth shut. Or they are who they claim, and they excommunicated me, no questions answered.”
“It’s yours to decide,” she said.
He turned to face her. “What is?”
“If they’re thugs, you risk their violence,” she said. “If they’re part of a movement you believe in, you risk damage to that movement, and prosecution for whatever charge the government dreams up once you goad them into paying attention. So. Pick a story that gives you peace of mind, and move on.”
Brendan massaged his temples. He couldn’t look at it that way. Not until he’d blown off some steam. Maybe a lot of steam.
The telephone rang. Zac crossed the hall downstairs to answer.
“Marty already?” Brendan asked.
“Doubt it. We’re not due at Turnabout ’til six.”
“I can’t say I’m excited about spending the evening setting grommets and folding Tyvek.”
“You don’t have to,” Allison said. “Zac and Marty and me, plus three or four from Turnabout—we can handle the banner.”
“Allison?!” Zac was shouting up from the second floor, voice pinched and panicky. “Come quick!” She was running for the stairwell before the echo died away. Brendan followed, flashing on car wrecks, on Christopher and Nora busted in a raid on the spokescouncil meeting, on a bullied goth with a hunting rifle in Jonah’s schoolyard. He stumbled into the dining room on Allison’s heels.
“It’s Jonah,” Zac said in a whisper.
Allison took the phone from him. “Jonah?”
“What happened?” Brendan asked.
“Buzz,” Zac said, leaning against the wall and slowly sinking to the floor. “I think he OD’d.”
“Take a deep breath,” Allison was saying. “Yes. Yes, that’s right. Now tell me exactly, did you take any kind of drugs? … Any at all? … It’s not about good or bad, Jonah, I need to know so I can help you… . Okay… . Okay, just Buzz … Buzz and Luke… . Luke just smoked pot… . Wait—heroin? Are you sure?”
“Jesus Christ.” Brendan struck the wall with his fist. “Who the hell’s Luke?”
“School friend,” Zac said softly.
“Is he sitting up? … Can Luke help him to walk around?” Allison covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “We need to get over there, pronto.”
“Where are they?” Brendan asked. “The bike’ll be quick.”
“They need to keep him awake,” Zac said to Allison. “If he lies down make sure he’s on his side”—he mimed to illustrate—“not on his back, or he might choke.”
Allison waved him silent. “Jonah … Jonah? Listen, I need you to tell me where you are. What’s the address?”
“If he’s sitting up and breathing he’ll be okay.”
“Jonah says he’s up and down,” Allison whispered. “Heavy nodding, sounds like.”
“Do you still do needle exchange?” Brendan asked Zac.
“Not for years,” Zac said. “No naloxone buried in the sock drawer.”
“Fucking heroin?”
Zac shook his head. “That kid’s got a backstory.”
“Jonah … Jonah, listen. Look around where you’re standing. See if you can find an envelope with an address on it … or a magazine—yes! Belvedere? Sixty-three Belvedere. Excellent work. I’m going to give the phone to Zac now, okay?” She covered up the mouthpiece. “I’ll ride with Brendan. See if Jonah can hang something out a window to help us find the place. But first you and he both need to call 9-1-1.”
Zac took the phone. “Jonah? Your mom and Brendan are on their way—but stay on the call for a couple more minutes, okay?” His face was ashen, but his voice held steady.
“Get the bike,” Allison said to Brendan. “I’ll find one of the downstairs kids to help Zac. Sixty-three Belvedere, last name is Conners.”
Brendan bolted for the stairs.
—
They blew the last stop sign and took the corner onto Belvedere at a sharp angle. Allison scooted off the Kawasaki as Brendan cut its engine.
“Say again?” she shouted into her cell.
Number sixty-three was the middle flat of a peeling, Italianate Victorian. Barred basement windows stood sentry along the sidewalk; a round turret rose skyward in decorated bands. Limp in the still air, a batik spread hung from a sill on the second floor.
“We see the blanket,” she said to Zac.
Brendan sprinted up the steps and rattled the door in its frame. “Locked!”
Allison grabbed Brendan’s leather jacket, pulling him away from the doorbell. “Wait,” she commanded. “Again?” she said into the phone, then relayed Zac’s report. “Luke went postal over calling 9-1-1. Zac heard something about a knife then the phone cut off.”
Brendan turned and stared into Allison’s eyes. “We g
otta go in,” he said. She nodded. He stepped back to the edge of the stoop. When his sneaker sole struck at deadbolt height, the doorframe splintered. Hurtling up the stairs, he bellowed Jonah’s name.
“No cops,” somebody was shouting from the front of the flat.
Jonah cried out, “He’s got a knife!”
“There’s no cops, no cops,” Brendan shouted as he gained the landing. He held his hands out as he approached the front room. “No cops,” he said. “We’re here to help Buzz.”
Brendan took the place in. Jimi Hendrix sang mutely into the room from a poster of the Electric Ladyland cover, hung beside a boarded-over fireplace. A glass bong poked up from a litter of chip bags and soda cans on a low table.
“I’ve got a knife,” Luke said. A curtain of frizzy brown hair obscured his face. With a sturdy left arm circling Jonah’s chest, he stood in front of the fireplace waving a santoku blade. Jonah shrank from the wicked-looking weapon, but Luke held him immobile. Buzz lay beside the far end of the coffee table, sprawled against a heavy sofa by the bay windows. He’d been mumbling inarticulately as Brendan entered the room, but now was still, head lolling back.
“Yes, you do,” Brendan said. On the other side of the chimney, another poster depicted a crowd of Sandanista peasants carrying a banner and flag. No la deseamos pero no la tememos. We did not wish it but we do not fear it. He turned his full attention to the boys across the room. Luke’s right arm extended at an uncertain angle: he was as terrified of the blade as Jonah. “I see the knife. And I get what you want.”
“No cops is what I want!”
“So here’s what we need to do. Jonah’s mom is here. She needs to make sure Buzz is okay, and she needs to do that now. Right now. Then we can take him outside. When the ambulance comes, they don’t have to know what house he was in when he shot up. You see where I’m going here?”
Consequence Page 20