HEAR (11 page)

He laughs. “There might be something to this whole genetic inheritance thing after all.” After a peek at his new watch, he unclasps it and slides it over his hand. “Here,” he says, holding the watch out to me. “ You've earned this.”

“No way.” I reposition the bobby pin, dust off the dirt and stray leaves still stuck to my shirt, and stand up straight. “I couldn't possibly. You won that fair and square.” I cock my right eyebrow at him. “Didn't you, Rocket?”

“Welllllll, that might depend on your definitions of ‘fair' and ‘square.'”

I smile. “So,” I say, “I guess we're not going to be heading back to the party?”

His eyes go to the second-floor window, and he shakes his head. “No, I think I might head back to my room. Do you . . . maybe want to come with me?”

Before I can answer, flashing lights start blinking in front of me. They float across my field of vision in blue-and-orange striped bars. Almost immediately I feel dizzy. “I, uh.” I wobble backward.

“I mean, it's no big deal,” he replies, trying to backtrack.

“No, it's that I'm starting to feel . . .” I don't exactly know how to describe it. “It's weird. I started seeing these multicolored flashing lights.”

“Floaters? I get them too. Usually at the beginning of a migraine. Is your head hurting?”

“No, but I'm starting to feel a little nauseous.”

“I will do my best to assume that's unrelated to my invitation.”

I manage a laugh, but I'm starting to feel worse. “I think I should head back to my uncle's house . . .”

“Do you want me to walk you?”

I shake my head. I'm happy he asked, but I'm worried that at any minute I'm going to hurl. The only thing that makes throwing up any more uncomfortable than it already is is yakking in front of someone else. “That's okay. You don't have to.”

“I know I don't have to,” he responds. “But you saved my ass back there. The least I can do is hold your hair back and avert my eyes if you barf.”

There is genuine concern for me on his face, and I cave. Despite my desire to act brave, I
would
like the escort. He extends his arm, and I take hold of it. It's exactly as strong and steady as I imagined it to be.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

By the time Pankaj and I reach my uncle's house, a headache has taken over my entire skull, the pain echoing inside. We've been walking in silence; I'm not feeling well enough to banter, and besides, I don't want to say anything stupid or that I might regret. He doesn't seem that interested in chitchat either. We stop in the shadow of the front walk.

“Thank you,” I say. It comes out as a whisper.

Pankaj smiles, leans in, and gives me a soft kiss on the cheek. “Feel better,” he says as he squeezes my hand. “And sweet dreams.” He turns and walks back in the direction of campus.

I watch him disappear down the road before heading for the front door. Under the fluorescent glow of the porch light, I start rubbing my eyes to try to get the pain in my head to subside. Incredibly, the more I paw at my eyes, the more I seem able to keep the throbbing at bay. I reach into my pocket to retrieve my key, and I feel something smooth and metallic collide with my right hand: the not-so-fairly-and-squarely-won watch. I half smile, half wince as I slid my hand through the steel wristband and clasp it on my wrist.

As I look down at the watch's face, I'm seized with such an intense sensation of vertigo it feels like I've just been let go after being spun in circles. I grip the doorjamb, shutting my eyes tightly to stop myself from crashing to the ground.

That's when I see the explosion.

A fireball shatters windows and blows the doors off a small white house. Its orange-brown clay-tile roof buckles with the blast, and the body of a woman comes flying out, her limbs limp, like a tossed rag doll. Seconds later, two men—one wearing an aqua T under a white sports coat, the other dressed in a Hawaiian shirt—stumble out of the gaping hole that was once the door of the burning house. They're coughing violently, covered in black soot and blood. The man in the sports coat scans the area as he staggers around the debris-strewn street. He seems to be looking for movement, for any sign that the bombers are still nearby. But the only motion is in the distance. Windblown foreign flags wave and snap at the base of an enormous statue—a giant silhouette of a freedom fighter in a broad-brimmed cowboy hat.

The second man out of the building, the man in the Hawaiian shirt, has run directly for the woman. He gathers her in his arms and presses his ear to her heart. Her eyes are lifeless. He pulls away, his mouth open in a silent, anguished howl . . .

And then I'm released from the vision's hold. The headache is gone too. Stranger still, as I slide the key into the lock and twist, another sensation fills me: euphoria. I feel a rush of something wonderful, totally disconnected from the horror I just witnessed. It's as if the pain grew like a soap bubble to create the vision and then popped, sprinkling everything with a rainbow-tinted afterglow.

I close the door behind me and hurry to the mantel in the living room. To that picture of Uncle Brian and that woman . . . and just as I remembered, he's sitting in a café in an all-too-familiar Hawaiian shirt. Having focused only on Brian and the woman with whom he was so clearly in love, I failed to notice before what was in the background of the shot: a sixty-foot statue, a looming silhouette of a freedom fighter in a broad-brimmed cowboy hat.

“Uncle Brian?” I call out. I head back into the entry hall. “Uncle Brian!” I shout with more urgency.

“Kass?” His muted reply floats down the stairs. “I'm in my room.”

I glance at my new watch. It's past midnight. I'm late for curfew, and I've probably just woken him, but I don't care. I need answers.
Now.
“Okay, I'll come up there.”

“No,” he shouts back quickly. “Give me a moment. I'll be right down.”

I head back into the living room and sit in his chair. As I wait, I try to catalog all the various tchotchkes on the bookshelves and windowsills, the random items a person collects over the course of his life that paint the story of who he is. Or the person he tries to convince others he is. Now that I'm focused, I notice that there are a lot of items from Latin America: a small brightly colored wool rug (the kind the hippie kids wear as ponchos); a fuzzy little llama sculpture; woven baskets; and candle holders.

“Do you approve?” Uncle Brian says as he shuffles into the room, catching me mid-inventory.

“Is it all from one trip, or have you traveled to Latin America a lot?”

He tightens the belt on his robe then runs his hand over his face. The skin under his eyes is puffy and pink. His face looks haggard, his body tense. “Is that really what you wanted to ask me?”

I shake my head. “I'm sorry if I woke you.”

“ You didn't.” He pauses, puts his hands in the pockets of his robe. “I haven't really slept much since Graham was murdered, if you want to know the truth.”

Seeing my great-uncle in this state, I no longer have the stomach to pump him with questions. So I sit there, mute, as he stands over me, waiting for me to say something.

“Um, I was just wondering if they'd made any progress in the investigation?” I ask lamely. “Like, are they any closer to finding the gunman or figuring out who did it?”

Brian shakes his head. “Not that I'm aware, no. I realize this must be very upsetting for you too.”

I nod. That much is true. “I just hope they catch the guy soon.” This too is true.

Brian nods. “Why don't I make us some tea? Hopefully it will soothe us both.”

“That sounds great, thanks.” I stand and follow him into the kitchen. But in the light, I pause, realizing just how dirty my clothes are from my roll on the ground with Pankaj. “Uh . . . I'm just going to change into my pj's,” I mumble, heading for the stairs. “Be right back down.”

“Take your time,” he replies. “I'll put the kettle on.”

As I climb the steps, there's a twitch in the reptilian part of my brain. It's the part that acts before it thinks. I'm
aware
I'm about to do something ill-advised. But even my superego isn't strong enough to stop me from seeking answers to my questions. Questions about my great-uncle's history. I need to understand why he and his colleagues were playing deadly spy games in Latin America.

I look at my new watch and give myself six minutes.

After loudly padding into the observatory, I strip off my clothes, throw my nightshirt over my head, and exit silently. (Watch check: 5:20 remaining.) Back in the hallway, I start moving on my toes, placing my feet slowly and gently on the floor in front of me. Once I'm up the stairs on the third floor, I switch to my soundless and stealthy fox walk, touching each foot lightly to the ground so that the outside edge hits first, then rolling the foot inward until the whole surface area of the sole is down.

There are doors to my left and right, both partially open, and one at the end of the hall, which is closed. I assume that's Brian's bedroom, so that's the door I walk through (4:53).

The hardwood floor is partially covered by a worn Persian rug, and a large bed takes up most of the back wall. On the nightstand rest a glass of water on a coaster and a heaping stack of books, each with a bookmark jutting out of its pages. There's also a small wooden desk in front of the window and a corkboard hanging on the wall to the left. For such an eccentric, he has a disappointingly normal bedroom . . . at least at first glance. Unsure what I'm looking for, I slink over to the bulletin board.

Tacked up is a Polaroid photo of my uncle, who looks like he's in his thirties, ice skates hanging off his shoulder. He's holding the mittened hand of a young woman—the same woman from the picture downstairs, the same woman killed in that explosion. Though they're standing together at the edge of a crowded rink, they're looking at each other as if they're the only two people in the world. They are the stars of their own epic romance. Written in neat block letters in the white space below the image is a quotation:
“Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.” —Albert Einstein.
There's an asterisk under the quote followed by the words:
“But it CAN and MUST be held responsible for my fall on that ice.” —Ellen Rios.

So that's her name (4:21).

Still unsure of what I hope to find, I poke my head into the closet. The heap of junk at the bottom makes it look like Uncle Brian's been in a perpetual state of “throw everything where no one can see it” housekeeping.

Unless . . .

Unless that's the point. Getting on my hands and knees, I dig through the pile until I find a small safe he's hidden here (4:08). My new lock pick is ideal for this type of work, but it's in my bag downstairs, and I can't risk the exposure of going back to get it. I need to make something work here, so I scan the room. On Brian's desk is a single paper clip. That'll do. Once I straighten the clip and refashion it into a tension tool, I pull the bobby pin from my hair and bend the end, turning it into a pick (2:34).

It takes me longer than I hoped to get into the safe, but eventually I hear that telltale click, and the door swings open (1:47). I rifle through the papers inside until I find a file with a tab marked
ucla
. My pulse quickens: the letters from my first vision. I flip open the folder.

Reading the front page of the report inside, stamped with the word
confidential
in red ink, I discover that
ucla
doesn't stand for University of California, Los Angeles, as I assumed. It's an acronym for something else entirely:

Though controversial, the CIA's use of the UCLAs (Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets) in Nicaragua in the 1980s proved a highly effective tool of governmental destabilization.

My head spins. I try to process this information. What the hell does “Unilaterally Controlled” even mean? It sounds shady, wrong. Latino assets sounds racist. Though my visions now have some context, they feel even more unclear and unsettling to me. Both the assassination of the candidate and the bombing must, in some way, be related to these tools of destabilization. And Brian was somehow connected to these various tragedies, if not directly responsible. More than ever, I need to know the role he played then and the role he's playing now.

“Kass!” Uncle Brian shouts from downstairs.

I look at my watch: 0:23.
Damn it.
“Be right there!” I shove the report back in the folder and return it to the safe, throwing the clothes and junk back on top before shutting the closet door. I tiptoe down the hall and hit the stairs, flying down to the second floor before assuming a casual pace. When I get to the bottom step, I see I have two seconds left of my six minutes, though it feels like a year's been taken off my life.

Uncle Brian is steeping the tea when I enter the kitchen. “Sugar?”

“A lot,” I manage, somehow not gasping. “Thanks.”

Handing me the mug, he looks me in the eye. “Now, what was it that you were so keen to speak to me about when you came home?”

I take a sip of the tea before responding; I need to compose my thoughts. But I also don't want to stall anymore. I need to know who this man really is. “I want you to tell me about your time with the CIA,” I say. “Specifically I want to know about Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets.” I'm uncomfortable even saying the words. “What does that even mean?”

Brian takes a step back, his eyes widening with surprise. “How did you—” But he stops. “How much do you know?”

“I've had two visions. Two
really disturbing
visions.” I put the tea down on the counter. “ You were in the second one. A house you were in blew up. What's UCLA, Uncle Brian?”

Brian's eyes close and he swallows hard. I wonder if he's picturing the scene again too. “The UCLAs were elite teams the CIA put together. They had allegiance only to us, putting the CIA ahead of their own governments and families; that's what ‘unilaterally controlled' means. All of the team members, the “assets,” were Latino, so—Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets.” He looks down into his mug and stirs his tea. “I worked with them in Managua, Nicaragua. Graham Pinberg, Chris Figg, and I were down there helping them strategize in the fight against the Sandinistas. Graham didn't last very long; didn't suit him. He didn't like the climate, the perpetual sweatiness. But more pointedly, he didn't like the work we were doing. It was our job to make it ‘mentally easier' for the Assets to do their jobs. So he left the Agency and found a job here at Henley.”

I nod, immediately wondering how you make it “mentally easier” on someone who's trying to destabilize a government. “What about the woman?”

Brian nods. “Ellen was the reason I stayed.” He pauses momentarily and takes a sip of his tea. “She was the leader of our unit. She was brilliant, she was beautiful, and she was shrewd. She was also the love of my life.”

“I'm . . . I'm so sorry.” I have a million questions, but don't know what to ask first. “Why did they bomb your house?”

“It was in retaliation for a political assassination.”

I nod again. Just as I suspected, the visions
were
connected.

“The US government sent the CIA into Nicaragua to promote ‘regime change.' That's what the government does when it wants to get rid of its enemies. So it was our job to help assets commit sabotage,” Brian continues, taking another sip of his tea. “We then trained them to create unrest and undermine governments throughout Latin America.”

“By gunning people down?” I ask, first thinking of the vision and then getting a mental flicker of Professor Pinberg's memorial in the Merion Building.

Brian nods his head. “Occasionally, but assassinations were relatively rare. The UCLAs generally blew up refineries, ships, and bridges. The idea was to create chaos, especially at the ports, because they were of great economic importance. It was all in the name of stopping the ‘dire threat' of communism.” His face darkens as his tone turns sarcastic, his eyes far away. “Sadly it's just another dark and ugly chapter in US history. But I left the Agency after . . . Ellen.” He shakes his head. “I had to leave after that. I stopped believing in the mission. And I'd come undone.”