Tomahawk (52 page)

He felt empty. As if he'd never feel anything again.

Half an hour later, he got up and went into the kitchen. The pantry held midget pickles and sardines in mustard sauce, neither of which he felt like eating.

Before he remembered, he had opened the cupboard. Her note was still there, but the current of air as he opened the door sent it airborne. It evaded his hand and swooped to the floor.

Soundless tears slipped down his cheeks. The last hand that had touched it had been hers. Now it was dirty, and
time would fade it, and eventually he'd throw it away, or lose it. Nothing would remain….

He put it back and closed the cabinet, trying not to think of her, or of how quickly a drink would numb the pain. He went into the living room and stared at a shelf of books. He picked one up and looked at the page. The words made no sense. He put it back and started ripping open the mail.

A form letter. If he had any additional information on the matter recently reported, the District of Columbia Police stood ready to help.

Suddenly the apartment was too empty to stay in a moment longer. He stripped off his uniform, took a quick shower, and put on slacks and a light jacket.

Outside, the sun was lower, the air cooler, the clouds darker. He wondered whether he should have brought a raincoat. To hell with it. He headed downhill, the evening traffic bumper-to-bumper, inching past him as the sidewalk dropped toward Rosslyn. An occasional biker pumped past, calves bulging. He didn't look up from the sidewalk. As far as he could, he didn't let himself think at all—beyond how nice it would be never to have to think again.

Dusk fell as he reached the bridge. He breasted the still-running tide of students, workers, and shoppers streaming out of the city. Then stopped halfway across and leaned over the rail, looking down.

The river ran heavy and swift and blackish green, foaming around submerged rocks. He watched it for a long time. Pedestrians pushed by on the walkway. He didn't feel them. It was as if filling his eyes with the unceasing motion of the water occupied his brain, too, made it possible not to remember.

When he went on at last, it was night. The air moved over him, cool with coming rain. The lights were flickering on in Georgetown. He walked for block after block, eyes passing unseeing over antiques, rare books, carpets, all the lures of the city. For behind them, a dark bridge arched over a still canal.

Had it only been last October? It seemed like another
lifetime and himself another man than the runner who'd followed a penguin and a Red Death across a bridge he could never cross again. To meet eyes that shone through a black mask. Eyes and hair and a smile he'd never see again.

What had he learned?

He stopped at a Vietnamese restaurant and had dinner in a garden out back. The waiter stood silently beneath glowing incandescents as they stirred in the wind. Shadows lurched and swayed as if trees and bushes and buildings were all rolling in some immense sea. He ordered at random, and ate without tasting what he put into his mouth.

What had she left him?

The rain started as he finished his meal. He paid and stood outside in the drifting mist, getting wet but not caring. Cars tore writhing curtains of water off sparkling asphalt. When they were past, the black mirror lay there, reflecting again, a path of gold and ruby light.

He raised his eyes to their source.

He crossed the street, eyes on the gay, inviting colors. It wasn't a fancy place. Just a neighborhood hangout. You could get something to warm yourself when you were wet and cold….

He didn't want to drink. Yet he couldn't live with what was inside his head.

Halfway across, he stopped and stood on the white line as cars sped past him. Mist rolled, clammy on his face, like sea fog. A taxi's horn wailed.

When he went back into the restaurant, the checkout girl looked at him silently. Dan's hands shook as he dropped coins into the pay phone. It rang and rang. The number didn't answer. He called another. A man's voice answered. Dan told him who he was, where he was, what was going on. The voice talked to him. It went on and on as he listened, willless, blank.

“You feeling better now?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“One day at a time, buddy. That's the only way we can do this. One day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time, if you have to. But it works. Eat some-thing
with sugar in it. A lot of sugar. Sometimes that helps.”

The waiter looked not at all surprised to see him again. Dan said, “I thought I'd have dessert after all.”

He had a flan, smothered with sticky syrup. He ate it slowly. The caramel sweetness seemed to lessen the craving.

When he left again, he didn't look across the street.

The rain came down steadily now. He heard laughter and music. He saw the smiling faces of women through brightly lit windows. He went on, the rain soaking through his jacket.

As the slippery, gritty concrete steps rose behind him, the sounds of cars and voices faded, replaced by the silence of trees and stagnant water. The rain hissed into the surface of the canal, swallowed instantly by everlasting darkness.

Finally he came to the bridge. He stopped there, sheltered by its black arch. He stood looking down into the lusterless water. The rain aureoled a distant streetlight.

He didn't know what was right anymore. Once he had, or thought he had. Tell the truth, act honorably … do his duty … but it wasn't as simple as that.

He'd been born into a family and time that believed the United States had saved the world. His father's old uniforms in the closet. Memorial Day parades. Shoot-outs on TV every evening. A childhood spent in dread of a lifted hand, a belt, or a two-by-four. He'd accepted that as a child accepts things. That was how it was, and they'd told him it was right.

From that narrow world, he'd gone to Annapolis, and believed with all the enthusiasm of youth. When he'd stood in Memorial Hall, he'd dreamed of attacking Japanese battleships in a heroic charge that would change the course of history.

Instead the protective womb of Mother Bancroft had contracted mercilessly and expelled him into the seventies. The country had lost a war. Glory had turned to ashes. Half his division on his first ship had been pot-heads, and most of the rest alcoholics.

That Navy had passed away, replaced by a growing
fleet that anticipated a blue-water battle with the Soviets. In his short career, he'd known war and peace, victory and defeat, buildups and downsizing, public adulation and public contempt.

But he'd always tried to hold fast to one thing. They'd called it honor at the Academy. Now he thought maybe it was something less loaded with pride and self-regard. Maybe just integrity. Or maybe even something as simple as doing what you ought to without thinking of yourself.

Whatever you called it, it meant you made the right choices. But how,
how?
It was easy to decide between right and wrong. But how did you decide between two things you knew in your heart were both right?

He was thinking of Haneghen.

The renegade priest wasn't the kind of hero they built memorials to. His deeds were small: a futile protest, two or, three paragraphs in the newspapers, a second or two of film at eleven. They didn't change anything. But he kept on. Even if it brought prison, fines, separation from those he loved.

He shivered, leaning against the cold stone. Yeah, Haneghen had guts. Along with a simple answer to the immense puzzle and challenge of the world. He said violence was never justified, even in self-defense, or in defense of the helpless.

The trouble was, he couldn't accept that. It sounded good, but—shit, it had
happened,
when Nan and Susan had been hostages in the Med. Yeah, he'd had to kill. And he would again! Abandoning his family wouldn't have been an act of courage. It would have been a crime.

He'd never let anyone helpless be harmed if he had the strength to stop it.

Maybe he just wasn't evolved enough morally to see it. That was possible. But look at it in terms of police, he told himself, sliding to a crouch, hugging his knees. Maybe they weren't always honest. Or efficient. But most did the best they could, and he didn't think a world without police would work. He didn't think a world without the U.S. armed forces would work, either. All it meant was that the people who
didn't
believe in tolerance and peace would rule it.

He was shuddering. The stone he perched on sucked warmth out of his flesh. He wrapped his arms around himself.

The trouble was, he didn't know if he was being realistic or if he was making the same error that had made the world the hell it was.

He'd asked, and he'd thought, and he'd pondered. And all he had left to grasp was the doubt, and the wonder, and the seeking.

He stared unseeing into the dark water. Only hours later, deep in the night, did he hoist himself stiffly to his feet and find his way home through the rain.

33

 

 

 

He kept expecting a call back from Li all the next week. But it didn't come. He'd almost forgotten about it when at 1530 Friday the phone rang. Bepko said, “Just checkin' that you were there. I got a hunch you're gonna get a call from our mutual buddy shortly.”

“What, you have him bugged, too?”

“The less you know, the better. Just stick close to your desk.” The NIS agent hung up. And sure enough, about twenty minutes later, a soft female voice said, “Dan?”

“Yes?” Then he recognized it. “Mei!”

“Can you be at the central newsstand, National Airport, this evening at seven P.M.?”

“Tonight?”

“That is right. Can you make it tonight? At seven?”

“Well, gee—wait a minute.” He thought, then said, “I guess so.” It was one subway stop from Crystal City. Or he could walk over in about twenty minutes. “Mei? I didn't know you were working for—”

“Yes?” No mistake, there was a sadness there. “What?”

“Nothing. I'll be there.” He set the phone down and took a deep breath, flexed his shoulders.

The phone again. Bepko. “Okay, all right! That gives us three hours to get everybody contacted, get into position. Everything go on your end?”

“Not really. Look, where's this stuff I'm supposed to turn over? I don't have anything to give this guy.”

“Sheck's on his way over. He'll tell you everything you need to know. Don't worry so much.”

“Is he going to be there?”

“Everybody's going to be there. Remember, we wanted to use this to wake people up to what these guys are doing to us? Well, there's going to be lots of cover. Several federal agencies. The local cops, to show them what we do. Be a couple of senior people watching the handoff, too.”

“Great, now it's a spectator sport. Just keep them out of sight, all right? This guy's not stupid. In fact, he's damn sharp.”

“You'll never see us. Got to go. Just keep your cool. Soon as you hand off, we move in. Cuff him, take him away; it'll all be over but the shouting.”

Dan said okay and hung up. He sat for a little while, staring blankly at a page of test results.

Half an hour later, the phone rang again. This time it was Shirley Toya. The security officer told him a gentleman was waiting for him in her office. Dan said he'd be down as soon as he got changed.

The “package” was a government-issue manila envelope inside a black plastic portfolio. Attucks pushed it down the counter to Dan. “Welcome to Operation Snapdragon,” he said.

“Uh-huh. This it?”

“That's right. What is that, your gym gear? I'd like you to go back up, get back in your uniform.”

“It'd be a lot less obvious in civvies.”

“Did Mr. Bepko mention there are going to be some important observers?”

“He did.”

“It was felt that the impact would be greater if they saw an officer in uniform there, handing over things to a foreign intelligence agent.”

“Are you kidding? We're doing this for drama? Man, I'm glad I'm getting out of this circle jerk.”

“Easy, Commander.”

Dan hefted the portfolio. “Tell me what we got here. What's the classification?”

“The highest classification stamp in there is ‘Top Secret.'“

Tomahawk

“Okay, let's see it.”

“Oh, we sealed it already.”

“Then unseal it! Look at this thing—how neat it is. This is something I put together on the sly, sneaking back and forth from the Xerox machine?”

Attucks finally grumbled agreement. They peeled the flap back. Dan slipped out pages, scrutinizing each.

Finally he looked up. “What the hell is this? There's nothing here about Tomahawk. This page here looks like some kind of air-conditioning diagram.”

“Pretty close. It's the elevator control system, over at the Hoover Building.”

“Goddamn it, I told Li I had inertial guidance diagrams, hard-copy stuff on the TERCOM.”