Star Chamber Brotherhood (15 page)

Carol regarded her housekeeper coolly and paid no attention to Werner or to Linda Holt. After a tense pause, she stiffened visibly and folded her arms.

“I already have someone living with me,” she said with the slightest inclination of the head toward Werner.

“It’s not the same, Carol. Frank doesn’t have a Boston residence permit. My cousins do. And they’re already cleared by FEMA and the Authority for public housing.”

“I’ll have a new job and a new waiver very soon. This is not at all a good time for me to take on houseguests. I need rest and space so that I can interview well.”
 

 
“And how
is
the job search going?” Linda Holt intervened in a motherly tone that relieved the tension.

Harriet used the opening to pick up a tray stacked with plates and carry it out to the dining room.

“It’s coming,” Carol replied distractedly, now that Harriet was out of the room, turning to face Linda. “I’ve put feelers out in the right places and I’m getting my calls returned. But these things take time. Fortunately, I have some savings, so I feel I can afford to wait for the right opportunity.”

“Is the Physicians’ Union helping you?” Linda suggested. “That’s what it’s there for, you know.”

“Those hacks? Surely you’re joking, Linda. You know as well as I do that the doctors who belong to that union join it precisely because they’re incompetent. I wouldn’t go anywhere near them.”

“Maybe they’re not the greatest doctors who ever lived, but the union’s officers have a lot to say about who gets hired. You know, Carol, it might not hurt to have them on your side, considering what’s at stake.”

 
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Carol declared firmly. “We’ve crossed swords too many times for that. Neither of us would have the other.”
 

“Could it be that you’re blacklisted?” Werner ventured. “Because of the free clinic incident? Or perhaps because you never joined the Party or the Union?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me for a moment,” Carol shot back irritably. “Those people seem to have a blacklist for every occasion. I’d consider it a badge of honor to be on it. I’d rather see patients from a park bench on Boston Common than get a job through the Party.”

“Except that you can’t practice medicine without a license, even from a park bench,” Werner replied evenly. “And the Party controls the licenses.”

“Oh, you’re both being so negative!” Carol burst out.
 

Then, seeing that they remained unmoved, she changed tone and made an attempt at irony.
 

“Whatever happened to the power of positive thinking around here? If I’m in such bad shape, why aren’t you talking up the habits of effective people or the law of attraction or how to mind-control the problem? Why, maybe I’ll cook up a few affirmations before I go to bed and see if I don’t get the solution to my problems in a dream. My, I think I feel better already.”

This was a pointed gibe at Linda Holt’s New Age beliefs. For, despite her distaste for the Unionists, Carol Dodge and the Party still shared the same materialist philosophy that denied the influence of mind over matter under any circumstances. Werner, whose beliefs were closer to Linda’s than Carol’s, stepped in to change the subject.

“Well, if all else fails, I’m sure you could find yourself a very nice position at a hospital in Salt Lake City. You still know how to ski, don’t you, Carol?”

Carol rolled her eyes.
 

“When I said I was willing to expand my job search beyond Boston, I meant beyond Route 128, not beyond the Rockies,” she said acidly.

“Frank doesn’t give up easily,” Linda Holt observed with a sparkle in her eye. “If you don’t find something in Boston pretty soon, before you know it he’ll be lining up your interviews in Utah. Then you’ll really be in a pickle.”

“Now that would be truly frightening,” Carol replied, warming a bit.

“Hardly, Carol,” Werner interjected. “But if it makes you nervous, let me make you one of my Manhattans to take the edge off. And how about you, Linda? Manhattan or will you have your usual Sidecar?”

“Do we have fresh lemons?” she asked.

“We certainly do,” Harriet chimed in on her return to the kitchen . “I’ll bring them out to the sideboard for you.”

“Then it’s a sidecar. But I think I’ll freshen up first, if you’ll excuse me,” Linda added.

Harriet followed her out the door with lemons and a paring knife in hand.

Left alone with Carol, Werner approached her from behind and gently grasped her around the waist.

“I understand how difficult this must be for you right now. If it might help, I can arrange to be away for a while until things settle down. I have some buying trips coming up on the Cape and in Rhode Island and Connecticut and I could consolidate them into one long road trip.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Frank. But don’t do it yet,” Carol replied. “Let’s wait a while and see how things go.”

“Okay. And one more thing,” Werner added. “I apologize if it seems I’m pushing Utah on you. I know how rooted you are in Boston and I respect that. I just want you to remember how valuable a person you are, Carol, even if some people in your field may have forgotten it. No matter what anyone says, you have options. We’ll find a way.”

She took Werner’s hands and squeezed them tightly.

“I know,” she said a low voice just above a whisper. “And I know how much you want to help. I just can’t imagine myself anywhere other than Boston. Sometimes I get very sad thinking that you’ll give up on me and go back to Utah alone. I’m so confused, Frank, I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Chapter 9

Monday, April 16, 2029

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The transit bus appeared to linger at the stop on Harvard Street as Werner approached from around the corner as if to catch it. But suddenly he slowed his pace and the bus driver, apparently seeing his hesitation, drove on.
 

Werner stood at the bus stop no longer than a minute or two before a silver Toyota sedan passed him, reduced speed, and pulled to the curb half a block away. Werner set off toward to the car and opened the front passenger door. The driver was Hector Alvarez.
 

“Good morning,” he greeted Alvarez while taking a seat and giving him a closer look. “Wow, you look like hell.”

 
Alvarez had dark circles under his eyes and had not shaved. He took a sip from an insulated paper cup.
 

“And that is exactly how I feel,” the car dealer responded. “A team of us worked all night preparing a shipment of cars for export. We didn’t finish until an hour ago.”

“I appreciate your professionalism in showing up, Hector. Our job this morning won’t take long. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes. It depends on how soon the target gets out the door and onto the street.”

“Where are we going?” Alvarez asked impatiently.

“First stop is Back Bay. Stay on Commonwealth and drop me off at Gloucester. Then you’re going to continue on Commonwealth for two blocks and pull over between Exeter and Dartmouth. Stay there and keep your eyes peeled for the target vehicle until you get my signal.”

“What is the signal?”

“Three clicks on the handheld radio,” Werner informed him. “Then you’re to follow the target vehicle to its final destination, which ought to be a major office building downtown.”

Alvarez nodded his assent.

“But wherever the target goes,” Werner continued, “take note of the start and end time for the trip, the exact route, and anything else you think might be worth recording. What we’re trying to do here is establish what time the target leaves his house every morning, what car he uses, what route he uses, and whether he’s security-conscious.”

“What if he enters a parking garage?” Alvarez asked. “Should I follow him in?”
 

“Definitely not. Just note the time and location and move on. If you ever face a choice between losing the target and having him notice you, always break off contact and make a fresh start the next day. Above all, we don’t want him to notice us or even realize he’s under surveillance.”

“How often do you want me to do this?”

“Three or four times this week would be great—if you can find the time,” Werner answered. “But each time you do, be sure to pick up the target at a different point to avoid setting a pattern of your own. Do you have another car you can use sometimes besides this one?”

“I can find one.”

“Okay then,” Werner concluded with an encouraging smile. “We’ll meet again on Sunday. Here’s the license number of the car you’ll be following. It’s a maroon Ford Galaxy, four-door, federal government plates.”

Werner handed Alvarez a folded sheet of notebook paper bearing the license number. Then he removed a small blue handheld two-way radio from his pocket and placed it on the seat next to Alvarez. He drew a second radio from the same pocket and held it up to demonstrate.

“When I spot the target pulling into traffic, I’ll make a series of clicks, like this.”

Werner pressed the call button and a series of five clicks issued from Alvarez’s receiver.

“That’s the stand-by signal,” Werner continued. “When he’s en route, I’ll give you a brief spoken description in code of where he is and where he’s headed. You’re to acknowledge this with three short clicks, like this, but without speaking. We don’t want any police or security units monitoring the radio chatter to suspect that there’s surveillance going on here.”

The Toyota crossed Massachusetts Avenue and entered the western edge of Back Bay.
 

“I also have something for you, Frank,” Alvarez offered, removing from his shirt pocket an index card with two keys taped to the back. “It’s something we spoke of yesterday.”

He handed the card to Werner, who examined it quickly before looking up at Alvarez.
 

“If anything happens to me,” Alvarez declared, staring straight ahead at traffic, “I want you to call my sister, Cara. If you can’t reach her, call our neighbor, Rosa, who takes care of the boys when Cara is away. Their phone numbers, and also the address of the boys’ school, is written on the card. The keys to my apartment are taped to the back.”

Hector turned to look at Werner.
 

“Now, do I have your word that you will keep your promise to me, Frank? That you will take care of my nephews like your own sons until they are old enough to make their own way in the world?”

“You have my solemn word, Hector, with God as my witness,” Werner replied, pocketing the index card. “But nothing is going to…”

Alvarez stopped the car.

“Gloucester Street,” he announced.

Without another word from either man, Werner opened the car door and stepped out onto the curb.

****

Jonah Tucker’s nephew worked in an office building in East Cambridge not far from the Museum of Science. Sam Tucker’s employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had leased the building two years earlier to replace offices and laboratories near the main MIT campus that had been lost to flooding.
 

Werner had taken up Jonah’s offer to meet Sam soon after settling in Boston and, since they were both outsiders in a notoriously inbred city, the two men had become good friends, despite their age difference. Neither had been active in the New Underground Railroad or any other anti-Unionist group while in Boston, so they did not worry about being seen together in public.

Werner entered the lobby on the first floor and looked for Sam outside the Museum Store, now a branch of General Macy’s, the state-owned retail conglomerate that had kept many of Macy’s and Filene’s downtown stores operating, zombie-like, after they closed their doors. He found Sam browsing in the store’s books section between bins of shopworn science toys that appeared desperately in need of a liquidation sale.

“Man, I could never get tired of this place,” the younger man declared with boyish enthusiasm when he noticed Werner’s approach.

“Glad to hear it,” Werner replied, pleased to see his friend in a relaxed and happy mood. “MIT is definitely the right place for you if you still get a kick out of this mausoleum.”

Werner remembered his one and only foray into the Museum of Science several weeks after his return to Boston. A frequent visitor to museums when his daughters had been in school, he was distressed to see both the IMAX theater and the Hayden Planetarium closed indefinitely for repairs, and the museum’s entire lower level roped off due to flood damage.
 

What remained also disappointed him, as none of the exhibits appeared to have been updated or even cleaned since his departure from Boston nearly seven years before. With government funding scarce and private funding virtually nonexistent, nearly all of Boston’s great museums had been reduced to pale shadows of their former excellence.

Werner was content to daydream for a few moments longer while Sam Tucker finished what he was reading and returned the book to the shelf. Werner had noticed that Sam resembled both his uncle and his father in being a large, powerfully built man who had fallen off the fitness wagon. Though a varsity sprinter and hurdler as an undergraduate at Ohio State, Sam now carried an extra twenty or thirty pounds of fat on his six-foot, three-inch frame that made him resemble a well-fed bear. He wore wrinkled khakis and a denim shirt under a fleece vest, which he admitted was a virtual uniform among his fellow post-doctorate fellows. In the scientific academe, he claimed, conformity was a core virtue until one safely attained celebrity status.