Containment

by Hank Parker

  But the Chicago marchers had a different view. About half of the group descending on the bank consisted of depositors determined to retrieve their personal savings. They’d been persuaded that the government was going to confiscate all private bank holdings, a belief fed by the remaining marchers, the ones dressed in black, anarchists and petty hoodlums who sought to capitalize on a disaffected populace, who came to sow disorder or, simply, to loot.

  A large hooded man pushed his way to the front door, raised a crowbar over his head, and smashed it against the glass. The glass was designed to be shatterproof, but after several heavy blows, a spiderweb of cracks spread across its surface. Other masked marchers moved in, wielding their own weapons.

  Minutes later, the glass was shattered, allowing the door to be opened from the inside. The crowd surged in, oblivious to the sirens wailing in the distance.

  * * *

  That evening in Jolo, Mariah walked beside Curt as they headed back to their quarters. The sweet fragrance of tropical flowers permeated the still, soft night and the subdued light of a quarter moon seeped through the forest canopy. She felt secure next to Curt—and at peace.

  Curt had his arm around her waist, his hand resting on her hip. Mariah walked slowly and leaned lightly against him, feeling his warmth through her thin blouse. “Alvarez was right about that fermented coconut drink,” she said.

  “The tuba, you mean.”

  “Right. It does sneak up on you.”

  “The scotch probably didn’t help.”

  Mariah pressed against Curt, her shoulder against his arm. Maybe it was the drink and feeling the effects of the past couple of days. The adrenaline wearing off, with only the fear left. She was crying now. Curt tightened his grip around her waist and wiped away the tears on her face. Soon they approached a cluster of small, thatch-roofed huts and ascended a set of steps to one of the cottages. Mariah fished in her pocket and handed a key to Curt.

  Curt opened the front door, flicked on a light switch, and looked around. “Not bad,” he said. “All the comforts of home.”

  “Not bad at all.” Mariah gazed at the hut’s interior and took in the bamboo walls with prints of bright, tropical scenes, comfortable rattan furniture, a colorful reed floor mat, and an inviting queen-sized bed.

  Curt handed the key back to her. “I’ll be next door if you need anything.” He turned to leave.

  “Curt?” She saw him hesitate. She wasn’t ready to say good night to him, not yet. “I’m really not sleepy,” she said, holding his gaze. To her relief, he eased past her and stepped into her cabin as if they’d come to some kind of agreement.

  “Sorry I can’t offer you anything to drink.” Mariah kicked off her sandals, walked over to an upholstered wicker couch, and sat down with her long legs curled under her on the cushion. “I like Bill Cothran,” she said, trying to hide her nerves. “You can tell his real passion is epidemiology. Why do you suppose he went to a desk job?”

  Curt sat down next to her, close, but not as close as Mariah found she was hoping for. “Money, I’d guess,” he said. “He spent so much time in the field that it affected his marriage. Hefty alimony and child support payments after the divorce. His kids are grown now, but it’s been so long since he practiced science that it would be too hard for him to get back into it.”

  “Is that why you never got married?” asked Mariah, feeling bold. “Too much time in the field?”

  “Partly, maybe,” Curt said, watching her. “Basically, never met the right person. What about you?”

  “Same here,” she said. “Never met the right guy.”

  She realized that Curt had moved closer to her, not touching, but near enough that she could feel a kind of radiant energy through her thin, paisley honeymooner’s blouse, decorated with palm trees and flowers. She looked at his hands, and her mind involuntarily flashed to the hands of the man who’d held the knife up to her face in the jungle. Without really meaning to, she edged away from him, ever so slightly.

  Curt was looking closely at her. “I know it’s been rough for you,” he said. “I wouldn’t even blame you if you were a little afraid of me. After what I did to those guys in the jungle. And the underground lab.”

  Mariah hesitated before answering. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes we have to do things like that.” She was trying to be matter-of-fact, but she knew her voice sounded strained.

  “Under the right circumstances,” Curt said evenly.

  Mariah was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “When those guys in the jungle went after me, I might have killed them myself if I could have.”

  “Sure. Self-defense.”

  “No, it was more than that.” Should I really try to explain this? she wondered. “I think I would have felt pleasure.”

  They were both silent for some time. Finally, Curt spoke. “Totally understandable,” he said. “It’s part of being human. We couldn’t survive as a species if we had compunctions about killing in the heat of battle. We’re probably hardwired to enjoy it, in an innate sort of way, when our own lives, or those of our loved ones, are threatened. What really matters is how we behave when lives are not on the line. That’s the other side of being human. We’re fundamentally generous and altruistic. At least most of us.”

  “Maybe so,” said Mariah. “But I’m not sure that makes me feel any better. And I’m afraid I’m beginning to get cynical. I’m starting to look below the surface of things, half expecting to see evil inside.”

  “Take it from a charter member of the cynics club: you’d be at least half-right. But here’s the thing. A lot of the time, what you see is what you get, and most of that is pretty good. You don’t have to expect the worst, but you should be prepared for it.”

  Mariah shifted her position on the couch. Her shoulder brushed against Curt’s and she felt a brief, sharp jolt, like when you touch someone after scuffing your feet on a carpet. She untucked her long legs and stretched them out in front of her. She was wearing white cotton shorts. “My legs were starting to fall asleep,” she said. She watched Curt’s eyes stray to her legs. He turned to her and smiled.

  “You must be exhausted,” he said. “I should let you get some sleep.”

  How could she persuade him to stay without seeming too forward? What did too forward even mean? She’d been finding excuses her whole life for not doing things she wanted to do. And you’ve come close to dying three or four times in the last week, she reminded herself. What could be riskier than that? “For some reason, I’m wide-awake,” she said. “Maybe adrenaline. You don’t have to go.” They were now face-to-face, looking into each other’s eyes. Curt leaned forward to kiss her. Their noses bumped, and Mariah immediately pulled back with a nervous laugh. “Sorry about that. My big beak.”

  “Actually, I like your nose,” Curt said. “It looks kind of aristocratic. Not like this.” Curt touched his misshapen nose.

  Mariah laughed. “I think yours is cute. Macho in a way, but it also makes you look vulnerable, somehow.”

  Curt drew back in mock surprise. “So you think I’m macho and vulnerable,” he said. He looked at Mariah for a few moments without speaking. Then he leaned forward and kissed her. This time their noses didn’t bump. He kissed her again, gently, cupping her face in his hands, holding the kiss for several seconds. When the kiss ended, he kept his face close to hers and looked into her eyes. “That’s another thing I like,” he said. “Your eyes change color depending on the light.”

  Mariah wrapped her arms around Curt and kissed him, not softly this time but hard, her tongue between his lips. She moaned and began to cry with soft sobs, burying her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a hell of a couple of days.”

  “It’s okay,” Curt said. “I’m surprised you’ve held it together this long.”

  Mariah snuggled next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. I could
stay like this for a long, long time, she thought. “What’s your favorite memory?” she asked.

  “Right now isn’t bad.”

  “I mean . . . before. Like when you were a kid.”

  “I remember a picnic with my mother and sister,” said Curt. “Before Lucy got sick. Beautiful late-spring day. My mom spread a blanket under a big oak tree by a pretty little brook. She made a chocolate cake for dessert. I brought my fishing rod. Caught a sunfish. I still remember that.”

  “You must have had a very happy family.”

  There was no reply from Curt.

  Mariah raised her head and looked at him. “What?”

  “It wasn’t so happy. I didn’t get along with my father.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Remember I told you about the dollhouse I made for my sister? After she died, I kept working on it. Just a few improvements, like a little dressing table and wardrobe. Kind of to honor her memory. And one day, I was doing the work in my bedroom, and my father walked in.”

  Mariah tried to picture the scene in her mind, guessing what might come next.

  “He looked at what I was doing and got furious,” Curt said. “Said I should be out playing football or climbing trees. Like other boys. I tried to argue—it’s not like I didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors. Sports, exploring with friends, tramping around. But my father just got angrier.”

  Mariah nestled her head back against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and cleared his throat. “So he walked over to the dollhouse and started smashing it with his feet,” he said. “Just destroyed it. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me away. I started crying and he hit me.”

  Mariah sat up and looked at Curt with shock, with sympathy, with anger at an insensitive, brutal father. “What a bastard,” she said.

  “He came up with a halfhearted apology later,” said Curt, “but it was never the same between us. I could tell he thought I was a wimp.”

  Mariah shook her head. “What about your mother?” she said.

  “My parents were really broken up about Lucy’s death,” said Curt. “She obviously felt like she needed to give him her full support. But my father made me feel that Lucy was the only child he really cared about. It got so I couldn’t take it anymore. So I ran away.” He paused.

  Mariah waited for him to continue, reluctant to say anything that would interrupt him.

  Finally, he spoke again. “I was fifteen,” he said. “Started ­hitchhiking. A young couple picked me up. Drove me all the way to L.A. I lived on the streets there for a while before a social worker noticed me. She found me a place to stay, entered me in school, and involved me with the local Boys’ Club. Eventually she found me some foster parents. Older couple. Nice people. The husband was a biology professor at UCLA. Got me interested in science. I really got into my studies, and two years later I graduated near the top of my high school class. Then I got a full scholarship to UCLA, where I majored in microbiology.” He smiled at Mariah. “There, now you know my whole life story.”

  “I doubt that,” said Mariah, smiling. “Did you ever see your parents again?”

  “Just my mother. Once,” said Curt. “I was in my midtwenties. She was still living in Massachusetts—that’s where I grew up. I asked her why she let my father treat me like that, but she didn’t have an answer.”

  “You never saw your father again?”

  Curt shook his head. “A few years after I got to L.A., I learned he’d died of cancer.”

  For a long time, they quietly sat together on the couch, Curt’s arm around Mariah, her head on his shoulder. Mariah thought about all that Curt had told her, how lonely his childhood must have been. She was glad he’d confided in her and took it as a sign of his trust in her. But there was still so much more she wanted to know. She was hesitant to keep questioning him because he might take it as pushiness, might retreat back into himself. But she sensed that this was a rare moment. If he was ever going to truly open up to her, it would be now. But she’d have to choose her words carefully.

  “You told me you’d never married because the right one never came along,” she said.

  Curt leaned back and looked at her with what seemed like sadness in his eyes. “I just wasn’t too good at relationships with women,” he said. “Seemed to connect with the wrong ones. Friend of mine used to say I was attracted to damaged goods.”

  “You think that’s true?” asked Mariah. Did he think she fell into that category?

  “I mean, we all have issues,” said Curt. “But it’s possible I was drawn to that. Maybe it had something to do with Lucy’s death. Some kind of rescue syndrome. But to be honest, I think it had more to do with being afraid to make a commitment.”

  “After what you went through with your family.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I did come close to getting married once. But it was because we had a kid together. A boy. I was about twenty at the time. She was a year younger. We tried to make it work. Lived together for a couple of years, but I was in college full-time, working odd jobs nights, weekends, breaks. Between time in the library and trying to support the three of us, I wasn’t home much. She got fed up and walked out one day while I was at classes. Took our son. Didn’t even leave a note.”

  “Ever find them?” Mariah asked.

  “Never,” said Curt. “She’d been pretty private about her previous life. Basically, all I knew was that she’d grown up in Hawaii. That’s one of the places I tried to track her down. But no luck.” He leaned back in the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s been over twenty years now. Maybe just as well. I probably would have been a lousy father. Just like my own dad.”

  “I would have given anything to have had my parents when I was growing up,” Mariah said. “Warts and all. And as for being a bad father yourself, you don’t know that.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Curt said. “I was pretty lonely after I left home. I wondered if I should have stayed, accepted my father’s flaws, worked through it all. I forgive him now. He was really a better man, all in all, than a lot of others I’ve met in my life.” He turned and kissed her gently on the lips. “Thank you for listening to all this,” he said, stroking her cheek.

  Mariah kissed him back, at first softly, then harder. She trembled slightly as Curt stood, clasped her hands, and eased her to her feet. She let him unbutton her blouse and run his fingers down her shoulders and across her chest, touching her tattoo. She felt small goose bumps spread across her skin as he reached back and unfastened her bra. She gently pushed him away, shrugged it off, and tossed it onto a chair. She slid down her shorts, stepped out of them, took his hand, and led him toward the bed.

  * * *

  “Martial law.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President?”

  The president looked directly at his homeland security secretary. “I said martial law. Deploy all the Guard troops you need. Dusk-to-dawn curfews. That includes Philadelphia. The Guard can distribute food and supplies to designated locations at night.” The president wearily shook his head. “And we need to beef up security at all the nation’s banks. More Guard troops. We have no choice. The alternative is total anarchy.”

  From his chair in the Oval Office, Alphonso Cruickshank watched for the DHS secretary’s reaction. He knew the man to be experienced and levelheaded, and didn’t expect that he’d argue. Still, he could see that the secretary was struggling to repress emotion from his face. Cruickshank knew that the president was making the right call after what had happened with the food trucks in Philadelphia and the Chicago bank. But the chief of staff had no illusions about the consequences. Some citizens would likely resist, perhaps violently.

  The DHS secretary was speaking again, and Cruickshank was not surprised to hear him channeling his own concerns. “We’ll have to expect some pushback, Mr. President.”

  “Your point?” as
ked the president.

  “We’ll have more armed confrontations. Certainly in the inner-city areas. Maybe even the suburbs. Distrust of the government’s pretty strong right now. Combine that with panic and you have a toxic mix.”

  “I don’t have to tell you how to handle that,” replied the president in a soft but firm voice. “We’ve already had clashes. Hopefully, the Guard’s learning how to work better with the citizens. Make sure Defense and the governor are right on top of this. That the Guard commanders have some experience. And that they don’t take no for an answer.”

  “Yes, sir. First sign of violence, we confiscate firearms. House-to-house searches. We may even need mass detention centers.”

  Cruickshank saw the president nod. The country might as well be at war, he thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SEPTEMBER 5 (SEPTEMBER 6, PHILIPPINES TIME)

  JOLO, PHILIPPINES

  At six o’clock the next morning, Bill Cothran, hands on his hips, once again faced the small group—Mariah, Curt, Alvarez, the U.S. Navy commander, the Filipino army colonel, and the civilian from the U.S. embassy. Mariah had taken a seat next to Curt. It looked to her as if Cothran hadn’t slept. Or Curt. He had returned to his room sometime in the middle of the night after she had assured him she wouldn’t mind. She’d slept deeply and dreamlessly and only woke up when Curt knocked on her door to tell her that Cothran wanted to see them right away. He hadn’t told her why. Now, at the meeting, Curt seemed distracted and a little bit anxious. Something must be up.