Cold Snap (56 page)

With the mortar taken out, their objective
was a little less problematic. They were headed for the outskirts,
where the mass of sandy-colored buildings gave way to thinness and
then date palms and scrub. Marines were waiting in the suburbs.
Hammer and anvil.

A shell zinged off a telephone pole, cracking
it in two and sending the top-heavy tangle into the street.

Idiots.

But at least the power was off. No sparking
forest to negotiate through. Marines swore their way across the
wire mess. The pole crunched under the treads of the Bradley.

A boy appeared out of the smoke, walking
towards them, looking shell-shocked.

It's an act, Ghaith thought.

He knew.

Don't let him get close, he told the lance
corporal.

Yeah, he seems a little overdressed for this
heat. Tell him to stop.

Wa-kif! Ghaith shouted.

The boy kept coming. Seven years-old if a
day.

What d'ya think? the corporal asked.

Shoot him.

He's a kid.

Shoot him. You know as well as I do. You've
heard the stories. Shoot him.

I think I need an OK on this....

I'm giving you the OK.

You're a Haji translator. You're not
authorized to OK.

I know the boy. Shoot him!

Nearby Marines began backing away, as though
the boy was radioactive. Tentatively, the lance corporal raised his
carbine.

What the fuck! shouted a captain, storming
around the Bradley. What do you think you're doing?

Haji here says he's wearing a suicide
vest.

How can you tell? The boy's terrified. Just
look at him.

The sura boy was staring at Ghaith as he
walked, almost as if he recognized him under the ski mask.

Captain, said Ghaith, turning to the large
black man. You must listen—

My ass. Give the boy a chance.

I told him to stop.

He told him to stop, the lance corporal
repeated.

Ghaith and the captain locked eyes.

Incoming! Ghaith shouted.

Every Marine fell flat. All but the captain,
who was facing Ghaith and saw the lie. Then Ghaith dropped, too,
rolling over the lance corporal and lifting off his carbine. He
came to rest on his stomach, aimed at the boy, and fired.

The sura boy's expression, not fear but
surprise, vaporized outward in a tremendous explosion.

Everyone remained still for a moment,
stunned.

Then they heard the awful, wet rasping, like
a punctured wineskin, air and fluid. The corporal jumped up,
silently grabbed his carbine from Ghaith, and walked towards the
captain.

Smoke roiled over the intersection. A bit of
sky was just visible, and Ghaith caught a glint of a drone
overhead.

Doc!

The corpsman came running and crouched next
to the captain. A soldier nudged the captain's severed arm.

What do we do with this?

Bag it! Doc yelled, barely able to control
his emotions.

And this? Another soldier nudged the severed
leg.

Same thing!

Spread out! the sergeant yelled. We're
sitting ducks here! Watch the rooftops!

Ghaith looked at buildings, at the street
ahead, at the street behind, and finally at the captain, only a few
yards away.

Bits of brain rimmed his helmet. His
shattered eye drooped on a silk-thin line of flesh. His remaining
eye was open. Not seeing the chaos around him. But seeing...much
more. Ghaith sensed a draining of faith in that eye, a final hope
shattered, belief awry and spinning down out of control. Down and
down. And finally, it closed.

Under the gore, Ghaith saw the name stenciled
on the blouse:

LAWSON.

"Is this where you're taking me?" Lawson
asked as Ari slowed in front of the Virginia War Memorial. "I don't
think they've started engraving the names from Enduring Lost Cause,
yet."

"I'm taking you to another lost cause," said
Ari, who had finally gotten around to reading up on the American
Civil War. When Ari turned left, Lawson groused:

"Now why in hell are you taking me to Oregon
Hill? You know what the bumper sticker around here said while I was
growing up? 'Oregon Hill, That Better Be A Tan.' And those crackers
meant it, too."

"We're going to Hollywood Cemetery. You told
me you took your son there."

"I could defend myself back then."

"You still can, from what I've seen."

"You obviously haven't encountered a barrel
of crackers." Glancing from side to side, he noted a handful of VCU
students on the street. "Cold must be keeping the jubilation crowd
inside."

Ari finally slowed down when he passed
through the tall gate—though not out of any misplaced reverence for
the dead, whom he held in as low esteem as the living. The lanes
curbed too tightly to go faster than ten miles an hour.

"All right, you're taking me to see Jeff
Davis. I can see that. Want to tell me why?"

"When you spoke about him to me, I noticed
you were greatly agitated. You still fear him."

"Whoa there, Ari. If that Dixie goon was
still alive and I met him in a dark alley, I'd crack open his skull
and feed his brain to the poor starving dogs."

"But he has long been beyond such vengeance.
It is his ghost you fear."

"I didn't know alleged Italians were into pop
psychology."

"I'm unfamiliar with that field," Ari
confessed, pulling into Confederate Circle. "However, we must deal
with the heroes of the past."

"Jefferson Davis was no hero. He defended
slavery."

"Why should that make him less a hero?" Ari
asked. "We have all defended something that, if you look closely,
has darker aspects."

"Some aspects are darker than others," said
Lawson, tapping his undamaged cheek. "On the other hand, I don't
know much about you, if anything. Maybe you condone slavery."

"There are many forms of enslavement."

"I mean the kind we had here, in the South,
whips and chains and durance without end."

Ari turned off his engine and was silently
thoughtful.

"They outlawed teaching slaves to read in the
old South," said Lawson.

"Ah," said Ari. "That is the crime."

"'The' crime? You have a peculiar outlook on
things, Ari."

"Let's get out of the car."

"Why?" said Lawson, nodding at the statue. "I
can see Jeff's ugly mug fine from here."

"I have learned that if I put myself in some
discomfort and look at something from an unexpected angle..."

"Yes?"

"It helps clear the spider's filaments from
my head."

"Thinking outside the box, you mean. You
should grow out of idiotic notions like that. I'm not getting out
of this box. You want to turn the heat back on?"

Ari took the bottle of Jack Daniels out of
his pocket and swished the contents. "If you want to partake of any
of this, you'll have to follow me."

He got out of the car.

"Leave the key!" Lawson shouted across the
driver seat. "Let me at least turn on the heat while you're
ghost-hunting. I won't drive off. I can't! Not in this thing."

Ari shut the door and strode over to the
statue. The dreary cold had suppressed tourists and graveside
visitors, imposing a serene stillness on the cemetery. The warmth
the car had established in his coat scurried through the folds
before fleeing into space. He took out the bottle, uncapped it, and
saluted the statue in front of him.

The door slammed behind him and the angry
thumping of Lawson's cane approached.

"All right, give me a swig and let's go."

"'Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven'."

"Where did you hear that crap?"

"I just read it," said Ari, nodding at the
inscription on the plinth. He waited for Lawson to adjust the cane
in his prosthetic hand, then gave him the bottle. Lawson took a
swig and returned it.

"There. Now let's move out of here."

"But you're neglecting our host."

"Right." Lawson turned to the monument. "Hi,
Jeff. Bet that hellfire-roasted corn on the cob is first-rate. Glad
to see you enjoying yourself." He touched the side of his head.
"There, I've paid due honor to my enemy. Let's scoot."

"The cold is good for your inflammation,"
said Ari.

"I'll put an ice back on my jaw when I get
home, which should be in about twenty minutes from yesterday if you
drive the way you usually do."

Ari walked around the statue and retreated a
short distance up the circle. He stepped off the road.

"Where are you going?" Lawson fretted.

"Up there." Ari lifted his gloved hand at a
sharp ridge overlooking the circle. Choosing a route between two
mausoleums, he began to climb.

"Now you're double-shitting me."

Ari held up the bottle. "I know you want more
than just one sip."

"You hear about drunks freezing to death in
ditches, but not in a graveyard, only fifty feet from a warm
car."

"This is not a death march. Only a scouting
mission."

He continued his climb. Moribund decorative
bushes and uneven ground suggested visitors rarely came this way.
In fact, never.

"Very scenic!" Ari called down to Lawson, who
had not moved.

"I'm sure they taught you about your great
Italian poets back in Sicily."

"Naturally," said Ari, forcing himself
through shrubbery half his height.

"Your teachers must have gone on and on about
Petrarch. He was one of the first men to climb mountains just for
the view. Up to then, people looked at nature for what it is."

"And what is it?"

"A shithole. Now will you come back down
here?"

"I have not yet achieved my objective."

"Which is...?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Ari,
piercing the bushes with a grunt.

"Looking better and better," Lawson shouted.
"You're familiar with the phrase 'men in white coats'?"

"I have met many doctors."

"Not as many as me." Lawson surveyed the
ascent. "Hard getting up there?"

"Not terribly."

"I guess all that grunting must be coming
from a pig in the bushes somewhere."

"Such is to be assumed."

"If you can hardly make it up there, what do
you think my chances are?"

"Minimal, at best." Ari stopped and looked
down at the circle. "I'd say this is the equivalent of two
stories."

"Three," said Lawson. "Of course, if you'd
moved twenty or so yards to the left, you would have seen the
big-ass road that goes right up there. You're not stupid and blind,
by any chance?"

Ari found a spot that was perilously
uncongenial and sat. He slipped the bottle out of the bag and waved
it at Lawson.

"Mr. Jefferson looks very small from
here."

"So do I," Lawson shot back. He hobbled to
the base of the hill and stared at the stiff grass, as though
looking for beaver traps. He glanced at the road to his left, then
shook his head. Muttering, he began to climb.

"You are doing marvelously," Ari acclaimed
from his perch.

"A regular one-legged mountain goat," said
Lawson.

"I didn't catch what you said."

"You'll hear well enough when I get up there
and brain you with my cane."

He came to a rocky outcrop and tried to raise
his good leg over it. Hidden behind some holly bushes, Ari could
not see what triggered a new raft of oaths.

"What is it, my friend?"

"My fucking leg is coming off. These fucking
ivy vines won't let go."

"Adjust and continue."

"Colonel Fuck-Me-in-the-Ass, may I ask
permission to call off this attack? Sir?"

"The objective must be taken at all
costs."

"You should have been a DI in Basic."

"I am a hard taskmaster," Ari agreed.

"Kind of stupid, too..."

It took Lawson several minutes to work his
way over the outcrop. He felt the prosthetic leg straps through his
trousers. They seemed secure, but he couldn't be sure.

"Man, I'm sorry Rhee's in the can."

"I am sure there are other importers of wise
limbs," said Ari.

"At what price?" Lawson forced his way
through some bushes and swore.

"What is it now, my friend?"

"I just noticed that I'm not even halfway up.
If you're really Sicilian, you must be acclimated to hot weather.
Bet you're freezing your pasta-filled ass up there."

"The pasta froze long ago."

"I think I have all the evidence I need of
your sharp intellect."

"Levity suits you," Ari remarked from beyond
an unkempt tangle of rose bushes.

"Levity...levity...I could use some
levitation now..." When Ari chuckled in appreciation of the pun,
Lawson added: "You won't think it's so funny if you have to carry
me back down."

"A simple push off this cliff will
suffice."

"Levity..."

Ari heard an odd-sounding snap, like a
rubberized branch breaking, followed by a howl of anguish.

"You require assistance?" he called out.

"Fuck-you-leave-me-alone!" Lawson swore as a
single word. There was more thrashing about just beyond Ari's
sight. He took another swig.

Lawson's head finally rose up, looking
grimmer than at the A-Zed shootout. Even the glass eye seemed to
blaze with wrath. His trousers were torn and there was dirt on his
coat. He fell down next to Ari and demanded the bottle. Ari
obliged.

Gingerly, unable to wrap his frozen half-lips
around the mouth, Lawson sipped with the care of a gold miner
counting grains of dust.

"What I'll do for good whiskey," he said
finally.

"You have a bottle of the same vintage in
your dining room," said Ari.

Lawson grunted. "I forgot how observant you
are...obvious graveyard roads excepted."

"No great power of observation is needed to
see a bottle of Tennessee's Best," said Ari. "What is more
problematic is determining why you would go to so much trouble to
come up here to have some of mine."