“It’s my job,” he went on, “to assure there are no major clusterfucks.”
“Just hang on a second.”
“What?”
“First off, Harlan Phillips is recovering from heart surgery and is in no condition to manage this situation.”
“The information I have is that he’s doing well.”
“He’s not doing well, he’s telling people he’s doing well. No one that age can bounce out of bed after bypass surgery. So you should not be going to him for anything. And second, I am fully capable of handling this post.”
“I’m sure you’re very capable,” he replied. If sarcasm was a precious commodity, he could’ve made a fortune off the yield from this comment.
“I have managed the crisis thus far, sir, and I will continue managing it until it has passed.”
“I have no doubt about that, but I don’t have time to argue with you.”
The boiling anger surging through her brain sparked a sudden realization—A big part of being a leader is knowing that you’re right and acting with conviction.
The general went on. “So, as I said, I’m going to call Harlan—”
“No,” Sarah said flatly.
“Pardon?”
“You’re not going to call Harlan Phillips, General. In fact,” she said calmly, “I’m texting him right now to tell him he is not to speak with you.”
“Are you crazy?”
“As you said before, time is precious, so I recommend you refocus on the situation as it stands rather than how you wished it stood.”
There was nothing but silence from the other end, and for an uneasy moment she thought Conover had hung up. Her imagination spun: the general would tell the governor that she was on a power trip and needed to be dethroned, which Kent would do in a heartbeat just to get the PR double shot of stepping in to save the day while cleaning more “political cancer” out of the state body. Her career would be finished, and she and Emilio would have to move to the other side of the country.
But Conover hadn’t gone anywhere, and now he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” He practically growled this.
“I hope so, too, General,” she said. “But one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I know this town better than you ever will. Looking at the preliminary evac plans your office sent, you need to listen to me very carefully before you’re the one who causes a major clusterfuck. Do you understand?”
There was another pause, and then, “Yes, ma’am.”
18
“What about that kid who works at the gas station?” Pete said from where he sat on the bed. He was making a list on a sheet from the pad on the refrigerator, “The one who moved here last year? I think his name is Chris? Chris Morris or something?”
Kate, seated on the opposite side, looked over her own list. Cary was folded up cross-legged at the foot of the bed with a small spiral-bound notebook in his lap, keeping busy.
“I don’t think I know him,” Kate said.
“He’s got kind of scraggly brown hair that comes down to his shoulders,” Pete said, tapping his own shoulders for emphasis. “Lots of acne. And he always wears a knit cap, even in the summer.”
Kate shook her head. “I just don’t know.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“Mark has lots of friends, being as social as he is. We know some, but not all. He doesn’t always bring them home for us to meet.”
“Yeah…” Pete said. “I guess it’s because we’re such awful people.” He looked at the cordless phone he was holding, then hit the redial button. He waited for a moment with it against his ear, then killed the call and tossed it down.
“Busy, of course. Thank God we pay the taxes we do so the lines of communication in this town can be clogged during an emergency.”
He let out a long sigh and got to his feet. The three of them were sequestered in the first-floor bedroom because it was centermost in the house, per Sarah Redmond’s instructions. Pete had sealed all the cracks and crannies he could find and was now awaiting word on the evacuation plan. He didn’t really believe there was any great risk in venturing through the rest of the house, and neither did Kate. Both had gone to the bathroom a few times, and Kate took a quick shower. They even allowed Cary to run up to his room to get a few things.
“I’m going to try the Clarkes again,” Pete said as he opened the door, checking his watch. Six hours since the explosion now — I wonder how that translates into quantities of escaped radioactivity… “Please keep trying the people on your lists, too, wouldja?”
“Sure,” Cary said, which earned a sincere “thanks, kiddo” from his dad and a smile from his mom.
Pete closed the door behind him and went to the room at the back of the house; the den with the little desk and the computer and the fireplace and the hideous plaid love seat. He checked the list and tried Randy Clarke’s cellphone again. Randy didn’t hang around with Mark as often as some of the others, but often enough to rate a call. He was a quiet kid, and nice enough. Pete specifically remembered him saying thank-you when a group of the boys were over one night and Pete ordered Chinese food for everyone.
Pete didn’t remember how Randy’s cell number had gotten into his contacts list, but he was glad he had it. It rang a few times — he felt grateful that the call went though at all, then disgusted at being grateful — before going to voice mail. Yeah, I’m not around right now, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Randy sounded dull, weary. Stoned, perhaps. But it was still a better message than some that Pete heard when Mark had his own phone on speaker.
“Hey, Randy, this is Mark’s dad again. I’m sorry to keep calling but we still haven’t located Mark. Please give a call back as soon as you can.”
He hit the END button and stared at his phone, which was slick with perspiration; no surprise, since he’d been holding it for over an hour. He scanned the list, checking the notes he’d made next to each name to see if there was anyone worth trying again. He and Kate were embarrassed by how many phone numbers they’d had to get from other people — Mark’s peers and their parents. It made them feel irresponsible and indifferent, made them think about all the times Mark went out the door, sullen and uncommunicative, without them asking where he was going. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, but neither of them wanted to deal with the scorching he’d give them over their “interrogating” him.
There were fourteen people on Pete’s list, and he had tried all of them at least twice already. Three kept going straight to voice mail. One rang and rang with no pickup of any kind, not even voice mail. Another turned out to be a wrong number; that one he only called once. The rest received multiple text messages. Although Pete managed to connect with a live human being five times, no one had any idea where Mark was. Given the uniformity of their answers, Pete couldn’t help but wonder if there was a cover-up going on. He hoped that no one would do such a thing under the circumstances, but he had no delusions about the binding power of friendship among rebellious youths when facing the Evil Parental Establishment.
His mind wandered from the list and went around the room. He was seeing beyond the boutique desk and the God-awful love seat and the brick-and-bluestone fireplace, browsing through the rich catalog of memories. It was here, in front of that fireplace with three large hunks of red oak blazing away, that he and a six-year-old Mark hooked up Mark’s first Xbox to the flat-screen television that used to be where the desk now stood. It was here that they would sit with a big bowl of popcorn and watch all the shows that Pete had always loved and Mark accepted without question, like M*A*S*H and The Odd Couple and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Mark had taken a particular shine to the latter, and for years the two of them would reenact the skits whenever the urge took them. And it was here that Pete worked with Mark night after night in years past to break down the mental barriers that were preventing him from grasping some of the more perilous concepts of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. The deterioration of their relationship had begun by then, but it wasn’t yet in an advanced state. In spite of the occasional shouting matches that broke out, Mark was still capable of issuing an apology followed by a Thanks for helping me out, Dad before either of them went to bed.