The Twice Lost (19 page)

He choked up a little and looked down. From off screen a gentle voice said, “Andrew. Can you go on?”

Secretary Moreland squirmed in his heavy armchair and rapped his knuckles against the desk supporting the large monitor where this new and even more outrageous video was playing. With each rap his reddish jowls swayed and his stiff white hair vibrated slightly. Three other men in suits stood fidgeting behind him, their eyes carefully blank but their mouths twisting.

The picture zoomed back out and Andrew Korchak looked up. “Right. Well, I was away for a while. I couldn’t help it, and it’s too much to tell you all, but Luce was alone with my brother and he . . . he hurt her. He hurt her so much that she stopped being a human girl, and she changed into what you’ve all seen. Don’t ask me to explain how it works. But I saw Luce after she turned into a mermaid, and that’s what she told me. And there are more of them. If some young girl you used to know, could be your daughter or your sister or your friend, if she went missing, she might be one of the mermaids now too.”

There was a tiny moan from the person off-screen. The focus of the cinnamon eyes shifted slightly upward.

“Kathleen? I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s okay. Let’s just finish. Please.”

“Okay. See, our government—the U.S. government—has got some kind of Special Operations guys out there killing mermaids. Not saying they don’t have their reasons. I think the mermaids might . . . they might go around drowning people. But if one of those mermaids used to be some girl you love, I bet you don’t want them all dead any more than I do. You want them back and safe and human again, like I do.”

The camera was pitching a little. The man looked worried, and he started talking faster.

“And even if they drown people, I know they also might save people sometimes. So I’m here to ask: if that’s you, and some mermaid saved your life before, get up on this Internet and say so. Or if you think a girl you miss is out there with my Luce, get up and say so. They’re pretty much kids. There’s got to be something else we can do. That’s all I wanted to ask you. Okay, thanks.”

The camera veered faster, pointing first at the window and then at the floor. There was a sound that was probably a chair toppling over and the image went dead.

Secretary Moreland slid back his chair and stood up as slowly and imposingly as he could manage. He was a large man, tall and broad, and he tilted over his three nervous deputies as he turned to them. “Why,” Moreland growled very slowly, “did I just watch this?”

A thin man flinched sharply back. “We thought it could be significant, Mr. Secretary. It seems to indicate that someone might have leaked classified information. We were concerned that it could—”

“Of course someone leaked classified information! This”— Moreland grimaced—“this
loser
didn’t learn about Operation Odysseus by reading the newspaper. That’s my question.
Why
was this allowed to happen?”

None of the suited men answered, though tiny jerky currents seemed to flow through their arms and feet. Moreland scowled until one of them added, “We’re reasonably confident, Mr. Secretary, that the information wasn’t leaked by anyone in the Department of Defense.”

“I personally feel quite clear on
who
was responsible for this leak, men. If the miscreant’s identity isn’t obvious to you as well, then you haven’t been paying attention to the subversive
drivel
that two-bit fanatic has been going around spouting.” The suited men flinched. They were all too familiar, by now, with the uncontrollable rancor Secretary Moreland felt for Agent Ben Ellison of the FBI. If his superiors weren’t so determined to protect him, Ellison would have been dispensed with long ago. “But that doesn’t answer my question, does it? Why was that whiny mermaid sympathizer allowed to go and jabber to Lucette Korchak’s
father
of all people? If the FBI can’t keep their own agents in check, then the responsibility falls to you. Or didn’t that
occur
to you?”

There was an awkward silence. “Sir, are you suggesting—”

“I’m suggesting that someone who thinks we can solve the mermaid problem by bringing those goddamn tails mugs of cocoa at bedtime should not be permitted to run around undermining our work!” Moreland’s lips were working as if he was chewing something too big to swallow. “Where
is
he?”

“Agent Ellison, sir? He’s on a flight back to Washington. Even the FBI suspects that he might have had something to do with this.”

“Not
him!
” Secretary Moreland shook his head in apparent disbelief at their stupidity. “I mean that ragtag fool who’s putting out these touching appeals to the public, making them think that we’re trying to wipe out every cute little girl who’s ever had her face on a milk carton!”

A few of the mermaids’ faces really might have appeared on milk cartons, of course. But no one said that. “Andrew Korchak?” The skinny man assumed a dismissive tone. “I don’t think anyone knows. He has quite a rap sheet, though. It’s only because this video was released by the same woman who posted the original mermaid tape that anyone has even noticed it. Personally, I don’t see how anyone could take him seriously.”

“Half a million views
already?
I would think that’s serious enough. If the public starts believing mermaids are real, that’s—at a minimum—highly inconvenient. If they start to think of mermaids as children rather than monsters, that’s worse. If we’re forced at some point to disclose what the teams are doing, we need to be able to frame our activity as what it is: eliminating an unacceptable threat to anyone who has business on the water. If people start thinking that we’re murdering helpless little girls instead of protecting good citizens and their nice babies and their dogs,
well
. . .”

“Sir, of course that would be an issue, but—”

“So if you’re planning, at some point, to try justifying the considerable trust I’ve placed in you by putting you three in charge of providing whatever land-based support the teams who are risking their
lives
out there need, you might consider that one of their primary needs is an oblivious public, or barring
that,
a supportive one!”

“Yes, sir.” The skinny man’s eyes were still carefully blank as he nodded.

“Sir, would you prefer if Andrew Korchak was . . . no longer a possible source of concern?”

Moreland sighed and paced to a window, which rebutted his gaze with its bland beige shade. It was better than seeing the sky beyond, though, and the clouds. Ever since he’d heard that outburst of mermaid song the whole world had seemed to inspect him with a stare at once skeptical and luminous. “That would attract attention. Unavoidably. Of course, if it was the right
kind
of attention, then that might serve our purposes very well.”

“You mean . . .”

“I’ll handle it,” Moreland announced. Now that his back was turned to them, the three men were free to shoot one another worried looks. Speculation regarding the secretary of defense’s mental health was rampant in the department. “I know exactly what to do. Major Sullivan, I have a few little tasks I need you to take care of first.”

No one dared to contradict him.

Moreland felt the throb of mermaid song pressing at the inside of his skull as he paced down the long subterranean corridor. Since no one was watching he allowed himself to give in to it a little, to leap and writhe in midair as he walked. He stopped controlling his face and let it squirm and grimace, and he opened his mouth and let a few misshapen notes pour out. Nauseous excitement was building in his stomach, and his hands were damp and compressed into fists.

What he was about to do was almost unbearably thrilling—terribly satisfying but in a way that galled him and made him jump. He wouldn’t be able to witness the act directly, of course. Maybe that was what irked him so much. The fluorescent lights overhead glazed the marble floor in bands of sickly pallor. He was almost there. Anais would be in front of him in a minute, with her strange shimmer and her stifled voice and her beauty that only became more marvelous as she herself became more miserable.

He couldn’t allow himself to
hear
her sing again, but what he had in mind was, he thought, the next best thing.

There was the steel door; he typed in the key code that so few people were privileged to know. The keys felt hot and staticky under his rapid taps. Then the door buzzed open and cool blue light came wavering across his eyes. Golden hair unraveled through the water, azure fins stirred. “Tadpole,” Moreland murmured under his breath. “Tadpole, we’re going to have such a delicious little adventure together.”

Then something that he hadn’t noticed moved. How could he have failed to see that man in the lab coat perched on a folding chair and leaning close to the tank’s speaker? The pallid young face wore an expression of rapturous intimacy, but the joyful look was quickly transforming into annoyance at the interruption. For the life of him, Moreland couldn’t remember that young man’s name, but he recalled that he was Anais’s keeper, in charge of keeping her fed and comfortable and indulging her less extortionate whims.

The young man stood up, slapping as he rose the switches that stopped sound from transmitting in or out of the tank. His receding chin and prominent forehead, combined with a large sharp nose, made his face seemed peculiarly unbalanced. His beige hair was thinning and his eyes were narrow and sad. “Good
afternoon,
Secretary Moreland.”

He didn’t sound at all respectful, though. And he was pouting with unconcealed jealousy. Moreland could barely control his amusement.

“That will be all for now, Mr. . . .”

“Hackett, sir. Charles Hackett.”

“Oh, yes, Anais calls you
Charlie.
I’d like a private word with our little princess, if you don’t mind.”

Charles Hackett grimaced with open contempt. It was another sign of Anais’s power, Moreland thought, that this flunky was so blatantly rude toward someone so vastly his superior. He couldn’t actually disobey Moreland’s orders, though. He jerked toward the exit, hunching angrily. Behind him Anais swirled, her fins twitching, and knocked silently on the glass.

“Or actually, Mr. Hackett . . .”

Hackett turned back, his eyes narrowing sharply as they reached the secretary of defense.

“I have a present for our little mermaid, Mr. Hackett. Please give it to her after I leave.” Moreland pulled from his breast pocket a slim box wrapped in pink paper with a golden ribbon and handed it over while Hackett scowled. Moreland smiled in anticipation; it was a pleasure to speak all the lies he’d rehearsed that morning. “Also, we’re going to have to play that mermaid recording for her again. We have a few more questions about the singers. Tonight when you go, I’d like you to turn off the electroshock system so that she can listen to the recording as many times as she needs to. Understood?”

“Sir . . .” Hackett visibly worked up his courage. “It’s not healthy for Anais to be reminded of all that. Her friends, her . . . her difficult past. She needs sensitive, caring treatment; she needs to be allowed to
heal.
”

“She needs to earn her keep, Hackett. And she needs to pay us back for letting her live.” Moreland aimed a smirk at Anais, who looked wonderfully alarmed at the sight of him. Aqua light roiled across her arms and throat. “She’ll
heal
when it suits my convenience.”

Hackett opened his mouth and closed it again and made a kind of undecided movement with his shoulders. Moreland kept glowering at him, and after a few more flutters of silent protest he shuffled out.

Moreland’s hand shuddered a little with eagerness as it reached to turn the speakers back on. Anais retreated a short distance from the glass, her long tail snaking and her eyes bright and plaintive. “Why, tadpole,” Moreland crooned. “I brought you a
present.
Something I think you’ll enjoy very much. You could at least make small talk with me for a while.”

Anais rippled a little closer. “Hi,” she muttered faintly.

“Hi,
sir,
” Moreland corrected, then broke into a smile so wide it made his face ache. “I’ve been thinking about you, tadpole. I’ve been wondering if there are ways we can make your time with us more pleasant. You must get so
bored
all alone in here all day.”

Anais stared at him, simultaneously wary and petulant. “Of course I’m bored.”

“Of
course
you are,” Moreland simpered. Anais only looked more frightened in response. “That’s why I’m going to give you the opportunity to do a new, exciting job for me. Broaden your horizons, help your country, and”—he leered—“have
fun
doing it.”

Anais swished with ill-concealed dismay. “What do you want me to do now? I’ve told you
everything
I know, and you still won’t let me go home!”

“Charlie is going to give you my present later. It’s a cell phone.”

Anais suddenly brightened. “Really? Then I can call my friends in Miami! I can—”

“For the moment, little tadpole, it’s been programmed so that it can only dial a single number.” He felt a restless thrill below his heart as Anais’s happiness collapsed again. “You’ll make a call this evening, say around nine o’clock. Your first job is to collect some information. If a man answers or if you get voice mail, you should hang up. But if a woman answers, you’ll follow the instructions we’re about to go over together.”

Anais considered this, her head bowed so that waves of hair obscured her face. “Then will you let me go?”

“No.” Moreland smiled at her. “You’ll do this for the sheer pleasure of it, my dear. Because asking a few questions is only the first of your responsibilities.”

“I don’t want to do anything for you, then! I’d rather be bored. I don’t even care if you turn my TV off! I’ll just stare at the walls.”

Moreland had to admit it to himself: he adored Anais like this: childish and surly and deeply depressed. It was a shame, in a way, that she would genuinely enjoy her new assignment. “Oh, tadpole,” Moreland whispered, “don’t be silly. This will be fun for the whole family.”