Liberation Day Part 3

The engine turned over and we rolled out of the parking s.p.a.ce. She cleared her throat. "I've been thinking about a whole bunch of stuff while you were away. There's something very important I want to say to you."

I reached across and pulled off her hat before running my fingers slowly through her hair, as she negotiated the Plymouth over the potholed pavement. We hit the main drag and turned left up the north sh.o.r.e for the ten miles to Marblehead.

"Good important or bad important?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. It'll be easier for me to explain when we get there."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. Tell me some other stuff, then."

Luz liked her new school, she said, and had started to make some really nice friends; she was staying over with one of them for the rest of the week to give us time together. She also told me how her mother's bed-and-breakfast had picked up a little since September. Oh, and that she thought there might be a part-time job for me at the yacht club as a barman. I wanted to tell her that I didn't need a job serving pints of Sam Adams for weekend water warriors. Come Wednesday, I was going to be a bona fide, bona fide, flag-waving citizen; the U.S. was my oyster, and all that sort of thing. flag-waving citizen; the U.S. was my oyster, and all that sort of thing.

Marblehead's old town was like a film set: brightly painted wooden houses with neat little gardens sitting on winding streets. Cornish fishermen had settled there in the 1600s, maybe because the rocky coastline reminded them of home. The only fishermen there now dangled lines off the backs of their million-dollar boats in the Boston yacht club.

Marblehead today was where old Boston money met new Boston money. Carrie's mother had been born there, and was blessed with plenty of the old stuff. She'd come back ten or so years ago, after her divorce from George, and took in bed-and-breakfast guests because she enjoyed the company.

Carrie made a couple of turns that took us off the main street and we came to a stop on a small road that ran along the water's edge. Tucker's Wharf jutted just a little into the water, with old clapboard buildings on either side, now restaurants and ye olde shoppes. "This is it," she announced. "We're here."

We got out, zipped up against the cold, and Carrie took my arm as she walked me toward a wooden bench. We sat and looked out over the bay at the large houses on the other side.

"Mom used to bring me here when I was a kid," Carrie said. "She called it Marblehead's gateway to the world. That sounded pretty magical to a ten-year-old, I can tell you. It made me think my hometown was the center of the universe."

It sounded pretty magical to me, even now. The place I'd grown up in was the center of a s.h.i.+t-heap.

"She used to tell me all kinds of stories of fis.h.i.+ng boats setting off from here to the Grand Banks, and crews gathering to join in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812." She smiled. "You're not the only history buff around here. I hope you're impressed." The smile faded slowly as her thoughts turned elsewhere. She looked into my eyes, then away, across the water. "Nick, I don't really know where to start with this."

I gave her hair a stroke. I didn't know where this was going, but I guessed it had to do with Aaron. I had a sudden flash of him sitting under guard in that storeroom in Panama, smoking. His nose was bloodied and his eyes were swollen, but he was smiling, maybe feeling happy with himself that he'd helped the rest of us escape into the jungle as he enjoyed his last cigarette.

I hadn't had a clue how I was going to get him out of there. I was unarmed; my options were about nil. Then he had made the decision for me. The door burst open and Aaron launched himself into the night.

As he slithered into the darkness there was a long burst of automatic fire from inside the house. Then the guard got to the door and took aim with a short, sharp burst.

I had heard an anguished gasp, then a chilling, drawn-out scream. Then the sort of silence that told me he was dead.

"I brought him here, you know, soon after we'd met. We came up from Panama one vacation. I knew it would scandalize my parents. Turned out they had a whole lot of other stuff on their minds. George was too busy fighting whoever were the designated bad guys that year to notice I was there. I shouldn't have been surprised. He couldn't even remember Mom's birthday. So back we went to Panama to study while the folks got divorced." She smiled wistfully. "Jeez, I'd gone to all that trouble to round off my rebellious years by getting laid by my teacher, and my straitlaced parents were too busy messing up their own relations.h.i.+p to pay any attention.... s.h.i.+t," she said, rolling her eyes. "Maybe I shouldn't be encouraging you into college."

I gave her a squeeze. "I spent my rebellious teenage years stealing cars, and the ones I couldn't get into I'd just smash up. I think they're over now."

Suddenly she pressed herself against me. "I hated you being away, Nick. It scared me. I guess it made me realize how much I've gotten used to having you around. After Aaron died I told myself I'd be very careful about laying myself open to that sort of pain again."

I lifted a hand to her face and brushed a tear from her cheek.

"I was worried about being with you, Nick. Dependability isn't exactly high on your resume."

I gave my resume, as she called it, a quick glance. This time last year I'd been living in homeless shelter housing in Camden, had no money, had to line up to get free food from a Hare Krishna soup-wagon. All my friends were dead apart from one, and he despised me. Apart from the clothes I stood up in when I arrived in Panama, my only other possessions were in a bag stuck in Left Luggage at a London train station. She had a point.

"And no sooner have we settled down here than you take off again. Not much for a girl to brag to her mother about, is it?" She paused. "Then there's Kelly. What if we don't get along? What if she and Luz don't get along?"

I was Kelly's guardian: she was the other woman in my life I was busy disappointing. She was thirteen and not nearly as grown-up as she liked to think she was. I'd be seeing her at Christmas down in Maryland. Not on Christmas Day itself, because she was doing the family thing with Josh and his children, her new family, but I'd be seeing her on Christmas Eve. "Carrie, I-"

She placed a finger to my lips. "Sssh..." She turned and looked me straight in the eye. "I was was worried, but I'm not worried anymore. I don't care about the past. You're a tour guide now, a barman, whatever-I don't care, as long as you're good at it. The last few weeks have been good for me. They gave me time to think, and I realized something. I can finally think about what's ahead. It's like I was just treading water the last year, my life was on hold. worried, but I'm not worried anymore. I don't care about the past. You're a tour guide now, a barman, whatever-I don't care, as long as you're good at it. The last few weeks have been good for me. They gave me time to think, and I realized something. I can finally think about what's ahead. It's like I was just treading water the last year, my life was on hold.

"That's what I want to tell you, Nick. I want us to be together-really together." She looked down, then up again and into my eyes. "New Carrie, new Nick, new life. That's why I wanted to bring you here. Tucker's Wharf, gateway to the world. Gateway to the future.

"You've been so patient about Aaron. I know I'll never get over him, but I am ready to move on, and that's the important thing. I want the future to be about us."

"I don't know what to say."

"Then don't. You don't need to say anything."

We stood up and walked arm in arm for about twenty minutes until we reached a small protected cove.

"Little Harbor." She swept her hand across the bay. "Mom always called this the place where it all began. The founders, some of them her family, put down their roots here in 1629. The settlers cut back the forest to build tiny thatch-roofed cottages and fis.h.i.+ng boats. I can still hear Mom saying, 'From here, strong-hearted men set out to fish uncharted waters.' I loved her stories of the founding families. They were gutsy, venturesome, in search of personal liberty, a plot of land, a place by the sea..."

"They had a point." I was surprised to hear myself saying it out loud. "Marblehead is pretty much my fantasy, too, you know." I hadn't known places like this existed when I was skipping school in Peckham.

"Tucker's Wharf was about departures, Nick. This is about arrivals. It's our new start. I feel we're at the start of something, and I wanted to bring you here to tell you that. I've never shared this place with anyone, not even Aaron." She smiled again. "Ready for some more history? Our s.h.i.+ps traded with the known world, dried fish for clothing, tools, gold and silver. Everybody prospered and there were two big news stories-war with the French, and pirates. They hara.s.sed the coast for decades."

She hesitated for a moment, embarra.s.sed. "I got you this." From under her coat she produced a carefully wrapped gift, tied with s.h.i.+ny blue ribbon. She beamed. "Go on, open it. It won't bite."

I removed the ribbon as delicately as I could.

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson. by Captain Charles Johnson.

She could barely conceal her delight as I flicked through the pages, pausing at each ill.u.s.tration.

"It was first published in 1724. I had to get this edition from a little place in New York. I know it's not the Middle Ages, but there's a whole lot about s.h.i.+ps from New England being boarded en route to London. I knew you'd like it. And, besides, it's to remind you of everything I've been boring you about just now."

I closed the book. "You haven't been boring me. I loved every word of it."

We got back into the car and drove to Gregory Street. The house had been in the family for years. Built in 1824, it was originally a fisherman's cottage overlooking the sea. Various additions and renovations over the years, probably during the Golden Age she was talking about, had turned it into a s.p.a.cious family home. A wooden pineapple was nailed above the front door as a sign of welcome. They were all over the place in this part of the world. A couple hundred years ago, sailors returning from long voyages would place a pineapple by their door to show they were back and people were welcome to come and visit. I would normally have made some quip about that, but thought better of it today.

She swung the car into the gravel driveway and headed toward a white Taurus parked in front of the annex, next to my covered-over Yamaha 600 motorcycle.

Carrie didn't seem too concerned. "I thought Mom wasn't expecting anyone until Sat.u.r.day. Oh, well, I'll go see if she remembered to put out the cookies and coffee. Got to look after the guests!"

As we got closer I could see Ma.s.sachusetts plates. The vehicle was so clean and sterile it had to be a rental.

She parked beside it and we both got out. She threw her keys at me over the roof. "Tell you what, why not take a shower and I'll be right back? And make sure you shave. We have some catching up to do." There was a smile before she nodded at the annex. "Go."

Excited, she ran back down the drive toward the front of the house as I went into the annex. It was huge, much bigger than the last house I'd lived in, and tastefully furnished in dark wooden furniture that had been in the family for generations. I always felt as if a photographer from Architectural Digest Architectural Digest would appear at any minute to take pictures of me reclining by the log fire. I didn't spread myself around too much, though. I didn't have much to spread. would appear at any minute to take pictures of me reclining by the log fire. I didn't spread myself around too much, though. I didn't have much to spread.

She had made a big effort for my homecoming. There were flowers, and a bottle of champagne on the mantelpiece. Leaning against it was a plain white card that said in her distinctive, large, and neat handwriting, "Welcome home."

I put my duffel bag on the floor in the bedroom, went into the bath suite and got the shower going while I undressed. The hot water ran down my smelly body and I did something I hadn't done for a while. I started to think seriously about the future.

I got to work with the soap and razor before stepping out to dry myself with soft white towels.

I heard the front door shut. "I'm in here..."

The bedroom door opened and she stood in the frame, tears running down her red face.

I had a bad feeling about this, and it had to do with the Ma.s.sachusetts-plated Taurus parked in the driveway. "Carrie?"

Her green eyes, just as red as her face, stared at me as I moved forward to comfort her.

"George is here. Tell me what he's saying isn't true, Nick." Her eyes searched mine, and I had to look away.

"What's he saying?"

"That you've been working for him."

"Carrie, come and sit down-"

"I don't want to sit down."

"I have something to tell you."

"Then tell me, before I go crazy," she said, and I could hear her starting to lose control. "What are you going to tell me? Why won't you simply say that my father is lying?"

"Because it's not that simple," I said.

"It is is simple! It's f.u.c.king simple!" She could no longer keep the panic out of her voice. "He says you work for him. But that's not true, is it, Nick? Is it? You've been in Egypt, haven't you, as a tour guide? Christ, Nick, are we living a lie here?" simple! It's f.u.c.king simple!" She could no longer keep the panic out of her voice. "He says you work for him. But that's not true, is it, Nick? Is it? You've been in Egypt, haven't you, as a tour guide? Christ, Nick, are we living a lie here?"

I shrugged. I didn't know what to say.

Carrie looked at me as if I'd knifed her. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" she gasped. "You f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"You don't need to know this s.h.i.+t," I said. "My work for him is finished. I've done one job for him. I only did it to get my citizens.h.i.+p. George has gotten me a U.S. pa.s.sport. We can-"

"We nothing," she snapped. "We don't exist anymore."

"But-"

"You don't understand what you've done to me, do you?"

The next few seconds seemed to pa.s.s in slow motion. Carrie moved toward the door, anger and sadness etched across her face. She stopped and looked at me for a long time, as if she had something to say but couldn't find the words. Then she was gone.

I didn't move. I told myself I needed to give her some s.p.a.ce. In truth, I just didn't have the b.a.l.l.s to go after her.

Then the decision was made for me. The engine of the Plymouth fired up and the car shot down the drive.

7.

A gang of seagulls screeched overhead and dived into the water just forty yards away as I ran toward the front of the house. gang of seagulls screeched overhead and dived into the water just forty yards away as I ran toward the front of the house.

The sea was choppy; there was a wind picking up that made the yachts in the bay bob agitatedly at their moorings, and their rigging sound like the rattle of a hundred cages.

As soon as I was through the heavy wooden front door I was. .h.i.t by the overbearing heat. Her mother kept the temperature at a solid ninety degrees, day and night.

George called out from the rear, "In the kitchen."

My Timberlands clunked on the dark hardwood floor of the hallway and I pa.s.sed the loudly ticking grandfather clock.

George was sitting, straight-backed, at the old pine rectangular table. A dozen or so photographs of boats were stuck to a corkboard behind him, and he was looking down at a picture frame in his hands. Little lace doilies and smelly candles sat on every sc.r.a.p of surface.

"You know what they say about New Englanders and the cold, Nick?"

I shook my head.

"When the temperature hits zero all the people in Miami die. But New Englanders, they just close the windows. Trust my ex-wife to be different."

If he was extending a hand of friends.h.i.+p, I wasn't shaking.

Just like in the old picture of years ago, square-jawed and muscular, George was still looking like something off a recruitment poster. The only difference now was that his short-cropped hair was graying. His face was cold and unyielding. This setting of New England family domesticity didn't suit him at all.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here, George? We were supposed to meet downtown on Wednesday, remember?"

"Our plans have changed, Nick. We're not talking about a vacation booking."

He pursed his lips and picked up a framed photograph from the Welsh dresser. I could see it was of the three of them. Carrie must have been about ten years old in her blue-checked schoolgirl summer dress. He was in his medal-and badge-festooned military uniform, holding a certificate, with his wife standing proudly beside him. I'd told Carrie when I first saw it that they looked the perfect family. She'd laughed. "Then h.e.l.looo...meet the camera that lied."

"You could have sent somebody. You didn't have to come in person. You know I wanted to keep her out of this."

He didn't answer as I looked down at him. He was a man who had never let power and success go to his clothes. He was dressed in his civilian uniform, a brown corduroy sports jacket with brown suede elbow patches, white b.u.t.ton-down-collar s.h.i.+rt, and a brown tie. There had been one addition since September 11: he now had a Stars and Stripes badge pinned to his right lapel. But, these days, who didn't?

At last he looked up. "She didn't even give you time to dry your hair." There was just a hint of a smile as he thought of his daughter f.u.c.king me off, as he placed the frame carefully on the tabletop. "I've done you a favor, son. She needed to find out sometime. And I happen to think she deserved to know." He bent down and picked up a leather folder from beside his feet. "Maybe this will help. Compliments of the U.S. government."

He went and poured himself some coffee from the pot while I sat opposite his chair at the table and unzipped the folder. "It's not as if it's a bad thing you have done, you have nothing to be ashamed of." He turned around and gestured toward the mug in his hand. I accepted with a grudging nod. Carrie's mother would go ape if the wood got marked, so I took two pineapple-motif coasters from the pile in the center of the table as George continued, now with his back to me. "This isn't a war of choice like Vietnam or Kosovo. This is a war of necessity. It's in our yard now, Nick. Carrie should be proud of you."

I glanced into the folder and saw my pa.s.sport, driver's license, and other doc.u.ments. "This could have waited, George."

"What you did for us out there, it had to be done, Nick. This is not the time to be showing the world we're nice guys. This outreach thing that's going on, every schoolkid gets a Muslim pen pal, that kind of thing, it makes no sense. This isn't a time to hug, this is a time to be feared."

I flipped through the pa.s.sport and there was something wrong, big-time wrong. These weren't Nick Stone's doc.u.ments; they belonged to someone called Nick Scott, who had the same face as me. I looked up sharply. George was still pouring creamer. "I didn't want a new name, I wanted my own back."

He came and sat down with the two mugs of coffee, pa.s.sing one across the table then waving my last words aside. He kept the other in his huge left hand, his veteran's onyx signet ring glinting on his ring finger. He took a tentative sip; too hot-the mug went on the coaster. "Do you know over six hundred people died in floods over in Algeria two days ago? You were lucky to get in-country before the storms."

I cupped my hands around the mug and felt the heat. "I heard something."

"You know why? Because the drains had been blocked to stop terrorists planting bombs under the streets and killing people. Kind of ironic, isn't it?"

I didn't know where this was headed, but I wasn't feeling good about it. I just wanted to get out of here and go and find Carrie.