Triggers

Chapter 39

Under normal circumstances, Bessie Stilwell might have wished to spend more time in Los Angeles. She’d always wanted to see the Walk of Fame, and find the stars there for Cary Grant and Christopher Plummer and James Dean. And it certainly was nice to be somewhere warm after Washington. But her son was still in the hospital, and although she’d seen him first thing this morning before she and Darryl had flown here, she needed to get back, to be there for him.

They left the TV studio and headed straight for the Los Angeles Air Force Base. Bessie was put in a secure waiting room, with two uniformed Air Force guards standing outside the door, while Darryl went off to speak to the base commander. She lowered herself slowly, painfully, onto a wooden seat and picked up a magazine off a table—but the type was much too small for her to read.

At last, Agent Hudkins returned. “Okay, ma’am,” he said. “Everything’s set. I’m sorry we have to make two big flights in one day.”

“That’s all right,” Bessie said. “I need to get back to my son, anyway.”

“Yes, ma’am. Shall we go?”

Janis was lying on the bed in the guest room, in a fetal position, her eyes closed, thinking about what she’d done. Part of her was elated at having left Tony. And part of her was terrified, wondering what the future held.

And, of course, there were the memories of Josh Latimer being shot. They were still vivid, but they weren’t real anymore; they felt like any memory felt, with no sense that the thing was happening again right now. The soldier she’d met today, Kadeem Adams, had post-traumatic stress disorder; his flashbacks felt like the horrific things were really happening again. But, thankfully, it seemed Jan wasn’t going to be experiencing that immediacy every time she recalled Josh being shot.

“Jan…?” Eric’s voice, not much above a whisper—the kind of tentative uttering of a name one uses when testing if someone is asleep.

She opened her eyes. He was silhouetted in the doorway, a thin, bald man, leaning against the jamb. “Hmmm?” she said.

“Dr. Griffin called. There’s going to be a press conference about Jerrison’s condition at 4:00 P.M. He wants me to be part of it.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Do you want to come?”

“How long will it take?”

“Could be a couple of hours. He wants us all to go over what we’re going to say first, before we face the reporters.”

She hadn’t been part of the surgery. “Can I stay here?”

“Of course,” and although he didn’t say it, she heard in his tone and was grateful for it, “For as long as you like.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’m going to head out. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. You like Chinese.” She’d never told him that, but he knew. “There’s some leftover kung pao chicken.”

“Thanks.”

Jan soon heard him leave the apartment. She lay there a while longer, hugging her knees, but at last she got up, left Quentin’s bedroom, and headed into the living room.

The furniture was nicer than any she’d ever owned; everything in her place had been named for some damn Swedish lake or river and had been assembled with an Allen key. But this stuff—the coffee table, the bookcases, the cabinets, all in what she guessed was cherrywood—was expensive.

Besides numerous hardcover books—a luxury Tony had never let her buy—there were objects on the bookshelves: an Eskimo soapstone carving of a bird, a quill pen, a bronze medallion with the word “Champ” engraved into it, a white marble chess piece. Each of them doubtless had a story behind it—they were keepsakes, mementos—but they meant nothing to her.

But there was someone beside Eric who could tell the story behind each one: Nikki Van Hausen.

It was a distinctive-enough name, Jan thought, although, if she were married, it might be her husband’s first name that was in the phone book.

Jan exhaled noisily. If she were married. This Nikki woman knew everything about Eric, but Jan didn’t know even the most basic facts about Nikki.

She went into Eric’s office. He had a MacBook Air sitting on a glass-topped workstation, with a Safari browser window open. She typed “Nicky Van Hausen” into Google, but that produced too many hits to be useful. But adding “real estate” to the string quickly turned up pay dirt, thanks to Google’s offering the correct spelling of the first name: her website, but also, Jan was surprised to see, an article from this morning’s Washington Post. Upon getting word of the memory linkages that had occurred at LT, a clever reporter had interviewed Nikki, since she remembered the operation as clearly as Eric himself did.

Her website—which offered “2% commissions” and “free home appraisals”—gave her phone number. Jan picked up the handset in this room, then set it back down; she didn’t want the Caller ID to show Eric’s name. She went to the marble entryway, got her purse, dug out her cell—and saw that she had four voice messages from Tony. She shuddered, ignored them, and placed the call.

“Nikki Van Hausen Realty,” said a perky voice.

“Is this—” Christ, she still didn’t know if it was Miss or Mrs. “Um, is this Nikki?”

“Speaking.”

“Nikki, this is Janis Falconi.”

There was silence for three or four seconds. “Oh.”

“I need to talk to you,” Jan said.

“What about?”

Jan’s turn to hesitate. “Sharing Eric’s memories.”

“Look, about that article, I didn’t—”

“No, no. I don’t care about the article; I don’t care that you know that stuff. It’s just—I just…I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d be more comfortable with all this if I met you.”

“Umm. Okay. Maybe.”

“Could we get together this afternoon?”

“Um, where?”

“Well, I’m sure you know I’m staying at Eric’s place, and I don’t have a car or a key. Could you—could you come by his home?”

“Ah, will he be there?”

“No. No.”

Nikki sounded relieved. “Yeah, I guess I could do that.” A pause. “He’s in the Potomac Palace, right?” she said, naming his condo development. “Penthouse two?”

Jan shivered slightly. “Yes.”

“I’m showing a place near there this afternoon. About 4:30, okay?”

“Fine,” said Jan. “Thanks.” They ended the call, and she held her cell phone in her trembling hand.

Bessie hadn’t had much to do with the military since her husband had come back from Korea all those years ago. She was amazed at how high-tech everything had become: here at the base there were all sorts of computers, complex screen displays, and sundry gadgets that she couldn’t begin to identify, and—

And, well, no, that wasn’t right. She did know what a bunch of them were, now that she thought about it: she knew because Seth Jerrison knew, having learned about them since coming to office—although a lot of them still didn’t really make sense to him, either, what with being a history professor and all. As she and Darryl walked toward the plane, they passed soldier after soldier, and out on the airfield, near the jet that was going to take them, she saw what had to be a bomber, and…

And the word Counterpunch popped into her head.

And as they continued on into the plane and were shown to their seats, details about it came to her—horrible, horrific details. Her hands were shaking so much that she had to ask Darryl to do up her seat belt for her.

Yes, the US had been pushed too far by terrorists; there was no doubt about that. But this—this was…

Of course, a response was necessary; yes, leaders had to lead.

But this!

The plane started rolling down the runway. She had four hours until they’d land.

Four hours to decide what she was going to do.