A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror

- A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror

- Midpoint

A Bridge to Treachery

“From Extortion to Terror”

A Novel

by

Larry Crane

Published by

Brighton Publishing LLC

501 W. Ray Rd.

Suite 4

Chandler, AZ

Copyright 2011

ISBN 978-1-936587-19-3

Smashwords Edition

E-Book

Cover Design by Tom Rodriquez

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

DEDICATION

For Deb and Dan

The sunlight on the garden

Hardens and grows cold,

We cannot cage the minute

Within its nets of gold

When all is told

We cannot beg for pardon.

—Louis MacNeice

Chapter One

Lou Christopher snatched the phone before the second warble.

“Christopher.”

“Louis, look, real quick. You were a grunt, right? Airborne? All that shit?”

“Yeah.”

“Sneaky peeky?”

“Infantry.”

“Patrolling. Long-range reconnaissance. Behind the lines?”

“C’mon, Calvin.”

“Hang tight, kid. I’ll talk to you later.” Click.

Oh, great, Lou thought. Terrific. Now on top of a stock market stuck in the toilet all year, the branch manager, Swisher, starts poking around at his military career. Like, how in the hell does Ranger training translate into even one crusado in commissions, baby?

The room was high, dim, and deeply carpeted. On the wall beside the cherry wood double doors, brass letters read: Pierson Browne & Company, Member of the New York Stock Exchange. Well-dressed young lions at rows of desks in the center of a horseshoe of glass offices whispered into telephones and pecked at personal computer keyboards. A projection of the stock ticker marched along the front wall, entertaining a gaggle of old men camped in leather sofas and overstuffed chairs.

Lou dragged his clutch of client profiles, neatly filed and tabbed, across the blotter. From his desk in the second row of the bullpen, his eyes roamed over the heads of the kibitzers scribbling in their little black books to the front wall and the ticker. He rippled the keys on the touch-tone dial and then leaned back, the phone wedged into his shoulder.

“Mr. Chin’s office.”

“Is he in?”

“Who may I say is calling, please?”

“This is Lou Christopher, from—”

“One moment, please. You have the switchboard.”

“Chin here.”

“Sir, this is Louis Christopher from Pierson Browne. You responded to a letter I sent you.”

“I just wanted some information. It didn’t say you were going to call. If I’d have known—”

“Is your broker making you money, Mr. Chin? Why don’t you take me up on a bet? I’ll send you a couple of ideas for capital appreciation and we’ll both watch them. If you don’t make a ten percent paper profit within thirty days, I’ll never call again. If you do, you open an account and we start to do real business.”

“All right. All right. Send me something.”

“Fine. I’ll give you several interesting stock ideas and—”

Click.

Out of ten calls, one warm body. It was all about the numbers. Send out 2,500 mailers a week and get eight to ten back, if it’s a dynamite mailer. Call the ten, get maybe three, four, bona fide prospects. Prospects? They’re never home after you send them the research report they want. So who’s kidding who?

Around eleven, Mag called from home to see if he was game for an auction down at the Elks. Lou managed to sound enthusiastic. As soon as he hung up, the phone rang again.

“Christopher.”

“Lou, how long ago was that? Ten, eleven years? Something like that?”

“What?”

“Ranger. C’mon.”

“What’s going on, Cal?”

“Just tell me how long ago.”

“Ten or eleven years? It was twenty-some years ago, July. It seems like a hundred.”

“Nam, right? RA. You were a lieutenant?”

“Right, but that was...”

Click.

Lou clomped upstairs, muttering. He dug his sandwich out of the refrigerator and washed it down with a root beer, just in time for a hot call from Vic Finamore wanting a quote on his Con Edison—as if Con Edison ever moved more than an eighth in a week. All afternoon: questions, questions—but no trades and no commissions.

Lou couldn’t shake that weird phone tag business with Calvin Swisher. References to patrolling, reconnaissance, anything military, had to be a message—and not even a subtle one—that people up the line were nudging him closer than ever to the ejection seat; that four years were more than enough to begin delivering a steady stream of commission business. Swisher didn’t call again; and when it got to be six o’clock, Lou knew he wasn’t going to call back. He stood in front of the Reuter’s teletype machine and watched the last story print out:

WASHINGTON—In his radio address this morning, President Jordan Bliss went out of his way to play down the seriousness of the growing economic malaise that has gripped the country only seven months before the general election. Back after a whirlwind tour of the western states, the president is caught between the extremes of countering Democrat charges of abandoning his pledge to enact no new taxes and taking firm action to beat back a growing deficit. This, according to unnamed sources close to Mr. Bliss, is in line with his recent attempts to counter a shower of criticism of his so-called liberal tendencies from his own party and to bolster election support from groups further to the right of the political spectrum; a tactic he sees as critical to success.

Lou hadn’t thought about the Army in years, but now it came roaring back, all of it, smack in the face, over this piddling desk-jockey job. It was nothing like old Fort Drum, even on its worst day. The infantry was physical: freeze your earlobes raw or sweat through your eyebrows. Get up with the sun and shut up tired when the night closes in around you. It was: run the maneuver over and over and over until you could do it in your sleep. The result was some physical act requiring physical exertion—tangible, concrete. Movement is the currency of the Army, not dollar bills. Go there, do this.

But you’re not twenty-five forever. Lou knew firsthand that lieutenants who could rappel down a fifty-foot cliff with a 180-pound man on their backs, or leap from a C-119 into the empty space below, eventually became sweater-clad colonels who shuffled the halls of the Pentagon, silently aching to be back in the field. And when the day arrived when they finally shed the green forever, the last thing they wanted was to dwell on how good a trooper they really were.

As the last broker exited for the day, Lou locked up the office. Chicken a la King was on the table when he got home, and within an hour, he and Maggie were on their way to the auction. He waited for a set of headlights to pass by in the rear view mirror before backing the old Subaru out of the drive. The valves chattered in the early April air as he pulled away from the front of their wood shingle Cape Cod. A lingering cloud of exhaust billowed over the windshield, and then boiled to nothing in the backwash.

“I saw a Cedar Waxwing this morning,” Maggie said.

“That’s nice,” he said.

He knew it was a rare sight, but he had never cared about birds the way she did and he wasn’t about to start now. “We should’ve brought Trude along,” she said, flicking the heater switch on the dashboard.

“You know, the heater’s as good as dead when the engine’s cold, Mag. We’re not going to be gone that long. The worst she can do is mess the rug.”

“She knew she was going to be left alone. She wouldn’t even look at me. I could see her pea brain churning: ‘I’ll pee in your shoes, I’ll pee in your plants, I’ll pee in your bed.’ We need a dog sitter.”

“What’s at the auction?”

“The ad said a lot of furniture. He always has something good. Remember the little brass foot warmer?”

“The little brass...?”

“Will you ever really listen to me, Lou?”

He swung the car into the Shop-and-Save parking lot across the street from the purple facade of the Elks’ building with the “Auction Tonight” sign hanging over the door. Inside, a narrow hallway led away from the bar, its walls cluttered with skewed pictures of past presidents of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks.

“Mag, I think we ought to do this in a semi-organized way.”

“Just tag along with me,” she said.

“I’m not tagging along.”

“Well, go get the bidding card then.”

“Here’s the plan. We look around independently. We eavesdrop, loiter, question the smart ones, shift from foot to foot, whistle, whatever. Then back together, we compare notes.”

“Go ahead, Lou. Go. You’d just be ragging me about lingering over the box lots anyway. Go. Go ahead. Do whatever you want.”

He did. He skirted the crowd of women lining the long tables of glassware and jewelry, and then wandered to the front, beside the stage. Of all places, under a table stacked with china, he spotted a bushel basket with a four-wheel block and tackle attached to a long tangle of rope. He almost had it straightened out when he heard Mag at his back.

“See anything?” she asked, picking up a Staffordshire plate, squinting at the bottom. “I kind of like the wingback.”

He rattled the keys in his pocket. “We already have a wingback,” he said.

“No, we don’t. We don’t have a wingback. It’s the flower pattern back there. Go on back and look at it. Did you see anything?”

“I guess I wasn’t looking.”

“I got the card,” she said. “Go on back.”

He did.

* * *

Mag maneuvered through the crowd, touching a crystal vase, then a butter mold, then a Victorian lamp. From across the room, she looked up from the pewter charger she was admiring to find Lou at the back, fussing over the floral wingback.

She still loved to watch him move and could still see the raw-boned athlete she had fallen for all those years ago. The image of Lou at thirty-four was a permanently imprinted in her mind like the photograph of the family forebears that hung in the hall: confident gaze, skin an inch thick, his face framed by dark brown hair, and the gold major’s leaf and infantry crossed rifles pinned to the collar of his khaki shirt.

Maggie first saw him on the edge of the Fort Benning pool, blanched and skinny, smelling of cocoa butter, limping from war wounds that left half-dollar-sized pits notched into his thighs. He had “gimped” over to her towel, mumbling something about birds. When she looked into his eyes, which were as blue as the pool, she saw ambition and naïveté and sensed that this was a man who would always need help. Hers.

Of course when things between them grew serious, he had to pass inspection, to meet mother. The pipeline had already sounded the alarm on him—something about disobedience of orders in Vietnam. The last thing her family needed was a rebel. But on that first Sunday afternoon around the table, father and Lou hit it off immediately and all the dark clouds lifted.

And why not? she mused. Lou was an infantryman to his bones. “A field officer, born to a true passion for mud,” father had said. Let spit-shined shoes go to hell. Lou was clearly a young man secure in his strength and still full of optimism, Nam be damned. Oh yes, he might need a little help from someone up the line to get his career in the Army re-ignited, someone like… well, father wore three stars on his collar.

The courtship was a short one. Once father got things straightened away with the Army, a new duty station beckoned. With mother’s help, Maggie threw the wedding together in two weeks, reserving the room at the Blue Ball Inn for their wedding night, which, as she recalled, was hot and silly. Lou had placed her on the bed in the wrestler’s starting position—kneeling on all fours—giggling. He knelt beside her and wrapped her arm over his back and around his chest. At the command, “wrestle,” he gripped her wrist and rolled, bringing her over the top of him, and kept rolling until she was beneath him and their noses touched.

Then he got quiet. He could’ve snapped her like a twig, but his hands were gentle on the small of her back. He fixed his eyes on her face and wouldn’t let go, focusing first on her chin, then her eyebrows, just as he did when the children were born—inspecting them, admiring them, absorbing them. His eyes fixed on hers and burrowed into them, out of focus now, and close, as close as it was possible to be.

He still had it. She saw it in him: the combination of strength and vulnerability that had drawn her in, back on the towel at Benning. She wasn’t the only one who saw it. Women still looked—like the little secretary in the office. He’d said that his “indiscretion” hadn’t meant anything, and they’d come through it.

* * *

Lou watched Mag at the front table as she scrutinized a large blue and white plate, holding it away, then close, turning it over and over, caressing the front and back with graceful fingers. Approaching fifty, she was still beautiful. Only her eyelids, and maybe her butt, made any concession to gravity. Actually, the years had made her even more appealing to him. She had a deliberate, easy way with people that spoke to her innate ability to see through to the truth of things. She had reserves to draw on, reserves that steered them both through trouble, no matter what happened. And she never seemed to fuss over herself. In his favorite photograph of her—an errant curl on her forehead, the collar of her blouse just slightly askew—he found her dazzling.

What was it, two years since he’d gone over two hundred pounds, fifteen over his wrestling weight? He’d never forget the day when, for the first time, he glimpsed breasts—his own—in the mirror. Now it was his hands; they’d lost all their strength. He remembered the summer he hadn’t been able to get the Phillips-head screw out of the screen door hinge and finally had to call a carpenter. The guy was forty, fifty years old— a regular blue collar guy with his pants drooping off his butt and under that medicine ball he carried in front—but he’d managed to get the screw out in a second. Of course, he had the right tools: an electric screw driver, and hands—like bagels—hard and brown.

So there was the specter of the breasts, and then, of his drooping pants. It was only because they either had to droop or be pulled up under his armpits, and he'd rather have the puddling in the back than showing a burl in front.

From across the room, through a veil of blue smoke, Mag looked like she did thirty years before when he first saw her testing the low dive at the Fort Benning pool; when she stretched out on a thick towel on the hot concrete pool deck and reached for her paperback—Roger Tory Peterson’s Guide to American Birds. He remembered he’d wasted no time making his move.

“Hot! Hot! Hot! Sorry. I’ll only perch here a second,” he’d said. “What’s that you’re reading about...birds?”

Over the next two months, they, but mostly she, carved a smooth, youthful relationship built on wisecracks, confidence, candor, and quirkiness, as evidenced by her adamant choice of the inn at Blue Ball, Pennsylvania, for their wedding night. Lou recalled a pair of globes, just above the door of the two-story tavern, that swung in the wind as he and Maggie roared into the weedy, gravel parking lot, dust swirling at the bumpers of their white, ’58 Thunderbird convertible. Hand in hand they ran—his Army dress blues, epaulets askew and missing the bow tie, and her frilly, white gown hiked up to her shins—to the reservations counter, past faces peering from the darkness of the beery taproom.

Upstairs, halfway down the hall, he swept his arm behind her knees, lifted her, and twirled into the room. Champagne bottle in hand, his senses swirled with the dusky smell of the dark, floral wallpaper and the ceiling fan turning, slowly, amplifying the heat and wetness growing on their faces and in the crooks of their arms, twirling, on her nose, her neck, down her spine to the small of her back, twirling, between her breasts and on her throat and lower, in her navel, and down.

Blue serge and white silk and lace trailed away from the huge, four-poster bed on which he made ringers with her garter and panties.

“Put your hands behind your head,” he said.

After which she said, “Mama told me to make this fantasy last a lifetime.”

In the beginning, neither of them thought much about anything, giving in, instead, to raging hormones. Two months after he’d pulled her out of the Benning pool, they were joined for life. He was ambitious; she was vigorous. And in two and a half years, they managed to produce two healthy boys and a Danish modern dining room set. Now, after traveling around the world through twenty-five years of Army life, they were back in Glen Rock, struggling with the transition to civilian life.

“I’m not wild about the wingback, Mag. The seat’s too short. It catches me right in the back of my...”

“Just checking,” she interrupted. They’re a lot cheaper here than they would be down at Gorman’s.”

“See anything else?”

“The butter mold’s nice.”

“How about one of those window fans up front? If we can get one for a song...”

“I was thinking about that too.”

Mag watched Gordon Peters, the auctioneer, settle behind his podium. He was tall and beefy, with a reddish tinge to his thinning hair. He went through his preliminary instructions like a volunteer at a blood donor center checking off diseases, warning them not to bid if they hadn’t inspected the item, explaining about sealed bids, blah, blah, blah. He had a gavel and a little block of marble to bang on. But when things got started, he forgot about the gavel and instead clapped his hands when an item sold. He dwelled on the cheap box lots, holding up the cheesy contents—a can opener, a ball-peen hammer—trying to squeeze the last six bits out of each box. Christie’s, it was not.

In the four years since they’d driven through the gates of Fort Dix for the last time, Lou still struggled with the transition to civilian life. Having commanded a three-thousand-man infantry brigade, he now found himself sitting in a closet-like room dominated by a desk littered with paper: the office of Sal Marino, branch operations guru, a small man with grayness sneaking in on all sides. Sal deftly handled all the niggling admin problems in the branch, and, when time allowed, dabbled in commodities – pork bellies, wheat, corn, and soybean oil. Sal was important, about as important as the warrant officer who ran Lou’s brigade motor pool years ago. And this little confab was tantamount to Lou dodging grease rags while shooting the bull with his head mechanic, something that would never have happened in the old days. Nevertheless, of all the people he’d met in the civilian business world, Sal’s quiet sureness felt best.

He spoke in a gravelly voice. “Not so easy slipping out from under the eagles, I bet, Lou,” he said. “Not that I ever wore eagles.”

“I thought I had it locked,” Lou said. “Then...”

“What do they call it? A seamless transition?”

“Yeah, infantry bull colonel to financial services executive in one little step. Ha.”

“Hey, you did it.”

“I did?”

“You’re here aren’t you? You’re drawing real checks every month.”

“I wanted to hit the ground at a fast trot in full gear, so to speak. No moping around. No muttering about soldiering circles around all the young studs nipping at my butt for the last four years.”

“It’s not an easy jump, Lou. What did you know about stocks and bonds? What had you ever sold before you made your first cold call?

“I never thought about selling, Sal. I was heading for a big office in a big bank.”

“Sometimes all you get is a consolation prize.”

“‘Hop on that civvie fast track,’ I’d said. ‘Get fired up. Let go of the shelter of the US infantry.’ I had big plans.”

“The market won’t stay in the toilet forever.”

“Sure. Besides, it’s already too late to make a move to something else. I’ve been out there looking. The whole frigging economy is based on downsizing fifty-year-olds.”

“Hang with it, Lou. Swisher loves you.”

“I don’t know, Sal. It’s this image that keeps me up at night: the clean edge of an axe on the back of my neck.”

It was all true. In twenty-one years, he’d rocketed up the ranks of the infantry to full bird, commanded every unit from a rifle platoon to infantry brigade, and written the book on mechanized infantry river crossings. He’d swallowed the carefully nurtured image of the career soldier as the modern-day knight in shining armor—above the shit of normal life, prepared to give his all for the hopelessly undisciplined civilian herd.

He’d seen the axe falling on comrades all around him, yet had kept the delusion that they’d never sever him from the Corps. Never. But it was all over with the stroke of a pen. Finished. Done. A whole career. Like his footprints in the mud and rain at Ban Me Thuot, the only trace left of him after two years of combat duty eroding before his eyes in two minutes flat.

He and Maggie had clung to the world they invented together when Lou gambled with this choice of the securities business as his new career, a decision that haunted him because he knew he forced it on himself out of pride again, and it had come back to bite him. Out of necessity, they’d scaled back on some of the elements of the good life as they knew it. But he wasn’t about to cave. He was still the same man, and their life together was still alive. And just to prove it, he resolved to haul his old swagger out of moth balls. His step would project conviction again—a certainty that some things were due him after all the years. He didn’t have to answer to anybody about them. It was just the way it was going to be. He would travel light and ready. He would never leave the house again without three hundred bucks in his wallet.

For her part, Maggie had seized on the auctions as a way for them to get back to where they’d been long before. And so, when she’d proposed the auction tonight, it would’ve been tantamount to unrequited faith for him to refuse.

And it wasn’t the worst way to spend time. Mostly he sat and let Gordon Peters’ voice trail away. It was a safe place; the two of them together, alone with their thoughts, waist deep in a broth of uncertainty, but at one with the white elephants of other people’s lives.

“How much do you think the butter mold’s worth, hon?” she asked.

“Hmm? The butter mold...If you can’t get it for a...”

“I wouldn’t go any higher than fifteen for it. It’s cracked.”

“You better get in quick then,” he said.

“He probably won’t even get to it at this rate.”

“How about a cup of coffee? They still sell it downstairs?”

“I’d like a cup,” she said.

“Don’t buy the wingback while I’m gone.”

In the basement he found a couple of women selling coffee and Coke for the benefit of Meals on Wheels. There was a line of about five people ahead of him. The shuffling of feet on the floor above blended into the hissing chat in the basement. The auctions were now a constant in their life, and they clung to them as a link to their early days together, when they needed to work at acquiring the accouterments of a household in a way that was as far as possible from thrift shops or lawn sales. They could always give the impression of being hot on the trail of a good Sheraton drop leaf table. Yes, auctions filled their evenings in a way far better than small talk, television, or stale sex could. It had come that far.

“Here, don’t let it get away from you, Mag. It’s hot. Did I miss anything?”

“The wingback went for a hundred and ninety.”

“Is that good?”

“I’ve seen cheaper.”

Peters grunted and held the cheesy window fan over his head. It was a GE, three-speed. “Good as gold,” he said.

“Who’ll start if off at fifteen dollars? Who’ll give me fifteen? You couldn’t buy it at K-Mart for three times that. Fifteen dollars. Who’ll say fifteen?”

A very young guy, his teenage, pregnant wife sitting beside him just two rows up, raised his card and called out, “Three dollars,” not too loudly.

* * *

Lou and Mag’s trouble had started with his peacetime tour of garrison duty in Korea—his first hardship tour, during which Mag and the kids couldn’t be with him. It was back twenty-five years or so, only five years into their marriage, when she was twenty-seven and he was thirty-three. It was because of a clown named Morrison who resembled Fred MacMurray grinning his ass off all the way through Flubber. If she hadn’t told him about the affair in that long, sorrowful letter, it probably would’ve been better all the way around.

He had taken some leave and flown back home. They had talked it to death, concluding that it hadn’t been planned, it had just transpired—as in the “shit happens” school of human relations. It would never happen again and they each would always be an open book to the other, which was a piece of cake for her and hell for him.

She had fundamentally changed in his eyes and seemed to wear guilt like mittens in August, while he carried moral superiority like an ice cube in his mouth. To him, this unfaithfulness of hers had no roots in anything that he had or had not done. In his mind, he had always been scrupulously without fault. The affair just confirmed what he’d always known about human nature and set the invisible cassock he wore even firmer round his shoulders.

That was before his own tumble.

* * *

“Ten dollars. “Who’ll bid me ten and go?”

A skinny man in a hunter’s hat, leaning against the side wall yelled, “Five dollars!” Peters, with the gavel, ignored him.

“Who’ll bid me seven? Seven. Seven dollars. Who’ll bid me seven dollars?”

“Six!” said the kid.

“Six? You can’t buy a block of ice for six bucks. Six?” The young guy nodded and Peters sneered.

* * *

In Maggie’s mind, it had been cold, calculated retaliation, and in Lou’s, spontaneous combustion. Lou had been banging away as usual at his office, trying to make the draw. He asked Suzy, the secretary he shared with two other guys, to stay late and help him get out a mailing—stuffing and addressing envelopes for a lecture he was planning for the next week. He had just made his last call of the night, trying to get old Arthur Hemberger to go for some Connecticut Turnpike revenue bonds. It was about nine o’clock.

He’d assumed Suzy had finished up with the envelopes and taken off because he couldn’t hear any noise behind him. But then there she was, standing right beside his chair, close. As she spoke, she put her hand on his shoulder and then to his neck.

“About finished?” she asked.

“I thought you’d left, Suzy. Yeah, I’m finished.”

As he spoke, he halfway turned in his chair to look behind him at the pile of mail she’d been working on. She didn’t move.

“I’m finished too.” she said.

He was twisted in his chair. She was standing right beside and over him. Reflexively, he had very nearly patted her fanny when he said, “Good girl. I really appreciate that.”

* * *

“I got six. Who’ll give me seven? I got six and who’ll go seven? Seven. Seven. Who’ll give me seven dollars for the fan?”

Against the side wall in the hunter’s hat, the card flashed.

“Seven!” Peters boomed, clapping his hands.

* * *

She was young and lithe and Eurasian. For as long as she’d been in the office, maybe six months, he’d spent more than a few seconds admiring her slim frame and then trudging upstairs to the lunch room to lash himself with birch branches.

“Coffee?” he’d asked.

They spent about forty-five minutes together, counting the time closing the office and in the coffee shop, ordering and then sitting around. For starters, he guided the conversation around to her schooling and favorite subjects. She wanted to know about his family. He quickly changed the subject back to her schooling. She asked about his home town and college. He asked about her boyfriends.

She said she didn’t have any boyfriends, that none of the men her age seemed to know what was going on. He was glad that it was close to ten o’clock.

* * *

“I got seven and who’ll go me eight?”

Again the young guy. And the bid went to eight.

* * *

The parking lot had been nearly deserted. A very light August sprinkle fell like chalk lines in the light from the fluorescent street lamps. He should’ve said, goodnight and let that be the end of it, but he found himself walking her to her car. When she was inside, she rolled down the window and looked up at him. Little drops of rain dotted her chin, and her eyes glistened in the light from the overhead lamp.

“France Nuyen,” he said.

“Who’s he?” she answered.

“I guess you never saw ‘South Pacific.’”

“What’s that?” she asked. And then before he could answer, she continued, “Would you like to go somewhere else?”

“Where? What?” was all he could manage.

“To my place,” she said.

Her place was a small, modern apartment in Hackensack. Almost as soon as they were through the door, she was down to her underwear and he was sliding his leg out of his pants. The affair was short and athletic, and Maggie knew about it within two days.

* * *

“And I got eight, who’ll give me nine? I got eight and who’ll say nine? Nine. Nine. Who’ll bid me nine?” Peters said, looking toward the side wall and the hat.

Mag consulted the list of possible acquisitions she’d penciled on the back of the bidding card at the start of the auction, and then scratched them out one by one. Gordon Peters was outdoing himself, wringing the last nickel out of every item. It looked like it was going to be a long night, and Lou was already drumming his fingertips on the seat of his chair.

“I called home while you were downstairs,” she said. “There was a message on the machine from Cal Swisher. He wants you to call tonight.”

“Well, here we go. It’s going to hit the fan this time.”

“Finish your coffee and then call. Maybe he wants to give you a raise.”

“Maybe he wants me to fly to the moon.”

Lou worked his way down the row of bidders, doing his best to avoid toes and handbags stashed on the floor. Down the hall and past the men’s room, he could hear the jukebox and the sound of tinkling ice. The telephone was right outside the bar. He plugged his free ear and listened to the ringing of the phone on the other end of the line.

“Hello, Cal, this is Lou. Somebody leave the office door unlocked again?”

“No, no, nothing like that, Lou. I just wanted to pass a message to you from up the line.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“C’mon Lou, loosen up. I’m on the horn with Patricia Buck this morning, gabbing about all kinds of stuff, and the military pops up out of nowhere, honest to God. And before I know it, she’s asking about you, specifically.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. That’s what all my questions were about this afternoon. Listen, I have no idea what it’s about. It could mean almost anything. My advice is, go with the flow. Patricia would like to see you in her office tomorrow around nine-thirty. Think you can make it?”

“Do mink stink?” Lou replied.

* * *

He worked his way back to his seat beside Mag. What the hell can this be? he wondered. He gazed all around the smoke-filled room and saw Peters droning on. And, for the first time, he saw a man in a dark overcoat and “Indiana Jones” fedora standing at the front of the room. Their eyes met, and the man looked away. Lou kept watching, and then he locked eyes with the man again.

* * *

“Nine dollars. Nine dollars. Anyone for this GE fan? You all through? SOLD to number... thirty-four for eight dollars.”

“I’m glad the kids got it.”

“The kids?”

“The fan. They got the fan. Never mind. Let’s go home. He’ll never get to the butter mold anyway. What did Cal say?”

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

* * *

Lou pushed open the door of the Elks Club and luxuriated in the silence of the parking lot and the night air that pressed against his eyelids. He walked beside Maggie with her fingers clutching his biceps. Patricia Buck wants to talk infantry. Across the lot, for just a moment, he thought he saw the “Indiana Jones” fedora again, ducking into a dark, two-door sedan.

In the pit of his stomach, the ulcer induced by the stress of the last four years sent his old friend, pain, careening around the lining as if on a skateboard. He could sometimes dull this aching hollow with sleep; fuzzy logic told him that he could anesthetize it with scotch. When they got home, he tried a tumbler of Dewar’s on top of a hot shower, but at eleven o’clock, he and Maggie still sat upright in bed, talking low.

Chapter Two

“Patty. That’s a cute little name.”

“Not Patty, Mag. Jeez. Not Pat. Just Patricia. Remember the little tap dance I went through when I first met her?”

“Your first interview at Pierson Browne.”

“Right. Still at Fort Dix with three months till discharge and masterfully orchestrating some very serious discussions with Manufacturers Hanover, only the fourth biggest bank around...”

“And you’re masterfully shown the door.”

“Hey! Not before they’d agreed that my vast management experience and demonstrated ability to organize and expedite were just what they needed.”

“What was it again, global something or other?”

“The global custody business. It’s big, Mag, very big.”

“Never mind that you’d never heard of it.”

“Wait a minute. Management is management. The details of the business are incidental.”

“What a crock.”

“Listen, girl. Leadership is a scarce commodity, even on Wall Street. Those were Maggiore’s exact words.”

“Well, you almost had it.”

“I was sure it was in the bag.”

“It was too good to be true.”

“It was three hundred people. Hell, I commanded three thousand.”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“Big jobs bring big money.”

“Big jobs you don’t know anything about?”

“There I am, in Tim Maggiore’s corner office with the wraparound windows, the big shiny desk, and the little brown water carafe. The last interview. Hallelujah.”

“Stop. You’re killing me,” Mag protested.

“He says, ‘Lou, I’m sorry, but certain people up the line have expressed some doubts about anyone’s ability, let alone yours, to pick up on the complexities of the global securities business right out of the blocks, so to speak. It’s a very tricky arena, and with someone coming to it with no experience at all...’”

“Don’t start,” Mag injected. “You’ll be thinking about it all night.”

“And I say, ‘Ted, let me at least talk to these certain people.’ And then he starts in on forward foreign exchange, and zero coupon bonds, and I could just feel it slipping away, Mag.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, fighting a yawn.

“I can still feel his hand on my back as he ushered me out. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Lou. Here, look up Patricia Buck over at Pierson Browne. I told her I was sending you over.’”

“Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d just thrown you out, instead of being so nice about it.”

“‘Colonel Christopher, your résumé is very impressive. Very.’ Patricia’s exact words, Mag. Then she copped a sneak at the shoes, barely suppressing a laugh. I should’ve invested in a pair of Guccis before I saw anyone. ‘Although we don’t have anything for you here in headquarters right now, I know Calvin Swisher out in the Paramus branch is looking,’ she said.”

“Well, Swisher was impressed even if Patty wasn’t. Look at it that way, darling. You’re too ready to beat yourself up.”

“Yeah. Well, I only waited a minute or two in the lobby, and then Swisher’s calling me into his office. I was impressed. Why not? The place was posh. Calvin was smooth.”

“I remember the sour little look you had on your face as you headed over there to interview with him.”

“Okay, so I was cynical. I didn’t let it show, even though there wasn’t one person in the bunch that could’ve handled my brigade. I can still picture it: Swisher rocking in a big chair, his tasseled loafer perched on the waste basket. Cufflinks flashing. Fingers fidgeting with the knot of his power tie.”

“You really don’t like these people, do you, Lou?”

“Oh, Swisher’s a bag of wind, Mag. I already told you how he bragged about his tour of duty on a cruiser in the South China Sea in the sixties. Somebody tipped me off, so I knew, going in, that if I showed any interest at all in his bilge water, I was golden.

“So, first thing out of his mouth was: ‘How the fuck do you think you can sell stock when you never sold a goddamn thing in your life, Christopher?’ To which I fired back, ‘Are you telling me that Napoleon didn’t have to sell his Army? Walking all the way back to Paris, in the coldest Russian winter in a hundred years? Pickett didn’t have to sell his division? Charging across a wheat field into the mouths of cannon at Gettysburg?’

Imitating Swisher: “‘What a magnificent load of horse shit. You’re a fucking natural.’ Verbatim, Mag,” Lou said. “No kidding. I don’t know why I didn’t just pick up and walk out the door. ‘Sell, baby, sell.’ Those were his exact words.”

Mag looked at him seriously. “It’s what brokerage is, darling. You knew that. You didn’t have to jump at the first thing that came your way. We had time.”

“The quietness of the place was, I don’t know, seductive—almost like a library, if it weren’t for the ticker tape rattling in the corner.”

“And, of course, playing with money always seems to be such serious business. It would be unseemly to make any noise.”

“Mag, please. It’s investing, not playing. It can be fun, sure. And why not? Actually, it has a little bit of a professorial feel to it. You have to know something.”

“Lou, honey, let’s stop talking about it. It was a mistake. Give it a rest.”

“You make your own luck, Mag. I actually thought I could work it as a sort of information service. I do the research, come up with the ideas, and get paid for it.”

“Too bad that’s not what a broker does, darling.”

“I thought it’s what this broker would do. Tweed jackets and elbow patches. Quietly talking to my clients.”

“You let yourself in for disappointment, Lou.”

“Beggars can’t be....”

“You’re not a beggar. Let’s try to sleep. You’ll be ragged in the morning, if we don’t.”

“You sleep, Mag. I can’t stop the wheels from turning. Turn off the light. It’s all right with me.”

“You’re assuming this is bad news. Maybe it’s good news,” Mag said, settling her head onto the pillow.

“How could I have sunk so low? It was like taking basic training over.”

“It was mandatory. You didn’t need it.”

“I needed some of it, to tell the truth.”

“Very little.”

“You never met Borchard, did you? Clarence met me at the door of training at 14 Wall and led me through all this brass and cherry paneling. He was kind of a round, pink man. I think his contacts were scratching his eyeballs, the way he blinked all the time.

“He said, ‘Louis, you’ll see right off that most of the people here in training are as much as ten or fifteen years your junior. Fact is, they’ve in all probability jumped between two or three jobs by now. And to them, this is just another shot in the dark. Now you...you’ll seem a little mysterious to them. They don’t understand baggage, Louis.’ He poked the air with his finger when he spoke and flicked away at the spit that collected at the corners of his mouth.

“I said, ‘I’ve been called a lot of things...’

“‘You come with baggage, Louis. A history. You look like you might be a big hitter from another firm somewhere, coming in here with a big book. But, you just might find it to your advantage, in the beginning, to let these young hotshots here think whatever they want. Keep quiet. Smile.’

“So I did. Then, maybe three weeks into training, Patricia came around to meet the new blood. By this time the other trainees had thoroughly trashed the big hitter theory. She remembered me. Played it perfectly, completely neutral, like we were colleagues, if not equals, meeting for a chat. No way is she going to remember me now.”

Lou looked over at Mag and saw that her eyes were closed. He reached for the light and flicked it off. He slid down under the sheets, turned to his side, and closed his eyes, but sleep still eluded him and the movie projector in his mind rolled on.

Clarence had continued, “I want to be completely open and honest with you, Louis. It would be stupid of me not to. This training—all of it—well, it’s not really something that you, or anybody else for that matter, couldn’t bring off just fine without devoting all of this intensive study to it.

“You’ll pick up the gist of the whole thing pretty quickly, I’d say. The ancient science of reading a sucker’s body language, for instance, is not all that tricky.”

“Okay,” Lou had said, glancing at the ceiling.

“Play along, Lou. It’s only six weeks.”

Right from the start, the training’s emphasis had been on salesmanship. Straight away, they had him practicing a cold call spiel on the telephone and working out a technique on closed circuit television for snaring a husband and wife on a good mutual fund story. Where had all the investment theory gone, he mused.

“The key to this game is imagination and balls,” Clarence Borchard had announced to the assembled training class in the fourth week.

Twelve trainees lounged around a horseshoe-shaped table littered with paper coffee cups, copies of the Wall Street Journal, ashtrays, briefcases, legal pads, and felt-tipped pens.

“And our illustrious leader, Patricia Buck, has them both in spades.”

She couldn’t have been more than forty, Lou recalled¬—a tall woman with a proclivity for short, dark skirts and white silk shirts. She spoke with assurance, mostly thrown over her shoulder like her dazzling scarves, striding through the office with a trail of underlings in her wake.

“Her career could be thought of as something of a model, ladies and gentlemen. If success in business resulted only from steady, unrelenting application and sheer doggedness, she would have wound up sweeping floors.

“But no, she’s a home-run hitter. It permeates everything she does. An hour never passes in which she isn’t on the prowl for the great idea, the ultimate sale.

“When she started as a broker in seventy-eight, her first four months in the office resulted in zero sales. Then she hit it big. She swung fifteen percent of the state pension fund to us on a promise of a hot line to the head of the research department, before she even knew who that was. That’s balls.

“I’m not saying emulate her—you’d be out on your ass in ten minutes if you did—but do learn from her, okay? The lesson is this: go for it.”

And to Lou, side by side at the urinals on a break, Borchard went on more about Buck. “Don’t pass this around, Lou, but Patty Cake’s little stratagem, born of either complete ignorance or sheer brass cojones, would’ve brought down a ton of shit on you or me. But it went down as brilliant with the powers that be. It was something only this cocky broad would do. You heard it here, but I’d deny it to my grave if it ever came back at me.”

Patricia Buck actually had too much energy for her job, he recalled. Since she wasn’t married (there had been a divorce and a daughter somewhere), she spent all her time thinking about the business and the ways in which she could improve her power position in it. She was apt to show up in any one of the branches anywhere in the country on any given day. But, over the course of the last couple of years, she had also taken to politics in a big way. She was a fund raiser without equal.

“After bringing in the state of New York, she never saw a month under thirty thousand gross, ladies and gentlemen,” Borchard had said, continuing his monologue to the training class. “Not bad. And nothing like what you’re going to take home.”

Raising money led to access. Access led to a little power in the beginning, a little something to say about things in some of the national campaigns. And that little something grew to be real power within the national administration on questions of political strategy and campaign policy.

“Boys and girls,” Borchard crooned, “I’m sure you’ve been following me on this. It’s the corporate hero story and the moral is: the way to get ahead at Pierson Browne is to forget about conventional wisdom and org charts and find a way—any way—to land the account. Balls.”

Finally, the weight of the hour began to press on his eyelids. So, Patricia Buck wants to talk infantry to Lou Christopher out of the Paramus office. It was his last conscious thought before he slept and the second feature rolled.

* * *

Jagged clumps of mist float above the forest canopy. Thunder rumbles. Heavy drops of rain pepper a muddy camp. Nearby lies a fire base, ringed with barbed concertina wire, its center lacerated by trenches linking sandbagged bunkers and the parapets of three 105mm howitzers.

Tall, dark, gaunt, and moving as if he were underwater, Lou inspects his patrol. His eyes glisten through the lampblack covering his face and neck. Sweat beads cover the bridge of his nose. Staring down a boyish private, he flips the young man’s AR-16 rifle over and over. He sniffs, and then claps the side of the private’s helmet.

“You missed your ears with the lampblack. Lose the Right Guard. Tape the sling.”

Accompanied by stocky platoon sergeant, Mulrane, he stalks the line of six soldiers. His eyes rove over the next man. He takes his rifle in a swift, snapping grab; turns it over easily in his hands; thrusts it back; rips the hard pack of Marlboros from the soldier’s helmet band; skids it into the mud; and then jerks his dog tags out onto his chest.

“No smoking. None. Understand? Tape those tags to keep them quiet. Five minutes, sergeant.”

He inspects his own two grenades, ammo clip, and rifle sling. He pulls a flare pistol out of his shirt, clears it, and shoves it back home. Then he snatches the demolition generator from a pouch on his belt and spins the handle. Blue threads of lightning leap between the poles. He glides to the head of the column.

Private Thomas Holt—Tommy, radioman—(taller than he, thinner, with thick glasses) runs a commo—communications—check: “Eagle three this is Fuzzy Delta, over.”

For a full week—straining to see through a screen of tangled leaves during the day and listening at night for phantom clicks—they have stayed in position. No more, though. Against orders, and to keep their nerve, the ambush patrol steals out the gate of Fire Base Eagle.

Blackness occupies the bamboo thicket where the men are hiding. All is quiet except for their frightened, labored breathing.

On a stretch of footpath glistening in the gray night, Lou bends over a Claymore mine, fingers working expertly. He clips a long string of wire onto its curved back, and then threads the wire through the poles of the hand-held generator. Finished, he slides into the clump of wood stalks, touches Mulrane, and starts the silent signal rippling through the line of men.

A platoon of NVA, one by one, glides by as if levitating over the hard-packed dirt trail, their AK-47 rifles and B-40 rocket launchers slung across their chests at the ready, their faces gleaming, wet and waxy.

His heart thumps audibly. A sharp, scared ache clutches his trachea.

He spins the handle of the generator. The night erupts in flame and chaos—the staccato chop of AR-16s, the thump of grenade launchers, screams of confusion and fear.

On their bellies, the soldiers rattle through the bamboo to the rear of their position—all except Holt, who writhes in pain, ugly, purple holes dug in the flesh of his torso.

“Where’s Holt!” Lou shouts.

“He’s hit, lieutenant!” Mulrane shouts over the noise.

“Get the men back to rendezvous, sergeant. Give me ten minutes, then go!”

“No way, lieutenant! We circle the wagons right here until you get back!”

“Ten minutes, sergeant. Go! Now!”

The fronds and branches of the jungle reach out to grab Lou as he runs, then crawls back. The enemy, what’s left of it, searches methodically.

“Can you move?” he whispers to Holt.

“Lieutenant. I can’t feel anything.”

From the harness of his rucksack, he extracts a grenade. He pulls the pin and heaves. Crunch! Another. Crunch! On his feet, he empties his AR-16 into the bamboo thicket, throws the weapon aside. He hauls Holt to his shoulders. The night flashes with NVA small arms fire.

Then he feels it: a shot to the butt. Like a punji stake shoved to the bone and twisted. He’s hit.

“Get out of here, lieutenant!”

Groping in the darkness, he finds Holt’s harness and two more grenades. Pulls the pin. Crunch! Again. Crunch! Staggers to his feet. In the open. Drags Holt to his shoulders again. Rips the flare gun from his shirt. Points to the sky. A single flare arcs, crests, bursts, and becomes three red clusters settling into the treetops.

The howitzers of Base Camp Eagle crump in the distance and the trail ignites with the blast of high explosive and white phosphorous artillery shells.

Clopclopclopclop. Down the deep valley. The UH-1B medevac yaws, hovers, and then settles into the mud. The men of the patrol lift the wounded, slide them into the belly of the ship, and then gather in a worried clutch at the door to reach in, touch them, and tuck a heavy wool blanket around them.

He, face up, Holt face down, ashen, eyes staring straight from their filthy faces. Holt’s muddied hand in his. Mulrane waving at the door. Rising. The world spinning outside. Deep green jungle mountains turning to blue.

Medics rush in. Lift them on litters. Someone, Colonel Readfield, bends over Holt, strokes the side of his face. Bends over Lou, curled in a painful crescent, face to the side, breath coming in short, rasping gulps.

Readfield hangs over him, fist gripping the shoulder of his fatigue shirt, eyes boring into his ear, stale cigar juice poisoning his air.

“The private looks bad, hear?” Readfield shouts. “Hear? You, you’ll live. You were told to sit tight up there. Sit tight and report. A man gets shot up. You’ll get yourself a goddamn Silver Star. Take it home with you. Tell your kids someday what a hero you were. But get the hell out of this Army, Lieutenant Christopher.”

Chapter Three

The day started off with a rear view of Mag at the window in a flimsy, mauve, night thing.

“Look, a Pine Warbler,” she said, her face pressed to the glass.

“I’m staying right here,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head.

She crawled back in beside him and he began to rub her lower back, just the way she liked it; and if the alarm clock rang, they didn’t hear it. She delivered him to the station, panting.

The eight-fifteen was nearly empty as its silver cars clacked into the station pushed by a solid black diesel. A mother and her toddler at the far end of the platform boarded at the same time he did. The horn was unique. Two short bla noises and a mournful wa wa wa sounded just as it passed Sterling Place where they lived, a block from the tracks.

It was the tail end of the rush hour out of Bergen County, a milk run hitting all the stops to Hoboken, not the train favored by even the oldest veterans of Wall Street. You had to take the 8:07 Express if you wanted to be on the floor of the Exchange at the bell.

The sprawl of Bergen County blurred through the window as they sped toward the Hudson River. The conductor rocked down the aisle of the lurching train, stopped, and then spread out to steady himself as he reached for Lou’s ticket, tucked into the seat in front of him. Lou had not had time to get a newspaper, so he sat idly and his thoughts went their own way.

Something was missing. Whenever he talked with Mag about how this whole crummy deal came to be, they seemed to skip the main point. Well, he didn’t skip it. He chose to avoid it. It had to do with the boys. Mag could never understand. It was the paths they’d taken in life. Like it or not, he’d pushed them toward this crazy “follow your bliss” crap. He never had it as an option, but, by God, there was no reason why they wouldn’t. And so, in the end, the decision to “go brokerage” was a need-to-have-a-paycheck-right-away decision; and that was ultimately a complication of fatherhood, not career choices.

Pete, their firstborn, was contemptuous of authority from his first breath. He had always been more interested in building a world acceptable to himself than in finding a place in the one everyone else inhabited. He knew how to take care of himself, that one. Pete had done a lot, including cocaine. He’d seen no reason for college until he hit twenty-seven, when he began to think that law was for him. All this after only eight years of marriage and two boys of his own. Quite a transformation. It had taken every ounce of character Pete had to come to him for money—even then, only under the threat of expulsion unless he paid up his tuition.

In Hoboken, Lou squinted against the brilliant sun that knifed through the roof of the station platform and cut a diagonal plane of light through the dusty air. The diesel engine at the back of the train gave off a deafening roar. He made his way to the stairs leading to the tubes.

One of the older Port Authority Trans Hudson cars sat beside the platform. As soon as Lou descended the final two stairs, the putrid odor of sulfur pushed against his face. He went to the change machine, then through the turnstile. There were only a couple of people sitting in the first car. The rotten-egg smell immediately took him back to the training commute. The memory had been locked away somewhere in his brain and now came rushing back like a flood. He braced for the train’s sudden, jerking start he knew would come.

Oliver, his younger son, emerged from a different mold altogether. It wasn’t that he excelled in school; he just dominated schools and the people in them by the sheer force of his personality. From the time he was old enough to speak in sentences, he seemed to always be the center of attention.

The train screeched to a halt and sat in total darkness until a train going in the opposite direction screamed by in a riot of sparks. The train lurched into motion again.

Oliver had misfired during a brief fling with international banking. He responded to logic, however, and it was logical for him to rebound into broadcast journalism as a career. From that came an application to Columbia University at twenty-three and tuition bills approaching thirty thousand. Lou’s pension from twenty-five years of military service was a start, but now he needed more than that, lots more.

Under the World Trade Towers, Lou stepped out of the car as the doors slid open. He strode to the escalators and through the turnstile, and then stepped nimbly onto the long escalator that carried him to the promenade level of the complex. Another short escalator ride deposited him at street level in downtown Manhattan.

He made a right turn coming out of the World Trade Center and walked past NYU, through the Trinity Churchyard, across Broadway. He walked into the shadows of Wall Street, a chill wind burning his face, a kind of low roar joining the dusty air, pushing furrows through American flags that lined the marble canyon walls.

The main offices of Pierson Browne were on the second floor of 14 Wall. It was exactly nine-thirty when he told the receptionist, a woman who could've been Terri Garr, that he was Mr. Christopher. Patricia was expecting him. The receptionist asked him to please have a seat behind the potted plants while she checked Ms. Buck’s availability.

It was nine-fifty when Terri Garr opened the door and said, “Come on in, Mr. Christopher,” then quietly slipped out behind him.

Buck was out of her chair and halfway across the room by the time he got in the door; her handshake was a brief, hard clasp. She wore a short brown skirt, a beige blouse that hugged slightly across her breasts, and a signature scarf draped around her neck and pinned at the side. Her hair was black with one streak of gray, pulled back straight from her face. She wore a light shade of lipstick, and the whole effect made it look as if she had just emerged from a cabana.

“Now that you’re here, I remember you very well, Louis. What was it, four years ago when we first chatted? Cal says you’re doing fine out there in Paramus.” She had small humor lines at the corners of, and just below, her large, black eyes. And when she smiled, her whole face seemed to flash—a flash that said, “look out.”

“Good to see you again,” Lou said. If you’re expecting a “Ms. Buck” out of me, you’ll have a long wait.

“You’re not used to the wind down here in Manhattan,” she said, glancing at his ruffled hair. “I like your shoes.” Flash. “How do you like Paramus?”

“How could you not like Paramus?” he said, ignoring the dig at his hair.

The office was immaculate. Buck used a Sheraton writing table as a desk, its surface barren save for a thin crystal bud vase and a yellow rose. Her chair was black leather. Next to it, by the large window that overlooked Wall Street, a tall dictionary stand held a cream telephone console that periodically blinked red.

Buck motioned to the corner of the office where a camelback sofa sat between two big wingback chairs and faced one of those Chinese Chippendale tea tables. What had she paid for that little gem? Maggie would have flipped.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, Louis? I’m going to have one. I can’t get started in the morning unless I have some caffeine.”

“Yes, I’d like a cup,” he said, timing it so that he sat down on the sofa at just about the same time Buck dropped into one of the wingbacks and crossed her legs, exposing a healthy, tanned thigh.

Okay, you have a hell of a thigh, but I’ll roast in hell before I ever let you catch my eyes on it. In fact, if I had a cup of coffee, I’d set it right out there on that thigh, saucer and all.

“Winnie’ll be in, in a minute. How long have you been out in Paramus, Louis? Cal said it’s been long enough to start getting established.”

“Well, it’s been a long haul. Longer than I thought it was going to take. The market hasn’t been the best. The little guy just doesn’t feel much like doing anything with stocks.”

“Maybe you ought to be going after the big guys and leave the little fish to someone else.” Flash. “Cal said you came out of the Army.”

So, here we go.

“Yes, Patricia, the infantry. Other worlds sometimes seem to offer a little more sparkle, don’t they? I felt I ought to be operating on a couple of more cylinders, so to speak.”

“And?”

“And I found that Army life and civilian life aren’t really that much different.”

“How many cylinders are you working on right now, Louis?” Flash.

“Well, I guess I’m operating on all eight, but I’m not sure that my carburetor is adjusted properly.”

At that, Buck laughed, slapped the thigh, rose quickly and strode away toward the door. He refused to give her butt as much as a glance.

Winifred appeared at the door and spoke quietly: “Pardon me, Miss Buck. Your daughter’s in the waiting room.”

“Ashley!” Patricia roared.

A bulky girl of nineteen or so, a baseball cap crushing her voluminous brown hair, strode in and hugged her mother with one arm as an enormous leather shoulder bag slid down her other arm to the floor.

“Darling, this is Mr. Christopher out of the Paramus office.”

“How do you do?” she asked, reaching with the back of her hand.

“Hi, Ashley. Glad to meet you,” Lou said, gripping it lightly. Go on. Kiss it. Go on.

“Sorry to interrupt. I’ll only be a second. Mother, I’m on my way to Bleeker and I’m really short. Could you...? Just a few bucks?”

Buck went swiftly to her writing table and her bag. She pulled out a sheaf of twenties and handed it to Ashley without looking at it.

“Thanks, Mom,” the girl said, kissing her mother on the cheek, slinging the bag to her shoulder again. “I’m out of here. Good to meet you, Mr. Christopher.”

“Goodbye, Ashley,” Lou said.

“Winifred, could we have some coffee in here?” Buck requested, following her daughter to the door. Returning, to him: “Where were you stationed, Lou?” So, now it’s Lou.

“I was mostly overseas in Germany, Korea, and Panama, and two tours in Vietnam. Is that Chippendale?”

“Are you interested in furniture? I know nothing about it. It’s supposed to go well with that mirror over there. They say it was made around 1760 or so.”

She abruptly stood and strode to the telephone. “Winnie, get me Bud Gilhaus in Institutional, will you?” Then almost immediately she started talking in a low voice as she paced over to the window and looked down on Wall Street leaving Lou adrift in mid-conversation. He sat back and gazed around the office. The woman had not a note, not a scrap of paper lying around.

Across the room, she pressed the phone to her chest and said: “So you were a field soldier?”

And before Lou had a chance to respond, turned her back to him again. She was looking out the window and murmuring into the phone. Terri Garr brought in the coffee and placed it on the table in front of him: a silver coffee service and real china.

We’re dancing all around it. Just go with the flow, as Cal put it. Wait her out.

Lou was finishing his cup of coffee when, off the phone, Buck dropped down beside him on the sofa and reached across him for the pot. Okay, the personal touch. Very well.

“Excuse me. As usual there are a number of things going on. Where were we? I think you said that most of your Army time was spent in the field, wasn’t it, Lou? I mean you didn’t get a chance to sit behind a desk.” Flash.

“I didn’t say that, but that’s pretty much the way it was. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy field duty. I did.”

“But you wanted to move a little faster?”

“Something like that.”

“Calvin probably mentioned to you that I’m looking around for someone in the organization to handle an account. What kind of business have you been doing out there in Paramus, Lou? Anything in particular?”

“I’ve done some business in just about everything we handle, Patricia,” he said, playing the first name game. “Munis, common, mutual funds, even some commodities on occasion.”

“How about new issues, secondaries? Any of the oil drilling fund?”

“Those things only come along once in a blue moon for us out in the hinterlands. Any time we get some, we eat them up.”

“Okay, I’m going to turn this account over to you, Lou. All that’s involved is for the contact man on the account to call you from now on, instead of Bud Gilhaus here at 14 Wall. Bud knows that you’ll be handling the account. The client’s name is Barry Westover. I meant to have you talk to him this morning, but it didn’t work out. You’ll just have to deal with him over the phone to begin with.” Flash. “That shouldn’t be a problem?”

She worked her way over to the windows and the phone. She picked it up and spoke in a low voice again. For a good five minutes she talked into the phone, looking out the window.

Lou poured himself another cup of coffee. Finally, Buck turned around and covered the mouthpiece. “Barry Westover will make all of his calls straight to you out in Paramus, Lou,” she said. And five minutes later, off the phone and next to him on the couch again: “I’ll have Bud give you a call tomorrow morning with the account number. The name of the account isn’t important right now. We’ll try to get you and Westover together as soon as we can. Is there anything else you’d like to know about the deal?” Flash.

Anything else, Patty? Yes, I have something else. This is a big new account, and I had squat to do with bringing it in.

“Why is it coming to me? Why now?”

“You’ve been with us close to four years, Lou. You’ve worked hard and we think of you as a quality guy, the kind we want to have sticking with us for a while.” Flash. “All of the producers had a break given to them somewhere along the line. This account was one of mine at one time. I want to know that it’s being handled properly. I want to know that the person who deals with Barry is going to be with the firm for a long time to come. So don’t worry too much about the formalities of how you came to get it. Just do your best to handle it the way we know you can. Okay?”

Bullshit. “You’ve been asking all about my military career. It’s the first time it’s come up in four years with the firm. Anything to it?”

“Listen, Louis. Nobody said the account was yours forever. Think of this as a test; if you pass it, you keep it. As for your military career, it constitutes the bulk of your work experience. I look for dedication in a person before all other considerations. You’ve always shown exceptional commitment and loyalty to important causes, starting as a first lieutenant on Fire Base Eagle in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.”

Who had she been talking to? There probably weren’t two dozen people in the world who knew that Eagle ever existed.

Buck sidled back over to the window and the phone again. With her back to Lou, she seemed to resume her last conversation without interruption. Suddenly she turned and, cupping the phone, said: “Louis, excuse me, I’m not going to be able to get away from the phone all morning and I don’t want to hold you up.”

“I’m out of here,” he said, regretting the mindless Ashley-ism before it was halfway out of his mouth.

“Very good. See Calvin when you get back to Paramus. And Louis, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep all this to yourself for the time being.” Flash.

He stopped in the Trinity Churchyard on his way back to the tubes. He sat on a bench beside the cathedral, watching remnant leaves sail down to collide with eroded gravestones or be sent spinning off the finials of the wrought iron fence. The sounds of construction further down Broadway enveloped him. The April wind swirled down from above, the cold sneaking in through the open collar of his coat. His eyes moved up the wall of the building across the graveyard and came to rest on a mocking gargoyle near the roof line. “Laugh, you bastard,” he muttered.

On his feet, Lou walked the winding path through the churchyard’s sandstone slabs and benches with his hands plunged deep into his coat pockets. An old man, wrapped in a filthy black overcoat, lay sleeping by the stairs going down to Church Street. Lou kept walking toward the twin World Trade Towers ahead.

Slow down. It’s new, that’s all. Play it out. It’s a chance. Take it.

Chapter Four

“Call me Barry,” Westover said, above the buzz of fifteen other conversations in his trading room. “Where’d you run into Patty?”

“Hey, it’s a long story,” Lou said, imitating Westover’s bantering tone.

“She’s a piece of work, isn’t she? Sharp, though.”

“A legend in her own time.”

“You bet. Listen, Lou, I know this is going to work out terrific, so let’s not bullshit. All I really need is good execution.”

“Good execution you shall have,” Lou said.

“Forget about confirming calls and all that. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume everything went fine and I’ll be looking for the confirms the following morning.”

“Gotcha, Barry. No stroking.”

“Put me down for a million of the new Puerto Rico Highways that Pierson Browne’s managing and five hundred thousand of the Bergen County Sewer Authorities that closed out last week.”

“A million Puerto Ricos, five hundred thousand Bergen County Sewers. You got it,” Lou said.

It felt like a fish bone in his throat, a jab of something like panic. He could feel the heat rising up across his cheekbones. He didn’t move from his seat until he began to feel calm returning. Then he stood up and walked slowly all around the perimeter of the bullpen. He sat again and scribbled out orders, then stuffed them into the pneumatic tube cylinder. He punched the button and watched the cylinder fly away to the order room with a loud whoosh.

The next morning, the call came before the market opened. Buy five thousand shares of Inland Steel, five thousand Kennecott, and five thousand International Nickel. Barry mumbled something about probably being a little late getting into the basic metals.

On the third morning, Barry called just before the market closed, asked about the Dow, and promptly ordered the sale of four thousand Proctor and Gamble and the purchase of three thousand Du Pont with the proceeds. Those three days rounded out the pay period for Lou with the largest total of net commissions he ever heard of in a retail office, Buck included, let alone his personal high for a month. Forty-five thousand dollars in gross commissions to his account, counting the piddling eighteen hundred bucks he’d managed to scrape together in the preceding twenty days.

* * *

“Twenty-seven and a half percent of forty-five thousand bucks is what?” he asked, as he and Maggie giggled over the breakfast coffee.

“What did you do for this man, Lou?” Mag asked, lasciviously.

“Six thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five bucks, net,” Lou said, looking up from his scratch paper. “In one month. How much does that add up to in a year?”

“You bust your stones for four years trying to get some of these old farts to part with a thousand dollars, and then strike it rich just because Patty Buck likes the cut of your spinnaker? I don’t get it.”

“Eighty-two thousand! Do you realize that, Maggie? Eighty-two thousand dollars!”

“I think the computer’s in heat.”

“It’s like a vending machine, Mag. Someone slaps in a dollar and the Snickers bar falls out. The machine couldn’t care less who dropped the coin; once it gets going, no one wants to know anything. Heaven forbid, they might step on some tender toes. Once your little name is put down as the man to call, they’ll keep calling until they get another little name. Nobody asks questions. Why should they? How can they? There are certain ways these accounts get set up. Mag, believe me, I could die tomorrow and they’d still be calling me to place orders. It’s beautiful.”

* * *

At first he acted as if nothing was new. Keep cool. Stick with the system. Put in all of the normal calls to drum up business: obligatory calls to the steady customers just to check in on the market and to keep them thinking in the trading way, and prospecting calls to people who had returned one of his mailers. Cater to the gaffers who sit on the sofa staring at the electronic tape marching along on the front wall and then stop at the desk to ask a question about a stock dividend or the latest hot tip from the research department.

After the third day of Westover calls, the old song and dance went right in the toilet. No way was he going to babysit the dorks out there or break his neck on the phone trying to cajole nervous Nellies into sticking their first thousand dollars into the stock market.

The office was dark and quiet when Lou plopped behind his desk in the front of the bullpen. It was a large, open space where all the beginning “account executives” cut their teeth until they were either washed out or they moved into one of the glassed-in offices spaced around the outside wall. Brian Mutcheller, a trainee right out of school, was Lou’s only company in the office. Mutch hunched over a copy of the Wall Street Journal in the back row. The ticker was stopped on the last message of the preceding day’s trading:

VOLUME 2,567,458,123 SHS TRADED

The green letters on the Quotron still recorded his last request of yesterday: IAL 32 ¼. Only the lights from a couple of offices and the fluorescent lights in the back of the pen near Mutcheller kept the office from total darkness. Lou sat back with his feet on the desk.

Just wait. Right? Obviously it was one of the institutional accounts normally handled in the city, where they have direct access to the research department and the syndicate people. Hell, Westover still had to be in touch with those guys. He seemed to know the details of all the latest syndicate deals and what the research mavens were pushing. So wait. Wait. Just wait.

He walked to the back of the bullpen toward the rear corner of the floor: Calvin Swisher’s office. Inside, he placed a little note on his desk: “Cal, can you fit me in for a couple of minutes this morning?”

Swisher hadn’t said a word to him since Lou had stopped into his office to report on what Buck had said. Swisher had to know what was going on. He saw every trade that left the place, but he had chosen to stay away and was going to let Lou come to him.

* * *

It was a year ago now since he had gone to Swisher looking for other answers.

“Cal, listen. I want you to do something for me.”

“Shoot”, Cal said.

“I know you stuck your neck out for me...”

“You’re quitting?”

“No. I’m not quitting, and I don’t have something else to go to. I just want you to ask around for me in town.”

“What, go looking for something in operations?” he said.

“Operations, anything. I’m not making it here. We both know it.”

Swisher reached down into his briefcase at his side and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I’m looking at your sales aptitude scores, here. It says you’re a sure thing. Psychologist’s recommendation, same thing.”

“It doesn’t matter what they say, Cal.”

“The hell it doesn’t! They’re the reason I signed you on in the first place, pal.”

“They didn’t say anything about scrambling for two-bit accounts for months on end.”

“We didn’t hire you to work in the back office. We’ve got a couple of hundred high schoolers doing that.”

“All right. Forget it. Forget I said anything.”

“Go looking, Lou. I couldn’t care less. Any way you slice it, when you wash out of sales, it’s going to come out of my ass. I took you in. It was my mistake.”

“Forget the whole thing,” Lou said, standing to leave.

“The only job you’ll ever have at Pierson Browne, if I have anything to say about it, is sales, mister. Retail fucking sales.”

* * *

Lou had stuck it out for another bad year. Then, thanks to Patricia Buck’s little talk and the Westover account, the nasty little contretemps with Swish quickly became a dim memory.

It wasn’t until shortly before noon that Swisher came out of his office and stood beside Lou’s chair. “Let’s go over to The Brazier for lunch,” he said.

They had martinis and ordered lunch. Cal started out talking about the Jets and how lousy they’d looked on Sunday.

“How’re Maggie and the little ones, Lou?” he asked, switching subjects in midstream.

“Everybody’s fine, Cal. The little ones aren’t little. The last one flew the coop eight years ago.”

“You want another drink? I’m going to. Miss!” Cal called out, swirling his finger around in the glass. “Yeah, two more over here!” He was uncharacteristically nervous, misfiring his lighter before finally touching flame to the end of his Parliament Extra Long. “Cigarette? No, you don’t smoke these little fuckers, do you?”

“Not anymore. Cal, what the hell’s going on? The account hit me with forty-five bills gross in three days. What’s happening? I don’t care how good a guy I am. You know more about all of this than you’re letting on. All I know is an account number and a name. Who’s Westover?”

“Hold on, Lou. You’re shooting questions at me so goddamn fast I can’t keep up with you. I don’t go around second guessing Patty Buck, all right? The broad just about runs this outfit, in case you didn’t know it. She does what she pleases. Now, why don’t you just sit back and relax? You act like a guy who can’t stand prosperity.”

“Calvin, I want you to give Patricia a call today and try to find out something. I can’t function working in the dark .”

“You can function until hell freezes over with this kind of a deal. What the fuck? Lou, almost every man sitting in one of those offices got some kind of a break they weren’t expecting. It must have occurred to you by now that you don’t gross $100K making cold calls. Now, just shut up and eat. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll try to get through to Patricia sometime today.”

* * *

Cal Swisher obviously didn’t want to touch the subject with a ten-foot swizzle stick. Why should he? There was no reason for him to get on the wrong side of Patricia Buck. Branch managers don’t make a practice of questioning prerogatives.

They settled back with a cup of coffee to finish off the meal. “Doesn’t the branch get credit for the gross from this account too?” Lou asked. “I mean, what will all the other branch managers think when they find out that Buck is passing out institutional accounts to the Paramus office?”

“Hold on. Don’t you ever utter a word about this account to anybody in this office or anywhere else. There’s no fucking way in the world that I’m going to let on that it’s in the branch. I’d have an armed rebellion on my hands. Besides, the other managers will never find out either, unless Patricia wants them to. Can’t you get it through that Army brain of yours? You’re fortunate enough to have had Lady Luck come along and sit on your shoulder. If you mind your own business, she’ll just keep right on sitting there. If you make a fuss, the little lady just might drop something there you wouldn’t like.”

* * *

Stock charts are like treasure maps. And while it’s merely fun to spend a couple of hours poring over the charts—looking for a probable breakout, gauging the possible upside potential, confirming against a halfway decent fundamental story, and then going to your book for possible sales—when you’re doing it for your own account, it’s orgasmic.

You drum up some business that way; maybe a dozen trades here and there. They’re good sales because they’re short term. You know the guy’ll get squeamish after a week or so and want to get out. Then there’s the sell side and another commission. And if you hit a couple of winners, you keep going to the same well again and again. Even with a drought of three or four bummers in a row, there’s always that afterglow of a winner that keeps beckoning. You hit it big once or twice and that’s the name of the game. Cut your losses and let your winners run.

Stock charts are simple, concrete, irrefutable, a regular book of color coded graphs of the daily high, low and closing prices of stocks. You can draw in your own trend lines. You can see stocks moving up and moving down. Charts. They’re the direct opposite of fundamental analysis in which some whiz kid expounds on the prospects for a publicly held company in what amounts to a master’s thesis, on IBM for instance. And think of it, with a little extra-curricular study, you can spot a stock in the chart book where the recent activity has busted up through the long-term trend line—and then, oh, joy!

Lou saw one of those “break outs” in the chart of United Semiconductor, a low price stock, which in itself was a turn-on to the average speculator because he could buy more shares of it, and feel like a big time operator. Put all this together with the fact that there was something on the wire about rumors of a merger. It was one of the best stories in the office for a couple of days, and it was all his. It was lucrative, but more, it was a small triumph, a twinge in the scrotum, when he opened his own margin account and slid an order for two thousand shares into the pneumatic tube. Whoosh!

What happens when you stop having to struggle? Part of it is opening a margin account and taking a flyer on a ten-dollar stock off the charts. Part is offering that stock to a client and truly not caring whether she buys it or not.

“Mrs. Gruenwald, this is Lou Christopher. We’re up about two points on the Dow. About eighteen million shares. Not bad for this time of day.”

“How are mine?”

“You’re even on the Talbert and up a quarter on General. Why don’t you get rid of that?”

“I still like it.”

“You’ve been sitting with it for a month and it hasn’t moved at all. I’ve got something else for you. United Semi. Did you ever hear of them? They make components for computers.”

“Computers aren’t going anywhere.”

“Listen, Tilly, let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not fundamentals we’re working here. It just looks good on a chart. Okay? I’m looking for about three or four points in here. You could trade your General for it, even up.”

“What else is good?”

“I’ve got my own money on this stock.”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, I’ve got another call. Think about it.”

“How much is it?”

“It’s right around ten. Gotta go. Give me a call.”

Chapter Five

There was a difference, coming into the office a little before the market opened and sitting at the desk with the Journal, ignoring the tape, checking through yesterday’s tickets, matching them against his confirms, and calling in a mild complaint to Ed the margin clerk, all quietly and deliberately, and then leaning back in the chair to take a call.

“Hello, Vince. Oh, we’re doing just fine. And you?”

“Can you give me some prices, Lou?”

“Vince, I’m going to ask you to take them from Suzy. I got another call. Okay? See you, Vin.”

Lunch was at The Brazier at least three times a week now. Brown bagging it up to the lunch room was a thing of the past, along with hurried tips off the wire between bites of a wilted sandwich.

“Who is it, Suzy? Westover? Put him on. Karl, I’m going to have to cut this short. I’ve got another call. Okay? Call me.”

“Hello. Barry? Good morning. How’s the world treating your bod?”

“Hi, Lou. I just got out of a little two-hour meeting and my ass is squared off. You know what I mean?”

“Those weighty decisions will do that to you every time.”

“Hey, I just got back from a weekend in Connecticut. You gotta get up there. The trees are something else.”

“Where’d you go, Barry?”

“You know New Windsor?”

“Yeah.”

“About halfway between New Windsor and Danbury. I found me a sweet little inn off the beaten track. You have to get away from this crap sometimes. Hell, let me give you this order. We need some of those Kentucky GO’s. Put me in for 250 of those. And if you can get me Telephone under fifty-eight, I’ll take 5000. Got it?”

“Two hundred fifty Kentuckys, and 5000 T under fifty-eight.”

“I want you to get up there in that cool night air, Lou. Hear?”

“It sure sounds good.”

“I’ll be talking to you.”

“You too. Barry, listen, stay off that sore spot.”

Lou stared at the driving rain through the glass doors of the office. It had been coming down steadily all day. It was five o’clock and already nearly dark outside. He didn’t dislike the reflection of himself that he saw in the glass, and that was amazing, considering the shape he’d been in, in the Trinity Churchyard, not so long ago. He’d wait a little bit for the rain to subside.

All the offices around the perimeter of the bullpen were dark now as he slumped into his seat and put his feet up on the desk. He reached over and took the sheaf of order tickets he’d entered that day. There were eight, and five of those were from Westover. He grabbed the phone.

“Mag, I’m hiding out in the office until it lets up a little. Can I get you something on the way home?”

“I have everything I need,” she said.

“Don’t gloat,” he chuckled.

“Forget the rain. Come on home. I’ll dry you off.” Her voice seemed to curl around the receiver and he smiled.

“Mag, I was thinking. We ought to take a little time off by ourselves. Barry was telling me about a ride he and his bride took up to Connecticut.”

Chapter Six

Over the Tappan Zee Bridge, they grabbed the Merritt Parkway for a couple of miles until they hit Route 7 going north. Jeans, shirts, and underwear. At the last minute and completely out of the blue, Lou had called his old friend from the Vietnam days, Sherm Wellington, and invited him and his wife, Virg, to join them up at the inn on Candlewood Lake. The audacity of it—the idea that you could just get up from whatever you were doing at the moment and go—produced a snort from Sherm and a coughing fit from Lou.

“Count me in,” Sherm chortled.

And with that, Lou entered the impulsive world that previously was Sherm’s exclusive province.

Mag brought sandwich makings and wine. When Lou saw her packing a tape recording of the unabridged Pride and Prejudice for the trip, he winced. Silence was deadly. Two consecutive minutes of it were enough to get the tape spinning.

Except for stone walls everywhere, the rolling countryside along the highway was something like Bavaria, at least the part near Augsburg. Weekends, while he was stationed there, they’d roar out the driveway just as soon as he could escape from Saturday morning barracks inspection, pile into the Beetle, and drive through cobbled streets out into the country on a twisting, two-lane road.

South, past Landsberg, they’d pulled off at any point along the way that seemed right for the moment—often just a gravel track that took them out through clover fields and into the cool, coniferous forest. There they’d find a place to sit on a blanket in the pine needles and enjoy a bottle of wine, fresh cheese, and hard bread.

They’d never been short of conversation then. They’d still had a lot they didn’t know about each other and a passion to learn it. In those first few months thirty years ago, they’d told each other everything that came into their minds, regardless of how ridiculous it was or how difficult it would be to back down from later.

In the beginning of his tour of duty, they’d lived in a tiny German apartment—three rooms off a central hallway: a living room, bare save a micro-couch, a chair, and a coal stove; a miniature kitchen with a refrigerator the size of an oven, an oven the size of a bread box, and water made hot at the spigot; and a bedroom that was essentially a large closet, furnished with a high oak bed and its billowing, goose down quilt.

In bed then, they were all the things they were not now: greedy for pleasure, strong, and creative. That first night in Germany, he’d shivered with anticipation until she’d stepped into the room from the frigid hallway in nothing but a blue Navy watch cap, high-heeled slippers, and a pair of woolen mittens. Starting at her toes, he had warmed her up.

They’d collected beer glasses with colorful distinctive decals. The idea was to escape the city on the smallest road they could find and motor on until they found a gasthaus in the middle of some burg—where the smells of spring mud and honey wagons mixed with that of the strong, warm beer—and where it was sure no one spoke English.

Mag passed easily for German: blonde and flushed across the cheekbones. Only Lou’s crew cut and tennis shoes gave them away. Out there in the country, the people knew no English, so it would have to be German or nothing. “Zwei glas bier,” is all it took, as long as he stuck up the two fingers. Sometimes they had cheese and bread with their beer; always they asked to keep their glasses; and almost always they cost a mark each. The liter glasses held maybe an Urbanus Bier, with a burgermeister picture in red and yellow; or a Hasenbrau, with a blue rabbit; or a Fortunabrau, with a hunting horn. His favorite, though, was the Reichsadler-Brau they picked up in Steppach, with its black, double-headed eagle and coat of arms.

* * *

The Connecticut highway seemed to drop away below them. They’d started out after noon. Now they were beyond Danbury, heading north toward Candlewood Lake. They left the highway for a side road and found a spot among the trees where they could look out at the water.

“I’ve been thinking about Germany,” she said.

“The drives? Yeah, I remember.”

“It’s still fun. I’m really enjoying this,” Mag said.

“What? We haven’t done anything yet.”

“Who said we had to do anything?”

“Nobody.”

“No worries. No schedules. We can do anything we want.”

“Anything we want.”

The tops of the pine trees across the lake sliced through the lower half of the sun, robbing their spot of just enough warmth to raise goose bumps on her arm. She pulled a sweater from her oversized tote bag and he helped her with the sleeves.

“I don’t know what’s happening with this Westover account. I don’t know what to do. We did nothing either right or wrong. It just transpired,” he said, twisting against the stiffness in his neck.

“Let’s be careful with it, darling,” she said, softly kneading the base of his skull. “I want to have fun, but I don’t want to get in over our heads. Okay?”

“It’s all probably going to vanish at some point, but we don’t have to trash enjoyment before we even have any.”

“I don’t want to think about it. About too much luck, too much happiness.”

“When it goes, it goes. Meanwhile...Okay, I know there’s some mistake. I could track it down, but I don’t want to find out that I’m right,” he said, moving back onto the highway.

“Did you do anything so bad that you couldn’t tell me about it? Screw someone to get it?”

“I didn’t do anything, period.”

“Any chance you’re going to have to pay it back?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but we have two choices, and I say we spend it.”

“Pack up all your cares and woes,” Maggie sang softly, watching the road and Lou out the corner of her eye.

Chapter Seven

“We’d better find the place,” Maggie said, as the shadows of the forest deepened.

“It’s bound to be right here,” he said.

They saw the sign first, LAKESIDE INN, and then they spotted it through the trees: a low building with screened verandas all across the front and a circular driveway.

“You take care of the room,” Mag said, “and I’ll just mosey over here across the road. There’s an antique place stuck back in there somewhere. I saw the sign.”

Theirs was a single unit on the corner facing the lake. He brought their suitcase in and looked out the window at the orange planks of sunlight glancing low through the pines across the water. He plunked the suitcase onto the bed and hurried to catch up with Mag.

He stepped off the veranda and walked quickly toward the parking lot. At the near end, across the lot from the Subaru, he saw a dark Audi parked in the shadows. Someone was sitting in the front seat, hidden behind a newspaper. As Lou approached, the paper came down and he locked eyes with a sharp-faced young man who quickly dropped his eyes and ducked behind the funnies again.

Lou went on, but at the end of the lot, where the narrow path led out to the road, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at the Audi and caught the man’s eye again.

He found the antique shop easily enough, just a couple of hundred feet down the road. As he approached, he could see Mag and an old man out front with a Windsor chair, Mag walking round and round it, elbow in one hand, chin in the other.

“He says he brought it out of his own house after keeping it for fifteen years.”

“Uh huh,” Lou said.

“It’s good. The chair, not the story,” she said.

“How much?”

“How old do you think it is, Mr. Herman? Oh, forgive me. This is my husband, Lou.” The old man shook two heavy jerks on Lou’s hand.

“This is an oldie. I’d keep it myself but I can’t keep everything. Look at all those spindles! And see the stretchers down there? Run your fingers over ’em, feel how they’re worn. Some kid a long time ago hooked his heels on ’em.”

“Tell him about the patina,” Mag said.

“Tell me about the bad news,” Lou countered.

“He’s asking seven hundred.”

“What does your book say?”

“There have been a bunch of good, bow-back armchairs listed for over that.”

“Then we’ll get it. In fact, we’ll take two of them. Why do I think you might have another one of these back there somewhere that you’ve been agonizing over, Mr...?”

“Herman,” Mag said. “No, no. One’s enough.”

“Do you like the chair or don’t you?” Lou asked.

“You know I like it. That doesn’t mean...”

“Then we’ll get it and we’ll get another just like it. Fact is, we’ll take four of them. I presume they match.”

“We’ll take this one, Mr. Herman. I hope you’ll take a credit card.”

“I want to see what else Mr. Herman has,” Lou said. “C’mon, loosen up.”

“Hold it for us, Mr. Herman. We’ll be back for it after dinner,” Mag said, pulling Lou’s arm until he relented and they tripped over the sandy soil back toward the inn. At the front desk, the clerk handed Lou a message from Sherm:

Dear L & M,

I spoke much too soon on your invite. Sorry, we can’t come. We already had something else going. Have a great weekend. Love ya.

Sherm & Virg.

The sun was down and lights were popping up across the lake. In the dining room, Lou and Mag sat next to a window where they could see the lights reflecting off the water. The summer tourist season was ahead of them. The hotel was coming back alive after a long winter season, and city dwellers with cabin fever were beginning to arrive to savor the open space and first crocus buds.

Lou had met Sherm during his second tour in Vietnam, when they’d shared a room in the MACV compound in Plieku. Sherm got his BA at Columbia and then went on to Harvard law. Having exhausted all opportunities to avoid military service, he’d found himself in the Army with the Psychological Warfare Unit, dropping surrender leaflets into the jungle from a push-pull Cessna. More often than not, he also dropped his cookies through the chute on the floor of the tiny craft as it bounced above the endless, green canopy.

Lou and Sherm had soon discovered they were both from New Jersey and both their wives were there now, each with two kids. They’d bonded immediately, despite their vastly different backgrounds and educations, and spent hours talking whenever Lou wasn’t out traipsing around the Central Highlands with his battalion.

Mag and Virg met before the two returned, so it was natural they would continue the friendship as couples. Sherm Wellington became a portfolio manager at Moore, Crawford, and Bender at the same time Lou was stationed at Fort Dix. Sunday dinners led to family picnics and reciprocal babysitting. They had no secrets. They worked at keeping in touch no matter how far Lou’s Army career took him from Glen Rock. And when they’d returned to the area after Lou was released, they’d immediately found each other again.

Sherm was a large man whose personality was defined by the force of his imagination and his willingness to lower all barriers to new experiences. He was a man capable of completely surrendering control just to find out what would happen without it. Such spontaneity couldn’t be farther from Lou’s ability to do these same things.

Sherm was a practical joker of massive dimensions. He was always at the center of some gargantuan plot—in which at least ten or twelve other friends played a part—to lead another of his many friends into a web of complexities. Like the time he printed up and delivered invitations, ostensibly from Mayor Ed Koch, to all his friends, inviting them to join the mayor and other prominent politicos at the West Side Cafe on Forty-second Street to celebrate the emergence of the city from financial bankruptcy. With everyone there properly bedecked and tuxedoed, Sherm led them all in a conga dance rendition of I Ain’t Got Nobody behind a Koch-like midget in a jumpsuit.

While Lou was at Dix—a temporary captive of the Army, minuscule paychecks, and a straitjacket of rules and regulations—he remained an integral part of Sherm’s circle and was included in all of these crazy shenanigans.

“Your time will come, Lou, when you decide to start living,” Sherm roared. “Friends are friends.”

But when Lou joined Pierson Browne, the relationship changed; not because Sherm had changed, but because the pauper’s veil that was so easy for Lou to wear while he was in the Army was impossible to wear as a stockbroker. It was his turn, but he couldn’t take his turn. Embarrassed, he’d slid further and further away; but now, he grabbed at the chance to make up for lost time. He was back.

Lou ordered a bottle of Schwartze Katz Liebfraumilch, a name from out of the past. It was the only name he could think of, but the Inn didn’t have it. For a moment, he began to hector the college-kid waiter.

Okay. Order something else, then. What was it again? Something French. Chateau...? Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Yeah. “ “Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Uh… dix neuf cent soixante quatre.” Oh, boy. Where did that come from? But the waiter kid just blushed, and Lou saw that Maggie was smiling tolerantly from across the table, so he gave in and let the kid deliver an unnamed, white table wine.

“I think it was a great buy,” Mag said.

“It’s plain white wine, Mag. Just kidding. It’s a nice chair. We should have a bunch of them,” Lou said.

“They should’ve left the paint on, but people want natural wood,” she said.

“I kind of like the bare wood, myself.”

“I love the way the legs flare out from the seat,” she said.

“We could’ve gotten some more.”

“Lou, I didn’t mean that I thought we should go crazy.”

“Who’s going crazy? If they’re a good buy, let’s go for it.”

“Shush.”

“Don’t shush me. I’m feeling good. I’m feeling very good.”

“Relax.”

“I’m relaxed. I’m very relaxed.”

“Lou, can we salvage something lasting out of this? Can we save some part of it for the future and not suck every last ounce of honey from it just as fast as we can?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s just our approach to things. I get something good and immediately begin to fret about when it will be taken away. Don’t ever surrender completely to happiness, lest some arbiter in the sky come down to even things up again with something bad.”

“So, what’s the bad part?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”

“Mag, I’m a mover again. Can’t you see? It kills me to have no shot at...”

“At what? Glory?”

“Now, that’s nasty.”

“Power?”

“Chances don’t come very often. When they do, you have to move. Fast.”

“I suppose.”

“I have to be a player, Mag. Now, I don’t know if I am one; but as they say, ‘if it looks like a duck...’ You know, I’m glad they couldn’t make it, Sherm and Virg.”

“Glad?”

“Yeah. This place...you know, isn’t all I thought it was going to be.”

“What? It’s perfect.”

“I still made some points.”

“Now, what are you talking about?”

“To just get up from whatever you’re doing and go; that’s the perfect thing.”

“I don’t get it.”

“That’s freedom, Mag… That’s power.”

They each stared into the other’s eyes for nearly a minute. Then, Lou raised his glass to drink and heard Mag singing softly to herself:

“Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...”

They lingered a long while over dinner, and then went back to the room to get sweaters. Arm in arm, they stepped out of the screened veranda in front of the inn.. Lou noticed that the Audi was gone. He and Mag took a long walk, consciously matching strides and spontaneously tightening their hold whenever they felt the others’ eyes on their cheek. The chill air and the sandy ground beneath their feet recalled a time when their flesh was hard to the others’ touch and their stride was strong and purposeful. Coming back to the inn, they stopped just beyond the range of the front light and kissed long and full.

The bed in their room was high. Mag’s face held the chill of the night air, but the room was warm and the coolness across her cheeks was soon replaced with a ruddy glow. They didn’t speak as they peeled off each other’s clothes, slowly and with care. Lou led Mag to the shower where they soaped, rinsed, and dried each other. Then he went back to the bed and waited until Mag came out of the bathroom, snapped off the light, and walked to him in the moonlight, covered in two squirts of Redi-Whip and an oversized Chocolate Chiparoo on a string.

In the morning, Lou woke with the sun coming through the chintz curtains. The room was warm and bright. He rolled to his side. Mag was bent over the Windsor. She had placed it bottom up on a table and was running her fingers over the gently sculpted stretchers. With the sunlight behind her, the outline of her hip showed dark against the shimmering white of her robe.

“I can feel the difference in these turnings, Lou. Some old craftsman did them by hand.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Some old craftsman. Come on back to bed. I’ll see to your turnings.”

Chapter Eight

Euphoria filled Lou on the ride back from Candlewood Lake, something like the feeling induced in him five years before on the banks of the Donau River in Germany, when he saw brigadier general stars coming his way. Nothing could deflate him, and all the constants in his life became subject to review.

Start with the car. Halfway home, the mileage on the odometer rolled to zeros all the way across. Imagine: 100,000 miles and only three exhaust pipe replacements, two new water pumps, and a rebuilt alternator. It was a noisy car, the Subaru; not only the tires on the road, but also the rubbing sound from the left front that had begun about two years before. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed that at some point during the trip, a new sound, a ticka-tick-tick, began scolding like an angry squirrel beneath the floorboards on the right front.

* * *

This one was like all their springs. At the first hint of warmer days, Mag was at him to go to the garden center. Only this year, somewhere between the sphagnum moss and the wood chips, he met Donald Klink and hatched what he called “Klink’s Amazing Pink day lily experiment.”

Klink ran the greenhouse, raising everything from cactus to orchids, but day lilies were his specialty.

“I learned hybridizing at my father’s knee,” he told Lou, lovingly aspirating a flowering orchid hanging at head height from a piece of bark in Row B. “Dad actually bred several new flowers, but the crowning glory is Klink’s Amazing Pink.”

“A thoroughbred,” Lou said.

“Yes, a cultivar, actually. You know, day lilies are one of your lowest-maintenance, most drought tolerant perennials, and they offer a long season of bloom.”

“Really?” Lou said.

“They’re nothing but a bulb at this time of the year. You plant them about this time and forget about them, and through the summer months they sprout a nice green stem that stands up about two feet. Then the bud starts developing, and before you know it, a flower appears. It only stays open for a day, maybe two at most, then it’s gone for another year and another bud blooms. It’s extraordinary.”

“A lot of trouble for one day.”

“What you do is plant yourself a dozen bulbs of different lilies, and all the way to October, you have another flower coming to bloom. The Amazing Pink is a late season bloomer. You might prefer a round flower with pleated ruffles, such as Lachman’s Golden Cameo over here, or the simple, graceful Hanna Jane by Barth, here.

“I just pop the bulb in the ground?”

“Just pop it in the ground, and sometime late September, for the Amazing Pink, you’ll have your first bloom.”

“What if I got two and raced them; planted them side by side; one gets Vigaro, the other fends for itself?”

“Dunno,” Klink said. “Never tried racing bulbs. It’s an interesting experiment.”

* * *

He began thinking of ways to help out Pete and Oliver beyond their tuition bills. He was drawn to the ads in the last few pages of the New Yorker; the ones pitching summer camps. In Monroe, just across the border in New York, there was a traditional camping, canoeing, exploring kind of deal. Jory would get a kick out of it, and it would undoubtedly yield some very cute letters home. But then Lou spotted the ad for Chewonki, up in Maine.

“Never mind. I’ll pay for it. You’re only a kid once,” he told Peter, after a long, involved discussion.

“Dad, we appreciate it. We do. But... well, maybe in a couple of years. Jory is only five.”

* * *

“If you ask me, darling, you need to get busy on something,” Mag said. “You’re thinking too much.”

Leonard Motors advertised a Lexus for $450 a month on lease; and after a very rigorous test drive along Route Eighty all the way to Sparta and back, Lou was itchy. Mag preferred a more cautious approach: a thorough analysis of safety, reliability, and economy statistics from the latest Consumer Reports New Car Issue which recommended a Camry station wagon.

Lou walked all around the Camry, even tried out the keyless entry system, but his Lexus fever never cooled. Mag backed off and only insisted that they at least hang on to the old car. That night, the Lexus occupied the garage.

* * *

In the third week of July, first thing in the morning, Calvin Swisher met Lou at his desk in the bullpen and personally escorted him into the third glass office from the left.

“It’s yours,” Swish said. “I’m sorry it couldn’t have been sooner. You deserve it. You’ll need the extra privacy for your duties as planner of this year’s Big Tuna Bash. Have fun, rookie.”

Every year, the firm treated the ten top producers in the office to a sumptuous beach party in Mantoloking.

Patricia Buck called around Labor Day.

“Louis, I wonder if you could free yourself up to take my place with a couple of clients out at Westchester Country Club this weekend. Bring Barry Westover along.”

Pierson Browne, in a piggyback deal with Manufacturers Hanover, used the Westchester Golf Classic as a drawing card for many of their biggest institutional clients. The drill was to meet them at the first tee, supply them with some goodies—maybe a T-shirt, a sleeve of golf balls, and an umbrella—and then follow some of the pros around the holes nearest the clubhouse and cap it all off by sauntering over to a big yellow and white striped tent for lunch.

Barry Westover couldn’t care less about golf, so they wound up wandering with the crowd between holes, catching a glimpse of Johnny Miller driving into the rough on thirteen, then lounging under the tent drinking Bloody Marys.

Dolly, the party facilitator from Executive Privilege, the hospitality outfit Pierson Browne used for all its “schmooz-fests”, was a middle-aged woman doing her best not to look it. The morning after Patricia’s call, she was already in Lou’s office to talk Mantoloking when he arrived.

“How do you do?” Lou said to her. “Please, have a seat, and I’ll be off the phone in a minute.” He draped his jacket over the back of his chair, punched the squawk box, and stood looking out through the wall of glass.

“Darren, how are you? Listen, let me cut straight to the chase with you on this one, okay? We’re positive out to the end of the year on rates. You won’t regret parking in intermediate term treasuries ’til then. Last week in December, we’ll have a clearer picture. Meanwhile, you sit on six percent. My bond man’s never wrong, Darren. Okay, leave it to me.”

He walked to the door of the office.

“Mutch! Stick Darren Golden in the bonds. Yeah, intermediates.”

“Tell me about the beach house,” he said to Dolly, leaning well back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head.

“We’ve reserved a nearly brand new cedar and glass, five-suite house, right on the beach.”

“There are going to be ten couples,” Lou said.

“Our history with these parties is that at least half, and probably more, of the attendees will elect not to stay the night,” Dolly said.

“How many times have you done this?”

“This is the eighth year for me.”

“Well, I want it to be the biggest and best goddamned...”

“Open bar, party gifts, hors ’d’oeuvres, choice of lobster or filet mignon, four female facilitators, taped music?”

“A band. We have to have a band.”

“We’ve never had a live band, Mr. Christopher. It’s really more a stand up, drinking and mixing kind of evening. The invitees have traditionally considered it a command performance and would never let their hair down enough to actually dance. Taped music is better. How about sixties soft rock, seventies romance, and a little country?”

“We’ll have a band. A loud, live band,” Lou said.

* * *

On the second Saturday in September, Lou and Mag celebrated Oliver and his wife Stacey’s fifth wedding anniversary with dinner at the Beau Rivage overlooking the Hudson. When they arrived back in Glen Rock late in the day, Lou spotted his two “Amazing Pinks” in full bloom, and they all gathered to admire them.

“I knew they’d come in together, Vigaro be damned,” Lou said, caressing a blossom. “You have it or you don’t. The genuine article will deliver as advertised. Period.”

“Darling, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Mag asked.

He was comfortable in this skin of his. He had moved right into the Westover account, the Westchester Country Club golf outing, and a glass office in the Paramus branch as if they were his birthright. He was born to wear a Brooks Brothers suit, a blue shirt with a white collar, and a wide, red tie.

Lou, you old son of a bitch, it was just a matter of bloom time.

That night, he hatched the Mantoloking Plan. He’d been steadily working on Sherm Wellington; arm wrestling him for the check every time they went out together as couples for dinner and the movies; surprising him with an invitation to go hit baseballs at the new batting cage in Milford with ten minutes’ notice. Now, he was ready for the coup de grace. Spontaneity topped everything, in Sherm’s book. But nothing really worthwhile could be pulled together on the fly. Executive Privilege was working like the devil on the details of the Big Tuna. Now, the frosting on the cake was to make Sherm’s invitation seem like a wild thought that had hatched overnight; like a passing fancy that had materialized with a snap of the fingers into a truly smashing surprise bash.

As Lou pulled the Lexus into the driveway after work on Big Tuna D-Day minus one, October twentieth, still cooking up the exact quirky details of Sherm’s “spur of the moment” invitation, the voice on the radio said: “Hurricane Fiona is tracking only seventeen miles off Cape Hatteras, and with a low sitting over Newark, there’s an eighty percent chance that it will roll up the coast toward Atlantic City.”

“Sherm, listen. I want you and Virg to join a bunch of us for a hurricane party. Come on. It’s going to be good. Tomorrow, right after work. And Sherm, put the dog in the kennel. Yeah, I mean it. Put her in the kennel.”

Fact is, Mag had to sign off on putting Trude in the kennel, too.

Executive Privilege contracted for three silver stretch limos to fetch the Big Tuna bashers at their homes across Bergen County; to get them started at the inboard bars; and to whisk them fifty miles down the Garden State Parkway to the Jersey Shore. The limos flashed through the sodden night, the air crackling with their lispy car-phone banter. As the limos arrived at the beach house, one after another, the couples literally fell out of the cars to the sandy driveway and filed across the wooden bridge leading to the front door, the wind-driven rain plastering their clothes to their bodies.

When they walked in the door, an Executive Privilege hostess handed each guest a kit: a complete toiletries case, a giant beach towel, and a bright, yellow slicker and Gloucester fisherman’s hat combo. Young women with trays maneuvered through couples offering a canapé here, a double scotch on the rocks there. The floor-to-ceiling cathedral windows facing the ocean were soon awash in light, reflecting couples dancing to the frenetic combo of electric guitar, keyboard, drums, and bass thundering through a decent imitation of the Doors’ Light My Fire.

The roar of the surf pulled the rain-gear-clad guests outside onto a huge deck situated high above the flat stretch of beach, where eight- and ten-foot breakers spent themselves at the pilings below. It was in the pandemonium of Hurricane Fiona, with rain beating against their faces, that Sherman Wellington grabbed Lou by the shoulders and screamed drunkenly:

“Lou, you old sonofabitch, this tops ’em all! It’s the greatest goddamned spur-of-the-moment crash bash I ever saw in my whole goddamn life.”

* * *

At five in the morning, with everyone snoring and the storm outside gone north, Maggie slipped on a heavy sweater and boots, slid out onto the deck, and down to the sandy beach. A quarter moon hung in the cloudless gray sky. She picked her way through clumps of seaweed, pieces of lumber, and pools of seawater on the shore. She bent to pick up a Frisbee and sent it skimming into the exhausted waves.

The expanse of sand was smooth, wet, and hard. Her boots barely dented it. The water swelled and retreated soundlessly beneath air that was pregnant with the salty aroma of kelp. Mag turned to look at the towering beach house and saw the moon gazing back at her from above the half-circle window at the roof line. Then she saw someone descending the deck stairs, but couldn’t make out who it was until the figure was within five feet of her. It was Virg.

“I thought it was you,” Virg said, her wild red hair swirling in all directions. “Could you use a little company?”

“Of course. Couldn’t sleep. Too much gin. Too much to think about,” Maggie said, as they both ambled along the water’s edge.

“Lou’s feeling good.”

“No kidding. This is the craziest thing he’s ever done, Virg, bar none.”

“It’s unlike him, Mag, but it doesn’t hurt anything.”

“I guess not. I’ve never seen this kind of...desperation in him before, though. Oh, sure, he lets go sometimes. You have to go along with it when he blows off steam from time to time. But this. This was in outer space somewhere.”

“Wilder than most of Sherm’s schemes.”

“He’s not Sherm, and he shouldn’t try to be.”

“You can’t fix everything, Mag. You’re a marvelous organizer. A fantastic, get-it-done girl. But some things you just have to stand by and watch. They’re phenomena that are just going to be, no matter what you do. You just climb aboard and enjoy the ride, the best you can.”

“Is that experience talking?”

“You know it.”

“I don’t know if you’ve been clued in on what’s been happening with Lou at work, Virg. He’s probably confided it all to Sherm.”

“I know he’s getting his due, finally, Maggie. And I know how good that can make a man feel. I’m doing my little thing with the newspaper, no real competition for Sherm. So, it’s win-win. But you, you’re out there in the world, leading the charge on everything, it seems: the Y fund-raising campaign, the Arbor Committee… Nothing really sets you back for long. Just like your father, from what you’ve told me about him. Lou’s seen that. It’s affected him. Challenged him. Now that he has something coming his way at last, let him slosh around in it for a while. Life is short.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“Are you scared, Mag? Sometimes good things come calling in gorilla suits.”

“I am scared. Scared that there was nothing he did to get this.”

“Don’t borrow trouble, baby. It’s always been good advice.”

“Well, if all hell breaks loose, I’ll come knocking, Virg, darling. You’ve got a wonderful shoulder to cry on.”

They had worked their way along the beach and back. Now, they turned and hurried to beat the sun through the kitchen door.

* * *

Monday, as Lou shuffled in the door of the office, Westover was already on the phone to give him a whopping order: all in municipal bonds out of the Blue Book. As over-the-counter trades where Pierson Browne’s Trading Department in New York could deal out of its own account using branch brokers like Lou as the conduit to individual investors, they carried whopping commissions. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

Rain started about noon. Other than the Westover call, business was dead. Lou was wasted from the gig and stood staring out the window, remembering the spectacular streaks of lightning that had lit up their night. But, with fatigue, Maggie’s tinge of worry began to settle like a familiar, damp cloth over his enthusiasm. It reminded him of Germany again, a summer night, before the baby—that is, before she told him there was going to be a baby—and they, just married, were as free as the clouds overhead, together on leave and exuberant.

They had spent the day driving along the Rhine and tramping around the castles and vineyards near Mainz. It was pure joy, but Mag had gotten tired before they even arrived at the town of Rudesheim. People of all kinds had crowded the streets: girls tripping by, giggling in German, French, or English; broad-bodied men, shouldering their way through the throng; housewives, jostling with overstuffed, mesh bags of bread and sausage. As Lou and Mag had passed beside the plaster and brick buildings, they could see into the windows that gaped open, splattering light over the streets.

They’d darted for a narrow alley to free themselves from the crowd. But around the corner, they were caught again and propelled into a pub where they were grateful to find a place to sit. A raucous band blared close by. Great pitchers of beer overflowed on the tables and onto the floor and the scent of beer drifted in the air between layers of smoke. Lou was dizzy with exhilaration, but Mag had looked ashen and hot, and a little panicky.

“I think...” she’d shouted.

“What?”

“I think we should go back to the hotel.”

“Back to Mainz?”

“Yes.”

“We just got here, Maggie.”

“I want to go back.”

“Relax! The night is just beginning!” he’d shouted, waving for more beer.

The faces from outside were all around them, poking through the windows, couples bounding by the table like a terrifying flock of geese. A platoon of dancers cavorted just below them. When he yelled for to her to come and dance, Mag resisted, and so he pulled her to her feet. He had to wait for an opportunity to jump into the swirling polka. He clamped her close to him. And when he pressed to kiss her, she fought him hard and broke loose and ran.

“Maggie, goddammit, what the hell’s wrong,” he’d kept shouting. But she couldn’t hear him. When he found her by the car, she was yanking on the door handle, gasping.

“You’re too rough. You... you hurt me. And I hate it. I hate this whole rotten place!” He couldn’t come up with anything to say. When he’d instinctively brought his hand up to comfort her, she flinched like she expected him to slap her.

* * *

Now, at the end of the day in Paramus, as he hunched over his stock charts, Lou felt Suzy, the secretary, at his side.

“There are a couple of men in the front looking for you,” she said.

Chapter Nine

The two men brought a smell of damp wool in with them. One was blond, the other dark; both were tall and hatless. Each wore a wrinkled raincoat, soaked through. The pant legs of their dark, business suits were stiff and round, and their black umbrellas created small puddles on the carpet beside Lou’s desk.

“Hello, I’m Willard Stanfield,” the dark one said, extending his hand, dripping water on the blotter. It was a smiling, weak, waggle of a handshake. “This is Paul Copeland. You’re Louis Christopher, of course. We work with Patricia Buck. If you can spare us a few minutes, we’d like to talk to you about your new account.”

He spoke in a formal and authoritative American English, but the sound of the “a” in Willard and the slight rolling of the “r” betrayed a faint Latin accent that this man, calling himself Stanfield, had worked to expunge from his speech. He was too polite, too formal. When he spoke, he spoke for them both, as if the other (Copeland was it?) had told him what to say. He bowed, unnerving and obsequious, as the words came out; angled himself so as to make it a three-way conversation, even though no words came from Copeland’s mouth.

At a brief nod from Copeland, Stanfield said, “If you’re just about finished for the day, Louis—do you prefer Lou?—perhaps we could go someplace where we can talk without interruption. Where no one can overhear what we’re saying?”

Copeland stood to the side, rolling his head as if to rid himself of a deep ache in his neck, darting his eyes about as if he expected a squad of undercover cops to swoop down at any moment, or that he’d spot a concealed camera somewhere.

“Do you have a particular place in mind?” Lou asked. “I mean we could go upstairs to the conference room, or maybe over to the coffee shop. We could get a drink, coffee, anything you like.”

Another nod from Copeland. “Maybe it would be best if we talked out in your car, Louis. This is, shall we say, sensitive. We wouldn’t want anyone, even unintentionally...” Stanfield said, looking to Copeland for approval.

“In the car? That sounds a little ominous. You guys KGB?”

“Well, actually, we left our cloaks at home today, Louis. Daggers too.” Stanfield and Copeland laughed tensely, looking all around at the people in the office. “No, it’s just that it’s something that shouldn’t get around in the branch. Certain people are concerned about any appearance of impropriety.”

“Certain people. Of course. Okay, guys. Wait until I get my coat and I’ll be right with you,” Lou said. He walked to the back of the office and up the stairs. From above, he looked at the two men through an office window. They were both young; at least fifteen years younger than he. Stanfield was tall, maybe six-foot-three. He was thin and sharp featured. Had a long nose and a pointed chin with a deep cleft. His teeth piled up toward the front where two beaver teeth rested on his bottom lip.

Copeland was so unremarkable as to seem to disappear into the surrounding air. His face was flat and without markings. He seemed to turn so as to avoid direct frontal viewing, as if he would just as soon melt into the carpet. He was blond and fair skinned with pale blue eyes behind squinting, blond eyelids. He was a head shorter than Stanfield, and fifty pounds heavier. He carried himself in a bobbing, jaunty way; almost like a welterweight. He suddenly stuck his finger in his ear to free it of rainwater.

Lou called Maggie from upstairs to say he’d be a little late.

The two men seemed in a hurry to leave the branch. They stood together without talking, shifting back and forth on the balls of their feet. As Lou approached, Copeland jabbed Stanfield in the side with his elbow. When Lou stopped at his desk to check for messages, he felt the knuckles of Copeland’s fist pushing against his spine and, for an instant, he pictured a pistol. They all walked quickly to the door and were out in the pouring rain.

Stanfield led the three of them directly to Lou’s Lexus, splashing through ankle-deep water. Copeland, following close behind, ticked the heel of Lou’s shoe with his foot. How did they know his car? He unlocked the doors with the clicker in his pocket.

Stanfield ducked into the front seat. Copeland disappeared into the shadows in the back. Lou walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side, impulsively scanning the lot for a police cruiser.

The rain came in gusts, beating against the roof and windshield. The parking lot was slowly emptying of cars as the shoppers and clerks headed for home in the darkness. The windows began to fog almost as soon as they closed the doors. The headlights of the cars moving around the parking lot were diffused by the rain on the windshield.

“Westover’s been a pretty good account so far, wouldn’t you say, Louis?” Stanfield said.

So that’s what this is about. “It’s a great account. It would be greater if I knew who it really is,” said Lou.

“One or two more like it and you could call yourself well off.”

Stanfield lit a cigarette. He opened the window an inch and dropped the match. It stuck where he dropped it, and then slid down the wet window in a slow, rocking path. He took puffs as if from a straw and let the smoke waft from his nostrils. He left the window open a crack. In the back seat, Copeland lit up, too, and drew the smoke deep into his lungs in noisy, sucking pulls.

“Cigarette, Louis?” Stanfield asked. “No, you don’t smoke, do you? I’d wager Margaret appreciated that first paycheck. One could almost furnish a house with that kind of money. And that’s just the beginning.”

Margaret? How did they know Mag?

“We have plenty of things to do with the money,” Lou said. He cracked the window on his side. “I guess you never run out of things to spend money on.”

“What are you doing over in Glen Rock, Louis?”

“I’m living in Glen Rock,” he said.

“Assuming a continuation of the kind of cash flow you’re hauling these days, I could visualize you in Saddle River in one of those understated Georgian Colonials.”

“Maybe after I bag my second million. That gives me at least another couple of months.”

They all chuckled again at that.

Then it came from the back seat, “Let’s get to it, Christopher. Patty Buck wants something from you.”

“Ah, good,” Lou said. “Patricia wants something.”

Stanfield again, “Miz Buck would like you to undertake a special project for her, Louis.”

“I’ve been waiting for this. I’m ready. But she could’ve told me.”

“Whatever, Louis. Patricia’s thinking grand. She wants you to help create an illusion.”

Lou rested his elbow on the steering wheel and his chin in the palm of his hand. Rain pelted the windshield. He felt the pinch of apprehension just below his Adam’s apple.

“Actually, it’s more than just you, Louis. It’s a team project. You’re just one part of one team operating in this one part of the country.”

“Keep talking,” Lou said.

“Ms. Buck wants you to head up a project group that will operate in the metropolitan area. You’ll function independently of other teams doing similar things in other regions of the country. The overall impression will be one of mission continuity and cohesion.”

Stanfield stopped talking. He sat silently, looking at Lou, waiting.

“You’ll come out with it, eventually, I suppose,” Lou said.

“What we’ll do is, we’ll tell the woman you’re in.” It was Copeland again, a deep voice, out of the shadow in the back seat.

“Give me a hint,” Lou said, sliding his arm to the top of the seat and turning sideways to face the back. “Tell me the whole thing. You want me to sell something?”

Stanfield: “It’s a project that you’ve managed a dozen times in the past, something that should be well within your capabilities, Louis. We estimate it’ll involve a single weekend. In and out and it’s over. Of course, we’ll want you to keep your participation secret, totally—even from Margaret. It involves getting away from the house completely for two days.”

“So, how many guesses do I get?”

“No guessing. We’re going to lay it right on you,” Copeland said from the dark. “It’s military.”

Sudden fatigue seemed to settle on him from the air, compelling Lou to press his palms against his temples to hold it back. Then he felt as if a small boulder had materialized in his lap, pushing him deeper into his seat.

“Oh, I get it. Military,” Lou said, jerking his head to search Stanfield’s face for a smirk. He saw nothing in the dimness but the faint blotch of white teeth below the shadow of Stanfield’s nose. He saw nothing in the back seat.

“We want you to lead a small, paramilitary operation. In and out in two days.”

“Paramilitary,” Lou said wearily.

“You’ve heard of guerrilla warfare, Louis. Correct?” Stanfield chuckled through the beavers.

“You mean old, Vinegar Joe Christopher?” Lou said.

“That’s it, Louis. Right in your ballpark. You have twenty years of jungle boots and C-rations to fall back on.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five years of camouflage and cannon fire.”

“My reputation precedes me.”

“How many times have you been handpicked for a dangerous mission, Louis?”

“You mean perilous?”

“Treacherous.”

“Maybe 100, 150 perilous, treacherous ones.”

“So what do you say to one more, old chap?”

“I say fuck you. Get out of the car.” The anger in his voice surprised even him.

Stanfield snorted and Lou heard Copeland snicker in the back, or was it a cough?

“Louis, I hear incredulity in your voice. I know how you must feel. We haven’t even told you what the operation is. Listen, what we want you to do is to cause a little disturbance that could be interpreted by the public in a certain way. It’s going to help out certain people. That’s all you have to know. This is a mission you’ve managed a hundred times in Grafenwehr, Nam, and other places. It’s simple. You’re in and out with minimal problems.”

“Oh, that’s much clearer. I’m gonna help out certain people. That’s all I need to know. How could I not want to help out certain people?”

“Let’s talk money. At this pace, over the year, you’re looking to book $250 net, easy. You know it, and we know it. I, for one, would not like to see you stop receiving your payments, Louis.”

The headlights from the last car leaving the parking lot swung in a wide arc that illuminated the brick wall of Filene’s Basement. The light swept over the hood of Lou’s car and glared through the opaqueness of the rain-drenched windshield. The car plowed off across the glistening blacktop, its taillights dripping a stream of red in a hundred, pocked puddles.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars this year, and next year, and the next, ad infinitum. Two days, in and out, and no one’s hurt in any way. You’ve orchestrated operations like this so many times, you could do it in your sleep. You’ll be up against some drowsy guy in a tollbooth.”

“Hand to hand against a sleepy kid,” Lou said.

“This is big time, nationwide,” said Copeland from the back. “A sucker punch,” he said, rapping the window sharply with his knuckles.

“All over the place at once. People are going to go paranoia nuts, like in Nam when the Cong pulled the same thing, crawling out of the woodwork, raising hell all over the place at the same time,” said Stanfield.

“Another Tet Offensive. Swarm ’em,” Lou quipped.

“Yeah, and the memory’s still fresh. Patricia wants the illusion of a Tet-like strike and the psychological effect that it’ll have,” Stanfield said.

“VC corpses by the thousands littering the streets?”

“We all know that dead Cong were incidental. The intended message came through loud and clear: hey, five years of blood and guts, and we’re still here.” Stanfield and Copeland chuckled.

“Dead VC, incidental? Sure. Unless you’re one of them. That’s the message they got,” Lou muttered.

For a full two minutes—that seemed like an hour—there was absolute silence in the car. In the back seat, Copeland flicked his lighter and the darkness lit up as he touched the end of another cigarette. Lou heard Stanfield let out a long sigh.

“Uh, pal,” Copeland said. “You and Patty, I thought you liked the setup. Maybe I got it wrong.”

Lou didn’t say anything. He felt a cold breeze ripple the hairs on the back of his neck and up behind his ear.

“You gotta know we’re going through with this thing whether you’re in on it or not. So what’s to keep us from dropping a little something here and there that, uh, implicates this stinking rich stock broker from Glen Rock, New Jersey? How you gonna get yourself off the meat hook? I can hear the detective: ‘You mean to tell me that all of a sudden this account starts calling you, giving you all these orders for nothing?’ You’re already signed and delivered, pal, from the first Westover call.”

“Louis, think positive,” crooned Stanfield. “When you complete the operation, you keep the account; and every year, from now on, you receive, shall we say, a liberal stipend. The operation is over in two days and you’re home free, forever. What more could you want?”

“I’m home free right now.”

“Think about it.”

“I gave it a minute.”

“Think some more.”

Stanfield moved over closer on the front seat and rapped Lou’s thigh with the back of his hand. “Louis, tomorrow you’ll be at a briefing on the operation. We’ll be sitting right here at six o’clock. We’ll go in our car and leave yours here.”

Facing straight ahead with his eyes fixed on the streaks of rain piercing the arc of the overhead lights outside, Lou heard them open the doors and slide out. He sat still in the car for a long time after the red smear of their taillights melted to black. The rain fell steadily, coursing down the windshield. The scarlet lights of the Firelight Brazier across the way wavered in front of him like a bonfire.

Lou had no clear impression, no lasting memory of anything they’d said. At the end, he’d sat silently, his hands retreating to his lap, fists clenched. You sorry bastard. You never said no.

DETROIT—Continuing his emphasis on traditionally conservative themes, the president last night delivered a slashing assault on what he termed, “the encrusted liberal bench,” accusing the judicial establishment of being responsible for an “epidemic of lawlessness.” Mr. Bliss promised that if reelected he would convene a blue ribbon panel of leading law and order experts to recommend ways to put an end to “pussyfooting with known criminals.” Once again, the president’s remarks are generally viewed as a desperate attempt to stave off defeat at the polls, only a week away.

Chapter Ten

So, Patricia Buck played the card. Such a puny card. Two whelps out of the rain, talking big about paramilitary operations. It was crass. It was small. Tantamount to a full bird colonel in the Army sending a couple of buck privates out to the motor pool to ask the warrant officer in charge to please roll his fucking jeep around to the front door, pronto. Patricia Buck, big cheese. He’d expected a whole lot more.

So much for the rebirth of his fine little theorem, the one about hard work makes success. It was back to the truth he knew when he drove out the gate of Fort Dix for the last time, when he saw the world as being run by mean little people doing nasty little things. No sense of an organization with a code—only the rustling of invisible critters looking out for themselves. He felt more comfortable in a world where he was part of something, even if it was all olive drab.

But he could handle this. They’d come to his ground with this paramilitary context, away from their source of power, over to his.

At home with Mag, he was full of small talk and joviality: a good act. Mag fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV. By ten o’clock, he was staring blankly at the screen, thinking that Mag had seen right through him and had decided to file it away under crazy behavior of an increasingly crazy man.

He stood up and arched his shoulders to shed a deep ache that had settled in the base of his neck. He jostled Mag, and they shuffled off to bed like a thousand other nights. But sleep didn’t come. About one o’clock, he grunted as Mag turned over and mumbled a goodnight into her pillow.

“Mag,” he said, snuggling up to her back.

“Hmm?”

“Something weird happened.”

“What was it?” she murmured.

For a long while, he didn’t answer. He just stared into the blackness of the room. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

“Lou?”

“Uh huh.”

“What was it?”

“Go to sleep.”

“Come on.”

“It was something somebody said. It’s too involved to tell you now.”

“You sure?”

“Go to sleep.”

* * *

That evening, the nightmare came again, back four years and six months to Germany and his brigade, to the banks of the Donau. Snow, enveloped in the throaty sound of armored vehicles and the smell of exhaust fumes, swirled all around him. FX Taro Leaf, the 24th Infantry Division, was in full field exercise, the entire division moving out through the gates of their kasernen in Munich and Augsburg, out into the towns and the fields of Bavaria.

Lou’s jeep glided noiselessly over the snow-covered road; from far off in the opposite direction, he watched the approach of Hank Readfield, the Division Commander. They slid to a stop, side by side.

“Listen Lou,” Readfield shouted. “We have General Avery from USAREUR with us now. He’s come down to observe.”

“Great,” Lou said. “Great, Hank.”

“Yeah, so far it’s going fine, Lou. Thanks to your boundless, friggin’ energy. I want you to know that I got word they’ve appointed a general officer selection committee. With Taro Leaf under your belt, it’s looking good for you. I’ll be proud to pin the goddamn stars on you myself.”

Suddenly the jeep seemed to rise up off the road and to float somewhere close to the treetops. A warmth he’d never felt before coursed through his veins, and he luxuriated in it. Brigadier General Louis Christopher!

He saw the parade field at Reese Kaserne with the entire brigade assembled—his brigade, that he’d transformed into a finely tuned instrument. Readfield and Avery were there. They were all there to confirm his reputation as the master of the tactical river crossing—a reputation earned in a series of successful crossings of the Donau in winter, summer, day, and night, and in the ultimate: the full scale, division assault of FX Taro Leaf, with his brigade first out of the blocks. With all of that, what could possibly go wrong?

But now with his jeep in the icy mud and him standing on the banks of the surging Donau River, the shouting of his S-3, Major William Peters, intruded.

“No crossing, sir!”

“What do you mean, no crossing, Bill?”

“They said for safety reasons, we’ll just simulate, sir,” Peters shouted.

“What safety reasons, major?”

“Ice, sir. They don’t want to take any chances.”

“Listen to me, Bill. This is the top of the mountain for this brigade. We’ve got a USAEUR commander watching.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bill, I’m thinking you didn’t get to me on time with that order. You could hardly see the road. Slipped into the ditch somewhere between division headquarters and here.”

“It’s not worth it, sir.

“Get lost, Bill.”

The first M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier, from A-Company of the First Battalion, Nineteenth Infantry appeared with red headed, Spec. Four Arthur Pender’s grinning face disappearing as his driver’s hatch door slammed, rolled to the bank, teetered for a second, and then plunged into the water. The track submerged fully; and for a breathless ten seconds, was entirely gone from sight. Moments later, it bobbed triumphantly to the surface and scuttled away through the swirling snow.

For an instant, Lou wanted to run to the bank of the Donau: to wave off the rest of the company; to summon Pender back to safety, out of the ice, like a movie running in reverse. It was only a drill, after all—not war, not life and death, nothing to risk a hair for. But his feet stuck firm to the ground as he watched the rest go in; one, after another, after another. His voice froze in his throat and he was unable to cry out: “Come back! Come back, all you men!”

Then the brigade XO’s voice was in his ear: “Sir, the first track never made it across. They went down, sir.”

Oh, bloody Jesus, Lou!

He saw himself dressed in full field gear, churning his legs in the freezing mud of the riverbank, running down the Donau in the direction of the current, dropping his helmet and stripping off his web belt, gloves, and parka. Pender’s M-113, the first one, the one that so confidently breached the water, bobbed powerless in the middle of the swirling mass of ice and debris, only a corner of its hull—a small steel, olive-colored pyramid—visible.

He seemed to hang in the air above the water for minutes, arms flailing, before his boots pierced the icy surface and the cruelly cold river seized his muscles. He screamed something, not words, into the sky and began to swim with every fleck of energy that hadn’t yet been sucked from his body. In seconds, he grabbed at the machine gun mount on the cupola. He dove and swam to the rear hatch, surfaced breathless, ducked again, and grabbed the release handle on the hatch. It sprang open and the eight men inside came streaming out like a stick of paratroopers.

Back in the jeep, warm and dry, he glided through the gate of Flak Kaserne, as the radio report droned in his ears: eight GIs down in the Donau. No one hurt. Disaster averted by pure dumb luck.

Later, he stood in the office waiting to meet with Hank Readfield; his eyes unfocused, his brain numb, until he saw Major William Peters exit the office and depart without a word.

“Reporting as ordered, sir. Goddamn it.”

“I’ve had you in my command for the last ten years. Watched you grow. You didn’t need me, didn’t need anyone. Maggie, Pete, Oliver. You had it all.”

“I don’t make excuses, Hank.”

“Why, Lou? Just tell me why you did it.”

“Why? How many chances does a guy get in a lifetime?”

“All for one lousy river crossing.”

“My specialty. My baby.”

“You’re the best troop commander I ever had,” Readfield says.

“You’ve had your chance, Hank. This was mine. Nobody got hurt.”

“I had you figured out a long time ago, Lou, on a stretcher on the chopper pad at Plieku, the first time you disobeyed orders. But everybody deserves a second shot. You got yours, and you got a good long run out of it.”

Readfield rose and turned his back on Lou. “I’m sending you back stateside, Lou. I’m sorry, but what you want, you want too much. Now, get out of here.”

Chapter Eleven

The call from Westover came early. Lou was upstairs in the lounge with a cup of coffee. Suzy rang and told him that Barry was on the line. Lou took his time getting down to the desk. Westover was cheery. Nothing he said betrayed any change in the relationship. It was a sale of 300 IBM and a purchase of 2000 Jim Walter Corp with the proceeds; small potatoes compared to other days, but still a nice trade.

It crossed Lou’s mind that this was part of it, the small order. It was deliberate, a tidbit to test him, not so much that he would feel guilty, just a morsel, easy to take, easy going down, but a commitment all the same. They knew he’d interpret it as a decision to take another step. Maybe it was all of that. Maybe it wasn’t.

If he was so sure he could handle them, why hesitate? Let it happen, right? But he knew no real details of what they were talking about. He let the execution tickets lay on his desk for half the morning.

He still hadn’t executed the order, hadn’t gone along, but what choice was there? Put someone else’s number on the tickets and send them in? Ignore the order? It could all be as easy as they’d made it out to be, couldn’t it? A paramilitary operation, probably with squirt guns. No one said it was anything more. So he goes along, and puts in the two days, and nothing really happens. He’s in and out, and it’s all over.

And from then on, there’s the account; no more cold calls and sweating out the next month. There was still the chance that it would all just evaporate. Maybe he’d misunderstood them. He stood for a long time before the glass panel of his office, mesmerized by the ticker numbers sliding across the wall in the front of the room.

He walked to the pneumatic tube station, crammed the tickets home, pushed hard on the button, and then all the indecision vanished. Whoosh! It was done.

The bogus relief didn’t last long. He’d gone up to the lounge to grab another cup of coffee, but before he’d even carried it back to his desk, he felt the grip of panic rising in his throat. He was kidding himself if he thought the situation was just going to evaporate. They had meant every word. He had tacitly taken the first step in their direction on his own. His first act of free will in the matter was on the record. Now he wanted to take it back.

He jogged lightly over the carpet of the board room, flushing at the odd glances coming from the tape watchers. He leaned in the cashier’s window and caught the attention of the LAN gal.

“Peggy! Is the system up and running right?”

Unperturbed, Peggy looked up from her keyboard, tapped a couple of keys, and then said, “You’re okay. Three hundred IBM, 2000 JWC?”

“That’s mine.” He winced.

“Something wrong with the order, Lou? Give me a ticket and I’ll cancel.”

“Naw, it’s too late. Let it go,” he said, turning away. It didn’t have to mean that he was going along, not yet. He knew what he had to do. Patricia Buck was on the ground floor of it all. He had to go right at her. Terri Garr, in New York, answered on the second ring.

“Yes, this is Lou Christopher out in Paramus. Is she there?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Christopher. Ms. Buck is completely occupied by the weekly investment committee meeting. If it’s really important.”

“No, never mind. I’ll call back.”

“She should be available sometime close to the end of the day.”

Surprisingly, the rest of the day was fairly busy. Hal Grossbeek actually called and opened an account. Lou had been calling him for six months after Grossbeek returned a mailer, asking for information about municipal bonds. The bonds weren’t really what he was interested in, though. It turned out to be the cheapies, the less than ten-dollar stocks that he could sink all of his twenty-five hundred into all at once. He’d put in an order for 200 Humanistic Systems and got a price of nine and three-quarters.

Lou made a couple of calls on a lucrative secondary. Late in the day, two of his old accounts called back and signed on for 100 shares each.

After the close, around 4:30, Sherm Wellington’s sister, Janice, came into the office and sat down in Lou’s side chair. She’d brought the payment for her latest purchase. She had been one of his first accounts, thanks to Sherm, and actually turned out to be one of his better customers.

She always came into the office with cash for her transactions. And every time she came in, they’d sit and talk about everything but the stock market. He’d had a little trouble getting used to the relationship with her. He didn’t like being involved with a friend’s finances. And he felt in his guts the same way about her as he felt about Patricia Buck: there would always be a fundamental lack of understanding between them.

He’d gradually tried to overcome his unease with Janice as he got to know her and came to understand that her account was just Sherm’s toy anyway. Janice couldn’t have cared less what happened to it.

They engaged in small talk. She’d been to the club with the ladies and finished a round of golf just before coming over. She wasn’t worth a damn on the links, but she liked getting out in the sun. It was absurd, but as he sat there talking to Sherm’s sister, Lou was only half concentrating on what she was saying. The thought had entered his mind that Sherm might be playing games with him again. It was just like Sherm to conceive of practical jokes, elaborate beyond any hapless dupe’s imagination. Lou could imagine him at the kitchen table with Virg, plotting this silly military thing, calling friends, enlisting them in the scheme.

Yes, Sherm would do this. After all, why had Janice come in today of all days? Was she here to see how he was reacting? Sherm liked to give everyone a part in his schemes. Lou searched Janice’s face for a smirk, an evasive glance, but found nothing. Naw, it was a stupid thought.

Now she had to go. Lou walked with her over to the door and, as she exited, glanced at the spot in the parking lot, under the mercury lamp, where he’d parked the Lexus. No other car was around.

Back in his office, Lou picked up the phone. “Lou? This is Patricia Buck. Winnie told me you had something on your mind.”

“Oh hi, Patricia! I was going to call you back. I called earlier.”

“Yes, Winnie told me.”

“The account seems to be working out well from this end. Barry seems well pleased. I...”

“Yes, Louis, that’s fine. I knew you’d handle it perfectly.”

“Uh, I guess I was just wondering if maybe there was something more about the account that you could pass on to me.”

“No, everything’s just fine so far. I’ve been watching the stats from the branch and I’ve noticed that the account is having quite an effect down there. I’d say it’s probably made things a little easier for you and Calvin, both.” He could almost see the flash in Patricia’s eye.

“Oh, it’s been real fine,” Lou said.

“I guess if you keep taking care of things down there like you are, there’s no reason why the account couldn’t swing over to you permanently, Lou.”

“Patricia, a couple of men came to see me yesterday. They.”

“It’s amazing, Lou, the transformation down there since you came up to see me. I know Calvin’s very pleased.”

“I understand, Patricia.”

“Take care of business. Goodbye, Louis. Bye.”

“Patricia...”

“Lou, I’m glad you called. It tells me that you’re really on top of the situation.”

“Who are the certain people?”

“Now, if anything comes up...”

“What does this accomplish?”

“... that you think I can help out with, don’t hesitate.”

“Tell me what this is all about.”

“We’ve got a terrible connection here. I’m sorry. As I say, Louis, take care of business and everything will be fine.” Click.

Just before six o’clock, Lou called Maggie and told her he was going to be late again tonight, not to hold up supper. He sensed that she thought he was lying, but she didn’t say anything.

In the early, confident days, Mag would’ve been in his face straight away; but the last three months, she’d created a momentum in both of them that she wasn’t about to jeopardize over some little doubt she may have.

The black Audi—the same one he’d noticed at the inn—was occupied by Stanfield and Copeland and parked just where they’d said it would be. He got in the back seat without saying a word. The car slid slowly out of the parking lot and headed north on Route 17. It wasn’t a long ride. They got off at the Ramsey overpass, swung around and over the highway, and into a space in front of the Holiday Inn. Neither of the two men in the front seat made any attempt to make conversation all the way to the motel.

Once in the parking lot, Stanfield cut the engine and said, “This is it, number twenty-three, in the inner court. You go ahead, Christopher. We’ll be with you in a second. Here are the keys. There might already be someone in there. Make yourself at home.”

There was somebody in the room when he opened the door. She sat in one of the overstuffed chairs in what looked like a large living room. She looked up when Lou came in, and he very nearly turned and walked back out. But it was number twenty-three. This was the inner court. If they were going to have a meeting, they’d certainly have to have a room this big to hold it in. He threw his overcoat on the couch and sat down opposite the girl without looking at her.

Chapter Twelve

She was very young, no more than twenty-two. She wore jeans, loafers, and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved sweater. Long, ebony-colored hair, parted in the middle, hung down over her face so that she had to read her Vanity Fair magazine through a cascade of black. Except for the upturned corners of her mouth, she wore the solemn look of a convent novice: a look that seemed to say, ‘whatever comes, I’ll handle it.’

“They said we could drink. It’s over there, if you’re thirsty,” she said, not looking up from her reading.

Lou’s immediate reaction was to say, no, he didn’t want anything, but he changed his mind in mid-thought. On a table against the wall sat an ice bucket and a quart each of McCullough’s scotch and Old Crow bourbon whiskeys.

“The beer’s in the fridge,” he heard her say behind him. “It’s through the doorway over there. I wouldn’t turn down a scotch.”

She looked up from her Vanity Fair as he approached with an inch of McCullough’s for her and a Molson Golden for him. Her eyebrows were a shade too thick, her mouth small and firm, and she kept her lips pressed.

“I’m Sydney. But maybe I’m not supposed to be telling you my name. What do you think?”

Lou took her in without moving his eyes. “I’ll let them do the introductions. I don’t know much about this little escapade. I think I’ll just sit back and find out what’s happening before I get too involved.”

She pushed a dismissive puff of breath through her lips. “Brother, if you’re here tonight, you’re already in knee deep.”

“You know all about it, of course.”

“No. But I know that I’m involved. I know that if you know enough to be here, you are too.”

“Okay, what is this thing?”

“You’re asking me? I figure I’m the lowest totem on this pole.”

She drained her glass in one quick swallow, and then went back to her Vanity Fair No pretense, no self-consciousness, this girl invited scrutiny with not a hint of doubt about her ability to stand up to it. She was obviously unimpressed with him. Good for her. Lou settled into his chair, eyed the ceiling and the walls, and read the label on his bottle of Molson.

The traffic on the highway outside buzzed, and as the seconds and minutes passed, the sound grew as if a swarm of angry wasps was gathering somewhere in a dark corner of the room. Finally, Stanfield, Copeland, and another man came through the door like a marching band.

All three wore slacks and sport shirts. Stanfield introduced the new guy simply as Red and indicated that Sydney was to be known as Tasha and Lou, Cook. “We all know that the names are wrong, but that’s the way we want it. There’s no need for anybody knowing anyone else’s name. It’s better that way.”

Copeland claimed the biggest soft chair in the room and pushed it into a dark corner. Seated, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and watched silently from around a tepee formed with his hands against his face.

Sydney brought her feet up under her, Indian-style, on the couch and leaned into the light from the table lamp, her elbows on her knees. Red dropped into an armless side chair turned backwards, his arms resting across the seat back.

“As an introduction to this, let me say that we have, at this moment, begun the creation of an illusion.” It was theater. As he spoke, Stanfield sat at the edge of the writing table before them, his eyes roaming the room, and then locking in on each of them in turn.

“The action that you take in the contact area will be carried out in a very precise manner, exactly as we outline it here tonight. There will be no ad-libbing or failure to follow orders. By the time we leave this room, everyone will know exactly what we’re trying to accomplish.”

From behind him, Lou heard the snap of a Zippo lighter and smelled cigarette smoke, even before it drifted past his ear and hung in the dim light from Sydney’s table lamp.

“I’ve got a question,” said the man, Red, raising his hand like a fourth grader. He stood up, still astride the chair, hands on his hips. “Where is this operation taking place? And how can we know that everything is going to work so well that we won’t have to wind up winging it?”

“Let’s just hold that question, Red. We’ll get to that. Right now, since you’ve got the floor, why don’t you fill the others in on just exactly what makes you tick?”

Red backed away from the chair with a grunt. Stuffing his shirttail into the belt of his trousers with one hand, sloshing Old Crow on the rocks with the other, he lumbered past Stanfield to a position in the center of the circle of feet. He slowly turned, staring them all down, one by one—something like the first sergeant of the Airborne Training Company at Fort Benning.

“Most of you don’t know me and never will. My military experience was in the Quartermaster Corps in the late seventies. My mission in this operation is to provide the matériel and equipment. I have the connections. That’s all you need to know. I can get guns, explosives, trucks, you name it. I could get choppers if we needed them. This fucking country supplies the world with surplus war equipment up the ying yang and nobody says a thing.”

“Red,” Stanfield interrupted, “stuff the philosophy. Do you have anything else to say?”

“Not right now,” Red muttered and retreated back to his chair.

Stanfield continued, moving his fingers along the fluted edge of the table as he spoke, lifting his eyes to every corner of the room as if his briefing notes were hiding there.

“Except for the three of you, no one else knows the real mission here. All the others are right off the street, complete strangers to us and each other, and happy as hell to have our five hundred bucks in their pockets for a night’s work. As far as they know, this is just a job, like digging ditches. The fewer people there are who know the details, the better off we all are. How many men, Red?”

“I’ve recruited eight men.”

“And equipment...?”

“We’ll all be packing Army M-2 Carbines. You’d never believe how easy it is to get hold of these things.”

“Okay, Red. Thank you. Now let me stress that even though Red’s group of strangers is going to be packing firearms, we don’t anticipate, nor advocate, any gunplay on this operation. There will be absolutely no need to point a gun at anyone, let alone pull the trigger. So much for that.”

Red grinned at anyone who returned his gaze and leaned well back, gripping the chair back in front of him.

There had to be a good reason to recruit know-nothing operatives, Lou thought. If caught, they’d have no beans to spill. The more they knew, the worse it would be for whoever cooked up this thing. He also reasoned it was fairly certain that the powers-that-be must have something pretty big on each of the three players in this room: Tasha, Red, and him.

Stanfield placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Red’s group will constitute the bulk of the strike force. The only other operatives will be Tasha, here, and Cook. We selected Tasha to participate in the operation strictly for the sake of the illusion we’re trying to create. With her along, it broadens—excuse the pun, Tasha—the base of the force.

“In other words, we want people to understand that this is much more than a bunch of American hoods out on a drunken spree or something. With a woman along, we’ll create the illusion of a more permanent, radically oriented group—a domestic underground organization if you will—along the lines of the Aryan Nation, the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, you name it.

“People now know that radical organizations are a fact of life. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. The airwaves are full of reports of violent attacks inside the country and out: the FALN torching Fraunces Tavern and bombing the hell out of Wall Street; one hundred eighty-nine Americans falling from a bombed Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland; two hundred forty-one Marines entombed in their barracks in Beirut; etc. We’re going to build on what everyone knows is true.

“Let’s keep going. Cook is my man. He answers directly to me. Cook will be giving all the orders out there. There will be total obedience to his commands. This is the next best thing to me going myself. If you’re concerned about his credentials, don’t be. He’s a veteran of two tours in Vietnam with the Vietnamese Rangers in Pleiku and the 25th Division in An Loc.

“Any questions so far?”

Stanfield finally looked around the group one by one, waiting for one of them to say something. He glanced to the side of the room at Copeland. Then he went on.

“Okay, no questions. Maybe we’ll have more discussion once everyone knows what we have in mind. To begin with, this operation is going to be duplicated in a dozen other places across the country. Every major city will have a similar incident occur at the same time, on the same date. There will be an unmistakable connection between all of them, so it’s important that you carry out everything to the letter, exactly as I tell it to you tonight.”

Copeland stood and pushed his way through the furniture to the table where he crushed his cigarette in an ashtray, and then proceeded to the refrigerator. “Who wants a beer?” he asked.

Stanfield continued: “The illusion we want to create is that the series of incidents was centrally coordinated and that other occurrences like it will be committed on a regular basis. The impression will be that there is a sizeable, well-organized and well-financed, hostile guerrilla force loose in the country, bent on bringing overt terrorism inside our borders. Only a coordinated effort by the federal authorities could be effective in countering the threat, along with a hardnosed chief executive in the White House.

“So much for that. Let’s get into the specifics of the operation. Target A is the Bear Mountain Bridge.” He cast his eyes back up to the ceiling and continued the recitation.

“As you all know, this bridge spans the Hudson near Peekskill, New York. It’s about forty-five minutes from the spot where we are right now. Bear Mountain Bridge is well known by anyone living within fifty miles of New York—somewhere near twenty million people. At the same time, the bridge is located far enough away from the city itself that we won’t run into problems with congestion.

“We anticipate no wholesale rubbernecking or gawking by the people of the area. The police forces in the vicinity of the bridge consist of the New York State Police who patrol the Palisades Parkway and the very small, local police departments of the towns of Peekskill, Fort Montgomery, and Stony Point.

“The bridge itself is guarded by a single officer operating out of the tollbooth on the western side of the river.”

“You’re not planning to blow that thing are you?” Red blurted out. “I mean what the hell?” Then he skulked back into his seat under Copeland’s silent gaze.

“We intend to create an illusion. And here’s how it works: nine o’clock sharp, two semi-trailer trucks appear at either end of the span. When Cook sees that the bridge is clear of traffic, he dismounts and, together with Tasha, seizes the tollbooth and the guard. When the booth is secured, all traffic approaching the bridge will be turned away. This will be done in a thoroughly professional way so as to create the impression that the bridge is temporarily closed for repairs.

“As soon as this is accomplished, an explosive charge will be prepared in the center of the span. It will be detonated on the command issued by Cook. This will create a tremendous explosion that will illuminate the surrounding area for a good mile up and down the river. The trucks will be put to the torch. This will effectively block the bridge to any firefighting equipment or police units.

“The entire force will assemble under Cook’s direction before the explosive charges are detonated. They’ll infiltrate out by way of the forested area that Cook will select. The escape will consist of evasion tactics, dictated by Cook, with the ultimate aim of arriving at the designated rendezvous point for transportation clear of the area. The arrival time and location will be set up between me and Cook. There is no need for anyone else to know those details at this moment.

“We expect the result of this operation will be widespread publicity by the biggest media center in the nation. Within hours of the act, certainly—and possibly immediately afterwards—TV sets all over the metropolis will report the event to twenty million Americans. At the same time, the force will be well on its way out of the area, never detected or identified except as the ‘Roscoe Corrazo Division of the American Revolutionary Army.’ This information will be given to the toll guard in the form of a written, official communication that we’re quite certain he’ll pass on to the FBI. Now, let’s have your questions.”

Lou pushed his thumb and forefinger hard against the bridge of his nose. Is this what it all came to? Twenty-five years of service. A covenant with the people of this country, people he was prepared to defend with his life. Legs full of shrapnel pits. A thousand nights on a hundred hostile hills. Is this what he sacrificed for? A handful of creeps talking make-believe terrorism?

He waited to see if any of the others were going to speak. They did not. He looked toward Stanfield and saw him staring back, along with all the others.

“What do you think?” Stanfield asked.

It was preposterous. They were actually trying to bring this off with him. How do you play it when they just keep building and building the ruse? He couldn’t laugh this time. Before he had a chance to speak, Sydney broke the silence.

“Exactly what does setting off explosives on the Bear Mountain Bridge accomplish?” she asked solemnly.

“Terrorism has come to America. You want to make a statement, blow something up in America and the whole world knows about it in hours. If you’re lucky, America takes retaliatory action, like firing missiles or something, and you get even more publicity. America is ready to believe that an act like this is just a continuation of the complete breakdown of law and order in this country. This operation takes advantage of this phenomenon.”

“What’s the message?” she asked.

“The message is spelled out in the official communication given to the toll guard. It proclaims this operation as just a harmless demonstration of how well organized we are and how dedicated we are to pursuing our objectives. However, the American people can expect to see systematic, terrorist acts in the future that exact a real toll for noncompliance with our agenda.”

“I never signed on as a terrorist.”

“I said in the beginning that this operation was designed to create an illusion. The terrorist bit is pure theater.”

“But it is terrorism. And I don’t want...”

“Fuck what you want,” barked Copeland from the shadows. “You’ll do what you’re told to do. Any more questions?”

Sydney sank deeper into her couch.

“Leave her alone,” Lou said. “She’s the only one here with half a brain.”

“So, we’re finally going to hear from the man,” said Copeland from the back. “Going to find out where we’ve gone off track. Okay, pal. Let’s go. We don’t have all night.”

“Where do I start?” Lou asked rhetorically.

“Start at the beginning.”

“From the beginning, the whole crummy concept stinks.”

“This is General Robert E. Lee talking I guess, huh? General Robert E. Lee.”

“No, this is common sense talking, Copeland.”

“Keep talking, smart guy.”

“All right. What about guns? What about communications? What about explosives, contingency plans, training, rehearsals, control, chain of command, discipline, conditioning, clothing, rations?”

Copeland shouted from the shadows: “Hold it! Just hold your frigging mouth, General Robert E. Lee! All of that comes under the heading of command and control, at the discretion of the local commander. We issue the broad outlines of the mission, you fill in the gaps.”

“Just like all great strategy, huh? Hatched by some half-baked staff man at headquarters with no true experience in the field.”

“Give us the benefit of your experience, Louis,” Stanfield interjected. “One point at a time.”

“You said there was going to be no need for guns,” Lou said.

“Who said anything about guns?” Copeland said, pushing his way into the center of them.

“What if the toll guard resists or pulls a gun?” Lou asked.

“He doesn’t have a gun,” snarled Copeland.

“Is he going to roll over and play dead in his little tollbooth?”

“You’ll be carrying guns, but there’s no need to shoot at any time,” Stanfield interjected.

“What happens when police arrive?”

“There aren’t going to be any police,” Copeland said, quieter, teeth clamped on the end of a cigarette.

“Have you told them that?”

“If you’re well organized, they won’t have time to react.”

“You guarantee that?”

“I don’t guarantee anything,” Copeland said, as the end of his cigarette blazed in the flame of the Zippo.

“If they shoot, then what?”

Copeland took a long, sucking drag on his Marlboro and expelled a cloud of smoke that enveloped Lou. “Then nothing,” he said.

Lou cleared the cloud from around his face with his hand, like batting at wasps. “In other words, Copeland, there’s a damned good chance that somebody’s going to die out there.”

Copeland stared straight at Lou and shot the lit cigarette into the corner of the room where it exploded in a spray of sparks against the wall. The silence split the space between them like dynamite. Then Copeland smiled.

“I wouldn’t say that, pal. I would say there’s hardly a chance at all. But that’s really up to you now, isn’t it?”

The real question was the one nobody asked: who of them takes the fall? These two? Never. Buck? Ha! And what happens if the whole thing turns to dung? Red eats dirt? Tasha? He knew the answer. It was whoever got caught holding the bag, and there weren’t all that many of them with a hand in it to begin with.

“There’s no shooting,” Lou said, sighing audibly.

“None,” said Copeland.

“But we carry guns, for the effect, and the guns have ammunition in them?”

“Right.”

“Did you ever know a group of men to go out somewhere with guns and ammo without firing?”

“There will be no firing, Cook.”

“Why nine o’clock? Why not three a.m. when the place is deserted?”

“We want coverage. That’s the name of the game. Media coverage.”

“You want to get out of there on foot?”

“That’s right.”

“Why not use one of the trucks to get out of the general area at least?”

“You’d be picked up. They’d trace the truck. They have to be destroyed.”

“What training do these people have? The girl? These guys? What do they know about escape and evasion? How are they going to make it in the boonies for a couple of days, constantly on the move, no sleep?”

“Anybody can go twenty-four hours without sleep,” Red piped in. “The men will get the job done, believe me.”

“How about you, Tasha?” Lou said, looking at the girl.

She squirmed on the couch and shrugged without answering.

“What good can she possibly do?”

“I explained that, Cook.”

“A man could go dressed as a woman.”

“It won’t wash. I want the guard to report that there was a girl named Tasha along on this thing.”

“How about commo? How about control?”

“Red has radios.”

“We’ll get ’em,” Red chimed in again.

“Wonderful. You got batteries?”

“Yeah.”

“Will they work? Who says these guys’ll do what they’re told to do? What if Red refuses? Is he a dead man?”

“That’s up to you, Cook. You’re in command.”

“Who’s the demo man?”

“You’re a Ranger.”

“Was. What kind of explosive do you have, Red?” Lou asked wearily.

“Let’s just say that there are ways of getting anything you want in the way of military equipment and ammunition, Cook. If you got the bread, you can get the goods. Believe me.”

“I said what kind of explosive?”

“What kind do you want?”

“Say I want C-4.”

“How much?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“You got it.”

“How about the trucks? Where do they come from?”

“We have them.”

“Is there a rehearsal? Any training?”

“There’s no time for that.”

“Okay, then the big question is: when is this three-ring circus supposed to come off? Tomorrow?”

“Close, pal. The day after,” Copeland said.

“I’m gone.”

Lou got up quickly and was out the door before anybody could react.

Stanfield and Copeland were up and out right behind him as he strode toward the front of the motel. He felt them at his back as he stood on the sidewalk in front of the office, scanning Route 17, immersed in the chaotic din of the truck traffic, buried in the furious buzzing that swirled around his head. He turned to face the two of them.

“Both of you guys know as well as I do that this whole thing is crap. I’m not buying it. There’s no way I’m going to have anything to do with it.”

Chapter Thirteen

“All right, Christopher, let’s just say we heard you,” said Copeland. “Those other shmucks are content to know exactly what they already know and no more. You get a few more details.”

“We don’t work for Buck; at least not all the time,” said Stanfield. “Let’s just say that we’re involved on a short-term basis. It’s in and out for us, too. Bang-bang and it’s all over. And that’s how we want it to go. Fast and sweet. We want to get through with this assignment as soon as we can.”

The two of them stood on either side of Lou, close.

“Now, we happen to know something about radical and terrorist activities and groups. Fact is, we’ve been infiltrating and monitoring these kinds of organizations for a long time. And this operation is about par for the course for these people.

“It’s not far removed from a plan that we know of that was supposed to come off back in ’80 when Reagan was running. We’re just adapting the idea to this particular time. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out there’s an election going on, nor the effect that an event like this could have, taking place so close to election day.

“Let’s just say that the ‘ins’ happen to believe in using all the resources at their disposal to bring about the desired aim of electing a president. So much for that.

“Now, why you? You’re smart. You’ve been around operations that depend on timing and guts. We need a guy who can handle a maniac like Red and his bunch of goons. Did you see his face when we mentioned the Airborne Ranger bit? He was drooling. Frankly, we were going to go with Red and his bunch until the lady heard about it. From then on, we had to get hold of someone with a little more on the ball. Patricia got you for us. She got a few hundred brownie points for the brainstorm, even though she stole it from us. So there it is.”

Who were these people? Harvard MBAs doing some kind of case study, with Patricia Buck providing the practical experience? Lou could visualize them poring over huge spreadsheets in the research department; Buck checking in from time to time to see how the plans were coming along; Stanfield delivering some high-blown briefing that sounded like a second Operation Desert Storm; Copeland sitting back, letting the tall one do all the talking. Stanfield had all the hot air and outward show of confidence and polish. Copeland was the brain, the stabilizer. Whenever Stanfield’s facade showed the merest hint of cracking, Copeland came in to carry the day. The catch in the whole charade was the same as the flaw in all schemes conceived in the laboratory: it lived in a Petri dish. It had nothing to do with real life and real guts.

“I told you I was out. It’s crazy. I’m out. I don’t want to know you two or anything about this free-for-all. Understand?”

“And I said we heard you,” said Copeland.

“Listen, Louis, people take chances, and succeed, every day,” said Stanfield. “You don’t have to be Schwarzkopf to pull these things off, just smart. If the operatives who blew up the Marines in Beirut can walk away from it unscathed, you can do this forty miles north of the city. Who says anybody gets caught?”

“Patricia Buck means nothing to me. I don’t know what you have on the rest of these people, but what you have on me isn’t worth shit.”

“Louis, listen to me, carefully. The other two owe certain people money, big time. When this is over, they’re out from under. That’s them. With you, we’re talking a quarter of a million dollars annually for the rest of your life.”

“Fuck the money. You go back and tell Patricia to fuck the money.”

“Do you really think it’s only Patricia Buck? Do you really believe that? Louis, Jord Bliss, the president of the United States, just happens to be giving a speech at the Waldorf Sunday night. Check it out.

“When the word flashes that the bridge is in flames, he flies out to the scene from the West Side heliport and takes charge. Two days before the election. You’re smart. You know as well as I do that, with the effectiveness of television coverage today, the right event can completely modify public opinion in the space of a couple of hours.”

“This half-baked load of bullshit would make Jimmy Carter’s hostage rescue disaster look like a moon landing,” Lou snarled, walking away from them. “You’re amateurs. A day and a half to prepare for this? You’re nuts.”

“You talk about operations hatched in a test tube? What about naïve statements about presidential campaigns, bright boy?” Copeland growled, grabbing Lou’s shoulder, spinning him around.

“This is high pressure, pal. Poll results come in daily, hourly. The president is down seventeen points nationally. The man wants to be reelected. Numerous others want him in the White House. Yeah, if we knew we needed something this drastic a week ago, we would’ve allotted more time; but this is here and now, and we don’t have time.”

“This is his last, best shot at turning this disaster of a campaign around, Lou,” Stanfield crooned. “The man himself has no firsthand knowledge of the details of the plan. Of course, he has to stay one or two operatives away from the real action of covert operations, but he knows that he has to take a chance or just roll over. It’s all or nothing. He knows this.”

“Tell Patricia I’m out.”

“You think you have to do all this protesting shit for the record. It’s in your fucking blood,” Copeland hissed.

“I’m out, understand? Out. Tell Patricia to shove the account.”

“Hold it, just one second, Lou,” said Stanfield. “I get the feeling that you have the idea that Patricia Buck is getting all the credit here. That you’re some kind of chess piece to be shoved around the board; a faceless, second-rate bellboy or something. Louis, come on. An official, whose name I cannot reveal to you, but who is close to Jord Bliss, our president, has personally reviewed these plans, to include your selection as the man to lead it. Bliss, through this official, has absorbed your entire file. He indicated that he wants you. More than that, he needs you, Lou. It sounds as corny as hell, but, well, just think about that.”

“I don’t believe a word of it. Bliss himself wants me but doesn’t personally know about this fucking operation? Bull-fucking-shit. I’m not an idiot.”

Copeland stepped in: “You know what, pal, what you were told about Bliss wanting you is true, but you don’t need to believe that to comprehend that the end game in this operation creates the equivalent effect, and makes it true. Let me paint you a picture since you can’t do it yourself. The man is in Manhattan giving a speech on the night that a terrorist attack lights up the Hudson Valley. The attack unfolds in plain sight to millions, and Bliss is compelled to act, compelled to do the one thing that has any decent chance to pull the election out. If you’re saying that there’s no way in the world that he would jump in a helicopter and fly to the scene of a terrorist attack underway forty miles upriver from him, I’m saying you’re fucking crazy. In his dreams he couldn’t come up with a better scenario, and it carries zero risk for him. Does he want a miracle to save the election? Yes. Are you that miracle? Yes. Is wanting a miracle equal to wanting you. You figure it out.

Then it was Stanfield again: “Listen Louis, we know who you are. We know all about you. We know more about you than your worst nightmare would allow, including how you managed to hold onto those eagles when they should have been ripped off your shoulders. You don’t believe there’s an executive branch connection to all of this? Where does this information come from? Think about that.”

“Hey, Louis, let’s be civil here. You see the big picture. You see the implications. So, I presume you can visualize yourself taking on a whole new role in the service of your country. You’ve always operated best as a lone wolf anyway. It’s in the record. You get it done, whatever it is. This brokerage stint was just an interlude with you. Now, if this operation goes over as planned, you’re a natural to gravitate over to a covert mode in various national security initiatives.

“Okay, it’s hypothetical, but anyone with half a brain can see that it’s made for you. You’re in direct contact with the man. You operate outside of the normal chain of command. Four-star generals—one of your old friends maybe—have no control over you. Brigadiers work for you. I see you talking on a secure telephone to the man himself, while others wait to share their ideas with the president of the United States. You laugh, Lou. You chuckle. You’re incredulous. I know it’s very heady stuff. Enjoy it.”

“I’m out,” Lou said.

“You need something tangible, pal?” Copeland snickered. “Let me ask you something. Did your checks bounce, pal? Did you not receive real money?”

“You know I did.”

“It’s a huge pile of coins, pal. Not gumballs. Not breath mints.”

“I’m out of this place,” Lou said, walking on.

“Louis,” Stanfield said, stepping in front of him. “You want to play hardball? Okay. We know that game, too. And it goes like this: you get a pension. Twenty-five years of active duty and a bull colonel’s pay. Hell, you don’t need any Westover calls, do you, Louis? But I remember hearing something about an accident during a winter training exercise in Germany. What was it? FX Taro Leaf? Something about a full-bird brigade commander coming under investigation for gross dereliction of duty that damned near cost the lives of eight of our young fighting men? I don’t think that investigation ever went anywhere, did it, Louis? I think it got swept under the rug somewhere along the line, somewhere in General Hank Readfield’s command? Hey, Louis, I just bet all kinds of sand would be flying if that thing ever got opened up again. Don’t you?”

He hadn’t expected this last gambit, but he wasn’t surprised they knew about Taro Leaf. They seemed to know about everything. He had no response. It felt as if a massive bird had dropped from the sky to his shoulder, and not an eagle—a vulture.

“Get yourself another boy,” he muttered, turning to go.

“Hey pal,” Copeland rasped, “there’s a kid I know named Jory.”

Lou stopped. The knuckle on some invisible finger punched him just below the sternum, snatching his breath away. He turned to face them.

“He’s a beautiful kid,” Copeland continued. “Are those your brown eyes on him?”

“If you touch him...” Lou croaked.

“Come over here, pal,” Copeland said, moving to the shadows of the trees in the courtyard.

“I’m going to explain something to you in a way you’ll understand. You’re something like, I don’t know, one of those Mac boys back in the good old days of Vietnam: McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, McJohnson. You know the names—the best and the brightest, right? Well, turned out they weren’t so bright, right? And you know what it was? It was, pal, that they were lightweights. They failed to understand bedrock about their enemy. They thought it was just a war. What they couldn’t see was that Ho Chi Minh and his boys were willing to go way beyond just giving up their own lives to win. They’d put the whole enchilada on the line—every woman, every child, every fucking one of them—if that’s what it took.

“Now, we’re talking about a president who has to win—not wants to—has to. It’s a question of the destiny of this country, in his mind and the minds of the people that surround him. It’s as important to him as his life, or anyone’s life. You’ve got a lot of lives in your orbit, pal. And I know each one of them in a level of detail that you wouldn’t believe. For example, I know that little Jory likes puppies. You didn’t know that. If you did, you would’ve gotten him one by now. Little Jory likes puppies so much that he forgets all the things his mommy told him about never talking to strange men, and never, ever getting into a strange van. But he’s just human, right? Next time you see him, ask him if he didn’t get a whole pack of bubble gum from a nice man in a van the other day. Am I getting through to you, pal?”

Lou walked between them back to Room 23, silent.

Sydney was still flipping the pages of Vanity Fair, nursing another small glass of Johnny Walker. Red sucked on his glass of Old Crow. Copeland took up his place in the corner. Stanfield wound up the meeting.

“All right, the operation is on for Sunday night. We have the equipment and we have the people. You’ll assemble at the truck park at the junction of Route 17 and the New York Thruway, at 3:00 p.m. sharp. Cook will give the final briefing to include all the finer details. If there are no more questions, good luck and goodbye.”

As they all stood to leave, Sydney slid over to Lou and spoke in a quiet voice. “Any chance of hitching a ride to the truck park on Sunday? You could pick me up at the Ramsey overpass, around a quarter to three.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Lou said, walking away.

“I’ll be there,” she said.

The ride back to Paramus in the Audi was as quiet as the ride up. Stanfield pulled the car beside Lou’s Lexus in the parking lot. It was close to nine o’clock. Maggie could believe that he was making calls until then. Just as he was about to pull away, Copeland rolled down his window. Lou did the same.

He spoke in a low voice, leaning out the window to hand Lou a note: “It’s all gone nice and civilized, Christopher. You’ve been fucking silent since we broke up the meeting. I know you’re thinking. I know you’re plotting. But don’t shoot yourself in the foot, soldier.

“Stay on the bright side of this. I offer just one more piece of advice, pal: once the covert mode goes into effect, which is now, you can never go back. It’s too dangerous for everybody. So, if I were you, I’d just keep functioning on an even keel, without even thinking about not showing or running. That wouldn’t be good for you, for your darling wife, or the cute kid in pre-school. Kirky is it? Or was it Jory?”

The Audi glided away in the dark. Lou sat motionless, looking at the taillights glimmering in the distance. There was a small piece of paper in his hand that read:

LINKUP POINT

CALL ME

SUNDAY 2:00 P.M.

555-6744

Chapter Fourteen

Lou and Mag sat across from each other in the built-in bench seats of the breakfast nook. The early morning sun pushed through the white curtains at the window beside them. The table was littered with plates, silverware, and the coffee pot.

“Lou, I’ve been sitting here in front of you for the last half hour. I might as well be on Mars,” Maggie said, weariness in her eyes.

“Okay, I’m preoccupied,” Lou muttered.

“I want you to listen to me,” she said, grasping his hands across the table.

“I’m listening,” he said, allowing a long sigh. He discarded his half-eaten toast, sipped coffee. His thoughts drifted.

Somehow they knew everything about him; had disinterred the rotten corpse buried in the garden, the putrefied FX Taro Leaf affair. They’d made threats against Jory and Kirk. When they pulled that out of the hat, his resistance all but collapsed. He didn’t even want to think about that. So, he thought about everything else.

The plan was ill conceived, absurd. To think that anyone could mastermind and coordinate an operation like this in a day and a half and without prior notice or knowledge of the people involved. Ridiculous.

“Lou!” Mag’s voice again, sharper. “You’re not listening. You’re looking at me, but you don’t see me. You’re off somewhere else entirely. Your mind is racing a hundred miles an hour, I can see it. I want to know what’s going on.”

He rubbed the fog from his eyes with the tips of his fingers. Refocused. Softer.

“Nothing’s going on, Mag.”

“You’ll be gone all day. No explanations. And you want me to believe nothing is going on?”

“Yes.” But again his thoughts drifted.

Who the hell was this Red character? One of those idiots getting kicks training for combat on weekends? Would he keep his cool under stress, execute orders with some semblance of efficiency? And the matériel? Where were the napalm, guns, and ammunition coming from? Army surplus equipment was one thing, but these were M-2 Carbines, World War II jobs they were talking about, and napalm, for chrissakes. And what about the semi-trailer trucks? That was a couple hundred grand up in smoke, just in trucks. Who was shelling out all the money for this? And the girl. What about her?

“Lou, I know when you’re lying to me. You’ve been lying ever since we started getting the money. We’re going to crash and burn. I can feel it. You’ve got to tell me. I’m entitled to know.”

“We’re not going to crash.”

Ridiculous. The whole proposition. But they were right about one thing: if anyone could pull it off, he could. Who else had the experience, the smarts, the guts? Risk? He knew all about it. He’d never backed down from tough odds. And he’d known odds tougher than this. Of course, it had been in combat, with his men—trained, reliable; he’d seen to that. His actions had always been within the limits of the Code of Conduct. No matter what happened, he’d always been able to walk among his people afterwards.

This operation was a different animal. It had all the risks, all the danger. It would take everything he had to bring it off. He could still operate within the Code, even if he was the only one. And if the payoff was what Copeland said it would be, if the big guys really had hand-picked him for this, then maybe. Just maybe...

“Lou? Lou, look at me. You’re not looking at me.”

“I am, Mag. I’m looking at you. All right?”

“I know you, Lou. Maybe better than you know yourself. You get into things you shouldn’t. You don’t do it out of malice. You never have. But it happens, again and again. And I come into the picture only after it’s all over with, and the landscape is strewn with wreckage.”

Well, and what choice did he have, really? It was simple, stupid, really. They knew more about him than he knew about himself. Peddling stocks and bonds? Hell, it wasn’t for him. Anybody could see that. Just a temporary anomaly in the fabric of a life of sacrifice and altruism. As a stockbroker, he was in a rut, wasted. Grounded. But in the military, in this kind of operation, he could fly again.

“Lou?” Maggie was still at it.

“I don’t want to get into a long discussion,” he said, pulling his hands out of hers.

Maggie grabbed them back. “I have to know what’s going on. Before it happens, this time.”

“Maggie...”

“I’m in this with you. Together, Lou. The two of us. Whatever it is, we face it together. Whatever you do, it affects me; can’t you see that?”

“There’s nothing going on.”

So, the brokerage game simply becomes the medium through which they’ll compensate him for his skills as a soldier. Add a dash of the ultimate revenge—a semi-resurrected military career rebuilt on a shiny new chassis. Throw in some recognition in high places that acknowledges that he possesses capabilities far beyond those of most of his peers—capabilities that dictate his selection for this mission. He could almost see the dirt falling back over that maggot-ridden corpse in the garden.

“We are affected by each other, Lou.”

“Maggie, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Let go.”

He jerked his hands away, kept his face composed and cool. He didn’t need this questioning. But she wouldn’t give up.

“Tell me what has happened. Please.”

Initially, it seemed the only rational thing to do was go to the police, tell them the whole thing, before he got more involved. But that wouldn’t work. This went far beyond the local police. They would never believe it and might even think he was a crackpot. The whole thing would leak back somehow, to Copeland, Buck, whoever else was involved. How could he take the chance that the threats to Maggie and Jory and Kirk were all a bluff? How about all the other lives in his orbit, as Copeland put it?

“Tell me, Lou.”

“Okay. Something weird happened.”

“You told me that already.”

“The money isn’t free.”

“Oh, my God.” .

“See? See what happens?”

It was all a matter of perspective. He had to look at it that way. Not a problem to overcome. Not a threat. Put that aside and think of it as a chance. It was a chance, an opportunity to reclaim what he once was, the person for whom all things were possible. Even if no one would ever know.

“This is it. The end. I can feel it.”

Worry was morphing into panic. He could see it in her face, hear it in her voice.

“Don’t go ballistic on me, Mag.”

“I need to know what’s happening.”

“It’s nothing. It’s just two days and...”

“Lou, start at the beginning and tell me what it is.”

He had to get busy, lay out a detailed plan that had some chance of succeeding, just in case he decided to go through with it. He couldn’t go ahead without a plan. And he couldn’t scrub it without checking it out first. He’d have to take his car to reconnoiter the area around the bridge, see for himself, and then decide.

“If you go, Lou. If you go away from this table without telling me everything, I won’t be here when you get back.”

He hated to lie. Hated to quibble. Just tell her something.

“All right. All right. Okay, Maggie. Okay? They want me to be more than a broker.”

“Who are they?”

“They. The company. Pierson Browne, Patricia Buck.”

“What do they want?”

“It’s weird, Mag. It’s crazy.”

“What?”

“It’s...Well, it’s training. With me handling this new account, they want to be sure that I have the knowledge I need about the market, the global market.”

“That’s it? I don’t believe you.”

“I’ll be incommunicado for a full two days. Starting right away. Tomorrow.”

“You’re lying to me. Your eyes are darting all over the place.”

“It’s up at Arden House, that mansion sitting up in the hills alongside the Thruway. Columbia’s giving this seminar and a whole bunch of people from banks and brokerage firms are going to be up there. I’m one of them. It came out of the blue.”

“Two days. Incommunicado. How would you feel if I suddenly said, ‘okay, I’m off to California’?”

“I knew you’d give me a hard time about it.”

“The global market. What about the global market?”

“There are all kinds of ramifications of trading in foreign stocks and bonds, Mag. If I knew all about it, I wouldn’t be going. But there’s a whole set of factors that don’t matter in regular domestic trading, like currency fluctuations, and time differences that I need to know about if I’m going to be dealing with Barry Westover.”

“I’m going to San Jose. I’ll be at Mom’s.” She sounded tired, resigned.

“They don’t want us distracted, Mag. It’s a high-intensity seminar, is all. So I go away for a day or two, pour it on, focus. What’s the big deal?”

“When you feel like it, you can call and tell me the truth. Are you scared of me, Lou? Are you afraid of what I’ll think, what I’ll say? Training is the whole thing? This is what you didn’t want to tell me?”

“You’ve never been able to understand that I need to be able to operate outside of the constraints of you and me sometimes. High powered people have...”

“The ‘constraints’ of you and me.”

“They want to move fast while the concept is hot. To be in their league, you can’t be tied down by ‘what is the wife going to think?’ Anyway, there’s more.”

“What is it? What more could there possibly be?”

“I have to go to a preliminary meeting, today, now. A meeting of all those from Pierson Browne who are going to this thing. They want to make sure we understand the company’s position.”

She was quiet for a moment. He could almost see her trying to choose her words, find a way to break him, get him to spill.

“Lou, I’m on your side. You can tell me anything. Anything at all. But you’re afraid. Whatever it is that’s really going on, you’re afraid that I’ll object. Afraid that I’ll make sense. We couldn’t survive another affair, Lou.”

“I have to go. You’ll have to trust me. I’ll be back late. We’ll talk some more.”

He almost ran to the car.

No, no, not the Subaru. The Lexus, stupid.

For a long time, he just sat gripping the steering wheel hard with both hands. He was afraid, afraid Maggie would haul the absurdity of it out into the bright light of day, as she always did. It had happened before.

And in truth, it was an affair. Of a different sort, but no less illicit. He had known it before, the clench well below his sternum. It wasn’t up in his brain where logic lived. It was down there, where the juices that fired a sort of frenzy flowed.

Chapter Fifteen

Somehow Lou had to get Red thinking along his wavelength. To make it short and sweet. The whole operation couldn’t consume more than forty minutes. Any longer than that and police cars would be swarming. The first shot fired by anyone would touch off the biggest fireworks display in the history of the Hudson Valley since the Revolutionary War. One thing was sure: he had only half a day to come up with a viable plan, with all the timings. It was the only chance they had.

Lou drove past the bridge on 9W into Fort Montgomery and parked the car. With his video camera in a bag on his shoulder, he walked back to the little highway bridge that spanned the gorge over Popolopen Creek. He leaned against the high steel railing and looked out toward the Hudson and the Bear Mountain Bridge.

From where he was, away from the sounds of the traffic on the bridge and far enough distant to appreciate the relative size of the dominant terrain, Bear Mountain Bridge looked like a silver Erector Set suspension, set into place between two papier-mâché mountains. Anthony’s Nose on the eastern and Bear Mountain on the western ends of the bridge loomed abruptly, dominating the span, shrinking its relative size by half.

It was clean, beautiful, in its simplicity and strength, anchored on two mountains and straddling a broad river. He recorded the scene in one slow sweeping arc, then lowered the camera and simply stared at the panorama in awe.

In his mind’s eye, he often saw himself as if he was being recorded: on a parade field, reaching to take the battle flag of his own infantry brigade; kneeling on a sled behind Pete and Oliver as it whooshed down a snowy hill. And these pictures fused with pictures that had never been recorded, but which lived in his mind’s eye just as vividly: a slow, graceful windup on the pitcher’s mound, and the vapor trail of the ball on its way to the plate as if on a track, spinning and glancing down off a slanted pane of glass, across the outside edge of the plate for a strike.

He made the trip to the bridge using the Palisades Parkway approach on the west side of the Hudson. Now he verified that the bridge was semi-guarded—if you wanted to call it guarded at all—by a single toll taker in a little booth on the west side. He zoomed in to record the smiling man as he reached to take bills from the driver fifty yards ahead. At night, Lou thought, the traffic would be much lighter.

Next, Lou timed the trip down around Anthony’s Nose and into Peekskill. He went on to the Tappan Zee Bridge, a much more tortuous route, especially for a semi-trailer truck.

He drove up by Camp Smith atop Anthony’s Nose, and studied the map of the military reservation. There, they would make their getaway into the woods. It would be a hell of a climb, up the face of the rock at the end of the bridge, to get into the reservation. He reconnoitered around the area east of Camp Smith to find a likely linkup point.

It was not the best place for a rendezvous. Ideally, a well-defined feature they could easily locate while stumbling through the area in the dark would be best; a place prominent enough to describe to someone like Copeland, who had never been in the area before. Lou settled on a point north of the bridge and Anthony’s Nose, on a winding, backwoods road that intersected Route 9D about three kilometers north of the bridge near St. James Chapel.

They would wait, hidden in the vicinity of Curry’s Pond for a visual linkup on foot. They weren’t going to just stand around on some road. He recorded the scene with his video camera.

Lou sketched out the main concept in his mind, reconnoitered on the ground. Now he started thinking about alternatives. Anyone who had ever had anything to do with combat operations knew you had to provide for the unexpected. There wasn’t a single operation in his memory that went off without a hitch. There was always some aspect of the plan that would prove inadequate.

The troops would have to improvise or go to the alternate plan. Having a backup plan was distinctly preferable to winging it. If he got waylaid, who was in command? Where was the standby linkup point? How about people who got hurt? As the enormity of the planning effort descended on him, Lou felt the horrible feeling of helplessness that comes from not having a fraction of the time needed to bring off a plan.

They needed to rehearse, to actually go over the plan on similar terrain, like a football team walking through the plays to make sure every man knew exactly what he was to do at all times. How could they absorb in a couple of hours what he’d learned over an entire career in the Army? Like the essentials of patrolling; or how to form up to infiltrate out of the area once the demo was blown; or the elements of avoiding detection at night. They should have lampblack on their faces and hands. They should tape all equipment to prevent noise. It was hopeless. The only chance they had was if they caught the police off guard. The whole plan rested on the authorities reacting slowly enough to allow them to get out.

Lou traced the western approach to the bridge. Trucks weren’t allowed on the Palisades Parkway. He’d have to go down Route 6, Route 293, and Mine Torne Road. Mine Torne Road twisted beside steep outcrops on one side and a plunging chasm on the other. It was a lonely two-lane with an occasional house appearing around a bend. Old bungalows they were, with pilings supporting the back porches and a dog yelping somewhere down the gorge. The gorge was a good secondary escape route. In the ravine, they were less likely to make navigational mistakes in the panic of a hot escape. It would be dark down there, and noiseless.

On the horizon ahead, as he came around a sweeping curve, Lou saw a massive, black crag that dominated the surrounding terrain. It was an ideal secondary rendezvous, an unmistakable landmark. He pulled onto a gravel road on the far side of the crag and flicked on the inside light. The map clearly showed Mine Torne Road snaking through the hills, with Popolopen Creek rushing at the bottom of the gorge. He was in the drive leading to Borrow Pit. Above him, its shadow looming over the car, was the Torne.

He slid out of the car and turned to face the mountain. Trees grew halfway up, then stopped. Its peak was solid rock—jagged, black. Standing there, suddenly, he felt chilly. He committed this image to memory, alongside the parade ground flag ceremony, the kids on a sled, and the thunk of a baseball in a catcher’s mitt. As he panned the camera to capture the full sweep of the crag, its iciness seeped through to his chest. The possibility of death invaded him, heavy and absolute. He knew that he needed to go far beyond what he comprehended now; far beyond what he could imagine about this mission and these people. He needed something to call on when all other options had been exhausted.

Route 17W climbed steadily out of the valley in which the Thruway curved. The hills beyond the Hudson River were smoother than the rock-strewn slopes around the bridge. They opened up into broad pastures and wood lots. He pressed the accelerator, squeezed the wheel, and held his speed to a steady eighty-five mph.

On the west side of Monticello, Lou slowed to a crawl to catch the dirt road that he knew rambled north, just a mile or more beyond the abandoned Shell station. After two minutes on the dusty rut, he saw the dirty, white clapboard farmhouse on the hill and the rickety barn looming up behind it. Four half-breed dogs yipped at the door as he swung his feet out of the car and took the two long steps needed to meet Tom Holt halfway across the barnyard. Private Thomas Holt, radioman.

“Lou, you old, foot soldier,” Holt said. “Haven’t seen you in twenty years.”

“Good to see you again, Tom. Let me have a look at you.” But Tom Holt had him in a bear hug, and he wasn’t about to let go.

“One thing has changed, Lou. I finally landed a good woman. Dory! Come out and meet Lou Christopher.”

A tall, thin woman moved, as if on skates, across the yard and clasped him in a hard, firm embrace. Tears brimmed and drenched her hollow cheeks.

“Lieutenant Christopher. I’ve heard the story as many times as I can get Tom to repeat it. I thought I’d never get the chance to thank you for saving Tom for me.”

Chapter Sixteen

Lou had to talk to himself on the way back home to keep from yielding to his leaden eyelids. It was fully night when he pulled into the driveway, but all the lights in the front of the house were off. He stumbled through the back door into the dark kitchen. He hadn’t eaten all day. He flicked on the overhead light.

He lifted the lid and peered into the larger of two pans on the range. It was goulash. He had to break through a thin layer of crust when he jabbed it with a fork. The other pan contained white rice in cold, hard clumps. He rattled around in the refrigerator, amid the bowls and bottles on every shelf, finally settling on a can of peaches. He turned the heat on under the coffee pot.

Sagging with fatigue, he slid into the breakfast nook bench and stared out at the lights on the neighbor’s house across the way. He glanced up at the clock above the fridge—ten o’clock. He heard the bedroom door at the end of the hall open and saw the finger of light on the floor. Then he heard Maggie’s slippers in the hallway.

She shuffled into the kitchen and went directly to the coffee pot, clattered the pans into the sink with short, annoyed jabs, and then pulled them out again.

“I guess you really meant all day,” she said. “I finally had to eat.”

“Yeah, I really got tied up.”

“I’ll warm the goulash.”

“No, never mind that. This’ll do fine.”

He leaned back on the bench. He couldn’t find the words to bring her into this mess. Maybe she would never have to know about any of it.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me about it?” she said, sharp and angry.

“It was boring.”

“Is Patricia Buck going to be around during these next couple of days up at Arden House? Not that I give a flying...”

“Patricia Buck is too busy with her Bliss reelection activities to give a fig about the company anymore, Mag. No one can ever get hold of her.”

“You’re going to miss Halloween. The grandchildren are going to be crushed,” Mag said, clutching the collar of her robe around her throat.

“Halloween! Oh, Christ, it’s tomorrow night. Sunday. Tomorrow.”

What could that mean? Increased police patrols? Kids out on the streets? But maybe more people would be staying close to home for the tricks and treats. The bridge wouldn’t have much traffic. It looked to be about an even break.

“They’ll get along without me. They don’t need the old fart to take them around anymore.”

“They’ll be disappointed.”

“Not if we don’t make a big deal out of it, Mag.”

“You have to admit that taking off for a couple of days, completely out of the blue, would tend to test anyone’s limits of trust; but that’s the way you want it, so that’s the way it’s going to be. I don’t like it but I don’t feel like pushing. We’re probably going to crash on this one. Just don’t give me that ‘no big deal stuff,’ okay?”

He rose from the table, went to the coffee pot on the range, and filled his cup. Now he felt the tightness in his shoulders and neck from the full day of driving and reconnoitering. He told himself to stay cool, not to blow up. She was entitled to some explanation.

“Want a cup?” he asked, looking back at her.

She wrapped her robe more securely around her body and shook her head. “It’s too late for coffee.”

He took the pint of milk from the refrigerator, splashed some into his cup, and followed that with a level teaspoon of sugar. He slid back down onto the bench at the table.

“Mag, I know I’ve been acting uptight. You’re just going to have to bear with me for a little while. I’m involved in Buck’s little training project. It’s a pain in the ass, but it will make everything after it better. It’s all going to be back to normal soon, you’ll see.”

He got up, moved around to Mag’s side of the nook, and slid in beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek and lightly on the ear. He brought his hand up to her neck and under her hair, lightly rubbing the back of her head.

“Don’t fall apart on me,” she said softly, looking into his face.

“We’re going to be fine.” he said, pulling her close.

“I hate this,” she said. “I’m your wife, not your girl.”

“Do you remember how we were back in the beginning?”

“I can’t do this, Lou. I’m in knots. I can’t fake it.”

“You wore whipped cream,” he said, sliding his hand into her robe.

“No, Lou. I’ve made up Oliver’s old bed for you tonight. I bought my plane ticket.”

He moved his hand to the sash of Maggie’s robe. He fiddled with it for a second before he pulled and the knot came loose. She wore a short, white nightie that contrasted sensationally with the bronze of her thigh.

“Good night, Lou,” she said, pushing him out of the nook, and pulling away from his grasp. “I love you; but you’re breaking my heart, and I hate you for that.”

Mag clutched the robe tightly around herself, padded down the long hallway, and lightly shut the door.

A sharp ache scrabbled up through his throat to the tip of his nose. He pressed his fist hard against his lips, beating back a rush of emotion. Something inside clutched that spot just above his navel, reminding him of who was in charge, and of what he had to do.

* * *

In the morning, he confronted the matter of clothes. What kind of clothes do you wear when you blow napalm on the Bear Mountain Bridge? He had to wear a suit and tie for the sake of the charade, but he packed his dungarees and bang-around coat in his suitcase. He stuffed his old combat boots in the bag as well.

He opened the top drawer of his bureau, the sock drawer, and dropped the videotape of his reconnaissance into it.

Maggie didn’t emerge from the bedroom, but he felt her eyes on his back as he got into the car.

Out on Route 17, he rented a new Plymouth from Avis and switched from the suit into the dungarees and jungle boots. He drove back past the ugly PSE&G generating plant and the Meadows, up Route 4—devoid now of Sunday traffic—and right into the middle of town. The small, treed square in the center of the business district was deserted.

All up and down Grosvenor, the main street of town, Lou didn’t see a soul. The only activity was in front of Harvey’s Stationers, when someone entered to buy a Sunday Times and left a minute later. It was only then that he realized the banks weren’t open on Sunday. His wallet had only two, dog-eared twenties in it.

Ordinarily, Mag would never have let him leave the house without enough money. And what happened to his vow never to leave the house without at least three hundred bucks in his pocket? That resolution, born in the dark days when it seemed nothing good would ever happen again, had helped him recover his swagger. But the day he started getting calls from Westover, it simply evaporated.

He drove to the corner of Montrose and Gilbert, to the covered kiosk beside the Second National Bank, fired up the ATM with his credit card, tapped the keys, waited, and then snatched the two hundred in new and old bills that dangled from the slot like a tongue. Gargoyles were making faces at him again.

What about the wallet? Should he keep it on him? If he was caught—or killed—they’d find out quickly enough who he was anyway. He shoved the wallet back into his hip pocket. He hadn’t thought about giving a false name when he rented the car. Oh hell, that wouldn’t have worked anyhow. His name is on the license. If he left the wallet somewhere and couldn’t get back to it for several days, they’d be able to trace it to him. Christ!

He had to get out of town. He sure as hell didn’t want any neighbors or friends telling Mag they’d just seen him downtown. But he had to get some supplies. They’d need some way to disguise their faces so the toll guard couldn’t identify them. They needed tape to wrap around the weapons to keep them quiet while they were moving through the woods. He drove up Franklin Turnpike to Ramsey where he managed to find masking tape for sale. It wasn’t the best color, but it was better than nothing.

At the local Rite-Aid, he also purchased a couple of pairs of nylon stockings. At least he and the girl would have their faces covered when they confronted the guard. It was important, the concealment of his identity. The worst thing that could happen was being revealed. It was worse, even, than death, because he couldn’t face Mag with this. Not until he told her about it himself.

He had to call Copeland with the exact location of the rendezvous point. Also there was the girl to pick up. It was eleven o’clock. He was supposed to be ready to brief them all in two hours. It was going to have to come right off the top of his head. There was a phone booth tucked away beside an Exxon station right in the middle of town. He dialed the number on the piece of paper Copeland had given him.

The phone rang four times. With each ring, Lou prayed it would keep ringing. That would take him right out of it. He visualized himself calling Mag to tell her he was on his way home. But halfway through the fifth ring, he heard the phone at the other end come off the hook.

Lou could hear the sound of heavy traffic in the background. Copeland was probably grinning like an ape at Stanfield. They’d snagged him. And now he’d have to sound cool.

“It sounds like you got the Bruckner Expressway running through your living room,” Lou said.

“This isn’t exactly my living room, wise guy. Let’s have it, quick.”

“You got a map?”

“I got a topo of the area around the bridge. That good enough?”

“You see where 9D runs north from the bridge past Livingston Island? About a mile north of that is St. James Chapel. A road winds up into the mountain. There’s a dirt road up on the top of the ridge. There’s a place called Curry Pond. That’s where it is.”

“Okay. When?”

“Make it midnight, Monday.”

“You plan to beat around in the bush for a night and a day?”

“I don’t want to attempt any pickup right away. We’re going to be plenty occupied just getting the hell out of there.”

“You’re the boss. It’ll be a delivery truck, a U-Haul.”

“I’ll flash a light at you. You stop. I’ll ask you ‘where are you, Joe DiMaggio?’ and you’ll answer: ‘at the Bowery.’”

“Oh, clever. What else?”

“The alternate spot. The other side of the river, up Mine Torne Road to Cranbury Brook. Hang a right at the dirt road. We’ll be in Borrow Pit. Same time, same signals.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah, Copeland. There’s something else.”

“Give it to me quick.”

“You think your ass is covered. Well, it’s not. It’s hanging out there, smart guy.”

“Think so, huh?”

“I know so. All your asses if anything bad happens. Think about that. I’m not a fool.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about cover, Copeland. Something goes bad for me or mine, the whole world’s going to know all the names, all the places.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Lou heard a loud click.

Where yesterday he was cautiously allowing himself a reconnaissance to determine the feasibility of going ahead, now the timing of the actual operation was all consuming. There was no turning back. Only a dim possibility, still lurking in the recesses of his subconscious, offered a way out: maybe it was all just a Sherm Wellington practical joke for Halloween.

* * *

The girl was standing right beneath the overpass at the Ramsey cutoff on Route 17. She was wearing jeans and a white calfskin coat with a furry collar. Her black hair was all over her face. She climbed in beside him, tossed her head, and swept the hair away with the fingers of both hands. Her cheeks were flushed from standing out in the wind.

“What should I be wearing?” she asked.

“Well, you’re really going to be inconspicuous in your little white coat, aren’t you?”

“Nobody said anything. How am I supposed to know what you guys wear when you play guns. Want a cigarette? I’ll trade you one for a light.”

“Push that knob on the dash. I’ll take one.”

She lit both cigarettes and stuck his in his mouth. He dragged hard, savoring the fullness in his chest. She leaned against the door, facing him. Lou felt her staring at the side of his face.

“I know what a lighter is,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

“You don’t look happy”

“What’s that on your feet?”

“What do you mean?”

“Penny loafers. How far do you think they’ll take you in the bush? You haven’t done a lot of thinking about this, have you?”

“I know loafers are not for hiking, okay? I thought we were going to be on a bridge.”

Lou slowed and swerved into the Ames parking lot; bought her a pair of combat boots.

“Thanks,” she said, as they pulled out onto Route 17 again. “It was stupid of me, I guess.”

“This isn’t a picnic.”

“I said I was sorry,” she said. “I’ve done some hiking in my life. I’m not going to be a problem.”

“Look, lose the ‘hiking’ crap. When we go into the boonies, it’s going to be tough climbing over rocks and brambles. Cross country. No trails.”

“Okay. I’m still not going to be a problem.”

“You’ve hiked, huh?”

“Yeah, I’ve hiked. I’ve hiked a lot.”

They settled into hostile silence. Lou spotted a small trucker’s diner tucked in under the rocky cliffs abutting the highway across from the Sheraton Center. He pulled the car beside a small, clapboard building with a Rheingold Extra Dry sign in the window. Before locking up, he checked to make sure he had his map and his rucksack. He ordered a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches and a half dozen Baby Ruths. He stuffed them in the rucksack along with three packs of Salems.

With all the compromises that got him here, what was the point of continuing his smoking moratorium?

They were still a quarter of a mile from the truck park. On the highway ahead, Route 17 split into a road heading for the Thruway and a continuation of Route 17 north. They had about thirty minutes to walk it. He looked straight ahead but watched her out of the corner of his eye. She quietly whistled some unrecognizable tune. Her head rocked up and down when she moved, as if she could never assume a more vigilant pose. She had a little bounce in her step. He immediately thought she was going to have a rough time in the bush with a gait like that.

“Do you have to walk like that?” he asked.

“Are you ever going to get off my case?” she answered.

“I just hope to hell Red’s got something on the ball.”

“I just hope you’ll eventually lose the cob stuck up your ass.”

His carping was just nerves. She wasn’t all that bad, this Sydney. Maybe it was subliminal; something to do with the fact that, as his own muscles sagged, he appreciated women whose muscles didn’t, and that in itself dictated girls half his age or younger, like this one.

“Ever hold a gun?” he asked.

“No, but I think I can hold a gun, don’t you?”

“We’ll just keep it unloaded then.”

“And if I need to use it?”

“I’ll have to think about that one.”

“Why do we need guns anyway? There’s not supposed to be, like, violence, right?”

“Think the guard is just going to stand around and let us blow the bridge? Without a gun on him, he’ll give us trouble.” She fell a little behind him but took a couple of running steps to keep up. “It’s not the guard I’m worried about. It’s Red and his merry band.”

“He seemed like a nice enough person to me,” Sydney said, smirking.

* * *

It took a while to find the place. It was crowded with semi-trailers and cabs, attached and unattached. It was just an extra wide parking spot in the highway. There were no signs, no drivers; just trucks and trailers. Traffic sped by on the way to the Thruway. No one on the road paid any particular attention to them. Red stood with five of his men in front of two unmarked Macks from the sixties parked side by side.

“I hope you’ve got somebody who can drive these things, Red.”

“No sweat,” he said. “This here is Cook, men. I guess there’s no reason to make any introductions as long as they all know who you are,” he added, looking at Lou. And to the men again, “Cook is overall in charge of this operation. What he says goes. This here is Tasha. She’ll be coming along with us, too. No need for her to know any names either, right?”

Lou said, “We’re going to have specific guys doing specific things, Red. So I’m going to have to know some names to go by. But that can wait until I get started with the plan. Is this all of your men? I thought you had eight.”

“I actually have six counting myself. The rest of the men couldn’t muster. The guns and ammo are in the truck. The napalm drums are in that one there.”

“The radios?”

“No radios.”

“Shit, Red. You said you were going to have radios. How the hell are we going to communicate without radios?”

“I just couldn’t get them.”

The man did a good job of talking, but when it came to action... Cool it, Lou. Just cool it. It would serve no purpose at this point to belittle the man in front of his cronies. He was depending on them. No matter what he thought of Red, he had to have him and his men behind this operation all the way.

“Well, forget it then. We’ll have to get along without radios. It’s been done before. It’ll work if we all know what we’re doing.”

“We’ll make do without radios,” Red said, looking around at his men.

“Okay, what I want to do is get everybody together in the back of one of these trailers. We’ve got a lot to talk about before we leave this place.”

Chapter Seventeen

Lou had to leave one of the heavy back doors open in order to see within the blackness of the semi-trailer. He risked being seen by someone curious outside, but no one else was around. He stood along a side wall, with the seven others on the floor at his feet, and scratched a diagram in the filth with his finger. When they put this trailer to the torch at the bridge, nothing of the plan would remain.

No traces. Leave no traces.

“Okay, let’s take it from the beginning. We’re out to do just one thing tonight: raise hell on the bridge to make it look like we’re a radical fringe group.” He ran his eyes over the group sitting on the floor before him. Not a lash flickered.

“There’s no damned reason for anyone to fire a shot. None at all. In fact, I want zero ammo in the guns. You’ll carry ammunition with you, ready to go, but use it only to keep yourself from getting killed. Does everyone understand that?

“Now, the way I see it, the operation will succeed if we follow the plan. I want everyone to know exactly what to do out there. There’s no room for screw-ups or ad-libbing. I’ve got this thing timed to the minute. Assuming no major mishaps, the operation at the site will be over in forty minutes.”

It was still light outside but dim within the trailer. The men inched forward and squinted hard to see the diagram on the wall. Lou, at the edge of the circle, spoke quietly, almost in a whisper.

“Let’s go. Mack East leaves this location at exactly 8:00 p.m. That’s three men to include Red, who’s in charge. Red, who’s going with you?”

Red stood and assayed the group like a high school basketball coach. “You, Victor, and you, Wes. You going to spell out our part?”

“In a minute. Can you sit down? I want everyone to be able to see. I presume you’ve got blasting caps?”

Leaning against the opposite wall now, Red just nodded his head.

“Batteries or a blasting machine?”

Red displayed a small, handheld machine.

“We’re going to need 1000 feet of wire.”

“Got it,” Red said.

“Great. How much C-4 did you get?”

“You said twenty pounds. I got thirty. You stick a blob of this stuff on each drum and it’ll scatter napalm all over hell. And light it up too.”

“Okay, we wire it so they all go at the same time. Where are the drums?”

“All five are in the three-quarter ton. Frawley’s the driver.”

“Good. Let’s keep going. Mack East takes the Thruway and makes a U-turn at Sloatsburg. Comes back south. At the cutoff, heads east on 87, for the Tappan Zee Bridge. Maintains fifty-five miles per hour all the way. On the other side of the river, he takes Route 9, north. On the south edge of Peekskill, there’s a Hess station on the corner with a phone booth. Red picks up the phone when I call at 9:00 p.m. sharp. Everyone got it? Red?”

Red was in back of the others. He had to speak, just to keep his hand in. “How do we keep the napalm from jumping all over the place?” he asked.

“The drums are heavy enough to sit tight while we’re rolling, Red. If they don’t, there’s not much we can do about it now.”

The light faded. The circle of faces became mottled as, unawares, their fingers transferred dirt from the trailer floor to their mouths, chins, and foreheads. For an instant, the image of Aborigines crouched and shivering in a prehistoric cave flew through Lou’s mind.

He continued the plan, as he had done a thousand times before, visualizing as he spoke: “The three-quarter ton has Frawley at the wheel and the five drums of napalm. Mack West has me and Tasha in the cab with the driver, and another man in the back. We pull out of this area at 8:15 sharp.

“We branch off on the Thruway and head north. Our speed is fifty-five. That gets us to Central Valley on Route 6 at 8:50. On the outskirts of town, on Route 17, there’s an old gas station and a public telephone. I put through the call to Red at the Hess station at 9. As soon as we hang up, all three trucks start moving. At the speed limit, we arrive at opposite ends of the bridge simultaneously.

The bridge should be virtually deserted because of Halloween. Two men keeping their weapons out of sight will be positioned at the ends of the bridge to turn back cars. Red, give me some names.”

Red, squatting on his haunches, ripped off the names like a mail call: “Wes and Victor in Mack East, Pegley and Bruce in Mack West, Frawley in the three-quarter. And remember, you guys, we don’t want no gun play. You’re supposed to be a road crew and park police as far as motorists are concerned. Question. Who gets the toll guard?”

“Tasha and I dismount at the toll shack. We take the guard. We move him outside, where he can see and hear everything. He’ll report it all to the cops.”

The girl spoke up for the first time. “What if he runs?”

“He won’t run. We’re going to hold on to him. You’ll have a gun at his back.”

“How about the napalm?” Red asked, from the back again.

“Okay, put that on hold. We’ll get to it. Now, as soon as the ends of the bridge are secured and the toll guard is in hand, I take the three-quarter ton and drive the drums, caps, and wire out to the middle of the bridge. Frawley stays with Tasha, Bruce, and Pegley on the west side.

“The drums will be preset to go except for the blasting caps. The setup on the bridge will take five minutes, tops. When I’m finished, I’ll flash the three-quarter’s headlights. I wish to hell you had delivered on the radios, Red.”

“Sorry,” Red said, unperturbed. “My man couldn’t come up with anything but old Prick 6’s. They’re not worth a shit.”

“We’ll make do with what we have. Now, the trucks are in position at the ends of the bridge, blocking the entire roadway. Once they’re in position, the cab and the trailer are doused with gasoline. On the west side, when you see the headlights flash, Frawley—and only Frawley—fires a couple of tracer rounds into the gas tank and sets the truck afire. Then, the four of you move out smartly across the bridge. Meet me in the center and we’ll string the wire out to the east side as we go.

“When we’re all together on the east side, we blow the napalm in the center of the bridge with the blasting machine, ignite Mack East, and make our escape.”

“I’ll do all the shootin’ on the east side,” Red broke in. “I don’t want no joker hosing down the area.”

“Good. Once again, we’ll run the wire out going east. That’s our primary escape route. We deploy the full thousand feet to save walking time.”

“How about the guard?” It was the girl again.

“At the point where the truck on the west is afire, the guard is released. He can’t hurt us at that point. Besides, the whole world will know what’s happening as soon as the demo goes.”

“How long will it take us to get across the bridge on foot?” Bruce asked this time.

“Hustling, it’ll take us fifteen minutes. Okay, one more time; all trucks arrive at the bridge at the same time. In minutes one and two, we seize the guard and seal off the bridge. We turn back motorists with the story that the bridge is temporarily closed for repairs. In minute three, I drive to the center of the bridge in the three-quarter ton truck. In minutes nine through thirteen, I prepare the C-4 with blasting caps wired in parallel and flash my lights.

“The folks on the west side fire Mack West, release the toll taker, and beat it out to the center of the bridge, arriving there at minute twenty. Minutes twenty through thirty, we move to the east side, stringing wire as we go. At minute thirty-one, we fire Mack East and blow the napalm drums. At minute thirty-five, we’re across the road and into the woods. That leaves five minutes for anything unforseen. Oh, God.

“We’ll be vulnerable once the charge goes. We’re going to run like hell to Route 9D and get across to the far side. We cut up into the woods and start climbing. It’ll be a bitch, believe me. A thirty percent slope.

“It’ll take all the strength we have. Once on top, we’ll be hard to stop. We can go in any direction, except west. In the dark, we’ll be next to impossible to detect in the woods. It’ll be close to midnight. We’ll have about twenty-four hours to hide out before we rendezvous and get back to civilization.”

“It sounds like a piece of cake,” Red said.

“It always sounds easy. A lot can go wrong. If anything bad can happen, it will. The keys to the whole operation are timing and following instructions. A hundred different plans could bring this operation off. This is just one of them, and it’s good. But even a bad plan will work with good execution.

“Let me say right now that I’m in charge of this thing. I don’t intend to have anything happen to me. But if I buy it, Red is the next honcho. If he goes, it’s Frawley. Everybody got the chain of command? Good. That brings us to casualties. We leave no one alive behind.”

“Aw, come on,” he heard from one of them, followed by a round of chuckling. It was the guy called Wes.

Lou flushed deep red. He could feel it. The snickering. It was a big, Sherm Wellington joke. They were laying it on. In a second, Sherm would start calling from outside. It all flashed through his mind and he slumped with relief.

But they were quiet now, as if they interpreted his actions as anger. And he waited until he had to speak again. “I don’t know about you guys, but I intend to come out of this thing alive and without a scratch. The only way that’s going to happen is if everyone takes it seriously. Now, if any of you think this is going to be a stroll on the boardwalk, let me know and I’ll kick your butt out of here now. I don’t know where you got the candy ass idea that the New York State Police carry lima beans in their revolvers.”

They sat in front of him in silence, looking at their shoes. He saw no smirks, not one.

“Again, we carry out anybody who’s hurt. No dead. If you’re wounded and can move, get yourself to the east end of the bridge. If you can’t move, stay put and we’ll get to you. We never leave anyone alive behind.

“The alternate escape route is off the west end of the bridge, across 9W and into the woods. Only use this if the east end is closed off. I’ll make that decision. I’ve got a map. I’ll show both Red and Frawley the primary and secondary extraction points, along with the pickup time at each.”

“About the broad. Do we have to bring her along? I know you were opposed to her in the beginning. We could ditch her right now. She’s going to hold us up.” It was Red, looking around for approval from the others.

“Tasha is key to our success. She goes along. End of discussion.”

Dusk turned to night. Red flared a match with his fingernail and pushed it through the glass of a small Coleman lamp. The flickering yellow light behind the group cast their shadows on the wall of the trailer.

The talk went on for three more hours. What if the cops show up before they’re through? What if the napalm doesn’t blow? What if some crazy motorist decides to investigate? He covered their actions at the rendezvous point, the signals and the responses, over and over.

Who goes in which truck? Who drives? It was a good briefing. As good as it could be with the little time they had had to prepare.

They were keyed up for his inspection, shifting on their feet at Lou’s approach. Their shadows moved on the wall in a ghostly dance. The flame from the lamp flickered in Lou’s eyes. They all had old, World War II M-2 Carbines—the smallest, least effective rifle ever. Good. With better weapons they could be dangerous. He checked their clothing; knowledge of their assignment; willingness to follow instructions; and, most important, their ability to handle a weapon.

* * *

Thinking as a team for five hours—talking, joking, sweating it out—they bonded as comrades. As they neared the end of the operation’s prep phase, they could feel tension like a thin wire stretched ’til it sung. The deadly seriousness of it grew. A silence settled in.

When it came down to the bottom line, it was up to him now. Lou Christopher. The leader. Not only was he going along; he owned the show. Success or failure—on him. The sons of bitches had gauged him perfectly.

At 8:00 p.m., Red and his men jumped down from the trailer—carbines hidden tight to their legs—and boarded Mack East, moving out.

In the trailer, the rest of them were bathed in a yellow glow. Frawley, Bruce, and Pegley, hunched in a circle and wolfed down burgers like they were their last ever. Tasha rocked nervously, watching Lou for some sign. Lou stared at the wall, burning the plan into his memory.

At 8:15 sharp, Mack West rolled out. The three-quarter ton truck followed, heading north.

Chapter Eighteen

Lou dialed the number from the phone booth in Central Valley.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mag. It’s verboten, but I’m calling anyway.”

“The kids were darling. Two little hobos with spotted ’kerchiefs on a stick.”

She sounded drained, sad.

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

“No, you’re not. Arden House.”

“Yes. I can see the lights of the traffic down on the Thruway.” It was only half a lie.

“Have your fun, Lou.”

“Maggie, please...”

“I’m obviously not in California.”

“I’m glad, darlin’. I’m really glad.”

“Come home when you can,” Mag said, and hung up the phone.

The night was not especially cold; a typical, late fall evening on the east coast, when the night wind bites your cheeks and burns your earlobes.

Only the back of the truck was visible in the light from the street lamp at the far end of the lot. Pegley had killed the lights, as ordered. Lou dropped coins, dialed again. The phone on the other end rang once.

“Red?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait a full five minutes, then take off. Got it?”

“I got it.”

“Red?”

“Yeah.”

“Make it good.”

“No sweat,” Red said. Click.

Lou slid open the phone booth door. He trotted to the back of the truck and yanked the door handle down. One of the heavy doors creaked open. The emptiness of the semi-trailer shocked him—they had left Bruce back at the trailer park! Disaster already! Fuck! Then suddenly he recalled that Bruce had jumped in beside Frawley in the three-quarter ton. Steady boy. He jogged to the smaller truck.

“Okay, the next time it’s the real thing. It’ll take us about fifteen minutes once we start rolling again. We stay here for about five minutes more. Check?”

“We gotcha,” Frawley said.

Pegley and the girl were dragging on cigarettes when he climbed back into the cab. He rolled down the window to get some air. “We wait another four minutes, and then we’re off.”

“I guess the other guys are in the right place?” Tasha said.

“Perfect,” Lou said.

“That was more than you expected, wasn’t it?” she added.

“Everything’s going fine so far. Let’s just say I’m happy right now.”

The minutes seemed to crawl by.

Then, show time was upon them. Backing the Mack semi-trailer out of the service station, slow and easy, seemed to take forever. They headed out onto Route 6, snaking back over the Thruway going east. Up ahead, the headlight beams tracked every bump in the pavement. Inside the cab they were silent; the three of them bobbing as one with each bounce.

The road continued due east for half a mile and then rose in a broad arc that took them north up a steep climb over the mountain in front of them. Off to the left, the valley spread out below them, the long line of headlights on the Thruway below moved like a snake in a field of daisies. Pegley knew his job; he operated smoothly behind the wheel, working through eight gears on the way up. Then the road leveled off. They topped the incline.

The truck picked up speed now. The road forked to the right, carrying them due east again, directly toward the target. Ten miles to go. Now they moved through the Palisades Park area, bordered by cliffs rising fifty feet above the highway, gleaming wet in the headlights. Since leaving the service station, they’d passed only two cars.

So the crazy thing was underway. If it came off perfectly, they’d be all clear in an hour. One hour. The whole unlikely, goddamn adventure behind them. Lou could feel the adrenaline, the same wave of excitement he’d known in the chopper headed into a hot LZ. Something like terror. And euphoria. Alive again. A mover. Did the president really know his name? Had he really been hand-picked?

He could feel the heat of it burning on his face, glowing red in the night air. Was he a fool? Or a player? Bang-bang, in and out. Home free, an hour off. And the world would never be the same again. One more time. Just once more.

Pegley and Tasha were silent beside him, all three mesmerized by the bobbing beams on the pavement and keeping deep within themselves. A stick of paratroopers about to jump. Tasha slid a cigarette from her coat pocket; offered one to Lou and to the driver. Lou refused with a shake of his head, his eyes fixed on the road. She struck the match and her face flared up in the mirror. Then they all fell back into the dim light from the dashboard.

The smoke seemed to float on the tension in the air, almost palpable. How did Red get into this? An ad in the paper: Wanted: soldier of fortune? How about the others? What kind of nutcase volunteers with the chance of getting his ass shot off for five hundred bucks, no questions asked? Goddam. What kind? My kind! Goddammit to hell.

Finally, he broke the silence.

“Some Halloween,” he said, smirking in the light of the dash.

“Some trick or treat,” Tasha giggled. And at that the three of them broke into laughter. Laughing and howling until he couldn’t stand the lightness in his stomach another second.

They took the cutoff to Route 293 and sped due north, past Blackcap Mountain. At the large, luminous sign pointing to the entrance to Camp Buckner, they slowed almost to a stop and made the turn onto Mine Torne Road, heading east.

It was a narrow, twisting road; rock-strewn mountains on the left, a creek and swamp on the right. They continued east at a slow pace, approaching the shadow that blotted out the horizon, the Torne.

They crept around it, snaking back and forth, the blackness of a gorge falling away to the right. Around a curve and through a canyon-like swale, they approached Fort Montgomery.

“Slow down and make a right up here, Pegley. The traffic circle west of the bridge is only about a quarter of a mile down the road,” Lou said.

A car came up on them from the rear. Lou instructed Pegley to let it pass; they didn’t want company if they could avoid it. At the circle, they cut off on the causeway leading to the bridge. Ahead, Lou could see the lights reflecting in the steel cables of the bridge, high above them. Far off, on the top of Anthony’s Nose, a green light winked in the cool night air. He saw the tiny toll shack 500 feet ahead, bathed in floodlights. He took a better grip on his carbine.

“Get ready, Tasha. Pegley, pull right up to the booth. When we get out, we’ll take it from behind the truck.” He pulled a nylon sock over his face, handed the other to Tasha.

The tollbooth was situated so that drivers could hand money to the guard from their car windows. When Mack West stopped opposite the shack, the guard simply stood there with his hand out. He must have thought Pegley was fishing for the money.

Lou opened the door, dropped to the ground, and ran around the front of the cab, his carbine up and ready. The girl lagged far behind. As he cleared the front of the truck, Lou saw it all clearly in his mind. He’d race up to the guard and Sherm Wellington would be standing there with a silly grin on his face. “Trick or treat!” He almost laughed as he rammed the tollbooth door.

“Hands up!” he bellowed.

The man was young; maybe thirty. He edged out the door, giving Lou a wide berth. He kept his hands high in the air and marched for the bridge railing. Lou could see that Pegley had jackknifed Mack West across the roadway as planned. He could see Pegley and Bruce, with their rifles, sprinting up the road to intercept and turn around any cars that might come up. From the other side of the bridge, he could see a pair of headlights approaching. It wasn’t the other Mack; it was a car. He yelled to Pegley and Bruce: “Hey! Wave this guy through when he gets up here. Just let him on through. He doesn’t have to get mixed up in this at all.”

The car came on at a fair rate of speed. As it drew past Lou, he hid the M-2 next to his thigh. The driver just stared and slowed almost to a stop. Then the car accelerated away, past the two men on the road, through the traffic circle, and up 9W toward Fort Montgomery.

On the other side of the bridge, Lou saw headlights. They weren’t coming across. It must be Red with Mack East. Up to the right of the bridge, on the highway that wound down off the mountain out of Peekskill, three sets of headlights approached. Red would turn them back.

From behind, Lou heard the engine of the three-quarter ton. Working as a team, he and Tasha had to handle the toll taker, drive to the center of the span, and begin work on the blasting caps.

“What the hell’s going on,” the toll guard asked, looking back and forth between Lou and the girl.

“You look and listen and keep your mouth shut tight, understand, Mr. Toll Guard?” Lou snarled. The girl said nothing. She held her carbine in the crook of her arm, her hands nowhere near the trigger. No way was she going to be able to put the weapon into action. It was plain for anyone to see.

“Put your gun on the pavement, Tasha. Check him out. Firearms.”

“I don’t have a gun,” the guard said.

“Just check him out,” he said to the girl. She approached the man slowly and ran her hands through the pockets of his jacket and pants.

“He looks all right to me,” she said softly.

“Okay. You keep your M2 on him. If he makes any crazy motions, you know what to do.”

The man held his hands high in the air, his eyes darting frantically everywhere.

Tasha took up her carbine and turned to face the guard, keeping at least fifteen feet between her and the man. Lou walked over close to her and spoke in a low voice: “Look. Hold the rifle up like you mean business. Put your finger on the trigger. The damned thing isn’t even off safety, so don’t worry about it going off. We need to be a little more convincing. Understand?”

“Okay,” she said, propping the rifle up and moving her hand to the trigger housing. Her hair kept falling in her face. She took her hand off the trigger to sweep it away from her eyes.

Lou trotted down the road toward the traffic circle to check Bruce and Pegley’s positions. They were standing in the shadows on either side of the road. When they heard Lou approach, they turned together to face him. He simply gave them the thumbs up sign and then turned around. That part of the thing was coming off perfectly.

Walking back toward the tollbooth and through the floodlit area, Lou contemplated shooting out the lights, but he didn’t want to encourage gun play. Frawley, behind the wheel of the three-quarter ton, pointed its headlights toward the middle of the span. Off to the right, the guard leaned against the bridge rail. The girl stood in the middle of the road with her carbine pointed at him.

Far up the Hudson to the north, Lou could see the faint glow of Newburgh’s lights. All along the western edge of the river, Fort Montgomery, Highland Falls, and West Point were all lit up. The eastern side of the water was almost totally black. There was no river traffic. A brisk wind blew down toward New York and made his eyes tear. He pulled the zipper of his jacket up against his neck.

Lou went to the rail in an attempt to see past the trucks to the other end of the span. He saw several sets of headlights on the far side. With luck, Wes and Victor would turn them around and send them back to Peekskill. He watched as one pair of lights, then another, and finally a third swung around in a wide arc and headed back up the grade onto the mountain and around the curve.

The girl was doing a credible job with the toll guard at the rail. At least he wasn’t trying anything fancy, likely because there was reason to believe the girl just might pull that trigger. From twenty feet away, Lou heard the guard ask if she minded if he sat down on the pavement. She nodded. The man slid down to the ground and leaned against the fence. Tasha rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, settling in for a long stint. Maybe it was how nervous she looked that made her seem dangerous.

Lou jogged to the three-quarter ton. Frawley slipped out and Lou slid in behind the wheel. The generator and a box of blasting caps packed in sawdust rested on the passenger seat. Lou pushed hard on the accelerator and roared away.

Midway across the bridge, Lou swung the three-quarter ton truck sideways on the road. As he stepped from the cab, the brisk wind off the river hit him in the face. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, jogged to the back of the truck, and lowered the tailgate. They had jettisoned the canvas over the truck bed to permit the explosion to throw napalm high in the air.

Lou stood upright in the truck bed. The five-gallon drums of aviation gasoline and napalm thickener hadn’t moved an inch. The wire was wrapped securely around each drum with a bare end dangling above a gob of C-4. He’d attached one of these to each drum and held it securely with duct tape. The yellow, C-4 plastic explosive was harmless without a blasting cap; but with one of the small, silver, pencil-stub-sized caps pushed into it and wired to the blasting machine, it was a lethal combination.

Dropping one of the caps or striking it against a drum could also be fatal. Lou worked quickly and efficiently; pushing a cap into each gob of C-4; inserting the wire into the end of the cap; and then squeezing it lightly with crimping pliers. In four minutes, the drums were ready and Lou was standing at the back of the truck.

They were only slightly behind schedule. The luminous dial on his watch glowed 9:30. In the next twenty minutes, they’d be off the bridge and out of the area. They’d torch the trucks as planned. Motorists arriving at the bridge and seeing fire would alert police. But cops surely wouldn’t react fast enough to wacky motorists screaming nonsense about armed men on Bear Mountain Bridge, and that delay would allow Lou and his crew to make their escape into the hills.

He felt a surge of pride at the precision the group had shown. It had taken them just a couple of minutes to grab control of the bridge. The plan was perfect. Lou stood in the middle of the roadway and reached to flash the lights of the truck, to signal the next phase of the operation.

He hesitated; pictured himself from above the mountains. Bear Mountain Bridge hung over the river—manmade and mortal—suspended on threads that quivered in the wind. Lou, the bridge, and the others; dangling over the chasm.

He looked down toward the east: the cars had been turned back toward Peekskill. Then, without warning, he saw the blackness below Anthony’s Nose erupt with an orange flash and heard the crack of small-arms fire.

Chapter Nineteen

It was like all chance encounters with the enemy had been in Vietnam: a single shot would ring out as startled enemies met in the darkness, leading to a brief, murderous eruption of fire as each side threw everything they had at the other, finally trailing to a single shot or two as both sides scrambled for cover and maneuvered for advantage.

Lou ran to the rail to get a better view. What the hell? Get over there, quick! Drive the three-quarter ton with all the wired napalm in it? Never. He’d have to unwire and then rewire each drum, unless he wanted to take the chance they wouldn’t blow up in the jostling. He didn’t. He broke into a sprint toward the east end of the bridge. In ten seconds, gasping, he slowed to a crawl. Halfway to the end, he ran into Red moving toward the center of the span, counter to the plan.

“What’s going on?” Red screamed, coming to a dead stop. “I told those gorillas not to fire a goddamn shot. For any reason!”

“You’re going in the wrong direction, Red!” Lou barked.

Red turned without explanation and broke into a lumbering jog back toward the eastern end of the bridge.

Lou followed at a slow trot, falling behind Red by fifty yards. By the time he approached the end, Lou was sweating like Mick Jagger in concert and panting furiously. The far side of the bridge was bathed in fluorescent light from the overhead lamps.

From what Lou could see, Victor and Wes were hiding in the shadows, 100 feet on the other side of the apron of the bridge. As he moved slowly toward them, keeping out of the light, Lou saw a police blue-and-white cruiser backing off down Route 9D to the north with its lights out.

The car stopped about 200 feet down the road where its blue and red overhead lights lit up the night. Lou came up behind Red and heard him screaming at one of the two extras crouching at the side of the road.

“You mean they opened fire first?” Red roared. “They didn’t even know what was going on here. Why the hell did they fire?”

Wes, who was on the ground and rolled to his side, stormed back: “Hey, I didn’t want any frigging gun play! The man got out of his car. Started walking up to the bridge. He had his gun out. I didn’t know what the hell to do. I told him to halt. Right then, he opened up with the pistol and started running back to his car. We fired a couple of shots down there. Just to protect ourselves, that’s all.”

“I told you sons of bitches not to fire one, friggin’ shot,” Red screeched.

“Red! Come here,” Lou shouted, backing away from the two men lying there. He said : “All right, it’s too late to do anything about this right now. All this means is that we’re going to have to make our escape off the other end of the bridge. I want you to get Mack East jackknifed on the road according to plan. “Get it doused with gas, ready to burn. In the meantime, until I get back to you, hold on to this end of the bridge. No matter what happens, don’t let them scare you off. They’re not going to charge; not until they get reinforcements. Fire a couple of rounds in their general direction to keep them puckering. Stay under cover yourself. They might let loose with everything in the arsenal, including tear gas.”

Red turned away. “We’ll stay put as long as we can. But don’t go running off without us, hear?”

“Red, I’ll never leave anybody like that. We’ll all go together, just as we planned.”

“I’ll trust you for a while, but I’m not going to wind up in the can. I’m clearing out of here in ten minutes, tops.”

Lou spun him around. “All I ask is that you hold on to this end until we can reorganize and get the hell out of here. Give me a couple of minutes to get back out to the center. When the charge is ready to go, I’ll flash the lights. Fire Mack East and come to me in the center as fast as you can. We’ll blow the three-quarter and scoot.”

“I’m giving you ten minutes,” Red sputtered, moving off.

Lou turned on his heel and started hobbling back to the center of the span. The red and blue flashing cruiser lights reflected off the bridge cables like the tiny blood vessels in the back of Lou’s eyelids. He slowed to a painful walk. About halfway to the center, he met one of the men from the west side running toward Red’s group. It was Pegley. Lou intercepted him and grabbed him by the front of his jacket and screamed into his face: “Hey, you! What the hell are you doing? Don’t panic. They had a run in with a squad car back there. We’re still going according to plan. Turn around and get your ass back where you started. Tell the others we’re going to go off that end of the bridge instead of the east. That’s the only change.”

Pegley turned around as ordered and sprinted off. He was in ten times better shape than Lou and soon was only a distant figure melting into the mass of the truck on the west end. As Lou stumbled to a slow jog again, he realized Pegley had no weapon. Probably dropped it in the excitement. Some troops!

By the time Lou reached the three-quarter ton truck in the center of the bridge, his thighs were burning and he was seized with a coughing fit. After all the noise and confusion, the center of the span seemed deathly silent. He collapsed against the door of the truck and gasped for air. His rasping melted into the wind whistling in the cables and girders.

You weak, wobbling, basket case!

He had to go to the western end to make sure they knew what to do. He didn’t have the strength to jog the rest of the way. He would have to use the three-quarter; napalm be damned. He pulled himself into the cab and cranked the engine. He pulled slowly away, praying that the jostling ’wouldn’t blow one of the blasting caps. They weren’t receiving electric current from the blasting machine, but the caps were extremely volatile and could blow any time.

The schedule was off by a good half hour. By this time, Lou had hoped to have blown the napalm and to have been across 9D. As long as nothing else happened, they still had a half-assed chance of getting away with it. But he knew the cops weren’t just sitting around twiddling their thumbs; they were calling for help.

Up ahead, the semi-trailer truck, Mack West, was jackknifed across the road, effectively blocking it off. Lou couldn’t see anyone around it at first; but as he neared, he saw that Frawley, the toll guard, and the girl were crouching down in the shadows underneath the trailer. Still rasping, he squatted down next to Frawley.

“What are you doing under here?”

“We’re scared, goddamn it. It’s been quiet over here, no shooting, but we think we saw a car turn toward us by the traffic circle. Then he just stopped and backed off. I haven’t heard anything out of the two out there in front.”

Lou shot back, “The guys at the other end ran into some cops. Right now, they’re just staring at each other. In about ten minutes, we’ll be ready to blow the stuff and get out. Just hang on here. I’m going to check on those two out front.”

Lou stuck to the side of the road. He made his way toward the grassy spot ahead, where he expected to find Pegley and Bruce. He detected no movement in the shadows; heard nothing. He checked all along the edge of the road, almost out to the traffic circle.

Finally, he began shouting in the hope they might’ve slipped off further from the edge of the road and just couldn’t hear him. It was no good. He stumbled on something in the darkness. He reached down and came up with a rifle. The two were no longer on guard. The first deserter had taken the other with him this time. He trotted back to the truck and slumped down beside the girl.

“They’re not out there anymore. We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for any move¬ment to our front. We know the cops have the word now. We’re up against time.”

“Why don’t we just run?” Tasha asked, in a quavering voice. “I gotta get out of here.”

“We got people depending on us out there on the other side. We’re all in this together,” Lou growled.

Chapter Twenty

Lou heard the pulsing of police sirens from the other end of the bridge and could plainly see the squad cars’ whirling red lights. Four of them were coming down off the curving slope out of Peekskill. He crawled out from under the Mack West trailer and saw more red flashing, this time from his end of the bridge. Two dark blue police cars abreast on the road approached them from the traffic circle. They must have come from Fort Montgomery.

He ran to the rear of the trailer with his M-2 and took up a supported firing position with his arm anchored on a ledge of the tailgate. He opened up on full automatic and hosed a burst that emptied the little magazine into the spotlights illuminating the area around the tollbooth. A shower of sparks rained down on the pavement. Mack West and all of them fell into darkness.

Three hundred feet up ahead, the two police cars slammed on their brakes and careened to a screeching stop. Four cops tumbled out of the cars and rolled to the side of the road, out of the reach of the mercury-vapor lamps that still illuminated the approach to the bridge. Now they were cut off from both sides.

Lou moved to the Mack West trailer’s rear double wheel. Sliding down to sit on the pavement, he pressed his back against the tires. He saw Frawley slither under the cab with his weapon pointing toward the cops. The toll guard lay supine behind the rear wheel of the cab. The girl knelt at the front fender with her weapon still pointed at him. Lou could hear her sobbing. He ran crouching to the front of the truck.

“What am I doing here?” she screamed.

He growled into her ear, “As long as we have the guard here, they won’t be doing any shooting. Do you hear me? He’s our hostage. They won’t want to harm him. Calm down. We’re going to get out of this, one way or another.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. Her head was down. Her whole body jerked in convulsive sobs. He tried another tack; took her shoulders, pulled her into his chest, and held her there. Gradually, she began to calm.

“It’s important that you keep an eye on the guard so we can keep ours on the cops. I don’t think this guy is going to give you any trouble. He doesn’t seem to be the heroic type. All you have to do is sit behind this wheel. Keep your weapon pointed in his direction. He’s going to stay right where he is.”

“YOU MEN ON THE BRIDGE. THIS IS THE STATE POLICE. THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND COME OUT, AND NO ONE WILL BE HARMED.”

It was the tinny sound of a bullhorn coming from the direction of the traffic circle. Back in the other direction, the far end of the bridge seemed to be surrounded by red and blue flashing lights. Lou could only hope that Red was still holding out.

“SO FAR, NOBODY’S BEEN INJURED. LET’S KEEP IT THAT WAY. THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND COME OUT PEACEFULLY.”

In the light of the mercury-vapor lamps, he could see a cop emerge from behind one of the squad cars and walk slowly forward a couple of feet.

“YOU DON’T HAVE A CHANCE. THERE ARE POLICE ALL AROUND YOU.”

“All right you guys out there!” Lou screamed. “We’ve got a hostage over here!” He went to the guard, stood him up, and pushed him to the front of the truck. “This is your toll guard! So back off!”

“OKAY. WE HEAR YOU ON THE HOSTAGE. DON’T GET EXCITED. WE’RE STAYING RIGHT WHERE WE ARE.”

Lou brought the guard back around and sat him down with his back to the double wheel in the back of the cab. The girl slid down to the ground with her face in her hands. Lou crouched down and spoke to Frawley still lying under the cab with his weapon. “You okay under there?” he asked. “If you see anything moving out there, don’t hesitate to let one go. They might try to maneuver some snipers on us.”

“I’m with ya,” Frawley said, without so much as looking back.

“Look, why don’t you guys just pack it in? Nobody wants to get hurt out here. Least of all me.” It was the guard talking to anyone who was willing to listen.

“You just shut the fuck up, Mr. Toll Guard. If you want to stay healthy, just stay put and keep your mouth shut.” Lou spoke with all the conviction he could muster. It was strained. The situation was even worse now than he imagined it could be. There were no options. The plan had collapsed.

Now all the objections he had voiced back at the motel were reality. Gone was the euphoria, the confidence. The downside of the operation, the side that he had so rashly disregarded in the delirium of hope, was crashing in on all sides. His head was filled with an endless string of horrors. There was no way in the world he was going to allow himself to be captured.

That would be the worst thing of all: to be identified. Jail wouldn’t be any worse than a lot of other ways he’d chosen to spend time. But he had gone into this thing thinking and praying that it would be a one-hour deal at the most. A prank on Halloween night. Nobody gets hurt. He gets off scot-free. Nobody’s the wiser, ever. Though it ached in his gut now as the final crowning rationale for this mess, the ridiculous allusion to a top secret, covert operation crept into his consciousness. And the false comfort that if nothing else panned out, there would be the money. Forever, just a simple phone call from Westover.

He crouched down again and looked under the trailer in the direction of the traffic circle. Out on the road, a legion of rubbernecking passers-by were clogging Route 9D, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on. Back in the other direction, nothing but the blob of flashing reds and blues.

The cold, blackness turned to white as the mist drifted through the glare of the lamps that ran along the roadway. And as Lou turned his face upward, he felt the first heavy drops of rain.

It could be a gift if they used it. If they could get into the woods, the rain would make a lot of noise in the trees and underbrush and could cover their movements. Even where they were now, the rain was cutting visibility. It just might chase some of the cops into their cars. What they really needed was a downpour.

It had been at least ten minutes since he’d left Red out at the east end. He had to get the drums back out to the center. The longer they kept the situation the way it was, the more entrenched the police became and the less chance there was they’d be able to get away. He slid over to the girl again.

“Look, I’m going out to the center of the bridge again. See if you can just cool it here ’til I get back, okay?”

She looked him straight in the eye and nodded her head. She looked as if she meant it. Lou dropped to the ground and slid under the cab next to Frawley. “Hey man, you’re doing a good job under here. What’s your name?”

“You puttin’ me in for a medal?”

“Funny. I can tell you’ve been around this crap before. You look like a grunt to me.”

“173rd Airborne Brigade.”

“You ever hear of a Crangle? Riley Crangle, light colonel?”

“Never.”

“Just a friend of mine. What’d you say it was?”

“I didn’t...I’m Chester. Frawley.”

“Chester, I’ve got to go back out with the three-quarter. I’m counting on you to take care of things here. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, you take charge. Try to make a deal with the cops on the hostage.”

“We’ll be all right. Go ahead,” Frawley said.

Lou turned and crawled free of the Mack West trailer. The girl was right beside him as he started to get to his feet.

“Hey!” she said, grabbing his arm. “Are we going to make it out of here?”

He spoke straight to her eyes. “We’ll be out of here in ten minutes, sure. You can count on that.”

The rain was coming down harder now; and with the temperature in the forties, his wet clothing began to chill him to the bone. He fired the engine and began to crawl with the napalm-filled drums out to the center again. The cops had to have a sniper back there with a telescopic lens; he could feel the crosshairs on the back of his head. Only the hostage kept them from coming with their whole arsenal.

At the center of the span, Lou came nose to nose-with Red’s Mack East semi-trailer truck; the one that was supposed to be jackknifed at the eastern end. He leaped out of the three-quarter ton and ran to the semi. Red was standing at the driver-side door holding his M-2 across his chest. As Lou sprinted up to him, Red brought the butt of his rifle up to Lou’s face and crashed it against his left ear. Lou pitched to the pavement.

Chapter Twenty-One

Maggie reasoned that a short story in the Atlantic Monthly might finally let her doze off after having driven Jory and Kirk back home from the Trick or Treat excursion all around the neighborhood and beyond. She’d endured the mandatory mother-in-law chatting and then headed home to clean up the boys’ mess: candy wrappers strewn from one end of the house to the other. No matter how much they delighted her with their antics, she only had so much energy. Besides, this wasn’t the first neighborhood they’d harvested door to door. Oliver’s wife, Anne, had taken them out earlier , so Maggie’s turn at tricks or treats was really frosting on the cake. They boys’ costumes were pretty good this year. Of course, if Jory was a hobo then Kirky would be, too. Only the rain kept the door-to-door adventure from being perfect, because it forced their costumes to be concealed beneath little yellow rain coats. It was almost ten thirty when the phone startled her.

“Mrs. Louis B. Christopher?” The voice was deep and officious.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Christopher, this is Officer Tomlin of the Paramus Police Department.”

“Police Department? My God!”

“Nothing happened, Mrs. Christopher. It’s just...well, you do own a silver Lexus, don’t you? New Jersey license number K-K-G 8-3-4?”

“Yes...”

“It’s parked illegally, ma’am. Overnight parking in the Grand Union lot is not allowed. And before I had the vehicle towed, I thought I’d give you a chance to move it.”

“The car? How could that be? Grand Union? Which store is that?”

“Paramus, ma’am. Route 17 and Ridgewood Avenue. If it’s not moved by eleven, I’m going to have to...”

“Oh, I’ll move it, officer. I just... well, I’ll be down there right away.”

What could this possibly mean? Lou had gone in with someone on a ride and had said nothing about it on the telephone? Well, it was just more of the same cock-and-bull story about Arden House. What in the hell was going on?

It was the first time in years that she’d ridden anywhere in a cab other than Manhattan. It was just over to Paramus, not more than ten minutes. The Lexus was parked in the far corner of the parking lot with Officer Tomlin waiting in his patrol car beside it.

The officer got out of his cruiser as her cab pulled up. He looked to be college age: twenty-one, twenty-two maybe. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat and his eyes shone in the lights. A crisp line defined the path from his ear to the tip of his chin. He had good teeth. He was fit. And he took good care of the uniform.

“Mrs. Christopher, I presume.”

“I’m sorry, officer. It was a mix-up. Thank you for not just towing it off somewhere.” The cab slid away in the night.

“Most people will respond if I call them,” Tomlin said, scanning her in a second from head to foot. “You’re very prompt.”

“Oh... yes... well... I just threw something on and...”

“Believe me,” he grinned, teeth gleaming. “This is a welcome break from soap on windows and toilet paper in the trees, Mrs. Christopher.”

“Typical Halloween?”

She wrapped her coat snugly to her waist with one hand and dipped her umbrella with the other. His eyes dropped to her legs. Back up.

“Well, it’s pretty tame this year, except for the stuff up at the bridge, of course.”

“What’s that?” she asked, sliding the back of her hand to her throat.

“Some kooks up on Bear Mountain Bridge lit off some gasoline or something. The whole thing’s burning.”

“Really!” she said, straightening her shoulders.

“It was just now coming across the radio.”

“Well, you’re very nice about this.”

Maggie unlocked the driver-side door of the Lexus. Tomlin held it as she collapsed the umbrella and threw it onto the front passenger side floor, and then pulled the coat around her and slid behind the wheel. She felt his eyes on the bareness of her calf. She settled into the seat, her coat riding up a tiny bit further. Tomlin shut the door and Maggie toggled the switch to lower the window. His hands were on top of the door at the roof line. She looked up, blinked, and widened her eyes.

“Thank you very much, Officer Tomlin,” she said.

For an instant, no, more than an instant, he looked down at her, at her eyes, her neck, her knees. He almost said something; something like his first name, she thought.

“Drive safely, Mrs. Christopher.”

“I will. Thanks again,” she said, absorbing the electricity that arced from the back of her throat to the tip of her nose.

The radio was on when she turned the ignition key. Maggie listened intently as a newscaster reported that the blast on the Bear Mountain Bridge had brought out fire departments from as far away as New Jersey.

Older kids in slickers were still out on the streets as she pulled onto Ridgewood Avenue and drove slowly, very slowly, back to the house. Her mind was all over the place.

Lou, the son of a gun, was lying. That call from Arden House; what had prompted it, if not some kind of guilt? She had been in no mood to be cozy with him, and she hadn’t been; but just the way he talked was strange, to say the least. For one thing, she could tell he was making the call from outdoors from the way he was breathing. There was a little shiver in his voice, but she hadn’t asked him about it because she didn’t want to probe—not too much anyway, not enough to set him to snapping back. He wouldn’t have ordinarily, but they were navigating new terrain these days.

She had chalked up the shiver to nervousness. He didn’t like to be on the wrong side of her. He never had, not even in the very beginning. When his eyes started darting all over the place, as they had that morning, she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. It had to be something awful for him to take such chances with her. Lies had a hard time coming out of his mouth at all, and now they were pouring out everywhere.

Maggie slid down the dark streets, the Lexus’ headlights glaring long tracks on the wet surfaces and briefly illuminating the houses and yards on both sides.

Was he involved with this Buck woman? There was a discordant note whenever he mentioned her. And he always painted her in a comic guise; wasn’t that a clue? He seemed to have nothing at all to say about the woman—at least nothing too negative—was it to throw her off? That was mother’s take on things, anyway. ‘When a man talks about a woman as if she were a clown, it’s a sure sign there’s something going on. At the very least, it means involvement with her; at worst, that he’s diddling her.’

Of course, another thing mother had said was that he probably wouldn’t linger on the subject if he were involved. He’d just lay it out there, short and sweet; in one sense, testing the waters to see if she’d pick up on it; and in the other, to find out if she, or anyone else, had seen him with Buck.

No. It couldn’t be. Lou had suffered so much guilt after the Suzy Chin episode; he’d never risk that again, not in this lifetime.

The affair was still fresh in her mind. “Who was that I saw Lou with in Hackensack, Maggie?” Deirdre Sondberg, her sorting partner down at the thrift shop, had asked.

“What do you mean, Deirdre?”

“It was Lou, I’m sure of it.”

“Deirdre, come out with it.”

“Well, it’s just that I saw Lou with some little Chinese-American.”

“Oh, come now, Deirdre.”

“I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Oh, I know you don’t. You never do.”

“It’s probably nothing, nothing at all. They, well, they were hurrying to somewhere, that’s all.”

He’d squirmed all over the place when Maggie confronted him and then finally just poured the whole thing out in a torrent, as if he couldn’t stand living a lie for another second. Lots of deep sighs. It was so traumatic. Why did she love him so much at that moment?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lou came back to consciousness with a steady rain drenching his face. He lay in the bed of the three-quarter ton truck, surrounded by the drums and the wire and the C-4 explosive. A deep ache centered in his left ear. He lifted himself to his hands and knees and moved to the tailgate, then dropped to the ground. He heard nothing. Both trucks still faced each other in the center of the span. The wire trailed out toward the western end. He fumbled for his rifle in the front seat of the three-quarter, and then lurched forward on foot, following the spiraling wire.

He found the blasting machine at the end of the coil. It rested 150 feet from the toll shack and the Mack West semi-trailer truck. He dropped to his knees and checked the wire. The ends weren’t pared back.

Carefully but rapidly, he stripped the coating with his thumbnail and threaded the ends of the wire into the terminals of the machine. He tightened down the screws, shed his jacket, and dropped it over the machine to prevent a short circuit. It lay in a lump on the pavement. He turned and began to run at a slow trot toward Mack West. He flinched when the muzzle flash of a single shot lit up the darkness. Then he saw a blast of fire from at least two weapons around the truck. He sprinted the last fifty feet and then slowed, his rifle up and ready.

Red lay on his back with his head resting against the curb and his feet crossed, as if he were settling in to watch his favorite television program—eyes open, but very dead; relaxed, except for one arm thrown out to the side, fingers clutching air, a large puddle of blood spreading to the gutter.

Under the cab of Mack West, Frawley lay half twisted. Lou moved closer and started to talk to him, but saw that there wasn’t much left of his face. The hostage was gone. Tasha lay at the front tire of the truck, grasping her upper arm and sobbing in shock and pain.

Lou sank to his knees against the truck’s rear tire, and then fell to all fours. The rain came in torrents now. The wind whipped sheets of water against the side of Mack West and pelted Lou’s back and head. The enormous stupidity of the whole thing pounded his head as if each drop of rain were a steel flechette.

Two men lay busted open, their brains on the ground, and there was nothing to show for it. No prize, no victory, nothing. The images of the crushed and scorched bodies in Kontum and Tanh Canh—yanked from the folds of Lou’s subconscious where they’d lain dormant for twenty years—rushed in front of his eyes. The rain gushed from the night and drenched his hair. Rivulets of water streamed along the sides of his face and spilled like a spout off his chin. He could almost feel the beaten down mud of a mountain trail under his hands as he lowered himself to the ground and lay there cringing against the next mortar shard. These were real men: Chester Frawley, an ally he’d just finished talking to; Red, a mortal enemy.

The raindrops spattered against the pavement and plastered his face. He felt a cold freshet streaming between his buttocks. Young men, good and bad, with dreams and loves and lust for adventure. He knew these kinds of men: he’d been one. The rain pasted his shirt to his back and dripped cold into the warmth of his armpits. He heard someone nearby faintly sobbing.

It had all come apart. He’d known back at Stanfield’s briefing that it wasn’t going to work, but he’d gone along. And now this lesson was no different from what he already knew: that nothing was free. It was all turned around now and police were closing in for the kill.

The sobbing continued. Tasha was crouched against the front tire of Mack West, still clutching at her upper arm. Her hair was glued to her scalp. Long tendrils of black hung down in front of her face, dripping water on her lap. Her legs were folded under her. She looked at him but said nothing. He crawled over beside her.

“Let go of your arm and let me see it,” he said. Her white jacket was torn just above the right elbow, but there was no blood. He could see a long, ugly crease on her skin.

“The bullets were coming right at me. Through my hair, through my coat. He wanted to kill me. Red tried to shoot me.” She was sobbing quietly now.

“You’re all right. I see where the bullets went. They missed you. Do you hear me? The bullets missed you.”

“Yes. Yes. They missed,” she said.

The probing beam of a searchlight coming from the direction of the traffic circle split the darkness around the truck. The light penetrated the plane of the truck and bathed the drums in the center of the span in light. Millions of flashing streaks of rain pierced the shaft of light; and then, as if the illumination were a signal, all the cops opened up with their weapons against the side of the truck at once.

Bullets pummeled sheet metal and ricocheted against the stanchion under the trailer. They pierced the thin steel easily and then whistled out the other side, crashing against the bridge’s railings and cables and shattering against the pavement in a shower of concrete splinters.

For a full five minutes (that seemed like an hour), police emptied magazine after magazine of ammunition against the truck, flattening every tire on the far side, exploding every window, and ripping the air with the whine and echo of a hundred impacts of metal on metal. And through all of this, the two of them huddled against the left front tire of the truck, unscathed.

It was no longer a battle of wits; it was survival, instinct, doing what they had to do to stay alive. Lou had to get rid of the searchlight first. He reached down and grabbed the girl’s carbine and jerked a round into the chamber.

He edged up to the bumper at the front of the truck and peered around the corner, down toward the traffic circle and the light. The beam was powerful and narrow, like an air-raid light mounted close to the ground. It pierced the night with a long, probing finger and left the sides of the bridge in darkness. The cops were able to direct the beam to any area of the bridge they desired. If they ever caught him in it, they’d have a hundred rounds in him before he could move an inch.

He called back to the girl: “Look, we’ve got to get out of here! We don’t have time for talk. They’re itching to rush us or to start lobbing some tear gas in here.”

Then he turned and went back to her. “Now I’m going to roll out to the side over there and start blasting away with this thing. That’s going to hold their heads down for a minute or so until they get adjusted and start moving the light around. I want you to get yourself to the back tire of the truck. When I start shooting, you dash for the side rail of the bridge and stay in the shadows. They’ll be looking at where my muzzle flash is coming from. You’ll have about a minute to run for the end of the bridge. Run with all your might, right toward those bastards.”

“When you get to the end of the railing, cut off to the right. Dive into the bush. When you get in the woods, run for all you’re worth until you reach the cut. There’s a deep gorge with a stream running at the bottom of it. That’s where we’re going. Both of us. When you reach the cut, scramble down. It’s steep. Wait for me at the bottom. I’m coming after you.”

She didn’t respond, didn’t lift her head to look at him. She just hunched over against the rain, shaking her head.

He grabbed the front of her jacket just below the chin and jerked her body violently. He stood up and pulled her to her feet. She was limp and heavy. He cracked her hard across the face with the front and back of his hand. She screamed and fought against his grip on her jacket. “You’re going! Do you hear me?” he screamed, pushing his face into hers and glaring into her wide and frightened eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m going.”

“Straight ahead to the end of the railing. Down to the right. Don’t stop running until you hit the bottom by the stream. Wait for fifteen minutes. If I don’t come, you get the hell out of there.”

She straightened and stared into his face and nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

“Get over there by the rear wheel,” he shouted, shoving her ruthlessly. She stumbled to the rear wheel of the trailer and crouched down. “When I shoot, you go! Hear?”

She didn’t move. “Hear!?” She nodded.

He leaped with his body parallel to the ground, rolled over once into a firing position at the curb , and immediately squeezed the trigger— once, twice, evenly, calmly—sending .30 caliber bullets winging toward the police cars and lights, driving the cops down behind their vehicles. Calmly, he pumped well-aimed shots into every shadow he saw in front of him, just high enough, wide enough, not to hit anybody.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl dart out to the far side of the bridge. She stumbled and sprawled headlong on the pavement in the darkness. She recovered and dashed forward and disappeared in front of him, into the blinding beam. He kept squeezing the trigger until all rounds were gone. And then he rolled back to the safety of the front tire again, leaving the rifle where he had lain.

As soon as he reached the tire, the fusillade started again. The bullets winged and whined against the body of the truck, slammed dully into already flattened tires, ricocheted off metal, burrowed into the concrete, and whistled into the cables overhead.

Bracing his back against the front tire, Lou faced in the direction of the napalm drums. For the first time he realized that the disorganized muddle of flashing lights at the east side of the bridge was no longer there. The police squad cars were masked by the bulk of the Mack East semi-trailer, and it loomed as a big black bug suspended in the center of a corona created by police headlamps. He saw that the corona was growing as the cruisers inched toward the center of the span. The firing on his side had stopped.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The men on the east side, Wes and Victor, must have been killed, or they had cut and run. Soon the cops would be all around him. From the looks of it, they were more interested in filling his body with holes than in capturing him. He sat on the pavement with his back to the Mack West tire, and soon the smell of gasoline began to intrude on his senses. The bullets had pierced the hundred-gallon tank on the truck. The liquid was spreading in an iridescent film over the pavement beneath it, draining off into the gutter with the rain, and flowing under the arch of Red’s neck at the curb.

Lou got to his knees and scrambled under the trailer toward Frawley’s body. He reached across him, for his carbine. Immediately, the police threw another fusillade of fire. Lou was caught in the middle of the searchlight beam. He scrambled back to safety behind the tire as bullets screeched around him, careening off the concrete in a shower of sparks, miraculously failing to ignite the gasoline. By the weight of it, he judged the magazine of the carbine to be almost full.

Back toward the center of the bridge, the police cars were creeping forward. Lou crouched behind the front tire of Mack West, gathering his strength for a sprint. He got to his feet and plunged out into the darkness adjacent to the bridge railing. He pumped his legs with all of his strength. He saw the dark form of his drenched jacket in the roadway ahead.

The headlights of the approaching squad cars created angular shafts of light through the wheels, undercarriage, and stanchions of Mack East and the three-quarter ton full of napalm drums. He dove for his jacket, grasping the machine beneath it in both hands. He whirled the handle once; nothing. Then again, harder. Again. On the third twist, the center of the bridge seemed to heave up in a ball of yellow and crimson flame. A thunderous roar enveloped the bridge and sent shocks through the girders and the concrete surface, throwing Lou to his back.

Globs of thickened aviation gasoline arched through the night—clearing the overhead cables—and then plunged to the river below. The massive ball of flame slowly rose off the surface of the roadway and engulfed the cables and lights above.

Lou got to his feet and turned back toward the western end of the bridge, racing back toward Mack West. For nearly a full minute, the center of the bridge was aglow with intense seething light; yet no one fired at him. He went right to the truck, hugging the side of the roadway and the railing. The air in his lungs seemed to swell in his chest until he couldn’t catch his breath. And still no one fired.

Back in the shelter of Mack West, Lou sank to his knees behind the front tire. The entire bridge and the mountains on either side of the Hudson were lit by flaming napalm that now stuck to the overhead cables and slowly dripped in globs of orange flame to the roadway. He’d stopped them.

He became aware of the pulsing, rug-beating throb of helicopter blades. He looked out to the north of the bridge and saw a military UH-1B hovering at the level of the roadway, its landing lights gleaming. Red lights flashed on the tail boom. He was receiving no fire. The cops must have been holding off to keep from accidently hitting the chopper or firing into their comrades closing in from the east side.

Slowly the craft moved forward, dipping its nose and gaining altitude. It ascended above the bridge, swinging back to the eastern side. Thirty seconds later, Lou heard throbbing directly overhead. The chopper hovered out in front of him, by the traffic circle, and descended to the ground. There was no firing. It was the perfect time to go.

He reached the end of the railing. Instinctively, he veered to the right, across the narrow strip of grass. He dove headlong into the underbrush, still holding the carbine. He crawled on all fours over roots and rocks and under bushes and low hanging branches that grabbed at his weapon and held him back. He reached the cut.

It was steeper than he thought. He started down the embankment on his rump, warding off boulders and stumps on his way down with his feet, but soon he began tumbling and sliding in a cascade of rocks and water. The pool at the bottom was not deep and it was no colder than the rain.

At first, it was absolutely black in the cut. Gradually his eyes adjusted, but there was no moon and no reflective surfaces to magnify what little light existed. He was shielded from the open ground a hundred and forty feet above him at the level of the bridge. He heard no sound except the splashing of water at his feet and his own deep breathing. The rain still came down steadily, unrelenting. For that he was thankful. It would mask all of his movements.

There wasn’t much time. He didn’t know if they’d seen him dart off under the cover and confusion of the helicopter landing. The only thing to do was to strike out west, shielded from view until he was far from this place.

“Hello...” he heard from the other side of the stream. It was a half whisper. “Is it you?”

“Come over here,” he said softly. “Over here. I’m holding out my hand.”

He heard her stumble into the water and stifle a screech. Then his hand was holding hers; pulling her across.

She rushed to him, clutched at his shirt, and wrapped her arms around him. “You don’t look dead,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“I heard a lot of shooting and the explosion,” she moaned. “I thought you were a goner.”

“We were lucky,” Lou said.

She kept her arms locked around his body and burrowed her face into his chest. He put his hands up to her back, and then began patting her jutting shoulder blades.

“Okay, okay. That’s enough. We’re going to have to get out of here,” he said. “They’re going to be looking for us.”

She nodded but didn’t release her grasp or say anything. He brought his hand up to her hair. It was a tangle of wetness. He pushed the long black strands off her forehead. She looked up at his face.

“Hey, c’mon,” he said, taking her shoulders and pushing her away. “We’ve got to move. We’re going upstream from here.”

“Say my name,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“Say it.”

“Tasha,” he said.

“Syd,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Say it.”

“Syd then,” he said. “Come on, Syd.”

He swung the carbine over his shoulder and then his rucksack. He grasped her hand and took one more look back toward the Hudson and the bridge high above it. The napalm mixture still burned in the cables and on the roadway. A cluster of squad cars hulked about a quarter of the way across the bridge where they had stopped when he blew the drums.

Right behind them, the Penn Central tracks stretched north beside the river. Had a train come along, they might’ve had a free ride out of there. But there was no train, and they had no time to wait for the Empire Express. It was completely dark directly above the tracks at the top of the gorge. That was good, but temporary. The police would be swarming all over this area as soon as they got organized. They began to pick their way along the edge of the water, moving west on level ground beside a broad inlet.

The cut was grooved into the rock a good hundred and fifty feet below the level of the surrounding ground. The inlet, its edges laced with boulders, was shallow and sluggish. But up ahead, the stream clapped on the boulders as it cascaded down from the high ground. To the sides and straight ahead, the stream was punctured by flashing specters of white. Above them, overhanging branches made silhouettes against the night sky.

They stopped to rest for a minute and looked back down the inlet from where they’d come. Across the Hudson a white beacon flashed at the level of the water beneath the bridge.

Ahead, up the gorge, the Popolopen Bridge, that carried Route 9W across the chasm, loomed against the sky. Hundreds of the curious were out on the highway. Good. They’d be in the way, clogging the highway, slowing the police moving to cut them off. The media must have picked up the story almost immediately. He looked down at the luminous dial of his watch. Midnight.

“Let’s go,” he said. They tried to hurry beside the rushing water. They cringed against the clacking of rock against rock in the rushing stream. The police wouldn’t hear anything down in the gorge because of the commotion caused by the buzzing oglers. Still, at any second he expected to see a cop peer over the edge and train a spotlight down on them. It would have to be a strong light to reach them.

The inlet narrowed even more past the bridge. The wet air muffled the roar of the rushing stream as it crashed down the incline. Then the gorge narrowed sharply; and they were on their hands and knees beside the torrent, picking their way through the rocks and boulders.

It was rugged and exhausting work. The rigors of the long night were creeping into his bones. He didn’t dare admit it. The girl would surely collapse. He climbed, scratching and clawing, to the top of the incline. There was a small dam, and beyond the dam, a tiny lake and then more flashing water as they continued to pull themselves gradually out of the Hudson River channel.

“We have to stop,” he heard from behind. He turned and went back to the girl. She was down on all fours beside the water, her head drooping between her shoulders. He dropped down to her. Her breath was coming in short, desperate pants. Her cheeks and forehead were hot to the touch.

“All right, we’ll stop here for a while. Take it easy,” he said.

He remembered the map of the area perfectly and didn’t consider taking it out of his waistband, where he’d put it before the operation started, neatly folded in a plastic bag. There wasn’t enough light to see it anyway. He had memorized the primary and secondary escape routes.

First, get out away from the bridge and into the gorge. Once there, stay with it until it rose up to almost level ground near Queensboro Furnace. It would be dangerous as long as they were confined to a gorge dominated on both sides by high-speed roads. The going would be slow for them, while the police would have the opportunity to speed ahead. Also, the cops would be able to patrol the roads to prevent them from crossing to the other side, boxing them into a narrow corridor they couldn’t escape. It was important to keep moving at least until they reached the Furnace. Once there, they’d be able to strike out into the woods in any direction, making it difficult to track them down. But now, they still had some climbing to do and a road to cross.

She took in long, deep breaths. He scooped some water out of the stream and patted it onto her face. For the first time in an hour, he noticed that the rain had nearly stopped. Far above them, on the left, he heard the faint rush of cars on the Palisades Parkway. He imagined a driver speeding along the four-lane highway, listening to a news report and wondering if there might be some fugitive lurking on the side of the road ready to jump out and wave him down.

On the right, Mine Torne Road meandered through the rock-strewn terrain. An occasional headlight blinked and then vanished as some traveler wound back and forth between the hills. The whole area was dominated by the Torne, surging 250 feet in the air and blotting out the night horizon.

“We can’t stay here any longer. They’ll figure out where we are pretty soon. They’ll be all over the roads. It’s just a little further now; about a mile more. We’ll be able to stop and rest for the night.”

“You go ahead. I can’t move. I’ll follow you later. I’m dying.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he snapped. “You’re not giving up now, after all you’ve been through. C’mon,” he said, pulling at her arm. She got to her feet and started walking again.

Queensboro Furnace was just a name on a map. It was etched in his memory as the spot where the stream split in two. One branch curved due north, running past Camp Shea, leading upstream to Weyants Pond. The other led south beside the interstate. They would slip between the streams, cross Furnace Road, and make their way overland about a mile to Turkey Mountain; a long ridge, but inconspicuous enough to afford them a haven.

It was a full two hours since they’d escaped the bridge. Daylight was only five hours away; plenty of time for the authorities to begin to react effectively to what had happened. If they were thinking at all, especially if they had seen him duck away, they’d be patrolling the roads west and north of the bridge. It was the obvious place to go.

He saw the gravel road, a chalky ribbon ahead, as soon as they came up onto level ground. He immediately sank and pulled the girl down beside him. She was gasping frantically again.

She slumped to the ground and lay on her side. Lou kept his head up, staring straight ahead at the road. He could see no movement. Up to the left was the Parkway. An occasional car swooshed along in a broad curving sweep. There was no traffic on Mine Torne to the right. The rain was falling very gently again. He kept his head perked up with all of his senses attuned to the gravel strip ahead. He heard nothing and saw nothing.

“Hey,” he whispered, ducking to speak into her ear. “I’m going to move ahead just a little bit to get closer to the road. You stay right here. Understand?”

“Don’t leave me here alone. I’m coming,” she said, starting to rise.

“Shh! For chrissake, I said stay here! When I see that it’s okay, I’ll whistle and you come up.”

“Please.”

“Goddam it, are you going to do what I say or what?”

“I want to come with you.”

“You’re staying. Listen up, and come when you hear the whistle. This is crucial. We can’t blow it at this stage of the game.”

He slowly got to his feet and began to move forward, out of the creek bed and through a grassy marsh. He’d taken the carbine from his shoulder and now held it tightly across his chest, ready to put it into action if need be.

With no cover, this was the most vulnerable area of all. Fifty feet from the road, he stopped and crouched in the marsh again. He lifted his head up above the grass, listened, and watched. He’d spend an hour here if he had to, just to be sure they wouldn’t be caught crossing the road in the open.

Off to the right, he heard the approach of a vehicle on Mine Torne Road. He watched the headlights come from a long way off, disappear at a curve in the road, and then reappear a few seconds later. Directly opposite his position in the marsh, the car turned to the right on a curve. The headlights swept across the marsh, and he ducked. Then, the red glow of the taillights dimmed into nothing. It was silent again.

He whistled as loudly as he could, trying to sound like some bird. What kind of bird whistles at night? Then he heard the sloshing through the swampy ground behind him, but he kept his eyes on the road.

“I could swear I heard a robin,” she said.

“Shh. Can’t I get you to be quiet?”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“We’re going to move very slowly up to that road. When we get to it, I’ll stay on this side. ’You run over to the other side and duck into the bush. Understand? No pussy footin’ around now. I want you to move as fast as you can.”

“Do you think there’s something up there?”

“I don’t think anything. I just don’t want to get caught in the open. I know you can’t see or hear anything, but this is the worst place for us. They could be sitting right up there waiting.”

He kept her beside him as they edged toward the road, pausing to listen every couple of feet. Now he began to discern a sound in the night air that was familiar: a whooshing sound, like an acetylene torch, coming out of the darkness, off to the left.

“Down!” he rasped, plunging to the ground and pulling her with him. “Lie still. Don’t move.”

Then they both heard it, loud and clear, from a hundred feet up the road: “Foxtrot thirty-two, this is Alpha six...”

“Foxtrot thirty-two, pack it up and move down here to the junction with the blacktop, over.”

A sudden, groping beam of light shot from a car on the road and flooded the gravel at their heads, sending a shiver of fear down his spine. The engine spun to life and the vehicle—an olive, military police car—crept down the road, passing directly above their huddled forms at the embankment. They crouched, frozen, until they no longer heard the crunch of gravel. Then, when the taillights flashed brightly in the distance by Mine Torne Road, he said:

“C’mon. Now’s the time to go.”

* * *

PRESIDENT AT THE SCENE, CONDEMNS GUERRILLAS

NEW YORK—President Jordan Bliss, here for a fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria, boarded a military helicopter and, in an unprecedented show of presidential activism, flew to the scene of the bizarre attack on the Bear Mountain Bridge north of the city last night. At the height of a blazing firefight with members of a strange, paramilitary organization, the president directed the pilot to circle the bridge and land at the west end, only three hundred feet from where two guerrillas lay dead.

Mr. Bliss remained at the scene until the threat was over, upon the surrender of three stragglers from the so-called American Revolutionary Army. Responding to media representatives, the president said that, as commander in chief, he would continue to participate directly in anti-terrorist police operations. He said he was proud to be in the first rank, leading the fight against lawlessness.

This startling and peculiar incident seems to have turned the previously dull election campaign on its ear overnight.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maggie flicked on the TV in the den. All the major stations were covering the bridge attack ad infinitum. Scenes of helicopters hovering over the bridge, fire trucks, whirling lights, flames, and black smoke rising from the middle of the span filled the airwaves.

Some crazy bunch of terrorists had blown up the bridge and gotten away, except for a couple of them. The police had two suspects in custody. There were three bodies. The cops had killed them right there on the bridge. They found a note talking about this being just a warning… the something-or-other American Army… some agenda, some girl. It was such a stupid act. Keystone Kops stuff almost, the way they described it. How did they ever think they’d get away with it? Now some of them were dead. It was doomed from the start. God, what next?

And then Bliss, for goodness sake, racing up there from the Waldorf, still in his tux, buzzing around in his helicopter, no less. Bounding out of the thing like Schwarzkopf on the banks of the Tigris, a crowd of aides all around him. Pundits making a big deal out of the timing; the show of command and all, so near the election.

By midnight, they had reported it to death. The story in the Atlantic Monthly couldn’t hold her. She rose from her chair and walked around it, then sat again. A sort of agitation invaded her hands and fingers. She couldn’t stop them from interlacing, knuckle against knuckle, clasping and unclasping, tip-to-tip, tapping, sliding over each other. There was nothing to do but go to bed. But sleep was up in the air, on the ceiling, darting around on the walls, outside buzzing around the streetlight; everywhere but on her pillow.

What in heaven’s name was going on? Lou had left the car parked and shared a ride with someone to Arden House. Why didn’t he just have them pick him up here? It was all very strange. Ever since the new account and all that money, there was this unreal aspect to everything. To start with, nobody gives you anything free. And if it seems as if they have, you ought to be looking very closely at the gift; studying the situation to make sure you understand what’s going on.

Why couldn’t Lou see that, feel it? He’s not a shallow man. He could see it, but the brokerage job had deteriorated into such a disaster, had sucked so much vinegar out of his system, that it had deflated his ego somehow. And with Sherm Wellington flashing his wallet all the time, it had built up a kind of pressure. Lou had to do something totally crazy just to hold his head up. So he put his personal stamp on the annual Mantoloking thing and dazzled Sherm and all the rest of them. It was fun, yes; but it was something Sherm Wellington would do, not Lou Christopher.

She slid out of bed and roamed through the dark house. Beyond the kitchen window, the shadows of the trees played across the backyard.

Oh, it was good to see Lou happy after the long drought that followed Fort Dix. How could the transition to civilian life have been anything but difficult after a twenty-five year Army career? They’d expected it, but real life always takes you by surprise. And it had been worse than anything they had anticipated. This confident, competent man reduced to begging for accounts over the telephone. Well, it wasn’t really begging even though it must have felt that way.

Position is so important to a man like Lou. It shouldn’t be. They both acknowledged that it’s the little things in life that are the most precious: their grandsons, Jory and Kirk. But when Lou was at the top of his game, as a colonel, all the way up the ladder actually, it was like an infusion of oxygen. It affected everything. He smiled. He laughed. He loved. Eons ago, it seemed.

This new gift, this account, represented a fresh shot of juice into Lou’s system; a joyous return to the good times. With every passing day, he seemed to invent a new reason for it; a justification that, deep down, they both knew was fallacious. His judgment had gotten all twisted up.

The light inside the refrigerator fell out onto the floor as she opened the door, reached for the leftover broccoli, and then picked at it with a fork.

She’d played her part in it, too. It wasn’t all on Lou. She’d allowed the drought to wring the juice from them both. And deep within her, she knew the truth was that she—yes—actually, crazily wanted him to foul up, wanted him shrunken and vulnerable so that she could justify her purpose by bringing him out of it. It was an ugly, alien thing that just grew up around them right from the first day, scarring them almost like those ghastly wounds in Lou’s thighs. She hated that in herself, but it was an impulse that just came up out of some dark place within her.

Restless, she sank into the couch in the den, took up the Atlantic Monthly, thumbed through the pages, and then threw it down.

What was the reason for Lou getting the account? It was right in front of her. Had to be. Something that stares you right in the face. If she could just clear away the fog of wishful thinking—that “quality guy” junk. Never believed it anyway. Okay, here is this guy—this old guy to somebody like Buck—this Army guy pining for the old days, wearing disappointment like an old shirt…

This Buck woman wants something and she decides to use this old guy. Old guy? What did that make Maggie? Grandma Moses? Not on your life. Well, she couldn’t exactly bound up to the net during doubles any more... Still, sometimes they looked. Young Officer Tomlin had.

Clear the fog, girl. Think. Think tough. Think Buck. See Lou for what he is. You want something and you can use Lou to get it. Lou or somebody like Lou. An aging ex-Army man. What else?

Cut to the marrow of it. To Buck, Lou was a fair-to-middling broker. Admit it. Just another nonentity down there in Paramus, busting his chops on two-thousand-dollar accounts. Not the phenom that Buck herself was. Limited; in imagination, guts, drive. Just not a player. Never would be. It was ironic, really. In his own mind, Lou was a player again, finally. A mover, he said. For him to say that...

She slid back into bed, pulled the cover over her, arms outside and straight along her sides. On her back, eyes on the ceiling, she continued her reverie.

Lou never lies; except when he does. He’s lying now. Lying to me. Why? Take it step by step. He’s lying to me because he thinks I won’t like whatever it is and I’ll make a big fuss about it. We hate fusses. Or I’ll question his judgment. I’ll correct him. Haven’t done that in a very long time, but it only takes one time. Or I’ll cry. We hate crying. Means he’ll have to fix it, whatever it is that’s wrong; have to change his plans to fix it. Why would I cry?

Buck. An affair. No. Candlewood Lake could not have happened if he were diddling Buck. Never. No, it had to be something about the money. What was it he said that night?

He’d mumbled it into the pillow. She’d been out of it, half asleep. “Something weird happened, Mag,” he’d said. “Something weird.” What could that mean? After he’d had a chance to think about it some more, he wouldn’t talk about it. Weird to Lou would mean shocking to her; out of left field. What? Right on the heels of the new account—a payback, a quid pro quo?

Okay, two parts: One, Lou’s treading water as a broker; his ego’s hurting. Two, he’s an old Army guy. So, you throw something his way to pump up the ego—the account, the money—and you get what you want in return; the Army part. But what? Something weird, shocking, bizarre.

Buck, she’s got it all. What more could she want? Power? She already has it. More power? Maybe. Politics. There! What was it again? Bliss’s campaign she was working on?

The lying. What exactly was the lie? Something about what he’s doing over the next couple of days. Doesn’t a lie always have some little element of truth in it, so that to him it doesn’t seem like such a big lie? But then, once the little part, the truth, is planted, the lie starts growing, like crazy, a fifty-pound pumpkin sprouting from a seed. So what is the little part? The big part?

Start with the conference. Suppose he’s not really at a conference. It’s something else. That’s the lie. And the little part, the seed—the truth? The actual location, maybe? Not really Arden House, but near it, up north of here, a place you could drive to in less than an hour? Yes! . The image of heaving orange flames— Bear Mountain Bridge—leapt into her consciousness.

Maggie sat upright, flung the cover to the side, and swung her feet to the floor. By the lighted dial on the clock on her bedside table, she saw that it was a little after midnight. Three minutes later, she was dressed and raising the garage door. A heartbroken and whining Trude clawed at the back door, begging to go along with her. Inside the Subaru (she would never even get into that stupid Lexus again), the darkness banished every pin of light along with every fleck of indecision still roiling in her blood.

Fever raged in her cheeks, down along the sides of her jaw, and onto her neck. She was alone on the streets of Glen Rock and out on Route 17, heading north, toward the Thruway and Bear Mountain Bridge.

It was cold in the car. She couldn’t tell if the opaque buildup of condensation on the windshield was outside or inside. She turned on the wipers. Inside. She flipped the toggle for heat. Her breath rode the air in a thin wisp of steam.

Lou wasn’t transparent to her, just translucent. When he was in trouble, he never came out with it without prodding; but once the cork was popped, it all came out like thunder. Starting all the way back at Fort Benning.

He’d told her he wasn’t long for the Army; that there’d been a flap of some kind and he was getting booted, even though he wanted to stay. He told her all about it: the patrol in the jungle, disobedience of orders (but for a good reason—the best. They couldn’t just sit there waiting for the NVA to pounce. They could hear them out there, all around them, during the night.) The best defense was a good offense. Any football player knew that.

He’d been a hero; a word he couldn’t force from his own lips. Heroes are only those who were with the worms now. He’d rescued Tom Holt. Been shot up himself. Received the Silver Star. Very few got that ribbon. It meant something.

She’d discretely brought it up with her father, who was a lieutenant general. Quietly, but firmly. Couldn’t he look into it? See if something could be done? Lou was such a good man. Didn’t the Army need people like him? It seemed like such a small error in judgment; maybe not an error at all, just self-preservation.

Dad had looked into it, got hold of Readfield, talked it all over. And in the mellowing that comes with distance from the actual terrain, Hank softened his position and withdrew his letter of reprimand. He actually liked Lou, just couldn’t tolerate disobedience when men’s lives were at stake. But at the end of the day, as they say, he wouldn’t mind having the lieutenant under his command again sometime. Of course, being called by a lieutenant general on Lou’s behalf had had something to do with it, too.

It was warm in the car, finally. Lou was right; it was fruitless to turn on the heater when you first crank the car; there’s no heat in the system yet. On the New York Thruway, the Subaru’s high beams swept along the roadside far ahead of her. Somewhere high on the hills to her right was Arden House. She drove right on by it.

It wasn’t as if Lou got into hot water all the time; it was very rare, but he did get into it. There was that part of him, that rebelliousness and lack of convention, that she could see in his eyes from the first. And why was that attractive? She didn’t know. He would always have trouble. He would always need someone. She could see that and she loved it. She didn’t know why.

She swung off the Thruway at the first tollbooth, turned onto Route 6, and climbed over the mountains toward Palisades Parkway. Water gleamed on the cliffs on the right side of the road. Still not another car in sight. In five minutes, she was at the Bear Mountain Circle, through it, and headed for Fort Montgomery. She drove over the Popolopen Bridge, stopped, and parked just beyond it. She got out of the car and walked back to look at Bear Mountain Bridge.

Emergency generators flooded the span with light. Trucks and repair crews crowded the roadway. The lights were functioning, but the evidence of the blast was clear: cables and girders blackened in the center of the span, like the roadway itself. A platoon of men was awash in foam as sweeper trucks scrubbed the pavement.

It was one o’clock in the morning. The wind blew through her coat and whipped around her bare legs. A chill rose all the way up to the middle of her back. High above the bridge, on the other side, she saw a bright, green beacon; and down at the level of the water another light, a white one. Her breath barely escaped her lips before a freezing blast of air swept it away. Tears welled and overflowed onto her cheeks.

She went to the rail of Popolopen Bridge and looked into the darkness of the gorge below. She leaned out as far as she could and looked down as far as the ink would allow. She turned and followed the line of the gorge, up and away from that place, beyond the hills and the trees, out to some cold, rocky place she knew existed.

She whispered, “Lou... Are you out there, darling? Out there somewhere? Come home to me, Lou. I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Maggie slid behind the wheel of the Subaru and flicked on the heater switch again. It was cold on the Popolopen Bridge. She grabbed the brim of her hat and tossed it into the back seat. She let the heat wash over her face. It was one A.M.. She glided quietly into Fort Montgomery and turned immediately onto Mine Torne Road. A rocky ledge loomed on the right, a dark gorge on the left. The fog sponged up the beams just in front of the car as she negotiated the curves in the road. Then, suddenly, a man was in her path, his reflective raincoat gleaming orange. He waved her to the side. Two olive drab military police cars blocked the way ahead.

“Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle, ma’am?” the MP said, opening the door.

“What’s the matter, officer?” Mag asked, as she swung her feet out to the blacktop.

The man ducked into the car and lit up the back seat with his flashlight. He reached to pull the trunk latch release. Another man dressed in orange probed the trunk with his long, black flashlight.

“There are some fugitives out here in the woods, ma’am. We’re just making sure you’re not transporting them.”

Maggie pulled her coat tight around her to fight off the chill wind. They had killed her lights; and with the trees towering over the road, she could barely see. She clasped her hands in front of her and looked up into the night beyond the arching branches.

“What kind of fugitives, officer?” she asked.

“There could be several men out here. And one woman. That’s all we know.”

“The business at the bridge? I’ve been listening to the radio.”

“Right. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m going to have to search you. Would you mind just holding your hands out to the sides?”

The man patted her down perfunctorily.

“This is really serious,” she said.

“Well, they’re armed and dangerous, ma’am. You haven’t seen anyone suspicious out here, have you?”

“No. I haven’t seen anyone at all.”

“You’re from Jersey. Would you mind telling me what you’re doing up here at this time of the night?”

“Well, I’ve been visiting a friend in Fort Montgomery, and...”

“May I see your driver’s license, ma’am?” he said.

Three MPs surrounded her. One of them scrutinized her plastic license card. His flashlight lit up his face. The two others stood impassively, staring at her face. She looked up again into the trees and reached to pull her hair away from her forehead.

“I’ve got to be back home before seven. I saw no reason to wait for daybreak. I wasn’t able to sleep.”

“A friend? Who would that be, Mrs. Christopher?”

“Delores. Delores Fishbein.”

“Do you have an address?”

“I know the way but I don’t know the name of the street, officer. I’m sorry. I...”

“You don’t know the name of the street?”

“No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“Why did you choose to go to New Jersey on this road, Mrs. Christopher?”

“Actually, I got turned around. I thought I was heading to the Palisades Parkway. It’s so dark.”

“You’re not in any way involved in that attack on the bridge are you, Mrs. Christopher?” He directed his light at her face and watched her eyes.

“Me? Good God.”

“Glen Rock, New Jersey. I’m logging you in, ma’am. You may be hearing from the local police later. This is not the smartest thing in the world to be fooling with.”

“I didn’t intend to cause any trouble. I’m sorry.”

“We’re trying to deny these people any chance to get away, ma’am. Coming around here in your car is working against us.”

“You’re not going to arrest me or anything, are you?” Mag asked, lines of worry forming on her forehead.

“What is your telephone number in Glen Rock, ma’am?”

“201-555-8954. I just want to go home.”

“Right. I want you to turn your vehicle around now and head back to Glen Rock by way of the Palisades Parkway.”

“Thank you, officer. I will.”

“If, by chance, you do see anyone on the side of the road, or whatever, do not stop. Just keep going. Understand?”

“I understand perfectly,” Mag said.

She turned the ignition key, felt the warm blast of air on her face. For an instant, she saw the MPs in the rear view mirror; and then they disappeared as if they never existed.

* * *

It was two-thirty, but Mag was wide awake as she steered off the highway onto Ridgewood Avenue and drove slowly along the dimly lit street. She envisioned herself walking into the dark house, straight to the telephone, and straight to a blinking answering machine and a comforting message from Lou. But a tingling along her jaw line, tapped out a message that wouldn’t go away: Lou was out there somewhere in the night, freezing and wet.

As she turned the corner onto Pleasant, she saw a plain white van parked at the curb and a man perched high up on the telephone pole. Another man stepped out from behind the van and waved her past. In the rear view mirror, she saw the man snap open a small telephone and speak into it as he watched her car move down the street.

She didn’t know why, but she drove past their driveway. The house was dark. She continued down to Cedar and then turned the corner. A black sedan was parked at the curb. She saw a match flare inside, then die. She drove on, around the corner at Birch, and then slid to a stop and killed the engine. She sat there in the dim light and looked all around. She saw no movement. She exited, closed the door of the Subaru quietly, glanced up and down the street, and then strode rapidly across their neighbors’—the Comptons—yard. She made her way through the bushes at the back of their house and across the grass in her own back yard. Trude heard the key in the lock at the back door and yapped crazily until Mag sank to her knees to quiet the dog.

Upstairs, she went immediately to the window and moved the curtains slightly to see up the street. The white van was still there. The man on the telephone pole jumped down the last two feet, opened the rear door of the van, and ducked inside. The other man moved around the van, disappeared inside, and slammed the door shut behind him. For five minutes, Mag stood at the window. Nothing moved outside.

She shed her coat and moved quickly to the telephone, listened, and heard a faint crackling an octave above the dial tone. Was she imagining everything? Had she created an elaborate fantasy to push the truth off into the corner? Was it an affair? With Patty Buck? She sank into a chair in the darkened room. Her eyes roved over the dark Indian painting on the far wall, the long case clock in the corner, the floor lamp on the near wall. She brought her hand up to her mouth and blew lightly on her knuckles. She placed two fingers on her temple and pressed her ring finger against her lips.

No. It was real trouble this time: a deadly kind of trouble. A familiar calm locked in. An involuntary hum rose from her throat and ricocheted off her palette. It wasn’t even daybreak, yet everyone knew about this bridge thing. Everybody. Bliss and his helicopter. The election...

But suddenly, weariness intruded on her thoughts and pushed them away. Exhausted, she slumped in the chair and slept.

It was bright in the room when she awoke; nearly noon. The doorbell was ringing and Trude was at it again, barking at the door. She stared at the clock, bewildered, and then her brain began to clear. She looked out the window and saw Anne outside with the boys carrying a big, blue duffle bag.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The rain stopped again before they reached the top of Turkey Mountain. Weariness from the strain of constant vigilance claimed the strength in his legs and allowed mountain laurel tangles and jagged rocks to trip him as he lurched up the incline, peering through heavy eyelids, pulling Sydney along by the hand. The night wind leaned into his face, chilling the sweat on his forehead. It sneaked up the small of his back, snatched his thin wisps of breath, and scaled them along his cheeks and into the night. They fumbled through the darkness at the top of the ridge and found a small, covered draw on the eastern slope. They dropped to the ground and huddled—shivering, silent—until finally they slid into sleep.

* * *

The sun rose above the horizon and freed them of the chill as they slept. Lou woke to the sound of chopper blades whupping somewhere in the mountains. He didn’t move. But even if the craft were hovering directly overhead, he knew that the people inside it wouldn’t be able to see them through the branches and leaves.

He looked over at the girl. She was curled up next to a rock, still asleep; her white coat torn and dirty in a sodden heap next to her. Her cheek was smeared with mud, her black hair damp and straggly against her forehead. She lay in the fetal position; her head resting against her two hands. Her face wore an expression of peace. One leg was flexed as if she were running in her sleep.

She jerked and sat upright, looking all around with a blank look on her face. For a full minute she sat like that, looking at him and all around until it came back to her.

“Good morning,” he said.

She reached her arms out in a large yawning motion. “I’m cold,” she said.

“Get your jacket on.”

“It’s soaked. You got a couple of ham and cheese. Your sack, where is it?”

He tossed the rucksack to her. “They’re all we’ve got. The candy bars turned to mush.”

“I need a comb.”

“No combs,” he said.

“My feet are falling off,” she said, rolling up her pants legs. She peeled her socks off, threw them to the side, pulled a foot up into her lap, and massaged the arch. “Nobody said anything about backpacking.”

“You want to see where we are?” he asked. “Come here. See this long ridgeline? That’s Turkey Mountain. We’re right here in this draw.”

“Excellent. How long until we have a pack of dogs on us?”

“Dogs? With all the rain and water we went through? Nah.”

“I was dreaming about dogs. Never mind no scent; they found us.”

“Not yet they didn’t,” he said.

“Then they came at us with a helicopter with a blinding searchlight on it.”

“You can’t see anything from a helicopter in this stuff. Too many leaves and underbrush down here.”

“Then I saw this long line of men with shotguns combing the woods with, like, little rabbits and foxes and raccoons scrambling over the rocks in front of them, and Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier splashing through the swamp.”

“It takes time to organize a search like that. That’s something they might have operating tomorrow, but not this soon.”

“You’ve got all the answers.”

“I have no answers.”

“Show me where we’re headed,” she said, leaning over the map.

“Come midnight tonight, we walk a mile and a half out to the end of this ridge, across Mine Torne Road, to the little pick and shovel there on the map. That’s Borrow Pit. That’s where we’re supposed to link up.”

“With who? Stanfield?”

“Stanfield.”

“Asshole.”

“Unfortunately he’s all we’ve got at this point. Should’ve thought of that along with a lot of other things, but I didn’t,” he said.

“What if you had? What difference would that have made? We’re screwed. You didn’t think. I didn’t think, least of all about people getting killed. Whatever happened to the thing about nobody using their gun?”

“People get scared.”

“I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

“Yeah, and maybe Elmer Fudd will get us out of here.”

“Okay, what are we going to do, commander?”

“Think.”

“Oh, great. Think.”

“You’ve got a big mouth.”

“More Ranger stuff.”

“Shut up. You got yourself into this. Don’t lay it on me.”

“You’re the one who came up with this brilliant plan with the trucks and the guns and the napalm. Look at these blisters.”

“I know a couple of guys back on the bridge who’d settle for blisters right now.”

A sudden wave of sadness swept along her brow and lodged in her throat as a muffled sob. “I’m sorry. Yeah. Oh, God.” She took in a deep breath and allowed a long steadying exhale. “All right. Are you ever going to reveal your name to me?”

“Cook.”

“Hey!”

“You don’t need to know my name. Okay. Christopher. Lou Christopher.”

“Sydney Winkler. I already told you.”

“Yeah, well, Sydney Winkler, we got ourselves into some deep tapioca here.”

“I wish it were still dark,” she said.

“The dark helps. It’s hard to move through this stuff at night; for them, too. If they’re out looking for us on foot already, they couldn’t have started before daybreak. There’s a lot of ground out there to be covered. Now that we’re out of that gorge, we could’ve gone in any direction. Even if they did have a line of men a mile long combing these mountains, they could never guarantee they’d find us with all of these little draws and swales. So they probably wouldn’t even do it. They have to be depending on active patrolling of the roads. They’re probably setting up checkpoints. Searching cars. Things like that.”

“Which means we have to walk out of here.”

“The plan calls for a linkup.”

“The plan sucks. How does our contact get into the area with roadblocks set up all around? And how do we get past the cops after they pick us up; if they do?

“The police can’t stop people from driving around the area. Besides, who exactly would they be looking for?”

“Us.”

“Not just us. How many of the others could they have found? How much could they know already? It’s only been a couple of hours.”

“They have all of them. They know everything. They have the hostage.”

“Maybe.”

“He saw me. He saw you.”

“He never saw our faces. We’ll just stick with the plan. It’s not much, but it’s all we have right now. We can’t speculate about all the possibilities without going crazy.”

“I feel like I was hit by a truck.”

“You look it.”

“Don’t talk.”

“Who cares? We’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah, and everything’s going to be all right. Shit.”

“We have to stick to the plan.”

“The plan. The plan.”

“Once we make the linkup, we’re going to have to rely on somebody else to get us out. I don’t see any other way right now.”

“You’re gullible. You’re dangerous.”

“Copeland and Stanfield don’t want us to be identified or caught any more than we do. If the cops pick us up and start interrogating, they and everybody else get implicated. That wouldn’t sit too well with the ‘lady’ as they say.”

“What lady?” she asked.

“I don’t know how you got into this to begin with. But it would be foolish for me to tell you who and what I know, just in case this doesn’t work out the way we want it to.”

“What is that supposed to mean, for chrissake?”

“I know for a fact that the people who got me into this thing will be very upset if they think there’s a chance that I’ll be naming people for the cops. The same goes for you. The less you know, the better off you are.”

“Oh, God. I don’t like it. I don’t like this at all.”

“It’s possibly not all that bad. If we make this linkup, then Copeland will know that we’re out of the hands of the police. He knows that we don’t want to go to jail. He has pretty good assurance that we’ll never choose to go to the police on our own later. And at this point there’s nothing to lead investigators from Bear Mountain Bridge to us.”

“I know it sounds weird at a time like this but, like, I have to pee.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Watch out for poison ivy,” he said.

Her feet were bare. She got up stiffly and picked her way through the rocks and underbrush up the draw.

The sun, now fully up off the horizon, chased the drifting fog that still lay at the base of the hills. The leaves were fully turned. The mountains were painted in all the somber yellows and browns of fall. In their little draw, the cover was almost complete. The trees on the mountain still had most of their leaves and the rhododendron that grew thickly all around their hideout was dark green. The ground was rough. It was hard to find a place to sit without clearing the spot of rocks. Sydney was working her way back down the draw.

“Hey, I think I heard some trucks or something down the mountain,” she said.

“There are a lot of dirt roads that run all through here. They’re patrolling them on the chance they might catch us wandering along. That’s one thing I learned early: stay away from the roads.”

“You really were a Ranger?”

“Yes, I really was.”

“Eat any snakes?”

“Yeah, a rattler—not much meat on him. Let’s break out the rations. We’ve got sandwiches.”

“God, I wish I’d sprung for a pizza way back there at the truck park.”

“We’ll split one and save the other for later. My stomach isn’t going to let me rest until I give it something to work on.”

They savored the sandwich.

“So, you’ve done some hiking,” he said, recalling the Ames parking lot conversation.

“All over. Camping too. We had these summer biking excursions. At Peddie School.”

“Not exactly hiking,” he said.

“Oh yes it was. For a week and a half, we’d ride and then stop and set up camp. Cooking out, sleeping on the mats, going on hikes through the woods. All over the place in Pennsylvania and Maryland.”

“Peddie. I’ve heard of it. Your folks are pretty well off then.”

“You could say that. From ninth grade on they boarded me there. Summers too.”

“So, you’re a Jerseyite.”

“By way of Chicago. Dad worked his way up through the telephone company, at Ameritech, then we moved on to ATT in Bernardsville.

“Pretty area,” Lou said.

“Yeah. But, not real happy times. They split and left.”

“But you stayed.”

“Sort of. I went from Peddie to Williams. Then back to Jersey for Ramapo College.”

“Why Ramapo of all places?”

“Williams booted me.”

“Oh,” he said.

Sydney shifted to a spot where she could lean against a rock. Lou watched her move in efficient, purposeful spurts punctuated by long pauses where she just stared straight ahead at nothing at all.

“I chose Williams,” she said. ”I’m really into biology and they have a great program.

“It’s a good school.”

“I worked with the professor who was mapping the brains of zebra finches.”

“Wow. How’d he do that?”

“She. Physically how? You don’t want to know,” Sydney said.

With the sun up in the sky, it was warm enough for both of them to shed some more of their outer clothing to allow it to dry. Sydney hung her coat on a rhododendron bush and laid her socks out on the ground.

It was safe here, but he knew how close disaster lurked. One little mistake would be all it would take. He had to think of everything.

The girl scraped the ground of rocks and lay down with her head propped on her boots. Gradually, her eyelids drooped. She drifted off to sleep again.

Weariness seeped from Lou’s bones, but every time he felt his eyes starting to close, he fought hard against it. There were only another twelve hours or so to go before they made the linkup.

He could stay awake at least for that much longer. If it meant that he could think the process all the way through and maybe prevent one little error, it was worth it.

Lou got up from the ground and stretched his legs. Leaving the pack, he started up the draw carrying his carbine. Was anyone watching him, prowling with his gun, like the movies? Fuck it. Even if he did look like John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima, it was better than getting caught short. He trudged up to the head of the draw and climbed to a small rock outcrop.

Straight across from them rose the high, long ridge called Long Mountain, three hundred feet higher than Turkey. To the east and south rose the massive Bear Mountain, with the Palisades Parkway curving around its base.

Traffic on the road was heavy, but that was normal. He sat on the ground with the carbine across his knees. Far off to the north, a single helicopter glided over the mountains, crumpling to the horizon. It was possible they were conducting an air search; it could also be something completely different. For the moment, it looked as if they were safe, as long as they didn’t try to move out of the area on any of the roads.

Closer in, the Torne rose up higher than their mountain and dominated the area. How had that distinctive crag managed to poke up out of the mediocrity of the rest of the humps that dotted the forest? Had the glacier heaved up here like a fluttering hen dropping an egg, or had it just pushed rocks higher in this particular spot? Was it by design, or did it just happen?

Sydney was still sleeping. She had turned over on her side to face him. Her clothes were wrinkled and creased. In her sleep, her sweater had crept up, baring her midriff and navel. The outline of her low-cut panties showed against her hip. Her sweater was pulled tight across her chest. Goddam lech. She rolled onto her back again and opened her eyes.

“I fell asleep,” she said.

“Amazing.”

“Think the sun might have something to do with it?”

“We lucked out. It could’ve kept raining,” he pointed out.

“We’ve been lucky all along, haven’t we?”

“You call that luck?”

“Us getting away.”

“That was luck.”

“I never thought I’d get off that bridge,” she said.

“For a while there I thought you had run right into their hands. The light was in my eyes and you disappeared.”

“I did exactly as you said. I don’t think any of them saw me.”

“Lucky, both of us.”

“When you came sliding down the slope, I thought for sure you were one of them. I decided to take a chance and say something.”

“Tell me about Red,” he prompted.

“I was keeping my eye on the toll guard, scared to death the whole time. I thought for sure the guy was going to, like, rush me or something; I don’t think I could’ve pulled the trigger. Then I heard someone come running up to the truck, cussing a blue streak at everyone he saw. All of a sudden, he let go with his gun, shooting every which way, just spraying around. I don’t know if he was shooting at the cops, at the guy under the truck, or me. He pointed it right at me. I could feel bullets hitting the door of the truck in back of me. A couple of them went through my hair. I felt this burning on my arm. I just rolled up in a ball and, like, prayed. The guy under the truck turned around and shot. I guess the hostage just ran for it. I didn’t see him go.”

“I couldn’t figure that idiot, Red, from the first.”

“If it was up to him, I would’ve been banished back at the truck park. Now I wish I had.”

“I can see that they needed a maniac like him to supply the manpower for this thing. For a while, I thought I could deal with him. Then he went berserk; clocked me. If he’d been alive the next time I saw him, I would’ve rearranged his face.”

“He was a pretty big guy. I’d have picked him in the fight.”

“Thanks. I needed that. Maybe he would have finished the job on me. Moot point. How’s the arm?”

“It’s just a little tender. It’s all right. Do you think they’re serious about this being a nationwide thing? I mean, like, pulling off this stuff in a lot of different cities at the same time?”

“Who knows? Who cares?”

“If it’s true, it means that some pretty heavy people had to be mixed up in it, right? And like, if there are heavy people involved, they’re going to want to make sure no shit comes back on them now that it collapsed.”

“They have to be wishing we’re dead.”

“You said you didn’t want to know too much about how I got mixed up in this?” Sydney said, crossing her legs underneath her.

“I just didn’t want to tell you my connection.”

“I already know too much. It all seemed to happen, like, right out of the blue. I got this visit from Stanfield, and then I was in.”

“You just got a visit from Stanfield?”

“I owe this money. Lots of it. I was waiting for someone like him to come after me.”

“You owe money for what?”

“Come on.”

“What? Gambling?”

“Hey, I had a habit, big time, okay? Ecstasy cooked my goose at Williams. Then my roommate at Ramapo found out how bad off I was and apparently tipped Stanfield. He showed up with a pile of cash. At the time, it seemed like something from heaven. I was going to pay him back.”

“He just showed up with money?”

“Yeah. I don’t think Ashley knew anything about Bear Mountain Bridge, though. In fact, Stanfield told me not to mention anything about it to her.”

“Ashley?”

“Corcoran. Ashley Corcoran. My roommate. She’s okay.”

“So it was money.”

“I told him they could have it all back. I’d pay it back somehow. But he said all I had to do was, like, play this little game for a couple of hours and it would be all over. He said I could just forget about repaying it.”

“And all you had to do was become a terrorist.”

“Yeah. Here I am.”

* * *

Morning turned to afternoon. The sun continued to blaze down out of a cloudless sky. It was a perfect Indian Summer day. Lou climbed to the top of the knoll again to look and listen. There was nothing to endanger them that he could detect. The only sounds were the whir of traffic on the Parkway and the buzzing of the last bees of the year in the laurel. At around two o’clock, he lay down on a bare spot with his head propped on his boots, just to rest for a few minutes. Sydney was awake and moving around. It would be all right.

* * *

He woke up slowly and cleared his head… slowly. He found himself looking up into Sydney’s face. His head was in her lap. She was clean and fresh-smelling.

“Would you believe that you must’ve been having some sort of nightmare?” she said.

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“I don’t have the foggiest, but I think it’s getting close to supper time. At least my stomach is telling me it is. Do you hear anything down there?”

“It must be talking Greek,” he said. He raised himself up to a sitting position.

“The sun looks like it’s about ready to sneak behind the trees over there on the next mountain,” Sydney said, shielding her eyes.

“Yeah, and we’re going to freeze our butts up here for the next five hours until it’s time to make it over to Borrow Pit.”

“Do you want your socks? They’re completely dry.”

“Yeah, how about passing them over here? Hey, you look like you got cleaned up while I was out. You didn’t go down by the lake, I hope.”

“Would you believe a stream down at the base of this hill?”

“Jesus! You’re crazy! Here I am, creeping and crawling like I expect to be attacked any minute, and you’re strolling around. You could’ve gotten us both...”

“But I didn’t.”

“You could have. You only get one chance.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s your skin, too.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“Do as I tell you.”

“Okay.”

“All right, then.”

“Do you want to do that make-up sex thing?” she asked.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Are you crazy or just completely friggin’ nuts?”

“You don’t have to be so sarcastic,” Sydney said.

“Here on the rocks? With you?”

“Excuse me. It was just an impulse. Ill-timed, it seems.”

“Timing has nothing to do with it.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re feeling doomed.”

“And that was my last wish? Fuck you. I just go with my impulses.”

“I’m capable of a lot: lying, walking out, frittering away the most important things—but there’s a limit, even for me.

“And I’m where you draw the line.”

“You said it.”

“You’re not all that much yourself.”

“Should have been flattered, huh?”

“You said that.”

Lou stood, walked away briefly, and then came back. “It’s the principle.”

“And, like, I wouldn’t know anything about that. Right?”

“Well, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have put principle on your top ten list.”

“A lot you know.”

“Let’s just drop it. I’m simply saying....”

“I’m a slut.”

“I’m saying we’re miles apart when it comes to this.”

“If I’m a slut, you’re a hypocrite, and I’d rather be me.”

“Fine.”

“You probably had the impulse too, but you’re too tight-assed to put it to words.”

“Now who’s flattering herself?”

“It’s not a crime to say what’s on your mind. I believe in that! I’d rather be authentic than anything else.”

“Good for you.”

“Good for me.”

Silence descended again, and their tempers cooled.

* * *

Darkness crept in as the sun sank into the trees along the crest of Long Mountain. With the darkness came the chill. A breeze rolled across the ridge and down into their little canyon. Soon they rested beneath a cloudless sky filled with stars. Lou sat still: his back to a boulder, Sydney huddled beside him, and the M-2 propped close at hand, not to be lost in the night.

This was like many other nights he’d spent in the mountains north of Kontum: wind masking the rush of the stream below, the whispers of frightened men, and the little pain of fear in his chest. Was that the whistle and crunch of artillery shells impacting all around their perimeter?

They sat waiting for the time to move from the safety of this place to the unknown of another place.

“This is going to be hairy,” he said.

“You’re telling me.”

“Right now, we’re the only ones who know where we are and where we’re going. That gives us a big advantage over someone who has to cover the whole damned woods looking for us. So we’re safe for now. But with us moving to a certain spot at a certain time, surprise goes out the window.”

“And only certain people know where we’re going. Assholes.”

“We have options.”

“Like, we don’t meet them?”

“Maybe. Or we make the rendezvous, but we do it in a way that swings the advantage to us.”

“Oh shit. I’m scared. Let’s just walk out.”

“Walking out is worse.”

“We’d have just ourselves. We wouldn’t have to trust anybody.”

“Time is the critical thing. The longer they have to organize and mobilize, the worse it is for us; especially on foot. We have to get out of this area before they can get it completely sealed off.”

“I say walk.”

“We’re not walking out,” he said.

“Hey, it’s my life too.”

“Then, go on. Walk. I’m making the linkup.”

“You know I can’t. I’d be going in circles.”

“Then don’t walk.”

“Can’t I at least share in the decision making, commander, for chrissake?”

“You can’t make decisions on something you know nothing about, such as land navigation, escape, and evasion.”

“I know how treacherous those guys are. They don’t play by the rules.”

“Listen, it’s my judgment that neither one of us could just keep trekking through these hills indefinitely with no food or shelter. In a few more hours, as the cops tighten up their net, all alternatives to walking will be shut down. We may wind up walking, but that should be our last option.”

“Okay. Why didn’t you say that in the beginning?”

Sydney stayed huddled next to him, shuddering against the wind. The pickup was for midnight. The Joe DiMaggio password bit. Someone would show up in a U-Haul van. Stanfield? Nothing was specified about the approach. Good. If he could keep his eye on the whole area, see everything that happened from some cover, then he could call all the shots, dictate the conditions, and decide whether or not to expose their position. If everything wasn’t perfect (single vehicle, two passengers at most, both out of the van and carrying nothing in their hands), then he could pass on the pickup.

One more thing. He had to observe from an unpredictable place, a place they’d never anticipate.

“Hey,” he said suddenly. “Here it is.”

“Tell me,” she groaned.

“We go to the spot. Check it out. If we like the set up, we go with it. If we don’t, we don’t. It’s all we have.”

“I still say walk.”

“We’re going to play this linkup card.”

“And if we lose?”

Lou stood and pulled her to her feet.

“Come on. We’ve got some things to do.”

* * *

They held hands moving in the dark below the crest of Turkey Mountain. It was about a mile and a half, angling toward Mine Torne Road. Rhododendron and laurel branches—thick, in the low spots that separated a hundred knolls, in the saddles, and along the rounded tops of a thousand spurs—grabbed at their legs. At the northern end of the ridgeline, the mountain climbed to over 400 feet, and then dropped off steeply into the swampy ground beside Popolopen Creek and Mine Torne Road.

Lou swung to a southeasterly course at the end of the ridge. They walked out on a broad finger that pointed directly at the Torne rising above them. They would avoid a direct approach to the pit; they’d come from a direction Stanfield would never expect.

At a sharp curve in the road, they sprinted across Mine Torne Road together. If anyone was lying in wait for them, this is where they’d have the best chance of not being seen, of avoiding the sudden headlights of an oncoming car. Directly above them were the cliffs of the Torne.

They walked along the lower slopes of the crag, contouring, keeping themselves parallel to Mine Torne Road two hundred feet to their left and a hundred feet below. At a point along the Torne ridge, directly opposite Borrow Pit, Lou stopped. They both slumped to the ground.

A pair of headlights appeared at the curve at least a mile distant from them, growing in size and brightness as the vehicle came toward them on the straightaway, it’s tires whining on the macadam surface.

“Sydney, watch. Try to identify anything along the road, like another parked truck or car. This is a perfect spot to watch from.”

“He’s going to see us.”

“Not in the woods like this. Looking out, everything is clear on the road because of the headlights in contrast with the darkness of the woods. But looking in, down there on the road, the trees screen us.”

The vehicle came straight at them, bearing slightly southward as it approached the gravel turnoff to Borrow Pit. It was below them. It was white. It slowed only slightly to make the tight curve at the base of the Torne, and then picked up speed again on the straightaway. Turning, they kept the car in view for another half mile. Its headlights vanished as it made the curve at the far end of the Torne. They had seen no parked vehicles near Borrow Pit turnoff.

“Listen, I want you to stay here alone for about half an hour. I don’t want you to move from this spot, understand?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going down by the pit. There’s a building there. I’ve written a note for Stanfield. I want him to find it on the door.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Keep them guessing.”

“They probably won’t find it.”

“They’ll find it. If we don’t make contact with them right away, the building will be the first place they’ll look.”

“If they look at all.”

“They’ll look.”

“For chrissake, don’t get caught! I’m no good out here. I’d go, like, completely cuckoo.”

“Just stay right here. I’ll be back before you know it.”

The ground slanted steeply to Cranbury Brook. Lou slid on the seat of his pants until he heard the gurgling of the water below him. He didn’t bother to try to keep his feet dry. The stream was less than a foot deep. On the other side of the water, he stopped, crouched, and strained to detect movement, any at all, in the area of the pit directly in front of him.

Two cars whined down Mine Torne Road as he crouched there. As they passed, Lou looked back in the direction of the Torne to see if he could spot Sydney in the headlights. He could not. He crawled toward the pit, only a hundred feet in front of him. The rocks tore at his knees and elbows. It was agonizingly slow going. He was vulnerable. He couldn’t be careful enough. The pit yawned suddenly just below him.

He had maneuvered slightly off course to the north. Looking down into the pit, the building was to his left. He lay there watching for a full fifteen minutes, straining his eyes for any hint of movement: a flash of metal, anything. He listened for a cough, a whisper, a clink of metal on metal, or a loose stone tumbling down the side of the pit. There was nothing there. Then, he saw the van—Yes!—tucked into the trees and swathed with underbrush. It was definitely the U-Haul van. It looked empty, he thought.

Slowly, Lou raised himself to his feet. He stood erect on the rim of the pit and then slid down the embankment. The dirt and stone rushed down in front of him, engulfed his boots. He was to the van and the door quickly. It was locked; no keys in the ignition. He slid the small piece of paper into the crack at the driver’s side window, and then raced back to the edge of the pit, up over the rim, back toward Cranbury Brook; running this time, not crawling.

Sydney was not hard to find. As he climbed toward where he knew she was hidden, he heard her calling to him in a small, frightened voice. He found her and they came together hard.

“We’re in luck. I found the van. They must’ve stashed it there before the whole thing began—just in case they needed it—so they could drive to the spot in another vehicle without having to do a lot of explaining to police roadblocks. Smart. Okay. We still have some walking to do.”

“And then what?” she asked.

“Wait and hope.”

“I could’ve used some music on my Walkman,” she said.

* * *

He’d printed the note on a back corner of the map sheet: “Stanfield—Drive north on gravel to creek crossing. Get out. Open back doors. Wait.”

Chapter Thirty

Lou and Sydney watched from among the trees, above the streambed and the road. From there, they could observe any vehicle that approached, without revealing themselves. They could see very clearly exactly what happened when the van stopped at the crossing.

It was a short wait to midnight. The chill wind had them both shivering as they listened to the brook clapping over the rock-strewn bed. A quarter moon hung low in the sky, providing just enough light to cast a faint glimmer in the ripples.

There were very few certainties at this stage. One thing was certain though: what had happened had been unexpected. Stanfield and Copeland were frantic now. They had to be. At their age, how much experience could they have? How many men had ever wanted to kill them in war, or any other time? The facade had to be cracking, especially in Stanfield.

But even Copeland, the stabilizer, had to be scared. Everyone was afraid of the unknown. No textbook exercise, no amount of calculating or sweating over a spreadsheet, could reveal what would happen from now on.

Sydney was the first to detect the van creeping along the road. She just pointed off to the left. At first, he heard nothing; but then he heard the crunch of gravel and, through the trees, saw the dim, yellow glow of the parking lights and the “U-Haul” lettering on the side. The van came to a stop in the middle of the creek.

The light inside the van came on and the right side door opened. One man stepped out into the water; another sat at the wheel. The first man, looking slowly up and down the stream, directed his eyes straight at them but couldn’t see them. He looked back at the van. The headlights blinked on and off. Finally, the driver opened the left side door and got out. He came around to the front of the vehicle and the two of them stood together at the edge of the water.

“Christopher! Come on. We don’t have time to waste.” It was Copeland, talking in a loud, stage whisper.

“Okay, we’ll play the little password game. Where are you, Joe DiMaggio? For chrissake.”

Finally, one of the men went to the back of the vehicle, opened the double door, and flashed a light all around the cargo compartment. It was plain there were no other people in the van.

“Christopher! Do you have the girl with you?”

Lou leaned close to Sydney and whispered: “You stay here and don’t move until I tell you to come out. I’m going down there.”

“Free at last,” she said.

She clung to his jacket. He had to pull himself away from her.

“Look, Christopher. If you don’t get over here now, I’m leaving you high and dry.”

Lou got to his feet and slipped, as quietly as possible with a weapon in hand, through the trees. He stalked upstream from the van, approaching it from the rear; from behind the two men.

“Christopher, the cops are all over this place. You want us all fucked?”

Lou’s voice came loud in the blackness and closer than they anticipated: “Copeland! I want to see both of your hands in the air.”

Copeland and the other man whirled to face him. “What the hell, Lou? We’re here to take you out of this place, remember?” It was Stanfield, in his high-pitched, whining voice.

Lou pressed close to the trunk of a tree, the M-2 trained on them.

“Why all this fooling around, pal?”

“Just do what I say, and right now,” Lou barked.

“All right, what do you want?”

“Turn around and go back to your car. Leave the keys in the van. Just get out of here. Right now.”

“Can’t do it, pal. You know that.”

“Do it.”

“We’ve got some talking to do.”

“Now.”

It happened abruptly: Copeland jabbing Stanfield with his elbow; a slight sideways turn; a sudden crouch. The darkness exploded as the two men opened up with handguns; wicked, deadly hornets flew everywhere, stinging Lou full of panic and fear. Then everything turned into slow motion.

Bullets winged past Lou and through the branches, imbedding themselves in the trees to his left. His reaction was reflexive: he went to the ground and snapped the carbine into firing position. It was on automatic. He flipped it off safety, pressed the trigger. The weapon pulled away from his line of fire, up and to the right.

Tracers seared the night. The two men at the van separated expertly, peppering the area around Lou with well-aimed shots. It was a trap. Bastards! He had to escape. Had to get out of the area. No time for trading gunfire in the dark.

“Lou!” he heard from across the stream. “Lou! Are you all right?”

“Get down, Sydney! Stay there!”

She was on her feet at the stream’s edge; caught in the beam of Stanfield’s flashlight; her scream laced with terror. Then she was down in a fusillade of gunfire, face-down in the stream.

Lou rolled to the next tree trunk and pressed the trigger again. The weapon jolted in his grasp as he sprayed the van with .30 caliber bullets. But the weapon was empty now.

He hid only a hundred feet from her limp form in the middle of the stream. Copeland yelled to Stanfield to start maneuvering to get Lou in a crossfire. The darkness in the trees to Lou’s right ignited as Copeland opened up again.

Sudden, burning pain drilled into the back of his thigh. He rolled over and over to get away from his last known position. Every time his thigh met the ground, he felt the stabbing pain. Copeland fired again, but he was off the mark. Stanfield moved like a rhino through the underbrush to his left. The van was lost in the darkness, as was Sydney’s inert form.

“Sydney!” he screamed. “Get up!” No response. “Get up!”

Stanfield fired. The bullets twanged against a rock at Lou’s feet. He could never let himself be caught, never. He stood and started to run, ignoring the pain in his leg. He plunged through the trees, warding off branches from his face, crashing through the brush in the direction of Mine Torne Road. He cut to his right and crossed over the gravel.

He careened into the woods on the other side, up toward the slopes of Cranbury Mountain. They’d never take him, never. Now his lungs were aching. He was gasping for air. His thigh felt on fire, as if a glowing coal were lodged against the bone. The slope was too steep, the woods too thick. He stumbled and hit the ground and lay there spent, his heart pounding against his sternum.

He had left her. She was dead or they had her. But he was free. They’d never take him. He was alone in the bush, on the ground. His face was in the dirt with the smell of dead leaves, moss, and his own blood all around him. Gasping. Drained. Sputtering against rotten bark and twigs and bugs. Old. Terribly old. Panting. Hiding.

Chapter Thirty-One

He’d seen her drop, but that was all. He lay only a hundred yards or so from the spot. Copeland and Stanfield still waited out there. He had to go back, even if it was to find her dead. He got to his knees, tried to get to his feet, but seized up and fell back to his side. A great lump of swollen tissue pressed against his pants leg. He reached to relieve it; tore at the bullet holes until the pants leg opened and the throbbing fell off to a dull ache.

He crawled to a small tree, pulled himself to his feet, and looked all around to get his location fixed in his mind. He was south of the creek where Sydney had fallen, at least fifty feet above it. They had rested near here while waiting for the van to appear. Stanfield and Copeland lay in the darkness somewhere, waiting for him to move.

Lou waited. He heard nothing but the wind in the trees, the stream below. Quietly, despite the rocks and underbrush, he shambled down the slope. He couldn’t betray himself with haste, but there wasn’t much time. Surely, the police at the roadblocks had heard the gunfire and would be coming fast.

Then, far back down the gravel road to his left, Lou saw the sudden flash of headlights and heard wheels spinning in gravel. A car fishtailed and then disappeared in the faint, red glow of taillights. Stanfield and Copeland getting clear of this spot. They had figured the police the same as he. Fuck caution.

“Sydney!” he screamed.

His voice fell weakly onto the cold ground, skittered between the rocks. Then, no sound, save the slapping of the brook against the rocks. He hobbled to the spot where she had fallen. She was gone.

“Sydney!” Nothing.

Slowly and painfully, he groped on hands and knees all around the area where they’d been. He hobbled to the van. Nothing. Then he saw lights on the gravel road again, moving slowly toward him: several sets of lights and the sound of vehicles. He turned to the high ground; fought the searing pain in his leg; pulled himself up, far above the brook and the van; far above the police and the bullet-riddled U-Haul. He fell to the ground and bent against waves of pain.

It was the chill wind again that brought him back. ’’When he moved, he generated warmth that camouflaged the coolness of the night air. But now, lying on the ground, the chill crept in at the waistband of his pants and around his neck, giving life to the immobilizing knot at the back of his thigh.

He reached down to where he’d been hit. There was dry blood on the back of his trouser leg; and on either side of the muscle, a sticky, cold mass. The bullet had passed cleanly through. As he coiled to get to his feet, it felt as if a marshmallow fork had been plunged into his buttocks.

He was right. With him alive, there was the danger that he would talk. He was a threat to them: to Buck and, ultimately, to Jord Bliss. They never expected he would get away from the fiasco at the bridge. He was too old, too weak. They might’ve assigned Red the job of eliminating both him and Sydney right there at the site. The rendezvous was just a safety valve by which to locate him in the event he did manage to get away. They had covered all the possibilities; had come close to eliminating him, but not close enough. Where was Sydney?

The police had to be thinking that he was in the woods near the pit, so they would be blazing away at the area with all the light they could find. They’d be moving to seal off the area around the van; keeping the roads locked up tight; reasoning that he was laying low until he ran out of food or tried to cross one of the blacktop roads that encircled the area. With daybreak, they’d be all over these woods with searchers and dogs.

Lou knew without looking at the map what the situation was. To the west, south, and north of him lay acre after acre of thick woods and rocky spines rising up like the ridges of a washboard. To the east were the river and the built-up area that paralleled it. The map revealed a trailer camp, just on the eastern side of the Torne. He’d passed it when he reconnoitered, before the operation even started. The camp was off Mine Torne Road, high up in the woods.

It was time to do something outrageous—something they couldn’t expect—to get out of the area. The longer he stayed in the woods, the longer they had to box him in. He had to strike now, tonight; to get out. He had to get cleaned up and eat. Had to plan what to do.

The Torne Ridge was steeper than anything he’d climbed before. With his left leg a throbbing mass of flesh he had to drag along, it seemed to take hours to move a hundred yards. Instead of high stepping over fallen logs and rocks, he had to hop and lurch from tree to tree, log to log, rock to rock. The M-2 became a crutch. Empty of ammunition, it didn’t matter that he rammed the muzzle into the dirt.

It was bitter cold atop the Torne. The wind was strong across the top of the ridge. The view from there was spectacular. To the south he could clearly see an occasional car’s headlights snaking around Bear Mountain. To the west and north, blackness possessed the hills except for a faint corona at the horizon. To the east, the streetlights of Fort Montgomery flickered through the trees. And beyond the town, the bridge seemed disconnected from the hills around it, hovering alight in the darkness like some alien space ship.

The span floated in a cloud of mist lit by searchlights and framed by blackened girders and cables. The inferno hadn’t twisted the steel. Its roadway was alive with worker ants who’d already replaced the approach lights on both sides. All the lamps along the roadway glowed. Above the bridge, atop Anthony’s Nose, the green beacon gleamed in the blackness. And at the level of the river, just under the eastern end of the bridge, a single white light—the one he’d seen from the gorge—flickered.

Now with the wind blowing straight into his face, the image of the bridge blurred and dissolved, along with his fleeting wish that the crew that had so quickly put the bridge right could do the same for him. He turned and plodded down off the Torne toward the trailer camp.

The faint moon shadows in the camp concealed him. A set of headlights bobbed on the winding gravel road and crept by. Lou hobbled after it as it pulled up beside one of the trailers. From thirty feet behind the car, he called out to the driver as he emerged: “Hey! Hold on there for a second, will you?”

A short man whirled. He stared down at Lou as he limped up the road. In the darkness, the man appeared to be about five feet, five and about two hundred pounds, most of which resided at his belt line.

“Geez man! You scared the livin’ bejesus out of me, yelling like that. Don’t be doing that to me now.” It was a tenor voice.

Lou kept the carbine close to his leg. If the man started running, there was no way Lou would be able to catch him, no matter how fat he was. The man waited patiently by the side of his battered Plymouth while Lou struggled up to him, limping badly. As he came up to within ten feet of the man, Lou leveled his carbine.

“I’ll blow you to hell if you move.”

“Be careful with that thing, man! I’m not going anywhere. I’ll give you any damned thing you want.”

“Okay, listen. I don’t want anything from you except cooperation. If you do what I say, you’ll get out of this with no problem at all. But you cross me, and there’s going to be big trouble for both of us. I don’t think you’d like that.”

“I only have a couple of bucks.”

“Keep it. Now come around here and open up your trunk.” Giving Lou a wide berth, the man hurried to the rear of the car, his eyes on the weapon.

“All right. Now, I want you to climb in and lie down. I’m going to close the door on you. It’s only to keep you locked up for a couple of minutes. I’m going to have to get into your trailer for a little while. I’ll be right back to let you out. Understand?”

“Geez, I don’t want to get in there. I won’t have any air.”

“Do what I tell you. You’ll have plenty of air. I told you I’d come right back out. I don’t intend to kill anyone.”

The guy struggled into the trunk. Lou waited for him to move into a semi-comfortable position, and then slammed the metal door. He had the keys to the trailer. He hobbled to the porch; heard no commotion from the car; saw no lights in any of the other trailers.

Inside, he wasted no time. It was two o’clock. Maybe four hours tops to get out of the area before daylight. He found the bathroom; flicked on the light; hop-hobbled to the toilet; sat and stripped.

The wound was easier to look at than the blood. The back of his left leg was caked black and stiff, the sock gleaming ruby. The bullet had burrowed through an inch or two of tissue at the very back of his thigh, shattering capillaries and veins. Leaving the muscle swollen and discolored, it had bored clean entry and exit holes.

The hot shower coursed down his face and chest. The water at his feet flowed red at first, then finally clear. He was lucky. The bullet hadn’t tumbled, hadn’t found a bone. He cleaned the wound thoroughly; applied the whole bottle of iodine he found in the medicine chest.

He found a pair of pants. They were short in the leg and huge at the waist, yet better than wearing torn and bloody ones. He cinched them like a gunnysack with his belt. In the small kitchen, he poked around in the refrigerator and wolfed down a couple of salami slices he found there.

He was clean now, but the soap and water had taken the edge off his wariness. He had to fight against the urge to close his eyes. He sat at the tiny table in the dining area, eating an apple. The trailer was immaculate. The guy’s shoes were lined up neatly in a built-in cabinet down the hallway.

In an overhead cupboard, Lou found a half-full quart of White Horse. He poured a finger into a water glass and downed it in two swigs, burning all the way. He sat again at the back window of the dining area and rested his head in his hands, eyes closed, just to clear the bleariness. His thigh throbbed continuously. Five minutes to rest up. Maybe ten. His head dropped.

* * *

He shook his eyes open. It was three o’clock.

* * *

“I don’t want you turning around to look at me, understand? It’s better for both of us that you never get a look at me. Now, make a right when you get out to Mine Torne Road. I want you to do exactly what I say under all circumstances. Understand?”

“I hear you,” the guy said, keeping his eyes and head straight to the front.

“What do you want me to call you?” Lou asked.

“My name’s Titus. That’s what you can call me.”

“Okay, Titus. Drive the speed limit, no slower, no faster. We’re going to go up to Newburgh and across the river. On the other side we’re going to swing on down to the city. That’s where you’re going to drop me off. How are you fixed for gas?”

“I got a full tank. Can I say something?”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m going to do everything you tell me to do. Do you believe that?”

“If you say so.”

“I ain’t seen your face. Do you believe that?”

“Sure.”

“Then you got no reason to shoot my black ass, right?”

“Right, Titus. Now just shut up and drive.”

“Just one more thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“What are you going to do when we come to the roadblock?”

“I’m going to lie on the floor back here with this blanket over me and you’re going to get waved through.”

“They stop all cars. You have to get out. They open the trunk. Everything. I just came through two of them coming home from work. Hey, I don’t want to get caught in the middle of a gunfight.”

“All right. Stop the car. Give me your wallet”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need your license. Get out of the car.”

“Listen. I just want to keep breathing. I can help you. You can barely walk let alone drive a car. And you sure as hell ain’t gonna pass for me.”

Lou drummed his fingers on the back of the seat ahead of him. “Right,” he muttered.

“Lay up at my trailer until the pressure’s off,” Titus said.

For what seemed a long time, Lou pondered this offer. “Titus. If I get it, you get it. I’m desperate.”

“I want to live.”

“Drive exactly as I tell you to,” Lou said. “We’re going to take some back roads.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

It was too dark to tell where they were on Mine Torne. Titus was driving by the car’s parking lights and the light of a quarter moon. Judging from the time they’d been on the road, they had already gotten well clear of the turnoff to Borrow Pit and the police there. As they came up beside a body of water on the left, Lou spoke sharply: “Take this dirt cutaway on the right.”

A military “No Trespassing” sign warned that this was “Saratoga Range— POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE.” Titus swung the car neatly around the metal gate and chain. Driving slowly with the edges of the dirt road barely detectable, he steered up a steep incline and then leveled off on a bare area the size of a football field.

Through all of it, Lou never had less control than now. Titus had no idea that the weapon was empty; and even if Lou did have ammunition, the barrel was clogged with dirt. Brazen was one thing; this was another. This man could go anywhere he pleased and there would be nothing Lou could do about it. But to Titus, the gun was locked and loaded, and that’s all he needed to know.

“There’s another range up here around the next hill.” Lou groused from the back seat.

“You been up here before?” Titus asked.

“Let’s say it’s not completely new to me. This is the military reservation. Too big to patrol effectively. They don’t even try. I’ve been all over these roads.”

“Where we coming out?”

“If I have it right, we’ll come out somewhere above Michie Stadium.”

Lou flicked on the overhead light and consulted his map. The West Point Military Reservation extended ten or fifteen miles north of Mine Torne Road. They stayed in the blackness of the woods for at least ten minutes before another large open area loomed out the right window: Normandy Range.

“We’ll be coming out onto a road in a couple of minutes. Watch for passing cars. I don’t want anyone to see us coming out of here,” Lou barked.

“There’s nothing moving this time of night.”

“Except military police.”

Titus swung around the chain strung across the gravel road and swerved onto the pavement.

“Okay, let’s have some headlights. This is Stony Lonesome. Officer housing. West Point,” Lou said.

“Hey. Cool. Went right around the roadblocks. Now, how do we get out of here?”

“I’d rather try to fool the MPs at the gate than at a road block. I’m betting they’ll accept us as dishwashers in the cadet mess hall. Your black face helps. Sorry about that.”

There were no other cars on the road. The time was 4:00 A.M. Lou sat back in the seat and kept his eyes on Titus up front. The slight illumination from the dashboard silhouetted his frame, highlighting the close-cut shape of his head and his enormous ears. Stop it. Stay sharp. Stay focused.

Titus drove slowly as ordered. They came down off the top of the ridge above Michie Stadium and slid past it, the grandstand rising over them. They swung around Lusk Reservoir and down a long, steep hill past the cadet chapel; cut beside the gymnasium and the superintendent’s quarters; and stopped on level ground. It was quiet and dark except for the hall lights in the gray stone, fortress-like barracks standing west and south of the expanse of grass before them.

“Lee Gate’s out that way,” Lou said, pointing to the left. Titus started to make the turn. “Hold it,” he said. “Pull out that way. Over there, beside that grandstand. Doubleday Stadium.”

Titus pulled into a parking lot beside the practice football field.

“What now?” Titus asked nervously.

“Give me the keys and come with me,” Lou said.

He dragged his bad leg as they moved slowly along the gravel walkway bordering the natural amphitheater that looked out onto the sweep of the Hudson as it narrowed and turned at Constitution Island. They slid between the cannons that lined the walk, drifting shadows in the midst of trees, invisible to anyone further than fifty or so feet away. Lou sat on the lowest step at the base of Trophy Point with Titus at his side and looked out and above the spectator stands at the edge of the plain to the hills on the dark horizon.

“Don’t seem like a place a guy oughta smoke,” Titus said, finally. “Names in stone. Cannons and chains. Ghosts out walking.”

“I just want to sit here awhile,” Lou breathed.

“You been here a lot?” Titus asked, staring straight ahead. He hadn’t once looked at Lou’s face. “None of my business.”

“I was here way back. Hardly anybody knows that. Except you, now.”

“Is that trouble?” Titus asked.

“You’re not the only one who knows. But they didn’t. They knew everything, but not that,” Lou said. He stood and hobbled out to the street, and then looked back and up to the top of the tall, circular obelisk. He moved around the base of it, and then sat again with Titus looking out at the faint moonlight on the Hudson.

“I knew there had to be a place where everything was all very clear. Right is right; wrong is wrong. No lying, no cheating, no quibbling, no nothing.” He watched as Titus, beside him, pulled his hands into the sleeves of his jacket. “I’d like to get back to that,” Lou went on. “To where the only thing gray is the uniform. I had it here. Endured people screaming in my face, pushups, pull ups, Integral Calculus six times a week. Church services at dawn, right down there, with sun coming over the hills and the river rolling on forever. It was beautiful. It was perfect. I had it. Then I quit.”

Titus stood and moved ten feet away onto the gravel path. Then he came back to sit beside Lou again.

“I don’t want to hear it, man, if it means that somewhere down the line, it’s gonna be: ‘You know too much.’”

“You stand at the blackboard six times a week and work the math. You work at your board with your chalk and you don’t look right, you don’t look left, where someone else is working the same problem,” Lou said, staring straight ahead down the river.

“Somebody, I still don’t know who, said he saw me copying his board. I don’t blame him. Not reporting a violation was as bad as the violation itself. I don’t deny I thought about doing it, but I never did. The Honor Committee agreed with me. Only, I could see the difference from then on. I could see that nobody, not even my roommates, would look me straight in the eyes anymore.”

Lou stood and hobbled down the path toward Flirtation Walk. Titus followed. When Lou stopped, Titus came up beside him.

“Up there on the high road, ain’t ya?” Titus said, quietly. “I can see it’s important to a man like you.”

“It was,” Lou said.

“Losing respect is hard.” A pause, then: “Getting it, man; that’s even harder.”

“Let’s go, Titus.”

Lou turned and looked back at Titus staring straight ahead in the darkness. He limped to the car with Titus at his side and then climbed into the back seat. Titus pulled away from Trophy Point, headed for Lee Gate at the north end of the post.

“When we get to the gate, go slow and roll down the window, but keep moving and act like you’ve done this a million times before. With any luck...” Lou twisted and looked out the back window where five thousand young men and women kept the shallow sleep that comes just before dawn. Soon these barracks would come alive with the bugles and drums of reveille. Soon his own young men, Pete and Oliver, would wake to a picture of their father that he wished he could burn.

“Mind if I smoke?” Titus asked.

“Be my guest,” Lou said. He turned to face the front. Survival was no longer enough. In the end, he had to bring them—Buck, Stanfield, Copeland, and the rest—down with him.

They crept through Lee Gate without incident, the MP merely waving them through, and they turned left onto Route 293. They snaked past the gold depository, the ski run, and the West Point golf course. The highway wound back and forth, climbing the side of the Crow’s Nest. The lights of the river and the towns alongside disappeared behind them. He allowed a deep breath.

“Any more roadblocks?” he asked.

“We went around the only two I know about.”

“Good, just keep driving.”

“You’re the guy, ain’t ya?”

“Which?”

“The cops came through all the trailers, night before last. Said there was a woman.”

“A woman? Well, then it isn’t me they’re talking about, is it?”

“Whatever you say.”

He fought to stay alert. There could be more roadblocks, but that likelihood diminished with the number of miles they put between them and the Bear Mountain Bridge.

“If we hit a road block, we go back to the original plan. You better be a good bluffer. Let me have one of your cigarettes.”

Titus flipped the pack into the back seat. “You got a light?” he asked.

“Yeah, a light I got.”

A narrow, twisting road wound around the edge of the mountain. There was a three-foot stone wall to keep cars from tumbling over a five hundred foot drop to the river below. They met no cars coming from the other direction. Titus negotiated all of the curves like the expert he was.

“You drive this road a lot?”

“I work in Cornwall up here. There’s a little military school.”

“No more roadblocks. I sure as hell hope you’re right, Titus. You know what I mean?”

“I know,” Titus said.

They went through Cornwall and kept climbing up and into Newburgh. They got across the river without having to stop at so much as a red light. On the other side, he directed Titus to take Route 84 to the Taconic Parkway and south toward the city. Once on the parkway, he knew it would be a long drive to Manhattan. He sat back in the corner of the car, propped his swollen thigh across the seat, and looked out the window.

He dared to breathe deeply. He was free of the whole area around the bridge and all the danger of being trapped. Now he was going to get into the city where it would be next to impossible for the authorities to find him among all those people. Once there, he’d be able to think about his next move. There would be food and water; maybe even a room where he could catch some real sleep.

Through the windshield, road signs seemed to loom slowly at the side of the highway up ahead, float steadily toward the car, and grow progressively whiter and clearer until they darted past and disappeared in darkness. The headlights illuminated the center stripe, but it was total blackness ahead. Past a certain distance, beyond the beams, it could be the end of the world.

“What’s your speed, Titus?” he asked.

“Fifty-five.”

They picked up the Saw Mill River Parkway at White Plains, then upper Broadway, right by the Cross Bronx Expressway. They were in the middle of the city. No other cars on the road. Dawn was almost upon them. They tooled south on Broadway between the low shop fronts on either side of the street. The traffic lights were with them as they continued down toward lower Manhattan, cutting by the corner of Central Park West, and then slicing diagonally on the island through Times Square to 34th Street.

“Pull over to the side. Right here.” Lou said.

There wasn’t another car or person on the street. In the center of the biggest city in the country, it was absolutely quiet. Ghostly plumes of vapor rose from the sewer grates all the way down 34th. For a long while, Lou sat there without saying anything. Titus, too, was quiet, looking straight out the windshield.

“This is where we part company, Titus. I’ve got just one problem.”

“For chrissake don’t shoot me. I done everything you said. I wouldn’t know you if I met you on the street this afternoon. Besides, I’m going right back home as soon as you get out.”

“What am I going to do with this weapon, Titus?”

“You’re going to look kind of funny jivin’ around town with a rifle under your arm.”

“That’s what I was thinking. I can’t leave it with you.”

“I got a brown paper sack back there on the floor somewhere with my grease rags in it. You could break it down and carry it around in the bag.”

“That’s it. Perfect.”

“You leavin’ now?”

“I want you to do one more thing, Titus. I want you keep your eyes straight to the front and don’t look back. I’m going to get out and walk away from here. If you do what I say, there won’t be any trouble. Don’t blow it now.”

He opened the back door and stepped to the ground on his bad leg, sending a shot of pain clear to his ankle. He hesitated there until it subsided. “I’m leaving you a couple of bucks back here. That’s for gas and grub. So long.”

* * *

WASHINGTON—The moment of truth is at hand for a beleaguered president today as the nation goes to the voting booth. Every major opinion poll of the last two weeks has forecast a sure defeat for Mr. Bliss, despite an almost frenzied series of statements and speeches promising massive crackdowns on crime, increased military expenditures, and emphasis on domestic law-and-order themes. Only a dramatic personal appearance by the president at the site of the terrorist bombing at Bear Mountain Bridge in New York, and his presence at the “anti-crime command post” ever since, appear as bright spots for the president in this election campaign.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Lou backed away from the car and watched it dissolve into the vapor plumes down 34th Street toward the East River. His thigh was badly swollen; muscle tissue strained against the drum-tight skin from his butt to his knee. Even though the pants were baggy and riding high above the shoe, his skin was on fire.

He struggled down 34th, projecting purpose on a sidewalk devoid of people. The sky was light gray now. The city shadows were sucked into the subway stairwell that loomed black half a block ahead. If there was any line he knew in all of New York, it was the Seventh Avenue IRT. Straight downtown.

The token booth operator yawned long and loud. Lou shoved two dollars through the opening in the glass; a token and three quarters slid back and nested in the sculpted tray. He pushed his way through the turnstile and hobbled to the edge of the platform. He saw no one else on his side of the tracks all the way down to the end.

A cat-sized rat scuttled under the third rail and through the newspapers and coffee cups littering the space between the tracks. On the other side of the station, a cluster of women—gabbing in Spanish and wearing the garb of the cleaning trade—waited for the train to Central Park South. A low rumble from a long way down the tunnel reverberated in the tiled arch of the station; then the gleam of headlights came dancing on the rails. The #1 train wrenched to a stop. The right door socked his shoulder as he limped into the car. The door operator leaned out of his window, watched him for a moment, but said nothing.

The train made all the stops—28th Street, 23rd, 18th, 14th, Christopher, Houston, Canal, Franklin, Chambers, and Cortlandt—passing a gallery of new and old ceramic tile mosaic signs at each station. Lou hip-hopped out the door at Rector. It was a hard pull to get up the stairs. Outside in the air again, he took a deep breath and looked around. He was nearly directly across the street from Trinity Churchyard. It was right there that he’d stopped after coming out of Buck’s office, when the whole thing had started. Sitting there on a bench, he’d told himself that nothing bad could happen.

A MacDonald’s blazed bright on his side of the street. He ordered eggs and coffee. The woman at the cash register couldn’t tear herself from her Village Voice, even as she seized his money. He made it to a table. A young man in a paper hat and apron pushed a long-handled broom, gathering the mess from the night customers. The sweeper nudged the foot of a bearded derelict sleeping at a table, who rose without arguing and stumbled out the door.

Having eaten, Lou was drawn again to the Churchyard to find solitude in the swirl of the city. Traffic was beginning to build up. There were a fair number of people on the streets. He had to wait before he could cross Rector to climb the stairs to the cemetery. He finally gave up waiting and shuffled through the creeping cars. The path wound around through the center of the square. He sat on one of the benches beside the church’s north wall, in the back.

All but a few leaves had fallen from the trees. Every few moments, another came skating out of the sky, slid against the black, cast iron pickets, and spun to the ground. Shoeshine vendors lined the high fence on the Broadway side of the cemetery, lounging in their chairs, reading the morning paper. Squirrels sat waiting for handouts in the warmth of the morning sun. The only sound was the rush of a few tires on Broadway. No construction. No horns; not at this hour. Shielded from the wind, soothed by the sun, Lou listened and watched, as if the last days hadn’t happened; as if his wound wouldn’t burn as soon as he moved.

The little act of war at the bridge had had no effect on the people of this city. If he expected it to be plastered across the front page of every newspaper; on the lips of every passerby; blaring from the radios of the cabs; then he was being naïve once again. The city itself was an organism with its own heart, its own blood, and its own job to do. Just one more crazy happening somewhere up the river was no reason to change the routine. The sun comes up and the organism moves again, its heartbeat echoing in the low rumbling beneath the streets.

The calm of the churchyard and the food in his belly soothed his racing heart for about ten minutes. Then the wheels began to turn. The image of Tom Holt’s farmhouse looming in the windshield of the Lexus as he drove up the dirt road near Monticello came back as clear as could be. He saw in his mind’s eye his radioman from Vietnam, Tom Holt, again, looking just as thin but minus much of the hair he had twenty years before, emerging from the front door of the house, and then leading him into the kitchen where Dory poured coffee and served up blueberry pie. They sat for half an hour catching up on the years since they’d last seen each other, and since Tom and Dory had married.

Then Lou spilled the story of the reconnaissance that he’d just completed, and the contingency plan he had for identifying all the players in the bridge operation to be made public in the event that it all came apart. He asked Tom to use his video camera to capture him on tape, establishing the date of the recording and detailing the entire plan, to name Copeland and Stanfield and Patricia Buck. He was careful not to implicate Holt or Dory in the plot. He asked Tom to hold a copy of the tape, and to turn it over to columnist William Severence in the event that he was apprehended or killed. And he recalled what Tom had said just before he drove back down the dirt road for home: “Lou, you risked everything for me back there in Plieku, and now I get the chance to reciprocate. I’m happy to do it.”

Now he needed to confront Patricia Buck. She wasn’t the lowest animal in the food chain, but she was the most vulnerable. The trail of money led through Westover and Calvin Swisher directly to her. The connection to the president was more tenuous, even though he had recorded on videotape— long before it actually happened—how Bliss would leave the Waldorf and charge to the scene. The only link missing was a smoking gun that led straight to the White House. If Lou could nail Patricia Buck on a tape recorder, get her to mention the president’s involvement...

What? Chat with Buck right there on Wall Street, with a tide of humanity at his elbow? Sure. How about another little nugget of gall? He would get up from here and shuffle over to that cop on the street and turn himself in. Then he’d be out of danger; no maniacs hunting him down anymore.

He would keep quiet about the Jord Bliss connection; pass off the bridge thing as his own. When he got out of jail, he’d be free to go back to his former life. Sure. The gargoyle above wore the absurdity of that thought on its face, its tongue protruding hideously from between its lips. Besides, what happened to the resolve he felt, back at Trophy Point, to bring the bastards down?

In one of those perpetual “Clearance Sale” electronics stores on Broadway, just up from the Wall Street stop light, Lou bought a pocket-sized Toshiba tape recorder for ninety-eight fifty in cash. “Little Sheba. It’s a cute little number, isn’t it?” the clerk joked, as he demonstrated loading the half-dollar-sized cartridge.

Lou would open the dialogue with Patricia Buck with the logic that it was in her best interests to call off Stanfield and Copeland; to do anything she could to help him escape capture. Patricia must be frantic, worrying that at any moment he would be caught by the police; that her clean, well-lighted world would come down in a huge heap of wreckage as he spilled his guts all over the precinct. Patricia was his enemy. She had to have approved the plan to eliminate him and Sydney. He’d get right into her devil kitchen and raise the heat.

A sandstone grave marker lay flat on a pedestal, a gap between it and the grass. Lou hobbled to it. No one was watching. He slipped the brown paper bag, with the broken-down carbine in it, under the ledge.

It was still early; eight o’clock. He entered 15 Wall Street, bluffed the main guard with a window-washing story, and then followed another guard onto the elevator and up to the second floor. He copped a bucket, water, and a rag from the custodial closet in the lobby. The guard let him into the reception area. No one was about yet. People in the brokerage business didn’t believe in arriving any too soon for a day’s work. Good. He’d get to Buck’s office before anybody showed up.

He passed Winifred’s desk and entered Buck’s office. The room was as clean as he remembered it; not a shred of paper anywhere. Buck had removed the wall-to-wall carpeting, had substituted a twenty-five by thirty-five foot Karastan. Lou reflexively bent to feel the pile and lifted the corner to glimpse the hand-tied knots.

He took the bucket to the windows and started tying up the drapes. When Buck showed up, she’d be the first to see him.

“Hey man, whatcha doin’?” It was like a stick of dynamite going off. Lou whirled to see yet another guard: a black man in a blue guard uniform.

“Dammit, you scared the hell out of me. What does it look like I’m doing? I want to get these cleaned up before Ms. Buck comes in.”

“How did you get in here? We don’t have nobody coming in today, man, especially Ms. Buck. You got the wrong place and the wrong time.”

“I was told to do this floor first thing this morning. I checked downstairs.”

“Well, they should’ve stopped you. I have no orders to let anyone in here.”

“I’m sorry, but I have a job to do.”

“All right, as long as you’re here, go ahead. But you’re wasting your time on this office.”

The guard handed him a sheet of paper that read:

NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES

The executive offices of Pierson Browne & Company, Inc. will be closed tomorrow in honor of our esteemed and beloved general partner, Ms. Patricia Buck, who was involved in a tragic, fatal armed robbery on the street outside of her apartment as she returned home from another of her many charitable activities. Everyone who knew her will remember Patricia as a dedicated and compassionate leader.

There will be a memorial service in the chapel of the Whitehall Funeral Home on East 83rd Street tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock. In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to make donations to Coventry House.

In addition to her tireless efforts on behalf of Pierson Browne & Company, Patricia devoted herself to the project that mattered to her most: the reelection of the president of the United States. Tomorrow, Election Day, the branch offices will be open as usual.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Lou limped out of 15 Wall and quickly crossed the street, despite the pain. His felt the fever rising in his face. He stood looking in the window of the Doubleday Book Store, then glanced down Wall toward the East River. The street shrunk into the shadows of the buildings rising fifteen stories on either side, the enormous flags all along the corridor undulating heavily in the breeze as if swimming in invisible pudding.

Lou walked slowly toward Federal Hall, trying his best to keep the limp under control. He picked his way against the flow of people moving up toward Trinity Church. On the corner, wielding a microphone and loudspeaker, a little man in a dirty, white collar implored all the sinners passing by to step up and receive whatever dispensation he had authorized himself to give.

On the steps of Federal Hall, an even older man in a squashed fedora argued politics with a bunch of kids sitting sprawled on the stairs. Lou slowly lowered himself to sit beside the statue of George Washington.

He pulled his sweater around himself against the chill air and leaned into the statue’s pedestal. It was smooth and cold and he welcomed the support. Fatigue was gathering in his limbs again, ascending his spine. His cheeks and forehead felt feverish to his touch. Was it only hours ago that the enormity of the city, the facelessness of it, had seemed to offer shelter? And now, this pack of people moving on the sidewalks seemed a menace, no matter how deeply he pushed into the thicket.

With Buck’s death, it wasn’t clear who was at the bottom of it all. In the beginning, he was convinced that she, with all of her confidence and ambition and position, had hatched the plan to get Bliss reelected. She had methodically recruited all the toads she needed to make it happen: Red and his gang, and Stanfield and Copeland as the producers. It made sense. She saw no limits to the sweep of her own creativity. But did it make sense?

What if Stanfield and Copeland had recruited Patricia instead? When the operation imploded, they needed to dispatch all the operatives, including the middle people. And so they thought of Patricia as a middle person; corrupt enough to exploit; powerful but vulnerable because she was soft at the core; and incapable of conceiving how quickly it could all end—with a bullet placed neatly into the waves in her hair on the uptown sidewalk where nothing ugly ever happens. And so, was Patricia the mother of productivity that she, and everyone else, thought she was? Or was she like the white beacon at the foot of Bear Mountain Bridge, there for all to see and admire, but quickly extinguished with a well-placed shot?

What was it all about? Did Patricia hatch the plan to create the conditions necessary to reelect Jord Bliss or was it Stanfield and Copeland who had lured them all into a flawed plan that would crash of its own weight, carrying Patricia Buck and Jord Bliss down into the inky drink of political dirty tricks and assuring the defeat of this president when the electorate learned of it? Imagine Patricia Buck caught with her pants down, funneling the Westover payoff to the leader of the bridge caper. Poor girl. She had it figured all wrong.

To the tabloids, a trail would lead directly from Patricia to the man: Jordan Bliss. It was quick; but it was too smart by half, even though, to a jaded electorate weaned on Watergate, Irangate, Contras, Viet Cong, and Whitewater, it simply seemed more of the same.

One thing was for sure: Stanfield and Copeland had tried to kill him at the rendezvous. They must’ve planned that he’d be offed in the business at the bridge. It was probably Red’s job to get rid of both him and Sydney. When they found out that Red failed, they had to go to Plan B and set about getting rid of anyone who could tie them into the plot, before the police had time to pick up the survivors. It would’ve been easy. He hadn’t been identified in the media yet; they could’ve killed him and gotten rid of his body deep in the woods somewhere. Even if Mag reported him gone, there was no one even to hint at where to find him.

There were a lot of loose ends out there now. Lou had been the wide-eyed one, the fool. He’d been absorbed in the job he had to do and he’d had his hands full with just that; never mind covering up. So he’d left the jacket at the bridge. The police probably had it now and were looking it over for laundry marks, trying to track it down. They probably already determined it had been purchased in MacFees. Sooner or later, they’d be talking to Titus.

Titus surely would be able to identify his voice if he ever heard it again. And he must’ve touched things in the trailer. They probably had a million fingerprints right now. But until they caught him, they didn’t have anything to match the prints with.

What about the limits of his imagination? Had he ever contemplated the extent to which these guys would go—could go—to get him? Assume the worst. Assume that Copeland was well organized and funded. Assume they’d be watching his house, tapping his phone. All of that was easy, wasn’t it? They’d be watching Buck’s office and phone, too, and any of the several places he might go for help. It was logical with the right assumptions; assumptions that were fatuous enough, ordinary enough, preposterous enough.

Lou got up slowly from the step. He limped across the sidewalk to the street and then, taking it slowly on his bad leg, cut diagonally across the corner toward the Stock Exchange.

“Look out!”

He whirled to face a car, a big dark one, bearing down on him at full speed. Horns blared. Screams came from the crowd on the sidewalk all around the intersection. As he crouched and leaned to push off on his good leg, the car bore off in the same direction. Lou shoved off hard, hit, and rolled.

The car didn’t slow or even apply brakes; its wheels missed him by a foot. The rear license plate was hidden by a cloth. Within seconds, the car peeled all the way to Pearl Street and disappeared around the corner. Ten people huddled around Lou.

“You ought to see a doctor about that leg, mister.”

“The son of a bitch coulda killed ya,” he heard.

“Did you see that maniac? Where the hell are the cops at a time like this? Are you all right?”

“Here, c’mon over here and sit down a while. Take it easy. You’re shaking like a leaf, man.”

They pulled him back to the steps of Federal Hall and sat him down.

“Christ, you can get killed around here.”

The crowd hung around for five minutes like that, talking and looking at him. No one called the police. He was surrounded by buildings—the Stock Exchange, Morgan Guaranty, Federal Hall,—and by the people on the street, the truck drivers, and the cars parked along the curb.

Lou got to his feet and blended into the flow of people moving up Wall toward Trinity Church. This time he sneaked out from between two parked cars and quickly crossed the street to the magazine stand on the other side. He picked up a House Beautiful and scanned it. This was more John Wayne on the Sands of Iwo Jima, but let them laugh; he would live. He put the magazine back on the pile, stealing a glance down the street. He turned the corner at Broadway.

He broke into a painful jog to the stairs of the Lexington Avenue Subway and kept running to the token window and through the turnstiles to the platform. No one came down the stairs. The train’s headlights waltzed again on the rails coming up from South Ferry. It stopped with the door right in front of him. About ten people came down the stairs all at once. Two of them—a schoolgirl in knee socks and plaid skirt, and a man in an Army parka—managed to get aboard before the door closed and the train jerked away from the platform.

It was an old type of car with the fan mounted on the ceiling. Lou sat in the middle of the car, on one of the long, center seats, between a fat woman with a shopping bag and a short man with beard, side curls, and a black hat. He kept his eyes up on a Joe Camel ad in Spanish above the handholds. The guy with the parka got off at 14th Street.

As the train started to pull away from the station, the door at the end of the car suddenly slammed open, yet no one stood in the opening. Lou heard the clank of metal; a rapping sound that diverted his eyes away from the glass down to the tiled floor. A fierce-looking man, down low, rapped a tin cup with an insistent, belligerent, angry jab that commanded everyone’s attention.

At first it looked as if the man was standing between the cars; that he had somehow slipped down between them so that only his torso showed. Lou almost ran to his aid before the train got rolling, but then saw that the man was resting on a wooden platform with casters. He was cut off at the waist. This torso—head and arms—was all there was of him.

The guy propelled himself down the center of the car using his hands on the floor. He had tremendous shoulder muscles, a thick-corded neck, and ferocious blue eyes that glowed in the center of his heavily bearded face. Lou dropped two quarters in the cup as the man pulled himself down the center aisle.

The man stared Lou straight in the face and mumbled a gruff “thanks” before moving on. He clanked down to the end of the car, wrenched open the door by reaching up high for the handle, and then disappeared.

At 42nd Street, Lou waited until the doors were sliding shut before he squeezed out. He limped across the platform to the Lex Local that was standing there, doors closed. The schoolgirl got on through another door to the same car. At 50th, Lou jumped out as soon as the doors opened. He ran up the stairs, across the platform, and down the stairs to the other side. Across two sets of tracks and girders that held up the street above, the girl was talking on a public telephone, her back to him.

Lou didn’t have long to wait before the downtown local roared into the station. He boarded and slumped down in a seat. The light from the station soon dissipated and they were in the darkness of the tunnel. His reflection in the windows across the aisle was distorted. His hair was obviously tousled and standing up on his head; Mag would have laughed. Mag. Where was she right now?

Back at 42nd Street, one stop on the downtown local, Lou swung out the door and climbed the stairs to the next level. The platform was empty, no one hanging around the token booth. He limped down the long tunnel under the sign pointing the way to the main floor of the Grand Central Station. No one following.

Up the stairs, out of the tunnel to the main floor, a row of telephone booths lined the far wall. It wasn’t crowded in the station, but he still had to thread his way through people moving in fifteen different directions on the cavernous floor. Light streamed in through the arched windows high on the wall.

As he stood there with his hands deep in his pockets, a woman came up to him, tucked a ten-dollar bill into an opening in his shirt, and hurried off.

“Take this, and good luck,” she said.

Three days ago he was born to wear Brooks Brothers. Now...

He dialed at one of the public phones.

“Hello?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Jory? What are you doing at grammy’s house? Listen, tell grandma to come to the phone... I know... I wish I could’ve seen you too... You were a hobo? How about Kirky, what was he? I’ll bet you do. Don’t eat it all in one day now. No no... I can’t talk to Kirky... Tell him I’m sorry, okay?”

“Hello?”

“Mag, it’s me.”

“Lou! Hello darling. You sound out of breath.

“I just climbed some stairs. Are you baby-sitting the boys?”

“Yes, the boys. Still on schedule to windup the training today, I trust.”

“No, Mag. I’m in the city.”

“The city?”

“Yes. At headquarters. We’ve sort of switched venues here. I’m... I’m going to try to get home just as soon as I can, but I have a couple of things I need to clear up first.”

“In the city. I see. Lou, I got a call from a car rental place. You forgot to collect your deposit when you returned the car.”

Oh shit. The car. Just hold on. Don’t unravel now. Mag knows about the car. Wait, wait, wait. What else does she know? What is she saying? Saying really?

“How could I have forgotten that? My brain is turning to cornmeal mush, Mag.”

“Well... extended junkets will do that to you. It’s been a week now. Non-stop schmoozing and boozing. You’ll be another week drying out. I’ll help you.”

A week? What’s that? How the hell did the car get back to the rental agency? If the cops found it, they’d have traced it to him. They would’ve contacted Maggie. But she didn’t say anything about cops.

“Oh hell, Mag. It hasn’t been that bad, but I’ve been really busy with a lot of bullshit classes and stuff. Yes, for a whole week. It’s a brain cell killer.”

“You’re missing out on all the exciting news. Terrorists on Bear Mountain Bridge.”

“I heard about it. Crazy, huh?”

“Right up there where you were.”

“Did they catch anybody yet?”

“Two of them, I guess; a couple they killed on the bridge.”

“Who are they?”

“Some kind of American Army or something.”

“What’s next, huh?”

“Can I expect you back home soon?”

If only he could just hop in a cab and go home. He would gladly spill his guts to her, all over the floor, if it were just that easy. But maybe she didn’t need to have him do any of that. What was she really saying?

“Well, things are coming to a head, Mag, but still up in the air some. I’m running out of clothes.”

There was only one person other than himself who knew where the car was parked before they went on the operation. Only one even knew he had a car and what it looked like. He’d picked her up on the way, under the viaduct.

“It’s a good thing you caught me at home. Finally cut my visit short in Fort Montgomery. I just couldn’t handle any more of Delores Fishbein’s prying.”

What? Fort Montgomery? Delores Fish... Who?

“My head’s spinning, trying to keep this all straight, Mag.”

“I guess you could call it human nature. People just do whatever’s necessary to find out what’s none of their business.”

For a while, he forgot where he was; he was unaware of the people moving in all directions on the expanse of floor in front of him. But now the noise of the place was beginning to register: the shuffling of hundreds of feet, the loudspeaker echo reverberating in the vaulted ceiling, and the rumble of trains below.

He spoke to whoever sat at the end of the wiretap; and though she seemed to know everything, he hated himself for using Mag like this.

“Mag, I need a change of clothes. I’m not going to be able to come home to get them. I want you to get my solid blue suit and a clean shirt. Send them out to me in a limo. Have them deliver it out here to me, understand?”

“I know it sounds weird, but I want to meet the driver at the parking lot next to Battery Park, right beside the firehouse. Seven o’clock tonight.”

“Do you really think he’s going to be able to find you, Lou? I mean...”

“He’ll find me. Just have him come to the right spot. Or I’ll find him.”

“I’ll do what you said. And we’ll talk about it some more when you get home.”

“Good girl,” he said, turning to face the people swirling all around. “When I finish with this business, we’re going to get away from here. Completely away.”

On the far side of the floor, he saw her standing beside a handbag kiosk: thick black hair to the shoulder, open face with too-heavy eyebrows, slim, standing with one hip cocked, looking all around the floor. It registered, but not fully. He turned to face the wall.

“I love you.”

“Mag, I’m sorry, I have to take off now. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can, okay?”

“I wish you could tell me more. But I know that’s not possible right now.”

The girl was tall, lean. She raised her eyebrows, wrinkled her forehead, and squinted, looking all around the floor.

“Gotta go,” he said.

“Goodbye, Lou.”

Straight beige skirt, starchy tan raincoat, collar pulled up around her neck. She wore heels. No more jeans and boots of a day ago. She was looking for him.

“Maggie darling, there’s a lot of noise and confusion, but listen to me. Listen to what I’m saying. I’m sorry for all the bad stuff lately. But all the good stuff we have is what counts.”

“Yes, of course, always, Lou. Now, don’t worry about that. Just concentrate on what you’re doing.”

“Goodbye, Maggie baby.”

He turned to look at her again. She was standing on her toes, straining to see the subway entrance to the left of him, pointing in his direction. Then he saw Stanfield, tall, dark. Lou headed for the doors at the end of the hall.

Now the crowd was in his way. He tried to run. The leg cooperated, but the people were bunched. He dodged and barged his way ahead. He couldn’t see Stanfield or anyone else, but he felt pressure at his back. It was impossible to breathe. It had happened so suddenly. Adrenalin was pumping. A lump of panic rose in his throat. They would never take him while he had the strength to fight. He would not go easily or with honor. He’d claw and bite.

“Stop that man!” he heard behind him. Not that far behind. “Stop him! Stop! Thief!”

The doors swung dead ahead. He heaved against the push bar and careened outside. People all over were stopping, turning, pointing. His leg throbbed. There was no place to hide. A police car sat at the corner, pale blue and white, a rack of lights on the roof, the uniformed cop looking straight ahead.

Lou stumbled to the trashcan at the curb, yanked off the plastic lid, and ran with it toward the police car. Then he whirled and flung it at the cruiser’s window.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Maggie stood still in the kitchen long after she’d hung up the phone. It was Lou she was just talking to; but from the way he spoke, it might as well have been Dan Rather. She sensed almost immediately that it didn’t matter what she said to him because he wasn’t listening, as though he was reading from a teleprompter. She could visualize the gears turning behind his eyes, calculating how much she knew and how much he should say to her.

She’d thrown out the business about the terrorists on the bridge as a means of picking up on some indication that he might give, some hint or something. But he’d slid right over it. And though she knew her instincts were almost always right on, this time she wasn’t sure. At least now she knew he was alive and somewhere in the city. The calmness that had grown inside her this morning was still there.

The boys were in the living room, wreaking havoc on her houseplants. She went to the front window, and lightly pushed the curtain aside. She saw the white van parked exactly where it had been before. She herded Jory and Kirk up the stairs to the bedroom. They ran to the bed and immediately turned it into a trampoline. She flicked on the closet light and combed the row of business suits for Lou’s dark blue, the one he wore to all client meetings in combination with a white shirt and striped tie.

“Find your toy box in the hall closet, Jory. You and Kirky go play in your bedroom now.” The boys jumped down from the bed and ran for the toys.

Mag laid the suit on the crumpled bedspread. Did Lou mean it when he talked about going away from this place? Why did she have this feeling that he was talking in some kind of code? What did he really mean? He had never talked about moving before. Why now? She glanced out the window at the van, bit on the knuckle of her index finger, and narrowed her eyes.

What else would Lou need along with the suit? A shirt, tie, socks, underwear? What in heaven’s name was the reason for meeting the limo in Battery Park of all places? Maybe she’d just take the things to him herself. But if he’d wanted that... No, he didn’t want that.

She pulled a red-striped tie from the rack and tucked it into the side pocket of the suit. She tossed underwear in the general direction of the bed and was rustling in his sock drawer for a good pair when her hand touched something hard. What was this?

She picked up the videotape that was nestled in the middle of Lou’s jumble of socks. The label read: “Halloween 1991 Attn: Bill Severence.”

She broke into a trot in the hallway and crushed under foot a plastic brontosaurus that had skittered out of the boys’ bedroom just as she was passing. She nearly fell headlong down the stairs. She plucked the remote control for the television from the lamp stand by her reading chair, powered up the TV, pushed the tape into the slot on the VCR, and pressed the Play button. Then she fell to her knees in front of the set.

Static filled the screen. Then Lou appeared, holding a New York Times. The camera zoomed in to find the front-page headline and the date. Lou’s full form filled the screen again before the camera gradually moved to his face. He spoke slowly and clearly.

“My name is Louis Christopher. I live in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and work for Pierson Browne, the brokerage firm. I’m now at a hideout in New York. I have just finished a reconnaissance of the Bear Mountain Bridge, which I intend to attack with napalm tomorrow, October 30, as the leader of a mock-terrorist group. I was told that the purpose of the attack is to provide the president of the United States, Jordan Bliss, an opportunity to rekindle America’s admiration of him as the architect of Operation Desert Storm and protector of the nation. The target was chosen for its proximity to New York and the media opportunities that it presents just before Election Day. The president is supposed to board a helicopter and fly up to the bridge, like the cavalry coming over the hill, just in time to stop the attack. Patricia Buck of Pierson Browne, who is a presidential campaign consultant, recruited me. Also involved are men known to me as Stanfield and Copeland. I have made a copy of this tape and have arranged to have it sent to a major political correspondent in the event that I, or any member of my family or friends, come to harm.”

“Oh, thank God,” Maggie said to herself. “It’s not Patty Buck.”

“What’s Grandpa doing on the TV, grandma?” Jory asked, standing just behind her.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The plastic lid flew through the air in a clean arc, collided with the cruiser’s side window, and spun off like a penny pitched into the gutter. The cops in the car initially froze in their seats in disbelief, and then turned to look out the side window at him. The cop on the far side opened the door and slowly emerged with his pistol drawn. He crouched behind the car and pointed the weapon directly at Lou’s face.

“Don’t wiggle, buddy, or you’re a dead man.”

His leg was on fire and twitching. Lou wanted desperately to turn around to see if Stanfield was behind him, but he didn’t dare move. He felt embarrassed, like a little boy caught in the act of throwing tomatoes against the barn wall. His face was hot and flushed. Tension in his neck and shoulders rushed out of him like air from a balloon. He felt relief for the first time since he’d left home to start the operation. He was caught. They could identify him to the world. He would be tried and convicted. It was clear. He hadn’t wanted this. But he realized now that it was better than death.

“Step up to the car with your hands in the air, slowly. Now lean up against the door there,” the cop said, shoving Lou from behind. It was the frisking routine he’d seen a hundred times on TV.

“All right, let’s break it up now and continue on your way. The show’s over. Move along,” the other cop said. The dialogue sounded like something they might have learned from The Commish.

Lou ducked into the cruiser’s back seat. A steel screen spanned the front-seat backrest, sealing him off from the officer behind the wheel. The other officer sat beside him.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” It was the older, heavier one in the back with him. His hat was off and his gray, speckled hair stood up on his head like a million corkscrews. His breath was stale.

“What difference does it make?” Lou asked, letting a long sigh escape. “I just felt like it.”

“You just felt like it. What’re you on, buddy?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not on anything.”

“What do you say, Sal. Think we ought to haul him in or what?”

“You feel like writing it up?”

“Hell, no!”

“Then tell him to get the fuck out of the car.”

“Call it in. Tell ’em to check on a Louis B. Christopher, Glen Rock, New Jersey,” the old one said, going through Lou’s wallet.

“They’re not going to have any record of me. I can tell you that,” Lou said.

“You just keep your fucking gob shut.”

“Go on and call it in. This guy might have escaped from Bellevue or something.”

“Fuck it. Let’s just run him in and let them talk about it.”

At the 17th Precinct on 53rd Street, they confiscated his belongings and bagged them in a manila envelope, and then shut him in a room without locking the door. It was bare except for a chair on either side of a plain oak table that sat in the center beneath a single, long, fluorescent light on the ceiling. He’d never been in a big-city police station before, but this one looked exactly as he expected it would. Outside the room, he could hear telephones ringing and feet shuffling. Obviously, the cops didn’t know what to do with him. They’d just let him cool his heels for a while until someone could sit down and talk to him. Meanwhile, they’d do some routine checks on him.

Lou wasn’t going to volunteer any information. He was sure that it was just a matter of time until they found out about him and the bridge.

The door opened after he’d been sitting there alone for about forty-five minutes. It was another old cop, about sixty, with pure white hair. He wore a wrinkled, civilian suit. His shoes were scuffed and dirty around the soles. His tie was loose around his neck and deeply and colorfully stained—apparently with everything from coffee to salsa—creating a disgusting, burnt umber blotch in the bed of flowers.

“Hello, Mr. Christopher. I’m Strachan”—he pronounced it Strawn—“That’s spelled with a ‘ch’ in there even if it doesn’t sound like it. How’re you doing in here?”

“I’m all right, officer,” Lou said, with his chin in his hand and elbow resting on the table.

“What’re you doing in town today, Mr. Christopher?”

“I’m just looking around in the stores.”

“Did you drive in or what?”

“No, I came in on the train.”

“You stop in at one of the bars around here, maybe in the station?”

“No.”

“My men say you were acting sort of strange.”

“I wanted to get their attention real fast, and I did.”

“What did you want to do that for?”

“I was being chased. I was about to get robbed in a Grand Central men’s room, so I ran out onto the street.”

“And you threw something at the cruiser.”

“Yeah. That’s all I could think to do.”

“Why didn’t you say something about this to the men at the scene?”

“I was out of breath. And they weren’t in any mood to accept an explanation like that. Besides, I was afraid I was going to get shot, right there.”

“It was a long ride down to the station here.”

“I guess I was so relieved to get away and to be safe that I thought I’d wait until things quieted down a little.”

“What’s wrong with your leg, Mr. Christopher?”

“I pulled a hamstring in a touch football game yesterday.”

“Uh-huh. It would be the first hamstring injury that bled. I can’t force you to show me the injury, but would you like to show it to me?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Lou said.

“How come you decided to come in to the city on Election Day, of all days?”

“I can’t give you a good answer for that. All I know is I’m sorry I did come in. That’s for sure.”

“You’re married, Mr. Christopher.”

“Yes, I sure am.”

“You got a couple of kids.”

“Yeah. They’re not kids anymore.”

“But you thought you’d spend your day off cruising around the city.”

“I wasn’t exactly cruising around.”

“I thought that’s what you said.”

“No, I didn’t say I was cruising around. I said I was looking around in the stores.”

“I have to tell you that I don’t believe you when you tell me shit like that. I think I’m going to have to keep you here for a while until I can check into this a little further. Now, you’ve got the right to call your lawyer, you know that.”

Lou didn’t say anything. He knew that he should be protesting and carrying on about it being true, everything he’d said, but it just wasn’t in him. The cumulative effects of two days without sleep were creeping into his body.

He was having a difficult time holding his eyes open now that he was in a warm place, out of the air. The tension had escaped his body. Now he was apathetic and vulnerable. He wasn’t going to say anything.

“You been up around Bear Mountain?” It came out fast and clean.

“Bear Mountain?”

“You heard me. You in that crowd that was fooling around up on the bridge?” Strachan was fishing.

Lou kept looking straight at him. If he diverted his eyes, he was dead.

“State Police up there are looking around for some people.”

“You know I didn’t do anything like that,” Lou said, his hand against the side of his face and the elbow still on the table.

“I don’t know shit,” Strachan said, pacing around behind him.

“Look, I’m tired. It’s nothing more than that. A guy tried to mug me. That’s it.”

The door opened. Another cop stuck his head in and asked Strachan to come out.

Lou was alone in the room again. They were getting close now. All they had to do was check around at a few other precincts to find out that Titus had called in with something that very morning. For sure, there would be some kind of personal description making the rounds of all the police units in the area. Maybe they were just playing games with him. Maybe they already had a composite of his face. Maybe they were running witnesses in to look at him through a two-way mirror. There was nothing that looked like a two-way mirror.

But who had seen his face besides Copeland, Stanfield, and Sydney? No one. The weariness of the last two, sleepless nights was dulling all his normal alertness.

“You’re going in the tank for a while, Mr. Christopher. There’s no charge, but we need to do some checking of facts.”

It was the cop who had stuck his head in to get Strachan. He came over, grasped Lou’s upper arm and held him in custody like that until Lou stepped into the small cell. It was dimly lit. There were no others in any of the cells, not even the big drunk tank across the corridor. Lou sank down onto the bare mattress and lay still.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Grandpa’s just giving a speech, darling. Are you hungry? How about some animal crackers?”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, you can do it by yourself. Go ahead.”

Jory bounded away to the downstairs bathroom.

Maggie didn’t bother to rewind. She ejected the tape and clutched it to her chest as she peered out the window at the van. She walked quickly to the basement door, descended the stairs. She stood in the middle of the dark space for a full minute before she walked quickly to the water heater and bent down to open the little door at the bottom. The light from the gas pilot flickered against a steel support post, and she quickly closed the door. She marched to Lou’s workbench, opened his toolbox, dropped in the tape, and closed the lid again. She started for the stairs, stopped, and retrieved the tape.

She turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, scanning the space up and down. She balanced the tape against a cross piece in the floor joists above her head, but it dropped into her hand as soon as she let go of it. Then she pushed it into a dark space above the doorway to the stairs but immediately took it out.

She heard the doorbell. Not just one ring—several rapid, insistent rings. Both Jory and Kirk ran for the door, Trude on their heels yapping like thunder. Mag eyed two pairs of panties, some panty hose, and a bra dangling from the wooden drying rack in the corner. The tape nestled securely into the left cup of the bra, nicely hidden from view.

She started up the stairs. Turned and went back. Snatched the tape from the bra. Up the stairs. To the cupboard. Ripped open a box of dry soup mix; onion broth. Flipped the contents into the garbage. Slid the tape neatly in. Sealed it with scotch tape.

The doorbell.

Maggie ripped the tape from the soup box and tucked it into a re-sealable plastic bag from the pantry. Then she snatched the Grasshopper Pie ice cream container from the freezer and pried a huge chunk from the middle with her flat ice cream scoop (snagged at last Tuesday’s auction at the Elks). She dunked the tape in, covered it over, and smoothed the fracture on the surface like a master cake froster.

“Mrs. Christopher, my name is Ross Kilmartin. I’m from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He was a rotund man with a deep, commanding voice. His forehead rose in two peaks separated by a tuft of red hair. He carried a thick legal-type briefcase and held his identification in front of his chest.

“I have a search warrant here that basically says that I’m authorized to search your residence. May I come in, please?”

“You boys go on upstairs,” she said to Jory and Kirk. “The Federal Bureau... Of course. Come in. By all means, Mr. Kilmartin. What’s this all about?”

“May I call you Margaret?”

“Call me Mrs. Christopher. What are you searching for?” Mag asked, leading him into the living room.

“Where is your husband today? At work?”

“He’s in the city attending a training conference on global securities something or other.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Well, Mrs. Christopher, we don’t have a lot of time for discussion but we’re convinced that your husband has violated some federal statutes restricting interstate transportation of explosive devices.”

“Oh, come now!”

“We also believe that he is not alone in this. That others are involved. And that’s the purpose of the search; to try to find anything that might lead us to these others.”

“This is absolute nonsense. Why would Lou get involved in anything like that?”

Kilmartin snapped open his briefcase, reached in, and produced a dark green, waist-length jacket. “Is this your husband’s jacket, missus?”

“Well, he has one like that. Where did you get it?”

“We’d rather not disclose that right now, but we did check out the laundry mark. It’s his, all right.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Your lawyer would probably advise saying nothing, but he’s not here right now.”

Maggie dropped her forehead into the palm of her hand and rested it there.

“I’m not your enemy, Margaret. I’m your friend, believe it or not. Your husband is in the custody of the NYPD in Manhattan. We’re gathering evidence and tracking leads as fast as we can. A little cooperation on both his part and yours could go a long way.”

“I can’t help you with that. If you’re going to search, get on with it,” Mag said, turning and striding out of the room.

* * *

Kilmartin let in two other FBI men, and the three of them began to search. They started upstairs. Mag could hear them as they opened every drawer, every door. She waited in the living room with the boys playing at her feet. She wanted to run to the freezer, to the Grasshopper Pie, but she didn’t.

What exactly did she know so far? All the stuff on the tape. Buck. Stanfield. Copeland. The election connection. She knew that Lou didn’t want her involved. That he was wise enough to have provided an escape hatch in the form of the tape. Who knew about the tape? Where had he produced it? Who had a copy? Who would send it to Severence? Under what conditions?

He didn’t want her involved; had lied to her to that end. But he had called. Twice. Well, the first call was different, wasn’t it? More apologetic? More… what? The second was longer. He’d seemed drained. He’d rambled. His lies were sticking out like neon signs all over the place; rental cars; movement to the city from Arden House without any real explanation. The second call came long after the bridge operation. After what must have been an exhausting escape. How did he get to the city? Was he really there? Of course he was. She could hear the train station noise in the background.

To have called her, he must have been reaching out for help. Oh, come now, girl. Get real. He never asked for help. That’s wishful thinking, Nurse Margaret. Well, if it wasn’t a plea for help, what was it? Information? Who’s giving it? Who’s getting it? She gave nothing to him in the way of news, did she? Everything new was on his side.

What news did he give? That he was in the city now. He’d be home soon. That they’d move away from here someday. That he needed a suit. What would he use it for? To simply present a more legitimate presence on the street? Possibly. No. Assume you’re a fugitive. In hiding. Why would you pin yourself down to a time and a place for contact… unless it benefitted you?

She heard the men in the kitchen and in the basement. Doors opening and closing. Contents rattling as they searched. She went upstairs, saw that they’d been up in the attic. Clothes streamed out of drawers. Shoes littered the floor. Every door ajar.

Downstairs, the couch was pulled away from the wall. Same with the china cabinet, the TV console. Closets open. Shoes piled into the center hallway. The kitchen: freezer door ajar, cold contents from the refrigerator on the countertops. Silverware drawer open. Oven, cabinets, garbage can—askew. A stack of dry soup mix boxes on the oven burner, onion broth from the garbage can up on the counter.

She opened the freezer; grabbed the Grasshopper Pie.

“Missus?”

“Would you care for some ice cream, officer? The boys are begging for it.”

“Thanks, but no. We’ve done enough here for now. We’ll be going. But I’ll be back in touch.”

“You know where the door is.”

“Are you doing something with the suit upstairs?”

“The suit. What suit? Oh, Lou’s. Yes, I’m going to take it to the cleaners.”

“The shirt too? The tie?”

“Yes. All that and more, as soon as I get it gathered together. You say my husband is at some police station? Which one? I want to talk to him.”

“He can make telephone calls if he wants to. I’d wait for him to call if I were you. I’m not your enemy, missus.”

“You’re acting like my enemy.”

“Don’t hide anything from me. I need to know everything as quickly as possible.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m your friend.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Mr. Christopher, wake up.” It was Strachan. He was sitting on a metal chair against the wall looking straight into Lou’s face. For a moment, Lou wondered if he was dreaming. “I want you to meet somebody, Mr. Christopher,” he said.

“I fell asleep, for chrissake.”

“This is Ross Kilmartin, Lou. Ross works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“How do you do, Mr. Christopher. I’d like to ask you a few questions, but before I do, I’d like to give you a few facts as we know them right now, okay?”

“Be my guest,” Lou mumbled.

“Early this morning two men were picked up in the vicinity of Stony Point, New York. They have confessed to having taken part in the bombing of the Bear Mountain Bridge. They have identified all of the other participants in the crime except two: a man called Cook and a woman called Tasha. They gave us descriptions of both. We lifted fingerprints from all the weapons we recovered: seven US Army M-2 Carbines.

“We’re comparing your prints with these right now. We found a jacket at the scene that was purchased at MacFees Clothing Store in Paramus. A laundry mark identifies the jacket as belonging to someone living in or around the town of Glen Rock, New Jersey. Later this morning, a man named Titus Moore called the Ft. Montgomery Police Department and reported that he had been kidnapped from his home at Hillcrest Trailer Park near Ft. Montgomery, New York, and forced to drive a man to New York City where he was then released, at Thirty-Fourth Street.

“The description of the man closely resembles you, all the way down to the limp. Mr. Moore also reported the theft of some items of clothing, including a pair of khaki trousers, size forty-six, and a green wool sweater—clothes that closely resemble what you’re wearing. Blood samples from a pair of torn and bloody trousers found outside of Moore’s trailer are presently being processed for blood type ID. We lifted fingerprints from several items in Moore’s kitchen. We also recovered a knapsack from the wooded area a mile or so from the trailer park that contained smashed candy bars and, among other things, a pocketknife. We’ve dusted that for prints. At the same location, we recovered a bullet-riddled, white U-Haul van with handguns in it, which we are also dusting.”

“Okay, what do you want from me?” Lou asked. With those words, Kilmartin seemed to relax. A broad smile came over his face. He might’ve been fabricating the whole list on the fly, hoping that at least half of it was hitting the target. The words came out of Lou’s mouth spontaneously, and just as quickly, he was no longer a suspect but a perpetrator.

“You’re entitled to consult with a lawyer, Mr. Christopher.”

“I know that much.”

“Beyond that, we would like cooperation. We understand that at the time you were taken into custody, you appeared to be running from someone.”

“You got it right. I nearly got robbed at gunpoint. I ran.”

“What happened to your leg, Mr. Christopher?”

“I banged it up.”

“All right, we’re not moving fast enough here. Let’s lay out a scenario, just for the sake of expediency. Nobody is saying it’s true, but it might move things along. You’re the man identified as Cook. You got away from the bridge and hid out in the woods until you kidnapped Mr. Moore and had him drive you to Manhattan. Somewhere along the line, either at the bridge or at the location of the van, you sustained a gunshot wound to your leg; apparently not serious enough to immobilize you. Here in the city you were threatened and chased; and here we are. You’re in danger, possibly from others who are involved with the bridge episode. It might be possible for us to apprehend these people with your cooperation, but we need to move quickly to accomplish this.

“No offense, but we don’t have you figured as the brains in this operation. We want the brains. You work with us on this and there’s a fair chance you’ll get some consideration later on.”

“Consideration might not do me any good later on,“ Lou said.

“We’re thinking about a lot of possibilities. This smells something like the work of a Panamanian nationalist organization we’re following that’s pissed off about us invading their country and hauling Manuel Noriega off to jail. We’re hypothesizing that you got involved through some kind of money scheme. Never mind. We don’t have a lot of time to go through the whole thing. We have to move, now.”

“A Panamanian organization?”

“With Bliss crowing about ousting the corrupt, drug-dealing Noriega, this bunch is seething. They’d do anything to ruin his campaign. But it’s too early in the investigation to know anything concrete about them. We’re just tracking leads at this point.”

“Look, let’s say they’re just a couple of punks.”

“Do these punks have names?”

“One is Stanfield, the other Copeland,” Lou said.

“Did they chase you in Grand Central?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s my plan. They somehow cornered you. They’re now worrying about how much you’re going to spill to the cops. They’re deciding whether they want to run for cover or wait to see if you’re released from the precinct. If you’re right back out on the street, they’ll figure you didn’t say anything and we didn’t connect you with the bridge.”

“They’re smart. We have to move fast on this. The longer you’re in custody, the less chance we have to set some kind of trap. Whoever they are, they’re surely watching to see what the police are going to do. We’re getting to the point where they’re going to start smelling a setup, and they won’t come anywhere near you.”

“They can do wiretaps,” Lou said.

“How do you know that?”

“I know.”

“If they disappear now, you’re left holding the bag, Mr. Christopher. If we lose them, we still have you. You are important to them. Apparently, important dead. But they’re also curious to know exactly how much the cops know and how much you told them. You’ve been in custody for two hours now. At this point, they’re still dying to get their hands on you.”

“And you want me to go back out on the street.” Lou shaded his eyes from the overhead light and squeezed inward on his temples to ease the pounding in his head.

“We’ll be nearby all the time. We’ll wait until we feel the time is right before we grab them.”

“Who says they’re not going to just hit me as I walk down the street?”

“It’s unlikely. They want to know what we know.”

“I know it’s ridiculous, but I thought they might’ve been able to tap my telephone at home. They’re just a couple of punks, but they seem to be all over the place at once.”

“It only takes a little money to make a lot of things happen. Slip somebody a couple of hundred dollars and they’d have a tap on a phone in a minute.”

“I don’t know if I really believe that,” Lou said. “But anyway, I had nothing to lose trying the phone tap idea.”

“Meaning what?”

“It’s completely ridiculous. How could I be thinking that I could...?”

“We don’t have all day.”

“I thought if I could set it up so that I could get them to come to a specific place at a specific time...”

The story came in a torrent of words—all of it. Everything that had happened grew more and more embarrassing as he spoke. No complicated plans, no tenuous motivations, no originality—just a flood of banalities. “One more thing,” Lou said. “I just think if they can tap a phone, they could do all kinds of things to my wife.”

“We’ll have the house covered twenty-four hours a day.”

“I hope I can believe you… but I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Realistically, no, you don’t.”

The NYPD desk sergeant poured Lou’s belongings out onto the interrogation table. Lou scooped up change, his wallet, and the tape recorder and stuffed them into pockets. Another FBI man crouched before him, strapping an ankle holster onto his right leg.

“It’s a Lorcin L-25 automatic straight out of mail order, if anyone asks. Fourteen and a half ounces with a full .25 caliber, seven-round magazine. Three hundred and forty nine dollars. You didn’t ask for it, but you never know,” Kilmartin said.

Kilmartin drove Lou out from in back of the station in a plain green Plymouth. He cut east on 50th Street and headed for East River Drive. It was already getting dark.

“We’ll be standing off a good hundred yards. They’ll never see us,” he said, looking over.

Chapter Forty

“I’ll just walk up to their car like I’m expecting to pick up the suit. God, nobody could be that dumb, could they?” Lou asked.

“Dumb? Guess what: they figure you dumb-ass dumb.”

The masts of the sailing ships at the South Street Seaport Museum loomed on the left below the highway. Lou could see the Coast Guard ferry straight ahead. Kilmartin pulled over to the curb underneath the Staten Island Ferry building ramp. The smell of pizza hit Lou’s face as he opened the door.

“Just act natural,” Kilmartin said.

“Right,” Lou said.

He walked in front of the Port Authority building, out beside the concession stand by the Statue of Liberty boats, and along the paving stones at the tip of Battery Park. The water was black and choppy; hundreds of bits of plastic and paper lapped at the pilings.

Straight ahead about a hundred yards was the city fire boathouse with a red and white craft rocking at its berth. Across the way was a broken smear of neon from Jersey City. Up high in the air to the right stood the World Trade Towers. He walked slowly. By the time he got to the boat, it would be seven o’clock on the nose.

The Clinton Monument hulked in the darkness to his right, fifty yards from the boathouse. Lou stepped over the thick, wrought-iron chain fence surrounding it, hesitated, and then crunched slowly through the gravel to the building, hugging the sandstone wall. He felt like climbing into one of the gun emplacements, but instead inched his way around to get a good view of the parking lot beside the boathouse. He knew no one could see him in the shadows.

Far down to the right, he saw a car turn off State Street and cut across the silhouette of the tollbooth at the parking lot entrance. He stepped out from the shadow and walked forward through the park benches overlooking the brooding boathouse. The car was large and dark, probably the limo. Maggie had done a good job of instructing the driver. Lou maintained his slow pace, glancing to either side in the darkness, trying not to move his head.

He was caught in the headlights of another car parked diagonally in the lot. He put out his hand and stumbled.

“Stop right there, Christopher.” It was Stanfield. He’d know that voice anywhere. It was coming from the side, out of the shadows of the cars in the lot. “Walk up nice and easy and slide in the back seat.”

Stanfield came up behind him as he reached the door. Then he was in the back seat beside him, reaching across to lock the door before Lou had a chance to even think about jumping out the other side. Stanfield found the Lorcin immediately and stopped searching.

He couldn’t see her face in the mirror, but he recognized the long hair that trailed down over the collar of her tan raincoat; the unique way she carried her head. From the most imperceptible movement of her hair, he could tell she was trying to steal a glance in the rear view mirror from her position in the driver’s seat.

“You live a charmed life,” Lou said wearily.

“Hello Lou. How are you feeling?” Sydney asked.

“I should ask you that. You must’ve been wearing a bulletproof vest out there.”

“I was just incredibly lucky again.”

“I guess they just suck as marksmen.”

“I heard you got hit. In the leg or something.”

“It went right through.”

“You did some dumb things, Christopher,” Stanfield now.

“Not in your class, right?” Lou said.

“You’d be home free except for a couple of things.”

“The jacket.”

“You left it right on the bridge.”

“I was glad to be alive at that point.”

“You must have left eight hundred sets of prints all over the trucks.”

“Trucks that are cinders now. And if they don’t have me, prints are useless,” Lou said.

“They had you.”

“You had a chance to scram, Lou. You could’ve skipped to Alaska or someplace,” Sydney said, looking through the mirror but not making eye contact.

“So you’ve been with them from the start. I should’ve figured that.”

“I’m a toad on a leash, just like you, commander. Something for them to play with.”

“Sure.”

Stanfield: “Then you went and paid a little visit to 14 Wall Street. That was really sweet. A bolt of genius. I don’t think you could’ve fucked up more if you tried. I used to think you had some brains.”

Where was Kilmartin?

If cops didn’t close in soon, Lou and the others would be out and away from the tip of Manhattan, ten times harder to trap. It was nearly seven thirty as the car blended into the traffic cruising up Harlem River Drive. The lights of the city were all around him. He stared out the window at the twisting arches of the Triborough Bridge cloverleaf. He’d never be able to find his way through this forest of concrete ribbons, but Sydney knew exactly where to go. She swung west and headed for the George Washington Bridge.

“It was cute, the call you made to your wife. I guess you never heard of a tap, did you, bright boy? How many places in the city do you think come complete with a loud-speaker system that announces trains?”

“My limo is going to be waiting for quite a while.”

“Oh, we already took care of that.”

“What happens now?”

“We’re going to meet up with Copeland. That’s all you need to know.”

Lou was trying to be calm about this, but it wasn’t working. They’d gone this far, offing Buck, and Red back on the bridge. They wouldn’t hesitate with him. All of the weariness that had built up in the safety of the precinct was gone, replaced with a renewed alertness, an almost animal-like keenness to everything that was going on around him. All it would take was one shot from a pistol in the middle of all the traffic. It would be over, Kilmartin’s theory or not. No FBI agent could do anything to help him. Just act natural.

They drove across the Hudson on the upper level of the bridge. There was absolutely no river traffic below, but the lights were bright on both sides of the water all the way down to the Battery. They turned north on 9W, cruising on top of the Palisades.

“Who’d you vote for, Syd?” he asked.

“Voting was not on my mind this year, sweetheart.”

“Flick on the radio,” Lou said.

“Screw that, this isn’t a picnic,” Stanfield growled.

Lou tried to relax his hands; stretched out his fingers and tried to keep them from trembling. His palms were sweaty. His knuckles were sore from unconsciously clenching his fist.

“How about this: you run me out to Glen Rock. Nobody has anything on me. I’ll just blend into the landscape.”

“That’s not happening.”

“I’d have split for Zanzibar, if I were you,” Sydney said.

The car raced on in the darkness, and all three of them settled into the seats in silence.

“Copeland will be bringing your suit, Einstein,” Stanfield said.

“That’s good of him.”

“Shut up.”

“The mouth of the operation. No brains. What happens to you when the brain decides you know too much?”

“Nobody makes unilateral decisions.”

“Joined at the hip.”

“Shut up,” Stanfield said.

Chapter Forty-One

Lou saw the lone high-rise building, a circular shaft of illuminated glass, from a long way off. Sydney maneuvered the car through the twists and turns of Fort Lee’s streets until they came to a stop at the base of the thirty-story tower. It was a ridiculous place to pull off a murder: a thousand gravel roads led into the woods, a hundred dirt paths into the meadowlands. Yet, they had chosen this place?

He stared up at the building from the side window. All of the apartment windows were dark. What he had seen from the distance were the hall lights that glowed with the same low-watt intensity on every floor to the top. The wind blew steadily with clawing fingers. A whole page of newspaper tumbled across the blacktop parking lot, got entangled beneath a car. Lou was alert despite the lack of real sleep he’d been able to snatch over the past two days. The palms of his hands were moist. He felt a steady thumping in his chest.

Sydney seemed to know the way and led the parade. Lou followed her across the lot, in and out of the darkness between the overhead lamps, cringing against the bullet he expected to pierce his skull at any moment. The wind blew directly into his face, burning his cheeks.

Sydney walked quickly and confidently to the glass entry door, never looking back at him or glancing to the side. Lou followed. He had a chance to run for it. Stanfield would probably never hit him if he broke and ran and dived into the shadows. But it was no good. In the woods, when the shock of the firefight still enveloped him, when he was still operating on the adrenalin of the survival instinct—yes. But this had been his plan after all: to lure Stanfield and Copeland to a place and time of his choosing—the perfect time to play the video card and record the smoking gun conversation.

If it hadn’t been for Kilmartin’s agents and his plan, Lou might’ve succeeded in surprising Stanfield when he first showed up at the Battery. Then it would’ve been Stanfield stumbling around in the dark, not him. Might have. There was nothing to do now but play it out to the end, whatever it would bring.

They entered the elevator together and stood silently with Sydney at the door. It stopped at the twenty-fourth floor.

“If either of you do anything foolish, it’ll be your last,” Stanfield said, unlocking the door.

“They’ve got it stocked with booze and beer, Lou. Which do you want?” Sydney asked, unbuttoning her coat and striding for the wet bar across the room. She flipped the tan raincoat onto a chair.

“Bourbon and water,” he said.

From the window, he could see the lights of Bergen County sprawling out to the west, and in the other direction, neon across the river. He stood and stared at the blackness outside. He imagined he could see Glen Rock out there and his own stucco cape with a light burning on the front

Chapter Forty-Two

As soon as she closed the door behind Kilmartin, Maggie strode into the kitchen, took out the tape, capped the ice cream, and threw it back into the freezer. She hurried to the living room.

“Boys, listen to grandma, okay? I’m going outside. I’ll be back in a minute. Stay in this room. Did you hear me? What did I say, Jory?”

“Stay in this room, grandma,” Jory said.

She slid the tape into the slot on the top deck VCR, hit Rewind, pushed a blank tape into the bottom deck, and then pressed the Copy button.

She scurried to the back door, trotted across the back yard. If they saw her, so be it. She was at Hazel Compton’s kitchen door in less than thirty seconds, and so was Hazel, her bronze face lined with worry.

“Maggie, what’s wrong. You look stricken. Come in.”

“We’re in very deep trouble, Hazel. And I need your help. I’m sorry to do this to you.”

“Don’t be silly. You know I’d do anything for you guys. Sit down. Have a cup of coffee. You’re frantic.”

“I don’t have time for anything, Hazel. I want you to take the boys. I want you to keep them here until you hear from me. It may be hours, days, I don’t know.”

“Of course. Bring them over.”

“No. It has to be done in a certain way. I’m sorry. Just listen to me.”

“My God, Maggie, what in the world happened?”

“Listen to me! I’ll call you from the house, as if I hadn’t told you this. I’ll ask you to take the boys. You’ll say yes and come to the back door to get them. Understand? Now, I need to use your telephone.”

“Right here,” Hazel said, wide eyed.

“Hello? Virg? This is Maggie. Hi... I’m fine. But never mind that, just listen. I’m sorry, Virg. Shut up and listen! I have to insult you by shouting this way for a good reason, my dearest friend. Lou and I are in deep, deep trouble and I need your help. Just listen. Listen! This is literally life and death. It sounds theatrical and phony, but it’s not. I need you to carry out an assignment. I need you to act as if we’re both characters in a cop series. Don’t laugh, Virg. Don’t fail me, please. Tonight, eight o’clock. Go to the Elks Club, to the auction. I’ll be there. You don’t recognize me. You don’t know me. Work the hall, check out the antiques, blend in. At exactly eight twenty-eight, go into the ladies’ room. It’s in the front, to the side of the stage. At eight thirty, I’ll come in. I’ll have something to give you, some instructions, either written or verbal— I don’t know right now. It has to do with your newspaper training, Virg. I know I can count on you. Please play the role as if you’d been there a hundred times in the past. Goodbye Virg.”

Maggie ran out of Hazel Compton’s kitchen, across the back yard, and through the open kitchen door. The doorbell was ringing.

“Mrs. Christopher, I’m officer Riegelhaupt. I’ve been assigned to stay with you for your protection twenty-four hours a day.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Sydney came up behind him and spoke softly: “Pretty view, isn’t it?”

Stanfield was right behind her; and when he had the two of them together at the window, he handed Lou a pair of handcuffs and stepped back, revolver in hand. “Joined at the wrists. Do it, bright boy.”

Lou turned and took the tumbler she held out to him. He let a swallow scratch his throat on the way down, and then locked himself and Sydney into the cuffs, one hand free.

“They have everything up here, even fixings for a sandwich,” she said.

“I could eat a cow.”

“Would you settle for a ham and cheese?”

They walked together to the kitchenette, Sydney with long, sure strides. Lou took another long pull on the Wild Turkey. It tasted raw and strong, but he liked it this time. At the counter, he let his right hand be pulled along by her left as she threw together a stack of ham and cheese sandwiches. The last gulp went down easily. He led the way to the bar and fixed himself another, while Sydney waited at his side with the pile of sandwiches.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’ve learned to like Johnny Walker Red,” she said.

“Okay, Stanfield. You’re the boss. What are we doing here?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Stanfield said from his seat at the window.

Lou and Sydney sat together on the sofa facing Stanfield. Lou killed the Wild Turkey before he took his first bite of sandwich. He was pleased with the sudden, slight dizziness that washed over him.

“I might just grab one more of these,” he said, standing.

“I had you figured for a control freak,” she said. “You’re shooting your image all to hell.”

They went together to the bar again. He watched Stanfield through sagging eyelids. Her steps went one before the other in a straight line, her skirt swishing around her knees, her free arm swinging in a wide arc. She splashed a couple of fingers of Wild Turkey into the glass on top of the ice cubes and sloshed some water on top of that, mixing it with her finger. Back at the couch, Lou reached into his pocket for the Toshiba—the pocket tape recorder he’d purchased earlier—as he sat. He pushed the toggle to record and then discretely dropped the compact device into the vase on the side table.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“We’re in it together,” she said, tilting the glass of Red.

“You’re lying.”

“Okay. I’m lying.”

“Why then?”

“Fuck you.”

“Thought I was just going to run up and grab you in the station, right? Fall all over myself...”

“I wasn’t betting on it. Think of it my way, commander. I’m screwed, coming and going. If I don’t pay back what I owe, I wind up in a Dempsey Dumpster somewhere in Newark. If I don’t go to the end of the line with these guys, I wind up dead in the Meadowlands somewhere. I’m one of those women who can’t seem to get out of the way.”

“So you do what they say. Good story. But so ordinary. Couldn’t it have been a little more creative?”

“Fuck you again.”

The door opened suddenly and noiselessly, and Copeland quickly entered the room. The surprise of his sudden entrance seemed like a ploy to prevent anyone hiding behind the door from ambushing him. He went straight to the window and looked down into the parking lot. Then he walked slowly across the darkness and slouched in the chair across from them.

“Unhook them,” he said to Stanfield.

Stanfield flipped the key in the general direction of the couch. Sydney snagged it with her right hand and freed them.

Copeland pulled out a cigarette. He used his fingernail to flick a match, and then cupped the flame against some imaginary wind, letting smoke dribble slowly from his nose as he gently shook the match until the flame died. He dropped the dead match into the brass ashtray next to the sandwiches.

“I just came from a meeting.” His voice was low, soft, and eerily calm. “You two were the subject.”

Sydney almost involuntarily inched closer to Lou on the couch.

“The rats are jumping overboard. Peter Jennings is already predicting a landslide loss for Bliss. For you, win or lose is immaterial. Us, we don’t want any loose ends hanging around. You’re loose ends.”

Stanfield dropped some ice cubes in a glass and clinked the neck of the scotch bottle against the glass, breaking the tension.

“How about something over here?” Standfield said.

Copeland wagged his smoking ember. “We want you out of the way.”

Neither of them said anything or moved. Copeland continued in a low, soft monotone.

“You two are in luck. Everybody wants this whole rat fuck to dissolve along with this joke of an election. They want no more blood, no more dirt, and no more chances for exposure. They see you two as dead meat if you stay in the country. A matter of a couple of days before the Feds scoop you up, and then the rest of your life spent staring at a concrete ceiling; that is, if you escape death row. But that’s a risk for us; that you... But, you’d never expose us, would you? Anyway, you’re leaving the country. As soon as I can get you out of here. There’ll be no messy little problems this way.” He crushed the cigarette into the ashtray and took one of the sandwiches. “You board a plane tonight out of Kennedy. The 11:45 for Quito, Ecuador. From there, you’re on a bus through the mud to Montalvo, where you hang out with the peasants and live on coffee and bananas. You pick up your passport and ticket at Kennedy along with twenty thousand in cash.”

Lou began to chuckle and he couldn’t stop. It came from down deep in his gut. Ecuador. Come on. The clichés never end.

“But you never show your face in this country again,” Copeland said. “You drive to the airport in the Audi. You’ve got thirty minutes to get down to the car and still catch the flight. Change your clothes.

“Your wife will receive a typewritten letter in the mail informing her that you cut out with your lover. She’ll get a little check every month for the next year, postmarked from various cities around the country.

“I’m out of here,” Copeland said.

“Take it or leave it, right?” Lou demanded.

“You got it, pal.”

“What’s to keep me from coming back from fucking Ecuador?”

“You... you fucking phony. Who do you think you are anyway? You had a chance to scratch the whole thing right in the beginning. You could’ve gotten out way back there at the motel and you know it. But the deal looked too good. You could see all that green rolling in every month. And all you had to do was bang bang, in and out. Now if you’re smart, you’ll take the fucking hush money, and the broad, and lay low like a good boy. That’s all you got left. Take it and run.”

“Take it and run, huh? Take it and run,” Lou growled. “Well, Copeland, remember what I told you about cover, before this rat fuck began? I recorded a little story on videotape. Talked all about Bear Mountain Bridge, Patty Buck, and Bliss, before it ever got off the ground. Named names, dates. If I don’t show up in the next twenty-four hours, every TV station in the country...” Lou lurched up from the couch instinctively, but the booze was strong in his veins. He pitched forward to the floor.

Copeland stood, smiling. He walked slowly to where Lou lay face down; put his foot on his ear.

“You crummy sot. You have no cover. A videotape? It’s an allegation, fuck face. An allegation of what? Conspiracy to rig an election? It’s your word against... whoevers. Is that too much for that little military mind of yours? All you fucking Army turds think linear—like it takes fifty cannons and a thousand grunts to make anything happen in this world. Napoleon at Austerlitz, Hannibal crossing the Alps. Might makes right. Do this, get that. Well, it’s the other way around, asshole. It’s a little prick named Oswald with a cheesy rifle in Dallas. It’s Sirhan Sirhan, Squeaky Fromme, John Hinckley. A loose screw and brass balls. One spark and a can of napalm.”

He gave a mock salute, and slammed the door on the way out.

Chapter Forty-Four

Agent Riegelhaupt jerked the handle on the Elks Club swinging glass door and let Maggie and Kilmartin precede him. Mag led the way down the hall beside the public telephone and the bar and into the auditorium. The room was brimming, people gliding around and between the tables and inspecting the assembled antiques, near-antiques, and household junk that jammed every corner and spilled out into the aisles. She strode to the small table in the far corner to get her bidding card. Kilmartin and Riegelhaupt were right behind.

The elderly man at the registration table slid Mag’s card, number thirty-seven, under the address sheet she had filled out unconsciously, automatically, as she had dozens of times in the past. She turned and came face-to-face with her friend, Virg, her familiar rusty hair rising in mini-tornados all over the top of her head, her blazing blue eyes boring into Mag’s. As they slid by each other, Virg’s eyes instantly shifted away from Mag’s, and she blended into the crowd.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to sit in the back when the auction gets going. I’ll need a chair to hold my coat. If you’re intending to sit there with me, you’d better do the same. The chairs’ll go quickly,” Mag said to Kilmartin.

“We’ll stand over to the side, Margaret,” Kilmartin said.

Mag slid the shoulders of her coat around the back of the folding chair in the far left corner of the seating area. Ignoring the two men, she began to maneuver through the crowd toward the front of the room. Looking up momentarily from a cut glass pitcher, she saw Virg disappear into the ladies’ room beside the stage. Mag turned away and opened the drawer of an old, cherry wood, jelly cupboard, inspecting it for signs of real, true human wear. Riegelhaupt was at her side; Kilmartin stood in the back.

“I’m going to the ladies’ room, officer,” she said. “You can come if you’d like.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but if you’re not back out here in three minutes, I’m coming in,” Riegelhaupt said.

Maggie walked quickly to the door and pushed it open. Inside, she turned to make sure the door was closed and that she was alone with Virg. She grabbed the slight woman’s shoulders, pushed her into one of the two stalls, and latched the door. Straddling the toilet, the hem of her dress pulled to her waist, Maggie plucked the videotape from the front of her panty hose.

“Virg, let me do all the talking. I have about two minutes. You are a brave, wonderful friend to do this for Lou and me. It is very dangerous. It is beyond anything I could convey to you in the time we have here. Take this tape home and look at it. It’s self-explanatory. It links to the Bear Mountain Bridge thing that’s in the news right now. Unfortunately, Lou’s right in the middle of it. It’s all very sinister and mean.”

Virg spontaneously hugged Mag, grasping the tape all the while.

“Maggie...”

“Shush,” Mag commanded. “Lou is in desperate trouble. I am too. You are our only hope. If I don’t contact you in the next twenty-four hours, it means I’m dead. In that case, take the tape to the media. You know how to do that better than I ever would. Splatter it all over the tube. Longer range, after I contact you, if I don’t get in touch within another thirty days, take the tape to William Severence. He’ll run with it, I’m sure. One more thing. In all of this, when the media talk to you, you must identify one man as somehow mixed up in this. His name is Ross Kilmartin. Remember, Ross Kilmartin of the FBI.”

Virg’s eyes were wild and searching, her mouth agape. Lines of apprehension and incredulity formed across her forehead.

“It’s not a joke, my dear Virg. I have to go now. If I have it right, it’s our one chance to live. Now, I’ll leave first. In five minutes, you come out. The man you see me with in the back of the room is Kilmartin. Remember the face, my dear friend. Goodbye.”

Mag hugged Virg hard, kissed her fiercely on the cheek, and left.

Chapter Forty-Five

“Who’s Squeaky Fromme?” Sydney was on the floor with Lou, picking lint from the carpet out of his hair.

He didn’t bother to answer. He got up sullenly and dropped heavily onto the couch. She bustled in and out of the room, collecting her belongings from all over the apartment, lipstick, jewelry, Kleenex, emery stick, Q-tips, comb, mirror, tweezers, all the tools she used to keep from going nuts waiting to find out what Copeland was going to do with her after dumping her here last night under Stanfield’s supervision.

“I thought we were both goners, “she said.

“Stanfield can’t do anything on his own.”

“Then why didn’t Copeland do it right here?”

“And mess up the rug?”

“Ecuador. Not so bad.”

“They’ve been reading too many Nazi novels.”

“It’s happening. We’re here.”

“‘Bogota’ I might’ve believed.”

“What’s wrong with Ecuador?”

“They just want to get me out of this room.”

“Us, you mean. I’m going.”

“You may be going, but it won’t be to Ecuador.”

“You know I couldn’t really do anything else.”

“Do I?”

“You should.”

“How do I know you’re not with them?”

“Because I’m not.”

“How do I know they aren’t thinking I’ll grab at the chance to go dancing with you? It’s a beautiful cliché.”

“We could just do as they say. Go with the money. Stay for a while. Fly off to Cancun or something. After a couple of months, you could make some kind of arrangements to get back here.”

“There is no fucking Ecuador. It’s been one implausibility after another, but Ecuador is not going to happen. Why would they flash a wad of money? Why would they piss away what they obviously wanted: me, dead?

“Us. They couldn’t watch us forever. The only way they’d find out that you’d, like, decamped would be if you went to the police with the story.”

“My head tells me you’re with them.”

“They dragged me out of the creek, and instead of putting a bullet in my brain, they pushed me into their car. I knew then that the only thing keeping me alive was my connection to you. I told them we’re lovers. They thought you’d do something stupid for me.”

“You saw me first at Grand Central. Tipped them off.”

“No. I tipped you off pointing at them. Anyway, they got what they wanted: the two of us.”

Lou got up from couch, went to the bar again. He chunked three or four ice cubes in the glass, and spilled it half-full with more Wild Turkey, the rest—water. He stole a glance at his watch. Ten p.m. Sydney had moved over to the stuffed chair.

The girl had to be with them. As long as she was next to him, they’d know where he was and what he was doing. They spun this fantasy about a ‘honeymoon’ in Ecuador just to get him out of the apartment. Why? They needed to off him somewhere that was in no way connected with them.

He was half numb, partly from lack of sleep, but mostly from the bourbon. Even with a fuzzy view, his mind was functioning. He steadied himself on the back of the sofa and tipped his glass again.

“I know you think I betrayed you, but I didn’t, Sydney said.

After they pulled me out of the creek, Copeland and Stanfield stuffed me in their car and left their guns with the van. The MPs stopped the car at a roadblock a mile or two from the pit. They kept us sitting there in the car while they questioned us outside one by one. They opened the trunk, everything. I was in total self-preservation mode at that point. I should have spilled everything right there, but I just couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“So, three suspiciously wet and dirty people in a car say they’re out for a drive and the MPs buy it.”

“I guess they could’ve held us. They didn’t. What can I say?”

“Did they follow you?”

“No. They were fooling around all over the car, looking for stuff, is all, I guess.”

“And you told them nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“And you stuck with the goons, voluntarily. Amazing.”

“I was alive. If I’d said something to the MPs, it would’ve been all over for me. I didn’t want the end to come.”

“The MPs must’ve been talking to the FBI, or maybe they were the FBI.”

“There were lots of them. Another car came,” Sydney said.

“They let you go for a reason. Maybe to follow you.”

“You made a videotape? Good move,” she said.

“Not according to Copeland.”

“What does he know? A video like that, boomeranging around the country? They have to know it’s dynamite.”

“It is just an allegation.”

“We’re just an allegation. If we’re so harmless, why don’t they just let us walk?”

Lou swung his foot over the back of the couch, sat on the back of it for an instant, and then slid down, plopping into the cushions and sloshing the drink over the front of his shirt. He killed the rest of it in a swallow and let the glass drop to the floor.

She sat beside him, unbuttoned his shirt.

“You’re all wet, sweetheart.”

“Believe it or not, you’re not the first one to tell me that.”

Sydney pulled the shirt up out of his trousers, jerked it around until he’d twisted his arms out of it, and then dropped it in a soggy heap on the floor. She snuggled into his chest.

“Okay, we’re down to bare skin. This is your best, last chance, commander.”

Lou leaned back into the sofa and closed his eyes. “Sydney…,” he said.

“What?”

“Syd…”

“Say it.”

“It’s not that…”

“Don’t tell me what it’s not,” she said.

He turned and leaned back, stretching out, his legs over her lap to the arm of the couch, so that he could see all of her. “I have people in my life who…”

Sydney shoved his legs off her, rose and straightened her skirt.

“Thank you so much, Uncle Lou”, she muttered, striding toward the bathroom.

It was very quiet now. No clock was ticking. No faucet dripping. For a long while, he sat still on the sofa, looking mostly at the ceiling. He’d come a long way to this moment. From the day he’d left the Army, it had been a slow series of compromises, a gradual acceptance of gray where there had once been black and white, a creeping intrusion of the half-truth. He’d told himself that it was the times. He’d been living with old fashioned ethics, worn concepts of honor. And now, alone with himself again, he was not pleased.

He rolled off the couch and kneeled in front of the phone on the end table. He picked up the receiver, listened for something he was sure would be audible on a tapped phone, but heard nothing. A clear line. One last real talk with Mag. Let it happen. He dialed from the phone book.

“Hello.”

“Yeah hello, is this the Elks Club?”

“Well, this is the bar.”

“Okay, look, you’ve got an auction going on there tonight, don’t you?”

“It’s in the main hall.”

“I don’t suppose you could do me a favor and call someone to the line from there, could you?”

“Who is it?”

“Well, it’s Maggie Christopher. She’s probably sitting in the back.”

“Hold on.”

Lou sat down on the couch. He could hear the shower running in the bathroom.

“Hello?”

“Mag! Mag, it happened.”

“It’s you! I prayed, Lou. I prayed you’d call here.”

“It’s so great to hear your voice, Mag...”

“Lou, I love you.”

“I’m in trouble, Mag.”

“I know. There’s a man here with me.”

“Who? Who’s with you?”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Mag, listen. I’m sorry.”

“Never mind right now. Talk to him.”

“Mag, listen…”

“Lou, this is Kilmartin. Listen carefully. I know where you are, I know you’re there alone with the woman. Stanfield and Copeland have already left that location, and we’re still following.”

“I’m not staying here, Kilmartin. I only have a couple of minutes.”

“Did you tell them anything about me?”

“No. We’re supposed to drive to Kennedy to catch a flight. I don’t believe we’ll ever get there.”

“All right, listen. I’m sending someone to your location. Wait there.”

“Put my wife back on the phone,” Lou said.

“Lou?” Maggie said.

“Mag, listen to me. I don’t like Kilmartin. He knows more than he should. I’m scared for you. Understand?”

“Yes, Lou.”

“I don’t want him to hear what you’re saying to me.”

“He’s over by the door now, darling.”

“I don’t have much time to tell you this, but I had an ace in the hole—something that could protect you—but now my confidence in it is shot.”

“I know all about it, Lou. Now listen to me.”

“I thought I’d use it when the time was right, but that right time has come and gone with no effect.”

“Shut up and listen.” She smiled for the benefit of the FBI. “When did you first meet Kilmartin?”

“This afternoon, Mag. In the police station.”

“Just listen. They turned the house upside down this morning looking for something. I assume it was the tape. They didn’t find it. They have us both. Who else knows there’s a tape?” She smiled again at Kilmartin.

“I blabbed it just now to Copeland.”

“Copeland. Who’s that?”

“It’s unimportant.”

“You’re right.”

“Who else?”

“Tom Holt and his wife.”

“Tom Holt...?”

“My Army buddy.”

“How the hell is he involved in this? Good god, Lou.”

“Never mind.”

“Right. So, Copeland knows. Does Kilmartin?”

“There’s no way he can.”

“Right again, I think. Except, what were they ransacking the house for then?”

“Anything incriminating. Fingerprints, minimum.”

“My mind is swimming, Lou. If Kilmartin knows there’s a tape, how did he find out?”

“He can’t possibly know,” Lou said. “Unless he has Tom Holt, or he talks to Copeland.”

“Do you know that he does?”

“No. I’m just guessing.”

Lou heard the rush of water stop short, the shower curtain snap back.

“I gotta get off now, Mag.”

“I think the videotape is still golden for us, Lou darling. We can use it on them. Somehow.” Click.

When Sydney came out, she was dressed to go. Her hair hung mussed and wet against her shoulders.

“We’ve got about an hour to get to Kennedy,” she said.

Lou shed Titus’ clothes for his own blue serge and a shirt. He left the tie in the side pocket.

“Ecuador may be bull, but it’s all I have,” she said.

“Who are you?”

“I’m for real. I want to give you your chance too.”

“Meaning?”

“If you want to run from them some more, then run.”

“I don’t want to run; I just want another shot at them.”

“Then do it. When we go out to the car.”

Sydney strode out of the room and Lou moved quickly to the vase, snatched the recorder, and dropped it into his chest pocket.

* * *

The elevator door slid open immediately when Lou pressed the button. He walked in first; leaned against the back wall. Sydney’s heels clicked against the floor tile as she entered, carrying a small cosmetics bag. She needed to straighten his collar; it was sticking crazily out of the jacket. She brought her hand up to his chin, then to the side of his face.

“You’ll kick yourself someday,” she said.

The door slid open at the ground floor. Sydney clicked straight for the entrance. Lou followed. The wind was still gusting across the parking lot. Looking back at the darkened tower behind them, he felt secure. How could they pull off murder in the middle of all these cars? The dark Audi was directly under a lamp. The only sounds were Sydney’s heels on the blacktop. She walked directly to the driver’s side, opened the door, and stood there.

Lou came up to her, and held her shoulders, looking into her eyes.

“Some girl,” he said.

Sydney brought her hand up to her mouth and allowed a bored sigh.

“This is good-bye. Good luck, Sydney Winkler,” he said pulling her in to his chest.

“You too, commander,” she said, running the fingers of one hand up behind his ear.

They stood back from each other again, and Sydney turned and slid behind the wheel of the Audi.

Lou fell straight to the pavement and rolled under a white T-Bird beside the Audi. The pain in his thigh sprang back to life in an agonizing jolt reaching all the way to his buttocks. Grunting, he inched his way under the car toward the opposite side. He rolled again, started to rise, and heard Sydney slam the door shut. For a split second he thought he heard the starter whine, just before the blackness ignited. He was buffeted, deafened by an orange roar. He could hear pieces of metal raining down on the cars all around.

Chapter Forty-Six

He was physically untouched by the explosion, but the Audi was totally wrecked—hood sprung, dangling from a fender; windows either shattered or black with soot; tires burning with heavy smoke and brilliant orange flame. Sydney was sprawled on the pavement with her feet inside the car. She was burned black and broken. The air was sodden with the awful smell of burning rubber and human flesh.

The apartment building came to life; bright lights glowed on every floor to the top and faces =peered from every window. The residents gradually emerged and gathered in a circle around the smoldering car. No one approached Lou as he sat on the ground beside the girl. He lifted her blackened hand, pressed it with the two of his. He covered her body with his jacket. She was for real.

It was all mechanical now; he had no emotion left. He should’ve been dead three times over, yet he still lived. He walked away from the car, through the jabbering crowd. No one tried to stop him or to talk to him as he walked back toward the building. Strangely, he didn’t feel the wrenching in his system that he’d known so well in the war, when someone he knew got hurt. It was because she was dead. Burned and unrecognizable. He was numb, that’s all. He was alone in this now, completely alone. It was the way it had to be. The way he wanted it. He’d go right at them, head to head, alone. Then it would be over.

On the first floor of the building, he found the door marked Building Manager and pressed the buzzer. She was heavy and blonde, with black roots at her crown. She stood in the doorway in a yellow robe, saying nothing. She leaned against the jamb, arms folded.

“Hello, ma’am, I’m Detective Mike Bialystock, Fort Lee Police,” Lou said, gambling that she wouldn’t want ID. “The girl out there is unidentified. Someone said she came out of 24-D. Can you tell me who owns it?”

“I’m not allowed to let that information out. I’m sorry.”

“Look, a young lady lost her life out there. We need to know who she is.”

“I guess it’s not going to hurt anyone if I tell you.”

“Of course not.”

“They’ve had the apartment for a couple of years. They don’t spend much time in it, though. Just whenever it strikes their fancy, I guess.”

“Who are they?”

“Well, it’s in the mother’s name but his daughter uses it mostly.”

“What’s the name?”

“ Buck. Ms. P. Buck. I sure hope that’s not her daughter out there.”

“What would her name be?”

“She carries her mother’s maiden name. Ashley something or other.”

“I want to thank you very much. This is helpful.”

“She seemed like such a nice young girl.”

“Thanks again. If we need more help, we’ll be in touch.”

Lou turned and started for the door, but then turned back. The woman was just closing the door to her apartment.

“One more thing,” he said. “Ashley’s last name, is it O’Reilly or something like that? O’Connor? Compton? Corcoran...?”

The woman stood looking at him, scratching the top of her head with one finger. “Corcoran? It’s something like that.”

“Okay. Thanks again,” he said. Ashley Corcoran, Sydney’s college roommate—a name from Turkey Mountain.

Lou heard the faint sound of traffic. When he stopped and listened hard, he could hear it to the south of him. A small crowd stood back thirty feet from the still-smoldering car. Several police vehicles were at the scene and cops were talking to people. Lou made a wide arc around the lot and worked his way clear of the area, heading south.

Two blocks from the explosion, the houses were dark and quiet. Residents would read about it in the morning paper. The night air shot a chill through him and he shoved his hands into his pockets. His face was greasy and covered with stubble. His weariness emerged as dull pain in the back of his knees and dryness behind his eyelids. The pain in his thigh had become an old friend. It was mild enough, as long as he didn’t stretch it out. The approach to the George Washington Bridge was just below him, on the other side of a high, wire fence. He turned west and walked parallel to the road. About a half mile ahead, a red, white, and blue Mobil sign illuminated the night sky.

“I’d like to rent one of your vans,” Lou said, shuddering involuntarily in the warmth of the gas station office.

“The guy who handles that isn’t here,” said the kid with pimples, slouching with his feet on the desk.

“There can’t be much to it, just filling out the agreement,” Lou said.

“They never told me how to do that.”

“Look, the boss is going to be tickled pink that you took it on yourself to drum up some business.”

“Sorry, mister. I just can’t do it.”

“All right, goddammit. I can’t wait around here for you. Where are the goddamned keys?” He spotted a set hanging from a pegboard and snatched them. “These them? Now, I’m taking 5-3-1 K-O-F.”

The kid stood up fast, reaching for the keys, but there was something in Lou’s eyes to make him back off. As Lou headed for the door, the kid backed away until he ran into the Coke machine. “You better not take it,” he yelled feebly.

The van started easily. As Lou pulled past the pumps, he saw the kid on the telephone. He roared out onto the highway, pressed the accelerator to the floor.

He branched on to Route 4 and continued west to Route 17. The van was old and drafty. It made a lot of noise, and he couldn’t find the heater. He kept his eye on the rearview mirror, but the roads were completely deserted. He flicked on the brights and leaned hard against the steering wheel. Waves of weariness washed over his him. He drove under the overpass to Glen Rock; past the Fashion Center where the Pierson Brown office hunkered in the middle of furniture and clothing stores; all the way to Suffern, where he turned off onto Route 202, and then headed west along the Ramapo River.

The road was unlit and full of curves. Lou rubbed at his eyes to keep them from closing. About two miles from the turnoff, he saw the tennis courts dimly on the right. A sign on the left side of the road read Ramapo College. He turned at the traffic signal, wound past a large building on the right, and continued on beside a line of sixty-foot evergreens. He spotted a parking lot, pulled in, and killed the lights and the engine. Almost immediately, despite the chill in his bones, he felt the weariness taking over. Sitting upright, he was asleep in seconds.

Lou awoke before dawn with a giant stiffness in his neck that extended up onto the back of his head. His thigh was throbbing. He fumbled for the ignition, cranked the engine, and groped for the interior light switch. He found the heater knob and flipped it on. It took a full fifteen minutes for the engine to warm enough to beat back the chill air filling the van. It only took two minutes for him to fall back asleep; his head slumped against the steering wheel.

Daylight intruded. Now it was too hot in the van. His head felt swollen. He gagged on the dryness in his throat and mouth. He shut off the ignition, groped for the window crank, and caught a glimpse of his face in the side view mirror. His eyes were threaded red and his eyelids looked inflamed and sore. He saw deep bags and furrows he didn’t know he had. He opened the door and stumbled out. It was chilly in the shadows of the tall evergreens. He sat on the front bumper with his face in his hands.

“If I were you, I’d move the vehicle.” It was a middle-aged man in overalls. “I’m just on the grounds crew, but if Security catches you in this area...”

“Oh, sorry,” Lou said, straightening up. “I’ve been on the road. I’m looking for my... uh... my niece.”

“You could move over there to student parking.”

“I guess she’s a sophomore. Would she be staying in one of the dorms?”

“If you’re looking for a student, you should be asking at the registrar’s office. That would be in the administration building, over there. They open at nine. You might catch someone over there now, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Well, okay. I guess there’s not much else I can do until they open.”

“Been on the road long?”

“From North Carolina. I drove all the way from Winston-Salem last night. I guess I’m a little disreputable looking.”

“This area here is reserved for staff.”

Lou thanked the man and then drove off toward the student lot. He parked, got out, and walked the gravel path that led to the administration building. The main door was open. He entered, walked a long hall to the Registrar’s office, and poked his head in the open door.

“Anybody home?”

A young man at a computer sat behind a high counter. “Only us hackers,” he said.

“I’m trying to locate a student named Ashley Corcoran,” Lou said, smiling through the stiffness he felt in his face.

“I’m not really staff,” the guy said. “I work here part time.

“I wonder if you could help me?”

“Depends. I can’t be disclosing stuff.”

“Well this isn’t Top Secret or anything. I’m just trying to find my niece. Her mother is sick and she needs to know,” Lou lied.

“Well, that takes a password that I don’t have. Sorry.”

“You could probably get around that.

“Maybe, but I can’t be doing that shit if I want to keep this gig.”

“It’s totally harmless. There’s no way it can come back on you.”

“Still…”

“Okay, I had to ask. I understand. Thanks anyway.” Lou turned to leave.

“Give me the name again.”

“Ashley Corcoran.”

“Class?”

“I don’t really know that. I’m sorry.”

The guy assaulted the keyboard with a flurry of strokes punctuated with a pause and another flurry—two, three four of those. Then he leaned in close to the screen.

“Corcoran, A. Sophomore. Seymour,” he read.

“Seymour?”

“That’s a residence hall. Let’s see...” Another flurry. “She’s moved out of Seymour, lives on Lake Drive, Bear Swamp Lake. Shit, I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“A lake?”

“Bear Swamp. Go out to 202, make a left, and go all the way out to the Camp Yaw Paw turnoff. It’s about a mile and a half. Once you get on that road, just keep going until you see the signs.”

“Thanks,” Lou said. “I appreciate the trouble. I don’t suppose you could use this,” he added, folding two twenties together before handing them over.

“Fuck—bribery now”, the guy said sliding the bills into his shirt pocket.

The sun had taken some of the chill off the morning. The engine started easily and the heater put out right from the start. Lou found the turnoff and eased the van over a rickety bridge that spanned the Ramapo River. The water at this spot was shallow and white as it splashed over the boulders that lined the riverbed. He approached a tubular steel swinging gate. It was open. The road was a single lane strip of thin blacktop that paralleled a fast running, feeder stream. High, rock-strewn hills blotted out the sky on either side of the road.

Lou took it slow around the blind corners and eased by the jutting boulders and potholes. A rock and mortar structure lay in ruins beside the stream where the road passed over on a wooden bridge. It was nearly nine o’clock. He halfway expected to meet Ashley coming straight at him over a blind rise, racing to make her first class of the day.

At a fork in the road, a sign pointed off to the left for Boy Scout Camp Yaw Paw and to the right for Bear Swamp Lake. Lou parked the van off the road beside a water tank. He walked down the gravel road past wooden bungalows on either side, all but one boarded up for the season. A dog frolicked at the end of the lake. He saw the car beside a bungalow with peeling paint, set off by itself.

The front door had windows on the upper half with white curtains over them. He rapped hard on the glass. He reached to his breast pocket and toggled the Toshiba on.

From somewhere inside he heard, “Hold on!” He pushed the door and it swung slowly on its hinges. He waited a moment, poked his head in. The room was bare except for a TV, a sagging couch, and a wall shelf overflowing with paperback books.

“What do you want?” It came from the kitchen in back.

“Telephone man!” he bellowed. “We got a call that the Buck residence had something wrong.”

“You got the right place, but there’s nothing wrong with the phone,” she said. She was a short, buxom girl dressed in jeans and a Ramapo sweatshirt. She wore her hair in a long braid that fell over one shoulder. Yes. The same Ashley he’d met in Buck’s office. She was staring at him from the kitchen door.

“You always just walk in on people? But you might as well check it anyway. Go right through there. It’s in the corner.” She pointed across the hall to a bedroom.

He snatched up the phone expertly and laid it against his shoulder while he dialed a number. “Hank,” he said into the dead receiver, “I’m out at the Buck residence.” He looked all around the room, out through the door. It was obvious that she was alone in the house. Probably shared it with a couple of others, judging from the clothes he saw hanging in the closet.

“Hey!” he shouted, “You’re right. There’s nothing wrong with this phone.”

He heard nothing. He put down the instrument and walked out to the kitchen. She was gone. The back door was wide open. He ran for it and stumbled out onto the porch, tripping over a brown bag full of garbage.

She was not by the car. No one was on the road. He searched in all directions around the house. Then he spotted her on the embankment near the water tower, scrambling through the underbrush, reeling badly. He broke into a painful run and caught her halfway up the bank with a final lunge and grab at her ankle.

She went down in a heap. They struggled, gasping, until he was able to grab her braid and twist it in a bronco rope twist. She screamed but lay still. He pulled her to her feet by the braid and marched her headfirst back through the kitchen door to the sink. With his right hand, he reached for the drawer, pulled out the sharpest knife he could get hold of, and spun her around.

“I don’t have time to play games with you!”

He arched her back over the edge of the sink, pinning her there holding the knife in her eyes. Slowly, he brought the blade around to the back of her head, sawed off the braid, dangled it in her face. Her eyes went huge, like Raggedy Ann’s.

“I’ll give you anything. What do you want?”

“Answers,” he said, his face two inches from hers.

“My money’s in the bag over there,” she motioned with her eyes.

Lou grabbed the front of her sweatshirt, spun her back around, and shoved her hard into the living room, booting her butt with all the force he could muster in his one good leg. She reeled across the room and slammed into the wall beneath the wall shelf. The books crashed to the floor around her.

“Don’t fuck with me. You know who I am,” he screamed, walking toward the girl cringing on the floor.

“Speak!” he screeched.

“Please! Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me.”

“Who am I?”

“I met you at Mom’s office.

“Get up,” he said.

She stood slowly and huddled against the wall. “Stanfield and Copeland, where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know. Please.”

Lou grabbed the girl by the sweatshirt, at the shoulder, and manhandled her into the kitchen. He shoved her into one of the chrome chairs. She slumped onto the table, burying her face in her arms. He stayed behind her.

“Since you know who I am, you know what’s going on. You’ve got one minute to get it all out on the table.”

The girl was sniveling and wiping her nose with her sleeve.

“I’m sorry. If you’re hurt, I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

He bumped the back of the chair, prompting her to speak.

“They said nobody could get hurt. I wanted to be involved with the election. Mom said they needed a girl for something. But not me. I mentioned Sydney.”

She started blubbering, her head buried in her sleeves and her shoulders heaving. Lou jabbed her with his knee. She squirmed in the chair.

“It’s all my fault. At first it was just that lunatic Red and his men. Then they got Sydney into it. And you. I’m sorry. I never knew this could happen. Where’s Sydney? I haven’t heard anything from her since it all started.”

“Who are these guys?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Lou came up fast behind the chair and kicked it, hard, out from the under the girl. She sprawled on the floor, covering her head with her arms. “You little bitch!” he screamed. “Don’t tell me some goddam smooth talkers turned you into a murderer! What happened?” He grabbed the scruff of her neck and jammed her back into the chair.

Now Ashley Corcoran blubbered tears that ran down her cheeks and into her mouth. It was a full minute before she could make herself understood.

“They went berserk. They said the plan went bad.”

“So they had to get rid of some people, including your mother.”

“No! They never said anything about getting rid of anybody. But they wouldn’t go away. Now Mom’s dead and they’re coming after me. I know it!”

“Do they know about this place?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I have to get out of here. Please. Please.”

“Shut up,” he said. She burrowed her face into her hands and sobbed uncontrollably. “Listen... listen to me. Are there any other people in the houses around here?” She shook her head without lifting her eyes.

“There’s a ranger across the lake,” she mumbled finally. “But he drove out this morning in his pickup.”

“Is he alone in the house?”

“He has a dog, that’s all.”

“You stay right here. Don’t move. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“I can’t wait here. I can’t. I have to get away.”

“You stay! Hear me? I’m going across the lake to the ranger’s cabin. I’ll call you from there with his number. As soon as you see anything, ring me on the phone. They’ll be coming. As far as they know, you’re the only one left who knows anything. One more thing: if you run, I’ll come after you, understand?”

Lou jogged toward the van as fast as his stiffened thigh would allow. He slammed it into gear and roared off down the gravel road past the peeling white bungalow. At first, he couldn’t see the cabin across the lake; a point of land that jutted up from the water blocked it from view. But as the road curved around the point, he could see the cabin clearly on the far side.

The dog was a big, black lab. He was tied to a stake at the side of the house. He had a deep throaty bark, but he wasn’t that anxious to get off the tether. Lou pushed on the front door. It swung back easily. The cabin was dark inside—a single man’s place.

The curtains were dusty and yellowing. A strong smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air. The breakfast dishes lay where the ranger had finished with them that morning. A lumpy armchair sat beneath a floor lamp in the back room. A mound of ashes filled the fieldstone fireplace. A glass doored gun rack sat in the corner. He picked up the plain black phone and twirled the rotary dial. She answered on the first ring.

“The number is 555-8943,” Lou said. “You see any car at all, you call. Hear?”

He had his choice from among several rifles and a shotgun. He took the Savage, double-barreled, over-and-under. He found the shells in the desk drawer on the other side of the room, loaded the weapon, and shoved the rest of the box in his pants pocket. The lab on the front porch didn’t even bother to look up at him. He limped down the front steps and to the van, squinting against the sun, trying to see across to the other side of the lake. Then he heard the telephone.

He made it back to the porch on the second ring. The door swung free and slammed against the wall. But that was all he heard, just two rings. Then he heard the lab outside again.

A boat tied to a steel hook embedded in a boulder bobbed at the edge of the water. It had an electric trolling motor but there was no battery. Lou propped the gun against the rock and went back to the van to scavenge. Carrying the heavy battery wasn’t easy with only one good leg. He made it back to the boat, pushed the two leads onto the terminals, and tried the rheostat. The engine sprang to life. The anchor was a cement block at the end of a soggy rope and Lou got wet to his knees hefting it into the boat, weapon tucked under his arm.

He steered toward the point of land that protruded from the water. The engine was barely audible even to him. He looked back at the ranger cabin receding into the trees above the slowly spreading vee formed by his wake. Up front, the barrel of the shotgun propped against the gunwale.

He felt the cold, morning air cutting through him. He shoved one hand, then the other, into his armpits. He slowed as he approached the shore and glided in for a gentle landing.

Another car was parked directly in front of the bungalow. Lou crouched in the bushes beside the lake, waited. There was no movement at the house. He rose slowly, hobbled to the other side of the road, and doubled back behind the line of cabins that ran parallel to the lake. Now he had a covered route to within fifty feet of the bungalow. He edged up to the corner of the cabin next door and peeked around at the back door. Nothing.

Slowly, with the shotgun up and at the ready, he stepped into the clearing between the buildings. He paced cautiously across the open, fifty-foot span, his eyes straining to detect the slightest movement. He made it to the bungalow; still hearing nothing inside, he edged along toward the front. At the corner, he pressed his back against the crumbling, whitewashed clapboards and peered around the building’s edge.

There! Right in front of him—Stanfield—walking from the car to the front door. They came face to face. Lou stumbled backwards, caught the heel of his bad foot on a clump of sod, and fell backward to his rump. Stanfield stood frozen; his face a mask iced in complete surprise.

It was comic: Stanfield paralyzed, his hands stuck out in front, fingers clutching air; Lou on his ass, staring for what seemed an eternity in suspended animation. Then, simultaneously, they broke into wooden motions like clutching athletes: Stanfield reaching for a shoulder holster, Lou raising the shotgun.

“Don’t do it!” Lou screamed. But it was no good. He saw the blue steel of the pistol barrel and he pressed the trigger.

Stanfield disappeared in the blast, sprawled twisted against the rear wheel of the car. Stanfield was the big mouth, but he wasn’t a coward. Lou rose to his feet, propping himself against the clapboards until the sudden wave of dizziness passed. He stumbled along the wall toward the back of the house, and then turned the corner, ready.

Copeland was halfway out the back door, his shoulder pointed directly at Lou, his pistol, the Lorcin L-25, up and ready. Five feet separated them.

“Hold it!” Lou screamed with all his strength. It came out high-pitched and panic-stricken. He was crouched with the shotgun at waist height and pointed directly into Copeland’s face. The pistol in Copeland’s hand canted upward. He didn’t move.

Lou knew he was thinking, thinking. “I’ll do it. You know that,” he said softly.

Copeland let the pistol fall from his hand to the leaves at the bottom of the step. Lou released his breath and felt his knees go limp with the release of panic-driven energy.

“Back yourself right into the kitchen.”

Inside, Ashley Corcoran cowered in the corner of the front room, her face buried in her arms. She refused to look up when he spoke to her.

“You all right...? Okay, screw it then. Copeland, you get your ass over there on the floor with her. We’re staying right here.”

He slumped to the floor himself, his back against the wall directly across from them, the stock of the shotgun wedged under his arm.

“All right, Christopher. Tell me what you want. One thing I know about you is that you like money.”

That was it, the final indignity, the last blast of punk bravado.

“Stand up!” Lou screamed. “Get on your feet!”

Copeland stood. Lou roughly rammed the shotgun muzzle into Copeland’s cheek, shoving him to the wall, forcing him to the corner, pinned to the wall shelf.

“I’m going to kill you, punk!”

“Do it.”

Lou pushed harder on the butt of the shotgun, mashing Copeland’s ear against the wall, forcing him to his tiptoes.

“Who are you?” Lou’s voice broke.

Copeland gasped out the words. “My name is Aguirra.”

“Yeah, and mine’s Cook!” Lou cocked the weapon erratically.

“Aguirra.”

“Panama.”

“Yes.”

“You did all of this for Panama?”

“Yes.”

Lou jerked the shotgun down and wheeled to slam the butt hard against the side of Copeland’s head. He lurched along the wall. Lou moved forward and kicked him viciously in the ass. He rolled into the corner. Lou pinned him to the wall with the muzzle again.

“Three seconds, mister! I want answers! One...two...”

“What answers?”

“Why?” Lou screamed. “Why? One...two...”

“You. You fucking Americans think you can fuck with us all you want.” The words were laced with a heavy Latin accent.

Lou pointed the shotgun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The room rocked with the roar. The two men shielded their heads from a shower of plaster and dust. The girl screamed.

“Now, you phony prick, spill your guts or I’m doing it for you! Why? That’s what I want. Why?”

“Why? You know why!”

Lou jerked the trigger. The wall beside Copeland’s head disintegrated in dust and plaster shards. Lou’s ears rang as he jammed two more shells into the chambers.

“Liar! You’re going to die! One...two...”

“Kill me!”

Lou pulled the butt of the shotgun back to club him across the room.

From the bedroom, the jangle of the telephone, like the sudden scream of an incoming rocket, froze them all.

“Who the hell...?” Lou croaked, looking at Ashley. She shook her head. “Get it,” he said.

* * *

She looked around the doorframe: “They say to take a look out the window.”

“Move and you’re dead,” he said to Copeland.

He limped to the window; pulled back the curtains; looked up the gravel road toward the water tank. A blue and white police patrol car blocked the road; at the other end, where the road curved around the point of land, sat a plain green Plymouth. Three other black vans with red lights on the roof lined the road, parked at crazy angles.

“They say come out with our hands in the air. They have the area completely surrounded.” She sounded desolate.

“Sit down!” Lou growled. Copeland fell against the wall and slid to the floor. Lou dropped to his knees, then his butt.

“Tell them we’re not coming out.”

It was over now. But for a while he could hold this one spot, hold control: these two under the gun; the threat of death to anyone who entered or rushed him. Control, until they blew them away from all sides at once. He was ready. He watched the two of them against the opposite wall through swollen eyelids.

“They’ll have to come and get me,” he said in a whisper.

A bullhorn voice blared: “MR. CHRISTOPHER, THE AREA IS COMPLETELY CORDONED OFF. COME OUT AND THERE WON’T BE ANY SHOOTING.”

He screamed so they could hear: “Stay away! I have a gun!”

“MR. CHRISTOPHER, THERE’S NO NEED TO RESIST. YOU’RE SAFE NOW.”

“Stay where you are!”

“YOUR WIFE IS HERE WITH US, MR. CHRISTOPHER. LOOK OUT THE WINDOW.”

“Get away,” he screamed.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Maggie sat on the passenger side of the Subaru. Agent Riegelhaupt was at the wheel. He screeched up behind Kilmartin’s green sedan, killed the engine, grabbed Mag, and dragged her across the seat out onto the grass where they crouched clear of the line of fire. She saw three armed men in black scramble up into the rocks above the tiny bungalow.

A cluster of men huddled behind a black van. A uniformed policeman spoke into a giant bull horn. Another in a black jumpsuit motioned to the men climbing the rocks to disperse further right and left. Three more men in black crouched in firing position at the corners of the vehicle. Kilmartin spoke into a bulky car phone.

Mag sat on the ground behind the Subaru and stared at the stones. Lou was in that wreck of a cottage. Maybe wounded. Maybe dead. Her head swirled with the news stories that had filled the hours before she finally collapsed in exhaustion after returning home from the auction and her final talk with Lou.

The story had swamped television news since last night. Eager news readers pushed their resident studio pundits into more and more speculations about who was behind the attack, then cut away to video crews interviewing police and bystanders up in Stony Point who recounted the chaos at the scene. Mag winced at the portrayals of a pitifully bungled bonfire on Bear Mountain Bridge. The election was over. Bliss had lost, but the story lived on and grew.

Reporters stormed the headquarters of the State Police and Fort Montgomery PD. Commuters at Grand Central recounted a strange chase and apparent arrest at the station last evening. Reports leaked out of the 53rd Precinct in the city about that bizarre incident and mysterious disappearance, possibly of the man involved. Every half hour, it seemed there was more “breaking news” of some development in the saga, none of them actually that relevant.

And then that headline in the scandal loving New York Post this morning: “LOVERS STILL FREE”. She knew the story by heart: the chief perpetrator and some coed in the attack force luridly portrayed as a variation on Bonny and Clyde. It was all a lie. She knew it was. The imagination of some wild-eyed cub reporter. Yet, it stung. It reached down into the center of her heart and lodged there like a jagged chunk of flint.

Maggie pulled in a huge gulp of air that swelled her chest. She stared hard into the stones and grass at her feet. Focus. Concentrate. Cling to the calm that had settled into the pit of her stomach when Riegelhaupt rapped on the bedroom door and told her to come quick. They had Lou.

It was the last act. Lou was alive in that wretched shack. He was. He was. She knew he was.

Mag heard one loud crack reverberate through the trees to the water tower, across the lake to the ranger’s cabin and back. A dog’s low howl came drifting out over the water. A tiny puff of white smoke rose from a cleft beside one of the boulders above them.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Copeland, feet splayed, his back firm against the wall in front of Lou, suddenly jerked violently and canted to the side noiselessly. A small black hole appeared above his left eye; a thin stream of blood oozed down the bridge of his nose and onto his cheek. Where his head had rested moments before, a large blob of blood and brain matter spattered the wall.

Ashley screamed and scuttled desperately across the floor; clung in a ball to Lou’s left foot. Lou shook her loose and slid to the window. He broke the shotgun, checked that he had two rounds, and then cracked it closed again. He glanced up at the window; saw a small hole in the top pane. A piercing glint of reflected light leaped from the boulders across the road and above a Subaru—his Subaru.

“Sniper,” he muttered. “Keep out of sight.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, guard us in our hour of need...” Ashley blubbered into the crook of her elbow.

The bungalow door flew open. Lou raised the shotgun to fire. “HOLD YOUR FIRE! HOLD IT!”

The first man who entered had been made in the mold of Antonio Banderas in the movie Pancho Villa with the handlebar mustache and all, but he was still credible. He wore a black jumpsuit and combat boots. His baseball cap was on backwards. Lou looked up into his eyes as the man walked over calmly and lifted the shotgun from of his hands. Several more plainclothesmen followed. They stood Ashley on her feet and walked her toward the door.

Without a weapon, Lou felt the last vestige of energy spill out onto the floor to mix with Copeland’s blood. He slumped back against the wall and let his chin drop against his chest.

“Louis.” He opened his eyes and saw Kilmartin squatting in front of him. “Why the hell did you leave Fort Lee? You shouldn’t have done that.”

“It didn’t seem like sticking around was good for my health,” Lou said, closing his eyes again.

“Granted, it was not a pretty sight in the parking lot. The prints from the apartment will probably confirm that we had it right from the start on the Panama connection.”

“Sure. Don’t waste your breath. Just do whatever you’re going to do.”

“We’re almost certain this guy’s name is Nidi Aguirra,” he said, nodding to Copeland, whose eyes now stared lifelessly at them. We’ll know for sure in a little while.

“Right.”

“He’s registered at the college down the road. A post-Vietnam vet from Cristobal. Took the Army route to citizenship. Together with the other one out there on the ground—the one with no face, Javier Lomedico from Caldera—we have our Panamanian perps, dead unfortunately. We have you. We have some more corpses: Walter Anspach, who you knew as Red; Chester Frawley; Sydney Winkler; and Patricia Buck. The four we picked up near the bridge rounds out the picture. So it’s a wrap. Correct?”

Riegelhaupt came in and whispered in Kilmartin’s ear. “You’ve got a visitor,” Kilmartin said to Lou.

* * *

Maggie came in smiling. He looked up at her face, but couldn’t smile. He wasn’t ready for this moment; the surge of joy and shame together took over. She came to him, knelt on the floor in front of him, and took his hands in hers. His eyes were dry but his mouth betrayed a flood of emotion.

“Maggie,” he said, slowly, in a hoarse whisper, trying to hold himself in control. “If they let you, go far away from here.”

“Shh,” she said.

“Be smart.”

“Remember what I said on the phone,” she said.

“I’ve ruined everything for us.”

“Don’t talk.”

“You’ll have to pack up and go, as fast as you can.”

“We’re sticking to our plan.”

“I fumbled our whole life away.”

“Let’s go home,” she said. “They said we could.”

“It’s a trick,” he said, trying to look at her eyes.

“C’mon,” she said, standing.

They got up from the floor and walked together toward the door, but Kilmartin, Riegelhaupt, and others were clustered there, barring the way.

“You said we could go,” she said, staring at Riegelhaupt.

“We need to talk more,” Kilmartin said.

Maggie turned sharply and kicked books out of her way, creating a path to the television set on the bookcase. She cleared the screen of dust with her sleeve and scattered a gaggle of knickknacks atop the VCR with one fierce swipe. She pulled a tape from her handbag and slammed it into the slot on the video player.

When she turned to face them, the screen was filled with static, but in a moment, there appeared the image of a man holding a newspaper in plain view, almost like a hostage. It was Lou. His voice was loud and clear.

“My name is Louis Christopher...”

* * *

Maggie snapped the power off and retrieved the tape. She saw Kilmartin on the car phone in the corner and stared straight into his face.

“There’s a copy that will be in the hands the press. Tell that to whomever you’re talking to. If I don’t make contact in the next twenty-four hours, the tape will be released to the media. Another copy will go to William Severence if I don’t pull it back. Now get out of our way.”

Kilmartin spoke low into the car phone, not moving.

Mag stepped toward him. “One more thing. You specifically, you Ross Kilmartin, are identified in this. If we go, you go.”

Kilmartin, glued to the phone in a continuous conversation, suddenly stopped talking and dropped the phone to his side.

“Let’s talk,” he said. “Leave us alone in here” he said to the others. They left, taking the girl with them.

“Talk? Just tell me one thing, Kilmartin: why did you kill him?” Lou asked.

“Him? I didn’t. I wanted him alive. The sniper took him out. Chalk it up to miscommunication.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Okay, I may have managed the news I gave you at times.”

“Meaning?” Lou said.

“We’ve had these guys under surveillance for a couple of days, since we stopped them at a roadblock on Mine Torne Road. We stuck a transmitter on their Audi and let them go. We hoped they’d lead us to others involved. It worked. We got you.

“You told us about the suit pickup in Battery Park, so we were glued to the limo. But Nidio here got to it before we did and paid off the driver for the suit.” Kilmartin nodded toward Copeland’s corpse on the floor.

“When I saw you in the precinct station, I had already been out to your house with a search warrant. NYPD called me as soon as they picked you up and checked your wallet. Have I covered everything?”

“No,” Mag said. “My phone was tapped. There was a van strategically parked down the street. You had nothing to do with that?”

“We high-tailed it out to Glen Rock when the NYPD told us they had Lou, to search the house for incriminating evidence. We never saw the van. It may have still been there. It may not. No matter, since we weren’t thinking along those lines.”

“You said you had my back, when I left your car in Battery Park. Then, you let them grab me,” Lou said.

“That’s true, Lou. But we still had the transmitter on their car and a helicopter in the air. We could, and did, follow wherever they went. Fact is, we had already found the Fort Lee apartment location from tracking them. That’s where they holed up with the woman last night. We’ve staked it out ever since.”

“You’re quick. An answer for everything,” Lou said.

“I have a question for you,” Kilmartin said. “Who has a copy of that videotape?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I want to know everything. And right now, I don’t.”

“I’ll never tell you who has a copy of the tape,” Lou said.

“At some point you’ll see the wisdom of telling me everything.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. Kilmartin, I’ve been stupid about a lot of things, but I’m not stupid about you. Your list of perps is missing at least one. Copeland took orders from someone. Who? You? Someone had to have access to my military records for Copeland to know all about my Vietnam experience and misjudgment in Germany. That’s information that’s securely stored in the Pentagon, and very few people have clearance to look at it whenever they like. But the FBI has access to everything if they can convince a judge that national security is at stake, and that’s a very broad mandate. That brings us right back to you. You had the Panamanians at the roadblock and you let them go. You let them grab me at Battery Park. You show up out here in the boondocks out of the blue. How did you know we were here without talking to Copeland? Why did you kill him?”

“I’ve answered those questions. We planted a transmitter on their car.”

“On the Audi. It’s a cinder now,” Lou said.

“On both of their cars. We have a continuous signal. It brings us right in on the transmitter. That why we’re here. As a general principle, we’re not going to grab the low-level operatives the first chance we get, losing the opportunity to learn more from just following them to the big cheese. Right now, in this case, we don’t have him.”

Lou’s response made it clear he still didn’t trust Kilmartin. “The purpose that jumps out at you for the bridge escapade is too simplistic to be plausible. It’s a simple enough motivation to understand: payback for all our mischief on the canal all those years. Send a one-term president off to early retirement. Or was it the Patricia Buck motivation, another one easy to understand, in which the president charges in like the Seventh Cavalry to steal the election?”

“The case is still open. I want you to work with us on it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The public has already relegated the bridge thing to the Stranger Than Fiction history of bizarre presidential election maneuvers. You have never been publicly identified in connection with it. You can go to work tomorrow as usual in Paramus and nobody would bat an eyelash. Almost nobody would. Patricia Buck died in a robbery attempt as far as anyone knows. No one but us connects her to this. We want to use that.”

“How do you know about Buck?” Lou asked.

“She owned the Fort Lee apartment. She worked for Pierson Browne. She was a consultant to the Bliss election campaign. She got bumped off. The dots connect. How, you ask?

“We don’t know who the big cheese is, but it’s probably somebody who was close to Patricia Buck; somebody with access to your military records, all of them, all the little notes and correspondence, not just the public records. Somebody who conveyed this information to Nidio here, and Javier out there on the ground. By the way, Javier wasn’t a total asshole. He served three honorable years at Fort Leonard Wood.

“Now this somebody is waiting, too. Waiting to see what comes out of this messy business right here. Who has survived? Are all links to him neatly clipped off?

“Unfortunately, our avenues to identify this person are now mostly closed—mostly, but not totally. There’s you. So we dangle you in plain sight. Back in your glass office in Paramus, and your Westover account, unconnected with this bridge farce.”

“Nobody connects me to all this? You’ve obviously been poking around within Pierson Browne. You must have talked to Swisher and Westover. It’s got to be spread all over the office, if not the whole street by now.”

“We have ways of making highly discreet and innocuous inquiries having to do with trading activity that remain completely off the radar screens. We saw the trades coming out of the branch; we traced the account to Westover. Nobody knows we were looking at this stuff.”

“How did you know about my glass office?”

“Anybody looking like a potential client can walk in to Pierson Browne and ask for you. Correct?”

“You knew they were in the apartment. Why didn’t you tap their phone to see who they called?” Lou asked.

“They only used public telephones, a different one for each call. Are you ever going to stop suspecting me, Lou? All right, I did leave you in a highly precarious position back at Battery Park. They could’ve killed you right there, or in the car. I’m sorry, but that’s the business I’m in. I have to take what is given to me and keep my eye on the ball. Your safety was secondary if I wanted to remain unknown to them and keep holding on to a connection to the big cheese. You got yourself involved in this very dirty business, Lou. This is a chaotic, law-of-the-jungle world I live in. Your experience is with the military—a sometimes cruel and deadly occupation, too—but believe me, it pales in comparison.

“Now, hopefully, we can keep Margaret and your family out of it, although even that isn’t for sure. It may be a week, a year… Who knows? When all of this has cooled down and everyone else has forgotten, he will not have forgotten. He’ll make a move. Why? Because he knows who you are. He knows that Bear Mountain Bridge on election night was not a prank. It was not a Keystone Kops comedy sketch. It was someone: maybe in the government, maybe in the National Security apparatus, maybe somewhere in some embassy. We don’t know where. Somebody probably highly placed, very guarded, and secretive. Somebody manipulating the election process. It was something. It sounds wild, I know— something, okay? Something at its core, like a coup. And, you’re the smoking gun.

“I’m putting you out there in jeopardy again, yes. But, we’re sealing off all the potential leaks. I’ve clamped a lid on the NYPD: confiscated the police report of your arrest, shredded the report on the man Titus Moore from the trailer park, instructed Strachan and the rest of the force at the 53rd Precinct that there would be a world of hurt descending on them if they as much as thought about talking to reporters about this case again. We’re open to any other potential sources of information as we find out about them. You have a choice. Cooperate, or don’t cooperate and face the consequences. Now, can you identify any other potential links to damaging information?”

“A couple.” Lou said. “There’s a kid in a Mobil station in Fort Lee who rented me the van, and another kid working in administration at Ramapo College. There’s a groundskeeper at Ramapo I talked to. There’s a bunch of people who witnessed a hit and run on me down on Wall Street. There’s a clerk at Ames in Ramsey, and a clerk at Hertz who rented me a car.”

Lou fell silent as he searched his memory, consciously avoiding any exposure to Tom Holt and Dory.

“There’s the limo driver,” Maggie said. “And the MPs who stopped me outside of Fort Montgomery.”

“Is that it?” Kilmartin asked, glancing at Rieglehaupt who was furiously taking notes.

“That’s it,” Lou said.

“I’ll check with you by the end of the day to see if you remembered any more. Now, you’re free to go,” Kilmartin said.

Lou and Mag walked together to the door, straight to the Subaru. Arm in arm, marching past a SWAT team half a dozen strong in combat gear; past Stanfield’s body, still sprawled grotesquely against the wheel of his car; past the cop with the bullhorn. Lou opened the Subaru’s passenger-side door and Mag slid in.

He turned to face the men who followed them at a distance, Kilmartin still whispering into the phone. Out of the corner of his eye, Lou saw the blue and white patrol car move out of its position along the exit road. He stepped forward.

“Call your man down out of the rocks,” he said to the SWAT team leader. The man looked to Kilmartin, who hesitated and then nodded.

From the rocky cleft above the car, a man in black stood and slowly worked his way through the trees and boulders. He stopped ten feet from Lou, his feet spread defiantly, the butt of his sniper rifle against his hip and balanced in the crook of his elbow.

Lou walked slowly toward the man, straightening his back with every step, raising his chin higher. The others crowded in.

“Bring this man to attention,” Lou said. The team leader glanced at Kilmartin.

“Sullivan. Atten-hut!”

Sullivan lowered his rifle to the ground, pulled his feet together, and arched his back. He glanced over Lou’s shoulder at the team leader behind him. Then Sullivan grabbed the bill of his cap, set it straight over his forehead, spat a wad of gum onto the ground, and stared straight ahead.

Lou stepped directly in front of Sullivan, less than a foot away. He pulled his own shoulders back, gazed directly into the man’s eyes, and then shifted his gaze to inspect his hat, his chest, his rifle, and his boots. The team leader came to stand beside him.

“You gave your position away,” Lou growled. “I could see you a mile away.” He slowly reached and balanced on his index finger the small, gold earring that hung from Sullivan’s left lobe. Lou squeezed it with his thumb and ripped it down sharply through soft flesh, dangling the bloody orb at the man’s face to wing a glint of sun into his eyes. Then he popped it into his mouth and swallowed.

* * *

Lou at the wheel, Maggie beside him, pulled past the blue and white patrol car; past an unmarked ambulance-type vehicle; and over the knoll at the foot of Bear Swamp Lake. In the rearview mirror, Lou saw Kilmartin standing in the middle of the road, the phone still held to his lips.

Lou and Maggie rolled slowly along the curves and dips in the roadway; past the stream that crashed between boulders and over the stony bed; past a black limousine at the Ramapo Bridge and the Camp Yaw Paw sign.

On the highway, the Subaru flashed out of the shadows and into the sunlight, and rolled on beside the river.

* * *

NEW YORK—In the wake of one of the most startling political campaigns of all time, in which the underdog, incumbent president, Jordan Bliss, lost his office, Mr. Bliss announced from his “anti-crime headquarters” in the White House that two Panamanian men, apparently the last members of the bizarre fire bomb plot at Bear Mountain Bridge on the eve of the election, were killed early this morning in a dramatic showdown in a secluded, lakeside cabin near Mahwah, New Jersey.

THE END

About the Author

Larry Crane is a West Point graduate who began a seven year Airborne Ranger Infantry career in the mud in Germany, commanded Basic Trainees at Fort Knox, and served a tour in Vietnam patrolling the Central Highlands as an ARVN Ranger battalion advisor. He made the transition to civilian life as a stock broker with Dean Witter & Company, and later commuted to New York for eighteen years at Manufacturers Hanover where he managed a department of the bank involved in providing information and investment evaluation services to large corporate pension funds. He earned an MBA in computer applications and information systems at NYU. He has written non-fiction articles for outdoors magazines, numerous plays, and some short fiction. He is currently at work on a sequel to “A Bridge to Treachery.” He has two grown up children, and lives on the coast of Maine with his wife, Jan.

Table of Contents

A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror

Midpoint