Decency (8 page)
Four days later Kelly remembered little.
It was raining. The open grave yawned awkwardly in her blurred vision. The others, the many, had departed the cemetery, the last over an hour ago.
The agony, the wrenching, sick void, the pain, the implacable pain, built and built.
Tom, I miss you so.
O
NE YEAR AND TWO MONTHS AFTER THE ACT.
The man sat at the bus stop in front of the Exxon station at the intersection of Branch and Locust in Columbia, Maryland.
He checked his watch. A minute later he checked it again. Appearing frustrated by the bus’s absence he rose, and casually walked to the corner, slapping the street side of the lamp post with his left hand as he passed.
A small, circular piece of adhesive tape remained where he slapped.
The next day, the man awaited the bus again. It seemed to be late again and he walked to the corner, passing on the street side of the post. The tape was gone when he glanced at where he put it.
He proceeded to his car parked six blocks into the adjacent residential neighborhood. He pulled away from the curb and drove for an hour and a half to the Court House in Manassas, Virginia. It was evening and well past the presence of remaining occupants. He drove up the street and parked in front of an antiques store.
He walked back to the Court House and rounded the annex. In the rear, midway along the building, the steel cover over the access to the water service pipe rested. He lifted the plate, reached into his trench coat pocket, removed the wrapped and sealed water tight packet, and placed it in the access bay.
He returned to his car and drove away.
One hour later another man arrived. He removed the packet, put it in his briefcase, and returned to his car. The other man drove twenty five minutes to the satellite parking facility at Dulles International Airport. He parked, took the shuttle bus to the terminal and in an hour and twenty minutes boarded a direct flight to LAX.
Two days later, General Zhou Guo, deputy to the Director of Intelligence for the People’s Republic of China, entered the office of the Director, Jiang Lin.
“Do you have news, General?”
“Excellent news. Will you walk with me in the garden?”
The Director’s face brightened. When the General requested they escape the ubiquitous ears of the NSA and its infernal listening system, the news was always excellent.
As they strolled the center courtyard, the General politely awaited an invitation to deliver the news.
“What do you have, my friend?”
“Our personnel at Long Beach have sent us a package from our asset in the NSA.”
The Director was extremely pleased and appreciated the tease.
“Our NSA friend is indeed productive. What has he sent us now.”
“A device, Director. The most devilish device perhaps ever manufactured. It consists of essentially a miniature version of an entire receiver and transmitter of the capability of an Echelon satellite.”
“Is that not the same thing as standard interception devices that any school boy can build and install on his parent’s telephone?”
“No, Director. This device is far more powerful. It monitors up to fifty thousand circuits, and transmits the intercepted data directly to the Echelon satellite. It is the size of your belt buckle and thus can be implanted in any computer, telephone switch, or even a building and intercept the conversations such as we are having now, that occur within fifty feet. It can also intercept the signals from the computer or telephone switch, fifty thousand of them. It transmits the information wherever it is directed to send them.”
The Director was beginning to understand the potential.
“How soon can we make such a device?”
“Our engineers now estimate it will take some months to duplicate it if they work around the clock. After that, they will be able to produce many.”
“And we will be able to install them at the NSA?”
“Of course, and many other places as well. We should also be able to gain unbounded profits from selling them to selected customers.”
“I will be very interested to mark the progress of this work.”
“I shall keep you informed.”
“Send my compliments to our personnel at Long Beach.”
“I shall.”
E
IGHTEEN MONTHS AFTER THE ACT
.
Kelly’s secretary saw the partner coming. Knowing he was not yet close enough for his eyes to see her do it, she keyed the intercom and whispered.
“Kelly, Abe’s coming.”
“Thanks, Jannie. It’ll be fine.”
He sidled up to Jannie’s desk outside Kelly’s office and spoke in a low voice to her.
“Any progress?”
She lied. “Some. See for yourself.”
He rapped on the door frame. “Kelly, got a minute?”
“Of course, for you my old friend, come on in.”
Abe Kramer, the
eminence grise
of the firm, ambled in and eased into the sofa farthest from the desk. He had started his practice of law in the 50’s specializing in radio, and had grown with the times into television, telecommunications, and the internet. Abe Kramer had mid-wifed AOL, and served on the board at Apple.
“Old as in ‘long-standing,’ I presume?”
Kelly smiled.
“Well, there’s something I haven’t seen in a while.”
Abe’s remark was a touch too jovial and the smile faded.
“Yeah, I suppose so. What’s on your mind, Abe?”
“Let me be brutally honest. I came to see if you are putting yourself back together any better than when I came last month.”
“Abe, I know I owe you some explaining. It’s about time I gave it, if you want to hear it.”
“Absolutely.”
“Shut the door, would you? I can say things to you the passers-by shouldn’t hear.”
He closed the door and sat down in front of the desk.
“We’ve been partners for long enough, Abe, that I really would like to let you know how it’s going with me. If you’re ready, it could take a while…”
“Fire away.”
Kelly leaned back in a show of casualness. “I’ve learned something in this. You know when someone says that ‘words can’t describe the loss they feel?’ Like the old song says, ‘it ain’t necessarily so.’ Words can describe it because almost anyone can comprehend what the loss of a loved one, someone truly loved, means. Loss of loved ones is dreadfully commonplace. No one gets out of here alive. Somebody’s loved one dies every minute. They know what it is like. It’s just not true that they can’t grasp it. What
is
true is that before it happened to them, they could not explain it to you. They did not comprehend it before.”
Abe nodded, understanding.
“But it’s more than that with what I lost in Tom. ‘Loved’ doesn’t say enough. Not even ‘lover’ or ‘husband.’ I was so, so, lucky to find him. A true life-mate. Someone who fills and fulfills you. Someone who inspires and satisfies you and makes you better than you knew you could be. The two of you blend, ferment and become a purer essence. The best of it is that you know it, and that you both do. You hope never to go back to the old you and there is no reason that you will. Both of you feel the same, always new, joy.
“He said it perfectly in a little note he wrote and left on the kitchen counter. Here it is. I look at it often.”
Kelly handed a post-it note to Abe. He read it in silence.
“Us. Dogs of passion yelp and gambol
in fields of play. Then, hungering, we
hunt, seize, and prey. Sated, we rest in
savored ways. But more, our spirits
fledge, and bolder, fly. Our souls merge.
Leavened, we soar.”
Abe let his hands drop to his lap, and looked up.
“
That
is a mate, Abe.
“Losing
that
mate marbles you. Like glass still too hot plunged into cold water, crazing cracks vein throughout your whole being, into every part of you.
“In the everyday, what do you cook when the reason you cooked is gone? When do you do the chores that he did, when the reason he did them was for you? What do you pay attention to that he did, when it was meant for you? What to ‘do,’ when ‘why’ isn’t there?”
She paused and Abe could tell she was not finished. A long minute stretched out before she started again.
“It mars your spirit. You think if you fight your way up out of despair, when will another blow strike? When will you come out the other side? When you do, will it be worth that fight? Was it all a mask, a way to hide the real, that without him everything means so little?
“I learned other things too. I didn’t know that losing a mate wreaks unbearable pain upon you. I didn’t know before that it is a physical pain. I assumed it was some thought or emotion that comes and goes. Instead, it is what depressed people describe as inescapable, actual physical pain, an ache so deep and enveloping that it becomes you. There is no stint. Inside you is a permanent acid rain burning everything.
“Before, I thought ‘crying all of your tears’ was just an expression. You really do run out of tears. I didn’t know that your eyes can stay reddened for days. I didn’t know I would think about passing it off as allergies.”
Abe fought off the urge to smile, remembering just how she looked when she claimed “pollen.”
“I didn’t know what ‘throwing yourself into your work’ meant. That you do just that. You throw yourself over there, and the real you, over here, what is going on inside, stands and watches the other you try to use work as a distraction, thinking that if you do enough of it, somehow it might draw you in. It doesn’t. The pain is stronger. It works you. It works you to exhaustion.
“Exhausted, you become dull. You have no energy for getting up in the morning, for getting dressed, talking to others, thinking, or doing of any kind.
“Little by little, the dullness actually rescues you. It borrows little purses of energy for you here and there. It lets you sleep a little. It lets you have some spark to get up and get dressed. Eventually, it lets you have a morning. Later still, you can have morning and afternoon. You find you can get through a day if you barricade yourself against it. Then you get good at tricking yourself into falling asleep.