Due Preparations for the Plague Read online

  “No,” Lowell calls over his shoulder, running. “Daddy’s in a big, big hurry. Wait there.”

  He intends to lock himself into a stall, but there are too many people present and this makes him nervous, though he does not wish to draw attention to himself by leaving without taking a leak. He is afraid to set the bag down. Indecisive, he moves into a space between a businessman and some drifter who reeks of gin. He stands with the bag between his legs, feet close together, and unzips.

  No one pays him the slightest attention and he picks up the blue tote and leaves.

  “Daddy, Daddy!” he hears Amy call, and he turns. The children are running after him, breathless. Jason is crying. Dear God, Lowell thinks. What is happening to me? He sweeps Jason up with his right arm. He holds the blue tote in his left. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten you, did you?” he asks, smothering Jason with kisses. “Silly Jason. Okay, let’s go home now. First the shuttle bus, then the subway, then home. Who remembers where the shuttle stop is?”

  “I do,” Amy says.

  “Okay, Captain. I’ll follow you.”

  Why the international terminal? a voice buzzes inside his head. He tries to picture his father on the shuttle up from New York, the elegantly dressed professional man. He cannot visualize his father with a blue sports tote. Had it been inside something else? Did his father disappear into a men’s bathroom at the domestic terminal, change into jeans and baseball cap, and carry the blue tote to the lockers at international? Is there some suggestion that Lowell will be required to embark on a journey after he sees the contents of the bag? Or is this purely memento mori for the flight that never reached its intended destination, the flight from which Lowell’s mother never disembarked? Unless she was one of the hostages. Unless there were hostages, ten hostages, as the hijackers claimed.

  The hostage hoax, the State Department said, is the final ruse of a handful of desperate terrorists …

  Lowell remembers that. He remembers watching the news when that statement was made.

  There is no evidence, the president told the nation in September 1987, of any survivors of Air France Flight 64, apart from the children who were disembarked in Germany. The final landing was somewhere in Iraq where the plane was blown up. Although Iraq has not permitted the Red Cross … nevertheless our Intelligence sources have confirmed …

  Lowell finds himself pausing at an arrivals monitor, scanning for flights due in from Paris.

  “Daddy.” Amy tugs at his sleeve. “Come on.”

  “Just a second, Amy.” Air France seems to have changed its numbering system. He sees AF 002, AF 006 … but of course flight AF 64 was going to New York, not Boston.

  “Hey.” Someone bumps into him. “People been coming through yet?”

  “What?” Lowell says. The man who has collided with him is disheveled and out of breath. He points to the monitor.

  “Flight from Frankfurt. It’s landed. People through yet?”

  “I don’t know,” Lowell says.

  “What flight you waiting for?”

  “I’m not. I’m just …” Why is he interrogating me? “Look.” Lowell points to the large automatic doors of frosted glass. “There are people just coming through now.” But he cannot resist looking back over his shoulder as he leaves the terminal, and the man waiting for the flight from Frankfurt is not moving toward the glass doors, but is still watching Lowell. This means nothing, of course.

  Though it could mean something.

  It might mean something.

  Lowell decides he will not go direct to the subway with the children, in case he is being watched. “Here’s our bus,” he tells Amy, and they get on the free shuttle that moves between the terminals and they get off again at terminal C.

  “This isn’t our stop,” Amy says. “The subway is two more stops.”

  “Jason’s hungry,” Lowell says. “Want some French fries, Jason? Want a Coke?”

  “French fries!” Jason grins. “Yummy yum.”

  “Yummy yum yum,” Lowell chants. “Want some French fries, Amy?”

  “Okay,” she says, wary.

  There are numerous fast-food stands, none of them appealing, but he buys fries and Cokes for the children, a coffee for himself. He sets the blue bag on the floor and keeps it tightly between his feet, though an inordinate number of people seem to knock it in passing. He tries to imagine his father, with a sports tote between his ankles, having coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He cannot visualize this.

  “Okay, kids,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  They take the shuttle to the MBTA stop, then the Blue Line to State. They change to the Green Line, change again at Park Street, take the Red Line to Union Square.

  Lowell’s car, a slightly battered pickup with a steel hold-all across the back, is where he left it in the parking lot. He unlocks the steel coffer. Nothing missing. He puts the sports tote inside, turns the key in the padlock, changes his mind, unlocks it, takes the tote with him into the cab. “Footrest,” he says. “Pillow for your feet.”

  “What’s inside the bag, Daddy?” asks Amy, clicking her seat belt shut.

  “Just stuff. Can you do up Jason’s belt?”

  He could take one quick look, he thinks, and then, if necessary, if he deems it necessary, he could toss the blue container and its contents into a dumpster. He sits there, his hand on the ignition key, thinking. The owner of the car in the next parking space arrives and the door of his white Nissan taps the side of Lowell’s car. Is it deliberate? The Nissan driver wears a plaid shirt and has a bald patch. Lowell waits for him to leave, analyzing the plaid: vertical stripes and horizontal, green, black, gray, a thin vertical red line.

  “Daddy,” Amy says. She is pulling at her hair.

  “Right.” He starts the car. “Amy, sweetheart, don’t do that to your hair.”

  The soundtrack of Babe comes softly through the bedroom wall.

  “Excuse me,” the little pig is saying to the sheep in his gravelly-sweet voice, “but would you ladies mind …?” And then Jason’s high-pitched laughter, and Amy’s voice-over in her big-sister tone: “He thinks he’s a dog.” This must be the fourth time this weekend, but the children never tire of the video of the little pig that could.

  Outside, from the Somerville night, come the sounds of horns, brakes applied almost too late, fights, shouts, the bells of St. Anne’s on the hill. Lowell has the glazed look of a man masturbating in the cinema. He stares at the wall. His hand, inside the blue sports tote, itemizes three objects, angular, bulky, hard-edged: two thick ring binders and something unstable and irregularly shaped in a drawstring bag that could have been, that was once, a pillowcase. Lowell pulls out the pillowcase bag and stares at it. Rows of knights, with lances poised and pennants on their helmets, gallop toward each other in the lists: this was his own pillow until he was six years old and started school. At the mere touch of the worn cotton, he can smell his bedroom, feel the weight of his father sitting on the end of the bed, smell his mother’s perfume as she bends over to kiss him good night. Once upon a time, his father begins. Once upon a time, in the springtime of the world, when Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was gathering flowers with her maidens in the field, she was kidnapped and carried off by Hades, King of the Underworld …

  Lowell examines the pillowcase.

  Attached to the drawstring at its neck is a luggage tag, crudely lettered in black felt marker. He recognizes his father’s handwriting.

  AF 64

  Operation Black Death

  Bunker Tapes & Decameron Tape

  Broadside. Blunt weapon, Lowell thinks, with a sense of having absorbed the explosion of Air France 64 in the gut. He bends forward over the sports bag and the zipper jams and the tapes refuse to be crammed back in, slithering around in their fabric casing—how many? how many are there? five? six?—clacketing, plasticking, live inside the pillowcase, miles of nylon ribbon, they are videocassettes, he can tell that through the cloth, but confessions? obscene re
velations? death scenes? what? The pillowcase is damp and clammy to the touch now, revolting. He shoves the whole toxic blue bundle under his bed and paces the room. He counts slowly to ten, forward and back, breathing deep. His heartbeat is fast and erratic. Through the wall, he hears climactic music from Babe, the film nearly done. Supper, he thinks. They’ll want supper. I can’t take them out. I can’t leave the bag in the house. Pasta, he decides.

  He has spaghetti, he has a jar of Ragú sauce somewhere at the back of the fridge.

  How can he leave the room with the bag unguarded? He lies on the floor and pulls the wretched thing out from under the bed. Its limbs sprawl, its heavy end lolls like a broken neck, the drawstring bag containing the tapes juts from the slit. He pulls at the stuck zipper and gets the bag open again. His hands feel bloodied. He pushes the ungainly pillowcase properly inside the sports tote and takes note of the two other items, ring binders, both black, both barely able to contain the thick wad of pages inside them. He takes one out and opens it.

  It is labeled, on the first page, Report Dossier: Classified. He flips through the pages. Almost all are typed, but there are often just one or two paragraphs to a page. In the bottom right-hand corner of each page is a brief notation—report filed—in his father’s handwriting. At the top of each page is a date. He reads one at random:

  February 19, 1977

  Re Air France 139 (Tel Aviv to Paris) hijacked to Uganda, June 27, 1976: Nimrod confirms that Sirocco was involved; confirms sighting Sirocco in Entebbe on June 30. Nimrod believed Sirocco killed on July 4 in Israel’s rescue operation, but subsequently received reliable evidence that Sirocco involved in shipment of arms from Libya to IRA (November ’76). Believes Sirocco is Saudi, but possibly Iraqi or Algerian. Holds four passports that we know of: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Pakistan, at least one of these presumably legitimate. Fluent in Arabic, Urdu, English, and French. Holds forged carte de séjour for France. Was a trainer in Mujahadeen camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan in early ’70s. Has also recently been identified in newsclip of Dal Khalsa separatist Sikh demonstrations in Amritsar in late ’76. Highly proficient in explosives and chemical warfare. A brilliant mercenary but not a fundamentalist zealot, Nimrod believes. Believes Sirocco could be bought, but advises caution. Sirocco is dangerously loose cannon. Advises meeting between Sirocco and Salamander.

  Action taken: Information passed up chain of command.

  And on the next page:

  March 16, 1977

  Directive received from highest level: Sirocco known to be dangerous and untrustworthy, but use of rogue agent warranted, given present situation; necessary ritual of risk; need for accurate information on terrorist cells in Middle East and re training facilities on Pakistani/Afghanistan border outweighs other concerns.

  Action taken: Nimrod to approach Sirocco, arrange meeting with Salamander.

  And on the next page, in his father’s handwriting, a brief note:

  March 19, 1977

  Meeting arranged. Probable site of first meeting: Peshawar.

  Lowell grasps a half-inch wad of pages and turns.

  November 4, 1981

  Received Sirocco’s report on Sadat assassination.

  Islamic fundamentalist affair. Actual agent not previously on our records, but known links with 10 people on our files, all trained in Afghanistan, 3 now in this country. Sirocco willing to recruit assassins for Begin or Arafat if desired; suggests chaos in Middle East would provide rationale for “protectorate monitoring” of oil cartels, which he recommends, but demands control of own oil company. Salamander directed to supply funding and arms for Afghanistan project.

  Lowell flips through pages and more pages, and Sirocco leaks through the volume like spilled black motor oil. So does Salamander.

  He was tormented by Sirocco, Elizabeth said.

  Nightmares, she said. Toward the end, every night. Arguing with Sirocco. Or with Salamander. They stalked him. They terrified him. Especially Sirocco.

  Lowell closes the ring binder nervously and puts it back in the bag. He opens the cover of the second volume and reads on the title page, Journal of S: Encrypted. He riffles through pages. All are written in some sort of code, in vertical columns of Greek letters and numbers, unintelligible. He pushes the journal back into the blue bag and zips it shut. He pushes it under the bed. He wishes he had not opened the locker. He wishes he had thrown away the key.

  “Daddy!” Amy calls.

  “Coming.” He almost stumbles over the children at the door. “Guess what we’re having for supper?” he says brightly.

  “Macaroni and cheese.”

  “Wrong.” He puts a large pot of water on the stove. “But close. Okay, who’s going to get the spaghetti for me?”

  “Me,” Jason calls, excited. “Me, me, me.”

  “And who’s going to get the spaghetti sauce?”

  “I’ll get it,” Amy says. There is reproach in her voice. “Don’t you like spaghetti?”

  “It’s okay.”

  But she does like to be the one who holds the colander and the one who dispenses Parmesan from the Kraft shaker.

  “Okay,” Lowell says. “Enjoy. I’ll be back in a minute. I have to make a phone call.”

  In the hallway, he takes a small black address book from his pocket and looks up a name. He dials his stepmother’s Washington number and waits. If he gets her answering machine, he thinks, he will not leave a message but will simply eat supper with the children, then take them to Blockbuster, then watch another movie with them (yes, he will stay with them in the room), and then they will all go to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream, and therefore no, he thinks he will avoid sleep for a night or ten, but if Elizabeth does not answer, he will surely have to pace, he will surely have to do violent push-ups on the living room carpet, he will surely have to take the children to the gym at the Y.

  “Elizabeth,” he says. “Thank God. This is Lowell.”

  “Oh, Lowell. Hi.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I suppose so, more or less. I can’t seem to … I feel strange, mostly. Strange things have been happening.”

  “Strange how?”

  “Oh, just … it’s nothing, really. How are your children?”

  “Fine. They’re fine. Well, Rowena thinks I’m a health hazard for them right now, and she’s right, of course. Jason wets his bed all the time.”

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry. And you? How about you?”

  “At this moment, very shaky,” he says. “Actually, at this moment, I feel as though …”

  “Lowell?”

  “… set up for something.” Yes, that was it. “One of his pawns again. He hasn’t stopped.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “You asked me about Sirocco, remember? And Salamander? I’ve found out who they are. Should’ve realized. They’re code names for secret agents.” He can hear an intake of breath. “Elizabeth?” He hears a click and then her line goes dead. He dials back immediately and gets her answering machine.

  Now he wishes more urgently than ever to be back at yesterday.

  He half expects the blue Nike bag to have vanished, but it is there, under the bed. He stashes it inside a plaid pillowcase and hides the whole thing at the back of his linen closet with another pillow in front of it, and in front of that he places a small stack of folded towels.

  His phone rings and he stumbles to reach it before Amy does.

  “Lowell?” Elizabeth’s voice trembles. “I’m calling from the pay phone at the gas station near me. A few days ago, two men came to the house. They said they were from Security, and when I asked what kind of security, which agency, they said national. They said they just had a few questions to ask, but they were here for hours. It was grueling. It was like Mather was a suspect in some crime and that made me a suspect too, or an accomplice or something. I mean, they didn’t say that, but that’s how it felt. I’m probably being paranoid, but I think my phone might be tapped. That’s why I didn’t wan
t you to, you know, say any more. I’ll try to call back later, but don’t call me, okay?”

  “Elizabeth,” he says. But she has already hung up.

  Amy is pulling at her hair. “I want to call Mommy,” she says.

  The phone rings again and Lowell leaps at it. “Lowell?” a woman’s voice says. “This is Samantha. Can we talk about the hijacking?”

  Lowell hangs up. “Don’t answer that,” he says to Amy when it rings again.

  “Look, just hear me out, okay?” Samantha says to his answering machine. Lowell closes his eyes. He believes he could sleep standing up. Exhaustion, he thinks, is about running out of energy to resist. “I was on Air France 64, which gives me some sort of right, okay? I was six years old and both my parents were killed. This is just so you’ll understand why I’m obsessive about it. Okay?”

  She seems to be waiting for him to pick up, but he simply stares at the blinking light on his machine.

  “Thanks for not cutting me off,” she says. “I’ve been burying myself in Freedom of Information applications, anything and everything declassified, which is precious little, needless to say …” She takes a deep breath. “I’m certain that American Intelligence had information before it hap—” The digital timer chops her off midword, but Lowell already knows that Samantha is not easily deterred. She calls again. “We were disposable pawns for a sting operation, but now we’re chickens coming home to roost. Just think about it, okay, because you probably hold clues that you don’t even know you hold.”

  Lowell pushes the erase button on his machine.

  Amy says, “I want to call Mommy.”

  “Yes,” Lowell says. “Okay. Perhaps that’s best.”

  While Amy talks to her mother, Lowell sits on the sofa, Jason in his arms, and stares at the wall.

  Book II

  FOG

  Fear death? To feel the fog in

  my throat,

  the mist in my face …

  Robert Browning

  1. Salamander