“And means,” Laurel echoed. “Hibernation is not that old a technology.”
After a thick silence lasting a few seconds, Russo’s head lolled, and the sound of his breathing deepened.
Russo slept until well past dusk. When they switched on the TV screen to watch the evening news, he stirred and waved his hand to hike up the volume.
Laurel neared the sofa to help lift him higher on his pillows so he could watch. As she reached under his emaciated arms, she felt Russo’s hand grip hers with a fierceness she didn’t believe was possible in his condition. She froze and peered into his wraparound sunglasses, unable to see beyond the dark lenses. Then he let go and his fingers traced the outline of her cheekbones, her nose, her chin, as if he was committing her features to memory. A drop of liquid peeked from under the frame of his shades, then rolled swiftly down his gaunt cheek.
chapter 51
10:30
Jerome Palmer glanced at a battered ormolu clock sitting above the fireplace when it produced a ratchet noise ending in a hollow clunk: ten-thirty. Eons ago, he’d helped his father castrate the clock by excising its bells. He’d been impossibly young, on short reprieve between sophomore semesters at Harvard. After polishing off a decanter of port—a vintage Sandeman, from which Mother accepted only a sip—Senator Leon Palmer had led a foraging party of two to a seldom-visited corner in the house’s cellar. Later, after much arguing over the respective merits of grape and grain, they had adjourned to the library, clutching a dusty bottle of cognac and two snifters.
After listening to his father’s preposterous tale of a defrocked bishop turned pimp—to cash in on his proselytizing savvy—and with the contents of the venerable bottle a memory, they had suffered in hazy stupor the racket of the clock as it chimed away at midnight. With the sudden enlightenment of the very drunk, they carried the clock to the garage and proceeded to strip its back and remove the bells to thwart future interruptions. Mother would never let anyone forget and would mutter, “That poor castrated clock,” every time the machine struggled to accomplish the task conceived by its creators.
The house had been silent for a long time.
Chelsea, his daughter, had left for work before seven with her husband. Regardless of their efforts at stealth, he’d heard the swift rush of their sedan’s motor and the crunch of gravel as they left. When by seven-thirty Mrs. Timmons, the housekeeper, failed to make an appearance—for the first time in ten years—he roused Timmy, supervised his toilette, and rustled up a breakfast of cereal and juice. Brad Hawkins, a lame ex-marine who refused to take a pension at forty-five, and who doubled as his driver and handyman, hadn’t turned up at the appointed time either to take Timmy to school. The situation abundantly clear, Palmer climbed the steps and marched to Timmy’s room.
“What are you reading, son?”
The little boy held up his large book.
“Let me see.” Palmer donned his reading glasses and leaned over Timmy’s shoulder. He scanned the picture of a lone officer in impeccable blue atop a small knoll, surrounded by a sea of feathered warriors. A caption underneath read: General Custer’s Last Stand.
“I don’t understand, Grandpa.”
“What is it you don’t understand?”
“Instead of stand, why didn’t General Custard attack?”
Palmer thought it over. “Beats me, but I’ll look into it.” Then he gently squeezed Timmy’s shoulder. “No school today. I have an assignment for you, soldier. Will you accept it?”
Timmy nodded his head enthusiastically.
“Good, here is what you must do. I am waiting for some people. Bad people. Probably there will be a woman. She’s a spy, a wicked spy. You’d better go to your tree house and keep me covered at all times. Now, soldier, this is important: Don’t come down, no matter what you see. Don’t come down until I call you. Promise?”
Timmy seemed to weigh his orders and then sprang to his feet, drawing a hand to his chest. “Cross my heart, sir!”
That had been over an hour ago.
The wide screen flashed an artificially colored thermal image showing a large red spot, another of smaller size, and a few tiny ones.
“The large blob is the senator, this is the boy, and the others are a few squirrels, a rabbit, and rats in the senator’s basement. There’s nothing else within a mile radius; no other heat signatures.”
Odelle peered at the screen. “And these?”
“One car with our men and the housekeeper at the intersection with the E 311, and another with the senator’s driver at the track leading to the house. Er …”
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“The crippled driver—he tackled the men …” A predictable description of stupidity under the guise of heroism followed.
Silence.
“Where’s the boy?”
“In a tree house. Should we grab him?”
Applying force was an art. Often a threat was more effective than an action, and Senator Palmer was unpredictable. “No, leave him there.”
With a final glance to the dim van’s interior and the four men hunched before surveillance and communications stations, she turned to the sergeant by the side door. “Get my car and let’s pay a visit to our friend.”
Palmer snapped from his reverie at the buzzing sound of the main entrance gate opening. Besides his daughter and her husband, only Mrs. Timmons and Hawkins had access cards, but he doubted any of them had opened the gate.
At the kitchen, he glanced at a split screen offering different views of the estate. A dark sedan was progressing along the graveled road to the house.
He sighed, his mind replaying Seth’s trial before the gods. I have the lettuce leaf loaded for you. He walked toward the main door, opened it, and stepped onto the porch in time to see Odelle Marino alighting from her car, chaperoned by two young men with lively eyes. Another woman, the driver, remained behind the wheel. Let’s see if you wolf it down.
“Madam Director, what a pleasant surprise.”
“Thank you, Senator, I was passing by and I thought I’d pay you a visit.” She climbed the steps and offered her hand for a dry, warm, strong handshake.
“Please, come in.” Palmer pointed to the open door and led the way into the house and his study. “We’ll be more comfortable here.”
She told her bodyguards to wait by the car.
As they entered Palmer’s den, the clock whirred to follow with twelve evenly spaced thwacks. Odelle spied the contraption, one inquisitive eyebrow flexing upward.
“Ah, the clock …” Palmer chuckled. “A long story. Coffee, tea, something stronger?”
“Thank you, Senator, nothing. I will be leaving shortly.” From her handbag, she drew a flat frequency analyzer. “May I?”
“Be my guest.”
After a while, apparently satisfied, she made as if to sit on an easy chair but seemed to think better of it. She glanced through the twin glazed doors leading to the back garden and smiled. “You have a wonderful garden. Could we take a stroll?”
“Of course. Here, let me.” Palmer gripped the handle and slid one of the doors aside.
“Senator, this is truly magnificent.”
Palmer offered her a dazzling smile. “Madam, I’d rather you cut the bullshit, deliver your pitch, and get the hell out of my house.”
Her composure never cracked. “I admire your professionalism. Business first.”
“Only, in this instance, the pleasure is all yours.”
She drew closer and gripped his arm. “Charming as usual.” Then her voice altered and dropped—low, throaty. “You’ve been a naughty boy, Senator, stealing something of mine. I suppose that, as he is your son, you have a claim of sorts on Russo, but I find your sudden discovery of earth-shattering paternal love gratuitous. You could have acted like a real father, given him an education, and taught him to be a man, whatever that means. Instead, you sired a despicable bastard and got rid of him. But let bygones be bygones.”
They continued strolling
arm in arm toward the center of the lawn. “Your driver was killed on his way to work.”
Palmer whirled and grabbed her wrist. “You bitch!”
Instead of backing off, Odelle drew near until her breasts brushed Palmer’s chest. Her mouth twisted. “It was an accident. The man tackled four DHS officers from the Special Forces, bare-handed. Epic, but a waste. Don’t worry. His car will explode somewhere. Accidents happen every day.”
“Have you finished?” Palmer fought to control his mounting rage.
“Here is my deal. I want Russo back. As soon as you deliver him, I will have him disappear with the rest of the center inmates without a trace; they would have never existed. Then I will tender my resignation. You’ll be able to clean the stables and bring Hypnos to heel. That’s what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?”
Odelle Marino was much more intelligent than he’d given her credit for, Palmer conceded. Rather than fighting a battle she couldn’t possibly win, she was willing to step down, as long as she could keep the spoils. It wasn’t surrender but a negotiated armistice.
“And if I don’t?”
“I spotted your grandson earlier. Timmy, isn’t it? Hiding in his tree house, adorable.”
Palmer knew what was coming next. Predictable. “You have no shame. …”
“None. We’re talking survival, Senator. As a student of history, you should take Sun Tzu’s counsel and leave a gap for your enemy to flee. A cornered foe is as formidable as its desperation.”
She’d shown her ace, and she wasn’t bluffing.
“When I get back downtown, I plan to announce the imminent recapture of the fugitives. Twenty-four hours, Palmer. That’s how long you have to hand over Russo.”
“What about the others?” he asked grimly.
“They’re irrelevant in the scheme of things. Keep your granddaughter and the young lawyer as a consolation prize. The doctor won’t ever be able to practice again, but he’s young. The turncoat can elope to Peru and sire dozens of cinnamon-skinned bastards; I couldn’t care less. Get them new identities and make sure they keep their noses clean. I’ll send photos to the press showing a few prisoners returned to justice, and that will be that.”
Palmer backed up a pace to recover his personal space. She stared—not at him, but through him.
“You can hide him in a vault, Palmer, in Switzerland or Tierra del Fuego, but I will find your Timmy. And, when I do, so help me God, you’ll never see him again. So don’t fuck with me, and don’t push me any further. I can use the full resources of the DHS to get that boy, and his mother, and his father, and his father’s father, and all of your wretched kin. You’ll get me, eventually, but it will cost you.”
“Are you done?”
She smiled. “I am, but … I would love to hear you accept my reasonable offer.”
Palmer pasted a suitably shaken grimace on his face.
“Will you deliver Russo within twenty-four hours?”
I will, indeed. Palmer stared at her, then nodded.
She swiveled toward the copse of trees and waved a hand. “Don’t be a fool, Senator. I could have snatched your grandson an hour ago.” She paused, raised an arm, and snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
chapter 52
23:36
“What will you do after?” Floyd asked.
“After what?”
“After tomorrow.”
“What tomorrow?” Laurel reached into her trousers pocket for a nonexistent piece of gum—a shameful ruse to give her hands something to do. The house was quiet. After a marathon of brainstorming and Tyler’s continuous trips carrying his communications pad, he had laid out the plan. Some details were still hazy. He’d kept the means of transport close to his chest, as well as who would be going and where, but the gist of the plan was deceptively simple. The group would split into two. While one team would ostensibly drive toward the ABC TV studios on Rhode Island Avenue, the other, with Russo, would head for the Capitol and Congress, where Senator Palmer and his confederates would be waiting. Somewhere along the way, the first team would detour and head for Congress also.
Harebrained would be a merciful adjective to describe the ploy, but Tyler seemed very much in control and everybody agreed they were alive thanks to his, so far, passable scheming. But tomorrow held too many unknowns. Hypnos and the DHS would not stand on the sidelines while a bunch of fugitives apparently headed toward one of the most prominent TV facilities in the country. And the Capitol, after the White House, was the most secure building in the world. How the police or DHS forces would play their hand was anybody’s guess, but the consensus was they would shoot first and answer questions later. Yet Tyler had disclosed that there was another force at play—someone helping them from the shadows—and that his or her intervention could make the difference. Who? He didn’t know. The highlight came when Lukas asked directly what their chances were. Tyler had drawn from his already extinguished pipe, producing a strange sound between crackling and gurgling, before deadpanning, “Ten percent.” And even that sounded unreasonably optimistic.
Russo looked good—still as helpless as a newborn, but with a seething resolve to speak. Halfway through one of their long conversations, Floyd had mashed the tip of a banana and given him a tiny morsel on the tip of a spoon. Russo had kept the mush in his mouth for an inordinately long time, shifting it from right to left, his eyes narrowed as if in a trance. Later he offered a weak smile before mouthing a single word: “Ambrosia.”
Laurel reached for Floyd’s hand. “We can live only one day at a time, and a day is all we have.”
“I meant—”
“I know. You meant us, and that requires time—time we don’t have. Yet. We’re strangers. How long have we known each other? Four days? Five?”
“Six.” Floyd put a hand around her shoulder and drew her closer. “I know all about the acceleration of emotional processes in the presence of impending doom.”
“I know you do, and I’ve done my best to exorcise any thoughts of continuity from my mind. I don’t want to engage in pyrrhic dreaming exercises about what might be, when chances are we’ll be dead tomorrow.”
“But dreaming marks the difference between us and other creatures in the cosmos.”
“You got it,” Russo said.
They both turned toward the couch where Russo lay. He’d removed his dark glasses and was looking at them with remarkably bright eyes.
“Why does a blade of grass push its way through scorched earth in the middle of a battlefield? Chances are it will be obliterated by the next blast, but it will still try. We’re not that different from any other creature except we can imagine, dream, and hope. Emotions are what keep us alive.”
Laurel stood up and padded to Russo to fluff up a cushion under his head and offer him a drink of juice. “It’s very bad manners to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations.”
“Then you should keep the volume down.” He sucked on the straw and attempted a smile. “But you’re right inasmuch as it makes little sense to plan certain things around the unknown. You’re nice people, and the species is rare, probably heading for extinction. Later, if there’s time to be had, you should spend it learning about each other.”
“What would you do if there were time?”
Russo smiled. “Here we go again, daydreaming.”
“That’s one of the things we do best as a species,” Floyd said. “Please don’t tell me you’ve not given a second’s consideration to the possibility of winning.”
“Touché. If by the fickle hand of fate we pulled through, I would attempt to set up the machinery to oversee the hibernation system.”
“Revenge?” Floyd asked.
“Not at all. The past is gone and the future has not happened yet, hence we cannot travel to either, or undo it, or recover any part of it save through dreaming. To seek redress would serve no purpose. Laurel spoke about pyrrhic dreaming, and vengeance would be indeed a pyrrhic exercise.”
Laurel caught
the odd glimmer in Russo’s eye and turned to Floyd in time to spot his frown.
“By pyrrhic you mean pointless?”
“I’m sorry.” Russo chuckled. “This is the problem of our era—to append imaginary meanings to the things we don’t understand instead of simply asking for an explanation. Pyrrhus was a Spartan king who won a battle against the Greeks at the cost of losing his entire army. Pyrrhic means a bitter victory: a victory won at such great cost to the victor that it is tantamount to a defeat.”
Floyd nodded. “You have a point. We find it difficult to simply ask for an explanation of something we don’t grasp. In my job, I know from the halfhearted nods I get from patients or their families that they don’t understand anything of what I’m saying, yet they seldom ask me to clarify.”
“Do you like your job?” Russo asked.
Laurel turned to Floyd. It was a question she’d often thought of asking him and never had.
“I can help people.”
“You’re sidestepping the question,” Russo said.
“I keep forgetting you’re a lawyer. Yes, I like my job. I only hope that more resources will be allocated to basic research on the mechanics of hibernation.”
“Independent research?” Russo insisted.
“Nothing else can be true research. Corporate research is necessarily biased to match their goals. If these goals coincide with the public good, everybody wins, but that’s wishful thinking.”
“I agree. Hibernation in itself is the solution to an age-old problem of civilization: what to do with those who represent a danger to society. But to place the responsibility in corporate hands is madness.”
Laurel straightened, suddenly aware that Russo was outlining something to which he must have given much conscious thought. “You mean the hibernation system should be government run?”
“No, I don’t. If governments ran the system, it would soon become bogged down in bureaucracy, departments would fight over allocations, and eventually it would mushroom into a quagmire of complexity and expense, defeating its original purpose. This new prison system is inherently sound. It’s well suited to be run by a corporate concern, but only with the right safeguards in the hands of government and independent bodies. But no corporation should be allowed to own the technology and conduct its own research.”
The Prisoner Page 35
