Sole Survivor

FOUR PALE FIRE

13

The public telephone, one in a cluster of four, was not in a booth, but the wings of a sound shield provided a small measure of privacy.

As he entered Barbara’s Colorado Springs number on the keypad, Joe ground his teeth together as though he could bite off the noise of the crowded terminal and chew it into a silence that would allow him to concentrate. He needed to think through what he would say to her, but he had neither the time nor the solitude to craft the ideal speech, and he was afraid of committing a blunder that would pitch her deeper into trouble.

Even if her phone had not been tapped the previous evening, it was surely being monitored now, following his visit to her. His task was to warn her of the danger while simultaneously convincing the eavesdroppers that she had never broken the pledge of silence that would keep her and Denny safe.

As the telephone began to ring in Colorado, Joe glanced toward the storyteller, who had taken up a position farther along — and on the opposite side of — the concourse. He was standing outside the entrance to an airport newsstand and gift shop, nervously adjusting his Panama hat, and conversing with a Hispanic man in tan chinos, a green madras shirt, and a Dodgers cap.

Through the screen of passing travelers, Joe pretended not to watch the two men while they pretended, less convincingly, not to watch him. They were less circumspect than they should have been, because they were overconfident. Although they might give him credit for being industrious and clever, they thought that he was basically a jerk civilian in fast-running water way over his head.

He was exactly what they thought him to be, of course, but he hoped he was also more than they believed. A man driven by paternal love — and therefore dangerous. A man with a passion for justice that was alien to their world of situational ethics, in which the only morals were the morals of convenience.

Barbara answered the phone on the fifth ring, just as Joe was beginning to despair.

“It’s me, Joe Carpenter,” he said.

“I was just—”

Before Barbara could say anything that might reveal the extent of the revelations she’d made to him, Joe said, “Listen, I wanted to thank you again for taking me to the crash site. It wasn’t easy, but it was something I had to do, had to see, if I was ever going to have any peace. I’m sorry if I badgered you about what really happened to that airplane. I was a little crazy, I guess. A couple of odd things have happened lately, and I just let my imagination run wild. You were right when you said most of the time things are exactly what they appear to be. It’s just hard to accept that you can lose your family to anything as stupid as an accident, mechanical failure, human error, whatever. You feel like it just has to be a lot more significant than an accident because…well, because they were so significant to you. You know? You think there have to be villains somewhere, that it can’t be just fate, because God wouldn’t allow this to happen. But you started me thinking when you said the only place there’s always villains is in the movies. If I’m going to get over this, I’m going to have to accept that these things just happen, that no one’s to blame. Life is risk, right? God does let innocent people die, lets children die. It’s that simple.”

Joe was tense, waiting to hear what she would say, whether she had understood the urgent message that he was striving to convey so indirectly.

After a brief hesitation, Barbara said, “I hope you find peace, Joe, I really do. It took a lot of guts for you to go out there, right to the impact site. And it takes guts to face the fact that there’s no one to blame in the end. As long as you’re stuck in the idea that there’s someone who’s guilty of something, someone who’s got to be brought to justice…well, then you’re full of vengeance, and you’re not healing.”

She understood.

Joe closed his eyes and tried to gather his unraveled nerves into a tight bundle again.

He said, “It’s just…we live in such weird times. It’s easy to believe in vast conspiracies.”

“Easier than facing hard truths. Your real argument isn’t with the pilots or the maintenance crew. It isn’t with the air-traffic controllers or with the people who built the airplane. Your real argument’s with God.”

“Which I can’t win,” he said, opening his eyes.

In front of the newsstand, the storyteller and the Dodgers fan finished their conversation. The storyteller departed.

“We’re not supposed to understand why,” Barbara said. “We just have to have faith that there’s a reason. If you can learn to accept that, then you really might find peace. You’re a very nice man, Joe. You don’t deserve to be in such torment. I’ll be praying for you.”

“Thanks, Barbara. Thanks for everything.”

“Good luck, Joe.”

He almost wished her good luck as well, but those two words might be a tip-off to whoever was listening.

Instead, he said, “Good-bye.”

Still hummingbird tense, he hung up.

Simply by going to Colorado and knocking on Barbara’s door, he had put her, her son, and her son’s entire family in terrible jeopardy — although he’d had no way of knowing this would be the consequence of his visit. Anything might happen to her now — or nothing — and Joe felt a chill of blame coil around his heart.

On the other hand, by going to Colorado, he had learned that Nina was miraculously alive. He was willing to take the moral responsibility for a hundred deaths in return for the mere hope of seeing her again.

He was aware of how monstrous it was to regard the life of his daughter as more precious than the lives of any hundred strangers — two hundred, a thousand. He didn’t care. He would kill to save her, if that was the extreme to which he was driven. Kill anyone who got in his way. Any number.

Wasn’t it the human dilemma to dream of being part of the larger community but, in the face of everlasting death, always to operate on personal and family imperatives? And he was, after all, too human.

Joe left the public telephones and followed the concourse toward the exit. As he reached the head of the escalators, he contrived to glance back.

The Dodgers fan followed at a discreet distance, well disguised by the ordinariness of his dress and demeanor. He wove himself into the crowd so skillfully that he was no more evident than any single thread in a coat of many colors.

Down the escalator and through the lower floor of the terminal, Joe did not look back again. Either the Dodgers fan would be there or he would have handed Joe over to another agent, as the storyteller had done.

Given their formidable resources, they would have a substantial contingent of operatives at the airport. He could never escape them here.

He had exactly an hour until he had to meet Demi, who he hoped would take him to Rose Tucker. If he didn’t make the rendezvous in time, he had no way to reestablish contact with the woman.

His wristwatch seemed to be ticking as loudly as a grandfather clock.

* * *

Tortured faces melted into the mutant forms of strange animals and nightmare landscapes in the Rorschach stains on the walls of the vast, drab concrete parking structure. Engine noise from cars in other aisles, on other levels, echoed like a Grendel grumble through these man-made caverns.

His Honda was where he’d left it.

Although most of the vehicles in the garage were cars, three vans — none white — an old Volkswagen minibus with curtained windows, and a pickup truck with a camper shell were parked near enough to him to serve as surveillance posts. He didn’t give any of them a second look.