The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  “If I do not return tonight, then set out in the morning in the formation we had planned. For if I do not safely return, then you will know that our battle is with Navarre, not the Dauphin. Do whatever is needed to draw him out, and when his troops are exposed make your attack.”

  He kissed Kate one last time, then set her down next to Alejandro. He leaned over and said, “There was a time when you gave her into my care, saying, take care that no harm comes to my daughter. I proved myself worthy of the task. I ask you now, Physician, to see that no harm comes to my wife.”

  Their eyes locked, and Alejandro nodded. Karle turned his horse and rode off.

  From his spot on the wall of the château, Charles of Navarre watched the tiny cloud of dust as it progressed on the westbound road. He had been waiting, none too patiently, for this rider, and he burned with curiosity to hear the man’s report. If Guillaume Karle was going to respond to his request, he would cover the distance before noon. Navarre judged by the sun that the other rider would reach them before noon, but just barely. He was tempted to send out a groom with a fresher horse for the man, but decided against it.

  All in due time, he assured himself. The pieces were coming together. He need only be patient.

  But how he hated waiting, wondering what this spy would tell him. He stared at the cloud of dust and willed it to move faster, but it kept the same steady pace, a pace which was thunderous on the ground, but snaillike when viewed as God Himself might view it, from this lofty perch on the wall. Would the Dauphin’s troops, as rumored, fall far short in number of the expected, thereby negating the necessity for an alliance with Karle? Or would his supporters rally sufficient strength that the Dauphin needed to be taken seriously?

  The rider would tell. He had only to wait.

  30

  Kristina appeared later that morning and presented the results of her efforts for Janie’s approval—a box full of small, well-padded packages, each one addressed to one of the field operatives.

  “ Essence of Alejandro,” she said with a triumphant smile. ” Ready to do battle. Enough to treat every one of the boys we know about. We’ll have to send them by air freight.”

  “I can’t believe you did this already,” Janie said incredulously.

  “I was up all night, slaving over a hot computer.”

  “Good work.” Then, more tentatively, she added, “This was really fast. You’re completely sure you got it right?”

  “It’s perfect. I promise.”

  Such conviction. “Well, then, let’s get this stuff on its way, before—”

  She’d been about to say before it’s too late, but instead she finished the sentence with “before all the air shippers close.” With a few touches on its directory screen, Janie had Tom’s phone display numbers for all the air freight companies that serviced their area. She quickly called the nearest one.

  But pickups had already been suspended there, so she hung up and called the next. Over and over, as she worked her way down the alphabetical list of haulers, she got the same lament: “We’ll get it there, but you gotta get it here first.” One had a plane on the tarmac, loaded and scheduled to go in two hours; it would be the last flight from western Massachusetts to their distribution center, because the pilots were no longer all showing up to do their runs, and other areas were a priority. The pilot of this last flight would stay in the Midwest for reassignment, Janie was told; she would not be returning to her home base, because it would no longer be served.

  And while Kristina raced to the airport, Janie e-mailed all the other operatives:

  Expect a package, instructions to follow.

  She ran her tongue over her teeth.

  Could I have forgotten to brush them this morning? Janie wondered. She went upstairs to the bathroom and picked up the tube of toothpaste, which was rolled halfway. Before applying the paste to the brush, she held the tube in one hand for a moment, dwelling on two thoughts: first, that she and Tom were both bottom-tube rollers, not middle-tube squeezers. It could only be an omen. And second, how much she hated being without toothpaste.

  It was one of those mundane necessities that would soon become difficult if not impossible to acquire. There were others, so Janie took her creaking Volvo out of Tom’s garage, intending to gather up as many of those things as she could while order still prevailed.

  The Holy Grail would always be gasoline, and at her usual station there was already a long line as people waited, anxious and jostling, to fill their tanks and cans and mayonnaise jars. For a moment Janie considered moving on, but she knew it would be the same situation in the next place she tried—it would be the same anywhere she went.

  She gave an entire precious hour to the wait, resenting every minute of it, but the time simply had to be spent, and when it was finally her turn at the pump she passed her hand over the sensor and listened with relief to the sound of the liquid gold gurgling into her gas tank. As the numbers on the meter clicked steadily upward and the power to move from one place to another flowed into her vehicle, she remembered with excessive clarity how quickly it had become difficult to get around the last time. For months people walked everywhere, carried things, dragged things—until workers who knew how to extract oil from the earth and refine it into gasoline emerged from their caves and went back to their jobs. Fuel could be had back then for the right price; she’d heard of a few deals that were worked around rare car parts and obscure tools, occasionally even coffee. But you had to know someone, or you walked.

  She gathered up batteries, candles, powdered milk, canned goods, bottled water, tampons—and the ultimate necessity—toilet paper. She managed to find a Swiss Army knife tucked behind a dusty rack in a hardware store—someone had dropped it long ago, and Janie was certain it was waiting just for her to come along in need. All the other knives had long since been sold. How long would it be before the shelves looked empty again—and when would the clerks disappear, leaving the stores dependent entirely on their electronics as if they were giant walk-in self-serves?

  When would the electronics finally break down and the looting begin?

  Automatic vending machines for protective face and hand gear had popped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. They could be seen on street corners like preachers of doom and destruction, big green reminders of the impending slide toward mayhem. People rushed by them in haste, just to get past, because to stop and partake was to admit the unthinkable and accede to the inevitable. Janie stopped and looked, in sad dismay, but did not buy.

  Her last stop was at a small grocery known for the fine quality of its offerings, to trade her credits for the fragrant roasted fruit of the coffee tree. A burlap bag of whole beans rested open on the counter, half-full and incredibly inviting. Janie knew beyond doubt that it would be shapeless and empty within the hour. She flashed the still-unmasked proprietor a look that pleaded May I? He nodded his permission solemnly, and Janie put her hand into the bag and scooped her fingers luxuriously through the remaining beans. She withdrew her hand with reluctance when another customer asked to do the same, and turned away to the fruit trays, which were usually filled to overflowing with colorful, succulent delights, but were now pitifully bare. Janie picked up the lone remaining lemon and squeezed it in her hand, long and hard enough so that her fingers would remember the cool feel of it. She brought it to her face and pressed it against the hollow of her cheekbone and closed her eyes for a moment as she imprinted the shape into her consciousness. Then she put the firm yellow fruit to her mouth and ran her teeth over the rind to set the flavor free. It was bitter, but so, so sweet, and she would miss it more than she could ever begin to say.

  She allowed herself a few short moments to catch her breath when she got back, then went upstairs to Tom’s guest room. She found Bruce at home and glad to hear from her, a feeling she knew would not last as their talk progressed.

  “Things are getting crazy,” she said to his image on V.M.’s screen. “I don’t know what we should do, whether we shou
ld—”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” he interrupted her. “I don’t like the sound of this. I’m not sure I understand—what are you talking about, what we should do?”

  “DR SAM,” she said in surprise. “It’s coming back again.”

  There was an interval of silence, then Bruce said firmly, “Not here.”

  Janie let that declaration settle in before responding. It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t have heard. “You’re sure?”

  “No one’s saying anything about it.”

  “No news bulletins, tightened security?”

  “Nothing.”

  Janie was confused. “That’s very strange,” she said. “But maybe it’s not happening there. Maybe it’s only here.”

  “Well, if it is in England, they’re keeping it under wraps. There hasn’t been a peep.”

  They were both quiet; Janie knew that Bruce would be watching her face on his screen just as closely as she watched his on her side of the ocean. As she waited for one or the other of them to speak, she could almost hear her own heartbeat picking up.

  “So what does this mean for us?” Bruce finally managed to say.

  It took an immense effort to keep her voice steady and even. “That it’s coming to the point where we have to move quickly, if we’re going to. If this new wave of DR SAM really takes hold, we’re not going to be able to travel at all.”

  “Janie—what do you mean by ‘if’ we’re going to … when did ‘if’ come into this discussion? I thought it was just ‘when.’ Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  She was quiet for a moment. He was the first man she’d loved since her husband had died. They’d been through hell and back together in the brief time they’d been united, most of that journey made on faith alone. They were going to see each other through the rest of their lives.

  But there was no more holding it back. “Oh, Bruce, I … I …”

  The old-fashioned transmitter on V.M. was working just beautifully, on a frequency that no one bothered with anymore, and the conversation between Janie and Bruce came in crystal-clear, but as it unfolded the listeners began to regret that they’d heard it.

  Kristina sighed and said, “I think I’m going to cry.”

  The man at her side nodded and shook his head. “Tom’s going to want to listen to this when he gets here later.”

  “Maybe we should edit it before he does. I don’t think he’d want to hear it all.”

  “Maybe not. But he’s going to like the gist of it.”

  “I’m not sure she managed to convince him, though,” Kristina said. “He seemed pretty determined.”

  “We could screw things up for him, and make it completely impossible for him to get here. Have Frenchie post something negative.”

  “No—that’s too extreme. We don’t want to make him miserable for the rest of his life, we just want to keep him where he is.”

  The man gave that notion a moment’s consideration, then said, “You’re probably right. And if we did do something, Tom would get on us for messing with the natural order of things.”

  “But that’s what we do,” Kristina said. “That’s the whole point.”

  “No. Restoring the natural order is the whole point.”

  “It’s still interference.”

  “Hey, it’s like everything else—there are two sides. Good, productive interference, or bad, counterproductive interference.”

  “Okay,” Kristina said. “Then I guess we do nothing. Things will just have to work themselves out.”

  “They always do, whether we like it or not,” the man said.

  Janie came downstairs after her call to Bruce feeling as if she had a double-ended axe balanced on the top of her head, and any way she leaned or turned would bring disaster. But she entered the kitchen to find the table set, wine poured, and Tom standing over the stove, stirring a pot of something that smelled savory and wonderful. In the shadow of doom and destruction, he had made dinner.

  The axe melted away. She admired the scene for a moment, then said, “God, you’d make a wonderful wife.”

  “There’s a good reason for that. I’ve been my own wife for a long time.”

  “It looks like you’ve learned a lot.”

  He transferred the tempting concoction from the pot to a platter and brought it to the table. “I live to learn,” he said as he set it down.

  “That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you.”

  They traded a quick and silent understanding that expressed itself as a mutual smile. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “You look a little stressed out.”

  She settled herself at the table. “I am.”

  He sat down opposite her. “I am too.”

  “Then you wear it better than I do.”

  “I just don’t let my emotions show as easily,” he said. “That’s not necessarily a good thing.”

  “So show them. I want to hear about the things that trouble you. You listen to my tales of woe all the time.”

  “That sounds dangerously like a commitment, you know.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

  “Sorry,” he said with a grin. “You know I’m just going to keep chipping away at your resolve.” Then the grin faded. “I’ll tell you what’s troubling me. I did some digging around today, through a lot of old corporate filing papers. I found out something that sheds a little light on this whole thing that you and Kristina are working on.”

  It was not at all what she’d expected. She’d been prepared for tales of the new plague. She sat up straight and stared at him. “What is it?”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded two-page document, which he handed over the platter. “I think it started out as a reasonable genetic project. But I guess things didn’t quite work out the way they’d planned.”

  “But lots of projects don’t work out the way we anticipate,” she said as she accepted his offering.

  “This is a pretty extreme example.”

  As she read the papers, the furrows in her brow deepened. She looked up with disbelief all over her face. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not. It’s all right there.”

  “Dear God,” she said. She looked up at him with an expression of consummate surprise. “It all fits, doesn’t it? The shattering, the calcium absorption blockage … No wonder we couldn’t find the patent holder.”

  “You may still not find out who it is.”

  “But with this—”

  “Janie, there may not be time. At least not now. What you did today—it was a good start in getting ready, but it’s a scratch on the surface, you know that. We have to finish preparing.”

  Janie wore a stricken look as she said, “Jesus, Tom, how can we prepare for something that eats everything in its path?”

  “We figure out a way to stay out of its path.” He glanced at the wall clock, then pushed himself away from the table. “Want to take a ride?”

  Bruce didn’t particularly like the fact that the meeting was taking place in one of the dirtiest, smokiest pubs still operating in London. But he hadn’t set the rendezvous place, the man he’d contacted had.

  “Cash only,” the man had said. All the way there he’d been nervous to be carrying such a large amount in negotiable bills. He’d grown so accustomed to simply pulling out a card. Cash was a burden, with its displacement, its germs, and its stealability.

  His “date” was late, quite significantly, and he was just about to get up and leave when someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

  He turned. He’d been expecting an unsavory-looking character in unkempt clothing, someone who smelled of alcohol and reeked of illegality. Someone far more marginal than the person who greeted him. Someone far more male.

  “You’re Merrill Jenkins?”

  The petite, attractive, well-groomed woman smiled and said, “Oh, good heavens, no. I’m his assistant. I’ve been sent in to f
etch you. Mr. Jenkins is waiting outside with a car. So if you’ll follow me, please?”

  Bruce gathered up his jacket and umbrella and followed the young lady out of the pub, to the envious stares of the other customers, who had a different notion of what might be transpiring. They assumed that Bruce would be paying this young woman to lavish certain attentions on him. What they didn’t know was that he would instead be paying her employer, rather a bit more than he would’ve paid for the pleasure of the lady’s company, to make all of his visa problems disappear.

  Just what you’ll need for overnight, he’d told her, saying they could come back tomorrow for the rest. She threw a few things into a knapsack he’d given her. Change of clothes, a sweater, a nightgown, a few toiletries …

  Her shoes … the last remaining pair of a once proud collection. She’d taken them off earlier and put them under the bed in the guest room, just before talking with Bruce. But they were not visible in a quick glance, so she got down on her hands and knees and looked under the edge of the bedspread.

  There they were. She reached in and pulled them out, and as she dragged them across the wood floor, she heard a crinkling sound.

  Stuck between her two shoes was a mint wrapper.

  She stared at it in her hand for a few seconds, then whispered, “Oh, my God …”

  An ambulance passed them as they drove out of town in the early evening. They exchanged nervous glances as the flashing red lights appeared over the crest of a small hill.

  What was that wrapper doing under the bed in the guest room?

  She searched her brain for an occasion when Kristina had been in that room. She could not recall a single time—they had always worked in Tom’s home office. She felt confused and betrayed, and very tired.

  The ambulance passed, and the lights disappeared behind them. “Those things make me nervous all of a sudden,” she said.

  They must have some sort of relationship I know nothing about, something they’ve hidden; no wonder they seemed so comfortable with each other so quickly.