“I want you all to know,” he continued, his voice booming, his medals swinging. “I believe the rumors to be unfounded. We’re going to continue on course and go after failed enfolds as mandated. Until I see Rake’s body for myself, I’m going to operate as if he’s still alive. And if I say he’s alive, he’s alive.”
* * *
Out in the hall, after the meeting, Ambrose approached Singleton. “Come with me. I’ve got some information for you.”
They went into the bathroom. The sinks were dripping and the toilet valves gargled. The bathroom had inlaid tiles and fixtures that seemed absurdly out of keeping with the rest of the building.
Ambrose put a briefcase on the edge of the sink and began unbelting it.
“I’ve got the information you asked for,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for information.”
“You don’t know you asked for this, but you did, if you know what I mean. I’m a trainee like you, so I know you’d ask me for this if you knew I had it. I mean, if you knew what I know, you’d want to know.”
Ambrose bent down to peer under the doors of the stalls. “You go in that one,” he whispered. “And I’ll go in that one, and I’ll pass it under to you and you look at it and then give it back,” he whispered.
“Are you kidding?” Singleton said.
“No funny business,” Ambrose said. “I’ll save the funny business for another day.”
Ambrose’s voice rose slightly into a sweet register and Singleton had another flash: a young man, dressed in a billowing white shirt and high-waisted pants, lounging on a bench in Central Park, posed for a photo on the back of a book, a book he had read just after treatment, on the back porch of his apartment.
“Are you the guy who wrote the book?”
“Yeah, I’m that guy. I’m the one who wrote the book Kennedy had on his bedside table around the time he was shot the first time. Now let’s get back to business. Go in that stall and I’ll go in the other and when the coast is clear you’ll see why I made you come in here.”
“Jesus, just give it to me.”
“Get in the stall,” he said.
In the stall there was the kind of shit smell you could taste, the kind that stayed with you forever — beyond microbial, some residual cosmic aftermath emanating from deep space.
A dainty hand curled up under the partition. It clutched and opened and then disappeared again.
“You OK over there?” Singleton said.
“Shush, we have to make sure the coast is clear.”
“If you say that again it’s not going to be clear. We’ve been in here for about five minutes.”
The file was taupe-colored, with the TOP SECRET stamp. It was coded TERMINATED. It had the blue label of an operation report.
“Open it, look, and give it right back while I do my business,” Ambrose whispered.
“Christ,” Singleton said.
He opened the file and read the report quickly. The target, Rake (a.k.a. name unknown. Speculation as to Ron Martin), had been located (see photo) dead in Mackinaw City.
“Where’d you get this?” Singleton whispered.
“When you work in Terminations, you tend to have access to termination files, my friend. That’s Rake.”
Clipped to the upper-right-hand corner of the top document — the case outline — was a small photo, taken in a photo booth somewhere. The face was thin and reminded Singleton of Vincent Price, a Vandyke beard and beady eyes and a ten-thousand-mile gaze. It was a face to go with the stench. This was a guy who maintained the same expression day after day, until his very skin conformed to it. Deeper in the file was a larger photo with a termination stamp, smeared slightly, and a note scrawled on the back: target Rake (Ron Martin), see note on dog tag located; body discovered in Mackinaw City, Michigan.
“Hand it back,” Ambrose said. “Got to get back to the post-briefing. Just wanted you to see this,” he said.
“Hold on,” Singleton said. He stared at the photograph and began to skim the report — body positioned against a tree … Suicidal ideation … Near Ft. Michilimackinac … Terminated case …
Someone came into the bathroom — a throat clearing, the heel-toe click of dress shoes. The hand flashed under the wall of the stall and Singleton gently put the report in it. He heard Ambrose close the briefcase and flush the toilet. He heard Ambrose leave his stall.
“Hello, sir,” Ambrose said.
“You didn’t have anything to add at the meeting?” Klein said. “I didn’t expect someone from Terminations to contribute, but you might want to think — and this is advice, son, man to man, about making a pretense of giving a shit. When I mentioned that Rake wasn’t terminated, you could’ve at least given your two cents, argued your case, or given me a nod. That’s my advice, man to man.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
* * *
In the lobby she was waiting, silent and alone, by the revolving door. The lobby was full of energy, more movement than usual. He fought the urge to grab her hand, but he risked a nod and a look that said: Follow me, you’re not going to believe what I have to say. When the moment was right, he’d give her the news. As far as the Corps was concerned, they were tracking a dead man. The face in the file, at least the one clipped to the file, and the face in his unfolding flashbacks were the same, a perfect match with a memory from a dream.
Outside, in the blunt, brutal light of day, her face looked pale and frightened. She wanted to get to her father as fast as possible, to get him and get out of town. They made their way past a police barricade — the cops nodding them through checkpoints.
“It’s time to get out of here, Sing. Time to get to my father and head north.”
“We’ll be AWOL, we’ll be in deep shit.”
“This is deep shit,” she said. She had his hand and was pulling him down the street. There was smoke to the east where fire trucks dodged sniper fire and the police and the National Guard were taking control-march formation. The lower part of the state had been fueling up with riot potential for months: one spark, everyone had been whispering, one single spark was all it would take. Even Klein had mentioned it weeks ago — he thought, getting behind the wheel — saying something about Franz Ferdinand, an alignment of forces set to explode. Maybe we don’t have a man like Franz Ferdinand, but we’ve got Kennedy. He was standing at the window, staring out. It’s going to explode when the president explodes, he added. But our job here is not to pay attention to the external political or social factors but to keep our eye on the certain targets.
CONG
Vietcong put heads on sticks, cutting them not neat and guillotine-style but in a way that leaves the necks shaggy, Rake was saying. He was at the kitchen table and MomMom was cooking and there was a claustrophobia that seemed to come from the smell of the frying food and his intensity, his fists balled, his eyes shifting from Meg to Hank and then to Haze and then to Meg and Hank again as they tried not to listen, to remain calm. They sat across from him at the table, hands folded in their laps, listening as he explained how he and Haze had taken out an entire picnic, done the head-on-stick thing. He asked them to imagine four or five kids playing in the grass away from the picnic blanket, away from the parents. Then he asked them to imagine the folks with a thermos bottle, a wicker basket — people who should know better than to let their kids run with butterfly nets, people who have suspended their fear for the sake of hope.