“Go on,” Wilson told her.
Irina turned. She was weeping again but she began to climb down. Burke was right behind her.
Wilson watched them descend from the tower, and begin running. Burke was practically dragging Irina, though Wilson could see that he was in pain. Irina kept her eyes turned toward the tower all the while. And then the two figures were gone, lost amid the trees.
The phone rang, and Wilson picked it up. A voice shouted at him over the thwop thwop thwop of a helicopter’s rotors: “I’m losing patience!”
“You’ll be lucky if that’s all you lose,” Wilson told him.
“What?! Let me explain something to you,” the voice screamed. “You got one chance to walk out of that house alive. Either you come out, now – or I’m taking you out! Which way do you want it?”
Wilson nearly laughed. The uncertainties he’d felt a minute earlier were gone now, replaced with an unfamiliar clarity and calm. He was not going back to prison. He’d rather die. And would. Soon.
He could escape, of course – for a little while, anyway. He could lose himself in the trees, then make his way into the mountains. Like Geronimo. He could hide for a while, moving from place to place, scavenging food and shelter. But what was the point? Better to die like a man than live like a dog.
And it was, as they say, a good day to die – the right day to die. The solstice.
“Wilson!” The FBI agent’s voice crackled over the phone.
“I’m thinking…”
In fact, he’d made up his mind. But he had to get their attention before they turned their guns on the house and burned it to the ground. Irina would need the house. He could tell that she was going to love it here.
Grabbing the Ingram, he went to the window and smashed the glass. Without even bothering to aim, he fired a long burst in the direction of the helicopter – and then another. And another. The chopper swayed, jerked upwards, and turned toward the lookout tower.
Wilson laid the submachine gun on the floor. Straightening to his full height, he stripped to the waist, revealing the ghost shirt that was his flesh – the crudely etched crescent moon and dragonfly, the stars and birds, and the words in Paiute:
Through the broken window, he saw the helicopter bearing down on the tower. Slowly, he began to dance, singing a song without words.
Running through the trees, Burke and Irina stumbled over the rocky ground, heading toward the hot springs. They were almost there when a burst of submachine-gun fire shattered the morning air. The volley of shots was answered a moment later by the distant thwop of the helicopter, growing louder and more urgent.
My God, Burke thought. He’s drawing them to the tower. Irina was sobbing. Burke expected to hear a fusillade of gunfire, but what he heard instead was a zipper of noise, a sort of whoosh, followed by a blaze of light and a shock wave that threw the two of them to the ground.
Irina quaked in terror as a second explosion, and then a third, shook the trees around them. Looking up, they saw a pillar of black smoke churning into the sky. The tower was gone.
Irina screamed.
Burke grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the hot springs. “Wait for me,” he told her and, getting to his feet, ran toward the caves. It took him a minute to find the one Wilson had told him about.
It was dark and damp, and he moved gingerly into the blackness, feeling his way with his hand on the wall, sliding his feet across the floor. When his right foot found the edge of something, he gave the laptop a little toss. And listened.
There was no sound. And then, just as Wilson promised, he heard a splash.
Returning the way he’d come, he called out to Irina. But, of course, she wasn’t there. She was on her way back to the tower, Burke thought, or to what was left of it. Looking for love. Or what was left of it.
It was something they had in common.
EPILOGUE
Burke sat at a table outside the Giraffe Cafe, sipping strong, hot coffee. He was girding himself for a long day at the ministry, getting the necessary permissions for a convoy carrying food and medical supplies to southern Sudan. Dealing with the bureaucracy was like taking apart a set of matryoshka dolls. You had to keep going until you reached the innermost bureaucrat, whose magic stamp would provide passage through the checkpoints.
Ordinarily, he spent most of his time in remote villages or refugee camps, so he was enjoying the bustle of the city, the chance to pick up his mail, make phone calls, and read the papers.
He’d talked with Tommy the night before. “Business is grand,” the old man reported. “Maybe too good. Any chance of you coming back?”
Burke laughed.
“So when d’you come for a visit?”
Burke said he wasn’t sure.
“Just like Katie. She’d never say.” Another pause, and then: “Jay-sus, I almost forgot! Here’s a bit o’ news’ll make you laugh. I got this off Billy Earnshaw – who’s a mate of that Garda fella.”
“Doherty?” Burke asked.
“The very man!”
“So, what’s up?”
“Remember that shite, Kovalenko? You won’t believe it, but they’re givin’ the bleedin’ eejit a medal! For meritorious service!”
“You’re kiddin’ me.”
“I couldn’t make it up, Michael. That’s a great country you’ve got!”
Most of his mail consisted of bills and junk, but he did have one real letter – in a lavender envelope. It was from Irina.
After the “event,” Burke had stayed on in Nevada for a few days, more or less holding her hand, while keeping Kovalenko at bay.
He’d driven her to Fallon and introduced her to Mandy. The two of them got along like a house on fire, and Mandy took her under her wing. They organized a memorial service for Wilson, which was well attended by high school and college friends, a couple of teachers, and a tribal rep from Pyramid Lake. Eli Salzberg and Jill Apple made the trip from their respective coasts.
It was Mandy who got Irina a lawyer. The government was making noises about seizing Wilson’s assets as “ill-gotten gains.” But Wilson had been clever in covering his tracks, at least in so far as the money was concerned, and with the lawyer’s help, his widow got to keep it all. She wrote:
Six members of my family, are joining me at the ranch. And we have plans! Uncle Viktor takes me to visit the tribal council in Pyramid Lake. We learn that 1847 treaty grants land of B-Lazy-B to tribe, then later, government takes land back, and sells it to religious people. Now, we find way to return this land to tribe. Then I think we open Internet gambling site with B-Lazy-B as home base! First one in U.S., I think. Very excitement! Money for tribe, money for us. And here is other thing – big big news – I am having baby! Soon. Little girl! Please to tell me you will be godfather!
I am thanking you always for your help to me.
Much kisses, Irina.
After he left the cafe, Burke spent the rest of the day at the ministry, shuffling from official to official to get the proper permits. Although traveling with the convoy was by far the most dangerous part of his work – you never knew when a kid at a checkpoint would go nova – it was the days at the ministry that he disliked the most. Each bureaucrat required an investment of time, a kind of tolclass="underline" three hours for this stamp, two hours for that, eight hours for a laissez-passer.
Once on the road, if you happened to pick a route that passed through ground temporarily held by rebel forces, these hard-won documents were not just worthless but incriminating.