Periphery, page 19
Surrender followed dread, fatalistic and profoundly draining. It didn’t last. After ten minutes of staring at the stained ceiling tiles, a warmth had kindled in his chest. Propelled by the beating of his heart, it spread to arms and legs, twitching fingertips, tingling scalp, steadily building into something close to exhilaration. Maybe it was simply the relief of knowing the burden of preventing the end of the world would soon rest on more shoulders than theirs alone.
Or maybe this was the other side of terror, when all the neurochemicals responsible for fear were exhausted and the only thing remaining was a few lingering endorphins.
He even had a plan of sorts. First, recruit Capt. Hamilton. Others must be hearing the vetro’s call by now. Others must be seeing the bilantu. Maybe Hamilton was one of them. He would convince his station captain to go to the chief, the mayor. Anyone. Everyone. There was enough Trenchrite in the warehouse to plant charges around all eighteen coils. Big charges. Twenty times bigger than the one they had used in the cemetery. With heavy machinery, they could dig down far enough to blow the things out of the ground like rotten molars. And if that didn’t work, there was the military. Little Billy was right. Time to enlist the big guns.
There was something else as well, another factor that could potentially increase their chances of success. He didn’t dare mull it for long, unlikely as the possibility was. Something urged him to keep it buried, secret, hidden from the things gibbering and clawing at the edges of his mind. They were always seeking a way in and if this turned out to be a card up his sleeve he did not want the bastards reaching under his cuff.
Andrew pulled into Station Three’s parking lot rehearsing what he would say to Hamilton. He would go to him as soon as he stowed his bunk gear, before he could lose his nerve. Then he would turn his attention to his father. He had no idea how much it would take to bail him out, but he would come up with the money somehow. They needed him on the outside. Andrew needed him. For the first time since he was a boy, he had no problem admitting that. Andrew needed his father at his side. Would that make them a pair of crazy Tates? Fine. Good. Great. Crazy might be the only way any of them were going to survive what came next.
The common room was empty. He heard voices from the kitchen and gave a wave as he made his way to the locker room. He was actually a few minutes early today, something so rare it apparently quieted the room. They would have to get used to it. His days of being late were over as well. Even Sid would have to concede the change sooner or later. Probably later. Provided, of course, there was a later.
Andrew made his way to his locker. There would be a later. The voices echoing at the bottom of his mind were a little more manageable this morning. Not quieter. If anything, they were closer than before. But less intimidating, less authoritative, more like the racket of children shouting in a playground. Evil, homicidal children pulling the wings off butterflies, but children nevertheless.
As Andrew removed the combination lock, he heard someone enter the room and turned to find Hamilton standing in the threshold.
“Morning, Captain. I was just about to drop by your office. There’s something we need to discuss.” He tossed the lock on the bench and yanked the door open.
“Andy. Could you do me a favor and step back from the locker.”
“Captain?”
“Step away from the locker, Andy. Now.”
Andrew retreated to the far wall as the captain moved into the room, followed by a man he recognized as a union rep and two uniformed police officers.
“What’s going on?” His sense of clarity and purpose vanished in a puff, replaced by the far more familiar feeling of impending doom.
“Just stay over there.”
“He needs to give you verbal permission before any search,” the rep advised. “If you want this to go smoothly.”
The captain turned to Andrew. “Do I have your permission to search your locker?”
“Search it for what?” His breath caught as he remembered the flask of Royal Crown secreted behind the loose panel. He’d forgotten all about it until this moment. Could that be what this was all about?
“Just yes or no. Do I have your permission to search your locker?”
“Yes,” he said through a mouthful of wood shavings.
“Permission given and witness by union representative Jacob Cass,” Hamilton said.
Andrew pressed his back against the wall to remain upright and the officers positioned themselves at his elbows. Were they here to keep the peace as he was escorted from the building? What did they think he was going to do? This was all a misunderstanding. Had to be. How could anyone know about the panel? He’d always been so careful.
Not careful enough, obviously. Hamilton reached into the locker and there came the faint squeak of a bolt being unscrewed, followed by a clank as it fell to the metal shelf. The captain’s body blocked Andrew’s view, but the scrape of the back panel being slid aside was unmistakable. It was the sound of his career ending.
In the seconds it took Hamilton to rummage around the revealed piping alcove, Andrew wondered how he could have been so monumentally stupid. What would Grace say once she heard the news? Escorted from the building by cops, having to endure a walk of shame past fellow firefighters, all their worst suspicions about him confirmed. At least have the decency to take me out the back bay, he thought. For the love of god, don’t parade me through the front door.
Hamilton sighed, a defeated hiss that bowed his head.
“Captain, I know how this looks, but I swear…” Andrew sucked the rest of his words back down his throat with a ragged gasp. Hamilton turned toward him with disbelieving eyes, clutching not the flask of Crown Royal but a handful of morphine vials.
“Jesus, Andy. I would never have believed you capable of this.”
“Captain, you have got to believe me. I’ve never seen those before. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
The rep stepped between him and the captain. “My advice to you, Mr. Tate, is to stop talking now. The union will provide a lawyer. He should be the one you plead your case to.”
One of the cops handcuffed Andrew and together they lead him to the door.
“Can they at least take me out the back?” he managed. The officers paused and Hamilton gave a terse nod. They turned left down the hall and passed through the vehicle bay, where the men and women of Station Three had gathered to watch him go.
Part 3: Breach
Fourteen
John Tate stood outside the cell, wondering how long it had been since he had last watched his son sleep. Twenty years? Twenty-five? He’d been such a skinny kid. A wisp of a boy, all knees and elbows and healing scrapes, too bold for his own good.
When he would check on Andrew in the middle of the night on his way back from the bathroom, it appeared as if the covers had swallowed him. His body barely raised a hummock amid all the folds. Only his mussed head on the pillow gave proof the boy was there, snoring softly, and John would sometimes smooth a cowlick or brush the hair from his forehead, still amazed he had played a role in such an astonishing act of creation. If Andrew began to rouse at his touch he would shush him back to sleep before checking to make sure the windows were locked, the blinds pulled. His night patrol, Lindsay called it, asking more than once if he thought she went around unlocking things after he fell asleep? But John couldn’t help himself. There would be no return to slumber until he reassured himself the house was secure. Even before his discovery of the bilantu offalate, he had known there were monsters out there, the two-legged kind that disguised themselves as men and slouched in the near-dark, searching for a way inside.
Andrew lay stretched across the bottom bunk, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other dangling to the floor. There was no blanket to burrow under, no pillow, just a bare mattress. The beddings for new arrivals didn’t arrive until just before lights-out. A box of toiletries sat unopened on the floor next to him. His scrubs were at least two sizes too large, an orange tangle from which arms, head and feet emerged like poles from a collapsed tent.
John saw the man in the top bunk lean over to say something to Andrew. When his cellmate didn’t respond the man dug in his nose for a moment and flicked what he’d produced at him.
“He’s not alone,” John said quietly, edging away from the open door. “Any way you can change that?”
“Absolutely,” Hector said. “Can never have too many delousings. I’m I right, Book?”
The other guard snorted. “Long as I don’t have to go poking around his asshole I’m good.”
Booker Lamont, one of the twelve officers involved in the infirmary debacle, was what John was beginning to think of as a Recent Convert, someone, like Emily Cho and Hector Salvador, who’d joined the cause after having the veil pulled from his or her eyes. That the other eleven officers hadn’t followed suit was worrisome. It meant they had either convinced themselves what had happened was a mass hallucination, or they had allied with other forces, a possibility that kept John up most of the night, listening for the approach of footsteps outside his cell.
“Wait here,” Hector said, and the two guards went inside. John still hadn’t figured out how Hector managed to spend so much time at his side. Since the infirmary attack, he’d essentially become his bodyguard, escorting him whenever he left his cell and spending the rest of his shift parked on a chair outside his door. When he’d asked if such duties were authorized, Hector had simply given him a wink.
After a few moments, raised voices erupted inside the cell, followed by a thump. The box of toiletries came skidding into the hall, accompanied by the unmistakable buzz of a taser. A howl of pain. A series of curses. He could imagine Andrew curled up at the back of his bunk, watching the commotion in groggy confusion.
“That’s a lawsuit, motherfucker. You can’t drag me out of my bunk and tase me for no reason. I know my goddamn rights.”
“Tase you? Nobody here has a taser. Book, you got a taser hiding somewhere?”
“Not me.”
“Well, I sure as hell don’t. This is what happens when you fall out of your bunk and hit your head. Start seeing tasers everywhere.”
“Ah shit, man. You fuckers crack me up.”
Hector and Booker emerged dragging the inmate between them.
“Take your time,” Hector said as they passed. “This one’s going to be occupied for the next hour.”
John returned the scattered toiletries to the box and stepped into the cell. Andrew sat at the edge of his bunk, elbows on his knees, fingerprint-inked fingers interlaced. When he saw John, his head sank.
“Who told?” he asked the floor.
“Guard said you were booked on a narcotics charge.”
“Word travels fast.”
“Mind if I sit?”
John eased down next to him and set the box between their feet. “Am I the only one who finds it ironic they give you travel-sized toothpaste and soap in a place designed to keep you from traveling?” Andrew continued to stare at his feet. John could faintly smell the anti-lice shampoo he had used after booking. “How you holding up, Andy?”
“Everyone at the station thinks I’m a junkie, Dad. A morphine addict. When they search my car, and they will once they get a warrant, they’ll find a box of explosives in the trunk. And that will be that. Andrew Tate: terrorist junkie. Who would believe anything else?”
“Me, for one. Look, I’m not going to sit here and claim to know you like a father should know his son. But just because I moved out doesn’t mean I stopped paying attention.
"I’ve been watching all these years, watching you grow into a man who chose a career dedicated to helping others, a man who puts himself on the line every day trying to make a difference, willing to do whatever it takes to save people, even the ones who don’t want saving.
"From where I’m sitting, that makes you a damn fine human being, one I’m proud to call my son.”
Andrew slowly shook his head. “I may not be as bad as the evidence suggests, but I deserve to be here. This morning, when the captain reached into my locker, I knew my career was over. I thought he was going to find the flask of whiskey I’d hidden behind a panel. But that’s not what he found. Instead of Crown Royal, he pulls out a handful of morphine vials.”
“You were set up.”
“Pretty sure I know by who, although how he got into my locker’s a mystery. Even I can’t remember my lock combination half the time.”
“They told him.”
“They who?”
“You know.”
Andrew cleared his throat. “Yeah. Guess they didn’t appreciate us trying to…” John held up a hand to silence him, put a finger to his lips and motioned him to wait. Had that been the squeak of a heel in the hallway?
Edging to the cell door, he poked his head around the corner. Nothing. He lingered a moment, listening. The voices in his mind were a low static of guttural snivelings, unchanged for nearly twenty-four hours.
A possibility had occurred to him the previous night, one he had pondered briefly as he hovered on the edge of sleep. Could the vetro offalate block their thoughts from him? In the morning, with Hector stationed outside his cell, it seemed more a product of paranoia and exhaustion than a real possibility.
Now, however, it wasn’t as easy to dismiss. The cells on either side of his son’s were empty. Most inmates were in the common area, watching television or playing cards. He considered checking all the cells on the block to make sure they were indeed alone, then decided against it, not wanting to be away from Andrew that long.
“Nerves, I guess,” he said on his return. “I heard what you did the other night at the cemetery. Impressive.”
“Not impressive enough. Little Billy fill you in on the details?”
“Talked to him yesterday.”
“Then you know we’re almost out of time.”
John glanced up. Had that been a shadow? Goddamnit, now he would have to check again. He motioned Andrew silent and crept to the door. He should have asked Hector or Booker to remain behind. What the hell had he been thinking?
“You going to be doing that the whole time we’re talking?”
“I have reasons to be skittish. Did you call anyone when you were booked?”
“Who would I call, Little Billy? My bail’s been set at seventy-five hundred. He doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“Grace.”
“No.” Andrew’s head swiveled back and forth continuously as he spoke. “I’m not calling her from here. She can’t see me like this, an accused junkie in an orange monkey suit. She’d be filing divorce papers within the hour.”
“She knows you’re not a junkie.”
“Does she? I’ve screwed up a lot lately. Her brother’s ready to string me up by my balls.”
“Andy, listen to me carefully. You’ve been lucky.” Andrew turned incredulous eyes toward him. “You have. Somebody at your station set you up and now you’re here. They could just as easily have slit your throat while you slept or cut the brake lines on your car. They’ve been trying to kill me ever since I got here.”
“Christ, Dad. Why didn’t you say something?”
John waved him off. “Maybe they figure as long as you’re here you’re not a threat. They’re right. I need you on the outside. Call Grace and convince her to post your bail. You said you still had some explosives?”
“A lot, actually. I was planning to get even more, before this happened.”
“All the more reason to get you out.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about him, sunshine.” The man at the threshold ran his shiv casually down the size of his face, drawing a thin line of blood from forehead to chin. “He’s not going nowhere. Neither of you are.”
They sprang up, but there was no place to retreat. The inmate was massive, well over two hundred and eighty pounds, most of the weight packed around his shoulders and upper chest. The girth of his neck made his head seem a microcephalic afterthought, a softball balanced atop a barstool.
He took a step into the cell and paused, one ear tilted up as if listening to instructions. At least he wasn’t wearing a suit of bilantu, as Brutrelli had been. The shiv, however, was larger than any John had faced, a honed wedge of metal as long as his hand secured to twelve inches of broom handle. How in god’s name had he managed to keep that hidden?
“The guards will be back any second,” John said. When the inmate made no response, he reached down and yanked the mattress off Andrew’s bunk. It was unwieldy, hard to grip and flimsy, just a foam pad encased in a slipcover, but it would provide some protection.
“Here.” He passed it to Andrew. “Try and keep this between you and him.”
And since the man at the door still appeared to be preoccupied, John pulled the other mattress off the top bunk. If they charged him now they might be able to make it into the hall and break for the rec center, where there would be guards.
Before he could whisper the suggestion to Andrew however, the inmate emerged from his fugue, rousing himself with a full-body shudder that reminded John of a bear waking from hibernation.
“They want me to do this quick. Chop, chop!” He brought the shiv down in a slicing arc. “All business, those guys. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh s’ruque! Kalata binto Yog-Sothoth! But I got some ideas of my own.”
He made a pelvic thrust and John notice with a cold shiver the bulge at his crotch. “Promised me all the pussy I could ever want if I diced you. And I will. Oh, I will. But I figure why wait? One hole is as good as the next, and I bet yours, princess,” he said, pointing the blade at Andrew, “is as pretty as a button.”
Father and son charged.
After only a few steps, Andrew tripped over the trailing edged of his mattress and went sprawling just as John plowed into the inmate. It was like hitting a wall of flesh. Rebounding, he stumbled over Andrew’s legs and went down himself.
“Like pickin’ daisies. Guess I’ll do you first, old man.”
John raised the mattress in time to meet the weapon, but the force of the blow pushed two inches of metal through the foam and tore the pad from his grip. He twisted in time to prevent the blade from piercing his sternum and felt a sting across his flank instead. When their attacker yanked the shiv back for a second swing, the impaled mattress went with it.
