sir. A good deal.”
Long finished off his drink with a contented sigh. “It certainly is.” He quickly got up and extended a hand, which Sam shook. His skin was cold and clammy. Long said, “This wasn’t the first time someone tried to kill me, and it probably won’t be the last. Hey, you wouldn’t be interested in being in the Secret Service, would you? I sure could make it happen. You could be on the White House detail. Some travel but”—he laughed again—“I’m told there are some side benefits.”
“No, sir, thank you. I think I’ll stay here.”
It was an odd thing, it was as though a radio switch had been clicked somewhere behind those bright eyes of President Long; he had seemingly lost all interest in Sam. Tugging his robe closer to his ample frame, he said, “Well, son, thanks again for what you did, and for comin’ in to talk to me. If you ever find yourself in D.C., by all means, stop by, and if there’s anything I can do—”
It came to Sam like a flash of lightning from a cloudless sky. “Mr. President, there is one thing you could do for me.”
“Eh? What’s that?”
Sam took a breath. “Sir, my wife and son. They could use your help.”
“How’s that?”
“My wife, Sarah, and my little boy, Toby. They’re being kept at the internment facility at Camp Carpenter, outside of Manchester. They haven’t done anything wrong. They were picked up by mistake just before the summit. I’ve tried to get them out, but…”
Long pursed his lips. “Your wife, she didn’t do anything?”
“Mr. President, she’s just a school secretary. She’s the daughter of the city’s mayor. She’s a supporter of yours for years now, and my boy, he’s only eight. How could they be a threat?”
There was silence for a few moments, just the grumbling and rumbling of the steam engine. Sam could feel sweat trickling down his neck. Long stared at him. Then he nodded. “All right. You write down their names right there on that pad, and I’ll check it out, and maybe I can get ’em sprung.”
“Mr. President?”
“Eh?”
“Could you make it an official pardon? That way, my wife won’t have to be scared about being picked up again. You know how mistakes are made.”
Sam wondered if he had pushed too hard, if everything was threatened. But Long smiled and said, “That must be some wife, you’re so desperate to get her home. All right, a pardon. I guess you deserve that after what you did for me and your nation. But I need the names, and they need to be checked out. Now, if you don’t mind, Inspector…”
Sam didn’t mind. He took out his fountain pen, scrawled Sarah and Toby’s names on the notepad, hardly believing he had pulled it off. Long took it and headed to the far door, yelling out, “All right, you sons of bitches, I got one more piece of paperwork to take care of, and then let’s get this train goin’ the hell out of here!”
Sam went out the way he’d come in, and by the time his feet were back on the platform, the sharp shrill of the train whistle cut through the afternoon air. The
Sam looked again at the sheet-covered bodyguards, and he shuddered, thinking of the bloody mess on the tracks below. Reginald Hale, killed in a foreign land, trying to murder a foreign leader.
He knew he should feel remorse at what had happened, regret for the poor man’s wife, who had done so much in vain to free her husband. But as he walked down the bloodstained platform, he didn’t care.
His family was coming home.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
He spent several hours in Marshal Hanson’s office, telling and retelling his story to Hanson, to the Secret Service, and even to a bandaged and angry Special Agent LaCouture of the FBI. And when it was over, LaCouture said to the Secret Service, “You heard what the man said about Hale and how he got here. I want arrests to start right away. We’ll start with that writer tenant of yours, that Tucker.”
Sam said, “Walter… he’s just a science professor, a pulp writer, that’s all.”
LaCouture touched the bandage across his broken nose and snarled, “The hell he is. He’s an accomplice to an assassination attempt.”
Hanson intervened, “Sam, you know that’s how it’s going to be. I know he’s your neighbor, but he’s got to be brought in.”
LaCouture glared at him and said, “Just be thankful I ain’t chargin’ you, too, Inspector.”
Sam said, “You know, Jack, your nose really looks good. It truly does. Do you want me to rearrange it again?”
LaCouture cursed and moved toward him, but Hanson and two Secret Service agents hauled him back, and Hanson said, “All right, all right. My inspector here has had a long day. I’m sure he can talk to you tomorrow if you’ve got any other questions. Okay?”
With that, the office emptied until it was just Hanson and Sam.
“Sam,” Hanson said, going back to his desk. “You did something magnificent today, something historical. You saved the President’s life.”
“Tell you the truth, I didn’t care about the President,” Sam said bitterly. “I cared about those poor bastards in Burdick and everywhere else. That’s what I was thinking.”
Hanson took off his glasses, polished them with a handkerchief. “If you say so. Look, you’re beat. Time for you to go home, take a few days off. Then you come back, and we’ll clear all this up.”
Sam was too tired to argue. “Sure. That sounds good.”
As he went to the door, Hanson called out, “One more thing—”
Sam turned and saw something flying at him. He caught it instinctively with one hand. He looked down at the thick black leather wallet, opened it up. The gold shield of an inspector. Not the silver shield of an acting inspector.
“Congratulations, Sam,” Hanson said. “Now get the hell out of here.”
Sam clasped the wallet and shield tightly in his hand and tried to remember when this scrap of leather and metal had once meant so much.
At his desk, he picked up his coat draped over the chair, the sleeve still damaged where that cig boy had tried to cut him the other day. Poor sweet Sarah. Never did get around to mending that sleeve. By his typewriter was the day’s mail. One envelope stood out—from the state’s division of motor vehicles. He recalled the request he had made so many lifetimes ago. He tore open the envelope, read the listing inside of yellow Ramblers belonging to area residents of Portsmouth.
There was only one. He read and reread the name and decided it was time to go home.
He pulled the Packard into his driveway, and he saw lights on downstairs. Lots and lots of lights.
Sam leaped out of the car, raced up the front steps, and opened the door.
Sarah. His Sarah, standing there, his lovely Sarah, looking at him, staring at him.
It was wrong. Everything was wrong.
She was standing there, arms folded. Her face was pale and looked thinner. Her hair hadn’t been washed in a while, and her pale blue dress was stained and wrinkled. Her silk stockings looked like they had runs, and her shoes were scuffed and soiled.
“Sarah,” he said.
There was a pause. “You got a haircut.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” he replied, knowing nothing could be said about Burdick, nothing at all; that secret was terrible to keep but too terrible to share.
A voice from the kitchen, sobbing. “Mommy, look at what happened to my models! They’re all smashed!”
