The Distance Beacons (23 page)

Good question. I couldn't very well tell Bolton my theory, whether or not it was correct. I had to improvise. "I was staking out the place," I said. "I had this theory, that maybe TSAR might come after you next, so I thought I should hang around in case you needed help."

"Hang around in a tree outside my bedroom window?"

"I, um, thought I heard something. Someone, uh, moaning. I went to investigate."

It didn't sound especially persuasive, but it was the best I could do. Bolton glared at me. "Maybe Cowens is right about you," he said. "Looks like I've been making a big mistake."

Gus appeared in the doorway. Bolton turned to him. "Well?"

"D-d-doesn't seem to be anyone else around," Gus said.

"All right. I called General Cowens, just in case. He should be here any moment." And then he turned back to me. "I trusted you," he said.

"But I told you I was only trying to help."

"You've got a very odd idea of how to help, Sands." He paced for a moment. "The locals have to understand—" He stopped, then began again. "Look, we've exercised the utmost restraint under the circumstances, Sands. That was Cowens's doing as much as my own; frankly, I was dubious. No mass arrests, no torture, no intimidation. We figured that would be what the president wanted—show the people how understanding the government could be. I suppose that was a mistake too, if this is how we're repaid."

I heard cars screeching to a stop on the street outside. The conversation paused until Cowens marched into the mansion, followed by a couple of soldiers. Cowens hadn't shaved and, despite his uniform, he looked old and tired and rather feeble. Not much sleep for him lately, I supposed. He glanced at me, then addressed Bolton. "My troops are surrounding the place," he said. "You'll be all right now. But I wish you'd reconsider moving into the compound."

Bolton waved away the request. "I'll think about it tomorrow. What should we do with this fellow, though?"

Cowens took a moment before replying. He was clearly enjoying his little triumph over the governor. "I think Major Fenneman should continue the chat with him that was interrupted yesterday," he said.

"I was just trying to protect the governor," I said to Cowens. "I'm with you. I thought it was dangerous for him to be living outside the compound too."

"I don't know if he was trying to protect me or not," Bolton responded, "but at the very least we have to keep him off the streets before he does something else crazy."

Cowens nodded. "We'll take care of him." He gestured to his two soldiers. "Take him out to the car," he said.

The two soldiers advanced into the room and hauled me up from the wing chair. One of them snapped handcuffs on me. On the way out of the room we passed Gus, who was looking at me with disbelief and, maybe, disappointment. "Just trying to help," I murmured. Then I was in the dark, high-ceilinged hallway; and then I was back out in the night.

* * *

I waited in the car between the two silent soldiers until Cowens returned. A driver sat up front, humming softly. I didn't feel like trying to make any of these guys my buddies; I doubted that I would succeed, in any case. The soldier on my right stank of garlic. The handcuffs were uncomfortable. My ribs hurt.

We'll take care of him.
I didn't want to think about how Cowens planned to take care of me. He got into the car after a few minutes and motioned to the driver. "Nashua Street Jail," he ordered.

Oh Lord. I decided to tell Cowens the truth. It couldn't make things any worse for me. And besides, Cowens might agree with my theory. He didn't have much use for Bolton—I was pretty sure of that. And the theory did explain a lot.

Didn't it? I wondered if I believed my theory, now that I had been humiliated for the second time in two nights. After all, it didn't seem particularly likely that the president was being held in the mansion. And if Bolton was in fact guilty, and Danny and Gus were his henchmen, why had he bothered calling Cowens when they caught me snooping? It would have been far less dangerous for them to kill me and not have Cowens and his troops surrounding the place—and talking to me.

Still, Bolton could be holding her somewhere else. And maybe he thought he could brazen it out. It was my word against his, and Cowens was not likely to believe anything I had to say.

But all of that didn't really matter at this point. Right now I simply had to convince Cowens that I wasn't part of TSAR, that I actually was one of the good guys, even if my theories were stupid. "Um, excuse me, General," I said, "but I'd like to tell you the real reason why I was hanging around the governor's place."

Cowens turned slowly in the front seat and looked at me. His watery blue eyes were ready to disbelieve. "Go ahead," he whispered.

I tried. I explained about the TSAR file and the sandals on the thugs at Government Center and the getaway car in the alley off Fairfield Street and everything else that I had tried out on Stretch earlier. As before, it sounded pretty persuasive to me. As before, my audience was not impressed. "You must have a low opinion of Governor Bolton's intelligence, if you believe that," Cowens said when I was through. "Or of mine, if you're making it up and hoping I'll fall for it."

"But don't you agree that he has a motive? And, with a few smart guys working for him, don't you think he could carry out the kidnapping? He's a natural suspect."

"Perhaps he's a natural person to try to make a suspect, if you're trying to divert suspicion from yourself," Cowens replied. "But you're ignoring one thing, Sands. I know Governor Bolton. I've worked with him for years. I may not always agree with him, but I respect him. He wouldn't dream of doing something like this. He wouldn't dream of risking the government and all it's accomplished for his own personal gain."

Something in the way Cowens made this little speech struck me as false. It was like the way Bolton had talked about the referendum: forced, artificial. "Maybe," I suggested, "you've been a soldier too long, General. What if you're too used to carrying out orders from people like Bolton, and not thinking about the person who's giving the orders?"

His blue eyes appraised me. And then he laughed—a dry, humorless laugh that made me want to curl up and die. "Sands, that just shows how much you misunderstand me as well as everyone else," he whispered. He turned away then, and a few moments later we came to a stop in front of the jail.

* * *

The fiendish old jailer with the limp and the incomprehensible mutter took me away from the soldiers. "Hey, what about the handcuffs?" I said, but no one paid any attention.

The jailer carried a torch as he led me through the dark corridors. Our shadows loomed grotesquely on the walls. In the distance someone groaned. I felt as if I had entered hell.

He led me to a cell and locked me inside, then limped away. I sat on the edge of the cot, twisted the handcuffs, and felt fear clutching at me like the hands of the damned.

No one was going to save me from Major Fenneman this time.

I don't know how long I waited in the darkness, but it wasn't long enough. Eventually footsteps echoed in the corridor, and the jailer was standing outside, along with a soldier. The jailer opened the door, and the soldier beckoned. I got up and followed him. No words were spoken.

The soldier took me to the small, windowless room where I had been before. Inside, both Cowens and Fenneman were standing up, waiting for me. If possible, Fenneman looked even angrier than I remembered him. "I wonder if you wouldn't mind seeing about these handcuffs," I said to Cowens. "I don't think they're really necessary now, do you? One of your men has the key."

Cowens gestured to the soldier waiting by the door. "Take care of it," he murmured. The soldier disappeared down the corridor.

Fenneman shut the door. "Sit down," he said.

I obeyed. Fenneman and Cowens remained standing. They stared at me. "Where is TSAR keeping the president?" Fenneman demanded.

"I don't know anything about TSAR," I said. "I had nothing to do with the president's kidnapping. I don't have any idea where she is."

Fenneman leaned over and slapped me in the face. I closed my eyes; he had a powerful slap. When I opened my eyes, the naked light bulb hanging over the table glistened through my tears. Fenneman's face loomed behind it, large and red and angry. "What were you doing sneaking around the governor's house?"

"I told General Cowens what I was doing. I suspected Bolton of being behind all this."

"Weren't you in fact scouting the place out for TSAR? Aren't they in fact preparing to kidnap him too?"

"I don't know anything about their plans. What I told Cowens is the truth."

"But you told Bolton something else—that you were protecting him. So why should we believe you now?"

"Well of course I wasn't going to tell Bolton I suspected him of being a traitor."

"So you admit you're a liar."

"Oh, come on. You're wasting valuable time if you think you can find the president by hitting me and asking tricky questions."

Fenneman hit me again. "Don't tell me how to do my job. Now where's the president?"

"I don't know."

"Who else is a member of TSAR?"

"I don't know."

"How many members does it have?"

"I don't know."

He hit me again. The interrogation settled into a routine of questions and denials and pain. Fenneman was not subtle and not especially clever, I suppose, but at the moment I was not interested in reviewing his performance; I was interested only in the next time he was going to hit me. Where would he aim? How hard would it be? How much more could I stand? After a while I noticed that Cowens was gone. I wondered vaguely if perhaps he didn't enjoy this sort of thing. Or perhaps he realized they weren't going to get anything out of me. But thoughts of Cowens quickly floated away. They didn't matter. Only the pain mattered.

Eventually I must have passed out, because I don't remember an end to the interrogation. I just came to in my cell; sunlight was streaming in through a tiny window high up in the wall, and it was time to face another day.

I struggled up to a sitting position on my cot. I noticed that there was a tray on the floor with a roll and a cup of milk on it. I wasn't hungry, but after a lifetime of scrounging for food my instinct told me to eat when the opportunity presented itself. I reached down and picked up the tray; wasn't easy. The milk was warm; the roll was hard. My mouth wasn't cooperating. It wasn't one of my better breakfasts. I lay back down on the cot.

Time passed. I drifted along with it, content not to move, not to think. The absence of pain (more or less) is not boring, if the only alternative is more pain. After a while I noticed that my handcuffs were gone. That was an improvement, wasn't it? I stared at a tiny, faded message printed on the wall next to the cot:

I am in heer on a bum rap

The Wiz Kid '97

Staring at the message, I began to feel a kinship with the Wiz Kid, now no longer a kid, now almost certainly dead. And then I began to feel a kinship with all of the oppressed, dead and living. Like them, I didn't belong in jail; I didn't deserve to be tortured. How could someone do this to his fellow man? It was wrong; it had to be stopped.

In the aftermath of pain, this struck me as being quite profound. Henry Fisher would have been proud of me. But the Wiz Kid hadn't stopped it, and Henry hadn't either, and here I was, after all these years, waiting for the steps along the corridor and the rattling of the keys in the cell door and the silent summons. Fenneman is back in the small room. The pain is about to resume.

I closed my eyes, and I waited.

* * *

"Let's go."

I looked over at the soldier standing in the open door. "I am in here on a bum rap," I said to him. It didn't come out very well; my mouth still wasn't cooperating.

"I don't give a fat rat's ass," the soldier said. "Let's go."

I slowly got up from the cot and shuffled out of the cell. The soldier pushed me along the corridor. I stumbled forward, and eventually we reached our destination. Fenneman was waiting for me. As before, Cowens was also there; maybe his presence was required for the beginning of the ritual. He had shaved; he looked somewhat better. He appraised me as I slumped into the wooden chair. "You're not telling us what we need to know," he said softly.

"How can I? I don't know anything."

"And meanwhile your people are still at it," Fenneman said.

"What people?" I asked.

"You know what people." He tossed a piece of paper onto the table.

It was yet another typed message from TSAR. I read it.

You have till sunrise tomorrow to leave Boston.

Then the president dies.

The Second American Revolution

P.S. We now have the meddling reporter Gwendolyn Phillips.

She dies too, as will all who attempt to interfere.

I looked up at Fenneman. His arms were crossed. His florid face was expressionless. Could this be a trick to get me to talk? But what was the point? Maybe the Feds knew about my relationship with Gwen—she was the one, after all, who had written the story about the initial threat from TSAR—but this didn't seem like a good way of making use of that knowledge.