Neil McMahon - Revolution No.9

Monks recalled what Marguerite had told him about Freeboot’s cultivating contacts with elements more sinister than the homeless-gangs and big-time drug dealers, via wild parties that centered around the medical marijuana trade.

“So you think Freeboot might be involved?” he said.

“That’s a long shot. And the whole thing might be complete bullshit. It’s April Fool’s Day, for openers. But we can’t ignore it. What I’d like you to do is be there. We’ll have undercover agents, too, but you’re the only reliable witness we’ve got who’s actually seen those people. You go in disguise and hang around. You spot anybody, you alert us.”

“I don’t know that I could do you any good,” Monks said. “They’re going to be in disguise, too. Freeboot told me I looked right at him.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t thinking about him then. If you’re looking, you might see things you recognize. Even the way somebody moves.”

Monks nodded hesitantly. “I’ll try.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll figure out the details.”

Pietowski turned toward the door, then picked up the bottle of vodka and hefted it. The room had gotten warm from the added firewood, and his big doughy forehead was gleaming with sweat.

“For what it’s worth, I’ve crawled into one of these plenty,” Pietowski said. “Last time it happened in a big way was after Waco. I got called in there, after the ATF fucked it up. There were plenty of ways they could have walked up to Koresh and slapped cuffs on him. Instead, all those people burned. Kids.”

He set the bottle back down. “I’d love to jump in right now, believe me, but I can’t afford it. Neither can you.”

After he left, Monks saw that he had barely touched his drink, if at all. Monks had the sudden sense that Pietowski had come to him as a sort of priest, offering absolution, giving him a chance to set aside the past days and move on to action that might be of actual benefit. Ashamed, Monks dumped out his own glass in the sink.

He went to the kitchen calendar and pieced together that today was March 30. Tomorrow was going to be ugly and penitential, filled with sweat and pain-splitting wood, lifting weights, and working the heavy bag to a base line of pain throbbing in his head like the rap music blasting from a passing car.

Then, the wait to find out if this rumor was an April Fool’s Day joke or the next outrage that Freeboot planned to throw in the world’s face.

Monks was in a hotel room in Bodega Bay just coming out of a restless half-sleep when the phone rang. It was 5:33 A.M., the morning of April 1. He located the phone’s red LED in the darkened room and picked up.

“Monks,” he said.

“This is Pietowski. Turn on the TV, any news channel. Call me back.” He sounded enraged. Monks finished waking up instantly, fearing that he’d done something wrong.

He found the TV’s remote and started flicking through channels. His finger stopped at the fourth one he hit. An attractive blond anchorwoman was at her desk in the foreground, with the CNN logo on the backdrop.

“…was e-mailed to millions of computers around the nation, from an unknown source, early this morning,” she said. “A list of five hundred names and addresses, titled-apparently, with vicious sarcasm-‘The Fortune 500,’ includes prominent members of the business community, legislators, and government officials-among them, all the victims of the Calamity Jane killers.

“Initial response from law-enforcement agencies is that the list is an April Fool’s Day prank. But the people whose names are on the list are alarmed that it’s a warning-that they’re intended targets, too.

“We’ll have more on this explosive new development after this short break. Stay with us.”

Monks punched the number of Pietowski’s cell phone. They had talked enough times during the past two days that he had memorized it by now.

“I only got part of the story,” Monks said.

“Freeboot just stomped on the panic button, is the story. Sent out a mass e-mail that looks like a piece of spam, except it could only have been compiled by some highly sophisticated hacking.”

“The news announcer said the police were treating it as a joke.”

“Joke, my aching ass. They got the addresses of people that are harder to find than Osama bin Laden. Cracked fire-walled corporate and government databases, identified people who operate way, way behind the scenes.”

Monks swallowed a dry lump at the back of his throat. That pointed to Glenn, and the FBI agents knew it. Yet it fanned the flicker of hope that he was still alive.

“We’re already spread thin, and now we’ve got five hundred of the world’s most influential people screaming at us about what we’re going to do to protect them,” Pietowski said sourly. “Anything happening there?”

Monks walked to a window and opened the curtain. The view looked west over the town along Highway 1, and down the long spur of Doran Beach farther out, a favorite spot of windsurfers and body boarders. It was just dawn, and the vast expanse of ocean and sky was a pale gray-blue that would soon turn to azure. The highway was empty. The sea was calm, the surf hardly more than ripples. Toward the harbor’s north end, the fishing fleet and recreational boats floated in the marina like beasts of burden grazing in a peaceful pasture, waiting to be put to use.

Informants had confirmed a rumor on the streets of San Francisco, Oakland, and other cities all the way to L.A. and Seattle, that some sort of mass party was supposed to take place in Bodega Bay today, and that “Revolution No. 9” seemed to be the motif. But the odds of finding Freeboot here seemed tiny, and Pietowski even feared that it might be a diversion from something serious, like another Calamity Jane killing.

“Right now, the place looks quiet as a tomb,” Monks told him.

“I guess that’s good, except it means we’re going to waste a lot of manpower. Call me again when you’re ready to hit the bricks. We’ll run a test on your microphone.”

Monks got a cold bottle of orange juice out of the room’s mini-refrigerator, then started making coffee, using half the specified amount of water. He shaved in the shower, mirrorless, a habit he’d carried over from his navy days.

When he came back out, he poured a cup of the thick black brew and stepped to the window again, still grappling with his hope that the “Fortune 500 List” might mean that Glenn was still alive-and his fear that if so, it deepened his involvement in the killings even further.

Outside, the sky was lighter, but things remained as tranquil as before. Local police and sheriffs had been alerted, but everyone agreed that it would be best to stay quiet, rather than alarm residents over what might amount to nothing.

A single car came into sight, driving into town on Highway 1 from the south. Monks kept watching it. It was a big old sedan, an Olds or a Buick, 1970s or even sixties vintage, dented and crusted with dirt that looked as permanent as paint-not the kind of vehicle that was common around upscale Bodega Bay. He could hear its rumble all the way up to his room. It moved slowly, giving the sense that it wasn’t in a hurry to get to anyplace in particular-it was just cruising.

As it drove past his window, an arm flopped carelessly out of the rear passenger-side window and flicked a cigarette butt that skipped a few times on the pavement, throwing off sparks.

The car kept going north on the highway, then turned left on Westshore Road, which led down toward the marina and campgrounds.

By noon, Bodega Bay ’s marina was thronged with people-close to five thousand, Monks judged, with more still pouring in. Parking areas were jammed with vehicles, a lot of them junkers, along with a fair number of chopped Harleys. The newer arrivals were parking some distance away and walking in, since vehicle traffic was almost impossible. The strip of Highway 1 through town, with its shops and restaurants, was clogged.