My turn arrived; I was summoned forth. Many smiles and winks were exchanged among the witnesses. I took my seat—a board balanced upon the chair’s chrome arms—as the barber, like a toreador flashing his cape, shook out the curtain with which he meant to dress me, wrapped toilet paper around my neck, and draped my body in decapitating plastic. That was when I noticed the mirrors. One on the wall before me, one behind, and my likeness—a reflection of a reflection of a reflection—caroming down the corridor of cold eternity. The sight brought forth an existential nausea. Infinity: I knew the term, yes, but the world of boyhood is finite and firm. To gaze into the heart of it, and to see my likeness stamped a million-fold upon its face, disconcerted me profoundly. The barber, meanwhile, had set blithely about his task, simultaneously engaged in lighthearted conversation with my father on various adult subjects. I thought that focusing my eyes solely upon the first image might somehow banish the others, but the effect was the opposite: I was made even more aware of the innumerable shadow selves lurking behind him, ad infinitum, infinitum, infinitum.
But then something else happened. My discomfort waned. The lush sensory package of the place, combined with the delicate tickling of the barber’s shears upon my neck, eased me into a state of trancelike fascination. The idea came to me: I was not just one small thing. I was, in fact, a multitude. Looking farther, I believed I detected among my infinite fellows certain subtle differences. This one’s eyes were a bit closer together, a second’s ears were positioned a fraction higher on his head, a third sat just a little lower in his chair. To test my theory, I commenced to make small adjustments—angling my gaze, wrinkling my nose, winking one eye and then the other. Each version of me responded in kind, and yet I discerned the tiniest lag, the barest hitch of time, between my action and its manifold duplication. The barber warned me that if I did not hold still he might accidently cut my ear off—more virile laughter—but his words made no impact, so thoroughly was I enjoying my new discovery. It became a kind of game. Fanning says: Stick out your tongue. Fanning says: Raise one finger. What delicious power I possessed! “Come on, son,” my father commanded, “quit your fussing,” but I wasn’t fussing—far from it. Never had I felt so alive.
Life wrests that feeling from us. Day by day, the sublime glimpses of childhood pass away. It is love, of course, and only love, that restores us to ourselves, or so we hope, but that is taken away. What is left when there is no love? A rope and rock.
I have been dying forever. That is what I mean to say. I have been dying as you are dying, my Alicia. It was you I saw in the mirror, that long-ago morning of boyhood; it is you I see now, as I walk these streets of glass. There is one love, made of hope, and another, made of grief.
I have, my Alicia, loved you.
Now you are gone; I knew this day would come. The look on your face as you strode into the hall: there was wrath in it, yes. How angry you were with me, how your eyes flashed with feelings of betrayal, how the words spat with righteous fury from your lips.
This isn’t our deal,
you said.
You said you would leave them alone.
But you know as well as I that we cannot; our purpose is ordained. Hope is none but vapid sweetness to the tongue, without the taste of blood. What are we, Alicia, but the gauntlet through which humanity must pass? We are the knife of the world, clamped between God’s teeth.
Forgive me, Alicia, my modest deceit. You made it rather easy. In my defense, I did not lie. I would have told you, had you asked; you believed because you wanted to. You might ask yourself, Who, my dear, was following whom? Who the watcher and who the watched? Night after night you prowled the tunnels like a schoolmarm counting heads. Honestly, your gullibility was a little disappointing. Did you truly believe that all my children are here? That I could have been so careless? That I would be content to bide a meaningless eternity? I am a scientist, methodical in all things; my eyes are everywhere, seeing all. My descendants, my Many: I walk with them, I haunt the night, I see as they see, and what do I behold? The great city defenseless, all but abandoned. The small towns and farms, staking their claim. Humanity bursting with ripeness, flowing over the land. They have forgotten us; their minds have returned to the ordinary concerns of life. How will the weather be? What will I wear to the dance? Whom should I marry? Shall I have a child? What will I name it?
What would you tell them, Alicia?
The heavens toy with me; I will have satisfaction. I have waited long enough for this savior, this Girl from Nowhere, this Amy NLN. She taunts me with her silence, her limitless, tactical calm. To flush me out, that is her aspiration, and so she shall have it. I know what you are thinking, Alicia. Surely I must despise her, for the deaths of my ignoble fellows, my Twelve. Far from it! The day she faced them was one of the happiest of my long, unhappy exile. Her sacrifice was supreme. It was positively God-kissed. It gave me—dare I use the word?—hope. Without alpha, there can be no omega; without beginning, no end.
Bring her to me,
I told you
. My quarrel is not with humankind; it is but ransom to the nobler purpose. Bring her to me, my darling, my Lish, and I will spare the rest
.
Oh, I have no illusions. I know what you will do. Always I have known, and I have loved you no less for it—to the contrary. You are the better part of me; each of us must play his role.
Thus the long-awaited day. You asked, Who is the king, whose conscience we must catch? Is it I, or is there another? Shall the creator be moved to pity his creation? Soon we will know. The stage is set, the lights go down, the actors take their marks.
Let it begin.
IV
The Heist
May 122
A.V.
The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.
—SHAKESPEARE,
MEASURE
FOR
MEASURE
34
“Everybody, kill your engines.”
0440 hours: In darkness they rowed the final fifty yards to shore and dragged the launches onto the sand. A few hundred yards south, the glow of burning butane flickered in the sky. Michael checked his rifle, racked his sidearm, and returned it to its holster. Everyone else did the same.
They broke into three groups and scuttled up the dunes. Rand’s squad would take the workers’ quarters, Weir’s the radio and control rooms. Michael’s team, the largest, would rendezvous with Greer’s to secure the Army barracks and armory. That’s where the shooting would be.
Michael pressed the radio to his mouth. “Lucius, are you in position?”
“Roger that. Waiting on your signal.”
The refinery was protected by a two-tiered fence line with guard towers; the remainder of the perimeter was a gauntlet of trip-wire mines. The only access from the north was straight through the gate. Greer would lead the frontal assault using a tanker truck equipped with a plow. A pair of trucks full of men would follow. A pickup at the rear, armed with a fifty-caliber and a grenade launcher, would dispense with the towers if need be. Michael’s orders were to avoid casualties if possible, but if it came to that …
The teams dispersed at a quick step. Michael and his men took up positions around the barracks, a long Quonset hut with doors front and rear. They were expecting fifty well-armed men inside, perhaps more.
“Team one.”
“Good to go.”
“Team two.”
“Roger that.”
Michael checked his watch: 0450. He looked at Patch, who nodded.
Michael raised his flare gun and fired. A popping flash and the compound appeared around them in blocks of light and shadow. A second later, Patch launched the gas canister from its tube. Shouts and gunfire from the gate, and then a crash as the semi plowed through the fence. Gas had begun to sift under the door of the barracks. As it flew open, Michael’s men released a barrage of grazing fire into the dirt. The fleeing soldiers lurched backward in confusion. More men were careening into them from behind, choking and coughing and sputtering.
“On your knees! Drop your weapons! Hands on your heads!”
The soldiers had nowhere to run; onto their knees they went.
“Everyone, report.”
“Team two, secure.”
“Lucius?”
“No casualties. Headed your way.”
“Team one?”
Michael’s men had moved forward to wrap the soldiers’ wrists and ankles with heavy cord. Most were still coughing, a few vomiting helplessly.
“Team one, report.”
A grainy crackle of static; then, a voice, not Rand’s: “Secure.”
“Where’s Rand?”
A pause, followed by laughter. “You’ll have to give him a minute. That woman sure packs a wallop.”
It had been too easy. Michael had expected more of a fight—
any
kind of fight.
“These guns are practically empty.”
Greer showed him; none of the soldiers’ magazines had more than two rounds.
“What about the armory?”
“Clean as a whistle.”
“That’s actually not so good.”
From Greer, a tight nod. “I know. We’ll have to do something about that.”
It was Rand who brought Lore to him. Her wrists were bound. At the sight of him she startled, then quickly composed herself.
“I guess you missed me, Michael?”
“Hello, Lore.” Then, to Rand: “Take those off.”
Rand cut her loose. Lore had nailed him with a hard right cross. His left eye was half-shut, his cheek marked with the imprint of her fist. Michael felt almost proud.
“Let’s go someplace and talk,” he said.
He led Lore into the station chief’s office.
Her
office: for fifteen years, the refinery had been Lore’s to run. Michael sat behind the desk to make a point; Lore sat across from him. The day had broken, warming the room with its light. She looked older, of course, aged by sun and work, but the raw physicality was still there, the strength.
“So how’s your pal Dunk?”
Michael smiled at her. “It’s good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“I mean it.”
She glanced away, a furious look on her face. “Michael, what do you want?”
“I need fuel. Heavy diesel, the dirty stuff.”
“Going into the oil business? It’s a hard life—I don’t recommend it.”
He took a long breath. “I know this doesn’t make you happy. But there’s a reason.”
“Is that right?”
“How much do you have?”
“You know what I always liked best about you, Michael?”
“No, what?”
“I don’t remember either.”
It was true: she was just the same. Michael felt a frisson of attraction. Her power had not abated.
He leaned back in his chair, balanced the tips of his fingers together, and said, “You have a major delivery to the Kerrville depot scheduled in five days. Add that to what’s in the storage tanks, I’m figuring you’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty thousand gallons.”
Lore shrugged indifferently.
“So I should take that as a yes?”
“You should take it up your ass, actually.”
“I’m going to find out anyway.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine. Yes, eighty thousand, more or less. Does that satisfy you?”
“Good. I’m going to need it all.”
Lore cocked her head. “I beg your pardon?”
“With twenty tanker trucks, I’m thinking we can move it all in just under six days. After that, we’ll release your people. No harm, no foul. You’ve got my word.”
Lore was staring at him. “Move it
where
? What the hell do you need eighty thousand gallons for?”
Ah.
The tanker trucks were being loaded; the first convoy would be ready to move by 0900. For Michael, five days of looking at his watch, yelling at everyone:
Hurry the hell up
.
One wrinkle, maybe small, maybe not. When Weir’s men had stormed the communications hut, the radio operator had been in the midst of sending a message. There was no way to know what it was, because the man was dead—the morning’s only fatality.
“How the hell did that happen?”
Weir shrugged. “Lombardi thought he had a weapon. It looked like he was drawing on us.”
The weapon was a stapler.
“Have any messages come in since?” Michael asked, thinking,
Lombardi, of course it would be you, you trigger-happy asshole.
“Nothing so far.”
Michael cursed himself. The man’s death was regrettable, but that wasn’t the true source of his anger. They should have taken out the radio first. A stupid mistake, probably not the first.
“Get on the horn,” he said, then thought the better of it. “No, wait until twelve hundred. That’s when they expect the refinery to check in.”
“What should I tell them?”
“ ‘Sorry, we shot the radio operator. He was waving office supplies at us.’ ”
Weir just looked at him.
“I don’t know, something
normal.
Everything’s peachy, how are you, isn’t it a nice day?”
The man hurried away. Michael walked to the Humvee, where Lore was waiting in the backseat. Rand was handcuffing her to the safety rail.
“You should take somebody else with you,” Rand said.
Michael accepted the key to the cuffs and got in the cab. He glanced at Lore through the mirror. “You promise to be good or do you need a babysitter?”
“The man you shot. His name was Cooley. The guy wouldn’t squash a bug.”
Michael looked at Rand. “I’ll be fine. Just get that diesel moving.”
The drive to the channel took three hours. Lore barely uttered a word, and Michael made no effort to draw her out. It had been a hard morning for her—the end of a career, the death of a friend, a public humiliation—all at the hands of a man she had every reason to despise. She needed time to adjust, especially considering the things Michael was about to tell her.