Invasive Species (28 page)

Dry Tortugas, United States

MARIAMA'S LAST DAY
in limbo was her sixty-eighth.

She knew this because she asked the guard who brought her breakfast what day it was. The date. Not for Mariama, scratching marks in her cell's stone wall to help her stay sane. She had no fear of losing her sanity.

Nor did she think marking the passage of time was a way to keep in touch with reality. Quite the reverse, in fact.

She supposed that, if you had a cast-in-stone sentence, this many days, weeks, years, watching the marks in the wall multiply might give you hope. You'd be filling in the blanks, knowing that when you got to the last one, you'd walk out.

But for her, scratches in the wall might only mark the last days of her life, whether there were ten thousand of them or only a handful.

Why, then, on this day, her sixty-eighth, did she ask her guard, the yellow-haired Carla, for the date? Why did she expect an answer? She was never quite sure. Maybe on some unconscious level she knew that something had changed. That this day was different.

Anyway: She'd asked. And Carla had glanced back at the second guard, the stoical young man who had never volunteered his name.

Mariama expected him to shake his head. But he shocked her by giving a little shrug.

“Sure,” he said. “Go ahead. She'll find out soon enough anyway.”

Mariama felt her blood warm, as if she'd been hibernating all these weeks and was now awakening.

“What are you talking about?” she said.

But before either guard could speak, Mariama felt rather than heard the sound. Something new. A vibration, a thrumming in her breastbone before spreading out along the pathways of her skeleton until she could even feel it in her fingers and toes.

“A plane,” Mariama said out loud.

Carla was smiling as she put the tray down on the table beside the cot. “It's October fifteenth,” she said. Behind her, the other guard allowed himself a small smile as well. He looked like a man who realized that a deadly dull assignment was finally coming to an end.

Mariama counted at last. Sixty-eight days since she'd arrived.

Sixty-eight days lost.

The sound of the plane, props whacking against the trade winds, grew louder. “You have time for breakfast,” Carla said. “They won't be ready for you for a couple of hours.”

Mariama had no appetite for the eggs and toast congealing on the plate. “Tell me,” she said. “Why am I leaving?”

The male guard looked at her with an expression she hadn't seen from him before. Respect?

“All we know,” he said, “is somebody told them to jump, and they jumped.”

Mariama said, “Who?”

The guard just shrugged. She'd gotten all from him she was going to.

But Mariama didn't care. She knew who it was. Who had told the authorities to jump and set her free.

For the first time in weeks, she felt something that could have been called hope.

*   *   *

PAPERWORK.

She'd just learned it was the fifteenth of October, and now she had to write it again and again, like a punished student forced to write the same sentence over and over on the blackboard.

Each form had different words, but they all required her to say the same thing.
I will not tell anyone where I've been these past sixty-eight days. I will not tell anyone where I've been . . . I will not . . .

America was such a strange, schizophrenic mix. It could hide you on a rock for months at a time, not answering or apologizing to anyone. But when it finally let you out, the paperwork still had to be in order.

Maybe that was why scandals like Abu Ghraib made such headlines. Too much evidence left behind. America hadn't yet learned that if you wanted to behave like the rest of the world—most of the rest of the world—you had to jettison your love of record keeping, your need to document all your actions.

Mariama sighed and signed another form.

*   *   *

SHE WAS SITTING
in an office. A wooden desk held a metal tray, a couple of waterlogged-looking books, and a computer whose background showed a snowy mountain scene. Mariama wondered if this was a joke for whoever usually sat behind the desk, or a dream.

Windows on two sides, the sun spilling in through one, the breezes rattling the blinds in both. Seabirds called somewhere nearby, liquid yelps and shrieks.

All of this a hundred yards from her cell. And now she was free. It was hard to comprehend.

The man in charge was dressed in a military uniform. She couldn't guess at his rank, but she could tell he had some seniority, some power. His close-cropped hair was shot with gray, and in his tanned face his eyes, so dark as to seem black, possessed a kind of canny intelligence that worried her.

Still, she had to speak, had to ask. Looking up from signing the last form, she said, “You will be sending me back to Senegal?”

He looked into her eyes. She found his expression hard to read, another worry. But after a moment he shook his head and said, “No, Miss Honso, you're not going home, not yet.”

Relief and worry mixed. “Where, then?”

He didn't reply, looked down at the papers on his desk.

She took a breath. One more question left to ask, the most important one.

“You will give me my possessions back, won't you?” she said.

Instantly he raised his head and fixed her with those knowing eyes. “Why do you care? You had hardly anything with you when you were apprehended.”

In that moment, Mariama changed tactics. She had no choice. He was the enemy, and a clever one. Supplication wouldn't work on him. Nor would pretending that she barely spoke English.

Her chin lifted. “I remember exactly what I had with me. A small overnight bag with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste. A money belt containing more than a thousand U.S. dollars, a paperback book, a bag of pretzels, a watch, two silver bracelets, and a locket I wore on a silver chain around my neck.”

He was still staring into her eyes. She knew she couldn't afford to look away. “And you care about which of these things?” he asked.

“The bracelets were made by a friend of mine,” she said. “And the locket—that was given to me by my father, whose photo is inside. As I'm sure you know.” She kept her eyes on his. “I doubt I will ever see him again, my father, so of course the locket is most important to me.”

He stared at her for a little longer. She held his gaze, unwavering. Everything she'd said was the truth.

Finally he nodded. Took the papers she'd been signing and banged them against the desk to make the edges even. Mariama wondered if anyone would ever look at them again.

“You'll receive your personal items when you reach your destination,” he said.

Mariama looked down, allowing her immense relief to show as gratitude. “Thank you.”

He grunted and got to his feet. “Let's go.”

*   *   *

MARIAMA FLEW.

The little prop plane was a four-seater. The pilot and one guard beside him, Mariama and a second one in the back. The whole flight, she looked at none of them, just down at the ocean below. Staring at the blue-green water, waves looking like ripples, brilliant white flecks showing where the fishing boats and yachts were out.

Blue, green, white.

Freedom.

And more than freedom: a goal, a purpose, renewed.

Mariama flew.

*   *   *

THEY SWITCHED AIRPLANES
at a small airport in what the guards said was Florida. The new plane was a small jet. It took Mariama and her watchers—ones she hadn't seen before, in suits this time, not uniforms—north.

“Where are we going?” she asked. No one answered.

Down below, the land was gray and green, split by highways and cars that, when they caught the sun, looked like the gleaming carapaces of rain forest beetles. Expanses of savanna and marsh. Lakes that winked in the sun.

Mariama stared at it. All the joy had drained out of her. Already. Her happiness had been so fleeting.

She knew what was down there.

*   *   *

WASHINGTON, D.C., THAT
was their destination.

The terminal was huge and cavernous, like the mouth of a whale or a sea monster. No, not a mouth. A stomach. Mariama felt like she'd already been eaten.

She felt dizzy. She'd been alone for so long.

They put her in a big black car and drove her into the city. She was silent, looking out the window at the squadrons of honking taxis and trucks, at the battalions of people going about their business.

In front of an enormous grayish white building with a front lined with columns, within view of the White House, they handed her over to yet another pair of guards. Only then did they give her a manila envelope that contained her belongings.

She looked inside: the belt, the paperback book, the bracelet, and the locket.

She took a deep breath and, with a guard on either side, went into the building.

*   *   *

TREY WAS THERE.

She'd thought it must have been him behind her release, but still she'd doubted. All her hopes, all those days of solitude, hanging from such a slender thread.

Yet here he was. Standing in a darkened hallway outside a half-open door. Beyond him, inside the room, she could see the shadowy forms of a crowd, perhaps twenty people, seated before a large, flickering television screen.

“Got your e-mail,” he said.

A lifetime ago.

“Sorry it took me so long to figure everything out.” He shook his head. “Too long.”

She said, “I thought I would be there forever.”

They hugged. Stepping back, she looked up into his face and noted how haggard he was. Even in the poor light, she could see that time and worry—and something else—had taken a great toll since they'd last met.

She looked at the silent crowd. “What is this?”

He didn't speak, just gestured toward the television. Mariama followed his gaze. It took her no more than a few seconds to understand what she was seeing.

“Oh, no,” she said. “They can't.”

“Of course they can.”

Mariama put her hands over her mouth.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

She couldn't take her eyes off the screen.

“We're too late.”

THE PRESIDENT OF
the United States, surrounded by a dozen members of the senior staff, military officers in uniform, and other guests, sat in a plastic box.

Trey might have found it funny if his stomach hadn't been clenched in a knot. It was like a gigantic version of one of those cubes that held autographed baseballs, the ones that kept dust and moisture out as your prize sat on your mantelpiece.

“Have you seen my Ted Williams? He hit a home run with this ball in 1941.”

“Have you seen my president? He's afraid he might lose the next election.”

A box, a chamber. Perhaps seven feet high and as deep, and twenty feet wide, with a door on each end. Perched on a newly poured concrete platform, about ten feet up, connected to the ground by two staircases and two ladders. Set high, Trey guessed, to provide a good view of the action.

Mariama stood still beside him. He could hear her short, controlled breaths over the muttering of the newsman on the TV and the occasional comment from the subdued group sitting here in the sweaty darkness. He'd expected her to be emaciated, hollow eyed. But she looked the same as she had in Senegal: compact, muscular, her sharp gaze never seeming to miss a thing.

On the screen, Secret Service agents and uniformed personnel arrayed themselves on the concrete platform around the president's enclosure. Then the screen split to show a group of six military helicopters, big Apaches, on a muddy, gray-green field a couple hundred yards away.

Mariama said, “Where is this?”

“South Florida,” Trey said. “Old sugarcane land on the edge of the Everglades.”

“Why there?”

“Visibility.” Trey shrugged. “Doesn't hurt that it's a swing state.”

She looked at him.

“One that could go either way in the election next month. At this stage in an election year, it's all political. Beat the thieves in Florida, win Florida.”

Mariama opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again.

“Mostly, though,” Trey said, “they chose it because thieves are abundant there.”

“But aren't they abundant everywhere?” Mariama asked.

*   *   *

JACK WAS IN
the room, too, leaning against a wall to the side of the television. He'd arrived early that morning, out of sorts and uncharacteristically terse. All he'd said, when Trey asked why his project had been shut down, was, “We didn't give them a magic bullet fast enough.”

“So?”

“Any old bullet will do if you're shooting yourself in the foot.”

On the screen, Marines and members of the National Guard were hustling around, battling a gusty wind. A reporter leaned against the breeze, his slick shiny hair flying around as he shouted into the camera.

The president, sitting in the box, looked at his watch. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wearing a medal-hung uniform, leaned in close to say something into his ear.

Jack, looking back, saw Trey with Mariama, pushed himself away from the wall, and came over. Trey introduced them, and for the first time since he'd resurfaced, Jack's face showed some animation.

“Took your sweet time getting here,” he said to her.

She gave a small smile. “I left Senegal to come here two days after Trey did.”

“What did you do, walk?”

“I walked, yes. And rode cars, a fishing boat, a freighter, airplanes. And then I sat.”

“Three months to get here,” Jack said, shaking his head.

She nodded. “And just in time for this.”

*   *   *

THE HECTIC SCENE
on the television screen stilled. The president, looking stoic and determined, was waiting to give a signal.

The people in the room all leaned forward. Everyone seemed to be holding their breaths.

Except for Mariama. She was full of questions. “Insecticide?” she asked. “Defoliant?”

“From what we heard, both,” Jack answered. “And, for all we know, flypaper and bug zappers.”

“And when they're done?”

“Declare victory. Go home. Win election.”

Mariama looked at Trey. “Did you tell them this is madness?”

“In Senegal,” he said, “does your president listen to you?”

She was silent.

“We argued, all the Avengers they'd assembled,” Jack said. “No one listened. They just told us they understood what we were saying, but would make the decision they considered ‘right for our great nation.'”

“They understand nothing,” Mariama said.

*   *   *

ON THE LEFT
side of the screen, the president and his guests watched the final preparations.

On the right, Marines climbed into the helicopters. Solid metal doors slid shut. Heads topped with helmets appeared in the glass bubbles of the Apaches' cockpits. Support staff hurried away.

One after another, the rotors started to chop, sending dust clouds spiraling into the air.

In that unreachable place deep inside Trey's core, something awoke.

*   *   *

THE PRESIDENT GAVE
a nod. A moment later, the first of the Apaches lifted into the air, powerful and ponderous. The rest of the squadron followed. Below them, the dust flailed upward like grasping hands, then fell back.

The president was standing, staring through the plastic.

“Those helicopters,” Mariama said, her voice a breath. “And that box.”

“What about them?” Trey said.

“Are they airtight?”

*   *   *

IT WAS OVER
sooner than even Trey had expected.

Spread out in formation perhaps two hundred feet above a scrubby marsh, the helicopters released plumes of poison. A strange oily, glittery white, the clouds drifted outward and down.

Trey caught a quick glimmer of movement amid the low underbrush, a gleam of sunlight off dark scales. A big rat snake searching futilely for safety.

He found himself thinking of everything there on the ground, in the water and low bushes, that wasn't a thief. Rare birds. Florida panthers.

The first of the plumes reached the ground. The helicopters flew on.

Trey knew what was coming, knew for sure, before anyone else did. The hive mind told him, spreading the heat of its anger through him in a wave that threatened to stop his heart.

Then everyone knew. Everyone could see. The lead helicopter seemed to stutter in the air, as if it had run into some thicker, denser patch of atmosphere. For a moment it jittered in one place, the two behind it swinging off to the sides to avoid a collision.

And then, as if piloted by intent instead of merely obeying the laws of gravity, it plunged straight downward. In an instant it had passed through the chemical fog and slammed into the ground. The image on the screen shook from the impact. A billow of flame blew upward, white at the center, tongues of green around the edges.

Someone in the room screamed.

Inexplicably—unless you understood what you were seeing—a second Apache flew straight through the fireball. A moment later, it exploded in midair.

In the center of the neon blaze, the helicopter's skeleton showed, laid bare by fire. A human figure twisted like a black wire within it as it, too, fell to earth.

In the room, people sobbed. At a great distance, voices on the television shouted in hysteria.

Trey could not breathe. His mind seemed to blur, then split apart. Part was still here, in the room, but the rest was . . . somewhere else. Among the men dying in the disastrous assault. Among the wasps that were killing them. He was witnessing the destruction as if he were there. And somehow he
was.

He brought his hands to his face. For an instant it almost seemed as if his alarm, his distress, was being
broadcast
there, to the thieves. He had the fleeting sensation of . . . indecision. Concern.

He felt a touch on his arm. When he lowered his hands, he saw that Mariama was staring up at him. Somehow her gaze seemed to bring him back together again. His muscles quivering, cold sweat drying on his body, but his mind reunited.

For now.

On the screen, a helicopter accelerated and tilted to the left. It was nearly on its side when its rotor caught the tail of another. Metal flew in strange smoking arcs, one jagged piece hurtling straight toward the camera but falling short, as the remains of the two craft plummeted. Trey never learned whether the pilots of the last two Apaches received an order to return to base. Perhaps they did. Perhaps someone had the presence of mind to order them out of there, back onto the ground.

Or maybe they just followed the most basic animal instinct. Flee. Survive.

But they were far too late. One had completed only half a turn before his craft tilted, righted itself, tilted again, and went down.

The second pilot didn't even make it that far. One last explosion shook the camera and sent a fountain of smoke skyward.

The screen switched back to the president in his box. He was still standing. His eyes were wide, his mouth wrinkled and pursed. He looked dumbstruck. Uncomprehending.

Beside him, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was shouting. Others in the group inside the plastic enclosure were staring around, looking as stunned, as lost, as witnesses to calamity always do. The camera zoomed in to focus on a Secret Service agent, sunglasses gone, eyes and mouth stretched wide, yanking on the door from the inside.

“Fucking idiot,” Jack said. “Don't open that.”

The screen went black.

Someone turned on the light in the room. People scrabbled for their phones, ran for their offices, tapped on their tablets. Desperate for information that would be no different from what they'd just seen for themselves, for reassurance that wouldn't come.

One of Mariama's two guards was turned away, listening over his earpiece. A moment later both turned and, at a run, headed down the hallway, as if she no longer existed.

Trey was calm again. His mind his own. The sweat was drying on the back of his neck. “It's over,” he said.

Mariama's eyes were again on his face. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could speak, his telephone buzzed.

He took it out of his pocket. Saw it was Sheila calling.

He hit a button.

“Trey,” she said. Her voice a whisper.

His heart thudded. “What?”

“They're here.”