Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  “All right, I promised,” Harod said, “what do you want me to do?” Maria Chen told him.

  For three weeks she did not leave the locked basement room. At first, she used her long nails to rip at the padding he had helped to set in place on the walls and door. She screamed and pounded, tore at the bar mattress and pillows that were the only furnishings in the small room, and then screamed again. Only Harod, sitting in the media room outside her cell, could hear the screams.

  She did not eat the meals he slid through the low slot in the door. After two days she did not rise from the mattress, but lay curled up, sweating and shaking in turns, moaning feebly in one moment and screaming in an inhuman voice the next. In the end, Harod stayed in the room with her for three days and nights, helping her to the adjoining bathroom when she could sit up, cleaning her and caring for her where she lay when she could not. Finally, on the fifteenth day, she slept around the clock, and Harod bathed her and dressed the self-inflicted scratches. As he ran the washcloth across the pale cheeks, the perfect breasts, and the sweat-filmed thighs, he thought about all the times he had watched her silk-clad body in the office and wished that she was not a Neutral.

  After bathing and drying her, he had dressed her in soft pajamas, substituted clean sheets and blankets for the soiled rags, and left her alone to sleep.

  She had emerged from the room on the third week— her pose and faintly distant manner as intact and flawless as her hair, dress, and makeup. Neither of them had ever spoken of those three weeks.

  The younger German girl giggled and raised her arms over her head, saying something to her friend. Harod peered at them through the steam. His black eyes were dark perforations under heavy lids.

  The older girl blinked several times and untied her towel. Her breasts were firm and heavy. The younger girl stopped in surprise, her arms still over her head. Harod saw the downy thatches of hair under her arms, wondered why German girls did not shave there. The younger girl started to say something, stopped, and untied her own towel. Her fingers fumbled as if they had been asleep or were unfamiliar with the task. The towel fell just as the older girl raised her hands to her sister’s breasts.

  Sisters, Harod realized as he squinted better to savor the physical sensations. Kirsten and Gabi. It was not easy with two. He had to shift back and forth constantly, never letting one slip away while dealing with the other. It was like playing tennis against oneself— not a game one wanted to attempt for long. But, then, it need not be a long game. Harod closed his eyes and smiled.

  Maria Chen was standing at the window looking out at a small group of Christmas carolers standing around a horse-drawn sleigh when Harod returned. She turned away just as laughter and a snatch of “Oh Tannenbaum” filled the cold air outside.

  “Where is it?” asked Harod. He was dressed in silk pajamas and a gold robe. His hair was wet.

  Maria Chen opened her suitcase and removed the .45 caliber automatic. She laid it on the coffee table.

  Harod lifted the weapon, dry fired it once, and nodded. “I didn’t think they’d bug you at Customs. Where’s the clip?”

  Maria removed three metal magazines from her suitcase and set them on the table. Harod pushed the unloaded gun across the glass surface until it lay near her hand.

  “OK,” he said, “let’s take a look at this fucking place.” He rolled the green and white topographic map out on the table, using the automatic to weight down one end and the ammunition clips to secure the other corners. His short forefinger stopped at a collection of dots on either side of a red line. “Bayerisch-Eisenstein,” he said. “Us.” The finger stabbed an inch northwest. “Willi’s estate is here behind this hill . . .”

  “The Grosse Arber,” said Maria Chen. “What ever. Right here in the middle of the forest . . .”

  “The Bayerischer Wald,” said Maria Chen.

  Harod stared at her a minute and then returned his attention to the map. “Part of a sort of national park . . . but still private property. Makes a fucking lot of sense.”

  “There are private holdings in American national parks,” said Maria Chen. “Besides, the estate is supposed to be empty.”

  “Yeah,” said Harod. He rolled up the map and went into his own room through the connecting door. A minute later he returned carrying a glass of Scotch from a duty-free bottle he had bought at Heathrow. “So,” he said, “you understand the drill for tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” said Maria Chen. “If he’s not there, no sweat,” said Harod. “If he is and he’s alone and wants to talk, no problem.”

  “And if there is a problem?”

  Harod sat down, set the Scotch on the table, and pushed the ammunition clip in with a click. He held out the pistol and waited until she took it. “Then you shoot him,” said Harod. “Shoot him and anyone who is with him. In the head. Twice, if you have time.” He went to the door and hesitated. “Any other questions?”

  “No,” said Maria Chen.

  Harod went into his own room and closed the door. Maria Chen heard the lock click. She sat for some time, holding the automatic, listening to occasional sounds of holiday Gemütlichkeit coming from the street, and watching the thin band of yellow light under Tony Harod’s door.

  NINE

  Washington, D.C.

  Thursday, Dec. 18, 1980

  C. Arnold Barent left the Mayflower Hotel and the president-elect and rode to National Airport by way of the FBI building. His limousine was preceded by a gray Mercedes and followed by a blue Mercedes; both vehicles were leased by one of his companies and the men in them were as well trained as the Secret Ser vice men who had been so visible at the Mayflower.

  “I thought the discussion went very well,” said Charles Colben, the only other passenger in the limousine.

  Barent nodded. “The president was very open to your suggestions,” said Colben. “It sounds like he may even come back to the Island Club retreat this June. That would be interesting. We’ve never had a president there during his term of office.”

  “President-elect,” said Barent. “Huh?”

  “You said the president was very open,” said Barent. “You meant the president-elect. Mr. Carter is our president until January.”

  Colben made a sound of derision. “What does your intelligence group say about the hostages?” Barent asked softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Will they be released during the last hours of Carter’s term, or during the next administration?”

  Colben shrugged. “We’re the FBI, not CIA. Our work has to be domestic, not foreign.”

  Barent nodded, still smiling slightly. “And part of your domestic effort,” he said, “is spying on the CIA. So I shall ask again, when will the hostages be coming home?”

  Colben frowned and looked out at the bare trees of the mall. “Best we can get is twenty-four hours either side of the inauguration,” he said. “But the way the Ayatollah’s been shoving it up Carter’s ass the last year and a half, I don’t see any way he’s going to toss him this bone.”

  “I met him once,” said Barent. “Interesting person.”

  “What? Who?” said Colben, confused. The Carters had been guests at Barent’s Palm Springs estate and Thousand Islands castle several times during the past four years.

  “The Ayatollah Khomeini,” Barent said patiently. “I rode down from Paris to see him shortly after he began his exile. A friend had suggested that I might find the Imam amusing.”

  “Amusing?” said Colben. “That fanatical little fuck?”

  Barent frowned slightly at Colben’s choice of language. He did not like profanity. He had used the word “bitch” earlier in the week with Tony Harod because he had felt that a vulgar phrase was necessary to drive home a point to a vulgar man. Charles Colben was also a vulgar man. “It was amusing,” said Barent, sorry now that he had raised the issue. “We had a fifteen-minute talk with the religious leader— through an interpreter although I was told that the Ayatollah understood French— and you wi
ll never guess what the little man did right before our audience was over.”

  “Ask you to fund his revolution?” said Colben, his tone of voice showing his lack of interest. “I give up.”

  “He tried to Use me,” said Barent, smiling again, truly amused at the recollection. “I could feel him groping at my mind, blindly, instinctively. I received the impression that he thought he was the only one in the world with the Ability. I also received the impression that he thought he was God.”

  Colben shrugged again. “He would have felt a little less godlike if Carter had had the balls to send in some B-52s the first week they took our people.”

  Barent changed the subject. “And where is our friend Mr. Harod today?”

  Colben took out an inhaler, applied it to each nostril, and grimaced. “He and his secretary— or what ever she is— left for West Germany last night.”

  “To see if his friend Willi might be alive and well and living in the Vaterland, I presume,” said Barent.

  “Sure.”

  “And did you send someone with him?”

  Colben shook his head. “No reason. Trask is using some of his Frankfurt and Munich contacts from his days at the Company to check on the castle. Harod’s bound to head there. We’ll monitor the CIA traffic.”

  “And will he find anything?”

  Charles Colben shrugged. “You do not believe that our Mr. Borden is still alive, do you?” asked Barent.

  “No, I don’t see how he could be all that goddamn clever,” said Colben. “I mean, it was our idea to approach the Drayton woman about eliminating him. The vote was unanimous that his actions were becoming too public, right?”

  “And then we find out about Nina Drayton’s little indiscretions,” said C. Arnold Barent. “Ah, well, it is a pity.”

  “What’s a pity?”

  Barent looked at the bald bureaucrat. “It’s a pity that neither of them was a member of the Island Club,” he said. “They were distinctive individuals.”

  “Bullshit,” said Colben. “They were fucking lunatics.”

  The limousine stopped. Locks snapped up on the door next to Colben. Barent looked out at the ugly side entrance to the new FBI building. “Here is your stop,” he said, and then as Colben was standing on the curb the chauffeur was ready to close the door, Barent said, “Charles, we simply must do something about your language.” He left the balding man standing on the sidewalk, staring as the limousine pulled away.

  The ride to National Airport took only a few minutes. Barent’s converted 747 sat waiting outside a private hangar; the aircraft’s engines were running, the air-conditioning was on, and a glass of iced mineral water sat waiting next to Barent’s favorite chair. Don Mitchell, the pilot, came into the aft compartment and touched his hat. “All ready, Mr. Barent,” he said. “I need to let the tower know which flight plan is operative. What’s our destination, sir?”

  “I would like to go to my island,” said Barent, sipping the mineral water. Mitchell smiled slightly. It was an old joke. C. Arnold Barent owned more than four hundred islands around the world and had residences on more than a score of them. “Yessir,” said the pilot and waited.

  “Inform the tower that Flight Plan E is the pertinent one,” said Barent. He rose with the glass still in his hand and went to the door of his bedroom. “I will let you know when I am ready.”

  “Yessir,” said Mitchell. “We have clearance for anytime in the next fifteen minutes.”

  Barent nodded dismissal and waited for the pilot to leave.

  Special Agent Richard Haines was sitting on the queen-size bed as Barent entered. He rose but was waved back to his seat by Barent, who finished his drink and removed his suit coat, tie, and shirt. He tossed the crumpled shirt into a hamper and pulled a fresh one from a drawer built into the aft bulkhead.

  “Tell me, Richard,” said Barent as he buttoned the shirt, “what is new?” Haines blinked and began talking. “Supervisor Colben and Mr. Trask met again this morning before your appointment with the president-elect. Trask is on the transition team . . .”

  “Yes, yes,” said Barent, still standing. “And what about the situation in Charleston?”

  “The Bureau is still carrying out surveillance,” said Haines. “The crash team is certain that the aircraft was destroyed by a bomb. One of the passengers— listed as George Hummel— used a credit card that was traced back to a theft in Bar Harbor, Maine.”

  “Maine,” said Barent. Nyman Trask was an “aide” to the senior senator from Maine. “Very sloppy.”

  “Yessir,” said Haines. “At any rate, Mr. Colben was very upset at your directive not to interfere with Sheriff Gentry and the investigation. He met yesterday with Mr. Trask and Mr. Kepler at the Mayflower and I’m pretty sure that they dispatched their own party or parties to Charleston yesterday evening.”

  “One of Trask’s plumbers?”

  “Yessir.”

  “All right, go ahead, Richard.”

  “At approximately nine-twenty A.M. E.S.T. today, Sheriff Gentry intercepted a man who had been following him in a 1976 Plymouth Volaré. Gentry attempted to take the man into custody. The man at first resisted and then cut his own throat with a French-made switchblade knife. He was pronounced Dead On Arrival at Charleston General Hospital. Neither fingerprint identification nor automobile registration have turned up anything. Dental records are being checked into, but it will be a few days.”

  “They won’t find anything if it’s one of Trask’s plumbers,” mused Barent. “Was the sheriff hurt?”

  “No, sir, not according to our surveillance team.”

  Barent nodded. He pulled a silk tie from a rack and began knotting it. He let his mind reach out and touch the consciousness of Special Agent Richard Haines. He could feel the shield that made Haines a Neutral, a solid shell surrounding the surge of thoughts, ambitions, and dark urges that was Richard Haines. Like so many of the others with the Ability, like Barent himself, Colben had chosen a Neutral as his closest aide. Although unable to be conditioned, Haines was also free from the threat of being turned by someone with a stronger Ability. Or so Colben thought.

  Barent slid along the surface of the mindshield until he found the inevitable crack, slid deeper through the maze of Haines’s pitiful defenses, ran his own will along the warp and weave of the FBI man’s consciousness. He touched Haines’s plea sure center and the agent closed his eyes as if a current were flowing through him.

  “Where is the Fuller woman?” asked Barent.

  Haines opened his eyes. “Still no word since the screw-up at the Atlanta airport Monday night.”

  “Has there been any luck tracing the phone call?”

  “No, sir. The airport operator thinks it was a local call.”

  “Do you think Colben, Kepler, or Trask will have access to any other information about where she is . . . or Willi?”

  Haines hesitated a second. “No, sir,” he said at last. “When either one is found, I think it’ll have to come up through the Bureau the usual way. I’ll know about it as soon as Mr. Colben does.”

  “Before, preferably,” said Barent with a smile. “Thank you, Richard. As always I find your company most stimulating. Lester will be available at the usual place if you need to contact me. I want to know the instant you have any information on the whereabouts of either the Fuller woman or our friend from Germany.”

  “Yessir.” Haines turned to go. “Oh, Richard.” Barent was pulling on a blue cashmere blazer. “Do you still feel that Sheriff Gentry and this psychiatrist . . .”

  “Laski,” said Haines. “Yes.” Barent smiled. “Do you still think that these gentlemen’s contracts should be formally canceled?”

  “Yes.” Haines frowned and framed his response carefully. “Gentry’s just too smart for his own good,” he said. “At first I thought he was upset about the Mansard House murders because they made him look bad in his own county, but by the time I left I was convinced that he took them personally. Stupid, fat, redneck hick
cop.”

  “But smart,” said Barent. “Yeah.” Haines frowned again. “Laski I don’t know, but he’s too . . . involved somehow. He knew Mrs. Drayton and . . .”

  “Yes, yes,” said Barent. “Well, we may have other plans for Dr. Laski.” He stared at the FBI man for a long moment. “Richard?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Barent steepled his fingers. “There’s something I have been meaning to ask you, Richard. You worked for Mr. Colben for several years before he joined the Club. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barent tapped his lower lip with the tips of his pyramided fingers. “My question, Richard, is . . . ah . . . why?”

  Haines frowned his lack of understanding. “I mean,” continued Barent, “why do all of the things Charles asked you to do . . . still asks you to do . . . if you have a choice?”

  Haines brightened. His smile showed perfect teeth. “Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess I enjoy my work. Will that be all today, Mr. Barent?”

  Barent stared at the man a second and then said, “Yes.”

  Five minutes after Haines had left, Barent used the intercom to call the pilot. “Donald,” he said, “please take off now. I would like to go to my island.”

  TEN

  Charleston

  Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1980

  Saul awoke to the sound of children playing in the street outside and for several seconds he could not place where he was. Not his apartment; he was lying on a hideabed under windows with yellow curtains. For a second the yellow curtains reminded him of his home in Lodz, the children’s shouts . . . Stefa and Josef . . .

  No, the excited shouts were in English. Charleston. Natalie Preston. He remembered telling the story and felt a rush of embarrassment, as if the young black woman had seen him naked. Why had he told her all of that? After all these years, why . . .

  “Good morning.” Natalie poked her head in from the kitchen. She was wearing a red sweatshirt and soft-looking jeans.

  Saul sat up and rubbed his eyes. His shirt and trousers were neatly draped across the arm of the couch. “Good morning.”