Chapter 18
Evan was in his office at the White House. The lights were out. He was disconnected from the Mindlink. He was sulking.
It was no secret. The Chinese had the King Sleeper. They had found Mike Glass clinging to life but conscious enough to point at three Chinese soldiers that had died at the hands of Tank Major Janis. One had been crushed into a meat rug. The other two were rippled with glass shards. One week later, the U.S. economy was in shambles, Washington, D.C. had been cast into the Dark Ages, and the military was on life support. Fucking Panama could invade us.
And that was what they saw. The problem and beauty of the King Sleeper was that it was difficult to know when he was being used. Who knows what else he was doing . . . maybe all the politicians in Washington would vote that our new national anthem was “Freebird.” As stupid as it sounded, it could be done.
Evan rarely drank, but now was as good of a time as any. Next to him was the same bottle of scotch that WarDon had drunk before he decided to punt. Half the bottle was left; it was old, very old. It had been in WarDon’s effects, meant for his family. Evan had plucked it out without a stutter in his step. He thought it was funny to have the bottle. He thought, one day, he’d toast to his fallen comrade. Without him, none of this would have been possible.
“What’s wrong with me?” Evan asked the room. The black curtains let some light in and the two windows stared at him with cataract eyes. He pushed himself deeper into the corner to avoid their gaze.
He felt like a boy. Like when he was a boy. Always close, but never quite number one. He was never an athlete, it wasn’t about that. He thought athletics, on the whole, were a retarded waste of time.
His dad was a physicist, his mom a shrink. They had always instilled in him a sense of expectation, but never of love. His parents didn’t love each other after all; their marriage just made sense. His dad used to bang the babysitter. Evan remembered that. He was young, it was a memory built with fuzz from lack of understanding, but the hug he gave Kim, the sixteen-year-old next door neighbor, wasn’t done the right way.
His mom lived at her practice. Dinner was quiet and tight lipped. Conversations were always about work. Evan remembered telling them that he had a girlfriend—Tara—when he was ten.
“I love her!” he exclaimed. They had been together for one week. She was a third grader and pretty. She wore a side ponytail that he dug.
“You don’t know what love is, honey,” his mom said dismissively before she slipped a piece of pork chop into her mouth. The conversation turned back to themselves.
A child is forced to see the world through their parent’s filter and the predilections and values that color it. Evan only got their attention when he excelled academically because that was all they knew and how they assessed worth, and so he did that.
He began college at the age of fifteen and he still felt stupid because he had a classmate who was fourteen. He got doctorates in medicine and mechanical engineering—which his parents approved of—but his doctorate in cyberphysics confused them.
“What are you going to do with that?” his dad asked. They didn’t pay for it and he had reached an age where he wondered why the fuck they cared.
Luckily, they died. His father loved to smoke his pipe late at night while he read. He fell asleep with it. It was peaceful. The fire ate up his dad. Closed casket for pops. But at the funeral, his mom looked like she was sleeping.
He was already wired the way he was, but at least he didn’t have to hear their fucking nagging and backhanded praise anymore.
“I know what’s wrong with me,” Evan giggled. “I just want to make them proud.”
He took a swig directly from the bottle. It tasted of caramel and fire.
He stood up and paced the dark room. He wouldn’t be beaten. No. But even if he found the King Sleeper online, it would be impossible to find its tail. It had one, but to find it, you’d have to penetrate its immense mindscape. If it knew you were in it, it could kill you.
Evan went to his desk and hit the speaker.
“Yes?” the receptionist asked.
“Get me Cynthia,” Evan said.
“Cynthia Revo?”
“Who the fuck do you think?” He spat.
A slight pause. “Hold.” She went away.
Evan paced the room.
“Evan?” It was Cynthia. He shot over to the phone.
“We can’t trace the King Sleeper’s tail because of the mindscape, it’ll chew up anyone who tries,” he said. “How else could we find him?”
“Are you drunk?”
Evan looked at the bottle in his hand. Most of it was gone now. “Definitely.”
“The Western Curse,” Cynthia said. It took Lindo a minute to even recall who they were. The fucking terrorists at O’Hare.
“Why do you say that?”
“They used AK47’s, RPG’s—old weapons, and yet they happened to have state-of-the-art miniguns and a computer that could hack into the Tank Major and upload a virus. They’re a contradiction and that contradiction indicates a partnership with funds.” She continued. “Do you remember Harold Renki?”
“Yes, your scientist who was murdered,” Evan replied. “What’s the connection between him and the Western Curse?”
“None. But there is one degree of separation.”
“China?” Evan said.
“Specifically a man named Xan,” Cynthia said. Her research on Harold Renki had proven fruitful. While he had been squeaky clean online, Sabot had found detailed information in a hidden safe at his estate and multiple online aliases.
“I’ve heard the name,” Evan said.
“He’s the Chinese version of you, Evan,” Cynthia said. He could hear the scorn over the phone.
“Can you find him?” Evan asked.
“No. There’s no trace of him anywhere online.”
“Mohammed Jawal, that’s what the little French fucker told us,” Evan said. The nightmare with Janis and the King Sleeper clouded over his initial desire to hunt this guy down and skull fuck him. “Thank you, Cynthia.” It was genuine, rare.
“Sober up, Evan,” she replied and was gone.
= = =
Cynthia hung up the phone. Sabot stood next to her with his hand on her shoulder.
“His ears must have been ringing. Why just me?” General Boen asked. He sat across the desk at her private request.
“Do you trust Evan?” she asked.
Boen crossed his legs and straightened his suit. “Not as far as I can throw him.” He was still furious at Evan for keeping the King Sleeper secret.
“I have information that I, as a private entity, do not have to share with you. With this information and a properly executed strategy, it will lead you to the King Sleeper. Evan wants war. It doesn’t have to end that way.”
“I hope you’re right,” Boen said. “What do you want?”
“Evan’s out, that’s all.”
“I can’t keep him out forever.”
“Not forever, just for this. You can throw me under the bus afterwards, I don’t care. But I trust you Earl. The King Sleeper isn’t good for you and he isn’t good for me.”
Boen wiggled his jaw while he weighed his options. Fuck Evan, Boen thought. The little prick only keeps secrets.
“Deal,” Boen said.
Cynthia told him what she knew and the strategy they formed together was intricate, yet executable, and beautiful in its trickery. Basically, why Boen liked his job.
= = =
Mohammed Jawal got a message from Xan in the Western Curse shareware to meet. Per their established protocol, Mohammed responded by inserting into the code the time and place.
= = =
Six hours after his meeting with Cynthia, General Boen was at JFK airport walking into an airplane hanger where they had transported John. While most of JFK’s runways had returned to nature, the government kept three operational. The mission would start in one hour. But there was another issue to attend
to. And Earl kept his promises.
“They’re here,” General Boen said. Raimey began to stand.
“Hold on a second,” Boen said. “We almost had to force Tiffany to come here. When I sent soldiers to Florida, it was bad, John. I think you understand the hurt they’re feeling. They’re both confused. I explained the best I could, but you know, they don’t want to hear it from me.”
“Does Tiffany have cancer?” Raimey asked.
“Yes. She initially refused treatment, but she’s going now. It’s far along, but the doctors are hopeful.”
“So she understands why I did this,” Raimey said.
“Yes, but no,” Boen replied. “You’re this now.” Earl gestured at his giant frame. “But you’re still John Raimey. Be that today, the best you can, because you might not see them again.”
Raimey looked at Earl with sorrowful eyes.
“I’m sorry, John. But it’s the best advice I can give you. Come with me.” Raimey stood up and followed him out the large hangar door. “You have one hour and then we have to go.”
= = =
The prep for the mission had already begun. A stealth bomber had been pulled into an adjoining hanger. A team of mechanics worked under its belly, modifying the bomb bay to handle Raimey as a payload, and to create a livable space for the small insertion team that was coming with him.
Inside, they disassembled the plane’s current bomb delivery system and removed it piece-by-piece through the bay doors. Sparks cascaded down and countless voices yelled “careful” throughout the entire process.
Boen guided Raimey across the hangar and past staring eyes to the opposite end where a tall curtain cordoned off the area behind it. Boen stopped short.
“Tiffany is in there. Make this count.”
Raimey nodded and Earl pulled the curtain aside. Raimey stepped through. Tiffany sat in the middle of the room. She wore the light lead apron that everyone around him wore. Her eyes were red rimmed and wet. When she saw him, she withered and fell to her knees.
He walked over to her and knelt down, worry across his face, aching in his chest. He reached a hand out and quickly retracted. He could offer no comfort.
“I had no choice, Tiffany,” he said softly. She continued to heave, her head turned downward, her body cast in the darkness of his giant shadow.
“Tiffany. Please. Please. I didn’t know what to do. They told me about the cancer,” he said.
She turned up to him, still huddled over like she was waiting for a blow. Her lost expression was the same as he had seen in his dream. Terrified disbelief. A horrible lie vetted true.
“General Boen, Dr. Lindo, the President, they promised you would get the best treatment and that you both would be taken care of, forever,” Raimey said. She was still looking at the body before her, the giant metal shape that housed her husband, but her eyes would snatch a glance at his face and his face was his. Everything behind armor except his eyes that pleaded for her to accept him or at least speak. He was crouched over close enough to touch, his head two feet from hers, looking into her eyes.
She reached out slowly. Her hand first rested on the giant chest armor, gripping the top of it like a rail. Over it she could see his neck and the very top of his chest. She reached up to his head and he crouched lower to aid her. She put the palm of her hand on his cheek and then ran it over his face as if she were blind and this was their first meeting. He closed his eyes and took it all in. He remembered what General Boen had said: this touch, this interaction, this memory, could be the last he ever knew of the woman before him. His heart burst from the thought of it, but he willed himself into the moment, because no future moment is truly known.
“You should have waited,” she said, her voice barely a breath. “We could have made this decision together. WE are supposed to make these decisions together!”
Her hand dropped to her side. She turned away from him and looked out into the hangar, her eyes distant and unfocused. “You were going to apply for an online job, remember? There you’d be fine, able-bodied.”
“You’re sick.”
“We would’ve had a chance!” Tiffany yelled. “We would have been together! Dammit, John. What did you do? We can’t take this back. There is no going back!”
“They needed me, Tiffany. What I’m doing could save the world.”
“We needed you, too. They would have found someone else.”
John had nothing to comfort her. He loved her more than he loved himself. He cared for her and Vanessa enough to let the world burn ten times over, let the innocent die, just so they could live. He knew this. In some small way, his new form was that incarnation.
“I love you so much, Tiffany,” Raimey said. She finally looked at him again. He was knelt before her like a knight bowing to his princess.
“I love you, too. I just thought we had more time,” she said. She stood up and went to him. She kissed him on the lips and looked into his eyes. She kissed him again and then put her face against his, cheek-to-cheek.
“Vanessa can’t see you like this,” Tiffany said.
“But she’s here!” Raimey pleaded.
“What would a ten-year-old girl take from this? I can’t process this! Look at you! You’re a weapon! How can you comfort her? How can you—”
“Tiffany, please don’t go. This might be it. Where I’m going, I may not come back. I need to be around you. I need to see her. I know I’m asking too much, but please. Be angry with me later. Hate me later! For now, let’s be us,” Raimey said.
She stopped, her hand on the curtain’s edge. Her head tilted down.
“I don’t hate you. I love you so much I want to die. But I’m so mad. I feel so betrayed. I know you did this with good intentions, deep down I know. But us, John! Us! We are a family. We should be fighting together. You crippled, my cancer, our daughter growing up. Those are our fights!”
“How could I fight, Tiffany! How could I?! I was nothing! I’m not smart, I’m not funny, I don’t have any money. All I had is gone!” Raimey howled. “I caused the cancer, I know I did. You never had a moment to breathe when I came back from the hospital. You never had a moment to think ONCE about yourself. I don’t want you two to fight. I don’t want you two to struggle. I want you two to have a life that will allow you to wake up and decide what you want to do that day. Not wake up and know that your day will be long and hard and it’s all MY FAULT!”
Raimey’s voice echoed throughout the hanger. He wheezed from the effort, from vocalizing his fears and his dead dreams. Of his struggle to do what’s right, coupled with the knowledge that his arms and legs weren’t enough for Uncle Sam. His life and family had to get thrown onto the altar too.
Tiffany was quiet.
“You didn’t cause the cancer,” she finally said.
“Please let me see her, Tiff,” Raimey asked.
She was quiet again.
“She won’t understand,” Tiffany said. “Earl?”
“Yes?” Boen was on the other side of the curtain.
“Could you escort me to get Vanessa?”
“Of course.”
Tiffany turned to John and looked up into his large, watery eyes.
“You can speak with her through the curtain. It’ll be better this way. I want her to remember her dad as a man. This is too much.”
Raimey nodded. She was right.
“Thank you, Tiffany,” Raimey said.
“I already miss you, John,” she said, a sad smile on her face, reminiscing of their time, knowing, as he stood in front of her, that all the good memories had passed.
She blew him a kiss and ducked through the curtain. Raimey waited. His heart beat like a drum. He finally heard his daughter’s voice as they crossed the room.
“She’s here,” Tiffany said through the curtain.
John told his daughter all the things that a child should hear. How she was special, how she changed his life. He told her about his childhood and his parents and how, while they loved him, they s
howed it in hard ways and how he promised to be a better dad and better husband when he was an adult. He told her about when he first laid eyes on her, about how beautiful Tiffany was, and when she held Vanessa for the first time, that memory seared in his mind. He told her about the first time she spoke and the one time she called someone an “asshole” when she was three and how he and Tiffany laughed till they fell while they tried to tell her it was wrong. He told her everything until it was hard to breathe and the pain became unbearable. Because that one-inch curtain between them may as well have been a vast sea. Because Tiffany was right. Vanessa couldn’t see him like this. The memories he had of her would be tainted by this encounter. The memory of her face, contorted into a scream when she saw that her dad had become the boogeyman.
They left. John sat down. Earl walked in and John waved him away. He felt nothing. But nothing had feeling. It was dull and numb and filled his entire body with a sadness so great, it felt like every cell was crying. He would never recover from this. There was no way to.
“It’s time, John,” Boen said.