“Well, we still don’t know where your father is, Doggie.”
“Have Warden Falso and that prison officer been found?” Wesley asked the police sergeant.
“No. We presumed they’d gone into hiding or had been shot by the militias in a marsh near here, but we haven’t found any bodies down there. All we can do is fear for their lives. Maybe the militias took them hostage.”
Wesley looked at Doggie and shook his head. “We don’t know a thing, Doggie. We don’t know where they are, and we don’t know if your father’s with them.”
“Do you have any idea where they could be?” T asked the tipsy guard.
“No. . . . No idea. Falso’s . . . not the type who . . . who does something like that.”
“Do what?”
“Cut and run. . . . Just haul ass.” He pointed at the dead officer. “Can’t . . . Can’t we move him. I . . . I know his son.”
“Come on,” said the police sergeant, “I’ll give you a hand. We’ll move him over to the canteen with the others.”
“What a crock of shit,” said alcohol-breath.
They lifted the body up and began carrying it off. It was a pitiful procession, but still, it demanded respect. They bowed their heads.
Then Wesley grabbed T by the arm. “T! Do you think anyone has checked behind that door the body was lying in front of?”
T looked at Wesley quizzically, but Doggie understood immediately and sprang for the door at the end of the cells.
She flung it open.
It was much warmer inside than on death row. She was greeted by a strong, acrid, sweetish smell. It came from a corpse that was lying against the wall.
T came rushing up. “Let me by, Doggie,” he said, and edged into the room.
She put her hand to her mouth to try to keep from vomiting as she looked around at a condemned man’s last occupancy—the witness room, the holding cell, and the execution chamber.
So this was what it was like, this unholy place. The last stop before oblivion.
She looked down at the body. It was a man in a police uniform, probably the missing officer. He was lying in a completely sterile room with two rows of seats facing the execution chamber, a closed-off room with glass walls that were mostly covered by curtains.
“My God,” T exclaimed. “It’s Freddie Cambell. I knew the man.”
He had been shot in the middle of the chest. There was a big hole, but almost no blood. He was quite young and overweight, and took up almost all the little space there was between the rows of seats and the death chamber.
“He’d been blocking the door into the execution chamber,” T muttered. “I think you ought to look away now, Doggie. I’m not sure what’s coming next.”
She looked at him for a split second before she realized what was going on.
“No!” she cried, as she tore open the curtains. Six feet on the other side of the glass lay her father on the gurney, bathed in sharp light, his head turned the other way. Every detail in this hi-tech burial chamber was as sterile as an operating theater—and much too peaceful. The tension made her movements jerky, and she began to sweat. She was unable to move.
“Where the hell’s the needle and the straps?” T swore. “He’s not strapped down. Help me get this meat loaf away from the door.” Then he began tugging at the corpse. “This chamber is a hundred percent airtight and soundproofed; your father will suffocate in there. We’ve got to move this body. Now!”
“Oh, God, T, he’s lying so still,” wailed Doggie. “Do you think . . . ?” She bent over, grabbed one of Freddie Cambell’s legs, and pulled until they succeeded in moving him away enough so they could wrench open the door.
Doggie was hit by a wave of disgusting, dry, musty air as she forced her way through the door and saw the next body on the floor, a portly white man with a black wristwatch, wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
“It’s Warden Falso,” she heard T groan, as fresh air filled the chamber. But Doggie wasn’t concerned about Falso or anyone else at the moment. She threw herself at her father’s body and touched his face. The skin was dry as parchment. Then she turned his head towards her and stared into his lifeless, battered face. Oh, God, she thought, and felt for the pulse in his neck. Feeling none, she tried again.
She pressed harder and suddenly felt a tiny quiver. Then he slowly opened his eyes and stared at her with absolutely no sign of recognition.
The miracle had happened.
* * *
—
It took a lot of energy to breathe life back into Warden Falso, but half an hour later, both men were sitting in the warden’s office, looking sickly pale and deeply grateful.
“Aside from keeping us from being suffocated in there, I’d have been a dead man by now anyway, if it hadn’t been for you, T. Do you realize that?” Falso said gravely. “If it hadn’t been for that darn Curtis case, I’d have been sitting in my office yesterday morning when the militias attacked.” He looked at T intently. “Your visit the day before yesterday and your whole fight to get Curtis’s case reopened had made quite an impression, but I wasn’t a hundred percent certain.”
He turned to Doggie. “I regret having to tell you this, but I had my men beat up your father. They beat him until he couldn’t scream his innocence anymore—that’s when I finally believed him.” He laid a hand on Curtis’s leg. “I’m sorry, Bud,” he said, “but I had no other choice. I had to make sure—and fast.”
“But what if he’d confessed?” Doggie was having a hard time suppressing her anger. “People do that under torture. You ought to know that.”
Warden Falso looked at her somberly. “If he’d confessed? Then I’m afraid there would be no one left for you to get mad at.”
“Tell us what happened yesterday, Bill,” said T, and lit a new cigarette on the stub of the last one.
“Well, when Bud regained consciousness after our . . . treatment yesterday afternoon, I went down to tell him I’d decided to stay preparations for his execution. By this point I thought he was innocent.”
Doggie looked at her father. He nodded slowly, then said, “Yes, Falso had just come into my cell when we heard the militias blow up the main doors; then came all the shooting.”
Falso shook his head. “I didn’t get what was happening right away, but then I could hear them shouting that the moment of reckoning had come. They were screaming like wild beasts, and I knew the odds were bad.”
He heaved a deep sigh, took a box of Hershey’s bars out of his drawer, and took one after offering them around. No one else felt like eating. “You could hear the explosion each time they blew open a new door, and they were advancing fast.”
Her father nodded. He was clearly marked by the hell he had been through. “They yelled that they were coming for me,” he said.
“There was a guy in cell number seven,” Falso continued. “He was a militiaman, too, but from another organization they weren’t connected to. . . . He was sleeping. . . .” He fastened his eyes on the carpet. What he was about to say was apparently something he wasn’t proud of. “So I knocked him unconscious and pulled him into your father’s cell.”
“The militias must have known you’d gone down to death row,” said T.
“Yes, but not the ones who blasted their way down there. On the other hand they knew which cell was your father’s. They called him ‘the initiator of the new state of affairs,’ meaning he had to bear the responsibility for all the country’s woes, for which he had to pay with his life. So one of them emptied his automatic through the bars of your father’s cell and killed the other guy, believing they’d settled the score with your father.”
“But they forgot you.”
Falso shrugged. “Apparently. They had enough work on their hands, polishing off the other prisoners and getting out of there.”
“Why’d they have to do that?”
“That’s how they were. The other inmates weren’t their kind.”
T was already working on rolling a new cigarette. “Those two officers that were shot—were they present on death row when the militias broke into Sussex?”
“No, just me and Curtis. The other two fled down there, thinking they’d escape the attack. They didn’t succeed, unfortunately.”
“And in the meantime the two of you went and hid in the execution chamber?” asked T.
“Yes. Then Freddie Cambell had the same idea, but he didn’t make it.”
Now Doggie’s father’s eyes were on the floor as well. “We could sense through the soundproofing where he was lying, bleeding to death on the other side of the door. We tried to open the door to push him out of the way, but he was too heavy.”
“And the other guard out in the corridor? He must have been killed later than Cambell.” T took a drag on his new cigarette.
Falso scratched his forehead. “Lassie? It’s hard to say, but I’m afraid they played with him a little before they finished him off. I just know Lassie had plenty of enemies among the inmates. Plus he was the one with the keys.”
T stuck out his lower lip. “And no one knew you and Curtis were in the death chamber?”
“In all likelihood, no. It all happened so darned fast. From the time they blew up the entrance till they were gone again took all of about three or four minutes, as far as I can tell.”
“And they shot the militiaman in number fourteen, you say?”
“Yes, along with all the others. The technicians say they weren’t choosy. They just fired into the cells, one after another. It was a straightforward liquidation.”
Doggie squeezed her father’s hand. It was only days ago that he had pleaded his innocence before her, hands cuffed behind him, and she’d turned her back on him. She had let him down that day. How was she ever going to expiate her guilt? How was he ever going to ignore it?
She looked at his battered face and felt full of shame.
For a moment he looked directly at her, as though he were speaking to her with his eyes. He seemed to be telling her that he understood but just couldn’t express it. That he could forgive, but didn’t find it necessary.
Then he gave a smile, barely noticeable, and turned towards Barefoot.
Wesley was sitting motionless in his wheelchair. He was very pale and sweaty, and a little blood was seeping through his bandages and shirt. He was staring silently at Doggie, probably not even aware that she was looking back. She’d never seen anyone looking at her like that before.
She was just about to say something to him when her father squeezed her hand. “Well, children, when’s the wedding?” he said, so quietly that everyone heard it. She had never considered that question, had never even considered considering it.
Her father looked at her through swollen eyes. She couldn’t see the smile lines for all the swelling, but she could hear it in his voice.
“In any case I insist the celebration be held at the Splendor Hotel in Virginia Beach.” He managed a short laugh. “Things can’t go wrong every time, for Christ’s sake.”
EPILOGUE
June 2009
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The company plane landed at Kralendijk’s airport on the island of Bonaire in fantastically fine weather. Siesta time was over, and small vans buzzed around the narrow streets. The air was full of Caribbean rhythms, hurried feet, and the scent of sage and sea.
One of the flight attendants accompanied T. Perkins, Rosalie Lee, Doggie, and Wesley into town in a minibus.
“I’m sorry,” she said, when she saw Rosalie’s eyes light up as they drove along a row of colorful boutiques, full of every knickknack imaginable. “We don’t have time to stop because the boat’s already waiting down by Oranje Pan. It’s a bit of a trip out to the island, and night falls suddenly at these latitudes.”
No one had told them they had one more island to go. In reality, they hadn’t been told much at all. Only that they were the first visitors to be allowed, their destination was somewhere in the Dutch Antilles, they should bring enough clothes for a few days, and that they must under no condition tell anyone about their trip.
Wesley shook his head and looked out the minibus’s dusty windows and through a palm grove, until he saw the bright azure sea on the horizon. It was somewhere out there they were heading.
If they’d been wanting to find a place to keep Bruce Jansen out of the limelight, this was it.
* * *
—
Less than an hour later they were seated in the Jansen concern’s giant, ancient motorboat with its brand-new logo on the bow, gazing back at the rapidly receding coastline.
Wesley passed the time listening to the boat’s local crew members chattering away in Papiamento. The Caribbean’s blue sky seemed to be lying right on top of the glassy waves. He let one hand trail in the water; he wouldn’t mind sitting like this forever.
He looked at Doggie’s sun-bleached hair and smiled. They’d both had their doubts, but now he was glad they’d decided to come. God knows they could use a change of scenery.
* * *
—
The media was up and running again a mere two hours after the attack on the White House. The first story started on the Internet, and soon everybody knew that a house had been blown up in Seattle and Moonie Quale’s body had been found lying in the rubble.
The militias’ situation was already demoralizing enough, and with the death of Moonie Quale the most poorly organized units began surrendering their weapons. A ceasefire was declared after another night of pitched battles with the most rabid groups, then a general amnesty, and hundreds of thousands of citizens turned in their firearms—even Wesley’s father.
Almost everywhere society was beginning to function again. A tangible sense of relief washed over the land, almost like after the passing of a massive, destructive storm.
Congress convened precisely twenty-four hours after the attack and immediately suspended Jansen’s appointment to the vice presidency of the deceased Thomas Sunderland, then reinstated the former vice president Michael K. Lerner in his position of successor to the throne. The members agreed it was best for the country if all speculation was set aside as to whether Lerner had actually resigned or been fired by Jansen. Who else except Lerner had made the right pronouncements at the right time? Yes, Lerner was in the clear, and how many others could say the same?
Later the same day Jansen was formally removed from office, and Lerner was sworn in as president.
In the meantime Wesley had been flown back from the prison in Waverly to the hospital in Washington, where he was recuperating until the political sequel began to unfold.
* * *
—
“What do you think Jansen’s going to be like?” Doggie asked Wesley, playing with his hand in the foamy water alongside the boat.
“Who knows? Maybe he’ll just be himself. In Bermuda shorts.”
She peered at him over her sunglasses and stuck out her tongue. They’d done a lot of speculating: How does a person look who has been banished for life from the country of which he’s happened to be president?
“I have a feeling he’s okay. Otherwise he wouldn’t have invited us, would he?” interjected Rosalie. She’d rolled up the pant legs of her white ducks and was trailing her feet in the water. It was like out of a vacation advertisement.
“Time will tell,” droned T in the background, waving smoke out of his face.
* * *
—
There was an unswerving, severe consistency in the results of the congressional hearings. Of all the Cabinet and inner-circle officials of the former government only two were spared; the rest were sacked with no pension. Several of them could expect to face criminal charges. Someone had to take the fall, and the knowledge of that alone had its effect. Mo
st tragic was the suicide of Secretary of the Interior Betty Tucker and Billy Johnson’s fatal heart attack after he’d been formally indicted. The newspapers wrote that in Johnson’s case the thunderbolt of justice had missed its mark, and the Homeland Security boss would surely have been acquitted. With that, Wesley was in total agreement. Who besides Billy Johnson had done so much to repair the damage?
Wesley and Doggie were star witnesses from day one, but when it came to Jansen’s indictment, they had to disqualify themselves. How were they supposed to differentiate between the acts perpetrated by Jansen, and those of Sunderland, when they had no concrete knowledge or evidence? How could anyone else, for that matter?
There was an attempt to coerce Chief of Staff Lance Burton and a couple of other officials close to the president into testifying that Jansen had intentionally led the nation into disaster, but all these aides refused. And the only thing one could conclude with certainty from all the testimony was that President Jansen had been wretchedly advised from day one by Sunderland, and that in any case he was so strongly affected by the murder of his wife and unborn child that one had to conclude he had been unfit for office the entire length of his presidency.
So, what to do with a United States president like him? Should one man, who’d reaped so much misery, go free? No, he shouldn’t—almost everyone agreed on that—and a movement demanding harsh punishment spread across the country like wildfire. For a few days it seemed the nation’s hard-earned return to peace was already about to disintegrate, but then President Lerner stepped in and granted Jansen amnesty on the grounds of having an unsound mind.
This caused an immediate outcry in Congress. Some were suddenly convinced that Lerner’s decision could only be because the new president was basically a believer in Jansen’s reforms, while others said the hunting cabin Lerner had hid out in belonged to Jansen’s Drugstore. But Lerner struck back; the amnesty was by no means without conditions. Jansen was to leave the country—go into exile—and never return to politics. That succeeded in ending dissent.
The Washington Decree Page 61
