At first Cassie wondered whether this was because of Beth—because Leo was jealous, in other words. Their relationship had cooled since they left Buffalo, but Leo might still resent Dowd for moving in on his girlfriend. Which Dowd had done as quickly and gleefully as if she had been gift-wrapped and delivered by a generous providence.
But it was more likely the gear in the back of the van Leo was concerned about. Maybe because it had seemed so fragile and incomplete, considered as a weapon. Maybe because it was the only meaningful weapon they possessed.
The highway was one of the flagship federal turnpikes constructed under the Voorhis administration more than fifty years ago, wide and well-maintained. It crossed the desert like a dark ribbon, making silvered oases where hot air mirrored the sky.
After sunset they stopped at a public campground in Arizona. The December evening was cool—cold, now that the stars were out—but they built a fire in a stone-lined pit and roasted hot dogs they had bought at a convenience store outside Tucumcari. Dowd had supplied himself with a six-pack of beer, which he shared with Beth. He talked incessantly, but not about anything serious, and after a few beers he sang a couple of country-and-western songs and encouraged Beth to come in on the choruses. Then he put his arm over Beth’s shoulder and led her toward the canvas tent he had pitched. Beth spared one gloating look for Leo, who refused to meet her eyes.
Cassie made a bed for Thomas in the car: a sleeping bag on the backseat, windows open a crack to let in some air. Then she went to sit beside Leo, who stirred the embers of the dying fire. “Dowd’s an asshole,” she said.
Leo shrugged. “I guess he serves a purpose. My father trusted him. Up to a point, anyway.”
Dowd had expressed his belief that Leo’s father was still alive and that they would meet him somewhere in Mexico or farther south. That was the plan, anyway. The plan had been in place for a couple of years, a private arrangement between Dowd and Werner Beck, and Leo’s arrival had set it in motion.
Cassie tried to ignore the faint but unmistakable sounds of Dowd and Beth making love in Dowd’s tent. She hoped Leo couldn’t see her blushing. To make conversation, or at least a diverting noise, Cassie talked about her family—her original family, back before ’07, and the house they had lived in, what little she could remember of that ancient, fragile world. Leo seemed willing to listen. He even seemed interested. And when Cassie fell silent he stirred the ashes of the fire and said, “I lost my mom when I was five years old. A car accident. I survived, she didn’t. The thing is, I can’t even remember what she looked like. I mean, I’ve seen pictures. I remember the pictures. But her face, looking at me, those kind of memories? Not even in dreams.”
Cassie nodded and moved closer to him.
She shared Leo’s tent that night—chastely, but she was conscious of his long body beside her as he turned in his sleeping bag, the warmth and scent of him hovering under the canvas.
She thought about Beth’s defection to Dowd. It wasn’t really so surprising. Beth was a Society kid, and one thing that marked Society kids was a heightened sense of personal vulnerability. Maybe for that reason, Beth had always been drawn to guys who seemed powerful or protective. Which was how Leo must have seemed to her, back when he was boosting cars and hanging around with petty criminals. But Dowd was older, had traveled farther, was more persuasively dangerous.
Sometime after midnight Cassie snuck out to pee, squatting over the sand behind a mile marker. The highway was empty, the desert a vast silence. A quarter moon leaned into the shoulder of the western mountains. Mexico, she thought. Or somewhere farther south. A rendezvous with Leo’s father. And what then?
In the morning they crossed the Colorado River at Topock and pushed west, heading for what Dowd called a “mail drop” somewhere in Los Angeles. Strange how peaceful the desert seemed, Cassie thought. Something about the sunlight, the solemn authority of it. Then through Barstow, where they stopped at a roadside store and Thomas gawked at a terrarium populated by pea-green lizards, and across the San Gabriels into the Los Angeles basin, the distant city white with gneiss and marble. “Where they make movies,” Thomas said, and yes, Cassie said, Hollywood wasn’t far away, nor were the vast industrial plants that manufactured commercial aircraft, including the planes her little brother excitedly pointed out in the cloudless sky: six-prop passenger aircraft arriving or departing from Los Angeles International Airport, even a few of the new jetliners. The mail drop turned out to be a box-rental place in Vernon, and there was nothing to pick up but a set of export permits and cartage documents that covered the contents of the van—but that was okay, Dowd said; there would be other mail drops along the way, maybe with news from Leo’s father. From there they drove south past thriving farms and olive orchards, road signs not just in English but in Spanish and Japanese, enormous federal aqueducts that soared above the road, seasonal-workers’ housing complexes with stucco facades in rainbow colors. How much of this would survive, she wondered, if the machine in the back of Dowd’s van did what Dowd believed it would do? Because, like any other good and necessary act, destroying the hypercolony might have unintended consequences.
But she thought of her parents as she had last seen them. Murdered, though they were guilty of no crime but the possession of unauthorized knowledge. Her own life distorted, Thomas’s future in doubt… It wasn’t revenge she wanted (though she wanted that too: yes), it was justice. But justice would come at a price. Inevitably. And persons other than herself might be forced to pay it.
On the radio the local stations were playing villancicos: Christmas carols. Los peces en el río. Hoy en la tierra. Ahead, as the afternoon shadows lengthened, Dowd’s van began to slow. They were close to the border now, and they needed a place to stay for the night.
Back in his Kansas garage, Dowd had thrown open the rear doors of the dusty white van and smiled like an impresario. Cassie, peering into that windowless metallic enclosure, had seen what looked like a piece of hand-wired radio gear about the size of a shipping trunk. Leo said, “That’s it?”
“You don’t know what you’re looking at,” Dowd said. “I don’t understand it myself. But it was your daddy who delivered it to me. Your daddy did a lot for me. Bought this garage for me to work and live in. No charge, as long as I was willing to be a soldier when the time came. He delivered this piece of equipment just last summer. Keep it here, he says, and when you get the cue, take it and yourself down to Antofagasta for a meet-up. You showing up, that was the cue. Time to go.”
“All right,” Leo said dubiously. “What’s it do?”
“By itself it doesn’t do anything. It’s part of something bigger. You’re not the only soldier in the army, your daddy told me. Other folks’ll be coming with other kinds of gear. Pieces of a puzzle. Best if you don’t know anything about that. What you don’t know, you can’t tell. But it’s a weapon—part of a weapon. He was pretty clear about that.”
“Doesn’t look like a weapon.”
“I trust your daddy’s judgment,” Dowd said, smirking. “Don’t you?”
They rented two rooms in a Chula Vista motel where fan palms stood like liveried doormen between the swimming pool and the highway. Dowd and Beth took one room, Cassie and Leo and Thomas the other.
Thomas slept on a roll-out by the door. Cassie and Leo shared the double bed. Thomas was a heavy sleeper, fortunately, and Leo turned on the room’s radio at low volume to disguise any other sounds. Noche de paz…, some choir whispered. Todo duerme en derredor.
It was the first time they kissed. It was the first time Cassie touched Leo, the first time she allowed herself to be touched. An exploration, she thought. The exploration of Leo. His mouth tasted of cinnamon and smoke. His hands, she discovered, were generous and wise.