Mr. Steckerman arrived by seven thirty and was talking to Marg quietly in the dining room as I passed by to go outside. And when I returned from our hiding place with the film and flipped on the red lights down in the old photo lab, I heard Mr. Tiger's car engine purring beside the house. It was difficult to concentrate.
I didn't know what I would say to Mr. Steckerman and tried not to worry about it. I focused on improving my technique, and the finished product of picture number one met with my satisfaction after only three prints. And after only developing two images of the Griffith's Landing Convention Center, I found myself gazing through negatives until I located the ones of the strange men turning quickly away from me. Taking those photos of what my instincts told me were dangerous men had been a crazed, unexplainable impulse, like sticking your hand in a fire.
"Only, you didn't get burned." I heard it as clearly as you rehear a line from a favorite television show, only I wasn't sure if the source was Aleese or myself. Trying to ignore it, I developed six of the images, and staring at so many sets of ominous eyes left my flesh crawling until I could take no more. I developed maybe twenty others—the children laughing on the duckie ride, people splashing in the water park. I was hanging the photos up to dry with clothespins on a wire that Henry had strung across the room. I had sent the first photos way down to the far end. The photos of the children and even the spectators in front of the convention center brought me around to a calmer state.
However, a knock at the door made me jump. I grabbed my chest, remembering the annoying truth about how the floors somehow didn't creak in this house.
"Yes?" I half hoped it was Henry having come over a bit early to show me the trails, though he would find it odd that I couldn't show him my work.
"Can I come in? I don't want to ruin your film."
It was Mr. Tiger. Time to face the music.
"Just a minute..." I stalled so I'd have time to think. "Keep it simple," Scott had said a lot recently, since medications and circumstances made even simple decisions seem like climbing mountains. I simply went and opened the door and offered no speeches.
"Alan wants to talk to you upstairs, but there's no rush. He'll be here for a while."
"I'm just cleaning up. Come in."
He walked around, surveying my beginner techniques, and I felt dizzy, realizing what I had. Mr. Tiger was a nice man. Mr. Steckerman was nicer. I believed they were doing the best job they could, but the deaths of Shahzad and Tyler weighed against that, as did the love of my life lying in a bed upstairs with a mystery nosebleed. I supposed Mr. Tiger could simply take what photos he wanted, and I was prepared to give one- and two-word answers until I could hear from Scott.
He seemed neither surprised nor disapproving. I supposed these men had learned to let nothing surprise them, and they knew from the fax I'd handed to Mr. Steckerman the night before that I had somehow gotten deep into it. I took off my surgical gloves, washed my hands up to my elbows, and moved beside him again. I still had a mask on, which I hoped hid most of my blushing.
He stopped in front of the strolling man whom I had startled and looked at it for a long time. "Who's that guy?"
His words jolted me, though they weren't either judgmental or surprised. In fact, he sounded so casual that I doubted his sincerity.
"The first man who turned quickly away from my lens," I said. "There were maybe ... six men who reacted that way when I put a camera to my face."
"Let's see if we can pick out all the ones who reacted so badly," he suggested nicely, like we were playing a game.
"I could do that better looking at the proof sheets," I said. "I was using a motor drive, which means the camera takes four photos in one-point-two seconds. I only developed one or two of each."
"Motor drive?" He sounded interested.
"Yes. We can see who turned away quickly by studying the four frames. Maybe we'll find ones I didn't see."
It was harder looking at the proof sheets, but I was able to point out six men who turned quickly from the camera. None of them were standing together. It would seem almost like they were posted in various points or were guarding something. Even with us taking turns using the magnifier, it hurt my eyes, and I was glad when I couldn't find any more.
"Mind if I take these?" He wanted the prints that matched up with the faces. I helped him pull down the right ones, and he circled the correct faces with a red Sharpie.
I put my hand on the counter to steady myself. Symptoms like chills and dizziness could come out of the dark, so my insides suddenly blasting with heat was nothing new. But for some reason, I didn't want him to think of me as weak.
"I hope, um..." I stammered. "I hope we didn't cause you any problems."
The tail end of it got lost in my trembling voice, and I wasn't sure he caught my meaning. He was staring into the magnifying cup and had been looking at one image for a long time. He finally straightened up and said, "No, you may have actually done us a favor. We didn't have clearance from Washington to get new agents in that city yesterday. We only have one agent down this way working undercover—in other words, who has not been ID'ed by ShadowStrike operatives—and that agent was detained with more pressing matters. Sending any of the agents they've already ID'ed would tip them off that we're on to them. We would have waited until tomorrow, probably, and who knows if they'd have been doing the same thing."
"What were they doing?" I asked.
I guess he noticed the trembling of my voice. He touched my arm and said, "Look, these people might not be anyone at all. They may be people who, coincidentally, turned away when you shot pictures. If you and Scott wanted to go for a walk in the sun, we had no reason to believe you shouldn't do that yesterday. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise."
I let a laugh roll out of me. It wasn't that I was all so cynical about his pledges of security, I was simply amazed at my logic breaches. Owen had said once—and Scott told him to shut up and never say it again—that we could all be fine at noon and be on a slab in the morgue at four in the afternoon. Owen could strike into certain truths that Scott shied away from and that I did, too. But the concept backed up on me once in a while. I wondered what made me afraid of terrorists when my own health could put me on a slab in six hours.
"Can you get me the images you didn't print?" Mr. Tiger asked, obviously looking to direct my mind to a job as opposed to my fears.
"Sure."
"You're feeling up to it?"
"I think so. I have a friend, Henry, who—"
He put up a warning finger. "This is classified material. You absolutely, positively can tell no one outside this house. Can you do that?"
"Of course," I said, reeling from my error but feeling a tinge of regret. I would keep it from Henry, but I suddenly wanted to be with him—and away from all this dark talk.
My worsening weak spell wasn't getting past Mr. Tiger. He wrapped his fingers around my upper arm, holding a pile of photos in the other hand, and moved me toward the door.
"Well, maybe you should get away from these chemicals for a while. Though I'll take copies at your earliest convenience. We don't have a film guy anymore, what with doing everything digital, but I'm sure I can dig one up if you don't think you can—"
I considered these prints Scott's possessions as much as my own. "It'll give me something to do later this afternoon. It's fine."
He led me to the stairs. "We'll have to put some lights down here, outside of what's already been added for the darkroom, so you don't break your neck. I'll call an electrician right away."
"That would be nice, thanks." I climbed the stairs ahead of him, removing my mask, and enjoyed a blast of breeze that hit my face.
"Can you sit with me for a few minutes?" he asked, encouraging me toward the parlor. "I need to talk to you about something else."
I followed him and sat down on the couch. He sat down beside me. A moment of anxious silence passed before he finally said, "Scott, um, has had a recurring bloody nose all night."
>
I'd heard Marg mention a nosebleed, but I hadn't heard her say it went on all night.
"I just want you to know the truth. This might not be good."
I forced my thoughts back to how Rain had come to the emergency room with a bloody ear shortly before we were diagnosed in March. It turned out to be a localized ulcer, and I prayed it could be something like that. But his final words last night rang in my head until I held my ears: " If I can't do that here? I'll wait for them in hell." And then there had been my own poorly chosen words—
"Damn it!" My words sailed out like fireworks, directed mostly at Aleese, who I felt was aligned with Mrs. Kellerton behind me, or maybe it was Aleese cursing and she was inside me again. I could hear her all over the place. "Pull a bitch routine, Cora. Now is the time."
I simply couldn't. I took the words I wanted to scream out and found some miraculous means to deliver them in icy calmness. "If he dies, I will hold you and Mr. Steckerman personally responsible. Sometimes work helps people get better. Whatever secrets you hold so sacredly, I think you overestimate your own sense of importance."
To my amazement, he didn't back away, shake me, or holler defensively. He gently took hold of my arms, which were trembling violently over the shock of my words. "Listen. Some of the worst mistakes made in the history of mankind were made for what was perceived as the greater good. That's not an excuse. We're not making excuses. And I have no idea if we can save Scott Eberman's life at this point. But Tyler and Shahzad ... that loss got under Alan's skin very much. He says he'll do anything—anything—to keep another kid from going down."
I could imagine he would feel that way but wasn't clear on what he was saying. I asked.
"We're going in there to talk to Scott right now."
"Talk to him?" I repeated. "I'm not sure I could accurately describe the amount of pain he is in. Voices, they're like cannons—"
"He's on that morphine drip," he reminded me, and I shut my eyes again. "The nurse approves. Alan wants to know if you would come and be there, too."
Such a rapid-fire exchange took place in my head that I had no time to think about its weirdness.
"Go!" Aleese said.
What if he slips away right in front of me?
"So, don't look. Go, and don't be a baby. When are you going to grow up?"
I love him.
"No, you don't. Get rid of the thought. I've got plans for you. Now, GO!"
"Look," Mr. Tiger said. "Maybe he'll still snap out of this, in spite of the lapse of time. Maybe it's just a nosebleed. If he's actually hemorrhaging, you'll see that bleeding out you saw in your mother—mouth, ears, etcetera. It would take about half an hour. You don't have to stay."
I got up, mostly because I was afraid Aleese would actually show herself and put one of the hiking boots she always wore in my backside. I floated to the bottom of the stairs, where Mr. Steckerman was standing and staring at us. I barely realized that Mr. Tiger still gripped my hand, and I pulled it from him and began climbing the mountain of steps.
THIRTY-TWO
SCOTT EBERMAN
SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2002
8:20 A.M.
HIS BEDROOM
OWEN AND I ARE IN TROUBLE AGAIN for jumping on the couch. He's just jumped on my head and is still laughing, despite that my skull plays like an accordion. And Mom's yelling, and as usual, it's at me. The oldest always takes the blame.
"Scott. Do. Not. Jump." She towers over me, holding her hands up in double-stop motion.
"Owen jumped on my head! Why don't you yell at him for once?"
"Do. Not. Jump," she repeats, the deaf mute as always when I defend myself.
This time weirdness erupts ... blasts of smoke turn Mom from the 2D character of dreams into a 3D life form, with weird steam or white smoke or clouds roaming through her. She's more real, not less real. I can see both my new room at the Kellerton House and my old living room all at once, and she permeates both images, telling me something that made sense in both worlds.
"Do. Not. Jump."
I gripped the clicker in my right hand. I'd been arguing with myself about it all night. I gave in finally, clicked the button for maybe only the tenth time, and the pressure in my head went psssssssssssttttt again. Hot air went out of the balloon.
I know she'll catch me if I jump. But she'll be disappointed.
Instead of jumping, I sort of free-fell. I was in a USIC meeting. The agents were watching me ... whispering so low that I couldn't hear them ... I could only see their lips moving in the morning light. Marg was standing there, opening one curtain, which is why I could see lips. It wasn't blinding.
"What is it?" I asked. "Speak up."
"You can tolerate low voices?" Alan asked.
I nodded, held up the clicker, and let my arm flop back down. It weighed a hundred pounds. "Morphed out..."
"We're about to do our dailies. That's what we call our morning meeting," Mike said. "You want to be counted in?"
Ah ... some line of music I'd been waiting to hear. I let out a laugh, which made me cough, which would probably start my nose bleeding again, but what the hell. "Who's on drugs? Me or you?"
"You. We're quite sober and very serious. You wanna work for us?" Mike asked.
Someone was wiping my nose. I smelled Cora. I fumbled my clicker hand around her wrist and glanced up. She looked like she'd walked through an eggbeater. Too bad. I was in a good mood, a morphine mood.
I said, "Great exit line last night."
"Will you not go there, please..." She looked annoyed. Or like she might cry. "Do you want these men to be here?"
I nodded, taking the tissue from her and blinking at it. One drop. I wasn't nearly dead yet.
"We'll just talk to each other and you can listen," Mike suggested. "If you have any questions, just ask."
I still thought this might be a joke ... or a bunch of unimportant truths, so I listened as well as I could for treachery.
Tiger: "Only two things I can share today. First, VaporStrike has been in New Jersey."
Steckerman: "Mm. Maybe we should have had this meeting in private. You're kidding."
Tiger: "Unfortunately not. Imperial says we have good people watching the borders carefully, but we don't have enough ID and the photos are grainy."
Steckerman: "How did USIC find this out?"
Tiger: "Apparently, one of the last things Tyler Ping and the Kid did before dying was send an e-mail to Hodji Montu. It said that VaporStrike was here."
The Kid was ... sick or dead? Was I asleep or awake?
"Back it up," I slurred. They gave me the lowdown on the house fire. I hadn't let go of Cora's arm, I realized, and I let my hand slide down to find her fingers. Those e-mails had rolled around my head all night. She must be devastated. I felt my anger starting to mushroom, to the point where it would be dangerous if I let myself think about it. I tried to listen without smoldering.
Steckerman: "I only met the Kid that one time, at St. Ann's. I never met Tyler Ping, but it seems they were both devoted to the New York squad."
Tiger: "Ping and the Kid were either devoted to them or 'addicted' to them, as Montu used to joke. I hear Imperial allowed it to be released to the media as a suicide, but does this sound like a suicide to you, Alan?"
My eyes shot open and shut again quickly. Suicide. The Kid and Tyler Ping committed suicide? Impossible. The e-mails...
"USIC reported it as a suicide? That's vicious," I croaked. "God. Give 'em a hero's exit."
Steckerman: "The point is, Washington couldn't have been certain what happened by the time the TV crews showed up. Those boys were extremely ill, which means not in the best state of mind. When USIC isn't sure, our policy is to roll with what looks closest to the truth, and Tyler Ping's nickname with some of the agents had been 'Death Wish.' I'm just guessing here that it looked like a suicide, but there may have been another option—one that could jeopardize national security if it were known. It could have been an assassination. It's just not my or Mike'
s department. This happened on Long Island, and we're the Jersey guys. If the Long Island guys feel like we need to know for some reason, they'll tell us. They haven't yet."
Dead ... dead. It didn't ring horribly with me. It's like Ping and the Kid had been standing to my left and suddenly they were standing to my right.
I remembered hearing the words "Beth Israel." Sickness? Suicide? Confusing. "What'd they have? They drink our water?"
"No ... they were attacked. Ulceroglandular tularemia..." Some wild tale about being scratched in the face, and the stuff was under the guy's nails.
I groaned, pictures of tularemia pox floating through my head. Unpleasant. But not really killers. A few pox ... it wasn't like smallpox or even chickenpox. I must have said something like that.
"This was a waterborne mutation. A dozen times more potent," Mr. Tiger said. "They looked like chickenpox victims. Only the doctors were experimenting ... gave them too much steroid at first, which explains why they allegedly still looked like hell."
I let out a louder groan, an image forming in my head of skin closing over festering pustules.
"Sorry," Tiger whispered.
They'd have looked like a couple of beanbag chairs after that early screwup. I wondered what they'd looked like at the end. He brought the convo back to business, and he and Alan talked again like I wasn't there but could listen if I wanted to.
Tiger: "Alan, all that was said at the New York meeting is that they died of smoke inhalation, and Hodji Montu is taking a grief leave. You're only supposed to get that for family members, but he was ready to turn in his badge and walk away from the whole damn thing. Shahzad, the Kid, was like a son to him, so this morning they coughed up the grief leave rather than lose him for good. Hodji's got reason to be pissed. He suggested faking their deaths for security purposes. I was at that meeting. It went over like a lead balloon. No votes in favor, save Montu's. Not even mine."