It was to get away from these thoughts that Brome counted cars and trucks. Annoying, persistent thoughts that always ended in the idea that somebody had expected him to drop by Dr. Young’s that afternoon, when he, himself, went there following a sudden impulse. Actually, thoughts didn’t end there. They continued on to his subsequent visit to Whales, and he had to wonder whether that also hadn’t been planned by someone else. And that could mean his eventual return… Nonsense. He was going too far. Even after his suspicions regarding his sanity had been reduced significantly — although not eliminated all together — by Whales’s story, this was too much. In fact, it might have been that story, so far out there and fitting so well with his observations that night at the ruined house, what caused most of these mental wanderings. If you believed something like that, and he did, simply because he had been there when it happened, you naturally began to look for conspiracy signs in every spoonful of cereal. Brome shook his head. Stick to the facts, agent. Let’s just stick to the facts and leave paranoia for the CIA.
And yet, and yet…
There weren’t enough cars on the highway at three in the morning.
He thought of his little girl. She was sleeping when he got home, tiny pink soles of her feet sticking out from under the blanket she had kicked up. He sat on the edge of the bed, tucking in the blanket and smoothing it over for a long time. She didn’t wake up. Her ceiling was the night sky. In the corner above the window, crescent moon was trying to hook Venus. Milky Way sprinkled its dust through the middle. The Sky Ceiling didn’t come standard. It had cost him a good buck a couple of years earlier. He heard the new model was the sky that moved. Falling stars, wispy clouds and everything. Ridiculously pricey, but he was considering splurging for it. Annie loved to sleep under the stars.
Maybe after all this is over.
He kissed her forehead and went to the bedroom. There he changed out of his fed clothes, refastening the holster onto a black turtleneck sweater, then hiding it under a navy-blue cashmere coat. Grace didn’t wake up either. An ugly thought occurred to him that he should check if they came up with a newer model that wakes and strikes up a small conversation when you walk into the room in the middle of the night. His face turned crimson from shame. He bent and kissed her cheek and she moved in her sleep and made sounds.
“I’ll see you soon,” he whispered.
“Hmm,” she replied without waking.
Still disgusted with himself, he went down to the study and wrote a note:
I got an urgent assignment. Will be out of town for a couple of days. Go to Florida on Thursday instead. I will meet you both there as soon as I’m done.
Love, Oliver.
He hid the note in his pocket just in case and spent some time scrolling aimlessly through Internet pages. Then he woke up to find his phone ringing.
Now, as his “Chrysler” carried him silently through the first blizzard of winter, he wondered if he should have added “Don’t call the office.” Because Grace might do just that when she found the note. Or, on the other hand, she might not, but would if he had added the specific instruction not to. No matter. Either way it was out of his hands now. Even if she called the office, he hoped she trusted him enough to take the baby to Florida, regardless of what she found out.
He also hoped he would keep his promise.
From the car he sent a request to the FBI data base for the file on Dr. Coughlin. It took him a few minutes to sort through the entries and find the right one. He put it on audio playback and listened as more trucks appeared around him.
Dr. Coughlin’s file reported nothing unusual. Graduated from UIC in ‘04, PhD in ‘09. Stayed in the Midwest ever after. Married to his college sweetheart. Three children, two girls and one boy. All three presently married. Diabetes, cured in 2024. Works for Freedom Labs since 2011. Salary, 220000 dollars per year. Golf once a week. Drives BMW’s. Likes fishing, gardening and chess. DUI on Christmas, 2015, two parking tickets since. Catholic, republican.
Brome glanced at the pictures, arranged in the chronological order of receding hairline. Pale face, glasses, no cheeks, no smiles. He looked like a regular, non-mad scientist. Much more so than Dr. Young. With a sigh, Brome dismissed the file. He stared straight ahead through the blur of wipers that had just switched to maximum speed. The new Japanese models, he thought, don’t need wipers.
The road curved and the downtown rose in front of him, sudden and whole, like an iceberg floating east, too close to avoid. Thinking again of his daughter under the ceiling of unmoving night sky, Brome sped towards the iceberg’s eastern tip.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I called the fed around 2. Of course I called the fed. There was no one else to call. All my friends were in attendance. Took me that long only because I’d said I wouldn’t. So after I’d vomited, Paul and I spent an odd hour in the living room with our feet up. Paul in grim, concentrated silence; me in painful awareness of my own empty procrastination. I was an all-in poker player unable to reveal, or even to face, the bluff that had been called.
I was supposed to come up with a plan. It was the girl who meant something to me. So I tried and tried, and then pretended to continue trying for a long time. But with one gun and the seventh place in the in-campus BF5 tournament between us, Paul and I weren’t exactly the “Alpha” team. Going up there immediately and storming the place in the middle of the night had crossed my mind, but only as a means to end the whole ordeal quickly. I was ashamed, but still I was mute.
So around two o’clock Paul took the matters in his own hands.
“Just call the fed,” he said. And I did.
I dialed Dr. Coughlin’s number as soon as I hung up with agent Brome.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Mr. Whales.”
“Dr. Coughlin, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I haven’t slept.”
“Tell me how to get in.”
“First let me reiterate that the very idea is ludicrous…”
“I know, Doc. I know.”
“Well, as far as I see there are only two ways to get in: either in the trunk of my car, or over the electrified wall. Both of those ways get you on the property, but neither of them puts you inside the building. Security is pretty tight and I can’t very well carry you in my briefcase. That is to get in. As to getting out… I haven’t the slightest idea.”
I asked him a few serious questions — how many guards at the check-in, how tall is the wall and so on — before letting him go.
“Please sleep a few hours,” I told him. “We will make a decision and call you around six.”
“We?” he asked. “Who’s we? You and that friend of yours? I hope you understand I can only take one of you inside the trunk.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I hope he doesn’t have a stroke before then,” Paul remarked, when I disconnected. “Although he’d probably be better off for it. No matter the outcome, chances are the poor guy will hug the cold one in the end. Wonder why he’s helping you.”
“Seems people just like to help me,” I said with a pointed look at Paul. He grinned.
“Besides,” I added. “Me and you will likely hug the same cold one.”
“That’s the spirit,” Paul cheered. “Plan for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
“Maybe the fed will get us through this somehow,” I offered after a pause.
“Sure,” he agreed enthusiastically. I glanced at him.
“You think we should just make a run for it?”
“Not if you care about the girl.”
“How is it going to help her if I die?”