'Kendrick Gallmon,' he replied automatically.
'Not that guy writes for the Washington Free Press?' the other asked, his eyebrows raised. Kendrick nodded in reply. In any circumstances but these, it would have been nice to have his name recognized. Outside of Washington, and whoever subscribed to the Press's eepsheet newsfeed, generally nobody knew who he was.
'I read your column every week,' said Marco. 'Pretty critical of Wilber, aren't you?'
'Any other time in history, he'd be given psychiatric treatment for preaching the end of the world. Instead, we vote him in as President. I think you could say I was critical, yes. But who was right about what?'
'Sorry?'
'You said 'we were right'. Right about what?'
'About the crackdown. After this morning, over on the West Coast.'
Kendrick stared back, his face blank.
'Ohh.' Marco nodded gently. 'You haven't heard, have you?'
'I heard something on the radio.' As they continued talking in quiet whispers, Kendrick studied Marco more closely: a deeply lined face with a strong jaw, and clear blue eyes that danced with intelligence. The hair stood up in a white shock from the top of his head. Given his apparent age, he was dressed in reasonably current fashion, and he gave the impression of caring about his appearance. The more Kendrick considered him, the more he started to look familiar.
'Marco?' he said at last. 'I know you: Frederic Marco, the writer. You wrote The Contortionist.' It was a book he'd read over one long, languid summer in his teens.
'Listen,' said Marco impatiently. 'You didn't hear what happened in LA?'
'Los Angeles? What's happened to it?'
'What's happened is that it isn't there any more,' hissed Marco, his grin not faltering for a second. 'Can you imagine that? No more Sunset Boulevard, no more Beverly Hills, no more Venice Beach… I liked Venice Beach, but now it's all gone.' He nodded his head wonderingly. 'Imagine that.'
'But what happened?' asked Kendrick, a sick feeling spreading through his stomach.
'Got nuked,' said Marco, and his smile faltered briefly. 'Probably by film critics.' The grin resurfaced.
'Nuked?' It was such an outrageous-sounding piece of news, but somehow Kendrick believed it. All it needed was for him to cast his mind back over what had happened to him over the past few hours to see how serious things might be. No more Los Angeles? Feeling like he was performing a part in some movie, as if this were all play-acting, he asked, 'Who?'
Marco shrugged. 'Beats me. Take your pick of suspects. It won't be the Chinese, not after the way they fell apart. That leaves pretty much any political or religious group with a grudge, or perhaps terrorists, or any other random bunch of crazies you care to pick. But to get back to my original point, we were right – people like you and I – about what was going to happen to this country once the shit really hit the fan.'
All the while more people were being escorted into the shed, and more led away Marco continued. 'This country's been going to hell for such a long time, nothing's going to change that now. People starving in this country, diseases we thought long gone being reintroduced ten times stronger, the climate all changed and the Gulf Stream fucked, four localized nuclear wars in Asia – just count 'em.' He held up one fist and, pushing up four fingers, pointed at them in turn. 'Four! And the environmental disasters leaving millions dead in the Midwest. We're sailing down the river towards the sharp rocks, but still acting like everything's going to be fine. Wilber being elected President is the icing on the cake – or the death stroke, maybe.'
Marco leaned in a little closer. 'Frankly, Kendrick, we're fucked, and somebody just hammered the last nail into the coffin. Ain't none of us here going to get out of this mess alive.'
Kendrick bristled. 'That's just paranoia.'
'Look, listen to me,' said Marco, placing a hand on his shoulder. Kendrick felt uncomfortable at the unexpected intimacy of the gesture. 'You're a journalist, and people with jobs like yours are only secure so long as what you're doing isn't seen to be against the national interest. President Wilber gets to decide what the national interest is. That means right now the national interest is rounding up everybody who could have any kind of connection, however vague, with anyone whom Wilber deems an enemy of the state, whether real or imagined. You and me, that might make a twisted kind of sense, but look at some of these other people.' Marco gestured around him with a swivel of his neck. 'Ordinary people, not terrorists. But maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or voted for the wrong people, or had the bad luck just to be related to the wrong person.' Marco's voice had taken on a certain urgency.
'I don't understand what you're saying.'
'What I'm saying, Kendrick, is I'm seventy-six years old. I've had a long life, and I've been very good at making enemies. In some way or other, all of us here, without even knowing it, have made ourselves somebody's enemy. I always said life in this country was a losing battle, because it's always the guys with the guns who win. That's why I'm doing what I'm about to do. It's important that you understand. That you remember, for me, if you ever get out of this.'
Kendrick felt sudden heat rising in his face. He watched as Marco stood up, drawing the attention of the several guards observing them all keenly.
'Marco, for Christ's sake-' Kendrick grabbed at the old man's sleeve as he abruptly stood also. But Marco shook him off with surprising energy and started moving away between the rows of chairs. The others around them watched this sudden development with interest, astonishment or, more frequently, fear.
Cursing under his breath, Kendrick stood and stepped quickly after the old man, grabbing his sleeve again before he had gone more than a few steps. One of the soldiers headed towards them.
'What the hell are you trying to prove?' Kendrick hissed.
Marco turned his calm grey-eyed stare on him. 'I am taking decisive action, which is a phrase President Wilber likes to use a lot. We both know men like him only get elected under the most extreme circumstances, and this country is currently under some very extreme circumstances indeed.'
The soldier stepped forward and placed a hand on Marco's chest. Kendrick wouldn't have put him at more than seventeen or eighteen. A thin fuzz coating his cheeks made him appear even younger.
'Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to take your seat again.' The words were directed also at Kendrick.
'Fuck you,' Marco replied loudly and decisively, the words reverberating in the confines of the shed. The uniformed boy faltered. 'I've not been charged. I haven't done anything. Neither has anyone else here. So, fuck you.'
Another soldier stepped over, this one older, his uniform decorated with a sergeant's stripes. He dismissed the first soldier with a nod of his head.
'I'm going to ask both of you to return to your seats and wait for your interviews.' He pointed one meaty hand at the chairs they had just vacated. 'You're under military jurisdiction as long as you're here. That means now.'
Something remarkable happened then. Marco raised his hands to shoulder height, putting a grin on his face, a parody of surrender. The sergeant's face relaxed a little. Kendrick was looking at the sergeant, which was why he didn't see Marco suddenly pull one of his arms back and throw it forward, punching the sergeant hard in the face.
The soldier reeled back, looking more surprised than hurt. Marco sprinted past them both with remarkable agility, clearly heading for the nearest exit. Kendrick started forward again, not sure exactly what he intended to do but nonetheless feeling driven to do something, when he felt a hand grab him roughly.
He spun round, just in time to see another soldier swing his hand around in an arc, his pistol held grip outwards in a motion that connected with the side of Kendrick's head. Kendrick spun round, crumpling to the ground, flecks of darkness dancing across his vision.
He retched, staring through a forest of chair legs. Somewhere very close a woman screamed. As he pulled himself up onto his knees, he saw the sergeant whom Marco had punched standing with legs planted firmly apart, his pistol gripped firmly between two fists and pointed directly at Kendrick's head.
This was how Kendrick remembered what happened next.
Marco, framed by sunlight, visible beyond the island of chairs… the soldier who had pistol-whipped Kendrick yelling incoherently… Marco, far more agile than Kendrick might ever have suspected, now just a few metres from the exit. And then a deafening explosion that, in Kendrick's memory, went on and on for ever.
He had stood up on trembling legs to see Marco lying in a crumpled silent heap, one arm stretched out so that
