“The technology they’ve got in those is Soviet junk,” Ginter had scoffed. “And the people are worse. It’s all just one big freaking sight deterrent.”
DeVere paid for his coffee with cash, walked outside without looking at the booths, got back in his Ford, and checked the tracking sensor again. A slight beep, then nothing. He’d asked Lewis if the trackers could somehow detect the sensor.
“Haven’t yet,” Lewis had told him.
“But could they?” deVere had pressed.
“If they can, I don’t know about it, and I know 99% of what they’re capable of,” Ginter had assured him.
DeVere often wondered about that other one percent.
He left it on for thirty seconds until he was confident he wasn’t being tracked. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove the final few miles through the main square of Lexington. As he passed by, he glanced—as he did every time—at the town green. The monument had long since been removed but no marker was necessary. It was here, 251 years earlier, that the town’s colonists had mustered on a cold April morning. He stared at the stately homes that lined the common and wondered how many of the current residents would ever do so.
Outside town he stayed on Route 2A along what had once been called “Battle Road.” It had long been renamed “Hanscom Highway” but to the locals it was still “Battle Road.” The British had marched along this stretch between Lexington and Concord in those early morning hours. It was back along this road that they had fled later that day, as gathering militia had pursued, attacked, and harassed their retreat after turning them at the Concord Bridge.
The story held special significance. As a child he had often been teased about his name’s similarity to the midnight rider’s, and even as an adult, acquaintances would occasionally attempt a humorous crack, thinking themselves clever and their observation original.
In Concord, deVere turned right from the main square and headed toward the North Bridge. If he were going home he would have turned left. He only hoped that at this time of the day anyone tracking him by camera would have long since lost interest. He reached over to the glove box and pulled out a worn eight-track tape and shoved it into the Phaser’s tape deck. Almost immediately the Mama Cass version of “Dream a Little Dream” burst from the dashboard speakers.
Whenever he visited the Minuteman Monument at the bridge he felt compelled to play the ballad. Silly, of course. The version dated from the 1960s and had nothing to do with the American Revolution, but deVere always romanticized that it did.
Vodkaville had tried to remove The Minuteman too, of course. Three years ago. The stated rationale had been to preserve it in a museum. But on the day scheduled for its removal people from Concord and the surrounding towns had flocked to form a human shield. An editorial in the Globe had referred to the protesters as resurrected “fire-eaters,” and the term had since come to be applied generally to all anti-neo-Soviet activists. DeVere himself had heard about the happening while at home and had wanted to join but Valerie had discouraged him.
“Why?” she had asked. “Paul, think of your position at MIT. We can’t lose that. And what about your daughter? Have you thought about Grace?”
Reluctantly, Paul had stayed home.
He turned left at the dirt entryway and coasted the short distance to the obelisk on the British side of the Concord Bridge. When his parents had brought him and his brother to visit the battle site as children there had been a visitor’s lot across the street where the drycleaners and convenience store now stood. He sat looking across the bridge at the stoic figure of the 18th century militiaman, musket ready at his side.
“There’s a star above you alright,” Paul whispered as he got out of his car. The red Soviet star. He grabbed the trowel he had brought with him but left the engine running and the driver’s door open.
We do miss you, he thought as he walked past the obelisk and crossed the bridge. And you were blue, all right. You had your blue uniforms at Saratoga and Brandywine and, of course, at Yorktown. And we do dream of you. At least, I do.
From behind him he heard Mama Cass belt, “Stars fading but I linger on dear…” Maybe the Soviet star was going to fade. Maybe he, Paul deVere…
At the far side of the bridge he turned right and stepped down to the edge of the retaining wall above the river. He crouched down, shielded by the bridge from the road. Lewis Ginter had chosen the spot himself in a moment of whimsy.
“It should be there, about three inches below the ground, right at the corner. After all,” Ginter had added to Paul, “the first American killed by the British in the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, was an African-American. And you know that idiot, Major Pitcairn, who gave the order for the British to open fire at Lexington? The first shot of the Revolution? Well, he was killed at Bunker Hill by Peter Salem, another African-American. So I feel good about this locale. Besides,” he had added with a chuckle, “it’s on your way home anyway so if it fails hey, no big deal.”
Paul had grimaced but, as usual, had not argued. He shoved a crushed beer can aside. Teenagers drinking again, he thought as he glanced around to make sure he was alone. Satisfied, he used the trowel to scrape away the soil where the retaining wall met the bridge. There, three inches below the surface, as Lewis had predicted, was the canister. Paul turned it over once before opening it. The shiny chronometer inside read: Three hundred ninety-two days, six hours, fourteen minutes and twenty-seven… eight… nine seconds. He snapped it shut.
“It works,” he said aloud. “Beautiful God, it works.”
Chapter 2
The next day at MIT, Paul passed Lewis Ginter’s office. Lewis’ door was open, his back to the corridor. He was talking on the telephone in low tones—probably to a woman he had either slept with last night or hoped to tonight. Paul wondered what she looked like.
That was worrisome. Lewis was single and still handsome for mid-40s, with the same waist and chest he’d had as a high school football player. If the Central Agency brass in Vodkaville wanted to compromise Lewis all they’d need would be a half-attractive agent.
Paul leaned in. “I got that report. It was as you expected.”
Lewis didn’t turn around, but he stopped talking in mid-sentence. Paul thought that his friend hadn’t heard him clearly and was about to repeat himself when Lewis raised a hand and waved his acknowledgment. As Paul continued down the hall he wished he could have seen Lewis’ face. He had known better than to telephone when he had gotten home the previous evening.
In the lab he cordially greeted Natasha Nikitin, the department’s new government-assigned intern. He had to constantly remind himself to treat her normally, as if he didn’t suspect her.
“Good morning, Miss Nikitin,” deVere said.
“Good morning, Dr. deVere. You look chipper.”
She learned a new word, Paul thought. She was constantly trying out new words. She spoke excellent English, all graduates of the Central Agency language school did, and they all had the same peculiar accent. It was one way to tell who was CA.
“Oh, thank you. How’s everything?”
“Fine.”
“Oh Miss Nikitin, can you check the cyclotron? I’ll be needing it in half an hour.”