Never Again

by Harvey A. Schwartz

  On the other hand, I don’t know how many nights I have left, he thought.

  As he was about to let his body win its struggle with his mind, he heard the first of a series of tiny snores on his shoulder. He did not move until his right arm was entirely numb. Then he slipped it from under her head carefully, slowly, so as not to wake her. He lowered her gently onto the sofa and covered her with the blanket.

  Shapiro slept on the floor next to the sofa, his hand resting on her hand where it dangled from the couch.

  They refined the plan in the morning. They had considered taking two cars—one to drive the bomb to Maryland, Shapiro towing the glider with the other. In the end, they decided that only doubled the chances of getting caught.

  Shapiro would drive from Maine to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to retrieve his sailplane. Abram’s Nissan Pathfinder could tow the glider trailer. Shapiro would return to Portland where he’d back the trailer into the Goldberg-Goldhershes’driveway. After dark, they’d retrieve the bomb from the pool and strap it into the plane’s rear seat.

  Reuben would drill him in how to work the bomb’s detonator and, if she had the nerve, would take him through a dry run arming and disarming the device. Then he would say goodbye and get on the road, driving straight through to Maryland. They plotted a route that avoided all cities, keeping him entirely on secondary roads.

  They debated whether to issue a warning.

  “No, they had their chance,” Abram barked. “We warn them, and Quaid escapes. Would you have warned Hitler?”

  Katz filled a paper shopping bag with enough sandwiches, apples, and granola bars to feed Shapiro for a week. She smiled when he walked into the kitchen. They did not discuss what had happened, or not happened, the previous night.

  The drive from Portland to Plymouth was the least risky leg for Shapiro. Nonetheless, he stayed off the interstates, doubling his travel time. It was late afternoon when he pulled into the familiar grounds of the Plymouth Soaring Society, parking next to the hanger where the towplane was stored.

  His glider was where he’d left it, inside the enclosed trailer, its wings removed and resting in padded cradles on either side of the fuselage. The plane’s tail extended through the covered slot in the trailer roof.

  Shapiro hoped to hitch the Nissan to the trailer and depart without seeing anyone. He’d finished attaching the safety chains from the trailer to the Pathfinder’s towing hitch when he heard his name called out.

  “Willy, you dog,” Shapiro said. “How ya doin’, buddy?”

  “I’m doing fine,” the tow pilot said. “Haven’t seen you in weeks. I thought maybe you’d took up golf or something.”

  Willy looked around Shapiro’s shoulder at the trailer attached to the Pathfinder SUV.

  “Leaving us for good, or going on vacation?” he asked.

  “I’d never leave you, Willy,” Shapiro said, smiling. “No, I’ve been working my butt off. Finally finished up and thought I’d head up to Sugarbush for a week. I’ll send you a postcard.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll look out for it,” Willy replied. “And the box of chocolates.” The old tow pilot looked at Shapiro strangely. The humor left his voice as he spoke quietly, almost in a whisper. “Ben, we go back a ways. I gotta tell you this. There were some guys asking about you. FBI, they said. Just routine, they said. I didn’t tell ’em squat, Ben. But I thought you should know.”

  Shapiro placed an arm on his friend’s shoulder. “Thanks for the news, Willy,” he said. “I appreciate it, and I appreciate all you’ve done for me over the years.”

  The return drive to Portland was as slow as the drive down to Plymouth, again avoiding highways. It was close to midnight when Shapiro backed the glider trailer up the driveway. He locked the SUV and walked into the darkened house, careful not to wake anyone.

  Shapiro half expected—half hoped—that Judy would be on the sofa when he arrived. It was empty. He was so tired from the drive he simply lay down fully clothed. He was asleep within minutes.

  His last waking thought was to wonder how many nights he had left.

  CHAPTER 65

  President Quaid was surprised when the door to his bedroom slowly opened. The reading light on the headboard of the presidential bed was on, but the novel he had tried to read lay facedown on the blanket. Quaid was on top of the blanket, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, legs spread, arms out at his sides.

  “Are we making snow angels?” a familiar voice said. Quaid, startled, turned his head. His wife stood in the open doorway. A black negligee was visible beneath her white terry bathrobe.

  “Come in, come in.” Quaid’s legs came together. He pushed himself to a sitting position and smiled. “You haven’t been in this room in months, Catherine. What’s the occasion?”

  He smiled again, his campaign smile this time—the 600-watt smile he flashed when he wanted to move the masses.

  She sat in a lotus position, legs crossed, facing her husband. They looked at one another, each waiting for the other to speak.

  Damn, she looks good, Quaid thought. The woman never ages. He recalled their private joke about Catherine having a portrait of herself locked in a closet, a portrait that aged rather than she. She’s doing better than I am. He scratched unconsciously at the top of his head, knowing that with each scratch more hairs fell out. The inside of his cheeks were raw from his constant chewing.

  Finally, Catherine reached out for her husband’s hand and sandwiched it between hers.

  “Lawrence, this has to stop,” she said.

  “This. What do you mean by this?” he asked.

  “This, everything, all that you are doing, Lawrence.” Her voice was choked. She struggled for control. “The camps, Lawrence. You’re locking Americans into concentration camps. The identification cards. Lawrence, this has to stop.

  “The violence, Lawrence. It just breeds more violence. Didn’t the Israelis learn that lesson? Bombs and retaliation didn’t cure anything; they just led to bigger bombs and more retaliation. That will happen here, Lawrence. That’s what you are inviting into this country. Bigger bombs. More retaliation. The man I love, who I still love, that man knows what is right and what is wrong. Lawrence, all this, what you are doing, it’s wrong. So wrong.”

  “Goddamn it, Catherine.” Each word was louder than the one before. “I don’t need some Jiminy Cricket conscience. I need a wife who supports me. Your job is to back me up. I need you to do your goddamn job right now. That’s what I need, Catherine.

  “This country is under attack. Foreign soldiers. And Americans. I’ve got six million so-called Americans who chose sides, chose sides against the rest of us. They made their decision. I made mine. I’ll lock every damn Jew up if they make me do it, by God I will.”

  Catherine uncoiled her legs and swung them off the bed. She stood facing her husband, pulling her robe tightly around her. She’d struggled all day about how to approach her husband. Evidently, she’d failed.

  “Some people won’t stand for this, Lawrence,” she said calmly. “I won’t stand for this.”

  He sat in the bed, saying nothing.

  “You know, Lawrence, I was going to give a speech at that march asking people to understand you, to support you, asking them to appeal to the good and kind man I married. That speech is in the trash now, Lawrence. Wait until you hear the new speech. Because you know what, Lawrence, you know what?” Her voice rose to match her husband’s.

  “What?” he responded, his anger at this woman mixing with the desire he still felt for her, had felt every day of his presidency, and well before. “Tell me what.”

  “When you hear my new speech, Lawrence, you are going to be so, so pissed.”

  She turned quickly. If she’d been wearing a long dress rather than a terry bathrobe, the dress would have swirled in a circle around her. She walked from the presidential bedroom, leaving the door open.

  The next morning, President Quaid summoned Carol Cabot to the family dining room, where he sat at a t
able picking at an omelet. He barely turned his head to acknowledge her.

  “Carol, the First Lady is ill, or tired, or something,” he said without looking at the woman. “She should go to Camp David, to rest. Seclusion. She needs seclusion.” He paused for a few seconds. “She may not agree, but make sure she goes anyway.”

  Cabot wrestled against the tiny facial muscles that struggled to lift the ends of her mouth into a smile.

  “I understand, sir,” she said. “When should she leave?”

  Quaid sat back in the chair, pulled it closer to the table, lifted his coffee cup and sipped, then replaced it gently on the table. “Right away, Carol,” he said. “This morning. Make it happen.”

  An hour later, Quaid heard the sound of Marine One, the huge presidential helicopter, landing on the South Lawn. He walked to the window and watched as Catherine Quaid marched across the grass to the waiting machine, surrounded by what looked like an honor guard of six Secret Service agents. She walked up the steps into the helicopter.

  The president stared at his wife. Suddenly, he noticed an object on her arm.

  He balled his right hand into a fist, drew back his arm and punched with all his weight straight at the center of the window, then screamed in pain. Not even a rifle bullet traveling at supersonic speed could pierce that glass.

  Cradling his hand, blood starting to ooze from the bruised and torn knuckles, he muttered softly, “That bitch, that fucking ungrateful bitch.”

  He looked out the window one final time and saw Catherine at the top of the steps. She turned and waved to the perpetual crowd of tourists that clung to the far side of the iron fence surrounding the White House, snapping photos.

  Those tourists with the sharpest eyesight or longest telephoto camera lenses saw a yellow, six-pointed star pinned to her left sleeve.

  CHAPTER 66

  Ben and Abram rose before dawn. Wearing bathing suits, they jumped into the chilly pool and pulled themselves around the edge of the water to the deep end. Shapiro took a breath, then dove to the bottom. The bomb was surprisingly light in the water.

  They carried the bomb to the glider, still inside its enclosed trailer, hitched to the Pathfinder. It settled into the plane’s rear seat. Shapiro buckled the five-point safety harness around the cylinder, snugging it into place.

  Goldhersh ran to the garage, saying over his shoulder that he had a surprise for Shapiro. He came back staggering under a weight that was heavy even for him, carrying what appeared to be small, vinyl-covered blankets.

  “My cousin Herman,” Abram said as he dropped the blankets on the ground with a thud. “He’s in the dental supply business. I thought of these.”

  He lifted one blanket from the pile and handed it to Shapiro, who bent his knees under the surprising weight.

  “For when you get X-rays,” Abram said. “You know, they go over your lap so you don’t fry your balls with the radiation. I told Herman not to ask any questions. He said to make sure he got them back. Guess I’ll have to write him a check.”

  They draped the heavy blankets around the bomb, covering it as best they could.

  “Maybe that will help hide the radiation,” Abram said to Shapiro. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  The men went inside to join the others, gathered around the kitchen table, their morning ritual. Sarah puttered at the stove, serving coffee, carrying fruit and cereal to the table. Abram Goldhersh was fidgety as a ten-year-old the morning he was to pitch his first Little League game. He sat. He jumped from his chair to look out the window. He sat and shoveled Cheerios from his bowl into his mouth.

  “I was up all night,” he said, speaking to Shapiro. “I decided. I’m going with you.”

  “We went through this, Abram. No.”

  Sarah opened her mouth. Her husband silenced her with a stare. He spoke to Ben.

  “I went through everything in my mind, every step. Tell me, can you put the wings on your plane by yourself?”

  Shapiro opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. There had always been somebody to help put the plane together—a tow pilot, another glider pilot. There wasn’t much involved in getting the plane ready for flight, just mounting the wings and the tail surface.

  In the past, when Shapiro traveled with the plane, somebody always showed up to help, and if nobody was available, he waited. He pictured himself parked at the small field he’d selected, home to the Mid-Maryland Soaring Society. Glider in its trailer. A surly tow pilot standing with his arms crossed saying he didn’t do heavy lifting.

  And an atom bomb sitting in the rear cockpit, with every cop in the country searching for it.

  Not a moment for patience, Shapiro thought.

  “Okay,” he said. “You can come, then drive the car home. Make us harder to trace, I suppose.” Shapiro lowered his voice so only the burly man sitting to his right could hear. “You do know, Abram, that there’s no room in the glider for you. You wouldn’t fit, not with the bomb, even if I agreed to take you.”

  “I know that, but I want to be there to watch you fly into the sky.”

  Reuben was all business. “You’re sure you can get pulled into the air, or whatever?” she asked Shapiro.

  “No problem. I called them yesterday, the glider club there. Their towplane flies every day and they said weekdays are dead slow this time of year. They’ll welcome my tow fee.”

  “And flying to Washington, that’s something you can do from the middle of Maryland? I still don’t understand how the glider plane works. What if the wind stops blowing?” Reuben asked.

  “I’ve been through this,” Shapiro said, slightly annoyed. “From five thousand feet, where he’ll drop me off, I could fall asleep in the cockpit and the plane would land on the White House lawn. I’ve flown this plane hundreds of miles in one flight. This is nothing.”

  Sarah looked over her shoulder at the three people at the table, then glanced at the kitchen door. “Has Judy been down yet?” she asked. “I haven’t heard her.”

  Abram shot to his feet. “I’m going to check on her,” he said. “Why isn’t she here with us?”

  They listened to Abram clomp up the stairs to the guest room. His footsteps running down the stairs made the house rattle.

  He stood in the doorway, his face flushed.

  “She’s gone,” he said flatly. “I’ll check the driveway. Her car.”

  He stamped to the front door. A minute later he returned, hands waving in the air.

  “Car’s gone,” he shouted. “She knows everything. She’s a government agent. I knew it. I told you we had to watch her. They’ll be here any minute. Go. Now. We have to go now.”

  He locked eyes with his wife.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, his voice suddenly calm. “I promise, Sarah.”

  Sarah fought against tears. Oh my God, this is really happening.

  Abram grabbed Shapiro’s elbow, pulling him toward the front door. The man was frantic, barely in control.

  “Go. Now. Now. No time. They’ll come for us.”

  Shapiro allowed himself to be dragged to the front door. He stopped there, letting Reuben and Sarah catch up. Both gave him quick hugs, hardly holding him at all. Afraid of touching a ghost.

  Reuben, however, whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry about Judy,” she said softly. “She told me she felt so sad she wouldn’t be here to say goodbye. She couldn’t watch you leave, she said, knowing it would be the last time. She . . . she said to let you know she loves you, Ben, and that she respects you so much. Ben, we each have a role to play, each of us, including Judy.”

  She stepped back from him. Her face clouded as she searched for words. “Ben, sometimes good people have to do horrible things. I know that. Better than anybody alive today I know that. I still think of myself as a good person, even after what I had to do.”

  She struggled against tears, then threw her arms around Shapiro again, this time holding him tightly. She whispered into his ear so softly only he could hear. “It will be a
blessing not to have to live after what you are about to do. A sweet blessing, Ben. Take that thought with you. From me.”

  Shapiro sat in the driver’s seat of the SUV, where Abram was waiting. He started the engine and drove from the driveway. The glider in its trailer was behind him. As was his entire life.

  Shapiro and Goldhersh made random, futile efforts at conversation as the car drove south toward Maryland. Goldhersh navigated, running his finger over the fistful of maps they’d gathered, charting a course that took them through a hundred downtowns, avoiding interstates and toll plazas.

  Shapiro grunted in reply to directions. His only conversation was the continuous one inside his head. During the hours of silence he heard a barely audible murmuring from the large man in the passenger seat, snatches of what sounded like Hebrew, in the singsong of Jewish prayers.

  Only after they’d crossed into Maryland, just after midnight, were the two men able to touch on the purpose of their trip.

  “I would change places with you if I could. You know that, don’t you?” Goldhersh said. It was easier, safer, speaking in the dark, speaking without having to look at the other person.

  “I know that.” Shapiro almost laughed. “If we could change places, I’d probably let you. I’ve pictured myself doing many things with my life, but never anything like this. If there were another option, I’d take it; I’d try anything before this.”

  Goldhersh waved his hands in the air, interrupting. His hours of silent prayer had placed him in an Old Testament state of mind. “Times come that call for drastic action, Ben. A time for Samson to destroy the temple. A time for God to flood the earth. A time to slay the tyrant,” Abram said, passion in his voice, sounding the biblical prophet he resembled.

  “I know, I know, we’ve been through this,” Shapiro said. “It’s just that, well, that I’m a rational man about to commit what the whole world will know is an irrational act, an act of a madman, a monster.” He thought he’d convinced himself, intellectually, analytically that he was making the right decision. He was surprised at the doubt he heard himself expressing.