“Jesus Christ,” thought Mack. “I just hope he doesn’t know.”
A half hour went by, and he stepped outside to prepare the grill for the bass. Tommy and Anne finally came downstairs, and he looked absolutely normal. Anne, on the other hand, was white-faced and very much within herself.
Tommy came over to see his dad and said, “Wanna play some ball after you fix the fire?” Mack grabbed him and managed to put a sooty handprint on Tommy’s clean T-shirt.
“Hell, Mom will think you’ve been hit by the Black Hand Gang.”
“No, she won’t. She’ll think it’s the Invasion of the Deadheads. They’ve got black hands.” And the little boy raced around the garden shouting, “Watch out, guys! Here come the Deadheads!”
Mack lit the fire and then took Tommy back inside to pick up the baseball gear. He returned to the kitchen and selected one of the bass fillets, prepared it with oil, salt, and pepper and wrapped it in tinfoil. He decided to leave it in the fridge while he and Tommy played catch, but before he went outside he heard a crash from the porch, followed by a scream from Anne.
He moved swiftly out to the porch only to see that Anne had dropped and broken an empty milk jug, but she was crying hysterically – the kind of distraught sobbing that usually occurs when someone’s house has burned down.
Mack went over to her and again took her in his arms, saying, “Come on, Anne, it’s only a milk jug, and not even very big. Don’t get upset. Who cares? We’ll replace it tomorrow.” But Anne could not be consoled, and she cried for ten minutes. Even Tommy came in and said, “What’s up, Mom? Are you really crying because of the stupid milk jug?”
Mack ruffled his hair and whispered to him, “It’s not the jug, kid. Mum’s suffering from battle fatigue.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s what the Yanks had last night when the Red Sox beat ’em 15 to 1. Acute depression.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with the milk jug?”
“I think it belonged to Mom’s grandmother,” lied Mack. “It’s kinda sentimental.”
“Senti-what?”
“Shut up, Tommy, and get your glove on. I wanna see some power throwing from you.”
Tommy bounced down the steps, saying over and over, “Senti-menti. Senti-menti. Mom’s got senti-menti.” Even Anne laughed. She brought out the bass and supervised the cooking, which took twenty minutes, grill to table. The french fries were already in the warming oven.
The fish tasted about as good and fresh as any fish can ever taste. The french fries were pretty good, too. The meal seemed to energize Tommy, who announced that he wanted to go fishing right then, wanted to catch another bluefish like last time.
Mack was secretly thrilled that he remembered last time, because loss of memory was one of the known symptoms of adrenoleuko-dystrophy. But the thrill did not run to another fishing trip today. And anyway, the light was fading fast. “It’s too late, Tommy,” he said. “It’ll be dark in fifteen minutes.”
“But you said the early darkness is sometimes the best time of all to catch fish. Come on, Dad, you said we could go. You said we could.”
Without a word, the big SEAL commander walked around the table, hoisted Tommy clean out of his chair, put him up on his shoulders, and hanging onto both ankles ran out of the house with Tommy clinging onto his hair, laughing his head off. Mack raced around the garden, with Tommy perched on his shoulders, hanging on grimly and yelling, “You said we could go! You said we could go! You said we could go!”
Eventually, Mack stopped and pulled Tommy down into his arms, and already he could feel the little boy becoming tired and submissive.
“Come on, let’s go and find some ice cream,” said Mack. “Would you like that?”
Tommy opened his eyes, nodded, and muttered, “You said we could go,” laughing despite himself.
Tommy lasted about another hour, then wearily asked his mom if he could stay up and watch the baseball game with his dad. But his eyes were closing. The Red Sox had barely sent down three Yankee batters in order at the top of the first when Tommy fell fast asleep on the sofa. Mack carried him up to bed between innings.
It might have been the general elation of a 4-0 Red Sox lead, but Mack decided he must tell Anne about the bank’s rejection. They could not have secrets from each other, and he heard her come slowly down the stairs. “Is he okay?”
“For the moment. I’ve given him some of the new medicine, and hopefully he’ll sleep through the night.”
Mack stood up and suggested they have a glass of wine together, but he noticed she answered “okay” with the same enthusiasm she might have offered for a glass of strychnine. He poured two glasses from a new bottle of California red anyway, a four-year-old merlot from the Napa Valley, and offered one to his wife, who took it as if her mind were a thousand miles away.
“Anne,” he said, “it’s not the end of the world, but I did hear from the bank today.”
“They turned us down?”
“They did. And it was a computerized letter. They never had any intention of giving us a million.”
“I just wonder who these people are,” she said. “Here we are, faced with the most adorable little boy, who is dying of some incurable disease, and no one will lift a finger to help. The stupid doctors have been outwitted by a nation that basically makes cuckoo clocks, the insurance company won’t provide coverage the only time we have ever needed it, and the bank has better things to do with its money.”
“I know,” replied Mack. “It’s as if the whole darned world is indifferent to everything. Billions of dollars being made every day. And no one will do anything for us.”
Quite suddenly, Anne began to cry again, just sitting in an armchair making no attempt to hide her tears. But her voice was raised when she spoke. “It’s just so unfair!” she almost shouted. “And I don’t know how much more I can take. I do everything I can, all day, every day, and in the end nothing matters. Because in the end Tommy will die, and no one will give a damn, except us.”
Mack put down his glass and stood up. But he was too late. Anne literally screamed at him, “All I have is Tommy and you! And you can’t help! For years they’ve told me you were the best this, and the best that, and then they threw you out, and now you’re just helpless, like everyone else!”
This was the moment Mack had been dreading. The day when Anne blamed him for being unable to raise the money for Tommy to go to Switzerland. He understood he was her protector and provider, and now in the hour of her greatest need, he had somehow failed her. No one understood the cold truth better than Mack Bedford.
And Anne was not through. “I have nowhere to turn. Even your Mister High and Mighty Harry Remson can offer nothing. But most of all I come back to you, my husband, Tommy’s dad. Because if ever there was a moment in both our lives when you had to do something, it’s now. And the best you can do is advise prayer. I don’t need prayer. I need a million dollars to save my little boy’s life. And you can’t get it. You’re no different from the rest – I HATE YOU! I CAN’T STAND THE SIGHT OF YOU! WHAT GOOD ARE YOU IF YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING FOR TOMMY?” She smashed her glass of wine off the side table next to her chair and ran out of the room. All the way up the stairs she never stopped raging: “If not you, WHO? If not now, WHEN? WHAT ELSE IS THERE?”
Mack did not for one moment think he was merely watching a highly strung woman at the end of her tether. He was watching the total mental breakdown of his own beautiful wife. And he had no idea what to do about it. He tried to think, to step back mentally from the problem, away from the heartrending emotion of Anne. But there was no stepping back. Tommy’s illness lived with them both, night and day. It had already torn his wife apart. He did not know if she could ever recover. And he thought it was entirely possible she did hate him for his inability to solve the problem of Switzerland.
Carefully, he took the glass off the floor and tipped a bottle of club soda over the red stain on the carpet. He tried to watch the Red Sox
but could not concentrate, not with Anne upstairs, hating him. He poured himself a second glass of wine and turned off the television. Then he remembered the magazine Harry had given him, which he had promised to read. He went out to the hall closet, retrieved the publication from his jacket, and wandered back into the living room.
He spread out along the length of the sofa, and then stood up again and decided to give the Red Sox one more try. The game was tied 4-4 at the bottom of the fifth, and he decided to watch the Sox pitch one more inning, whether Anne hated him or not. Mack ended up watching it through eight, when the Sox finally managed a 9-5 lead and he decided he’d better read the magazine in case Harry showed up early in the morning.
He switched off the television and sat down again on the sofa, turned inside the publication to the spot where Harry had placed a little yellow sticker, and there before him was the face of Henri Foche, alongside a big black headline that read:
THE NEW LEADER OF THE GAULLIST PARTY – THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF FRANCE?
The main story read:
France is preparing to welcome to the Elysée Palace the most right-wing president certainly since Giscard and probably since de Gaulle. Henri Foche, the forty-eight-year-old native of Brittany, has accepted the party leadership and will fight the election three months from now under the banner of “Pour la Bretagne. Pour la France.” For Brittany. For France.
Heavy industry all over Europe will feel the draft. Insiders say he has already made up his mind on a drastic cut in imports. “If it can be made in France, it will be made in France” is one of his most quoted slogans. He is expected to install an immediate ban on imported coal and steel, which will send a very chill blast through the industrial heartlands of Romania and parts of Germany.
Of course, many French politicians are advising against this quasiprotectionist policy, reminding him that even the American president who tried to protect US steel had finally been forced to change his mind. But France is different. These kinds of “Viva la France” outbursts from French leaders strike a chord that is echoed nowhere else in the free world.
The French parliament long ago decided to wean itself off foreign oil with a massive nuclear power program, which today provides France with almost 80 per cent of its electricity.
Monsieur Foche is believed to have a heavy interest in the French shipping industry, although details of his business activities have traditionally been very well concealed. But he has recently made major political speeches in the shipyards around Brest and Saint-Nazaire, all of them assuring the workers that new ships – passenger, freight, or navy frigates – will be cut from French steel.
Nothing will be imported. The French shipping industry, and indeed the French Navy, will rely solely on French-built vessels, from aircraft carriers to submarines.
There followed almost two columns of detail about Foche’s politics, his flirtation with capital punishment, and his determination to reduce taxation.
The story finished with the following paragraph:
Whether you agree with him or not, Foche has struck a nerve in France. Left-wing and liberal moderates in Paris society are openly nervous of the fire-eater from Brittany, who cares nothing for advice.
At the bottom of the story was an arrow pointing overleaf, and there, printed in a box, white type on black, was a rundown of Foche’s reputed business interests. It was plain the researchers had come up with little. Nonetheless, there was a paragraph in the middle of the box that stated:
Henri Foche is believed to hold a significant interest in the guided missile corporation Montpellier Munitions, located in Orleans, along the Loire Valley.
There was not one word of confirmation, save to assure readers that two of the biggest holdings in Montpellier were recorded under the names of Paris law firms, the inference being they were front men for Henri Foche.
The article continued:
Montpellier is, of course, the French arms factory suspected of manufacturing the banned tank-busting missile, the Diamondhead. But last night a spokesman for the corporation said, “We do make an advanced version of Aerospatiale’s MILAN-5, but we know nothing of the Diamondhead, and certainly would not dream of exporting such a missile to anyone in the Middle East after an official ban by the United Nations.”
Mack Bedford read it all with some interest, but his attention was mild compared to the moment when he glanced over to the right-hand page and saw a large picture showing three men standing beside a black Mercedes-Benz outside the Montpellier factory. The caption below pointed out that the man in the center was Henri Foche himself. But Mack Bedford did not need the caption. He took one look at the photograph and almost jumped off the sofa, because there, right before his eyes, was a familiar balding, middle-aged Frenchman in a pinstriped suit, complete with the bright scarlet handkerchief in the breast pocket of the jacket.
Mack Bedford had spotted the man and his clothes distinctly, through binoculars on the far side of the Euphrates River, just before his friends were incinerated by a Diamondhead missile. In that split second, standing alone in his own living room, Mack realized that he, above all other men, knew that Henri Foche was the mastermind behind the most hated guided missile on earth. He, Mack, had seen him plainly, in sharp focus, standing with the Arab terrorists across the river. He’d been peering through the sights of the missile launcher, for Christ’s sake. Mack had watched those turbaned killers talking to Foche in the moments before the Diamondheads had ripped across the water and smashed into his tanks, burning his men alive. That was him, Foche, standing there, large as life, with a black Mercedes at his beck and call, and several Arab missile men hanging on his every word. Mack had watched him, with his own eyes. And he’d never forget that scarlet handkerchief, sharp beneath the desert sun.
The answers to a thousand questions posed by the reporters suddenly sprang into focus. Was Foche the owner of Montpellier Munitions? Of course he was. Had they made the Diamondhead and sold it to Iran? Of course they had. And were they still doing it? Given this morning’s shattering news bulletin? In Mack Bedford’s mind there was no doubt. Yes, they fucking well were. And who could he tell? Who would listen? No one was the answer to that. And into the mind of the former SEAL commander, there began creeping forward a thought that he had never in his most unlikely dreams considered possible.
Once more the images of his best friends stood starkly before him. The SEAL team gunner, Charlie O’Brien, who died in the tank with Billy-Ray Jackson; Chief Frank Brooks and Saul Meiers, who never had a chance when the second tank was hit. In his mind he could see only the searing blue chemical flames as they demolished the best people he had ever known. That unusual crackling sound as the heat devoured everything inside the cockpits and then melted the fuselage of the tanks. The Diamondhead was a weapon from the dark core of hell, a man-made, laboratory-honed missile that belonged to the black arts.
For a few moments he just stood staring at the face of the man who produced it – Henri Foche, who, in just a few short seconds, had become not just a politician who was somehow going to close down the local shipyard. He had become the most hated figure in Mack Bedford’s life, in the entire chronicle of Mack Bedford’s life.
He rolled up the magazine and stuffed it in his pocket. He paced back and forth across the room, checked to see the final score at Fenway Park, and then had one more look at the pictures of Henri Foche. This was the man he had somehow pledged to have assassinated on behalf of Harry Remson. He’d been doing his best for almost a week, but hitherto for no reason. Certainly not a personal one. Just Harry’s determination to save his shipyard. But now things had changed. Very drastically.
Again he put the magazine in his pocket, and he walked out to the hall table and picked up the car keys. Then he selected a small piece of paper from a notepad and scribbled ten numbers on it. He left the house and wondered whether he should drive, because the “hours of the wolf” were upon him. Carelessly, he dismissed the thought, and strode up to the garage, hauling
open the door and firing up the Buick. He eased out of the garage, then hit the gas, swerving out of the drive, hurling gravel.
Upstairs, Anne was curled up on the bed with just a quilt over her. She was not asleep and heard the car start. Oh, my God, he’s left me. Oh, my God! She flung off the quilt, ran to the open window, and yelled through the screen, “Mack! Mack! Darling Mack! Please, please, don’t go!”
But she was not in time. She watched the car hurtle out of the drive and disappear. And she just stood there, repeating over and over, “Darling Mack, please don’t go, please don’t go. Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me. No one could ever love you like I do.” But no one was listening. She was used to that.
Mack sped through the quiet coastal road to the western end of the town, and was making about seventy-five miles an hour as he flashed past the gates of Remsons Shipbuilding. Still racing, he reached Harry’s drive and pulled in, almost sideswiping a stone lion that was supposed to be on guard at the gate. He glanced at his watch, just eleven o’clock. Harry might be in bed… but he’ll get up for this.
Mack pulled up outside the front door and without hesitating hit the front doorbell. Hard. There was no answer for at least two minutes, then a light was switched on in the front hall and the door was pulled open.
Harry stood there in a very snazzy dressing gown, dark red velvet, with the golden crest of the shipyard on the breast pocket. “Jesus, Mack,” he said. “Do you know what the time is?”
“Of course I do. You don’t think I’d be knocking on your door at 2300 hours if it wasn’t important, do you?” Mack knew Harry loved to converse in the language of the bridge. “One hour before eight bells, right? End of the First Night Watch.”
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