The Tin Man
Authors: Nina Mason
Published by
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, LLC.
Novi, Michigan 48374
The right of Nina Mason to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover art by:
Rue Volley
Edited by:
Elizabeth A. Lance
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing.
All rights reserved.
Contents
T
o all the brave souls who protect our freedoms,
whether
by pen, sword, or law.
My sincerest thanks go out to the following individuals
for
their assistance and/or inspiration during the commission of this novel:
Ben Bagdigian, whose book,
The Media Monopoly
, helped inspire this cautionary tale.
The POWs whose first-hand accounts
of their treatment in Baghdad lent authenticity
to
Alex Buchanan’s flashbacks.
My writing coach and friend, Bruce McAllister, for helping me tell a better story.
Jane Cowley, public affairs officer for the National Parks Service, for helping me be accurate about the Rising Sun Chair and Independence Hall.
Don Stratton, a Scottish friend and fellow writer, for helping fill in the details of
Alex Buchanan’s childhood memories of Edinburgh
.
The Founding Fathers, especially Alexander Hamilton, to whom this nation owes far more
than
a place on the ten-dollar bill.
1
Monday
Greenwich Village, New York
It
was pitch black under the hood, but he could feel the heat of the lights. It was quiet, too. Deathly so. They were there, though. Looming, breathing, oozing the pong of sweat laced with onion, garlic, and cumin. One of them was right in front of him. He could sense him there, could hear the rub of fabric, the squeak of a chair. Even so, he jerked when a gruff Iraqi voice boomed: “Name?”
“
Buchanan, Alexander.” His throat was so raw it hurt to speak.
“Rank?”
“Civilian. I’m a journalist. With the
Edinburgh Times
.”
“What were you doing on the Apache?”
He bit down and fisted his bound hands to keep from shaking. He’d not been trained to withstand torture and was scared shitless.
Wham.
The blow knocked him to the ground. Pain exploded across his shoulder. Rough hands pulled him up, dropping him back on the stool.
“The mission
. What was the purpose?”
He’d been
riding along on a secret operation to take out their airbases—not that he planned to tell them as much. Or anything else, for that matter.
Wham.
Back on the floor, stars swimming behind his eyes. Something struck the knee he’d tweaked while jumping from the spinning chopper. The pain was a knife of agony. He yelped. Another kick, same spot. Fuck. They’d discovered his weakness.
The interrogator’s voice changed.
“Shrek?”
He could smell the sweat of the room, could taste the copper
y brine of his own blood.
“Earth to Shrek.
Come in Shrek.”
The voice was louder now.
A woman’s voice, drawing him back. The hood was dissolving.
“
Yo, Alex. Look alive. Deadline’s in ten minutes.”
Eyes snapping open, h
e sprang out of his chair. Breathing hard, he leaned over his desk and set his palms flat on the cool leather blotter. He was drenched in sweat, his pulse was going a mile a minute, and he felt like puking.
“
Jesus, dude. Are you okay?”
Kelsey
Newman, his copy editor, stood in the doorway, looking at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. He wanted to tell her he was far from okay, but he couldn’t remember how to speak. Baghdad clung like cobwebs in the corners of his mind. Dropping in his chair, he looked around—the towering windows, the soaring ceilings, the exposed brick—reminding himself where he was. Not in the basement prison of the Iraqi secret police, but in his office at
The Progressive Voice
, the online news site he’d started two years ago. He opened his desk drawer, removed the pewter flask he kept filled with whisky, and took a long swallow.
“I’ll take that as a no
.” She scowled at him as she stepped into the room. “But isn’t it a little early to be hitting the sauce?”
He didn’t give a rat’s
arse. He needed a drink. Badly. He took another gulp, cleared his throat, found his voice.
“
As we say in Scotland, you can’t drink all day unless you start in the morning.”
She stopped in front of his desk. He didn’t want to look at her
—or let her look at him. He lit a cigarette and took it with him to the window, favoring his right leg, a souvenir from Baghdad
.
The memory still swam around him like the smoke from his cigarette.
He looked out. It was a gray October morning.
Overcast and dreary, with an icy wind blowing off the Hudson. Nothing like the hellish inferno Iraq had been.
“
Seriously, Shrek. Are you okay?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer her, so he didn’t. She
insisted she called him “Shrek” because he was a strapping Scot, but he knew what he was. An ogre. And a cripple. Crippled in body and spirit. The flashbacks. The nightmares. The outbursts. The bum leg. The stunted emotions.
Turning at last, he met
eyes the same mossy green as his own. She was attractive in that dewy, fresh-faced way all women were at that age. Which was what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?
“No offense,” she said, coming
closer, “but you look like death spread on a cracker.”
That was just how he felt,
too. And not just because of the lingering flashback. He’d stayed out too late because of a speaking engagement. Freedom of the press, one of his favorite topics. Afterward, he’d hung around to talk with the students about how to get a leg up in journalism. One of them, a nubile lass named Mackenzie, had invited him back to her room. He’d turned her down. Mainly because, like Kelsey, she was young enough to be his daughter. Only he’d never have a daughter, would he? Or a wife.
Because he was the Tin Man, a hollow suit of armor, standing around like a bloody basket case while the minutes counted down to his deadline. For a moment, he considered jumping, putting an end to his miserable dead-inside existence once and for all, but shoved the thought away.
Suicide was a long-term solution to a short-term problem, besides which, it would kill his mother.
She’d already lost his brother, Kenny. If he took his life, she’d have no one but his miserable excuse for a father. Plus, there was the
Voice
to think about. His staff and what they were trying to do and the incomplete commentary beckoning from his computer.
Limping back to the desk, he
crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, plopped down, and regarded Kelsey pensively. “Do you know the story of
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
?”
She blinked down at him,
clearly clueless. “Is that what your column’s about this week? Some war hero?”
H
e compressed his lips. That was another problem with younger women—they didn’t share his cultural frames of reference. “It’s a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. My mother used to read it to me and my twin brother when we were wee lads.”
Kelsey
, brow furrowed by suspicion, folded her arms across her impressive chest. “Fairy tales are part of the patriarchal plot to trap women in their traditional roles so men never have to evolve.”
“This one’s not,” he
told her, letting the misandrical dig slide. “On the surface it’s about a one-legged tin soldier who loves a paper ballerina—but it’s really about the cruel exigencies of fate. In the end, they both burn up in a fire.”
“
Sounds depressing.” She came closer. “And, em, Shrek—I hate to be a hard-ass here, especially when, well, you’re the boss and all, but, ah-hem,”—she tapped her watch-less wrist—“the d-hour approaches, if you catch my drift.”
She
stood over him, so near he could smell the herbal fragrance of shampoo in her long red hair. Her blouse was unbuttoned just far enough to reveal the white-lace scallop edging her bra. She had a healthy pair of chebs, as the lads would say back in Auld Reeky. Images of the Christmas party popped in his mind like flashbulbs. Their bodies pressed together, tongues wrestling, hearts pounding, hips grinding, hands everywhere. It felt like somebody else’s memory. Or a soap opera he’d seen on the telly.
“I’ll have it for you in
ten minutes.” His mouth was as dry as a desert storm. “Fifteen tops.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She set a hand on his shoulder.
“
I’m fine.” It was a lie. The flashback had faded, but he still felt shaken. She lingered, adding to his uneasiness. “Ten minutes.” He swallowed hard. “Now get out of here so I can get on with it, eh?”
She started toward the doorway, but turned back. With a
suggestive waggle of her eyebrows, she said, “Maybe you could tell me your soldier story over lunch—while I’m sitting on your lap.”