“You were a piss-poor one.”
Howell gave a long, low sigh and sat on the side of the bed. “I told the directors I thought you were telling the truth. Finally they believed me when…”
“When what?” I leaned forward.
“I can’t discuss it.”
“You owe me.”
“No, we don’t owe you a thing,” Howell said. “You were too blind to see what was in front of you.”
“You know Lucy is guilty? Tell me.” Oh, God, confirmation of the impossible, that my wife was a traitor.
“Do you want your freedom back, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“Then shut up. Swallow down every question and don’t ask me about Lucy.” He cleared his throat. “We need to talk about your immediate future, though.”
I sat up slowly. “My future is I’m going to find my wife. And my child.”
“You are not. She remains a national security matter. As do you. You will do as you’re told.”
And I would, until I did what I wanted. I could play the game. I swallowed my questions. “My parents-”
“Your parents think you want nothing to do with them, Sam. Let’s keep it that way.”
I was silent. This was my shame. Normal people had normal relations with their parents. Mine weren’t quite normal, at least where I was concerned.
“Of course your parents were thoroughly investigated. They are a bit… unconventional.”
“Stay away from them.”
“Oh, that would be a loss for me. I find them charming; we like to sit in the garden and drink tea. I’ve visited with them several times. Special Projects Branch at the Company bought the house next to theirs in New Orleans; I’m their manufacturing-representative neighbor who travels a great deal. We’ve had their house bugged for months, tapped their phones, watched them. Just in case their pregnant daughter-in-law contacted them or they attempted to make inquiries about you. But only silence. Since they didn’t hear from you at Christmas, they are a bit worried that the gulf between you cannot be bridged.” He shrugged. “Don’t take it hard. We sometimes don’t like the people we love.” He told me this like he was handing me a gift.
“My parents-just leave them alone.”
“Then do as I say and the surveillance, the investigation of them, will end.” He raised his hands, palms toward me. “I don’t want to involve your parents. They’re fine people, Sam.”
I was being bribed. Fine. I would protect my parents. “Deal.” I cleared my throat.
“It’s your lucky day. You were never technically fired. You are still under Company command. You have been assigned to my group. I am your boss.”
I wanted to say I resign, but: “Then let me help you look for her.”
Howell raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want your job with us, Sam?”
“Yes.” It was the first rational lie I’d told in months. I didn’t count any lies I had screamed during the waterboarding. Apparently none of my false information worked out for the Company.
“Then here are your orders. You stay put here in New York. There is an account at a bank that has been opened in your name, with a sizeable initial deposit. Enough to live on, although I suggest you find work. If only to keep your mind and hands occupied.”
“Work. But you said-”
“You remain on our payroll. But your clearances are gone, Sam. So find a job to keep you busy. One that requires no travel and is not demanding.”
“I can’t sit still. Not with my family in trouble.”
Howell rode right over that speed bump. “You want to help find Lucy? Then do what you’re told. Sit tight. Get a job. A simple one.”
“I’ve only ever worked for the Company. I started straight out of college.”
“You tended bar in college, though. Pour beers, mix martinis. The jobs are easy to find.” He shrugged. As though all my training, all my field experience in Company work meant nothing.
I steadied my voice. I was caught between rage and knowing that if I throttled Howell I’d be back in the cell. Slowly, unbound now, I got off the bed. Howell steadied me. I felt woozy from the drugs, from inactivity. “I cannot put this more plainly. I am going to find my wife. My child.”
“You are going to follow orders, or you will regret it, Mr. Capra.”
“You can’t keep me-”
“If you break parole you will be back in prison, facing charges ranging from money laundering to treason. Any proof of your innocence will be eliminated and you will be prosecuted.” It was a nasty bit of leverage. Anger colored his voice and I shut up so I could hear the deal.
The rest of my life hinged on what he offered.
“You hunker down, you don’t let yourself get bored, and you don’t go to the press, you don’t go to your friends in the Company-not that you have any left. Not everyone knows that your name has been cleared. You let us look for Lucy and you don’t get in our way.”
“So what am I now? Worthless?”
For the first time I saw in that horrible flinch in his eyes what I had never seen in the past months: pity. “How are you worth anything to us, Sam? You either knew she was a traitor, and did nothing, which makes you pure evil in the Company’s eyes; or you didn’t know she was a traitor. And that makes you a pure fool.”
I looked at him and then I looked at the spotless tile floor. We were back to his original question to me. After all my pain.
“You’ll recuperate here, gain your strength before we send you out into the world. You lost a bit too much weight,” Howell said. “Let’s go see what clothes we have to fit you. Then I’ll take you downstairs.” He got up and opened the cold beer for me. He handed me the icy bottle. “We’ve made all your favorites. Spicy corn soup, salad with blue cheese, roast beef with horseradish, mashed potatoes, asparagus, key lime pie, coffee. Doesn’t that dinner sound good?”
My mouth watered, to my shame. I hoped the food would taste like ashes. “It sounds like a last supper.”
Now Howell risked another very slight smile. “Just do as we ask.”
“And forgive the months you made me suffer?”
“Let’s all just pretend it didn’t happen.”
“It didn’t happen? God.”
They needed me out in the world. Why?
“There are clothes for you in the closet. I’ll ask the nurse to get you all disconnected, if you like, and I’ll let you get dressed.”
I started to pull off the medical sensor glued to my chest.
“I do have one question for you, Sam,” he said.
I left the sensors alone. “What?”
“ Novem Soles.” He said the words so softly I wasn’t sure I heard.
“What?”
“Have you heard that term before?”
“ Novem Soles? Sounds Latin. Novem is ‘nine,’ what is Soles?”
“Suns. Nine suns. Did Lucy ever use those words with you, ever mention them?”
This wasn’t a casual question. I stopped and I considered. He watched me. “No. What does it mean?” It sounded silly. But the Company gave computer-selected codes to every job, operation, or project, and this sounded like one of those code names. Nine suns? It meant nothing to me.
He studied me, and I wondered if the sensors on my chest were being monitored to see if I was lying. Howell smiled. “It means let’s go eat that good dinner.”
He went to the door and the nurse came in. She removed the catheter and the sensors and put the IV on a trolley. She helped me into a robe. I was weak and now starving, and I shuddered at the thought of accepting these bastards’ kindnesses. Food on a plate. Edible food, not the slop they’d given me. I’d eat it. I needed my strength.
I stood up from the bed. Howell offered a steadying arm and I shook it away. Fine, I would take their food and their clothes and their false solicitude and I would get back on my feet. But I had no illusions. I was not Howell’s friend, or someone that he wanted to help, who might ever get his life or his job back. His words it didn’t happen rankled in my ear.
They hadn’t found Lucy in these long months, or the man with the question-mark scar. So they still needed me. Howell and his superiors had found something called Novem Soles, whatever that was, and they thought putting me back out in the real world might lead them to it.