The Library at Mount Char Part 17

"I do..."

"Excellent. I'll send you the details. Thank you, Mr. Pr-"

"May, ah, madam, if I may-may I ask the nature of the offense?"

Carolyn's eyes narrowed. She didn't answer immediately. When she did her tone was noticeably cooler. "Why would that matter?"

"It, ah, it might have bearing on-"

Carolyn sighed. "The man in question hasn't been charged yet, but I'm told that it's just a matter of time. The incident revolves around the murder of a police officer. There are also likely to be some incidental charges-breaking and entering, burglary, things of that nature. Oh, and escape. He left jail yesterday without permission. Some people died. I a.s.sume that's some sort of crime as well?"

The president, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, agreed that it probably was.

"But it's the death-penalty case that we're primarily concerned with."

"Death penalty," the president said flatly.

"Yes." Carolyn paused. "If it eases the sting any, I happen to know that the man being charged is quite innocent. I know this for an absolute fact."

"May I ask how?"

"Because I was the one who killed Detective Miner," Carolyn said. "Mr. Hodgson was present but...unaware that anything of the kind was going on. Legal technicalities aside, he is completely innocent."

"I see," the president said at length. "Even so, Ms. Sopaski, this could be politically very-"

"My understanding is that when you took office you were briefed on, among other things, a file with the code name Cold Home. The file had blue and red stripes along the border. It was about an inch thick and just chock-full of unanswered questions. Is that correct?"

The president was silent for a beat. "How could you possibly know about that?" he hissed.

Carolyn laughed. "I'm afraid that will have to be another unanswered question," she said, and winked at Rachel. "Add it to the file, why don't you? But the fact is that I do know, Mr. President. And if you've read the file on Cold Home then you have some idea of what my Father is capable of. I can a.s.sure you from my own personal experience that he is not a man you want to make angry. All I'm asking is that you sign a piece of paper. For what it's worth, I consider it very unlikely that the fact you did so would ever be made public."

After a moment the president, who was not a fool, said, "Very well."

"Thank you! I'll be sure to inform Father that you've been very helpful."

"That's very kind of you. Ms. Sopaski, this administration would very much like to open a dialogue with your father. We could-"

"I'm sorry, Mr. President. I'm afraid that will not be possible."

"But-" said the president.

"There is one other thing you can do for me though. When is your next press appearance?"

There was a pause. Someone in the background said, "Tomorrow morning." The president said, "Tomorrow morning, I believe."

Carolyn thought about it for a moment. "Sorry. That's not quick enough. Arrange one for tonight."

"I'm afraid that won't be-"

"That wasn't a request." Her tone was frosty.

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Steve stared at her, slack-jawed.

"Very well," the president said softly.

"Good. When you're giving that speech I want you to say something for me. Say, mmm, oh, I don't know. Say 'Auld lang syne.' Do you think you could work that into your remarks without raising too many eyebrows?"

"I suppose I could," the president said slowly. "May I ask why?"

"Because at some point in the next few minutes it's going to occur to the person you're about to pardon that mmmmaybe I'm talking to a man who just sounds like you. When he sees you say 'Auld lang syne' on live TV, that will go a long way toward alleviating those doubts."

"I see. Yes, I suppose that can be arranged."

"Excellent!" Carolyn said. "Thank you, Mr. President. That will be all."

She hung up.

III.

An hour or so later Steve and Carolyn were alone in the living room. Not long after Carolyn had hung up on the president, the big b.l.o.o.d.y guy woke up and ate a couple of cinnamon rolls. Then he went to the stinky woman in the corner and took the lighter from her. She seemed to come out of herself then. She smiled up at him. The two of them moved to the back bedroom about the time the president came on.

Steve wanted to focus on the press conference, but he was having trouble. The big guy and the smelly woman were having some truly epic s.e.x back there. It started with squeaking bedsprings, but those were eventually drowned out by bear noises and something not unlike yodeling. The smell of s.e.x and rotting meat wafted throughout the house. Mrs. McGillicutty's bed evidently wasn't rated for stunt f.u.c.king, though. Right before the big finish it collapsed with a splintery, wrenching sound. Steve, not unimpressed, noted that the happy couple didn't so much as skip a beat.

He looked around to see if Carolyn or any of the others were as amused by this as he was, but the only one who seemed aware anything was going on was Punkin Tinkletoes, the old lady's pet cat. He had been sleeping by the wall opposite the bedroom. When they bounced off it hard enough to make family photos rain down, the cat sauntered over to join Steve on the couch.

Carolyn waved a hand in front of Steve's eyes and looked pointedly at the TV. "Pay attention, OK? I don't want to have to call him back."

"Sorry."

For the last twenty minutes or so, the president had been yapping about some sort of bill that was supposed to stimulate the economy. He wanted to raise taxes, or maybe lower them. Now he was taking questions.

Steve watched diligently for a couple of minutes. Then the big guy, wrapped in a bedsheet, walked back through the living room into the kitchen. He grabbed two brownies, a bottle of Wesson oil, and-oh, gosh-kitchen tongs. Then, grinning like a fiend, he sank back into the bedroom. Punkin Tinkletoes tracked this. Steve thought he might be wondering about the tongs as well. When the big guy disappeared around the corner, the cat turned to Steve with a quizzical blink.

Steve shrugged. "You got me, dude," he whispered. "Honestly, I'm not sure I want to-"

Carolyn poked him again, and Steve shut up. On TV, one of the reporters asked about an upcoming arms summit with the Russians. The president said that the location wasn't fixed yet, but that both he and the Russian liked the idea of doing it in Reykjavik, "if nothing else, for auld lang syne." All the reporter people laughed.

Steve didn't get the joke. That's the president, though, for really real. He felt dazed. Mrs. McGillicutty got all the cable channels, and the press conference was covered live on two of them. When it had started, he'd flipped back and forth between C-SPAN and Fox News, thinking maybe it was some sort of elaborate hoax, that they'd just gotten an actor who...

Carolyn was looking at him.

"OK," Steve said. "Let's say I believe that you can get the president to sign a pardon for me." He was surprised to realize he actually did believe that. "We still have a problem."

"Which is?"

"I have no reason at all to think that you will. You may remember, the last time I agreed to run an errand for you I ended up in jail. The day before yesterday my a.s.shole lawyer said, and I quote, I was 'on a fast track to death row.'"

Carolyn's brow furrowed. She brushed her hair back with her fingers. "I'm sorry about that. Really. It was unavoidable. If you do this for me, I can and will make it better." She reached behind the couch and tossed him the duffel bag full of money she had brought to the bar. "Here's your cash, by the way."

Steve looked down at the bag, then back up at her. The way she tossed it to him suggested a couple of possibilities. One was that she didn't give a f.u.c.k about $327,000. Another was that she knew Steve wasn't going to be around long enough to spend it. Still, he told himself, it's not like you have a lot of choices.

They'd been watching the news for an hour or so. Prior to the surprise press conference, one of the big stories had been his "escape"-Steve thought "kidnapping" would be more accurate, but no one asked him-from jail. Apparently the body count was up in the thirties. CNN was speculating that Steve might be the head of some hitherto unsuspected drug cartel. Fox thought he was probably part of a terrorist organization. Everybody seemed to agree that he was really, really dangerous. They flashed his mug shot about every ten minutes.

The big guy came back out of the room again. He wasn't grinning anymore. As he walked past, he glowered in a way that made Steve distinctly uneasy. He grabbed a couple of candles off the dining-room table and disappeared again, muttering under his breath.

When he was gone, Steve turned to Carolyn. "What did he say?"

"Hmm? Who?"

"Tutu Guy. He keeps grabbing stuff. I'm just curious-what did he say?"

"Oh." Distracted, she searched her memory for a moment. "He said, 'I just can't reach her. Not anymore. I just can't.'"

"Huh." Steve, baffled, meditated on this for a moment. "Any idea what he means by-"

"Would you like a brownie?" Mrs. McGillicutty asked.

Steve opened his mouth to say No, thanks, but what came out was "Don't mind if I do!" Three weeks of jail food had left him with an appet.i.te. Plus, the brownies were ridiculously good. Mrs. McGillicutty brought him some milk as well. When he was done he turned to Carolyn. "I don't suppose you've got a cigarette?"

"Sure." She rooted around in her sweater and fished out a pack of Marlboros with some matches tucked into the cellophane. "Can you pay attention now? Pretty please?"

"Yeah, all right." They glared at each other as they lit up. "So, what exactly is it that you want?"

"How good of you to ask. Finally. The reason we broke you out of jail is that we want you to go for a jog."

Steve blinked, thumped his cigarette. "Say again?"

"You're a jogger, right?" He did vaguely remember mentioning something of the sort when they talked at the bar. "We'd like for you to go for a jog."

"That's it?"

"And pick something up."

Here it comes, he thought. "What sort of something?"

"We don't know, exactly. We know with a very high degree of precision where it is, but it could look like anything."

"OK..." Steve said. "But it will in fact be...what? Drugs? High explosives?" A horrible thought occurred to him. "Not some sort of nuclear s.h.i.+t?"

Carolyn rolled her eyes, a don't-be-an-idiot look, and fluttered her hand. "No, no. Of course not. Nothing like that. It's-how can I put this?-think of it as a very advanced system of perimeter defense."

"You want me to go get you a land mine? No. Actually, h.e.l.l no. I'll take my chances in jail."

"It's not a 'land mine,'" Carolyn said. "It's absolutely nothing at all like a land mine. What it is, is a kind of, um...do you know what a gravity well is? It's kind of like that, except in reverse, and it only works on certain people."

"I have no idea what that's supposed to mean."

"Hmm. OK, think of it this way. Do you know how microwaves work?"

"No."

"It's based on microwaves."

"Oh, wait. I just remembered. I do know how microwaves work, and what you're saying is bulls.h.i.+t."

"Fine. It isn't microwaves. But how it works really doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter, then why don't you tell me?"

"Because it's very advanced. You don't have the background. Trust me, please?"

"f.u.c.k no. So, you're...what? Some sort of weapons researcher?" That, he could almost believe. "Weird professor type" covered a lot of ground. "Look, I'm not going to even consider this until you tell me what it is I'm picking up."

"You wouldn't-"

"Try me."

She sighed. "It's called a reissak ayrial. Its essence is a mathematical construct, a self-referencing tautology, consecrated in the plane of regret. The reissak works because the target has the trigger because the reissak works. The physical token that you'll be picking up is the reissak's projection into normal s.p.a.ce. Do you see?"

Steve stared at her. "You invented this thing?"

"Not me. I'm more of a linguist. Can we get back to the point now?"

Steve grimaced. "Sure." Thwarted by techn.o.babble.

"The token that serves as the reissak's nexus is just sitting somewhere, probably out in the open. It could be a c.o.ke can, a McDonald's bag, a mailbox, anything. And for most people-almost certainly including you, Steve-that's all that it actually is."

"But?"

"But not everyone. For some people, it's like poison. The closer you get to it, the worse it hurts, the more damage it does. If you get close enough, it kills you."

"So, it's radioactive? I'm not picking up any radioactive c.r.a.p."

"No. It's not radioactive."

"What if I don't believe you?"

"Then I guess you're going back to jail, aren't you?" she said brightly.

Steve gritted his teeth.