Liberation Day ns-5

by Andy McNab

  The story I’d told her was that I’d been offered three weeks’ work escorting thrill-seekers into Egypt. After the 9/11 attacks, tourism to the Middle East had all but dried up, and the few travelers still brave enough to go wanted guides. Carrie agreed it was a good idea for me to make some money before I started the long process of applying for citizenship. Until that happened, all I could do were menial jobs, so money would be tight. I hadn’t a clue how I was going to explain to her why my citizenship had come through so fast, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. I sat and looked out at the dull gray day as ice-covered trees zoomed past along the side of the track and vehicles in the distance with cold engines tailed exhaust fumes behind them. It wasn’t a good start to us being together, but it was done now. I should just look to the future.

  After two days of moseying around, ninety feet below the Mediterranean, following the North African coastline, we’d finally made it back into Alexandria. The weather had closed in as predicted about ten hours after we got on board, not that we knew, so far below water. A Chrysler MPV was waiting at the dockside; somebody took my bergen, and that was the last I saw of it. For the next week I just had to wait in a hotel room in Cairo while the head I’d brought back was confirmed as Zeralda’s. If not, we might have been sent back to get the correct one.

  I still didn’t know why I’d been asked to bring back Zeralda’s head and I still didn’t care. All that mattered was that George was coming to Boston in a few days’ time, and I’d be getting Nick Stone’s shiny new U.S. passport, social security number, and Massachusetts driver’s licence. I was about to become a real person.

  I looked around the train. Most of my fellow travelers had now gotten bored looking at the jerk brushing his teeth and wiping the foam that ran down his chin, and were buried in their papers. The front pages were plastered with the war in Afghanistan, reporting that everything was going well and there were no casualties. Northern Alliance fighters were silhouetted against the sunset as they stood watching U.S. Special Forces soldiers carrying enough gear on their backs to collapse a donkey.

  I looked out and chewed on my brush. To my right, and running parallel with the track, was the coast road, also cutting through the icy marshland. We were overtaking a taxi, his side windows festooned with patriotic imagery; there was even a little Stars and Stripes fluttering from his aerial. I couldn’t see the driver, but knew he just had to be an Indian or a Pakistani. Those guys didn’t want to leave anything to chance in these troubled times.

  The marshland petered out, and whitewashed clapboard houses sprang up on either side of the train, then the blur of supermarkets and used-car lots also draped in the Stars and Stripes. I felt my pulse quicken with anticipation. I didn’t have to work for the Firm (British Intelligence) any more, didn’t have to do anymore jobs for George. I really felt I’d been given a new start, that life was coming together. I was free.

  Chapter 6

  I shoved the toothbrush into my brown nylon duffel bag as the train came to a halt and people stood and got their hats and coats on. The automatic doors drew back to reveal the signs for Wonderland Station, and I stepped out of the train, hooking the bag over my shoulder. I got an immediate and fierce reminder that I wasn’t in North Africa anymore. The temperature was several degrees below zero. I zipped up my fleece jacket, which did nothing to keep out the bitter wind as I joined the throng heading for the barrier.

  She was standing by a ticket desk, dressed in a green down jacket and a Russian-style black sheepskin hat, her breath billowing about her face as we both waved and smiled.

  I got through the barrier and threaded my way through the crowd. Taking her in my arms, I planted a big, exaggerated kiss on her forehead, hoping that the toothpaste routine hadn’t been in vain. I ran my fingers gently down her cheek as I drew back and we exchanged huge smiles.

  Her large green eyes stared into mine for several seconds, then she hugged me hard. “I missed you big-time, Stone.”

  “Me too.” I kissed her again, properly this time.

  She linked her left arm in mine and rubbed her free hand up and down my stubble. “Come on,” she said. “Places to go, things to do. Mom’s at a church meeting until this evening so you don’t have to say hello until later. Gives us a little time.” She rested her head on my shoulder as we walked outside. “But we’re not going home just yet. There’s something I want you to see on the way.”

  We weren’t quite in step: the leg she’d broken in Panama had left her with a slight limp. I grinned like an idiot. “I’m all yours.”

  The dog-track parking lot was used by commuters during the day. The November air had already worked its magic on line upon line of windshields and frozen them white.

  I looked down at her face poking out from the sheepskin. “How’s Luz?”

  “Oh, she’s fine. She says hi. She might be coming back next week — with a new friend.”

  “It’ll be good to see her. Who’s the lucky boy?”

  “David somebody, I think.” She turned to me. “But you’re not to—”

  “I know.” I held up my hand to swear the oath. “No jokes, don’t worry, I won’t embarrass her…” If I did, though, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  We reached the main drag and waited for the lights, along with ten or so other pedestrians heading for the lot. “So, how was your trip? I notice I didn’t get a card of the Pyramids like I was promised.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that I thought by the time I got back into Cairo and mailed it I’d be here. Especially this time of year…”

  “Not to worry. You’re back, that’s all that matters.”

  The traffic stopped and the green signal ushered us across.

  “Did you get hit by the storms?”

  “We were much farther south.”

  “I was worried.” Those little lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “Six hundred people died in the floods in Algeria….”

  I looked straight ahead. “Six hundred? I didn’t know.”

  We’d just gotten in among the cars when she stopped and faced me, her arms pushed in under mine and linked around my waist. “You stink like a camel, but it really is good to have you back all the same.” She kissed me lightly on the lips, her skin cold but soft. “You know what? I don’t want you to go away ever again. I like you right here, where I can see you.”

  We stayed wrapped in each other and I fought the urge to tell her the truth. Sanity prevailed. I would find a time and a place to do that, but not now, not yet. She was too happy, I was too happy. I wanted to keep the real world outside.

  She let me go. “Magical-mystery-tour time.”

  We got to her mother’s Plymouth sedan. Carrie hadn’t gotten around to buying a car since she’d gotten back: she’d been too busy. She’d arranged the transportation of Aaron’s body from Panama to Boston, then the cremation, before returning to Panama to scatter his ashes in the jungle. After that, she’d had to get Luz settled into high school, and herself into her new job. She’d also had to set up house — then change her life around again when a not-too-reliable Brit turned up begging for a spare room.

  We split as she went to the driver’s side of the Plymouth, reaching into her bag for the keys and hitting the fob. The car unlocked with a bleep and a flash of the indicators. I pulled open the door, threw my bag into the back, and climbed in, as Carrie closed her door and put on her belt. That frown of hers had reappeared, the one that went along with the raised eyebrow and slight tilt of the head.

  The engine turned over and we rolled out of the parking space. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about a whole bunch of stuff while you were away. There’s something very important I want to say to you.”

  I reached across and pulled off her hat before running my fingers slowly through her hair, as she negotiated the Plymouth over the potholed pavement. We hit the main drag and turned left up the north shore for the ten miles to Marblehead.

  “Good important or
bad important?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. It’ll be easier for me to explain when we get there.”

  I nodded slowly. “Okay. Tell me some other stuff, then.”

  Luz liked her new school, she said, and had started to make some really nice friends; she was staying over with one of them for the rest of the week to give us time together. She also told me how her mother’s bed-and-breakfast had picked up a little since September. Oh, and that she thought there might be a part-time job for me at the yacht club as a barman. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t need a job serving pints of Sam Adams for weekend water warriors. Come Wednesday, I was going to be a bona fide, flag-waving citizen; the U.S. was my oyster, and all that sort of thing.

  Marblehead’s old town was like a film set: brightly painted wooden houses with neat little gardens sitting on winding streets. Cornish fishermen had settled there in the 1600s, maybe because the rocky coastline reminded them of home. The only fishermen there now dangled lines off the backs of their million-dollar boats in the Boston yacht club.

  Marblehead today was where old Boston money met new Boston money. Carrie’s mother had been born there, and was blessed with plenty of the old stuff. She’d come back ten or so years ago, after her divorce from George, and took in bed-and-breakfast guests because she enjoyed the company.

  Carrie made a couple of turns that took us off the main street and we came to a stop on a small road that ran along the water’s edge. Tucker’s Wharf jutted just a little into the water, with old clapboard buildings on either side, now restaurants and ye olde shoppes. “This is it,” she announced. “We’re here.”

  We got out, zipped up against the cold, and Carrie took my arm as she walked me toward a wooden bench. We sat and looked out over the bay at the large houses on the other side.

  “Mom used to bring me here when I was a kid,” Carrie said. “She called it Marblehead’s gateway to the world. That sounded pretty magical to a ten-year-old, I can tell you. It made me think my hometown was the center of the universe.”

  It sounded pretty magical to me, even now. The place I’d grown up in was the center of a shit-heap.

  “She used to tell me all kinds of stories of fishing boats setting off from here to the Grand Banks, and crews gathering to join in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.” She smiled. “You’re not the only history buff around here. I hope you’re impressed.” The smile faded slowly as her thoughts turned elsewhere. She looked into my eyes, then away, across the water. “Nick, I don’t really know where to start with this.”

  I gave her hair a stroke. I didn’t know where this was going, but I guessed it had to do with Aaron. I had a sudden flash of him sitting under guard in that storeroom in Panama, smoking. His nose was bloodied and his eyes were swollen, but he was smiling, maybe feeling happy with himself that he’d helped the rest of us escape into the jungle as he enjoyed his last cigarette.

  I hadn’t had a clue how I was going to get him out of there. I was unarmed; my options were about nil. Then he had made the decision for me. The door burst open and Aaron launched himself into the night.

  As he slithered into the darkness there was a long burst of automatic fire from inside the house. Then the guard got to the door and took aim with a short, sharp burst.

  I had heard an anguished gasp, then a chilling, drawn-out scream. Then the sort of silence that told me he was dead.

  “I brought him here, you know, soon after we’d met. We came up from Panama one vacation. I knew it would scandalize my parents. Turned out they had a whole lot of other stuff on their minds. George was too busy fighting whoever were the designated bad guys that year to notice I was there. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He couldn’t even remember Mom’s birthday. So back we went to Panama to study while the folks got divorced.” She smiled wistfully. “Jeez, I’d gone to all that trouble to round off my rebellious years by getting laid by my teacher, and my straitlaced parents were too busy messing up their own relationship to pay any attention…. Shit,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I shouldn’t be encouraging you into college.”

  I gave her a squeeze. “I spent my rebellious teenage years stealing cars, and the ones I couldn’t get into I’d just smash up. I think they’re over now.”

  Suddenly she pressed herself against me. “I hated you being away, Nick. It scared me. I guess it made me realize how much I’ve gotten used to having you around. After Aaron died I told myself I’d be very careful about laying myself open to that sort of pain again.”

  I lifted a hand to her face and brushed a tear from her cheek.

  “I was worried about being with you, Nick. Dependability isn’t exactly high on your résumé.”

  I gave my résumé, as she called it, a quick glance. This time last year I’d been living in homeless shelter housing in Camden, had no money, had to line up to get free food from a Hare Krishna soup-wagon. All my friends were dead apart from one, and he despised me. Apart from the clothes I stood up in when I arrived in Panama, my only other possessions were in a bag stuck in Left Luggage at a London train station. She had a point.

  “And no sooner have we settled down here than you take off again. Not much for a girl to brag to her mother about, is it?” She paused. “Then there’s Kelly. What if we don’t get along? What if she and Luz don’t get along?”

  I was Kelly’s guardian: she was the other woman in my life I was busy disappointing. She was thirteen and not nearly as grown-up as she liked to think she was. I’d be seeing her at Christmas down in Maryland. Not on Christmas Day itself, because she was doing the family thing with Josh and his children, her new family, but I’d be seeing her on Christmas Eve. “Carrie, I—”

  She placed a finger to my lips. “Sssh…” She turned and looked me straight in the eye. “I was worried, but I’m not worried anymore. I don’t care about the past. You’re a tour guide now, a barman, whatever — I don’t care, as long as you’re good at it. The last few weeks have been good for me. They gave me time to think, and I realized something. I can finally think about what’s ahead. It’s like I was just treading water the last year, my life was on hold.

  “That’s what I want to tell you, Nick. I want us to be together — really together.” She looked down, then up again and into my eyes. “New Carrie, new Nick, new life. That’s why I wanted to bring you here. Tucker’s Wharf, gateway to the world. Gateway to the future.

  “You’ve been so patient about Aaron. I know I’ll never get over him, but I am ready to move on, and that’s the important thing. I want the future to be about us.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t. You don’t need to say anything.”

  We stood up and walked arm in arm for about twenty minutes until we reached a small protected cove.

  “Little Harbor.” She swept her hand across the bay. “Mom always called this the place where it all began. The founders, some of them her family, put down their roots here in 1629. The settlers cut back the forest to build tiny thatch-roofed cottages and fishing boats. I can still hear Mom saying, ‘From here, strong-hearted men set out to fish uncharted waters.’ I loved her stories of the founding families. They were gutsy, venturesome, in search of personal liberty, a plot of land, a place by the sea…”

  “They had a point.” I was surprised to hear myself saying it out loud. “Marblehead is pretty much my fantasy, too, you know.” I hadn’t known places like this existed when I was skipping school in Peckham.

  “Tucker’s Wharf was about departures, Nick. This is about arrivals. It’s our new start. I feel we’re at the start of something, and I wanted to bring you here to tell you that. I’ve never shared this place with anyone, not even Aaron.” She smiled again. “Ready for some more history? Our ships traded with the known world, dried fish for clothing, tools, gold and silver. Everybody prospered and there were two big news stories — war with the French, and pirates. They harassed the coast for decades.”

  She hesitated for a mom
ent, embarrassed. “I got you this.” From under her coat she produced a carefully wrapped gift, tied with shiny blue ribbon. She beamed. “Go on, open it. It won’t bite.”

  I removed the ribbon as delicately as I could.

  A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson.

  She could barely conceal her delight as I flicked through the pages, pausing at each illustration.

  “It was first published in 1724. I had to get this edition from a little place in New York. I know it’s not the Middle Ages, but there’s a whole lot about ships from New England being boarded en route to London. I knew you’d like it. And, besides, it’s to remind you of everything I’ve been boring you about just now.”

  I closed the book. “You haven’t been boring me. I loved every word of it.”

  We got back into the car and drove to Gregory Street. The house had been in the family for years. Built in 1824, it was originally a fisherman’s cottage overlooking the sea. Various additions and renovations over the years, probably during the Golden Age she was talking about, had turned it into a spacious family home. A wooden pineapple was nailed above the front door as a sign of welcome. They were all over the place in this part of the world. A couple hundred years ago, sailors returning from long voyages would place a pineapple by their door to show they were back and people were welcome to come and visit. I would normally have made some quip about that, but thought better of it today.

  She swung the car into the gravel driveway and headed toward a white Taurus parked in front of the annex, next to my covered-over Yamaha 600 motorcycle.

  Carrie didn’t seem too concerned. “I thought Mom wasn’t expecting anyone until Saturday. Oh, well, I’ll go see if she remembered to put out the cookies and coffee. Got to look after the guests!”