Security(45)

The Thinker stands from a Manderley of cards it took him two decks to build. He pokes the foundations with his toe, curious how much force it would require to knock the tower down. It does not take much. The Thinker faces the east wall. The bank of security monitors is on the north wall, in front of the windows, and beneath them sits a countertop for the security team members to set their cups of coffee on—or, in a pinch, their inert skulls—and in front of the counter sit the chairs, on wheels, which in most scenarios do not seem highly dangerous.

In the center of the counter, there is a blank black monitor, framed in more white Formica and angled at forty--five degrees. The override system. It’s a touch screen. It’s been called an excessive and absurd measure, but only behind my back. It’s absurd now only because with the press of a few buttons the entire hotel and everything in it—light switches, doors, even the faucets—would be under my control. Beside the override monitor, ten inches in front of my face, there is a pencil. I thought, as Delores ran, as the Killer followed, as the Thinker left the twentieth floor for the first time all night and went to the foyer and flanked her expertly—I did consider worming my head along the counter (if simply the act of moving didn’t sever my few vital nerves that remain intact), seizing the pencil in my mouth (assuming I could angle my head), and, using this makeshift appendage to activate emergency override protocols, manipulate some minor aspect of the foyer to help Delores escape (the Thinker locked the main doors manually with chains and a padlock).

It would have been an impractical act. I would not have positioned my head exactly right afterward; the Thinker would have noticed I’d moved. I’d be dead now. It might have bought Delores a few seconds. Survival is about what is, not what might be.

It is only when the Thinker goes to the east and looks out, as he does now, that it is possible he will see the head of security blinking. It is therefore advisable to stop blinking.

Tessa, in her sleep, will sometimes cuddle toward an erection if one is pressed against her. Tessa appears to be doing this now. Normally, if Tessa does this, and it wakes her companion—as it does, now, Brian—and if her companion wakes her in response—as Brian does, now, playfully grazing his lips across hers—Tessa will grunt in disgust and turn away, citing a dire need for sleep and a supreme distaste for her (and for her companion’s) foul breath.

She will not open her eyes dreamily, and gaze upon her companion like he is a dream, and kiss him. But she does so now, to Brian.

It is one thirty a.m. Veterans of special ops units are well acquainted with one thirty a.m., and hours like it. Particularly special ops veterans who cut their teeth on the skirmishes of the mid--to--late eighties, fights that weren’t supposed to be happening, wars that were never sanctioned by the general population or the politicians elected by the general population. They were like extramarital affairs. They happened in hours easily unaccounted for—hours that are cold, dark, and beautiful—the same as an affair happens on lunch breaks or supposed late nights at the office. The soldiers tucked dog tags under undershirts, so the metal wouldn’t wink back at the stars, alerting an enemy who had to die silently. It isn’t true that soldiers are brainless orangutans, swinging dicks knocking down dictators. Nor is it true, either or often, that these men, while floating on an inflatable raft in calm waters, waiting for the order to fall backward into the tiny waves and swim over a mile to shore, contemplate the night sky, or what they are about to do, and their position in time and space, and their personal philosophy, and karma. Most of the men are contemplating something, but typically it’s a girlfriend back home, or a wife, or their mother. Most men, when faced with death, think of a woman, one woman. It is wise for the lieutenant who forms the combat unit to promote to CO the one man who does not think of a woman. It is preferable that he think of philosophy and karma. It is ideal if he grew up poor—not destitute, but definitely poor—and if he is too poor to afford college, yet wants to go to college and has an excellent mind. He’s barely nineteen, but he has shown unparalleled discipline and persistence in training. He’s in special ops because the pay’s better. He’s trying to make enough money to send not only himself, but his little brother and little sister, to college. But the little brother joins up, too, and gets killed in an on--base Humvee rollover. The little sister, shortly afterward, gets pregnant and then gets married. He watches the stars, waits for the order, and thinks—even now, before his siblings’ misfortunes have come to pass—that one thirty a.m. and the hours like it are the hours of unfairness. They invite, in his fellow soldiers, diaphanous recollections of a woman—the woman, whether mother or lover or whatever she is—and turn her into something other, something much more than what she is. This is what the CO thinks: that loving a woman this way is foolish. And he thinks he’d give anything to forget what these hours can do. He believes the rich and the lucky are impervious to one thirty a.m. The rich and the lucky, in the mid--to--late eighties, are rationalizing a dominance he will only watch grow over time. But the coup will be: he will join that dominance. Not the highest echelon; that is closed to him. That is a precipice for men and women born to obscene, situational, circumstantial wealth, wealth once--earned but now merely passed on to the lucky. He will become, instead, the man who watches over them, making sure they live to love their luck. He will be an individual security attaché for a while, after an honorable discharge and a stamped recommendation letter from an admiral and excellent SATs get him into Columbia, followed by Oxford, followed by the realization he’d make far more money in the security sector than he ever could as a philosophy professor. (It will haunt him, how he abandoned academia for money, but not much, no. He is a pragmatist; he is not emotional; he is not sentimental, until he is, when—) Then he is approached about interviewing for the head of security position in Destin Management Group and—he meets Tessa.