William Krueger: The Devil's bed

Norton said, “We feel it’s best if you step out of the picture entirely.”

Bo studied the men. Things began to blur, not just his thinking but his vision. He felt a little faint. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a decent night’s sleep. Or a good meal. Or felt as if the weight of an enormous responsibility didn’t rest on his shoulders alone. He glanced at the mirror, wondering who would be there if he stepped through the looking glass. There seemed nothing real to hold to anymore. No one to trust. Were these men connected to NOMan? Or were they really trying to control the damage that might be wrought if the public knew that such an organization had so effectively infiltrated the entire federal government?

He looked down at the pen that Norton held out to him, and he took it. He poised to sign. Before he did, he leveled his eyes once more on the faces of the men across the table.

“You both were field agents once?” he asked.

His question seemed to puzzle them.

“We were,” Norton said.

“If you were in my place, if you’d seen Diana Ishimaru, a good agent and a good friend, murdered, would you sign this document?”

A moment passed, then Norton said, “Yes.”

But what he said didn’t matter. Because between the question and the answer, Bo had seen the truth in the eyes of both men.

Bo put down the pen. “Gentlemen, we remain at odds.”

“You’re making a mistake, Agent Thorsen,” Norton said, but it sounded more like words than belief.

“If so, it’s a mistake of my own choosing. And I’ll take my chances.”

• • •

They finally fed him. He’d grown accustomed to the pain, to the constant throb deep in his knee. He was tired, but he fought sleep. Whenever he started to drift off, he jerked his leg to the side and gave himself an eye-opening jolt of agony. Even so, his thinking was beginning to get as fuzzy as the wire mesh over the light fixture.

He had no idea how long he’d been isolated like this when the door of his room opened and Lorna Channing stepped in, alone.

“You should have called me,” she said.

“When I needed you, I didn’t have the number,” Bo replied.

“For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.”

“We won the battle,” Bo pointed out.

“And we’re going to win the war, Agent Thorsen.”

Channing walked to the window and touched the heavy mesh with her hand. It was day outside, late afternoon Bo judged from the position of the sun in the sky. Channing’s shadow fell across the floor behind her, stretching all the way to where Bo lay.

“Before she was killed, Diana Ishimaru made a telephone call,” Channing said. “She called the hotel room of Secret Service Assistant Director Bill Malone who, I’m sure you’re aware, was in the Twin Cities ostensibly to oversee the investigation into your actions at Wildwood. Malone immediately placed a call to a cell phone number. The number’s been traced to one of the men shot dead last night, one of the men you claim was preparing to assassinate the First Lady. I’m guessing it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that years ago Assistant Director Malone was the Secret Service liaison to NOMan. Although he’s unaware of it at the moment, we now have him under constant surveillance.” Channing turned back to Bo.

“I’ve just come from Wildwood. I had a long visit with the First Lady and her father. I gave them a copy of your statement. Yourstatement, not that crap Norton and Lopez tried to ram down your throat. We’ve spoken with Tom Jorgenson and he’s told us quite a lot. Pretty incredible things. According to him, NOMan was established to help mitigate the influence of incompetent leadership and to nudge the world away from aggression. Kate told him she didn’t consider her assassination a milestone on the road to peace.”

Channing allowed herself a brief smile.

“Information is power,” she continued. “Any organization with power and that operates under a cloak of secrecy and darkness becomes a breeding ground for monstrous abuse, no matter how good-intentioned the goals are initially. In the isolated beauty of his orchards, away from the microphones and the cameras, Tom Jorgenson accomplished miracles. William Dixon used NOMan in a different, brutal way. I think we’ll find as we dig deeper that NOMan has been used to advance all kinds of agendas, personal and political.

“The roots run deep, Agent Thorsen. The tendrils are widespread. We have a long, hard struggle ahead of us, but thanks to you, I’m confident we’ll be able to deliver a good old-fashioned butt-kicking.” She crossed the room and stood beside Bo’s bed. “The president sends his greetings, and has asked me personally to express to you his profound gratitude.” She offered Bo her hand. “As for me, I’m just glad you’re on our side.”

Lorna Channing opened the door to the Oval Office. “He’ll see you now, Senator.”

William Dixon came in, grinning as if he’d just arrived at a barbecue in his honor. “Well, well,” he said, seeing the president and the First Lady standing together. “Now there’s a lovely family portrait. Good to have you back, Katie. Brought Stephanie home, I hope. I’ve missed that little girl.”

“Sit down,” the president said.

“Thank you, I believe I will. The leg’s been acting up a bit lately. Keeps me awake at night sometimes.” The senator eased himself onto the couch and settled his cane beside him. “Know what I do at night when I can’t sleep, Clayboy? I lie there remembering. Couldn’t tell you what I had for dinner last night, but I can tell you the color of your mother’s dress the first time we met. Blue, just like a Colorado sky.” He stared at the rug a moment, as if he were seeing woven among the threads an image from nearly sixty years before. Then he lifted his dark eyes toward his son. “I remember a lot of strange old things at night. I remember the first man I ever saw die. A kid named Jorge Rodriguez. From Spanish Harlem. A Jap sniper put a bullet right there.” He touched a spot below his left eye. “That was on my first day in the Philippines. I saw a lot more kids die after that. Too many to remember them all.”

“That’s war, Senator,” the president said.

“Know what I would like, Clay? I would like it if you called me Dad.”

“This isn’t-” the president began.

“I know what this isn’t.”

William Dixon looked steadily at his son, then at his daughter-in-law. Behind him, in that long moment of silence that fell over the room, Channing very quietly opened the door to the Oval Office.

“I’d like to tell you a story,” the First Lady said.

“I’m all ears, Katie.” William Dixon looked up at her with an indulgent smile.

“In Minnesota, the Ojibwe used to tell of a monster that sometimes came out of the woods to prey on villages. It was called the Windigo, a terrible beast with a heart of ice who fed on the flesh of the Ojibwe people. Because it was so large and so fierce, it terrified even the bravest warrior. There was only one way you could fight the Windigo. You had to become a Windigo yourself, submit to whatever dark magic was necessary to turn you into an ogre, too. But there was an awful risk. You had to be sure that someone who loved you was waiting with hot tallow for you to drink after you killed the monster. The hot tallow would melt your icy heart and bring you back down to the size of other people. If there was no one to help you in that way, you ended up staying a Windigo. You became forever the thing you set out to destroy.”

“Interesting story, Katie, but I’m afraid the point missed me.”

“I want you to know I forgive you, Bill. It’s my way of offering hot tallow.”