Prologue (11 page)

“So how’s wild, wonderful
Concord
? Can you hand me that oil pan now? The barbecue was nice.”

Paul got up and took what he assumed was the pan from the bench and put it in Lewis’ outstretched hand. “No different from the last time you asked. No different from the first time you asked. No different from when the last Redcoat left, except for the increased traffic and strip malls.”

“Man, you’re suffocating there. Nice house and all, but still.”

“I’m sure not in the
Cambridge
bachelor pad anymore.”

Lewis nodded. “That Agency apartment in my building’s still empty.” He tapped a few times with the screwdriver and smacked his palm on the fender as he stood up. “Good to go.”

“The tall blond guy with the crew cut? When did he clear out?”

“When his plane went down over
Chile
.”

“Ah.”

“I snagged the barbecue. They’ll never notice.”

“You robbed the dead?”

“No, I robbed the next guy. He never used it. He wasn’t there too long either. Have another beer, Paul.” Lewis held out a can.

“Stays on my breath,” Paul said. “Valerie’d kill me.”

Lewis shook his head. “How’s Grace?”

“Grace is Grace. She’s first in her class, and her project on Robert Kennedy made all-Northeast District.”

“Smart kid.
Good thing she’s got her mother’s looks, too.”

Paul chuckled before turning serious. “You know that Grace is adopted, don’t you?” he asked.

Lewis nodded.

“She actually does have her mother’s looks,” Paul continued. “And she has both her parents’ brains. They were good people, both of them.”

“You knew them?” Lewis asked. “I don’t think I knew that.”

“Chuck was with me at Cornell. It was always Chuck and Beth, me and Amanda. I guess we thought we’d always be.” His voice trailed off.

“They got married?” Lewis asked softly.

Paul nodded.
“A few years later.
By then Amanda had moved on and Val and I were married. When Chuck and Beth got pregnant Val and I had been married about four years with no kids. Didn’t look like we were ever going to have them,” he added ruefully.

“What happened?”

Paul shrugged. “They were so excited when they got pregnant. Beth was older, mid-thirties, and they had been trying for a while. During a routine ultrasound they found cancer. They told her that she could have chemo but it would have meant...”

Lewis nodded. “Yeah, I know. What happened to Chuck?”

Paul snorted. “About three weeks before Grace was born Chuck just dropped dead. No warning, nothing.
A brain aneurism-a congenital time bomb that finally went off.
Nothing could have been done.
That sort of thing.
Beth couldn’t even leave the hospital to go to the funeral. She called me to
Albany
, where he had been teaching. She asked us to adopt Grace at birth. She knew she didn’t have much time.”

“How much time?”
Lewis asked.

Paul swore. “She died when Grace was less than two months old. They released her for hospice care and we took them both back with us.”

“You and Val?”

Paul nodded. “I picked them up at the hospital in
Albany
. Beth was pretty weak but she got to spend her final days with Grace.”

“And Valerie was O.K. with that?” Ginter asked carefully.

Paul took another sip of his beer. When he finished he let out a soft burp. “Grace was born in March. I was teaching three classes that semester. This was before you got here but there was a hiring freeze back in 2010. Mai Johansson was the department chair, remember her?”

Ginter nodded.

“A real witch in some ways,” Paul said. “I told her I couldn’t finish the semester because I was going to do hospice care for a friend. She nearly had a stroke. She threatened to fire me on the spot, told me she’d make sure MIT sued to get my whole salary back. Said I was all done. I figured I was.”

“What happened?” Ginter asked.

Paul laughed. “I told her I didn’t give a shit. I guess back then I still didn’t.”

Paul took another sip. “Anyway, it all worked out. Wolfe covered one of my classes.
Would have covered all three if her schedule had allowed it.
She’s a good egg.
Then, after taking my head off, Johansson covered a second one.
She grumped like hell and I limped through the third class until the end of the semester. By then Beth was gone.”

Paul turned to Lewis. “When I look at Grace I can see Beth so clearly. It’s scary how much she looks like her mother. I guess she’s the last link I have to
Ithaca
. Amanda and I didn’t make it and Chuck and Beth are dead. Grace is what I’ve got left. Things don’t work out like you think they’re going to when you’re 25.”

Paul sat staring at the far wall. He started to take another swig of his beer but the can was empty. He threw it against the wall. Lewis watched wordlessly.

“Okay, I’ve decided what to do about Amanda,” Paul said suddenly.

“Be still my beating heart,” Lewis said, packing up his tools.

“I’ll pretend Grace is working on a summer school project about 20
^th
Century America. I’ll ask her what was the one event she’d nail as the turning point between free
America
and Soviet America.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lewis said.
“Then what?”

“What do you mean, ‘then what?”

“After she tells you, do we bring her in?” Ginter asked.

“Bring her in? Why would we do that?”

“Guidance.
There’s a lot more we could learn, Paul.”

“It’s risky. Too many people in the know,” Paul said quickly.

“It’s even riskier going back without knowing what the hell we’re doing,” Lewis said. “In Special Ops we learned that over half of every operation is intelligence. Put the best guys with the best equipment in a situation with skimpy intelligence and they’ll get their clocks cleaned by tribesmen with spears.”

“You think we need to bring her in?”

Lewis wiped his hands. “Let’s see if you think she’s trustworthy first,” he said.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

“Three heads are better than two.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

“Don’t let your meat loaf.”

Paul laughed.
“Your–all right.
You win. Hey, when are we going to take this tin can out on the road?”

“Soon,” Lewis said, turning off the garage light and holding the door for Paul.
“Soon.”

“It’s just that…” Paul said from the alleyway.

Lewis stopped.
“Yeah?”

“Amanda was always out for Amanda. That’s why we didn’t get married, I think. You get the sense that she’s really working for
herself
in everything.”

Lewis shrugged. “Aren’t we all?”

“But it’s like… ah, it’s hard to explain, but if she joined in with us she’d expect her objectives to dominate.”

“See what they are,” Lewis said. “If she’s the fire-eater you remember that shouldn’t be a problem. Do you trust her?”

Paul thought for a minute. “I did. We’ll see if I still do.”

Paul went home. Grace was at another sleepover and Valerie had said she had stuff to do. Paul had come home early after work and found her getting dressed upstairs. He had his own meeting with Lewis and hadn’t argued.

The house was in darkness. He went around turning on lights and then pulled down all the shades. There was fried chicken left in the refrigerator. He reached for a Tab but then grabbed another beer and plunked himself down in front of the TV.

When the TV came on it was turned to Fox news. He decided against listening to more neo-Soviet propaganda and flipped to a movie on one of the nostalgia channels. At one point he thought he heard Val’s car come up the street and muted the volume but the car pulled into a neighbor’s driveway. He realized when he un-muted the television that he hadn’t been paying attention to the plot.

Amanda Hutch. Was it really 28 years ago..?

“Don’t you want to sit in the bar?” he had asked her.

The Thursday night crowd at The Chestnut Tree, just off the Cornell campus, had been unusually sparse, and Amanda always preferred the bar in order to smoke. This time, however, she shook her head.

“Let’s sit in the back.”

Must have something to talk about, Paul reasoned.

As she made her way to the back he ordered the usual from Sal, a pizza half mushroom and half
hamburg
, and without being asked Sal filled a pitcher with beer and handed two mugs to Paul. When he reached the rear booth Amanda already had her coat off. He filled both mugs.

“I got the decision today,” she began right off.
“From the Committee.”

Paul sucked in his breath.

“It was filled with the usual summation. Crap about me espousing dangerous thoughts. Undergraduates find my seminar ideas uncomfortable and subversive. My teachings and lectures are basically ‘history with an agenda.’ That type of crap.”