by Sharon Potts
A shape came into the room and stood in the front corner, just beyond the glow of candles, but Di would know her roommate anywhere, even in shadows.
Lawrence glanced at Gertrude, then continued speaking. But Di only half paid attention. She wondered whether the two of them had just been together. If that was the reason for his flushed cheeks.
“The government has screwed itself this time,” Lawrence was saying. “There’s a movement building, and not just students like us. Ordinary citizens are becoming outraged as the facts come out. The US military is murdering hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent civilians.”
His words caught hold of Di, causing everything else to flee from her mind.
“Burning to death women, children, people like us, with napalm.” Lawrence’s voice became louder, angrier. “Destroying their villages with air strikes and bombardments.” His nostrils flared. “Murdering for the sake of murder.”
People shifted in their chairs. Di, too. It was impossible to sit still, listening to him.
Lawrence waved his hand at the photos on the walls. “We’ve become a country of baby killers.”
Linda gasped. She was clenching the seat of her chair, as though afraid she might fall.
Lawrence made a fist. “We won’t stand by and take it anymore!”
“We won’t take it anymore!” shouted a new Stormdrain member named Gary. Others joined in, pounding the air with their fists.
“You’ve seen the outcry,” Lawrence said. “A few days ago in Washington, DC, a half million of our comrades marched against these murderers. This isn’t the last we’ll see of protests. Next week, the government will hold a draft lottery to raise its military manpower. To try to send the rest of us into this immoral war. But we’re not going to put up with that.” His voice rose once again.” We’re not going to put up with killing babies in the name of democracy.”
“No more killing!” they shouted.
Linda’s voice was loud in her ear, almost hysterical. “No more killing!”
Lawrence held up his arms to quiet them, his loose white shirt reminding Di of a prophet’s robes.
The shouting continued despite his efforts. “No more killing. No more killing.” People were flailing their arms, standing on chairs, running between the aisles in a frenzy.
Di looked around for her roommate, but she was no longer standing in the corner, and Di couldn’t spot her with all the movement in the room.
“Comrades,” Lawrence said. The flickering candlelight played upon his cleft chin, his hollowed cheeks. “Comrades, we need to plan.”
The noise died down. People returned to their seats or leaned against the walls. All eyes were on Lawrence.
“I feel your rage, comrades,” he said. “I share it.”
Another burst of voices.
He waited until they settled back down, then said, “When we formed Stormdrain, our mission was clear. Peace on American soil. And peace throughout the world.” He held out his hand for quiet, as he continued. “But we’ve learned that to achieve peace, sometimes violence is necessary.”
“Let’s blow the motherfuckers to pieces!” Jeffrey shouted from the back of the room.
Lawrence shook his head. “Not that way.”
“Then what the fuck are we supposed to do?” Steve called out. “Sit on our asses while they keep killing babies?”
“We need to show them we mean business,” Lawrence said, “but we won’t resort to the government’s tactics. That will make us no better than they are.”
Heads nodded in agreement.
“We’re currently working on a plan to destroy certain significant targets,” Lawrence said. “Statues of historical significance. Government property. And property belonging to corporations that support the war industry.”
“Yeah, man,” a voice called out.
Di shifted in her chair, uneasy about what Lawrence was suggesting. People could get hurt. But Lawrence would never take a risk like that. She was sure he knew what he was doing.
“Every act of violence must be related to a specific injustice, and it’s crucial that we explain what we’re doing and why in a Manifesto.” Lawrence paused. “Our first Manifesto and first act of retribution will be dedicated to the victims of the My Lai Massacre.”
People began to talk all at once, but Lawrence held up his hand. “We’ll call it Project George,” he said. “We’re going to blow up the statue of George Washington in Union Square Park.”
“Finally,” Steve called out. “Count me in.”
“Me, too,” Albert said.
“How are we going to blow up anything?” Gary asked. “Do we know anything about bombs?”
The room went quiet and everyone turned to Lawrence. In the wavering candlelight, his features seemed to sag, but then he forced out a smile. “Come with me, comrades.” He strode out of the room to the little mudroom, then down into the basement.
Di pushed her way through the crowd on the stairwell and leaned over the rough wood banister. The basement had been transformed since she’d been down here with Lawrence a few weeks before at the Halloween party. In the center of the room was a printing press and folding tables piled with cartons. But of greater interest was the workbench against the brick wall where Lawrence stood beside Gertrude.
“This, comrades,” Lawrence shouted over the noise. He waited until everyone quieted down. “This, comrades, is our bomb factory.”
On the workbench, Di could make out bottles, pipes, small boxes of nails, metal cans of lighter fluid. She watched Lawrence glance at the table, then meet Gertrude’s eyes. Di felt a pang of jealousy. Lawrence and Gertrude shared something she wasn’t a part of.
“We must treat these bombs with respect,” Lawrence said to the group, as Gertrude reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette and a matchbook. “Our goal is attention and recognition through destruction of property,” he said. “We are not going to kill anyone.”
Gertrude got ready to strike the match, just as Lawrence’s hand closed over hers. “What the fuck are you doing?” he said.
She flicked her braid over her shoulder and stared at him. “Blow up a statue?” She pulled her hand out of his. “That’s the best you can do?”
Lawrence clenched his jaw.
Gertrude turned to the group. “If we want to be heard, we need to make a bigger bang.”
The people around Di seemed to shrink, as though they wanted to disappear.
“Who’s with me on this?” Gertrude shouted.
No one spoke. Lawrence was breathing hard, his fists in tight balls.
“You say you want to change the world,” Gertrude said, “but you don’t mean it. None of you are ready to do what it takes.” She met Di’s eyes.
Di winced, exposed for all to see by her roommate. All her pronouncements about wanting to stop injustice, her mission to prevent another Holocaust. It was just talk.
“To stop violence, we must be violent,” Gertrude said. “To stop murder, we have to kill. If we want to go forward, we have to destroy,” she shouted. “Someone must die!”
The blare of a honking horn brought Diana back to the present. Back from an old nightmare to the one she was living.
In less than twelve hours, someone was planning to kill Ethan unless she killed Jonathan first.
That was the deal.
She shook her head. The dizziness had passed.
In order to go forward, you needed to destroy. That had been their mantra. Someone must die.
She watched the traffic streaming by on Brickell Avenue, then stood and slowly walked back in the blinding brightness toward Jonathan’s towering building.
Hoping she could think of another way.
CHAPTER 27
The sun was too bright, almost painful, the angle different from what Aubrey had grown accustomed to in Rhode Island. Here in Miami, the colors were brighter, like a movie shown in high definition.
And yet, the things Aubrey needed most to see remained veiled to
her. Her visit to the Simmers’ command post had provided no more clarity. If anything, she had left there even more perplexed, especially by her father’s erratic behavior—his implication, then denial, that he had some idea who was behind the kidnapping.
She turned the corner to her childhood home. Tom Smolleck was leaning against one of the black cars talking on his phone. He signaled to her to wait a minute while he finished up his call. The sun hit him directly, and there was a gleam of perspiration on his forehead just beneath his buzz cut. He ended his call and came toward her, his badge prominent at his waist.
“Do you have a few minutes?” he asked.
She was anxious to get back to her computer research, but he was, after all, the FBI. “Of course.”
“Let’s go for a ride.”
She almost asked what he wanted from her, but decided she’d find out soon enough. Besides, she had questions for him.
“How are you doing with the investigation?” she asked as he drove down the narrow, bumpy street. “Any possible suspects from the crowd scenes at the carnival?”
He turned onto Tigertail. “Your observations about the two suspicious-looking people in the photos were good ones,” he said. “We had also noticed the woman with the sunglasses and the man with the tattoo sleeves. We’re in the process of identifying them.”
“My father told me the K-9 dogs found a napkin with Ethan’s scent on it at the carnival. Were there any usable prints?”
“The only prints we were able to pull were your mother’s.” He stopped at a traffic light, lips pursed as though he were trying to decide something, then he turned to her. “Let’s get something to eat.” Apparently, he was planning to turn this into a long conversation. “Is there someplace near here?”
“I like Scotty’s, but it’s outdoors, so you might prefer—”
“How do I get there?”
She gave him directions, and they made it to the restaurant in a couple of minutes. He pulled into the near-empty parking lot, and they got out. It was hot in the sun, but a breeze was coming off the bay.
He hesitated as he stood beside the car, as though he would have liked to take off his jacket, but he kept it on. He was probably carrying a gun.
They walked along a path to the restaurant, the smell of gasoline from the marina triggering memories of her childhood. Smolleck stopped when they came around to the bay. The water rippled, reflecting the white cloud puffs in the blue sky. The view was the same as from the park where she and her mom had sat the evening before, but she forgot how beautiful it must be to someone not from around here.
They continued to the seating area beneath a white-and-green awning. The lunch crowd hadn’t arrived yet, and only a handful of people, mostly in T-shirts and shorts, were seated. The tables and chairs were plastic, menus held up by large red ketchup containers and salt and pepper shakers.
They seated themselves at a table closest to the dock where the breeze was the strongest. It whipped around beneath her ponytail, cooling her neck. Smolleck unbuttoned the top button on his shirt and loosened his tie. His white shirt was damp beneath his suit jacket. A waitress wearing a baseball cap, green T-shirt, and khaki shorts came by. They ordered conch fritters and coconut shrimp.
“We used to eat here when I was a kid,” Aubrey said after the waitress left. “My mother worked late and hated cooking, but I think we would have come here anyway.”
She looked out toward the bay, remembering those evenings, especially before her parents became strangers to each other: the reflection from the sunset in the clouds to the east, the coolness in the air after the sun went down, how her father and mother would occasionally exchange a look only they understood.
“Sounds like you had a happy childhood,” Smolleck said.
“Happy enough,” she said, wishing she knew him better to say more.
“It’s funny how when we’re in the midst of something, it becomes our whole world, and we can’t imagine anything different.” He had a faraway expression on his face, like when they’d sat on the patio the night before. “Almost as though we’re in a glass bubble and nothing exists outside of it.”
So he knew about bubbles. “Have you ever felt that way?” she asked.
“A few times.” He rubbed the indentation in his eyebrow. “I was in with a bad crowd when I was in high school. We cut classes, did a lot of drugs, and didn’t give a shit about the rest of the world.”
“Something happened?”
He picked up the bottle of ketchup and scraped the crud off its neck with his thumbnail. “My mother died from breast cancer in my senior year. It happened very quickly. So quickly, I hadn’t accepted she was dying, and then it was too late.”
“That must have been very hard on you.”
“And of course I felt guilty, as though my lifestyle had caused her cancer. So I stopped doing drugs, cut my hair, and joined the marines. Spent some time in Afghanistan.”
“What was that like?”
He shrugged. “I had thought in the military I’d be taking control of my life, but I ended up in a different kind of bubble. No thinking. No questioning. Just following orders.”
Not so different from what she’d been doing up until recently.
“Is that why you joined the FBI? So you could question things?”
He gave her that half smile. “Something like that.”
A small, noisy motorboat backed into the dock space, roiling the water.
“So is the FBI working out for you?”
He stared out at the rippling water. “I would say I’ve grown more self-aware. I know people are subject to getting caught up in their environments. The FBI is no exception.” He turned back to her. “What about you? Do you ever feel like you’re trapped inside some airless space?”
She thought about Jackson. How she almost couldn’t breathe when he and Wolvie first left. It was nothing compared to what she was experiencing now. “Losing Ethan feels like being trapped in a nightmare.”
He nodded. “Of course it does.”
The waitress put two waters down on the table, then went to take an order from the people who’d gotten out of the boat.
She reached for her glass of water. In the midst of all the anxiety relating to Ethan and her mom, it was a relief to have someone to talk to.
She had misread Smolleck. His tough FBI-agent act was a cover.
“We checked into your boyfriend,” he said.
His unexpected change in direction startled her, causing her to spill the water. Apparently Smolleck was uncomfortable with the soft talk and had needed to return to his professional persona.
“He’s not a suspect,” Smolleck said, his voice gentler, as though he were sorry he’d shaken her.
“I didn’t think he was.”
He scratched a knuckle. What was he procrastinating about?
“Why are we here?” she asked. “You obviously have something on your mind.”
“I spoke with Judge Woodward this morning.”
Her cheeks grew warm. She hadn’t seen that coming. If her mother had talked to Jonathan about the note, he may have told Smolleck about it.
“Is something the matter?” he asked.
She needed to feel out how much Smolleck knew. “Jonathan’s possible nomination could be connected to Ethan’s disappearance.”
“It could,” Smolleck said. “But is there something else going on?”
She put her hands under the table so he wouldn’t notice the giveaway tremor. “What do you mean?”
“Judge Woodward was unusually concerned about your mother.”
“She’s his fiancée. Of course he’s worried about her.”
“But Judge Woodward seemed convinced the kidnapping was related to her. Why wouldn’t he also consider that the kidnappers’ target could be the Simmers, or your father, or even your brother and his wife? Or, for that matter, since there’s no ransom demand, that some child predator has taken Ethan?”
Her mother must have told Jonat
han about the note, and now the FBI suspected its existence because of Jonathan’s awkward behavior.
The waitress put their food on the table. It gave Aubrey a minute to compose herself and think of a response, but as soon as the waitress left, Smolleck continued. “Obviously if there were a ransom demand, it would help us tremendously. We would know who the kidnappers have targeted and what they want. Without it, we’re forced to go in a dozen different directions, and we’re losing valuable time.”
He was right. The more the FBI knew, the more likely they’d be to find Ethan. She realized his purpose in bringing her here was to persuade her to tell him of the note’s existence. Perhaps to shake her from what he may have perceived as the bubble she and her mother were sharing. But she worried the kidnappers would act on their threat and kill Ethan if the FBI was told.
Smolleck reached for one of the coconut shrimp and took a bite. “These are good,” he said. “You should eat something.”
She had no appetite, but she picked up a conch fritter.
“You know, Aubrey, most ransom notes specifically say not to contact the authorities, or the victim of the kidnapping will be hurt.”
He was as much as telling her he knew, but she had to be careful that what she said would help, not hurt, Ethan.
“You said Jonathan seems unusually concerned that my mother is the target of the kidnappers,” she said. “If you think it’s because of a ransom note to that effect, wouldn’t it make sense to pursue that possibility even without confirming that the note exists?”
He threw the shrimp’s tail down on his plate, a look of disgust on his face. She was surprised she felt bad about disappointing him with her hedged response.
“Assuming my mother is the target,” she continued, “is it possible someone from her college years is behind the kidnapping?”
“What interests me is why you think that’s the most likely possibility.”
“I didn’t say it was most likely.”
“But it’s the one you’re directing me to.”
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I think there is something there. But you’re the one who brought up my parents’ past to me, so I started doing my own research.”
