The Journalist (36 page)

A close-up of Senator Beno on the TV put him
in the present. He sat up, increased the volume and watched TV
morning show host, Pam West: “Good morning. In what might be the
story of the millennium, I’m here with Senator Nancy Beno. She has
a startling revelation about the events of the past two days and an
audio recording of shocking import.”

West paused, touched a tiny ear prompter,
listened for a moment then said, “I’m told by the producer that we
have a breaking story. Let’s go to the news desk and Dee Dee
Paulsen.”

Close-up of anchor Dee Dee: “Pam, we have
just received information the President’s media guru, Dr. Barbara
Lande, is dead. She was found in her submerged car in Rock Creek by
police a short time ago. The accident was discovered earlier by a
passing motorist. Paramedics and DC police pulled Dr. Lande’s body
from the wreckage. An eyewitness said, ‘Lande looked a little
pruney.’ More details as we receive them. Now back to you.”

Zack shook his head and flipped to another
news channel, same Lande breaking news. He surfed TV anchors
discussing the Lande accident and the upcoming historic address to
the world by President Armstrong.

He wiped his face with his palm and clicked
back to the morning TV show with West and Beno:

Close-up of host West speaking, “

So, Senator Beno, let’s first play your recording.
Then we’ll discuss the ramifications.”

The recording of Lande, Novak and
MacCallister played. The words of the E.I.C. were superimposed as
subtitles in white over a blue background.

The recording ended and the video switched to
a close-up of West. “Where on earth did you get this amazing
recording?”

“A journalist.”

There was a knock at the hotel door.

Zack swallowed a sudden choke of anxiety,
“Who’s there?”

“Room service,” a thin voice mumbled.

Zack peered through the peephole. Looked like
a server—young, freckled female, white jacket, tray. He said again,
“Who’s there?”

“Room service.”

“I didn’t order room service.”

“New Doubletree thing, complimentary.”

“What ya got?”

“Coffee, cinnamon roll.”

He opened the door.

The young female nodded and whipped past him,
put the serving tray on the little kitchen table and smiled.

“Thank you.” Zack gave her fifty cents.

She looked at the change in her palm and
said, “Rough night?”

“Week.”

“You can say that again, brother.” She
left.

Zack noted a BREAKING NEWS graphic on the TV.
He pressed the sound up.

West announced, “We interrupt our interview
with Senator Beno to go to Herb Abelard at the White House”

Herb, standing in front of White House: “Yes,
Pam, we have just been told that President Armstrong has been
visited by a select Congressional delegation from his political
party and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court . Sources say he
was given two options, resign or be impeached. The President’s
address to the world, scheduled for this morning, has been
canceled, Herb Abelard reporting, back to you.”

Shot of West and Beno, West: “So, Senator
Beno, it would appear your Presidential stock just went up a few
points.”

Zack poured a cup of the complimentary
coffee, ate the cinnamon roll and sipped, “Not bad.”

Chapter Sixty

The following
Saturday

11:15 a.m.
EST

Drifting over the shallow waters northeast of
Bimini, Zack, dressed in his best black T-shirt, khaki shorts, deck
shoes and black baseball cap, eased
Veracity
to
idle-speed-forward.

Mary, in white tennis shorts, white T-shirt,
barefoot, leaned over his shoulder and looked at the water.

“Wow, the water’s so clear. Are those stones
that Bimini Road thing name sake for that dump in Miami you used to
like to go to.”

“Some predict the lost continent of Atlantis
will be re-discovered at Bimini. Those underwater rock formations
have been the subject of much study since discovered in the late
60’s.”

“Wasn’t that something to do with some
clairvoyant?”

“Edgar Cayce.”

“Yeah, that’s him. Right up your alley,
professor.”

“Much debate.”

“Yeah, like the one about Looney Toon
cartoons found on cro-Magnon cave walls.”

Ignoring her, “The underwater stone
formations and the vortex of energy have been bringing scholars and
enthusiasts to the islands for years. Jacques Cousteau studied the
site in the 1980’s.”

“Wow, the
Calypso
.”

“Way back when, the Discovery Channel did a
TV show on all of it.”

“Well, that ices it.”

After cruising around the site for an hour,
Zack headed for Brown’s Marina. There, he docked, tied up and
negotiated use of a Jeep from the marina manager.

After taking a stop-look-slow drive for ten
minutes, Zack said to Mary, “Here we are.”

Mary said, “You gotta be kidding.”

Zack pulled the Jeep into a sandy driveway
and stopped. He breathed deep the tropical air. Bright sun light
bathed a small pink house. It looked different in the daylight, but
this was the place, no doubt about it. He and Jim had met Joe Case
and Kim here, just last Sunday.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Mary said.

Zack stepped out of the Jeep, Mary followed
and they walked to the house. The roof, for the most part, gone,
windows broken, some were missing entirely. Weed and grass grew a
foot high.

Zack said, “I don’t understand it. This is
the house, just a week ago, Jim and I were here.”

“You sure? Looks like nobody has lived in
this house for a hundred years.”

Back at Brown’s Marina, when he asked about
Joe Case, the little pink house, all Zack got were silent
stares.

Perplexed, before boarding
Veracity
,
he spotted an aged man—tanned, white beard, smoldering cigarette
hanging from his lower lip—fishing from the dock. The man had just
caught a good-size fish. The fish flapped as he took the hook from
its mouth.

Zack ask him about the little house, the
couple who lived there. Throwing the fish back in the water, the
fisherman smiled and pointed toward the northern sky.

“What’s that mean?” Mary said.

The man puffed his cigarette and told of
bright lights, noises in the night, a strange bright object over
the island just a week ago. Smiling, he pulled a Pi baseball hat
from his pocket and put it on.

Grabbing Zack’s arm, Mary said, “Let’s get
the hey out of here.”

Zack said, “No, wait, I

”

“Now.”

Veracity’s engines started, Zack at the
wheel, Mary untied the lines, jumped on board, and Zack, easing the
craft out to sea, said, “Mary, you may think I’m crazy

”

“Could you rephrase that?”

“I think Joe Case was

”

“Was what?”

“Think about it, moving mountains, one day
gravity, next day none

”

“Never mind that ‘you may think I’m
crazy.’”

“You explain Case then.”

“How ’bout ‘fruitcake.’”

“Whatever, but I think some revolutionary
butter and eggs movement is afoot.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know, money, the wealth, spreading it
around, something’s afoot.”

“My foot,” she rolled her eyes.

“But how do you explain

”

“Zack, it’s been a long week, we’ve both been
working very hard

”

“Never.”

Chapter Sixty One

2:15 p.m.
EST

Heading
Veracity
west-southwest, the
Atlantic smooth as a pond, Zack calculated his position to be
roughly five miles due east of Pompano Marina. He throttled back
then shut down the gurgling engines. The sea gently slapped the
craft’s sides.

Mary stepped up from the cabin. She wore a
one-piece white bathing suit with tiny straps hanging loose over
her shoulders. After a long look, Zack pinched his wrist then
tipped his baseball cap back.

“It’s almost depraved. Forgive me, but how I
do enjoy this.”

“You mean me or
Veracity
?”

“Both.”

“Thanks.”

“You most.”

Mary glanced at his black T-shirt and faded
jeans. “Going to put your trunks on?”

“I’m comfortable.”

“Look like a priest.”

“Thanks.” Zack listened to the gentle swells
of the calmed ocean caress the side of the boat. He looked toward
the shoreline—there, yet always out of sight, he thought.

“We’re there,” he said.

“Where?”

“When the shoreline is gone, I know I’m far
enough out.”

“You’re always far enough out.”

“I meant the shoreline.”

“It’s there, just out of sight,” Mary
said.

“So, too, are many things.”

“A-plus.”

“Thank you.” Zack moved to the aft trolling
chair and began to stick a fishing hook through a shrimp but
decided against it.

“You want to fish?” he asked.

“Nah.”

“Me neither.” He cast the baitless line into
the ocean, secured the pole in a holder and leaned back in the
trolling chair. “I need to put some pieces together.”

“You do that. I’m going up top, read, get
some sun.” Mary opened the ice chest and retrieved two bottles of
Bohemia. “I know you want one.”

“You know everything.”

“I do know a lot, and” she opened the beer,
“I got a boat ride.”

“That what it’s all about?”

“Yep.” She handed him a beer.

“Thanks.”

Mary began layering a thick coating of suntan
oil on her arms and legs. “Need any of this?”

“Never use it.”

“You’ll get melanoma.”

“You watch too much TV.”

Zack felt the wind singing over the water,
picking up moisture, blowing over the bow. There was a storm in the
wind, far off to the east, toward Africa. He sniffed the wind.

Mary noticed him sensing something. “What is
it?”

“Storm, good way off, we have some time.”

“Good, do my back.”

Zack squeezed lotion on her back and smoothed
it over her shoulders.

“Nice back, huh?” Mary said.

“Enough lotion?”

“Enough. Thanks, going up top, read.”

He watched her climb to the top deck. “Don’t
fall off.”

She turned, caught him looking. “Don’t you
fall in.”

He waved her off, took a drink of beer and
sat in his trolling chair. The events of the hectic week catching
up with him, rummaging through the past, he closed his eyes.
Veracity
gently riding the calm ocean, he dozed off and
dreamed:

A sudden swell rocked the boat; and just
inside the stern, a younger man stood. He looked like—yes, it was
Jocko—Zack, years earlier.

Zack greeted him. Jocko, how are you?

Should not have dropped out.

I didn’t have a choice, remember? They
kicked me out, what can I say

obedience.

I thought it was something else.

It was many things. You know, but the
doubting thing hung me up more than once.

Jocko, looking omniscient: It’s me, Zack.

Zack said, You know, if I had stayed in the
priesthood, I’d probably be a bishop by now.

You keep saying that. I doubt it, but maybe
this was the other plan and it turned out better.

Jocko resembled Joe Case for a brief
moment; then Zack said, It’s not that there is nobody out there
that’s scary

that’s easy. Well,
kind of easy. The really scary stuff begins if there is somebody
out there. Think about it.

Yes. And what are you going to say if there
is?

Probably best for me to say nothing, just get
on my fat face and shut up. Anyway, how are you?

I’m fine, you’ve gained a little weight.

You lost a little. What are you doing
here?

I heard you talking and wanted to chime
in.

Yes. So, what do you think about all
this?

It’s a big ocean.

I meant last week, that video of Lande’s,
this freedom of the press thing?

Inalienable rights.

People have those, not the press—that’s the
premise, anyway.

Sometimes the press gets that mixed up, Jocko
said.

Beware, dear friend. If you say that anathema
too loud some press people will have you singing soprano in the
boy’s choir.

Nevertheless, it’s true.

You know what I think

I think it’s all about money.

I guess.

Beno is the answer—a better
way

economic hybrid

abandon the insane growth-curve.

Very hard sell

the growth-line thing is brutal.

There must be a better way.

I guess it depends on how you view all
this.

A third presence came on board, and with it a
rank smell, then a voice: You’re making too much out of tiny little
nonsense things.

Recognizing the odor, Zack shouted
,
“You

Get off my boat, you magnificent
stinking son of a bitch, you

”

Awake he heard Mary thumping the cabin top.
“Boca, who are you shouting at?”

“I was snoozing, must have been talking in my
sleep.”

“Well, could you please keep it down?”

“Sorry. You thirsty?”

“Yes.”

He went to the ice chest, retrieved a beer,
opened it and passed it to her outstretched hand.

Touching his fingers, she said, “Thanks.
Hungry yet?”

“In a bit.”

“Let me know. I have something for you.”