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Page 30.
Chapter 17
 David had just finished briefing Jankowsky on his meeting with Bellamy, when Tory rang him on the collar com. “David, can you talk?”
“Something about Ib?” A fist seemed to tighten in his abdomen.
“Nothing yet.”
“Where are you? Is everything okay?”
“I’m at the Atlantic Hotel, David,” she said with a sigh; “my unit is being moved here!”
David frowned. So the military team using CloudMaster at NSSO was being transferred from the Observatory to the computer center at the Atlantic Hotel & Convention Center. Colonel Bentyne, her commanding officer, was directly under General Montclair’s command.
“I’ll be coming to this horrible place every day.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Look on the bright side, Tory. There is a shuttle to the hotel. You can ride to work with me in the morning and then shuttle on.”
“That would certainly be a bright spot. I don’t like this at all, David. Jet’s pretty gloomy about it too. There’s fourteen of us, and nobody’s happy about it. Aw hell, it’s the Army. What did I expect?”
Somebody is tightening control, David thought. Somebody is bringing all the toy soldiers together where they can be better watched. “There’s an upbeat soul. Want to meet me for lunch?”
“Yes.”
“You sound like you need cheering up. I’ll meet you at the Atlantic and we’ll find a little place.”
David met Tory in the main lobby of the hotel. She was dressed much as he was—jeans, plaid shirt, sweater, light jacket—because her crew were packing up the office records and supplies. “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” he told her as they walked toward the elevators. “What a magnificent lobby,” David said as his eyes raked across an acre of hillocks, waterfalls, palm trees, and more greenery. Massive marbled columns in soft honey tones swirling among soft cacaos, loomed into the ceiling. In the cavernous lobby, David turned his gaze upward through the hazy emptiness. Way up, shafts of sunshine cut through small high windows and even higher skylights. The shafts leaned through the atmosphere, fading into fragments filled with lazily whirling dust motes like lightning bugs.
She whispered: “Isn’t it wonderful? I still hate the idea of working here.” She pushed a button. “My car is in the basement garage. I’m done packing my desk, and I don’t need to hang around.” They stepped inside, the door closed, and the elevator descended.
“Want to spend a few hours with me?” she asked.
“I can’t think of a better way to pass the afternoon.”
The door opened upon a dark vista of concrete and weak lights. The place was packed with light armored infantry vehicles painted with blue and yellow camouflage blobs. Fifty caliber machine gun barrels bristled ominously from ball turrets. A squad of commandos looked up in surprise while unloading ammo boxes from a pallet. Their sergeant frowned as he stepped toward the elevator. “What are—?” he started to say but the door closed.
“Next floor up. Who are they?” Tory asked as the elevator rose.
“You sorta get used to them, and sorta not,” he said echoing what Bellamy had said. They found her car and drove out of the garage, into a welcome gust of wind and daylight. “What a relief to be out of there,” she said.
“CON2 will be over in a few months,” he suggested. How long did a bunch of idiots need to completely screw up the Constitution? If the Constitution radically changed, the Supreme Court would be almost meaningless until a new body of interpretive law had been built from the ground up. Even the division of powers into Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary could be up for grabs. Nothing would ever be the same again.
They passed a cordon of trucks outside, drove past the checkpoints, and into the heart of the city. Despite CON2, the machinery of government was in full motion, and the sidewalks were jammed with pedestrians dressed for office work.
“There is one place I’d really like to go,” Tory said.
“You name it.”
“You can say no.”
“I won’t.”
And she explained as they walked slowly along the paths and lawns, her arm slung through his, their bodies close together. Victor Breen had been a hero of the Vietnam War, a Medal of Honor recipient, killed in battle long ago. Tory had an older brother who’d been ten when her grandfather’s coffin came back from Asia. He’d told her in loving detail about the funeral. The Army had buried Victor Breen at Arlington in a light drizzle while a few scattered flowers came into a late bloom along the endless somber green. Tory's brother told of a U.S. flag draping the coffin. Men in uniform with lots of stripes and braids had attended. Soldiers had fired guns. Taps had quavered hauntingly where Tory and David walked today. Tory's brother retold the story about once a year when the family reunited for Christmas at the house in Davenport.
Today, Tory carried a bouquet of flowers.
“Nice place for a stroll,” David said, holding her lightly, appreciating the specialness of the place.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said. She seems to be growing distant, he thought.
She folded her arms upon herself against the brisk wind, and pressed against him. He liked the feel of her shoulder, then an arm, an elbow, a hand, against his side. They came to the weathered stone. She knelt and laid the flowers lovingly on the grass beside the simple white headstone that read Victor Breen, Col., USA. Moss grew on the stone, filigreed with hairline cracks by many winters and summers. He noticed her eyes brimmed and then tears twirled through the air and spangled the young green grass. Somewhere over a hill covered with brittle orange leaves, at some new gravesite, a volley of shots rang out. Thin, distant strains of Taps floated through the air.
David gave her a paper napkin, and she blew her nose. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He held her, feeling the delicacy of her long body, the wiry strength in her arms, yet the softness of her body. He felt the liquid pressure of her firm breasts against him as he held her. They stood silently for a long time, entwined, inhaling one another’s scents, breathing together, stroking, cuddling, holding.
They held hands walking along the paths. The trees were dense, and the sunlight dripped through silvery nets full of bird twitter. She held his hand but pulled away a little bit. “David, I guess you like me.”
“I like you a lot. You say that with a sigh.”
“I like you very much, David. You do make me sigh.”
She pulled her hand away and sat on a boulder. He sat on a boulder near her. She had that cloudy, haunted look again. He watched her hands—strong, feminine, with long fingers—as she picked a leaf apart. She was silent, tearing leaves apart in an intensity that told him to be quiet while she gathered her thoughts. Finally, she wrapped her arms around her knees and looked away. “I wish that we lived in another world where things were easier.”
He waited.
“I wish—you would—love me.”
He said nothing. He loved her already.
“I wish—the timing....”
“What about the timing?”
“I got dropped on my head.”
“Huh?”
She laughed bitterly. “I was married to a guy—sales executive, of all things, Army Reserve officer—who was having affairs right and left. I'll spare you the details. It got to be humiliating, and everyone talked. He was forced to resign his commission, finally, and I had to be reassigned. I nearly resigned my commission. The divorce became final a year ago.”
“So you're free. Not the first person in history,” David said. “My story is kind of similar. I was married, and she kept up a relationship with an old boyfriend from college. She was—” Out of her mind, he thought bitterly at the memory. “—on a different wavelength.” He finished with a lame little laugh.
“I'm sorry,” she said darkly. “I'm not what you'd call high-maintenance, but I'm not sure of things, of me, yet.” She looked down, and her hair looked tousled around wild eyes.
David caught her to him, pulled him against her. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “Of course you're not. We've only just met. We are enjoying the moment, okay?”
She nodded, blending against his shoulder. He pulled her tightly to him, and felt her yielding into his aura. He said softly: “Can you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Enjoy the moment.”
“Oh, I 've been enjoying it very, very much,” she said with breathless sincerity.
“My heart kind of leaped when I first saw you. And of course you can trust Maxie to have all sorts of arcane agendas.”
“Yes, she is a real fiend.”
“So,” he said, “we have to resolutely try to enjoy every moment together as best we can.”
“I'll try my very best. It doesn't seem overly hard.” She traced her fingertip along his eyebrow, down over his cheek, to touch his lips.
“Tory, there is something more, isn't there?”
Her eyes widened and she stiffened, pushing away. “What do you mean?” She rose.
He followed. “I don't know how to say it. From the first moment I saw you, I could see that there is something sad about you, deep inside.”
She folded her arms defensively and stood looking at him challengingly.
Feeling awkward, he said: “If there is anything I can help you with—”
“That's sweet of you, David, but no.”
“Okay. Fair enough.” He held out a hand of reconciliation. “We live for the moment, then.”
She did not take his hand, but walked with her arms still crossed. Gradually, she put her arm through his. Arms linked, they walked to the car. In the gravid solitude of these hills and graves, they kissed long and ardently. “I have to think about things,” she said. Her fingertips worked anxiously as if she were tying knots, or untying knots, down by her belly. “If I want to talk, I'll let you know. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
She offered her hand. “Come on, let’s go see some museums.”
They heard another volley of shots and the melancholy wail of Taps. For a little while, as he drove across the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River and into the city he thought he could still hear the echoes of that grieving bugle flowing like wine among the hills.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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