The Rose Diary

Fairfax Station, Virginia

That afternoon and evening, Washington, D.C., was filled with ironic talk about the failure of Vietnamese and Chinese negotiators to agree on a peace settlement. Speechwriters for Jimmy Carter were already busy preparing a vow that America would keep its pledge abroad; that America would not turn back to isolationism.

Thirteen miles southwest of the capital was Harold Hill's Old Virginny Home on six neat acres in Station. The land was closed in by green rolling hills and white picket fences. It was rich in honeysuckle, boxwoods, dogwoods, and full-bred domestic animals. On one of the white fence gates was the hand-painted sign OUR OLD VIRGINNY HOME.

Perhaps! But when Harold Hill was away from home, he sometimes referred to the place as 'Vanilla Wafer.'

From every vantage point, the Hill homestead seemed innocent and indistinctly sweet. The most secretive thing anyone might even associate with the normal-looking place was the presence of one of A. C. Nielsen's famous survey TVs. But never murder, or mayhem, or Intelligence. Which is more or less the way Harry the Hack wanted it.

On most weekday evenings during the spring and early summer, Hill was in the habit of playing hardball with his son, Mark. Mark was fourteen, a budding star in Babe Ruth league baseball. Every night that there was no game, Mark had to throw his father one hundred strikes or be damned.

Hill was haunched awkwardly over loose-fitting Top-Siders that night; just sweating nicely; starting to enjoy the exercise-the warm itch in his palm under a Rawlings catcher's mitt.

Suddenly he was called to the house by his wife, Carole. 'Long distance calling,' she shouted from the porch in an Alabama accent she hadn't lost while living in eight different countries. 'It's Brooksie Campbell.

Hill excused himself to his son, then jogged up toward the big Colonial-style house. On the way inside, forty- four-year-old Harold Hill started to feel a little turmoil in his stomach.

Brooks Campbell just didn't call you at home. Not to shoot the bull, anyway. There was something about this terrorism bullshit-Campbell's so-called specialty-that didn't sit well with Harold IEII.

Terrorism was something for the Arabs and Israelis. The Irish. The Symbionese Liberation Army. Something for the little people who had to play dirty. Terrorism just wasn't something Americans should be getting involved with. Inside his den, Hill dialed an eight hundred number on a phone he kept in a locked desk drawer.

What would happen-he continued his thought from outside-if a major power started playing dirty pool on a regular basis? All-out, no-holds-ban-ed dirty? What would happen if America found a real guerrilla' war? Shee-it! is what would happen. A return to the Dark Ages.

Hill punched an extension button, and the call from the Caribbean was switched onto a safe line, a scrambler.

He could still'see Mark outside. Throwing high pop-ups over an old spruce. Catching them basket like Willie Mays. The boy had an incredible throwing arm. Incredible.

Just as he began to think that the telephone switch-over was taking too long, he heard Brooks Campbell's voice.

'Hello, Harry.' A slightly muffled Campbellhis deep stage voice sounded a little muddy. 'The reason I'm calling, Harry-'

Harold Hill let out a short, snorting laugh meant to slow down the younger man. 'I think I'm going to sit down for that. For the reason you're calling.

'Yeah, sit down. It's not good news.... It turns out, uh, that Rose was seen by a man at Turtle Bay yesterday. How about that? We buy someone even we haven't seen, a fucking genius, supposedly, and he's immediately made by somebody else. Shit, Harry, if I didn't know better, I'd say that somebody is fucking around with us. At any rate, I don't want to take any chances with this.'

'Does Rose know he was seen? Tell me the whole thing, Brooks.'

'Basically, he knows his situation,' Campbell said. 'He called us today. At least his wife did. She said they want to take care of it themselves. Cute?'

'Terrific.

'The man who saw him is a nobody, thank God. American, though.... By the way, Rose shot and cut up the president of ASTA this morning. Harry, they're freelancing like crazy now. I don't even remember the original plan we were shown. He skipped a meeting with me last night. They've gone fucking nuts on us.'

Harold Hill closed his eyes and visualized Campbell. Brooks Corbett Campbell. Princeton man. WASP from New London, Connecticut. Slated for big things at the Agency. Neo-Nazi, in Hill's humble opinion. Kind of guy who always thinks he knows what's best for everybody else.

'Well, uhhh... I think we have to go along with them a while longer. Don't you? Maybe you ought to lay hands on this witness. It seems to me that we may need him to identify Rose. Eventually, anyway.... I have no intention of letting them leave the island after this is over. That's an obvious stroke. ' 'Sounds good.' Brooks Campbell raised his voice above some transatlantic chatter. 'That's pretty much the way I see it right now

Hill paused for a moment. He thought he ought to try to cheer Campbell up a bit. S.O.P. All right. Okay on that,' said Harry the Hack. 'Now let me have the bad news

Young Brooks Campbell tried to laugh. Your basic combat camaraderie. 'Thought you'd never ask,' he said.

Coastown, San Dominica

Let's try to look at this shitty mess logically,' Jane suggested.

Peter didn't answer. He was way off someplace else. At the artillery range outside Camp Grayling in central Michigan. Shooting tin cans off Brooks Campbell's head. With a bazooka.

At ten that night the two of them were out on the dark patio of Le Hut Restaurant, trying to comprehend

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