The Prisoner (48 page)

“Is that what sustained you?” Laurel’s question sounded redundant, but she voiced it anyway.

“I must have denied the tank.”

“What do you mean?” Lukas asked.

“Things exist only if you acknowledge them. An insult is only sound; it needs your collaboration to have impact.”

Lukas nodded. “So you refused to accept the tank’s existence and shrank instead into the cold and darkness of your childhood snow hole.”

Laurel reached for Floyd’s hand and breathed deeply, awed before the capacity of the human mind to clutch at selected memories to survive and feeling sorry for the lonely being imprisoned in Russo’s skin and skull. Most men would be
raving mad after what Russo had gone through, and that would have played heavily in Tyler’s mind when planning the breakout. Had Russo been insane, their endeavor was doomed to start with.

For a while nobody spoke. Raul and Antonio sat together, their eyes never leaving Russo’s face, now placid and seemingly dozing. Tyler leaned against the living room’s door frame, a can of beer in his hand, probably warm; he hadn’t sipped from it since Russo started to speak. Each seemed lost in their own thoughts, perhaps wondering how they would survive a tank—a frightening possibility considering their circumstances.

Then Russo’s eyelids fluttered and again he moved his mouth as if to dislodge a bad taste. “Cold, darkness, and Beth’s voice.”

“Marco Polo?”

Laurel glanced at the Woody Allen look-alike, surprised to notice that Lukas fixed Russo with an intense stare as if he was sending or waiting for a vital secret.

“Yes. And
The Jungle Book
, and
Kim
, and … ‘Gunga Din.’”

“Did they wake you often?” Floyd stretched his arm again to slip the straw between Russo’s lips.

“I suppose so. It was numbing cold and dark. Then, after a long time, I would drift back to sleep and the darkness of my nightmares.”

Behind her, Laurel heard ice cracking and chinking against the sides of a glass as Tyler trickled a drink over the cubes.

“How long?” Russo asked.

Laurel jerked upright and dug her fingers into Floyd’s hand. She had been dreading the question. Probably they all had, but nobody voiced it. The air seemed to pulse and flow like water running under ice.

A faint smile tugged at Russo’s lips. “That long?”

She realized all eyes were on Floyd.

“Eight years, two months, and six days.” Floyd’s voice rang with the brutality of truth.

“Thank you.” The smile never left Russo’s lips.

“You knew …” Laurel blurted.

“A rough guess only.”

“But, how …?

“You. Difficult without hair, but mid-twenties is my guess. And you,” he turned his face toward Raul, “also helped to fish me out?”

Raul nodded.

“Thank you,” Russo repeated. Then the dark sunglasses Russo had permanently stolen from Tyler rotated, and Laurel could sense his eyes settling on her. “Why?”

It was a personal question voiced in public—a question she couldn’t answer yet. “First we need to win this war.”

Russo nodded once.

“How did they do it?” Lukas asked.

Russo turned his head a fraction in his direction. “I don’t follow.”

“I mean, they said you died in a car crash.”

“Ah, that. I don’t remember much. It was done in a tunnel. As I neared the exit, I spotted two cars blocking it; behind me was another car. A police car. As I reached for my driver’s license, an officer hit me with an electric prod. When I woke up it was cold and dark.”

“But why?” Lukas insisted.

“I can answer that,” Laurel intervened. “The vendetta of a spurned woman.” She highlighted the salient details from the story her anonymous recruiter had hinted at in their telephone conversations and from the dossier Tyler had let her read when she knew him only as Shepherd. Laurel detailed the tragic relationship between Odelle Marino and Araceli Goldberg, stopping the narration after Russo’s abandonment of the pregnant young woman before the police’s charge.

“I was twenty-three,” Russo whispered. “And a coward.” He paused. “I still am.”

“Well, she extracted her pound of flesh,” Floyd said.

Russo moved an almost translucent arm to his emaciated thigh and squeezed. “Rather more, I fear.”

“Still.” Floyd pinched his lower lip. “I can’t figure something, though. Why did she wait so long? There were almost twenty years between Araceli’s death and his abduction.”

“Clout,” Russo said. “Up until ten years ago, Odelle Marino wasn’t powerful enough to get away with it.”

“And means,” Laurel echoed. “Hibernation is not that old a technology.”

After a thick silence lasting a few seconds, Russo’s head lolled, and the sound of his breathing deepened.

Russo slept until well past dusk. When they switched on the TV screen to watch the evening news, he stirred and waved his hand to hike up the volume.

Laurel neared the sofa to help lift him higher on his pillows so he could watch. As she reached under his emaciated arms, she felt Russo’s hand grip hers with a fierceness she didn’t believe was possible in his condition. She froze and peered into his wraparound sunglasses, unable to see beyond the dark lenses. Then he let go and his fingers traced the outline of her cheekbones, her nose, her chin, as if he was committing her features to memory. A drop of liquid peeked from under the frame of his shades, then rolled swiftly down his gaunt cheek.

10:30

Jerome Palmer glanced at a battered ormolu clock sitting above the fireplace when it produced a ratchet noise ending in a hollow clunk: ten-thirty. Eons ago, he’d helped his father castrate the clock by excising its bells. He’d been impossibly young, on short reprieve between sophomore semesters at Harvard. After polishing off a decanter of port—a vintage Sandeman, from which Mother accepted only a sip—Senator Leon Palmer had led a foraging party of two to a seldom-visited corner in the house’s cellar. Later, after much arguing over the respective merits of grape and grain, they had adjourned to the library, clutching a dusty bottle of cognac and two snifters.

After listening to his father’s preposterous tale of a defrocked bishop turned pimp—to cash in on his proselytizing savvy—and with the contents of the venerable bottle a memory, they had suffered in hazy stupor the racket of the clock as it chimed away at midnight. With the sudden enlightenment of the very drunk, they carried the clock to the garage and proceeded to strip its back and remove the bells to thwart future interruptions. Mother would never let anyone forget and would mutter, “That poor castrated clock,” every time the machine struggled to accomplish the task conceived by its creators.

The house had been silent for a long time.

Chelsea, his daughter, had left for work before seven with her husband. Regardless of their efforts at stealth, he’d heard the swift rush of their sedan’s motor and the crunch of gravel as they left. When by seven-thirty Mrs. Timmons, the housekeeper, failed to make an appearance—for the first time in ten years—he roused Timmy, supervised his toilette, and rustled up a breakfast of cereal and juice. Brad Hawkins, a lame ex-marine who refused to take a pension at forty-five, and who doubled as his driver and handyman, hadn’t turned up at the appointed time either to take Timmy to school. The situation abundantly clear, Palmer climbed the steps and marched to Timmy’s room.

“What are you reading, son?”

The little boy held up his large book.

“Let me see.” Palmer donned his reading glasses and leaned over Timmy’s shoulder. He scanned the picture of a lone officer in impeccable blue atop a small knoll, surrounded by a sea of feathered warriors. A caption underneath read:
General Custer’s Last Stand
.

“I don’t understand, Grandpa.”

“What is it you don’t understand?”

“Instead of stand, why didn’t General Custard attack?”

Palmer thought it over. “Beats me, but I’ll look into it.” Then he gently squeezed Timmy’s shoulder. “No school today. I have an assignment for you, soldier. Will you accept it?”

Timmy nodded his head enthusiastically.

“Good, here is what you must do. I am waiting for some
people. Bad people. Probably there will be a woman. She’s a spy, a wicked spy. You’d better go to your tree house and keep me covered at all times. Now, soldier, this is important: Don’t come down, no matter what you see. Don’t come down until I call you. Promise?”

Timmy seemed to weigh his orders and then sprang to his feet, drawing a hand to his chest. “Cross my heart, sir!”

That had been over an hour ago.

The wide screen flashed an artificially colored thermal image showing a large red spot, another of smaller size, and a few tiny ones.

“The large blob is the senator, this is the boy, and the others are a few squirrels, a rabbit, and rats in the senator’s basement. There’s nothing else within a mile radius; no other heat signatures.”

Odelle peered at the screen. “And these?”

“One car with our men and the housekeeper at the intersection with the E 311, and another with the senator’s driver at the track leading to the house. Er …”

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“The crippled driver—he tackled the men …” A predictable description of stupidity under the guise of heroism followed.

Silence.

“Where’s the boy?”

“In a tree house. Should we grab him?”

Applying force was an art. Often a threat was more effective than an action, and Senator Palmer was unpredictable. “No, leave him there.”

With a final glance to the dim van’s interior and the four men hunched before surveillance and communications stations, she turned to the sergeant by the side door. “Get my car and let’s pay a visit to our friend.”

Palmer snapped from his reverie at the buzzing sound of the main entrance gate opening. Besides his daughter and her husband, only Mrs. Timmons and Hawkins had access cards, but he doubted any of them had opened the gate.

At the kitchen, he glanced at a split screen offering different views of the estate. A dark sedan was progressing along the graveled road to the house.

He sighed, his mind replaying Seth’s trial before the gods.
I have the lettuce leaf loaded for you
. He walked toward the main door, opened it, and stepped onto the porch in time to see Odelle Marino alighting from her car, chaperoned by two young men with lively eyes. Another woman, the driver, remained behind the wheel.
Let’s see if you wolf it down
.

“Madam Director, what a pleasant surprise.”

“Thank you, Senator, I was passing by and I thought I’d pay you a visit.” She climbed the steps and offered her hand for a dry, warm, strong handshake.

“Please, come in.” Palmer pointed to the open door and led the way into the house and his study. “We’ll be more comfortable here.”

She told her bodyguards to wait by the car.

As they entered Palmer’s den, the clock whirred to follow with twelve evenly spaced thwacks. Odelle spied the contraption, one inquisitive eyebrow flexing upward.

“Ah, the clock …” Palmer chuckled. “A long story. Coffee, tea, something stronger?”

“Thank you, Senator, nothing. I will be leaving shortly.” From her handbag, she drew a flat frequency analyzer. “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

After a while, apparently satisfied, she made as if to sit on an easy chair but seemed to think better of it. She glanced through the twin glazed doors leading to the back garden and smiled. “You have a wonderful garden. Could we take a stroll?”

“Of course. Here, let me.” Palmer gripped the handle and slid one of the doors aside.

“Senator, this is truly magnificent.”

Palmer offered her a dazzling smile. “Madam, I’d rather you cut the bullshit, deliver your pitch, and get the hell out of my house.”

Her composure never cracked. “I admire your professionalism. Business first.”

“Only, in this instance, the pleasure is all yours.”

She drew closer and gripped his arm. “Charming as usual.” Then her voice altered and dropped—low, throaty. “You’ve been a naughty boy, Senator, stealing something of mine. I suppose that, as he is your son, you have a claim of sorts on Russo, but I find your sudden discovery of earth-shattering paternal love gratuitous. You could have acted like a real father, given him an education, and taught him to be a man, whatever that means. Instead, you sired a despicable bastard and got rid of him. But let bygones be bygones.”

They continued strolling arm in arm toward the center of the lawn. “Your driver was killed on his way to work.”

Palmer whirled and grabbed her wrist. “You bitch!”

Instead of backing off, Odelle drew near until her breasts brushed Palmer’s chest. Her mouth twisted. “It was an accident. The man tackled four DHS officers from the Special Forces, bare-handed. Epic, but a waste. Don’t worry. His car will explode somewhere. Accidents happen every day.”

“Have you finished?” Palmer fought to control his mounting rage.

“Here is my deal. I want Russo back. As soon as you deliver him, I will have him disappear with the rest of the center inmates without a trace; they would have never existed. Then I will tender my resignation. You’ll be able to clean the stables and bring Hypnos to heel. That’s what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?”