Ex-Purgatory

by Peter Clines

  He shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “Good,” said George. “You’re right.”

  “You’re way too skinny to be on steroids. My bet was meth.”

  He blinked. “I’m not on anything.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I have to do a drug test every six months. I don’t even smoke.”

  She held out her hand. One of the men placed a cell phone in it. George realized it was his. She made a few quick swipes at the phone’s screen and then held up the call log for him to see. “Yesterday morning,” she said, “you placed a call to Sandia Labs in New Mexico. The Pulsed Power Project. The call lasted just under nine minutes.”

  This pause was twice as long. George wasn’t sure if she wanted an answer and he didn’t want to risk interrupting her if she started talking again. Once he was sure she was waiting on him, he gave a quick nod. “Yeah,” he said. “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you call the lab?”

  “I was looking for someone.”

  “Barry Burke?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you found him.” Another statement, not a question.

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know Mr. Burke?”

  “I …”

  The blonde set his phone on the table and crossed her arms. “It’s not really a tough question,” she said. “How do you know him?”

  “I’m not sure I do,” admitted George.

  “So why were you calling him?”

  George started to talk, then closed his mouth.

  “Well?”

  “I think … I think I’d like to talk to a lawyer,” George said. “Counsel. Whatever you call it.”

  The blonde’s mouth twitched into a new shape. If it was a smile, it was a cruel one. “A lawyer?” she echoed. “What year do you think this is, George? I don’t have to give you a bathroom if I don’t want to. Answer the question. Why were you calling Barry Burke?”

  Something burned at the back of his throat and he swallowed it down. “To see if I recognized him. Recognized his voice.”

  “But you don’t know him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so? Have you ever met?”

  George shook his head. “No.”

  “Ever talked on the phone before?”

  “No.”

  “Exchanged e-mails? Online chat? Message boards? Anything?”

  “No.”

  “So how would you recognize him?”

  George closed his mouth again.

  “According to the receptionist you were on hold for a minute and a half while Mr. Burke got to the phone. You talked for a little over seven minutes. What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You didn’t say anything? You just stood there with the phone in your hand?”

  “No, of course—”

  “So what did you talk about?”

  “I asked who he was. He made a joke.”

  “What kind of joke?”

  George tried to roll his shoulders. The cuffs bit into his wrists. “I said I thought I had the wrong person. He said if there was another Barry Burke, he probably had a goatee and a sash.”

  The blonde furrowed her brow. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Star Trek,” said one of the agents behind George. “In the mirror universe all of the Enterprise crew wore sashes to show their rank, and the evil Spock had a goatee.”

  “Shut up, Winston,” she snapped.

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “I just told you to shut up.” Her gaze settled on George again. “So,” she said, “did you recognize Burke?”

  He thought about it for a long moment. “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he recognize you?”

  George paused with his lips half-open. “I don’t know.”

  The blond woman stared at him. “In the past week you’ve stopped twice at the Army recruiting office on Lindbrook. Why?”

  “Look, I think I at least get to know what this is all about. I’m pretty sure that’s in the Bill of Rights.”

  “We’re getting to it,” she said. “Why were you at the recruiting office?”

  “My car broke down. I was looking for help. Somebody with jumper cables.”

  “And the second time?”

  “Same thing.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Your car broke down twice in one week, both times in front of the same office?”

  “No,” said George. “The first time was half a block away. The second time was a little before it, but then I knew they had the cables.”

  “Who did you talk to there?”

  “A sergeant, I think. I don’t know military ranks that well. And a lieutenant.”

  “Names?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.” The huge officer’s name floated up in his memory. “The big guy, the lieutenant, was named Freedom.”

  The blonde traded looks with one of the men behind George. Not the Star Trek fan. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man thumb-typing into a BlackBerry.

  “Yesterday afternoon,” the blonde said, “you visited a woman named Karen Quilt at the Four Seasons Hotel.”

  “Yes,” said George.

  “Do you know Miss Quilt?”

  “No. I mean, just from her pictures and stuff.”

  “Never met her? Never sent her any e-mails or anything?”

  “No.”

  “You have any feelings for her?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Do you have dreams about her? Fantasies?”

  George paused, then shook his head. “No.”

  The blond woman noticed the pause. “Are you stalking her?”

  “No!”

  She picked his phone and her thumb swung back and forth. She held it out so he could see the message on the screen. “Nikolai Bartamian texted her address to you. The hotel she’s staying at.”

  Something twisted in his gut. “Yes.”

  “I’m guessing for someone in his line of work, that’s very frowned on. You know there’s a good chance he’ll get fired for that, right?”

  “Yeah,” said George. “He said he might.”

  She gave him another long stare. “So you’re not stalking her, but you’re willing to risk your friend’s job to get the address of a woman you’ve never met. Am I getting this right?”

  “No.”

  “So clear it up for me.”

  “I just …” He hung his head.

  “You wanted to see if she recognized you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you think she would know you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t explain it, I’m sorry.”

  “Did she recognize you?”

  He sighed. “No.”

  “According to her security force in the lobby, you were in the penthouse with her for almost twenty minutes.”

  “It was only ten,” he said. “A lot of that was elevators and finding the room.”

  “If she didn’t recognize you, what were the two of you talking about for ten minutes?”

  “Old movies,” he said. “And Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Bailey.”

  He pressed his lips together in a line.

  The blonde held out her hand again. The man with the splints took George’s phone away and handed her a brown folder. She tapped it against her hand twice before opening it. Her gaze left George and dropped to the pages inside the folder.

  “Are you aware,” she said without looking up, “Miss Quilt is connected to a suspected terrorist? A man wanted by the CIA and Homeland Security, not to mention MI5 and pretty much every other intelligence organization on Earth?”

  “I thought everybody knew that,” he said. “Hasn’t it been in People magazine and TMZ and a
ll that?”

  “You watch TMZ?”

  “No.”

  “Read People?”

  “No. I think it was an issue of Maxim I found in the cafeteria.”

  “And you looked it up online, didn’t you?”

  The back of his throat sizzled. He swallowed again and nodded.

  “It’s funny,” she said. “We’ve been going over your browser history, and it seems like you double-checked a lot of this information last night after you met with her.”

  She held up a photograph. There was a string of numbers and letters down the side of the image. The photo was fuzzy, and the subject’s head was shaved almost bald, but there was no mistaking his harsh features and small glasses. They were sunglasses in the picture, and George found himself wondering if Karen’s father wore polarizing lenses.

  The blonde pushed the photo closer to George. “Have you seen this man?”

  He looked at the photo for a long moment. “I’m not sure.”

  “Think carefully, George,” she said. “Your answer could influence the next thirty-five to forty years of your life.”

  And then, just when George was ready to give up, the door opened and the President and First Lady walked into the room.

  The President looked at George in the chair. Christian, the First Lady, put her hand up to her mouth, aghast. She turned back to another suit in the doorway and murmured something.

  “What’s all this?” President Smith asked. “I just asked you to get him for a talk.”

  The blond woman looked confused, but hid it quickly. “The assignment was snatch and grab for interrogation, Mr. President.”

  “What?” The commander in chief shook his head. “No, just a talk. Literally, just a … oh, for God’s sake, uncuff him.”

  The blonde shot a look at one of the agents behind George. A lot of her confidence had vanished. It made her face softer, but she still didn’t look nice.

  The Star Trek fan released the cuffs and George brought his arms around. He expected horrible welts from the tight restraints, but his wrists weren’t even bruised.

  As soon as George’s arms were free the President waved the others away. “Out,” he said. “Give us a minute.”

  The agents looked at the blonde. She gave a quick nod and they filed out of the room. President Smith looked at her, but she squared her shoulders and let her hands hang loose at her sides. He sighed and turned to his wife.

  “Just a minute, hon,” he said.

  She smiled. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  Christian Smith stepped into the hall and the door closed. The President gave the blonde another look and she took a half step back. Then he focused his attention on George.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t intend for this to be so crude. I didn’t want them yanking you out of your life. You probably didn’t want to be yanked out of it, either, did you?”

  “No,” said George. “Not really.”

  The President had the face of a young man. The shape of it, the tone of his skin. The past few years had aged him, as it always aged the men who’d held office before him, but he’d managed to hold off the worst of it. Some of his very few detractors accused him of dyeing his hair, which the First Lady always laughed about.

  Just above the collar of his shirt, George could see the scar. The war injury the President couldn’t hide. An insurgent had stabbed him in the throat and a Naval corpsman had kept him alive long enough for a field hospital to save his life. It made his voice sound older.

  “Mr. Bailey,” said the President. He wrung his hands. “May I call you George?”

  George nodded. He wasn’t sure what else to do. After half an hour of near panic, his mind was blank.

  “George, I have a problem,” said the President. “This may be hard for you to believe, but we have reliable intelligence there’s a terrorist cell operating here in the southwest United States. We believe several members of it are here in Los Angeles. And we think you’ve had contact with them.”

  George shook his head, but the President held up his hand.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We know you’re not involved with them. Not deliberately. But we need your help if we’re going to beat them, George. Can I count on you to help us? To do your duty as a citizen of this great country?”

  “Of course.”

  President Smith beamed. “I just need you to answer one question for me, okay? It’s very important, George. Your answer is going to tell us how much they know, and how we need to adjust our plans.”

  The commander in chief dropped to one knee. It made him shorter than George, so he straightened his back until they were eye level with each other. The two men looked at each other for a moment before he spoke.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  George blinked in confusion. “Of course I do,” he said. “Sir. Mr. President.”

  The President shook his head. “No,” he said. “I mean, past that.” He leaned in and looked George in the eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

  A splitting headache sprang up in the back of George’s head, the worst one yet. It felt like someone had driven a nail halfway into his skull, and now that someone was just tapping the nail hard enough to make it shiver in the bone.

  “I … sorry,” said George. He blinked a few more times. “You’re … You’re John Smith. You’re the President of the United States.”

  Smith smiled. It was the smile from dozens of photo ops and press conferences. It was a wide, well-practiced smile. “And you’re sure of that?”

  The hammer tapped the nail a few more times and George’s skull trembled. His eyes got wet. “Yes,” he said. “Of course I’m sure. I voted for you.”

  “No doubts at all?”

  Something splashed in George’s lap. A drop of red. His nose was bleeding. “Sir,” he said, “Mr. President … I’m not sure what you—”

  “I asked if you had any doubts. Do you have any doubts, George? Have we ever met before? In any other capacity?”

  The idea of having met the President and forgotten it would’ve been funny most of the time. Right now, with the nail ringing in the back of his skull, the idea almost made him scream. His nosebleed had become a thin stream across his lips. Any more and it would be gushing.

  “No,” he whispered. The sound of his own voice made him wince.

  The President’s smile grew at the edges. “Of course we haven’t,” he said. He patted George on the cheek. “Let’s try to remember that.”

  THE ALARM WENT off and George woke up.

  He felt well rested. His head didn’t ache. The bed was firm but comfortable.

  His fan was silent.

  He’d met the President yesterday. The President of the United States. He and the First Lady had been very apologetic about the misunderstanding, and grateful for his help. George didn’t think he’d told them anything important, but they seemed to think he was some kind of great American hero.

  It gave life a degree of clarity.

  The ride to work was as slow as usual, but he didn’t mind. It was just part of life. Same with the pedestrians and the swarms of homeless people. To think just a few days ago he’d been seeing conspiracies and monsters. His radio was on the religious channel again. He didn’t even waste time looking for another station. He just shut it off. The radio blurted out, “C’mon, man, gimme something,” before he twisted the knob.

  George reached the time clock five minutes early and couldn’t find his card. He searched behind a couple of the others, looking for his last name in bold print. It wasn’t there. He grumbled and started a new timecard, knowing it would get him a lecture from accounting.

  The clock snapped down on it like a set of hungry jaws.

  Jarvis’s eyes bugged a little when George stepped into the office. “Hey,” said the supervisor. A long moment stretched out before he added, “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “Why not?”

  The salt-and-pepper man’s gaze da
rted left and right, as if he thought someone was hiding in the closet and behind his messy bookshelf. “The feds were here yesterday looking for you.”

  George sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I know. It’s okay, they found me.”

  “The NSA,” said Jarvis.

  “It’s okay,” he repeated. “They found me. We talked. Everything’s okay, it was just a misunderstanding.”

  Jarvis showed no sign of hearing him. “They took everything. All your assignments, my log book, your employment history. They even went up to accounting and got all your old timecards.” He shook his head. “They interviewed pretty much anyone who’d ever talked to you. All of us, some professors, even a couple of students.”

  George pictured the blond agent’s determined glare and didn’t have trouble picturing what his coworkers had gone through. “I know this sounds crazy,” he said, “but the President wanted to talk to me.”

  His boss stared at him.

  “I’m serious. It was a mix-up.”

  Jarvis closed his eyes. “You’re not one of those kooks, are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He waved his hand at the computer. “You don’t act all sane at work and then go home and spend all night ranting in the Yahoo! comments about impeaching the President or conspiracy theories or something stupid like that?”

  “What? No, of course not.”

  “You on some sort of watch list?”

  “No. Well, not anymore, I think.”

  “You think?”

  George raised his palms. “If they thought I’d done anything wrong, would they have let me go?”

  Jarvis flopped back in his chair. “People were freaking out,” he said after a minute. “They’re going to freak out more now that you’re back.”

  “How so?”

  “How d’you think? These days what’s everyone think when the government comes looking for your neighbor? Nobody’s getting the Nobel Peace Prize, that’s for sure. Half the people who talked to me yesterday thought you’d been arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo or something. If they see you …”

  “What are you getting at, Jarvis?”

  The supervisor scratched his salt-and-pepper beard. “Look,” he said, “just keep a low profile for a while, okay? Try not to … I don’t know, draw attention to yourself. Don’t do anything weird. Maybe this’ll cool down in a couple of days.”