3
CARL WAS in a corner.
On the floor of the small, bare room with his knees drawn up and his head down, pressing the sockets of his eyes to his kneecaps. The position put an extreme strain on his back and he couldn’t hold it very long. His hands were bound behind, making it all the more difficult.
He was trying to escape the light. The maddening light. Five thousand watts centered above, out of reach. There was a large, silvery reflector around the light, multiplying its intensity, and all the surfaces of the room were glaring white.
Carl thought he knew why they had chosen this way. The light was their substitute for the sun, and the room was a desert. If those natural elements had been readily available, no doubt they would have staked him face up. This was bad enough.
He didn’t believe he could take much more. The air had become overheated, stifling, but it was his eyes that bothered him most. His eyes burned as though they had soap in them and his lids were protesting. No matter how tightly he clenched his lids they wouldn’t stop twitching. He felt he was on the edge of a full-out scream, still hanging on but about to let go. He didn’t want to do that.
He’d been locked in the room and under that persecuting light for five hours. Every half hour or so they came in and asked him. The same question. When they first left him alone he’d used his suit jacket to shield his eyes. They found him doing that and stripped him of everything but his shoes and socks. He was embarrassed to be nude in front of them and he understood the remarks they made in Arabic. Around midnight he’d thrown one of his shoes up at the bulb. On his second try he smashed out the light. They came immediately, replaced the bulb with another that seemed even brighter and took away his shoes. That was when they’d bound his hands.
The entire matter didn’t seem to make much sense.
He’d already told them what they wanted to know.
The location.
At first he’d refused but after thinking about it he saw no harm in it. For one thing he recalled the Disarmament Committee hearings he’d attended last year. Certain ecologically minded senators had objected to the Government’s use of that area as a dumping ground. The Government took the position that in all the world there was no better place to discard that stuff because there it would surely be out of everyone’s reach. Expert testimony had supported the Government’s claim that it was safe and inaccessible there.
Accordingly Carl now believed that the piece of information these men wanted was useless. As a matter of fact, his revealing the location, thought Carl, would, if anything, discourage any subversive plans. If what they’d wanted had been something he considered vital to national security, they’d never have gotten it from him.
But, then, why would they go to such extremes to get him to disclose this information? Surely not out of ignorance.
Carl suspected there was more to it. Very possibly these men were not what they appeared to be. Although they seemed authentically foreign they might be IRB men, members of the State Department’s Intelligence and Research Bureau. He had heard of such incidents: government officials being tested in this manner, being purposely subjected to under-fire conditions in order to measure their loyalty and breaking points. But why him? He didn’t warrant that kind of attention.
Unless, of course, someone had an ulterior motive. Could it be that someone at State was out deliberately to prove him disloyal? There was only one reason anyone would want to do that. His Vietnam file. Discredit him and thereby discredit his file.
As much as Carl detested that possibility, as much as it offended and disillusioned him, there was, he realized, a practical advantage to it. At least under those circumstances it was doubtful that he was in any real physical danger. No, State wouldn’t go to the extent of actually harming him. Intimidation and that relentless light would be their limit. Anyway, Carl decided, if this was a sample of their underhandedness, he didn’t want any more to do with them. He was through. He might as well make it easy for them.
Now he heard them coming again. All four. Their steps on the landing. The door being unbolted. He remained in his strange, corner position, to protect his eyes from the light that much longer.
They pulled him up, brought him to the center of the room where the light was brightest.
His eyelids twitched in spasms.
He was told to open his eyes.
He refused by just not doing it.
The question was asked. Again only that same question.
Carl answered it correctly as he had so many times before.
There was a long moment of silence. He sensed their closeness and reviewed what they looked like. He’d heard and remembered their first names.
Mustafa. Apparently the leader of the group. A man of extraordinary size, close to three hundred pounds and none of it overweight. Bald except for a sparse, wreathlike growth. Scalp that shined as though polished.
Badr. Gaunt, with a bushy black growth connected all the way across the pronounced ridge of his brows.
Hatum. The one with the extreme nose that began nearly out of his forehead and hooked big.
Saad. Paunchy, shorter than the others. Black hair slicked back, a dab of mustache over a little bow mouth.
They all smelled of the same black tobacco and too much of sweet aftershave colognes. They wore identical dark suits; lightweight, synthetic, white drip-dry nylon shirts; cheap ties; and cheap shoes.
It was Badr who said, “Yemken mayoukounsh gheir gabn”—“He could be merely a coward.”
“Aou kazaab shater” Hatum said—“Or a very brave liar.”
Mustafa put that same question to Carl again.
Carl decided that as long as they didn’t believe the truth he might as well try a lie. He gave his answer but this time he transposed the first two numbers of the second part.
Calmly Mustafa requested Carl repeat the answer.
Carl again transposed the numbers.
At once a thumb and finger were on Carl’s jaws, pincering hard, forcing his mouth open. In practically the same motion something metallic was inserted into his mouth.
The muzzle of a revolver.
Carl had to open his eyes now. He saw it close up, the dull gray noses of the bullets in the chamber, the hammer cocked back. But his mouth wasn’t the only place. From behind another revolver muzzle was shoved between his buttocks. After what seemed a lifetime, the revolver muzzle was withdrawn from his mouth.
Carl closed his eyes, gave the correct answer and explained quickly why he’d contradicted himself. Because the truth hadn’t been good enough for them.
The light was turned off.
The end of the play, thought Carl, although his eyes felt as though the light were still on.
They went out of the room, leaving the door open. Carl’s clothes were returned to him. He dressed and went out to the hallway where they waited.
“Sein douret el mayah?” he asked—“Where is the bath room?” Carl said it in perfect Arabic, letting them know he’d understood every word they’d said. If it surprised or alarmed them they didn’t show it. Badr merely gestured toward a door at the end of the landing and Carl went to it, alone. That was their attitude toward him now, Carl thought. Whatever it was about, it was now over and everyone could relax.
In the bathroom he opened the cabinet above the sink on the chance that it might contain something to soothe his eyes. A dirty glass shelf held an old rusty can of Dr. Lyon’s toothpowder and a scattering of used double-edged razor blades. Carl turned on the cold water. It ran rusty for a while but finally cleared enough for him to splash his face with double handfuls, keeping his eyes open. It wasn’t soothing as he’d expected. It made his eyes sting even more. When he got home, he thought, he’d treat his eyes with a boric acid solution and maybe, if he could manage to keep awake long enough, he’d take that soak in the tub that Hazard’s girl Keven had suggested.
There was nothing to dry with, so he left the bathroom with his hands wet and his face dripping
. The four men were waiting for him. He went with them down the stairs and out to the limousine. Carl paused to get a good look at the house and the area. They realized what he was doing but didn’t try to prevent it. Finally Carl got into the limousine, sat between Mustafa and Badr in the back. Hatum rode up front with Saad, who had put on his chauffeur’s cap.
Within a few minutes the limousine was doing the limit on the New York Thruway. It turned off onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway and headed south.
Carl noticed signs saying they were on the way to New York York City. He’d be home in an hour, he estimated. The luminous hands of his watch told him it was twenty-five after three. He scrunched down to relax. He closed his eyes, clenched them because his lids were still twitching. He knew he should be angry at having been put through this ridiculous episode, but at the moment he was too tired to feel much of anything.
Mustafa nudged him and asked, “Are you sure these are the coordinates?”
Carl opened his eyes to read what was printed on the slip of paper Mustafa held up to him.
33:7W27:5N
“Exactly,” said Carl, hoping to God that was the last time he’d be asked.
During the ride the men smoked a lot. The enclosed air became thick with a pungent aroma that Carl related to experiences in Cairo. Mustafa remained silent, but Badr, Saad, and especially Hatum talked crudely about women. Carl had some thoughts of Catherine, but only nice ones. He recalled a day on a remote Algerian beach when she had been unusually happy with him, holding on as though she considered him valuable, content that they were isolated there together. It was a day she’d given and could never take back, he thought, remembering the spontaneous lovemaking that had seemed like a melt in the sun.
A change of speed.
The limousine was approaching the George Washington Bridge. There it was with all its lights strung high, as though celebrating itself.
Saad steered to an exact-change lane, tossed the right amount of coins into the receptacle, and kept going.
There was almost no traffic at this early morning hour. Only a few cars traveling far apart. Saad got the limousine into the extreme right lane. He paid attention to the mileage indicator on the dash. When they’d gone four-tenths of a mile, about halfway across, Saad pulled the limousine over and stopped close to the outer barrier. He released the hood latch, got out and propped up the hood.
Carl wondered what was wrong. Engine trouble? God, wouldn’t this night ever end?
A car went by. They waited until it was well past and all the lanes coming and going were vacant as far as they could see. Then Badr opened the rear door. Badr and Hatum pulled Carl from the back seat. Carl struggled, but he was no match for the two of them. They forced him over the barrier and across the walk to the railing. They lifted him. He felt the edge of the rail hard against his middle. He grabbed at its grit-covered metallic surface. They shoved and got him jack-knifed over it, so that for a fraction of a second he was head down.
It was about a three-hundred-foot drop. Equivalent to a fall from a twenty-story building. And at that height hitting the water would be like hitting concrete.
When he went over they didn’t even bother to look down.
4
THE SUN came up at 5:58 that morning.
At 6:15 Hazard and Keven arrived at the installation in Fairfield, Connecticut. Keven opened the imposing iron gate with her little finger, by activating the tiny transistorized remote-control unit that Dr. Kersh had issued to her. She enjoyed doing that. It always gave her a sense of invisible power.
The high hedges bordering the double-laned drive were badly in need of trimming. The drive, about a quarter of a mile long, had several easy curves to break the monotony.
After a final bend there was the main house, set on a wide slope above Long Island Sound. The house was three stories, about forty rooms and not as old as it appeared. The original owner, whose fortune was made from mass distribution of canned soups, had so much admired an eighteenth-century house in Surrey, England, that he’d had it duplicated here line for line and room for room. It was in the Georgian style, brick, with many large chimneys and high, symmetrical eaves. About half of the abundant ivy vines that clung around and high up on the structure were dead. Typical of the prevailing condition throughout the twenty-five private acres. The grounds were not entirely neglected but considerably overgrown, as if the effort required to keep nature in hand was being put to better use. Actually this slightly degenerated status gave the place an attractive quality. The expanse of lawn that sloped down to the Sound was somehow prettier for not being meticulously manicured. The grass tufted high where it could, or cared to, sharing with weeds that weren’t really ugly and a nice scatter of wild yellow daisies.
Hazard parked the Packard on the far side of the house. At this early hour everything was still. Except for the dog that belonged to Dr. Kersh, a gray-and-white English sheepdog that came wagging and bounding eagerly. Hazard took time to give the fluffy animal some attention, pushing the long hair back from its face to see its black, happy eyes.
Meanwhile Keven hurried ahead down the patch through the adjacent woods. She was well on her way before Hazard remembered she had his shoes in her canvas carryall. He’d been driving in his stocking feet as he often did.
To shout this early would have been disturbing, so he cursed to himself and proceeded down the path, not able to avoid stepping on some fallen acorns and stones. When he got to the beach house Keven had already been inside and was now leaning against the porch railing. She was obviously irked.
“I’ve been robbed,” she said.
“We’ve been robbed?”
“Not you, just me.”
They went in and she showed him that all the clothes and personal things she kept there were missing. Nothing of his was gone, only all of hers.
“There must be some explanation,” said Hazard, trying to think of one.
“Yeah, a thieving transvestite.”
“Nothing we can do about it now,” he told her.
“I can’t even brush my teeth,” she complained, “and what am I going to do for underwear?” She went around looking for something that was hers. She was relieved to find her health-food books were among those stacked against the wall. She touched several to verify them.
Hazard removed his socks, which were dirty from the walk down to the beach house. “I’m going to try for a nap,” he said, and went into his bedroom.
Keven had insisted from the start that she have her own room and, although the beach house consisted only of two main rooms, she’d converted a small dressing area into a separate place for herself. The single bed and unpainted dresser she installed there took up all but a foot or two of the space, but Keven was adamant about the arrangement. Hazard couldn’t be absolutely sure in what bed she would spend the night.
Now from the neutral territory of the center room she watched him undress. “Want some Granola?” she asked.
“No.”
She fixed two bowls anyway, poured whole milk over the mélange of rolled oats, soy oil, wheat germ, coconut, sesame seed, sea salt and natural brown sugar. She took it in to him.
He realized it was her excuse and held back telling her it was foolish that she still needed one. Besides, he didn’t mind Granola as much as a lot of the other things she forced on him.
Between spoonfuls she took off her clothes and finished eating while sitting up in bed next to him. Then she snuggled down and turned on her side wanting him to fit himself against her. He knew and did.
Three hours later Hazard was brought to semiconsciousness by the distant sound of Dr. Kersh’s motorcycle. There was no mistaking the guttural roar of the big old Harley-Davidson. Hazard tried to sink back but soon knocks and calls got him up.
Hazard put on his trousers and went out. He found Kersh sitting on the porch steps, intent on the changing white triangle of a lone sailboat far out on the Sound.
“Glad you got here early,” Kersh said with a
genuine smile.
He was in his fifties, a chunky man, too thick chested and wide shouldered for his height. He had salt-and-pepper hair, a fine undisciplined mass of it, in need of a trimming. His sideburns were particularly wild. Except for his hair he might have been taken for a construction or dock worker. Scientist would have been anyone’s last guess. He had on blue jeans that were frayed at the bottoms and a gray sweatshirt stenciled New York Knicks. Evidently he wasn’t yet dressed for his workday. He didn’t get up for Hazard or offer his hand. Their friendship had gone beyond such ritual.
The most Hazard could manage through his usual early half-awake depression was a sort of moaning grunt. A smile would have been a strain and not sincere. He went by Kersh and down the steps to the beach sand that felt hotter than he’d expected to his bare feet. He dug his feet in and found it too cool underneath.
“Can you be ready in a couple of hours?” Kersh asked.
Hazard shook his head sharply, meaning no and trying to clear.
“You’ve got to today,” Kersh told him.
“Why?”
“Visitors’ day.”
“Oh shit.”
Kersh agreed. He’d brought a mug of coffee down with him from the main house. He sipped and made a face as though he found either it or his thoughts distasteful. “Can’t be helped,” he said. “I assume Keven is with you.”
“Who’s going to be here?”
“Richland. And some other Washington snoop.”
“For how long?”
“Just the day. We’ll be doing an exercise for them. Nothing too unusual.”
Hazard Page 4
