by Hugh Howey
Page 7
Ten streets to choose from, ten routes colliding without compromise. There was the honking and the shaking of fists, no one willing to merge. The tourists were trapped in the inner lanes; they went around and around and got nowhere. Here was Washington encapsulated as far as Donald was concerned. It was as though he had the same two choices: he could spin in circles, completely lost and doing little, or he could dive down one avenue and forsake the others, always fearing he’d picked poorly. So far, he had tended toward the latter with few regrets.
A taxi driver close to the curb laid on his horn. These were like the lobbyists in Rayburn, the real experts who knew the backstreets. They probably wished these tourists would just vanish so they could get around without all the delays.
Heading up Connecticut and leaning into a stiffening breeze, Donald wondered why his meeting with the Senator had been moved to Kramer’s Bookshop of all places. There were a dozen superior coffee joints half the distance away.
He crossed a side street and hurried up the short flight of stone steps to the bookshop. The front door to Kramer’s was one of those ancient wooden affairs older establishments hung like a boast, like a testament to their endurance. He pushed it open and ducked inside as a fresh gust blew grit and fluttering trash down Connecticut Avenue.
Hinges squeaked and actual bells jangled overhead. Donald wiped his feet on the welcome mat and turned to close the door behind him—an act as foreign and quaint as it might feel to eat with one’s hands. The bells jangled a second time as the top of the door knocked into them, and a young woman straightening books on a center table of bestsellers glanced up and smiled hello.
The café, Donald saw, was packed with men and women in business suits, white porcelain cups rising and falling, an espresso machine releasing a deathly wail as it steamed someone’s milk. He returned the warm smile as the bookseller continued arranging the hardbacks. There was no sign of the Senator in the cafe. Donald started to check his phone, see if he was too early, when a Secret Service agent caught his eye.
The agent stood broad-shouldered at the end of an aisle of physical books in the small corner of Kramer’s that had not yet succumbed to the café. Donald laughed at how conspicuously hidden the man was. Their ilk seemed to get a kick out of dressing up overly normal and then flashing their earpieces, the bulges by their ribs, and the ubiquitous sunglasses. Skirting the table of bestsellers, Donald headed the agent’s way, admiring the wide planks underfoot that chased him with the squeaks and groans of age.
There was an irrational urge to hold his hands up in submission as he approached the agent. Donald had been around a few who came across as twitchy. The agent’s gaze shifted his way, but it was hard to tell if he was looking at Donald or just generally toward the front door.
“I’m here to see Senator Thurman,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “I have an appointment. ”
The agent turned his head to the side. Donald followed the gesture and peered down an aisle of books to see Thurman browsing through the stacks at the far end.
“Ah. Thanks. ” He assumed he was free to pass, that he wouldn’t get shot in the back or tased. He reluctantly tested the theory as he stepped between the towering shelves of old books, the light dimming and the smell of coffee replaced with the tang of mildew mixed with leather.
“What do you think of this one?”
Senator Thurman held out a book as Donald approached. No greeting, just a question. As if Donald had been standing there all along.
Donald checked the title embossed in gold on the thick leather cover. “Never heard of it,” he admitted.
Senator Thurman laughed. “Of course not. It’s over a hundred years old—and it’s French. I mean, what do you think of the binding?” He handed Donald the book.
Donald accepted it and was surprised by how heavy the volume was. He cracked it open and flipped through a few pages. It felt like a law book, had that same dense heft, but he could see by the whitespace between lines of dialog that it was a novel. As he turned a few pages, he admired how thin the individual sheets were, each one smooth as silk. Where the pages met at the spine, they had been stitched together with tiny ropes of blue and gold thread. He had friends who still swore by physical books—not to decorate with but to actually read. Studying the one in his hand, Donald caught a whiff of their affection, could understand what they were getting at.
“The binding looks great,” he said, brushing it with the pads of his fingers. It was like admiring an aesthetically pleasing and well-designed building. “It’s a beautiful book. ” He handed the novel back to the Senator. “Is this how you shop for a good read? You mostly go by the cover?”
Thurman tucked the book under his arm and pulled another from the shelf. “It’s just a sample for another project I’m working on. ” He turned and narrowed his eyes at Donald. It was an uncomfortable gaze to be at the wrong end of. He felt like prey, like a wounded beast leaving a glaring trail with every word and twitch. A clumsy sentence snapped a twig here, a bad joke dripped a spot of blood there. He was trying so hard to manage the man’s impression of him, and yet it felt as though the Senator could track him down with every utterance.
“How’s your sister doing?” Thurman asked.
The question caught Donald off guard. A lump formed in his throat at the mention of her.
“Charlotte? She’s. . . she’s fine, I guess. She redeployed. I’m sure you heard. ”
“I did. ” Thurman slotted the book in his hand back into a gap and weighed the one Donald had appraised. “I was proud of her for re-upping. She does her country proud. ”
Donald thought about what it cost a family to do a country proud.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I know my parents were really looking forward to having her home, but she was having trouble adjusting to the pace back here. It. . . I don’t think she’ll be able to really relax until the war’s over. You know?”
“I do. And she may not find peace even then. ”
That wasn’t what Donald wanted to hear. He watched the Senator trace his finger down an ornate spine adorned with ridges, bumps, and recessed lettering. The old man’s eyes seemed to focus beyond the rows of books.
“I can drop her a line if you want. Sometimes a soldier just needs to hear that it’s okay to see someone. ”
“If you mean a shrink, she won’t do it. ” Donald remembered Charlotte before and after the sessions. “We already tried. ”
Thurman’s lips pursed into a thin, wrinkled line, his worry revealed in hidden signs of age. “I’ll talk to her. I’m familiar enough with the hubris of youth, believe me. I used to have the same attitude when I was younger. ” He touched another book. “I thought I didn’t need any help, that I could do everything on my own. ” He turned to face Donald. “The profession’s come a long way. They have pills now that can help her with the battle fatigue. ”
Donald shook his head. “No. She was on those for a while. They made her forget too much. And they caused a—” He hesitated, didn’t want to talk about it. “—a tic. ”
He wanted to say tremors, but that sounded too severe. And while he appreciated the Senator’s concern—this feeling again like the man was family—he felt uncomfortable discussing his sister’s problems. He remembered the last time she was home, the disagreement they’d had while going through his and Helen’s photographs from Mexico. He had asked her if she remembered Cozumel from when they were kids, and Charlotte had insisted she’d never been. The disagreement had turned into an argument, and he had lied and said his eventual tears were ones of frustration. Parts of his sister’s life had been erased, and the only way the doctors could explain it was to say that it must’ve been something she wanted to forget, and what could be wrong with that?
Thurman rested a hand on Donald’s arm. “Trust me on this,” he said quietly. “I’ll talk to her. I know what she’s going through. ”
Donald bobbed his head. �
�Yeah. Okay. I appreciate it. ” He almost added that it wouldn’t do any good, could possibly cause harm, but the gesture was a nice one. And it would come from someone his sister looked up to rather than from family.
“And, hey, Donny, she’s piloting drones. ” Thurman studied him, seemed to be picking up on his worry. “It’s not like she’s in any physical danger. ”
Donald rubbed the spine of a shelved book. “Not physical, no. ”
The conversation fell silent, and Donald let out a heavy breath. The wail of the espresso machine leaked through the wall of ancient books. He could hear the chatter from the café, the clink of a spoon stirring in some sugar, the clang of bells against the old wooden door, hinges squealing.
He had seen videos of what Charlotte did, camera feeds from the drones and then from the missiles as they were guided into their targets. The video quality was amazing. You could see people turning to look up toward the heavens in surprise, could see the last moments of their lives, could tick through the shots frame by frame and decide—after the fact—if this had been your man or not. He knew what his sister did, what she went through.
Bells rang and hinges squealed as an old door was closed again.
“I spoke with Mick earlier,” Thurman said, seeming to sense that he’d brought up a sore topic. “You two are going to head down to Atlanta and see how the excavation is going. ”
Donald snapped to. “Of course. Yeah, it’ll be good to get the lay of the land. I got a nice head start on my plans last week, gradually filling in the dimensions you set out. You do realize how deep this thing goes, right?”
“That’s why they’re already digging the foundations. The outer walls should be getting a pour over the next few weeks. ” Senator Thurman patted Donald’s shoulder and nodded toward the end of the aisle, signaling that they were done looking through books.
“Wait. They’re already digging?” Donald walked alongside Thurman. “I’ve really only got an outline of my structure. I hope they’re saving mine for last. ”
“The entire complex is being worked on at the same time. And all they’re pouring are the outer walls and foundations, the dimensions of which have already been settled on in committee. We’ll fill each structure from the bottom up, the floors craned down completely furnished before we pour the slabs between. But look, this is why I need you boys to go check things out. It sounds like a damned nightmare down there with the staging. I’ve got a hundred crews from a dozen countries working on top of one another while materials pile up everywhere. I can’t be in ten places at once, so I need you to get a read on things and report back. ”
When they reached the Secret Service agent at the end of the aisle, the Senator handed him the old book with the French embossing. The man in the dark shades nodded, reached inside his coat for the smaller of two bulges, and headed toward the counter. Donald watched as the agent stood in line behind customers gazing up at a chalkboard to prepare their orders. There was something comical about him waiting there with that French book, doing the Senator’s shopping for him.
“While you’re down there,” Thurman said, “I want you to meet up with Charlie Rhodes. He’s handling delivery of most of the building materials. See if he needs anything. ”
“Charles Rhodes? As in the governor of Oklahoma?”
“That’s right. We served together. And hey, I’m working on transitioning you and Mick into some of the higher levels of this project. Our leadership team is still short a few dozen members. So keep up the good work. You’ve impressed some important people with what you’ve put together so far, and Anna seems confident you’ll be able to stay ahead of schedule. She says the two of you make a great team. ”
Donald nodded. He felt a blush of pride—and also the sinking feeling of extra responsibilities, more bites out of his ever-dwindling time. Helen wouldn’t like hearing that his involvement with the project might grow. In fact, Mick and Anna might be the only people he could share the news with, the only ones he could talk to. Every stupid detail about the build seemed to require convoluted layers of clearance. He couldn’t tell if it was the fear of nuclear waste, the threat of a terrorist attack, or the likelihood that the project would fall through. Everything for their political party seemed to hinge on this. Across the aisle, lips were chapped from all the licking going on at the prospect of failure. It created a situation where it was better to keep mum than risk being the one who blew it.
The agent returned and took up a position beside the Senator, shopping bag in hand. Donald had the feeling that someone was watching him, then and always. It reinforced the need to keep quiet. He didn’t even know who was seeing the plans he was working on; Thurman said others were impressed with his work, but he’d sent partial files only to Anna.
The agent studied him through those impenetrable sunglasses. Donald wondered if they had access to his computer—and whether it mattered. The files were for them, anyway.
Senator Thurman shook Donald’s hand and said to keep him posted. Another agent materialized from nowhere and formed up on Thurman’s flank. Donald felt a flush of heat as the two men marched the Senator through the jangling door.
Damn the secrets and the intrigue. He cursed the need for them. Donald wished he could just call his wife and let her know about his day, his job, what he was working on. Standing there in that bustling hive of a bookstore-turned-coffee shop, he considered the web of deceit and misdirection being spun in every direction, how a few slender threads could grow from seemingly innocent beginnings.
