The Book (15 page)

At the end, he couldn’t nail it down to a specific chapter or page and was left with a disturbingly new feeling. As he changed into his work clothes, he felt an overwhelming surety that the story he had just finished wasn’t controlled by anyone. It gave him a sense of strength and freedom that he had never before experienced and had not expected. A euphoric feeling that lasted the short drive to work. Never in his life had Holden felt so simultaneously frightened, that at any corner he could be taken by some government agent, and at the same time feel as if no one could control him. As if he were boundless on a calm sea.

Yearning to return to Winston’s home to discuss the book, Holden fought the urge to call-in sick to work and peeked at his duffle bag. He had been too frightened to leave the book at home, so he carefully wrapped it in a change of clothes and laid it delicately in his bag beside his lunch. It was a terrible risk, but it was one he had to take. If his landlord discovered the novel in his apartment, Holden would find himself in the same sinking boat as Marion. As long as he had a genuine book in his possession, it would have to stay on him.

The small parking lot beside General Fire Protection was unusually full, with several black Lincoln Town Cars crowding the loading dock. It was odd to find anyone else there in the morning because their first task was always loading up their vans with precut pipe and parts. Holden brushed it off, glad that no one had parked in his space. He turned the keys and dropped them into the grime-coated cup holder, reached for his duffle bag with satisfaction and closed the door to find Shane walking in a sprint toward his van, looking absurdly frightened. Before Holden could even question his appearance or wonder why his friend had been waiting for his arrival, one word escaped Shane’s lips. A single word that chilled Holden’s bones to the marrow, freezing and killing every fractured fragment of freedom he had just been experiencing.

“
Run
.”

Holden stepped back unexpectedly and bumped his shoulder into the large side-view mirror. With a pinched whisper, he responded, “What?”

Shane’s eyes were wide with an unspoken terror. “Run,” he breathed, with far more emphasis. “There are people here looking for you. They were here when I showed up, talking to Numbskull.” He swallowed. His eyes darted feverishly to his right. “Government, I think. I don’t know what you did, man. But you gotta get outta here. They’ve been asking a lot of questions about you and Marion. How ever you got involved in her burning down the bar…don’t say a word. I don’t like the look of this.”

Holden glanced back at the Lincoln Town Cars blocking the dock and said, “It’s too late. Forget it. What I need for you to do right now is take this bag.” Shane tried to protest, but Holden stopped him by shoving the duffle bag into his arms. “Take this. Don’t ask any questions. Don’t open it. Pretend it’s yours. I need you to do this for me. If you don’t, then…you may never see me again.”

“Yeah…fine. Okay.”

As the drooping duffle bag with the controversial book was transferred between best friends, the side door to General Fire Protection opened with a squeal of dented metal and three men walked out into the tender swath of rain. All three had short, blond hair cropped along the sides of their head, delicately outlining their ears. Their green eyes were the same shade as their matching, striped ties. They were striking to behold. Not just in looks. It was in the seamless integration of their movement – as if they were some sort of animatronic robots seeking out terrorists for the government. Holden could not begin to imagine just how much they knew. He thought all his tracks had been covered, so there must have been another reason. The best solution he could invent, in the flickering milliseconds, was to play dumb. He laughed absently at Shane, scratched his buzzed head and strutted toward the door, carefree. He almost made it.

“Whoa,” he responded in mock surprise. “Shane, you hear that? I’m gonna be published! Nice try, fellas. I got work to do and you can tell Numbskull to cut the crap. My book never left the ‘idea’ stage. My hero’s a sprinkler fitter for Pete’s sake.”

One of them flashed a badge so quickly that Holden was beginning to think they actually
were
robots. A different man stepped forward and spoke, with a blunt, mechanical impatience. “We assume, like most people, you have an honorable reputation here at your job that you would prefer to uphold. Please do not force us to make this...” he paused to choose the last word carefully, “…dishonorable.”

Holden blithely tossed his arms up. “Well, I don’t know what this is about, but you gotta do whatcha gotta do, right? Everyone’s got a boss. I hope you talked to mine, ‘cause I’m not gonna get in trouble here.” In their silence, Holden felt a deepness of disparity. Although he needed to be assured, he wouldn’t dare consider turning to look back at Shane in fear that they would notice. If they grew curious and searched through that duffle bag, he was as good as recycled. Whatever that meant.

Holden followed them toward the idling town cars with a singular string of hope pulling him closer. The truth was, these men had come to his workplace. It must have meant that they didn’t know everything. It had to. If they had known everything, they could have easily come to his home that morning to collect him. It must have meant that they didn’t know everything. Repeating that phrase to himself was the only thing that gave Holden strength enough to slip into the back seat of the car and not stare desperately out the tinted windows as they drove away without speaking a word.

His gut reaction to the entire scenario was typical: take out the guy in the back seat any way he could, then take out the driver and get out of town faster than Harry’s ghost can say “Cubs win.” He ignored his gut and chose instead to keep up the pretense of a stereotypical meat-head, water monkey that only cared about money, sports, food, women and sleep (and in that order) as he nestled comfortably into the perfectly detailed rear seat of the town car toward wherever they were taking him.

Most of the silent drive was crowded with stress, helped along by the two black Lincolns that bookended his own. To break the tension, Holden told a dirty joke from Shane’s file of the filthiest, in attempt to see the reaction it would bring to one of the androidian Agents. As he expected, the man didn’t react. Rather, he remained cold and emotionless, bolted to his seat. Stationary in standby mode.

The Lincoln Town Cars parked ironically in the immeasurably empty lot beside Lincoln Park. In perfect unison, the Agents emptied from the dark automobiles and unfurled their darker umbrellas. The rain was falling harder again, full and intense, and Holden waited for one of the men to open the door for him. They didn’t. They stood outside in the rain without talking, waiting for Holden to leave the car himself. He felt awkward and unsure of what was happening, but was certain he had to keep up the pretense that he had done nothing wrong in order to get out of that situation alive. He opened the car door and stepped bravely into the falling rain, realizing that none of the surrounding Agents would be handing him an umbrella, and cracked a curious smirk. The rain didn’t faze him. He was used to working in rough conditions. But as he was led into the Lincoln Park Zoo, Holden understood how intimidating this would be for someone who was unaccustomed to weathering a downpour. He stole a glance over his shoulder to see that two of the Agents were staying behind to keep an eye on things.

As they approached the empty zoo that remained open to the public despite the rain, Holden imagined some secret headquarters below the shallow, recreational pond where the plastic swan pedal boats swam empty, unaware of the hidden control center. The zoo had a haunting, unoccupied feeling and Holden continued to follow, as if they were trespassing on a day when nuclear testing was being done on the animals. The bomb dropped when he noticed the single umbrella at the bottom of a short hill and the man that was standing in front of the zebra habitat. He recognized the man instantly from the article he had read on the train only days before. The man, staring lazily at the two zebras below a green umbrella, was the head of a new division of Homeland Security. Historic Homeland Preservation and Restoration, from what Holden could remember. He recalled the man’s name just as easily. It was memorable.

As Holden squinted through the rain and approached Martin Trust, he noticed that the director’s face was distant and preoccupied. Without looking at the four agents that had delivered Holden, Trust nodded and the robotic men retracted one hundred feet to a four-pronged perimeter. Without a clue of what was happening, and disturbed by the fact that no one was speaking, Holden turned to look at the zebras. They huddled from the rain under an outcropping of manufactured rock and he watched as their legs stumbled in the clumping mud.

He couldn’t run. Holden accepted that gem of a detail the moment the men, who were clearly working for more than one government Agency, had pulled him from work. It was obvious that he was in it, now. And deep. Why else would he be chaperoned to the zoo for a surreptitious meeting in the rain? Waiting in the irreducible silence, Holden understood that he was in more danger than he could imagine.

“I enjoy the zoo,” the director began with odd authenticity. Holden didn’t know at all how to respond. He nodded and hoped his sentiment could remain unspoken. After an unyielding minute passed, he knew he was playing a silent game of chicken. One of them would blink first and something told Holden to stay quiet. It took another full minute for Martin Trust to break the silence.

“I know you,” the man said, turning delicately in Holden’s direction without allowing their eyes to meet, “Do you know me?”

All Holden could do, all he knew to do, was play dumb. “Yeah, man. Your picture was in the paper the other day. You’re like…with the government or something. Didn’t read it. I’m not political. Anyway…what am I doing here?” he laughed, “I got bills to pay, bro. Gotta get back to work.” Holden prayed his dull-witted impersonation of Shane would not read as fake as it felt during the delivery.

The man pursed his lips and nodded very slowly, so slowly that it seemed as if his head wasn’t moving. Instead of answering, he stepped closer to the railing of the habitat below. “Do you know what I love about these zebras, Mister Clifford?”

Holden shrugged. “Their stripes?”

The man breathed a laugh before continuing. “I’ve been brought here for the weekend to handle the terrorism on the Sears Tower and I have visited this zoo many times. What I noticed, as the weather shifted, was how the zebras, these majestic animals, interacted with one another and with the people who watched them. When it began to rain and people left the zoo and they were alone, they changed. They
changed
, Mister Clifford. They were thinking.”

Holden stepped closer to the concave environment that, while completely fabricated and built to make the animals feel comfortable, only appeared false and manufactured from his perspective. The two animals were huddled beside one another, neck to neck, in an effort to stay warm in the driest corner.

“I guess I never knew zebras did that.”

“I don’t pretend to affix this trait on the species; rather, it’s just a feeling. While I’m here, when a lot of people are around and they are being watched, they seem to enjoy life. To enjoy being…zebras. And yet, on a day like today, when no one is in the park and it’s raining and they have to cower into the corner for shelter, I look beyond their eyes and I can see more. Today, they are looking at me and looking at you and they see our freedom. They look at their fences. They remember that they don’t want to be fenced. Like the color of their stripes, life is very black and white today. They want to be free and are, at this very moment, contemplating how they can be so. But that will change.” As he continued, the tenor in his voice harmonized with the chorus of the falling rain. “When all the people come back with the sun, the caged animals forget their troubled time and will, once again, enjoy being zebras.” Trust paused to step closer to the railing, reticent in his cold and studying gaze. His voice was a heated whisper. “But I fight to believe it. Because I wonder, for a moment, if they are only playing at appearances, hoping that the zookeeper doesn’t become suspicious of them. Because what they are doing, what they are
actually
doing is biding their time. They are memorizing traffic patterns, learning the system and developing a plan so that when the rain returns…and no one is watching…they can escape. But Mister Clifford,” the director broke, keeping his eyes hidden as he reached out to grip the cold railing. “You and I both know that the zebras aren’t going to escape. It doesn’t matter how much they scheme. Captivity is as much a part of their life as the cold water that won’t stop falling.” He shook the railing so vigorously that his wedding ring rattled the glistening metal. Holden glanced down at the noise and saw that the nail on the man’s pointer finger had been sharpened to a fine spear. This elected official, despite appearances, was a reader.

“Well,” Holden began, hoping to break the tension. “They just look cold to me.”

The director nodded and spoke in a dry, omnipotent tone. “Walk with me.”

Holden blinked in the rain as it poured a continuous shower onto his face. He wanted to wipe the excess away, but he felt that the pointless action would read as weak. An announcement that he wasn’t able to handle the pressure of the moment. If he wanted to get through this alive, Holden knew he had to keep up the pretense that he was doing just fine and simply wanted to get back to work. Walking steadily beside the director, he wondered if his choice to not clear the moistness from his cheeks was his final act of freedom. The thought gave Holden a little joy as he weathered the storm.