Isabel and Rafael spent the final moments of their lives side by side but unaware of each other’s presence. By the time the plane arrived back at the airfield, they had joined the ranks of the thirty thousand people who were made to disappear forever by the Argentinean dictatorship.
Unable to utter a word, Valerie put down the sheets of paper and went over to the window. She felt a pressing need for fresh air.
Andrew came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“You insisted on reading it. I warned you not to.”
“What happened to María Luz?” Valerie asked.
“They didn’t kill children. They gave them to the families and friends of the ruling military junta and created new identities for them under the names of their adoptive parents. María Luz was two when Rafael and Isabel were kidnapped, but hundreds of women were pregnant when they were arrested.”
“You mean those bastards tortured pregnant women too?”
“Yes, but they made sure they kept them alive until they gave birth, then they stole their newborns. The military boasted that they were saving innocent souls from perversion by handing them over to families who could raise them in keeping with the dictatorship’s values. They claimed that what they were doing was Christian and charitable, and that they had the wholehearted support of Church officials, who knew what was going on.
“For the final months of their pregnancy, the mothers-to-be were shut up in makeshift maternity units in the detention centers. As soon as the babies were born, they were taken away. You know now what lay in store for those women,” Andrew said, pointing to his article. “Most of the stolen children, now adults, aren’t aware their birth parents were tortured and then dropped into the ocean alive. María Luz among them, probably.”
Valerie turned round. Andrew had never seen her so distressed and angry. The look in her eyes almost frightened him.
“Please tell me the perpetrators are in jail and that they’ll stay there for the rest of their lives.”
“I wish I could. The men who committed the atrocities were protected by an amnesty passed in the name of national reconciliation. By the time it was repealed, most of the criminals had slipped under the radar or gotten new identities.”
“Swear to me you’ll go back there and finish your investigation. You’ve got to find Ortiz and those other bastards!”
“That’s been my intention since the start. Do you see why I’m devoting so much of my time to it? Do you forgive me for neglecting you?” Andrew asked.
“I’d like to rip their guts out.”
“I know. Me too. But come on, calm down.”
“If I found them . . . I’d feel less remorse about killing monsters who torture pregnant women than about destroying a pack of rabid dogs.”
“And end up in prison for life? Very smart.”
“Trust me—I’d know how to go about it without leaving a trace,” Valerie continued, still seething.
Andrew looked at her closely, then hugged her a bit tighter.
“I hadn’t realized my article would put you in such a state. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you read it.”
“I’ve never read anything so horrendous. I’d like to come with you to track down those brutes.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” asked Valerie, getting carried away.
“Because most of those monsters, as you call them, are still alive, and the passing of time hasn’t necessarily made them any less dangerous.”
“Says the man who’s scared of horses . . . ”
* * *
When he left home the following morning, Andrew was surprised to find Simon outside of his apartment building.
“Got time for a coffee?” Simon asked.
“And a very good morning to you too.”
“Follow me,” instructed his friend, who looked more anxious than Andrew had ever seen him.
They walked up Charles Street in silence.
“What’s the matter?” Andrew asked worriedly as they went into Starbucks.
“Go get a couple of coffees. I’ll save us this table,” Simon replied, sitting down in an armchair next to the window.
“Yes, sir!”
Andrew waited in line, not taking his eyes off Simon, puzzled by his behavior.
“A mochaccino for me and a cappuccino for His Highness,” he said, joining Simon at the table a few minutes later.
“I’ve got bad news,” Simon announced.
“Go ahead.”
“It’s to do with Freddy Olson.”
“You tailed him and realized the guy isn’t going anywhere. I’ve known that for a long time.”
“Very funny. I spent the whole of yesterday evening at my computer browsing your newspaper’s website, looking up your stories.”
“Simon, if you were that bored you should’ve called me.”
“You’ll stop playing the wise guy in a couple of minutes. It wasn’t your wonderful prose I was interested in, it was the comments section. I wanted to see if there was some lunatic out there writing evil stuff about you.”
“I bet there are quite a few.”
“I’m not talking about people who think you’re a bad journalist.”
“Do readers post that kind of comment on the website?”
“Some do. But . . . ”
“I didn’t know that,” Andrew interrupted.
“Can I finish?”
“Wasn’t that your bad news?”
“There was a series of messages that were so hostile, they went way beyond criticism of your professional skills. They were incredibly abusive.”
“Saying what?”
“Things nobody would like to read about themselves. Some of the most aggressive ones were written by someone calling themself SpookyKid. They caught my eye because there were so many of them. I don’t know what you’ve done to that guy, but he sure doesn’t like you. I searched some more to see if the person behind that username also comments on any forums, or has a blog.”
“And?”
“He’s got it in for you real bad. Every time you publish an article, he lays into you. Even when you don’t publish anything. If you read everything I found on the net posted by him, you’d be amazed. Like I was.”
“Let me get this straight—a failed writer, whose bedroom is probably a shrine to Marilyn Manson, hates my work. Was that your bad news?”
“Why do you say Marilyn Manson?”
“I don’t know—it just came to me. Carry on.”
“Seriously, it just came to you like that?”
“Spooky Kids was the name of Manson’s first group.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m a journalist. Get on with it!”
“I happen to know a computer whiz kid, if you get what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
“A hacker. A good one. The kind of guy who can tell you who you were dating fifteen years ago and where you went on your first date.”
“How come you know a hacker?”
“When I first opened the shop, I used to rent out my cars to rich kids on the weekends to make some extra money. One of them left something behind inside the central armrest when he returned a Corvette to me.”
“A gun?”
“Weed. Enough for a herd of cows to graze on. I’ve never been into smoking dope. If I had taken his stuff to the police, his acne would have cleared up long before he would have been able to get back to his cherished computer. But I’m not a snitch, so I gave him back what was rightfully his. He said I was ‘super honest’ and vowed to be there for me if I ever needed his help. At eleven o’clock last night, I realized I needed a favor that was right up his alley. Don’t ask me how he did it—I know nothing about computers—but he called me
this morning saying he’d found Spooky Kid’s IP address. It’s like his computer’s license plate, and it appears every time he goes online.”
“Has your hard-drive raider identified this Spooky Kid who’s spitting his venom at me?”
“Not his identity, but the location he publishes his comments from. And you’ll be surprised to hear he posts his messages from the New York Times network.”
“What did you say?” Andrew asked, stunned.
“You heard me. I’ve printed off a few examples. They’re not actually death threats, but they’re so hate-filled they nearly could be. Who at your newspaper could be writing such hateful things about you? Look, here’s the latest one,” Simon continued, handing Andrew a printout. “If a bus ran over that bastard Andrew Stilman, its tires would be covered in shit and national press would be spared this disaster.”
“I think we both know the answer,” Andrew replied, shocked by the comment he’d just read. “I’ll take care of Olson myself, thanks.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, pal. First off, I have no proof it’s him. He’s not the only other person working at the Times. Plus, if you stick your nose in, he’ll only get suspicious. Let me do my thing, and don’t budge until I give you the green light. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Andrew replied.
“At the office, keep acting like nothing’s wrong. Who knows what a guy who hates you so much is capable of? The main thing is to make sure it’s him. As far as I’m concerned, whether or not he’s Freddy Olson, this Spooky Kid character is now at the top of the list of the people that want you dead, and he’s certainly taking every opportunity to let everyone know.”
Andrew got up and said goodbye to his friend.
“Shall I keep following him, or do you still think I’m being ridiculous?” Simon asked with a smile as Andrew walked away.
* * *
Andrew spent the rest of the day getting ready for Argentina, making one phone call after another to organize his trip. At dusk, still at work, he began to drift off at his desk. The figure of a little girl appeared to him in a dream. She was standing still, alone at the end of a long avenue of cypress trees leading up a hillside. Andrew put his feet up on the desk and sank back in his chair.
The little girl led him toward a village set high in the mountains. Each time he thought he was catching up with her, she quickened her pace and the gap between them widened. Her peals of laughter guided him in the absurd chase. The wind lifted as night fell. Andrew shivered. He was cold. So cold he started to tremble. He came to a derelict barn and went in. The little girl was waiting for him, sitting on the ledge of a window just under the roof, swinging her legs. Andrew walked over to the wall and looked up at her, but couldn’t make out the child’s features. He only saw her smile—a strange, almost adult smile. The young girl breathed words that the wind carried down to him.
“Seek me, find me, Andrew. Don’t abandon me. I’m counting on you. We can’t afford to make a mistake. I need you.”
She fell forward into the void. Andrew ran to catch her, but she disappeared before she’d touched the ground.
Alone in the barn, Andrew knelt down, shaking. His back was aching. A sharp twinge made him pass out. When he regained consciousness, he found himself strapped into a metal chair. He could hardly breathe. His lungs burned. He was suffocating. An electric shock surged through his body. All of his muscles contracted and he felt himself being propelled by a great force. In the distance he heard a voice shout “again.” An even more powerful shock flung him forward, his arteries thumping, his heart in flames. The smell of smoldering flesh entered his nostrils. The straps shackling his limbs cut into him. His head lolled to one side and he begged them to stop.
His racing heart began to calm. The air he’d been desperate for entered his lungs and he inhaled deeply, as if he’d been holding his breath for an age.
A hand touched his shoulder and shook him roughly.
“Stilman! Stilman!”
Andrew opened his eyes to see Olson’s face pressed right up to his.
“Sleep at the office if you want, but don’t dream so loudly! Some of us are working.”
Andrew sat up with a jump.
“Shit! What are you doing here, Freddy?”
“I’ve been listening to you groaning for the past ten minutes. You’re making it impossible to concentrate. I thought you were ill or something, so I came to see what was up. But if that’s the greeting I get, I don’t know why I bothered.”
Beads of sweat stood out on Andrew’s forehead, yet he felt frozen stiff.
“You ought to go home and get some rest. You must be coming down with something. Even I don’t like seeing you in this state,” Freddy sighed. “I’m leaving soon. Do you want me to drop you somewhere in a taxi?”
Andrew had had a few nightmares in his life, but none that had seemed so real. He looked at Freddy for a moment, then replied, “No thanks. I’ll be okay. Must be something I ate at lunch.”
“It’s eight o’clock in the evening.”
Andrew wondered how long he’d been disconnected from reality, lost in his dreams. As he tried to recall what time he’d seen displayed on his screen before he’d dropped off, he asked himself what was real in his life anymore.
Exhausted, he headed home. He called Valerie on the way to warn her he wouldn’t wait up, but Sam informed him that she’d only just gone into surgery and probably wouldn’t be finished until late.
15.
His night consisted of a long succession of nightmares in which the little girl with blurred features appeared to him. Each time he woke from one, shivering and dripping in sweat, he was still trying to find her.
In the most terrifying one, she stopped, turned to him and gestured for him to be quiet. A black car came to a halt between them and four men got out, not paying any attention to either of them. They went into a small building. From the deserted street where Andrew stood, he could hear screams: a woman screeching and a child crying.
The little girl was standing on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, swinging her arms and singing a nursery rhyme as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Andrew wanted to protect her and as he walked toward her, he met her gaze. Her eyes were smiling and menacing at once.
“María Luz?” he whispered.
“No,” she replied in an adult’s voice. “María Luz doesn’t exist anymore.”
Suddenly a child’s voice gushed out of the same small body. “Please find me!” it said. “Without you I’ll be lost forever. You’re on the wrong track, Andrew. You’re not looking where you should. You’re wrong. They’re all wrong. You’ll pay dearly if you get lost. Come and help me. I need you, and you need me. We’re connected now. Hurry, Andrew, hurry! You can’t afford to make a mistake.”
Crying out, Andrew awoke for the third time. Valerie wasn’t home. He turned on the bedside lamp and tried to calm down, but he was sobbing uncontrollably.
In his last nightmare, María Luz’s face appeared to him fleetingly. He was convinced he’d already seen those dark eyes staring at him, somewhere in a past that wasn’t his own.
Andrew got out of bed and went into the living room. He sat down at his computer, deciding he’d rather spend the rest of the night working. But his thoughts prevented him from concentrating and he couldn’t write a single line. He looked at his watch, hesitated, then picked up the phone and called Simon.
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Of course not. It’s two in the morning. I was just rereading As I Lay Dying while waiting for you to call me.”
“You don’t know how appropriate that is.”
“Gotcha. I’m getting dressed right now. I’ll be with you in fifteen.”
Simon arrived sooner than expected. He’d put his Burberry trench coat on over his pajamas and slipped on a pair of sneakers.
“I
know,” he said, walking through Andrew’s apartment door. “You’re going to make another negative comment about my attire. I’ll have you know I’ve just bumped into two neighbors walking their dogs in robes. The owners in robes, not the dogs, obviously.”
“Sorry I disturbed you in the middle of the night.”
“No you aren’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have called. Are you getting your ping-pong table out, or are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“I’m frightened, Simon. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. My dreams are terrifying. I wake up every morning with my stomach in knots, realizing I’ve got one less day to live.”
“It’s not like I want to downplay your situation, but there are seven billion other human beings in the same predicament as you.”
“Except that I’ve only got fifty-three days left!”
“Andrew, this preposterous story of yours is getting out of hand. I’m your friend and I don’t want to take any risks, but you’ve got as much chance of being murdered on July 9 as I have of getting run over by a bus on my way out of here. Though with these red plaid pajamas, a bus driver would have to be blind not to see me in his headlights. Do you like them? I bought them in London, they’re flannelette. Much too warm for the season, but they’re my most flattering pair. Don’t you have any PJs?”
“Yes, but I never wear them. They make you look old.”
“Do I look old?” Simon asked, flinging open his arms. “Now put on your robe and let’s go for a stroll. You got me out of bed so I could take your mind off things, right?”
As they walked past the Charles Street police station, Simon said hello to the police officer on duty and asked him if he’d seen a short-haired dachshund. The answer was no. Thanking him, Simon carried on, calling out “Freddy” enthusiastically.
“I’d rather not walk along the river,” Andrew said as they got to the West Side Highway .