Courier (14 page)

She looked at him closely. "Nope. I can still see the dreams in your eyes. Bad?"

"No worse than usual."

She brushed past him on the narrow walkway and said over her shoulder, "I'm heading down to the Washington Monument."

He could see that they both were going to pretend that nothing had happened – that he hadn't almost assaulted her. He turned and walked behind her.

And observed.

She stopped at the end of the block. "I hope everything back there met with your approval."

He grinned and then pointed with a thumb to the construction. "I was checking everything closely, and Metro seems to have everything well in hand."

She just looked at him without expression for a moment, then gave a snort of laughter and resumed her walk. Once they'd gotten off the wooden catwalk, Rick pulled up alongside and they walked in silence up First Street toward the Capitol, passing the dark windows of the Rayburn Building.

At the base of the Capitol steps, she stopped to look down the Mall. "It reminds me a little of home," she said. "Well, very little, to be honest, but at least there is a bit of ground without trees. I really miss open sky." She looked back up at the Capitol and asked, "What's all that?"

Looking up at the construction that was beginning to cover the West Front, Rick said, "They're starting to build the platform for Nixon's inauguration." He pointed over to the right. "See that semitrailer? That's the TV pool truck. They've been working to get that ready for about three weeks."

"So, the bastard gets to stand up there and pretend that nothing's wrong?" She turned her back on the scene. "What a waste of time and money."

Rick didn't see that her statement required any response. She glanced at his face and then set off across the Mall. Rick caught up, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the monument, moving fast enough to put a burn into his leg muscles.

Standing beneath the snapping flags at the base of the monument, he offered her a cigarette and lit it with the usual up-down snap of the Zippo on his leg. She caught his wrist with her free hand and stared at the lighter.

"Garryowen?" she read.

"It's the nickname of my old regiment – after a song they used to play going into battle."

She began to whistle the old bagpipe tune, and then stopped. "That's the song that Yellowhair's soldiers played on their way to the Battle of the Greasy Grass. That's General Custer and the Little Bighorn to you."

"We both went to college. Let's just take as a given that we remembered most of American History 101."

"Sorry, I've been told that I get defensive a bit too quickly." She smiled and changed the subject. "I'm named after one of the women at the battle. Women were warriors then."

They started back toward the Capitol.

"Are you a warrior?" Rick asked.

"I don't know." She was silent for a moment. "I think I have to be. They're killing us."

"Who?"

"The CIA, the FBI, the Tribal Police, the sellouts on the tribal councils. We're making trouble for them, and so they're going to kill us – or put us in prison. Last year, my half brother was killed organizing for the Movement in South Dakota. I'm pretty sure that it was the government, but I can't prove it."

She shook her head as if trying to shake off a thought, and then continued. "That's why I'm studying law. We need to adopt the weapons used against us. Just like the rifle replaced the bow."

"Makes sense."

"OK, new subject. That one isn't right for a morning walk." She pointed to his pocket. "So, what is Ia Drang? It's on your lighter."

"Yeah, that's definitely a better topic." He looked at her and then decided to keep going. "I suppose it was another Little Bighorn. We weren't wiped out, but it came damn close. We came in on waves of slicks. They were calling it ‘air cavalry' for the first time, and when the first units landed next to the Ia Drang River, they were hit hard by North Vietnamese regulars. It was also the first time that real North Vietnamese soldiers had entered the war in battalion strength. I got there a day or so into the battle, when the Seventh Cavalry was sent in as reinforcements."

He walked in silence for a moment. "I guess we won. I don't know that I did."

"Is that what the dreams are about?"

He took a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, I lived through it. I had to watch almost everyone else die, and I don't know why I didn't die, but I didn't, and so… now I get to live through it again every night. I didn't enjoy it then, and I'd be quite happy to forget it now, but… it's just buried in too deep."

He looked over and smiled. "Motorcycles help."

"They do?"

"Yeah. You go fast enough, and it fills your mind. Makes it so you can't think of anything else. Can't remember, can't hear the sounds…"

"Can't grieve for your friends." There was the slightest glint in her eyes, but there were no tears of sympathy. He was grateful for that.

"It all gets blown away in the wind and the speed and seeing how close you can come to the edge without going over."

"OK, if you're going to put it so poetically, I'd like to try it sometime."

"You're on."

As they walked past the reflecting pond at the base of Capitol Hill, the morning sun hit the ornate greenhouse that was the National Botanic Garden and exploded in gold shards off the glass panes.

Rick felt warmer, as if the light were the flame of a campfire.

 

"So, I've got this film. Any of you guys know where I can get it developed?"

Rick was drinking coffee with Corey, Scotty, and Steve and spinning the silver can on the dining room table. He had retrieved it from under the back porch on the way in from his morning walk.

Steve smiled. "What do you think guys like us did before we got our hands on computers? I built a darkroom when I was eight."

Scotty topped him. "I was seven."

Steve looked at his friend. "Well, I spent time working on ham radio first, OK?" He turned back to Rick. "Anyway, we can build a darkroom and a developing tank in the basement. It'll be easy to find the chemicals we need and read up on the timing. Apparently, most porno films have to be developed… um… privately, so the instructions have to be out there somewhere."

"You sure you're good with doing this?" Rick paused. "People seem to be taking an intense interest in this stuff, and I don't think it's because I got my hands on a particularly good sex flick."

"And you think these mysteriously ‘intense' people are going to worry about a bunch of four-eyed wimps like us?" Scotty snorted. "I seriously doubt it."

Corey got up and rinsed out his coffee cup. "Well, you've convinced me. I'll be away for the evening. As far away as possible." He put on his suit jacket, adjusted his cuffs, and picked up his briefcase. "Don't wait up."

He headed briskly for the front door.

Steve scratched under his beard. "Well, I think it's an interesting problem." He looked at Scotty, who nodded agreement.

"OK, let's go for it. Let's get the research done and the chemicals ready by seven tonight, and we'll get started. I think we can do at least as well as your average hairy-palmed porn freak." Steve stood up with a dramatic sigh. "And now I have to go and be abused by GE's finest managers for my bad attitude. It's time for my annual review, and I suspect they don't like my work clothes." He looked down at his T-shirt, ragged shorts, and sandals, then looked up with a big grin. "I got to tell you, I'm tempted to go in naked just to see what would happen."

 

That afternoon, Rick had one of those days that happened from time to time when it seemed as if the Assignment Desk had simply forgotten him. He was sent to the White House to pick up some press handouts, but when he got there, it turned out that one of the reporters had already taken them back to the bureau. He called in and was told just to stay put and wait – there would be a stand-up to take back later.

He was sitting on a leather couch in the back of the briefing room, reduced to reading a year-old copy of
The Atlantic
, when Jamie Mayweather slumped into the seat next to him and growled, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Reading about the war."

"Screw reading about it. I was there. Ask me about it."

Rick didn't bother to mention that he'd been there as well. "Why'd the peace talks fold up?"

"You mean after they'd finally settled on a shape for the table? They probably went to hell for the same reason as they did in 1968. Thieu pulled the plug." Mayweather leaned back and stretched his shoulders. "About a week before the elections, it looked like maybe Johnson would get a deal and Hubert Humphrey – the Happy Warrior – would coast into the Oval Office. But the South Vietnamese suddenly got a bug up their butts." He snapped his fingers. "Presto chango. No more peace talks and Tricky Dick's moving truck is pulling up outside the front doors of the White House."

"You think Nixon had anything to do with that?"

"I think lots of things. I only talk about things I can prove." After a second, Mayweather continued. "But it was damn convenient. On the other hand, you'd think that President Thieu would have a good reason to like Democrats. After all, it was Democrats who pulled the rug out from under his predecessor and gave him the keys to the palace."

Rick nodded. "Yeah, I'd heard that, but it was never proved."

"None of this shit is ever proved. Watergate isn't proved. The fact that there are stacks of hundred-dollar bills sitting around in peoples' safes isn't proved. Hell, Oswald being a team player isn't proved." Mayweather jumped to his feet and headed back to the booth. "Time for me to prove that I can pull a rabbit out of my ass for the 6 o'clock."

Like most of Rick's conversations with Mayweather, it ended without a goodbye.

 

The sounds of hammering and boisterous conversation were echoing up from the basement when Rick got home. At the foot of the stairs, a set of thick black curtains tacked to the exposed ceiling joists blocked his way. He found the place where two curtains overlapped and pushed his way into the basement. The three computer techs were standing around a large folding table placed securely against the back wall and covered with bottles of chemicals, beakers, measuring spoons, books, and dozens of pieces of plywood in different shapes and sizes. More black curtains hung over the three small windows high on the walls.

"How's it going?" Rick asked Eps.

Eps looked up. "Great! We've almost got the tank processor built, and most of the chemicals are mixed. We're just checking to see how much sodium sulfite we need in the second developing bath."

"Sul-
fide
. Sodium sulfide," Scotty said firmly.

"Right, whatever. Anyway, we should be ready to go in just a few minutes."

Rick wandered over but understood neither the chemicals they were discussing nor what they were going to do with them. For a while, he examined what looked like an intricate puzzle box made out of a metal can, rubber tubing, and a lot of carefully cut plywood squares boasting an assortment of notches, slots, and smooth curves.

Apparently, Steve had built all of this. He was now consulting a ring binder filled with diagrams. As Rick watched, Steve put on a pair of thick plastic lab goggles and began to carve notches in a new piece of plywood with a small electric jigsaw. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space.

One of the things he learned in the army was to let experts do what they knew how to do, and his housemates were pretty damn good. He went over to one of the battered reclining chairs that made up the bulk of the basement furniture, and settled in to watch. The chairs didn't actually recline, but you could only expect so much from furniture you found sitting outside on trash day.

In a much shorter time than he might have predicted, the three had mixed the chemicals and constructed what turned out to be the processing tank. It was a metal can with the top cut off, replaced by an intricate wooden lightproof cover with a hole in the center. At the bottom, a rubber hose ran out of another, smaller hole sealed with caulk, up the side, and was firmly clipped to the top.

Eps showed how the black curtains would block all light from the windows and the stairs, and held up a second set of curtains that would go up as a backup before the process began. There was even a layer of black cloth tacked across the ceiling to prevent any light leaks coming through the floorboards.

Scotty then proceeded to explain in detail how the film would be wound emulsion-side up around the wooden spool. When the one layer of the film covered the spool, two plywood spacers would go in to keep the second layer of film from touching the first layer, and the winding would resume. When all the film had been wound on the square spool, it would go into the metal tank and the top would be sealed and lightproofed.

"And so up until that point, you're doing all of this in complete darkness?" Rick asked. "How are you going to do that without being able to see?"

"Braille," said Steve. "No, we all learned how to do this kind of stuff a long time ago. Didn't you?"

Rick just shook his head.

The others laughed. "Anyway, once the film is safely in the tank, we can turn on the lights." Steve pointed to the recliner. "Your place is right where you are so you don't get in the way."

Rick obediently did as he was told and spent a pleasant hour or so sitting in the dark listening to smart guys work as a team – a lot like the atmosphere he liked so much in the newsroom. Eventually, the winding was finished and, after turning on a dim red light, they poured in developer, checked temperatures and stopwatches, emptied the tank by unclipping the hose and letting it run into the laundry sink, and started all over with fixative and then a water rinse.