by John Altman
At last, Christina Thompson took her place near the entrance to the House Floor. The gabbling took a long moment to subside as she waited with strained patience. In her simple black top and gray pants, with her long dark hair pinned up, she was all business.
“Nice to see everyone,” she said at last. Unamplified, her voice nonetheless rang clear and true. The dome’s acoustics were legendary—so good that, according to myth, John Quincy Adams had used them to eavesdrop on rivals two centuries before. “You all know me, and most of you know each other. But for the record, my name is Christina Thompson, and I am director of media in the Capitol. For the past four years, I’ve also had the honor of directing the State of the Union Address. I don’t have to tell anyone that this is our moment to shine. Or that it is a logistical nightmare. Or that by the moment of truth, we’ll have it down pat. You’ll be orchestrating coverage in your sleep. I beg the forgiveness of patient spouses and children in advance.”
A ripple of pro forma laughter. Christina smiled. “Today, in this room, we see only the bare bones of the operation. On the day of truth, it will include hundreds of outside broadcasters and journalists and thousands of VIPs. Our responsibility is not only to keep the entire machine running smoothly, but to capture every bit of pomp and circumstance and broadcast it, uninterrupted, to a live audience of forty million people. It is a challenge, but also a thrill and an honor. And everyone is here this morning because I know they can do their job better than anyone else. Please welcome now Special Agent in Charge of Presidential Protection Bob Sykes—his first year handling this detail.”
The Secret Service agent looked funereal in black: tall, bald, and so thin that the knobs above and below his temples gleamed beneath the dome’s skylight.
“Good morning,” he said. “It goes without saying we’ve got our plates full with this event. Someone asked me yesterday if that means we need to strike a balance between security and expediency. I’ll tell you what I told him: No. Conclusively, decisively no. Our concern is security. We are good at our jobs, so we will be as unobtrusive as possible. Director Thompson will hit all her marks. Camera timing and cues will not be interrupted. We will coordinate a tremendous joint effort between agencies: USCP, FBI, military, and, of course, Secret Service. We will practice and practice and practice again. We will stay out of your way as much as we can. But our primary concern is security, and on this we will not compromise. On the night in question, we’ll see an unprecedented number of high-profile protectees clustered together: the president, vice president, Supreme Court, Congress, the entire Cabinet, leaders of industry. And the entire world will be watching.”
He made a small bow and stepped aside. A moment of awkward silence before Christina stepped back into place.
“Uh, yes. Thank you, Special Agent in Charge Sykes. So. Assignments. Antry, Cavanaugh, Damplo, Dewese, Liemandt, Leppik, Randall, Robinson, Tomber, Zingarelli, stay here in Statuary. Anker, Cloman, Dixon, Lampkin, Melendez, Rambeau, Reina, Wiechetek, follow Richard—raise your hand, Richard—to the Cannon Rotunda. Carr, Davis, Fontanarosa, Hall, Isaacson, Kinney, Moore, Porter, Samarin, Shaw, Timpe, Venugopal, go with Glenn to Russell. Abendroth, Boligan, Byerlee, Fanzo, Gutierrez, Geringer, Joffrion, Mastelli, Pincus, Tomko, follow Mr. Brooks to the Triangle. And with me on the Floor: Davidson, Flanagan, Fletcher, Jaworski, Jusino, Knorr, Muzzey, Oesterling, Quedens.”
Ten minutes later, Michael stood in the House’s narrow central aisle. Breathing shallowly, jostled by elbows from every side, feeling like the inside of a rapidly collapsing cake, he tried to keep his facial expression relaxed and neutral.
Putting hands on shoulders, Christina positioned people to his right and left, in front and behind. All standing so close he could smell their deodorant and the coffee on their breath. And today nobody was even holding cameras, which would make everything even tighter.
On Christina’s signal, Sergeant at Arms Brian Larkin declared loudly: “Mr. Speaker: the vice president of the United States!” Playing the role today was Mary Davidson of Daily Press. She entered the chamber from Statuary Hall, smiling, doing a tight-wristed Queen Elizabeth wave, mouthing thankyouthankyouthankyou. Michael mimed raising his kit to his shoulder. He backed up, surrounded by a dozen people: official photographers of House and Senate and White House, members of the Secret Service, FBI, and Capitol Police. Mary proceeded slowly down the aisle, smiling thankyouthankyouthankyou. Michael bumped into Assistant Chief Gibson of the USCP, tripped, and went sprawling.
Christina helped him up. “You okay?”
He nodded, blushing, wanting to tell her that his leg had had nothing to do with it. Before he could speak, Gibson said, “Sorry, buddy. My bad.”
“There goes the pool feed,” Christina announced loudly. “And every major news organization in the country cuts to black. Places.”
They tried again. This time Michael bumped into Gibson again but managed to stay on his feet until Mary reached the lectern. “Good,” Christina rapped. “Places. Sergeant!”
“Mr. Speaker, the dean of the diplomatic corps!”
The dean was played by a mousy woman from administration. They backed inelegantly down the aisle. House and Senate photographers tangled, muttering in colorful terms.
Christina clapped briskly. “Let’s try again. Places.”
* * *
Before starting on his two hot dogs, Michael looked around in vain for Matt Gutierrez. No sign. After a moment, he gave up and unwrapped the first one.
Too cold today to sit on the reflecting pool steps, so he bolted his lunch on his feet, keeping warm by juggling his weight from one to the other. He covered a belch. A shadow made him turn. Not Gutierrez, as he’d expected, but Christina Thompson, ruddy cheeked, with the sharp wind tugging strands from her pinned-back hair. “Hey,” she said. “Doing good in there.”
He toasted with his Diet Coke. “Credit the leadership.”
“About that tumble …”
“Won’t happen again.”
“Ah, but it will. That’s why we rehearse.” She tucked back a flyaway strand, then fondly picked a cat hair off his jacket. “Just wanted to say, Michael, I’m really glad to have you on the shoot. First of many, I hope.”
“Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it.”
“De nada.” For an instant, he had the feeling she was studying him, looking for something on his face. Then she said, “See you in the trenches.”
She left him alone by the reflecting pool. He drained his Diet Coke and pitched it at the wastebasket. Two points.
He turned, and the ankle flexed easily, taking his weight. At that moment, the clouds parted, light peeking through. He walked through good sunshiny air, toward the first checkpoint leading back to the Capitol dome.
Hopewell, NJ
Turning into the long driveway, Dalia sensed something on the wind: a premonition, a predator.
Her foot lifted off the gas. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she reached into her purse with the other. Digging past linty Kleenex and sugar-free Trident, phone, antibacterial wipes, and lipstick, her fingers closed on hard, comforting steel: the Colt Python given her by Meir. She moved the gun onto the passenger seat.
A pleasant midafternoon, autumn just tilting toward winter; sun-dappled woods crowding close, late-migrating birds chirping away. And yet, two stone feet, a golem from legend, stood squarely on her chest. She felt a sudden, almost overpowering urge to turn around, floor it, and not stop again till she reached the airport. Fuck all of it. Dalia Artzi was going home.
She held perfectly still, letting the urge pass through.
Her tongue scraped dry lips.
She put her foot back on the gas pedal and rolled forward again.
Shadows long and deep. Keep the Prius below thirty miles per hour, and the engine stayed silent. She ghosted through shadows.
The Nissan Altima was parked by the front door. Everythin
g about the cottage appeared normal. But something was slightly off, in a way she couldn’t put her finger on.
She pulled up behind the Altima, yanked the emergency brake, and sat listening, waiting. Nothing.
Except that feeling.
The breeze picked up, swirling a patter of dead leaves across the windshield.
She killed the engine, opened the door; sat for another moment, and then picked up the gun. Her hand barely shook.
She got out, and her eyes immediately found a glittering puddle beneath a curtained front window: broken glass. She thought of one of her dear departed Nana’s favorite sayings: If God lived on earth, all his windows would be broken.
Her mind wanted to lock up. She would not allow it. Instead, turning in a slow circle, she opened herself to the afternoon. Look around. Listen. Don’t just look, but see. Don’t just listen. Hear. What was out there? The disused well, pail and spindle creaking. A faraway glint in a corner of the field. She started instinctively to move behind the Prius, to take cover. But the glint was inorganic. Dead as the leaves. Dead as the silence. A piece of abandoned equipment … but one that wasn’t there a few days ago.
Fine hairs rising on the back of her neck. A chill trailing down her spine. Nostrils twitching, registering for the first time a slaughterhouse smell on the air.
She moved toward the front door. Frosty ground slipped treacherously underfoot. She was glad to be wearing flats. She tried the knob. Locked.
She began to circle the cottage. A small, charred circle in dead grass. She poked it with one toe. Could make no sense of it. Kept moving.
Then she could see a swath of backyard; wooded, sloping upward. She caught herself whispering stupid reassurances under her breath and made herself stop. Hands shaking worse now, she peeked around the corner of the house.
Gleaming spent shells littered frozen ground. She saw more of those strange charred circles, then a pool of viscous black liquid. At first she thought it was blood. Her nose twitched again—Rabbit Dalia—and she registered heating oil.
She looked from spent shells to charred circles, to the pool of oil. And again: shells, circles, oil. At last, something seemed to tug her forward. An invisible rope, tied around her waist. She gave in and let it pull her.
A dead dog came into view. She paused again. The German shepherd, a hole under the jaw, wider where it came out behind the opposite ear. She waited to see if she would throw up. When her stomach settled, she kept moving.
Oily footprints led from the puddle to the back door. She saw a storage tank with several holes in a curving line. The back door was ajar. Drawing closer, she saw another slick footprint right beside the knob.
Now the smell of death—coppery, rank—made her gag. Holding her breath, she pushed open the door with one foot and stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness.
Two figures sprawled to her right. She approached them.
Gavril Meir lay flat on his back. His good eye stared at the ceiling; the glass one canted off into shadow. His face was gray. Propped against the wall beside him was a young man in all black, jacket and gloves and watch cap, sightless eyes wide. She recognized him from the corkboard in Horowitz’s study: Yoni Yariv.
When Meir moved, Dalia’s heart jumped like a trout in a creek.
He murmured something, his voice filled with gravel and liquid in a way that made her stomach protest again. She shrank back reflexively, and her feet made faint tearing sounds against the tacky floor. Forcing herself to come closer, she gulped a shallow breath: “Gavril … I’m here.”
“Dalia.” His massive hand, searching. She knelt and took it. She could smell tobacco on his fingertips. Or maybe it was gunpowder. On the floor beside him, she saw the handgun, slicked with blood. Blood inside the fine knurling of the grip, inside the stamped serial number.
“Can’t …” Thick, slurring Hebrew. He drew another breath. “Make …” He released her hand, tried to wave.
He needed a doctor, but he would be dead before they reached one.
“Down …” He labored to draw another bubbling breath. “The well.” His hand found hers again and tightened with surprising strength. “Lashom harah,” he said. Evil tongue.
Later, looking back, she thought that maybe she had nodded.
She stood, her knees pulling free from the sticky blood, and backtracked into the small kitchen. Leaving bloody-oily footprints, she passed through a low-ceilinged hallway and came out into the living room. David Feigenbaum lay on his side, on the floor near a broken front window, a pair of binoculars clutched in his pale right hand. The gold-foil filter of a burned-down Noblesse lay near his bloodless lips. Red froth had collected in his thin, silvery beard. An ugly round black spot near the center his forehead. She considered listening for a pulse or closing his eyes, but this was not a movie.
Instead, she went back to Meir, tempted to say something else, to argue. But of course, he was right. If an inquiry started, it would not stop until all had been exposed. And all their efforts would be wasted.
A dull headache was starting behind her temples.
Thank God, she thought as she went to work, that none of this was real.
She started with Yoni Yariv. Getting her hands beneath his arms, with a wheezing grunt she dragged him toward the open back door. He seemed impossibly heavy. The world grayed, then came back sharper than ever. Not real sharpness, but artificial, hyperreal sharpness. All the world’s a stage.
The young man’s sightless eyes seemed to follow her. There was a lecture in this, she thought. Give me three thousand words on the psychological cost of removing casualties from a battlefield. Note how the sightless eyes seem to follow the living …
The dead body breathed, the rank, juicy smell coming in waves, freed by every bump as she manhandled it down the hallway, over the threshold, toward the well. Not real. Make note, in your essay, of the strange awkwardness of death. The entangled limbs, the way the tissue lumps … Panting, heart thudding, she reached the well and rested for a moment before lifting off the wooden cover. Deep, echoey blackness.
She searched the body. In one pocket, night-vision binoculars with one lens shattered. Folding knife. Phone. Setting them aside, she humped the corpse up onto the round brick wall. It balanced there for a moment, then tipped. One dead leg sent the bucket swinging, one dead arm slithered over the rim, and Yoni Yariv vanished into the void. She heard a wet, meaty thump and a splash.
The others would be even heavier.
The headache was white hot, almost blinding now.
Back throbbing, hips creaking, she trudged back toward the house, taking note of the metallic glints scattered about the yard. She would make it all disappear. Right down the well. If she knew Feigenbaum, the wily old yekke would have leased the safe house for at least six months in advance to ensure privacy. No landlord would come sniffing around anytime soon. And the well was just a rustic artifact anyway. The real one was in a shed behind the house, connected by modern plumbing.
In the back hall, on her way to Feigenbaum, she realized that something about Meir had changed. Something had left him. Yom asal, yom basal. A day of honey, a day of onion.
She looked in stupid wonder at the corpse. Nothing was less elegant, nothing less dramatic, than death.
Class, give me three thousand words on the meaninglessness of death.
She stood looking at Meir for a long time. Then a bird twittered. Another shrilled a response. Dalia bit her lip and went back to work.
Chapter Seven
Trenton, NJ
In the image, bright sun heliographed off the hood of a rust-colored Mercury Grand Marquis. The glare stopped just short of obscuring the driver’s face. Horowitz zoomed in, opened another window on the monitor. Red dots appeared as the computer found common nodal points; a counter ran up to sixty-six.
“October twenty-first. A tollbooth
camera on I-80, twenty miles west of Youngstown, Ohio. Note the black wig. Happily, that doesn’t throw the software.” He zoomed out, then in again on the Utah license plate: 711 XPC. “The car was reported stolen three days earlier, from a driveway near Salt Lake. Last night, I spoke with the South Salt Lake City Police. I mentioned our missing red Ford. They found it this morning in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. Probably been sitting there, ignored, for a month.” He clicked the mouse again, and a map of the United States appeared. “Draw a line from Portland through Salt Lake, and … I’m sorry, Dalia, are we disturbing you?”
Studying the photograph of Yoni Yariv on the corkboard, absently massaging the still-aching muscles of her shoulders and neck, she did not respond immediately. She wasn’t thinking of the dead men, the blood, the guns, the shells, the hungry old well that, three days ago, had consumed them all (except for a single casing she had taken as a souvenir—it would fit nicely on her shelf, beside the fragment of German 5.9-inch howitzer shell recovered from Ypres). Nor was she thinking of Yoni Yariv’s phone, which had contained GPS information about the Hopewell cottage, electronic triggers for the squibs—the mysterious charred circles of grass—and nothing else. And she wasn’t thinking of the sketchy neighborhood in South Brunswick where she had left the Altima to be stolen and stripped, Inshallah—God willing. Instead, she was thinking of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, on the morning of June 18, 1815, the morning of the rout that would forever be known as Waterloo, had ordered the capture of a farmhouse on a low hill near Wellington’s right flank. Le petit caporal had assumed that his opposite number would respond by funneling reserves from his center—whereupon Napoleon would make his real approach, driving through the now-weakened British ranks near La Haye Sainte. But the initial French sortie had failed to capture the Château d’Hougoument. And as the day progressed and the farmhouse remained in British hands, Napoleon had appeared to forget his original plan, committing ever more forces to the enterprise, refusing to abandon it even as his strategy backfired, as he became the one overly committed to the flank, fatally weakening his main force. Why? Dalia explained the mistake to her students via a simple colloquialism. Despite his renowned steely will and peerless intellect, Napoleon had made the most human of errors. Caught up in the moment, he had lost sight of the larger goal. He had missed the forest for the trees.
