Triggers

Chapter 44

Marine One—the president’s helicopter—landed on LT’s rooftop helipad. Seth was strapped to a gurney and loaded on board for the flight to Camp David. He was accompanied by Dr. Alyssa Snow and Secret Service agent Susan Dawson, and was met by a Marine honor guard upon landing.

Mrs. Jerrison was already at Camp David. Seth insisted on being taken to Aspen Lodge—the presidential residence—rather than the infirmary, and was gently transferred to the king-sized four-poster bed there. A roaring fire was already going in the bedroom’s fireplace. The large window had its curtains drawn back, giving a magnificent view of the countryside, even if most of the trees—poplars and birches and maples—had long since lost their leaves.

Seth lay in the bed, his head propped up enough that he could stare into the flames, thinking about the speech he was going to give later today.

One must learn from history, Seth had often told his students—and sometimes not even from American history. In 1963, a terrorist group called the Front de Libération du Québec planted bombs in several Canadian military facilities and in an English-language neighborhood of Montreal. Later FLQ attacks included bombings at McGill University, the Montreal Stock Exchange, and the home of Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau. Then, in October 1970, the FLQ kidnapped the British trade commissioner, James Cross, and the Québec minister of labor, Pierre Laporte.

Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s charismatic prime minister—who had been a thorn in the side of Johnson and Nixon—had finally had enough. When asked how far he’d go to put down the terrorists, he said, “Just watch me.” And the world did, as he invoked Canada’s War Measures Act, rolled out tanks and troops, suspended civil liberties, and arrested 465 people without charge or trial.

Laporte was ultimately found dead: the FLQ had slashed his wrists, put a bullet through his skull, and strangled him—in the first political assassination in Canada since 1868. But it never happened again: in all the decades since, there’d never been another significant terrorist event on Canadian soil. Lone crazed gunmen, yes, but organized acts by terrorists cells, no.

Just watch me.

Seth continued to stare into the flames.

Jack was back at his station, back at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The place’s name was the one thing that bothered him about it: you usually think of vets as soldiers who survived a battle, but the 58,272 names engraved here were the Americans who had died in that swampy nation, fighting a pointless war.

Jack was grateful for the nice new ski mittens that pretty woman had given him, and he was wearing them now. He didn’t know why she had his memories, but he was glad she did. The dead soldiers named here understood, and so did those who’d survived, and, he imagined, many of those who’d been to Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya understood, too—but it was so hard to share what it had been like with those who had never seen combat, those who had never tasted war. At least that woman, Janis, understood now, too.

There were always people on the Mall, but Jack imagined fewer would stop at the Vietnam Memorial today. Instead, just as he himself had earlier, they’d hang around the places that had been in the news lately: the Lincoln Memorial and the charred rubble that had been the White House.

The main part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial consisted of two polished black stone walls that joined at an oblique angle. The west wall pointed to the Lincoln Memorial and the east one to the Washington Monument. The walls were only eight inches high at their ends but rose along their 250-foot lengths to be over ten feet tall where they met.

Someone was approaching now. Jack always waited to see what each person needed. Some people knew how the wall worked—the soldiers were listed chronologically by date of death—and could find their loved one’s name incised in the stone. Others needed help, and if they seemed lost, he’d show them how to use the index books that told you which of the 144 panels had a particular name on it. Others still needed someone to listen, or someone to talk to. Whatever they needed, Jack tried to provide it. And for those who didn’t know, who didn’t understand, he told stories.

The approaching man was black and about Jack’s age—maybe a vet himself or maybe the brother of one. Jack watched as the man found the name he was looking for—it was about shoulder-high on the wall. Not many people left flowers in the winter, but this fellow did, a small bouquet of roses. Jack waited a minute then walked over to speak to him.

“Someone special?” Jack asked.

And, of course, the answer was “yes.” It was always “yes”—everyone listed here was special.

“My best friend,” the man said. “Tyrone. His number came up, and he had to go. I was lucky; mine never did.”

“Tell me about him,” Jack said.

The man lifted his shoulders a bit as if daunted by the task. “I don’t know where to begin.”

Jack nodded. He took the bright red mitten off his right hand and offered that hand to the man. “My name’s Jack. I was there in 1971 and ’72.”

The man wasn’t wearing gloves. “Frank,” he said. He shook Jack’s hand for several seconds.

“Tell me about the last time you saw Tyrone,” Jack said. The memory of that event—Tyrone’s farewell party, at his favorite bar—came to Jack as soon as he asked about it, but he let Frank recount the story anyway, listening to every word.

Bessie Stilwell was scared. The Army colonel who had intercepted her and Darryl at Andrews Air Force Base had taken them to Camp David—and then locked them in Dogwood, a large guest cottage on the grounds there. She hadn’t been allowed to go to Luther Terry Memorial Hospital to see her son, and hadn’t been allowed to speak to anyone except Colonel Barstow and Darryl.

She understood what was going on: as soon as Barstow had gotten her and Darryl into his car, the memories of President Jerrison’s phone call to Secretary Muilenburg asking him to have his staff intercept them had come back to her. They were prisoners here, cut off from the rest of the world. The president was going to go ahead with his plan; he wasn’t about to let a little old lady interfere.

According to the framed photos on the walls, German chancellor Helmut Kohl had stayed in this cottage during the Clinton administration, Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda had stayed here during the Bush years, and British prime minister David Cameron had used this place when Obama was president. The cottage had a large, luxuriously appointed living area and four giant bedrooms, so she couldn’t really complain about the quality of the accommodations. But her cell phone had been confiscated, and so had Darryl’s BlackBerry, there were no computers—although Darryl had pointed out where they had previously been installed—and the phone could only reach the Camp David operator. And, of course, the doors were guarded, so they couldn’t leave.

Bessie didn’t need much sleep—five hours a night was all she normally took since her husband had died. And so she woke up before Darryl emerged from his room, and she went into the living area and sat in a nice rocking chair, looking through a window at the beautiful countryside. She concentrated on Seth’s memories, trying to find something—anything—in them she could use. But it was, she had learned, all about triggers: unless something brought forth a memory, the memory was hidden. Ask her what she knew about Seth Jerrison and the answer was nothing; ask her what his birthday was, or what make his first car had been, or whether he preferred his toilet paper to hang over or under the roll, and she could dredge the answer up.

She hunted and hunted, thinking about this, about that, then about something else, again and again.

At last, frustrated, she did what she always did when she needed guidance. She prayed. God, she knew, understood that she had arthritis and wouldn’t mind that she didn’t go down on her knees. She just sat in the chair, closed her eyes, and said, “O Lord, I need your help…”

And after a moment, her eyes opened wide.

Ask and ye shall receive.

She’d already been told she couldn’t speak with President Jerrison. But maybe, somehow, there was a way to get a message to him—and him alone.

Perhaps a letter? She got up from the chair and shuffled over to the elegant antique writing desk—it pleased her that it was probably older than she herself was. She found some stationery in a drawer, and a retractable ballpoint pen, but—

But she couldn’t trust that anything she wrote down, even if she put it in a sealed envelope, wouldn’t be read by others before the president saw it. If only there was some way to send him a private message…

And it came to her.

Of course.

So simple.

You take any three numbers that add up to thirteen…