“Further, pursuant to the specific language of Section Nine of Article One of the United States Constitution, which states that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it, I am declaring that the actions taken against the United States, including what happened today in the nation’s capital, constitute acts of rebellion. I am therefore suspending the right of all such persons in rebellion against this nation to petition in any court for a writ of habeas corpus. I am requesting that Congress immediately enact legislation confirming this suspension.
“None of the people held in military custody as enemy combatants can run into court, seek out a liberal judge, and attempt to escape punishment. There will be no lawsuits and no lawyers. This is a military matter and it will be handled by the military as the military, and myself as commander in chief, determine to be in the best interest of the American people.”
President Quaid leaned forward and glared into the camera.
“Finally, this is far from the end. As I told you last night, our enemy holds weapons of mass destruction. We continue to search for these weapons. I promise we will find them. When we do, we will deal with the evil persons who threaten us from within our own borders with such cowardly weapons.”
The camera zoomed closely into the president’s face.
“We know who you are. You know that we know who you are. You cannot escape. We will capture you, as they used to say in the Old West, dead or alive. I don’t particularly care which. My fellow Americans. God bless the United States of America and all of her loyal citizens.”
Abram Goldhersh and Rueben watched the events unfold on a small TV in his bedroom, waiting for Sarah’s speech.
The other TV was shattered in the living room from the night before when Goldhersh smashed it in rage over the president’s address. Now he sat on the edge of his bed stunned, knowing he was responsible in part for an act of terror that set in motion the arrests of tens of thousands of American Jews. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He sobbed.
“Sarah. They’re taking my Sarah to a concentration camp,” the man wailed.
Shapiro, Sarah Goldberg and Judy Katz struggled to walk rather than run as they negotiated the ten blocks to the Renaissance Hotel to retrieve Shapiro’s car. The only tense moment was when they started to cross K Street but darted back to the sidewalk as a parade of Army trucks, led and trailed by a phalanx of Humvees, shot down the street, sirens blaring. Shapiro and Sarah ducked into a doorway. Katz stood on the sidewalk, frozen, staring at the Army trucks, unable to move.
They were afraid to go to the hotel room for their bags, concerned that since the room had been used as an office for march organizers, police might be waiting to nab anybody who showed up there. Shapiro’s heart pounded as he handed the hotel doorman the receipt for his car and asked for it to be brought to the front of the hotel. He hoped the five twenty-dollar bills he gave the doorman would smooth the process.
The two women were at a coffee shop a block from the hotel. Shapiro told them there was no sense risking all three of them getting arrested when he retrieved his car. The car arrived with no problems, however, earning the valet a further twenty-dollar tip. Shapiro stopped quickly in front of the coffee shop and picked up the two women. Judy Katz sat in the front, next to Shapiro. Sarah Goldberg sat in the back seat.
In a matter of minutes, they were on I-95 heading north toward Baltimore, riding in silence, hoping they were ahead of any roadblocks they expected would sprout on roads leaving the capital. Shapiro set the cruise control at nine miles an hour over the speed limit.
Sarah finally broke the silence.
“I don’t know how I can thank the two of you for getting me away from there,” she said. “Judy, if you hadn’t been so quick, and so persuasive, who knows where we would be now? Thank you so much.”
“No big deal,” Katz replied. “I was lucky my asshole of a boss couldn’t find time to meet last week to take my ID. If he had, we’d be heading for military detention right now, all three of us.”
The three sat silent, their minds swirling with paranoia. Katz imagined herself in a striped prison suit, her hair shaved off, stick thin, entering the shower building.
She startled Shapiro and Sarah with a scream. “Nana. Nana was supposed to be in Washington. They’ve taken my nana to a camp.”
The sky darkened as they crossed New Jersey and on into Connecticut. Shapiro broke the silence.
“I wonder whether the president was blowing smoke up our asses with that atom bomb talk,” he said. “It sure reminded me of another president who told fairy tales about weapons of mass destruction. I can’t believe Quaid had the balls to try the same thing.”
Sarah Goldberg remained silent throughout this exchange. Finally, she realized that these two people had saved her from being dragged to a concentration camp. They could be trusted.
“Actually, there may be some truth to what the president said,” she whispered, hardly believing that she was about to reveal the secret she’d learned only days earlier and sworn to protect.
Both Shapiro and Katz swiveled to look at the woman in the back seat. The car swerved and Shapiro turned back to look at the road.
The tension, fear and anxiety that had built in Sarah Goldberg throughout the day, anxiety first over what she would say when she walked up to the microphone to address half a million people, fear and tension from the events that prevented her from speaking, all let loose in a torrent of words as she spewed forth the story of her friend Debra Reuben, of Lt. Chaim Levi and his death, of the sailboat and, finally, of the atom bomb at the bottom of the swimming pool in her suburban Portland home.
The car was silent when the woman stopped speaking.
“Holy fucking shit,” was Shapiro’s first comment.
“Mega-dittos, Rush,” was all Katz could say as they drove on through the night, heading back to Massachusetts.
Maybe, Katz thought, there is an alternative to the shower building.
CHAPTER 58
Shapiro left the two women at Judy Katz’s apartment in Boston shortly before midnight. Sarah Goldberg would spend the night there, then take the first Downeaster train in the morning from Boston to Portland. She’d telephoned her husband from a pay phone at a McDonald’s in Hartford, Connecticut. Surprisingly, there was no answer at her home. She left a cryptic message assuring Abram she was safe and would be home the following morning.
Shapiro continued driving north of Boston, arriving at his house a little after midnight. He could hear the waves slapping at the dock at the end of the wooden walkway leading to the salt marsh behind the house. The full moon shining on the water brought to mind a memory of a magical high tide night when he and Sally paddled their kayaks over the flooded marsh while the full moon reflected off the water’s surface, blurring the line between sea and sky. They felt as if they were gliding through the air.
Shapiro drove down his dead-end street without noticing the dark Ford Crown Victoria parked under a tree blocking the nearest streetlamp. Two men sat in the car, taking turns napping and watching the rearview mirror.
Shapiro pulled into his driveway and was surprised to see a car parked there and a light on in the house.
The television was on in the family room, where he found his wife’s mother, Emily Spofford, sleeping on the couch. Shapiro turned off the set, then placed his hand on his mother-in-law’s shoulder and shook her. Her eyes opened. She yelped, startled.