“I wish it could, Doctor. But I’ve got to talk to them. This is a very urgent situation and time is important.”
“Young man, these girls saw their mother shot and killed today. Have you any—”
“Look, I hate to have to act like a jerk, but you’ve got to understand how terribly, terribly urgent this all is, Doctor. This is what’s known as a phase four nuclear emergency, and technically I have all legal rights to get what I want. Please don’t make me have to be an asshole about this.” He felt himself swallowing uncomfortably. His breath was heavy and his knees felt watery.
The doctor simply glared at him. Then he stepped back and let him in.
Uckley stepped into a terrible silence. The two older people sat on the sofa. The woman was crying. The man looked numb. There wasn’t enough light in the room. The neighbor, Kathy Reed, fussed at the dinner table. She had evidently brought some casserole over, but nobody had eaten and the food lay on the plates glazing with grease in the dim light. There were still chips of wood and plaster and shreds of tufting everywhere from the gunfire, and a gritty layer of dust lay over everything, but evidently the police had covered the blown-out windows with plastic. The room filled Uckley with the nausea of memory and terror.
“Kathy,” said the doctor, “do you think you could go up and get the girls? This officer says it’s urgent that he talk to them.”
“Haven’t they been through enough—” began Mrs. Reed, her voice rising with emotion.
“I’m sorry,” said Uckley. “It’s necessary. But maybe I only need the oldest one. Uh, Poo?”
“Bean,” she said. Then she started up the stairs. But she turned.
“You were so positive this afternoon. You were so excited. And look what happened. Look what you did to this family.”
Uckley didn’t know what to say. He swallowed again.
“They were such a happy family. They were a perfect family. Why did you have to do this to them?”
Uckley just looked at his shoes. The doctor came up to him.
“Were you the man who went upstairs?”
“Yes,” said Uckley, swallowing. “You’ve got to believe I didn’t want anything like that to happen.” But the doctor looked as though he didn’t believe it at all.
In a few minutes Kathy Reed brought Bean down the stairs. The girl’s face was wrinkled from sleep, and she had on a pink robe and a pair of rabbit slippers. She was scrunching her eyes, but when she saw Uckley waiting for her, she just grew still and grave. She had a peculiar presence to her, an almost eerie luminescence. Kathy Reed led her down the steps to Uckley.
“Hi there,” he said, his tone chipper. “Hey, I’m real sorry I had to wake you.”
“You don’t have to talk to her like a chipmunk,” said Mrs. Reed.
Uckley had no talent with kids. He somehow never saw them, and his few exchanges with them in the past had been perfunctory and stupid. But now, looking at the girl, her solemn face, her pale button nose, her huge, dark, questing eyes, her perfect little hands gathered in front of her, he had the terrible urge to kneel and clasp her to him and beg her for forgiveness. The skin of her neck was so soft.
“My name’s Jim,” he said. “Honey, I have to ask you to look at some pictures.”
“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked.
The ache he felt splintered into a couple of thousand pieces, and each of the pieces began to hurt.
“No, honey. What happened was a terrible, terrible accident. I am so sorry. I’d do anything if it wasn’t so.”
“Is my mommy in heaven? Nana said you sent her to heaven because Jesus wanted her as his best friend.”
“I guess so. Jesus, uh”—he didn’t know what to say—“Jesus is sometimes a mysterious guy, you know. But I guess he knows what’s the best thing.”
She nodded gravely, considering.
“Jesus loves us very much but he loved Mommy best of all. My mommy will be very happy with him,” she said.
“I’m sure she will. Now, sugar, please, do me this one little favor and I’ll get out of here forever. I’ve got some pictures. They sent them from Washington. I want you to look at them and tell me if these are the men who took your daddy away.”
He led her to the table, and she went through the pictures, one after another, in her deliberate way.
Finally, she picked one, and handed it over.
“Him. He was here this morning. He’s my daddy’s new boss. He took him to his new job. He was Herman’s friend.”
Uckley looked at the picture. It displayed the remarkably robust face of an obvious professional soldier, a man with a broken nose, a short crew cut, and a set of hard, flinty eyes. He wore some kind of camouflage tunic, and Uckley could make out the spout of an AK-47 over his shoulder, obviously carried on a sling. The picture had a fuzzy quality in its background, as if taken from hundreds of feet away through an extremely powerful lens.
He scanned the accompanying sheet.CLASSIFIED TOP SECRETCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCYRESEARCH DIRECTORATE; SOVIET MILITARY DESK/ELITEUNITSSUBDIVISIONYASOTAY, ALEKSANDR, Major. Last authenticated posting, 22 Spetsnaz Brigade, GRU, attached 15th Guards Motor Rifles, Kabul, Afghanistan. Subject YASOTAY graduated Reconnaissance Faculty of Frunze Military Academy; the Cherepovetski Higher Military Engineering School of Communications; the Spetsnaz Faculty of the Ryazan Higher Parachute School, the Serpukhovski Higher Command Engineering School. Qualified member Parashutn-Desantny Polk (Soviet Airborne), sniper and HALO-insertion trained. Thought to have seen action in Angola, Central America, the Sino-Soviet border. Subject YASOTAY first identified by Israeli Mossad when instructor at Iraqi guerrilla camp in 1972. Subsequent sightings place him at Karlovy Vary, KGB training camp on the Black Sea and as infantry adviser to 15 Commando, Cuban force operating in Angola. Presence Afghanistan authenticated by Agent HORTENSE, Kabul, 14 January, 1984. Mentioned by source FLOWERPOT, Moscow, 1986, as possible member PAMYAT (Memory), held to be right wing nativist movement of indeterminate strength, possibly extending to higher councils of government. PAMYAT remains of great interest to Western intelligence units.
“Is he a nice man?” asked Bean.
“Yes, honey, he’s a very nice man.”
“Will he bring my daddy back to me?”
“Yes, honey. I promise you, he will.” He looked at her eyes, bold and honest. “Honey, I promise you, hell bring your daddy back to you.”
2100
The phone buzzed and buzzed.
“Hello?”
Gregor’s heart leapt! The sound of her voice was lyric pleasure, so intense he thought he’d gag. He was almost too dumbfounded to say anything, and then he found himself blurting out, “Molly, oh, Molly, it’s you, sweet Jesus, it’s you!”
What he heard in response was equally marvelous.
“Oh, God, Gregor, darling, I was afraid I’d missed you and you weren’t going to call anymore! Gregor, I’ve got it! You won’t believe what’s going on, Gregor. It’s incredible, and I’ve got the whole story for you.”
“Molly, what is it? Please, tell me now. I have to know.”
“Gregor, this is more than you could have hoped for. You won’t just save your career, you’ll make it. It’s incredible. I’ve got it all for you. Where are you?”
Gregor was in another bar, this one on 14th Street, one of the few remaining go-go places in the District itself.
“Uh, I’m in Georgetown,” he lied.
“Gregor, how soon can you get here? I’ve got documents, I’ve got pictures, I’ve got reports. God, you won’t believe it. It’s going on right now, out in central Maryland. It involves — listen, darling, get here as fast as you can.”
“I’m almost there now. Oh, Molly. Molly, I love you, do you know that? I love you, I’m so grateful.”