F. Paul Wilson: Infernal

"Okay, okay. He stays here." He stared at her. "Have I told you lately that you're wonderful?"

She smiled that smile. "No. At least not in recent memory."

He gently squeezed her fingers. "You're wonderful."

2

Tom quelled a ripple of anxiety as he started down to the baggage claim area. The flight had been perfect, the attendants beautiful, the food… edible. If this were Miami International he'd feel fine; he could make his way through there blindfolded. But he'd never been to La Guardia.

He supposed it was part of aging: You come to depend on things being comfortable and familiar, and get rattled by the new and different. But a big part was Jack's damned secretiveness. He'd said he'd meet him in the baggage area, but what if he forgot? Or what if he got tied up in traffic or delayed by something? Tom wasn't averse to taking a cab, but to where? He didn't know Jack's address. Oh, he had a mailing address, but Jack didn't live there.

Relax, he told himself. You're borrowing trouble. You have a cell phone and you know his number.

A gaggle of bearded men in black hats or yarmulkes and women in wigs and long-sleeved dresses descended ahead of him. These fifty or so Orthodox Jews—he'd heard someone mention that they were Hasidic—had occupied the rear half of the plane. Tom wondered what they'd all been doing in Miami. Not one of them looked tan.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and followed the crowd along a short corridor that opened into the baggage claim. He found a lake of expectant faces spread out in a thick semicircle. Dozens of black-suited, white-shirted limo drivers milled about, some holding up handwritten signs with the names of their fares, others simply killing time until a given plane arrived. Behind them stood relatives and friends waiting for loved ones. Jack would—should—be somewhere in the throng.

But where?

He scanned the faces, looking for his son's familiar features. There—a brown-haired man waving at him. Jack. Good thing he was waving or Tom would have missed him. He could have been anybody in his hooded blue sweatshirt, plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Virtually invisible.

Tom felt a flood of love tinged with relief. He didn't understand his younger son—didn't much understand the older one either, for that matter—but his time with Jack back in September had been an eye-opener. The affable, laid-back man he'd come to think of as rudderless, perhaps even something of a loser, had metamorphosed into a grim warrior, intensely focused, who'd wrought a terrible vengeance on a murderous crew.

Tom had participated in the killing and afterward had expected fits of guilt and remorse. They never came. Strangely, the killing didn't bother him: The dead in this case deserved it. And taking the long view, hell, he'd killed more and probably better men during his tour in Korea.

But though he'd learned to respect Jack that night, he still didn't understand him. Which was why he'd decided to come here. He wanted time with his son in his own environment.

Jack's excuse about his apartment being too small… it didn't ring true. He'd been disappointed and even tempted to call him on it, but decided to go along. Just more of his number-two son's obsessive secretiveness. He guessed he'd have to accept that as part of the package.

Tom locked on to Jack's deceptively mild brown eyes as they worked toward each other through the crowd. Jack waited as the line of Hasidim passed, and then he was reaching for Tom's hand. What started as a shake turned into a brief embrace.

"Hey, Dad, you made it."

For a reason he could not explain, Tom filled up. His throat constricted and it took him a few seconds to find his voice.

"Hi, Jack. Damn, it's good to see you again."

They broke apart and Jack grabbed Tom's carry-on.

"I can handle that," Tom said.

"What a coincidence. So can I." He nodded toward the small horde of Hasidim. "What'd you do, come in on El Al?"

"I remember reading about some gathering in Miami."

On the way to the baggage carousel Jack pinched a fold of fabric on Tom's green-and-white jacket.

"Look at you—puffy starter coat. Very cool. Eagles colors, no less."

Tom nodded. He'd been a lifelong Eagles fan.

"Bought it last week. Figured I'd need something to protect me from the cold."

As they joined the passengers and waited for their luggage, he studied his son. Hard to believe that this regular-looking Joe had led them into a firefight in the Everglades and saved him from being sucked into a tornado.

He owed Jack his life.

"Well, Dad, anything special you want to do while you're here?"

"Spend time with you."

Jack blinked. The remark—the bold-faced truth as far as Tom was concerned—seemed to take him by surprise.

"That's a given. I'm just putting the finishing touches on a job, and after that, I've cleared the deck."

"What sort of job?"

A shrug. "Just fixing something for somebody."

. . .fixing something for somebody … not big with the details, his son.

"But other than hanging out," Jack went on, "is there any play you want to see, restaurant you want to try?"

"I'd like to go to the top of the Empire State Building."

Jack grinned. "Really?"

"I've never been. Lived less than two hours outside this city most of my life and never once made it there. So, before I die—"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh man!"

"No, seriously. I've decided to make a list of certain things I've always wanted to do, and the Empire State Building is one of them. Have you ever been to the top, Mr. New Yorker?"

"Lots of times. I always bring flowers and leave them there."

"What? I'd never take you for a fan of An Affair to Remember.'"

He laughed. "No, I bring them for Kong."

"Kong?"

"King Kong. That's where he was killed."

Tom stared. "You were always a weird kid, Jack. Now you're a weird adult."

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. Still a kid."

But not acting like one now, Tom thought as he noticed the way Jack's eyes darted back and forth, constantly on the move. Watching for what? Terrorists?

No… his gaze seemed to linger more on the security personnel than on the Arabic-looking members of the crowd. Why? What about them concerned him?

He realized Jack looked edgy. He suspected that whatever it was Jack did for a living, it probably wasn't on the right side of the law. Tom hoped that was only a sometime thing.

After what Tom had seen of Jack's capabilities back in Florida, he'd make one formidable foe, no matter which side of the law he was on.

But from what Tom had seen during Jack's visit he knew that his son was involved in something else, something beyond legal systems. Perhaps even beyond normal reality.

A girl who could control swamp creatures… a hole in the earth that went God knew where… a man who could walk on water, who Jack had called by name. They seemed to be enemies.

And that was all Tom knew. He hadn't been able to squeeze much explanation from Jack beyond cryptic statements about having had a "peek behind the curtain."

His stated purpose now was to spend the holidays with his sons and grandchildren, and that was true to an extent. But Tom was determined to use the time to learn more about the man his son had become. Which wouldn't be easy. He knew Jack saw him as a bedrock traditionalist, and to some extent he was. He made no excuses about hewing to traditional values. He sensed Jack had no quarrel with those, but held to a looser, more flexible view as to how to uphold them.

Still, no way to deny that Jack was on guard here. Not that he had to worry about the two blue-uniformed security people in sight—a skinny guy and a big-butted woman standing together near the exit. They seemed more interested in each other than in what was going on around them.