The Old Man(63)

A big black SUV pulled up at the curb. Harper opened the back hatch and Julian set his bag on top of the others already in the cargo space. The two men he didn’t know waited until he was seated inside the SUV and then closed the doors and stepped back. Julian saw them turn and walk toward another black vehicle that had appeared a hundred feet away.

The SUV made a turn at the end of the block and headed out toward the Jonesboro Municipal Airport. Twenty minutes later, when the SUV pulled up in front of the terminal, Harper said something to the driver while Waters took his carry-on bag and went inside to get the tickets.

Julian and Harper got their bags out and went into the terminal. Waters came toward them holding three boarding passes, but he put them in his coat pocket instead of giving each man his own. Before the passes disappeared, Julian saw that the top one said Baltimore-Washington International.

The three men went through security and then walked to the far end of the concourse where only a few airport workers ever passed. They sat for a minute or two before Waters began. “Well, thanks for modifying your busy social schedule to join us, Julian. I figured you would man up and come along without a lot of coaxing.”

Julian didn’t say anything. He was staring down the concourse. In his imagination he was running along the shiny, highly polished floor. Far down the length of it he could see the escalator that descended to the main entrance. Now and then a person would come upstairs from the security barrier. In his imagination, Julian was swinging an elbow into Waters’s face, feeling the snap of the small bones at the bridge of the nose. Then he was launching himself from the bolted-down row of seats like a runner at the starting blocks. He could be back at Ruthie’s in fifteen minutes.

“Mr. Harper was not as sanguine about the chances, which is why we had those two extra personnel. There were also two more in the car behind. Mr. Harper does not like to have to persuade people of their duty.” Waters paused. “Julian? You awake?”

Harper spoke. “He’s just feeling sorry for himself. The summer’s over, but the summer romance isn’t, I guess.”

“You think?” said Waters.

“You made the right decision, Julian,” said Harper. “It’s not even a decision at all.”

“No?” said Julian.

“Not yours, anyway. This mission will get done. We will succeed, because no mission ends until it’s a success.”

“Why do they want me?”

“Probably nothing we can’t do without you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Mr. Bailey, Mr. Prentiss, and Mr. Ross told us to.”

Julian sat in silence.

Harper leaned closer. “When the mission is complete, you’ll come back here to Jonesboro and she’ll be waiting for you just the way you left her—freshly fucked.”

Waters chuckled, but Harper had already taken out his phone and begun reading texts and e-mails to signify that he was no longer interested in the conversation.

An hour later their flight was announced, and they boarded. The airport was sparsely populated after ten on a weeknight. Most of the people Julian could see were making their way to the same flight they were taking to BWI.

Waters had given Julian a ticket for the window seat. He assumed that was because it put both Waters and Harper between him and any opportunity to cause trouble, but Julian didn’t care. The moment had passed when he might have slipped away, and the impulse had passed with it. He was too angry to sleep this time, but he shut his eyes to keep from having to talk to Harper and Waters.

He opened them two hours later when the pressure in the cabin changed as the plane descended.

At Baltimore-Washington another pair of soldiers in civilian clothes waited at the bottom of the escalator. The two men identified themselves to Harper, escorted them to an SUV, and drove them to Fort Meade. Fort Meade was not only the home of three military intelligence units, but it was also the headquarters of the National Security Agency, so Julian was glad they were all driven in as a group. It made getting through the security at the gate quick. It was much easier to be one of five intelligence personnel arriving in a group than to be “a young black guy here at the gate, and he hasn’t got a government ID.”

The men parked the SUV in a lot beside a large barracks complex, and then escorted the others inside. Waters and Harper had apparently already been occupying rooms, and they disappeared into them. Then the men led Julian to his. He found that permanent party barracks had improved since his active duty years. They had been made less austere by the application of paint and the addition of better furnishings. One of the two soldiers gave him the key to his room and they both left.

At dawn there was a knock on the door. A soldier said, “Mr. Carson, your briefing is in one hour.”

“Where?”

“I’ll be back for you in fifty minutes.”

Julian showered, shaved, and then waited. The soldier reappeared on time, and walked with him across a road and a parking lot, past a number of other buildings like his until they reached a redbrick office building. The soldier led him to an unmarked door on the fourth floor and knocked once, then opened the door. Julian thanked him and went inside. “Good morning, Mr. Carson.”

Julian saw the gray-haired older man he had met at the hotel in Chicago and the hangar in San Francisco. “I’m sure you remember us. I’m Mr. Ross, this is Mr. Bailey, and this is Mr. Prentiss.”