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Authors: Deep as the Marrow (v2.1)
F Paul Wilson - Novel 04
Deep As The Marrow
by F. Paul Wilson
This is a work of fiction. All the
characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEEP AS THE MARROW Copyright 1997
by F. Paul Wilson
A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty
Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New
York
,
NY
10010
ISBN: 0-812-57198-3
To Meggan and Coates upon the start
of their life together
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Robert Surgent
for sharing his treasury of Stupid Car Tricks.
Also, thanks to Mary, Meggan,
Coates, Parvez Dara, Harriet McDougal, Steven Spruill, Al Zuckerman, and the
National Drug Policy Foundation.
Fear
by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow.
—James
Baldwin,
The Fire Next Time
Contents
“… and then you know
what Jimmy did?” John Vanduyne struggled to concentrate on his
six-year-old daughter’s story about the baddest boy in her kindergarten
class. It wasn’t easy. His gaze kept shifting back to the angry face on
the screen of the little TV on the kitchen side counter.
“No, Katie,” he said.
“What did he do?” Katie slurped up a big spoonful of her Lucky
Charms and chewed as quickly as she could.
Morning was the brightest part of
the kitchen’s day, but even now, with the spring sun cascading through
the windows, it was still fairly dim. A 1970s kitchen, with dark-oak cabinets
and furniture, a Congoleum floor, and harvest-gold appliances and countertops.
If he ever decided to buy the place, he’d want to brighten it up. But
each year he put off the decision and renewed his lease.
He watched Katie swallow
convulsively. She was really into this story. Excitement shone from her bright
blue eyes.
My eyes, he thought. The round
face, clear skin, and long, dark, glossy hair are her mother’s; and
she’s going to be petite like Mamie. But those are Vanduyne eyes.
She said, “Well, he took his
pencil and he…” John heard the words “racist” and
“genocide” and couldn’t help glancing at the TV again.
A very angry black congressman, his
jowls trembling with rage, was letting the President of the
United
States
have it with both barrels.
John knew him—or at least
knew of him: Floyd Jessup.
DNY flashed through his mind and he
had to smile at the reflex… a natural response after you’ve been in
Washington
awhile.
No surprise about Jessup’s
reaction. The President had made his official announcement last night, and here
was the congressman, not twelve hours later, venting his considerable spleen on
Good Morning America. His staff hadn’t wasted a second.
“… and to think that we
supported this man, we helped put Thomas Winston into the White House! And what
does he do? He drives a knife into the back of the already oppressed
African-American community!” John ripped his attention back to Katie and
found that he’d missed what bad boy Jimmy Clifton had done. He tried to cover.
“Oh, wow. Did he get in
trouble?”
“Yep!” Katie said with
a quick nod and a satisfied smile that revealed a gap on top. She’d lost
her first tooth just last week. Her upper right-front incisor now belonged to
the Tooth Fairy. “Had to go down the hall and see Sister Louise.”
“Is that bad?”
Katie stared at him as if he had
two heads. “She’s the principal. Daddy.”
“Oh, right. Sister Louise. Of
course.” Despite the fact that he’d been raised a Baptist, John had
opted to enroll Katie in a Catholic school—Holy Family Elementary in
Bethesda
.
It had a great reputation as one of the best primary schools inside the
Beltway. Even had a waiting list.
John was delighted Katie was
getting along so well in school. She’d suffered some separation anxiety
at first— perfectly understandable, considering what she’d been
through—but now she looked forward to catching the school bus and riding
off with her friends every morning. Made it worth all the strings he’d
had to pull to get her in.
Pulling strings… the name of
the game around here. When he’d been a practicing internist in
Atlanta
he hadn’t known a thing about strings. But he’d learned fast: a
couple of years as a Health and Human Services deputy secretary and he could
pull with the best of them.
He glanced at his watch.
“Oops. You’re going to miss the bus.”
She grinned. “And then
I’ll be Latie Katie.”
“Yes, you will. Did you take
your pill?”
She searched the tablecloth around
her cereal bowl for it. “No, I—”
“I have it.” John
looked up as his mother approached them from the far side of the kitchen,
holding up an amber vial.
“Thanks, Nana,” Katie
said, sticking out her hand.
Nana—she was still Helga to
her peers, and she’d once been “Ma” to John, but she became
“Nana” to the family once Katie began speaking. Not a day passed
that John didn’t thank heaven that his mother had come to
Washington
to stay with them. He and Katie couldn’t have got along without her.
She shook a pink, red-speckled
tablet into her granddaughter’s upheld palm.
John watched his mother and
realized how much she’d aged within the past few years. Seventy-five and
looking every minute of it. Two or three years ago her hair had been just as
white, but she’d looked sixty-five. Living proof that stress makes you
old.
But her slide seemed to have slowed
and halted since she’d begun yoga classes last fall. He’d noticed a
new spring in her step over the past few months.
Tall and trim—John’s
father had been tall, as well— and just beginning to develop a
dowager’s hump, she still took impeccable care of herself, keeping her
thinning white hair softly permed; she was never without a touch of pink
lipstick, even this early in the day. Her natural high coloring accentuated the
blue of her eyes.
She didn’t have a full closet
but she bought good quality clothing and then wore it to death. No housecoats,
no polyester, and God forbid she ever appeared in an outfit that didn’t
match. This morning she wore lightweight wool beige slacks and a blue-and-beige
turtleneck.
Katie popped the pill into her
mouth and washed it down with a gulp of orange juice. The tablets were chewable
but she’d never liked the flavor, so she’d learned to swallow them
whole. She was an old pro at it by now.
One of those tablets, twice a day,
every day, for… how long? John wished he knew. He did know what would
happen if she missed a dose or two.
His throat tightened and he had to
reach out and touch her, smooth some fly away strands of her shiny, dark hair.
So fine… baby fine. Nana combed out the knots every morning and braided
it into a pair of pigtails. Katie tended to prefer a single, looser French
braid like the bigger girls‘, but Nana didn’t think that was neat
enough. Nana liked things neat.
Katie looked at him.
“What’s the matter, Daddy?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You look funny.”
He crossed his eyes. “Is this
better?”
“No!” She laughed.
“Now you look goofy!”
“And he will look even
goofier,” Nana said, ever the voice of reason, “if you miss your
bus and he has to drive you to school.”
John checked his watch and got to
his feet. “Can’t do that. Got an appointment with Tom this
morning.”
“About this mess he has
created?” she said, nodding toward the television.
“No. His regular checkup.”
Her lips were tight as she shook
her head. “Well, Tommy has really done it this time.”
He nodded. “That he has. Mom.
That he has.”
John buttoned Katie’s
navy-blue uniform blazer over her plaid jumper. Here was another thing he liked
about Holy Family Elementary: the uniform. No daily contretemps over what to
wear, what the other kids were wearing, and why-can’t-I-wear-that-too
tantrums. All the girls wore one-piece blue-and-gray plaid jumpers over a white
blouse with a neat little Peter Pan collar, blue knee socks, and saddle shoes;
all the boys wore blazers of the same plaid with blue slacks. And that was that.
But no rules on hats, so Katie was
allowed to wear her favorite: a red beret. After she adjusted it over her hair,
they began the predeparture ritual: “Got your lunch box?” he said.
She held it up.
“Check!”
“Morning snack?”
“Check!”
“Afternoon snack?”
“Check!”
“Got your pencil case?”
She held that up.
“Check!”
“Got your emergency
quarter?”
She felt in her blazer pocket.
“Check!”
“Then I guess you’re
ready to go. Say good-bye to Nana.” He watched his mother and his
daughter exchange a quick hug and a kiss; then he took Katie’s little
hand in his and led her out the door.
A crisp April morning—spring
was here but winter wasn’t letting go. One of those days it felt good to
be alive.
And for John, this was the best
time of day, the time he felt closest to Katie. He wanted that closeness,
needed it, and knew she needed it too—desperately. He’d worked hard
to let her know she was loved and cherished and that no one was ever going to
hurt her again.
When they reached the corner, they
stopped and waited for the bus.
“Do you think Jimmy
Clifton’s going to get in trouble again today?” he said.
She shrugged. “Maybe. I hope
they don’t kick him out.”
“Ooh,” he teased,
nudging her with his hip. “That sounds like somebody I know likes Jimmy
Clifton.”
“I do not!” she said.
“I just think he’s funny.”
Methinks the lady doth protest too
much, he thought, but he didn’t push Katie any further. She seemed
genuinely worried that the boy would be kicked out.
John doubted that that would happen
to Jimmy, being Senator Clifton’s son—but you never knew. Those
nuns weren’t easily impressed. And they had about fifty other kids on a
list waiting to take his spot.
“If he’s really
funny,” John told her, “maybe Sister Louise will keep him around
just for laughs.”
“He’s not that
funny,” Katie said.
As John laughed, the yellow Holy
Family Elementary bus rounded the far corner and made its way down the street.
He squatted next to her, pulled her
close, and gave her a big hug.
“Daddy loves Katie.”
She threw her free arm around his
neck. “Katie loves Daddy.”
He held her tight against him,
cherishing the moment. In a few years she’d become self-conscious and
find such public displays of affection too embarrassing for words. But for now,
she was delighted to be hugged by her daddy.
He released her as the bus pulled
to a halt at the curb. He let her run to the open door by herself. A few seconds
later she was waving and smiling from one of the windows.
When the yellow bus and the red
beret were out of sight, he headed back to the house.
Not a bad house, he thought as he
approached it. A twenty-year-old brick federal in a neighborhood of colonials
and other federals on small, wooded lots. A neighborhood that screamed
Washington
,
D.C.
Nana— Ma—tolerated it.
Said the layout was out of date, with no flow for company. But when did he ever
have company?
If he bought it he’d have to
do some heavy renovation. He bought it.
When he’d come to
Washington
he hadn’t known whether he was going to like it around here. Still
wasn’t sure.
When his old boyhood friend Tom
Winston became President of the
United States
,
he’d asked John to come along. Said he wanted some
Georgia
boys around him in Washington, that John was already treating his high blood
pressure and he wanted him to keep on doing so.
But John guessed the real reason
was that Tom had known how he was hurting, how his life had fallen apart, and
had offered him a breather.
John had come to
Washington
looking for more than a change of routine and a change of
scenery—he’d been hoping for a whole new life. He didn’t know
if he’d found that. But he had found a peace of sorts, and that was a
start. A good start.
Michael MacLaglen was fully into
Snake mode now.
Last night he’d been sitting
in front of the tube—or rather the eight-by-twenty-foot wall screen of
his projection TV—watching President Winston commit political sepukku,
when the call came. He’d been expecting it.
One word: “Go.” The
word had begun the transformation. He’d called Paulie and told him the
snatch was on and going down tomorrow. He’d gone online, spent some time
lurking the hacker boards, then went to bed.
When he’d hit the pillow he
was still mostly Michael MacLaglen. But upon opening his eyes this morning, he
was all Snake. The adrenaline had begun to flow—just a mild buzz now, but
he knew it would build throughout the day to a rush that would last the
duration of the snatch.
And this one could go a couple of
weeks—easy. He licked his lips. He hoped so.
Snake had been following the yellow
bus for about a mile in his new Jeep Grand Cherokee. He tapped on the steering
wheel and acted impatient, looking like any one of the other dozen or so
agitated commuters trapped behind the school bus.
But inside he was cool, very
pleased that the laws kept him behind it, forced him to stop whenever it picked
up a kid, forbade him to scoot around it when its red lights were flashing.
Nothing easier than following a school bus.
He watched with satisfaction as it
picked up the blueblazered package and carried it off to school. Right on
schedule, just like every other school day.
As he passed the package’s
father, he stole a look. Dr. John Vanduyne. Tall dude—six two. Snake
guessed; fortyish with longish brown hair graying at the temples. Looked a
little like that Charlie Rose guy on the tube except for the intense blue eyes.
Casual, conservative dresser, leaning toward slacks and button-downs and
sweaters. Like me, Snake thought. Moved well, walking with a long, easy stride.
Maybe a basketball player in high school; a shooting guard, he bet. Trim, good
shoulders, probably watched what he ate. Snake knew he worked out regularly,
knew he had a fairly set routine for every day of the week.
The doc looked fit on the outside,
but Snake had him figured for a mushy core. Still living with his mother. A
mama’s boy. A wimp. Good. He’d fold up like wet cardboard and do
exactly as he was told.