by Paul McAuley
Linda came out of the bathroom in a puff of fragrant steam, barefoot in blue jeans and checked shirt. ‘Is this what we’re going to do? Sit and watch TV?’
‘Your father told me to wait for him here. I’m waiting. Besides, there’s no point trying to look for him in the dark, is there?’
Linda sat cross-legged on the other bed and combed her damp hair with her fingers. After a minute or so, she said, ‘This has to be one of the corniest movies I’ve ever seen.’
‘I’m learning a lot from it.’
‘Such as?’
‘She’s cutting up that dress so she can remodel it and make a big impression at the Christmas dance, show her boss she’s really Kim Basinger, not some mousy secretary. And if you’d been watching this ten minutes ago, you would have seen that her rival is the spoilt general’s daughter who swans around in designer clothes. In other words, it’s more virtuous to make do and mend than buy new. And did you notice what was missing from every single ad?’
‘I can’t say that I paid them any attention.’
‘Telephone numbers for credit-card purchases. Five years after contact with the Real, this still hasn’t become a consumer society. If you want to get up to speed as quickly as possible on current affairs in a sheaf, you should read the New York Times. But if you want to get under its skin, if you want to know what people are thinking, how they live, what they fear, what they dream about, then you should watch TV. It’s a direct line to the subconscious of the nation. The ads, the set-dressing of sitcoms and movies, the monologues of talk-show hosts, they all give you a feel of a place, of how people want to live their lives.’
‘So this is what you did back in the old days, when you were scouting out all those different sheaves for the first time. You weren’t cracking safes, planting bugs, listening to chatter piped direct from the Oval Office. You were watching TV.’
‘When I started out with the Company, before I was recruited into Special Ops, I was put to work in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. I was part of a team that monitored BBC radio. Our key show was Four-Way Family Favourites. It allowed families to broadcast messages and dedicate songs to soldiers, sailors and airmen stationed in bases in the European Union protectorates. Every serviceman mentioned, we entered his name and his unit and current place of service into a cross-referenced database. We analysed the messages and dedications for signs that would indicate the disposition, morale and state of readiness of troops—’
There was a knock at the door. Stone looked through the spyhole in the door, saw that it was a woman carrying a tray, a waitress from the diner, and stuck his pistol in his waistband, under his shirt. After he had asked the waitress several questions about the town, tipped her, and relocked the door, Linda said, ‘Did you see the way she stared at us? Like we were a couple of gangsters on the run.’
‘It isn’t too far from the truth,’ Stone said, taking the covers off the plates. A chicken salad for Linda, and a fully loaded cheeseburger and fries for himself.
‘The clerk gave us a good eyeballing, too. Ten to one he’s been on the phone to the cops, telling them about a couple of strangers who pitched up in the middle of the night with no luggage.’
Stone dipped a fry in the ketchup and took a bite. It wasn’t the best he’d ever had, but after three years without fast food it was pretty damned close. ‘If the local cops come by to check us out, I’ll show them my ID and tell them we’re on a top-secret mission.’
Linda said, suddenly quiet and serious, ‘Do you think he’s all right?’
‘Your father? He seemed calm when I talked to him on the phone. Focused on the matter at hand, rational. And he knows how to take care of himself in Indian territory.’
‘We checked in almost an hour ago. Why hasn’t he shown up? Suppose he ran into some kind of trouble?’
‘If I were him, I would have been keeping watch on this place from somewhere in the woods out back. And after I’d seen us arrive, I wouldn’t have gone down to meet us straight away - I would have waited to see if there was any sign we were being tailed. He’ll come see us when he’s absolutely sure it’s safe, Linda. Meanwhile, we should rest up. It’s been a long day, and it isn’t over yet.’
‘We eat junk food and watch TV.’
‘Why not? Don’t you want to see how the movie comes out?’
Stone was halfway through his cheeseburger when there was a faint sound from the bathroom: the toilet flushing. Linda watched, quiet and still, as he picked up the Colt .45 and flattened himself beside the bathroom door. He reached for the handle with his left hand and in a single smooth move swung the door open and put his pistol on the man who was sitting on the toilet under the open window.
‘Hello, Adam,’ Tom Waverly said.
‘Are you trying to get shot, Tom?’
‘I’m trying my best not to.’
Behind Stone, Linda said, ‘Dad?’
Tom Waverly sat on the bed beside his daughter while Stone explained how David Welch had hooked him up with Linda, how they had escaped from New York and thrown off the people tailing them by dumping their car in the woods and stealing another. He skipped the part about Linda wearing a bug. She’d thought that she was doing the right thing, and Tom didn’t need to know about her mistake.
‘As far as I know, we got here free and clean,’ Stone said. ‘No one knows we’re here.’
‘No one intercepted your waitress, at any rate. That was a nice touch, by the way. See,’ Tom explained to his daughter, ‘if someone had been keeping watch on you and Adam, they would have had one of their own bring the order, so they could scope out the situation.’
‘I was wondering why you asked her all those questions,’ Linda said. ‘You were trying to catch her out in an obvious lie.’
‘That, and curiosity about your father’s home town,’ Stone said.
‘Who gave the authorisation to bring you into this?’ Tom Waverly said.
He was dressed in combat trousers, a black T-shirt, and an army-surplus forest camo jacket, reeked of woodsmoke and old sweat, and had a grim, gaunt, desperate look. His hair was chopped short and dyed black, its fringe pasted to his forehead by sweat. Salt-and-pepper stubble stood out against his paper-white face. There was an ugly bruise on his jaw, his eyes were reddened by broken blood vessels, and there were blood-spotted bandages under the sleeves of his jacket.
‘David Welch told me that some bureaucrat by the name of Ralph Kohler was in charge,’ Stone said.
‘I don’t know him. You?’
‘We haven’t been introduced yet.’
‘You dealt exclusively with Welch. He persuaded you to come in, he briefed you . . .’
‘He gave me a file, and told me he was there to make sure I got anything I needed.’
‘And you were happy with the arrangement. You didn’t mind being bait for their trap.’
‘I knew I could get out from under if I needed to. And that’s exactly what I did before I came here.’
‘I met with Mr Kohler,’ Linda said. ‘He wants to help you. So do I.’
‘I know you do, honey.’ Tom looked at Stone and said, ‘Mind waiting outside for a minute? I want a private word with my daughter.’
Stone looked at Linda.
‘I’ll be all right, Mr Stone,’ she said.
After he had stepped into the chilly night and closed the door behind him, Stone heard the TV come back on, drowning out whatever father and daughter might have to say to each other. An ice machine burbled to itself a few doors down. Stone pressed the bar and caught a couple of ice cubes, pressed one to his forehead and sucked on another to slake the dryness in his mouth. The TV was still blaring; presumably Tom and Linda Waverly were still talking. That was okay, Stone thought. That was a good sign. Tom looked like a thousand miles of rough road, but he’d handled the surprise of finding that his daughter had come along for the ride pretty well, he’d accepted Stone’s assurances, and he seemed ready to talk.
Stone crunched the ice cube b
etween his teeth and let the cold gravel dissolve on his tongue. He was beginning to think that this might work out. The hard part-getting here uncompromised, making contact - was over. It was Tom Waverly’s show now. All Stone had to do was let his old friend talk and find out what he wanted to do. If he didn’t want to come in, Stone wouldn’t push it; if he did, they’d work out a way of doing it safely. And then Stone would be able to go back to the First Foot sheaf, to the little farm. He would tell Susan how he felt, ask her should he stay or go. If she told him to go, he’d get in his boat and sail away. And if she said she wanted him to stay . . .
A green-and-white patrol car pulled into the drive of the motel. Stone stepped back into the shadows and watched a lone cop ease out of the car and saunter into the lighted office, then rapped on the door of the room, hard enough to be heard over the TV. A moment later, Tom Waverly cracked open the door, holding a snub-nosed .38 pistol up by his face.
Stone told him about the cop.
‘He’s alone?’
‘He’s alone, and he’s talking with the clerk.’
‘Wait there,’ Tom said, and shut the door.
Stone heard Linda making some kind of protest, loud enough to cut through the noise of the TV, and had to swallow the impulse to burst in on them. After a minute, the TV went off and Tom came out, saying, ‘We can do this together, right?’
‘What about Linda?’
‘We’ll keep my daughter out of this. The cop and the clerk - you in or not?’
‘Don’t kid around.’
Tom’s smile was all teeth and tendons. ‘Either you give me some help, or I’ll have to go in there on my own and put both of them out of their misery.’
‘Give me a minute with the cop,’ Stone said. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’
When he walked into the office, the cop gave him a bored look with something mean behind it and said, ‘You’re the fella from New York, uh?’
‘Yes, sir. Is there a problem?’
The cop had a flushed face and a snow-white crew cut. His Garrison belt, a holstered pistol hung on one side, a nightstick on the other, rode low under a potbelly that strained the buttons of his blue short-sleeved shirt. He said, ‘Well, I’m kinda wondering why you came all the way out here from New York with that young woman. Mind explaining yourself?’
‘She’s my colleague.’
‘This is a nice quiet God-fearing town, mister. As anyone who comes here for immoral purposes quickly finds out. How about showing me your papers?’
‘My colleague and I are here on business,’ Stone said, and pulled the little wallet from his shirt pocket and flipped it open to show the FBI badge.
As the cop took it from him, Tom Waverly barged through the door, leading with his .38, telling the cop to keep his hands away from his weapon, telling him to kneel.
‘You’re making a mistake, mister,’ the cop said.
It was exactly what Stone was thinking.
‘On your knees. Or I’ll shoot the clerk and then I’ll shoot you.’
The cop dropped Stone’s badge wallet and went down carefully, clasping his hands on the back of his head and saying that he’d called in this stop on the radio. ‘Dispatch will send a backup unit if I don’t call back in a couple of minutes.’
‘Bullshit,’ Tom said. Telling Stone, ‘This guy is the town constable, the only law here. If he needs help, he calls up the County Sheriff’s Department or the state troopers, but I bet he didn’t bother to tell either one that he was going to run a routine check on a couple of strangers.’
‘I was dealing with it,’ Stone said.
‘If you really want to help me, find a place to stash him and the night clerk.’
The clerk was standing behind the counter with his hands spread wide, a nice-looking kid with horn-rimmed glasses and an ink-stained thumb who was probably working nights at the motel to help pay his way through college. Stone told him to take it easy, asked him where the maid kept the stuff for servicing the rooms.
The kid led him to a linen cupboard at the back of the office. Stone tied him up with a couple of strips torn from a sheet and Tom brought in the cop, hands fastened behind his back with his own handcuffs, made him sit inside the cupboard with the clerk, then locked the door and jammed a chair under the handle.
‘I guess we still got it,’ he said.
‘If you’d given me another minute that guy would have been on his way,’ Stone said.
‘Yeah, and he would have called in that ID you showed him, and next thing you know your friends would have been all over this place. Park his car by the side of the office, why don’t you? Make sure it can’t be seen from the road.’
After Stone had dealt with the patrol car, Tom said that there was something he should see, and unlocked the door of the room nearest the office. Stone looked inside. Electronic equipment was spread across one of the twin beds and a man sprawled on the other, out cold and snoring irregularly, a goose egg raised above his right ear, wrists cuffed behind his back. A second man sat on the floor, right wrist handcuffed to his left ankle, left wrist handcuffed to his right ankle, his gaze dark and furious above a gag.
‘Meet Officers Piven and Corning,’ Tom said.
‘They knew you were here? They knew I was coming here?’
‘Hell, no. The Company knows I was born here, but it doesn’t know that I know. Still, I guess someone decided to cover all the bases, and sent these two losers here just in case I showed. As far as they were concerned, it was a coffee-and-doughnuts assignment. Stake out the only motel in town, cruise the streets, tell the local law a bullshit cover story about being military police looking for deserters believed to be passing through the area. Strictly routine. They were flat-out astonished when I paid them a visit,’ Tom said, and shut the door and locked it. ‘We should get going. Sooner or later someone is going to wonder where the cop is.’
‘What about Linda?’
‘I don’t want her to get hurt, Adam. I gave her something to put her to sleep. By the time she comes around, it’ll all be over.’
Stone was angry enough to think about reaching for his pistol. ‘At least let me check up on her.’
‘She’s my daughter, Adam. I resent the implication that I’d harm her.’ Tom pointed his .38 at the Chevy. ‘How about you and me go for a little ride? There’s something I want to show you.’
10
As Stone drove out of the motel parking lot, Tom Waverly said, ‘Your standard Company unit, all you’re likely to find in it is half a roll of breath mints and one of those air-freshener pine trees. This heap of junk, though, has character.’
The half-pint of Four Roses that he’d taken from the glove compartment was clamped between his thighs. He was unscrewing the cap with his left hand and holding the .38 in his right, not quite aiming it at Stone.
‘I guess that’s because it’s stolen,’ Stone said.
‘How does it feel to be on the run, by the way?’
‘I’m not running from anything, Tom.’
‘Sure you are. You just don’t know it yet.’
Tom took a couple of pills from the breast pocket of his camo jacket, chased them down with a swallow of Four Roses, and immediately started to cough, spitting most of the bourbon down the front of his jacket. The coughing fit went on for a little while. He bent forward, his whole body shuddering as he hacked into his fist. When he could speak again, he said in a rough, choked voice, ‘Pull over.’
Stone parked under a big chestnut tree that stood in front of a big, dark house; Tom opened the door and leaned out and threw up. ‘I can’t seem to keep anything down lately,’ he said. There was blood on his chin, black in the dim glow of the car’s interior light.
‘Maybe we should hijack the local doctor, Tom. Get you fixed up.’
‘It’s not the kind of thing that can be fixed,’ Tom said. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand and climbed out of the car.
Stone climbed out too. The house loomed dark and silent in its weed-cho
ked lot.
‘I’m serious about finding a doctor,’ Stone said.
‘We’re not here to talk about my health.’ Tom picked up a couple of rocks from the untidy verge. ‘Ever knocked out a window in an old haunted house, trying to scare up the ghosts?’
‘Is that why we’re here? To talk about ghosts?’
For a moment, Tom’s grin was exactly as Stone remembered it. ‘In a way. One of the reasons I came here was to make up for the childhood I never had.’
‘So you’re camping out in the woods because you never got to do it when you were a kid.’
‘I see I can’t get anything past you.’
‘It’s an easy reach. Your clothes stink of woodsmoke.’
‘Well, I couldn’t hardly stay anywhere in town with Piven and Corning on the prowl.’
‘Hiding out where you were born, maybe it’s not the smartest move.’
Tom Waverly was lit by the car’s headlights, his face pale, his eyes hollow. ‘Back in the state orphanage, did you ever wonder what it would be like, growing up like an ordinary kid in an ordinary family living in an ordinary town?’
‘Just about every day,’ Stone said. ‘And then I was fostered, and I got to see what it was like.’
Stone had been the last of Karl and Hannah Kerfeld’s foster children. He’d spent six years with them in New Hamburg, Minnesota, the happiest years of his life. When the old couple had died in an automobile accident, just after he’d graduated from college and joined the Company, it had been as if his real, unknown parents had died.
‘I forgot you had a family upbringing,’ Tom said.
