The Hearing (27 page)

Carl sighed and bent over the Mercedes diagram, staring at it.

In the silence, Michelle said, “Excuse me. Terry …”

“Yes?”

Michelle drew a breath and tried to keep her voice steady. “I just want to say to you that—” She stopped, waited. “I just
want to say that—” She stopped again. She wasn’t going to be able to do this. “I want to say, I know you’re very concerned
about the safety of my husband and daughter—that’s why you’re doing this—but I want to say …”

Terry put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay, Mrs. Parham. Thank you. It’s okay. I understand. They’ll be all right.”

Michelle nodded, left the Winnebago, and walked back to the command truck. She didn’t want to be with all those people. They
were so cool, so professional. And if they failed to save Gus and Samantha, they’d be cool and professional about that, too.
They’d write their reports, study what went wrong, make procedural corrections for next time, and go on about their cool,
professional lives. But she wanted Gus and Samantha
back
. It wasn’t her
job
to want them back.

When Carl returned, Michelle said, “Are you going to let her do that?”

“Do what?”

“Go into the
Mercedes
! What do you think, what?”

Carl looked at her, his eyes searching. After a moment, so softly she could hardly hear, he said, “Yes, I think so.”

“Dear God. Dear, dear God. What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to save Gus and Samantha.”

“I meant what is
God
doing.”

“He knows what he’s doing, Michelle. Try not to think about it.”

“Can’t we have something else to drink?”

Samantha hung her tongue out of the side of her mouth, like a dog dying of thirst. It was Friday afternoon, outside the sun
was high in a cloudless sky, and they were both sweat-soaked and stinking. The air was still and heavy.

Gus said, “Just a swallow.”

She screwed the top off the Evian bottle, raised it to her lips, and he watched her throat tighten and relax. One swallow.
She refastened the top. No argument, no pleas for more.

“We’ll be out of this soon, Samantha.”

She licked her lips. “I know.”

The phone buzzed.

“How’s it going?”

“We’re getting pretty thirsty in here, Phil. And hot. And hungry. And I don’t think either Samantha or I have words to tell
you about the smell. What’s the temperature out there?”

“High eighties. Where you are, we estimate over a hundred. The medical people recommend you increase your fluid intake. We
know you don’t have much, but dehydration’s becoming a concern out here. Anyway, we hope to have you out soon. I spoke with
Harrington.”

“And he said …”

“He’s trying to swing a deal. We withdraw and he suppresses your father’s agreement. I told him to forget it—even if we took
his offer, we’d still have the car bomb to deal with. He can’t do anything about that.”

“You sure?”

“That’s a joke, right?”

“I hope so. Where’s it stand now?”

“I’ve got something else we all think you ought to know, but we don’t want to alarm you.”

“What is it, Phil? Let me have it.”

“Gus? This is Carl.”

“What’s up, my friend?”

“We’ve got some expert, competent people out here who say they’ve got a good chance of deactivating the device.”

“How?”

“They’ve calculated there’s a space about a foot high between the top of the explosives and the roof of the Mercedes.”

“Go ahead.”

“They want to cut a hole in the top of the Mercedes and have someone go in and locate the detonator and disarm it.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Definitely not. I know it sounds crazy, but they say they do this stuff a lot. There’s a very high confidence level.”

“What does Michelle think?”

“She’s—frankly, Gus, she’s a little emotional about it. I’m not sure she’s in a position to make a reliable decision.”

“She’s against it.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“Here she is.”

“Gus, how are you?”

“Hot, thirsty, hungry, and tired. Other than that, Samantha and I have been having a wonderful time. How are you? You’re probably
a lot more disturbed by this than we are.”

“I don’t know about that, Gus.”

She sounded shaken. Exhausted, really.

“What do you think about this scheme Carl just told me about?”

“It scares me to death.”

“You’re already scared. Does this make it worse?”

“It’s a girl, Gus. A very young woman.”

“Who’s a woman?”

“The agent who’s going to do it. I know that shouldn’t make any difference. It’s just that—I can’t explain it.”

“Do you think she knows what she’s talking about? Do you think she can do it?”

“Yes. It’s just—”

“Honey, if you think she can do it, and she thinks she can do it, and everyone else thinks she can do it, and it can get us
out of here—maybe she should do it. I mean, we’re already in a pretty hazardous spot. Is it going to make things any worse?”

“If it blows up it’ll be worse.”

“That could happen anytime anyway.”

“Carl wants to talk to you. I love you.”

Carl said, “What do you think?”

“Carl, is Michelle okay?”

“Under the circumstances, she’s doing fine.”

“She sounds pretty stressed.”

“She’s doing fine.”

“What about this thing, Carl? Are you in favor of it?”

“I think it’s the lowest risk. Every minute you and
Samantha are in there, there’s a risk. You’re sitting forty-five yards from 1,980 pounds of RDX, with nothing between you
and it except a quarter-inch of armor plate on the limo and three inches of Kevlar on the front of the house. You’ve gotta
get out of there, Gus. And the EOD people—”

“EOD?”

“Explosive Ordnance Division. They say they wouldn’t do it, she wouldn’t do it, if the risk weren’t minimal. She’s been in
EOD four years, done eleven real, live deactiva-tions.”

“And she’s still got all her body parts?”

“Very much so.”

“Okay. I’m agreeable if everyone else is. Hang on a minute.”

Gus lowered the phone. “Samantha, they’ve got someone out there, a young woman, who’s an expert at deactivating explosive
devices like the one in the Mercedes.”

“Yeah?”

“They’re going to cut a hole in the top of the Mercedes, let her go inside and deactivate the bomb. What do you think of that?”

“Will it work?”

“They think so. They say it’s better than just sitting here and waiting.”

“So go for it.”

Why is everything so easy for children?

“With us, we agree. If you guys think it’s a good idea, let’s do it. When will it happen?”

Carl said, “Couple of hours. I’ll keep you advised.”

Gus hung up the phone and looked at Samantha. She was thinking it over. Watching her, the deep look in her eyes, the wheels
turning, Gus thought, Oh, Samantha,
what’s going to become of you? Where will you be in ten years?

Michelle left the FBI command truck and walked out alone into the abandoned street, looking up the block in the direction
of Blossom. Behind her she could hear the confusion of voices, cars coming and going, reporters, police, and crowds. Ahead
was nothing but emptiness and silence. It was hard to believe that just a few hundred yards away Gus and Samantha were in
a limousine across Blossom’s front lawn from a bomb. Struggling against a sense of helplessness, and against tears that made
her feel ashamed and intimidated in the presence of people like Carl and Terry, she walked back to the Winnebago, expecting
to find it empty.

Terry was there, sitting quietly and alone at the coffee table, reading a copy of
Good Housekeeping
magazine.

Looking up, Terry said, “Oh, hi.”

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

“You’re not bothering me.” She put the magazine down. “Most of this job is waiting, like firemen.”

“I’m doing a lot of that myself.”

“Yeah, it must be hard.”

She looked as if she meant it, wasn’t just making conversation.

Michelle smiled and tried to look pleasant.

Terry rose to leave. “I know you want to be alone.”

“I think maybe alone is the last thing I want to be, Terry. Please stay, unless you—”

“No, I’m just kind of hanging around.”

Terry sat back down, and Michelle took the chair across from her. When Michelle had first walked in, Terry had seemed shy,
deferential, but now, as she began to speak, it
was as if a wind had blown through the room, and Michelle realized that the timidity had been something learned, a way to
act.

Michelle said, “What you do, it’s really—”

She stopped herself. She wasn’t this girl’s mother.

“Everyone says that. But it’s not as dangerous as it looks.”

“Not dangerous?”

“Flying airplanes is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Mrs. Parham, you must have something that’s just the most exciting thing you do, that makes you feel really alive?”

She looked barely twenty. Her face was a portrait of eagerness, excitement.

Michelle’s first thought was, Yes I do, and it’s being with Gus and Samantha. She was afraid if she said that, she’d cry.
All these brave people. Looking for something safer to say, she asked, “Why does it make you feel alive?”

Terry said, “I never feel more alive than I do when I’m working.”

She was so enthusiastic, so sincere. She talked in exclamation marks.
I never! Feel more alive! Than I do! When I’m working!

“You’re one of these people we see in the movies, taking bombs apart while everyone waits at a safe distance.”

Terry laughed. “You sound like my mother. It must be hard to understand.”

She stared at Michelle for a moment, and then, her smile gone, she said, “When I’m with a device, all alone, everything’s
silent, it’s like the world has stopped, it’s just me and the device, and I know it’s been put there for some
thing evil. And I’m going to stop it. That’s a wonderful feeling. It’s exciting. People complain their lives don’t have meaning.
They should do what I do. It gets real quiet—even when there’s a lot of noise around, you don’t hear anything. It’s just me
looking at that ugly thing. And they are
always
ugly. Some machines are beautiful to look at, but explosive devices are
always
ugly. You
know
you’re with an enemy. And alone, just by yourself, you say, ‘Oh, no you don’t. You’ve had it, fella.’ You study the ugly
thing, and you disable it. But it’s really the people who designed it and built it and put it there that you’re beating. You
have to match wits with them. It’s like I’m a doctor, fighting a virus, trying to figure out how this virus works, how can
I destroy it. It’s wonderful. I feel like that’s what I’ve been put on earth to do, and when I’m doing it, I’m alive. That
sounds crazy, right?”

Michelle looked into those smiling, excited eyes and felt as if she’d entered another world. She didn’t like it. She wanted
her own world back, the one with Gus and Samantha.

Rothman called.

Gus said, “Phil, what’s the latest with Harrington?”

“I haven’t talked to him. I called his office, and he wasn’t there. His secretary said she didn’t know where he was. She thought
he might be out of town.”

“Out of
town
. What the hell does that mean? Where would he be, out of town?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

W
here’s Harrington?”

“Not here, Ernie. Too late for John. Never comes out after dark.”

Carl had taken a two-hour flight to O’Hare, drove another half hour to the prison. He could see Vicaro, be back in the command
truck by midnight.

Vicaro oozed around the edges of the visiting room chair, his prison shirt straining the buttons over his belly.

“He told me he’d be here.”

“He lied.” Carl smiled. “I brought Mr. Brodski instead.”

“I don’t wanna see Brodski.”

Brodski, a squat, heavy man, black mustache but no
hair on top, was sitting right there in front of him. He said, “You’re hurting my feelings, Ernie. Damn, it stinks in here.
They take away your shower privileges?”

Brodski was warden of the federal maximum-security prison in Bradley, Montana, the toughest in the country, and Vicaro had
almost died there. He blamed Brodski for the attacks against him.

Vicaro said, “I don’t wanna talk to you.”

“You really gave me a bad rap, you know, Ernie.” Brodski aimed a finger at Vicaro’s stomach and made a plunging, slicing motion.
“I never had anything to do with what happened to you.”

Vicaro had been virtually disemboweled by another prisoner during an afternoon exercise period. He had a reputation for betraying
enemies to the government, and found prison an unhealthy environment.

Vicaro’s jaw muscles tightened, and he fixed his eyes on Carl, struggling not to respond to Brodski’s taunts. When Vicaro
had emerged from the prison hospital with thirty-seven stitches in his belly, Brodski refused his request for administrative
isolation and put him straight back into population. Two days later he was in the hospital again, with groin wounds inflicted
by a screwdriver in the hands of an angry tier mate named Tulio Huega.

Carl said, “Now, what’s all this we hear about an agreement between your father and some tobacco company and Judge Parham’s
father? You ought not to be telling lies like that, Ernie.”

“It’s not a lie, and you know it. I’ve got a signed document.”

“A phony signed document. You made the whole thing up.”

Vicaro’s black eyes darted from Carl to Brodski and back. “What’re you guys up to?”

“To tell the truth,” Brodski said, “we’re not really here to talk about the agreement or Judge Parham or any of that stuff.
We’re just here to let you know about the transfer.”

“What transfer?”

“You’re comin’ back.”

“Screw you, Brodski.”

“Now don’t you talk to me like that, Ernie. You know I wouldn’t lie to you. This institution’s too crowded, and the director
decided to move some of the more difficult prisoners back to Bradley.”