The Cause (7 page)

“Who was the target?”

“A Russian oligarch. I’ll refrain from giving him a name—let’s just call him Mr. X.”

“Why knock him off?”

“He was very influential, with a significant share of world oil output. He was beginning to buy up banks and get involved in various financial schemes at the time.”

“Why was he living in Geneva?”

“Like any smart oligarch at the time, he minimized his time in Russia. There were political risks, and who could tell when the Kremlin would seize back assets once again as they did when the Soviet Union broke up.”

I was caught in the web of his story. I wanted to ask more
questions, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to risk him becoming reticent so I simply listened.

“As I got more adept at timing, my intersections with Mr. X became more frequent. I was able to get within eyesight several times a week and make a pass-by within a kill radius about once every two weeks. At that time, I didn’t even carry the injection. I knew it was too soon. After some months, the guards stopped waving me off, as they had the habit of knowing I wasn’t stopping. Their eyes stuck with me, but more importantly, they didn’t want to be rude and shove me out of the road. What would they have looked like then? Would they have left a bad impression on the boss bullying an old man who was mentally unstable? It wasn’t in their psychology to push me out of their way, but they were still cautious when I got too close.

“Then one day, Mr. X didn’t come to work. Nor the next day. Or the day after that. Every day, I woke up and walked my usual route, as devout as a Muslim to morning prayers. The Company was slow getting back to me, but it turned out he went back to Russia. No one knew for how long. So I kept walking, keeping my routine. One morning during this hiatus, the doorman to Mr. X’s office building glanced at me as I passed, and he said, “Maestro, what are you playing for us today?” He was a well-fed, red-faced Pole by the name of George Bernard, short and fat with rolling jowls. He continued this sort of behavior. It was just something to amuse himself. I would pay him no heed, my myopic gaze staring directly at the ground three paces in front of me while making absurd faces at the gallery of invisible clarinets, sometimes waving them to enter during
The Magic Flute
. George Bernard never got the benefit of the doubt as I did. Mr. X’s guards would simply push him out of the way, where I was afforded a little bit of real estate.”

“How long did you keep it up for?”

“Mr. X left for nearly two years. When he did, I was four years into the job.”

“So you continued the routine?”

“Yes. Although I was acting, I can tell you I was absorbed under the spell of my character. When I went wandering into the streets with my beige beret and cigarillo stuck between my lips—my wrinkled suit and scruffy trousers—I felt that every passing day I gravitated slowly into the hapless Mr. X with an uncontrollable compulsion. That man is still part of me today.”

“How many hours a day were you on the street?”

“Two hours twenty-three minutes was the time it took me to do a route. I did one in the morning and one in the evening. The evening route I skipped Mr. X’s office building entirely.”

“What did you do with the other hours of the day?”

“I studied. I did research. As I said, my station chief essentially left me there to rot until it was done. Many in the agency thought it was pointless. Then the Russian came back, and the deed suddenly became more urgent.”

“Why?”

“It was purely personal. I woke up one day with the notion I might be able to change things. I felt a great need to return to the U.S. after my discoveries.”

“What discoveries?”

“The rampant corruption going on. Evidence I discovered in Mr. X’s office led me to inspect UBS’s offices. I found insurmountable evidence of Libor manipulation, Federal Reserve documents giving policy away before it was released publicly. But that is another story.”

I did not press him. It was apparent he wished to finish the present story so I said, “So how did it end?”

“The Russian had been back for several months. Still, the opportunity did not present itself, although now I carried the injection. The injection was a poison, a strychnine-leopard’s bane blend inside a miniature hypodermic needle that would take its time killing him. Then one autumn day when the sun was slight and the weather blustery, the opportunity presented itself. As the
car door opened and he was in the midst of stepping out and being surrounded by his security, the Polish doorman, Mr. Bernard, cried out and fell over, crumpling to the ground. All eyes shifted to him, and this was all I needed—a moment of diversion, a moment of confusion. I turned my shoulder sideways slipping through a guard, feigned tripping over another, and fell into the path of the Russian. I came down partially on him, grabbing at his ankles in a mock fall. Twisting his ankle simultaneously, I shoved the tiny needle through his sock deep into the skin beneath his lower calf. It was done within a tenth of a second. The move I had practiced thousands of times. His guards were on me in a flash, yanking me from the Russian and throwing me away from him. I responded by feigning rage and commenced to wave my hands in the air brutally conducting as I moved forward. It was out of this expectation, this natural sense of how I should have reacted, my predictability as the character whose identity I forged, that they let me simply move on. If they would have been thorough and would have searched me, they would have not found anything. But if between the time I was released and the time I veered off my normal course over the gutter and toward the other side of the street—if they would have pried open my mouth—they would have found the tiny needle that would kill the Russian. But they did not, because they did not think of the unthinkable. It would have been an insult to their egos to think otherwise.”

“So Bernard?” I asked. “He didn’t just fall, did he?”

Within the darkness, I pictured Seee with a slight surreptitious smile as I finished the question. A lurid shape on the invisible face that was more than just a storied voice with soft enunciation and a quasi-illustrious tone. “No,” Seee said. “Bernard went down because of a series of tiny razor blades stuck in his shoes. When triggered, they ejected upright into his feet. But that is another story.”

“And so security didn’t check him?”

“Perhaps they did. I don’t know. What I do know was that there was a search, but for The Conductor, it was his last performance.”

“So when you went back to the U.S. what did you do?”

“I searched for those who might believe.”

“Believe in what?”

“In what the notion of real patriotism means.”

“And how exactly would you define that?” I asked.

“A country is not just a name or ideas written in a constitution from the antiquated past. It is the sum of the beliefs of its constituents. The wave of change happens through them. Government power can only be expressed as well as they can control the degree of that change.”

I paused thinking about this.

“You do not agree?” he asked.

“I do,” I said finally. “But you are here, aren’t you?”

“I am,” he said. “Here training patriots. Here training people who are willing to die for their country. I consider it a serious occupation, and this you do not want to doubt. For me, it’s the best one can hope for in these uncertain times.”

“And there’s nothing more to it?”

He stood, and I heard him step toward the cell door, snorting. “Politics,” he said. “Elephants and Donkeys and the talking-head demagogues of the press. What could go wrong?” Then he took on a more serious air to his tone. “There’s a lot more to it obviously. We’re just scratching the skin in this place. So why don’t you step outside and start itching?”

Left to worm my way through the dark corridor, I used the pocked concrete wall to feel toward the iron door. Finding a tubular handle, I turned the knob and entered a boxed-in hallway. Another closed door in front of me flickered with a needle of light escaping through a keyhole, and my eyes lit up with excitement. In the box of darkness between prison and day, the world opened up, its presence a meager few yards away. I wondered what the day would hold behind the closed door. My nose sensed the humidity in the air. My skin contrasted the stickiness of it to the coolness of the underground. I sniffed the heat, sensing the boil of greenery and heavy pollens in the air. Ears once again filled with stridulating cicadas and the voluminous sound of buzzing flies.

Slowly, I cracked open the second door, and a pool of light burst inside. Then I crept into the world of the living, shielding my eyes with my right arm. I used my left hand to feel along the wall. Finally, my fingers bumped into an iron ladder leading out of the underground tunnel. I tried opening my eyes to climb up the ladder, but the stinging daylight forced them closed. Squinting, I grabbed the rungs of the ladder and climbed into the world of weapon and war, a heart intent on once again being part of it.

After thirty minutes of sitting in a clump of grass listening to the incessant buzzing of a swarm of flies, the forest slowly unrobed itself. My eyes awoke under the booming sun. A sweep of green from the forest bush appeared. Then, through a slat of thin trees standing like spires, slowly a human form sitting on a tortoise-sized rock came into focus, the familiar nine-inch Bowie
with the duct-taped handle reflecting spears of the sun. My vision cleared further in acceptance of this new birth, and I found myself twenty yards from the edge of the clearing. There I had stood rigid in line. Now, here again, my eyes gazed upon the stubborn foot stepping out of line for Seee’s challenge, saw time rusting away while my comrades moved forward.

As I walked into the clearing, the buzzing of flies grew louder. In the middle, high up on a stake, neck sunk in deeply, the head of a person appeared, unrecognizable at first because of the mass of flies all over it. I picked up a dead branch and swatted away the swarm. The stench of rotting flesh caught in my throat. I swatted again and again because the black swarm buzzed away only momentarily, but up there I saw the head of Bunker, black eyes rolling back in their sockets, a bloated tongue bubbling out of his mouth, flies and maggots all over it. My friend Bunker—his head kebabed on a skewer.

I circled the encampment, eyes fixed on the centerpiece. Kumo whittled another stick with the gleaming Bowie, glaring at me as I walked by. There was a frog with yellow and black-spotted leopard-skin at his feet laid out flat, arms and legs elongated and broken, but the creature was still alive, its tiny lungs inflating its hapless body.

“Look at you,” Kumo said, fletching the stick. “You’ve thinned out.”

“I’m on a diet.”

He snorted out a laugh while attaching an iron arrowhead to the tip of the shaft and tying it with a piece of twine.

“You’re a funny man,” he said.

I circled Bunker’s blackened head once more while Kumo finished the arrow. Then he rubbed the arrowhead over the skin of the frog and sheathed it in a quiver lying behind the rock where a bow had been laid out. “You seem dazed. Shall I push you in a direction?”

“Why would you do that?”

“The course you’re on is leading you nowhere.”

With his knife, Kumo stabbed into a basket of leaves, slid one into his mouth from the blade of the Bowie, wadded it up and sucked on it close to his gums. I looked back at Bunker. The mass of flies ate away at his head again, a moveable black veil over the decaying skin. A string of them attached like pearls to liquescent flesh melting off the neck.

“So what about Bunker’s head up here, Kumo?” I raised my voice while pointing to the swirling mass of flies bubbling around the head.

He scoffed at the question. “From a slice of paper, the world folds over into a Mobius strip. An ant travels along it. But only the ant who feels gravity knows which side he’s on.”

“You think I have no gravity?” I asked.

“You seem to be orbiting, where in contrast, I know where I sit. The stone feels my weight.”

I stopped circling and stared fiercely at the man. “He was a friend of mine. What did he do to deserve this?”

Silence from Kumo. The mid-morning sun slid higher into the sky. I thought about the deceit of the darkness. My internal clock told me it was late afternoon.

“You will perhaps tell me what happened?” I asked.

“It isn’t my place to do so.”

“Why not? You can’t speak for yourself?”

Silence again.

“He was a friend. A friend deserves more respect than this.” I stepped toward the stake.

“If you touch what is not yours to touch, you act with dishonor,” he said, finally breaking his silence.

I moved closer to the stake, ignoring him. The swarm formed a cloud around me, buzzing incessantly, trying to burrow deep into my ears. Kumo whistled—a birdlike call made with an arching tongue. I swatted away the flies and turned to see Kumo’s bow drawn, stretching with tension, the arrow close to
his cheek between two fingers. His right bicep flexed while the left arm remained rigid and taut. Then I saw a streak and only afterward I saw his finger had let go. The arrow sailed by my head, a soft swishing sound as it flew by. Before I could blink, he had another one loaded. I stepped closer to him, out of the circle of flies.

“It will not be a pleasant death,” he said. “And with this one, I wouldn’t bet on a miss.”

My eyes turned cold. Gazing over to the woods where my Lazarus-self had just been resurrected, I retreated a step. “You would kill me for honoring a friend?”

“You will learn your place here, or die.”

I watched his fingers curling around the arrow, mounted in the shooting position against the bowstring.

“I don’t need permission to kill you.”

“Seriously, you would put an arrow in me for that?” I retorted.

“You have not learned our ways.”

The sound of rustling bush under heavy footsteps came, and Briana burst through the trees and sped past us, turning her head only briefly. Both of us paused a second. We heard more footsteps approach. Seee ran through the trees breathing heavily, but then came to a stop seeing us. Others, lathered in sweat with crimson cheeks, followed at his heels. The group arrived in quick succession, bare-chested, garbed in running shoes and sucking wind.

“What is the meaning of this?” Seee asked, regarding us.

“He wants to take down the head,” Kumo said.

Seee glanced at me harshly. “The head stays. It is a warning for those whose egos are too large.”

The men remained motionless, gazing at me with blank expressions, as if Seee’s words were sacred. “Is it too much to ask to respect the dead?” The men’s faces shifted from apathy to callous scowls. My castigation felt like banishment, as if my return had torn the familiar fabric of the camp. I glanced at Brock
and Split, and in their severe faces I saw clearly that I was the apogee of the circle of friends, usurped for another authority.

“Can’t we all just get along?” one of Seee’s men called out with a comedic twang to his tone. A few snickers popped out of the group. For an instant, a look of exasperation appeared in Seee’s eyes before he said, “Merrill, enough.” But the tone contradicted the statement and seemed to be a license for what was probably habitual truancy with rank and order. Merrill, with the lopsided grin, seemed to be above the law.

“Respecting the dead requires asking the same question of the living,” Seee replied. “If you want to plead your case, plead it with Uriah. He has the final word. It is he who owns the mouth of the insolent.”

The slumped-over, wretched man panted for breath. Plodding through the forest to the finish, he had been the last man to arrive. He bent over gasping for air like a drowning man unable or unwilling to speak. Uriah—the weak and wheezing Elephant Man who seemed to almost make a joke of the place. I remembered his words to Bunker the day I was thrown in the hole,
You’ll be the first one I make an example of
. Could this be the man who had lopped off Tomray Bunker’s head? Seee read my expression, walked up to me, pressed his thumb into my shoulder. “Never underestimate the power of will,” he said. “This lesson I hope you’ve already learned.”

The day drifted by and the opportunity to speak with any of my comrades passed. Merrill showed me around the camp. We walked up to an area he called “out-of-bounds,” saying it was mined. Then we hiked another mile and came upon a small, isolated farm. Here stood a stable; wandering farm animals; grazing horses. An older, graying man came out of a small cabin. I asked if this was the guy who ran the place.

“We all take our turns,” Merrill said.

“So this guy’s part of the training?”

“No, but he’s part of the camp.”

We hiked back the way we came, through a cluster of bamboo trees and back into the jungle.

“So you take a good punch,” Merrill said.

“My idea wasn’t to show off those talents.”

He laughed. “For the one stepping forward, it’s a sad day without that talent.”

“So what about you? How’d you get here?”

He stopped and smiled at me coyly. “Slow down, woman. This is our first date. I don’t put out on the first date.” Then he laughed out loud again and continued walking.

We continued for a bit. “Kumo doesn’t seem like he’s taken to me.”

“He thinks you’re bad news.”

“Why does he think that? What have I done?”

“Are you bad news?” Merrill said eyeing me. I looked over at him, but before I could reply, he said, “Let me give you a piece of advice. We might seem isolated out here, but we actually know quite a bit.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“In time, you’ll see.”

As dusk fell and the sky swept the dying day away with a swirl of pink and orange clouds, I walked into the dilapidated plywood shack buried in the woods with trees smashing out of its roof, later known as the Tree House. Conroy and Burns were alone, huddled in a corner speaking in whispers. The place was cleared out. Even Mir’s centerfolds on the wall had been stripped. Conroy and Burns saw me and broke apart. Conroy smiled, walking up to me with his hand extended, saying, “Good to see you. Most people thought you were dead.”

The kindest greeting I had received from the dregs of the day, I accepted Conroy’s hand, shook it, and asked, “Where are the others? They look like they’ve abandoned this place.”

“They have,” Conroy said. “No mosquito netting here. Everyone’s set up either tents, or tarpaulin and hammocks. Most
guys are camping a bit north of here. Split, Brock, and Mir are a ways northeast. Me and Burnsy and a few others are a bit south.”

Burns had a shaky look to him, and a long neck that made his eyes seem wide as coins. He had a scrubby forehead, oily hair and a stubbly face, pale lips that quivered, an overactive tongue moistening them as they twitched. Conroy was more inviting compared to the stewed-up Burns. He had smooth, green eyes, the type to put one at ease.

Unable to hold my curiosity I asked, “So what happened to Bunker?”

Conroy shook his head as if still in disbelief. Before he could answer, Burns cut in. “He challenged Uriah.”

“What kind of challenge?”

Conroy said, “I wasn’t there to see it, but some words were exchanged. Bunker had been riding him, taunting him. Then he slipped into ass-kicking talk.”

“Seee overheard,” Burns said. “Challenged Bunker to step up and make a real challenge.”

“After more mouth from Bunker, the next thing we know they’re out there in The Pit.”

“The Pit?”

“A bit west of here,” Conroy said. “A big swimming pool-sized hole dug out where two people jump in, but only one comes out.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Burns said. “He chopped off Bunker’s head in about two seconds.”

“Swords?” I asked.

“Bunker had a shield as well,” Conroy said. “Uriah—just a samurai sword. It was over before it started. Uriah knew what he was doing. That much was clear.”

“Bunker was the one who charged,” Burns explained. “But Uriah somehow sidestepped him. When Bunker turned, the shield was only up to his neck, and then…well, after it was over, Seee jumped in The Pit and lifted his head high-in-the-sky and
says, ‘The mouths that talk too much do so without bodies.’ So that’s about the highlight. Some guys shipped out after that.”

“Who?”

“Kasim, O’Donnell, Rigby, Sharaf, Edwards, and Chloe Manning,” Conroy said.

So the pack had thinned, I thought. Kasim and Edwards weren’t a surprise. Nor Rigby, after he was flattened by Kumo’s stone. I thought Chloe would have stuck it out for Bunny though. Now Briana was on her own. Burns remained silent, eyes following a dragonfly darting around the room.

“Any idea why each of them decided to bail?”

“Kasim and Edwards were dismissed,” Conroy said. “O’Donnell and Rigby left on their own accord. Chloe…well…she just wasn’t made for this shit.”

“Don’t you find any of this strange?”

“How so?” Conroy asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m still trying to put my finger on it.”

“I’m still trying to figure out the purpose of any of this,” Conroy said with a laugh. “Have you seen the TV yet?”

“No.”

“They’re dragging it out at night. Beaming out NSA Director Titus Montgomery clips. It’s not a perfect image, but you can tell it’s him. It’s causing quite a stir with the camp.”

“Why?”

“General Montgomery is a piece of work,” Burns said. “Talking about internment camps and juicing instigators and shit like that.”

“This is top-secret shit,” Conroy said, his eyes flashing. “A man’s got to ask himself, how are we allowed to be watching this? And furthermore, who gave them clearance to access it?”

“If it’s there, why shouldn’t we watch?” I asked. “Are we afraid of the truth?”

“I don’t think any of us are. But as you’re saying, something feels wrong about it, about everything here.”