The water seeped into his nose and into his mouth, and dribbled into his lungs,
and blossoming within him was a powerful sensation, perhaps the most powerful
sensation the human body can know, that of asphyxiation. He was drowning. He
could not get air. He thought of his uncle Jimmy, dying of emphysema, sitting in
a chair with oxygen flowing into his nostrils through those clear plastic nasal
prongs, the tank of O2 accompanying him everywhere, the way his yellow Labrador
once did. He fantasized kicking free with powerful thrusts, kicking himself to
the river’s surface. Then he tried to imagine himself breathing good clean air,
imagined jogging around the cinder track at his high school in West Lafayette,
Indiana, though when he did, he found he was only inhaling water faster. Air
spilled from his nose and mouth in a pulsing current of bubbles.
And the agony of breathlessness only increased.
The pressure on his eardrums—he was deep, deep—became excruciating, adding a
foundation to the horrible sense of suffocation. It meant something, though. It
meant he was not yet dead. Death was not painful. What he was feeling was life’s
final blow, its farewell pangs, its desperate struggle not to leave.
He wanted to thrash, to flail, to lash out. In his mind, his hands began to
churn the water: but only in his mind. His extremities twitched feebly, that was
all.
He recalled what the man had said, and some things became all too obvious. Guard
your passenger with your life: a nonissue now. When the car was dredged out,
they would both be dead. Both drowned. One driver, stunned by the impact,
drowned in his seat. One passenger the victim of security precautions. The only
question would be why Callahan had driven over the bridge.
But it was wet, the pavement was slippery, and Callahan was given to pushing the
speed limit, wasn’t he?
Oh, they’d blame the peon, all right.
So this was how it was to end. He thought of everything that had gone wrong with
life. He thought about the athletic scholarship to State he didn’t get, because
he was off his game the day the scout showed up to check out what West Lafayette
High School had to offer. And then with his frickin’ knee injury, the coach
wouldn’t give him any playing time in the regional and state championship games.
He thought about the apartment he and Irene were going to buy, until it turned
out they couldn’t scrape together the money they needed for the down payment,
and his dad refused to help, steamed that they’d been counting on his chipping
in without having consulted him, so they lost the earnest money, too, a loss
they could hardly afford. He remembered how Irene left him soon after, and he
could hardly blame her, though he sure did his best to. He remembered the jobs
he’d applied for, the string of searing rejections. Nopromotion material, that
was what he’d been labeled, and try as he might, the label would never come off.
Like the gummy backing of a bumper sticker you’d tried to scrub away, it was
somehow just there. People took one look at him and they could see it.
Now Callahan lacked even the strength to sustain the fantasy of being elsewhere.
He was … where he was.
He was cold, and wet, and breathless, and terrified, and consciousness itself
was beginning to darken, to flicker, to narrow to a few essential thoughts.
He thought: Everybody has to die. But nobody should die like this.
He thought: It isn’t going to last much longer, it can’t last much longer, it
can’t.
And he thought: Why?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Berthwick House—what the Russian had described as his humble abode—was in fact a
grand redbrick Georgian mansion abutting Regent’s Park: a three-story pile with
dormers in the slate roof and three chimneys. Security was both discreet and
overt. It was surrounded by a ten-foot black wrought-iron fence, with rods that
came to a sharp, spearlike end. A high-mounted videocamera in an enameled hood
surveyed the driveway. There was a small gatehouse with a guard … who waved
Berman’s raspberry-colored Bentley through with a respectful nod.
The spacious reception hall was painted coral and was crowded with antique
reproductions. There were side chairs, highboys, and chess tables in the manner
of Sheridan and Chippendale: but they were glossy with thick shellac and given
an odd orange cast by antiquing stain. A pair of large hunting scenes in gilt
frames looked, at first glance, like distinguished eighteenth-century canvases:
up close, they looked as if they came from a department store—copies done by a
hurried art student.
“You like?” Berman was puffed up with pride as he gestured around the jumble of
Anglophilic knockoffs.
“I’m speechless,” Janson replied.
“Look like movie set, da?” Another expansive gesture.
“Da.”
“Is from movie set,” Berman said delightedly, clapping his hands. “Grigori
arrive at Merchant Ivory production, last day shooting. Write check to unit
production manager. Buy everything. Haul off to home. Now live in Merchant Ivory
set. Everyone say, Merchant Ivory do English upper class best. Best is good
enough for Grigori Berman.” A contented chuckle.
“From Grigori Berman, I’d expect no less.” The explanation made sense:
everything was off, exaggerated, because it was designed only to film well with
the proper lights, lenses, and filters.
“Have butler, too. Me, Grigori Berman, poor Muscovite, spend childhood in line
at government department store GUM, have butler.”
The man he referred to was standing quietly at the end of the foyer, dressed in
a black four-button long coat and a stiff pique shirt. He was barrel-chested and
strapping, with a full beard, and thinning, neatly combed-back hair. His pink
cheeks lent an air of joviality at odds with his somber demeanor.
“This is Mr. Giles French,” Berman said. “The ‘gentleman’s gentleman.’ Mr.
French take care of all your needs.”
“That’s really his name?”
“No, not real name. Real name Tony Thwaite. Who cares? I not like real name.
Give him name from best American television program.”
The bewhiskered manservant gave a solemn nod. “At your service,” he said
plummily.
“Mr. French,” Berman said, “bring us tea. And … ” He paused, either lost in
thought or furiously trying to remember what might accompany tea. “Sevruga?” He
sounded tentative, and the request prompted an almost imperceptibly subtle head
shake from the butler. “No, wait,” Berman corrected himself. Once more, he
brightened: “Cucumber sandwiches.”
“Very good, sir,” said the butler.
“Better idea. Bring scones. Those special scones cook makes. With clotted cream
and strawberry jam.”
“Excellent, sir. Right away, sir.”
Berman beamed, a child able to play with an action figure he’d been pining for.
For him, Berthwick was a toy house, in which he’d created a bizarre parody of
upscale English living, all in lavishly, lovably bad taste.
“Tell me, really, what you think?” Berman said, gesturing around him.
“It’s unspeakable.”
“Beyond words, you think?” Berman pinched his cheek. “You not just saying that?
Sweet pea! For that I should introduce you to Ludmilla. She show you
international travel without leaving bed.”
Passing by a small room off the main hallway, Janson paused before a large,
gleaming, powerful-looking machine with a built-in video monitor and keyboard
and two black-grilled squares to either side. He nodded toward it respectfully.
“That the RS/6000?”
“That? Is karaoke machine. Computer system in basement.” Berman took him down a
curved flight of stairs, to a carpeted room that contained several computer
workstations; the heat they threw off made the window-less room uncomfortably
warm. Two small electric fans stirred the air. The butler arrived with tea and
scones, arrayed on Bristol delft plates. He laid them out on a small corner
table, along with small ceramic pots filled with clotted cream and jam. Then he
glided off.
After glancing longingly at the scones, Berman sat down at a keyboard and
started to activate a series of firewall-penetration programs. He studied the
results for a few minutes and then turned to Janson. “In cone of silence, tell
Grigori what you get me into.”
Janson was silent for a while, thinking long and hard before he disclosed the
essential elements of his predicament. Garrulous creatures like Berman, he knew,
could sometimes be the most discreet of all, depending on the structure of
motivation. Grigori listened without comment or any evident reaction, and then,
shrugging, typed the values of an algebraic matrix into the program he was
running.
Another minute passed. He turned to Janson. “Grigori not encouraged. We let
these programs run, then maybe get results in time.”
“How much time?”
“Run machine twenty-four hours, coordinate with global parallel-processing
network of other computers, then maybe … ” Berman looked off. “Eight months? No,
I think closer nine months. Like make baby.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You want Grigori to do what others can’t do? Must supply Grigori with numbers
others don’t have. You have public-key sequence to account, da? We use this, we