I watched the tip of the cigarette shiver as Greg took a long drag. The cherry flared vividly in the weak, sea-colored afternoon light. Overhead, thick bottle-green clouds pressed down on the town, faintly luminous as they hoarded the morning sun above them. The wind smelled marshy and it felt like rain.
Greg’s backyard was small and weedy, enclosed by a gap-toothed wooden fence whose sections sagged haphazardly, either encroaching or retreating from the neighbor’s yards in random stretches. A grimy set of white plastic lawn furniture huddled against the house, crowded onto a tiny concrete patio that butted up to a sliding glass door. Everyone stood clustered around the mildewed table, ignoring the dirty chairs.
Chuck was pissed. “I don’t give a shit, Greg. I’m not leaving kids in a house with one of those things just because your wife was jerking you around. Seriously.”
Mazie hit him hard in the shoulder with a kind of half punch, half shove. He had to take a step to keep his balance. “Jesus, Chuck. Will you shut up? He’s talking about his wife. What’s wrong with you?”
“No,” said Greg. “He’s right. We have to get those kids out. And no matter what else, we have to remember that she’s helping us. One hostage a week is better than none, which is what we would have without her. She’s on our side. We have to believe that.”
“I don’t know, man,” said Chuck, “she loves her rewards, right? If there were houses everywhere, why wouldn’t she give us one every day so she gets more food? I mean, shit, you’d think she’d be all over that arrangement. I can’t imagine her holding off for a whole week for an extra snack, you know?”
Greg’s face went still and hard. “Shut up.”
“Hey, I’m just saying out loud what everyone else is thinking.”
Greg lunged, knocking the table aside in an attempt to wrap his hands around Chuck’s throat. I caught him before he managed to connect, but it took Mazie a good five minutes to talk him down before I could let him go.
Greg shoved away from me and put his hands up. “I’m all right. I’m fine. It’s just, fuck. She’s doing her best, okay? It’s not easy for either one of us, her being sick and all. But she’s helping as much as she can.”
I met his eyes. “If that’s the case, I need you to get her to work with us. Now that we know that she’s been holding back, on purpose or not, there’s no point in her keeping any more secrets now. I need to know where Peter’s operation is. You want hostages? How about the ones he’s got penned up waiting to be bled over his pit? We find that place, and I can end this right now.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Tell her whatever you have to, but this has to end.”
His cigarette had fallen to the ground in the scuffle, and he crushed it out on the stained patio concrete. “I know.”
As he went into the house, Anne’s cell phone buzzed from her pocket. She pried it out and glanced at the face to see who was calling.
“Finally.” She answered and put it to her face. “Hi, Henry.” She listened for a second with her smile fading, and then handed the phone over to me. “It’s not Henry.”
I knew who it was. My breath quickened and I had to take care not to crush the phone as I took it from her. “Hello, Piotr.”
“Abraham. Hello. Did you know that it took years for me to learn your name after we met? It hardly seems fair looking back on it, considering how intimately our lives were tied together that day, and how much about me you must have learned when you stole my journal.” His voice had the soft raspy edge of an elderly man, but his words were quick and clear. There was only the faintest trace of his Polish heritage under his flat Midwestern pronunciation.
“Where’s Henry?”
“You sound angry. I understand that, I’m angry, too. All the time, I’m angry. I think we both want to end this as soon as we can. So. Let’s make a deal. I’m going to get ready for us to meet as quickly as I can, and you’re going to stay put with your new friends, yes? If you do that, this will be over in the shortest possible time. I’m going to close the town shortly and start transporting my … supplies, so just sit tight. If you don’t, then not only will you be dragging things out for everyone involved, but it will go badly for Henry and Leon as well.”
“Newsflash, fucker. Henry is a Ranger and Leon is a Marine. You think they care about your threats? You think I do? Shit, if you put Henry on right now, the first thing out of his mouth would be to tell me to blow your head off and forget about him and Leon.”
Piotr laughed, delighted. “Oh, I know, Abraham, they have said as much to my face. We’re all the same. I served my country just as you and your friends did, in the Armia Krajowa and later in Ludowa when the Home Army would no longer have me. So I know a soldier’s pride. But I know something else about soldiers, too. Sacrificing yourself is easy, sacrificing others is the hard thing. I understand this. You should also know that I’m not threatening them with death. No, I’m going to give them to the Mother as a holy vessel for her children. Then I’ll send them out to find you, and you’ll have to kill them yourself. Or you can get that self-sacrifice that you wanted, delivered by the knives of your friends. I don’t think either scenario would suit you, am I correct?”
“I’m coming to kill you.”
“I know, and I deserve to die. As do you and Henry and Leon and everyone else. We all deserve to die, Abraham. And we will.”
He hung up. A minute later the phone flashed ‘NO SIGNAL.’