He’d watched the coverage of the disaster in Ripley for five minutes with a coolness in his heart; the crushing rains had scraped the chlorine from the sky. But the damage was done, the fuse of panic lit in the American heart. Politicians were demanding, in gusting words, to know that the cargo railways of rural America were safe, that the chemical plants around the country where chlorine was stored were secure. Of course all they cared about was covering their asses, he thought. That was all any of those jerks cared about.
But they – his clients, and his soon-to-be clients – all wanted to know what would happen next. His dozen policy papers released in the past few weeks all outlined a variety of potential attacks, some inspired by overseas trends in terror, some inspired, privately, by the ambitions of the Night Road.
Success was simple. Predict the attack; then the attack happens, and you have the ears of the most powerful people in Washington. That was the kind of power, of respect, he needed to wield. His blistering, uncannily accurate paper on a possible chlorine attack had made the rounds of the Washington power brokers last month; his voicemail was full of inquiries from potential think-tank clients. From the government, from private industry. All wanting his insights, all wanting his opinion on what the future would hold now, where the terrorists would strike next.
It should have been his shining moment. But Luke’s situation had tarnished it for him. The same pols eager to hire him would be watching the coverage of the shooting involving Luke, perhaps holding back. Which meant he had to distance himself from Luke and get his next papers out quickly so he would still be seen as the main, most authoritative voice on the next stage of terrorism. He would be respected again. He would be close to the levers of power in Washington. Luke, on the news, would fade. The country would have much more to worry about in the days ahead.
Henry remembered, with a pang, a magician his mother had hired to perform at his sixth birthday party. I don’t want a magician, Mom, and her answer had cut him to the bone: Well, Henry honey, it might make the kids want to come to your party. She’d said it without thought or malice; she was possessed of a brutal honesty and a steady disregard of others’ pain. Henry had inherited only the latter from her. So he’d sat on the cool cut grass, with neighborhood acquaintances who didn’t much like him and who he didn’t know how to make like him. While the kids who’d just come for the show and the squares of chocolate cake oohed and aahed, Henry had drilled his gaze on where the cheap-rate teenage magician didn’t want him to look: the hand in the pocket, the coin secreted between fingers, the intact paper curled up the jacket sleeve. He’d seen there was no magic, only distraction.
It etched a lesson on his brain.
Now Henry sat in his study in his Arlington, Virginia home, the chessboard Luke had given him for Christmas five years ago on the table, the pieces locked in battle. Henry imagined Luke slumped across from him, sitting the way he always did when lost in the game, leaning hard to the left on an elbow, hand trapped in his brown thatch of hair, tongue tenting his cheek while he thought, humming some rock tune Henry didn’t know. Henry played black against white, playing Luke’s side in aggressive style. He moved his own pieces with the timidity of a mouse. Luke’s bishops and knights closed in rapid conquest, his white queen shadowing Henry’s black king, defeat three moves away.
Exactly what you deserve, Henry thought. To lose and to lose badly. Just like how you lost Barbara. You’re going to lose Luke. You already have.
Henry rose from the chessboard, headed down the hall to get a cup of coffee. Steam danced above the mug. He added a dollop of milk. He took a fortifying sip. Mouser would find Luke, bring him to a safe place where Henry could question him and then make him understand. Make him see that the Night Road was the key to a golden future for them both – a road to respect, to power, to importance.
He stepped back into his study. From his left a gloved hand raced a knife to his throat, stopped the blade right above his Adam’s apple. Hot coffee, sloshing from his mug, burned his hand. Henry froze and his gaze slid to the face of his attacker. He stayed still because he knew this man would kill him without a moment for mercy.
‘Hello, Shameless,’ the man with the knife said. Henry hadn’t heard that nickname in years. The man’s voice was Southern-inflected, scraped from the bottom of an ashtray. ‘We need to talk.’
Henry forced his voice to remain calm. ‘Drummond.’
‘Let’s pour that hot coffee on the floor, please. I prefer you unarmed.’
Henry obeyed. Then dropped the cup. It shattered on the hardwood.
‘Good.’
‘You could have rung the doorbell.’ He’s here because he knows, Henry thought, he knows about the Night Road. And Hellfire. Convince him he’s wrong or kill him. ‘Put the knife down, for God’s sakes – are you crazy?’
‘When dealing with you, I prefer the direct approach,’ Drummond said.
‘The doorbell would be direct. Hiding behind a knife is not.’
‘Goodness,’ Drummond said. ‘Did you grow a pair in the last ten years, Shameless? You’re very steady. Ah, wait, now I see sweat making its debut on your forehead.’
‘Please put the knife down.’
‘Not yet. I’m not here for a casual reunion.’
‘The knife at the throat told me that.’
‘Your stepson killed one of our old friends.’
Henry’s mind went as blank as unlined paper. ‘What?’
‘The man who your stepson shot in Houston was our old buddy Allen Clifford.’
‘What?’ Henry didn’t have to pretend shock; it thrummed through his body in a wave straight from his chest. ‘That’s not… that’s not possible.’
‘You are going to tell me what you and your brat are up to,’ Drummond said. ‘If you lie, you die. We clear, Professor?’
‘Clear, Drummond.’
Drummond lowered the knife. He spun Henry around and shoved him toward the table. ‘Sit down. Hands where I can see them at all times.’
Henry sat on one side of the chessboard. Drummond stood on the other, the knife still in his grip. Drummond had always reminded Henry of a fire hydrant. Short, stocky, thick-necked, a flat bland face with a squarish nose. Drummond glanced around the room. ‘This used to be Warren’s study.’
‘Yes.’
‘I remember, when Warren was working on a paper or a project, he would have those walls covered with sheets of paper, pictures, Post-It notes, like a blizzard of ideas.’
‘I keep my thoughts in my head.’
‘I’m sure that’s a safer place for them.’ Drummond surveyed the walls: Henry’s diplomas, pictures from his travels, framed medals from the Alexandria Pistol Club. ‘You still shoot?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were always a crack shot, Henry, I give you that. Of course I taught you. You teach Luke how to shoot? Maybe how to shoot from a car at a running man?’
‘Warren taught him the basics.’
Drummond jerked his head toward the interrupted game on the chessboard. ‘Are you still so friendless you have to play chess alone, Shameless?’
The old, undeserved nickname, a cheap variant on Shawcross, made the blood surge into his face. Humiliation. He hated Drummond with a loathing that went to his marrow but he realized he needed him; he needed to know why his past and present were intersecting so violently. But he knew Drummond was trying to keep him off-balance: the drama of the knife at the throat, then the offhand compliment about Henry’s aptitude with a gun. Standard interrogation techniques, a constant shifting between threat and kindness. Henry kept a neutral expression on his face.
‘I could hear the click of the pieces on the board from the hallway,’ Drummond said.
‘Playing took my mind off my son.’ Henry cleared his throat.
‘Your stepson, you mean.’ Drummond picked up one of the chess pieces – Luke’s king – and inspected it, as though admiring the crafts-manship. ‘You always did like to play both sides.’