Spook Country

“What kind of problem?”

“A complicated one. And unlikely.”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because he,” indicating the old man, “wants you to go along and see me do what I’m here to do. There’s a degree of risk in that, as described.”

“Did it surprise you that he’d ask me?”

“Not really,” he said. “He makes it up as we go along, and he’s mostly been right so far. It’s stranger who you are than that he’d invite you, if you see what I mean. Hollis Henry. Who’d believe that. But if he wants you there, you’re welcome. You mustn’t distract me, or go into hysterics, but he says you’re not the type. I wouldn’t think you were myself. But I had to ask you about the radiation risk. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience if something goes wrong.”

“I don’t have to jump off of anything?” She remembered Inchmale describing Stockholm syndrome, the fondness and loyalty one could supposedly come to feel for even the most brutal captor. She wondered whether she might be experiencing something like that, here. Inchmale thought that America had developed Stockholm syndrome toward its own government, post 9/11. But then she thought that she really should have been more likely to develop it toward Bigend than toward these three. Bigend, her every gut instinct told her, was an infinitely spookier captor (ruling out Bobby, of course, though he scarcely seemed an actor in this now).

“Nothing at all,” he said. “And neither will I.”

She blinked. “When is it?”

“Tonight.”

“That soon?”

“Stroke of midnight. Literally. But setup, on site, requires some time.” He checked his watch. “We’ll be leaving here at ten. I have some last-minute preparations, then I’ll do some yoga.”

She looked at him. Never in her life, she thought, had she had less of an idea where she might be going, either in the short or the long term. She hoped the short term would allow for a long term, but somehow it was all so peculiar, since she’d entered this room, that she hadn’t had time to be frightened.

“Tell him I’m in,” she said. “Tell him I accept his terms. I’m going with you.”

72. EVENT HORIZON

T hat jacket we put you in, in New York, for the helicopter,” the old man said, walking around Tito, who had just put on a new black hooded sweatshirt that Garreth had given him.

“I have it,” Tito said.

“Wear that, over the sweatshirt. Here’s your hard hat.” He handed Tito a yellow helmet. Tito tried it on, removed it, adjusted the white plastic headband, put it back on. “Lose the hat and jacket on your way out, of course. And give me that New Jersey license now. Remember your name?”

“Ramone Alcin,” said Tito, taking the card from his wallet and handing it to the old man.

The old man handed him a transparent plastic bag containing a phone, two plastic cards, and pair of latex gloves. “No prints on the container, of course, or the magnets. You’re still Ramone Alcin. Alberta license and a citizenship card. These are only props, costume, not serious documents. Neither will stand up to a check. The phone will speed-dial either of two numbers of ours.”

Tito nodded.

“The man you’re meeting at the Princeton will have a neck tag, for Ramone Alcin, with your picture on it. It won’t stand up to a check either, but you’ll need to be seen wearing one.”

“What is ‘Alberta’?”

“A province. State. Of Canada. The man you’re meeting, at the Princeton Hotel, will be parked on Powell, west of the hotel, in a large black pickup with a covered bed. He’s a very large man, very heavy, with a full dark beard. He’ll put you in the bed of the truck and drive it into the container terminal. He works there. If you’re discovered in the truck, he’ll claim not to know you, and you’ll claim not to know him. We very much hope, of course, that that won’t happen. Now we’ll go over the maps again. Where he’ll park the truck. Where the stack is. If you’re apprehended after having positioned the magnets, lose the phone first, then the cards and neck tag. Be confused. Speak little English. It will be awkward for you, if that happens, but they’ll have no way of knowing what you’ve just done. Claim you were looking for work. You’ll be arrested for trespassing, then locked up on immigration charges. We’ll do what we can. As will your family, of course.” He passed Tito another bag, this with a fold of well-worn bills. “In case you get out, tonight, but for any reason can’t contact us. Stay out of sight, in that case, and contact your family. You know how.”

Tito nodded. The old man understood the protocol. “Excuse me,” Tito said, in Russian. “But I must ask you about my father. About his death. I know very little other than that he was shot. I believe he may have been working for you.”

The old man frowned. “Your father was shot,” he said, in Spanish. “The man who shot him, an agent of Castro’s DGI, was delusional, paranoid. He believed that your father was reporting directly to Castro. Actually he was reporting to me, but that had nothing to do with the suspicions of his killer, which were baseless.” He looked at Tito. “If I’d valued your father’s friendship less, I might lie to you now, and tell you that his death involved some high purpose. But he was a man who valued truth. The man who shot him died in a bar fight, not long after, and we assumed that that had been the work of the DGI, who by then had determined that he was both unstable and utterly untrustworthy.”

Tito blinked.

“You haven’t had an easy life, Tito. Your mother’s illness, as well. Your uncles see that she receives excellent care. If they weren’t able to, I would myself.”

TITO HELPED GARRETH carry the Pelican case back down to the van. “All in the wrists,” Garreth said. “Can’t be straining them tonight, wrestling with this bastard.”

“What’s in it?” Tito asked, deliberately ignoring protocol as they slid the black case into the back of the van.

“Lead, mostly,” Garreth said. “Almost solid block of lead, in there.”

THE OLD MAN sat with Bobby, speaking to him quietly, calming him. Tito listened. Bobby no longer reminded him of his mother. Bobby’s fear was on some other frequency. Tito guessed he chose to allow it to overwhelm him, invited it, used it to make things the fault of others, attempted to control them with it.

Tito’s mother’s fear, after the towers had fallen, had been a deep and constant resonance, untouchable, gradually eroding the foundations of who she had been.

He looked up at the dark skylight and tried to feel New York. Trucks were rattling over metal on Canal Street, he told himself. Trains blowing past, beneath the pavement, through a maze his family had mapped with exquisite care. Had come to own, in a sense; every corner of every platform, every line of sight, many keys, storage closets, lockers; a theater for appearances and disappearances. He could have drawn maps, written out schedules, but now he found himself starting to be unable to believe in it. Like the Russian voices on his Sony plasma set, on the wall of the room that was no longer his.

“I’m Hollis,” the woman said, extending her hand. “Garreth tells me you’re called Tito.”

She was handsome, this woman, in some simple way. Looking at her now, he understood why they would make posters of her. “You are Bobby’s friend?” he asked.

“I don’t know him very well, really,” she said. “Have you known Garreth long?”

Tito looked at Garreth, who’d swept himself a section of floor, stripped down to black underpants and T-shirt, and was doing asanas. “No,” he said.

THE OLD MAN sat reading a news site on one of Bobby’s computers.

Tito and Bobby had carried the other things down. The long gray case, a folding aluminum hand truck wrapped with bungees, a photographer’s black tripod, a heavy canvas duffel.