Prologue (2 page)

Paul smirked, suddenly confident that he had won the day. Obviously, his grandfather had no logical response, and so spat out the first thing that had come to mind. From that day forward Paul had remained triumphantly atheistic, secure in his scientific beliefs. Besides, he often told himself, under the new regime it didn’t pay to be religious.

Paul consulted the tracker again a mile before the critical turnoff to
Lexington
. No tracking. He eased up to allow a truck to pass. He hugged the truck around the bend, obscuring his license plate from any roadside cameras.

At The Patriot’s Coffee Shop he pulled off the road and into the gravel parking lot. The diner was located at the site of the former
Museum
of
Our National Heritage
, within sight of the Munroe Tavern. The parking lot was empty save for one rusting Volvo, which he assumed belonged to the proprietor. The shop was ostensibly named after the region’s professional football team, but deVere knew better.

As he swung in through the glass doors the shop appeared devoid of customers. The attendant was wiping the Formica counter and barely looked up. DeVere grabbed a Boston Globe from the stand next to the door before draping one leg over a stool and settling down.

“Coffee, regular.”

The man nodded and retreated to the coffee machine at the end of the counter.

“Where’s Ralph tonight?” deVere asked.

“Sox game.”

DeVere flipped past the front page headline exposing more fraud on Vodkaville’s contribution to the Big Dig and unfolded the sports section. He didn’t know this counter guy, and there was no benefit in reading the article in front of him. He would read it later.

The man returned with the coffee. “Good article on the Big Dig,” the clerk said, nonchalantly indicating the front page lying open on the counter. “Vodkaville is really screwing this one up.”

DeVere glanced at the sports section headline, “Sox Home for Eight Game Stand,” and ignored the bait.

“So many people think this is their year,” deVere said neutrally.

The man scoffed and moved back, grabbed a burger from the freezer, and threw it down on the grill. It began sizzling immediately.

“If that paper didn’t have the best damn sports department in the District it would have been shut down years ago,” he said loudly.

“Everyone talks about how good it is but they’re always way too optimistic on the Sox,” deVere answered.

“It’s only a matter of time before Vodkaville shuts down the Globe. The way they discourage it only makes it more popular.”

The man flipped the burger before strolling out from behind the counter to the booths along the outside wall.

“You decided, ma’am?” he asked.

DeVere swiveled quickly. A lone elderly woman sat hunched low in one of the booths, sideways to the counter.

DeVere swore softly. He had been certain when he had walked in that no one was in the shop. Of course, she was sitting so damn low.

The woman kept her head down and hesitated before answering flatly, “Cheese steak sandwich. No onions.”

DeVere turned back. She seemed so…familiar.
And the voice.
He shrugged and flipped to the inside page on the Sox story. Late June and only two games behind the Yankees whose aging ball club was beset with a rash of injuries. Maybe this WAS the year.

The attendant threw shaved meat on the grill and began pushing it around with a spatula. As if reading deVere’s mind he said, “People are saying this might be their year but I don’t know. It still hurts thinking about what happened back in ’10.”

DeVere cringed at the mention of that World Series game seven in
Boston
. He had been there, right behind third base. In the bottom of the ninth Polito had been what, thirty feet from home plate? From his seat he had seen the Sox players erupting from their dugout and pouring onto the field to welcome home the winning run as the ball rolled to the left field wall.

DeVere shuddered and changed the subject. “Aren’t there usually more customers this time of day?”

The man shrugged. “Search me. I usually work in
Boston
but Ralph called me this morning when he got tix.
Asked me to fill in.”
He gestured out to the parking lot.

“Didn’t even know if the old bird would make it,” he said. “I’ve only filled in here once before.”

“Didn’t realize he was a Sox fan.”

“Isn’t everyone?”

DeVere grunted. “You have trouble getting parts for that?” he asked, indicating the Volvo.

“Naw,” the man said. “There’s a junkyard in upstate
New York
that has everything for old Volvos. It’s the newer ones where you can’t get parts. Not like the old days.”

DeVere turned back to the Arts section and began reading movie reviews. He checked his watch, and ordered more coffee. If he ate, Valerie would wonder why he wasn’t hungry when he got home. Telling her he had stopped at a coffee shop would be like telling her he had gone to a bar with Ginter. He didn’t want another fight, not tonight.

DeVere stayed at the coffee shop until dusk. Lewis had told him that near sunset, at the end of a long summer workday, the roadside eyes were at their weakest and their human monitors less attentive. At night the monitors would change shifts and be at their highest vigilance. Vodkaville boasted 24-hour vigilant surveillance, but Lewis had assured him that was to scare people.

“The technology they’ve got in those is Soviet junk,” Ginter had scoffed. “And the people are worse. It’s all just one big freaking sight deterrent.”

DeVere paid for his coffee with cash, walked outside without looking at the booths, got back in his Ford, and checked the tracking sensor again.
A slight beep, then nothing.
He’d asked Lewis if the trackers could somehow detect the sensor.

“Haven’t yet,” Lewis had told him.

“But could they?” deVere had pressed.

“If they can, I don’t know about it, and I know 99% of what they’re capable of,” Ginter had assured him.

DeVere often wondered about that other one percent.

He left it on for thirty seconds until he was confident he wasn’t being tracked. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove the final few miles through the main
square
of
Lexington
. As he passed by, he glanced–as he did every time-at the town green. The monument had long since been removed but no marker was necessary. It was here, 251 years earlier, that the town’s colonists had mustered on a cold April morning. He stared at the stately homes that lined the common and wondered how many of the current residents would ever do so.

Outside town he stayed on Route 2A along what had once been called “
Battle Road
.” It had long been renamed “
Hanscom Highway
” but to the locals it was still “
Battle Road
.” The British had marched along this stretch between
Lexington
and
Concord
in those early morning hours. It was back along this road that they had fled later that day, as gathering militia had pursued, attacked, and harassed their retreat after turning them at the
Concord
Bridge
.

The story held special significance. As a child he had often been teased about his name’s similarity to the midnight rider’s, and even as an adult, acquaintances would occasionally attempt a humorous crack, thinking themselves clever and their observation original.

In
Concord
, deVere turned right from the main square and headed toward the
North
Bridge
. If he were going home he would have turned left. He only hoped that at this time of the day anyone tracking him by camera would have long since lost interest. He reached over to the glove box and pulled out a worn eight-track tape and shoved it into the Phaser’s tape deck. Almost immediately the Mama Cass version of “Dream a Little Dream” burst from the dashboard speakers.

Whenever he visited the
Minuteman
Monument
at the bridge he felt compelled to play the ballad.
Silly, of course.
The version dated from the 1960s and had nothing to do with the American Revolution, but deVere always romanticized that it did.

Vodkaville had tried to remove The Minuteman too, of course. Three years ago. The stated rationale had been to preserve it in a museum. But on the day scheduled for its removal people from
Concord
and the surrounding towns had flocked to form a human shield. An editorial in the Globe had referred to the protesters as resurrected “fire-eaters,” and the term had since come to be applied generally to all anti-neo-Soviet activists. DeVere himself had heard about the happening while at home and had wanted to join but Valerie had discouraged him.

“Why?” she had asked. “Paul, think of your position at MIT. We can’t lose that.
And what about your daughter?
Have you thought about Grace?”

Reluctantly, Paul had stayed home.

Stars shining bright above you…

He turned left at the dirt entryway and coasted the short distance to the obelisk on the British side of the
Concord
Bridge
. When his parents had brought him and his brother to visit the battle site as children there had been a visitor’s lot across the street where the drycleaners and convenience store now stood. He sat looking across the bridge at the stoic figure of the 18
^th
century militiaman, musket ready at his side.

“There’s a star above you alright,” Paul whispered as he got out of his car.
The red Soviet star.
He grabbed the trowel he had brought with him but left the engine running and the driver’s door open.

Say nighty night and kiss me