Liberation Day (6 page)

I picked up the nylon duffel bag near my feet and put it on the empty seat beside me. I needed to check just one more time that the bag was sterile of anything that could link me to the job before she picked me up. My hand passed over the smooth, rounded shape of the Pyramids snowstorm shaker I’d bought her at the Cairo airport, and the hard edge of the small photo album she’d lent me for my weeks away. “If you don’t look at it and think nice things about me every day, Nick Stone,” she’d said, “don’t even think about coming back.”

I opened it and felt a grin spreading across my face, as it did every time I saw her. She was standing outside Abbot Hall in Washington Square, Marblehead, on the start of what she’d called my U.S. Heritage Induction Tour. Abbot Hall was the home of
The Spirit of ’76,
the famous portrait of a fife and drum at the head of an infantry column during the Revolutionary War. She wanted me to see it because she said it embodied the spirit of America—and if I were going to become a U.S. citizen one day, it was my solemn duty to damned well admire and be moved by it. I said I thought it looked more like a cartoon than a masterpiece, and she pushed me outside.

Her short brown hair was being buffeted by the wind blasting off the Atlantic as I pressed the shutter. She looked like GI Jane in green fatigue cargos and a baggy gray sweater. She certainly didn’t look in her late thirties, even though a certain sadness in her smile, and a few small creases at the corners of her mouth and eyes, told anybody who was paying attention that the last couple of years had not been easy on her. “Nothing Photoshop can’t handle,” she said, “once I’ve scanned them into the PC.”

It was rare to see her expression so relaxed, even when she was sleeping. Normally it was much more animated, most often frowning, questioning, or registering disgust at Corporate America’s latest outrage. She had good reason to look weighed down. It had been hard for her and Luz since the two of them had come back from Panama, one without a husband, the other without the man who’d become her father. Since Aaron’s death there hadn’t been a day when he didn’t come into her conversation. I still tended to cut away from stuff like this, but the way she saw it, he’d been her husband for fifteen years and dead for only a little over one.

In the whole of my life as a Special Forces soldier, and later, as a “K” working on deniable operations for the Intelligence Service, I’d always tried to turn my back on the guilt, remorse, and self-doubt that always followed a job; what was done was done. But watching her trying to deal with it moved me more than I’d thought possible.

I’d been sent to Panama in September 2000 to coerce a local drugs racketeer into helping the West. Carrie and Aaron had been my local contacts; they’d been environmental scientists running a research station near the Colombian border, and on the CIA payroll as low-level intelligence gatherers. I was staying at their house when the racketeer’s boys came looking for me, and Aaron had paid the price.

There hadn’t been many days since when I didn’t wonder if there’d been something more I could have done to save him.

There was another photograph of Carrie taken in her mother’s kitchen at Marblehead. She was cooking clam chowder. Just to one side of her was a framed black-and-white portrait of her with her father, George, a handsome, square-jawed all-American in a uniform, probably taken in the early sixties.

I gazed at the one of her standing outside her college. Carrie had been encouraging me to give the place a try; I’d always loved medieval history, and had been reading quite a lot about the Crusades lately. I’d told her I wasn’t sure the whole mature-student thing was me, working in Starbucks, being bossed by an eighteen-year-old manager. I hadn’t quite gotten around to telling her that my formal education had ended when I was fifteen, so the college was unlikely to take me on as a janitor, let alone enroll me in one of its courses.

I guessed there was quite a lot of stuff, one way or another, that I hadn’t told Carrie. There was my trip to Algeria, for a start. It wasn’t the job itself; I wouldn’t have said a word about that anyway. It was the fact that I’d promised her I’d never get involved in dirty work again. The carrot George had dangled in front of me was irresistible; with American citizenship papers in my pocket, I’d be free to work at whatever I wanted. But I wasn’t sure Carrie would appreciate the method behind the madness.

The story I’d told her was that I’d been offered three weeks’ work escorting thrill-seekers into Egypt. After the 9/11 attacks, tourism to the Middle East had all but dried up, and the few travelers still brave enough to go wanted guides. Carrie agreed it was a good idea for me to make some money before I started the long process of applying for citizenship. Until that happened, all I could do were menial jobs, so money would be tight. I hadn’t a clue how I was going to explain to her why my citizenship had come through so fast, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. I sat and looked out at the dull gray day as ice-covered trees zoomed past along the side of the track and vehicles in the distance with cold engines tailed exhaust fumes behind them. It wasn’t a good start to us being together, but it was done now. I should just look to the future.

After two days of moseying around, ninety feet below the Mediterranean, following the North African coastline, we’d finally made it back into Alexandria. The weather had closed in as predicted about ten hours after we got on board, not that we knew, so far below water. A Chrysler MPV was waiting at the dockside; somebody took my bergen, and that was the last I saw of it. For the next week I just had to wait in a hotel room in Cairo while the head I’d brought back was confirmed as Zeralda’s. If not, we might have been sent back to get the correct one.

I still didn’t know why I’d been asked to bring back Zeralda’s head and I still didn’t care. All that mattered was that George was coming to Boston in a few days’ time, and I’d be getting Nick Stone’s shiny new U.S. passport, social security number, and Massachusetts driver’s licence. I was about to become a real person.

I looked around the train. Most of my fellow travelers had now gotten bored looking at the jerk brushing his teeth and wiping the foam that ran down his chin, and were buried in their papers. The front pages were plastered with the war in Afghanistan, reporting that everything was going well and there were no casualties. Northern Alliance fighters were silhouetted against the sunset as they stood watching U.S. Special Forces soldiers carrying enough gear on their backs to collapse a donkey.

I looked out and chewed on my brush. To my right, and running parallel with the track, was the coast road, also cutting through the icy marshland. We were overtaking a taxi, his side windows festooned with patriotic imagery; there was even a little Stars and Stripes fluttering from his aerial. I couldn’t see the driver, but knew he just had to be an Indian or a Pakistani. Those guys didn’t want to leave anything to chance in these troubled times.

The marshland petered out, and whitewashed clapboard houses sprang up on either side of the train, then the blur of supermarkets and used-car lots also draped in the Stars and Stripes. I felt my pulse quicken with anticipation. I didn’t have to work for the Firm (British Intelligence) any more, didn’t have to do anymore jobs for George. I really felt I’d been given a new start, that life was coming together. I was free.

6

I
shoved the toothbrush into my brown nylon duffel bag as the train came to a halt and people stood and got their hats and coats on. The automatic doors drew back to reveal the signs for Wonderland Station, and I stepped out of the train, hooking the bag over my shoulder. I got an immediate and fierce reminder that I wasn’t in North Africa anymore. The temperature was several degrees below zero. I zipped up my fleece jacket, which did nothing to keep out the bitter wind as I joined the throng heading for the barrier.

She was standing by a ticket desk, dressed in a green down jacket and a Russian-style black sheepskin hat, her breath billowing about her face as we both waved and smiled.

I got through the barrier and threaded my way through the crowd. Taking her in my arms, I planted a big, exaggerated kiss on her forehead, hoping that the toothpaste routine hadn’t been in vain. I ran my fingers gently down her cheek as I drew back and we exchanged huge smiles.

Her large green eyes stared into mine for several seconds, then she hugged me hard. “I missed you big-time, Stone.”

“Me too.” I kissed her again, properly this time.

She linked her left arm in mine and rubbed her free hand up and down my stubble. “Come on,” she said. “Places to go, things to do. Mom’s at a church meeting until this evening so you don’t have to say hello until later. Gives us a little time.” She rested her head on my shoulder as we walked outside. “But we’re not going home just yet. There’s something I want you to see on the way.”

We weren’t quite in step: the leg she’d broken in Panama had left her with a slight limp. I grinned like an idiot. “I’m all yours.”

The dog-track parking lot was used by commuters during the day. The November air had already worked its magic on line upon line of windshields and frozen them white.

I looked down at her face poking out from the sheepskin. “How’s Luz?”

“Oh, she’s fine. She says hi. She might be coming back next week—with a new friend.”

“It’ll be good to see her. Who’s the lucky boy?”

“David somebody, I think.” She turned to me. “But you’re not to—”

“I know.” I held up my hand to swear the oath. “No jokes, don’t worry, I won’t embarrass her…” If I did, though, it wouldn’t be the first time.

We reached the main drag and waited for the lights, along with ten or so other pedestrians heading for the lot. “So, how was your trip? I notice I didn’t get a card of the Pyramids like I was promised.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that I thought by the time I got back into Cairo and mailed it I’d be here. Especially this time of year…”

“Not to worry. You’re back, that’s all that matters.”

The traffic stopped and the green signal ushered us across.

“Did you get hit by the storms?”

“We were much farther south.”

“I was worried.” Those little lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “Six hundred people died in the floods in Algeria….”

I looked straight ahead. “Six hundred? I didn’t know.”

We’d just gotten in among the cars when she stopped and faced me, her arms pushed in under mine and linked around my waist. “You stink like a camel, but it really is good to have you back all the same.” She kissed me lightly on the lips, her skin cold but soft. “You know what? I don’t want you to go away ever again. I like you right here, where I can see you.”

We stayed wrapped in each other and I fought the urge to tell her the truth. Sanity prevailed. I would find a time and a place to do that, but not now, not yet. She was too happy, I was too happy. I wanted to keep the real world outside.

She let me go. “Magical-mystery-tour time.”

We got to her mother’s Plymouth sedan. Carrie hadn’t gotten around to buying a car since she’d gotten back: she’d been too busy. She’d arranged the transportation of Aaron’s body from Panama to Boston, then the cremation, before returning to Panama to scatter his ashes in the jungle. After that, she’d had to get Luz settled into high school, and herself into her new job. She’d also had to set up house—then change her life around again when a not-too-reliable Brit turned up begging for a spare room.

We split as she went to the driver’s side of the Plymouth, reaching into her bag for the keys and hitting the fob. The car unlocked with a bleep and a flash of the indicators. I pulled open the door, threw my bag into the back, and climbed in, as Carrie closed her door and put on her belt. That frown of hers had reappeared, the one that went along with the raised eyebrow and slight tilt of the head.

The engine turned over and we rolled out of the parking space. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about a whole bunch of stuff while you were away. There’s something very important I want to say to you.”

I reached across and pulled off her hat before running my fingers slowly through her hair, as she negotiated the Plymouth over the potholed pavement. We hit the main drag and turned left up the north shore for the ten miles to Marblehead.

“Good important or bad important?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. It’ll be easier for me to explain when we get there.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. Tell me some other stuff, then.”

Luz liked her new school, she said, and had started to make some really nice friends; she was staying over with one of them for the rest of the week to give us time together. She also told me how her mother’s bed-and-breakfast had picked up a little since September. Oh, and that she thought there might be a part-time job for me at the yacht club as a barman. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t need a job serving pints of Sam Adams for weekend water warriors. Come Wednesday, I was going to be a
bona fide,
flag-waving citizen; the U.S. was my oyster, and all that sort of thing.

Marblehead’s old town was like a film set: brightly painted wooden houses with neat little gardens sitting on winding streets. Cornish fishermen had settled there in the 1600s, maybe because the rocky coastline reminded them of home. The only fishermen there now dangled lines off the backs of their million-dollar boats in the Boston yacht club.

Marblehead today was where old Boston money met new Boston money. Carrie’s mother had been born there, and was blessed with plenty of the old stuff. She’d come back ten or so years ago, after her divorce from George, and took in bed-and-breakfast guests because she enjoyed the company.

Carrie made a couple of turns that took us off the main street and we came to a stop on a small road that ran along the water’s edge. Tucker’s Wharf jutted just a little into the water, with old clapboard buildings on either side, now restaurants and ye olde shoppes. “This is it,” she announced. “We’re here.”

We got out, zipped up against the cold, and Carrie took my arm as she walked me toward a wooden bench. We sat and looked out over the bay at the large houses on the other side.