The Cloud Atlas

I walked in right after Ronnie had fallen off the bar. He'd apparently been dancing a complicated dance that was intended-or so he'd been shouting-to render everyone within earshot impotent. That made his listeners angry enough, and his falling into their laps and spilling their drinks made them angrier. A stout older fellow who looked a lot like Santa had Ronnie in a choke hold while his companion, also old and fat, but less Santa-like, poured drink after drink from the bar over Ronnie's head.

Ronnie screamed and kicked. I hollered at the bartender to make them stop, but he only rolled his eyes. I shouted at the two Santas, which distracted them long enough for Ronnie to kick one of them where he shouldn't have, and then it was all fists and feet. The bartender began to come around the bar-slowly-while I dove into the middle of the fight. I tried to tug Ronnie free, and then somebody-it could even have been Ronnie-clouted me behind the ear. I retreated. We were all much too old.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the Bear 'n' Moose was decorated as you might expect, giving an angry priest bent on smiting an array of options. I chose an incongruous harpoon. Ronnie, delighted, began ululating wildly (something he's always been quite good at). But it was a mistake. As I advanced, the Santas dropped Ronnie, knocking him out.

Police, ambulance, hospital, and the next morning, Ronnie awaking with a wide smile. “Bear 'n' Moose,” he said, uncovering the meal the nurse had brought. He stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth and looked around for a clock. “When does it open?”

* * *

IF THE BEAR ‘N’ MOOSE was open back when Gurley and I visited Fairbanks -if the business had even been established-we never got a chance to find out. We only went there once, and only stayed four hours.

Gurley's lamentation for his war, and his eye, had been interrupted by a phone call. Gurley answered with a “yes,” and then held the phone to his ear, saying nothing else. At first, I thought the line had gone dead, and that he was simply too tired (and too eager to show how tired he was) to hang up. But as his second minute of silence began, I watched his face change, his remaining eye squint and then widen with equal parts glare and alarm. He waved his free arm at me, then started scrabbling for a pen. Finally he shouted, “Yes! Yes, sir! Yes!” and dropped the handset without even hanging it up.

He was around the desk and dragging me out the door before I'd even had time to ask what had happened. “Ladd Field, Sergeant,” he said, as we staggered through the Quonset hut to the exit. He looked at his watch. “If we can make it to the airfield in three minutes, we'll catch the noon transport, be at Ladd Field in Fairbanks in time for the briefing.”

“What's happened?” I said. “Balloon?”

Gurley shook his head no, then yes, and then grabbed me by the shoulders. “Belk,” he said. “They're here.”

“THEY” WERE LAID out on two long metal tables, side by side in a makeshift morgue. I didn't get a very good view; Gurley and the other officers had closed in a relatively tight cordon around the two bodies, one of which was covered, the other not.

The major who'd been briefing us in an adjoining room resumed his account from behind a surgical mask. “Two males, Japanese, mid-thirties, our best guess. Age isn't particularly important, except to note that they're not kids; that is, they're not cannon fodder, so deduce what you will about the importance or sophistication of their apparent mission. No rank or insignia on their uniforms. And the ship's report says they weren't really in uniform anyway perhaps better to carry off the ruse that they were simply fishermen.” He raised his eyebrows behind his mask. “In any case, you'll have to take my word on their clothing-it's gone now; we had it burned, of course.” Some of the officers looked at each other and shuffled back from the bodies an inch or two. Gurley remained where he was, riveted. He looked like Frankenstein. He'd acquired an eye patch after his arrival in Fairbanks, but his Franklin Bout wound had wept through the gauze and dried. Plus the straps of his surgical mask had snapped, so he was holding it to his face.

“Men are working on decoding the notebook they had with them. Early report is that it's not a code they've been using; seems altogether unique. Could take a while. But we can tell a lot of the tale just by… reading their bodies, if you will. We'll start with Subject One, and leave number two covered for a moment, for reasons which will become obvious.”

“Whole damn thing is pretty obvious,” said a red-haired officer whom I'd heard someone call Swift. “I'm no doctor, but look at those hands. Look at those damn fingers. Look like pieces of charcoal. These boys were working on a bomb, went off too soon, boom, fire, burn, ow, ow, dead.”