By the time Suzanne had made it back home that morning, Mary was already cold. A hollow-eyed doctor at the hospital looked at Suzanne like she’d lost her mind while she begged him to come with her.
“Are you nuts?” he’d said.
“No. I’ll give you anything. A car, money, whatever. Please help us. This woman is going to die.”
“She’s already dead,” the young doctor in green scrubs stained with blood said. “I’ve got to go.” And he’d turned and left Suzanne in the hallway of the hospital, one crammed with sick and dying people and the stench of corruption and death. “I’m sorry,” the doctor said as he pushed Suzanne away with a lack of bedside manner he’d had to practice over the last month.
The doctor had been right; by the time Suzanne got home, Mary was dead.
Suzanne chaffed at her inability to control and contain the violence and death around her, and she felt burdened by her responsibility to her friends, her child, and herself in the face of this hopelessness. She struggled to put on a smile and brave face, yet the weight pushed down on her and made her want to sink to her knees. It was too much to bear alone, and even though she knew her friends were fighting to survive, struggling to cope, Suzanne felt the burden was more upon her.
When there was a question about food or water, everyone looked at her. When she insisted that they dispose of corpses, Bart, Ginnie, and Bobby acted like resentful employees. They wanted to postpone it, but there could be no procrastination, and they should have known that. There is no putting off the moving of a dead body outside your door, inside your home. It must be done, and someone has to do it, and if it’s just you, then you do it.
Bart abandoned the projects he’d been working on and became obsessed with attackers. He constructed a miniature fortress on the roof, made of concrete blocks and palm-fronds and plywood, and he started spending nights up there. During the day, he’d walk the perimeter, shirtless, wearing flip-flops or boat shoes, with the AR in his hands, a knife strapped to his belt, and at least one sidearm on his hip or thigh.
They needed security, along with food, water, and hope. Bart was on overwatch with an assault rifle, and he neglected everything else, leaving it to Suzanne.
When Bart told her they were being watched, she dismissed it as paranoia at first.
“There are at least two teams,” Bart said. “Across the canal, there are two operators, and they’ve been in four different houses on different days. The same guys, different places, tourist clothes, never seeming to look our way, but they’re the same guys, and the homes are vacant, or should be. And the water guy? The guy selling water from a cart? Nope. He’s not an entrepreneur. There’s a corn-fed man with a beard always somewhere thirty yards behind him. The thing is, the guy with the beard has changed his clothes and his hair. But it’s the same guy, I promise you.”
“I’m listening. What are they doing?”
“Watching. The better question is why.” “The hell if I know.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bart,” Suzanne said in a dismissive, exasperated tone she realized she’d been using too often of late, “Why would—”
“Right. Now, look, Suzanne, I know what Henry did. Does. He’s black ops, and we can stop pretending now. I’ve known all along. Henry and I are friends. Brothers. There’s some shit you can’t talk about and some that you pretend you didn’t talk about, and that’s how it is. Some vodka and some rum, and then you know things, stuff maybe you didn’t want to know. So, yeah, I’ve known about that, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out there’s a connection now, in light of the civil war and whatnot, and these spooks watching us. There’s a thing, and I know that much, I just don’t know why. But we’re being watched by professionals, your husband is some kind of a spook, there is a war happening outside your front door, and you know more than you’re saying. Now’s the time. Spill it.”
“You’re right.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say those words. Go.”
“My father told me some things. Said he’d done some favors for some powerful people. Bad people, maybe that’s what he said. I should’ve told you, but I didn’t want to believe it, not like it mattered. I should have said something, but I didn’t want to besmirch—”
“What the hell?”
“I didn’t want to stain things. Life. I didn’t want to say the words. Because they hurt too much. That my father is a traitor, and his choices are still screwing me over. I didn’t want to say the truth. I didn’t want to speak it because then it might be right, and I’ve been dealing with everything else and I’m sorry.”
Because sometimes you can know a thing is true and still lie to yourself. She’d done it, and denied it, perhaps an even worse sort of lie. Lies are easy at first. It’s later that they come back to betray you. Lies we tell ourselves with the best of intentions are the ones which wreak the worst havoc.
“The admiral is a traitor? Your father? What the hell?”
“He admitted he’d done some things he shouldn’t have. He warned me I was in danger. He wanted me to leave the country with him. I couldn’t go with him. I just couldn’t. When Henry comes home, he’ll come home. I couldn’t abandon you and Mary—”
“You could have told me about this! Suzanne! What were you thinking?”
“I’m sorry.”
“They’re watching us for a reason, Suzanne. These kinds of people don’t do that unless they’re planning something. We’ve got to leave. Lose them.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“I don’t care! That’s the right move now. Don’t you get it? If we were targets, and there’s no reason we should be, then we would have been dead a long time ago. You’re bait. They want something or someone, and it’s got to involve either Henry or your father. Do you have any idea how dangerous these kinds of people are? They are not in the business of failing. We’ve got to go.”
“You’re running around in flip-flops and not sleeping, and you’re saying we should leave? Come on, Bart. You’re not exactly the voice of reason.”
“I’m right and you know it. We leave now. Stop arguing and start paying attention. You’re proud, you’re scared shitless, and you’re stubborn. I’m a bit frayed. Doesn’t make me wrong. This also means you might well be right about Henry being alive.”
“All right, Bart. I get it. I don’t want to, but I get it. We can’t risk staying. Damn. How do we do this?”
“Good. I’ve been thinking. Do you remember Coyote McCloud?”
“Oh God. The hermit in the Glades?”
“Yep. Now, he’s got a little fish camp, completely off the grid. Henry knows about it ’cause he’s been there with me a few times. If we can leave word for Henry, he’ll know how to get there.”
“McCloud is insane.”
“Yeah, no arguments there. But right now, he’s our best bet. We’ve got to hole up somewhere and ride out the storm, away from prying eyes.”
“Maybe we should have gone to Cuba.”
“They would have captured us before we got out of the channel.” “They could just pick us up now.”
“I’m guessing they will, anytime. Use us for leverage. I don’t know what they want, why they want it. If they think we’re going to make a run, you can be sure they’ll stop us. We’ve got to keep this between us, load the boat over the course of the day. Maybe load two boats. One they don’t know about. In the middle of the night, we’ll make a try.”
“I’ll have Bobby leave a message at Captain Tony’s for Henry. He might stop there if he knows we’re at risk. Bobby going there won’t look unusual,” Suzanne said.