Resurrection Day

by Brendan DuBois

  Yes, he thought, that might work. It just might—

  Somebody tugged at his elbow and he turned. A radioman, sitting behind the copilot, passed over a message flimsy and leaned forward, yelling in his ear. ‘A message for you, Major! ‘

  The airplane struck some turbulence, and his head bumped against the bulkhead. He held up the message and in the dim red light saw three words that made everything right, that made him smile for the first time in months.

  ABORT ABORT ABORT

  Then the aircraft made a steep, banking turn, and headed back to Canada. A couple of the paras looked up and saw the smiling face of their commanding officer. One, and then another, started hooting, and soon the entire plane was cheering and clapping. Major Hunt just nodded, grinning at his lads.

  ~ * ~

  THIRTY-ONE

  The departure lobby for international flights from Logan Airport was crowded, but he found her, sitting in a hard red plastic chair, looking through a day-old copy of the Times. She had on her long leather coat and when she looked up and saw him approaching she smiled. Despite himself, despite knowing who she was and what she had done, he smiled back.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned, it’s the famous Carl Landry of the Boston Globe, rescuer of lost ladies from Manhattan,’ she said, folding her newspaper in half and standing up.

  He grasped a hand and kissed her and said, ‘Not that famous, and not sure if I’m still with the Globe.’

  ‘Really? I thought they’d be giving you a raise or even a promotion.’

  He sat down and she sat next to him. He looked around the terminal and saw one and then another well-dressed man pretending not to look in their direction. She saw what he was doing and laughed for a second. ‘I see you’ve noticed my watchers.’

  ‘Who do they belong to?’ Carl asked.

  ‘Well, it looks like there’s four of them,’ she said, craning her neck to look around. ‘I believe half of them belong to my people, ensuring nothing untoward happens to me, and I believe the other half belong to your lot, ensuring I get deported on time.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘It’s hard to believe things here are changing so much, but the old bureaucracy grinds on. The presidential election is in chaos, people are marching in the streets, and McGovern may win after all, but one lowly newspaper reporter must be sent home to England.’

  ‘You’re a lot of wonderful things, Sandy, but you’re not just a lowly reporter.’

  Her face flushed. ‘I know what you’re saying, me doing things that weren’t exactly reporter-like when I was here. But I was asked by my country to do something, and I did it.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said. ‘In a way, you remind me of your home country. Or maybe even your grandmama, from what you’ve said. Polite and reasonable and when push comes to shove, utterly ruthless.’

  She looked at him with no expression for a moment or two, and then she smiled. ‘Father would say you’re absolutely right. He says that in some ways, I’m like the son he’s never had. I can be utterly focused on accomplishing something, whether it’s a story, or a favor for one of father’s friends. But not anymore. When…when I saw you run out into the woods after scrambling under the helicopter, I was proud of you, and I realized that not everything I had done before was right. Remember when we first met?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You said something about the relationship of our two countries, that it had to be based on our regarding each other as equals, not as master and servant. I’m afraid for a while I was unthinkingly working for those who wanted to maintain the master-servant relationship, those who were behind the paras being readied to go into Manhattan. I’m glad I failed.’

  ‘Don’t take offense, but I’m glad, too.’

  She changed her voice, tried to be more cheerful. ‘And where do you go from here?’

  He could feel the eyes of the watchers upon him. ‘I now have what snipers delicately call a high profile. Once the Globe came out, other newspapers picked up the story. Even the New York Times did a follow-up, talking to someone who had been at the ExComm meetings back in ‘62, and who confirmed my story. Then other stories appeared, about the people in the RZs, marching out and demanding their rights. One of them was a civil rights leader, back from the early sixties, a preacher named King. It’s ... it’s like a flood, now, as the censorship and the national security codes just collapse. It’s an amazing thing, and ... well, after something like that, it’s hard to go back to doing a story about a three-car fatal on Storrow Drive.’

  ‘There’s always your book,’ she said. ‘I read the last chapter at the consulate and thought it was a pretty good conclusion to the whole thing. Especially the piece you wrote on General Curtis. Did you really see him in South Vietnam?’

  He remembered that hot evening in Saigon, he and other advisers meeting the assembled generals during a cocktail party after a long briefing. A lot of drinking had gone on, and the cocky general had been in the middle of it, boasting that he could save time, money, and trouble by dropping a special weapon on Hanoi and taking care of the Vietnam problem in one day. That had been the last chapter of his book, the one he had passed on to Sandy. A chapter that exposed a lie, a lie he knew personally, because when he had seen the general last in Pennsylvania, he had said that Vietnam hadn’t been worth a thing. A lie that represented everything wrong that had happened.

  Lies, one after another, and he had finally got tired of them.

  ‘That I did, and that last chapter is still going to need a rewrite. Maybe when that’s done, there’ll be a publisher in this country who’ll have the newly found guts to publish it.’

  ‘What about the good general?’

  He shrugged. ‘He’s still among the missing. His farm is empty, and about twenty or thirty of his friends and fellow officers are missing as well. Latest rumor has it that he’s headed south, maybe to Brazil. Who knows. Maybe he can write his own book about what happened.’

  She shook her head in distaste. ‘Cold-blooded bastard…’

  ‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘No, I can’t say that. He made mistakes and he hung on too long and too many bad things happened in his name, but still... Sandy, he did stop the war. He had a hand in starting it but he also stopped it before it got out of control, before it spread to Europe and elsewhere. If he had come clean with all of us about what had really taken place, well, who knows what might have happened. We might have avoided a decade of a national security state. We might have avoided turning almost everyone in this country into a nation of cynics who don’t believe the government or the press or even their neighbors. Who knows.’

  ‘Well, I know one thing,’ she said, rearranging her coat. ‘We certainly were snookered when it came to those papers. I thought I was getting top-secret codes, and you thought that you might be getting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And some crazy man thought you were getting the real secret behind the still-living John F. Kennedy. We were all wrong.’

  He remembered the shaky, scared face he’d seen in an abandoned New York City subway station. He knew that when he had a chance, he would do his best to reunite two old and bitter brothers. ‘No, the crazy man was right. He was the only one who was right.’

  She was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He said that the documents were the key to “He Lives.” I thought he meant that in a real, physical sense.’ He smiled at the memory of Caz. ‘But he didn’t. He just meant we were getting JFK to live again in our memories as a man and a leader, as someone who inspired us, even for a short while. That real part of him lives, not the fake story of his cowardice and the bumbling that led us into war. That’s what he meant, and he was right. The old myths are gone. The truth is starting to come out, in fits and starts, but it’s here.’

  ‘Thanks to you,’ she said, reaching over to squeeze his hand. ‘Thanks to you. And that reminds me that you need a reward, so my offer still stands.’

  ‘The offer from Manhattan?’

  ‘The sam
e. Afternoon tea at Harrods. A walk in the park. A room at the Savoy. What do you say? Why don’t you fly across the pond and I’ll show you all of London. My treat, and my father’s, if I have anything to say about it.’

  She pulled an envelope from within her coat. ‘All prepared, just in case you did as I asked and showed up to say au revoir. Tickets to London, in your name. A seat right next to mine. Say yes and by this time tomorrow, I’ll be showing you my country.’

  He struggled at what to say. ‘I don’t have a passport.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ she said, motioning with her head to the crowd at the far wall. ‘I’m sure one of my watchers is from the Foreign Office. I’m sure we could work something out, if I raised a stink, and you know how I can raise a stink. Come along, Carl. Say yes.’

  He looked into those lovely but deadly eyes and said, ‘Maybe.’

  She didn’t hide her disappointment. ‘Oh, Carl... Well, look, here’s something I want to leave with you.’ She reached into her bag and passed him a book, the one that he had seen back in her hotel room, the one with the cover of a White House and a tired knight. An American Camelot, by Jack Hagopian.

  ‘Did you finish it?’ he asked.

  ‘I did, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I’m sure you will, too.’

  ‘And how does it end?’ he said, looking at the cover. ‘How is the world in this author’s universe, where there wasn’t a Cuban War?’

  She touched his knee. ‘You’ll have to read it for yourself, won’t you?’

  ‘I guess I will,’ he said. ‘Look, your flight should be leaving shortly, right?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Just a question. Where did you keep the homing device. In your purse, or on your clothing?’

  She hesitated, just for a moment. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You must have had a homing device with you. In Boston and in Manhattan and even in a little motel up in New Hampshire. That’s why you were confident that we would get rescued back in Manhattan. And that’s how your well-armed friends from the consulate managed to find us so well. You and your folks always knew where we were. Just one more secret, right?’

  He could see a conflict of emotions playing in her face, and then she managed a short laugh. ‘It was in the purse, in the bottom lining. Oh, you’re good. No one can fool Carl Landry, can they?’

  An announcement came over the speaker about boarding beginning for the next BOAC flight, headed for London, and all around them, people started to get up and gather their coats and carry-on bags. He stood up, too, and he held her hand and said, ‘No, you’re wrong. It seems like everyone’s been able to put one over on Carl Landry, and I’m tired of it all. Eventually I find out, but it’s always too late.’

  She reached for him and hugged him tight, burying her face into his chest. She whispered, ‘Just say the word, and come along. I owe you so much for getting me out of Manhattan, for helping me so much. I want to show you London, just the two of us, without your censors and MI6. So we can get to know each other without all this baggage.’

  ‘Maybe someday, Sandy,’ he said. ‘Not today. I have a promise to keep. I have to retrieve the car we borrowed. And fill it with gas.’

  Her kiss was soft but quick, and he thought he could see her eyes beginning to fill. ‘All right. You know the invitation is there. Always will be. You can reach me through the Times.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Now, go before I start bawling.’

  He kissed her again, and the last he saw of her, she was standing in line, waiting to go out through the gate.

  ~ * ~

  Carl found an observation deck and he stood by the railing, book under his arm, hands in his coat, being battered by a cold wind off the ocean. He made out her plane as it taxied away and he imagined that he could see her in one of the windows, but he wasn’t sure. He looked around at East Boston and realized with a start that everything had started here, everything from beginning to finish, just a short distance away on Winthrop Street, where he’d stood in that tiny apartment and saw a dead body that held the secrets that would change everything. Merl Sawson, with one more mission to go. Well, Merl, mission completed. Well done.

  He looked at the book again. What might have been, he thought. What might have been had now changed. It was now, what might be possible. And the answer was, of course, anything. Anything at all. All you needed was a little hope.

  The jet started its way down the runway and he huddled his body against the wind, thinking of her going back home, where there was always fresh food and plenty of electricity. Where there were no such things as orfie gangs, Restricted Zones, or martial law. Back to a place where rules were rules and things worked. The BOAC jet accelerated and took off and he watched for a long while as it winged its way over the cold and dark Atlantic Ocean, heading back to a quiet and peaceful place, and for just a moment, a sense of regret burned inside him.

  But just for a moment.

  When the jet was gone, Carl Landry turned around, looked about him, and started walking to the stairs.

  ~ * ~

  EPILOGUE

  The day before the election , he was watching the news on television when there was a knock at his door. Carl looked up from the screen where Walter Cronkite -looking thin but in good shape after spending the last several years in Leavenworth—was broadcasting a special report about the tens of thousands of marchers that had appeared the previous days from hidden areas around San Diego and Miami and Omaha and Manhattan, especially Manhattan.

  The knock repeated itself. He felt like ignoring it. He had spent the past few days in his apartment, brooding, looking at the breathless news being reported from the television, long hours of broadcasts and special reports. General Curtis had been spotted in Uruguay. Polls now showed a tight race for the upcoming election. Rockefeller was trying to put distance between himself and General Curtis, and there were strange reports of British aircraft on training missions that had, the other night, temporarily crossed over into American airspace.

  The slush, he thought. The slush never came after all.

  He knew he should have felt some sort of closure, some sort of satisfaction that all this was happening because of what he had done and the article he had written, but there was still a bitter taste in his mouth that he thought would never go away. History was being changed, in ways he never thought possible, and he knew he should be excited. He tried to focus on what was going on, what could go on, but all he could think about was that empty and dead house up in Newburyport.

  The knock, more forceful.

  Carl got up from the couch and went to the door, thinking that maybe he should pick up his pistol before answering. It could be almost anybody out there, from an angry Rockefeller supporter to a member of the Zed Force to British intelligence, wanting to even out the score.

  To hell with them all, he thought, and opened the door.

  A slim man stood there, wearing a corduroy jacket and a New York Yankees baseball cap, and in the dim light of the outside hallway, there were a mass of scars along his face, very familiar, and—

  ‘Mother of... Jim Rowley, what the hell are you doing here?’ Carl asked, holding onto the doorknob for support.

  The young man grinned, probably happy at the shock he had just produced. ‘Hell, Carl, I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by to say hi, and thanks.’

  Carl grinned. It was good to see him. ‘Seriously?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘Half seriously. I did want to say thanks, for me and everybody at PS 19. You did pull through, and if you ever get back to Manhattan, the city’s yours. Honest. We owe you so much—’

  ‘Knock it off,’ Carl said, interrupting him. ‘I was just glad to help. Look, you want to come in?’

  Jim shook his head. ‘Nope, sorry. I got someplace else to be tonight. But there is one more thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Jim motioned to the shadows by the stairway. ‘I brought someone up here fro
m Manhattan. Took some work on my part to track ‘em down, contacting the other RZs, but I think it was worth it.’

  Carl looked into the shadows, into the darkness, and then someone stepped up from the stairwell, and he felt like a bright light was now shining, a bright light that was comforting and cleansing and just so damn warm and right. It seemed like everything had faded away and that nothing else existed, save for that smiling person, a person who came to him and stood there, just a foot or so away, hair cut short but face oh so familiar, and then gently grasped both of his trembling hands.