A pair of stone-faced Marines stopped him at the compound gates, their M16s on full auto. It was the weapons which told him for sure, before one Marine said, “I guess you know we’d really appreciate a confirm or deny on this, Sir, if and when you can—some sort of damage estimate… we’ve all got family—”
“As soon as I know, Sergeant. What are all those people doing in there?” Beyond the guardpost, a queue of civilians had formed. Beck could imagine what the Americans in their rumpled polyesters wanted; he was just trying to cover his own confusion.
A glance in the rearview mirror showed him too many cars with rental plates parked on the street outside the compound; as he watched, a taxi pulled up and a woman with a boyish haircut and the custom-tailored bush jacket of a press type got out, a carryall in hand. She was crying.
“Just citizens, Sir—you know you can’t keep something like this… rumors, that is… quiet long,” said the Marine sergeant thickly.
When Beck looked up at the guard, he saw that the man’s chin had doubled and his lips were white. “Hey there,” Beck caught the Marine’s anguished but disciplined gaze and held it, “when the going gets tough… Right?”
The Marine squared his shoulders: “That’s right, sir,” he replied, and Beck wished that individual courage such as the guard’s could make any difference in something like this.
As if reading his mind, the Marine offered, “As long as we’ve got a government… well, you know—it’s got us.”
Haven’t lost your touch, anyway, Beck told himself, feeling something akin to love for the Marine in that instant.
Then the woman with the carryall hiked up the drive, hallooing, then breaking into a trot. She had on sensible tennis shoes and the bag was now over her shoulder but tears still ran down her face and it was too swollen to tell if it might have been pretty.
Beck was about to put the Plymouth in gear when she put a hand on its fender, then on the half-open glass of his window: “American?” Her voice was husky, but it might have been from emotion. She ducked her head to peer into his car and he decided she was probably very pretty—she knuckled her eyes and said, “Thank God… I saw the CD on your car… look, let me go in with you. I can’t stand in that line. Please?”
The Marine was telling her with firm politeness not to bother Beck and the way was clear before him, the Plymouth idling. All he had to do was drive on.
But there was something so urgent and so helpless about her, like a lost kitten, that he motioned to the passenger side even though, by then, he’d noticed the press credentials clipped to her breast pocket.
So had the Marine—he didn’t delay them.
The woman got in, slammed the door and slouched against the seat, her head back, pulse pounding in her throat, fingers splayed in her short chestnut hair: “Christ,” she said. “Christ. I still don’t believe it.” Then she turned her head and stared at him fiercely: “Do you, Mister—?”
“Beck. And you probably know more than I do, unless The New York Times isn’t what it used to be, Ms. Patrick.” He’d read it on her press pass, automatically checking the photo—of a pretty girl trying not to be—against the face above: Christine Patrick of The New York Times—the enemy.
One of the first things State taught its people was how to give a nonbriefing. He wouldn’t have to worry about that this time; but another was how to extract information from the unwary without giving any signs that an interrogation was under way.
He was gearing up to do just that as he wheeled the car slowly toward the staff parking lot past the queue of anxious faces when she volunteered, “We’re at war with the Soviets—nuclear war. That’s all I know, except I’m wondering why I’m not dead.” She sniffled and wiped her face with a crooked arm in an angry gesture. “I guess we’ll be the ones who die slowly….” She turned in her seat to look at him. “Beck, you said, right? Do you have a gun, Beck?”
“Me?” he said innocently. “Why, whatever for, Ms. Patrick?”
“Shit, the world is ending and you’re Ms.-ing me? To blow my head off, that’s what for, like…” Her lower lip quivered and she stopped, then began again, eyes flashing: “And people call me Chris—or, anyway, they did. And I’m—I was—a Miss, not a Ms., whatever that is.”
“Chris,” he amended, grinning in spite of himself as he pulled into his slot before a sign that said “Reserved”—they didn’t advertise reserved for whom, not in Jerusalem.
“So?”
“So what, Chris?” He turned off the ignition and removed his key.
“So, do you have one or not? Can I borrow it?”
“Aren’t you being a little premature, Chris?” He was used to dealing with other people’s problems; her manic distress had a calming effect on him, despite what she’d said. The press was paranoid; all she had were assumptions and a grandstander’s instinct he couldn’t help liking: she was providing him with some comic relief.
She grimaced and the grimace turned into a canny pout: “I don’t know, that’s what I’m saying—you tell me, Mr. Beck. Beck… that’s German, isn’t it? Isn’t that kind of—inappropriate, here? Can’t we get on a first-name basis? Life is looking kind of short….” A gamin smile came and went on her sun-freckled face. “Let’s make a deal—you tell me everything you know and I promise I won’t report it until… until—” Her throat closed up and she shook her head miserably as she fought to clear it. “—until there’s somebody to report it to…”
“Whoa, slow down.” One leg out of the car, Beck wondered why he was wasting his time—RSVP—but said kindly, rolling back his mental tape of her remarks with professional ease, “Call me Marc, if you want, but everybody calls me Beck. It’s no problem and it’s not German. As for a deal—I really don’t know as much as you do, yet. You must have a local chief to report to—if there’s been any megatonnage released, the EMP will have put satellite links and all sorts of other semiconductor-driven com channels down… temporarily. Don’t assume so much, okay?” He reached out and squeezed her arm.
“EMP?” She made no attempt to open her door, just sat in her seat, watching him.
“Electromagnetic pulse. Are you coming? You said you wanted to get past the civilians on line and I said I’d take you in—but once you’re in, you’ll have to wait for me…” He didn’t know why he was doing this, except that he didn’t want to leave her in his car and she had a nice uptilt to the breast under her plastic press pass, “…if you want more than the official story, that is.”
“Great! Thanks!” She flashed him a look the kitten might have if he’d taken it home to a saucer of milk, then opened her door; as she got out and he power-locked the Plymouth, he couldn’t help noticing that she had a fine ass, muscular thighs under her desert cloth pants, and that because she’d taken his mind off… things, he’d probably promised more than he could deliver: the crisis committee meeting he was walking into would probably last well into the night.
He hoped not. Beck wasn’t above the occasional indiscretion and he realized what he wanted most in the world right now was to think it would matter if he got his ashes hauled by a newsie: he wanted things to be normal once again.
By the time they reached the ad hoc consulate’s front steps, that hope was nearly eradicated: the people on line were hysterical, each in his or her fashion, and hysteria communicates itself like nothing else.
He’d wandered through Sabra and Shatilla with some very unhappy Israelis one morning and seen much worse among the living as they counted the dead—but those weren’t Americans. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how privileged he’d always felt, how much of his professional calm was based in the assumption that his country was safe from the horrors he drifted among, always half a world away.