by Lewis Perdue
"One of the shacks sat about a hundred yards off in a thicket of oaks and pecan trees. Mama restored it as a retreat, a simple environment outfitted no more elaborately than the original. No phone, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, She said it helped her remember where she came from."
Jasmine looked at me. I nodded that I understood.
"We're headed there. There aren't ten people who know about Mama's cabin, and you and I are two of them."
Around us, the moon found cracks in the clouds and painted pale, high-contrast silhouettes of the landscape.
"Mom always questioned why you turned out so different from the rest of your family."
"Me too."
"Mom said it never made any sense to her," Jasmine continued. "Here you are, born into this enormous position of privilege, a white boy from Delta planter stock, the offspring of a U.S. senator and the chancellor of Ole Miss, a football player, a scholar, and from what I can tell something of a boy genius. That put you about as high on the white Mississippi food chain as you can get."
I chewed on this silently "Well, Papa was gone most of my life and Mama never realized that a sense of superiority needs careful nurturing," I said tentatively, seeking answers from the moonlit fields rushing by. "Papa's conflict with the Judge always made me like an outsider. I played alone a lot. I learned how to make up my own mind and tell everybody else to go to hell."
"A free will kind of thing?"
"I never thought of it that way before."
"Maybe you should." That Mona Lisa smile again.
I had thought about this for decades, didn't understand it any better today than I had in 1967.
We chased the moon across the table-flat fields in silence for several minutes. What lessons did God want me to learn from all of this? And if God really existed and we were supposed to do his will, or hers, why the hell couldn't we get a clue about what it was?
Then I told Jasmine about the social insecurity I had experienced with Giles Claiborne.
"That's silly," she said. If anything, you should feel superior, given your accomplishments in medicine,"
"Whatever." I shook my head. "But it's the biggest reason I could never live here again."
"Never?"
I shook my head emphatically. "No way. Never."
Jasmine slowed for the stop sign at Route 7 and turned north toward Itta Bena.
"So many memories here," I said as the dark past flew by faster than night. "I leave Mississippi, but I can never escape." I squirmed uncomfortably as difficult pieces of my past shifted in my heart, falling into place as they never had before.
Jasmine nodded silently as we drove through the Confederate past. Shortly, she eased off the accelerator as Itta Bena's scattering of lights grew closer, then turned left past a broad, low field. On the field's side, a freight train made its way slowly atop a berm.
West of Itta Bena, Jasmine turned right on Highway 82, toward Valley State, then left to a gravel road through a cotton field. The rear of the Mercedes slewed as she left the gravel for a dirt road through a stand of trees.
"I'm lost," I said.
"Don't worry. I'm not."
The tires thrump-thumped over a cattle gap, then we broke through a copse of trees into another field of cotton with a group of old sharecropper shacks standing in the moonlight. Jasmine slowed as the road narrowed, entered another wooded area, and went up a short rise, where the mud tracks turned to well-maintained gravel ending at a small house.
"This is it," Jasmine said as she stopped by the house, put the Mercedes in park, and turned off the lights. When she turned off the ignition, the silence sounded like falling into a hole.
The keys jingled as Jasmine pulled them out of the ignition and opened her door. I squinted as the overhead bulb burned overbright.
"Could you get me the flashlight, please?" She pointed toward the glove box. I handed it to her, then stepped out, grabbed her bags, and followed her to the porch. She unlocked the door and ushered me in.
"Wait here," Jasmine said.
She made her way over to a kerosene lamp and lit it. The flame's warm light revealed a Spartanly furnished room with a cast-iron stove and all of the furnishings that established this as a kitchen, living room, bedroom. A patchwork quilt covered the bed, which had probably slept three or four children in its previous life. A facing door led to the shack's other room.
"Go ahead and put my stuff there She pointed to the bed on the wall opposite the stove. I did as told. The quilt captured my attention. All those little triangles, all those little stitches. All that time
"Mom made all her quilts here," Jasmine said. "When the pressure would mount, she'd come here and sit on the porch and quilt. She said it kept her sane."
"Amazing," I said "But it would drive me nuts."
Jasmine gave me a "different strokes" shrug and headed for the other room. I followed her.
"This was her room," Jasmine said.
The room had a bed, a chifforobe, a rough wooden chair, a table made out of odd pieces of lumber, and a door leading outside. This one had a dead bolt as well.
Lacking the quilts everywhere—spread on the bed, hung on the walls, draped over a stand—the shack would have been a stark portrait of poverty. Next to the rough chair sat a large hoop on a floor stand containing an unfinished quilt, heavy with significance. I went to it as Jasmine lit the kerosene lamp on the table next to it.
"After she...died, I tried to finish it," she said, "but I could never stop sticking the needle in my fingers. And I made these great big, crooked stitches." Her breast pressed into my shoulder blade as she leaned over and stretched out her arm to point to her work. "So I stopped before I ruined it."
We stood there like that for a long moment. With adequate sleep, this could have been an erotic moment, but for now it felt warm, comfortable, secure. Right.
Jasmine sniffed once, then stood up.
"We better get some sleep while we can," she said as she touched her eyes to make sure no tears were showing. "Let's get your stuff and bring it in here."
Minutes later, with everything inside, Jasmine locked the front door, told me goodnight, and closed the door to the front room. I took off my shoes, took the Ruger out of the clip holster and slid it into my right shoe. It took seconds for me to fall asleep in the borrowed hospital scrubs.
CHAPTER 51
Thundering applause rocked the Century Plaza's ballroom so intensely it echoed off itself. Clark Braxton stepped back from the podium and offered a photogenic smile to the standing-room-only crowd, who had paid $5,000 apiece for stylishly mediocre plates of food. Cameras flashed from every table; television lights glared harsh and bright. Then the sound Braxton had grown to love and expect: the gentle scraping sound of chairs when people stood to applaud.
The General stepped back to the microphone. "Thank you." The applause ended as if a switch had been thrown. "Thank you for taking time from your families, from your busy days, to come tonight. I thank you again for the contribution you have made toward America's future. Good night."
The standing ovation erupted anew as he waved, turned around, then stepped from the platform and into the shadowy backstage clutter of cables, folding chairs, and his people waiting to take him to the next engagement. His security detail, scattered strategically about the area, stood at an attentive parade rest. Braxton nodded to them.
Dan Gabriel stepped forward from a shadow. "Another magnificent presentation, sir."
"Thanks, Dan." Braxton adjusted the amount of cuff showing beyond the cuff of his navy-blue pinstripes. "Our next stop's right down the street, if I remember correctly."
"Affirmative. The Beverly Hilton," Gabriel said. "Nanotechnology Entrepreneurs Forum. You're supposed to have dessert and say a few words."
"Beverly Hilton, eh? Not all that far from here. Walking, that is. I've been too damn cramped all day and my legs are giving me trouble."
"You're supposed to be there at ten," Gabriel looked at his watch. "It's n
ine thirtyfive now."
Braxton nodded. "Make sure they have the car ready in case something slows us down. I will not be late."
"Sir." Gabriel walked toward the head of Braxton's security detail.
As the General finished adjusting his shirt, belt buckle, and pants fly to make sure his gig line was straight, his cell phone vibrated. He checked the caller ID before answering.
"Braxton."
"Sir, I need some current intel. The situation's complicated."
"Tell me about it."
Jael St. Clair's words made him angry, made him struggle to smother anger that arced in his head between rational and irrational. He had to take his medication soon. He always needed it more frequently under stress, and this nonstop campaigning affected him worse than combat. He suspected the medication would eventually stop working for Jael St. Clair, as it had for Talmadge. He was grateful to be different from them.
Across the backstage area, he caught his security chief's frown as Gabriel spoke to him. The frown yielded to the man's usual can-do expression.
"I got back to my vehicle in less than half a minute and gave chase," Jael said. "But they vanished."
"Where are you?" Braxton asked.
"On the way to Grenada. I'll check into a motel there, unload things, ditch the vehicle in a shopping center parking lot, and rent another one."
"I assume you need intel on Stone?"
"One moment."
The General used his thumbs to access the address book on his phone. He quickly found what he was looking for.
"Call this number," he said, reading out the digits twice. She read them back to him.
"Good," he said. "It will be picked up on the fifth ring. Hang up if it's any fewer, any more. The person who answers will say, 'Black granite.' If you hear anything else, hang up and call me back."
"You will respond, 'Quarry master.' This person knows about you, not who you are, but that you are mission capable and in the field."
"Affirmative, sir. Five rings. 'Black granite'; 'quarry master.'"
"This person will locate Stone."
Without waiting for a reply he pressed the "end" button as Gabriel walked up.
"Everything's set," Gabriel said "Security's deploying, but you and I'll need to leave now if we're going to walk the whole way without being late."
Braxton looked at Gabriel for a silent moment, weighing the commitment in the man's eyes, the dedication in his voice. The leading presidential contender scrolled through years of vivid memories, weighed the debits and credits of favors accumulated, and came down on a balance due that added up to loyalty.
"Sir?" Gabriel broke the awkward silence.
"I'm ready," Braxton said. "As it happens, something important has come up I need to talk to you about."
* * * * * Jael St. Clair drove carefully though darkness. At the speed limit of sixty-five miles per hour, she was the slowest thing on the road, but she didn't need to be stopped by the highway patrol. She pressed the numbers Braxton had given her.
South of her, in a clean, plain, business-budget motel room within sight of the Jackson airport, a cell phone sounded its short, sharp, distinctive tone. Video of the law enforcement briefing in Greenwood played on the motel's television, connected by cables to a laptop computer sitting alongside. The briefing had been captured with a concealed camera and burned onto a DVD.
The phone rang a second time. David Brown, formerly of half a dozen anonymous government agencies whose budgets were laundered through other well-known agencies, completed sit-up number eighty-seven. Brown got to his feet, stretched his tall, lean physique, and ran his hand over his close-cropped, gunmetal-gray hair. He glanced at the mirror at the long, thin strawberry birthmark emerging from his hairline. When he was younger, it had been completely hidden in a dense thicket of hair. The phone, one of three he carried, sat next to the laptop and sounded a third time. For one last second, he focused on the video. He'd watched it the first time on the half-hour helicopter ride south from Greenwood. Something about the black sheriff and his assistant bothered him.
The phone rang again. Brown clicked the pause button on the DVD software control panel and picked up the phone. He waited for the fifth ring, then pressed the green button. "Black granite."
"Quarry master."
"How can I help?"
"Intel."
Still focusing on the paused video of a black sheriff's deputy named Myers, Brown sat on the end of the bed and listened to the woman.
When she finished, Brown said, "I can help you. Call this number back at precisely noon tomorrow." He severed the connection before she could reply.
"Fuck you!" Jael St. Clair wrestled again with the unrequited anger burning inside her. "Noon! You fucking asshole!"
She struggled to keep the car on the road and her mind locked on reality. She tried controlled breathing. She tried visualizing the last hit, the last release, but that only made the pain worse. She had to kill Stone before the anger got her first.
The anger threatened to tip her over, so she pulled onto the shoulder and fumbled about in her shoulder bag. Finally, she pulled out the amber plastic drug bottle and shook out a capsule and washed it down with a swallow from a plastic bottle of water.
Then she waited. Finally, the heat cooled, and as it did, a plan formed in her head.
There would be someone, she thought as the traffic rocked by on her left. There is always a connection, someone who can always find the quarry. Someone to watch, to follow. It would be in the dossier she had downloaded from them.
She took another sip of water and with calm steady hands pulled back into traffic.
* * * * * Had this been an ordinary night, the ragged visions that haunted me would have jolted me awake. But even visions of Camilla, Vanessa, Lashonna, and the nightmare of the past days could not break through my desperate need for sleep.
I have no idea how long I had been asleep when I dreamed that Jasmine came in and gave me a gentle kiss. In the dream, she undressed me, threw a quilt over me, then snuggled in beside me and we went to sleep.
CHAPTER 52
Pacific breezes kept Dan Gabriel and Clark Braxton cool as they followed the security detail out to Constellation Boulevard, where armed motorcycle outriders idled near the General's armored limo.
"Project Enduring Valor still concerns me," Gabriel said.
"Go on," Braxton said evenly.
"Xantaeus robs a soldier of free will without their knowledge, overrides their sense
of compassion… neutralizes the fear of injury."
"Battle can do that all by itself," Braxton said without hesitation. "Natural two
percenters do it all the time. Compassion and fear can kill all the wrong people." "Maybe I'm not expressing myself very well. One very big issue here deals with
free will. Without it, without the ability for soldiers to make moral decisions, we turn them
into inhuman, meat-based robots."
"Don't talk to me about free will," Braxton snapped. "Every man who freezes, who
doesn't pull the trigger, has had his free will robbed by the irrationality of fear. That, sir, is
robbing men of their free will and thwarting the very moral decision to protect themselves,
their comrades, and their country. Your argument doesn't hold water."
"I see your point," Gabriel persisted. "But what about the practical issues? You
know as well as I do that battles are won when one side breaks the other's spirit. One side
surrenders or runs before it's completely destroyed. This preserves lives, talent,
knowledge—resources which can be harnessed for reconstruction once a war is over. "But if both sides have the drug," Gabriel continued, "then neither side breaks, and
battles end only when every member of the losing side is killed or wounded so gravely
they can no longer pull a trigger. It alters warfare like never before."
Braxton merely nodded as they rea
ched Avenue of the Stars and crossed with the
light. Loud traffic moved the two men shoulder to shoulder so they could hear each other. "It's the reason America needs to keep it for ourselves."
"That didn't last very long with nuclear weapons," Gabriel said.
"That's a good analogy." Braxton said. "Because Project Enduring Valor will turn
every soldier into the perfect killer, the ultimate weapon more fearsome than nukes. And
don't forget: the Cold War's nuclear mutually assured destruction gave the world a longer
period of peace than ever before. Now look at all the bloodshed since the fall of the Soviet
Union. Controlled Xantaeus proliferation should bring back an era of mutually assured
destruction and a return to an enforced global peace.
"Dan, the Russians and the Chinese'll have their own nondepleting neurotrops
soon. So too the Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis, and Saudis. Without deploying Xantaeus
first, we'll be at their mercy."
"Just like with nukes," Gabriel said. "Get' em or die. Damn."
"Damned if we do, damned if we don't," Braxton agreed, "We're either out front or
we're toast."
Gabriel shook his head slowly. They approached Century Park East. "You're right
yet again, sir. Absolutely correct. We either have to ride the tiger or get eaten." "War really is hell. Always has been. Your agony over Xantaeus has been repeated
every time a new generation of weapons has come on the scene from bows and arrows to
guns and nukes. There is always a new tiger to ride. But the only thing worse than fighting
a war—"
"—is losing one," Gabriel finished the General's oft-repeated motto. "You're right
again, sir."
Braxton clapped Gabriel across the shoulders. "That's why you'll make a good
secretary of defense. You've got the mind of a soldier and the conscience of a philosopher.
Don't stop raising the questions."
They stopped for a traffic light as northbound traffic spilled past them, splashing
up ahead into a left-turn jam at Santa Monica Boulevard, The signal changed and they
