By February Julian Carson was already a familiar sight in Craighead County, and particularly in Ruthie’s neighborhood in Jonesboro. He had taken a job at Arkansas State University in the Department of Chemistry and Physics ordering, issuing, and assembling various pieces of equipment for the laboratories. Ruthie had finally finished her nursing degree in January and was working in labor and delivery at St. Bernards Medical Center on East Jackson Avenue.
Julian used most of his days off to help on the family farm. He was good at maintaining and fixing tools and machinery, and winter was the time when most of that work had to be done. Ruthie had grown up on a farm outside town too, so she was used to the work, and put in some off days with him.
The wedding was scheduled for March, because all of April, May, June, and July had been spoken for by other couples, and they didn’t see much point in waiting. The church was free on March thirtieth, and so was the minister, so they took the date.
When March thirtieth came, the Reverend Donald Monday presided. He had known Ruthie since she was baptized, but the Carsons didn’t make it to church, because they made the rounds of the farmers’ markets on Sunday mornings. Julian’s father had often said, “If everybody else went to church on Sunday mornings I would too, because there wouldn’t be anybody out to buy my vegetables.”
Mr. Monday was not a strict minister, and he understood that people had to sell whatever they sold when other people were available to buy it. He was a scholarly and benevolent man.
He tended to select the biblical texts for weddings that fell on the optimistic side. He favored leading off with Genesis 2:18–24: “It’s not good for man to be alone; I will make a suitable helper for him.” In keeping with science, religion, and personal experience, that led naturally to: “Be fruitful and multiply” from Genesis 1:28.
Because he was a sincere admirer of good, strong women, the sort of woman Ruthie manifestly was, his thoughts turned to Proverbs 3:15, the virtuous wife. “She is more precious than rubies. And all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.” He wound it up with John 2:1–11, the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana, where he turned water into wine and a good time was had by all.
Mrs. Finlay, the church organist, accompanied the children’s choir, which Ruthie’s cousin Ayana directed. Nearly all of the relatives and a good number of the congregation turned out for Ruthie’s wedding, because that was the sort of place the town was.
The wedding proceeded with the precision that Ruthie had hoped for. Her father was dead, so her uncle David the lawyer walked her down the aisle. Reverend Monday’s weddings tended to be smooth and practiced, without a false note or a hesitation. There were people sitting in the pews who would have caught a change in the wording the way a teenager would hear a change in a popular song’s lyrics. It had been said of Mr. Monday that he had you married and celebrating your third anniversary before you could stop to think.
All seemed to go flawlessly through the last “I do” and Mr. Monday’s “I now pronounce you.” Then the bride and groom turned to each other in a brief but tender kiss, and then completed the turn to face the congregation. Among the many happy faces in the pews there were two faces that were not smiling. They belonged to Harper and Waters, who sat near the back of the church.
Julian knew that they must have slipped in during the processional, while the voices of Ayana’s choir sang and Ruthie, resplendent in her wedding gown, had every eye on her, particularly Julian’s.
Ruthie stiffened and tightened her grip on Julian’s arm. He whispered, “It’s okay. They don’t matter.”
At the reception, Julian and Ruthie both watched for them, but Harper and Waters never reappeared. The Carsons left for their honeymoon in Sarasota that night, but the two men didn’t show up there either.
Mr. and Mrs. Julian Carson stayed for a week in Sarasota, walked on the fine white sand beach and swam in the hotel pool because the Gulf wasn’t warm that week and seemed untamed to Ruthie. They ate at good restaurants and spent a great deal of time in their room. Julian woke each morning with the thought that life was very good.
When they returned to Jonesboro, Julian entered the house alone, and found no sign that agents had been inside while they were away. “That’s the end of that,” said Julian. “If they had wanted to, they could have come in. But they didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
He brought her inside, got a flashlight from a kitchen drawer, and led her to the bedroom. There was a jewelry box on Ruthie’s dresser with a smooth lacquer top. There was a very thin layer of flour that he had blown onto it from his palm, and when he moved her finger across it the finger left a mark. He showed her places on the hardwood floor near each of the doors where he had blown puffs off lour to make footprints show, and they were undisturbed. Nothing had been touched.
Ruthie turned to him, smiled, and said, “I’ll never cheat on you, Julian.”
He said, “Didn’t we just promise that in church?”
“Yes, but this is practical. With all your tricks and traps you’d catch me.”
“Keep believing that,” he said.
She hugged him. “So they’re done, right? They’ll leave you alone now.”
“I quit. I guess they’re convinced.”
What Julian knew was that until the old man was found, his case would remain active. What it meant was that Julian was on a long leash, but it was still a leash.
It was possible that the high-level people, the ones like Mr. Ross, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Prentiss, and whomever they reported to, suspected him of helping the old man escape. If so, they would be listening to Julian’s phone calls and reading his mail in case the old man tried to reach him. What they were doing beyond that was hard to know.
Mr. Ross knew that Julian had talked with the old man in Chicago and in San Francisco. Did he suspect that Julian had warned the old man at Big Bear? Mr. Ross knew Julian wasn’t an enthusiastic member of the team. Julian had told Mr. Ross that he believed the old man had never intended to steal the money. And Julian had not hidden from Mr. Ross that he was quitting because of the hunt for the old man.
Julian had confidence that the old man would be too smart to try to communicate with James Harriman, and he would have no way of knowing that James Harriman was Julian Carson, or where Julian Carson was.
But Julian remained alert. Watching for military intelligence agents had become part of his daily routine, just one of the things he did. His long experience living in chaotic and dangerous countries made watchfulness a reflex.
When he was driving he checked his rearview mirrors and noted each car behind him and how long it stayed there. When he woke at night he would listen until he was sure that what had awakened him had not been a footstep or a tool moving in the keyway of a lock. He scanned every crowd for faces that were familiar and for faces that were not but seemed interested in him.
About once a week he inspected the house to look for anything new plugged into an out-of-the way socket, any change in the configuration of the phone junction box or the circuit box. Each time, he would prepare a trap, a particular arrangement of objects on the workbench in the garage or on the seat of his truck that would show him if someone had touched it. He draped a length of black thread across the space between the side of his house and the fence about two feet from the ground, and checked regularly to see if it had been dislodged.
He knew that there could be someone watching him at the university too. The old man would be just as likely to try to speak to him at work as at home, because at the university there were always people coming and going, and he might think he would not be noticed in a crowd.
Julian studied people within the department—professors, secretaries, lab assistants, graduate students—trying to pick up a hint that one of them had agreed to help the government keep track of him. During his own intelligence work he had recruited civilians and used them that way. Often all it took was a little flattery. People liked to feel important.
After a few months without another visit from the military intelligence people, he began to wonder if the old man was already dead. Maybe they had caught up with him and killed him on the spot or rendered him to Libya and Faris Hamzah. Maybe the whole operation was over and Julian’s penalty for quitting would be that he would never find out.