I ran around the side of a two-car garage, ducked down for a moment between an air conditioning unit and a stand of silverberry bushes. My heart pounded as I tried to harness my breath. In vain. In vain. It was growing darker by the second, I could see that. The sun was plunging toward the earth, unassailably falling, melting like a blister of butter on the distant horizon.
The sirens kept wailing.
I wrapped myself up in my arms. I tried to make a present of myself. I held my sides, I rocked and I rocked, back and forth, and I wept. I covered my hands, cracked and covered in blood. Murderer hands, they bore the blood I’d discharged in small ovoid droplets — some almost perfectly round — as I shot my wife twice in the chest.
Bang, bang!
I remembered.
I cupped my hands in my stomach, folded them over as if they were birds.
What makes me who I am? What is the shape and flavor of my being? Is Man the sum of his collective organs, a bag of blood, a stand of bones?
Is that it?
Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore, I am. I feel. I dream, I yearn for some authentic fiction, distilled down to the essence of its being.
Who is the scribbler, who the scribbled? I write the story that is you. All of this. “It’s for you, John,” I said aloud. “Just so you know how it started. Who I am. The man I thought I could be.”
There was a noise to my left and I flung myself to the dirt. But it proved to be nothing. It wasn’t the blond man. The man with the white sweater and shorts. My shadow. No matter where I run, no matter how far, the blond man is always behind me.
I rolled back to my spot behind the silverberry bushes. I got up on my knees and stole a quick peek through the shrubbery. The noise had just been another air conditioning unit starting up across the way. I held my breath. I closed my eyes and pressed my palms against my temples. Three, two, one, and I was in…
I work for the cyber division of a large multinational military, oil and construction concern called Premise, an ADS company. I integrate and analyze data streams from disparate digital sources, IC data and private industry datamarts too. Everything, John. You know what I’m talking about. I stitch it together.
They said it was in the name of national security. That’s what they told us. We thought we were defending our country. Scenario planning. Play-acting for peace. But it wasn’t that simple. I found out. I stumbled upon it this morning. I finally uncovered the proof I was looking for when this text window popped up on my screen. Just like that. It was him. The Chairman of Premise. The founder himself.
“What are you doing?” he IMd me. “You don’t have clearance to access these files.”
I made some pathetic excuse, that I’d trespassed by accident, and he seemed to believe me. I think he was genuinely surprised that anyone even knew they existed.
The data we were stitching together. It wasn’t to identify terrorists, John. We were making… He had us creating… And she knew. She was spying for him the whole time.
I came home early today. I came home to be sure. And when I was certain, I took out my gun and I shot her, two times, in the chest. The woman I thought was my wife.
My hands. My hands, they were shaking, they trembled, splattered with blood. Her blood.
I curled them up into fists. I curled them up and I punched the air conditioning unit beside me. I kept punching the metal until my knuckles were bloody and raw.
I feel. I can feel!
Then, I stopped.
Someone was coming.
I could see a figure enter the yard from the other side of the property. The stranger’s face was hard to discern through the shrubbery. Without waiting to get a better look, I took off round the air conditioning unit, past the silverberry bushes, ran as fast as I possibly could.
But the stranger ran faster. Soon, he was gaining on me. He was right on my heels.
When I just couldn’t take it any longer, in frustration, I turned and I faced my pursuer. But as I swiveled about, as I stopped, stood my ground, it turned out not to be the blond man with the white sweater and shorts.
Instead, it was a dark, Middle Eastern-looking young man. Quite small, really. In his twenties.
“My name is Ibrahim,” he said, out of breath. His eyes were hawk-like, relentless. He sported a scraggly black beard. “Ibrahim Barzani. If you want to live, follow me.”
CHAPTER 31
The next morning, Decker and Lulu woke up — face to face — and Decker turned over immediately, cupping one hand over himself to avoid any contact between Lulu and his throbbing erection.
Later, during breakfast in the B&B dining room, they chatted about going back to D.C. Decker was anxious to check on his daughter. Now that they’d talked with the local police chief, both he and Lulu were convinced Zimmerman had died accidentally. This trip north had been a complete waste of time, Decker said. He had but one choice now, grim as it was, and that was to turn himself in.
As their waitress came over to take their order, Lulu’s phone started ringing. The call was restricted but she clicked on it anyway. It was the mysterious Mr. X once again. Lulu handed Decker the phone.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Mr. X said. “I don’t have much time. I’ve learned a few things. As I suspected, Zimmerman’s death was no accident.” He sounded out of breath, as if he’d been running.
“That’s not how it looks to us.”
“Look closer. Check his house.”
“Look, Mr… X. We have neither the time, nor the inclination to—”
“Check his house, John! Look closer. I’ve got to get out of here. It’s not safe for me here any longer. He’s on to me. On to you too. If you want to reach me, go to Amazon. Look for new reviews of your book, John—The Wave. You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.”
“Who’s on to you? What are you talking about? Who’s on to us?”
“My life and your lives. They’re in danger.” Then he added, “And don’t order the scrapple, John. You know what it does to your stomach.” The phone died in his hands.
Decker handed the phone back to Lulu. He looked about the dining room, checking each patron, one after the other. “Turn it off, Lulu,” he said. “And take out the battery. They can track us as long it’s charged.”
“We’re not going home, are we?”
Decker picked up the menu again. “Not just yet.”
CHAPTER 32
Lulu rummaged about through her “bag of tricks,” as Decker had taken to calling her blue TWA tote. She finally found what she was looking for — some kind of electronic device. Moments later, she had ripped out a panel by the front door of Zimmerman’s house, connected the device to some dangling wires with a pair of alligator clips, and deactivated the burglar alarm. Then, using a tension wrench and a half diamond pick, she began picking the lock.
“Are you sure you’re doing that right?” he inquired.
Lulu looked up with disgust. “As my grandmother always says, ‘Do I come to your job and slap the dick out of your mouth?’”