We Know

What if they'd killed him already, just to send me a signal? He'd be easy to wipe off the map. I'd read the newspaper stories from time to time with perverse interest-a body discovered weeks or years after the desperate end, skeletonized in a chimney, bloated in a well, rotting in the trapped air of a by-the-month motel room. Lost souls who didn't punch in to work or have family dinners on Sundays. No one to miss them. No one to notice their removal. No one to care until a disruptive odor, a heap of chalky shards, or some other gristly matter gummed up life in progress or a real-estate inspection.

Before I could climb out of my car, I heard a call from the building. "Psst!"

Hacmed was gesturing at me furiously from the barely cracked rear door. "Nicolas. You come here."

I slid from the car and entered the storage room. He put his hand on my chest, steering me into the corner, away from the overhead security camera's field of vision. "They take Homer."

"I heard. What happened?"

"It is my fault." Agitated, Hacmed twisted his sweaty hands together. "I do not have time to take cash-register receipts to bank Friday. So I go first thing today. Drop them off. One hour later two men show up at my store. Secret Service. They ask about hundred-dollar bill I deposit at bank. They tell me bank lady checked serial number against list."

I sagged against the wall. I never should have given Homer those hundreds from Charlie's stash. Monitoring banks was actually part of the Service's infrastructure, since the agency had been set up to catch counterfeiters. I should've known that Bilton's crew would've tagged the serial numbers before paying off Charlie.

"They threaten me with being terrorist, with plotting to kill the president. They ask where I get this one-hundred-dollar bill. Only one I have is from Homer last night. I tell them. Homer is outside. They collect him. Shove him into car."

Hacmed's eyes were wet now. "I was scared, Nicolas. I did not know what to do. What was I supposed to do?"

"There was nothing you could've done that would have made this turn out differently."

"I could have made up story. Said it was not his hundred."

"They would've checked the security tapes and found out it was him anyway."

"They ask about you, too. If I know you. I say I recognize picture, you are sometimes customer. But I do not tell them anything more. You be careful, Nicolas."

The front door rattled, the ding nearly sending Hacmed through the ceiling tiles. He left me there, stunned, and scurried out to ring up the customer. Then he returned. I hadn't moved. I'd barely breathed.

It took me a moment to realize that Hacmed was speaking again. "My brother-in-law, they take him for three month. He is cabinetmaker. Nothing more. But they take him, because he is from Pakistan. No lawyer, no nothing. Just gone. Three month. I support my sister and their children. Three month. And then one day he is back. No explanation. They kept him in secret jail, asking questions, feeding him like dog. My brother-in-law is strong man. Homer cannot survive this."

"They'll have to realize that Homer doesn't know anything."

"You think my brother-in-law knew anything?" He was practically shouting.

"No, no. What else did they tell you?"

"They are going to charge Homer with murder. Murder. They say he kill man in apartment, then lit him on fire, then blew up apartment. They say the bill proves he is involved with dead man. Homer tell them someone else give him the bill. They do not believe him. He has no money to hire proper lawyer. He cannot make bail. They will leave him to rot."

"Who told you all this?"

"Secret Service agent came back one hour ago. Told me everything."

"Broad guy, buzz cut, tan face?"

"Yes. That is him."

"Nice of him. To give you all that info."

Hacmed looked at me unsurely. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing, sorry. Anything else?"

"They are processing Homer now. They are to release him into general population tomorrow. First thing. With rapists and killers." Hacmed shook his head, on the verge of tears again.

Sever had gone to great lengths to make sure I knew that Homer would suffer worse than he already was unless I turned myself in. Either Homer or I was going to be charged with the murder of Mack Jackman. The decision was up to me.

"You must leave." Hacmed ushered me to the back door. "You must go hide."

I said, "Hacmed, listen to me. This is not your fault."

He pulled his head back through the gap and regarded me with mournful eyes. "No? Then whose fault it is?"

The slab of the high-rise towered over me, black windows framed with white concrete, an imperious honeycomb. I'd left the Jaguar three blocks away in a grocery-store parking lot, keys in the wheel well for Induma. Concrete planters and reinforced trash cans were positioned around the base of the building, measures against unresourceful car bombers.

Feeling oddly naked without my rucksack, I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and placed a final call.