Twilight

by Brendan DuBois

  I remembered what Peter had done, looking for me, and I said, “I imagine Colonel Saunders and his boys had more important things to worry about. Like a NATO air strike coming down their throats.”

  Gary laughed. “So your little cover story continues, eh? Not half-bad. Here’s a newsflash for you, supposed ex-reporter Samuel. Colonel Saunders and his crew are fine, just fine.”

  Something acidy burned at the back of my throat. Peter. Had he been lying all along? Even now? But Gary went on and said, “After you bailed out the whole camp was moved. We knew you were there to gather intelligence. Maybe you even had a GPS device up your ass, for all we knew. So after you broke out, Samuel, the base camp did the same, before your brave pilots came in at ten thousand feet to kill men and women and children armed with rifles. Still, I have to admire you for keeping to your cover story for so long.”

  “And everything about you was a cover story too, right? Schoolteacher with a conscience.”

  “Oh, that part was true,” Gary said proudly. “I was a schoolteacher with a conscience, one of the very few in my school who resisted the brainwashing of the teachers’ unions and all the little special-interest groups who wanted to teach the latest fad. Oh, they were so smug and arrogant, thought they had everything under their thumb. They made jokes about me, you know. About having done better teaching in caves during the Stone Age. Teaching about a woman’s proper place in the home. About America’s proper place in the world. All that old-fashioned stuff. So when Manhattan was bombed and the balloon strikes happened and the power went out and outsiders started stripping our supermarkets and Wal-Marts, guess who stopped laughing? Guess who came to me and others and asked for help? So nice to be a liberal softy when you’ve got three squares a day. But when you and your kids get hungry you want help, even if you do drive a Volvo. You want your neighbors with guns to do something. So we did. Where’s the crime in that?”

  “And the cover story about your fiancée? That was true?”

  Gary’s face was no longer so merry. “No, part of that was true,” he said. “But her name wasn’t Carol Ramirez. Like I’d go out with a spic. Nope, her name was Carol Rockford. A beautiful white Christian woman. She was in a convoy all right, just like I said. She was helping take care of some foster children from some of our county agencies. Not from away. They were our own. Like we’d try to help those refugees. Just like those people streaming out after Katrina. Some misguided idiots were trying to save a bunch of thieves and druggies and welfare cheats then. Why? We looked after our own, that’s what we did, and we took care of them.”

  “Took care of them, or escorted them to be dumped at the Canadian border?”

  It was like he didn’t hear me. “So there she was, traveling at night. Some militia units—not with our county, that’s for sure—were escorting them, to make sure they could go through any state-police roadblocks without problem, when the bombing started. So that part is true.”

  “I’m not sure if I can believe you about anything, Gary,” I said. “I don’t even think you butchers are ready for an armistice.”

  The woman militia member called over to him, and he waved a hand back in acknowledgment. “Who says anything about us being ready? The Europeans and such, they’re starting to scream about the cost in money, the cost in seeing coffins come home with UN flags draped across them. They’re looking for any excuse to declare victory and go home. Because they know we’d never give up, not ever. Here’s a little secret that you can take back to your masters in Geneva or wherever.”

  I moved to step back but Gary was quicker, grabbing my upper arm, leaning forward to whisper harshly in my ear. “The secret is, it’s nobody’s business what we do behind our borders. Understand? Killing niggers or fags or liberals or city people, it’s our business, and always will be. No matter the body count. No matter what you folks think or do. No matter how long and hard you look for your mysterious Site A.”

  I broke free of his grasp. “Asshole.”

  “Sorry, Samuel,” he said. “Time for us to declare victory. Site A? Here’s another secret, young one. I was there, right from the beginning.”

  I said not a word.

  Gary’s voice got low, dreamy. “It was a wonderful thing—a beautiful thing. All those people, trucked in, scared, angry, not knowing what was going on. So many loud voices, so many opinions, so many voices demanding that we let them go, threatening to sue us, threatening to call whatever cops might still be out there. What a laugh … and the shooting started, and we shot them, and we shot them, we lined them up and we shot them … and after a while it was just so quiet and clean … It was wonderful, Samuel, the most wonderful thing I have ever seen …”

  I tried to keep my voice even. “You’re so fucking proud of yourself, why don’t you tell me where it is?”

  That seemed to snap Gary out of his happy memory, and he smiled. “Hah. Maybe if you’d spent a couple more days out in the woods instead of being in camp you would have fallen into it. See ya. Maybe I’ll come look you up in Toronto when this is all over.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “You’ll be arrested.”

  He winked at me. “In a few short hours, me and everybody else here will be given a worldwide blanket amnesty. Not to mention our POWs over there at The Hague. Just you see.”

  Gary turned and walked away and I felt this insane rage just roil through me as I remembered the burned buildings, the dead Australians, Sanjay lying there cold on the ground, the German air-force pilot dangling from a tree, the UN soldiers being shot, one by one, and dumped into a pit …

  A hole. A pit.

  Gary looked at me again and waved. I think I surprised him, for I waved back just as enthusiastically. Then I walked past the armed Poles, back into the crowd.

  I WAS LOOKING for Miriam, I was looking for Peter, and I couldn’t find either of them. There were more aid workers and off-duty soldiers and hospital folks around me, some talking in small groups, others lifting themselves up on tiptoe to see the dreary action taking place over by the tents, where the militia representatives were being escorted in for the armistice negotiations. I looked around, frantic now. Time was slipping away, and I thought about the militia generals, over there in The Hague, getting prepped to go home. Thought about Peter looking for the body of his Grace, looking for the truth about what had happened here, truth that might still be hidden for years to come. I moved around in a circle, looking for Peter’s tall build, for Miriam’s blonde hair. I bumped into people, moved again, heard the strange mix of languages, from Dutch to Polish to—

  A flash of yellow. Over there. Hillside.

  I went through the crowd again, using my elbows and whatever else to clear my way, and praise the Lord and pass the good fortune, there was Miriam, talking intently to Peter, standing a little ways up the hill. I ran on the grass and she smiled at me and any other time I would have just stood there for a second and enjoyed the sensation. But not now.

  “Peter!” I yelled. “Where’s the general?”

  Peter turned in mid-conversation. “Oh, there you are. Who in God’s name was—”

  “Shut up, please, just shut up,” I said, trying to catching my breath, trembling with excitement. “The general. Hale. The one we talked to yesterday. Can you get hold of him?”

  I think anyone else would have started asking lots of questions, would have tried to dissuade me from doing what I was doing. But for once in our brief relationship Peter managed not to disappoint me.

  “Is it important?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Miriam said, “I’m sorry, who’s this general? And how come the two of you know him?”

  I held up a hand. “Just a sec, Miriam. Please. Just a sec.”

  Peter said, “Important. Just how important?”

  I took a deep breath. A gamble, but what the hell. What could anybody do? Send me back home? Assign me to the UN to investigate war crimes?

  “Site A,” I said.

  Miriam stood stock-sti
ll. Peter stared at me, his eyes ablaze.

  “What about it?” he asked.

  “I think I—Hell, scratch that,” I said. “I know where it is. Peter, I know where Site A is.”

  “OK,” he said. “I guess that’s important enough.”

  PETER WORKED HIS intelligence-agency magic while I was put in the very uncomfortable position of trying to explain to Miriam who Peter really was and why I hadn’t told her before. I also had to touch on the question of what kind of relationship we were going to have if I kept secrets, and I was fortunate enough not to have to answer it right away because I was still keeping secret the story of the diskettes. Soon we were escorted into a mildewy-smelling canvas tent housing General Hale and two other UNFORUS officers. Hale looked very irritated, almost like my father on one of his better days, and I started right off.

  “General, please excuse me, but a quick question.”

  Hale looked at Peter and God bless Peter but he didn’t look awed or scared or overwhelmed. He just looked confident, like he was here to back up a colleague, someone he had worked with and whom he trusted. That look on his face warmed me almost as much as one of Miriam’s smiles.

  “All right, a quick question,” he said.

  “In my debrief, I mentioned a German Luftwaffe pilot’s body, on a road by a river. Has that body been recovered?”

  Hale looked over at the officers. “George?”

  The officer called George flipped through a clipboard, looking at a sheaf of yellow message slips. “Yes, sir. Two days ago.”

  “How was it recovered?”

  The officer looked over at me. “Excuse me?”

  “How was it recovered? Who went in there and took it out?”

  “An SAR unit,” he said. “Search and rescue.”

  “They use helicopters, don’t they? Not ground vehicles.”

  “Not with the armistice in tatters,” Hale said. “Look, young man, I should be there with the negotiations, not spending time with you—”

  “Site A—it’s at the end of that road,” I said.

  The general paused in mid-sentence. He swallowed. Looked at me—I was so glad I was not wearing the uniform of the British Army. “What makes you so sure?”

  Good question. I hoped my answer would be just as good. “At the end of that road is a tourist attraction. I spotted a brochure for it, and one of the locals who helped me told me about it. Bronson’s Iron Works. One of the first open mines and forges in this part of the state.”

  “And?” the general asked, putting about a ton of skepticism into that one word.

  “And it’s been disguised. The signs showing how to get there have been removed. And the road leading into the mine has been disguised and blocked, with an earth berm and some foliage. Not enough to fool a serious search operation but enough to fool most people. And I just had words with one of the militia people you’ve been negotiating with. He let something slip about me being out there and almost having found Site A. Something about falling into it. Sir, it just came together. The disguised road. The missing signs. And an open pit or mine.”

  As I had been talking, one of the general’s assistants had been going through a series of file folders, holding them up to his chest like some paper accordion. Hale turned to him and said, “Henry?”

  “Sir, records show that the state park called Bronson’s Works was investigated almost two months ago. There was nothing to report. All clear.”

  Hale turned to me, his face showing disappointment and anger and maybe just a little concern for me for trying to come up with something at such a late date. “Sorry, young man, it looks like you didn’t quite—”

  “Who did the search?” Peter asked, arms folded.

  Hale asked, “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, General. A fair question. Who did the search? Who told you there was nothing there?”

  Hale said to the aide, “Henry? You heard the man. Who led the search that told us there was nothing at the place called Bronson’s Works?”

  Another flip-flip through the papers and folders. Then, looking as pleased as a dog treeing a squirrel, Henry held up a piece of paper.

  “One of the first investigators on the ground,” he said. “A fellow called Jean-Paul Cloutier.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Before the UN convoy left the parking lot, the passenger door of a Land Cruiser opened and Charlie Banner, USMC, clambered in, M-16 in his hands, and sat next to Peter, who was behind the steering wheel. Charlie turned, grinned, and held out a hand to me. I was sitting in the rear.

  “M’man Samuel, good to see you,” he said. “I’ve been meanin’ to look you up, but I had a shitload of things to do once I got back here, after the armistice broke down. You look pretty good.”

  I gave his strong hand a firm squeeze, and he paid me the compliment of not trying to squeeze back. “Thanks, Charlie,” I said. “You’re looking good yourself. Thanks for getting everybody out.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said. Then he shook his head. “Too bad about Sanjay, though.”

  Peter started up the Land Cruiser. “You did your very best, Charlie. Sometimes you can’t save ’em all.”

  “Yeah, that’s the hell of it,” Charlie said, snapping his seat belt shut. “Sometimes the ones worth saving you can’t, and the ones that ain’t worth keepin’ alive make it until they’re ninety or so.”

  Miriam said, “It’s nice at least for us four to be together again, don’t you think?”

  Charlie looked out at the other vehicles gathering in the hospital parking lot. “Where’s Karen? In another Toyota?”

  Peter said, “If so, it’s one in California. She resigned her UN contract and headed back home. Can’t really blame her, can you?”

  Out by the tent a cluster of uniformed men and one woman was standing. The militia negotiation team. It was hard to tell what was on their faces, but I could make out Gary just fine. I guess it was a bad idea but I couldn’t resist. I gave him a very cheerful wave as Peter put the Land Cruiser in drive and lined us up behind another UN vehicle. Gary didn’t wave back, but he did lower his head and talk to the militia woman. Oh well. So much for a defiant gesture.

  Charlie shifted in his seat. “California. Nice safe place, so long as you live in one of the right cities. I hope she’s OK.”

  “Knowing Karen, she’ll be just fine,” Miriam said.

  Charlie turned his head. “What does that mean?”

  Miriam slipped her hand into mine. “It means nothing. Nothing at all.”

  AS WE DROVE along the state road, Peter said, “Now, this is what I call traveling in style. I wish we’d had this kind of setup a couple of weeks ago. Nobody would have troubled us, not at all.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Charlie said.

  Even with Miriam’s hand held in mine, I was still nervous, a trembling anxiety of anticipation, like lying awake in bed at five a.m. on December 25th as a child, wondering what awaits you downstairs in the dark rooms. Charlie and Peter were right: it certainly was a pleasure to be traveling in style. We were in a convoy of about a dozen vehicles, with a couple of APCs up front and another two in the rear, providing security. There were a half-dozen white Land Cruisers, just like the one we were in, and two open-bed tractor-trailer trucks that were carrying a bulldozer and an excavator. Flanking our progress on both sides were two helicopters—gunships, it looked like—and as we went through the countryside I could sometimes spot people emerging from their homes and trailers, looking at us as we went by.

  “What do you think the militia are doing, back at the hospital?” I asked.

  Peter said, “Probably hoping that in all the commotion they can scarper out and go home. If you’re right, Samuel, and Site A is where you think it is, then the generals at The Hague are going to have a rough time of it.”

  Miriam said, “Maybe the armistice talks will break down for a long while. Have you thought about that?”

  Peter kept on looking straight ahead,
at the rear of another Land Cruiser. “Most of the militias in the other states have signed up. These guys were trying to play games, trying to get their leaders back. Fine. Let them play all the games they want. By tomorrow, once the media gets a hold of Site A, they’ll be even more isolated and marginalized. The armistice will fall into place by default.”

  Then Peter spared me a quick glance, and I knew what he was thinking. So much more was at stake than the armistice, or the respective futures of the militias and the UN intervention. So much more.

  The road rose up and curved to the left, and I caught a quick glimpse of a general store passing by on our right. I swiveled my head, peering at the innocent-looking building with its friendly front porch and inviting doorway. I must have shuddered or something, because Miriam leaned over and said, “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, turning my head even more as we raced by Coopers General Store. “Just got bad memories, that’s all.”

  “Of the store, that one there? Why?”

  I turned around and looked at that beautiful smile, the concerned look in those sparkling blue eyes. “Had a bad meal there once, that’s why.”

  THE AMAZING THING, to me at least, was that it didn’t take long, not at all. After stopping at the earthen berm that was blocking the access road to the state park, a group of military engineers looked around, poking at the ground and checking for land mines or IEDs. When they gave the all-clear, the bulldozer revved up its diesel engine, backed off the trailer and then got to work, tearing apart the dirt and trees and brush as though they were made of polyester foam. While this was going on, we stood outside our Land Cruiser while APCs kept watch at both ends of the road, and soldiers—a mix of Hungarians and Ukrainians—patrolled the woods. I still felt jumpy: the memories of having been here a few days ago, on the run, trying to survive, trying hard not to get caught, came racing back.

  Peter was leaning against the dirt fender of the Land Cruiser. “Sun feels good, doesn’t it?”