The Library at Mount Char Part 16

Carolyn pursed her lips, considering. "You might get blood on the cinnamon rolls."

"I'm only partly kidding."

"OK," she said. "Fair enough. I can see why you might be a little upset."

His rage flared. Steve glanced at the knives, almost not kidding anymore. "A little upset?" he hissed. "You framed me for murder! Of a f.u.c.king cop! They're talking about the death penalty, Carolyn! Lethal. f.u.c.king. Injection. Life in prison! If I'm lucky!

"Try to keep it down," Carolyn said. "You don't want to wake up David."

No, Steve thought, thinking of the swinging intestine that dangled from the ceiling outside the jail chapel, I probably don't. "OK," he said in a fierce whisper. "Fair enough. Why don't you quietly explain why you'd do such a thing to me? What did I ever do to p.i.s.s you off?"

Carolyn winced a little. "Nothing," she said. "I'm not angry at you. That's absolutely the last thing that I am." She hesitated. "For what it's worth, there are some sound reasons for all this. I can't go into details, but I really am sorry. I can see where it might be a bit...upsetting."

"Upsetting," Steve marveled, unable to believe that he had heard right. "Well, that is one way of putting it. Another way of putting it would be that you permanently and completely ruined my life. That's the version that I sort of prefer."

Carolyn rolled her eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic. You're not in jail anymore, are you?" She pointed at the tray. "Have another cinnamon roll. They're good."

Mrs. McGillicutty looked over her shoulder. "Help yourself, dear."

Steve felt like his heart was boiling. "Melodramatic?" His hand drifted, unbidden, toward the block of kitchen knives. "Melodramatic?"

"Calm down," Carolyn said. "It's not as bad as all that."

"What do you mean it's not-"

"Quiet, Steve. Shut up for a second and I'll explain. I have a plan. If you'll do a small service for me, I can make every single one of these problems you've mentioned go away."

"Oh?"

"Yup." Carolyn rummaged around in the refrigerator and came out with a plastic bottle of orange juice. She twirled off the top and lifted it to her mouth.

"Gla.s.ses are over there, dear," Mrs. McGillicutty said pointedly.

"Sorry." Carolyn got a gla.s.s.

Steve considered. "You can make a murder charge go away? A death penalty case?"

Carolyn poured some orange juice and took a swig. "Yup."

"And how, pray tell, might you be planning to do that?"

"Grab me one of those cinnamon rolls and pull up a chair. I'll show you."

II.

Carolyn stood up and disappeared into the nether reaches of the house. While she was away, Steve went to the refrigerator looking for a c.o.ke. All they had in the main compartment was diet, but he spotted something approximately the same shade of red as a c.o.ke can in the vegetable crisper.

Carolyn padded up behind him a moment later. "Steve, this is-"

"Hold up a second," he said, staring into the crisper. "Is this a heart?" It's definitely not a c.o.ke.

Carolyn didn't answer immediately. "Beg pardon?"

"In this bag here. In the fridge. Is this a heart? Like, a person's heart? It looks like a person's heart in your refrigerator, Carolyn."

"Um...no. I mean, yes, it's a heart. But not a person's. It's from a cow. A bull. David was going to make an hors d'oeuvre for a guest, but he had to cancel."

"Yeah, um, no." Steve turned. "That's nowhere near big enough to be a bull's-whoa."

Next to Carolyn stood a blond woman who Steve hadn't seen before. Three children, silent and pale, clung to the woman's waist. One of the kids, a little boy, had huge purple bruises all around his neck. The girl next to him had a deep dent in her forehead.

Steve knelt down in front of the children. "You guys OK? Are you, like...hurt?" He reached out to touch the crater in the girl's skull. She cringed back.

"They only speak to their mother," Carolyn said. "Steve, this is Rachel."

"Well, that's f.u.c.king weird. What the h.e.l.l happened to the girl's head?"

"It was, um, an accident. She fell. Off her bike." Then, hissing, "Don't say anything, Steve. You'll embarra.s.s her."

"And the boy?"

"Football," Carolyn said, deadpan. The boy peeped out from behind his mother's waist and gave a small nod.

"Hmm." Then, pointing at Rachel, "What about her? No English?"

"No English," Carolyn confirmed. She and Rachel spoke for a moment in a vaguely singsongy language that sounded like the illegitimate child of Vietnamese and a catfight.

"What's she doing here, then?"

"Rachel is good with secrets," Carolyn said. She lifted Mrs. McGillicutty's telephone receiver and set it down on the kitchen table. "You still want me to fix your legal troubles, right?"

Steve looked at the heart in the vegetable crisper, opened his mouth, then shut it with a click of his teeth. He shut the refrigerator door. "Yes, please."

"Then make it be loud," Carolyn said, pointing at the phone.

"What?"

"So everyone can hear."

"Oh. Yeah, sure." He studied the receiver for a minute, then punched the Speaker Phone b.u.t.ton.

"Now make it be the directory."

"What?"

"Where you tell them the name, and they give you the number."

Steve dialed three digits.

"What city?" said a mechanical voice.

"Was.h.i.+ngton, DC," Carolyn said.

"What listing?"

"White House switchboard."

Steve raised an eyebrow.

The machine reeled off the numbers. When it asked if she wanted to be connected for an additional charge of fifty cents, Carolyn said yes. The operator picked up on the third ring.

"My name is Carolyn," she said. "I'd like to be connected with the president."

Steve gaped at her.

"Last name, please?"

Carolyn's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure. Does it matter?"

The operator sounded bored. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. The president is unavailable at the moment. If you'd care to leave a message I'll see that-"

"He'll speak to me," Carolyn said. "Prepare to authenticate. Today's code word is 'bolt.'"

"Oh!" the operator said. "Hang on. I'll transfer you."

"Could it be Sopaski?" Steve said, remembering what Erwin had told him.

"What?"

"Your last name. Could it be Sopaski?"

Carolyn thought about it for a second. "Actually, yeah. That sounds-"

A man's voice boomed out of the headset. "This is Sergeant Davis," he said. "Please authenticate."

Carolyn pointed at Rachel and raised her eyebrows quizzically. Rachel beckoned to a little girl in a grimy gray sundress. The child whispered something in her ear. Rachel relayed it to Carolyn in that singsong language.

"The code is 'bear 723 walking 33744 dawn,'" Carolyn said, translating.

"Please hold." There was a sound of typing. A moment later the man said, "I'll connect you to Mr. Hamann's office."

Steve thought about this for a moment, then his eyes opened wide. "The chief of staff?"

"Shh!" Carolyn said. For about a minute they were in limbo-no hold music, no recorded messages, just silence. Then, "This is Bryan Hamann," a voice said.

Are you f.u.c.king kidding me? Steve took a breath, focused on trying to appear calm. He wasn't sure, but he suspected he was doing a really s.h.i.+tty job of this.

"Mr. Hamann, I need you to get the president for me," Carolyn said. "Thanks so much."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Miss, ah"-there was a sound of computery clicking-"Carolyn. The president is in a meeting. Is there something that I-"

"Get him out of the meeting."

For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. Steve suspected that the man was simply having trouble crediting what his ears were telling him. He sympathized. Carolyn let him have a moment.

"Lady, there are exactly three people on the planet who are authorized to use the code you just provided, and I happen to know that you aren't any of them. Now, unless you tell me exactly who you are and how you came by those codes, you're going to be in for some extremely serious trouble. Either way, you've gotten as far up the chain as you're going to." There was a slight clicking on the line.

"I think they're tracing the call," Steve said. He felt like this was a valuable contribution.

"Hush," Carolyn said. She turned to Rachel. The two of them spoke for a few moments. The sound of it put Steve in mind of tropical birds fighting. "Mr. Hamann, please pardon me for being blunt. You seem like a decent man, but I'm pressed for time. I know where the president was on the night of March 28, 1993. I know why Alyson Majors is so quiet these days. I even have access to photographs. If I'm not speaking to the man himself in one minute I'm going to hang up. My next call will be to the Was.h.i.+ngton Post."

There was a brief pause, perhaps two seconds. Hamann didn't bother to put the call on hold, he just dropped the receiver. Steve heard the sound of a door hitting a wall. There was a few seconds of silence, a distant commotion. Next he heard Hamann say, "Clear out. Now. We need the room." There was the sound of a door shutting, then, "This is the president."

Oh-ho! Steve thought. There's something you don't hear every day. He took a bite of his cinnamon roll. It was his third. They really are quite good.

Carolyn smiled. "How do you do, Mr. President? I'm sorry to be so pushy, but I'm afraid these are unusual circ.u.mstances. My name is Carolyn Sopaski."

There was a long silence. "I'm afraid that I don't-"

"My Father is called Adam Black."

There was a very long silence. "Can you repeat that, please?"

She did.

Another pause, shorter this time. "There are a lot of men named-"

"Yes, but my Father is the Adam Black who was mentioned in the folder waiting for you on your desk on the day when you first took office. The yellowish paper, handwritten by Mr. Carter, I believe? Do you remember it?"

"I do," the president said. His voice was faint.

"Excellent. I thought you might. Would you like to know what became of the piece of Air Force hardware with the number 11807-A1 stenciled on the side? I can tell you exactly. I was there."

The president made a whoos.h.i.+ng sound. "I see." His voice was weak. "I-that is, my understanding was that a condition of the treaty was that there was to be no contact between-"

Carolyn laughed. "Is that what you call it? A 'treaty'? That's rather grandiose of you, isn't it? The way I recall it, my Father told Mr. Carter to see to it that he was not bothered anymore. Mr. Carter said that he would be happy to take care of it, and be sure to call again if there was ever anything else he could do. My Father said we would. Now I am. Adam Black would be very grateful if you would do him a small favor. A service."

"A service?"

"Yes. My understanding is that you have the power to issue criminal pardons. Is that correct?"