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Settled on the sofa with hot tea after a day of hiking, Maple and Stickman were jarred by TV images of their former selves, images still looking too familiar for comfort. “Shit, fuck,” said Maple, his cup rattling as he set it on the coffee table. “Listen to this,” Stickman ordered.
Maple went silent as he tried to concentrate on the well-known anchorman but the words swam past him like static. ... wanted in the attack on the Russian Embassy that killed more than forty ... also in the deaths of four sheriff’s deputies ambushed as they waited for backup near ... The pair disappeared without a trace ... heavily-armed and extremely dangerous ... whereabouts unknown, with sightings from around the globe. Authorities say privately that they believe the men have not left the U.S. by commercial transportation. They concede, however, that the two may have slipped across either border. So far the pair has not been linked to a terrorist group, domestic or international ... apparently homegrown though nothing is known about their backgrounds ... Officials also concede that the names very possibly are aliases ... have had enough time to alter their appearances ... ten million dollar reward for each ...
Stickman was rapt as the anchor brought in three guests, two of them retired law enforcement, who offered nothing beyond speculation. “Good,” Stickman said as the segment ended. He switched off the TV to think. There would be plenty to watch throughout the evening. “Two of those so-called experts were ex-feds who had high level jobs. If the cop community had much more to go on those two would have known about it.”
“Maybe they were told to keep their mouths shut.”
“Maybe. But they would have wanted to leave the impression they knew things they couldn’t talk about, if only to justify their consulting fees. They didn’t do that.”
There was a long silence and Maple felt his pulse settling. He had been hunted before, after some of their missions, but never with his face all over TV, let alone on national TV. Never with a very big number on his head. Never hunted, it felt, by everyone in the entire freaking country, whether wearing a badge or not. Remember what you are committed to, he told himself: This government is evil. Suicidal jihad is not our way, but no sacrifice is too great.
“It feels like it’s time to move on.” His words echoed in his ears as he fought to keep his voice calm. “As low-key as we’ve been, several people have seen us here. Now we’ve got a new neighbor. When people get up close a lot, that’s the worst. Maybe I’m getting paranoid, but it’s like I see them trying to remember where they know me from. I’m thinking it’s time to find another place, somewhere we haven’t been seen in the flesh.”
Stickman looked intently at his partner.
“What?” Maple said finally.
“Several people have seen us briefly. Thousands of people will remember brief sightings of guys that sort of kind of look like us, thousands of them from across the country. Only three people have seen you up close for several minutes. Only two of them have seen me, and not for very long.”
“So ...are you saying we get rid of them – or you get rid of me?” Maple asked, forcing a half smile as he shifted slightly to look Stickman in the eye.
“Neither. You’re the one whose appearance has changed the most. I’m the one most likely to be spotted, particularly if someone has a chance to see me more than a few times. Besides truly being brothers, I need you more than you need me.”
It was the first time either had expressed serious affection or commitment to the other. Maple was touched but did not want to show it. “I guess we’re joined at the hip,” he slowly said flippantly. “If we don’t leave, then what?”
“As for getting rid of the old people and our new neighbor, that presents problems. The oldsters no doubt know so many people around here that they would soon be missed. We don’t know anything about our neighbor, not about her habits. What if she has a boyfriend who plans to start coming around?”
“We’d have to hit the road and hope for the best.”
But, continued Stickman, “What if I hit the road and you stayed here? That would reduce chances of them matching me with the photo they see on TV, and if I’m on the road I won’t see anyone twice. You, on the other hand, don’t look as much like your photo, given how fast your hair and beard grew. It would take some imagination to make a connection.”
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April Spring watched the news with entrepreneurial interest. An idea had hit her almost immediately. This search could go on quite a while, long enough for me to offer a line of miniature paintings of events going back to 9/11. A stone on the World Trade Center. One on the Pentagon, a couple on combating terrorism in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State. It’s a good thing I keep up on the news. Maybe pick out a few of the mass slayings. One on the new Trade Center as a symbol of emerging hope and then hope dashed by the attack on Russia’s embassy. The deputies being ambushed and stones with faces of the terrorists. Ah, right, first have to come the faces of the terrorists. They’re hot. And more pieces as they are captured and tried and executed. That’s the sequence, follow them and then work backwards as I have time. But how do I sell them? Hell, I don’t know anything about marketing. Hated cold calling. Maybe I can hook up with a big-time marketing firm, like in Pittsburgh. That’s okay, that will come, get the faces done first. The Internet will tell me how to do marketing.
April’s racing mind went back to the faces on the screen, ordinary everyman faces that reminded her of past lovers, of every thirty-something with regular features and a beard. Yes, this is apt to go on for some time.
She leaned the recliner back as Harrison Willford’s photo came on for the umpteenth time. He had a drowsy look, one she liked. Perhaps it was purposeful, to dull up the driver’s license photo, which the announcer noted does not show the mole beneath his hairline. Or perhaps it was natural cool, the look of a man who could arouse women or put men at ease. A young Redford. Or Brad. Her hand slipped to her inner thigh, then to the cut-off jeans, moving to the center seam. She pressed lightly and liked it. Pressed again. She wondered why she hadn’t heard from Roy. It had been more than a week now, a busy time arranging the move and getting loaded and unloaded, all without his promised help. And cleaning a trailer that was supposed to be clean. I bet the damn cleaning crew is ripping off the old folks. She felt so ready, but also weary. The temptation was hard to resist, but she clicked off the table lamp, resting her hand despondently on her smooth belly.
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Violet peered intently at the terrorists’ photos. All evening she and Wilbur had been mesmerized by coverage that moved from the Russian Embassy to the mass killings of recent years – a military base, a school, a movie theater, a night club. Their lifetimes had allowed – forced? – them to experience and luckily survive most of the historic events of their primary century – the Crash and the Depression, World War II and the liberation of Holocaust camps and atomic bombs striking Japan. Then Korea. Coverage became more immediate with the Vietnam War, and even before that with Kennedy’s assassination. They managed to keep up with the fast pace of reporting until the arrival of 24/7 coverage that in the new century seemed to intensify events – 9/11, war in the Mideast with video cameras mounted on tanks, Katrina. Now all this killing. If they weren’t calling the footage from Paris “unbelievable,” they were calling the footage from Brussels “amazing.” Violet and Wilbur struggled to keep up, a losing battle when the screen bombarded them with three or four things at the same time.
That was particularly true of Wilbur. He dozed under the endless blare, but was repeatedly awakened, too. “Shut it off, Mother. What more are you goin’ to learn tonight? It will be the same in the mornin’.”
“Probably. But Wilbur, look at the second one. Doesn’t he bear a ‘semblance to one of the men who signed the month-to-month lease? Don’t he now?”
Wilbur squinted. “I surely don’t know. Couldn’t rule it out but there must be a million like that. Hell, I could have looked like that once. Remember, Mother, when I was buildin’ Hoover?”
Violet sighed.
“They had figured out most of the problems, but not how to make the blasting effective, so as much of the rubble as possible ended up close to where they needed it. Project that size, where that rubble ended up made a hell of a difference, both in time and in money.”
“Wilbur, your main blastin’ experience came in Alaska, those two summers during college,” Violet said gently, wanting him back to tonight.
“True, Mother, that’s what got me started. But Hoover was just an extension of what I learned in Alaska and for whatever reason they couldn’t figure out what I could. I was just lucky, and they were just lucky, that I happened to be in the room – in the back I have to admit – when this problem came up. I piped up, ‘Sir ...’ and then had to go up to the front and give them my thoughts. It was scary, Mother, scary. But my idea worked. President Roosevelt himself said it did at the ceremony when the dam was closed on the Colorado. He was right there and he tipped his hat, so to speak, to a few people. And I was one of them.”
“Yes, Wilbur. For a while I always thought you were with me that day, at the hospital, when we lost Thomas at near full-term. But now I remember.”
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Options had been swimming through Stickman’s mind but the key building blocks remained the same. He needed to leave. Maple needed to stay. For Maple, that meant more of the same – staying low-profile. For Stickman, that meant what? He could run, perhaps with the advantage of the law looking for two men instead of one. He could change his appearance more, probably something he should do in any case. Make his way to other potential safe houses he and Maple had located over the years and check them out. But they were much like this mobile home, remote and appealing but operated by people he didn’t know, people who would turn him in in a minute. Make his way west to his friends in Northern California. God, that was a long way, perhaps a lot of roadblocks, getting by sharp-eyed cops carrying a photo. A diversion. Yes, create a diversion, something to get his mug off TV for a while. How the hell do you divert law enforcement nation? Stickman weighed his options for a long time. Maple was in bed. As midnight approached on the West Coast he finally made the call.