“Jen sure looked like one,” said Andrews, tapping his glass.
“Jen’s danced through three husbands since the last World War. And I never needed to pilot those gliders. I was only along for the ride.” Bruno poured the toxin.
“We got those runways built in no time.”
“We did our job. Then I beat you into a ball,” Bruno said with grit in his voice.
“I’ve…given up boxing,” said Andrews, drinking.
“For what,” said Bruno, turning his back to the man in order to look casual.
Andrews pinched down the alcohol. “FBI, my good man. That’s why I’m here.”
“Isn’t there a law against working for a government agency when you’re passed eighty? There should be! The world’s going senile, and if you’re running things, it’s no wonder why!” Bruno grabbed a dry cloth from under the bar and wiped his hands.
“I’ve retired,” said Andrews with a grin. His eyes were tight, dry, and as serious as they had been in India. “But I still work…as a Special Informant.”
“Counter intelligence? You’re spying on Americans for America, eh? Back-stabbing your brother and that stuff? You gone communist on us, Andrews? That why we haven’t heard from you in so long?” Bruno said with a laugh, but the questions had meaning, expecting straight answers. Andrews had carried a dark soul inside his living corpse during the war. No one at the reunions debated how much blacker he’d become since then.
Andrews looked at the remaining liquid in his glass. “You wouldn’t understand what I do, traitor.”
“How do you know I didn’t go work with the CIA before retirement?” said Bruno, turning away.
“You’re a fist, Bernard. Not an intelligence officer,” said Andrews, scratching the side of his nose.
“Hundred and twenty men and five officers in our division. You were the traitor all along. Here to check up on me, Andrews? You’re not here to catch up on lost memories, are you.”
Rubbing the rim of his glass in an attempt to get it to hum, Andrews said nothing.
“What can I do for you then?” Bruno said to the businessman, as customers waved good-bye, heading out the glass door.
“I’m looking for a student from these parts.”
The door slapped into the doorframe with a crack.
“Wait here then. Get about three hundred of them in a day,” said the man in the T-shirt.
“Name’s…Alred. First name, Erma. Know her?” said Andrews, his pupils dry as natural glass in the Sudan.
“Nope. Said yourself, I’m not a brainiac, I’m a grunt. What’s up with her.” Bruno kept his chin up, his old trick for inviting punches. He did his best to look vulnerable. That way, Andrews wouldn’t defend against Bruno’s mind- probing jabs.
“Green eyes. Light auburn hair. Big-boned, but not overweight. Twenty-seven.” Andrews pulled a black and white photograph from a leather briefcase he lifted onto one of the stools.
Bruno examined the picture. Immediately he rumbled through the files in his mind, collating the data, searching…
“Hey Bruno!” called a customer.
He shouted without looking up. “Hold your hairy horses!” Bruno remembered the girl. She’d been in a few times. The one who looked like she’d seen a ghost. Had some connection with…John Porter, the hot chocolate, French fries, and ranch dressing man. Asked questions about the young man, if Bruno remembered right. “Don’t recognize her.”
“No?” said Andrews, obviously sensing the lie.
“What’d she do?”
“She may have stolen something,” Andrews said, sliding the glossed paper back into the briefcase. “But I think she’s innocent. I can help her, if I find her. What about…this guy.”
The picture of Porter made Bruno’s blood speed even faster through his well-aged veins. The snapshot looked as if it’d been taken within the month.
“Been a student at Stratford University almost seven years now. Kinda plain looking, I realize, and the black and white doesn’t help. Brown hair and gray eyes. About thirty-three, little over six feet…seen him?”
“Not at all,” Bruno said too quickly.
“Worth a shot,” said Andrews. He smiled and put the photo away. “Well it was good to see ya…you old traitor.” His eyes were sharp as old-fashioned razor-blades.
Bruno nodded, eyeing the straight-standing geezer in the suit, wondering who was the real defector. Andrews was a weasel from the beginning, strategically selling his soul-or rather, anyone else’s-for a filthy buck. “You take care, now. No dying of old age, hear?”
“I told you,” Andrews said heading for the door, “I’m immortal now.”
The glass door swung closed, another thunderclap.
“A bloodthirsty killer, I have no doubt,” said Bruno.
8:59 p.m.
“This is a rotten idea. It’s going to get me killed,” Porter said.
“You don’t know that,” said Alred, leading the way. “Besides, Kinnard said he needed both of us right away.”
“What if he’s being cajoled. Gun point or something,” said Porter, bumping into the wall as they pushed down the white corridor.
“Porter, you have to trust somebody.”
He decided to say nothing else for fear of sounding any more like a child. But still, he looked behind him repeatedly. Almost to Dr. Kinnard’s office, Porter sneezed, panicked about giving himself away, and turned around again-doing his best to look as if he’d simply slowed to admire the modern art depiction of a fifteenth-century German pavis, the shield used in medieval times to protect the entire body.
Porter figured there were at least twenty doors on either side of the corridor. He pictured men in black waiting for them to pass before shooting them in the back.
He was examining the closed portals again-pretending to examine the pink and green lily pad in oils-when he heard Alred’s knuckles hit Kinnard’s door frame. His skin cooled.
“So you did get to Ulman’s security box?” Porter said under his breath.
“I’d better tell you about that later,” she said as Porter locked eyes on her. Alred wore an attracting perfume he didn’t recognize, and for some reason his stomach felt empty.
Kinnard opened the door. “Come on in.”
As the professor took his seat in silence, Porter entered and stared helplessly at the wide window to his left with no shade to shut out the night. It was a black hole in the white wall. With florescent light brightening the room, anyone could see them from outside. And if a sniper waited…he wouldn’t even need a scope to kill Porter in that small office.
The only other decoration was the silver expansion bolt Porter always glanced at when entering, wondering if there would be a screw in it some day. He looked at it out of habit, but also hoping it would bring some sense of comforting normality. He had to shut off his emotions; they were getting in the way. He felt like a small child on a playground full of bullies hiding behind big trees.
“Thanks for coming so late. I needed to talk to you as soon as possible…before you got much further,” said Kinnard, sitting, leaning forward, and clasping his muscular hands together.
“Why,” Alred said, taking a seat.
“You’d be impressed, Dr. Kinnard,” said Porter. “With all the…opposition we’ve faced in this project… everything is still progressing well.” It was the truth, but did it make him feel better?
Kinnard examined Porter as if he were a caterpillar in a cocoon. “You’ve found positive links between the ancient Middle East and Mesoamerica?”
“The KM-2 substantiates facts I’ve already been gathering for many years,” Porter said, sinking into the other hard chair before Kinnard’s desk, glancing at the window from time to time.
“Like what,” Kinnard asked Porter, shooting Alred a quick look.
“Mesoamerican historians professing isolationist’s theories have attempted to explain away the existence of the coconut, cotton, and the bottle gourd in pre-Columbian America by saying it simply floated there,” said Porter.
