by Joshua Corin
“Everything.”
Jonesy nodded. She had a point.
Then Del Purrich entered the room and Xana spat out the longest, ugliest, most graphic, most Shakespearean series of invectives that Jonesy had ever heard, and he’d lived in Ireland. At times, Xana’s spew of verbal filth segued into other languages—Jonesy recognized Portuguese and Russian and Arabic—but always she returned to English and always she directed her barrage at this newcomer, Del Purrich, FBI according to the ID dangling from his lanyard. He had a squeezed face, as if a vise had clamped his skull at birth, and he stood there at the doorway, arms crossed, unfazed, while Xana decorated the air with curses.
After three full minutes, she stopped.
“Are we through?” asked Del.
Nope. Xana was merely catching her breath. She kicked off another marathon of vulgarity, gesticulating for effect. Again, like a child possessed, she switched now and then into foreign tongues. Jonesy had a feeling that, when learning a new language, profanities were among the first vocabulary words she acquired.
Oh, what multitudes some people contained.
By minute four, Del’s patience had worn bald, and he uncrossed his arms and took a seat.
By minute five, he slapped the table and cried out, “Enough!”
His narrow face resembled a smashed beet.
Xana ended her tirade, although from the casual way she sat back in her chair, she made it plain to all that this sudden silence was her choice.
And what a merciful choice it was. Jonesy’s mild allergy headache had begun to gain steam behind the spotlights of his eyeballs. Soon it would grow into a thick cloud of needles and the pressure alone would pop out his eyeballs like champagne corks, or at least it felt as much. He didn’t blame sobriety or Atlanta for these migraines, which had begun last year. His father had died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age seventy-six, and his father had died of a stroke at age seventy-six, and Jonesy had turned seventy-six back in March and, with all apologies to B. F. Skinner, oftentimes genetics were destiny.
In other words, whatever dark waters ran between Xana and Del, whatever offer or threat Del came in here to give, it had better happen right goddamn quick.
“It’s good to see you, Xana,” Del said. “Let me be more specific: it’s good to see you in that seat. It’s good to see you finally at the inevitable end of your rope.”
Jonesy leaned forward. “I’m going to cut you off right there, Agent Purrich, because you’re demonstrating a negative personal bias toward my client and for someone like me, that’s great. I file a motion and my client walks and you get a blemish on your CV. So how about instead of all that, I get my client to agree not to leave the state and then you release her.”
Del leaned forward. “I’m going to cut you off right there, Counselor, because you seem to have never heard of Title VI of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. My authority here is unimpeachable.”
“And my client is an American citizen who is protected by the—”
“Where were you born?” Del asked Xana.
Xana replied with a glare. “I’m a U.S. citizen.”
“That’s fabulous. Where were you born?”
“I was an FBI agent for fuck’s sake!”
“We’ll get back to that in a sec. Where were you born?”
“Fayzabad.”
“Which is where?”
“Afghanistan. Meanwhile, my mother was born in Binghamton, New York, and my father applied for a CRBA the week following my birth at the American embassy in Kabul.”
“Why didn’t your mother apply for it?”
“Wait.” Jonesy held up a hand. “Sorry. But no. It’s clear to me and to your colleagues watching this interview over the CCTV that you’re wasting their time and our time by asking questions that everybody involved already knows the answers to. Can we stipulate for the record that the basic facts of my client’s life are not in dispute?”
“No, actually, I’m not willing to stipulate that at all. See, there’s fact and then there’s truth. I’ve seen a copy of the CRBA, Xana. I’ve seen your passport. I’ve read and reread the background check the bureau conducted when you first applied. Those are facts. But are they the truth? Let’s find out.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“For the love of what? Allah?”
At which point Xana, regrettably, punched Del in the nose. It was a solid punch. Her knuckles, his cartilage. Similar to punching a tomato. Del’s juices flowed freely and painted him a blood-goatee. Before Jonesy could so much as offer up one of his many Kleenex, the room flooded with men and women, all of whom were armed. Reflex sent Jonesy’s hands in the air, but the authorities fully ignored him and went straight for Xana. Homeland Security Agents Rodrigo and Loyola slammed her cheek to the table and snapped Xana’s wrists in zip ties. Before Jonesy could so much as protest, his client was being yanked out of the room. The others followed, leaving Jonesy alone with Del, who was using a handkerchief to mop up his shirt and chin and lips.
“You should’ve said goodbye,” muttered Del. His voice was watery. “Because that’s the last you’ll be seeing of her.”
“The writ of habeas corpus—”
“Oh, go back to your ivory tower, Professor. Your notion of law is so steeped in theory that you’ve forgotten all about reality. Well, I deal in reality. And the reality is this: your client’s fucked.”
Chapter 29
Lacking an adequately dismal cell in the municipal building to detain her, Rodrigo and Loyola forced Xana into the backseat of a police squad car and left her there. The afternoon sun had already cooked the vinyl seat to lava and Xana, wrists clamped behind her back, had to endure several minutes of extreme discomfort before her bare skin adjusted to these new, inhospitable conditions. Even so, the sun continued its fire-breath through the rear window of the car and thus to the nape of her neck, and Xana shut her eyes and dunked deep into a blue memory of chilly, charming Berlin at Christmastime.
Those labyrinthine open-air markets.
Gap-toothed peddlers of handcrafted toy boats, scarves of blood sausage, fruit cakes wrapped in newborn paper.
Mulled cinnamon wine.
Those two jugglers tossing lit torches through the moonlit air. A man and a woman. Siblings? Lovers? As their sticks of fire spun from hand to hand to hand to hand, the man and woman recited lines from Goethe.
Come to think of it, Xana had gotten into a brawl that night, too.
Her knuckles ached. Not a lot, but enough to provide a pleasant distraction from the fire-breath on the back of her neck. Someone would be joining her soon. Two someones. Meanwhile, they had Konquist’s nephew Buzz posted a few feet from the car, just under the shade of a droopy pine, making sure she didn’t…didn’t what, exactly? She was cuffed in the backseat of a vehicle whose doors were locked to passengers and whose backseat was separated from its front seat by an iron grille. What the hell exactly did they expect her to do? Slither underneath the seat like a snake and pry open the steering column’s plastic cover and hot-wire this motherfucker?
Riiiight.
And besides, whoever was meant to take her away would show up soon, probably a low-level flunky to drive the car and a VIP to ride shotgun, and that would be that. The VIP would probably be Del. At least she’d get to see him with his broken nose. Maybe before the day was over, she’d even get to hit him again. Her wrists were bound, but a head-butt often did the trick. No one ever expected a head-butt.
He’d always had it in for her. From the day he’d shown up at the Atlanta Field Office, his transfer papers from Oklahoma City still fresh in his file. Was it because Xana hadn’t joined in the welcome-to-the-team bullshit her colleagues so excelled in delivering? Well, fuck them. Hospitality was not in her job description. And besides, couldn’t they see the bullshit this newcomer so excelled at l
obbing back, and oh, what a coincidence that so much of it was aimed specifically at his new boss, Jim Christie.
Del Purrich was two hundred pounds of slime. What did it matter that he never liked Xana? She’d never liked him. Had Xana learned early one morning that Del, crossing the street, had been smacked into paste by a tractor trailer and that his guts had left a 550-foot trail of gore along the asphalt, she would have felt sad—not for Del but for the cleaners who would have to mop up after him. Had Xana learned late one afternoon that Del, snacking on a bag of corn chips, had gotten one lodged horizontally in his windpipe and subsequently gasped and gagged until his face purpled, and one of her colleagues had been forced to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen but, alas, it had been too late, she would have felt mournful—again, not for Del but for the pen, which undoubtedly would end up in the trash despite having all that ink left to offer. Had Xana learned in the middle of the night that Del, asleep in bed beside his wife, mouth agape, had been attacked mid-snore by his cat, who suffered from brain-eating dementia caused by a prion disease, and the various scratching and clawing and biting had transferred the incurable disease from pet to owner and, in subsequent months, Del’s brain rotted from the inside, rotted like a half-chewed apple, she would have felt grief—never for Del, no, but for his wife, who not only had had to put up with being married to Del Purrich the man all these years but now had to care for Del Purrich the vegetable.
And yet…
And yet, Xana really shouldn’t have punched Del in the middle of an interview. Today’s events were deadly serious. This investigation was deadly serious. Her response had been puerile. Even worse, she’d given Del what he’d wanted. This weak man had goaded her and she’d been aware of it and she’d allowed it and she’d fallen for it and Christ, what did that say about her?
And not only that, not only that, but her overachieving pride was keeping her from the bedside of her best friend. Hayley was going to die and Xana would never get to say goodbye and as always, she had no one to blame but herself.
Jonesy had been right.
Del motherfucking Purrich had been right.
And oh, boy, her pride bristled at that as well.
But she would get out of this. Admittedly, Del had the upper hand, but this victory would be temporary. Those actually responsible for today’s attacks would be apprehended and all of these trumped-up allegations against her would fall away. She still would have one count of assaulting a federal officer, 18 U.S.C. § 111, the penalty of which could amount to eight years in prison, but she had faith in Jonesy. He would negotiate the sentence down to a fine and she would plead guilty because, well, she was guilty, and that would be the end of it.
For now, though: best to lay low. Keep quiet. Follow directions. Be patient.
It was not going to be easy.
The driver’s side door opened. Oh, look, the low-level flunky they’d picked was Buzz. Hi, Buzz. At least he didn’t have to stand in the shade anymore.
Buzz glanced briefly at Xana in the rearview and then started up the engine. Cold air erupted out of the air conditioner. He shifted the squad car into reverse. They backed away from the curb. He shifted again.
They headed for the main road. Just the two of them. No senior mucky-muck in the passenger seat. No one else at all. The only law enforcement official accompanying a suspected terrorist to a place of detention was a local rookie?
Hmm.
Damn peculiar.
The radio crackled to life, but Buzz turned off the volume before the dispatcher could complete a sentence.
Damn peculiar.
“Comfortable?” he asked Xana. “Want me to turn the air up?”
Xana welcomed the chill of the air-conditioning and remained silent. Now just to lay low and follow directions and be patient and everything would be—
“Lord knows I had my doubts,” he said. They merged onto the freeway. “But you’re proof. In all our—what do you call them—is ‘contingencies’ a word? Sounds like a word. Well, we got dozens of contingencies, but none of them could’ve accounted for you. You’re a literal godsend.”
Keep quiet. Follow directions. Be patient.
Ignore bafflement.
“And don’t think I don’t know the meaning between ‘literal’ and the other thing. ‘Literal’ is what something actually is. Like you and me are literally in a car, but we’re—what’s that other word—oh yeah…we’re figuratively on the road. What’s literally on the road is the tires. I’m a lot smarter than people think. My girlfriend says I should grow a beard, but I don’t want to look like some hick from Appalachia. What was I saying? Oh, right. You’re a literal godsend. God literally sent you to save us. You’re a miracle. That’s what you are.”
Ignore bafflement.
“Hope you don’t mind my gabbing like this. It’s a family trait. But heck, you’ve met my uncle. I love my uncle. When I was growing up, he always used to sneak me pieces of Bazooka gum, which my dad didn’t want me to have because it’s got sugar in it. Plus, each piece of gum is wrapped in a little comic? So he’s my favorite. Everything I do, I ask myself: Would Unck do this? But I’m not naive. I know when he finds out about the role I played in everything today, he’ll be disappointed at first. And that breaks my heart. It surely does. Not literally…but almost. I can feel it. But I hope and I pray that, with time, and with God’s guiding hand, I’ll be able to make him see the light in my actions.”
Keeping quiet was becoming more and more difficult. Ignoring bafflement was becoming near impossible.
Through the tinted windows, Xana read the passing signs. They’d just entered Rockdale County. East of the city.
“Uh, Buzz, you mind telling me where we’re going?”
“Oh, sure. My bad. We’re going to Conyers. Should be there pretty soon. Want to listen to some music?”
Conyers. One of many exburbs of the ATL, although much more aged and country-fried than the newer locales north of the city.
Conyers. Most famous for a syphilis epidemic among its horny teens in the 1990s. Even Oprah had a show about it.
Conyers.
Why the fuck were they going to Conyers?
Chapter 30
Their first stop in Conyers was a boarded-up car wash about three miles off the interstate. Buzz parked them inside the unlit cleaning room, got out, and then opened Xana’s door so she could join him. It was eerie seeing all those many brushes dormant, idling above and behind and half in shadow and sure, the power was off, but wouldn’t a flick of the switch suddenly make them come alive, these many-shaped machines, and…
And Xana obviously had issues when it came to car washes.
“Right this way,” said Buzz, leading her out the way they came in and not even pretending any of this was standard operating procedure.
By now, Xana had arrived at three conclusions:
1) Although there always had been a possibility that an international player had orchestrated the drone strike, recent events confirmed that the masterminds behind today’s attack were local. Hezbollah was not in the habit of recruiting hillbilly cops, and hillbilly cops were not in the habit of being recruited by Hezbollah. And while a few rogue outfits from overseas had made an effort to obfuscate their efforts, such as Libya and the Lockerbie air crash, the vast majority leapt at the chance to take credit.
2) These local masterminds were not masterminds. Granted, many elements of their plan had been, so far at least, deviously effective. The patsy trap on top of Stone Mountain? Clever. But there were so, so many loose ends. Unleashing a plague at Piedmont Hospital? To what end? Not every injured Muslim had been brought to that hospital. And was the plague even real? A drone strike was much more surgical, no pun intended. Plus, there was the loose end that was Buzz. He served a purpose in setting up the patsy trap, but there was no way anyone could have anticipated an
ex-FBI agent would be caught as well. The smart move would have been to stick with the original plan. They had already gone all-in. But to have Buzz drive off with Xana so as to focus the blame on her? Far too risky. Cop cars were installed with trackers. The feds would be showing up any minute. Buzz would be implicated, and Xana had a feeling the peach-fuzzed deputy would absolutely crumble under interrogation.
3) Locking Xana in the back of a squad car at all had been such an odd move. The reason given had been lack of space, but come on. Something was wonky. Was it possible that either Rodrigo or Loyola were in on the conspiracy? Was it one of them who had instructed Buzz to hijack the vehicle? No, that didn’t pass the smell test, either.
And so Xana, her mind abuzz with wonder and vexation, followed Buzz through the dark tunnel of the car wash until they both finally emerged into the light. Idling for them there was a painter’s van in desperate need of paint. The side door was already open and Buzz led her inside. They were back on the road before he had the chance to shut the door.
Xana didn’t try to escape. At this point, she just wanted to see where this all led.
She got a good look at the driver from his reflection in the rearview. He appeared to be around the same age as Buzz, although his skull was shaved clean. Skinhead or victim of premature hair loss? Xana, who was sitting cross-legged on the flat aluminum floor of the van, angled her head to get a better look. She spotted a dime-sized tattoo behind the man’s right’s ear. The number 88. So he was a skinhead.
Buzz referred to him as Rocky. Rocky handed Buzz a liter of bottled water. Buzz offered Xana a sip. She demurred.
