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+{"text":" \nThank you for downloading this Scribner eBook.\n\n* * *\n\nJoin our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Scribner and Simon & Schuster.\n\nCLICK HERE TO SIGN UP\n\nor visit us online to sign up at  \neBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com\n\n## Contents\n\n\"The Tradition\" by Jericho Brown\n\nIntroduction by Jesmyn Ward\n\nPART I: LEGACY\n\nHomegoing, AD by Kima Jones\n\nThe Weight by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah\n\nLonely in America by Wendy S. Walters\n\nWhere Do We Go from Here? by Isabel Wilkerson\n\n\"The Dear Pledges of Our Love\": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband by Honor\u00e9e Fanonne Jeffers\n\nWhite Rage by Carol Anderson\n\nCracking the Code by Jesmyn Ward\n\nPART II: RECKONING\n\nQueries of Unrest by Clint Smith\n\nBlacker Than Thou by Kevin Young\n\nDa Art of Storytellin' (a Prequel) by Kiese Laymon\n\nBlack and Blue by Garnette Cadogan\n\nThe Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning by Claudia Rankine\n\nKnow Your Rights! by Emily Raboteau\n\nComposite Pops by Mitchell S. Jackson\n\nPART III: JUBILEE\n\nTheories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey\n\nThis Far: Notes on Love and Revolution by Daniel Jos\u00e9 Older\n\nMessage to My Daughters by Edwidge Danticat\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nContributors\n\nPermissions\n\nAbout the Editor\nTo Trayvon Martin and the many other black men, women, and children who have died and been denied justice for these last four hundred years\n\n## The Tradition\n\n## JERICHO BROWN\n\nAster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought\n\nFingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning\n\nNames in heat, in elements classical\n\nPhilosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.\n\nFoxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will\n\nOf the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter\n\nOn this planet than when our dead fathers\n\nWiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby's Breath.\n\nMen like me and my brothers filmed what we\n\nPlanted for proof we existed before\n\nToo late, sped the video to see blossoms\n\nBrought in seconds, colors you expect in poems\n\nWhere the world ends, everything cut down.\n\nJohn Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.\n\n## Introduction\n\n## JESMYN WARD\n\nAfter George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, I took to Twitter. I didn't have anywhere else to go. I wanted to hear what others, black writers and activists, were thinking about what happened in Sanford, Florida. Twitter seemed like a great social forum, a virtual curia, a place designed to give us endless voice in declarations of 140 characters or fewer.\n\nI found the community I sought there. I found so many people giving voice to my frustration, my anger, and my fear. We shared news and updates and photos, anything we could find about Trayvon. During that time, I was pregnant, and I was revising a memoir about five young black men I'd grown up with, who all died young, violent deaths. Every time I logged in or read another article about Trayvon, my unborn child and my dead brother and my friends sat with me. I imagined them all around me, our faces long with dread. Before Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in July 2013, I suspected Trayvon's death would be excused. During this period, I returned often to the photo of Trayvon wearing a pale hoodie. As I gazed on his face\u2014his jaw a thin blade, his eyes dark and serious, too big in the way that children's eyes are\u2014I saw a child. And it seemed that no one outside of Black Twitter was saying this: I read article after article that others shared on Twitter, and no major news outlet was stating the obvious. Trayvon Martin was a seventeen-year-old child, legally and biologically; George Zimmerman was an adult. An adult shot and killed a child while the child was walking home from a convenience store where he'd purchased Skittles and a cold drink. Everything, from Zimmerman stalking and shooting Trayvon to the way Trayvon was tried in the court of public opinion after his death, seemed insane. How could anyone look at Trayvon's baby face and not see a child? And not feel an innate desire to protect, to cherish? How?\n\nAnd then I realized most Americans did not see Trayvon Martin as I did. Trayvon's sable skin and his wide nose and his tightly coiled hair signaled something quite different for others. Zimmerman and the jury and the media outlets who questioned his character with declarations like He abused marijuana and He was disciplined at school for graffiti and possessing drug paraphernalia saw Trayvon as nothing more than a wayward thug. They didn't see him as an adult human being, either, but as some kind of ravenous hoodlum, perpetually at the mercy of his animalistic instincts. Although this was never stated explicitly, his marijuana use and adolescent mischief earned this hoodlum in a hoodie his death.\n\nI knew that myth. It was as familiar to me as my own eyes, my own nose, my own hair, my own fragile chest. It was as familiar to me as the air I grew up in, air as dense and heavy and close and hot as the air Trayvon breathed before Zimmerman shot him. I, too, grew up in a place that could sometimes feel as limiting and final as being locked in an airtight closet, the air humid and rank with one's own breath and panic. A place where for all the brilliant, sun-drenched summer days, there is sometimes only the absence of light: America, and the American South. A place where the old myths still hold a special place in many white hearts: the rebel flag, Confederate monuments, lovingly restored plantations, Gone with the Wind. A place where black people were bred and understood to be animals, a place where some feel that the Fourteenth Amendment and Brown v. Board of Education are only the more recent in a series of unfortunate events. A place where black life has been systematically devalued for hundreds of years.\n\nIn December 2002, my then senator, Trent Lott, attended a function honoring the outgoing Senator Strom Thurmond, who is famous for opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 so strenuously he conducted the longest lone filibuster ever, one that lasted twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes. At this event, Lott, who is from a small town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast around twenty-five miles from mine, said: \"We're proud of it [voting for Thurmond in the 1948 presidential election]. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.\" It was dismaying to hear this, to see what those in power thought of people like me, but it wasn't a surprise. After all, when I participated in Presidential Classroom in Washington, D.C., I, along with around five of my high school classmates, met Senator Trent Lott. My schoolmates were white. I was not. Trent Lott took a whip as long as a car off his office table, where it lay coiled and shiny brown, and said to my one male schoolmate who grinned at Lott enthusiastically: Let's show 'em how us good old boys do it. And then he swung that whip through the air and cracked it above our heads, again and again. I remember the experience in my bones.\n\nI know little. But I know what a good portion of Americans think of my worth. Their disdain takes form. In my head, it is my dark twin. Sometimes I wonder which of us will be remembered if I die soon, if I suffocate in that closet. Will I be a vicious menace, like Trayvon Martin? An unhinged menace, like Tamir Rice? A monstrous menace, like Mike Brown? An unreasonable menace, like Sandra Bland? A sly menace, like Emmett Till? I imagine I will be as black and fetid as the horde at Scarlett's heels, crowding her wagon, thundering to rip it apart, wheel by rivet.\n\nReplace ropes with bullets. Hound dogs with German shepherds. A gray uniform with a bulletproof vest. Nothing is new.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI needed words. The ephemera of Twitter, the way the voices of the outraged public rose and sank so quickly, flitting from topic to topic, disappointed me. I wanted to hold these words to my chest, take comfort in the fact that others were angry, others were agitating for justice, others could not get Trayvon's baby face out of their heads. But I could not. The nature of the application, even the nature of the quality journalism of the time, with so much of it published online, meant that I couldn't go to one place for it all. I couldn't fully satisfy my need for kinship in this struggle, commiserate with others trying to find a way out of that dark closet. In desperation, I sought James Baldwin.\n\nI read Baldwin's essay \"Notes of a Native Son\" while I was in my mid-twenties, and it was a revelation. I'd never read creative nonfiction like Baldwin's, never encountered this kind of work, work that seemed to see me, to know I needed it. I read it voraciously, desperate for the words on the page. I needed to know that someone else saw the myriad injustices of living while black in this country, that someone so sharp and gifted and human could acknowledge it all, and speak on it again and again. Baldwin was so brutally honest. His prose was frank and elegant in turn, and I returned to him annually after that first impression-forming read. Around a year after Trayvon Martin's death, a year in which black person after black person died and no one was held accountable, I picked up The Fire Next Time, and I read: \"You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. I tell you this because I love you, and please don't you ever forget it.\" It was as if I sat on my porch steps with a wise father, a kind, present uncle, who said this to me. Told me I was worthy of love. Told me I was worth something in the world. Told me I was a human being. I saw Trayvon's face, and all the words blurred on the page.\n\nIt was then that I knew I wanted to call on some of the great thinkers and extraordinary voices of my generation to help me puzzle this out. I knew that a black boy who lives in the hilly deserts of California, who likes to get high with his friends on the weekend and who freezes in a prickly sweat whenever he sees blue lights in his rearview, would need a book like this. A book that would reckon with the fire of rage and despair and fierce, protective love currently sweeping through the streets and campuses of America. A book that would gather new voices in one place, in a lasting, physical form, and provide a forum for those writers to dissent, to call to account, to witness, to reckon. A book that a girl in rural Missouri could pick up at her local library and, while reading, encounter a voice that hushed her fears. In the pages she would find a wise aunt, a more present mother, who saw her terror and despair threading their fingers through her hair, and would comfort her. We want to tell her this: You matter. I love you. Please don't forget it.\n\nThe Fire Next Time is roughly divided into two parts: a letter to Baldwin's nephew, which looks forward to the future, and an essay about religion and the Nation of Islam, which concerns itself with Baldwin's past and present. I initially thought that The Fire This Time would be divided into three parts, roughly inspired by Baldwin's chronological division: essays or poems about the past, deemed legacy, essays or poems about the present, labeled reckoning, and essays or poems about the future, or jubilee, and all of them would wrestle with the specters of race and history in America, and how those specters are haunting us now. But as the pieces of work my editor and I solicited came in, I realized that the structure I envisioned for the work would not be as tidy as I thought. But race in the United States is not a tidy matter. Only three of the submitted pieces explicitly referenced the future. Most of them were concerned with the past and the present. And that told me two things. First, it confirmed how inextricably interwoven the past is in the present, how heavily that past bears on the future; we cannot talk about black lives mattering or police brutality without reckoning with the very foundation of this country. We must acknowledge the plantation, must unfold white sheets, must recall the black diaspora to understand what is happening now. Second, it reveals a certain exhaustion, I think. We're tired. We're tired of having to figure out how to talk to our kids and teach them that America sees them as less, and that she just might kill them. This is the conversation we want to avoid. We're tired of feeling futile in the face of this ever-present danger, this omnipotent history, predicated as this country is, founded as this country was, on our subjugation. But the pieces in this work that do invoke the future\u2014Daniel Jos\u00e9 Older's letter to his wife and future child, Natasha Trethewey's poem about the many planes on which time exists, and Edwidge Danticat's essay exploring the idea that people of the black diaspora are refugees\u2014help me to believe that I might be able to have that conversation with my child in the future. These pieces give me words that I might use to push past the fear and exhaustion and speak to my daughter, my nieces and nephews. This work helps me to believe that this is worthwhile work, and that our troubling the water is worthy.\n\nIf I were smarter, perhaps I wouldn't say this, but I attest to this because I feel it: all these essays give me hope. I believe there is power in words, power in asserting our existence, our experience, our lives, through words. That sharing our stories confirms our humanity. That it creates community, both within our own community and beyond it. Maybe someone who didn't perceive us as human will think differently after reading Garnette Cadogan's essay on the black body in space, or after reading Emily Raboteau's work on urban murals. Perhaps after reading Kiese Laymon's essay on black artists and black love and OutKast, or after reading Mitchell S. Jackson's piece on composite fathers, a reader might see those like me anew. Maybe after reading Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's essay on Baldwin or Kevin Young's hilarious essay about Rachel Dolezal and what it means to be black, a reader might cry in sympathy and then rise to laughter, and in doing so, feel kinship.\n\nAt the end of The Fire Next Time, Baldwin writes:\n\nThis past, the Negro's past, of rope, fire, torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for his women, for his kinfolk, his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible\u2014this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful . . . people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. . . . Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we\u2014and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others\u2014do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by the slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!\n\nI hope this book makes each one of you, dear readers, feel as if we are sitting together, you and me and Baldwin and Trethewey and Wilkerson and Jeffers and Walters and Anderson and Smith and all the serious, clear-sighted writers here\u2014and that we are composing our story together. That we are writing an epic wherein black lives carry worth, wherein black boys can walk to the store and buy candy without thinking they will die, wherein black girls can have a bad day and be mouthy without being physically assaulted by a police officer, wherein cops see twelve-year-old black boys playing with fake guns as silly kids and not homicidal maniacs, wherein black women can stop to ask for directions without being shot in the face by paranoid white homeowners.\n\nI burn, and I hope.\n\n# PART I\n\n# LEGACY\n\n## Homegoing, AD\n\n## KIMA JONES\n\nHere's the down south story we didn't tell you: sixteen hours in and Jack can't feel her feet but we never stop. Our uncle asleep at the wheel and we that closer to death with each mile. Turned around again and again, before GPS, we learned North Carolina is a long state: tobacco taller than us, the fields and fields of it, no washing it out of our clothes, the air so wet and thick of it, choking us.\n\nJack won't fly. Full grown with a dead granddaddy and still she won't fly, she tells us I-95 has always been the way back home so we gun it. Straight through, no stopping, sixteen hours and Jack doesn't care how bad we need to pee, she says, Hold it. Sixteen hours till we saw the palmetto trees and smelled the paper mill and knew Savage Road was in sight.\n\nGeorgie 'n' em got Grandaddy laid out in the front room like a piece of furniture and ushers fanning the top of Grandmama's head. We couldn't find our place in the business of departing: hams out the oven, lemon cake iced, organ tuned, tea made, napkins folded, the children's black patent leather shoes set out for the dirt road come morning.\n\nHere's the down south story we didn't tell you: Leroy barking at us from the grill because when did everybody stop eating pork and why he got separate meat and when all the women become Nefertiti bangles and headwraps and all us named like Muslims. Our cousins who couldn't make it because he died on the wrong Friday, wadn't payday, and our cousins who did and their many children tearing up the front yard. Our decision to sneak into the woods with red cups, black and milds, Jim Beam, a blue lighter plucked from the card table, and Toya's gold cap kept in her change purse. The pot of greens we brought out with us and the mosquitoes keeping company like we wasn't down in the swamps to bury our dead.\n\nOur cousins know the dark and the heat, but we haven't been home in so long. Our back sweating and this old bra sticky so more and more from the red cup. Our cousin say, Lemme top it off for youse, so we oblige and when he said pull, we pulled and when he said blow, we blew smoke over our shoulder and then into his open mouth, giggling. Our cousin say, You know they found him in the bed, right? And we nod cuz sleep don't come easy no how. He say, Just like that. And our cousin clap when he say that and we think of Grandaddy setting his glasses down on the nightstand one last time. Our cousin say, You missed me? And we smile cuz his hand is on our hip and it's hot out and he smell good and it's the darkest Charleston has ever been. The dead of night is forgiving when you're kin. Grandaddy gone and we sitting up in the woods with brown liquor, necking, our cousin hard on our thigh. Toya say, Keep watch for them copperheads, but copperheads ain't never kill nobody\u2014we got our eyes trained for gators.\n\nWe think we can still outrun 'em.\n\nWho threw that rock at the gator?\n\nDon't know\n\nWhere Toya?\n\nY'all there?\n\nWe here.\n\nGator comin, boy, run\n\nDon't see no gator, cuh Well, gator see us, nigga\n\nRunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn\n\nso we run\n\nfast\n\ncuz gator made for water but children born for land.\n\n## The Weight\n\n## RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH\n\nIt was an acquaintance's idea to go there, to Baldwin's house. He knew from living in Paris that Baldwin's old place, the house where Baldwin died, was near an elegant and renowned hotel in the C\u00f4te d'Azur region of France. He said that both places were situated in a medieval-era walled town that was scenic enough to warrant the visit. He said we could go to Jimmy's house and then walk up the road for drinks at the hotel bar where Baldwin used to drink in the evening. He said we would make a day of it, that I wouldn't regret it.\n\nFor the first time in my life I was earning a bit of money from my writing, and since I was in London anyway for family obligations I decided to take the train over to Nice to meet him. But I remained apprehensive. Having even a tiny bit of disposable cash was very new and bizarre to me. It had been years since I had I bought myself truly new clothes, years since going to a cash machine to check my balance hadn't warranted a sense of impending doom, and years since I hadn't on occasion regretted even going to college because it was increasingly evident that I would never be able to pay back my loans. There were many nights where I lay awake turning over in my mind the inevitable, that soon Sallie Mae or some faceless, cruel moneylender with a blues-song-type name would take my mother's home\u2014she had cosigned for me\u2014and thus render my family homeless. In my mind, three generations of progress would be undone by my vain commitment to tell stories about black people in a country where the black narrative was a quixotic notion at best. If I knew anything about being black in America it was that nothing was guaranteed, you couldn't count on a thing, and all that was certain for most of us was a black death. In my mind, a black death was a slow death, the accumulation of insults, injuries, neglect, second-rate health care, high blood pressure and stress, no time for self-care, no time to sigh, and in the end, the inevitable, the erasing of memory. I wanted to write against this, and so I was writing a history of the people who I did not want to forget. For many years, I taught during the day and wrote at night\u2014long pieces, six thousand words for which I was paid two hundred bucks. I loved it; nothing else mattered because I was remembering, I was staving off death.\n\nSo I was in London when a check with one comma hit my account. It wasn't much but to me it seemed enormous. I decided if I was going to spend any money, something I was reluctant, if not petrified, to do, at the very least I would feel best about spending it on James Baldwin. After all, my connection to him was an unspoken hoodoo-ish belief that he had been the high priest in charge of my prayer of being a black person who wanted to exist on books and words alone. It was a deification that was fostered years before during a publishing internship. Basically, during a lonely week I had spent in the storeroom of a magazine's editorial office organizing the archives from 1870 to 2005, I had once found time to pray intensely at the altar of Baldwin. I had asked him to grant me endurance and enough fight so that I could exit that storeroom with my confidence intact. I told him what all writers chant to keep on, that I had a story to tell. But later, away from all of that, I quietly felt repelled by him\u2014as if he were a home I had to leave to become my own. Instead, I had spent years immersing myself in the books of Sergei Dovlatov, Vivian Gornick, Henry Dumas, Sei Sh\u014dnagon, John McPhee, and bell hooks. Baldwin didn't need my prayers, he had the praise of the entire world.\n\nI still liked Baldwin but in a divested way, the way that anyone who writes and aspires to write well does. When people asked me my opinion on him I told them the truth: that Baldwin had set the stage for every American essayist who came after him. One didn't need to worship him, or desire to emulate him, to know this and respect him for it. And yet, for me, there had always been something slightly off-putting about him\u2014the strangely accented, ponderous way he spoke in the interviews I watched; the lofty, precious way in which he appeared in an essay by Joan Didion as the bored, above-it-all figure that white people revered because he could stay collected while the streets boiled. What I resented about Baldwin wasn't even his fault. I didn't like how many men who only cared about Ali, Coltrane, and Obama praised him as the black authorial exception. I didn't like how every essay about race cited him. I didn't like that he and my grandfather were four years apart in age, but that Baldwin, as he was taught to me, had escaped to France and avoided his birth-righted fate whereas millions of black men his age had not. It seemed easy enough to fly in from France to protest, whereas it seemed straight hellish to live in it with no ticket out. It seemed to me that Baldwin had written himself into the world\u2014and I wasn't sure what that meant in terms of his allegiances to our interiors as an everyday, unglamorous slog.\n\nSo even now I have no idea why I went. Why I took that high-speed train past the sheep farms, and the French countryside, past the brick villages and stone aqueducts until the green hills faded and grew into Marseille's tall, dusky pink apartments and the bucolic steppes gave way to blue water where yachts and topless women with leather for skin were parked.\n\nIt was on that train that I had time to consider the first time I started to revere Baldwin, something that had occurred ten years earlier, when I was accepted as an intern at one of the oldest magazines in the country. I had found out about the magazine only a few months before. A friend who let me borrow an issue made my introduction, but only after he spent almost twenty minutes questioning the quality of my high school education. How could I have never heard of such an influential magazine? I got rid of the friend and kept his copy. But still I had no idea of what to expect.\n\nDuring my train ride into the city on my first day, I kept telling myself that I really had no reason to be nervous; after all, I had proven my capability not just once but twice. Because the internship was unpaid I had to decline my initial acceptance to instead take a summer job and then reapply. When I arrived at the magazine's offices, the first thing I noticed was the stark futuristic whiteness. The entire place was a brilliant white except for the tight, gray carpeting.\n\nThe senior and associate editors' offices had sliding glass doors and the rest of the floor was divided into white-walled cubicles for the interns and the assistant editors. The windows in the office looked out over the city, and through the filmy morning haze I could see the cobalt blue of the Manhattan Bridge and the water tanks that spotted some of the city's roofs. The setting, the height, and the spectacular view were not lost on me. I had never before had any real business in a Manhattan skyscraper.\n\nEach intern group consisted of four people; mine was made up of a recent Vassar grad, a hippie-ish food writer from California, and a dapper Princeton grad of Southeast Asian and Jewish descent. We spent the first part of the day learning our duties, which included finding statistics, assisting the editors with the magazine's features, fact-checking, and reading submissions. Throughout the day various editors stopped by and made introductions. Sometime after lunch the office manager came into our cubicle and told us she was cleaning out the communal fridge and we were welcome to grab whatever was in it. Eager to scavenge a free midday snack, we decided to take her up on the offer. As we walked down the hall the Princeton grad joked that because he and I were the only brown folks around we should be careful about taking any food because they might say we were looting. I had forgotten about the tragedy of that week, Hurricane Katrina, during the day's bustle, and somehow I had also allowed the fact that I am black to fade to the back of my thoughts, behind my stress and excitement. It was then that I was smacked with the realization that the walls weren't the only unusually white entities in the office\u2014the editorial staff seemed to be strangely all white as well.\n\nBecause we were interns, neophytes, we spent the first week getting acquainted with each other and the inner workings of the magazine. Sometime toward the end of my first week, a chatty senior editor approached me in the corridor. During the course of our conversation I was informed that I was (almost certainly) the first black person to ever intern at the magazine and there had never been any black editors. I laughed it off awkwardly, only because I had no idea of what to say. I was too shocked. At the time of my internship the magazine was more than one hundred and fifty years old. It was a real Guess Who's Coming to Dinner moment. Except that I, being a child of the eighties, had never watched the film in its entirety, I just knew it starred Sidney Poitier, as a young, educated black man who goes to meet his white fianc\u00e9e's parents. The film was set in the 1960s; I had been born in 1981.\n\nWhen my conversation with the talkative editor ended I walked back to my desk and decided to just forget about it. Besides, I reasoned, it was very possible that the editor was just absentminded. I tried to forget it but I could not, and finally I casually asked another editor if it was true. He told me he thought there had been an Algerian-Italian girl many years ago, but he was not certain if she really \"counted\" as black. I was also alerted later to there being one editor who was half Filipina, half white. But when I asked how this dismal situation could be possible I was told that the lack of diversity was due to the lack of applications from people of color. As awkward as these comments were, they were made in the spirit of oblivious commonwealth. It was office chatter meant to make me feel like one of the gang, but instead of comforting my concerns they made me feel like an oddity.\n\nOn good days, being the first black intern meant having my work done quickly and sounding extra witty around the water cooler; it meant I was chipping away at the glass ceiling that seemed to top most of the literary world. But on bad days I gagged on my resentment and furiously wondered why I was selected. I became paranoid that I was merely a product of affirmative action, even though I knew I wasn't. I had completed the application not once but twice and never did I mention my race. Still, I never felt like I was actually good enough. And with my family and friends so proud of me, I felt like I could not burst their bubble with my insecurity and trepidation.\n\nSo when I was the only intern asked by the deputy editor to do physical labor and reorganize all of the old copies of the magazine in the freezing, dusty storeroom, I fretted in private. Was I asked because of my race or because that was merely one of my duties as the intern-at-large? There was no way to tell. I found myself most at ease with the other interns and the staff that did not work on the editorial side of the magazine, the security guards, the delivery guys, the office manager, and the folks at the front desk; among them the United Nations was almost represented. With them, I did not have to worry that one word pronounced wrong or one reference not known would reflect not just poorly on me but also on any black person who might apply after me.\n\nI also didn't have to worry about that in that storeroom. There I could think. I realized three things spending a week in the back of that dismal storeroom. That yes, I was the only intern asked to do manual labor, but also that I was surrounded by two hundred years of the greatest American essays ever written, and I discovered that besides the physical archives and magazines stored there, the storeroom was also home to the old index card invoices that its writers used to file. In between my filing duties, I spent time searching those cards, and the one that was most precious to me was Baldwin's. In 1965, he was paid $350 for an essay that is now legend. The check went to his agent's office. There is nothing particularly spectacular about the faintly yellowed card except that its routineness suggested a kind of normalcy. It was human and it looped a great man back to the earth for me. And in that moment, Baldwin's eminence was a gift. Because he had made it out of the storeroom. He had taken a steamer away from being driven mad from maltreatment. His excellence had moved him beyond the realm of physical labor. He had disentangled himself from being treated like someone who was worthless or questioning his worth. And better yet, Baldwin was so good they wanted to preserve his memory. I would look at that card every day of that week. Baldwin joined the pantheon of black people who were from that instructional generation of civil rights fighters.\n\nOn that train to Baldwin's house I thought more about this generation and about the seemingly vast divide between Baldwin and my grandfather. They had very little in common, except they were of the same generation, the same race, and were both fearless men, which in black America says a lot. Whereas Baldwin spent his life writing against a canon, writing himself into the canon, he was a black man who was recording the Homeric legend of his life himself; my grandfather simply wanted to live with dignity.\n\nMy grandfather liked to look on the bright side. Even when I visited him in Los Angeles for one of the last times, he insisted things weren't so bad. He was eking out a living on the money we sent and social security. My mother asked him to come east to stay with us, but he refused. He had lived in this building for almost fifty years, but now the upstairs neighbors were what he called \"young bloods,\" guys who threatened to shoot him when he complained about their noise. The landlord wanted him out to raise the rent; he needed more money for the place. All my grandfather had were a few worn tracksuits and his rusted golf clubs. No one needed an eighty-year-old carpenter, no matter how clever he was: he'd worked hard but had made next to nothing. California had once been fertile ground for him, but in the end it, too, was bound to the country that had long seen him and us as subservient human beings. But my grandfather preferred not to focus on that sort of thing. What Baldwin understood is that to be black in America is to have the demand for dignity be at absolute odds with the national anthem.\n\nFrom the outside, Baldwin's house looks ethereal. The saltwater air from the Mediterranean acts like a delicate scrim over the heat and the horizon, and the dry, craggy yard is wide and long and tall with cypress trees. I had prepared for the day by watching clips of him in his gardens. I read about the medieval frescos that had once lined the dining room. I imagined the dinners he had hosted for Josephine Baker and Beauford Delaney under a trellis of creeping vines and grape arbors. I imagined a house full of books and life.\n\nI fell in love with Baldwin, because Baldwin didn't go to France because it was France. He was not full of na\u00efve, empty admiration for Europe; as he once said in an interview: \"If I were twenty-four now, I don't know if and where I would go. I don't know if I would go to France, I might go to Africa. You must remember when I was twenty-four there was really no Africa to go to, except Liberia. Now, though, a kid now . . . well, you see, something has happened which no one has really noticed, but it's very important: Europe is no longer a frame of reference, a standard-bearer, the classic model for literature and for civilization. It's not the measuring stick. There are other standards in the world.\"\n\nBaldwin left the States for the primary reason that all emigrants do\u2014because anywhere seems better than home. This freedom-seeking gay man, who deeply loved his sisters and brothers\u2014biological and metaphorical\u2014never left them at all. He preserved himself so he could stay alone. In France, I saw Baldwin didn't live the life of a wealthy man but he did live the life of a man who wanted to travel, to erect an estate that held a mood of his own design, where he could write as an outsider from the noise, alone in silence, with fearlessness.\n\nDecades after his death in 1987, what I found left behind in Baldwin's house was something similar to what we experienced when I waded through my grandfather's effects after his house had burned down. Two months later, my grandfather would die from shock and stress caused by the fire. Baldwin's death, too, came at him hard and fast. In both houses, I found mail strewn on dirt piles in rooms that no longer had doors or windowpanes, entryways nailed over to prevent trespassers like us. In each case, clearly someone had forced entry in order to drink beer. The scattered, empty beer cans were recent additions, as were the construction postings from the company that was tasked with tearing the house down. So that nothing remained. No remembrance of the past. Not even the sense that a great man had once lived there.\n\nJames Baldwin lived in this house for more than twenty-five years, and all that was left were half a dozen pink teacups and turquoise saucers buried by the house's rear wall, orange trees that were heavy with fruit, but the fruit was bitter and sharp to the taste. We see Baldwin's name in connection to the present condition more often than we see Faulkner's, Whitman's, or Thoureau's. We can visit houses and places where they lived and imagine how their geography shaped the authors and our collective vocabulary. By next year, Baldwin's house will just be another private memory for those who knew it.\n\nI do not know if I will ever see his house again. If I will be able to pull sour oranges from his trees and wonder if they were so bitter when he lived there. I do know that Baldwin died a black death.\n\nFor a while when I came back to the States, I started to send desperate e-mails to people who knew him that read:\n\nFor the last two days, I've basically found myself frantically, maniacally looking for everything that I could find about Baldwin's life there. To be honest, I'm not at all sure what I am looking for, but when I walked up that steep little hill, past the orange and cypress trees out onto the main road, and looked back at his house, I just felt a compulsion to start asking people who knew him about his life in that house. The compound is almost gone, as they are in the process of demolishing it, and yet something about it and him seemed to still be very much there.\n\nI sent those notes\u2014feeling as hopeless as I sounded\u2014because I wanted to save that building. Because I was scared that no one else would ever be able to see that Baldwin had a rainbow kitchen\u2014an orange sink and purple shelves\u2014in his guesthouse. I wanted someone else to wonder what he ate from this kitchen, who he loved, who stayed in this annex of his estate; did his love feel free in this kitchen, in this house where two men could embrace in private behind the ramparts of his home in another country? I wanted someone else to understand the private, black language found in one of Baldwin's last conversations with his brother David. Frail, sick, being carried to his deathbed in his brother's arms, what the world thought of him might as well have been an ocean away. In that moment, Baldwin didn't refer to French poets, or to the cathedrals of his genius, he instead returned to a popular Hollies song. He loved music, and he told his brother: So it is true what they say\u2014he is my brother and he's not heavy.\n\nBaldwin once wrote, \"Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death\u2014ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.\"\n\nBecause I am telling you this now, writing it all down, I am finding time to regard memory and death differently. I'm holding them up in the light and searching them, inspecting them, as they are not as I want them to be. On that hill, in Saint Paul de Vence, I wanted to alter fate, and preserve things. But why? They did not need me\u2014Baldwin seemed to have prepared himself well for his black death, his mortality, and even better, his immortality. Indeed, he bested all of them, because he wrote it all down. And this is how his memory is carried. On the scent of wild lavender like the kind in his yard, in the mouths of a new generation that once again feels compelled to march in the streets of Harlem, Ferguson, and Baltimore. What Baldwin knew is that he left no heirs, he left spares, and that is why we carry him with us. So now when people ask me about James Baldwin, I tell them another truth: He is my brother, he ain't heavy.\n\n## Lonely in America\n\n## WENDY S. WALTERS\n\nI have never been particularly interested in slavery, perhaps because it is such an obvious fact of my family's history. We know where we were enslaved in America, but we don't know much else about our specific conditions. The fact that I am descended from slaves is hard to acknowledge on a day-to-day basis, because slavery does not fit with my self-image. Perhaps this is because I am pretty certain I would not have survived it. I am naturally sharp-tongued, suffer from immobility when I am cold, and am susceptible to terrible sinus infections and allergies. My eyesight is poor. Most of the time I don't think about how soft the good fortune of freedom has made me, but if I were to quantify my weakness of body and character I would guess that at least half the fortitude my enslaved ancestors must have possessed has been lost with each generation in the family line, leaving me with little more than an obtuse and metaphorical relationship to that sort of suffering.\n\nI resist thinking about slavery because I want to avoid the overwhelming feeling that comes from trying to conceive of the terror, violence, and indignity of it. I do not like to think of it happening in my hometown, where I work, in my neighborhood, or near any of the places where I conduct my life. My cultural memory of slavery, which I don't think is so unlike that of many other Americans, suggests that it was primarily a Southern phenomenon, one confined to the borders of plantations, which, if they haven't been transformed into shopping complexes or subdivisions, exist now only as nostalgic, sentimentalized tourist attractions. The landscapes associated with slavery, however, extend far beyond the South.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMy home is in New England and in the winter my house feels slight against the wind as its windows tremble with every blustery gust, which makes me want to stay in bed, though I am not at all the type of person who likes to linger there once awake, unless circumstances are such that I am not alone, and then, even in that rare case, I can be restless and ready to set forth at sunrise. In the winter of 2006, I was not working at my regular job, which might have been a good thing had I not been prone to a melancholy obsession over recent personal disappointments. I began to notice pains in my body I had never felt before: a tendon pulling across the length of my leg when I sat down, a sharp twinge in my side when I stood up, and sometimes when I'd shower my skin was so sore I could barely stand to feel the water on it. I knew these pains were likely psychosomatic, evidence of how deeply I was suffering from loneliness. Because I suspected that the hope of escaping my loneliness was adding to my discomfort, I had been trying to cure myself of optimism as a strategy to ward off future misery. The value of this approach was confirmed by a self-help book I kept on my nightstand. When I dared to open it, I could read only a single chapter at a sitting because each reiterated a simple point that I just could not seem to accept\u2014that to become free from disappointment one must acknowledge the obvious, then learn to live with it.\n\nBy mid-January, the United States' war with Iraq was coming to the end of its fourth year, the war in Afghanistan was intensifying again, and the shortcomings of the federal government that had been noted after Hurricane Katrina were fading from media attention, which was now absorbed with a surge of reports that, come summer, another movie star couple would be expecting their first biological child. I found myself momentarily enthralled in speculation: How long would this new relationship last? What did his ex-wife think of the sudden pregnancy of his new girlfriend? Who would take time off from their career to care for the family? These questions, though deeply irrelevant to my own life, served to distract me from the obvious fact that an unpopular war, entered into on misinformation, was showing no signs of ending. I studied the news reports on the radio every morning, which covered many subjects: planned highway construction projects, politics, movie stars, pop music stars, television stars, impending diseases, lying politicians, local sports, bank robberies, soldiers killed in Iraq. I suppose I was hoping the radio would serve as a kind of personal oracle, that stories of real human struggle might release me from solipsistic self-pity and show me how to leave my bungalow by entering the world with a sense of purpose, or at least a sense of direction.\n\nIt was with this ambition that I had gone to New Orleans to help my great-aunt Louise come to recognize that her home there had been destroyed, even though my gumption was clearly tainted with dread. Sitting in a cold house listening to the radio was painful enough, but the thought of actually walking through so much loss made me worry that I would have to face more of the obvious than I could be distracted from noticing. As our plane flew over the Gulf Coast it was hard to tell how bad things actually were on the ground. Muddy patches of brown and tan signaled the normally slow growth of a Southern winter. I saw the edge of Lake Pontchartrain, into which, during the early 1920s, my great-grandmother Susie had thrown her wedding ring when she needed to affirm a point that her husband would not accept. On our descent I began to see blue tarps stretched over large holes in people's roofs.\n\nWhen we arrived at Aunt Lou's tiny red-brick, railroad-style house, her nephew met us. Chester was a former longshoreman. He had returned to the city a few weeks after the water had been pumped out and had been living in a FEMA trailer while he gutted his own house. Even though he had warned my mother and Aunt Lou on the phone that the house was in very bad condition, he wanted to make sure we understood this before we entered it, because from the outside, there appeared to be little structural damage. About four feet from the ground, a black, bathtub-ring-like watermark circled the exterior. Garbage and a broken ladder lay across the front lawn. When we opened the front door, dirt, mud, debris, and seaweed covered the hardwood floors and the sofa, which had floated over to the opposite wall from where it had been set. The house looked like someone had picked it up and shook it hard before setting it back down onto its cinder-block frame. We put on face masks and gloves, and booties over our shoes. A chifforobe sitting in water for weeks had gently exploded and still-wet clothes poked out of holes in the sides. Black and brown mud blotted the wall next to an antique brass bed. In the back room, the ceiling had caved in and wires and other debris hung low from what was left of the roof, like snakes in trees.\n\nAunt Lou said, My house is tore up.\n\nRadio and television news reports about New Orleans mentioned that several of the city's cemeteries had been badly damaged by the flooding, and Chester's wife said coffins had been turning up all over the city. So I convinced my mother to drive over to Holt Cemetery, where our family crypt is situated, but she wouldn't get out of the car to check on it with me. Instead she shouted from its window, Watch out for water moccasins! as I walked through a rusty and twisted wrought-iron fence bolstered by rotten tree stumps into a field of tall, dead grasses and sun-bleached tombstones. Cypress trees sheltered the perimeter, branches reaching like veins across a heart.\n\nDespite the fact that most of the graves at Holt are belowground, unlike many cemeteries in New Orleans, it looked to me that Holt had kept hold of its dead better than the grave sites near the end of Canal Street, where mausoleums appeared stained and tumbled over by water. In the early 1900s a portion of Holt was used as a \"pauper's field\" for the poor and indigent, and during segregation it was one place where blacks could be buried. Our family crypt had been there longer than anyone could remember, but its precise location was unknown; its marker had been stolen in 1969, just weeks after my great-grandmother was laid to rest. Up close I could see new grass, slender and gold-green, appearing in short tufts at the foot of the headstones, most of which were pitched in one direction or another toward the ground. Handmade markers in wood or cement were adorned with bottle glass, sea shells, or not at all, with the names and dates of the deceased written in by hand. Some had been decorated with Mardi Gras beads and silk flowers. I walked down the dirt path to the part of the cemetery where most of the stones were missing and called out to my ancestors. I have no idea where you are. Tell me where you are. But I heard nothing.\n\nTen years ago, when I last visited Holt, the grounds had not been well tended, and even then many of the grave markers were missing, in disrepair, or toppled down. Back then I had only a piece of scrap paper with a row and plot number written on it to guide me to the crypt's location. The ground, deeply sunken where bodies were buried, looked as if waves were passing through it in slow motion. On that visit I worried that I could not read the names of the people I was walking over to apologize directly for the disrespect of having done so. Hastily I laid some flowers and a note where I thought the crypt should be and left without ever planning to return. On this visit, Holt felt strangely serene; unlike the rest of the city, it appeared not to have changed in any significant way. In fact, I might have wandered among the unknown dead for hours had I not heard my mother frantically shouting from the car. Wendy, come on! We've got to get to Constantinople before dark!\n\nWe picked up Aunt Lou from Chester's and drove over to Constantinople, a street in the Magazine district, to meet up with her childhood friend who had survived the flood trapped with her son in the attic of his house for a week before being rescued. Because none of the traffic lights were working, my mother was nervous and complained all the way there about how I had lingered too long in the cemetery. She chided me that one should let the dead rest. That's right, Aunt Lou said. I interrupted: I just wanted to make sure that our people hadn't floated away. They went quiet.\n\nBut I took a walk around, and it looked like everybody was still tucked in tight.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI returned from New Orleans more miserable than when I left. As much as I had wanted to come back from that trip with a sense of conviction, inspired to action that would distract me from my loneliness, I could not find a singular source of outrage on which to fixate\u2014not poverty, racism, the failure of the federal government, a history of community self-destructiveness, a river, a lake, or a hurricane. Not a house without a roof, a felled tree across a path, a tumbled-down tombstone, or a wayward corpse. I was faced with too much that was obvious about the way class and race work in America. More than I wanted to see. More than I was capable of seeing.\n\nThis is when I realized my loneliness had deeper roots than I had initially suspected, and that, in addition to personal disappointments, it came from having a profound sense of disconnection from what I thought America was, and who, in that context, I knew myself to be. My post\u2013New Orleans loneliness seemed to emanate from a place that preceded my own memory and stretched across time into a future that extended far beyond my vision. It was as if I had been thrown overboard into the sea and was paralyzed by the shock of it. I could neither breathe nor drown. I could not sink or return to the surface.\n\nThen early one morning in January as I was listening to Boston's public radio station, I heard a story about the 2003 discovery of a grave site in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As city workers attempted to dig a manhole near the corner of Court and Chestnut streets in the seaside town, a pine coffin was discovered with leg bones sticking out. An independent archaeological firm had been brought in immediately to lead an exhumation. Eight coffins and the remains of thirteen people were removed. The report noted that a combination of forensic evidence and DNA testing had confirmed that at least four of the remains in question were of African ancestry, most likely slaves buried there during the 1700s. The archaeologists' report had just been released to the city of Portsmouth, which was engaged in public discussion about the most appropriate and respectful way to deal with those exhumed, as well as the fact that as many as two hundred people might still be buried at the site.\n\nPerhaps if I had not already spent more than a couple of weeks being so down in the dumps, if talk about the expected duration of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suggested a time frame other than the interminable, if images from my trip to New Orleans were not so powerfully present to me, then maybe the NPR report would have floated past me that morning. But something about hearing that Africans are buried beneath a public street in a small, coastal New England town gave me a new context to reconsider what is obvious and how one might learn to live with it. I knew I had to go there to see the people, even if they were still tucked in tight, if I was ever going to start letting go of the expectation that I could someday feel less lonely in America.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe first time I drove the two hours north from Providence to Portsmouth I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there. It was a Sunday in late February, the day after a large snowfall had dumped about six inches of snow along New England's southern coast. By morning, the roads were no longer wet and the snowdrifts at the side of the road glowed while ghostly wisps of fine powder swirled in the winnows of eighteen-wheelers trying to close the distance on Monday. From the interstate, I saw a sign for the Strawbery Banke Museum, which had been mentioned in the radio report, and I followed its direction.\n\nThe museum turned out to be a neighborhood of restored colonial houses at the edge of the Piscataqua River. The main entrance was closed, so I followed an elderly white couple into Stoodley's Tavern, which served as the museum ticket office on weekends. An older white woman with silver-bobbed hair sat at a table covered with pamphlets advertising local tourist attractions. Are you here for the tour? she asked. I nodded yes. Ten dollars. Charles, our docent, chatted about the weather with the five of us who waited for the tour to begin: me, the senior couple from Kittery, Maine, and a very young, blond couple just recently moved to Vermont from Tahoe, Nevada.\n\nWe walked across the street into the original settlement founded in 1630, known as Puddle Dock. The Old Mainer wanted to know: Where were the borders of the marsh before the houses were built? Where had the water been pushed back to? He was wearing a cap that said USS Indianapolis. Charles asked him if he was on the ship during WWII and he said yes. Charles said, Were you on it when it went down? The Old Mainer told us that he had gone ashore at Pearl Harbor just before the ship had set sail for Guam. Charles enthusiastically told us the story of how the ship went down, as if its history illuminated an unseen aspect of the tour. On July 30, 1945, the ship, en route from Guam to the Gulf of Leyte, was torpedoed by the Japanese. More than nine hundred sailors were hurled into cold, choppy water. Although they radioed U.S. forces for help as they went down, no one came for four days. By August 8, at the end of the rescue effort, only 317 men of the 1,196 originally on board had survived. The rest had been picked off by sharks or drowned.\n\nAfter looking through a few of the houses in Puddle Dock, the Old Mainer, his wife, and I fell behind the guide and the young couple, who kept bragging about the beehive stove in an eighteenth-century farmhouse they were thinking of buying and restoring. They asked questions about the interior design of every home we toured. I took copious notes on Portsmouth's history and in this, felt my dour mood lightening. Details were comforting. Charles told us that Portsmouth was an Anglican, not Puritan, settlement and that among its original inhabitants were seventy-two Africans and eight Danes. Many of the wealthiest families in town made their fortunes in \"the trade\" first by shipping food, lumber, livestock, and other goods to British colonies in the West Indies and then by carrying captured Africans to the Caribbean, Virginia, and Portsmouth from the late seventeenth century through much of the eighteenth. Throughout the tour Charles occasionally used the word \"servant\" but never the word \"slave.\"\n\nIn an alcove at the top of a staircase in a house built in 1790, the Old Mainer said to me, I'd never live in one of these old houses. They're too cold. There were two pictures on the mantel over the fireplace in the dining room. One called An Emblem of Africa featured a black woman walking with a feathered headdress next to a tiger in the background. The other picture, An Emblem of Europe, featured a white woman with a globe at her feet holding a book and a horn of plenty filled with fruit and flowers at the crook of her arm.\n\nWhen the young couple asked about the role of the Native population in the development of Portsmouth, Charles explained that they were not a factor: Most died out before the town became sizable, after catching diseases from their contact with the Europeans, he said.\n\nAt the end of the tour, I returned to Stoodley's Tavern to ask for directions to the slave graves mentioned in the radio report. Charles told me, You can't see anything. There's nothing there. I thought he meant that the site had not been commemorated or officially rededicated, but his reaction made me wonder if there was even a historical marker indicating the graveyard's boundaries. The woman who had sold me a ticket said, They've been reinterred. I told them I still planned to go and asked if Chestnut Street was close, since Portsmouth's downtown area is quite small. Or should I drive? I said. She responded tersely, It doesn't matter. It's just an intersection.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt was sharply cold and the wind was picking up when I arrived at Chestnut Street near the corner of Court. Several restored colonials now serving as lawyers' and doctors' offices lined its east side. On the west side there was a beauty salon and a sign indicating a \"Drug Free School Zone.\" Other than these buildings, it seemed that there was nothing to see. As I rounded the corner at Chestnut and State, I noticed a brass plaque affixed to the clapboards of a house: In colonial Portsmouth, segregation applied in death as in life. City officials approved a plan in 1705 that set aside this city block for a 'Negro Burial Ground.' It was close to town but pushed to what was then its outer edge. By 1813, houses were built over the site. I got back in my car to write notes about what I found. This is when I realized my car was probably sitting on top of people. I knew I should feel something about that, but all I felt was a familiar loneliness creeping in on me.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe trip to Portsmouth had not elicited much outrage in me, even after I discovered that one of the oldest known grave sites of blacks in New England was neither green nor sacred space. I accepted the reality that the historic colonial houses\u2014now the business residences of attorneys, hairstylists, insurance agents, and doctors\u2014were considered by most people to be more valuable than the bodies down below them. But while I had thought that my lack of feelings while standing on people would allow me to forget that I had been standing on people, it didn't. I had no intuition about how these dead Africans might have felt about being paved over, no feelings of ancestral connection to those buried below, and I heard no discernible voices calling to me from the depths of that darkness. I wondered if the woman at the museum had been right. Maybe the corner was just an intersection.\n\nThe ambivalence the folks at the Strawbery Banke Museum expressed for those buried beneath Portsmouth's downtown was all the more surprising when I later learned that the first bodies exhumed from the African Burying Ground had been housed at the museum before they were transported to the temporary laboratory. I assumed that my own lack of feeling was due, in part, to the randomness with which I had selected Portsmouth as the place to try to make sense of the remains of slavery in America. I had no personal connection to New Hampshire, no familial bond to any of the people buried there, and I became certain that was the reason I couldn't feel anything while standing on those Africans. I thought maybe I needed to visit a slave grave site more closely related to my life if I was going to experience some true cathexis.\n\nSo once back in Rhode Island, I went to a talk given by Theresa Guzm\u00e1n Stokes at Newport's Redwood Library about that city's largest African burial ground, called God's Little Acre, a cemetery founded in 1747. For more than twenty years, without city support, she had been maintaining its grounds out of personal respect for those buried there, clearing away litter and weeds and eventually establishing a fund to protect it. She runs a website about the cemetery, and she and her husband, Keith Stokes, former executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, are writing a book on the subject.\n\nWhile introducing his wife, Stokes assured the small audience, We're not interested in slavery. It's emotional and it separates people. But the absurdity of slavery means it is practically impossible for anyone to contain all the contradictions that arise when speaking of it. So despite his promise seconds earlier to refrain from talk of slavery, Stokes started by explaining how often the term \"servant\" is used as a euphemism for \"slave\" in New England and how there is a presumption that Africans here were somehow \"smarter\" and treated better than those in the South. This misperception, he pushed, is because people don't want to remember the dehumanization. Without hesitating, he went on to say, Slavery is violent, grotesque, vulgar, and we are all implicated in how it denigrates humanity.\n\nAccording to a series of articles by Paul Davis running that same week in the Providence Journal, Newport was a hugely significant port in the North Atlantic slave trade, and from 1725 to 1807 more than a thousand trips were made to Africa in which more than a hundred thousand men, women, and children were forced into slavery in the West Indies and throughout the American colonies. Ms. Guzm\u00e1n Stokes explained how African people built many of the prominent colonial houses throughout New England, including those in Newport, and while many of those buildings remain restored in one form or another, just a handful of graves of Africans who made this contribution to the town's development can be found.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nOn my way to God's Little Acre, I came upon the tiny Newport Historical Cemetery #9, which Theresa Guzm\u00e1n Stokes had also mentioned during her talk, but I could not figure out which graves belonged to Africans and which belonged to whites. A white woman was taking pictures of stones, so I asked her if she knew. She pointed to two graves in the corner. These over here, she said and then explained she had looked for information on African graves on the Web before she left her home in Seattle. The woman told me she was originally from Connecticut, but when she decided to marry an African American man in the 1970s, her family disowned her. She had four children with him, none of whom ever met her parents. She had brought her youngest daughter back east to visit historical sites for a vacation and confessed that she was glad she no longer lived in New England. I couldn't take all of this \"in your face\" history. Like Thames Street, the blue stones, she said, referring to the pavers on a road that edges Newport's harbor. Each one of those stones represents an African. Every stone was from the ballast of a slave ship and was carried by a slave as he or she debarked. When I called the Newport Historical Society to confirm this, the reference librarian and genealogist Bert Lippincott III, C.G., insisted that stones like that were used as ballast on all ships coming into Newport, not just slave ships. He added, Many Newporters bankrolled ships in the trade, but Newport was not a major destination for slave ships. When I mentioned the article in the Providence Journal that claimed most Africans in colonial Newport were slaves, he said, Many were third-generation Americans. Most were skilled, literate, and worked as house servants.\n\nAt God's Little Acre on the edge of Newport, three stones stand erect, three others appear jackknifed into the ground at a forty-five-degree angle. One lies level to the ground. Only these seven tombstones remain in the graveyard that commemorates the contributions of Africans to the city's early history. While surrounded on three sides by larger, crowded cemeteries and an eight-foot wrought-iron fence facing Farewell Street, God's Little Acre is comparatively pastoral, and most of the grave markers are missing as a result of vandalism or landscaping contractors running tractor mowers through it for many years. The inscriptions on those few slate stones still standing are fading due to the way weather and pollution wear on them. Many are now just barely legible.\n\nA white woman with a backpack was taking pictures of the scant stones. She told me she teaches courses on American graveyards at a school in Connecticut. Pointing to one of the graves, she said, He must have been loved by his \"family\" because stones were very expensive back then. I wanted to say, So were people. And then I remembered reading an inventory from the estate of Joseph Sherburne, whose house has been preserved at the Strawbery Banke Museum. The linens were listed as worth forty dollars while the African woman who washed and pressed them had a line-item value of fifty dollars.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMy trip to Newport made me realize that I knew almost nothing about the lives of blacks in Portsmouth during slavery and I wondered if that was the reason I was so unmoved by my visit. So I drove back up to New Hampshire to walk the Black Heritage Trail, put together by a retired schoolteacher and local historian, Valerie Cunningham, in order to learn about the experiences of Africans and African Americans in Portsmouth. Some of the sites on the Black Heritage Trail highlight historic accomplishments of blacks in Portsmouth such as the New Hampshire Gazette printing office where Primus, a skilled slave, operated a press for fifty years; the Town Pump and Stocks, where black leaders were elected in a ritual following loosely from the Ashanti festival tradition of Odwira; and St. John's Church, where the records indicate that Venus, most likely a poor but free black woman, received a gift of one dollar from the church in 1807 on Christmas Day.\n\nI sat on a bench overlooking the Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Piscataqua River from Kittery, Maine, to where captive Africans would have first encountered Portsmouth, the wharf at what is now Prescott Park. The first known African captive arrived in Portsmouth around 1645 from Guinea, and slave ships started landing regularly as early as 1680 carrying small loads of mostly male children and adolescents. I tried to imagine what it felt like to come into this swiftly moving river harbor after a long journey across the Atlantic in the cargo hold of a ship\u2014after having been starved, beaten, shackled, and covered in the feculence of the living and dead. Did seeing the flat, tidy fronts of buildings outlining this colonial settlement for the first time make them feel hopeful? So many rectangles. How far away the rest of the world must have seemed.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI ended my walk at the Portsmouth Public Library, which held no significance on the trail, but, according to the first news story I heard about the burial ground, had in its collection a copy of the archaeologists' report on the burial site. When I asked a reference librarian if I could see it, she hesitated and wanted to know if I planned on making copies. I told her I was not sure if I wanted to make copies because I hadn't yet seen the report. She then consulted with the head reference librarian, who told me that the burial site is a very sensitive issue for the city and that he needed to consult with the city attorney's office before releasing it. He took down my information\u2014name, city of residence, and school affiliation\u2014then asked me to wait while he placed the call.\n\nThe librarian was worried about how I might represent Portsmouth in a piece on the subject, because he cared about the town. I liked the town, too. It is pretty, easy to navigate, and surprisingly friendly for New England. I felt guilty and ashamed about my affinity for the town because at the time I could not muster more than a diffuse intellectual identification with the people who were buried just a few streets over.\n\nBefore copying the report, I remembered how easy it was for me to ignore what was already obvious, so I wrote down some details to remind myself of what I shouldn't forget: people were carried like chattel on ships to America; they were sold to other people; they were stripped of their names, spiritual practices, and culture; they worked their entire lives without just compensation; they were beaten into submission and terrorized or killed if they chose not to submit; when they died they were buried in the ground at the far edge of town; and as the town grew, roads and houses were built on top of them as if they had never existed.\n\nI spent the long summer with my friends at the beach, drinking Bloody Marys and eating lobster rolls on the open-air deck of a clam shack in Galilee, Rhode Island, while the Block Island Ferry, serried with tourists, made its lethargic heave past the docked commercial fishing boats. Once school started, I turned my attention back to the spiritless tedium of lesson planning and grading papers. In all that time I did not once touch the archaeologists' report.\n\nI could make something up about why I let the report sit in a manila folder on my desk for nine months without ever once attempting to read it\u2014something about wanting to let the dead rest or about how loneliness swells and recedes\u2014but I won't. The reason is not clear to me even now. What I do know is that holding the copy I had made of the report near the Xerox machine by the dimly lit front door of the Portsmouth Public Library that previous spring made me feel more than I had felt during any of my grave-site visits, like a balloon in my chest was expanding and taking up all the space I normally used to breathe.\n\nIntense discomfort, I had thought. Maybe that's enough.\n\nBut by January I was driving back up to Portsmouth, irritated with myself for not reading the copy of the report I had already made but even more irritated with myself for not being able to let it go unread. The once tattered and gloomy public library had moved to a brilliant new building a few streets over, and as I walked around the landscapers installing the brick steps, I caught the sign on the door that said, \"Welcome to Your New Library.\" In the breezeway, three junior high school girls gathered around a computer terminal and giggled. A woman in a purple cardigan greeted me from behind the circulation desk with a smile and thin wave. Seduced by all of it, I thought, I love my new library.\n\nWhen I asked the reference librarian about the report, he told me it was now shelved in the local history section in the regular stacks. I thought, Now it's all out in the open. Now there's nothing to hide. I grabbed it off the wall, took a seat at one of the new blond reading tables, and thumbed through it lightly as if it were a mere tabloid magazine. I took notes from the acknowledgments, introduction, and background chapters, but when I got to the section describing the removal of the coffins\u2014those same pages I had copied nearly a year before\u2014a shrill noise came up from the back of my throat at the pitch of a full teakettle in a rolling-boil whistle. I cleared my throat and went back to reading, but my din started again. It was sharp enough for anyone to hear, so I decided I had better leave\u2014but not before making a fresh copy of the report to take with me.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen a story is unpleasant, it is hard to focus on details that allow you to put yourself in the place of the subject, because the pain of distortion starts to feel familiar. Paying attention often requires some sort of empathy for the subject, or at the very least, for the speaker. But empathy, these days, is hard to come by. Maybe this is because everyone is having such a hard time being understood themselves. Or because empathy requires us to dig way down into the murk, deeper than our own feelings go, to a place where the boundaries between our experience and everyone else's no longer exist.\n\nArchaeologists removed the remains of thirteen people from beneath the intersection of Chestnut and State streets with the help of some machinery, but they did most of the digging by hand. Once in the laboratory, they used potters' tools and paintbrushes to remove excess soil from the bones and teeth. The exact dates associated with each burial remain unknown, but it is assumed that all were interred during the eighteenth century. Four males and one female could be identified by sex, but they found it impossible to determine the sex of the other eight, though most were believed to be in early adulthood, between the ages of twenty-one and forty years. Heads of the deceased generally faced west, suggesting a burial in the Christian tradition. In no cases were all the bones of an individual represented, perhaps due to the commingling of remains during previous installations of gas and sewer lines, the stacking of coffins, or a high water table in the soil. Thus no cause of death could be determined for any of those recovered. Archaeologists noted, however, that the lack of visible traumatic defects, cut marks, fresh or healed fractures does not rule out the presence of trauma. The teeth of each person, which in several cases constituted the entirety of the remains, appeared to be better preserved than their bones, which were found wet, free of flesh, colored gray or black, and, in the case of long bones, often missing the ends.\n\nPieces of the skull, portions of the upper and lower limbs, shoulder girdle, ribs, spine, and pelvis of a male person between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years represent Burial 1. An excavator operator noticed his leg bones sticking out from the bottom of his coffin, which was made of white pine and was hexagonal in shape. All of his mandibular and some of his maxillary teeth were present, but like most of those recovered at the site, his teeth exhibited traces of enamel hypoplasia, a sign of previous infection or nutritional stress. His bones revealed a calcified blood vessel in his right lower leg and prolonged shin splints. A pumpkin seed of unexplained significance was found in his coffin as well as a metal object, probably a shroud pin, suggesting he was naked at burial.\n\nIn Burial 2, the remains of another male person between twenty-one and twenty-six years of age were found in good condition despite the fact that part of his skull had been unintentionally crushed by the excavator, leaving only his mandible and several teeth. A gas line running through the foot portion of his coffin meant that many bones in his right foot also were missing. His body was slumped to the left side, probably due to his coffin being tipped during burial, and his hipbone was broken in several places. His right hand lay over his thigh. Further analysis of his bones showed signs of repetitive forearm rotation and possible inflammation of the right leg, presumably from heavy shoveling, lifting, or other strenuous work. Salt, either used as a preservative before burial or for some other ritual, and a single tooth of unknown origin found between his knees, further distinguished his remains.\n\nBurial 3 contained the remains of a person of indeterminate sex, thought to be approximately thirty to fifty years of age with the head facing east, perhaps toward Mecca. Archaeologists recovered only extremely fragile fragments of the cranium and major long bones. The part of the mandible that was still intact suggests participation in a West African puberty ritual as there is a long-healed-over gap where lower and lateral incisors would have been. Stains in the soil represented most of the coffin wood. Only thirty teeth, small fragments of bone, some twenty wood and coffin nails accounted for the person of twenty-one to forty years of age in Burial 4. Those remains were extremely damaged by erosion and the unintentional intrusion of the excavator.\n\nPipe laid around 1900 across the bottom of the coffin of the male person aged twenty-one to forty in Burial 5 eventually disintegrated his lower extremities. Shovel marks on the coffin base indicate where a crew member either hit his coffin accidentally or attempted to cut through it.\n\nThe head of the female person in Burial 6 was located under the sidewalk, which had to be caved in to allow for her removal. Only the upper portion of her coffin was found intact. Her lower legs, cut off where they intersected with a utility trench and a ceramic sewage pipe installed around 1900, revealed evidence of a bone infection and severe inflammation of the shins. Her left arm appeared to be laid across her torso, and her cranium, now missing the face, pointed to the right side of the coffin. Her upper central incisors were shaved, possibly according to a West African cultural tradition, and represent the earliest documented case of such dental modification in North America.\n\nThe person in Burial 7 was a child between the ages of seven and twelve, of unknown sex, whose remains were damaged by heavy rain and a redirected sewer line that flooded the grave shaft during excavation. Decades of a sewer pipe lying across the child's midsection also contributed to this poor state, despite the fact that the coffin was found to be in relatively good condition. Directly beneath that body were the remains of a male person between twenty-one and forty years of age in Burial 12 whose bones were very soft also due to the high water table of the soil. At present, it is impossible to tell if these two people were buried at the same time or possibly even generations apart. The coffinless remains of persons in Burials 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, and 7B were discovered beneath the sidewalk. Dental fragments and hand bones from a person not presently attributed to Burial 2 but found nearby are all that exists of the person in Burial 2B. Twelve teeth represent the person in Burial 3B. One tooth each indicates persons in Burials 4B and 5B, and a femur shaft fragment resting atop the child's coffin in Burial 7 is all that was found of the person in Burial 7B.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe boundaries of Portsmouth's African Burying Ground are still a mystery, as they have been for more than one hundred years, but plans to build a formal memorial are under way. Public discussions led by the state's archaeologists have asked city residents to consider whether a part of either street should be closed to vehicular traffic. Some Portsmouth residents have submitted samples of their DNA to see if they are in any way related to those people whose remains, now stored in Ethafoam, 0.002 mil polybags, and acid-free archival storage boxes in a municipally provided laboratory space, await reinterment.\n\nBecause I worried that I would lose track of the archaeologists' report among the bills, magazines, and student papers that littered my desk, for many months I kept it beside my bed, on the floor beneath my nightstand. Each morning the radio woke me with news of the war, a pop star's addiction, dismal predictions for the American economy. Later, I put the report in my backpack, its pages flat against my spine. At some point, I am not sure when, I grew accustomed to its weight and stopped noticing I was carrying it around.\n\n## Where Do We Go from Here?\n\n## ISABEL WILKERSON\n\nBefore the summer of 2014, before we had seen Eric Garner dying on a Staten Island street and Michael Brown lifeless in the Missouri sun for hours, before the grand jury decisions and the die-ins that shut down interstates, we may have lulled ourselves into believing that the struggle was over, that it had all been taken care of back in 1964, that the marching and bloodshed had established, once and for all, the basic rights of people who had been at the bottom for centuries. We may have believed that, if nothing else, the civil rights movement had defined a bar beneath which we could not fall.\n\nBut history tells us otherwise. We seem to be in a continuing feedback loop of repeating a past that our country has yet to address. Our history is one of spectacular achievement (as in black senators of the Reconstruction era or the advances that culminated in the election of Barack Obama) followed by a violent backlash that threatens to erase the gains and then a long, slow climb to the next mountain, where the cycle begins again.\n\nThe last reversal of black advancement was so crushing that historians called it the Nadir. It followed the leaps African Americans made after enslavement, during the cracked window of opportunity known as Reconstruction. The newly freed people built schools and businesses and ascended to high office.\n\nBut a conservative counterreaction led to a gutting of the civil rights laws of that time and to the start of a Jim Crow caste system in the South that restricted every step an African American could make. Any breach of the system could mean one's life. African Americans were lynched over accusations of mundane infractions, such as stealing a hog or 75 cents, during a period that lasted into the 1940s.\n\nSix million African Americans fled that caste system, seeking asylum in the rest of the country during what would become the Great Migration. Denied the ballot, they voted with their bodies.\n\nTheir defection put pressure on the country, North and South, and freed them to pursue their dreams of self-determination. But in the North, they were met with hostility from the onset\u2014redlining, overpolicing, hypersegregation, the seeds of the disparities we see today. The past few months have forced us to confront our place in a country where we were enslaved for far longer than we have been free. Forced us to face the dispiriting erosion that we have witnessed in recent years\u2014from the birther assaults on a sitting black president to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act that we had believed was carved in granite.\n\nAnd now police assaults on black people for the most ordinary human behaviors\u2014a father tasered in Minnesota while waiting for his children; a motorist shot to death in North Carolina while seeking help after a car accident. It is as if we have reentered the past and are living in a second Nadir: It seems the rate of police killings now surpasses the rate of lynchings during the worst decades of the Jim Crow era. There was a lynching every four days in the early decades of the twentieth century. It's been estimated that an African American is now killed by police every two to three days.\n\nThe outcomes in Staten Island and Ferguson and elsewhere signal, as in the time of Jim Crow, that the loss of black life at the hands of authorities does not so much as merit further inquiry and that the caste system has only mutated with the times. From this, we have learned that the journey is far from over and that we must know our history to gain strength for the days ahead. We must love ourselves even if\u2014and perhaps especially if\u2014others do not. We must keep our faith even as we work to make our country live up to its creed. And we must know deep in our bones and in our hearts that if the ancestors could survive the Middle Passage, we can survive anything.\n\n## \"The Dear Pledges of Our Love\": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's HusbandI\n\n## HONOR\u00c9E FANONNE JEFFERS\n\nAs a little girl in the seventies, I memorized the names of prominent African Americans for Black History Month. These were the images that my teachers would trace from construction paper, then tack to the bulletin boards in my school. How I loved those dark silhouettes.\n\nMy school was 99 percent segregated; the laws had changed in the South but custom had not. My teachers celebrated black \"firsts\" to shore up our self-esteem, to fortify us against our smaller and shabbier schools and a pervasive white unfriendliness from those outside our enclave.\n\nTo my teachers, the eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley was the first of the firsts, a beacon for black children. My parents were teachers, too, and at home they filled in the details. Wheatley was a child stolen from across the Atlantic and enslaved. A young genius whose playthings were the poems of Homer and Terence, she was the first African woman on this side of the Atlantic to publish a book of poetry. Neither of my parents liked her poetry much, but that wasn't the point. The point was loyalty to the race, to African American men and women. This probably wasn't my first lesson about the responsibilities of being a black person, but it's the first one I remember and the most lasting.\n\nI don't recall my elementary school teachers or my parents ever mentioning Wheatley's husband. I believed she never had married before dying at the young age of thirty-four, and I found it heartbreaking that she did not have someone to love from her native land, someone who looked like her and shared the same cultural memories. All she had was the white people who used to own her. When I first encountered information about Wheatley's husband, John Peters, in my junior year of college, I was confronted with the dominant negative stereotypes of black men. Those thirty-five words describe him as an arrogant good-for-nothing who deserted his family.\n\nTalladega College, where I was studying at the time, was founded by former slaves. The campus is situated in a rural Alabama town, but smack in the middle of the 'hood. As I read the words portraying Peters, how he had abandoned Wheatley and their children, leaving them to poverty and then eventual death in the midst of squalor, images of black men came to me: the shiftless brothers who hung at the edge of campus, townies waiting for college girls. They sometimes shouted to us and promised pleasures of all kinds. These were the young men my doggedly middle-class mother had warned me about, in her alto, cigarette-tuned voice. My mother had fought her way up from backwoods poverty in rural Georgia and she cautioned me: One wrong step with a man could land me in perdition; living in a shack or a one-room apartment surrounded by my screaming, misbehaved progeny. As a formerly poor person, my mother looked down her nose at poor, black folk who had not escaped to tell the advisory tale, as she had.\n\nI thought of Wheatley, the \"Ethiop\" genius, taken in by Peters's charms, falling from her magnificent perch. I pictured her, beguiled by a man who whispered in her ear, told her lies to get into her starched, Good Negro bloomers.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMuch of the information on Wheatley's personal life comes from Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, A Native African and a Slave, a book published in 1834, fifty years after the poet's death. The author, Margaretta Matilda Odell, identifies herself as a \"collateral descendant\" of Phillis's former mistress. In her biography of Wheatley, she pushes a well-meaning abolitionist message: Black folks do not deserve to be slaves, and someone like Wheatley is the example of what her brethren could be, if they only had a chance.\n\nAccording to Odell, the child-who-would-be-renamed-Phillis was \"supposed to have been about seven years old, at this time, from the circumstance of shedding her front teeth\" when she arrived in Boston. Susannah Wheatley, the wife of a merchant, was looking for a \"faithful domestic in her old age.\" Instead, she found \"the poor, naked child\" with a piece of cloth tied around her like a skirt. Once the child was taken home,\n\nA daughter of Mrs. Wheatley, not long after the child's first introduction to the family, undertook to learn her to read and write; and, while she astonished her instructress by her rapid progress, she won the good will of her kind mistress, by her amiable disposition and the propriety of her behavior.\n\nAnd with the help of Susannah, the smart and well-behaved Phillis began writing poetry. Odell doesn't give specific dates about Phillis's journey to freedom, but later biographers of the poet do. On May 8, 1773, she sailed to London (accompanied by the Wheatleys' grown son, Nathaniel) to promote her work, staying there six weeks. According to Wheatley scholar Vincent Carretta, on September 9, 1773, advertisements appeared for Phillis's only book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. We know that upon her return from London, her owners freed her, because Phillis mentions this fact in a letter dated October 18, 1773.\n\nWe can't know if Phillis hoped to return to her African homeland after receiving her freedom, but we do know that she retained a connection to the continent and its people. She developed a years-long friendship with Obour Tanner, a fellow kidnapped African who lived in Newport, Rhode Island. For several years, these two women exchanged fervent, spiritual thoughts in their letters. Phillis dedicated a poem to \"S.M., A Young African Painter,\" and she references Africa in several of her poems, too. \"To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth\" contains lines about her involuntary\u2014and possibly violent\u2014migration from her native land:\n\nShould you, my lord, while you peruse my song,\n\nWonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,\n\nWhence flow these wishes for the common good,\n\nBy feeling hearts alone best understood,\n\nI, young in life, by seeming cruel fate\n\nWas snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat:\n\nWhat pangs excruciating must molest,\n\nWhat sorrows labour in my parent's breast?\n\nOdell paints the Wheatleys as kind masters, and draws an especially sympathetic portrait of Susannah, who acted as an eighteenth-century stage mother to push forward Phillis's career. Susannah wrote to Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, a philanthropist and a leader in the Methodist movement, in an attempt to secure her patronage for the young poet. (The countess replied to this letter on May 13, 1773.) Phillis herself speaks lovingly of Susannah, and she continued to live with the Wheatleys after receiving her freedom. In a letter to Obour (dated March 21, 1774), Phillis writes of the death of her former mistress, and how a white woman treated Phillis as less a \"servant\" and more a \"child.\" But as we look back on this era, kindness must be viewed through a complex prism, for slavery was a scatological, morally bankrupt enterprise. Besides Phillis, the Wheatleys owned at least one other slave and they did not raise their voices publicly or act overtly against the institution of slavery. Odell seems to think that Phillis was living the kidnapped African's dream, however, and that, after the death of Susannah, that dream collapsed:\n\nAt this period of destitution, Phillis received an offer of marriage from a respectable colored man of Boston. The name of this individual was Peters. He kept a grocery in Court-Street, and was a man of very handsome person and manners; wore a wig, carried a cane, and quite acted out \"the gentleman.\" In an evil hour he was accepted; and he proved utterly unworthy of the distinguished woman who honored him by her alliance. He was unsuccessful in business, and failed soon after their marriage; and he is said to have been both too proud and too indolent to apply himself to any occupation below his fancied dignity. Hence his unfortunate wife suffered much from this ill-omened union.\n\nHaving written in great, flattering detail about the poet's years with the white Wheatleys, Odell uses her talents to draw a contemptuous likeness of John Peters. She informs us that Phillis never used the last name of her husband\u2014and, it's implied, we should assume that this decision had something to do with Peters's qualities as a mate. Odell accuses him of possible abuse, writing in delicate terms that while Phillis was in very bad health, she wouldn't have been \"unmindful . . . of her conjugal or matronly duties.\" In other words, Peters pressed his frail wife into sexual service when he shouldn't have, which resulted in (according to Odell) three pregnancies. From there, Odell opines, Wheatley's destruction was a foregone conclusion: There was terrible poverty. Each of the three children born to Wheatley fell sick in infancy and died. And at the age of thirty-three or -four, Wheatley herself died from an illness exacerbated by her \"extreme misery\" in living in \"a filthy apartment\" with a \"negligent\" husband.\n\nThis is the story branded into literary history.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIn 2003, while working on my third book of poetry, I read an essay on Wheatley written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in The New Yorker. It was an excerpt from his soon-to-be-published book, a treatment of Wheatley juxtaposed against the racism of Enlightenment scholars such as Immanuel Kant, and more specifically, Thomas Jefferson. As someone who explored American history in my poetry, I found Gates's thesis fascinating: He believed Wheatley was important in dispelling derisive eighteenth-century notions about black humanity; her poetry had rebutted Kant's ordering of the nations with Africans down at the very bottom. Because of Wheatley's important symbolism for black humanity, Thomas Jefferson's negative response to Wheatley's poetry\u2014\"[t]he compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism\"\u2014was a symbol as well. It meant that the struggle for black equality on all fronts was not yet won. And thus, Gates argues, an intellectual movement was born, one that triggered a wave of eighteenth-century black literary and scholarly production, which persisted into the 1960s and continues into contemporary times.\n\nMy encounter with Gates's article started me on a Wheatley reading jag. For the next six years, I read everything I could find on her. I checked books out from the library, I downloaded scholarly articles, and I began to think deeply about her most (in)famous poem, \"On Being Brought from Africa to America.\" This eight-line poem begins with discordancy, with seeming racial self-hatred combined with religious fervor. The tone of these verses earned Wheatley sharp, ugly criticism from other black poets, most notably the Black Arts Movement poet Amiri Baraka (n\u00e9 LeRoi Jones):\n\n'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,\n\nTaught my benighted soul to understand\n\nThat there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:\n\nOnce I redemption neither sought nor knew.\n\nAs a woman in my (then) thirties, I had a different take from Baraka. I thought about a little girl's pain at being torn from her parents in Africa, her trauma on board a slave ship. I thought of her mother's grief, her wondering what had become of her child. I thought about my own and other black folks' beliefs in a benevolent God, in spite of our history in this country, the brutality enacted against us. And in a burst of empathy, I wrote these lines:\n\nMercy: what Phillis claimed\n\nafter that sea journey.\n\nJourney.\n\nLet's call it that.\n\nLet's lie to each other.\n\nNot early descent into madness.\n\nNaked travail among filth and rats.\n\nWhat got Phillis over the sea?\n\nWhat kept a stolen daughter?\n\nPerhaps it was mercy,\n\nDear Reader.\n\nMercy,\n\nDear Brethren.\n\nHowever, until I traveled to Worcester, Massachusetts, to the American Antiquarian Society, I had no idea that the devastating picture of the naked, gap-toothed child wrapped in a carpet may have been Odell's imaginary reflection. It was 2009, and I was the recipient of the society's artist fellowship. Its archives house one of the largest collections of printed material from early colonial days through 1876, about the United States, the West Indies, and Canada. I was on a mission to write a series of poems based upon Wheatley's life, and I was in search of primary resources.\n\nAt the beginning of my fellowship, I was ready to get to work. Though I'd been conducting archival research for nearly twenty years, I wasn't formally trained as a historian, but as the research librarians remarked, I was quick and a self-starter. In only a matter of days, I found references to Odell's Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, A Native African and a Slave. Looking through the bibliographies in texts on Wheatley, I noticed that they either cited Memoir directly or they summarized Odell and listed a relative of the Wheatley family as a reference. There was no overt tracing of Odell's lineage, no proof of how she was related to the Wheatleys, no way to establish Odell's authority.\n\nIn July, around the middle of my fellowship term, I drove from Worcester to the Northeast National Archives in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was at the urging of my mentor at the society that I made the drive, even after she told me that records would be on microfiche; the very mention of microfiche made me sick to my stomach. I spent a couple hours looking through the census records, and as I feared, it was not the exhilarating process I'd hoped for. My eyeballs ached and the lobster roll from the day before threatened to repeat on me.\n\nI was ready to return to Worcester, when I saw John Peters on the 1790 census of Suffolk County, Massachusetts\u2014the city of Boston. He was listed as a free man of color.\n\nNo, it wasn't a mistake. There was Peters's name.\n\nSwallowing my nausea, I rechecked the entire census, just to be sure. There was no other black John Peters, the narcissistic man who had abandoned his wife off and on, and then\u2014as Odell had written\u2014supposedly had moved farther south after his wife's death. I looked the census over completely two more times and took pictures of the relevant pages.\n\nI sat there, confused. Rather than verifying facts about America's first black poet, which had been my intention, I realized literary history had entrusted the story of Wheatley and Peters to a white woman who may have made assumptions about Wheatley's husband that might not just be wrong, but also the product of racial stereotypes.\n\nWhy would Peters have moved farther south after the Revolution? This piece of it didn't make sense to me. Why would a free, black man in his natural, right mind move south, taking his body to slaveholding territory, where white men would be waiting to place him in chains?\n\nWheatley had died in 1784, but the census had been taken in 1790. It's possible, then, that Peters had been in Boston through that decade, which meant that Peters may have been in Boston when Wheatley died. What could this mean? Had the young couple been separated? Had he left her for another woman? Had she left him? Maybe they had remained together. Maybe he hadn't abandoned her. Maybe Odell misrepresented their relationship. And if Odell had misrepresented the relationship of Wheatley and Peters, maybe she had done the same about her relationship to the white Wheatleys.\n\nI drove back to the AAS and huddled with my mentor and the research librarian. I asked them what Odell meant in her book when she claimed to be a \"collateral descendant\" of the white Wheatleys? A cousin? A niece? An in-law married to a direct descendant? Both of them advised me to look up Odell in the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I did, and I found Margaretta Matilda Odell of \"Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts\"\u2014and that's all I found. Nothing else.\n\nI returned to the texts on Wheatley. In each, I double-checked the notes and indexes several times, sure that I had overlooked something. Every night, back in my fellow's room, I took hours to draft possible genealogies of the blood relatives and in-laws of Susannah and John Wheatley, and those of their twins, Mary Wheatley Lathrop and Nathaniel Wheatley. I uncovered no documentation connecting Odell to the white Wheatleys. There was no establishment of family bona fides. Rather, it appeared that the only proof that Odell had been related to Susannah Wheatley, the former mistress of Phillis Wheatley, was that she had said so.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nVincent Carretta, the author of Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (2011)\u2014to date, the most comprehensive biography of the poet\u2014has unearthed a treasure trove of previously unpublished material on Phillis Wheatley and her husband: legal documents, newspaper notices, records in Boston's Taking Book, along with other important minutiae. Still, even Carretta doesn't know how or when Wheatley met Peters. There is a reference to a \"young man\" in a letter she wrote her friend Obour, on October 30, 1773, but we don't know his identity. We do know that in 1778, Phillis Wheatley and John Peters, \"free Negroes,\" married during the tumultuous period of the American Revolution. In a letter to Obour (dated May 10, 1779), the poet signs herself as \"Phillis Peters\"; thereafter, whenever she refers to herself in print, she always uses her married name.\n\nIn the years leading up to the Revolution and directly afterward, Massachusetts was the site of black political agitation. Just as I had heard the name of Phillis Wheatley in elementary school, so had I learned about Crispus Attucks, a biracial African American and the first to fall during what became known as the Boston Massacre. Over the years, I would learn the names of others, like Lemuel Haynes, a minister who had fought in the Revolution, and Prince Hall, who founded the African Masons. There was Belinda, who petitioned the Massachusetts Assembly for a pension in her old age. And I would read the words of Felix, an unidentified black man\u2014and presumably a slave\u2014who petitioned the same body, demanding his freedom and that of other African American men:\n\nWe have no Property. We have no Wives. No Children. We have no City. No Country. But we have a Father in Heaven, and we are determined, as far as his Grace shall enable us, and as far as our degraded contemptuous Life will admit, to keep all his Commandments. . . .\n\nWhen I view Peters through the lens of the eighteenth century, he fits in quite easily with his brethren. Carretta depicts him as a smart, hard worker, trying his hand in different business enterprises: law, commerce, real estate, even medicine. (The latter was not the profession that we know today, and required no specific schooling.)\n\nAs a white woman of the nineteenth century Odell fits in perfectly with her era, too. It doesn't take much speculation to deduce that she believed Peters to be an uppity Negro. He was a black man who had the nerve to possess high self-esteem, who cajoled Wheatley away from her white friends. Even though Odell dedicates her book to \"friends of the Africans,\" her tone ridicules his ambitions: \"[Peters] is said to have been both too proud and too indolent to apply himself to any occupation below his fancied dignity.\" In other words, how dare a black man want to be anything other than a day laborer with calluses on his hands? Who did he think he was, to desire property and not be property, to style himself as a business owner, to marry a high-status, accomplished woman of his own race?\n\nThere are other second- or third-hand, derisive accounts of Wheatley's husband, all by whites. Carretta quotes from Josiah Quincy, who claims to have met John Peters in court, and who didn't think much of the encounter. While doing my own research, I found a footnote in the November 1863 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which claims that an acquaintance of Obour Tanner told someone else that Tanner had told her\u2014keep up, now; this is getting complicated\u2014that Tanner did not like Peters, that Wheatley had \"let herself down\" by marrying him. But this same footnote giving this ostensible inside information also gets Wheatley's death date wrong, by ten years.\n\nEven if Wheatley did, as Odell claims, give birth to children who died in infancy\u2014and at present, there is no documentation for that\u2014infant mortality rates were disturbingly high during this period. It was not uncommon for parents to lose several offspring in infancy or childhood, even those parents who fed, clothed, and loved their children. There would have been nothing for Peters to forestall a child's death from a disease such as measles. As for Wheatley's passing and whether Peters had a direct or indirect hand in it, there is no proof that he pushed her into an early grave, either. In the eighteenth century, life spans were short for whites, and even shorter for African Americans. Wheatley died around the age of thirty-three, which, unfortunately, is in keeping with life expectancies for black women in America at that time.\n\nCarretta supplies evidence that, at the time of Wheatley's death, Peters was living in Massachusetts indeed, but he was in prison because he couldn't pay his bills. (In twenty-first-century terms, he had bad credit.) This is not a crime by our contemporary standards, but it was during Peters's time. There was an economic depression in New England, in the aftermath of the American Revolution; many people in Massachusetts, black and white, couldn't pay their bills or even afford food. Starvation was not unheard of.\n\nPeters was released from jail, and, according to Carretta, for the next sixteen years, he continued to aspire to the role of gentleman. And now we have definitive proof that Peters also kept trying to publish the second book of poetry that his late wife had written. In October 2015, I corresponded (by e-mail) with the assistant curator of manuscripts at the American Antiquarian Society. Knowing my interest in the Wheatley-Peters marriage, she shared with me an excerpt of a never-published letter (dated June 2, 1791) between the printers Ebenezer T. Andrews and Isaiah Thomas. In this letter, Andrews refers to a \"proposal\" for \"Wheatley's Poems,\" and that he had promised Peters that they would \"print them\" and split the \"neat profits with him.\" But bewilderingly, that second book never appeared.\n\nCarretta notes that Peters died in 1801; he was fifty-five at the time of his death. He never was able to pay off his debts, but he left some nice belongings behind. A horse, a desk, some leather-bottomed chairs. Books, which meant he not only was literate, but may also have enjoyed reading.\n\nWhen you look at Peters's life, okay, the brother \"did a couple bids,\" but at least he didn't leave behind any people that had to be sold to erase his debts, as Jefferson did. Families were broken up, auctioned off, and sifted like chaff. That would be the fate of the slaves of Monticello after Jefferson died. I can't help but wonder what Odell would have thought of his actions.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI have continued my research on Wheatley. I regularly search for new information; I read new articles about her, and always, I check the notes and the bibliography. Periodically, I look for primary materials to see if any new information on her has emerged. When finances permit, I travel and do my primary research in person.\n\nIn the meantime, I publish poems based upon Wheatley research. In 2010, I published an essay on her as well, mentioning my sighting of Peters on that 1790 census, discussing the unproven connection between Odell and the Wheatley family:\n\n[It] is distressing that, in 176 years, scholars have not questioned Odell's right to speak for Phillis Wheatley. This blind trust continues the disturbing historical trend of African Americans, and black women in particular, needing white benefactors to justify their lives and history.\n\nThe thing is, I have fallen in love with Wheatley and I want to do right by her legacy. I want to get everything correct, but if I'm not the one to uncover new information, if someone else finds it, that isn't a problem for me. I just want it to be found. I have hoped that by pointing to the absence of documentation on Odell, researchers will take notice and renew the search for her genealogy. If no family records can be identified, then the responsible, professional cause of action would be to cease using Odell as a primary source for Wheatley's life. The other option would be to categorize Memoir as historical fiction, but whatever the categorization, someone must directly challenge Odell's authority to provide the most enduring depiction of Wheatley, and of her husband as a sycophant and a hustler.\n\nI've tried to be pragmatic when it comes to the work of Wheatley biographers and scholars. Research is hard. It's time-consuming and frustrating; I know that from personal experience. Furthermore, there often isn't much information to go on. For example, if Odell's Memoir were to be eliminated as a primary source for Wheatley's life, what else would be left to rely upon? Precious little. Yes, a chronicle that may not be fully accurate is more than exists for most eighteenth-century, formerly enslaved black folks, but really, these traces provide a pitiful tribute to the woman who is the mother of African American literature.\n\nNever mind that controversial, beginning line of her poem \"'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land . . .\" Wheatley is much more than that. She proved something to white people about us: that we could read and think and write\u2014and damn it, we could feel, no matter what the racists believed. We already knew those things about ourselves. I'm pretty positive about that, but during her time, philosophers were arranging the \"nations\" with Africans at the bottom, while other Europeans measured black people's skulls alongside those of orangutans to determine if the two species were kissing cousins. In the midst of these soul assaults, Wheatley's poems carried the weight for African people on this side of the Atlantic. As a result, Wheatley\u2014along with black soldiers and sailors who fought on the winning side of the American Revolution, black intellectuals and writers, and various individuals of African descent asserting their God-given rights of liberty\u2014helped to sway many white Americans and Europeans that slavery was wrong.\n\nYet I'm waiting for someone to write a more emotionally charged book about Wheatley, one that would take into account her pre-American existence. Although she was a little girl when she arrived in Boston, and although the Wheatleys were \"kind\" to her, she did have African birth parents. Her life did not begin in America or with slavery. She had a free lineage that did not include the Wheatleys. If nothing else, a treatment of precolonial West African history, along with the eighteenth-century culture of that region, would be an appropriate and respectful introduction to Wheatley's life in America.\n\nIn addition, I'm waiting for someone to include a compassionate, well-fleshed depiction of John Peters, which considers how he fit into African American intellectual, commercial, and activist life of the Revolutionary era. Perhaps I seem na\u00efve or silly, but I'd like scholars to view him as a natural occurrence in Wheatley's trajectory, instead of a low-down disruption that led to her demise. Oddly, no account that I've read of Peters gives the most obvious, commonsense reason for why Wheatley might have married him.\n\nMaybe he didn't trick her. She wasn't desperate or temporarily out of her mind. They married because they were deeply, passionately in love.\n\nIs that explanation so ridiculous? Why wouldn't they love each other? American people of African descent did fall in love back then, and, if allowed by local power structures, they legally married. They did this in the midst of war, slavery, economic chaos, and\/or posttraumatic stress over being torn from their homelands and sent over the horrific Middle Passage. I think it's logical to assume that many, many black folk fell in love with many, many other black folk. This assumption is a rational consequence of acknowledging black humanity.\n\nAt times, when I'm impatiently waiting for scholars to reexamine the complicated realities of these two people, I imagine Phillis and John, what their moments together might have been.\n\nMaybe Peters thought Wheatley was beautiful. He was drawn to her delicate face, to her very dark skin, her full lips, her tight, kinky hair, to the ring in her nose that might have been an ornament she carried from across the water. (Look very closely at that engraving in her book. Use a magnifying glass and you will see that nose ring.)\n\nAnd maybe Wheatley thought Peters handsome. He might have looked like her relatives, back in the Gambia that she wrote about. She and Peters might have shared a hankering for a place that lived only in their memories. He might have been born in America\u2014we probably will never know\u2014but in any case, he would have been of African heritage. Maybe at night, when they settled down together in their rickety bed, they talked in whispers, telling each other stories of that faraway place across the water. Folktales or proverbs that had been passed down.\n\nHe possessed ambitions, the same as she, and instead of stories, maybe they talked about the future, their hopes for his fledgling businesses and her new book of poetry, the glories that would be accomplished by their children. Anything was possible in that time, when messages of liberty abounded.\n\nMaybe he was a tender lover and they laughed and cried and clutched. The words they spoke after their passion were to be believed, even though they came from the mouths of black folk.\n\n* * *\n\nI. The title of this essay uses a line from Phillis Wheatley's \"To a Clergyman on the Death of His Lady,\" published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773).\n\n## White Rage\n\n## CAROL ANDERSON\n\nWhen we look back on what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, during the summer of 2014, it will be easy to think of it as yet one more episode of black rage ignited by yet another police killing of an unarmed African American male. But that has it precisely backward. What we've actually seen is the latest outbreak of white rage. Sure, it is cloaked in the niceties of law and order, but it is rage nonetheless.\n\nProtests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings where officials redraw precincts to dilute African American voting strength or seek to slash the government payrolls that have long served as sources of black employment. It goes virtually unnoticed, however, because white rage doesn't have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors, who cast its efforts as noble, though they are actually driven by the most ignoble motivations.\n\nWhite rage recurs in American history. It exploded after the Civil War, erupted again to undermine the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, and took on its latest incarnation with Barack Obama's ascent to the White House. For every action of African American advancement, there's a reaction, a backlash.\n\nThe North's victory in the Civil War did not bring peace. Instead, emancipation brought white resentment that the good ol' days of black subjugation were over. Legislatures throughout the South scrambled to reinscribe white supremacy and restore the aura of legitimacy that the antislavery campaign had tarnished. Lawmakers in several states created the Black Codes, which effectively criminalized blackness, sanctioned forced labor, and undermined every tenet of democracy. Even the federal authorities' promise of 40 acres\u2014land seized from traitors who had tried to destroy the United States of America\u2014crumbled like dust.\n\nInfluential white legislators such as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (R-Pa.) and Sen. Charles Sumner (R-Mass.) tried to make this nation live its creed, but they were no match for the swelling resentment that neutralized the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments, and welcomed the Supreme Court's 1876 United States v. Cruikshank decision, which undercut a law aimed at stopping the terror of the Ku Klux Klan.\n\nNearly eighty years later, Brown v. Board of Education seemed like another moment of triumph\u2014with the ruling on the unconstitutionality of separate public schools for black and white students affirming African Americans' rights as citizens. But black children, hungry for quality education, ran headlong into more white rage. Bricks and mobs at school doors were only the most obvious signs. In March 1956, 101 members of Congress issued the Southern Manifesto, declaring war on the Brown decision. Governors in Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, and elsewhere then launched \"massive resistance.\" They created a legal doctrine, interposition, that supposedly nullified any federal law or court decision with which a state disagreed. They passed legislation to withhold public funding from any school that abided by Brown. They shut down public school systems and used tax dollars to ensure that whites could continue their education at racially exclusive private academies. Black children were left to rot with no viable option.\n\nA little more than half a century after Brown, the election of Obama gave hope to the country and the world that a new racial climate had emerged in America, or that it would. But such audacious hopes would be short-lived. A rash of voter-suppression legislation, a series of unfathomable Supreme Court decisions, the rise of stand-your-ground laws, and continuing police brutality make clear that Obama's election and reelection have unleashed yet another wave of fear and anger.\n\nIt's more subtle\u2014less overtly racist\u2014than in 1865 or even 1954. It's a remake of the Southern Strategy, crafted in the wake of the civil rights movement to exploit white resentment against African Americans, and deployed with precision by Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. As Reagan's key political strategist, Lee Atwater, explained in a 1981 interview: \"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N\u2014\u2014-, n\u2014\u2014-, n\u2014\u2014-.' By 1968 you can't say 'n\u2014\u2014-'\u2014that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like 'forced busing,' 'states' rights,' and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that.\" (The interview was originally published anonymously, and only years later did it emerge that Atwater was the subject.)\n\nNow, under the guise of protecting the sanctity of the ballot box, conservatives have devised measures\u2014such as photo ID requirements\u2014to block African Americans' access to the polls. A joint report by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the NAACP emphasized that the ID requirements would adversely affect more than 6 million African American voters. (Twenty-five percent of black Americans lack a government-issued photo ID, the report noted, compared with only 8 percent of white Americans.) The Supreme Court sanctioned this discrimination in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act and opened the door to twenty-first-century versions of nineteenth-century literacy tests and poll taxes.\n\nThe economic devastation of the Great Recession also shows African Americans under siege. The foreclosure crisis hit black Americans harder than any other group in the United States. A 2013 report by researchers at Brandeis University calculated that \"half the collective wealth of African-American families was stripped away during the Great Recession,\" in large part because of the impact on home equity. In the process, the wealth gap between blacks and whites grew: Right before the recession, white Americans had four times more wealth than black Americans, on average; by 2010, the gap had increased to six times. This was a targeted hit. Communities of color were far more likely to have riskier, higher-interest-rate loans than white communities, with good credit scores often making no difference.\n\nAdd to this the tea party movement's assault on so-called Big Government, which despite the sanitized language of fiscal responsibility constitutes an attack on African American jobs. Public-sector employment, where there is less discrimination in hiring and pay, has traditionally been an important venue for creating a black middle class.\n\nSo when you think of Ferguson, don't just think of black resentment at a criminal justice system that allows a white police officer to put six bullets into an unarmed black teen. Consider the economic dislocation of black America. Remember a Florida judge instructing a jury to focus only on the moment when George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin interacted, thus transforming a seventeen-year-old, unarmed kid into a big, scary black guy, while the grown man who stalked him through the neighborhood with a loaded gun becomes a victim. Remember the assault on the Voting Rights Act. Look at Connick v. Thompson, a partisan 5\u20134 Supreme Court decision in 2011 that ruled it was legal for a city prosecutor's staff to hide evidence that exonerated a black man who was rotting on death row for fourteen years. And think of a recent study by Stanford University psychology researchers concluding that when white people were told that black Americans are incarcerated in numbers far beyond their proportion of the population \"they reported being more afraid of crime and more likely to support the kinds of punitive policies that exacerbate the racial disparities,\" such as three-strikes or stop-and-frisk laws.\n\nOnly then does Ferguson make sense. It's about white rage.\n\n## Cracking the Code\n\n## JESMYN WARD\n\nWhen my father moved to Oakland, California, after Hurricane Camille wrecked the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in 1969, strangers he encountered from El Salvador and Mexico and Puerto Rico would spit rapid-fire Spanish at him, expecting a reply in kind. \"Are you Samoan?\" a Samoan asked him once. But my father, with his black, silky hair that curled into Coke-bottle waves at the ends, skin the color of milky tea, and cheekbones like dorsal fins breaking the water of his face, was none of these things. He attended an all-black high school in Oakland; in his class pictures, his is one of the few light faces. His hair is parted in the middle and falls away in a blowsy afro, coarsened to the right texture by multiple applications of relaxer.\n\nMy father was born in 1956 in Pass Christian, a small Mississippi town on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, fifty miles from New Orleans. He grew up in a dilapidated single-story house: four rooms, with a kitchen tacked onto the back. It was built along the railroad tracks and shook when trains sped by; the wood of the sloped floor rotted at the corners. The house was nothing like the great columned mansions strung along the man-made beach just half a mile or so down the road, houses graced with front-facing balconies so that the wealthy white families who lived in them could gaze out at the flat pan of the water and the searing, pale sand, where mangrove trees had grown before they'd bulldozed the land.\n\nPut simply, my father grew up as a black boy in a black family in the deep South, where being black, in the sixties, was complicated. The same was true in the eighties, when I was growing up in DeLisle, a town a few miles north of Pass Christian. Once, when I was a teen, we stood together in a drugstore checkout line behind an older, blondish white woman. My father, an inveterate joker, kept shoving me between my shoulder blades, trying to make me stumble into her. \"Daddy, stop,\" I mouthed, as I tried to avoid a collision. I was horrified: Daddy's going to make me knock this white woman over. Then she turned around, and I realized that it was my grandaunt Eunice, my grandmother's sister\u2014that she was blood. \"I thought you were white,\" I said, and she and my father laughed.\n\nCoastal Mississippi is a place where Eunice\u2014a woman pale as milk, with blond hair and African heritage\u2014is considered, and considers herself, black. The one-drop rule is real here. Eunice wasn't allowed on the beaches of the Gulf Coast or Lake Pontchartrain until the early seventies. The state so fiercely neglected her education that her grandfather established a community school for black children. Once Eunice graduated, after the eighth grade, her schooling was done. She worked in her father's fields, and then as a cleaning woman for the white families in their mansions on the coast. On the local TV station, she watched commentators discuss what it meant to be a proper Creole, women who were darker than her asserting that true Creoles have only Spanish and French ancestry. Theirs was part of an ongoing attempt to write anyone with African or Native American heritage out of the region's history; to erase us from the story of the plantations, the swamps, the bayou; to deny that pla\u00e7age, those unofficial unions, during the time of antimiscegenation laws, between European men and women of African heritage had ever taken place.\n\nIt's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees. Official census records, used by so many genealogy enthusiasts to piece together their families' pasts, don't include our non-European ancestors. Both my mother's and my father's family name is Dedeaux (I bear my paternal grandmother's last name), and several relatives on my mother's side have traced their lineage through European Dedeauxs back to France, but building a family tree of people of color is far harder. I always understood my ancestry, like that of so many others on the Gulf Coast, to be a tangle of African slaves, free men of color, French and Spanish immigrants, British colonists, Native Americans\u2014but in what proportion, and what might that proportion tell me about who I thought I was?\n\nI was at a dinner with some professors from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, when one of them told me about the genetic-testing company 23andMe. It cost ninety-nine dollars\u2014that was my first surprise. I imagined that the price of such a service would be exorbitant, but evidently it wasn't. You order a kit online, the professor explained, and get it in the mail a week or so later, then register it on the company's website, spit into a test tube, seal it, and send it back in the provided box. Around six weeks later, you receive your results. The professor said that his girlfriend had spent hours poring over hers, fascinated by her genetically based health analysis. (Due to an FDA crackdown, 23andMe no longer provides that particular service.) But I was interested in genetic testing for a different reason.\n\nI ordered tests for my father, my mother, and myself. We submitted our samples, then waited for the company's scientists to decode the ancestral information in our DNA.\n\nMy mother and I were sitting at her kitchen table when her test came back. My father was at my sister's house, surrounded by his children, when he received his. Their results confirmed some of the notions we'd had about our ancestry, as passed down through family lore, and subverted others. My father, who'd always believed himself to have Native American heritage, and who had a strong affinity for Native American history and culture, found that he is 51 percent Native American, as well as nearly equal parts sub-Saharan African and European (British, Irish, Spanish, and Ashkenazi)\u201423.5 percent and 22.5 percent, respectively\u2014and just over 1 percent North African. My mother, who has told me story after story about her white great-grandparents taking their mixed-race children to visit their families in Kiln, Mississippi, only to hide the kids in the trunk of the car at the end of every visit when the sun set and it was no longer safe, found that she is 55 percent European\u2014a mixture of British, Irish, French, German, Scandinavian, and Iberian\u201441 percent sub-Saharan African, and 3.4 percent Native American.\n\nMy parents' results gave them the concrete proof of their ancestry that they'd always been denied. My father, a former member of the Black Panther party, proudly claimed his Native American heritage by registering with the Choctaw tribe of Slidell, Louisiana. My mother could at last make educated guesses about the parentage of her great-grandparents. It was as if 23andMe had taught them to read the language of their family histories, enabling them to finally understand the incomprehensible book of their ancestral pasts: to read what had been gibberish.\n\nYet I found my own results both surprising and troubling. I was raised in Mississippi, in a family and a community that identified as black, and I have the stories and the experiences to go with it. One of my great-great-grandfathers was killed by a gang of white Prohibition patrollers. My mother helped to integrate the local elementary school in the 1960s. My father was run out of segregated Pass Christian's beaches and the local park. I was the only black girl at my private high school in Pass Christian, the target of my classmates' backward ideas about race. Despite my parents' sense of their mixed roots, I had thought that my genetic makeup would confirm the identity that I'd grown up with\u2014one that located Africa as my ancestors' primary point of origin, and that allowed me to claim a legacy of black resistance and strength.\n\nSo it was discomfiting to find that my ancestry was 40 percent European\u2014a mixture of British, Irish, French, German, Scandinavian, Iberian, Italian, and Ashkenazi\u201432 percent sub-Saharan African, a quarter Native American, and less than 1 percent North African. For a few days after I received my results, I looked into the mirror and didn't know how to understand myself. I tried to understand my heritage through my features, to assign each one a place, but I couldn't. All I could see was my hair: hair that grows up and out instead of falling flat, like my father's; hair that refuses to be as smooth and tidy as my mother's but instead bushes and tangles and curls in all directions at once. Mine is a mane that bears the strongest imprint of my African ancestors, hair that my stylist combed out into a voluminous afro during one of my visits to New York City, so that I walked the streets with a ten-inch halo that repelled the rain and spoke of Africa to everyone who saw it.\n\nThat's how I remembered myself. I remembered that people of color from my region of the United States can choose to embrace all aspects of their ancestry, in the food they eat, in the music they listen to, in the stories they tell, while also choosing to war in one armor, that of black Americans, when they fight for racial equality. I remembered that in choosing to identify as black, to write about black characters in my fiction and to assert the humanity of black people in my nonfiction, I've remained true to my personal history, to my family history, to my political and moral choices, and to my essential self: a self that understands the world through the prism of being a black American, and stands in solidarity with the people of the African diaspora.\n\nThis doesn't mean that I don't honor and claim the myriad other aspects of my heritage. I do, in ways serious and silly. I read Philip Larkin and Seamus Heaney and love all things Harry Potter and Doctor Who. I study French and Spanish and attempt to translate the simplest poems by Pablo Neruda and Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca into English (and fail awfully). I watch obscure French movies with subtitles. I attend powwows and eat fry bread and walk along the outside of the dancing circles with a kind of wistful longing because I want to understand the singing so badly, because I want to stomp the earth in exultation and to belong in that circle, too. But I imagine that my ancestors from Sierra Leone and Britain, from France and the Choctaw settlements on the Mississippi bayou, from Spain and Ghana\u2014all those people whose genetic strands intertwined to produce mine\u2014felt that same longing, even as they found themselves making a new community here at the mouth of the Mississippi. Together, they would make new music, like blues and jazz and zydeco, and new dances, second lining through the streets. They would make a world that reflected back to them the richness of their heritage, and in doing so discover a new type of belonging.\n\n# PART II\n\n# RECKONING\n\n## Queries of Unrest\n\n## CLINT SMITH\n\nAfter Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib\n\nMaybe I come from the gap\n\nbetween my father's teeth.\n\nMaybe I was meant to see a little\n\nbit of darkness every time he smiled.\n\nMaybe I was meant to understand that\n\ndarkness magnifies the sight of joy.\n\nMaybe I come from where the sidewalk\n\nends, or maybe I just read that in a book once.\n\nIt can be hard to tell the difference sometimes.\n\nMaybe that's because when I was a kid\n\na white boy told me I was marginalized\n\nand all I could think of was the edge\n\nof a sheet of paper, how empty it is\u2014\n\nthe abyss I was told never to write into.\n\nMaybe I'm scared of writing another poem\n\nthat makes people roll their eyes\n\nand say, \"another black poem.\"\n\nMaybe I'm scared people won't think\n\nof the poem as a poem, but as a cry for help.\n\nMaybe the poem is a cry for help.\n\nMaybe I come from a place where people\n\nare always afraid of dying.\n\nMaybe that's just what I tell myself\n\nso I don't feel so alone in this body.\n\nMaybe there's a place where everyone is both\n\nin love with and running from their own skin.\n\nMaybe that place is here.\n\nMaybe that's why I'm always running from\n\nthe things that love me. Maybe I'm trying\n\nto save them the time of burying darkness\n\nwhen all they have to do is close their eyes.\n\n## Blacker Than Thou\n\n## KEVIN YOUNG\n\nIt was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child . . .\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe beginning of Steve Martin's The Jerk still makes me laugh with its twist on Once Upon a Time. The dissonance between what we know of the white comedian Martin, his relative success, and his obviously false declaration sends up not only the tragic showbiz biography but the corny black one: in both, the worser, the better. It also suggests his character's transformation, his overcoming\u2014after all, he's clearly white now!\u2014not to mention his current lot in which he's as smudged, bummy, apparently destitute. His isn't blackface, but his face half-greased is certainly part of the effect\u2014it's a familiar one, in other words, to black people used to watching white people only claim blackness as a \"poor me\" stance.\n\nNow, why does this jerk remind me of Rachel Dolezal?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThere's a long-standing American tradition of whites donning blackface, or redface, or any other colored mask they pretend is a face. Those who wear blackface reduce blackness to skin in order not to be white. The implication of course is that black people are just miscolored or extra-dark white people. Many a joke told for my benefit in my Kansas grade school reinforced the same. Know why black people's palms are white?\n\nBut if you are white but truly \"feel black\" then why do you have to look like it?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMy next nonfiction book, Unoriginal Sin, is about hoaxers and impostors, plagiarists and phonies. I finished it last week and sent it in to my publisher, elated and relieved. Now I have to take time to write about Rachel Dolezal too?\n\nI can't decide if Dolezal, the woman revealed to have been merely pretending to be black, lecturing as such and even leading her local Oregon NAACP, is the natural extension of what I've been saying in my next book, or a distraction from this larger point: that quite regularly, faced with the paradox of race, the hoax rears its head. It turns out, I now know, it rears its rear too.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen Rachel Dolezal first broke, and was simply a joke on Black Twitter, I identified some of my favorite Twitter titles for the inevitable, anticipated memoir: \"Their Eyes Were Watching Oprah\" (that one's mine); \"Imitation of Imitation of Life\" (from Victor LaValle); \"Blackish Like Me\" (mine too). Now things done got serious.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen you are black, you don't have to look like it, but you do have to look at it. Or look around. Blackness is the face in the mirror, a not-bad-looking one, that for no reason at all some people uglify or hate on or wish ill for, to, about. Sometimes any lusting after it gets to be a drag too.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nEvery black person has something \"not black\" about them. I don't mean something white, because despite our easy dichotomies, the opposite of black is not white. This one likes European classical music; that one likes a little bit of country (hopefully the old stuff); this one is the first African American principal ballerina; this one can't dance. Black people know this\u2014any solidarity with each other is about something shared, a secret joy, a song, not about some stereotypical qualities that may be reproducible, imitable, even marketable. This doesn't mean there aren't similarities across black people or communities or better yet memory\u2014just that these aren't exactly about bodies and not really about skin at all, but culture.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThere is a long tradition of passing\u2014of racial crossing the line, usually going from black to white. You could say it was started, like this country, by Thomas Jefferson.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nOne of the best things about being black is that, barring some key exceptions, it's not a volunteer position. You can't just wish on a dark star and become black. It's not paid either. It's more like a long internship with a chance of advancement.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI've never seen the TV show Blackish all the way through. (I hear it's quite good now.) From what I've seen, Fresh Off the Boat, another of ABC's offerings, seems to me a more accurate portrayal of the complexity of racial identity, even black identity. (This is despite the worries of its creator, chef and author Eddie Huang.) The young Asian immigrant who's the main character identifies with hip-hop in order to be both American and remain and help explain being nonwhite. It's funny, and frequently brilliant: How do you become American?\n\nIs this the same as becoming black?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nTraditionally, pretend blackness was the fastest route to becoming white. This is true for Irish and Jewish immigrants, who adopted blackface in large numbers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth, and soon assimilated; and for Northerners, for whom blackface helped them imagine themselves a nation since blackface's advent in the 1830s.\n\nCue that f'in caricature of Jim Crow dancing.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLike Rachel Dolezal, I too became black around the age of five. I first became a nigger at nine, so I had me a good run.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe problem isn't just that Rachel Dolezal can wash off whatever she's sprayed on herself (it just don't look right), or that blackness is a choice, but that what she's wearing isn't just bronzer, but blacker: a notion that blackness is itself hyperbolic, excessive, skin tone only. Well, and wigs.\n\nThis last, some black observers have praised.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nDid Dolezal really fool those black folks around her? I have a strange feeling she didn't, that many simply humored her. You have to do this with white people, from time to time.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBlack people are constantly identifying and recognizing those who look like secret black folks\u2014many light-skinned people I know get identified as white by white people, but we know they're black. (This isn't passing, btw.) Most look like one of my aunties. Knowing they are black, it is hard to see them another way.\n\nIt's one of the advantages of my folks being from Louisiana\u2014there's lots of folks who don't \"look black\" but are (which of course should make us stop and reevaluate what \"looking black\" is). Because of the one-drop rule, though begun as a controlling race law, black people themselves adapted and even invented and accepted a broader blackness. In general this has made black people\u2014I am speaking for every single black person without exception here, of course\u2014wary yet accepting.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThose surprised by a white lady darkening her skin and curling her hair haven't been out of the house or online in a while.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThere was the rather white-looking bank manager in Athens, Georgia, who chatted me up one day and mentioned a couple key black striver things\u2014a black sorority here, the Links there\u2014that let me know she was black too. It was brilliant, and in no way calculated; hers was smart survival.\n\nIt was also a test to see if I was woke, or a striver, too.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nTeaching a class about blackness doesn't mean you are black. Blackness isn't a bunch of facts to memorize, or a set of stock behaviors; nor darker skin color neither. It's like the jazz heads I've seen, often white, who can tell you every sideman on every session, but seem in the daylight unable to find the beat. The beat is there always; doesn't mean you can always hear it.\n\nWhile black folks often hear the beat, and set it, doesn't mean when anyone else hears it, that she gets to be black.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nEvery church I know of had a white lady who arrived one day. Ours in Topeka did. After she hung around awhile, and proved herself she wasn't a tourist, \"Mrs. Pete\" was accepted and seen as part of the AME congregation, even singing in the choir (which was a high bar, as it were). But we never thought she was, or somehow became, black. She's good people, folks would say.\n\nShe did get herself a perm: I mean a white, curly one, instead of a straightened, black one; a clarification that's one more sign we're awfully mixed up. There's the joke: You didn't get yourself a perm, but a temporary.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThere is the other, far rarer passing, which we may call reverse-passing, of whites living as black. The most prominent I know of may be Johnny Otis\u2014who was successful enough that many race women and men I know aren't aware he was actually born white. Or the Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, owner of a Negro League team who likely wasn't black herself. What's interesting is to wonder what the black people around them thought, usually accepting them\u2014not necessarily as what they said they were, but how they acted. It isn't that they weren't judged, just that when they were, they weren't found wanting.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSo when the killer [name withheld] walked into Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston one week after the Dolezal story broke, I am not surprised that the black worshippers there welcomed him. Welcome is an integral part of the African American Christian tradition; it is especially so in the African Methodist Episcopal one, begun over two hundred years ago when the Methodist church prevented blacks, mostly freedmen and women, to pray beside its whites, even pulling them off their knees.\n\nHow long did [name redacted] sit there waiting, deciding to deny the evidence of humanity before him? Nothing, it appears, could have convinced him not to kill blacks, whom he believed\u2014and spewed hate about\u2014preyed on white people, especially women. One suspects he may not've known any women besides his family.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThomas Jefferson hated black people but slept with one who bore his children, six of them. (Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.\u2014Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry, he wrote in Notes on Virginia.) That Sally Hemings was also his wife's half-sister neither stopped him nor did it make him reevaluate his stance toward black thought, which he saw as an impossible paradox.\n\nJefferson had black heirs who he, and for centuries his (sorta) white heirs and white defenders, denied. In our time, Strom Thurmond had him a black daughter out of wedlock; the only people surprised by this were the white voters he courted by vehement racist rhetoric. Of course, this behavior, demeaning blacks while desiring at least one, descends from slavery and is how we got most light-skinned folks who \"look white\" in the first place.\n\nWhy doesn't Rachel Dolezal seem to know that a white person can have a black child (see one-drop rule above)? (See Obama.) (See Hemings.) (See Jefferson.) See . . .\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBeing black is not a feeling. I don't always feel colored. Nor is it simply a state of mind.\n\nBlackness: a way of being.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt would be one thing, I think, if in her house, to her pillow or family, Dolezal said she felt black. I imagine many white households across the country don blackface and grab banjos and have themselves a good ol' time when no one else is around. It's when that somehow translates to what she does, when she teaches black studies as if she's a black person\u2014not a teacher, but a mind reader\u2014that it becomes a problem. She wears the mask not to hide but to gain authority over the very thing she claims to want to be. How very white of her!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAfter Rachel Dolezal had mumbled her way through various news shows looking like Gilly from Saturday Night Live and answered the question of whether she was black or not with I don't understand the question, came the murders in cold blood at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston. Both cases didn't seem just coincidental, but near-simultaneous misapprehensions not just of blackness but of whiteness too.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAfter the killings in Charleston, several things happened: Dolezal's story went back to merely being ridiculous. Talk shows moved on to something else and those who somehow willed Dolezal sublime retreated. Flags flew at half staff\u2014except the Confederate flag on South Carolina statehouse grounds. It took a black woman to climb up and take that down.\n\nThey gave the assignment to a black man to raise the \"rebel flag,\" the stars and bars, back up. Like Sally Hemings, he might not have minded, but he certainly couldn't have refused.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSoon the Confederate battle flag would be voted down by the state assembly, but flag sales would soar. Customers began to hoard them like guns once most major outlets suspended sales. Yet given the killer's postings of himself with Confederate flags and separatist slogans, easy slogans like \"heritage not hate\" stood naked. The proof here only increased as a pro-flag rally brought out the American Nazi flag, side by side and even mashed up with the Confederate one.\n\nIn a place like the South that loves its tall tales, why do people take their Confederate stories hyperseriously? As gospel? Everyone's a colonel, someone joked with me about the South when I was at the University of Georgia, where I taught for five years.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt was my first job, and I was regularly thought by strangers at the university to be passing for a student (and not a grad student). You look too young to be a professor, surprised interrogators would say, usually after asking what year in school I was. (It's true I was only twenty-five, but had a book already and a degree or two.) After a while, I began to translate the comment about looking young to be a more polite way of saying what they couldn't: You look too black to be a professor.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMaybe blackness is only a look, one we're told cannot ever look back?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nFar more interesting and provocative than a white mother in blackface would be a white mother with black children. Wouldn't that provide a much more complex identity than any blackface? You get the feeling that, for Dolezal, blackness equals hiding.\n\nFor the deaconess at the church who had to make her way by cleaning white people's houses during the week, blackness don't mean hiding. Sunday meant rest, and a respite, wearing a different kind of white, black hair crowned by lace.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBlackness too often veers between two poles in the public eye: opaqueness and invisibility. For [racist killer], blackness wasn't just opaque but conspicuous. It named an enemy and provided a uniform that allowed mass judgment\u2014and murder.\n\nRachel Dolezal could be conspicuously outraged all the time, filing lawsuits, marching, because she didn't have to save any energy for just being herself.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nDolezal's drama didn't just start recently. The persecution complex, the past lawsuits (when she was white) against a historically black institution like Howard University no less, seem like the whitest thing ever. It's like when you are with a white friend and they experience racism, likely for the first time, alongside you: they usually go wild, protesting no one and everyone; you shrug as much as shout. Some things are just part of the daily dose of being black. The cab will drive away with a white friend in it rather than drive you too. It's dealing with blackness that black people have perfected\u2014or at least gotten practiced at.\n\nRacism's daily injustices are almost an inoculation against it. Almost.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhenever I tell a white person about the injustices at the airport, or on the street, the daily snubs, or that my white neighbor's farewell to me as I was moving out of my apartment last year was Goodbye, nigger and that no one in the condos or its board, both painted white, did a thing about it, they too grow silent.\n\nPart of grief, I've found, is silence. Protest too, at times. What the no-longer-neighbor wanted from me most, I knew instantly, was a reaction. Bye, I said. Good riddance, I meant.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI've heard even Dolezal's paintings of black faces while in school as a white graduate student at Howard were actually plagiarized. Our Dolezal didn't just want to disappear into blackness, but disappear. For her, blackness was not a private thing, which ultimately may be where blackness best tells us what it knows. It is this private, shifting, personal blackness that cannot be borrowed. What can be: wigs, tanning booth, rhetoric.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nDolezal's righteous rage looks more like self-righteousness\u2014or is it other-righteousness?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhat no one seems to say is just how Dolezal's actions, over many years, conform to the typical hoaxer's: a constant shifting set of stories to explain her identity (it's complicated), an array of attempts to be not just someone else as anyone might, but to be exotic, even in her birth (which she said was in a teepee or tipi). When asked directly on the teevee if she was born in a teepee, she answered, \"I wasn't born in a teepee,\" emphasis allowing that maybe, just maybe, she could later say she was born near or under one. The hoaxer is always leaving the pretend teepee door ajar.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nDolezal also says she was abused, and claimed to have lived in South Africa. It is true that her actual parents did live there, but not with her, only her siblings\u2014many of whom were actually adopted and black. She apparently earlier equated their alleged beatings (that several of them have denied) with slavery. Given her disproven lies, abuse does not so much provide an explanation for her behavior as much as a distraction: true or not, like her making slavery a mere metaphor it would seem part of a scenario of victimhood, which to her is also, inherently, black.\n\nBorrowed blackness and nativeness provide her the ultimate virtual victimhood.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nFinally the chief problem with racial impostors or blackface: it can be only, as James Weldon Johnson said of stereotypical black dialect, comic or tragic. Ultimately, it conforms to white views of \"the blacks\" themselves, offstage: as either a joke or a set of jailed youths and stooped old people.\n\nEven the president, who started up a Twitter feed weeks before the Dolezal incident, was inundated by racists posting pictures of nooses and equating him to a monkey or worse. It is only when one feels such stereotypes as real that one might find being in blackface freeing\u2014not because you believe the stereotypes, but because you want to establish other, corny ones.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSinking feeling: blackfaced person always occupies a bigger public stage than a black one.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nStanding back, maybe it's true: not that being black is only comic or tragic, but that too often white thinking or acting out about it, as demonstrated in Dolezal's hoax and the Charleston murders, remains only polarized: comic or tragic. Both are nullifying.\n\nAmid the bewilderment and grief, for just a moment I wondered how onetime NAACP chapter leader Dolezal would've responded, as surely she would have sought to, had she not been unmasked. Where's our fearless leader now? I thought. Then I didn't think of her again.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI came out as black as a teenager. Before then, I was simply a boy. After, I was sometimes, still.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen President Obama broke into \"Amazing Grace\" at the funeral for those killed at Mother Emanuel, it was mere hours after the Supreme Court declared gay marriage legal, and barring it as unconstitutional. There it was strange yet strangely fitting to hear him sing that song written by the reformed slaver while at sea. I like to think the slaves who took the song over and made it a Negro spiritual were not the same kinds of wretch as its author.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nOf course you can see why anyone would want to be black: being black is fun. Don't tell nobody.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThis morning I woke from a \"deep Negro sleep,\" as Senghor put it. I then took a black shower and shaved a black shave; I walked a black walk and sat a black sit; I wrote some black lines; I coughed black and sneezed black and ate black too. This last at least is literal: grapes, blackberries, the ripest plums.\n\nSummer 2015\n\n## Da Art of Storytellin' (a Prequel)\n\n## KIESE LAYMON\n\nFrom six in the morning until five in the afternoon, five days a week, for thirty years, my grandmama Catherine's fingers, palms, and wrists wandered deep in the bellies of dead chickens. Grandmama was a buttonhole slicer at a chicken plant in central Mississippi\u2014her job was to slice the belly and pull out the guts of thousands of chickens a day. Grandmama got up every morning around 4:30 a.m. She took her bath, then prepared grits, smoked sausage, and pear preserves for us. After breakfast, Grandmama made me take a teaspoon of cod liver oil \"for my vitamins,\" then she coated the area between her breasts in powder before putting on the clothes she had ironed the night before. I was ten, staying with Grandmama for the summer, and I remember marveling at her preparations and wondering why she got so fresh, so clean, just to leave the house and get dirty.\n\n\"There's layers to this,\" Grandmama often said, when describing her job to folks. She went into that plant every day, knowing it was a laboratory for racial and gendered terror. Still, she wanted to be the best at what she did\u2014and not just the best buttonhole slicer in the plant, but the best, most stylized, most efficient worker in Mississippi. She understood that the audience for her work was not just her coworkers or her white male shift managers, but all the Southern black women workers who preceded her and, most important, all the Southern black women workers coming next.\n\nBy the end of the day, when the two-tone blue Impala crept back into the driveway on the side of our shotgun house, I'd run out to welcome Grandmama home. \"Hey, baby,\" she'd say. \"Let me wash this stank off my hands before I hug your neck.\"\n\nThis stank wasn't that stink. This stank was root and residue of black Southern poverty, and devalued black Southern labor, black Southern excellence, black Southern imagination, and black Southern woman magic. This was the stank from whence black Southern life, love, and labor came. Even at ten years old, I understood that the presence and necessity of this stank dictated how Grandmama moved on Sundays. As the head of the usher board at Concord Baptist, she sometimes wore the all-white polyester uniform that all the other church ushers wore. On those Sundays, Grandmama was committed to out-freshing the other ushers by draping colorful pearls and fake gold around her neck, or stunting with some shiny shoes she'd gotten from my aunt Linda in Vegas. And Grandmama's outfits, when she wasn't wearing the stale usher board uniform, always had to be fresher this week than the week before.\n\nShe was committed to out-freshing herself, which meant that she was up late on Saturday nights, working like a wizard, taking pieces of this blouse from 1984 and sewing them into these dresses from 1969. Grandmama's primary audience on Sundays, her church sisters, looked with awe and envy at her outfits, inferring she had a fashion industry hookup from Atlanta, or a few secret revenue streams. Not so. This was just how Grandmama brought the stank of her work life into her spiritual communal life, in a way that I loved and laughed at as a kid.\n\nI didn't fully understand or feel inspired by Grandmama's stank or freshness until years later, when I heard the albums ATLiens and Aquemini from those Georgia-based artists called OutKast.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nOne day near the beginning of my junior year in college, 1996, I walked out of my dorm room in Oberlin, Ohio, heading to the gym, when I heard a new sound and a familiar voice blasting from the room of my friend John Norris, a Southern black boy from Clarksville, Tennessee.\n\nMy soliloquy may be hard for some to\n\nswallow\n\nBut so is cod liver oil.\n\nI went into John's room, wondering who was rapping about cod liver oil over reverbed bass, and asked him, \"What the fuck is that?\" It was \"Wheelz of Steel,\" from ATLiens. John handed me the CD. The illustrated cover looked like a comic book, its heroes standing back-to-back in front of a mysterious four-armed force: Big Boi in a letterman jacket with a Braves hat cocked to the right, and Andr\u00e9 in a green turban like something I'd only seen my Grandmama and Mama Lara rock. Big Boi's fingers were clinched, ready to fight. Andr\u00e9's were spread, ready to conjure.\n\nJohn and I listened to the record twice before I borrowed my friend's green Geo, drove to Elyria, and bought ATLiens for myself. Like Soul Food by Atlanta's Goodie Mob, another album I was wearing out at the time\u2014their song \"Thought Process,\" which featured Andr\u00e9, had nudged me through the sadness of missing Mississippi a year earlier\u2014ATLiens was unafraid of the revelatory dimensions of black Southern life. Like Soul Food, ATLliens explored the inevitability of death and the possibility of new life, new movement, and new mojo.\n\nBut something was different.\n\nI already knew OutKast; I loved their first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in part because of the clever way they interpolated funk and soul into rap. ATLiens, however, sounded unlike anything I'd ever heard or imagined. The vocal tones were familiar, but the rhyme patterns, the composition, the production were equal parts red clay, thick buttery grits, and Mars. Nothing sounded like ATLiens. The album instantly changed not just my expectations of music, but my expectations of myself as a young black Southern artist.\n\nBy then, I already knew I was going to be a writer. I had no idea if I would eat off of what I wrote, but I knew I had to write to be a decent human being. I used ink and the page to probe and to remember through essays and sometimes through satire. I was imitating, and maybe interrogating, but I'm not sure that I had any idea of how to use words to imagine and really innovate. All my English teachers talked about the importance of finding \"your voice.\" It always confused me because I knew we all had so many voices, so many audiences, and my teachers seemed only to really want the kind of voice that sat with its legs crossed, reading The New York Times. I didn't have to work to find that cross-legged voice\u2014it was the one education necessitated I lead with.\n\nWhat my English teachers didn't say was that voices aren't discovered fully formed, they are built and shaped\u2014and not just by words, punctuation, and sentences, but by the author's intended audience, by the composition's form, and by subject. It was only after listening to ATLiens that I realized in order to get where I needed to go as a human being and an artist, in order to release my own spacey stank blues, I had to write fiction. Dre and Big showed me it was possible to create fake worlds wholly concerned with \"what if\" and \"maybe\" and \"what really was.\"\n\nI remember sitting in my tiny dorm room under my huge Black Lightning poster, next to my tiny picture of Grandmama. I was supposed to be doing a paper on \"The Cask of Amontillado,\" but I was thinking about OutKast's \"Wailin'.\" The song made me know that there was something to be gained, felt, and used in imitating sounds from whence we came, particularly in the minimal hook: the repeated moan of one about to wail. I'd heard that moan in the presence of older Southern black folk my entire life, but I'd never heard it connecting two rhymed verses. Art couldn't get any fresher than that.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBy the mid-nineties, hip-hop was an established art form, foregrounding a wide, historically neglected audience in completely new ways. Never had songs had so many words. Never had songs lacked melodies. Never had songs pushed against the notion of a hook repeated every 45 seconds. Like a lot of Southern black boys, I loved New York hip-hop, although I didn't feel loved or imagined by most of it.\n\nWhen Andr\u00e9 said, \"The South got something to say and that's all I got to say,\" at the Source awards in 1995, I heard him saying that we were no longer going to artistically follow New York. Not because the artists of New York were wack, but because disregarding our particular stank in favor of a stink that didn't love or respect us was like taking a broken elevator down into artistic and spiritual death.\n\nWith OutKast, Dre and Big each carved out their own individual space, and along with sonic contrast\u2014Big lyrically fought and Andr\u00e9 lyrically conjured\u2014they gave us philosophical contrast. When Dre raps, \"No drugs or alcohol so I can get the signal clear as day,\" I remember folks suggesting there was a smidgen of shade being thrown on Big Boi, who on the same album rhymed, \"I got an ounce of dank and a couple of dranks, so let's crank up this session.\" If there was ever shade between them back then, I got the sense, they'd handle it like we Southern black boys did: they'd wrassle it out, talk more shit, hug, and come back ready to out-fresh each other, along with every artist who'd come before them in the making of lyrical art.\n\nOutKast created a different kind of stank, too: an urban Southern stank so familiar with and indebted to the gospel, blues, jazz, rock, and funk born in the rural black South. And while they were lyrically competing against each other on track after track, together Big and Dre were united, railing and wailing against New York and standing up to a post-civil-rights South chiding young Southern black boys to pull up our pants and fight white supremacy with swords of respectability and narrow conceptions of excellence. ATLiens made me love being black, Southern, celibate, sexy, awkward, free of drugs and alcohol, Grandmama's grandbaby, and cooler than a polar bear's toenails.\n\nRight out of Oberlin, I earned a fellowship in the MFA program at Indiana University, to study fiction. For the first time in my life, I was thinking critically about narrative construction in everything from malt liquor commercials to the Bible. It was around that time that Lauryn Hill gave my generation an elixir to calm, compete with, and call out a culture insistent on coming up with new ways to devalue black women. In The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, I saw myself as the intimate partner doing wrong by Lauryn, and she made me consider how for all the differences between Andr\u00e9 and Big Boi, they shared in the same kind of misogynoir on their first two albums. (Particularly on the song \"Jazzy Belle\": \". . . even Bo knew, that you got poked \/ like acupuncture patients while our nation is a boat.\") Miseducation had me expecting a lot more from my male heroes. A month later, OutKast dropped Aquemini.\n\nDeep into the album, the song \"West Savannah\" ends with a skit. We hear a young black boy trying to impress his friend by calling a young black girl on the phone, three-way. When the girl answers, we hear a mama, an auntie, or a grandmama tell her to \"get your ass in here.\" The girl tells the boy she has to go\u2014and then the boy tells her that his friend wants some sex. The girl emphatically lets the boy know there is no way she's having sex with him, before hanging up in his face. This is where the next song, \"Da Art of Storytellin' (Pt. 1),\" begins.\n\nIn the first verse, Big rhymes about a sexual experience with a girl named Suzy Screw, during which he exchanges a CD and a poster for oral sex. In the second, Andr\u00e9 raps about Suzy's friend Sasha Thumper. As Andr\u00e9's verse proceeds, he and Sasha are lying on their backs \"staring at the stars above, talking bout what we gonna be when we grow up.\" When Dre asks Sasha what she wants to be, Sasha Thumper responds, \"Alive.\" The song ends with the news that Sasha Thumper has overdosed after partnering with a man who treats her wrong. Here was \"another black experience,\" as Dre would say to end another verse on the album.\n\nHip-hop has always embraced metafiction. In the next track\u2014\"Da Art of Storytellin' (Pt. 2)\"\u2014Big and Dre deliver a pair of verses about the last recording they'll ever create due to an environmental apocalypse. We've long had emcees rhyming about the potency of their own rhymes. But I have never heard a song attribute the end of the world to a rhyme. In the middle of Dre's verse, he nudges us to understand that there's something more happening in this song: \"Hope I'm not over your head, but if so you will catch on later.\"\n\nBig Boi alludes to the book of Revelation, mentions some ballers trying to unsuccessfully repent and make it to heaven, and then rhymes about getting his family and heading to the Dungeon, their basement studio in Atlanta\u2014the listener can easily imagine it as a bunker\u2014where he'll record one last song. The world is ending. He grabs the mic: \"I got in the booth to run the final portion.\" Of course, this ending describes the very track we're hearing, thus bringing the fictional apocalypse of the song into our real world.\n\nI was reading Octavia Butler's Kindred at the time Aquemini came out. Steeped in all that stank, I conceived of a book within a book within a book, written by a young Southern black girl whose parents disappear. \"I'm a round runaway character\" was the first sentence my narrator wrote. I decided that she would be an emcee, but I didn't know her name. I knew that she would tell the world that she was an ellipsis, a runaway ellipsis willing to do any and all things to stop her black Southern community from being written off the face of the earth. I scribbled these notes on the blank pages of Kindred while Aquemini kept playing in the background. By the time the song \"Liberation\" was done, Long Division, my first novel, was born.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI thought about interviewing Andr\u00e9 and Big Boi for this piece. I was going to get them to spend the night at this huge house I'm staying in this year as the writer in residence at the University of Mississippi. I planned on inviting Grandmama, too. Between the four of us, I thought we could get to the bottom of some necessary stank, and maybe play a game of \"Who's Fresher?: Georgia vs. Mississippi.\" But the interviews fell through, and Grandmama refused to come up to Oxford because I'm the only black person she knows here, and she tends to avoid places where she doesn't know many black folks.\n\nI kept imagining the meeting, though, and I thought a lot about what in the world I would say to Big Boi and Andr\u00e9. As dope as they are, there's nothing I want to ask them about their art. I experienced it, and I'm thankful they extended the traditions and frequencies from whence we came. Honestly, the only thing I'd want to ask them would be about their grandmamas. I'd want to know if their grandmamas thought they were beautiful. I'd want to know how their grandmamas wanted to be loved. I'd want to know how good they were at loving their grandmamas on days when the world wasn't so kind.\n\nThe day that my grandmama came home after work without the stank of chicken guts, powder, perfume, sweat, and Coke-Cola, I knew that her time at the plant was done. On that day\u2014when her body wouldn't let her work anymore\u2014I knew I'd spend the rest of my life trying to honor her and make a way for her to be as fresh and remembered as she wants to be.\n\nDue to diabetes, Grandmama moves mostly in a wheelchair these days, but she's still the freshest person in my world. Visually, I'm not so fresh. I wear the same thing every day. But I am a Southern black worker, committed to building stank-ass art rooted in honesty, will, and imagination.\n\nThis weekend, I'm going to drive down to Grandmama's house in central Mississippi. I'm going to bring my computer. I'm going to ask her to sit next to me while I finish this essay about her artistic rituals of labor vis-\u00e0-vis OutKast. I'm going to play ATLiens and Aquemini on her couch while finishing the piece, and think of every conceivable way to thank her for her stank, and for her freshness. I'm going to tell Grandmama that because of her, I know what it's like to be loved responsibly. I'm going to tell her that her love helped me listen, remember, and imagine when I never wanted to listen, remember, or imagine again. I'm going to read the last paragraph of this piece to her, and when Grandmama hugs my neck, I'm going to tell her that when no one in the world believed I was a beautiful Southern black boy, she believed. I'm going to tell Grandmama that her belief is the only reason I'm still alive, that belief in black Southern love is why we work.\n\n## Black and Blue\n\n## GARNETTE CADOGAN\n\n\"My only sin is my skin.\n\nWhat did I do, to be so black and blue?\"\n\n\u2014Fats Waller, \"(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?\"\n\n\"Manhattan's streets I saunter'd, pondering.\"\n\n\u2014Walt Whitman, \"Manhattan's Streets I Saunter'd, Pondering\"\n\nMy love for walking started in childhood, out of necessity. No thanks to a stepfather with heavy hands, I found every reason to stay away from home and was usually out\u2014at some friend's house or at a street party where no minor should be\u2014until it was too late to get public transportation. So I walked.\n\nThe streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1980s were often terrifying\u2014you could, for instance, get killed if a political henchman thought you came from the wrong neighborhood, or even if you wore the wrong color. Wearing orange showed affiliation with one political party and green with the other, and if you were neutral or traveling far from home you chose your colors well. The wrong color in the wrong neighborhood could mean your last day. No wonder, then, that my friends and the rare nocturnal passerby declared me crazy for my long late-night treks that traversed warring political zones. (And sometimes I did pretend to be crazy, shouting non sequiturs when I passed through especially dangerous spots, such as the place where thieves hid on the banks of a storm drain. Predators would ignore or laugh at the kid in his school uniform speaking nonsense.)\n\nI made friends with strangers and went from being a very shy and awkward kid to being an extroverted, awkward one. The beggar, the vendor, the poor laborer\u2014those were experienced wanderers, and they became my nighttime instructors; they knew the streets and delivered lessons on how to navigate and enjoy them. I imagined myself as a Jamaican Tom Sawyer, one moment sauntering down the streets to pick low-hanging mangoes that I could reach from the sidewalk, another moment hanging outside a street party with battling sound systems, each armed with speakers piled to create skyscrapers of heavy bass. These streets weren't frightening. They were full of adventure when they weren't serene. There I'd join forces with a band of merry walkers, who'd miss the last bus by mere minutes, our feet still moving as we put out our thumbs to hitchhike to spots nearer home, making jokes as vehicle after vehicle raced past us. Or I'd get lost in Mittyesque moments, my young mind imagining alternate futures. The streets had their own safety: Unlike at home, there I could be myself without fear of bodily harm. Walking became so regular and familiar that the way home became home.\n\nThe streets had their rules, and I loved the challenge of trying to master them. I learned how to be alert to surrounding dangers and nearby delights, and prided myself on recognizing telling details that my peers missed. Kingston was a map of complex, and often bizarre, cultural and political and social activity, and I appointed myself its nighttime cartographer. I'd know how to navigate away from a predatory pace, and to speed up to chat when the cadence of a gait announced friendliness. It was almost always men I saw. A lone woman walking in the middle of the night was as common a sight as Sasquatch; moonlight pedestrianism was too dangerous for her. Sometimes at night as I made my way down from hills above Kingston, I'd have the impression that the city was set on \"pause\" or in extreme slow motion, as that as I descended I was cutting across Jamaica's deep social divisions. I'd make my way briskly past the mansions in the hills overlooking the city, now transformed into a carpet of dotted lights under a curtain of stars, saunter by middle-class subdivisions hidden behind high walls crowned with barbed wire, and zigzag through neighborhoods of zinc and wooden shacks crammed together and leaning like a tight-knit group of limbo dancers. With my descent came an increase in the vibrancy of street life\u2014except when it didn't; some poor neighborhoods had both the violent gunfights and the eerily deserted streets of the cinematic Wild West. I knew well enough to avoid those even at high noon.\n\nI'd begun hoofing it after dark when I was ten years old. By thirteen I was rarely home before midnight, and some nights found me racing against dawn. My mother would often complain, \"Mek yuh love street suh? Yuh born a hospital; yuh neva born a street.\" (\"Why do you love the streets so much? You were born in a hospital, not in the streets.\")\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI left Jamaica in 1996 to attend college in New Orleans, a city I'd heard called \"the northernmost Caribbean city.\" I wanted to discover\u2014on foot, of course\u2014what was Caribbean and what was American about it. Stately mansions on oak-lined streets with streetcars clanging by, and brightly colored houses that made entire blocks look festive; people in resplendent costumes dancing to funky brass bands in the middle of the street; cuisine\u2014and aromas\u2014that mashed up culinary traditions from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the American South; and a juxtaposition of worlds old and new, odd and familiar: Who wouldn't want to explore this?\n\nOn my first day in the city, I went walking for a few hours to get a feel for the place and to buy supplies to transform my dormitory room from a prison bunker into a welcoming space. When some university staff members found out what I'd been up to, they warned me to restrict my walking to the places recommended as safe to tourists and the parents of freshmen. They trotted out statistics about New Orleans's crime rate. But Kingston's crime rate dwarfed those numbers, and I decided to ignore these well-meant cautions. A city was waiting to be discovered, and I wouldn't let inconvenient facts get in the way. These American criminals are nothing on Kingston's, I thought. They're no real threat to me.\n\nWhat no one had told me was that I was the one who would be considered a threat.\n\nWithin days I noticed that many people on the street seemed apprehensive of me: Some gave me a circumspect glance as they approached, and then crossed the street; others, ahead, would glance behind, register my presence, and then speed up; older white women clutched their bags; young white men nervously greeted me, as if exchanging a salutation for their safety: \"What's up, bro?\" On one occasion, less than a month after my arrival, I tried to help a man whose wheelchair was stuck in the middle of a crosswalk; he threatened to shoot me in the face, then asked a white pedestrian for help.\n\nI wasn't prepared for any of this. I had come from a majority-black country in which no one was wary of me because of my skin color. Now I wasn't sure who was afraid of me. I was especially unprepared for the cops. They regularly stopped and bullied me, asking questions that took my guilt for granted. I'd never received what many of my African American friends call \"The Talk\": No parents had told me how to behave when I was stopped by the police, how to be as polite and cooperative as possible, no matter what they said or did to me. So I had to cobble together my own rules of engagement. Thicken my Jamaican accent. Quickly mention my college. \"Accidentally\" pull out my college identification card when asked for my driver's license.\n\nMy survival tactics began well before I left my dorm. I got out of the shower with the police in my head, assembling a cop-proof wardrobe. Light-colored oxford shirt. V-neck sweater. Khaki pants. Chukkas. Sweatshirt or T-shirt with my university insignia. When I walked I regularly had my identity challenged, but I also found ways to assert it. (So I'd dress Ivy League style, but would, later on, add my Jamaican pedigree by wearing Clarks Desert Boots, the footwear of choice of Jamaican street culture.) Yet the all-American sartorial choice of white T-shirt and jeans, which many police officers see as the uniform of black troublemakers, was off-limits to me\u2014at least, if I wanted to have the freedom of movement I desired.\n\nIn this city of exuberant streets, walking became a complex and often oppressive negotiation. I would see a white woman walking toward me at night and cross the street to reassure her that she was safe. I would forget something at home but not immediately turn around if someone was behind me, because I discovered that a sudden backtrack could cause alarm. (I had a cardinal rule: Keep a wide perimeter from people who might consider me a danger. If not, danger might visit me.) New Orleans suddenly felt more dangerous than Jamaica. The sidewalk was a minefield, and every hesitation and self-censored compensation reduced my dignity. Despite my best efforts, the streets never felt comfortably safe. Even a simple salutation was suspect.\n\nOne night, returning to the house that, eight years after my arrival, I thought I'd earned the right to call my home, I waved to a cop driving by. Moments later, I was against his car in handcuffs. When I later asked him\u2014sheepishly, of course; any other way would have asked for bruises\u2014why he had detained me, he said my greeting had aroused his suspicion. \"No one waves to the police,\" he explained. When I told friends of his response, it was my behavior, not his, that they saw as absurd. \"Now why would you do a dumb thing like that?\" said one. \"You know better than to make nice with police.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nA few days after I left on a visit to Kingston, Hurricane Katrina slashed and pummeled New Orleans. I'd gone not because of the storm but because my adoptive grandmother, Pearl, was dying of cancer. I hadn't wandered those streets in eight years, since my last visit, and I returned to them now mostly at night, the time I found best for thinking, praying, crying. I walked to feel less alienated\u2014from myself, struggling with the pain of seeing my grandmother terminally ill; from my home in New Orleans, underwater and seemingly abandoned; from my home country, which now, precisely because of its childhood familiarity, felt foreign to me. I was surprised by how familiar those streets felt. Here was the corner where the fragrance of jerk chicken greeted me, along with the warm tenor and peace-and-love message of Half Pint's \"Greetings,\" broadcast from a small but powerful speaker to at least a half-mile radius. It was as if I had walked into 1986, down to the soundtrack. And there was the wall of the neighborhood shop, adorned with the Rastafarian colors red, gold, and green along with images of local and international heroes Bob Marley, Marcus Garvey, and Haile Selassie. The crew of boys leaning against it and joshing each other were recognizable; different faces, similar stories. I was astonished at how safe the streets felt to me, once again one black body among many, no longer having to anticipate the many ways my presence might instill fear and how to offer some reassuring body language. Passing police cars were once again merely passing police cars. Jamaican police could be pretty brutal, but they didn't notice me the way American police did. I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can't be invisible in the United States.\n\nWalking had returned to me a greater set of possibilities. And why walk, if not to create a new set of possibilities? Following serendipity, I added new routes to the mental maps I had made from constant walking in that city from childhood to young adulthood, traced variations on the old pathways. Serendipity, a mentor once told me, is a secular way of speaking of grace; it's unearned favor. Seen theologically, then, walking is an act of faith. Walking is, after all, interrupted falling. We see, we listen, we speak, and we trust that each step we take won't be our last, but will lead us into a richer understanding of the self and the world.\n\nIn Jamaica, I felt once again as if the only identity that mattered was my own, not the constricted one that others had constructed for me. I strolled into my better self. I said, along with Kierkegaard, \"I have walked myself into my best thoughts.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen I tried to return to New Orleans from Jamaica a month later, there were no flights. I thought about flying to Texas so I could make my way back to my neighborhood as soon as it opened for reoccupancy, but my adoptive aunt, Maxine, who hated the idea of me returning to a hurricane zone before the end of hurricane season, persuaded me to come to stay in New York City instead. (To strengthen her case she sent me an article about Texans who were buying up guns because they were afraid of the influx of black people from New Orleans.)\n\nThis wasn't a hard sell: I wanted to be in a place where I could travel by foot and, more crucially, continue to reap the solace of walking at night. And I was eager to follow in the steps of the essayists, poets, and novelists who'd wandered that great city before me\u2014Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Alfred Kazin, Elizabeth Hardwick. I had visited the city before, but each trip had felt like a tour in a sports car. I welcomed the chance to stroll. I wanted to walk alongside Whitman's ghost and \"descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.\" So I left Kingston, the popular Jamaican farewell echoing in my mind: \"Walk good!\" Be safe on your journey, in other words, and all the best in your endeavors.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI arrived in New York City, ready to lose myself in Whitman's \"Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus.\" I marveled at what Jane Jacobs praised as \"the ballet of the good city sidewalk\" in her old neighborhood, the West Village. I walked up past midtown skyscrapers, releasing their energy as lively people onto the streets, and on into the Upper West Side, with its regal Beaux Arts apartment buildings, stylish residents, and buzzing streets. Onward into Washington Heights, the sidewalks spilled over with an ebullient mix of young and old Jewish and Dominican American residents, past leafy Inwood, with parks whose grades rose to reveal beautiful views of the Hudson River, up to my home in Kingsbridge in the Bronx, with its rows of brick bungalows and apartment buildings nearby Broadway's bustling sidewalks and the peaceful expanse of Van Cortlandt Park. I went to Jackson Heights in Queens to take in people socializing around garden courtyards in Urdu, Korean, Spanish, Russian, and Hindi. And when I wanted a taste of home, I headed to Brooklyn, in Crown Heights, for Jamaican food and music and humor mixed in with the flavor of New York City. The city was my playground.\n\nI explored the city with friends, and then with a woman I'd begun dating. She walked around endlessly with me, taking in New York City's many pleasures. Coffee shops open until predawn; verdant parks with nooks aplenty; food and music from across the globe; quirky neighborhoods with quirkier residents. My impressions of the city took shape during my walks with her.\n\nAs with the relationship, those first few months of urban exploration were all romance. The city was beguiling, exhilarating, vibrant. But it wasn't long before reality reminded me I wasn't invulnerable, especially when I walked alone.\n\nOne night in the East Village, I was running to dinner when a white man in front of me turned and punched me in the chest with such force that I thought my ribs had braided around my spine. I assumed he was drunk or had mistaken me for an old enemy, but found out soon enough that he'd merely assumed I was a criminal because of my race. When he discovered I wasn't what he imagined, he went on to tell me that his assault was my own fault for running up behind him. I blew off this incident as an aberration, but the mutual distrust between me and the police was impossible to ignore. It felt elemental. They'd enter a subway platform; I'd notice them. (And I'd notice all the other black men registering their presence as well, while just about everyone else remained oblivious to them.) They'd glare. I'd get nervous and glance. They'd observe me steadily. I'd get uneasy. I'd observe them back, worrying that I looked suspicious. Their suspicions would increase. We'd continue the silent, uneasy dialogue until the subway arrived and separated us at last.\n\nI returned to the old rules I'd set for myself in New Orleans, with elaboration. No running, especially at night; no sudden movements; no hoodies; no objects\u2014especially shiny ones\u2014in hand; no waiting for friends on street corners, lest I be mistaken for a drug dealer; no standing near a corner on the cell phone (same reason). As comfort set in, inevitably I began to break some of those rules, until a night encounter sent me zealously back to them, having learned that anything less than vigilance was carelessness.\n\nAfter a sumptuous Italian dinner and drinks with friends, I was jogging to the subway at Columbus Circle\u2014I was running late to meet another set of friends at a concert downtown. I heard someone shouting and I looked up to see a police officer approaching with his gun trained on me. \"Against the car!\" In no time, half a dozen cops were upon me, chucking me against the car and tightly handcuffing me. \"Why were you running?\" \"Where are you going?\" \"Where are you coming from?\" \"I said, why were you running?!\" Since I couldn't answer everyone at once, I decided to respond first to the one who looked most likely to hit me. I was surrounded by a swarm and tried to focus on just one without inadvertently aggravating the others.\n\nIt didn't work. As I answered that one, the others got frustrated that I wasn't answering them fast enough and barked at me. One of them, digging through my already-emptied pockets, asked if I had any weapons, the question more an accusation. Another badgered me about where I was coming from, as if on the fifteenth round I'd decide to tell him the truth he imagined. Though I kept saying\u2014calmly, of course, which meant trying to manage a tone that ignored my racing heart and their spittle-filled shouts in my face\u2014that I had just left friends two blocks down the road, who were yes, sir, yes, officer, of course, officer, all still there and could vouch for me, to meet other friends whose text messages on my phone could verify that, it made no difference.\n\nFor a black man, to assert your dignity before the police was to risk assault. In fact, the dignity of black people meant less to them, which was why I always felt safer being stopped in front of white witnesses than black witnesses. The cops had less regard for the witness and entreaties of black onlookers, whereas the concern of white witnesses usually registered on them. A black witness asking a question or politely raising an objection could quickly become a fellow detainee. Deference to the police, then, was sine qua non for a safe encounter.\n\nThe cops ignored my explanations and my suggestions and continued to snarl at me. All except one of them, a captain. He put his hand on my back, and said to no one in particular, \"If he was running for a long time he would have been sweating.\" He then instructed that the cuffs be removed. He told me that a black man had stabbed someone earlier two or three blocks away and they were searching for him. I noted that I had no blood on me and had told his fellow officers where I'd been and how to check my alibi\u2014unaware that it was even an alibi, as no one had told me why I was being held, and of course, I hadn't dared ask. From what I'd seen, anything beyond passivity would be interpreted as aggression.\n\nThe police captain said I could go. None of the cops who detained me thought an apology was necessary. Like the thug who punched me in the East Village, they seemed to think it was my own fault for running.\n\nHumiliated, I tried not to make eye contact with the onlookers on the sidewalk, and I was reluctant to pass them to be on my way. The captain, maybe noticing my shame, offered to give me a ride to the subway station. When he dropped me off and I thanked him for his help, he said, \"It's because you were polite that we let you go. If you were acting up it would have been different.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI realized that what I least liked about walking in New York City wasn't merely having to learn new rules of navigation and socialization\u2014every city has its own. It was the arbitrariness of the circumstances that required them, an arbitrariness that made me feel like a child again, that infantilized me. When we first learn to walk, the world around us threatens to crash into us. Every step is risky. We train ourselves to walk without crashing by being attentive to our movements, and extra-attentive to the world around us. As adults we walk without thinking, really. But as a black adult I am often returned to that moment in childhood when I'm just learning to walk. I am once again on high alert, vigilant.\n\nSome days, when I am fed up with being considered a troublemaker upon sight, I joke that the last time a cop was happy to see a black male walking was when that male was a baby taking his first steps. On many walks, I ask white friends to accompany me, just to avoid being treated like a threat. Walks in New York City, that is; in New Orleans, a white woman in my company sometimes attracted more hostility. (And it is not lost on me that my woman friends are those who best understand my plight; they have developed their own vigilance in an environment where they are constantly treated as targets of sexual attention.) Much of my walking is as my friend Rebecca once described it: A pantomime undertaken to avoid the choreography of criminality.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWalking while black restricts the experience of walking, renders inaccessible the classic Romantic experience of walking alone. It forces me to be in constant relationship with others, unable to join the New York flaneurs I had read about and hoped to join. Instead of meandering aimlessly in the footsteps of Whitman, Melville, Kazin, and Vivian Gornick, more often I felt that I was tiptoeing in Baldwin's\u2014the Baldwin who wrote, way back in 1960, \"Rare, indeed, is the Harlem citizen, from the most circumspect church member to the most shiftless adolescent, who does not have a long tale to tell of police incompetence, injustice, or brutality. I myself have witnessed and endured it more than once.\" Walking as a black man has made me feel simultaneously more removed from the city, in my awareness that I am perceived as suspect, and more closely connected to it, in the full attentiveness demanded by my vigilance. It has made me walk more purposefully in the city, becoming part of its flow, rather than observing, standing apart.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBut it also means that I'm still trying to arrive in a city that isn't quite mine. One definition of home is that it's somewhere we can most be ourselves. And when are we more ourselves but when walking, that natural state in which we repeat one of the first actions we learned? Walking\u2014the simple, monotonous act of placing one foot before the other to prevent falling\u2014turns out not to be so simple if you're black. Walking alone has been anything but monotonous for me; monotony is a luxury.\n\nA foot leaves, a foot lands, and our longing gives it momentum from rest to rest. We long to look, to think, to talk, to get away. But more than anything else, we long to be free. We want the freedom and pleasure of walking without fear\u2014without others' fear\u2014wherever we choose. I've lived in New York City for almost a decade and have not stopped walking its fascinating streets. And I have not stopped longing to find the solace that I found as a kid on the streets of Kingston. Much as coming to know New York City's streets has made it closer to home to me, the city also withholds itself from me via those very streets. I walk them, alternately invisible and too prominent. So I walk caught between memory and forgetting, between memory and forgiveness.\n\n## The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning\n\n## CLAUDIA RANKINE\n\nA friend recently told me that when she gave birth to her son, before naming him, before even nursing him, her first thought was, I have to get him out of this country. We both laughed. Perhaps our black humor had to do with understanding that getting out was neither an option nor the real desire. This is it, our life. Here we work, hold citizenship, pensions, health insurance, family, friends, and on and on. She couldn't, she didn't leave. Years after his birth, whenever her son steps out of their home, her status as the mother of a living human being remains as precarious as ever. Added to the natural fears of every parent facing the randomness of life is this other knowledge of the ways in which institutional racism works in our country. Ours was the laughter of vulnerability, fear, recognition, and an absurd stuckness.\n\nI asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. \"The condition of black life is one of mourning,\" she said bluntly. For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son's reality: At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black.\n\nEleven days after I was born, on September 15, 1963, four black girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, fifty-two years later, six black women and three black men have been shot to death while at a Bible-study meeting at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. They were killed by a homegrown terrorist, self-identified as a white supremacist, who might also be a \"disturbed young man\" (as various news outlets have described him). It has been reported that a black woman and her five-year-old granddaughter survived the shooting by playing dead. They are two of the three survivors of the attack. The white family of the suspect says that for them this is a difficult time. This is indisputable. But for African American families, this living in a state of mourning and fear remains commonplace.\n\nThe spectacle of the shooting suggests an event out of time, as if the killing of black people with white-supremacist justification interrupts anything other than regular television programming. But Dylann Storm Roof did not create himself from nothing. He has grown up with the rhetoric and orientation of racism. He has seen white men like Benjamin F. Haskell, Thomas Gleason, and Michael Jacques plead guilty to, or be convicted of, burning Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield, Massachusetts, just hours after President Obama was elected. Every racist statement he has made he could have heard all his life. He, along with the rest of us, has been living with slain black bodies.\n\nWe live in a country where Americans assimilate corpses in their daily comings and goings. Dead blacks are a part of normal life here. Dying in ship hulls, tossed into the Atlantic, hanging from trees, beaten, shot in churches, gunned down by the police, or warehoused in prisons: Historically, there is no quotidian without the enslaved, chained, or dead black body to gaze upon or to hear about or to position a self against. When blacks become overwhelmed by our culture's disorder and protest (ultimately to our own detriment, because protest gives the police justification to militarize, as they did in Ferguson), the wrongheaded question that is asked is, What kind of savages are we? Rather than, What kind of country do we live in?\n\nIn 1955, when Emmett Till's mutilated and bloated body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River and placed for burial in a nailed-shut pine box, his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, demanded his body be transported from Mississippi, where Till had been visiting relatives, to his home in Chicago. Once the Chicago funeral home received the body, she made a decision that would create a new pathway for how to think about a lynched body. She requested an open coffin and allowed photographs to be taken and published of her dead son's disfigured body.\n\nMobley's refusal to keep private grief private allowed a body that meant nothing to the criminal-justice system to stand as evidence. By placing both herself and her son's corpse in positions of refusal relative to the etiquette of grief, she \"disidentified\" with the tradition of the lynched figure left out in public view as a warning to the black community, thereby using the lynching tradition against itself. The spectacle of the black body, in her hands, publicized the injustice mapped onto her son's corpse. \"Let the people see what I see,\" she said, adding, \"I believe that the whole United States is mourning with me.\"\n\nIt's very unlikely that her belief in a national mourning was fully realized, but her desire to make mourning enter our day-to-day world was a new kind of logic. In refusing to look away from the flesh of our domestic murders, by insisting we look with her upon the dead, she reframed mourning as a method of acknowledgment that helped energize the civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s.\n\nThe decision not to release photos of the crime scene in Charleston, perhaps out of deference to the families of the dead, doesn't forestall our mourning. But in doing so, the bodies that demonstrate all too tragically that \"black skin is not a weapon\" (as one protest poster read last year) are turned into an abstraction. It's one thing to imagine nine black bodies bleeding out on a church floor, and another thing to see it. The lack of visual evidence remains in contrast to what we saw in Ferguson, where the police, in their refusal to move Michael Brown's body, perhaps unknowingly continued where Till's mother left off.\n\nAfter Brown was shot six times, twice in the head, his body was left facedown in the street by the police officers. Whatever their reasoning, by not moving Brown's corpse for four hours after his shooting, the police made mourning his death part of what it meant to take in the details of his story. No one could consider the facts of Michael Brown's interaction with the Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson without also thinking of the bullet-riddled body bleeding on the asphalt. It would be a mistake to presume that everyone who saw the image mourned Brown, but once exposed to it, a person had to decide whether his dead black body mattered enough to be mourned. (Another option, of course, is that it becomes a spectacle for white pornography: the dead body as an object that satisfies an illicit desire. Perhaps this is where Dylann Storm Roof stepped in.)\n\nBlack Lives Matter, the movement founded by the activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, began with the premise that the incommensurable experience of systemic racism creates an unequal playing field. The American imagination has never been able to fully recover from its white-supremacist beginnings. Consequently, our laws and attitudes have been straining against the devaluation of the black body. Despite good intentions, the associations of blackness with inarticulate, bestial criminality persist beneath the appearance of white civility. This assumption both frames and determines our individual interactions and experiences as citizens.\n\nThe American tendency to normalize situations by centralizing whiteness was consciously or unconsciously demonstrated again when certain whites, like the president of Smith College, sought to alter the language of \"Black Lives Matter\" to \"All Lives Matter.\" What on its surface was intended to be interpreted as a humanist move\u2014\"aren't we all just people here?\"\u2014didn't take into account a system inured to black corpses in our public spaces. When the judge in the Charleston bond hearing for Dylann Storm Roof called for support of Roof's family, it was also a subtle shift away from valuing the black body in our time of deep despair.\n\nAnti-black racism is in the culture. It's in our laws, in our advertisements, in our friendships, in our segregated cities, in our schools, in our Congress, in our scientific experiments, in our language, on the Internet, in our bodies no matter our race, in our communities, and, perhaps most devastatingly, in our justice system. The unarmed, slain black bodies in public spaces turn grief into our everyday feeling that something is wrong everywhere and all the time, even if locally things appear normal. Having coffee, walking the dog, reading the paper, taking the elevator to the office, dropping the kids off at school: All of this good life is surrounded by the ambient feeling that at any given moment, a black person is being killed in the street or in his home by the armed hatred of a fellow American.\n\nThe Black Lives Matter movement can be read as an attempt to keep mourning an open dynamic in our culture because black lives exist in a state of precariousness. Mourning then bears both the vulnerability inherent in black lives and the instability regarding a future for those lives. Unlike earlier black-power movements that tried to fight or segregate for self-preservation, Black Lives Matter aligns with the dead, continues the mourning, and refuses the forgetting in front of all of us. If the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s civil rights movement made demands that altered the course of American lives and backed up those demands with the willingness to give up your life in service of your civil rights, with Black Lives Matter, a more internalized change is being asked for: recognition.\n\nThe truth, as I see it, is that if black men and women, black boys and girls, mattered, if we were seen as living, we would not be dying simply because whites don't like us. Our deaths inside a system of racism existed before we were born. The legacy of black bodies as property and subsequently three-fifths human continues to pollute the white imagination. To inhabit our citizenry fully, we have to not only understand this, but also grasp it. In the words of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, \"The problem is we have to find some way with these dialogues to show and to encourage the white liberal to stop being a liberal and become an American radical.\" And, as my friend the critic and poet Fred Moten has written: \"I believe in the world and want to be in it. I want to be in it all the way to the end of it because I believe in another world and I want to be in that.\" This other world, that world, would presumably be one where black living matters. But we can't get there without fully recognizing what is here.\n\nDylann Storm Roof's unmediated hatred of black people; Black Lives Matter; citizens' videotaping the killings of blacks; the Ferguson Police Department leaving Brown's body in the street\u2014all these actions support Mamie Till Mobley's belief that we need to see or hear the truth. We need the truth of how the bodies died to interrupt the course of normal life. But if keeping the dead at the forefront of our consciousness is crucial for our body politic, what of the families of the dead? How must it feel to a family member for the deceased to be more important as evidence than as an individual to be buried and laid to rest?\n\nMichael Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, was kept away from her son's body because it was evidence. She was denied the rights of a mother, a sad fact reminiscent of pre\u2013Civil War times, when as a slave she would have had no legal claim to her offspring. McSpadden learned of her new identity as a mother of a dead son from bystanders: \"There were some girls down there had recorded the whole thing,\" she told reporters. One girl, she said, \"showed me a picture on her phone. She said, 'Isn't that your son?' I just bawled even harder. Just to see that, my son lying there lifeless, for no apparent reason.\" Circling the perimeter around her son's body, McSpadden tried to disperse the crowd: \"All I want them to do is pick up my baby.\"\n\nMcSpadden, unlike Mamie Till Mobley, seemed to have little desire to expose her son's corpse to the media. Her son was not an orphan body for everyone to look upon. She wanted him covered and removed from sight. He belonged to her, her baby. After Brown's corpse was finally taken away, two weeks passed before his family was able to see him. This loss of control and authority might explain why after Brown's death, McSpadden was supposedly in the precarious position of accosting vendors selling T-shirts that demanded justice for Michael Brown that used her son's name. Not only were the procedures around her son's corpse out of her hands; his name had been commoditized and assimilated into our modes of capitalism.\n\nSome of McSpadden's neighbors in Ferguson also wanted to create distance between themselves and the public life of Brown's death. They did not need a constant reminder of the ways black bodies don't matter to law enforcement officers in their neighborhood. By the request of the community, the original makeshift memorial\u2014with flowers, pictures, notes, and teddy bears\u2014was finally removed by Brown's father on what would have been his birthday and replaced by an official plaque installed on the sidewalk next to where Brown died. The permanent reminder can be engaged or stepped over, depending on the pedestrian's desires.\n\nIn order to be away from the site of the murder of her son, Tamir Rice, Samaria moved out of her Cleveland home and into a homeless shelter. (Her family eventually relocated her.) \"The whole world has seen the same video like I've seen,\" she said about Tamir's being shot by a police officer. The video, which was played and replayed in the media, documented the two seconds it took the police to arrive and shoot; the two seconds that marked the end of her son's life and that became a document to be examined by everyone. It's possible this shared scrutiny explains why the police held his twelve-year-old body for six months after his death. Everyone could see what the police would have to explain away. The justice system wasn't able to do it, and a judge found probable cause to charge the officer who shot Rice with murder, while a grand jury declined to indict any of the officers involved. Meanwhile, for Samaria Rice, her unburied son's memory made her neighborhood unbearable.\n\nRegardless of the wishes of these mothers\u2014mothers of men like Brown, John Crawford III, or Eric Garner, and also mothers of women and girls like Rekia Boyd and Aiyana Stanley-Jones, each of whom was killed by the police\u2014their children's deaths will remain within the public discourse. For those who believe the same behavior that got them killed if exhibited by a white man or boy would not have ended his life, the subsequent failure to indict or convict the police officers involved in these various cases requires that public mourning continue and remain present indefinitely. \"I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back,\" Toni Morrison said in April. She went on to say: \"I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, 'Is it over?' I will say yes.\" Morrison is right to suggest that this action would signal change, but the real change needs to be a rerouting of interior belief. It's an individual challenge that needs to happen before any action by a political justice system would signify true societal change.\n\nThe Charleston murders alerted us to the reality that a system so steeped in anti-black racism means that on any given day it can be open season on any black person\u2014old or young, man, woman, or child. There exists no equivalent reality for white Americans. We can distance ourselves from this fact until the next horrific killing, but we won't be able to outrun it. History's authority over us is not broken by maintaining a silence about its continued effects.\n\nA sustained state of national mourning for black lives is called for in order to point to the undeniability of their devaluation. The hope is that recognition will break a momentum that laws haven't altered. Susie Jackson; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton; DePayne Middleton-Doctor; Ethel Lee Lance; the Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons, Sr.; the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney; Cynthia Hurd; Tywanza Sanders; and Myra Thompson were murdered because they were black. It's extraordinary how ordinary our grief sits inside this fact. One friend said, \"I am so afraid, every day.\" Her son's childhood feels impossible, because he will have to be\u2014has to be\u2014so much more careful. Our mourning, this mourning, is in time with our lives. There is no life outside of our reality here. Is this something that can be seen and known by parents of white children? This is the question that nags me. National mourning, as advocated by Black Lives Matter, is a mode of intervention and interruption that might itself be assimilated into the category of public annoyance. This is altogether possible; but also possible is the recognition that it's a lack of feeling for another that is our problem. Grief, then, for these deceased others might align some of us, for the first time, with the living.\n\n## Know Your Rights!\n\n## EMILY RABOTEAU\n\nOn the Saturday after the Charleston church massacre wherein nine worshippers at one of the nation's oldest black churches were slaughtered during Bible study by a white gunman hoping to ignite a race war, we dragged our kids to the east side to walk them over New York City's oldest standing bridge. It seemed as good a way as any to kill a weekend afternoon. The High Bridge, which was built with much fanfare in the mid nineteenth century as part of the Croton Aqueduct system and as a promenade connecting Upper Manhattan to the Bronx over the Harlem River, had recently\u2014and somewhat miraculously\u2014reopened after forty-odd years of disuse. I say \"miraculously\" because the bridge was an infrastructure most of us had come to accept as blighted, even as some civic groups had coalesced to resurrect it. In the back of our minds that summer of 2015, as an uprising and its violent suppression raged in Missouri, was the problem of when and how to talk to our children about protecting themselves from the police.\n\nAt what age is such a conversation appropriate? By what age is it critical? How could it not be despairing? And what, precisely, should be said? The boy was four then. The girl, just two.\n\nThe day was hot. En route to the bridge we felt no reprieve from the sun, just as we'd felt no relief from the pileup of bad news about blacks being murdered with impunity. When we learned of the terror at AME Emanuel in Charleston, we had not yet recovered from the unlawful death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, nor the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, nor the chokehold death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, nor the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida, nor the shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, to name but a few triggers of civil unrest. We weren't surprised there were no indictments in these cases, sadly enough, but we were righteously indignant. The deaths seemed to be cascading in rapid succession, each one tripping a live wire, like the feet of Muybridge's galloping horse.\n\nThe picture we were getting, and not because it was growing worse, but because our technology now exposed it, was clear and mounting evidence of discriminatory systems that don't treat or protect our citizens equally, and escalating dissent was giving rise to a movement that insists what should be evident to everyone: Black Lives Matter. There were hashtag alerts for pop-up protests in malls, die-ins on roads, and other staged acts of civil disobedience such as disruptions of white people eating their brunch. Protesters against police brutality dusted off some slogans from the civil rights era, such as \"No justice\u2014no peace!\" but others were au courant: \"I can't breathe,\" \"Hands up, don't shoot!\" \"White silence is violence,\" and most poignant to me as a mother, \"Is my son next?\"\n\n\"It's too hot and my legs are too small,\" our son protested on the way to the bridge.\n\nThe boy was right\u2014it was hot and getting hotter. He was tall for four but still so little. When standing at our front door, his nose just cleared the height of the doorknob. He was the same size as the pair of boys depicted in a two-panel cartoon by Ben Sargent circulating widely on my Facebook feed that summer. Both panels depict a little boy at the threshold, on the verge of stepping outdoors. The drawings are nearly identical except that the first boy is white and the second, black. \"I'm goin' out, Mom!\" each boy calls to a mother outside of the frame. The white boy's mother simply replies, \"Put on your jacket.\" But the other mother's instructions comprise so intricate, leery, and vexed a warning that her words obstruct the exit: \"Put on your jacket, keep your hands in sight at all times, don't make any sudden moves, keep your mouth shut around police, don't run, don't wear a hoodie, don't give them an excuse to hurt you . . .\" and so on until the text in her speech bubble blurs, as in a painting by Glenn Ligon. The cartoon is titled, \"Still Two Americas.\"\n\nI didn't wish to be her, the mother who needed to say, \"Some people will read you as black and therefore X.\" Why should I be the fearful mother? Nor did I covet the white mother's casual regard. I wanted to be the mother who got to say to her children, \"Keep your eyes open for interesting details and take notes,\" as well as, \"Enjoy yourselves!\" on their way out the door.\n\nBut for now, I carried our sweaty girl down 173rd Street on my back while my husband led our stubborn son by the hand. You know the thermometer's popping in Washington Heights when there aren't any Dominicans out on the sidewalks playing dominoes. Nobody had yet cranked open the fire hydrants. The heat knocked out the girl as if it were a club. The boy was in a rotten mood. He demanded a drink then rejected the water we'd packed. He whined that the walk was too long, then challenged our authority in a dozen other hectoring ways until we at last arrived at Highbridge Park. There he refused to descend the hundred stairs to the bridge by flinging himself onto the asphalt with his arms and legs bent in the style of a swastika, not five feet from a dead rat. The kid's defiance bothered us for all the usual reasons a parent should find it irksome, but also because if allowed to incubate in the ghetto where we live, that defiance could get him killed.\n\nOur son was soon coaxed down the vertiginous stairs by the magical horn of an Amtrak train on the railway beneath the bridge. He has explained to me his fierce attraction to trains and boats and vehicles in general with irritation that I didn't already know the answer: \"They take you somewhere else.\" That's just it. From the time your children begin walking, they are moving away from you. This is as it should be, even when you can't protect them from harm with anything but the inadequate outerwear of your love.\n\nA sweet old man in seersucker shorts stopped us at the entrance to the bridge to make sure we appreciated the marvel of its rehabilitation. He was something of a history buff and spoke in a European accent\u2014Greek, I think. He could recall when the bridge was shut down after falling into long decline, and the time before that when miscreants and vandals tossed projectiles over the guardrail into the polluted water below or at the traffic on the Harlem River Drive. Thanks to him, I know that the bridge was a feat of engineering originally modeled after a Roman aqueduct, siphoning water from Westchester County through pipes beneath its walkway into the city, enabling New Yorkers to enjoy their first indoor plumbing (including the flush toilet). The old man never thought he'd live to see the day when the High Bridge was back in business, and was proud that the citizen-led campaign to reopen it had succeeded. \"This bridge changed everything,\" the old man said in wonderment, as if the relic was a truer paean to empire than the skyscrapers twinkling in the skyline far to the south of us\u2014the Chrysler Building, the former Citicorp Center, and the spire of the Empire State. Dutifully, we paraded across to the Bronx. Maybe it was because I so admired the old man's perspective, attuned as it was to a less conspicuous wonder of the world, that on our return trip home I noticed a mural I could have sworn had not been there before.\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\nArtist: Nelson Rivas, aka Cekis. Washington Heights, Upper Manhattan, Wadsworth Avenue and 174th Street, 2009. \"If you are detained or arrested by a police officer, demand to speak with an attorney and don't tell them anything until an attorney is present.\" \"Ud. no tiene que estar de acuerdo con un chequeo de si mismo, su carro o su casa. No trate f\u00edsicamente de parar la polic\u00eda. Solo diga que ud. no da permiso para el chequeo. Tienes el derecho de no aceptarlo.\" \"Ud. tiene el derecho de observar y filmar actividades policiales.\"\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!\" the mural trumpeted in capital letters. How had it escaped my attention? The artwork covered a brick wall abutting the twenty-four-hour Laundromat I passed every weekday morning on the walk to the children's day care. A vision of tropical blues, it splashed out from the gritty gray surroundings, creating an illusion of depth. My eyes drank it in.\n\nThis mural operates like a comic strip in panels marrying image and text. In the first panel, a youngster is carded by a law enforcement official. In the second, a goateed man in a baseball cap is being handcuffed. In the third, a group of citizens stare evenly outward. One of them wears a look of disgust, and a T-shirt that says, \"4th Amendment,\" a sly allusion to the part of our constitution that protects us against unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause. Another holds his cell phone aloft to record what is happening on the street. \"You have the right to film and observe police activity,\" the mural states in Spanish, appropriate for a neighborhood where Spanish is the dominant language and where young men of color are regularly stopped and frisked by the police. In the lower left-hand corner the Miranda rights are paraphrased in English.\n\nMy first instinct was to take a picture of the mural so that I could carry it with me in my pocket. I was grateful for it, not only as a thing of beauty on the gallery of the street, but also as a kind of answer to the question that had been troubling us\u2014how to inform our children about the harassment they might face. The mural struck me as an act of love for the people who would pass it by. I understood why it had been made, and why it had been made here in the hood next to a Laundromat as opposed to on Fifth Avenue next to Henri Bendel, Tiffany's, or Saks. It was armor against the cruelty of the world. It was also a salve, to reclaim physical and psychic space. I wondered who had done it.\n\nAfter some Internet sleuthing I discovered the painter was a Chilean artist who goes by the tag name Cekis, and that this mural was the first of several public artworks commissioned by a coalition of grassroots organizations called People's Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability. The other Know Your Rights murals were spread out across four of New York City's five boroughs (excluding Staten Island, where a great number of cops live) in poor neighborhoods most plagued by police misconduct. For the rest of that summer and into the fall, I photographed as many of them as I could, like a magpie collecting bright things for her nest.\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\nLead Artist: Sophia Dawson. Know Your Rights, Harlem, Upper Manhattan, 138th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, 2013. \"Write down the officer's badge #, name, and\/or other identifying info.\" \"Get medical attention if needed and take pictures of injuries.\" \"You don't have to answer any questions from police. When they approach, say, 'Am I being detained, or am I free to go?' If they detain you, stay silent + demand a lawyer. A frisk is only a pat down. If police try to do more than that say loudly, 'I do not consent to this search.' \" \"You have the right to observe, photograph, record, and film police activity.\"\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe second mural I shot was in central Harlem.\n\nAs with the mural in Washington Heights, I chose to capture a passerby in the frame, to give a sense of scale but with the intent to preserve the subject's anonymity. Thrown against a sharp white background, the man in Harlem appears in silhouette, his beard like Thelonious Monk's, his shadow extending from his feet, and the shadow of the fire escape above him slanting down against the mural like the bars of a cage. A woman depicted in the mural's foreground holds a bullhorn to her mouth. A portion of the text reads, \"Write down the officer's badge number, name, and\/or other identifying info. You don't have to answer any questions from police.\" Her advice is specifically targeted to those at risk of being stopped and frisked.\n\nStop-and-frisk policing was implemented in New York as part of an increased trend of enforcement that began in response to rising crime and the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and '90s. The technique disproportionately affects young men of color. (From 2004 through 2012, African Americans and Hispanics were subject to nearly 90 percent of the 4.4 million stop-and-frisk actions despite constituting only about half of the city's population.) In black and Latino neighborhoods like Harlem and Washington Heights, residents often view the police, a force ostensibly there to protect them, with mistrust and fear. In 2013, the year the Harlem mural was made, a federal court judged the use of stop-and-frisk tactics to be excessive and unconstitutional. Since then, their use has declined. Critics of reducing the practice predicted a rise in crime. Instead, overall crime has dropped. I would like to believe these statistics mean it's growing slightly safer for my children to walk.\n\nYul-san Liem, who works for one of the activist organizations that makes up People's Justice, explained to me that the murals were financed by the Center for Constitutional Rights. \"Visual art communicates differently than the written or spoken word,\" she commented. \"By creating Know Your Rights murals, we seek to bring important information directly to the streets where it is needed the most, and in a way that is memorable and visually striking.\"\n\nPeople's Justice formed in 2007 in the wake of the NYPD killing of the unarmed black man Sean Bell the day before his wedding. \"It wasn't an isolated incident,\" Liem lamented, recalling the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed black man shot forty-one times by police, and the assault of Abner Louima, who was sodomized by police with a broom handle in 1997, allegedly told to \"Take that, nigger!\" Liem said, \"Our original goal was to highlight the systemic nature of police violence in communities of color. We've taken a proactive approach to empowerment that includes organizing neighborhood-based Cop Watch teams and outreach that uses public art as a means of education. It's about shifting culture and creating hope.\"\n\nMaybe that's what I was scavenging for. Hope. I like how Emily Dickinson defined it\u2014\"the thing with feathers.\"\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\nArtist: Dasic Fern\u00e1ndez. Know Your Rights, Bushwick, Brooklyn, Irving Avenue and Gates Avenue, 2011. \"If you are harassed by police, write down the officer's badge number, name, and\/or other identifying information. Get medical attention if you need it and take pictures of any injuries.\" \"All students have the right to attend school in a safe, secure, non-threatening and respectful learning environment in which they are free from harassment.\" \"No tenant can be evicted from their apartment without being taken to housing court.\" \"Si ud. es detenido o arrestado por un polic\u00eda, pida hablar con un abogado immediatamente. No diga nada hasta que tiene un abogado presente.\" \"Owners are required by law to keep their buildings safe, well maintained and in good repair. If not, call 911.\"\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe third mural that I shot was in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I had difficulty finding it, in part because Bushwick is a neighborhood of murals but also because Liem had given me bum directions. I lost myself in the rainbow spectacle of street art. There was Nelson Mandela on a wall overlooking the parking lot of a White Castle, but where was the mural I sought? I asked a group of kids in Catholic school uniforms if they knew where I could find it. They all claimed to know the Know Your Rights mural, but none could give me an exact address. Either it was somewhere down Knickerbocker Avenue or else it was located in the opposite direction past three or four schoolyards and a car wash. In the end, one girl kindly volunteered to walk me there. She wore a purple backpack, braces on her teeth, and a gold name necklace that said coincidentally (or not) \"Esperanza.\" Esperanza told me with excitement that she'd be getting an iPhone like mine for her thirteenth birthday. After perambulating for a half an hour we finally located the mural in an overgrown lot behind a chain-link fence. We'd had so many false sightings at that point that I sensed it was part of the girl's mental, rather than physical, landscape. It rose out of the weeds in pastel shades like an enormous Easter egg. \"I love this one,\" she confessed. \"It's so big.\"\n\nAs with the murals in Washington Heights and Harlem, the text of the Bushwick mural exhorts the viewer to watch and film police activities. This time the message is underscored by a figure in the foreground who points to her enormous eye as if to say, \"Watch out. Keep your eyes open.\" A man directly behind her uses his phone to film a police officer making an arrest in the mural's background. The phone is configured as a weapon for social change. The teenager that I photograph walking past the mural is also on the phone. Though she appears oblivious to the mural, she also appears, in the context of my photo, to be wielding a tool. That is, the phone distracts her from being present but she could also deploy its camera at any moment to record what's happening on the street.\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\nArtist: Dasic Fern\u00e1ndez. Know Your Rights, Long Island City, Queens, Thirty-fifth Avenue and Twelfth Street, 2012. \"If you are HARRASSED by police, write down the officer BADGE number, name and\/or other identifying information. Take PICTURES of any INJURIES.\" \"Ud no tiene que estar de aquerdo con un chequeo de si mismo, su carro o su casa. No pare f\u00edsicamente a la polic\u00eda. Diga que ud. no da permiso para el chequeo.\"\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe fourth mural that I shot was painted on a corrugated fence in Long Island City, Queens, across from the Ravenswood housing projects. On my way through the projects I passed a barefoot lady in a church hat pushing a stroller full of cans. She was involved in a heated argument over a Metrocard with a man invisible to me. In the middle of an invective she stopped to tell me he was a lying thief. \"I believe you,\" I said, emphatically. \"He's a jerk.\" We smiled at each other. She returned to her dispute and I went on my way.\n\n\"If you are HARASSED by police . . .\" the Long Island City mural advises, \". . . take PICTURES of any INJURIES.\" Again, the mural is a backdrop to walking but this time, because it consists entirely of text, the message is even starker. A woman is about to cross the street. I don't know where she's going, or what she's looking at. She may be checking for oncoming traffic or reading the warning on the mural. Her braids swing across her back as her sneaker approaches the curb. My friend the writer Garnette Cadogan has said, \"Walking is among the most dignified of human activities.\" But here, the woman's simple dignified act of walking, whether home from work or school, or to the bodega for a carton of milk, is erupted by the somber memo that hangs in the background. The public space feels contested and even traumatic because of the public art. The intersection looks hazardous, like something is about to hit her.\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\nArtist: Trust Your Struggle (collective), Trust Your Struggle, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Macdonough Street, 2010. \"Justice or Just Us.\" \"LOVE\/HATE.\" \"Stay calm and in control. Don't get into an argument. Remember officer's badge and patrol car number. Don't resist, even if you believe you're innocent. You don't have to consent to be searched. Try to find a witness & get their name & contact. Anything you say can be used against you. Know Your Rights. Trust Your Struggle. Spread love. It's the Brooklyn way. Didn't pass the bar, but know a little bit; enough that you won't illegally search N.Y.\"\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe fifth mural I shot was in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the swiftly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood made famous by Spike Lee's landmark film Do the Right Thing. In fact, the Bed-Stuy mural directly references that movie by depicting the character Radio Raheem. At the start of the movie, Radio Raheem blasts Public Enemy's \"Fight the Power\" from his boombox like a reveille. Near the movie's end, he's choked to death by a nightstick-wielding cop\u2014a pivotal plot point that incites a riot, much like the uprisings that followed the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles, and the Freddie Gray verdict in Baltimore, and the Michael Brown verdict in Ferguson, which reverberated across the country like so many waves of heat.\n\nIn New York, I remember the Ferguson protesters took to the streets chanting, \"Whose streets? Our streets!\" I myself was drawn to the vortex of 125th Street, where I shot pictures of the crowd swarming toward the Triborough Bridge. I paused there at the edge of my own reason sometime before midnight to return to my children, but the mob pushed on as far as the tollbooths on the Manhattan side, succeeding in shutting the bridge down. It felt so logical an impulse, to act unruly in the face of misrule. Yet this impulse is what the Bed-Stuy mural admonishes against.\n\nRadio Raheem's fist is the focal point of the mural, adorned with its gold \"LOVE\" knuckleplate. The mural, dominated by the color red, cautions the viewer to \"Stay calm and in control. Don't get into an argument . . . Don't resist, even if you believe you're innocent.\"\n\nThe man I photograph walking past the love punch wears paint-splattered work boots, a headcloth over his dreadlocks, and earphones. I wonder what he's listening to. Perhaps because he's distracted by his music, he's unaware that I've shot him with my phone.\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\nArtist: Dasic Fern\u00e1ndez. Know Your Rights, Hunts Point, Bronx, Barretto Street and Garrison Avenue, 2012. \"You have the right to watch & film police activities.\" \"If you are detained or arrested by a police officer, demand to speak with an attorney and don't say anything until attorney is present.\"\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSo was the woman in the Bronx, where I took my sixth and final picture. She was too absorbed by the screen of her device to notice me, though if she looked my way, she would have seen that I too was operating my phone. My posture mirrored the person in the mural who films a plainclothes police officer cuffing a man over the hood of a car. I had to wait over an hour to get this shot because a belligerent drunk pissing on the sidewalk refused to get out of the frame. Finally, he zipped up and drifted off beneath the Bruckner Expressway. Of all the neighborhoods I traversed, Hunts Point felt the roughest. On the long walk to the Point from the elevated 2 train through the red light district, I was surveyed with interest. I felt that if I wasn't mindful, someone down on his luck might succeed in snatching my phone. Yet I stayed planted by the mural, looking for something concrete.\n\nThe phone in the Hunts Point mural is almost as tall as the woman walking beneath it, its screen the approximate size of her handbag. In the screenshot we see repeated the nested image of the plainclothes police officer cuffing a man over the hood of the car. The dizzying effect of the mural is to put the viewer in the perspective of the photographer.\n\nI have fallen into the mural or rather the mural has sucked me in. I am the third dimension; the watcher. I am the photographer with the phone in her hand. So, potentially, is the passerby, though in this context her posture is also a reminder that passivity has its cost. The woman is about to step out of my frame. For now she is caught, as in a web, by the shadows of power lines and trees. The text behind her echoes that of the first mural I shot on the streets of Washington Heights: \"If you are detained or arrested by a police officer, demand to speak with an attorney and don't say anything until the attorney is present.\"\n\nIt was as if the text were on a loop. I'd begun to feel I was moving in circles and so I stopped to take stock of my pictures, scrolling backward. Though the style of each mural was distinct, the message was the same. Somebody loves you enough to try to keep you safe by informing you of your rights. The murals' insistence on those rights, which the citizens of our nation don't yet equally enjoy, reminded me that like the High Bridge, the Constitution is just another lofty infrastructure in need of rehabilitation. Such changes do occur, it seems. Were it not for the fact that I shot them in different locales, I felt I could craft a zoetrope of the passersby to show my children. The many walkers would appear unified as one\u2014even if at times that walker was a woman or a man, or black, or brown, or old or young\u2014advancing toward one steady goal. \"Look how marvelous,\" I would say of the moving image. And if my children asked me where the walker was going, I would answer, \"To the bridge.\"\n\n\u00a9 Emily Raboteau\n\n## Composite Pops\n\n## MITCHELL S. JACKSON\n\nHow does a fatherless boy spell father?\n\nOne answer is in the video of a poet who monologues about a dream in which he's a child contestant in a spelling bee. For the win, he has to spell the word father. He proceeds to spell the word m-o-t-h-e-r. Then when the spellmaster says he's \"incorrect,\" he launches into a rant about absentee fathers and womanizing men and maternal strength . . .\n\nWhile plenty mothers in the world deserve the most huge hurrahs, what I want to say to this poet and other like minds is this: no matter how much we lambast men and high-note praise women, a woman maketh a father not.\n\nYes, ours is indeed a revolutionary era of gender fluidness and sexual equality and girls doubtless need dads too\u2014I repeat: girls need their dads. No way no how no day would I try to diminish or worse negate the role of a dad in his daughter's life. No one, and that includes humans, saints, and extraterrestrials, could convince me that my princess's life would be better off without me in it. However, just as there are some aspects of being a female that my daughter's mother is more equipped to guide her through, there are aspects of being a male that I hope I have helped my son navigate in a way that only I could.I\n\nThis is my beating heart: boys need fathers.\n\nBoys need fathers\u2014period, exclamation point.\n\nAnd if a boy is not blessed with a father or gifted with a dynamic stand-in then he must find ways to make one. He must identify the fatherish men in his life, find what he needs from them, and compose one.\n\nIt is an act of necessity, and I should know. My mother was not far along into her nineteenth year when she had me by a man who lived no more than a bike ride away but was absent for my first decade of life.II To say I had no father, though, is a half-truth. To say my mother was my father would be a sentimental-ass lie. I had a father, and I had one because I made one. Or rather I composed a father from the men at hand, brothers who kept me long before Obama made it a project.III\n\nThere was my mother's long-term boyfriend Big Chris, my maternal grandfather Sam, my maternal uncle Anthony, my paternal uncle Henry, and at long last my biological father, Wesley. If you asked me to spell father, I could turn their names into one long-ass portmanteau.\n\nOr I might just say \"p-o-p-s.\"\n\nPops was a group of men who provided a loving example of what it would soon enough mean to be a man. Pops nurtured me. Bestowed me with his wisdom. Pushed me to nuance the way I saw the world. He inspired me to dream. He tended my harms. He made sure I knew it was in me to surpass him.\n\n### BIG CHRIS\n\nFar as I knew growing up my biological father was a ghost by the time I was born. By the time I was a year old, my mother had been heart-throbbed by a man named Big Chris. Big Chris was a recent parolee\u2014bank robbery, what a dreamer!\u2014and a neophyte\/soon-to-be-prosperous pimp, but also a smart, witty, compassionate man whose jokes could give you stomachaches. My mother had two boys by Big Chris and stayed with him until just before I reached double digits. For years after he left, he would swing through trying to rekindle his and my mother's faded love or else connect with his boys, and without a doubt, whether Big Chris and my mom were an official couple or not, I was one of those boys. The man never treated me one bit different from the sons of his seed. The naysayers can knock how he hustled his bread and meat, but that don't change the fact that Big Chris was the one who showed me the value and impact of a father's love, that family often had nothing to do with genetics. This was a lesson he taught me in life and in death.\n\nIn September 2009, I got a call from Big Chris's daughter\u2014my oldest sister\u2014saying that he was sick and that I should fly out to Phoenix to see him. In the span of a few days, she went from prodding me to make it out soon, to imploring me to come ASAP if I wanted to see him alive. The next day I was on a flight, bracing for the worst and praying against it. My flight landed heartstroke hours later and while passengers were grabbing their bags, I turned on my cell phone to a fusillade of texts: from my mother, from my brothers, from my sister\u2014all warning me Big Chris had died. My big sister picked me up from the airport, and tried to console me with Dad's near-to-last words: \"I've got to hold on. I've got to hold on so I can see Mitch.\" The story didn't console me in the moment, but later, much later, when the grief begrudged me room to breathe, Dad's near-to-last words confirmed for me the bond that we'd shared, reaffirmed that I would forever be one of his boys, that our kinship was deeper than DNA.\n\n### SAM\n\nMy maternal grandfather, Sam Jackson, Jr., rose every day for thirty-plus years to go to the same job. He attends church every Sunday\u2014and arrives on time all the time. He pays his bills and his tithes. He represents at neighborhood rallies and community meetings. He bought and has lived in the same house since the '70s, lived there with his wife until she died, lives there with a new wife now. Granddad or Dad, as I call him, rescued us\u2014my mom and her boys\u2014countless times with funds because the electric company put an apartment of ours on eclipse or the rent had somehow vamoosed out of my mom's purse. Granddad moved me into his house for my last two years of high school, this after I ran away from my biological father's house, after I'd made it clear to all concerned adults that I couldn't be trusted under the charge of my half-paralyzed great-grandmother. Me, Granddad, and my cousin-brother Jesse ate breakfast together in his kitchen damn near every weekday.IV Granddad sat in the bleachers at my home and away high school hoop games and kept full stats. He chided me to mow the lawn and take out the trash and repaid me by spotting me the bucks I needed to hang with my homeboys on Friday nights. He never once bemoaned being my caretaker, as I imagined he had a right to, not even after he had to slap spit from me for the class-A house crime of sneaking girls into my basement bedroom.V Granddad has modeled what it means to be a stand-up dude, what it means to honor your commitments, what it means to shoulder your obligations and your burdens without gripe.\n\n### ANTHONY (ANT)\n\nMy maternal uncle Ant wore some version of a Jheri curl well past the great epoch of Jheri curls. Furthermore, Ant's held on to his almost-a-high-school-All-American story for generations, a legend I've heard told so often at family dinners, that sometimes I go ahead and tell it myself. Let Ant or me tell it, the judges clocked him at 9.7, 9.6, and 9.5 in the 100-yard sprint at a district track meet, but if they had given him an official time of 9.5 instead of 9.6, he \"would've been an All-American that year.\"\n\nAnt's story is a tendon to what happened to me in sixth grade, the only year I ever competed on a track team. That year, I'd taken second place in the district meet to a rival who had been putting a whooping on me all season. Ant attended that meet and was disappointed right along with me. He could've let me play a defeatist, but instead he took it upon himself to train me for the city championship, swooping me afternoons after school and teaching me to run on my toes and lean forward and lengthen my stride, drilling into my porous brain the idea that I could beat anyone as long as I used good form and believed. The championships rolled around a couple of weeks later and sure enough I was lined up against my rival in the 100-meter final. Pow! We took off and by midway through the race I was losing in slo-mo and heard my heart scream no, no, nooooooooooo. Then by some kind of Prefontaine magic I heard Ant screaming, \"REACH, nephew! REACH!\" above all other voices, and reach I did on the way to winning the race with a slight cushion. You should have seen Ant afterward, rejoicing as if, at once, I'd won Olympic gold and salved his All-American wound. Thanks to Ant, I had my first taste of being a champion in public, of realizing that with assiduousness and self-confidence, my impossible was possible. For sure he was a father that day, one who'd pushed me to succeed where he'd failed, to be bolder, bigger, stronger, best.\n\n### HENRY\n\nSomewhere in my random collection of family archives is a hubris-building copy of a news feature on my paternal uncle Henry titled, \"Superman in Solitary: Oregon's Biggest Dope Dealer Tells All.\" The story details Uncle Henry's 1970s to mid-'80s evolution from car thief and pimp to drug kingpin. The article was straight-up inspiration, though, full disclosure, I didn't know Uncle Henry at all during the days of him hustling enough funds to buy a plane and Rolls-Royce. In fact, we spent almost no time together until right after I graduated high school, which was the summer I decided that being a devoted part-time dope dealer was the best present way for me to make a living. Keep in mind, this was decades past Uncle Henry's gilded heyday, well into the age of him being a shyster and ardent addict, and though I knew about his fall, I was beguiled by the lore, was hungry to profit from secrets I was sure he owned. So one day my older brother\u2014a fellow neophyte dope dealer\u2014and me tracked down Uncle Henry at the apartment of another uncle and pressed him for what in effect was a session of Drug Dealing 101. Uncle Henry, ever the capitalist, obliged us a lesson for a few shards of our dope. Can't recall everything he said, but one point will stick with me till I'm dust: \"The fast nickel beats the slow twenty.\" My uncle went on to explain that while we waited forever for a twenty sale, we could've sold umpteen fives, which meant to me that what I dreamed of would not arrive in a windfall but would accrue one small sale at a time. It's easy to make the case that Uncle Henry was undermining my brother and me, but the way I see it, his advice had less to do with corrupting our youth or sabotaging our gleaming futures, and more to do with the munificence of exposing us to a maxim that had grand effect for him. Because he knew that no matter what we did, we would need to learn how to hustle\u2014to reimagine paths to success\u2014that hustling was vital to young black boys, that without it we were destined to be failed black men. Though I never made hundreds of thousands nor had the misfortune of being the local drug kingpin, Uncle Henry's lecture and legacy helped convince me that I had hustle in my blood, and please believe me when I tell you, I've been a hustler ever since.\n\n### WESLEY\n\nTen\u2014that's how old I was when I met my biological father. One of my most significant memories of him occurred not too long after when his wife, oldest son, two daughters, and I road-tripped to visit Disneyland, Sea World, and a few Californian family members. One of those relatives lived in an apartment complex with a pool\u2014a pool! We all changed into swimming gear and headed out to the pool, where my dad and my brother and sisters began having a grand old time swimming and playing in the water and goading me to get in while I gallivanted around the pool and at most teased my foot in the shallow end once or twice. My trepidation was for good reason as this was circa '85, arguably the height of a certain highwater-pants and rhinestone-glove-wearing pop star, and I had a Jheri curl befitting a kid who claimed to certain credulous classmates that I was a not-so-distant cousin. Or let me put it like this: young Mitch Jackson was not about to get his MJ-esque dew wet nor\u2014the extent of my swimming skills at the time was a hella-weak doggy paddle\u2014was I about to risk my life. But my biological father flexed contrary designs by creeping up behind me and scooping me in the air and tossing me in the pool. He didn't flinch while I flailed and screamed and gulped mouthfuls of overchlorinated water. He said something to me that I can't remember but that my subconscious must've heard because soon I calmed and got my curly head above the surface, and stayed in the pool and had a damn good day frolicking with my father, brother, and sisters\u2014aka the Johnsons. The message of that day took years to reveal itself to me: \"Troubled water or not, you best learn to swim. 'Cause when your young-ass get to drowning, I may not be moved to rescue.\" That message, by the way, I now count as an act of stern beneficence.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nNot one of the men I mentioned has existed in my life beyond the reach of critique. Oh yes, I comprehend flaws. But their foibles weren't the crux of what I used to build. I must say, too, that they were much more than mentors. Mentors teach you a skill. Fathers teach you to live. Your mentor's role can remain static. Your father's role must evolve. A mentor's direction might be free of deep feeling. A father's guidance must be rooted in love.\n\nWho I am now is who I must be: a flawed human striving to live in a state of becoming. Along the way I've discovered a thing or more about myself: that who and how I love is not dictated by law or blood, that being a constant presence is as much a part of being a man as almost anything else, that what I want must be earned, that I can win and win I will, that there's hustle in my genes, that either I swim or drown and there is no one more important to that outcome than me.\n\nNow here I am the father of two children, trying my all-out damnedest to mind the lessons of my beloved composite, all the while feeling encouraged by the fact I know they're rooting for me to best the job they did.\n\nThank. You. Pops.\n\n* * *\n\nI. Praise be to the gender politicians. By male and female I mean cisgendered male and female\u2014the Latin prefix cis means \"on the same side\"\u2014i.e., men and women whose gender identity is aligned with the gender they were assigned by birth.\n\nII. For my DNA dad's sake, I must note that the absoluteness of his early absence is a point of dispute.\n\nIII. Obama (BO) is the latest exemplar\u2014a total of twelve were either abandoned or lost their biological fathers when they were young\u2014of a president whose life confirms how efficacious it is to compose a composite. It's damn near folklore now, how Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., had bounced on his wife and BO by the time he was a toddler, how his mother spent time in Seattle, remarried in Hawaii, took young BO to live with her new husband in Indonesia, but sent him back to the Aloha State to live with her parents around the time he entered the fifth grade. One of BO's composites thereafter, if nothing else for the fact that he assumed the role of his long-term primary caretaker until he went off to college, was his maternal grandfather Stanley Dunham (no shade to Stanley's wife's role in co-parenting her grandson). Stanley was also the one who introduced BO to the man who just might own the title of Most Controversial of all presidential composites: a libertine, ex-journalist, poet, and Communist associate named Frank Marshall Davis, a man who became especially infamous during BO's first campaign when conspiracy theorists claimed Davis was his biological father. The truth, though, as confirmed by BO in his memoir, is that Davis helped shape his views on racial identity, race relations, and social justice. Davis was a part of BO's life but for a handful of years, but I'm calling him a composite for his impact. For example, though this next point may be a stretch (then again, so was a black man being elected the leader of the free world), remnants of Davis's radical thought can be found in the socialist-leaning legislation that is Obama Care. From the last to the first. George Washington (GW) lost his father, Augustine (Augustine's people called him Gus), when he was eleven. From that point, GW's older half-brother Lawrence Washington became his surrogate father. Answer me this: What would America look like if GW hadn't followed Lawrence into the military and politics (Lawrence fought in the War of Jenkins Ear and was later elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses)? Lawrence christened the Mount Vernon estate (or should we call it a plantation?), and GW paid homage to his beloved older brother when it was in his sole possession by hanging only his portrait in his study. GW and BO are notable for being the first and last, but the list between them includes Thomas Jefferson (TJ), who lost his father at thirteen and found a mentor in the philosophy professor William Small when he entered William and Mary College a few years later. Smith fostered in TJ a great appreciation for diverse disciplines and also a love of Enlightenment thinkers. He also introduced TJ to the politician and law professor George Wythe\u2014the man who became TJ's unofficial political and cultural mentor\u2014as much a composite as any man was for the future president. How amazing it must've been for an ambitious young TJ to sit around a supper table discussing politics and culture with Small, Wythe, and a governor. How fortunate TJ was to have been given the chance to later study law (there were no law schools in colonial America) with Wythe, and have that apprenticeship that included history, philosophy, and ethics. If you're looking for the lasting influence of TJ's composite, you need look no further than the ideals and language of the most important document in American history. The list of presidents who built composites also includes Gerald Ford (GF)\u2014he was born Leslie King, Jr.\u2014whose mother, Dorothy, divorced his biological father, Leslie King, Sr., on the grounds of \"extreme cruelty\" when her son was five months old. GF's biological father was the son of the millionaire businessman Charles Henry King, but that didn't stop him from bolting out of state (so much for broke pockets being the impetus for a deadbeat dad) and, as rumor had it, colluding with his father to skirt alimony and child-support judgments. Lucky for baby GF that Dorothy met Gerald Ford, Sr., a couple of years later. Ford Sr. wasn't no slouch. He became a successful businessman, was a church vestryman, a Mason, and later a local politician. He married Dorothy, adopted her young son, christened him a junior, and was, in GF's words, \"kind, fair, and firm.\" Ford Sr. and Dorothy, who had three more boys together, didn't mention to GF that Ford Sr. was not his biological father. GF didn't find that out until his biological father showed up at his high school job. But years and years later, in a letter GF dictated from the Oval Office, you can see how that visit did little to change his mind about his beloved composite: \"I loved and was guided in life by the only father I ever had\u2014Gerald R. Ford Sr. There was never any longing on my part to seek family outside of the one in which I was raised with such love, tenderness, and happiness.\"\n\nIV. When my cousin-brother Jesse's mother was murdered, he went to live with my great-grandparents for a time, but when he hit the first grade, he moved in with my granddad and lived with him until he became a legal adult. My granddad parenting Jesse is yet another hashmark in the ledger of why he deserves my love, respect, and admiration.\n\nV. The backstory: this occurred after I'd been caught on occasion with naked to half-naked girls in my basement bedroom. The scene: my granddad's house sits beside an alley, and there's a park bench at the opening of the alley. The action: this particular day my granddad came home early from work and spotted me sitting on that park bench with a girl whose name I couldn't name now if you paid me, but whose face I will never forget. By sitting I mean that I was leaned into her ear whispering the sweet nothings I hoped would lead to her knickknacks. She and I had not been in the house, though, so I was miffed when my granddad stopped his Buick in the alley and furied over to us. \"Hey, Dad, this is\u2014\" and before I could finish, he barked, \"What did I tell you?! What did I tell you about this?!\" and slapped the sound of a firework out of my cheek. He breathed over me for a moment or two and stomped back to his idling ride and meandered it into the garage. The girl's mouth was agape when I got up the courage to look at her. You should go, I said. She shook her head yes. You should go now, I said, and she rose and headed up the alley. She and I never spoke another word to each other after that day. These years later, I realize it was a testament to how much I love my granddad that it never dawned on me to curse him under my breath or consider running away like I damn sure would've if instead it was my DNA dad who'd struck me. Pretty sure I never snuck another girl into the basement either\u2014which spells mission accomplished for Sam Jackson, Jr., excuse me, mission accomplished for Dad.\n\n# PART III\n\n# JUBILEE\n\n## Theories of Time and Space\n\n## NATASHA TRETHEWEY\n\nYou can get there from here, though\n\nthere's no going home.\n\nEverywhere you go will be somewhere\n\nyou've never been. Try this:\n\nhead south on Mississippi 49, one-\n\nby-one mile markers ticking off\n\nanother minute of your life. Follow this\n\nto its natural conclusion\u2014dead end\n\nat the coast, the pier at Gulfport where\n\nrigging of shrimp boats are loose stitches\n\nin a sky threatening rain. Cross over\n\nthe man-made beach, twenty-six miles of sand\n\ndumped on the mangrove swamp\u2014buried\n\nterrain of the past. Bring only\n\nwhat you must carry\u2014tome of memory,\n\nits random blank pages. On the dock\n\nwhere you board the boat for Ship Island\n\nsomeone will take your picture:\n\nthe photograph\u2014who you were\u2014\n\nwill be waiting when you return.\n\n## This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution\n\n## DANIEL JOS\u00c9 OLDER\n\nAugust 2015\n\nDear Nastassian:\n\nYou told me to write this essay to our future children, but I'm writing to you instead. You said to tell them about how their mom worried, how she wasn't sure if it was a good idea bringing black life into a world that doesn't value it, but that she landed on hope amidst all the despair. Tell them, you said, about why their father does the work he does, what kind of world you hope to help build for them.\n\nAnd I will, love, I will. But this moment right now\u2014the night is quiet and I write while you sleep\u2014this moment with all its weight and responsibility, this turning point in the world and our lives, is ours, and these words are for you.\n\nThree weeks ago we rode through the midnight streets of Kingston, Jamaica, past shacks and gas stations, jerk chicken cookouts and quicky motels, to the airport and this new life together. Our Twitter feeds and the national news were filled with updates on Sandra Bland, the latest black life destroyed while in police custody, the most recent name to become a hashtag. Every time her deathlike mugshot flashed across the screen I felt an ache detonate in me. It's an ache many of us have become intimate with over the past year, as the hard work of protesters brings light to each new state-sanctioned murder. It recedes and then returns, compounded by the tragedy of how familiar it feels to mourn a stranger.\n\nIn college, I scribbled a quote from Eqbal Ahmad in the back of my notebook: \". . . this out-administration occurs when you identify the primary contradiction of your adversary and expose that contradiction . . . to the world at large.\" Ahmad wrote those words in reference to global struggles against empire, and trapped as I was just then, and probably always will be, in some wordy labyrinth between the future and past, the sentence settled somewhere in my brain and caught fire.\n\nIn a way, these words infer the same conclusion as the other quotes I'd copied around it: that art is a creator and a destroyer and no less a player in the great stage of the world than politics or violence. \"It is in the nexus of representation, words, and space,\" Michel Foucault wrote, \"that the destiny of peoples is silently formed.\" Or the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani: \"Our deliverance is in drawing with words.\"\n\nBut Mr. Ahmad dispenses with the formality of arguing the power of representation, and jumps directly into strategy. Unlike so many of the texts we read in college, this passage is not concerned with making people comfortable or rehashing basic truths that are deemed controversial only because they agitate overprotected egos. \"I argued that armed struggle,\" Eqbal Ahmad writes at the beginning of that paragraph, \"is less about arms and more about organization, that a successful armed struggle proceeds to out-administer the adversary and not out-fight him.\" Ahmed is concerned with victory, which is to say, survival.\n\nIt's been a year since Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown dead in the streets of Ferguson. (I was in an airport that day, too, waiting for a flight to Cuba and watching Twitter explode with tweets from the scene of the murder. You texted me then and many times since, that you weren't so sure about coming to a country that could do this to its people, a country that went out of its way to destroy black life.) It's been a year of politicians stumbling to declare that all lives matter and reinstill the illusion of justice to the justice system. It's been a year in which police took more than three hundred black lives as protestors shut down bridges and highways across the country to remind the world that those lives matter.\n\nI spent my twenties with a healthy distrust of the word revolution. When I was a kid, it was ancient American history or what Star Wars characters did\u2014something heroic and distant. But I'm the son of a survivor of how wrong revolutions can go, the nephew of a revolutionary turned counterrevolutionary turned political prisoner. And these days, you're more likely to see revolution on a car ad than anywhere meaningful. Words mean things, we say again and again, but overuse and abuse can wear those meanings down, render them pale parodies of what they once were. And revolution, it seemed, had long since lost its meaning.\n\nThe Ferguson uprising changed that. The movement for black lives spread from city to city, spurned on by social media and the long-pent-up feeling that no social movement in recent memory has done anything but tiptoe toward justice. You can't tiptoe toward justice. You can't walk up to the door all polite and knock once or twice, hoping someone's home. Justice is a door that, when closed, must be kicked in. \"No state,\" Baldwin wrote, \"has been able to foresee or prevent the day when their most ruined and abject accomplice\u2014or most expensively dressed prostitute\u2014will growl, 'This far and no further.' \" And maybe that day is more like a series of days, the whole year of protest that erupted between now and then, a culminating mass of days and nights, bodies laying down in intersections, symphony halls, strip malls, superhighways across this country, stopping traffic and business-as-usual, declaring by their very presence: \"No further,\" and again, \"No further.\"\n\nI texted you updates as we marched: \"Still safe and things are mostly calm. We've taken Columbus Circle. Helicopters overhead but cops can't seem to keep up with us or figure out where we're going next.\" They couldn't figure out where we were going next because we had no idea where we'd go next. We spun in an impossible, unruly snake through Midtown, spilled out into the streets and then the bridges and throughways. One night we shut down the Manhattan Bridge and pushed deep into Crown Heights, an army of flashing blue lights at our backs. With no coordination, no grant dictating our steps or signs, no leader, we marched in lockstep with hundreds of thousands of protestors across the United States and then the globe, and the simple, resonating demand that black lives matter laid bare the twin lies of American equality and exceptionalism. Even on the left, even in this age of exposed racial rifts, politicians still say with a straight face that this country was founded on principles of equality. Words mean things, we say again and again, but actions mean much more, and still as a nation, we worship the very slave owners who gave legal precedence to the notion of percentages of human beings. We scream equality and freedom while unabashedly modeling our actions on the fathers of genocide. The only way to rationalize this most American of contradictions is to devalue the lives of the slaughtered, as was done then, so it must be now, and so apologists remind us that those were the times, and they didn't know better, and on and on. But if those lives matter now then they mattered then, and the clapback stretches through history, unraveling all the creation myths this country has always held most sacred, toppling our many false idols and cleaning out our profaned temples.\n\nThere was a terrible hunger revealed in that ongoing funeral procession. So many showed up because so many must mourn, the trauma of bearing witness etched across the streets of America. And collective mourning became collective resistance, and the hunger born from so much witnessing and so little action over the years was the hunger to rebel. Revolution has sounded, as Tracy Chapman once sang, like a whisper. I heard it in my own writing on equality in publishing, demanding more than just reform, more than just diversity. Heard it in my friends and loved ones' quiet ferocity as we talked into the night. But suddenly it was a collective howl, it echoed through the streets and out across the world: \"This far and no further.\"\n\nIt's that hunger that I was trying to understand back in college when I jotted that quote down. It felt like tracing along the clues of a murder mystery: something was wrong. I couldn't identify the crime, but I was aware of it, inside of me and in the whole world around me, and both were deeply connected. That's why Eqbal Ahmad's idea about primary contradiction tattooed itself on my brain. I knew from very early on that I was an artist, that art was my own form of medicine, both for myself and the world: a tool that could create or destroy. And I knew I profited from the crime\u2014as a straight cis man, a Latino who isn't black, a citizen of this great disastrous nation. And I knew I suffered from this crime with no name, too, that it robbed everyone in its grasp of humanity and self, made us tools and killers and liars and suicides. There were so many myths to unravel, even just within my own heart, my own head, but mythology was something I could understand. There were myths that were lies and myths made from truth, and often the falsest ones were the most plausible and the truest filled with dragons and gods. Every journey is a crisis, a turning point, a shedding of myths, and mine began with the gnawing certainty that something did not add up. And in a way, this journey never ends, but in another sense, it ends where all great roads lead: to the discovery of voice.\n\nThis year, the desperate hunger born from so much mourning found its collective voice. It happened in the streets, but it also happened across the Internet, in journals, and late-night phone calls. The revolution wasn't televised\u2014there we saw only burning cars and concerned pundits\u2014but it was live-tweeted. And while my own revolution took place on the page and in the streets, yours was a much more personal one, profound and earthshaking in its own, very different, way. I watched you stand at the crossroads of despair, Nastassian. Watched fear wash over you, and uncertainty. As that ache detonated again and again, I know the temptation to shut down entirely loomed large. We arrived at Manley Airport in Kingston to return to New York, checked our bags and emptied our pockets into the plastic bins, took off shoes and belts and were patted down and X-rayed and then whisked up an escalator to the waiting area. Kingston was a distant smattering of lights across the bay and home seemed a long way off for both of us. Sandra Bland's face stared out from the television as broadcasters wondered through their phony cheer about her last moments on earth, languishing in that Texas jail cell. International travel is a closed circuit\u2014once you're in flight, there's no turning back and then you're vomited directly into the hands of U.S. immigration officials, passport control, customs, sniffing dogs, and the forever fallout of 9\/11. And even if you have nothing to hide, and we had nothing to hide, it feels like the cold machinery of the state closing around your neck. I thought about all the times I'd been \"randomly\" searched and quelled my own anxiety and turned to you, wondering if you would be freaking out, but you met me with a smile.\n\nTell them how their mother landed on hope amidst all the despair, you told me weeks later when I said I didn't know how to write this essay. And in that I saw a miracle: your own journey, your own revolution, unraveling beside me and mine and also separate, a whole country and sea away. You chose hope, and the night is quiet and I write while you sleep\u2014and this moment with all its weight and responsibility, this turning point in the world and our lives, is ours, and these words are for you.\n\n\u2014D\n\n## Message to My Daughters\n\n## EDWIDGE DANTICAT\n\nSoon after the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by the Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, I was in Haiti, at the southernmost end of the country's border with the Dominican Republic, where hundreds of Haitian refugees had either been deported or driven out of the Dominican Republic by intimidation or threats. Many of these men and women had very little warning that they were going to be picked up or chased away and most of them had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs.\n\nIt was a bright sunny day, but the air was thick with dust. As some friends and I walked through the makeshift resettlement camps on the Haitian side of the border, in a place called Pak Kado, it felt as though we, along with the residents of the camps, were floating through clouds. Around us were lean-tos made of cardboard boxes and sheets. Dust-covered children walked around looking dazed even while playing with pebbles that stood in for marbles, or while flying plastic bags as kites. Elderly people stood on the edge of food and clothes distribution lines, some too weak to wade into the crowd. Later the elderly, along with pregnant women and the disabled, would be given special consideration by the priest and nuns who were giving out the only food available to the camp dwellers, but the food would always run out before they could get to everyone.\n\nA few days after leaving Haiti and returning to the United States, I read a Michael Brown anniversary opinion piece in The Washington Post written by Raha Jorjani, an immigration attorney and law professor. In her essay, Jorjani argues that African Americans living in the United States could easily qualify as refugees. Citing many recent cases of police brutality and killings of unarmed black men, women, and children, she wrote:\n\nSuppose a client walked into my office and told me that police officers in his country had choked a man to death over a petty crime. Suppose he said police fatally shot another man in the back as he ran away. That they arrested a woman during a traffic stop and placed her in jail, where she died three days later. That a 12-year-old boy in his country was shot and killed by the police as he played in the park.\n\nSuppose he told me that all of those victims were from the same ethnic community\u2014a community whose members fear being harmed, tortured or killed by police or prison guards. And that this is true in cities and towns across his nation. At that point, as an immigration lawyer, I'd tell him he had a strong claim for asylum protection under U.S. law.\n\nThis is not the first time that the idea of African Americans as internal or external refugees has been floated or applied. The six-million-plus African Americans who migrated from the rural south to urban centers in the northern United States for more than half a century during the Great Migration were often referred to as refugees, as were those people internally displaced by Hurricane Katrina.\n\nHaving now visited many refugee and displacement camps, the label \"refugee\" at first seemed an extreme designation to assign to citizens of one of the richest countries in the world, especially if it is assigned on a singular basis to those who are black. Still, compared to the relative wealth of the rest of the society, a particularly run-down Brooklyn public housing project where a childhood friend used to live had all the earmarks of a refugee camp. It occupied one of the least desirable parts of town and provided only the most basic necessities. A nearby dilapidated school, where I attended junior high, could have easily been on the edge of that refugee settlement, where the primary daily task was to keep the children occupied, rather than engaged and learning. Aside from a few overly devoted teachers, we were often on our own. We, immigrant blacks and African Americans alike, were treated by those who housed us, and were in charge of schooling us, as though we were members of a group in transit. The message we always heard from those who were meant to protect us: that we should either die or go somewhere else. This is the experience of a refugee.\n\nI have seen state abuses up close, both in Haiti, where I was born under a ruthless dictatorship, and in New York, where I migrated to a working-class and predominantly African, African American, and Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn at the age of twelve. In the Haiti of the 1970s and early '80s, the violence was overtly political. Government detractors were dragged out of their homes, imprisoned, beaten, or killed. Sometimes their bodies were left out in the streets, in the hot sun, for extended periods, to intimidate neighbors.\n\nIn New York, the violence seemed a bit more subtle, though no less pervasive. When I started riding the city bus to high school, I observed that a muffled radio message from an annoyed bus driver\u2014about someone talking too loud or not having the right fare\u2014was all it took to make the police rush in, drag a young man off the bus, and beat him into submission on the sidewalk. There were no cell phone cameras back then to record such abuse, and most of us were too terrified to demand a badge number.\n\nBesides, many of us had fled our countries as exiles, migrants, and refugees just to escape this kind of military or police aggression; we knew how deadly a confrontation with an armed and uniformed authoritarian figure could be. Still, every now and then a fellow traveler would summon his or her courage and, dodging the swaying baton, or screaming from a distance, would yell some variation of \"Stop it! This is a child! A child!\"\n\nOf course, not all of the police's victims were children. Abner Louima, a family friend, was thirty years old when he was mistaken for someone who had punched a police officer outside a Brooklyn nightclub, on August 9, 1997, sixteen years to the day before Michael Brown was killed. Abner was arrested, beaten with fists, as well as with police radios, flashlights, and nightsticks, and then sexually assaulted with the wooden handle of a toilet plunger or a broom inside a precinct bathroom. After Abner, there was Amadou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, who was hit by nineteen of the forty-one bullets aimed at him as he retrieved his wallet from his pocket. Then there was Patrick Dorismond, the U.S.-born child of Haitian immigrants, who died trying to convince undercover cops that he was not a drug dealer.\n\nThese are only a few among the cases from my era that made the news. There was also sixty-six-year-old Eleanor Bumpurs, who, thirteen years before Abner's assault, was killed by police with a twelve-gauge shotgun inside her own apartment. I have no doubt there were many others. We marched for all of them in the Louima\/Diallo\/Dorismond decade. We carried signs and chanted \"No Justice! No Peace!\" and \"Whose Streets? Our Streets!\" even while fearing the latter would never be true. The streets belonged to the people with the uniforms and the guns. The streets were never ours. Our sons and brothers, fathers and uncles, our mothers and sisters, daughters and nieces, our neighbors were, and still are, prey.\n\nMy father, a Brooklyn cab driver, used to half joke that police did not beat him up because, at sixty-five years old, he was too skinny and too old, and not worth the effort. Every now and then, when he was randomly stopped by a police officer and deigned to ask why, rather than a beating, he would be given a handful of unwarranted traffic citations that would wipe out a few weeks' hard-earned wages. Today, one might generously refer to such acts as micro-aggressions. That is, until they turn major and deadly, until other unarmed black bodies, with nowhere to go for refuge, find themselves in the path of yet another police officer's or armed vigilante's gun.\n\nWhen it was announced that Darren Wilson would not be indicted for the killing of Michael Brown, I kept thinking of Abner Louima, whose assault took place when Michael Brown was just eighteen months old. Abner and I have known each other for years. Both our families have attended the same Creole-speaking church for decades, so I called him to hear his thoughts about Michael Brown's killer going free. If anyone could understand all those broken hearts, all the rage, all the desperation, the yearning for justice, what it is to be a member of a seemingly marooned and persecuted group, I thought, he would.\n\nAbner Louima, unlike Michael Brown, had survived. He went on with his life, moved from New York City to south Florida, started businesses. He has a daughter and two sons. One son was eighteen years old when we spoke, the same age Michael Brown was when he died.\n\nHow does he feel, I asked him, each time he hears that yet another black person was killed or nearly killed by police?\n\n\"It reminds me that our lives mean nothing,\" he replied.\n\nWe are in America because our lives meant nothing to those in power in the countries where we came from. Yet we come here to realize that our lives also mean nothing here. Some of us try to distance ourselves from this reality, thinking that because we are another type of \"other\"\u2014immigrants, migrants, refugees\u2014this is not our problem, nor one we can solve. But ultimately we realize the precarious nature of citizenship here: that we too are prey, and that those who have been in this country for generations\u2014walking, living, loving in the same skin we're in\u2014they too can suddenly become refugees.\n\nParents are often too nervous to broach difficult subjects with their children. Love. Sex. Death. Race. But some parents are forced to have these conversations early. Too early. A broken heart might lead to questions we'd rather not answer, as might an inappropriate gesture, the death of a loved one, or the murder of a stranger.\n\nEach time a black person is killed in a manner that's clearly racially motivated, either by a police officer or a vigilante civilian, I ask myself if the time has come for me to talk to my daughters about Abner Louima and the long list of dead that have come since. My daughters have met Abner, but I have never told them about his past, even though his past is a future they might have to face.\n\nWhy don't I tell them? My decision is about more than avoiding a difficult conversation. The truth is, I do not want my daughters to grow up as I did, terrified of the country and the world they live in. But is it irresponsible of me to not alert them to the potentially life-altering, or even life-ending horrors they might face as young black women?\n\nThe night President Barack Obama was first elected (would he too qualify for refugee status?), my oldest daughter was three and I was in the last weeks of my pregnancy with my second. When President Obama was inaugurated for the first time, I was cradling both my little girls in my arms.\n\nTo think, I remember telling my husband, our daughters will never know a world in which the president of their country has not been black. Indeed, as we watched President Obama's inaugural speech, my oldest daughter was shocked that no woman had ever been president of the United States. That day, the world ahead for my girls seemed full of greater possibility\u2014if not endless possibilities, then at least greater than those for generations past. Many more doors suddenly seemed open to my girls, and the \"joyous daybreak\" evoked by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his \"I Have a Dream\" speech, a kind of jubilee, seemed to have emerged. However, it quickly became clear that this one man was not going to take all of us with him into the postracial promised land. Or that he even had full access to it. Constant talk of \"wanting him to fail\" was racially tinged, as were the \"birther\" investigations, and the bigoted commentaries and jokes by both elected officials and ordinary folk. One of the most consistent attacks against the president, was that, like my husband and myself, he was born elsewhere and was not really American.\n\nLike Barack Obama's father, many of us had brought our black bodies to America from somewhere else. Some of us, like the president, were the children of such people. We are people who need to have two different talks with our black offspring: one about why we're here and the other about why it's not always a promised land for people who look like us.\n\nIn his own version of \"The Talk,\" James Baldwin wrote to his nephew James in \"My Dungeon Shook,\" \"You were born in a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human being.\"\n\nThat same letter could have been written to a long roster of dead young men and women, whose dungeons shook, but whose chains did not completely fall off. Among these very young people are Oscar Grant, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Rekia Boyd, Kimani Gray, Renisha McBride, Trayvon Martin, Michael Bell, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, and counting. It's sad to imagine what these young people's letters from their loved ones may have said. Had their favorite uncle notified them that they could qualify for refugee status within their own country? Did their mother or father, grandmother or grandfather warn them to not walk in white neighborhoods, to, impossibly, avoid police officers, to never play in a public park, to stay away from neighborhood watchmen, to never go to a neighbor's house, even if to seek help from danger?\n\nI am still, in my own mind, drafting a \"My Dungeon Shook\" letter to my daughters. It often begins like this. Dear Mira and Leila, I've put off writing this letter to you for as long as I can, but I don't think I can put it off any longer. Please know that there will be times when some people might be hostile or even violent to you for reasons that have nothing to do with your beauty, your humor, or your grace, but only your race and the color of your skin. Please don't let this restrict your freedom, break your spirit, or kill your joy. And if possible do everything you can to change the world so that your generation of brown and black men, women, and children will be the last who experience all this. And please do live your best lives and achieve your full potential. Love deeply. Be joyful. In Jubilee, Mom.\n\nTo my draft of this letter, I often add snippets of Baldwin.\n\n\"I tell you this because I love you and please don't you ever forget it,\" Baldwin reminded his James. \"Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is no limit to where you can go.\"\n\n\"The world is before you,\" I want to tell my daughters, \"and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.\"\n\nI want to look happily forward. I want to be optimistic. I want to have a dream. I want to live in jubilee. I want my daughters to feel that they have the power to at least try to change things, even in a world that resists change with more strength than they have. I want to tell them they can overcome everything, if they are courageous, resilient, and brave. Paradoxically, I also want to tell them their crowns have already been bought and paid for and that all they have to do is put them on their heads. But the world keeps tripping me up. My certainty keeps flailing.\n\nSo I took them to the border, the one between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where hundreds of refugees were living, or rather existing. There they saw and helped comfort men, women, and children who look like them, but are stateless, babies with not even a bedsheet between them and a dirt floor, young people who may not be killed by bullets but by the much slower assault of disease.\n\n\"These are all our causes,\" I tried to both tell and show them, brown and black bodies living with \"certain uncertainty,\" to use Frantz Fanon's words, black bodies fleeing oppression, persecution, and poverty, wherever they are.\n\n\"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read,\" James Baldwin wrote. Or you see. Or you weep. Or you pray. Or you speak. Or you write. Or you fight so that one day everyone will be able to walk the earth as though they, to use Baldwin's words, have \"a right to be here.\" May that day come, Mira and Leila, when you can finally claim those crowns of yours and put them on your heads. When that day of jubilee finally arrives, all of us will be there with you, walking, heads held high, crowns a-glitter, because we do have a right to be here.\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nI'd like to thank all of the writers who contributed to this book. I wasn't asking an easy thing of them when I solicited their creative work; instead, I was asking them to write toward the hurt, to wrestle with the ugly truths that plague us in this country. Each of the writers did just that, and they did so beautifully. My editor, Kathryn Belden, believed in this book before I could even articulate why I wanted to work on it. She edited this collection tirelessly. She makes me a better writer, and I am so grateful to work with her. Her assistant, David Lamb, ushered the book through the first round of edits, communicated with the contributors about contracts, and aided in copyedits. I'm thankful for Jennifer Lyons, my agent, who has always been my advocate. I am indebted to Scribner, who welcomed this book into their catalog and me into their coterie of writers. Finally, I'd like to remember the sage, fierce artist who inspired this book, James Baldwin. I hope our work makes you proud.\n\n## Contributors\n\nCAROL ANDERSON is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor and chair of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944\u20131955, which was awarded the Myrna F. Bernath Book Award and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and was selected as a finalist for the Truman Book Award and the W. E. B. Du Bois Book Award.\n\nJERICHO BROWN has published two poetry collections, Please and The New Testament, and has been the recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award, the American Book Award, a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Emory University in Atlanta.\n\nGARNETTE CADOGAN is editor-at-large of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (coedited by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro). He is currently a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He writes about culture and the arts for various publications, and is at work on a book about walking.\n\nEDWIDGE DANTICAT, born in Haiti and raised in New York, has written both fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was finalist for the National Book Award, as was her short story collection Krik? Krak! She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow.\n\nRACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH is an essayist and critic whose writing has appeared in the Believer, Rolling Stone, the Paris Review, Transition, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and she is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. Her first book, The Explainers and Explorers, examines twenty-first-century America within the context of what it means to be black, brave, and self-defined, and it will be published by Scribner in 2017.\n\nMITCHELL S. JACKSON is the author of The Residue Years, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the PEN\/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, and the Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award. He is a recipient of a Whiting Award and teaches writing at NYU, where he earned an MFA in creative writing.\n\nHONOR\u00c9E FANONNE JEFFERS is a poet, fiction writer, and critic. She is the author of four books of poetry and is at work on her first novel. Her fifth poetry book, in progress, The Age of Phillis, imagines the life and times of the eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley, the first (known) black woman to publish a book. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation through the Library of Congress, Jeffers is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society, an organization to which fourteen U.S. presidents have been elected. She teaches at the University of Oklahoma.\n\nKIMA JONES'S work has appeared in Guernica, NPR, PANK, Scratch Magazine, and The Rumpus, and she has received fellowships from PEN Center USA, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony.\n\nKIESE LAYMON is associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College and a recent Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the novel Long Division, which was selected as a best book of 2013 by Buzzfeed, The Believer, Salon, Guernica, Library Journal, and the Chicago Tribune, and an essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. He is a columnist at The Guardian, and his forthcoming memoir, Heavy, will be published by Scribner.\n\nDANIEL JOS\u00c9 OLDER is the author of the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series (Roc Books, 2015 and 2016) and the Young Adult novel Shadowshaper (Scholastic, 2015), which was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers' Literature. He coedited the Locus and World Fantasy Award\u2013nominated anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. You can find Daniel's thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decadelong career as an NYC paramedic, and hear his music at danieljoseolder.net and @djolder on Twitter.\n\nEMILY RABOTEAU is the author of The Professor's Daughter: A Novel and Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, winner of the 2014 American Book Award and finalist for the Hurston Wright Legacy Award. Her distinctions include a Pushcart Prize, a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award. She is a professor of English at the City College of New York, in Harlem, where she codirects the MFA program in creative writing. Her next novel is in the works.\n\nCLAUDIA RANKINE is the author of five collections of poetry including Citizen: An American Lyric, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 2015, the PEN\/Open Book Award, the PEN Literary Award, and the NAACP Image Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in California, where she is the Aerol Arnold Professor of English at the University of Southern California.\n\nCLINT SMITH is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a doctoral candidate in education at Harvard University. He was a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion and has two popular TED Talks, The Danger of Silence and How to Raise a Black Son in America. His poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, and The American Literary Review. He is the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent.\n\nNATASHA TRETHEWEY is the author of four poetry collections, Domestic Work, Bellocq's Ophelia; Native Guard (which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize) and Thrall, as well as a book of nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her column, \"Poem,\" appears weekly in the New York Times Magazine. She teaches at Emory University as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and creative writing and has served for two terms as the United States Poet Laureate (2012\u201314).\n\nWENDY S. WALTERS is the author of Multiply\/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal; Troy, Michigan; Longer I Wait, More You Love Me; and a chapbook, Birds of Los Angeles. She is associate professor of creative writing and literature at The New School.\n\nISABEL WILKERSON is the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, awarded for her coverage of the 1993 Midwestern floods and for her profile of a ten-year-old boy caring for his four siblings. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Warmth of Other Suns, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction in 2010.\n\nKEVIN YOUNG has edited five collections of poetry and published eight poetry collections of his own, including For the Confederate Dead, Book of Hours, and Jelly Roll, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, as well as Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995\u20132015. He is also the author of The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, an encyclopedic nonfiction book examining through Jay Z's The Black Album and The Beatles's The White Album how African American culture is in many ways American culture, which won the Pen\/Open Book Award and the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.\n\n## Permissions\n\nCarol Anderson, \"White Rage,\" from The Washington Post. Copyright \u00a9 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.\n\n\"The Tradition\" by Jericho Brown. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Jericho Brown.\n\nGarnette Cadogan, \"Black and Blue,\" from Freeman's: Arrival. Copyright \u00a9 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.\n\n\"Message to My Daughters\" by Edwidge Danticat. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Edwidge Danticat.\n\n\"The Weight\" by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah.\n\n\"Composite Pops\" by Mitchell S. Jackson. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Mitchell S. Jackson.\n\n\"The Dear Pledges of Our Love\" by Honor\u00e9e Fanonne Jeffers. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Honor\u00e9e Fanonne Jeffers.\n\n\"Homegoing, AD\" by Kima Jones. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Kima Jones.\n\n\"Da Art of Storytellin' (a prequel)\" by Kiese Laymon, first published in the Oxford American. Copyright \u00a9 2015 by Kiese Laymon.\n\n\"This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution\" by Daniel Jos\u00e9 Older. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Daniel Jos\u00e9 Older.\n\n\"Know Your Rights!\" by Emily Raboteau. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Emily Raboteau.\n\nClaudia Rankine, \"The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning,\" first published in The New York Times Magazine (June 22, 2015). Copyright \u00a9 2015 by Claudia Rankine and The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission of the author.\n\n\"Queries of Unrest\" by Clint Smith. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Clint Smith.\n\nNatasha Trethewey, \"Theories of Time and Space,\" from Native Guard: Poems. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Natasha Trethewey. Reprinted by permission of the author.\n\n\"Lonely in America\" by Wendy S. Walters is reprinted from the work entitled Multiple\/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal. Copyright \u00a9 2014 by Wendy S. Walters. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of PCI Books, Inc., www.PCIbooks.org.\n\n\"Cracking the Code\" by Jesmyn Ward, first published on NewYorker.com. Copyright \u00a9 2015 by Jesmyn Ward. Reprinted by permission of the author.\n\n\"Introduction\" by Jesmyn Ward. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Jesmyn Ward.\n\nIsabel Wilkerson, \"Where Do We Go From Here?\" first published in Essence. Copyright \u00a9 2015 by Essence Communications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.\n\n\"Blacker Than Thou\" by Kevin Young. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Kevin Young.\n\n## ABOUT THE EDITOR\n\n\u00a9 KIM WELSH\n\nJesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University. She is the author of the novels Where the Line Bleeds and Salvage the Bones, which won the 2011 National Book Award and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She is also the author of the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award.\n\nMEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT\n\nSimonandSchuster.com\n\nauthors.simonandschuster.com\/Jesmyn-Ward\nAlso by Jesmyn Ward\n\nMen We Reaped: A Memoir\n\nSalvage the Bones: A Novel\n\nWhere the Line Bleeds: A Novel\nWe hope you enjoyed reading this Scribner eBook.\n\n* * *\n\nJoin our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Scribner and Simon & Schuster.\n\nCLICK HERE TO SIGN UP\n\nor visit us online to sign up at  \neBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com\n\nSCRIBNER\n\nAn Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.\n\n1230 Avenue of the Americas\n\nNew York, NY 10020\n\nwww.SimonandSchuster.com\n\nCompilation and Introduction copyright \u00a9 2016 by Jesmyn Ward\n\nAll rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.\n\nFirst Scribner hardcover edition August 2016\n\nSCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.\n\nFor information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.\n\nThe Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.\n\nInterior design by Erich Hobbing\n\nJacket design by Na Kim\n\nISBN 978-1-5011-2634-5\n\nISBN 978-1-5011-2636-9 (ebook)\n\nCopyright notices continued on page 225.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \nGhost Moon\n\nHaving been thrown out onto the Edinburgh streets by her family, Maggie knows she must fight to survive. Many years later, the struggles she had to endure can be kept a secret no longer.\n\nSet mostly in post-war Britain and inspired by a real-life story, Ghost Moon is narrated with humour and compassion. A life-affirming read.\n\nPraise for Ron Butlin\n\n\"One of the most powerful and compelling pieces to emerge from the pen of this superb writer.\" \u2014ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH\n\n\"Poetic genius . . . Ron Butlin is the voice of Edinburgh.\" \u2014FringeReview.com\n\n\"Butlin is the best, the most productive Scottish poet of his generation.\" \u2014DOUGLAS DUNN\nGhost Moon\n\nWith an international reputation as a prize-winning novelist, Ron Butlin is also the Edinburgh Makar (poet laureate). In 2009 he was made the first ever Honorary Writing fellow (together with Ian Rankin) at Edinburgh University. Much of his poetry, as well as many of his novels and short stories have been broadcast and translated into over ten languages. In addition to his plays for BBC radio and theatre (most recently Sweet Dreams for Oran Mor in Glasgow), he has written five operas, two of them for Scottish Opera. \nBy the same author\n\nNOVELS\n\nThe Sound of My Voice\n\nNight Visits\n\nBelonging\n\nSHORT STORIES\n\nThe Tilting Room\n\nVivaldi and the Number\n\nNo More Angels\n\nPOETRY\n\nThe Wonnerfuu Warld o John Milton\n\nStretto\n\nCreatures Tamed by Cruelty\n\nThe Exquisite Instrument\n\nRagtime in Unfamiliar Bars\n\nHistories of Desire\n\nWithout a Backward Glance\n\nThe Magicians of Edinburgh\n\nDRAMA AND OPERA\n\nThe Music Box\n\nBlending In\n\nWe've Been Had\n\nSweet Dreams\n\nGood Angel \/ Bad Angel\n\nMarkheim\n\nFaraway Pictures\n\nThe Perfect Woman\n\nThe Money Man\n\nPublished by Salt Publishing Ltd\n\n12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX\n\nAll rights reserved\n\nCopyright \u00a9 Ron Butlin, 2014\n\nThe right of Ron Butlin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.\n\nThis book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.\n\nSalt Publishing 2014\n\nCreated by Salt Publishing Ltd\n\nThis book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.\n\nISBN 978 1 84471 998 3 electronic\nTo my wife, Regi, my sister Pam and my mother Elizabeth\n\nPART ONE\n\nSUNDAY\n\nTHE BLIZZARD WAS full-on \u2013 three hours instead of one with freezing fog, black ice and snow-snow-snow all the way. Penicuik, the Devil's Beef Tub, then tailgating the same Argos lorry over the Moffat Hills, snailing it behind Mr and Mrs Cautious down the M74.\n\nA one-man avalanche from Edinburgh \u2013 you've made it. You're here. That's what counts.\n\nAnd so . . .\n\nTime to get psyched up, get focused.\n\nBut first things first \u2014\n\nLog on. You've been driving for ever, so there's bound to be something. So many messages, so many puffs of oxygen to keep you breathing. It's not just you, of course \u2013 you can see it in people's faces when their mobiles ring, the relief that somebody wants them.\n\nC U @ 8 lol J x\n\nThe lovely Janice. You text her, confirming . . . and that's you back on solid ground. Another Sunday, another Mum visit, then a seventies download and the body-contour leather to carry you safely home. Second shave, second shower and into the second-best suit \u2013 for Janice, plus all the trimmings.\n\nTakes care of the day, takes care of you.\n\nYour phone snapped shut, you breathe easy once more.\n\nLife's good.\n\nWell, isn't it?\n\nZap-lock the car.\n\nThe path's needing shovelled clear and salted. A good six inches' worth. Fuck. If only you'd thought to bring your magic wand! But no probs. Fifteen minutes tops will see it \u2014\n\nNo.\n\nNo. No.\n\nThe front door's locked and her key's still in the mortice, inside. Jesus. How often have you told her about that key, about not leaving it in the lock? Maybe she's not been out all weekend? Maybe she's fallen? Can't get herself out of the bath?\n\nWhich'll mean breaking down the door.\n\nNot again.\n\nA good loud knock first, loud enough to wake the \u2014\n\nNo. Don't even think of it.\n\nThumping your fist big time. The snow's running ice-wet under your collar, the wind's razor-cutting your face. Stamp-stamp-stamping your feet on the front step to stop them turning into blocks of ice. You spoke on the phone only a few hours ago. She'd sounded fine, looking forward to seeing you.\n\nYou're freezing. Stamp-stamp-stamp. Thump-thump-thump . . .\n\nNinety years lying crumpled in a heap on the living room floor like she's \u2014\n\nDon't even think \u2014\n\nThank God.\n\nThe time it's taking her to turn the key in the lock . . .\n\n'Yes?' Her tone of voice, like she's never met you before. Not opening the door enough to let you in.\n\n'Mum? It's Sunday. I've come to \u2014 '\n\n'Your mother? Are you sure you've got the right house? I'm Mrs Stewart. Maggie Stewart.'\n\n'Let me in, Mum. I'm freezing out here. It's me. Tom.'\n\n'Tom? You know Tom?' Her face suddenly all smiles. Opening the door a little more. 'You've some news of him?'\n\n'News? It's me, I'm telling you.'\n\n'But you do know Tom?'\n\n'Of course I know \u2014 '\n\n'Then you'd better come in.'\n\nAt last. Into the cottage, into her sitting room \u2013 and a coal fire blazing in the grate. That's more like it.\n\n'Well then, and how is Tom?' She sits down.\n\n'But, Mum, can't you see it's me?'\n\n'I was told he'd be well looked after, so I hope he's fine. Mrs Saunders was most reassuring.'\n\n'Mrs Saunders? Who's Mrs \u2014 ?'\n\n'Tom won't remember her, of course. He was far too young. Between you and me, it's best he never hears her name. Best for everyone.'\n\nWhat the hell's she on about? The melted snow's dripping into your eyes, down your neck, your back. You want a towel. You want a seat. You want to get warmed up.\n\n'Don't you recognise me, Mum? Today's Sunday. I've driven down from Edinburgh same as always to see you \u2014 '\n\nNoticing you've glanced across at the tea trolley beside her, laid out with the usual straggled columns of playing cards \u2014\n\n'Learned to play patience during the war, and still keep it up,' she tells you. Like you didn't know already. 'Learned how to cheat then, too. The way you cheated turned into new rules so the game could go on. It had to, so you'd survive.'\n\nLike she's talking to a complete stranger.\n\n'Played it while waiting for the bombs to fall, sitting there in the black-out, waiting and waiting. Hearing the planes, the anti-aircraft guns in Leith . . .'\n\nBest to move things along. 'I'll make us some tea.'\n\nThrough to the kitchen. Water. Kettle. A towel for the hair.\n\nTea in the pot. Mugs, milk jug, plate of biscuits. Finish off the drying, set up the tray. Then through to get the afternoon back on course.\n\n'Here we are, Mum. I found a packet of HobNobs.'\n\nGetting everything back to a normal Sunday. Some tea, some talk. Fix what needs fixed. Clear her path, then hit the road in time to begin the arctic crawl that'll take \u2014\n\nBut . . . her photos? What's she done with the signed publicity shot of you as Mr Magic? It should be on the mantelpiece. And the lace curtains? What's she taken them down for? Might make the room seem brighter, but \u2014\n\n'. . . if the game worked out. We got bombed anyway. I was the only one in the family to survive. Nowhere to stay till the laird in the big house took pity. Lived here ever since. Sixty years and more, would you believe?'\n\nTalking like you'd never lived here yourself, weren't brought up here. Like she's never seen you before. Doesn't even know you.\n\nCan it happen that sudden?\n\nShe's half-rising from her chair as if to greet you for the first time. Such a warm, warm smile \u2013 you've not seen the like for months. So unexpected, so different from how she usually \u2014\n\n'You needn't worry, I'm really pleased to see you. I really am. I always knew you'd come.' She's almost in tears. Happy tears.\n\n'But I always do, Mum! I come every Sunday, don't I? When we spoke this morning I \u2014 '\n\n'I knew you'd come.' She's taken your hand and begun drawing it slowly down her face so your fingertips rest briefly on her eyes, her cheeks. Her lips.\n\nWhat the hell's all this?\n\n'I'm so very, very happy.'\n\nNext thing, she's led you across to the window where you stand side by side gazing out at her garden and the countryside beyond, a complete white-out of fields, woods and sky as far as you can see. Now the snow's easing off there's a few patches of faint blue, a last handful of tumbling flakes.\n\nGripping your arm: 'That's how I knew.' Pointing to what at first looks like a smudged fingerprint on the glass, a daytime moon: 'Everything'll be fine now, won't it, now you're here?'\n\nAnd next moment she's touching your face, your eyes, cheeks, lips. She smiles again, 'And you are here, aren't you?' She's so happy, happier than you've seen her in a very long time.\n\nQuite unexpectedly, she steps up close and kisses you on the mouth.\n\n'Mum?'\n\nAt the same moment she's put her arms round you, pressing herself against you: 'I'm so pleased, so \u2014 '\n\n'Stop, Mum! What're you doing?' You pull away from her. 'No. No. You can't \u2014 '\n\n'Michael! Michael, please \u2014 '\n\nMichael? Your father? She thinks that you're \u2014 ?\n\nYou take a step back. As gently as possible, holding her at arms' length.\n\n'It's me, Mum. Tom. It's Sunday, same as always, and I've come to see you.' Does she understand what you're saying? 'Mum? Don't you know who I \u2014 ?'\n\nThe utter desperation in her face now, the wretchedness.\n\nThen her anger, sudden and out of nowhere: 'Yes, I know who you are. I know all about you.'\n\nHer anger, then utter fury.\n\n'Get out of my house!' Screaming now, almost losing her balance as she staggers a couple of steps. 'Get out! Get out!' Her arm waving wildly towards the door. 'out!'\n\nYou can see what's going to happen next. About to fall, she's clutched at the trolley . . .\n\nWhich tips over, scattering playing cards everywhere . . .\n\nYou rush over and manage to catch her just in time.\n\nSaving the day.\n\nNice one. That's you \u2013 a safe pair of hands. Mr Magic, right enough. Forget the no-kids and marriage number three flushed down the pan with no regrets, you're all she's got. She knows it, too. Deep down. She must do. She loves you.\n\nAnd it's only a moment later \u2013 when you're helping your mother back to her seat, your arm holding her and keeping her steady \u2013 that she turns and spits in your face.\n\n1\n\nLISTEN, MAGGIE: AS the years continue to slip from your grasp, you can see your younger self in front of you \u2013 thirty-year-old Maggie Davies as was, walking the length of the ship and back again, alone, past oil drums and coils of rusted chain, past the covered lifeboat creaking on its ropes.\n\nNo one else on deck, not a breath of wind, and the June sun failing to break through the half-mist, half-drizzle cloud that hangs above the dull heaviness of sea.\n\nUp and down, up and down the wet boards, she goes . . .\n\nApart from the muffled chug-chug-chug of the ship's engine somewhere below, the only sounds are from seagulls screeching overhead and the propellers churning up the sullen stillness of the Minch. Maggie is glad of her woollen beret, her gabardine and scarf \u2013 these are all the outdoor clothes she's brought. The trip is not a holiday.\n\nLying here in the near-darkness of your bedroom in the care home, adrift between past and present, you're being carried to and fro by currents that run deeper than any measured time, currents that crisscross days, years and decades alike. Your days and years \u2013 until once again you're on that small ferry sailing from Mallaig to Stornoway. The salt-sea dampness in the air washes over you, the smell of paraffin almost turning your stomach whenever you pass too near the stern . . .\n\nHow clearly it's all coming back to you now, more vivid than any long-ago photograph could ever be. Mumble-singing to yourself: 'Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing . . .'\n\nStraining to open your eyes, desperate for the reassurance of the familiar chest of drawers, the wardrobe and easy chair you've brought with you from your cottage to Rosehaven House, your toiletries arranged on the glass shelf above the wash hand basin, the tea trolley with its half-finished game of patience waiting for you, the portable DAB radio beside your bed . . .\n\nSixty years foreshortened at a glance \u2013 like when you'd stood at your living-room window that morning, gazing out across the countryside under snow . . . yesterday, was it? Last week? Last month? No matter. Overnight, a handful of precious stones had been scattered across the pane where they'd frozen solid \u2013 an arrested cascade of light. Too cold to go out, the side roads probably blocked, and the pearl-sheen sky hard as a sheet of ice. The path up to the big house would be impossible for walking. Across on Keir's Hill, you could see some of the village children stumbling about in the snow, trying to clear a run for their sledges \u2014\n\nThat's when you saw it, high above the village, and remembered the name you'd made up all those years ago.\n\nA ghost moon.\n\nSo comforting it seemed to you then, as you'd paused for a moment at your cottage window, and so familiar. You traced its outline, hardly daring to press your fingertip on the chill glass, afraid the sliver of unexpected light might melt to nothing at your touch.\n\nBut there's no need to be afraid any more, Maggie, and no need to pretend. When the past returns, it is already an act of pretence. There's no shame in this \u2013 for how else could anyone bear to go on living?\n\nClose your eyes and watch as Maggie Davies continues to pace the wooden deck. See, she's come to a sudden stop to stare down into the cold waters of the Outer Hebrides. A solitary woman, a mere silhouette pressed by chance against a backdrop of mist and sunless water . . .\n\nThe bedsheet feels slightly tight across your chest where it's been tucked in. They wanted you to be comfortable is all, and feel secure. The worst is over, Maggie, and the best just about to begin. Really.\n\nThough it's still daylight outside, the woman you call Boss Beryl has already been in to draw your curtains. She pulled the door shut behind her when she left, without a word.\n\nClose your eyes. Something wonderful is about to happen.\n\nListen \u2014\n\nWHEN THE FERRY docked in Stornoway, Maggie struggled down the swaying wooden gangway, her heavy suitcase bumping against her legs. No Waverley Station this with its grime and grit, no soot-blackened walls and layers of soiled daylight seeping down through the trapped, filthy air \u2013 the ship's arrival had been perfectly timed for her to see the mist being burned away to reveal a Hebridean sky so vast, so generous and light-filled it looked newly made. There was the clean smell of sea and of heaped cod, mackerel and salmon packed in ice \u2013 the morning's catch being winched ashore to be stacked on the quayside next to the creels of live lobster and crab. But as for the stench of gutted fish wafting in the hot sun \u2013 she had to move further away, and quickly.\n\nThe white-bricked harbour master's office was so spick-and-span it must surely have been built only the day before, ready to greet her. Two men who might have been father and son were lifting fish boxes into a van. Seagulls celebrated her safe arrival by strutting up and down the quayside, screeching in excitement, and rising into the air every few seconds only to settle again a yard or so nearer to the dripping crates. The older man looked up and addressed her in Gaelic. Maggie shook her head.\n\n'Grand day, missus!' His unfamiliar cadence, its singsong gentleness, made the commonplace greeting sound like an ancient psalm of welcome.\n\n'Really beautiful!' She smiled back at him.\n\nWhat energy surged through her! What hope! Coming here had cost her more than she could afford, but what choice had she? Nowhere to stay in Edinburgh, no job and her small savings soon to run out. Nobody knew her here, not really. The Isle of Lewis was a foreign country near enough, a new beginning surely.\n\nBy the time she'd found out what bus she should take, it had already departed and the next wasn't due to leave until the following morning.\n\nA taxi?\n\nShe'd no money for taxis.\n\nBut then she'd no money for hotels either.\n\nThe boarding house Maggie was directed to overlooked Stornoway harbour. The landlady, a woman who introduced herself as Mrs Stewart, ushered her into the sitting room, talking all the while about the promise of a good summer to come and asking if she'd be taking a cup of tea with them?\n\n'This is my son Michael,' she added, indicating a man in his thirties seated by the fire.\n\nMaggie was surprised when son Michael made no move to get up from his chair to greet her; instead he simply held out his hand, letting it waver slightly as he fumbled the empty air to make contact.\n\n'Pleased to meet you.' His voice had such unexpected warmth and assurance that she let her hand remain in his as he invited her to lean towards him. Next moment, he had reached up to pass his fingers over her face. It only took a few seconds, his fingertips were so gentle she hardly felt their touch. His eyes meanwhile remained still, seeming to be permanently awash with milk. She kept expecting him to blink to clear his vision, but he never did.\n\nWhile she and Mrs Stewart discussed terms, Maggie noticed that the glass on the mantelpiece clock had been removed. Hours later, lying sleeplessly upstairs, she was to imagine the blind man getting up from his chair, taking a few steps across the well-charted darkness to hold his hands up to the clock face in front of him, feeling for the time.\n\nThe cost of one night's lodging settled, she was shown up to the first-floor bedroom. Having pointed out the bathroom and WC at the end of the corridor, the older woman then lowered her voice to explain about her son returning from the war, blinded for life. 'But at least he came back. Not like my husband.' Adding, as if to remind herself: 'We count ourselves lucky.'\n\nDinner was fish and chips, sitting on a bench that overlooked the sea. Then Maggie took a walk round the harbour before returning to the boarding house. It was still light when she went to bed.\n\n'A grand summer's morning, sure enough. On holiday, are you?' Mrs Stewart had come through to offer more tea.\n\n'Just a short break.'\n\n'That'll be nice \u2013 a few days to yourself before your husband joins you.'\n\nThough her porridge hadn't had time to cool properly, Maggie at once doubled her spooning rate. 'I've never been to Lewis before and hear it's beautiful.'\n\n'Aye, when the rain's crossed to the mainland and the midges are safe in their beds, it has a beauty like nowhere else on earth. You could try visiting the west coast, over Bernera way.'\n\n'Well . . .'\n\n'You'll have folk to visit, more like?' The teapot was positioned on its protective cork mat, the tea-cosy replaced.\n\nHot spoonful after hot spoonful was being cleared rapidly under Mrs Stewart's steady gaze.\n\n'Can I get you some toast, Mrs Davies?'\n\n'No thank you, Mrs Stewart. I'd best be getting my things ready.' One last spoonful and she was finished. 'Thank you for the lovely breakfast \u2013 a great start to the day.' She got to her feet. 'I'll look in before I go, to settle up.'\n\nTen minutes later Maggie made her way to the terminus where the bus waited to take her to the Eye Peninsula.\n\nOnce out of Stornoway, the Portnaguran bus rattled and bumped along the single track road sounding its horn every few minutes to warn slow-moving horse-and-carts to pull into the nearest passing place. It stopped to let off passengers at small villages, at road ends and junctions, at single houses even. When it crossed the open stretch of causeway the bus seemed to fill with light and, on either side, there was a glitter of sun-splashed waters and endless sky. The peninsula itself was flat moorland, utterly treeless. Maggie began keeping watch for road signs announcing the next huddle of cottages and the occasional black house with its turf roof \u2013 the village of Knock . . . then Melbost . . . Sleebost . . .\n\nThe photograph showed a stone-built house set well back from the road. The Callanders were distant family. Maggie had never met them, but for as long as she could remember there'd been an exchange of Christmas cards between the two households. On taking over their croft a year or so before, they'd written to her parents inviting them to visit any time, adding that their daughter, if she was still living at home, might fancy coming over for a longer stay. She could help around the croft and with the peat-cutting, they'd suggested \u2013 and there were more than enough local men back from the war who were still looking for a wife! 'Maybe you'd have better luck in the Hebrides than in these awful dance halls,' her mother had remarked as she'd propped up the photograph on the mantelpiece, next to some postcards. 'John and Isobel \u2013 C\u00e9ad mile f\u00e1ilte' was scribbled on the back, 'a hundred thousand welcomes'.\n\nMaggie peered once more at the photograph, holding it up close to the bus window to see better the weathered-looking building with its storm windows set deep in the wall, the cement path with vegetable patch on one side, drying green on the other, and the moorland stretching beyond the fence. Not a tree in sight and hardly a bush even, nothing to relieve the emptiness of the landscape. While pacing the ship's deck she'd gone up that front path a score of times at least, trying to decide how she'd introduce herself \u2013 and she'd still no idea.\n\nMr and Mrs Callander, John and his wife Isobel, had done their best to take up a happy-family pose on the front step of their new property \u2013 arms round each other, the promise of kindness showing in their faces, and Callander squinting into the sun's glare with a hand raised to shield his eyes. Maggie tilted the photo to catch the best light.\n\n'clachtarvie!' The driver had to call out several times before she realised she'd come to her stop \u2013 she'd been far too engrossed in what she could make out of Mr Callander's face and in the cheerful smile his wife was giving to the camera.\n\nThe bus drove off leaving her in the middle of nowhere. There was a scattering of cottages, the peat bog, and a clear-sounding peewit, peewit from high up in the sky \u2013 no bird to be seen, however. Ahead lay the dazzling sheen of sunlight caught by the sea. Like the landscape in the black-and-white photograph but friendlier-looking, and with the pleasing warmth of the sun on her skin.\n\nTo her left an unpaved road led down towards a bay. There were no street signs, but this had to be the right direction. She began walking. The houses on either side stood a good fifty feet apart, each on its own patch of ground. She made her way down the street inspecting them as she passed. It was hot now, but with a chill undercurrent blowing in from the sea. At the last house on the right, she stopped. Yes, here was the place she knew so well from the photograph. Someone had made a start on pebble-dashing the front wall and small stones lay heaped nearby. Maybe she could offer to help them finish? A life-sized jigsaw where all the pieces were the same \u2013 easy! The wreck of a dark-blue car, wheel-less, with its axles up on blocks and one of the side doors missing, squatted over by the fence. Its bumper trailed in the uncut grass.\n\nPushing the gate so that it swung open to admit her . . . Waiting for it to close with a dull thwack of wood against wood . . .\n\nForcing herself the three, four, five, six steps up the path.\n\nThe door turned out to be varnished a dark brown. There was no bell. She put down her suitcase.\n\nA deep breath. Her hand lifted ready to knock . . .\n\nHer last chance to turn back.\n\nHer firm rap on the wood panel echoed inside the house. Such a dull hollowness was nothing like the cheerful tongue-and-clapper jingle made by a city tenement doorbell swinging on its wire to announce that she'd arrived at a friend's and was waiting downstairs, eager to be let in. Back home, in a decade that had seen parts of Edinburgh and Glasgow turned to rubble, the purely physical summons of bare knuckles battering on someone's door would have suggested urgency and alarm, a warning that something terrible was happening or had already taken place \u2013 a house bombed, the danger of fire, escaped gas or the building's imminent collapse. Here on the Outer Hebrides, however, her knock would hold no such threat. It was a friendly tap on a door, nothing more. This was how things were done here and always had been, she told herself, a commonplace gesture of neighbourliness. Having knocked once, she lifted her hand away . . . and took a step back.\n\nNo need to repeat the knock. Maggie could hear someone coming, calling ahead in a rush of Gaelic as they made their way from the back of the house. In time, she thought to herself, she'd probably have to learn the language.\n\nThe door swung open. A man stood in the half-darkness of the interior. John Callander, it had to be. Red hair, red face. Smaller than in the photograph, dressed in a collarless shirt and waistcoat. Slippers. What had probably been intended as words of welcome were broken off in mid-phrase.\n\nNow they were face to face, was he about to greet her, to smile and shake her hand?\n\nTo step aside, perhaps, ready to throw the door wide open?\n\nWas he about to take charge of her suitcase, and invite her in?\n\nWas he hell.\n\nJohn Callander stared at her and said nothing. There was a movement in the dimly lit hallway behind him, a suggestion of sweeping yellow hair and pale-coloured jersey. This would be Mrs Callander. Leaning against the inside of the door, she, too, seemed in no hurry to do anything.\n\nMaggie looked from one to the other and back again. Red man. Yellow woman. John and wife Isobel. Their combined silence blocking her entry.\n\nShe cleared her throat. 'Hello, I'm Maggie Davies. I've come from Edinburgh and \u2014 '\n\n'Yes, we know who you are . . .'\n\nThe contempt in his voice, the disgust.\n\nAs if a charge of electricity had found a hateful circuitry already in place inside her, she felt her body seize, her every muscle lock tight. She couldn't breathe even, the next few seconds swelling up in her chest, her throat \u2013 a solid, choking mass.\n\n'. . . and we know all about you.' Callander took a step back into his house. And slammed the door in her face.\n\nStumbling over to the derelict car to slump against its rusted bonnet, tears running down her face. Not even the strength to wipe them away.\n\nThe partly pebble-dashed stonework, the vegetables planted in their rows, the trackless moorland, the very sky itself \u2013 everything around her suddenly reduced to a meaningless slapdash.\n\nShe'd come to where the world stops.\n\nShe stayed there.\n\nIt was not until later, when she heard the sound of a vehicle going past on the main road, that she glanced up to see a van crossing the featureless landscape \u2013 she watched it getting smaller and smaller, its windscreen catching the sun's glare for a moment as the road curved. Finally it vanished. At one point a teenage boy wearing an oversized army coat came out of the cottage opposite. He took his bicycle from where it leant against the wall and wheeled it across the garden before mounting. A last wave to someone at the window before he set off across the peat bog, his too-long coat tails flapping with each pedal thrust. Like the car earlier, he too grew smaller and smaller as he headed further into the flat, empty landscape. Finally he too vanished.\n\nThe Callanders remained indoors all this time. What did they do while waiting for her to leave? Did they flick through the newspaper? Listen to the radio? Read their Bibles? Did they glance at each other every few minutes: Has she gone yet? Or did they sit completely at their ease, secure in their faith, confident that sooner or later they'd hear her footsteps retreat back down the path, followed by the thwack of their wooden gate as she took herself and the disgrace of her unwanted pregnancy out of their lives \u2013 helter-skeltering herself straight back to Hell where she belonged?\n\nWhen Maggie eventually managed to haul herself to her feet and stumble out onto the unpaved road, she was aware of being observed from behind the tight little window \u2013 no doubt the Callanders were making sure she hadn't left her suitcase behind.\n\nWith only the unseen peewit for company, she dragged herself and her suitcase all the way up to the main road. Four hours later, a bus appeared. She stared out the window all the way back to Stornoway, seeing nothing.\n\nHaving returned to the bench where she'd eaten her fish supper the night before, Maggie sat watching the comings and goings on the small ferry tied up at the dockside. From time to time smoke came in casual puffs from its funnel. Through the large window she could see two men on the bridge having a long conversation. Passengers weren't boarding yet. Every few minutes a red-headed sailor staggered up the gangway carrying a box or a crate; the bulkier-looking packages he balanced on his shoulders. Another sailor was coiling rope on the rear deck while a third looked on, smoking a cigarette. Everyone, it seemed, had something to do.\n\nShould she take the ferry back to the mainland, then the train to Edinburgh? She was in good time to board, if she wanted to.\n\nBut did she?\n\nBack home? Back to her parents?\n\nBack to Edinburgh, at least?\n\nStay on Lewis?\n\nFor what?\n\nBut . . . back to Edinburgh?\n\nAfter a while she felt like she'd been sitting there for ever, her suitcase at her feet.\n\nEventually the small ship cast off, and soon there was only a slow trail of smoke drifting above the bay. The faraway rumble of the engines grew fainter and fainter.\n\nWhy hadn't she gone on board? She didn't know.\n\nWhy had she stayed? She didn't know that either.\n\nShe got to her feet and made her way along to Mrs Stewart's boarding house.\n\nEarly next morning Maggie was woken by the sound of heavy rain. She climbed out of bed and closed her window. Standing barefoot on the cold linoleum, she watched the fishing boats manoeuvre towards the harbour mouth before passing, one by one, out into the open sea. The grey-white puff-puff-puffs from their smokestacks were flattened by the wind before being taken up, tossed into the air and shredded to nothing. The steady thud-thud-thud of the engines was blown towards the shore, and whenever an extra-strong gust rattled the glass in its frame she pressed her hand against the pane, and stilled it.\n\nSoon enough the storm seemed to become a live thing trying to force its way into the house. She could hear it battering its fists on the downstairs door and hurling itself at the walls, but she knew she was safe. Mrs Stewart's house was pre-war, and by a good couple of centuries. It had outlasted many storms and would see this one out, too, no problem.\n\nThe floor shook so much she almost expected to be lifted off her feet or else to see the walls billow in and out like the sails of a long-ago ship far out at sea . . .\n\nYes, far out at sea \u2013 that was where she really was. No land in sight and her only cargo her unborn child. Men, it seemed, always had some sort of harbour to make for. That was the nature of their world \u2013 a map of place names like Normandy, Amiens, Berlin. For men it was enough to identify aims and objectives, and then draw co-ordinates \u2013 that done, and with bayonets fixed, they marched, marched, marched into the future, whatever the cost. But for her, after that reception at the Callanders', what destination remained?\n\nEven though it was mainly the Leith docks that had been bombed, everyone's life and routine had been smashed beyond repair. Something had got into the works \u2013 the grit of countless deaths, perhaps \u2013 and a new kind of routine had taken over. She herself had worked long hours in a factory making bombs she knew would kill and maim, she'd packed ammunition that would cause death to someone's husband or son.\n\nThe last fishing boat having gone, she returned to bed. It was only five o'clock. Back under the blankets she lay listening to the storm. Even before getting herself pregnant, what had she been hoping for? During the last year of the war when their housemaid Annie had left to join the WRACs, Maggie had been expected to assist her mother in running the house. She'd cooked and cleaned, she'd scrubbed floors and brushed shoes, beaten carpets, polished brass work and mopped the outside steps. She was given pocket money for tram fare, for the pictures and for the odd evening out at the dancing. By the time peace was declared, she had turned twenty-five. Would this be the way of it from now on? she'd sometimes wondered as she passed through the hall on her way back to the kitchen, carrying the dirty dishes, her footsteps falling all too readily in step with the slow relentless tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . of the grandfather clock standing at the bottom of the stairs.\n\nEven when she joined her friends in the packed dance halls on Princes Street or at Fairley's Ballroom at the top of Leith Walk, she'd often been aware of that merciless tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . inside her, as if she herself had become the empty sounding-board for the hours and days and years being relentlessly sliced off her life. Twenty-five became twenty-six, became twenty-seven. Whatever the music, whatever the band, more and more she found herself alone at the edge of the floor, stranded there, waiting to be asked to dance and waiting in vain. Every man, of course, was guaranteed a partner. Ten times over. She was marking time merely.\n\nShe turned twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty . . .\n\nHe wore a tie-pin that was probably some kind of army crest. Having persuaded her to remain on the floor for a second dance, a slow waltz, he told her he was called Danny and invited her to have a drink with him at the bar. As they stood in the crush, he said how he'd sometimes pictured a girl like her when things had got difficult. Taking her hand, he murmured that he'd been lucky to get through it all and had come home hoping to find someone special \u2013 did she know what he meant? While he rubbed the back of her hand, almost nervously, unconsciously perhaps even, he'd added in a shy voice that he'd imagined someone who, in their turn, had been waiting and keeping themselves for someone like him. He didn't want one of these would-be glamorous girls who paraded about like they had film-star looks and were interested only in silk stockings, cigarettes and ration coupons. He leant nearer and whispered that he wanted a quiet girl, someone trusting, affectionate \u2013 someone to care for and who would care for him in return. This was what he told her as they stood sipping their drinks between dances that first evening.\n\nAnd, yes, she'd been exactly the kind of girl he'd wanted \u2013 a girl so desperate to get away from her parents' home that she'd make herself believe every single word he told her. That she'd trust him, totally.\n\nShe pushed aside the covers and placed both hands on her stomach. Just over three months' pregnant but nothing showed yet, not even the slightest bump. The Callanders must have been warned. Having thrown her out of the house, her parents must have noticed the photograph was missing and written to them, letting them know of their daughter's shameful 'condition' and expressing their own church-going views on the matter. Girls became women became wives became mothers \u2013 that was the proper way of it, the only way. If a girl couldn't wait, then she had to marry whoever made her pregnant. Call it divine intervention, call it Russian roulette.\n\nMaggie punched her pillow, then lay staring up at the ceiling. She'd been so ashamed. She'd thought only about leaving Edinburgh, running away as fast and as far as she could \u2013 it was as simple as that. Running away to where no one really knew her or knew anything about her.\n\nWhat had she been hoping for, coming here \u2013 the hundred thousand welcomes?\n\nAt seven she dressed and went down to breakfast.\n\nOut of the dining room window she could see the storm was \u00adeasing, but the sky remained weighted with dark clouds and a watery daylight that threatened more rain. Once again she seemed to be the only guest. The stiff-backed dining chair sighed as she sat down and the others stared blankly back at her, without passing remark. The dark mahogany dresser had clearly run out of conversation years ago.\n\nThis grim silent room. Outside, weathered to a complete indifference to her or anything about her, were the rain-lashed streets and buildings of Stornoway. In Edinburgh she'd have been getting ready to catch the tram to join the Saturday morning bustle of Princes Street, in and out of Jenners, PT's, J&R Allen's, Binn's. A pot of tea in Mackie's or Crawford's. Some chatter and gossip while soaking up the sun on the grassy slopes of the Gardens.\n\nNo. No. No.\n\nMaggie took a deep breath and tapped her knuckles on the polished table as though to call a meeting to order. She had propositions to consider, decisions to make.\n\nTop of the agenda \u2013 Item One: Should she remain on Lewis, or leave?\n\nStraightforward enough, surely.\n\nAs she ate her breakfast, she asked each of the empty chairs in turn for their advice and was about to consult the dresser when Mrs Stewart entered.\n\n'Another storm on its way, Mrs Davies. Some of the fishing boats are coming back so you can be sure it'll be a big one \u2013 these men need every penny they can haul out of the sea. We're in for it, right enough.'\n\n'And the ferry?'\n\n'Cancelled most likely. And tomorrow is the Sabbath.'\n\nSo that was that.\n\nBy noon the rain was coming down heavier than ever. There was a knock on her bedroom door. It was Mrs Stewart.\n\n'You're not telling me you're going out in that, Mrs Davies?' she said. 'If you don't mind eating in the kitchen, you're welcome to have a bite of lunch with us.'\n\n'That's very kind of you, but \u2014 ' Maggie started to protest.\n\n'I'll not take no for an answer.' Mrs Stewart smiled. 'See you downstairs in half an hour.'\n\nOver a bowl of broth with bread and cheese for afters, Mrs Stewart asked all the questions and Maggie did her best to make up the answers. No mention of her being pregnant, of course. She'd lost her husband a year ago almost to the day, she told them. A car accident. Her parents were no longer alive, killed when the family house was bombed during the war. Her brothers had been killed too. She announced this as an afterthought, to help keep things simple. She'd been the only survivor.\n\nOnce she got into her stride, her story seemed to tell itself; it flowed out easily and cheerfully almost. She'd come to Lewis for a short break to help get herself through the first anniversary of her loss. Her poor husband \u2013 she christened him Alfred for some reason and had difficulty keeping a straight face every time she mentioned his name \u2013 had been very brave. She described how Alfred had suffered, how Alfred had never complained, how Alfred had lingered for several months, needing her constant care. Before she could stop herself, she heard herself adding that Alfred had had a beard that just grew longer and longer as he lay there. She had to trim it so he'd not get himself tangled in the blankets when he turned over in bed. Seeing Mrs Stewart's rather puzzled look, she quickly went on to tell how Alfred had died in her arms. She spoke brokenly, following her words with a few moments' respectful silence.\n\nMrs Stewart was very sympathetic, even more so when she learned there had been no children.\n\nMaggie's offer to help clear the table was declined; instead she was urged to stay, enjoy another cup of tea and chat with son Michael.\n\nLater, when she was getting up to leave, Michael asked if he might 'read' her face again 'so's to help me remember, Mrs Davies.'\n\nShe let him, naturally.\n\nThe rain having turned into a steady drizzle, she borrowed an umbrella and went for a long walk. There was no ferry boat tied up at the quayside. Instead, a handwritten notice announced all sailings were cancelled till Monday. She felt strangely relieved. No need for a decision, not today anyway.\n\nOn her return to the boarding house she was told that, unless she had other plans, there would be a place laid for her at the kitchen table that evening. 'Nothing fancy, you understand, Mrs Davies. Simple fare.'\n\nThe meal of herring and potatoes, with tinned rice pudding for dessert, was rounded off with more questions.\n\nNo, she didn't own the flat where she now lived. When she returned to Edinburgh she'd have to start looking for somewhere smaller.\n\nShe would have to find a job, too.\n\nHad she ever worked?\n\nOnly making bombs.\n\nWhen Michael asked what colour her hair was and what she was wearing, Mrs Stewart interrupted the awkwardness of her reply to say that their guest was being far too modest.\n\n'She's a bonny lass. Nice face, nice figure and just coming into her mid-twenties (she winked at Maggie, who'd been about to protest, and put a finger to her lips). They'll not be letting her leave the island, you can be sure of that.'\n\n'Mrs Stewart, I \u2014 '\n\n'Never heed me, lass, just teasing . . . But maybe you'll be finding yourself staying on the island just that wee bit longer than you planned!'\n\n'Mother! Don't embarrass our guest. I must apologise, Mrs Davies, my mother can sometimes be rather \u2014 '\n\n'There's no problem, really. I can take a joke.' She glanced back across at Michael but, of course, he hadn't noticed her quick smile, and never would.\n\nLater, when Maggie said she would go upstairs, Michael asked if he might be allowed to pass his hands over her face one more time. 'It'll help me really picture you.'\n\n'So, you're coming to join us at the kirk, Mrs Davies?' Mrs Stewart greeted her at the foot of the stairs, while her son stood waiting at the front door. Both of them were dressed as for a funeral \u2013 their best black relieved only by the red edging on the older woman's bible and by the white of \u00adMichael's stick.\n\n'Church? Oh, I hadn't thought.' Then Maggie had an inspiration: 'The service will be in Gaelic, won't it?'\n\n'Aye, it will, but \u2014 '\n\n'Mrs Davies has no need to sit through two hours of boredom. It's a glorious summer's day that God has given her. She should go out and enjoy it.'\n\nWhich she did.\n\nNext morning, after breakfast, Mrs Stewart called up to say that she'd be off to the shops shortly and wouldn't be back till after twelve. 'Kitchen table's set for three.'\n\nBefore she could reply, Maggie heard the front door being shut.\n\nShe planned to take a walk into town to find out when the normal ferry sailings would be resumed and was getting herself ready to leave when she heard someone come out of the sitting room. Next, they were coming up the stairs.\n\nQuickly, she crossed to the mirror that was set in the wardrobe door.\n\nA light tap on the door. The slight hesitancy in his voice: 'Mrs Davies? . . . Maggie?'\n\nGiving her hair a pat, smoothing down the front of her blouse.\n\n'Maggie? I was wondering if you'd like to come down and join me for a cup of tea?'\n\nTrying to re-fasten the clasp of an awkward brooch in the mirror, wrong-handedly.\n\n'That'd be nice, Michael. Be with you in a few minutes.'\n\nStopping herself, hand poised in mid-air. What was she doing? Michael wouldn't notice if she wasn't looking her \u2013\n\nMaggie came into the kitchen to find Michael pouring out a cup of tea for her. The wooden table had been laid with teacups and saucers, side plates, milk jug, sugar bowl. He placed the teapot on the tea-stand and covered it with an embroidered tea-cosy.\n\n'I forgot the biscuits. Would you like one?'\n\n'That's kind of you. But, Michael, please don't trouble yourself to \u2014 '\n\n'It's no trouble. Have a seat. Help yourself to milk and sugar.'\n\nMaggie watched in fascination as Michael crossed to a cupboard, opened the door and, without any hesitation, selected and brought out a large tin. He returned to the table, took his seat, removed the lid. So surely did he move about the kitchen performing his various tasks that she would never have known he was blind.\n\n'There should be a couple of snowballs left in there as well as some digestives. One of them'll have your name on it.'\n\n'But how can you \u2013 ?' she began before she could stop herself.\n\n'Oh, I keep an eye on the snowballs!' he joked. 'But really, Maggie, just because I'm blind doesn't mean I'm completely helpless. I know this house, because I've learnt it. So long as things remain in the same place I'm fine. Quite independent really. In fact, when Mother had to keep to her bed for a few days last winter with a bad cold I managed to look after her perfectly well, and with no outside help. Cooking, washing, cleaning \u2013 the lot! You might say that my blindness didn't make a blind bit of difference! Slightly slower than the average home help perhaps, but no less thorough, so I'm told \u2013 at least for a man!' He laughed. 'I know the streets of Stornoway, too, and the shops. If you fancy, we can go for a walk through the town afterwards to let you get properly acquainted with the place.'\n\nHalf an hour later they had left the house and were walking along the quayside. It was turning into a beautiful summer's day and, for the first time in months, Maggie felt herself relax as they strolled along together, Michael's white stick tap-tap-tapping out a path for them.\n\nHe took her to the Town Hall, to the bank where he'd worked before the war; he showed her his favourite bar. Then, having come round almost full-circle, they returned to the harbour.\n\n'Along here is a bench where I sometimes go to sit in the mornings, to feel the sun on my face.'\n\nThe instant Michael had spoken, Maggie was certain he was about to lead her to the very same bench where she'd eaten fish and chips that first evening she'd arrived.\n\nWhich he did.\n\nOnce they'd sat down, Michael touched her lightly on the arm: 'Tell me what you see, Maggie \u2013 and give me colours, lots and lots of colours.'\n\n'Well, it really is a lovely day, hardly a cloud in the sky \u2013 in the blue, blue sky, I should say. The sea is flat, totally calm. The water looks greenish and shiny with the sun on it. There are two fishing boats at the quayside, one's natural wood with a yellow cabin, the other has a black-painted cabin. Just along from us, a fisherman in a dark brown jersey and with green wellingtons up to his knees is sitting next to a heap of lobster pots; he's doing something with a net, untangling it or mending it. There are white seagulls, a red van . . .'\n\nShe felt a sudden need to close her eyes. Like she was trying to imagine what Michael saw, sitting here beside her on the bench on this beautiful sunny day. Darkness. Pitch-black darkness, a night that for him went on and on and on, and that he awoke to every morning.\n\nShe just wanted to feel what it was like for him.\n\nDidn't she?\n\nNo.\n\nThat wasn't it. Not really.\n\nRather, it felt like \u2013\n\nLike she'd stepped into one of those screened confessionals for Catholics, where they speak to an unseen priest.\n\nShe'd closed her eyes because she wanted to confess, was that it? To tell him she was pregnant? Tell him, and be \u00adforgiven?\n\nShe wanted to tell him \u2013 yes. She needed to. All morning she'd felt that need get stronger and stronger, until it had become almost unbearable. Like a threat, it had now taken over everything she could see and hear \u2013 the harbour, the sky, their sitting together on the bench. It had built up inside her until her whole world seemed to shudder from moment to moment with the force of what remained unspoken.\n\nBut there was no reason to tell him. What would it matter to him that she was pregnant?\n\nShe had to, though. She couldn't help it.\n\nHer eyes tight shut, she was about to speak when \u2013\n\n'I was driving a British Army truck in a convoy across France. It was a summer's day, Maggie, just like this. Blue skies and hardly a cloud to be seen, exactly how you described it. Overhead the German fighters were strafing us, sometimes Stukas dive-bombed. My lorry got hit. Seems I was thrown clear; they found me crawling on my hands and knees along the ditch beside the road. Not that I remember anything, except waking up . . .'\n\nMaggie had to stop herself from reaching over to touch the back of his hand.\n\n'I'm so sorry, Michael. It must have been so . . . so terrible. I can't begin to imagine how you . . .'\n\n'It was seven years ago. I've had seven years more than the other men who were in the lorry, and I get the gift of an extra day every morning. Like today \u2013 and here I am sitting on this bench in the sun with you, and enjoying the blue sky, the red van, the fisherman's dark brown jersey and his green waders. All thanks to you!'\n\nWithout thinking about it, she gave his arm a comforting squeeze.\n\nWhen they returned, Michael asked if he could read her face again. 'To keep in touch,' he smiled.\n\nAfterwards he didn't step away.\n\n'Would you like to try? See what it feels like?'\n\nShe closed her eyes.\n\nThere was no tremble in his hand as he guided her fingers across his smoothly shaved cheek. But, as she stood there, I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant kept hammering over and over in her head. All she could feel was the effort it was taking her to stop from screaming the words out loud.\n\nIn bed that night she allowed herself to relive the touch of Michael's fingertips, their warmth as they'd traced out the smoothness of her forehead, her eyelids, cheeks, lips, the curve down to her neck.\n\nSuppose he had begun to stroke her hair, suppose he had taken her in his arms and kissed her? Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.\n\nThe spell of good weather continued. A few days later, while they were enjoying a picnic of sandwiches and a thermos flask of tea on their bench, Maggie heard herself say: 'I don't know what's happening between us, Michael . . .'\n\nShe knew perfectly well, of course \u2013 what was happening to her, certainly. She was falling in love. She couldn't help herself.\n\n'. . . but it's good. It feels very good.'\n\nNext thing, he had fumbled for her hand and taken it. Raised it to his lips.\n\nThat night she lay awake for hours remembering what happened next. When they'd kissed, she'd longed \u2013 longed with a desperation she'd never known before \u2013 for his kiss to be all there was to her life.\n\nShe stood at the top of the stairs one morning, gazing around at the seascape print on the wall, the runner carpet, varnished floorboards, the view of the harbour through the small storm window, the arrangement of flowers in a vase . . . Was it possible that her days would begin with a glance like this out of the low window to check on the weather, with her noticing some mornings that the flowers looked a bit tired and could do with being replaced?\n\nMrs Stewart insisted on always setting a place for her at table. 'Don't embarrass me,' she'd say whenever Maggie brought up the subject of payment for her lodgings.\n\nOne afternoon she heard him whisper: 'I'm so happy we've found each other, Maggie.'\n\nYes, she answered into herself. Yes. Then she said it aloud: 'Yes, Michael. So am I.'\n\nI'm pregnant. I'm pregnant.\n\nNext moment, she'd blurted the words out. Told him how it had happened. Then closed her eyes, waiting for his reply. When it came, it was short.\n\n'We'll manage.'\n\nThe following afternoon they almost bumped into the Callanders. She and Michael were walking along the main street having been to the butcher's and greengrocer's \u2013 mince, potatoes, onions and carrots for the evening meal \u2013 and were making for the baker's, the last on their list.\n\nThe Callanders were approaching from the opposite direction \u2013 Mr Callander with a black and green tartan shopping bag in his right hand. Noticing her, they came to a halt right outside the shop. They stared. Not a word was spoken.\n\n'The baker's, Maggie, and then we're done,' said Michael.\n\n'It looks pretty busy in there, Michael.' She glanced across at the Callanders standing side by side only a few yards away. 'Let's go to our bench at the harbour instead. We'll get the bread later on.' She pulled at his arm to steer him back the way they'd come.\n\n'Carrying these bags? No chance.' Michael laughed. 'A few minutes' queuing won't matter. We can get ourselves a couple of doughnuts to have on the bench \u2013 my treat!' He tapped his way past the Callanders and went into the baker's. Maggie followed.\n\nWhen they came out a few minutes later, the Callanders were nowhere to be seen.\n\nMichael turned to her: 'Thought you said it was busy?'\n\n'I just wanted to go and sit in the sun with you.' She squeezed his arm. 'And now we've doughnuts to share as well!'\n\nThat evening she came downstairs to find Michael already seated at the kitchen table. There was no sign of Mrs Stewart. To her surprise, one of the place settings had been removed. Was the older woman, in her most encouraging way, leaving the two of them to enjoy an intimate dinner by themselves?\n\nBefore sitting down, she went round to him. As always, his gaze was fixed unwaveringly on nothing.\n\n'Hello, Michael.' She raised her hand and was about to read his face in greeting before kissing him, when she became aware of his hand fumbling to take hers.\n\n'Maggie?'\n\nHe grasped her fingers and began stroking them. 'Mother met a Clachtarvie woman today in the street.'\n\n'Your mother met \u2013 who?'\n\nHe remained staring straight at her, sightlessly. 'Oh Maggie. I'm so \u2013 so sorry.'\n\nThen she understood. The Callanders.\n\nFor several seconds they remained hand in hand, without speaking. 'Everybody knows everybody here, Maggie. And knows everything about everybody. We'll need to \u2014 '\n\n'We don't provide dinner for guests, Miss Davies.' Mrs Stewart was standing in the doorway. 'There's nothing for you here.'\n\n'Mother? Maggie and I are \u2014 '\n\n'This is my house, as well you know, and I'm the one who runs it \u2013 as well you know, too.' The older woman advanced into the kitchen. 'You're not welcome, Miss Davies \u2013 and I doubt you'll be welcome anywhere on the island, not any more. Coming here, abusing our trust.'\n\n'Mrs Stewart, I never meant to \u2014 '\n\n'Bringing your sinfulness into our house, bringing your shame.'\n\n'How dare you, I \u2014 '\n\n'But I know my Christian duty. The next ferry is tomorrow morning. Keep to your room till then. We'll be well rid of you, and cheap at the price.' Mrs Stewart turned away to see to a pot on the stove. 'Michael? If you're ready for your soup . . .'\n\nMichael got to his feet and came round from behind the table to stand beside Maggie, his hand on her shoulder. 'No, mother. Maggie and I are \u2014 '\n\n'Not a word, Michael. Nothing's changed. Nothing that I can see. Our life might not be easy but we manage, you and I. We don't need the likes of \u2014 ' She switched to Gaelic. Not singsong Gaelic.\n\n'But, Mrs Stewart. Michael and I \u2014 '\n\nThe Gaelic continued.\n\n'Please, Mrs Stewart \u2014 '\n\n'Your room, Miss Davies.' The older woman had taken a step towards her, soup ladle in one hand. 'You'll be getting your bill and I expect it paid in full before you leave.' Then the Gaelic was resumed.\n\n'But Mrs \u2014 '\n\n'Your room, I said.'\n\n'Don't you dare speak to me like \u2014 '\n\n'This is my house and I will speak in any way I choose.'\n\nThen Gaelic, Gaelic, Gaelic.\n\nTen minutes later, leaving mother and son to rage at each other, Maggie went upstairs. She stood at the window, staring out at the harbour where the early evening sun hung above the slow-lapping water. The argument down in the kitchen continued for over an hour. Lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, she listened to it all, to every last incomprehensible word.\n\nThen came silence. Then the rattle of pans, the rush of tap water.\n\nAt one point during the evening an envelope was pushed under her door. Her bill.\n\nIt was shortly after midnight when Maggie became aware of someone outside her room. She heard the handle being turned and the door softly opening. Then being closed.\n\nFootsteps were approaching the side of her bed \u2013\n\n'Maggie?'\n\nMichael was leaning over her. She could feel his breath warm on her cheek.\n\n'Maggie?'\n\nWithout speaking, she reached up to stroke his face in greeting. They kissed . . . and in the darkness Michael's blinded country became hers.\n\nMaggie got up early. Very, very early. She dried her eyes, washed her face and dressed as quickly as she could. After she'd finished packing, she put on her coat. Then, suitcase in one hand and shoes in the other, she left her room.\n\nHaving tiptoed along the corridor to the top of the stairs, she paused for a moment. Listened.\n\nQuite certain at last that the rest of the house was still asleep, she went downstairs.\n\nOn the hall table she left two single pound notes under her key, two pounds that she couldn't really afford. Then checked herself in the mirror, dabbed her eyes again. Took a deep breath.\n\nOnce outside on the doorstep she wanted to slam the front door behind her, slam it full-force \u2013 but managed to stop herself. Then, having pulled it shut, she wanted to thump her fists against its hardwood panels, and to kick and kick and kick.\n\nAgain she stopped herself.\n\nShe had to leave. She knew she had to leave. End of story.\n\nIn tears again, she made her way along the silent street to the ferry terminal. An hour later she was on board and heading back to the mainland.\n\nSUNDAY\n\nHIGH-BACKED ARMCHAIRS LINED up against the dayroom walls. Meals, meds, bath, bed. The bay window keeping everything else out \u2013 the front lawn, the bush, the small tree, the big tree, the red yellow blue flowers, the visitors' car park, the visitors' cars. The main street, the people, the traffic, shop-windows, tenement windows. The sky that's no longer yours. The TV that's always on.\n\nThe first time the man you think of as Tom's friend brought you here for a look round the place, you heard someone say it felt like a waiting room. Waiting for what? you joked. A joke you always remember when you come through after breakfast to find every single minute and every long hour of the day ahead already gathered here, waiting for you. The dayroom \u2013 the very name makes you shiver every time you take your seat.\n\nThursday? Monday? Saturday? Different names for the one same day that slides backwards and forwards along the one same week that never comes to an end, but keeps starting over keeps starting over keeps starting over . . .\n\nYou'll be safe now, Maggie. By day you have your own seat two places down from the Murray sisters, and at night you have your own bed. Here the corridors are all one day long. The same day.\n\nWere the Murrays twins from the start? Seated side by side, feet splayed out flat on the floor, hands crossed on their laps, coat-hanger shoulders, silver-thread hair. Staring, staring into space \u2013 rabbits caught in a set of headlights that no one else can see. Dorothy seated in the corner calling out Wait for me, Mother. Wait for me. mother? mother? Wait for me . . . all day long. The Murrays, Dorothy. No one speaks by name to any of the other women lined up in their chairs, and the women never speak back. Not sleeping, not waking \u2013 but dreaming. Yes, you hope they're dreaming.\n\nAnd the man of your dreams? You know that when he appears in the doorway, he's going to ask one of you to dance. In the end, that's why you're all here.\n\nFred Astaire top hat, bow-tie and tails like he's stepped out of a black-and-white film, he'll pause for a moment as if taking a good look round \u2013 searching, probably, for the next Ginger Rogers. Scouting out the talent, it used to be called at Fairley's Ballroom and the other dance halls on Leith Walk and along Princes Street. Sweeping his hat from his head, he gives the entire room a boulevardier bow of such well-practised elegance that you can imagine the intake of breath on all sides. As he drifts round the edge of the floor, his black patent leather shoes drip with the sunlight that's pooled here and there on the polished lino. Like he's wading through the lushness of strings coming from an unseen orchestra. Lingering before each one of you in turn, a tilt of the head, a knowing smile here, a few softly spoken words there \u2013 who will he choose to be his partner for this special once-in-a-lifetime dance?\n\nOne day, of course, he'll stop when he reaches you. And it'll be Michael. Yes, you know it will be him. You'll know by the touch of his fingertips upon your face, their gentleness, his sightless eyes brimming with \u2014\n\n'Med time, Mrs Stewart.'\n\nWhile murmuring your name he'll draw you up into his arms. Shut your eyes, Maggie, and then you'll feel him close, so very close. Keep them shut \u2013 his hand's resting lightly on your waist as he birls you across the room and back, up and down the floor until all the rag-tag, long-ago years whirl round and round the pair of you in a swirling blur of \u2014\n\n'Mrs Stewart.'\n\nFaster and faster you go, your feet no longer touching the ground \u2014\n\n'Med time, Mrs Stewart.'\n\nLike you're dancing on air, on sunlight itself \u2014\n\n'med time. mrs stewart.'\n\nNo music, no Michael, no being swept round in his \u2014\n\n'Not for me. I'm Davies. Maggie Davies. How many times do I have to tell you?'\n\n'Maggie, then. Meds. Drink now, Maggie. One . . . two . . . Drink. Today Sunday. Today Mr Magic come.'\n\n'Who?'\n\n'Mr Magic he called \u2013 yes? He come for you today. You, Maggie, you stay sit and he come. Like he say he come. No worries.'\n\n'Mr Magic?'\n\n'All the Sundays. When you first here he say he come all the Sundays and today Sunday.'\n\n'It's a mix-up calling me Mrs Stewart, you know. Real \u00admixter-maxter. Names really matter, Donna. Can't be too careful with meds. If you give me Mrs Stewart's meds, then what about her? What's poor Mrs Stewart getting?'\n\nWhenever you ask them to point Mrs Stewart out to you, they roll their eyes and shake their heads.\n\nThe only man here is called Slow Peter. They've told you another name, but you know that name's not right. So you keep to Slow Peter. You know Slow Peter. They've told you he'll fix leaks and come when your bedroom window's jammed or a light bulb's gone. You know his real name even if no one else does. You know all their names \u2013 Slow Peter, Donna, Mrs Saunders, Beryl . . . When you tell them, trying to help keep them right, they just smile and say Suit yourself, Maggie. So you do.\n\n'Hello, Mum.'\n\nSomeone's bent down to kiss your forehead, leaning too close for you to see their face. Calling you his mother, like he's lost his own.\n\nYou'd like to call him 'Michael', to say the name to someone, to hear it spoken out loud.\n\nHe's taken your hand like he wants to keep good hold while he talks.\n\nSo let him.\n\nTalk and talk and talk. And sometimes you talk back at him. About the Murrays and Dorothy, about Slow Peter and Mrs Saunders, about Donna and Beryl, about the things on TV \u2014\n\n'Yes, Mum, when I'm on TV I'm called Mr Magic, remember. Been going a lot longer than The X Factor! You've seen me sometimes \u2014 '\n\nYou manage to keep looking over his shoulder. 'That letter's made her cry. Look!' Pointing to what's happening on the screen: 'Look at that poor woman \u2013 imagine someone writing to her so as to make her cry. Like they were really wanting to make her cry.'\n\n'Mum \u2014 ' He's started to stroke your arm. 'Mum, please. It's only something on TV, like when you see me make things disappear, playing cards and flowers and even people sometimes. \u00adRemember me telling you how I created that illusion about the \u2014 '\n\n'Heartless it is. A disgrace. A real disgrace.'\n\n'Don't get upset. It's nothing. Would you like me to \u2014 ?'\n\n'The poor woman. But Jean's got a cake all ready and waiting, never fear. A slice of that would cheer her up and take her mind off things. They'll be bringing it soon. Cream and jam, layers and layers of cream and jam. Real cream too, mind \u2013 all the ration coupons she could get hold of. Had to be good if we were to \u2014 ' You peer over his shoulder again, half-afraid at what you might see. 'Will you look at that poor woman! Look. Look at her. look at her!'\n\nTears have started running down your cheeks. Tears you make no move to wipe away.\n\nInstead \u2014\n\nStruggling to get to your feet, pointing your finger at the screen: 'That poor, poor woman. can't somebody do something? can't somebody help her? help her help her help her help her!'\n\nNext moment it's all turned to horse-racing and a red-faced man talking into a microphone. Which is nothing much, so you sit down again.\n\nThey're closing your curtains. But it's not the woman you call Donna, who's grown up into a well-meaning lassie and always has time to stop for a word or two. It's Boss Beryl \u2013 you'd know her vicious tug-and-swish anywhere.\n\n'Leave them, please. It's too soon. He's away making us a pot of tea. Nice man \u2013 for a man. Brought me some biscuits, too, my favourites \u2014 '\n\n'And flowers, Maggie. Brought you flowers, too. Must have put them in a vase for you, too. See?'\n\n'Flowers?'\n\nThen like out of nowhere, it seems, there's suddenly a vase of flowers on the chest of drawers. You can feel the glow spreading across your face, beaming into a smile. A real grin. 'Michael? Michael's really come?'\n\n'That his name, was it? He's long gone.'\n\n'Don't be silly, Beryl. There's the flowers. How else would they have got here? Making us some tea. Back in a jiffy, he said.'\n\n'Went home ages ago, Maggie.'\n\n'HobNobs, my favourites. But you can have one, if you like.'\n\n'An hour and more's drive back up to Edinburgh. He had to go. It's late now, Maggie. I've brought you your hot drink.'\n\n'He was right here only a moment ago, Beryl. Right here. We were talking about . . . something. He's always talking. He's along the corridor making us both a cup of tea . . .'\n\n'That was this afternoon, Maggie. It's nearly night now.'\n\n'Afternoon? Night? How can it \u2014 ?'\n\n'You've had your first Sunday here and he says he'll come every Sunday afternoon just to see that you're \u2014 '\n\n'I'm not stupid, Beryl. I'm not one of the Murrays. I'm not Dorothy. Sunday afternoon. I know Sunday afternoon. I understand afternoon. I understand Sunday.'\n\n'Goodnight now, Maggie. It's your sleep time. Here's your \u2014 '\n\n'I know Sunday. I want Sunday! Sunday! sunday!'\n\n'You need to rest and \u2014\n\n'sunday! sunday! sunday!'\n\n2\n\nDIRTY YELLOWISH SMOKE hung over the tracks and platforms of Waverley Station, and once again Maggie found herself walking through cloud \u2013 a cloud of steam this time, of soot and perpetual twilight. Her eyes smarted and she could taste the coal dust coating her tongue. Someone jostled her, making her stumble against the bottom step of the driver's cab. Close to, a furnace-heat roar came from the engine. She breathed in the smell of hot metal and burnt oil. Steam hissed out from between the massive wheels.\n\n'And the same to you!' she hissed back at them.\n\nGripping her suitcase, she pushed her way towards the ticket barrier. To her right a guard's whistle blew \u2013 another train was leaving. From all sides came the clash and grind of metal on metal, the rumble of porters' wagons, the slamming of carriage doors, and passengers shouting at each other to be heard above the din. Here was no windswept, treeless desolation \u2013 but real-life noise and bustle welcoming her back to her home city.\n\nHaving handed over her ticket, she stepped into the crowd of friends and family come to greet the new arrivals. No one would be waiting for her, but she couldn't help glancing across whenever there was a sudden cry and someone rushed forward into the open arms of someone else \u2013 wife\/husband, girlfriend\/boyfriend, brother\/sister, friends. She'd turn away, but wasn't always quick enough to shut out the sight of other people's happiness. At the same time, she wanted to see it, to enjoy their pleasure at being together once more \u2013 and to snatch that glimpse of an embrace, a kiss . . . of a separation healed.\n\nMichael had asked for her photograph to keep and, even though he couldn't see, he said he could always 'read' it. At that very moment he and his mother would probably be finishing their lunch. Maggie toiled up the steep slope that led out of the station, her suitcase getting heavier at every step \u2013 they'd be sitting facing each other at the kitchen table, with its two settings. A blind man? Could she really have coped with a newborn baby, and being married to a blind man, and all the while trying to settle down to a life as Mrs Stewart number two in that house \u2013 for her mother-in-law would certainly have been number one? Should she have stood her ground? Should she have stayed and \u2014 ?\n\nIn time she'd surely have learned how to \u2014\n\nForget it. Taking her suitcase in both hands, she marched herself up the slope as best she could \u2013 Forget it . . . Forget it . . . Forget it \u2013 marched herself towards the street ahead \u2013 Forget it . . . Forget it . . . Forget it \u2013 past the never-ending line of taxis crawling down to drop off their passengers, their wheels thumping the cobbles, sounding their horns and belching out exhaust. As she strode along, she promised herself that when she reached the top of the slope she'd be stepping into the brightness of the very sky itself. Ahead, she could see the roof of the National Gallery outlined against a cloudless blue, then the sweeping curve of the Mound with the Bank of Scotland building so grand at the top and, beyond, the Castle itself with its upward tumble of walls and battlements shimmering in the haze. Edinburgh seemed shaped by the sky and the sky itself by the city, and, for a moment, everything seemed possible and the future hers. She was so very, very glad to be back.\n\nThe afternoon heat rose from the paving stones. A small child bumped into her, then ran off into the crowd of shoppers. She passed a comforting hand over her stomach.\n\nJust as when her train had been approaching the city, she again heard the rhythm of its wheels rattling over the tracks: Somewhere to stay Somewhere to stay Somewhere to stay . . .\n\nBut first, she thought, somewhere to eat.\n\nWith luck, she might have missed the lunchtime rush. Suitcase in hand, she hurried along Princes Street, heading to Mackie's Buttery.\n\nSo, it seemed, was everyone else.\n\nThe place was mobbed. Overcrowded. Packed. Heaving. Queue right to the door.\n\nAnd hot. Hot. Hot.\n\nQuarter of an hour later, she and her tray with its corned-beef sandwich and pot of tea had found a small round table set in a crowd of other small round tables over by the window. Having put her suitcase down beside her, she stared out at the Gardens, then up at the Castle. The Black Douglas and his men, shields tied to their backs, had actually climbed up the rock face to capture it, or was that Stirling Castle? The little she'd learnt about Scottish history when she was at school \u2013 Bruce and the spider, William Wallace being betrayed and beheaded, and then Mary Queen of Scots \u2013 was from such a long time ago. As she understood it, nothing much else had happened during the next five hundred years, except down in England. She kept meaning to read a Scottish history book, if there was such a thing. She couldn't remember ever hearing of \u2014\n\n'These seats taken?'\n\nShe shook her head. 'No, please \u2014 '\n\nThree people sat down and took over her table. Mr and Mrs Bicker and little Miss Bicker.\n\nFrom the start Mr Bicker was on the defence:\n\nThe choice was his, no? He'd given up the fags, but the cigarette coupons were still his. Weren't they?\n\nMrs Bicker said she needed shoes for work. Last year's had been soled and heeled twice \u2013 the soles and heels were now all there was. First drop of rain and she might as well go barefoot.\n\nNo one's asking you to go \u2014\n\nDo you want me to go barefoot?\n\nIt's not a question of \u2014\n\nSo you do want me to go barefoot? Soled and heeled twice, I'm telling you. First drop of rain and I might as well go barefoot. And as for Annie's shoes . . .\n\nMrs Bicker kept at it.\n\nMeanwhile Young Annie Bicker sat and stared, watching every single mouthful as Maggie finished her sandwich.\n\nOnly a few sips of tea remained.\n\nHaving remained politely silent so far, Young Annie now spoke up: 'You got any, missus?'\n\n'Pardon?'\n\n'Coupons for sweeties. I like sweeties.'\n\n'No, I'm sorry I can't help. A real shame if you're \u2014 '\n\nBut Young Annie had already turned away.\n\nMaggie finished her tea and mumbled a goodbye as she stood up. She grabbed her suitcase that was now wedged between Mr Bicker's chair and her own. She jerked it free. No one paid any attention. She might as well have been invisible.\n\nLeaving the Bickers to each other was surely a good start to the rest of the day.\n\nSomewhere to stay Somewhere to stay Somewhere to stay . . .\n\nShe was crossing Princes Street intending to buy an Evening News from the paper seller at the top of the steps leading down to the Gardens when \u2014\n\nnewhaven was written at the front of the tram.\n\nNext moment she found herself sitting downstairs in her favourite seat behind the driver, her suitcase stowed under the stairs. She was certain her parents would slam the door in her face, but, then again, they might not. They'd had time to cool down, to think better about things and about her. It would be different. There was surely more to the world than a corridor running between Stornoway and Edinburgh, a corridor with a slammed-shut door at either end? Yet here she was, going down its spiteful length once more as if she couldn't help herself. But Newhaven was her home. She'd been born there. She'd gone up and down the same front steps every day for the last thirty years near enough. Ten thousand times up and down. This would make it her ten thousandth and first time \u2013 and it was going to be different.\n\nIf she changed her mind, she could get off at any stop. Any stop at all.\n\nThe tram trundled along Princes Street towards the East End, past the Waverley Market and the North British Hotel before sweeping left down into Leith Street, past \u00adFairley's Ballroom where the squaddies and sailors still battled out the war with each other, not that she'd ever be going there again. Then past the Playhouse cinema where the organist on his platform rose up through the floor to play during the interval, past tree-lined Elm Row and into Leith Walk proper. Yes, this was her city. Here, at least, she knew she belonged.\n\nThe best way of not getting the front door slammed in her face . . . was to walk straight in.\n\nThrough the vestibule door's stippled glass she could see the familiar hall, the hat stand, the curved hall-table against the wall with the oval mirror above, the grandfather clock, the staircase going up to the bedrooms.\n\nFrom the sitting room straight across came the sounds of a football match on the radio. Her father would be in his armchair, following every kick of the game. Her mother would be in there, too, reading the Scotsman or knitting.\n\nEver so slowly Maggie inched open the vestibule door and stepped into the main hall. She took her time easing the snib back into place, making sure there was no tell-tale click.\n\nShe was now inside. She was back home.\n\nSo far so good.\n\nShe put down her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs.\n\nThe measured tick . . . tick . . . tick of the grandfather clock, the faint sounds of the football match, the smell of the freshly polished floor \u2013 this was her home on a Saturday afternoon.\n\nA last-minute check in the hall mirror. The light was poor. A quick comb through her hair and giving it a pat. Some fresh lipstick? But what if she smeared? She didn't need a wounded-looking mouth, a crazed and begging-looking mouth. What she wanted was a war-mouth, a blood-red snarl of a mouth, to show her parents she was no longer their dutiful daughter, no longer their little girl with no life of her own and no plans for her future but theirs. She'd be a mother herself by the end of the year. Like it or not, she was their equal.\n\nShe snap-shut her lipstick, pocketed it, then marched firmly across the parquet floor. Grasping the handle, she took a deep breath and threw open the sitting-room door, stepping into the comfortable predictability of her parents' Saturday afternoon.\n\nHer mother looked up, startled. Knitting needles click-clicking, click-clicking, click-clicking, click \u2014\n\nHer father's faraway gaze was suddenly bewildered, no longer at the Easter Road stadium but not yet back in his own sitting-room, and with his cup of tea arrested just a few inches from his lips . . .\n\nNot a word. Not a movement. The pair of them freeze-framed in shock. The radio commentary continued: Ormond's crossed high into the box, Turnbull's there and Laurie Reilly . . .\n\nShe crossed the room to take up position on the fireside rug.\n\n'Hello.' She didn't smile. Didn't step forward to hold out her hand. Didn't make as if she was about to embrace them.\n\nIn her unbuttoned coat with the belt hanging loose, she looked like someone who'd just stepped in for a flying visit, someone with a life of their own outside the confines of home and family, someone who decided for herself when she'd arrive and when she'd leave.\n\nShe glanced at each of them in turn.\n\nThe crowd was cheering, chanting, there was the whirring-ratchet clatter of football rattles.\n\nHer mother? A deeper sag to her shoulders and to her mouth.\n\nHer father? His eyes refusing to meet hers, the fingers of his left hand picking at the armrest of his chair, his half-raised cup of tea now in real danger of spilling. His unaccustomed awkwardness, his uncertainty. His gathering anger.\n\nThis was not the man who'd pushed her in the Victoria Park swings every Saturday morning, always so careful to use both hands to keep her safe, taking a step backwards and hauling the wooden seat up to his fullest stretch. 'Higher, Daddy! Higher!' She'd squealed with pleasure as he sent her hurtling forward, her back arched and legs thrust out in front. Arcing upwards and upwards, soaring into the open sky . . .\n\nHer father: 'That's them ahead now, Muriel, 3-2.'\n\nHer mother: click, clickety-click, clickety-click . . . (tugging at the length of wool to release a few more coils from the ball at her feet). 'Who's playing again?'\n\n'The Hibees, of course. Against Third Lanark. The Thirds drew with Rangers last season \u2013 one more goal and they'd have won us the League for the second year running. But this is just a friendly.'\n\n'Are they not always friendly?'\n\n'Ach, Muriel, you need to take more interest.'\n\nShe stepped forward until she was almost touching the knitting needles.\n\n'It's me, Mother.'\n\nWithout seeming to notice her own daughter standing in front of her, the older woman turned away and stooped to unhank her line of wool from where the ball had rolled under her seat. That done, she resumed knitting, keeping her head bent over her needles like a conscientious schoolgirl learning a new pattern. Fingering the individual stitches along the length of the needle, she counted them out under her breath. Eight, nine, ten . . .\n\nMaggie stared down at the uneven parting in the grey hair, a near-white dandruff-flecked line. As a little girl, she used to watch her mother check her appearance every morning in the hall mirror. Such grown-up neatness was part of an adult world she herself looked forward to belonging to one day. After a last few dabs of face powder the small puff-pad would be replaced in its sleek round tin with the mirror set inside the lid, then, returning to the large oval looking-glass, her mother would angle her head this way and that to check herself first in profile and then full on. Chin on chest and comb in hand, she'd lean forward to inspect the top of her head and smooth out any remaining loose strands, laying them to the right or left of her precisely combed parting.\n\n'But no one sees through your hat, Mum,' Maggie had said to her once.\n\nGod does, little one \u2013 and so do other women.\n\nThe parting she could see now, unprotected either by a hat or stray curls, jerked in abrupt lunges across the exposed skin like a piece of badly done stitchwork, a clumsy suturing of the thinning scalp. Her mother seemed suddenly much older. Her father too. As if they'd been fast-forwarded from their mid-fifties straight into premature old age, missing out the years in between.\n\n'Mum?' It was all she could do to stop herself placing a hand on her mother's head and letting it rest there.\n\n'But then I'd no want you ever coming along tae an actual game, Muriel. Fitba terraces are no place for a woman. Nae toilets for a start, less ye fancy joining us in the line, splashing up against the wall!'\n\n'Colin! How can you? Really, you are the very limit sometimes.'\n\nHer mother's shoulders had started to tremble. The light grey knitwork shook in her hands like an unfinished sail billowing in a sea-breeze, except there was no wind and no sailing boat \u2013 only an old woman's distress.\n\n'I'm standing here, Mother. Right in front of you.' How hard it was to resist reaching down to take the hands that had begun to shake, to force them to lay aside their knitting; and to make her mother look at her.\n\nHer father got to his feet, crossed over to the radio and turned up the volume:\n\n. . . can hold their lead for the last two minutes. what a front line. the famous five they've started calling them. smith, johnstone, reilly . . .\n\nAlmost cringing under the too-loud commentary now booming around the room, her mother seemed to shrink in her seat, dwindling further into old age.\n\nHer father sat down again.\n\nthe hibs supporters can hardly believe what's happened. keep this up and next year the league and cup double might . . .\n\nShe faced each of them in turn: 'Mother? Father?'\n\n. . . the famous five leading the march to victory. the whole of easter road's yelling for the referee to blow his . . .\n\nClenching her hands at her sides, gritting her teeth.\n\nWanting to march across to the radio and switch it off.\n\nWanting to rip the knitting out of her mother's hands and yell: look at me. mother! look at me!\n\nWanting to pick up her father's tea from the small side-table and throw it in his face . . .\n\nUpstairs, her bedroom was in near-darkness, the curtains pulled shut. No pictures on the walls. No books on the shelves. The mattress stripped. Empty fire grate. Cleared of all her ornaments and knicknacks, her dressing table had been polished to a hard shine. When she opened the wardrobe, the hangers made a wooden-sounding clack as they knocked against each other.\n\nAs a teenager she'd taken to tilting the dressing-table mirror this way and that, when checking her appearance. The instant she saw a hint of attractiveness in the sweep of her hair, in her practised smile and the elegance of her unclenched hands, she'd been ready to leave. Where else could she have found the courage to go out and face the world?\n\nAnd now?\n\nWas this really her reflection? There was no courage here, nor any sign of it \u2013 not in these wounded eyes, these clumsy hands, this slack hair.\n\nCome on, Maggie, come on, she urged the woman in the mirror.\n\nLike the room itself, had she, too, been emptied out, stripped bare? Her reflection half-raised a hand as if about to offer comfort, only to let it drop again. Then it clenched a fist, clenched and clenched until Maggie felt the fingernails digging into her palms.\n\nHer parents. Her own parents. Within minutes of her confessing what had happened to her, they'd told her to leave the house and never come back. They'd shouted at her and yelled. When she collapsed weeping on the couch, they'd simply got up and walked out the room. Later, in the hall, she'd found her suitcase packed and waiting. They'd ordered her to go, to go now. Pushed her into the vestibule. Pushed and pushed her onto the front step, onto the street. Locked the front door.\n\nShe glared at the woman in the mirror \u2013 why hadn't she made a scene? Why hadn't she rung the bell, punched and kicked the door? Screamed abuse at them?\n\nHer voice hardly above a whisper but charged with cold, cold fury: how could she have let herself be treated like that? Her whole life . . . like she'd never been born? She heard herself curse the house, curse it to a bombed-out rubble of shattered doorways and gaping windows. Curse her parents trapped in the shut-in self-righteousness of their sitting room.\n\nClump-clump-clumping back down the stairs as loudly as she could. Clump-clump-clump! Maggie came to a stop in the hall. Hesitating. The sitting-room door had been closed again \u2013 their chilling contempt beginning to freeze around her.\n\nBehind her, the grandfather clock's relentless tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . continued to fill the house. Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . measuring out endurance to the lifeless furniture, to the carpets, doors, corridors, the staircase . . . and to her parents barricaded behind their silence.\n\nThen, and without stopping to think what she was doing, she went straight up to the grandfather clock and its hateful tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .\n\nShe opened its front case.\n\nShe reached in.\n\ntick . . . tick . . . tick . . . ti \u2014\n\nNo one paid any attention as Maggie laboured across to the very edge of Newhaven harbour. No one glanced over to see her stand her suitcase on the quayside, then pause for a moment, taking time to gaze down into the sunlit water that rippled-and-broke, rippled-and-broke almost soundlessly against the thick wooden posts.\n\nNo one watched her as she pulled back her arm, took aim \u2013 then hurled the pendulum as far and as high as she possibly could. Up into the air it rose, glittering as it arced briefly in the afternoon sun, suspended motionless for an instant before falling straight down into the blue-green depths.\n\nThere was hardly a splash.\n\nA wonderful moment, and Maggie savoured it. She gave herself a really big smile. As she stood there on the quayside she imagined the dead stillness now filling her parents' house, and pictured the pendulum sinking ever more deeply into the harbour's muddy ooze, its hateful tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . choked at last to a permanent silence.\n\nShe returned to Princes Street, getting off at the stop between the Scott Monument and the Galleries. It took her so long to pull her suitcase out from below the stairs that she had to struggle through the press of passengers already crowding to get on:\n\n'Out the way, please . . . Please, I'm trying to get off . . . Out of the way . . .'\n\nThen she was down. Once off the tram her suitcase seemed suddenly much heavier than before and she could manage only the clumsiest stumble-steps. Having reached the end of the platform she hesitated, not daring to leave the safety of the tram stop, the one small island of calm in the middle of the rushing street. The city centre was crowded, every department store and shop sure to be packed. Jenners, Fraser's, J&R Allen's, Patrick Thomson's, British Home Stores \u2013 the Saturday afternoon shoppers seemed to have melded together into one sweltering mass of summer frocks, hats, handbags, shopping bags and children squeezing in and out of doorways, jostling on the pavements, cramming themselves even more tightly together at junctions while waiting to cross.\n\nThe ground beneath shook with the rumble of tram after tram; overhead cables sparked their electric hiss-and-spit; bells dinged warnings to the men and women swarming across the rails. The heat was pounding at her. A few minutes to pull herself together and she'd be all right. Maybe a rest on one of the benches along the stretch of pavement in front of Princes Street Gardens?\n\nYes.\n\nGripping her suitcase even tighter, she stepped down onto the street \u2013 only to stumble almost at once on the cobbles, and nearly fall.\n\nIt was unbearable in the full sun, dizzying almost. Sweat trickled into her eyes and down the side of her face. She wiped it clear. Her blouse stuck to her back. An awkward dash across the tramlines . . .\n\nThe first bench was taken. So was the next. And the next.\n\nLifting and placing each foot . . .\n\nBreathing in, then breathing out . . .\n\nWiping the sweat from her eyes. Wiping again and again.\n\nAll but dragging her suitcase along . . . its arm-\u00adwrenching heaviness . . . thump, thump onto the pavement every few steps . . .\n\nSomewhere out of the sun. Somewhere to sit down. Mackie's was too far. Jenners Tearoom? Once inside the store she'd be able to take the lift all the way up to the top floor.\n\nOnly, it would mean crossing Princes Street again. It would mean trekking over the uneven cobbles, picking a safe path between lumbering trams that came in both directions. She'd have to struggle through more pedestrians, keep her balance on the shuddering tangle of tram lines that twisted and turned as they caught at her heels.\n\nA few minutes' rest, nothing more.\n\nThen she'd be fine.\n\nDashing across the front of a stationary tram, and behind another one heading in the opposite direction towards Calton Hill. A van hooted at her, but she paid no attention.\n\nShe stepped up onto the pavement. Jenners, at last. The large shop window glared back at her, a harsh cascade of blinding sunlight and raw colours \u2014\n\nPressing her forehead against the pane of sun-heated glass. Counting to twenty, slowly. Then counting again. Not until she felt she was again standing on solid ground did she continue her journey. The entrance was several yards ahead.\n\nStepping onto the next paving stone, and the next . . .\n\nShe had a special compass trembling and swaying inside her, of course. Doing its best to guide her. One more step, one more . . .\n\nBy the time she managed to stagger out of the sun and into Jenners doorway, it was all she could do to lean against the wall for a moment.\n\nThe red-brown marble felt so deliciously cool against her back, the solid stone taking the weight of her exhaustion.\n\nSweat was now streaming down her face, her neck, her back. Noise clamour brakes horns voices people people people. Surging in and out the doorway, shopping bags knocking against her, feet stumbling against hers, against her suitcase. Knocking it over. 'They'll have it in here . . . said we'd meet at four . . . and some linen for the . . .' Faces staring into hers: 'Are you all right, missus?'\n\nSo many rips in the near-transparent curtain that's fallen between her and the city she's known all her life.\n\nPeople people hectic sky staring sun dizzying blue . . .\n\nA hot wind, such a hot rushing wind springing up out of nowhere, tearing the blameless sky to shreds. Too sudden voices. Too abrupt laughter. Everything too close. Then too far away. The street rushing again rushing again rushing again . . . The hot wind wrenching the arched stonework above, the marbled pillars buckling first to one side, then to the other . . .\n\nThe air already sucked out of the next moment and the next . . .\n\nWhen Maggie opened her eyes, she found she was lying in Jenners' doorway, a man's shiny black shoes planted firmly on the ground right beside her cheek. Strangers brought to a standstill were gazing down at her. Over their shoulders she could see the top of the Scott Monument set against a calmness of sky.\n\n'White as a sheet, the poor woman.'\n\n'Some water, someone.'\n\nOne of the faces leant closer, becoming a patch of shadow shielding her from the sun's glare, asking if she was all right?\n\nDid she want to sit up, maybe?\n\nSomeone had taken her shoulder.\n\nNo. No. No, she screamed back at them, but couldn't make the words come out, not even a whisper.\n\nAsking if she wanted to put her head back, to lean against the wall?\n\nNo. No. No.\n\nAsking if she wanted to come inside where there was a chair?\n\nNo. No. No.\n\nSomeone took her arm and began helping her to her feet.\n\nno. no. no.\n\nIf only she could shout the words out loud. If only the people could hear her. If only she could remain peacefully stretched out on the floor of Jenners marbled entrance. Resting there, resting as on layer upon layer of the earth itself \u2013 each layer in turn bearing her weight and giving her the peace she longed for and wished could go on for ever.\n\nMeanwhile she'd been helped into the shop . . . helped into a heavily upholstered chair . . . a glass tumbler rattled against her teeth . . . water dribbled down her chin.\n\n'Take your time.' Such kindness in the man's voice, such concern \u2013 she could hardly hold back her tears. A woman had placed an arm around her shoulders.\n\n'You'll be all right in a few minutes, lass.'\n\nThe gentlest squeeze. 'Right as rain.' Another squeeze. A smile. 'If you've a phone at home we can call someone. Your husband, maybe?'\n\nShe jerked into sitting upright.\n\n'No phone in the house. I'll be fine. Just the heat.' She tried to smile. She didn't want the woman to withdraw her arm, not yet. So, so comforting even if only for a few more minutes.\n\n'You're a bit peely-wally though. Maybe coming down with \u2014 '\n\n'You're very kind. Both of you.'\n\n'Should be at home, feet up, with a magazine, the radio on and him bringing you tea and cake.'\n\nAround her, the noise had quickly built up until it was the same Saturday pell-mell rush all over again. Men and women, their bags and their children, pushing to get in, pushing to get out, pushing to reach the counters, the ringing tills.\n\nShe was helped out of the chair. 'Thank you.'\n\nShaky, but standing. She'd survived the fainting. She'd survived the kindness.\n\n'My man's at the football and \u2014 '\n\nShe told them she'd be getting a tram home. It wasn't far. Just down to Newhaven. She'd be fine now. Totally fine. Really.\n\n'Well, if you're sure you're okay, lass . . . ?'\n\nAs steadily as she could, she walked out of the department store and back into the glare of Princes Street, setting off in the direction of the tram stop opposite Waverley Steps.\n\nThen a miracle happened.\n\n'Maggie!'\n\nGetting a tram home? She had no home. She kept walking. When she reached the stop \u2013 what then? Somewhere to stay Somewhere to stay Somewhere to stay . . .\n\n'maggie!'\n\nShe looked round. Bleach-bottle blonde, pillar-box red lipstick, cheerful and friendly. It was her sister-in-law.\n\nThe older woman stood directly in front of her: 'Remember me?' She was joking, of course.\n\n'Oh, Jean! Hello there. I'm \u2013 I'm \u2014 '\n\nJean glanced down at the suitcase: 'Are you coming, or going?'\n\n'I don't know.'\n\nThe two women looked at each other.\n\n'It's true, Jean. I really don't know if I'm coming or going!'\n\nWhich made them both laugh out loud.\n\nTen minutes later Maggie was being treated to afternoon tea at the North British. Busy restaurant, chattering on all sides, waitresses in black starched uniforms, comfortable seat, a two-tiered cake stand \u2013 scones at the bottom and an upper layer of fancy cakes. There was a dish of glistening wet-yellow pats of butter, three kinds of jam, honey and clotted cream. No ration problems here. Two pots \u2013 one for tea, one for hot water. Linen napkins.\n\nHer sister-in-law had her own small business as a quality baker, making cakes and confectionery to order. Not until some years later, when Jean could finally afford to give up the rented one-room flat where she did her baking and lease proper shop premises in Haymarket \u2013 practically the West End, after all \u2013 was her professional status finally acknowledged by her mother-in-law. Until then she was always referred to as Jean, Billy's wife, who does us a nice cake when the pair of them come round. Her hair was too blonde, her lips too red and her accent . . . too Dalry.\n\n'Another brandy snap? Some cake? Let's hope it's just twae yer eating fer!' Jean nodded towards the few remaining crumbs on Maggie's empty plate.\n\n'Wonderful to see you again, Jean. You've no idea.'\n\nHer sister-in-law smiled. 'Feeling mair like yersel, are ye?'\n\n'Yes, thank you. A bit shaky back there with the heat and \u2014 '\n\n'Billy telt me whit happened. Ye poor woman! Throwing their ain daughter oot on the street. I'm scunnered, fair scunnered! Whit a shameless pair o \u2014 '\n\n'It's my own fault, Jean. If I hadn't let myself be \u2014 '\n\n'Dinna talk daft. That's the wey men talk, but we ken better. See, Maggie \u2014 '\n\n'I feel so \u2013 so ashamed. When he drove me back home \u2013 afterwards, you understand? \u2013 he hardly spoke a word, just dropped me at the end of my street,' she paused. 'After all his talk and his promises, suddenly I was nothing. That look on his face as he drove off . . . A smile right enough, but like he was glad to be rid of me . . . So much dirt he'd scraped off his \u2014 '\n\n'Maggie, dinna let yersel \u2014 !'\n\n'Could feel the shame of it burning into me as I went up our front steps.'\n\n'But, Maggie, ye shouldnae feel \u2014 '\n\n'Let me say it, Jean. I've not talked with anyone. Once I knew I was . . . well, you know what I mean . . . Anyway, when I tried to tell Mum and Dad . . . they were even worse. Their disgust, like I was the lowest of the low. I went to the YW that night and \u2014 '\n\n'Ye should've cam tae me. I'd hiv \u2014 '\n\n'I couldn't bear to see anyone. I wanted to be where no one knew me. Next morning I went to Lewis.'\n\n'Whit?' Jean's cry of surprise silenced the nearby tables. She continued in a low voice, 'Lewis? What in God's name possessed ye tae fetch yersel there?'\n\nMaggie shrugged. 'Relatives, but I didn't know them, never even met them before, and so I thought everything would be \u2014 ' She shook her head. 'Truth is, I wasn't thinking straight. I should've written to them first and saved myself the trip.' Managing not to cry, she told her sister-in-law about the hundred thousand welcomes she'd received.\n\nLong before she was finished, Jean's hand had reached across to cover hers. 'I tell ye, Maggie, I hope thae Callanders burn in Hell.'\n\n'That's an awful thing to say.'\n\nThe older woman shrugged and took out a packet of cigarettes. 'Smoke?'\n\n'No thanks.'\n\nJean lit up. 'Some family you're frae! Even my Billy \u2013 and he's the best of thon heartless brood \u2013 willnae want tae hear we've met. So I'll no be telling him.' She took a draw of her cigarette. 'Yer gang ahead wi it then?'\n\n'I suppose so.'\n\n'Hmm.' She paused to tap off some ash. 'Well, I'm glad tae hear yer no thinking o some back street butcher or of daein it yersel wi gin and knitting needles.'\n\nMaggie had managed to put away two slices of chocolate sponge, a nut-tasting cake with yellow icing and two scones with butter and strawberry jam. Feeling so much better than earlier, she licked the tip of her forefinger and dabbed at the cake crumbs.\n\n'Which reminds me, Maggie, when yer time comes, promise me ye'll no be seeking refuge in the airms o Christ?'\n\n'What?'\n\n'Promise me you'll book intae a proper nursing home. Promise me, Maggie. You're no gang tae be yin o those poor women doun on their hands and knees scrubbing the church flagstones right up tae the last minute, then getting tied tae a table tae gie birth. I've heard some awfae stories. We're no having merciful sisters saying you and yer sinful bairn are gang straight tae hell and gien ye both a taste of damnation in advance. We're no letting that happen. How are ye fer money, by the bye?'\n\n'Fine for the moment. Something in the Post Office.'\n\n'Good. And where are ye biding?'\n\n'Back at the YW, I suppose.'\n\n'Well, I know a place \u2013 in darkest, slummiest Dalry,' Jean said, imitating her mother-in-law's put-on posh. 'It'll dae fer the time being. All right?'\n\n'Jean, I can't \u2014 '\n\n'Not good enough fer you?'\n\n'No, I don't mean \u2014 '\n\n'That's that sorted then. And . . . the man?'\n\nMaggie shrugged. What was there to say?\n\nJean ground out her half-smoked cigarette. 'He can burn as weel.'\n\nJean's small bakery turned out to be an Aladdin's cave just off the Dalry Road. Maggie stepped from the grim, cobbled side street of stone-faced tenements straight into a one-room oriental palace where the oven-warm air was drenched with the scents of cinnamon, cinnabar and cloves, with the sweetness of melted chocolate and icing sugar. Like King and Queen, a large gas cooker and a generously deep kitchen sink ruled over an assembled court of shelf upon shelf of flour tins, spice racks, glass jars of raisins, currants, almonds, dried orange and lemon peel . . .\n\n'I'm a black-market baker,' she joked, 'either that or I'd be stuck daein scones and naethin but!'\n\nThe sitting room\/kitchen of Jean's small 'single end' flat was for her baking work only, but she'd fitted up the snug, cabin-sized boxroom at the back as a restroom, should she ever feel like putting her feet up. Instead of a bed there was the luxury of a Louis-the-Something chaise longue. Some blankets and a spare cushion were kept in a small trunk whose flat lid doubled as a side table. For Maggie, it was perfect.\n\nOnce Jean had left to go home, promising to be back first thing Monday morning, Maggie got herself settled in. A few days? A few weeks? She'd no idea, but for the time being this would be home. Her coat and scarf she hung on the back of the boxroom door, her best dress on a coat hanger that was nailed to the wall, creating a pleasing splash of blue and green against the pale-coloured wallpaper. Her two blouses went on another hanger to decorate the wall opposite. The rest of her clothes \u2013 a cardigan, two skirts, a jersey, her underwear and stockings \u2013 remained in her suitcase which she stowed under the couch. The chaise longue had gilt arm- and back-rests, and was upholstered in thick red velvet. Its remaining three legs were slender and curved gracefully upwards suggesting effortless, indeed miraculous, support; the fourth had been replaced by a weight from an old set of grocer's scales. The couch felt quite solid and secure, however. All in all, there was a certain elegance to her new sleeping arrangements, Maggie decided \u2013 and she intended to do her best to live up to it.\n\nThat evening as she shook out the first blanket, she heard her mother's voice: You've made your bed, now you have to lie on it.\n\n'I will,' she heard herself reply out loud, 'just watch me!'\n\nTwo days later Maggie saw the handwritten notice in the window of Fusco's Fish Restaurant on Gorgie Road, and went straight in. Perfect timing. She could hardly believe her luck \u2013 the usual assistant had just been sacked after turning up drunk and two hours late, yet again. If she could start at once, the job was hers \u2013 six-day week serving from 11 to 8, with two hours off in the afternoon. Haddock and chips, cod and chips, white pudding supper, black pudding supper, sausage and chips, steak pie and chips. Pickled eggs, pickled onions. At least she'd never go hungry. Tony Fusco had been an Italian POW who'd stayed on in Scotland and ended up marrying a girl from Leith.\n\n'She called Maggie like you! Good name, good woman \u2013 you work good, too!'\n\nHer nylon overalls were several sizes too big, which was a real plus as they'd help keep her 'situation' hidden for a good while longer. The Light Programme coming from the shelf above the till helped the minutes pass, if not the hours \u2013 Music While You Work, Housewives' Choice, Workers' Playtime . . . By the end of her first evening, the hours had slowed down to a crawl and she was so tired that she could hardly stop the chips from leaping off her scoop before they reached the newspaper, or the fish from nose-diving onto the floor as she carried the plates through to the sit-ins. Already she was looking forward to her first Sunday off \u2013 she'd stay in bed and enjoy a double-shift of deep-fried sleep.\n\nGrace, who worked at Fusco's from five in the afternoon till it closed at eleven, had helped her get started: 'Think of yer man and ram yer fish in the fryer fer a richt guid battering!' Slow Peter worked in the kitchen; he hardly spoke but instead offered the world a permanent grin.\n\nA few days after she'd started, Maggie happened to mention she was looking for a place to stay.\n\n'Yer in luck!' Grace grinned at her. 'Mrs McKenzie's lodger frae across oor landing, a widow woman, passed away last night. The room'll be going spare. If ye want, I'll let Mrs M ken you're interested. Ye can look in afore work the morn. If ye dinnae fancy it, no harm done. The auld soul'll be getting carried out first thing so ye can get yersel moved straight in, same day. I'm sure Tony'll let you off for a bit longer in the afternoon to get things sorted. A whole room tae yersel \u2013 I'm jealous already!'\n\nWhen Maggie called round after ten the following morning, Mrs McKenzie apologised, saying the undertakers hadn't turned up yet, but now that she was here Maggie might as well take a look round. 'Dinna fear \u2013 she's decent.'\n\nThey went into the room. Not only was it much larger than her boxroom at Jean's, but there was a window, and a door that she could lock. Perfect.\n\nMrs McKenzie nodded in the direction of the sheet-covered figure stretched out on the bed. 'She'll be out by this evening, Miss Davies.' Then, pointing to the gas meter beside the fire, she added, 'Ye canna say Isa was tight-fisted \u2013 she's left ye a good shilling's worth!'\n\nHaving discussed terms, Maggie agreed to come back with her suitcase during her afternoon break, and move in properly after work.\n\nWhen she returned at eight-thirty that evening the room was all hers. The dead woman's bed stood in the corner. Opposite was a family-sized tombstone of a wardrobe that reeked of shoes, old clothes and camphor. The top of the dresser was a clutter of postcards, photographs, some letters in a rack, a comb, nailfile, a Present from Dunbar ashtray; wisps of greyish hair were tangled among the bristles of the hairbrush.\n\nMaggie dumped the lot into an old tartan shopping bag she found hanging behind the door, to go out in the next bin collection. She felt sad for the widow woman dying here alone, but the less she knew about her the better she'd get on. The drawers were empty. Mrs McKenzie must have gone through them already.\n\nShe set about making the bed. A Louis-the-Something chaise longue was one thing, but a real bed with a mattress, clean-smelling sheets, thick blankets and a quilt that fitted neat as a pie-crust on top was quite another matter. After a full day on her feet, scooping and salting, she could hardly wait to climb in under that welcoming crust and get baked to sleep. She had a quick wash in the bathroom down the hall, undressed and got under the blankets. So snug and pie-warm!\n\nIt was only when she laid her head on the pillow that she realised she'd just made her bed without hearing her mother's usual comment. She grinned to herself in the dark. It was a good start.\n\nFor the next three months Maggie would sleepwalk out from her room at Mrs McKenzie's, down the stairs, along Fountainbridge, over the railway, past the graveyard, then sharp right, down to the junction, across to the start of Gorgie Road, under a railway bridge and straight on till she reached Fusco's \u2013 and sleepwalk back again nine hours later. Back and forth, back and forth, six times a week, like she was in a dream. Someone else's dream, not hers.\n\nEvery Saturday evening she went to Mrs Mackenzie's kitchen to pay her week's rent in advance, placing the ten-shilling note and loose coins onto her landlady's waiting palm. Back in her room she dropped whatever cash remained, uncounted, into the empty drawer of her bedside cabinet to join the previous weeks' earnings and the slither of pennies, threepenny bits, and occasional sixpences she'd been given as tips. If she needed to buy something, she took a handful of small change from the drawer. She spent very little. With Sunday as her only day off, she didn't have much opportunity \u2013 all the shops were shut and so were the cinemas and variety shows. She was at liberty to go to church, of course. Failing that, she was free to walk up and down the more or less deserted streets, or, if she found a park that was unlocked, she could stroll along the paths, past playgrounds with their swings, roundabouts and the witch's hat all chained up for the Sabbath. There was no question of visiting her brother Billy at home. It would be like visiting her parents all over again \u2013 except it'd make things really hard for her sister-in-law.\n\nThe best Sundays were when there was a light in Jean's shop, which meant she was having to work over the weekend. What a joy it was to walk into the comforting smell of cakes and baking, the sweetness of thick icing and melting chocolate, and the luxury of her sister-in-law's good humour and kindness. Here Maggie would sit and chat, and laugh, and tell Fusco stories about some of her customers, about Grace and her football-daft husband Norrie, storing up Jean's cheerfulness inside her to carry back to her room at Mrs McKenzie's.\n\n'Were you ever in the Hebrides?'\n\nWithout glancing up, Maggie continued scooping chips into the newspaper. 'Salt and sauce?'\n\n'The both, please. I'm wondering, were you ever in the Hebrides, on Lewis?'\n\nShe shook on the salt, then the sauce. 'Pickled onion?'\n\n'No thanks. Stornoway maybe? Can ye double-wrap? I'll be taking them back to the B&B.'\n\n'No, never been.' Maggie finished folding the two extra sheets of newspaper around the fish supper. Now she'd have to hand it over, to raise her eyes and look at the customer.\n\nHe was early thirties, red hair. Never seen him before. She took the man's half-crown and rang up the till.\n\n'Didn't you stay at Mrs Stewart's boarding house a few months back?'\n\nHer hand shook as she laid out the man's change on the counter.\n\n'Stewart? I don't know anybody called Stewart. Never been to Lewis either, like I said.' But even as she spoke she could feel herself blush. She drew her hand across her face as if to wipe away sweat. It suddenly seemed hotter than ever standing next to the fryer.\n\n'You've a perfect double then \u2013 Michael showed me a photograph. Not that he can see it, poor man, but he keeps it.'\n\nWhen Maggie made no reply, he continued. 'Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I'll give him your best. Greetings from a bonnie lass in Edinburgh! Michael'd like that!' A moment later the man was gone.\n\nFor the rest of that shift, Maggie let her hands carry on with the scooping, salting and wrapping while she herself stood again at the window of her room at Mrs Stewart's gazing out over the harbour, Michael's arms around her.\n\nA week later she came into the chip shop to find Grace grinning from ear to ear.\n\n'Ye've got fan mail!' Grace pointed to an envelope propped on the shelf next to the radio. 'Came this morning, Tony says.'\n\nMargaret Davies, c\/o Fusco's Fish Restaurant, Gorgie Road, Edinburgh. Firm handwriting, neat fountain pen.\n\n'Postmarked Stornoway. Whae'd ye ken in thon place?'\n\nMaggie stuck it in the pocket of her overalls. 'Relatives.'\n\n'In the land o the Wee Frees?'\n\nA second letter came in the afternoon post.\n\n'Mair relatives?' asked Grace.\n\nBack at Mrs McKenzie's, her coat still on, she sat on the edge of her bed and tore open the first envelope. She unfolded the light blue notepaper \u2013\n\nDearest Maggie, . . . I still think of it as your room, as our room really after all we shared together there . . . When I came downstairs in the morning to find you . . .\n\nBut she was hardly able to read the words, as written down by his friend Lachlan. Her tears seemed to have come from nowhere.\n\nShe wrote back to Michael an hour later.\n\nIt was the last Saturday in August. Since starting at eleven that morning she'd been scooping and salting for three hours solid while walking miles, it felt like, up and down the same stretch of lino behind the metal counter. The occasional trip to the back kitchen or to carry heaped plates into the side room had seemed like a relief. Her face, the inside of her mouth and even her lungs felt so clotted with grease that, by the time the lunch customers left, she felt she herself had been battered and basted to a turn. Forget staying indoors. She went out onto the back green. Putting her plate on the step, she eased herself down onto the sun-warmed stone and leant against the tenement wall. She slipped off her shoes. At last she could relax completely. Balancing her steak pie and chips on her knees, and with a cup of sweetened tea to hand, she was to all appearances a woman without a care in the world. Thanks to the loose-fitting overalls no one could notice that she was starting to show. She ate slowly while staring at the sheets and pillowcases, shirts, dresses and underwear strung out on the drying lines.\n\n'Maggie?'\n\nTony was standing in the doorway. She put down her fork.\n\n'Hi, Tony.'\n\n'Grace, she very tired. Like dog she say. Good you got more sense than have babies, Maggie. You stay more late this night, help me? Much peoples. I do money, you chips \u2013 easy.'\n\nGrace, too, was pregnant. During the slack periods Maggie was kept up to date with the expectant mother's state of health, her ever-changing views on baby clothes and baby care. The younger woman had slept well the previous night, or not so well. The baby had kicked. The baby had kicked again. Did Maggie think a newborn should be left to cry like that scientist said on the radio or picked up at once? Grace didn't want to spoil him. A girl was different. But it was going to be a boy because that's what Norrie wanted \u2013 someone to play for the Hearts. Should he be bottle- or breast-fed? She talked about cribs, prams, grandparents; she detailed how she coped with morning sickness, exhaustion, swollen ankles. Maggie was spared none of it and endured every last symptom and circumstance while unable to say anything of her own in return. Sometimes she felt like screaming.\n\n'Happy to help, Tony.' It would get her through another day.\n\n'Thanks, thanks. Real big help for me. For Grace too. For you extra money.'\n\n'Always welcome.' Maggie waved her fork to show how pleased she was.\n\n'More tips when pubs shut. Saturday night is different peoples. But I always here and Slow Peter. So no worry, Maggie.'\n\nDressed in his usual blue overalls and sandshoes without socks, Slow Peter was standing at the kitchen sink with his back to her, rinsing dishes. It was eight o'clock. The weather had broken and for the last half hour heavy rain had been battering the kitchen window.\n\nShe watched him run water over one side of a plate, turn it over, then rinse the other. Careful and methodical, he filled slot after slot on the drying rack. One plate . . . one plate . . . one plate. She sighed as she put down the fresh stack of dirty dishes she'd brought through.\n\n'You fine, Maggie?'\n\n'Fine, thanks, Peter. Bit tired.'\n\nSlow Peter lifted the top plate and began scraping the leftovers, some fish batter and mashed-up chips, into the metal waste bin next to his sink. It was a badly dented oil drum with Mobil lettered in red.\n\n'Pigs'll be grinning the night. Like Christmas dinner tae them.'\n\nThat rancid smell of fried fat \u2013 she'd need to wash it out of her hair before she could finally crawl into bed. She'd put on fresh sheets before leaving for work to be ready for tomorrow's all-day sleep. Would there be any hot water left? Had she a clean towel? Nearly three hours to go, more like three years.\n\n'My pigs is always pleased tae see me. Smiling and grinning they are. Cleans their bowls tae the last lick, not like them.' He jerked his head in the direction of the side room while tipping an uneaten fish cake into his drum.\n\nMaggie smiled, not a waitress-smile this time but the real thing.\n\n'We were taught to never waste food.' The instant she spoke she realised she was sounding like her mother, but couldn't seem to stop: 'Rationing, you understand, and the War. My mother . . .' she heard herself blundering on, 'she made soup out of anything. Even the cheese rinds went in. And bones too, of course.'\n\n'My pigs eats bones.'\n\n'We didn't actually eat the bones, Peter.' Her mother's voice again, her mother sitting in the Newhaven house, her knitting needles endlessly click-clicking, click-clicking, click-clicking . . .\n\n'You sure you're okay, Maggie?' Slow Peter was holding out a soapy wet hand as if offering to steady her.\n\nThirty-one years old, and over six months pregnant. No husband. No family. Spending her Saturday night standing in puddles of greasy kitchen water in the back room of a rain-lashed fish and chip shop on Gorgie Road \u2013 she was okay?\n\n'Fine thanks.'\n\nWhat else could she say to a man? Even to kindly Slow Peter? If she clammed up, if she did her best to ignore him, to ignore them all, there they'd still be, as always, the men of this world \u2013 like so many closed doors blocking her at every turn. Unless, of course, they wanted something enough to let her in. Afterwards the door was slammed shut . . . and she'd be shoved out into the street once more. Always the same closed door, the same street, the same man-made world. Not Michael, though, and his letters of long-distance affection . . . the words and phrases repeated over and over . . . hope . . . happiness . . . one day . . . you and me . . . They helped her blot out everything else. The photograph he'd sent her of him in his uniform stood propped up on her bedside table like a souvenir of another life, someone else's. Often, when she was about to write to him, she'd sit on the edge of her bed and let her fingertip trace the forehead, the cheeks and lips she could see in the photograph, like he'd shown her. No white stick, no milky eyes \u2013 but, yes, it was Michael, her Michael. Of course it was. And she loved him.\n\n'I'm fine, Peter. Thanks.' Another half-smile, a waitress one this time. 'Better get back through.'\n\n'Bye, bye, Maggie.'\n\nShe returned to find a queue had built up \u2013 a line of pig snouts and trotters at their counter-long feeding trough. Cod and chips no sauce \u2013 scoop and scoop, salt and wrap \/ pie supper with two pickled onions \u2013 scoop and scoop, salt and sauce and wrap \/ three sit-in suppers for a family guzzling at their own small trough in the side room. Back to the queue . . .\n\nThey started piling in at closing time. Piling in, staggering in, tumbling in, falling in, laughing, singing, joking, flirting; the queue soon became a multi-headed beast with no tail in sight. Some were drunk, some very drunk. Loud and cheerful, mostly. Tony had said to her, 'Like in pub \u2013 they at counter, they get served.'\n\nBy ten-thirty she was worn out, utterly.\n\nAt last the queue had dwindled to nothing and the counter was deserted except for a solitary man at the far end in drenched-through overalls, finishing his sixpenny bag. He stood, dripped and fed one chip after another into his mouth while staring out at the darkening street. He'd be leaving any minute. That was the good news. The bad news was that Norrie had turned up. Norrie was Grace's husband. Drunk but still on his feet, he'd come roistering in at closing time with some other men to mop up the night's beer with sit-in suppers all-round. The three men were in their thirties and heavily built. One wearing his cap with the brim pulled down low like a duck-bill, another with fair hair and a hesitant moustache. Norrie, in a blue check shirt, had his work jacket slung over the chair back. It seemed they'd just been paid off from building work on some new bungalows up the road. They seemed to fill the cafe with their noise.\n\nShe leant against the counter, giving the stainless steel a last wipe with a wet cloth.\n\n'A seat here for ye, Maggie. Rab's been keeping it warm for ye!' Norrie looked flushed with drink. 'He's eaten good and's fair raring for his afters!'\n\nDuck Bill roared with laughter, the Moustache gave Norrie a punch on the arm.\n\nShe managed a half nod in their direction while sidling herself and her cloth further off down the counter.\n\n'Been a bit pan-loafie, aren't ye, Maggie?' Norrie called out. No need to look over, she could imagine him sticking his nose in the air to mime a mock-polite sniff, and not for the first time.\n\n'Yer no frae Gorgie, are ye? Fancy yersel New Town? Morningside?' Duck Bill chipped in.\n\n'Where sex is what their coal gets delivered in!' shouted Norrie. More laughter.\n\nThe man in the overalls had now finished his chips and was holding out the scrunched-up wrapping paper for her to take. She was forced to return back along the counter, for the bin.\n\n'Naebody misses a slice off a cut loaf, pan or plain, eh?' The Moustache grinned at her and patted the empty seat beside him.\n\n'Rab's no being cheeky or nowt, Maggie.' Norrie stubbed out his cigarette in his half-finished black pudding supper as he called over to her: 'Sae lang as yer a woman's whit he means. An yer aa that!' Even at that distance his sun-beaten face showed the tiredness of several days' grey stubble.\n\n'Things okey-dokey, Maggie?' Tony had come through from the kitchen and was ringing up the till.\n\n'Fine.' She waitress-smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.\n\nSmell the cooking grease on it? She could feel it, a smeary slickness that stuck the separate strands together into a solid, larded hank.\n\nNorrie had started singing:\n\n'Rab kens a lassie, a bonnie, Scottish lassie,\n\nShe's sweet as the heather in the dell . . .'\n\nThe others joined in, clapping in time.\n\n'There's nane sae classie as Rab's bonnie lassie,\n\nMaggie, his Scots bluebell!'\n\nLoud cheers. Applause. Expectant faces turned in her direction. The windows were steamed up, but she could see the rain coming down harder than ever. The headlights of a passing car swept the darkness. If she was lucky she might still get the last tram home . . .\n\nBack through in the kitchen she ran herself a glass of cold water and dabbed her face and brow.\n\nSlow Peter straightened up from stacking plates in a cupboard. 'These pigs likes their windows closed tight. Gets choking hot.'\n\n'I'm okay now, thanks. Long day.'\n\n'Days here aye long.' Slow Peter picked up more plates. 'Sunday the morn. Shortest of the week, but aye the best.'\n\n'You said it, Peter.' She returned to the counter.\n\n'Here she comes. Rab's bonnie lassie!' called Norrie. 'Maggie, ye broke his hairt when ye went away there! Couldnae even finish his chips \u2013 we thocht he wis a goner.'\n\nAnother laugh.\n\n'Likely he'll be needing the kiss of life \u2013 and yer the only woman in the place. Job's all yours!'\n\nMore laughter, hands slapping the table top.\n\nThe kiss of life? She'd gone on only one date with the man she'd met at Fairley's \u2013 a drive down to Silverknowes in his Morris Minor. A romantic stroll along the seafront, he suggested. They'd parked at the top end away from the streetlights and that's when a sudden downpour started. The heavens emptied. He suggested they move into the back seat to be more comfortable. Again . . . and again . . . and again the slow sweep of a lighthouse beam from the island out in the Forth lit up his face, then drew total darkness over it: I want to show how much I care for you, Maggie. I want to show you. I want so much to \u2013\n\n'Kiss of life we're saying, Maggie!'\n\n. . . The smell of the leather seats, the heavy rain clattering onto the thin metal roof only inches above her head. The offer of whisky from his hip flask.\n\nNo, thanks.\n\nI'm drinking for two then. Cheers.\n\nThat peat-brown brackishness on the man's breath, making her pull away. A real stomach-churning \u2013\n\nThe memory made her want to gag, to turn away like she was still trying to avoid the man's lips, to squirm away from his touch. The beam of the lighthouse still searing her eyes . . .\n\nShe gripped the metal edge to steady herself, gripped it tight and held on. Doing her best to shut out the men in the cafe, to shut out the cafe itself, the darkness, the wind and rain, to shut out everything. Kiss of life? She wanted Michael's kiss, she wanted his arms around her, holding her safe and secure, shutting out the rest of the world . . .\n\nWithout any warning she felt a flutter deep inside her. So faint and seeming to have come from nowhere . . . Like nothing she'd ever . . .\n\nBut she knew at once what it was. She recognised it. Had been waiting for it . . .\n\nMaking her feel . . .? Making her feel that everything she'd ever known before, ever seen before, touched, heard . . .\n\nShe stood quite still, her hands resting on the counter, and suddenly nothing else mattered.\n\nNothing. Else. Mattered.\n\nFusco's was empty at last.\n\n'You go now, Maggie. I finish. Good work. Good work.' Tony handed her two half-crowns. 'This for you.'\n\n'Thanks. Like I said, happy to help.' Waitress words, waitress smile. 'Goodnight, Tony.'\n\nShe went through to the kitchen for her coat.\n\nSlow Peter must have left. Clean scoops and sieves hung from their hooks on the wall, dishcloths were spread out to dry over taps and racks, the sink and draining board gleamed. She felt she could have lain down on the main worktable there and then, and been asleep within seconds.\n\nTaking her coat out from the broom cupboard, she headed for the street door.\n\n'Good night, Maggie. You safe home now.'\n\nShe waved goodbye. 'See you Monday.'\n\nIt had stopped raining. Apart from the occasional car, its tyres hissing on the wet cobbles, and the few late-night stragglers making their way home, Gorgie Road was more or less deserted. She hurried along the pavement, side-stepping the puddles and the occasional gush of rainwater from a rone pipe. It was well after eleven o'clock. Fingers crossed there might still be a last tram.\n\nTime to step lively. Past the line of closed shops, past the Tynecastle street-end, quick-marching under the railway bridge, singing to herself to set a good pace: I love a lassie, a bonnie Scottish lassie . . .' A very brisk fifteen minutes and she'd be home.\n\nComing up to the Dalry Road junction. To left and right stretched a darkness of streetlamps spaced further and further apart, straight ahead lay an empty street of closed doors and tenement windows with their curtains pulled. No wind any more, the air damp and everything silent. A few parked cars and hardly a sound except for the brisk click-click-click of her heels on the pavement echoing back from the wall.\n\nSweet as the heather in the dell . . .\n\nFootsteps.\n\nSomeone else's, and coming close behind. Long steady strides. A man's.\n\nStarting to speed up: Nane sae classie-as-ma-bonnie-\u00adlassie . . .\n\n'Hey there!'\n\nShe felt herself freeze inside. Freeze and close up tight.\n\nThen abruptly walking even faster: A-bonnie-bonnie-\u00adlassie . . .\n\n'Hey there, Maggie, wait a moment!'\n\nIt was Norrie, and he'd almost caught up with her.\n\n'What are ye running for? Olympics were last year. Just saying hello. Friendly greeting, Maggie, that's all.' He was now level with her. 'You're yin fast woman right enough!'\n\nShe could smell the beer on him. 'That's because I want to get home.'\n\nKeeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, she accelerated to double-speed.\n\nAnother flutter, stronger than before . . .\n\n'Couldnae be better! The baith o us gang the same way, being neighbours like, on the same stair. Grand, eh!'\n\n'It's late.'\n\nFluttering like the very gentlest kick-kick-kick . . .\n\n'I'm walking ye back, seeing ye safe home.'\n\n'I'm fine thanks.'\n\nKick-kick-kick . . . Yes, she was fine \u2013 they were both fine. Needing nothing except to be left alone.\n\n'Ye dinnae like me?'\n\n'Go away, Norrie. I'm tired. Been on my feet all day and \u2014 '\n\nHis hand grasping her arm, his fingers digging into her elbow. Making her stop in mid-stride.\n\n'Ye dinna like me?'\n\n'Go away, I'm telling you.' Trying to shake herself free. 'Stop it.'\n\nHis grip was too strong. Forcing her to turn and look at him. His face only inches away, his unshaven cheeks looking dingy and raw.\n\n'Let go, you're hurting me.'\n\n'Then say ye like me.'\n\nSqueezing her arm harder.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. 'What do you mean \u2013 Say I like you? What about Grace?'\n\n'Grace isnae here.' Another squeeze. 'Come on.'\n\nSo tense now she could hardly manage to speak.\n\n'But Grace'll be waiting for you to come \u2014 '\n\n'say it, Maggie.'\n\n'I'm saying nothing. Let go of me.'\n\n'Yer a quiet yin, richt enough. Need encouraging. Am I right?' He passed his hand over her hair, stroking it lightly. 'Shy's right for a lady, ken? A proper lady. Makes them . . . special.' Stroking her cheek. 'Makes you special. Let's walk th'gither.'\n\nForced to walk at his side she remained rigid, her face turned away from him.\n\nA house light clicked off as they came to the beginning of Fountainbridge. Mrs McKenzie's was only five minutes away, five minutes at most.\n\nHe paused before crossing the street. 'Rare night, eh, Maggie? All the stars and everything. Peaceful. Like in the black-out. Mind hou bonnie the sky looked then?'\n\nJerking her elbow, making her stumble forward across the main road before abruptly wheeling her round into a side street. 'No far nou.'\n\n'But this isn't the way to \u2014 '\n\n'Shut it, Maggie. Or I'll shut you.' His arm had moved around her shoulder to hold her more firmly.\n\nLike she was resting her head on his shoulder, her face pressed up against the grit and greasiness of his work jacket. To anyone else they'd probably look like a courting couple making their way home \u2013 and if she screamed, folk would just think they were having a row . . .\n\nBut there was no one to see them. The street was deserted, the tenement windows curtained.\n\n'Grace hisnae let me near her in weeks. She's nae wife tae me. It's bairn this an bairn that.'\n\n'But, Norrie \u2014 '\n\n'Shut it, I said.' He marched her another twenty yards. 'Dinna be feart, Maggie. I'm no gang to harm ye. I like ye. I really do. Nothing bad's gang tae happen. I promise.'\n\nInto the next street.\n\n'Wanting tae show ye whit I'd done, is aa. Grace isnae \u00adinterested \u2013 just in the money I bring hame. But I'm proud o whit I've done an ken ye'll appreciate it. Ye've got class.' Another squeeze.\n\nA few steps later he halted outside the first in a line of new bungalows.\n\n'Folks'll be moving in Monday.' Hauling her up the steps to the front door. 'I kept us a key.'\n\nSUNDAY\n\nTHE WHITEBOARD IN the hall reads today is . . . monday.\n\nBoss Beryl's come up to you saying, 'What're you doing here, Maggie? Waiting for a bus? Won't come just because you're standing here.'\n\nNo point saying anything back to the likes of Boss Beryl, so no one ever does. Complete waste of time.\n\nYou mumble what might be a yes or might be a no and give her a shrug, making it look like you're really heading towards the dayroom . . .\n\nBut if you really do walk off, then you'll just have to turn and come all the way back once she's gone.\n\nSo you rein in your zimmer and give her a puzzled look. Puzzled, and yet hopeful.\n\n'The fact is, Beryl, I'm waiting for a number 26. Maybe you can help me? Do you have any idea when the next one's due? It'll take me right along Princes Street. Pity there's no timetable. Can't Mrs Saunders get one fixed up?'\n\nThe look on her torn face! She'll certainly not be hanging around much longer. She's got better things to do than . . .\n\nAnd so . . .\n\nNot even the hint of grin: 'Or, if a 7 turns up I'll ask for a two-penny transfer and get off in Princes Street. Some of the shops stay open over lunchtime and . . .'\n\nSuccess. Boss Beryl's given a snort, shaken her head and said that she's got better things to do than stand around passing the time of day.\n\nAfter waiting to make sure she's gone all the way down the corridor and disappeared round the corner, you execute a neat U-turn and zimmer yourself right up to the board. No one about \u2013 and so you grab hold of the marker pen . . .\n\nThe shaft of sunlight from the bay window has started inching its way across the lino, turning the chairs lined up against the walls into the hour marks scratched on a sundial. Anyone coming in the door can tell what time it is by how far the sun has travelled round the room and who it's pointing at. It's Dorothy o'clock now. The old woman doesn't move a muscle, doesn't even turn away to shield her eyes.\n\nYou changed what was written on the whiteboard, of course. Not that you believe today will end up any different because of that. You're not that far gone. But today is . . . sunday written up there for everyone to read, must mean something? The words are real words that make real sense, so they can't be completely wrong. They must be a little bit true. Surely?\n\nHere in the dayroom things move forward only when the sun carries them, and at meal times. You come in, take your seat. No one changes their seat or gets up and walks anywhere except on the TV screen where folk are always talking and waving their arms and having car chases with emergency blue lights and sirens and loud crashes. But there's no point trying to follow what's being said or \u2013\n\n'Your son's here, Maggie.'\n\n'Who? Someone's here today?'\n\nFor a moment it seems that Fred Astaire has appeared in the doorway looking for a new partner to dance with, but without his top hat. After pausing to check who's sitting where, he's come across the empty space in the middle of the room like he's wading through a pool of sunlight, splashing brightness on everyone. He's making straight for you.\n\nYou'd like to hold out your arms for him to take you and lift you onto your feet, then together the two of you'll go whirling round and round the dance floor.\n\n'But today's really called Monday.' Damn. You've gone and said it out loud before you could stop yourself. You don't want them to find out it was you who changed the board, do you? Of course not. But you can't have really made it Sunday . . . ?\n\nHe's standing in front of you. Will he reach up to touch the side of your face, let his fingertips pass slowly over your eyes and lips?\n\n'Happy Birthday!' His hands on your shoulders, he's bent forward to kiss you on the forehead. The briefest touch and he's already back in his seat. Too quick. All too quick and finished with.\n\n'My birthday?' You can hardly follow what he's saying. Doesn't he want to clasp you in his arms? Pass his hands over your face?\n\nCan he really see you?\n\n'Congratulations! Happy Birthday, Mum. Ninety \u2013 and looking fabulous! That's why I've driven down special to be here today. Didn't they have the cake at lunchtime that I ordered? And everyone singing Happy Birthday?'\n\n'Cake? Yes, I remember cake.'\n\nBefore you know what's happening, he's waving his hands in the air \u2013 making magic passes is what he calls it. A trick \u2013 he's doing a magic trick like he says he sometimes does on TV. Maybe he'll make you vanish in a puff of smoke? Or else the Murray twins will start talking? Or else Dorothy? Or . . . ?\n\nThere's the flick of a yellow silk handkerchief that he's pulled out of nowhere:\n\n'Let the sun shine and the earth whirl,\n\nFor our very own . . . birthday girl!\n\nHappy Birthday, Mum!'\n\nA small package has suddenly appeared on your lap, wrapped in red paper and tied with curly gold ribbon. He's helping you with the ribbon, the paper.\n\nYou mutter a thank-you, adding that it's very kind of him. What else can you say?\n\nIt's a book. A book with a hard red cover. You never asked for a book. He wouldn't know you stopped reading a long time ago. Sad stories, they always felt sad. All that living that just goes on and on until it tears the heart out of you, till you ache.\n\n'For you, Mum. I made it.'\n\nOnly there's no title. Nothing written on the front or on the back. No pages even, not the usual kind of pages anyway.\n\n'Well, come on, Mum, open it!'\n\nThe first page: A black and white photograph set in a plastic sleeve. Not a book at all, but photographs like in a family album. That's what it is \u2013 somebody's photo album. Out of politeness you flick through the opening pages while he tells you he'd come across a lot of photos in an envelope in a cupboard, along with your old typewriter. Halfway through, you stop at a snap of some couple or other posing outside their house \u2013\n\nComplete strangers.\n\nMakes you feel bad seeing them, whoever they are. Makes you feel ashamed, poking your nose into other people's lives. You give him the album back.\n\nBut all he does is show you another picture. This time . . . it's you! A photograph of you wearing a starched white blouse and looking very efficient, your hands poised above the keyboard of an ancient-looking typewriter. Your old Underwood.\n\n'Remember, Mum? How you used to do the laird's typing \u2013 that's how we lived, wasn't it? You did it for everybody in the village too, near enough \u2013 the school, the minister, Arnott's shop, the smiddy. And helped them with their accounts. You ran the place!'\n\nYou remember the typing all right. Good times! Battering away on the keys, the bell ringing at the end of every line, the carbon paper and inky ribbon, everything set up on the tea trolley with its extension flaps. Handwritten scraps of paper you could sometimes hardly read to the left of your machine, neatly typed sheets stacked on the right \u2013 like doing the ironing, you called it. You really enjoyed it, didn't you? Making order out of mess \u2013 and it certainly helped you quickly get to know everyone in the village. The farmers sometimes paying you in eggs, vegetables; Arnott's giving you groceries as well as a good discount; other folk giving you rabbits, fish out the Annan . . .\n\n'Mum, who were the Callanders?'\n\n'The who? Never heard of them.'\n\nHe's gone back to that photo of the man and woman on their doorstep. 'Their names are on the back. I don't think you ever mentioned them and \u2014 '\n\n'I don't know who they are, and I don't want to know.' You snatch the album from him, slam it shut and hand it back. If it's mostly people you don't know, you tell him, he might as well give the book to someone else.\n\nBut he won't stop. Next comes a photo of your cottage. Yes, that's where you live. It's yours. When the laird's estate got broken up in the eighties, Tom bought it for you so that you'd always be secure. That photo's worth keeping, you say.\n\n'It's where you brought me up, eh, Mum?'\n\n'Where you were brought up? What are you on about? Don't talk daft.'\n\nBut now he's started, there he goes talk talk talk talk talk.\n\nOf course, today's really Monday. Monday. Monday. monday.\n\nMonday's always washday. Take the week's washing with you in the morning when you go up to the factor's office, then use the laundry tub at the back of the house in the afternoon. Pretending Tom was with you, helping. Pretending so hard that sometimes he really seemed to be there at your side, the two of you singing as you worked:\n\n'Scrub a dub-dub, Three men in a tub . . . !'\n\n'What's that, Mum?'\n\nDirty, crumpled clothes into the sink, the cold water turning your hands red-raw, the stone floor puddled from the wash being lifted between the deep sink and the tub.\n\n'The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker . . .'\n\n'The \u2013 who, Mum? I'm talking about the cottage. See, that's me and my new bike on the drive up to the big house.'\n\nYes, Tom's helping you today, both hands at once, barrel-organ-ing the mangle with his little-boy strength, sending the squeezed-out water splashing down into the tub. A pair of small dungarees will be first to go between the rollers, sodden, then dripping ice-cold water as it's forced through. All the way in . . . and out the other side it comes, crushed and flattened into your waiting arms.\n\n'. . . and there's the tree you were always telling me not to climb, and the laird's horse looking out its stable. Rusty he was called. Remember when they lifted me up onto Rusty's back so I could go for a . . . ?'\n\nTom celebrates by knocking on the side of the tub with his fist \u2013 Boom! Boom! Boom! Makes you both laugh. You take good hold of the dungarees by the shoulders and shake them, making them snap in the air, crack like a whip. Another Boom! Boom! Boom! Then you lay them down flat in the cane basket, the arms and legs dangling over the sides.\n\n'Here's the vegetable patch, you wearing your big wellies and me helping you with . . .'\n\nThen socks, underwear, pillowcases . . . till you've got the first basketful of the week's wash stacked and ready. Swinging it in time, off you go down to the gatehouse garden to peg everything out on the line. Winter days are fierce, the shirts and pillowcases freeze rigid in a few hours. Tuesday's always the ironing.\n\n'She looked so neat and nimble-o\n\nDarning with her thimble-o.\n\nDashing away with the smoothing iron . . .'\n\nLast thing at night you set up the wooden clothes-horse in front of what's left of the fire and, just before you turn out the light, you wait to see the clothes steam in the heat as if they're actually breathing. New life \u2013 which is always a good finish to the day!\n\nMost mornings, up to the big house and into the estate office to do the typing, the filing and accounts. Then the afternoons \u2013\n\nTuesday \u2013 the ironing.\n\nWednesday \u2013 the cleaning . . . and typing for people in the village.\n\nThursday. Friday. Saturday. Village typing.\n\nSunday.\n\nBut not any more \u2013 since coming here the same week's become the same day, the same moment. There's no weather, no date on the calendar, no time on the clock. And the years you've lived through? They're here, and always have been.\n\nListen \u2013\n\n3\n\nNORRIE PUSHED HER through the door of the bungalow and into a smell of new carpet, fresh paint and woodwork. There was a small bouquet of plastic flowers on the hall table. The living room was straight out of the Ideal Home Exhibition with modern-looking art hanging above the mantelpiece, wall lamps on either side, a beige three-piece suite, coffee-table with glossy magazines, white hearthrug, cream-coloured curtains.\n\n'This yin's the real thing, it's fer showing people, the others are just bare walls and floorboards. Top tae bottom electric \u2013 ye want something, ye press a button. I tell ye, Maggie, yince the hydro-electric really gets going, it'll be free electricity and buttons for us all. See this?' He turned a switch set into the wall next to the kitchen doorway. 'Central heating. Ye put it tae ony temperature ye want. Let's get oorsels nice an toasty, eh! 75 degrees!' He grabbed her by the shoulders. 'Ye'll no be needing this onymair!'\n\nRealising her coat was in danger of getting ripped, Maggie took it off and laid it on a chair next to the front door. Norrie threw his work jacket after it, but missed. Like an aggressive salesman showing how wonderful her brand-new life would be in this, her brand-new home, he then took her by the arm and hustled her through a tour of the rooms, stopping on the way to point out each labour-saving gadget, each clever new feature \u2013 the double-sink in the kitchen, the mixer tap, the waste disposal that ground up old food and garbage.\n\n'See this hatch intae the dining room, Maggie? \u2013 was me cut it and fitted it. This breakfast bar? \u2013 me. This formica top? \u2013 me.'\n\nIn the living room he pointed out the side lighting, the fitted carpets and matching curtains, the skirting and double glazing. A large wooden cabinet stood next to the fireplace. It had to be the biggest wireless set Maggie had ever seen. Norrie switched it on. The dial lit up.\n\n'Latest thing, this. Medium Wave, Long Wave, Short Wave \u2013 mair waves than the sea itsel.'\n\nOnce the valves had warmed up, he slewed through an electric storm of crackles and swoops until he came to \u2013\n\n. . . and gentlemen. Direct from the heart of London we bring you Saturday Night on the Light \u2013 with Max Jaffa and his orchestra.\n\n'A bit of music, eh. Set the mood fer us.'\n\nSteered her out and across the hall. 'The best is yet tae come.'\n\nPushed her into the room opposite. The bedroom.\n\n'See this!' He clicked a switch set in the wall beside the door, and turned on the faraway bedlights. 'Magic, eh!' He grinned. 'And there's anither yin next to the bed fer turning them off. Luxury! Built the whole fucking place near enough, so I did. Me an Grace deserve it \u2013 no? Or are we no guid enough tae live here? Think we're no guid enough, Maggie?'\n\nThere was a large double bed with blankets and a shiny quilt, one corner already turned down in invitation to the prospective owner. Having walked her over to the window, he tugged at a cord with his free hand, 'Let's make us nice and cosy, eh?' The curtains glided shut.\n\n'Fuckers that'll be moving in come Monday, that's what they'll think. That we're just working trash. Bairn on the way, and us still sharing wi Grace's parents in thon top floor slum. Running water in baith rooms, right enough \u2013 running doun the fucking walls.'\n\nHe pulled her over to the dressing table. 'Look at the pair o us!'\n\nWrenched her into position till they were facing the mirror, standing side by side. His reflection glared back at her, the bloodshot anger in his eyes:\n\n'Working till we drop, and fer what? Fuck's sake, Maggie, let's hae yin five-star night in our lives. Yin fucking night, eh!'\n\nFrom through in the living room came the sounds of the radio orchestra.\n\n'Glenn Miller. We could hae a wee dance, you an me.'\n\nKeeping firm hold of her he made as if to begin a waltz, then seemed to change his mind. 'Whaure's ma manners? First things, first. Get the lady a drink.'\n\nWith his free hand he drew a bottle from the side pocket of his jacket. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and spat it out. 'A wee toast tae us baith. Cheers.' Not taking his eyes off her, he took a deep swallow. 'Now you, ma lady.' He held the whisky up to her. She turned away.\n\n'No tak a drink wi me? Am a no guid enough fer ye?'\n\n'I don't want to drink, Norrie. I want to go home. If you let me leave now I won't say anything to Grace. Like this never \u2014 '\n\nNext moment he'd pushed her down onto the bed.\n\nThe pub stink of him, the unspoken threat \u2013\n\n'Get off me, Norrie. Stop this. Stop it before you go too far. You've had one drink too many is all. Let's just leave now and go home. Grace'll be \u2014 '\n\n'Like I said, Grace isnae here.' The menace in his voice: 'I'm no tellin, an I'm shair ye'll keep stumm if ye ken whit's guid fer ye. Right?'\n\nOver his shoulder, she could see the open door leading out to the hall and the living room beyond. They were playing 'Moonlight Serenade'.\n\n'A few drinks and a bit of fun \u2013 whit's yer problem, Maggie? Ye pan-loafie bitch! Easy seen whose side you're on.' The weight of him keeping her pinned down on the bed. He shoved the bottle at her:\n\n'Ye'll hae tae get catched up wi me, dram fer dram.'\n\nShe tried to twist her head from side to side, but he forced the bottle against her mouth, upending it. Some whisky slopped over and ran down her chin.\n\n'Dinna waste it.'\n\nClenching her jaw tighter shut.\n\nHis fingers wrenching her lips apart, and then her teeth \u2013 the tobacco taste nearly making her retch. Her mouth flooding with the harsh liquid till she almost choked. She had to swallow.\n\n'That's the style! Come on, yin mair tae get yersel real loosened up, eh?' Tilting the bottle again.\n\nShe struggled under him, trying to push back, to kick out, but he held her tight.\n\nHaving to swallow again. And again. His fingers in her mouth, forcing it open each time. Another swallow.\n\n'Come on, Maggie, guid stuff this. Better than mither's milk fer ye.'\n\nHis hand clamped so she couldn't spit out \u2013\n\nTilting the bottle again.\n\nHis loud whisper, his hoarseness: 'Guid lass. We'll hae some fun nou, you and me.' Leaning across her, he put the bottle on the side table.\n\nThe rawness of his unshaven chin, his unwashed sweat-smell. His roaring whisky breath \u2013\n\nPushing himself hard up against her \u2013\n\n'What the fuck!' The flat of his hand sliding down to press her stomach. 'What the fuck's this, Maggie? You're fucking in the club, aren't ye?'\n\nShe jerked away, pulled her knees tight up to her chest.\n\n'Fuck's sake, Maggie. Fuck's sake. Up the stick, an yer making me work fer it? Ye fucking keelie!'\n\nHe was going to hit her. That was coming next. She could see it. She reached across and grabbed for the bottle to defend herself.\n\nBut he didn't. Instead he half-rolled away from her and started muttering over and over to himself, 'Fucking keelie . . . Fucking keelie . . . Fucking keelie . . .'\n\nShe wrenched herself out from under him and clambered off the bed. She stood up. Whisky-dizzy.\n\nMeanwhile, the dance band music continued . . . it seemed to be playing right inside her now, inside her head, inside her whole body, like it was spinning her round. She stumbled away from the bed, the floor see-sawing under her feet. The whisky bottle still in her hand, she raised her arm as if that gesture could bring everything to a stop.\n\nNext moment she watched the bottle shatter against the wall only inches from Norrie's head. An explosion of glass and whisky that spattered everywhere, followed by the slow drip . . . drip . . . drip onto the headboard.\n\nHis voice was a whine: 'Could've killed me, ye bitch! Fucken bitch ye! Fucking hoor! Fuck \u2013 Fuck \u2014 '\n\nShe heard herself scream back: 'I hope you burn in hell, the whole bloody lot of you!'\n\nIt was after midnight when she fumbled her key into Mrs Mckenzie's door.\n\nHaving pulled off her coat and let it fall to the floor, she slumped onto her bed. She was shaking. If she'd not fought back, Norrie would have \u2013\n\nNext thing, she was sitting with her money drawer on her lap. The loose coins slid from side to side. Everything had started to blur.\n\nBack and forth she rocked herself, trying to blink her eyes clear, but they blurred again almost immediately. Through her tears the silver and copper glittered, with here and there the red of a crumpled ten shilling note.\n\nShe was still crying when she heard the downstairs street door bang shut. Someone had come into the close. She listened hard. The footsteps stumbled up to the first landing. Then stopped.\n\nOnly to carry on a moment later. Was that him?\n\nShe wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. And the next time she saw Norrie? And Grace?\n\nThe footsteps had almost reached the top floor. Norrie, for certain . . .\n\nHardly breathing even, steadying the drawer on her knees. Go away. Go away.\n\n'Maggie!'\n\nThe drunken fool was shouting through the letter box. He'd wake up the whole house, the whole stair.\n\n'maggie!'\n\nShe placed the drawer down beside her and lay flat on the bed. The instant she closed her eyes the room started to spin.\n\n'maggie, i'm sorry for causing ye bother, i'm sorry . . .'\n\n'Miss Davies? There seems to be something of yours out on the landing \u2013 kindly get rid of it!' Mrs McKenzie was standing in her open doorway.\n\n'sorry, maggie. sorry. sorry. sorry . . .'\n\n'That is Norrie Chalmers, isn't it? Frae next door?'\n\n'Yes, Mrs McKenzie.' Maggie had to concentrate to speak normally, distinctly. All by themselves the words she wanted kept slithering across her tongue. 'Foll'ed me long the street so's I \u2014 '\n\n'Get rid of him. Then get rid o yersel. A woman that's no married at your age \u2013 naethin but grief for us respectable folks.' She gave a sniff, then she settled for acid-polite English. 'Drinking, too, I notice. Well, not in my house.'\n\n'B' Msss McKenz \u2014 '\n\n'I'll take your key, if you please.'\n\nOnce Mrs McKenzie had gone, Maggie upended the contents of the drawer into her handbag. She stuffed her clothes into her suitcase.\n\nTwenty minutes later, she was letting herself into the bakery \u2013 thank goodness Jean had insisted she keep a key 'just in case'. Without bothering to wash or undress, she stretched out on the chaise longue and pulled the blankets tightly around her.\n\nYou've made your bed . . .\n\nThere was no question of returning to Fusco's, she told Jean. Plenty unskilled jobs in offices \u2013 filing, reception, answering the phone, making tea. Or else she could waitress in a respectable teashop, a city-centre restaurant or hotel.\n\nThe first employment agency she tried was in George Street. Up to their first-floor office, then across the small carpeted hall to the desk marked reception. As the girl sitting there was on the phone, Maggie stood and waited. And stood. And waited. At one point the girl (was Miss Snooty Junior really old enough to have left school?) glanced in her direction, gave her a nod, then carried on with her conversation. Miss Snooty Junior had an impressive telephone voice. The call seemed to be something about last month's records, which hadn't arrived somewhere or else hadn't been sent. They were supposed to have been posted in good time. Mrs Somebody would have weighed them herself and Mrs Somebody else should have taken them to the Post Office at Waterloo Place. Three days ago. No four.\n\nMaggie was about to leave when the call came to an end. She watched the receiver being set down in its cradle, the girl letting her hand linger on it for several seconds before glancing across.\n\n'That was Head Office.' Miss Snooty Junior had a Reception voice, too.\n\nMaggie was treated to a Reception smile and given an application form. Told to sit down.\n\nEasy questions first:\n\nname and address? She'd give Jean's bakery \u2013 just as well it wasn't a proper shop.\n\nage?\n\nschool?\n\nThen came the hard ones:\n\nqualifications?\n\nprevious jobs and experience?\n\nprevious positions of responsibility \/ authority?\n\nposition sought?\n\nFrom school onwards, Maggie's life was quickly reduced to a series of blanks. Snooty Junior glanced at her completed form, said thank you and repeated the smile. Someone would be in touch should anything suitable turn up.\n\nThree more agencies, three more Snooty Juniors \u2013 same voice, same blouse, same lipstick, same smile. They all said they'd let her know.\n\nLunch was a Scotch egg, a half-pint of milk and an apple while sitting on a bench in Princes Street Gardens just along from the Scott Monument. She needed her gabardine buttoned up to the chin to keep warm in a sun that, at this time of the year, was starting to get past its best. From across the sloping grass of the gardens came the occasional hoots of trains entering and leaving Waverley. But it was restful sitting in the park watching the people, the pigeons . . . and she could have happily remained there all afternoon, doing nothing, saying nothing, as if part of an unfinished painting: Edinburgh City Centre. Then she'd remember \u2013 and, all at once, the picture seemed to dissolve around her, leaving her sitting on her bench, alone. She got to her feet, brushed the crumbs from her lap, then headed back into Princes Street and to more agencies.\n\nThanks to Jenners, Patrick Thompson's and Forsyth's, she managed to get through the afternoon. Whenever she couldn't face another Snooty Junior or filling in another form, she made straight for the nearest department store to wallow in scarves, perfumes, hats, gloves, shawls, working her way along the rails and counters until she felt better. Trailing a silk scarf between her fingers was like dipping them into the coolness of running water; when trying on a hat, she'd let the veil drop and was able to relax behind it, if only for a moment; as she dabbed perfume onto her wrist, she'd close her eyes, breathe in deeply, and let her weariness dissolve into Chanel.\n\nIt was getting towards five o'clock when she toiled up the too-many flights of narrow, badly lit stairs to present herself at Superior Employment. Her arrival was perfectly timed \u2013 no receptionist in sight. Had this particular Snooty Junior left early? Was she playing with her dolls? Sitting on the boss's knee? Maggie didn't wait to find out. Ignoring the brass bell with its notice asking visitors to ring for attention, she made her way along a short corridor until she came to a door which stood invitingly half open.\n\nShe walked straight in.\n\nThe name plate said: Mr Wilson, and this was Mr Wilson himself, she presumed, seated behind the desk, head bent over a pile of paperwork. Unlike her mother's hair-parting, Mr Wilson's was ruler-straight and precise enough to look painted on. She had to resist the temptation to reach down and touch its jet-black glossiness to see if the paint was still wet. Without raising his head, Mr Wilson continued to scrutinise the form in front of him, ticking his way down the boxes of what was probably someone's job history.\n\n'One moment, please.'\n\nEach ponderous tick was accompanied by a 'humph' of approval whose seriousness reminded her of an elderly Recording Angel, one whose recommendation would be given great weight. Even though she couldn't read the form upside-down, it was clear that here was an applicant with no blanks in their life. Every box was so crammed that the handwritten details of their busy career had spilled over into the surrounding page.\n\nThe Recording Angel inscribed one final extra-large tick of approval before glancing up.\n\n'Yes? Can I. Help you?'\n\n'You are Mr Wilson?'\n\n'Yes.' His tone was cautious as if he might have been about to add but only on weekdays or only in this office.\n\n'My name is Miss Davies and I'm seeking employment.' She sat down. The wooden seat was hard and straight-backed, forcing her to lean forward as if she had difficulty catching what was being said.\n\nShe tried a smile. 'Your agency has come very highly recommended.'\n\n'Experience?'\n\nFrom somewhere out in the corridor came the clatter-clatter of a typewriter. The Recording Angel had his back to the window, which kept his face in shadow, reducing it to a mere suggestion of a face. His one-word question was expanded:\n\n'What. Experience. Have you?'\n\nHe wore glasses. Small, rodent-like eyes \u2013 she felt their gaze gnawing at her, felt it scampering along the cut of her blouse and jacket, teasing the creases she'd ironed out on Jean's travelling-trunk-cum-table. His face remained immobile, his lips parting no wider than the minimum necessary to allow his prepared words their exit. Between words, the mouth stayed firmly closed.\n\n'My experience?' She glanced beyond Mr Wilson's shoulder to the top storey and roof of the building opposite. 'I am a good worker. Reliable, honest and . . .'\n\n'Yes. Naturally. All applicants are.'\n\n'My mother always said I should be awarded an M.A. \u2013 Mother's Assistant \u2013 I was so good at helping her run the house.'\n\n'And. Outside the. House?'\n\n'Outside? Of course . . . I've been a waitress.'\n\nThe face arranged itself into what might have been intended as a smile of encouragement. 'Where?'\n\nShe said the first thing that came into her head. 'Lewis.'\n\n'Lewis?' Mr Wilson's mouth seemed to savour the unexpectedness of this place-name.\n\n'In the Outer Hebrides.'\n\n'Yes. Miss Davies. I do know. Where Lewis is.' Of its own accord his right hand picked up a pen from the desk and held it in readiness. 'Silver Service?'\n\nDoing her best to keep her thumbs out of the chips when serving the sit-in suppers was the closest she'd come to the niceties of Silver Service, but this was no time for hair-splitting. There was no need to burden her interviewer with unnecessary information.\n\n'Yes, I'm experienced in Silver Service. And also acting as cashier, when required.' Well, why not? \u2013 she handled money every day, after all.\n\n'Indeed. References?'\n\n'Yes, naturally . . .'\n\nShe'd completely forgotten about references\n\n'. . . They can be produced when asked for.' She and Jean could easily cobble something together, something that would include a glowing testament to her Silver Service skills.\n\n'Hmm. Well. Now, Miss . . . Davies. A few details. Full name?'\n\nIt was Snooty Junior's perfume, mashed roses, which entered the room first, closely followed by the familiar blouse, lipstick and Reception smile. The whole effect was topped off by a bleached perm. 'Excuse me, Mr Wilson . . .'\n\n'Margaret Davies, Miss. I have \u2014 '\n\n'. . . Excuse me, I hadn't realised you were occupied, Mr Wilson. It's the Caledonian.'\n\n'Thank you, Miss Webster.' The Recording Angel took the sheet of paper the receptionist was holding out to him. 'Seems you're in luck, Miss Davies. Perfect timing, in fact. The Caledonian Hotel is urgently looking for someone experienced in Silver Service and \u2014 '\n\nIndicating Maggie with a nod of her head, Snooty Junior gave an emphatic cough, then leant down to whisper something into her boss's ear. Mr Wilson listened, then followed her gaze.\n\n'Ah,' he nodded a moment later, and this time his 'humph' was one of disapproval.\n\nBoth Snooty Junior and the Recording Angel were now looking very closely at her, closely and in silence.\n\nMr Wilson was first to speak. 'Ah, yes. Indeed. Quite right. To bring it to. My attention. Thank you, Miss Webster.'\n\nSnooty Junior inclined her head in acknowledgement, but said nothing. She remained standing at her boss's side.\n\n'In these circumstances, Miss Davies, I'm afraid there is no position available for you.' His unexpected rush of words concluded: 'Nor need you put yourself to the trouble of returning here . . . afterwards. Good Day.'\n\nHaving pronounced sentence, the Recording Angel withdrew into even greater shadow than before.\n\nMaggie was hardly aware of coming down the four flights and returning to the end-of-day bustle of Hanover Street. What had she been hoping for? Nearly seven months pregnant and unmarried, did she really expect someone to give her a job?\n\nThe downward slope of the pavement carried her on to Princes Street. Across the road stood the Royal Scottish Academy looking more than ever like a Greek temple that had been left for too long out in the Scottish rain. Over the years, layer upon layer of soot from the nearby trains and the city chimneys had drifted onto its pillars and walls, to turn into black mould. The grime was so ingrained that the stonework looked like it was being eaten away from the inside. The nearby Scott Monument looked just as dingy. If she herself stood in Princes Street long enough \u2013 and what other plans did she have? \u2013 would that black, tarry grit settle on her and turn her into a statue? A memorial to the Unmarried Mother, with her swollen belly for everyone to see?\n\nShe could imagine them gathered round her plinth \u2013 the Snooty Juniors, the Wilsons, the Norries, the Callanders, her parents and the rest of them \u2013 so many faces glaring up at her, despising her. The whole city and beyond come to show their contempt.\n\nWell, to hell with them! Let them all burn, as Jean said. She wouldn't even lean down and spit on them to put out the flames.\n\nPART TWO\n\nMAGGIE GAVE UP looking for work and spent the remaining weeks helping her sister-in-law as much as she was able, making the local deliveries, washing the baking bowls and pots, sweeping and mopping the floor every night, cleaning the oven at the weekends. The letters that came from Michael were the high points. They seemed to be from another time, another world \u2013 did they tell of a past she was in danger of forgetting or of a future that was still waiting for her? Last thing at night, lying on her chaise longue in the boxroom, she would read them over and over, trying to bring them into the present, trying to take their reassuring words and promises along with her into the night ahead.\n\nWith Jean's help she found a discreet nursing home off Minto Street in the Southside, and booked herself in to stay overnight when her time came. She planned to give birth there, away from the snubs and sneers of a public ward, and without the shame of an empty chair by her hospital bed when the proud husbands came to visit with flowers.\n\nBut then what?\n\nThe last of her Fusco savings would soon run out. Then what?\n\nOne thing was sure, cosy though the boxroom was, she couldn't live there for ever \u2013 not with a newborn baby.\n\nThe children's home was called Woodstock House. It was a large Victorian townhouse that stood like a turreted galleon moored in a sea of green lawn while around it lay a scattered archipelago of hope \u2013 a neatly laid-out kitchen garden, a line of small brightly painted sheds along the back wall next to a greenhouse. This country mansion lookalike had been built as a trumpet blast of one man's infatuation with himself and his commercial rapacity, but with the captain of Scottish industry now long gone, so too were the finances necessary for the building's upkeep. According to Jean, the children's home was a private institution that only survived thanks to donations, mostly anonymous, and a dedicated staff. There might be a church involved in it somewhere, but she wasn't sure. Or else it might be some kind of charity place, like those houses for fallen women. Not that Maggie was one of those, her sister-in-law had quickly added.\n\nThe brass bell-pull slid stiffly back into the wall. The clang-clang and its echo tolled out emptily. Somewhere a child shouted, 'Ding-ding! Ding-ding!'\n\nThere was the sound of light, skipping footsteps. The front door opened.\n\n'Hello!'\n\nThe girl was a teenager, if that \u2013 an upturned face that was mostly grin, keen eyes and a tangle of unbrushed blonde curls. She shifted from foot to foot to unheard dance music while shaking her head and clicking her fingers to keep time.\n\nMaggie hesitated. 'Hello . . . I've come to see . . .'\n\n'Yes? Plenty to see in here. Come in.' The young girl did a half-twirl and pointed towards a coarse mat. 'This here's for the rain. Mrs Saunders doesn't like rain, or mud. I'm going to be a chorus girl.'\n\nMaggie wiped her feet.\n\nThe apprentice chorus girl high-kicked, birled herself quickly round, then faced-to again: 'Do you want to see her?'\n\n'I phoned and \u2014 '\n\n'Mrs Saunders sees people when people come. I'm just Donna.' She took a step back, then kicked out her right leg in a chorus-line of one. 'I'll take you.'\n\nThe vestibule had a tiled floor.\n\n'Thank you, Donna.'\n\nThe girl carefully pulled the front door behind her. 'We keep it shut, for the heat.'\n\nWith a soft-shoe shuffle, the young dancer led the way into a large hall that smelled of cooking. Dim light came through a glass cupola above, the walls were a pale green and hung generously with dusty-looking portraits in heavy frames. Maggie could feel a chill coming up through the linoleum. The only furniture was a small but elaborately carved wooden chair that stood at the bottom of the staircase and looked like a make-believe throne waiting to be claimed by the pretend king of a make-believe little country. Parked next to it was a cumbersome, old-fashioned pram, dark green with large spoked wheels reaching high up its sides like a paddle-steamer.\n\nThe girl pointed to it. 'That's the Tractor.'\n\n'It's big, right enough.'\n\nAnother flight of stairs disappeared into darkness below, presumably down to the basement.\n\nDonna peered at her: 'Are you a mother?'\n\n'I'm going to be \u2013 very soon.'\n\nThe young girl came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hall, her arms arched above her head in a ballet pose. Her face turned in profile, she held the position for several seconds. 'It's not easy.'\n\nDid she mean being a mother wasn't easy, or that this particular pose was a strain to hold? Could the girl be implying that she herself was a mother, this slip of a lass?\n\nMaggie gazed round the uncarpeted space. 'I suppose not.'\n\nThe soft-shoe shuffle was then resumed until, with a sudden and unexpectedly grown-up sway of her hips, Donna halted outside a closed door marked private. She curtseyed.\n\n'In here.'\n\nIn one smooth unbroken action she knocked, turned the handle and pushed open the door. This done, she went tap-dancing off down the corridor, clicking her fingers in time.\n\n'Enter.' A firm voice.\n\nThe room was slightly warmer, with a dark brown carpet and rust-red curtains that sagged like a pair of comfortably slack stockings. The woman sitting behind the desk glanced up \u2013 'Be with you shortly' \u2013 then continued reading. A cigarette burned in the ashtray beside her.\n\nMaggie was back at school once again, being made to wait in the headmistress's office where she'd been sent to get shouted at for not paying attention in class, or for coming in late, or for walking around in a daze. Though the actual details of the offence usually varied, in essence the charge was always the same \u2013 she was getting punished for being herself. This time, however, the punishment was for being herself and for getting herself pregnant. She stared down at the floor.\n\nThe superintendent laid the sheet of paper aside. 'Yes?'\n\n'I'm Maggie Davies. I phoned.' The unspoken school-girl 'Miss' slid to the floor where it was immediately absorbed into the carpet. Even the young sprite Donna had seemed older and more mature than she herself felt at this moment.\n\n'Davies?' Mrs Saunders began leafing through one of the stacks of papers on her desk. 'Davies? Davies? Davies? . . .' She riffled through another stack. 'You phoned recently, you say?' Then started on stack number three. 'Ah yes, here you are. I remember now. You're due in a month and going to the nursing home in Queens Crescent. A good place, well worth the expense.'\n\nMrs Saunders' smile of approval at once cancelled out the schoolroom-strictness, replacing it with a feeling of warmth and unexpected kindness. Even the rain hitting the window seemed to ease off slightly.\n\n'Thank you, Mrs Saunders. I wanted to do the best I could.'\n\n'There's no current address given here. You're staying with your family, perhaps, or \u2014 ?' Mrs Saunders looked closely at her. 'You do have somewhere to live, don't you?'\n\n'Yes, I'm staying with a friend at the moment. I'll be starting a new job shortly, then getting my own place. Permanent. Somewhere near here, so that I can \u2014 '\n\n'That's fine, Miss Davies, thank you. So long as I have an address for my records.'\n\nMaggie nodded to show her willingness.\n\nMrs Saunders continued, 'You know the rules and conditions?'\n\n'Rules? Oh yes, I knew there'd be rules.'\n\nThe superintendent took a puff at her cigarette, blew out the smoke and asked her to sit down.\n\nWhile the rules and conditions were gone through, Maggie did her best to concentrate on what was being said and not let her mind drift to the ever-changing patterns the rain made as it streamed down the window. She wondered where Donna had sashayed herself off to . . . The cheerful yells she could hear, were they coming from a children's playroom somewhere nearby? Had the junior chorus girl actually been born here? She seemed almost like a ghost-child haunting the empty hall, the spirit of all the young lives who \u2013\n\n'. . . then sign here at the bottom,' Mrs Saunders was saying, 'where it's marked with a cross.'\n\nMaggie took the sheet of paper that had been pushed across the desk to her. She glanced down the form:\n\nMOTHER'S NAME \u2014\n\nMOTHER'S ADDRESS \u2014\n\n'Once the child is in our care, he will be well looked after. He will be our responsibility day and night. He will receive good food and all the comfort and concern one could wish for. He will be happy.'\n\nMOTHER'S OCCUPATION \u2014\n\nFATHER'S NAME (if known) \u2014\n\nFATHER'S OCCUPATION (if known) \u2014\n\n'You can leave the name of the child blank for the moment. Just sign.'\n\nCHILD'S NAME \u2014\n\nCHILD'S DATE OF BIRTH \u2014\n\nCHILD'S PLACE OF BIRTH \u2014\n\n'Once the child is in our care, as I say, you needn't give him a second thought \u2013 you can forget him. In fact, it's better that you do. In my experience, things always work out much better when mothers don't see the children at all. Only makes things harder. The more you visit, the more he'll become part of your life and you of his, and the more painful will be the final parting. Unbearably painful \u2013 for both of you.' Mrs Saunders allowed herself another deep drag of her cigarette and stared into the smoke wreathing between them.\n\n'I have to stress, Miss Davies, that when it comes, the parting will be final. You will not be given the address of your child's new home, nor the name of his new parents. Over the years I've learned to encourage new parents to let the child believe that they are his true parents. It's kinder that way, kinder for everyone.' Another puff, as if taking a bow.\n\n'What's this at the bottom about 'a limit of six calendar months?'\n\n'That? A formality. Of course, the earlier he's adopted the easier he's adopted, if you understand me.' The superintendent smiled. 'Rest assured, the adoptive parents' love and affection for their new child will follow in good time. It always does.' A second smile. 'I can have him placed within days, then he'll be free to get on with his new life and you can get on with yours. Best for everyone.' Smile number three.\n\n'But he won't be adopted just like that, will he? I'm not wanting him to be \u2014 '\n\n'No, of course, not, Miss Davies. The child's best interests always come first. He's our prime concern at all times. But you can rest assured that all new parents are carefully vetted. We make sure they are respectable people, church-going and financially secure. Home-owners. Pillars of the community.' With every quality listed, the pointed look in the superintendent's eyes emphasised her real meaning: We make sure they're everything the likes of you could never be.\n\n'And did I mention \u2013' Mrs Saunders gave a slight cough '\u2013 that the new parents frequently want to show their appreciation to the mother? You understand what I mean? Not that they will ever meet you, of course \u2013 that's naturally quite out of the question \u2013 but I will forward on to you any token of their appreciation. The amount can be quite considerable sometimes . . .'\n\nMaggie had reached the cross marking where she was to sign. Her child would be well looked after, it seemed. For the first six months any adoption needed her approval, which she naturally wouldn't give. 'And after the six months?'\n\n'Well, Miss Davies, let's cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?' Having taken a final drag at her cigarette, the superintendent ground it out in the ashtray. 'Lots can happen before then, can't it?'\n\nIt certainly could \u2013 the moment she'd started her new job and found somewhere more suitable to stay, she'd be taking her baby back.\n\n'All in good time, Miss Davies.'\n\nHaving filled in the form, Maggie signed her name.\n\nWhen she looked up, Mrs Saunders was giving her a warm smile.\n\n'Thank you, Miss Davies, and speaking on behalf of everyone here at Woodstock House, let me say how much we all look forward to welcoming your newborn child and to caring for him. We have the address in Queen's Crescent and will see to all the arrangements.' She stood up. 'It's been a pleasure to meet you, Miss Davies.'\n\n'I'd like to see his room, please.'\n\n'His room?' Pen in hand, Mrs Saunders was already reaching towards the stack of papers. 'Where his cot'll be, you mean? I'm afraid that's not possible right now. Disrupts routine.' There was no smile this time. 'All in due course, Miss Davies. All in due course.'\n\nMaggie got back home to find Jean had a present for her.\n\n'The answer tae yer prayers,' the older woman explained.\n\nSitting on Jean's baking table, the shiny black typewriter fairly bristled with keys, knobs and levers.\n\nMaggie's obvious objection: 'But, Jean, I can't type.'\n\n'There's a book comes wi it, tellin ye whit tae dae an see ye stairted. The book maks it look easy enough.'\n\n'Books always do.'\n\n'Well, seems it's maistly practice. When the time's richt, ye'll get yersel a job, a guid job. No as a skivvie waitress or stuck in a pub fou o gropin auld drunks. Folks in offices are aye needin typists \u2013 aa thae tycoon businessmen, bankers an lawyers, you name it.' Her sister-in-law gave her a gentle punch in the arm. 'Play yer cards richt, Maggie, an a smairt-lookin lass like you micht land hersel mair than just a job!'\n\nSUNDAY\n\nTIME TO BRACE yourself on the Rosehaven doorstep, press the bell. Stand on the yellow cross marked on the doormat, show yourself to the CCTV angled above. Speak your name into the security grille: Tom Stewart.\n\nBuzzed into the overheated hall, into the combined smells of floral air-freshener, yesterday's macaroni cheese, urine, today's stew and vegetables, laundry, disinfectant.\n\nNot managing more than the first few steps along the corridor leading to the dayroom before it hits you \u2013 you're about to throw up there and then.\n\nReaching the visitors' toilet just in time.\n\nForget about what your ex-wife said about your having no feelings. What does she know? Too many feelings, more like \u2013 and always too keen to share them. You just keep trying and hoping. And getting hurt. The lovely Janice . . . and now Mandy. A steady girl, a caring girl. Maybe that's what you need?\n\nFeelings? Clearly you're deeply, deeply distressed about your mother's deteriorating condition. Visiting her at the cottage every Sunday without fail and now coming here to her care home is the hardest thing you've ever done . . .\n\nHours it seems like, leaning over the wash hand basin . . . one dry heave after another. Retching and retching. There's a slick of cold sweat on your cheeks. Your hands shake as they grip onto the porcelain rim. Your stomach's churning, but nothing comes. Never does. Hard work even to spit. You keep trying.\n\nThen stop.\n\nBecause, quite abruptly, you're feeling fine again. Back in top form. A1 and then some. Yes, you've got the magic touch, all right!\n\nNow, bin the paper towel \u2013 your face and your feelings at default setting once more, you're ready to go through and greet your mother. Bringing her a smile!\n\n'Hello, Mum. How are you today?' You sit down in the empty seat next to hers. A few minutes' chat to get things started, and then you'll suggest she zimmer herself through to her room \u2013 no old biddies there, talking to themselves, crying and the rest of it. There you can almost pretend everything's normal. At least you've got her into a good place \u2013 costs megabucks, but hey, she's your mother. It was the best of the homes you checked out, the very best, and every time you sit with her in the dayroom you do what you can to shut out the worst of it \u2013 the little accident that's not been mopped up, the spilled food, the helplessness, the calls going neglected, the residents' feeding, bathing and bedtime arranged for the convenience of the staff. Most of all, the total dependency. The locked doors. The closed windows. The smell.\n\nShe's calling you Michael again today. Better to ignore it and tell her instead about your drive down from Edinburgh, the weather, the traffic, why you prefer the Moffat road via the Beef Tub to the multi-lane racetrack of the M74, show her your new iPad, tell her how you didn't manage to leave Edinburgh till lunchtime as you'd had a late gig last night. Because she keeps nodding and smiling at the right bits, you hope she's following everything. Best to say nothing about getting the cottage ready for sale, of course, no sense in upsetting her. Instead, you describe a new trick you're working on and explain that nobody wants rabbits out of hats these days, not unless they're virtual rabbits, virtual hats and performed by a virtual magician! You're working on it, you joke. She doesn't always follow what you're saying, but you keep talking to keep things moving forward.\n\nThe drugs trolley's rattled up to her seat. It's Kylie on duty today, the small overweight woman, the one your mother calls Boss Beryl and who looks like a binbag that's not been fastened properly at the neck. Must be the Polish girl's day off. A real pity as she certainly brightens the place up.\n\n'Time for your meds, Mrs Stewart.'\n\n'I'm called Maggie, I keep telling you. Maggie, maggie davies.'\n\n'OK, Mum, okay. Don't get upset. It's all right.'\n\nPatches of red stand out on her cheeks. Clutching your arm so tightly you feel each separate bone in her fingers. 'Tell her. Tell Beryl there's no Mrs Stewart and there never was.'\n\nWhile lifting a small plastic cup of water from the trolley, you give Kylie a smile that's half-apology and half-embarrassment.\n\n'Here you are, Mum. Another green one, another sip, and you're done.'\n\nEmpty cup replaced, you thank the woman. She and her trolley move off to the next chair.\n\nWhen you showed the Polish girl \u2013 Mariella? Marietta? \u2013 a couple of simple tricks recently, making a pound coin appear out of her ear and then turning it into a shower of petals from her closed hand, she gave you a very big smile. Meaning that she liked how you'd touched her hair and her ear, and enjoyed the older-man confidence with which you'd opened out her cool fingers, one by one. She'd been impressed. She's mid-twenties at most. You could be her father? Her grandfather, more like! But so what? You can appreciate her, can't you? Those blonde curls gathered into a bunch at the back of her head, the loose strands framing her high cheekbones, that not-so-innocent glint in her blue eyes.\n\nFor several moments you and your mother sit in silence.\n\n'Would you like some tea, Mum? I can ask them to \u2014 '\n\n'It was cake. Jean baked a cake.'\n\nThat bloody cake again. If you've heard about it once, you've heard it a hundred times. 'Yes, Mum. Auntie Jean had a cake shop \u2013 in Haymarket you said, wasn't it?'\n\n'This cake wasn't for sale.'\n\n'No? Just for eating?'\n\n'Eating? Jean wasn't going to eat it, me neither.'\n\nThe red floods back into her cheeks, warm-red this time. Genuine pleasure. And she's grinning: 'What a cake it was! Three layers. A sponge with cream and chocolate and marzipan, slathered all over with icing and dusted with hundreds-and-thousands. Irresistible.'\n\n'Pity you never took a photo of it, eh, Mum! We could have put it into that album I \u2014 '\n\nHer sudden anger. 'For the last time: I don't want to see any photos. I don't want to see any people. And I don't want to see you, whoever you are. Coming here, asking questions. I don't want people coming, people not coming. I don't want questions . . .' The red in her cheeks has become like a burn mark. She struggles to raise herself out of her chair. 'I don't want . . .'\n\nA moment later she has calmed down and is perfectly still once more. Completely composed.\n\n'Nice of you to visit. What did you say your name was again?'\n\n'Tell me about the cake again, Mum.'\n\n'What cake?'\n\n'The one you said that Auntie Jean made.'\n\n'Jean made lots of cakes.'\n\n'All chocolate and marzipan, you told me, and \u2014 '\n\n'I don't want to talk about it.'\n\n'Who was it for?'\n\n'For Boss Beryl and the others, and Donna, too, of course. Who else?'\n\n'You mean the people who're looking after you here? I don't understand, Mum. Auntie Jean died . . . years ago. How could she have known the people here?'\n\n'Forget the cake. There was no cake. I must have dreamt it. All of it. I'm tired of your questions. I'm tired of you. Who do you think you are? Coming here and upsetting me \u2013 you're not Michael, you're not anyone. You make me feel like I've been doing the laundry all day, like you're squeezing and squeezing me to get the last of the \u2014 '\n\n'But Mum \u2014 '\n\n'Tom would have helped me. Sometimes I'd pretend he was standing there beside me on the three-legged stool, turning the handle while I fed the wet clothes through. We'd have had great fun together! The windows steamed up with the condensation so there was nothing outside, nothing in the whole world but the two of us . . . They'll be bringing tea soon. No cake today unless you brought some.'\n\n'I had a lovely slice last time I was \u2014 '\n\n'You had a slice? Not Jean's cake you didn't. She certainly wouldn't have given you a slice.'\n\n'But, Mum \u2014 '\n\n'She wasn't giving that cake to just anybody. And you \u2013 you're no one. Get out. get out!'\n\nBoss Beryl's abrupt tug-and-swish of the curtains.\n\n'Been looking through the family snaps, have we?' She's picked up the photo album that's still sitting on the chest of drawers. 'Mind if I \u2013?' Without waiting for a by-your-leave, she starts flicking through it.\n\nYou want to snatch it away. Whoever's pictures they are, they're not Boss Beryl's, that's for sure. You don't want that woman's hands all over them, nobody does. Her sweaty pawprints and snide remarks.\n\n'Someone's secretary, were you, Maggie? Very smart- looking. Weren't you the heartbreaker!'\n\nOnly my own heart. Keeping its jagged shards clutched to you for most of your life, keeping them for the touch of Michael's fingertips to melt away the pain.\n\n4\n\nAFTER THE EARLY morning dash in the taxi across the \u00adwintry-dark city, across the Meadows and down a completely \u00addeserted Minto Street to Queen's Crescent with Jean's hand in hers to grip hold of at each contraction, there came five hours of pain and then exhaustion, followed by more pain and more \u00adexhaustion, and people telling her to push-push-push.\n\nAfterwards, as she lay awash with sweat and still trying to catch her breath, she was told to look up for a moment. But only if she wanted to:\n\nThe tiniest mouth and nose, damp feather-light fair, hazy blue eyes. A boy.\n\nHeld up for only the briefest moment, held too far away for her to touch \u2013\n\nHardly the chance to catch a glimpse of each other \u2013\n\nThen whisked away out of sight. Through to another room to get cleaned and swaddled up.\n\nWoodstock House has been phoned, they said to her, and someone's on their way.\n\nMaggie knew this was going to happen, didn't she? Her son going straight to the children's home? She herself must have arranged it, they reminded her. With Mrs Saunders at Woodstock House. She and Mrs Saunders would've discussed all the details between them.\n\nGetting upset like this would only make things worse, they told her. Always best to be separated as soon as possible. It was easier that way. Easier for everyone.\n\nOf course he'd be well taken care of, they reassured her. Woodstock House had a good reputation. She needn't worry. She could be really proud of herself and it was time to let others take over now. She'd done all the hard work. He looked a bonnie wee baby and was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. She needed a proper rest now. Needed to get her strength back.\n\nMaggie struggled to sit up in bed, begging and begging to be allowed to see him one more time, to hold him just once before \u2013\n\nAll in good time, they said. All in good time.\n\nLet's open these curtains a little wider so you can see out.\n\nLet's straighten these covers and plump up these pillows. Let's get you comfortable.\n\nA cup of tea? \u2013 with plenty of sugar, if you fancy it.\n\nGetting upset like this wasn't helping anyone, least of all her, they said. Once she calmed down they'd leave her to have a good sleep. She'd feel better after that, they said. A good sleep. A good sleep. A good sleep. They could give her something if she wanted.\n\nTotally worn out, Maggie fell back onto the freshly arranged pillows. She turned her face to the window, away from their firm hands, away from their repertoire of comforting words and kindness. Better to stare out at the November afternoon, better to follow the tracks of the raindrops streaming down the glass . . .\n\nHer suitcase, a handful of painkillers, good luck and goodbye.\n\nJean had come to collect her and the taxi was waiting in the street.\n\nMaggie stood looking down the flight of stone steps, the same six steps she'd toiled up the day before, more like six hundred now, and pitiless every one of them. There was a handrail, at least. She held onto it, quite unable to start her descent.\n\nTaxi or not, she was in no rush.\n\nA cold easterly pulled at her knotted headscarf and made the loose ends flap against her cheeks; she could see the clouds being hurried on, driven forward, scattered across the ragged winter sky. The wind tugged and tugged at a leafless silver birch that stood so close to a wall its thinnest branches scraped to rawness against the stone. On the rooftop directly above where she stood, gust after gust set the grannies whirling in their chimney pots. They screeched at her to get herself down the steps and out of their sight. Now she'd given birth she no longer belonged in this mountain refuge of soft pillows and round-the-clock care. Down the stairs with you, they shrieked. Get back to where you came from.\n\nShe caught hold of her loosening scarf. Jean took her arm.\n\n'Yer gey peelie wallie lookin, Maggie. Shouldae stayed a bit langer, no?'\n\n'At \u00a39 a day?'\n\n'Come on then, let's get ye back hame.' Her sister-in-law guided her to the top step. 'Taxi's my treat.'\n\n'Jean, I \u2014 ' She stared down into the everyday lowlands far below \u2013 the Edinburgh streets, tenements, her couch in the back room of the bakery, the job she'd need to find, the room she'd need to rent, the visits to see Tom at Woodstock House. Would he recognise her? Would he come to love her?\n\n'Come on, Maggie, let's get you back home.'\n\n'My suitcase?'\n\n'I've got it. Ready? We'll take it easy. One step at a time.'\n\nHow shaky Maggie felt to be up and on her feet again. Her left hand clutching at empty air for better balance until she'd found the rail. Her right gripping Jean's arm, together they began their descent.\n\nTwo steps, three, four, five . . .\n\nThe driver stayed in his cab with his engine running for the heater. It was warm inside, thank goodness. Maggie slumped down in the corner. Jean stood the suitcase at her feet.\n\n'Are you all right, Maggie?'\n\n'Thanks, Jean. Taxi's a real kindness. A tram would have been beyond me.'\n\n'A tram! Away wi ye!' Jean gave the address and they drove off.\n\n'I was wanting to go and see Tom today, but \u2014 '\n\n'Tom?'\n\n'Hardly saw him for more than a few moments, but long enough to know he's called Tom. He knows it too, I could tell.'\n\n'A guid name. There's nae Tom in the family as far as I ken. He'll be stairting aff wi a clean slate.'\n\nMaggie leaned forward and turned to face her: 'I'll go and visit him first thing tomorrow.'\n\n'We'll see. Ye'll want tae get some colour back into yer cheeks first, or he'll be thinking his mither's a ghost.'\n\nA ghost? Maggie bit her lip, and sank back into her seat.\n\nThe door of Woodstock House was opened by the same tangle of blonde curls and smiles as before.\n\n'Hello.' The girl looked Maggie full in the face. 'You're Miss Davies, aren't you?'\n\n'That's right, Donna. Hello to you, too. Can I come in, please?'\n\n'They never said, so I don't know. Well . . . (a theatrical sigh), I suppose you're here now. Mrs Saunders will have heard the bell anyway.' She stood aside to let Maggie enter. 'No need for the mat today, the wind's blown away all the wet.' She pushed the door closed behind them.\n\n'How's your dancing coming on?'\n\n'Blisters. Thank you for asking. Some advice \u2013 never try doing the can-can barefoot. Too many splinters.'\n\n'Thank you. I'll remember.'\n\nThey crossed the hall. Though it was only a month since Maggie had been here, the linoleum seemed to have hardened to a sheet of permafrost and the varnished staircase become encrusted with ice. It was so cold she could see her breath.\n\n'Heat's kept for the children's rooms. No one hangs about in the hall, so why heat it? That's what Mrs Saunders says. Sometimes I do my dancing here because it's a good big space \u2013 but only if I've warmed up in the kitchen first, Mrs Saunders says, or else my muscles'll break in the cold or maybe even my arms and legs. He's a lovely wee boy.'\n\n'Yes. He's called Tom.'\n\n'Tom?' They had reached Mrs Saunders' room. 'A nice name. If you want, I'll look out for him.'\n\n'How do you mean?'\n\n'But only if you want me to.'\n\nDonna knocked and opened the door for her. 'Really suits the wee lad. Tom. Cheerio.' She shimmied off up the corridor.\n\n'Cheerio, Donna,' Maggie called after her.\n\nThe superintendent was again seated behind her desk, her cigarette sending up a thin line of smoke from the ashtray at her elbow. She was clearly involved in very important work and made no effort to look up when her visitor approached. Her fountain pen continued to scratch line after line onto a sheet of headed foolscap.\n\nHands by her side Maggie stood in front of the desk, and waited.\n\nTwo further lines were completed.\n\nShe coughed. 'Good afternoon, Mrs Saunders.'\n\nThe superintendent didn't look up. 'One moment, please.'\n\nWhere the surface of the desk wasn't covered in papers, there were ink stains, cup ring marks. The right-hand edge was scarred by a line of cigarette burns.\n\nMaggie was about to speak again, but stopped when the older woman put down her pen and reached for a sheet of blotting paper. Finally, the completed foolscap page was placed on top of a nearby pile. The superintendent laid her palms flat on the desk:\n\n'Yes?'\n\n'I've come to see my little boy. He was born yesterday, and \u2014 '\n\n'Name?'\n\nMaggie took a step forward, right to the front of the desk. She smiled. 'I'm going to call him \u2014 '\n\n'Your name?'\n\n'Me? Maggie Davies. I came a month ago to arrange for \u2014 '\n\n'Miss Davies? I wasn't told you had an appointment today.'\n\n'I'm sorry, I didn't realise I had to \u2014 '\n\n'Perhaps you'd like to sit down, Miss Davies? You must still be tired.'\n\nThe chair she'd sat in on her previous visit was standing against the wall beside a large green metal filing cabinet. Maggie dragged it over to the desk.\n\nMrs Saunders took a moment to finish her cigarette, stubbing it out in the ashtray.\n\n'Well, Miss Davies. How did it go?'\n\n'How did \u2013?'\n\n'The birth, Miss Davies. The birth of your child. Everything went satisfactorily, I believe. Smooth delivery and no forceps \u2013 yes?'\n\n'They said everything was fine.' Then she added, 'Afterwards I felt very \u2014 '\n\n'The baby certainly looks healthy enough. No harelip, webbed toes or fingers, thank goodness.'\n\n'I saw him for only a few seconds, he seemed . . . perfect. He looked lovely. I wanted to hold him, but they \u2014 '\n\n'Yes, best all round. No sense in causing unnecessary distress. Can't begin too early to get the child used to being without his \u2014 '\n\n'He's called Tom.'\n\n'Pardon?'\n\n'My son is called Tom.'\n\n'Is he? I hadn't realised.'\n\n'I want to see him.'\n\n'I understand your concern, Miss Davies. Only natural, and many would consider it does you credit. But I must repeat what I said when you were here before, and urge you to do no such thing.'\n\n'But he's my son and I \u2014 '\n\n'I advised you to leave him with us, if you remember \u2013 leave him here and forget all about him.'\n\n'But \u2014 '\n\n'You do understand?''\n\nMaggie said nothing.\n\n'Once more, Miss Davies, I strongly urge you to turn around and walk straight out the door. Now. This very minute. Out the door and don't look back.'\n\n'But Tom's all I have, and \u2014 '\n\n'Like I said, it's time to begin your new life, and let your new-born child begin his.' The superintendent half-rose from her seat as if preparing to show Maggie out of the room. 'The sooner he can be put up for adoption, the sooner he can be \u2014 '\n\n'I want to see Tom.'\n\nMrs Saunders sat down again. 'Adoption. This really is the best time. Everything can be arranged with the minimum of fuss and concluded in a matter of days. Like I say, best for everyone. Best for you and best for little . . . What did you say his name was?'\n\nMaggie made no response.\n\n'Best for your son.' The superintendent paused. 'Miss Davies?'\n\nMaggie sat and said nothing.\n\n'You're being extremely selfish, you know.'\n\nMaggie gripped the sides of her chair. She sat up straight, met the older woman's gaze and held it. 'I'm his mother.' She could feel the beginnings of tears behind her eyes.\n\nThe superintendent leant forward. 'I agree, Miss Davies, that you're his . . . mother.' Paused for, but unspoken, the word unmarried hung in the air between them.\n\n'Yes, Mrs Saunders, I am his mother . . .' Then, without waiting for the older woman's invitation, Maggie stood up. '. . . And, as I have already told you, my son is called Tom. I've come to see him. Now where is he?'\n\nMrs Saunders shook her head.\n\n'Miss Davies, you must understand that I don't mean to be hard. I know it may seem like that. In my years here I've seen so many children . . . and so much unhappiness.'\n\n'If you don't take me to see Tom this instant, I will leave and return with the police.'\n\nThe superintendent snorted: 'The police? You? An unmarried mother of no fixed abode? Do you really think they'd pay any heed to the likes of you?'\n\n'I only want to see my wee boy. That's not a crime.'\n\n'Your child is now my responsibility, Miss Davies \u2013 which means that I decide who sees him and who doesn't.'\n\n'I'm not going to harm him. I love him, and \u2014 '\n\n'Love him? You've hardly even seen him. You don't know anything about him. You wouldn't even recognise \u2014 '\n\nMaggie jumped to her feet. 'i love him! Can't you understand? He's my son, I'm all he's got.'\n\n'Not any more.'\n\n'Right, the police it is!' She started towards the door.\n\nThe superintendent stood up.\n\n'We don't want any trouble, Miss Davies. We don't want the children upset, do we?' For a moment she seemed to have finished speaking, but then added, 'You mothers can only do what you must, I suppose.' She shook her head. 'If you get to see him this time, you must promise never to come back here again? Will you?'\n\nMaggie didn't reply. She stood and she waited.\n\nFinally Mrs Saunders gave a sigh, crossed to the door and opened it. 'Come on, then.'\n\nA couple of small boys, aged about four and five, were down on their knees playing in the main hall with their Dinky cars, racing them up and down the floor and crashing them into the skirting. The smaller one had a harelip.\n\n'It's a bit cold here, boys, why don't you go through to the playroom?'\n\n'Yes, Mrs Saunders.' Dutifully, they got to their feet and trooped off.\n\n'They're brothers, these two.' The superintendent began to go up the stairs. 'Refused to be split up. Each time Andy \u2013 he's the older one, the one without the . . . (she touched her top lip) \u2013 was taken by a family, he acted up so badly he was always sent back. No one ever offered to take Bobby, of course, let alone both of them together. A real shame. Little Bobby's a delightful child really. They both are.'\n\n'And Donna?'\n\n'Her mother died when she was nine. Father said he was a working man and couldn't cope. No relatives, it seemed. Brought her here to see if she'd like a day visit. Then never came back. Turned out to be a false name and address. No paperwork because we thought it was just for a few hours. Certainly never made that mistake again. This is Tom's room.'\n\nA dozen or so mismatched cribs and cots were stood side by side along the walls. The centre of the room was taken up by a table covered with several feeding bottles, a stack of clean nappies, a stack of clean towels. There was a desk light and what looked like a diary or some kind of record book was laid open next to a half-filled cup of tea. An armchair and small foot stool relaxed in one corner while a deep sink with draining board occupied another. The room felt overheated and probably neither of the two large windows had been opened today. The smell of soiled nappies, bedding and powdered milk caught in her throat.\n\nA woman wearing a dark blue housecoat stood over by an open cupboard, checking through shelves of linen.\n\nEach cot had a handwritten number affixed to its head rail.\n\nMrs Saunders called over to the attendant: 'Beryl. Queen's Crescent \u2013 came in yesterday afternoon?'\n\nAged anything between thirty and fifty, Boss Beryl was small and stocky, her dark hair set in stiff curls. Standing with one hand resting on her hip and staring flatly across the room, she reminded Maggie of a rather squat and angry-looking petrol pump. 'Queen's Crescent?' There was a swift jerk of her head in the direction of the far corner. 'Number 11, and he's sleeping.'\n\n'Miss Davies won't wake him. She's just looking in for a short visit.' Then the superintendent left the room.\n\nWithout taking her eyes off this unwanted intrusion, the petrol pump lifted down a green blanket from one of the shelves and made as if to re-fold it.\n\nMaggie picked her way across the room between discarded towels and pillow-cases heaped here and there on the floor, then skirted round the central table.\n\nA baby started howling. Crib number 11?\n\nNo. It came from over by one of the windows, from some other cot, some other baby. She ignored it.\n\nBut then, as she hurried across to Tom's crib, she felt the unknown child's cry pierce her, felt it like a wound in the tip of her breast. Glancing down she saw a small damp patch on the front of her blouse.\n\nSide-stepping a slew of wet-looking sheets, she almost knocked over a pail of water with soiled nappies dripping over the side.\n\n'Watch where you're going!' shouted the petrol pump.\n\nThe pail stood next to an empty cot, the pillow almost small enough for a doll's bed. Crib number 10.\n\nTom's would be next.\n\nCrib number 11: a halo of feather-light fair hair, scrunched-up face, wrinkled skin, patches of reddish pink, impossibly small hands . . .\n\nShe reached into the crib. More than her uncertainty and her awkwardness was her joy. Overwhelming, heart-swelling joy.\n\nNervously, her fingers brushed the warm smoothness of his cheek.\n\nBoss Beryl? Mrs Saunders and her lecture about selfishness? \u2013 she didn't care about them, but was nervous suddenly, afraid almost. Afraid she was about to burst into tears. With Boss Beryl scrutinising her every movement, starting to cry would be the worst thing she could do. She daren't show any weakness, not here. If she picked Tom up too quickly, she'd be accused of trying to usurp Boss Beryl's authority. If she hesitated for too long, she'd be judged uncaring, confirming that she should be written off as an unfit mother. Which, being unmarried, she already was in everyone's eyes.\n\nShe straightened Tom's bright patchwork blanket, stroked his uncovered arm.\n\nPetrol pump Beryl took a step forward. One single step \u2013 and it was as if she'd been turned into a wild cat ready to attack.\n\nBut not even a dozen wild cats could have stopped Maggie now. In one smooth act of loving reclamation she reached down, lifted Tom out of his cot and took him into her arms.\n\n'Tom, Tom,' she swayed him back and forth.\n\n'Leave him where he is.' The wild cat was only inches away, hissing and spitting. 'You'll have him yelling the place down. Give him here.'\n\nMaggie ignored her. Moments later she was holding Tom to her breast and, for as long as he remained there with his small mouth clutching onto her and sucking, nothing else in the world seemed to matter.\n\nWhen he'd finished, she lifted him up close to the window so he could see the rain-streaked glass, the separate water-drops racing down the pane. 'Tom, Tom, hush-a-bye, Tom. Look!' she pointed to a clear drop that trembled, poised, holding itself together until it was ready to start its journey. 'Look \u2013 that's you!'\n\nShe brought him up close to her face to feel the warmth of his stubby little fingers against her cheeks and lips.\n\nAfter watching the curtain of rain break into a swirl of colours where the glass was flawed \u2013 'That's your very own rainbow, Tom!' \u2013 she whisked him past the petrol punp and out of the room, along the landing, down the stairs and across the empty hall, into the crowded playroom to show him to everyone, and to see the wind-up train set, the big toy-box, the stacks of wooden bricks. Then, his introduction into society complete, she brought him back upstairs again.\n\nThe instant his head touched the pillow, his tiny face scrunched up into a scream of such ferocity it hardly seemed possible to have come out of such a tiny mouth. His small body shook with tears. Howling, howling tears. Crib number 12 woke up, setting up a domino-effect of howls and shrieks.\n\nBoss Beryl was furious. A feral hiss: 'See what you've done, see what you've done . . .'\n\nMaggie had been pretty overwhelmed by the typewriter Jean had given her a month previously. It looked like a shrunk-down church organ, and was about as appealing. At first she'd ignored it. It might be the road to her salvation as Jean had said, it certainly looked unwelcoming enough. Like an accompanying bible, the instruction book was short on laughs and promised only duty and hard labour. Two days had passed before she'd finally put in a sheet of paper and turned the roller as directed in Chapter One: Getting Started. Then she'd taken the sheet out again. Smoothed it flat, re-inserted it straighter and tried a second time. She hit a key. Then a second key. A third. A fourth. She'd looked up at the paper: mivc. She'd tried again \u2013 michaelmagie took five attempts. michaelmaggiejean took nearly five hundred, it seemed like. That achieved, she'd started to work her away through the manual, exercise after exercise, till her fingers were sore.\n\n'Got a tune oot o it yet?' Jean had asked as she left the bakery with Maggie still battering away at the keys.\n\n'Getting there.'\n\nA few days later, she'd tried typewriting a letter to Michael. It took nearly the whole evening and used up a lot of paper. Her next had been handwritten. By the time she was ready to give birth, the road to salvation had brought her up to a hit-and-miss ten words a minute. Fewer and fewer mistakes, and each one swiftly erased.\n\nWith Tom safe and secure at Woodstock House for the time being, she now had to find a job \u2013 and as soon as possible\n\nIt was nine o'clock on the following Monday morning, the beginning of a new working week \u2013 and for Maggie, the beginning of her new working life. She hoped. She'd have to lie to them, of course, and not only about her typing skills. no unmarried mothers wanted was surely written in mile-high letters above the centre of Edinburgh.\n\nAfter a last adjustment to her collar, she inspected herself in the mirror \u2013 the ivory silk blouse, black pleated skirt, patent leather shoes. Shiny black handbag.\n\nFrom Jean: 'You're just the dab. Perfect.'\n\nThe mirror showed: respectable, trustworthy \u2013 a thirty-one-year-old woman who'd soon be turning thirty-two.\n\nBut a mother? \u2013 did she still look like an unmarried mother?\n\nDrawing her comb through her hair one last time. Pursing her red lipsticked lips and allowing herself another glance in the glass. No motherly looks, please. Think single. Think confidence. Think ten words a minute. Think pay-packets.\n\n'My seams straight?'\n\n'Aa the wey up an aa the wey doun. Keep smiling Maggie, like our army boys \u2013 chest oot and stomach in. Your coat, ma'am. And aye mind yer Rabbie Burns \u2013 A man's a man for aa that! A man's a meal ticket \u2013 plenty women marry fer it. Course, ye're welcome tae bide here as lang as ye want, Maggie, but \u2014 '\n\n'Thanks, but come my first pay packet, I'll be moving into a place of my own. Then I'll take back Tom and \u2014 '\n\n'\u2014 and then what? I'm telling you, yer only chance is to get yersel a man.'\n\n'Jesus!'\n\n'Or someone like him!'\n\nWhich made them both laugh.\n\nRaw winter light streaked the length of Dalry Road, cutting round the outlines of the tenements' edges and corners, trimming the roofs and chimneys exactly to size. The pavements seemed to have been polished overnight and now had a sheen as smooth as the Union Canal. As Maggie turned down Dalry Road, she felt she was walking on water . . .\n\nBut she wouldn't be walking all the way into town on foot, not today. Not if she wanted to remain looking neat, crisp and employable.\n\nThe tram rumbled down to the foot of Dalry Road, went clatter-clack, clatter-clack over the intersecting tramlines at Haymarket, then trundled along the sunlit valley of Atholl Crescent before entering Shandwick Place and the West End. Past the \u00adCaledonian station and hotel with its uniformed doorman on the steps and the taxis lined up in front, and then into Princes Street.\n\nThe thirty-one-year-old, highly experienced typist got off at the bottom of Frederick Street and strolled over to the nearest plate-glass window. Against a background blur of office staff and shop assistants hurrying to reach their morning's work on time, she checked off her credentials one by one: the serious glance, the spontaneous smile, the tilt of her head. The poise, the confidence. Professional. Reliable. Dependable. Single. Childless.\n\nBy mid-afternoon Maggie had had it with slogging in and out of offices and agencies, up and down narrow staircases, she'd had it with Snooty Juniors, their Reception voices and their forms. Coming out of an office in Castle Street she walked down to Princes Street and was in time to see a tram marked Morningside coming along from Waverley. Good enough. Next thing, she was on board and soon turning up Lothian Road towards Tollcross, Bruntsfield and Carluke Avenue.\n\nIgnoring the brass bell-pull, she let herself in through the unlocked front door of Woodstock House, slipped across the hall and went up the stairs without even a glance in the direction of the superintendent's office. Then along the top landing and into the dormitory, making straight for cot number 11. In one smooth sweeping gesture, she leant down and gathered Tom into her arms.\n\nMrs Saunders appeared in the doorway a few minutes later: 'You promised you wouldn't come back, Miss Davies.'\n\n'I promised nothing.'\n\n'She was here Saturday as well, and Sunday,' spoke up Beryl the snitch.\n\nMaggie could once again feel the pain piercing her breasts and the warm wetness of milk leaking from her. With her free hand she unbuttoned her blouse.\n\nThe superintendent took a step towards her. 'Stop! I won't allow \u2014 '\n\nMaggie held Tom in the crook of her arm, ready to suck.\n\n'Are you going to rip my child out of my arms?'\n\nThe two women glared at each other while the wild cat looked on. Paying no attention to anyone else, Tom fastened onto Maggie's nipple and began to suckle.\n\n'I'm warning you, Miss Davies.'\n\nWithout breaking eye-contact, Maggie shifted Tom's position to make him more comfortable.\n\nThe superintendent raised her voice: 'I said, I'm warning you, Miss Davies.'\n\n'She was like this at the weekend, too, Mrs Saunders. Thinks she's Lady Muck, but she's nothing more than \u2014 '\n\n'Get on with your work, Beryl. You see the trouble you cause, Miss Davies. Coming here, disturbing \u2014 '\n\n'I'm disturbing no one.' Maggie bent down to kiss the top of Tom's head . . .\n\n'You mothers are not expected to \u2014 '\n\n. . . and stroke his feathery hair. 'How's my wee boy. How's my wee boy, how's Tom? Have you missed me?'\n\nFor several seconds Mrs Saunders looked on and said nothing. Finally she let her hands drop to her sides. 'We don't want any trouble, remember. Just make sure you don't get in the way.' She turned on her heel and walked out the door.\n\nMaggie shifted Tom to her other breast.\n\nBy the end of the first week Maggie had a routine:\n\nUp at 6.30 for two hours' typing, then the tram into town. She'd get off at the Waverley end of Princes Street, walk up North Bridge to the Scotsman offices, to scan through the Situations Vacant columns as early as possible. Late morning, she'd return to get the first edition of the Evening News. Her days were an endless round of employment agencies, receptionists, application forms, waiting rooms, interviews. Queuing to use public phones, walking to offices in the New Town, taking trams to offices in Newington, in Leith, in Gorgie, Stockbridge. Come late afternoon she'd usually had enough rejections for the day and would take the next tram she saw going in the direction of Carluke Avenue, to be in time to give Tom his early evening feed. She'd wanted to breastfeed him, but after only a few days she'd had to ask to use one of the Woodstock House baby feeding bottles \u2013 her milk was already starting to dry up. She'd been given it, grudgingly.\n\nHer nights were spent at the bakery table, answering advertisements in her own best handwriting, and doing more typing practice. Last thing, and when she had the energy, she'd add a few sentences to her current letter to Michael. Trams, telephone calls, letters, newspapers. Being unemployed was a full-time job. And exhausting. And expensive.\n\nThe closer it came to Christmas, the fewer were the employers looking to take on new staff. But Maggie kept trying. Kept phoning and being put on hold, kept being told the vacancy was already filled, being told they were looking for someone younger, or someone older. Or else they wanted a man. A bloody man \u2013 the answer to everyone's problems, according to Jean. Doggedly, rain or shine, she tramped around the city centre \u2013 George St, Hanover St, Frederick St, Castle St, the West End, the New Town . . . She went in and out of wood-panelled offices, some with fresh cut flowers in their reception rooms and views over Queen St Gardens; elsewhere she laboured up and down narrow and uncarpeted stairs, found herself shown into forlorn offices with grubby skylights, plasterboard partitions and audible plumbing.\n\nChristmas brought a card and a small cake from Jean, and a card came from Michael \u2013 My Xmas wish is that we were together had been inscribed below the festive greetings in Lachlan's neat handwriting. She put his card next to the photograph he'd sent her in an earlier letter \u2013 a snap of himself as a soldier, standing next to an army lorry covered in mud except for where the sweep of its single wiper had kept the windscreen clear enough to see through. Beside him there was a road sign: BERLIN 867 Kms. The photograph always confused her, it wasn't the man she knew \u2013 his blindness, his dependence. Not even the handwriting on the card was his. Years ago, when the photograph was taken, she'd still have been living in her parents' house doing her best to get through the war. Re-reading Michael's letters, which she did, they often seemed written to another Maggie altogether, one who lived a completely different life. Briefly, as she read, she'd let herself become this other woman, allowing herself to feel loved and cherished and to believe that everything would end happily. This happy-ever-after Maggie didn't have to struggle through every day, there seemed to be no loneliness in her life, no exhaustion. Clearly she never wept.\n\nFor Hogmanay she was invited to Jean's home. At first she said no, thank you, she'd prefer to see the New Year in by herself. But Jean kept on insisting.\n\nIt was getting on for midnight when she left the bakery to make her way to her sister-in-law's flat in the nearby colonies, just off Haymarket. After the bells rang out the New Year the small flat began filling up with neighbours come to first foot. Then the dancing began. An hour after she'd arrived her brother Billy still hadn't acknowledged her, let alone spoken to her. She'd caught him glancing over a couple of times, only to see him immediately turn away. Finally he came across:\n\n'Well then?'\n\n'Happy New Year to you, too,' said Maggie.\n\n'I'm asking,' her brother continued, 'what do you think you're doing? Mother's heart-broken. Father'll not have your name mentioned in the house. A fair disgrace, he says.'\n\n'So? I can't help how they \u2014 '\n\n'You can marry the man, can't you? Tell us where he lives and we'll pay him a visit. Once you're married, nothing of this'll matter any more.'\n\n'Like it never happened?'\n\n'That's the ticket, and everyone'll be happy.'\n\n'That'll be nice for them.'\n\nShe left shortly after.\n\nTwice on her way home she was grabbed and given a New Year's kiss. Then, just as she was turning into her own side street, a group of first-footers called to her from the opposite pavement: 'Happy New Year! Happy New Year!'\n\n'Happy New Year to you, too!' She called back to them, and meant it. Forget the past. Forget brother Billy and her parents, forget the Callanders and Mrs Stewart. She had the New Year to look forward to. She had Tom . . . and she had Michael.\n\nSUNDAY\n\nTO MAKE THE best of seeing her, the best for both of you, you have to make the effort to block out the TV's over-cranked volume, block out the empty stare of the Murray twins, block out the whole depressing end-of-the-line feel of things, and cut straight to what concerns you \u2013 your mother. You can only manage a few hours every week so you want to make the most of it. No expense spared and coming as often as you can to spend time with her. The good days, and the not-so-good days . . .\n\nToday she's been dressed in a pink jersey and M&S slacks. Best to catch her eye before crossing over to take the empty seat next to her. Try to catch it, at least.\n\n'Hello, Mum!'\n\nNothing. Like she's morphed into Murray number three. Has she even noticed you've come into the room?\n\n'Hello, Mum. How are you today?'\n\nStill nothing.\n\nNot a good day. Sit down next to her, touching her lightly on the arm. 'Really good to see you again, Mum.'\n\n'When there's bubbles of soap, it needs another rinse. Another rinse and another good mangle.'\n\nDefinitely not a good day. Give her hand a squeeze, try to catch what she's saying so you'll both be on the same page, the two of you sharing a Sunday afternoon together in the nursing home. Making up for lost time, it feels like, all the caring and loving you want to give her before it's too \u2013\n\n'Can't abide that chemical smell of soap in clothes.'\n\n'Remember that big block of green soap and the washboard, Mum? We'd sing, \"Scrub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub\" . . .'\n\nNo response.\n\nFine.\n\nTV's even louder than usual, battering the dayroom and everyone in it. Better to take her through to her own room. Where's her zimmer?\n\n'You're not leaving already, are you? Stay with me. They'll be bringing round a cup of tea any minute.'\n\n'That's good.' Managing a hopeful-looking smile. 'Then we can \u2014 '\n\n'I'll need to iron it. And a chicken. You're a man, you can do that, eh?'\n\n'Do what, Mum? What do you want me to \u2013?'\n\n'One of the hens, of course. Kill it.'\n\nA really bad day. A few seats along, the sexy Polish girl is trying to get one of the Murray twins to drink out of an orange plastic cup with a spout. A safety lid and Bart Simpson on the side.\n\n'Need drink, Joan. Need meds.'\n\nThe Murray doesn't seem to notice her, the old woman's mouth remains closed and her hands have collapsed to a slackness on her lap.\n\n'Drink, Joan. Help meds work. Drink. Drink.' The girl takes the trembling hands and wraps them round Bart, raising the spout into position. 'Good, Joan, good. Drink.'\n\nBut the Murray's having none of it. Her gaze is fixed far in the distance like she's really somewhere else, like on another planet. Her eyes are wide, wide open \u2013 is it possible she doesn't even see the girl crouching down beside her? Doesn't even feel the plastic spout pressed against her own mouth?\n\n'One med for finish. Drink. One med for finish, Joan, then I go.'\n\nProbably the girl feels like ramming the spout full-force between the old woman's lips and yanking the Murray head back \u2013 and who could blame her? Whatever. She's a real stunner, and would make the perfect assistant. Even in these politically correct days a magician needs a pretty assistant to display the inside of the shiny magic box and show that it's empty, to let herself be lasered in half, or else to help you disappear in a puff of smoke.\n\nIt's far too hot in here, the sun's melted and is pouring out pure heat, the windows are sealed tight shut as always. What a place. Some of the Dorothys and Murrays are facing the TV screen and some aren't. Rosehaven social life.\n\nYour mother's turned to stare at the TV.\n\n'That letter's made her cry. The poor woman. Making her cry and cry.'\n\nYou look across at the screen. Not that again. It's a rerun of what had been on the first day you'd come to visit, the same US soap that had made your mother so upset you'd gone over and changed it to horse racing. Nobody said anything, or noticed even \u2013 but Kylie spoke to you afterwards, telling you to please not do it again. The residents might not say anything, she explained, but it would still upset them. If your mother gets upset again, she'd added, best to take her through to her own room.\n\n'can't someone do something? does no one care?'\n\n'We've seen this episode before, Mum, let's go to your room. It'll be quieter there and we can have a good chat together.' Taking her arm, ready to help her stand up. 'I'll make some tea, if you like. I brought us some hobnobs.'\n\nOut of the corner of your eye you can see the woman's now finished reading her letter and is about to let it slip from her hand. This was the moment in the scene when you switched channels last time, but you can guess what's going to happen anyway \u2013 there'll likely have been some cheesy direction telling the actress to give the sheet of paper a very slight flick of the wrist as she lets it drop, that way it'll flip over a couple of times on the way down to the floor.\n\nAnd sure enough, the camera follows its descent in slow-motion to show everyone that the woman's heart being turned over. Spelling out her grief \/ disappointment \/ regret \/ sense of loss. Whatever. A cheap trick. But effective.\n\nNo problem this time round \u2013 your mother's face has gone quite blank, as if she's been put into a trance. If only. Then you could keep her safe and suggest to her only the sort of things that'll make her happy. You want her so much to be happy.\n\nPerfectly on cue, she gives you a smile. 'Hello! Are you here for the cake?'\n\n'Cake?' You sit down again. 'Of course, I'd love some. Then we can go through to your room and \u2014 '\n\n'Because if you are, you'll need a name tag. Security.'\n\n'Security? I gave my name and walked in today same as usual. No problem, like every Sunday. I've been coming here for weeks now, Mum. Never seen a name tag. No one's wearing any.'\n\n'Only the ones that need to. The staff, Mrs Saunders, Donna \u2014 '\n\n'You've not got one.'\n\n'Mine's getting changed. Seems there was some kind of mix-up. They were going to give me Mrs Stewart's till I put them right. It's getting made up now, it's all on their computer. maggie davies it'll say. Mrs Saunders is organising it.'\n\n'That's nice of her.'\n\n'Otherwise poor Mrs Stewart'll be walking about with no name \u2013 might as well not exist, eh?'\n\n'Mmm, I suppose not. By the way, I meant to bring you some flowers same as usual, I'm really sorry. Bring you a bunch next time, picked from the cottage. Happy memories, eh. My childhood home, after all.'\n\n'My cottage your childhood home? What on earth are you talking about? I don't know who you are, I don't know where you came from, I don't know anything about you. You just keep talking talking talking. More sense in what they're showing on the TV.'\n\nNext moment she's turned back to the screen and probably won't even notice when you get up to say goodbye. Might as well take out your iPad.\n\n5\n\nJANUARY CAME AND went. Then February, March . . .\n\nShe owed Jean money for food, for laundry, for tram fare, for the telephone, for everything. She needed new shoes.\n\nDown to only one letter a week to Michael now, and not just because of the cost of the stamp. She didn't want his pity by return. Tramping the ice-hard, wind-hammered winter streets of Edinburgh day after day, looking for jobs that she'd no hope of getting, left her with no energy for evenings of writing bright, cheerful, hope-filled letters. Sometimes she felt like grabbing an office-warm, brittle-voiced, white-blouse-and-lipsticked Snooty Junior by the ankles and dangling the girl out the window to give her a taste of her day.\n\nTom had begun his stay in Woodstock House on the seventeenth of November, which meant the six months would be up on the seventeenth of May. After that she would probably lose him. She had to find a job. Then find a place to stay where they accepted children. She'd tell the landlord that her husband had died, or left her, or was stationed in Germany, or Malta, or somewhere far away. The details could be sorted out when the time came.\n\nBy the beginning of April Maggie was no nearer to finding a job, or somewhere to stay. Only about six weeks remained. It was a bitter afternoon \u2013 no spring showers these, no gentle breeze. Feeling she couldn't manage another step, she made for the poshest agency on Queen Street, overlooking the private gardens. Not that she expected to suddenly hear about a job, but she knew the place had a carpeted waiting room with soft seats and usually a glowing coal fire. She needed a rest, even if only for a few minutes.\n\nNo one at Reception. Perfect.\n\nShe collapsed into the armchair nearest the fire, undid her coat and gradually began to thaw out. Quarter of an hour later she was leafing through a copy of People's Friend when she heard a quiet cough.\n\nSnooty Junior had returned to her post.\n\nDamn. Damn. Damn.\n\n'Hello, Miss Davies. And how are you today?'\n\nThat I've-got-a-job brightness. Maggie glanced longingly over at the window. Then steeled herself to reply: 'Fine, thank you. I was just looking in for a moment to see if anything had . . .' Her usual query.\n\nTo her surprise, Snooty Junior smiled at her. 'Right time, right place.' By any chance, she added, did Miss Davies know Blair & Blair, the well-respected solicitors across in Abercrombie Place?\n\nMaggie nodded vaguely.\n\nWell then, continued Snooty Junior, she might just be in luck.\n\nA moment later the girl had looked out Maggie's application form, then shown her through to her boss's office to be assessed for suitability.\n\nMaggie's assessment took less than five minutes. Blair & Blair, she was told, had been on the phone less than quarter of an hour previously. They'd been badly let down by someone who was supposed to start that morning and simply hadn't turned up. They were desperate. Miss Davies' typing speed? Her references? Availability?\n\nCould she go straight round?\n\nBlair Jnr looked in his early forties going on fourteen. His three-piece suit struggled to contain the overspill of a cheerful schoolboy chubbiness that was topped by freckled skin and ginger hair. No mistaking the public school sheen of self-confidence, however. Also, there was no mistaking the no-wedding ring \u2013 which Maggie certainly wouldn't be reporting back to Jean, or she'd never hear the end of it.\n\nAfter all that time spent filling in forms and answering advertisements, she had her story word perfect. Her reference from Cavendish & Son (Realtors) in Vancouver, was excellent \u2013 Maggie, of course, had checked in the library to make sure that no such company existed.\n\n'First-rate, Miss Davies,' Mr Blair remarked as he glanced through the painstakingly crafted catalogue of her professional attainments supported by a list of her outstanding personal qualities. 'I congratulate you.'\n\nWas the cheerful schoolboy being sarcastic? She risked meeting his eye, and he smiled straight back at her. His public-school confidence seemed to shed its own glow upon the typewritten sheets, turning their inaccuracies into truths and their blatant deceptions into recovered innocence. Blessing them, almost.\n\nMaggie went on to explain that, sadly, Cavendish & Son had gone out of business when the Son turned sixty and decided to retire. It had been a small firm and her position as Mr Cavendish's PA had been most rewarding as well as prestigious. There had been no shortage of other job opportunities on offer, of course, but her parents were coming to that age when they needed . . . Well, she was sure Mr Blair understood what she meant?\n\nThe schoolboy solicitor certainly did. 'My own parents . . .' he began before trailing off to finish his sentence with a regretful shake of the head. He was now looking genuinely concerned.\n\nSo it had seemed best to return to Scotland, she continued. Having spent the first few weeks helping her mother and father settle into their new routine, she was ready and eager to return to work.\n\nAs rehearsed several times with Jean, Maggie now moved into full interview role.\n\n'It's . . . life, I suppose.' She looked away to cover a show of awkwardness, a hint of momentary embarrassment. After a well-timed pause, she managed to gain control of herself, swallowed discreetly, and proceeded: 'They've done their best for me, so now it's my turn to do my best for them.' She and Jean had debated whether there should be a hint of tears at this point, and decided she'd best play it by ear. She dabbed her nose, struggling bravely to carry on: 'It's only right that Mum and Dad should keep their independence for as long as possible. We'll see how things work out \u2013 when I've secured employment, I plan to move into accommodation that's close by.'\n\nMr Blair nodded sympathetically. Maggie was then sent through to the room next door to demonstrate her typing skills to Mrs Woodward, who was in charge of Blair & Blair's two-desk typing pool. While she showed off her by now reliable thirty words a minute, her prospective superior looked on, and smoked. A page and a half later, she was invited to hand over the sheets for Mrs Woodward's inspection.\n\n'Hmmm . . .' A pencil mark, a large puff of the cigarette. 'Hmmm . . .' Several more pencil marks and several more large puffs. 'Hmmm . . .' A final pencil mark. The cigarette stubbed out.\n\nMrs Woodward laid the typed sheets on her desk. 'Mr Blair prefers a one-line gap between paragraphs, and so do I. But good enough, I suppose.'\n\nMaggie was sent back to Mr Blair's office. The schoolboy beamed at her.\n\n'Now, Miss Davies, as I told the agency, we are very pressed at present. Could you possibly start first thing tomorrow?'\n\nFor the first time in months she couldn't wait to get home and write to Michael.\n\nIt was a busy week. As well as working full-time, learning to cope with Mrs Woodward \u2013 whom she soon took to thinking of as 'Old Woodbine' \u2013 and visiting Tom in the evenings, Maggie had to check the Accommodation Vacant columns in the Scotsman, the Evening News and Evening Dispatch. She went to see five possible rooms \u2013 but either they were too small, too dirty, too inconvenient or too expensive. One landlord was too friendly. On Friday she phoned about a place near the Meadows, at the edge of Tollcross. It sounded ideal. The rent was manageable and the location, midway on the direct tramline between Blair & Blair's and Woodstock House, would be perfect. The landlady was a Mrs McCann \u2013 could Mrs Stewart come round on Saturday?\n\nMrs Stewart. That was the name she gave. As she was planning to bring Tom to live with her as soon as possible, she had to be a Mrs. She was already called Miss Davies at work, but so long as she kept her stories straight, and separate, there would be no problem. And what about her husband, Mr Stewart? Well, she'd got till lunchtime next day to fit him in, somehow.\n\nThat night in her letter to Michael she told him about the possible room and asked him to keep his fingers crossed \u2013 for Mrs Stewart!\n\nLate morning on Saturday, the final hour of her first week at Blair & Blair's was being ticked off one slow-motion minute at a time. Maggie watched the hand of the large office clock on the wall opposite strain to make the next tick. Then strain ever harder, and take even longer, to gather its strength for the one after . . .\n\nOnly 11.30. She tap-tap-tapped through to the end of another near-incomprehensible letter. Original went into the red folder marked awaiting signature, copy into the blue folder marked carbon copies.\n\n'You still live with your parents, I believe?' Mrs Woodward lit a cigarette and blew a lungful of smoke towards the yellow-stained ceiling. 'They must be . . .' \u2013 with her fingertip she tapped the dead ash into the metal ashtray next to her own typewriter \u2013 '. . . getting on in years?'\n\nClatter-clatter, clatter-clatter, clatter-clatter . . . Ding!\n\nMaggie's notepad lay beside her, line after line bristling with constipated gobbets of legalise: 'heretofore', 'without prejudice', 'available to be relied upon' and 'our rights and pleas' and the like. It was soothing to let her fingers go tap-tap-tap, picking out unintelligible gibberish that required neither her interest nor her understanding.\n\n'You're having to take care of them, I suppose.'\n\nMaggie hammered out the next paragraph in one continuous burst:\n\nFollowing our letter of the fifth inst., you are hereby called upon to advise by return . . .\n\n'Can't be easy for you. A woman of your age, you naturally want a life of your own, a family perhaps and . . .'\n\n. . . your failure to comply with this will be founded upon . . .\n\n'I was spared all that, you might say. Father was killed at Ypres, Mother followed him a year later with the Spanish Flu.'\n\n. . . without prejudice to any rights and any pleas and any costs and recovery of said moneys.\n\n'I was nine.'\n\nMaggie stopped typing. 'I'm very sorry to hear that, Mrs Woodward \u2013 so terribly young too.'\n\n'Brought up by my granny. Ancient history. I was married at twenty and I've never looked back. Douglas came along at just the right time. When war broke out, he volunteered for the RAF and ended up a rear gunner. Came through the whole war without a scratch. He . . .' She paused.\n\nMaggie leant forward, waiting for the older woman to continue.\n\n'All those bombing raids, Jerry's Mescherschmitt fighters, barrage balloons, anti-arcraft fire \u2013 he survived the lot of them. Hamburg, Dresden, the Ruhr, Berlin and not even a scratch.' Mrs Woodward was no longer looking at her, but staring into space. 'Lucky, don't you think? Really lucky?'\n\n'Yes, he certainly was. You both were.'\n\nWith unexpected viciousness, Mrs Woodward stubbed out her cigarette, grinding it into the ashtray. 'That's what we thought too, at first. I go to visit him out at Gogarburn every Saturday afternoon \u2013 not that he notices.'\n\n'I'm so \u2013 so sorry.'\n\nMrs Woodward inserted a fresh sheet of foolscap into her machine and resumed work.\n\nMaggie's typing was up to date \u2013 her morning's carbon copies in the blue carbon copies folder and her morning's originals in the red awaiting signature folder. The appropriate envelopes were typed, stamped and stacked, all ready to be filled and sealed. Time had come to a complete standstill at eleven forty-seven. The clock hands just would not budge, and the final thirteen minutes seemed to have locked solid.\n\nHer filing too was up to date, her typewriter fitted with a brand-new spool of ribbon in readiness for the brand-new week starting on Monday. Her stationery drawers \u2013 foolscap, octavo and quarto \u2013 all brimmed in readiness.\n\nTick \u2014\n\n'Your first week at Blair & Blair is drawing to its close, Miss Davies.'\n\n'Yes, Mrs Woodward.'\n\n'I am pleased to note that you perform your tasks adequately and . . .'\n\n'Thank you, Mrs Woodward.'\n\nThe older woman looked directly at her. There was a pause as she drew on her cigarette, holding the smoke for several seconds before exhaling. '. . . and you know your place.'\n\nTick \u2014\n\nWithout meaning to, Maggie glanced over at the clock in time to catch the minute hand jerk forward to eleven forty-nine.\n\n'In a rush to go somewhere this afternoon, Miss Davies? Blair & Blair pays for your attendance up to midday today. Eleven full minutes still remain and it seems only fair that . . .'\n\nIn a rush? She certainly was. A number 10, 11, 15, 16 or 23 straight to Tollcross. She had to see Mrs McCann and her room. She had still to sort out the details of her Mrs Stewart story, and get them straight. Was there a Mr Stewart? If so, where was he? Same with baby Tom \u2013 if he existed, why wasn't he with her? She had to think and think hard. She didn't want to lose the room \u2013 it really did sound exactly what she was looking for.\n\nMeanwhile, Tom would be waiting for her.\n\nThe weather looked fine and if she wrapped him up warm . . . He loved going out in that Victorian-looking pram that stood in the hall . . . She'd bought him a new rattle yesterday and \u2014\n\n'. . . if you don't mind my asking?' Old Woodward had clearly continued talking and was now waiting for her reply to something.\n\n'Pardon?'\n\n'Your parents. You were telling Mr Blair about them. How are they accustoming themselves to your new routine, if you don't mind my asking?'\n\nHer parents? Another story.\n\n'They're fine. It's working out very well. I'm usually home in time to prepare their evening meal . . .'\n\n'They must be very proud.'\n\n'Proud? I . . . I don't understand.'\n\n'Of you, of course. Proud of their daughter. It's not everyone can secure a position with Blair & Blair.'\n\nTick \u2014\n\nEleven fifty-three.\n\n'Yes, I suppose they are.'\n\n'Well, Miss Davies, I'll be going out to Gogarburn this afternoon, same as always. He's still my husband, after all \u2013 and wears the name tag round his neck to prove it. They give us tea and biscuits. I read the Scotsman aloud to him. News, letters page, fashion. It's all one to him.' She took a long draw of her cigarette. 'Then we just sit.\n\n'When I get up to leave there's a kind of flicker in his eyes sometimes, like he knows I'm going away. I have to go, though. I have to. But let me tell you, Miss Davies, I occasionally wonder if he'd be better off without me visiting him at all \u2013 at least that way he'd not have the distress of me leaving him over and over every Saturday evening. Four years it's been now.'\n\nTick \u2014\n\nTick \u2014\n\nEleven fifty-five.\n\nAfter one final puff, Old Woodbine stubbed out her cigarette. 'Well, that's our weekends staring us in the face.' She almost smiled. 'I'm sure Mr Blair won't quibble over the last couple of minutes. We'll see you on Monday morning at your desk, Miss Davies. Nine o'clock sharp, remember. Goodbye.'\n\nCoat, hat, handbag, and Maggie was already halfway out of the door.\n\n'Goodbye, Mrs Woodward. See you on Monday.'\n\nRushing down to Princes Street, across to the Gardens side and wait for a tram.\n\nRight \u2013 now to go over her story. Her Mrs Stewart story.\n\nHer husband had died? Definitely. That was best and simplest. He'd died just before Christmas, leaving her all alone, a poor widow having to care for their wee baby. No calling him Alfred this time, and giving him a beard!\n\nBut what if everything worked out between her and Michael? She'd not be moving to Lewis so he might come to Edinburgh one day and \u2013\n\nA number 16. Take her straight to Tollcross.\n\nIt was packed, downstairs and up. Standing room only. Saturday shoppers, their shopping bags, their children. A dog. Two dogs.\n\nHow's she supposed to think?\n\nTurning into Lothian Road already. She needs to think \u2013 but how can she get her story straight with all this noise and people shoving her, wanting past to get off, and the clippie asking if she's not got change \u2014\n\nOne of the children's started crying, setting off one of the dogs. Yell-yell, bark-bark \u2014\n\nWhich sets off the other one. Passing the Usher Hall. think! She needs to think! Mr Stewart should still be alive. He has to be alive. Right. But they can't be divorced. Definitely not. Would cause even more problems. And so . . . ? She's all on her own, and she's \u2013 she's what? But if her husband is still alive why aren't they \u2014 ?\n\nGoing past the Tollcross clock already. She'll be arriving there any minute.\n\nThen it came to her in a flash.\n\nThank you, Mrs Woodward!\n\nShe got off at the stop just past the King's Theatre, walked about twenty yards and turned first left into Glengyle Terrace. A posh-looking street facing Bruntsfield Links, with railings and steps up from the pavement to posh-looking front doors. Not only that, but it was a main door flat.\n\nMrs McCann was in her late twenties. Cheerful. Welcoming. The room she was shown more than lived up to Maggie's expectations and would be large enough for when she brought Tom home. There was even a wash hand basin and mirror \u2013 and she'd share the McCann's bathroom and separate toilet. It turned out that Mrs McCann had a small boy called Douglas. Three years old, he played with some wooden bricks at his mother's feet while the various details were discussed over a cup of tea.\n\nThen came the questions. Friendly enough though. Concerned even.\n\nMrs Stewart's husband?\n\nHe'd come back from the war blinded, and badly wounded. Hospitalised at first, then discharged far too soon, like so many of them. Then, just before last Christmas, he'd had to be re-admitted to Gogarburn. The doctors had no idea how long he had to live. Sometimes he seemed to be on the road to recovery, but at other times . . .\n\nMaggie let the sadness in her voice finish the sentence.\n\nMrs McCann said it must be so very hard for her.\n\nYes, it was. And . . . For a moment Maggie seemed unable to go on, then she forced herself:\n\n. . . And they'd had a wee boy just the month before.\n\n'Poor, poor you,' said the landlady, 'having to cope with everything all on your own.' She shook her head. She'd no time for these women who got themselves in the family way without a family, if Maggie understood what she meant. 'But poor, poor you,' she said again.\n\nHe's called Tom. He's lovely.\n\nMrs McCann supposed that Tom must be a real consolation. But where was the wee lad?\n\nStaying with his granny for the time being.\n\nThe landlady looked puzzled.\n\nBecause, explained Maggie, things being as they were, she'd needed to take a job and couldn't look after Tom during the day.\n\nCouldn't Mrs Stewart move in with her mother?\n\nNo, it wasn't possible. Because . . .\n\nMaggie glanced out the window at Bruntsfield Links. To have the park so close would be perfect for when Tom came to live. Those grassy slopes, the walks, picnics in the shade of the trees . . .\n\nHer mother? Think. Think. Why couldn't she move in with her mother?\n\nHer mind had gone blank. Completely blank.\n\nA car hooted out on the main street. She caught sight of a green Eastern Scottish bus labouring up the hill to Bruntsfield on its way out of town . . .\n\nBecause . . . ? Because? She couldn't move in with her mother because . . . ?\n\nThen she had it. Because her mother lived out of the city, near Flotterstone . . . and it was too far for her to travel into work. So she went to see Tom there at weekends. Her husband \u2013 he was called Michael \u2013 she visited as often as she could during the week after work. Once she was settled, of course, she planned to bring Tom to live with her. Wherever she was. Would that be all right? She'd be able to find a minder in Tollcross surely? That way she'd be able to keep working. No idea when Michael would be able to join them. Her tone of voice hinting, sadly, that he might never come.\n\nMrs McCann said she was very sorry to hear of her troubles. War was a terrible thing. Then she went on. 'We'll give it a week or so to see how we get on, you and I. Maybe you can babysit Douglas one night, and if everything works out . . . ?'\n\nThey agreed that Maggie would move in the following afternoon, to be ready for the week ahead. As they stood up, she only just stopped herself in time from giving Mrs McCann a big, big hug.\n\nWhen Mrs McCann's front door closed behind her, Maggie lingered for a couple of moments before going down to the street. Heaven stretched out before her. She had a job. She had a room. Tom would be welcome. From now on, life would be one long walk in the park.\n\nOf course, she'd need to remember her story and keep it straight. On the tram to the children's home, she recapped: during the week when she visited Tom at Woodstock House she'd say she was out at Gogarburn visiting her invalid husband; at the weekends she'd say she was going to Flotterstone to see Tom. A bit complicated, but couldn't be helped. Depending on how things developed between her and Michael, she would say her husband was completely cured, or that he'd died.\n\nThat night's letter to Michael would be signed Mrs Stewart!\n\nIt was after three when she rushed up the front steps of Woodstock House. Donna was waiting for her, pushing Tom up and down the hall in the Tractor.\n\n'Afternoon, Miss Davies. Tom's all dressed and ready. I was putting in some pram practice for when I have a wee boy of my own. I told him you'd probably be taking him out. You are, aren't you?'\n\n'Well, yes. I've been looking forward to \u2014 '\n\nDonna parked the pram at the bottom of the staircase and rushed over to her. 'Mrs Saunder's camera's got one photo left and she said I could have it of me and Tom if you'd take it. Please. Please. Please.' She held out the Kodak Brownie. 'We'll do it outside and I'll just hold him. Maybe us standing next to the Tractor?'\n\nTen minutes later Maggie was manhandling the Victorian monstrosity down the steps and out through the garden gate into the street. At every bump Tom laughed and shook his new rattle.\n\n'Sunny day \u2013 Holiday!' she shouted. The sunlight was cold, but bright, bright, bright. A clear, crisp early spring day.\n\n'Left or right, Tom \u2013 which d'you fancy? Left'll take us to the shops and right to the canal.'\n\nHe shook his rattle loud enough to show approval of every possible option.\n\n'Or we could go to the moon?'\n\nFor there, above them, no more than a faint and almost transparent smudge against the ice-blue sky, was the moon. He rattled again and added a gurgle.\n\n'It's come out early \u2013 just for us, Tom. Doesn't show itself often, only on special days and only to special people. So let's give it a special name. A ghost moon, we'll call it. Come on, Tom, let's go to the ghost moon!'\n\nThe Tractor was a solid piece of engineering, all bulk and weight. She gave it an extra-hard shove and let go, 'whee . . . !' sending it and Tom trundling a few yards forward by themselves.\n\nShe caught up with them: 'Sunny Day . . . Holiday! Sunny Day . . . Holiday! We're going to the moon!'\n\nFour brisk steps . . . and another firm shove. 'whee!' Like she was already pushing him on the swings, a swing that reached all the way up into the sky.\n\nAt every push Tom shook his rattle like a champion. The pavement was deserted. She pushed and pushed . . .\n\n'When we \u2013 whee! \u2013 go round the next corner, we'll really start to soar \u2013 whee! \u2013 soar up into the sky. whee!' The Tractor was picking up speed now. 'Nearly there, Tom. Ready? Hold on tight . . . Here we go . . . !'\n\nTurning into the next street, she could see the moon directly ahead of them, set high above the roof of a large townhouse. Against the clear-cut outline of bricks and chimneys it looked like an unfinished sketch, a hastily drawn scribble of light that might dissolve at any moment. Faster and faster towards it they went, her feet no longer touching the pavement.\n\n'We're rising up now, Tom. Feel it?' Treading air now, she rose higher and higher. 'Don't worry. I've got good hold of you and won't let you go \u2013 ever.' The Tractor swayed from side to side like a ship riding high on invisible waves. The higher they went, the louder and clearer sounded his rattle. Maggie pointed over to Craiglockart Hill.\n\n'Look down there, do you see the tiny trees, the dolls' houses, the Matchbox cars and trams?'\n\nRattle-rattle, rattle-rattle.\n\n'Up here it's just you and me, Tom. No one to bother us, no one to tell us what we can and can't do. No one.'\n\nThe city was spread out below \u2013 a ruler-straight neatness of streets, avenues and crescents with dotted lines for houses, shops and shaded green for trees and parks. The moving dots were traffic. Down there were Mrs Saunders and old Woodbine, each puffing out little clouds of smoke at their tiny toy desks in their tiny toy offices and, a few inches over, just next to the splash of blue sea, was her parents' house . . . The Forth Road Bridge was a cat's cradle of red spanning a streak of silver paint spilled in the cold winter sun, and the Pentland Hills had been polished to a smoothness of moss-green.\n\n'There'll be no Boss Beryl, Tom. No Mrs Saunders. No Old Woodbine. No lawyer gibberish, no rubbled houses. No bombed Leith, no Coventry, no London.\n\n'The world's a ball that's got burst, Tom. We don't have to play with it any more. The ghost moon's so full of light it's almost see-through. Michael's waiting for us there \u2013 he's the man in the ghost moon. He's putting the kettle on for us, getting out ghost moon cakes and \u2014 '\n\n'Maggie!'\n\nWithin a split-second they'd tumbled back to Earth.\n\nA woman was calling to her from across the street. Coming over to greet her. 'Maggie, I thought it was you!'\n\nHer mother's neighbour.\n\n'Oh, hello, Mrs Melville.'\n\n'What a surprise! Where've you been keeping yourself? I heard you'd gone away for good. London, was it? This you back up for a wee visit?'\n\nMrs Melville. Iron-grey hair brushed to a hard shell, face powder cracking around her mouth, her lipstick framing the unspoken accusation: Your mother never said anything.\n\nShe looked down at the pram. 'What a lovely wee . . . boy, is he?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nShe leaned closer. 'What's your name, wee man?'\n\n'He's called Tom.'\n\n'A lovely name. Hello, Tom!' She bent further down till she was almost under the pram hood. 'Come up to Scotland, have you? To see Granny Muriel and your grandpa?' She patted the top of his head. 'And how old are you, my wee lad?'\n\n'He's just a few months.'\n\n'Really?' Another pat. 'And is your daddy up visiting, too?'\n\n'Just me and Tom.'\n\n'That's nice. A bit of time on your own.' She gave Tom a final wave and straightened up again. 'I'll meet your daddy another time. Oh, you're such a bonny wee boy!' She turned to face Maggie. Her lipsticked concern: 'Everything all right, is it?'\n\nSuddenly Maggie could bear no more.\n\n'I'm sorry, Mrs Melville, but I've really got to go. I'm visiting a friend in the next street. I'm late already. Goodbye.' She took a step forward, pushing the Tractor. Then at once began setting a smart pace.\n\nMrs Melville had to hurry to remain at her side. 'Here's a thought. Are you free tomorrow afternoon, Maggie? . . . You and your mother'd be welcome to . . . to drop round for a cup of tea.' The older woman was soon gasping for breath, trying to keep up. 'Nice Dundee cake . . . I've been saving . . . A chance . . . a chance to hear all . . . your news and . . . if you've a photo of your \u2014 '\n\nMaggie was now a good dozen yards ahead. She called back: 'Goodbye, Mrs Melville. I really need to keep going.'\n\n'See you tomorrow, Maggie. I'll say to Muriel . . .' Maggie didn't catch the rest.\n\n'Vroom-vroom!' she twists the pram handle as if she's on a motorcycle \u2013 a sudden burst of acceleration sends her roaring full-throttle forward. 'Vroom-vroom-vroom!' Tom's rattle urging her faster and faster. Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle . . .\n\nHe's gurgling and laughing fit to burst, his arms and his rattle going like windmills.\n\nInto third gear, into top.\n\nInto overdrive.\n\nCurve in the street coming up . . .\n\nLeaning over to take the corner on two wheels, the houses on either side blurring past . . .\n\nLeaving Mrs Melville far, far behind.\n\nAccelerating out into the straight.\n\nFull-tilt round another corner, the two of them hurtling along faster and faster, rising again into the air, soaring weightlessly up and up into the afternoon sunlight . . .\n\nMaggie raises her head to shout out loud: 'Ghost moon here we come!'\n\nSUNDAY\n\nROSEHAVEN AGAIN. THE yellow cross, the bell. CCTV, the security grille.\n\nBuzzed in.\n\nSomeone's singing to herself. That folksong about going to Skye. Bonnie Prince Charlie, wasn't it? Posh English words for something so Scottish. Elderly cracked-sounding voice, pleasant enough, but hardly X Factor.\n\nManaging a good half-dozen steps down the corridor until . . .\n\nRushing into the toilet before you throw up. Hanging over the basin, dry-heaving, your forehead in a cold sweat, your hands trembling. Retching, and retching.\n\nLike sea-sickness, but you're not sick. You never are. Hang in there.\n\nHang in there.\n\nIt'll pass. Like it always does. It will. Steady?\n\nSteady. Better now?\n\nRinse out your mouth and you'll be fine. No matter how rough you're feeling, the adrenaline of performance gets you through every time. Three cheers for Doctor Showbiz!\n\nA last wipe-down with the paper towel. Deep breath. Reality check in the mirror \u2013 colour flooding back into the cheeks, a cheerful smile, bright eyes. You want her to see a loving son, someone eager to visit and spend the afternoon with her. Someone who cares.\n\nThere's a genuine Mr Magic spring in your step as you stride along the corridor.\n\nBut your mother's not in the dayroom, not in her bedroom either. You find Kylie sorting out pills in the kitchen, planting them like seeds into their miniature plastic tubs.\n\n'Can ye not hear her? Entertaining us all through lunch, she wis. Widnae go back efter, so we just let her be. She's fine, though. Gang through and see for yersel.'\n\nThe dining room's at the rear of the care home \u2013 easy-wash flooring, plastic chairs, formica tables, white Venetian blinds, pale green walls, the day's menu and fire regulations pinned to a green felt noticeboard. There are half-a-dozen yellow-topped tables, each with a posy of artificial flowers in a small vase. Your mother's table stands in the middle of the room like a desert island adrift on a sea of blue linoleum.\n\n'Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing . . .'\n\n'Mum? Are you all right?'\n\n'Carry the lad who's born to be king . . .'\n\nShe's far, far away in an elsewhere place that has no borders except for the table edge she's gripping as fiercely as if her life depended on it.\n\n'Mum?'\n\nHer knuckles have gone white. Under her blouse, her collar bone feels brittle-thin, mere skeleton.\n\n'Over the sea to Skye.'\n\n'I'll sit with you if you like.'\n\nYou take the seat directly opposite hers. There's no sign she's noticed you've sat down, no sign she's noticed that anyone's sat down.\n\n'What are you doing here, Mum? Lunch is over, the others have all gone back to the dayroom.'\n\n'Speed bonnie boat . . .'\n\nHas she been crying? If so, they were tears that have left no trace. But there's broken skin, a gouge mark as if she'd run her fingernails down her cheeks.\n\n'Mum, it's me. Tom. I've come to see you.'\n\n'Over the sea to Skye.'\n\n'That's a good song, Mum, I don't remember you ever singing it when I was \u2014 '\n\n'How the winds blow, how the storm roars . . .'\n\n'Hello, Mum. I've come to \u2014 '\n\n'Hardly a chance even to see him, only a few seconds because they're coming for him, because it's all been arranged with Mrs Saunders. What else can I do?'\n\n'Don't cry, Mum. Everything's fine. I'm here to see you and \u2014 '\n\n'What else can I do? The rain just came down and down at Silverknowes \u2013 I couldn't stop it. You can't stop the rain, can you?'\n\n'Everything's fine now, Mum. Everything's going to be all right, everything's \u2014 '\n\n'But I'll go and see him as soon as I can . . . They don't want me to, but \u2014 '\n\n'Don't cry, Mum, everything's \u2014 '\n\n'Mrs Saunders said he'll be well looked after. So don't worry.' She smiles and lets go of the table. 'I'll be visiting as often as I can, I told her.'\n\n'No need.' You make a joke of it. 'Here's me visiting you!'\n\nA joke? How many jokes could survive this room with its washed-out d\u00e9cor, its empty tables, Venetian blinds half-slatted to conceal the neighbouring brick wall?\n\n'Let's go through to the dayroom, Mum, it'll be brighter there. Or your own room if you'd rather.' You get to your feet.\n\n'My room's been cleared out. Nothing left.'\n\n'No, Mum, no. No one's done anything, really it's \u2014 '\n\n'My whole life like it's never been. How could they? My whole life, like I'd never been born.'\n\n'Mum, it's all right. No one's done anything to your room. I've just been there and it's the same as always. Let's go through and you can see for yourself. We'll get you settled.'\n\nShe'll need your hand under her arm to help her stand up. There's a puddle of spilt soup and flecks of scattered rice where she's been sitting.\n\nPutting your arm round her and taking gentle hold of her elbow to give support, it feels like you're cradling the fragility of a bird's egg in your hand. One slow step at a time, you begin the laborious journey to the door, guiding her between the tables set with unattended cutlery, with flowers that never need watering. So near-weightless she seems, that you feel she might rise up into the air at her next step and float away out of reach . . .\n\nShe stumbles into one of the plastic chairs \u2013\n\n'Take your time, Mum. No rush.'\n\n'No need to squeeze the life out of me,' she snaps. 'I can manage quite well, thank you. I'm going home, amn't I?' She's watching everything now, nervous and alert, treading with caution around another chair while clutching your arm.\n\n'We can stop whenever you want. There's no rush, Mum. We've all afternoon.'\n\n'All afternoon? Have we?'\n\n'Yes, of course. I'll be with you for hours yet, all afternoon like I say. And we can make it longer if you want and . . .'\n\nNot too long, though. You're seeing the lovely Mandy at Whigham's for drinks, then off to that new Italian along Shandwick Place.\n\nShe's come to a halt in the doorway, hesitating, not wanting to leave the dining room.\n\n'That's it, Mum. Just like you taught me \u2013 Look left, look right, then left again. We'll get there.'\n\nSafely out into the hall. To your right's the dayroom with the door standing wide open as usual and the TV unloading its noise over the elderly women propped up in their chairs, lining the walls. Not another afternoon in there. You couldn't bear it. You steer her to the left in the direction of her room.\n\n'Someone's expecting us?'\n\n'What's that, Mum? Who'd be expecting us? We'll be sitting together, just the two of us. I'll make us some tea. I've brought biscuits, chocolate digestives.' Keeping you both moving down the corridor.\n\n'Will they let us in?'\n\n'Who?'\n\nShe's stopped. Won't move a step. 'They know I'm coming. They've been told all about me. They'll be waiting. Suppose they slam the door in my face again? Suppose they \u2014 '\n\n'Your bedroom door? No one'll do that, don't worry. Anyway, I'm here and I'll sort out anyone who tries to \u2014 '\n\n'The handrail's here for when it starts to get rough, which it can do sometimes. I'll keep good hold, just in case.'\n\n'Come on, Mum, we can't just stop here in the middle of nowhere.'\n\n'So cold here.' She's started shivering. 'But at least I brought my coat and scarf. Why won't the sun come out? What if they don't let us in? We're so far from Edinburgh and \u2014 '\n\n'Listen, Mum. We're going to your room, that's all. No one else'll be there. Be just the two of us, believe me.'\n\n'No one else? You mean there'll be no one to let us in?' Her lips begin to tremble.\n\n'There'll be me, Mum. And you. We'll sit together and talk like usual. We'll have tea and chocolate digestives.'\n\n'But if no one's there how'll we get in?'\n\n'We're there already. See, the door's standing open for us. No problem.' You manage to help her in.\n\nStill clutching your arm for support, she works her way round the furniture in her room, running her fingers across the top of the chest of drawers, opening and closing the wardrobe door, reaching up to straighten a picture, a seascape that's mostly clouds, touching the playing cards on her tea-trolley. Finally she sits down in her chair. 'This is my room, isn't it! I'm so glad to be back here. Everything's going to be all right now. I know it.' The smile she gives you lights up her face.\n\nThe photo album's opened at that couple standing in front of their house. She couldn't remember anything last time, but maybe you'll have more luck today? They look friendly enough. Definitely not in the city, you point out. You slide it out of its plastic sleeve so she can have a closer look. The man and woman are both well into their fifties.\n\n'So, Mum. The mysterious Callanders \u2013 who are they? Really bleak-looking place, not a tree in sight, a bit like Orkney maybe or Lewis \u2014 '\n\n'Shut up! Shut up! You go on and on and on about them. I've never met them, don't want to meet them.' She pauses. 'I know what, let's get rid of them once and for all . . .' And before you can stop her, she's grabbed the photo and ripped it in half. Then in half again. Her hands and arms shaking, her cheeks flushed red. 'Burn them. Burn the pair of them, then maybe you'll shut up about them.'\n\nSome of the pieces have fallen on her lap, others on the floor at her feet. You're reaching down to gather them \u2013\n\n'Leave them. They're nothing, they never were,' she hisses. 'Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.' She starts ripping them into even smaller pieces.\n\n'It's all right, Mum. We can leave the photos.' You take her hands in yours to steady them. 'We can just sit and \u2014 '\n\nShe snatches her hand free. 'Go on, make yourself useful.' Spittle flies from her mouth: 'Get us some matches!'\n\nWhen you return a few minutes later with Kylie, you find your mother sitting straight up in her seat, a smile on her face.\n\n'Hello, Beryl.'\n\nThere's no sign of the torn up photograph, or the red album.\n\n'Whit've we been up tae, Maggie? Yer son said something aboot yer gettin upset an wantin matches? Ye ken we dinna allow \u2014 '\n\n'Matches? I'm quite warm enough, thank you, Beryl. We've central heating here \u2013 don't need fires. All that mess with soot and smoke and the grate needing cleaned out every morning.' She looks at the two of you in turn. 'I'm fine. Never felt better.'\n\nAnd it's true. You can see that she looks utterly content. A moment later she's taken your hands in hers and lifted them to her face. She draws them slowly across her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips . . .\n\n'It's so very good to see you again, Michael.'\n\nYour father again. She keeps thinking that you \u2013\n\n'Stay here with me, Michael. Please.'\n\n'Yes, I will.' What else can you say?\n\n6\n\nMAGGIE TYPED AND filed her way through the next week. She visited Tom. She wrote Michael several letters, double-sided sheets crammed with all sorts of hopes and possibilities, with her love for him, her longing for the three of them to be a family. It would happen. Their longed-for life together lay only just beyond this one same day that kept repeating itself over and over \u2013 a day of working, shopping, visiting Woodstock House, cooking her evening meal on the twin-ring electric Belling, keeping her bedsit clean. Soon, soon.\n\nSpring was in the air and she walked to work enjoying the morning sunshine and freshness, and to save money. She'd do her best to start to paying Jean back and also try to put at least ten shillings into a Post Office account every week. Best of all, Tom's six months at Woodstock House had another whole month to run \u2013 so she would be able to remove him in good time!\n\nShe babysat Douglas on the Wednesday evening. It went well. Mrs McCann was pleased. 'You must call me Sheila.'\n\nAfterwards, her landlady made the most unexpected and wonderful suggestion.\n\nTo be sure of catching Mrs Saunders in good time the following day, Maggie pretended she had an urgent dentist's appointment, and was already on a tram to Woodstock House by mid-afternoon.\n\nThe moment she'd taken her usual seat at the front she pictured Tom, fast asleep in cot number 11. How would he be today? He seemed to have changed a little each time she saw him, grown a little more, learned new gurgles and grins, new ways of grasping her fingers. When she left him, it felt like he was being wrenched afresh out of her body. Re-opening a birth wound that never had a chance to heal.\n\nBut not any more.\n\nShe imagined herself lifting him into her arms \u2013 and as she did so, the tram and the busy street outside dissolved around her until there were no other passengers, no windows, no solid steel floor, no metal rails beneath nor any sparking electrics overhead. Nothing mattered but the moment when Tom would open his eyes and see her \u2013 and, with every passing second, that moment was coming nearer and nearer. Soon it was no longer the tram that was swaying from side to side, but Maggie herself rocking him in her arms. Nothing else existed as she whispered his name over and over under her breath. This was going to be the best weekend ever.\n\nShe rushed into the children's home and straight to the superintendent's office. It turned out that Mrs Saunders was busy at present, but would see her in half an hour.\n\nHaving taken Tom for a short walk along the canal in the Tractor, Maggie returned him to his dormitory, settled him in his cot and went downstairs. For once, the superintendent was bound to be pleased with her \u2013 the six months would soon be up and here she was, preparing to take Tom back.\n\n'Really, Miss Davies?' Mrs Saunders took a cigarette from the packet on her desk, lit it and blew out the smoke in a slow, steady stream. For a moment they both watched it curl in the air between them. 'For the weekend, you say? Your landlady suggested it? A \"try-out\", like something you might get on approval from Jenners or PT's, is that what you mean?'\n\n'No, of course not. It's to see how he gets on so that the next time \u2014 '\n\n'The next time?' Another lengthy drag on her cigarette. 'Do you seriously think you can just waltz in here, tell me some story about your landlady and expect to be allowed to waltz straight back out the door, carrying Tom?'\n\n'No, it's not like \u2014 '\n\n'It certainly isn't. There are procedures.' Mrs Saunders looked her full in the face: 'And then, of course, there's you.'\n\n'Me? But what have I . . .?'\n\n'Well, Miss Davies, how can I put this without seeming to cause offence?' The superintendent paused. 'Whatever happens, or does not happen, will depend on whether we decide if you're a fit mother or not.'\n\n'But I love him.'\n\n'Love? That's the easy bit. Love's never enough and usually ends up causing more problems than it solves. In Tom's case we're well past the maternal love stage. Different when he was a newborn baby; then you were free to choose to look after him \u2013 and if you remember, you chose not to.'\n\n'But that's not what \u2014 '\n\n'We've cared for Tom, looked after him day and night. In normal circumstances he would've been adopted long ago, Miss Davies. But we've been very patient with you, letting you come and go as you please, letting you take him for a quick tour round the block . . .' she paused. 'And now your landlady's feeling in a good mood, here you are, telling me you fancy having him home for the weekend.'\n\n'But I'm his mother and \u2014 '\n\nMrs Saunders held up her hand for silence.\n\n'That, Miss Davies, remains to be seen. I grant that whenever you honour us with your presence he's very pleased to see you . . .'\n\n'Yes, he is, always, and \u2014 '\n\nAgain the hand was held up. 'That's only natural. But you know nothing of what goes on after you leave \u2013 how he cries and screams and won't let anyone hold him. Throws his toys at the other children, takes theirs and pulls them apart, bangs his head against the wall and \u2014 '\n\n'No. Tom's not like that. He \u2014 '\n\n'Don't you understand? Each time he sees you leaving, he really believes he'll never see you again. Never. You've abandoned him not once, but a hundred times.'\n\n'I've not abandoned him. I come as often as I can. It took ages to find a job, but now that I've managed to \u2014 '\n\n'You show up \u2013 and he's ecstatic. Naturally. It's like you've risen from the dead.' The older woman leant closer. 'Let me tell you, Miss Davies, an infant can take only so much ecstasy and grief, only so much loss. God only knows what he'll be like when he grows up.'\n\n'But that's why I'm wanting to \u2014 '\n\n'And the man?'\n\n'What man?'\n\n'Tom's father, naturally. Assuming, that is, you know who \u2014 '\n\n'How dare you! Of course I know who his father is!'\n\n'Had himself a very late war, did he? Only got demobbed a few days ago?'\n\nMaggie gritted her teeth. The woman was simply goading her.\n\n'Saving up for the tram fare to visit his son, is he?'\n\nMaggie gripped the edge of the chair to stop herself answering back. Whatever she said would be wrong.\n\nWith exaggerated calm Mrs Saunders turned to glance out of the window before continuing, 'I'm going on holiday soon. My husband and I are spending a long weekend with friends. Do you know Skye, Miss Davies?'\n\nSky? What had the sky to do with anything? For a moment Maggie pictured the superintendent and her friends drifting at their ease, perfectly at home among the clouds. That was Mrs Saunders' charmed life \u2013 holidays, friends, permanent sunshine.\n\n'No, I don't.'\n\n'Lovely place. But even if it wasn't, even if it was a total hell-hole \u2013 pardon my French \u2013 I know I'd still be having myself a ball. Why? Because I won't be here. I won't be having to deal with the likes of you.'\n\nAt once Maggie was half out of her seat, both hands on the superintendent's desk. 'What do you mean, the likes of \u2014 ?'\n\nSeeming not to notice the effect of her words, Mrs Saunders continued: 'The couple who adopt Tom \u2013 and I may as well tell you that there are several couples extremely keen to . . .'\n\nMaggie sat back down again. Several couples?\n\n'. . . will be a real couple. Married, settled, respectable. Able to give Tom a good home, eager to support our work here . . .'\n\nSeveral couples . . . a good home?\n\n'. . . and doubtless keen to express their gratitude to you.'\n\nMaggie glared at the superintendent. 'Yes, you told me all this the first time.'\n\n'Come in very handy for a smart new outfit and some high heels for the evening.'\n\n'You think I'd sell my son for a new pair of shoes!'\n\n'Not interested? Well, suit yourself. As a charitable institution we can't afford to be so sniffy. We need all the help we can get.' Mrs Saunders picked up her pen and resumed her paperwork.\n\n'Still here?' She laid the pen down again a moment later. 'Well, Miss Davies, perhaps you'd care to explain why you and your gentleman friend aren't getting married?'\n\nMaggie had run out of words.\n\n'No? Then let me guess . . .' The superintendent took a deep drag of her cigarette and blew out the smoke in a steady jet, then stubbed it out. 'He's already married, isn't he?'\n\nMrs Saunders waited for her reply, hand poised in mid-air as if ready to remove Maggie from Tom's life for ever with a single stroke of a pen.\n\nMaggie felt a wave of total exhaustion pass over her. 'The man's dead.' She stood up. 'Enjoy Skye.'\n\nShe left.\n\nThe following day, Maggie had to stay after work to make up for leaving early the day before, and so she arrived at Woodstock House much later than usual. For the first time, she found the front door locked.\n\nBut it couldn't be.\n\nShe tried the handle again.\n\nFirmly locked.\n\nShe reached for the bell pull.\n\nIts dull jangle-jangle tolled in the empty hall, to be answered almost at once by a scamper of footsteps coming to the door. Donna's welcoming smile was accompanied by a most elaborate curtsey.\n\n'Hello, Miss Davies. I'm practising for my first ball.'\n\n'Very good, Donna. I'm sure you'll have all the young men at your feet.' Maggie moved to go in.\n\nThe young chorus girl-cum-debutante didn't stand aside to let her pass. 'I'm sorry, but Mrs Saunders said that if you came, you were please to wait.'\n\nBefore Maggie realised what was happening, the door was closed again.\n\nWhat was she to wait for? She was here to see Tom, same as usual. Nothing was different. She'd come to take him for an evening walk like she'd done dozens of times before.\n\nOne good strong tug at the bell-pull would set it jangling like a demented Big Ben. No keeping her waiting after that!\n\nShe took hold of the bell-pull and was about to \u2013\n\nWhen she stopped herself.\n\nToo much noise and she'd probably wake the younger children. And as for Mrs Saunders . . . After their conversation yesterday, who knew what the old battle-axe might do if she got annoyed \u2013 maybe not let her see Tom at all?\n\nBut supposing he was ill? Mumps, chickenpox, measles . . .\n\nThe door opened again.\n\n'If you came they said to tell you that Tom has a bit of a cold today, but he'll be fine. Nothing to worry about, and this is for you.' Donna held out a sealed white envelope: miss margaret davies.\n\nMaggie ripped it open. Headed notepaper, stiff. Typed.\n\nDear Miss Davies . . . over six calendar months since . . . the contract dated 15th October 1949.\n\nShe had to start reading it again: Dear Miss Davies \u2013 two short paragraphs, and signed Yours faithfully, E Saunders (Superintendent).\n\nAnd again: Dear Miss Davies . . . 15th October . . . failed to take back your child . . . In absence of any formal application . . .\n\nOctober. The six months had been calculated from the day when the contract was signed. She'd not understood, that's all. It was just a mistake, a simple mistake. She could tell Mrs Saunders she'd got it wrong, explain to her that \u2013\n\n'Seeing Tom's not coming out today, can you take me with you instead?' Donna was tugging at her sleeve. 'We could go to the canal, if you like. See the ducks. Last week I saw four of them when \u2014 '\n\nShe'd thought it was six months from the day when Tom first came to the home. From October 1949, Tom wasn't even born then. How could they \u2013 ?\n\n'I need to see Mrs Saunders.'\n\n'Mrs Saunders isn't here. They said to say she's having dinner with the Government.'\n\nThe second paragraph was one short sentence. She had to read the words several times over: 'From the date of this letter, no further access to your child will be permitted.'\n\nNo further access . . .\n\nNo further access . . .\n\nNo further access . . .\n\nDonna was tugging at her sleeve. 'So can we go to the canal?'\n\n'Tom is here, isn't he? You've seen him?'\n\n'They said to tell you he's got a bit of a cold and he's getting better now, like I said. He's maybe sleeping.' Donna was trying to take hold of her hand now. 'The canal. Please, Miss Davies, please.'\n\nMaggie took a step forward and pushed at the part-opened door. It was being jammed from behind.\n\n'Donna. Indoors, now!' Boss Beryl stood in the doorway.\n\n'Bye, Miss Davies. Maybe we can see the ducks another time?' With a cheerful wave, Donna stretched up onto her tip-toes and then ballet-stepped gracefully back into the hall.\n\n'Mrs Saunders isn't here, Miss Davies, and the letter explains the situation.' Boss Beryl tried to push the door shut.\n\nMaggie stuck her foot in the gap. 'Is Tom all right?'\n\n'Please remove your foot, Miss Davies.'\n\n'Is Tom all right? I want to know. This letter says \u2014 '\n\n'Remove your foot and I'll tell you.'\n\nBeryl opened the door a crack wider . . . and the instant Maggie withdrew her foot the door was slammed in her face. She heard the key turn.\n\nMaggie stared at the locked door. If only she'd not spoken to the superintendent the day before. If only she'd not said a word to anyone, just taken Tom for his walk, same as usual, then simply kept on walking. He was her own child so it couldn't be stealing, surely?\n\nShe made a complete circuit of the house \u2013 all the windows were closed, all the doors locked. When she rapped on the playroom window, some of the older children saw her and waved back. The staff ignored her. There was no sign of Donna. Then, one by one, all the downstairs curtains were drawn shut. The building had been made into a fortified castle.\n\nTwice she went round it.\n\nHaving returned to the front door she gave the bell pull another tug \u2013 firmly but not too strong. Not wanting to wake the wee ones who'd already be in bed, not wanting to upset anyone, not wanting to make a scene. All she wanted was to see Tom, to know that he was safe and \u2013\n\nAnother tug at the bell.\n\nNot a sound this time.\n\nShe tugged again.\n\nAnd again.\n\nThe bell pull had gone completely slack, its brass handle no longer sliding smoothly back into the wall.\n\nHanging loosely on its wire.\n\nDisconnected? Did they really think a disconnected bell would would stop her? That she'd simply give up and walk away?\n\nShe crouched down and began calling through the letter-box, loudly as she dared: 'Beryl! Mrs Saunders!'\n\n'Stop that row!' Boss Beryl was right behind the door.\n\n'Let me see tom!'\n\nThe response was immediate. 'Stop your shouting! You'll frighten the children!'\n\n'Open the door then. Please.'\n\n'We'll call the police.'\n\n'No \u2013 I only want to see Tom, and to know he's okay. That's all. I don't want any trouble.'\n\nShe waited.\n\n'Talk to me face to face at least.'\n\nShe waited longer.\n\nThen, after several seconds, Beryl's voice came back to her: 'All right. But you have to stand clear first. Then I'll open it.'\n\nMaggie took an immediate step back. 'I'm standing away.'\n\nAs soon as she heard the key turning in the lock, she prepared herself.\n\nShe watched the door ease open an inch at a time.\n\nBoss Beryl faced her through the tiny gap. 'You're still too close, Miss Davies.'\n\nWithout taking her eyes off Beryl, Maggie took another step back. 'Far enough?'\n\nShe focused on the crack she could see widening between the door and its frame. She tensed herself. She was ready. She knew she would only have the one chance.\n\n'Is Tom with you?'\n\n'No, he's fast aslee \u2014 '\n\nLunging suddenly forward, her whole weight shouldering the door \u2013\n\nBoss Beryl tried to stand firm, but was too late.\n\nMaggie shoved her aside, then rushed across the hall and bounded up the stairs three steps at a time. A group of younger children, some holding hands, stood on the landing, one of them calling out, 'Mummy! Mummy!' at the top of his voice.\n\n'Sshhh! It's okay, it's okay. Shh! I'm here to see Tom.'\n\nBoss Beryl came hurrying after.\n\n'Stop! You can't just barge your way in. Mrs Saunders said that \u2014 '\n\nNext moment she was in Tom's dormitory, Boss Beryl calling behind her:\n\n'What do you think you're doing? Get back downstairs at once.'\n\nMaggie headed across to the far corner. Past Crib Number 8. Crib Number 9 . . .\n\n'Mrs Saunders said that if you came . . .'\n\n. . . Crib 10 . . . Crib 11 \u2013\n\n'. . . I was to tell you that \u2014 '\n\nCrib 11 was empty. Tom's crib was empty.\n\nShe snatched up the patchwork blanket, pressing it to her face. Tom's blanket.\n\n'Where is he? Where is he?'\n\nSUNDAY\n\n'FINISH, MRS STEWART?' Donna's come to take away your tray.\n\nThat lass had better take care she doesn't let herself go, helping herself to a chocolate biscuit every time she gets a chance . . . She'll never become a chorus girl gorging herself like that.\n\n'Where's all the photos, Mum? There's nothing here.'\n\nYou watch him turn over blank page after blank page until he comes to the only photograph left in the album.\n\n'Who's that?'\n\n'Donna, of course.' You smile at the would-be dancer as she lifts away the tray. 'Before she discovered chocolate biscuits. Am I right?'\n\nThe young Polish woman squints at the photo. 'Nice baby, Mrs Stewart. I come soon with meds. Bye, Mrs Stewart.'\n\n'But, Mum, you can't be meaning someone here, in Rosehaven? This is just a wee girl \u2013 it's an old black & white photo, must have been taken over fifty years ago! The pram's like something out of a museum. How can it be the Polish woman here, the one you call Donna? And what's happened to the rest of the photos?'\n\nYou shrug again. All these questions. Like someone turning the wringer, wanting to get all the water squeezed out. But there's hardly a drop left, is there?\n\nManaging without anyone's help, you slide the photo out of its plastic sleeve. 'That's my little boy. He's called Tom.'\n\n'Tom? But I'm \u2014 '\n\n'Ssh! It's a secret, remember. But he's being well looked after. Donna treats him like a wee brother.'\n\n'I don't understand, Mum.'\n\n'Sssh! I know what: you take it, you can look after it for me. Things vanish here sometimes.'\n\nHe keeps saying he doesn't understand and you keep insisting. Finally he gives you a nod. 'If you're sure that's what you want,' and he slips Tom's photo into his jacket pocket. 'It'll be safe now.'\n\nYou smile at each other. For once, something feels right.\n\nWith your visitor gone, the sun'll be on the move again. And so . . .\n\nZimmering full-speed out of your bedroom door, down the corridor, round the corner, across the hall and into the dayroom. Your usual seat in its usual place in the line against the wall. You sit down just in time. Closing your eyes, you feel the sun edging its way onto your cheek. Its warmth flowing across your face, your eyelids, your cheeks, touching your lips, your neck . . . soaking into you.\n\nMore. More. You want more. You want to feel that warmth flooding into you, drenching your whole body.\n\nTake care \u2013 if you open your eyes too soon, you'll find yourself back in the dayroom.\n\nThe sun is all that matters now, holding you safe and secure before it moves on. Till then, you can give yourself completely to its touch, its warm and loving touch. Like Michael's. These sighs of contentment are the thanks you offer in return.\n\n7\n\nSTANDING MOTIONLESS BESIDE Tom's empty cot, her face buried in his patchwork quilt, breathing in his baby-smell. Drawing in its sweetness, breathing it deep inside her . . .\n\nThen she felt the touch of someone's hand on her shoulder.\n\n'It's all right, Miss Davies. Tom's fine. Your wee boy's fine.' Boss Beryl had switched to professional calm \u2013 pitched low, her voice set at sympathy-and-concern tone. The reassuring smile seemed genuine: 'Don't worry, Miss Davies. Really. Everything's been taken care of and couldn't be better. Tom's fine and in good hands. No need to distress yourself.' Boss Beryl crossed to the nearest cot and picked up a swaddled bundle that was clearly on the point of turning into a swollen-faced, full-volume, red scream and began rocking the baby in her arms. 'There, there, sweetie. Nothing to worry about. Everyone's going sleepy-byes . . .'\n\nMaggie clutched the patchwork blanket to her chest. 'Where is he? Where's Tom?'\n\n'Arthur's Seat, I think they said.'\n\n'Arthur's Seat?' Maggie glanced towards the window. 'I don't understand. What's he doing there? Who's they, and why \u2014 ?'\n\n'It's okay, Miss Davies, really. Calm down. Lucky boy's been having himself a day out.'\n\n'He's coming back?'\n\n'Of course.'\n\n'When?'\n\n'Or maybe it was Princes Street Gardens they said? A chance for him to hear the band. A day out, like I said. He'll have had a whale of a time, you can count on it.' She reached to take the blanket. 'This his? I'll put it in the wash. Thanks.'\n\nMaggie's grip on the patchwork tightened. 'When's he coming back?'\n\n'Keep your voice down, Miss Davies.'\n\n'No one told me anything. Not a word.'\n\n'Maybe they should've. Bit of a shock, I suppose. But . . . well, it had to happen one day. Children don't stay here for ever.'\n\n'He is coming back?'\n\n'Yes. But Mrs Saunders says that seeing you've not managed to \u2014 '\n\n'I told her that this weekend I was \u2014 '\n\n'I'm very sorry, Miss Davies, and I wish I could help you.' Boss Beryl shook her head and again reached for the blanket. 'I really do.'\n\nMaggie's fingers kept firm hold of the patchwork. 'Mrs Saunders can't just give him away.'\n\n'Keep your voice down.'\n\n'Don't you tell me what to do. I've done everything I can. Everything. And now he's being stolen from \u2014'\n\nThe petrol pump took a step back. 'No one's stealing him. He'll be coming back, I tell you.'\n\n'When?'\n\n'Mrs Saunders says \u2014 '\n\n'I couldn't care less about Mrs Saunders.' She advanced on Boss Beryl. 'When? I asked you when will my son be brought back?'\n\n'No idea. I don't know. No one tells me. I don't do the office stuff.'\n\nNo idea? Without meaning to, Maggie ripped the small patchwork quilt in two and then, the torn pieces still in her hands, she all but collapsed against the empty cot. She was suddenly exhausted.\n\n'I'll wait for him.'\n\n'Suit yourself \u2013 but you'll not be waiting in here. Everything's okay, little one. Close your sleepy eyes and . . . Mrs Saunders is at a Governors' dinner this evening. Your best plan's to give her a phone first thing Monday morning.'\n\n'But what am I to do? That letter says that I'm not allowed to \u2014 '\n\n'Look, Miss Davies, I've got my hands full here. If it was up to me . . .' She shrugged. 'Drop her a line's my advice.' She laid the now sleeping child down on its mattress. 'Back to bed, sweetie. Sleepy heads, sleepy beds, sleepy, sleepy sleep . . .'\n\nArthur's Seat? Princes St Gardens? A chance to hear the band . . . ? Was the whole city of Edinburgh betraying her? Maggie turned and stumbled out of the room.\n\nSpending the day with strangers, and the evening too. Having a whale of a time with strangers. Strangers holding him in their arms. Strangers making him smile and laugh . . .\n\nThe wooden banister . . . then down the staircase, tread after wearying tread . . . the empty hall.\n\nShe sat down in the carved wooden chair, the torn pieces of Tom's patchwork blanket on her lap. Not even strength enough to cross her legs.\n\nQuarter-of-an-hour later Boss Beryl came down carrying a bundle of dirty sheets.\n\n'You still here?'\n\n'I'm waiting for Tom.'\n\nBoss Beryl snorted, and continued down the basement stairs. When she returned a short time later she crossed the hall to Mrs Saunders' office, closing the door behind her. Maggie heard her speaking on the phone but couldn't make out the words. A few moments later she was back.\n\n'I'm sorry, Miss Davies, but you'll have to wait outside. You're a disturbance.'\n\n'What? I'm not disturbing anybody. I'm not leaving till I see \u2014 '\n\n'And now you've received Mrs Saunders' letter, you're trespassing. That's the law. Do I have to call the police?'\n\nUp and down the short stretch of pavement outside the home, up and down in the gathering darkness. Eventually letting herself back into the garden to sit on the bench next to the sandpit with its tumbled remains of a bucket-and-spade castle, its trampled-down battlements. She was careful to keep watch on the street, but no cars stopped. No one came to the house, no one left. From time to time a tram rumbled past. At ten o'clock she saw the upstairs lights being switched on and off as the staff made their final rounds.\n\nAt ten-thirty the last light went out \u2013 everyone had gone to bed.\n\nNext day was Saturday. Come lunchtime, Maggie hurried out of Blair & Blair's and up the street to the Hanover Street PO phone box.\n\nNo reply \u2013 Jean probably wasn't at the bakery this weekend. She pressed button B and her pennies clattered back to her.\n\nWhich left her parents.\n\nHer parents. Their ignoring her, cutting her dead as she'd stood there in front them \u2013 the knitting needles' relentless click-clicking, the stripped-out bedroom upstairs. Like she'd never even existed.\n\nMrs Melville would have talked, though. Her mother would have listened. Tom was her own grandson, after all.\n\nIt was worth a try. She was going to need all the help she could get.\n\nShe dropped in the coins once more and dialled \u00adNewhaven.\n\nAs it rang, she pictured the telephone receiver on the hall table with the oval mirror above, and the silenced grandfather clock standing nearby.\n\nHer father answered. She hung up.\n\nMaggie made two trips to Woodstock House that afternoon and three on Sunday, each time finding the front door firmly locked. The bell hadn't been re-connected and the only response to her frantic knocking was to see either Boss Beryl or Donna appear at one of the windows. Boss Beryl would jerk her arm from side to side, gesturing at her to go away; Donna would give her a friendly wave and remain standing at the window until she left.\n\nFirst thing Monday morning before work, Maggie phoned Jean from the Hanover Street call box.\n\n'Lucky to catch me in, Maggie. I was picking up a cake I've made for the folks we'll be staying with. We're just off.'\n\n'Jean, they've stopped me seeing Tom. Mrs Saunders' letter says that \u2014 '\n\nJean was really, really sorry but she had to dash. She and Billy were going away for a few days. Been arranged ages ago. She'd be back late on Friday. After Maggie had finished work on Saturday they could go together to Woodstock House and \u2013\n\n'But they won't let us in. Saunders' letter says that I can't \u2014 '\n\nJean was so, so sorry. How could they? That was awful. Really terrible. But she had to go. She just had to. Billy was waiting for her on the platform and she was already late. If they missed that train . . . Maggie mustn't lose heart, mustn't give up. She would be in her thoughts all week. And Tom, too.\n\nThey said goodbye.\n\nMaggie checked her appearance in the mirror of her compact. She waited, dabbing her eyes. She now had to go to work. Nothing of the distress tearing her apart must show, nothing must betray her.\n\nFor the next few days Maggie hardly ate or slept. Before work, during her lunch break, and after work she'd ring the children's home. When Old Woodbine was out of the office, she sometimes even risked using the phone on the older woman's desk. The instant she heard her returning along the corridor, she hung up and hurried back to her own seat.\n\nShe was told that Mrs Saunders wasn't in.\n\nShe was told to please wait, Mrs Saunders would come to the phone shortly.\n\nShe was told that Mrs Saunders would return later in the morning \/ later in the afternoon \/ first thing next day.\n\nShe was told that Mrs Saunders knew she'd been trying to get hold of her and would be sure to be in touch.\n\nShe was always asked to leave her number.\n\nLeave her number? Forget it. For even if Mrs Saunders did phone her back \u2013 which Maggie was certain she never would \u2013 then Old Woodbine would take the call . . . and that would be that. Mr Blair was a kindly man \u2013 he might be the boss, but he wasn't in charge. Old Woodbine sharing an office with an unmarried mother? Blair & Blair letters typed on a Blair & Blair typewriter by an unmarried mother? Blair & Blair clients being exposed to the risk of having contact with an unmarried mother? No chance, not in a million years. The first hint of her having an illegitimate child hidden away somewhere, and Old Woodbine would have her sacked on the spot. She'd be shown the street door so fast her feet wouldn't even touch the stairs on the way down.\n\nShe wrote three letters to the superintendent, each more desperate than the last.\n\nHer first received an immediate response \u2013 a copy of the letter she'd already been given.\n\nHer second \u2013 no reply.\n\nHer third \u2013 no reply.\n\nShe wrote to Michael. She told him everything, said her life was falling apart, said she couldn't sleep for worrying she might lose Tom, might never see him again . . . They'd stopped her. Everything was locked. And he wasn't there. They were giving him to strangers. She was his mother. If that happened . . . she couldn't go on living . . . couldn't bear it. Page after page, it was a frantic outpouring of frustration and rage, of despair. She received Michael's reply by return, on the Saturday morning.\n\nWas Old Woodbine never going to move, was she going to remain glued to her chair all morning? Not until nearly 11.00 did the older woman get up and leave the room.\n\nThe instant she was alone Maggie crossed to the other desk and phoned Jean. Her sister-in-law was in.\n\n'Thank God, I've caught you, Jean. It's Michael. I'm at my wits' end. I don't know what I'm going to . . . Can I come round and \u2014 ?'\n\n'I'll be here all day, Maggie. Take it easy. You can tell me when you get \u2014 '\n\nHearing Old Woodbine coming back along the corridor, Maggie hung up.\n\nFrom then on, the hands of the office clock slowed down to quarter speed.\n\nAt last she was on the tram. Standing room only, all the way to Dalry Road. She leapt off well before it stopped, ran across the street, straight up to Jean's, and in her front door. Not even pausing to say hello \u2013\n\n'He's coming to Edinburgh.'\n\nOnly when she'd said the words out loud did she herself really take them in: Michael. In Edinburgh.\n\n'He's whit?'\n\n'Arriving late tonight.'\n\n'Tae rescue ye, like a knight on a white horse? A white stick mair like \u2014 '\n\n'Wants us to get married.'\n\nJean picked up the phone: 'Ring him. Tell him tae \u2014 '\n\n'Too late. He's already on his way. Morning ferry, then the train. Lachlan's bringing him here.'\n\n'Tae the bakery?'\n\n'He said he knew he couldn't just turn up at Mrs McCann's, so I'm to meet him here tonight at 11.' She trailed off in embarrassment: 'He wasn't sure how the trains would work out . . .'\n\n'He can stay a few days, Maggie, but that's aa. I canna dae mair, it's just no \u2014 '\n\n'I'm sorry, Jean. I'm so sorry, I'm sorry . . .' She collapsed onto the chair with her head in her hands. Then she told her sister-in-law about trying to phone Mrs Saunders and writing letters. 'I'm going to lose Tom. I'm going to lose him, Jean. What'll I do?'\n\n'Dinna tak on, lass. Dinna greet.'\n\nMaggie felt the older woman's arms round her, and her hand stroking her hair.\n\n'I'm sorry tae,' Jean whispered. 'Oh, Maggie \u2013 it's twae bairns ye'll hae nou.'\n\n'But I love him. I love them both.'\n\n'Richt enough, but Tom's the yin as needs ye maist. Tom needs ye. Forget Mrs Saunders, forget writing her letters and phoning and leaving messages. Forget playing by their rules, Maggie. Ye'll only lose \u2013 that's whit rules are fer.'\n\n'And so?'\n\n'Play tae yer strengths. We'll play tae oor strengths. Mrs Saunders will be away fer a lang weekend, ye said? Okay \u2013 it's nou or never.' Her sister-in-law stood up. 'Come on, we've work tae dae.'\n\nIt was evening when the two women climbed out of the taxi. Side by side they marched up the front steps of Woodstock House.\n\nOnce it was explained that they'd come to hand over a present for the staff, a token of Maggie's appreciation for all their good work when looking after Tom, they were let in.\n\nThe shiny pink box, tied with the showy gold ribbon that Jean had curled at the ends, was placed on the kitchen table. It looked a very special gift indeed. When it was unwrapped, there were genuine gasps as the lid was raised to reveal a triple-layered, mouth-watering masterpiece of chocolate, cream and marzipan that had been showered in multi-coloured hundreds-and-thousands. Quite clearly the ration book had been thrown out the window. thank you was spelled out in red icing. Thick slices were cut and handed round.\n\nEverything was going to plan, and so Maggie asked if she might go upstairs for one last look at her wee boy?\n\nThere was an embarrassed silence.\n\n'I won't wake him or pick him up.'\n\nMore silence.\n\nBoss Beryl finished swallowing down a mouthful of cake: 'I'm afraid that's not possible. Mrs Saunders has made it quite clear that \u2014 '\n\n'Mrs Saunders isn't here.'\n\n'I am her representative. Myself, I'd like to let you see him, Miss Davies, really I would, but \u2014 '\n\n'Come on,' interrupted Jean. 'Yin last look at her bairn, for God's sake. Just because yer boss is a wee Hitler disnae mak you yin. Maggie winna even touch him \u2013 aa richt? Ye can gang up wi her. I'll stay here \u2013 guard yer next slice for ye.'\n\nSeeing Tom lying there asleep in his crib, Maggie broke down and cried as if her heart would burst. While Boss Beryl looked on, she sobbed and sobbed. She couldn't help it. No pretence needed, these were real tears. Maggie knew that if things didn't work out this might very well be the last time she would see Tom. She was so upset she nearly had Boss Beryl in tears as well. Finally, though, she mastered herself and begged to be allowed to kiss him a final goodbye.\n\nAfterwards, wiping her eyes clear, she turned and stumbled out of the room.\n\nDown in the hall, Boss Beryl laid a hand on her arm, adding that she was so very sorry that everything had ended like this. Maggie should rest assured Tom would be well looked after, he'd be brought up in a good home with a loving family who could provide the best for him. Mrs Saunders was a really kind woman and always had the children's best interests at heart. Maggie nodded, then asked if she could use the toilet before they left. Boss Beryl remained waiting outside until Maggie had finished, and then escorted her back to the kitchen.\n\nFive minutes later Maggie and Jean said their goodbyes and left.\n\nNow they had to go their separate ways \u2013 Jean to the \u00adbakery to wait for Michael's arrival, Maggie to Glengyle Terrace to make the necessary preparations. By ten-thirty she had everything ready. It was too early to return to Woodstock House, but there wasn't enough time to go all the way to the bakery and be there to greet Michael.\n\nMichael. How she longed to see him. Nearly a whole year's longing. And in less than a couple of hours . . .\n\nThings would work out, they had to. She'd done \u00adeverything she could. Now she needed to wait. That was all.\n\nSo she put on her coat and outdoor shoes, and sat on the edge of her bed. Waiting. A few minutes later she was up again, pacing the room. Then back on the bed, only to get up and start pacing all over again . . .\n\n'It was nearly 11 when Maggie pulled the front door shut behind her, went down the steps and across to the park. Late April perhaps, but it looked and felt like the darkest night of the year. Not a star in the sky and a dampness and heaviness in the air that threatened rain, and lots of it. Good. It would keep people off the street.\n\nShe stepped lively \u2013 across Bruntsfield Links, past the unlit shops and silent tenements to Holy Corner. The only sound was her own footsteps.\n\nIf she wanted, she could turn round at any moment and go straight to the bakery instead. No harm done. She would marry Michael, set up home and then Mrs Saunders would surely let her keep Tom. She would have to. She would. Surely.\n\nBut by then it might all be too late.\n\nMaggie kept walking. The first drops of rain began to fall as she turned off Morningside Road. A glance at her watch, plenty of time.\n\nShe didn't trust Mrs Saunders. It was as simple as that.\n\nBy the time the outline of the children's home loomed up in the darkness, the rain was coming down in torrents. Not a single light showed. Maggie checked her watch again \u2013 she'd made good time and now had exactly thirty-five minutes. She pushed open the gate.\n\nOf course you can't come, too, Jean. I'll need someone to visit me in jail! she'd joked as they'd said goodbye. But it was no joke now.\n\nShe paused for a moment on the wet path, drenched through and almost blinded by the driving rain. This was her last chance to turn back. If she was caught and sent to prison, then Tom would be lost to her for ever.\n\nBut as things were, she'd already lost him. So what real choice had she?\n\nNext moment she was squelching across the lawn.\n\nHaving reached the rear of the building, she flashed her torch quickly round the cement yard till she found a pile of discarded wooden boxes stacked at the side of a small outhouse. An orange crate looked the sturdiest. More or less intact and the wood slimy with rain, it was probably strong enough to take her weight. She returned to the back wall \u2013 another flash of her torch located what she was looking for, the window with frosted glass. She positioned the box beneath it.\n\nHolding onto the window ledge for support, clambering up. Standing there for a moment to get her balance, wobbling slightly. A tentative half-rocking from side to side on her feet to test it. The box held.\n\nSo far so good.\n\nNow for the tricky part. Both hands pressed against the sides of the window frame, she pushed upwards.\n\nNothing happened. Not the slightest give.\n\nPushed again.\n\nShe paused to wipe the rain from her eyes, then pushed even harder . . .\n\nNot too hard though. The window had to be eased open ever so slowly. Eased open noiselessly.\n\nShe pushed . . . and pushed . . . and pushed. It was the toilet window all right, the one she'd unsnibbed a few hours earlier, but someone must have re-snibbed it.\n\nAfter all their careful planning . . . She stopped herself from screaming out loud.\n\nFor several seconds she remained standing on the box, hands on the wooden sill, struggling to hold back her tears, resisting putting her fist through the window.\n\nAt last she stepped down and carried the box along to the next window. If she had to, she'd work her way right round the house. Having come this far, what else could she do?\n\nClambering up again at the next window. Then the next after that. Her hands pressed against the frame . . .\n\nStarting to push upwards . . .\n\nThird time lucky! It slid open easily. The wood screeched. She froze.\n\nRemained standing motionless for as long as she could bear, the rain lashing down onto her head, shoulders and back . . . She forced herself not to move. Fist clenched, she counted under her breath, ready to jump clear and make a run for it at the first sign of a light going on, or at the sounds of someone coming.\n\nNineteen, twenty. She relaxed, inched the window up enough to let her climb through . . . Moments later she was standing in Mrs Saunders' office. Perfect.\n\nThere was even a towel provided, a pair of towels, in fact \u2013 rust-red, extra thick and long. Having wiped some of the rain from her hands and face, she closed the curtains and switched on her torch. A glance at her watch \u2013 twenty-two minutes left. She and Jean had debated what she should do next \u2013 secure the paperwork first, or go straight upstairs? There'd be masses of files and she'd no idea how long she'd take to find what she was looking for.\n\nShe had to speed up.\n\nThe metal filing cabinet wasn't locked. Good.\n\nTop drawer \u2013 Adoptions. The files each had a tab and were arranged by date. Good again. Most recent at the front \u2013 Montrose, Iris. 3\/12\/50. Next was Watson, James. 28\/11\/50. No mention of any adoption involving Tom. She breathed out a sigh of relief and slid the drawer back into place.\n\nThe one beneath was labelled Admissions.\n\nShe riffled through the files . . . 12\/12\/50 . . . 18\/11\/50 . . . 3\/10\/50 . . . 25\/9\/50 . . . to reach those further at the back. About three-quarters in, she came across the tab marked '17\/11\/49 \u2013 Davies, Tom.' Her hands shook as she pulled out the file.\n\nShe laid the folder on Mrs Saunders' desk and, by torchlight, turned over the few pages of Tom's short life. Even though she was in a hurry, she flicked through the sheets to check everything was there \u2013 his birth certificate, the letter from the Queen's Crescent nursing home and the doctor's notes, the detested contract she'd signed and the various other forms Mrs Saunders had made her complete. Her own details were also included: Jean's bakery address had been scored out and replaced by Glengyle Terrace. A handwritten note was attached: Father probably still married. There was a copy of the letter denying her access and her own unanswered replies, also the photo she herself had taken of Donna and Tom beside the Tractor. In addition, a sheaf of papers clipped together was headed: Adoption \u2013 Interest. Promising herself to burn these unread, she stuffed the complete file under her jersey and pushed the drawer shut. Good \u2013 there'd be no tell-tale paperwork left behind.\n\nAnother glance at her watch \u2013 only eighteen minutes left. She switched off the torch and stepped into the hall. It was in complete darkness. Above her, she could hear the rain hammering onto the glass cupola. Making sure she didn't blunder into the wooden throne or the Tractor, she crossed to the vestibule. A quick flash of the torch located the key, she turned it slowly to unlock the front door. No top and bottom bolts, thank goodness. Back to the hall. If it had been a clear night there would have been enough light to see her way upstairs. But it really was pitch black.\n\nKeeping the torch beam pointed down at her feet, she began climbing the stairs, holding on to the banister in the darkness.\n\nHalfway up, one of the boards creaked underfoot. She froze. Switched off her torch. Stopped breathing.\n\nBegan counting into herself as slowly as she dared. One, two, three . . .\n\nShe stood motionless, straining to hear the slightest sign that someone . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . .\n\nAt full alert, rigid, peering into the darkness . . . fourteen, fifteen . . .\n\nThen she relaxed.\n\nPlaced her foot down gradually, very, very gradually. Letting the next step take her weight slowly, steadily . . .\n\nAgain she held her breath.\n\nNothing.\n\nThe next tread. Pressing lightly as she could. A little more, a little more . . . The only sound was the rain gusting heavier every few seconds against the cupola. She continued up to the top.\n\nFifteen minutes left.\n\nFrom along the corridor came the rasp-and-snort of someone snoring. Boss Beryl? She certainly hoped so.\n\nTime began speeding up. Keeping the torch beam directed at the floor, she inched open the door and stepped into Tom's dormitory. Tiptoeing across the room, slowly, carefully. Watching out for the table that stood in the middle, and for any pails or \u2013\n\nOne of the babies was gurgling to itself, clearly awake. Another was standing up in its cot and stared at her as she passed.\n\n'Ssssh! Little one. Please don't . . . don't . . .'\n\nThe baby blinked, reached out its small hand and started to whimper.\n\n'No . . no. Please, please no. Sssssh!'\n\nThen, a moment later, it slid down flat again on its mattress and closed its eyes.\n\nMaggie let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding in. Like crossing a minefield, she thought. She reached cot number 11.\n\nTom was fast asleep, wrapped in a new blanket and with one of Donkey Boy's floppy ears clutched in his tight little fist. He looked perfectly content.\n\nHe was usually wide awake when she visited. Not like this, lying here so peacefully, safe and secure in his familiar surroundings. She knew she was about to disrupt all that. She'd be wrenching him away from everything he had ever known in his brief life, destroying a carefully planned future. Other people's good intentions, other people's plans.\n\nShe could still turn back now, creep off down the stairs and walk out the front door. But then what?\n\nThe pendulum she'd thrown into the glass-green water and had imagined sinking deeper and deeper into the harbour \u2013 would that be her? Without Tom, what would the days and years ahead be but a hopeless choking slide into ever-deepening mud?\n\nNext moment she'd lifted him out of the crib.\n\nHe didn't even wake.\n\nShe closed the dormitory door behind her.\n\nOut in the corridor she paused. Something seemed different from before. The complete silence. It had stopped raining. Moonlight was beginning to filter down from the cupola.\n\nShe switched off the torch and, treading even more carefully, made her way along the corridor. Already she could make out the silhouettes of a fire bucket, a side table, picture frames. The top of the stairs only a few steps away.\n\n'Miss Davies?'\n\nShe stopped. Utterly. Rigid.\n\nA faint shimmer of whiteness up ahead. A whispered voice: 'Miss Davies?'\n\n'Ssh, Donna!' Maggie hissed and put a finger to her lips.\n\n'You've got Tom with you?'\n\n'Ssh!' Maggie stood beside her at the top of stairs. 'Donna, please. Ssh!'\n\n'Take me, too.'\n\nThe moonlight was getting stronger. The future chorus-girl was in a long white nightdress and bare feet, her hair sleep-tangled. 'Please, Miss Davies, please.'\n\nWhat if she just shoved Donna out of the way and rushed down the stairs without stopping, then ran out the front door and off up the street? Everything might still be all right. She had all the official records with her, and she had Tom. But she'd have to do it now.\n\nMaggie shook her head and tried to push past.\n\nThe girl didn't budge: 'If you don't take me, I'll scream as loud as I can and wake everyone.' She stretched her arms out wide, barring Maggie's way down.\n\nTom had started fidgeting in his sleep, his small feet pressed into her stomach and his head shifted from side to side as if he might wake at any moment.\n\n'Please, Donna. You don't understand. Let me past. I have to take Tom and \u2014 '\n\n'I don't care,' the young girl whispered. 'Take me \u2014 '\n\nA door opened at the end of the corridor. 'Who's there?'\n\nIt was Boss Beryl. Maggie clutched Tom to her chest.\n\n'It's just me, Mrs Ferguson.' Donna replied in her normal voice. 'Needed the toilet. Very sorry for waking you.'\n\n'I've told you before about drinking water last thing at night, Donna. Be as quiet as you can and then straight back to bed. Goodnight.' The door closed.\n\nMaggie whispered, 'Thank you, Donna.'\n\n'Give me Tom.'\n\n'What?'\n\n'I need to get dressed and I'm not letting you leave without me. Give him here.' She held out her hands. 'If you don't, I'll scream. I mean it.'\n\nMaggie hesitated.\n\n'I will, Miss Davies. I will. Really.'\n\nDonna occupied an attic room up a flight of narrow, uncarpeted stairs \u2013 more like a walk-in cupboard with a bed under the sloping ceiling. Maggie watched her get dressed. Only eight minutes remained.\n\n'Donna, you must understand that \u2014 '\n\n'I'm ready now, Miss Davies. Let's go.'\n\nWithout answering, Maggie laid Tom down carefully on the girl's bed.\n\n'Listen, Donna . . .'\n\nShe grabbed the girl by the shoulders and leant into her face. 'You can't come with us. You can't. Understand?'\n\nStruggling and kicking out to free herself, the girl jerked to one side as if she was about to call for help. Instantly Maggie clamped a hand over her mouth.\n\n'You try coming with us and I'll get rid of you,' she hissed into the child's ear. 'They'll think you ran off during the night, taking Tom with you.'\n\n'But that's not what \u2014 '\n\nMaggie clamped her hand harder.\n\n'The police'll hunt you down and when they find you alone and without Tom \u2013 he and I will be long gone by then \u2013 they'll think you killed him.'\n\n'Mmmmmm . . .'\n\n'People do that sometimes, you know, kill children.'\n\n'But I wouldn't \u2013 mmmmm . . .'\n\n'They'll hang you, Donna.\n\n'Nooo \u2013 mmmm . . .'\n\n'The rope'll go tighter and tighter round your neck until you can't breathe, till your eyes burst, till your tongue turns black. Understand?' She ignored the terror she could see in the girl's face. 'Do you want that?'\n\nDonna shook her head.\n\n'If you scream for help now, I'll run and I'll get away.' Maggie paused, then stared deep into the girl's eyes. 'I'll return one night soon, just like I did tonight. And I'll creep up these stairs, like I did tonight. I'll come here, right into your room while you're asleep . . . and snap your neck. Understand?'\n\nThe girl nodded. She'd started to cry.\n\n'So then, are you going to scream?'\n\nDonna shook her head.\n\n'Good girl.' Maggie began loosening her grip.\n\n'You won't take me with you \u2013 ever?'\n\n'I can't. I'm really sorry, Donna. I'd like to, but I just can't.' Then she added. 'Maybe once we're settled we can meet one day and \u2014 '\n\n'I hate you!' Wiping the tears with the back of her hand\n\n'Donna \u2014'\n\n'I hate you. I hate you.' The girl threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in the pillow.\n\nMaggie reached down to stroke the tangle of curls, then stopped herself. She sighed, picked up Tom, and left the room.\n\nClutching Tom in her arms, Maggie paced up and down the short stretch of pavement where the taxi was supposed to meet her. Past low stone walls stripped of their iron railings; past high stone walls still streaming wet in the streetlight; past gates locked for the night: past trees whose branches thrashed the darkness. Three, four times she walked to the red pillar box at the next corner, turned and came back again. Up and down, up and down with hardly a pause. She'd got there only a couple of minutes after midnight. Maybe the taxi had arrived and, seeing no one waiting, had driven off? But then where was Jean? Michael?\n\nAt every turn she glanced back down the street towards the children's home, terrified she'd see lights and hear people shouting. Woodstock House, however, remained in darkness. Remained silent. She was ashamed at the way she'd threatened Donna. But what else could she have done?\n\nHalting several times in mid-stride \u2013 was that the clanging of a police bell? Was a squad car about to come screeching round the corner?\n\nTwice she saw headlights approaching from Bruntsfield, only to watch the car drive straight past. The only sound was rainwater gushing out of a blocked gutter nearby, splashing down onto someone's front step.\n\nOnce again she walked to the pillar box and back, singing under her breath:\n\nMy Baby Bunting,\n\nDaddy's gone a-hunting,\n\nTo catch a baby rabbit's skin\n\nTo wrap our \u2013\n\nAt last \u2013 another set of headlights, and coming from the right direction. It was slowing down. A taxi. Their taxi. Had to be.\n\nThe black cab drew up beside her, the driver's window was lowered:\n\n'Sorry I'm late, Missus. Engine kept needing cranked up. Doesn't like getting up this early on a Sunday morning!'\n\nJean was sitting in the back. She was alone.\n\nMaggie climbed in. 'But where's \u2013?'\n\n'Dinna fear, Maggie, Michael's back at the bakery. He's waiting fer ye.'\n\nSUNDAY MORNING\n\nAN AXE TO the worn-out dining chairs. Slice and dice. Turn carpentry to kindling and haul the smashed woodwork in armfuls out to the garden and up the path to the heaped bonfire. Dragging the fifties' kitchen cabinet that even the charity shop didn't want. The three-legged stool you used to stand on when your mother did the washing, the rickety hat stand, wooden clothes-horse, bits of smashed shelving \u2013 worthless junk the lot of it, good only for burning.\n\nYou'll keep these photographs of your mother, of course \u2013 in her wellingtons boots digging up potatoes, dressed up smart for a trip to Edinburgh, and some others. The rest are a load of strangers and there's no one to tell you who they were. Back in the black-and-white past, people hoarded their photos. Not like today's disposable memories \u2013 the freeze-framed smiles, drunken moonies, drunken meals, the googled Earth itself. Everyone's life Photoshopped to perfection for posting on Facebook or YouTube. The moment's been saved . . . then so are you?\n\nNot really. But getting there.\n\nA nice one of Auntie Jean. That smoky voice of hers and her tobacco-smelling clothes \u2013 the only relative you ever met and then only for afternoon tea and cakes in Mackie's. Never visited her home. Seems there was an Uncle Billy, not that you ever met him. Never asked why. This soldier standing next to a signpost pointing to Berlin \u2013 is that your Uncle Billy? Your mother won't remember, that's for sure. And so \u2013 in goes Mr Berlin, along with all the others.\n\nBut you have tried. Making that album for her, hoping she'll talk you through the photos. Would be nice to learn more about her life and about your dad, more than that he was blind and got knocked down by an Edinburgh tram when you were very young. Talking about the past makes her sad, she says.\n\nWhich leaves that snap she gave you, the one of the little girl standing next to a big old-fashioned pram, holding somebody's baby in her arms. A neighbour? A girl in the village? No idea. Might as well go in, too.\n\nAnd so \u2013 pour on the paraffin, toss on the lighted match. Whoosh! Cremation of a sort.\n\nThey're gone in seconds.\n\nTime for a final walk through the cleared-out cottage. No curtains, no lampshades, empty grates; kitchen shelves and windowsills stripped bare. Without furniture, the walls look grimy, the woodwork's badly scuffed, the paintwork chipped. No retro charm here, the buyer'll start by ripping out that monstrosity of a pre-war fireplace. Ghosts are already haunting the place: the pale after-images on the walls where your mother's pictures hung, the outlines of her kitchen cabinet and dresser, her wardrobe. The lino's scarred where you dragged out the cooker, the fridge and washing machine \u2013 three veterans fit only for recycling at the Council dump. Easy to imagine hearing your mother's voice here \u2013 from the time when she still knew who you were, of course. Maybe her footsteps will echo in the empty rooms? Yours, too?\n\nNo . . . not a sound in the place. Your long-ago childhood home. Empty. Hollowed-out. You lock the door behind you.\n\nThe bonfire can be left to burn itself out.\n\n8\n\nTHE NEXT FORTNIGHT passed very quickly, and happily. Maggie explained to Sheila that she'd had a big row with her mother about turning up like that and wanting to take Tom away for the weekend. If everything worked out, she'd asked, could he now stay at Glengyle Terrace?\n\n'Let's see how we get on,' had been her landlady's response.\n\nLuckily they got on very well. For a little extra on the rent Sheila agreed to look after Tom during the day, which allowed Maggie to continue working at Blair & Blair's. On her part, Maggie was available evenings and weekends, if required, to look after both boys. They'd soon settled into a routine.\n\nIt would have been too much of a coincidence if Michael had turned up completely cured on the very same day she brought her baby home, so it was decided that he should remain at the bakery for a little longer. Maggie visited him as often as possible, Jean taking Tom out in the pram to give them privacy.\n\n'My husband's really starting to respond,' Maggie told Sheila one morning. 'The doctors say we might soon have him home.'\n\nEverything seemed to be working out. For the first few days Maggie had jumped to her feet in alarm whenever she heard the doorbell \u2013 perhaps in her haste at Woodstock House she'd overlooked something that could be used to trace her? Again and again she went over in her mind the paperwork she'd found in Tom's file. His birth certificate, her signed contract, various letters. That would be everything, surely? But were there duplicates somewhere?\n\nAfter a week, however, she began to relax. The week then became a fortnight.\n\nOn the first Saturday in June, nearly a year to the day she'd stepped off the ferry at Stornoway and been directed to Mrs Stewart's lodging house, Maggie hesitated outside the street door in Glengyle Terrace. Michael was beside her. Never had she felt so nervous.\n\n'It's blue,' she said. 'A shiny blue door, with a brass handle and a letter box.' She wanted to say how wonderful it was to have him here at last, how this was the beginning of their life together. 'Here's our key, I'll let us in.'\n\nShe went in and Michael followed. Once inside, she couldn't seem to stop.\n\n'There's a long hall with a table for letters and things. Mrs McCann's put some welcome flowers on it for you. Sun-yellow, pink and white. Ones you can smell. Freesias, I think.' She brought him up to the vase. 'As I said, Mrs McCann's really nice. She's taken Tom and her wee boy Douglas to visit her sister, to let us get settled.'\n\nMichael leant forward and breathed in. 'They're lovely. Really kind of her.'\n\nShe guided him across the corridor. 'This is us, here. Right opposite the table. The door's white.' She opened it. 'Our room.'\n\nHaving brought him in, she paused without meaning to . . . was she expecting to hear him offer a polite remark about how nice it looked? A split-second later, she added, 'I know we'll be very happy here.'\n\n'Thank you, Maggie. It feels fresh and inviting and . . .'\n\nShe closed the door behind them. 'We're home, Michael.'\n\nThey embraced and kissed. As he held her, she could feel the handle of his stick press into her back.\n\nShe turned him towards the window. 'We've a really big bay window. The park's just opposite. Grass that slopes all the way up to Bruntsfield, there's paths for folk walking with their kids. Lots of trees, too, really big some of them. Elms, I think. Our curtains come down to the floor, they've got a flower pattern on them, red and purple roses.' She guided him a couple of steps. 'Here's your armchair . . . and here's mine. They're light brown, high-backed and a bit old-fashioned looking, but comfy enough. We'll sit in front of a gas fire with a fine-looking wooden mantelpiece. It'll be cosy in the evenings while Tom plays on the rug.' She took his hand again and led him past the chairs and a small table. 'This . . . this is our bed.'\n\nMaggie had prepared a picnic for them to take across to the park.\n\nAs she shook out the tartan blanket to let it settle flat on the grass, she heard her mother's voice: You've made your bed, now you can lie on it.\n\nShe shrugged and smiled to herself as she unpacked the sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper \u2013 spam, mashed egg \u2013 the thermos of tea, the cups and plates, some milk in a brown medicine bottle, salt and pepper in little twists of paper. Laid out invitingly, the picnic meal looked good enough to be photographed for a magazine as a 'Family Day in the Park'. Yes, that's what it was, and what they were at last \u2013 a family. Maybe she'd write to her mother to let her know how well she was getting on, how happy she was. Maybe.\n\nFrom then on, when she came up the front steps back from work, she'd see Michael standing at the window waiting for her. And every time, without thinking, she'd wave to him. Inside their room, she'd be greeted by his placing his hands on her face. That was the moment when she knew she was really home \u2013 the first of the perfect moments in the rest of her day. Next was Tom's excitement when she collected him from Mrs McCann. The third perfect moment happened several times: whenever she paused during the evening and allowed herself to feel their togetherness. The last was when she switched off the light and entered Michael's darkness.\n\nA real family, yes \u2013 but they couldn't get married. Not yet \u2013 to do that would mean putting up banns in the name of Mr Stewart and Miss Davies, and the danger of making everything public. She felt like Mrs Stewart, she was known as Mrs Stewart. To everyone, apart from at Blair & Blair's, she was Mrs Stewart.\n\nTom had his first birthday: they shared their first Christmas together: then came Hogmanay \u2013 but not at Jean's. This time the New Year was seen in with Sheila and Gordon.\n\nOne freezing-cold day towards the end of January, Maggie was putting her key in the front door when \u2014\n\n'Oh, Miss Davies! Miss Davies! It's you, it's really you!'\n\nMaggie turned to see the familiar tangle of blonde curls and smiling face. It was Donna.\n\nSUNDAY AFTERNOON\n\nPULL INTO THE Rosehaven car park.\n\nTaking your usual five in the contour leather to log on, to update.\n\nMandy.\n\nYour agent.\n\nMandy again. Reliable girl.\n\nGR8 CU@8 Tx\n\nTwo voice messages.\n\nNo hang-ups. Hang-ups are a message in themselves \u2013 if you're not there to answer, then you're not needed. Like you're a hang-up nearer to being dead.\n\nBut not you. Three texts. Two messages. Mr Magic lives!\n\nTweet the cottage get-out. Tweet another Sunday, another Mum visit.\n\nHoping it's a good day.\n\nPsyched up, ready to rock'n'roll.\n\nOnce again you're standing on the yellow cross, your smile in place, flowers in one hand and the other raised in greeting for the CCTV. That's you on the screen \u2013 not looking so great. The loving son come to visit his elderly mother who's now seriously confused.\n\nYes, she's totally losing the place. She's like a book whose pages have fallen out of sequence \u2013 but who's going to put them back into their right order? There's no other copy to refer to.\n\nCue Mr Magic preparing to step onstage once more with his repertoire of well-tested tricks, his cheerful patter. Cue another Sunday. You'll make it a good one.\n\nYou're buzzed in. Heading straight down the corridor, on course to brighten up her \u2014\n\nSudden swerve for the usual pit-stop in the visitors' WC. Dry heave and spit. And spit again. Take a few minutes to get focused, get upbeat.\n\nBetter?\n\nYou and your feelings back on track, you splash your face. The paper towel's screwed up and binned. You're ready to breeze through to the dayroom. You want to cheer her up. Be all sunshine and smiles.\n\nThe afternoon sun flooding the bay window with light, freeze-framing the scene: the high backed chairs, the footstools and zimmers, coffee tables, the TV, the Murray twins, sad Dorothy calling and calling . . .\n\nBut where's your mother?\n\nHer chair's empty. Her zimmer's stainless steel tubing flashes its accusation: You're late.\n\nSomeone's taken her to the toilet?\n\nBut her zimmer's here. So how did she manage to \u2014 ?\n\n'Mr Stewart?' The young Polish girl's standing beside you. 'Mr Stewart? Please.'\n\nMariella? Marietta?\n\n'You come, please.' She's not smiling.\n\nTurning your back on the overheated hours burnt into the dayroom walls, you follow Mariella \/ Marietta out into the hall. Mariella. Yes, that's her name.\n\nShe's wearing a green housecoat today, jeans and trainers. When she's signed up as your assistant you'll dress her in something special, something sleek, black and Futuristic. Distraction on high heels. It's the right time to upgrade. Invest in a new generation of high-tech props and \u2014\n\n'Room. Please, we go Mrs Stewart.'\n\n'Mariella? Is my mother all right?'\n\nThe curtains have been pulled almost shut. A small lamp burns on the side table \u2013 its low watt glow washing over the room's stillness. You see your mother first in the dressing-table mirror and find yourself taking a half-step towards the reflected figure. Then immediately correct yourself.\n\nMariella's tilted the lampshade so the light falls more gently across your mother's face. A kindly girl . . . If she was dressed in sleek and shiny-black . . .\n\nThat time you watched her trying to get one of the Murray twins take her meds, you were shocked that the old woman could be so utterly unaware of the girl standing right in front of her, as if the Murray couldn't even see her. But what do you see now? Your ninety-year-old mother resting in her bed \u2013 do you really see her? Or is she becoming a fading memory already \u2013 the happiness in her voice whenever you phoned, her excited wave from the window as she saw you coming up the path?\n\n'I go now.'\n\nDon't go, Mariella, you want to say. Please.\n\nAt this moment you would give anything to be a genuine Mr Magic and make the glow return to her sunken cheeks, the glossy blackness to her hair, redness to her slack lips. No sleight of hand any more, no sleight of heart.\n\nNot any longer.\n\nYour mother's dying. You see it now. You're afraid you might burst into tears.\n\nThe chair beside her bed creaks as you sit down. It creaks again as you lean forward to take her hand.\n\nSomeone's just come into your room. You're aware of them sitting down in the chair beside your bed and can feel the warmth of their hand as it squeezes yours, the tenderness in their voice . . .\n\nA farewell? The first of a hundred thousand welcomes?\n\nListen \u2014\n\nWithin an hour of seeing Donna, the three of them had moved out of Glengyle Terrace. There was a family emergency, Maggie explained. Having thanked the McCanns for all their kindness, she promised she'd be in touch as soon as things settled. She didn't specify what things exactly. Her mother was mentioned. The rent was paid up for another fortnight, but Sheila should feel free to let the room from tomorrow.\n\nOne suitcase was all they took with them, and Michael's ex-army kitbag stuffed with Tom's clothes and bedding. What they couldn't carry, they left behind.\n\n'Family emergency, right enough,' thought Maggie as she lifted their luggage into the taxi that would take them round to Jean's bakery. She was really sorry to be leaving Glengyle Terrace, but Mrs Saunders might appear at any moment, perhaps even bringing the police. Blair & Blair's, in turn, would probably be contacted. Maggie felt ashamed at lying to Sheila, but they couldn't risk staying even a day longer.\n\nAnd so \u2013 no more Blair & Blair's and, most likely, no more \u00adEdinburgh.\n\nWhat happened next was like a gift from heaven, a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of good luck. The advert in the Scotsman announced: 'Part-time home help wanted in exchange for rent-free cottage. Rural location. Apply in own handwriting.'\n\nMaggie did, and received a reply by return, with a telephone number to phone. The cottage turned out to be the small gatehouse of an estate in the Borders. Learning that her husband was a veteran who'd been blinded in the war, the laird clearly took pity on them. Maggie said they could come immediately.\n\nThere's the sound of doors opening and closing, the tap of someone's walking stick on the linoleum out in the corridor, a woman saying she hopes there might be some cake.\n\nYour familiar room. Your wardrobe. Armchair. Wash hand basin and mirror. Tea trolley with playing cards laid out for the game of patience you will probably never finish \u2014\n\nA fortnight after they'd moved in, Maggie was seated at her small work table in the living room, grinning with pleasure as she inserted the first sheet of foolscap into her typewriter.\n\nNo wonder she was grinning \u2013 on learning that his new help could not only type but knew how to keep basic accounts, the laird had at once offered her the position of part-time secretary to the factor of his estate. And so \u2013 no more mops and pails, brushes and carpet beaters, no more dripping, heavy-wet bedsheets needing hung out and then ironed. If she wanted, she was even allowed to take in extra typing work from the village to do in her own time. Michael had soon learned his way about the cottage and within a few days was walking up to the big house and round the grounds all by himself.\n\nMaggie glanced over the top of her typewriter \u2013 there had been a real blizzard during the night and now a blue-skied, snow-silenced winter's day waited for her outside. The fields and hedgerows were white, the telegraph poles and their wires stretched in a line like so many pencil marks pointing out a hidden road to the village. Once she'd finished typing up Rev McKay's service for the following morning, the three of them would wrap up well and go for a walk down by the river, now surely frozen over.\n\nWinter gave way to spring. Mrs Stewart wrote regularly to Michael, far too regularly. The news and gossip from Stornoway always came heavily larded with complaints and veiled accusations \u2013 her bad back made running the lodging house more and more difficult, the struggle to live on her war widow's pension was getting harder and harder. She missed her son and needed him, needed him desperately.\n\nMichael would listen in grim silence, then apologise to Maggie saying his mother couldn't help herself, she was angry, that was all. Give her a while longer to accept things. Once they'd got married, which they'd do in secret, he'd ask if they could come and visit. It would mean waiting until the moment was right, of course . . .\n\nBy this time Maggie would have put the hateful letter back in its envelope and stuck it in the drawer with the others. The letters made her furious \u2013 the venom in the old woman's words was really directed at her. Not that she was ever mentioned, or Tom. It was like they didn't exist. Very soon she began to edit as she read. Maggie always typed the replies which Michael then took to the village post office next time he was doing the shopping.\n\nOn a May morning about four months after they'd moved in, there was a rap on the cottage door. Norman the Post. Michael was making a pot of tea. Having been to answer, Maggie returned to the living room:\n\n'A letter. Don't know the handwriting.'\n\nStruggling to push aside the duvet \u2013 as if you could somehow manage to get young Maggie's attention. You want to comfort her. You want to grab at the letter she's about to read, to snatch it out of her hand.\n\nBut then what?\n\nYou know what's going to happen. You can't stop it now, any more than you could have stopped it back then. You can do nothing but watch.\n\nCarefully as always, Michael places a plate of biscuits on the tea-trolley. 'Postmark?' he asks.\n\nPostmark. She ought to have checked first, before saying anything. But it's too late now.\n\n'Stornoway.'\n\n'It's from Lachlan \u2013 not heard from him in ages.'\n\nBut she knows it's not from Lachlan. She knows Lachlan's handwriting \u2013 all those letters from Michael she's kept in her treasure box.\n\nYou watch her pick up the letter knife. Watch her slit open the envelope.\n\nWere this a kinder world, Maggie would sense you beside her as she reads out the letter from Mrs Stewart's neighbour:\n\nDear Michael, I'm sorry to have to write to you with bad news but . . .\n\nMichael's mother had slipped in the street \u2013 it was a serious fall. She'd needed an ambulance. She was back home now and holding her own, so far. Could Michael come as soon as possible?\n\nThe soothing warmth of someone's hand as they continue to sit here holding yours. No need to say anything, no need to make the effort to open your eyes \u2014\n\nMaggie's spoken to the guard who helped her put Michael onto the train at Lockerbie station. Lockerbie, Carstairs, Glasgow Central and then the West Highland Line to Mallaig, the ferry across to Lewis \u2013 he'll be passed from guard to guard like a precious parcel to be delivered safely to his mother in Stornoway.\n\nYou are with Maggie now on the platform, giving her the courage she needs to send the man she loves on his way. Giving her the courage to kiss him goodbye.\n\nTogether you share the warmth of his fingertips as they pass over her eyes, her cheeks, her lips: 'So's I'll have \u00adsomething to remember you,' he whispers.\n\nThere's a belch-belch-belch of grey smoke as the engine shudders forward, its wheels gaining traction on the steel rails. Straining, it gradually picks up speed and pulls out of the station. When the train has disappeared from sight, you accompany Maggie and Tom back towards the exit, ready to return with them to the gatehouse, ready to help them through the coming days, weeks, months.\n\nNo longer having the strength to hold on, drifting to and fro, from moment to moment \u2014\n\nOnce again you are back with young Maggie Davies on her ferry trip across to Stornoway, once again you can feel the salt dampness soaking into your coat and scarf, its freshness tightening the skin on your face.\n\nThe handrail is ice-cold. Slate-coloured waves slide over each other, sealing in a stretch of water whose briefly churned-up surface always flattens afterwards to a dead calm. The small boat trails silence in its wake. Together you look down into the depths, and shudder with an abruptness that makes the blood stall in your heart, the breath catch in your throat . . .\n\nYour body trembles; your nerves seize. Held under the weight of the duvet, your arm again struggles to raise itself as though to grasp hold of an invisible clock's next tick and force it on \u2014\n\nIt is late September, a glorious autumn morning. The post has just been and you've returned indoors with another of Michael's weekly letters. You expect it will be filled with the usual words of love and reassurance, the usual hopes and promises. He's been away for nearly five months.\n\nYou sit down at your work table, slit open the envelope.\n\nThe doctor, he writes, now believes that though she will likely live for a good many years to come, his mother will never regain her full strength and mobility. It seems that she'll always need someone to look after her. She has never left the island and now she never will.\n\nI'm all she's got, he explains, and so I'll have to stay here with \u2014\n\nYou let the page drop. You know what's coming. With every passing week, you'd grown to dread Norman the Post's rap at the door. You'd been half-expecting this letter, but now that it's arrived, it's almost a relief. You glance over at Tom who's sitting on the floor next to the tea-trolley, completely absorbed in throwing your playing cards around the room. Seeing you look at him, he holds out a crushed fistful towards you.\n\nMichael goes on to say that he loves you and misses you. He misses you more and more each day. He misses Tom, too.\n\nAnd you miss him. You love him and know he will be the only man in your life. But what did Mrs Saunders say that time \u2013 love is the easy bit?\n\nWhen the time is right, he continues, he'll start telling his mother about their plans to get married. So far it's not been possible to say anything . . . she's very easily upset . . . but as soon as there's an opportunity . . . pick his moment carefully . . . take time . . . he's sure you understand . . . talk her into allowing you and Tom . . . because he can't leave her, not now she . . .\n\nHaving folded up the letter, you put it back into its envelope, place it on the table. For several minutes you sit with your hands in your lap, head bowed, staring down at your neatly written name and address, and at the slightly smudged Stornoway postmark . . .\n\nLetting your breathing ease back to normal, your heartbeat steady itself once more \u2014\n\nYou're feeling very tired suddenly. A very pleasant tiredness, as though you were already half-asleep \u2014\n\nAn hour later you've written your reply, sealed the envelope and stamped it. If you leave now, you will be in time to catch the post. The sooner the letter goes, the better.\n\nYou lift Tom into his pushchair, put on your coat, your hat.\n\nLast thing, you glance in the hall mirror to check your appearance. A dab of powder, a quick touch of lipstick.\n\nYou're ready.\n\nThe buttons of your coat fastened up and your hat straightened, you give yourself a smile. You've written to Michael for the last time. You've dried your tears. You have made your decision and will stick to it. You will manage, somehow. The door pulled shut, you start off down the front path.\n\nA gust of wind sets the fallen leaves swirling around your feet, and when you scoop up a handful to scatter over his head Tom tries grabbing them as they tumble all about him. He's laughing and squealing.\n\n'whee!' You send him and his pushchair several yards ahead of you along the road. A few steps and you catch up. 'whee . . .!' Pushing him again several yards ahead. Then hurrying after him to catch up. Above, the sky is a clear and cloudless blue. Small birds flit in and out of the hedgerows on either side and it feels like they're keeping you \u2014\n\nACKNOWLEDGEMENTS\n\nExcerpts of this novel have appeared in the Scotsman and Gutter 09. The author would like to gratefully acknowledge a Royal Literature Fund Fellowship at Edinburgh University (Office of Lifelong Learning), which allowed him time to write. Grateful thanks also to my wonderful editor Nick Royle, to my ultra-patient agent Lucy Luck, to Lesley Glaister, Andrew Greig, Moez Surani and Dora Staub for their valuable comments, and most of all to my wife Regi Claire for her insightful readings of the text through its many versions, and for her endless patience and support. This novel was written while I was the Edinburgh Makar \/ Poet Laureate and I would like to thank the City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature for their support during this period, in particular Lynne Halfpenny, Denise Brace, Ali Bowden, Peggy Hughes and Sarah Morrison.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nTo my friends Kate Atwood, Carleigh Pearson,  \nCole Pearson, Luke Pearson, and everyone else  \nwho has lost a parent too soon.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAnd as always, to Carol Harmel.  \nI couldn't ask for a better mother.  \nI love you!\n\n# A BIG THANK-YOU\n\nTo Kate Atwood, the founder of Kate's Club in Atlanta, and to NFL quarterback Brian Griese, the founder of Judi's House in Denver. Both of you lost a parent too soon, and you've turned your grief into something that has helped thousands of children. Your mothers would be so very proud of you. I'm honored to have become a part of your world.\n\nTo the Pearsons: Susan, Carleigh, Cole, and Luke. This book, while not based on you, was inspired by the time I've spent with you. I'm so glad to call you friends; I feel like you're my Atlanta family! And I'm so impressed with all of you; you're all amazing, strong, kind people, and I can't wait to see what wonderful things life brings you.\n\nTo my wonderful editor, Wendy Loggia, who has once again helped beat a rough manuscript into shape. Your guidance is invaluable, and I'm glad to work with you.\n\nTo my amazing literary agent, Jenny Bent; her assistant, Chris Kondrich; my film agent, Andy Cohen; and the wonderful Delacorte Press family, including Elizabeth Zajac, Krista Vitola, and Angela Carlino.\n\nTo my _People_ magazine editor, Nancy Jeffrey, who allows me to work on the kind of stories that inspire me, move me, and let me share the heroism of good people with the world.\n\nTo my own family, especially Mom, Dad, Karen, and Dave, and to all my wonderful friends.\n\nTo all of my many writer friends: It's such a pleasure and honor to know all of you. Thanks especially to Megan Crane, Liza Palmer, Jane Porter, Melissa Senate, Sarah Mlynowski, Alison Pace, Lynda Curnyn, Brenda Janowitz, Lisa Daily, and Emily Giffin, who are truly wonderful people as well as wonderful writers.\n\nAnd to you, the reader. This book is about changing your own little corner of the world. I hope that you feel inspired. Thanks for reading!\n\n# prologue\n\nThe day my whole world changed started like any other Saturday.\n\n\"Lacey!\" my dad called. \"Are you coming? It's going to be dinnertime when we get there!\"\n\nI looked in the bathroom mirror and made a face. He said the same thing every Saturday morning\u2014but maybe that was because I took longer getting ready than anyone else.\n\n\"Why don't you just get up earlier?\" My brother Logan, who was eleven months older than me, appeared in the doorway and looked suspiciously at my reflection. I knew he'd been sent up to get me. I was putting on a coat of mascara and paused to glare at him.\n\n\"I need my beauty sleep,\" I said, trying to sound haughty.\n\nHe rolled his eyes. \"No kidding,\" he muttered. \"I think you need a little more.\"\n\nHe was gone by the time I threw a tube of toothpaste at him.\n\nFive minutes later, when I came downstairs, my dad, Logan, and my little brother, Tanner, were standing in the hallway, already bundled up in their coats and scarves. It was unusually cold that day, even though it was only November fifteenth. There had been an early freeze, and it hadn't worn off yet. My dad held out my pink puffer jacket, and as I stepped into the hallway and took it from him, he winked, one corner of his mouth jerking upward just a little. I knew he was trying to hide his amusement from Logan and Tanner.\n\n\"What the heck takes you so long anyway?\" Tanner said. \"I'm glad I'm not a girl.\"\n\nLogan high-fived him. My dad looked up at me. \"Is Your Royal Highness finally ready?\" he asked, bowing slightly.\n\nMy dad always called me that when I took a long time to get dressed. Even though he sometimes pretended to be as exasperated as Logan and Tanner, I think he secretly didn't mind.\n\n\"Where's my beautiful wife?\" Dad singsonged as I zipped up my jacket. Mom rounded the corner, dressed in the same ratty pink bathrobe she'd had for years, the one she would never throw away because it was the first gift Logan and I ever picked out for her, when Logan was four and I was three and Dad took us Christmas shopping. We'd bought her a new one last Christmas, but she refused to switch over.\n\nShe was in her usual state of morning messiness, with sleep-flattened reddish brown, shoulder-length curls flying every which way and her cheeks slightly blotchy before she made it to her vanity mirror and her tray full of makeup. I always wished that I had inherited her pretty hair and Dad's flawless complexion, but instead, it was the other way around. I had Dad's stick-straight dirty blond hair that always looked stringy if I didn't use a curling iron on the ends (which I hardly ever had time to do considering I shared a bathroom with two boys) and Mom's acne-prone skin. Thank goodness for Clearasil, but most of the time my face was sporting at least one major zit, usually in a totally unflattering location like the middle of my forehead or smack in the center of my chin.\n\n\"You're taking my family and leaving me?\" Mom asked dramatically, clutching her hands over her heart. \"Whatever will I do?\"\n\nMom said the same thing every Saturday when Dad took the three of us out to breakfast. He called it \"Dad time,\" and while we were out scarfing down pancakes at the Plymouth Diner, Mom was having her weekly \"Mom time,\" which apparently included sitting around in her robe, sipping a cup of coffee, and putting on a facial mask while she fast-forwarded through TiVoed episodes of _Grey's Anatomy_ and _CSI_ and whatever else she'd dozed off watching during the previous week.\n\n\"Your mom thinks we're giving her time alone,\" Dad would whisper to us while she pretended she couldn't hear, \"but really, it's just a good excuse for the four of us to hang out and eat greasy bacon and hash browns, right?\"\n\nIt had been our Saturday-morning routine for as long as I could remember. And it was the highlight of every week. Dad, Logan, Tanner, and I would sit at breakfast and talk about school and our friends and stuff, and Tanner, who wanted to be a comedian when he grew up, would always tell some silly joke he had just learned from his friends or the Internet that week, and when we'd get home, the house would always be a little cleaner, and Mom was always in a good mood. If we didn't have anything big to do, we'd all go out for a hike or a bike ride or to play tennis at the local country club, where Mom had insisted we needed a membership, against Dad's halfhearted protests.\n\nMom and Dad kissed goodbye, then she gave each of us a peck on the top of our heads, and we were off.\n\n\"Everyone have their seat belts on?\" Dad asked as he started the car. Logan climbed in beside him.\n\n\"Yes!\" the three of us answered in unison. Dad turned and grinned at Tanner and me in the back, buckled his own seat belt, and put the car in reverse. As we pulled out of the driveway, he beeped the horn at Mom and blew her a kiss.\n\n\"Cheesy!\" Logan and I chorused. Tanner laughed.\n\nMom smiled, waved from the doorway, and went inside.\n\nIt took three minutes for us to get out of our neighborhood, Plymouth Heights, and onto a main street. It's weird how normal everything still was in those final minutes. We saw Mrs. Daniels walking down her driveway to pick up the newspaper, and she waved at us as we passed. Dad and Logan waved back. I noticed Jay Cash and Anne Franklin, two kids from Tanner's grade, playing basketball in the Cashes' driveway. Anne tripped on her shoelace just before we passed, and I turned my head slightly to see if she'd start crying. She didn't. Logan was absorbed in flipping through the radio stations, finally settling on the classic-rock station, which was playing the Eagles' \"Hotel California,\" one of Dad's favorite songs. He started to sing along, and when the chorus ended and a guitar solo began, Dad glanced at Tanner and me in the rearview mirror and grinned.\n\n\"You guys would love California,\" he said. \"Maybe we'll go there someday and surf.\"\n\n\"I want to surf!\" Tanner exclaimed. At age eleven, he had just discovered skateboarding, and he had announced more than once at dinner that when he turned eighteen, he was going to move west, bleach his hair blond, and learn to catch waves. I had to admit, it was a fun fantasy to have in the middle of a Massachusetts winter.\n\n\"I know!\" Dad laughed as the light on Mayflower Avenue turned green and he eased his foot off the brake and onto the gas. He put on a fake surfer accent. \"Hang ten, dudes!\"\n\nIt was the last thing Dad ever said.\n\nI think I saw it an instant before it happened, but my throat closed up, and there wasn't time to open my mouth or even to scream before the Suburban plowed into the driver's side of the car, hitting us with such force that the whole side crumpled, pinning me up against Dad's seat. It was like everything was suddenly compressed into a much smaller space than it had been a second ago. I felt a terrible pain along the left side of my body, shooting from my upper leg, up my side, and down my shoulder into my arm. I screamed and felt Tanner grope for my right arm.\n\nThe world felt dark and hazy. I couldn't see anything, just shapes, and everything sounded muffled. I wondered for a second if I was dying. Far away, I could hear Logan yelling and Tanner crying. But I couldn't hear Dad. Why couldn't I hear Dad?\n\nMy throat felt like I'd swallowed cotton balls, and my mouth wasn't responding when I tried to make it work. I opened and closed it a few times, but I was only gurgling, not talking. I remember being terrified, and when I look back now, I think it was pure fear that kept me from being able to speak. When I finally did, there was only one thing that came out of my mouth.\n\n\"Daddy?\" I whispered weakly. I hadn't called him that since I was twelve.\n\nIt was the last thing I remember saying before everything went black.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen I came to, I was in the hospital. I didn't know how much time had passed. But I think I already knew about Dad. I don't know how\u2014I didn't see him again after the Suburban hit us\u2014but maybe when you're that close to someone, you can feel it when they're not there anymore. That's what I think, anyhow.\n\nIt took me a few moments to focus on Mom's face as I gradually swam to the surface of consciousness. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was blotchier than usual. I couldn't help noticing that she was still wearing the tattered pink bathrobe over her pajamas, which seemed strange and out of place in public. Mom was a lawyer in Boston, and she never left the house looking anything less than completely put-together.\n\nThe hospital room was white and almost uncomfortably bright under big fluorescent lights. I licked my lips and realized I couldn't feel my body.\n\nMom jumped up and leaned over me. She looked scared.\n\n\"You're going to be okay,\" she blurted out. \"You broke your left femur\u2014that's the big bone in your thigh\u2014in two places, and you have a few broken ribs and a broken left wrist, but they say all the bones should heal just fine.\"\n\n\"Where's Dad?\" I asked slowly, in a voice that sounded too thick to be my own.\n\nMom's lower lip quivered and she bit it, like it was the only way she could stop it from shaking. Her eyes filled with tears again.\n\n\"Lacey, baby,\" she said softly, sitting on the edge of my bed and reaching for my hands. I couldn't feel her. I couldn't feel anything. \"The accident was really bad.\"\n\nI stared at her for a minute. She hadn't answered me. \"Where's Dad?\" I repeated. \"Where are Tanner and Logan?\"\n\nShe blinked at me a few times. \"The boys are in the waiting room,\" she said. \"Uncle Paul's with them. They're going to be okay. Tanner broke his arm, and Logan had to get stitches, but they're fine.\"\n\nI remembered Tanner reaching for me just before everything went black. He must have been scared about me. \"But Dad?\" I asked again, my voice rising a little bit as panic began to set in.\n\n\"Dad...,\" Mom began, and then stopped. She took a big breath, glanced away, and then looked back at me with eyes that seemed foggy and lost. \"The car... hit right around the driver's seat,\" she said slowly. \"The doctors did everything they could, but...\" She stopped, unable to say it.\n\n\"Daddy died,\" I completed her sentence, feeling tears well up in my eyes. \"He died, didn't he?\"\n\nMom nodded. A pair of fresh tears rolled down her face, one for each cheek, like skiers racing to the bottom of the slopes. I remembered the last thing Dad had said, and tried to imagine her tears as graceful surfers instead, trying to ride a wave into shore. But then the tears dropped off her jawline and melted into her robe, and I had the sudden feeling that the imaginary surfers had fallen off the edge of the wave and disappeared forever. It was that image that finally made me burst into tears.\n\nMom wrapped her arms around me, and we sobbed together, with no more words to say.\n\nLater, after Logan and Tanner had come in to see me and Uncle Paul had taken them home, Mom sat by my bedside and told me that Dad had lost consciousness right away. The doctors said he probably didn't even see it coming and didn't feel scared, and that he was never awake to hurt. It was, they told her, the most painless way to go. One second, he was driving along happily on a Saturday morning with his three kids, and the next, it was all over. He never knew. He never had a chance to say goodbye.\n\nAfter a while, Mom asked if I had any questions. I said no, but of course, that was a lie.\n\nI wanted to ask what would have happened if I hadn't had to curl my hair or if I hadn't insisted on putting on mascara or if I hadn't purposely dragged my feet a little just to annoy Logan and Tanner. But I didn't need to ask. I knew what would have happened. We'd be sitting at home right now, trying to figure out whether to play Monopoly or Life or whether to watch a movie. Dad would be trailing his hand lazily down Mom's back in that affectionate way that sometimes made me and Logan smile and roll our eyes at each other. Mom would be getting up every few minutes to put dishes in the dishwasher or to start the washing machine. Logan and Tanner would be fighting over the remote control because Tanner wanted to watch a Pok\u00e9mon DVD and Logan wanted to watch sports.\n\nDad wouldn't be dead.\n\nAnd it wouldn't be my fault.\n\n# chapter 1\n\n**TEN MONTHS LATER**\n\n\"And then I told Willow that her shoes were totally the wrong color for that outfit and actually, the shirt is really hideous anyhow, and I couldn't believe she was going to actually go out in that, never mind go to the movies with me, and then Melixa said to me...\"\n\nSydney droned on and on from the front seat as I tried in vain to tune her out. Her high-pitched, squeaky voice made that pretty impossible, though. My best friend, Jennica, and I had decided that she must be trying to attract boys by sounding like a squeak toy, but until recently, I'd been sure that it only attracted dogs and whales and whatever else could hear such a high frequency.\n\nBut then she landed Logan, who apparently found squeakiness enticing. This pretty much meant that I was stuck with her, because she was now our official ride to school. Mom had refused to let me or Logan take our driver's tests since the accident, so it was either the school bus or hitching a ride with Logan's popularity-obsessed girlfriend.\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" Logan said patiently from the passenger seat, as if he were actually listening. As far as I could tell, Sydney was telling the longest story in the world about a bunch of senior cheerleaders who didn't matter to me at all.\n\n\"So what do you think?\" Sydney finally paused for what I was pretty sure was the first breath she had taken since picking us up ten minutes ago.\n\n\"Um...,\" Logan began, his voice trailing off. I hid a smile. He obviously hadn't been listening either. I watched in amusement as he struggled for words. \"What do I think?\" he said finally. \"I think you're the most beautiful girlfriend in the world.\"\n\nOh, gag me. I waited for Sydney to realize that he was completely copping out, but instead she giggled, turned a weird shade of pink, and glanced at me in the rearview.\n\n\"What do _you_ think, Lacey?\" she asked. \"Don't you think Summer was acting totally slutty? I mean, considering she's practically engaged to Rob Macavey?\"\n\nI sighed. \"I don't even really know her.\"\n\n_\"Everyone_ knows Summer Andrews,\" Sydney said, looking at me like I was a mental patient.\n\n\"Right.\" I bit my tongue. What I wanted to say was that everyone knew who Summer Andrews _was_ \u2014the cheerleading, BMW-driving, shiny-haired queen bee of our school\u2014but that there were few people she actually deigned to talk to. And I was not one of them. I was pretty popular in my own grade, but I was definitely more bookworm than beauty-pageant contestant, which meant that Summer and her crowd hardly knew I was alive.\n\nLogan was a different story. Since he and social-climbing Sydney had begun dating six months ago, he had come home more than once proudly reporting\u2014out of Mom's earshot, of course\u2014that he'd gotten drunk alongside Summer Andrews and her clones, Willow and Melixa, at parties. Like that was some major accomplishment.\n\nBut I refrained from saying any of this, because Logan would kill me if I did. He always seemed to be walking on thin ice around Sydney. I must have been making a face without meaning to, though, because Sydney glanced at me once more in the rearview and snorted.\n\n\"Oh come _on_ , Lacey,\" she said. \"Just because you're too busy making straight As and going to student council meetings and whatever else you think is so important doesn't mean that the rest of us can't have a social life.\"\n\nI simmered for a minute. I was good at shutting my mouth, pressing my feelings into a little lockbox inside, and turning the key. I took a deep breath, blinked a few times, and said, \"Wow, look at that! We're here already!\"\n\nBefore either of them could respond, I hopped out of the car and began striding across the junior lot toward the school building without bothering to look back. Somewhere behind me, Sydney was babbling about how she couldn't believe I'd jumped out of her car before she'd even had a chance to park.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt was the end of the third week of school, and already, it seemed to have turned to fall. Last summer, the heat had hung on for ages, taunting us cruelly from outside the classroom windows with persistent rays of sunshine. But this year, the New England dreariness had moved in early, bringing hulking gray clouds and winds with a chilly edge. The first leaves on the trees were turning, seemingly overnight, from muted greens to the deep reds, oranges, and golden yellows that always reminded me of a sunset. I wasn't ready for it to be autumn again, but the seasons seemed to march on without caring.\n\nForty-five minutes after hopping out of Sydney's car, I was in trig class, trying to pay attention, which was hard to do considering that Jennica, who sat beside me, kept trying to get my attention. I was attempting to ignore her.\n\nMath came easily to me. I had always wanted to be an architect when I grew up, like my dad. Plus, there was something about the clear-cut right and wrong of math equations that I found appealing. In math, there were no gray areas. There were rules, and I'd discovered that when you stayed inside the lines, life made a lot more sense.\n\n\"Psst!\" Jennica hissed. I glanced to my right, where she had angled her desk closer to mine and was holding out a folded square of paper.\n\nI glanced to the front of the room, where Mrs. Bost, our twentysomething teacher, was jotting a series of cosine problems on the board. In the few weeks we'd been in school, I'd already discovered that she had superhuman hearing. I suspected she could hear a note unfolding from miles away. So I coughed loudly to cover up the crinkling sound as I quickly unfolded Jennica's message.\n\n_You'll never believe this: Brian told me he LOVES ME last night!_ she'd written. I could feel Jennica's eyes on my face, so I was careful not to do anything inappropriate like, say, wrinkle my nose or stick out my tongue. It wasn't that I didn't like Brian. He was okay. But he and Jennica were so lovey-dovey with each other that I felt nauseated half the time I was around them. And much as I hated to admit it, I was a little jealous. _I_ was the one Jennica had done everything with and told all her secrets to since we met in the first grade. And now Brian was her constant companion, and I felt like the third wheel.\n\nIt was like I'd lost my best friend. But it was selfish to feel that way, so I told myself not to. I'd gotten good at deciding how I should and shouldn't feel. Sometimes I felt like the director of the movie of my own life, yelling _action_ in my head and then setting scenes in motion the way I'd decided they'd go.\n\nI pulled out my cell phone, checked to make sure Mrs. Bost wasn't looking, and quietly texted Jennica: great. I watched as she silently pulled her cell from her purse, read my text, and frowned. She thought for a second, and I tried to tune back in to Mrs. Bost while Jennica typed. But the lecture was boring, and I was tired of thinking about trig and boyfriends and all the other dumb stuff that went along with eleventh grade. I was itching to graduate and get out of this place, to move on to the next phase of my life and leave Plymouth East behind, but I had a year and nine more months to go. It was endless.\n\nThe new-message indicator lit up on my phone. i know u've never been in love b4 but this is a REALLY BIG DEAL, Jennica had written, complete with a smiley face at the end of the sentence, to let me know she wasn't trying to be mean. Still, the words stung. I _knew_ it was a big deal to her. But in my world, having a boy tell you he loved you wasn't exactly as earth-shattering as, say, your dad dying. it was when we were watching grey's antmy on dvd, the message continued. mcdrmy told mrdth he luved her & B turned 2 me & said, I luv u like derek luvs mer. sooo romantic, right?\n\nI was just about to write something back when the door to the classroom creaked open. Mr. Dorsett, the assistant principal, was standing there with someone behind him. Mrs. Bost smiled and set down the marker she'd been using.\n\n\"I'm sorry to bother you,\" Mr. Dorsett said. He glanced over the room and then back at Mrs. Bost. \"But we have a late addition to your class.\"\n\nTwenty-four pairs of eyes strained to see the tall guy in a faded leather jacket and dark jeans who followed Mr. Dorsett through the doorway, his eyes focused coolly above our heads. His hair was dark, and it looked like he needed a haircut\u2014or at least a comb. It stuck up wildly in some places and grazed his collar in others, making him look a bit like a mad scientist who forgot to go to the barber. His skin was tan, which made his pale green, thick-lashed eyes seem unusually bright.\n\nA buzz went around the classroom. Plymouth was a pretty small town, and most of us had gone to elementary school or junior high together, so it wasn't very often that we saw an unfamiliar face. Maybe he'd transferred from the Catholic high school. Sometimes we got new students from there.\n\n\"Who's that?\" Jennica whispered urgently, like everyone else in the room wasn't wondering the same thing. I shrugged without taking my eyes off the guy. I didn't usually notice things like this, but his eyes were unbelievable. They were almost the exact color of the ocean right before a storm. That had always been my favorite time to gaze out from the shore, while the wind whipped through my hair and the sky rumbled, getting ready to change the earth below it.\n\nWhile Mr. Dorsett held an inaudible conversation with Mrs. Bost, the new guy shifted from foot to foot and avoided looking at anyone. I couldn't figure out whether he thought he was too cool for us or whether he was just nervous.\n\n\"Okay,\" Mrs. Bost finally began, pulling away from Mr. Dorsett. He nodded once at us, clapped the new guy on the back awkwardly, and headed out the door.\n\n\"This is Samuel Stone,\" Mrs. Bost continued once Mr. Dorsett was gone. \"He'll be joining our class. I'd like you all to give him a warm welcome.\"\n\nJennica and I exchanged glances. The room was silent for a few seconds, then someone in the back started clapping slowly, and the rest of the class joined in. The new guy took a step forward and whispered something to Mrs. Bost.\n\n\"What?\" she asked. She glanced at us. \"Class! Shhh!\"\n\nWe all quieted down in time to hear him say more loudly, \"Sam.\"\n\nAll eyes were on the new guy, and suddenly I felt bad for him. I knew what that felt like. I'd been the subject of the same kinds of stares last fall, when I finally returned to school after the accident. It was the worst kind of attention; no one says anything; they just look and look, judging you. I blinked, cleared my throat, and shifted my gaze to the floor.\n\n\"Sam,\" he repeated, his voice sounding deeper than I'd expected it to. \"I go by Sam.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Mrs. Bost said. \"I'm sorry. Welcome, Sam. There's an empty desk there, next to Lacey. Lacey, can you raise your hand?\"\n\nI looked up, startled. There seemed to be little need for me to put my hand in the air since Mrs. Bost was pointing straight at me, but I did anyhow, feeling my cheeks heat up as I did.\n\nSam began weaving through the rows full of students, who continued to stare like he was some kind of science project. I couldn't blame them. Not only was he new, but he was gorgeous. I mean, _really_ gorgeous.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said, settling into the seat next to mine.\n\n\"Hey,\" I replied. He scooted his desk closer to mine so that he could see my book, and as he leaned over to glance at the text, I could feel his warm breath on my arm. I looked up and was surprised to find him studying me.\n\nHis eyes locked with mine. I shifted my gaze down and fumbled with my book. When I snuck another glance, he was still looking at me.\n\nAnd for the first time since I'd seen him, Sam Stone cracked a small smile, and I felt a little tingle run up my spine. I smiled shyly back and looked away.\n\n# chapter 2\n\nSam Stone wound up in my sixth-period AP English class, too, and when he walked through the door and noticed me, he shot me a relieved look.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said, slipping into the empty seat beside me after yet another awkward, lengthy teacher introduction. \"You're in this class too.\"\n\nIt was the longest sentence I'd heard him speak all day. I merely nodded, wondering why I seemed incapable of stringing words together.\n\n\"Lacey, right?\" Sam asked, cracking another smile.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, my cheeks pinking.\n\n\"Cool name,\" he said, and for the first time, I noticed he had dimples. Not normal dimples, but almost vertical indentations along his cheeks, lines that made his face appear like it had been sculpted quite carefully by a really talented artist. \"I'm Sam.\"\n\n\"I know.\" I didn't know what else to say, so I didn't say anything. He probably thought I was rude. Or maybe just dumb. I wasn't sure which was worse.\n\nJennica came home with me after school to study for our trig quiz on Friday. Sydney and Logan were going to some homecoming planning committee meeting, so Jennica and I had to take the bus. She didn't have a car either, although she had a license, and her mom let her borrow her car sometimes on the weekends.\n\n\"How come you're so good at this, and I'm so terrible?\" Jennica grumbled as we sat down at the kitchen table and cracked our math books. Mom, who seemed to work 24-7, was still at the office, and Tanner had come home minutes after us and locked himself in his room, so we had the rest of the house to ourselves.\n\nI shrugged. \"You're not terrible,\" I said. \"I'm just good at math, the way you're good at swimming.\"\n\nJennica was the captain of our school's swim team, even though she was only a junior. She snorted. \"Yeah, because swimming is a real life skill,\" she said. \"I'll definitely be able to use that someday.\"\n\nI knew she was worried about getting into colleges, but I tried to laugh it off. \"You never know,\" I said. \"You could have to save a drowning child or something someday.\"\n\n\"Why does it always have be a drowning kid in these rescue fantasies?\" she asked with a smile. \"Can't it be a drowning movie star or something?\"\n\n\"Right,\" I said. \"I can just imagine you pulling Robert Pattinson out of the ocean.\"\n\n\"Or Shia LaBeouf,\" she said. She paused and giggled. \"It could happen.\"\n\n\"You'd probably have to give them mouth-to-mouth,\" I deadpanned. \"You know, to save them, of course.\"\n\n\"You're right. I should definitely go into a career as a celebrity rescue swimmer,\" Jennica said. She glanced down at the book. \"But until then, you'd better teach me about sines and cosines. Just so I have a backup plan if Rob and Shia don't wash up in Plymouth.\"\n\nI grinned, and for the next forty-five minutes, I slowly went through the equations and formulas we'd talked about in class, and sketched little diagrams to demonstrate everything to her. I was used to this; Jennica always had problems absorbing things in class, and she usually needed some extra explanation, especially in math and science. Her dad, Mr. Arroyo, had been calling me \"Miracle Worker Mann\" since I helped Jennica bring up a D-plus to a B-minus in seventh-grade earth science.\n\nBut I didn't mind at all. I kind of liked my role as her unofficial tutor, especially now, because it gave me some uninterrupted time with her, without Brian nibbling at her neck or trying to slip his arm protectively around her. It felt like it used to feel when it was just the two of us. I wished I could slow down time or freeze the frame so that I could savor it. But like everything good, the moment was fleeting and would be gone before I knew it.\n\n\"You got anything to eat?\" Jennica asked after she'd successfully completed a problem.\n\n\"I'll look.\" I crossed the kitchen and swung the refrigerator door open. \"Not really.\"\n\n\"You must have _something_ in there,\" Jennica protested. \"I'm starving.\"\n\nI frowned at the illuminated shelves. There were a quarter carton of expired milk, five Diet Cokes, three eggs, some carrots, and two slices of pizza left from Saturday night's dinner. Dad used to do the grocery shopping, and after the accident, Mom just forgot sometimes. She worked long hours in Boston, and most nights when she got home, she was too tired to cook.\n\nI'd thought it would get better in July, after the vehicular homicide trial ended. The woman who hit us had been high on drugs. The police couldn't figure out what she was doing in our neighborhood; she lived nine miles away, in North Carver. Mom had gone to the trial every day and had even spoken at the woman's sentencing, but she'd only gotten four years, a suspended license, and a fine. I couldn't believe that was all my dad's life was worth.\n\nI'd hoped that after the sentencing, Mom would have a little bit of closure and would go back to acting somewhat normal. But instead, she'd just started working even more. We hardly ever saw her. She had Pizza Hut, Papa John's, and Fung Wa Chinese in the #1, #2, and #3 spots on speed dial; most of the time, she called from the office to ask me to order food because she wouldn't be home in time for dinner.\n\nI cracked the pizza box and inspected the slices. No mold growing on them yet. I shrugged and pulled the box out. \"How about pizza?\" I asked Jennica. \"What kind?\"\n\nI checked out the slices more closely. \"Pepperoni and sausage, I think.\"\n\nShe wrinkled her nose. \"I don't eat meat anymore,\" she said. \"But I guess I could pick it off.\"\n\nI stared at her. \"You don't eat meat anymore?\"\n\n\"I'm trying to lose weight,\" she mumbled.\n\n\"Since when?\" I asked. Jennica had always had curves I was jealous of, and she stayed in great shape, thanks to swimming. I'd had enough Twizzler and Doritos binges at sleepovers with her to know that she'd never been concerned about stuff like that in the past.\n\nShe looked down. \"I just don't want Brian to think I'm fat.\"\n\n\"Did he say that?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nI paused, unsure what to say. \"So why are you worried?\"\n\nShe didn't say anything for a long time. Then, in a voice I could barely hear, she said, \"I don't know. What if that's why my dad left my mom? Because she got fat?\"\n\n\"Did your dad say that?\" I asked.\n\nShe shook her head. \"It's just my dad started dating Leanne, like, right away and she's super skinny. And now my mom's put on, like, thirty pounds, and Leanne keeps shrinking. And he's always talking about how beautiful she is.\"\n\nI took a deep breath. I knew it made me a terrible friend, but I had trouble hearing about Jennica's problems with her mom and dad. I felt bad for her that they had just gotten divorced\u2014they had separated just a month after the accident\u2014but the way Jennica talked about it drove me crazy. It was like her world was ending because her mom and dad no longer lived under the same roof.\n\nBut at least they were both alive.\n\nI didn't say that, though. I didn't tell her that her problems paled in comparison to mine. Because that would make me a really horrible friend, wouldn't it? So instead, I pasted on a smile. \"I'm sure that had nothing to do with your parents' divorce.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" Jennica asked.\n\nI paused. \"I just do,\" I said. \"Besides, that has nothing to do with you and Brian. He's totally in love with you.\"\n\nJennica looked down again. \"Yeah,\" she said softly.\n\nI microwaved the pizza for Jennica. After she'd eaten it, dutifully picking off all traces of meat, we did some more sample questions for the trig quiz. She left around five; Logan came traipsing through the front door at six after making out with Sydney in the driveway; and Mom called around seven to say she wouldn't be home for a few hours and to go ahead and eat without her. Like that was anything new.\n\nI ordered fried rice, sweet-and-sour chicken, and beef with broccoli from Fung Wa, and Logan, Tanner, and I ate in silence, none of us making eye contact. After dinner, the boys retreated to their rooms, shutting the doors behind them. I cleaned up the kitchen table, put the leftovers in Tupperware, and loaded the dishwasher. Then I sat down to crack open my fortune cookie.\n\n_The one you love is closer than you think_ , the fortune read. At first I snorted, thinking it meant some guy I loved. And since I didn't love any guy, that was impossible. Then I wondered if it meant something else. I glanced at the ceiling, imagining Logan and Tanner in their rooms, with their stereos on, already entirely separated from the reality of our family. I thought of Mom, forty miles away in Boston and a thousand miles away emotionally.\n\nFinally, I thought of Dad. \"The one you love is closer than you think,\" I said aloud. I looked up and wondered why I didn't believe the words. Well-intentioned adults always told me that my dad was in heaven, watching over me and my mom and brothers. It was an easy thing to say, but if it was true, why couldn't I feel him anymore? Why couldn't I feel anything?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI had just gotten Tanner to bed, and Logan was locked in his room talking on his cell phone, when Mom walked through the door later that evening. I noticed right away that her eyes were bloodshot.\n\n\"What are you doing still up?\" she asked, staring at me as she came in through the garage door.\n\nI was sitting in the kitchen, reading _The Great Gatsby_ for English class. I liked it way more than I'd expected to, and I'd read past what we were required to read for class this week. I glanced at the clock and realized it was just past eleven. \"I guess I lost track of time.\"\n\n\"You really need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, Lacey, or you're going to be tired for school. We've talked about this before. You can't be irresponsible.\"\n\nHearing her say that made my insides twist. Irresponsible was the last thing I was. But I knew the conversation wasn't really about me being up past eleven. \"Are you okay?\" I asked.\n\nShe looked away. \"I'm fine,\" she said. \"Is there some dinner left over?\"\n\nI hopped up. \"I'll make you a plate.\"\n\n\"I don't need\u2014\" Mom began, but I cut her off.\n\n\"Don't worry, I'll get it,\" I said. \"Just sit down and relax.\"\n\nShe opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Instead, she sank slowly into a seat at the kitchen table, kicked off her heels, and sighed.\n\n\"So,\" I said as I scooped cold fried rice and sweet-and-sour chicken onto a plate, \"do you want to talk about it?\"\n\n\"Talk about what?\"\n\n\"Whatever's wrong,\" I said. I slid the plate into the microwave, set it for a minute thirty, and pushed Start. I turned and looked her in the eye. \"You've been crying.\"\n\n\"No, I haven't,\" Mom protested.\n\n\"Can you at least not lie to me?\" I said. She looked away. \"Is it about money?\"\n\n\"What would make you think that?\" she asked. \"You know Dad had a life insurance policy and that I'm making plenty. Why do you keep worrying about that?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"You always seem worried.\"\n\nShe didn't say anything. The microwave beeped. I pulled the plate out and slid it in front of her, along with a fork. I sat down beside her and tried a different tactic. \"You were at the office late today.\"\n\nMom didn't look at me as she speared a piece of chicken and took a bite. \"I had a lot to do,\" she said after she'd swallowed.\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"I don't want to bore you with it,\" she said. \"Lawyer stuff.\" She took another bite.\n\nI knew that was code for _Stop asking me questions_ , so I changed the subject. \"Tanner has to do a diorama for school,\" I said. \"They're supposed to make scale models of their bedrooms. So he'll probably need some supplies.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Mom said. \"If you e-mail me a list, I'll pick up the materials on my way home from work tomorrow.\"\n\n\"He'll probably need some help with it,\" I prompted. \"I don't think he's done a diorama before.\"\n\nMom took another bite and glanced up. \"Lacey, I've got a really busy week. My caseload is just unbelievable.\" She scooped up some rice and added, \"Maybe you can help him. You're good at that kind of thing.\"\n\n\"At dioramas?\" I couldn't resist asking.\n\nMom shrugged. \"You're more creative than me,\" she said. \"And you have more time. You'd be doing me a big favor, honey. Please?\"\n\n\"Yeah, okay.\" I paused and tried to decide how to phrase what I wanted to say. \"Look, maybe you could spend some time with Tanner this weekend or something, though. I'm really worried about him.\"\n\n\"Lacey, he's always been quiet. You can't keep worrying about everybody and everything.\"\n\n\"But if I don't,\" I said before I could think about it, \"who will?\"\n\nMom held my gaze. Then she stood up from the table and scraped the remainder of her food into the trash can. She put her plate in the sink and turned to me. \"I'm going to go to bed,\" she said. \"You should get some sleep too, honey.\"\n\nI watched her walk out of the kitchen. She reminded me a little of a ghost. She'd lost a lot of weight since the accident, and now, instead of walking with the purposeful stride of an attorney who knew what she wanted out of life, the way she used to, she seemed to shuffle from place to place, a vacant look on her pale face. I wondered whether she acted like this at her office, too, and if anyone noticed.\n\nI cleaned up the kitchen, rinsed Mom's plate, started the dishwasher, and walked upstairs to my room, wondering how it was possible to have an entire conversation without saying anything at all.\n\n# chapter 3\n\nBy Wednesday, Sam Stone had gotten his own textbooks, so he didn't have to share with me anymore in trig. And it wasn't like we had any other reason to talk to each other. The rumor was he had moved from somewhere out in western Massachusetts, but I didn't feel like it was my place to ask him why. If anyone knew what it felt like to be drilled with unwelcome questions, it was me.\n\nAt lunch that day, I was sitting with Jennica and Brian as usual. He had his right arm draped around her, which I figured must make it tough to eat.\n\n\"So that new guy, Sam?\" Jennica asked. I looked up, startled that she seemed to be reading my mind. \"You know,\" she continued, \"that guy from our trig class?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said.\n\n\"So he's hot, huh?\" She leaned forward and grinned at me.\n\n\"Jennica!\" Brian exclaimed, feigning hurt as he pulled her closer.\n\n\"Aw, baby, he's not as hot as you,\" she said.\n\nBrian stuck out his bottom lip in a mock sulk. \"Really?\"\n\nJennica giggled. \"You're the hottest of the hot.\" She gave him a quick kiss on the lips.\n\n\"No, _you're_ the hottest of the hot,\" Brian said in an equally disgusting voice.\n\n\"No, you are,\" Jennica said, batting her eyelashes.\n\n\"No, you are, pookie,\" Brian said, leaning forward to kiss her.\n\n_Pookie?_\n\n\"I think I just threw up a little in my mouth,\" I muttered. I stood, and the two of them looked up from their love haze.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Jennica asked, blinking at me.\n\n\"Nothing. I'm just not hungry anymore. I'll see you later.\" I grabbed my tray and waited for her to ask me where I was going\u2014after all, there weren't exactly a lot of exciting lunchtime options at Plymouth East\u2014but she had already turned back to Brian.\n\nI threw out my trash and headed out the door to the mostly empty halls. We were allowed to make brief trips to our lockers during lunchtime, but we got in trouble for hanging around too long, so I figured I'd just switch out my morning books for my afternoon ones and go outside. It was overcast, but it hadn't rained yet, and there was a bench under the big oak tree near the senior parking where I sat when I didn't feel like sitting with Romeo and Juliet in the cafeteria.\n\nI had just opened my locker and was digging around in the back, trying to find my compact mirror, when a deep voice coming from the other side of my locker door startled me.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\nI swung the door closed and found myself face to face with Sam. He was leaning casually against the lockers, his hands jammed in his pockets. I blinked at him, then dropped the English textbook I was holding. It bounced off my backpack and hit me in the calf. I winced.\n\n\"Problem?\" Sam asked, glancing down at the textbook and then back at me.\n\n\"No,\" I said quickly.\n\nSam studied me and then smiled, the corners of his mouth creeping slowly upward like a stream of syrup spreading across a pancake. \"You sure?\" he asked.\n\n\"Positive.\" I felt a little short of breath.\n\nHe bent down and picked up my backpack and my textbook in one smooth motion. \"Here,\" he said, handing them to me. \"You might need these.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" I stared at my feet, willing my face to stop flaming. What was wrong with me? I was reliable, mature Lacey Mann, who could be trusted to behave like a grown-up in any situation. And here I was acting like, well, Sydney.\n\n\"So.\" Sam put his hands back in his pockets. His warm green eyes met mine. \"What are you doing out here in the hallway? Shouldn't you be eating with that friend of yours in the cafeteria? Jennica?\"\n\n\"It's no big deal,\" I said. \"She's with her boyfriend. I just felt like walking around.\"\n\n\"Guess you don't want to watch her and her boyfriend all over each other,\" he said.\n\nI looked up sharply. \"What? No. That's not it.\"\n\nSam looked like he didn't believe me. \"It would bother me.\"\n\nI paused. \"Okay,\" I admitted. \"Maybe it bothers me a little.\" I cleared my throat, suddenly desperate to change the subject. \"So, um, your old school,\" I said. \"Where is it? I mean, where did you come from?\"\n\n\"Taunton.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said. \"I've been there.\" It was about thirty minutes away.\n\n\"Oh yeah?\"\n\nI nodded. \"My brother Logan played in a baseball tournament there a few years ago.\" _Back when he still played baseball_ , I added silently. _Back when things were normal_.\n\n\"Cool,\" Sam said. \"I used to play ball. Maybe I played against him. Are you a baseball fan?\"\n\n\"Definitely.\"\n\n\"Sox?\" he asked.\n\nI nodded again. \"My dad always takes my brothers and me to Fenway a few times each summer.\" Then I stopped abruptly, the words caught in my throat as I realized what I'd just said.\n\n\"Cool,\" Sam said, oblivious. \"I haven't met a lot of girls who like baseball. Did you guys make it to a lot of games this year?\"\n\nI swallowed hard. \"No,\" I said without elaborating.\n\nSam seemed to register that something was off. He un-slouched from the locker and drew himself up to his full height. He was taller than I had realized.\n\n\"You okay?\" he asked.\n\n\"Fine,\" I said.\n\n\"Okay,\" Sam said uncertainly. He gave me a half smile. \"I'll see you in class then, cool?\" He turned and walked away.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe rest of the week sped by, the way the weeks in the fall always did, when your new grade and new classes still felt fresh and exciting. Sam had begun smiling at me in class now and saying hi in the halls like we were friends. I always smiled back and then looked quickly away, as if locking eyes with him would be a dead giveaway that I was beginning to develop a crush.\n\nIt's not like it was wrong to feel that way about him. It was just that I figured I didn't have much of a chance. Why bother liking him if the chances of him liking me back as more than a friend were slim to none? Summer Andrews was already flirting with him, and on Thursday, I saw him sitting at her popular senior table for lunch. I wasn't an outsider\u2014I was on student council and played lacrosse in the spring, and people liked me just fine\u2014but I wasn't a cheerleader either. I was brainy, quiet Lacey who everyone thought of as sweet instead of sexy. And despite what my dad used to tell me freshman year, when I'd come home sometimes on the verge of tears, there wasn't a single guy at Plymouth East who would go for a nice girl over an easy one.\n\nOn Saturday morning, I was lying in bed, half-awake, trying to stop thinking about Sam, when the sounds from downstairs snapped my eyes open. I glanced over at the clock: 6:06. Too early for me to be awake. Too early for the TV in the living room to be on. But there was no such thing as too early or too late in our house anymore.\n\nI sat up and listened, wondering what Tanner was watching. It was a pretty safe bet that it was either a cartoon or something to do with animals. He was obsessed with animals. Sure enough, when I went down the stairs a few minutes later and rounded the corner into the dark living room, my little brother was sitting a foot from the TV, his face bathed in the glow from the screen. I could see a giraffe ambling through the wilderness.\n\n\"Good morning,\" I said casually, as if it were normal for him to be sitting there, looking like he wanted to climb inside the TV and escape into the wild himself. Tanner turned his head slightly and nodded before returning his attention to the screen.\n\nI went into the kitchen to make us some breakfast. I was determined to pretend that everything was normal until it actually was.\n\nAfter scanning the fridge to see if Mom had picked anything up on her way home last night\u2014she had\u2014I turned the stove on and slipped three pieces of wheat toast in the toaster. I pulled out a frying pan, put it on the burner, sprayed it with PAM, and cracked three eggs into it, making sure their edges didn't touch, the way Dad always used to when he made breakfast for us.\n\nA few minutes later, I scooped the eggs, their yolks still runny, out of the pan and onto the toast. When I walked back to the living room, Tanner accepted his plate without even looking up. He was riveted to the screen.\n\n\"So what are you watching?\" I asked after I'd set two juice glasses down and taken a bite of my toast. I knew it was _The Crocodile Hunter_ , one of Tanner's favorite shows, but I wanted him to say it. Ever since the accident, he had retreated further and further into himself, and now he hardly said a word, not even to his friend Jay, who came over to play video games once a week. Although, come to think of it, I hadn't seen Jay for a while now. I wondered if he'd finally given up on Tanner.\n\nNobody seemed to care but me. I had tried bringing it up with Mom, but she just shrugged and said that it wasn't all that abnormal and that Tanner would deal with things in his own time. But what did she know? She saw her legal assistant ten times more often than she saw her kids; Tanner was usually asleep by the time she got home. I had also tried talking about Tanner with Dr. Schiff, the psychologist my mom made us visit every other Saturday. But she had just told me that it wasn't my responsibility. \"You're just a kid,\" she would always say.\n\nIt always made my blood boil.\n\nAs usual, Tanner didn't answer my question. Instead, he grabbed the remote and hit the Info button until the name of the show appeared at the bottom of the screen. He shot me a look and returned his attention to the TV.\n\n\"This looks like a good one!\" I said enthusiastically, as if we were having a normal conversation. I fished for something else to say. \"I really like how he explains everything so well. And his accent is really cool. Don't you think?\"\n\nTanner nodded without taking his eyes off the screen. He took another bite of his toast. I pushed mine away. I didn't feel hungry anymore. I made some more cheerful, one-sided small talk before I gave up. Tanner obviously wasn't going to respond. And I had run out of things to say.\n\n\"Okay, Tanner,\" I said, feigning cheerfulness. \"I'm going to go hop in the shower.\"\n\nI had just crossed the living room into the kitchen when I heard Tanner's voice. I stopped and turned around.\n\n\"What?\" I asked.\n\nHe was silent for a minute, and I started to doubt that he'd said anything at all. Maybe I'd imagined it. But then he spoke again.\n\n\"You know, he died too,\" he said clearly, still staring at the TV screen. \"The Crocodile Hunter. A stingray got him.\" He looked at me, evidently expecting some kind of response.\n\nI gulped. \"Yeah, I know.\"\n\n\"No one saved him either,\" he said. Then, he turned the volume up. The conversation was over.\n\nI stood there, my heart thudding in my chest. Guilt and responsibility weighed down on me, squeezing me from the inside out.\n\nA hundred times a day, I thought about how different life would be if I hadn't insisted on taking those extra moments in the bathroom. Or if I had cried out to warn Dad, in that instant before the Suburban hit us. Instead, I hadn't reacted. It had been the only important thing I'd ever had to do in my life, and I'd failed. It was like Tanner said. Nobody saved the Crocodile Hunter.\n\nAnd I hadn't done anything to save my dad.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBy the beginning of the next week, Sam Stone was the talk of the school. Summer Andrews had apparently decided that he was her big new love interest. It didn't seem to matter to anyone else that Summer actually _had_ a boyfriend, Rob Macavey, a senior with big arms, close-cropped dark hair, and eyes that were just a little too close together. Jennica and I agreed that he'd clearly been hit in the head one too many times on the football field.\n\nBut Summer, who didn't even have a class with Sam, had decided that she had a crush on him, and so the whole school knew she had called dibs. I couldn't understand why she couldn't just limit the number of guys she tried to pounce on.\n\nIn class, Sam and I were apparently friends now. I supposed it was because he didn't know anyone very well yet, and since he sat next to me in two classes, I was a logical person to strike up a conversation with. I was surprised to realize how much I liked talking to him, though. It started to be a routine that he would sit down in trig, grin at me, and rattle off the Red Sox score from the previous night, as well as some kind of commentary about a player who screwed things up\u2014even if the Sox ended up winning. I'd been a Sox fan for years and could practically recite the roster in my sleep, but I'd never known a boy before who would talk to me about sports like I knew what I was talking about. It was nice.\n\nAfter school on Wednesday, I was surprised to find Sam waiting for me by my locker. I'd had plans to go to the mall with Jennica and then study with her later, but she had texted me after the final bell to say that something had come up with her mom and she couldn't make it. Concerned, I'd texted her back to see what was wrong. Don't worry, she had written. Brian's with me.\n\n\"There you are,\" Sam said as I approached.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"So how's it going?\" Sam asked. Was it my imagination, or did he seem nervous?\n\n\"Good,\" I said. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he wanted.\n\n\"So I hear you're really good at trig,\" he said. \"Right?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"I guess.\"\n\n\"I was just wondering if maybe you could help me study for the test on Monday,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah, okay.\" I forced a smile. I was Lacey, the reliable study buddy. I just wasn't sure how he'd figured this out so quickly. \"I was going to study with Jennica tomorrow, so you can come over too, if you want.\"\n\n\"Cool, thanks.\" He paused. \"So, do you need a ride home or something?\"\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nI glanced around. Jennica was gone. I'd probably already missed the bus. And riding with Sam would be preferable to riding with Logan and Sydney any day. \"Okay,\" I said. \"That would be great.\"\n\nI pulled a few books out of my locker and shut it. Sam surprised me by taking my backpack off my arm, slipping my books into it, and tossing it over his shoulder. \"C'mon,\" he said.\n\nI followed him outside. He opened the door of his Jeep for me and tossed our bookbags in the back. I told him how to get to my house, and soon we were cruising down Court Street. The silence between us was beginning to feel stifling.\n\nFinally, I blurted out, \"So are you going out with Summer Andrews?\" I felt like an idiot the moment the question left my mouth.\n\nSam looked at me in surprise. \"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" I mumbled. It wasn't my business.\n\n\"Summer Andrews?\" he asked after a pause. \"That senior girl?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"What would make you think that?\"\n\n\"I just heard she liked you.\"\n\nSam seemed to consider this for a minute. \"She seems nice enough,\" he said. \"But I barely know her.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that'll change.\"\n\nSam turned left on Samoset. \"She's not really my type.\"\n\n\"Really?\" I was baffled. Who was this new breed of boy, immune to Summer's powers? \"Oh.\"\n\n\"I like girls who are smart,\" Sam continued. \"You know, girls who don't flirt with every guy in the school. Girls who have a little substance to them. I get the feeling I'm not exactly describing Summer.\"\n\n\"You're right about that,\" I muttered.\n\nWe rode in silence for a few minutes as I tried to process what he'd said. He barely knew me either, but he'd sought me out in the hallway after school. Maybe it _wasn't_ just to study.\n\nI was just beginning to feel like maybe I'd gotten it all wrong, when we pulled up in front of my house and Sam turned to me. His eyes looked even brighter than ever, and even when he wasn't smiling, the vague indentations of his dimples remained.\n\n\"Listen,\" he said. He was definitely nervous now. \"I was thinking that maybe we could go out sometime. If you want to. I mean, it would be cool to hang out outside of class, you know?\"\n\nWas he asking me out? A smile rolled across my face before I could stop it. \"That sounds good.\"\n\nSam looked like he wanted to say something else. It was so nice, I thought in the silence, to finally have someone look at me for me, not as someone they had to feel sorry for or tiptoe around. Last winter, after the accident, several Plymouth East guys had messaged me on MySpace or stopped me in the halls, and I knew that it was just because I was a minor celebrity for a few weeks. That's when Sydney had first taken an interest in Logan too; it's when we became _somebodies_.\n\nAnd now, for the first time since the accident, I finally felt like someone was seeing me for something other than that-poor-girl-whose-dad-is-dead. Sam didn't know my history. He didn't know he was supposed to feel sorry for me or whisper about me behind my back or purposely avoid mentioning anything to do with fathers.\n\nAnd just when I was feeling good, Sam opened his mouth and ruined everything. \"I heard about your dad,\" he said.\n\nI could practically feel the walls coming up around me. The smile fell from my face, and everything went cold. I didn't say anything. I just stared at Sam.\n\nHe looked uncomfortable. \"Listen, I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, it's old news.\" My voice was full of ice.\n\n\"If you ever want to talk about it...,\" Sam said, his voice trailing off.\n\n\"Look, I don't need some hero to make it all better, if that's what you're trying to do,\" I snapped. \"I'm _fine_. It happened a long time ago.\"\n\n\"I'm not trying to do that.\" Sam looked surprised. I could have sworn I saw hurt flicker across his face too, but I didn't care. Who was _he_ to be hurt? \"I just meant, well, I know how you feel,\" he added.\n\nI could taste bile in my mouth. I stared at him. Of all the things people said to me to try to make me feel better, I hated that sentence the most. Sam Stone didn't know how I felt. How could he? I was sick and tired of people who'd had a grandparent die and thought it was the same thing. Or even worse, people who'd had to bury a pet iguana or the dog they'd grown up with. Sure, I felt sad for them, but how could they possibly compare that to losing a parent?\n\n\"You have no idea how I feel,\" I said coldly. I reached into the backseat and grabbed my bookbag. I couldn't get out of the Jeep fast enough.\n\n\"But Lacey\u2014\"\n\n\"Forget it,\" I said firmly. I fumbled with the door handle and spilled out with my things. I could feel Sam watching me all the way to my front door, but I didn't turn around.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI was overreacting. I knew it. But I couldn't melt the wall of ice that had formed around my heart in those last few minutes in Sam's Jeep. I hated it when people tried to help me, especially now. Couldn't they see I was dealing just fine? _I_ was the person holding my family together. I didn't need anyone's help or pity. Especially not some new guy's. I wondered if he had roved the halls of his old school too, looking for sad girls to save.\n\nSo I steadfastly ignored Sam, even when he tried to pass me a note the next morning in trig class, even when he threw a paper airplane at my arm to get my attention. I didn't want to talk to him. He wasn't the person I thought he was; he was nosy, just like the rest of them.\n\nThat was what I was thinking about when Brooke Newell arrived in the doorway with a note in her hand. She was one of the seniors who was community college-bound already and was taking an office-assistant class for credit. She handed Mrs. Bost the note, snuck a look around the classroom, waved to Krista Sivrich, and then hurried away.\n\nMrs. Bost unfolded the note and read it. When she looked up, she stared right at me.\n\n\"Miss Mann,\" she said, \"your presence is requested in Mr. Miller's office.\"\n\nA murmur went through the class, and I swallowed hard. Mr. Miller was the main principal. You didn't get sent to him unless something was really wrong. I certainly hadn't done anything to get myself in trouble, so my first thought was _Mom_. Had something happened to her? Or to Tanner? Could something have happened to Logan since I got out of the car thirty minutes ago?\n\nI stood up and stuffed my notebook and pen into my bag.\n\n\"Does it say why he wants to see me?\" I asked, hating that my voice sounded nearly as panicked as I felt. Someone in the back of the room snickered, and I heard someone else say, \"Ooh, she's in _trouble!\"_\n\n\"No,\" Mrs. Bost said. I glanced at Jennica, who looked worried. Then, just because I couldn't help it, I locked eyes with Sam.\n\n\"Want me to come with you?\" he asked, like it was the most normal question in the world. I opened my mouth to say no, but Mrs. Bost preempted me.\n\n\"I think Lacey is capable of finding the principal's office by herself,\" she said, giving Sam a look.\n\nSam glanced at me again and shrugged. I could feel my cheeks getting hot. I strode quickly into the hall before my throat could close up entirely.\n\n# chapter 4\n\nMr. Miller's secretary ushered me into his office right away, which only added to my already heightened sense of panic.\n\n\"Is my mom okay?\" I asked immediately, without bothering to say hello. \"And my brothers?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" Mr. Miller said hastily. He looked a little confused. \"Of course. As far as I know.\"\n\nI felt the air I'd been holding in leave my body in a whoosh. \"Thank God,\" I said.\n\nMr. Miller was silent for a minute, as if waiting for me to say something else. He gestured to a chair facing his desk, and I sat down. He continued to stand, staring down at me. He was tall, well over six feet, and he had a comically thick shock of dark hair\u2014too uniformly brown for a man over the age of fifty\u2014that looked out of place on his egg-shaped head. \"He's had hair transplant surgery, for sure,\" Dad used to murmur to me whenever we'd see Mr. Miller at football games and school concerts.\n\nThat's what I was thinking about when Mr. Miller cleared his throat. \"Lacey, do you know Kelsi Hamilton?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. \"Her mom has cancer.\" The moment the words were out of my mouth, I hated myself a little bit for saying them. It was the way everyone identified me: by the sad thing that had happened in my life.\n\nI'd known Kelsi since elementary school, and I'd had a class with her last year, but she was quiet, and we hadn't sat near each other, so we barely ever talked. I knew as well as anyone else in the school that her mom had been diagnosed with lung cancer back in May. Bad news tended to travel fast, whispered near lockers between classes, until everyone was walking around with a piece of your life stuck in their back pocket like a trading card.\n\n\"Lacey, Kelsi's mother passed away last Saturday,\" Mr. Miller said.\n\n\"Oh no,\" I said, my heart sinking for Kelsi. \"That's awful.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, sitting down. He pressed his hands together. \"Lacey, I need to ask you a favor. And please, feel free to say no.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Kelsi is back in school today,\" he said. \"For the first time since her mother, um....\"\n\n\"Died,\" I filled in. It was sometimes hard for people to actually say the word. I had gotten used to filling it in, in awkward silences, like I was playing a constant game of Mad Libs with only one word to put in the blanks.\n\n\"Yes,\" Mr. Miller said. \"I was wondering whether you might... spend some time with her.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nMr. Miller cleared his throat. \"Kelsi's father called this morning, and of course she's still very upset. He was hesitant to send her back to school, but apparently she insisted. Now, last year, when your father passed...\" He paused awkwardly. \"Well, I know you had Logan to help you through. At school, anyhow.\"\n\nI resisted the urge to snort. What exactly had Logan done to help me?\n\n\"So I'd like to ask you, as a favor to me\u2014well, to Kelsi, really\u2014if you'd talk to her,\" Mr. Miller concluded.\n\n\"Talk to her?\" I echoed.\n\n\"You know. Just let her know that you're there for her.\"\n\n\"Oh. Of course,\" I said right away. After all, Kelsi had to know that I'd understand in a way other people couldn't. I wished I'd had someone like that when my dad died, instead of feeling like such an oddball. Sure, Cody Johnson's dad had died in Iraq when we were all in eighth grade, so I suppose he could identify with me when my dad died. But he never said anything. In fact, I could swear he deliberately avoided me, just like so many other people who didn't know how to act. I wished I could scream at people that I was the same person, that all they had to do was treat me normally. But apparently when you had a parent die, you became some sort of science experiment, to be poked and prodded and stared at.\n\n\"I've already spoken with your second-period teachers,\" Mr. Miller said. \"You and Kelsi are both good students, so they have no problem releasing you from class so you can have a chat. Maybe the two of you can take a walk or something.\"\n\nWell, that sounded supremely dorky. I suspected that Mr. Miller was imagining that when we came back from our stroll, Kelsi wouldn't be upset anymore. I didn't want to be the one to tell him that real life didn't exactly work that way.\n\n\"Sure,\" I said instead.\n\n\"Thank you, Lacey.\" Mr. Miller sighed and looked very relieved, like he had just had a great weight lifted off his slumped shoulders.\n\nI could feel the weight he'd just lifted settle inside my chest. \"No problem.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBack in class, I pretended I didn't notice Jennica's raised eyebrows. I also pretended I didn't see Sam staring at me. Actually, pretty much _everyone_ was looking at me. I'm sure they were all wondering what I'd done wrong to be called into the principal's office.\n\nI escaped Jennica's questions after class by mumbling something about Logan being in trouble again. I knew I should have just told her the truth. But I figured that it wasn't my place to be telling people Kelsi's bad news. I knew that the rumor would be all over school in a few hours, but I didn't want to be one of the people to spread it.\n\nThirty minutes later, I was headed back to Mr. Miller's office with a hall pass, filled with a strange kind of trepidation. I wanted to help Kelsi, but I was almost paralyzed by the fear that I wouldn't know what to say or do. _Relax, Lacey_ , I told myself. _You're holding your family together. You can definitely figure out how to help this girl_.\n\nKelsi was already sitting in Mr. Miller's office when I got there. Her carrot-colored curls, which were usually cute and perky, were hanging limply, like she hadn't thought to wash or comb her hair in days. She looked thin. She was wearing old, faded jeans and a Plymouth East marching band shirt that was too big for her. I stared for a second, realizing this was what I must have looked like in the weeks after the accident, like I didn't care, didn't even realize that people were noticing my disheveled appearance.\n\n\"Hey,\" I said to Kelsi.\n\nKelsi looked up at me. \"Hey,\" she said. Her eyes looked tired, but not like she'd been crying. Maybe she'd run out of tears. It happened sometimes.\n\nI glanced at Mr. Miller and sat down in the other chair facing his desk. Kelsi was staring at her lap now. She looked like she wanted to disappear. My heart ached a little with the familiarity of it all.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I heard myself say after a minute. I hadn't meant to say it. In fact, I hated it when people said that to me. It wasn't like _they_ were the ones who had killed my dad. What were they sorry for? But the words escaped before I could stop them.\n\nKelsi looked up. \"Yeah,\" she said. It seemed like she was having trouble focusing on me.\n\nI glanced at Mr. Miller again. \"So,\" I said, \"do you want to take a walk or something?\"\n\nThe question sounded strange, and I expected Kelsi to react like I was crazy. But instead she just shrugged. \"Whatever.\" Without looking at me, she grabbed her bookbag. \"Let's go,\" she said. I followed her out of the office, thinking for the first time that I might be in over my head.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nOutside the school building, I had to jog to keep pace with Kelsi.\n\n\"Wait up,\" I said. This probably wasn't the bonding experience Mr. Miller had visualized, me speeding after Kelsi while she practically ran to escape me.\n\nBy the time we rounded the corner, I realized she was making a beeline for her car, a lime green VW Bug. She slid behind the wheel and slammed the door. I heard the engine turn on, and for half a second, as I stood in front of the car, I half expected her to lay on the gas pedal and run me over. Instead, she just sat there, staring at me. Finally, she rolled down her window. \"Well? Are you getting in or what?\"\n\nI glanced around. \"We could get in trouble,\" I said. We could get detention for sitting inside our cars during the school day, and suspended for leaving school grounds.\n\n\"You really think anyone's going to bust you and me?\" Kelsi asked. \"The girls with the dead parents?\"\n\nShe was right. Besides, Kelsi needed me. And my responsibility to help her outweighed the risk. I took a deep breath. \"Okay,\" I agreed.\n\nI opened the car door and slid in. \"So. Are we going somewhere?\"\n\nKelsi didn't look at me. \"No,\" she said. \"Unless there's somewhere you want to go.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said quickly.\n\nThe car engine continued to hum. The air conditioner was on high, even though it was in the fifties outside.\n\nJust as the silence was getting uncomfortable, I blurted out, \"Kelsi, I'm really sorry about your mom.\"\n\nMore silence. I could feel my cheeks flaming. Mr. Miller had obviously picked the wrong person to talk to Kelsi.\n\nThen Kelsi said softly, \"Thanks.\" She glanced at me. \"I'm sorry about your dad, too. I never told you that.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" I was quiet for a moment. \"So are you okay? I mean, how are you?\"\n\nKelsi glanced back out the windshield. She squinted, like the answer to my question might be located on the brick wall of the school. \"It's not like it's a big deal or anything,\" she said finally, still not looking at me. Her words poured out in a rush, like she couldn't wait to get rid of them. \"I mean, she'd been sick for a while. We knew it was coming. I should have\u2014I should have been more prepared for it.\"\n\nI wondered what it was like to have time to say goodbye, to know the end was coming. Did you have fewer regrets? \"But it's not like that makes it any easier,\" I said.\n\n\"But it's supposed to,\" Kelsi mumbled. \"Isn't it?\"\n\nShe was looking at me like I had all the answers. The truth was, I wasn't even sure what the questions were anymore. \"I don't think so,\" I said finally.\n\nI tried to think of something else to say, the kind of thing I would have wanted someone to say to me. But nothing was coming to me. I sat back in the seat.\n\n\"Can you just go away now?\" Kelsi asked. \"I want to be alone.\"\n\nI looked at her, surprised. \"Um, yeah, sure,\" I said, hoping she wasn't depressed enough to do something stupid. \"Are you sure you're okay?\"\n\nShe glanced at me. \"What do _you_ think? Are _you_ okay?\"\n\nI was taken aback. \"Yeah,\" I said.\n\nShe snorted and looked away. \"Yeah. You're very convincing.\"\n\nHer words startled me. I was fine. I was happy. I had gone back to being normal. \"I _am_ okay,\" I insisted.\n\n\"Whatever,\" Kelsi said. \"But look, I really just want to be alone.\"\n\nI grabbed my bag and opened the car door. \"If you need anything, you can ask me, okay? I mean, I've been through this.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Kelsi said. She paused and then added, \"Thanks.\" The word was so soft I could barely hear it.\n\n# chapter 5\n\n\"You have to help me,\" I told Logan at lunch. As I plunked down beside him in the cafeteria, Sydney looked at me like I'd just arrived from outer space. In Plymouth East terms, maybe I had.\n\n\"Hi,\" Sydney said, glancing around, probably calculating how much my presence at the table was reducing her social status.\n\n\"I have to help you?\" Logan said. \"With what?\"\n\n\"With Kelsi Hamilton,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh yeah, I heard her mom died,\" Logan said casually, like it was no big deal. \"Bummer.\"\n\n\"It's all over school,\" Sydney chipped in. \"Did you only just hear about it? I've known since, like, nine this morning.\"\n\n\"Now it's a contest?\" I asked. I refrained from adding that I'd known earlier than that.\n\nSydney mumbled something and made a face. I turned back to Logan. \"Yeah, Lo, her mom died. It's horrible.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I guess. I mean, it's not like we really know her.\"\n\n\"I know her,\" I said.\n\nLogan raised an eyebrow. \"Since when?\"\n\n\"Since... always,\" I said. I didn't think what had happened this morning was any of his business. But I let myself gloat, just a little bit, that Mr. Miller had asked for my help, not his.\n\n\"Okay,\" Logan said. \"But what does that have to do with me?\"\n\nI took a deep breath and began to explain the idea I'd been thinking about since I'd gotten out of Kelsi's car two hours ago. \"It has everything to do with you. I thought maybe one day this week we could get Cody Johnson and the three of us could get together with Kelsi after school.\"\n\nLogan and Sydney stared at me like I'd suggested that we eat worms. \"Why would we do that?\" Logan asked.\n\n\"To show her that she's not alone.\"\n\nLogan rolled his eyes, and exchanged looks with Sydney. \"Lacey,\" he said slowly, like he was talking to a child, \"just because our dad died doesn't mean you have to fix everyone else who loses a parent.\"\n\nI stared back. \"I'm not doing that. Maybe I just want to help. What's wrong with that?\"\n\nLogan shook his head. I was surprised to see anger in his eyes. \"You know, Lacey, maybe for once you could just let things go, you know? Can't you just grow up and move on?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" I demanded, suddenly aware that my voice had risen an octave.\n\n\"You know exactly what I'm talking about.\"\n\nI stood up abruptly. \"You know, Logan, I'm just asking for a little help,\" I said. \"But if you can't do that, forget I ever said anything.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI was still simmering when Jennica met me at my locker after school. \"We still on for studying today?\" she asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" I said. \"Why wouldn't we be?\"\n\nShe cleared her throat. \"I don't know. I heard about Kelsi. I thought maybe you had to go talk to her or something. Is that why Mr. Miller called you in this morning?\"\n\nI averted my eyes.\n\n\"How come you couldn't tell me that when I asked you?\" she said. There was accusation in her voice.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said. \"I guess I didn't feel like it was my business to talk about it.\"\n\n\"But I'm your best friend.\" She paused. \"Is it because you think I wouldn't understand?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said too quickly. \"Of course not.\"\n\n\"You know, Lacey, having someone die isn't the only way to lose a parent.\"\n\nI just looked at her. _Not again_ , said the voice in my head.\n\n\"It was hard for me when my parents got divorced,\" she went on. \"But you act like it's no big deal, just because my dad is still alive.\"\n\nI bit my tongue. Hard. I didn't want to get into this with her. I knew it bothered Jennica that I didn't ask her about her parents' divorce very often. And it wasn't that I didn't care. It was just that I couldn't compare a divorce to a death. She could tell her dad she loved him any time she decided to. My chances, on the other hand, were all gone. Forever.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said finally.\n\nJennica sighed. \"I know.\"\n\nI was just about to say something else when I saw Sam approaching. I began shoving books from my locker into my bag. Jennica furrowed her brow. \"What's wrong with you?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said, just as Sam walked up. Jennica looked at him, then at me, and stepped back.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. He smiled at me. \"So, are you two still studying this afternoon?\"\n\nI shrugged.\n\n\"Can I still study with you?\" Sam tried again.\n\nI took a deep breath. I didn't want to care. But I did. \"I don't think that's a good idea.\"\n\n\"I don't even know what I said to make you upset,\" Sam said. He was standing so close that I could feel his breath on my hair. It gave me goose bumps. \"Look, can I talk to you for a minute? There's something I really need to tell you.\"\n\nI looked away. \"Maybe later,\" I said, trying to sound casual. \"Jennica and I are in a rush now. We've got to catch a ride with my brother and his girlfriend before they leave without us.\"\n\nI slammed my locker door shut, grabbed Jennica's arm, and walked away before Sam could say anything else.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nJennica waited to bring Sam up until we were sitting at my kitchen table forty-five minutes later with two Diet Cokes, a bag of microwave popcorn, some Twizzlers Jennica had brought, and our trig books open in front of us.\n\n\"So, are you going to explain what that was all about?\" she asked.\n\nI fiddled with the edge of the popcorn bag and then popped a few pieces in my mouth. \"It's nothing.\"\n\nJennica chomped on a piece of licorice. \"Try again.\"\n\nI sighed. \"Fine. He drove me home yesterday, and I actually thought for, like, a minute that maybe he liked me. Then he said he'd heard about my dad and that he knew how I felt.\" I made a face.\n\n\"Okay,\" Jennica said, waiting for me to go on. \"And?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"That's it.\"\n\n\"Let me get this straight,\" she said. \"The hot new guy, who every girl at school\u2014including Summer Andrews\u2014is into, offers you a ride, has clearly been asking around about you, and says something thoughtful. And this is a problem _why?\"_\n\n\"Jennica, there's a difference between liking someone and feeling sorry for them,\" I said. \"Don't you understand that? The last thing I need is some guy's pity.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Jennica said slowly. \"Only, what if he doesn't pity you? What if he's just trying to be nice? Because he likes you?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't need someone telling me he knows how I feel,\" I grumbled. \"You know how much I hate that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, sometimes you don't give people a chance,\" Jennica said.\n\nI resisted the urge to snap at her that the only person she gave a chance to anymore was her boyfriend. I didn't want to sound jealous. \"Jennica,\" I began. I paused, unsure of what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her that I missed her, that I missed this, that I missed _us_. I wanted to tell her that there was a huge gulf between us, and I didn't know how to cross it anymore. But before I had a chance to say anything, the doorbell rang.\n\nI swung the door open to find Jay Cash, Tanner's friend from down the street, standing there. \"Hi, Jay,\" I said, surprised to see him. His visits had been getting less and less frequent.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. He had hit a growth spurt over the summer, but he still had the same goofy grin and wore the faded, dingy Red Sox cap he'd been wearing every day for the past three years. He was holding a baseball glove. \"Is Tanner home? I was wondering if he wanted to play catch or something.\"\n\n\"Yeah, hang on,\" I said. \"He's in his room.\"\n\n\"My mom sent me down,\" Jay added, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. He looked a little guilty. _That explains it_ , I thought.\n\nI invited Jay in and went upstairs to get my brother. I knocked, and when there was no reply, I pushed the door open.\n\nTanner was squatting in the corner of his room near the window, peering into the cage where his hamster, McGee, lived. Dad had always talked about letting us get a dog, but we'd never gotten around to it. After the accident, Tanner, who had vowed he'd become a vet one day to help save all the sick animals he could, had begged for a puppy. Mom had been firm on saying no; she said we had enough to worry about. But as Tanner's silence deepened, she finally broke down and agreed to get him a hamster, as long as it stayed in his room. He'd had McGee, a chubby puff of brown and white fur, since May.\n\n\"Hey, Tanner,\" I said as I walked in. \"Jay's here. He wants you to come out and play catch with him.\"\n\nTanner was silent for a minute. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you're friends,\" I said gently. \"Right?\"\n\nTanner glanced back at McGee, who was curled up in the corner of his cage, his little hamster chest rising and falling in sleep. \"I'm busy.\"\n\n\"Tanner,\" I said, \"you're not really that busy. McGee's just sleeping. Why don't you go play with Jay for a while? You guys haven't hung out in ages.\"\n\nTanner shrugged.\n\n\"Don't you hang out with him at school?\" Tanner shook his head.\n\n\"Why?\" I asked. \"Have you made other friends?\" These were the questions a parent should be asking, I knew. But Mom didn't seem to know how to talk to us anymore.\n\n\"Why not?\" I asked when he shook his head.\n\nNo reply.\n\n\"Is it because you feel sad? About Dad?\" He shook his head.\n\n\"Because the other kids at school tease you?\" I tried again.\n\nMore head shaking.\n\n\"Because you feel left out when people talk about their dads?\" I guessed again. I didn't know what else to say. \"Buddy,\" I said finally, \"I think you should go outside with Jay. Just for a little while.\" I paused, trying to think of what Dad would do. But then again, Tanner had never had this problem when Dad was around. Maybe Dad wouldn't understand it any better than I did. \"You can come home whenever you want to,\" I said.\n\nTo my surprise, Tanner slowly stood up. \"Okay,\" he said. He grabbed his baseball glove off the corner of his bookshelf.\n\nMy heart lurched a little. I put my hand on his shoulder as we walked out of the room and started down the stairs. \"Good,\" I said. \"It'll be fun.\"\n\nTanner stopped and looked up at me. \"It's not fair,\" he said.\n\n\"What's not fair?\"\n\n\"I'm not supposed to have fun,\" he said after a long pause. \"Dad doesn't get to.\" He was gone before I had a chance to open my mouth.\n\n# chapter 6\n\nThe whole next week, I avoided Sam's eyes, ignored his notes in class, and tried not to feel guilty when I noticed the C+ on his trig test. I knew that if I'd helped him study, he could have gotten a higher grade. But I couldn't take care of everyone. And there was someone far more important to pay attention to: Kelsi Hamilton. Knowing that I was the only one who knew how she felt _and_ cared about helping her weighed on me. I watched her walk through the hallways like a zombie, floating from one class to the next.\n\nThe whispers were what bothered me the most.\n\n\"Did you hear about Kelsi?\" was the most common refrain. Some people didn't even bother to whisper. But the worst, by far, were the students who tried to capitalize on her grief to win extra popularity points. People who wouldn't have given her a second look before her tragedy now wanted to be all buddy-buddy with her so that they could be at the center of attention when anyone asked about her.\n\n\"Why can't people just be normal to Kelsi?\" I exploded to Jennica in the cafeteria on Thursday. A hush had fallen over the room as Kelsi walked in. Dozens of pairs of eyes followed her as she sat down at a table by herself and pulled a brown bag out of her backpack without looking up. \"We should invite her to sit with us,\" I added.\n\nJennica looked at me. \"Then you're just acting like everyone else, aren't you?\" she asked. \"Trying to get a piece of her?\"\n\nI glared. Jennica knew very well that wasn't what I was doing. But she was grumpy today because Brian was home sick. Jennica had already asked several times whether I thought she should skip school and bring him chicken noodle soup. I had responded that I thought he was capable of opening a can of Campbell's on his own. She just gave me a look and began mumbling about how when you really loved someone, you shared everything, even germs.\n\nPersonally, I thought that was kind of gross.\n\n\"I'm not trying to get a piece of her,\" I said through gritted teeth. Jennica shrugged and took a bite of her tofu sandwich on whole wheat. She was still on her weight-loss kick, but I saw her staring lustily at the fries on my tray each day while she munched on carrot sticks.\n\nJust then, I noticed two of my least favorite people in the school, Tali Bonner and Tatiana Roseberg, approaching Kelsi's table, their matching raven-colored hair swinging behind them like pendulums. I stiffened. Tali and Tatiana, known collectively as the TaTas\u2014and not just because of the first letters of their names\u2014were senior cheerleaders and two of the most popular girls at Plymouth East, right beneath Summer on the social scale. Tatiana's romantic exploits with underclassmen were legendary, while Tali was rumored to only go for college guys.\n\nOf course, they were also the worst when it came to situations that might increase their popularity. In fact, it was because of them that I'd first realized that I was no longer just plain old Lacey Mann. I was Lacey Whose Dad Died. I had been eating in the cafeteria with Jennica on my third day back to school when they had sauntered up, arm in arm, smiling at me.\n\n\"Oh my God, you must be so depressed!\" Tali had started off without even a hello.\n\n_\"So_ depressed,\" Tatiana had chimed in. I looked around to make sure they were actually talking to me. They confirmed it by settling into two of the empty seats at our table.\n\n\"I mean, you must feel _so_ guilty,\" Tali had continued in the same tone of voice you'd use to compliment someone's outfit.\n\nI just looked at her. Fortunately, Tatiana jumped in to explain. \"Because you were with your dad in the car,\" she said.\n\n\"And you didn't save him,\" Tali added helpfully, a big smile plastered across her heavily made-up face.\n\nSuddenly, the tears that I'd been holding back so successfully were running down my face in rivers. Tatiana looked disgusted; Tali looked delighted. As I jumped up from the table, it felt like the whole cafeteria was watching me.\n\nIt was the last time I'd cried. Since then, the tears wouldn't come.\n\nThe TaTas never spoke to me or acknowledged me again, but I'd heard them telling people that their _friend_ Lacey was still _really_ depressed, and they were doing everything they could to help, because they cared so much. More than once, I'd heard people ask them how I was doing\u2014instead of asking me. The whole thing had made my blood boil.\n\nAnd now they were zeroing in on Kelsi.\n\n\"I gotta go,\" I said to Jennica. I jumped up, dropped my trash in the garbage, and slid into an empty seat at Kelsi's table just as the TaTas were getting started.\n\nI hadn't heard the opening of their conversation, but Kelsi was staring blankly at them. I wasn't sure if it was the blankness of someone who couldn't understand why two of the most popular cheerleaders in school were standing at her table, or the blankness of someone who didn't care about anything anymore, because nothing else mattered when one of your parents had just died.\n\n\"Hi, Kelsi!\" I chirped in my brightest voice, forcing a megawatt smile that could trump any cheerleader's. The TaTas turned to me, matching blank expressions on their faces.\n\nKelsi looked at me. Her eyes were bleary. \"Hi?\" she said. The TaTas were still staring at me, but their blankness had turned to annoyance.\n\n\"Kelsi, did you forget?\" I bubbled, making it up as I went. \"You told me you'd help me with my history homework. I'm so nervous about the test I have today.\"\n\n\"Homework?\" she repeated.\n\n\"Yeah, you know, the assignment you promised to help me with? But I, uh, get distracted with people around. No offense.\" I smiled fakely at the TaTas. \"Let's go outside so I can concentrate.\"\n\nKelsi glanced at the TaTas. \"Yeah, okay.\"\n\n\"What was that all about?\" Kelsi asked as we walked outside.\n\n\"Didn't you see the way they were looking at you?\" I asked, incredulous. \"It was like you were some kind of prize.\"\n\nKelsi shrugged. \"I didn't notice.\"\n\nWe were walking toward the parking lot now, and I wondered if we were going to have another bizarre rap session in Kelsi's car.\n\nSuddenly, Kelsi pulled a pack of cigarettes from her backpack and shook the box a little until one fell out. I watched, wide-eyed, as she lit up as if she'd done it a thousand times before.\n\n\"You _smoke?\"_ I asked, so surprised that I actually stopped in my tracks.\n\nKelsi took a long drag on the cigarette and then exhaled, the smoke forming a lingering cloud as it exited her mouth. \"So?\"\n\nI paused. \"But your mom died of _lung cancer.\"_\n\nThe words hung in the air between us, big and ugly.\n\nWhen Kelsi finally spoke, she didn't look at me, but there was something in her voice that hadn't been there before.\n\n\"The doctors lie,\" she said. The words were clipped, cold, and filled with something ugly that felt familiar to me. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nKelsi stared out toward the parking lot. \"My mom never smoked a cigarette in her life. So how does a person who hasn't smoked, and has hardly ever been around smokers, die of lung cancer?\"\n\nI looked at her, surprised. \"She never smoked?\"\n\n\"No.\" She took another drag off her cigarette. \"So what's the point anyhow? I mean, if you can do everything right and then still die of lung cancer, why bother?\"\n\nI wanted to tell her not to smoke, that it was bad for her, and stupid, too, but this hardly seemed like the time.\n\n\"And you know what the best part is?\" Kelsi continued. \"It could be hereditary. So yeah, there's a higher chance that I'll get it, because my mom had it. So what the hell?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but smoking doesn't seem like the answer,\" I said. I eyed her cigarette warily, trying to understand her mixed-up feelings. It was probably a little similar to having a dad who always buckled up and always drove the speed limit and then got killed in a car accident that never should have happened. \"Life just isn't fair sometimes,\" I added, more to myself than to her.\n\n\"Yeah, thanks for telling me,\" she said sarcastically. \"I hadn't noticed.\" She dropped her cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of her sneaker. \"So,\" she said, \"you wanna skip or what?\"\n\nI stared at her. \"You mean, like, now?\"\n\nKelsi rolled her eyes. \"You can't be perfect _all_ the time,\" she said. \"Besides, do you really think we're going to get in trouble? Seriously. We're the kids all the teachers feel sorry for.\"\n\nKelsi had a point. All those teachers who had buzzed around me with fake, cheerful smiles, telling me that they wanted to help if there was anything they could do, would probably look the other way if I was caught, wouldn't they?\n\n\"Okay,\" I said after a minute. I took a deep breath and tried to tell myself this was something I had to do to help Kelsi. \"Let's go.\"\n\nAnd for the first time that week, a small smile appeared on Kelsi's face.\n\n# chapter 7\n\nAs we pulled out of the school lot, Kelsi fiddled with the radio distractedly. It made me a little nervous that she wasn't paying enough attention. Then again, I always felt uneasy in cars since the accident.\n\nOnce we'd driven for a few minutes, she rolled the windows down and turned the stereo up. The new Star Beck song was on. The wind whipped through my hair, getting colder as Kelsi picked up speed. We were approaching the interstate, and I wondered if we were going to get on. Cape Cod was just to the south, over the Bourne Bridge. If we headed north, we'd be in Boston in under an hour, and honestly, my mom would probably kill me if she found out.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" I finally shouted over the wind and music.\n\nKelsi didn't answer, and I wasn't sure she had heard me. Then she said, \"I don't know. Does it matter?\"\n\nI shrugged. The on-ramp for the interstate was coming up, but Kelsi zoomed right past it, shooting toward Milton Park, where my mom used to take me and Logan to play when we were kids. Kelsi pulled in, but instead of parking, she looped slowly around in the lot and headed back the way we came.\n\nWe drove a few minutes more in silence until we were back on Summer Street. I wasn't paying attention until Kelsi suddenly slowed and made a hard right into a parking lot I'd managed to avoid all year.\n\nI froze in my seat. \"What are we doing here?\" I asked, all my nerves on edge. I hoped that she was just turning around, like she had at Milton Park. But instead, she pulled neatly into a parking space in the nearly deserted lot.\n\nShe cut the ignition and climbed out of the car, pulling her cigarettes out of her pocket.\n\nI stayed in the car, glued to my seat. My limbs felt stiff and uncooperative, but I wasn't sure what I wanted them to do anyhow.\n\nWe were at St. Joseph's Cemetery, a place I hadn't set foot in since my dad's funeral. It was a pretty place, really, with lots of rolling green hills and chirping birds and squirrels running around like nothing was wrong. Sunlight trickled down beautifully in little patches through the leaves of the lush, overgrown oak trees that dotted the property. But it was impossible to see it as a nice, peaceful place. I hadn't wanted to see it at all, in fact, and deliberately turned away every time I passed it.\n\nMy mom went every Sunday morning to lay flowers on Dad's gravestone. Sometimes, early on, Logan had gone with her, although now he was usually too busy with Sydney. Tanner went occasionally too.\n\nBut I always refused. Seeing Dad's grave made it real. I wasn't delusional; I knew he was dead. But sometimes I could still wake up in the morning, and for those foggy few seconds before reality dawned, I'd have a fleeting instant of wondering what Dad was going to make for breakfast.\n\nI loved those moments. And I had the feeling that there would be fewer of them\u2014or that they would disappear entirely\u2014if I started visiting his grave. I didn't want to remember him as a cold piece of stone or an eight-by-four patch of green grass.\n\nI took a deep breath and scrambled out of the car. \"I don't want to be here,\" I announced, walking over to Kelsi, who was fiddling with her pack of cigarettes.\n\nShe leaned back against her car door and drew in a deep breath of smoke, which she exhaled suddenly with a sharp cough, leading me to wonder if she was really the experienced smoker she seemed to want me to think she was.\n\n\"You want one?\" she offered, holding the pack out.\n\n\"I don't smoke.\"\n\nKelsi rolled her eyes. \"Neither did I,\" she said. \"Things change.\"\n\nWe stood there in silence for a minute. I was trying very hard to forget where we were. I felt cold inside. I swallowed hard a few times, a weird pang in my chest.\n\n\"Give me one,\" I blurted out, surprising myself with the desperation in my voice. Kelsi looked at me with mild interest, then handed me the pack of cigarettes.\n\n\"You have to shake it,\" she said, smiling at my hesitation, \"to get one out.\"\n\nI nodded, feeling silly, and did as she said until a cigarette dropped into my hand. I had never smoked before. I'd had it drilled into me from an early age that smoking would kill you. But then again, so would driving in your own neighborhood on a Saturday morning with your kids.\n\nI tentatively put the cigarette between my lips and Kelsi took a step closer. She flicked the lighter a few times until it lit and held it to the tip of my cigarette. \"Inhale,\" she commanded.\n\nI did, watching as the cigarette ignited with the force of my breath. All of a sudden, my lungs filled with smoke\u2014sharp, dark, itchy smoke\u2014and I began to cough, hard at first and then even harder, unable to control myself. I dropped the cigarette and Kelsi quickly stubbed it out while I doubled over, coughing some more. It felt like I couldn't get the smoke out of my lungs. I gasped for air.\n\nKelsi shook her head. \"You suck at this.\" I coughed some more and glared at her. \"Shut up.\" Kelsi watched me hacking up my lungs, and to my surprise, she started to giggle, slowly at first and then harder. I looked down at my stubbed-out cigarette and lifted a hand to my cheek, which I knew was red from all the coughing. In a dark, weird way, I had to admit, it was a funny scenario.\n\nKelsi's laughter was contagious, and soon, I was giggling and then laughing too. Here we were, two Goody Two-shoes, smoking in the cemetery parking lot during school hours. The Plymouth East gossip mill would never have believed it.\n\nIn that moment, I felt closer to Kelsi than I had to anyone\u2014even Logan or Jennica or my mom\u2014in ten months. After all, Kelsi knew exactly how I felt, in a way that few people did.\n\nIt was also the first time I could remember laughing\u2014 _really_ laughing\u2014in a long time. I had to admit, it felt good.\n\nThen, I realized that the sound of Kelsi's laughter had changed. The giggles were coming in gasps, and they trembled on their way out.\n\nShe was crying. Hard. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. I had never seen anyone laugh and sob hysterically at the exact same time. I knew I was supposed to do something, but I didn't know what.\n\n\"Kelsi?\" I asked tentatively. I watched, feeling totally helpless, as she leaned back hard against her car and slid slowly down it, eventually collapsing to the ground, a puddle of limp limbs, still crying. The laughter was gone now, having given way to pure sobs that racked her whole body. My heart ached.\n\nSlowly, uncomfortably, I knelt down, intending to pull her into a hug, because it was all I could think to do. But when my fingertips touched her upper arm, she jerked angrily away, as if I had burned her with the tip of one of her cigarettes.\n\n\"Leave me alone!\" she barked. \"Just go away!\"\n\nShe drew her knees up to her chest and put her face down on them, working herself into a little ball. I didn't know what to do, so I sat down beside her, feeling miserable.\n\nEventually, Kelsi's sobbing slowed. I tentatively put my hand on her arm again, and when she didn't shake me off, I slipped it loosely around her back in a sort of half-hug, the best I could manage side by side on the ground. We sat like that for a while as Kelsi wiped at her eyes.\n\n\"It gets better,\" I said.\n\nKelsi shook my hand off her shoulders. \"Oh yeah?\n\nWhen?\"\n\nI didn't have an answer. _Did_ it get better? Sure, I wasn't the crying mess that I was for the first few weeks after Dad's death. I was fine now. I never cried anymore. But there was still an emptiness inside me that wouldn't go away. And sometimes, I was sure that the empty space was growing bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow me whole.\n\n\"So, do you want to go see your mom's grave or something?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" she snapped.\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, caught off guard and not sure what else to say.\n\nKelsi sighed. \"I just want to go home,\" she said finally, in a voice so quiet I could barely hear her. \"I just want to go back to the way it was before.\"\n\nI knew exactly what she meant. And she knew I knew.\n\nSilently, we stood up, dusted our jeans off, and got back into the car. As Kelsi started the engine and pulled out of her spot, I looked out the window, turning my face away from the rolling green cheerfulness of the darkest place I'd ever seen. I knew that as we pulled back on to Summer Street, if I looked toward the cemetery, I would see my father's grave. It was on the crest of a little hill midway into the cemetery. Although I'd only been there once, the day of his funeral, his grave's location was burned into my mind, and I knew it as well as I knew the location of my own fingers and toes.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt was nearly three-thirty by the time we turned onto Main Street on our way back to school. We were just a few blocks inland from the harbor, the same rocky, jagged jut of coastline the Pilgrims had landed on four hundred years ago. I could smell the salt in the air and feel it on my skin, the way I always could when the wind was blowing west. Today, even though the afternoon had warmed up, the breeze made me shiver.\n\nKelsi and I weren't talking, but it wasn't the same kind of weird, uncomfortable silence that had filled the car during our roundabout drive to the cemetery. Something had shifted between us.\n\n\"Hey, Kelsi?\" I said as we pulled up to a red light.\n\nShe looked at me, a question on her face.\n\n\"What if we did this more often?\" I ventured.\n\nKelsi laughed. \"Skip school so we can go smoke and cry in the parking lot of the cemetery?\"\n\n\"No.\" I smiled. _\"This_. I mean, it feels normal now, doesn't it? I mean, not _normal_ normal. But more normal than we feel at school, anyhow. What if we got together sometimes?\"\n\nThe light changed, and Kelsi eased her foot back onto the gas. She gave me a funny look. \"Why would we do that? It's not like we're even friends.\"\n\n_Ouch_ , I thought. But still, I pressed on. \"Because with me, you don't have to be Kelsi Whose Mom Died. And I don't have to be Lacey Whose Dad Died. You know?\"\n\nKelsi was silent for so long that I began to think she wasn't going to respond. Then, finally, in an almost inaudible voice, she said, \"Yeah. I know.\"\n\n\"Maybe we can see if Logan wants to come too,\" I said. As Kelsi turned left into the school parking lot, kids were pouring out of the buildings toward the cars. The final bell must have just rung.\n\n\"Whatever,\" she said casually, like she didn't care. But then she added, \"Maybe we should ask Mindy Rodriguez, too. She's a freshman. I heard her mom died last year.\"\n\n\"And Cody Johnson,\" I said.\n\nKelsi frowned. \"So you want to start, like, some kind of club for kids with dead parents or something?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" The plan was forming in my mind as I spoke, and I wasn't sure if it was stupid or not. \"What if it's just us getting together and hanging out sometimes without feeling like outcasts?\" I asked. \"I mean, we can talk about our parents if we want to. But we don't have to. We can feel like we did before.\"\n\nKelsi pulled into a parking spot, cut the ignition, and stared at her lap for a long time. Finally, she looked up at me. \"Okay,\" she said. \"I'm in.\"\n\n# chapter 8\n\nOnce I'd had the idea of getting us all together, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I thought about it at school. I thought about it at home. I lay in bed at night thinking about how I just might be able to help everyone who hurt the same way I did. I imagined scenarios in which the program was such a success, I would be asked to travel all around the country to talk to grown-ups about how to help kids who'd lost a parent.\n\nBut I was getting ahead of myself. I hadn't talked to anyone but Kelsi about it, and I hadn't even researched how to go about setting up an informal group of teens who got together to be with other people who didn't make them feel like outcasts. Still, I knew in my gut that it was something I had to do. I just had to figure out how.\n\nJennica came over after school on Friday to do our weekend trig homework, and then my mom drove us to Jennica's house. I'd told her we were having a sleepover, which wasn't exactly a lie, since I really was sleeping over at Jennica's place. But we were also going to a party at Brooke Newell's house, and I knew my mom would probably say no if I asked her. Ever since the accident, she'd been completely freaked out about anything that involved teenagers, cars, and possibly alcohol. Not that I blamed her. But it wasn't like we were going to drink and drive. I knew what could happen when you got in a car, even when alcohol wasn't a factor.\n\n\"It'll just be me and Tanner tonight at home,\" my mom said as she drove. She glanced in the rearview mirror at Tanner, who was sitting beside Jennica and gazing out the window.\n\n\"Why?\" I asked. \"Where's Logan going?\"\n\n\"Over to Will's house to play some video game, I think,\" Mom said absently. \"Or maybe to watch movies. He's having a sleepover too, like you girls.\"\n\nJennica and I exchanged looks. Will was Logan's friend last year, but they hardly ever talked anymore, thanks to the fact that Logan now spent all his time with Sydney. I doubted he was spending Friday night at Will's, but Will was the excuse he used most weekends to sneak out of the house. I hadn't blown his cover yet, although with the way he acted toward me sometimes, it was pretty tempting.\n\nI wondered if Logan would be at Brooke's party too. I'd always assumed that the Will lie was a cover for sneaking out with Sydney. But maybe my brother was going to more of these popular-crowd parties than I realized.\n\nMy mom dropped us at Jennica's, and after kissing me absently on the cheek, she drove away, back to the silent bubble of our house.\n\n\"She's really out of it, isn't she?\" Jennica said quietly.\n\nI sighed. \"It's been like that for a while.\"\n\nJennica nodded. \"Come on,\" she said as she started toward the door. \"We don't have much time to get you dressed. I told Brian we'd pick him up in an hour.\"\n\nI looked down at what I was wearing: my favorite pair of jeans, flip-flops, a pale pink tee, and a gray hoodie that I'd gotten at the Star Beck concert Jennica and I had gone to a year and a half ago in Boston. It had the redheaded singer's face emblazoned on the back and a handful of little sequined stars down the right front side. It was one of my favorite pieces of clothing, and I figured the sequins dressed it up enough to make it party appropriate. \"What's wrong with what I have on?\" I asked.\n\nJennica rolled her eyes. \"Everything,\" she said.\n\nShe led me inside, past the kitchen, where the fridge door was open, obscuring all but the feet of Jennica's mom, who was standing behind it, looking inside.\n\n\"Hi, girls!\" she said, straightening up with a smile. \"I was just about to throw something in for dinner. Hungry?\"\n\nShe shut the refrigerator door, and I couldn't help staring. I'd known Mrs. Arroyo for years now, and she'd always been the quintessential mom, so much so that I'd caught myself feeling jealous lots of times this year when my mom had retreated inside herself so much. I was used to seeing Mrs. Arroyo in jeans and a T-shirt, or covered up in an apron, with her hair tied back and little makeup on.\n\nBut today, she was wearing a denim miniskirt and a halter top. Her hair was loose and had been curled at the ends, and she had on way too much blush and lipstick.\n\nJennica audibly sighed. \"We'll be in my room, Mom,\" she said. Then, before I could say anything or react, she grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the staircase. She smiled an obviously fake smile at me. \"Divorce is fun!\" she said brightly.\n\nIt had been ages since I'd been to Jennica's house. She was always busy with Brian, and I supposed I'd been glad to have the distance between us; seeing her perfect family depressed me. But is this what had happened to all of them since I'd stopped paying attention?\n\nI followed Jennica upstairs. She pulled me into her room and shut the door behind us, then she flopped onto her bed.\n\n\"What's the deal with your mom?\" I asked, sitting down beside her.\n\n\"She thinks she's a teenager. Apparently, it's her plan to get her 'sexy' back.\" Jennica shrugged. \"I mean, good for her, I guess. But _I_ would never dress like that.\"\n\n\"Me neither,\" I said with a shudder. \"And my mom would kill me if I did.\"\n\nJennica snorted. \"Don't be so sure,\" she said. \"Your mom looks about as tuned in as mine does.\"\n\nI was silent. She was right.\n\nJennica shook her head and got up from the bed. \"Anyhow,\" she said. \"Let's get you dressed.\"\n\nFor the next twenty minutes, I felt like a Barbie doll as Jennica made me try on outfit after outfit. She had determined that we should both be wearing tight jeans and cleavage-baring tops tonight, like all the popular girls.\n\n\"Okay,\" I said slowly. \"That sounds good. But I have two problems.\"\n\nJennica simply raised an eyebrow and waited for me to go on.\n\n\"First, it's like forty degrees outside,\" I said. \"I think it's past the skimpy-top-wearing season.\"\n\nJennica rolled her eyes. \"Fine, so we'll wear skimpy tops with jackets. Happy?\"\n\nI smiled at her without answering. \"However, the second, and much more pressing, issue is that I _have_ no cleavage. So a cleavage-baring top is pretty much impossible.\"\n\n\"Girl!\" Jennica said, shaking her head. \"Don't you know how to work what you have?\"\n\nWhat I _had_ was an A-cup. But in Jennica's frighteningly capable hands, and with the help of pads from an old bra she'd grown out of a couple years ago and some double-sided tape, I suddenly looked a lot different than usual in a pair of long black pants, high heels, and a low-cut sparkly silver tank top of Jennica's that made me look much curvier than I really was.\n\n\"Voil\u00e0!\" she exclaimed, stepping back to admire her admittedly impressive handiwork. I just stared at myself in the mirror.\n\n\"How'd you do that?\" I asked in astonishment.\n\n\"I'm not done yet,\" Jennica said. It took her ten more minutes to apply bronzer, blush, lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara to my usually bare face. I looked in the mirror with trepidation, expecting to see something horrific (or at least something like her over-blushed mom). Instead, I looked... good.\n\n\"Hellooooo, hot mama!\" Jennica said, grinning at me in the mirror.\n\nI giggled. \"This is... different. You're like a miracle worker!\"\n\nJennica shrugged. \"Nah,\" she said. \"I didn't do anything. I just played up what you've already got!\"\n\nI stared at the mirror and shook my head in amazement. She was right; I did look like me. Just a prettier version.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nTen minutes later, Jennica had changed too\u2014into jeans, heels, and a sparkly purple tank (the difference being that she actually had real curves to fill it out)\u2014and I had persuaded her that I needed a cardigan so I wouldn't freeze to death. Grudgingly, she had handed one over. I intended to bring my Star Beck hoodie, too, because I figured it would be cold enough outside that I'd want to layer up.\n\nWe walked downstairs and found Jennica's scantily clad mom removing a pizza from the oven while Jennica's little sister, Anne, sat at the table, drinking a glass of milk.\n\n\"Just in time for dinner, girls!\" Mrs. Arroyo exclaimed. Jennica started to protest, but her mom turned firm. \"Jennica! I can't send you and Lacey out of here with empty stomachs, now can I?\" Without waiting for an answer, she added, \"Wash some salad mix and get the dressing out, will you? Lacey, what would you like to drink?\"\n\nI sat next to Anne and flashed her a smile. She looked up from her glass, and I tried not to giggle when I noticed her milk mustache.\n\n\"Hey, you,\" I said. \"How's it going?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she answered gruffly. \"What's up with you?\" Anne was twelve and right in the middle of that tough phase when _you_ know you're grown up, but the rest of the world still treats you like a kid. I knew she was trying to sound as adult as possible. I played along.\n\n\"Not much,\" I said with a shrug.\n\n\"Got a boyfriend?\" she asked, turning her gaze back to her milk.\n\nI looked at her, surprised. \"Um, no,\" I said. \"Do you?\"\n\nShe glanced at Jennica, who was pouring salad into a bowl. Then she returned her attention to me. \"Yeah,\" she said casually, \"I got a few options.\"\n\nI looked over at Jennica in time to see her roll her eyes. It had always bugged her that Anne seemed to copy every move she made. Her younger sister had insisted she was \"playing the field\" when Jennica was single, but now that Jennica had Brian, Anne was always saying cryptic things about how she had lots of boyfriend options.\n\n\"Having a boyfriend isn't all it's cracked up to be, kiddo,\" Jennica muttered. I turned and glanced at her, wondering what that was all about.\n\nWe scarfed down our pizza and salad in the same kind of silence that pervaded my house. This surprised me. I'd just assumed that Jennica's family was just as it had always been.\n\nApparently, I was wrong.\n\nAfter Jennica and I had put our plates in the sink and wrapped the remaining slices of pizza in foil, Mrs. Arroyo stood up to give Jennica a hug and to pinch me on the cheek, which used to annoy me when I was a kid but which I now thought was kind of cute.\n\n\"Have a good time at the party, baby,\" she said to Jennica.\n\nJennica nodded. \"We will.\"\n\n\"Don't drink too much,\" her mother said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. \"And call me if you can't drive.\"\n\nI looked at Jennica in astonishment. But she merely nodded again, mumbled a goodbye, and grabbed my hand to drag me out the door.\n\n\"Bye!\" Anne yelled behind us.\n\nI waved, but I couldn't even muster the words to say goodbye. I was still in shock.\n\nAs soon as we got outside and the door was shut behind us, I exploded. \"Your mom _knows_ you drink?\"\n\nI knew Jennica sometimes drank beer when she was at parties or out with Brian, and I thought it was wrong. She could get in huge trouble! But she was always saying that everybody did it, so why shouldn't she?\n\n\"Yeah,\" Jennica muttered. She was looking at the ground. \"So?\"\n\n\"Soooo,\" I said, drawing the word out. \"Don't you think that's weird?\"\n\nJennica shrugged. \"Whatever,\" she said. \"She's cool, you know? She treats me like a grown-up now.\"\n\nI just stared at her. I didn't even know what to say. What had happened to the old maternal, strict Mrs. Arroyo?\n\nJennica paused. \"It's just been recently,\" she said. \"Since my dad started dating the Spandex Leech. It's like my mom suddenly turned sixteen again. I found her in my closet one day, trying on my clothes, when I got home from school.\"\n\n\"That's so... weird,\" I said.\n\nJennica shrugged. \"She seems happy. It's no big deal. It's cool.\" She paused awkwardly, cleared her throat, and added, \"Anyways, let's go.\"\n\nWithout another word, she strode over to her mom's old Corolla, yanked open the door, and got inside. She slammed the door behind her and didn't look at me. It took me a second to snap myself out of it and join her. As soon as my door was shut, she started the car, threw it into reverse, and backed out of the driveway. She switched quickly to drive, cut the wheel sharply, and peeled out from the curb, like she couldn't get away from her house fast enough.\n\n# chapter 9\n\nThe party was in full swing by the time we got there. I followed Jennica and Brian toward the house, feeling more nervous than I usually did. Even though I'd been to parties before with Jennica, I knew I didn't belong. I didn't drink. I didn't have a boyfriend. I didn't make out with random guys. And I didn't really care whether people thought I was cool or not.\n\nAs we walked through the front door, we were blasted immediately by a wave of thumping bass turned up as loud as it could go. An old Kanye West song was throbbing from the speakers, and more people than should ever be crammed into any space were jostling and gyrating all over the Newells' perfect living room.\n\nMost of the girls were dressed skimpily and were laughing too loudly and swaying a little bit on their stiletto heels. The boys were talking in unnaturally booming voices, slapping one another on the back and shamelessly ogling the girls. And everyone was carrying big red plastic cups filled with what I guessed was beer. In fact, I saw several people sloshing it onto the carpet as they talked.\n\nJennica turned to me with a big smile. \"Isn't this _awesome?\"_ she asked, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.\n\n\"Um...,\" I responded.\n\n\"Let's go get some beer!\" she said loudly, close to my ear so that I could hear her over the music.\n\n\"I don't really want any!\" I said back.\n\n\"What?\" she shouted. I repeated myself, but she shook her head again. The music was too loud. I shrugged and followed her and Brian through the living room, out the French doors in the back. There was a line of about a dozen people waiting for beer while Scott Moore, who was in my English class, cheerfully pumped the keg handle. There was a couple kissing on the hanging swing near the house, and a stressed-out-looking senior girl, whose name I thought was Trish, was furiously texting on her phone while she chewed on her lower lip.\n\nJennica, Brian, and I got in line.\n\n\"Wassup?\" Scott said as we got close to the keg. He grinned and handed us empty red cups. \"Who's first?\"\n\nJennica filled up her cup. \"Your turn!\" Scott told me as she stepped away from the keg and took a sip of her beer.\n\nI hesitated. I'd always been so against drinking. But wouldn't it be nerdy to say no with a keg right in front of me?\n\nJust then, I saw Sam come out of the house, scanning the yard. My jaw dropped. What was he doing here? At the same time, he caught sight of me, smiled, and waved. I ducked my head, immediately feeling guilty, like I'd been caught doing something wrong.\n\n\"Lacey?\" Scott prompted, glancing at the growing line behind me. I snapped to attention and looked from him to the beer keg and back.\n\n\"Um, no thanks,\" I mumbled.\n\n\"You sure?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. \"I'm sure.\" Brian filled up and then slipped an arm around Jennica's waist.\n\n\"It's freezing out here,\" she said. I couldn't help noticing that she wrinkled her nose a little bit every time she sipped, like the beer tasted bad. Why would you drink something you didn't even like? \"Can we go inside?\" she asked.\n\nI followed her and Brian back into the hot, loud, crowded living room. It felt like a sauna. A tall guy I didn't recognize splashed beer on me as he walked by.\n\n\"C'mon, Lacey!\" Jennica shouted over the music. \"Dance with us!\" She took another big sip of her beer.\n\nI shook my head and glanced around the room. I never should have come.\n\nJust then, Logan and Sydney walked by, both of them clutching beer cups. From the looks of it, they'd been here for a while. One side of Logan's shirt was untucked, and his hair was a little messed up. I wondered how much he'd been drinking.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said when he saw me. \"What's up?\"\n\nI could smell the beer on his breath. I shrugged. \"Nothing.\" I glanced pointedly at the cup in his hand. Logan shifted it to his other hand.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm with Jennica and Brian,\" I said.\n\nLogan's eyes landed on my cup. \"You're drinking?\" he asked incredulously.\n\nI realized it must look like I was holding a beer I'd finished, rather than one I'd never started. \"So what if I am?\" I asked.\n\n\"You don't drink,\" he said flatly.\n\nI rolled my eyes. \"I didn't think _you_ drank either,\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah, well.\" He paused. \"Maybe you don't know everything about me.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well,\" I said. \"I guess I don't.\"\n\nAfter I walked away from my brother and Sydney, I looked for Jennica and Brian, but I didn't see them anywhere. Amy Tan, from my trig class, told me she'd spotted them walking upstairs.\n\n\"To make out,\" she added unnecessarily. \"Lots of people make out up there.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said. \"I've got it.\"\n\nI felt more out of place than ever. I walked through the backyard, past the beer keg, past the handful of couples making out near the deck. The backyard was larger than I would have thought, and there was a small lake at the end of the lawn. I made my way down to the old wooden dock, pulling Jennica's cardigan more tightly around me as the wind whipped in stronger now that I wasn't shielded by the trees in the backyard anymore. I shivered, but I liked the feel of the breeze against my face.\n\nI sat down on the edge of the dock, took off my strappy heels, and dangled my feet over.\n\nThe night was cold around me, and I was surprised at just how far away the sounds of the party seemed. It was quiet enough that I could hear crickets chirping and the occasional splash of a fish or a bird in the water. Across the lake, the darkness was punctuated by porch lights of houses, which looked much farther away than they did during the day\n\nI was so tuned in to the sounds of the water that I didn't realize I wasn't alone until I heard a voice just behind me.\n\n\"I've been looking everywhere for you.\"\n\nI jumped about a mile in the air and whipped my head around, my heart pounding double time.\n\nIt was Sam, standing there, looking down at me. He was backlit by the lights from the Newell house far behind us, and he seemed to almost glow in the shadows. I blinked a few times and tried to slow my racing heart. By the time my eyes adjusted, I noticed he had two cups, one of which he was holding out to me. \"No thanks,\" I mumbled. \"I don't drink.\"\n\nSam looked amused. \"Me neither,\" he said. \"All you need to do is take a walk through the party back there, and you realize how stupid it makes people act.\"\n\nI looked at the cup again and raised an eyebrow.\n\nHe laughed. \"It's not beer. It's Coke. I had a few cans in my Jeep.\"\n\nI didn't know what to say. I took the plastic cup from his hand. \"Oh. Thank you.\"\n\nSam sat down beside me, close enough that our thighs were almost touching. I could feel the heat from him. It made me shiver.\n\n\"So what are you doing down here?\" he asked.\n\nI shrugged and looked out at the water. \"I don't know. I just wanted to be alone, I guess.\"\n\nHe seemed to consider this for a second. \"Do you want me to leave?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, surprising myself with how quickly the word came out of my mouth. \"I mean, that's okay. I don't care what you do.\"\n\n\"Why are you mad at me?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm not mad,\" I said.\n\n\"Was it something I said the other day?\" he persisted. \"When I drove you home?\"\n\n\"Don't worry about it.\"\n\n\"Well, I _am_ worried about it. You've been avoiding me since then. And I don't know what I did.\"\n\nI squinted, wishing I didn't have to explain it to him. He'd never understand. \"It's nothing personal. I just don't need another friend like you,\" I said.\n\nHe stared. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nI gazed out at the lake without answering. After a moment, I felt his hand close over mine. It was big and warm and reminded me a little bit of the way my father's hand had fit around mine when I was little. I could feel my heart thudding in my chest.\n\n\"Please,\" he said. \"Tell me what I did wrong.\"\n\nI hesitated. His hand didn't move. And strangely, I realized I didn't want it to. \"Look, I know I'm being dumb,\" I said. \"But I didn't want to talk about my dad with you. I'm sick of having to explain it to people who have no idea what it feels like. Okay? Can you just drop it?\"\n\nHe looked surprised and withdrew his hand. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"I'm just tired of people feeling sorry for me,\" I added.\n\n\"I don't feel sorry for you,\" Sam said.\n\n\"Whatever,\" I muttered. I paused. \"And I hate it when people say they know how I feel. Okay? Because you don't know how I feel.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" he said. \"I'm sorry. You're right. I don't know.\" He paused. \"But I do understand, Lacey. Better than you think.\"\n\nOur eyes met in the darkness, and he held my gaze. I blinked a few times. I didn't want to talk about this anymore. \"So how come you don't drink?\"\n\nHe gave me a half-smile. \"First of all, I hate the taste of beer. Why would I drink something I don't like?\"\n\n\"True,\" I said. I'd never had it, but it smelled terrible.\n\n\"It tastes like socks,\" Sam said, reading my mind. \"Dirty socks.\"\n\nI giggled.\n\n\"Plus, it makes people act like idiots.\" I laughed. \"True again.\"\n\n\"But the biggest reason, I guess, is that it's dangerous,\" he said. \"Think about how many people in that house are going to drive home tonight. What if they get into an accident and get hurt or cause an accident that hurts someone else?\"\n\nI felt cold, the way I did whenever I thought of car accidents. Suddenly, I couldn't fathom ever wanting to drink anything in my entire life, if it could lead to something like that.\n\n\"I'd never drink and drive,\" Sam added.\n\n\"Me neither,\" I agreed. \"No way.\"\n\nI looked up at the sky. It was clear out tonight, with just a few wispy clouds drifting across the nearly full moon like pieces of gauzy silk suspended in space. I searched for the brightest star and recited the familiar words in my head: _Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish, I wish tonight_. Then, without even thinking about it, I silently wished that Sam Stone would kiss me.\n\nImmediately, I regretted it. I didn't necessarily believe in wishes coming true or anything like that, but what if they did? Shouldn't I have wished for my dad to be safe in heaven? Or for my mom to stop crying in her room at night? Or for Tanner to come out of his shell? Or for Jennica's mom to snap out of her weird teenager phase? What if I'd just wasted a wish? And why, of all the things I could wish for, would I wish for Sam to kiss me?\n\n\"So, I think I'm going to go,\" Sam said after a minute. \"My mom worries when I'm out too late.\"\n\n\"My mom doesn't worry about anything anymore,\" I said before I could think about it.\n\nSam looked at me closely. \"I bet she worries more than you realize.\"\n\nI wanted to tell him that he had no idea what it was like in my family, and he had no idea what my mom was thinking. But there was something in his eyes that stopped me from speaking.\n\n\"Are you okay getting home?\" he asked.\n\nI hesitated. \"I'm actually spending the night at Jennica's,\" I said.\n\n\"She's driving?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"But she's drinking,\" Sam said. \"I saw her.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"I'll figure it out,\" I said. \"Don't worry.\" But I was worried. I didn't have my license, so I couldn't get us home, and there was no way I was climbing in a car with someone who'd had a few beers. I figured we'd have to call Jennica's mom, which I knew Jennica would argue with me about.\n\n\"How about I drive you home?\" he asked. \"You and Jennica and her boyfriend, I mean.\"\n\n\"You don't have to\u2014\" I started to say.\n\nBut he cut me off. \"I'm not leaving you in a situation like that,\" Sam said firmly. He stood and pulled me up. \"Let's go get her and tell her it's time to leave.\"\n\nSam didn't let go of my hand as he led me into the party and upstairs to find Jennica and Brian. Ten minutes later, his fingers were still intertwined with mine as the four of us walked out to the street to pile into Sam's Jeep. I realized I didn't want to let go.\n\n# chapter 10\n\nThe next morning, back to thinking about the conversation I'd had with Kelsi, I Googled \"grief counseling for teens\" and \"starting a group for people whose parents have died.\" I read through all the entries, taking notes as I went, although there wasn't much I didn't know already. Most of the tips I found were pretty obvious, like letting everyone have a chance to talk and not pressuring anyone to open up.\n\nBesides, I reminded myself, my goal wasn't to start some kind of grief group. I intended to make sure it was casual and not at all like the stupid counseling sessions Mom made us go to with Dr. Schiff. I was sure we'd all had enough of well-intentioned adults who didn't have a clue, who wanted to believe we were little kids they could fix with simple words from textbooks on grief.\n\nI found a group in Atlanta called Kate's Club that sounded a lot like what I wanted to do. Kate was a woman in her thirties whose mom had died when she was twelve, and now she ran a group for more than a hundred kids. According to the group's Web site, they hung out together once a week, and once a month they did something fun, like go to a baseball game or to the aquarium. I imagined that one day I'd be like Kate. _Lacey's Club_ , I thought.\n\nBut I was getting ahead of myself again.\n\nI started an e-mail.\n\nHi, guys. Lacey Mann here. As you probably heard, Kelsi Hamilton's mom died last week, and Kelsi's back in school. I've been trying to figure out how to help her feel better, and then I realized that all of us could pitch in to make things easier on her. It might even help us, too. I was thinking that we could get together once in a while to hang out. We don't have to talk about anything if we don't want to. It's just a chance for us to feel like ourselves again and to hang out once in a while with people who get us. What do you think? Can you meet at the McDonald's on Samoset Street on Tuesday after school?\n\nI thought about it for a moment. Then, I deleted _McDonald's_ and typed in _Plymouth Diner_. It was only fitting that the place we'd meet for the first time would be the restaurant I thought of as belonging to me, my brothers, and Dad, the place we went for Saturday-morning pancakes. I hadn't been back there since the accident.\n\nI sent the e-mail to Cody, Mindy, and Logan. Then I sent a different e-mail to Kelsi, telling her the plan.\n\nAfter feeling so helpless at home, it felt good to finally be in control of something that had a real chance of helping people.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBy Sunday night, there was still no word from any of the people I'd e-mailed. So I decided to call them.\n\n\"Hey,\" Cody said gruffly after his little sister handed the phone off to him.\n\n\"Hi, Cody. It's Lacey Mann. Did you get my e-mail?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"So? What do you think?\" I asked. Cody and I didn't have classes together this year because I was in honors courses and he was in regular, but we'd gone to the same elementary school and junior high, and we knew each other well, even if we hadn't hung out in ages.\n\n\"I think it sounds kind of dumb,\" he said. \"You want to get together just because we have dead parents? I mean, get over it, Lacey.\"\n\nI took a deep breath. \"I _am_ over it, Cody. This is about Kelsi.\"\n\n\"So? What does that have to do with me?\"\n\n\"Look,\" I said. \"Let's just try this. Once. And if it feels stupid, you don't have to come again. But I just think it will be good for Kelsi to be around us now. Remember how weird it feels to have everyone treating you like you're some kind of alien?\"\n\nI could hear him breathing. \"Yeah,\" he said in a low voice.\n\n\"I just think it would help if we could show her that there are people who know how she feels.\"\n\n\"So, what, are we supposed to talk about grief and stuff?\" he asked. \"I already had enough of that crap with the military psychologist my mom made us go to. It was stupid.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"No grief talk. Unless someone wants to.\"\n\nThere was another long silence. In the background, I could hear a television.\n\n\"Fine,\" Cody said finally. \"But if it's stupid, I'm leaving.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I agreed. We hung up, and as I placed the phone back in the receiver, I felt a little bubble of hope float up inside me.\n\nI didn't know Mindy's number, so I called Kelsi next, and after a brief conversation about school stuff, I asked her if she was planning to come Tuesday.\n\n\"I guess so,\" she said. \"Being in my house is depressing.\"\n\n\"I know the feeling,\" I said.\n\n\"My dad just cries all the time,\" she said. \"Does your mom do that too?\" I hesitated. \"No.\"\n\n\"I wish I could forget about it,\" Kelsi murmured.\n\n\"Yeah, me too,\" I said. Silence crackled over the line. \"So how are you doing?\" I asked. \"I mean, really? Are you okay?\"\n\n\"I guess,\" she said. \"It's hard.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. \"I know.\"\n\n\"So I'll see you at school?\" she said.\n\nI agreed, and we said our goodbyes. I mentally ticked Cody and Kelsi off my list. Two down. One to go.\n\nA moment later, I was knocking on the door to Logan's bedroom.\n\n\"What?\" His voice was muffled.\n\n\"I need to talk to you,\" I shouted.\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"Can you just let me in?\" I asked.\n\nI heard a rustling, and then Logan pulled open the door, looking irritated. His room was dark, save for the light emanating from the monitor of his computer. An IM window was open. I figured he was probably talking to Sydney. Apparently, the world would end if they went more than a few hours without contact.\n\n\"What do you want?\" Logan demanded, blocking the doorway.\n\n\"Can I come in?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why? To snoop?\" He didn't move.\n\n\"I just want to talk to you about Tuesday.\"\n\n\"Your stupid meeting thing?\" Logan asked. I noticed that his eyes were bloodshot, which startled me. Had he been crying? The last time I'd seen his tears was Christmas morning, nearly ten months ago, when he'd come into the kitchen first thing in the morning and found me sitting alone there, staring at the wall, my hands wrapped around a mug of the Twinings Christmas tea that our dad used to drink all December. Logan had murmured, \"He's really gone, isn't he?\" before sinking into the chair across from me and starting to sob. He had cried, while I sat there, feeling uncomfortable, wondering why my own tears wouldn't come. From that day on, he had avoided looking me in the eye.\n\n\"It's not stupid,\" I said.\n\n\"Whatever,\" Logan muttered. \"I don't see why we have to hang out with some girl I don't even know.\"\n\n\"Because it'll help her. So what's a couple of hours one afternoon if it makes her feel better?\"\n\n\"Why do you have to save everyone, Lacey?\" Logan asked. He raked his hand through his hair and shook his head. \"I don't get you.\"\n\n\"I'm just trying to help.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, you can do it without me,\" he said. \"Some of us have better things to do.\" He slammed the door without another word.\n\n# chapter 11\n\nSam and I were different in class now. The time we'd spent together at the party had changed us. Or maybe it had just changed me by teaching me to relax a little and not judge him so harshly. In any case, we chatted easily before first period, and in sixth period, we worked together on an assignment, and he even showed me the picture he'd been doodling while Mr. Henchey droned on during the first ten minutes of class. In the time it had taken our teacher to explain our assignment, Sam had sketched him in pencil, only he had given him a Colonial soldier's uniform instead of normal clothes. I couldn't believe how good the drawing was.\n\n\"What, this?\" Sam asked dismissively. He crumpled it up and looked embarrassed. \"This is nothing. I draw a million of these a day.\"\n\nBy lunchtime on Tuesday, I was practically bubbling over with excited nerves about the meeting after school. Cody had nodded at me as we passed each other in the hall, and Kelsi had shot me a small smile.\n\n\"So can you help me with trig after school today?\" Jennica asked as she and Brian plopped down across from me in the cafeteria.\n\n\"I can't,\" I said. \"I've got that meeting after school today. Remember?\" I'd told her about it on Saturday night when we went to the movies. I couldn't believe she'd forgotten.\n\nJennica looked at me blankly. \"What?\" she asked. \"Oh, that death-group thing you're doing?\"\n\n\"It's not a _death group,\"_ I said. \"It's just some people getting together to support each other. And Kelsi.\"\n\nJennica nodded, and I could tell she was trying to look interested. \"Yeah, sounds great,\" she said.\n\nI tried not to let her forced enthusiasm bother me.\n\n\"It _is_ going to be great,\" I said firmly.\n\n\"So who's going?\"\n\nI ticked off the short list.\n\n\"Pretty sad, huh?\" she asked. \"That there are that many kids whose parents have died?\"\n\n\"Actually, in a school this size, I would have thought it would be more, you know?\" I said.\n\nBrian looped his arm around Jennica's shoulder and pulled her close. He whispered something in her ear and she giggled. It was like they'd both forgotten I was there.\n\nAs I dumped my tray and made my way alone toward the doors of the cafeteria, I looked up and saw Sam midway across the room, eating lunch with a small group of popular seniors. Summer was gazing at him from two seats away. But his attention wasn't on her. He was watching me.\n\nStartled, I stopped for an instant longer than I should have. He raised his hand in a wave and smiled. Summer and a few of the others looked to see who he was waving at, then, apparently satisfied that it was no one important, they returned to their conversation.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAs I walked down the street after school to the Plymouth Diner\u2014about a half mile away\u2014my heart was thudding so loudly that I was afraid everyone passing by would be able to hear it.\n\nThe restaurant was mostly empty, save for an elderly couple who were sitting on the same side of a booth, sharing an order of spaghetti and meatballs. I stood in the doorway for a moment, memories washing over me.\n\nThere was the booth in the back where we used to sit almost every Saturday; the waitresses knew to reserve it for us. I blinked a few times, images playing like a movie across the backs of my eyelids. Dad making airplane sounds and flying a spoon of oatmeal toward Tanner when he was little. Logan and Dad laughing and flinging whipped cream at each other from their strawberry pancakes, until a giant glob of white landed right on the tip of Dad's nose. Dad cutting Tanner's fried eggs into bite-sized pieces. Dad putting his arm around me and giving me an affectionate noogie with his other hand while I complained, pretending to hate it, even though I couldn't hide my grin.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" The hostess had appeared out of nowhere, someone I didn't recognize. But it had been almost a year since we'd last been here. I didn't know why I'd expected that the diner would be frozen in time, the way the memory of my dad was.\n\nI asked for a table for five\u2014just in case Logan and Mindy decided to show\u2014and then waited nervously at the table.\n\nThe next seven minutes felt like an eternity. Finally a tiny girl with a mass of jet-black curls walked through the door and looked around, her eyes wide and unblinking. I recognized her immediately from her Facebook profile.\n\n\"Hi!\" I exclaimed, hopping up. \"Mindy?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said.\n\n\"Hey,\" I said. A tidal wave of relief washed over me as she stepped closer. \"I'm Lacey Mann. I'm the one who organized this.\" I felt proud to say those words.\n\n\"Where is everyone?\"\n\n\"You're the first one here.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She hesitated.\n\n\"Here, sit down,\" I said before she could change her mind and bolt for the door. I couldn't think of anything to say. Not without everyone else here. I didn't want to get into anyone's stories without the whole group present.\n\n\"So you're a freshman, right?\" I asked finally. The seconds ticked by.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Mindy said.\n\n\"You like Plymouth East so far?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I guess.\"\n\nJust then, the door opened and Kelsi strode in. \"Hey,\" she said, joining us. She sat down hard, throwing her book-laden backpack on the floor, where it landed with a loud thump.\n\nBefore I had the chance to say anything, the door opened again, and Cody came in, looking annoyed. \"I'm here,\" he said. He was tall and a little stoop-shouldered with long, dark hair that flopped over his piercing dark eyes. He pushed a shaggy shock of hair behind his ears and ducked his head.\n\n\"Hi,\" I said. I felt immensely relieved; I realized I'd been expecting him not to show.\n\n\"This better not be dumb,\" he muttered. I felt a tight feeling in my chest. In my head, this had all gone so well; everyone would be glad to be here, we'd laugh together and cry together and feel better at the end. But now I was beginning to wonder just how dumb that was.\n\n\"So I guess we can get started,\" I said, suddenly unsure of how to begin.\n\n\"Whatever,\" Cody said. \"Can't we order or something, though?\"\n\nWe ordered Cokes and a few orders of fries to share. Just as we handed the waitress our menus, the door of the restaurant opened again, and Logan appeared in the slice of sunshine from outside, followed closely by Sydney. My jaw dropped.\n\n\"What's up, man?\" he said to Cody as he strode over to our table. He nodded at Kelsi and Mindy, throwing a \"What's up\" their way, too. Since there was only one chair left, Logan grabbed one from another table and wedged it beside the empty one so that Sydney could sit next to him. She was eyeing me warily, a little smile on her face.\n\nI could feel my blood boiling. \"Logan, can I talk to you for a minute?\" I asked, trying to keep my voice level.\n\nHe shrugged. \"Whatever.\" But he allowed himself to be led away, back toward the entrance.\n\n\"I'm glad you came,\" I said evenly. \"But what's Sydney doing here?\"\n\n\"She's with me,\" he replied.\n\n\"I know _that,\"_ I said. \"But this is a meeting for people whose parents have died. Sydney's mom and dad are fine!\"\n\nLogan shrugged. He knew he was bugging me. \"Yeah, well,\" he said noncommittally.\n\n\"Can you maybe get rid of her for like an hour?\" I asked. \"And meet her after?\"\n\nLogan shook his head firmly, but I couldn't help thinking he looked a tiny bit guilty. He glanced toward the table, where Sydney was standing, hands on her hips, lips pursed, watching us with narrowed eyes.\n\n\"She wanted to come with me,\" he said. \"And she's my _girlfriend.\"_\n\n\"Yes, I'm aware of that.\"\n\nLogan glanced at Sydney again and then back at me. He lowered his voice. \"Seriously, Lacey, can you loosen up a little?\"\n\n\"Whatever,\" I muttered. I didn't have the energy to fight.\n\nWe made our way back to the table, and Logan whispered something in Sydney's ear. She giggled and the two of them sat down. Everyone looked at me expectantly. The waitress arrived with our Cokes, and Sydney and Logan ordered. I tried not to roll my eyes as Sydney asked for a sparkling water and a salad with low-cal dressing.\n\nI took a long sip of my soda. \"Hi,\" I said. \"I know we all know each other, but I thought maybe we could start today by going around and introducing ourselves briefly and saying why we're here.\"\n\nCody snorted. \"I thought you said this wasn't going to be like therapy.\"\n\n\"I already went to grief counseling,\" Mindy mumbled.\n\n\"I hated it.\"\n\n\"Is that what this is?\" Cody demanded. \"Because if it is, I'm leaving.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said quickly. \"It's not like I expect us to sit around and talk about death, you know?\" I glanced at Kelsi, and she looked away. \"But for today, I thought it would be a good idea if we at least all know each other's stories.\"\n\nThe smirk slipped from Cody's face. He looked down at his lap.\n\nThe rest of the group watched me in silence. I didn't think it was my imagination that Sydney looked uncomfortable.\n\n\"Fine, I'll go,\" I said finally. I took a deep breath. \"I'm Lacey Mann. I have two brothers, Logan and Tanner. My dad died in a car accident last November. We were all with him in the car. All of us except for my mom, I mean.\"\n\nI said the words matter-of-factly. I didn't expect them to make me feel weird, because it wasn't like they were anything new. These were all facts I had accepted. But there was a lump in my throat when I finished, and my eyes stung a little bit. \"Logan?\" I said. \"Do you want to go next?\"\n\n\"What do you want me to say?\" he asked. \"I have the same story as you.\"\n\n\"Duh,\" Sydney said under her breath.\n\n\"I just thought...,\" I said. I stopped, because I wasn't sure _what_ I'd thought.\n\n\"I'll go,\" Cody said. \"I'm Cody. My dad died in Iraq when I was in eighth grade.\"\n\nHe paused, and I thought he was done. I was about to open my mouth to thank him when he spoke again.\n\n\"He was with his battalion,\" Cody continued. \"It was just a normal day. They were driving along a road. And then all of a sudden, a bomb went off in the road in front of them. They had driven over some wire and tripped it. The bomb totally ripped apart the convoy. A few other soldiers were hurt. But my dad died. Right there.\"\n\nHe took a deep breath and then looked down at his lap.\n\nIt was Mindy who finally spoke. \"That must have been really hard on you,\" she said. \"To have him so far away. And not be able to say goodbye.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it sucked,\" Cody said. He paused. \"What happened to your mom?\"\n\nSomething inside me lurched. It was working. The people around the table were talking.\n\n\"She died,\" Mindy said simply. \"Last year, when I was in eighth grade. She had been sick when I was younger. But the cancer went away, and we thought she was done with it. After a while, she stopped going to the doctor as often as she should have. And then, when they found it again, it was too late. It had already spread. She died really fast. I mean, in a couple of months. They tried chemo, but it didn't work. My little sister and I were with her. We had to move in with my dad after. He and my mom were divorced.\"\n\n\"Was he sad?\" Kelsi asked in a soft voice.\n\n\"My dad?\" Mindy asked, turning to her. Kelsi nodded. Mindy considered this for a minute. \"I don't know. I never saw him cry or anything. He told me and my sister he was sad. But he's remarried. He has a new wife and a little baby now. I think it's weird for him that we live with him.\"\n\n\"Do you like your stepmom?\" The question came from Logan. It surprised me that he was participating instead of mocking.\n\nMindy shook her head. \"Not really. She's really young. She doesn't like us. Me and my sister, I mean.\"\n\n\"That must be hard,\" Cody said.\n\nMindy glanced at him. \"Yeah,\" she said. \"It is. We don't talk about my mom very often anymore. My dad gets uncomfortable when we bring her up.\"\n\nI caught her eye. \"You can talk about her here,\" I said.\n\n\"With us.\"\n\nMindy smiled at me, a little sadly. \"Yeah. I know.\"\n\n\"My mom died,\" Kelsi said in a tumble of words. \"But you all know that. _Everyone_ knows that. Don't they?\"\n\nThere was a brief silence, then Cody laughed. It sounded out of place after her somber declaration. I looked at him, startled.\n\n\"Yeah, we're pretty much all famous,\" he said. To my surprise, Kelsi laughed too.\n\n\"Everyone knows you,\" Cody went on, \"but no one knows what the heck to say to you.\"\n\n\"Sure they do,\" Kelsi said. She batted her eyelashes and adopted a high-pitched voice. \"We're _so_ sorry!\"\n\nWe all laughed. I hadn't expected this. I was feeling better about this meeting idea every moment.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Mindy chimed in. \"And then they just stare at you. And avoid you. Because they don't know what to say after that.\"\n\nEveryone laughed except Logan and Sydney. \"That's not true,\" Sydney interjected. The laughter died down, and everyone looked at her. \"People don't do that.\"\n\nCody narrowed his eyes. \"Yeah they do.\"\n\n\"You're just being paranoid,\" Sydney retorted.\n\n\"Really?\" Cody shot back. \"And what makes _you_ the expert?\"\n\nSydney's face was turning red. \"I'm just saying that I think you're all blowing things out of proportion,\" she said, her voice rising. She looked to Logan for support, but he was looking at his feet. \"Besides, it's not like anyone means badly by it.\"\n\nI hated to make things smoother for Sydney, especially when she didn't belong here. But I also hated to have us fighting at the first meeting. So before Cody could reply, I cut in. \"Sydney, I think Cody just means that people don't know how to act around us,\" I said. \"Because they don't know what to say.\"\n\n\"Well, what are we supposed to do?\" Sydney said. \"Act like you're some kind of royalty or something? Just because you had one bad thing happen to you?\"\n\nI stared at her. \"None of us expect to be treated like _royalty_. We just want to be treated normally. And it's not like having your parent die is just some random 'bad thing,' you know. It's a huge deal.\"\n\n\"Or maybe you're just _making_ it a big deal,\" Sydney said. \"Honestly, Lacey. I think this whole thing is a little silly. Don't you?\"\n\nShe looked around the table, smirking, as if it were full of people who would agree with her. I was a bit heartened to see that Kelsi, Cody, and Mindy were staring stonily back at her. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could, there was a deep voice from the direction of the doorway.\n\n\"I don't think it's silly at all.\"\n\nWe all turned to see who had come in unannounced. I practically fell out of my chair. Sam was standing by the hostess stand, his Red Sox cap pulled low over his forehead.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said, looking directly at me. My heart was pounding, and my cheeks felt like they were on fire. \"Um, thanks for saying that. But, um, what are you doing here? This is a group for people who have lost a parent.\"\n\nSam nodded slowly. \"I know,\" he said. \"That's why I'm here.\"\n\nI was confused. I stared at him for a minute, uncomprehending.\n\n\"My dad,\" Sam said. He cleared his throat. \"I lost my dad.\"\n\n# chapter 12\n\nI couldn't believe it.\n\n\"Oh,\" I said. My cheeks grew even warmer. \"I'm sorry. I didn't know.\" Suddenly, the conversation in the car came flooding back to me. Sam telling me he knew how I felt. Me getting defensive and mad. I felt a little sick.\n\nSam glanced at Sydney. \"At my old school, everyone was weird to me. After they found out about my dad. I didn't want to have to deal with it with a whole new group of people when I moved here, you know?\"\n\nI knew exactly what he meant.\n\n\"I was trying to tell you,\" he said, looking straight at me. \"That's what I was trying to say to you that day in the car.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" I swallowed hard.\n\n\"What happened, man?\" Cody asked. \"If it's cool for me to ask.\"\n\n\"A stroke,\" Sam said. \"He had a stroke.\"\n\nSydney seemed to have been shamed into silence. The rest of us mumbled words of apology.\n\n\"Was it recent?\" I asked. \"With your dad?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said in a barely audible voice. \"It was a few months ago. He just...\" Sam paused, like he wasn't quite sure what to say next. He took a deep breath. \"He was fine, you know? And then all of a sudden he wasn't. It was like something just went wrong in his face, like something short-circuited, you know, like a light that flickers all weird or something.\"\n\n\"You were with him?\" Cody asked.\n\nSam nodded. \"Yeah,\" he said. \"I mean, I kept asking him what he was doing. I thought for a minute maybe he was joking, you know. But then I knew he wasn't. And I called nine-one-one.\"\n\nSilence settled over us again.\n\n\"So, um, do you want to sit down?\" I asked, clearing my throat.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Sam said. \"I do.\"\n\nLogan glanced at Sydney again and then back at me.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSydney left about five minutes after Sam joined the group. To my surprise, although he remained largely unresponsive, Logan stayed.\n\nIn the next hour, with me sort of leading the group, we talked a bit about our parents who had died, a little about what it was like with a whole new family dynamic, and what it was like when everyone at school treated you like a weirdo. But mostly, we just talked, awkwardly at first but then more like friends.\n\nI learned all sorts of things I didn't know about people. Kelsi wanted to try out for softball this spring; Mindy had done gymnastics until her mom got sick and had even competed twice at the state level. Cody had just gotten a job at the local movie theater, tearing tickets, and he was thinking about signing up for the army next year, despite what had happened to his dad.\n\nThere were a million things I wanted to ask Sam, like when his dad had died and why his family had moved to Plymouth or how he seemed so much better adjusted. But unlike the rest of the group, he didn't seem to be volunteering any information. And I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. So I didn't say anything.\n\nA few minutes later, after we had complained a little more about therapists and other adults who thought they knew exactly how we were supposed to feel, Cody looked at his watch and stood up. \"I gotta go,\" he said. \"My shift at the movie theater starts at four-thirty.\"\n\nI checked my watch too. It was almost four. I couldn't believe we'd been talking for that long. It felt like just minutes ago that Sam had made his surprise appearance.\n\n\"Yeah, I guess we should get home,\" I said, glancing at Logan. I took a deep breath. \"I am so glad all of you came today. I wasn't really sure how this would go. But I wanted, I don't know, a place for us to feel normal, you know?\"\n\n\"A place for weirdos like us,\" Cody said. I thought for a split second that he was making fun of me until he winked and smiled.\n\n\"Yeah, weirdos like us,\" Mindy echoed. \"I like that.\"\n\nWe all laughed.\n\n\"So, should we do this again?\" I ventured after a moment. \"Next week maybe?\" I held my breath.\n\nKelsi and Mindy exchanged glances. Cody shrugged. Logan didn't reply. But Sam was nodding enthusiastically.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"I like that idea. Don't you?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, glancing around.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Kelsi said. \"That'd be cool, I guess.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Mindy said.\n\n\"Whatever,\" Cody said. We all turned to Logan.\n\n\"I guess,\" he mumbled, looking down.\n\nI couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face. This was really going to work.\n\n\"Can I make a suggestion, though?\" Sam asked. \"What if we met somewhere else?\"\n\n\"Like where?\" Kelsi asked.\n\nSam smiled. \"What if we went bowling?\"\n\n\"Bowling?\" Logan repeated.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Sam said. \"Why not? My aunt Donna owns Lucky Strikes Lanes over off Main. I bet she'll give us a big discount. Or maybe she'll even let us bowl free.\"\n\n\"That sounds cool,\" Cody said.\n\nI looked at the girls. I was worried that bowling would sound dorky and they wouldn't want to go. But they both nodded.\n\n\"Okay,\" Kelsi said.\n\nI looked at Logan. He seemed annoyed, but he shrugged. \"Yeah, whatever,\" he muttered.\n\nI turned back to Sam and smiled. \"That sounds like a good idea. So next Tuesday, then? A week from today?\"\n\nEveryone nodded.\n\n\"If anyone needs a ride, maybe we can just meet in the parking lot after school,\" Sam said. \"I drive a Cherokee. I can fit a bunch of people.\"\n\n\"Okay, next Tuesday it is,\" I said. \"And guys?\"\n\nEveryone looked at me, expectant. I paused.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said finally. \"Really. Thanks.\"\n\nNo one said anything for a minute. Then Mindy said softly, \"Well, thanks for setting this up. It's nice to be someplace where you don't feel like a weirdo. Where you can feel like you did...\"\n\nHer voice trailed off. I knew exactly what she meant. But it was Kelsi who put it into words.\n\n\"Before,\" she filled in, her voice soft. \"Where you can feel like you did before everything changed.\"\n\nI beamed. This felt like the most important thing I had ever done. I was helping people.\n\n\"Thanks for coming,\" I said quietly.\n\nAnd then, with a bunch of mumbled goodbyes, everyone went their separate ways. Sam glanced back and smiled at me as he walked out the door, but he didn't wait or ask if I needed a ride. A wall had gone up between us, and I'd been the one to put it there, all because I'd assumed that he was just like everyone else.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThat night, Mom tried to get us to talk about the meeting, and I told her a little bit about it. Logan was strangely quiet, muttering only yes or no to Mom's questions. Tanner, as usual, pushed his food around on his plate and was silent. I felt a knot starting to form in my stomach as I looked around the table at my silent little brother, my sad-eyed mother, and grumpy Logan. For the millionth time, I missed Dad so much I could feel the pain in my chest.\n\nAfter dinner, everyone shut themselves away in their rooms, even Mom. It made it feel like we were living in four separate little universes.\n\nI did my trig homework at the dining room table, puzzling over one particularly complicated cosine problem. Then, closing my books, I walked upstairs and knocked on Logan's door.\n\n\"What?\" he barked.\n\n\"It's me,\" I said. \"Can I come in?\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence. \"Whatever.\"\n\nI hadn't been in Logan's room in a while, and I was struck by how unfamiliar it felt. He had the same blue and green bedspread, of course, and the same white blinds that were a little bent on the lower right side. But he had taken down the surfing posters he used to have on his walls. In their place, he had a big collage made out of pictures of him and Sydney, with little hearts drawn all over it. Sydney had made it, of course, but I couldn't believe he had actually put it up.\n\nHe was sitting at his desk, shoulders slumped, staring at the bright screen of his computer. He had his history textbook spread in front of him and a few IM windows open.\n\n\"I, um, just wanted to say thanks for coming today,\" I said. I stood awkwardly in the doorway for a minute, then I crossed the room and sat on his bed. Logan sighed, typed a few things into the IM windows, and then turned around to look at me.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I continued after a pause. \"For staying. After Sydney left, I mean.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, now she's pissed at me,\" Logan said.\n\n\"Oh,\" I said. I didn't want to say that I was sorry, because I wasn't. \"Well, maybe she shouldn't have been there in the first place.\"\n\nEvidently, this was the wrong thing to say.\n\n\"Who are you to tell my girlfriend where she can and can't go?\" Logan exploded.\n\n\"I'm not trying to do that,\" I said defensively.\n\n\"Whatever,\" Logan said bitterly. \"You made her feel so uncomfortable. And now she's mad at _me.\"_\n\n\"Logan, I didn't do anything to make her feel uncomfortable,\" I said. \"She got all defensive. Remember?\"\n\n\"Yeah, well,\" Logan said. But he didn't continue.\n\nWe sat in silence. Then all of a sudden, Logan blurted out, \"What's the point, anyways?\"\n\nI was startled. \"The point of what?\"\n\n\"Of your stupid club?\" Logan asked. \"What, like it's supposed to make us feel better?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"I don't know. I just thought it might help. I thought today went well.\"\n\n\"Yeah, for you, maybe,\" he said.\n\nI stared at him.\n\n\"You know, you say you hate that we feel different from everyone else,\" he said. \"But then you start some group that makes us feel even _more_ different.\"\n\n\"It's not supposed to make us feel like that,\" I protested. \"It's supposed to give us a place to just feel normal.\"\n\n\"It's all about you, isn't it?\" he said, an edge of bitterness creeping into his voice.\n\nI couldn't understand why he'd say something like that. Everything I did these days was for other people. I worried about Mom. I tried to get Tanner to talk. I put up with Logan's stupid girlfriend just to keep the peace. \"What are you talking about?\" I asked.\n\nLogan rolled his eyes. \"I know, I know, you've been Saint Lacey since Dad died,\" he said. \"But don't you ever get sick of being good? I mean, don't you just want to get pissed off at the world sometimes?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. How would that help?\n\nLogan made a face. \"Yeah, well, _I_ don't always want to be perfect, you know? And Sydney doesn't want me to be.\"\n\nHe gazed at me triumphantly, like the fact that he had a \"supportive\" girlfriend was the answer to everything.\n\nI stared at him for a minute. \"How does Sydney even _know_ what she wants, anyhow? She's so joined at the hip with you that I think you two are sharing a brain.\"\n\n\"Shut up, Lacey,\" he said. \"You don't know everything.\"\n\nI stood up. \"Sometimes I don't think you know anything at all.\"\n\n\"You can't bring him back, you know,\" Logan said. \"You can't bring anyone's parents back or make things like they were before. And it's stupid to try.\"\n\nI stormed out of his room, slamming the door behind me. I went into my room, slamming that door too, and collapsed on my bed.\n\nI waited for a minute, figuring that Mom would come to see what the problem was. After all, I was sure that the slamming doors could probably be heard down the block, especially since our house was so silent these days.\n\nBut she never came. And Logan didn't come to apologize. Instead, the loneliness settled down on me like a fog, and I lay slowly back on my bed, soaking in the silence.\n\n# chapter 13\n\nAfter our Saturday-afternoon appointment with Dr. Schiff, Mom, Logan, and Tanner had once again shut themselves away in their rooms. Feeling lonely and bored, I called Jennica.\n\n\"Want to go to the mall or something?\" I asked. Silence. Then, \"I'm busy, Lacey.\"\n\n\"With Brian?\" I ventured.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" she replied. More awkward silence. Then she said, \"Look. I found out on Thursday that my dad's getting remarried, okay? And things are just a little weird around here. I don't really feel like going to the mall.\"\n\nI was stunned. \"Your dad's getting remarried? To Leanne?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"I didn't know it was that serious,\" I said.\n\n\"Yeah, well,\" Jennica said. I could hear her sigh on the other end of the line. \"There's a lot you don't know, Lacey.\"\n\nI wondered what she meant. \"But... why didn't you tell me?\"\n\nJennica was silent for a minute. \"I guess I didn't really expect you to understand.\"\n\n\"What?\" Jennica and I talked about everything. Or at least we used to.\n\n\"Well, it's not like he's dead or anything,\" Jennica said. \"I mean, you're always going on and on about how your life is so different because your dad died.\"\n\n\"I never talk about it,\" I interjected, surprised. I really didn't.\n\n\"Yeah, well,\" Jennica said. \"I guess I just didn't expect you to take my problem that seriously.\"\n\n\"You're my best friend,\" I said. \"Of course I'd take your problem seriously.\"\n\n\"Be honest,\" she said. \"You think my thing is so much less important than yours, don't you?\"\n\nI hesitated. Part of me wanted to say yes, of course. No matter how sad she was, at least her dad was still alive. She still got to see him sometimes. Her whole world hadn't been shattered. Not the way mine had been. But I knew she didn't see it that way. And I knew that admitting that would be the wrong thing to say. \"Um,\" I said instead.\n\nShe made a muffled sound. \"Like I said. Don't worry about it, Lacey.\"\n\nAnd then, for the first time in our friendship, Jennica hung up without saying goodbye.\n\nI sat down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands. Jennica was mad at me. Logan barely talked to me. My mom was trying to put on a happy face, but she avoided the house and her kids as much as she could. And then there was Tanner.\n\nI walked upstairs and knocked lightly on Tanner's door. He didn't reply, so I knocked again. \"Tanner?\" I called out. \"Can I come in?\"\n\nI waited a minute, and hearing no reply, I pushed open the door.\n\nThe shades were drawn and the room was dark, even in the middle of the afternoon. The lamp beside Tanner's bed was on, but he was crouched in the shadows next to McGee's cage.\n\n\"Hey, buddy,\" I said. I crossed the room and knelt beside him. \"How's it going?\"\n\nTanner was staring into the cage like his life depended on it, his concentration entirely fixed. I glanced into the cage to see what McGee was doing.\n\nExcept McGee wasn't there. I bent my head to look inside his little plastic cave. No McGee. Nor was he on the hamster wheel. And the cage was small, only a few feet long and a few feet tall.\n\n\"Tanner?\" I asked, starting to feel alarmed. \"Where's McGee?\"\n\nWithout looking at me, he raised his right arm and pointed toward the window.\n\n\"He's over by the window?\" I asked. Tanner shook his head.\n\nI struggled to figure out what he meant. \"He's outside?\" That didn't make sense. \"You let him outside?\" But Tanner shook his head again. And then I noticed a tear roll down his right cheek. He blinked quickly and wiped it away as he went on staring at the empty cage.\n\nSuddenly, I got it. \"Tanner?\" I asked. \"Did McGee die?\"\n\nTanner nodded once, still without looking at me. \"Oh, Tanner,\" I breathed, blinking back tears. \"I'm so sorry. Why didn't you tell anyone?\" Tanner kept staring at the cage.\n\n\"Tanner, where is he?\" I glanced toward the window. \"Did you bury him out back?\" Tanner nodded again.\n\nI swallowed hard. \"Well, come on,\" I said resolutely. \"McGee needs a proper funeral.\"\n\nTanner finally looked up at me, surprise playing across his face. \"A funeral?\"\n\nAn hour later, I had helped Tanner make a little cross-shaped headstone out of Popsicle sticks and glue. With a thin Sharpie he wrote \"Good Bye McGee\" on the horizontal sticks and drew a little picture of the hamster. While he drew, I downloaded \"Amazing Grace\"\u2014the song that had played for much of our dad's funeral\u2014on my iPod and grabbed my portable speakers from my room. Then, I got Mom and Logan and told them we needed to do something in the backyard.\n\nMom was mystified at first, but her face crumpled when I told her what had happened. She excused herself, and I could hear muffled sobs coming from her bathroom. Logan, on the other hand, just rolled his eyes.\n\n\"You're making me come outside for a _hamster's_ funeral?\" he demanded.\n\nI glared at him. \"No, I'm making you come outside to be supportive of our brother.\"\n\nLooking annoyed, he got up and followed me downstairs, grumbling under his breath.\n\nA few minutes later, we all stood under the old, arching oak tree in the left corner of the backyard, where Tanner had buried McGee. With a solemn look on his face, Tanner carefully stuck his Popsicle-stick cross in the ground and secured it with a pile of little pebbles. Then he stood up and pushed play on my iPod. The strains of \"Amazing Grace\" drifted through the yard, and as we all stood in silence, clustered around the tiny grave, the song and the solemnity of the moment reminded me uncomfortably of Dad's funeral. I gulped.\n\n\"Do you want to say a few words in McGee's honor?\" I asked my little brother.\n\n\"Lacey,\" my mom said, \"you know he doesn't like to talk. Don't push him.\"\n\nBut Tanner surprised us all by turning to face us and clearing his throat. \"McGee was my friend,\" he began. I turned the iPod down a little. \"He always understood me. He didn't try to make me talk. But he listened if I wanted to talk.\"\n\nWe stared at him. He hadn't spoken this much at a stretch since last November.\n\n\"He was just there for me,\" Tanner went on. He looked at the ground. \"He was fun to play with. And I never had to talk about Dad or about being sad with him.\" He paused. \"Thank you for coming to the funeral.\" Then before any of us could respond, he walked quickly away, toward the house. We stood and watched him in shocked silence until he disappeared into the house, pushing the door closed behind him.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAfter Tanner disappeared into the house, Mom went back to cleaning the kitchen, as if all her meticulous scrubbing and organizing could restore order to our lives, too. Sydney came and picked up Logan, who left without a word to any of us. And as our house fell silent again, I knew I had to get out.\n\nI changed into running shorts, a sports bra, and a long-sleeved T-shirt and laced up the running shoes I hadn't put on in nearly a year. I used to love running, but I hadn't gone out once since the accident. At first, it was because my leg had been broken. But then, after it healed and after the doctors told me I should try to ease back into my normal routine, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Running made my leg ache, a dull, throbbing pain in the two places where the bone had been crushed. And the last thing I needed was a physical reminder of the accident.\n\nBut today, I wanted to feel it. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to feel _something_. And so I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, plugged earbuds into my iPod, and left the house without saying goodbye.\n\nEvening was approaching, and with it, cooler temperatures. I shivered as I stretched in the driveway, but I knew that I'd warm up as I ran. I took off down the street, no particular route in mind. I pulled up Star Beck's latest album, the one she'd written herself, on my iPod, and let myself slip into the music as my feet pounded the pavement.\n\nMy leg ached, as I knew it would, every time my left foot hit the ground. I tried to imagine the exact places my femur had broken, tried to imagine the bone shattering as our car crumpled around us. It seemed unfair that my leg would be able to heal almost entirely, while my dad's injuries had stolen him in a matter of seconds. In a way, it was comforting that my leg still hurt, and I found myself wishing that it would ache more, as if hanging on to the pain of that day would give me a do-over.\n\nI avoided, as I always did, the intersection where the accident had happened. It used to be part of my jogging route, but now I went the other way, winding deeper into our subdivision. I ran back toward the cranberry bogs, which were awash in red, ripe fruit. It was harvesting season, and even as the sunlight waned, I could see a few men in hip boots in what appeared to be a brick-colored sea, raking floating cranberries into containers. My dad had harvested cranberries as a side job when he was putting himself through college. I tried to imagine him out there with the other men, but I couldn't fix the image in my head. I used to be able to close my eyes and see the outline of his face so clearly, but now he had all but disappeared.\n\nI turned away from the bogs. I ran along the main road for a little while, then dipped into the next neighborhood. Jennica lived here, and I ran by her house, not sure what I was intending to do or say. But the lights were all off, and her mom's car wasn't in the driveway. Perhaps she and her mother and sister had gone out to dinner, like a normal family.\n\nI ran on. My leg still ached, but the pain felt like a companion now instead of a burden. I was running with it, not against it. I turned down a street I hadn't been on before and noticed, way off at the end, a guy in a long-sleeved gray tee, a baseball cap, and running shorts mowing the lawn of a big house that sat a little way up a hill. As I ran toward it, I thought about what an insurmountable task it seemed like with the push mower he was moving around the enormous yard. My feet took me closer, and just as I was about to pass by the house and loop down another street, the guy mowing the lawn turned, and I realized with a start that I knew him.\n\nIt was Sam.\n\nI stopped in my tracks without meaning to, and our eyes met. He stared for a moment and then shut off the mower.\n\n\"Lacey?\" he yelled down the lawn a little uncertainly. \"Um, hi,\" I said. I took my earbuds out and glanced around, unsure of what to do. I was suddenly conscious of how I must look. I was drenched in sweat, my hair was frizzing out of my ponytail, and I didn't have any makeup on, which meant that the two pimples on my chin were probably staring right at Sam, in all their angry red glory.\n\nAs Sam made his way down the lawn, I was surprised to see a tattoo on his left calf. I couldn't help staring. It was a Celtic claddagh, a pair of hands clasping a heart with a crown on top. My dad had the exact same one. I knew it meant love, friendship, and loyalty. My mother's wedding ring had the same design on it too, and my dad had once explained to me that it meant he had married his best friend, the woman he loved most in the world, and someone he'd be loyal to forever.\n\n\"You have a tattoo,\" I said.\n\n\"What?\" He looked surprised and glanced down at his leg. \"Oh. Yeah. I got it after my dad...\" His voice trailed off. He looked down, then he smiled at me. \"I thought my mom was going to kill me when I came home with it. The guy at the tattoo place thought I was eighteen.\"\n\nI smiled. \"My dad got a claddagh tattoo too. On his arm. He got it when he and my mom got married.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah?\" Sam said. \"That's cool.\"\n\nWe stood there awkwardly for a minute. \"So,\" Sam finally said. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nI could feel the color rise to my cheeks. I probably looked like I was stalking him. \"I was just going for a run,\" I said, and added hastily, \"I had no idea you lived down here.\"\n\nSam glanced back at the house. \"I'd invite you in, but my mom's sort of freaking out right now. My little brother just gave her his report card, and he failed English. They're screaming at each other. That's why I came out to mow the lawn.\"\n\n\"You have a brother?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Sam said. \"Joey. He's eight.\" He paused. \"Is it just you and Logan?\"\n\n\"I have another brother too,\" I said. \"Tanner.\" I paused and added, \"He's eleven. He doesn't talk very much anymore. Since the accident.\"\n\n\"It's crazy how much things change, isn't it?\" Sam said. \"You know, after.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I agreed. I suddenly wanted to change the subject. I glanced up at the lawn. \"So you mow this whole thing by yourself?\"\n\nSam laughed. \"Yeah, it's crazy,\" he said. \"Our old house had a much smaller yard, so it was a lot easier. But you know, I don't really mind. It's kind of nice to have a reason to be outside.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said. Silence settled over us.\n\n\"So the other day was really cool,\" Sam said after a minute. \"I mean, I think it was a really good idea.\"\n\nI smiled. \"Thanks.\"\n\nSam took off his cap raked a hand through his hair, getting a few tufts of grass stuck in his thick, dark strands. \"Hey, could I run with you for a little while?\"\n\n\"You want to run with me?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"If that's cool,\" he said. \"I used to run track at my old school. My dad was the coach, actually.\" A shadow flickered over his face.\n\n\"Sure,\" I said. \"I haven't run in a while, though.\" I paused. \"Not since the accident, actually. So I'm not very fast.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Sam said. \"Then you'll be easy to beat when I race you.\"\n\nI laughed. He pushed the mower back up to the house and then jogged back down the driveway.\n\n\"You're not going to change clothes?\" I asked.\n\nHe glanced down at his grass-stained sneakers, his faded running shorts, and his sweaty shirt. \"Nah,\" he said.\n\nWe set off at a slow jog, and until we reached the end of the block, neither of us said a word. I was conscious of the silence between us and of my pounding heart, which was pumping blood so loudly that I feared Sam could hear it too. It wasn't until we were at the end of the street that Sam spoke.\n\n\"So do you have a boyfriend?\" he asked.\n\nStartled, I looked up at him. \"Um, no,\" I said. I cleared my throat and focused on my pace. \"Do you have a girlfriend?\"\n\n\"Nah,\" he said. He paused and added, \"I had one at my old school. But that was a while ago.\"\n\nWe jogged in silence again, and then Sam blurted out, \"I think we should go out. You and me, I mean.\"\n\n\"What?\" It sounded ruder than I'd meant it to.\n\n\"It's what I was trying to ask you that day in the car. Before you got mad. I think we should go out. Like, together.\"\n\nI could feel myself blushing. \"Really?\" I asked. \"Why?\"\n\n\"You don't want to?\" Sam asked. I noticed he wasn't looking at me, but his face seemed redder than it should have, considering that we weren't jogging that hard.\n\n\"No, no, I do,\" I said quickly. \"I'm just not used to...\" I didn't know what to say. What, that I wasn't used to guys liking me? That I wasn't used to being asked out? \"You don't even know me,\" I finally concluded.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he asked. \"I sit next to you in two classes, and we've talked pretty much every day for the last month and a half.\"\n\n\"I guess,\" I said. I didn't know why I was being so reluctant. I was completely attracted to him; how could I not be? And I knew he wasn't asking me out just because he felt sorry for me or wanted to gossip about how great he was for taking out the poor little fatherless girl.\n\n\"Besides,\" Sam continued, \"how are you going to get to know me if you don't let me take you out to dinner?\"\n\n\"When?\" I asked.\n\n\"Tomorrow night?\" he said.\n\nI thought for a minute. \"Yeah,\" I said. \"I could do that.\"\n\nWe both fell into silence again, and as I ran, my mind swirled, thinking about the fact that at this time tomorrow, I'd actually be out with Sam Stone. Who was hot and sweaty\u2014and really, really gorgeous\u2014as he jogged next to me right now.\n\n\"So tell me about your little brother,\" Sam said as we turned out of his neighborhood onto Long Pond Road.\n\nI hesitated, then began to tell him about how much Tanner liked animals and video games and how he used to love searching for the prize in the bottom of the Cracker Jack boxes at ball games. And before I knew it, I found myself telling Sam about Tanner's almost constant silence and how much it worried me. He told me that he was really scared to see his brother withdraw from everything he used to love. And I was surprised to realize that our mothers seemed to have reacted to losing our fathers the same way: by throwing themselves into their work and social lives instead of spending time with us.\n\n\"It's like she thinks that if she just works hard enough, she can forget,\" Sam said, glancing down at me.\n\n\"That's exactly how my mom is too,\" I said. Somehow, it helped to know that my family wasn't the only one crumbling, the only one where the remaining adult had retreated rather than dealing.\n\nIt was the best conversation I'd had since the accident.\n\nAs we jogged and talked, our feet eventually carried us to my house, like that's where we'd been going all along. By the time we got there, we'd covered everything from Jennica to Sam's best friend Chris at his old school who didn't call anymore to how hard it was to come into a close-knit community like this one and make friends, when everyone had known one another since preschool.\n\nWe stopped in my driveway, and as we stood catching our breath, I asked, \"Do you want to come in and get some water or something?\"\n\nSam looked at his watch. \"Nah,\" he said. \"My mom's probably wondering where I am. I'd better get home.\"\n\n\"Want me to get my mom to drive you?\" I asked. Then I added apologetically, \"She won't let me drive, even though I'm sixteen. It has to do with the accident.\"\n\nSam nodded, like he understood and wasn't going to judge me. \"Nah, I'm good,\" he said. \"I should be able to make it home in twenty minutes if I pick up the pace a little.\"\n\n\"You saying I'm slow?\" I teased.\n\nHe laughed. \"No. I'm saying I enjoyed our conversation too much to put any thought into actually running.\"\n\nThen, before I realized what was happening, he leaned down and gave me a quick peck on the lips. He pulled back, looking embarrassed, before I could get my mouth to unfreeze long enough to reply.\n\n\"Pick you up at six,\" he said.\n\nHe was already disappearing down the street before I raised my hand in a silent goodbye. My lips were still tingling as he vanished around the corner.\n\n# chapter 14\n\nI practically floated up to my bedroom and booted up my computer. After a quick shower to rinse my hair and wash the run away, I went online. Jennica's screen name popped up in a little IM window, accompanied by her AIM tone, which was the sound of a kiss.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: Hey Lacey.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: I'm sorry.\n\nI gulped. I paused and typed back.\n\nLACEYLOO321: it's ok\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: i was a jerk.\n\nLACEYLOO321: u weren't a jerk.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: i was.\n\nLACEYLOO321: weren't\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: was\n\nLACEYLOO321: agree to disagree?\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: only if u accept my apology.\n\nLACEYLOO321: deal.\n\nLACEYLOO321: :-)\n\nLACEYLOO321: hey, i'm sorry u r upset about ur dad.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: :-(\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: it's no big deal.\n\nLACEYLOO321: yeah it is. i shouldn't act like it's not. i'm sorry if i do that.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: it's ok.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: besides. it's not a big deal. Not like ur dad. i know that, ok?\n\nLACEYLOO321: i don't want to talk about that.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: u never do.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: is that what you talked about at ur group? that group for kelsi?\n\nLACEYLOO321: not really. we just kinda hung out.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: why? they're not even ur friends.\n\nLACEYLOO321: i dunno. it's just nice. to have people who understand you.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: i understand u.\n\nLACEYLOO321: i know.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: but u don't talk to me.\n\nLACEYLOO321: it's different w\/ people who have lost a parent 2.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: but i try to understand.\n\nLACEYLOO321: i know.\n\nLACEYLOO321:...\n\nLACEYLOO321: maybe i don't give you enough credit for that.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: so anyway.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: my dad's stupid wedding is in 2 months.\n\nLACEYLOO321: what????!!!! 2 MONTHS???? but he just got engaged!!!!!!!!!!!!\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: ya\n\nLACEYLOO321: that's CRAZY.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: ya\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: i hate his stupid girlfriend.\n\nLACEYLOO321: she's like our age.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: almost. she's like 23 or something.\n\nLACEYLOO321: what does brian think?\n\nThere was a long pause. I thought maybe Jennica had signed off without seeing my last question. I was just about to close the IM window when she wrote back.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: he thinks i'm being dumb\n\nLACEYLOO321: what????\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: i dunno\n\nLACEYLOO321: are u 2 fighting?\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: not exactly. kinda.\n\nLACEYLOO321: about what???\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: he doesn't get it\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: his dad is on wife #3. and his mom just got married last year\n\nLACEYLOO321: so?\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: he just doesn't think it's a big deal. doesn't get why i'm upset\n\nLACEYLOO321: that's crazy\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: yeah. well.\n\nLACEYLOO321: i'm sorry.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: ya. thanx.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: gotta go. my mom's yelling at me.\n\nLACEYLOO321: hey, i've got something to tell you.\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: can we talk tmrow? seriously, mom's pissed.\n\nLACEYLOO321: yeah. u ok?\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: ya. see ya. can u come over tmrw? like lunchtime? we can go to the mall.\n\nLACEYLOO321: yeah. c u at noon?\n\nJENNICAJENNICA: c u. bye!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"We're not invited to the wedding,\" Jennica told me as she opened her door the next day.\n\n\"What?\" I asked, my heart aching for her. \"You're not?\" Jennica nodded. \"My dad's _fianc\u00e9e_ \"\u2014she spat the word out like it tasted terrible\u2014\"is apparently afraid Anne and I will make a _scene_.\"\n\nAs much as Jennica disliked her dad's bride-to-be, a spandex-wearing, yoga-practicing blond waif who was the polar opposite of Jennica's dark-haired, pleasantly plump Cuban American mom, she and Anne had been raised to be polite in every situation. I knew as well as her father did that Jennica would never, in a million years, make a scene at someone's wedding\u2014even if she hated the person.\n\n\"But what about your dad?\" I asked. \"Isn't he insisting you come? I mean, he's your _dad!\"_\n\nJennica's eyes filled with tears, which she wiped away angrily, as if furious that they were even there in the first place. \"No.\" The word sliced out of her mouth.\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"No,\" she repeated. \"He says it's Leanne's day. And he wants it to be perfect for her.\"\n\n\"But it's his day too,\" I protested. \"And you're his kids.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well.\" Jennica shrugged. \"I guess that doesn't matter.\"\n\n\"He still loves you, Jennica,\" I said. I knew the words were weak. I didn't know what else to say.\n\n\"Well, it doesn't feel like it.\"\n\nI thought about my family and about how far apart we'd all drifted. I thought about my dad, and how he wasn't here for us when we needed him most. And weird as it was, I thought about Sam and the fact that in just a few minutes of talking to him, he'd made me feel more understood than I'd felt in the last ten months.\n\n\"My mom's out and Anne's at her friend's house,\" Jennica said, changing the subject. \"Is it cool with you if we just go to the mall now and eat there? I promised I'd have the car back by three.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" I said.\n\nIt wasn't until we were walking into Macy's that I blurted out, \"So I'm going out with someone tonight.\"\n\nJennica stopped. \"Who?\" she practically shrieked.\n\n\"Sam Stone.\"\n\n\"What? Since when? Why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"I'm telling you now.\" I quickly recounted the story of my jog yesterday and of running into him as he mowed his lawn.\n\n\"He's, like, completely gorgeous,\" Jennica said. \"I can't believe you're going out with him.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said.\n\n\"Omigod,\" Jennica said.\n\n\"I know,\" I repeated with a smile.\n\n\"Well, we totally have to get you a new outfit, shoes, a top, earrings\u2014\"\n\n\"It's not really that big of a deal,\" I protested. I felt silly. \"I mean, it's a Sunday night. We're just going to dinner.\"\n\n\"And you need to look hot.\"\n\nFor the next hour, Jennica seemed to forget entirely about her dad's upcoming remarriage as we raced around the mall. She was on a mission as she rifled through sale racks, throwing dresses, skirts, and cute tops at me. And she was chattering a mile a minute.\n\n\"So you have to ask a lot of questions, but not too many, because you want to seem interested, but not annoying,\" she rambled. \"And you want to make eye contact, but you can't, like, stare, because that comes off as creepy, you know? And you should order a real meal, not just a salad, because guys don't like girls who don't eat, but you shouldn't finish it all, because you don't want to look like a pig. And you should remember to cross your legs, bat your eyes, and sometimes lick your lips, because it's been proven that guys find that attractive.\"\n\n\"Jennica,\" I said after we got our lunch and found seats in the crowded food court, \"I appreciate all the advice. But I think I'm just going to be myself.\"\n\n\"Be yourself?\" Jennica repeated. She looked horrified.\n\n\"I'm not a total loser or anything,\" I said, taking a bite of my hot dog.\n\n\"No... but you aren't exactly used to going out with cute guys.\"\n\nI gave her a look. \"I think I can manage.\"\n\nJennica took a sip of her soda. \"You are going to have so much fun. I'm actually kind of jealous.\"\n\n\"What, of me going out with Sam?\" I asked, surprised.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Of how excited you are.\"\n\n\"Don't you feel like this with Brian?\" I asked.\n\nJennica paused. \"No,\" she said. \"Not anymore.\"\n\n# chapter 15\n\nWhen the doorbell rang, I took one last look in the mirror, then raced downstairs. I'd bought a new black top with a deep pink rose stitched up the side, and I'd paired it with my favorite jeans, black boots, and gold hoop earrings. I looked good.\n\n\"Hey,\" Logan said, beating me to the door. He stared at Sam, who looked ridiculously hot in dark jeans, a white button-down shirt, and his leather jacket.\n\nSam looked past Logan and saw me coming down the stairs. \"Hey.\" His smiled widened.\n\n\"Tell Mom I'll be home by ten,\" I told my wide-eyed brother.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWe ate at a place called Saltwinds, which looked out over Plymouth Bay. And luckily I didn't need Jennica's rules\u2014I didn't even feel nervous. It was like talking to a friend who happened to be super cute.\n\n\"I want to show you something,\" Sam told me after dinner. \"Do you have another couple of hours?\"\n\nI doubted Mom would even notice if I was late.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said.\n\nSam turned east on Route 44, but I didn't figure out where we were going until we were well outside the city limits.\n\n\"Are we going to where you used to live?\" I asked.\n\n\"Near there,\" Sam said mysteriously.\n\nJust after we passed a WELCOME TO TAUNTON sign, Sam took a left and then another left onto a dirt road. We drove until I could see a collapsed bridge across a river ahead of us.\n\n\"You're not going to try to cross that or something, are you?\" I asked, realizing as I said it that I was being silly.\n\n\"No,\" Sam laughed. \"Just trust me, okay?\" He pulled off the dirt road and parked several yards from the water. He shut off the ignition and crossed around to the passenger side to help me out. \"Come on,\" he said. \"It's not muddy.\"\n\nI hopped out of the Jeep. He took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine the way he had at the party. We walked in silence under the bridge. I looked at the water, half expecting to see a boat or something down there. But when we reached the bank, Sam gently put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around so that I was facing the underside of the bridge.\n\nI stared without speaking. I didn't know what to say; it was like nothing I'd ever seen.\n\nThe entire underside of the bridge abutment was painted with a mural in all the colors of the rainbow. Every available inch of space was filled with individual scenes. Kids played together; families sat around the dinner table; stars sparkled in the sky.\n\n\"Wow,\" I said. \"This is amazing.\"\n\n\"It's where I used to come before we moved to Plymouth. You know, when I needed to get away,\" Sam said.\n\n\"How did you find this mural?\" I asked.\n\nSam laughed. \"Find it? I painted it.\"\n\nI looked at him in disbelief. \"What?\"\n\nHe looked a little embarrassed. \"I mean, it's not that big of a deal. It's just how I get stuff out, you know? Like this.\" He walked over and pointed to a scene of three people standing together, their backs to us. The man in the middle was pointing upward. The boys to either side of him, one younger than the other, were looking in the direction of his finger. \"This is the first thing I painted. It's my dad and my brother and me when we were little. He used to take us to the air show in Chicopee. For some reason, after his stroke, this was the image I couldn't get out of my head.\"\n\n\"It's beautiful,\" I said. I reached out and touched the paint, feeling its texture beneath my fingers.\n\n\"And this\"\u2014he walked me a few feet to the right, where a man and a woman knelt laughing under a Christmas tree\u2014\"was the Christmas that my dad gave my mom a pair of socks and then surprised her by pulling a necklace out of his bathrobe pocket while she was trying to pretend she liked the socks.\"\n\nHe took me down the mural, pointing out scenes here and there. I couldn't get over the level of skill; some of the figures looked real enough to reach out and touch. As Sam talked me through some of the pictures, I couldn't help feeling like I was reading the CliffsNotes to his life. I liked it.\n\nAfter a while, he led me over to a cement block near the river, and we sat down.\n\n\"So, you never told me what happened to your dad,\" he said after a minute. He reached for my hand and squeezed. \"You don't have to talk about it. But if you want to, I'd like to hear.\"\n\nI looked down at the water. \"I'm sure you've heard the story,\" I said. \"Everyone at school talks about it.\"\n\n\"I don't listen to rumors,\" Sam said.\n\nI took a deep breath. \"Okay.\" I looked up and cleared my throat.\n\n\"It happened last November,\" I began. Slowly, I told him about that crisp, bright autumn morning eleven months ago, when everything in the world had seemed so perfect. The words poured out, as they'd never done before. No one had ever asked for my story; everyone assumed they already knew.\n\n\"The worst part about it is...\" I couldn't finish the sentence. Sam put his hand on my shoulder, and I knew he was trying to comfort me. I couldn't meet his eyes. \"I think it was my fault,\" I said, so softly that I wasn't sure Sam could even hear me.\n\n\"It _wasn't_ your fault,\" he said right away.\n\n\"Yeah, it was.\" I still couldn't look at him. \"Sam, if I hadn't spent that extra time in the bathroom, if I hadn't been so stupid and shallow\"\u2014I took a deep breath\u2014\"my dad would still be here.\"\n\n\"Lacey,\" Sam said firmly.\n\nI continued to look down. I swallowed the lump in my throat.\n\n\"Lacey,\" Sam repeated. \"Look at me.\" His face was inches from mine. I could feel his warm breath. He was looking at me intensely.\n\n\"What?\" I whispered\n\n\"It wasn't your fault,\" he said.\n\n\"But it was,\" I said. \"If I had just taken less time\u2013\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But if I had screamed or something when I saw the other car\u2013\"\n\n\"No, Lacey.\"\n\n\"If I hadn't been dragging my feet to annoy Logan\u2013\"\n\n\"No,\" Sam cut me off, his voice leaving no room for argument. \"It was _not_ your fault. Just like it wasn't my fault with my dad. I beat myself up about it for a while, Lacey. Even after the doctors said there wasn't anything I could have done. But it wasn't me. And it wasn't you. And as unfair as this is, and as hard as it is to understand, it was just their time for something to happen.\"\n\nI swallowed hard. I didn't believe that. How could it have been my dad's time? He was thirty-eight. Just the other day, we'd read in history class about a man in Puerto Rico who had lived to be 115. How was that possible? He had lived three of my father's lifetimes.\n\nI stared out into the blackness for a while and tried to process what Sam had said. He had felt like it was his fault too when his dad died. But what could he have done to stop a stroke?\n\nIt was different for me. There were a thousand things I could have done to change the outcome that day. I could have gotten up earlier that morning. I could have taken less time in the bathroom. I could have chosen not to deliberately annoy Logan. I could have looked up a second sooner in the car and seen the SUV barreling toward us. I could have warned my dad before it was too late.\n\nIf I'd done any of those things, my dad would still be alive.\n\nBut I knew Sam wouldn't understand that or would try to talk me out of it, the way Dr. Schiff did whenever we touched on the topic. So instead, as I did with her, I changed the subject. \"The anniversary is in three weeks,\" I said. I looked out in the blackness of the night and tried to focus on one of the porch lights across the river. Sometimes, if I stared into the darkness long enough, I could see the shape of my dad's face in the shadows, his familiar form coming out of the blackness. But not tonight.\n\n\"The anniversary of the accident?\" Sam asked.\n\nI nodded. \"November fifteenth,\" I said. \"It's weird thinking it's been a whole year.\"\n\nSam slipped his arm around my shoulder and scooted a little closer so that the sides of our bodies were pressed together. I should have felt nervous, or at least that tingly, anticipatory feeling of being with someone I really liked. But instead, all I could think about was my dad.\n\n\"You must miss him,\" Sam said, his breath tickling my ear.\n\nI nodded and he gave my shoulder a long squeeze, pulling me closer. \"So much has changed,\" I said. \"I miss him more than I could even say. But I miss _us_ , too. I miss my family. I miss being normal. I miss the sound of my little brother's voice. I miss seeing my mom smile. I miss being able to feel happy, even for an instant, without feeling guilty.\"\n\nI paused, embarrassed, and looked at Sam. \"I'm glad you're here,\" I said. \"I've never been able to talk to someone who understands before. I mean, I know other people whose parents have been sick or have had cancer or who have gotten divorced. And that's really sad. But it's not the same thing. Talking to you just makes me feel safe.\"\n\nSam shifted, and I thought he was going to say something, but he didn't. I settled back against his shoulder and gazed out at the river.\n\n\"Sometimes, I miss my dad so much it literally hurts,\" I whispered. I wasn't even sure I'd said the words aloud until I felt Sam's arm tighten around me.\n\n\"I know,\" he said. \"Can I show you something?\"\n\nHe led me back to the mural, to the far right side, and pointed up, above the heads of the paintings of himself and his mom and brother watching a baseball game. \"See that rainbow?\"\n\nSam had painted a sunny sky with only a few wisps of clouds. But in the middle of it, so faint that you had to strain to see it, there was the lightest wash of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, all in an arching ribbon of translucent color.\n\n\"My uncle Joe died when I was ten. Cancer,\" Sam continued. \"We were all really close, so it was really tough on me.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said.\n\nSam shook his head. \"No, it's okay. But my point in telling you is that my dad used to say that anytime we could see a rainbow in the sky, that was Uncle Joe telling us he was all right.\"\n\n\"A rainbow?\" I asked.\n\nSam shrugged, embarrassed. \"I know it sounds dumb.\"\n\n\"No, it doesn't,\" I said gently. \"But do you believe that? I mean, really believe it?\"\n\n\"I didn't at first. But you know, I started noticing that there were rainbows in the sky at the weirdest times. Like the afternoon my dad had his stroke. It wasn't even rainy that day. But I swear, when we got to the hospital with the paramedics, I looked up, and there was this really faint rainbow in the sky.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Maybe it's not as crazy as it sounds. I mean, if you believe in heaven and all.\"\n\n\"I do,\" I said simply. You had to believe in heaven when your dad died. The alternative, that your father's soul simply vanished, was too awful to even consider.\n\n\"So what I meant was, I think maybe your dad's been here all this time,\" Sam said. \"Maybe he does see you. You just haven't known where to look for him.\"\n\nI nodded quickly. I was trying to fight a strange feeling welling up inside me. It almost felt like I was going to cry, but I hadn't done that in almost a year. Not since that day in the cafeteria with Tali and Tatiana. It wasn't that I didn't want to. But every time I felt like the tears should come, they didn't. This was the closest I'd felt. My insides swam uncomfortably. I fought the feeling. I didn't want to cry; I couldn't afford to crack now, for so many reasons.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said finally.\n\nI looked back at the mural and realized that the figures of Sam, his mother, and his brother weren't watching the baseball game after all. They were looking up at the rainbow, which seemed to rise out of the horizon, behind Fenway Park's Green Monster. I smiled at Sam. He was already staring at me, and for a moment, we just held each other's gaze.\n\nI knew it was going to happen a second before it did. Our breath grew short. The space between us grew smaller. And then, Sam's hand was on my cheek, brushing it gently. When he finally leaned in and touched his lips to mine, my eyes were already closed, and I was already leaning toward him.\n\nSam tasted a little like Coke, but sweeter. As our lips touched, it was like someone had cranked up all my senses. I could smell something burning in the distance and the leaves turning to fall and the almost imperceptibly salty smell wafting in from the river. I could hear the chirping of the crickets and the splashes of the water and a train whistle in the distance. And Sam's hand touching my cheek ignited every cell in my skin.\n\nWe kissed for a long time without saying anything.\n\nFinally, Sam pulled back a little.\n\n\"Wow,\" he said, his nose still just a couple of inches from mine.\n\nI smiled. \"Yeah,\" I agreed.\n\nSam kissed my forehead. \"Mind if we just sit here for a while?\"\n\n\"Nope,\" I said.\n\nTogether, we turned and looked out into the darkness.\n\n# chapter 16\n\nForty minutes later, we were pulling into my driveway. I didn't want the evening to end.\n\n\"I had a great time with you,\" I said.\n\n\"Me too,\" Sam said. He paused. \"Listen, Lacey, I need to tell you something.\"\n\nI turned to him. He looked worried. And all of a sudden, I realized that whatever it was, I didn't want to hear it tonight. I didn't want anything to ruin our perfect night.\n\n\"Tell me tomorrow,\" I said.\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"Is it that you have some girlfriend back in Taunton or something?\" I asked, trying to sound like I was making a joke. But I meant it, actually. It would be just my luck to have truly connected with the perfect guy and to find out he was keeping something huge hidden from me.\n\nSam laughed. \"No.\"\n\n\"Then can you tell me tomorrow?\"\n\nHe nodded. I looked out the window at my front lawn, which was covered in a blanket of autumn leaves in varying shades of orange, red, and yellow, illuminated under the shallow glow cast by the streetlights. They reminded me of the first three colors of Sam's rainbow.\n\n\"My dad used to rake the leaves and make a big pile for all of us to jump in every fall,\" I said. \"Even when we were too old for it. Even Logan and I would jump in.\"\n\n\"That sounds really nice,\" Sam said.\n\n\"Is it weird that I miss things like the leaf pile, instead of just missing my dad?\" I asked.\n\n\"It's not weird at all,\" Sam said. He leaned across the center console and touched his lips lightly to mine. We lingered there for a minute, our lips just barely touching. Finally, he pulled back and looked me right in the eye again.\n\n\"Lacey Mann,\" he said, \"you're pretty amazing.\"\n\nI smiled. \"You're not so bad yourself, Sam Stone.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"See you tomorrow, then?\"\n\n\"See you tomorrow.\"\n\nSam walked me to my front door and after one last, quick kiss, I said goodbye and turned the key quietly in the lock. I smiled once more at Sam before shutting the door behind me. As I tiptoed up the stairs, avoiding the steps that creaked, I thought about how one day could make such a difference in your life. A year ago, it had been losing Dad\u2014and my family\u2014in a morning, in the blink of an eye. But today, it had been finding something new with Sam that I had the feeling would last for a long time.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAt school now, everything was different. Even though we'd never said the words, never officially made some sort of declaration of togetherness, Sam and I were a couple.\n\nIt was strange. I'd never had a boyfriend before. And I certainly wasn't used to people staring at me in the halls with jealousy in their eyes instead of pity. It was kind of nice to be the center of a different kind of attention.\n\nI figured at first that Logan and Sydney must have gossiped about me and Sam, but as the day went on I realized that we were creating our own waves. And although we had agreed on the disgustingness of Jennica-style PDA, Sam didn't seem embarrassed in the slightest to greet me in trig class with a peck on the cheek, like we'd been dating forever, or to walk me to my locker after class with my bookbag slung over his shoulder. He ate lunch with me, Jennica, and Brian and seemed completely oblivious to the stares from other tables.\n\n\"So is Sam, like, your boyfriend now?\" Jennica whispered as we went to throw out our trash. Brian and Sam were several paces behind us, talking about the Patriots game this weekend.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said. \"I guess so. It's weird.\"\n\n\"That happened fast.\"\n\nThe words unsettled me, because I wasn't exactly sure what she meant. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Sometimes relationships that develop so quickly aren't really based on anything real.\"\n\nI wondered whether she was talking about me or about her dad and Leanne.\n\n\"But he seems to really like you,\" she added hastily, as if she'd just realized what she'd said and how it had sounded. \"I'm sure things are fine.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe next afternoon was supposed to be our second group meeting. I'd been so caught up with thinking about Sam over the weekend that I hadn't even sent out a reminder e-mail. I spent the whole day feeling guilty that I had dropped the ball. It was so unlike me.\n\nI waited in the parking lot after school, near the fence around the football stadium, wondering who would show up for a ride. Sam had offered to drive everyone last week, and he had reminded me in sixth period today. Logan hadn't said one way or the other whether he was coming, but I figured that if he did show up, he'd get a ride from Sydney. That left Mindy, Kelsi, and Cody.\n\nFive minutes after the final bell, I saw Sam striding out, his Red Sox cap and leather jacket on, as usual. His bag was slung over his shoulder, and he was grinning as he approached.\n\n\"Hey you,\" he said as he reached me. \"You ready to go?\"\n\nI fell into step beside him. \"We should probably wait and see if anyone else needs a ride.\"\n\n\"Sure thing,\" he said cheerfully as we reached his Jeep.\n\nSam started the engine, fiddled with the heat for a minute, and then pushed Play on his CD player. A song I recognized from my dad's CD collection started playing.\n\n\"You like Jimmy Buffett?\" I asked, surprised. I didn't know anyone else our age who did. I'd always liked \"Cheeseburger in Paradise\" and some of his other songs. My dad used to make goofy faces when he sang along.\n\nSam seemed equally surprised. \"Yeah,\" he said. \"You know Buffett?\"\n\nI nodded. \"My dad really liked him.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\" he said. \"My dad too.\" He smiled a little. \"He was actually a Parrothead. Official member of the Jimmy Buffett fan club.\"\n\nI laughed. \"Same with my dad!\"\n\n\"Did he go last time Jimmy played at Gillette Stadium?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"So did my dad,\" Sam said. \"Isn't it weird to think that they sat in the same stadium at the same show? And we hadn't even moved here yet?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. Actually, I thought, it seemed stranger to me that there existed a time, in the not-so-distant past, that my dad and Sam's dad had been out enjoying a rock concert, maybe just rows away from each other, with no idea that their days were numbered. It made me feel so suddenly sad that my throat closed up. I glanced at Sam, and the smile had fallen from his face too. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.\n\nAfter a few minutes of waiting, the crowd of students flowing out from the school had slowed to a trickle, and the parking lot was nearly empty. Sam checked his watch. \"Think everyone found a ride?\"\n\nI nodded and took a deep breath, which I exhaled in a nervous laugh. \"Actually, I'm really worried that no one will show up at all.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Sam asked.\n\nI shrugged. \"I don't know. Maybe everyone thought last week was really stupid. I mean, maybe they thought about it later and realized they didn't want to hang out again with a bunch of sad people.\"\n\nSam seemed to think about this for a minute. \"No,\" he said firmly. \"I know it helped. And I know people felt good about it.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" I asked in a small voice.\n\n\"Yes,\" Sam said. We waited another few minutes, the silence hanging over us, then Sam shifted into drive. \"I guess we should go.\"\n\nI nodded, feeling discouraged. What if it _was_ just me and Sam? I'd feel like such a failure. And I'd look like an idiot.\n\nAs we drove, I glanced at him a few times out of the corner of my eye when I knew he was paying attention to the road. I liked how angular his face was from the side. Sharp nose, sharp chin. But he didn't seem sharp-featured when you looked straight at him. It was funny how different people could appear when you simply looked at them from different angles.\n\nWhen Sam and I pulled into the Lucky Strikes parking lot it was almost totally empty. There was a beat-up, dusty pickup truck I didn't recognize and a Cadillac with a dented front end. But I didn't see Kelsi's car. Or Sydney's. Even her snob-mobile would have been a relief at this point.\n\n\"No one's here,\" I murmured.\n\nSam glanced over at me as he shifted his Jeep into park and cut the motor. \"Lacey, it's still early,\" he said. \"Don't worry yet.\"\n\n\"What if no one shows?\" I asked.\n\n\"Then you and I will have a great time bowling together in really ugly shoes.\"\n\nWe got out of the Jeep and walked into the bowling alley. I had never been there before. We'd never been big on bowling in my family. Come to think of it, we weren't big on much of anything anymore.\n\nThe entrance area was dimly lit, while bright fluorescent lights illuminated the wood-paneled lanes. There were only three people bowling: a man and a woman together at a lane toward the far end of the room, and, midway down, a man in a FedEx uniform.\n\n\"I bet he's on his lunch break,\" Sam whispered, elbowing me gently in the side. I giggled as the FedEx guy bowled a strike and jumped up and down a few times in apparent glee.\n\nThe deep ping of the balls hitting pins punctuated the background music piped from various old-looking speakers around the room. There was a counter near the door with lots of bowling shoes lined up behind it, and another counter farther down with a couple of beer and soda taps, a popcorn machine, and a little warmer rotating some decidedly stale-looking hot dogs. I decided I wasn't hungry.\n\n\"Let me introduce you to my aunt,\" Sam said, reaching for my hand. A dark-haired woman was walking out from a door near the concession area. \"Donna!\" Sam called. She squinted toward the doorway and grinned.\n\n\"Hey, kiddo!\" she said. It sounded funny to hear Sam called kiddo. His aunt's enthusiasm was electric, though, and I could feel myself smiling at her even before she reached us. She was about five feet eight with cropped hair, a few freckles across the bridge of her nose, and clear green eyes that matched Sam's.\n\nShe reached us quickly and gave Sam a hug. Then she extended a hand to me. \"You must be Lacey,\" she said. \"Sam's told me about you.\"\n\nI blushed, wondering what he'd said\u2014and when. \"Nice to meet you. Thanks for letting us use your bowling alley.\"\n\n\"Of course!\" she said. She glanced around, then looked back at me. \"Where is everybody?\"\n\nSam answered before I could. \"They should be here in a few minutes. And if they don't show up, Lacey and I will bowl.\"\n\nDonna smiled at us again. \"Sounds fun! Help yourselves to bowling shoes. Sam, you know the drill,\" she said. \"Can I get you anything from the concession stand? A hot dog, maybe?\"\n\n\"No thanks,\" Sam and I both chorused immediately. We exchanged glances and tried not to laugh. Donna looked bewildered.\n\n\"Okay, then,\" she said. \"Have fun! I'll be back to check on you guys in a bit. Sam, you know where everything is when your other friends show up.\" She kissed him on the cheek. \"Nice to meet you, Lacey,\" she said before walking away.\n\n\"She seems nice,\" I said to Sam as we turned toward the wall of bowling shoes.\n\n\"She's the best. She and my uncle are a ton of fun. Our family Trivial Pursuit matches are pretty fierce.\"\n\nI suddenly wished that I had an aunt like that. Or another family member\u2014any family member\u2014who wasn't full of sympathetic looks. My uncle Paul and his wife, Sherry, came around from time to time, but Aunt Sherry was always casting sad glances my way, and Uncle Paul didn't seem to know how to talk to any of us anymore.\n\nSam led me over to the shoes and asked me for my size. A moment later, he pulled out a pair of pink and white shoes that were slightly scuffed at the toes. They were pretty silly-looking.\n\n\"Trust me,\" Sam said, reading my expression, \"no one looks good in bowling shoes.\"\n\nJust then, the front door opened, pouring a large sliver of bright sunshine into the bowling alley. I was relieved to see Kelsi and Mindy standing there, blinking into the darkness.\n\nAs Sam was helping Kelsi and Mindy pick out bowling shoes, Cody arrived, eyes downcast. As the five of us were heading toward the lanes, the door opened again, and Logan walked in, tailed a few steps behind by a sullen-looking Sydney.\n\nRelief washed over me again, along with an unfamiliar sense of gratitude for my brother, who didn't look at me as he walked quickly toward the shoe counter.\n\n\"Hey, man,\" Sam said to my brother as he walked over to the shoe counter. \"Hey, Syd.\"\n\nThey both nodded, but neither of them said anything. Typical. Too cool to talk to anyone. But, I had to give Logan credit for being here. And, I supposed, I had to grudgingly give Sydney a little credit too, even if she didn't belong here. But clearly, she and Logan were a package deal.\n\nAfter everyone was fitted, we headed to the lanes and picked two adjoining ones on the right. Donna came over and asked us if we wanted anything from the snack bar. Logan ordered two hot dogs. Sam and I shared amused looks, but neither of us said anything. I liked that we were on the inside of a private joke. The hot dogs arrived a few minutes later, along with a hot pretzel for Cody and three Cokes for the girls. I tried not to giggle as my brother gazed in horror at the shriveled-looking meat like it was something from another planet. It was even funnier when, unaware that he was being watched, he shrugged and bit into a hot dog anyway.\n\nSam, Kelsi, and I were in one lane, and Mindy, Cody, Sydney, and Logan took the lane beside us.\n\nNeither Kelsi nor I had bowled much before, so Sam took a few minutes to patiently explain technique. He showed us how to grip the ball, how to take steps forward to support our weight, and how to aim for the center pin by angling the ball in slightly from the side. He demonstrated three different styles for us and got strikes each time.\n\nOn Kelsi's first turn, she knocked over three pins with the first ball and another three pins with the second. Sam grinned and told her she was an excellent student. She blushed and sat down. I glanced at the lane next to us, where Logan and Sydney had each knocked over eight pins, and I wondered how my brother was so good at this. Maybe I would be too.\n\nI stood up, took a deep breath, and put my fingers into the purple, glittery ball I had picked out. I tested its weight and hesitantly carried it toward the lane. I took a deep breath, moved my arm back like Sam had shown me, and then took a step forward as I moved my arm forward and released the ball.\n\nIt dropped into the gutter almost immediately.\n\nI groaned as I watched it make its way down the edge of the lane.\n\n\"Nice gutter ball, Lacey,\" Sydney piped up, laughing. Sam rolled his eyes. \"It took me _forever_ to learn to bowl,\" he told me. \"Here.\" He got up and touched my arm lightly. \"I'll show you.\"\n\nI picked up my ball and we walked to the lane. \"Put your arm back,\" Sam said.\n\nI grasped the ball tightly and did what he said, stepping back with my left foot, like Sam had showed me. I was just about to ask him what to do next when I felt his warmth right behind me.\n\n\"Like this,\" he said softly, his breath grazing my ear as my cheeks flamed. He was so close that I could feel him, yet not close enough to be touching my back. Every single hair on my body was standing on end. He placed his right hand over mine, and I was so electrified by his touch that I nearly dropped the ball. Thankfully, I didn't.\n\n\"Okay, now,\" he said. \"Let's do this slowly once to practice. Don't let go.\"\n\nI knew he was talking about the bowling ball, but for a second, I wanted to tell him not to worry, that I would never let go. I glanced around and realized that everyone was watching us.\n\nSlowly, with his right hand resting on mine and his left hand gently clasping my left hand, Sam guided my right arm forward, urging me, \"Step forward with your left foot, like I showed you.\" He took the step with me, his much longer left leg shadowing my leg and his arm guiding mine forward.\n\n\"Just like that,\" he said in my ear. Then he cleared his throat loudly, glanced around, and stepped away, as if he'd just noticed that everyone was staring. \"Um, nice job, Lacey,\" he said. \"You're a natural. Now let's try it for real.\"\n\nI knew my face was on fire. I glanced around and quickly returned my attention to the ball and the lane in front of me. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to center myself. Repeating Sam's words in my head, I stepped back, then stepped forward, slowly swinging my right arm in one fluid motion.\n\nI watched as the ball rolled slowly down the lane. It seemed to take forever, but this time, it didn't roll toward the gutter. In fact, it went straight down the middle. At the last second, it veered to the right and hit near the center. It knocked over seven pins!\n\nI leapt up, ecstatic. I knew it wasn't exactly a strike, but it felt pretty good to me.\n\nI wanted to see if everyone had noticed, but before I even had a chance to look around, Sam put his arms around me. And then, in front of everyone, he kissed me like it was the most normal thing in the world.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nTwo hours later, we had bowled two games, and I had gotten a little bit better. I even knocked over all ten pins on two tries. Still, I was by far the worst bowler in the group. I didn't care. What I cared about was that we _were_ a group. All of us, who had nothing in common except for the biggest thing, had talked and laughed and had fun.\n\nAfter we had changed back into our street shoes, we all thanked Donna and walked outside. The sun had gone down, and there were just a few remaining streaks of light in the sky to the west, the last remnants of the day. With the sunshine gone, a chill had set in, and none of us were dressed warmly enough. I shivered as we stood in the parking lot, looking at one another.\n\n\"That was fun,\" Cody said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Mindy agreed.\n\n\"It _was_ fun,\" Kelsi said after a minute. \"But we didn't really talk about anything.\"\n\nShe was right. It just hadn't seemed like the time or the place to bring up sad stuff when, for once, we were having fun without thinking about it.\n\n\"Maybe we didn't need to,\" Cody said. \"Maybe it's cool to hang out with each other sometimes and not have to talk about it.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Kelsi said. \"All you guys want me to do is be myself. It's kind of nice.\"\n\nAfter exchanging goodbyes and saying we'd see one another in school tomorrow, we started drifting toward our cars.\n\n\"Need a ride?\" Sam asked, putting his hand lightly on my shoulder.\n\nSydney, seeing this and apparently deciding that she couldn't bear for someone else to be happy for a millisecond, jumped in. \"I'll drive her home. I'm going there anyhow. Obviously.\"\n\nSam and I exchanged glances, and I shrugged.\n\n\"Okay,\" Sam said. I'd been kind of hoping he'd insist on driving me. He kissed my cheek and walked over to his Jeep. I watched him go, feeling a lot warmer than I should have in the evening air.\n\n\"Let's go,\" Sydney said, clapping her hands together. \"It's cold out here.\"\n\nI followed her and Logan to her car and climbed into the back. Sydney started the engine, and as we sat there for a minute to let it warm up, she and Logan whispered something to each other. I ignored them. Finally, Sydney pulled out of the lot.\n\n\"So,\" she said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror, \"what's up with you and Sam?\"\n\nI knew it was coming. I took a deep breath. \"We're going out, I guess,\" I said. The words tasted sweet in my mouth. \"But then again, you knew that,\" I heard myself add. \"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Haven't you been gossiping about it all day?\" I asked her.\n\nSydney huffed indignantly. \"I don't gossip,\" she said. \"How dare you accuse me of that?\"\n\nI laughed. \"Right.\"\n\nSydney nudged my brother. \"Lacey, I don't want to burst your bubble or anything, but it can't last, you know.\"\n\n\"What?\" I looked at her face in the rearview mirror. I had no idea what she was talking about.\n\n\"I mean, it's just not a logical match,\" she said.\n\n\"What on earth do you mean?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well,\" Sydney said slowly, like she was talking to a child, \"you have to admit, it's not like you have anything in common. Other than your dead fathers.\"\n\nThe way Sydney said the words sliced into me.\n\n\"You barely know him,\" I said after a minute. \"How could you possibly say that?\"\n\n\"Think about it,\" she continued. \"You're brainy. He's hot. And you're up against Summer Andrews. I mean, do you really think he's going to choose you over her in the long term?\"\n\nI had just opened my mouth to reply when my brother spoke up. \"Syd, leave her alone.\"\n\nDead silence. I was as taken aback as Sydney was. Logan never came to my defense. Not anymore. And certainly not against Sydney.\n\nSydney sputtered for a second. I knew she was flailing for a retort.\n\nLogan sighed again. \"We'll talk about it later, Sydney,\" he said with more finality than I'd ever heard in his voice.\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now,\" Logan said. Then he turned and looked out the window, effectively ending the conversation.\n\nI turned and looked out the window too, biting my lip and trying not to smile. I didn't know what had just happened, but somehow, Logan seemed to be back on my side, even if only a little bit.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nEven though I knew she was just being a jerk, I couldn't shake Sydney's words. They had wormed their way into my brain, making me wonder if I was being na\u00efve to believe that what Sam and I had was real. Maybe Sydney was right. I didn't want to think that the only reason Sam liked me was because he saw a reflection of his own pain. But maybe that was all it was.\n\nMom actually made it home for dinner that night, so the four of us sat down to a meal that she had \"cooked\"\u2014spaghetti with sauce out of a jar and a bagged salad.\n\n\"This is nice,\" Mom said as we chewed in silence. Tanner slurped a noodle noisily and looked up, the faintest trace of a smile on his face. \"You know, we hardly ever eat together anymore.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's because you're never home,\" Logan said.\n\nMom sighed heavily. \"Logan, someone has to support this family. You know I'd love to spend more time with you. It just isn't able to work out that way right now.\"\n\nLogan was silent for so long that I thought he was going to let it go. And for a moment, I was very relieved. Dinners together were so rare that I didn't want this one to be spoiled by a fight. But then Logan said slowly, \"That's bullshit.\"\n\nMom flinched, like she'd been struck. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"I said it's bullshit,\" Logan said.\n\nTanner and I exchanged glances. \"Logan,\" I said as my mom gaped at him. \"I really don't think\u2013\"\n\n\"Shut up, Lacey,\" he cut me off. \"I'm so sick and tired of everyone tiptoeing around the truth.\"\n\n\"Young man,\" my mother began. But her voice was shaky and lacked conviction.\n\n\"Don't 'young man' me,\" my brother snapped. \"You don't have the right anymore.\"\n\n\"I'm your mother,\" she said.\n\nLogan shook his head. \"My mother disappeared last November.\"\n\nI hated the way he was hurting my mom, but despite myself, I agreed with him. I wanted to defend her, but I couldn't. I held my breath.\n\n\"You know, you can't run from it, Mom,\" he said. \"Dad's dead, okay? Dead, dead, dead.\"\n\n\"Logan!\" she exclaimed. There were tears welling in her eyes.\n\n\"You keep acting like if you just work enough, if you just avoid your family, if you go out and have fun and play tennis and keep your hair perfect and your clothes ironed, it will all go away,\" he went on. \"But it won't. You're just lying to yourself. You can't make everything perfect, because it's not. Dad is dead, Mom. He _died_. I watched him, okay? I watched him die. You can't pretend.\"\n\nMy mom was crying and I felt a tightening in my own chest. There were tears in Tanner's eyes too, and he made a little choked sound before setting down his fork.\n\nLogan wasn't done. \"You don't even act like a mom anymore,\" he continued. \"You remember what it used to be like? Huh? Do you? You used to ask us about school. You used to joke around. You used to be fun. You used to care. But now all you care about is forgetting. You think that's how Dad would want you to be?\"\n\nMy mother was sobbing full force now, but Logan didn't seem to notice. His face was red, and his hands were clenched into fists, like he was waiting to defend himself against some unexpected attack.\n\n\"Logan,\" I began.\n\n\"And you!\" he exclaimed, turning on me. \"You think that by being Little Miss Perfect, you can fix everything,\" he accused. \"Well, you're as stupid as she is!\" He nodded in Mom's direction. \"You don't even have a clue. You think you're so much better than me just because you make straight As and you take care of everyone and you never cry. But you know what? That's really screwed up.\"\n\n\"What?\" I choked out.\n\n\"You're such a phony,\" he spat.\n\n\"Shut up,\" I whispered. \"You don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, what are you going to tell me?\" he mocked. \"I mean, you seem to have all the answers, right?\"\n\n\"I never said I had all the answers.\"\n\nLogan snorted. \"You didn't have to.\" He pulled his napkin off his lap, balled it up, and tossed it onto the table. \"Thanks for the great dinner. This has been fun.\"\n\nHe got up and strode away without another word. We all watched him go, shocked into silence. Then we all looked at one another.\n\nTanner was the first to move. As he stood up from the table, he knocked his milk glass over with his elbow. It crashed onto the floor, shattering into a hundred little pieces. His eyes filled. \"Sorry,\" he whispered.\n\n\"It's okay, honey,\" my mom said, her voice pinched. \"I'll take care of it.\" Tanner darted out of the room. I could hear his footsteps on the stairs, then the slamming of his bedroom door.\n\nSilence settled over us. My mother and I looked at each other, then down at the floor, where the shards of shattered glass reflected the light.\n\n\"We'd better clean that up,\" my mother said. But she didn't move. She just kept staring at the glass, like she was wondering whether it would really be possible to ever pick up all the pieces.\n\n# chapter 17\n\nI told Sam about the fight the next day, and he said that sometimes people don't think before they speak, and that Logan probably hadn't meant the things he said.\n\n\"But he did mean it,\" I said as we sat across from each other at McDonald's after school, sharing a large chocolate milk shake in alternate slurps. \"And the thing was, he was right.\"\n\n\"About what?\" Sam asked.\n\n\"About everything,\" I admitted. \"I mean, all the things he said about my mom were the things I've been thinking. Maybe he was right about me, too.\"\n\n\"Or maybe Logan was just telling you the way he sees things,\" Sam said, \"which doesn't necessarily make it right.\"\n\nOn Friday night, he and I went out with Brian and Jennica to the movies, and as we sat in the darkened theater, with our fingers intertwined, I thought how nice it was not to feel like a third wheel for once. I hated that I needed another person to make me feel like I belonged. But if I had to have someone at my side to help me fit, I was glad it was Sam.\n\nOn Saturday, Sam had practice for a soccer league he'd joined in town. He asked me if I wanted to come sit in the park with a few of the other girlfriends while he kicked the ball around with the guys, and I agreed instantly. It wasn't that I wanted to spend every waking second with him or anything. It was that I was avoiding my house. It was even more silent than usual, which was weird, because Mom was actually home. Logan's words had evidently penetrated; she had come home every night before seven, and she canceled her Saturday tennis plans to catch up on some housework. That was a first.\n\nSunday, Jennica and I went to the mall and then got sundaes at Brigham's. We talked about guys, and for the first time in ages, I had something to contribute. I told her what Sydney had said earlier in the week, and she reassured me that Sydney was just jealous and mean. I knew this, but even with Jennica's words of comfort, I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.\n\nSam didn't call on Sunday night, which was weird, because he had started calling me every night so that we could wish each other sweet dreams. But I tried not to read into it; he was probably just busy.\n\nOn Monday morning, though, he wasn't in first period. As the final bell rang, and his seat remained ominously empty, a funny feeling settled over me.\n\n\"Where is he?\" Jennica mouthed as she glanced at Sam's seat, then at my confused face. Mrs. Bost had already started class and was babbling something about vectors, but I couldn't seem to tune in.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I mouthed back.\n\nMy phone vibrated a moment later, and I snuck a look. Jennica had texted im sure theres an explanation. I nodded and looked away, trying to focus on Mrs. Bost. But I had a feeling that something was wrong.\n\nAt lunchtime, I snuck outside to call Sam, but his voice mail picked up on the first ring. We weren't supposed to talk on our cells at school, but I left him a quick message asking him to call me when he could.\n\nHe wasn't in sixth period either, and he hadn't called back. I tried him again as I was getting my books out of my locker after school, but his phone still went straight to voice mail. I was so busy agonizing over the reasons behind his absence that I didn't even notice Cody approach until he was right in front of me.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. His hands were jammed in his pockets, and he looked nervous.\n\nI stopped at my locker and looked at him. \"Hey.\"\n\n\"So, um,\" he began. He coughed and looked down. \"Are we on for tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well, it's Tuesday, isn't it?\" he said. \"Are we still having a meeting?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, feeling good for the first time today. \"What do you want to do?\"\n\nCody shrugged. \"I dunno. I'm supposed to watch my sister, Sarah, tomorrow afternoon. She's ten. Think we could go somewhere where I could bring her?\"\n\nI nodded. \"Sure. I'll talk to everybody.\"\n\nBy that evening, I had gotten in touch with Kelsi and Mindy and we had agreed to meet at the ice rink at Plymouth Center.\n\nI told Logan, who reluctantly agreed to try to come, even though we were barely talking to each other, and I asked my mom if I could take Tanner, too, since Cody's sister was about his age. I thought it might be good for my little brother.\n\n\"Whatever you want,\" my mom said with a shrug. I wasn't even one hundred percent sure she heard me.\n\nThat evening, I called Sam once more and left another message. And then, because I didn't know whether I should be hurt or worried, I went onto our local newspaper's Web site to check for traffic accidents. There hadn't been anything serious enough to be covered. Sam wasn't lying by the side of the road somewhere. Just to be sure, I searched the site for his name, but nothing came up.\n\nI swallowed my pride and sent Sam an e-mail, telling him that the group was meeting the next day at four at the ice rink if he wanted to come.\n\nThe next morning, I checked my e-mail as soon as I got up, but there was no reply from Sam. He wasn't in school all day either. I couldn't figure out what was wrong or why he couldn't call me back. Why was he avoiding me?\n\nAfter school, Sydney drove me and Logan home, and we picked up Tanner to take him to the ice rink. Cody, Kelsi, and Mindy were already waiting for us when we got there. Cody's little sister Sarah turned out to be a tiny girl with long, frizzy hair. She talked a mile a minute and sounded like a miniature adult.\n\n\"Hi, you must be Lacey,\" she began rapid-fire, without taking a breath. \"I'm Sarah and my brother told me about you and I love ice skating, so he thought I'd want to come along, and my dad died, but it's not like we have to just talk about that, because there are lots of other interesting things we can talk about too, like ice skating or school or sports or something, and is that your brother over there?\"\n\nShe finally paused for breath and cocked her head inquisitively.\n\nI followed her eyes to Tanner, who was hanging back from the crowd. He had brought his own knee pads and helmet and didn't seem the slightest bit worried about appearing dorky. The only thing I'd been able to get out of him when I asked why he'd come prepared was, \"Dad always told me better safe than sorry.\"\n\nI nodded at Sarah. \"Yeah, his name's Tanner,\" I said. \"He doesn't talk much, though.\"\n\nShe nodded wisely. \"Some kids don't talk much after their parents have died,\" she said. \"But I've always talked, and when my dad died, I just started talking some more, and now I talk all the time, and I think it drives my brother and my mom crazy, but I can't really help it, you know, and maybe if I talk enough to your brother, maybe he'll talk back to me, and we can be friends, even though he's a year older than me, but we go to the same school. I see him on the playground at lunch and he's usually by himself, even though kids like him, but he's really quiet, and maybe we can hang out sometime.\"\n\nI blinked at Sarah a few times, trying to keep up with the words pouring out of her mouth. \"Um, yeah,\" I said. \"That sounds good.\" I glanced over at Tanner, who was carefully pulling on his bright blue knee pads. I felt sad for him. I looked back at Sarah. \"I think he could use a friend.\"\n\nI expected another torrent of words, but instead she just said, \"Me too.\"\n\nI watched as Sarah went over to Tanner and said something to him. He looked at her blankly, then nodded. She launched into another long-winded sentence, which I couldn't hear, and when she finally paused for breath, I watched as Tanner searched her face for what felt like an eternity and then finally broke into a hesitant grin. I was startled; I hadn't seen him smile in a while.\n\nFeeling relieved, I went to pick up skates for Tanner and me at the counter.\n\nTen minutes later, all of us were out on the ice.\n\n\"Where's Sam?\" Kelsi asked as we inched along, trying to get our balance.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said.\n\n\"You told him about the meeting?\" Mindy asked in a soft voice.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. \"I mean, I left him a message. He hasn't called back.\"\n\nI looked up, expecting to see judgment or pity on their faces. After all, they knew Sam and I were going out, and now he wasn't even replying to me. But they only looked concerned. \"Well, it's not really the same without all of us here,\" Kelsi said. \"When you talk to him, tell him we missed him today, okay?\"\n\nKelsi and Mindy partnered up after a few minutes, and, holding each other's hands and giggling, they picked their way around the rink. I stopped and just watched them. Before I'd put this group together, they'd hardly known each other. And here they were, laughing on a Tuesday afternoon, just weeks after Kelsi's mom had died, when she might otherwise have been at home, wallowing in grief.\n\nLogan and Sydney made their way a little more quickly. It looked like Sydney was leading Logan, who was a bit slower, dragging him by the hand and chiding him when he couldn't keep up. Still, he appeared content.\n\nCody was off in his own world, whizzing across the ice like he was on the Olympic speed skating team. Each time he passed, his cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were focused straight ahead. I wondered if he was doing more than exercising; it looked like he might have been getting something out of his system.\n\nI skated alone, and it gave me time to think about Sam\u2014and about my dad. The anniversary of the accident was fast approaching, and it seemed like I should be in a different place. I knew that what I had done with setting up this club was good; it seemed to be helping. And I knew that was something I had to do: help other people come to terms with a parent's death, like I had. But still, the emptiness loomed inside of me, big and cold. I'd never felt so lonely.\n\nWhile the rink was cleared temporarily for the ice to be Zambonied, I sat down and closed my eyes. No one was paying attention to me. Kelsi and Mindy were talking about some sophomore guy Mindy liked. Logan and Sydney were cooing at each other in the corner\u2014I was afraid they were going to start making out any minute. Cody had disappeared to the other side of the rink, where he apparently knew three girls in skating outfits.\n\nAnd for the first time in ages, I heard Tanner's voice loud and clear for more than a few words at a stretch as he talked to Sarah.\n\n\"What happened?\" I heard him ask. I strained to hear, feeling a little bad that I was eavesdropping.\n\n\"My dad was in the military, in Iraq, you know, which is really far away, and we couldn't see him very often because his job was dangerous and he had to be gone for a long time,\" Sarah was saying, speaking at the speed of light. I glanced over and was surprised to see my little brother staring at her with rapt interest. \"I was always scared that something would happen to my dad, because I heard about Army guys getting hurt, and he always told me not to worry because he'd be here forever, so I tried not to worry. But he was supposed to come home on March sixteenth, and it was March ninth, and I was really excited and I was making him a big picture of our house so he could see what everything looked like while he was gone, and I was outside doing the drawing, and two military men pulled up in the driveway.\"\n\n\"Military men?\" Tanner repeated.\n\n\"Yeah, they were wearing really fancy uniforms with lots of ribbons and stuff, and I think they were really important,\" Sarah babbled on. \"And they called me 'little girl,' even though I'm not that little, and they looked really serious, and they asked if my mom was home, and I said yeah, and I asked what they wanted, and they wouldn't tell me, but I had a bad feeling about it, so I ran and got my mom, and they whispered something to her and then she just started crying. I didn't know what to do because I'd never seen her cry before, and she fell down on the driveway, and they didn't know what to do either; they just stood there looking down at her and saying it would be okay, and they could help her.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Tanner said softly.\n\nSarah went on. \"I went and got Cody, I don't even remember what I said, but I think I was screaming really loud, and he came out of the house and bent over and hugged my mom, and he asked the military men what was wrong, and they told him that my dad had died, I heard them tell him that, and then he started crying too, and I started screaming again, because I didn't know what else to do, and I wanted to ask them if my dad was in heaven, and I wanted to ask my mom that too, but she was crying, and the military men looked mean, and I didn't know what they'd say, and besides, they were treating me like a baby.\"\n\nTanner was quiet for a minute, and my heart sank for Sarah. She had opened up to him the way I had to Sam, and my brother wasn't going to answer her, simply because he couldn't.\n\nBut then, my brother spoke, which surprised me so much that I nearly fell over. \"I believe in heaven,\" he said quietly. \"I know your dad has to be there. Because he was doing the right thing when he died.\"\n\nI heard Sarah sniffle a little. \"You think?\" she ventured.\n\nI was afraid Tanner wouldn't answer. Then he said,\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nThey sat there in silence for a moment, and when I was pretty sure that the conversation was finally over, I peeked my head around a chair to take a look at them. Perhaps Tanner, having spoken his entire word quota for the past three months, had gotten up and left, or spontaneously combusted from the mental exertion.\n\nInstead, they were sitting side by side in companionable silence, staring out at the Zamboni making its slow loops around the rink, smoothing the surface of the roughed-up ice. I waited for Sarah to say something more\u2014affter all, she seemed to be overflowing with words\u2014but she didn't seem to have anything else to say. After a minute, she put her head on my brother's shoulder. He paused and then put an arm around her shoulders. From the back, they looked like miniature adults. I could hardly believe it was my little brother, the one who hid in his room, watching TV and obsessing over animals.\n\nMaybe, I thought, he was better off than I'd given him credit for. Maybe he'd get better with or without my help and concern. Maybe I was wasting my time fearing for his mental health.\n\nMaybe he didn't need me at all.\n\n# chapter 18\n\nBy Friday, Sam still hadn't shown up at school. He wasn't calling me back either, and I was really worried. There was still a part of me that was scared it had to do with me, but I reassured myself that no one in his right mind would skip school for five days because of a girl. I'd e-mailed him twice more, but I'd gotten no reply. I was starting to feel like a stalker.\n\nAfter school, I caught a ride with Jennica and asked if she'd mind dropping me off at Lucky Strikes. \"Sure, but I can't stay and drive you home,\" she said. \"Anne has dance practice, and I have to take her. My mom's having a spa day, so I'm stuck babysitting.\" She rolled her eyes for emphasis. \"Why are you going there anyhow?\"\n\n\"Just meeting the group,\" I lied. I knew I should tell her that I was looking for Sam, but I didn't want to feel any more pathetic than I already did.\n\nFive minutes later, I was standing in front of Lucky Strikes, staring at the door and wondering if this was stupid. I took a deep breath and walked in.\n\nIt took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the alley, but when they did, I spotted Donna seated behind the cash register, reading a paperback James Patterson novel. She was so absorbed in the book that she didn't even look up until I was standing right in front of her. I had to clear my throat to get her attention.\n\n\"Oh, Lacey!\" she exclaimed. She peered at me. \"Hi! How are you?\"\n\nI shrugged, suddenly feeling embarrassed to be there.\n\n\"I'm okay,\" I said. \"Um, I was just wondering if Sam is around.\"\n\nI felt stupid the moment the words were out of my mouth.\n\nDonna looked confused. \"Sam?\" she said. \"No, Lacey. He's at the hospital.\"\n\nMy heart caught in my throat. \"The hospital?\" I croaked. \"What happened? Is he okay?\"\n\nGuilt flooded through me.\n\nDonna was looking at me more closely now. \"You don't know?\" she asked.\n\n\"Know what?\" I demanded. I felt like I was on the verge of panicking.\n\nShe studied me while my heart pounded double time. It looked like she was trying to decide whether to tell me or not.\n\n\"Please, just tell me if Sam's okay,\" I pleaded. I didn't think I could handle it if something happened to someone else I cared about. In an instant, all the awful things that could have happened to Sam flashed through my head. And for some reason, my mind got immediately stuck on Sam in a car crash. A cold chill ran through me.\n\n\"Sam's fine,\" she said.\n\nRelief flooded through me, followed quickly by conffusion. \"Why's he at the hospital, then?\"\n\nShe put down her book. \"It's his dad, Lacey.\"\n\n\"His dad?\" I repeated. What was she talking about? Hadn't he died months ago?\n\n\"He woke up,\" Donna said softly.\n\nMy jaw dropped. \"Woke up? But... he's dead.\"\n\nNow it was Donna's turn to look confused. \"Dead?\" she repeated. \"Where did you get that idea?\"\n\nA feeling began to creep through my veins like ice. Every conversation I'd ever had with Sam began to replay itself in my mind. Is this what he had wanted to tell me? But even if it was, how could he let me go on believing something so huge when it had been a lie all along?\n\n\"He's not dead?\" I whispered. Donna shook her head. \"But Sam said he had a stroke.\"\n\nDonna nodded. \"He did. He's been in a coma since July. They moved him to Plymouth Regional Hospital in September. That's why Sam and his mom moved here.\"\n\nI stared at her in disbelief. She must have thought I was totally crazy, but I couldn't help repeating, \"You're telling me he's alive?\"\n\n\"Yes. And he woke up on Sunday night. The doctors are calling it a miracle. Sam and Joey and their mom have been at his bedside since then.\"\n\nI stared at her. I couldn't form words. I couldn't think of anything to say.\n\n\"Lacey?\" she asked. Her face radiated concern. \"Are you all right, honey?\"\n\n\"Um\" was all I could manage. I shook my head. \"I'm sorry. Thank you.\"\n\nI felt like the walls were closing in on me. I slowly backed away from her and out of the bowling alley. It wasn't until I was outside, in the crisp fall afternoon air, that I realized I didn't have a ride home. Numbly, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me and I couldn't quite catch my breath, I began walking toward my house.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBy the time I walked up my own driveway I didn't feel any better. I knew I should be happy for Sam that he'd gotten his father back. Wouldn't I have given anything in the world to hear the same kind of news about my dad? But the fact was, I never would hear that news; my father was gone for good.\n\nI'd believed the same about Sam's dad. Sam had _made_ me believe the same about his dad. And that's why I'd trusted him with my feelings, my secrets. That's why I'd believed, in the very depth of my soul, that he understood me. But the truth was, he didn't know any more about how I felt than Jennica or Dr. Schiff or any of the kids at school who lived in their perfect homes with their perfectly complete families.\n\nI began to replay in my head every conversation I'd ever had with Sam. He'd never directly lied, I couldn't actually remember the words \"My dad died\" coming out of his mouth. But from the day he showed up at our first meeting, saying that he'd lost his dad, I had trusted him and had assumed that he'd meant his dad was no longer alive. Why would I think anything different? But just because he hadn't blatantly lied didn't make the betrayal any less serious. He knew what he'd led us to believe. He knew what he'd led _me_ to believe. And it hadn't mattered.\n\nWhy had he done it? Had he been that desperate to fit in with us? Sam didn't seem to care about being popular, and it wasn't even like we were a popular group. Besides, who in their right minds would fake a parental death to become part of a clique? No, it went deeper than that. I had no doubt that losing your dad to a coma was really hard. And I was sure that to some extent, Sam _had_ understood us and identified with us. But the fundamental difference was that _his dad had woken up_. Mindy, Kelsi, Cody, Logan, and I would never have that experience. We couldn't. And for Sam to think it was okay to trick us in this way made me feel sick.\n\nThe sky darkened as I walked home, and as I reached my front door, the first fat raindrops of an approaching storm began to fall, splashing on the driveway and pinging off the roof of the house. I put my key in the lock and closed my eyes before turning it, steadying myself.\n\nI would never let anyone in again. I couldn't trust anyone. The world around me had crumbled, and once again, it was still me, only me, standing there on my own.\n\nI should have known better.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMom was home from work early again, standing in the kitchen and absentmindedly beating something in a big bowl, when I walked in.\n\nShe smiled. \"Hi, honey.\"\n\nI raised a hand to wave without a word. I didn't feel like talking to her. Or anyone else. Sam's betrayal had been the final straw.\n\n\"Sam called,\" Mom said. She wiped her hands on her apron and crossed over to the notepad that we kept by the kitchen phone. \"He left a number and an extension and asked that you call him back as soon as possible. He said he tried your cell, but it went straight to voice mail.\"\n\nI gazed at her in disbelief. _Now_ he had called? After I'd been trying to reach him all week? Donna had probably called him and told him what had happened.\n\n\"Lacey?\" Mom asked. \"Don't you want the number?\"\n\nI glanced at the pad of paper and then back at her. \"No.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Well. I'm just about to put a souffl\u00e9 in the oven,\" she said, turning away from me and returning to the hand beater. \"I thought I'd try something new for dinner.\"\n\n\"Really?\" I asked, surprised. Mom used to love to cook\u2014she subscribed to _Bon App\u00e9tit_ and _Food & Wine_ and a few other cooking magazines\u2014and before the accident, she would try something new and exotic at least once a week.\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said. \"I think I need to stop.\"\n\n\"Stop what?\" I asked.\n\nShe looked down at the bowl. \"Stop wallowing. Logan was right the other day.\"\n\nThe rain had started to fall harder now, and the fat droplets had given way to an insistent waterfall that made it look fuzzy and almost dreamlike outside.\n\n\"I've been awful,\" she added, gazing out the kitchen window. \"I've really failed you kids.\"\n\n\"No, you haven't,\" I said. It felt like the right thing to say, but I realized, after the words were out of my mouth, that I meant it.\n\n\"Yes, I have,\" she said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. \"It's been almost a year, Lacey. A year of our lives that I've lost. Your father wouldn't have wanted it this way.\"\n\n\"I think he would have understood, Mom.\"\n\n\"Understood what?\"\n\n\"Understood that we all needed to figure out things in our own time.\"\n\nMom blinked a few times. \"Maybe it's time to start living again.\"\n\nAs I walked slowly out of the kitchen, I thought about the last thing she had said. At least we _had_ the luxury to start living again. Logan and Tanner and Mom and I, Sam and his mom, even Sam's dad, could start over at any time. It made me even sadder to think about it in those terms. Because it seemed unfair, like a betrayal of Dad, to be able to just reinvent ourselves any day, didn't it? We'd all have a thousand\u2014a million\u2014second chances. Dad wouldn't even have one.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen I checked my e-mail before going to bed that night, there was one new message waiting for me in my in-box. It was from Sam.\n\nLacey,\n\nI don't even know how to begin. I know you feel like I lied to you. And I don't blame you. But I didn't do it on purpose. I heard about the group you were starting, and I didn't know until the end of the first meeting that it was only for people whose parents had actually died. But by that time, I felt so much better just being there. I know you might not understand, but it felt like my dad had died, just like yours. He wasn't supposed to wake up, ever, and in a way, I felt sometimes like it would have been better if he did just die, because then we could at least have a funeral and say a real goodbye and everything.\n\nI was with my dad when he had the stroke. The doctors said he would never regain consciousness. And then, Sunday night, we got a call from the hospital. The nurse on duty had noticed the call light from his room was on. She went in to check on him, figuring it was a mistake, and he was sitting up in bed, looking confused. He didn't know where he was. They called the doc and then they called us. My mom hasn't wanted to leave his side since then. We've been sleeping at the hospital. She keeps saying it's our second chance.\n\nI know you're mad at me. I tried to tell you, but I guess I didn't try hard enough. I was scared about how you'd react. I thought you wouldn't believe anymore that I knew how you felt. But I do. I'm sorry. I can't even tell you how sorry I am. But I never meant to hurt you. And it doesn't take away the fact that I do understand you. Please call me.\n\nSam\n\nI read the e-mail three times before closing the screen. My finger hovered over the Delete key, but finally, I hit Save instead.\n\nI understood what he was saying. But that didn't make his actions easier to understand. Or to forgive.\n\n# chapter 19\n\nI tried to talk to Dr. Schiff about Sam on Saturday during my half-hour session with her. She told me I needed to stop holding other people to an unrealistic standard. I'd asked her what was so unrealistic about expecting someone to be honest. I called Jennica and filled her in on everything, and she was totally sympathetic. \"I'm beginning to think that all guys are more trouble than they're worth,\" she told me. I wasn't sure I agreed with her, though. No matter how mad I was at Sam.\n\nTanner had Cody's sister, Sarah, over on Sunday. They watched TV and played video games, and I could hear them laughing. I felt a strange blend of relief, pride, and jealousy. Relief, because it meant there was hope for Tanner. Pride, because if I hadn't started the group that included Cody, Tanner wouldn't have met Sarah. And, embarrassingly, jealousy, because Tanner was learning how to cope while I seemed to be getting more and more lost by the day.\n\nOn Monday morning, I walked into trig class to find Sam waiting by my seat.\n\n\"Hey, Lacey,\" he said, like we were the only two people in the room.\n\n\"Hey,\" I mumbled, both wanting and not wanting to see him.\n\n\"Lacey,\" Sam said, putting his hand on mine. I bit my lower lip and moved my hand away. \"I don't want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Look, I'm sorry,\" he said. \"I really am. Did you get my e-mail?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. I paused. \"And I'm glad your dad woke up.\" I really was, and I wanted him to know that.\n\n\"Thanks,\" he said. \"And Lacey, for what it's worth, I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"You lied to us,\" I whispered. \"You lied to me.\"\n\n\"I never lied,\" he said, shaking his head. \"I just\u2014I just didn't correct the misunderstanding.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAfter school I walked home by myself. I didn't know where Logan was, and Jennica had to stay after school to work on a history group project.\n\nThe sun was low in the sky. The days were getting shorter and the nights longer, but that was okay; I liked the darkness. It was only four in the afternoon, but the first colors of sunset were starting to gather on the horizon.\n\nI was so lost in thought five minutes later that it barely registered when a vehicle slowed beside me.\n\n\"Lacey?\"\n\nIt was Sam in his Cherokee, his window rolled down. \"Lacey, get in,\" he said. \"It's cold out.\"\n\nI shook my head, not stopping. \"I'm fine.\" But Sam kept inching his Jeep along.\n\n\"I'll follow you the whole way home if you want,\" Sam said. \"But wouldn't it be easier to just get in? It's not getting any warmer.\"\n\nI snorted and quickened my pace. \"I like to walk.\"\n\nBut Sam was right. I only had a denim jacket on, and the cold was starting to seep into my bones. It was another fifteen minutes home. I'd be fine, but the heated interior of a car was admittedly tempting.\n\n\"Please, Lacey? Just give me a chance to talk to you for five minutes.\"\n\nI hesitated, watching my warm breath crystallize into little white clouds. Finally, I got in.\n\n\"Thanks,\" Sam said. He glanced in the rearview mirror as I buckled my seat belt. Then he pulled slowly away from the curb.\n\nWe didn't say anything for a little while. Then Sam said, \"Look, Lacey. I'm sorry.\"\n\nI shrugged and looked out the window. The oranges and pinks to the west were inching farther up the sky as the horizon began to tug the curtain down on the day.\n\n\"I'm glad for you,\" I said. \"I'm glad your dad is fine.\"\n\n\"No you're not,\" Sam said. His words sliced into me, and I turned to look at him.\n\n\"I am,\" I said. \"Really. I would give anything in the world to have my dad back. And I'm glad that's happening to you. But the thing is, you tricked me. You made me feel like you understood me.\"\n\n\"I _do_ understand.\"\n\nMy breath felt heavy, and the air around me seemed suddenly in short supply. I gazed at the sky again and thought about what Sam had said about rainbows. It had all been just words. \"You _can't_ understand!\" I said. My eyes felt dry, and I blinked a few times, trying to get the burning sensation to go away. \"Your dad is alive, Sam! You have another chance with him. You can talk to him and tell him about your day and tell him you love him. Even when he was in a coma, you could say all those things to him, and there was a chance he could hear you.\"\n\n\"Lacey, don't you think your dad can hear you too?\" he asked.\n\nI rolled my eyes. His words that night about rainbows and my dad looking over us just sounded ridiculous now. \"No,\" I said. \"And I think you're pretty much the last person who should be saying something like that to me.\"\n\nWe had pulled into my neighborhood. I was silent as Sam parked his Jeep alongside the curb in front of my house. I glanced at him and was surprised to see how wounded he looked. I suddenly felt a little bad.\n\n\"Is he doing okay?\" I asked. \"Your dad, I mean?\"\n\nSam nodded. \"It's hard to watch him,\" he said. \"He can't move the right side of his face. He talks funny, and he can't remember a lot of words.\"\n\n\"But he's alive,\" I couldn't help but add.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nThen, before he had a chance to say anything else, I climbed out of the Jeep and slammed the door behind me. I could feel Sam watching me the whole way to the house. I had to stop myself from looking back at the street when I let myself in the front door.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThat night, Sam sent an e-mail to everyone in the group.\n\nWhen I came to the first meeting, I didn't realize right away that it was supposed to only be for people whose parents had died. By the time I realized, I didn't know how to tell you guys. I felt really good around you; it feels weird to have a parent in a coma too, and we didn't think he was going to wake up, so I felt like I'd lost my dad too. I didn't mean to trick anyone, and I'm really sorry if anyone feels that way. You guys really helped me, and I would love to keep spending time with you if you'll have me. Cody wrote back an e-mail, copied to the rest of us:\n\nGlad your dad's okay. You don't have to apologize to us.\n\nNo one else responded\u2014or if they did, they didn't CC everyone. I wondered how Cody could act so forgiving. Did Mindy and Kelsi feel the same way I did? Or was I the only one who was upset?\n\nBut the thing was, I was the one who had opened myself up.\n\nI was the one who got hurt.\n\n# chapter 20\n\nThe next two weeks passed quickly. Sam was absent from school pretty often, and when he was there, I avoided him. Soon he stopped trying so hard to talk to me or to get me to forgive him. I think he knew it wasn't going to happen.\n\nIn English class, where he and I usually partnered up, he began working on projects with Matt Alexander, and I started working with Gillian Zucker. We had two Tuesday meetings of our group\u2014one at McDonald's (where we all got Happy Meals and giggled our way through playing with the toys like little kids) and one at the ice rink again\u2014and I don't think I was the only one who felt Sam's absence.\n\nSunday, November fifteenth dawned gray and bleak, which seemed fitting. It was officially the anniversary. It had been an entire year. Today we'd begin a whole new year of days my father would never get to live, things he'd never get to see. But saying it, admitting it had been nearly a year already, was more difficult than it should have been.\n\nIt had been fifty-two Saturdays since I'd taken my sweet time in the bathroom and cheerfully headed out the door for the five-minute car ride that would change our lives. I felt tears prickle at the backs of my eyes as I lay in bed.\n\nDespite myself, I went to the window to look for a rainbow, and I almost wanted to kick myself for believing there was even a chance one would be there. Not only did I not believe in stuff like that, but it would have been scientifically impossible, given the overcast skies. You needed sunshine for a rainbow, and I had the feeling there wouldn't be any today.\n\nI looked at the sky anyhow, hoping that there would be some kind of sign that my dad was up there, watching. But still, nothing.\n\nThen, something made me look down. My window overlooked the front yard and the street, and as I glanced at the grass, I noticed the strangest thing.\n\nThe lawn, which had been covered for the past few weeks in a growing blanket of orange, red, and yellow leaves, had been raked, and there was a big pile of leaves in the corner, almost exactly where my dad used to put the leaf pile.\n\nFor a fleeting instant, I was sure my dad had done it, that it was the sort of sign Sam had talked about, except that instead of painting a rainbow in the sky, my dad had done something much more personal.\n\nThen I remembered. I had told Sam about the leaves, hadn't I? But he couldn't have done this. With as coldly as I'd been treating him, it was hard to believe that he would show up with a rake in the wee, cold hours of the morning and do something so incredibly touching.\n\nI stared down from the window for a long time at the leaf pile. And while I looked, a little bit of the ice melted from around the outside of my heart.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMom surprised us all by making light, fluffy blueberry pancakes for breakfast.\n\n\"I thought it would be a start to a tough day that your dad would appreciate,\" she said as she brought the platter to the table. Logan shuffled over to the fridge to grab the maple and blueberry syrups, and Tanner poured juice for all of us, sloshing a little over the side of Mom's glass.\n\n\"Sorry,\" he said.\n\nShe smiled at him. \"No problem.\"\n\nIt was like we were in a time warp and had gone back to normal. Well, almost. Logan didn't look at all like himself; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, and I could swear I could smell alcohol on him, although Mom seemed oblivious. Mom still looked vacant, but I knew she was trying. And Tanner, of course, was being his usual quiet self.\n\nOr so I thought. After we'd downed our pancakes and Mom had stood up to start clearing the table, he suddenly said, \"Knock, knock.\"\n\nWe all looked at him. Logan and I exchanged glances. Mom stopped in her tracks.\n\n\"What?\" I asked, sure that I must have heard him wrong.\n\n\"Knock, knock,\" Tanner repeated. We hadn't heard a joke come out of Tanner's mouth in a year. \"Um, who's there?\" I asked. \"Little old lady,\" he said.\n\n\"Little old lady who?\" my mom asked, coming back to the table.\n\nTanner smiled at her and then at Logan and me. \"I didn't know you could yodel, Mom.\"\n\nIt was a stupid joke, really, the kind that we only would have laughed at a year ago to be polite. But hearing Tanner tell it today, after a year of barely hearing his voice, never mind his humor, unleashed something in all of us.\n\nMom started laughing first, in high, tinkling tones that I hadn't heard in so long I had almost forgotten what they sounded like. Logan joined in next with an amused chuckle. Before I knew it, I was laughing too.\n\n\"I've been saving that one for today,\" Tanner said. \"I think Dad would have liked it.\"\n\nThe words brought the laughter to a halt. Finally, Mom broke the silence. \"Yes, Tanner,\" she said. \"I know he would have.\"\n\nAnd in that moment, sitting around the kitchen table with my mom and two brothers I felt like maybe, just maybe, our dad was with us after all.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLogan disappeared after breakfast with promises that he'd meet us back at the house by two to go to the cemetery, a trip I was dreading. I'd managed to avoid it for an entire year, but I knew I had to go. I had to do it. For my mom, for Tanner, and, I guess, for myself. After I took a shower and got dressed, I knocked on Tanner's door.\n\n\"Want to go out and jump in the leaf pile in the yard?\" I asked.\n\nHe followed me outside. We spent the next hour jumping around together, like we used to when we were younger. We threw handfuls of leaves at each other, made leaf angels in the yard by lying on our backs and spreading our arms, and dove into the pile again and again, breathing in the familiar, slightly musty smell of autumn all around us.\n\nWe laughed like we used to when our dad would dive in with us, and as I grabbed my little brother for a tickle attack, like Dad used to do to me, I looked up at the gray sky once again, foolishly half expecting a rainbow. Instead there were just low, dense clouds and the promise of rain. The leaves, I knew, would get wet and soggy and would disperse around the yard again when the sky opened up. But for now, they were perfect, and when I closed my eyes, I could almost believe that it was like before, a crisp fall day when everything in the world was right.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLogan didn't come home.\n\nAs we waited for him at the kitchen table, my mom got more and more mad.\n\n\"Maybe he's just running late,\" she said at 2:10.\n\n\"He must be on his way,\" she said at 2:20 when she called his cell phone and it went straight to voice mail.\n\n\"What could they be doing?\" she demanded at 2:30 when she called Sydney's phone and got her voice mail too.\n\n\"Fine, he can meet us there,\" she huffed at 2:45 when Logan still hadn't appeared.\n\nSo Mom, Tanner, and I climbed into the car and headed to the cemetery.\n\nAfter we parked, Mom led us up the little hill to Dad's grave, as easily as if she had a map of the place imprinted on her mind. I supposed maybe she did.\n\nDad's gravestone was a thick slab of dark gray marble, and as we walked up to it, the words imprinted on it burned into me.\n\n**P ETER MANN  \nBELOVED FATHER, HUSBAND, AND SON**\n\nA single ray of sunshine poked through the gloomy mass of clouds as we stood in silence, looking at Dad's grave. I had no idea how to act. Was I supposed to kneel and say a prayer? Or look up at the sky and try to talk to him? Was I supposed to touch the gravestone or the flowers that seemed to have no right to be alive while my father lay dead?\n\nMy mom started crying. Tanner stood beside her, holding her hand, his head leaning against her arm.\n\n\"Lacey,\" she said, turning toward me.\n\nI swallowed hard and wondered what was wrong with me that I wasn't crying too. I joined them, putting my arm around Mom. She pulled me into a hug, and the three of us stood there for what felt like a small eternity, blanketed in a silence that was only punctuated by the occasional sounds of Mom's sniffles.\n\nAfter a few minutes, Tanner pulled away and announced that he was going to go look for a squirrel he'd just seen run by.\n\n\"I have some peanuts in my pocket,\" he said solemnly. \"And maybe he's hungry.\"\n\nMom nodded, and we watched Tanner head off. After a few paces, he broke into a run.\n\nAfter a moment, Mom began crying again. I didn't know what to do. It felt awkward to be around a grieving person, especially my mother.\n\n\"It'll be all right, Mom,\" I mumbled.\n\n\"I've been a terrible mother,\" she whispered.\n\n\"No, Mom,\" I said, shaking my head. \"It's okay.\"\n\n\"I'm the mom,\" she said, pulling a tissue from her pocket and blowing her nose. \"I'm supposed to be the one who holds it all together. For all of you. And I haven't been able to do even that.\"\n\n\"You've done your best. I've done my best. We've all done our best. And it's going to get better.\"\n\n\"But your dad would have\u2014\"\n\n\"Dad would have understood,\" I said, \"that you can't be perfect.\"\n\nThe words settled around us, and as they did, I realized that maybe I needed to take them into account too.\n\n\"I'm going to go sit in the car,\" Mom said with a sigh, turning away from Dad's grave.\n\nTen minutes later, I found Tanner sitting under a tree, gazing at a pair of squirrels, and together, we returned to the car. Mom already had the engine running and the heater going.\n\n\"Ready?\" she asked.\n\nWe both nodded.\n\nIt wasn't until we'd pulled out of the parking lot that I realized I'd been so busy comforting my mom, I hadn't had a chance to say anything to my dad. I still wasn't sure that he could even hear me. I wasn't sure what I believed. But once again, I'd failed him.\n\n# chapter 21\n\nThere was a message on the machine from Logan when we got home.\n\n\"Sorry I missed the cemetery,\" he said, his voice sounding slurred. \"I'm still out with Sydney. See ya later.\"\n\nMom hung up her coat and began sorting through a stack of mail.\n\n\"Mom?\" I said, biting my lip. I'd always kept up the unspoken sibling rule of honor by not telling my mother if I saw Logan drinking or smoking at a party, but the fact that he sounded drunk at four on a Sunday afternoon worried me. \"Doesn't Logan sound kind of... funny?\"\n\n\"It's been an emotional day for all of us, Lacey,\" she said, sighing. \"I'm sure he's shed a few tears of his own.\"\n\nThat wasn't what I meant, but there was no point arguing with her.\n\nLater, after dinner, I decided to go for a run. I needed to get out. Logan still wasn't home, and Tanner and Mom were watching some show about pandas on Animal Planet.\n\nThe night had turned cold. The rain that had started just after we got home from the cemetery\u2014and had dried up another hour after that\u2014had brought with it a chill in the air that hadn't been there before.\n\nAs I set out at a slow jog, I wasn't quite sure where I was going at first. I just knew that I needed to be alone.\n\nAs I ran, my feet carrying me farther from home, I thought about my dad, I mean _really_ thought about him, for the first time in a very long while. It was easier not to think about him most of the time. I'd stopped letting the memories in. I'd stopped talking to him in my head, pretending he could hear me. I'd stopped looking obsessively at his pictures. A little part of me _wanted_ to forget his face, his warmth, his deep voice, his lopsided smile, because it would be easier that way, wouldn't it?\n\nAnd now he was back. Seeing his gravestone for the first time since the funeral had brought it all home. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn't escape the reality that he was gone.\n\nMy feet carried me the two miles to the cemetery. I didn't even stop to consider that I shouldn't be coming this far by myself after dark. It was like I was numb to everything: good judgment, logic, even the bitter cold that was seeping in through my double-layered sweatshirts. I patted the pocket of my sweatpants and felt the familiar shape of my cell phone.\n\nSlowly, I made my way up the shallow hill until I could see my father's headstone emerge from the darkness. A moment later, I stood in front of it, gazing down for the second time today at his name, the year of his birth, the year of his death. My knees suddenly felt weak, and I reached for the headstone to steady myself.\n\n\"Hi,\" I said softly. \"I'm sorry.\" My voice didn't sound like my own. In fact, it took me several seconds to register that the voice was mine, that I had spoken the words aloud instead of just thinking them. I took a deep breath and repeated the words a little louder. \"I'm sorry,\" I began again, \"for not always being a very good daughter. I'm sorry for all the fights we had. I'm sorry for the times you told me I was being a brat and you were right. I'm sorry for the times I yelled at you that I hated you. I never meant it. Not once. I wish I could take them all back.\"\n\nMy knees were growing weaker; my legs felt like jelly. My hand still on the headstone, I eased myself down on the dead grass. The rain had left the ground damp, and I could feel it seep through my sweatpants almost immediately. But I didn't care.\n\n\"I'm sorry for that morning,\" I went on. \"I'm sorry I took so long getting ready, just to bug Logan. I'm sorry I took my time coming downstairs. I'm sorry I thought that was funny. I'm sorry I thought it wouldn't matter.\"\n\nMy heart was pounding quickly now, and that familiar icy feeling was back. But still no tears. \"I'm sorry that I didn't look up sooner. I'm sorry that I saw the SUV but didn't say anything. I didn't have time, but I should have. I should have thought more quickly. I'm sorry I blacked out. I'm sorry I couldn't hold your hand. I'm sorry I couldn't save you.\"\n\nI felt short of breath. The words were coming faster, piling out on top of each other. \"I'm sorry it was you and not me.\" I heard myself say the words, and they surprised me even as they came out of my mouth. I hadn't known I'd felt that way until that very moment. I hadn't let myself think about it. But if I'd been just a second faster, if I'd snapped my seat belt right away instead of giving Logan a hard time, if I'd spent one less stupid second in the bathroom making sure my lipstick was just right, then we would have been several inches farther along the road, and the car would have missed Dad and plowed into me in the backseat instead.\n\nMaybe that was the way it was supposed to happen. Maybe I had cheated fate.\n\n\"I'm sorry I haven't done better,\" I went on. The more things I apologized for, the more miserable I felt. \"I'm sorry I haven't done a better job of taking care of everyone. I don't know how, sometimes, Daddy. It's really hard. But I know it's what I have to do. I know I have to do that for you. And I'm sorry I haven't done better. I promise to try harder.\"\n\nI sat there, staring at his headstone. I wasn't sure what I was waiting for. But there was only silence.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said again. I leaned forward and felt the cold marble of the headstone on my forehead. The cold was cutting into me now, but I didn't care. I fervently hoped that somewhere, my dad could hear me. \"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.\"\n\nI repeated the words, again and again, until the pain in my chest was so great that I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't feel my dad's presence. Not at all. I realized I was talking to myself.\n\nI stood up, cleared my throat, and touched the gravestone once more. I dusted what dirt I could off my sweats and, with one last, long glance, turned away.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI walked toward the parking lot and saw a vehicle parked in the far corner of the lot, in the shadows. Who would be here this late? My heart hammered and I reached for the phone in my pocket. I shouldn't have come here. What if I had gotten myself into a dangerous situation?\n\nAnd then, as I tentatively walked closer, I suddenly recognized it. And the person leaning against it, watching me approach.\n\nSam straightened up and began walking toward me at the exact instant I realized it was him.\n\n\"Hi,\" he said as we approached each other.\n\n\"Hi,\" I said, staring up at him as the distance between us closed. We were standing face to face, under a dim puddle of light from a flickering streetlight. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I went to your house, and your mom said you'd gone for a run,\" he said.\n\n\"But how did you know I'd come here?\"\n\n\"I couldn't think of anywhere else you'd go. Not today, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Oh\" was all I could manage. There was something about realizing how well he knew me that made my stomach flip. We stared at each other for a moment. Then I asked, \"Did you rake the leaves in my yard this morning?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe looked a little embarrassed. \"It was important to you. It was a memory you had with your dad.\"\n\n\"You can't bring him back, you know.\" My voice sounded angry, and I wasn't sure why I was directing any of that toward Sam. But my stomach was all tied up in knots. \"Just by raking leaves. He's gone.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nI looked away. \"It's not fair.\"\n\n\"What's not fair?\"\n\nI swallowed hard. \"Your dad loved you enough to stay. My dad... didn't. And sometimes I hate him for it.\"\n\nThere. I had finally shown Sam the last of the cards I had kept so close to my chest, the cards I hadn't even known were there. How could I hate my father, even a little bit? Surely it made me the worst person in the world. And now I'd shown Sam just what a despicable human being I really was.\n\nHe stepped forward and pulled me into his arms.\n\nI was startled, but I finally let myself relax into the embrace. I tentatively wrapped my arms around him and returned the hug. He responded by holding me tighter, like he would never let go.\n\n\"It's going to be all right, you know,\" he whispered, ruffling my hair with his breath.\n\nI opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, but before I could even get a syllable out, he had put his hand gently over my mouth.\n\n\"Stop, Lacey,\" he said. \"Stop always having to be so tough. Just have some faith.\"\n\n\"Sam,\" I said after a minute, \"I still haven't seen a rainbow.\" I paused and added, \"I've looked.\"\n\nSam stroked my hair. \"Maybe you haven't really needed your dad yet,\" he said. \"You know, it's okay to hate him a little. He _did_ leave you, even if he never would have wanted to, Lacey. But it made life hard for you. Life is _still_ hard for you. He'd understand.\"\n\n\"How can I feel like that and still love him so much?\" I asked in a small voice.\n\nSam was silent. \"I think,\" he said, \"that's exactly what love is.\"\n\nSam's words, and the fact that he was finally absolving me of everything while he held me tight, made something inside me snap. I didn't even know it had happened until I felt the first tear roll down my right cheek, followed soon after by a single tear from the other eye. And then, they were coming like a deluge, one after another, tears falling from eyes that had been dry for a year.\n\n\"You're crying,\" Sam said, leaning back. He looked concerned. He reached in to gently wipe a tear away.\n\n\"I know,\" I said. I reached up and touched my cheek. \"I know.\" And for the first time that day, I smiled.\n\nWe stood in the middle of the cemetery parking lot for a long time, under the glow of the flickering light, enveloped in a dark silence. But I'd never felt so safe in all my life. I didn't want to move, didn't want to go back to reality.\n\nAnd then, my cell phone rang, a sharp jangle that invited reality back in.\n\nThe spell was broken. I looked at Sam as I pulled away. I looked at the caller ID. _Mom's Cell_. I didn't know why she'd be calling from her cell instead of the home phone, but I knew she was probably wondering where I was.\n\nI snapped my phone open. \"Hello?\"\n\n\"Lacey?\" Her voice sounded frantic. I felt immediately bad.\n\n\"Mom, don't worry; I'm fine,\" I said quickly. \"Sam's here with me, and\u2014\"\n\nShe cut me off. \"It's Logan. There's been an accident. He's at the hospital. I need you to come right away.\"\n\n# chapter 22\n\nWe got to Plymouth Regional Hospital's emergency room in record time. Sam dropped me off near the ambulance bay and promised to be inside as soon as he parked. I dashed inside and wildly scanned the waiting room for my family.\n\nI spotted them immediately. Mom was standing in the corner, looking disheveled, and Tanner was sitting in a chair, his head down, mumbling to himself. Sydney was standing several yards away, her face tear-streaked.\n\n\"What happened? Is he okay?\" I demanded, running up to them. All three of them looked up. \"Please!\" I snapped. \"Is he okay? Tell me!\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Mom said. She appeared exhausted. \"He's in surgery now. The doctors will be out to talk to us as soon as he's done.\"\n\nI stared at her. My whole body felt cold. _Surgery. Doctors. An accident_. It was all so familiar.\n\n\"What happened?\" Just then, Sam came through the doors of the waiting room and jogged over to me. I introduced him to my mom, who nodded vaguely. I glanced down at Tanner and realized that he had reverted to sucking his thumb, something I hadn't seen him do since those dark weeks after Dad died. \"What happened, Mom?\"\n\n\"Apparently, Logan was drinking,\" she said in a tight voice. \"With Sydney.\" She glared at Sydney, who seemed to shrink under her gaze. \"He took the keys to Sydney's car,\" Mom continued through gritted teeth, \"and went out to drive around the neighborhood. To find the spot of your accident with Dad.\"\n\nI felt tears in my eyes.\n\n\"He didn't come back for a while,\" Sydney cut in, glancing nervously back and forth between me and my mom. \"So finally, I got worried and took my dad's car out to look for him. I found him on Old Port Road. You know, the one by the harbor that curves? I guess he took the turn too fast and hit a telephone pole.\"\n\nMom made a muffled sound and turned away. I sucked in a deep breath. Tanner curled up on the seat and closed his eyes, sucking his thumb more furiously now. Sam wrapped both of his arms tightly around me and squeezed.\n\n\"The police were already there,\" Sydney continued. \"And the ambulances. They were just taking him away on a stretcher. That's when I called your mom.\"\n\n\"Did you see him?\" I demanded. \"As they were taking him away?\"\n\nI wanted to ask her if he had been conscious, if there had been blood, how he had looked. But she just shook her head. \"They were already shutting the doors to the ambulance. I only knew it was him 'cause of the car. It's totally ruined. My parents are going to _kill_ me.\"\n\nIn this moment, with my brother lying somewhere behind closed doors and possibly dying, _she was worrying about her car?_ I wanted to wring her perky little neck with my bare hands. But Sam held on to me and murmured in my ear, \"It's not worth it.\"\n\nHe was right. But I'd never hated someone quite as much as I hated Sydney right then.\n\nAn hour passed without any word. My mom paced for a while, then sat down, chewing so hard on her lower lip that it started to bleed. She didn't even seem to notice. Tanner's eyes glazed over as he continued rocking back and forth, sucking his thumb. Sydney sat several seats away from us, alternately staring at the wall and texting on her phone. The whole time Sam sat next to me, rubbing my back gently and occasionally whispering things like, \"It's going to be okay, Lacey.\"\n\nHis words weren't much comfort. But his being there was. At least a little bit.\n\nFinally, a doctor in pale blue scrubs came out of the swinging doors leading to the operating room. \"Mrs. Mann?\" he asked, scanning the waiting room.\n\nMy mom jumped up immediately. \"Yes, that's me,\" she said. \"I'm here. How is he?\"\n\nI was on my feet before I knew it, standing at Mom's side. Sam appeared behind me a second later. Tanner stood up and grabbed my hand. Sydney just sat there, staring nervously.\n\nThe doctor glanced around at our little group. \"Logan's a very lucky young man,\" he said. \"He's going to be fine.\"\n\nI didn't think I'd ever felt so relieved in my entire life. My knees buckled a little, but Sam was there to catch me.\n\n\"He is?\" Mom demanded, almost as if she didn't believe it. \"Are you sure?\"\n\nThe doctor still looked concerned. \"Yes,\" he said slowly. \"He suffered a concussion and several broken bones, but it appears his internal injuries are minimal, aside from the trauma to his liver. He should make a full recovery.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank God,\" Mom breathed. I could see tears glistening in her eyes as she turned to me and smiled. I could feel the tears in my own eyes too.\n\nBut the doctor didn't look as happy as we did. \"Mrs. Mann,\" he said slowly. \"It seems to me that we have a difficult situation here.\"\n\n\"What?\" my mom asked, sniffling a little.\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"Your son's blood alcohol level is quite high. I asked him some questions, as did the police, and it seems that this isn't the first time he has gone overboard with drinking.\"\n\n\"What?\" My mom looked at the doctor blankly.\n\nThe doctor cleared his throat again. \"I suspect he will have to deal with the legal ramifications of this incident. I need to strongly recommend that you get him into some sort of rehab program.\"\n\n\"Rehab?\" my mother whispered.\n\n\"He's a minor, Mrs. Mann. This is extremely serious. He's very lucky that no one besides himself was hurt.\"\n\nShe looked down. \"Today's the anniversary of his father's death,\" she said. \"I don't know if he told you that.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" the doctor said. For the first time, he looked a bit sympathetic instead of judgmental. \"I see. I'm sorry to hear that. Was it long ago?\"\n\n\"A year ago today,\" my mother whispered.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" the doctor said. \"But this is a wake-up call, Mrs. Mann. Your son needs help.\"\n\nI could feel my face flaming. I'd known my brother drank. I hadn't done anything to stop it. And he had almost gotten himself killed.\n\nAs if reading my mind, Sam leaned down and whispered softly in my ear, \"Don't you dare go blaming yourself, Lacey Mann. You are _not_ responsible for Logan. He did this on his own.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" I started to whisper back.\n\n_\"Not your fault,\"_ Sam said in a tone that left no room for argument.\n\nThe doctor was saying something to my mom about how Logan was under anesthesia and was a little groggy but could talk to her if she wanted to go in. The rest of us would have to wait until visiting hours tomorrow.\n\n\"After you see him,\" the doctor said, \"the police will want to interview you. And I'd like to recommend a few rehab centers to you before Logan is released.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she said in a small voice.\n\nWhen the doctor disappeared, my mother crumpled to the floor. It was as if all her bones suddenly turned to jelly. \"My God, my God, my God,\" she was murmuring to herself. I bent down and wrapped my arms around her.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I murmured. \"I'm sorry I didn't do anything to stop him.\"\n\n\"My God, Lacey,\" she said. \"It's not your responsibility. When did it start being your responsibility?\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"Lacey, you're sixteen,\" she said. \"You're not in charge of your brother's actions. It's my fault. I should have known.\"\n\nI tried to reassure her that it wasn't her fault. But the words fell on deaf ears. Tanner hopped up from his chair and joined me and Mom on the floor. He put his arms around both of us, and the three of us sat there in a messy, crying heap.\n\n\"It's not anyone's fault,\" he said. My mom and I both looked at him. Mom sniffled. \"You can only do your best. And you can either get upset about the past, or just plan on doing things differently in the future. That's what the Crocodile Hunter said, anyhow. In a show I used to watch.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Tanner,\" my mom said.\n\nHe shrugged and put his hands in his pocket. \"Whatever.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSydney's parents came to pick her up a little while later. To their credit, they didn't say one word about the car. Mom decided to stay at the hospital overnight. Sam offered to drive me and Tanner home, and my mom gratefully accepted.\n\nSam walked us to the door, and after I unlocked it and watched Tanner disappear into the house, Sam pulled me into a long embrace on the doorstep.\n\n\"Lacey, I don't know if this is the right time to say this,\" he said, \"but I'd really like it if maybe you'd come meet my dad sometime.\"\n\nI didn't know what to say.\n\n\"I mean, he's not himself,\" Sam continued. \"He can't move one whole side of his body. And sometimes I feel like he doesn't even remember me. But he's still my dad.\"\n\nI swallowed hard. I thought of all the things I'd said to Sam, all the selfish, warring emotions I'd felt over his father coming out of his coma. I thought about how I'd never see my dad again and about how lucky I was to not have lost my brother, too. I thought about what Tanner had said about how you couldn't live in the past and how you had to do things differently in the future.\n\nFinally, I smiled. \"I'd like that,\" I said.\n\n\"Good,\" Sam said, smiling back at me. Then he kissed me goodnight.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMy cell phone rang early the next morning, jolting me awake. I glanced at the clock as I dove for the phone: 6:55. My blood ran cold. Was it my mom, calling with bad news about Logan?\n\n\"Hello?\" I answered breathlessly.\n\n\"Lacey?\" It was Sam, and he sounded concerned.\n\nI let out a huge sigh of relief. \"I was afraid it was my mom and something was wrong with Logan.\"\n\n\"Oh jeez, I'm sorry,\" he said. \"I just wanted to make sure you're okay.\"\n\nI smiled. \"I'm fine.\"\n\n\"Can you go to the window?\"\n\nI sat up in bed. \"What?\"\n\n\"I just want you to look outside.\"\n\nA warm feeling spread through me. I wondered if he'd raked the leaves again. I got out of bed, pulled open the curtain, and looked down. But the leaf pile had dispersed in yesterday's rain, and no one had put it back together again. Early-morning sunlight beamed down on a front lawn that looked absolutely ordinary.\n\n\"I don't see anything,\" I said to Sam.\n\n\"Are you looking down?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, puzzled.\n\n\"Try looking up,\" he said mysteriously.\n\nI did as he said, and right away, I saw why he'd called. I gasped.\n\nStretching across the sky and dipping down again in the distance was the prettiest, brightest rainbow I'd ever seen. It was just like the one in Sam's painting under the bridge.\n\n\"Oh my God,\" I breathed. I blinked a few times. I couldn't believe my eyes.\n\n\"Lacey,\" Sam said, \"it's not even raining. Look. It's all sunshine.\"\n\nI looked around. He was right. A few wispy white clouds floated by, but there wasn't a rain cloud, nor a drop of rain, in sight. There was no logical reason for there to be a rainbow.\n\n\"You can't tell me you don't believe now,\" Sam said. \"Your dad's up there, Lacey.\"\n\nI gazed at the rainbow. Then I craned my neck as far as it would go and strained to look up, my chin pointing heavenward. I smiled at my dad.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I whispered to Sam. \"Can I call you later?\"\n\nWe hung up and I stared at the rainbow for a long time. \"Thanks, Dad,\" I said.\n\nThen I sent Jennica a text. No way could I call her this early.\n\nLACEYLOO321: call me when u wake up. miss u.\n\nThen I dialed Mom's cell number.\n\nShe answered on the first ring. \"Hi, honey. Is everything all right?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. I took a deep breath, realized that it was the first time in a year I'd meant it. \"In fact, I'm pretty sure that everything's going to be okay from now on.\"\n\n# epilogue\n\n**ONE YEAR LATER**\n\nThe second anniversary of Dad's accident fell on a Monday, so we couldn't go to the cemetery until the evening, when we were through with school and Mom was home from work.\n\nSam had bowed out of the visit. He had gone with me to the cemetery over the past year, but today, he said, was for my family. He didn't want to intrude. And that was just one of the many reasons I loved him. He was always thinking about things like that.\n\nHis dad was doing a lot better. He liked to play board games, so Sam and I would get out Monopoly or Battleship and sit with him for hours. It sounded crazy, but it was one of my favorite things to do now. Tanner even visited sometimes, and he entertained all of us with his new jokes\u2014he'd decided he might want to be a stand-up comic. He and Mr. Stone really liked each other.\n\nLogan's car accident had been the wake-up call he needed. Because it was a first offense, he wasn't sent to jail, but he had to enroll in a program for teen alcohol abusers, which met twice a week. He had stopped partying, and he had started hanging out with his old friends Josh and Will again. He and Sydney broke up, and she had a brand-new BMW and a brand-new boyfriend.\n\nMom was finally closer to being her old self again. I still heard her sobbing at night sometimes. But those nights were a lot fewer and farther between. And her smiles at the dinner table were real.\n\nAs for Kelsi, Mindy, Cody, Logan, Sam, and I, we'd become even closer. A freshman named Amber had joined our group a few months earlier; her dad had died when she was five. And Jennica, who had broken up with Brian in January, sometimes came too. The group had decided that it would be okay, from time to time, if kids whose parents were getting divorced joined us.\n\nToday my family met at the cemetery, just after the sun had gone down. The last remnants of the sunset\u2014a few streaks of orange and fuchsia across a deep indigo sky\u2014hung above us, lighting our way. I had a car now, an old Toyota, and I had driven Tanner and Logan. Mom came straight from work, trading her high heels for sneakers in the parking lot.\n\nI came here more often now to ponder things. In fact, I'd come here just last week when I needed to think about a big college decision. I had asked Dad's advice. And in the silence, with the sunshine dappling through the trees around us and the wind stirring the leaves on the ground ever so slightly, I think I'd gotten it.\n\nWe gathered around his headstone and I swallowed hard. _Two years ago_. It was hard to imagine that it had been two whole years since my dad had smiled at me or hugged me or said my name.\n\nMy mom laid down a bouquet of roses and murmured something under her breath. They weren't words for us. They were for Dad. Tanner told a few jokes. He came to Dad's grave with me sometimes, and he told a few each time. And, he'd told me, he was pretty sure that Dad could hear his jokes wherever he was and was proud of him. I'd had to blink several times to stop myself from crying when he said that.\n\n\"I miss you, Dad,\" Logan said in a deep voice that was growing deeper by the day. He bent down on one knee and closed his eyes, and when he stood, there was a tear running down his cheek. He didn't bother to wipe it away.\n\nI took a deep breath. \"I have some news,\" I said. \"I got a letter from Boston University yesterday.\" I paused and grinned. \"I got in. I got accepted. And I think there's a pretty good chance I'll get that scholarship.\"\n\nI had applied for a scholarship for children whose parents had died, sponsored by Kate's Club in Atlanta\u2014the club that had inspired our group. Every year, the founder, Kate Atwood, chose a few kids to send through college. You just had to write an essay about how your life had changed since your parent's death and what your plans were for the future. I had sat down to write an essay. Instead, I wrote twenty-two chapters. I couldn't stop writing. And Ms. Atwood had called to say that my story had moved her to tears, and she thought that with some editing, it could maybe even be turned into a book.\n\nMom was the first to hug me. \"I'm so proud of you. And I know Daddy would be too.\"\n\nI hugged her back and imagined Dad's arms also wrapped around me. I imagined what his face would look like, so full of pride and joy for me. And for a moment, I felt like he was there with us.\n\nI'd wanted to tell my family first, but I could hardly wait to tell Sam later tonight. He'd been accepted at Northeastern. I knew we were young, and who knew what would happen in the future? But at least this meant we were going to be in the same city and we wouldn't have to deal with the whole long-distance thing. If we were meant to work out, we would.\n\nLogan cleared his throat. \"Well, I haven't heard back yet, but I applied to Suffolk,\" he said, naming a small university in the center of Boston. He'd taken a year off after graduation. \"And I think my grades and SAT scores will get me in. So I guess we'll both be in the city.\"\n\nLogan and I hugged. He drove me crazy sometimes, but we'd become a lot closer in the past year, and I couldn't imagine being far away from him. Plus, he'd probably need to hit me up for rides home to visit Mom.\n\nTanner was grinning. \"This is perfect!\" he announced. \"There's a comedy club in Boston that me and Sarah read about. And on Monday nights, they have amateur night for comics under eighteen. We're gonna work on our act. We should be ready by next fall. And you guys can come watch us and bring all your friends!\"\n\nI grinned back at my little brother. \"You bet! You're going to have the biggest BU cheering section any comedian has ever had.\"\n\n\"Not to mention the biggest Suffolk cheering section,\" Logan added.\n\n_\"And_ probably the biggest Northeastern cheering section too,\" I said, thinking of Sam. \"Actually, it just sounds like you're going to have the biggest cheering section ever.\"\n\nTanner smiled from ear to ear. \"Cool,\" he said.\n\nMom was looking at all of us, her eyes glistening. \"Dad would be really proud of you,\" she said. _\"All_ of you.\"\n\nAs we walked away from Dad's grave that night, Mom held hands with my brothers, and I held Tanner's right hand, my own right hand outstretched. I was reaching for Dad. I knew he was right there with us, as much a part of our family as he had ever been. Just because we couldn't see him didn't mean he wasn't there.\n**Kristin Harmel** is a longtime contributor to _People_ magazine. It was while working on a _People_ story that she got to meet Kate Atwood, who runs Kate's Club, an organization for grieving kids in Atlanta, which inspired this novel. Kristin lives in Orlando, Florida, and admits that she spends far too much time at Walt Disney World, which is just fifteen minutes from her house.\n\nTo learn more about Kristin, visit her Web site at www.KristinHarmel.com.\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2010 by Kristin Harmel\n\nAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.\n\nDelacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of  \nRandom House, Inc.\n\nVisit us on the Web\n\nEducators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com\/teachers\n\n**_Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data_**  \nHarmel, Kristin.  \nAfter \/ Kristin Harmel. \u2014 1st ed.  \np. cm.  \nSummary: When her father is killed in a car accident, Lacey feels responsible, so when she is given a chance to make a difference in the lives of some of her fellow students, she jumps at the chance.  \neISBN: 978-0-375-89488-6  \n[1. Grief\u2014Fiction. 2. Guilt\u2014Fiction. 3. Family life\u2014Fiction. 4. High schools\u2014Fiction.   \n5. Schools\u2014Fiction.] I. Title.  \nPZ7.H2116Af 2010  \n[Fic]\u2014dc22   \n2009001367\n\nRandom House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.\n\nv3.0\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 by Stephen Coonts\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.\n\nRegnery\u00ae is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner.\n\nFirst e-book edition 2016: ISBN 978-1-62157-529-0\n\nOriginally published in hardcover, 2016\n\nCataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress\n\nPublished in the United States by\n\nRegnery Publishing\n\nA Division of Salem Media Group\n\n300 New Jersey Ave NW\n\nWashington, DC 20001\n\nwww.Regnery.com\n\nManufactured in the United States of America\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\nBooks are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.\n\nDistributed to the trade by\n\nPerseus Distribution\n\n250 West 57th Street\n\nNew York, NY 10107\n**ALSO BY STEPHEN COONTS**\n\n_The Art of War_\n\n_Saucer: Savage Planet_\n\n_Saucer: The Conquest_\n\n_Saucer_\n\n_Pirate Alley_\n\n_The Disciple_\n\n_The Assassin_\n\n_The Traitor_\n\n_Liars & Thieves_\n\n_Liberty_\n\n_America_\n\n_Hong Kong_\n\n_Cuba_\n\n_Fortunes of War_\n\n_The Intruders_\n\n_The Red Horseman_\n\n_Under Siege_\n\n_The Minotaur_\n\n_Final Flight_\n\n_Flight of the Intruder_\n\n**WITH WILLIAM H. KEITH**\n\n_Deep Black: Death Wave_\n\n_Deep Black: Sea of Terror_\n\n_Deep Black: Arctic Gold_\n\n**WITH JIM DEFELICE**\n\n_Deep Black: Conspiracy_\n\n_Deep Black: Jihad_\n\n_Deep Black: Payback_\n\n_Deep Black: Dark Zone_\n\n_Deep Black: Biowar_\n\n_Deep Black_\n\n**NONFICTION**\n\n_The Cannibal Queen_\n\n**ANTHOLOGIES**\n\n_The Sea Witch_\n\n_On Glorious Wings_\n\n_Victory_\n\n_Combat_\n\n_War in the Air_\n\n**WRITING AS EVE ADAMS**\n\n_The Garden of Eden_\nTo all those persons, wherever they are, who believe in Liberty. \nThe oath to be taken by the president on first entering office is specified in Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution.\n\n\"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.\" \nCONTENTS\n\nPrologue\n\nChapter One\n\nChapter Two\n\nChapter Three\n\nChapter Four\n\nChapter Five\n\nChapter Six\n\nChapter Seven\n\nChapter Eight\n\nChapter Nine\n\nChapter Ten\n\nChapter Eleven\n\nChapter Twelve\n\nChapter Thirteen\n\nChapter Fourteen\n\nChapter Fifteen\n\nChapter Sixteen\n\nChapter Seventeen\n\nChapter Eighteen\n\nChapter Nineteen\n\nChapter Twenty\n\nChapter Twenty-One\n\nChapter Twenty-Two\n\nChapter Twenty-Three\n\nChapter Twenty-Four\n\nChapter Twenty-Five\n\nChapter Twenty-Six\n\nChapter Twenty-Seven\n\nChapter Twenty-Eight\n\nChapter Twenty-Nine\n\nChapter Thirty\n\nChapter Thirty-One\n\nChapter Thirty-Two\n\nChapter Thirty-Three\n\nChapter Thirty-Four\n\nChapter Thirty-Five\n\nChapter Thirty-Six\n\nRussia Account - Demo chapter 2\nPROLOGUE\n\nOn that third Saturday in August, four separate events came together and snowballed into an avalanche that forever changed life in the United States.\n\nThe first occurred on a ranch in west Texas, a few minutes after one in the morning. There was no moon, so the night was dark, enlivened only by a million stars in the clear sky. The ranch belonged to Joseph Robert Hays, Joe Bob to his friends. For many years Joe Bob had made a modest living raising cattle on his twenty-two-thousand-acre spread, but drought and economics finally forced him out of that business. Like the very first Texans, he had no intention of giving up his land, so he decided to try something else.\n\nToday the ranch raised African game animals, a dozen varieties of antelope, which rich sportsmen paid Joe Bob serious money to hunt. Why go to Africa to hunt, Africa with its desperate poverty and brutal Islamic terrorists? Hunt right here in Texas, in the beating heart of the good ol' US of A. That was what his brochures said that he mailed to anyone who inquired about his ranch. His youngest son was a schoolteacher and had cleaned up the message so it read smoother in the brochures, but that is the way Joe Bob wrote it.\n\nJoe Bob also picked up a little money by hosting scout camps on weekends over the winter and making sure every camper got to see and photograph some of the exotic species.\n\nHis ranch adjoined the Rio Grande, the river that formed the boundary between the United States and Mexico, with its poverty, caste system, and systemic corruption. So the poor Mexicans migrated. Over thirteen million of them, over a fifth of the Mexican population, had crossed that border illegally in the last fifty years and were grubbing for work in the United States, usually for minimum wage, or living on welfare and food stamps. Illiterate, unskilled, and usually unable to speak English, they flooded the schools with their children, kept blue-collar wages low, and formed an underclass that resisted assimilation and required huge amounts of public assistance dollars.\n\nAmerican politicians had done little through the years to stem the flood. Hispanic voters wanted their kinsmen to be able to enter the United States regardless of their ability to contribute to the economy or pay their own bills, yet this wasn't the decisive factor. Farmers and small-business men wanted a source of cheap labor, and were content to pass the true costs, the social costs, on to the taxpayers. Generous public welfare programs also drew millions of Mexicans, more than small business or agriculture could possibly use. Even draining off an eighth of the population didn't really help Mexico, which found itself racked by turf wars between vicious criminal gangs that smuggled drugs into the United States to supply the richest narcotics market in the world.\n\nJoe Bob's ranch had six miles of riverfront, and unfortunately sat astride an ancient trail up from old Mexico, one that had been used for millennia. The tread of thousands of feet for thousands of years had left their mark on the land. The trail began somewhere in the Mexican state of Coahuila, hundreds of miles to the south, but it could be accessed from a dirt road that crossed it two miles south of the river. From there it descended into an arroyo, avoiding the sandstone escarpments that the river had left in the tens of millions of years it had been eroding the land. The escarpments, cliffs of hard, dense rock from eight to twelve feet high, were vertical and formed walls that spread out from the arroyo in a fan pattern. On the north side of the river, the trail, about six feet wide and packed hard, climbed another arroyo into the scrub brush of the Hays ranch. The trail was the easiest and most direct way to get from the dirt road south of the river to the hard road on the north side of the ranch. Drug smugglers sent the mules\u2014men carrying drugs in backpacks\u2014from the road on short summer nights after dark. They would wade the river, cross the Hays ranch on the north side, throw the drugs over the fence there to men waiting with a van, then walk back and be south of the river, safe in old Mexico, by dawn.\n\nWhen he ran cattle, Joe Bob Hays had used a three-strand barbed wire fence across the trail about three hundred yards north of the river to keep his cattle in. Illegal immigrants and drug smugglers had to merely lift the top wire and press one down to crawl through. When he got into the hunting business, Joe Bob had to build a much better fence to hold the exotics, an eight-foot-high chain-link affair topped with a strand of barbed wire. The fence was more expensive than the animals. He borrowed money from the bank at the county seat to finance both. In addition to keeping the antelope in, the fence kept the Mexicans out, so they cut it, allowing the various species of expensive antelope to escape the ranch.\n\nJoe Bob was nothing if not determined. After he had repaired holes in the fence a half-dozen times, he decided he had had enough. He complained to the Border Patrol, the DEA, and the county sheriff, and he wrote letters to his congressman and senators and members of the Texas legislature. All to no avail. The DEA, mysterious as always, didn't reply to his letters. Those who replied said they were sorry, but nothing could be done. Neither the Border Patrol nor the sheriff's department had the manpower to guard his fence.\n\nThe politicians pointed their fingers at the president, who, for political reasons, was in a squabble with Congress about immigration and refused to compromise. Of course, he was merely the latest president, and this was the latest Congress, to do little or nothing about the unarmed invasion from Mexico. Someday, someway, all those illegals would become American voters, and when it happened in that distant, hazy someday, both political parties would want their votes, but none more so than the Democrats, who had bet their political future on the bedrock of welfare and food stamps for the uneducated, the unskilled, the addicted, and the shiftless unable or unwilling to find work in an American economy increasingly fueled by science, technology, and government employment.\n\nIt never occurred to Joe Bob to complain to the Mexican government, which actively encouraged its citizens to migrate illegally to the United States and was infamously corrupted by criminals in the drug business.\n\nSo the last time he repaired his fence, Joe Bob put tin cans with small rocks in them on the top strand of barbed wire. The cans tinkled when the wind moved the wire, and they should tinkle when Mexicans operated on the chain links with wire cutters.\n\nTonight Joe Bob sat under some scrub brush on the bank of the arroyo on his side of the fence. Across his knees was an old Marlin lever action in .30-30, with a nightscope mounted on it that he had ordered from a Cabela's catalog.\n\nHe had been here for two nights, had seen and heard no one, and was tired. Yet this evening before twilight he had seen dust to the south, so he thought some Mexicans might come tonight. If they were drug smugglers, they wouldn't cut the fence by the hard road. Illegal immigrants would cut the northern fence, however, to squeeze through.\n\nDamn them all, anyhow.\n\nJoe Bob opened his snuff can and put a pinch in his mouth. He really wanted a cigarette, but they might see the glow or smell the smoke. He wanted to surprise them, throw some shots around, run them back across the river. The sons of bitches could find another place to cross, and no doubt would. But he was sick and tired of working on his goddamn fence.\n\nHe was thinking about a drink of water when he heard the cans rattle down in the arroyo. Someone, man or animal, was fooling with the fence.\n\nJoe Bob lifted his rifle and began scanning with the scope, looking for people.\n\nWhat he didn't know was that two Mexican gunmen on the other side of the fence were also looking for him with nightscopes, better ones than Joe Bob could afford. They had been hired to escort eight mules to the paved highway on the northern side of Joe Bob's ranch, where a vehicle would meet them to take the packages of cocaine on to Los Angeles.\n\nThe lead mule rattled the fence while the gunmen searched. One of the shooters, Jesus Morales, spotted Joe Bob Hays seated under a bush and settled the crosshairs of his scope on him. He squeezed the trigger.\n\nThe bullet smacked Joe Bob in the chest, a mortal wound, and he went over backward.\n\nNothing else moved on the ranch side of the fence, so after a twenty-minute wait to be sure, the fence was cut and the mules moved through the opening up the ancient trail. Morales climbed the bank of the arroyo to where Joe Bob Hays lay bleeding out. He found him with the nightscope.\n\nTo Morales' amazement, the rancher was still alive. Morales pointed his rifle at the dying man's head and pulled the trigger. His head exploded.\n\nThe Mexicans moved on, walking north with their loads. The wheels of commerce were turning, as they had to turn, for that was the way of the world.\n\nAt eleven o'clock that Saturday morning four clean-shaven, skinny young men bought tickets for the Amtrak Express to New York at the BWI Airport station between Washington and Baltimore. They had arrived in a stolen car that they parked on the upper level of the garage adjacent to the station. Carrying backpacks, they took the stairs down and into the train station and stood in line to buy tickets. When their turns came, they each paid cash for a ticket to New York, then went out onto the platform to wait for the train. There were no metal detectors to pass through; no one inspected their backpacks.\n\nTen minutes later the train arrived right on time. They climbed aboard, each entering a different car.\n\nThey found seats. The train was crowded, as usual. The young men looked around and were pleased to see that there were no uniformed police, no armed guards of any type, not that they expected any. This was America, the most under-policed nation on earth.\n\nThe train pulled out right on time, at twenty-two minutes after the hour. There was no clanking and jerking. Powered by electric locomotives, the train merely glided into motion.\n\nThe traveler who had boarded the last car, Salah al Semn, found that the only empty seat was in the middle of the car, facing two fit young men, one white, one black, clean-shaven, with military haircuts, wearing jeans and pull-over short-sleeve shirts. He had seen that type before in Iraq, and suspected, rightly, that they were in the American military. He ignored them. Beside him was a young person with unkempt long hair wearing ear buds and apparently listening to an iPod.\n\nWith their backpacks on their laps or in the overhead bins, all four of the men who boarded at BWI sat back in their seats, avoided eye contact with their fellow passengers, and checked their watches. They had some time to wait, so they watched the countryside pass outside the windows and thought private thoughts as the train ran along through suburbs and into downtown Baltimore.\n\nIn the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, a van pulled up outside a parochial school. There were three men in it, brown, clean-shaven skinny men in jeans. They sat watching as families parked their cars and took children into the school. Today was registration day for a new school year that was to begin Monday. Nuns ran the school and taught some of the classes. In the office, nuns supervised the registration process and shook hands with the parents and greeted the students, most of whom were returning for another year. The school was for children in grades one through six. It had been in operation for over a hundred years, and many of the parents were graduates.\n\nThe name of the school, Our Sisters of Mercy, was emblazoned above the main entrance, but the men in the van couldn't read the words. Not only did they not know how to read and write English, they were illiterate in all the world's languages, including their own, which was Farsi. The only education any of the three had ever received was in an Islamic school, where the sole item in the curriculum was the memorization of the Koran. The Prophet's message, their teachers knew, was all the boys really needed to know to wend their way through this vale of tears and earn their way into Paradise.\n\nThe men in the van checked their watches. As the two in the front seat scrutinized every vehicle and watched traffic on the street, the man in back began opening bags and extracting semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifles, into which he inserted magazines.\n\nAt Yankee Stadium in the Bronx the players were on the field warming up, tossing balls around, taking batting practice, and signing autographs for the kids and fans who hung over the rails. The Yanks were not having a good year; they were third in the American League East standings, ten games off the pace, so management expected that only half the seats in the stadium would have bodies in them when the game against the Detroit Tigers started at precisely one o'clock.\n\nThe jihadist, Nuri Said, sat in the top tier of seats watching the activities on the field as fans wandered in. He had attended two games in the past few weeks and had a rudimentary understanding of the game, which he thought boring. Mainly he watched the uniformed police who stood here and there at the portals that people had to pass through to get to and from the stands to the vast galleries where there were restaurants, fast food stands, and restrooms.\n\nNuri had chosen Yankee Stadium for his jihad strike because of the television cameras that would make him and his three mates famous and immortal. The police were a necessary evil, he thought, and would kill all four of them, but not until after the cameras had captured the naked power of Islam for all the world's infidels to see and ponder. Nuri Said and his three fellow believers would please Allah, he knew, which was more than most men accomplished in this life. That would be enough.\n\nSalah al Semn found the waiting hard. He fidgeted. He tried to avoid eye contact with his fellow passengers on the train to New York, but found that he was watching them, sizing them up, wondering who they were as they got on and off at the depots in Baltimore and Wilmington. He repeatedly checked his watch. He was acutely aware that the two young men opposite him were watching him. Every time he glanced their way their eyes were upon him, and they didn't look away.\n\nHe would kill them first, he thought. Infidel dogs.\n\nThe train was sliding into the station in Philadelphia when Salah al Semn checked his watch for the last time, picked up the backpack, which he had placed on the floor under his legs, and made his way toward the restroom.\n\nMarine Sergeant Mike Ivy and Lance Corporal Scott Weidmann were from Brooklyn. They were on their way home for a week's leave before they shipped out for tours in South Korea.\n\n\"He's got a gun in that bag,\" Weidmann whispered to Ivy.\n\n\"Something hard, with angles,\" Ivy agreed. \"Ain't his underwear.\"\n\nAs al Semn opened the door to the restroom and went inside, Ivy and Weidmann got up and went to the restroom door. Ivy put his ear to the door. The train coasted to a stop in the Philadelphia station.\n\nThe two Marines had to make way for people getting on and off the train, but in a moment the rush was over. Ivy leaned nonchalantly against the restroom door and listened while Weidmann watched the passengers in the car to see if anyone was paying attention. They weren't, he decided. Everyone was getting settled for the ride on to Newark, then Pennsylvania Station in New York.\n\nIvy said to Weidmann, \"Bastard's putting his weapon together. Ain't nothing else sounds like that.\"\n\n\"What do you want to do?\" Weidmann asked. He automatically deferred to the senior man.\n\n\"I figure it's a rifle or something. He'll come out of there with the thing pointing up so he can make the turn. Not much room. You slam the door on him and I'll take it away from him.\"\n\nThey took their positions and waited.\n\nIn Arlington Heights, the three men in the van inspected their weapons. Each made sure he had two extra magazines in his pocket, and pulled a ski mask down over his head. They doubted that they would survive this strike so it didn't matter if their faces were seen: they wore the masks to create terror in the heart of everyone who saw them. Terrorized people don't think or fight back, so they are easy to slaughter. Not that any of the three thought the nuns and children and suburban parents would fight back. These people were Christians, who routinely defamed and ridiculed the Prophet, may he rest in peace. They deserved what was coming.\n\nIn Yankee Stadium Nuri Said met his fellow terrorists at a trash can near a service door. One of them, from Iraq, had worked at the stadium for two weeks and had smuggled in weapons and ammunition, which were hidden in the can. As the last minutes ticked by and the national anthem played on the loudspeakers throughout the stadium, Nuri and his three jihadists reached into the can, dug out the trash that covered the weapons, and removed them. Checked that they were loaded. Pocketed spare magazines. And pulled black ski masks over their heads.\n\nThen they walked toward the nearest portal to the stands. There was a woman policeman there, and Nuri saw her before she saw him. He shot her. Even though she was wearing a bulletproof vest, she went down from the impact. The report of the weapon seemed magnified inside that concrete gallery, like a thunderclap. It triggered screams. Or perhaps the sight of the ski masks and weapons triggered them.\n\nPeople panicked and tried to run. One of the terrorists stood there methodically firing single shots as fast as he could aim his weapon. His three colleagues ran out the portal into the grandstands.\n\nSalah al Semn stood in the tiny restroom aboard the express train with his AR-15 at port arms, loaded, with the safety off, and looked at his watch again. One minute to go. The train was accelerating out of the station. He could see the concrete and roofs moving through the little window and feel the motion of the car on the uneven rails.\n\nHe knew precisely what he had to do. Exit the restroom and start shooting people in this car, the nearest first.\n\nWhen he had shot everyone in this car, he was to proceed forward to the other cars, where three other shooters were working. When everyone in all four cars was dead, he and any surviving shooters were to proceed all the way forward, executing people until they reached the engine.\n\nSalah al Semn knew he would see Paradise soon, and he was ready. He would go with the blood of infidels on his hands, one of the holiest martyrs. The Prophet would be proud!\n\nHe took a deep breath and opened the door.\n\nAs it opened, he saw one of the American soldiers standing there, the black man, within a foot. He grabbed for Salah's weapon and jerked it toward him. Salah grabbed for the trigger, and the door slammed into him with terrific force. He lost control of the rifle.\n\nSergeant Mike Ivy didn't hesitate. He merely pulled the rifle toward him, then drove the butt at al Semn's Adam's apple with all the force he could muster. The blow pushed the Syrian back into the restroom. The commode caught the back of his legs, and he lost his balance and fell.\n\nMike Ivy was already examining the AR-15. It was loaded, with a round chambered. Ivy and Weidmann both heard muffled shots from the passenger car ahead of this one. Ivy glanced at Weidmann, nodded to the restroom, and Weidmann said, \"Go.\"\n\nMike Ivy began running forward as people screamed and tried to cower behind their seats.\n\nLance Corporal Scott Weidmann jerked the door open and reached down for Salah al Semn, jerking him upright. The Syrian decided to fight, which was a fatal error. Weidmann's first blow was aimed at his solar plexus, which took the air out of the Syrian and doubled him up. His second blow, an elbow to the man's left ear, was delivered with so much force that the man's neck snapped. Dead on his feet, Salah al Semn collapsed. . .and started his journey to Paradise. Or Hell, depending on your faith.\n\nScott Weidmann left the Syrian sprawled half in, half out of the restroom and ran after Sergeant Ivy, toward the sound of shots.\n\nHe jerked open the door to the car ahead just in time to see Ivy shoot a terrorist and drop him in the aisle. People were sobbing and shouting; an unknown number had been shot. Ivy reached the body of the hooded man first, grabbed his weapon, and tossed it back to Weidmann, who fielded it in the air. As Ivy turned to go forward, Weidmann stomped on the terrorist's larynx, crushing it. Then the two Marines ran on, toward the next car.\n\nThe three shooters walked into the parochial school and the first person they saw was a nun, so they shot her. One of them, a Yemeni named Hassan, stopped to cut her throat with a knife as the other two shot down several families standing there, men, women, and kids.\n\nVinnie Latucca was in the principal's office with his granddaughter talking to Sister Mary Catherine, who had been one of his teachers when he was a pupil at Our Sisters of Mercy forty-some years ago. He heard the sound of gunfire and reached into his pocket for his .38 Smith & Wesson with a four-inch barrel. Vinnie never went anywhere without it.\n\nTelling Sister Mary Catherine and his granddaughter to stay where they were, he opened the door a crack. One of the gunmen entered the office area with his weapon up. As the gunman fired at the ten or twelve people in the room, Vinnie Latucca cocked his revolver, steadied it on the door jam, and fired. One shot. The masked man with a rifle went down.\n\nGunfire continued to sound. A woman was bent over her limp child, cradling him, sobbing softly as Vinnie Latucca shot the gunman again, this time in the head, and then helped himself to the AR. He eased the outer office door open so he could see down the hallway.\n\nNo shooter in sight, so he pocketed his revolver and stepped out.\n\nHe walked toward the sound of gunfire and found the next shooter in a classroom. The fool had his back to the door and was shooting kids. Vinnie shot him twice in the back with the AR, then rolled him over and jerked the ski mask from his head. He put the barrel of the rifle in the man's mouth and pulled the trigger, exploding his head. The man might have been dead by then, but Vinnie hoped not.\n\nThe third man must have wondered why there was no more gunfire, because when Vinnie Latucca stepped out of the classroom into the corridor he fired a shot at him. Vinnie was quicker. Three fast, aimed shots dropped the man. He didn't even twitch. If he had, Vinnie would have blown his head off too. He ripped off the ski mask, saw the fixed eyes, and stood listening for shots.\n\nWhat he heard was the sound of a siren. For the first time in his life, the sound filled Vinnie Latucca with relief.\n\nDetective Victor Goldman, NYPD, was in the middle of his seating section when the gunmen who exited the portal into the grandstand area opened fire. He heard the shots and saw two of them. He didn't know there were three.\n\nHe had a .380 automatic strapped to his ankle, so he pulled it out and tried to get a shot. People were sobbing, shouting, diving for cover so he couldn't get a clear shot. And he was too far away. At least thirty feet, with a pistol with a three-inch barrel and a million people behind the gunmen, so if he missed he would hit a civilian or two.\n\nHe had to get closer. He made his two boys get down under the seats, then he started trying to crawl over people to get closer to the shooters, who were blazing away.\n\nHis chance came when the nearest gunman realized his magazine was empty and bent down to pop it out of his weapon and insert another. Vic Goldman had closed to ten feet. He took careful aim, using both hands on the hideout pistol, and shot the gunman in the chest. He half-turned and Vic shot him again.\n\nThat was when the gunman Vic hadn't seen shot him high in the back. Vic went down on his face, fatally wounded. He was dead when police shooting from the portals killed all the gunmen still standing, and still dead an hour later when a paramedic team found him with his two sons, ages seven and nine, holding his hands.\n\nSomeone pulled the emergency cord on the Amtrak train, so the brakes locked on every car and it screeched to a stop. Mike Ivy and Scott Weidmann had killed the third shooter by then.\n\nAfter the train stopped, the fourth gunman leaped from the train onto the gravel beside the tracks. He was on a dead run heading for Newark when Sergeant Mike Ivy dropped him from a distance of one hundred yards with one shot between the shoulder blades.\n\nAs Ivy and Weidmann stood in front of the locomotive looking down at the terrorist, Weidmann said, \"Nice shot, Sarge.\"\n\nIvy pointed the rifle at the dead man's crotch and fired a shot.\n\n\"Bastard won't be able to fuck his virgins in Paradise,\" he explained.\n\n\"You believe that shit?\"\n\n\"Hell, no, but they do. Send them cock-less.\"\n\nIt was late afternoon in Arlington Heights when Assistant District Attorney Ronald Farrington walked into the room where Vinnie Latucca sat with two uniformed police officers and motioned to them. They stood and left, closing the door behind them.\n\nThe lawyer laid Vinnie's .38 on the table and nodded to it. \"If we get a bullet for comparison, are we going to find any bullets from old open cases that match it?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Vinnie said disgustedly. \"That's a clean gun.\"\n\n\"Or you wouldn't have been carrying it.\"\n\nVinnie nodded and lit a cigarette.\n\n\"The nuns don't allow smoking in the building.\"\n\n\"I don't think they'll mind this evening,\" Vinnie replied, and blew smoke around.\n\nFarrington sighed. \"How many guys have you hit, anyway? Off the record.\"\n\nVinnie smoked in silence.\n\n\"We have you on a weapons charge if the DA decides to prosecute. I doubt if he will. You did good today. Saved a lot of lives.\"\n\nVinnie didn't say anything.\n\n\"Put your gun in your pocket and go home,\" Farrington said.\n\nVinnie pocketed the piece and stood.\n\nFarrington held out his hand. \"I'd like to shake your hand,\" the lawyer said.\n\nVinnie grinned, shook hands, and walked out. His daughter and granddaughter were waiting for him on the school lawn.\nONE\n\nOccasionally people ask me, What were you doing that day? You know\u2014that day, that Saturday the terrorists hit the United States hard? Again. Fifteen years after 9\/11 had dropped the World Trade Center, more American blood had been spilled on the altar of global jihad.\n\nMy name is Tommy Carmellini, and the people who ask that question know that back then I worked for Jake Grafton. At the time he was the director of the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. Perhaps I should tell you a bit about Jake Grafton, a retired two-star navy admiral, a former attack pilot, a genuinely nice guy, and the worst enemy you could imagine in an alcohol-soaked nightmare. He was a pretty good spook too. So-so shuffling paper. He had an uncanny ability to connect the dots, not just the ones you and I could see, but the ones that only a savant could have suspected might be there.\n\nYet Jake Grafton was pretty closemouthed. He never talked about his boss. He took orders and gave orders and you never knew what the man who lived behind those gray eyes was really thinking. Until the shooting started. Then. . .well, then you found out that Jake Grafton was the perfect attack pilot. Away up there in the blue going fast, out of sight of the people on the ground, he could roll in, draw a bead with his bomb, and turn it loose. To kill you. Then he pulled out and dodged the flak and pointed his ass at the blast and left the vicinity to get on with his life. While your doom was falling from the sky, toward you. That was Jake Grafton.\n\nSo. . .what was I doing that day, the day the old world came to an end? Well, I was in Colorado watching the windup to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) exercise, Jade Helm 16.\n\nWhen I got back to my hotel, the television in the lobby said over a hundred people were dead and another hundred injured, some seriously, not expected to live, after the three terror strikes. At least three of the terrorists had been Syrian refugees, and several of the others were here illegally.\n\nAround the world, the news was all bad, but especially in the Middle East, where it looked like the Sunnis and Shiites were well on their way to a Hundred Years' War, each sect trying to exterminate the other, and any Christians who happened to be available. There were rumors of stray nuclear weapons, and there were definitely floods of refugees\u2014and who knew, maybe terrorists among then\u2014pouring into Turkey and Europe.\n\nBack in the good old USA, we were already getting started on a presidential election campaign, and it was ugly. Both sides assured the voters that if the other side won, it was the end of civilization as we know it. And then there was the Soetoro government, getting ready for a civil war.\n\nOn Sunday I flew back to Washington. The airports looked like armed camps. Armed soldiers in full battle dress were everywhere, and there weren't many people volunteering to be victims of an airliner bombing. My plane was less than half full.\n\nOn Monday I finished my report on the FEMA exercise at my cubbyhole office at the CIA facility in the Langley, Virginia, neighborhood. When I ran out of words I decided to print out my opus and proof it. I stamped the report secret using my desk inkpad, stapled it together, and read it through. Signed it.\n\nI had spent the two weeks of the exercise in Colorado at exercise headquarters, the buildings that the Federal Emergency Management Agency occupied on the federal reservation on West Sixth Avenue in Lakewood, a suburb of Denver. The head dog was a Homeland Security career civil servant who had obviously impressed his political bosses with his zeal and commitment to the cause of federal supremacy against all domestic foes.\n\nWhen my report was ready for prime time on Monday morning, I walked it and the classified summary down the hall to the director's office. Admiral Grafton was in, the receptionist said.\n\nI just had time to pour myself a cup of coffee before the receptionist sent me in. Grafton was sitting there behind his desk looking sour, and Sal Molina, the president's man Friday, was sitting across from him. Molina looked sour too. I guess the view from the White House wasn't much better than it was from my apartment.\n\nGrafton motioned me to a seat. I handed him my report, with the classified summary attached, and he flipped through it. He was a tad over six feet tall, lean and ropy, with thinning, graying hair combed straight back. No one would ever call him handsome, not with a nose that was a size too large. When you looked straight at him, you forgot about the nose. It was those cold gray eyes that captured you.\n\nMolina, on the other hand, was a middle-sized guy with a twenty-pound spare tire and a shiny dome. He looked as if he were about ten years younger than Grafton, in his mid to late fifties.\n\nThe admiral tossed the report at Molina and said to me, \"Tell us about it.\"\n\n\"Jade Helm is an exercise about how the government will put down a right-wing uprising, or rebellion, and arrest everyone they think might be sympathetic with the rebels. They'll use these paramilitary police they have tucked into every government alphabet agency as storm troopers and SS troops\u2014\"\n\nThat was as far as I got. Molina exploded. \"Comparing the federal government to Nazis is unacceptable. I am not going to sit here listening to that kind of shit, Carmellini.\"\n\nI didn't say anything. Sal Molina couldn't fire me, and if Grafton did, I was ready to be on my way. Truth was, I had been in the belly of the beast for far too long.\n\n\"Go on, Tommy,\" Grafton prompted, ignoring Molina.\n\n\"They'll arrest every prominent Republican they can find and hold them in guarded camps, mainly at military bases. They have computer-generated lists. Gun owners, people who run their mouths on Facebook and Twitter, radio talk-show hosts, editors and publishers of Republican newspapers. . .you know, dangerous enemies of society.\"\n\n\"Who ran the exercise?\"\n\n\"A senior Homeland Security dude named Zag Lambert. Wore a uniform shirt and a belt with a holstered pistol. Honest to God, all he needed was a Hitler mustache. That guy should be kept in a padded room.\"\n\nGrafton sighed. Molina threw the report back onto the desk. Grafton picked it up and said to me, \"I'll read this. Thanks, Tommy.\"\n\nI got up and beat it.\n\nOutside I rescued my cup, decided the coffee was still warm enough to be drinkable, punched the door code, and strolled into the executive assistants' office. I worked with and liked both of them: Max Hurley, a skinny long-distance runner, and Anastasia Roberts, a black woman with a PhD whose IQ was probably up in the stratosphere.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"Tommy,\" Hurley acknowledged. \"You were just in the pit\u2014how is it going with Molina?\"\n\nI shrugged. \"Tense.\"\n\n\"They've been arguing for a week,\" Roberts said. \"These agency police forces and huge ammo buys. The White House wants the CIA to establish our own paramilitary force, and Grafton has said no. He's defying the White House.\"\n\nThey stared at me and I stared back. That meant Grafton was on the way out, and we probably were too. The new man, or woman, would bring his or her own management team.\n\n\"They don't trust us,\" Anastasia Roberts remarked, quite unnecessarily. I knew whom she meant. The brain trust at the White House, hunkered down on Pennsylvania Avenue ever since the Democrats lost control of the Senate in the last off-year election, two years ago. The Republicans already had the House. This was August. The presidential election was in November, and no matter which way it went, the current president, Barry Soetoro, was leaving on January 20. The Constitution limited the president to two terms, so the end of his eight-year occupation of the White House was in sight at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Only 151 days of Soetoro left to endure, according to the countdown counter on Fox News that one of the hosts opened his show with every day.\n\n\"You know I was out in Denver last week at the Jade Helm 16 exercise,\" I remarked. \"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has their own private army, and some of the troopers were at the exercise. A couple dozen of them came down from Boulder, decked out in camo clothes and helmets and armed to the teeth. They bonded with the storm troopers from other agencies. In my opinion, if the water and air gurus need paramilitary police, this agency certainly does.\"\n\n\"Boulder is a hotbed of sedition,\" Max Hurley observed. \"Washington is a hotbed of sheep.\"\n\n\"The revolution will start there, no question,\" I agreed. \"The faculty of the University of Colorado is packed with dangerous right-wing fanatics who will lead their students in a wild charge against the Bureau of Standards, burn it down, then attack NOAA.\"\n\n\"If they fire Grafton, will you stay with the agency?\" Roberts asked me.\n\nNeedless to say, I hadn't thought about that possibility. I had an apartment just up the road, my car was paid for, I was single, my mom was doing okay out in California. When I didn't answer quickly enough, Roberts added, \"I'm resigning. I've been offered a faculty position at the University of Chicago. If the job is still open, I can start when the new semester begins.\"\n\nI grunted. The University of Chicago was notoriously left-wing, very politically correct, and Roberts was a level-headed, pragmatic genius who had worked for Republicans on the Hill early in her career. On the other hand, she was a she, and black, and consequently could get away with a lot that would sink a white male faculty member.\n\nHurley admitted he was on the fence. He loved the game of analyzing raw intelligence. He said so now, and expressed the hope that he could return to the Middle East Desk.\n\n\"Nothing but bad news there,\" I said, trying not to sound too downbeat.\n\n\"I think I can take it for a while longer,\" he said. The cockeyed optimist.\n\n\"Negativity is the problem with this agency,\" Anastasia Roberts declared. \"Eventually it overwhelms you and your shit bucket overflows.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't express that opinion quite that bluntly in the faculty lounge in Chicago, if I were you,\" I told her. \"Clean it up for the civilians.\"\n\nWe chuckled, locked up, and went to the cafeteria for lunch, where we discussed the weekend terror attacks.\n\nI was working on a chicken salad sandwich with mustard and a slice of pickle on the side, plus a little bag of barbeque potato chips, when the televisions mounted high in the corner of the cafeteria broke away from their coverage of the investigation of the terrorist incidents to televise a live news conference with the president, Barry Soetoro. He had complete faith in the professionalism and competence of the FBI and Homeland Security Department. They were investigating. The terrorists were obviously criminals, he said, but they certainly didn't represent the vast bulk of American Muslims or the refugees who had been admitted to the United States. He and his security team were reviewing the information the crime scene investigators were producing, and when more was known, they would be taking any steps called for.\n\n\"Does that mean you will reconsider your decision to admit Muslims to America?\"\n\n\"We can't classify people by their religion.\"\n\n\"Obviously refugee screening was inadequate. What will the administration do to find the jihadists and keep them out?\"\n\n\"We are looking at that.\"\n\n\"A lot of people in Congress are saying your policies on illegal immigration and the admission of Middle Eastern refugees are abject failures, as proved by the events of the weekend. Would you comment on that?\"\n\n\"My political enemies say a lot of things, every day. I haven't the time or inclination to listen and comment.\"\n\nThere was more, a lot more. The public was frightened and angry, and Barry Soetoro was defiant.\n\nWhen the press conference was over, the cafeteria was quiet.\n\n\"It's a miracle someone hasn't shot at him before now,\" Max Hurley observed, leaning forward at the waist and speaking softly.\n\nBut why shoot him? The Democratic nominee was Cynthia Hinton, who, according to the polls, was going to be the victim of a landslide. The Republican nominee was Jerry Duchene, the Wisconsin governor, and if the polls could be believed, he was going to be elected by a landslide. And the Congress would get a veto-proof Republican majority. The country had had more than enough of Barry Soetoro, his left-wing agenda, and his political allies, and was waiting, more or less patiently, for his final day in office. Yet the terror strikes had stirred the pot.\n\nBack upstairs after lunch things began to pop. Were there any indications among the intelligence bits trapped in the intestines of our intelligence systems that some evil foreign power or narco-criminals or terrorist groups had plotted with or funded the Saturday monsters?\n\nWe three EAs were told to contact every department head and find out.\n\nWe spent the afternoon talking to people throughout the agency who were trying their best to find a hint, a clue, a sniff. They failed. While it is theoretically impossible to prove a negative, you can often get close enough for government work. And we did. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Of course, on television every terror organization in the Middle East was claiming credit.\n\nI was elected to tell Grafton, and did so a bit after five p.m. He just nodded. He had spent the afternoon on the phone, presumably talking to other heads of agencies and political big shots all over town.\n\n\"Are you going home soon?\" he asked. After all, five o'clock is traditionally quitting time, although not in the CIA.\n\n\"Not if you need me, sir.\"\n\n\"Hang around. Sal Molina is coming over again later. I may need a witness.\"\n\nOh boy. I wandered out past the receptionist and walked the halls a while with my hands in my pockets. Was Grafton going to resign? Or get fired?\n\nPeople were standing in knots here and there, chewing the rag over the terrorist attacks. The news shows, they told me, said that Cynthia Hinton had scheduled a news conference for prime time this evening.\n\nI was sitting in the director's reception area when the vice director, Harley Merritt, strode by on his way to the inner sanctum. He ignored me. He had an EA with him, and she ignored me too. It was that kind of day.\n\nThey were in there about a half hour and came marching out. Grafton stood in the doorway as they crossed the reception room. He motioned to me. I went in and he closed the door.\n\n\"Molina is on his way. Sit down.\"\n\n\"Is he going to ask for your resignation?\" I asked. Why beat around the bush?\n\n\"I don't know,\" Grafton said crossly.\n\nI also suspected he didn't give a damn, but I kept my mouth shut and seated myself on the couch. Laid my notebook on my lap, so I'd be ready to scribble down orders or telephone numbers or order flowers for funerals.\n\nGrafton picked up something from his in-basket, glanced at it, tossed it back, then rose from his chair and stretched. He reminded me of a caged lion. Waiting. In a darkened office with the lights off. Behind him the day was slowly coming to an end.\n\n\"Nations don't just happen,\" he remarked, as if he were talking to himself, or perhaps composing an essay. \"They are put together by groups who are convinced that the people who live within a certain area will be better off as one political entity, this thing called a nation. Nations are fragile. Homogenous nations seem to have done best through written history. Ours is anything but homogenous, a grand experiment with many people from diverse racial groups, cultures, and religious heritages, all mixed together willy-nilly and bound together politically.\"\n\nLooking back, I think at that moment Jake Grafton had a glimpse of the future, a future that disturbed him profoundly.\n\nHe sat in silence for a while, then remarked, \"A government that loses, or forfeits, the consent of the governed is doomed. Invariably. Inevitably. Irreversibly.\"\n\nHe was sitting in silence with the light from the window behind him throwing his face in shadow when the squawk box buzzed. \"Mr. Molina.\"\n\n\"Send him in.\"\n\nI went to open the door and close it behind Molina. He sat in the chair across the desk from Grafton and glanced at me. \"You won't need him,\" he said to Grafton.\n\n\"He stays. Say what you want to say.\"\n\n\"You need a witness?\"\n\n\"I won't know until I hear it.\"\n\n\"The president is declaring martial law tomorrow. He wants you standing behind him tomorrow at ten o'clock in the press room when he announces it.\"\n\nJake Grafton didn't look surprised. I was flabbergasted, but since I was sitting on the couch against the wall Sal Molina couldn't see the stunned look on my face unless he turned his head, and he didn't.\n\n\"Why?\" said Grafton.\n\n\"These terrorist conspiracies need to be rooted out. We must make sure the American people are safe, and feel safe.\"\n\n\"Horseshit,\" Grafton roared, and smacked the desk with both fists. \"Pure fucking horseshit! Oh, a million or two jihadists would love to murder Americans, including Soetoro, if they could get here, but if they were a credible threat we'd have heard about it. This is just an excuse for Soetoro to suspend the Constitution and declare himself dictator.\"\n\n\"The American people must be protected, Admiral. The president is taking no chances. No one wants to be the next victim of Islamic terrorists.\"\n\n\"So he is going to rule by decree.\"\n\n\"We face a national emergency.\"\n\n\"And he is going to postpone or cancel the election in November. Isn't that the real reason for martial law?\"\n\n\"I'm not going to debate it, Grafton. Tomorrow at ten at the White House. Be there an hour early and we'll have a decree signed by the president detailing the actions that he wants from this agency.\"\n\n\"His staff can e-mail me a copy,\" Grafton said softly. \"I am not going to be a prop in a presidential power grab. Not now, not ever.\"\n\nMolina ran his hands over his face. \"Jake, you don't have a choice,\" he said reasonably. \"You'll either be there or your name will go on the list as an enemy of the president. They'll lock you up. Soetoro is playing for keeps. You can kiss your pension good-bye. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison?\"\n\nMolina stood, put both fists on the desk, and leaned forward. His voice dropped. \"You think _I_ want to be a part of this? I have a wife and two kids. I don't have a choice. By God, you don't either.\"\n\nGrafton was silent, looking at nothing for a moment or two. Finally, he said, \"Soetoro has been waiting for a terror strike so he could declare martial law, become a dictator, and fix all the things he doesn't like about America.\"\n\n\"You don't know that.\"\n\n\"I'll bet any sum you want to name he is going to call off the election and remain in office.\"\n\nMolina straightened and made a gesture of irritation. He glanced around and saw me, which obviously startled him. Apparently he had forgotten I was in the room.\n\nHe took a step in my direction. \"One word from you outside this room will put you in a cell, Carmellini.\" I'd had confrontations with Molina before. I wasn't stupid enough to open my mouth this time.\n\nMolina swung back to Grafton.\n\n\"Be there tomorrow morning. If you aren't, I can't help you.\"\n\n\" _Me_? You can't help _me_?\" Grafton was standing too, and he was beyond fury. He had a scar on his temple that was throbbing red. \"That bastard is going to rip this country apart, and you worry about your family and pension? You think there's a lifeboat handy that will keep you and yours comfortably afloat in this sea of shit while the ship sinks? What the hell kind of man are you, Molina? He doesn't need _you_ and he doesn't need _me_. Get a grip, fool.\"\n\nMolina was holding on to the desk, as if he were trying to stay erect. \"Jake. . .\"\n\n\"You get out of my office and don't ever come back.\"\n\n\"It won't be your office long. That's what I'm trying to tell you.\"\n\n\"I don't ever want to see your face again, Molina. Get the fuck out.\"\n\nMolina turned and walked from the room. Neither fast nor slow. He merely walked. The door closed behind him.\n\nI was too stunned to open my mouth or move.\n\nGrafton looked at me and gestured toward the door. \"You too, Tommy. Out.\"\n\nI got my muscles working and went.\n\nIn west Texas, Joe Bob Hays' hired man stood in the yard of the ranch house and watched the helicopter approach. It came from the east and slowed as it descended. It touched down in a cloud of dust and, after the sound of the engine subsided, the rotors slowly wound down.\n\nA man in a suit but without a tie climbed out. A state trooper got out with him. They came walking over.\n\n\"I found him this morning, Governor, down by the arroyo trail. They killed him and cut the fence early Saturday, it looks like.\"\n\nGovernor Jack Hays was Joe Bob's nephew. He had grown up on the ranch back in the cattle days, and had gone on to law school, then into politics.\n\n\"The sheriff and his men are down there taking pictures and whatnot. I think the body is still there.\"\n\n\"Let's go. I want to see him.\"\n\n\"They shot him in the head, Governor. Executed him. Blew the top half of his head clean off.\"\n\n\"I want to see him. Let's go.\"\n\nThey went by jeep. In the late afternoon sun, the blood and bits of brain had turned black. Ants had gathered, and bugs. . .\n\nThe county sheriff was there, Manuel Tejada, and he shook hands with the governor. \"I'm sorry, sir,\" the sheriff said. \"You know about this trail. He complained for years, and I did what I could, but I only got so many men and this is a damn big county. . .\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"They came up the trail, at least ten of them. Judging by their tracks, at least eight of them were carrying a heavy load going north, but not when all ten of them went back south. One man came up the hill here and executed Joe Bob. He would probably have died anyway from that bleeding hole in his chest, but. . .shit!\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"The first bullet was fired from the other side\u2014\" the lawman pointed \"\u2014over there. We found a spent .223 cartridge. Probably one of them ARs. Tracks. The tracks went through the hole and up here to where Joe Bob is, and here's the second cartridge.\"\n\nHe opened his hand for the governor's inspection. Jack Hays merely glanced at the open hand, then said, \"He's lain out here long enough. You got your photos?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Get him out of here. Take him to the funeral home in Sanderson.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Sheriff Tejada said to the governor's back, for he was walking away, trying not to look again at his uncle's remains.\n\nBack at the ranch there was a trim, fit man in his early forties waiting beside a large pickup. His name was Joseph Robert Hays Junior, but everyone called him JR.\n\n\"They're bringing him out of there now, JR,\" the governor said, after he hugged the younger man. \"Better stay here. You don't want to see him like that. He wouldn't have wanted you to.\"\n\nJR nodded. His eyes were dry. He had seen his share of bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan and had not the slightest desire to see his father's remains.\n\nThe governor continued, telling his cousin what he knew. JR had just retired after twenty years in the army, retired as a lieutenant colonel, and was working as a consultant for a military contractor in El Paso, one supplying state-of-the-art night-vision equipment to the army. After he got the news, JR threw some things in his pickup and drove east.\n\n\"He was trying to protect his fence,\" Jack Hays said. \"They killed him and cut it.\"\n\n\"I told him to put a gate in that damn fence,\" JR said, \"but he wouldn't.\"\n\n\"No. . .\" the governor said thoughtfully. \"That wasn't him. There was no backup in him.\" He eyed his cousin. He suspected there was no backup in Joe Bob's son, either.\n\n\"They'll be back,\" JR said matter-of-factly.\n\n\"You going to wait for them?\"\n\n\"Hunting assholes in the desert was my business for a lot of years. I suspect I know more about it than Sheriff Tejada and his deputies do.\"\n\nJack Hays didn't try to talk him out of it. All he could hope for was that JR didn't get shot or caught. But JR was JR, and Joe Bob was his dad. And this was Texas. If JR shot some Mexican drug smugglers who had killed his dad, no Texas jury was going to convict him of anything.\n\n\"Fred coming down?\" Fred was the younger brother, teaching school somewhere in the Dallas area.\n\n\"For the funeral. He and his wife can't get off just now.\"\n\n\"Call me when you get the funeral scheduled,\" the governor said. \"Nadine and I will want to be there.\"\n\n\"I will, Jack.\"\n\nJack Hays hugged JR again, then went to the helicopter and climbed in. \"Let's go,\" he told the pilot.\nTWO\n\nMartial law! Rule by decree from the White House! Barry Soetoro, emperor of the United States. People had been whispering for years about the possibility, but like most folks, I dismissed the whisperers as alarmist crackpots. Now, according to Sal Molina, the president's longtime guru, the crackpots were oracles.\n\nI sat at my desk in my cubbyhole and thought about things. I wondered if there was any truth to Grafton's crack that Soetoro and company had been waiting for a terrorist incident so they could declare martial law. Well, why not? The nation was fed up with the Democrats. Seniors and the white middle class had deserted the party by the millions. Cynthia Hinton didn't have a chance. The Republicans were going to take over the government in November if there was an election.\n\nI felt hot all over. Suddenly the room was stifling. It looked as if the nation I had grown up in, the crazy, diverse republic of three hundred million people all trying to make a living and raise the next generation, was going on the rocks. And all the king's horses and all the king's men weren't going to be able to put it back together again. That must have been the thrust of Grafton's remark before Molina arrived.\n\nI felt as if I were on the edge of the abyss, like Dante's hero, staring down into the fiery pit. What next?\n\nGrafton would be gone. Like tomorrow. The agency would become another arm of Soetoro's Gestapo. Molina had implied that much.\n\nI opened the locked drawer where I kept my stuff. I had a shoulder holster and a little Walther in .380 ACP in there. Since I did bodyguard duty for Grafton, I had a permit for it signed by the director, who was Grafton. I took off my jacket, put on the shoulder holster, checked the pistol, and made sure I had a round in the chamber and the safety engaged. Put the pistol in the holster and put my coat back on.\n\nI stood there looking around. There was nothing else in my office I wanted. Not the CIA coffee cup, the free pens, the photo of me and the guys on a big campout in Africa that hung on the wall. . .none of it. I locked the drawer and cabinets, left the room and made sure the door locked behind me, then headed for the parking lot.\n\nDriving out of the lot was surreal. There were still some cars there, and people trickling out, just as there were every evening. The streetlights were on; traffic went up and down the streets obeying the traffic laws; news, music, sports, and talk emanated from my car radio. . . _and it was all coming to an end_.\n\nAs I drove I took mental inventory of my arsenal. If you live in America, you gotta have some guns, so when the political contract falls apart. . .yeah!\n\nI drove over to a gun store I had had prior dealings with. A few people in the store, about as usual. I bought two more boxes of Number Four buckshot for the shotgun, another box of .380 ACP for my Walther, and four boxes of .45 ACP for my Kimber 1911, which was in my apartment. Three boxes of .30-30s for my old Model 94 Winchester.\n\n\"Expecting a war?\" the clerk asked.\n\n\"Comes the revolution, I want to be ready,\" I replied.\n\nI used a credit card to pay for the stuff. If the future went down the way I suspected, in a few days no one would be able to buy guns or ammo for love or money. Soetoro would shut down the gun stores. Screw the Second Amendment.\n\nThen I drove over to Maryland to visit the lock shop I owned with my partner, Willie \"the Wire\" Varner. He was a black man about twenty years older than me, and had been up the river twice. Now reformed, he was my very best friend. Don't ask me why a two-time loser should be the only guy in the world I really trust\u2014besides Jake Grafton\u2014but he is. Maybe because he's so much like me. As I unlocked the front door and went into the shop, I realized that I couldn't tell him about the bomb Molina dropped, but I did have news.\n\nWillie was in the back room of the shop wiring up the motherboard of an alarm system for installation in an old house. The final innings of an Orioles game were on the radio. \"Hey,\" he said.\n\n\"Hey. Stopped by to tell you, I quit the agency this evening.\"\n\nHe stared. \"No shit?\"\n\n\"Honest injun. I am not going back.\"\n\n\"They give you any severance?\"\n\n\"Uh, no.\"\n\nHe turned back to the alarm system. \"They goin' to be lookin' for you, Carmellini?\"\n\n\"Naw. It'll be days before they figure out that I'm gone. Maybe weeks.\"\n\n\"Want to tell me about it?\"\n\n\"Just did. All I can.\"\n\nHe straightened up and gave me another look. \"And I thought I had a monopoly on fuckin' up my life. If you ain't gonna tell me nothin', just why the hell did you drive over here tonight?\"\n\nI was at a loss for words. Why did I? I knew the answer, of course\u2014because I needed some company\u2014but I wasn't going to tell him that.\n\n\"Don't think you're gonna start workin' here on salary,\" Willie declared. \"We ain't got barely enough work for me. We divide it up and neither one of us will be eatin'.\"\n\nI nodded. Stood looking around. Maybe I should just give Willie a bill of sale for my half of the place and be done with it. He would never leave the metro area, and I wasn't staying. I didn't know where I was going, but I did know I wasn't staying in Washington.\n\nI decided that was a problem for another day. Said good night and left.\n\nI wasn't ready for my apartment. Hell, I had nothing better to do, so I headed for Jake Grafton's condo in Rosslyn. I had certainly been there often enough these last few years, so I knew the way. I was going to try to find a parking place on the street, but instead decided to cruise by the building and see who was sitting outside in cars. Sure enough, a half block from the entrance there was a parked car with two men in it. They were of a type. FBI. After a while you get a feel for them. Trim, reasonably fit, wearing sports coats to hide a concealed carry, maybe a tie. Who, besides middle-level government employees, dresses like that at ten o'clock at night?\n\nI decided I didn't give a damn if they saw and photographed me. There were no parking places on the street, so I steered the Benz into the parking garage and found a spot on the third deck. Took the stairs down, crossed the street, and went into Grafton's building.\n\nGrafton buzzed the door open and I went up. Knocked and he opened the door. Callie was sitting in the kitchen. The admiral led me there and asked, \"Want a drink?\"\n\n\"Sure. Anything with alcohol.\"\n\nCallie Grafton was a tough lady, but she looked about the way I felt. Bad. \"Tommy,\" she said, trying to smile.\n\nI realized then that coming over to Grafton's was a really bad idea. But I couldn't just walk out. The admiral opened the fridge and handed me a bottle of beer. I unscrewed the top and sipped it. \"Car out front with two men in it. Maybe FBI.\"\n\n\"A dirty gray sedan? They followed me home,\" he said.\n\n\"So are you going in tomorrow?\" I asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, scrutinizing my face.\n\n\"Not me. I'm done. Gonna hit the road tomorrow. I think the time has come for Mrs. Carmellini's boy Tommy to go on to greener pastures.\"\n\nThe admiral didn't say anything to that. Mrs. Grafton hid her face behind her tea cup.\n\nOn the way over here I wondered if Grafton had told his wife about the conversation with Sal Molina. From the silence and the way she sat looking at the dark window, I knew that he had.\n\n\"I shouldn't have come,\" I said. \"I'll take this road pop with me to remember you by, Admiral. Good-bye.\" I stuck out my hand. He shook it.\n\n\"Mrs. Grafton.\" She rose from the table and hugged me. Fiercely.\n\nThen I left. Pulled the door shut until the lock clicked. I took the elevator down, put the half-empty beer bottle in my side pocket, crossed the street, and climbed the stairs.\n\nThe next morning, Tuesday, August 23, I was wide awake at five in the morning. The sky was starting to get pink in the east. I hopped out of bed, showered, shaved, put on jeans and a golf shirt, and got busy packing. Everything had to go in my car, which was a 1975 Mercedes. Guns and ammo, of course, plus some of my clothes. No kitchen utensils, pots, pans, dishes, or coffee pot. No television or radio. I did decide to take my laptop and charger, but I left the printer.\n\nWhen I had made my selections and the stuff was stacked in the middle of the little living area, I began shuttling stuff down to the car in the elevator.\n\nWhen I got the car loaded, I stood in the middle of my apartment and took stock. Nothing else here I wanted.\n\nI wrote a short letter to the landlord and enclosed my key and building pass. He could have everything left in the apartment. The stuff in the refrigerator I emptied into a garbage bag and carried down with me.\n\nIn light of what happened subsequently, perhaps I should have been worried about the country and martial law and what was to come, and perhaps I was on a subconscious level. I must have suspected the future might be grim or I wouldn't have worried about the guns and ammo. Still, after I packed the car, I was thinking about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.\n\nIt was a nice problem. I had daydreamed about _afterward_ for years, after the CIA, but that eventuality was always somewhere ahead in a distant, hazy future. Now, boom, the future was unexpectedly here, and it wasn't hazy.\n\nOf course I didn't have to plot my next fifty or sixty years today. I decided that this day would be a good one to head west, following the sun. A few weeks of backpacking in Idaho or Montana would suit me right down to the ground.\n\nAlready I was late for work\u2014at Langley\u2014as if I were ditching school. Feeling rather bucked with life, I drove to a breakfast place in a shopping mall and ordered an omelet and coffee. I scanned a newspaper while I waited for my omelet. The journalists had dug up a lot more on the dead terrorists. They were from Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. The experts were speculating on where and how they acquired their weapons, all of which were legally for sale in many states in America. Two more of the Saturday gunshot victims had died, bringing the grand total of deaths to 173.\n\nAt 9:45 I was standing in line in the lobby of the suburban Virginia bank where I had my accounts. When I reached the window, I wrote a check for the amount in my checking account, leaving only a thousand bucks in the account to cover outstanding checks.\n\n\"And how would you like this, Mr. Carmellini?\" The teller was a cute lady wearing an engagement and wedding ring. The best ones are always snagged early.\n\n\"Cash, please. Half fifties and half hundreds.\"\n\nShe tittered. \"Oh, good heavens. Since it's over ten thousand, we must fill out a form. Are you sure you don't want a cashier's check?\"\n\nTitterers set my teeth on edge. On the other hand, she wasn't still swimming around in the gene pool looking for a man. I silently wished her husband luck. \"Pretty sure,\" I replied. \"Cash, please. And while you are at it, I want to close out my savings account. I'll take that in cash too.\"\n\nShe had to go get more cash from the vault, then the paperwork took another few minutes. When I had my money, a little over twenty-two thousand monetary units\u2014they gave me a little cloth envelope with the bank's name printed on it to carry it in\u2014I opened my safe deposit box with the help of one of the ladies who didn't titter.\n\nBack in my younger days, when I thought the day might come when I wanted to leave town in a hurry\u2014like today, for instance\u2014I had stashed thirty grand in cash in the box, along with a couple of false driver's licenses in various names, credit cards, and a genuine false passport. Getting that paper had taken time and money years ago, but I did it and kept the stuff. Of course, the credit cards had long expired, but they added heft to my wallet and looked good to anyone who happened to glance into my wallet while I had it open. Some people think that people with credit cards are more trustworthy than those without.\n\nUnder the money at the bottom of the drawer was another 1911 .45, an old Ithaca made during World War II with brown plastic handles and most of the bluing gone from the slide, plus two extra magazines and a box of cartridges. The pistol was marked \"United States Property M 1911 A1 US Army.\" It had either been liberated from the army's clutches many years ago or sold as surplus. It was serviceable, although it didn't have the good sights and fancy grips of my Kimber.\n\nIf there is a possibility that you might get shot at, you should at least be prepared to shoot back. In this brave new world that Emperor Soetoro envisioned, I thought the odds of getting shot at would be increased for a great many people, me included. I emptied the metal box into my briefcase, then with the help of the vault lady, who had discreetly faded while I plundered my treasure box, put the box back into its slot where it would rest undisturbed, safer than a pharaoh's sarcophagus, for all eternity, or until my annual box rent was due and I wasn't around to pay it, whichever came first.\n\nAs I was leaving the lobby with my now-bulging briefcase, Barry Soetoro was on the television high in the corner, reading from a teleprompter. That was, I had long ago concluded, his one skill set. The audio on the TV was off, so I was spared his mellifluous tones. There were people standing behind him, but since I knew Jake Grafton wasn't among them, I didn't bother to check out the crowd of toadies. I walked out of the bank with my money\u2014earned, not stolen, with taxes paid on every dime. I kinda wished I had stolen it, then I would have felt better about this whole deal. I was just too goddamn conventional.\n\nTo hell with all of it! I walked out of the bank into the rest of my life.\n\nBarry Soetoro's declaration of martial law stunned the nation. His reason\u2014the need to protect the nation from terrorism\u2014met with widespread skepticism. After all, at least three of the Saturday jihadists had entered with Soetoro's blessing, over the objections of many politicians and the outraged cries of all those little people out there in the heartland, all those potential victims no one really gave a damn about.\n\nHis suspension of the writ of habeas corpus went over the heads of most of the millions of people in his audience, since they didn't know what the writ was or signified. He didn't stop there. He adjourned Congress until he called it back into session, and announced an indefinite stay on all cases before the courts in which the government was a defendant. His announcement of press and media censorship \"until the crisis is past\" met with outrage, especially among the talking heads on television, who went ballistic. Within thirty minutes, the listening audience found out what the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus meant: FBI agents arrested select television personalities, including some who were literally on camera, and took them away. Fox News went off the air. Most of the other networks contented themselves with running the tape of Soetoro behind the podium making his announcement, over and over, without comment.\n\nDuring the day FBI agents arrested dozens of prominent conservative commentators and administration critics across the nation, including Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, George Will, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Ralph Peters, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Matt Drudge, Thomas Sowell, Howard Stern, and Charles Krauthammer, among others. They weren't given a chance to remain silent in the future, but were arrested and taken away to be held in an unknown location until Soetoro decided to release them.\n\nSenators and congressmen, from both sides of the aisle, were told in no uncertain terms that they too would be arrested if they publicly questioned the administration's methods and motives.\n\nPlainly, life in America had just been stood on its ear. All the usual suspects who had supported Barry Soetoro for seven and a half years, no matter what, through thick, thin, and transparent, rushed to find a reporter with a camera so that they could say wonderful things on television about their hero, the self-proclaimed messiah who had said when he was first elected that he would lower the level of the sea and allow the earth to heal.\n\nWhile all this was going on, Jake Grafton was fired as director of the CIA. Two White House aides arrived in Langley with FBI agents in tow and delivered a letter from the president. Grafton was summarily relieved and the assistant director, Harley Merritt, was named acting director.\n\nAs Grafton departed with the FBI agents, the two White House aides remained for a talk with Merritt about what was expected of him.\n\nThe FBI took Grafton to a federal detention center that had been set up at Camp Dawson, a National Guard facility near Kingwood, West Virginia. Grafton should have been surprised to find that the holding facility had concertina wire, kitchens, latrines, and a field full of erect army tents containing a dozen cots each, but he wasn't. Obviously someone had done the staff work to have facilities ready and waiting, with only the date that they were to be used remaining to be selected.\n\nGrafton arrived in time to shuffle through the lunch line, which contained about forty people. Most were men in their twenties and thirties, with here and there a few women salted in. The women huddled together. Everyone was in civilian clothes. He recognized several of the other detainees, or prisoners: two army four-star generals and a couple of former cabinet members. He picked up an aluminum tray from the stack, and a soldier in uniform spooned out mashed potatoes, mystery meat, and corn. At the end of the food line, he could select paper napkins and plastic tableware. No one trusted the detainees with real knives or forks.\n\nAfterward Jake was given a plastic Walmart bag for his stay, one containing a disposable razor, soap, a towel, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. The tube of toothpaste was small, TSA size, and he hoped that was an indicator of how long he would be here. He suspected it wasn't.\n\nHe still had his cell phone, but he had no charger, so he turned it off in the car on the way here. He had managed a call to Callie before he left the Langley facilities, so she knew he wasn't coming home this evening, even if she didn't know where he was.\n\nHe sat on the side of the cot he had chosen in his assigned tent. He was the only occupant of the tent, so far, but he expected plenty of company. Finally he unrolled his sleeping bag and stretched out on it.\n\nBarry Soetoro had just decapitated the American government in a coup d'\u00e9tat. Furthermore, Soetoro and his aides knew that Grafton was politically unreliable. How long they would hold him, if indeed he would ever be released, was unknowable.\n\nJake Grafton was a political prisoner.\n\nThe suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and declaration of martial law in the United States stunned the world. Abraham Lincoln did both during the American Civil War in the 1860s, so there was precedent. The Constitution itself, Article 1, Section 9, stated: \"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.\" Clearly, this past week there had been no rebellion, as there had been during the Civil War. What there was, Soetoro declared, was an \"invasion by terrorists,\" and in Soetoro's opinion, \"public safety did indeed require martial law.\" During the Civil War Lincoln had also declared martial law, claiming he had a right to do so to preserve the Constitution; his actions were quickly ratified by Congress and the Supreme Court. Army officers arrested several politicians, including one prominent one, Ohioan Clement Vallandigham, and closed down several newspapers. Lincoln's generals caused him more trouble than the people they arrested; the newspaper editors were quickly freed, and Vallandigham, a copperhead Democrat, was taken south and handed over to the Confederates, who didn't want him either. He wound up in Canada, slipped back across the border, and ran for governor of Ohio. Lincoln ignored him and told his generals to do likewise. Vallandigham lost the Ohio governor's race of 1864.\n\nThe Constitution was silent on Soetoro's two other declarations: the adjournment of Congress until he recalled it and suspension of all federal cases in which the government was the defendant. There was absolutely no precedent for either action, which hadn't been attempted in the history of the republic, which spanned a civil war and two world wars. Critics immediately claimed that Soetoro had unconstitutionally attempted to seize power, subordinating the legislative and judicial power to that of the executive. Strident voices compared him to Hitler and Napoleon, both of whom took over the government and made themselves dictators. Soetoro's supporters\u2014including ardent white leftists and more than ninety percent of black Americans, who had backed everything he had done in office since his first election and damned his critics as virulent racists\u2014loudly supported him now. Amazingly, those who cheered his actions were given space in newspapers and time on television, while critics weren't. Those editors and producers who were not inclined to fall in line, and most of them were, were threatened with arrest. If that didn't make them behave, they were hustled away to detention camps.\n\nSocial media websites also received government attention and were told if they allowed \"criticism of the government\" on their websites, they would be shut down. Since they had no way to stop the wired-in public from posting anything they wanted, these websites were soon shut down by their corporate owners. Pirate social media websites quickly sprang up, but unhappy people could make little noise on them in the near future. Mouse squeaks, someone said.\n\nThe result of all this in much of America was an ominous silence that afternoon.\n\nThe news that Soetoro had declared martial law and suspended the holy writ arrived like an incoming missile in Austin, Texas. Legislators crowded the governor's office and all wanted to talk to the governor, Jack Hays. And they all wanted to talk at once.\n\nState Senator Benny \"Ben\" Steiner copped a seat in a corner and listened. The consensus was that Barry Soetoro had declared himself dictator.\n\n\"Anybody have any idea of when America will get its Constitution back?\" Charlie Swim asked. He was the most prominent black politician in the state, a former Dallas Cowboys star. He was, arguably, also one of the smartest and most articulate politicians in Texas.\n\nThe hubbub subsided somewhat. Everyone wanted to know what Charlie Swim thought. \"The problem here is that Washington politicians haven't had the guts to impeach Soetoro. And I'll tell you why. He's black. They're afraid of being called racists. If Soetoro had been white, he'd have been thrown out of office years ago. Rewriting the immigration laws; refusing to enforce the drug laws; siccing the IRS on conservatives; having his spokespeople lie to the press, lie to Congress, lie to the UN; rewriting the healthcare law all by himself; thumbing his nose at the courts; having the EPA dump on industry regardless of the costs; admitting hordes of Middle Eastern Muslims without a clue who they were. . . . Race in America\u2014it's a toxic poison that prevents any real discussion of the issues. It's the monkey wrench Soetoro and his disciples have thrown into the gears that make the republic's wheel turn. And now this! Already the liberals are screaming that if you are against martial law, you're a racist; if anyone calls _me_ a racist, he's going to be spitting teeth.\"\n\nCharlie Swim wasn't finished, and his voice was rising. \"The black people in America were doing all right, working their way up the ladder, until drugs came along. Then welfare, and payments to single mothers\u2014when you pay poor people not to work and not to marry they are going to take the money. Barry Soetoro had a real chance to do something about what's taken black America down\u2014drugs, welfare rather than work, kids without wedlock\u2014but he didn't bother.\" Swim's voice became sarcastic. \"Climate change is his cause, and discrimination against Muslims. And expensive golf vacations.\" His voice rose to a roar. \"I'm sick of this self-proclaimed black messiah!\"\n\n\"That won't do any good, Charlie,\" Jack Hays said conversationally. He was standing behind his chair and now addressed the crowd. \"I have no doubt we'll hear from Washington soon, and in great detail, and when we do I'll pass it on. You'll know what I know just about as fast as I get it.\"\n\n\"What are _you_ going to do about this mess?\" someone demanded.\n\n\"What am I going to do if it rains?\" Hays said. \"What am I going to do if it doesn't? You people go back to your chambers and make speeches, hold press conferences, tell the people of Texas what you think. That's all we can do right now. Tomorrow is another day. Now git!\"\n\nAnd they did. All except Ben Steiner. A lawyer from Abilene, he had tried civil and criminal cases all over Texas for forty years. Politics was his hobby. Now he closed the door behind the last of his colleagues and seated himself in one of the chairs across the desk from Hays.\n\n\"You are avoiding the issue, Jack, and you know it.\"\n\n\"I know a lot of things I don't talk about in public,\" Jack Hays replied curtly.\n\n\"Barry Soetoro is ripping up the Constitution and declaring himself dictator. All he needs is a crown. That's indisputable. This crap about terrorism\u2014the FBI can find terrorists, and they don't have to go any farther than the nearest mosque. What's really happening here is Barry Soetoro taking out his political enemies. What are we Texans going to do about this? Are we going to knuckle under?\"\n\nHays moved around in his chair, trying to get comfortable. He rearranged his scrotum. \"You're working up to something, Ben. What?\"\n\n\"We need to secede from the Union. Declare the Republic of Texas, again.\"\n\nHays made a face. \"This isn't 1836. There are forty-nine other states and the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. The last time Texas got uppity, back in 1861, the roof caved in. It would again.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Ben Steiner leaned forward and lowered his voice. \"The roof has already caved in. Give me a better idea, Jack. Tell me what we are going to do if Soetoro calls off the election. If he declares himself president for life.\"\n\n\"He hasn't done that,\" Hays shot back.\n\n\"Not yet,\" Steiner admitted. \"What he has done is declare martial law, adjourn Congress, shut down the courts, muzzle the press, and arrest his critics. How are we going to preserve our way of life, preserve our liberty, preserve our democracy with a dictator in the White House?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Jack Hays admitted. \"I need to think on it.\"\n\n\"Better not think too long,\" Ben Steiner said as he got out of his chair. \"There's a lot of people in Texas who won't think long at all. They hate that son of a bitch and they won't take this lying down. While you're thinking, think about how to head them off if they get out of hand. If you don't, or won't, or can't, we're talking anarchy. No man's life or property will be safe. Think about that. Also think about what you're going to do if Soetoro sends some federal agents to drag you out of this office and throw you into a prison somewhere. Until such time, if ever, that he decides it's safe to let you out. Think about that too.\"\n\nBen Steiner walked out of the governor's office and closed the door behind him.\n\nJack Hays put his hands on his face and tried to force himself to relax. Various right-wing groups in Texas had argued for independence for years. They were the lunatic fringe, the village idiots. Hays had kept his distance. Now Ben Steiner had taken his turn at the independence podium, and he was no crackpot.\n\nThe way people lived in early-twenty-first-century Texas depended on the American monetary system, Social Security, military retirement, banks stuffed full of U.S. Treasury bonds as their capital, the national telephone grid, the power grid, all of that. Companies here paid wages to Texans to manufacture goods and sold them all over the United States\u2014all over the world\u2014and the stores in Texas that supplied the stuff of life were filled with goods manufactured all over the world; Texans used their paychecks to pay for what they needed. Independence, he thought, would take a civil war, and that would destroy the very fabric of life for a great many Texans. Cutting Texas out of the United States would be like trying to cut Mona Lisa's face out of her portrait and arguing that the operation wouldn't harm it.\n\nJack Hays didn't believe it could be done. In this interdependent world, Texas had to be part of the United States, a state in the Union.\n\nOr did it?\n\nHe was thinking about his deceased uncle, Joe Bob Hays, and the drug smugglers who killed him when the phone on his desk summoned him to duty.\nTHREE\n\nThere were five people in Grafton's tent, all males, when he went in after sunset. Everyone introduced himself: three civil servants, one broadcaster, and one congressman.\n\n\"Where are the women?\" Grafton asked.\n\n\"They have their own tents,\" he was told. \"Politically incorrect, but those are army regulations.\"\n\n\"If Elizabeth Warren only knew.\"\n\nThe tentmates had just arrived, and were still outraged that they had been arrested. Being taken in handcuffs from their homes or work, with family or colleagues watching, and physically transported to Camp Dawson, a three-hour ride from Washington, had filled them with adrenaline that had to be burned off. They had been frightened, humiliated, and shamed, and now they were very angry. They told each other their stories and talked long into the night while Jake Grafton slept.\n\nOn his second evening in Camp Dawson, Jake Grafton ran into _Washington Post_ columnist Jack Yocke in the chow line. Yocke was in his late thirties, lean and ropy, with shoulder-length hair and a fashionably grizzled face, the lumberjack look. His name was pronounced Yockkey.\n\n\"When did you get here, Admiral?\" a plainly surprised Yocke asked.\n\n\"Yesterday at noon.\"\n\n\"Seems to be a lot of people here,\" Yocke said, looking around.\n\n\"Welcome to the American gulag archipelago. I think I was one of the first, but there were a bunch of people already here. Spies, I think. Stool pigeons. I would be careful what I said and who heard it, if I were you.\"\n\nThey ate together in silence, put their leftovers in a large garbage can, and stacked their trays, then went to sit under a shade tree near the wire, where they could talk privately.\n\nGrafton managed to get the first question in, always a feat with Yocke. \"Did you piss on the establishment or did they dump you here on general principles?\"\n\n\"I'm an unreliable bastard. I wrote a column that was uncomplimentary to the administration, and a political apparatchik in the editor's office called the troopers. Needless to say, I don't think my column will be in tomorrow's paper.\"\n\n\"Brave editors.\"\n\n\"They were threatened with arrest, their families were also going to be arrested, their bank accounts and property seized, and the IRS would prosecute them. Not audit them, but prosecute them. The only thing they weren't threatened with was execution.\"\n\n\"Why did you flout them?\"\n\n\"Stupid, I guess. And you?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\n\"There's a lot of that around. Soetoro is going to be surprised.\"\n\n\"They've made their preparations. The administration didn't decide this after they got a look at Saturday's terror strikes. They've been getting ready for this for years.\"\n\n\"When this is over,\" Yocke mused, \"someday, the only heroes will be the people who stood up to them and went to prison.\"\n\n\"Martyrs,\" Grafton murmured.\n\n\"Christians versus the lions.\"\n\n\"Martyrs don't win wars,\" Grafton stated. \"That's a law, like gravity. So what's happening out there beyond the fence?\"\n\n\"The country's falling apart. Inner-city riots: Chicago, Detroit, Saint Louis, LA. Just getting worked up, getting the car fires set. Agitators and race-baiters screaming about overturning white America once and for all. What they are going to do is loot Walmarts and Safeways and burn down the inner cities, then starve. We've got martial law, but there's no National Guard, no soldiers, no police stopping the rioters, there's no fire departments putting out the fires, and there's apparently no Border Patrol at the border. Go figure.\"\n\nGrafton didn't say anything.\n\n\"The cops have got the message. Let it burn, baby.\"\n\nYocke got out his cell phone and checked his messages.\n\n\"You have a charger for that?\" Jake asked.\n\n\"Yep. All I need is a place to plug it in. If cell phones go flat, civilization as we know it will be stone cold dead. Teenagers, millennials, reporters, and real estate agents will go through seismic withdrawal and drop dead left and right.\"\n\n\"The camp authorities will pass out chargers when they can lay hands on some,\" Jake said.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"The NSA can listen to every cell phone and telephone transmission in America. They've been working on it for over a year. Soetoro's orders. It used to be all they got was your number and the number you dialed. Now they can record the conversations digitally and mine them for key words or names. They _want_ you to talk on your cell phone. That's why they didn't confiscate the things.\"\n\nJack Yocke sat with his cell phone in hand watching the shadows lengthen. Finally he put the device on the ground, took off his shoe, and pounded on it with the heel until the glass screen broke. Then he threw it over the fence.\n\nAfter a while Yocke calmed down. \"So when do you think we'll get out of here?\"\n\nGrafton snorted. \"They didn't let me pack my crystal ball.\"\n\n\"A few days, months, years?\"\n\nWhen Grafton remained silent, Yocke decided to answer his own question. If you are going to make your living writing newspaper columns, you must have opinions, on everything. Yocke did. Almost every living human had opinions, but no one wanted to hear them. People paid to read Yocke's because his were better thought out and expressed. \"People are upset and angry right now, but few if any are willing to risk everything they own, everything they have, even their lives, to oppose Soetoro and the federal government. That will change over time. Government oppression in the short run pisses people off. In the long run it transforms them into revolutionaries.\"\n\n\"Conquer or die,\" Grafton mused. \"Too bad you weren't there at the White House when the aides discussed how to keep Soetoro in office for life.\"\n\nYocke wanted to talk. Like most writers, his head buzzed with words. Sooner or later he had to spew them out so that he could have room to think about something else. \"Being a revolutionary is very romantic,\" he said. \"It isn't for everyone. The hours are brutal, you can get seriously hurt or dead, even if you win you'll be a pauper, and you'll probably wind up unhappy with whoever emerges from the chaos as the head dog. Sooner or later the optimistic revolutionary becomes the disillusioned veteran. If he is still above ground.\"\n\n\"Was this your column that won't get printed?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Good solid stuff.\"\n\n\"So, Jack, are you willing to kiss your pension, 401(k), Mazda sports car, and Washington condo good-bye and sign on for the voyage? Are you ready to pledge your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor?\"\n\n\"Not yet, Admiral. I'm working up to it. Soetoro is dragging me to it by the hair. He's dragging a whole lot of people there. If Soetoro doesn't stop this shit pretty soon, there is going to be a major explosion.\"\n\n\"He thinks not.\"\n\n\"Barry Soetoro is a damn fool. President of the United States, and he doesn't know Americans.\"\n\nOn Thursday, the twenty-fifth of August, Jack Hays and his wife, Nadine, rode a helicopter from Austin to Sanderson, Texas, where a funeral home had Joe Bob Hays laid out. JR and his brother, Fred, and Fred's wife and eldest son were there. The grandson was only four. JR had been divorced for the past ten years. His ex-wife had custody of their children. The wife had had an affair while her husband was in Afghanistan, and divorce followed. She didn't remarry. The kids were teenagers now and knew everything about everything. JR wrote them a note about their grandfather and mailed it, and that would have to do.\n\nThe sheriff, Manuel Tejada, was there with some of his deputies in uniform. One of them, a man with bright, garish yellow and green tattoos that started at both wrists and ran up his forearms, took the time to shake JR's hand and tell him how sorry he was. \"Knew your dad,\" he said. \"Good man.\" His name was Romero, according to the silver name tag he wore over his left shirt pocket.\n\nThe sheriff, his deputies, the mayor and county commissioners lined up to shake hands with Governor Jack Hays. Funerals aren't normally places to talk politics, but they were very worried about terrorism and martial law and asked Hays what it meant.\n\n\"Washington hasn't said much. We'll know more soon,\" was his stock answer. Actually, he was lying. Washington had sent him a directive that ran over a hundred pages. He had scanned it and turned it over to the attorney general for comment. His aides had run off some copies. He gave a copy to Ben Steiner and one to Charlie Swim, and told them to keep their mouths shut. He had taken another copy home and he and Nadine had read it.\n\nAs he stood listening to the preacher drone on, he was thinking of some of the major points in the directive. In effect, Soetoro and his administration were deputizing the state government to enforce their orders in Texas. That was Nadine's verdict as she read the thing. She was an archaeology professor at the University of Texas and considered herself middle of the road politically. In Texas, that put her a little left of center, but not much. At the university, that made her a conservative oddity among the faculty, most of whom didn't think much of her husband either.\n\nHays glanced around. Against the back wall stood two Texas state troopers in uniform who had flown out to Sanderson in the helicopter with him. They were now his official bodyguards. This morning he asked them point-blank: \"What will you do if federal agents try to arrest me?\"\n\n\"They better come a-shootin',\" the little one said. He was the senior man. The other man merely nodded.\n\n\"I doubt if it will come to that,\" Jack Hays told them, \"but it might.\"\n\n\"You're our elected governor. Ain't nobody in Washington gonna drag you outta the state house. Period.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\n\"Them guys and gals at the FBI office in Austin, some of them are Texans too. If they get orders to come and get you, they'll call us first. They promised.\"\n\nAfter the service, Jack and Nadine stood on the lawn and watched the funeral home personnel load Joe Bob's coffin in a hearse. JR and Fred and his wife were going to follow the hearse to the ranch, where Joe Bob would be interred beside his wife, who had died of cancer ten or eleven years ago. No, Jack Hays thought. Twelve years ago. Damn, but time slides right along.\n\nBefore they closed the rear door of the hearse, he went over to the coffin and touched it. \"Good-bye, Uncle Joe Bob.\" He started to say more but choked up. \"Good-bye,\" he whispered and walked away.\n\n\"Drug smugglers,\" Nadine said as they walked to the helicopter, which was a block away in the courthouse square. Texas flags hung everywhere, from windows and poles mounted on buildings. \"They killed him,\" she said, \"and now their poison is ready for consumption all over.\"\n\n\"Ready to supply the addicts and recreational users who don't give a damn about violating the law or who gets killed,\" Jack Hays muttered, \"as long as they are having a good time.\"\n\n\"Why haven't we sealed that border?\" Nadine asked.\n\n\"We tried,\" he shot back. Nadine knew that. He had tried and the federal government sued and the judges said only the feds could control the border. We have to leave it open so the illegals can get in, Jack Hays told himself. Can't take a chance on pissing off the Latino voters. And all those illegals who Soetoro wants to turn into voters. Hays was in a foul mood. Drug smugglers, now Soetoro and his martial law. It's a hell of a world we live in.\n\nHis cell phone rang. He looked at the number. His aide.\n\nThe engine on the helicopter began to make noise.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The Houston police got troubles. A riot broke out several hours ago in the projects. They are burning cars and building barricades. Doing some looting. Some black congresswoman is shouting into microphones about the racist right-wing conspiracy trying to keep people of color down.\"\n\nHe was tempted to order her arrested for inciting a riot, but that would only pour gasoline on a fire. \"I'll be back in Austin as soon as I can,\" he told the aide. \"Get out the riot plan and act on it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nHe got in the back of the helicopter with Nadine; the two troopers climbed aboard after them.\n\nJack saw JR watching as the machine lifted off.\n\nAfter the interment, Fred Hays and his wife and son shook hands with JR, got into their car, and started driving back to Dallas. Fred and JR had just inherited a twenty-two-thousand-acre ranch in a very dry corner of Texas, and now didn't seem to be the time to discuss what they were going to do with it. Fred and his wife were schoolteachers, had two kids, and needed every dollar they could get. Neither wanted to live along the Rio Grande miles from civilization\u2014if Pumpville, Texas, was civilization. Fred had grown up on that ranch and that was precisely the place he wanted away from when he went to college. He had never come back except for brief visits. And his parents' funerals.\n\nJR, on the other hand, had spent too many years in Iraq and Afghanistan to look at desert chaparral with affection. The ranch was a big, windy, dry place, and in August hot as the doorstep of Hell with the fire doors open. His grandfather had settled here way back when because the land was cheap. It wasn't worth much now, either. His father had stayed because he loved it, and he had gone broke there. Oilmen had drilled some exploratory wells yet never found anything. Probably never would. The place was mortgaged for the fence and exotic animals. If JR and Fred didn't sell it, they'd need to find a way to make money to pay the bank. Hosting hunters was probably the only way.\n\nMaybe, JR thought sardonically, he should sell it to the dope smugglers.\n\nJR gave his father's sole employee a check worth two weeks' pay. \"Take some time off. Visit your family. I'll call you when we need you. We'll probably sell the place, and while it's for sale we'll need someone to look after it and keep the fences repaired, so we don't lose the animals.\"\n\n\"I don't want to get shot by them dopers,\" the hired man said.\n\n\"I don't blame you. Just stay the hell out of their way and fix the fences in the daytime. You could do that, couldn't you?\"\n\n\"I reckon.\"\n\n\"Two weeks. See you then.\"\n\nJR went in the house and called his boss in El Paso. Quit his job on the phone. \"I won't be coming back. Dad's dead and there's the ranch.\"\n\n\"I understand.\"\n\n\"I brought some of the company's stuff with me, and I'll bring it all back in a couple of weeks.\"\n\n\"Sure. Sorry about your dad.\"\n\nJR inventoried the grub in the house and his father's meager collection of weapons. The sheriff had returned the Marlin, with its nightscope. JR looked it over. It seemed intact and should be workable if he charged the battery, but he had a much better one under the rear seat of the pickup. There was a twelve-gauge pump shotgun and an old thirty-eight revolver, a double-action Colt that his father had used to execute pigs years ago, when he kept pigs and cured his own hams and ate his own bacon.\n\nThen JR got in his pickup and headed for Del Rio, eighty miles away. He drove fast, so he got there before the stores closed. Went into the first gun store he saw. The man behind the counter was sitting on a stool watching television. He wore a holstered pistol on his belt.\n\n\"I need to buy a couple of guns,\" JR said. \"And some ammo.\"\n\nThe proprietor gestured toward the television. \"Barry Soetoro says he is shutting down all the gun stores nationwide. We ain't supposed to sell guns and ammo anymore to anybody but law enforcement. _Fuck_ that raghead commie son of a bitch. I ain't seen nothin' in writing from the ATF, and until I do I'm still open. Sell you ever'thing in the whole goddamn store if you got room on your credit card.\"\n\n\"Not that much. I'll limit myself to a small fraction of your inventory.\"\n\n\"Help yourself. I'm gonna sit here and watch the riots. Put what you want on the counter and we'll dicker. I'm easy, long as you're not a convict or illegal chili-picker and you've stopped beatin' your wife. Comrade Barry is gonna put me out of business pretty damn quick and I'll need some money until the welfare checks start arrivin' in the mailbox.\"\n\n\"You have any black powder?\"\n\n\"Six or eight cans of the stuff. It's on a shelf in the back. Help yourself.\"\n\n\"I have a cannon. Need some fuses for it, too.\"\n\n\"Same place. I supply the local pyro club, you know, the nutcases that make their own fireworks. Got all the stuff to make their rockets go up and pop. Take all you want. That asshole Soetoro will probably shut them down too and I can't return that stuff or eat it. I'll probably end up piling it up and setting it afire in my backyard.\"\n\n\"You have a big backyard?\"\n\n\"Couple hundred acres. That's where the pyro club does their thing.\"\n\nAn hour later when JR Hays paid for his purchases, the proprietor tossed in a couple of NRA bumper stickers into one bag and two that said \"Fuck Soetoro.\"\n\n\"Classy,\" JR said.\n\n\"Yeah. Kinda to the point. I'm all outta the ones that say 'Soetoro Sucks.'\"\n\nJR Hays loaded his purchases into his pickup and visited the local hardware store. While there he purchased four five-gallon cans for gasoline, among other things. At the supermarket he stocked up on canned goods, dry beans, two cured hams, bacon, and coffee. He hit the liquor store for two big bottles of bourbon and a case of beer. As people in this sparsely populated country normally did, he stopped at the filling station on the edge of town, topped off the truck, and filled his gas cans.\n\nHe took his time getting back to the ranch. It was after eleven o'clock when he closed and locked the gate behind him, drove the half mile over the rutted dirt road to the ranch house, a low single-story with two bedrooms and a bath, with a telephone but no TV, and got busy carrying his purchases inside. After he had his food and hardware put away, he opened one of the bottles of bourbon and poured himself a drink, neat, just the way Joe Bob used to drink it. He turned out the lights and went out on the ramada to escape the heat of the house. Sitting there sipping whiskey, he could hear the whisper of the wind in the brush. Somewhere a coyote howled.\n\nAbove him, the obsidian sky was full of stars.\n\nWhen Jack Hays got home from the state capitol, a Texas flag was stirring on the flagpole in the yard. It was always there, but tonight he paused to look at it. Inside, Nadine was watching television. He flopped on the couch and watched a little in silence. The \"ghetto rats,\" as he called them when reporters weren't around, were burning and looting in Houston, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Screaming about the right-wing white conspiracy.\n\n\"How do they know it's whites?\" he asked Nadine.\n\n\"All right-wingers are white Republicans. Ninety-eight percent of blacks are Soetoro Democrats. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Soetoro lit the fuse and it's burning.\"\n\nWhen the television people began a commercial, Nadine killed the savage beast. In the silence that followed, he told her about more of the federal government's demands. And about his talk with Ben Steiner.\n\nNadine listened in silence and sipped Chardonnay. When he ran out of words, he went to the bar and poured himself a drink, vodka over ice. God knows, he needed it. What a hell of a day!\n\nSeated again near Nadine, he sipped the liquor. \"I feel like I'm chained to a railroad track with locomotives coming fast from both directions. Soetoro is ripping up the American Constitution and there are a large number of people in Texas who would rather fight than submit. Lincoln must have had similar feelings when he watched the Southern states pass secession resolutions. We're headed for a smash and I haven't a clue what to do about it.\"\n\n\"Maybe Ben Steiner is right. Texas should become its own country.\"\n\nJack Hays snorted. \"Texas will become a nation over Barry Soetoro's dead body. If he lets Texas go, a lot of other states will follow. Why should people who work for a living pay taxes to provide welfare to all those rats in the center cities? Explain that one to me.\"\n\n\"Extortion?\"\n\n\"Pay or we'll burn it down and live in the ashes. The only people who worry about that kind of logic are politicians.\"\n\n\"Texas could make it as an independent nation,\" Nadine said, eyeing her husband.\n\n\"Horseshit. American dollars are our currency\u2014\"\n\n\"Issue your own currency, backed by the state's full faith and credit. That's easy enough.\"\n\n\"Hundreds of thousands of people rely on Social Security and federal and military retirement. We can't abandon them. Without those pensions\u2014\"\n\n\"Texas can assume those obligations.\"\n\nHe stared at her.\n\nNadine took another sip of Chardonnay, then said, \"If people paid income and Social Security taxes to Texas instead of the federal government, and if Texas didn't have the federal debt to service, I suspect that the finances would be pretty close to a wash. Dollar for dollar, in and out. Texas could guarantee U.S. government bonds held by Texas banks and pension funds. If you made welfare recipients who are able-bodied work for their check or forfeit it, that would help a bundle. And make welfare recipients take a drug test. You know, straight out of Charlie Swim's platform. No more money for single women to have kids.\"\n\nShe leaned forward, pleading her case. \"Texas has energy to sell to the world, a great banking system, world-class hospitals, automobile factories, cutting-edge high-tech industries, a solid agricultural base, and we're on the Gulf Coast so we can import and export. Texas has an annual GDP of 1.6 trillion dollars. That is a larger economy than the state of New York, just a little less than California. Texas generates roughly ten percent of the economic activity in the United States. Our Texas economy is a third larger than Mexico's, just ten percent behind the United Kingdom's. If Texas were an independent nation, ours would be the twelfth-largest economy on earth, a smidgen less than Canada, but more than Australia, Spain, or Switzerland. And you think Texas couldn't go it alone?\"\n\nJack Hays eyed his wife coldly. \"I didn't know you were an independence crackpot.\"\n\n\"I'm not. But the people of Texas will not live in a dictatorship. _Will not_.\"\n\n\"The United States won't let us go without a fight.\"\n\n\"We're heading for a fight regardless,\" Nadine said flatly. \"Even if independence isn't your end game, it might give you leverage to demand a return to constitutional government on the federal level. Texas has a hell of a lot better hand than you think.\"\n\nJack Hays took a swig from his drink and sat staring at his wife. \"We could seal the border,\" he suggested. \"Demand the Mexican government stop allowing drug smugglers and illegals to cross. We could seal the border so tight a bat couldn't get across.\"\n\nNadine put her hand on his arm. \"Sure you could, but you'd need to make it clear that no one is against immigration _per se_ , from Mexico or anywhere else. The problem is _illegal_ immigrants; they're swarming in faster than we can absorb them in the schools or in the labor force or with social services. When illegal, unskilled laborers flood the market, it's our own low-skilled citizens\u2014black, white, brown\u2014who pay the price. People understand that, and they understand that it's high time someone stood up for _them_. So sure, seal the border, cut off all trade to Mexico if necessary, and force Mexico to patrol its own borders and crush the drug trade that does even more harm to Mexico than it does to us. Make Mexico an offer it can't refuse. Not a single dollar, truck, railroad car, or immigrant, legal or illegal, crosses the border until Mexico cleans up its own house.\"\n\n\"That might precipitate a revolution in Mexico,\" Jack Hays said. \"Or Mexico might declare war on us.\"\n\n\"Another Mexican revolution or another Mexican-Texas war, let it come,\" Nadine shot back. She had steel in her.\n\nJack Hays wasn't sure he bought all that. And yet, \"We've been Mexico's safety valve for a long, long time,\" he admitted.\n\n\"Think about it,\" Nadine said, and finished her wine. \"I'm sorry about your uncle. His was a needless, useless death. And as long as we leave that border open to drug gangs and criminals, we'll have more needless, useless deaths. I'm going to bed. I've had all I can take today.\"\n\nJack Hays was tired too, but he sat in the silent house thinking. About his uncle. About the possibilities of a free Texas, out from under the yoke of Barry Soetoro, Washington bureaucrats, and a feckless Congress stymied by cries of racism. Was freedom worth all the blood it would take to reap the benefits? No one but God knew how much blood freedom would cost.\n\nHis thoughts drifted back to the American Revolution. The revolutionaries then knew the British would fight. Great Britain had the finest navy in the world and a solid, although small, professional army. All the colonists had were farmers and a dream.\n\nAnd yet, who today would argue that the lives of American patriots killed during the revolution had been squandered? Or the lives of the Texans who fought at the Alamo and at San Jacinto? Sometimes those half-seen, fog-shrouded dreams of national destiny and the unpredictable future must be anointed with blood to make them reality. Not someone else's blood, but yours. Or your son's or daughter's. Your blood is your gift to future generations.\n\nHe was thinking of the Texans at the Alamo who knew they were doomed but fought to the last man. Then the telephone rang. He looked at the number before he answered it. A 301 area code. The Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. There was no one in Washington he wanted to talk to at that hour of the night. After ten rings the phone fell silent.\n\nPerhaps he should think of independence as a maneuver, not an end in itself. The name of the game is bettering the lot of your constituents. Nadine was right: in politics there is always an end game. You say you want A, the opposition offers E or F, and all of you settle for C. Or B or D. Something in the middle. The real problem, as Jack Hays saw it from Austin, was that Barry Soetoro refused to settle for anything less than the whole enchilada, everything he wanted, which in a democratic republic is simply impossible. He was the prophet, the messiah, and he was driving a stake through the heart of the Great Republic.\n\nJack Hays was a good working politician. All he wanted was to move the needle in his direction. He well knew that every political question is not black or white, but some shade of gray. He still believed that most Americans were well-meaning people, not ideological crazies, and that compromise was possible.\n\nThe telephone rang again. He looked at the number and saw that it was the state director of the Department of Public Safety, Colonel Frank Tenney. The man wanted to talk about the riot in Houston. Hays listened carefully, grunted twice, said yes three times, then hung up.\n\nAfter he finished his drink, he turned off the lights in the living room and stretched out on the couch.\n\nJake Grafton was wide awake at four in the morning. The camp was lit only by floodlights on the perimeter fences, yet there was just enough illumination leaking through the front flap of the tent to see by. All the cots were occupied. It was August and hot and the cicadas outside, and the farting, snoring, deep-breathing sleepers inside made it anything but silent.\n\nGrafton had spent the evening talking to his fellow detainees. They were almost all white and perhaps forty years old or older. Some had been arrested at home and allowed to bring their medications; others had been arrested at their places of business or in restaurants or golf clubs or bars. The police or federal agents knew whom they wanted, and they came and cuffed them and led them away without much fuss or bother. Several said they were pretty liquored up and loudly denouncing Soetoro and the feds, but the cops treated them decently anyway. Maybe the fact that they were spouting anti-government sentiments when arrested made a deeper impression on the witnesses.\n\nThe detainees were small-business men, middle or senior managers or officers in major enterprises, civil servants, state or county politicians, a few preachers, a lot of military and civil retirees. A couple of sheriffs. Basically, the feds had taken a large sample of white America. Apparently federal officers had taken a similar sample from the female population; the women were housed in other tents at Camp Dawson, and males and females mingled inside the compound until lights out was called. The detainees were a talkative bunch, gathering in ever-shifting groups, talking, talking, talking. They also gabbled endlessly on cell phones to the folks at home.\n\nA lot of these people needed medications, and they didn't have them. Grafton thought this meant the detention was intended to be only for a short period, or whoever had planned it had planned it poorly. After many years spent in large bureaucracies, he suspected the latter was the case.\n\nGrafton got up from his cot and headed for the latrine. Once outside the tent, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and turned it on. In a moment the device locked onto the network. Still had a charge.\n\nHe pushed the buttons and held it to his ear. He could hear the ring signal.\n\n\"Jake, is that you?\" Callie's voice.\n\n\"Yes. I\u2014\"\n\n\"Where are you?\"\n\n\"Camp Dawson. It's a detention facility in West Virginia.\"\n\n\"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Oh, sure, Hon. Got a cot in a tent and they feed us three times a day, all the food anyone wants.\"\n\n\"Jake, your name was in the paper this morning. The government said you are being investigated to see if you were a member of the conspiracy that planned to assassinate the president.\"\n\n\"Who said that?\"\n\n\"Some spokesperson for the FBI.\"\n\nSo Sal Molina was correct. Jake changed the subject. \"Are you doing okay?\"\n\n\"Oh, sure. Missing you and worried stiff. Why didn't you call sooner?\"\n\n\"They are monitoring and recording all telephone calls. All of them.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Callie said, and fell silent.\n\n\"Talk to me,\" Jake said. \"I need to hear your voice. Talk about Amy and the grandbaby.\"\n\nHe leaned against the cinderblock latrine, closed his eyes, and listened to Callie's voice. She had been his rock for so many years. He was damned lucky to have had her to share his life with, and he knew it.\n\nWhen they finally broke the connection, Jake Grafton stood looking at the ten-foot chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire, with guard towers at the corners. This thing wasn't built overnight. Fence, latrines, sewage and water lines, showers, kitchens with natural gas stoves, electric refrigerators, concrete pads for the tents. . .construction must have taken months. The phone in his hand rang. He looked at the number. Tommy Carmellini.\n\n\"Hey, Tommy.\"\n\n\"I heard you are now famous, Admiral. Saw the news on television last night when I was eating dinner. Been trying to call you.\"\n\n\"My fifteen minutes.\"\n\n\"Where are you?\"\n\n\"Camp Dawson, West Virginia.\"\n\n\"You got a charger for that phone?\"\n\n\"I can get one. Why?\"\n\n\"Keep it charged and on. I may want some investment advice. The stock market has the giggling shits, and you know how I am about bargains.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Don't bend over to pick up the soap.\" And Tommy was gone.\n\nJake snorted, smiled, and put the phone in his pocket. Tommy Carmellini was one of the good guys he had known through the years. Amazing that there had been so many.\nFOUR\n\nI turned the iPhone off and looked at the ceiling in the motel room. Since I heard that news broadcast while munching a burger at the bar of a TGI Friday's at a little town in Ohio, I had tried Grafton's phone eight times before midnight, and two times since. Then, voila!, he answered.\n\nNot that he had anything to say. I remembered that classified file that crossed his desk about the NSA going to comprehensive monitoring of all American telephone conversations. And I well knew how good they were at triangulating cell phone signals. They could put you within a few meters, whether you were using the phone or not, just as long as it was logged into a network. I was on teams that used that technique to find wanted terrorists in Pakistan and Syria and Yemen.\n\nThe way to defeat that was to wrap your phone in tinfoil. So I wrapped mine back up and put it in my pocket.\n\nThe thing that bothered me was the announcement by the FBI that former CIA director Jake Grafton\u2014note that \"former\"\u2014was being detained and investigated for a possible role in the right-wing conspiracy to assassinate the president. They could have just locked him up and thrown away the key, but no, they decided to create a conspiracy to help justify martial law. I had no doubt when the trolls in the White House were finished writing this fiction the guilty bastards would make quite a list. I might even be on one of them. Along with the many enemies of the administration who didn't believe in global warming or Soetorocare or his give-a-pass-to-terror treaty with the death-to-America regime in  Iran. Soetoro's enemies would be in deep and serious shit that no doubt would ruin them for life. Maybe they would get a show trial before a military commission. And afterward, be put against a wall in front of a firing squad, or permanently locked in a cell somewhere to figure out where they went wrong. Barry Soetoro had that in him. He was the savior of the planet, after all.\n\nSo the question became, what was Mrs. Carmellini's little boy Tommy going to do about it?\n\nWell, at least I knew where Grafton was. Tonight. I suspected they would not keep him long at Camp Dawson. They would want him to sign a confession they were busy writing now, so I suspected they would move him soon and go to work on him with torture and drugs.\n\nPersonally, I didn't give a damn what he signed. I had to get to him before they killed him.\n\nI crawled out of bed, took a shower, and shaved because I had no idea when I would get another chance, then loaded my stuff into my car. I paused for a good look at the Benz. What an impractical car. I needed a pickup. Tomorrow, maybe.\n\nI filled the car at an all-night station, got a cup of coffee, and pointed the front bumper east. There wasn't much traffic. The sky lightened up and the tires hummed on the pavement and I passed some trucks. I left the radio off.\n\nNormally I don't think much about politics. I am like most people, I suppose. I get wrapped up in the business of earning a living, giving pleasure to select members of the opposite sex, spending time with friends, and following the fortunes of my favorite sports teams. I vote for people to represent me at every little meeting from city council to Congress and the White House; they can worry about the public's business, about filling the potholes in the streets, the state of the sewage treatment plants, and how much, if any, foreign aid we should give to Egypt: I vote for them because I don't want to do that stuff, and they say they do.\n\nAnd yet, they need to stay within certain boundaries. I don't want them messing with me any more than they absolutely must. I am choosing my path through life: I want to be responsible for my choices and the results.\n\nJust like most people.\n\nI sat there driving through America wondering about Barry Soetoro and his disciples. I have never trusted people who think they know how everyone else should live, and demand those other people obey. I am not a good follower.\n\nAaugh!\n\nThe highway spun along toward the horizon and the sky got lighter. Another day in America!\n\nWhen Jack Hays woke up on his couch that Friday morning, Nadine was leaning over, brushing her lips on his. She liked to wake him with a kiss.\n\n\"The coffee is on,\" she said, and went back toward the kitchen, where the cook reigned. Jack padded along behind and found the cook wasn't in yet.\n\nWith both of them sipping coffee, Nadine said, \"You are going to have a hell of a day.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I think it'll come to a boil today, or tonight.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do, Jack?\"\n\n\"Ask God for the wisdom to make the right decision and for the courage to see it through.\"\n\nShe rested her head on his shoulder and they stood holding each other, feeling the warmth of each other's bodies.\n\nJR put his Beretta 9-mm in his belt and went for a tour of the ranch in the pickup. He wanted to see the terrain again, to refresh his memory, to see how it had changed through the years. Joe Bob had built some shooting stands here and there, boxes for hunters to stand in fifteen or twenty feet above the ground. The sports would climb up there with their rifles, hunker down, drink beer, and wait for something wonderful to wander into range, where they would assassinate it.\n\nJR climbed up into several of the stands just to look at the terrain. Shooting at people from one of these things, with people shooting back, would be suicidal.\n\nSo what were the possibilities? Ambush the bad guys as they exited their vans in Mexico, or on the trail to the river, or as they crossed the river, or cutting the Hays fence, or somewhere on the Hays land, or out near the highway as they threw the backpacks over the fence, or anywhere along the return journey.\n\nHe saw no people during his tour, but he did spot two kudu. Gorgeous creatures.\n\nAny ambush site would have to allow him to shoot, move, and survive. The shooting would be easier with his state-of-the-art night-vision equipment.\n\nWhat if he got two or three of them? Or five or six? Those who escaped would tell their bosses back in Mexico, and next time he would be facing a company of hired killers, perhaps as many as fifteen or twenty heavily armed gunmen with automatic weapons.\n\nLate in the afternoon, JR got out his new AR-15, cleaned it thoroughly, and mounted a scope on it, a regular 3 by 9 variable. He suspected the battle might drag on into the morning, and he should be well armed if it did.\n\nAfter fifty shots he was sure of the scope's zero and comfortable with the trigger. He took the rifle into the house and opened all the windows to let the breeze air out some of the heat. He cleaned his rifle thoroughly again. Then he got busy fixing dinner. Poured some bourbon and drank it as he ate out on the ramada with the sun setting.\n\nWhile JR was scouting the ranch, Jack Hays was under political siege in Austin. The Texas independence crowd was getting really worked up, especially after they saw copies of the directives\u2014there were four directives, so far\u2014about life in an America ruled by martial law under Barry Soetoro. The press was to be censored; television shows preapproved; news would be government press releases, which would be read without comment; and military courts would replace civilian ones. Gun sales were forbidden, and all guns would be turned in to military arsenals that would be designated in a few weeks.\n\nThe directives said nothing about the upcoming November election, but the feds obviously were planning a long spell of martial law, so pessimists could read between the lines, and did.\n\nMeanwhile, inner-city riots around the country were getting worse, as the civil authorities let crowds burn and loot. Any persons in the riot zones were fair game for the mobs. The military that now were under federal control, the U.S. Army and National Guard, did nothing. Government spokesmen on television blamed the right-wing conspiracy, evil men who didn't believe in progressive goals and wanted to use low-wage earners as slaves in the capitalist economy. Translated, that meant evil whites who wanted to exploit semiliterate, unskilled minorities for the minimum wage.\n\nJack Hays spoke to the National Guard brigadier in charge of Houston, James Conrad, three times that day. The first call went like this: \"What's happening?\"\n\n\"I need orders from Washington, Governor. I was told to await written orders. Until I get them, I can't do anything.\"\n\n\"Washington knows that people are getting murdered in Houston and having their homes and businesses destroyed, right?\"\n\n\"Sir, I have sent in reports every hour. I don't know what else to do. If I go into the riot zone on my own hook in disobedience of orders, I'll be relieved and court-martialed and they will put someone else in my place, someone who will obey orders.\"\n\n\"Are you going to keep the mob inside the riot zone?\"\n\n\"No one has said anything to me about that. Governor Hays, I'm just a soldier. I obey orders and I give orders. Right now, I am awaiting orders from the national command authority.\"\n\n\"That's Soetoro, right?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. The president.\"\n\n\"Call me when you hear something,\" Hays said, and General Conrad promised he would.\n\nJack Hays called in Colonel Frank Tenney, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS), who commanded the state police. Hays told him about the call with Brigadier General Conrad of the National Guard. \"We can't let those rioters burn down the city and murder people. I want you to get as many of your men as you can and encircle the area. Let the National Guard do its thing, but don't let those rioters out of the zone they are in right now. And evacuate anyone willing to leave. You have a copy of the riot plan?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Then use it.\"\n\n\"I would, but FEMA's Texas chief told me I have no authority, except as _he_ gives it to me in obedience to the president.\"\n\nJack Hays had pretty much had all he was willing to take. Without really thinking through the possible ramifications, he said, \"You go get that bastard and take him with you. I want him right up front when I give the order to go in there.\"\n\n\"You know there will be trouble. FEMA has their own private army, armed to the teeth.\"\n\n\"And they aren't doing anything about this riot. Go get the bastard. Disarm and arrest anybody that gives you trouble. That office is in Texas, and in Texas we run the show. _Texas is ours_.\"\n\n\"You're goddamn right it is, Governor.\"\n\n\"Then get ready to go into that riot zone and arrest those thugs when I give the order. Get the Houston police to help. Call me when you are ready to do it. Got that?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nWhen Colonel Tenney left his office, Hays sensed he had crossed the line. He asked the Texas Ranger outside the door to come in and explained the situation. \"I need your boss as soon as he can get here. We are coming to a crisis.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" The ranger was on his cell phone as he walked from the room. Primarily criminal investigators, the Texas Rangers\u2014there were only about 140 of them\u2014were a division of the TxDPS.\n\nThe Constitution of the State of Texas required the governor to maintain public order and enforce the laws\u2014and Jack Hays meant to do that. Under state law, he could assume command of the TxDPS during a public disaster, riot, or insurrection, \"or to perform his constitutional duty to enforce the law.\" As Jack Hays saw it, Barry Soetoro could not relieve him of this responsibility or void the statutes or Constitution of the State of Texas for any reason whatsoever. Jack Hays had sworn to uphold the law and, by God, he was going to do it or die trying.\n\nHis decision made, he called in the leaders of the legislature to brief them.\n\nIt was three o'clock that Friday afternoon when Jake Grafton was led into an office in the admin building of Camp Dawson. He wasn't wearing handcuffs. The room looked like what it used to be, a crowded office for low-level bureaucrats and staff officers of the West Virginia National Guard. Now it appeared to be full of FBI agents.\n\n\"We want to ask you some questions,\" the man behind the desk said. He was a White House aide, maybe in Soetoro's inner circle, or only one level away. His name was Harlan Sweatt, known to the world as Sluggo. He was balding, with a double chin and a serious spare tire that was hidden behind the desk. Jake recognized him, although the two had never met.\n\nGrafton dropped into the chair across from Sweatt. Scanned the other agents in the room, four men and one woman. All looked as if they hadn't had much sleep, and no wonder, busy as they must have been rousing citizens from offices, golf clubs, bars and beds, and transporting them here to this mountain concentration camp.\n\n\"Ask away,\" Grafton said.\n\n\"I am not going to read you your rights,\" Sluggo said, \"because your rights have been suspended by the declaration of martial law.\"\n\n\"I didn't know that the president had the power to suspend the rules of criminal procedure or the presumption of innocence or the right to be represented by counsel.\"\n\n\"Are you a lawyer?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"He has been advised by good lawyers, including the attorney general. He is fulfilling his constitutional duty to protect the nation.\"\n\n\"If you say so.\"\n\n\"We want to ask you about your role in the conspiracy to remove the president from office.\"\n\nJake sat silently, watching the man drone on. He had suspected this might be coming since Callie told him of the FBI's announcement to the press.\n\nWhen Sluggo Sweatt paused for air, Grafton said, \"I deny any involvement whatsoever.\"\n\n\"Four people have confessed, so far. They swear you knew about the planning for a coup d'\u00e9tat.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nHe named names. Two names Jake thought he recognized from the CIA, low-level staffers. The other two he didn't.\n\n\"I don't care what they signed. I deny any involvement whatsoever, nor did I know of any plot.\"\n\n\"You had better rethink that, Admiral. You have a daughter, a sonin-law, and a grandson. Your wife lives on your pension. You have money in the bank and property. With a stroke of a pen, all that can be taken away from you.\"\n\nGrafton said nothing.\n\n\"I don't think you realize how serious the crime is that you are accused of,\" Sweatt explained, as if Grafton had a 75 IQ and his wife had to help him put on his pants in the morning. \"The penalties are catastrophic, for you and your family. We have drafted a confession for your signature.\" He opened a drawer and removed the confession, tossed it on the desk. \"As you will see, you are charged with nothing but failing to report treasonous activity. There is no suggestion that you committed any overt act. I suggest you read it, please.\"\n\nGrafton didn't even pick it up. \"Sluggo, I am not going to put my fingerprints on that. I have no doubt you can forge my signature, if you want it, and no doubt whatsoever that you have sold your soul to the devil. Currently there is nothing I can do about this situation, or you, but I'll remember you. Not fondly.\"\n\n\"I won't try to persuade you,\" Sluggo Sweatt said coolly. \"But I want you to consider the fact that the world has turned, and you are in serious danger of being roadkill. There won't be another day in your life when you can do anything about it, about me, or about your situation. Not a day, not an hour, not a minute. You can only save yourself and your loved ones a great deal of grief by signing that document.\"\n\n\"Is that why you sold out? Saving yourself grief?\" Grafton replied.\n\nThe man shrugged. \"Unlike you, I have some common sense,\" he said, and gestured to the agents against the wall.\n\n\"I am delighted to hear that, Sweatt,\" Grafton shot back. \"Common sense is almost as rare as hen's teeth, and equally hard to find.\"\n\nThe agents led Grafton back to the compound.\n\nThe members of the Texas legislature that packed into the governor's office were a mixed lot. Some were demanding that the legislature pass a declaration of independence and declare Texas a free republic. Others looked damned worried.\n\n\"Are you people out of your minds?\" It was Smokey Bryan from Hall County. \"I fought for the United States in the army. I am a citizen of the United States. My family have all been American citizens, and my great-great-grandparents who came to Texas when it was Comanche country and got scalped\u2014they were Americans. I'll be goddamned if I am gonna commit treason and try to take Texas out of the Union. Again. The last time we tried that they shot a lot of Texans but didn't hang anybody. This time they might. Barry Soetoro is, no question, a would-be tin-pot dictator, but he _is_ the president of the United States. And let's call a spade a spade\u2014no pun intended\u2014he's black. Most black people will stick to him even if he declares he is the risen Christ.\"\n\nLuwanda Harris, a black woman representing a district in Houston, said, \"Gangs of terrorists are running around killing people. People are plotting a coup. I don't know who, but it's probably Republicans. They hate him. You are damn fools to sit here discussing treason when the FBI hasn't finished its investigation.\"\n\nSomeone shouted from the back. \"You don't seem very worried about your constituents who are caught in the middle of a riot.\"\n\n\"Fuck you,\" she shot over her shoulder. She was looking straight at Bryan when she said, \"And you too, Smokey, you Nazi bigot. Black people have been shit on for centuries, ever since they were dragged to Texas as slaves. You people have segregated them, won't educate them, won't give them a leg up. You won't even increase the minimum wage. Let the niggers rot. That's\u2014\"\n\n\"You racist bitch!\" Senator Bryan roared. \"I have had\u2014\"\n\n\"Quiet,\" the governor shouted. \"If you people are going to cuss at each other, go outside on the lawn to do it. You can use your fists, shout, pull hair, act like children, get your names and photos in the papers. Go on. Get the hell outta my office.\" Silence descended.\n\nJack Hays lowered his voice. \"Ms. Harris, Mr. Bryan, you two seem to have lost sight of the fact you are on the same side. You are both against Texas independence. Yet we all share a common concern, I hope. We all care deeply about the people of Texas, all of them, and what is best for them.\"\n\n\"I'm concerned about what is best for _black_ Americans,\" Ms. Harris shot back. \"All you white people can worry about your own damned selves. We black people are going to stick together.\"\n\n\"You speak for yourself, woman,\" interjected Charlie Swim. \"You don't represent me, and when the fires finally go out, don't come begging the legislature for money to rebuild the projects. You won't get it. You helped them burn.\"\n\nThat caused another frenzy of shouting.\n\n\"Shut up,\" Jack Hays roared. \"The question is, How are we going to stop the riot? If the feds interfere, what are we going to do?\"\n\n\"You're goin' to Houston and shoot a bunch of black people,\" Luwanda Harris said. \"I know it, they know it, and the White House knows it.\"\n\n\"We're going to arrest rioters and hold them responsible for their crimes,\" the governor said in a normal voice. \"Murder, rape, looting\u2014nobody gets a free pass. Nobody. I have sworn to uphold the law and I will, whether you are white, black, brown, yellow, or green. If you want to do your community a service, Ms. Harris, you will get yourself to Houston and help stop the riot.\"\n\n\"Who do you think I am?\" Luwanda Harris demanded. \"You think I own them?\"\n\n\"Anybody else?\" the governor said.\n\nA delegate from the Dallas suburbs wanted to discuss threats. Her name was Melissa McKinley. She didn't know whether Soetoro was right about a right-wing conspiracy, but her constituents were worried about security. Terrorist threats, insane people, drug violence, the list went on. \"My constituents want to be free from fear, free to raise their children in a safe environment. Guns scare them, enraged homicidal maniacs that shoot kids in schools and theaters scare them, terrorists and assassins scare them. The specter of a civil war would horrify them. They don't want to live in Baghdad or Beirut or Syria. They want their children to have a chance to reach adulthood free from fear.\"\n\n\"How much freedom are they willing to trade for their security?\" Ben Steiner asked.\n\n\"They don't want to bury their kids, Ben.\"\n\n\"So they would be happy in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia in a comfortable little cell, just as long as their blood didn't flow?\"\n\n\"I doubt it, but freedom doesn't do you a lot of good if you're dead.\"\n\n\"Amen to that,\" several of the legislators muttered.\n\nThey wanted to mention the grievances of their constituents, introduce them into the discussion, things such as EPA regulations designed to save the climate at the expense of the working men and women of Texas, even though there was no scientific evidence that the changes demanded would have any impact on the problem as defined by the EPA. And the EPA's demands to shut down coal-fired power plants, which would raise electric bills dramatically. Several wanted to talk about the financial and social burden of illegal aliens on the school districts and the education of American children, whose parents were paying the taxes to fund the schools. Others wanted to talk about federally mandated school curriculums and school lunches. Many were sick and tired of being dictated to by Washington bureaucrats who thought they knew more than the people ruled by their edicts.\n\nAnother just wanted to talk about a federal government many of her constituents perceived as an out-of-control, fire-belching, meat-eating monster that could not be tamed, controlled, or killed, a monster that increasingly stuck its nose into every facet of American life and propagandized their children every minute of the school day. A minister denounced a government that he believed was not just neutral on religion, but actively antireligious.\n\nCharlie Swim broke in. \"The bottom line is we need to stop these riots. You want to help black people?\" He scowled at Luwanda Harris. \"The people getting crippled and maimed and killed are black. The people doing it are black. A lot of the businessmen getting looted and burned out are black. If the federal government won't stop it, the state government must: it's that simple. A government that fails to protect its citizens from violence has forfeited its claim to legitimacy. And if bucking Soetoro and the feds leads to a confrontation, it's time for Texas to face the issue head-on and declare its independence.\"\n\nCharlie Swim stood on a chair and looked around the room. \"I tell you now,\" he continued, \"I'm for independence. The people of Texas would be better off without the other forty-nine states, all the Texans, white, black, and brown, for all the reasons that have been mentioned here this morning. We would be better off without those fools in Washington.\n\n\"Luwanda, you, the Republicans, and everyone in the country with a brain know that Cynthia Hinton doesn't have a chance to win the November election. She knows it too. She has plenty of her own ghosts, but carrying the Soetoro record on your back would have defeated anybody. All Hinton is doing is jacking off the faithful.\n\n\"And as for Soetoro and his gang. You know what their motto is: Never let a crisis go to waste. I don't trust them or believe anything they say.\n\n\"I think the time has come for us to start our own country. When you don't trust your spouse, or your boss, or your government, it is time to say good-bye and go on down the road.\"\n\nWhen JR Hays considered the tactical possibilities, he decided the only answer was booby traps, or mines. One man shooting wasn't going to get it done. Oh, he might get a few of the drug smugglers, but he wouldn't get them all, and if he didn't get them all, every last one, he would be signing his own death warrant.\n\nNot that JR thought he was going to live forever, because he doubted that he would.\n\nThe problem with booby traps was that they kill anyone who trips them\u2014illegal pregnant women trying to get across the river to have their babies in Texas, men looking for work, as well as any drug smugglers and professional killers who happened by. Anyone and anything, including kudus, elands, oryx, springbok, nyalas, impalas, whitetail deer, and coyotes.\n\nUnless he wanted to bury a lot of relatively innocent people and very innocent animals, he needed mines he could detonate at the proper moment.\n\nHe unlocked the toolbox in the bed of his pickup. Using the truck's tailgate as a table, he laid out all the devices he had borrowed from his former employer, the defense contractor, and looked them over carefully. Nothing there was explosive. What he had was sensors, miniature control boxes, radio controllers, batteries, and the other bits and pieces of high-tech booby traps. With the black powder and fuses, he should be able to construct some seriously lethal homemade Claymore mines.\nFIVE\n\nAfter the crowd filed out of Jack Hays' office, Ben Steiner stayed behind and closed the door. He dropped into a chair and lit a foul little cigar. Jack Hays sat in his executive chair, which his wife had bought from Office Depot and he had assembled in his garage.\n\n\"Looks like you've crossed the Rubicon, Jack. Ain't no going back from here.\" Steiner blew smoke around, then looked for an ashtray. There wasn't one. \"You're sort of in the position of the fellow that found himself astride a fence when the ladder gave way and he came down with one leg on either side.\"\n\n\"If you introduce a declaration of independence in the legislature,\" Hays asked, \"will it pass?\"\n\n\"That's the question, isn't it?\" Ben Steiner said, puffing lazily. \"And damn, I don't know. It might. Just might.\"\n\n\"Or it might not,\" Jack Hays said disgustedly. \"Don't you think you ought to start counting noses? If it's DOA, I'd like to know it before I manage to piss off every federal employee from the postman to Soetoro.\"\n\n\"I'm all for it,\" Steiner declared, \"but it's a big step. Soetoro is arresting everybody in Texas he can get his hands on\u2014whoever intimated, hinted, or told his wife that he didn't like Soetoro. FEMA has a camp for them up in Hall County. They got a list and are rounding 'em up.\"\n\n\"How come you aren't on it?\"\n\n\"Oh, I am, but my wife told them I was in Argentina fishing for a couple of weeks.\"\n\n\"Ben, it would be silly to introduce such a resolution, or bill, unless we knew it was going to pass.\"\n\n\"By how much?\"\n\n\"Simple majority.\"\n\n\"That isn't much.\"\n\n\"We'll be lucky to get that,\" Jack Hays said. \"We must have something to paper our ass with. Unlike Soetoro, I want to hear the people's representatives speak. One way or the other. Yea or nay.\"\n\n\"It's that 'lives, fortunes, and sacred honor' thing that has them worried.\"\n\nThe governor took his time answering. \"I think everyone would like to wake up and find this is just a nightmare. But it's real. None of us are going to be able to bury our head in the sand and hope the wolves don't bite our asses. The revolution has started. Soetoro has suspended the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Lincoln did it under his war powers. Unfortunately for Soetoro, we aren't in a war. A rebellion, or revolution, will change the life of _everyone_ in America. Indeed, perhaps everyone on the planet. We can't start it\u2014and the Texas legislature can't\u2014because Barry Soetoro already did.\"\n\n\"That wasn't what you told me yesterday.\"\n\n\"I've changed my mind.\"\n\nBen Steiner took a deep drag on his cigar and let the smoke out slowly. \"Our people need a little time,\" he said. \"They gotta work up to being brave. They gotta examine all the options before they can screw up their courage for this one.\"\n\n\"How much time? The Soetoro administration has been planning martial law for years.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow or the next day.\"\n\n\"We better not have the vote if we aren't going to win. Barry Soetoro is too much of an egotist to ignore an independence vote, win or lose.\"\n\n\"We'll win,\" Steiner said grandly. In his fifties, with a booming voice, he knew how to sway people, persuade them. Jack Hays was a more difficult sell than the average juror, however.\n\n\"When you're sure you know how the vote will go, after you've talked to every member, come back and see me.\"\n\nBen Steiner leaned forward. \"Jack, as we sit here Luwanda Harris and some of her friends are burning up the wires to Washington. If you don't want the capitol surrounded by tanks and army troopers from all over, you had better start talking to people, tell them what's at stake. We must get this done, and soon. If you don't, my best guess is the government of Texas is going to get arrested en masse and accused of treason. In the interim, let's cut off access to Washington.\"\n\n\"Can we take down the telephone system and the internet?\"\n\n\"Of course. The only question is how fast.\"\n\n\"Let's do it,\" Jack Hays said. \"Who do we call?\"\n\n\"The state director of disaster response, Billy Rob Smith.\"\n\nThe governor picked up the phone and made the call.\n\nBilly Rob Smith heard the governor out, then asked, \"Are you nuts? Every business in America bigger than a lemonade stand relies on telephones, landline and cell, and the internet. Millions of people use the system to send or get business information and to buy and sell securities. Medical records are transmitted via fax or over the internet. The feds have been working like beavers to digitize every medical record in the nation\u2014shutting off the internet may mean people can't get proper medical care. And the telephone system\u2014you can't shut one system down without turning off the other. In a lot of places, voice and digital use the same wires. In some places the telephone system is completely digital. Turning off cellular and landline telephones will drop us right smack dab back into the nineteenth century. Shutting those systems down is insanity.\"\n\n\"I didn't ask for your opinion\u2014I am giving you an order.\"\n\n\"And I'm telling you that you're crazy. Hell, I don't even know that you are the governor. You sound like an idiot jabbering on the telephone.\"\n\nWhat ended the argument and decided the matter was an announcement at precisely that moment that was carried on television networks nationwide: The president had directed the military to work with civilian law enforcement agencies to confiscate all the guns in America in private hands. In the future, only the military and law enforcement officers would have guns.\n\nBilly Rob Smith had a television in his office airing a twenty-four-hour news channel, which was limiting itself to government press releases these days, and he paused his conversation with the governor while an aide told him the news as rapidly as possible and pointed at the television set.\n\nSmith was not stupid. \"Did you hear that?\" he demanded of Jack Hays.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Holy damn. It's like the British marching to Lexington and Concord. This tears it. Americans won't stand for it. Hell, the people of Texas won't stand for it.\"\n\nJack Hays took a deep breath. He had other things to attend to. \"Smith, I want you to shut off the telephone and internet systems in east Texas. Start right here in Austin, right now. Then Houston. Get busy.\"\n\nA very subdued Billy Rob Smith said, \"Yes, sir,\" and hung up.\n\nJack Hays repeated the news to Ben Steiner, who was taking a last puff of his little cigar. Steiner stared, slack-jawed. Finally he said, \"Soetoro isn't just temporarily suspending the Constitution, he's tearing it up.\"\n\nJack Hays rubbed his forehead.\n\nSteiner said, \"Luwanda Harris will never change her mind, but this will get us Smokey Bryan and a whole lot of others who were on the fence. Of course, a lot of liberals will have a spontaneous orgasm when they hear Soetoro has repealed the Second Amendment, people like Melissa McKinley, but they weren't going to vote for independence no how, no way. They don't mind a dictator repealing the Second Amendment as long as they think he's on the side of social justice and the planet, like they are.\"\n\n\"Ben, if you are going to introduce a declaration of independence, and I don't mean an ordnance of secession, hadn't you better write one? After you count noses.\"\n\nBen Steiner rushed from the room, taking his cigar butt with him.\n\nTrust Jack Yocke to know when something was going on, Jake Grafton thought. He was standing under a tree watching it rain from a low overcast sky when the _Washington Post_ columnist found him.\n\n\"I saw them take you into the admin building, Admiral,\" Yocke said. \"Rumor has it you are now part of the conspiracy that planned a coup d'\u00e9tat.\"\n\n\"Where did you hear that?\"\n\n\"It's being whispered around.\"\n\n\"They wanted me to sign a confession.\"\n\n\"Did you?\"\n\n\"I am not going to confess to anything I didn't do. Ever. Once you start that, there's no end to it.\"\n\n\"No matter how bad you think the Soetoro White House gang is,\" Yocke said, \"you're wrong. They're worse.\"\n\n\"They certainly think they are on the side of righteousness and history.\"\n\n\"Hitler and Stalin were sure of it too\u2014didn't work out so well for them.\"\n\n\"Now I feel better.\"\n\nJake Grafton had his hands in his pockets. He looked around. No place to sit that wasn't wet. He leaned against the tree trunk, which wasn't wet yet. The rain was falling in greater volume.\n\n\"So what are your politics, Admiral? In all the years I've known you, I never got an inkling.\"\n\nGrafton snorted. \"Long ago, when I was very young, I learned that all political points of view were valid for the people who held them, except for the fanatics on the fringes who are usually incapable of rational thought. Think about the blind men and the elephant. Honorable people can hold very different opinions because they have very different life experiences. Liberals, conservatives, middle-of-the-roaders, big-government types, libertarians, old, young, middle-aged, highly educated or average or uneducated, skilled or unskilled, stupid, average smarts, or genius, they all see a little bit of how the world works and process it into a worldview, and they are all correct. The genius of representative democracy is that it takes all these viewpoints and grinds them up and arrives at some kind of resolution, most of the time. Look at the federal tax code: government policy has tried to accommodate all major and many minor concerns and still raise revenue. Any dictator with half a brain could put a tax code together that is simpler and more efficient and raises more revenue. But the United States still has one of the highest, if not the highest, rate of voluntary tax compliance of any country in the world. So something must be working right.\"\n\n\"Democracy can't handle every problem; you have to admit that.\"\n\n\"Slavery was too big for representative government,\" Grafton acknowledged. \"The story of this century is the haves versus the have nots, and illegal immigration is one aspect of that. Drugs are another piece of that problem. The disintegration of the black family is a piece. The desire of Barry Soetoro to drastically increase the number of non-white voters in America as quickly as possible to enhance the political power of blacks and Hispanics and Muslims and dilute the power of the whites is another. Representative democracy hasn't figured these problems out and may not be able to do so. Still, no other form of government has a better chance.\"\n\nLightning flashed, then two seconds later came the clap of thunder. The wind picked up.\n\n\"So how will the story turn out?\" Yocke asked.\n\n\"I don't know, Jack. I really don't.\"\n\n\"I'm getting wet,\" the _Post_ 's man complained, and brushed wind-driven raindrops from his hair.\n\n\"See you later,\" Grafton said.\n\n\"Good luck, Admiral.\"\n\n\"Thanks. You too.\" Grafton moved a few degrees around the tree and stood watching the rain.\n\nI parked in front of the lock shop and went in to see Willie Varner, my partner. He knew more about locks than I ever hoped to know, and much of that knowledge was acquired in prison. They say prison will broaden a man; I couldn't testify to that, but the experience seemed to have stretched Willie's mind somewhat, even if it didn't do anything for his morals or ethics.\n\n\"Damn, Carmellini,\" he said, \"I thought you was gone out west somewhere on the lone prairie learnin' to rope and ride and sing to the dogies, whatever they are.\"\n\n\"I've only been gone three days, Willie.\"\n\n\"Come back to reenlist in the CIA, have you?\"\n\n\"Nope. Come back to break Jake Grafton out of prison.\"\n\n\"I saw the _Post_. And heard about him on TV. He's famous now. Arrested and all for tryin' to kick Barry Soetoro outta the White House and get him started on his way to Hell. You ain't serious about bustin' him out, are you?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nHe made a rude noise. \"You are a real damn fool, Tommy. I've known some real losers in my day, people so damn stupid they needed help to pee, but you take the prize. Where they got 'im?\"\n\n\"Camp Dawson.\"\n\n\"Never heard of it.\"\n\n\"It's a National Guard camp over in West Virginia.\"\n\n\"Ahh, the beatin' heart of civilization. I should of heard of it, cultured as I am. And after you get him outta there, where pray tell are you two gonna go? Yemen? You can share a goat herder's hut with some holy warriors. I heard the summers are kinda warm there. Maybe you can summer up at the North Pole in an igloo.\"\n\nThat was Willie, always asking the tough questions. \"I don't know. Haven't thought that far ahead.\"\n\n\"Better get that figured out before you cross the line, Tommy. Send me your address in a year or two when you're settled so I can send you birthday cards.\"\n\n\"How do you like living in a dictatorship? Transition going okay?\"\n\n\"So far so good. There's a kid down the street teachin' me the Sieg Heil salute. Want a beer?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nWe settled down with longnecks in the back room of the shop. That was where I broke the news that I needed some help.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Willie roared. \"Forget that! Wash out your filthy mouth, Carmellini. I ain't ever goin' back to the joint, and how I know that is because I ain't ever goin' to do anythin' that would get me sent back there. Livin' in the joint with a bunch of losers who would as soon kill you as look at you, eatin' mac and cheese, no liquor or beer or women, jackin' off under the sheets. . .nope. Ain't gonna do it again, Tommy, so you just forget whatever shit is in your twisted head.\"\n\n\"I know you're a patriot.\"\n\n\"The hell I am! Who told you that? You go wave the fuckin' flag somewheres else.\"\n\n\"One of the sons of liberty.\"\n\nHe said a crude word that is illegal to say on the television or radio. Maybe even on the telephone. I knew I could talk him around, so we each had another beer and talked about Barry Soetoro and martial law and all that.\n\nThat evening I stopped in to see if Mrs. Grafton was home. I buzzed the door in the front lobby, told her who I was, and she let me in. Rode the elevator up.\n\nCallie Grafton looked tired and out of sorts. She offered me something to drink and I chose bourbon. She poured me a healthy drink over ice.\n\nShe knew all about what the government spokesmen were saying to the press about her husband. \"None of it is true. He has devoted his life to serving America. I can't believe that anyone could say these things about him with a straight face. Tonight on television they named two other men they said were coconspirators. I've never even heard their names before.\"\n\n\"They're sacrificial goats,\" I said, and watched her face.\n\nShe reached for my drink and took a sip. \"I think so too.\"\n\n\"I'm thinking of busting him out of Camp Dawson, or wherever they move him. It can be done, but afterward he'll be a fugitive.\"\n\n\"So will you. And anyone who helps you.\"\n\n\"Can you go visit him? Like tomorrow?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I can call him and ask.\"\n\n\"Please do so. Right now. Don't tell him that I'm here.\"\n\nShe went into the master bedroom, I suppose, and I sat at the little kitchen dining nook working on my drink and looking at the lights of Washington. Lots of lights, all the way to the horizon. Thought about being a fugitive in Barry Soetoro's America.\n\nI also thought about the possibility that the Grafton condo was bugged. It was a very slim chance, I thought. There hadn't been enough time, and why Grafton? Sure, they were setting him up as a human sacrifice, but why would they care what Callie Grafton said? There was nothing she could do about it.\n\nFinally Callie returned. \"I can see him tomorrow afternoon. They are still allowing visitors.\"\n\n\"Good,\" I said. \"I doubt if they'll have the visitor's rooms wired up already, but they might.\" I handed her a watch. \"Put this on and wear it. Pushing the stem in turns on a very high pitched sound, too high for human ears, but it will overpower any listening device and mask a conversation.\"\n\n\"Where did you get this?\" she asked.\n\n\"Liberated it from the CIA. I thought that someday I might need it more than they did, and darn if that day didn't come. When your conversation is over, don't forget to push the stem again to turn the squealer off.\"\n\n\"How will I know it's working?\"\n\n\"The second hand will cease to move when the squealer is on, and resume when it's off.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"You need to ask him if he wants out. That's the only question, and it's yes or no. He'll understand about being a fugitive if we get him out. Maybe they've been threatening him, maybe they haven't, but Jake Grafton will know the score. Yes or no. Can you do it?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" She acted as if that were a silly question.\n\n\"On your way home, please call me. I'll give you my cell number. If his answer is yes, he wants out, you will tell me that he looks good. If the answer is no, tell me he looks tired.\"\n\n\"He said they were listening to telephone calls.\"\n\n\"It's worse than that,\" I admitted, and decided to share some classified information. \"NSA is recording and data mining every telephone call in America. All of them. Have been for at least six months. Never say anything on any telephone that you don't want the government to hear.\"\n\nShe sniffed. \"Handling that much information, they couldn't be very efficient.\"\n\n\"Computers are marvelous things. Never bet on bureaucratic sloth and incompetence. Just pray for it.\"\n\nShe stared straight into my eyes. \"Tommy, how are you going to get him out?\"\n\n\"I don't know just yet,\" I said. \"I'll get some help and we'll put our heads together and see what is possible.\"\n\nShe started to say something, thought better of it, and examined her hands.\n\nI hoped Jake Grafton would say yes, and I told Mrs. Grafton that.\n\n\"Why?\" she said.\n\nShe was a tough broad, so I looked her straight in the eyes and explained. \"Cynic that I am, I suspect if we don't spring him the Admiral is bound for a maximum security prison. Or a graveyard. Accused, convicted, and executed, he wouldn't be around to embarrass the crowd that needs him as a scapegoat.\"\n\nShe kept her eyes on mine. \"You may be right,\" she said softly.\n\n\"Mrs. Grafton, if the White House didn't need some scapegoats, why did they accuse your husband of something ridiculous?\"\n\nShe took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. \"I'll call you tomorrow on the way home, Tommy. Thank you for coming.\"\n\n\"He looks good or he is tired.\"\n\nI finished the drink, punched my cell number into her phone, said good-bye, and left. In the elevator down I thought about the fact that Callie Grafton didn't once mention herself, ask what she would do if her husband escaped custody. In her own way she was as tough as Jake Grafton. If I were Barry Soetoro, I wouldn't want to share an elevator with her.\n\nWhen I was out of the parking garage and tooling through the city toward the lock shop, I got back onto the problem of how my helpers\u2014they didn't yet know they were going to be my helpers\u2014were going to snatch Grafton from the arms of the law. I had an idea or two about how we might evade afterward, for a little while at least, but first things first.\n\nI decided to call my girlfriend, Sarah Houston. She used to be a dataminer at the NSA, with the world's biggest and best computer system to play with. It helped that she was also a genius and the most gifted hacker alive on this side of the Pacific. Hacking and selling secrets had gotten her into serious trouble a few years ago and she went to the joint, but Jake Grafton had sprung her to help him. That worked out, so her name was changed and she was given a new identity. Grafton had gotten her transferred to the CIA, and she had an office two floors below mine. I didn't know what she was doing at the agency, and I hadn't asked. Not that she would have told me anyway. If there was ever a woman who thrived on secret shit, Sarah Houston was her name.\n\nShe and I had an up-and-down relationship. Just now we were down. It was an old, old story: she wanted to get married and I didn't.\n\nShe answered the phone on the third ring. \"What is it, Carmellini, you jerk?\" I am not a fan of caller ID, and this is why.\n\n\"Hey, gorgeous. I was thinking of dropping by in about a half hour to run something\u2014\"\n\n\"No.\" She hung up.\n\nWe Carmellini men are made of stern stuff, so I went anyway. I buzzed her apartment from the lobby. No answer. Maybe she had a guy up there tonight, but I didn't think so. Men who could handle that edgy personality were rare indeed. I was one, sort of, but there is only one Tommy Carmellini.\n\nI pushed the buzzers on three or four apartments, and was rewarded with a click. I was elevated to the fourth floor and marched purposefully to her door and rapped politely.\n\nShe must have looked through the security eye. \"Get out of here, Carmellini, before I call the police.\"\n\n\"I'm here to talk about Jake Grafton.\"\n\nTen seconds. . .then she opened the door and stood there. She was wearing a robe and slippers.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"It would probably be better if we talked inside your place.\"\n\nShe pulled the door open and headed for her living room. I came in and closed the door.\n\n\"Well?\" she said again.\n\n\"You have probably been reading about Jake Grafton being accused of conspiring to do a coup d'\u00e9tat. I need your help with a jail break.\"\n\nShe sat down and ran her hand through her hair. \"Damn you, Tommy.\"\n\n\"I had nothing to do with it, and you know damn well Jake Grafton didn't. You know Jake Grafton. But Soetoro and his staff are going to frame him and either lock him up forever or execute him. If he doesn't get hanged in his cell while he is awaiting trial.\"\n\n\"They wouldn't do that,\" she whispered.\n\n\"You think?\"\n\nShe put her face in her hands. Finally she whispered, \"Okay. They would.\"\n\n\"Right now he's being held in a detention center at Camp Dawson in West Virginia. They'll move him soon to the federal holding center in Washington. We need to know when they plan to do that, and how many agents will transport him. I assume they will be FBI agents, but I don't know that for a fact. You could help with that.\"\n\nShe studied the carpet. After a bit she said, \"You know if they catch me getting out of line they'll send me right back to the women's prison at Alderson. A knock on the door, handcuffs, and I'm gone for the rest of my life.\"\n\n\"If they catch me and Willie and the guys, we're going up the river too. If we're still alive.\"\n\nShe went into the kitchen and I heard her knocking around. In a few minutes she was back with two drinks. I sipped mine. Gin. I don't think much of gin, but I sipped along as if I drank it every day. She sipped hers too.\n\n\"So you get him out. Then what?\"\n\nI told her my idea.\n\n\"That won't work for long.\"\n\n\"Soetoro is lighting a fuse on a rebellion. We just need to be out of the blast zone until it blows up in his face, then he will have a great many more pressing problems than you, me, Grafton, and Willie the Wire.\"\n\n\"And if you are wrong?\"\n\n\"If I'm wrong, I'll be dead. The rest of us too, maybe.\"\n\n\"You would take that chance for Jake Grafton?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe took her drink and went to the window. Pulled back the drapes so she could see out. Stood there a while, taking an occasional sip of her drink. Finally she said, without turning around, \"You would.\"\n\n\"I need your help to pull this off,\" I told her.\n\nBack in his hotel that night, Ben Steiner went to the business center and used his computer to call up a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Texas Declaration of Independence of 1836. He printed them out, then logged off and went up to his room.\n\nHe read both documents carefully. The authors of the Texas declaration had obviously used the U.S declaration as a format. First there was a statement of their authority, then a list of grievances that justified what was to come, then the declaration itself, which severed the political ties with the mother country. The language of both was stirring, defiant, a political act that could not be undone except by military defeat by the mother country. Both were written for a wide audience, all the people in the nascent new nation and the citizens of the mother country, England and Mexico, respectively, and everyone in the world. The drafters of both knew they were writing a historical political document. They wrote for the people who would fight the battle and for all the generations yet to come.\n\nWriting such a document would require the best that was in him.\n\nBen Steiner turned on his computer and began.\nSIX\n\nJR Hays dug his hide at noon. Before he turned over the first shovelful of earth he rigged up a listening device with an eighteen-inch parabolic dish. The dish picked up sound that was too faint for the human ear to detect, magnified it, and delivered it to the operator via earphones or on a speaker.\n\nJR laid the dish antenna on the ground so he was listening to the sky. He heard jets come and go and birds flapping their wings. He began digging. The hide was on the side of the arroyo in hardpan. He had to use the pick to break it up enough to shovel. The dirt had to go in a wheelbarrow. He dumped the wheelbarrow fifty yards back where the dirt was fairly well concealed.\n\nWith the hide finished and bottles of water and weapons put inside, he installed a night-vision periscope. Twice he thought he heard piston engine sounds from the sky, so he quickly covered the hide with a green tarp. Then he lay on the ground and used night-vision goggles set for infrared. He saw the drone going northwest up the Rio Grande. When it was gone, he removed the tarp and got busy. An hour later the drone came back, so he did it all again.\n\nWhen he had the hide finished, JR installed his homemade mines on both sides of the arroyo. He got them in by ten in the evening. He could clean up the sites in the morning, but they were concealed well enough to not be seen at night.\n\nHe went to his hide, checked that the parabolic dish antenna for the audio device was well concealed thirty feet away in a bush and aimed right where he wanted it, then climbed in and pulled the tarp over the hole. He donned the headset and scanned with the night-vision periscope he had borrowed from his employer.\n\nHe was tired. He ate a few energy bars, drank water, and waited.\n\nHe doubted they would come tonight. Or tomorrow night. But eventually they would. And he had an unlimited quantity of time. The rest of his life, actually.\n\nAmbushes aren't for everyone. Few people have the patience to wait, and wait, and wait some more on the off chance that the opportunity you prepared for will actually happen. Snipers have that kind of patience, but most people don't. Most people want to attack right now. Or sooner. Yesterday would be preferable. Do it and get it over with.\n\nRevenge isn't that way. The juice in revenge, JR knew, is in the anticipation. The longer you wait the sweeter it will be.\n\nWhen he had repaired the fence that morning, he had attached a thin bare wire to it and run it to the hide. Now he twisted the end of the wire around one finger. Maybe he would feel it. His dad, he knew, had tried tin cans with rocks on the fence, but when the smugglers saw them, they knew he was nearby. JR doubted that they would see the wire. From his position near the fence, he should be able to count how many came through\u2014and he could make sure that none got back.\n\nSo what could go wrong? Well, despite his precautions a drone might have spotted him digging the hide or planting the mines. Federal agents might be on their way here right now.\n\nThere was nothing he could do about that contingency, so he dismissed it. Never worry about things you cannot control. That was one of the hard lessons he had learned in the army. He had taken all the precautions he could, and that would have to do.\n\nAs he sat in the hide with the periscope, listening to the audio on the earphones, he reviewed the timetable again. If they didn't come by two hours before dawn, they weren't coming. They needed at least an hour to hike to the paved road on the north side of the ranch and an hour to get back here. He thought they would want to be back across the river in Mexico by dawn. Maybe.\n\nBut if they didn't come or he missed them, he could get them some other night. They would keep coming as long as this delivery route worked. As the hours passed he consoled himself with the thought that the smugglers were dead men walking.\n\nBy midnight he was having a devil of a time staying awake. Ten hours of hard manual labor in the heat of the west Texas summer had about done him in. That's what you get for not staying in shape, he thought, for letting yourself get soft.\n\nHe dozed off finally, wearing the earphones. Awoke with a start. Thought about giving up on tonight and heading back to the ranch house. But if he did that, they would come tonight. That was the way God rolled the dice.\n\nJR checked his watch. Almost one in the morning. He decided he would give himself one more hour, and if they didn't come, go home to sleep. That decision made, he scanned with the periscope, saw nothing, and waited.\n\nAnd dozed. When he awoke again with a start, he found that it was almost two. Something woke him up.\n\nWhat?\n\nNow he felt it again. A tug on the wire wrapped around his finger. Something was brushing against the fence. An animal? He unwrapped the wire and let it dangle.\n\nHe listened on the parabolic dish, adjusted the volume in the earphones. Looked through the periscope and saw three men operating with wire cutters on the fence.\n\nThey were here!\n\nThe internet and telephone service in the Austin area went down at ten that evening. Ben Steiner knew the system was dead because he saw legislators fiddling with their cell phones and pocketing them in disgust.\n\nThe legislature was in joint session, considering a declaration of independence for Texas. The balconies were packed, standing room only.\n\nSteiner thought the declaration would pass, but figured it would take all night. Everyone, pro or con, had something to say.\n\nThose for independence were outraged at the president's announcement that he was stopping all gun sales and confiscating firearms from Americans nationwide. Was he afraid of armed, law-biding American citizens? Hell yes. And what further destruction of the American way of life was in the works? Freedom of speech was already gone. Freedom from arbitrary arrest was gone. Was freedom of religion next? Federal officers were arresting people and incarcerating them for no crime other than the fact that they had been political opponents of the administration. That was deeply troubling. Even worse was the fact that no one had a clue when martial law would be over, when the country could get back to normal, or if it ever would.\n\nThe delegates and senators opposed to the declaration were equally passionate. A Texas declaration of independence was a declaration of war. It was a bold step into the unknown. War. With all the power and might of the federal government against them. Several delegates argued that the threat from terrorism justified martial law, and others pointed out that it was Soetoro himself who demanded that some of the terrorists be admitted as refugees. \"He manufactured a bloody crisis and now he's using it to take the country where he wants it to go,\" a senator shouted acidly.\n\n\"Are you ready to lay down your life in opposition to the federal government?\" one representative demanded. \"Are you ready to lose everything, your family, your home, your savings, your means of making a living? Make no mistake; all those things are on the table. Are you ready to watch your children be killed in the violence? What will you say when your sons and daughters lie dead at your feet? Are you ready to turn your back on the American flag, the flag so many Texans have given their lives to defend? What the hell kind of people are you?\"\n\nAnother representative wanted to argue about the process. \"This question is so important that it should be voted on by the people of Texas, not passed here by majority vote. This isn't a convention of delegates elected to consider independence and draft a declaration\u2014it's the state legislature, for God's sake.\"\n\n\"Texas voters will get their chance,\" someone shouted. \"We're here to ensure that they do.\"\n\n\"Freedom isn't free,\" another speaker pointed out. \"Freedom in America has been bought with blood. And that freedom purchased at such a precious price has been taken from us, ripped from our hands. The feds didn't declare martial law after Lincoln, Garfield, or JFK were assassinated. Are our institutions so flawed that a dictator can destroy them before our eyes, yet we lack the moral and physical courage to fight for our heritage? Mr. Speaker, if we won't fight to preserve our freedom, we don't deserve it. And Barry Soetoro will take it from us. He's trying to do that as we sit here this evening. There is only one thing for an American patriot to do, and that is vote to remove Texas from the tyranny of Barry Soetoro and the federal government.\" A roar went up from the audience.\n\nBen Steiner went into the governor's office and found him conferring with several senior National Guard officers. A glance out the window showed troops in the yard, a lot of them. Two tanks were visible, and three armored personnel carriers. Jack Hays had called out the Guard.\n\nFinally Hays came over to Steiner and whispered, \"How is it going over there?\" He meant on the other side of the capitol building, in the House chamber.\n\n\"They're debating.\"\n\n\"Will we win?\"\n\n\"I think so, but I guarantee nothing. Think of them as a large jury. Soetoro is on trial.\"\n\n\"They'd better get it done tonight. Federal agents are out there with some regular army troops, and they sent word in that everyone in this building is under arrest.\"\n\n\"Will the Guard hold?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Ben.\" The skin of Jack Hays' face was drawn tightly over his cheekbones and his eyes seemed to have sunk back into his skull. \"I suspect that if the legislature decides to surrender, the guardsmen will go back to their armory, turn in their weapons, and go home. What else is there for them to do?\"\n\n\"I'll go tell the legislature,\" Steiner said.\n\nHays stopped him with a tug at his sleeve. \"Make damned sure every person in that chamber understands that if they declare independence, their necks are on the line.\"\n\n\"I think they know that.\"\n\n\"If we can't win our independence, we're all dead, including you and me. Once they vote for independence, we've crossed the river of fire and burned our boats.\"\n\n\"Jesus carried his cross,\" Ben Steiner said gently. \"We have to stand for something or the gift of life was wasted on us.\" He walked out the door and along the hallway through lines of state troopers.\n\nThe peons laden with backpacks full of narcotics trudged along in the darkness about six feet apart. There was starlight and a sliver of moon, but the old Indian trail up from Mexico would have been easy to follow regardless.\n\nWith the periscope, JR saw the lead man with a backpack and started counting. One. . .two. . .he quit at eight. Eight mules. No doubt there were armed guards, perhaps even the same ones who had killed his father, but they weren't on the trail. One was probably behind him, paralleling the trail.\n\nJR glanced at the luminescent hands of his watch when the last man went by. At the speed the peons were walking, he thought it would take about a minute and a half for all of them to get into the kill zone. He had walked it himself that morning, timing it.\n\nCarefully, ever so carefully, he rotated the periscope. If he hadn't already passed the hide, the man or men on this side of the arroyo guarding the column must be close. JR had to get them first.\n\nThe second hand of his watch was swinging, past forty-five seconds. Come on, man, where are you?\n\nAh, there, moving slowly and carefully. JR zoomed in on his head, which was partially obscured by brush. But for an instant he got a good look. Yep, he was wearing a night-vision headset. But there was only the one man. A quick sweep revealed no others.\n\nJR lifted the edge of the tarp an inch or so, located the man. He was about forty feet away, moving right along so as to keep up with the mules. He was relying on the goggles, so he wasn't situationally alert. JR poked his AR-15 with the night-vision scope out under the tarp. He flicked off the safety, aimed it, and squeezed the trigger. The man went down.\n\nAbandoning the rifle for a moment, JR located his lighter and the detonator cord by feel. Applied the flame. That cord burned at several thousand feet a second. It seemed to explode, dissolve into ashes. Then he heard the explosions, just one big roar. At least two screams, of men in mortal agony. The blast was followed by a patter on the ground and brush, like rain. JR knew what it was: he had used ten pounds of screws and nails in the mines.\n\nNow for the shooter or shooters on the other side of the arroyo. JR hadn't seen any, but he knew someone was there. These guys didn't take chances.\n\nHe came out of the hide on his belly, wearing the night-vision goggles, with the AR cradled in his arms. He crawled as he scanned around. Black powder smoke oozed through the brush and acted like fog, reducing visibility. Still, the other men might have caught the muzzle flash of the AR or seen the flash of the burning det cord.\n\nHe caught a glimpse of a man, then saw the muzzle flash and heard the bullet strike brush near his head.\n\nJR shot back, three shots as fast as he could squeeze the trigger, then he rolled sideways away from the spot where he had been.\n\nLay in the brush on his face, waiting.\n\nSilence.\n\nHow much patience would these shooters have? They weren't trained soldiers and they had no idea how many opponents they faced.\n\nRaising his head, JR scanned again with the goggles. There was a lot of brush, so he could be sure of nothing, except he didn't see anyone.\n\nIt occurred to him that the man behind him might be only wounded. So he crawled that way to check on him. The little .223-caliber slug had hit him square in the chest and killed him almost instantly.\n\nNow for the other man. JR thought anyone on the other side of the arroyo would make for the hole in the fence as quickly as they could get there. They had heard explosions, screams, and shots from two different weapons, and had certainly gotten a good whiff of the stench of that black powder smoke. They knew they had walked into an ambush; they didn't know how many people they faced; they'd get out of there as fast as they could.\n\nJR crawled to an old juniper, which screened him from the west side of the gully and allowed him to see where the fence crossed the arroyo. He waited, lying absolutely still.\n\nTwo minutes, and then he saw a man break from the brush and run toward the hole in the fence. JR shot him in the back. Down he went on his face, the rifle falling ten feet away. JR took careful aim and shot the prone man again.\n\nHe waited, listened, scanned with the goggles, felt his heart pounding in his chest.\n\nHe consciously willed his heart to slow, which was ridiculous, but it did, finally. Ten minutes passed. . .eleven. Now he heard a man. Sounded as if he were in the arroyo, moaning softly, dragging himself along.\n\nJR tried to become one with the earth. Put his head down and listened.\n\nYes, the man was dragging himself along, moaning, \"Madre de Dios. . .\"\n\nHe was just to JR's right, down in the arroyo, crawling for the fence. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five feet away from where JR lay, but JR didn't move. Didn't even twitch. There might be another shooter out there, one with steel nerves, and if there were, to move was to die.\n\nFinally the man made the gap in the fence and JR saw him with the goggles. Shot him with the rifle, twice. Now the man lay absolutely still, the stillness of death.\n\nJR leaped to his feet and ran away from the fence, out of the area at an angle.\n\nHe loped along, turned north, and went around the kill zone and finally joined the trail. Jogging along with his rifle at port arms, wearing the goggles; he could do this for hours. Or used to be able to, anyway. Tonight, with his nostrils full of the black powder smell and his ears still ringing from the gunshots, he fell into a rhythm. Only two miles to go, two miles, run, run, run.\n\nHe wanted to see that van, get the license number.\n\nHe got to the fence, ran eastward along it fifty feet, and lay down. The road was empty. Checked his watch. Forty-five minutes had passed since he detonated the mines.\n\nHis breathing returned to normal and he waited.\n\nSeems like he had spent the major portion of his life waiting. He tried not to think, just became one with the night. The van would come, if the driver wasn't waiting for a cell phone call to summon him. Waiting just up the road, around the bend.\n\nHe saw the glare of the headlights in the goggles before he heard the engine.\n\nIt came on, slowing. It wasn't a van; it was a car. Down to a creep as it approached the spot where the trail and fence met. No doubt the driver was looking for a signal. Didn't see it, so he began to accelerate on by.\n\nJR got a good look as the car passed the fence. It had a bank of emergency lights on the roof and on the side it said \"Sheriff of Upshur County,\" and under that, \"To serve and protect.\"\n\nFive minutes later it came slowly back. JR was tempted. Taking out the driver would be an easy shot, but then what? He let it go by. Big man driving. Maybe the sheriff himself, ol' Manuel Tejada.\n\nFive or six minutes later the sheriff's car returned heading east. Five or six minutes after that, it passed again, westbound, and as the taillights went on along the road, JR heard the engine wind up to highway speed and saw the dimly glowing taillights fade into the darkness of the rolling plains.\n\nIn the House, Ben Steiner signaled to the speaker that he would like the floor. The speaker recognized him. The chamber was silent as he approached the podium.\n\n\"My fellow Texans,\" he said. \"This building is surrounded by federal agents and regular army troops, who have sent in word that everyone in this building is under arrest. Defending us are Texans from our National Guard. There has been no shooting yet, but there might be, at any moment. Armed Texans are trying to defend this building, this seat of Texas government, and defend you, the elected representatives of the people of Texas. And some in this chamber worry that blood might be shed, so they advocate our surrender to tyranny.\"\n\nSteiner paused and surveyed his audience on the chamber floor and in the balconies. \"I _do not_ believe\u2014I _cannot_ believe\u2014that such sentiments are representative of the sentiments of the people of Texas, the physical and spiritual descendants of the defenders of the Alamo, those patriots who laid down their lives rather than surrender to the tyranny of the Mexican government. I say to you, Remember the Alamo! Remember those thirteen days of glory. Remember those brave men who laid down their lives so that Texans might be free.\"\n\nThe applause rose like thunder in the chamber. Ben Steiner mopped his brow with his handkerchief. He was on a roll now, and he knew the jury was with him. He waited until the noise died somewhat and said, \"Hard, cold, and cruel will be the road ahead. Many difficult decisions will have to be made. Many will suffer, some will die. Yet I say to you, Americans everywhere will judge us by what we do here tonight. We can so conduct ourselves that future generations will glorify our deeds and honor our lives, and remember our deaths if need be. . .or we can surrender and throw ourselves on the mercy of a tyrant. Is life so precious that you would shame yourself to keep it? As for me, I want to repeat\u2014and I hope someday they engrave these words upon my tombstone\u2014the immortal words of Colonel William Barret Travis at the Alamo: 'Victory or Death.'\"\n\nThe applause and cheering rose to a staggering volume. Ben Steiner turned around, leaned toward the speaker, and shouted to be heard. \"Mr. Speaker, I move the question.\"\n\nThe Senate passed the declaration by two-thirds vote, and the majority was almost as large in the House.\n\nBen Steiner went back to the podium. \"My fellow Texans, we are making history tonight, history that Texans will talk about as long as there are people in Texas and men yearn to be free. We cannot tell our children and our children's children that we passed this by a mere majority vote. I move that the vote be made unanimous.\"\n\nThe speaker called for a voice vote. The yeas had it.\n\nSteiner was so relieved he had to hang on to the podium to stay erect as the legislators cheered wildly.\n\nThe leaders of both chambers signed the document and took it to the governor to be signed, which he did. He handed the signed document to the colonel in charge of the National Guard troops, one with the unfortunate name of Buster Bean, and said, \"Get a loudspeaker and read this on the steps of the capitol.\"\n\nWhen the crowd in the governor's office had thinned somewhat because many of them wanted to be outside to hear the declaration read, Jack Hays asked Ben Steiner, \"What did you say to them?\"\n\n\"I paraphrased Winston Churchill and Colonel Travis and appealed to their honor.\"\n\n\"I guess you convinced them.\"\n\n\"No. They knew the right thing to do. They just needed to hear someone say it.\"\n\nThe floodlights of several television stations almost blinded Colonel Bean, but at least their illumination helped him read the document.\n\n\"The unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the elected representatives of the people of Texas in General Convention in the City of Austin on the twenty-third day of August, 2016.\n\n\"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for whose happiness it was instituted, and ceases to be a guarantor of those inalienable rights which are granted to every human by God Almighty, and becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression:\n\n\"When the federal Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, has been declared a nullity by the leader of their country and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed without their consent from a limited federal republic into a military dictatorship:\n\n\"When, after the spirit of representative, constitutional government has been forcibly usurped, when the semblance of freedom has been removed and the sole power in the land is the whims of a dictator, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to preserve their liberty, rights, and property by taking the political power into their own hands becomes a sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such a government and create another in its stead, one calculated to rescue them from impending dangers and secure their future welfare and happiness.\"\n\nInside the governor's office the amplified voice outside was quite clear. Jack Hays said to Ben Steiner, \"Good stuff, but I've read much of that before.\"\n\n\"I cribbed it. I couldn't do better.\"\n\nColonel Bean read a list of grievances, including Barry Soetoro's declaration of martial law, the arrest of political opponents, and the de facto repeal of the First Amendment.\n\nHe ended with this paragraph:\n\n\"It has been demanded that we deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense, the rightful property of free men, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.\"\n\n\"The necessity of self-preservation therefore now demands our separation from the United States of America. We, therefore, the duly elected representatives of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, do hereby resolve and declare that the political connection with the United States of America has forever ended, and the people of Texas do now constitute a free, sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully vested with all the rights and attributes that properly belong to independent nations; and conscious of the righteousness of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destiny of nations and mankind.\"\n\nColonel Bean stepped away from the podium as applause and wild cheering broke out. Beyond the National Guard troops, many of the U.S. Army soldiers began leaving in twos and threes. Here and there sergeants and officers tried to stop them, but many went anyway. The regular army officer in charge, a colonel, knew when to fight and when to regroup. He ordered his soldiers to return to base. In less than fifteen minutes, only National Guard troops remained on the capitol lawn, facing a sea of cheering civilians. Thousands of them. People poured from the side streets as the news swiftly spread and soon packed the area as far as the eye could see. Texas flags were waved defiantly and proudly.\n\nTexas was once again an independent nation. If the Texans could make it stick.\nSEVEN\n\nIn Washington, Thurman Truax, the senior U.S. senator from Texas, was appalled at the spectacle on television that morning. He had been in politics since he was twenty-seven years old, which was thirty-five years ago, and he kept his ear close to the ground in Texas to find out what people were thinking, so close to the ground that the people said he had dirt in it. He had been worried for years about this independence movement and had talked about it at length with the governor, Jack Hays, who he thought was against it too. Apparently Jack Hays had changed his mind or found he was caught in a tide he couldn't resist.\n\nTruax had suspected something of this sort might happen when Soetoro announced martial law, and had called the White House to tell the president so. He wound up speaking to some junior aide. The president had made his decision, Truax was told. He also shared his misgivings with the other senator from Texas and the members of the Texas congressional delegation, some of whom shared his concern, and the leadership in the Senate.\n\nThe television was still showing video of people cheering and celebrating independence in front of the capitol in Austin when Truax called his chief of staff. He had tried five times to call the governor and had sent him three e-mails during the broadcast, but had been unable to get through. Nor could he reach any of his political or social friends in Austin. Texas seemed to have dropped right out of the United States.\n\nNot that he blamed Texas. Truax had fought the good fight against admitting Muslim refugees from the Middle East to America, many of whom, he suspected, were jihadists. Of course, despite Soetoro's and the secretary of state's bromides about security checks and vetting them, the reality was that the refugees had no identification whatsoever, a fact the president and his administration chose to ignore. And jihad had come to pass. Murder in a parochial school, on a train, in Yankee Stadium. . .sometimes Truax thought that the administration actually wanted some terrorist incidents. So now Texas had rebelled.\n\nHis chief of staff had watched the broadcast too. And she also had tried repeatedly to call people in Austin and had been unable to get through. Truax didn't wait to hear her take on the whole mess, but told her to make airline reservations to get the senator back to Texas as soon as she could this morning.\n\nHe heard pounding on his door. When he answered it, a television reporter and cameraman were standing there, wanting an interview.\n\n\"As you can see, I'm still in my pajamas. My office will have a statement for the press later this morning.\"\n\n\"Did you know this Declaration of Independence was going to happen, Senator?\"\n\n\"No comment.\" He closed the door on the reporter, a woman with NBC, locked it, and went upstairs to dress.\n\nThe truth was, he was appalled. Those fools in Austin had smashed Pandora's box. Barry Soetoro would be outraged, and he was the commander in chief of the armed forces. No telling what that damned fool would do. The United States was tearing itself apart, and the senator felt powerless to prevent it. No one in Washington wanted to listen to reason. Truax well knew that every decision government made had consequences, intended and unintended. Barry Soetoro and Jack Hays were on a collision course.\n\nAfter he was dressed, the senator went to the kitchen for coffee and a boiled egg. He ate his meager breakfast in front of the television watching national coverage of the news, whatever Soetoro's censors would permit to be aired, which was universal condemnation of the Texas political system and everyone in it. Terrorism seemed to have dropped off the news radar. Texas treason, one talking head said. Another speculated that since the president had declared martial law, the governor of Texas and members of the legislature could be tried by court-martial, and probably would be.\n\nTruax had had his fill and turned the television off when he heard another knock on the door. He looked out the security peephole. It wasn't a reporter. He opened the door and found four FBI agents, who had orders to arrest him. As it turned out, the White House had ordered that Senator Truax and every member of the Texas delegation were to be arrested and held in a Washington prison for treason. An FBI agent accompanied him upstairs to get his medications.\n\nAs he rode away in the back of a car in handcuffs, Truax pondered on the reaction in Texas when this news got out.\n\nOne of the people who heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud heard it over the radio. As it happened, he was the captain of a tugboat in Galveston Harbor. He was always up early, planning the morning's work on the boat before it had to get under way for the day's tows or pushes. He took his cup of coffee out and climbed the ladder to his bridge.\n\nAcross the harbor he could see an attack submarine berthed, USS _Texas_ , a _Virginia_ -class boat, only a few years old, moored port side to a pier. She had come in yesterday for a three-day port call to show the flag, entertain visitors, and let the good people of Texas see where the navy's share of their federal taxes was being spent.\n\nHow long would she be here now? he wondered. Bet they'll get under way as soon as they hear the news.\n\nHe set his cup down and ran down the ladder to his crew berthing, where his engineer and first officer were sound asleep. Those two were all the crew he had right now. The seamen who fixed things and handled lines wouldn't come aboard until half past seven.\n\n\"Wake up,\" he urged as he shook them. \"We're going to move the tug.\"\n\nHe gave hurried explanations as they pulled on jeans and tugged on shoes.\n\nTen minutes later, the tug, _Mabel Hardaway_ , named after his wife, got under way. Captain Hardaway took it over to where the sub was berthed and maneuvered to anchor immediately behind it. To ensure the tug didn't swing on her anchor and damage the sub's screws, he dropped an anchor from the stern as he came up slowly, then a bow anchor. He backed down and killed the engines, then went down the outside ladder to the deck to help the first mate secure the anchors.\n\nThat sub isn't leaving until I say so, he thought, vastly pleased with himself.\n\nHe got on the radio to another tug, managed to wake up the skipper, and asked it to come anchor immediately beside the submarine. \"As soon as you can get here,\" Captain Hardaway added for emphasis.\n\nAboard _Texas_ , the watch officer awakened the captain, Commander Mike Rodriquez, who had spent the previous evening at a dinner in his honor in a hotel in Galveston, one attended by the mayor, most of the city councilmen, and everyone who was anyone in the Chamber of Commerce. He had probably had one or two too many glasses of wine, but toasts were offered right and left and he had to do it, he told himself then.\n\nHis head was a little thick as he listened to the watch officer. \"We have a tugboat anchored immediately behind us.\"\n\n\"In the prohibited zone?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I've notified the harbor police.\"\n\n\"They can probably handle it,\" the captain said. \"Are our guards on the pier?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. And armed.\"\n\nIn the age of terror one can't be too careful, the captain well knew. Local jihadists would secure undying fame in Paradise if they could damage a U.S. nuclear submarine. The FBI had assured him they were keeping a close eye on the local Muslims, of whom there were only a few. Still. . .\n\nThe captain quickly donned his uniform, khakis because he wore camos only when under way and he hated them. He went to the control room, satisfied himself that everything was as it should be, then climbed the tiny conning tower to the miniscule bridge.\n\nYep, there was the tug, _Mabel Hardaway_. What in the world was that thing doing there? He picked up a loud-hailer and pointed it at the tug's bridge.\n\n\"You are in a prohibited zone. Get under way and move your boat immediately.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" came the shouted reply, quite audible in the pre-dawn stillness.\n\n\"You will be arrested if you don't move that boat.\"\n\nNo reply.\n\n\"Sir,\" the watch officer said. \"One of the sentries is running toward us. There are some civilians up there at the head of the pier.\" He was using his binoculars. \"Looks as if some of them are carrying rifles.\" He handed the binoculars to the CO, who was staring through them as the sentry came halfway across the gangway and shouted, \"Sir, those civilians say they have closed the pier. They say they won't let our liberty party back aboard.\"\n\n\"Why?\" the officer of the deck asked loudly enough to be heard.\n\n\"They say Texas declared its independence an hour ago.\"\n\nThe captain rubbed his head. Jesus Christ, he thought. Of all the time for a port visit! He glanced back at the tug. Well, he couldn't back out of here, even if he got all the lines off the boat.\n\nHe looked to his starboard side. If he could swing the stern, perhaps he could back and forth using the rudder until he could go behind the tug, like a car getting out of a parallel parking place. He used the binoculars in the half-light and saw the line running off the stern of _Mabel Hardaway_ at an angle, out into the open area he would have to use. He knew he was looking at a chain with an anchor on the end. Backing the naked screws of his boat into the chain would disable _Texas_.\n\n\"Here comes another tug, sir,\" the OOD said, and pointed.\n\nSure enough, there it was, maybe a mile away down the harbor, coming slowly. It would certainly be here before he could get _Texas_ free of the pier and maneuver her out of this slip. And even if he did get _Texas_ out of the slip, the tugs could ram her and make sure she didn't get out of the harbor.\n\nDamn!\n\n\"Go below,\" Rodriquez told the OOD, \"and get off a flash message to SUBLANT. Tell them we are blocked in by tugboats, with armed civilians on the pier. Go.\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir.\"\n\nGulls wheeled above him as he stood alone weighing his options. Half his crew was on liberty in Galveston. While he could operate the boat with the duty section, he had nowhere to go with tugs in the way. His sentries could keep the civilians off the pier, for a while, anyway, unless they started shooting.\n\nHe could scuttle the boat, sink her here in this slip. But the navy brass would have his balls if he did that and the independence news was some kind of misinformation or a political ploy to embarrass the Soetoro administration, something that could be cleared up or would go away in a few hours or days. He certainly didn't know. All he knew was what the sentry had told him. If he scuttled _Texas_ , she could be raised of course, and eventually returned to seaworthy condition, after she had spent a year or so in the Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut where she was built.\n\nHe decided to wait and see what SUBLANT said to do. He wanted someone in a much higher pay grade to point to if recriminations started. Let the admiral earn his pay, he thought as he watched the other tug ease into the slip and tie up starboard side to the pier abeam _Texas_. Now he was blocked in.\n\nWhen the OOD came back up the ladder he said, \"Message sent, Captain.\"\n\nThe skipper pointed at the tug on the starboard side. \"Go send another one. Tell them we are corked good.\"\n\nThe OOD took a quick look and disappeared back down the ladder.\n\nThe skipper looked at the people milling on the pier. At least thirty of them, only a couple of sailors in uniform, and a police car. Maybe he should go up there and talk to the cop.\n\nWhen the OOD came back, the captain gave his instructions, went below for his ball cap, then went to the forward torpedo room and climbed the ladder through the open hatch to the main deck. He paused on the gangway and saluted the flag flying on its portable flagpole on the stern, then went ashore.\n\nAfter Colonel Curt Wriston, commander of the Texas National Guard in Abilene, saw the declaration read on TV, he tried to call his headquarters in Austin, with no success. The telephone didn't even ring.\n\nWriston dressed, skipped his morning coffee, and got into his car. He picked up his deputy commander. They discussed the situation and were in agreement: the Soetoro administration would use force against Texas, just as quickly as they could.\n\nWriston drove the county roads to a spot near the perimeter fence of Dyess Air Force Base. From there, they could see the two runways: the main runway, 13,500 feet long, and a short parallel runway, 3,500 feet long. Also visible in this flat country in the clear air of early dawn were the big hangars and flight line between the two runways. Wriston looked around. Not a cloud in the sky.\n\nNo doubt the commander of the base, Brigadier General l'Angistino, was on the wires right now with bomber headquarters in Nebraska and the air force brass in Washington, asking for instructions. Everyone in the chain of command would bump the decisions up the ladder, Wriston thought. He knew how the military bureaucracy worked these days. Initiative had been ruthlessly and remorselessly squeezed out of the system. Obey orders was the mantra, and, whatever you do, don't make your bosses look bad. General l'Angistino was a good man, but he would undoubtedly have to wait awhile for orders, which would have to come from the very top, perhaps even the White House, which would have a ton of other red-hot problems to deal with today.\n\nThe deputy commander said it first. \"We need to block those runways, make sure the air force doesn't fly those bombers and Hercules transports out of there. Texas will need them.\"\n\n\"They'll probably sabotage them,\" Wriston said thoughtfully, \"if they can't fly them out.\"\n\n\"Either way, they can't use them to transport troops or bomb us.\"\n\n\"We could use tanks, just go through the fence,\" Wriston mused.\n\n\"We only have four tanks, and one of them has the fire control system disassembled for upgrade.\"\n\n\"It'll move.\"\n\nThe deputy said, \"That big runway is about three hundred feet wide, as I recall. Take a serious amount of iron to block it. And the Hercs can use the short runway.\"\n\n\"We can get some construction equipment, road graders, and bulldozers,\" Wriston suggested. \"They can follow the tanks. We'll block the long runway, and if we have any equipment left, leave it on the small one. We'll have to block the long one in at least two places. Three would be better.\" He used a small set of binoculars he kept in the car for looking at birds to examine the distant buildings, which looked like toy blocks sitting out there on the horizon.\n\nWriston added, \"They've got cranes and such to handle crashed airplanes. If they can't start the engines and drive our stuff off, they'll drag it off.\"\n\n\"We can disable everything.\"\n\n\"Only delay them for a day, maybe two.\"\n\n\"That might be enough. Let's do it.\"\n\nWriston started his car and they drove away planning where to get the yellow equipment, people to drive it, and how to summon their tankers.\n\nAt the head of the pier in Galveston where _Texas_ was moored, Commander Mike Rodriquez found out that the Declaration of Independence news the sentry had given him was as real as a heart attack. Thirty or so civilians carrying rifles, some of them civilian versions of the M16, were standing there watching him. The sheriff had him sit in the right seat of his patrol car, which had its front windows down, then got behind the wheel. When he was comfortably settled, he gave the naval officer the news about the declaration.\n\n\"Texas is now a free republic,\" the sheriff said in summary. The captain scrutinized the lawman's face to see if he was kidding. He didn't appear to be. The fucking idiot! Secession in this day and age!\n\nOne of the civilians came over and leaned on the car to hear what was being said inside. The sheriff ran him off.\n\n\"Now, Captain, this is the way I see it,\" the sheriff continued. He had a serious pot gut that lapped over the buckle of his gun belt. His shirt needed pressing and he needed a shave. \"I haven't talked to anybody in Austin 'cause the phones are out and, anyway, they're probably drunk and asleep, which I ought to be. When they wake up they're gonna be mighty busy. In any event this declaration thing sorta upset the applecart. Did you watch it on TV a while ago?\"\n\nNo.\n\n\"County commissioners are asleep too, and even when they get up this morning, they're goin' to tell me what they always say, which is use my own judgment. That way if people start squallin' I have to take the heat and not them. Being an elected official and all, I suppose it comes with the territory. But you probably ain't interested in my problems, since you got a big one your own self.\"\n\nGet on with it, you oaf, Rodriquez thought.\n\n\"Your problem is that these voters here aren't going to let your sailors get on your submarine. And it looks to me like those tugboat captains ain't goin' to move their boats to allow you to get goin', even if you had all your sailors. That's kinda it in a nutshell.\"\n\n\"And you aren't going to clear the pier and tell the tugboat captains to get out of the prohibited area?\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it.\"\n\nRodriquez thought of a common dirty word but didn't say it. He pulled at the door handle.\n\nThe sheriff laid a hand on his arm. \"You stay right here. I think this whole situation will go better if you sit right here with me. Keep the crowd calmed down. If these people start shootin' your sailors, we'll both have more problems than we do now.\"\n\n\"If they shot my sailors, you'd arrest them, wouldn't you? A crime committed in your presence.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. I haven't got my thinkin' that far down the road. Been my experience that problems are best headed off, if possible, rather than tackled afterward. That's what I'm tryin' to do. Now are you gonna just sit here like I told you, or do I have to handcuff you and lock you in the back?\"\n\nRodriquez couldn't contain himself. \"You son of a bitch!\"\n\n\"Be that as it may, I need a yes or no.\"\n\n\"I'll sit.\"\n\n\"Fine. I'll radio for one of my deputies to stop by McDonald's and get us some McMuffins and coffee. Or do you want something else?\"\n\n\"That'll do, thanks.\"\n\nThe sheriff picked up the dashboard mike and started talking.\n\nForty-five minutes later, after they had eaten, the sheriff had the deputy, with the crowd's help, disarm Rodriquez' sentries and take them to jail. \"Just to hold for a little while,\" the sheriff told Rodriquez, \"until somebody with more brains than me can figure out what we oughta do.\"\n\nFive minutes after the sentries had departed with the deputy, a sailor from the sub came looking for his captain. He had a wad of paper in his hand. He spotted Rodriquez in the patrol car and came over to the open window. \"Messages, Captain,\" he said and offered them.\n\n\"I'll take those, son,\" the sheriff said, holding out his right hand. When he had them, he told the sailor, \"You're under arrest. Now you get in the back of the car here.\"\n\nThe sailor looked beseechingly at his commanding officer.\n\n\"Do as he says,\" Rodriquez said listlessly. Shit, he thought, I should have stayed on the boat. What a fool I was! There goes my naval career!\n\nBy ten o'clock the crowd had swelled to at least fifty people, most of them carrying rifles. They were having a high old time. Some of them had brought beer, which they shared. Sailors who were ashore and wanted back aboard their submarine were arrested and taken away.\n\n\"Crowd's gettin' a little rowdy, don't you think?\" the sheriff asked Commander Rodriquez.\n\n\"Yes,\" he agreed.\n\n\"I kinda think it's time we put an end to this and let these folks go home or to work or to a bar someplace to tank up. Let's you and me walk down the pier and you get all your people out of that thing and bring them along. I'll get a bus to take them to a hotel.\"\n\nRodriquez felt like a cornered rat. Aboard the boat he could overpower the sheriff, scram the reactor, and order her scuttled. But should he scuttle her? If this political thing blew over. . . . He looked longingly at the classified messages the sheriff had read and tucked into a pocket in the driver's door. It wasn't as if these civilians knew how to operate a nuclear submarine, for Christ's sake. USS _Texas_ wasn't going anywhere. And the U.S. Navy could destroy her with a Tomahawk cruise missile or two anytime they got around to it.\n\n\"Let me read those messages,\" he said.\n\n\"Nope. It's my way or I send you off to join your sailors in jail. Then I'll go down there with these voters and arrest all of them aboard. Your only choice is to go with me or go to jail.\"\n\n\"I'll go with you.\"\n\nThe sheriff got out of the car. He stopped the captain and pulled out handcuffs. \"We'll put these on you,\" he said, \"in case you get any big ideas. Just to protect myself, you understand.\"\n\nHe cuffed the captain's hands in front of him, then pulled his pistol. He waved it at the crowd. \"You people back off and give me room. Don't want anyone comin' down the pier. Don't want anyone doin' anything we'll all regret. Come on, Captain.\"\n\nAt the gangway, the sheriff could see an officer or sailor on the bridge. He told the captain, \"Tell them to turn off the reactor and come out. All of 'em.\"\n\n\"Aren't we going aboard?\"\n\n\"No. They ain't goin' no place in that boat and you ain't neither. So get them out here.\"\n\nWhen the remainder of the submarine's crew were on the pier, about two dozen men, the sheriff thought, although he didn't bother to count them, he asked one of the chiefs, \"Did you turn that reactor off?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Got everybody out of there?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"That's good, 'cause after you're gone, I'm goin' aboard and look around, and if I find anybody they might scare me and I'll probably have to shoot 'em. Hate to do it, but if I fear for my personal safety, and I will, there ain't nothin' else I can do. Promised my wife when I first run for sheriff that I wouldn't endanger myself.\"\n\n\"There's no one else aboard,\" the chief said sullenly.\n\nThe sheriff looked down the pier and saw that a blue bus marked SHERIFF had arrived on the quay. \"There's your ride, Captain. Lead them down the pier and climb aboard.\"\n\nThat was how the brand spanking new Republic of Texas acquired its first warship.\nEIGHT\n\nIn the dim light of dawn JR inspected the bodies. Some of the nails and screws in the mines had ripped open the backpacks and blasted white powder everywhere. JR didn't know if it was cocaine or heroin, and he didn't care. Only two of the mules had obviously tried to crawl away and bled to death; the others died almost instantly, perforated by the metal from the mines\u2014four with nails and screws that had ripped into their brains, another eviscerated.\n\nThe two at the fence were well and truly dead, too. The man who had dragged himself had his gut torn open and intestines were trailing behind him. The bullet that killed him had been a mercy.\n\nJR got his first surprise when he looked at the first man he shot, the man near his hide. The man had yellow and green tattoos that started at his wrists and ran up his forearms.\n\nThat deputy sheriff\u2014he had tattoos like that, very distinctive. What was his name? Morales? He seemed to recall that was it.\n\nJR didn't recognize the other man wearing night-vision goggles. JR pulled the goggles off. He looked like he might have a lot of Mexican in him, but with his face contorted in death, it was difficult to say.\n\nHays walked back to the ranch house and poured himself a stiff tot of bourbon. Sat on the porch with the AR across his lap sipping the whiskey as the sun poked over the horizon and sunlight began illuminating the high places in the brush. Cloudless blue sky. Another scorching hot day in the works. Those bodies were going to get ripe pretty quick.\n\nThe syndicate that sent those drugs across the border would send more men, probably pretty soon. JR had no idea how much money the drugs represented, but he knew it was a lot. Enough to buy the deaths of a thousand peons and a whole lot of Americans. Enough to buy half the sheriffs in Texas.\n\nJR took out his cell phone and called his cousin the governor. Nothing. No ringtone on the thing. He looked at how many bars he had. Two. Well, that should be enough. But the cell didn't work. He went inside and tried the landline. No luck there either.\n\nHe was exhausted and needed sleep. Yet Manuel Tejada would be along in a little while to find out what had happened to his deputy and all the drugs he was supposed to pick up. He wouldn't phrase it quite that way, but that would be what he wanted. Mainly, however, he would want the drugs. If Tejada could show the syndicate the drugs he might get out of this with a whole skin. If he couldn't, he was going to be in trouble, although how much JR didn't know. Maybe he could dig Tejada's pit deeper.\n\nJR placed the guns in the floor of the backseat of his pickup and drove down to the arroyo, as close as he could get. He retrieved the gear from the hide, including the periscope and parabolic antenna, stored all this stuff in the tool chest in the bed of the truck. Went to the bodies of the mules and removed the backpacks. Two were so torn up the white powder spilled all over the ground. JR thought each backpack had contained twenty-five pounds or so of the stuff.\n\nThe syndicate was going to be pissed.\n\nJR put the six reasonably intact backpacks in the chest, locked it, and drove off. When he got to the main gate, he stopped and opened the gate, then got back in the truck.\n\nHad the sheriff been in on it? Apparently. But JR wanted to be sure. He pulled out his cell phone and let it log on the network. Two bars. He called 911, got the sheriff's office number, then dialed it.\n\n\"Sheriff Tejada.\"\n\n\"JR Hays, Sheriff, out here at the Hays ranch.\"\n\nA pause, then, \"What can I do for you, JR?\"\n\n\"Hell of a shootout last night here at the ranch, Sheriff, a little after three. Woke me up. A real firefight. Kinda scared me. I went down this morning for a look, and bodies are lying all over the place. Looks like a drug gang ambush. The dead men had about two hundred pounds of some kind of drug on them.\"\n\nHe paused, but the sheriff said nothing.\n\n\"It's pretty bloody, Sheriff. Goddamn mess is exactly what it is. Might have been some of the bastards who killed my dad.\"\n\n\"The drugs are still there?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Huh! What kind of drugs?\"\n\n\"Damn if I know. It isn't marijuana, that's for sure. Some kind of white powder. Anyway, I'm going to call the staties and DEA, but I wanted to give you a courtesy heads-up first.\"\n\n\"Appreciate that, JR. Much obliged. But before you call those other agencies, let me run out there for a look. I'll bring the county coroner and we'll see about the bodies.\"\n\n\"When can you get here?\"\n\n\"Couple of hours.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty worried. God only knows what all that powder shit is worth. I kinda suspect somebody might come back to get it.''\n\n\"This is my county, JR.\" Like the slob owned it.\n\n\"Yes. Yes, it is.\" He paused as if he hated to wait. \"Okay, Sheriff, you come out and look around and call them. These guys aren't going anywhere. Gonna get hot again today and they'll get real ripe fast. Better bring some body bags.\"\n\n\"Two hours. I'm on my way.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nHe broke the connection. The sheriff hadn't even asked how many dead men there were.\n\nHe pulled the truck through the gate, got out, and shut it carefully. As he walked back to the truck a buzzard in the cloudless sky caught his eye, circling over the old trail. Two of them; no, three. Little dots up there riding the thermals. There would be more buzzards soon.\n\nHe remembered the bumper stickers. Got one out of the truck, peeled the paper off the back, and stuck it on the gate. Stood back and admired it. FUCK SOETORO. He liked it so much he put the other one on the truck's rear bumper.\n\nJR got into his pickup and headed southeast toward Del Rio. He decided he owed himself a treat, so he reached across to the glove box and pulled out a pack of unfiltered Camels. Opened it and lit one.\n\nThe raw smoke tasted delicious. JR adjusted the bill of his ball cap to keep the rising sun out of his eyes and smoked in silence.\n\nThe television clip of Colonel Bean reading the Texas Declaration of Independence on the steps of the capitol in Austin, and the shots of the delirious crowd, went to television stations nationwide. Networks worldwide rebroadcast the scenes over and over. In the United States, many station managers had qualms, and at some stations federal officers demanded that the feed not be aired. Some stations caved, but most didn't. Managers argued that other stations would show it, and while they were arguing with federal censors, many staffs flipped switches and put it on the air. The scenes ran over and over again. Usually the scenes were aired without comment because the people in the stations were leery of the gun-toting bureaucratic squads who occasionally walked their halls, but the scenes spoke for themselves.\n\nThe spectacular act of defiance by the Texas legislature had immediate consequences. Here and there groups of armed citizens waylaid federal officers hauling away political prisoners, disarmed them, and released the prisoners. Several of these federal officers chose to fight it out and were shot dead. Others were taken to a county jail.\n\nThe armed federal police forces from bureaucracies nationwide became nervous. The mood of the public was turning ugly. Some of the agents stayed home and locked their doors.\n\nBarry Soetoro nationalized the National Guard nationwide. Less than half the guardsmen reported to their armories to be inducted into federal service. Officers resigned on the spot. In two cities, small groups of guardsmen called local television stations, which sent crews to watch the guardsmen take off their uniforms in public, put them in a pile, and burn them.\n\nIn Oklahoma City a half-dozen armed officers from the FAA trying to arrest a local newspaper columnist, a conservative, panicked and opened fire on a crowd of vociferous unarmed citizens. Four people were killed and seven wounded, four of them severely. The payback came within an hour. A mob of armed civilians arrived at the FAA's basement office where the armed enforcers hung out and put it under siege. When the officers came out four hours later with their hands up, the crowd opened fire. The last one ran a block and took refuge in someone's basement; he was dragged out and executed with a shot in the head. No one knew if the four murdered officers were the ones who shot the unarmed civilians, nor did anyone really care. Civil wars are messy.\n\nUp and down the plains, in the Rockies and the Midwest, people gathered in spontaneous groups to cheer Texas and wave homemade Texas flags.\n\nIn Austin, Jack Hays saw snatches of this activity on television before he, Charlie Swim, Luwanda Harris, and Colonel Tenney of the Department of Public Safety boarded a helicopter for a flight to Houston. They were met by the National Guard commander there, Brigadier General James Conrad, the mayor of Houston, and the chief of police.\n\nUnfortunately they were downwind of some tire fires, and stinking, heavy smoke was almost overpowering.\n\n\"Have you got the riot area surrounded?\" Hays asked.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Conrad said. The senior law officers nodded.\n\n\"Where's that FEMA dude,\" Jack Hays asked, \"the one I wanted at the pointy end of this expedition?\"\n\n\"He got cold feet and split.\"\n\nHays frowned.\n\n\"Would have had to handcuff him and put a gun in his back, Governor, to walk him into that riot.\"\n\n\"Obviously he didn't think his liberal credentials would protect him,\" Charlie Swim said, and Hays chuckled.\n\nHays explained to the politicians, \"We want to capture the rioters and not let them rampage through the rest of the city.\" Luwanda Harris and Charlie Swim looked grim.\n\n\"Is everyone ready?\" Hays asked the police chief, Colonel Tenney, and General Conrad.\n\nReceiving affirmatives all around, Hays said, \"Start 'em moving.\" Conrad spoke into his handheld radio. Hays turned back to the politicians. \"Ms. Harris, Mr. Swim, will you accompany me?\"\n\n\"You got a grandstand seat picked out?\" Luwanda Harris asked sourly.\n\n\"Indeed I do. I am going to walk ahead of the troops and talk to anyone I meet. I would like you both to accompany me.\"\n\n\"They may shoot us,\" Charlie Swim pointed out. Even as he said this, several random gunshots could be heard.\n\n\"They might,\" Jack Hays agreed, grabbed two elbows, and started off with Swim on the left and Harris on the right. The troops in riot gear followed, then the state police carrying shotguns and wearing helmets.\n\nDown the street, right into the middle of the riot zone.\n\nWhen they were seen, young men threw some rocks, then turned and ran. Hays kept advancing. The three of them passed burning cars, looted stores, and melting asphalt. On they went.\n\nSomeone fired a shot at them from an upstairs window. Guardsmen fired back, and two soldiers charged into the building to find the shooter and arrest him, or kill him if need be.\n\nJack Hays pretended he didn't notice the shooting.\n\nIt took thirty minutes, but an ever-tightening cordon of law enforcement and guardsmen had brought the rioters, mostly young men, into the middle of a large intersection. Surrounded, and scared, they threw down guns, chains, tire irons, and knives.\n\nJack Hays was handed a loudspeaker. He climbed up on the hood of a fire truck that had followed the skirmish line and turned on the speaker.\n\n\"Folks, the party is over. Texas in an independent nation, and as governor I am going to enforce the law. You and the folks who live around here will be questioned. If anyone here is guilty of murder, he will stand trial. For the rest of you, I am here to tell you nothing will happen to you if you obey the law from this minute on. No more looting, no more stealing, no more fires, none of that.\"\n\nHays paused and silence reigned except for the moan of a siren a long way off.\n\n\"I know, Charlie Swim knows, and Luwanda Harris knows that you and your families have many grievances, from failing schools to horrific unemployment rates, to police harassment for the crime of being black.\n\n\"But the time has come for a new beginning for Texas and for its citizens. I swear to you that the Texas legislature and I are going to take action.\n\n\"We are going to have every complaint about police brutality investigated by the staff of a legislative committee, and both these folks standing beside me, Charlie Swim and Luwanda Harris, are going to be on that committee. If you think they will sweep harassment and brutality under the rug, you don't know them.\n\n\"We're going to set up a private-public partnership so that people in your community, people who study, can qualify for the thirty thousand new high-tech, high-paying jobs that are projected to grow in Houston in the next few years. . .and you are the people who are going to fill them. Industry will pay part of the cost of your training and the Republic of Texas will pay part. All you have to do to qualify is put your butt in a chair and study hard.\n\n\"Texas needs you right now. We are going to be invaded by United States forces in the near future. The Texas Guard needs recruits. You can do yourself and Texas a favor by enlisting. I am not going to pretend it will be easy or without danger. You may get wounded, maimed, or killed. But Texas needs your help. Make your life mean something. Fight for Texas.\n\n\"Folks, the riot is really over. Stay and talk to the guardsmen or go home. No more rioting. This is your city and your nation.\"\n\nJack Hays got down off the fire truck. \"Charlie, get on in there and talk to them. We need all the soldiers you can get. These guys like to fight\u2014let's point them in the right direction and give them some discipline and leadership. Hell, let's give them a country to fight _for_.\"\n\nHays looked at Luwanda Harris and added, \"You tell them I'm sincere\u2014because I am.\" Then he turned and walked alone the mile and a half back to the helicopter.\n\nIn Abilene, Colonel Wriston had his column of tanks and construction vehicles ready to go by ten that morning. It had been hectic. He had received an unexpected assist from the president, who had announced via television that he was nationalizing the National Guard, so many of the soldiers had reported to the armory without waiting to be summoned.\n\nWriston and his officers explained that since Texas had declared its independence the Texas Guard was going to defend Texas and take its orders from the governor. All but four of the guardsmen\u2014who were sent home\u2014agreed to defend an independent Texas, and Colonel Wriston quickly had them organized into units and loaded them aboard trucks and buses pressed into service. With tanks in the lead, the column got rolling at ten o'clock.\n\nOne of the soldiers who was sent home instead drove straight to the main gate at Dyess and told the sergeant of the guard he wanted to see the commanding general. A call was made, and the sergeant climbed into his air force SUV and led the way to the headquarters building.\n\nWithin a minute the guardsman was standing in front of the commanding general, Brigadier General Lou l'Angistino, explaining what the Texas Guard was up to. \"They're going to block your runway, General.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"About as fast as they can get there, sir, I reckon.\"\n\n\"Do you know where they intend to breach our perimeter?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I didn't hear anyone say.\"\n\nThe general thanked the man and watched him leave the office. He nodded to his chief of staff, who closed the door. They had been poring over a stream of classified messages that flowed into the office just as fast as the message center could get them decoded and printed.\n\nGlobal Strike Command, GSC, headquarters had ordered him to get his airplanes ready to fly. They might be sent on bombing missions. . .or they might be sent to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. . .or. . . . In the next message, GSC headquarters hedged. Belay the first message: Stand by for further orders. Let no civilians onto the base. Consult with local authorities and advise of the political situation in Abilene ASAP. Were the people loyal to the federal government or to the Texas rebels?\n\nOn it went. Action messages were interspersed with messages from Washington, from the Joint Chiefs, and every command all over. The army needed his C-130s in Colorado and Alabama. Send them immediately. No, wait. Get them ready to fly and when higher authority had sorted out the priorities, mission orders would be issued.\n\nGeneral l'Angistino shoved the whole pile to a corner of his desk. \"Get the base security officer in here. Roust every air policeman on the base and get them suited up.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nL'Angistino had seen the morning news footage of the declaration. He had been horrified; his comfortable peacetime command had just been transformed.\n\nHe looked out his office window at the runway. Rows and rows of B-1 Lancer bombers and C-130 Hercules aircraft were parked on the ramps. He had thirty-six B-1s assigned, the only B-1 wing on active duty in the air force. Twenty-eight C-130s were assigned here, but five were flying, doing overnight training missions or hauling troops and supplies from one military installation to another, the usual peacetime flight schedule. Now this.\n\nHe had already issued orders to get all the airplanes serviced, fueled, and ready to fly. He didn't tell anyone to bring the bombs for the B-1s from the magazines, and wouldn't until they had missions assigned. Parking weapons on the ramp when they weren't needed violated air force safety regulations.\n\nBlock the runway. Was the guardsman telling the truth, or was this only a rumor? Or was he a plant to spread disinformation?\n\nThe general was consulting a map of the base with his security officer, a major, when Colonel Wriston stopped his column at the place he and his deputy commander had been that morning.\n\nA lowboy behind the colonel's Humvee off-loaded a bulldozer, which scraped dirt to fill in the ditch between the road and the perimeter fence. The job was done in less than two minutes. More bulldozers off-loaded from lowboys. They quickly tore out fifty yards of eight-foot-high, chain-link, barbed-wire-topped fence and shoved it to one side. A tank covered with soldiers went through the gap.\n\nWriston watched his tanks, bulldozers, road graders, earthmovers, trucks, and buses full of guardsmen as they rolled through the gap and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Many of Wriston's men were heavy-equipment operators in civilian life, which had made commandeering so much equipment relatively easy; it was theirs, and by parking it on the Dyess runway, they'd be putting themselves out of work. Well, he suspected Jack Hays would want full-time soldiers.\n\nThe drivers of the tanks soon spread out until all four were running abreast raising dust clouds. This had the unintended consequence of blinding the drivers of the vehicles behind them, who were also trying to spread out to avoid colliding with everyone in front. Watching his column disintegrate, Colonel Wriston was reminded of his experience in tanks in the deserts of Iraq. He hated deserts. He climbed into his Humvee and headed off behind them to supervise this operation. If they didn't get the runways blocked, this whole adventure was for naught.\n\nIn the leftmost tank, the tank commander saw an air force SUV charging across the prairie toward him. There were four people in it, apparently. It came to a stop fifty yards in front of him, and the driver jumped out, holding up his right hand in the universal signal to stop.\n\n\"Shoot out his radiator,\" the tank commander told his machine gunner.\n\nThe burst of the .30-caliber apparently holed the SUV's radiator, because a cloud of steam shot forth from under the hood. The other three occupants of the vehicle jumped out with their hands in the air. Two guardsmen dropped off the tank, which speeded back up. The guardsmen disarmed the air police, pointed them at the hangar complex two miles away, and told them to start hiking.\n\n\"You can't do this,\" the air force sergeant protested.\n\n\"We already did,\" a soldier answered. \"Git.\" They grabbed the guns in the SUV and on the ground, then ran to the left, the west, to get away from oncoming vehicles. Colonel Wriston saw them as he came up and stopped to give them a ride.\n\nA small group, one bulldozer and three earthmovers, peeled off to block the short runway. The main column clanked up to the long runway, an awesome sight with more than two miles of thick concrete stretching before them, three hundred feet wide.\n\nWriston sped past the lead tanks and went a third of the way down the runway. He knew how far he was because he stopped just past the big \"8\" sign, marking eight thousand feet remaining to the end. He gestured to two of the tanks, and they came to a stop, then turned sideways. Other equipment would also park there.\n\nWriston got back in the Humvee and rolled on to the \"4,000 feet remaining\" sign. He stopped there and awaited his vehicles.\n\nThe operation went well, he thought. As some of the soldiers stood guard, the two tanks and four pieces of construction equipment were parked. Mechanics worked on the treads of the tanks, then the tanks ran off the treads. Bulldozers were similarly disabled. The tires of the earthmovers were shredded with automatic weapons fire.\n\nWhile this was going on, four air police vehicles came rushing toward them, two on the runway and two on the adjacent taxiway. Machine-gun fire and automatic weapons fire over the top of the vehicles convinced the drivers to turn around and retreat.\n\nHand grenades were placed in engine bays, and guardsmen ran from the explosions. It was over in less than eight minutes. When all his guardsmen were on buses and trucks going back toward the hole in the fence, Colonel Wriston surveyed the blockade and followed along in his Humvee. The men and women of the Guard couldn't have done it any better if they had practiced it every day for a week, he thought proudly. Then he followed his retreating vehicles.\n\nGeneral l'Angistino had watched the dust cloud and activity on the runway from his office with binoculars. When the guardsmen had departed, he rode out to the mess of abandoned equipment and surveyed it with his fists on his hips.\n\nHis chief of staff rolled up in an air police sedan. \"You know what to do,\" he said to the colonel. \"Get busy and get this stuff off the runway. As quickly as possible.\"\n\nAir force crash crews were still moving equipment at dark, when General l'Angistino went home. He had of course notified GSC and Washington of the runway obstructions, but other than a terse message to report when the runway was open again, nothing else was said.\nNINE\n\nThere was an old sleeping bag in the workroom of the lock shop, and I spent the night in it. Willie had the television on when I woke up.\n\nThe news this Sunday morning was that Texas had declared its independence during the wee hours of the morning. I listened while I helped myself to a cup of coffee.\n\n\"The world is movin' right along, Tommy,\" Willie said. \"Texas declared itself free of the US of A, and Barry Soetoro is havin' a shit fit. He says that the right-wing conspiracy was more virulent than he and his advisors suspected. This should silence any critics of martial law. And so on.\"\n\nThe coffee was hot and black, and strong enough to take the enamel off your teeth, but a man can't have everything. Idly, I thought about Sarah's coffee\u2014hers was several times better than this stuff. Maybe I should have tried to wheedle her into letting me sleep on her couch last night. Or in her bed.\n\n\"Guess we're back to forty-nine states,\" Willie said philosophically, \"if Texas can make Soetoro eat it. Kinda doubt that they can, but who knows. He was on the tube a minute ago, and was he ever pissed! Babbled about treason. Treachery. Betrayal. The malignant tumors in high offices.\"\n\n\"Good help is hard to find these days.\"\n\n\"Want an egg?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that would be good.\"\n\n\"Well, we ain't got any, this bein' a lock shop. No pancakes or bacon or ham or toast. I brought in a half-dozen doughnuts for me this mornin'; if you want one I can spare it.\"\n\n\"That's mighty white of you.\"\n\n\"Don't get racial, dude.\"\n\n\"What else don't we have?\"\n\n\"Lots of stuff. Got toilet paper, though. White toilet paper.\"\n\n\"That's the best kind.\"\n\n\"Can't believe that they let us black folk wipe our asses with it.\"\n\nI took my coffee to the restroom and settled on the throne. I reflected that Willie Varner had reminded me once again why no female on the planet had succumbed to his charms and leaped into matrimony.\n\nThe Texas revolt was good news, I thought. The dung beetles at the White House now had something to think about besides forcing confessions from people like Grafton. Perhaps. Maybe they would decide that Grafton was partly responsible for the bad attitude in Austin.\n\nI dressed, drank another cup of Willie's coffee-colored enamel-eater, and then headed over to McDonald's for a sausage and egg biscuit and a cup of decent coffee. I made some phone calls. Called some of the covert warriors I knew, guys I had served with in various third world shitholes. Two were at home. I asked if I could come by. They said yes.\n\nWillis Coffee lived in Bethesda. His wife answered the door and told me he was around back in the garden. It looked more like a flower bed with vegetables, a few onions and some scraggly lettuce. He was hoeing.\n\n\"What the hell you doing in Washington? I thought you quit your job,\" he said.\n\n\"I did quit.\"\n\n\"Hell, so did I. When they arrested Jake Grafton, I turned in my building pass and drove out of there.\"\n\n\"I still have the building pass. Maybe I ought to mail it in. They might come looking for it.\"\n\nWillis snorted and leaned on his hoe. \"I doubt if anyone at Langley has the time. Ol' Harley Merritt is on the bridge now and Soetoro is cracking the whip. Merritt is looking for traitors within the agency. Maybe he'll find one, but I doubt it.\" He spotted a weed and attacked it.\n\n\"Maybe they'll invent some, like they did with Grafton.\"\n\nWillis leaned on his hoe again. \"Yeah,\" he said.\n\n\"I need your help, Willis, to rescue Grafton. You probably heard they accused him of conspiring to depose Soetoro. Blow him up. Try to turn America into a democracy.\"\n\n\"I heard.\" He stood there awhile, surveying the weeds in his agricultural project. Then he threw down the hoe. He dragged over a chair and sat in it. \"I got a wife and two kids. The kids were on a sleepover last night. I need another job, one that will pay the mortgage and grocery bill. I can't afford to go tilting at windmills.\"\n\nI played my ace. \"If you were in some ISIS dungeon waiting for your appointment with the knife, you _know_ that Jake Grafton would move heaven and earth to get you out. Whatever it took. Whether State gave its okay or not.\"\n\nHe jerked as if I had stuck the knife in him right there. He refused to meet my eyes.\n\nAfter a bit he said, \"Tell me about it.\"\n\nThe chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Martin L. Wynette, was summoned to the White House that morning. Wynette was a sycophant, a paper-pushing soldier who had never seen combat but had kissed a thousand asses on his way up the ladder. He was known throughout the military for his role in destroying the career of a lieutenant colonel teaching a course at the Joint Forces Staff College about Islamic extremism and jihad, a course suggested and approved by the college. Some Muslims got wind of it and wrote a hot letter to Barry Soetoro, who ordered the offending officer disciplined and the course dropped. Wynette did the dirty work without protest. Of course Wynette knew that Soetoro's father was a Muslim, his chief political advisor was a Muslim, and a sizable chunk of the American population thought he was too, but after all, the American people had voted Soetoro into the White House, twice, so Wynette was certainly willing to let the prevailing wind flap his flag.\n\nThis morning the general was escorted into the presence of the anointed one, who was beyond fury. He was outraged and shaking, at times almost incoherent. Texas had to be punished, he told General Wynette. \"Texas must be taught a lesson that the people there will never forget. What are you people in the Pentagon going to do to smash them?\"\n\nThe truth was that the military had no contingency plans to attack Texas, or New York City or Honolulu or Des Moines or anywhere else in the United States. But General Wynette told the president, \"Staff is working on it, sir. I assume you want boots on the ground.\"\n\n\"Boots on the ground, bombs on target, and the heads of every one of those sons of bitches in the legislature. And that governor\u2014I want him alive. You go get them, General. Go to Texas and kick ass. Go as soon as you can get there.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nDismissed, he marched out to the limo waiting to take him back to the Pentagon wondering if the president really meant for Martin L. Wynette to personally go to Texas to direct the invasion. Certainly not. He must have meant that figuratively, General Wynette decided. He settled back into the comfy leather seat of the limo.\n\nOther than that, Wynette thought, the president had been specific enough. Bomb the hell out of those rebels, then invade. Air force fighter-bombers blasting refineries, factories, power plants, and oil fields would get those fools' attention. A naval blockade would stopper their ports and screw them down hard. Then the U.S. Army would go charging through Texas like Wynette's hero, George Patton, went through Germany. As Georgie used to say, \"Like crap through a goose.\"\n\nWhen he drove through the little town of Langtry, JR Hays saw Texas flags flying in front of every house and building, every business. Must have been a hundred of them. Was this Texas Independence Day? No, that was in March. He shrugged and kept driving.\n\nDel Rio also looked as if it were having a flag festival. Texas flags were everywhere, flying, hanging, tacked to buildings, strung across the street. He pulled into a filling station and went in for a piss and a Coke.\n\nThe people inside greeted him like a long-lost cousin. \"Happy Independence Day.\"\n\n\"I thought that was in March.\"\n\n\"That was then, this is now. Today. Early this morning Texas declared its independence. Haven't you heard?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThe young man behind the counter with rings in his ears and one in his nose pointed to a newspaper. \"Special edition,\" he said. The headline took up all the space above the fold: \"Texas Free, Again.\" The kid was wearing a pistol in a belt holster.\n\n\"How about that,\" JR said.\n\n\"Already we got some troubles,\" the kid said. \"Mexicans tried to force the bridge from Ciudad Acuna this mornin', tryin' to get across. Must have figured that without the feds we'd be runnin' around with our thumbs up our asses. Some of the guys went down there with their rifles and put a stop to that shit. Shot some of 'em. They're layin' out there on the bridge bleedin' all over. The Mexicans won't expose themselves to drag them away and our guys ain't goin' to go to their rescue. They can crawl back to Mexico or lay there and die.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\n\"State trooper was in here a little bit ago and tol' me all about it. Eight or ten got across before the shootin' started. Folks are roundin' 'em up and gonna make 'em walk back over the bridge. Some other guys are goin' through the city right now roundin' up illegals to take the walk. Feds ain't protectin' them anymore.\"\n\n\"Where are the feds?\"\n\n\"Home, I reckon. They're all Texans. They don't like that asshole Soetoro either, but it was do it his way or get fired.\"\n\nAfter he went to the men's room, JR picked a Coke from the cooler and took it to the counter.\n\n\"American money still good?\"\n\n\"The boss ain't tol' me not to take it. Reckon the politicians will have to figure all that stuff out.\"\n\n\"I guess so,\" JR said. \"Happy Independence Day.\" He paid and walked out.\n\nOutside, he looked around. There wasn't an American flag in sight. Just lots of Lone Star flags.\n\nBeing human, he wondered about his pension. Twenty years in the army and now no pension. He felt like one of those Mexicans bleeding to death down on the bridge over the river.\n\nHe started the truck and screwed the plastic lid off the plastic bottle and took a sip. Then the implications of independence hit him. Texas was going to need an army. Maybe he could join. Hell, soldiering was what he knew how to do; it was the only thing he knew how to do. He would ask Jack about that.\n\nAt a stoplight he lit another Camel.\n\nDamn! _The Republic of Texas_. How about _that_!\n\nTravis Clay had been home from the Middle East for only two days and had next week off. He was just getting out of bed when I knocked on the door of his apartment. He was in his underwear when he opened the door and motioned me in. I could hear television audio from the bedroom.\n\nHe went to the kitchen and put coffee in the basket and added water. As he did the work, I leaned on the door jam and asked, \"How was Syria?\"\n\n\"The fires of hell have leaked through the crust there. Never trust a man who wipes his ass with his bare hand. We thought we knew where that British dude was who likes to lop off heads with a knife, but he was gone when we hit the place. The Brits were royally pissed. Words cannot express how badly they want that murderous prick. They would sell a prince and maybe a princess or two to lay hands on him for just an hour.\"\n\n\"That's what they get for letting every raghead who can get there into the country.\"\n\n\"Don't say that aloud to them. They don't have warm fuzzies about the politicians. And Soetoro is doing it too. Welcome to diversity.\"\n\n\"So where's your significant other?\"\n\n\"Rachel? She hit the road. I don't know the straight of it, but I think she got tired of waiting for me to come home and started picking up men in bars. Anyway, she left a note. Want to read it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"That's good, because I tore it up.\"\n\nThe coffee was dripping through, and he poured me a cup. He had to wait a minute for the pot to deliver enough for another cup.\n\nWhen we were sitting in his little living room, I said, \"I suppose you heard about Jake Grafton getting arrested.\"\n\n\"Yeah. And parochial school murders and martial law and Texas declaring independence and all of that. The whole damned country is going to hell in a wheelbarrow. I'm thinking about pulling the plug and going to Montana. You know I grew up there?\"\n\n\"I didn't know that.\"\n\n\"Yeah. My folks are outfitters, fishing trips during the spring and summer and hunters in the fall. My dad told me last night I've got a job there if I want it. I'm sorta thinking I do. I don't want to go back to Syria. They're all pedophiles and wife-beaters. Sunnis and Shiites will be fighting each other for a century or two, and the truth is, I don't think it matters a single teeny tiny little goddamn who wins.\"\n\n\"Probably not,\" I murmured.\n\n\"The only thing I am absolutely convinced of, I don't want to die in that shithole.\"\n\n\"Montana would be good.\"\n\n\"I'm thinking about it.\"\n\n\"Before you run off, I need some help.\" I told him about Jake Grafton and my project to rescue him.\n\nTravis Clay took it like a man and didn't cry. What he said was, \"Fuck you, Carmellini.\"\n\n\"You aren't cute enough.\"\n\nWe batted it back and forth awhile, and I told him Willis Coffee was on board.\n\n\"Oh, hell,\" he finally said. \"Why not?\"\n\nHalf an hour later, after we had gone through my plan from end to end, he said, \"If you have to shoot an FBI agent, can you do it?\"\n\nI answered honestly. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Better get that figured out before we saddle up. I guarantee you they will shoot you and me and Willis Coffee in a heartbeat if we stop that car. That's what they train them to do at Quantico. They won't even think about it\u2014they'll just throw lead.\"\n\n\"I suppose.\"\n\n\"What you need, Tommy, is a serious diversion. Think about that for a while. The feds will pull out all the stops if we snatch Jake Grafton, whether we shoot an agent or two or not. Barry Soetoro will turn purple. We must give Soetoro and the rest of them something else to think about, something with a higher priority.\"\n\nI was in a McDonald's munching a Big Mac when the phone rang. It was Callie Grafton.\n\n\"I saw him,\" she said. \"He looks good.\"\n\n\"Great. Maybe I'll stop by this evening for a beer.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she said.\n\nWe hung up.\n\nSo it was a go.\n\nJR Hays rolled into Austin late that Sunday afternoon. He was fighting to stay awake, but he parked by the state capitol and walked across the lawn. Upstairs, he told the governor's receptionist who he was and took a seat in the waiting room. Legislators came and went, striding purposefully, almost trotting. He gathered that the legislature was in session on the other side of the building, arguing about and passing the legislation needed to convert Texas from a state in the United States to an independent republic.\n\nAn hour passed. JR dozed in the chair. The governor shook him awake. \"Come into my office, JR. I apologize for the wait. We're making history and trying to give every Texan a decent place to live.\"\n\nHe went into the office, and Jack Hays closed the door behind them. \"Talk to me,\" the governor said, and sat down behind the desk.\n\nJR dropped into a chair and told it. \"There are ten dead men at the ranch. I ambushed them last night. They were carrying about two hundred pounds of some kind of drug, and I have about a hundred fifty pounds of it in the truck. Two of the backpacks the mules carried were too full of holes to hold the stuff. One of the guards was that deputy sheriff we met before the funeral, Morales I think his name was. There couldn't be two men in west Texas tattooed like that. After the ambush, I hot-footed it out to the highway, and who should be driving up and down but Sheriff Manuel Tejada.\"\n\n\"Was he in on it, you think?\"\n\n\"I called him this morning, told him there had been a shootout between two drug gangs, and the stuff was lying all over. Told him I wanted to call the state police and DEA. He begged me to wait until he had come out to look the scene over. He would have probably tried to shoot me, so I boogied.\"\n\nJack Hays was a quick study. \"How do you want to handle this?\" he asked his cousin.\n\n\"We have to fix it so the drug syndicate guys don't come to the ranch with enough firepower to conquer Israel and whack little old me. Plugging Tejada would have felt mighty good, but it wouldn't have solved that problem. I want to take these backpacks over to DPS headquarters, and the colonel needs to have a press conference. Show the drugs to the press. He needs to thank Sheriff Manuel Tejada for his cooperation, which was an essential element in the investigation that allowed the Texas DPS to break up this gang of smugglers.\"\n\nJack Hays smiled. \"The phones here are down. I'll take you over there. Let's go.\"\n\nThe cousins drove to the state police headquarters in JR's truck. They went in to see Colonel Frank Tenney. Fifteen minutes later two state troopers armed with the key to JR's toolbox in the bed of his truck carried the backpacks full of dope up to Tenney's office.\n\nTenney looked the governor in the eye. \"There was a warrant issued for JR over in Upshur County today. He's wanted for murder and drug trafficking. It's signed by a justice of the peace. They radioed the news in.\"\n\n\"Squash it,\" Jack Hays said, waving the warrant away as if shooing a fly. \"He was working as an undercover agent for the Department of Public Safety. I want you to hold a press conference, for the evening news if possible, and have the department take full credit for recovering a hundred and fifty pounds\u2014or whatever it is\u2014of narcotics and smashing a smuggling gang. And I want you to tell the world that it wouldn't have happened without the active help of the sheriff of Upshur County, Manuel Tejada, who gave you the intelligence necessary to break up this gang. It is unfortunate that the smugglers chose to fight rather than submit to arrest and trial by jury, but that was their choice. I want you to make the point that the Republic of Texas will seek out and actively hunt down narco-criminals. Tell the world that Governor Jack Hays has personally assured you the Department of Public Safety will get the funding and manpower needed to finally do the job right.\"\n\nThe lab did a quick check and established the drug was pure, uncut cocaine, and the cops weighed the stuff. The street value they came up with was $1,360,000 at twenty grand a kilo.\n\nDriving back to the capitol, Jack Hays told JR, \"Come on over to my place for dinner tonight. We need to talk. Washington is gearing up for a war against Texas.\"\n\n\"Breakfast tomorrow,\" JR said. \"I've been up over thirty-six hours and am going to a hotel to crash.\"\n\n\"Breakfast at my house,\" Jack Hays said, shook his cousin's hand, and walked into the capitol.\n\nJR did indeed crash, but not until after he had a shower and watched Colonel Tenney on the evening news. The camera lingered on the pile of cocaine on Tenney's desk. \"Breaking this gang would not have happened without the intelligence provided by and the active cooperation of Sheriff Manuel Tejada of Upshur County,\" Colonel Tenney intoned, staring into the camera. \"He was instrumental in helping us smash a major narcotics smuggling operation. All of Texas thanks you, Sheriff Tejada.\"\n\nJR hit the bed and slept for ten hours.\n\nThe aftermath was not slow in coming. Two mornings later Mrs. Tejada found her husband wired to a tree in their backyard. He was dead, strangled with bailing wire. She was pretty broken up about it, until she found over a quarter of a million dollars in an old chest in the guest bedroom, wrapped in a quilt her mother made over a half century ago. Since no one knew where the money had come from, she kept it and lit a candle for her husband in the local church.\n\nWhen the state police finally got around to visiting the Hays ranch, they found the bodies, which had been worked on by buzzards, coyotes, and feral pigs, one of which was lying dead with the mules. It had apparently ingested enough of the cocaine scattered around to kill it, so presumably it went to pig heaven happy. The only positive identification the cops made was the body of Deputy Sheriff Jesus Morales, identified by his fingerprints and distinctive tattoos, but his boss had been dead almost a week by then, so it was decided to not make a fuss and embarrass the Morales family, who were third-generation Americans, and by all accounts good people. The other dead men were apparently Mexican nationals, so their fingerprints were passed to the Mexican DEA, which didn't bother to acknowledge the receipt of them.\n\nWhen the Hays' hired man returned from his two-week vacation, he repaired the ranch fence.\n\nBut all that was aftermath, and the lives of Jack and JR Hays had moved on by then.\nTEN\n\nOn Monday morning, August 29, JR got his pickup from the hotel valet and drove to the governor's mansion. There he discovered that the governor had a maid, who admitted him and led him to the dining room, where Jack and Nadine were buried in the _Austin Statesman_. The events of the previous day and the full text of the Declaration of Independence filled the front page. Inside were interviews with legislators and quick man-in-the street quotations from celebrating citizens of the new republic. The _Statesman_ , a liberal newspaper, editorialized that the governor and legislators who voted for independence were irresponsible radicals whose actions bordered on insanity.\n\nAfter the trio had discussed the events of the previous day, JR remarked about the maid. Jack said he did a lot of official entertaining so the legislature paid the salaries of a maid and a cook.\n\n\"He's in the kitchen now whipping something up. You ready?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" JR said.\n\n\"Jack, read that editorial aloud,\" Nadine urged. So he did.\n\nJack said dryly, \"If the _Statesman_ had editorialized that we had done the right thing, I would have been really worried.\"\n\nSoon the maid served eggs Sardou with crumbled bacon, unbuttered toast, and white wine.\n\nJack said to his cousin, \"If it's too early for you for wine, we have coffee and the juices.\"\n\nJR glanced at his watch. \"I have an ironclad rule that I never drink before seven in the morning,\" he said, \"and it's ten after. I'll do the wine.\"\n\nNadine took coffee with cream.\n\nJack and Nadine expressed the hope that the Houston rioting was at last at an end. As they ate they discussed the new status of Texas.\n\n\"Tell us what you think,\" Nadine said to JR.\n\nJR thought about his response, then said, \"I'm a natural-born Texan, and I've had it with Soetoro. A few terrorist incidents don't seem to be a good reason to declare martial law. The FBI and local police can sort that stuff out. I sorta suspect Soetoro thought all that was a good enough excuse to become a dictator, but I don't know. I just caught snatches of the news, here and there.\"\n\nNadine zeroed in. \"Are you happy with independence?\"\n\n\"Anyone who isn't can hit the road,\" JR said. \"I'm staying. But I hope you folks know that you have bought a ton of trouble. I doubt if all the U.S. soldiers and sailors and airmen will stick to Barry, but a lot of them will, and that'll be plenty. They can cause you lots of grief. Air strikes against concentrations of troops or civilians, against industry, refineries, armories, storage tanks, power generation facilities, everything you can think of, plus armored columns and infantry going through the towns and cities to take them house by house and block by block, seeking out and killing or defeating the rebels. . .it could get damned rough. The feds will ultimately lose, of course, but they will give it the old college try and kill a lot of Texans before they throw in the towel.\"\n\nNadine jumped right on it. \"Why will they lose?\"\n\n\"Because control of the cities is strategically worthless. Whoever controls the countryside always wins in the end, if they keep their nerve and are willing to take the casualties. People in cities have to eat, and the food comes from the countryside. Not to mention electrical power, gasoline, and every other commodity known to man. It all has to be produced in the country or transported through the country, which means it is militarily vulnerable.\"\n\n\"You think?\"\n\n\"I know. The American Revolution, the French, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions, Vietnam, Afghanistan, you name it. Control of the countryside was the essential element every time. And successful revolutions or rebellions are not the victory of a pissed-off majority, but the triumph of a dedicated minority who won't quit. It doesn't take many men. But the revolutionaries must be willing to suffer and be quite ruthless with the enemy.\"\n\n\"There will be casualties.\"\n\n\"A lot of them,\" JR agreed, and sipped his wine. \"Bloodless revolutions are usually military coups\u2014the generals win because no one else has weapons. The people of Texas are armed. Everyone has guns, and a lot of people know how to use them. More important, some of them are willing to do so. Just having a gun isn't enough. Successful rebels must be willing to fight, to kill, and if necessary, be killed. But you know all that and declared independence anyway, so I assume a lot of legislators have some guts. Or their constituents do, which is better. Whether a dedicated minority has enough guts and determination remains to be seen. Time will tell.\"\n\n\"We are hearing very little from Washington,\" Jack Hays said. \"They aren't going to make idle threats. When the blow falls, it will be heavy.\"\n\n\"Don't wait for it,\" JR advised. \"You must take it to them. Seize the initiative and put them on the defensive. That's the only way. The Confederates in the American Civil War were strategically hampered by the politicians' desire to take the defensive. In war the defense always loses. If you try to defend everything, you are spread so thin you end up defending nothing. If you try to defend just a few key places or installations, the attackers will bleed you to death someplace else.\"\n\nNadine had abandoned her breakfast. \"So how do we prevail and make our independence stick?\"\n\n\"Attack. As U. S. Grant said, find out where they are, hit 'em as soon as you can, as hard as you can, and keep moving on.\"\n\n\"The best defense is a good offense,\" Jack Hays said thoughtfully.\n\n\"Amen to that. In the military we call it seizing the initiative, forcing your enemy to react to your moves rather than you reacting to his.\"\n\n\"It's the same way in politics.\"\n\nNadine looked at her watch and said she had to leave for the university. Her breakfast was only half-eaten. She rose, got a kiss on the cheek from both men, grabbed her purse, and hurried for the garage.\n\nJack Hays leaned back in his chair. The maid came in with the coffee pot and poured.\n\nWhen she had left again, Jack Hays asked JR, \"If you were running the military show, how would you go about it?\"\n\n\"That's a big _if_.\"\n\n\"A hypothetical.\"\n\n\"The commander must figure out what he has to fight with. That's Job One. What we have in the way of people, weapons, ammo, and transport defines our options. Our hypothetical commander must start there.\"\n\nJack Hays nodded, sipped his coffee, and nodded again. \"If I offered to make you a general,\" he said, \"and put you in charge of the Texas Armed Forces, which is the National Guard, Air National Guard, and every military unit within Texas, all you can grab, you'd be in charge of defending Texas. Would you take the job?\"\n\nJR grinned. \"I came here this morning,\" he said, \"to ask for a job in the Texas Army. Any job. Soldiering is all I know. I suspect that you are going to need an army very badly, very soon.\"\n\n\"General Twilley has wanted to retire for the last year, and I have been asking him to put it off and hang in there. I want you to take his place. The air guard guy is Major General Elvin Gentry. He'll answer to you.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" JR said.\n\n\"Before you go, I have to add the Texas Navy to your list of responsibilities. We got a nuke attack sub yesterday morning. USS _Texas_. She's sitting at a pier in Galveston, and we've got to do something with her quick before the U.S. Navy sinks her or steals her back.\"\n\n\"Is she undamaged?\"\n\n\"The sheriff down there thinks she is, but his nautical experience is limited to bass boats.\"\n\n\"I've got an old army friend who got fed up with grunts and transferred to the navy,\" JR said slowly. \"He's retired now. As I recall, he was in attack subs. Smart as a tack. Went to nuke power school and did well. He's a law student now at UT. I can send him down to evaluate the boat. If we can't move and hide her, Jack, we probably ought to scuttle her right where she is so the SEALs can't steal her out from under our noses.\"\n\n\"They could do that?\"\n\n\"You can bet they're noodling on how to do it right now.\"\n\nJack Hays scooted his chair back and rose. \"Sounds like you need to get busy.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" JR Hays said. \"I'll do my best.\"\n\n\"I'd like to introduce you to the press and the Guard brass hats this morning, but I've got to go to Houston again. We'll do the paperwork when I get back. I'll scribble a note to General Twilley. You run out to Camp Mabry, give it to him, and take command\u2014and have him muster you up a major general's uniform.\"\n\n\"Where is Camp Mabry?\"\n\nHis cousin stared at him a moment before he answered, \"West Thirty-Fifth Street, west of Highway One.\" Then he grinned. If you don't know, ask. JR would do nicely.\n\nThe governor wrote the note in longhand, they shook hands, and JR headed for the front door and his pickup.\n\nJR drove to the University of Texas Law School and went in. He found his friend, a muscular black man named Loren Snyder, standing in a hallway outside a classroom talking to two fellow students.\n\n\"Lorrie.\" JR smacked him on the shoulder.\n\n\"JR Hays, folks. Long time no see, JR. What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Thinking of getting a law degree and wanted to talk to you about that.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Loren glanced at his watch. \"I have ten minutes.\"\n\n\"Terrific.\"\n\nJR led Loren away from the other students to a quiet corner. \"Weren't you in attack submarines?\"\n\n\"Yep. Sixteen years of it after the army, which my wife said was plenty long enough. Now I'm going for the gold. Going to be a personal injury lawyer and screw those insurance companies down hard.\"\n\n\"Before you get to that, I need some help. I'm now a major general commanding all the military forces of the new Republic of Texas.\"\n\n\"You're _what_?\"\n\n\"You heard me. We acquired a nuke attack sub yesterday morning down at Galveston, and I need a quick evaluation of the boat by someone who knows what they are talking about.\"\n\n\"I saw in the paper _Texas_ was making a port visit there.\"\n\n\"Will you go to Galveston right now and evaluate the condition of the boat? Then answer some questions for me. Specifically, can we get enough ex-sailors to move her, can we hide her, or should we just sink her at the pier so the SEALs can't snatch her back?\"\n\n\"You haven't even asked me if I'm a loyal Texan.\"\n\n\"Are you?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. Haven't thought much about it.\"\n\n\"You do this, I'll give you a medal to frame and hang in your law office, when you get that office.\"\n\n\"You want me to go now, miss today's classes?\"\n\n\"An hour ago would have been better.\"\n\n\"How do I get hold of you?\"\n\n\"Any National Guard armory. They can radio me a message.\"\n\nLoren gave him a sheet of paper from a notebook and JR wrote upon it, \"Please allow Loren Snyder to inspect USS _Texas_ ,\" and signed it JR Hays, Major General, Commanding, dated it, and gave it to Loren.\n\n\"Well, _that_ looks official,\" said Loren.\n\n\"I gotta run,\" JR said. \"And you do too. Saddle up.\"\n\nBrigadier General Lou l'Angistino was fifty years old, from Nebraska, an ROTC graduate who had worked his way up the ladder, flying and performing staff jobs. He flew F-4 Phantoms and F-16s, and considered it ironic that he now commanded a bomber wing. The Global Strike Command dudes must have been very unhappy when they heard. Of course, he had served a tour on the GSC commander's staff, and maybe that was why he was selected.\n\nL'Angistino habitually went to bed at nine o'clock in the evening unless he had an official function to attend, and rose between four thirty and five o'clock a.m. He usually put a leash on his black Lab and then ran five miles, rain or shine.\n\nThe events of the previous week troubled him deeply. He knew all about Jade Helm, the plan of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to put Americans in concentration camps, and he also knew that liberals, minorities, and Democrats weren't the intended detainees. He had been appalled when Soetoro announced martial law and invoked Jade Helm.\n\nThe National Guard's blockade of the runway yesterday was only the first shot in the war, he told himself. Texas has a lot more bullets. Last night his staff thought that the crash crews would have the runway cleared by late this morning. Then he would fly the planes out, if he could find enough flight crews. He suspected that might be a problem. But he would worry about all that when he got to the office.\n\nNormally the general ran on base, but this morning he put the lab in the car and headed for the main gate. He drove past the thirty aircraft that lined the boulevard to the highway, aircraft dating from World War II right up through the present day. One was a retired B-1 and another a retired C-130.\n\nHe drove the seven miles into town, marveled at the display of Texas flags, and, as the sun rose, was jogging in a park with his dog.\n\nTwo miles along he saw a man in a baseball cap sitting on a bench with a rifle across his knees. He had a golden retriever on a leash. As l'Angistino got closer, he saw the man was probably Latino and well past retirement age. He was also wearing a gun belt with a pistol in a holster.\n\nThe general stopped to talk. As the dogs sniffed each other and got acquainted, the man said, \"Was you in the air force?\" L'Angistino was wearing a faded air force T-shirt and red shorts. He nodded.\n\n\"I was too,\" the man said. The hands that caressed the worn old lever-action Winchester were the hands of a working man. \"Wound up in Thailand turning wrenches on F-105s. Now them was airplanes!\"\n\n\"Why the rifle?\" the general asked.\n\n\"Oh, a bunch of us are going out to the base this mornin'. Going to talk to those people out there. We're gonna meet at nine o'clock. Can't sleep very well anymore, so came out here to the park to sit. Gonna get hot today\"\u2014it was already pushing 80\u2014\"but with the clear sky and still breeze, it's mighty nice right here right now. At my age, you enjoy ever' day because you don't know how many more you got.\"\n\n\"Think there'll be trouble at the base?\"\n\n\"Hope not, but you never know about the blue suits. They's good 'uns and bad 'uns, just like ever'where. But if there's any shootin', I fully intend to shoot back until they get me.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"My folks was in Texas before the white and black people ever showed up. One of my great-great-great-grandpappies died at the Alamo with Travis and them. His nephew rode with Terry's Texas Rangers during the Civil War and lost a leg at Shiloh. Yankee doctors cut it off for him. I've had granddaddies and uncles and men kin fight in ever' war this country ever fought. The world wars, Korea, and me in Vietnam. We're Texans.\"\n\n\"What kind of pistol is that in your holster?\"\n\n\"It was my daddy's Colt Police Positive. He was a policeman in San Antone until he retired and moved here to Abilene to be near his daughters. I got it when he died.\"\n\n\"So what do you think of independence?\"\n\n\"Some more of us are gonna have to fight for Texas again.\"\n\n\"When did you get out of the air force?\"\n\n\"Seventy-five. Came back here and opened a garage. It was a close squeak at times, but we have six bays now. My two sons run it, and I sit and watch baseball on TV and drink beer.\"\n\nGeneral l'Angistino glanced at his watch. He needed to get going, but. . .\n\n\"Texans don't seem to like illegals. What is your opinion?\"\n\n\"I'm like ever'body else. They flood in here and take jobs away from poor Texans because they'll work for the minimum wage or less. Down in Mexico the Church won't let 'em use contraceptives. Lots of kids guarantees they'll never get ahead and will always be poor. I'm Catholic, but believe me, after the two boys arrived I used rubbers back when the old lady could still get knocked up. I tol' the priest about it, and he said I had to do what God tol' me to do. I tol' him that I was gonna do what my wife tol' me to do, and if that got me sent to Hell, at least I'd know a lot of the people there.\" The old man chuckled. Apparently he had told this story many times before and still liked it.\n\n\"What does your wife think about you going out to the base this morning carrying a pistol and rifle?\"\n\n\"She tol' me to be careful and never forget my family or Texas.\"\n\n\"Good luck to you,\" Brigadier General l'Angistino said. As he jogged back to his car, dog in tow, he thought, I'm the one who's going to need the good luck.\n\nNewspapers all over Texas carried the news about independence in headlines in the largest type they had. The _Dallas Morning News_ devoted its entire front section to the declaration and interviews with lawmakers, including a short one with the governor. Of the paper's editorials and op-ed pieces, all but one favored independence in order to preserve the freedom of the people of Texas. The lone dissenter was the paper's token liberal, whose column most _Morning News_ subscribers read only for aggravation.\n\nThe publisher defied federal edicts when he published the paper. He got away with it because the federal censors spent Sunday at FEMA headquarters getting briefed on the latest orders from Washington, which was in a dither, apparently, unsure how to handle those goddamn Texans.\n\nAt eight that morning five FBI agents, two women and three men, plus a FEMA representative, showed up at the publisher's house in one of Dallas' toniest neighborhoods to arrest him.\n\nThey were met by several dozen armed civilians. In the shootout that followed, one civilian was killed and another wounded, but all six of the federal officers died on the scene. Two minutes after the shooting stopped, there was one more shot, which may have been a coup de gr\u00e2ce, but afterward none of the participants could recall hearing it.\n\nLeaving the agents and their weapons where they lay, the victors of this encounter took their dead comrade to a funeral home and the wounded man to a hospital. Then they went to Dallas FBI headquarters and arrested everyone they could find, even the office help. The sheriff incarcerated all the prisoners in the Dallas County jail. He had to release some drunks and potheads to make room.\n\nWhen the crowd, which had swelled to more than two hundred armed men and women, arrived at the Dallas FEMA building, they found it empty. The FEMA employees had fled: that was probably a good thing since the crowd was in an ugly mood.\n\nLater that morning a television reporter on _Good Morning Texas_ questioned the sheriff, Milo Makepeace. Milo claimed he was a direct descendant of Comanche war chief Quanah Parker, and he had enough Indian blood in him to make that plausible, even if newspaper reporters had been unable to ever prove or disprove the relationship. Not that it mattered. With his dark skin tint and Indian features, Makepeace was Texas \"to the bone.\" The interview ran on _Good Morning Texas_ , a popular morning staple for many in the Dallas area. The show ran fifteen seconds of footage of ambulance crews in front of the publisher's house loading the bodies of the FBI and FEMA agents. Then the station aired the interview. The reporter asked about the slayings of the FBI and FEMA agents.\n\n\"I don't know a solitary thing about it,\" Sheriff Makepeace said, \"other than the fact they're dead. I also was told that they had federal credentials and weapons on them. Maybe they got in a shootout and killed each other, or maybe they tangled with persons unknown. If they had packed up and gotten out of Texas yesterday, that incident wouldn't have happened. It's very sad that they didn't.\"\n\n\"I understand you jailed some FBI agents this morning.\"\n\nThe sheriff nodded. \"As of yesterday morning federal employees got no authority whatsoever in Texas. The FBI people had a lot of concealed weapons on them that they didn't have permits for, which is a violation of the laws of Texas and Dallas County. Texans are big on self-help, and the folks in the crowd that brought them in looked like voters to me. I'm holding them until Jack Hays or a Texas judge tells me what to do with them.\"\n\n\"How about a federal judge?\"\n\n\"Federal judges have no authority in Texas. I just explained that. All their summonses, orders, warrants, and such don't mean diddly-squat. If they want to keep drawing federal checks, they'd better get themselves back to Soetoro-land. If they want to stay here, they need to get a real job. That goes for all federal employees, from the janitor at the federal courthouse to the people at FEMA, ICE, the DEA, the FAA, the EPA, and the Federal Reserve Bank. All of 'em. Get out of Texas or get a real job.\"\n\nMajor General Twilley read Governor Jack Hays' note and came around his desk to shake JR's hand. \"I can't tell you how relieved I am,\" he said. \"I have a son in the U.S. Army Special Forces and a daughter in the U.S. Air Force in Germany. I couldn't fight against them under any circumstances, and you know as well as I do that Barry Soetoro won't let Texas go without a fight. I was going to write Jack Hays a letter and ask for immediate retirement. He saved me the trouble.\"\n\nHe called in his staff, introduced JR, and read the governor's letter aloud. \"I have been relieved by Major General JR Hays.\" He and his staff saluted JR. JR returned the salute.\n\nThen Twilley turned to a colonel. \"Major General Hays will need a uniform. Until he can get some greens, get him some camos. I'll give him my stars.\" And he took them off right there and pinned them on JR's collar. Meanwhile, Major General Gentry, the officer in command of the Texas Air Guard, came into the room and was introduced. He read Governor Hays' order and saluted. JR saluted him back.\n\nTwilley took a few moments to shake the hands of every officer on the staff, then he put a photo of his wife, son, and daughter that sat on his desk under his arm and walked out of the room.\n\n\"Let's go somewhere that we can sit down,\" JR said. \"Do y'all have a conference room?\"\n\n\"Sure do, sir. Follow me.\"\n\nWhen everyone was sitting down with pads of paper and pens handy, JR got to it. \"Ladies and gentlemen, you know all about the Declaration of Independence. The people of Texas, acting through their elected representatives, have declared themselves a free, independent republic. Our job is to build a military that can and will defend the Republic of Texas against all enemies. The governor has asked me to lead the military effort. Yes, I'm Jack Hays' cousin. I grew up in west Texas, graduated from West Point, and spent twenty years as an infantry officer in the United States Army. I fought in Kosovo, the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan before I retired from that army. I'm proud of my service, and I am very proud Jack asked me to lead Texas' military in a fight for freedom.\n\n\"I understand the emotional muddle many of you find yourselves in. Many of my closest friends still wear United States uniforms. They will do their duty as they see it, as I will mine.\n\n\"Still, I want you to understand the depth of my commitment. I am absolutely committed to the Texas cause. One of my kinsmen, Captain Jack Hays, was the very first captain of the Texas Rangers. Hays men have fought, bled, and sometimes died fighting for Texas, for the Confederacy, and for the United States in world wars and police actions. As a soldier, I was fully prepared to give my life for my country in every place I fought, just as I am now fully prepared to give my life for the Republic of Texas if God demands it of me. I expect no less from every one of you.\"\n\nHe surveyed the audience, tried to gauge their mood. He concluded most of them were with him, which was more than he hoped for.\n\n\"Every one of us in this room swore an oath to defend freedom. Every one of us swore to defend the United States Constitution. But our Constitution, and the United States as we knew it, no longer exist. They've been hijacked by a power-mad tyrant bent on transforming America into a socialist dictatorship. The people of Texas have chosen not to be a party to the destruction of their liberties. _And since freedom is never free, we are going to have to pay for ours_.\"\n\nA murmur of approval swept through the room.\n\nHeartened, JR said, \"Our first job is figuring out how many soldiers we have. I want the National Guard troops individually polled today. I intend to muster everyone in the Guard into full-time Texas service. I know every guardsman has agreed to that in his enlistment papers or officer's commission, but we need to be realistic. We're going to have a civil war. If you can't in good conscience defend Texas against other Americans in Barry Soetoro's army, please excuse yourself right now and no questions will be asked. If you can't in good conscience take the risk because of your family obligations\u2014again, fine, leave now and no questions will be asked. The rest of us need to get ready.\"\n\nOne captain in the rear of the room got up and left. The door closed behind him.\n\n\"Adjutant, take this down. Everyone who stays will be sworn into Texas service with this oath: 'I swear to support and defend the Constitution of the Republic of Texas against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me, so help me God.' Make a lot of copies. Administer the oath before a Texas flag, with the oath-taker standing at attention with his right hand raised. Afterward, the oath-taker will sign a hard copy of the oath that will remain in his service record. Anyone accused of violating the oath will be tried by court-martial, and if found guilty, will be imprisoned or shot. Any questions?\"\n\nThere were none.\n\n\"Okay, let's get at it. Chief of staff, have a list prepared of every United States military installation in the state, all of 'em. We'll divide up the list and take as many troops with us as we can find, go to the CO of every installation this afternoon or as soon as we can get there, and ask for the formal surrender of the base with all its weapons, ammo, and equipment. Prepare a short paragraph for the COs to sign.\n\n\"Our policy is this: Every person in Barry Soetoro's federal service who wishes to leave Texas will be allowed to take his family and personal possessions, no weapons or military gear of any kind, and depart Texas expeditiously. East, west, or north, no questions asked. Any man or woman in federal service, officer or enlisted, who wishes to serve the Republic of Texas will be mustered in by taking the oath and signing it. Enlisted will serve for four years, or until sooner discharged or our legislature decides otherwise. Officers serve at the pleasure of the governor. Time in service and pay grade will transfer directly. Any questions?\"\n\n\"These folks who want to join us\u2014the feds will probably list them as deserters.\"\n\n\"That is not a question, but I'll comment on that point anyway. The feds are going to do whatever they want, and that's sort of a fact of nature. Anyone in federal service wishing to join the Texas Guard by taking the oath will be allowed to do so; in fact, they will be encouraged to do so. We need all of the soldiers we can get. Civilian volunteers will be enlisted after a physical and an abbreviated background check. No crazy people, felons, dope addicts, or congenital idiots.\"\n\n\"We have our share of idiots now,\" someone remarked. \"We don't need any more.\"\n\nJR laughed and the tension was broken. He clapped his hands once and said, \"Break out the sidearms and ammunition. I want every officer armed.\" After a few more housekeeping details, he said, \"We don't know how much time Barry Soetoro will give us, so let's get at it, people.\"\n\nAs the staff dribbled out, JR and Elvin Gentry moved chairs together at the end of one table. \"Call me JR,\" the newest general said. \"Will the air guard stick?\"\n\n\"Most of them,\" Gentry replied.\n\n\"What do you have in the way of airplanes, and where are they?\"\n\nGentry told him. A reconnaissance wing equipped with Predator drones, an airlift wing flying C-130 Hercules planes, and a fighter wing flying F-16s stationed at Kelley Field at the joint base in San Antonio, Lackland. There was an air reserve C-5 outfit there too.\n\n\"We're going to need those fighters PDQ. How about you sending someone down there this morning to make sure we keep them?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. The air reserve also has a wing of F-16s at the Joint Base in Fort Worth, the old NAS Dallas.\"\n\n\"And doesn't the air force have a wing of B-1Bs over at Dyess in Abilene?\"\n\n\"They do. Plus some more Hercs.\"\n\n\"We need them too. Fact is, we need every military asset we can lay hands on. We've got to grab everything we can reach before it is sabotaged or flown or driven out of state. We have to turn it over to loyal people.\"\n\nGentry nodded his understanding.\n\n\"Send the best people you can find on to Fort Worth and San Antone. The critical assets, however, are the B-1s. They compose our only real transcontinental offensive capability. I suggest you go to Abilene as fast as you can get there.\"\n\n\"I'm on my way, sir.\"\n\n\"We also need someone to invade the air traffic control facilities and shut them down. It would be nice to ground every commercial flight in Texas and scoff up all the planes.\"\n\n\"I'll do my best, sir.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Elvin.\"\nELEVEN\n\nAt Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene that morning General l'Angistino was trying to digest a message from Washington directing the Dyess B-1 wing and a B-52 outfit in Louisiana to prepare strikes against the heart of Austin. Before the Pentagon used this blunt weapon, however, an armored division from Fort Hood was ordered to surround the city to isolate it and, after the bombing, capture every politician they could find still alive.\n\nAn armored column cannot be organized and set in motion instantly, and the air force general knew that. He didn't know how long the army would need to comply with the directive, but he thought he had a couple of days before anyone would demand that Dyess bombers smite Austin.\n\nAnd it was going to take a couple of days to get ready. The runway was now clear, but a hundred armed civilians were blockading the main gate and dozens of others blocked the other gates.\n\nL'Angistino was rapidly running out of air policemen. Last night he had directed that machine-gun emplacements be dug on the edges of the ramp area.\n\nHe certainly didn't have the personnel to patrol the entire base perimeter. The base comprised more than six thousand acres, and it was surrounded only by the fence, which, as Colonel Wriston had proved, could be easily breached. L'Angistino did the best he could. He ordered the digging of three machine-gun emplacements to deter an attack from the front gate and had his air police patrol the base in six armored cars with mounted machine guns, the same kind of armored cars FEMA was distributing to police departments nationwide.\n\nL'Angistino picked up the file he had on Colonel Wriston, the National Guard commander who opposed him. He was a warrior. A tanker who had done four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he left active duty after fifteen years and had taken a commission in the Texas National Guard. He was married, with three teenage daughters\u2014undoubtedly the reason why he'd transferred to the Guard. Wriston knew all there was to know about bulldozer blades burying machine gunners alive, and had mounted them on tanks. Now he had bulldozers, if he could find some more, and l'Angistino thought he probably could. Wriston wasn't done, not by a long sight. The only question was what he would do next.\n\nThe major in charge of base security, Timothy Toone, had already had a confrontation with the people out front, who were standing around the county sheriff's car.\n\nAs the major reported it to l'Angistino, he told the Taylor County sheriff, \"You need to get these people out of here.\"\n\n\"I ain't movin' nobody who's not on federal property. They've got ever' right to be here.\"\n\n\"They have no right to blockade our gates. Interference with U.S. military operations is a federal crime.\"\n\n\"Call the FBI and report it,\" the sheriff said calmly. \"I'm sure they'll come roaring right out here and arrest everybody.\"\n\n\"These people are armed.\"\n\nThe sheriff looked around, acting as if he hadn't noticed the guns before. Then he told the major, \"People have a right to openly carry firearms in Texas, except in places where it's prohibited, like courthouses. This isn't a courthouse, but a public road. Fact is, these streets and roads belong to the City of Abilene, Taylor County, or the Republic of Texas. These folks don't have to leave unless I tell them to.\"\n\nThe sheriff grinned, the major told l'Angistino, while he waited for the major to ask him to do just that, a request that he would cheerfully refuse in front of an audience of his constituents. So the major had kept his mouth shut and returned to headquarters. Now what did the general want him to do?\n\nMore than half the officers and airmen assigned to Dyess lived outside the gates, mostly senior people. Many of the pilots did too.\n\n\"Major, I want hourly reports on conditions at all seven gates of the base; I want you to double the base guards and ensure they're armed. If armed civilians are foolish enough to try to force their way onto the base, I want the guards to respond with lethal force. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"If this blockade continues, we won't have enough pilots, crew chiefs, and ordnance specialists to accomplish our missions. We have to break it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nAt noon, Major Toone estimated that the crowd on the streets had swelled to more than ten thousand civilians\u2014including women and children. He estimated that half the men were armed. If they rushed the base, his troops would be in a hell of a fix if ordered to shoot. He wanted written orders from General l'Angistino.\n\nNothing in the brigadier's military education or experience readied him to meet this situation. Shooting unarmed women and children would be an atrocity, a war crime . . . and, he thought, a sin. His wife would never forgive him. He wondered if the air force would.\n\nHis operations officer entered with a mission assignment. As many B-1s as l'Angistino could get airborne were ordered to bomb Austin tonight. They were to use JDAMs, which were precision-guided munitions. A detailed target list would follow.\n\n\"But there is no fighter protection laid on,\" the ops officer said. \"The Texas Air Guard has a squadron of F-16s at the joint base at Lackland. If they sortie to intercept the B-1s, the Bones will be toast. They have to have fighter protection, General. We could lose them all on the way to the target, over it, or on the way home. It's only seventy or eighty miles from San Antonio to Austin. Sending those guys without fighter protection is ridiculous. Foolhardy.\"\n\nA knock on the door, and his aide appeared. \"General, there are two squadron commanders and nine pilots waiting to see you.\"\n\nThe ops officer and the general exchanged glances. Did they know about the lack of fighter protection? Already?\n\n\"Send them in,\" he said. Then he turned to Major Toone and added, \"Major, let's talk later.\" The two colonels, squadron commanders, passed Major Toone in the doorway. \"We have a problem, General. Some of our pilots want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Send them in.\"\n\nThe pilots were wearing flight suits. The first man in line stood at attention in front of the general's desk, saluted, and laid his silver wings insignia on the desk. \"Sir, I wish to turn in my wings and be removed from flight status, immediately.\"\n\nL'Angistino stared at the captain, who met his gaze. In the American military pilots and flight crewmen were all volunteers. No one could order an officer to be a pilot.\n\n\"Do you want to give me an explanation, Captain?\"\n\n\"Sir, I find that in good conscience I cannot fight other Americans. I may be obligated to remain in the air force, but I am not going to fly again.\"\n\nThe next man laid his wings on the table and saluted. He repeated the formula, \"I wish to turn in my wings and be removed from flight status, sir.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"My wife and I are from Texas. Born and raised here. I'm not going to take a chance that you want me to bomb Texas, maybe kill some of our relatives or some friends I grew up with or went to school with. Or their kids. I can live with a court-martial, but I couldn't live with that.\"\n\nWhen the last man left, nine silver wings lay on the general's desk. The squadron commanders stood at parade rest.\n\n\"Where's the other squadron commander, Colonel Hurley?\"\n\n\"Somewhere off base, sir, we think.\"\n\n\"How many pilots do we have available to fly the Bones?\"\n\n\"Twelve, sir, including us. Nine command pilots and three copilots. Using some of the command pilots as copilots, we can launch six planes.\"\n\nThe general sank into his chair. A hundred twenty pilots in the wing, and he could muster just a dozen?\n\n\"A lot of them are trapped off base, sir. To get them in, we'd either have to run the civilians off or slip one of our own over the fence to find our guys and organize a mass break-in.\"\n\n\"That would take all night.\"\n\n\"Or longer. And we have enlisted manpower problems. Our muster list shows about thirty percent of our personnel are present for duty.\"\n\n\"I saw the morning muster rolls.\"\n\n\"It's a bad situation, sir.\"\n\nThe general dismissed the colonels and sat thinking. The bomb wing wasn't ready for combat. With only six flight crews and thirty percent of its enlisted personnel, it wasn't ready for anything. Not even morning colors.\n\nThe ops officer left, but he soon came back. \"There is a turboprop inbound, sir. National Guard.\"\n\n\"Send them up here when they land.\"\n\nHe watched the turboprop taxi to base ops and shut down. One or two people in uniform got out, climbed into a waiting sedan. Ten minutes later they were in his office.\n\nHe recognized the Air National Guard general, Elvin Gentry, whom he saluted since Gentry was a two-star. The man with Gentry was a colonel. \"Please be seated, gentlemen,\" l'Angistino said.\n\n\"This independence thing,\" Gentry said, \"it's turned the world upside down. I've come to ask for you to surrender the base, its personnel, and all the military property on it.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding?\"\n\n\"Lou, I wish I was. But I'm deadly serious. My boss, Major General JR Hays\u2014do you know him?\"\n\n\"Not that I can recall.\"\n\n\"He was army. Anyway, he sent me up here to get your surrender. If you refuse, he'll have to launch an F-16 strike on the base to take out the planes. Texas wants them or wants them in ashes.\"\n\n\"I'll fly them out of here,\" l'Angistino said stoutly. \"The first ones leave in less than an hour.\"\n\n\"Lou, you couldn't have enough pilots to fly more than a handful of Bones and Hercs out of here, and I doubt you have the enlisted mechs and specialists it takes to even launch that many. We know the situation here. I've been on the radio with Colonel Wriston. Fact is, you could tell me to go to hell and sabotage all those planes, shoot holes in the spars, whatever, but we're going to take this base before very long, and General Hays is going to be royally pissed with you people if those airplanes are harmed. I don't know exactly what the Geneva Convention says about the treatment of prisoners of war, but this isn't a war we've declared. You are now trespassers on property owned by the Republic of Texas. Lawyers love tangles like this, but the local Texans won't. If you don't surrender they will be even more pissed than JR Hays. You know those people aren't under our control.\"\n\nLou l'Angistino's thoughts tumbled around.\n\n\"Lou, for God's sake. I am not trying to threaten you, although maybe it came out that way, and if so, I apologize. Most of your people don't want to fight other Americans, many are Texans who won't fight other Texans even at the point of a gun. You can't sit here on a base protected by nothing but a wire fence and defy the whole population of Texas! There is no realistic chance for victory. None. For God's sake, do the right thing and save some lives.\"\n\nGentry pointed to the little pile of wings on l'Angistino's desk. \"Even your pilots are trying to tell you something. Your air force is disintegrating.\"\n\nGeneral l'Angistino picked up the op order directing a strike on Austin, glanced at it in disgust, then dropped it on the table. \"What are your terms?\"\n\nAn hour later, after the surrender document was signed and sent to be posted in barracks, ready rooms, and maintenance shops, Colonel Wriston of the National Guard was escorted into the office. He was wearing jeans and a faded Texas A&M T-shirt. Lou l'Angistino reached for his hand and perfunctorily shook it.\n\n\"Lou, here's the man responsible for the ten or so thousand people standing outside on the street,\" Gentry told the air force general. \"Wriston and his men spent the night recruiting their friends and neighbors.\"\n\n\"You mean some of that crowd were National Guardsmen in civvies?\"\n\n\"They were. Wriston did what he could to block your runways, but he didn't go home afterward to watch television. He knew the vast majority of the civilian community was behind him, so he used his men to mobilize them.\"\n\nA loud voice interrupted them, to l'Angistino's relief. Colonel Wriston went to meet the man, who was standing in the reception area.\n\n\"Wriston, you bastard. I got back from Dallas this morning and nobody's workin' my job site. My foreman says the equipment operators stole ever'thin' that would move on your orders. Where the hell is my construction equipment?\"\n\n\"Out beside the runways, Carroll. We used it yesterday to block the runways here. Did you watch the declaration read night before last?\"\n\n\"Sure did! All I can say is, it's about damn time.\"\n\n\"I couldn't call and ask to borrow your stuff, but I thought since Carroll is a good man, he won't mind.\"\n\n\"By the runways, you say?\"\n\n\"It's damaged and tore up some, but it kept all the planes from taking off. You should be able to repair some of it. Anyway, your project is going to go slow until you get some more equipment operators. Most of yours are in the Guard and they are now on active duty and won't be back for a while.\"\n\nCarroll took a deep breath. \"The yellow iron is insured, but the insurance company will lawyer up and refuse to pay unless I sue 'em, then offer ten cents on the dollar. You know that.\"\n\n\"Tell you what,\" Wriston said, and put his arm around the construction man. \"If you eat the repair costs, we'll give you an airplane. Any one of those along the road into the base, your pick. You can put it in your front yard. When things calm down, we'll move it for you.\"\n\nCarroll's eyes lit up. \"Got pecan trees in the front yard, but I could put it in the horse pasture out back. Damn, I'd like that.\"\n\nThey shook hands on it.\n\nIt was noon when JR Hays, wearing a camo uniform and a pistol on a web belt, arrived at the front gate at Fort Hood, sixty miles north of Austin in Killeen. He was in the right seat of a sedan with Texas flags flying from the corners of the front bumper. Two guardsmen, a male captain and a female major, were with him. An enlisted woman was driving.\n\nThe soldier at the gate wanted to see ID, but the sergeant was right there immediately and said, \"Sir, you can enter the base, but the carrying of firearms around the administrative and living areas is forbidden.\"\n\n\"Who is the commanding general?\" JR asked the sergeant.\n\n\"Lieutenant General Gil Ellensberger, sir.\"\n\n\"Call him. Tell him Major General JR Hays of the Texas Army is sitting at his main gate and wants in to see him. You may tell him we are wearing sidearms, if you wish.\"\n\nThe sergeant did as he was told. When he hung up the phone, he came out and explained to the driver of the sedan how to get to the headquarters building. Then he saluted. JR returned it.\n\nThe commanding general was in a staff meeting. The receptionist had a television in her office, and JR stood in front of it a minute watching. Armed citizens were taking over federal office buildings statewide. The FBI agents in Waco had been arrested en masse, disarmed, and jailed. DEA and ICE headquarters had been occupied, the agents disarmed and sent home.\n\nEllensberger came striding in. He was a tall, lanky man. He didn't look happy, but he said, \"Good lord, JR Hays, as I live and breathe. I haven't seen you since Afghanistan. Come on into my office.\" Ellensberger led the way and closed the door.\n\nJR thought commanding generals' offices all looked alike: big desk, carpet, U.S. flags, mementos of the current occupant scattered around. Unbidden, he dropped into a chair.\n\n\"I retired from the army last year, General, and my cousin, Governor Jack Hays, just this morning put me in charge of the Texas Guard. Raw nepotism.\"\n\nEllensberger let that one go by. \"All our off-base telephones are down, as well as the internet. Did you have anything to do with that?\"\n\n\"Jack Hays did, not me. I am here today to accept your surrender of the base and all of its personnel and military equipment to the Republic of Texas.\"\n\nEllensberger snorted. \"You know I can't do that. You can't just march in here and take over a United States military installation!\"\n\n\"Gil, you don't have a choice. Texas is now an independent republic, and Fort Hood is right smack in the middle of it.\"\n\nEllensberger waved that away. \"Texas is a state in the United States that has tried to secede from the Union. We settled all that back in the 1860s. Surely you read about that. It didn't work then and it isn't going to work now.\"\n\n\"We're not lawyers and I can't read tea leaves. We're soldiers, and you have an impossible military problem. How many of your troops reported for duty this morning?\"\n\nFrom the look on General Ellensberger's face, JR knew he had scored a hit.\n\n\"Half? Was it fifty percent?\"\n\nEllensberger didn't reply.\n\n\"Last I heard, you had over forty-five thousand soldiers assigned here. If we blockade the base, how are you going to feed them? And for how long?\"\n\nStill no reply.\n\n\"Are you going to deploy your troops around your perimeter\u2014how many miles of it do you have, anyway?\u2014and defend it? How many U.S. Army troopers do we have to kill before you will surrender? Or are you going to defend this dirt to the last man and go down like they did at the Alamo? Tell me now so I can brief my staff and get at it.\"\n\n\"Pfui. All the good ol' boys in Texas aren't going to whip an armored division.\"\n\nJR Hays rubbed his nose.\n\nEllensberger pushed the intercom button. \"Bring in this morning's classified message traffic.\"\n\nIn a moment a soldier came in and handed Ellensberger a clipboard. He automatically said thank you, and the soldier left.\n\nThe commanding general flipped through the messages, then handed the clipboard to JR.\n\n\"It's the one on top. Op Immediate from the chairman of the JCS, Wynette. He has ordered me to take an armored column from the First Cavalry down the interstate to Austin and surround the city. The air force is going to bomb it. We will go in after the bombers are finished and capture every politician left alive.\"\n\nJR took his time with the messages. He read the first one, then saw that Ellensberger was an info addee on a message to the B-1 bomber wing at Dyess and a B-52 outfit in Louisiana ordering them to prepare a strike on the Texas capitol in Austin. They were to wait to launch until First Cavalry had the city surrounded.\n\n\"This is insanity,\" JR said, gesturing with the clipboard. \"They are going to indiscriminately slaughter everyone in central Austin.\"\n\n\"They're not thinking very straight,\" Ellensberger admitted.\n\n\"But you are willing to be a part of this? Murdering civilians from the air? Americans?\"\n\nEllensberger sighed. After a bit he said, \"If I surrender to you, Wynette will just order the bombers to obliterate Austin ASAP. A dozen B-52s should be able to convert the heart of the city to rubble and kill a whole bunch of civilians.\"\n\nJR carefully placed the clipboard back on Ellensberger's desk. \"Which side are you on, Gil?\"\n\nEllensberger took his time answering. \"As I see it, the governor of Texas and the president of the United States are locked in a hell of a political dispute. I wish they would settle it between themselves without dragging the American flag through the dirt and asking American soldiers to kill other Americans. Honest to God.\"\n\n\"It isn't the governor. It's the legislature and the people of Texas who are locked in a dispute with Soetoro. Haven't you been watching television?\"\n\nEllensberger didn't reply to that remark, either.\n\n\"But politics isn't my business,\" JR murmured. \"I'm a soldier.\"\n\n\"Soldiering _is_ politics. You know that!\"\n\n\"Yes or no, Gil. I have responsibilities too.\"\n\nEllensberger took in a bushel of air and sighed deeply. \"What are your terms?\"\n\nIt took a half hour for the surrender document to be typed and signed. Meanwhile JR sent the captain to the flight line to take a helicopter to National Guard headquarters at Camp Mabry in Austin with a message to Major General Gentry. Bombers were coming sooner or later to flatten Austin, and he'd better get fighters ready to fly with pilots willing to fight for Texas.\n\nLieutenant General Ellensberger signed the surrender. Then he went to the U.S. flag in the corner and carefully removed it from its display pole. He folded it reverently and put it into his briefcase.\n\n\"Two mornings ago,\" he said conversationally to JR, \"when I heard the legislature had passed the declaration and the governor had signed it, I knew this moment was coming. And I didn't know what to do. I could have asked Washington, but all I would have gotten was bullshit. I wanted some time to see what my staff thought, what the troops thought\u2014you can't fight if the troops aren't with you body and soul. The moment of decision just came sooner than I thought it would.\n\n\"JR, I am sick to death. You and I were both at West Point, served our country\u2014all of it. Then along came Soetoro. A progressive fascist, if there is such a thing. I figured the country could stand eight years of even the devil's rule, but I was wrong. Race was the wild card. Everyone is scared to death of being labeled a racist. If Soetoro were white he would have been impeached years ago. . . . Do you mind if my wife and I stay in our quarters for a few days? I need to figure out what to do next.\"\n\n\"Whatever you need,\" JR replied. Ellensberger took a deep breath and looked around the office one more time. \"I fear for my country,\" he said softly. \"The United States may not survive this mess.\"\n\n\"Texas will,\" JR said with more confidence than he felt. He saluted, Ellensberger returned it, and then JR walked out to address the office staff.\n\n\"You folks in the United States Army who wish to leave can go. You folks who want to enlist in the Texas Guard can stay. You civilians have a job right here if you want it.\"\n\nThe civilians all stayed. Most of the soldiers asked permission, which was granted, to go home and discuss it with their wives or just to think about things.\n\nJR's next problem was easily solved. The aide he had brought with him, Major Judy Saar, asked, \"What are you going to do about Major Nasruli?\"\n\nNasruli was an American-born jihadist who had murdered thirteen Fort Hood soldiers several years before and wounded thirty-two more.\n\n\"Is he still here?\"\n\n\"So they tell me. In the jail or detention facility or whatever they call it.\"\n\n\"I thought he was convicted by a court-martial and sentenced to death.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. But he's very much alive.\"\n\n\"We are not going to waste people running a jail or spend a dime of taxpayers' money feeding him,\" JR Hays said. \"It's high time he was dead, anyway. Dictate an execution order addressed to yourself. Put in Nasruli's rank, full name, service number, and a place for my signature. Reference the death sentence. Then get a half-dozen volunteers, get them some M4s, and put him up against a wall. Make sure he's real dead. Then come back here and dictate a press release. The army and the civilians in Washington have screwed around and screwed around, and now he's history.\"\n\n\"And the body, sir?\"\n\n\"Burn it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Judy Saar said, came to attention, and saluted. Apparently she too thought Major Nasruli had lived long enough. In seven minutes she was back with a one-paragraph order she had apparently typed herself. JR Hays read it, signed it, handed it back to her, and went on to the next problem, which was the armored division at Fort Bliss, in El Paso.\n\nHe doubted that the commanding general there would surrender quite as quickly as Major General Ellensberger had. JR knew Major General Lee Parker, knew him to be a perfect bureaucrat who wouldn't want to buck the system. JR thought Parker personified everything wrong with the army: bureaucratic inertia, lack of initiative, a craven capitulation to political correctness, and a pathological fear of casualties. The media's fondness for trumpeting casualties meant that a career officer on the way up wanted as few as absolutely possible, so he took as few risks as possible, and accomplished very little. He also kicked difficult decisions up the line, so that he wouldn't be blamed if anything went wrong. JR thought that before he surrendered, Parker would want the blessing of higher authority, which he was unlikely to get.\n\nGiven some time, JR thought Parker could be conned into thinking his military bosses wanted him to surrender, but time was a diminishing asset for JR. He needed that armored division in his pocket right now. He was going to have to convince Parker that he was facing a mountain of casualties in a losing cause.\n\nMajor Judy Saar drove a staff car and parked at the first barracks she saw. Inside she found groups of male soldiers loafing in the lounge, loudly discussing Texas independence and the takeover of the base. She said, \"Attention please.\"\n\nSome of the soldiers looked around. \"I am here to ask for volunteers for a firing squad.\"\n\nStunned silence greeted her. One black sergeant said, \"Who do you want to shoot, Major?\" His name tag read HILL.\n\n\"Major Nasruli. I have an execution order here in my hand.\"\n\nEvery man in the room raised his hand, including the black staff sergeant, short and wiry and buff, with close-cropped, prematurely gray hair. \"One of the men he shot was my brother, who is paralyzed from the waist down.\"\n\n\"I need six people,\" she said. \"Sergeant Hill, will you select five other men and follow me to the base armory?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nAt the armory she requisitioned six M4s and a cartridge for each of them. She passed the carbines to her volunteers and pocketed the cartridges.\n\n\"Turn these weapons in here afterward,\" she told them. \"Now the detention facility.\"\n\nShe parked in front of the building and waited for the other vehicles, three private cars, to arrive. She felt as if she were watching herself outside of her body.\n\nHer husband, a private physician, would not approve. But then he didn't approve of her service in the National Guard. He wanted her to stay home with the two children, who were now in junior high and didn't need her sitting at home. She wanted to make a larger contribution.\n\nThe cars drove up and the soldiers got out with their weapons.\n\nMajor Saar led them inside, showed the officer at the desk the execution order.\n\n\"You can't do this,\" he said. \"The death sentence has to be approved by the president.\"\n\n\"You have heard that Texas has declared its independence and Lieutenant General Ellensberger has surrendered Fort Hood to the Republic of Texas, have you not?\"\n\n\"Yes, but\u2014\"\n\n\"The president of the United States has no authority here. Would you care to call base headquarters and verify the order with Major General Hays?\"\n\nHe would. He did so. After a moment of listening, he said, \"Yes, sir,\" and hung up and looked askance at Judy Saar.\n\n\"Do you have an exercise area?\" Major Saar asked.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Bring him out there. In handcuffs.\"\n\nShe had the sergeant arrange the squad in a line and handed a cartridge to each of them. Major Nasruli protested as the guards led him out. Apparently he had been told what was about to happen, because when he saw her he shouted, \"I have written to President Soetoro demanding clemency. Allah protects the faithful. Allah has\u2014\"\n\n\"The post that holds up the basketball backboard,\" Major Saar told the guards. \"Cuff his hands behind the post.\"\n\nNasruli continued to shout, to rant. Sergeant Hill asked, \"Do you want him blindfolded?\"\n\n\"He can take this with his eyes open,\" she said.\n\nNasruli refused to stop shouting. He was still shouting when Major Saar told the marksmen to aim at the center of the chest and gave the commands: Ready, aim, fire. The shots came as one report and Nasruli went down, held semi-erect by the pole. She heard the spent shells tinkling on the concrete. She walked over to the body. Blood stained his shirt. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.\n\nLike an automaton, she drew her pistol, looked to ensure the safety was off, and, using both hands to steady and aim the pistol, shot Nasruli in the head from a distance of three feet. Brains and bloody tissue flew out the back of his head.\n\nShe engaged the safety of her Beretta, holstered it, and turned to the officer commanding the detention facility, who was staring slack-jawed at the remains of Major Nasruli. \"Pour gasoline on the body and set it afire, Captain.\"\n\nThe sergeant called the firing squad to attention, turned them, and marched them back into the detention facility.\n\nIt took twenty minutes for the detention facility staff to come up with a five-gallon can of gasoline. _They are probably robbing a civilian on a lawnmower_ , Judy Saar thought. She stood and looked at the sky, at the windows of the detention facility, at the body against the pole. She thought she was going to be sick, but she choked it down. _Later_ , she whispered. A bird skittered along the top of the wall. A mockingbird, she noted.\n\nAfter they put the body against an exterior stone wall, drenched it with gasoline, and set it ablaze, she marched back through the detention facility and vomited by her car. Then she drove back to headquarters.\n\nThe staff sergeant and the five other men from the firing squad were waiting for her in front of the building. They had apparently turned in the carbines to the base armory. All of them saluted and she returned their salute. \"Major, we'd like to enlist in the Texas Guard,\" Sergeant Hill said.\n\nShe nodded and motioned for them to follow her inside.\n\nThere was a handwritten letter waiting for Major Judy Saar in the commanding general's office.\n\n\"You are now the CO of the base and the 1st Cavalry Division. Get as many soldiers enlisted as possible, and get the 1st Cavalry ready to fight. I am on my way to Fort Bliss to grab the 1st Armored, Old Ironsides. We'll need them too. You are a good soldier. I'll back you in every decision you make. Texas needs you.\" It was signed by JR Hays, Major General.\nTWELVE\n\nOn the flight line at the base airfield, JR Hays went into a ready room full of helicopter pilots. They were gathered around a television, watching the feed from Washington. Someone saw JR enter the room and called everyone to attention. JR walked to a spot in front of the television, turned it off, and told everyone, \"Please be seated.\"\n\nHe surveyed the faces. Most army pilots are warrant officers. He was looking at a bunch of them, with a few commissioned officers scattered among them.\n\n\"I'm JR Hays of the Texas Guard. As you know, Major General Ellensberger surrendered to the Texas Guard just an hour or so ago. You've been watching television, so you know the current political situation. Barry Soetoro declared martial law and ripped up the Constitution, and consequently Texas declared its independence. General Ellensberger surrendered Fort Hood because it is indefensible. Circling the wagons in a lost cause struck him as ridiculous unless he was prepared to cut his way out of Texas, and he wasn't.\n\n\"Which gets me down to you. Every one of you has a decision to make: you can go home, pack your family, and leave Texas, or you can join Texas in our attempt to build a free nation dedicated to the principles that the Founding Fathers laid down when they wrote the U.S. Constitution. I suspect Barry Soetoro's army will not be pleased if you choose to join Texas in its fight, and it will be a fight, a second American Civil War. Barry Soetoro is going to use the armed forces of the United States to try to conquer Texas, so if you sign on, you will be fighting U.S. forces. Americans against Americans, as if it were 1861 all over again.\n\n\"Finally, if you choose to join the Texas Guard and fight with us, you can't change your mind later. It's sort of like getting baptized down at the creek: as the preacher would say, once you're in, you're all in, and you can't wash it off.\n\n\"Any questions or comments?\"\n\nOne of the warrant officers stood up and said, \"Sir, Chief Warrant Officer Three Buck Johannson.\"\n\nJR nodded and Johannson said, \"My dad is a state representative in Wisconsin. His politics are right of center and he's loud. The feds arrested him yesterday and put him in a camp because they don't want other people to hear the opinions of a free man. Far as I'm concerned, Texas is on the side of freedom. I'd like to join the Texas Guard.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" JR said. \"Anyone else?\"\n\nAnother warrant said, \"I think Soetoro wants to be a dictator. I don't want my kids to grow up in that kind of country. I'm from Georgia, but from now on I'm a Texan.\"\n\n\"Welcome to the Alamo,\" JR said, which drew a chuckle from his listeners.\n\nAbout half the pilots volunteered to serve with Texas. JR dismissed the others, told them to go home and pack. \"If, while you're doing that you decide to join us, you know where the headquarters building is.\"\n\nWhen only his volunteers remained, JR said, \"Our first priority is the First Armored in Fort Bliss. I want to go over there and capture the whole outfit. We need the tanks, helicopters, ammo, and all the rest of it. I'll need three Apaches and a Blackhawk armed to the teeth. We are going to do some violence, enough to make the CG there, Major General Lee Parker, surrender. Who wants to go?\"\n\nSpecialist Fourth Class James B. Cassel, a name that he and his kin had always pronounced Castle, spoke for thousands of his fellow soldiers when he got home to the tiny apartment he shared with his wife, Linda Sue, and their infant daughter. Jimmy Cassel was from a tiny town in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. He told Linda Sue, who was from Killeen and had married James just a year ago, about the surrender of Fort Hood to Texas forces.\n\n\"They say I can enlist in the Texas Guard, or we can pack up and get outta Texas,\" he said as he took off his uniform and put on his jeans and tennis shoes. \"Get packed up. We're leavin'.\"\n\n\"I was born and raised here,\" Linda Sue protested. \"I'm Texan clear through to my backbone. I'm not turning my back on my family.\"\n\n\"I joined the army to get the hell out of the coalfields,\" Jimmy explained as he pulled on a T-shirt that advertised the local Harley dealership, although he didn't own a motorcycle because he couldn't afford one, not even a used one. \"I didn't join the army to shoot Americans. If I was willin' to do that when push come to shove, I'd have joined the police. I got no love for that son of a bitch Soetoro, but America's my country from coast to coast. I ain't goin' to shoot Texans or Hoosiers or Californians or anybody else from America. We're leavin'.\"\n\n\"I'm not,\" Linda Sue declared. \"And the baby is stayin' with me. You just load your stuff in the car, Jimmy, and get the hell out. Go ahead, run off! If you won't fight to defend _us_ , I don't want _you_.\"\n\n\"Now, hold on! You married me and I'm the man of the family. My dad was in the army and fought in Kuwait. My granddad fought in Vietnam and got shot for his troubles. Us Cassels been fightin' _for_ this country since before it was a country. _I ain_ ' _t_ _turnin_ ' _traitor_.\"\n\n\"Jimmy Cassel, I am not turnin' traitor neither. I want to hear exactly nothin' about your daddy and granddaddy. The baby and I are your family now. And if you won't fight for your family, then you just hit the road. I'm takin' the baby and walkin' down to Mom's place.\"\n\nAn hour later, sitting alone in his apartment, Jimmy Cassel started to cry.\n\nSergeant Claude Zeist handed beers to three of his sergeant friends at his house on base. The television was on: scenes of federal agents making arrests alternated with scenes of riots in Baltimore, St. Louis, LA, and Chicago.\n\n\"The Texans have bit off a big chunk, and I doubt if they can chew it,\" Zeist said. \"But that's neither here nor there. Fact is, I took an oath to defend the United States of America, and when this is all over I want my kids and grandkids to know that I did my duty. Did what I swore I would. And there is no way in hell I am going into combat against my fellow American soldiers.\"\n\n\"It'll be over soon,\" his friend Benny Straight said. \"Thing I can't figure is why everybody is so damned upset. Barry Soetoro will be gone in January. He can't run again. The next president can set things right.\"\n\n\"What if he doesn't?\"\n\n\"That's tomorrow's problem. You don't burn the house down just because the sewer is backed up.\"\n\n\"So what are you going to do, Claude?\"\n\n\"I'm going to pack up the wife and kids and get outta Texas and find an army base somewhere so I can be an American soldier again. That's what I always wanted to be, and if we have to kick ass again like we did during the Civil War in the 1860s, so be it. That damn General Ellensberger hasn't got enough guts to make a sausage.\"\n\n\"Generals get paid to decide when to fight and when not to,\" Benny remarked.\n\n\"One good fight and Texas will crack like a rotten egg,\" Claude Zeist insisted, and drained his beer. Then he reached for another. \"We should have had it today. Never put off until tomorrow kicking ass today.\"\n\nNo one smiled; they were worried.\n\nBenny Straight put into words a thought that all of them had and none of them had yet voiced. \"After Texas folds, the U.S. Army is going to court-martial any United States soldier who did the turncoat trick. They'll be called traitors, and you know it.\"\n\n\" _If_ Texas folds,\" Jeff Hanifan said.\n\n\"Oh, it will,\" Benny Straight scoffed. \"For God's sake, one state against forty-nine? Texas against the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps?\"\n\n\"Well, something good came out of this shit storm, anyway,\" Claude Zeist said. \"The Texans put Nasruli up against a wall and shot him. I would have bet my left nut that Soetoro was going to wait until his last day in office and commute the sentence to life in prison.\"\n\n\"This is Texas,\" Jeff Hanifan said, as if that explained everything. His comrades, all career soldiers, nodded knowingly and drank more beer.\n\nLoren Snyder went down the open hatch in front of the small sail of USS _Texas_ and found himself in the torpedo room. He looked around with his flashlight. The reactor was scrammed of course, and the boat was dead iron. The torpedoes in their cradles looked sleek and fat and ominous.\n\nHe wandered along, inspecting everything. The sailors hadn't even been able to take their personal gear. It seemed they would return any moment, but he knew they wouldn't.\n\nThe flashlight's beam in that dark ship was sorta spooky. The gentle, barely perceptible motion of the ship riding the little waves of the harbor made it even more so.\n\nIn the control room, the realization hit him that he was standing right dead center in a cruise missile target. Tomahawks could be climbing for their final dive right this instant. Each breath he took could be his last. He felt perspiration break out on his forehead and forced himself to concentrate on what he could see with the flashlight's beam.\n\nIn the reactor spaces, he examined everything and could find nothing amiss. The crew had simply secured the reactor and the batteries, then trooped up the forward ladder out of the ship.\n\nAssuming he could get the reactor started again, how many men would he need to move this boat? Lorrie Snyder thought hard. No more than five, he thought.\n\nMove her where? Satellites could see her submerged in shallow water, even if the water were muddy, using infrared. Where could he put a submarine so that the U.S. Navy couldn't find her?\n\nEven if he could find such a place, did he really want to do it? JR Hays had asked the question point-blank: Was he willing to fight for Texas? Well, was he?\n\nIf he planned on living and practicing law in Texas, Loren Snyder thought he had better get that figured out. Along with everything else.\n\nThe easy way out of this personal nightmare would be to just scuttle the submarine right here at the pier. Then the U.S. Navy wouldn't need to sink her or send SEALs to steal her. JR Hays would tell him he had done his best, and thank him. Loren Snyder thought about that too.\n\nThat Sunday afternoon chairman of the JCS General Martin L. Wynette was back at the White House. He hadn't had a day this bad since he was a plebe at West Point, way back when. President Soetoro, Vice President John Rhodes, and their aides surrounded him at a conference table and wanted to know how and when the armed forces of the United States were going to crush the Texas rebellion. The general had two aides with him, a Major General Stone and a brigadier, but the questions were directed at him, and the politicians weren't happy. They wanted action now.\n\n\"Willy-nilly bombing and invasion without a plan will get us nowhere,\" the general explained. \"We are working around the clock to formulate a coherent plan that will accomplish a military objective, which is the occupation of an enemy state.\"\n\n\"That's not it,\" Soetoro said, thumping the table. \"The military objective is to destroy the political opposition in Texas.\"\n\n\"Your political opposition.\"\n\n\"You're damned right. Those who oppose the progressive policies of this administration, earth-friendly policies that will benefit all future generations, policies designed to take care of those today who are unable to participate in our high-tech economy, whether from institutional racism or white privilege or the circumstances of birth, are indeed _my_ political opposition. They oppose America! Your job is to kill or capture them. Now\u2014how are you going to get it done?\"\n\n\"The navy will launch two Tomahawk cruise missiles at power-generating facilities in Houston later tonight, after dark in Texas. Your staff told me they want bombs falling immediately, so I gave the order. We are planning more strikes on the power plants\u2014\"\n\n\"Planning?\"\n\n\"Scattering cruise missiles around like grass seed isn't going to kill or capture your political opposition, Mr. President. These strikes must be in coordination with armed invasion, or we are simply wasting missiles.\" Wynette felt his irritation leaking through. _He_ was the military expert. None of these political types had ever spent a single day in uniform, unless they did a stint at scout camp once upon a time. Hell, they didn't even _like_ soldiers, whom they often referred to as neolithics.\n\n\"So when is the invasion?\"\n\n\"Sir, as I said, we are working around the clock to produce a plan. Going in half-cocked and getting our asses shot off isn't going to get us any closer to your objective. When we go in, we want to win.\"\n\n\"So when? Tomorrow? This week? Next week? Next month? Next year? _When_?\"\n\n\"I would say next week. We must move soldiers and equipment from all over the country, figure out the logistics\u2014\"\n\n\"Bullshit,\" Soetoro's senior political advisor, Sulana Schanck, said acidly. \"This isn't the invasion of Germany or Iraq! Your opposition is a mob of crackers with deer rifles who will shit their pants when the shooting starts and run like rabbits.\" She obviously was a believer in direct speech.\n\nThe thought shot through Wynette's head that British General Thomas Gage had that same opinion when he marched his troops from Boston to seize the arms and powder at Lexington and Concord, but he had the sense not to air it. He did, however, screw up the courage to say, \"The Texans did a number on General Santa Ana, as I recall.\"\n\n\"Damn it, General,\" Soetoro roared. \"I don't want a history lesson! I want you to take the United States armed forces down there and kick butt. If you can't do it, we'll find someone who can.\"\n\nWynette automatically dropped into his ass-kissing mode. \"We'll get it done, sir.\"\n\n\"And how come the brass in charge of these military facilities in Texas are busy seeing how fast they can surrender? Are they a bunch of traitors?\"\n\n\"Sir, I have ordered investigations. The commanders will be held responsible for their actions.\"\n\n\"Firing squads will stiffen some backbones. The sooner the better.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"When the invasion starts, I want you down there in the lead tank, General. Do you understand? If you fuck this up, don't come back alive.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" General Wynette said.\n\nLate Sunday afternoon as JR Hays settled into one of the passenger seats of a U.S. Army executive jet, normally used to ferry flag officers around, he took stock of all the things he needed to get done and hadn't been able to attend to today. Everything needed to be done immediately. He hoped that Air National Guard Major General Elvin Gentry had hit the ground running. Air traffic facilities and their radars, in addition to fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, had to be seized by the Guard. Without ground control sites pinpointing incoming enemy planes, fighters were handicapped severely. Gentry also needed to ground civilian air traffic and confiscate every jetliner he could lay hands on so they could be used to ferry troops.\n\nJust thinking of all the critical tasks and decisions that had to be attended to made JR's head throb and gave him a sense of anxiety that he was having trouble shaking off. The fact that the feds were equally inundated didn't help much to ease his frame of mind. If the feds got licked, they had forty-nine other states to play in. If Texas got licked, a whole lot of Texans were going to die in the aftermath.\n\nThe three Apaches and one Blackhawk that he had launched from Fort Hood were going to make a pit stop for fuel in Pecos. Unfortunately the weather was rotten around El Paso. Thunderstorms full of rain and lightning were drifting in from the west and southwest, bringing low ceilings and visibility in addition to their usual goodies.\n\nHe had no plan for forcing the 1st Armored to surrender. He had learned long ago the truth to the old maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy, so he made none. First he had to learn what the situation was in El Paso and at Fort Bliss, then he could plan. The Apaches and the Blackhawk were arrows in his quiver. The National Guard commander, Wiley Fehrenbach, scion of the Hill Country Fehrenbachs, and his old civilian contractor boss, Pete Taylor, would know, so he would land at the civilian airport and seek them out.\n\nHe had been lucky to get into West Point, and soon hated the place. He decided to stick with it and do his required service afterward, then bail. Before he could get out, along came Kosovo. The experience left him with a profound respect for the men and women who served in the army. In Afghanistan, then Iraq, and two more combat tours in Afghanistan, their valor had left him humbled and awed. Leading troops had been the great experience of his life. The military bureaucracy\u2014full of paper-pushers and desk soldiers angling for promotion\u2014had defeated him when the Holy Warriors could not. He knew he had to get out when he hit twenty years, and he did.\n\nNow he was on the cusp of a horrible dilemma, which he had helped bring on. It looked as if killing some American soldiers might well be on the menu. The hard fact was that if Texas was going to win its freedom, mortal combat was inevitable. If not here, then other places. And the sooner it was done, the sooner the bloodletting would be over.\n\nCombat had taught JR to find strength in God when he doubted if he had enough, and so he prayed a little as the jet lifted off. He had long ago come to grips with his own mortality. He had once written a quotation from Stonewall Jackson in the front of his Bible: \"God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.\"\n\nBe always ready. Go meet your maker with a clear conscience.\n\nAnother lesson he had learned in combat was to sleep whenever possible. He had done all he could, and could make no plans until he knew the situation he faced, so he reclined his seat as far as it would go, leaned his head back, and went to sleep.\nTHIRTEEN\n\nTravis Clay, Willis Coffee, Willie Varner, and I sat in the work area behind the lock shop display room drinking beer and watching television. The front door was locked.\n\nBarry Soetoro was on the tube breathing fire and damnation. Beside him stood General Martin L. Wynette, USA, looking every inch a soldier, with enough ribbons on his chest to decorate the Light Brigade. I had heard that Wynette had actually never heard a shot fired in anger, except for some outgoing artillery barrages fired several miles away, yet he looked fierce and determined, ready to chew nails. I thought it was his square jaw and steely eyes that created that impression, which had taken him far.\n\nApparently Willie the Wire was also impressed by the general, because he remarked, \"He oughta be in movies. Central Casting must have sent him over to the White House.\"\n\nSoetoro was reading from a teleprompter, as usual. I wondered who wrote his stuff: \". . .are going to crush the rebellion in Texas. The traitors who survive will be tried for treason. I appeal again to the sane people in Texas to put a stop to the foolishness of the legislature and the governor. They are the ones who will suffer, who will pay for the stupidity of their state officials. The price will be high. . .\"\n\nHe went on, telling about the Texas press release reporting the execution of Major Nasruli, the convicted Fort Hood jihadist. To hear Soetoro tell it, the execution was a personal insult to him. \"True, Major Nasruli was awaiting execution, but the timing and manner of that execution, if I allowed it to go forward at all, was at _my_ discretion. Many and diverse interests were at stake, including our relationship with many Muslim nations, and my judgment on this matter was rendered a nullity by a Texas National Guard officer who violated federal law. . . .\"\n\nHe talked some more about the heavy burdens of the presidency, then got back to the sins of Texas. \"I have ordered General Wynette to prepare a military response to Texas' blatantly illegal and violent act of secession. We will use the entire might of the federal government to stamp it out, to crush it. We owe the loyal citizens of the nation nothing less. One hundred fifty years ago Texas and other states tore this Union apart in a futile attempt to defend indefensible slavery. Now Texas is tearing this Union apart in order to defend an indefensible, reactionary vision of America that the rest of the country rejects. I can assure you that as president of the United States and commander in chief of the armed forces, I will do my duty as Abraham Lincoln did his, I will not let this stand. I will preserve the Union.\"\n\nWynette nodded several times during this rant, almost as if he were whispering amens.\n\nSoetoro took no questions from the gathered reporters, but stepped aside to give Wynette the podium. \"You may have heard rumors,\" Wynette said, \"that the commanding generals of a few of the United States military installations in Texas surrendered today. Actually, the facilities were delivered to the enemy by treachery. We are investigating. I promise you that the Benedict Arnolds responsible will be court-martialed for treason. If they are found guilty and given the sentence that the law prescribes for that crime, they will be executed. You may have also heard that some of our soldiers and airmen have joined the enemy's ranks to fight against United States forces. I cannot comment on the truth of that rumor, but I will state that any American soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who does indeed join the enemy's ranks will be charged with desertion. I remind any member of the American military listening to this broadcast to remember where their loyalty lies.\n\n\"We will soon begin military operations against the rebels in Texas. We cannot be responsible for the loss of innocent lives; that responsibility rests with those who have rebelled against the lawful government of the United States and taken up arms against it.\"\n\nWynette ducked questions too. He followed Soetoro and Vice President Rhodes back into the bowels of the White House.\n\n\"Lots of treachery down in Texas,\" I remarked.\n\nThe network went back to showing footage of the rioting in Baltimore.\n\n\"Those scenes were shot at the riot last year,\" Travis said. \"I've seen those shots a dozen times. The TV people get around the censor by showing old footage.\"\n\nI went over and snapped off the television. I would have used the remote but Willie had laid it somewhere, lost it I suppose.\n\n\"They're going to start killing people,\" Willis Coffee said bitterly. \"He isn't even going to negotiate.\"\n\n\"I doubt if Texas would negotiate with him,\" I remarked. \"If you were them, would you negotiate with that megalomaniac?\"\n\n\"No,\" Willis admitted.\n\n\"I think those folks down in Texas are going to need a lot more killing than Barry Soetoro thinks they will,\" Travis said softly. \"It's that Alamo thing. They get it with their mother's milk. Texas, Texas, Texas, like it's the promised land that God gave them.\"\n\n\"Maybe he did,\" Willie the Wire muttered. \"For sho', he didn't give us anythin' to brag about here in Washington. I wouldn't risk a fingernail for the whole damn district.\"\n\nWe were batting things around when someone knocked on the front door of the lock shop. Willie went to see who it was, and came back with Sarah Houston. She looked particularly delicious that evening in her going-to-work outfit, a nice, knee-length dress with a belt that emphasized her figure. She was shod in a set of black pumps and had her purse over her shoulder.\n\nI introduced her to Willis and Travis. She looked us over and said, \"All the usual suspects.\"\n\n\"Want a beer?\" Willie asked, ol' Mr. Hospitality.\n\n\"No,\" she said, and looked around for something to sit on. Willie took a box of junk off a chair and arranged it for her. She seated herself, arranged her legs in the required position for female television journalists, and tugged her dress down a millimeter. She placed her purse on the floor beside her. Royalty come to call on the peasants.\n\n\"So when are they going to move Jake Grafton?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I doubt that it will be any time soon. They are frying other fish. They have a long list of people to arrest and incarcerate. They are working on a list of people who have shot their mouths off on Facebook and other social media.\"\n\n\"So there is no hurry,\" Travis remarked.\n\n\"I wouldn't say that,\" she said. \"The White House classified net is full of e-mails about this right-wing conspiracy, and Jake Grafton is near the head of the list. They're manufacturing evidence, trying to decide the best way to spin it for the public. They're going to try a dozen or so people to justify Soetoro's decision to invoke martial law.\"\n\n\"What about terrorism? All those jihadists Soetoro let in?\"\n\n\"The FBI is having some difficulty finding a sufficient number. They have their hands on a lot of Soetoro's domestic enemies, and Grafton, so. . .\"\n\nNone of us had anything to say to that. If they got Grafton into a federal prison, not just a concentration camp, there was no way we could get him out without an army.\n\nShe let that soak into our beetle brains, and then said, \"A snatch on the highway isn't going to work. That was Tommy's idea, I think.\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"You were also talking about a diversion, Tommy, and I decided the best one was probably to kill the power grid in the northeastern United States.\"\n\nWillis Coffee's eyes bulged. Travis whistled. I wasn't surprised, knowing as I did how Sarah's mind worked. This was a woman who arranged for a gang of Russian ex-sailors to steal an American attack submarine a few years ago. When Sarah Houston set out to do something, she didn't believe in half measures.\n\n\"Holy damn,\" Willie the Wire said.\n\n\"So how in the world are we going to do that?\" Willis Coffee demanded.\n\n\"We don't have any explosives, and we can't easily lay hands on any,\" Travis Clay pointed out. \"Even if we had a truckload, we can't run around the countryside blowing up a hundred substations.\"\n\n\"Maybe drop a hair dryer in the bathtub,\" Willie the Wire suggested.\n\nSarah Houston went on as if she hadn't heard them. \"The power grid is stretched to the max in August in the Northeast. It operates at one hundred percent of capacity much of the time running air conditioners and the like. The power companies use computer programs to automatically feed power around problem spots to prevent taking down the net. Computers are cheaper than new power-generation plants. They have hardened that computer system somewhat over the last few years in response to the perceived terrorist threat, but it is still vulnerable. I can put some code into the programs that will make the system default into the problems, not away from them, and that will quickly overload the system and take it down. All over the Northeast. From Cleveland to Maine and down to Cincinnati and Richmond.\"\n\nWe sat in silence digesting that. Finally Willis asked the obvious question. \"How are we going to create problems?\"\n\n\"We are going to have to knock out some key transformers and sub stations. I have compiled a short list of the most critical ones.\"\n\nHe was a sucker. \"So how are we going to do that?\"\n\n\"With explosives,\" Sarah said matter-of-factly. \"Shouldn't take a whole lot, but it will take some. As you may know, most of the federal agencies are stockpiling ammunition at warehouses in secret locations to use against the right-wing conspiracy, or if the locals get rowdy. Also in those warehouses are modest stocks of C-4 and enough tear gas to gas everyone east of the Mississippi. I made a list of the four closest warehouses. One of them is in Leesburg, a huge facility FEMA leased from Walmart.\"\n\n\"So you want us to start by breaking into a warehouse?\"\n\n\"If you want to give Barry Soetoro a crisis to worry about besides chasing you and Jake Grafton, you are going to have to make it something that really gets his attention.\"\n\n\"Texas might be enough,\" Travis Clay opined.\n\n\"You think?\"\n\n\"Uh, no.\"\n\nWillis Coffee said, \"Maybe killing the power grid is overkill. Modern cities can't work without electricity. Windows won't open, water pumps won't work, commodes won't flush, elevators won't work, lights won't work, medical equipment won't work, refrigerators won't work, microwaves won't work. Depending on how long the power stays off, some people could starve or die of heat exhaustion or dehydration.\"\n\nThat's when I got into the conversation. \"Barry Soetoro has torn up the Constitution. He's going to try a dozen innocent men for a crime he's invented. He's declared war on America. Texas has taken up the gauntlet. Now we must decide if we are willing to fight for America and let the chips fall where they may, or whether we would rather just pull our heads down, tuck our tails between our legs, and let Soetoro and Martin Wynette kill anyone they want. They are going to whack Texas hard. They are going to whack Jake Grafton. And believe me, given half a chance they'll whack us.\"\n\nThey sat staring at each other.\n\n\"I was listening to the president on the radio while I drove down here,\" Sarah Houston said. \"I would rather crawl into a hole out of the line of fire, but the fact is we have reached the point in America when it is time to choose a side.\"\n\n\"Jeez,\" Travis said softly. \"So we have to burgle a government warehouse, blow up some power substations, and then break into Camp Dawson and snatch Grafton from under the noses of God knows how many troops and feds. You and your little projects, Tommy.\"\n\n\"Yep,\" I said heartily. \"Gotta choose sides and smell armpits, guys. What say we all go to dinner and think this over before the power goes out. I'm buying.\"\n\nWillie Varner nearly broke his leg hopping off his stool.\n\nWe went to a white-tablecloth restaurant, even though the only one of our group dressed for it was Sarah. She led the way inside and favored the ma\u00eetre d' with a smile, so we were seated in a corner.\n\n\"Sorta like the last supper,\" Willie opined, then asked the waiter, \"What's the most expensive Scotch you have on your shelf?\"\n\nIt was something I'd never heard of.\n\n\"I'll take a double of that, neat,\" my lock shop partner told the waiter, and smiled at me. Sarah ordered a bottle of eighty-four-dollar wine, and my two covert warriors ordered draft beers. I ordered a bourbon on the rocks.\n\nAll of us had the sense not to even whisper about our planned operation to spring Grafton, or any of the other mayhem we had planned. We talked about riots and politics and whether Texas could win.\n\nAfter they had sipped their drinks and studied the menu, Willie ordered the most expensive steak, and Willis Coffee and Travis Clay did the same. I shrugged and ordered one too. Sarah took her time and ordered a piece of bare salmon with some lemon wedges and a small salad.\n\nThe bill was going to be a whopper, but I wasn't worried. I planned to use my CIA credit card to pay for it. I figured it would be a week or so until the clerks at Langley got around to turning the card off, and anyway, they could just deduct the amount from my severance pay, which I doubted I would ever get.\n\nI was so tense the liquor hit my stomach hard. I began to feel the glow down there instantly. I sat back in my chair, smiled vacuously, and tried to relax. Some of us were almost certainly going to be dead soon. I wondered if one of them would be me.\n\nWhen Willie Varner's steak came, it was still bloody. Travis pointed to it and said, \"A good vet could have saved that cow.\"\n\n\"Thank God he didn't,\" Willie said, and stuffed a piece in his mouth.\n\nThe copilot woke JR somewhere over west Texas. \"General, ATC is off the air. No one on any of their freqs or on El Paso Approach.\"\n\n\"Can you get into the civilian field?\"\n\n\"We're in solid goo. If the ILS is on the air, no problem. If we have to shoot a GPS approach, we may have to go below minimums, we think.\"\n\n\"Get me on the ground. However you have to do it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" The copilot went back to the cockpit.\n\nAfter another twenty minutes, the plane was maneuvering, answering the controls and responding to throttle input. They came out of the clouds perhaps three hundred feet above the ground, JR estimated.\n\n\"Good job,\" he told the pilots as he was getting out of the plane.\n\nThey saluted.\n\nThe ramp of the El Paso Fixed Base Operator's executive terminal was packed with planes, most of them jets or turboprops, yet the terminal was almost empty. The place reeked of luxury, with leather-covered sofas, ornate glass coffee tables, big flat-screen televisions, and subdued lighting\u2014perfect for important business executives or people who wanted to think they were important. JR approached the woman standing at the desk, the only human in sight, a cute twenty-something brunette wearing stiletto heels and a little black dress that ended well above her knees.\n\n\"What's happening?\"\n\n\"The airspace is closed to civilian traffic, General. These planes are stranded.\"\n\n\"I need a car.\"\n\n\"All our courtesy and rental cars are gone, sir. The passengers and crews of the planes outside took every one.\"\n\n\"Do you have a mechanic's van?\"\n\n\"Yes, but\u2014\"\n\n\"I'll take it. Send for whoever has the keys.\"\n\n\"General\u2014\"\n\n\"Now.\"\n\nHe wanted to see his old civilian contractor boss Pete Taylor and then look up the local National Guard commander, Wiley Fehrenbach, who was probably at the National Guard armory.\n\nOn his drive to Taylor's house, a helicopter flew past. It was an Apache scooting along at perhaps two hundred feet.\n\nHe knocked on the door of the house, which was a modest rancher in a modest neighborhood, and Zoe Taylor answered it.\n\n\"Oh, JR. Come in.\"\n\n\"No time. Is Pete here?\"\n\n\"No. The army came for him this afternoon. Arrested him.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"They had a list.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Lee Parker was following the Jade Helm plan, no doubt on orders from Washington. \"Thank you, Zoe.\"\n\n\"Can you talk to them, JR, get him out? People have been talking for over a year about these Jade Helm things, saying it looks as if Soetoro was planning martial law.\" Tears leaked down her face. \"I can't believe this is really happening. It's like a nightmare. Is this still the United States of America?\"\n\n\"I understand,\" JR said, and against his better judgment, he added, \"I'll do what I can, Zoe.\"\n\nTears burst forth and she closed the door.\n\nJR got back in the van and headed for the armory.\n\nThe armory was a hive of activity. Bulldozers, generators, trucks, and construction equipment were swarmed by soldiers painting the Texas flag on every flat surface they could find. Plainly, these Texans were willing to fight, but they didn't have a lot of stuff to fight with: this was an engineering battalion. JR parked his mechanic's van in a handicapped spot and went inside.\n\nWiley Fehrenbach was delighted to see him. He wrung JR's hand and touched the stars on his camos. The pistol belt didn't escape his notice. He was wearing one too.\n\n\"I'm in command of the Texas Guard now, Wiley.\"\n\n\"Thank God.\"\n\n\"I need to know what's happening in town and at the base. Everything you know.\"\n\n\"When the news came out about the declaration, the town went wild. They've had it with the federal government. Martial law really ticked them off, then the gun thing. This morning civilian patrols started rounding up illegals and pushing them to the border crossings. The ICE people there tried to stop them, but they were surrounded and disarmed and told to disappear. Civilians shut down the border crossings. Only Mexican nationals can cross going south. All the trucks waiting to cross are lined up\u2014someone said the line is two miles long already.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Our people came here as fast as they could this morning. I issued weapons, and it's a good thing I did. Some colonel and ten army troopers with weapons showed up at ten this morning and wanted to secure all the weapons and send everyone home. I refused, and since they were outnumbered twenty to one, they climbed into their car and left. They'll be back, and it's going to be bloody. My troops won't surrender. Right now, though, I think the army is out arresting civilians. They want all those Republic of Texas people who have been shouting for independence for years. They've arrested all of them they could find, plus newspaper people, the television and radio people, the sheriff, anyone who is anybody. It's all rumors, but everyone heard something and they're buzzing. Looks like they've opened the Jade Helm playbook and are going down the checklist.\"\n\n\"Where are they taking the prisoners?\"\n\n\"They have some railroad cars equipped with shackles on base. The army got them ready during the last Jade Helm exercise.\" JR already knew about the railcars with shackles, which had been hot news and stoked the rumors about martial law being planned. \"No one knows for certain,\" Wiley Fehrenbach said, \"but probably there.\"\n\n\"Are you sure your troops will fight?\"\n\n\"'I talked to them this morning. Told anyone that couldn't in good conscience fight for Texas to turn in his weapons and leave. Less than ten percent did. We're Texans and that's that.\"\n\n\"What's the situation out at Fort Bliss?\"\n\n\"It's on lockdown. Only U.S. Army soldiers admitted. I've had people out watching the gates, and as near as we can figure, a lot of the soldiers living in town haven't gone in. Maybe a hundred went in since we started watching, all told. You know there are maybe ten thousand soldiers living in town, so that's good.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" JR agreed.\n\n\"Parker ordered the television and radio stations shut down this morning, and all the phones and the internet are off. Electricity and water are still on, but who knows for how long.\"\n\n\"You need to get some troopers out to the water plant as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"Already sent a squad.\"\n\n\"Good man.\"\n\n\"It looks as if Parker has troopers patrolling the fences around the main part of the base, but you know how big Bliss is. I doubt anyone is out on the fence in the boonies. I don't know what Parker has planned, but no one has been back to get our weapons, so maybe he has some loyalty troubles. A lot of soldiers may have refused to fire on fellow Americans.\"\n\nJR Hays rubbed his head and tried to concentrate upon the problem. As he looked out the window, he realized the day was almost gone. It was twilight outside, under a gloomy sky. He heard another helicopter shoot overhead. With night-vision goggles, they could see everything that moved on the streets below.\n\nWiley Fehrenbach read his thoughts. \"Supposed to get some thunderstorms in here soon. How soon, I don't know. Maybe that will ground the choppers. I didn't think it wise to deploy my people until they were grounded or had left.\"\n\n\"I have four helos coming in from Fort Hood. They're supposed to land at the civilian airfield. Send some armed troops to meet them. Do you have some handheld radios? Our pilots will need them.\" The truth was, he thought wryly, he should have thought of that before they left Fort Hood. Maybe he was too tired, or maybe he wasn't thinking clearly.\n\n\"Sure.\" They discussed frequencies and JR made notes. A female sergeant appeared, and he handed her a note that contained a freq, told her about the helos, and sent her off with five enlisted soldiers carrying M4s and four radios with fully charged batteries.\n\nAfter they left, JR said, \"Wiley, our long-term objective is to take that base. We need all the military equipment they have and all the people who will fight for Texas.\" He tried to visualize General Lee Parker's situation. A lot of his soldiers had stayed home. The base, with base housing running right up to the perimeter fence, was basically indefensible. If Parker had any sense, he would arrange his tanks and loyal troopers into a strong defensive position where the tanks could cover each other and his artillery could provide support. Parker's helicopters were already patrolling, searching for threats.\n\nParker must be very worried, JR thought, wondering if his troops would fight. No doubt he was sending messages as quickly as he could dictate them to Washington, requesting instructions. These messages would go out over the army communications net, which was radio. JR doubted that Parker would do anything without orders from Washington. Then he would move slowly, carefully.\n\nHe and Wiley Fehrenbach discussed the situation as night fell. JR didn't want a battle, but he suspected he was going to get one before long. Eight hundred or so National Guardsmen in this armory were the only organized military unit in the area, so Washington would eventually tell Parker to take the armory. Parker outnumbered the guardsmen at least ten to one and had enough armor and artillery to invade Mexico and take Mexico City.\n\n\"Will U.S. soldiers fight Texans?\" JR whispered to the gods, who didn't answer back.\n\n\"Food?\" Wiley asked.\n\nJR hadn't eaten since breakfast, which seemed like years ago. \"Hell, yes.\"\n\nHe was soon handed a paper plate with three hot dogs in buns smothered in chili, along with a plastic knife and spoon and a bottle of water. JR found he was ravenous.\n\nHe had just started on the first hot dog when the radio on the desk came to life. It was \"Milestone One Six,\" the senior army aviator, who was flying a Blackhawk\u2014CWO-4 Erik Sabiston, Sabby to his friends.\n\n\"JR, we're fueling at the FBO at El Paso International. Weather is turning to crap. We flew at a hundred feet to get in here.\"\n\nJR answered, \"Fort Bliss has Apaches on patrol. Be careful, but I want you to do a recon over the base. I need to know what they're up to. Can you do that?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. As soon as we finish fueling. Maybe fifteen minutes.\"\n\n\"I'd like to know if there are any units from Bliss out on the street. Your primary mission, though, is to shoot up everything on the flight line at Fort Bliss. Here are the coordinates. Ready to copy?\"\n\n\"Go.\"\n\nJR read them off, and Sabiston read them back. \"We know the base,\" he said. \"Trained there many times.\"\n\nJR ended with an admonition. \"Shoot and get out, Sabby. Hit them as hard as you can but don't be a hero. We need to deny them the sky.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nJR attacked the food on his plate and said to Wiley Fehrenbach, \"They're going to come looking for you people sooner or later. You are going to have to abandon the armory. What do you have in the way of munitions?\"\n\n\"Dynamite, of course. Locked in vaults out back. And a couple hundred AT4s. Maybe a dozen .30-caliber machine guns. Ammo and grenades.\"\n\nJR felt a bit better. AT4s were handheld, single-shot anti-tank weapons. They came with the rocket pre-installed and could not be reloaded, so they were discarded after use. They weighed about five and a half pounds each and fired a rocket with a 1.6 pound HEAT warhead, HEAT standing for high explosive anti-tank. The rocket was marginal against an Abrams, which had the finest tank armor in the world, unless the rocket took a tread off or was fired into the rear, where the armor was thinnest. It was better against Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and whatever other version of the armored personnel carrier 1st Armor had. It was hell on unarmored vehicles, such as trucks, or buildings.\n\nJR said, \"Get the explosives out of here. Ammo, weapons, radios, whatever you need, let's get it gone as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Get some people with AT4s out to El Paso International. Sooner or later Parker will send a tank column to occupy it. Tonight it is our airport. Let's get cracking.\"\nFOURTEEN\n\nGovernor Jack Hays was in uncharted political territory. He had to deal with threats from the federal government, demands for interviews from newspaper and television reporters, and the myriad of details that had to be addressed and resolved to turn Texas from a state into a nation. He had the leaders of the legislature in his office all morning while he sought consensus on a wide range of issues: the republic's assumption of U.S. debt held by Texas banks and financial institutions; the issuance of currency by the new republic; collection of federal taxes by the republic; payment of federal pensions and closing the Mexican border; and organizing a system of civil defense that had been pretty much dormant since the end of the 1960s since the feds were threatening military action against targets in Texas. No one knew if that would entail mass bombing of cities, but it certainly might.\n\nOne other thing happened that afternoon that would have far-reaching consequences, not only in Texas and throughout America, but around the world. Barry Soetoro announced that legislation would be introduced in Congress to phase in a completely electronic currency and retire all paper money. The implications were unstated but obvious: the federal government could control or confiscate anyone's wealth, whether it was corporate, individual, or nonprofit. A more effective way of whipping people into line probably could not be devised. Instead of locking up people, the federal government could simply take their money. Part of it or all of the loot could be used to fund the federal deficit, recapitalize banks, pay off political friends, or all of the above. Passage of the legislation was a foregone conclusion because the president's bitterest political enemies were already incarcerated, which helped cow the rest.\n\nWithin seconds of the announcement, precious metals prices on the world's commodity exchanges took off like a rocket. Within a minute, trading limits had been reached and trading was suspended. Hours later, the government announced that all trading in precious metals was suspended indefinitely.\n\nTexas was already committed to moving from U.S. currency as quickly as possible, but now the urgency became stark. It also hardened the resolve of those legislators who were still unsure they had done the right thing by declaring independence.\n\nThe legislators demanded that the governor make a televised speech to the legislature at midnight tonight, and Jack Hays agreed. When he was going to sort out his ideas on what he might say he didn't know. He assumed he was going to have to speak impromptu, which might be disastrous if he came across as tired, harassed, scared, or uncertain of the course of the new nation. He asked his speechwriters to consult with Ben Steiner and draft some talking points.\n\nIn the meantime, Jack Hays had an interview with the Mexican consul, Fernando Ferrante. They had a good working relationship, but Ferrante was not inclined to listen politely to protests of Mexican government policy, allegations of corruption, or complaints about illegal immigration and drug smuggling. His job, Ferrante said, was to smooth the flow of trade, not to advise the Mexican leadership on how to run the government.\n\n\"As you know, Se\u00f1or, we are embarking on a war with the United States to win our freedom,\" Jack Hays began. \"Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the safety of Mexican nationals, nor the protection of civil commerce. Consequently Texas must temporarily close the border between Texas and Mexico.\"\n\nFerrante was sitting up straight. More than $90 billion in Mexican imports passed through Texas every year. A lesser amount, an estimated $60 to $70 billion, passed through Texas on the way to Mexico. In addition, Mexicans in the United States legally and illegally sent home hundreds of millions of dollars a year\u2014for some families, it marked the difference between poverty and starvation.\n\nJack Hays lowered the boom. \"It is very unfortunate, but for the moment we have no choice but to shut down all financial transactions transferring money into, out of, or through the new nation of Texas.\"\n\nFerrante protested. Hays cut him off. \"I know this will be a severe hardship to people south of the border. It will be an even greater hardship to Texans as we sever our commercial and financial relationships with the people and businesses of the other forty-nine American states. I wouldn't even suggest such a course were it not absolutely necessary.\"\n\nThe Mexican consul tugged thoughtfully at his lip. \"May I smoke?\" he asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" Hays said, and produced an ashtray from a desk drawer.\n\nWhen Ferrante had a cigarette alight, Hays continued. \"Since we cannot guarantee anyone's safety, we're asking Mexican nationals to leave Texas as soon as possible, and I'm asking you to let Texans in Mexico return to Texas.\"\n\n\"What about the citizens of other American states?\"\n\n\"If they cannot prove Texas residency, they will be refused entry.\"\n\nFerrante was shocked. He took a moment to organize his thoughts, then said, \"Factories producing goods for export are the economic bedrock of the Mexican economy. Shutting them down for any significant period, more than a weekend, gives the drug cartels more recruits. People _must_ feed their families.\"\n\n\"Mexico is in a hell of a hole,\" the Texan acknowledged, \"that you folks dug for yourselves. Mexico has dumped its problems on us for a great many years.\"\n\n\"Mexico is a democracy,\" the Mexican diplomat shot back, \"and elected politicians cannot ignore the will of our proud, poor people. It is in Texas' best interest that Mexico remain a democracy governed by the rule of law. A fascist dictatorship on your southern border will create many more problems in Texas than it will solve. You have a phrase: don't throw us under the bus. While you and your government are making policy, do not forget that the United States is the world's largest, richest market for recreational drugs of all kinds. Your 'War on Drugs' has been an abject failure. We are in the unfortunate position of being next-door neighbors to this hedonistic hell of addicts and abusers with too much money and not a shred of honor.\"\n\n\"I know, and I agree that a great many federal programs, including the 'War on Drugs' and the 'War on Poverty,' to name just two, were ill-conceived or abject failures,\" Jack Hays replied. \"But we're going to change that. The Republic of Texas is no longer going to be a pawn for feckless politicians in Washington who play to the mobs elsewhere and ignore the real problems we face here. We hope to be a better neighbor to the Republic of Mexico, but both our nations need to get our houses in order.\"\n\n\"When will Texas cease to isolate itself and resume free trade with my country?\"\n\nJack Hays engaged in a diplomatic lie. He planned on using trade as a weapon to force the Mexicans to stop illegal immigration, or at least to choke it down on their side of the border, and to crack down on the drug cartels and corrupt officials. He thought Mexico needed to clean the sty with a fire hose. Without Mexican help, the problems of the border would never be solved. Trade was the only issue that would force Mexico to change, Hays thought. At least he hoped it would, because it was the only big lever he had. He didn't voice this opinion, however, but said, \"As soon as our position with the other American states stabilizes. I cannot foretell the future. A week, a month, a year. . .\"\n\n\"Would Texas consider lifting this trade embargo if Mexico recognizes the new Republic of Texas?\"\n\n\"That would certainly help,\" Jack Hays said warmly. \"In fact, it would be a precondition.\"\n\nThe governor's answer committed him to nothing, a fact that did not escape the consul, who merely said, \"Our conversation will be passed along to my government, of course. When I receive their instructions, I will call you to arrange an appointment to discuss matters.\"\n\nHays stood, signifying the interview was over. He escorted Ferrante out of the office and reception area, which was packed with people all wanting a few minutes of his time.\n\nOne of the people was Charlie Swim.\n\nSwim was an ally that Jack Hays absolutely had to have, so he lightly grasped his elbow, escorted him into the office, and closed the door.\n\n\"Sit down, Charlie, please.\"\n\nCharlie Swim did so and took a folded sheet of paper from an inside pocket of his jacket. \"Governor, we've got a marvelous opportunity to finally do something positive for poor people in Texas.\" He tapped the paper and then passed it across the desk.\n\nAs the governor scanned it, Swim explained. \"Liberal progressive policies for the last fifty years or so have devastated the poor people of America. Welfare; aid to dependent families; food stamps; essentially free medical care; schools that try to prepare everyone for a four-year college degree, when only a fraction of the poor people will ever want or get one; lack of technical training; the breakdown of the black family\u2014all those things have led us to where we are.\n\n\"When Lyndon Johnson was lobbying Congress to pass his Great Society programs, he reportedly said, 'If we pass this the niggers will all vote Democratic for the next two centuries.' I don't know if he said that, but that has been the consequence. People do whatever it takes to get free money, because without an education and job opportunity they can't make it in America. We have to change that or we won't want to live in the poor socialist empire that will result.\"\n\nJack Hays sighed and pointed out, \"Luwanda Harris and her Democratic allies will be outraged, accuse you and me of abandoning the poor people to exploitation and starvation, or worse.\"\n\n\"I know that. Medicine often tastes bad, but until we fix the government policies that breed poverty, we have condemned the poor, black, white, and brown to a life of economic slavery. Goddamn, Jack, a hundred fifty years after Lincoln and the Union Army freed the slaves, we're still enslaved! Enslaved to the government! If there is to be a new life, a better life, for the poor people of Texas it has to start here and now. We can't waste another hour.\"\n\nJack Hays read the note, which was Swim's political wish list, a libertarian charter for abolishing everything from public employee unions to welfare to the minimum wage.\n\n\"Why do you want to repeal the minimum wage?\" Jack Hays asked.\n\n\"Without trade and technical training our supply of unskilled workers is limitless,\" Charlie Swim explained. \"We are awash in illegals. Every economist I have talked to tells me that the minimum wage really means that unskilled labor cannot be hired and trained unless they can immediately contribute to their employer the minimum wage and the value of their benefits, plus an amount sufficient to pay for supervision and the expenses of doing the paperwork they require, such as payroll, deductions, and the rest of it. All that, plus a profit. The higher the minimum wage, the greater economic incentive for employers to automate or move jobs out of the country. We are _never_ going to get wages up unless we let the free market determine the value of labor. Stopping the flow of illegals into Texas and getting some of them to leave will help. But as long as our schools turn out nothing but an endless supply of hamburger flippers and nail techs, industry goes begging for skilled labor and the free market can't work.\"\n\nJack Hays kept Charlie talking for another fifteen minutes, looked at his watch, and knew he had to come to a decision.\n\nThe governor looked Charlie Swim in the eye. \"The legislature will never pass most of these things, and right now you and I lack the political capital to even push them hard. My suggestion is that you pick the most important thing on the list and push just that. For example, education reform. We need a public education system that trains people for the jobs we have and are going to see in the foreseeable future. That we can sell, maybe.\"\n\n\"We need that and a lot more.\"\n\n\"We can't change the world in a week, a month, or even a year. We have to convince the voters we are advocating needed change. If you draft education reform as a war measure and tell every delegate and senator I'm for it, and shepherd it through, I'll sign it if they don't committee it to death or amend it beyond recognition. Tell them Texas can't afford to waste valuable education dollars. Right now we need every able-bodied Texan without a job to enlist in the National Guard. But when our future is secure, we need an educational system in place that will prepare people for good jobs, veterans, high school kids, everyone.\"\n\nSwim jumped out of his chair and shook the governor's hand. \"Thanks, Jack.\"\n\n\"Thank me after I sign it. Now go get at it.\"\n\nAt ten that night the war began in earnest. Two cruise missiles smashed into one of the main power plants in the Houston area, leaving a section of the city without electrical power. No doubt similar strikes would soon be forthcoming for power generation facilities all over Texas. Hospitals and key public institutions had to have emergency generating facilities up and running as soon as possible and be prepared to handle mass casualties. The director of emergency preparedness, Billy Rob Smith, left the governor's office on the run in company with Lieutenant Governor Bullet G. Fitzroy. Jack Hays had already loaded Fitzroy with more tasks than the man could conceivably handle, but Fitzroy had a background as an executive at a large conglomerate and knew how to prioritize, delegate, and supervise.\n\nBen Steiner remarked to Jack Hays that they would soon find out what Texans were made of.\n\nSluggo Sweatt, the president's man, sent for Jake Grafton, and within a few minutes he was escorted into the office where he had been interrogated. Grafton, like all the prisoners, was now clad in a red one-piece jumpsuit. That morning all the prisoners had been lined up, required to take off their civilian clothes, and issued jumpsuits. It wasn't that the authorities thought any of them could escape; the jumpsuits were designed to lower their morale and emphasize their status as prisoners.\n\nSweatt addressed him. \"Mr. Grafton\u2014you notice that I don't call you Director Grafton or Admiral Grafton, because you are no longer entitled to either honorific\u2014are you ready to talk sense and sign a confession?\"\n\n\"No,\" Jake Grafton said and dropped into a chair.\n\n\"Stand up when I talk to you,\" Sweatt said sharply. Jake did so.\n\n\"Your wife, Callie, and daughter, Amy\u2014have you heard from them?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Your cell phone, please.\" Sluggo held out his hand.\n\nJake removed it from the pocket of his jumpsuit and passed it across. Sluggo played with it a moment. He called up the numbers and jotted them down.\n\nAllowing detainees, or prisoners, to retain their cell phones was counterintuitive, but Sluggo and his friends knew precisely what they were doing. Prisoners could make and receive calls from their friends, or anyone else. The prisoners would tell their sad tales and fear would spread like a hothouse fungus. Friends on the outside would soon cease to reach out to the prisoners, who would quickly become psychologically isolated.\n\nFinally Sluggo slid the phone back across the desk. Jake didn't reach for it.\n\n\"Three more people have confessed their roles in the plot to kill the president and take over the government. They implicated you. Swore that you knew, that they had discussed key items of the plan with you on several occasions.\"\n\nThe assassination of the president was a new wrinkle on the coup, Grafton noted sourly. When he said nothing, Sweatt added, \"The prosecutors are thinking of asking for the death penalty for you.\"\n\nStill no response.\n\nSluggo Sweatt sighed. \"Well, I've done all I can for you. I've told you the situation. You need to go back to your tent and think about your future. A confession would keep you alive.\"\n\nJake stood totally relaxed.\n\n\"Take the phone.\"\n\nJake pocketed it, and Sweatt nodded to the man behind Grafton, who took his arm and led him out.\n\nHe thought that the next time they brought him in the rough stuff would start, physical abuse, and threats against his family.\n\nJake Grafton knew that most men can be broken if the captors have the time to create enough pain. He didn't know if he was one of those rare men who could summon the inner strength to resist to the death, but he hoped\u2014make that prayed\u2014he was. Many years ago when he flew combat missions over enemy country in constant danger of being shot down, he had made up his mind to never surrender. Ever. Sluggo might make him prove it.\n\nAs he walked through the compound, he wondered what Sluggo Sweatt knew about the shenanigans at the White House.\n\nThe compound was crowded now. Jake estimated there were about two thousand people milling around. He recognized at least three congressmen and two senators. And then he saw someone whose face he knew well: Sal Molina, the president's right-hand political op. Now, apparently, his former political op. Wearing a red jumpsuit.\n\n\"Well, well, well,\" Grafton said as Molina recognized him. \"Fancy meeting you here.\"\n\nMolina turned his back on Grafton, who grabbed an arm and spun him around. That was when he realized tears were leaking from Molina's eyes.\n\n\"Did the hard-liners throw you out of the inner sanctum?\" Grafton asked roughly. \"Or did you just decide you needed a summer vacation courtesy of the taxpayers?\"\n\nMolina's Adam's apple went up and down a few times. \"Texas insulted Soetoro with their Declaration of Independence. He took it real personal. Since I'm from Texas and have relatives there, he decided he didn't want me around.\"\n\n\"Can't say that I blame him.\"\n\n\"I tried to warn you, Jake.\"\n\n\"So you did.\"\n\nAfter they had eaten dinner, some kind of stew with a little hamburger in it, Jake Grafton, Sal Molina, and Jack Yocke, the _Washington Post_ 's erstwhile columnist, settled under Grafton's favorite tree. The ground was damp from a morning shower, but they could talk in semi-privacy here, something they couldn't do elsewhere, not even in the latrine, which consisted of rows of commodes with no stalls.\n\nYocke rattled off the latest news, gleaned from his cell phone; Grafton and Molina made few comments. Then Yocke asked Sal Molina point-blank, \"So what's the big plan over at the White House? I'll bet they almost creamed their pants when the Saturday terrorists went hog wild.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Molina replied.\n\n\"You lying bastard. They've been planning martial law for years. Some people have even suggested Soetoro's boys gave the terrorists the weapons.\"\n\n\"That isn't true.\"\n\n\"But Schanck and Al Grantham jumped all over it, didn't they?\"\n\n\"Is this off the record?\"\n\n\"Oh, lighten up, dude. Like I'm going over the fence tonight and this interview will be in the _Post_ tomorrow.\"\n\n\"They might eventually let you out.\"\n\n\"Might?\"\n\n\" _Might_. Maybe after Soetoro drops dead of old age or cancer or something.\"\n\n\"Answer the question, Sal,\" Grafton prompted.\n\nMolina took a deep breath and looked around for eavesdroppers. Finally he said in a low voice, \"Yes. They told the president he had to do it. It would be unpopular, but martial law was the only way to save the progressive revolution. Soetoro loved it. This was his chance to change the course of history, to save the planet. The bastard has a messianic complex.\"\n\n\"He's got a lot of complexes,\" Jake Grafton muttered.\n\n\"More than you can imagine. For example, Barry and Mickey do S and M. She's a dominatrix. I guess he needs it, although don't ask me why. They didn't talk about that kind of stuff in psych class when I went to college.\"\n\n\"Hell, that's old news,\" Yocke scoffed. \"For seven years I've heard rumors that Soetoro is gay. People have even accused him of being a gay prostitute when he was younger, servicing old queens for drugs.\"\n\nGrafton asked Yocke, \"So how come your fine newspaper hasn't investigated these rumors about Soetoro?\"\n\n\"The editors don't think that crap is news,\" the _Post_ 's man explained. \"They're liberals. Some of them are gay, and for all I know some of them are swingers or dig S and M. Soetoro is liberal and black. He gets a pass. Now if he were some white Republican presidential candidate, they'd have had reporters investigate every day of his life from the moment his mom popped him out. You'd be reading about spitwads he threw in second grade and how many hours of detention hall he got in junior high.\" Yocke made a gesture dismissing the whole subject.\n\nAfter a pause he asked Molina, \"So why does Soetoro want to frame Grafton for plotting an assassination?\"\n\n\"Spymasters are good villains,\" Molina explained. \"They do a lot of secret shit they can never tell about, so people will believe almost any accusation. And the president doesn't like Grafton. And, of course, right-wing plots give the public something to talk about instead of terrorism and jihad in America. And S and M. Matt Drudge got the story from some Secret Service guy and was trying to get confirmation when a White House maid ratted him out. Still, Drudge might have broken the story anyway, so Soetoro had that hanging over his head when the terrorists did their thing. That helped push Soetoro to martial law now.\"\n\n\"He doesn't like a lot of people,\" Yocke replied. \"Is he going to frame them all?\"\n\n\"Oh no. He's just going to lock them up in concentration camps. Hitler and Stalin wrote the playbook.\"\n\n\"I suppose they grabbed Matt Drudge.\"\n\n\"He was locked up before the declaration. He's in solitary someplace. Drudge isn't the _Washington Post_ ; he would have run the story.\"\n\n\"So you're telling me that we're sitting in a concentration camp and the United States is about to bomb Texas because Soetoro is a pervert?\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it. As my old Marxist professors used to say, 'The personal is the political.'\"\n\nWe were leaving the restaurant when Sarah Houston said to me, \"Are you going to sleep at the lock shop tonight?\"\n\n\"Yes, unless I get a better offer.\"\n\n\"I feel the need for your manly presence to reassure me,\" she said.\n\n\"That's a better offer.\"\n\nIn the parking lot we agreed to meet at the lock shop tomorrow morning at eight. \"This is it, guys,\" I told them. \"Bring whatever you need for the op. I have no idea when we'll be back.\"\n\n\"After Barry Soetoro is dead,\" Travis Clay said gloomily.\n\n\"Christmas, maybe,\" Willis Coffee offered.\n\n\"The Fourth of July,\" Willie the Wire chimed in. \"Bring an extra set of underwear.\"\n\nOn that note we parted.\n\nBack at Sarah's place, she fixed drinks, Grand Marnier this time. \"I didn't know you kept this stuff around,\" I remarked.\n\n\"For the road,\" she told me, and lifted her glass.\n\nIn bed she whispered, \"You know we will probably all soon be dead.\"\n\n\"No one lives forever.\" That was a stupid remark. I sounded brave, which was a lie. Bravery is not on my short list of virtues. I'm anything but.\n\n\"I want more of this,\" she said.\n\n\"Me too,\" I agreed. The hell with it. Live today. . .\n\nWiley Fehrenbach and JR Hays decided to welcome any contingent that came to take the El Paso National Guard armory with a little ambush, then the ambushers would evade. Washington was probably lighting a fire under Lee Parker, so it was just a matter of time before he sent troops to the armory. This time it wouldn't be ten troopers and a colonel. This time he'd send the first team, some tanks, and maybe an infantry company, all with orders to shoot to kill.\n\nArmy Apache helicopters were already circling the area. Armed with Hellfire missiles and rockets, they could incinerate any vehicle, and their Gatling guns were hell on exposed troops.\n\nThe Apaches were the reason the Guard hadn't moved from the compound all day. Let the army open the ball, Wiley Fehrenbach and JR Hays reasoned, while they waited for the Fort Hood helicopters that were the equalizers. Every minute brought them closer.\n\nJR was in Fehrenbach's office. He heard thunder and watched lightning from the window. A soldier rushed in; three colonels followed.\n\n\"Sir,\" the soldier blurted. \"Four tanks and four Bradleys are coming out the main gate of Fort Bliss.\"\n\nWiley Fehrenbach looked at his colonels and said, \"You know what to do.\"\n\nThe colonels saluted, \"Yes, sir!\"\n\n\"Wait!\" JR roared. He got on a handheld radio. \"Milestone One Six, this is JR.\"\n\n\"One Six, go ahead.\"\n\nJR could hear the engine; the Blackhawk was airborne.\n\n\"At least four tanks and four Bradleys are coming from Fort Bliss, probably headed toward the armory. We need you to take out any airborne Apaches you can find, over.\"\n\n\"Can do.\"\n\n\"Leave the stuff on the ground to us. Over.\"\n\n\"One Six copies. Out.\"\n\n\"Some of those Apaches are ours, along with a Blackhawk,\" JR told the colonels. \"Don't let your men shoot at a helicopter unless they are absolutely sure it's the enemy. Now go.\"\n\nFor the first time that day, JR felt optimistic. Lee Parker had dithered too long.\n\nHe got more news when a trooper announced, \"We're destroying the decryption gear, sir, so the army doesn't get it.\" JR nodded, and the trooper handed him a batch of messages from Camp Mabry.\n\nThe first was from Loren Snyder: \"She can be moved. I'm searching for men.\"\n\nAnother, from Elvin Gentry: \"Dyess surrendered. Airplanes, weapons depot, and fuel facilities not sabotaged. Am recruiting crews. Awaiting further orders.\"\nFIFTEEN\n\nLightning was flashing from the clouds and gusts of rain and wind were pounding on the Blackhawk as it ran at a hundred feet above the housetops toward the El Paso National Guard armory, the coordinates of which the crew had punched into their GPS systems. The Blackhawk rocked and rolled in the turbulence. Fortunately the myriad lights of the city were still on, houses alight, street lights, traffic on the boulevards, so they had a good ground reference. Two Apaches were behind the Blackhawk, one on the right, one on the left.\n\nIf the city had been blacked out, Sabiston would have kept his crews on the ground. Still, they could go into inadvertent IFR conditions at any moment if some of this cloud dripped toward the ground, or if they hit a column of rain, or if the ground rose up into a cloud. If they flew under a thunderstorm, with its river of cold air descending out the bottom, all bets would be off: It would be all the pilots could do to keep their machines from being driven into the ground. Or a house. Or a school. Or a telephone pole. Of course, the same held true for the army pilots in their Apaches. Sabiston was listening on the Fort Bliss air traffic frequencies, trying to discover how many of their Apaches were airborne.\n\nIt sounded like only one base Apache was still airborne, and the pilot was bitching about the weather. \"I gotta get on the ground,\" he told the tower.\n\nSabiston keyed the intercom to talk to his copilot. \"Good news. Only one enemy Apache in the air, and he wants to come down. So what do ya think?\"\n\nThe copilot, who was from Albany, New York, keyed his mike and replied, \"We are fucking crazy. Once more into the suck. Will Texas pay our widows death benefits?\"\n\nOne of the Apaches behind him keyed the radio. \"Sabby, I got him on infrared. Clear to the left.\"\n\nThe copilot initiated a turn. They were almost on the housetops. Flying a helicopter was an unforgiving art, and in filthy weather this close to the ground, it attained the level of black magic.\n\nThe Apache behind them came abreast, accelerating. The Apache was an attack helicopter, manned by a crew of two seated in tandem. The pilot sits in the rear seat, the copilot\/weapons operator, or gunner, sits in the front. Both were usually rated pilots and both had controls to fly the machine, but in combat the front-seater operated the sensors and aimed and fired the weapons, which included a chain gun under the fuselage and whatever rockets or missiles were loaded for the mission. It was designed to provide close air support to infantry, armor, and artillery, and it did it well.\n\nThe Apache gunner had his target in sight; the chain gun sent a finger of fire shooting across the gloom.\n\nThe target absorbed two seconds' worth of 30-mm, then, with its tail rotor gone, lost control and tilted sideways, rotating viciously, then went into the ground and exploded.\n\nErik Sabiston saw the flash of the explosion in his night-vision goggles.\n\n\"The base,\" he told the copilot. \"Turn toward it.\"\n\nThey turned right. The base was lit up with streetlights, house lights, lights in parking lots. Tanks and artillery were bunched up, parked in a large grass area behind the exchange, facing the main gate.\n\n\"Go down the flight line,\" Sabby said.\n\nThey got lost once, flying just over the tops of the buildings, then miraculously they saw the field dead ahead: Blackhawks, Apaches, and a few old Chinooks were lined up in rows illuminated by floodlights on poles. They should have at least turned the lights off.\n\n\"I have the controls,\" Sabby said. He turned the Blackhawk and pulled the nose up, bleeding off airspeed dramatically. When he was down to fifty knots, he straightened out, about fifty feet from the ground, and flew between the two rows closest to the hangar. He spoke on the intercom to the door gunners. \"Shoot 'em up, guys.\"\n\nThe gunners fired one-second bursts at each target. One helicopter caught fire. _Brap_ , _brap_ , _brap_ , the gunners worked methodically; the noise bursts were out of sync. Another Apache in the line caught fire.\n\n\"Some ground fire from the hangars,\" the copilot said, and within seconds a hole appeared in the right front quarter of their windshield. It was a strange feeling, being fired on intentionally by Americans.\n\nWhen they finished the line, Sabiston accelerated and turned to fly back to El Paso International. No warning lights on the panel. All systems looked normal. \"Any damage in back?\" he asked his crew chief.\n\n\"Don't think so. I'll inspect.\" He turned the controls over to the copilot, then flipped freqs and got on the radio to JR Hays, who needed to know about the disposition of the base armor and artillery.\n\nThe Apache flown by Harvey Williston was following the Blackhawk down the line. \"I have the target,\" his gunner said. Dustin Bonner, from Tupelo, Mississippi, was the gunner. Earlier, Dustin was wondering if he had made the right decision signing on with the Texas Guard. There was going to be a lot of flying, a lot of shooting, and a lot of dying done before this thing was over. Maybe, he thought, he should have sneaked back to Mississippi and got back to playing blues guitar and working on his uncle's catfish farm. One thing was sure, there was a future in catfish. Being a gunner on an Apache in the middle of a shooting war, not so much.\n\nCertainly not when you were flying in a helicopter in shitty weather like this. Even if the bad guys didn't whack you, Mother Nature might. He fired rockets at the first few helicopters in the third row, which look undamaged. Three of them were obscured by the warhead's blast. Locked up a TOW wire-guided missile and launched it. Another. Then he was aiming the 30-mm M230 chain gun mounted on the fuselage between the landing gear. He pulled the trigger, moving from parked chopper to chopper.\n\nThe Apache flown by Mike Berk from Bemidji, Minnesota, followed along behind, with Mike's gunner doing the dirty work. Despite soldiers sheltered behind hangar doors taking pot shots, there was no opposition. First Armored had not yet got it into their collective heads that they were in a war. They'd figure it out pretty soon, though, so the next trip down the flight line wasn't going to be as pretty. Ahead of him he saw Williston turn left. \"Follow me, Mike. Hellfires into the hangars. You have the one on the right, I'll take the left.\"\n\nThe two attack helicopters made a sweeping 270-degree turn as lightning flashed and rain came in waves, under that low ceiling, until they were lined up. The ramp lights were off by then\u2014someone had gotten to the switches. It didn't matter to the Apaches, which had night-vision and infrared sensors that allowed the crew to fly and employ their weapons as if it were high noon on a cloudless day. The gunners fired the Hellfire missiles through the open hangar doors, and the explosions caused at least one fire that they could see.\n\nThen the two Apaches swept away southward toward El Paso International.\n\nWiley Fehrenbach worked feverishly with his officers and NCOs to get their stuff loaded and out of the Guard's compound. When the trucks were rolling, men jumped in their cars and left as fast as they could get out of the garage. The last of the cars were still pouring from the parking lot when the tanks rolled into view.\n\nThe tanks stopped, then the Bradleys behind them. Only when the parking lot was empty did the tanks move forward again, carefully.\n\nFrom his vantage down the street three blocks, JR Hays and two volunteer troopers watched the tanks and Bradleys go by. JR had an AT4 under his right arm and an M4 carbine on a sling across his back. One of the troopers was also carrying an AT4, an extra, just in case.\n\nBefore they left the armory, JR asked the young guardsmen, \"Have either of you ever actually fired an AT4?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" each of them said.\n\n\"Then you get to watch me miss tonight. Your job is to act as lookouts, to ensure we don't get jumped by scouts.\"\n\nBut to JR's amazement, there were no scouts. This was _America_ , for Christ's sake, not Baghdad or Mosul or some other squalid Arab town. Well, the soldiers would learn. And fast. The next time the Guard tried this, it wouldn't be so easy.\n\nJR decided he would try for a Bradley when the troopers had re-embarked and were headed back to base. Patrols looking for guerillas or hidden troops took manpower. A constant low-level threat also took a toll on morale. JR knew because he had done his tours in the Middle East.\n\nJR found a basement stairwell to hide in, and took the extra antitank rocket.\n\n\"If you see a scout, open up, force him to take cover, then scatter to the rendezvous point. Tonight's goal is to ratchet up their fear a notch. You got that?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nBoth these young troopers looked to be about twenty years old, but they were game. Given time, they would be good soldiers. Time. That's what JR had to buy them by arranging some serious air attacks on the 1st Armored. Fuel storage tanks were probably the top priority if he could get some planes in the air carrying bombs. Without fuel, 1st Armored was going nowhere.\n\nWith just the top of his camo cap showing, JR watched the troops set up a perimeter around the armory, with tanks on the four corners. Bradleys each carried six troopers, so that meant there were twenty-four troopers out there afoot, searching and guarding and looking to shoot the first man they saw with a gun.\n\nTime passed. Perhaps a half hour. The idling tanks were surprisingly quiet. The thunderstorm drifted off to the east and the wind was just a zephyr.\n\nFinally JR realized they had fired the armory. Probably by pouring gasoline around. Some of the windows must have been broken or shattered on their own, because soon smoke was oozing around the lights on poles around the place and the lights illuminating the parking lot. He hoped the fire department had the sense to stay in the station tonight.\n\nHe checked his sentries, who were out of sight. Waited.\n\nWaiting was the hardest part, he thought. You never get used to it. You wait for everything in the army, literally everything. Take a number, soldier. Or get in line. Then in combat, you wait some more. Wait to shoot and wait to die.\n\nFinally, with visible fire coming from three of the armory windows, the Abrams tanks started snorting and moving. Two of them led off up the street.\n\nJR Hays ignored them and watched the troopers return to the Bradleys. The Bradleys lined up; two tanks guarded the rear of the column.\n\nDarn.\n\nPicking up his AT4 and the spare, JR scuttled out of his hidey hole\u2014he didn't want to be there if the tank or Bradleys cut loose. The Abrams main battle tank was a formidable foe. Equipped with a 120-mm gun, a .50-caliber machine gun, and two .30-caliber machine guns, it was a rolling sixty-ton fortress protected by massive armor. Quite simply, the M1A1 Abrams was the finest tank on planet earth.\n\nThe Bradley was also armored, more lightly than a tank, but for protection it did have a nice 25-mm gun that fired up to two hundred rounds a minute. Twenty-five millimeters meant the shells were about an inch in diameter. Throwing three of those monsters every second, the gun could shred buildings, vehicles, and people very nicely, thank you, at terrific ranges.\n\nJR took up a new position, partially hidden by a corner of a building. He laid his spare AT4 on the ground against the building. The lead pair of tanks clattered past JR at perhaps eight to ten miles per hour. He turned on the battery in the AT4. Now the Bradleys came, in formation, at the same speed. Kneeling, JR glanced at the trailing tank, then sprinted forward to get a square shot at the rear of the last Bradley. He kneeled, pushed the safety button forward, quickly made sure he had the crosshairs where he wanted them, and pushed the fire button. The job took no more than four seconds. Just a tiny delay and the rocket shot out of the tube, leaving an enormous blast of glowing hot exhaust gases pouring from the rear of the launch tube. . .and almost instantly the rocket hit the end of the Bradley, punched through, and exploded. A jet of fire shot back out the entry hole.\n\nJR had already dropped the empty tube and was running for the corner of the sheltering building when he heard the chatter of a machine gun. That was from the tank behind him, he thought. He tore around the side of the building, out of sight of the tanks, ran right by the extra loaded tube lying by the building, and ran hard. Troopers from the other Bradleys would be after him in seconds.\n\nHe quickly found himself in an old neighborhood of mature trees and lawns and iron fences. Vaulted a fence and ran as if the hounds of hell were behind him, which they were, then got into an alley and ran on the gravel.\n\nFrom somewhere behind him he heard a shot. Not too loud. One of his kids, he hoped, slowing down the pursuit. He checked street signs and kept moving, now jogging.\n\nThe carbine on his back was slapping him at every step, slowing him, so he pulled it off and carried it in his hands. His pistol belt was also rubbing him with every step. Damn, he was going to be sore. He must have run three miles or more before he came to the parking lot of a Walmart. He found Wiley Fehrenbach sitting behind the wheel of his SUV; his two guardsmen were already seated in the back.\n\n\"I'm getting too old for this shit,\" he told Wiley as he motioned him to drive and put on his seatbelt. Then he tried to ease the pistol on his raw, aching hip.\n\nFehrenbach headed downtown.\n\nJR thought about the troopers in the Bradley he'd shot. No doubt they were all dead, or wished they were. They had been American soldiers, and perhaps he had even served with them somewhere in the last twenty years. When he recovered his breath, he turned to the two soldiers in the backseat.\n\n\"I'm a soldier,\" he offered in way of explanation, \"which is an ancient, honorable profession. I had absolutely nothing to do with independence. I wasn't even asked my opinion before the legislature did it. They did it because they thought their constituents wanted it desperately and without independence, Texas didn't have a chance. I don't know if they were right or wrong, yet I'm a Texan, and I'm all in. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the two young men murmured. They were Texans too. JR wasn't sure they did fully understand, so he continued: \"Soldiers fight for their country. Ours is Texas. Freedom isn't free, and if we're going to get it, we're going to have to fight for it. We're going to have to hurt them worse than they hurt us, and we can't ever give up. You see that?\"\n\nOne of the soldiers, his name tag said he was Murray, replied, \"My dad is locked in a railroad car at the base. He's the president of the El Paso Rotary. Wrote some stuff for one of those independence movements. Fight for Texas? Hell yes.\"\n\nThe other soldier, his name tag said Tyler, nodded his head. At the wheel Wiley Fehrenbach was nodding too.\n\n\"Some of our enemies have to die and some of us will too,\" JR Hays said. \"Blood is the fertilizer of freedom. Maybe yours and mine.\"\n\nHe fell silent and watched the street with old, careful eyes. Fehrenbach pulled into a McDonald's parking lot. Cars full of National Guard soldiers were waiting. \"Murray, Tyler, run on over there and tell them to follow us to the airport. We have some work to do tonight.\" The young guardsmen trotted off, carrying their weapons.\n\nOn the way to the airport, JR said to Wiley, \"Our objective is to isolate First Armored, make sure it can't be reinforced or resupplied and can't run. I want you to pull all those executive jets onto the runways and taxiways and then shoot out their tires so they can't be moved easily. We may not be able to hold the airport, but at least no airplane will land on it until the army takes it back.\"\n\n\"And the airport on base?\"\n\n\"We'll take care of that in a day or two,\" JR said. \"After you do the international airport, I want you to get busy blowing up railroad trestles, as far out of town as you can. No trains in or out. Then bridges on the highways.\"\n\n\"We can do that. We're engineers.\"\n\n\"Do some ambushes, one or two, after you blow a trestle or bridge and they come to look. Try to hit a patrol in town occasionally. Shoot, then skedaddle. Don't get in any stand-up fights when you're outnumbered and outgunned. Just worry them.\"\n\n\"Hit and run.\"\n\n\"Precisely. The playbook is so old the pages are crumbling, but the tactics still work.\"\n\nAfter a moment he added, \"The army will soon be trying to ambush your men and doing searches house to house looking for weapons and uniforms. You'll be amazed at how fast the army's combat veterans will catch on, even anticipate your tactics. They're pros, not twenty-year-old amateurs like the two with me tonight.\"\n\n\"I understand.\"\n\n\"You have to watch out for your boys, Wiley, or soon we won't have any soldiers to fight with, just a bunch of bodies.\"\n\nJR thought about his comment to the soldiers that he had had nothing to do with independence. Perhaps Joe Bob's death at the hands of smugglers had pushed Jack toward independence. Certainly, he thought, his father's death had convinced him, when he heard about independence, that _he_ was going to fight.\n\nNot being an introspective man, he left it there and began thinking about how to win the war of independence. When Wiley Fehrenbach climbed out of the car and went inside the terminal to wait for his soldiers to assemble, JR found a notebook in the car and wrote an order to Major General Elvin Gentry.\n\n\"It is essential that we take the offensive and give Washington something to think about besides pounding Texas into submission. Have your B-1 people study up on railroad trestles and bridges out of the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. Send as many planes as possible as soon as possible to hit those trestles and bridges. I want to stop all the trains into and out of the Powder River Basin. The coal-fired power plants they service will soon run out of coal and shut down. The second-priority targets are pumping stations on natural gas delivery lines to the Upper Midwest and Northeast. If we can shut some of those gas lines down, many of the power plants there will have to shut down too.\"\n\nHe signed it JR Hays, Major General Commanding, Texas Guard. Then he went into the executive terminal, found the pilots of the executive jet that he had flown in on, gave them the note, and told them to fly to Dyess right away, before the runway was blocked. They were to deliver the message to Elvin Gentry.\n\nFehrenbach posted guards armed with rifles and AT4s on the access roads to the airport. He set the rest of his men to towing planes onto the runways with the little tractors and tow bars the FBO had parked on the ramp. \"Park the crash truck out there too,\" he said.\n\nWiley Fehrenbach and JR Hays were called to the lobby television by the desk lady, who apparently had no idea that the jets on her ramp were being moved. She pointed to the television. Jack Hays was giving a speech.\n\n_President_ Jack Hays\u2014the legislature had awarded him that new title along with declaring itself the Congress of Texas\u2014was escorted by the leaders of the Texas House and Senate. They walked past television cameras from local stations whose feed was beamed to satellites that were broadcasting across the world. Soetoro's censors might prevent it from being aired outside of Texas, but it would circle the earth and eventually reach every person upon it.\n\nAfter shaking dozens of hands on his way to the podium, Jack Hays at last took his place behind it. His writers and Ben Steiner had given him a speech, but to Steiner's dismay, he left the speech in his pocket. He was going to wing it.\n\nIn the packed gallery he saw his wife, Nadine.\n\n\"My fellow Texans,\" he began. Then he changed that, \"My fellow Texans and American patriots everywhere. I speak to you tonight after a tumultuous few days, a historic period that marks the beginning of our fight for freedom, a fight that we hope patriots everywhere in America will join and stand shoulder to shoulder with us against tyranny.\"\n\nHe detailed President Soetoro's transgressions, laying special emphasis on his imposition of martial law and the jailing of political opponents. \"Who would have thought that what is being done now was possible in the United States: that we live in fear of the midnight knock on the door; that many of our leading citizens are in concentration camps, where at any moment we might join them as prisoners. Let us be frank. America is now being ruled by a tyrant who has shredded the Constitution of the United States. In the last week, one man has seized all power unto himself, and the rights of no man or woman in America are safe.\n\n\"He has chosen to rip up the Bill of Rights, destroying the right of free speech, which is absolutely essential in a democracy. He has destroyed the right to bear arms, which is a free people's only defense against tyranny. He suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, an ancient writ created hundreds of years ago in England and brought to America by our first colonists to ensure the rule of law and protect the populace from government lawlessness. He has chosen to eliminate the currency. He has chosen to rule by fiat, dismissing Congress and flouting the courts. By his actions, he defines the word tyrant. In response to the dictates of a tyrant, we here in Texas have chosen to exercise our God-given right to self-government, our right to choose our own destiny and our own leaders, our right as a free people to resist tyranny and create a government worthy of a free people. In a sublime act of courage, the elected representatives of the people of Texas have done so. Yesterday morning in the very early hours they declared our independence. Today they established the Republic of Texas.\"\n\nHe paused in response to loud, sustained applause.\n\n\"We face difficult days ahead. The federal government has already fired the first shots, which were cruise missiles launched from a navy ship at sea off our coast. Today the navy has declared a blockade of our ports in an attempt to deny us freedom of the seas.\n\n\"The road ahead will not be easy. No doubt the federal government will escalate its pressure upon us. Still, precious as it is, freedom is worthless unless it is defended, and I fear blood will be required. How much, no man can say. At least a dozen people died and two dozen were wounded when a power plant in the Houston area was struck by those cruise missiles. Those Texans, _who wore no uniform_ , were our first casualties. I am reminded of the words of that great American patriot Thomas Paine: 'If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.'\"\n\nThe applause was thundering.\n\nWhen the noise had at last subsided, he said: \"Tonight we ask lovers of freedom all over America, indeed, lovers of freedom all over the world, to join us in our struggle. Let us here in Texas resolve to fight, no matter the price that may be required, for all that we loved about our country, for all that we treasured and hoped to pass on to our children, and their children, and the generations yet unborn. Let us here dedicate ourselves to enshrining freedom, justice, and the rule of law in the Republic of Texas, for ourselves and our posterity. _So help us God_.\"\n\nThe applause and shouting died after a while, because the hour was late and the day had been long for everyone. Still standing at the podium, Jack Hays shouted, \"Ben Steiner, you wrote our Declaration of Independence, what is your favorite song?\"\n\nTexans argued for years afterward whether Steiner knew that question was coming, but his answer was quick and his voice carried throughout the chamber. \"'The Eyes of Texas.'\"\n\nOne of the television producers was about to send the program back to the studio for commentary by instant experts, but he now waited, sensing that the best might still be ahead.\n\nJack Hays started singing. He had a nice baritone. Everyone in the chamber was still on their feet, including the spectators in the gallery. Nadine's eyes were locked upon her husband as he sang, \"The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the live long day. The eyes of Texas are upon you, and you cannot get away . . .\"\n\nWhen the roar died, Hays looked and gestured at the Speaker, who shouted, \"'The Yellow Rose of Texas.'\"\n\n\"There's a yellow rose in Texas, that I am going to see. Nobody else could miss her, not half as much as me . . . She's the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew. Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew. You may talk about your Clementine and sing of Rosalee, but _the yellow rose of Texas_ is the only girl for me. . . .\"\n\nAll over Texas, people were sitting in front of their televisions or radios, many singing at the top of their lungs, as Jack Hays thought they would.\n\nBarry Soetoro watched the speech and singing on television in the family quarters of the White House. \"That's a dangerous man,\" he remarked to Mickey. \"He's firing up every half-wit cracker in the country.\"\n\n\"You'd better have someone shoot him quick,\" she said. \"You knew those Texas bastards were going to give you trouble.\"\n\nThe president nodded. He knew good advice when he heard it.\n\nJack Hays said, \"My favorite now, 'Deep In the Heart of Texas,'\" and he led off.\n\n\"The stars at night . . . are big and bright\"\u2014clap, clap, clap\u2014\" _deep in the heart of Texas_. The prairie bloom . . . is like perfume\"\u2014clap, clap, clap\u2014\" _deep in the heart of Texas_. Reminds me of the one I love\"\u2014clap, clap, clap\u2014\" _deep in the heart of Texas_. . . .\"\n\nThe last notes had barely died when Jack said, \"Let's end with the anthem of Texas, 'Texas, Our Texas.'\"\n\nThe voices rose loudly, if not melodiously. \"Texas, our Texas! All hail the mighty state! Texas, our Texas! So wonderful, so great. . . .\"\n\nThe last stanza was the best, and although many of the legislators didn't know the words, Jack Hays did. He sang it with every ounce of fervor that was in him. \"Texas, dear Texas! From tyrant's grip now free, shines forth in splendor, our star of destiny! Mother of heroes, we come your children true, proclaiming our allegiance, our faith, our love for you. . . . God bless you, Texas! And keep you brave and strong, that you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long. . . .\"\n\nLong after the singing had died and they turned off their televisions and radios, in cities, towns, and hamlets and at isolated homes and ranches, from the islands and low flatlands near the gulf and the thickets and pine forests of east Texas, to the prairies, plains, and semi-deserts of west Texas and the windswept tableland of the Panhandle, people hummed the tunes and thought about Jack Hays' words. In truck stops, cafes, and big rigs rolling along lonesome highways, people thought and pondered, about America and Texas and the dreams men carry for a someday that may or may not ever come.\n\nAs Jack Hays once remarked to Nadine, \"Texas isn't a place; it's a religion.\"\n\nAt Fort Bliss, Major General Lee Parker had a nightmare on his hands. His flight line had been shot to hell, an Apache had been shot down, he had lost a Bradley and every soldier in it, and three helicopters had shot up his flight line. As Jack Hays spoke on the television, Parker's air officer was trying to get a count on how many helicopters were flyable.\n\nIn addition to these problems, the Pentagon was bombarding him with messages directing him to attack in all directions, disarm all civilians, and arrest every male Texan he could find. \"What about the women?\" he asked his chief of staff, who had no answers. Parker had served in Texas long enough to know that many Texas women were, if anything, made of even sterner stuff than the men. Given sufficient reason, they could and occasionally did shoot a man as dead as a man can get. On the other hand, arresting women, some of them mothers of young children, would not play well in Washington. And he had no decent facilities to hold them in.\n\nSo how was he going to do all this attacking and arresting? He huddled with his ops officer, the brigade commanders, and their ops officers trying to figure out what his objectives and priorities should be. Staff officers flitted around like moths around a flame. Given enough time, something might have come out of the blizzard of orders from headquarters and all this staff work, but time ran out for Lee Parker at about three a.m. He was whipped. He hadn't slept in eighteen hours, and was keeping himself running on strong black coffee.\n\n\"Sir,\" one of his aides whispered to him. \"There is a delegation of NCOs in your outer office. They want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"A delegation?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. That's what they said.\"\n\n\"We don't do delegations in the army. Tell them to return to duty or their quarters.\"\n\n\"General, they insist on seeing you.\"\n\nParker stormed out of the conference room and down the hallway to the reception area outside his office, fully intending to blister some soldiers. A delegation! Just who did these sergeants think they were, anyway?\n\nHe faced a group of command sergeant majors. \"What the hell do you want that can't go through the chain of command?\"\n\n\"We wanted to bring this to your attention right now, General. The troops in the barracks are packing their duffle bags, getting in their cars, and driving out the main gate. Over in base housing, officers and men are loading their families and leaving.\"\n\n\"This base is on lockdown. No one in or out. You know that!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, but the gate guards have left too. Our gates are wide open and unmanned.\"\n\n\"Get them manned immediately. Anyone leaving this fort in violation of orders will be arrested and court-martialed.\"\n\n\"Sir, the soldiers we have left refuse to man the gate. The main road outside the gate is lined with armed civilians, and more are coming every minute. The sheriff's deputies are out there trying to keep them from flooding onto the base.\"\n\nLee Parker stared, his jaw agape. In all his years in the army he had never even heard of mass disobedience. \"This is mutiny,\" he said to the top sergeants.\n\n\"Yes, sir, it is that. But we can't stop our soldiers short of shooting them, and they won't do the army any good if they are shot. What it boils down to is that less than ten percent of the troops will stick. That's just an estimate. More like a guess, maybe. The rest are scattering like leaves in the wind. Some say they are going to fight for Texas, others are going home, wherever that is for them. Bottom line, General, is _we have no one to fight with_.\"\n\nOn the way to headquarters, the sergeants agreed that having soldiers arrest local civilians and incarcerate them had been a major mistake. They didn't think it was Parker's fault; he was just following orders. Ill-considered orders. The men and women of the 1st Armored were soldiers, damn good ones too, not KGB or Gestapo or Brown Shirts. Or FEMA or Homeland thugs. \"We're soldiers, sir,\" the division sergeant major told the general now by way of explanation, although without context the general thought that comment inane.\n\n\"Our troops aren't acting like soldiers,\" Parker shot back heatedly. \" _Mutiny_! By God, when this is over I'm going to send a whole lot of people to Leavenworth. Just watch.\"\n\nThe command sergeant major, Alfredo Mendez, five feet, six inches of professional soldier from McAllen, Texas, said, \"General, I don't think you understand the situation. Perhaps we weren't clear enough. Your troops are leaving. They will not fight Texans. They refuse to serve in Barry Soetoro's army. Your choice right now is to get in a plane as quickly as possible and fly out of here, or stay and surrender to the National Guard. When Wiley Fehrenbach figures out the situation here at Bliss, which will be sooner rather than later, he and his troops will be coming, armed, and our people will not fight.\"\n\nThe general went into his office, slammed the door, and tried to get control of himself. Never in his wildest nightmares had he ever imagined this. _Mutiny_!\n\nAfter five or six deep breaths, he walked out, past the waiting NCOs, and headed for the staff conference room. He broke the news to his staff and his generals in four sentences.\n\nOne of the brigadiers exploded. \"We'll get the loyal soldiers and kick the snot out of those guardsmen and civilians. Let's get at it.\"\n\n\"So you want to go out like Custer, eh?\" another brigadier shot back. \"This isn't Iraq. These civilians will shoot first, just like the Sioux did. The people of Texas are fighting for their freedom from what they believe is a tyrannical government that has suspended the United States Constitution. So far we have fifteen dead and thirty-two wounded and all we've accomplished is burning down an empty National Guard Armory. What do you plan to do, fight house to house to get the hell out of El Paso? Make a last stand at a Walmart or on some lonesome, windswept hill in the middle of a cow pasture, if you get that far?\"\n\n\"We could get our loyal troops and some of the equipment into New Mexico, and the Texans wouldn't follow us across the border.\"\n\n\"You think this is chess?\" another officer retorted. \"If I were making the decisions for them, I would follow you all the way to Hell to force you to surrender. And we're just not ready to move. It would take a couple of days to get ready, and we don't have two days.\"\n\nLee Parker made up his mind. The brass would court-martial him if he ran, and, in truth, he didn't have running in him. Nor did he want to fight for Barry Soetoro. He had been doing what he had done for the past thirty-two years: obeying orders because he was in the United States Army, serving under the Stars and Stripes. Now he lacked the means to fight. \"We'll surrender,\" he said. He glanced at the chief of staff and told him to draft a message to all the higher headquarters telling them of his decision.\n\n\"Sir, shouldn't we disable the tanks, artillery, Bradleys?\"\n\n\"If we had the people to accomplish that, we wouldn't be surrendering,\" Lee Parker said bitterly. \"This command has just disintegrated. I didn't see it coming, and I doubt if anyone else in this room did either. If you did have an inkling, you certainly didn't do your country any favors by keeping your mouth shut.\" Yet, after all, in a vast bureaucracy, one didn't get ahead by pointing out statistically remote disastrous possibilities that had never occurred in the past. A mutiny! For heaven's sake, this _is_ the United States Army, and 1st Armored was a hell of a good outfit!\n\nLee Parker went back to the NCOs who still stood in the reception area.\n\n\"Sergeant Major Mendez, will you please go to the main gate and tell the sheriff or his deputy to send for General Fehrenbach? I'll surrender Fort Bliss to him. Have the sheriff bring him here.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Mendez said, saluted, and marched from the room.\n\nThe thunderstorms were gone and it was drizzling rain when JR Hays and Wiley Fehrenbach were ushered into the commanding general's office at Fort Bliss. Seeing that JR was wearing major general's stars, Lee Parker, standing at attention beside his desk, saluted and said, \"Gentlemen, my troops have mutinied and I am unable to defend the base or the military equipment here. In order not to squander lives uselessly, I wish to surrender the base and its personnel to the Texas forces.\"\n\nJR and Wiley returned the salute. JR told Wiley, \"You accept the surrender. Write it out on a computer.\" He dictated the terms: All military equipment would be surrendered along with the troops. Those soldiers who wished to leave Texas were welcome to do so, and those who wished to enlist in the Texas Guard would be encouraged to do so after they took a loyalty oath and signed it. Anyone caught sabotaging surrendered military equipment would be dealt with summarily.\n\n\"If you or your staff or senior officers wish to leave, General Parker, I suggest you get in one of your C-130s or executive transports and leave immediately. We are going to block the runway with tanks as soon as you depart.\"\n\n\"I'll stay,\" Lee Parker said. \"My officers can make their own decisions.\"\n\n\"I understand you have some civilians locked up.\"\n\n\"Orders from Washington,\" Parker replied curtly. \"FEMA has lists.\"\n\n\"Let them out, Wiley, and get them rides home. And haul down the American flags on base. Find some Texas flags and run them up.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nWiley Fehrenbach unbuttoned his shirt and produced a Lone Star flag. He grinned at JR and handed it to the nearest soldier. \"You heard him. Run it up the pole outside and get one for the pole at the main gate.\"\n\nJR glanced at the leather couch, and asked the two generals to conduct their business in the outer office. When the door was closed behind them, he sacked out on the couch. He glanced at his watch. The Republic of Texas was just a bit less than forty-eight hours old. The window was open and the breeze felt good. He was asleep ten seconds later.\nSIXTEEN\n\nThe riots continued in inner cities around the country. Baltimore was probably the worst: it had been racked by riots the previous year, and this time the mob at the core expanded across downtown and into the suburbs.\n\nPolice and National Guardsmen had disappeared. Much of their leadership had already been imprisoned by the feds. Many of those left on duty went home to protect or move their families. Others just threw up their hands. Why try to bring a mob under control when the physical risks were high and the politicians were frightened that they might lose some votes, so none of the political elite or police brass would back the men and women in uniform on the streets? Police and guardsmen went into bars, had a few, then found their cars and went home.\n\nIn the suburbs, people were getting into a state of near panic. Rumors were rampant. In subdivisions and neighborhoods, mothers and fathers surrounded by children met in front yards and culs-de-sac, exchanging rumors and fears. People talked about blocking off streets as they faced the prospect of having to defend their homes against marauders. It seemed as if much of America now had two ravenous domestic enemies\u2014rioting, looting mobs, and the federal government. Many of the suburbanites had an old lever-action Winchester or Marlin, or a bolt-action Winchester, Remington, or Ruger in the closet, and a couple boxes of ammunition for it. They decided what they were going to do if the mobs invaded their neighborhoods to rob, loot, rape, and burn.\n\nIn Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Los Angeles, the mobs were still in the ghetto, but as in Baltimore, those who lived in the riot-torn area and were not a part of it were trying to flee. People left on foot and in cars, streams of refugees, some with the contents of looted stores on their backs, but all convinced they had had enough.\n\nLocal and network television were showing some of this, where censors would allow it, and radio stations were on the spot with breathless reporting. Social media filled in with some truth, rumor, and wild speculation. As usual on social media, budding writers of sardonic fiction posted absurd tales they thought only fools would believe; of course the fools did believe, but so did many frightened people who were definitely not foolish.\n\nEveryone had someone they needed to talk to desperately: Telephone networks were at maximum capacity. Calls, e-mails, and text messages inundated city and state officials high and low, all those remaining after the FBI, FEMA, Homeland Security, and cooperating county sheriffs had carried off the disloyal for incarceration. Some of the less cooperative sheriffs and police chiefs had also been arrested, decapitating their law enforcement departments. The only thing observers could agree on was that the situation was getting worse. In the White House and congressional offices, staffers stopped answering telephones and e-mail servers crashed. Monday night, August 29, was another wild one in America.\n\nThey came for Jake Grafton at Camp Dawson at three in the morning, Tuesday, August 30. Four of them, in green coveralls with FEMA badges on the right shoulder. They woke him up by dragging him from his cot, slamming him to the floor, and kicking him.\n\nThen they cuffed his hands behind his back and dragged him from the tent, across the common area, by the mess tents, to the building Sluggo Sweatt used as headquarters. Up the stairs into Sluggo's lair. He was up, with a light on, waiting. The four thugs lifted Grafton bodily from the floor and threw him into a chair. Another man came in and dropped Grafton's watch and cell phone on Sluggo's desk.\n\n\"Good morning, Grafton,\" Sluggo said pleasantly. \"I decided it was time to take the gloves off and confront you with the reality of your situation.\"\n\nGrafton tried to ease himself in the chair. It felt as if one of his ribs on the left side was broken. Sharp pain with every breath.\n\n\"My conscience requires me to tell you in advance that the road ahead for you is filled with pain. I need you to sign a confession of complicity in the attempted assassination of President Soetoro. Of course, there will be television cameras. You will need to speak slowly and coherently about your crimes.\"\n\nJake Grafton looked around the room, the same one he had visited twice before.\n\nOne of the men on his right used a fist into his side. He gasped at the blow and almost fell from the chair.\n\n\"Be polite and pay attention,\" Sluggo said. \"I told my colleagues that you would undoubtedly need a lot of persuading, and they thought it would be fun to do it. There isn't much to do to pass the time here in the boonies.\" With that, Sluggo nodded.\n\nThe thugs dragged him from the chair and took him along a hallway to a jail cell, complete with bars and a cot and a honey bucket. There they started pounding on his ribs. One of them stomped on his scrotum. At some point he passed out.\n\nWhen he came to, the lights were on, but he had no idea whether it was day or night or how long he had been unconscious.\n\nTelevision. That was why they hadn't touched his face.\n\nThe good news was that he was still alive. The bad news was that Sluggo's men were going to beat him to death by inches.\n\nLoren Snyder had been busy. He used the Houston telephone book to find the address of a former naval officer, Julie Aranado, also known as Jugs. Apparently the Aranado men of prior generations had favored big-bosomed women, so Julie was awesomely endowed. Lots of exercise kept the rest of her figure slim and trim, showing off the trophies. She had acquired her nickname at the Naval Academy and, although it reeked of political incorrectness and sexism, she liked it, so it stuck. \"If you got 'em, be proud,\" she had been heard to remark when questioned about the appellation.\n\nAfter eleven years of active duty, she decided the GI Bill's offer of a free advanced education beat the navy's retention bonuses. So she quit the navy and was earning a PhD in physics at the University of Houston. She returned to her apartment on Sunday evening, after watching Jack Hays' speech at a girlfriend's house, and found Loren Snyder sitting on the front stoop waiting for her.\n\n\"Hey, Jugs. You're looking good.\"\n\n\"Mr. Snyder! I haven't seen you in what, two or three years?\"\n\n\"About that. And it's Loren. Hey, I need some help and you were the first person I thought of.\"\n\n\"I heard you were in law school at UT.\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"What kind of help?\" she asked as she unlocked the door. Snyder was at least ten years her senior, and she had served with him aboard an attack sub. Romance hadn't been on the agenda then, and she knew it wasn't now. The Loren Snyder she had known was all business.\n\n\"The Republic of Texas is now the proud owner of a _Virginia_ -class sub, USS _Texas_. She's lying in Galveston. I'm the new skipper and you are now my XO.\"\n\nShe snorted. \"Don't bullshit me, Snyder. School starts again next week and I need to study. What do you want?\"\n\nHe told it as he had gotten it, then added, \"I went aboard her yesterday evening. The crew scrammed the reactor, secured the batteries, and left, arrested by the county sheriff, who doesn't know jack about ships, boats, or submarines. I inspected everything I could see and couldn't find any sign of sabotage. All _Texas_ needs is a crew.\"\n\nJugs snorted. \"Where, pray tell, are you going to find sixty people to man her?\"\n\n\"I'm not. I figure with five people who know what they are doing, I can get her under way. We can't leave her lying at the pier. I figure there is probably one chance in five the navy will destroy her with Tomahawks, and four chances in five the navy will send a SEAL team to take her.\"\n\n\"SEALs couldn't get her under way,\" Jugs objected with a frown. \"They don't have that kind of training.\"\n\n\"They could if they brought five or six certified people with them. And you know they can do that.\" Both these former naval officers had a very healthy respect for the navy's special operations warriors, arguably the best in the world. If anyone could steal a submarine, they could.\n\n\"They're probably planning a mission right now,\" she said thoughtfully.\n\n\"If we are going to save that boat for Texas, we have to get in gear. Are you for independence?\"\n\n\"Hell, yes. I'm from San Antone. I've had more than enough of Soetoro pissing on the Constitution. It's high time we went our own way.\" Although Aranado didn't say it, like many Mexican American Catholics, she was socially conservative. Same-sex marriages, she believed, were an insult to the sanctity of that institution. Abortion horrified her\u2014especially late-term abortions, doctors sucking the brains from viable infants\u2014and Soetoro's and his party's fervid support of the practice had cost them her vote years ago. In fact, she had sworn in church at the altar of God she would never vote for one of those baby-butchering sons of bitches as long as she lived.\n\nJugs always was blunt, Snyder reflected. \"I need three more qualified people,\" he said. \"Who do you know that we can get?\" Then he added, \"In Texas?\"\n\nAnother group, five young men in their late twenties or early thirties, was also busy that Monday night. They were unemployed coal miners in southern West Virginia. They had been following Soetoro's declaration of martial law and Texas' reaction to it on television, in bits and pieces. They were nonpolitical high school grads who had become certified underground miners and worked in the mines since their early twenties. Their mines had laid them off some months back when demand for coal forced mines to lay off shifts. Their fathers had been miners, and their fathers before them. Underground mines were the last remaining sources of good jobs in southern West Virginia since NAFTA had sent factory jobs to Mexico twenty years before. They believed Barry Soetoro's EPA was killing coal, and with it, their way of life, and they were bitter. They still had fishing, hunting, riding their ATVs, and chasing girls, but without a decent paycheck, their futures looked bleak. None wanted to leave the hills to look for work elsewhere. Here was where they had spent their lives, here was where their friends were, here was where their relatives had been buried for over two centuries in the little graveyards surrounding the one-room white churches that dotted the hills. _This_ was their place.\n\nNow evil politicians, rich environmentalists, and Washington bureaucrats had robbed them of it, they believed. They had never thought of themselves as terrorists, but for months now they had been talking about getting even with those distant bastards who had taken everything they had. These young men despised Barry Soetoro and everything he stood for and admired the Texans. Unlike the miners in West Virginia, those Texans hadn't just hunkered down and let the big shits fuck them. They were fighting back.\n\nHarlan Greathouse was the natural leader of this little group, and the biggest talker. Sunday, while they were fishing the eddies in a quiet little river shaded with verdant sycamores and drinking beer, Greathouse prodded them into action.\n\nOne of them still had a key to the explosives locker at the mine where he used to work. The padlocks on the locker were supposed to be changed periodically, but who knew when the mine foreman would get around to it. The key still worked, and for that they were grateful. The locker was a grounded steel building as far away from structures and dwellings as was practical. Sunday night they used that key, opened the locker, and helped themselves to three cases of dynamite, blasting caps, a roll of wire, and three detonators that passed their battery checks. The roll contained about a thousand feet of wire. They really needed three rolls, so they could plant three charges, but they decided to make do with one.\n\nHarlan Greathouse led in his pickup, and his friends in two more pickups followed him to the interstate. They stopped at a convenience store on a freeway exit, gassed up, and bought more 3.2 percent beer, the so-called non-alcoholic beer, then got back onto the highway. As they finished each can of beer, they crushed it and with a practiced flip of the wrist, tossed it into the beds of their pickups. They drove into the great valley of Virginia and across the Blue Ridge to the rolling countryside cut by old rivers that ran into the Chesapeake.\n\nOn a two-lane asphalt road that ran through bucolic countryside they found a pumping station on one of the natural-gas trunk lines that ran from Louisiana northeastward all the way to Boston. Anyone could see it was a pipeline right-of-way because the tree-less terrain covered in low weeds ran from one horizon to another and was about a hundred feet wide. This line serviced a myriad of smaller feeder lines that supplied natural gas to factories, cities, towns, and gas-fed power plants.\n\nNone of the miners had the slightest idea how big the explosion would be when they blew the pumping station. Big, they figured, big enough to perhaps ignite this stand of dry pines that stood on either side of the right-of-way. They saw in the moonlight\u2014it was four in the morning\u2014that each stand consisted of about five acres of trees. A quick reconnaissance revealed that these two stands were surrounded by pastures and meadows as far as the eye could see, with here and there a modest house and its associated barn. Cattle grazed in the pastures. The nearest house was perhaps five hundred yards beyond the edge of the trees, so they figured no one there would be injured by the blast.\n\nHarlan thought this a good place. They could set one case of dynamite, unroll perhaps four hundred feet of wire off the roll, cut it, and rig it to a detonator. The loss of line pressure after the explosion would cause emergency shutoff valves farther up and down the line to secure the flow of gas. Those power plants to the northeast that depended on this line would be down until gas from other, interconnecting lines, could be routed to them. The explosion would no doubt obliterate this pumping station, and it would eventually need to be rebuilt.\n\n\"They should have stayed with coal,\" one of the miners said, chuckling, just loud enough to be heard.\n\nThe pumping station, about a half-acre in size, was surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire and was lit by floodlights on poles. There was a gate, of course, and it was padlocked.\n\nThe gate wasn't a problem. The miners hooked a tow chain around one of the fence posts, hooked the other end to a tow-hitch, and pulled it down.\n\nThey all knew how to handle dynamite. In less than five minutes they had divided a case of dynamite into three charges, one of which was set on the main inlet line\u2014about three feet in diameter\u2014another on the line out, and one on the main pump itself. Between the pump and the charges on the lines were the safety cutoff valves, which were going to be destroyed too. One car went by without slowing while they worked. They inserted the blasting caps, wired up a harness that they mated to the caps, then unrolled an estimated four hundred feet of wire, cut it, and turned the pickups around.\n\nHarlan Greathouse thought he should be the one to trigger the blast. The other two pickups went on west a half mile or so to the crest of a low hill as he wired up the detonator. He took cover behind his pickup and lifted the safety lever. Took a deep breath and pushed the button.\n\nThe resulting explosion wasn't really that bad. But it was followed by a hurricane of noise as natural gas under pressure hissed from the ruptured line. That lasted just long enough to register on Harlan's ears, then the gas was ignited by molten hotspots in the steel. A giant explosion resulted. Trees were flattened to the east and west. The stupendous fireball from the blast rose in a monstrous flaming mushroom cloud.\n\nThe pickup truck absorbed the peak pressure of the shockwave from the concussion of the gas explosion, thereby saving Harlan from being crushed. However, even with the dubious shelter of his shattered truck, he perished within a second or so as the pulse of superheated air scorched and fried him to blackened gristle. The heat pulse also set the ten acres of now-flattened pines instantly aflame.\n\nWithin a minute the gas flowing from the ruptured lines slowed as pressure bled off. Air rushing back into the blast area and escaping gas fed a blowtorch flame that rose at least three hundred feet in the air. The initial fireball, now expanding into a mushroom cloud and turning from yellow to red and orange, rose and rose into the sky, lighting the countryside as bright as day.\n\nHarlan Greathouse's friends came driving madly back, but one look in the light of the burning gas told the story. They turned their pickups around in the road and roared away to the west toward the distant mountains.\n\nAs dawn was breaking Tuesday in Galveston, Snyder, Aranado, and three men, all of whom Jugs knew from her naval reserve weekends, were aboard _Texas_ checking her out. Speedy Gonzales was a nuclear engineer, Mouse Moore was a first-class petty officer with twelve years in attack subs, and Junior Smith was a third-class who had served aboard Polaris boats. All Texans, all foursquare for independence, they had volunteered immediately.\n\nUsing flashlights, they inspected everything they could see, opened panels and examined wiring and fittings, checked the galley for provisions, and all came to the same conclusion. _Texas_ was ready for sea. The former crew's personal effects were still aboard, uniforms, underwear, hygiene items, letters from wives and girlfriends. The batteries had a good charge on them. It was as if the crew had mustered on the pier and marched off, leaving everything. Although Snyder and his crew didn't know it, that was pretty much what had happened.\n\nAll five gathered in the control room and discussed their inspections. \"She's ready to go, I believe,\" Speedy said. \"A full load of Tomahawks and torpedoes, plenty of food and water, more than ample for five people. The batteries seem okay, the checklists are in place and apparently complete.\" He spoke like a judge, weighing every word before he uttered it because it would appear on the court reporter's transcript.\n\n\"Mouse?\" Loren asked.\n\n\"She's ready to go, Mr. Snyder.\" Snyder was an officer, and under no conceivable circumstances would Mouse Moore address him familiarly. He had spent too many years in uniform. In his bunkroom he might tell his shipmates his opinion of Loren or Jugs, but he would never address either of them that way to their faces. It was a mark in his favor: Mouse was a good sailor who would always obey orders.\n\nJunior Smith was cut from a slightly different pattern. He had been doused in naval tradition and most of it had washed off. He was a civilian at heart, and so he said, \"Loren, I'm willing to go to sea in her.\"\n\n\"Just precisely what _do_ you plan, Mr. Snyder?\" Jugs asked, preferring to address Loren formally.\n\n\"I want to get the reactor cooking again, check that every system is working properly, run some drills to ensure we don't entomb ourselves, and if we're all cool, cast off and get the hell out of Dodge before the SEALs show up. They can't get at us if we're submerged.\"\n\n\"We have no secure way to communicate with JR Hays,\" Jugs objected.\n\n\"After a while we can poke up the mast, listen to the radio, and learn what's happening. Right now, I think it imperative we get gone before the SEALs come, and you all know they will.\"\n\n\"Sure as God made little green apples,\" Junior agreed.\n\n\"So let's check all the circuit breakers and emergency alarms, then fire off the tea kettle. Stations everyone.\"\n\n\"Your first command,\" Speedy said with a grin.\n\n\"And probably my last,\" Loren Snyder admitted. \"Miz Aranado, you and Speedy bring the batteries online and let's do it.\"\n\nFour minutes later the batteries brought the boat to life. Lights came on, air began circulating, computer displays came to standby. Back aft Speedy Gonzales checked the emergency alarms one by one. Loren Snyder snapped off his flashlight and smiled. It was as if he had returned to something he had loved and missed. He thought for three seconds about law school, and snorted. Someday, maybe.\n\nGeneral Martin L. Wynette, the Joint Chiefs, and their staff were having a terrible morning. The news of the surrender of Fort Bliss, after a mutiny, cast a pall on their planning to invade Texas. Large numbers of troops that refused to obey orders, or refused to fight, or went AWOL was a nightmare that the U.S. armed forces had never before dealt with. It raised the question of whether any troops ordered to attack Texas could actually be relied upon to do so. It seemed to the planners that the answer to that question would determine what could be done, and when. Of course, the White House staff was outraged and said the military was dragging its feet in the face of treason. That comment was grossly unfair, and even Martin Wynette was severely irritated by it. Everyone in the E-Ring offices of the Pentagon knew that imprudent action would lead to even more severe condemnation of the military.\n\nThe loss of USS _Texas_ gave the navy serious heartburn. Some advocated launching Tomahawk cruise missiles at the attack submarine while she lay at the Galveston pier, but the chief of naval operations, the CNO, Admiral Cart McKiernan, was having none of it. \"We spent 2.6 billion dollars for that boat that we had to squeeze out of Congress like it was blood,\" he roared to the Joint Staff. \"I'll be damned if I'm going to order her destroyed until we've tried every other option. We may desperately need her if Iran and China get feisty. Those rodeo cowboys in Galveston are going nowhere in that boat; the very idea is ludicrous. Now you people get a SEAL team saddled up to go down there and get her. Have them take some submariners with them. I don't give a damn who the SEALs have to kill or how they do it, but I want that submarine back in one piece. Understand?\"\n\nThat was yesterday. In the wee hours of this morning it looked as if the SEAL team needed at least another twenty-four hours to get ready. People and equipment had to be moved into position and it all took time, a fact that infuriated the White House staffers sitting in on the pre-dawn meeting, who knew absolutely nothing about logistics. While they ranted, the lights and computers in the Pentagon flickered and went out for a few seconds until the building's massive emergency power system automatically came online.\n\nThe sabotage of the natural gas trunk line from Louisiana had forced several natural gas power plants in the area to shut down until gas could be rerouted over the network. The shutdowns of the power plants blacked out cities in northern Virginia and Maryland. Then the problems began to cascade. The computer system that controlled the electrical grid, automatically rerouting electrical power to restore it to deprived areas, began to do precisely the opposite. It demanded power from the stricken plants, and when there was none to be had, began shutting down the grid across the northeastern United States. In seconds, the power was off from Chicago to Boston and south all the way to Richmond. Air conditioners quit, elevators jammed, computers died, the telephone system went down, water and sewage pumps failed.\n\nI found out about the power failure about seven that morning when I sneaked from Sarah Houston's bed and padded into her kitchen to make coffee. The kitchen lights wouldn't illuminate. Suspecting the worst, I opened the door of a very quiet refrigerator. No light inside. Oh boy. I jabbed the remote to turn on the television, just in case, but no soap. I thought maybe it was the circuit breakers, but I didn't know where her panel was. I tried my cell phone: no service. So it wasn't the circuit breakers.\n\nI went back to the bedroom, woke Sarah, and told her the news.\n\n\"Perhaps my little program worked,\" she chirped, pleased with herself.\n\n\"Maybe the juice is only off in this neighborhood.\"\n\n\"You are always so cheerful, Tommy. And at this hour of the morning.\"\n\n\"I'm a natural-born optimist,\" I objected. \"In fact, I'm so optimistic that I think we should throw on some clothes and hot foot it over to the lock shop. If the outage is regional, we don't have to wait until tonight to hit that warehouse. We can do it as soon as we can get there, and should.\"\n\n\"But I'm not packed.\"\n\nI was already dressing and didn't reply. Sure enough, forty-five minutes later we were in my car on our way. Sarah's a trooper.\n\nAnd the power was off everywhere. Traffic was light. Why go to work if nothing at the office or factory will function, if the malls, grocery and convenience stores, and gas stations are closed?\n\nThe guys were waiting at the lock shop. \"How'd you do it, Sarah? How did you kill the power?\"\n\n\"I waved a wand,\" she said.\n\nIn addition to the Wire, Willis Coffee, and Travis Clay, there was one other guy there, a big black guy, really buff, who hadn't had a haircut or shaved in months. His name was Armanti Hall, and I knew him, although not very well, because he and I had done some training together a few years back. He was in a sour mood, didn't say a word.\n\n\"Armanti was waiting for me last night at my place,\" Travis said. \"He wants to go with us, and he has a pickup with a bed cover.\"\n\n\"Did you brief him?\"\n\n\"No. He doesn't give a damn what we're up to. I'll tell you about it later.\"\n\nWe unloaded the lock shop stuff from the van and began packing it with stuff we thought we might need in our war on FEMA and Barry Soetoro. Took some propane bottles and a torch, a box of tools, two crowbars, and some other things. I took my bag of cash and my weapons and ammo from the car and packed them in the van. The other guys had some small duffle bags of personal items, so we threw them in too.\n\nArmanti and Willis muttered to each other while we loaded up. They decided to ride in Armanti's pickup together. We locked up the shop and my car and saddled up. Willie Varner and Travis rode in the back of the van and I drove, with Sarah Houston in the right seat.\n\nAfter we were off the Beltway headed for Leesburg, I asked Travis what the story was on Armanti.\n\n\"He just got back from Syria a couple days ago. He thinks the agency will be looking for him soon, maybe to turn him over to civilian prosecutors.\"\n\n\"Lovely. Want to tell us about it?\"\n\n\"They had him working with the Brits, trying to find the executioner. Last week sometime he went into a building to drag out a guy they wanted to question, guy who they thought was a big dog in ISIS. Hall is an expert in unarmed combat and he thought he could put him down quick, minimum fuss, minimum time, and carry him out.\"\n\nTravis glanced at Sarah and stopped talking. I prompted him.\n\n\"Anyway, he got in okay and started searching the house. Couldn't find his guy. He went up the stairs to the third floor and walked in on the guy. The shit was trying to get his dick into a six-year-old girl. You know those guys are pedophiles, child-fuckers?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I know.\"\n\n\"The kid was sobbing and had been hit a couple of times. Naked from the waist down. Armanti didn't hesitate, just came up behind the guy, grabbed him, and broke his neck. Crack. So with the guy there dead and the kid sobbing, Armanti castrated the corpse and stuffed his genitals into his mouth. That took just seconds.\n\n\"He had the kid under his left arm and was on his way out when a woman walked in. She took one look at the corpse and started to scream. He hit her once in the chest as hard as he could. Maybe he wasn't trying to kill her, just wind her good so she couldn't scream, but. . .anyway, the way he told it to me, her heart stopped dead. Probably burst like a balloon. He's a strong man and was all pumped on adrenaline. . .\"\n\nTravis took a few seconds, then continued, \"Met a man coming up the stairs as he and the kid went down. The guy decided to shoot Armanti, but he was a hair slow. I think Armanti actually stuck his pistol in the guy's mouth and blew his head off.\"\n\nWe all thought about that for a moment.\n\nTravis went on. \"The Brits took the kid and said they would send her to a British charity that is trying to get orphans out of Syria and into the UK. Of course he had to tell the Brits why they didn't have a prisoner to sweat. They said to forget it, but you know how these things are. Someone will whisper about it, and when the agency gets wind of it, killing the mother and kidnapping the girl, the shit will hit the fan. Armanti just wants to be gone.\"\n\n\"How does he know the woman was the child's mother?\" Sarah asked.\n\n\"She was. He was briefed before he went in. But when she walked into that room, she didn't care about the child\u2014she was screaming about the holy warrior who was going to do a Muhammad on the kid. So he killed her. Instant justice, I guess.\"\n\n\"Can he be trusted?\" I asked.\n\n\"You've trained with him, Tommy. I'd trust him with my life, but I don't do kids.\"\n\nWe left it there.\n\nAs we approached Leesburg I glanced to my left and saw a strip mall with one store all lit up. It was a drugstore. I wheeled the van into the parking lot. We locked it and went inside.\n\n\"How come you're open?\" I asked the guy behind the counter.\n\n\"We have an emergency generator. We're open twenty-four\/seven, all year around, rain, snow, or power outages. People sometimes need medications in the middle of the night. That's our edge.\"\n\nWe stocked up on bandages, antiseptics, needles and thread, surgical tape, aspirin, and a box of surgical gloves. \"Be prepared,\" my scoutmaster always said.\n\nThe warehouse district is on the south side of Leesburg, in an industrial district that looked as if it contained only warehouses and light industry. Without power, there were only a few vehicles there today.\n\nSarah pointed out the warehouse we wanted. It was a big steel building and the sign said \"Walmart. Always low prices. Always.\" It was locked up tight, with a steel personnel door and a code pad.\n\nI parked the van so people down the street couldn't see what we were doing. Armanti parked a block away in the other direction.\n\nWe put on surgical gloves, and then used a propane torch and a crowbar. Took about ten minutes but we got that door open. No alarm sounded. The place was dark as King Tut's tomb. We used flashlights and right in front of us was a deuce and a half and four pickups with FEMA markings, plus a gaggle of big forklifts. I left the Wire outside to warn us if anyone came along, then, using flashlights, the rest of us explored.\n\nThe place looked like the hold of a ship heading for D-Day in Normandy. More pickups, trucks, Humvees, electrical generators on trailers, mobile kitchens, tanks for water and fuel, even some weird looking things that Travis said were microwave radar for crowd control, plus mobile radio setups and com units mounted on the backs of trucks. The stuff was painted a dark green and had a white star stenciled on each side. It wasn't marked U.S. Army. This was FEMA stuff, for Barry Soetoro's army.\n\nThat was one side of the warehouse. On the other side, arranged so there was room for forklifts to go between the stacks, were pallets of ammo, several tractor-trailer loads; more pallets with boxes full of one-piece green coveralls emblazoned with a FEMA badge on the right shoulder and an American flag on the left; tractor-trailer loads of MREs, meals ready to eat; mountains of weapons; crates of M4s, AT4s, heavy belt-fed .30-caliber machine guns and M279 light machine guns, hand grenades, belted ammo, and pistols; and even some small wooden boxes containing two sniper rifles each. There were some industrial-sized coffee pots, a truckload of first aid supplies, including anti-coagulant pads, and medical emergency kits for corpsmen. Basically, it looked to me like enough military supplies to outfit an infantry brigade for a trek across Africa even if they had to fight every step of the way.\n\n\"When the revolution comes, these folks planned to come out on the winning side,\" Willis Coffee remarked. The rest of us just looked around, stunned.\n\n\"Did you know all this was here, Tommy?\" Armanti asked.\n\n\"Nope. But I was hopeful we'd find some weapons. Our pistols aren't going to be enough to pry Jake Grafton out of Camp Dawson.\"\n\n\"So that's what's going down.\"\n\n\"Yeah. You still want in?\"\n\n\"Why not.\"\n\n\"Okay, people,\" I said. \"Let's get at it. We'll load two of their pickups, the van, and Armanti's ride. Use that forklift over there to load up some pallets of MREs. Take four of those ten-gallon jerry cans full of fuel. We want a crate of AT4s, a couple of machine guns with boxes of belted 7.62 for them, a couple of light machine guns, a couple M4s for each of us, lots of ammo, and anything that looks interesting, like those boxes of hand grenades and the medical supplies. I don't want to die for lack of a Band-Aid. I'd also like a sniper rifle for my personal collection in case I decide to take up groundhog hunting. But what I'd really like to find in here is some C-4, timers, and detonators. Chop chop.\"\n\nThe good news was that Willis, Travis, Armanti, and I knew how to use all these weapons and keep them in good working order. Sarah didn't, of course, and neither did Willie the Wire. On one trip to the van with a crate of MREs, I asked Willie, \"You want a rifle or pistol for a souvenir?\"\n\n\"I'm a two-time loser, man, and you know it. If I got a pistol in my pocket when they arrest me for jaywalking while black, it's mandatory life. Thanks, but no thanks.\"\n\nHe was going to bet his life on our ability to rescue Grafton, but wanted to do it disarmed. Explain that logic if you can.\n\nSince it was already ninety degrees outside, we threw our jeans and shirts in the van before we stepped into the new duds. Everyone but Willie strapped a web belt and pistol holster on, including Sarah. Beretta nines were the flavor of the day. \"You know how to use that shooter?\" I asked her.\n\n\"No, but it's the fashion accessory of the season, so I want one.\"\n\nThere were boxes of army combat boots in the warehouse, so we each took a pair. Sarah, of course, said, \"I'm not wearing those.\"\n\n\"Find a pair that fits, try them on to make sure, then throw them in the van, just in case we have to wade a swamp.\"\n\nShe nodded and did it.\n\nWe spent fifteen minutes opening the overhead door so we could get the pickups out. Using the forklift, they raised me as high as possible and I unlatched it from the opening mechanism, then we used one of the door cables to pull it open. The forklift pulled and up it went. Willis and Travis climbed into the cabs of the pickups. The keys were in them, lying on the dashes.\n\n\"Look around and get all the people out of this area. You're FEMA guys, tough dudes. Government orders. Don't take any backtalk.\"\n\n\"You aren't going to blow this warehouse, Tommy,\" Willis Coffee said.\n\n\"I thought I would.\"\n\nWillis lowered his head onto the steering wheel for a moment. When he raised his head, he said, \"And I thought we were just going to burgle and run.\"\n\n\"Hey, Walmart's lawyers undoubtedly got FEMA to agree to indemnify them. The surrounding owners can sue in the sweet by and by, if the courts ever get back up and running.\"\n\n\"I don't care about that lawyer shit. I would prefer not to be chased. Not anytime soon, anyway.\"\n\n\"An opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime, if that,\" I told him.\n\nSo they drove through the open door and I walked over to the C-4 pile and got busy. I figured the C-4 would ignite all the ammo in the warehouse, so there would be a pretty good pop. Even if it didn't, the blast should wreck all this stuff, turn it into junk. Just to make sure, I poured a jerry can of gasoline on the ammo pile and opened three or four others. I gave us twenty minutes on the timer, checked my watch and saw it was two minutes after one o'clock, and pushed the button. The countdown began.\n\nI used the forklift to lower the overhead door, then walked out of the warehouse through the buckled personnel door and pushed it shut. The three or four civilian vehicles that had been in front of other warehouses were now gone. I climbed into the van with Sarah and drove away. The pickups were waiting by the front gate. We headed west.\n\nI was glancing at my watch when the whole thing went off. I saw the top of the mushroom cloud in my rearview mirror.\n\nSarah saw me looking, twisted her right side mirror, and took a squint.\n\n\"Tommy, what if some civilian was killed in that explosion?\"\n\n\"We all have to die sometime. I'll pray for 'em.\" I wouldn't, though, if I heard they were Soetoro voters.\n\nIt took a little under half a minute for the sound of the blast to reach us. The concussion probably broke windows in Leesburg.\nSEVENTEEN\n\nThe mushroom cloud was still hanging over Leesburg when General Martin L. Wynette and two staff officers, both generals, arrived at the Executive Office Building across from the White House. President Soetoro and thirty or so of his staff were waiting in a large conference room. The emergency generators were apparently running sweetly: the building was well lit and the air conditioners were pumping cool air.\n\n\"So what is your plan to crush Texas?\" the president asked the chairman of the JCS.\n\n\"The briefer has some maps. He'll run through it and we'll answer questions.\"\n\nThe briefer, Major General Strong, stood in front of a huge computer screen, upon which a PowerPoint presentation was projected. \"Our first problem is manpower. Given desertions, we're estimating our combat effectives are fifty percent of what they should be.\"\n\nThe president's chief of staff, Al Grantham, blew up. By reputation, he was one of the most aggressive leftists on the president's staff, and, although he was white, was of the opinion that white America would have to be conquered. He thought most whites were racists and Nazis. \"You mean to tell me that in the armed forces only the people who want to fight have to fight?\"\n\nWynette said flatly, \"We have a volunteer army. It's hard to make someone fight if they refuse to do so.\"\n\nGrantham glared. \"What the hell have we been paying them for?\"\n\n\"We have been paying them to defend the United States. Not to put too fine a point on it, a lot of our personnel don't think shooting their fellow Americans meets those criteria.\"\n\n\"Court-martial the bastards.\"\n\n\"Oh, we can do that, if the president orders us to do so. We can convict them of cowardice, give them bad discharges, maybe some jail time, but that still doesn't put people in ranks willing to fight.\"\n\nThe president gestured at the briefer to continue.\n\nThe major general nodded and said, \"We will take two divisions, one armored, one infantry, from Georgia and Alabama; put them on trains, trucks, and air force transports; and assemble at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. From there we will proceed to Austin and take it, engaging any Texas military units or guerilla bands we encounter along the way. Meanwhile we will have the Fourth Infantry division at Fort Carson in Colorado proceed by road to Amarillo, and from there to Austin. So we will have three divisions in a two-pronged assault. Operating on two fronts\u2014\"\n\n\"How will they get across the rivers and all that?\" Grantham interrupted, glowering.\n\n\"I was about to cover that, sir,\" the briefer said patiently. \"We will drop paratroops to seize the key bridges and hold until relieved. Then\u2014\"\n\n\"So how are you going to get there? Across cow pastures and rice paddies?\"\n\n\"We will use the interstates and other roads where possible. A division cannot move on only one road. It must move on a wide front, yet not so wide that one brigade cannot reinforce the other. Where we must cross rivers without a bridge available, we will use pontoons. We will have close air support from attack helicopters and air force fighters every foot of the way. We'll use satellite reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance, and drones to keep us apprised of the enemy's movements.\"\n\n\"Those crackers are going to shoot at you,\" Al Grantham said. \"Probably a lot. Every one of those racists has a gun, or two or three or four.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" Martin Wynette replied. \"We'll take casualties, yet we'll annihilate all opposition and proceed forward as fast as possible to our objective.\"\n\nThe president smiled at that comment. He apparently liked to think of his opposition being annihilated. Then the smile faded. \"When?\" he asked.\n\n\"It will take at least two days to get people sorted out and transferred to fill up our three assault divisions. Another four days to get our people and equipment to Barksdale, and another two days to get them under way. The Fort Carson division commander says he can get his division under way in two days, after he gets his personnel sorted out and is reinforced by willing fighters. That shuffling will take at least two days, maybe three. Then it will take another three days to get them to the Texas line. Seven days total. If anything slips, eight or nine.\"\n\n\"What will the rebels be doing while we are getting our show ready to go on the road?\"\n\n\"Making a nuisance of themselves and getting ready to block our moves.\"\n\n\"How will they know what we intend?\"\n\n\"Texas' commander is JR Hays, Jack Hays' cousin, and he was a career army officer, although retired now. He could probably write our op order. If he hadn't burned out in the Middle East and retired, he would have become a general. I've seen his service record. JR Hays is a soldier from head to toe, and he doesn't shrink from combat. He's seen more than his share and knows precisely how to fight. And how to win. The Taliban had a price on his head: ten thousand American dollars. No one in the Middle East was able to earn it.\"\n\n\"Can you whip him?\"\n\n\"The United States Army can.\"\n\n\"Eight days to get combat troops into Texas,\" Al Grantham stated. \"Or nine. Or ten. Or eleven. That's too long. Can't we use fewer troops and go sooner?\"\n\n\"Even if we cut our invasion force to only one division, we will only save one day,\" Wynette said flatly. \"So the tradeoff is one division that can possibly be surrounded and cut off, or a two-pronged assault that will force the Texans to divide their forces to fight them both. In my military judgment, and the judgment of the Joint Chiefs, if we are going to hit Texas with a hammer, it should be a really big hammer, as big as we can put together in a reasonable amount of time. Given a month, we could hit them with every American soldier willing to fight.\"\n\nThe president nodded his agreement.\n\nGrantham asked, \"And how many is that?\"\n\n\"I don't know yet,\" Wynette said. He continued, \"There are around twelve thousand fighting soldiers in a division. We'd like the divisions at full strength, if possible. In addition to their weapons, artillery, air support, food, and ammo, we must also move all the support equipment and manpower required to keep the warriors eating, sleeping, and fighting, the planes and choppers flying, the artillery supplied with ammo, and enough extra stuff to provide humanitarian relief. We are doing all we can to get this organized and moving, which is everything humanly possible.\"\n\n\"So we sit on our asses for eight days and wait,\" Al Grantham summed up.\n\nWynette gestured to the briefer, who went on with his presentation. JCS envisioned beginning air operations against Texas tomorrow. The targets would be all the surrendered military equipment at the military bases. Missions would be flown by B-52s escorted by F-16s during the day and B-1s at night targeting Fort Bliss, the Texas Guard armories, and other military targets. The navy can bring an aircraft carrier around Florida and begin air operations in two days against the military bases around San Antonio and Killeen. \"Our goal,\" the briefer summed up, \"is to attrite their armor and air assets by seventy-five percent by D-Day, which is the day we plan to cross the Texas border.\"\n\n\"Why not hammer their industry, their refineries, and factories and power plants?\"\n\n\"Those are legitimate strategic military targets,\" Major General Strong said, \"but the primary goal of the air campaign must be the destruction of the enemy's combat power\u2014the opposition we'll face when we put boots on the ground. After we knock out their combat power and render it impotent, then we can bomb strategic targets.\"\n\n\"But before we do that,\" interjected Wynette, \"you must decide how much of an economy you want standing after we take over. If everyone is destitute and starving, the assets to feed them and rebuild Texas must come from the rest of the United States.\"\n\n\"Just the military targets,\" the president said. Then he added, \"Unless this invasion gets bogged down. If push comes to shove, we are going to win if we have to flatten every building and kill every cow in Texas.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" General Wynette said.\n\nBarry Soetoro leaned forward in his chair and looked straight into Wynette's eyes. \"I expect you to crush the rebels, General. If you don't, don't come back alive.\"\n\nIt was the second time that the president had told him that, and though Wynette had kissed ass for a lot of years, he was fed up with Barry Soetoro. \"Mr. President, if you don't think I can win, fire me and get a general you think can. The army has plenty of experienced combat leaders for you to pick from.\"\n\n\"You're the man I want,\" Soetoro shot back. \"I _know_ you'll obey orders.\"\n\n\"And you think these others might not? What kind of orders wouldn't they obey?\"\n\nSoetoro's eyes were locked on Martin Wynette. \"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it,\" he said.\n\nWynette was the first to look away.\n\nBack in the air-conditioned Pentagon, Wynette had another bad moment. The staff had framed the loyalty question to the troops as \"Are you willing to fight for the United States of America to stamp out a rebellion?\" _Yes_ or _No_.\n\nLast night on television he saw commentators talking about \"Barry Soetoro's army\" versus Texas. Wynette thought\u2014and he knew many of his troops thought\u2014there was a huge difference between \"Barry Soetoro's army\" and \"the United States Army,\" and the more commentators talked like that, the more desertions he would have.\n\nThe Joint Chiefs assembled in his office. They wanted to know their role in putting down the riots that were raging in the big cities.\n\n\"Forget about that for now. That doesn't seem to be the president's priority,\" Wynette replied. \"He seems to think that if he squashes Texas, all his other problems will go away. However, in fifteen minutes Grantham may call and want us to invade Detroit.\"\n\nWhat he didn't say, although he thought it, was that the president and his staff were fixated on the wrong problem. In his years of service he had served on joint staffs on numerous occasions and knew it was the job of a commander to define the priorities and keep his staff focused on them. Wynette thought Barry Soetoro didn't understand what his problems were or couldn't prioritize; if either was the case, he was incompetent. As the general saw it, the primary problem in America just now was that civil authority in much of the nation was about to collapse. It wasn't just Texas that the president might lose, it was America.\n\nWhen JR Hays arrived in Austin that afternoon, he headed straight for the capitol and was ushered into the governor's (now the president's) office. He waited in a corner while some politicians briefed Jack.\n\nSeveral thousand people a day were pouring into Texas from other states. Many of these people said their extended families, neighbors, and coworkers were only a day or two behind them. More people were coming, a lot more, and they would need housing and jobs. After the politicians had spent ten minutes discussing how the flood of refugees might be accommodated temporarily, Hays shooed them out and locked the door. He and JR sat in chairs facing each other.\n\n\"We've had some good luck,\" JR said, \"because a lot of the people in the army and air force refused to fight for Barry Soetoro. Any commander in that position would have had to surrender. Still, those services are going to find people who _will_ fight for Soetoro, and then the shooting will begin in earnest.\"\n\n\"So what's your plan?\"\n\n\"We can't sit here waiting for Soetoro to hammer us. I would bet my soul they are plotting to do that right now in Washington. If Soetoro lets us get away with leaving the Union and setting up as an independent nation, other states will do it too, one by one, and eventually he won't own anything but the federal district in Washington. He can't let that happen. He has to whip us, and he has to do it as soon as he can assemble the forces to do it with. Every day he doesn't win is a victory for us. If we can pile up enough little victories, we can win the war.\"\n\nJack Hays nodded. He was delighted JR was thinking about all this, because he hadn't had time. Politics was his business, not the military.\n\n\"We need to seize the initiative and force Soetoro's military forces to react to us. We need to put them on the defensive, derail _their_ plans. And, if possible, we need to move the fight out of Texas; we want the front line to be somewhere else, not here.\"\n\n\"So how do you propose to do that?\"\n\nJR Hays began explaining his plans.\n\nWhen he had finished, Jack nodded.\n\n\"We're going to have a lot of civilian problems to deal with,\" JR added. \"Soon the enemy will target our power plants. Houston and Dallas and the high-rises all over Texas will instantly become uninhabitable. We need to get organized now to take care of what will become a huge humanitarian crisis.\"\n\n\"Houston and Dallas are using school buses to evacuate all the people stranded at the airports,\" the governor mused, \"so we have a start, anyway. I'll get our emergency people involved.\"\n\n\"In my view, Jack, your number one job is to buck up the people of Texas with your courage and determination to see this through to the end.\"\n\n\"My courage? How much do you think I have?\"\n\n\"Enough, or we're doomed. Leaders must lead. But the more effective you are, the more likely Soetoro will send assassins or commandos to take you out. If they kill you, the backbones of a lot of people will soften. Get some bodyguards, and good ones. Use them.\"\n\n\"The Texas Rangers,\" Jack Hays decided.\n\n\"Your call. But they must keep you alive. That said, you and the Congress need to get out of this building and set up at an undisclosed location. I suggest somewhere underground, like a parking garage under a hotel. Right now a handful of cruise missiles into the capitol would decapitate the new republic. No doubt Soetoro is thinking about that right now, trying to figure out what the repercussions of a mass assassination would be on his political base up north.\"\n\n\"We'll be out by five o'clock.\"\n\nJack Hays nodded, stood, and shook hands. JR left. He had a ton of things to do, all of which needed to be done at once. Or yesterday.\n\nHis jailers came in midafternoon and tossed a plastic water bottle on the cot. Jake Grafton was still on the floor. One of the jailers came in and kicked Grafton in the ribs, repeatedly.\n\nThe man who delivered the water stopped the kicker. \"Don't kill him. Sluggo wants him alive.\"\n\nGrafton was still conscious. His ribs were on fire. If one of the broken edges penetrated a lung, he would die quickly. If he started coughing blood, he would know.\n\nSteeling himself, he moved. The pain was searing. He managed to reach the water bottle.\n\nThe plastic cap almost defeated him. He had to open it with his teeth. After he drained it, he lay back on the floor. And passed out.\n\nAs it happened, the White House political staff was indeed trying to estimate the damage decapitating the Republic of Texas would cause in the president's political base. Would it fuel insurrection elsewhere? There were no easy answers, so the staff was having a wonderful time wrestling with these imponderables, preparing a list of options for the chosen one.\n\nWhile staff was staffing, Barry Soetoro signed an order temporarily closing all stock and commodity exchanges. Since the power was off in New York and Chicago, this order wouldn't create much of a sensation today, but it would when the power came back on. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the next day. No one knew when the juice would again flow. The power company execs were doing all they could, they told his staff. One of them darkly hinted at sabotage, but Soetoro wasn't buying that excuse. One natural-gas trunk line in Virginia had been severed, stopping the gas flow through that line, yet that amount was only a drop in the bucket. Sheer damned incompetence, he thought angrily. One of these days he was going to have to nationalize all the public utilities, replace the executives with reliable people.\n\nHis thoughts turned back to Texas. Using cruise missiles or JDAMs on all the power plants in Texas was certainly an option. In August and September it was a lot hotter in Texas than it was in most of the Northeast. Texas was closer to Hell.\n\nHad Soetoro been a fly on the wall in Jack Hays' office that afternoon, he would have been delighted at what he heard. A delegation of oil and gas and refinery executives had called in a body upon the new president. Many rich men and women value predictability and stability above all else, so this crowd had been cold to the idea of independence from the start, hinting strongly, as it did, of civil war. There is a lot of money to be made in war, but people with multibillion dollar capital investments in the line of fire wouldn't be making much of it. If anything, they stood to have their investments wiped out.\n\nJack Hays listened patiently to the executives.\n\n\"Mr. President, the fact is that any damned fool with a machine gun or a few sticks of dynamite could take down the refineries on the southeast coast of Texas.\" Even if that didn't happen, the feds could destroy the refineries and oil storage tanks by air attack. And the U.S. Navy could prevent tankers carrying foreign oil from discharging their cargoes, restricting supply to what Texas could produce, which in fact was a hell of a lot, since Texas was the biggest producer of hydrocarbons among the fifty states. Still, guerillas or federal forces could stop the flow of natural gas and gasoline out of Texas, destroying their markets. All together, the group spokesman said, the picture was \"bleak.\"\n\n\"What assurances, Mr. President, can you give us that the armed forces of the Republic can protect our facilities?\"\n\n\"Very few, gentlemen,\" Jack Hays said. \"In fact, I was thinking of asking you to stop pumping oil and gas to the northeastern United States and California. That would bring a significant amount of political pressure to bear on the Soetoro administration.\"\n\nThe executives were horrified. Such an action would cut off their cash flow, and it would mean that many of their facilities would have to shut down, oil and gas wells would be shut in, people would be laid off, and money would cease to percolate through the economy.\n\n\"Do you realize, sir, how many people make their livings directly from the petroleum industry in Texas? And twice that many indirectly. You are talking about a depression, _millions_ jobless.\"\n\nAnother said, \"The people of Texas didn't sign up for _that_!\"\n\nJack Hays refused to be riled. \"I think the people of Texas knew that they would have to fight for their independence when the idea was first discussed. In a war one stands to lose not only his livelihood, his home, and everything he owns, but also his life and the lives of his family. Texans aren't stupid; they knew that. They were for independence anyway, if that meant they could preserve the benefits of a free society with a representative democratic government that they had enjoyed all their lives, benefits they hoped to again enjoy, benefits that would be their legacy to their children and the generations of Texans still to come. They were willing to pay the price. Or most of them were, anyway.\"\n\nEveryone tried to talk at once, but Jack Hays silenced them with a gesture.\n\n\"We have taken a political step that cannot be reversed,\" he said.\n\n\"Of course it can be reversed,\" a big oil executive said loudly, to drown out other voices. \"It's time to make peace with Soetoro. You've made your political points, Hays. Now let's settle this mess and get on with business.\"\n\n\"Talk loud, then surrender. Is that your advice?\"\n\n\"Now see here. That isn't what I said. Oil and gas are the heart of Texas industry. Hell, of American industry.\"\n\n\"Gentlemen, thank you for your time today,\" Jack Hays said. \"I will carefully consider all your points. For my part, I'm glad that Colonel Travis had men with him at the Alamo who had more backbone than you have.\"\n\nOne of the executives\u2014dressed in an Armani suit, hand-tooled alligator boots, and a two-hundred-dollar silk tie\u2014snarled: \"Travis didn't own a goddamn thing but his horse and some worthless scrub land. If he had owned something he'd have been a bit more careful.\"\n\nAnd you'd be speaking Spanish and working for Petromex, Jack Hays thought savagely. He didn't say that, of course. What he did say was, \"I will meditate upon that insight. Now if you ladies and gentlemen will excuse me. . .\"\n\n\"How much time do you think we have before the electrical wizards figure out what you did to their computer, and fix it?\" I asked Sarah as we rolled into the West Virginia panhandle.\n\n\"I have no idea,\" she said distractedly. She was looking at the huge towers carrying their high-voltage transmission wires across the countryside.\n\nWhen I realized what she was looking at, I said, \"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?\"\n\n\"There's no power on those wires right now. If we could lay down some towers, they wouldn't know we did it until the grid came back up. People who see it fall can't even call in.\"\n\n\"You are a natural-born terrorist,\" I acknowledged.\n\nI pulled over to the side of the road and the pickups pulled up behind me. I got out, and we all huddled over a roadmap. \"Here is where we're going, Camp Dawson, near Kingwood, West Virginia, in Preston County. I thought we would stay off the interstates and do the back roads. But along the way, I'd like to take down some of these transmission towers. Two or three on each right of way, to put the wires on the ground. Use C-4, set the timers to the max on the dial.\"\n\n\"That's an hour,\" Armanti Hall said.\n\n\"You guys can drop off, do a couple of towers, then catch back up. Try to make them fall in the woods or streams, not on the road. We'll meet here.\" I jabbed my finger at a crossroads, near Kingwood.\n\n\"Okay by me,\" Travis said. The others nodded their heads.\n\nI went back to the van and climbed in.\n\n\"I could use a bathroom,\" Sarah said.\n\n\"The side of the road is brushy,\" I pointed out. \"No one will see you. Climb on down there.\"\n\n\"I don't have any toilet paper.\"\n\nI reached around the seat to my duffle bag, extracted a roll, and passed it to her. \"I stole a roll of yours this morning when we were leaving.\"\n\nShe scanned the roadside weeds, then observed, \"There might be poison ivy or snakes.\"\n\nI started the engine and got the van rolling. \"Maybe we'll find an open filling station with clean restrooms,\" I said brightly, \"or even a McDonald's.\"\n\n\"Jerk.\"\n\nShe ended up using a port-a-potty on a road bridge rebuild project. The construction crew wasn't around. After she finished, I used it too. It smelled like every port-a-potty I'd ever been in, but it was like the facilities at the Ritz compared to the places I had pooped in the Middle East, often merely a hole in the floor you squatted over. Or a patch of desert. The miracle of toilet paper has not yet been revealed to most of the sons of Islam. Muhammad never said a word about it. If you don't believe me, read your Koran.\n\nWhen we were back rolling again, I told her, \"There may come a day when you dream longingly of that port-a-potty.\"\n\n\"Did you see the graffiti in there?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Men are such pigs.\"\n\nI let that one go by without comment.\n\nA little while later Sarah began to laugh.\n\n\"What's so funny?\"\n\n\"Oh, I was just thinking about the irony of it all. Jake Grafton and I have been listening to the goings-on at the White House for about six months. He knew all about Soetoro's plan to declare martial law and tear up the Constitution.\"\n\nI stared at her, trying to decide if she was telling the truth. And almost ran off the road.\n\nShe chuckled. \"He refused to do anything about it, of course. Said there was nothing he could do. And maybe he was right. If he told people about Soetoro's plan, they would have thought him crazy. It would have gotten back to the White House, and they would have arrested him and locked him up. So he decided to do nothing and he got blamed for a fake coup and assassination plot and he's locked up anyway. Life is crazy.\"\n\n\"Tell me more.\"\n\n\"Only Grafton and I know about it. When the Iran treaty was being negotiated in Switzerland, he asked me if we could bug the hotels where the delegates were staying. He wanted to know what the Iranians were talking about, what their negotiating strategy was. The problem was that the hotels were going to be swept repeatedly, and any bugs with transmitters would be quickly discovered. So I ginned up a program to use all the hotels' computers and security systems as listening devices and have the feed sent to me over the internet.\n\n\"But when I got into their systems, I found that the Israelis had been there first. They had a surveillance system in place using the computers and security cameras and even the personal computers that everyone brought with them and that used the hotels' Wi-Fi systems to connect with the internet. You may have heard about it last year. The Russians had the same idea, and they announced the Israelis' espionage.\"\n\n\"I did hear about that.\"\n\n\"The Israeli system was better than mine. So I got all their computer code and we just listened in.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" I said, trying to think as I steered the vehicle. That Grafton!\n\n\"Then about six months ago, he asked if I could use the Israeli system on the White House.\"\n\n\"Jesus!\"\n\n\"He and I have been listening for six months. All the plotting, all the plans, all the bullshit. But he wouldn't do anything about it.\"\n\n\"You are saying he knew about the coming of martial law?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. He and I knew. They were merely waiting for an excuse. They thought the excuse would be a domestic terror incident, but if that hadn't happened, it would have been something else. Martial law was going to happen. We were the only ones who knew outside the inner circle at the White House. I demanded the admiral do something, but he just gave me those cold gray eyes and asked, 'What?'\"\n\nIndeed, I thought, what? Whom do you tell? Who will believe?\n\n\"So here we go, riding to the rescue,\" she said sourly, \"and he knew all along.\"\n\n\"So did you.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I had to agree with Grafton. What do you do when the president is plotting to become a dictator?\"\n\n\"Assassinate him,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Who? Me? Grafton? Or should Grafton have sent you to do the dirty deed?\"\n\nShe had a point.\nEIGHTEEN\n\nThe Blackhawk helicopter settled onto the tarmac at the Longview, Texas, airport, shut down, and JR Hays went forward to speak to the pilots. CWO4 Erik Sabiston was in the right seat.\n\n\"Wait for me,\" JR said. \"Be back late this evening. Fuel the chopper and get something to eat.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nJR climbed out and walked across the tarmac into the FBO. \"I need a car,\" he said to the lady on the desk.\n\n\"We have a courtesy car, sir. It's kinda old and wrinkled, like me, but it'll probably get you there and back again. Always has so far, anyway.\"\n\nShe handed him the keys and he made a pit stop, then went outside and climbed in. It was an old Ford with sun-scorched paint and more than a hundred fifty thousand miles on the odometer. It started on the first crank.\n\nHe had gotten the address from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. It took him a while to find it that afternoon. There were high cirrus clouds up there, making the afternoon light gauzy. It didn't do much to soften the heat, though.\n\nJR found his address in a newer subdivision, parked on the street, and walked up the driveway. Inside he heard a dog barking, a little one from the sound of it. Rang the doorbell.\n\nIn a moment a man in shorts and an old army T-shirt opened the door, a man in his mid-fifties.\n\n\"JR Hays! As I live and breathe!\"\n\n\"Hello, Nate. May I come in?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" The man threw the door wide, then closed it behind JR. His name was Nathaniel Danaher, and he was a retired army colonel with thirty years service. JR had served under him on his last combat tour in Afghanistan. Danaher was from Connecticut originally, but he hadn't lived there since he went away to VMI for college. He hadn't been able to score a West Point appointment so he joined the VMI corps of cadets, got a reserve commission, which, after a few years of outstanding service, the army transformed into a regular commission.\n\n\"I like the gleam of those stars on your blouse, JR. Somehow they look exactly right on you. Want a beer?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nWith beers in hand, they sat on the covered porch in the backyard, a _ramada_ as the old Texans called it. It kept the sun off and allowed the people sheltered under it to savor any breeze. The dog, some kind of terrier, was friendly enough. He did some exploratory sniffing and then found a shady spot to lie down.\n\nDanaher was still lean and fit. He looked, JR thought, exactly as he had when he was in Afghanistan, only a little older and grayer. JR remarked on it.\n\n\"Still get up at five o'clock every morning and run five miles,\" Danaher said. \"Might as well; can't sleep past five anyway. Heard your cousin put you in charge. He couldn't have found a better man.\"\n\n\"That remains to be seen. Where do you stand on independence?\"\n\n\"Well, when I first heard about it, I thought, there goes my fucking pension and health benefits unless I get the hell out of Texas. That was pretty small of me, I suppose, but then I heard on TV that Texas is taking over all the federal government's obligations to military and Social Security retirees, so that was a relief. I've got some money saved up but nowhere near enough without a pension. I despise that son of a bitch Soetoro and everything he stands for. It's a big club so I have lots of friends. Independence is great if you folks can make it stick, because the country that elected that bastard twice is going somewhere most people in Texas don't want to go.\"\n\n\"I need some help,\" JR said. \"I need some civilian duds, and then if you are willing, let's the two of us drive over to Louisiana and take a look around.\"\n\n\"You mean it?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"My wife is playing bridge this afternoon. Went over after lunch. I'll leave her a note. We'll be back tonight?\"\n\n\"I hope.\"\n\n\"I think I may have some clothes that will fit you. If you haven't had lunch, mine the refrigerator while I root around. Make yourself a sandwich or something. Last night's meat loaf was pretty good.\"\n\nJR was halfway through a cold meat loaf sandwich when Nate returned with a pair of baggy shorts, an ancient VMI T-shirt, and a set of worn tennis shoes. He also handed JR a pistol, an old double-action revolver, small and trim. \"If you're going to Louisiana you better take this, stick it in your pocket, just in case. It's loaded.\"\n\nJR checked the cylinder, snapped it back in place. The gun was an old Smith & Wesson in .38 Special with about half its bluing remaining. \"That thing's about ninety or so years old,\" Danaher said. \"Used to carry it in my pocket when a service pistol wouldn't do. Louisiana is enemy territory for you.\"\n\nNate Danaher's car was a late model sedan. \"Where are we going?\"\n\n\"Barksdale Air Force Base, east of Shreveport and Bossier City.\"\n\n\"I know where it is. Take Gina to the doctor there on a regular basis. She's got lymphoma. It's under control now, we think, but . . .\" he shrugged, \"it's in God's hands. I shop at the PX while she's getting examined.\"\n\n\"Stay off the interstate tonight. Take the back roads. We don't need to run into a roadblock.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Got that postcard from you a while back,\" JR explained. \"So I knew you were in Texas. Why here?\"\n\n\"Our daughter is here. Her husband is an engineer in the oil business. Gina wanted to be near the grandson, Little Nate, who just turned seven. He's a pistol.\"\n\n\"I seem to recall you had a son, too.\"\n\n\"Yep. Got on drugs in high school and dropped out. Pot at first, then crack, then heroin and meth. We put him in rehab twice, but it didn't take. Haven't seen him in. . .well, it's been twelve years now. A few years ago someone said they saw him in New Orleans, living on the street. For all I know he may be dead now. All those drugs\u2014it figures he won't last too long.\"\n\nJR changed the subject. \"So how is Longview taking to independence?\"\n\n\"Was out at Walmart today. The place was packed. People on welfare were cashing their last checks, loading up their cars, and getting out of Texas. They heard Texas isn't paying welfare anymore, so a lot of them are heading for greener pastures. Everyone else is stocking up. Everything they can get, food, toilet paper, everything. People in line said the liquor stores were mobbed. I wanted to buy a little generator\u2014figured I could wire it into the house circuits some way\u2014but Walmart was out of them. None in the hardware stores. People sense that times are going to get hard.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" JR said dryly.\n\nSarah and I drove the van along the road by Camp Dawson and sure enough, there was the compound that held the detainees, though we didn't see any. The compound, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire, with guard towers about ten feet above the ground on all four corners, was about a hundred yards on each side. It was lit up in the late afternoon like Macy's on Christmas Eve, so obviously they had generators going. All the comforts. . .\n\nThe gate was manned by four guys in FEMA dark-green coveralls carrying carbines and wearing green caps. They weren't soldiers, lounging around like that, smoking, laughing, and grab-assing. And, I suspected, they were not well disciplined. No army sergeant I ever met would allow his troops to goof off on guard duty. They were armed thugs.\n\nI got all this on one slow drive-by. The gate guards paid no attention to us. The guy on the last guard tower was leaning on the rails of his perch, smoking a cigarette, looking into the compound.\n\nWhich made me suspect that they weren't worried about people breaking in, but their prisoners breaking out. The thought that someone might assault them with intent to kill apparently had not entered their hard little heads. When the shooting started in earnest, many would probably boogie. No one wants to be dead any time soon, which can happen when people shoot at you.\n\nAcross the road from the compound was an up-sloping pasture, maybe fifty yards wide, with what looked to me like yearling steers in there munching grass. Maybe dreaming of the girlfriends they would never have. Perhaps those were the virgins the jihadists would find in Paradise. Beyond the pasture and higher was a strip of forest on a low ridge. Over the top of the ridge I got a glimpse of a green mountain.\n\nI kept on driving, thinking about how we could pop Jake Grafton out of that compound. Since we had no idea where in there he was, we were going to have to ask someone. That would be my job. I am pretty good at getting answers in a hurry from people who initially thought they didn't want to be bothered.\n\nThe designated rendezvous was a crossroads about eight more miles along. I pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. The sun was just setting, so we had at least another half hour of evening, then maybe another fifteen minutes of twilight.\n\nAll I needed were my troops.\n\n\"You know how to use that pistol?\" I asked Sarah.\n\n\"Never fired one in my life.\"\n\nI showed her how the Beretta worked, popped out the magazine, jacked out the shell from the chamber, made her dry fire it, and put everything in and reloaded. \"Just disengage the safety, point, and pull the trigger. It will fire thirteen shots, one with every squeeze of the trigger. The gun will kick in your hand, so use both hands. Don't use it unless the bad guy is very close, and keep shooting until he's dead on the ground. Not wounded on the ground, but obviously dead, so he can't hurt you.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she said, hefting the weapon.\n\n\"Never point a gun at a man unless you are willing to shoot, and never shoot unless you are willing to kill. This isn't Hollywood.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she repeated, and holstered the weapon.\n\nI felt better. She seemed to be getting into this warrior gig. If I could just keep finding her bathrooms or port-a-potties.\n\nI rooted in my duffel and came up with my Kimber 1911 in a holster. I added it to my web belt and put it on the right side. On the left I put my Marine Corps fighting knife with the eight-inch blade.\n\nThe Beretta was a 9-mm: it shot a .357-caliber, 125-grain full-metal-jacket bullet since it was a weapon of war\u2014Geneva Convention and all that\u2014and would make nice holes in people. Magazine capacity was thirteen rounds. The .45 shot a 230-grain bullet, and I used hollow points. Under fifty feet, one of those to the body would kill King Kong. It held eight cartridges, but if eight wasn't enough, I was probably gonna soon be dead anyway.\n\nI made sure my shooter was cocked and locked, then sat there wondering where my troops were. Civilian cars and pickups came by from time to time, and after a glimpse of my FEMA green, ignored us. Apparently the boys in Soetoro's army were not yet winning the hearts and minds of the locals. I glanced at my watch from time to time.\n\n\"Stop fidgeting,\" Sarah said.\n\nI loaded up some M4s, passed one to Sarah, and laid a couple behind the passenger seat where I could reach them. Broke out some grenades and put one in each shirt pocket.\n\nFinally I got a couple of boxes of MREs and dug through them. Sarah took a fruit cup, and I munched a cardboard cookie that had come out of the oven during the first Bush administration. We certainly weren't in danger of gaining weight on this adventure.\n\nBefore they went onto the base, JR Hays and Nate Danaher stopped at a beer joint, which was packed, every stool and booth full, with people standing and drinking beer. The conversations were loud. A television was on up in the corner, showing the devastating effects of the power outage in the northeastern United States. Philadelphia and Baltimore were rioting as usual.\n\nJR kept an eye on the television as he waited for Danaher to work his way to the bar and order beers. There was a short segment about rioting in Watts in LA, then a parade of Soetoro administration officials being interviewed. JR couldn't hear the audio, but he thought he knew what the officials were saying. Everything was under control. The administration was taking steps, and so on.\n\nThen he heard a snatch of a conversation between two men at the bar. \"This place is going to be packed when those soldiers get here. . . . Yeah, I heard the day after tomorrow. . . . Someone said the Fourth Brigade. . . . Gonna come in dribs and drabs, I suppose. . . . Thirty-five hundred men and equipment is a lot to move. . . .\"\n\nThe Fourth Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division. JR knew about them. The fact that they were being deployed from Fort Polk, the massive joint training base further south in Louisiana, to Barksdale was certainly news. There was also a brigade of airborne troops at Fort Polk, JR thought, and he listened intently to see if the garrulous bar buddies knew about them. A brigade of paratroopers dropping into Texas, or Barksdale, could cause massive problems.\n\nHe wandered on, listening. Most of the men and women in the bar were talking about the run on grocery stores and Walmarts. The lines were horrendous. One woman said she waited over an hour in line to check out. One gasoline station was completely out of gas and the clerk said they didn't know when they could get more.\n\nAfter they drank some of their beer, JR and Danaher left the mugs on the bar and went outside. Their retired military ID cards got them onto the base. They drove over by the flight line and looked at the rows of B-52s parked there. Barksdale was home to the 2nd Bomb Wing, the only outfit in the air force that still had B-52 Stratofortresses.\n\nHuge hangars, flood-lit ramps, here and there a security vehicle. Half-full parking lots. Activity at the barracks.\n\nThe parking lots at the commissary and PX were packed, with almost every space occupied. A long line waited to get to the fuel pumps at the base filling station.\n\nJR told Danaher about the conversation he had overheard.\n\n\"That's no surprise,\" Nate replied.\n\n\"I want you to lead an assault team in here tomorrow morning. We need to take this base and be prepared to hold it. If we can't, we need to destroy those B-52s. Can an assault team arriving on C-130s pull it off?\"\n\n\"Let's go back to the flight line and take a look,\" Danaher said.\n\n\"If it can't, we can do an air attack tomorrow,\" JR explained. \"Strafe the flight lines, drop some JDAMs on the hangars and fuel farm, make a royal mess.\"\n\n\"Hold that thought. I have a small set of binoculars in the glove box. Let's trade places, and I'll look while you drive.\"\n\nThey did so. The only plane in the traffic pattern was a B-52 shooting landings, apparently on a training mission. They could hear the engines roar every time it lifted off and watch it in the pattern, a big dark-green metal cloud.\n\n\"They're not bombing up the BUFFs,\" Danaher said after a while. \"No missile batteries or missile-control radars or AAA in sight.\" AAA was anti-aircraft artillery. Five more minutes of looking, then Danaher said, \"Let's go home. We've seen all that there is to see.\"\n\nSluggo Sweatt had Jake Grafton brought to his office that Tuesday evening. Grafton couldn't walk, so the jailers dragged him. They didn't bother putting him in a chair. Sluggo came around his desk and rested a hip on the edge of it and looked down at Grafton lying on the floor. Sluggo had a smile on his face.\n\n\"How are your ribs?\"\n\nGrafton tried to focus. Being dragged here had made him want to scream, so he had bitten his tongue. Now blood was leaking out his lips. He could feel it, warm and slick.\n\n\"I think we'll take you back to your cell and let you sleep through the night. If tomorrow you don't sign the confession in front of a television camera and read the little script we have prepared\u2014it's only about a hundred words\u2014we'll beat you to death tomorrow night. The other prisoners will hear your screams. I'll be honest, Grafton, I don't like you. Still, I urge you to be tough. Don't give us an inch. Then I will have the pleasure of helping the boys work on you.\"\n\nSluggo Sweatt smiled at Grafton. He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, fluttered it, then handed it to one of the thugs and made a gesture. They dragged Grafton back to the cell. There they threw the sheet of paper on his chest and left him lying on the floor, after one of them had kicked him in the balls.\n\nThe overhead lights were on. Although Jake Grafton didn't know it, the power for the camp was being supplied by several large emergency generators since the grid was down. With the generators snoring away, grid problems didn't really matter to Sluggo Sweatt. He was the king of his own little empire, and he liked the feeling.\n\nEvery breath Grafton drew was agony. When the fierce pain in his testicles finally subsided to a dull ache, exhaustion overcame him and he went to sleep. He dreamed of Callie.\n\nArmanti Hall and Willie the Wire showed up first. I got out of the van and Willie started motormouthing. \"Damn, Tommy, did we have fun! You should have seen those towers come down. Man, if someone would pay me for doing this, I'd give up the locksmith business in a heartbeat.\"\n\nI didn't have the heart to tell the fool that he was probably permanently out of the locksmith business unless a meteor hit the White House and all its inhabitants were instantly obliterated.\n\n\"How'd it go?\" I asked Armanti Hall.\n\n\"We dumped towers on two different transmission lines. Just walked up to them, rigged the charges, and went on to the next one. We watched one stretch of them go down. Some of the lines broke, and the others went on the ground.\"\n\n\"You two get some MREs, take a whiz, and when the other guys get here I'll brief everyone.\"\n\nTen minutes later Travis Clay rolled in, and five minutes after that Willis Coffee. They had each found a transmission line and put three towers on the ground. Travis, however, had done more. He came across a substation and used an AT4 to put it out of business. \"That box blew apart into a thousand pieces, Tommy. It was kinda fun.\"\n\n\"I'll bet. You didn't leave the tube there, did you?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. It's in the back of the truck.\"\n\n\"Good man.\"\n\nI addressed my lock shop partner. \"Tell me, Willie, now that you are back in the felony business, are you willing to pull a trigger or not?\"\n\n\"Well. . .\"\n\n\"One life sentence, two, three, what does it matter?\"\n\n\"You're suckin' me into a life of crime, Carmellini. I'm not ready to give up pussy. I got a few good years left, dude, me and Viagra, and a couple of women who are countin' on me to help them find a little joy in this colorless life.\"\n\n\"Sarah, would you put a first aid box in each truck while I brief these guys?\"\n\nWe gathered around the hood of one of the FEMA pickups. I spread out the map. \"Here is where we are going to rendezvous, this bridge over the Greenbrier at Bartow. Then we'll go to the CIA's safe house near Greenbank. I want each of you to go to Bartow by a different route.\" We traced routes with fingers in the twilight.\n\nThen I explained the setup at Camp Dawson, how the internment compound was laid out, where the four guard towers were.\n\n\"Now, Sarah and I are going to drive in the main gate of the internment compound in a FEMA pickup. We'll want to find out where Grafton is being held. We'll ask to see the commandant of the camp. Meanwhile Armanti and Willie Varner, you will go through the main gate of the National Guard base and come around behind the compound. That gate was open when I went by and the Guard looked like it had moved out. Set up an M279 machine gun out back. There is undoubtedly a rear gate through the compound wire, and maybe a barracks where these FEMA dudes are bunking.\n\n\"When the shooting starts up front, the guards in the rear towers are going to be trying to see what's happening, and from the way the camp is laid out, I don't think they can see. They might get interested in you. If they do, open fire. If the FEMA guys stream out the back gate after the shooting starts, let them all get out. Wait until they are out, then kill them quick and fast, including anyone left in the rear towers. If the fleeing guards go into a barracks, use an AT4 on it. If they get into vehicles, use the machine gun. It is imperative that no one follow us.\" I looked at Armanti and asked, \"Can you do that?\"\n\n\"These people aren't soldiers?\"\n\n\"Some of them might have some military experience, but now they're civilians. FEMA paramilitary thugs, Barry Soetoro's army. What we have going for us is surprise. We want them dead before they can figure out that they oughta shoot back. They aren't holy warriors: being a martyr for Barry Soetoro isn't on their bucket list.\"\n\n\"You're asking an awful lot of one man with one gun.\"\n\n\"Willie will help.\"\n\nArmanti looked at Willie Varner, who for once kept his mouth shut.\n\nI explained, \"I don't want the guards in the compound taking hostages, and I don't want them following us. If we can't take them down quick and fast, we're going to have to clean that camp building by building.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Hall said, and shrugged. FEMA's reputation was going downhill fast.\n\n\"Willis and Travis, you guys are the front shooters. You are to wait one minute after Sarah and I go through the gate, exactly sixty seconds, then shoot the guys in the guard towers beside the road. They may have a machine gun in each tower, although I doubt it. But they might. Shoot each of them and toss a grenade up into the tower, then do the guys at the front gate.\"\n\n\"I'll take the south tower,\" Willis said, and Travis nodded.\n\n\"Then come into the compound. Drive through the compound and kill anyone in FEMA green. Try not to shoot any of the detainees. My idea is to let the guards get out of the compound through the back gate before we lower the boom. When the shooting starts out back, go help with the rear towers and anyone in FEMA green still standing. No FEMA people are to be left alive.\"\n\n\"Got it, Tommy.\"\n\n\"Wish I had a better plan,\" I admitted, \"and I wish we had a few days to sniff this out, but we don't have any more time. It's tonight or never. Any questions?\"\n\nWe cleaned up a few details, then mounted up.\n\nAnother half-assed plan with insufficient reconnaissance. That was a prescription to get my guys killed, as all of us knew, but it couldn't be helped. We didn't have days to set this up.\n\nSarah and I rolled up to the main gate of the compound in our brand-new stolen FEMA truck and I leaned out the window, which was down. I had my Kimber in my left hand, out of sight behind the door.\n\nThree guys were lounging around, two sucking cigarettes and one arranging a pinch of Skoal in his mouth. One of the smokers looked inquisitive.\n\n\"The guy who runs this place?\"\n\n\"Sluggo Sweatt.\" He pointed. \"That building on the left.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nI rolled on over and parked in front. I holstered the Kimber.\n\n\"Sluggo Sweatt is on the White House staff,\" Sarah said.\n\n\"I've heard the name. Are you ready?\"\n\n\"Let's go in.\"\n\nWe turned off the engine, left the keys in the ignition, walked up the three steps to the porch and went inside. The receptionist's desk was empty, but the next room had a window and a desk with Sweatt seated behind it in an executive chair that he had apparently liberated from Office Depot. Sarah and I pulled our pistols and pointed them at him.\n\n\"See who else is in here,\" I told Sarah. As she went down the hallway looking in offices I scanned the room.\n\n\"You have precisely ten seconds to tell me where Jake Grafton is, or I'm going to shoot you.\" The words were no more out of my mouth than I heard M4s begin to fire bursts.\n\nSweatt looked startled. His eyes went to the windows. I fired a shot into his computer, and the bits of glass flew out. \"Pay attention,\" I said.\n\nI heard a shot from down the hallway. Then another.\n\nHis eyes were frozen on the pistol in my hand now. One of the interesting things about a .45 is how big the muzzle looks when it is pointed right at your eyes. Only a half inch in diameter, the hole in the barrel looks like a howitzer at close range. I lined up the sights and shot his right ear off.\n\nHe jerked and blood flew all over the wall behind him as a fusillade of M4 fire behind me filled the room with noise. Then a hand grenade went off. And another.\n\nSluggo got the message. \"He's in a cell, down the hallway.\"\n\nSarah came trotting back. I gave her the news.\n\n\"The keys?\"\n\nThey were on Sluggo's desk. Sarah grabbed them and ran. \"If he isn't there,\" I told Sweatt, \"I'm going to start shooting parts off.\"\n\nMore M4 bursts, a cacophony. Blood ran down Sluggo's neck and his face looked pasty.\n\nIn a moment Sarah was back. \"He's in terrible shape. A lot of broken ribs.\"\n\n\"You keep Mr. Sweatt occupied. If he twitches, empty your pistol into him.\"\n\nShe stood precisely in front of the desk and used both hands to steady the gun on his chest.\n\nI ran outside, grabbed a medic's pack from the bed of the truck, glanced at the gate and saw all three guards sprawled there. I ran back inside. If anyone shot at me they missed. Still some shooting going on. It would have been nice to know how many FEMA dudes we had strapped on, but we hadn't had time for an extended recon.\n\nI found Grafton lying on the floor in a cell, the door of which was standing open.\n\n\"Tommy,\" he whispered. \"Lots of broken ribs on both sides, I think.\"\n\nI cut his shirt off with my fighting knife. His sides were black and blue. Digging into the medic pack, I got out several rolls of gauze. \"I gotta sit you up, sir.\"\n\n\"Do it.\"\n\nI took his arms, which were bruised badly where he'd tried to cover up, and pulled him into a sitting position. He groaned. Working as quickly as possible, I wrapped him in gauze from his armpits down to his belly button. Needed three rolls to do it. Then I began wrapping him with surgical tape, as tightly as I could.\n\nA few more shots. I was listening for the sound of a machine gun, but I hadn't heard it yet. \"Who did this?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sweatt had it done. Wanted a confession. Said if I didn't sign, he was going to personally help beat me to death tomorrow.\"\n\n\"So we're right in the nick. You lucky dog.\"\n\nNow I heard the stutters of a machine gun.\n\nArmanti Hall had set up the M279 beside a small wooden building with a good view of the guard towers and the barracks. The fact that the only lights were in the compound and the towers were backlit probably helped. The guards, one in each tower, were looking into the light, watching the people in the compound and smoking. Armanti got the belt arranged in the gun and chambered a cartridge. When he had that attended to, he gave Willie Varner four hand grenades.\n\n\"I want you to go around on the other side of this building,\" Armanti said, \"where you can see the front of the barracks. Then put all four of your hand grenades on the ground. Wait until I fire, then pick up one grenade. See this pin on each one\u2014hold the lever, pull the pin, then wind up and throw it in from the outfield. Pick up another, pull the pin, and throw it. Do it until you have thrown all four. Then lay down, right where you are, and don't move a muscle until you hear me call your name. I don't want you running around out here in the dark. I'll be shooting at everything that moves. If anyone comes up on you, play dead.\"\n\n\"Okay, man.\"\n\n\"Can you do it?\"\n\n\"I guess.\" Willie Varner took a deep breath and exhaled explosively.\n\nFive minutes later the shooting started, and to Armanti's amazement, the man in the north tower climbed down and ran for the barracks. The man in the south tower wasn't far behind. Thirty seconds later, as gunfire popped in the front of the compound, guards in FEMA green came running through the compound toward the back gate, jerked it open\u2014apparently it wasn't locked\u2014and ran for their cars or the barracks.\n\nArmanti waited until no one wearing green wanted out of the compound, then opened fire.\n\nI heard the M279 open up, followed by grenade blasts. I hoped that was Armanti Hall behind the compound gunning every FEMA guard who had came out the back gate and jumped in a car or pickup. Or anyone who wanted out of the barracks to join in the fray, if there was a barracks back there.\n\nWhen I finished with the tape, Grafton said, \"Cut this jumpsuit off. I shit in it.\"\n\nI knew that by the smell, but was too polite to mention it. After I used my knife and he was naked except for the tape, I got a look at his swollen balls. They were bruised almost black. I helped Grafton to his feet. \"You're going to have to walk, Admiral.\"\n\n\"Give me a shoulder to hang on to.\" I put the medic bag over my shoulder, put my left arm around Grafton, and took an experimental step. He wasn't going to go down; that was one tough man. I drew the Kimber and led him down the hall.\n\nSilence had descended on the compound. Sweatt was still in his chair, holding his ear. Blood was oozing through his fingers and running down his neck, staining his collared shirt.\n\nGrafton paused in front of the desk and picked up a watch, put it on. Then he reached for a cell phone and handed it to me. He put a hand on my Kimber and I gave it to him.\n\n\"Sluggo, you were born eighty years too late,\" Jake Grafton said as he looked down to check the safety on the .45. \"You should have been an SS colonel in charge of Auschwitz or Dachau.\"\n\nHe pointed the pistol and shot Sluggo in the center of his forehead. The back of the man's head exploded onto the wall and his body rocked back in the chair. The corpse stayed in the chair, its arms dangling, its eyes pointed at the ceiling.\n\nGrafton handed me back my gun.\n\n\"Let's go, Tommy. Sarah.\"\n\nWe both helped him down the steps and into the right seat of the pickup. Then Sarah ran around and entered through the driver's door and scooted over.\n\nA knot of civilians was standing there. Willis and Travis were policing up weapons and tossing them into a stack in the yard.\n\nJack Yocke and Sal Molina came over to the right-side window, which was down. \"We want to go with you, Admiral.\"\n\n\"Get in the back.\"\n\nI addressed the crowd while Yocke and Molina climbed over the tailgate. \"Folks, your guards have skedaddled or died, I am not sure which. Help yourselves to the weapons. You must decide if you wish to remain here or take your chances outside. We can't stay, and you know they'll be back, sooner or later, when they figure out what went down here. All I can tell you is, good luck.\"\n\nI got in the pickup, carefully backed up, then put it in drive and steered toward the gate. I ran over a body of a FEMA warrior sprawled there because I was in no mood to get out and move the corpse or wait for someone else to do it.\n\n\"Who'd you shoot?\" I asked Sarah.\n\n\"A couple of men who thought I wouldn't.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"This pistol doesn't kick as much as I thought it would.\" Oh, man! I glanced at her, but she was looking straight ahead at the road.\n\nThe breeze coming in the open windows felt good.\n\n\"Where are we going, Tommy?\" Grafton asked.\n\n\"A place I know. You need a vacation and Sarah needs access to a real bathroom.\"\n\n\"Where?\" he said. That was Jake Grafton. No nonsense at all.\n\n\"The CIA safe farm near Greenbank.\"\n\nHe grunted. Then his head tilted back onto the headrest and he was asleep, or maybe passed out. He had had a really bad time.\nNINETEEN\n\nCongressman Jerry Marquart was one of the civilians who watched Tommy Carmellini and the gunmen depart through the gate and down the road into the night. He recognized Jake Grafton, former CIA director, and Sal Molina, who was presumably no longer employed at the White House. The fashionably grizzled younger man who climbed into the back of the pickup with Molina he didn't know.\n\nJerry was in his late thirties. He was an ROTC grad, had spent six years in the Marines, had done the Afghanistan gig twice, and then had gotten out and gone into politics in Iowa. He was in his second term in the House of Representatives when FBI agents arrested him and brought him here. He didn't even bother to ask why. He was no friend of the Soetoro administration and denounced their policies at every opportunity. He actually had a lot of opportunities, because he was one of the very few members of congress with recent military experience. Or any military experience, for that matter.\n\nHe looked at the pile of carbines the attackers had left behind, walked over, and picked one up. Worked the action, checked the magazine, then went over to one of the bodies and helped himself to several full magazines.\n\nAnother man came over and asked him, \"You know anything about guns?\"\n\n\"A little.\"\n\n\"I'm from New Jersey, and I don't know shit about guns.\" He was about twenty-five pounds overweight, had saggy jowls, and combed his hair over his bald spot. He picked up a carbine and hefted it. \"But I don't think I want to stay here.\"\n\n\"Don't take one unless you're willing to use it.\"\n\n\"I'm getting there. Name's Evan Bjerki.\"\n\n\"Help yourself to some ammo,\" Marquart advised. \"The price is right.\"\n\nJerry Marquart went into the admin building and spent two seconds looking at the remains of Sluggo Sweatt. He had seen a lot of corpses so Sluggo's didn't affect him one way or the other. Nor did the two dead men sprawled on the floor of a room with cots and porn mags scattered around. He helped himself to a pistol belt that he had to pull off one of them, strapped it around his middle. He checked the pistol, a Beretta, made sure it was loaded, then moved on. The cell gave him pause. He smelled the feces, saw the jump suit on the floor, connected it to the naked Grafton, and walked back through the building and out into the compound. Knots of people, maybe a hundred by now, were talking earnestly and loudly to each other and gesturing. Bjerki trailed along behind Marquart.\n\nMarquart went back through the camp, taking his time. There might be some guards still around, and they would undoubtedly be in a pissy mood.\n\nThe back gate of the compound was standing open. More bodies lying round. He surmised this was from the machine-gun fire he had heard. Six more bodies lay on the porch and dirt in front of the guards' barracks. One of the men wasn't dead; he was groaning and his legs worked back and forth in the dirt. Marquart didn't get near him.\n\nThe wooden sides of the building had been raked by machine-gun fire. Maybe there were more dead or wounded in there, but Marquart wasn't curious enough to go inside to find out.\n\nHe examined the vehicles. One car with a body lying beside it seemed undamaged. As he checked the pockets of the corpse, which hadn't bled much, he noted the man had taken four rounds in the chest, any one of which would probably have been fatal. He found a set of keys. They fit in the ignition. He started the engine, which seemed to run okay. Half a tank of gas. Bjerki stood by the driver's door. Marquart ran the window down. \"I'm leaving,\" he said. \"You want to come, get in.\"\n\nBjerki walked around the front of the car and climbed into the passenger's seat. He held his M4 between his knees. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"To the revolution.\"\n\n\"Be a shame if they had one without us,\" New Jersey Bjerki said.\n\n\"Put on your seatbelt.\"\n\nMarquart pulled the lever to get the car into drive, and they rolled.\n\nOn their way back to Longview, Nate Danaher said to JR Hays, \"You understand that if we attack Barksdale, the gloves will be off.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"You've talked this over with your cousin?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"He understands that this is not a declaration of independence; it's a declaration of war?\"\n\n\"Nate, you and I know Barry Soetoro isn't going to let Texas go without a fight. For us, the only decision to be made is whether we let Soetoro strike the first blow. Politically, it would be wise to let him be the aggressor. Militarily, not so wise. If Texas is going to win its independence, it must seize the military initiative and _never let it go_.\"\n\nDanaher nodded.\n\n\"If we let Soetoro pick and choose his points of attack, we will ultimately lose our organized military forces and be reduced to years of guerilla warfare. In the long run, I think we could win a guerilla war, but it will destroy Texas and ultimately cost more lives than an offensive that takes the fight out of Texas and into Soetoro's territory. Jack thought that a Texas offensive would, in the long run, cause Soetoro to lose political control of the country. Soetoro must show his supporters he can win the battles, or else he will lose the war. He's already on record as saying that he will crush Texas. I don't think he thought that statement through very well, because Jack can say we are responding to an imminent threat, and everyone south of Canada will believe him. Barry Soetoro doesn't want to negotiate: he wants war. We must give it to him in spades.\"\n\n\"An assault on the base really ought to happen at night. Tonight would have been ideal. Tomorrow night would be the next choice.\"\n\n\"We can't wait. By tomorrow night they may have flown those B-52s out of here or arranged AAA and SAMs, plus a reception committee on the ground. In addition to air police, they can fly some troops up from Fort Polk. By tomorrow night they might be ready to kick our butts. So we must go as soon as we can get ready. The C-130s are already at Hood, and the troops, all volunteers, are getting ready. We just need you to brief them, set it up, and go. Tomorrow morning at perhaps nine o'clock is about the earliest possible time. In my judgment, we dare not wait. _We cannot wait_.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do about that brigade combat team from Fort Polk? And those paratroops? They could push us right off Barksdale and back into Texas.\"\n\n\"I'm going to bomb them while you are taking Barksdale.\"\n\nDanaher thought for a few minutes as the miles rolled by. Finally he said, \"Okay, I'll do it. Gina can stay with our daughter. Let's saddle up.\"\n\n\"Welcome to the Texas Guard.\"\n\n\"Welcome to the war, you mean.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that too.\"\n\n\"I don't know if I have another war in me, but I guess we'll all find out,\" Nate Danaher said softly.\n\nThe CIA safe house was in the woods of a large farm that the locals thought belonged to an eccentric novelist. That was the agency's cover story, anyway. It was midnight when we entered by a gravel driveway, passing by signs that announced \"Private Property, No Trespassing\" and \"Trespassers Will Be Persecuted and Prosecuted, This Means You.\" The one-lane road led across a large meadow, passing a wooden hangar and a barn, and crossed a grass runway and then a bridge across a creek. Security cameras were mounted unobtrusively on trees and under the eaves of the hangar and barn. I led the way.\n\nThe safe house was used for interrogating defectors, Russians and Eastern Europeans back in the day, and now Islamic jihadists. I doubted if there was anyone there just now due to the current state of national affairs, but I was ready in case we met anyone. We didn't. No one was at the guard's cottage, and the gate was locked. Willie the Wire worked on it awhile and couldn't get it open, so we used a tow chain to pull the gate down and off the road. Willie's one skill in life is opening any lock without a key, yet he had just had his first taste of combat so he was a little shook up.\n\nThere was no one at the main house. After an incident a couple years ago when some bent FBI agents and former cops burned the house down, the place had been rebuilt. I was involved in that fracas, and hadn't been here since.\n\nWillie opened the front door for us, partially redeeming himself. While the guys fired up a gasoline generator out back, I explored the layout and found that the new building had a small medical room. It contained an X-ray machine and one that I thought was probably an EKG machine. Some other equipment that I couldn't identify. I had the guys take Jake Grafton in there and put him on the gurney.\n\nGrafton was conscious and obviously hurting. \"He needs a doctor,\" Sarah said with a frown.\n\n\"I'll go get one.\"\n\nI drove back to the hard road and went into Greenbank, and found a small white cinderblock building that said \"Clinic\" on the sign. It was closed of course, but a sign by the door gave a number to call in case of medical emergencies.\n\nBack in the FEMA truck, I fired up the GPS, played with the options, and found one labeled \"phone number.\" I clicked on it and a prompt appeared. I put in the area code, which was 304, and the number. In about two seconds a red pin appeared. Five more seconds, and the computer filled in a map with directions from my present position to the pin.\n\nIt was eight miles away. I rolled.\n\nThe doctor's house was on a secondary road at the top of the grade, in a saddle where there was a nice view. I went up his drive and, late as it was, found a man and woman sitting beside an outdoor fireplace with drinks in their hands. I got out and went over.\n\n\"Doctor?\"\n\n\"Yes. Nathan Proudfoot.\" He was about six feet, thin, perhaps sixty years old, with cropped hair and a mustache.\n\n\"My name is Tommy Carmellini. I'm with FEMA. We have a medical emergency down the road a little ways and could certainly use your services. Could you come with me?\"\n\nTo his credit, he didn't hesitate. \"I'll get my bag.\" He charged into the house. There was a lighted kerosene lamp on the porch and apparently at least one in the house.\n\n\"Sorry to ruin your evening, ma'am,\" I told the lady.\n\n\"Goes with the territory,\" she said. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"Car wreck. One hurt.\"\n\nDr. Proudfoot came trotting out with his black medical bag. He got into the passenger seat of the truck, and we headed back for the safe house. I told him about the fictitious wreck.\n\n\"How did you find me?\"\n\nI gestured to the GPS. \"FEMA can find anyone,\" I said, which was true.\n\n\"How are you making out without electricity?\" I asked.\n\n\"Fine,\" he said confidently. \"Rural nets occasionally go down when there are thunderstorms or someone knocks down a pole with a car, but only for a few hours or overnight. That's just a nuisance. Still, a few years ago we had a blizzard that took a lot of lines down and left us without power for eight days. That was a real pain, so I'm set up now. Even have a little generator that keeps the refrigerator and water pump running. We'll be fine.\"\n\nAs we drove up the road I told him about the patient. \"He's a little over sixty-five, I think, six feet, not obese, in fairly good health as far as I know, but he has a bunch of cracked or broken ribs on each side. I taped him up as best I could; he's in a lot of pain and needs a doctor.\"\n\n\"He got busted ribs in a car wreck?\"\n\n\"I confess, I lied to your wife. Some men beat him badly with fists and shoes. Kicked him in the balls too.\"\n\n\"FEMA sounds like tough duty to me,\" he said acidly. I didn't argue.\n\nIf he didn't know about the safe house in the woods, he didn't show surprise. I guess in his practice he gave up surprise some years back.\n\nDr. Proudfoot glanced at Grafton, looked around at the equipment in the room, then went to work. He cut off the tape I put on his ribs, X-rayed the admiral, asked him about his general health and how he was feeling, checked his heart and vitals. After a careful exam and a study of the X-rays on a computer screen, he taped him again, a much better job than I did. He also gave Grafton a shot to make him sleep. \"Six ribs are cracked on the right side, five on the left,\" he told Sarah and me, \"but none are severed, as far as I can determine. I think he'll heal okay, but he should be in a hospital where he can be observed.\"\n\n\"We'll try to get him there as soon as possible,\" Sarah assured him.\n\n\"Used to be I'd give him some pain pills, but the government is so tight on pain pills now I don't carry any. The good news is that the damned pill-billies aren't tempted to rob me. It's a hell of a world.\"\n\n\"Isn't it though,\" I remarked.\n\n\"If he's hurting when he wakes up, he can have a shot of whiskey. No aspirin. Keep him as inactive as possible. Now, I need all his information so I can get paid for this house call.\"\n\n\"I'll give you cash. Is two hundred dollars enough?\"\n\n\"That's more than the government would pay me.\"\n\nI paid him on the spot.\n\nWhen I was taking him home, the doctor asked, \"Is that a government facility?\"\n\n\"Doctor Proudfoot, you appear to be a good man, and I'd like to answer your question, or questions, because I know you have more than one. But I cannot.\" I smiled at him benignly. \"I don't know where you stand on our current national difficulties, nor do I care. What I can say is this: I want you not to tell anyone about the facility you just visited or the patient you saw there. Or me. Or the other men there.\"\n\n\"It's a government secret, huh?\"\n\n\"Indeed it is.\" We were on the secondary road by then, about a mile from his house. I stopped the truck in the middle of the road and turned in the driver's seat to face him. The panel lights made his face quite plain. \"If we get visitors of any kind, sheriff, locals, FEMA people, FBI, state police, Homeland Security, anyone at all, I'll know you told someone the secret. You won't be prosecuted because you'll be dead. I'll find you like I did tonight and kill you. Do you understand?\"\n\nHe stared at me with fear in his eyes.\n\n\"I don't want to kill you, but I will if you tell anyone at all. Even your wife. Tell me that you understand.\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\nI took my foot off the brake and drove him the rest of the way home. As he got out of the truck, I said, \"I told your wife it was a car wreck. Make her believe it. Good night.\"\n\nI felt dirty and ashamed of myself, but I had to put the fear in him. I hoped for our sakes I scared him enough.\n\nBack at the ranch, I sent Willis and Travis to spend the night in the guard cottage by the gate. Told them to drag the gate back across the road.\n\nI put loaded weapons around the house, with a couple of grenades at each window, just in case, checked on Grafton, who was asleep, and Sarah, who was asleep in a bedroom upstairs. Armanti and the Wire, Jack Yocke and Sal Molina were sharing bedrooms. I took off my boots and flaked out on the couch downstairs.\n\nEarly that Wednesday morning, while most Americans were in bed, the Oklahoma legislature passed a declaration of independence and the governor signed it. The news had been out all day Tuesday that the legislature had been called into special session to consider the measure. Washington had instructed the FBI and FEMA to arrest the governor and the entire legislature to ensure the declaration wasn't even debated. The commander at Fort Sill was instructed to send a thousand troops to assist the federal agents in maintaining order in Oklahoma City.\n\nThe general at Fort Sill was willing, but as the evening progressed he found he didn't have a thousand troops willing to go. He had, at the most, about a hundred, so finally he sent them, armed and wearing battle dress. They went in trucks that convoyed up I-44 from Lawton. They were rolling through the open prairie south of Chickasha when the front tires of the lead truck were shot out. As the truck rolled to the side of the road, more heavy reports were heard and the tires of several following trucks went flat. The final truck had its dual rear wheels shot out while it was almost stopped.\n\nThe soldiers piled out and took up formation around the trucks, but there were no more shots. An hour later soldiers searching the prairie found where someone had apparently fired from a low hill three hundred yards from the highway toward the convoy. Not only was dirt scraped away and grass pulled to provide a decent field of fire, a single spent .50 Browning machine-gun cartridge was found in the grass. A little more searching located another firing position about equidistant from the highway on the other side of the interstate, but there were no more cartridges. Nor, apparently, were there any shooters remaining around. Whoever the marksmen were, they had retreated into the darkness with their weapons, undoubtedly bolt-action .50-caliber rifles set up for long-distance target competition.\n\nThe officer in charge of the column had already informed his commander of his predicament by radio, so the troops sat alongside the interstate smoking and munching whatever snacks they had in their packs as civilian cars and trucks rolled by. It looked like it was going to be a long evening.\n\nTwo hours later four replacement trucks from Fort Sill were fired upon from an overpass. Each truck was hit once in the radiator. The drivers didn't even walk up onto the overpass to look around. They reported the incident on their radios and settled in to spend the night sleeping in their cabs.\n\nThe FBI agents and FEMA troops found an estimated eight hundred armed National Guardsmen in battle dress surrounding the state capitol. The federal officers were disarmed and told to go home or they would be arrested. They went home.\n\nDuring the course of the night, as debate raged on in the legislative chambers, civilians crowded onto the capitol grounds. They passed through the guardsmen's lines carrying lawn chairs and picnic baskets, and many had small children asleep in strollers. The floodlights around the capitol gave the warm evening a festive air. A local band set up amplifiers and microphones and got busy jamming to entertain the crowd.\n\nInside the building, every member of the statehouse and senate got his or her turn at the microphone. The current national situation, and Barry Soetoro's proclamations, were discussed and dissected. Oklahoma was one of only two states in the Union where Soetoro had failed to carry a single county in the 2012 election. His popularity had continued to sink since then, and it was soon clear that he had few friends in the legislature.\n\nOne woman delegate from Norman, a university town and the state's liberal bastion, argued that Soetoro would be out of office on January 20, 2017, a mere five months away, so there was no need for drastic action. \"He's not only a lame duck, he's a dead duck. Why shoot ourselves in the head when he's going to be gone in five months, regardless of what we or Texas or any other state does?\"\n\nThe following speaker took issue with her. \"You are the wildest optimist in the history of representative government in Oklahoma. What makes you think there will be an election? Soetoro's party will lose if there is one, so he has manufactured this crisis to give himself a plausible excuse for calling off the election. He wants to be president for life. Or maybe king. Or emperor. Emperor Barry. We need to stand up for representative government here and now, regardless of the cost. We owe it to ourselves, for our own self-respect, and we owe it to our children and grandchildren. Five years from now, how will you explain to your grandchildren what happened to Oklahoma after you refused to do what you knew to be right? And we all know the _right_ thing to do. But the right thing is _hard_. Let us do it now, and someday we can all stand proudly, shoulder to shoulder, in heaven before the ruler of the universe.\"\n\nThere was more, lots more. One of the low points was a plea by a delegate from one of the districts encompassing the poorer section of Oklahoma City. \"Nothing we can do here tonight will alter the course of our nation's history. We here in Oklahoma are a sideshow. We are a thinly populated state, with only three million nine hundred thousand people. Do you really think we can realistically defy the federal government? The decisions that matter will all be made in Washington. I urge you to not compound the president's problems by being defiant. Let us not beard the lion to see if, indeed, he will bite.\"\n\nSeveral of the following speakers heaped scorn on her position. One speaker summed it up: \"Submit, submit, submit. Don't anger the tyrant. I never thought I would hear such words from a free American.\"\n\nThe criticism of the Soetoro administration kept rolling, mixing with a broad criticism of liberalism and federal judges. \"I am sick of federal judges deciding that the United States Constitution requires abortion and same-sex marriage,\" a state senator from Enid said. \"I challenge you to read that document from end to end, and if you can find the word 'abortion' in it I will kiss your ass tomorrow at high noon on the capitol steps. Ditto gay marriage. What's next? Plural marriages? Legalizing infanticide? We're practically there now. I say it's time we seized control of our own lives here in Oklahoma. Anyone wanting an abortion or to marry a homosexual partner can move to California or New York. We shouldn't be forced to put up with it, and my constituents don't want to. The real problem here is federal judges who enshrine their liberal philosophies in federal decisions instead of letting individual states vote their consciences in open, fair elections. Abortions, gay marriage, legalized pot, all of that should be decided by the states. Whatever happened to the governmental powers reserved to the states? Let's declare ourselves independent, give the people of Oklahoma the right to decide which laws they want to live under, and tell Barry Soetoro where to go and what to do to himself when he gets there.\"\n\nAnother delegate in the House had this to say: \"Oklahomans are tired of being ruled by federal bureaucrats and judges, none of them elected. They decide everything from what can be taught in the public schools to what can be served to kids for lunch and whether the kids can have a prayer. They decree that welfare recipients are entitled to a color television and cell phone, all paid for by the working families of Oklahoma, some of whom can afford neither. They claim they have the right to regulate every creek, farm pond, mudhole, and wet spot in America, including here in Oklahoma. We have to pay for their crackpot regulations based on crackpot science, or no science at all. We have to pay the salaries of the bureaucrats and put up with the endless delays and mountainous paperwork. It's high time to put a stop to bureaucrats and judges running our lives. Let's take back control. _Independence today_ , _tomorrow_ , _and forever_.\"\n\nThe Oklahoma Senate and House passed the declaration by overwhelming majorities and made the vote unanimous by voice vote, and the governor signed it. As in Texas, the declaration, which was almost word for word identical to Texas', was read before television cameras on the statehouse steps to a wildly cheering crowd that commentators estimated at more than ten thousand people.\n\nIn New Mexico the legislature also met that evening, but decided to defer any action until Soetoro had made a definitive announcement about whether the presidential election would proceed in November. If it was canceled altogether, the New Mexico legislature agreed to revisit the issue. The governor of Arizona called the legislature to meet the following evening. The governors of Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah scheduled special sessions two days hence. The governors of Montana and Iowa called for a special session of the legislature in three days time, to give lawmakers a chance to canvass their communities. Other states, too, were mulling their options.\n\nAlthough the legislatures had yet to be called, in Alaska and Hawaii the question of independence was also being weighed and debated, for different reasons. The previous year Soetoro had announced his intention to ignore the U.S. statutes and declare a huge chunk of northern Alaska off-limits to oil exploration. Many of the people of that sparsely settled state were outraged; oil development created good-paying jobs, of which Alaska had far too few, and severance taxes funded state and local governments and generated a check every year for every Alaskan. Oil development had never been the ecological disaster the save-the-earth crowd swore it would be. Soetoro's announcement would slowly upend the Alaskan economy and affect every man, woman, and child who lived there. The devil of it was that the only people who visited the undeveloped Arctic were Alaskans who went to hunt and fish; the limousine liberals in Soetoro's audience rarely if ever trekked the frozen north dribbling dollars as they went. Still, Soetoro would be gone in five months, they hoped, and his extralegal imperial declarations would then be history.\n\nIn Hawaii, independence talk had been around for years, especially among native Hawaiians, many of whom were still on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. There was also a large number of people of all races that felt the Hawaiians had gotten a raw deal in 1893 when white American businessmen played a large role in toppling Hawaii's last monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, an overthrow that even then-president Grover Cleveland thought an illegal act of war. The current political crisis on the mainland looked to many native Hawaiians like a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: perhaps the U.S. government would be too busy chasing Texas traitors to worry about the islands in the sea's middle. On the other hand, the economic ties to the mainland were the bedrock of the economy. Could trade and tourism from Japan and China replace lost American dollars? Would the people of the islands be better or worse off as an independent nation?\n\nGeneral Martin L. Wynette read the news summaries of all this \"grandstanding,\" as he called it, at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning when he got to the Pentagon, and thought if this news didn't wake up the fools in the White House, nothing short of nuclear war would. Those people in flyover land were pissed off and feisty.\n\nOne of his aides had brought him a copy of the Minerva Research Initiative, which the president had directed the armed forces to draft and study after he was elected in 2008. Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and war. Idly, Wynette wondered about the subtle mind that had dreamed up that title. The Minerva Research Initiative was a military plan to put down a civil insurrection in the United States.\n\nWynette scanned it and tossed it aside. The plan assumed that the members of the armed forces would willingly participate in armed action against angry citizens. That was a forlorn and foolish assumption, Wynette now realized. He also had on his desk a flash message from the commanding general at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, telling him that he had scoured his command for men and women willing to fight Oklahomans. They were willing to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and if necessary Iran to fight for America, but only a few were willing to fight Oklahomans.\n\nHe was getting briefings on the result of other army commanders' attempts to muster soldiers who would fight for the Soetoro administration against domestic enemies when he was summoned to the White House. Wynette stuffed the messages in his briefcase along with a copy of the Minerva Research Initiative and called for his aide and his driver.\n\nIn Colorado a group of FBI agents and a sheriff's deputy searching houses to confiscate guns got into a shooting scrape with a homeowner and his son. The homeowner and son were killed, but not before they shot an FBI agent and the sheriff's deputy to death. Another agent was in the hospital. Social media was aflame, with citizens promising the agents and local law officers who cooperated with them in confiscating guns more of the same.\n\nAn FBI office in Seattle was attacked, one agent wounded: perpetrators unknown. In Idaho a county sheriff who agreed to help search the homes of citizens of his county to find and confiscate guns was ambushed, stripped naked, dipped in tar and feathers, and carried to his office on a fence rail. He was now hospitalized with burns over sixty percent of his body. A county in Utah with a significant percentage of Mormon fundamentalists declared its independence from the United States and the State of Utah. Polygamy there was now legal. Finally, a dispatch from Mexico City: the Mexican government was considering diplomatic recognition of the Republic of Texas.\n\nIn Baltimore, a suburban sporting goods warehouse had been looted overnight. The gun counters were stripped clean and the looters helped themselves to every box of cartridges on the premises, then amused themselves by shooting at stuffed animal heads displayed high on the walls. The good news was that due to the federal government's massive orders for ammunition over the last two years, and the president's oft-repeated remarks about his desire for gun control that had induced civilians to buy and hoard ammo, the sporting goods store had only a small supply of cartridges, most in unpopular hunting calibers. The bad news went unspoken: the inner-city rioters were now armed.\n\nIn other riot-plagued big cities around the country, the police and National Guard contented themselves with trying to prevent the destruction from spreading. It was a losing fight. The centers of many of America's largest cities now resembled the core of German cities after World War II.\n\nPeople living in the suburbs nationwide were armed and organizing. They were also emptying the grocery and hardware stores, buying everything in sight, to the limits of their credit cards. Canned and dry food items were almost completely gone in some stores. Hardware stores sold out of emergency generators, charcoal, and gasoline cans. Gasoline stations found that many of their customers were filling up as many as ten five-gallon cans with fuel. Sporting goods stores were selling every gun on the shelf and all the ammunition in stock. In Howard County, Maryland, a bedroom suburb of Washington and Baltimore populated with a large percentage of federal civil service employees of all races, the county police and Homeland Security officers tried to search homes for guns, only to be met at four houses by armed householders who threatened to shoot to kill.\n\nThe chief of the Howard County police announced that henceforth his officers would concentrate on arresting criminals, answering domestic violence calls, and helping motorists involved in traffic accidents. The chief was quoted by a reporter as saying, \"If Barry Soetoro wants to confiscate guns, he can figure out how to do it. The people here are frightened by what's going on in Baltimore and elsewhere and want to be able to protect themselves. I can't say I blame them.\" After the story was published, two black Maryland legislators called the police chief, who was also black, a racist.\nTWENTY\n\nIn Galveston that morning, after the sun came up, the sheriff drove his car down the pier and parked adjacent to the gangway of USS _Texas_. He walked across the gangway and shouted down into the open hatch, \"Anybody home?\"\n\nIn less than a minute, a man appeared below and looked up at him. \"Yep, we're home.\"\n\n\"Mind if I come down and visit?\"\n\n\"Please do.\"\n\nSpeedy Gonzales escorted the sheriff to a small wardroom, where he found Loren Snyder studying several large bound volumes and sipping a cup of coffee.\n\n\"Coffee, Sheriff?\"\n\n\"Don't mind if I do.\"\n\n\"Best coffee in the world,\" Loren Snyder said.\n\nThe sheriff sipped at his, which he took black. Almost as good as Dunkin' Donuts coffee, he thought, but he didn't say it. Instead, he got straight to the point. \"When are y'all going to nuke yourselves out of here?\"\n\nLoren laughed. \"Well, we're working on that right now. Before we go, I want my crew, all five of us, to run through every emergency procedure in the book and figure out how we're going to handle it. We don't have sixty people, just five. We don't want to die in this boat.\"\n\nThe sheriff looked around and nodded. \"I sure understand that.\" Just sitting here in this steel cigar gave the sheriff a mild case of claustrophobia. What it would be like being submerged he didn't want to think about.\n\n\"How long can you guys stay submerged, anyway?\" the sheriff asked.\n\n\"Until we run out of toilet paper.\"\n\nThe sheriff chuckled at that, thinking Loren Snyder was being facetious. He wasn't. With only five people aboard eating the stores, _Texas_ could stay submerged for a long, long time.\n\n\"We're going to spend today running emergency drills,\" Snyder said, \"making sure everyone knows what is expected of him and we are all on the same page. I hope by tonight we'll be ready to leave this pier.\"\n\n\"What about the U.S. Navy? I'll bet they're kinda unhappy that they lost this thing.\"\n\n\"They'll probably send SEALs to take it back,\" Lorrie admitted.\n\n\"You mean like those guys who whacked bin Laden?\"\n\n\"Yep. Naval Special Warfare commandos.\"\n\n\"Maybe y'all oughta get outta here and do your drills someplace else.\"\n\n\"Sheriff, I agree one hundred percent. As soon as we feel we can safely move this submarine, we will. In the interim, it would help if you would station some officers with radios out there around the harbor to keep a lookout. I suspect the SEALs will come at night. Probably tonight. We hope to be gone when they get here, but just in case, if your lookouts see anything suspicious\u2014anything\u2014I would appreciate a heads-up so we can cast off and get going. Once we close the hatches, the SEALs can't get inside the boat.\"\n\nThe sheriff nodded reluctantly. \"Today and this evening?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"You'll try like the devil to get this stuff done and get out of Galveston?\"\n\n\"Cross my heart.\"\n\n\"Okay, Captain. But I ain't asking my deputies to get in a shootout with SEALs. No way. They're law enforcement officers, not soldiers.\"\n\nThey discussed radio frequencies for a moment, then Loren Snyder said, \"Thanks for stopping by, Sheriff.\"\n\nThe sheriff had one last gulp of coffee, then said, \"Good luck to y'all out there, Captain.\" After he and Loren shook hands, he followed Speedy to the forward torpedo room and the ladder topside.\n\n_Captain_. Loren Snyder liked the sound of that.\n\nSecret Service sniper Tobe Baha drove slowly around Austin looking things over. He had had a private interview with President Soetoro's chief of staff, Al Grantham, then went home and packed for a trip. He put his rifle in its aluminum airline case in the toolbox behind the cab of his pickup. He carefully locked the toolbox with the best padlocks money could buy.\n\nThe rifle wasn't his service rifle. This was his personal rifle, a Remington Model 700 in .308, or as it was known in the service, 7.62\u00d751 NATO. It certainly wasn't the best cartridge for extreme long-range shooting, but Tobe had used it extensively while in the military and knew the ballistics cold, so he was very comfortable with it. And ammo for it was available everywhere, if need be. Tobe had loaded his own with match bullets and had two boxes in the airline case.\n\nUnder his rifle was another airline case stuffed with a quarter of a million U.S. dollars and fifty thousand dollars' worth of gold. That was his down payment on the assassination of Jack Hays.\n\nThe problem was that Tobe Baha wasn't an assassin. He was a sniper, pure and simple, so he didn't even bother trying to come up with a second method of taking out the president of Texas if setting up a snipe proved difficult. Actually, he couldn't conceive of a set of circumstances that would cause him to miss a rifle shot, if and when he got one. And he would get one, sooner or later. Everyone was vulnerable to a sniper, unless they lived in a prison, and politicians especially. They had to make public appearances, they got into and out of limos and helicopters on a routine basis, and most of them, including Jack Hays, had families.\n\nPatience was the sniper's golden asset, and Tobe Baha had more than his share. He could and would wait until he was presented with a shot he knew he could make during one of Jack Hays' inevitable public appearances. After that, with a cool million in his jeans, he would disappear.\n\nOf course, he worried a little about the possibility that the Soetoro administration might eventually want him permanently removed from the land of the living. If they just had him arrested, he might talk. So arrest wasn't the risk.\n\nTobe Baha had thought it over when approached for this shoot, and decided he could handle the risk of treachery by his employers. After all, three or four of the Secret Service people knew of the plot.\n\nHe had said as much on his last interview with Al Grantham. \"If you don't pay me the money you owe or if you send people after me, I'll come after you,\" he told Grantham, \"and I won't miss.\"\n\nAustin certainly had possibilities, Tobe concluded as he drove around. The capitol was surrounded by buildings, although they were several hundred yards from the capitol itself, which sat on a small knoll surrounded by scattered large trees and lots of grass. The governor's mansion also had buildings within range of a .308. The real question was whether Jack Hays' bodyguards included snipers. Protecting a public figure from bombs and maniacs with pistols and knives was what the Secret Service did best. Snipers, however, were the worst threat, which was why Tobe Baha had been recruited by the service. It takes a sniper to kill a sniper.\n\nIf the Texas crowd didn't have snipers protecting Jack Hays, Tobe Baha's mission would be a whole lot easier. So his first task was to determine if they did.\n\nTobe Baha smiled. This was going to be a good hunt.\n\nMajor General JR Hays launched his first offensive that morning, the thirty-first of August. He watched Texas guardsmen file aboard six C-130 Hercules transports, four-engine turboprops, at Fort Hood, sixty-four combat-equipped soldiers to each plane. Two other C-130s were being loaded with howitzers, ammunition, rations, water, and a portable field hospital.\n\n\"I'm banking on surprise,\" JR told Colonel Nathaniel Danaher, who was leading the attacking force. \"I think you can get on the ground and establish a perimeter before the people on the ground figure out that something is going down. I want you to clear the planes and let them take off immediately for another load. Ideally, I'd like to get a brigade on the ground over there with some artillery to give it teeth. F-16s will provide close air support and top cover. But it's up to you to stop our assault if you find you are in way over your head. You must remain in radio contact with the planes in the air at all times, keep them advised of how things are going.\"\n\nNate Danaher looked ten years younger than he did last night. The challenge of leading men in combat had always energized him.\n\nThe six transports bearing soldiers took off first, escorted by a high top cover of F-16s from Lackland. The attacking force would fly east of Barksdale, turn and approach the base from that direction, calling the control tower for landing clearance. While the panicked air controllers sorted through messages trying to find one about incoming Hercs, the Hercs would land, discharge their troops, and take off again. The C-130s bearing howitzers and ammo would land an hour later, after the soldiers of the first wave had secured the flight line.\n\nWould they achieve surprise? JR Hays asked himself that question, but he didn't know the answer. If the bad guys had gotten wind of the invasion of Louisiana, he would be among the first to hear about it.\n\nMaybe yes, maybe no, he decided.\n\nPerhaps he should have given his major general stars to Nate Danaher and commissioned himself a colonel, then led the troops invading Barksdale. Jack Hays would have said okay, if that was the way he wanted it. But would Nate Danaher have laid on this attack if he had been the general in charge? That hypothetical had no possible answer, because JR had made the decision. Nate had saluted and marched off to give every ounce he had in him. That quality, JR thought, was the salvation of the professional soldier. Regardless of whether the professional thought the order wise or foolish, he said, \"I will do my best, sir,\" and the rest of the sentence was unspoken: \"Even if it kills me.\" So generals ordered men into combat, knowing that some of them, an unknown number, would die. Generals hoped and prayed that the objective would be worth the sacrifice, and, in the end, only they and God would know how the scales balanced.\n\nJR thought ruefully about the old observation that doctors buried their mistakes. Truly, so did generals.\n\nAnd yet, even if he lost every soldier and airplane he sent this morning, JR Hays would win a strategic victory simply by attacking. He knew that in the depths of his military soul. Soetoro would stop worrying about invading Texas and wreaking havoc and start worrying about protecting what he had. People the world over expect their government to protect them, and when it doesn't, or can't, they begin to worry.\n\nAnd if Danaher was victorious and captured a fleet of intact B-52s, Barry Soetoro would start fretting about where they might be used against him. Would they bomb Washington? New York? Los Angeles? A squadron of B-52s carpet-bombing with unguided weapons could destroy a city, just as they did Hanoi. Fighters would be detailed to guard the skies over cities and military bases. Soetoro _must_ commit his air force to protecting those places, and if he did, those air assets would be unavailable to attack Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, or the military bases Hays had captured.\n\nJR walked across the tarmac when the troop-laden transports were out of sight and went into the base's air traffic control facilities. \"Are the Lancers from Dyess airborne?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Target time is less than an hour away.\"\n\nThe B-1s were targeted against the military equipment at Fort Polk. Many of the soldiers at Hood had trained at Polk, and they helped annotate maps. The Lancer crews knew precisely where they were going, and they had air cover, F-16s from Lackland. In and out fast like a rabbit was their credo. Leaving smoldering wreckage.\n\nJR got a cup of coffee from the pot and sat down in front of a temporary theater map taped to the wall. He had launched his strikes; now there was nothing to do but wait.\n\nWait, wait, wait.\n\nI found Jake Grafton alert that morning when I took a cup of coffee into the dispensary. He was still on the gurney.\n\n\"Tommy, you've got to get me off this thing and help me to the restroom.\"\n\nI did that, and then I put him in a large easy chair in the main room of the facility, or lodge, or whatever they called it, with a blanket wrapped around him.\n\n\"Thanks for rescuing me, Tommy,\" Grafton said with coffee in hand. He sniffed it, savoring the smell before he took the first sip.\n\n\"Any old time, Admiral. The guys and I had nothing to do since you got kicked out of the agency. So we thought, let's go spring the admiral and take a nice vacation.\"\n\n\"And Sarah Houston?\"\n\n\"She's got the hots for me something terrible. I think that's affected her brain. Whatever, she came along.\"\n\nAbout that time all the folks upstairs came down, so I got busy fixing breakfast. Needless to say, we didn't have eggs or milk or any of that, but we had beans and MREs and a lot of canned meats and veggies. I made a stew. Tasted it and added some salt and a generous dollop of Cholula sauce.\n\nWhen I brought it into the main room and put it on a table, Sal Molina and Jack Yocke were in earnest conversation with Grafton. I ladled some of the stew out for the admiral, gave it to him with a spoon, and told everyone else to help themselves.\n\nSarah was eating tiny little bites. \"The first person who complains gets to do the cooking,\" I said with no-nonsense authority.\n\nWillie Varner made a face. \"Tastes like shit, Tommy, but good.\"\n\nWhen the chuckles died, he started telling about the fare in the prisons he had resided in. According to the Wire, prisons were good feeders. He was lying, again. After he got out the second time, he told me he never wanted to see a macaroni or spaghetti noodle again as long as he lived.\n\nI sent Willie and Armanti down to the guard shack to relieve Travis and Willis. \"We're going to have visitors, probably sooner rather than later.\" I told them about the doctor and my threat. \"I doubt if he believed me. I don't have a face that will scare anybody.\"\n\n\"He'll blab for sure,\" Willie said, nodding.\n\nWhen Willis Coffee got there, he went upstairs and got an extra shirt and jeans for the admiral. He was about the same size. Travis Clay loaned Grafton his tennis shoes; he said the boots were fine for him. I left the guys to clean up, took a carbine, checked to see that the magazine was full and there was a round in the chamber. Strapped my pistol belt around my middle. It had been a few years since I was here, and I wanted to refresh my memory about how the land laid. Grafton, Molina, and Yocke were busy solving the world's problems as I left.\n\nI walked up behind the lodge, stood for a moment listening to the muffled generator, then hiked straight up the hill to the ridge. At first the hill behind the lodge was steep, then the grade lessened and it was just a walk in the forest, which was beautiful. The chain-link fence on the ridge ran north-south, surveyor straight. The trees and brush had been cleared for ten feet on either side, and this late in the summer, the open space was full of knee-high weeds. I walked the fence for about a half mile north, going downhill when the ridge turned west. I crossed a little creek that didn't have any water in it and then followed the fence back steeply uphill.\n\nI kept track of the security cameras mounted unobtrusively in trees on our side of the fence. The cameras were battery-operated and broadcast to a receiver in the security shack. I could just discern a trail agency people had walked through the years changing the camera batteries, and no doubt replacing cameras that broke or got water in them or someone in the National Forest on the other side of the fence shot for the hell of it.\n\nWhen I had had enough I turned eastward, downhill in the general direction of the guard cabin. Ended up climbing another ridge. This ground was cut up by meandering little creeks and steep slopes, all heavily wooded.\n\nMainly by accident I finally found the access road and followed it to the guard cabin. I could hear the generator running a hundred feet away.\n\nI walked in without knocking and startled Willie Varner and Armanti Hall, who were listening to a radio\u2014police calls, or maybe FEMA calls. The digital feed from the security cameras was on a monitor beside the radio, but they weren't watching it.\n\n\"With that generator going, you dudes won't even hear them coming,\" I remarked.\n\n\"Sit down, Tommy,\" Armanti said. \"You should hear some of this. People are shooting at federal officers. I don't know if they are FEMA or Homeland, and I don't guess it matters.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't recognize any of the place names, but I kinda think up in Maryland or Pennsylvania someplace. One guy was talking about getting more vehicles and agents out of Harrisburg.\"\n\nWillie chimed in, \"Two federal guys shot and need evacuation. They claim they killed three of the locals. Civilians. Ambushers, they called them.\"\n\n\"We thought we should keep an ear open for transmissions around here,\" Armanti explained, reading the expression on my face.\n\n\"You guys start watching the barn and hangar security cameras on the monitor. The feds won't sneak down through the woods. Someone will drive up that road sooner or later and they won't give you a heads-up call on the radio. You'll see them on the barn and hangar cameras.\"\n\n\"We can't stay here,\" Willie declared. He wasn't Einstein but he got there eventually.\n\nI tromped out and headed up the hill to the lodge. If we didn't leave we were running the risk of being trapped. I should have stuck my pistol in that doctor's mouth and scowled until he crapped his pants. Grafton was asleep again. He was certainly in no condition to be moved, so we had to stay.\n\nI got Willis Coffee and Travis Clay to dig a nest for two heavy machine guns across the road from the parking area where they could engage any vehicles that drove up. They were pros: they knew how to set up a machine-gun nest. They took some AT4s along, just in case, and got busy moving the guns and ammo.\n\nJack Yocke and Sal Molina were not thrilled when I told them they were now soldiers in the Army of the Rebellion. \"I'm a reporter,\" Yocke said stiffly.\n\n\"I just drafted you,\" I replied. \"When this is over, you'll probably have enough material to write a couple of books and eat on the rubber chicken circuit until you die of constipation. Right now, however, your problem is staying alive. I'm about to do you a big favor and show you how you can do that, and help the rest of us stay alive too.\"\n\n\"And if I say no?\"\n\n\"You walk down to the hard road and hitch a ride anywhere you want to go.\"\n\n\"I'll stay.\"\n\n\"I'm so thrilled.\"\n\nMolina said, \"I'm fat, out of shape, and never touched a weapon in my life.\"\n\n\"When this is over, you'll want to join the NRA.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" Sarah asked.\n\n\"You are my inside surprise. You can toss grenades and shoot if they come through the door in front or back. I suggest that you pick a few spots to watch the back of the building. If we get visitors with something nasty on their minds, they will drop someone off to come through the woods behind us. Your job is to guard the rear.\"\n\nI showed the three of them how to operate the carbines, grenades, and AT4s. \"Don't fire one of these AT4s in the house. The back blast will burn the building down.\"\n\nWhen I thought they had the basics, I gave them a little heart-to-heart about combat. \"You are going to be very scared when the shooting starts. Concentrate on making your weapon function and keep firing it at the bad guys. It's really easy to shoot the wrong people, which will not help you nor the rest of us. The main thing is to stay in the fight.\"\n\n\"What about prisoners?\"\n\n\"What about 'em?\"\n\n\"Well, what if they throw down their weapons and surrender?\"\n\n\"Anybody who gets into a shooting scrape with us wants our weapons, vehicles, and food. If you surrender, they'll kill you. I suggest you do the same to them.\"\n\n\"I can't do that,\" Molina said frankly. Yocke nodded his agreement.\n\n\"Don't worry. Someone will do it for you,\" I said. \"Just don't let 'em run off.\"\n\n\"Could you shoot a man with his hands up?\" Yocke asked Sarah.\n\nShe looked at him as if he had asked if she were still a virgin. Women are usually tougher and more realistic than men.\n\nOne of the troopers in the back of the first C-130 in the string flying just above Louisiana was Specialist Jimmy Schaffran from Minnesota. His story was unique, as was the story of every man in the plane, but perhaps similar to many. He had been a chubby nerd in high school, addicted to video games, partly because he wished to find some way to escape a bad home situation and partly because he was unattractive to girls. He had no idea what to say to them. Certainly he wasn't a jock or rocket scientist. There was no money in the family to send him to college when he graduated from high school, a fact he didn't fret because he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life and doubted that he was smart enough for college, anyway. He got a job delivering sandwiches in his father's old work car, then pizza because the tips were better, and finally decided to join the army.\n\nRecruit training nearly killed him. Pushed mercilessly by the sergeants, the pounds began melting off and his stamina increased dramatically. After thirty pounds of fat were gone, he began gaining muscle.\n\nJimmy Schaffran found a home in the army. He had some buddies and they went into town together. He met a girl, a cute waitress in Killeen with a little tattoo over her heart, which happened to put it on the top of the swell of her left breast; she loved to neck in his car, the first one he had ever owned, cherry red, only three years old, with a loud aftermarket muffler.\n\nWhen this Texas thing went down, a Guard officer asked him if he wanted to go back to the U.S. Army or fight for Texas. Jimmy hadn't hesitated. \"I'm from Minnesota,\" he said, \"but now I'm a Texan.\" His buddies, from California, Michigan, and South Carolina, also decided they were Texans. \"Be a shame to break up a good team,\" one of them said. So all four were in this assault on Barksdale, two on this plane and two on another.\n\n\"Hell, it's all an adventure,\" Jimmy Schaffran told himself, wished his stomach would stop doing flips, and squeezed his weapon a little tighter.\n\nNathaniel Danaher sat behind the pilots in the cockpit of the first C-130 to approach Barksdale. The planes, strung out in trail about a mile apart, had flown the entire distance from Fort Hood at a hundred feet above the ground. They had managed to avoid several radio towers, which would have made flying at this altitude suicidal at night.\n\nAs briefed, the pilot called Barksdale Approach, gave his position from the field, and asked for clearance to land. \"I'm leading a flight of six. My playmates are in trail and would like to land behind me.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, then, \"We don't have a flight plan on you. Where did you take off?\"\n\n\"Fort Rucker.\"\n\nAnother pause, then, \"Make a modified straight-in to Runway Three-Three, Altimeter two niner niner six, wind three one zero at seven. Switch to Tower and report five miles.\"\n\n\"Wilco.\"\n\nThe copilot flipped the radio freq and made the call, trying to keep his voice airline-pilot, ah-shucks cool.\n\n\"Flight of six, cleared to land.\"\n\nThe copilot turned to Danaher. \"They'll get on the phone to Rucker, sir.\"\n\n\"Regardless of what they say, land. Taxi right over in front of base ops and drop the ramp.\"\n\nDanaher went into the back and got his troops ready. They had been carefully briefed, and knew they were to go off running as soon as the loadmaster lowered the ramp.\n\nIn Barksdale Approach Control, confusion reigned. The only planes scheduled to arrive at noon were a flight of four F-22s. If Ops had received messages about arriving Hercs, no one had seen them, but that didn't mean they didn't exist somewhere. And there was something else. Approach Control radar showed blips without transponder codes, up high and approaching from the south. What were these airplanes? The duty ops officer called his boss, a colonel, who confessed his ignorance. Flipping madly through the messages on the message board, and calls to the message center, didn't help. Nor would calling Center do any good: Center was off the air and no one was answering the telephones.\n\nThe first Herc touched down and, ignoring orders from Ground Control, taxied to a stop in front of the Ops building; armed, helmeted troops in battle dress piled out of the plane.\n\nAn enlisted controller in the tower remarked, \"Rucker must have sent an advance party to augment base security.\"\n\nVery shortly, everyone in the tower was disabused of that notion and jerked headlong into the reality of war. Troopers entered the tower, pointed their guns, and waved the air force controllers away from the scopes and microphones. An NCO growled, \"You people get on the floor, hands in your laps, and no one will get hurt!\" Troopers bound the air controllers' wrists with plastic ties. Cell phones were confiscated. Another trooper sat at a microphone to guide approaching aircraft.\n\nSimilar scenes were enacted at the base ops center, where Colonel Danaher established his command post, and at the message center. It all happened so quickly that no message of the attack was transmitted. As far as the Pentagon knew, Barksdale was still owned by the United States Air Force.\n\nDanaher couldn't believe his good fortune. Lady Luck had just given him a gift of a few hours.\n\nThe second C-130 taxied to the B-52 parking mat. As the troops disembarked, an air police SUV came roaring up and two armed men jumped out. When a couple of the troopers fired bursts over their heads, the air policemen jumped back into the SUV and started off, but now someone shot the tires out. It kept going anyway. Another burst into the rear of it brought it to a stop. One of the air policemen was slightly wounded. They were disarmed and led away across the mat to a holding area as the troops fanned out and the C-130 began taxiing for takeoff. There were more troops at Fort Hood that needed transport.\n\nTwo minutes after the sixth and last transport off-loaded its men, Colonel Danaher could look at the base's mechanics, officers, and pilots seated in rows, hands fastened with plastic ties, and under guard. It was a quick victory for Texas. Hearing the reports over handheld radio, Colonel Danaher breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time in his life, he understood the ennui that engulfed the military personnel in Pearl Harbor in the weeks before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. It is devilishly difficult to instantly transition from peace to war. Danaher knew he wasn't up to speed yet, but thought maybe he better get that way fast. No doubt all the air force personnel on the base were waking up mighty quick.\n\nThe B-1 Lancer surprise attack on the war materiel stockpiled at Fort Polk was a complete success. Not a SAM or artillery shell rose to meet them. Using JDAMs, the six bombers hit the large tank and artillery depots. Then the F-16s flying top cover came down and used rockets and cannons on armored vehicles and artillery pieces that appeared undamaged. Several JDAMs went into the fuel storage facilities. Post-strike photos snapped by the F-16 strike leader suggested that perhaps forty percent of the tanks and artillery were no longer serviceable. The black column of smoke rising from the fuel storage areas was visible in the sky from a distance of ninety miles.\n\nWhile that strike was going on, General Martin L. Wynette was in his limo on his way to the Executive Office Building. When he received a call from the JCS duty officer informing him of the attack on Fort Polk, Wynette hung up the phone with a frown. The president and his disciples were going to eat him alive. He briefed his general officer aides, a male and a female, so they would know what was coming.\n\nAt the Executive Office Building, Wynette and his two aides were ushered to a conference room where Soetoro, his national security advisor, and a dozen top political aides were waiting, including Sulana Schanck, the Muslim. She had always intimidated Wynette. Those eyes, glaring at everyone who didn't share her vision of a Muslim America. Wynette thought her the most evil woman he had ever met. He thought that one of these days she might snap and start cutting off heads with a butcher knife. He hoped she would begin with Al Grantham.\n\nWynette opened his briefcase as the men and women in the room debated the implications of Oklahoma's rebellion and the scheduled independence votes in other plains states. Soetoro seemed to have himself under control this morning, Wynette thought, as he listened to machine-gun bursts of terrible news.\n\nWynette dropped into a chair and tried to keep his face deadpan. His aides sat down beside him. No one mentioned the attacks on Fort Polk in Louisiana. Maybe they don't know yet, he thought.\n\nFinally the president addressed a question to the general, his first acknowledgment of the officer's presence. \"What can the military do to put a stop to this treason?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Wynette said, \"except maybe bomb the statehouses involved. And I'm not sure what that would achieve.\"\n\nAl Grantham let out a roar. \"Goddamnit, General, it would kill some traitors.\"\n\n\"You folks have a red-hot political crisis on your hands and the U.S. armed forces are melting away. A couple more days of this and we won't have enough people to turn the lights on and off at the Pentagon.\"\n\nSilence descended upon the room. Wynette thought about all the ways the president had disrespected the men and women in uniform during his administration, including refusing to make appearances and public statements during Armed Forces Day, and refusing to salute the flag. His contempt of the people in uniform was now being returned in spades.\n\n\"We are going to have to recruit an army of progressives who are willing to fight for America,\" Barry Soetoro said.\n\nGood luck with that, Wynette thought. What he said aloud was, \"By the time you get your army recruited and equipped, with enough training to teach them which end of the rifle the bullet comes out of, you are going to be out of office.\"\n\nThe political aides merely stared ahead silently, Schanck included. Soetoro didn't say a word. Even Grantham managed to control himself. All of which proved to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that the White House knew there was not going to be an election in November. That was still their little secret.\n\nFinally Grantham said, \"Maybe you should start shooting some of your reluctant warriors. That would inspire the rest to do their sworn duty.\"\n\n\"I don't have the authority to hold drumhead courts-martial and execute soldiers.\"\n\n\"The president can give you that authority.\"\n\n\"I don't want it. If you like, I'll tender my resignation right now and you can dig down through the officer corps until you find someone willing to shoot American soldiers. There must be one or two ambitious assholes in uniform that would shoot their own mothers for a big promotion. I've never met any, but they say there are rotten apples in every barrel.\"\n\nGrantham snarled, \"Why don't you start saying yes, sir, and no, sir, and stop this damned insubordination?\"\n\n\"I thought you wanted me here for professional advice. I just gave you some.\"\n\n\"Enough,\" Soetoro said. He rubbed his face with both hands. \"We have a political crisis that is fed by social media and the press pouring gasoline on hot embers. What we need to do is shut down the power grid nationwide to stop all the bitching, plotting, and conspiracies.\"\n\nMartin Wynette lost control of his face. He stared slack-jawed at the president. That had to be the most idiotic suggestion he had ever heard.\n\n\"We must do something, and that might have a good effect,\" Al Grantham opined.\n\nIronically, Martin Wynette thought that comment proof that Grantham was a total, complete flaming fool, and a world-class ass-kisser to boot! Had his senior aide only known the general's thoughts, he would have probably laughed aloud. Wynette managed to close his mouth and put on his poker face again.\n\nThe civilians around the table discussed it. Indeed, they thought that something had to be done to douse the political fires, and this was something. If those rebels were sitting in the dark without air conditioning or the internet or telephones, at least they wouldn't be damning the administration and fomenting treason before a national audience, the members of which would have their own problems to deal with. And it was the president's own idea, which was nice. No one there had to take the risk of offering a suggestion that might be rejected. It never hurts to say yes to the boss.\n\nWhat wasn't addressed, Wynette noted grimly, was how cutting the juice was going to stop the social collapse that he thought almost inevitable. In fact, Wynette thought that leaving people nationwide without power to stay cool and preserve and prepare food in the dead heat of August was likely to accelerate the process, not impede it. Not to mention the havoc it would play on nursing home residents and the elderly who lacked emergency generators. Police and firefighters could not be summoned in an emergency. This callous decision would kill American citizens, whether they were progressives or conservatives, loyal or disloyal, whether they worshipped the ground Barry Soetoro walked upon or urged God every night to take the bastard quick. It would also stop the American economy dead in its tracks. Factories would be left without not only electricity but natural gas, because electricity powered the compressors needed to move it through pipelines. Without pumps, water and sewage would cease to flow. And every filling station in America would be unable to pump gasoline or diesel fuel. Truck deliveries would stop. If the power outage went on long enough, urban Americans would begin to starve or die of thirst. Cutting power might be justified as a military necessity, Wynette thought, but certainly not as a political expedient to silence dissent. He almost said aloud that JR Hays would turn off America's juice if he could, but being Martin Wynette, he kept his mouth shut.\n\nSoetoro made the decision, as his inner circle of committed progressives knew he would. \"Do it,\" he said, and gestured toward the door.\n\nSome moron asked, \"How?\"\n\nGrantham fielded that one. \"Call the heads of the various power companies and tell them to shut off the juice, and if they don't, send the FBI around to arrest them and every officer in the company. Crack the damned whip.\" When you have dictatorial powers, you can iron out all the little difficulties.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" they said, and scattered.\n\n\"You stay,\" the president said to the general and his aides.\n\nWhen the room was empty, the president said, \"Tell me about that attack in Louisiana.\"\n\nSo he had heard after all. \"I got a telephone call in the car on the way over here,\" Wynette said, \"so all I know are the basics. Apparently B-1 Lancers. They probably came from Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene.\"\n\n\"What can we do about those Texas traitors?\"\n\n\"Sir, we are putting together an invasion, as you directed. JR Hays just made the invasion a little more difficult, but he can't stop it.\"\n\n\"What will he do next?\"\n\n\"We need to destroy those B-1s on the ground at Dyess. I was thinking of using the B-2s at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to do that as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Barry Soetoro said. \"We should have retired those old B-1s years ago. Instead we wasted mountains of money on them that could have been better spent elsewhere.\"\n\nWynette didn't argue that point.\n\n\"I also want you to turn off the lights in Texas, General. I don't think calling the president of the power company will do it. Do it any way you can. As soon as you can. Texas started all this trouble.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nBarry Soetoro would have been furious if he had known that JR Hays was already one jump ahead of him. Another half-dozen B-1 Lancers were already in the air on their way to Missouri to bomb Whiteman Air Force Base. An hour later, as the carcasses of the B-2s at Whiteman were still burning, he found out.\n\nIn the limo with his general officer aides, Martin Wynette said, \"He knew about that Louisiana attack when he ordered the power turned off nationwide.\"\n\nHis generals both nodded.\n\n\"And he knew about the state legislatures giving him the finger.\"\n\nYes.\n\n\"Did he do it to punish the American people?\" Wynette asked aloud.\n\n\"Ten to one that he blames the Texans for the loss of power,\" the female two-star said.\n\n\"No bet,\" her male colleague said.\n\n\"A hundred to one,\" she offered.\n\n\"No bet.\"\n\nBut with the power off, only a few will hear him, Wynette thought. And who will care? The one fact every American will understand is that the federal government can't keep electricity flowing through the wires.\n\nAt Barksdale Air Force Base four F-22s broke over the runway and swung into trail on the downwind. They slowed, dropped their landing gear and flaps, and the controller in the tower cleared them to land. Once down, Ground Control directed them to park on one end of the B-52 ramp.\n\nEverything appeared normal to the pilots as they followed the directions of linesmen, parked in a row, and one by one shut down. Number Four was the last to shut down, of course, and the pilot was the last to exit his cockpit onto a boarding ladder that had been pushed to the side of his plane.\n\nHe was standing with one foot in the cockpit and one foot on the ladder when he looked around and realized that the other pilots had their hands in the air and soldiers in battle dress were pointing weapons at them.\n\nHe drew his pistol from a holster under his left armpit and began shooting into the instrument panel, which was composed of complex multifunction displays.\n\nThe air force officer had fired three shots when Specialist Jimmy Schaffran triggered a three-shot burst from his M4 carbine from a distance of eighteen feet. The pilot tumbled backward without even trying to grab the ladder and fell to the concrete.\n\nJimmy Schaffran, late of Minnesota and now of Texas, walked over to the body. The man's head was at an odd angle. Obviously a broken neck. If the carbine bullets didn't kill him, the fall to the concrete did.\n\nSchaffran was still staring at the corpse when his buddy from South Carolina came running over.\n\nOne look at the dead man was enough. Carolina threw an arm over Schaffran's shoulders. He turned him away from the body and said, \"You had to do it, Jimmy. We may need these planes.\"\n\n\"Fuckin' shit,\" said Jimmy Schaffran.\n\n\"Hey, man. We chose our side of the fence and he chose his. Not much any of us can do about it now. God will have to figure it out.\"\nTWENTY-ONE\n\nIn Galveston, Loren Snyder had a visitor. The man shouted down the open hatch, got no answer, then climbed down and wandered aft. He found Loren in the control room.\n\n\"Hi. I'm George Ranta. The sheriff sent me to see you.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Loren was more than a little surprised. The sheriff was supposed to be guarding the pier and preventing the locals from meandering over for a look at a real submarine.\n\n\"I used to serve in attack boats. In fact, I used to be the head sonarman on this one.\"\n\n\"On this boat?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Could you guys use some help? I'd kinda like to volunteer, if you could use me.\"\n\n\"Volunteer for what?\"\n\n\"For whatever you have in mind, Captain.\"\n\nThat captain thing did it for Loren. This guy could be a SEAL in civvies, he reflected, here to kung fu the whole crew, all five. On the other hand, that captain thing sounded automatic, and he didn't look like a muscle man who spent four hours a day in the gym. Maybe he was on the level. \"Prove it,\" Loren said.\n\nRanta sat down at the main sonar console and began flipping switches. In less than a minute the sonar was running through built-in tests. Yep, he knew what he was doing.\n\n\"We're going to sea in a few hours. If you've served in these boats, you know what we're up against. The navy won't like us out cruising around in an armed attack submarine.\"\n\n\"You have torpedoes in the tubes and Tomahawks in the wells?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"Going to use them?\"\n\n\"We might.\"\n\n\"To free Texas?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"I'll go if you'll have me.\"\n\n\"Got any stuff?\"\n\n\"It's on the other side of the gangway.\"\n\n\"Go get it, and find yourself a bunk.\"\n\nTwo hours later, another person showed up, a woman. Loren heard her call and went to meet her as she came out of the torpedo room.\n\n\"I heard you guys were getting ready to go to sea, so I talked to the sheriff and he let me come down here to talk to you.\"\n\n\"So talk.\"\n\n\"Got out last year after three years aboard _Colorado_.\"\n\n\"Why'd you get out?\"\n\n\"Oh, the usual. I had a boyfriend and he wanted me home to fuck him every night. So\u2014\"\n\n\"The navy will try to sink this boat. You understand?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"And you still want to go?\"\n\n\"I was born and raised in Texas.\" She stopped, thought about that answer, and decided it was adequate. She was of medium height, trim, with a firm mouth and thin lips. Her hair was in a ponytail. The T-shirt she was wearing had a Texas flag on the front and back.\n\n\"What was your rate?\"\n\n\"Quartermaster.\"\n\n\"Can you handle the helm?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir!\"\n\n\"Get your stuff and find a bunk.\"\n\n\"I already dropped my bag through the hatch.\"\n\n\"Welcome aboard.\"\n\nShe stuck out her hand. \"My name is Ada Fuentes.\"\n\n\"Loren Snyder.\" He grabbed her hand and pumped it.\n\nFifteen minutes later Jugs met Ada and shook her hand. She sent Ada aft to meet the rest of the crew, who were running engine room drills.\n\nWhen they were alone, Jugs said, \"Lorrie, we gotta get outta here.\"\n\n\"As soon as the engine room drills are complete.\"\n\n\"No, Loren. Now.\"\n\n\"Are you getting worried?\"\n\n\"You are goddamn right I am. What if those SEALs come before we submerge and shoot holes in the outer casing? Or shoot out the photonics masts? Or throw a chain around the screw?\"\n\n\"Well. . . .\"\n\n\"For God's sake, Lorrie. We can't do Texas any good if they disable us right here at the pier.\"\n\nLoren Snyder ran his hand through his short hair. He had been so worried about his ability to handle this ship, perhaps losing her at sea and killing these volunteers, that he had not sufficiently considered the risks of sitting here at the pier. At the pier, _Texas_ was only a harmless steel sculpture. At sea submerged, she was a powerful warship.\n\n\"You're right, Jugs,\" he acknowledged. \"Let's get two guys topside to dump the gangway and cast off lines, you take the conn from the bridge. I'll do the control room, and we'll get the hell out of Dodge.\"\n\nThat was the way it worked. Julie Aranado gave the orders from the tiny bridge, and using her rudder and screw in reverse, _Texas_ backed out of the slip in which she was moored and began forward motion toward the mouth of Galveston Harbor. Julie had her at five knots when she saw the speedboats with machine guns on the forward deck come through the harbor entrance at high speed and turn toward the submarine.\n\n\"The SEALs are here,\" she shouted into her voice-activated microphone on her headset. \"Give me more turns.\"\n\nShe felt the screw of the sub biting. Behind her a rooster tail was forming. The screw was partially out of the water and was much less efficient than it would be when fully submerged.\n\nAs the three speedboats rounded the far pier, a ragged fusillade rang out. Julie didn't hear it, but she saw the faint traces of smoke and flashes from the rifles on the shore. The sheriff must have stationed sharpshooters on the piers, she thought.\n\nOne of the boats lost way. The other two turned hard to fall in formation with the sub. Julie asked for more turns on the screw.\n\n\"We're going to have to submerge the hull,\" she told Loren in the control room.\n\n\"For God's sake, stay in the channel,\" he replied.\n\nShe looked for the buoys. Fortunately this harbor was dredged regularly for cruise ships and freighters. The wind was playing with her hair as she scanned with the binoculars.\n\nJugs heard the snapping of bullets passing close by. A glance aft. The machine guns on the speedboats were flashing. And the hull was settling under the surface and the submarine was accelerating. Still, the bullets from the machine guns could damage the small conning tower and the photonics masts, all that remained of the submarine above water. Without those masts, _Texas_ was blind at periscope depth. The photonics masts had replaced periscopes. They contained low-light, natural-light, and infrared cameras, and their video was displayed on monitors in the control room.\n\nShe timed the turn to the outbound channel and got it right. The boat answered the rudder nicely and the bow swung, and now they were going southeast into the rollers toward the ocean.\n\nAnother glance aft. One of the speedboats was dropping back, but one was staying with _Texas_ , now doing at least twenty knots.\n\nThe speedboat might have managed to come alongside in calm waters, but now that they were out of the harbor the vessels hit the swells of the sea. Except for a slight pitching motion, _Texas_ was unaffected, but the speedboat began to buck, rising and falling with every down thrust raising a cloud of spray.\n\n\"Give me all you've got,\" Julie said to Loren on the sound-powered phone.\n\nIncredibly, the bow wave that the tower was making became larger. She could hear and see the curl of water against the tower and feel the drops of spray. She held out her tongue and collected a few drops. They tasted salty. Riding the bridge as the sub ran on the surface was a sublime sensatory experience, just as she remembered it from her submarining days, a sensual experience that would stay with her all the days of her life.\n\n\"Twenty-two knots,\" Loren reported.\n\nJulie was watching the buoys. She wanted the safety of the deepest part of the channel. She was in it now, and she needed every foot. The coastal Gulf of Mexico was a shallow sea, unsuitable for submarine operations, the seabed dropping slowly away from the land.\n\nFinally the swells were too much for the last speedboat. A few more bursts, the spang of bullets smacking the steel conning tower, then the boat slowed. The submarine ran on into the empty ocean, past a coaster that may have been the SEALs' mother ship, into the afternoon.\n\nFinally, an hour later, with two hundred feet of water beneath the keel, Julie Aranado said into her sound-powered mike, \"Dive, dive, dive.\" She unplugged the headset and dropped through the hatch, then pulled the hatch down behind her. Perched on the ladder, she spun the crank to dog it down. Then she went down the ladder and lowered herself through the opening in the pressure hull. She dogged that hatch behind her too, sealing the hull.\n\nAt the helm, Ada Fuentes didn't use the planes to help drive _Texas_ under because the water was so shallow. The attack submarine sank slowly as her ballast tanks filled. When the conning tower disappeared under the surface in a boil of white water, the surface of the sea became a slick as the water continued to roil. While gulls soared above the place where _Texas_ submerged looking for small marine life lifted by the swirling water, _Texas_ ran southeastward, toward deeper water. She was in her element now, a powerful warship hidden under the surface, in the great wide sea.\n\nOn Thursday morning, the first day of September, the power came back on in the Baltimore area. One power company, Potomac Electric Power, had figured out that the master computer that controlled the northeast grid had been sabotaged with bad code, so it began manually restoring power in portions of their service area. Still, restoring power to their entire service area would take a while, and restoring service to the entire northeastern United States would take days.\n\nOne of the suburban residents, Lincoln B. Greenwood, a senior executive service employee of the Department of Health and Human Services, had not gone to work that day because without power nothing could be done at the office. He was delighted when his television came back on and lights illuminated in his house. He could hear the toilet tanks filling as water once again surged through the pipes. He grabbed his car keys and opened his garage door, which rose majestically.\n\nGreenwood was worried about the uncertainties the future held and had concluded that he and his wife didn't have sufficient food in the house that would not spoil without refrigeration. And his daughter, with the four-month-old, undoubtedly needed baby food, formula, and diapers. He called her on his cell phone, and she affirmed his shopping list. She and her husband also needed more staples, she said.\n\nThe lot at the mall in Clarksville was packed with cars when Greenwood arrived, which surprised him. All of these stores closed when the power went out because their registers and computer systems were nonfunctional. Greenwood glanced at his watch; the power had only come back on twenty minutes ago. All of these people must have been here waiting, probably for hours, hoping and praying the power would be restored.\n\nThe queue to get into the supermarket, which also had a large pharmacy department, was four deep and extended around the corner of the store into the two-acre mall lot. Lincoln Greenwood got in line, resigned himself to a long wait, and began fretting that the store shelves would be empty when he got inside. The checkout lines would fill every aisle, blocking shoppers' access to the shelves. What a nightmare!\n\nThe man in front of Greenwood said he had parked on the grass across from the main entrance, and the store was not yet open. The clerks were just coming to work, he thought.\n\nAround the corner, out of Greenwood's sight, the manager of the store stood in front of the locked doors and spoke to the crowd. \"Folks, we are going to open the doors in a few minutes and admit ten shoppers a minute from the front of the line. When two hundred are inside, we will admit one additional shopper when one customer comes out. We have to comply with the fire codes, and besides, our checkout clerks can only work so fast. Due to the number of people waiting, we are limiting each shopper to the contents of one grocery cart, so there will be items on the shelves for everyone. Thank you for your cooperation and your patience.\"\n\nThen, five minutes later, as he unlocked the doors, the crowd, many of them white-collar workers from the vast bureaucracies of the federal government, scientists from the nearby Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, or mathematicians from the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, ten miles away, rushed the door. The surge was unplanned and unstoppable. The manager was swept out of the way. The exit door, on the other end of the store, shattered, apparently broken by someone in the crowd. People surged in through that door too.\n\nBehind the people in front shoving to get through the doors, the queue disintegrated and became a mob as people ran, shoved, pushed, and forced their way forward. Lincoln Greenwood gave way to panic. His daughter _needed_ the baby supplies. He and his wife _needed_ food and bottled water, and so did his daughter and her husband. Without it, _they might starve if the power went off and water once again stopped coming from the tap_.\n\nSo Lincoln B. Greenwood fought his way forward. He threw several women to the ground and stepped on another who had already fallen. As he came around the corner of the building he could see the huge supermarket doorway, now standing wide open. A man took a swing at him but Greenwood parried the blow and continued his odyssey through the human sea.\n\nHis shirt was torn and his face was bleeding from a woman's fingernails when he made it through the door. People were already pushing shopping carts containing whatever they could grab, pushing them not toward the checkout counters, but toward the doors where people were trying to get in. People coming in began looting the carts. This milling, pushing, shouting, screaming swarm of humanity was no longer a group of civilized beings who attended church, obeyed the traffic laws, and were courteous to strangers; they were a primal force, much like a herd of charging elephants, driven only by their survival instincts.\n\nThe store manager who had unlocked the doors and been swept aside ran into the parking lot and used his cell phone to call 911. Within two minutes a Howard County police car rolled to a stop with lights flashing and siren wailing. The officer killed the siren and met the manager, who ran toward him. Seemingly oblivious to the presence of the officer, the crowd surrounding the doors continued to push, shove, and fight.\n\nThe police officer stood silently, watching the melee in disbelief as the manager shouted to be heard, \"You have got to stop this madness. They'll kill each other in there.\"\n\nIndeed, the officer could see several people sprawled on the sidewalks and in the loading lane, apparently trampled or injured. They were being ignored by the surging mob. The officer tried to estimate how many people he could see, and concluded there were more than a thousand people outside the building.\n\n\"What the hell do you think I can do?\" the officer asked the manager without taking his eyes from the panicked mob.\n\n\"Tear-gas them. My God, people are going to be _killed_ in there! Can't you see that?\"\n\n\"Tear gas isn't going to stop them,\" the cop said, and began talking to his dispatcher through the radio transmitter pinned to his lapel. He got into the patrol car and locked the door so he could hear better. The manager tried to jerk the door open, then pounded on the window with his fist.\n\nWhat the dispatcher knew and the officer didn't was that this scene was being played out in supermarkets all over the county. Smaller mobs, but equally frightened, were looting hardware stores and stealing gasoline at service stations as quickly as it could be pumped.\n\nAt the police station, the chief listened to the calls describing the looting and shook his head. Nothing could be done.\n\nThroughout the Pepco service area, similar scenes were being enacted. What the violent looting would have looked like if the crowds had known that just hours before Barry Soetoro had ordered electrical power shut off nationwide is something that defies speculation.\n\nInside the Clarksville supermarket, Lincoln B. Greenwood managed to fill his pockets with little jars of baby food. He grabbed one box of six-quart cartons of Similac Infant Formula from a shopping cart and made for the door. He had to fight his way out, just as he had fought his way in. Now he had to keep both hands on the box of infant formula to keep it from being torn from his grasp, hug it into his belly, and use his elbows to create a pathway. When he finally reached his car, he still had the Similac, but two of the glass jars in his pockets were broken. He was bleeding from the nose where he had been punched and his shirt was in tatters.\n\nHe got into the car, started the engine, and tried to get out of the parking lot, only to find that people trying to get in had abandoned their cars in the entranceways and ran for the store. He began bumping cars, trying to shove them out of the way. And succeeded. He got to a median, jumped it with his car, and drove away quickly. He was an animal fighting to survive, and he suspected he wasn't going to make it.\n\nWhen Greenwood did get home that evening, the power was off again. Officers from the Department of Homeland Security had visited Pepco headquarters and demanded at the point of a gun that power be shut off throughout Pepco's multi-county service area. When the lights again went out across the Pepco area, they handcuffed every executive they could find and led them away. Everyone else was told to leave the building immediately. The last officer out of the building seized the keys from a terrified janitor and locked the doors behind her.\n\nOblivious to the panic that had seized suburban Maryland and was spreading like an internet virus across America, on Friday morning, the second day of September, Barry Soetoro went before the cameras in his best gray suit and blue tie, a combination that his makeup artist had once assured him was flattering.\n\nIt would take hours, probably at least twenty-four, before the power went off all across the lower forty-eight states, or forty-six since Oklahoma and Texas had tried to go their own ways, so the president and his advisors thought he should use the time to build political support for the battles yet to come. \"Comfort your friends and afflict your enemies,\" Al Grantham advised; Soetoro thought that nugget summed up his mission. He had his best speechwriter prepare the remarks, and they were on the teleprompter, so he could look the unseen audience straight in the eyes as he delivered his truth.\n\n\"My fellow Americans. As I address you today, many of our fellow Americans sit in the dark, sweltering in the heat, with food rotting, without any access to electricity because of the violent acts of desperate and dangerous men. Our nation is at war\u2014at war with ideological fanatics who take the slave-owning Confederate States of America as their model. They want to destroy not only our nation's electrical power grid, they want to destroy this country in pursuit of an extreme ideological vision that would deny women, minorities, and everyday Americans their basic rights. Already they have attacked United States military installations and killed brave servicemen and women who were defending freedom.\n\n\"As you know, I have said repeatedly through the years that the two greatest threats to our nation are right-wing constitutionalists and climate change. I have been ridiculed in the conservative press for those statements, but as I foretold, the threat from the Right has become a deadly peril to our national life.\n\n\"Tonight I ask all loyal Americans for their support, patience, and understanding as we fight to preserve the Union. One hundred fifty years ago, one of my predecessors had to fight the same battle against an enemy that would have kept half our nation as a haven for slavery. Today we battle a similar enemy, an embittered minority who cannot break with the past, whose political beliefs are grounded in ignorance, hate, and bigotry, and who are now in open rebellion against the United States. We face trying days ahead. But I pledge, as President Abraham Lincoln did before me, to preserve our Union and ensure that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. Have faith, and I will lead us through the fire to the promised land. Thank you.\"\n\nWhere electricity still flowed through the wires, people nationwide sat staring at their television screens as picked liberal commentators talked about the president's resolve, his vision. His forceful delivery struck just the right note, one woman said. Another commentator, a tenured university professor infamous for urging all white people to commit suicide so the nonwhites of the earth could flourish, pounded the racial drum. Only through Barry Soetoro could the promise of racial justice and equal rights be realized, and white privilege once and for all be defeated and banished from the land.\n\nWhere it was seen, the presidential speech had the opposite effect from the one he presumably intended. Panicked people quite beyond rational thought got in their cars and joined mobs looting stores.\n\nGeneral Martin L. Wynette watched the speech on television in his Pentagon E-Ring office and shrugged sadly. Climate change!\n\nHe asked himself, Were chaos and anarchy the president's real goals, so he could build his socialist dictatorship upon the rubble? Or had the damned fool miscalculated once again? Was he a sublime evil genius, or simply a bumbling, incompetent believer in his own bullshit that fate and poisonous racial politics had raised to a very high place? Not that it mattered\u2014the result was the same in either case. The apocalypse had finally arrived.\n\nA few offices down the E-Ring of the Pentagon from the office of the chairman of the JCS, the chief of naval operations, Admiral Cart McKiernan, was staring at a hard copy of the president's order for the destruction of the power plants in Texas. The best way to do that was with Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, the admiral thought, but he had no idea how many power plants there were in Texas.\n\nHe had a much better grasp on how many Tomahawks the navy had, which was a little less than 3,400. The Soetoro administration had ended production in Fiscal Year 2015. The missiles cost $1.4 million each and the manufacturer, Raytheon, had stated that restarting the factory and suppliers' production would take two years and increase costs. The next-generation missile was not scheduled into the fleet for ten more years.\n\nA Tomahawk was a subsonic cruise missile that carried a one-thousand-pound conventional warhead. To put a power plant out of action, the missile would need to score a direct hit. To do that, one needed to program the precise GPS coordinates, the latitude and longitude, of each target into the missiles. On a big power plant with large generators\u2014as many as twenty, mounted on thick, reinforced concrete\u2014direct hits by multiple missiles would be required to do significant damage. Perhaps five missiles for each target, because inevitably, as with all complex state-of-the art weapons, Tomahawk reliability was not one hundred percent. More like ninety percent, assuming they were properly and meticulously programmed before firing.\n\nThe missile depended on an accurate satellite survey of the terrain it would fly over to ensure it didn't hit an obstacle, a system called Terrain Contour Matching. This feature allowed the missile to fly as close to the earth as possible, thereby making it difficult for defenders to acquire on radar and shoot down. GPS was used to guide it over the water to its preprogrammed coast-in point and in its terminal guidance phase. So precisely where were the power plants that Soetoro wanted destroyed? It would require several days of staff work to come up with that information from existing satellite databases and then pass it on in a targeting order to the ships selected to launch the missiles.\n\nCart McKiernan wasn't thrilled about using Tomahawks in this manner. Blasting the hell out of Texas could deplete the navy's inventory of Tomahawks, which might hurt America down the road, assuming that down the road there still was an America and a United States Navy that needed the weapon. The Sunnis and Shiites were fighting each other in the Middle East, North Korea's dictator was strutting as usual, China was bullying its neighbors, and Iran was once again giving the world the finger over its nuclear ambitions. Israel was worried about ISIS and Iranian attacks. And what if next week Soetoro decided to punish Oklahoma, Louisiana, or Florida?\n\nThe alternative to Tomahawks was strikes against the power plants using carrier aircraft. USS _Texas_ had just escaped from Galveston, so she was at sea somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Giving her an aircraft carrier for a torpedo target didn't appeal to the CNO's military mind. Losing an aircraft carrier or two off the Texas coast would be a poor trade for some power plants, many of which were probably scheduled to be retired in a few years anyway and replaced with more efficient ones.\n\nOf course, McKiernan could pass the request on to the air force and ask if they wanted a piece of this action, but that didn't strike him as a good idea, either. Funding for the next generation of Tomahawk was the stake on the table, and if the navy couldn't complete assigned missions with the missiles it had, perhaps it didn't really need those new, more expensive missiles after all. And no doubt the air force already had a full plate.\n\nMcKiernan attached a memo to the order authorizing the use of one hundred Tomahawks against Texas power plants, and he directed that the plants with the largest generating capacity be attacked first using five missiles per plant. Losing the generating capacity from twenty big power plants would play hob with the Texas grid and leave millions of treasonous Texans sweltering in the dark, which should satisfy even Barry Soetoro, Cart McKiernan thought.\n\nWith CNO's proviso, the presidential order went off to the strike planners.\n\nColonel Nathaniel Danaher spent the morning and afternoon in the B-52 hangar spaces talking to the pilots, crewmen, and ground personnel attached to the squadrons. He wanted to know if any of them would fight for Texas and Oklahoma. A few people from those two states volunteered, but the vast majority didn't want to fight for anybody. He was about to give it up as a bad job when his handheld squawked. \"Major General Hays is here, sir. He came on the last C-130.\"\n\nThe officer on the other end was a major whom Danaher liked because he was competent and could think on his feet. \"You know where to put the troops?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Augment our people at the ammo depot and fuel farm.\"\n\n\"Tell General Hays I'll meet him at base operations.\"\n\nNate Danaher got into his staff car and rode across the parking mat the two miles to base ops.\n\nJR Hays was standing there in his camos. Danaher saluted, and it was returned. It felt a little strange saluting JR, who was ten years younger than he was and had been a newly minted major when he served with him, but he did it proudly, with a grin.\n\n\"It went well, sir,\" he said. \"Total surprise. We even got into the message center before they notified the Pentagon, which bought us a few hours, anyway.\" Of course, with cell phones, everyone in Bossier City and Shreveport knew the base had been taken.\n\nThey walked into base ops and headed for the planning room as Danaher reported. \"The commanding general was very unhappy when we stormed into his office and captured him.\"\n\n\"I'll bet he was,\" JR said with a smile.\n\nThey stood in front of a large wall-mounted map and the two career soldiers examined it with practiced eyes.\n\n\"As you suspected,\" Nate Danaher said, \"most of the people here don't want to fight anybody, but we have enough volunteers with the right skills to make up a couple of crews.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\nThe primary reason JR had wanted Barksdale was to prevent B-52s from bombing Texas cities or military bases. Taking as many of the bombers as possible to Texas was not in the cards since the infrastructure and equipment to maintain and fly the planes, not to mention their weapons, was here. It would take weeks, if not months, to move all that to a new base.\n\nThen there was the fact that B-52s, and B-1s for that matter, were essentially defenseless against modern jet fighters equipped with air-to-air missiles with ranges up to a hundred miles. They were dinosaurs and could only be used when one had absolute air supremacy. The B-1s had managed strikes yesterday on railroad bridges in the Powder River Basin and today on Fort Polk and Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri because there was no air opposition. In the future, there would be. Meanwhile the U.S. Air Force would be getting its act together, and strikes against Barksdale, as long as it was occupied, and Dyess and the other air bases in Texas would soon be forthcoming.\n\nJR Hays and Nate Danaher knew that their window of opportunity would close as soon as Soetoro's brain trust could slam it shut, so they intended to use the bombers while they still could.\n\n\"We hammered Whiteman,\" JR said, jabbing at the map with a finger, \"but of course we didn't get all the B-2s. Expect a few to visit tonight.\"\n\n\"We have four F-22s,\" Danaher said. JR had already seen them as his ride taxied in. \"But no one to fly them. One of the pilots shot up the instrument panel of his before he got off the boarding ladder. The other three aren't interested in joining Texas.\"\n\nJR merely nodded. A competent F-22 pilot\u2014if he had one, which he didn't\u2014might have been able to find B-2s in the night sky, but F-16 pilots certainly couldn't. \"At least those are four F-22s that can't be used against us,\" he said to Danaher.\n\nJR went back to the map. \"We are loading an armored brigade at Fort Hood onto a train. Tanks and troopers and artillery. They'll be rolling tonight. At first they said it couldn't be done. Anyway, they'll be coming through here tomorrow morning. By tomorrow night I want them here.\" He pointed to a position between Barksdale and Fort Polk.\n\n\"A flight of four F-16s will be along in\u2014\" he consulted his watch\u2014\"about an hour. Since we don't have aerial tankers, we'll have to refuel them, top them off. As soon as we can get some B-52s ready, assuming they aren't destroyed by B-2s from Whiteman, launch them and their fighter escorts at the bridges.\"\n\nJR jabbed at the map, which only showed rivers, towns, and interstates. \"They know their targets. I want every highway and railroad bridge across the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to above Memphis in the river by morning. Elvin Gentry says it can be done, and he swore he could do it.\"\n\n\"How many bridges is that?\" Danaher asked.\n\n\"I don't know, but Elvin does. All he has to do is drop at least a span of each one into the river. He says JDAMs will do it. Any intact bridges left standing tomorrow will be attacked with F-16s, or any B-52s or B-1s we have left.\" JDAM was an acronym that stood for Joint Direct Attack Munition. It was a guidance package that screwed into a dumb\u2014freefall\u2014bomb, enabling it to make a direct hit on a preprogrammed target.\n\nJR took a deep breath and let the air out slowly as he surveyed the map. His strategy was simple. He didn't want to fight in Texas, but Louisiana would do fine. If Soetoro's army could get across the Mississippi River to fight. An opposed crossing of a big river was the most difficult maneuver an army could undertake, the equivalent of an amphibious assault against a dug-in enemy.\n\nThey had discussed this objective before, but now that they were on the cusp of trying it, they looked at it again, discussed logistics, roads, what the enemy might do.\n\n\"I wish we could get more B-52 crews,\" Nate Danaher said, a tad wistfully JR thought.\n\n\"If you think we have problems getting people to fight, Soetoro's forces have them worse,\" JR assured him. \"I suspect the U.S. Army and Air Force are on the verge of falling apart, and will unless Soetoro starts putting people against a wall and shooting them. Still, mutiny and mass desertions will certainly slow them down. Our edge is that our people are fighting _for_ something, for a free and independent Republic of Texas. Soetoro is fighting to become an absolute dictator, and the people in uniform aren't stupid. They'll figure out the difference, if they don't know it already.\"\n\n\"You put a lot of faith in average, run-of-the mill people,\" Danaher murmured.\n\n\"Average, run-of-the-mill people won their independence from Great Britain,\" JR shot back, \"and have fought in every war this country ever had. They were at Valley Forge and the Alamo, at Shiloh, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. Not to mention Belleau Wood, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. You and I spent our military careers leading them. They'll fight for freedom, all right, to the last drop of blood. Barry Soetoro is on the wrong damned side.\"\nTWENTY-TWO\n\nWith the power out again in suburban Maryland on Friday morning, Lincoln B. Greenwood was a changed man. His adventures the previous day in the supermarket had shaken him to the core. To be in the midst of a mob of people savagely fighting for basic necessities\u2014and fighting just as hard as anyone else\u2014had given him a glimpse of the monster in all of us.\n\nEat or starve. Move or die. Kill or be killed.\n\nThose monsters were waiting out there in the darkness now. Evil people, unrestrained by the bonds of civilization or religion. People willing to do _anything_ to survive.\n\n\"We gotta get outta here,\" he said to his wife, Anne.\n\n\"Where will we go?\" she asked reasonably as she placed candles around the house for the coming evening.\n\nHe gestured vaguely. He hadn't the foggiest idea, but here there was chaos, so instinct told him to leave. To run. To escape.\n\n\"What about Suzanne and her family?\"\n\nThe daughter, the son-in-law, and the baby; Lincoln B. Greenwood hadn't thought about them all morning. He glanced guiltily at the box of Similac powder and the baby food jars still resting where he had put them on the kitchen counter.\n\n\"She married that moron; they are going to have to take care of themselves.\"\n\nHis wife glowered at him, but Lincoln didn't notice. He walked around the living room looking out the windows at the darkness. He could see faint light in a neighbor's window across the cul-de-sac. Candles, he figured. The other houses on the cul-de-sac appeared dark. Maybe the neighbors had already left. Maybe that was the smart thing to do. Get in the car and go. Somewhere. Escape.\n\nHe felt the urge to run, to flee. Adrenaline. He broke into a sweat.\n\n\"Get packed up,\" he said to his wife. \"Your meds, some clothes. Some food. Nothing else. We're leaving.\"\n\n\"But _where_ are we going?\" she demanded.\n\n\"I don't know. We can't stay here. They've been rioting in Baltimore all week. They rioted at the supermarket yesterday. Power is off, phones are off, internet is off. When the inner-city thugs come to the suburbs to loot and burn and rape, we had better be gone.\"\n\n\"I don't want to leave.\"\n\n\"Dear wife, we don't even have a gun, because you wouldn't have one in _your_ house.\" That's when Lincoln B. Greenwood lost it. \" _I don_ ' _t give a shit what you want_!\" he roared to his shocked wife. \"I am not going to sit here waiting to be murdered or die of starvation. Now get upstairs and pack what you want to take.\"\n\nGreenwood ran upstairs and threw three pairs of jeans and some shirts into a bag. Some underwear and socks. He added his blood pressure medicine and his prostate pills to the bag, his toothbrush and toothpaste, his razor and shaving cream, plus some laxatives and a bottle of aspirin.\n\nThen he went to a safe in his closet, opened it, and got out the strips of gold he had invested in when the economy was going to hell in 2008 and 2009. A few Krugerrands. It was damn little, but paper dollars weren't going to be the coin of the realm and credit cards were worthless. Not that it mattered. He had maybe fifty dollars in his wallet and, since the power was out, no prospect of getting more from his bank, even if the ATMs worked or the bank was open and willing to convert every dollar in his savings and checking accounts to cash, which they wouldn't be.\n\nHe stuffed the gold into his pocket and zipped up his bag. Carried it downstairs. Anne was still upstairs packing.\n\nA car pulled up in the driveway and he went to the window. His daughter, Suzanne. He opened the door for her. \"We're leaving, Dad. Going to Gerald's parents' place in Front Royal. We're going to ride it out there.\"\n\n\"Good idea. We're getting ready to leave too. I got some Similac and baby food for you. I'll put it in a bag while you go upstairs and say goodbye to Mom.\"\n\nWhen Suzanne left, Lincoln Greenwood went upstairs to check on his wife. She was sitting on a stool in her bathroom crying.\n\n\"Are you packed?\"\n\n\"Oh, Lincoln. I feel as if I am saying good-bye to my life. What is to become of us?\"\n\n\"If you don't get a move on, woman, we're going to be dead.\" He could feel the evil out there in the night. \"Pack your meds and a few clothes and let's get in the car and go while there is still time.\"\n\nShe sobbed, trying to pull herself together. And nodded. \"You're right. Another few minutes.\"\n\nSo he went downstairs and put his bag in the car, which was in the garage. He would pull the handle that disconnected the door and raise it to get the car out. But not until they were ready to go.\n\nFive long minutes later, as he threw all the dry and canned food they had in garbage bags and stuffed them in the car, he heard engine noises.\n\nHe ran to the living room window and looked out. A police car and a late-model pickup were examining the houses in the cul-de-sac. Lincoln Greenwood went back to the kitchen and helped himself to a carving knife from the block on the counter. He put it up his left sleeve, leaving only a bit of the handle sticking out.\n\nThen he went back to the window. Four young black men were coming up the walk, and all four had pistols in their hands.\n\nOne of them pounded on the door. \"Open up in there or we'll kill all of you and burn this goddamn thing down around your bodies.\"\n\nGreenwood unlocked the door and they rushed in. One of them pointed a pistol in his face. \"Hello, asshole. Who else is here?\"\n\n\"My wife is upstairs.\"\n\nHe jerked his head at his compatriots and they went charging up the stairs.\n\n\"You and me are goin' to the kitchen, motha-fuck. We want the food. All of it. And anything else you got.\"\n\nGreenwood led the way.\n\nThe man immediately began opening cupboards and rooting through the pantry. He turned on Greenwood and pointed the pistol in his face. \"Where is the grub, honkey? Don't tell me you people ain't got no grub in the house. Cause if you do, I'll just shoot you now and be done with it.\"\n\n\"In the car in the garage. We were just about to leave.\"\n\n\"So we got here just in the nick of time. Ain't that sweet? You lead. Get it out.\"\n\nHe went into the garage and began emptying the garbage bags of spaghetti noodles and cans onto the floor.\n\n\"Pick it up. Take it to the front door.\"\n\nGreenwood hoisted a bag in each hand and led off. The thug picked up another and followed him, gun in hand.\n\nWhen the bags were at the front door, the man said, \"Let's go get the rest of it. Seems like you oughta be carryin',\" and he laughed.\n\nAnother trip cleaned out the car. The men who went upstairs were rooting around and shouting to each other, as if they were on an Easter egg hunt.\n\nIn the kitchen, the punk with Greenwood said, \"You got any guns?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You better not be lying, 'cause we're gonna look. If I find you lied, I'll just shoot you like a dog and that will be that.\"\n\n\"I'm not lying.\" Lincoln Greenwood was scared and his voice was an octave high and quavered.\n\n\"Pills. We want all the pills you got, motha-fuck. And your grass and powder and smack.\"\n\n\"Pills are upstairs.\" That was a mistake, Greenwood realized. There was nothing in the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, and if the man looked, there would be hell to pay. \"We don't have any dope,\" he added.\n\n\"Like shit! You lyin' asshole. All you white motha-fucks got shit to get high on. You buy it in Baltimore from the guys in the 'hood. Us niggers ain't got the money for nothin' but pot. It's white trash like you that buy the high-dollar shit and then convict the poor dudes sellin' it who ain't got no other way to make a livin'.\"\n\nThe man, who was perhaps twenty or twenty-one, looked around, surveying the crystal and kick-knacks in the kitchen. He pointed his pistol at the counter television that Anne watched every morning when she made breakfast and pulled the trigger. The shot sounded like a cannon. The front of the television showered glass on the counter.\n\nThen the gunman turned his back on Lincoln B. Greenwood. Greenwood pulled the knife from his left sleeve and rammed it between the man's ribs on his right side up to the hilt. Gave it a savage twist and jerked the knife out. Blood squirted out, under pressure.\n\nThe young gunman turned with a funny look on his face, tried to bring the pistol around. Greenwood pushed his arm up and rammed the knife into his solar plexus, then jerked it loose. The gunman collapsed on the floor, bleeding copiously.\n\n\"Hey, Joey!\" A shout from upstairs. \"You havin' fun, man?\"\n\nLincoln B. Greenwood removed the pistol from his victim's grasp and went to the hallway, with the stairs on his left. He crouched against the wall so anyone coming down the stairs wouldn't see him. He waited. When they came down each had an armload of stuff. After the first two got down the stairs and went through the front door, he shot the third one in the back from a distance of three feet. At that range he couldn't miss.\n\nThe man fell the rest of the way down the stairs and piled up on the floor. Greenwood shot him again.\n\nHe ran to the door of the house and tried to align the sights of the pistol, a black thing without a cylinder. Greenwood had just fired the first two shots of his life, and now the problem of hitting anything or anyone who wasn't five feet away became a bit much. He pulled the trigger and the gun kicked and to his amazement the closest man fell flat on his face.\n\nHe aimed as well as he could in the darkness and began firing. Missing. The pistol bucked with every shot and the muzzle flash blinded him. He kept squeezing the trigger anyway.\n\nThe fourth man jumped in the right seat of the pickup and roared off as Greenwood emptied the pistol in that general direction. The truck rocketed out of the cul-de-sac and down the street with its engine howling.\n\nGreenwood walked over to the man lying face-down on the lawn. He had a red spot dead center in his lower back, just visible in the dim evening light. Sheer dumb luck, Greenwood thought, and helped himself to the man's pistol, which lay on the grass by his outstretched hand, along with Anne's jewelry box. Without thinking, he began scooping up the baubles and dumping them back in the box. Most of it was junk, but she had a few nice pieces.\n\n\"I can't move my legs,\" the man whispered.\n\n\"Tough shit,\" Lincoln B. Greenwood said, and began going through the man's pockets. He found an extra magazine for his pistol. A roll of bills. A pack of Marlboros with one cigarette missing and a lighter. Some more jewelry, whether Anne's or someone else's, he didn't know. He put the money and jewelry in his pocket. He almost left the cigs and lighter on the grass, and changed his mind. Someone might trade him something he needed for them.\n\n\"Don't leave me like this,\" the man pleaded. \"Please.\"\n\n\"Die slow, black mother-fucker,\" said Lincoln B. Greenwood, lately of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.\n\nUpstairs, he found someone had smacked Anne across the face with a pistol. She was half out of it, with a terrific welt, but apparently otherwise uninjured.\n\nHe threw the rest of her meds in the suitcase and looked at her stuff. Everything neatly folded, dresses and sandals like she was packing for Paris. He shoved some underwear and slacks into the suitcase and closed it. Took it downstairs, walked around the man he had knifed and the man he had shot, and loaded it into the car. Then he began the chore of reloading all the food bags. That took three minutes. He tracked in the blood on the kitchen floor, now a small lake, and began leaving footprints.\n\nThe man he had knifed was apparently dead, his eyes focused on infinity, his face a grimace. Greenwood went through his pockets and found two magazines for the pistol, a wad of bills, and a cellophane baggy that apparently contained marijuana. A lighter, keys, a pack of cigarette papers, some change.\n\nHe took the pistol and a spare magazine from the man he shot coming down the stairs and dragged him into the living room, leaving a bloody streak on the carpet. The guy was still alive, apparently, because he was still bleeding, but Greenwood didn't check. Or care.\n\nGreenwood went back upstairs and used a wet towel to bring Anne around. Helped her downstairs and through the kitchen, trying to avoid the puddles of blood. In the garage he put her in the passenger seat and belted her in.\n\nAfter he got the garage door raised manually, he backed out, put the car in park, and went over to the police car and looked in. Piles of electronic gear, some silverware, and bags of food. He pulled out two bags of canned goods and left the rest. Stowed it in his car and drove off. He didn't even look to see if the man sprawled on the lawn was still alive.\n\nAs he went through Clarksville on Route 32, Greenwood turned off the highway and threaded his way past darkened fast food joints and a closed filling station into the parking lot at the mall. Three cars sat in the huge lot.\n\nGreenwood got out of the car, taking a pistol, car keys, and a flashlight from the glove box with him. He passed a darkened wine store with its windows smashed out. An AT&T store had received similar treatment. He adjusted the pistol in his belt as he walked around to the front of the supermarket. The doors were open, the glass smashed out, and there were no lights.\n\nHe went inside, using the flashlight. The place had been ransacked. Not a crumb was left on the shelves, not even in the candy section. No cereal boxes, bags of flour, cans, none of that. The freezers were empty and the doors standing open. The pharmacy windows were shattered and the door that led behind the counter was wide open. A glance with the flashlight was enough. The pharmacy shelves were completely empty.\n\nNear the back of the store he found a body lying in the aisle. It was a man, in his sixties, perhaps, balding, a modest spare tire. His eyes were open, staring at nothing, and a dried trickle of blood showed on one corner of his mouth. He looked to Greenwood as if he had been trampled.\n\nGreenwood started to turn away when he realized he recognized the man. He couldn't remember his name, but he saw him occasionally in church and they nodded to each other.\n\nWe're all going to end up like this, Greenwood thought, and used his flashlight to leave the store and walk to his car.\n\nAnne was fully conscious. \"Where were you?\"\n\n\"In the supermarket. They cleaned it out.\" He didn't tell her about the body.\n\nHe used his flashlight to inspect the pistols. The empty one was a Glock with a fat handle. There didn't appear to be a safety. He managed to get the empty magazine out and a full one in. Pulled the slide back and let it go. He guessed it was ready to go, but he would have to try to shoot it to find out.\n\nThe other pistol was an old army .45. He tried to pull the slide back, but it wouldn't move. He found the safety. Clicked it off and now the slide came back, showing a gleam of brass. The hammer was all the way back. He carefully put the safety back on. The third pistol was similar, and also loaded.\n\nLincoln Greenwood started the engine of the car and steered through the empty parking lot and out onto the road that led to the highway, Route 32. Turned west and fed gas.\n\nIn Arizona that Thursday night, a crowd of four thousand people carrying candles marched on a Homeland Security detention facility. The facility, on an unused corner of Luke Air Force Base, was off-limits to the public, which tore down the fence with chains and trucks so the crowd could walk through.\n\nThe crowd stood in the darkness with their candles singing hymns for almost an hour. Then they walked up to the gate and went through it, even though the Homeland employees tried to stop them by threatening to arrest the whole crowd.\n\nThe officer in charge gave orders for his employees to fire upon the crowd, yet not a single shot was heard. The prisoners were released and accompanied the crowd, as did many of the Homeland Officers.\n\nIn Pittsburgh a similar crowd of peaceful protesters intent on storming a detention facility were fired upon by several guards. Two people died and three were injured. The crowd pressed in relentlessly, and when it left with the prisoners, two of the guards were dangling from light poles with barbed wire twisted around their necks.\n\nIn Michigan two people were trampled and three shot to death by guards when a crowd attempted to storm a detention facility. The crowd didn't get the prisoners, but all involved knew there would be a next time, and when it came the crowd would be armed.\n\nThe widespread power outage never became total, and neither did censorship at local radio and television stations and newspapers where federal censors had been driven out. It was small towns served by small power plants that informed the larger public about what was going on, and that became the equivalent of the colonists' committees of correspondence before the Revolutionary War.\n\nMore radio and television stations said whatever they pleased on the air. They were becoming more strident over Barry Soetoro's attempts to muzzle them or force them to report only government propaganda as contained in press releases. Of course, for every rebel radio or television station, there were three or four that obeyed the government's edicts, either because ownership or management were progressive liberals who believed wholeheartedly in Barry Soetoro or the censors had them buffaloed: it was impossible to tell which was the case by listening or watching the broadcasts.\n\nRadio audiences were almost exclusively in automobiles and pickup trucks. People at home who had solar power or an emergency generator watched television. The satellites were on the air, and a set of rabbit ears could pull in a local television station if there was one. Some of the rabbit ears were made out of coat hangers. Television audiences tended to be large: family and neighbors gathered in a living room that had service.\n\nAnd in some rural communities served by small local power plants, the electricity stayed on. Either the managers of the plants ignored federal orders or intimidated the Homeland Security or FEMA Gestapo. As long as the natural gas continued to flow through the pipe or the stockpile of coal lasted, the power plants were still in business, supplying hospitals, nursing homes, residences, and everyone else who used power, which was everyone, within their service area. In a blacked-out nation, a few islands of light continued to defy the darkness.\n\nDinner on Thursday evening at our hideout was another culinary masterpiece of MREs, hot sauce, and canned beans. I sat down beside Sarah with my plate. Everyone else was talking about the political situation, damning Soetoro, wondering what the tidbits meant that Willie and Armanti had gleaned from the short-wave.\n\nTimes were tough and getting tougher in Soetoro land. Power seemed to be off in all directions\u2014and the guys weren't hearing any utility repair crews chattering back and forth.\n\nWhile the others gabbed, Sarah whispered, \"What is going to become of us, Tommy?\"\n\nSarah Houston never needs an arm to lean on, but still she made the gesture, and I was touched. \"Hey, babe, I wish I knew.\"\n\n\"When do you think Admiral Grafton will be in good enough shape to travel?\"\n\nI thought about that. I'm not a doctor or trained medic, so I didn't want to move Grafton until it became absolutely necessary. And we had no better place to go. We were in a tactical trap with only one road in and out, yet being on the dead-end of a road to nowhere meant we would have to entertain few tourists. I didn't think the feds were looking for us; I suspected they had a lot of bigger problems to keep them busy. I explained this to Sarah.\n\n\"They could find us from the air,\" she pointed out.\n\n\"If they are looking. In the right place, that is. They probably aren't looking for us at all.\"\n\nCounting on an enemy's incompetence struck me as foolish, yet expecting efficiency from a bureaucracy was the definition of insanity.\n\nGrafton was definitely in less pain this evening. If he had to, he could walk to the restroom. Every other minute was spent sitting or lying down, and talking. Just now he was in the corner of the living room with Jack Yocke on one side and Sal Molina on the other. They were discussing all things Soetoro.\n\nIt seemed that Grafton's adventures with Sluggo Sweatt and his friends had loosened his tongue a good deal. In my on-and-off association with Jake Grafton in the past, I never heard him express a political opinion, which was proper for a serving officer. Don't criticize your superiors in front of the troops. Aye-aye, sir, and all that. However, after his boss fired him and tried to frame him for a murder plot and coup, he probably felt he owed his former superior nothing\u2014not deference, not respect, not silence, not the benefit of the doubt.\n\nI suspected that deep down Grafton thought he owed Barry Soetoro a bullet, the same debt he had paid to Sluggo Sweatt.\n\n\"So explain what is happening to America,\" Jake Grafton asked Sal Molina, the career White House insider.\n\nMolina took a moment to gather his thoughts. \"What we are seeing,\" he said, \"is a classic political reaction to a threatened loss of power. Politics as usual meant that the progressive liberals, who have captured the Democratic Party body and soul, were going to be voted out of office and would probably be out for decades, if they ever got back in. The world is changing quickly, which has profound implications for the Democrats' power-base, which rests solidly on the uneducated and unskilled in the center cities who are being increasingly marginalized in a world economy that is going to grow like a mushroom on steroids in the years ahead.\"\n\nJack Yocke, _Washington Post_ columnist, made a noise with his lips that sounded a bit like a Bronx cheer.\n\nSal Molina ignored the columnist and continued: \"You remember Moore's Law and what happened to computing power in the past fifty years. Gordon Moore was a tech executive who made a prediction in nineteen sixty-five that computing power would double every two years. It was a prediction for exponential growth, and those kinds of predictions rarely come true, and if they do, the growth doesn't last long. But the growth Moore predicted has lasted for fifty years, and the end of exponential growth is not in sight. Intel's latest microprocessor is thirty-five hundred times faster and ninety thousand times more efficient than its first one, the Intel 4004, which came out in nineteen seventy-one.\n\n\"Moore's Law applies to _all_ technological applications, although no other technologies grow at such a multiple of efficiency. The one that will change our world is hydraulic fracking of shale formations. Drilling a well two miles deep and running horizontal lines out as far as fifteen thousand feet in undulating formations is becoming more efficient, more technologically advanced, and cheaper. The cost for these wells keeps dropping. The ocean of oil and gas being produced drives the cost of these commodities down. Shale wells produce over half their output over their lives in the first year, so that makes the frackers the marginal producers; when the market can absorb it, they can supply vast quantities of oil and gas at lower and lower prices.\"\n\n\"I think I see it,\" Jake Grafton said. \"Traditional oil-producing nations will find they get less and less for their oil and their economies will stagnate.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Molina replied, \"but as the price of oil drops, the world benefits in countless ways. Industries can develop, billions of poor people will get better-paying jobs, prosperity will lift a great many boats. America will prosper. Natural gas is so cheap and abundant that industries that need lots of feed stock are coming back onshore. Low prices for gasoline and natural gas will stimulate every industry in America.\"\n\nYocke shook his head slowly. \"All that may be happening, but who can see it coming? Only fortune-tellers or readers of tea leaves.\"\n\n\"Barry Soetoro and the people on his staff see it coming,\" Sal Molina said bitterly. \"Why do you think he continually says climate change is one of the worst problems facing America and the world, when in fact there is no scientific proof whatsoever that man's activities on this planet have any statistically significant effect on the climate? Because the world of cheap oil and natural gas, with frackers here and in shale formations worldwide providing more production any time it makes economic sense to do so, is a direct threat to the Democratic Party power base. Good-paying new jobs at home mean the unions lose power, which means less money for Democratic candidates. The oil and gas industry's demand for skilled workers will require the companies involved to demand the school systems be reformed to teach the skills required, or they will teach the workers themselves. That threatens the teachers' unions, who are one of the main fund-raisers for Democrats and a huge source of votes, and they indoctrinate the young. So Soetoro has been trying to slow the oil and gas tidal wave with cries of climate change, which polls say eighty percent of the public think is a hoax, and by refusing to approve pipelines or allowing the bureaucracies to issue permits, and causing the bureaucracies to issue reams of regulations that drive up the cost of production. Still, as the cost of drilling and fracking goes down, more oil and natural gas can be produced at cheaper and cheaper prices.\n\n\"In our lifetimes\u2014indeed, in the remainder of the century\u2014oil and natural gas, like coal, will never be scarce; these commodities will become progressively cheaper, like computing power. And as they become cheaper, the economic and technical hurdles for renewable energy, such as solar and wind, become higher and higher with every passing day. In this brave new world we live in, once you get behind the technological curve, you can never catch up. Never, because the state of the art is progressing at an exponential pace! That's a corollary of Moore's Law.\"\n\n\"All this will drive the leftists bonkers,\" Grafton said.\n\n\"Indeed,\" Molina agreed. \"And they fund the Democratic Party.\"\n\nYocke jumped in again. \"So you are saying that Soetoro understands all this and has bet everything on his ability to turn the country into a socialist dictatorship?\"\n\nMolina frowned. \"I don't know that he understands what is happening. He is not a brilliant man. Average intelligence, perhaps. But he understands the political pressures he is getting from unions, from big-city Democrats, from environmentalists, and he can read polls. He hears from OPEC nations worried that their domination of the world oil industry is coming to an end, and with it their prosperity, of which, by the way, only a little trickled down. Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise, and as prosperity in the Arab world drops, it will become more virulent. Barry Soetoro understands _that_!\n\n\"The future of socialism is on display in Venezuela, which will collapse one of these days, done to death by cheap oil. Socialism depends on a huge percentage of the population being unable to survive in a changing world without government help. Entrepreneurship and technical progress promise a world with abundant cheap energy that will raise prosperity for everyone who has the education to participate. Two centuries of cheap energy have made America the most prosperous nation on earth.\n\n\"At heart Barry Soetoro is a socialist, and he loves power. Soetoro understands that in this evolving world of cheap energy, the Democratic Party as it exists will become an anachronism. So he is trying to change the game and come out on top. He and his allies are screaming about climate change and proposing regulations and taxes on energy as a way to increase the cost of energy. Regulations and taxes have devastating consequences on the poor because all those costs must be passed on. In effect, the climate changers have declared war on the poor people of the earth, and they blame the carnage on evil capitalists, banks, hedge funds, and the like: those rich bastards are the enemy.\"\n\n\"All this was discussed in your presence at the White House?\" Jack Yocke asked.\n\n\"In and out of my presence.\"\n\n\"And you fought Soetoro's political vision?\"\n\n\"Why do you think he threw me in a concentration camp?\"\n\n\"So why did Texas secede, or declare independence, whatever you want to call it?\"\n\n\"Texas is going to do well in the cheap-energy future,\" Sal Molina said. \"The people there understand that. The legislature didn't vote for poverty. They voted for a new, better, more prosperous future for everyone in Texas that felt threatened by Barry Soetoro's vision of a socialist utopia, with himself at the helm. Socialism drives taxes up\u2014to fund social justice, the socialists say\u2014and that makes everyone poor. That is socialism's fatal flaw. It has others, but that one always destroys socialism eventually.\"\n\n\"You are implying everyone is an economist,\" Yocke scoffed. \"They aren't.\"\n\nMolina made a gesture of impatience. \"Politics is about macro forces. Texas and the plains states are responding to macro forces that people feel. All thinking people do that, even the uninformed. When you fill up your car, you don't need a PhD in economics to understand that something profound is happening to the price of gasoline, and that something has huge, sublime implications.\n\n\"And you don't have to be a computer scientist to see and understand how computer technology has changed the lives of everyone on earth, except perhaps some pygmies in darkest Africa or headhunters in the Amazon. Cell phones are bringing the internet to places without electricity or running water. People in central Asia are selling goods worldwide on eBay. Computers are revolutionizing life on earth, and that revolution has just begun. Changes are going to happen faster and faster\u2014that's Moore's Law\u2014and change threatens politicians who are invested in the status quo.\"\n\n\"So Texas' actions after the declaration of martial law was the monkey wrench in Soetoro's plan,\" Jake Grafton said thoughtfully. \"That they didn't expect.\"\n\n\"They didn't,\" Molina acknowledged. \"They also thought the paramilitary police they installed in every federal bureaucracy would be able to control the population. And they thought the military would be loyal; they have been purging independent thinkers from the top ranks for years, people in whom they had political doubts.\"\n\n\"Civil war,\" Jack Yocke mused.\n\n\"Like Crackerjacks,\" Jake Grafton said. \"Remember those, with a surprise in every box?\"\nTWENTY-THREE\n\nAfter dinner Travis Clay and Willis Coffee went down to the guard cabin and in a little bit Willie Varner and Armanti Hall walked into the house. They were full of radio news, which they passed to Grafton, Yocke, and Molina.\n\nWe settled in for another night. Before we did, I took off Grafton's tape and bandages and rewrapped them. His bruises were turning yellow and green. That was good, I thought. There were no hematomas that I could see, and no bulges from busted ribs pushing against his skin. He really needed to be in a hospital, but he would never agree to that, even if there were a hospital we could get him into, which there wasn't.\n\n\"Thanks for getting me out of that camp,\" he said. \"If it weren't for you, I'd be dead by now.\"\n\n\"Forget it,\" I replied. \"But I must say, you have a real talent for getting yourself in messes.\"\n\nHe just grunted. I figured he must be doing some serious thinking about where we were going to go and how we were going to survive the next few days, or weeks, or years, when Yocke and Molina weren't bending his ear.\n\n\"We only have so much gasoline for the generators,\" I told him, \"and we need to save what we have for the one in the guard shack so we can monitor the security cameras. I'm going to turn off the one here in the house. There are candles and some kerosene, and we'll cook on the outdoor fireplace. Pour water from the creek into the commodes.\"\n\n\"Oh boy,\" Jake Grafton said.\n\n\"If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down.\" Tomorrow, I decided, I'd dream up something to keep Yocke and Molina busy. I told him that.\n\n\"Good,\" he said. \"Neither of them can handle being alone with their thoughts for very long. They've had no practice.\"\n\n\"I'll probably shoot a deer and let them butcher it. Fresh meat would be a treat.\"\n\nThen, out of nowhere, Grafton said, \"Molina is a cynical bastard. He's an economist, so maybe it's his training. He thinks all political behavior, or most of it, can be predicted based upon where the money is going. He's right to some extent, but life is a lot more complicated than that. He's sat over at the White House for years preaching that welfare, Social Security, disability, food stamps, and cell phones would win the hearts and minds of the low-skilled and unemployed. He knows that poor people are easily bought. It's everyone else he doesn't understand.\"\n\n\"How so?\" I ventured.\n\n\"People are motivated by a myriad of things. Religion, tradition, a sense of service, loyalty, curiosity, challenge, accomplishment, praise, patriotism, sometimes a kick in the ass, a sense of rightness. . .and greed, the most basic of human emotions. Greed has built civilization; greed is the reason entrepreneurs start businesses, inventors invent, businessmen try to earn profits. Greed is the reason we aren't still living in caves. _Most_ people want to earn more money so they can have a better life. Yet we could make a long list of human motivations and still not get every one on it.\n\n\"The people at the White House, including Barry Soetoro, don't understand America. None of them has ever been in the military, so they don't understand the men and women in uniform. They aren't religious, so they don't understand the deep antipathy so many feel toward abortion or gay marriage. They never worked manual labor jobs, so they don't understand those who do. They think marriage and traditional morality are old fashioned, so yesterday, so they don't understand those who believe in them. Most of them have never worked in private industry, so they think business is crooked and contemptible. Their political base is in the inner cities, yet they advocate policies that will keep people poor and fight policies that would give the poor a leg up. They are perfect hypocrites, con artists, traitors to the people who believe in them. They willingly tell lies to advance their political agenda, and are amazed when that outrages people.\n\n\"They think they can ram things down people's throats, and maybe they can, to some extent. Remember Willie Varner's comment the other night: 'Tastes like shit, but good'? No matter why you put up with something that tastes like shit, you can't get the taste out of your mouth. Shit is shit.\"\n\nHe paused, so I said, \"Soetoro picked staffers who thought like he did.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Yes-men. And of course women. That may be good for one's ego, but it's a lousy way to ensure you get good advice. Only a man who never ran anything would surround himself with staff that has only one point of view. Barry Soetoro is a lousy manager and a lousy politician; we're all paying for that. And he has another fatal flaw: he doesn't want to hear anything that conflicts with his opinions, or prejudices. He refuses to listen to intelligence that might make him revise an opinion or consider other options.\"\n\n\"There's a lot of that going around these days, especially in the universities.\"\n\nJake Grafton nodded. \"People with closed minds are always the ones who get the worst surprises,\" he said.\n\n\"One thing is for sure,\" I said. \"Soetoro's managed to change the political landscape in the United States, and I doubt if he likes the changes.\"\n\nI wanted to ask the admiral what he had learned from eavesdropping on the White House for the last six months, but decided not to. Sarah shouldn't have told me about it, and if I mentioned it to Grafton he would know I got it from Sarah. So I kept my mouth shut. The thought occurred to me that he had just told me his conclusions.\n\nBut I wondered. If I had listened to the conniving and plotting at the White House for six whole months, what would I have done? Whom would I have told? Who would believe me when I accused the president of the United States of plotting to subvert the Constitution, the Constitution that he was sworn to uphold, and declare himself a dictator? Who would have believed me if I accused him of waiting for a terrorist incident so he could declare martial law?\n\nThe answer of course was no one. Not a solitary soul on planet Earth. That was undoubtedly the conclusion that Jake Grafton reached.\n\nI finished my doctoring and told the admiral he was good to go.\n\nThe attack submarine _Texas_ , now the flagship of the Republic of Texas' Navy, ran just below periscope depth in the Gulf of Mexico. Loren Snyder called an all-hands conference in the control room. He would rather have convened his little congregation of seven in the wardroom, but he wanted to keep a person on the helm at all times. The water was only three hundred feet deep here, so if the sub rammed into the bottom, she might never come up again. Fortunately the floor of the gulf fell away as one proceeded away from the coast, becoming well over a mile deep in places.\n\nSnyder checked the depth, 240 feet; the heading, 130 degrees; the boat's speed on the inertial readout, eight knots.\n\nHe surveyed the faces of his crew. Submarine duty attracted smart, technically savvy people who were interesting to be around, which was why smart, technically savvy people enjoyed it. The challenge was constant and boredom rare.\n\nAda Fuentes was on the helm, Jugs Aranado was sipping coffee, George Ranta, Speedy Gonzales, Mouse Moore, and Junior Smith were drinking water or eating toast from a loaf Mouse made in the galley last night.\n\n\"Okay, folks,\" Loren said. \"We made it to sea. That was the first hurdle, and we got over it, and I thank you. I thought our chances of getting out of Galveston about fifty-fifty. In any event, we are out.\n\n\"A few words on how this Texas Navy sub is going to be run. I am the captain, and I will make all decisions and expect my orders to be obeyed. That said, I want and need advice from each and every one of you on how to run the boat and use it as a military weapon. I hope you will give me honest opinions, and I will use them to make the best decision I can. But once I have decided, that is the way it is going to be. No more debate.\"\n\nHe got nods from everyone standing around the plotting table in the center of the room.\n\n\"Our first problem for discussion is this: What are we going to do with this boat? Are we going to find someplace to hide and wait out the war, making the U.S. Navy worry about where we are and what we might be doing every minute of every day? Or are we going to use her as an attack boat? If we are, what are our targets? Where and how can we do the new Republic of Texas the most good? Your thoughts, please.\"\n\n\"If we don't do anything, the navy will stop worrying before long,\" Speedy Gonzales said. \"They'll assume we managed to submerge forever.\"\n\n\"Someone put two or three Tomahawks into power plants around Houston the other night,\" Jugs said. \"I assume they were launched from a surface ship. At least, I hope they were. If there is another attack boat out here we have major problems. They are fully manned and we aren't.\" She shrugged. \"Anyway, I suggest we put a fish into that surface combatant, then get out of this pond and into the Atlantic, preferably the Gulf Stream, where we can go deep.\"\n\n\"Ranta, you've been on the sonar. Any idea where that destroyer or frigate might be?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"I've been looking at the chart,\" Jugs said. \"If I were the skipper of that ship, I'd be in the middle of the deep water rigs off Louisiana and Texas. If I were him or her, I'd be worrying about this submarine.\"\n\n\"Tough operating around those rigs,\" Ranta said. \"Sonar will be crap.\"\n\n\"Our main problem is another attack boat out here. It'll be just as tough for them as it will be for us.\" Snyder's audience liked the idea that someone might be worried about what they would do.\n\nSnyder studied the chart. Deep down, he thought the best and safest course of action was to get out of the Gulf of Mexico and look for a warship in the Atlantic. The drawback was that choice would cede the gulf to the United States Navy.\n\n\"Can we operate among those platforms without ramming a platform leg?\" he mused aloud.\n\nJunior Smith said, \"We have to threaten Soetoro's navy some way, and keeping them away from the shipping channels to Houston seems worthwhile to me. Let's make 'em sweat.\"\n\n\"What about torpedoing a Louisiana production platform?\" Mouse Moore asked. \"Or a tanker loaded with Arabian oil? Soetoro's navy has to protect those tankers and platforms or the people of Louisiana are going to get huffy. Not to mention what will happen to insurance rates if one of those crude haulers gets torpedoed.\"\n\n\"Let me think about this,\" Loren Snyder said. \"We certainly can't go under a rig, but we can thread our way around them using the photonics mast. We'll have to get GPS fixes as often as possible, but let's not update the inertial until we are absolutely sure the feds haven't tinkered with the GPS satellites.\" He used a parallel ruler to plot a new course and gave the course to Ada Fuentes at the helm. She brought the boat around to the heading.\n\n\"And slow the boat. Five knots, I think. Ranta, we need you on the sonar for as long as you can stand it. Then I'll relieve you. I was the sonar officer on my first boat, and I think I remember most of it.\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir,\" they said.\n\n\"Thank you for your input,\" Snyder told his crew, who went off to the reactor and engineering spaces and, if they were off duty, to try to nap in a bunk. Sleep was precious.\n\nNow on a more easterly course, _Texas_ ghosted along through the heart of the sea.\n\nLoren Snyder busied himself in the control room, checking the computers and torpedo data computer, the TDC. He and Jugs were going to have to run all this stuff. As he worked he thought about his first submarine skipper, who drilled his crew mercilessly and ended up convincing himself and everyone aboard that the crew was the best in the fleet. Incidentally, they passed their Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI) with flying colors and won the Battle Efficiency E.\n\nSnyder picked up the intercom mike and keyed it: \"This is a drill, this is a drill. Runaway torpedo in Tube Two. This is a drill.\"\n\nHe hung the mike in its bracket and heard a loud \"Oh, shit!\" and then the sound of running feet.\n\nThat first night in September, F-16 Falcons from Lackland landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. An hour after midnight, the F-16s were gone again, fanning out to defend the B-52 Stratofortresses, which were beginning their start rituals. They were loaded with JDAMs, two-thousand-pound dumb bombs with a GPS seeker and steering that would guide them to their targets.\n\nJR Hays knew the GPS system was controlled by the United States government, which had the capacity to induce errors into the system, or shut it down altogether, but such an action would affect air navigation all over the earth, no doubt causing a few airliners to crash, and he doubted that the Soetoro administration was ready for the inevitable international political backlash that would cause. Not yet, anyway.\n\nThe B-52s came to life\u2014three of them, because another crew volunteered\u2014and slowly taxied to the takeoff end of the duty runway. The wind was still out of the northwest, so the runway was 33.\n\nElvin Gentry was in the lead bomber. He had flown in at dusk and had a hurried conference with JR and Nate Danaher, then went to the crew briefing.\n\nNo doubt Soetoro loyalists all over the area would have liked to alert Washington when the fighters arrived and took off, and burn up the lines when the B-52s serenaded the city on their climb-outs, but the local power company had obeyed Soetoro's orders and the electricity was off in the greater Shreveport area.\n\nB-52s were old airplanes. The first one flew in 1952. Between 1952 and 1962, when the production line was closed, the air force bought 744 of them at a cost of a couple of million dollars each. Informally and affectionately known by their crews as BUFFs, which stood for Big Ugly Fat Fuckers, they carried up to seventy thousand pounds of bombs at high subsonic speeds and were relatively cheap to operate. The design intended to replace them, the B-70 Valkyrie, was too expensive. The variable-geometry B-1 Lancer and the stealth B-2 Spirit, both of which actually made it into service, were also too expensive to acquire in large numbers, and had high operating costs. Despite the air force's institutional predilection for faster, sexier, and newer, economics reared its ugly head; the air force continually upgraded the B-52s and planned to keep them in service until 2045, over ninety years after the first one had flown. The only version still flying was the B-52H. The air force had invested an estimated $100 million into each one, so far, mere peanuts compared with the cost of newer warplanes. Twenty B-2 stealth bombers had cost Uncle Sam $2 billion _each_.\n\nThe B-52 crews planned on delivering two JDAMs on a support for each targeted bridge. The hope was the two bombs would drop one span in the water, or at least do enough damage that the bridges would no longer support sixty-three-ton M1A2 Abrams tanks.\n\nAnd if tomorrow some bridges were still standing, Gentry planned on launching F-16s carrying two one-thousand-pound JDAMs each. He was willing to trade planes for the bridges.\n\nGentry would have loved to have an airborne early-warning airplane in the sky tonight, but he didn't have one. His F-16s would have to make do by listening to the freqs GCI sites used to control the U.S. fighters. Gentry worried about F-22s, stealth fighters, which could detect and shoot down fighters and bombers of ranges as far as a hundred nautical miles. What he didn't know was that the F-22 wing had sent all the pilots who were willing to fight for Barry Soetoro, all four, to Barksdale. So there were not going to be F-22s in the air tonight. Had he known, he would have been much less apprehensive than he was, and he might even have stayed on the ground tonight. As it was, he thought the risks were so high that he was unwilling to send his aircrews into combat unless he shared the risks with them.\n\nJR Hays, no man to evade risks himself, reluctantly agreed. He didn't want to lose Elvin Gentry, but he had to trust Gentry's judgment and leadership abilities or get someone else. Barry Soetoro would have never understood.\n\nGentry had never before ridden in a Stratofortress, so the pilot's exercise of the Crosswind Crab Control while they taxied felt spooky. The wheels continued to track the centerline of the taxiway, but the airplane turned to point up twenty degrees to the left, then swung back to point twenty degrees to right.\n\nOn the runway, the wind from the right demanded a crab in that direction, so the centerline of the runway was visible out the left side of the pilot's windshield. The BUFF accelerated with all eight engines pulling, they reached decision speed right on time for the load they were carrying, and began rotating five to ten knots before liftoff speed. It wasn't much of a rotation, a bit over five degrees. Then the giant green bomber parted company with the earth.\n\nOn climb out the pilot turned to the general, just to see how he was doing. His face was lit by the glow of the red instrument lights. Gentry was struck by his youth. Captain Rogers, flying a bomber from the 1950s, was all of twenty-seven years old. Gentry felt like a fossil.\n\nJDAMs were units that screwed into freefall bombs. They were comprised of a GPS receiver, a small computer, and canards that steered the bomb to its target, which was a preprogrammed bulls-eye defined by GPS coordinates. Accuracy was only as good as the GPS coordinates programmed in, so satellite maps of the earth had to be consulted.\n\nThe delivery crew, in this case in a B-52, had to use the onboard weapons system to drop the bomb into an invisible cone with its tip resting on the target and the large open end up in the sky. If the bomb were placed within the cone, it could steer itself to a bulls-eye. If it were released outside the cone, the canards would not be able to get the bomb back into the cone, so it would miss. This nebulous cone was defined by the capability of the canards that steered the bomb, by the prevailing wind, and by the angular velocity imparted to the weapon by the airplane that released it.\n\nGuided weapons were the future of aerial warfare, Elvin Gentry believed. The days of dropping huge numbers of dumb bombs in the hope that one or two would hit the target you wanted destroyed were history.\n\nGPS-guided bombs were a technological leap into the future from laser-guided bombs, which steered themselves to a dot of laser light projecting upon the target, projected by the bombing aircraft or a spotter aircraft, occasionally a person on the ground. Unlike laser-guided systems that were useless in bad weather, GPS-guided bombs hit their bulls-eyes all the time, whether they were falling through clear air, clouds, rain, snow, blowing dust, or smoke\u2014as long as you had the correct coordinates for your target: type in a wrong digit somewhere and you missed.\n\nThe cockpit of the B-52 was cramped, almost like a two-seat tactical jet. Gentry sat in the jump seat aft of the pilots, and he didn't have an ejection seat. After everyone else ejected, he was supposed to go to the lower level, or deck, and jump through the hole in the fuselage left by the recently departed navigator or bombardier. It sounded iffy, but if worse came to worst. . . .\n\nThe F-16s were out there somewhere ahead on a fighter sweep, looking for bad guys, protecting the bombers from beyond the range of fighter missiles. That was the theory, which was only as good as the fighter pilots. Elvin Gentry consoled himself with the thought that we all have to die sometime. At least, he reflected, he wasn't in a B-17 on the way to Berlin, harassed every mile by flak and German fighter pilots who knew their business. Those B-17 guys had balls, he thought. This little jaunt tonight was a piece of cake.\n\nHe keyed the intercom and told the crew, \"A piece of cake.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" the copilot said. \"Sir.\"\n\nIn minutes, as they were still climbing for altitude, the B-52s split up, each headed for its initial fix, to begin a series of bomb runs on bridges. The bombardiers had been plotting their courses and run-ins to their targets, and were now checking their ordnance panels.\n\nGentry heard the cryptic transmissions on the intercom of his BUFF, heard the pilot and copilot running through checklists, and heard the countdown begin to the first bomb release, on the highway bridge on I-20 at Vicksburg. And on the adjacent railroad bridge. The tops of the cones overlapped, so the BUFF would drop four one-ton weapons on this run. He saw the light on the instrument panel as the bomb bay doors came open, he heard the countdown, then the bombs released and he felt the airplane give a jump upward as it became four tons lighter in a fraction of a second. Felt the plane bank into a turn. The next targets were the bridges at Natchez.\n\nSo far, so good, Gentry thought. Then he realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled and forced himself to breathe deeply.\n\nWalter Ohnigian was a career F-16 pilot. Flying fighters was all he had ever wanted to do since he watched the Thunderbirds perform at an air show when he was twelve. He had attended the Air Force Academy, worked like a slave to get into flight school, and once in gave it everything he had to get fighters. He had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, had graduated from two courses at USAF Weapons School, and had served a tour as an instructor on F-16s. Along the way he found time to serve a tour in a Navy F\/A-18 squadron, which meant a nine-month cruise aboard an aircraft carrier. He had planned to stay in the air force until they forced him to retire.\n\nThe Texas Declaration of Independence changed his mind. Now he was a Texas fighter pilot. His decision had been easy; born and raised in Brady, Texas, he loathed Barry Soetoro and all he stood for.\n\nSusie Ohnigian, from Colorado Springs, was a tougher sell. She had met Walt when he was a cadet and knew the blood, sweat, and tears he had put in to succeed at his chosen profession. Basically nonpolitical, Susie loved her husband. She knew military aviation has its risks, even in peacetime, and she consoled herself with the indisputable truth that God was in charge of our lives, and He would take Walt when it suited His purpose. He hadn't yet, and she prayed that He wouldn't until they were both old and full of years. She took her marriage vows before the altar of God, and thought it her duty to stand by her husband for as long as they both lived, so with some misgivings, she concurred with his choice.\n\nTonight he was over southeastern Mississippi, listening to the published approach and departure frequencies for Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle. Ohnigian thought that by the time the air force figured out that bombers were attacking the Mississippi bridges, it would be too late to launch and catch the bombers, which would be several hundred miles west. On the other hand, if Eglin had fighters on a combat air patrol, they could intercept the BUFFs. Or intercept the Texas F-16s.\n\nSo he listened on all the frequencies they might use, and he used the radar in his fighter to sweep the skies for airplanes. Targets. Bad guys. Fighters that might attack the friends in the BUFFs. Fortunately civilian traffic was prohibited by the Soetoro regime. Any targets Ohnigian and Free saw tonight on their radars were enemy airplanes. Or outlaw airplanes whose pilots had decided to roll the dice and take their chances.\n\nThe F-16s flown by Walter Ohnigian and his wingman Drew Free had two AMRAAMS (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles) and two Sidewinders each, an internal M-61A Vulcan 20-mm cannon, and a two-thousand-pound external fuel tank. No doubt if there were Eglin F-16 fighters aloft, they were similarly armed.\n\nThe AIM-120C AMRAAM was seven inches in diameter and twelve feet long, flew at Mach four, had an active radar homing seeker, carried a forty-pound high-explosive warhead, and had a maximum range of fifty-seven miles. The AIM-9 Sidewinder was a short-range (up to twenty-two miles) missile with infrared homing; in other words, a heat seeker. It was five inches in diameter and nine feet long and carried a twenty-pound warhead. The latest versions could turn over ninety degrees to chase their targets at speeds up to 2.7 Mach, and could even lock on a target up to ninety degrees off the airplane's boresight. Sidewinder was the perfect dogfight weapon: when it locked on your quarry's tailpipe signature, the hunter squeezed it off and the Sidewinder did the rest. Sidewinder even had a limited head-on capability.\n\nTonight Walter Ohnigian hoped and prayed that there were no F-22 Raptors aloft. If there were, he would never see them on radar. His first indications of an F-22 would be a Raptor radar locked on him, so he kept his radar warning indicator in his instrument scan. Nothing so far.\n\nHe checked that he was on Eglin Air Force Base tower frequency. Yes, two fighters were taxiing. A flight of two. The lead had a laconic, gravelly voice.\n\nHe headed that way and eased his fighter into a climb. He wanted to be as high as possible so he would have an energy advantage. His wingman to his right and aft stepped up several hundred feet.\n\nNow the Eglin fighters were airborne and switching to Departure Control. He pushed the button on the radio for the new frequency.\n\nAnd he heard that voice again. Jesus, it sounded like Johnny O'Day! Of all people, Johnny O'Day, his roommate at the Air Force Academy, way back when.\n\nAnother transmission to Departure. Hell yes, it _was_ Johnny O'Day, and he flew F-16s. Headed for the B-52s over the Mississippi.\n\nThe bombs from Gentry's BUFF smashed into the bridges at Vicksburg. They were falling supersonic, so no one on the ground had a clue except for the faint, distant rumble of jet engines way up there in the night. The explosions on each bridge were so close together they sounded like one big bang, which rolled through Vicksburg and woke up several thousand folks.\n\nSlowly, ponderously, the weight of the now unsupported bridge spans carried them down into the dark water of the big river. There were only two trucks on the highway bridge, since traffic on the interstates these days was down to a trickle. One driver on the highway bridge managed to stop his truck; the other rode the span into the river and drowned in his cab.\n\nThe railroad bridge actually had a train on it, rumbling along at eight miles per hour. The bombs went through a railcar, penetrated the track and ballast, and detonated against the targeted abutment. The spans on either side of the abutment began sagging, dragging the train along, down, down into the river.\n\nThe scene would be repeated tonight up and down the river. America was being cut in half with surgical precision.\n\nVictory in a modern dogfight usually goes to the pilot in the most technologically advanced fighter, who will usually detect his enemy first and shoot first. Once missiles are launched, the rest is up to the missiles, those marvels of modern weaponry, which, if fired within their operating envelope, are quite deadly.\n\nTonight Walter Ohnigian fired two AMRAAMs at the Eglin fighters at a distance of fifty miles, head on. They raced off downhill at their targets and had soon accelerated to four times the speed of sound, the active radar in the nose of the missiles probing the night for their targets.\n\n\"Fox Three,\" Walter Ohnigian said over the radio, a transmission he knew Johnny O'Day would hear. He held the transmit button on the stick down and continued, \"Johnny, this is Oboe. You better eject.\" Johnny was married to an operating room nurse and they had two kids. Ohnigian owed him the warning.\n\nIn his fighter, climbing through ten thousand feet, Johnny O'Day's eyes automatically scanned the sky for the pinpoint exhausts of the rocket engines in missiles. Oboe\u2014Ohnigian! After wasting several seconds, he looked at his radar screen.\n\nAnd saw the tiny dots streaking toward his aircraft and that of his wingman.\n\nHe pumped off chaff and tried to turn a square corner. He was pulling eight Gs when the first missile went off just below the belly of his fighter and showered it with shrapnel that penetrated into the delicate internal organs of his steed. One second later the fighter exploded.\n\nThe second AMRAAM exploded as it went through the expanding cloud of pieces.\n\nO'Day's wingman had also turned violently to avoid the oncoming missiles, so after he was sure they had missed him, he had to turn back into the threat to acquire a firing solution on the bogeys on his radar screen. He was turning hard when the first AMRAAM from Ohnigian's wingman actually struck his machine and exploded. Like Johnny O'Day, he died in the fireball.\nTWENTY-FOUR\n\nTexas Ranger Parker Konczyk went to see Colonel Tenney of the TxDPS. \"We think there's a sniper casing the roofs of buildings around the capitol,\" he said. \"He's dressed in a jumpsuit that bears the logo of an air conditioning company. We spotted him with a drone.\"\n\n\"What air conditioning company?\"\n\nKonczyk told him. \"We talked to the owner. He had the van for sale and an Anglo came along, paid him ten grand for it. He wanted fifteen, but the most the guy would pay was ten, cash, and the owner was way behind on his child support, so he took it. He signed the title and never even got the guy's name.\"\n\nKonczyk used an iPad to show Colonel Tenney video from the drone. The man in a jumpsuit on the roof of a bank three hundred yards from the capitol didn't even bother looking at the rooftop-mounted HVAC units, but inspected the roof and lased the capitol and some other buildings, including the hotel with the underground parking garage that was being used by the Texas government as a bomb-proof bunker. \"That location hasn't been published, but half the people in Austin know the government is down there.\"\n\n\"A rangefinder?\"\n\n\"It looks like a laser rangefinder, a small unit that he holds in both hands up to his eye.\"\n\nThe picture on the iPad went to another building and apparently the same man scouted out that roof. Finally, pictures from the drone of the van parked by the curb.\n\n\"So what is your recommendation?\"\n\n\"Right now all we have this guy for is not registering the van in his own name, and a few trespass charges. If we arrest him he'll be out on bail in an hour. And he might not be a sniper; he might be a scout.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"Or we can wait until someone appears on the roof with a rifle.\"\n\nThey discussed it, and decided that the best course was to keep the van under constant surveillance, and the best way to do that and not spook the suspect was to use drones. Konczyk only had access to one.\n\n\"Get a couple more from the National Guard,\" Colonel Tenney said. \"Let's just watch this guy for a while, find out where he is staying and who he sees, and try to figure out how big this conspiracy really is, if there is one.\"\n\nChairman of the JCS General Martin L. Wynette was working late at his office in the Pentagon. The problem he faced was the disintegration of the United States armed forces, all of them, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The reports from commanders all over the nation were appalling: huge numbers of troops were not available for duty. In some major commands the AWOL rate approached forty percent. Another thirty or forty percent refused to bear arms against Americans, or as they phrased it, to fight for that son of a bitch Soetoro. Sailors on navy ships were refusing to go to sea. Commandos and paratroopers were refusing to go to Texas, Oklahoma, or Alabama, which had just declared its independence. Pilots were refusing to fly, which made it impossible to get fighters aloft to protect military targets or to attack targets in Texas. The most powerful military force on the planet was shattering like old crystal right before his eyes.\n\nMaybe Soetoro was right, Wynette mused. Maybe it was time to start standing some people against the wall and shooting them to inspire the rest.\n\nWynette and several senior members of the JCS staff were trying to figure out just how many willing fighters Barry Soetoro actually had and how to get the willing to where they could fight when the news came in that the interstate and railroad bridges over the Mississippi at Vicksburg had been bombed and were impassable. Even as he tried to digest this information, he learned that bridges were being bombed from Baton Rouge to well above Memphis. Four bridges in Memphis had gone into the river. It was thought that the bombers were B-52s from Barksdale, but of course that was merely speculation.\n\nOn top of all of this were the plights of cities such as Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, metropolitan New York, and Boston. And Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. For seventy-five years architects had created urban buildings that were sealed units and uninhabitable without electrical power. Millions of city dwellers were abandoning the cities for the supposedly better life in the countryside, where some planned to throw themselves on the mercy of the rustics while others planned to rob, steal, and kill their way to a better life.\n\nWynette wondered what the heck was going to come of all this. According to radio reports, they were partying in Montgomery tonight. The governor had made a speech, a \"rant\" according to the reporter on the radio, in which he told Barry Soetoro to go to hell and do something anatomically impossible to himself when he got there. The lights were back on in most of Alabama, and the governor vowed they were going to stay on even if the Alabama National Guard had to defend the plants against Soetoro's troops and thugs. He also vowed that a copy of the Ten Commandments were going up in every courtroom and classroom in Alabama; if the justices of the United States Supreme Court didn't like it, he said, they could come to Alabama and take them down, if they could.\n\nIt was obvious to Martin Wynette that Soetoro's propaganda campaign to blame the electrical outages on Texans and right-wing fanatics hadn't moved the needle. Barry Soetoro and his minions were taking the blame.\n\nWynette was trying to put this mess into perspective when the assistant chairman, a four-star admiral, knocked on the sill of the open door and, when Wynette glanced up, strolled into his office and closed the door behind him. He was the only officer in the navy that outranked the chief of naval operations, Admiral Cart McKiernan.\n\nHis name was Hiram Gregory Ray. He was a feisty little cuss, a fighter pilot, and somewhere along the line he had acquired the nickname of Sugar. He was anything but sweet, but the people who worked for him regarded him in awe. Brilliant, technically savvy, aggressive, and competent, he could fire up a room full of sailors and he could kiss a congressman's ass so subtly and perfectly that the bastard would fart red, white, and blue for months.\n\nSugar Ray knew Wynette's peccadillos and usually tried not to fret the boss unnecessarily. After a day spent watching the United States and the armed forces come apart at the seams, he was in no mood tonight to stroke the chairman.\n\n\"I think we can wave good-bye to America,\" he said, \"unless that damned fool in the White House turns the juice back on. New York, Chicago, and LA are in meltdown. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines deserting in droves, refusing to enforce Jade Helm mandates, refusing to fight, refusing to back up the police. . . . Why in the name of God did that idiot turn off the power?\"\n\n\"He blamed it on the Texans,\" Wynette said sourly. \"He's a disciple of Joseph Goebbels. The truth will never catch up to a lie. 'If you like your doctor, you can keep him. If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.' He's that kind of guy.\"\n\nSugar Ray tossed a message on the desk. \"Here's a tidbit that will make your evening. Soldiers at Fort Benning are deserting and taking their weapons with them. They are driving out of the base in trucks. The CG there says all order and discipline are lost. If he tries to arrest people, he is afraid that the MPs will refuse to obey, and if they do obey, he's afraid the people he wants to arrest will shoot back. He asked the chief of staff for guidance.\"\n\nWynette picked up the message and read it. \"A complete breakdown of order and discipline,\" he muttered.\n\n\"I think it's high time we arrest Soetoro and take over the government.\"\n\nMartin L. Wynette stared at Sugar Ray for several seconds, took a deep breath, and said, \"I'll pretend you didn't say that.\"\n\n\"Oh, shove it, Marty! Soetoro is attempting to become a dictator, and he has got to be stopped. We should arrest him or shoot him. Personally, I'd like to shoot him, and I volunteer to pull the trigger, but I'll settle for arrest and solitary confinement.\"\n\nWynette shook the message at Ray. \"And just who the hell do you think we're going to lead over to Pennsylvania Avenue to do all this arresting? Or will it be just you and me with a couple of pistols and any beggars with signs that we can pick up on street corners along the way?\"\n\nSugar Ray cocked his head as he looked at his boss. \"Have you sent any of these numbers\u2014\" he gestured at the messages on Wynette's desk \"\u2014over to the White House?\"\n\n\"Not yet. Tomorrow morning is soon enough.\"\n\n\"What do you think the reaction will be?\"\n\n\"By God, I don't\u2014\"\n\nSugar Ray interrupted and finished the sentence for him. \"You don't know. Civil society in this country is coming apart in the large cities. Old people and babies are dying like flies in un-air-conditioned apartments and tenements; people are fighting for food, looting grocery stores, banks, liquor, and jewelry stores; breaking into ATMs; shooting at police at every opportunity. . .and the military is collapsing. Man, we went back to the stone age in less than ten days! I hope you appreciate the delicious irony of the fact that Soetoro fucked the very people who voted for him.\"\n\nWynette grunted. He thought political loyalty was an oxymoron.\n\nSugar Ray wasn't done. He said to the general, \"Tomorrow morning Soetoro will probably want some heads, and yours is first on the block.\"\n\nWynette didn't reply to that comment.\n\n\"But that's in the short term,\" the admiral said, dismissed that little problem with a flip of his hand. \"Eventually Soetoro is going down hard, and anyone who saluted and said, 'Yes, sir,' may go on the gallows with him. Hitler's and Mussolini's generals didn't fare so well.\"\n\nAdmiral Ray stood and leaned toward Wynette, braced himself with his fingertips on the general's desk, and said, \"My assessment is that this situation is completely out of Soetoro's control. If we lock up Soetoro and everyone else in the White House we can lay hands on, maybe we can stop a humanitarian disaster and save millions of lives. Maybe we can even save our miserable country and some of those morons who voted for Soetoro. . . _twice_.\"\n\nWynette looked at Sugar Ray for a long moment, then asked softly, \"Who have you talked to about this?\"\n\nRay straightened up and took a deep breath. \"All the other chiefs. I was hoping it would be unanimous, but it isn't. The commandant and army chief are with me, but CNO and the air force want to think about things.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Wynette said dryly, \"treason _is_ a big step.\"\n\n\"Yeah\u2014and Barry Soetoro is striding out. How long are we going to wait, Marty, before we call him on it? In a better day to come, Americans are going to ask that question of us.\"\n\nWynette sat stolidly, eyes focused on infinity.\n\nSugar Ray shrugged, then headed for the door. \"I'm going home and getting some sleep,\" he tossed over his shoulder, and pulled the door shut behind him.\n\nWalter Ohnigian actually flew two flights that night, and landed as dawn streaked the eastern sky. The B-52s were safely back on the ground at Barksdale and the Mississippi bridges all had at least one span in the river, from Baton Rouge to Memphis.\n\nOhnigian was numb. He let his wingman do the debrief while he stretched out on a couch in the ops building.\n\nSo Johnny O'Day was dead and he had killed him. Holy mother. . .\n\nWhat was he going to say to Johnny's wife, Ruby? Two little kids. . .\n\nHow was he going to tell Susie, his wife, about this? She and Ruby had double-dated the roommates. The marriages were just a year apart.\n\nStaring at the ceiling, he decided that Ruby and Susie might forgive him, someday. The real problem was how he was going to forgive himself.\n\nAt Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Major General Douglas Seuss was trying to figure out how to comply with Pentagon demands that he send an armored column from the 4th Infantry Division to fight the rebels in Texas. Most of his soldiers were refusing to fight fellow Americans, and Washington was demanding court-martials. That didn't strike Doug Seuss as a productive idea. He needed soldiers who would fight, not people looking for an opportunity to desert to avoid a combat they thought morally wrong.\n\nSeuss had been trading messages with the Pentagon. West Texas was the finest terrain on this side of the Atlantic for tank operations, but he was unwilling to commit his tanks without air protection. There was no place on the naked plains for tanks to hide if they were attacked from the air. Seuss told the generals in the Pentagon that he was unwilling to sacrifice his troops needlessly to make political points. \"You must guarantee me air cover for my tanks or they will not be committed,\" he said flatly. His worry was that he would get the promise of air cover, commit the tanks, and friendly fighters would never appear while Texas fighters would. That, he thought, was the way the wind was blowing.\n\nSifting through the readiness reports and the results of interviews with his soldiers, he found a company of the 10th Special Forces Group had sixty percent of their troops willing to fight. He called the colonel in command of the group, Colonel Kevin Crislip, into his office. After a heart-to-heart talk, he decided to send the colonel and his volunteers to Texas to blow up some highway and railroad bridges.\n\n\"We've got to do something,\" Seuss said. They looked at maps and decided to blow some bridges on U.S. Route 287 north of Amarillo and several bridges on the nearby railroad. Route 287 was a major truck route between the Pacific Northwest via Denver and Dallas and east Texas. The railroad carried a lot of freight. Bridges were good targets for tactical air, yet the Pentagon was demanding action from the Carson troops, so the ball was in Seuss' court.\n\nCrislip wanted to use CH-47 Chinooks to insert and extract his men, and Seuss agreed. In at dusk, out at dawn was a tactic that would minimize the chance of air attack while the commandos were on the ground. Both officers thought the chances of the Special Forces troopers running into Texas ground forces were slim or none at all, but just to be sure Predators would be launched tomorrow at dawn and reconnoiter. Tomorrow the Green Berets would ride Chinooks to the Army's Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site on the Purgatoire River, and launch from there for Texas at dusk.\n\nAs Colonel Crislip was leaving, Seuss said, \"And colonel\u2014I never dreamed I'd have to say this\u2014make sure the men you take are politically reliable.\" That was the jargon of the latest Pentagon directive. General Seuss found that phrase offensive in the extreme, smacking as it did of the old soviet military and their political commissars, but what could one do?\n\nGeneral Martin L. Wynette was a worried man when he rode to the White House that Friday morning, the second day of September, in his limousine. Arizona had declared its independence, the fourth state to do so, along with Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama. Other states were meeting this afternoon and tonight and no doubt some of them would pass declarations of independence.\n\nThe people of the big cities from coast to coast were about out of endurance. Without electricity, there was no way to escape the summer heat, no running water, no way to flush toilets, no way to preserve food. Soon there would be no food to preserve, since trucks couldn't deliver without fuel, and even if they could, they wouldn't deliver to looted stores. Calls to police, fire departments, and paramedics went unanswered. Houses burned down with no one there to rescue the kids or fight the blaze. People died from heart attacks because they couldn't get to the hospital. People ran out of medications and couldn't get more. Given time, people would learn to cope, those who survived, but in the interim a lot of people were going to die.\n\nIn Chicago, the Black Panthers had attacked a police station. It looked as if a race war was about to explode in the city. The mayor was begging the governor for National Guard troops.\n\nWynette's aide, Major General Stout, wisely kept his mouth firmly shut that morning as the limo carried them through the streets of the nation's capital.\n\nInside the executive mansion, the soldiers found the president flanked by his chief of staff, Al Grantham, and his senior political advisor, Sulana Schanck.\n\n\"The Texans bombed the bridges across the lower Mississippi last night, Mr. President,\" Wynette said. \"The reports we received at the Pentagon said all the highway and rail bridges were down from Baton Rouge to above Memphis. It's going to take at least a month, perhaps six weeks, before we are ready to mount an invasion.\"\n\n\"Why not drop paratroopers?\"\n\nWynette explained that lightly armed paratroopers didn't have the combat power to hold out long without relief. They were shock troops and not equipped to invade and conquer enemy territory.\n\n\"And then there is the problem of numbers. We are having extreme difficulty keeping people who will fight. About half the army and air force is AWOL. The navy's numbers are better only because they have ships at sea. There are dozens of ships on the east coast that are unable to get under way because the crews have abandoned the ships.\"\n\nSulana Schanck's eyes narrowed and her voice was hard. \"It is time you shot some people, General. I think perhaps ten people from every unit, while the rest of them watch.\"\n\nAl Grantham seemed inspired. \"You've got to teach those damned kids that they have no choice. They are in the United States armed forces, and by God, they'll fight or die.\"\n\n\"As I've said before, I don't have the authority to issue such an order,\" Wynette objected. Indeed he didn't. The Uniform Code of Military Justice didn't provide for summary executions. Islamic militaries might do them, Wynette knew, but those of civilized nations didn't.\n\n\"You do now,\" Grantham said. \"The president has declared martial law and he is the commander in chief.\"\n\nWynette recognized that he was being made the fall guy. \"I'll need a direct order signed by the president,\" he insisted.\n\n\"No, by God, you won't,\" Grantham roared. \"You are going to take the responsibility, General. _You_! _You_ will write the order and sign it. _You_ will have it transmitted to every major command and ship. _You_ will demand that the commanding generals or officers or whoever is in charge find ten people who refuse to fight and have them executed. The names will be reported to _you_. Have I made myself clear?\"\n\n\"Write it out, Grantham.\"\n\n\"No,\" Barry Soetoro said in his coldest voice. \"You'll do it, General. That's a direct order from me. And summary justice for those who disobey orders applies to the Pentagon too, to the E-Ring.\"\n\nSo there it was. Shoot people or we shoot you.\n\nWhile Martin Wynette was swallowing that, Sulana Schanck started in. \"We hear that there is some talk in the E-Ring about a coup. What have you heard about that, General?\"\n\nWynette's first impulse was to deny he had heard anything, but under the stares of Soetoro, Grantham, and the bitch Schanck, he decided that answer might get him shot. There was no telling what they had heard, who had whispered, if anyone had. Schanck was probably just shooting in the dark. Perhaps. Or perhaps not.\n\nSoetoro smacked the table with his open palm. \"Answer, damn it. Don't sit there thinking up a lie.\"\n\n\"The assistant chairman, Admiral Sugar Ray, told me that he, the army chief of staff, and the air force chief of staff did discuss a coup. That is all I know.\"\n\n\"Did you put him under arrest?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Ray discusses treason with you and you do not arrest him? Whose side are you on, General?\"\n\nFor the first time in many years, Martin Wynette felt the cold hand of fear grip him with paralyzing fierceness. He had a powerful urge to urinate and somehow managed to hold it in. But he lost control of his face, and knew it.\n\nSoetoro took obvious pleasure at Wynette's discomfort. He glanced at Schanck and made a little motion with his head. She got up and left the room.\n\n\"Did you order the Tomahawks launched?\" Al Grantham demanded.\n\n\"Yes. We should have waited for night, but the missiles will be on their way momentarily, as soon as they can be programmed. Two destroyers will shoot fifty each. They will take out the twenty largest power plants in Texas.\"\n\nGrantham nodded. Once.\n\nWynette said, \"All of the missiles won't get through. In the daytime fighters can find cruise missiles and shoot them down.\"\n\n\"They might get a few,\" Barry Soetoro said, \"and the people of Texas will hear and see them flying over, on their way to cause havoc.\" He smiled. \"The missiles will deliver an unmistakable message that we are in charge and that disobedience has its price.\"\n\nMartin Wynette was enough of a soldier to know that using military weapons to deliver political messages was a good way to lose a war, but he held his tongue. Hitler had tried delivering messages with V-1 and V-2 rockets and that hadn't worked so well. Lyndon Johnson tried to send explosive messages to the North Vietnamese and failed rather dismally. Truly, Wynette thought, Soetoro was a fool.\n\nArmanti Hall and I were exploring the roads in his pickup truck when we saw a little house fifty yards or so from the road, a strip of twelve-foot-wide asphalt that wound around over the hills following the contours. It was a nice enough little clapboard house, but the reason it attracted my attention was the large garden beside it. The flora it contained was big and tall.\n\nWe parked and strolled over. We didn't get very far before we realized that lying near the garden gate was a body.\n\nAs we walked up I could see it was a man. He had that totally collapsed look of the dead that are in the process of returning to the earth. From ten feet away, I could see the dark mottled color of his skin and the bloating of his abdominal cavity, so I guessed he had been dead at least a day, and perhaps two.\n\n\"Don't go any closer to that gate,\" a woman's voice said.\n\nWe turned to face the house. A small old woman with iron-gray hair was sitting in a rocking chair under a roof on a flagstone patio that was just inches above ground level. Across her knees was a lever-action rifle. Her right hand rested on the stock above the trigger.\n\n\"Looks like this gent expired suddenly,\" I said conversationally.\n\n\"It come on him quick,\" she acknowledged. \"I gave him fair warnin' and he decided he needed my tomatoes and beans more than I did. Didn't think I would shoot, I suspect.\"\n\n\"Did you know him?\"\n\n\"Not by name. Seems like I seen him across the mountain at Walmart from time to time, but only to nod to. He was one of the hollow rats, I'm thinkin', used to sittin' on his porch drinkin' beer, waitin' for the welfare check. That and huntin' and fishin' all year 'round. Doubt if he had a garden or much food laid by.\"\n\n\"So he wanted yours.\"\n\n\"So he did. He don't need it now.\"\n\n\"Where's his ride? How did he get here?\"\n\n\"The people he was with drove off after the shot like the hounds of hell were chasin' them. I thought they'd go get the sheriff, but I ain't seen hide nor hair of a lawman, unless you're lawmen.\"\n\n\"We aren't. My name is Tommy Carmellini. My friend is Armanti Hall.\"\n\n\"My name is Angelica Price,\" she said. \"I see you're wearing pistols. Are you with the gover'ment?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"The pistols are just fashion statements in these troubled times, strictly for social purposes. I'm a peaceful man, myself.\"\n\n\"We don't see many black folks up this way. Wasn't ever ver' many in these mountains, and after the Civil War most of those few traipsed off for the big cities and bright lights.\" She said that as if she could remember it. \"Mr. Hall, you're the first black man I've seen in years.\"\n\n\"I don't know whether that's good or bad,\" Armanti told her. \"If I stay I'll have to find me a white girl, I suppose.\"\n\nAngelica Price supposed so too.\n\nThe garden didn't have a weed in it. Rich dark earth was heaped up along several rows of plants that I thought were probably potatoes. There were several rows of tall plants tied up with strips of rag loaded with green tomatoes, and row after row of beans climbing poles, with cucumbers growing among them. A fence surrounded the whole thing, which was perhaps forty yards wide and sixty or seventy yards long. Above the fence were a couple strands of wire that raised the fence too high for a deer to jump. Just to make sure, strands of wire ran across the top of the garden festooned with strips of cloth that flapped in the breeze. Over it all was fishing line strung from pole to pole to discourage birds.\n\nBeyond the garden was a pasture. Up higher on the hill, right on top, I could see a few headstones sticking up inside a wooden fence, which apparently had been erected to keep cattle away from the stones. Three black cattle grazed on the hillside. To the right, almost behind the house, was a three-sided pole shed containing piles of loose hay inside a fence with an open gate. Chickens and a rooster or two wandered around inside and outside the fence.\n\n\"If you'd like, Mrs. Price, we'll tuck this gent under the sod for you. Say. . .up there on the hill in that cemetery.\"\n\nShe turned that offer over, then said, \"No. I think we'll leave him lay right there as a warnin' to any other fool that happens by. He's already startin' to get ripe and I figure he'll get riper, but I can put up with it. And I don't want him up there on the hill with my folks and my man.\"\n\n\"He _is_ getting a little strong,\" Armanti remarked, and headed back down the hill toward his truck.\n\nI liked the old lady, who looked to be in her mid-seventies. She was spry and lean, so it wouldn't have surprised me to learn she was ten years older. It's a wonder some lonely man didn't try to marry her years ago. Maybe some did and were refused.\n\n\"After he gets rotted down some, I'll put him on the compost pile,\" Angelica Price said.\n\nIt took me a moment to get my head around that. Then I asked, \"So how are you getting along without electricity?\"\n\n\"Just fine. Only used it for lights. Got candles and a kerosene lantern, a wood stove and an outhouse, so life is goin' just the way it has for years, twenty-two since my man died. I got ever'thin' I need right here, young man. I was born in this house and hope to live out the rest of my days here, on this piece of earth. This is a good place.\"\n\nI had to agree. Across the valley I could see clouds building. The breeze, smelling of the land as summer came to an end, was rippling the leaves of the distant trees, making the forest look like the surface of the sea. And it was quiet; the only sound was the whisper of the wind.\n\n\"Good luck to you, Mrs. Price,\" I said, and walked down the hill to where Armanti was waiting in the pickup.\n\nAs we drove off, I told Armanti about Mrs. Price's remark about the compost pile.\n\nAll he said was, \"I saw plenty of 'em in Afghanistan and Syria that I would have enjoyed tossing on a compost pile. Killed a few of 'em myself. God bless her.\"\nTWENTY-FIVE\n\nA board the flagship of the Texas Navy, George Ranta, sitting at the sonar console, removed his headset. The boat was at periscope depth amid a large area of drilling and production rigs. \"It's like listening to a mechanical orchestra warm up,\" he told Loren Snyder. \"Machinery noises transferred into the water, drill strings going up and down, hammering, clanking, sucking, gurgling. . .\"\n\nThe photonics mast was out of the water and the video was on the scope. Loren rotated it slowly around the horizon, stopping every few seconds to make a note on the chart he used to back up the computer plots. Paper didn't crash and forget things. It was a decent day up there above the ocean, with a high thin overcast and enough breeze to give the water a bit of chop.\n\nWhat Loren was looking for was a destroyer or frigate, a gray warship. He wanted to torpedo it, then leave the gulf and head around Florida for the Atlantic. First, he thought, put the fear in them. No, first you must find a target. The good news was that any submarine or surface warship amid the rigs was as acoustically deaf as he was.\n\n_Always look on the bright side_ , Loren told himself. _Be optimistic_. _That's one of the rules for successful people_. And we are highly successful people, looking for a place to get a little more of it.\n\nHe gave orders to Ada Fuentes on the helm. He wished he knew more about drilling rigs: he wondered if they were stabilized with underwater cables that fanned out from the surface to the seabed. Stay between them, he told himself. Don't get near one.\n\nHe looked again at the chart. _Texas_ was off Louisiana's southwestern coast and proceeding into deeper water on a course just a bit east of south. Over a thousand feet of water below the keel. If he didn't find a surface warship by the time he reached the southern tip of the area, he thought he should swing more westerly to get into the main channel to Houston and Galveston.\n\nHe went back to the monitor. He was looking southwest, almost on the right beam, when something airborne passed quickly from left to right. He tried to focus the image, pan out, and catch it. If it was a patrol plane, they were in trouble. But it had been so small. A chopper servicing rigs?\n\nWhatever it was, it was gone now. Off to the northwest.\n\n\"What was that?\" Jugs Aranado asked. She was behind him, watching over his shoulder.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Play it back and freeze-frame it.\"\n\n\"You do it. You're better at this.\"\n\nHe got out of the chair, and she sat and began manipulating the controls. In fifteen seconds she had it on the screen.\n\n\"Tomahawk.\"\n\nLoren Snyder looked at the chart and gave Fuentes a new course to steer, one twenty degrees to the right of her current course. \"Let's kick it up to about twelve knots, see if we can close on this guy. I'll keep you away from the rigs. George, those rigs should stand out like sore thumbs on the sonar.\"\n\n\"They do, but there is so much noise in the water. . .\"\n\n\"We're very shallow for twelve knots,\" Fuentes objected. She was worried that an aircraft or satellite scanning the surface with radar or in optical wavelengths might detect the wake.\n\nThe problem, Snyder knew, was that the surface ship, if that was what shot the Tomahawk, could simply run away from a sub cruising slowly. Snyder wanted to put a fish into a destroyer or frigate, and to do it he was going to have to take some chances. On the other hand, if a sub had fired the missile, going in there at twelve knots was asking to be smacked, although Snyder doubted an attack sub would be shooting missiles in water this noisy.\n\n\"Twelve knots,\" he said.\n\nFive minutes later Snyder saw another Tomahawk fly past, just a little to the right, or west, of the sub, on a reciprocal course. It was low, no more than a hundred feet above the ocean. This one seemed to come from almost dead ahead.\n\nHe picked up the ICS mike and keyed it. \"Folks, I think we should all take our general quarters stations. We have a ship ahead, surface or subsurface, that is punching off Tomahawks heading for Texas. I intend to try and torpedo it.\"\n\nLoren lowered the photonics mast and told Ranta to listen carefully. To give the hydrophones a little better angle, he turned another twenty degrees to the west. A half hour later, he had Fuentes go a little deeper and slow to ten knots.\n\nNow Ranta heard the destroyer, or thought he did. It was just a low, deep throb amid the cacophony, one of the echoes bouncing off the bottom. There it was again! Three-three-five degrees, relative. Twenty-five degrees left of the bow.\n\n\"There are two destroyers out there,\" George Ranta announced. \"Both at slow speed, probably launching missiles.\"\n\n\"Retract the photonics mast,\" Loren Snyder said, and to Ada Fuentes on the helm he added, \"Take us down to two hundred fifty feet. Maybe the acoustics are better down there.\"\n\nThe first Tomahawks from the navy's salvo slammed into power plants in the Houston area and knocked out the grid.\n\nJR Hays and Elvin Gentry thought this moment might come, so they had some planes on alert, with the pilots sitting in cockpits. Four planes on alert at Lackland in San Antonio were scrambled and fanned out to the east to look for cruise missiles inbound. They stayed relatively low so their radar would be more effective against the missiles with tiny radar cross-sections, a choice that gave them a high fuel burn.\n\nThe fighter pilots were forbidden to cross the coastline. Neither general wished to risk those precious airplanes in attacks on destroyers, which were very capable of defending themselves.\n\nThere wasn't much else they could do. Except give a heads-up to Jack Hays, who had spent a long half hour with Billy Rob Smith, the Texas emergency coordinator. Billy Rob had been busy borrowing National Guard emergency generators and wiring them into nursing homes and hospitals that didn't have their own. He had even signed a contract with a machine shop in Bryan, Texas, that normally made custom oil-field equipment. Now the fifty machinists employed there were busy manufacturing emergency generators. It would be a week or two before the first ones were ready to be installed, but as Billy Rob told Jack Hays, it was the best he could do. Every generator he could buy, borrow, or steal was being positioned and wired up.\n\nJack Hays gave him a slap on the back and told him, \"Good work!\"\n\nThe acoustics were indeed better at two hundred fifty feet. Ranta found a cluster of rigs ten degrees to port, and found both destroyers. One was dead ahead, the other ten degrees starboard. They were heading northwest, toward Galveston.\n\nTo get the range to the target, Ada Fuentes turned the boat, which was trimmed up and doing about ten knots. After a few minutes, plotting the bearing change, the range was resolved at ten miles to the port target, ten and a half to the starboard one. The targets were moving from left to right, but this would be a fairly simple shot for the Mk-48 torpedoes. They had active sonar seekers and trailed a fiber optic cable behind them, which would allow the submarine crew to ensure they were heading toward the proper targets. If the cables didn't break. If they did, the pump-jet torpedoes would continue on course at fifty-five knots searching for their targets on passive sonar based on the internal logic of their onboard computers, which were programmed by Jugs Aranado. At the very last moment the torpedoes' sensors would go active, ping. Nineteen feet long, twenty-one inches in diameter, the weapon would run under the target and a proximity fuse would trigger its 650-pound warhead. The explosion would break the target ship's back. Time to cover the ten nautical miles to target\u2014eleven minutes.\n\n\"Flood Tubes One and Two,\" Snyder ordered. Jugs Aranado was on the torpedo control console, programming each torpedo. She worked her way through the checklist quickly.\n\n\"Torpedoes ready, Captain,\" Jugs sang out.\n\n\"Fire One,\" Snyder said, and Jugs checked the panel, saw that all lights were green, and pushed the fire button on Tube One. The boat bobbed slightly as the torpedo was ejected by compressed air. On the sonar, Ranta said, \"It's running.\"\n\n\"Fire Two.\" Another little bob as the boat reacted to the loss of the weight of the torpedo and the rush of incoming water to replace it.\n\n\"Close outer doors,\" Snyder ordered.\n\nNow the data from the torpedoes began coming in. Number One was running almost straight, so the chances of the fiber optic cable breaking were small. Number Two turned to a course to intercept the second destroyer. Both were soon up to fifty-five knots, rising from the depths to just under the surface. Both were now armed, but they weren't pinging from their seeker heads.\n\nJugs Aranado was watching their track, waiting. She didn't want to activate their seeker heads until the last possible moment, because the active pinging would be plainly audible to the destroyers' sonar operators. Amazingly, the propulsion system, a pump jet, was very quiet, and so the targets of the torpedoes might not hear them until they were very close. Too close. Especially in these noisy waters.\n\nAboard USS _Harlan Jones_ the cry \"Torpedo incoming!\" from the sonarman in the Combat Control Center galvanized the watch. They knew _Texas_ might be in the area, but had relied upon the noise from the drilling rigs to shield them from attack. Obviously they had been detected and fired upon. The sonar operator had picked up the telltale sound of the pump-jet engines in the torpedoes. He didn't know how close the torpedo was. Actually, it was less than a mile away, approaching at fifty-five knots.\n\nThe tactical action officer, the TAO, a lieutenant commander, ordered decoys fired and used the squawk box to notify the bridge. \"Torpedo inbound starboard side.\"\n\nOn the bridge, the captain didn't waste a second. He shouted, \"All ahead flank. Full right rudder. Give me a ninety-degree turn to starboard.\"\n\nA destroyer is a large ship, and accelerating it takes time, time the captain didn't have. He was only making eight knots to give the Tomahawk missiles a stable platform to launch from. Now, even with full right rudder, it would take time to turn the ship, and time was what he didn't have. Still, he could feel the four turbines answer the engine telegraph. The ship seemed to squat as the twin screws bit deep into the water and her bow slowly began to swing.\n\nAboard _Texas_ , the sound of the destroyer's screws was a signal to George Ranta. \"Port target is accelerating.\"\n\n\"Take her down to a thousand feet,\" Loren Snyder ordered. Ada Fuentes repeated the order and pushed the control yoke forward to use the planes to help drive her down as Jugs was busy on the panel flooding tanks. \"Give me twenty knots.\" Fuentes pushed the throttle forward.\n\n\"Twenty knots, aye.\"\n\n\"Launch the decoys,\" Snyder ordered. Jugs pushed the buttons and the sound of the decoys being launched could be faintly heard; the panel showed four were launched. Decoys were noise- and bubble-makers, which hopefully would attract any ASROC missiles the destroyer might launch. ASROC, an antisubmarine rocket-propelled torpedo, was launched from a vertical tube. The rocket engine carried the Mk-46 torpedo well away from the ship, where it would plunge into the sea and begin searching for a submarine. The noise of the decoys would attract an acoustic seeker, and the bubbles would create a return for an active, pinging sonar.\n\n\"The fiber optic wires are going to break,\" Snyder told Jugs. \"Go active on the torpedoes.\"\n\nIn _Harlan Jones_ ' Combat Control Center, the TAO plotted the probable launching position of the submarine and instructed the man on the ASROC panel where to put the missiles. The TAO decided to launch four. One would hit six miles up the bearing of the torpedo, another at eight, another at ten, and the last one at twelve. Once they were in the water, they would circle and search with active sonar for the submarine.\n\nThen the TAO remembered the oil-production platforms. There was a cluster of them, six or seven, ten degrees right of the bearing line. Would they attract the ASROCs? She shrugged the possibility away and ordered four missiles fired.\n\nBut time was up! The torpedo ran under the hull of _Harlan Jones_ in front of the bridge and exploded. Water being essentially incompressible, the explosion blew a large hole in the bottom of the ship, breaking the keel, and water began rushing in. The ship shook from the hammer blow.\n\n\"All stop,\" the captain ordered, which was merely a term that meant the adjustable-pitch screws were to be brought to fine pitch so the ship wouldn't drive headlong into the ocean and increase the possibility of bulkheads giving way. She began drifting to a stop, which would take a while.\n\nMeanwhile the ASROC launchers spit out four missiles, which roared along the bearing the torpedo had followed.\n\nThe crew of _Harlan Jones_ began trying to save their ship. Fifteen _Harlan Jones_ crewmen were dead. Others would probably die if the watertight bulkheads inside the ship weren't shored up against the sea fighting to invade the vessel. _Harlan Jones_ had fired thirty-three of the fifty Tomahawks she had been ordered to launch.\n\nThe second destroyer, USS _O_ ' _Hare_ , also heard the pinging of the incoming Mk-48 torpedo, and like her sister ship, turned into it so as to present as narrow a profile as possible. She fired her ASROCs up the bearing line of the incoming ship-killer. She had fired off two when the Mk-48 from _Texas_ went under her bow and exploded. The explosion literally cut the ship in half, severed the bow from the ship twenty feet aft of the sonar dome. She wasn't going at flank speed, or the sea would have blown out every internal bulkhead and doomed her. As it was, she lost speed as several watertight bulkheads buckled under the pressure and she began going down at the head. The captain let her drift to a halt.\n\nBoth destroyers had been at General Quarters when torpedoed, with all watertight hatches dogged down, so the damage was not as extensive as it could have been. Aboard _O_ ' _Hare_ , as in _Jones_ , the fight to save the ship began immediately. _O_ ' _Hare_ had launched thirty of the fifty Tomahawks she had been ordered to launch.\n\nAboard _Texas_ , George Ranta and the control room crew heard the whumps of the torpedoes exploding. Snyder had the sound on the loudspeaker. A moment later, they heard the splashes of the antisubmarine torpedoes launched from _O_ ' _Hare_ , followed by the sound of the ASROCs fired by _Harlan Jones_ hitting the water.\n\nLoren Snyder looked at the computerized plot. The cluster of oil platforms were to his port side, perhaps two miles away, so he told Ada Fuentes to turn in that direction. Perhaps the sound of the platforms, at least one of which was drilling a well, would attract the torpedoes searching for his boat.\n\nHe glanced at the depth meter, which read seven hundred feet. They were still going down.\n\nHe had hoped the torpedoes he had fired would catch the destroyers flat-footed, but apparently the crews were well-trained and alert, just in case. Snyder and his small band of fools might well have run flat out of luck.\n\nRose-Marie McGarrity's F-16 was over Galveston when her radar showed a low target running fast to the northwest; it had to be a Tomahawk.\n\nShe rolled her fighter and plunged down, pulling Gs and getting her nose well in front of the missile on a course to intercept. Down through a layer of clouds, down into the gray day underneath, closing on the blip that had to be a cruise missile. It was doing about five hundred knots. Due to the angle at which she was intercepting, she didn't need her afterburner. Yet. She flipped switches, arming the Sidewinders. If she could get a lock-on. . . .\n\nIntercepting at a forty-five-degree angle, still diving into the hot, humid turbulent summer air, Rose-Marie McGarrity found that visibility underneath the goo was no more than four or five miles. She doubted that she would see the missile. This air was like thin soup and she was bouncing in turbulence. She checked to ensure her radar altimeter was set at two hundred feet: it would give her an audible warning if she got within two hundred feet of the surface of the earth.\n\nThen she heard a tone from the Sidewinder, indicating it was locked on a heat source. She was down to five hundred feet above the ground, doing about Mach .9. The target was dead ahead, crossing slowly from right to left.\n\nWith the tone in her ears, she punched off a Sidewinder, a heat-seeker.\n\nIt left the rail with a blast of fire and shot forward into the haze almost too fast for the eye to follow.\n\nMcGarrity was looking through the heads-up display, the HUD, at the target symbol, when she saw the flash. The Sidewinder had scored a kill.\n\nInstantly she was off the juice and soaring upward and right, to point her radar out to sea, just in case.\n\nAnd, by golly, here came another one. Four or five hundred feet above the earth, scorching along to the northwest. McGarrity got that one with a Sidewinder too. Elation flooded her. This fighter pilot gig was hot shit! Again she soared up and turned southeast, toward the sea.\n\nTwo minutes later, she found a third Tomahawk on radar, this one going almost north. Catching it meant a chase, so she engaged the burner and let her fighter accelerate as it again went down toward Mother Earth. She didn't see the Tomahawk until she was about four miles from it\u2014it was a little thing, only visible because the radar told her exactly where to look. She kept the juice on, coming in from an angle, nose well in front to bounce it by sliding up behind it. Gun selected. She kept the missile just below the visible horizon, because to dip below it was to risk flying into the ground. Flying this fast this close to the planet was sublime, a sensory overload.\n\nShe was only a mile from it, flying at just above two hundred feet on a course to intercept, closing at Mach 1.2, when she saw something out of the left corner of her eye. Even as the object registered as a radio tower, she hit one of the supporting cables with her left wing.\n\nAt that speed, about 1,300 feet per second, the steel cable sliced halfway through the wing as if it were cheese; the spar in the left wing broke and the wing separated from the racing F-16.\n\nThere was just no time to react. In a tiny fraction of a second the F-16 rolled hard left, the nose dropped, and the fighter smacked into the ground inverted. The fireball rolled along the land for a thousand yards, dribbling pieces of airplane and Rose-Marie McGarrity. Two houses and one barn caught fire. Smoke mixed with the thick, humid haze.\n\nNo one spoke in the control room of _Texas_. They knew that passive antisubmarine torpedoes were hunting them. And the pundits said the age of robots was still in the future!\n\n\"Put out some more decoys,\" Loren Snyder said. Jugs Aranado went to the control panel and launched four.\n\n\"Where's the bottom?\" Loren asked.\n\n\"Two thousand feet down.\"\n\n\"Take us to fifteen hundred,\" he said to Ada Fuentes.\n\nThe sub continued its descent as water poured into the ballast tanks. Snyder was worried. _Virginia_ -class submarines were the quietest ever made, and the antisubmarine torpedoes weren't designed to find subs this quiet. But. . .\n\nThe tension mounted. They could be dead in a moment. Each breath could be their last, each heartbeat.\n\n\"Do you hear the torpedoes?\" Loren asked George Ranta.\n\n\"Too much noise,\" he whispered. \"I hear pinging but I can't get a direction.\"\n\nBoom. The explosion rocked the boat. One of the torpedoes had found a decoy.\n\nAnd another boom.\n\n\"More pinging,\" Ranta said.\n\nWhere had the other torpedoes gone?\n\n\"We've got to turn,\" Ada said. \"That production platform is dead ahead.\"\n\n\"Right ninety degrees.\" The boat was still going down. Fourteen hundred feet and sinking.\n\nBut they were still alive.\n\nThey heard two more explosions. Well away.\n\n\"The torpedoes went for a platform,\" Ranta said.\n\nA wave of relief swept over the little crew of _Texas_.\n\n\"There are more of them out there,\" Ranta said. \"I can hear at least one. Maybe circling.\" They turned the boat toward the noise and waited. Finally the noise from the torpedo's engine faded.\n\nSnyder said to Fuentes and Aranado, \"Go back up, so we can use the photonics mast.\" To Ranta he said, \"You must keep us clear of those platforms.\"\n\n\"I can hear them.\"\n\nSo they rose slowly from the depths. When the photonics mast was raised, it revealed the injured destroyers lying dead in the water at least six miles to the west. The damaged production platform still stood, but no doubt the crew on it was on their radio reporting the torpedoed destroyers and the torpedoes that struck the platform. And trying desperately to prevent a major oil spill.\n\nLoren Snyder was exhausted. He'd slept six hours in three days. \"Let's get the hell out of the gulf,\" he said. \"Jugs, lay a course for the Straits of Florida. When we are clear of these platforms, take us back down to a thousand feet so the P-3s can't find us. I'm going to sleep.\"\n\nHe staggered along to the tiny captain's cabin and collapsed into the bunk.\n\nFifty-five of the sixty-three Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by USS _O_ ' _Hare_ and _Harlan Jones_ actually impacted Texas power plants. The resulting explosions took seventeen power plants off the grid instantly. Subsequent inspections revealed that at least nine of them could be repaired, and they began producing electricity, at least at a reduced level, within a week or two. The remaining eight were damaged beyond salvage.\n\nThe Texas government kept the amount of damage a closely held secret, although within a day or two satellite reconnaissance would allow analysts in Washington to make reasonably accurate assessments.\n\nNo doubt more Tomahawks were in Texas' future.\n\nA few minutes before three that Friday afternoon, six Secret Service agents climbed from an SUV in front of the main entrance of the Pentagon and went inside. They were escorted to the E-Ring, where they arrested Admiral Sugar Ray, the army chief of staff, and the air force chief of staff. They put all three men in handcuffs and took them to the ground level of the building and into the interior courtyard. The sun was shining and the temperature was already in the low nineties.\n\nEach man was handcuffed to a small tree with his hands behind his back. Admiral Ray knew what was coming. He cursed himself for waiting so long. _We should have done it yesterday_ , he thought bitterly.\n\nThe senior agent drew his weapon and shot each of them in the head. Sugar Ray just happened to be last. \"Rot in Hell,\" Ray told the agent, who then pulled the trigger.\n\nThe agents left the bodies handcuffed to the trees, walked back through the Pentagon, past those horrified officers and enlisted who had actually managed to get to work today, and out the main entrance to their waiting car.\n\nAl Grantham was worried. He had visions of squads of armed troops coming into the White House and arresting the president and everyone around him, taking them to some dungeon and chaining them to the wall. Shooting three senior officers at the Pentagon was an in-your-face insult the armed services couldn't ignore.\n\nHe broached the subject to the president, who sneered. \"They'll do nothing,\" he said. \"They are bureaucrats, paper-pushers, and they achieved their high ranks by not making waves.\" The president lit a cigarette and puffed on it contentedly. \"We have nothing to fear from the generals. They have taken orders since their first day in uniform. Nothing in their experience has prepared them for the day when their superiors might use violence to make them behave.\"\n\n\"They aren't cowards.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Soetoro with a hint of derision in his voice, \"but they are. They believe in nothing but the holy flag, keeping the boss happy, and collecting their pensions in the good by and by. The man who believes in something and will use any means to get it will leave them at a loss.\"\n\nGrantham's face reflected his doubt.\n\n\"Relax,\" Barry Soetoro said. \"Whatever they are, they are not gamblers. When have you ever known one of them to take a risk?\"\nTWENTY-SIX\n\nA couple of days after our first visit, Armanti Hall and I decided to call on Angelica Price to deliver a deer haunch. A little fresh meat always goes well, we thought, and maybe we could trade for some fresh potatoes and beans.\n\nWe were in civvies and wearing our web belts that morning, and each of us had an M4 beside us in the cab of Armanti's pickup. There weren't many vehicles on the roads, but the pickups we passed were piled high with firewood and one was hauling a steer. I wondered if it was stolen.\n\nWe followed the little ribbon of asphalt into the hills. When Angelica Price's house came into view, we saw three cars parked nearby. One looked as if it were about eight years old, the other two were show-room new. The new cars didn't have license plates.\n\nWe coasted on by for about fifty yards, then Armanti stopped and I got out with my M4. \"I'll go look the cars over. How about you snuggling up against the bank there and give me cover if I need it.\"\n\n\"Notice that there are only two cows in the pasture now?\"\n\nI hadn't, but a quick scan showed he was correct.\n\nI strolled back with the M4 under my arm, just in case. The new cars weren't locked. One had 170 miles on it, the other 180. The older car, a gray Toyota, wore a Maryland license plate.\n\n\"Hey, man!\" A black guy with a rifle was walking toward me from the house. At a glance, the rifle looked like Angelica Price's old lever action.\n\n\"Get away from them cars!\"\n\nI was partially shielded by the front end of the old one, and I retreated one step to get a little more metal between us. I snicked the safety off the M4.\n\n\"Where's Mrs. Price?\"\n\n\"Never heard of her.\"\n\n\"This is her house.\" I was scanning on both sides. I could see someone at the window of the house watching, and the window was open. If there were anyone to the right or left in the pasture or garden, I didn't see him.\n\n\"You mean that old white woman? She's out in the chicken coop, man. Gave us some shit, she did.\"\n\n\"She dead?\"\n\n\"Not yet. If you don't get the fuck outta here, you\u2014\"\n\nThat's when I swung the M4 up and fired a burst at his legs. He went down hard and lost the rifle.\n\nSomeone fired from the house. I heard the bullet smack into the car. The report sounded like a pistol to me. The distance was about sixty yards, and whoever fired wasn't a good pistol shot.\n\nI couched down, used the car hood for a rest, and put a burst into the window. Silence followed.\n\nOn my right, I could see Armanti removing two AT4s from the back of his pickup. Apparently sneaking up on the house and taking a chance on getting shot didn't appeal to him, either. I hoped the thug lying in the yard had told the truth about Mrs. Price.\n\nArmanti ran up the road, using the embankment of a drainage ditch as cover.\n\nTo keep their heads down, I fired another burst through the window.\n\nThe guy lying in the yard was moaning, holding on to his left thigh. I could see blood at this distance, about twenty yards. Looked like a bullet had clipped an artery.\n\nI moved aft along my mobile fortress, with just the top of my head showing. Armanti was about a hundred yards away now, looking back at me. I gave him a thumbs-up.\n\nHe stood. He had one of the AT4 tubes on his right shoulder. Five seconds, six, then the exhaust blast behind him raised a cloud of crap from the road.\n\nHe had fired at the base of the chimney of the house, which was probably the only thing hard enough to trigger the detonator of the armor-piercing missile warhead.\n\nThe windows blew out, flame gushed forth, and the roof rose a few feet, then crashed down. In seconds the house was on fire.\n\nI began a bent-over trot toward the house. Looked at the guy lying in the yard with blood pumping between his fingers.\n\n\"Help me, man,\" he pleaded.\n\nI grabbed the pistol in his waistband and left him there.\n\nThe house was blazing nicely. No one in the yard or garden. One of the exterior walls of the house was tilting out, falling slowly. I glanced through the open door into the fire. Anyone in there was too far gone to save, even if I wanted to be a hero, which I didn't. Near the garden was a hole with a fire smoldering. Looked like a barbecue pit. Pieces of cowhide and half a carcass were lying near it.\n\nI went on around to the chicken coop, the M4 ready to go. Only one chicken was in sight.\n\nMrs. Price was lying on the hay in the shed. She had been smacked in the side of the head with a pistol several times; one of the blows had laid open her scalp. Now her gray hair was matted with blood.\n\nBeside her were a dead white man and an unconscious white woman. Sparks from the house were causing the hay to smoke. I stepped on the hot spots, and pulled the two women and the dead man out of the shed.\n\n\"Mrs. Price. Mrs. Price, it's Tommy Carmellini. We were by to see you a couple of days ago. Remember?\"\n\nArmanti walked up, looking grim. \"The one in the front yard is still alive.\"\n\n\"Find out who these people were,\" I said. He trotted off.\n\nI went through the dead man's pockets. His driver's license in his wallet, which was empty of cash, said his name was Lincoln B. Greenwood, of Clarksville, Maryland.\n\nMrs. Price was stirring. She was a tough one.\n\n\"They killed him for the fun of it,\" she said. \"He refused to beg. That's his wife, Anne.\" Only her left eye tracked. \"They got here an hour before the others showed up.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Price, I'm going to carry you to the pickup. Then I'll come back for Mrs. Greenwood. We've got to get you two ladies to a doctor.\"\n\nShe couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds. After I deposited her in the truck, I stopped by where Armanti was squatting beside the wounded man.\n\n\"He says they're from Baltimore,\" Armanti told me. \"Four guys and a whore. Stole the new cars from a dealer and hit the road. Nothing to eat in Baltimore. Stopped here because they were about out of gas.\"\n\nBlood was still pumping from that hole in the guy's leg. He had three or four other holes in his legs, and the right leg was obviously broken, but the one high in his left thigh was a real bleeder. His jeans were sodden. He was lying back on the grass and had relaxed his hold on his thigh.\n\n\"Let me have the keys to your truck. Got to get two women to a doctor. I'll be back for you after a while.\"\n\nArmanti handed me the keys from his pocket. \"This one's gonna be gone soon.\"\n\n\"They pistol-whipped the women and killed the man driving the gray sedan,\" I told him. \"Don't forget Mrs. Price's rifle.\"\n\nI went on to the chicken coop, picked up Anne Greenwood, who had been struck at least twice recently. She also had an old welt across her face. I carried her to the pickup. The wreckage of the house was completely aflame when I drove off.\n\nDr. Proudfoot was in at the clinic in Greenbank. I carried Anne Greenwood in first. The doctor was attending to his nurse, who had been whacked on the head.\n\n\"Got two women for you, Doctor. They've both been pistol-whipped. This is Mrs. Greenwood.\"\n\n\"Just like my nurse. An hour ago. We were held up at gunpoint by a gang of pill-billies looking for drugs. We didn't have any painkillers, but they took every drug I had.\"\n\nI carried Mrs. Greenwood into the examining room and put her on a gurney. Went back to the truck and brought Angelica Price in. I put her on a gurney in the second examining room.\n\n\"My God,\" the doctor said. \"I know Mrs. Price. Why on earth?\"\n\n\"Baltimore thugs. They were after her food. Have you called the law?\"\n\n\"No phone. They wouldn't have come, anyway. Everyone is busy getting robbed or robbing the neighbors. It's anarchy. Maybe the lawmen are home taking care of their families. I would be if I were one of them.\"\n\nHe finished bandaging the nurse and sent her home. Then he spoke to Mrs. Price. \"Can you hear me, Angelica?\"\n\n\"Yes, Doctor.\"\n\n\"I want you to just lie here quietly and let me look at Mrs. Greenwood. Will you do that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI sat holding Mrs. Price's hand while Proudfoot worked on Mrs. Greenwood.\n\n\"Pills,\" she said bitterly. \"The hollow trash is on meth and OxyContin. Surprised they aren't robbing drugstores.\"\n\n\"No doubt they are,\" I said. \"This little clinic looked too good to pass up, I suspect.\"\n\n\"Thanks for coming by, Tommy,\" she said.\n\n\"We've got to stop meeting like this.\"\n\nTwenty minutes passed before the doctor returned. \"Mrs. Greenwood is in a deep coma. She needs to be in a hospital, but the one nearest here is closed.\"\n\n\"What can you do for her?\"\n\n\"Pray.\"\n\nHe began examining Mrs. Price. \"You have a concussion too, Angelica. I'm going to clean up that cut on your scalp and stitch it up, but that's about all I can do. You should be in a hospital too, but since there isn't one around, you need to stay in bed. You're going to have a terrible headache. We'll pray for you too.\"\n\n\"I don't think much of prayer,\" Angelica Price told him. \"I've been praying every night that Barry Soetoro would wake up dead, but apparently God hasn't taken him yet.\"\n\nI went out to the pickup while Dr. Proudfoot worked. Clouds were building over the mountains to the west.\n\nI changed magazines in the M4 and examined the pistol I had taken off the bleeder. A 9-mm, and the magazine was full. God only knows where the bastard got it, but I would have bet a thousand to one he didn't buy it. I decided to give it to the doctor. We were getting a nice collection of weapons, but no matter how hard you try, you can only shoot one at a time.\n\nAnother guy pulled up in an old truck. His son was in the right seat, shot once above the heart. I helped him carry the boy inside. He was maybe fifteen. People were stealing the cows, the man said, and the boy put up a fight.\n\n\"It's like trying to stop an avalanche,\" the old man said. Tears were running down his weathered cheeks.\n\nI emptied my wallet for the doctor, who tried to wave the money away. \"Got nothing to spend it on,\" he said.\n\n\"It won't always be like this,\" I said, with more conviction than I felt. I told him I would be back tomorrow to check on Mrs. Greenwood, and carried Angelica Price out to the truck. I got the deer haunch from the pickup that I had intended to give Mrs. Price and gave it to the doctor instead.\n\nI took her to the CIA safe house and made the introductions.\n\nAfter Sarah had Mrs. Price in bed, I made sure Yocke and Molina were standing by the machine guns in the pits and drove down to the guard shack where Travis Clay and Willie the Wire were playing gin. \"Big-city punks are out, hillbillies are hunting drugs, and scared people are looking for food. All of them are armed. You guys better cowboy up and be ready.\"\n\nWillie was appalled. He wanted to argue, but I told him, \"It's us or them, Willie. If you want to keep on living, you'd better be willing to shoot.\"\n\nMrs. Price's house was down to smoking boards when I got back. The bleeder was dead, and Armanti Hall had dragged him around the house and put him beside Lincoln Greenwood.\n\nThere were four corpses in the remains of the house, burned beyond recognition. The boards were still hot and smoking, and we didn't have body bags, so we left them there.\n\nWe buried Greenwood and the bleeder up on the hill in the Price family plot. Before we tossed the bleeder in the hole, I checked his pockets. He had a nice roll of bills on him.\n\n\"You can't take it with you when you go,\" Armanti Hall said with a sigh.\n\nSome of the bills were blood-soaked. I peeled them off and tossed them in the hole. \"He can take these,\" I said, and handed the rest to Armanti. \"Grab his feet.\"\n\nWe tossed him in, then went down the hill to the garden gate for the man lying there. He stunk to high heaven. Each of us grabbed a foot; we dragged him up the hill and dumped him in on top of the bleeder.\n\nI heaved my cookies before we got the holes filled up.\n\nAs we walked down the hill for the last time, Armanti said, \"I don't want to live in Barry Soetoro's new empire. I'm thinking of going to Texas.\"\n\nThe taste of vomit was strong in my mouth and the smell of death in my nose. \"Maybe I'll go with you,\" I said.\n\nHe had picked some potatoes and green beans from Mrs. Price's garden while he waited for me, and had them in five-gallon buckets. We loaded the buckets into the truck and headed up the road to find a place to turn around.\n\nOn the way back by Mrs. Price's, before we got there, a pickup pulled up below the three cars in the parking area and three white males got out. The oldest one had a rifle. He aimed it at one of the cows in the pasture and pulled the trigger. The cow staggered a few feet, then went down. As the younger males, apparently teenage boys, climbed the fence, the guy with the rifle turned to face our stopped pickup. He held the rifle in both hands and looked at us defiantly.\n\n\"Protecting his kill,\" Armanti muttered. \"I could drop the bastard before he gets a shot off.\"\n\n\"To what purpose?\" I asked, and put the truck in motion.\n\nWe drove on by. The shooter never took his eyes off us.\n\n\"This place is like fucking Syria,\" Armanti remarked.\n\nI didn't argue.\n\nThe evening after the Tomahawk strikes, Jack Hays held a press conference at an \"undisclosed location,\" which was the bottom floor of an underground parking garage in Austin, which fortunately was still on the electrical grid. Three print reporters were there, and two local television reporters, whose cameramen were set up with lights and sound and all the bits and pieces, including a set with a podium for the president of Texas and folding chairs the reporters.\n\nJack Hays started by reading a statement about the progress of the government in converting a state in the United States to a standalone nation. Much had been accomplished by the legislature, which was in session twelve hours a day, seven days a week. A new currency had been approved and a Texas Border Patrol and Customs Service established. The tax department was expanded and statutes passed adopting federal tax rates for the new nation.\n\n\"Everything has to be done at once,\" Jack Hays said, \"and we are up to our elbows in it. Inevitably there will be glitches, but we will try in good faith to correct any mistakes and injustices, if everyone will help us find them.\"\n\nThe first question was, \"Mr. President, what can you tell us about last night's missile strikes in the Houston area?\"\n\n\"The missiles were launched from at least two United States Navy surface ships, both of which were subsequently damaged by an attack from a Texas naval vessel. We know that much because crews on nearby oil-production platforms radioed what they had seen to their companies, who passed it to news media. We are doing our best to get power restored in the Houston area. We understand that at this time of year, loss of electrical power in that area is a humanitarian crisis.\"\n\nAfter a half hour of answering questions about the measures the legislature had passed and was considering, Hays said, \"One more question and we'll call it an evening.\" Three hands went up and he pointed to a reporter from the _Wall Street Journal_.\n\nShe asked, \"Under what circumstances would Texas consider rejoining the United States?\"\n\n\"Under the old Constitution?\" Jack Hays asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I can't think of any,\" Hays said curtly. He had learned long ago that the best tactic for a politician was to just answer the question asked or evade it. In the silence that followed that short sentence, he reconsidered his answer. Texans deserved to know his thinking, and if they didn't like it, they could say so.\n\nAs he tried to decide what to say, the reporter followed up with the question, \"What if it was no questions asked, all forgiven?\"\n\n\"I'm certainly not going to engage in international diplomacy via your newspaper,\" he said tartly.\n\n\"Even if President Soetoro were removed from office?\"\n\n\"My answer stands.\"\n\n\"You mean, sir, there is no peaceful way to restore the Union?\"\n\nJack Hays weighed his answer as the cameras scrutinized his face and the reporters watched.\n\n\"The old nation was seriously divided,\" he said, \"with political power split between large urban populations and the people in the heartland. Even Texas has some of that. Some of the policies that the elected politicians in Houston wish to follow have been resoundingly rejected by the rest of the state's residents. In a free nation there will always be the push and pull of conflicting views, conflicting desires, conflicting interests. Yet in my judgment, in the old nation the system had broken down, irreparably, and that is why Barry Soetoro chose to become a dictator, to force his political vision on people who rejected it repeatedly at the polls and in the Congress.\n\n\"Be that as it may, the reality is that if the people of Texas wish to continue to enjoy the rights granted by the old Constitution, such as free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to own a gun, the sovereign right to control our borders, the right to be ruled by elected representatives and not be dictated to by the executive or the courts or bureaucracies. . .if Texans want those things, they need to be an independent nation.\"\n\nJack Hays paused, gathering his thoughts. \"Our parting from the United States has not been amicable. Barry Soetoro is raining Tomahawk cruise missiles on the people of Texas. If he wants Texas back in the Union, I would tell him what the citizens of Gonzales, Texas, told Mexican army Colonel Ugartechea in 1835 when he demanded return of a cannon. If you want it, 'come and take it.'\"\nTWENTY-SEVEN\n\nThe interview with the Texas president Jack Hays was broadcast via satellite to those stations and networks still broadcasting in an America with limited electrical assets. It also was soon on the internet. Yet it was on clandestine radio stations that it was picked up by the refugees hidden in the CIA safe farm in the Allegheny Mountains.\n\nI was there when it was played on the recorder that Friday night to the assembled audience in the cabin on the mountainside. I had spent the evening worrying about what would happen when we were discovered, which was bound to happen in the near future. I inspected the machine-gun pits, strategically located around a kill zone in front of the house where any vehicles would have to come to a stop, and inspected each and every rifle and pistol and AT4. I was a worried man, and tired of waiting.\n\nSarah Houston watched me fret and said nothing. Perhaps she was becoming fatalistic. It would be a miracle if any of us got out of this mess alive. I wondered if she was resigned to the inevitable.\n\nYet she was at my side when the tape played, and Jack Hays' clear, confident baritone voice spoke of the problems of the United States and the future of Texas. I watched Jake Grafton's face\u2014the man should have been a poker master in Vegas\u2014and the much more expressive faces of Sal Molina and Jack Yocke. And, I confess, cynic that I was, I wondered how all this squared with the White House plotting that Grafton had overheard. I had quizzed Sarah about that\u2014she said she had listened to little of it. Grafton kept her too busy with other things. But, she said, Jake Grafton had listened. By the hour. Night after night. He knew!\n\nHe knew what?\n\nWhen the tape was over, Sal Molina spoke first. \"When Puerto Rico and Illinois melt down, America has two choices. We can let those two go bankrupt and default on their bonds, or the federal government can take over their debts. If the latter, the states as we know them are doomed: They will cease to exist as sovereign entities. The federal government\u2014actually the executive\u2014will be the ruler of America, able to dictate the smallest decisions, the minutiae of American life, dictate how it will be for his allies and his enemies, of whom he has a great many.\"\n\nYocke snorted. \"It will never happen,\" he declared.\n\nMolina merely gave him a derisive glance, stood, and went up the stairs to bed. Yocke piddled and diddled, looked out the window a bit, then followed Molina upstairs.\n\nGrafton and I were the only two left in the room. I decided to brace him. \"How long are we going to hide here?\"\n\nHe looked at me with two raised eyebrows. \"Are you getting impatient?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nHe nodded, readjusted his fanny without wincing, and sipped at a cup of cold coffee that rested on the stand beside him. After all his years in the navy, it seemed that he was impervious to caffeine.\n\n\"The whole country is going to hell,\" I said, \"and I feel like a tit on a boar sitting around here. I'm ready to shoot somebody.\"\n\n\"I thought you did that earlier today.\"\n\n\"It wasn't enough. I want to shoot some of those Soetoro sons of bitches, the assholes who decided to rule America and everyone in it. I want to kill those bastards for what they did to my country.\"\n\nHe grunted.\n\n\"We can't just sit here! What about your wife? Your daughter and her husband? What about _America_?\"\n\nHe smiled at me, which drove my blood pressure up another ten points. \"Tommy, there is a time for everything. This pot has to simmer before the country is ready to throw Soetoro out. We're almost there, I suspect, but not quite. Another day or two, then we'll hit the road. We'll have lots of help.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, less than enthusiastically. \"And where the hell are we going?\" I wanted to be sure the old fart had a plan.\n\n\"Why, to Washington of course.\"\n\n\"And this help? Like who?\"\n\n\"We'll pick them up on the way.\"\n\n\"You hope!\"\n\nGrafton looked at me askance. \"You don't really believe in the American people, do you?\"\n\n\"I've killed too many of 'em.\" He didn't say anything, so I added, \"They voted for Soetoro twice. They've sat on their collective thumbs watching the bastard pervert the Constitution, lie like a dog, and poison race relations, and they haven't done anything about it other than elect some gutless Republicans who refuse to stand up to Soetoro. The American people don't seem to give a damn about their country or the future that their kids are going to have to live in. Americans just _don't care_ anymore. Naw, I don't think much of the American people. I wish I'd gotten out years ago.\"\n\nWhen I wound down he cocked his head and looked me in the eyes as he said, \"These are the descendants of the people who hacked out homes in the wilderness. They fought Indians, the British, the Mexicans, and each other. Over a half million Americans died in the Civil War. They peopled a continent and built a nation. They helped win two wars in Europe and defeated Japan. They fought in Vietnam to help a poor people resist communism. They've done their best to fight terrorism and help people in the third world get a leg up. You grossly underestimate them.\n\n\"True, they voted for Soetoro, and a lot of them did it because they naively thought Soetoro would be _good_ for race relations in America, and they thought that was a larger good. This race thing. . .,\" he shook his head, \". . .people want America to include everybody. Martin Luther King left a huge legacy, and America wants his vision, wants an American to be judged by his character rather than the color of his skin. _That_ is the society we want to live in, but we're not there yet. Our first black president got into office not because of his character or his politics, but because he's half-black\u2014or in the parlance of today, black. He gets away with pissing on the Constitution because he's black. He gets away with lying because he's black. He gets away with poisoning race relations because he's black. Even the liberals on the Supreme Court have given him pass after pass.\"\n\nGrafton sighed. \"His time has run out. The American people have gotten a good look at Soetoro this past week, and I don't think they like what they saw. I thank my stars that I'm not Barry Soetoro. He won't like his future.\"\n\nI wanted to believe him, but I didn't. For once I did the smart thing: I kept my mouth shut.\n\n\"Help me to bed,\" Jake Grafton said.\n\nAs I hoisted him, my resolve melted. I asked, \"Do you really think Joe Six-Pack and the missus will shoot at Soetoro's thugs?\"\n\n\"This republic is their heritage,\" he said. \"If they don't value it enough to fight for it, a great many men have wasted their lives fighting for them.\"\n\nThe next morning, Saturday, the first day of the three-day Labor Day weekend, the radio gave us the news that seven more states\u2014Kansas, Nebraska, South and North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and New Mexico\u2014had declared their independence. Georgia had tried to, but federal paramilitary police broke up the legislature and arrested half the politicians. In South Carolina, a gun battle had broken out in the statehouse and at least ten people had died.\n\nThe governor of New Mexico read a statement to the press after the Declaration of Independence was read. \"The proud citizens of New Mexico will never escape poverty unless the flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America is drastically curtailed. New Mexicans are being robbed of the American dream, the dream that by hard work and thrift they can improve their lot in life and provide a better life for their children. We have taken a stand here tonight. Let history be our judge.\"\n\n\"The liberals are going down hard,\" Jake Grafton remarked.\n\n\"You knew they wouldn't go easy,\" Sal Molina shot back.\n\n\"Yes. I did know that,\" Grafton replied, glancing at Molina's face. I was watching him. No doubt that is why he kept his mouth so firmly shut about Soetoro's plans, which he had overheard on Sarah Houston's White House bugging operation. I wondered what Molina's reaction would be when he learned\u2014if he ever did\u2014that Grafton had been listening to all the White House bullshit and plotting for the last six months, including Molina's.\n\nThat Saturday was the day the Mexican army invaded Southern California. Maybe the Mexicans thought they could carve off a chunk for themselves, or maybe the troops were funded by the drug cartels that wanted their own country.\n\nAs the day wore on, we heard that the Marines at Camp Pendleton were fighting back. All up and down the west coast, U.S. military units raced south to engage. Two carriers left San Diego and began launching strikes against the invading troops and fighting to maintain air superiority.\n\nWhen I had had all of the news I could stand, I went out onto the porch, carrying my M4. Sarah joined me and we climbed the hill and sat under a tree. A breeze whispered in the pines, and we sat for so long and so quietly that a doe and her two fawns eventually wandered by.\n\nWhen they were out of sight, she whispered, \"Life goes on.\"\n\n\"With or without us,\" I said.\n\nTen or so minutes later an airplane broke the silence, flying low, just above the trees. A piston-engine plane. Then I got a glimpse of it through the forest canopy. A tail-dragger. A little Cessna by the look of it. It circled the safe house twice, and the pilot probably got a look at the trucks, even though they were parked under the trees.\n\nI was up and running, searching for a hole in the canopy so I could track the plane, which was still humming pleasantly. The sound was fading though. Then and I saw it in the distance, to the south, apparently circling to land on the grass runway in the valley.\n\n\"Come on,\" I shouted at Sarah. We trotted down the hill, jumped into a pickup, and raced down the road toward the valley.\n\nThe little plane was sitting by the hangar when we arrived. It looked like a Cessna 170, all polished aluminum. I took the carbine as I got out of the truck. A man was helping a woman and two small boys. I didn't see any weapons on them.\n\n\"Hey,\" I said as I walked up.\n\n\"Hello. Is this your place?\"\n\n\"It's private property, but I don't own it.\"\n\n\"The thugs from Philly are looting and burning houses in our neighborhood. We got to the airport and I got my plane. I didn't know where to go, and when I saw this runway, I said, 'Guess we'll try our luck here.'\" He had been eyeing my carbine and the pistol on my web belt. Then his eyes shifted to Sarah, who walked by us over to the woman.\n\n\"My name's Johnson. That's my wife,\" he told me. \"We had to get out. I think thugs killed the woman next door and left her body in the house when they burned it down.\"\n\nWe opened the hangar and shoved his plane in tail-first, chocked it, and closed the doors. I loaded everyone in the truck and took them to the safe house.\n\nJake Grafton was sitting in an easy chair in the main room. He perked right up when I told him about the plane. He skipped the social pleasantries with Johnson. \"How much fuel is in it?\"\n\n\"Both tanks are about half full.\"\n\n\"Tommy, go back to the hangar and see if there is any avgas there.\"\n\nAs I left, Grafton was asking Johnson about bridges and roadblocks he might have seen from the air. _Maybe this will galvanize Grafton_ , I thought. _Get him moving_. God, I was tired of sitting doing nothing while America went back to the stone age.\n\nA plane would be a good thing to have if we could keep it fueled. Our own air force. I opened a panel of the sliding hangar door and went inside. And Lady Luck smiled. I found a fifty-five-gallon plastic drum full of fuel in the hangar. The drum had a hand-crank pump mounted on top and a hose. I was maneuvering the drum under the left wing when I heard a pickup truck drive up. I figured it was Armanti and I needed him to crank the pump while I stood on the ladder with the hose.\n\nI turned. Two scraggly faced locals in filthy jeans and T-shirts stood at the door of the hangar and had me covered with scoped deer rifles. Both were grinning at me with yellow teeth.\n\n\"Well, well, well! By God, we heard it and here it is,\" said one of them.\n\n\"Just shuck that pistol, asshole, and maybe we won't shoot you,\" said the other.\n\nI pulled out the Kimber and tossed it in the dirt.\n\n\"Look the plane over, Benny. You, get over here against the wall.\" He waggled the barrel of his rifle and I went.\n\nThe one called Benny picked up my shooter, examined it, and tucked it into his pants. The other kept his rifle pointed at my belt buckle while Benny opened the door to the plane and looked around inside.\n\n\"Jearl, that kid is gettin' away!\" A call from outside. So there were more of them out there.\n\nJearl must have been the stalwart guarding me, because he forgot me and ran back to the open panel in the door. \"Hey!\" Jearl went dashing out of sight, shouting, \"Get off your asses and catch her!\"\n\nI grabbed a heavy wrench off the shelf and stuck it up my sleeve. Benny strolled over from the plane, pulling my Kimber from his waistband. He had a big wad of snuff under his lower lip. \"You're a big one, ain't you?\"\n\n\"Your mom know you boys are out causing trouble?\" I asked.\n\n\"Man, the country has gone to hell. We can be just as bad as we wanna be and ain't nobody to say we can't.\"\n\n\"And how bad is that?\"\n\nI heard the sound of another truck. So did Benny, and he turned his head to his right toward the door. I let the wrench slide down into my hand; as he turned back toward me I hit him in the jaw with it with everything I had, right on top of his snuff wad. The blow put him down hard and I was all over him. Got my pistol and his rifle. He was only partially conscious. His jaw was obviously broken. Blood, saliva, and brown tobacco juice dribbled from his open mouth.\n\nThe rifle was some cheap piece of Walmart crap with a plastic stock, but it had brass in the chamber when I pulled the bolt back for a peek.\n\nI stepped to the left edge of the hangar door and looked around. Jearl was on the runway, about fifty yards from me, pulling a girl about nine or ten years old along by the arm. There were two men in the back of their pickup, and they had rifles pointed at Armanti, who was stepping from his truck with his hands up.\n\nI braced the rifle against the door and shot the man on the right in the bed of the truck. Worked the bolt. The other one was quick as a cat. He spun toward me, leveled his rifle, and fired. Something burned my neck and my shot went wild. I worked the bolt again and got on him, but he was already going down. Armanti had shot him in the back.\n\nJearl, the guy in the meadow, held the girl against him with his left hand and pointed his rifle toward me with his right. I didn't figure he could even hit the hangar with that rifle shooting one-handed from the waist. I rested the rifle against the edge of the hangar door again and looked through the scope. Steadied the crosshairs on Jearl's head and squeezed one off. He went over backward.\n\nI walked out for a look. The bullet had taken his head clean off. Above his neck only his lower jaw remained.\n\nThe girl was sobbing. I picked her up and walked back to the hangar. Armanti was standing, pistol in hand, over the guy I had tamed with a wrench. The guy was coming around.\n\n\"You want me to finish him?\" Armanti asked me.\n\n\"Be as bad as you wanna be,\" I told him flippantly.\n\n\"Who is this kid?\" Armanti asked Benny, who was now moaning and writhing in the dirt.\n\nBenny mumbled something, holding his mouth. Armanti kicked him, and he squirmed and moaned louder.\n\n\"I asked you a question, Jack,\" Armanti said, \"and if you don't tell it to me straight, things could get really iffy for you. Hold your jaw together and answer me! Who is she?\"\n\nWith a supreme effort, holding his jaw with both hands, Benny said, \"Some kid we picked up. Jearl was porkin' her.\"\n\n\"Where's her folks?\"\n\n\"Jearl killed 'em.\"\n\nI didn't even see it coming. Bang. The pistol in Armanti's hand went off, and the guy lying in the dirt was instantly dead with a 9-mm bullet through his head.\n\nArmanti Hall holstered his pistol and came over to me, looked at the girl's face streaked with dirt and tears. \"It's gonna be all right,\" he said softly.\n\n\"Take her up to the house,\" I said, \"then come back and help me fuel this plane.\"\n\nHe carried the child out to his truck, and I got busy tossing bodies into the back of the junky pickup they had arrived in. The corpses had almost stopped oozing blood, but I got some blood and brains on my shirt anyway. I figured the stuff would wash off. The key was still in the ignition of the truck, so I didn't have to go through their pockets.\n\nMy neck burned like fire and I could feel blood trickling down into my shirt. Another fucking scar! Welcome to the revolution.\nTWENTY-EIGHT\n\nThe CH-47s dropped Colonel Kevin Crislip and his troops of the 10th Special Forces Group at six bridges across the Canadian River in the Texas panhandle, five highway bridges and one railroad bridge. The Canadian was not much of a river, merely a wet, sandy depression in that cap-rock country, but knocking the railroad bridge down would prevent any trains from using the railroad until it was replaced. The destruction of the five highway bridges across the Canadian would severely inconvenience truckers, who would have to go east to the main body of Oklahoma or west to New Mexico to find an alternate route south.\n\nColonel Crislip thought this whole mission a bad joke, political revenge on the Texas politicians who had embarrassed Barry Soetoro, but General Seuss and his staff had been trading messages with the Pentagon, so here the Green Berets were, blowing up bridges in the panhandle, each demolition team delivered by helicopter. Crislip consoled himself with the thought that these demolition jobs were good training, if nothing else.\n\nEach bridge had one demolition team assigned and it was delivered by a Chinook, which moved safely away from the bridge after off-loading the team, their explosives, and a few guards. Colonel Crislip accompanied the team blowing the bridge north of Borger. He stood in the warm Texas night listening to crickets and inhaling the faint aroma of cow manure drifting on the breeze while the team worked. Crislip sent the guards up the highway on either side of the bridge to stop traffic. There wasn't much. A semi came from the north fifteen minutes after they arrived and was waved on through. Five minutes later a pickup full of Mexicans who had been drinking came from the direction of Borger. They were going back to the ranch, they said, so the guard waved them across the bridge. They went by Crislip saluting and shouting and laughing. Although the Mexicans could see the helo parked in a nearby pasture, they couldn't see the soldiers working under the bridge, so they certainly couldn't warn anyone that the bridge was soon to be destroyed.\n\nThe colonel had never actually demolished a real bridge before; he went down the riverbank and stood underneath, looking up, ten feet, with a flashlight to see where his troops put the charges. They seemed to know what to do and how to do it.\n\nThey were planting C-4 charges, which the experts at Fort Carson had assured the colonel were quite enough to put the bridge in the sand of the Canadian River, if, the experts said, they were placed properly.\n\nAlways the big _if_ , Crislip fumed. So if any bridge remained standing after its charge was detonated, his troops would take the blame. Wonderful!\n\nHe climbed back up the bank and was standing beside the highway listening to the crickets and savoring that stockyard smell when a battered old pickup coming from the north was stopped by the guard. Crislip walked over, just in time to hear his soldier tell the driver to turn around and go home. There were two other people in the truck's cab, Crislip saw, two women.\n\n\"Let him across the bridge if he wants to go,\" the colonel told the guard as he walked up.\n\nThe driver, who looked to be in his fifties and was wearing a ratty ball cap, asked, \"Who is the head man here?\"\n\n\"I am,\" Crislip said. \"Colonel Kevin Crislip, United States Army.\"\n\n\"I live just a little west of here, and we saw you people come in on that helicopter after dark and we been watching you. What the hell is going on?\"\n\nThe dashboard lights let Crislip see the other passengers, one a woman about the driver's age and the other a teenage girl. \"That's none of your business, sir. What's your name, anyway?\"\n\n\"Zeke Lipscomb, buddy. And telling me to mind my own business ain't the way we do things here in Texas.\"\n\n\"Mr. Lipscomb, this is army business. Cross the bridge or go home.\"\n\n\"I'll cross.\" He put the truck in motion, drove it a hundred yards and stopped right in the middle of the bridge. He killed the headlights, parked the truck, and he and the two women got out.\n\nCrislip strode toward them. The guard was going to accompany him, but Crislip growled for him to stay put.\n\n\"I told you to drive across,\" he said to Mr. Lipscomb, who had a female on each side of him.\n\n\"Well, I didn't. And I ain't a gonna. We kinda think you soldiers are up to no good, and we're not going to let you get away with it.\"\n\nCrislip sighed.\n\nThe older woman, presumably Mrs. Lipscomb, spoke up. \"You federal troops got no damn business in Texas, Colonel, and you know it. We done declared ourselves a separate nation.\"\n\nCrislip looked back at the guard. There was just a sliver of moon and enough starlight to see him clearly, standing there in the road looking this way, no doubt wondering what the colonel was going to do about this stubborn rancher.\n\n\"Mr. Lipscomb and Mrs. Lipscomb\u2014\" he looked at the girl. \"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Ruby.\"\n\n\"And Ms. Ruby Lipscomb. I am here obeying the orders of my superior officers, and the men with me are obeying my orders. We are doing our duty. Now I am asking you nicely to please get in your truck and drive on into Borger or return to your home.\"\n\n\"You're gonna blow up this bridge, ain't ya?\" Lipscomb said, scrutinizing Crislip's face.\n\n\"Yes, we are.\"\n\n\"Well, we ain't goin' anywhere. We use this bridge to get back and forth to town, and so do our neighbors. Our tax dollars built this bridge, and we ain't gonna let a bunch of Soetoro's soldier boys blow it up. You people get in your helicopter and get the hell outta here.\"\n\n\"There are ten of us, Mr. Lipscomb, and we're all armed.\"\n\n\"I ain't packin'. My wife and daughter ain't packin'. But if we have to go home and get our rifles and start shootin', we will. You people ain't blowin' up this bridge without a fight . . . and that's my final word.\"\n\nCrislip walked over to the guardrail on the edge of the bridge and looked down. The soldiers in the riverbed had finished placing the charges under the bridge and were unrolling det cord.\n\nHe turned around and found Lipscomb beside him.\n\n\"You people must be idiots,\" Lipscomb said. \"Blowin' a bridge in the middle of the Texas panhandle ain't no way to win friends. You think that'll make us submit?\" He spat onto the pavement. \"When they hear about this glorious military raid in Austin, no doubt they'll decide to drag Texas back to Soetoro's slimy embrace, kiss his shitty ass, and beg for forgiveness.\"\n\nCrislip tried to decide what to do.\n\n\"Meanwhile the folks who live around here ain't got no bridge, thanks to the United States Army and Barry Soetoro.\"\n\nThe colonel examined his options. He could have his soldiers drag these three people off this bridge and blow it. Or he could tell the Lipscombs to go get their rifles and blow it while they were gone. Or. . .\n\nHe took a deep breath of that foul stink of cow shit. \"How the hell do you stand the smell?\" he asked Lipscomb.\n\nLipscomb sniffed the air. \"Oh, the cows. You get used to it.\"\n\nKevin Crislip grew up in Des Moines, son of a lawyer. His mother's father had been a farmer, growing corn on three sections of land every summer. Kevin had loved his visits to his grandparents' farm. There he learned to drive a tractor, shoot a rifle\u2014learned what hard work was.\n\nAfter four years at West Point and twenty-three years in the army, four deployments in two wars, here he was standing in the darkness on a bridge in the middle of nowhere breathing that pure Texas smell, arguing with a rancher who really didn't deserve to lose his bridge to make Barry Soetoro happy.\n\nThe colonel made his decision. He leaned over the guardrail of the bridge. \"Lieutenant,\" he called.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"There's been a change of plans. Remove the charges from under the bridge, and let's go back to Colorado.\"\n\n\"Ahh . . .\"\n\n\"Do it,\" the colonel said.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nAnd that is what they did. The three Lipscombs were still standing in the middle of the bridge when the twin-rotor helicopter lifted off with all the soldiers aboard.\n\nWith the electricity off in much of east Texas, the prison, its power provided by emergency generators, seemed an oasis of light that Saturday evening. Although it was only six and darkness was several hours away, the institution's floodlights were all lit. That was an irony that didn't escape the seven armed men in National Guard camo uniforms who pulled up to the main gate in two Humvees with fresh Lone Star flag insignia painted on the doors. Behind them was a National Guard bus that contained another ten soldiers, also sporting newly painted Lone Star flags.\n\n\"It's after visiting hours,\" the bored gate guard said. The officer in charge, a colonel, displayed a letter. He passed it through the window to the guard, who picked up a telephone on his desk and made a call.\n\nFrom his right front seat in the Humvee, the colonel had a good view of the star-shaped building, the tiny barred windows, the guard towers, and the double-chain-link fence topped by concertina wire that encircled the entire facility. Popular legend had it that there had never been an escape from the prison, and the colonel could see why.\n\nAfter a few minutes, the guard said, \"I'm going to open the gate and you drive in and park by the stairs. Someone will be down shortly to escort you.\"\n\nThat is how it went. Ten minutes later the colonel, whose name was embroidered on his left chest, and a captain were sitting in the warden's office. The warden was eating from a heaping plate on his desk, apparently his supper.\n\nThe colonel passed the warden the letter, which was on the stationery of the governor, now president, of Texas. The warden dropped his eyes to the signature. Jack Hays.\n\nThe warden, Arlen Kirkpatrick, was forty or so pounds overweight, was balding, and had prominent jowls. Kirkpatrick picked up a bite of fried chicken with his fingers as he started to read. He read in silence. In the document, President Hays summarily relieved him, thanked him for his past service, and appointed Colonel Ezekiel Holly in his place. Warden Kirkpatrick was told to report to the Bureau of Corrections as soon as possible to be reassigned or, if he wished, placed on the retired list.\n\nHe read the letter quickly, abandoned his dinner, then read it again much slower.\n\nHe dropped the two sheets of paper on the desk and looked at the colonel. \"What did I do to earn this honor?\"\n\n\"Obviously, the president is putting the military in charge of the prisons for the time being. He said he intends to see that you are reassigned to another prison when the crisis is past.\"\n\nKirkpatrick shook his head in amazement. \"Colonel Holly, someone has lost their senses. Soldiers aren't trained to run prisons. Our inmates are some of the worst in the system. Only a fool would send you here.\"\n\n\"You are entitled to your opinion.\"\n\nKirkpatrick picked up the letter and read aloud, \"The Republic can no longer afford the past level of outlay on prisons. . . . Having full faith and confidence in Colonel Ezekiel Holly, I have ordered him to assess the prison population at your facility and recommend which prisoners should be released early.\"\n\nThe warden stared at Holly. \"Does this mean . . .\"\n\n\"Indeed, there may be some early releases,\" Colonel Holly said with a curt nod. \"Texas is fighting for its life and must save dollars wherever it can. The president thought extraordinary measures were necessary.\"\n\n\"I must verify this with the president,\" the warden said.\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"But I cannot. The electricity is out and the telephones are dead.\"\n\nColonel Holly's face was impassive.\n\n\"I will not admit you to the prison proper until I can verify this with President Hays.\"\n\n\"Just how do you propose to do that?\" Holly asked softly.\n\n\"Well, wait until power is restored, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Mr. Kirkpatrick. I have sixteen armed soldiers with me. Do I have to bring these troops in here and forcibly remove you from this office?\"\n\n\"Now see here\u2014\"\n\n\"If that is what I need to do, please excuse me.\" Colonel Holly stood. \"I must be about it. I have my orders.\"\n\n\"Sit, Colonel, sit. Please.\" Arlen Kirkpatrick knew when he was beaten. He pushed his unfinished dinner out of the way. \"What can I do to help?\"\n\n\"Bring your senior staffers in, tell them you have been relieved, and go home.\"\n\n\"Only the night guards are here. We are finishing the dinner hour, then the prisoners will be locked down for the night.\"\n\n\"That will do.\"\n\n\"What do you intend to do, Colonel?\"\n\n\"That isn't your problem. As I said, I have my orders. I suggest you make a copy of that letter, keep the original, and let me have the copy.\"\n\nArlen Kirkpatrick rose from behind his desk, made the copy on a machine in the outer office, called in the senior people on the night shift, and introduced Holly. The warden shook hands all around, the guards wished him well, and then he departed, leaving his half-eaten dinner on the desk.\n\nHolly called for the records. His armed staff found seats in the outer office while the night shift, mostly guards, carried in the records in alphabetical order.\n\nHolly read for several hours as darkness fell and made notes. He sent the captain and the senior NCO, a staff sergeant, to ensure the prisoners were indeed locked in their cells. Then he sat in the warden's office and watched the security monitor high on the wall shift automatically around the security doors and corridors. About midnight, the guards were called in. \"Gentlemen, we are sending all of you home for the evening.\"\n\n\"You can't do that,\" one of the guards said curtly. \"Regulations require\u2014\"\n\n\"The military is now in charge of this facility. With the prisoners locked up, I have enough men to see that they remain behind bars through the night. Report tomorrow at your usual shift time.\"\n\nThe guards didn't want to go, but Ezekiel Holly looked stern and every inch a senior military officer used to being obeyed. They went by the armory, turned in their weapons, which were locked up, and filed to the courtyard in front of the prison for their cars. One of the soldiers closed the gate behind them. Soldiers replaced guards at key checkpoints throughout the prison.\n\nThe colonel nodded at the security monitor. \"Get all the tapes, or if the feed goes on a computer, the hard drive.\"\n\nWhen that was done, the colonel led a half-dozen soldiers, all that remained after the guard positions within the prison and at the gate were manned, to the security checkpoint outside Cell Block A. When they got there, the colonel consulted a list he had made from examining the files.\n\n\"James Abbott,\" the colonel said. \"Bring him here.\" Two soldiers left their weapons on the desk and went through the checkpoint. Another manned the panel that opened the cell doors in the block.\n\nIn a few minutes, Abbott appeared. He was a pasty-faced man of medium height with a prominent spare tire. His hands were cuffed into a wide leather belt that encircled his waist, and he had cuffs on his ankles that were held together with about fifteen inches of chain. He had lively eyes and a semipermanent smile upon his lips. One of the Texas Guard soldiers that had accompanied Holly to the prison stood behind him.\n\n\"Mr. Abbott, according to your file, you were convicted of raping and murdering four girls. The Texas Rangers believed you raped and murdered at least six other girls over a period of nine years, but you refused to admit the crimes or tell where the bodies were buried.\"\n\nAbbott said nothing, merely looked from face to face with nervous eyes, wearing that smirk.\n\n\"You were sentenced to life in prison without parole.\"\n\nThe smirk didn't change.\n\n\"Do you want to tell us now how many other young women you murdered?\"\n\n\"You're shitting me, right?\"\n\nIn the silence that followed, Ezekiel Holly looked at his list. When he looked up, Abbott had said nothing and was still wearing that semipermanent smirk.\n\nHolly nodded at two of the guards who were still wearing sidearms.\n\nThe soldiers grasped Abbott, one on each arm, and started leading him to the corridor that led to the courtyard one story below.\n\n\"Hey,\" Abbott said, trying to resist. \"Where are you taking me?\" That is when he really looked at the face of the soldier on his left side. \"I know you,\" he shrieked. \"You are the brother of\u2014\"\n\nHe refused to walk, so the soldiers dragged him along, supporting his weight.\n\nA minute later a young man was brought in, also wearing shackles and manacles.\n\n\"Jason Brodski. Apparently you opened fire with an assault rifle in a movie theater and killed a dozen people and wounded thirty-three more. Your attorneys argued that you were insane, and the jury rejected that defense. They convicted you but couldn't agree on the death penalty, so you were sentenced to life without parole. Is that correct?\"\n\nA sneer crossed Brodski's lips. He was a slightly built white man with a mop of unruly black hair and pimples. \"Yeah,\" he said.\n\n\"Mr. Brodski, the world has turned. The Republic of Texas is not going to force taxpayers to pay for your maintenance and medical care, nor for the guards to watch you. You will be executed tonight.\"\n\n\"What the fuck! You can't do that! Goddamn, I know my rights. I want my lawyer. I\u2014\"\n\nHolly nodded to the two armed soldiers near Brodski, who grabbed his upper arms and removed him through the open security door along the corridor. The smell of feces was in the air. Holly glanced down the corridor and saw a dark stain spreading on the seat of Brodski's pants.\n\nThe next prisoner was standing in front of Holly when the muffled sound of a shot could be heard through the window overlooking the interior basketball court.\n\n\"What was that?\" the prisoner, a Latino, asked nervously. \"What the fuck is going on here?\" He had a thick accent, glowered, and shifted from foot to foot.\n\n\"Alfredo Mendez, citizen of Mexico. Apparently you were an assassin for a Mexican drug syndicate, and you were convicted of murdering six men with an automatic weapon as they sat in a Del Rio beer joint.\"\n\nMendez merely glared. \"What the hell is this, anyway?\"\n\nAnother muffled shot could be heard from the basketball court.\n\nAlfredo Mendez looked around wildly as the first two soldiers returned carrying the empty shackles and manacles. They handed them to the unarmed soldiers and grabbed Mendez.\n\n\" _Madre de Dios_! No! I can pay. My _patron_ swore\u2014\"\n\nThe soldiers took Mendez down the corridor, still swearing and shouting.\n\nThe next man was a hulking black with scars on his face and tattoos on his knuckles and forehead. He had apparently been spending a lot of time in the weight room, because he was heavily bulked up.\n\n\"James Elvin Dallas,\" Colonel Holly said. He looked Dallas straight in the eyes as he recited, \"You were convicted of raping three women. Then, while in prison, you beat a man to death, apparently because he refused to be your butt-boy. It is thought you killed another with a homemade shiv, but you were never charged due to lack of evidence.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"Did you ever wonder what became of your victims?\" Holly's eyes scrutinized Dallas' face.\n\nDallas' eyes were roaming, measuring the men in the room.\n\nAnother shot was heard from the courtyard.\n\nJames Elvin Dallas went nuts. He lunged sideways and tried for the rifle on the table. Four of the soldiers tried to subdue him. That task was only accomplished when one of the soldiers struck him repeatedly on the head with a rifle butt. As Dallas lay immobilized upon the floor, Holly pulled his service pistol and, from a distance of one foot, shot him between the eyes. Brains and blood splattered across the concrete floor.\n\n\"Take him to the courtyard,\" Holly ordered, \"and shoot him again.\"\n\nThe next prisoner was large and sloppy, with greasy, curly black hair springing from his head and his chest. He had a full beard too\u2014something that had been banned in Texas until last year. \"Muzzaffan Mehsud. You were convicted of throwing acid in your wife's face because she went shopping without your permission. You were sentenced to twenty years.\"\n\nThe man spat at Holly, who merely nodded to the soldiers. They took Mehsud away as he shouted, over and over, \" _Allahu Akbar_.\"\n\nAfter three more men were removed from Cell Block A, the colonel led his soldiers to Cell Block B.\n\n\"Francisco Colon, you are a serial rapist. At least six girls, none older than fourteen.\"\n\n\"You fuck! I know my rights. You can't revisit a sentence.\"\n\n\"Did you ever wonder what happened to the girls you raped?\"\n\n\"Everyone heard the shots from the courtyard. You can't get away with this.\"\n\n\"One of the girls, Judy Martinez, committed suicide six months ago. She had been in psychiatric care for four years. Apparently she could never come to grips with the fact that animals like you roam the streets. Her father paid ten thousand dollars to hear that you were dead.\"\n\n\"Fuck you!\" Colon lowered his head and launched himself at Holly. He didn't get there. The men on either side dropped him on his face on the concrete floor, smashing his nose and releasing a torrent of blood. Semiconscious from the impact, he was carried to the courtyard.\n\nThe next man was a white man, medium-sized, with a full head of hair. He could even be called handsome. He was calm. \"We heard shots. Are you executing people?\"\n\n\"Robert Winston Carrington. You were convicted of running a Ponzi scheme that took in over twelve million dollars, most of which you squandered to pay for an extravagant lifestyle.\"\n\nCarrington glanced at the bloodstain on the floor from Colon's nose, then his eyes came back to Holly. \"I didn't kill anybody,\" he said.\n\n\"Did it ever occur to you,\" Ezekiel Holly said conversationally, \"that prisons exist for two reasons? The first of course is to keep the guilty in, and the second is to keep the victims out.\"\n\n\"They were all greedy bastards and got what they deserved.\"\n\n\"As we all shall, rest assured. Two of your victims committed suicide. Many were reduced to penury after a lifetime of work because they believed in you, trusted you. We are here tonight as surrogates for your victims.\"\n\nHolly nodded at the soldiers, and they took Robert Winston Carrington away. He walked with his head high. Maybe, thought Colonel Holly, he doesn't believe he will really be executed. Or, perhaps, he doesn't care.\n\nThree minutes later another shot was heard.\n\nWhen Colonel Holly and his soldiers left the prison at three that morning, thirty-two corpses were laid out side by side on the prison basketball court, where they were found by the day shift.\n\nWarden Arlen Kirkpatrick was summoned, and he sent a man to Austin. When the man returned two days later, he reported that no one at the Bureau of Prisons, in the governor's office, or at Texas Guard headquarters had ever heard of Ezekiel Holly. The governor's signature on the letter was a forgery.\n\nPerhaps fingerprints might have identified Colonel Holly, but all the other soldiers wore tactical gloves. When the Texas Rangers finally sent a man around to hunt for prints, more than a week had passed and the task was hopeless.\nTWENTY-NINE\n\n\"We leave tomorrow,\" Jake Grafton said on Sunday morning.\n\nBoy, that was good news to me!\n\nSarah Houston was carrying the little girl around, everywhere, and gave me The Look every time she passed me, as if it were my fault the kid got raped. She didn't even say anything about my neck wound. Mrs. Johnson was a nurse and bandaged me up after she had smeared some sort of antiseptic on it. My neck was so sore I couldn't turn my head.\n\nWillie Varner said, \"Goddamn, Tommy. You keep lettin' these sons of bitches shoot at you. It's just a matter of time, dude.\"\n\n\"Hey, Willie, I\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't want to hear it. I done tol' ya. Just a matter of time. Ain't goin' to cry at your funeral, Tommy. Sarah might, or Mizz Grafton, but I ain't a gonna. See you in Hell, dude, and we'll catch up then.\"\n\n\"I can hardly wait. Thanks, asshole.\"\n\n\"You're welcome.\"\n\nI was fed up to here. I broke out the two sniper rifles from FEMA's Walmart stash and took them down to the meadow. Put a target out at two hundred yards\u2014measured with one of the laser rangefinders the military had thoughtfully included in the box\u2014and laid down by the hangar. Used a box of MREs as a rest and commenced shooting. The rifles were .308 caliber, actual designation 7.62\u00d751 NATO, and we had  plenty of ammo. I played with them a while and got them zeroed. Just in case.\n\nI am not a sniper: I am not good enough with a rifle, and I don't have the patience for it. However, the concept of whacking bad guys from beyond the effective range of their weapons strongly appeals to me. I have no sporting instinct whatsoever and am a disciple of W. C. Fields: Never give a sucker an even break, and its corollary, do it unto others before they do it unto you.\n\nWhen I got back to the safe house, the sun was down. In the twilight everyone was sitting around outside eating venison that I had shot, Molina and Yocke had butchered, and Jake Grafton had cooked on the outdoor fire. Burned on the outside, pink in the middle. Everyone but me complimented him on his outdoor culinary skills. To accompany the venison we also had Mrs. Price's green beans and baked potatoes with margarine and ketchup, for those so inclined. With the smell of wood smoke in the delightful evening air and plenty of good, wholesome food, some of the folks around the fire looked like they were dumping some stress. The meal was filling and a nice change from MREs, but I wasn't ready to sing Kumbaya.\n\nI figured that there was a lot of shooting and dying coming up in the days ahead. Going to Washington to clean up the government wasn't on my bucket list.\n\nBut what the hell! A man can only die once. That's a good thing, by the way. We've all gotta go sometime, and, truth be told, the sooner you check out, the more shit you miss. That's the gospel according to Reverend Carmellini. Amen.\n\nThe girl spent the evening sitting by Sarah Houston. Armanti was sitting with Mrs. Price. The Johnsons were huddled together, the parents taking care of the kids. Yocke and Molina sat engaged in earnest conversation, solving the nation's problems, probably. The warriors kept by themselves, although they had included Willie Varner in their little group. They liked Willie's brand of pessimism, I suspected: I certainly did.\n\nAfter the fire died down to glowing coals, Sarah Houston picked up the kid and carried her into the house. I waited a moment, then tagged along. I found them upstairs in the bedroom we had been using, and the door was open a crack. I eavesdropped. It's one of my failings. But, to paraphrase that great American philosopher Yogi Berra, you can learn a lot by listening.\n\n\"My name is Sarah too,\" the girl said.\n\n\"We have a lot in common,\" Sarah Houston said warmly.\n\n\"I saw that man shoot my parents. He was really mean. He hurt me terrible down there. Then Mister Tommy shot him and his whole head came off. After what he did to me, I was glad.\" I knew that Mrs. Johnson, the nurse, gave the kid a vaginal exam and had to do some stitches, after she had numbed her.\n\n\"I suppose so,\" Sarah Houston said. \"Tommy is a good man. Was your father a good man?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. He wasn't tall, and he was sort of heavy, not a bit like Mister Tommy. But he loved me very much. So did Mommy.\"\n\nAfter a bit I heard Sarah Houston say, \"I am sure you will miss them very much.\"\n\n\"Mommy and Daddy loved me.\"\n\n\"I am sure they did.\"\n\n\"I like Mister Armanti too. He's a real nice man. Sort of like a bear.\"\n\nThe two sat in silence for a while, then the big Sarah said, \"You and I are going to sleep right here. If you have a nightmare, you wake me up. Will you do that?\"\n\n\"Daddy always read me a book before bed.\"\n\n\"I don't have any books. Maybe I can tell you a story, after you get in bed.\"\n\nFive minutes later Sarah began, \"Once upon a time . . .\"\n\nA half hour later, Sarah came out. I was sitting on the top of the stairs. She sat down beside me.\n\n\"That kid has been through a hell of a lot.\"\n\n\"I guess.\"\n\n\"She's in denial right now. Sooner or later the implications of the murder of her parents, rape, all that is going to hit her hard. She is only eight years old and she saw all that mayhem.\"\n\n\"God help her,\" I murmured.\n\n\"You can sleep on the couch downstairs.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Oh, Tommy. What a disaster . . . for all of us.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI put my arm around her. After a while she said, \"I'm staying here when you leave tomorrow. Someone has to take care of this child.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Will you come back? Afterward?\"\n\n\"You can bet your life on it.\"\n\nSunday evening two Muslim male refugees from Syria, ages nineteen and twenty, raped a thirteen-year-old black girl in St. Louis. She screamed and they beat her. Despite the perilous state of law enforcement in St. Louis after a week of rioting in the black neighborhoods, the police apprehended the pair. They were taken to a police lockup.\n\nThat night a crowd of almost eight hundred people, mostly black, surrounded the police station. These were not ghetto dwellers, but middle-class suburbanites, and many were armed. They held the police at gunpoint and removed the two rapists from the cells. The two were taken outside and hanged by their necks from a nearby tree with ropes some members of the crowd had thoughtfully brought along.\n\nThen the crowd, now containing about 1,500 people, walked in a body to the downtown mosque that the imam had made infamous by preaching jihad from the pulpit; the mosque, incidentally, where the two rapists had worshiped. The crowd found the cleric cowering in a closet in a nearby house, dragged him outside, and hanged him too. The mosque was set on fire.\n\nWhile the imam dangled and strangled, a few people in the crowd fired some shots in the air and shouted catcalls, but mainly the crowd was quiet. Some police officers sat on the hoods of their cruisers, watching and smoking. An intrepid television cameraman filmed the holy man swinging in the wind for broadcast whenever. An hour or so later, the crowd began to dissipate and trudge away into the night.\n\nAmazingly, the energy seemed to go out of the rioters in other sections of town, many of whom actually went home. For the first time since Barry Soetoro declared martial law, the hours from midnight to dawn on Labor Day were quiet in St. Louis.\n\nAt nine o'clock that Labor Day morning, a convoy of two companies of Marines from Quantico arrived at the Pentagon. A colonel was there to meet the company commanders, both captains. After a short conversation, the troops set up machine guns inside sandbagged positions at the entrances to the Pentagon, other Marines were sent to guard the Metro station downstairs (even though it wasn't running) and to guard the entrances to the parking lots. They set up a bivouac on an empty section of the vast parking lot on the western side of the massive building, a lot that looked relatively empty because, despite the crisis engulfing the nation, many of the civilians had Labor Day off.\n\nThe chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Martin Wynette, knew nothing about the Marines' arrival. He was upstairs in his office on the E-Ring going over readiness reports from the U.S. armed forces around the world, with special attention to those units in the United States. The United States armed forces were in full mutiny, he said to his staff after a quick perusal of the reports. People in uniform willing to fight for Barry Soetoro against Americans were a rare commodity. The only bright spot was the Marines in Southern California, who had strapped on the Mexican military as though they were God's gift to starving men. At last, an enemy to shoot at. The crews of the navy's two carriers now cruising off the coast of San Diego were apparently happy as pigs in slop launching strikes at the Mexican invaders. They had achieved complete control of the air, left Mexican armor burned-out wrecks, destroyed Mexican staging areas on the American side of the border, and flown support missions for the Marines. It was a proverbial turkey shoot.\n\nThe rioting Mexicans in the slums of LA weren't the military's problem. What the civil authorities were going to do about them was up to Barry Soetoro and the politicians in LA and Sacramento who wanted those Hispanic votes more than they wanted salvation. If they wanted salvation, which was doubtful.\n\nMartin Wynette was trying to figure out what he was going to tell the president and his disciples when he went over to the White House to brief them at eleven o'clock when a group of flag officers led by CNO Admiral Cart McKiernan came into his office unannounced and closed the door. The commandant of the Marine Corps was there, as well as the deputy chiefs of staff of the army and air force. The four officers stood in front of the desk looking down on Wynette.\n\n\"Marty,\" said the commandant, Morton Runyon, \"tell us why you threw Sugar Ray, Jack Williams (the army chief of staff), and Harry Miller (the air force chief) to the wolves.\"\n\nWynette stood up. \"You don't know what you are talking about.\"\n\n\"We've talked to Major General Stout, who was there at the White House with you. Remember?\"\n\n\"Now, listen, people. Someone told Soetoro that a coup was being planned over here in the Pentagon. He already knew. What could I say?\"\n\n\"He didn't know shit, Marty. Schanck tried a shot in the dark and you spilled your guts. You pulled the trigger on Sugar, Jack, and Harry.\"\n\n\"Well, Jesus, they _were_ planning a coup! Talking about it, anyway. For Christ's sake, he's the _commander-in-chief_. He's the _president_!\"\n\n\"And you took an oath _to support and defend the Constitution of the United States_. Soetoro has become a dictator. He's ripped up the Constitution.\"\n\n\"These are perilous times,\" Wynette explained. \"The president has a right to do whatever is required to maintain the government. You know that.\"\n\n\"He doesn't have the right to convert the country into a dictatorship,\" Cart McKiernan said, and made an angry gesture. \"But we aren't here to debate politics. This has gone too damned far. Three senior officers were executed without a trial in the courtyard downstairs. This isn't Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Get your head out of your ass, Marty.\"\n\nWynette sank into his chair and his gaze went from face to face.\n\n\"What do you want of me?\" he said softly.\n\nThe CNO, who was in short-sleeve summer whites, nodded to the commandant, who was in greens. He lifted his blouse and pulled out a pistol. \"This is yours, Marty. I stopped by your quarters and your wife let me in. I got this from the desk in your study.\"\n\nMartin Wynette stared at the faces. \"I'm not going to shoot myself, if that is what you are implying.\"\n\n\"We'll call Mrs. Ray. What is her name? Naomi, I think. Maybe she'll do it for you. Or Barry Soetoro can send his goons over to do you in the courtyard.\"\n\nWynette said nothing. He was sweating and licking his lips.\n\nMorton Runyon walked around the desk and fooled around with the pistol. Then, quick as a flash, as Wynette looked at the other officers, he put it to the right side of Wynette's head and pulled the trigger. Blood, tissue, and little pieces of skull spurted out the other side. Wynette slumped in the chair.\n\nRunyon picked up Wynette's dead hand, put it around the pistol, got fingerprints all over it, then dropped the gun on the floor.\n\n\"Damn,\" said Cart McKiernan. \"I think he shot himself. Get the staff in here for the bad news.\"\n\nJake Grafton sat everyone down after breakfast and announced that Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and their children were staying at the safe house, along with Mrs. Price and the young Sarah. \"Armanti, would you be willing to stay here with them and keep an eye on things?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Armanti Hall said.\n\n\"I'm staying too,\" Sarah Houston announced.\n\n\"No, you're not,\" Jake Grafton said, eyeing her. \"Too much is at stake.\"\n\nSarah looked at me, then shrugged.\n\n\"Uh, Admiral,\" said Willie Varner. \"Maybe I could stay too. I ain't much of a shooter and all, and\u2014\"\n\n\"We may need your lock skills,\" Grafton said crisply. \"Tommy, load the trucks. Leave what you can for the people who are staying, and let Armanti keep whatever weapons he might need. Pistols for all the adults who want one.\"\n\n\"What about the plane?\" I asked.\n\n\"I'll fly it. Mr. Johnson has given me his permission and the ignition key. Take me down to the hangar and let's get it out.\"\n\nWe pulled the plane from the hangar, spun it around, and I helped Grafton in. He wasn't spry and obviously had some discomfort, but he seemed able to move without pain.\n\nHe looked over a sectional chart that Johnson had used to get here, and said, \"You get everything loaded up. I'll be back in about an hour.\"\n\nHe started the engine, taxied down to the far end of the runway, swung the plane around, and ran the engine up to a pleasant hum. I looked at the sky: clear above, hazy, only a couple of knots from the north, just enough to stir the wind sock a little. The morning dew hadn't yet burned off in the sunny places, so people and the plane left tracks in the grass. If you didn't know any better you'd think it was just another late summer day in paradise.\n\nAfter a moment the Cessna accelerated down the runway with its tail-wheel off the ground and got airborne. It flew away to the north, climbing slowly. The plane got smaller and smaller and more indistinct, then it merged into the haze and the sound of the engine faded completely away.\n\nThe guys and I loaded the trucks. Willie the Wire did some bitching. \"Hell, he don't need me to open locks when he's got you.\"\n\n\"The only place you know how to rustle grub is in a grocery store,\" I said. \"You eat too much to leave you here.\"\n\n\"We get back to Washington, dude, there ain't gonna be no grocery stores. Not ones with anythin' in them to eat, anyway. Did you think of that?\"\n\n\"No liquor stores or beer joints either,\" Armanti offered. \"Gonna be like Baghdad or Damascus. Nice of you to share the pain, Willie.\"\n\nWillie Varner said a crude phrase.\n\n\"Look on the bright side,\" I suggested, just to buck him up. \"It couldn't be as bad as the sewers of Cairo. Did I ever tell you about the month I\u2014\"\n\n\"You too, Carmellini.\"\n\nSarah Houston and I got to spend a few minutes with young Sarah before we left. The girl was sobbing, finally letting her emotions out, which was a good thing. The Sarahs put their foreheads together and hugged. Finally Sarah kissed the kid and said, \"I'll be back.\"\n\nOn the way down the hill, I told her, \"You're optimistic.\"\n\n\"Live every day until you die,\" she retorted. Then she touched the pistol butt in its holster on her web belt. I doubt if she even realized she did it.\n\n\"You're taking your computer along, I see.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"When do you suppose you'll get a chance to use it?\"\n\n\"You never know.\"\n\nWhen Grafton landed, he said the roads were clear to the airport in Elkins, which looked deserted. \"Before we go, run me down to that clinic.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nIn Greenbank Dr. Proudfoot didn't seem surprised when Grafton and I walked through his door. He and Grafton shook hands.\n\n\"Could we have a little talk in your office?\" Grafton asked him.\n\nWhile they were talking, I went into the room where Mrs. Greenwood was. She was still in a coma. The nurse and I chatted.\n\nAfter about fifteen minutes, Grafton and the doctor came back. \"Dr. Proudfoot is going with us. He needs to run up to his house for some things, and he'll join us at the hangar.\"\n\nBack at the hangar, Grafton spread out the sectional chart and our one roadmap on the hood of my pickup, and Travis, Willis Coffee, and I studied them.\n\n\"If there are rebels around,\" Grafton said, \"I suspect we will find them at Camp Dawson, where FEMA had their concentration camp. I want to fly up to Elkins, wait for you there, and then we'll fuel the plane if we can and I'll fly up to Dawson and look around. If it's safe, we can all go.\"\n\n\"Why Dawson?\" Travis asked.\n\n\"A National Guard base figures to have an armory. People with deer rifles are guerillas. To turn them into an army you need machine guns, mortars, and artillery, if you can find some.\"\n\nRight then I began to suspect that Grafton wasn't leveling with us. Maybe everyone else thought he was, but I was no virgin. I had worked with him too many times in the past. I kicked myself for not cornering him several days ago and getting the lowdown. If anything happened to Jake Grafton, Sarah and I and all these other fools were going to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Too late to brace him now, though.\n\nGrafton got back in the plane and we climbed into the trucks. The doc and Sarah rode with me. As we rolled along he wanted to talk about Jake Grafton. He was obviously star-struck and called him \"Admiral\" in every sentence, finishing with, \"You didn't tell me he was a retired admiral.\"\n\n\"I didn't think it mattered.\"\n\n\"Or director of the CIA. Why didn't you say so?\"\n\n\"Because I didn't want you telling anyone anything.\" I turned my head and locked my eyes on him.\n\nDr. Proudfoot got uncomfortable and shifted his eyes to the road ahead. \"Well, I'm glad he asked me to go along. It's a great honor.\"\n\nI thought he should talk to Willie Varner about that, but I kept my mouth shut and drove. Sarah just sat looking out the window.\n\nThe JCS staff was shocked by the suicide of General Martin Wynette. Still, everyone knew he had been under tremendous pressure from the White House, and after the deputy chairman and the army and air force chiefs of staff were summarily executed by Secret Service personnel, his personal choice to end his own life was understandable, if tragic. While his remains were being carried away to a freezer in the cafeteria, to wait for a better day for his funeral and burial, the four surviving heads of their services met in a conference room behind locked doors.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" Cart McKiernan said, \"we have some critical decisions to make, and not much time to make them. We must announce Wynette's demise, and no doubt the White House will have a serious reaction to the news. Either Soetoro will send people over here to take over the Pentagon, or he will think this is the start of a putsch. Your thoughts, please.\"\n\nThe army deputy chief Franklin Rodriquez said, \"I think it would be a terrible precedent if the armed forces were involved in decapitating a president or in assisting a popular uprising to overthrow him. Or in assisting in keeping a hated president in office in the face of a revolution. In my opinion, the best thing for America is for the armed forces to remain neutral.\"\n\n\"As if we could,\" Morton Runyon scoffed. \"We're already up to our necks in this.\"\n\nThe acting air force chief of staff, Erhard \"Bud\" Weiss, said, \"We can't win, gentlemen. If we fight for or against Soetoro the people will never trust us again. We must let the American people sort this out.\"\n\nRodriquez tapped his chest. \"This isn't the uniform of Barry Soetoro's army; it's the uniform of the United States Army. There's a big difference. And this afternoon the order is going out to every army commander: we're not arresting civilians anymore, and we're releasing the political prisoners from every army-run camp.\"\n\nThe Marine commandant's gaze went from face to face. \"Well, that's a start, but I think we should go over to the White House, drag Soetoro and his staff out into the Rose Garden, and execute them. That prick is a traitor! He violated his oath to uphold the Constitution. He ordered officers murdered without trial. He deserves a bullet. I volunteer to take a company of Marines across the river and personally deliver one between that bastard's eyes.\"\n\n\"You're wrong, Mort,\" Bud Weiss said. \"The military _must_ remain neutral. We must publicly announce it. Confine all our forces to base. Defend ourselves, yes. But not take sides. California is a different story. Southern California has been invaded by the Mexican Army. It's our job to defend America and shove them back.\"\n\n\"What about defending America from Soetoro?\" grumbled the Marine Corps commandant.\n\nCart McKiernan took his time before he spoke. \"Mort, you know damn well we can't lead a revolution. But that said, I'm going to start carrying a pistol, and if I ever come face to face with Soetoro, I'm going to exercise my rights as a free American and shoot him dead. Now let's get the staff in here and get orders drafted. All offensive operations against Texas and other states are to stop immediately. All forces in the United States are confined to base except in Southern California. Bud, you are going to have to use the air force to supply our forces in SoCal. The navy will cooperate fully. Are we in agreement?\"\n\n\"You understand that if we wash our hands of the Soetoro administration, Barry Soetoro is doomed,\" Franklin Rodriquez remarked.\n\n\"That's up to the American people,\" McKiernan shot back. \"Our problem is to preserve the American armed forces to defend future generations of Americans from foreign threats. I repeat, are we agreed?\"\n\nThey were. They opened the door and the staff trooped in for orders.\n\nThe news that General Martin L. Wynette, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had committed suicide in his office was merely a footnote to the press release issued by the Pentagon. Henceforth, the release announced, United States armed forces would take no part in or play any role in the political problems the country was enduring. All offensive operations were canceled, all troops confined to base, all ships ordered into port, and all airplanes grounded. Except, however, in Southern California, where United States forces were actively engaged in armed combat with invading forces from Mexico. The statement went further: \"Unless the Republic of Mexico desires a wider war with the United States, it will recall its troops from United States soil immediately. If all Mexican forces are not back across the international border within twenty-four hours, United States forces will attack Mexican forces wherever they can be found.\"\n\n\"Those Pentagon bastards just revolted against the government and issued an ultimatum to the government of Mexico!\" Al Grantham roared as he read the press release. \"What in hell is going on over there?\"\n\nHe found out within two minutes. An icy Cart McKiernan told Grantham on the scrambled telephone, \"You people at the White House are on your own, Grantham. We won't obey your orders and we won't fight rebel forces. We will defend the Pentagon and armed forces bases worldwide, and kick the shit out of Mexico if they don't wise up fast.\"\n\n\"This is mutiny, McKiernan. Treason. You know the penalty for treason.\"\n\n\"Label it anything you like.\"\n\n\"Are you demanding that President Soetoro resign?\"\n\n\"I don't think anyone on this side of the Potomac gives a flying fuck what Barry Soetoro does or doesn't do. Please tell him I said so.\" And Admiral Cart McKiernan hung up on Al Grantham.\nTHIRTY\n\nWe were sitting in our pickups in the parking lot of the little one-story brick office building at the Elkins airport when Jake Grafton landed in the Cessna tail-dragger and taxied up. He shut down, got out of the plane, and came strolling over. It looked to me as if his ribs weren't hurting him too badly; his stride was almost normal.\n\nWillis Coffee and Travis Clay had gone up the road to the main entrance of the airport and were settled in there behind trees, just in case.\n\nExcept for the two on guard duty, we gathered around Grafton. \"Okay,\" he said. \"The road to Dawson is open. I'll take Yocke with me in the plane. The rest of you drive on up there. There is a roadblock about five miles from the southern entrance, but they know you're coming and will let you through. Any questions?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Jack Yocke said angrily. \"Just what the hell is going on?\"\n\n\"We're joining the revolutionary army,\" Jake Grafton said calmly, as if that were as plain as the nose on his face.\n\n\"Did you land there?\"\n\n\"No. I talked to them via radio. Tommy,\" he said, \"keep yours handy. Call me on one-twenty-two point nine if you have any trouble. I'll be listening on that freq.\"\n\n\"But who's there?\" Yocke asked, his puzzlement evident.\n\n\"We'll find out when we get there.\"\n\nHe walked back to his plane with Yocke trailing along. The admiral climbed in, and in less than twenty seconds the prop began turning, a little cloud of black smoke puffed from the exhaust, then the prop spun up to a blur as the engine settled into a nice idle. He swung the tail of the bird with a little blast of power and began taxiing for takeoff.\n\nSarah and I were sitting in the front seats of the truck, Dr. Proudfoot in the back, when the Cessna lifted off and turned northward.\n\n\"Well,\" Sarah said with a sigh, \"let's go to the war.\"\n\n\"You knew all about this, didn't you?\" I growled.\n\nShe glanced at me and smiled. \" _He is Jake Grafton_ , Tommy. You, of all people, should have known that he'd be a mile ahead of Barry Soetoro on the best day Soetoro ever had.\"\n\nI couldn't think of a thing to say. We picked up Willis and Travis at the airport entrance and headed up the asphalt ribbon through the mountains for Camp Dawson.\n\nOn the way I fiddled with the radio. Got a station with a seductive female on the mike who said her name was Dixie Cotton. She read the latest news releases from Washington, including one from the Pentagon that said they would no longer fight Americans, on whichever side of the political spectrum, and the ultimatum to Mexico. I wondered if that threat would frighten the Mexicans.\n\nI found myself rubbing my sore neck and, to take my mind off it, kept playing with the radio. I finally got a station that identified itself as being in Kingwood, West Virginia, which I knew was just a mile or two up the road from Camp Dawson. \"Guess the folks up there have their power back,\" I said brightly.\n\nSarah just grunted.\n\n\"Hey, electricity means commodes flush. Don't knock it.\"\n\nThe announcer was telling people in the Kingwood area which stores were open, where they could buy food and fuel. The senior center was open, she said, and would feed anyone who was hungry.\n\nMaybe America was starting to get back to normal. I rubbed my sore neck some more.\n\nA reporter came crashing into the governor's office in the parking garage under the Austin hotel with the Pentagon press release, which his newspaper had downloaded off the satellite. An aide took it into Jack Hays, who was in a meeting with bankers, college professors, and Dallas Federal Reserve officials. The subject of the meeting was the new Texas currency. As one of the Fed's bankers, now working for the Republic of Texas, held forth on the value of money, Hays read the press release.\n\nHays held up his hand, which silenced the moneymen. He read the press release aloud, all of it, including the ultimatum to Mexico.\n\nThe bankers cheered. \"We've won!\"\n\n\"If this is true,\" Jack Hays muttered, too softly for anyone to hear.\n\nHe sent an aide to find his cousin JR.\n\nThe bankers were leaving when JR came in, so they all had to tell him the news and shake hands and congratulate him. \"Best general since Sam Houston,\" one of them told JR, who looked a little stunned.\n\nWith the door closed, JR read the press release. \"Is this true?\" he asked Jack.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Jack Hays said, shrugging. \"But the implications are vast. Either Soetoro wants a political peace, or the U.S. armed forces have mutinied against him.\"\n\n\"Hadn't we better find out which it is?\"\n\n\"We'll find out soon enough. If Soetoro wants a settlement, we'll be hearing from them. In the meantime, let's stop all offensive military operations until we know more.\"\n\n\"What about that attack boat, _Texas_?\" JR asked.\n\n\"You know where she is, what she's doing?\"\n\n\"Hell, no. Loren Snyder and a handful of volunteers took her to sea. Apparently they torpedoed two destroyers busy squirting off Tomahawks at our power plants, but there have been no more ships torpedoed nor has the U.S. Navy shot any more Tomahawks.\"\n\n\"Do we have any way to contact them?\" Jack Hays asked.\n\n\"I certainly don't. I think all we can do is rely on Loren Snyder's good sense and hope for the best.\"\n\n\"Could you call the Pentagon and talk about this?\"\n\n\"I can send them a message through the National Guard message system.\"\n\n\"If they try to locate and attack that submarine, your Mr. Snyder might well fight back.\"\n\n\"Might? Of course he will. But let's not get our knickers in a twist. Loren can take care of himself. I'll pass along a heads-up to the Pentagon, however.\"\n\nPresident Hays leaned forward. \"I've got another project for you too. Texas has roughly a billion dollars in gold on deposit in a vault in a New York bank, the Bank of Manhattan. I want you to make a withdrawal and bring that gold back to Texas. All the bankers say that backing the new Texas dollar with gold will give it instant credibility. That's their prescription for the next few years. After that, they want the Texas dollar to float so the money supply isn't linked to the price of gold, which is nothing but a commodity. We'll see how that goes, but a gold standard does sound like a place to start.\"\n\n\"How much does a billion dollars' worth of gold weigh?\" JR asked.\n\nJack Hays said, \"The treasurer's office said a pound or two less than forty tons. Actually, it's probably worth a lot more than a billion dollars since Soetoro shut down the markets and gave investors worldwide the jitters. In the past, state government sort of ignored the gold. It's like oil under the southeast forty or Grandma's diamond ring\u2014no one gave it a thought. They simply talk about a billion dollars' worth of gold. However, it's there and it's ours, and now we need it.\"\n\nJR whistled. \"New York City,\" he said thoughtfully. \"Forty tons.\"\n\n\"Ingots, I guess,\" Jack said. \"I hope it isn't in wafers in boxes or some such thing.\" He grinned. \"I've got a feeling that the sooner we get that gold to Texas, the better. If Soetoro knew we were coming for it, we wouldn't get it without some kind of political settlement. And there isn't going to be a political settlement between Texas and the United States with Barry Soetoro in the White House.\"\n\n\"I'll need some kind of paper from the treasurer, and maybe a letter from you. You know how bankers are. They'll want to paper their ass.\"\n\nJack Hays frowned. \"They aren't going to turn loose of that gold without Washington's say-so even if you have a letter from Jesus. Take some guns.\"\n\n\"Oh, we will,\" JR said with a disarming smile. \"Rest assured, we won't forget to pack those. But give me a letter from the treasurer and one from you.\"\n\nJack called in a secretary and dictated one. While she typed it, he called the treasurer and told him what was wanted. \"He'll send it over to the Guard this afternoon,\" he told JR.\n\nWhen he left with Jack's letter in hand, JR went to the Texas State Library and Archives building on Brazos Street. He asked to see the head librarian and told him what he wanted. Twenty minutes later he left with a copy of a letter from the White House in his hand, one congratulating some scout for achieving the rank of eagle. That kid's parents knew somebody, he thought.\n\nHis next stop was a printer at the Texas Department of Public Safety. He asked to see the head printer, and after introducing himself, presented him with the copy of the White House letter to the Eagle Scout. \"I need at least four sheets of a nice white bond with the president of the United States' seal on it. Exactly like this, identical.\"\n\n\"Whoa. On whose say-so?\"\n\n\"Mine. Or we can get the president's, or Colonel Tenney's. Whom do you want?\"\n\n\"This isn't going to be used for a forgery, is it?\"\n\n\"Perish the thought.\"\n\nThe man sighed and asked, \"When do you want it?\"\n\n\"Well, I have to go see Colonel Tenney upstairs. That should take no more than an hour. I'll pick it up when I finish.\"\n\n\"An absolute rush job will take about a week. Every office in government wants new stationery now that we're a republic again. We have\u2014\"\n\n\"One hour, or I go get Colonel Tenney and bring him here to talk to you.\"\n\nThe man frowned at the letter with distaste, as if JR had been using it for toilet paper, then at JR Hays. \"You're serious?\"\n\n\"As a heart attack.\"\n\n\"Who the hell are you?\"\n\n\"I told you. Major General Hays, commanding the Texas Guard.\"\n\n\"Never heard of you. When the Guard wants something, they always send a sergeant, a gal named Dooley.\" He waved the letter. \"But okay. One hour.\" Then he wheeled and marched away from the counter.\n\nJR went upstairs to see Colonel Frank Tenney and explained the problem. \"Maybe the vault will be open when we get there, but probably not. Maybe they'll open it for me, but maybe not. More than likely I'll have to help myself. I need some expert advice about how to get into a gold bullion vault.\"\n\n\"Forget it,\" Tenney said. \"It can't be done. There is no way in the world to get into either of the big gold vaults in New York. Texas' gold is in the Bank of Manhattan, which has a helluva vault. But the biggest gold repository on earth, bigger than Fort Knox or the Bank of England gold vaults, is under the New York Federal Reserve Bank. They have at least five thousand tons of gold there, and it's guarded by a private army.\"\n\n\"Explosives?\"\n\n\"Two Mosler vaults were in banks in Hiroshima when we dropped the bomb there. The banks were obliterated, but the vaults were intact. In 1957 the air force set off a thirty-seven-kiloton bomb near a vault, and it remained intact. JR, you ain't going in one of those things unless they let you in. And the chances of them doing that are essentially microscopic. Go back and tell your cousin Jack that it can't be done.\"\n\n\"That's probably good advice,\" JR acknowledged. He said good-bye and went to the Texas Treasury Department, where he had a private interview with the treasurer of the Republic. The man was prematurely bald and wore a suit and tie even though the building wasn't air-conditioned. All the juice from the emergency generator was being used to run lights and computers.\n\nThey discussed Texas' gold reserve, how many ounces and so forth.\n\n\"So where is Texas' gold?\" JR Hays asked.\n\n\"Bank of Manhattan.\"\n\n\"Have you ever visited the facility, looked at the gold?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Impressive vault. The bank installed it when people started speculating in bullion ten or fifteen years ago. They didn't want to store the stuff at home or in a suburban safe deposit box, so the bank got into the business of storing gold for a fee. Modern facility, great vault, as secure as any vault on earth. We put about half a billion dollars of the state's funds into gold, and they stored it for us. Our gold has essentially doubled in value, so it's worth about a billion, or was until the current political difficulty arose. Probably worth twice that now.\"\n\n\"Good investment.\"\n\nThe treasurer nodded and looked pleased.\n\n\"What about the New York Federal Reserve's vault?\"\n\n\"I got a tour once,\" the bureaucrat acknowledged. \"Didn't get into the vault, of course, since they never let humans inside. The gold is moved on trolleys by remote control. Robots stack the ingots and load and offload the trolleys.\"\n\n\"I've heard they have a private army guarding the vault.\"\n\nThe treasurer nodded. \"Yes, indeed. Most of what I know about the vault I picked up in casual conversation from the assistant treasurer, who used to work at the Bank of Manhattan. He wanted to get back to Texas so I hired him. Guy named Chuy Medina.\"\n\n\"May I talk to him?\"\n\n\"Sure. Great guy. You'll like Chuy. I talked to the governor about the gold, but why are you interested in it?\"\n\n\"Oh, that gold has to come back to Texas someday. We thought we should ask some questions.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nChuy Medina was of medium height, about fifty years of age, from McAllen, Texas, and had spent fifteen years at the Bank of Manhattan. Left two years ago when he scored a job at the Texas treasurer's office.\n\n\"Tell me about the Bank of Manhattan,\" JR prompted. \"They have about forty tons of Texas gold, and I have been ordered to make a withdrawal.\"\n\nMedina laughed. \"That's a joke, right?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"This is like some weird plot from _Mission: Impossible_. There ain't no way, man. No way at all.\"\n\n\"Talk to me,\" JR Hays said with a smile. \"Convince me.\"\n\nThe FEMA concentration camp guard towers on the edge of Camp Dawson were empty when we rolled by and went between the guards at the main gate. Several of the guards were wearing old army shirts, but most were in jeans and T-shirts. They were armed to the teeth and looked to me like they knew precisely what they were doing. This might be amateur hour, but there was some military discipline and brains guiding the amateurs. There wasn't a FEMA uniform in sight.\n\nThe place was as crowded as a state fair, but without the animals. I estimated I could see over a thousand people, all adults, most in civilian clothes, all armed and doing army stuff, like working on weapons, loading trucks, and doing calisthenics. Cars were parked in rows, men wearing pistols directed us to a parking place, and a girl who looked as if she had ditched her classes in high school that afternoon escorted us toward the headquarters building, not the one in the concentration camp, but the main National Guard building. I could hear rifles popping, no doubt over at the shooting range. And a buzzing overhead. I looked up and saw a Predator drone taking off with a Hellfire under each wing.\n\nI glanced over my shoulder and got a good gander at Sal Molina's face. The man was stunned. Almost stupefied. Obviously Grafton hadn't been whispering to him, either. If he had been doing any whispering, I supposed it was to Sarah Houston, who looked as if she were trooping up to the director's office to be given another twenty-hour-a-day assignment.\n\nWillie Varner was looking around wide-eyed. He had been clueless too. Willis and Travis were almost as surprised as the Wire.\n\nI confess, I was a bit pissed at Grafton. I would have bet the ranch that _he_ wasn't surprised, that he well knew what we would find here. Why hadn't the spook bastard confided in me? Need-to-know and all that spy shit, I suppose.\n\nThey confiscated all cell phones as we came through the front door, and put a sticky on each one with the owner's name. Then they patted us down.\n\nWe ended up in the back of a conference room standing against the wall, all of us, including Dr. Proudfoot. Grafton was sitting at a table right up front, and that _Washington Post_ weenie Jack Yocke was sitting beside him as if he were number two in the chain of command. Three big bananas, all in their fifties, were standing in front of a map that covered a blackboard, I suppose, taking turns briefing Grafton. They had started a few minutes ago, and they didn't bother starting over for us. Another dozen or so people, perhaps half of them women, all wearing pistols, were in the chairs behind Grafton and Yocke and in front of us. One was a congressman I recognized from television, Jerry Marquart.\n\n\"So our plan is to have First Corps . . .\" Yep, I thought, these are army dudes. \". . . proceed east on I-Sixty-Eight to Cumberland and Hagerstown. Second Corps will go east on U.S. Route Fifty to Winchester and then to Leesburg and into the District along that route. All this is subject to change if we hit opposition or find bridges have been blown. We'll be close enough together on parallel routes that we can mass if necessary. Keep the drones up and looking, use our Special Forces veterans as scouts, and take whatever comes.\"\n\nGrafton had a few questions, then asked to see the Pentagon's press release again. He read it carefully, then laid it on the table in front of him and said, \"This is too good to be true.\"\n\n\"It could be disinformation, deception,\" the head dog agreed. \"We don't have their crypto codes, but from all the plain-language traffic we are hearing, perhaps there is some truth in it.\"\n\n\"What plain-language traffic?\"\n\n\"FEMA and Homeland. They are complaining bitterly that Soetoro has betrayed them.\"\n\n\"Even if we get into a firefight with that crowd, that doesn't mean the Pentagon's press release is inaccurate. It may only mean that the paramilitary boys are taking orders directly from the White House. If we see army troops, however, we'll know this is a pretty little lie.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThey chewed the rag about trucks, ammo, food, weapons, and all of that for another half hour, then I ducked out to find a restroom. There was toilet paper in there and the commode flushed. Life was looking up.\n\nWhen I got back, the conference had broken up, the rebel officers were leaving, and only our little crowd remained. Everyone had taken seats around the conference table so they could talk to Admiral Grafton, who looked at Willie and said, \"Please escort Dr. Proudfoot to the hospital. They may need his services. Is that all right with you, Doctor?\"\n\nIt was, and the two of them left.\n\nJack Yocke jumped right in before the door shut behind them. \"This rebel enclave didn't just happen, Grafton. Someone made it happen and you knew all about it.\"\n\n\"I made it happen,\" Grafton said, looking around and taking in faces. \"Sarah and I knew several months before Soetoro declared martial law that he was going to do it. We knew he was waiting for an incident that would justify martial law. The terrorists obliged. I have spent my adult life in the military and intelligence business. I talked to people I knew I could trust, told them Soetoro's intentions, and asked for their help.\"\n\n\"How did you know Soetoro was going to seize power? Did Molina tell you?\"\n\n\"Sal, do you want to answer Yocke?\"\n\n\"No,\" Molina said. He had to force the word out, and it came out unnaturally loud.\n\n\"But you knew Soetoro's plans,\" Jack Yocke persisted, staring at the president's man.\n\n\"I'm not going to\u2014\"\n\nGrafton spoke, which cut off Molina. \"Sarah.\"\n\nShe was seated at the end of the table. She had her computer out of its case and was fiddling with the keyboard. \"I bugged the White House,\" she said, \"at Admiral Grafton's order. We used every electronic device in the White House as a listening device, including computers and cell phones.\"\n\nMolina turned ashen.\n\n\"Including yours, Mr. Molina, and President Soetoro's.\"\n\nMolina gaped at her. The way she said it, matter-of-factly, as if she were making a report to her boss, made it impossible to disbelieve her. Then Sarah pushed a button.\n\nThe president's voice came from the speaker, quite plain. \"Martial law will give us the opportunity to remake America the way it should be, take charge of industries and banks, tax the rich, redistribute income, give full citizenship to illegals, take power from the states, and rule from Washington. We'll make America into a progressive socialist country that all of us will be proud to live in, and, incidentally, we'll make a good start on saving the planet.\"\n\nMolina's voice: \"It won't work, Mr. President. The majority of Americans will never approve. Revolutions from the top down never work. You can't take the American people where they don't want to go.\"\n\nSarah pushed a key and the sound stopped. She hit a few more and closed the computer.\n\nIn the silence that followed, Molina turned his attention to Jake Grafton, who had his eyes on him.\n\nJack Yocke broke the silence with a question aimed at Sarah. \"What have you done to that file?\"\n\n\"The background noises have been digitally suppressed so the speakers' voices are clearer. That's it.\"\n\nHe grunted and faced Jake Grafton. \"You knew that they were waiting. For a terrorist incident? Did they arrange those incidents?\"\n\nGrafton turned those gray eyes on the reporter. \"They let those people into the country, lied about the vetting they would receive. They played for a terrorist incident, or incidents, and they got them. Considering who they were letting into the country, it would have been a miracle if there weren't any terror strikes.\"\n\n\"You could have stopped it. Hundreds of innocent people were killed. Obviously you didn't stop it.\"\n\n\"And just how do you think I should have accomplished that feat?\"\n\n\"You sacrificed those people.\"\n\nGrafton's face didn't even twitch.\n\n\"You are a ruthless man, Admiral,\" Yocke said softly.\n\n\"I think this has gone quite far enough,\" the admiral said. \"Jack, go find someone to interview. You might start with Congressman Jerry Marquart. I am sure he has quite a story to tell.\" His eyes moved to Molina. \"You stay,\" he said.\n\nYocke stomped out with little grace. That's the free press for you. When the door to the room was once again closed, Grafton said, \"I think it is time for a confession from you, Sal. Not one in the hearing of the _Washington Post_ , but here before me and Sarah and these men who risked their lives to drag us out of that concentration camp a few hundred yards away.\"\n\nMolina seemed to have shriveled and aged ten years. He tried to compose himself, but it was a lost effort.\n\n\"Let me start your confession for you,\" Jake Grafton said. \"You were never Barry Soetoro's advisor\u2014you were his controller. Your boss is Anton Hunt, the billionaire left-wing financier. He created Barry Soetoro, and you were there to tell him what to do, to make him obey Anton Hunt, so he could make more billions and create the kind of world he thought we all should live in.\"\n\nMolina licked his lips. \"I\u2014\"\n\nGrafton smacked the table a healthy lick with his palm. It sounded like a pistol shot. \"I'll do the talking. You even suggested that Soetoro arrest me as one of the conspirators in the fake plot to take over the government. You argued that spies are easy to blame, and people would automatically give credence to any story of nefarious activities at the CIA. When you reported Soetoro's plans to Anton Hunt, he was horrified. He hadn't signed on to a communist dictatorship.\n\n\"He thought Soetoro was a black man of modest intelligence with a good gift of gab who would be grateful for all Hunt had done to lift him to the highest place in America and make him the most powerful man in the world. He thought he could control Barry Soetoro because he had written evidence of all he had done for him: a fake birth certificate, passport applications removed from the State Department, bribes to get him into school, bribes to conceal his academic records, all of it. He thought the evidence would ruin Soetoro if it ever came out, but the evidence was a two-edged sword. Soetoro knew the evidence would also take down Anton Hunt, so Hunt didn't dare to ever reveal it.\"\n\nMolina licked his lips and wiped a sheen of perspiration from his forehead.\n\n\"But somewhere along the line,\" Grafton continued, \"Hunt began to realize that he had no control over Soetoro, but the reverse was true. Soetoro controlled _him_. Perhaps the revelation occurred when Soetoro demanded Hunt fund demonstrators to protest racial injustice, demonstrations designed to drive a wedge between white and black America. Or perhaps the light dawned for Hunt when Soetoro sacrificed an ambassador and several Marines to the Taliban. Perhaps you can tell us, Sal. When did Hunt see the evil in Soetoro?\"\n\nSal Molina was staring at the tabletop.\n\n\"Certainly both of you were in no doubt when Soetoro plotted martial law and suspension of the Constitution. You knew then, didn't you, Sal?\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\" _Answer me_!\" Grafton roared.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"One of the most amazing things I heard on Sarah's eavesdropping program was Soetoro telling you that Hunt thought he had a nigger slave in the White House, and the nigger had made a slave of him. And he made a slave of you, the slave driver. Do you remember that? Remember his laughter?\"\n\n\"He's a monster,\" Molina whispered. \"He loathes white people. He wants to rule a nonwhite America. He's willing to ignite a race war, burn America, and rule in the ashes.\"\n\n\"And you didn't think it would work.\" That wasn't a question, but a statement.\n\n\"I didn't,\" Molina said.\n\n\"You argued, unsuccessfully, and only managed to convince him you were disloyal and a danger, so he sent you to the gulag.\"\n\nGrafton leaned back in his seat, his eyes fixed on Molina. \"You were lucky that sadist Sluggo Sweatt decided to have his fun with me before he got to you, because Soetoro wanted you dead. But Soetoro gave Sweatt his priorities. First the scapegoat, then the traitor.\"\n\n\"You don't know that,\" Sal Molina whispered.\n\n\"I deduce it. I thought it was a stroke of luck that FEMA brought me to the concentration camp here at Dawson, because that is where we\u2014my friends and I\u2014agreed to rendezvous two weeks after Soetoro declared martial law. Then Sweatt began his program of forcing a confession. The irony is, I was and am guilty of a conspiracy to remove the president of the United States from power, which was Sweatt's accusation. I thought it likely he would beat me to death.\n\n\"Not that my death would have made any difference. If I weren't here, the others still would be. There are two thousand five hundred men and women here at Camp Dawson, and they are committed to the hilt. It's victory or death for them. If they don't kill Soetoro, he will kill them. They understand that.\"\n\nGrafton smacked the table again. \"Yocke accused me of being ruthless. I _am_. The life of the United States is at stake. If I had thought it could be done, I would have shot Soetoro myself.\" He pointed his finger at Molina. \"If I thought your death would move Soetoro one inch away from the White House, make an iota of difference, I would shoot you myself, here and now. Do you understand?\"\n\nMolina bit his lip.\n\nGrafton smacked the table again, and the map fell off the blackboard. \"Answer me!\" he roared.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Consider yourself a prisoner. If you try to escape, you will be shot.\" He turned to Travis. \"Lock him in one of those cells in the concentration camp. See that he is guarded twenty-four hours a day and arrange to have him fed.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Travis Clay grabbed Molina's arm, hoisting him from the chair in which he sat. I pulled out my .45.\n\n\"Get rid of the web belt,\" I told Molina. \"Take it off.\" He was wearing a pistol.\n\nHe reached down, released the buckle, and let the belt fall on the floor.\n\n\"Your leather belt too,\" Grafton said. \"We'll save you for a firing squad.\"\n\nThe belt came off and went onto the floor.\n\nMolina could barely walk, so Travis almost dragged him.\nTHIRTY-ONE\n\n\"You could have confided in me,\" I told Grafton.\n\nHe looked surprised. \"I told Sarah to tell you about the eavesdropping scheme. Did she tell you?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, but not about all this other stuff.\"\n\n\"Tommy, you have a good brain between those ears and you had better start using it.\"\n\nYou would think that after all these years around Grafton I would know how to keep my mouth shut. One of these days I am going to get that trick down.\n\n\"The local radio station is back on the air,\" Sarah told the boss. That female could read minds. \"I don't know if the power is on or if they are using a generator.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Grafton said. \"Tommy, take Sarah over there. She is going to put some of that stuff from the White House on the air. She has winnowed it down to about sixty hours. Convince the radio staff to do it, and then set up an ambush around the station and transmission tower. Use Travis and Willis Coffee. Take whatever weapons you need. If the military is still in the game, they'll take the tower out with a Hellfire or commandos. If it's FEMA or Homeland, expect a few truckloads of thugs. Don't take any prisoners\u2014we don't have anywhere to keep them. The beds in the concentration camp are being used as barracks.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Sarah, you know what to do.\"\n\n\"This will set off an explosion in the White House,\" she said flatly.\n\n\"I hope. Infuriated, frightened men don't think very well. Go.\"\n\nSarah repacked her computer and we left, with Willis Coffee trailing along behind. We picked up Travis ten minutes later and took my stolen FEMA pickup truck.\n\nDowntown Kingwood was a typical American small town, in my opinion. A Walmart on the edge of town had pretty much turned the old downtown into a wasteland of vacant stores interspersed with insurance agencies, lawyers' offices, gift and craft shops. All of them looked closed, and there were no parked cars.\n\nThe radio station's offices were in one of the old storefronts on the east side of the street in the middle of the block. The transmission tower was obviously offsite, probably on a nearby hill. I parked right in front, and Sarah and I strolled in while Willis and Travis, each with an M4 in their hands, walked to the adjacent corners.\n\nThe lady at the front desk was still on the right side of forty and had a cute hairdo and a ready smile. She even had on a plastic name tag: \"Sue.\"\n\n\"Good afternoon,\" she said brightly. The studio was right behind her, visible through a double-pane window. A woman was in there talking into a boom mike, and a young guy in a ponytail was fielding telephone calls. We could hear the station feed over a hidden loudspeaker system, background noise. Above the window was a large clock with a sweep second hand.\n\n\"Are you with the government?\"\n\n\"Not anymore. We were federal employees and left under a cloud.\" I smiled.\n\n\"Really!\" she said, her eyes widening.\n\nI confided in a low voice, \"I stole our truck.\" Then I introduced Sarah and myself.\n\nThe desk lady stared. I continued smoothly, as if stealing a government vehicle needs no explanation. \"How long has the power been back on?\"\n\n\"Since yesterday morning. We got back on the air as quickly as we could.\"\n\n\"Don't you have an emergency generator?\"\n\n\"We ran out of gas for it. The station manager is down waiting in line at the filling station to fill some cans now.\" With only a little prompting from us, she chattered on. The station was licensed at one thousand watts, sunrise to sunset. The transmitter was outside town on Mount Morgan, named after a local farmer who leased the site to the station. \"He's such a nice gentleman,\" she added.\n\n\"We should probably wait for the manager,\" Sarah said, glancing at me. \"When do you expect him back?\"\n\n\"In a little while, certainly, unless the line is too long or the filling station runs out of gasoline. We close the office here at five.\" It was ten till. \"And go off the air at . . .\" she glanced at her calendar. \". . . seven thirty-two.\"\n\nThere was a hallway that looked as if it went all the way through the building, and a door at the end of it. The door opened and a portly man of medium height with a fringe of gray hair around a white pate came bustling through it. He opened the door to the studio and went in. In less than a minute, he came out. He addressed Sue. \"I got the last of the gas at Plunkett's. I just told Jan. She'll put it on the air immediately.\"\n\n\"These folks want to talk to you,\" Sue told him. She said his name, Howard Shinaberry. He glanced at us, at our web belts and holsters, and waited.\n\n\"Sarah Houston,\" I said, nodding at my companion, \"and I'm Tommy Carmellini. Sarah wants to talk to you in your office.\"\n\nHe shrugged and led the way down the hall to another door. Sarah followed with her computer case.\n\nI smiled at Sue, then walked down the hallway and went out back. There was an alley and a parking lot. Three cars and an old Chevy pickup were parked there. I surveyed the alley. All I could see was a cat wandering around and a bunch of garbage cans. The gas cans were in the back of the truck, so I unloaded them and put them in the hallway.\n\nI closed the alley door and waited by the front desk with Sue. \"Does Mr. Shinaberry own the station?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. He's just the manager. Three doctors own it.\"\n\n\"Local doctors?\"\n\n\"They live in Maryland, Bethesda I think.\"\n\nSue chattered on. She was a local and had worked at the station for five years come November. She liked it. She met such interesting people. \"Do you have an ad you want us to air?\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" I replied.\n\nShe got busy locking the cash register and putting things away. Five o'clock came and went.\n\n\"If you want to go home, that's all right,\" I said. \"I'll tell Mr. Shinaberry.\"\n\n\"I'll just wait, in case he has something else for me to do.\" She was obviously getting nervous. I didn't blame her. I gave her my best innocent smile that had melted a thousand hearts.\n\nAt nine after five, Mr. Shinaberry and Sarah came from the office out to the front desk. She paused beside me and said, \"He doesn't want to do it.\"\n\n\"Our license is up for renewal in three months,\" Shinaberry explained. \"That stuff on that computer is dynamite. The FCC\u2014\"\n\nI went out the front door to the sidewalk and gave Travis Clay the Hi sign. He came walking back, his M4 cradled in his arms. We went back into the radio station together.\n\nShinaberry was explaining to Sarah why the owners would fire him if the file on the computer were put out on the air. \"I know the president's voice, and it certainly sounds like him, but if the file is fake, airing it would be libel, and if it's real I can't imagine how that recording was obtained legally\u2014\"\n\n\"You know about the rebels down at Camp Dawson?\" I asked as I rubbed my sore neck. I realized I was doing it and stopped.\n\n\"The general in charge\u2014at least he said he was a general\u2014was in here and asked us not to mention all the people there over the air. And we haven't. Haven't said a peep about Camp Dawson. I gave our staff strict instructions.\"\n\n\"This gentleman is Travis Clay. Travis, take Mr. Shinaberry over to Dawson and let him talk to Jake Grafton. Use Mr. Shinaberry's truck. It's out back.\"\n\n\"Now, see here\u2014\" Shinaberry protested.\n\nTravis put his hand on the guy's shoulder and smiled. \"Don't be difficult,\" he said. \"You can drive.\"\n\nAfter they left, I suggested to Sue that it was time for her to go home. \"We'll lock up when we leave, after Mr. Shinaberry gets back.\"\n\nShe was obviously relieved. She grabbed her purse without saying good-bye, trotted down the hallway, and closed the alley door behind her.\n\n\"It's all yours,\" I said to Sarah. \"Send Jan out and get that guy in the ponytail to show you how the equipment works.\"\n\nSarah took her computer and went into the studio. After ten minutes the announcer lady came out, frowned at me, and left via the alley door too. Ponytail was busy with a thumb drive Sarah had given him. Then Sarah got on the mike.\n\n\"We are going to air segments of a recording that was made at the White House over the previous six months. Not all of it, but segments. The voices you will hear are those of President Soetoro, his staff, and other public officials. There are about sixty hours of recorded material, a small fraction of the whole, and this station will be on the air day and night until the entire sixty hours has played, then we will run it again. Josh, let it rip.\"\n\nAnd he did.\n\nBarry Soetoro's voice came over the loudspeaker. Three minutes later the telephone rang. I answered it with the station's call letters.\n\nA man's voice: \"Where in the hell did you guys get that tape?\"\n\n\"How does it sound?\" I asked.\n\n\"Holy shit! President Soetoro said that?\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ!\"\n\n\"He didn't have anything to do with it,\" I told him and put the phone back in its cradle. It rang again. I figured that we were going to get a lot of calls, so I unplugged the phone. I looked into the studio and saw that Sarah was doing the same thing to the phone in there. I could hear the phone ringing in the manager's office, so I walked down and unplugged that one too.\n\nTobe Baha, the Secret Service sniper, was having dinner that evening at his hotel on Congress Avenue in Austin. It was a nice hotel, perfect for expense-account executives and rich oilmen bringing their wives or girlfriends to see the bright lights of the big city. Tobe thought his odd hours would bring less notice here and he would have to answer fewer well-meaning questions than he would have at some cheap motel on the interstate where guests rarely stayed more than a night or two.\n\nSo he was studying the menu and contemplating ordering a steak when three men entered the dining room, looked around, and seeing him, walked purposefully toward his table. They were in civilian clothes wearing sports coats, and from the slight bulges he could see that they were packing pistols in their armpits. After years in the Secret Service, he could spot an armed man at fifty yards.\n\nThe man in front seated himself on Tobe's left and put an iPad on the table. The other two took the remaining chairs.\n\n\"Good evening, Mr. Baha,\" the man on his left said. He was the older of the three, in his mid-fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair getting thin on top. \"I'm Colonel Frank Tenney. I'm the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety. These gentlemen are colleagues of mine.\"\n\nTobe tried to hide his surprise, and did fairly well, he thought. He was registered at this hotel under a false name, so the use of his real name put him on notice.\n\n\"Are you carrying this evening?\" Tenney asked, just making conversation.\n\nTobe tried to look surprised. \"Of course not.\"\n\nTenney just nodded. The waitress came over, delivered Tobe's Scotch on the rocks, passed out menus to the new arrivals, and inquired about drinks. The lawmen all ordered iced tea.\n\n\"I have some video on my iPad I'd like to show you,\" Tenney said, then picked up the tablet and began playing with it. In a few seconds, he placed it so Tobe could see it.\n\nThe screen began showing aerial shots. Tobe Baha instantly knew what he was looking at: drone surveillance video. And there he was, in the van, parking it, getting out, looking around, strolling the street. Then there were shots of Tobe up on roofs, using the laser rangefinder, back on the street, driving through the city, going into stores and public places. . .\n\nAfter three or so minutes, Tenney picked up the iPad and shut it off. He put it on his left.\n\nTenney smiled at Baha. The waitress came back with the drinks. Tenney told her that they would not be staying for dinner. She looked at Tobe, who told her, \"Later.\"\n\nWhen she had moved off, Tenney said, \"We were surprised when you showed up in Austin, since Texas is no longer a part of the United States and Barry Soetoro isn't planning a visit, at least to the best of my knowledge.\"\n\nTobe picked up the Scotch and sipped it. His hand was steady, and he hoped that the colonel noticed that. If he did, he gave no sign.\n\n\"We thought that perhaps you were here to use your sniper skills on someone in Austin. Of course, we haven't yet seen you with your rifle. No doubt it is somewhere in Austin, and if necessary we could arrest you and search and find it. It will probably have your fingerprints on it and so forth. But President Hays thought that an arrest and trial would not be good for future relations between Texas and the United States.\"\n\nColonel Tenney leaned toward Tobe Baha. He was speaking softly, and his eyes were impossible to avoid. \"I also thought about disappearing you. That would solve any diplomatic problems, and the justice system wouldn't have the expense of fooling with you. Do you understand?\"\n\nThose eyes boring into his made evasion impossible. \"Yes,\" Tobe said.\n\n\"That's good. We're tying up a lot of people flying these drones and keeping tabs on you, and enough is enough. So I stopped by this evening to let you know. If a sniper fires a shot anywhere in Austin and you're still around, we'll come for you. You will be killed resisting arrest and be buried somewhere in west Texas in an unmarked grave. Have I made myself clear?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Barry Soetoro or your Secret Service colleagues may decide that you have lived long enough, so you may want to rethink your return to the States. Be that as it may, you may reside in Texas as long as you never again show your face in Austin. If someone fires a rifle in Austin and you are around after this evening, you are a walking dead man.\"\n\nTenney stood and picked up his iPad. \"Just a friendly warning. You can pay for our tea.\"\n\nHe and his colleagues walked out of the restaurant.\n\nTobe Baha drained his Scotch. He glanced at the menu, decided he wasn't hungry, and ordered another drink.\n\nAbout ten after six, Travis Clay came through the alley door of the radio station with four buffed-up guys. \"Grafton sent Mr. Shinaberry home. The sheriff and city police chief were there and we won't have any trouble with them.\"\n\n\"Patriots are they?\"\n\n\"With twenty-five hundred armed people at Dawson, they saw the light, whether they are patriots or Soetoro loyalists.\" He gestured to the other men. \"Grafton thought we could use more help.\"\n\n\"Get Willis in here.\"\n\nThe ex-soldiers, for that is what they were, stood listening to the radio feed on the loudspeakers, shaking their heads. One of them muttered, \"That son of a bitch.\"\n\nI briefed the troops. Two of them at each end of the alley. I sent Willis across the street and asked him to put an M240 machine gun on the roof of the old bank building on the corner; the false brick front would give him a little protection. Travis was to be on the roof on the other corner with another M240. These were belt-fed guns that fired the 7.62\u00d751 NATO cartridges. I would have our third machine gun, an M249 that was fed by a belt of 5.56x45 NATO cartridges, inside here on the counter. \"Lots of grenades and AT4s. We'll make the street in front our killing zone.\"\n\nEveryone trooped out to the FEMA truck, where Willis passed out weapons and ammo. We carried some MREs into the station, and I drove the truck around back and backed in up to the alley door. We carried stuff in. I brought in two boxes of ammo for my machine gun, an M4 carbine, a dozen grenades, and a couple of AT4s.\n\nI was feeding a belt of ammo into the M249 when Josh came out. He looked at the weapons and ammo and at me. \"Where did you people get that recording?\"\n\n\"What did Sarah tell you?\"\n\n\"That a little bird gave it to her.\"\n\n\"There you are.\"\n\n\"I'm getting the hell outta here,\" he said, and marched for the alley door. I heard his old ride fire up. Josh needed new mufflers. Then it went away down the alley.\n\nAfter a while Sarah came out. \"It's all automatic,\" she said. \"I don't need to sit there and watch it.\"\n\n\"Want some dinner?\"\n\nShe gave me The Look.\n\n\"I put some MREs in the break room. There's a microwave. I'd like meatloaf, some potatoes, and corn.\"\n\n\"Yes, General,\" she said, and marched away.\n\nAs I dug into my gourmet repast\u2014Sarah could do MREs, let me tell you\u2014individual cars and pickups, each full of people, kept creeping down the street and looking into the radio station. Finally I wised up and turned off the lights in the office.\n\nIt was after nine o'clock and Soetoro was plotting with Al Grantham and Sulana Schanck on how they would turn off the power and blame it on the right-wing constitutionalists, when a van pulling an army generator drifted to a stop at the curb outside. The van had a big, flexible aerial mounted on the rear bumper.\n\nI cradled the M4 and waited. A woman walked around the van, tried the door to the station, found it unlocked, and came in. I could see a guy still in the van.\n\nThe woman looked at the machine gun, the grenades on the counter, and me. \"I'm Dixie Cotton,\" she said. She couldn't have been a day over thirty, with a sexy bedroom voice and a figure to match. She was wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt that revealed everything she had, which was a lot.\n\n\"Tommy Carmellini.\"\n\nSarah came from the hallway. I introduced the two.\n\n\"I've heard of you,\" Sarah said. \"Aren't you 'The Mouth of the South'?\"\n\n\"It's been said,\" she admitted modestly. It sure had. She had a talk show on an Atlanta radio station and thrived on controversy, which she created by trashing everyone who disagreed with her, which was practically everybody.\n\n\"I thought Soetoro had FEMA lock you up as a dangerous subversive. How did you get out?\"\n\n\"A doctor certified that I was crazy and some of my friends paid a few bribes, so they turned me loose.\"\n\n\"Could I get a certification like that?\" I asked hopefully.\n\n\"So where did you people get that recording?\"\n\n\"You know the old story: if I told you I'd have to kill you,\" I said deadpan.\n\n\"Bullshit,\" she said dismissively. \"Is it real?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"I run a mobile pirate radio station these days, during the current difficulty, while my station in Atlanta is up to its armpits in federal censors. I'd like a copy of that recording. I'll cruise Washington and broadcast it.\"\n\n\"They'll kill you if they catch you,\" I told her, \"tits, mouth, and all.\"\n\n\"Not the way I work it, they won't. They've been trying for four days and haven't caught me yet.\"\n\n\"You're living on borrowed time.\"\n\n\"That's my lookout.\"\n\n\"Sarah, what do you think?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Can you use thumb drives?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Let's make you some.\" And Sarah led her into the studio.\n\nCars and pickups crept by at random intervals all evening. The locals were getting an earful and they were curious.\n\nAbout midnight, an army truck pulled up outside and soldiers piled out of the back. Jake Grafton climbed down from the cab, carefully, and led the soldiers, six of them, inside. The soldiers were in full combat gear, with helmets, weapons, and body armor. Grafton was wearing a camo shirt and trousers. Willie Varner was the only one in civilian duds, and he was carrying an M4.\n\nGrafton introduced the soldiers. Two army officers and four senior sergeants, all with combat experience. \"They came to Dawson with General Netherton,\" he explained. \"Where do you want them?\"\n\n\"On the roofs on this side of the street,\" I said to them. \"The street is the kill zone. Don't let any of the bad guys get into this office.\"\n\nWe talked about frequencies, because they all had handheld radios, and they trooped out.\n\n\"FEMA and Homeland have at least a dozen people on the way,\" he said. \"They're on the clear-voice radio. Soetoro is raving mad.\"\n\nI told him about Dixie Cotton. \"She's nuts,\" I added. \"Literally and figuratively. Certified even. They'll execute her.\"\n\n\"That's her problem,\" Jake Grafton said. He looked around. \"Break out those windows. You want the glass on the sidewalk, not flying around in here.\"\n\n\"I'm worried about the radio tower, which is out on some knoll called Mount Morgan.\"\n\n\"We have it covered,\" he said. He glanced at the machine gun on the counter. \"Is that where you want it?\"\n\n\"I doubt if they'll be stupid enough to drive up in front of the joint, but if they do . . .\"\n\n\"A man can always hope,\" he said.\n\n\"You could ambush these dudes on the way into town,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"It'll take most of the night to get ambushes set up. We'll whack the second wave. You deal with the first bunch.\"\n\n\"If they get a bullet into the equipment in the studio we are well and truly fucked,\" I remarked.\n\n\"Make sure they don't.\"\n\nI almost said something I would probably have regretted later, but I managed to stifle myself.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I asked Willie.\n\n\"I'm your bodyguard.\"\n\nAs if I needed something else to worry about.\n\n\"You had dinner?\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah. They're good feeders over at that camp.\"\n\n\"You should have joined the army when you were a kid.\"\n\n\"Maybe you're right.\"\n\nGrafton, Sarah, and I chatted for a bit, the admiral shook Sarah's hand and mine, then went back out and climbed into the army truck, which got under way in a cloud of diesel exhaust.\n\n\"There goes the next president of the United States,\" Sarah said.\n\n\"Not after Jack Yocke gets through with him,\" I replied.\n\n\"Screw Jack Yocke,\" Sarah said.\n\nSarah went into the break room, which had a cot, and sacked out. I broke out the office windows, as Grafton had suggested.\n\nWillie was in a talkative mood. He carefully laid his M4 on the counter. \"Nice shooter,\" he said with feeling.\n\n\"You know which end the bullet comes out of?\"\n\n\"The little tiny round end with the asshole. I shot that thing this evenin' at the range and the guy in charge said I was a natural-born marksman.\"\n\n\"Was coming over here your idea?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I was sittin' beside Grafton participatin' in a high strategy session when a radio dude came runnin' in and told him all about these Soetoro dudes coming to shut this radio station down. I volunteered to come help. Knowin' you, I figured you'd need all the help you could get.\"\n\nThat must have been the first time in his life Willie ever volunteered for anything but beer. \"It's good to see you, shipmate. You can stay in here with me, but why don't you lay down in the corner and try to catch some Zs.\"\n\nHe did so, after bitching about how hard the floor was and having to use his jacket for a pillow. \"Turn off that damn radio noise out here,\" he said. \"I've had enuffa Soetoro to last me a lifetime.\"\n\n\"I thought you were a Soetoro voter.\"\n\n\"Don't remind me.\"\n\nI cranked the volume of the speaker to zero and settled down to wait. Willie and Sarah were sound asleep when I went into the break room at one a.m. and made a pot of coffee. While it dripped through, I went in to the studio and put on the earphones. The prez was talking about his enemies. I put the earphones down and went back to the break room for a cup. Nothing but that white powdered stuff for creamer, so I silently cussed the Maryland doctors and drank it black.\n\nWaiting was hard. I went out and surveyed the street. Two or three truckloads of them\u2014we would kill them right there.\n\nWaiting has never been my long suit. I must have been at the head of the line for good looks and natural charm; when I got to patience there wasn't much left\u2014I only got a teaspoon full, if that.\n\nI found myself rubbing my sore neck again. The doctors at Camp Dawson had put more antiseptic on it and a sticky bandage. The muscles were still stiff.\n\nI wondered about Willie, why he was here. A warrior he wasn't. Growing up in the Washington ghetto and a couple of stretches in the pen had taught him to stay out of the line of fire and keep his head down. Willie was a survivor. That was one of the reasons I liked him. When I had had my fill of agency operators full of bullshit and testosterone, I could visit Willie at the lock shop and come back down to earth.\n\nMusing along those lines, my handheld squawked. The voice was Travis Clay's. \"We have a truck two blocks north, and someone standing beside it looking the situation over with binoculars.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nI nudged Willie with my foot. He came right awake.\n\n\"Uh-oh,\" Willis Coffee said. \"I hear helicopters. . . . Coming this way. Getting louder.\"\n\nDamn!\n\nIt was beginning to look like the bleeding wasn't going to be one-sided at our little party.\n\nI walked to the busted window and listened. I could hear the choppers now, definitely coming this way. If these were paramilitary thugs, from FEMA or Homeland or the IRS or wherever, they were catching on fast. If they were military, oh boy.\n\n\"Trucks are moving, at least three. Guys walking along beside them. All armed. Looks like FEMA uniforms.\"\n\nThe choppers were above us somewhere.\n\n\" _They stopped in the wrong block_! They're in the next block north.\"\n\n\"Choppers overhead. Two Blackhawks. Guys rappelling down onto the roofs on the east side of the street. But they're in the wrong block too.\"\n\nI keyed the mike on my hand-held. \"Machine gunners, take out the choppers. Everyone else, hit 'em.\"\n\nAnd the world split apart. The hammering of heavy machine guns rolled up and down the street. I grabbed an AT4, fired it up, and stepped right through the empty window onto the sidewalk. The lead truck was in the middle of the next block. Perfect. I didn't waste time and got the round off within three seconds. It went right into the engine compartment and exploded. Pieces of the truck went flying everywhere.\n\nBullets were whanging off the concrete sidewalk and brick facade, so I dived right back through the window socket with the empty tube in my hands.\n\nThe sound of combat rose to a roar.\n\nThose soldiers\u2014I saw uniforms and helmets\u2014would quickly figure out there was no radio station in that block and be heading this way if the guys on our roofs didn't manage to keep them pinned.\n\nThen I heard a chopper crash. The explosion was tremendous. The other one was trying to get away, it sounded like.\n\nI grabbed two grenades, pulled the pins, and went over to the window. Risked a quick squint. Guys coming down both sides of the street, shooting up at the roofs. I threw one as far as I could across the street at an angle, then leaned out and tossed the other left-handed up the street.\n\nWillie was hunkered down in the corner, trying to see up the street through the empty window socket.\n\n\"Shoot low,\" I shouted. \"Ricochet the bullets off the walls over there.\"\n\nHe began squirting bursts.\n\n\"More, more,\" I urged.\n\nI became aware that Sarah was behind me, and she handed me a couple more grenades. I sent them down the street, and the explosions were gratifying.\n\nThis went on for what seemed like an hour, but couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes, if that. Willie changed magazines twice.\n\n\"Keep your goddamn head down,\" I told him when he kept bobbing up to squirt off a burst.\n\nI glimpsed a grenade flying into the street in front of our position. \"Down! Grenade!\"\n\nIt went off and showered the office with shrapnel. I looked at the studio window, which was grazed but intact.\n\nThen I realized the shooting was tapering off. Another burst or two, and a deafening silence descended.\n\n\"Willis? Travis?\"\n\n\"The survivors are running for the trucks,\" Willis shouted into his radio. \"Don't let 'em get away!\"\n\nAbout that time the alley door crashed open. Willie Varner spun on his knee, a very athletic move, and fired a burst from the hip. Then another burst that emptied his weapon.\n\nI was there with my M4, waiting, so I cranked my head to see. Two soldiers in uniform down.\n\nWith the carbine at the ready, I went down the hallway. One was still alive, a black kid. The other was seriously dead. From the streetlight in the alley I could see the patches on their shoulders. New Jersey National Guard.\n\nWillie was there, kneeling, checking on the wounded man. The guy looked at Willie, gurgled something, then his eyes froze and he stopped breathing.\n\nWillie dropped his weapon and put his hands over his face.\n\n\"Hey, man,\" I said. \"It was them or us.\"\n\nSarah put her hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"If you had waited another half second to shoot,\" I told Willie, \"you'd be the one lying dead.\"\n\nWillie straightened up, left his weapon right where it lay, and walked out the alley door and turned right, away from the fight.\n\n\"Let him go, Tommy,\" Sarah said.\n\n\"I just hope there are no more bad guys out there.\"\n\n\"Let's check on the broadcasting equipment.\"\n\nThe radio came to life. It was Willis Coffee. \"There was a fire fight over west of town, about where that radio tower should be. Maybe they tried to take it too.\"\n\nOne of our guys was dead and three more wounded. The soldiers who lay on the floor in the hallway had apparently come south down the alley and gunned the two good guys on guard at the north entrance, then kicked in our door.\n\nAmong the attackers on the ground there were nineteen bodies and eight wounded. The rest had gone north running or riding the surviving trucks.\n\n\"If they had stopped in the right block, we'd have gotten them all,\" Travis Clay said. And they would have destroyed the radio broadcast equipment, I thought, but I managed to bite it off before it came out. \"And we have one prisoner, a FEMA guy who surrendered. His name tag says his name is Lambert. What do you want me to do with the wounded and this guy?\"\n\n\"Put all the wounded on trucks and take them out to the camp. Maybe the doctors can save them.\"\n\n\"Our guys already left. Grafton said no prisoners.\"\n\n\"I'm giving the damned orders. Take all the wounded out to the base. And bring that prisoner over here. I want to look at him.\"\n\nThree minutes later Travis had him standing in the radio studio with a plastic tie around his wrists. Yep, it was Zag Lambert, whom I had met in Colorado a lifetime or two ago. He was even porkier than he had been in Colorado, with a truly awesome gut jutting out above his belt. I doubted if he had seen his dick in the last ten years unless he used a mirror. It was a wonder he could even reach it. He didn't look as feisty now as he had in Colorado.\n\n\"Take him to Grafton,\" I told Travis. \"After they interrogate him, lock him up with Sal Molina. Don't feed him for a few days. Maybe a week. Water only. He needs to lose some weight. His wife will thank us.\"\n\n\"Yo. Come on, fatso.\" And he led Lambert away.\n\n\"New Jersey National Guard,\" I told Grafton when he called on the radio a few minutes later. \"FEMA guys in trucks and two Jersey guard helicopters with grunts who rappelled down. Travis is bringing you a prisoner to interrogate, Zag Lambert, the guy who ran Jade Helm 16.\"\n\n\"Good work, Tommy,\" he said. \"We'll send some people to relieve you when the sun comes up, and you, Sarah, and Willie can get some sleep.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" I didn't mention that Willie had bugged out. I figured that I would run into him at Dawson in the chow hall. At least, I hoped so.\n\nOne of the choppers had crashed on a baseball diamond, and the other went into a block of old houses a quarter mile away. There were no survivors from the Blackhawks. Someone said six or eight civilians were killed in the crash into the houses; no one knew for sure. The smoke was still rising from the fire at dawn.\n\nThus ended the battle of Kingwood. Maybe someday they'll put up a commemorative plaque.\n\nI just hoped that somewhere people were listening to the radio.\nTHIRTY-TWO\n\nJR Hays had four C-17s lined up, fueled, and ready to go. Aboard them were twelve trucks, three apiece. For now, the trucks were loaded with ammo, welding torches, and C-4 explosive. On the trip back, they'd be loaded with gold. He had selected and briefed his men\u2014all one hundred of them. They were dressed in U.S. Army combat gear that would have passed the inspection of any sergeant major. The men had been briefed to shoot only in self-defense. He meant this to be a bloodless adventure.\n\nJR had confirmed, in three satellite calls with the Pentagon, that the United States armed forces were in a state of armed truce and officially neutral in the war between the United States and Texas, and he had letters in his pockets, all forgeries on good paper with appropriate letterheads affirming that he was Lieutenant General Robert Been, United States Army, with written orders from the president of the United States, Barry Soetoro, and the secretary of the Treasury to transport the gold in the Bank of Manhattan to the New York Federal Reserve Bank for safekeeping until the current political crisis had passed. To further his ruse, he had five Texas Rangers, three men and two women, in civvies carrying FBI pistols and credentials, which Colonel Tenney had confiscated from agents in Austin. Chuy Medina had told him the bank had at least a hundred tons of gold on deposit. JR hoped to take every ounce.\n\nSarah and I went to the big head honchos' meeting in the conference room of the headquarters building on Tuesday night after dinner. The place was packed, standing room only.\n\nThere were four generals: Jose Martinez, an active-duty two-star who either took leave or deserted (he wasn't telling); Mort Considine, a retired brigadier; Lee Netherton, a retired three-star; and Jerry Marquart, a congressman if Congress ever got back in session. Jake Grafton was the general commanding, by the unanimous vote of the four, and he presided.\n\nThe big news was that radio stations along the East Coast had received duplicate thumb drives of Sarah's recordings from Dixie Cotton; and Dixie herself was making a splash as she flitted through Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, broadcasting on her mobile radio. FEMA and Homeland were after her, but I figured they would drop the chase soon enough\u2014news of the recordings had already gone nationwide, and the rumor was that even FEMA and Homeland were now having doubts about Soetoro.\n\nWithin twenty-four hours of the first Kingwood broadcast, more than a thousand people joined our little army\u2014veterans, truck drivers, steel workers, mechanics, carpenters, dentists, students, housewives, eccentrics, whackos, and no doubt some true psychopaths, all angry about Soetoro's violation of their \"rights\" and the \"Constitution.\" Many brought their own firearms.\n\nThe generals fretted about the willingness and ability of civilian volunteers to follow orders. As usual, Grafton cut to the chase. \"We've got to keep control of our troops or we are nothing but a mob. Let's agree right here, right now, that anyone caught robbing, stealing, raping, or murdering noncombatants will be summarily executed on the spot. Anyone accused of these crimes but not caught in the act will be court-martialed as soon as possible with the accuser and any witnesses testifying. If found guilty, he or she will be executed immediately. That will be General Order Number One.\"\n\nFurther orders followed swiftly. Jose Martinez, with Mort Considine as his deputy commander, would take the units designated as the First Army, or our northern army, to Washington via I-68. Lee Netherton, with Jerry Marquart as his deputy, would lead the units organized into the Second Army, or our southern army, to Washington via Leesburg. Grafton would fly the Cessna, our only observation plane, and keep in touch with the columns via radio. Predators would scan the ground for bad guys and ambushes.\n\nThen they got into logistics. The generals told their staff officers to stay but ordered the rest of us to get busy.\n\nThinking that good advice, I wandered out with Sarah and asked, \"Wanta get laid?\"\n\nShe stopped and did a double take, then said, \"Why, Mr. Romantic, I thought you would never ask. You must be overwhelmed by my feminine charms.\" She held up a palm. \"Don't explain. I would rather keep my illusions.\"\n\n\"Wise woman,\" I acknowledged.\n\n\"Where do you plan to conduct our tryst? The barracks is full of people playing poker, shooting craps, and listening to Barry Soetoro on the radio, and I'm not doing it in a pickup truck, period.\"\n\n\"I was thinking of walking a little way up into the woods and finding a leafy glade that we could remember fondly all our days.\"\n\n\"You animal! Lead on.\" She placed her hand in mine.\n\nApparently some other couples had similar ideas, so we had to go a bit further uphill into the woods than I wanted. It was so dark we tripped over tree roots twice.\n\nWhen we thought we had a private spot free from brush and snakes, we sank to the ground. \"Ooh,\" she said as she ran her hand around, \"moss covered with sticks and stones and spiders. I've always dreamed of getting laid on a bed of moss, our very own private bower of carnality.\"\n\n\"I'll bet,\" I said, and got busy brushing the debris off the moss.\n\nHours later gently pattering raindrops woke us. The night was as black as the inside of a coal mine but a lot noisier, what with drops loudly whacking leaves, which were beginning to drip on us. Sarah and I hurriedly put on our clothes and threaded our way through the trees downhill toward the barely visible lights of the camp.\n\nWhen we got back to our barracks we were a little damp, so we hung our trousers and shirts and web belts on the posts at the end of the bunk and both of us crawled under my blanket. When I woke up, it was dawn and Sarah was still sound asleep in my arms.\n\nOther people were stirring, but they studiously ignored us.\n\nJake Grafton came thumping in. I pretended to be asleep. He shook my shoulder anyway and said, \"Come on, Tommy. See you at the plane in fifteen minutes.\"\n\n\"Yessir.\"\n\nGrafton was adding a quart of oil to the Cessna's engine when I came walking up. I put my M4 carbine and a little bag of extra loaded magazines and a dozen grenades in the plane. The sun was trying to come up under a high overcast. The earth smelled of late summer, pungent, fertile, and hinting of fall. The temperature was in the fifties so my sweatshirt felt good. Truly, we had a marvelous piece of the planet.\n\nI stood there inhaling it all and watching the sun fire the tops of the trees as Grafton finished his preflight. I could hear the PA system squawking, wakening the troops. I had been hesitant to wake Sarah so I didn't kiss her good-bye; now I wished I had.\n\n\"You ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"I suppose.\"\n\nWe got aboard and put on seat belts and headsets, and he fired up the engine. It caught on the first crank, and the prop spun into a blur with a nice little roar, blasting the morning dew from the windscreen. I checked the fuel gauges on the butts of both wings: we were full.\n\nThere was no wind, so after waiting a moment for the engine to warm and doing a short run-up and mag check, we were rolling down the runway. The tail came up and in less time than it takes to tell, we were airborne. Out over the camp and the trees, climbing into that morning sky between the low green mountains, then turning eastward into the morning sun.\n\nHe gave me a brief on the ICS. \"We'll check the roads the two columns are going to take, then we're going to Washington.\"\n\n\"I thought we were the eyes of the army?\"\n\n\"For a little while. Then we have places to go, things to do, people to see.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"It's a great morning to fly,\" he said. That was Jake Grafton. He was wearing a little smile.\n\nAfter an hour in the air, he reported on his handheld to the generals. No ambushes were evident. We did find a couple of campsites in the woods, but apparently the people there were refugees from the cities. Fires were giving off smoke, and we saw no evidence of heavy weapons. Our scouts would see the smoke and be forewarned.\n\nThen Grafton set a course to the east. No low clouds, excellent visibility, so he climbed to four thousand feet. Soon Leesburg came into view, and a few moments later the long runways at Dulles airport.\n\nThe C-17 Globemasters landed one after the other at LaGuardia airport in Brooklyn. There were no flight plans, of course, since the FAA was out of action because the power was out, but these were air force planes on official business, so they landed and that was that.\n\nThe ground controller parked the four giant cargo planes on the cargo ramp, appropriately enough, and the loadmasters and their soldier passengers got busy off-loading the trucks. Also on the trucks were little cargo donkeys driven by gasoline engines, just in case.\n\nThe caravan got itself arranged, the soldiers got their weapons and got into cabs and on the backs of the trucks, two armed guards were posted at each plane, and the fliers stayed with their steeds. The rest of the hardy band of adventurers set off through the wilderness of Brooklyn toward Manhattan.\n\nThe place reminded JR Hays of Baghdad. Trash was everywhere, windows were broken out, and knots of idle young men congregated on corners, looking like packs of feral dogs. Few women could be seen, and those that were, were always walking with several men. Carcasses of burned-out cars sat pushed to the side of the street. Other cars had been stripped of wheels and even doors.\n\nNone of the stoplights worked, which didn't matter because there was little traffic, probably because there was little or no fuel available, so the caravan rolled steadily at twenty-five miles an hour onto the main thoroughfares that led to the bridge into Manhattan.\n\nHe looked at his watch. At least this Wednesday, the seventh of September, there weren't a couple million commuters and an endless stream of over-the-road tractor-trailers and local trucks fighting to get into Manhattan. The roads were essentially empty, with pieces of cars strewn randomly that the army trucks had to drive around. Wrecks were abandoned against the median barriers. It looked to JR as if Barry Soetoro had finally managed to choke America, and it was dying.\n\nIt was ten minutes before nine. His convoy would arrive at the bank a few minutes after the hour. He straightened his uniform, the dress uniform of a lieutenant general in the United States Army. He had given himself a promotion. He had used his own ribbons on his left breast, which was a dazzling collection for a twenty-year light colonel, but rather sparse for a three-star. JR doubted that the bankers had met many three-stars in full regalia.\n\nAs the truck rumbled along, he sat in the right seat on the lead truck praying that the Bank of Manhattan was going to be open today. If it weren't, this trip would be nothing but two airplane rides and a short jaunt on abandoned highways and streets.\n\nFrom the right seat of the Cessna buzzing over suburban Virginia, I didn't see any airliners in the air, but I saw a bunch parked around the terminals at Dulles. Every gate was full and the ramps were crowded.\n\nWe flew on. The Washington Monument rose like a finger ahead of us. Grafton flew toward it. What a view that was, with the Potomac winding into town, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol Building, the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, and the long slash of the Mall.\n\nI was nervous. I figured someone might decide to take a pot shot at us with anti-aircraft artillery or a surface-to-air missile, but apparently not. The streets looked almost deserted, yet the Mall and area around the White House certainly weren't. People everywhere, a sea of people.\n\nGrafton swung the airplane to fly around the White House counterclockwise, with the good view on his side. But I could see plenty. Uniformed police and cops in riot gear were arranged outside the fence that encircled the executive mansion. They faced a sea of people, ten, perhaps twenty thousand flooding toward the White House. It was the damnedest sight I ever saw.\n\nBooks have been written about what was going on in the White House that morning of the seventh day of September, about how the president and his advisors and staunchest legislative allies weighed options and tried to figure out what to do next. At the risk of stating what you already know, I will summarize by telling you that Barry Soetoro was in denial, according to later accounts, and so were Al Grantham and Sulana Schanck. They raved about the treason of the military, demanded summary executions.\n\nThe vice president thought the mob outside could be handled by the Secret Service and police riot squads, augmented if necessary by fire trucks with high-pressure nozzles. He urged calm and assured everyone who would listen that America's progressives and people of color would ignore the crap spewing over the radio (and now some television stations), and support their president with their lives, if necessary. According to an account written by a senator, a delegation from Capitol Hill tried to warn the president that the fury of the American people was real and widespread, and had been dismissed as traitors for their pains.\n\nOf all that drama Grafton and I were blissfully ignorant. After Grafton had made two complete circles, he leveled the wings and aimed the plane across the river toward the Pentagon, that massive stone structure between the Potomac and Reagan National Airport.\n\nGrafton circled the Pentagon, eyeing the vast parking lot. On his second circuit, I had a good view of armed soldiers, machine-gun nests, military vehicles, and tents. We were only a few hundred feet above the parking lot by then, but no one started shooting.\n\nGrafton swung out and began a straight-in to the parking lot. There were light poles here and there, but most of it was empty. He pulled up on the bar between the seats, which put in half flaps, then pulled again for full flaps and we were on final doing about seventy miles per hour. He plunked that thing in a three-point landing within twenty feet of the edge, just clearing some power wires, avoided all the light poles, and slowed to a taxi. Then he braked to a stop and pulled the mixture knob out. The prop swung to a stop as a Humvee came rushing up.\n\nGrafton killed the mags and master switch and we got out. Two soldiers jumped from the vehicle with guns in hand. Optimist that I am, I left my M4 and bag of grenades in the plane.\n\n\"My name is Jake Grafton. I want to see the CNO or army chief of staff, if they are around.\"\n\n\"Sir, you aren't supposed to land here.\"\n\n\"Right. Now get on the radio and find out if Admiral McKiernan has the time to see Jake Grafton.\"\n\nFifteen minutes later we were in some kind of situation room still wearing our sidearms. At least they weren't going to arrest us on the spot, I thought, which was a relief.\n\nGrafton shook hands all around\u2014the room was full of admirals and generals\u2014enough brass to make a few dozen monkeys. He was even courteous enough to introduce me, although all I got from the heavies were nods, then they ignored me. They all knew him and were obviously happy to see him. The commandant whacked him on his back so hard I worried about his ribs, but Grafton didn't wince.\n\n\"Was that you we saw flying around the White House a few minutes ago?\" someone asked, and Grafton admitted it was.\n\n\"The FAA will mail you a flight violation.\"\n\nOn a console were three large screens showing the mob surrounding the White House. It only took me a moment to figure out that these pictures were the datalink video from drones. A large map of downtown Washington covered one wall. It was held there with masking tape, so it hadn't been there long.\n\nI watched the video while Grafton chatted and the brass nodded at the screens and shook their heads. \"He's going down before long,\" one general said.\n\nEveryone seated themselves in chairs and Grafton got right to it. \"Is it true that the military is no longer taking sides in this civil war?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Bud Weiss, the air force general, said. \"We're America's armed forces, not Barry Soetoro's.\"\n\nJake Grafton nodded. \"I had hoped that you would see it that way.\"\n\nCart McKiernan explained, \"Marty Wynette committed suicide in his office two days ago. This war against Texas and Soetoro's enemies had gone far enough, so we decided the best course for the military was to remain neutral.\"\n\nFifteen minutes later I thought I had the picture. The military was devoting its efforts to pushing Mexican forces out of California. A very unhappy Barry Soetoro was hunkered down at the White House fulminating and making big noises, but so far he had left the Pentagon, and the Marines surrounding it, alone\u2014probably because he had nothing to bother them with.\n\n\"What does Jack Hays down in Austin say about all of this?\"\n\n\"I talked to him earlier today on the radio,\" the army general, Frank Rodriquez said. \"He says if we leave Texas alone, Texas forces will leave our troops and military installations alone. I guess you could call it a truce.\"\n\nGrafton gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from an aide. He sipped it and told the brass, \"There are a bunch of folks, about three thousand, but the number is growing by the hour, heading this way from Camp Dawson in West Virginia. They'll probably be here tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Who is in charge of this group?\"\n\n\"I guess I am,\" Grafton said with a smile. \"We intend to enter the White House and arrest Soetoro, if we can get there before that mob beats us to it. His days are almost over.\"\n\n\"Then what?\" some general asked.\n\n\"We need to get the United States up and running again. Get the power turned on nationwide, get water flowing through the pipes, and restore public order.\n\nThey weren't yet ready to talk about tomorrow. \"What do you know about this White House recording that is all over the radio dial? We think three or four stations are broadcasting it.\" General Weiss said that and he gestured at the video screens. \"That is what has them stirred up. The big problem is that that mob is made up of people who hate Soetoro and people who think he is the risen Christ and is being viciously slandered. We have people down there reporting on what's happening. That thing may turn into a battle royal between the two groups right there in Lafayette Park, a bloody riot.\"\n\nGrafton replied, \"I authorized secret electronic monitoring of the White House about six months ago. We used an Israeli program to turn all their cell phones, computers, and surveillance equipment into listening devices. The signals were gathered by the White House Wi-Fi system, encrypted, and sent to us. My tech staff\" (that was only Sarah Houston, by the way\u2014she was going to smile when I related this remark to her) \"waded through hundreds of hours of conversation, but edited our take down to the pithiest sixty hours. That is what the radio stations are broadcasting.\"\n\nRodriquez whistled. \"That stuff is dynamite.\" He jumped right to the key point. \"So you knew Soetoro was planning to declare martial law for weeks before he did it?\"\n\nGrafton merely nodded.\n\n\"How many weeks?\"\n\n\"Two months,\" Grafton said.\n\nAs they digested that revelation, General Runyon said, \"You should have told us.\"\n\nGrafton made a face. \"There is always the question of whether clandestine recordings are genuine, and that cannot be answered to a certainty by listening to them. Even if you concluded that I was as honest as Diogenes, what would you have done after you listened? The American people needed to _see_ the reality of a dictator in the White House, not listen to him scheming. _Now_ they have seen and believe and most are ready to listen. The die-hards, a minority, are convinced the recordings are a plot to slander the saint; nothing on God's green earth will make them change their minds.\"\n\nThe military brass sat and looked at each other. \"He's right, you know,\" Cart McKiernan said. No one wanted to argue. All eyes went to Grafton.\n\nGrafton took another sip of coffee. \"You made the right decision when you pulled your troops to the sidelines. The American people need to solve this problem. And I think they're about to.\"\n\nThat was the moment when I knew my country had a future. Jake Grafton talked about the rebuilding mission ahead, and the Pentagon generals and admirals listened carefully to every word.\n\nI slipped out of the office, closed the door behind me, and asked the aides in the reception area how to get to the men's room. A major escorted me, and when I had lightened the load, I asked if there was food available. There was. The major and I had a delightful late breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, fried potatoes, and toast with real butter.\n\nI was in an expansive mood. The major wanted to talk about the splash the Soetoro White House conversations were making. I wasn't about to tell him that was a Sarah Houston\/Jake Grafton production, so I just listened. When he had expressed his and his colleagues' stupefied amazement, he segued to the subject of the rebels coming to town. I told him what I knew, which wasn't much.\n\n\"Who is leading the rebels?\"\n\n\"Admiral Grafton, the officer who flew me here. I think you lead a rebel army by moral suasion. That's Jake Grafton. I used to work for him but I quit. Now I do what he asks or tells me to do because he's Jake Grafton and I'm me.\"\n\n\"What's going to happen to Soetoro?\"\n\n\"I haven't the faintest idea,\" I said. \"If Grafton has an idea, he hasn't shared it with me. I doubt if he does. He's sorta playing the melody by ear. May I have another cup of coffee?\"\n\nWe both went and filled our cups. Seated again, the major said confidentially, \"The betting in my shop is that Soetoro will fly to Iran and ask for asylum.\"\n\n\"Maybe the ayatollahs will put him to work in a bomb factory,\" I suggested.\n\n\"I don't think he's going to get rich making speeches,\" the major declared.\n\n\"Probably not,\" I agreed and finished the coffee.\nTHIRTY-THREE\n\nJR Hays' convoy arrived at the Bank of Manhattan. He walked across the plaza, accompanied by his five fake FBI agents and two officers armed with M4 carbines. He pushed on the revolving door.\n\nTo the vast relief of JR Hays, the door wasn't locked. In seconds they were inside and crossing the lobby, which actually had a good crowd of civilians lined up facing only three tellers. JR strode over to the receptionist and announced he was here to see the president of the bank.\n\n\"Mr. Gottlieb?\"\n\n\"If you please.\"\n\n\"I don't know if he is available just now. I'll check.\"\n\nShe made a call and read his rank and name tag into the telephone. With the instrument in her hand, she asked, \"May I tell him what this matter is about?\"\n\n\"Government business,\" JR said curtly and directed his gaze around, as if he were a bit peeved to be kept waiting. The two soldiers in combat gear, Colonel Adam Holt and Lieutenant Colonel Charley Grayson, adjusted their helmets and fingered their carbines, which looked black and ominous and very out of place in this marble temple to capitalism. People eyed the soldiers, who didn't seem at all self-conscious.\n\n\"If you will follow me, gentlemen. . . .\" The receptionist opened a short door and admitted them behind the counter, then led the way to a bank of elevators. They were lifted up, up, up.\n\nThe president's office was in the executive suite. They were shown to a conference room, one with a long, polished mahogany desk and portraits on the walls of past bankers who had presumably gone on to an honorable retirement and whatever was awaiting them after that.\n\nJR and his men cooled their heels for four minutes by JR's watch when the door opened and a man in his fifties bustled in. He was wearing a rumpled shirt and slacks and carrying his shoes in his hand.\n\nHe proved he was a top-notch executive by going straight for JR, whose silver stars gleamed on each shoulder. \"I apologize, General,\" he said, \"but since the power has been off I have been sleeping at the office.\"\n\nJR looked the president up and down and gave a quick, tight smile. He stuck out his hand. \"Lieutenant General Been, sir.\"\n\n\"I'm Abraham Gottlieb.\"\n\nJR introduced the two soldiers in combat gear and the FBI agents, who whipped out their credentials.\n\n\"The army and the FBI,\" Gottlieb said, merely glancing at the credentials. The agents put them away and JR tried not to relax. None of the photos on the credentials matched the faces of the people holding them. That was one of the little hurdles he had to clear, and he was over.\n\n\"Let's sit down,\" JR said to Gottlieb. He reached into his tunic and pulled out two letters and handed them to the banker. One was a letter on White House stationery to Lieutenant General Robert Been, United States Army, ordering him to proceed with whatever troops he thought appropriate to the Bank of Manhattan and transport the gold in the bank's vault to the New York Federal Reserve Bank for safekeeping. The other letter was on Treasury Department stationery and was addressed to Mr. Gottlieb. The secretary of the Treasury regretted the necessity of moving the bank's gold, but threats from mobs and various unnamed rebel forces required that the gold in bank vaults in New York be moved to one central location where it could be guarded by the army.\n\nGottlieb seemed to shrink. He wiped his forehead and read both letters again while the lieutenant general reached into his tunic and brought out another sheet of paper. \"Your copy of the president's letter, sir. I need to keep the original. If you don't mind.\"\n\nThe banker surrendered the document without a murmur. \"I never thought it would come to this,\" he said, and swabbed his brow again. \"I'll have to verify these letters of course, and if they are genuine, you may have the gold. Unfortunately most of our staff aren't in the bank today, although the vault is open so our customers can withdraw gold.\"\n\n\"Just how do you propose to verify these letters?\" JR snapped.\n\n\"Well. . .\" Gottlieb tried to compose himself. \"The telephone system, internet, and telex are down, so I suppose I'll have to send a bank officer to the New York Fed to see the chairman there. He should have received similar documents.\"\n\nThis was the make or break moment. JR looked at the banker, overweight, with fleshy features, measuring him. \"Mr. Gottlieb, as you know, the president has declared martial law. The army is running America now, subject to the president's orders. As far as you are concerned, _I am the army. I own New York and everyone in it_.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, but we have our procedures, which the SEC and banking authorities require us to\u2014\"\n\n\" _Mr_. Gottlieb, my troops are now surrounding the Fed\u2014your messenger would not get through. You have just read the president's and secretary of the Treasury's orders, and I am obeying them. If I run into any difficulties, these agents of the FBI are authorized to arrest you and your staff.\" JR simply stared at the banker, daring him to open his mouth. As briefed, the senior woman removed a set of handcuffs from her purse, and Gottlieb's eyes went to them. Obviously he knew that people on Barry Soetoro's shit list were being hustled off to concentration camps.\n\n\"We are not going to be delayed by disloyal people, Mr. Gottlieb,\" JR intoned, as if he were talking to a buck private who had his shoes on the wrong feet. He stood, signaling he was through talking. \"Now call down to your lobby and tell the head cashier to stop passing out gold. All of it is going to the Fed. When the army has it in our trucks, I'll give you a receipt for every ounce.\"\n\nWithout waiting for a response from the banker, JR turned to the colonels and said, \"Gentlemen, let's get at it.\"\n\nHe turned back to Gottlieb. \"If you wish to put on your shoes, sir, you may come to the vault and help supervise my troops, and ensure the receipt is properly prepared.\"\n\nThe banker slammed his feet into his shoes.\n\nJR spoke to his FBI agents. \"It looks as if your services aren't needed today.\"\n\n\"We'll stay, just in case,\" the senior woman said and slid her handcuffs back into her purse.\n\nJR Hays made sure his missive from Barry Soetoro was safely in his pocket. The letter from the Treasury secretary lay on the polished mahogany where Gottlieb had left it. Maybe, JR thought, he should frame the president's letter and a copy of the one from Treasury. They were great pieces of work, signed by the best forger in the Texas prison system.\n\nHe strode out of the conference room, looking every inch a man in complete command, the general from central casting.\n\nWhen I got back upstairs after brunch, my escort found that the brass had moved from a situation room to an office on the E-Ring. They were huddling behind closed doors. I asked one of the outer-office types if Grafton was in there, and informed he was, headed for the door.\n\n\"You can't go in there unless they send for you,\" I was told.\n\nI smiled to show I could forgive a social faux pas. \"I'm Grafton's official biographer. He wants me there unless Mother Nature shrieks for my attention. It's just one of his peccadilloes.\" I opened the door, slipped in and closed the door behind me.\n\nGrafton glanced my way but continued talking. I dropped into an empty chair near the door.\n\nGrafton said, \"As I see it, our first priority must be getting people out of Soetoro's concentration camps. Then, in no particular order, we must get electrical power, telephone, and internet service restored nationwide; get police and firefighters back on the streets and highways; and tackle the humanitarian problems this mess has caused. I would bet there are forgotten and abandoned elderly, sick, and addicts tucked away in odd corners dying of malnutrition and dehydration. In other words, we must get the nation moving again.\"\n\n\"What about the states that declared their independence?\" the bluesuiter, Bud Weiss, asked.\n\n\"It wasn't just Barry Soetoro who caused this mess,\" Grafton replied, \"it was a vast overreach by the federal government, by which I mean the executive, judiciary, congress, and bureaucracies.\"\n\n\"That's not our business.\"\n\n\"It's our business if we're rebuilding this country. Frankly, gentlemen, if we're going to restore the United States of America, we need a constitutional convention to decide if we really want the federal government to rule America, or if we even want a federal system. I don't know the answer, but I know that without a political settlement to resolve lots of festering issues, this nation will fracture into several nations.\"\n\n\"You're saying we need a new constitution,\" Cart McKiernan murmured with his chin down, looking at Grafton over the top of his glasses.\n\n\"The states are going to have to figure that out,\" Grafton said with a gesture of irritation. \"The military needs to stabilize the country and get it running again so the politicians can ruminate and negotiate without the house burning down around them.\"\n\nGrafton stood up and started shaking hands. \"Gentlemen, I want to thank you for your time this morning. This is our country. Soetoro won't be here long. The sooner he's gone, the better.\"\n\nGeneral Rodriquez said, \"Still think we should call the White House and offer to fly him out of the country?\"\n\nWhen I heard that my eyebrows went up toward my hairline.\n\n\"Yes,\" Jake Grafton said. \"Tell him the military won't protect him. In my opinion America will be better off going forward if people don't have his blood on their hands, but\u2014\" He raised his hands in a shrug. Then he said his good-byes. I opened the door and followed him out.\n\nFifteen minutes later, when we were in the Cessna and he was taxiing around the parking lot to find a lane for takeoff, I asked Grafton why he recommended flying Soetoro into exile.\n\n\"None of the leaders at Dawson can control our little army, and that's only one of at least eight or ten armed mobs marching on Washington. They'll kill Soetoro if they get their hands on him. If they do, his supporters will try to make him a martyr. A lot of people still think he's the black messiah, beset by evil enemies on all sides.\"\n\n\"Think he'll go?\"\n\n\"No, but it's worth a try.\"\n\nA minute later we were airborne and climbing over the Potomac for the White House. Maybe it was my imagination, but the crowd outside seemed larger. As we crossed the Mall, we could see people walking toward the mansion, like an incoming tide.\n\nI looked away from the scene below. There was a house fire somewhere up to the northeast, and the plume was rising and drifting on the wind. I wondered if the fire department was on the job. Grafton finally leveled his wings heading west and added power to climb.\n\nThe flagship of the Texas Navy, the attack submarine _Texas_ , was fifty miles east of Cape May, New Jersey, running at three knots when Loren Snyder poked the telescoping photonics masts\u2014 _Texas_ had two of them\u2014above the surface. In less than a minute, the video from the mast confirmed what the sonar was telling the crew, that there were no surface ships of any kind within their visible horizon.\n\nFive days had passed since the combat with the destroyers among the oil rigs offshore of Louisiana. _Texas_ had transited the Florida Straits and headed north. Snyder had it in his mind that if he torpedoed a couple of container ships in the approaches to New York and Newark, he could probably shut down those ports for a while. Days of cruising deep and listening via sonar for ships and submarines had been unproductive. The ocean seemed extraordinarily empty.\n\n\"Maybe the war is over,\" Jugs Aranado suggested.\n\n\"We should hope,\" Snyder said, but just in case, he decided to listen to East Coast radio stations to see what he could learn.\n\nThe AM band was remarkably quiet, but there were a few stations on the air. He channel surfed, looking for a news show. What he found was a station broadcasting the White House eavesdropping show. Barry Soetoro's voice sounded in his ears. The fidelity was quite good, and he could readily understand the conversations. They were talking about declaring martial law and arresting subversives.\n\nAs he listened on a headset, Snyder wondered what he was listening to. Gradually the idea dawned that someone had recorded a White House conversation weeks ago, perhaps months.\n\nThirty minutes later he was sure. They were talking about the upcoming Republican nominating convention. _This had to be recorded in late July or early August_!\n\nHe flipped a switch to put the audio on the loudspeaker in the control room.\n\nJugs was there, and Ada Fuentes was on the helm.\n\nThe two women sat, startled at first, then mesmerized.\n\n\"How did this get on the radio?\" Fuentes asked, dumbfounded. What she was hearing just didn't compute.\n\nWhen the scene was over, an announcer came on. \"You were listening to President Soetoro and his advisors, Al Grantham and Sulana Schanck. Now for the next scene.\"\n\nSnyder reached for the dial and turned it. He found a news station. The announcer was interviewing a Long Island congressman. \"We have fifteen hundred people assembling at the Meadowlands parking lot. Tomorrow we will begin our march on Washington. Food has been donated from the local food bank and some local farmers. Anyone who wishes to join us should do so today. Bring your own weapon and ammunition and whatever camping gear you think you will need. Bring whatever food you can.\"\n\n\"What will you and your 'army' do in Washington?\"\n\n\"We are going to drag Soetoro from the White House and hang him.\"\n\n\"And you are sure the military won't interfere?\"\n\n\"They said they wouldn't\u2014you have been reading their press release every hour on the hour. They're fighting Mexico, not Americans. We're taking them at their word. If they want a fight, however, we'll give it to them.\"\n\nSnyder looked at Jugs. \"What do you think?\"\n\n\"Holy Christ!\"\n\nHe lowered the photonics masts and told Ada to speed up to arrive off the Narrows at dusk. He suggested she descend to two hundred feet, and as Jugs flooded tanks, she did.\n\nStabilized at that depth, they discussed what they had heard.\n\n\"Let's go home,\" Ada suggested.\n\nJugs didn't say anything, merely scrutinized Loren Snyder's face.\n\nHe had to make a decision, so he did. \"We'll take a look at New York Harbor and listen again this evening, with everyone not on duty in the control room. We'll let everyone have his say, and I'll make a decision then.\"\n\nThings began to go wrong pretty quickly when JR Hays saw the Bank of Manhattan's vault. It had a massive circular door that weighed about twenty-five tons, Gottlieb said proudly. The ingots were stacked in the vault and almost filled it. Around the walls on shelves and in drawers were the packs of small wafers, small bars called kilobars, Krugerrands, and other gold holdings, all labeled with owner's names. The sight of all that gold was awe-inspiring, the wealth of nations.\n\nThe bank had precisely two electric forklifts and four dollies to move the gold ingots, but they weren't set up for speed. Each bar had a serial number, and two men were busy writing down the number on each bar. JR put a stop to that. \"The gold is going to the Fed,\" he said. \"You already have the numbers.\"\n\n\"Can you guarantee that all the bars will arrive in good condition?\" Gottlieb demanded.\n\n\"Sure as shootin',\" JR said, and told him to watch and simply count bars.\n\nColonel Holt took him aside and said, \"I figure it will take two days to empty this vault, if nothing breaks.\"\n\n\"How long to load up fifty tons? Can we get that accomplished today?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"Make it happen. Get soldiers down here to help carry the ingots out by hand. Fifty tons is our goal. I'll tell Gottlieb we'll be back for the rest tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nWith the help of a dozen soldiers who were soon sweating profusely, the work speeded up. The soldiers grabbed an ingot in each hand and carried it to the elevator while Gottlieb and another bank officer counted them. For the receipt, of course.\n\nJR tried to stay calm. Fifty tons would be a good haul. _Be satisfied with that_ , he told himself.\n\nHe had been there an hour when one of the officers came to the vault holding a handheld radio. \"Just talked to the airport,\" he said. \"Some FAA guy came around. He stayed ten minutes and left.\"\n\n\"Keep me advised,\" JR said, and watched the gold being loaded onto dollies. He was learning a lot about gold ingots. The standard bars in the vault were Good Delivery bars, each with a serial number. They weighed 12.4 kilograms each, contained 400 troy ounces, or 438.9 ounces. That translated to about 27.5 pounds each.\n\nHe did some figuring in his head. Fifty tons was one hundred thousand pounds, which equals about 3,600 bars, more or less.\n\nThey weren't going to get it done using dollies or a dozen soldiers. He had Colonel Holt assemble a conga line of thirty soldiers, and they passed gold bars from hand to hand into the elevator, and when it held a couple of hundred, sent it up to be off-loaded into a truck while more were stacked at the entrance. The work went faster.\n\nThe men ate MREs in shifts at midday and took a five-minute potty break in shifts. The pile of gold shrank slowly.\n\nWe should have brought some dollies, JR thought. Well, one can't think of everything. He found himself glancing at his watch every few minutes. The minute hand crawled.\n\nOur flight back to Dawson was uneventful. The weather was benign, a typical September day in the eastern United States. We watched for ambushes and found none. We did see our columns snaking along. They had made almost a hundred miles since we saw them in the early morning. We saw another convoy of trucks and cars heading west from Baltimore, approaching Frederick, about fifty miles behind our northern army column. This convoy wasn't ours.\n\nGrafton circled the convoy, low enough that we could see flags with Soetoro's image on them (a sort of Che Guevara T-shirt look) fluttering from car and truck aerials. Then we headed for Dawson.\n\nI decided to deliver myself of an opinion. \"The problem with democracy,\" I told Grafton on the ICS, \"is that fools elect fools.\"\n\nHe snorted. \"And the problem with hereditary kings is that too often you get the pampered, coddled village idiot running the country.\"\n\n\"Life is tough,\" I told him.\n\nThe National Guard camp near Kingwood was almost deserted. We taxied up and shut down in the precise spot where we had manned the plane hours before.\n\nI chocked the plane and tied it down after Grafton went off to find whoever was manning the radios. I got busy fueling the plane. An army portable generator supplied the power to pump the avgas.\n\nAs I finished I noticed some metal blossomed out on the left wing. I climbed off the ladder and took a look. There was a bullet hole in the wing, about six feet in from the port wingtip. A bullet had gone in the bottom of the wing and out the top. A .30 caliber, from the look of it. And neither Grafton nor I had felt a thing. Someone we flew over today was unhappy with us, with life, maybe with the world.\n\nAfter I got the fueling hose put away and the generator secured, I looked the airplane over carefully for any more punctures, didn't find any, and then strolled away carrying my M4. I found Sarah with Grafton in the headquarters building by the radios.\n\nHe was on the horn to General Martinez. \"I'll meet you at first light at the Hagerstown airport. I suspect you are going to meet that bunch coming from Baltimore tomorrow mid-morning between Hagerstown and Frederick. I want to be with you.\"\n\n\"Roger. I'll meet you there.\"\n\nSarah looked at me and I looked at her. She didn't say anything, and I couldn't think of anything except, \"Want to go see if we can find something to eat?\"\n\nShe did, so with a nod to Grafton, we left. He got busy talking to the southern column.\n\n\"Seen the Wire around?\" I asked.\n\n\"Not hide nor hair.\"\n\nI wondered where in the world that fool was. Giving him a weapon the other night in Kingwood was a bad mistake. He wasn't any part of a warrior, which was why I liked him. I was worried. It was a tough world out there these days, and he wasn't a tough man.\n\nThe Bank of Manhattan's president, Abe Gottlieb, wanted to know if the Fed was waiting for the gold. \"Of course,\" JR said. \"I have troops there. They'll stay open until we arrive and if necessary will work all night getting it into their vault.\"\n\n\"Ah, the army!\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"\n\n\"How do you know that a few soldiers won't steal some bars?\"\n\nThat sally drew a frosty stare from the general. Gottlieb said he needed something to eat, and wandered away.\n\nJR was upstairs in the bank when the power came back on in Manhattan. He knew it was on because the outside telephone lines began ringing. The receptionist smiled broadly, shouted to the other tellers, and answered the phone.\n\nUh-oh.\n\nJR looked around for Gottlieb. Two FBI agents were with him, and he signaled to one of them, who jogged over.\n\n\"Power's on, phones are up,\" said JR. \"We've got to move. Close the doors, round up the staff\u2014all of them including Gottlieb\u2014and put them in a conference room upstairs. Confiscate all cell phones and remove the regular phones from the room. Get cracking.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nJR went back to the vault. Soldiers were passing bars along at a good clip. \"How many ingots have you loaded?\" he asked Holt.\n\n\"By my count, about two thousand.\" JR looked at his watch. It was almost one o'clock.\n\n\"Sixteen hundred to go. Get the bank employees out of here and give them to the FBI agents. Get more troops down here.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nJR went along encouraging his soldiers. \"Come on, men. You can do it. We're over half way there.\"\n\nHe went up on the street and checked the trucks. As soon as a truck had four hundred bars in it, a new truck was pulled into position. Armed soldiers were stationed around the trucks, and they kept the curious moving on. Not all of them, of course, since the sight of all that gold stopped people in their tracks.\n\nThree policemen had been enlisted to help keep the crowd moving along the sidewalks. As JR watched, another police car pulled up and a captain in uniform came over. He had scrambled eggs on his hat. He saluted JR, who returned it.\n\n\"We got no notice of this move.\"\n\n\"We can handle it. We figured you had enough troubles as it was.\"\n\nThe cop took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his hair, then put it back on. \"We sure do, General. We sure do. But with the electricity back on, maybe things will start returning to normal.\"\n\n\"We can only hope.\"\n\nHe pointed to JR's combat infantryman's badge on his chest. \"I got one of those,\" the captain said. \"The Gulf War, Desert Storm.\"\n\n\"Thank you for your service,\" JR replied.\n\n\"Yeah. Got out and joined the police. Probably should have stayed in the army. It was a great experience, but I wanted to come home to New York. You know, you're the first general I ever talked to.\"\n\n\"Well, you're my first police captain. I hope we never meet professionally.\"\n\nThe cop grinned. \"You're pretty young too.\"\n\n\"Good whiskey,\" JR confided. \"Never drink the cheap stuff.\"\n\nThe captain held up his hand and adjusted the earpiece in his ear. He rogered the transmission, then said to JR, \"Gotta go. Got some dead people in an apartment house. Someone just found them. Been dead a few days.\"\n\nThey shook hands, and the captain trotted over to his cruiser and jumped in. The driver hit the lights and siren, and away the cruiser went up the street, howling madly.\n\n_Everyone has problems_ , JR thought, and got back to attending to his.\n\n_Texas_ poked her photonics masts up as she approached the narrows. Loren could see the Verrazano Bridge across the narrows, and he saw ships. Lots of ships, none of them going anywhere.\n\n\"Water is pretty shallow, Captain,\" Jugs said.\n\n\"Surface,\" Loren said. \"I'll go up to the bridge. I want to see what's in the harbor. Listen to the radio and brief me over the sound-powered phone.\"\n\nSo _Texas_ rose from the depths and her sail broke water. Loren opened hatches and was soon standing on the small bridge. He plugged in a sound-powered headset and talked to Jugs.\n\nGiving heading commands, he went around ships that were anchored and under the bridge. Not much traffic on it, he noted, and he used his binoculars to examine the freighters and tankers anchored in the lower harbor, waiting for pier space.\n\nHe saw no navy ships. Not a one. Maybe there was a submarine outside the narrows, but maybe not. Maybe peace had broken out all over. The sky was empty of airplanes, even helicopters.\n\nStaying at ten knots, Loren took the boat around Liberty Island. \"Jugs, come up here.\"\n\nIn about a minute she was standing beside him, gazing at Lady Liberty, the ships, and the Manhattan skyline.\n\nAfter a bit she said, \"It's time to go home, Lorrie.\"\n\n\"I think so too,\" he said, and put his elbows on the rail in front of him and breathed deep of the tangy, salty air. \"Why don't you go below and send the others up here for a look, one by one.\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir,\" she said, and went down the ladder.\n\nLoren used the sound-powered phone to order a turn back toward the narrows. George Ranta came topside, looked and laughed and pounded Loren on the back, then went below and sent up Mouse.\n\nTwo hours later, safely back through the narrows and with good water under the keel, _Texas_ slipped beneath the waves. In the control room, Jugs briefed him on what she had heard on the radio. The power was back on in New York. The Pentagon was adamant that the military was not taking sides in the Soetoro administration's squabble with the states. People were being released from concentration camps in droves. Politicians were lining up at radio and television stations to be interviewed.\n\nMaybe America\u2014and Texas\u2014will make it after all, Loren thought, and gave orders for the voyage back to Galveston.\n\nIt was four in the afternoon when the 3,600th gold ingot was laid in a truck and the tailgate closed. The bank's personnel were locked upstairs in conference rooms, and the fake FBI agents had put the fear of God in them.\n\nFive minutes later the last of the soldiers and Texas Rangers were aboard the trucks and they were rolling. The traffic signals were working again, although the streets were still almost devoid of traffic. The trucks didn't stop for lights\u2014they simply drove on through.\n\nAt LaGuardia the planes were sitting with their ramps down when the trucks rolled up, and the loadmasters used hand signals to guide the drivers into the cavernous bays of the C-17s. Every soldier helped with the tie-down chains, then the loadmasters checked everything as the ramps came up and the planes started taxiing.\n\nWhen they were airborne, a sergeant passed out bottles of water and MREs to the troops. JR went up to the front of the plane and came back with an open packing case. He walked down the line of soldiers sitting beside the trucks passing out bottles of champagne. \"You guys have to share. We only brought a case for each plane.\"\n\nCorks popped and happy smiles broke out.\n\nJR went up to the flight deck and sat down in the jump seat. _By God_ , _we did it_ , he thought. _Fifty tons of gold_!\nTHIRTY-FOUR\n\nAriot in the streets in front of the White House and in Lafayette Park broke out between supporters and opponents of Barry Soetoro that evening. The melee quickly got out of control, so the police called for fire trucks with water cannons, which were waiting a half-mile away. And they fired tear gas grenades.\n\nThe mob wavered under the gas, but it was the fire trucks that finally dispersed the crowd. A dozen people were dead, either beaten to death or trampled, and several hundred injured.\n\nWhile the tear gas wafted into the White House, the survivors of the battle surged through the streets smashing out store windows, looting, and overturning cars and setting them on fire.\n\nIn the White House, loyalists gathered around Barry Soetoro and urged him to accept the Pentagon's offer of a plane to take him into exile.\n\n\"Their price is a letter of resignation,\" Soetoro said, \"and I am not going to resign this office. It would be a betrayal of all those people who believe in me.\" His chin quivered. \"I am America's hope, the hope of all people everywhere to build a just society and save the planet. That is my destiny.\"\n\nSulana Schanck believed. \"You are the hope of the _world_! And the world will come to your rescue. These racist pigs _will not prevail_!\"\n\nAmid the coughing and fervid pledges of loyalty, the realization sank in that they couldn't stay in the White House. The mob would return. And when it did . . .\n\nThey took the tunnel to the Executive Office Building across the street, and from there went to the basement, where their staff had a fleet of cars waiting. Not everyone got into the cars, of course. Most of the senators and representatives decided not to go. One said later that he knew when Soetoro's car pulled away that he would never see Barry Soetoro again.\n\nThe standoff between the crowds and the police and Secret Service guarding the executive mansion ended at about midnight. A crowd of almost two hundred people, mostly men, came walking out of a side street on the west side of the grounds. With them was a large tow truck, one used to rescue tractor-trailer rigs. Leading them was a black man in the uniform of a captain of the D.C. police. They came straight to the west gate, where four D.C. police in riot gear stood guard. Behind the gate, which was closed, were a half-dozen federal police, also in riot gear. Accompanying the crowd was a television reporter and her cameraman.\n\nThe police captain, who was unarmed, walked up to the cops, who knew him. \"Guys, we are going to open that gate and go through it. You have two choices: you can shoot me or get out of the way while we pull the gate down.\"\n\n\"What the hell do you think you're doing, Captain?\"\n\n\"I've joined the rebels. It is time to stop the bloodshed over Barry Soetoro. We're going in.\"\n\nOne of the cops fingered his radio. While he was doing that, the captain gestured to the tow truck, which moved up to within six feet of the gate. Men carrying chains went around the cops and ran the chains around the gate and hooked them to the massive bumper hooks of the truck. Then the helpers got out of the way and the truck backed up with its audible warning beeping madly.\n\nThe federal cops backed away from the gate with their weapons at the ready. One of them was already on his radio.\n\nThat was when the senior cop on duty, a sergeant, staring at the captain whom he had served under for more than a dozen years, gestured to his mates. \"Get out of the way, fellows. The captain is pulling it down.\"\n\nThe captain nodded once, and the tow truck engine revved and the driver popped the clutch. The slack came out of the chains and the gate came off its hinges and went skidding as the truck backed across the street, blocking it.\n\nThe captain strode up the now-open drive and said to the federal police. \"Shoot me or get out of the way.\"\n\nThey looked at the crowd surging forward, the television camera catching it all, and moved aside. The crowd surged onto the lawn and made for the White House. The television reporter and police captain walked, but many of the men in the crowd\u2014it was almost exclusively male\u2014ran ahead.\n\nIn fifteen minutes the police captain and television reporter learned to their satisfaction that the president was not in the mansion. Only a few servants remained. Not a single staffer or aide or politician could be found.\n\nAs the crowd surged through the first family's quarters and the Oval Office grabbing souvenirs and vandalizing furniture, the reporter and cameraman went trotting out the way they had entered. They had footage that they needed to get on the air fast. The reporter could smell a Pulitzer.\n\nGrafton and I were off the ground Thursday morning when the sky was black as coal and the morning star was just ooching up over the horizon. He climbed to 4,500 feet and headed straight for Hagerstown. The little plane didn't have a nav aid or GPS, so Grafton took a squint at the sectional chart, decided on a course, and hi-de-ho, here we go. As we flew along, I communed with Venus. Like most people, I rarely visit with the morning star. Praying that we wouldn't make this a habit, I gazed with wonder at the sprite. The night faded, and almost as if God had taken a hand, at the proper time the Hagerstown airport appeared in the dawn haze.\n\nThe northern army was camped on the airport grass. It was a sea of military vehicles; a few APCs; several howitzers; lots of trucks, generators, tents, portable kitchens; and several thousand people, about half in uniform. Pickup trucks and cars were parked in rows.\n\n\"Wow,\" I said.\n\n\"That's only about half the troops,\" Grafton said. \"The rest are camped at the fair ground, and a lot of the veterans are on picket duty. Martinez thinks he has about five thousand people now.\"\n\nWe landed and parked near the control tower. General Martinez was there to meet Grafton. They went over to Martinez' ride, a pickup, and conferred while I chocked the Cessna and tied it down. I looked to see if we had collected any more bullet holes. Not yet today.\n\nI faced into the dawn, surveyed the encampment, and took a leak. I gave thanks that I hadn't chosen the military as a career; the hours are terrible. Zipped up and yawned. Okay, I was ready.\n\nI strolled over to the meeting of the general staff at the pickup truck.\n\n\"General Martinez says Soetoro isn't in the White House. Civilians got in last night and found he had skedaddled.\"\n\n\"Terrific,\" I said, yawning again. \"If the Pentagon didn't fly him to some third world paradise, this will be like looking for Elvis.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Jake Grafton said with a gleam in his eye, \"I have a feeling he's close. Like up at Camp David.\" He pointed to the east. \"Just twenty miles that way, on the other side of that low mountain.\"\n\nI turned and looked east at the mountain bulging against the dawn sky. Actually, it sort of figured that Barry Soetoro might run to earth in that rustic presidential getaway, which was designed for defense by Secret Service and federal police. Local crackers couldn't get within five miles of the place without alarms going off. If I were going to hide out for a while and had the federal government to pay the help, chefs included, Camp David would be high on my list.\n\n\"Maybe so,\" I said to Grafton.\n\n\"Indeed,\" he said, \"maybe so.\"\n\nHe turned back to General Martinez, so I walked around the pickup truck to see if it had any dings. It looked clean. After this mess was over, maybe I could make an offer on one that FEMA didn't need anymore. I had decided that I needed a truck. My old Benz convertible was cool, but a truck had more possibilities for a man of my m\u00e9tier.\n\nGrafton and Martinez gabbled on their handhelds a while, then Grafton motioned toward the Cessna. He shook hands with Martinez and conferred some more while I untied the plane and stowed the chocks. I climbed into the right seat and put on my belt and headset. Arranged my little bag of grenades behind me so I could reach them easily and made sure my M4 on the backseat was loaded and handy. I wished I had a flak vest to sit on, but I didn't.\n\nFinally Grafton strode over, jumped into the left seat, and cranked the engine. With it at idle he put on his seat belt and headset. \"Martinez will get the Predators up. They are flying them out of Dawson, so until they get here we are the eyes of the army.\"\n\n\"Roger eyes.\"\n\n\"We need to find out what happened to that column of people coming from Baltimore along the interstate and see what's happening at Camp David.\"\n\n\"The feds will likely shoot at us if we go swanning over in this crate.\"\n\n\"Then we'll know, won't we?\"\n\nThe asshole! It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that if he had an ounce of sense he'd send a Predator over David, but not-a-minute-to-waste Grafton had made his decision and he wouldn't change it. How come I always get stuck with the heroes?\n\nBoth our side windows opened on hinges at the top to a limit of about three inches. I checked mine. It was a bit too small for me to push a grenade through the opening. Not to worry, I could always open the door against the slipstream and drop them like eagle shit on the multitudes below. Maybe they would be inspired to keep their heads down. I reached behind me and got a couple, which I put in my lap.\n\nTwenty minutes later we realized that the interstate east all the way to Frederick was essentially empty. That column of Soetoro volunteers had to be somewhere, but where?\n\nGrafton turned toward Camp David. He was only about a thousand feet above the trees. Plumes of smoke rose from the forest, formed a thin cloud in the still air, and pointed the way to Camp David. Lots of fires down there, so there were probably lots of people.\n\nAnd sure enough, we found them. Grafton got looks through the trees at people camping, then he dropped lower and we saw vehicles by the dozens, mainly trucks. Saw the presidential buildings surrounded by lawns and stately mature trees, and many people on those lawns. Most of the people I saw had rifles. Then a few of them pointed their weapons skyward and I saw flashes against the dark of the forest floor.\n\n\"They're shooting at us,\" I told Grafton.\n\n\"We're leaving,\" he said, and headed west over the low mountain.\n\nWhen we were clear, he got on the radio to Martinez. \"Many people around Camp David. I think you need to check it out. The man may be there.\"\n\n\"Wilco.\"\n\nWe landed at Hagerstown and I tied the plane down after inspecting it again for bullet holes. The shooters all missed. Maybe this was going to be a lucky day for me. Sarah Houston drove up in our stolen FEMA pickup, the one that had my money in it, along with spare weapons, AT4s, and my sniper rifles. I was ready for a real war.\n\nShe was wearing jeans, a green army T-shirt, and a web belt with her pistol holster attached. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. \"You're looking great this morning, lady,\" I told her.\n\n\"Have you heard that Soetoro left the White House sometime yesterday?\"\n\n\"I have.\"\n\n\"The Pentagon said he refused an offer of a flight into exile.\"\n\n\"Probably no one would accept him. He'd want to take Mickey with him, and that's a deal killer.\"\n\nSarah sighed and looked at the sky and army and mountains. \"I'll be glad when this is over,\" she said. She flipped a hand at the ad hoc army, now getting ready to move. \"The officers say that the former soldiers and guard troopers and veterans follow orders. The civilians are here on a toot. They don't do what they're told unless they feel like it. They were up drinking and partying all night. Some of them didn't get an hour's sleep.\"\n\n\"My prediction is they're going to get shot at today,\" I said. \"Some of them will run like rabbits. Don't get caught behind them or you'll get run over.\"\n\nI jumped in the driver's seat of the truck, Sarah climbed in beside me, and we went looking for Grafton, who would be at headquarters if we could find it.\n\nTurned out HQ was in the airport office building. Outside, I ran into Willis Coffee. \"How goes the war?\" I asked.\n\nHe looked disgusted. \"Two accidental shootings last night. Civilians! One dead, one injured. Amateur hour.\"\n\n\"We'll see if Soetoro's army can whittle them down today. They're at Camp David, just over that little mountain to the east. The man himself may be there, so Grafton will probably have us humping hard to surround the place so he can't sneak out.\"\n\n\"Fine with me,\" Willis said. \"Let's pop him and get on with the program.\"\n\n\"You'd shoot him?\"\n\n\"That son? In a New York minute. _Vaya con Dios_ , asshole, and bang!\"\n\n\"Where's Travis?\"\n\nHe gestured vaguely. \"Scouting somewhere. Martinez sent him out before dawn.\"\n\n\"Good luck today,\" I said, and Sarah and I went inside the building.\n\nGrafton was conferring with Generals Martinez and Considine. I listened in and gathered that they wanted to surround Camp David as quickly as possible. Trucks full of troops and the APCs would get on the highway and go around to the east as fast as they could. Another load of troops and APCs would go around to the north. The civilians would be pointed east and told to hike over the mountain, with some professionals along to ensure they didn't get lost in the woods.\n\nWhen the meeting broke up, Grafton said he was riding with me. \"Which column are we going with?\"\n\n\"The civilians, through the woods.\"\n\nMy face must have fallen, because he said, \"There're a couple of dirt roads. We'll take the pickup. If we do this right, the people at Camp David will think the mob coming through the woods is the main assault and leave the front door open for the pros.\"\n\nI wondered if he was having a senior moment. \"If they aren't stupid,\" I suggested tactfully, \"they might think the main assault is coming through the front gate.\"\n\n\"Didn't you see them when we flew over this morning, Tommy? The pros are dug in to defend the front gate and perimeter fence. They're well dug in, with at least two machine-gun nests and a couple of artillery pieces that I saw. Our troops out front will set up ambushes a couple of miles from the front gate, and the defenders won't even see them or know that they are there. With a little bit of luck, if the civilian volunteers coming through the woods can make enough noise, Soetoro will flush and boogey out the front and we'll bag him.\"\n\nSo he intended to capture the president of the United States. \"What are you going to do with him when you have him?\" I asked.\n\n\"Lock him up and let the new government worry about him. A significant percentage of Americans still think he's God's other son. We have got to bring people together, not drive them apart. The next government can have a trial, send him to Switzerland or Kenya, whatever floats their boat. And we can start putting America back together again.\"\n\n\"What about all these civilian volunteers? They're undisciplined, don't know tactics, are poorly armed, won't obey orders\u2014they don't know shit about combat. They'll panic and get shot in droves.\"\n\n\"We're rebuilding a nation here, Tommy. It takes blood to create legends and myths. These people want to fight for their country. We'll let 'em.\"\n\nThat was the Jake Grafton I knew, one hard man. God help all these civilians.\n\nThere must have been three or four thousand of them, armed with everything from shotguns and deer rifles to black civilian versions of the M16. Lots of pistols. It seemed a quarter of them carried pistols and nothing else. I was appalled. If you were within pistol range of the enemy, you were too damned close.\n\nTrucks passed out water bottles, and cases of water were tossed in the beds of our pickups. For all those people, it was not enough. A lot of them were going to get seriously thirsty, even though the temperature was only seventy degrees. I suspected many would pass out from heat exhaustion, especially those who were overweight. Today they had a mountain to climb and a fight on the other side ahead of them. It was at least fifteen miles, I suspected, to the Camp David perimeter fence, and most of it uphill. The crest of the mountain was about a thousand feet in elevation above us.\n\nLooking them over, I thought the average age might be around forty. Everyone who claimed he was a U.S. Army or Marine veteran or retiree had already been winnowed out, given a uniform and a military rifle, and those folks were in trucks and APCs, going to fight the Secret Service and Federal Security police on the other side of the mountain. These were people who claimed no military experience, which meant they knew nothing of tactics or how to handle military weapons and hardware. They probably had minimum experience obeying orders, our modern world being what it is.\n\nAnd yet . . . it was the men over forty who interested me. Many were apparently construction workers or farmers, wearing bib overalls or work trousers and leather boots. Lean and tanned, they carried their rifles like they knew how to use them and had a rucksack or backpack over their shoulders with water, rations, and ammo. Lots of ball caps; some of them were my very favorite, John Deere. I had no doubt most of these guys could walk me into the ground.\n\nThen there were the outdoor types, men and women, also lean, wearing walking shoes with shorts and logoed T-shirts. They all had backpacks, some of them with the logos of purveyors of outdoor gear. Many wore floppy sun hats with strings that hung under their chins. A few even had bicyclists' water bags over their shoulders. They carried their rifles or shotguns as if they were unsure how to do it.\n\nAnd then there was everyone else. A few were teenagers, but many looked to me like they were professionals or middle managers, some pudgy, some downright overweight, wearing jeans and everything else you could imagine. Their T-shirts were from colleges, high schools, and state parks. At least a third of these folks looked as if a walk across a large parking lot would wear them out. I would have bet some of the women were soccer moms.\n\nBlack, white, brown, Asians, with ancestors from all over the globe, they looked like America to me.\n\nAt least three thousand of these volunteers gathered around the spot where the first dirt road left the pavement. They had walked over two miles through suburban Hagerstown to get there. It was getting on toward ten o'clock.\n\nWith General Considine beside him, Grafton stood in the bed of the truck and shouted for them to gather around. They did. He raised his voice, and I swear, I think everyone in that mob heard him. Grafton in full cry was a primal force.\n\n\"We're going up this road to the top of that mountain and will hit the Camp David perimeter fence on the other side. It's a good hike up there, and you need to keep up. Don't fire your weapons until we make contact with the enemy. Obey your officers and stay together. No straggling. When you tell your grandkids about this someday, you'll want to be able to say you were there at the finish, there when the dictator was captured and a new America was born. Keep your head down and shoot low. Let's go.\" And he waved his arm up the road.\n\nThere was a fork a mile or so up the road, and he had stationed guardsmen there to divide the civilians, sending half on one road, half on the other. Travis Clay had reconnoitered both, he told Sarah and me, and both roads led to a bald spot on the mountain crest; the Camp David perimeter fence was just beyond that. \"Considine will take the north fork and I'll take the south. We expect to meet most of Soetoro's volunteers at the bald crest,\" Grafton told us as we watched our crowd trudge up the road. \"That's the fight that will flush Soetoro, I hope, and Martinez will bag him on the other side of the mountain.\"\n\n\"If he's there,\" I said. \"For all we know he may be in Hawaii playing golf.\"\n\n\"If he is, he swam over,\" Grafton shot back. \"Tommy, you drive. Follow that howitzer. The guardsmen with their mortars will follow you.\"\nTHIRTY-FIVE\n\nThe trek up the mountain was the most frustrating experience I have ever had. We averaged two miles every hour. I would move the truck ahead a couple of hundred yards and shut off the engine to save fuel.\n\nThe western side of that mountain, the crest of which ran generally north and south, was a mix of pastures and woodlots with farm houses and ramshackle barns thrown in, and here and there a mobile home surrounded by the owner's junk collection. Rotting tractors, curious cows staring at us over fences, abandoned pickups manufactured during the Truman administration, stray dogs, yards full of weeds, fences covered with poison ivy, it was rural America in late summer in all its glory.\n\nThe fat people had it worst. They began dropping out, just sitting down. Some of the skinny people put their weapons in the truck and on the army trucks behind us carrying mortars, MREs, and water, just to lighten the load. People trudged and trudged up the edge of our road, raising clouds of dust.\n\nGrafton sat in the rear seat and was on the handheld radio constantly. He gave Sarah and me updates on the southern army. They were through Leesburg and had collected another two or more thousand civilians, who were walking and driving cars and pickups and vans. Everyone seemed to want to go to Washington. Our ambushers, Martinez' bunch, were in position blocking the roads into and out of Camp David.\n\nThe power was back on in eastern Virginia and Maryland, and television and radio reporters were giving their audiences the blow by blow. Dixie Cotton was with the army marching through Leesburg, heading for the eastern Virginia suburbs, and she was on the air and on fire, urging all loyal Americans to join with the army of volunteers on its way to liberate Washington.\n\nIt was nearly one o'clock when I saw Travis Clay standing beside the road. I stopped beside him.\n\n\"This is like herding cats,\" he said. \"Got any water?\"\n\n\"In the bed. Help yourself.\"\n\nWhen he had guzzled a bottle and had another bottle in his hand, he came back to the driver's door. \"You going to sit there riding along in your limo, or are you going to help?\"\n\n\"I'm an officer. Rank has its privileges.\"\n\n\"I'm going to write a letter to your mother. 'Tommy doesn't play well with other children.'\"\n\nI told Sarah to drive the truck and got out with my M4.\n\nI helped Travis and Willis herd the troops up the road. Every little bit a shot would echo around. The wannabe warriors got bored and shot into a tree or a deer or whatever. I saw a guy with a shotgun drop a crow that was flying over.\n\n\"Save your ammunition,\" I admonished the trekkers. \"You're going to need every damn bullet before the day is over. And for God's sake, don't shoot the cows: they don't vote, don't have guns, and can't shoot back, so it isn't sporting.\" Some listened, some didn't.\n\nWe came upon a farm where the lady of the house had gone all out. Apparently she knew the column was hiking up the road, so she had a folding table set up by the gate and she and her daughters, both early teens, were pouring good well water for anyone who wanted a drink. And serving homemade cookies.\n\n\"Thank you, ma'am,\" I said as I helped myself to an oatmeal raisin cookie and filled up my water bottle. \"How'd you know this mob was coming?\"\n\n\"Your scouts came up the hill at dawn this morning, and I met them coming back. They said a lot of people would be along.\"\n\nSo I sipped water and munched my cookie as the troops did the same, then we moved along while other people crowded the table. Everyone had a good word to say to the lady and her daughters, and she had a good word for everyone. America walking by your door, on a dirt road that leads nowhere in particular. It was a strange experience.\n\nTwo miles farther up the road, I found a woman sitting with her shoes and socks off, looking at broken blisters, now leaking blood. A double-barrel shotgun lay beside her. \"Are you going to be able to keep going?\" I asked.\n\nShe looked to me to be in her fifties. She cocked her head to eye me, squinting against the sun. \"I'll make it, Jack,\" she said.\n\n\"My name's Tommy Carmellini.\"\n\n\"Betty Connelly.\"\n\nShe took a pair of dry socks from her backpack. \"My daughter died in that parochial school in Arlington Heights a couple of weeks ago. She was a teacher. One of those jihadists Soetoro let into the country shot her in the face. I'll get up this mountain if I have to crawl it.\"\n\nWhile she put her shoes and socks back on, I inspected her shotgun, an elegant old side-by-side. I opened the breech and extracted one of the shells. Number six birdshot, perfect for pheasants. I put the shell back in, snapped the breech closed, checked the safety, and put her on the tailgate of our truck. Gave her a bottle of water and her shotgun. \"You ride there until we get on top,\" I told her.\n\nShe nodded and brushed the hair back out of her eyes. \"Thanks,\" she said. I just hoped she didn't get shot.\n\nAfter two hours, I got back in the truck. Although the temp was only seventy-five degrees, according to the truck's thermometer, I was hot and sweaty, and so was everyone hiking up that low mountain to get to whatever fate awaited us. I guess I was a little nervous, right along with everyone else.\n\nSomehow, someway, we made it up the grade. The dirt road got worse and worse the higher we went, until it was just a rutted road full of dried-up mud-holes. No farms up here, just woods. I glanced at the truck's odometer. It had driven fourteen miles to cover the twelve miles direct distance to the edge of the bald.\n\nGrafton had received radio messages from the Predator crew long before. Soetoro's army was on the crest of the mountain, and at least three hundred yards of cow pasture lay between the forest on the top of the western slope and the naked crest.\n\nIt was four o'clock by my watch when I first sighted the bald. Sarah was at the wheel of the truck, so I got out and started directing our tired volunteers into the woods. I estimated we had lost at least half through straggling and heat exhaustion, but that was just a guess.\n\n\"Get the troops spread out,\" Grafton told me. \"Link up with the people on the other road and stay in the woods. Have the mortarmen take their weapons out there a ways for max coverage.\"\n\nAlready the people on the crest were popping away at us. The bullets pattered on the trees and leaves like rain, but if they hit anyone, I didn't see him or her go down. With all the dust and engine noise and gunfire all afternoon from our crowd as they climbed the mountain, there was no possibility of surprise. Not that Grafton wanted surprise.\n\nOur troops retrieved their weapons from the vehicles and went scurrying out through the woods as the distant firing and pattering of bullets encouraged them on. The howitzer was turned and set up in the road. The truck pulling it had already run over the cattle gate, flattening it. A three-strand barbed-wire fence on ancient, half-rotted posts ran away on both sides of the gate. The artillery officer, a captain, came over to confer with Grafton. \"Not yet,\" the admiral said.\n\nI went into the woods, trying to show the civilians how to take advantage of cover, advising them not to fire their weapons, but to wait. Some of the fools huddled down behind a bush or sapling that wouldn't stop a BB, so I moved them to rocks and behind big trees. Inevitably a few of them began banging away at the distant crest, wasting ammo; they probably had no idea how far their bullets would drop at that distance. Some were shooting into the air at a thirty-degree angle; maybe they were trying to hit Camp David.\n\nOne guy was walking around like it was Sunday afternoon in the park, shouting to his fellow warriors, \"Hang tough. We'll kick the shit out of those stupid sons of bitches.\"\n\n\"Get down, you idiot,\" I told him.\n\nHe looked at me with distain and struck a pose. \"At this distance, they can't hit\u2014\"\n\nWhap! There is no sound on earth like that of a bullet striking a living body.\n\nI heard the sound and saw the hole appear in the side of his head. Blood began leaking out. He swayed like an old oak in a storm, his eyes fixed on infinity, dead on his feet. He fell beside me.\n\nHe had a nice rifle, an old 1903 Springfield with a four-power scope. I laid it across his chest and moved on, shouting, \"You morons get behind something solid and stay down! Save your ammo!\"\n\nAfter twenty minutes of that, when I had positioned the men and women who had made the climb on the left side of the road, I went back to the pickup.\n\n\"Get out your sniper rifle, Tommy, and look at the people on the crest,\" Grafton said. \"When the action starts, shoot anyone who looks as if he is directing troops.\" That was always the advice to snipers: kill the officers.\n\n\"Yo,\" I said and got out the best rifle, deployed the bipod, filled my pockets with cartridges, and set up using a pile of dirt that some snow scraper had deposited there in past years.\n\nI lased the crest. Three hundred fifteen yards, give or take.\n\n\"Start shooting, Tommy,\" Jake Grafton said.\n\nI picked out some fool who was standing up looking this way with binoculars and let him have it. After the recoil, I didn't see him. I scared or hit him.\n\nI had fired ten shots when Grafton said, \"Do you have a machine gun in the truck?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Put it up there and get ready.\"\n\nI had no more than gotten the bipod deployed and the belt in it when the howitzer began firing at a high angle. I saw the shells popping on the crest. Then the mortars opened up, dropping their shells along the crest too.\n\nThis is it, I thought. They'll break for the woods behind them and we'll charge up there to take the crest.\n\nGrafton was running to the left, telling everyone who would listen that we were going to charge the crest, but to stop there. In all likelihood, the people on the crest would retreat to the woods on the other side and be waiting for our bunch to charge them.\n\nBut. . .\n\nI was astounded when the enemy on the crest stood up and began running downhill toward us. They charged, at least two thousand of them, screaming at the top of their lungs and firing wildly. They were dedicated Soetoro fanatics, not professionals.\n\nI hunkered down over the M249 and began firing bursts. They went down in handfuls. To my right and left the woods came alive as the civilian volunteers let loose with everything they had, shotguns, rifles, and pistols.\n\nThe charge broke halfway to the trees. The ground was carpeted with people when, suddenly, the survivors began running back up the hill en masse, some of them carrying and dragging wounded people.\n\nI shot the whole belt at them as the howitzer banged away to my left and the mortarmen dropped their shells among the survivors. Then the artillery shells that had been popping viciously moved their aim point and I no longer saw the shells land. They were obviously shooting to land their shells on the back side of the ridge.\n\nAll along our line a shout went up and people who thought they didn't have another erg of energy left in them left the trees in a trot, charging up that hill. That's when my admiration of the American volunteer went through the roof. By God, they had guts.\n\nThey swarmed up that hill.\n\nSarah motioned to me, so I grabbed the machine gun and belt and got in the back. She put the truck in motion and I hung on. I wanted to change the belt in the machine gun but with the uneven ground tossing the truck around, there was no way. I grabbed my M4 and squirted a burst at any of the enemy who paused in flight to shoot at people charging up the hill.\n\nWhen we made the crest, it was empty. The enemy was running down the other side. Sarah stopped the truck. I dumped the carbine and grabbed a belt of ammo and slapped it in the M249 as bullets snapped around the truck. People running, guns blazing: it was the damnedest battle I have been in yet, like something from an American Civil War movie, blues versus grays. I dismounted, set up the gun, and shot at the retreating people dashing into the trees on the east side of the bald.\n\n\"Hose the tree line,\" Grafton shouted. He was outside the truck, crouching, watching everything. \"They may have an ambush there.\" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him run over to the howitzer crew and point. In seconds the artillery shells began falling just back of the treeline: explosions, clouds of dirt, trees falling. The mortarmen came up to the crest in the pickups that they had used to transport their tubes, recoil plates, and ammo. After taking a moment to get set up again, they began lofting shells into the woods below.\n\nTo my amazement, our guys who had scaled the crest stopped for only a moment to get their breath, then set off running downhill for the trees.\n\nI finished the belt and got another into the gun, which was getting damned hot.\n\nGrafton jumped into the truck and Sarah raced it downhill. I sprayed lead, then grabbed the gun and followed them.\n\nShe stopped forty feet from the edge of the trees. I threw my machine gun in the bed and picked up my M4.\n\nWillis Coffee came running up. Grafton shouted at him, \"Get some AT4s and shoot them into the trees.\"\n\n\"We've got about a dozen.\"\n\n\"Get them running for Camp David.\"\n\nWillis did as he was told. Stood in the bed and launched the rockets as fast as he could.\n\nWhen our troops were no longer in sight, Willis got down. Our guys and gals had gone into the trees. They had literally jerked the old fence posts out of the ground rather than climb over or through the barbed wire.\n\nGrafton, Sarah, and Willis each got an M4, and we trotted toward the trees. We hadn't taken five steps when Willis grunted and fell. I stopped and went back to check on him. He had taken a bullet in the chest. He looked at me and said, \"Tell my wife. . .\"\n\n\"What?\" I demanded. \"Tell her what?\"\n\nBut he was dead. I realized then that I really didn't know Willis Coffee very well. And I would never know him better. \"God bless you,\" I whispered, and ran on toward the trees.\n\nDead and wounded lay everywhere. We disarmed the wounded and kept going. Our troops were in front of us, driving the enemy toward the perimeter fence somewhere in the woods ahead.\n\nWhen we hit the fence, it was down. Who tore it down I never learned. It was down when we got there and that was the reality of it. We kept going.\n\nSomehow in the woods amid the smoke and bodies, we lost Grafton. He must have run on ahead. I was too old a dog for loping through the woods when people could be hiding behind any tree praying for a good shot at their pursuers. Ahead I could hear the cacophony of gunfire. Bodies lay every which way, a lot of them shot in the back. The wounded were groaning. The rocky forest floor looked like hell's half acre.\n\nA moment later I saw the first body that had been scalped. The head was a bloody mess and the hair was gone. At the time I thought, maybe shrapnel did that.\n\nI kept going, and soon found another. Scalped.\n\nA hundred yards later, I met an unarmed man wandering amid the shattered trees and rocks. He had long hair, at least on the fringes; his scalp had been cut and torn off. The top of his head and his face were masses of blood.\n\nI stopped him, forced him to lie down. \"Whoa. What the hell happened?\"\n\n\"A shell hit near me. I was out for a bit, and when I woke up some guy was ripping the top of my head off. He had a big knife. He left me there.\"\n\n\"Lie still. The medics will be along after a bit.\"\n\n\"Help me, mister! For God's sake!\" He clutched at me but I drew back and scanned the woods.\n\n\"Lie still,\" I repeated. \"Your war is over.\"\n\nI picked up the pace. I had covered maybe two hundred yards when I came upon a big tattooed guy with a long knife and a black rifle. He had a bag on a strap over his shoulder. I could see hair protruding from it. He was bending over a figure on the ground, a woman in shorts with long blond hair, and he had his knife out. She had an arm up, trying to fend him off. \"For God's sake,\" she screamed. He grabbed a handful of hair, lifted her head a little, and jabbed the knife into her scalp.\n\n\"Stop,\" I roared. He turned toward me and I shot him.\n\nI ran toward him as he went down. The woman on the ground looked at me stunned, then she was dead, as if someone had turned a switch. He had her scalp half off.\n\nHe was still alive. He looked at me with the strangest expression. I kicked his rifle away.\n\nThen a shot rang out. He took the bullet in the head. I turned and saw Sarah Houston standing there with her carbine at her shoulder.\n\nShe shot into him three or four more times, turned, and began walking downhill, east toward Camp David and the rolling racket of gunfire.\n\nThe woman on the ground was wearing a Penn T-shirt\u2014University of Pennsylvania\u2014now soaked with blood from a mortal wound caused by a large shard of a tree that was still sticking two feet out of her chest. She had bled a lot before the scalper got to her. Blood, almost black, was everywhere. She and the scalper lay in it.\n\nThe sun was already behind the bald crest above me, leaving the woods in dark shadow. Below on the slope, Sarah threaded her way through trees still standing and those blasted by shellfire, around downed trees, limbs, and rocky outcrops, and disappeared from view. I got myself in motion, following along.\n\nGrafton must have passed these wounded people on his trot down the hill, sore ribs and all, trying to get to Camp David before the mob killed Soetoro. He was a man on a mission.\n\nI wasn't. I didn't give a damn what happened to Barry Soetoro.\n\nIt got dark as I went through the woods. There was just enough moon and starlight to allow me to see trees and rocks except under dense foliage, when I had to literally feel my way along. I wished I had some night-vision goggles, but I didn't. And of course, neither did anyone else. I only tripped and fell four times.\n\nAfter a while I got glimpses of fires burning around the presidential enclave. I moved carefully, the M4 at the ready. I came out of the trees and walked along a graveled path toward the biggest of the fires. People were everywhere, and all of them were armed. I figured they were our guys, and was sure when I saw fifty or sixty people sitting on the ground wearing white plastic ties around their wrists. There must have been a thousand people in the lawn and flower beds, most of them shouting like fiends.\n\nNear the front door of what I took to be the main building or lodge, I saw Grafton and some of the people from the camp this morning confronting a knot of men and women in business attire. They had to be Secret Service. Barry and Mickey Soetoro were not in sight. I went around the corner of the house away from the group. The house, or lodge, was a two story. Looking around and concluding I was unobserved, I leaped for the bottom of a balcony. Got my hands on the concrete floor of the thing and pulled myself up with every muscle screaming about all the exercise I hadn't been getting.\n\nChecking over my shoulder, I decided I still didn't have an audience, so went up like I was climbing a rope. Hooked an ankle over the top of the rail and voila, I was in. The door, unlocked, led to a bedroom. The lights were on inside and it was empty.\n\nI closed the balcony door and stood listening with my pistol in my hand as I scanned the room. Actually, it was the sitting room of a suite. The crowd noise outside was now only a murmur. First I checked the bedroom, which was dark and empty. So was the bathroom.\n\nThe interior door of the sitting room opened into a hallway. I could hear voices from my left. That was the way I wanted to go, but only after I checked these other suites, for there appeared to be four of them off this hallway. When I went toward the voices, I wanted to know that there was no one behind me. The second suite I checked was empty of people, but the bed and bathroom had obviously been used.\n\nIn the third suite I found the body. It was lying beside the wet bar, as if it had fallen off a bar stool. The remnants of several drinks were on the bar. His throat was cut and he had done a lot of bleeding. I tried not to step in the blood, but to get a look at the face to see if I could recognize it. Yep. Al Grantham, the chief of staff.\n\nWhoever cut his throat knew exactly how to do it. It looked like just one vicious swipe had severed the carotid arteries and his windpipe. Apparently done from behind. Unconsciousness had followed within a second or two as blood pressure in the victim's brain dropped toward zero.\n\nI reached and touched his hand. It was still supple, although just beginning to cool off. He hadn't been dead long, not more than a few minutes. The blood was red and sticky.\n\nI found that the palm of my hand on my pistol was sweaty. I dried it on my jeans and checked to make sure the suite was indeed empty of living people. A surprise by a knife fighter of that caliber was something to be avoided.\n\nThe hallway still empty, I tried the door of the fourth suite. Sucked it up and went in fast with the pistol ready. No one there.\n\nBack down the hallway, gliding along beside the wall, listening intently. The voices got louder as I moved.\n\nI could see that the wall I was against turned into a railing, and the hallway became a balcony leading to a stairway down into a great room. I got down on the floor, and after crawling, inched the top of my head around the edge of the wall and peeked between it and the first balcony upright.\n\nThere in the main room below, no more than fifteen feet from me, were Barry and Mickey Soetoro. . .and Sulana Schanck and a male aide I didn't recognize, talking to a couple of Secret Service types carrying M4s. Vice President Rhodes was there, the veep from central casting, with the superbly barbered white hair and square chin, in a gray suit that fit perfectly. Two other people were facing the agents: I couldn't see their faces and didn't know who they were. Rhodes' aides or politicians, no doubt, and true believers to the core.\n\n\". . .There are at least a thousand of them, Mr. President. Perhaps twice that. They have the buildings surrounded and have complete control. We have six people left. The rebels can come into this building anytime they decide to walk over us and do it.\"\n\n\"Have you called for reinforcements? Assistance? Whatever you call it?\"\n\n\"Yes. No one answers our radio transmissions, and no one is picking up the scrambled landlines.\"\n\n\"You're going to have to talk to Grafton,\" the veep said to the prez.\n\n\"I am not going to surrender,\" Soetoro declared. I thought I could detect a slight tremor in his voice, but it may have been only the acoustics. \"Where are our supporters? Where are the liberal armies that were going to preserve order and support the federal government against the reactionaries? _Where are they_?\"\n\nI thought that his loyal supporters lying dead or maimed on the mountainside or sitting outside with their hands shackled by plastic ties were beyond caring how much they had disappointed ol' Barry.\n\nWhich of these people killed Al Grantham with a knife, and why? If you were going to do it, why not years ago? Truthfully, his mother should have done it way back when she realized what a twisted, diseased monster she had foisted upon the world, but that was water under the bridge, until today.\n\nOf course, the knife artist could be somewhere else in the building, not down below. I glanced back down the hallway, a bit nervously, I suppose, to ensure that it was still empty. I certainly didn't want that dude within twenty yards of me.\n\nMeanwhile they were jabbering away just below me. Everyone talking at once. Just beyond the door was a seriously unhappy crowd, or if you were inside looking out, an angry armed mob. These people in the lodge had no idea what fate awaited them. Jake Grafton didn't know either. Not only did I not know, I didn't give a damn.\n\nI became aware that Sulana Schanck was having a serious private conversation with Barry Soetoro, just a few steps away from the others. No one else was apparently paying attention to what was being said, and they were talking too low for me to eavesdrop, even though my hearing is excellent. I tried to read lips and body language. She was adamant and he was resisting.\n\nWhatever fate awaited these two, it would probably be worse for Soetoro. Schanck was merely a bit player. Or so I thought.\n\nThen, in a twinkling of an eye, I found out how wrong I was. Sulana Schanck pulled a large knife from her sleeve and with one vicious backhand sliced Soetoro's throat from ear to ear. Blood geysered forth, showering Schanck, as the president sank toward the floor.\n\nI scrambled to my knees and pointed my pistol, but I was too late. She spun like a ballet dancer, took one bound, and used the knife on the veep's neck, with similar results. John Rhodes went down in a welter of blood.\n\nOne of the Secret Service agents beat me to the trigger. He put a burst in Sulana Schanck's chest, hammering her to the floor.\n\n\"Drop it,\" I shouted. I had the Kimber .45 at arm's length pointed right at his head. If he tried to swing that carbine in my direction he was going to die.\n\n\"Drop the weapons,\" I roared again. Both carbines hit the floor.\n\nThe outside door swung open and a man appeared there with a pistol in his hand. I shouted, \"You in the door. Get Admiral Grafton and send him in here _now_!\"\n\nDown below, Mickey had freaked. The aides and pols were fluttering around uselessly, staring horrified at the corpses of Barry Soetoro and his vice president. There was nothing anyone on earth could do for them. Sulana Schanck hadn't twitched since she hit the floor. Maybe she was in Paradise now or shaking hands with Muhammad in Hell.\n\nTo my eternal relief, Jake Grafton and General Considine walked into the room accompanied by four guys carrying weapons.\n\nI sat down on the floor and holstered my shooter.\n\nAbout two hours later the bodies of the president, vice president, chief of staff, and chief political advisor were carried out of the house and placed on a stack of firewood in the middle of a grassy area. The crowd had raided the presidential woodpile. They piled the bodies on that rick of wood, poured a couple of gallons of gasoline on them, and set them afire.\n\nThe National Guard had arrived by then and the volunteers had stopped shooting their guns into the air. The prisoners were loaded on trucks and driven away. I didn't ask where they were being taken.\n\nA huge silent crowd encircled the fire. As I watched, the woman from the hike up the mountain, Betty Connelly, stepped from the crowd, leveled her shotgun into the fire, and fired twice.\n\nThen she turned and walked away.\n\nGrafton and Considine came over to where I was standing.\n\n\"Tell me what happened in there, Tommy.\"\n\nSo I told it, from climbing the balcony, to finding Grantham's corpse, to watching the Soetoro party trying to decide what to do. . .to Schanck's unexpected knife work.\n\n\"So you didn't hear what she and the president said?\"\n\n\"No, sir. It looked like she was urging him to do something that he didn't want to do. Maybe she wouldn't take no for an answer.\"\n\n\"Workplace violence,\" General Considine remarked flippantly.\n\nThey had a few more questions, but I had no more answers.\n\n\"ISIS or Al Qaeda will claim they got him,\" Grafton said gloomily.\n\n\"Soetoro is the one who chose Sulana Schanck to sit beside him and whisper in his ear,\" Considine remarked. \"The true believers are going to have to swallow that, Jake, whether they want to or not.\"\n\n\" _Et tu, Brute_ ,\" Grafton muttered.\n\nI scored a flashlight off a soldier on the water truck and went looking for Sarah. Meanwhile she found Grafton. The funeral pyre was burning steadily now. The admiral had a handheld radio up to his ear, so I gave him the Hi sign and he acknowledged. With the fire illuminating a thousand faces, Sarah and I turned our backs to it and plunged into the darkness.\n\nIt was a five-mile hike through the woods, all uphill, and we came out on the bald about a half-mile north of the pickup. A sliver moon was hanging in the sky and the stars were out. This old earth just keeps on turning. Walking toward the truck, I asked her, \"How are you feeling?\"\n\nShe didn't reply.\n\n\"If that truck isn't hors de combat, I thought we might head west.\"\n\nShe didn't say anything.\n\n\"You got the keys to the truck?\" I asked.\n\n\"I left them in the ignition.\"\n\nOh boy.\n\nThat half-mile hike through the grass in the moonlight, with corpses lying on the ground in a random pattern, was one of the memories I will carry with me all my days. There were at least two army trucks out there, lights ablaze, looking for wounded. The whole scene was surreal. The dead didn't even whisper.\n\nWe passed a young woman wandering along, trying in the moon and starlight to see the faces of the dead. She didn't have a weapon. Maybe she never did, or threw hers away or lost it. She didn't speak to us, so we passed her and kept hiking. I wondered which side of the fight she had been on, then decided that really didn't matter.\n\nIt was a little after midnight when we got to the truck. The keys were dangling from their slot. Is this a great country or what? All four tires had air. The windshield had taken at least three bullets and was in bad shape. One of the bullets had gone through the windshield and out the rear window. Fortunately Sarah had been lying on the seat at the time, protected by the motor and lots of metal, so she wasn't tagged. One of the truck's headlights was shot out. Some of the sheet metal had holes or gouge marks from bullets, and the radio aerial was missing, shot off. I opened the hood and examined the radiator and hoses with the flashlight. No visible leaks. Maybe the antifreeze all ran out. I looked at the ground under the engine, which was dry. We were good to go.\n\nAbout a hundred yards to the south was an army truck with every light on. I walked over and saw a white cross painted on the side. Dr. Proudfoot was there, and he said the medics were out looking for wounded.\n\n\"We found some guy who had been scalped,\" he said. \"Hell of a wound. He's a professor from some little college in New England. I sedated him.\"\n\n\"Is he going to make it?\"\n\n\"Probably, if infections don't kill him.\"\n\nI shook Proudfoot's hand and walked back to my stolen FEMA truck. Sarah was already in the passenger seat, buckled up.\n\n\"Idaho,\" Sarah said.\n\n\"Idaho,\" I agreed.\n\nI fired up the motor. The lone headlight bravely stabbed the darkness.\nTHIRTY-SIX\n\nWe spent what was left of the night at Camp Dawson, which was manned by a skeleton crew of guardsmen. I gave them the machine gun and extra ammo and three AT4s that Willis hadn't managed to shoot. After lunch, we hit the road.\n\nIn a little town in Ohio I found a glass repair shop that was open. They replaced the windshield, rear window, and headlight. The head man wanted to talk, so I told him about the battle for Camp David.\n\nWhen I finished he said, \"I have been really worried about America for years, and martial law was my worst nightmare come true. I think the socialists and left-wing radicals want to change America into a nation my kids won't want to live in. It seems like they don't know the basics of economics, don't believe in work, don't believe that a person should earn and keep the fruits of their labor. They'll run America into the ground, then what?\"\n\n\"Maybe now the future will be better,\" Sarah said.\n\n\"Then there is terrorism, all those Muslims admitted willy nilly,\" he said. \"I can only hope and pray.\"\n\nThe power was back on in Ohio and Indiana, so we spent a night in a chain motel that was open. We ate a free breakfast at the bar off the lobby, which consisted of cornflakes and milk. I asked about the milk, and was told cows keep giving it regardless.\n\nFilling stations were open again, and before the tank in the truck was empty, we found one with fuel to pump. Life was looking up.\n\nIn Illinois a state trooper took offense because I was driving at eighty miles an hour when the speed limit was sixty-five. He pulled us over.\n\n\"I told you to slow down,\" Sarah said primly as the trooper walked up.\n\n\"You with the government?\" he asked, looking us over. The pickup had federal government plates, although it lacked logos on the doors. Sarah and I were still wearing our web belts and pistols. The trooper was a big black man with hair going gray at the tips. For a man who spent most of his working life sitting behind a wheel, he was reasonably trim and fit.\n\n\"Ah, no,\" I admitted. \"We quit. We were with the CIA.\"\n\n\"Spies, huh?\"\n\n\"I stole the truck,\" I said brightly, \"from FEMA.\"\n\n\"Those assholes? No shit! You got ID?\"\n\nI dug out my wallet and passed him my CIA Langley pass.\n\nHe looked it over and passed it back. \"What you got in the cooler in the bed?\"\n\n\"A six-pack. Filling station back in Indiana had some. Want one?\"\n\n\"Man, I haven't had a beer since Soetoro declared martial law. Yeah, I'd like one.\"\n\nWe got out and opened the cooler, and all three of us took a beer.\n\n\"If you have a camera in your cruiser, they might get unhappy seeing you with a beer,\" I said.\n\n\"Camera's broken. Piss on 'em.\" He popped the top on his can and took a swig. \"Ahh! Tell me about the bullet holes in your ride.\"\n\nSo we sat on the tailgate of the truck and sipped beer while I told him about the attack on Camp David. As I talked and he asked questions of Sarah and me, he visibly relaxed. He believed us. If he only knew how good a liar I was, he would have been more suspicious, but ignorance is bliss, so they say. And for a change I stuck strictly to the truth.\n\nWhen he finished asking questions about the death of Barry Soetoro, the trooper, whose name was Davis, waxed philosophical. \"Soetoro made life a living hell for us cops, made us targets, turned people against us, and stirred up racial hatred we sure as hell didn't need. Sure, there are a few bad cops, the same as there are bad dentists, doctors, CEOs, and plumbers, but all these body cameras and shit, and the constant second-guessing of cops who put their lives on the line\u2014that's bullshit. That bastard Soetoro killed a lot of people by making criminals feel free, taking their side, and giving carte blanche to illegal aliens with criminal records. He destroyed a lot of trust, especially with law enforcement. And you know, without the rule of law, we don't have a civilization. It's that simple.\"\n\nI'd seen enough to know that.\n\nHe stood and dusted off his trouser seat. \"You two slow it down, huh?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nDavis got into his cruiser and drove away. We put all three empties in the cooler and got our chariot under way, heading west.\n\nI didn't want to read newspapers or watch television or listen to radio. I had had enough of the world's troubles. Sarah and I chatted and watched the countryside pass by and the road unwind endlessly before us. Although traffic was light, things were getting back to normal. We saw tanker trucks sitting in filling stations, food trucks rolling the highways, trucks hauling cattle and hay, and farmers in the fields running combines. Trains went by on tracks that paralleled the highway. Here and there construction crews were back at work on road and bridge projects. Jets were flying again, so contrails streaked the blue sky.\n\nYet even political hermits like Sarah and me found the political crisis impossible to avoid. Every diner or bar we went into had televisions going full blast. The generals in the Pentagon had asked Jake Grafton to get an interim civilian government up and running and to hold elections in every state that wanted to remain in the old Union. Texas was independent and intended to stay that way, President Jack Hays said. The commentators were still aghast, and delighted, at the effrontery of the Texas military in stealing\u2014or \"replevying,\" Jack Hays' word\u2014fifty tons of gold. At the quoted market price that morning\u2014$2,132 an ounce\u2014the metal was worth $3.4 billion. Jack Hays assured an interviewer that Texas would return any excess after Texas' claims against the federal government were settled by negotiation.\n\nIn California, the Mexican Army had been driven out, but Mexican gangs and their radical supporters were now engaged in a civil war against everyone else. They had supported the Mexican Army, and now were fighting for an independent Mexican Southern California they planned to call Aztlan. They were being crushed, but Southern California, and Los Angeles in particular, would never be the same again. Television cameras lingered lovingly on columns of smoke rising over the LA basin.\n\nIn Mexico, another civil war had broken out. The reasons seemed to be manifold: the flood of illegals back to Mexico, Texas closing the border, the failed invasion of California (some said at the behest of the drug lords), and massive unemployment. The good news was that without the United States as a safety valve, Mexico was finally going to have to come to grips with poverty, monopoly, corruption, and lack of opportunity for most of the people who lived within its borders.\n\nThe violent death of Barry Soetoro had, as Jake Grafton feared, transformed him into a cultural icon among certain groups. His sins were forgotten in the pathos of his demise. Bogus eyewitness accounts aired between newscasts. Mickey Soetoro publicly and loudly blamed \"white people.\" A waitress at a truck stop told us that Oprah was in tears for her entire show. All this despite the fact that the conversations Sarah captured in the White House in which Soetoro plotted to become a dictator were still airing on some radio stations.\n\nWe had been on the road for four days when we rolled into Idaho. We examined the brochures at a visitor's center and signed up for a float trip down the Salmon, the River of No Return. That took six wonderful days under a September sky. The nights were spent camping on a beach, and the days riding the river with a guide who paddled occasionally while Sarah and I fished the riffles and rapids for steelhead going upriver to spawn. We actually caught several good ones, which we immediately released back into the river.\n\nThe whole experience was magical. The canyon was wild and glorious, the eternal river flowing through rapids and down long, languid stretches, then through more rapids. We saw mule deer and coveys of chukar. Eventually we ended up on the Snake and spent a day drifting with the current to the pullout. People along the banks of the Snake on farms and in yards waved to us.\n\nSarah and I were laughing and smiling when the experience was over. America was still here, still glorious.\n\nAfter another week of driving through the mountains, we ended up in Idaho Falls. That evening we finally turned on the television to a news channel and began catching up.\n\nA constitutional convention had been announced. Jake Grafton was on television with the leaders of the House and Senate asking the governors of states both in and out of the Union to send delegates. He finished with this statement: \"I think a great many people feel that the constitutional mandate for separation of powers between the three branches of government, and between the states and the federal government, got badly warped through the years. We hope a convention can fix that, especially by putting more teeth into the Tenth Amendment.\"\n\nGrafton continued, \"The judges decided the interstate commerce, due process, and some other clauses were loopholes big enough to swallow the states and give the federal government control of every aspect of American life. That control was not exercised by Congress, an institution totally inadequate for the task, but by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, sometimes controlled by the executive but often controlled by no one at all. That has to change. I don't know what devices the convention delegates will come up with to harness the Cheshire Cat, but they can try or fail or surrender, as they choose.\n\n\"The delegates may also choose to revise our democratic institutions to make them more efficient and responsive to the electorate.\n\n\"What is not on the table are the basic civil rights we Americans as a free people enjoy. We are seeking new ways to preserve those rights, not diminish them.\n\n\"If the delegations do their jobs well, we will have added safeguards to preserve liberty, the rights of the states, and the freedom of the people. It is my hope that the states that have declared their independence will return to the family of states that we call the United States, a family that has provided shelter and livelihoods for a free people for over two centuries, and I believe, with tweaking, can shelter us and our descendants for many more.\n\n\"May God bless a restored and reunited America.\"\n\nAfter the speech a commentator appeared on camera. I stared. Yes, it was Jack Yocke, clean-shaven, with a haircut, wearing a suit and tie. He was now the network's expert on all things Grafton.\n\nJack Hays was next.\n\n\"Texas is getting its act together,\" he said. \"We are in talks with Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona to form some kind of federation. How that will work out, I don't know, but I am encouraged. The illegals who don't speak English and have no job skills are going back to Mexico; we have about two thousand families a day moving to Texas to find jobs, families that do speak English and have trades and job skills to support themselves and make positive contributions to the economy and tax base. We are reforming the education system, training Americans, and putting them to work. Texas has a bright future.\"\n\nWhen we turned off the television in the wee hours of the morning, Sarah asked, \"So what are we going to do with our lives?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I replied, truthfully.\n\n\"We can't keep doing nothing.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"I want to go home,\" she said.\n\nThe following day we pointed the truck east. The highways were more crowded, almost back to normal, I thought, and every filling station and truck stop had gas and lots of customers.\n\nFour days later we rolled into West Virginia and stopped by the safe house near Greenbank. Dr. Proudfoot was there making a house call. Mrs. Price sat on the porch with a jacket around her shoulders and a blanket over her legs enjoying the fall colors, which I thought were near their peak. Little Sarah threw herself at Big Sarah, and Armanti Hall shook my hand until I had to jerk my appendage out to save it.\n\n\"I thought you were boogying off to Texas,\" I said, flexing my fingers.\n\n\"Gonna stay here and rebuild Mrs. Price's house. Then the three of us are going to live in it.\"\n\n\"Got enough money for lumber, toilets, and pipes?\"\n\n\"I have a little saved up,\" he said, looking down his nose at me. \"Need a loan?\"\n\n\"Ah, right now, no. But if in the uncertain and unpredictable future I unexpectedly find myself in a fiscal hole, I know where to find you.\"\n\n\"Right up the road. We should be in by spring.\"\n\n\"It's great to have friends.\"\n\n\"So they say.\"\n\nWe drove on to Washington and stopped in front of the lock shop. We went in, and there sat Willie the Wire Varner.\n\n\"Where the hell you been?\" he demanded. \"I thought you two were dead.\"\n\n\"Still kicking,\" I said. \"What happened to you after the battle of Kingwood?\"\n\nHe said he had hitchhiked back to Washington. \"I'm no warrior,\" he declared defensively. \"Ain't got it in me.\"\n\nThis was the Willie Varner I knew and liked.\n\nWe were catching up, telling him of our adventures and listening to him describe his odyssey back to Washington, when my cell phone rang.\n\nI looked at the caller ID\u2014Jake Grafton\u2014and answered it. \"Hey.\"\n\n\"Tommy, where are you?\"\n\n\"In Washington.\"\n\n\"Good. Come see me tomorrow. I need you.\"\n\n\"See you where?\"\n\n\"Callie and I are bunking at the White House temporarily.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"I want you to go to Europe. Some of the Middle East refugees flooding in there turned out to be jihadists, which seemed to surprise the Europeans. Maybe you can help keep us advised of what's going on.\"\n\n\"See you tomorrow.\"\n\nI hung up.\n\nSarah looked at me and raised her eyebrows.\n\n\"Jake Grafton,\" I said. \"He wants me to go to Europe.\"\n\n\"It's about time,\" she said, and smiled.\n\n**Chapter Two**\n\n**I** used the secure satellite communication system in the SCIF at the embassy to call Sarah Houston in Virginia. She answered warmly. After a few delightful boy-girl moments on Uncle Sam's dime, I got down to it.\n\nI gave her the information on the passport and from the documents Armanti Hall had stolen from the watcher. \"Anything you can tell me.\"\n\n\"When do you need this?\"\n\n\"We've been up all night doing that branch bank. I'm going to bed. By the way, are you getting anything from their server?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. We've been working it for a couple of hours. A river of money flows through that bank, mostly from Russia. It doesn't stay long. Then it flows all over the world. About half goes to South America and a big chunk comes to the States. Another nice chunk goes to the UK. We'll be trying to figure out where it comes from and where it goes.\"\n\nI grunted, trying to fit these revelations into what I knew of the world of finance and money laundering. We said our good-byes and I walked the old streets to my hotel.\n\nI kept thinking about the kidnapped little girl, wondering where she was, why she was snatched. Since there had been no ransom note, I wasn't optimistic.\n\nI examined the pistol Armanti had taken from the guy outside the bank. A Walther in 9 mm, loaded. I took out the magazine, thumbed out the cartridges, cocked the pistol and dry fired it, then wiped off each cartridge with a hanky and reloaded the magazine. Kidnapping, loaded guns, a billion dollars a week through a branch bank in Estonia... I pocketed the piece and decided it was time for food and bed.\n\nThe city was alive, bustling, a tourist magnet. My hotel was on the edge of the Old Town. I ate a continental breakfast while watching my fellow diners. I noted two men, sitting apart but both in their thirties, dressed in similar business attire. I committed their features to memory, ensuring I would recognize them if I saw them again. Then I went upstairs and crashed.\n\nTwo hours later, I was wide awake. Got to thinking about the kid, Audra, and about the interview with the father, Frank Rogers, and how he had suppressed his emotion. He obviously knew something.\n\nBut why had there been no ransom note? That had me stumped. Only perverts grabbed kids without ransom notes. Kidnapping is a business. It's done for money. Or revenge. Or something.\n\nI kept coming back to the bank. A river of money. There was the cash, right there, Tommy, you twit.\n\nThat interview with Frank Rogers. Had he been lying? Fact is, I am a professional liar. I know all the tells. Recalling Frank Rogers' face, I suspected that the emotion had covered up some of the tells. On purpose. Perhaps.\n\nMaybe I should find out.\n\nI gave the watcher's documents, wallet, and cell phone to the station chief at the embassy to put in the diplomatic bag for delivery to the company in Langley. I kept the pistol. Dulcie Del Rio wanted a debrief, so I told her how it went down.\n\nShe said, \"Isn't it an interesting coincidence that they tried to get into the bank the same night you did?\"\n\nI didn't believe in coincidences. Oh sure, random chance rules the world, but always bet on cause and effect. A little paranoia will take you a long way... and keep you alive.\n\nThe Rogers lived in a two-bedroom flat on the second story of a five-story building in a new section of town. At least the plumbing was modern, and they had electricity. The place had no doorman and a selfservice elevator. No security cameras. With Armanti Hall and Joe Kitty standing guard front and back, I went in during the afternoon and took a look around.\n\nThe first things I found were wireless electronic bugs. The tiny microphones were transmitting, according to my hand-held receiver. Uh-oh.\n\nI went out twice as fast as I came in and started searching for the booster. There had to be one someplace nearby, but I didn't see it.\n\nThe three of us held a huddle by the embassy car and I told Joe and Armanti about the bugs.\n\nArmanti whistled softly. \"Oh, man.\"\n\n\"It isn't just the snatched kid,\" Joe Kitty said. \"These people are in trouble to their eyes.\"\n\n\"And they've been lying to State and to me,\" I said. \"Let's get the dad first when he gets out of school, and intercept the mom coming home from work. Then we can have a quiet little prayer meeting, just the five of us.\"\n\n\"Not together,\" Joe Kitty said.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" I agreed. \"One at a time.\"\n\nWe went back to the embassy to check out another car, and while we were there I again visited with Dulcie Del Rio. \"I need three guns and shoulder holsters.\"\n\n\"Who is the opposition?\" she asked flatly, just like that.\n\n\"Don't know yet, but I kinda doubt it's Estonians.\"\n\n\"Check their identity papers before you shoot them.\"\n\n\"Of course. And we need a safe house.\"\n\n\"For Christ's sake, this is _Estonia_.\"\n\n\"So I'm told, but we need a secure place to have some interviews.\"\n\nShe didn't ask who we planned to interview, which was a credit to her. She dug in her purse and gave me the key to her flat. \"Check for bugs, don't mess the place up, stay out of the liquor, and don't let the cat out. Her name is Oreo.\"\n\n\"We may need it all evening.\"\n\n\"I'll spend the night with a friend. Feed the cat.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said.\n\nWe ended up with old Baretta Nines. The U.S. government bought them by the millions. I gave Dulcie my liberated Walther for her collection. We loaded the Barettas, put them in holsters and went to get the other car.\n\nI sent Bill Leitz to check Dulcie's apartment for bugs. As a tech support guy, this was his area of expertise. \"We'll meet you there,\" I told him, and repeated Dulcie's instructions about the liquor and the cat. \"Make sure you aren't followed,\" I added, \"and that there aren't any eyes on the place.\"\n\n\"Got it,\" he said, took the keys, and went back into the embassy to get his gear.\n\nI was waiting beside one of the cars when Frank Rogers came walking along. He was going home. This was probably near the place where someone snatched his daughter.\n\nI was friendly. \"Mr. Rogers, Jim Wilson. We met the other day.\"\n\nHe looked me over, obviously was not glad to see me. He edged around as if he wanted to walk on.\n\n\"I was hoping that you and I could spend another few minutes together.\" I opened the car door and held it.\n\n\"I don't think\u2014\" he began.\n\n\"You haven't been thinking\u2014that's the problem. Now if you want to ever see Audra again, get in the car.\"\n\nHe got in the passenger seat. I went around and settled myself behind the wheel, snapped my seatbelt. \"Put on your seat belt,\" I told him as I inserted the key in the ignition and fired up the tiny motor.\n\n\"What\u2014\"\n\n\"Save it.\"\n\nI put the car in motion and pulled into traffic. I was paying attention to the mirrors and saw another car pull out as we passed. I made the second turn and it followed. Terrific.\n\nTwo turns later and I was sure: we had a follower. I stopped at a light and checked the rearview mirror. He had hung back, but I could see that there were two guys in the car and one was on his cell phone. When the light changed I headed for Old Town, with its traffic and narrow streets. We crossed a few bridges, then we were there. I didn't know the street pattern, but apparently neither did they, because they followed me into a narrow street where only one of us could turn around\u2014and that was me\u2014before getting wedged in by traffic.\n\nI worked the car around as the guy behind me laid on his horn, then drove back the other way. As I went by our pursuers, I looked them over; they didn't look at me. The passenger was glued to his phone and the driver stared straight ahead. But there was a car in front of him and a delivery truck behind, and it was going to take him a while to get turned around. Tough luck for him.\n\nOut on the boulevard, I headed out of the district. Four turns later, I was sure I was clean. I used the map feature on my phone to direct me to Dulcie Del Rio's apartment.\n\nFrank Rogers started talking as we left Old Town. He was chattering as we crossed the bridge and chattering as we entered Dulcie's neighborhood.\n\n\"I've told you everything I know. Told the people at the embassy. We're Americans... for God's sake, you can't treat us like this.\" There was more, a lot more, about his wife knowing a senator and the fact they had written their Congresswoman.\n\n\"Can it,\" I said and concentrated on my cell phone.\n\nAt one stoplight, he popped the buckle on his seat belt and reached for the door handle. I backhanded him gently across the chops. \"Put the damn belt back on,\" I said harshly. If I had had any doubts that he had lied in our previous interview, they would have evaporated then. But I didn't. He was frightened. Scared. Whatever he and his wife had gotten themselves into, he knew the stakes were blood. His, his wife's, and his daughter's. He knew it and now I did.\n\nLeitz let us into Dulcie's pad. He handed me the keys, glanced at Rogers, and walked out, pulling the door shut behind him.\n\nI took Rogers by the elbow and guided him into the little living room. \"Sit.\" He did, in a little couch just big enough for two bottoms.\n\nI checked out the apartment. Two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen with a dining area that doubled for a home office. As if Dulcie Del Rio had stuff she could work on at home. She had a little laptop, however, probably to send emails to the family back in the States. Maybe check on how the investments in her IRA were doing. I hoped she was getting rich.\n\nI opened the refrigerator. Dulcie had beer.\n\n\"You want a beer?\" I asked Frank Rogers. He shook his head.\n\nI sat down opposite him in a stuffed chair and made myself comfortable. Dulcie's cat climbed up on the couch beside Frank and presented itself to be petted. He stroked it once, mechanically, and eventually it wandered away.\n\n\"Frank, we have a problem. You've been lying to the folks at the embassy, and perhaps the local police. You haven't given us a damned thing that will get us to Audra. How are you going to feel if Audra shows up dead? If the local cops find her corpse in some alley? Knowing that you told a bunch of lies when the truth might have saved her, knowing you didn't tell all you know? How are you going to feel?\"\n\nBig tears leaked from both eyes. He began sobbing and finally buried his face in his hands. I felt like a jerk. Still, if he ever wanted to see his kid again, we were his main chance. In fact, probably his only chance.\n\n\"I've never had to deal with anything like this. I don't know what to do.\"\n\n\"You _have_ heard from the kidnappers, haven't you? What did they say?\"\n\n\"That if we made any more noise about that bank they'd kill her. Told us to shut up and Penny was to keep doing her job.\"\n\n\"Un-huh.\"\n\n\"It was those letters to the big honchos in Stockholm that Penny wrote. The bank is making a lot of money from the deposits and withdrawals flowing though the bank. The fees are a fraction of one percent, but the amounts are so large...\"\n\n\"How large?\" I instantly regretted that question. His wife knew, but Frank would only know what Penny told him. Hearsay. And Sarah Houston was going to have it chapter and verse very soon.\n\n\"Some days it's more, some less. Never less than a hundred million U.S. dollars. Sometimes three or four times that.\"\n\n\"A day?\" I was incredulous. It was as if the bank were a depository of the Treasury Department, collecting tax checks after the 15th of April.\n\nHe nodded. After a bit he stopped sobbing. I went to find Dulcie's liquor cabinet. She liked vodka and bourbon. I poured some vodka on the rocks and brought him a tumbler full.\n\n\"Let's go back to after Audra was snatched. Did they call you?\"\n\n\"They called my wife. Penny told me what they said.\"\n\n\"Tell me.\"\n\nHe did. Going over it took half an hour. The threat was the kid would get killed or maimed if Penny Rogers didn't shut up and behave. If she did, the kid would come home alive and well. If she didn't, they would start mailing her parts.\n\nHe had finished the vodka and I thought I knew most of it when I heard a knock on the door. I went and checked with my gun in my hand. It was Joe Kitty and Armanti Hall, and they had Penny Rogers with them.\n\n\"We were followed,\" Armanti said. \"We managed to ditch them.\"\n\nPenny Rogers was a sight. She was not a large woman, never pretty, and the last few days, or perhaps the ride with Armanti and Joe as they ditched her tail, had wrung her out.\n\n\"She didn't say a word,\" Joe Kitty said. He went outside to keep an eye on the cars.\n\nI nodded towards Frank and whispered to Armanti, \"Take him into the bedroom and keep him quiet.\"\n\nPenny watched them go in silence, then sat on the little couch.\n\n\"A glass of wine, or perhaps water?\" I suggested.\n\nShe thought wine, so I poured her a glass from a bottle of red that Dulcie had corked in a cabinet, then sat down across from her.\n\n\"Who are you men?\" She asked.\n\nI showed her my fake passport and State ID. She scrutinized the documents, then handed them back.\n\n\"Frank said you talked to him at school.\"\n\n\"I did. And again this afternoon, right here.\"\n\n\"Whose apartment is this?\"\n\n\"A friend's.\"\n\n\"Why here? Why not the embassy or our place?\"\n\n\"Your apartment is bugged and I didn't want anyone to see you entering the embassy.\"\n\nShe stared at me. \"How do you know our apartment is bugged.\"\n\n\"We went in and looked.\"\n\n\"The door was locked.\"\n\n\"We picked the lock, Mrs. Rogers. Just like the men did who bugged the place.\"\n\nShe sipped at the wine, remained silent, and looked around. The cat sniffed her feet, then wandered off. It was black, with one splotch of white on its face. Oreo. Looked like a nice cat.\n\n\"They'll kill Audra if we talk.\"\n\n\"Not if we get to her first. And there is no way on earth for that to happen unless you tell us the truth.\"\n\n\"She doesn't deserve this.\"\n\nShe lost control of her face. The refrigerator hummed and somewhere in the building a door slammed. I could faintly hear traffic down on the street below the windows. She wiped at her eyes, and finally her eyes dried up.\n\nPenny Rogers began talking. All that money flowing through that tiny little branch bank aroused her curiosity. Her employees, all Estonians who had worked there for years, told her the branch had always been profitable. More than ninety percent of the accounts were Russian, and they were always opened over the internet. The only people who came into the branch were locals. Their accounts were small and legitimate, with paychecks deposited into savings or checking accounts. But the Russians...\n\nBig deposits, in the tens of millions. Day in and day out. The money didn't stay long, but was wire transferred on to America, the UK, South America, southern Europe. All over the world.\n\n\"How much money?\"\n\n\"It varies. The deposits have averaged a billion a week during the last year.\"\n\n\"Fifty billion dollars in the past year?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe finished her glass of wine and put it on the little table to her right.\n\n\"They're laundering money,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Obviously,\" Penny Rogers said, as if I needed a dozen more IQ points. \"All the businesses in Russia don't generate fifty billion dollars of profit in a year.\"\n\n\"So what did you do?\"\n\nShe began to talk. As she spoke the words poured out, faster and faster. She tried to check on the accounts where the money was being transferred. Used the internet to track down the accounts, which were all corporations. She finally realized they were all shell corporations, without assets. She wrote emails and memos to her superiors in Stockholm. She was told to remember the bank's business was the bank's business, and not to discuss it with anyone. Her emails became more strident. Then Audra was kidnapped.\n\n\"And someone came to talk with you...\" I suggested.\n\nShe nodded. \"At the bank. It was a man I didn't know. He was blunt. Told me to keep my mouth shut and run the branch. If I discussed the bank's business with anyone we would never see Audra again. In one piece. He said that. ' _In one piece_.' I told him we had already reported the kidnapping to the police. He sneered at that.\"\n\n\"Tell me about this man.\"\n\n\"In his forties, I thought. Spoke with a heavy accent. Not Swedish. Russian, perhaps. Terrible teeth, stained yellow from cigarettes.\" She made a face. \"A horrible man. Evil. Pure, unadulterated evil.\"\n\n\"Did he demand money, anything like that?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did you ask for proof that they had Audra, that she was still alive?\"\n\nShe nodded and sniffled. Dug in her purse. Produced a photo. A snapshot. It was Audra all right, against a white wall, with a welt across her face. No glasses.\n\n\"May I keep this?\"\n\nShe said yes, so I put it in my inside jacket pocket.\n\n\"She's all we have,\" Penny said, so softly I almost missed the comment.\n\nWhat do you say to that? I couldn't think of anything.\n\n\"How are you going to get her back?\"\n\nThat was an excellent question. \"Who did you write to at the bank in Stockholm?\"\n\n\"I sent emails to Arne Soderman, who supervises the branches, and then finally a letter to the president, Isak Dahlberg. Three letters, actually. A scandal like this could wreck the bank.\"\n\n\"We'll talk to them,\" I said.\n\nI went to the bedroom door and told Armanti and Frank to come out. I said to Armanti, \"You and Joe take the cars back to the embassy. Get some new wheels, rental cars. Then come back here.\"\n\nArmanti left. The Rogers sat beside each other on the couch and held hands.\n\nJake Grafton came by invitation to Sarah Houston's office in Langley. When he was seated with the door shut, she turned a computer monitor so he could see it. \"The branch bank server gave us the encryption codes. This is what we have so far from that branch. Money in, money out. Euros, dollars, pounds, yen, Swiss francs, you name it. It'll take a few more days to get into the main servers in Stockholm.\"\n\nAs Grafton scrolled through the transactions, Sarah said, \"I didn't believe it, but the size of these transactions is awe-inspiring. It could easily go a billion dollars' worth a week. It's money-laundering on a massive scale. They must be washing money for Iran, North Korea, Syria, and every drug syndicate on the planet.\"\n\n\"Get all the information you can as fast as you can. I'll have a department head meeting and get you some help. Someone at the bank knows there is a leak or Audra Rogers wouldn't have been kidnapped. This river of money is going to stop flowing soon. We want to know where it comes from before it goes into the bank and where it goes from there. Let's find out before the river stops flowing.\"\n\nThey discussed the logistics of the operation. \"If I can get into the bank's main computers, the sheer volume of data could take man-years to unravel,\" Sarah noted. \"And we are just seeing a tiny piece of the operation.\"\n\nGrafton didn't look up from the screen. \"We need to see the entire watershed.\"\n\nSarah said, almost as an afterthought, \"We happen to have a full plate already. I don't think you understand how labor intensive it will be to dig into records at other banks, assuming we can get in by hook or crook or even\u2014God forbid\u2014invitation. It will be like trying to sort plates of spaghetti. The whole reason washers transfer money hither and yon is to make it difficult to trace. Sometimes tracing becomes impossible.\"\n\n\"This is priority One,\" Jake Grafton shot back. \"We'll get the people and equipment you need as soon as we can. We don't have man-years.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"I need your help to figure this out, Sarah.\"\n\nAfter Grafton left, Sarah made a face at the door, then began drafting a memo for him to sign.\n\nBack in his office, Jake Grafton ignored the pile of paper in his in-basket. He looked at the paintings, at the flags, thought about the river of money. And he thought about Audra Rogers.\n\nHe was sitting at his desk doodling on a pad when the phone rang. The receptionist. \"Tommy Camellini on the secure link from Estonia.\"\n\n\"I'll take that.\"\n\nTwo button pushes later he heard Tommy's voice.\n\nAfter Tommy had brought the admiral up to date, he continued, \"Seems to me, boss, that the first priority is Audra Rogers. Truth is, she may be dead, and the trail is what, thirteen days old now? To get to her, we're going to have to go to Stockholm and sweat the people at the bank. One or more of them is dirty. They won't want to talk to us and we don't have the horsepower to put serious pressure on unless you're willing to create an international incident with an American friend.\"\n\nJake Grafton took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He too thought Audra was probably dead. Why would the kidnappers keep her alive? \"You need to get that branch server. Go in and get it before the bad guys do.\"\n\n\"I've got a guy watching the bank to make sure it doesn't walk out the front door,\" Tommy said. \"We'll snatch it ASAP.\"\n\n\"What time is it there?\"\n\n\"Ten p.m.\"\n\nGrafton looked at the clock on the wall. Seven hours difference. \"Get it tonight.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nGrafton hung up and pushed the intercom, summoning his executive assistants.\n\n\"I want to go to Stockholm as fast as possible,\" he told them. \"Get me a plane, an executive jet out of Andrews. And I need more people.\" He named them. \"They can come with me. Make it happen.\"\n\nTable of Contents\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Title Page\n  3. Copyright\n  4. Dedication\n  5. Contents\n  6. Prologue\n  7. Chapter One\n  8. Chapter Two\n  9. Chapter Three\n  10. Chapter Four\n  11. Chapter Five\n  12. Chapter Six\n  13. Chapter Seven\n  14. Chapter Eight\n  15. Chapter Nine\n  16. Chapter Ten\n  17. Chapter Eleven\n  18. Chapter Twelve\n  19. Chapter Thirteen\n  20. Chapter Fourteen\n  21. Chapter Fifteen\n  22. Chapter Sixteen\n  23. Chapter Seventeen\n  24. Chapter Eighteen\n  25. Chapter Nineteen\n  26. Chapter Twenty\n  27. Chapter Twenty-One\n  28. Chapter Twenty-Two\n  29. Chapter Twenty-Three\n  30. Chapter Twenty-Four\n  31. Chapter Twenty-Five\n  32. Chapter Twenty-Six\n  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven\n  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight\n  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine\n  36. Chapter Thirty\n  37. Chapter Thirty-One\n  38. Chapter Thirty-Two\n  39. Chapter Thirty-Three\n  40. Chapter Thirty-Four\n  41. Chapter Thirty-Five\n  42. Chapter Thirty-Six\n  43. Russia Account - Demo chapter 2\n\n# Guide\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Contents\n  3. Title Page\n\n  1. i\n  2. ii\n  3. iii\n  4. iv\n  5. v\n  6. vi\n  7. vii\n  8. ix\n  9. x\n  10. xi\n  11. xii\n  12. xiii\n  13. xiv\n  14. xv\n  15. xvi\n  16. xvii\n  17. xviii\n  18. xix\n  19. xx\n  20. xxi\n  21. xxii\n  22. xxiii\n  23. xxiv\n  24. \n  25. \n  26. \n  27. \n  28. \n  29. \n  30. \n  31. \n  32. \n  33. \n  34. \n  35. \n  36. \n  37. \n  38. \n  39. \n  40. \n  41. \n  42. \n  43. \n  44. \n  45. \n  46. \n  47. \n  48. \n  49. \n  50. \n  51. \n  52. \n  53. \n  54. \n  55. \n  56. \n  57. \n  58. \n  59. \n  60. \n  61. \n  62. \n  63. \n  64. \n  65. \n  66. \n  67. \n  68. \n  69. \n  70. \n  71. \n  72. \n  73. \n  74. \n  75. \n  76. \n  77. \n  78. \n  79. \n  80. \n  81. \n  82. \n  83. \n  84. \n  85. \n  86. \n  87. \n  88. \n  89. \n  90. \n  91. \n  92. \n  93. \n  94. \n  95. \n  96. \n  97. \n  98. \n  99. \n  100. \n  101. \n  102. \n  103. \n  104. \n  105. \n  106. \n  107. \n  108. \n  109. \n  110. \n  111. \n  112. \n  113. \n  114. \n  115. \n  116. \n  117. \n  118. \n  119. \n  120. \n  121. \n  122. \n  123. \n  124. \n  125. \n  126. \n  127. \n  128. \n  129. \n  130. \n  131. \n  132. \n  133. \n  134. \n  135. \n  136. \n  137. \n  138. \n  139. \n  140. \n  141. \n  142. \n  143. \n  144. \n  145. \n  146. \n  147. \n  148. \n  149. \n  150. \n  151. \n  152. \n  153. \n  154. \n  155. \n  156. \n  157. \n  158. \n  159. \n  160. \n  161. \n  162. \n  163. \n  164. \n  165. \n  166. \n  167. \n  168. \n  169. \n  170. \n  171. \n  172. \n  173. \n  174. \n  175. \n  176. \n  177. \n  178. \n  179. \n  180. \n  181. \n  182. \n  183. \n  184. \n  185. \n  186. \n  187. \n  188. \n  189. \n  190. \n  191. \n  192. \n  193. \n  194. \n  195. \n  196. \n  197. \n  198. \n  199. \n  200. \n  201. \n  202. \n  203. \n  204. \n  205. \n  206. \n  207. \n  208. \n  209. \n  210. \n  211. \n  212. \n  213. \n  214. \n  215. \n  216. \n  217. \n  218. \n  219. \n  220. \n  221. \n  222. \n  223. \n  224. \n  225. \n  226. \n  227. \n  228. \n  229. \n  230. \n  231. \n  232. \n  233. \n  234. \n  235. \n  236. \n  237. \n  238. \n  239. \n  240. \n  241. \n  242. \n  243. \n  244. \n  245. \n  246. \n  247. \n  248. \n  249. \n  250. \n  251. \n  252. \n  253. \n  254. \n  255. \n  256. \n  257. \n  258. \n  259. \n  260. \n  261. \n  262. \n  263. \n  264. \n  265. \n  266. \n  267. \n  268. \n  269. \n  270. \n  271. \n  272. \n  273. \n  274. \n  275. \n  276. \n  277. \n  278. \n  279. \n  280. \n  281. \n  282. \n  283. \n  284. \n  285. \n  286. \n  287. \n  288. \n  289. \n  290. \n  291. \n  292. \n  293. \n  294. \n  295. \n  296. \n  297. \n  298. \n  299. \n  300. \n  301. \n  302. \n  303. \n  304. \n  305. \n  306. \n  307. \n  308. \n  309. \n  310. \n  311. \n  312. \n  313. \n  314. \n  315. \n  316. \n  317. \n  318. \n  319. \n  320. \n  321. \n  322. \n  323. \n  324. \n  325. \n  326. \n  327. \n  328. \n  329. \n  330. \n  331. \n  332. \n  333. \n  334. \n  335. \n  336. \n  337. \n  338. \n  339. \n  340. \n  341. \n  342. \n  343. \n  344. \n  345. \n  346. \n  347. \n  348. \n  349. \n  350. \n  351. \n  352. \n  353. \n  354. \n  355. \n  356. \n  357. \n  358. \n  359. \n  360. \n  361. \n  362. \n  363. \n  364. \n  365. \n  366. \n  367. \n  368. \n  369. \n  370. \n  371. \n  372. \n  373. \n  374. \n  375. \n  376. \n  377. \n  378. \n  379. \n  380. \n  381. \n  382. \n  383. \n  384. \n  385. \n  386. \n  387. \n  388. \n  389. \n  390. \n  391. \n  392. \n  393. \n  394. \n  395. \n  396. \n  397. \n  398. \n  399. \n  400. \n  401. \n  402. \n  403. \n  404. \n  405. \n  406. \n  407. \n  408. \n  409. \n  410. \n  411. \n  412. \n  413. \n  414. \n  415. \n  416. \n  417. \n  418. \n  419. \n  420. \n  421. \n  422. \n  423. \n  424. \n  425. \n  426. \n  427. \n  428. \n  429. \n  430. \n  431. \n  432. \n  433. \n  434. \n  435. \n  436. \n  437. \n  438. \n  439. \n  440. \n  441. \n  442. \n  443. \n  444. \n  445. \n  446. \n  447. \n  448. \n  449. \n  450. \n  451. \n  452. \n  453. \n  454. \n  455. \n  456. \n  457. \n  458. \n  459. \n  460. \n  461. \n  462. \n  463. \n  464. \n  465. \n  466. \n  467. \n  468. \n  469. \n  470. \n  471. \n  472. \n  473. \n  474. \n  475. \n  476. \n  477. \n  478. \n  479. \n  480. \n  481. \n  482. \n  483. \n  484. \n  485. \n  486. \n  487. \n  488. \n  489. \n  490. \n  491. \n  492. \n  493. \n  494. \n  495. \n  496. \n  497. \n  498. \n  499. \n  500. \n  501. \n  502. \n  503. \n  504. \n  505. \n  506. \n  507. \n  508. \n  509. \n  510. \n  511. \n  512. \n  513. \n  514. \n  515. \n  516. \n  517. \n  518. \n  519. \n  520. \n  521. \n  522. \n  523. \n  524. \n  525. \n  526. \n  527. \n  528. \n  529. \n  530. \n  531. \n  532. \n  533. \n  534. \n  535. \n  536. \n  537. \n  538. \n  539. \n  540. \n  541. \n  542. \n  543. \n  544. \n  545. \n  546. \n  547.\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n**zest **\n\nCatherine Saxelby & Jennene Plummer\n\n**More than 120 recipes for vitality and good health**\n\nPublished in 2007  \nby Hardie Grant Books  \n85 High Street  \nPrahran,Victoria 3181, Australia  \nwww.hardiegrant.com.au\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.\n\nThe moral rights of the authors have been asserted\n\nCopyright Introduction \u00a9 Catherine Saxelby  \nCopyright Recipes \u00a9 Jennene Plummer  \nCopyright photography \u00a9 Ian Hofstetter\n\nNational Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: Saxelby, Catherine.   \nZest: the Nutrition for Life cookbook \u2013 more than 120 recipes for vitality and good health.\n\n1st ed.  \nISBN 9781740664790 (pbk.).\n\nISBN 1 74066 479 5 (pbk.).\n\n1. Cookery. 2. Functional foods. 3. Nutrition.   \nI. Plummer, Jennene. II. Title.\n\n641.563\n\nConsultant editor: Philippa Sandall  \nEditor: Lucy Malouf  \nStylist: Jane Collins  \nFood preparation: Mandy Sinclair  \nCover and text photography: Ian Hofstetter  \nCover design, text design and typesetting: saso content & design pty ltd  \nDiagram: Clare Forte  \nPrinted and bound in China by SNP Leefung\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\n**www.foodwatch.com.au**\nFor our children Guy and Georgia, Marcus and Emma, Richard and Emma \u2013 the next generation, for a lifetime of good health \nAcknowledgements\n\nThere are always many people who make a book come together and this book is no exception.\n\nA big thank-you to Julie Pinkham, Fran Berry, Mary Small and Catherine Cradwick from Hardie Grant Books for their vision and enthusiasm in bringing _Zest_ to life.\n\nOur consultant editor Philippa Sandall has been a wonderful guiding force and helped us through the critical planning and editing stages.\n\nCatherine would like to thank dietitian and colleague Karen Kingham, for her invaluable work on analysing the recipes, and dietitian Anne Gregory, who helped with research and checking.\n\nJennene would like to thank Mandy Sinclair and Sharon Reeve for their support and contribution in testing some of the recipes in this book. She would also like to thank her wonderful husband and family for allowing her the space to work on the recipes, and the fabulous team of Ian Hofstetter (photographer), Jane Collins (stylist) and Mandy Sinclair (food preparation) for their commitment to producing the beautiful food shots featured in this book.\n\nOur thanks also go to all those who have generously supplied props and equipment for use in the photography: Honey Bee Homewares, Clay & Flax, Mud Australia, Alfresco Emporium, The Fine Food Store and Gina Cucina.\n\nContents\n\nPreface\n\n**Nourish your whole self the whole time**\n\nThe Nutrition for Life healthy eating guidelines\n\nWhat's to drink?\n\nPortion sizes \u2013 downsize, don't supersize\n\nNutrition for Life superfoods\n\nCooking \u2013 the quicker the better\n\nCooking lighter and healthier\n\nMaking the most of your freezer\n\nModifying your recipes for health and wellbeing\n\n**Seven-day summer and winter meal plans**\n\nSummer meal plan\n\nWinter meal plan\n\n**Recipes with zest**\n\nBreakfast and brunch\n\nLight meals and snacks\n\nMain meals\n\nAccompaniments\n\nDesserts and sweet treats\n\nBasics\n\nShopping with zest\n\nConversion tables\n\nPreface\n\n**_'It's good food and not fine words that keeps me alive!'_**\n\nMoli\u00e8re (1622\u20131673)\n\nDespite great gains in our knowledge about food and nutrition, healthy eating hasn't become easier. In fact for many of us it has become harder because of our busy, 'no time to cook' lifestyles. But what we eat can make a huge difference to how we feel and how healthy we are. Along with exercise and stress management, it's the third of that vital 'trio' of things we can do for ourselves and our families to improve long-term health and wellbeing.\n\nIn fact, today's hectic lifestyle makes the need to eat right all the more important. That's why we are firm believers in the value of cooking for yourself and your family. Studies show that people who prepare food at home eat better \u2013 with less saturated fat, less salt, more vegetables, more vitamins and antioxidants \u2013 than those who eat out a lot. And there's so much fun and enjoyment to be had when you prepare and share meals with family and friends.\n\nThe book _Nutrition for Life_ talks about how a healthy diet gives us vitality and energy, helps us stay at a weight that's right for us, boosts our immune system, delays the effects of ageing and builds strong, dense bones.\n\nSince then, many readers have begged for recipes so that they can put 'nutrition for life' into practice in their own kitchens and create healthy meals in their own homes. So we have teamed up to 'put it all on the plate' in _Zest_ , the _Nutrition for Life_ cookbook.\n\n_Zest_ is packed with recipes that are easy to prepare as well as being easy on the waistline and good for heart health.You'll also find they taste every bit as good as they look \u2013 a key part of our food philosophy. These well-balanced recipes are rich in slow carbohydrates, lean protein, the good fats and lots of fibre. They are not designed to be ultra-low-fat nor extra-high-protein, but if you are following _The Low GI Diet_ , _The_ _CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet_ or a heart-healthy diet, you will find many of them suitable.\n\nWe hope that you will enjoy cooking from our great range of meals. In the recipe section of this book you'll find lazy brunches, snacks and meals to rustle up in minutes, dinners for families or for entertaining, scrumptious desserts and tasty baked goods. We have certainly enjoyed creating (and eating) them. Well, someone had to test them!\n\nGood health and good eating!\n\n_Catherine Saxelby_ and _Jennene Plummer_\n\n[Nourish your whole self  \nthe whole time](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e1895)\n\nWhat you eat can make a huge difference to how you feel and how healthy you are. In fact, it can really boost your zest for life. And that's what this book is about. You probably already know that you need seven essential nutrients for health and growth: carbohydrates, fibre, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and water. The body can't do without these nutrients. They provide fuel for the body in the form of kilojoules (calories); they are the raw material for building new tissues, bones and teeth; they regulate the speed of metabolic reactions and they release energy from food. All of which keeps you fit, well and functioning at top speed.\n\nThe healthy eating guidelines in this first section get down to the nutrient nitty-gritty with practical tips on how to nourish your whole self the whole time, how to maintain a healthy weight, have more energy and delay the effects of ageing. We also show you how to moderate your intake of sugar and sweet foods and why what you and your family drink really matters. We give tips on how to avoid portion creep on your plate when eating out or dining at home and ways to make the most of nutrient-dense superfoods.\n\nThere are also plenty of ideas to help you cook the light and easy way, and at the back of the book our shopping guide will ensure that you have those healthy foods on hand in your cupboards, fridge and freezer to create deliciously nourishing meals in minutes, whatever the occasion.\n[The Nutrition for Life   \nhealthy eating guidelines](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e1955)\n\nForget dieting \u2013 eat for life!\n\nMake it your goal to eat well for vitality, good health and to look after your body \u2013 to nourish your whole self the whole time and boost your zest for life.\n\nLove those vegetables and snack on fruit\n\nVegetables, salads and fruit carry an abundance of vitamins, minerals and natural antioxidants (also called phytochemicals), all for very few kilojoules. They are what nutritionists call 'nutrient dense'. The more you eat them, the more you'll like them. And there are so many ways to enjoy them, as you'll discover in our recipes.\n\nKeep hydrated\n\nWater is the best thirst quencher, yet most of us don't drink enough. The body needs at least 2 litres (8 glasses) of water each day to keep it hydrated, to maintain vital biochemical reactions and to keep the kidneys flushed. Ideally about half of this should be plain water, while the rest can come from other healthy beverages such as juices, clear soups, herbal infusions and weak tea. Carry a bottle of water with you in the car and have some on your desk at work. Don't wait until you feel thirsty to drink \u2013 sip regularly throughout the day.\n\nFocus on the good fats\n\nOpt for monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats that are derived from oils, nuts, seeds and avocado. Use them to replace any saturated fats you now consume. The omega-3 fats from fish help stabilise the heartbeat and lower inflammation. There's also emerging research showing the omega-3s may influence brain function and help to alleviate depression, schizophrenia and learning difficulties such as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).\n\nEat less of the bad fats\n\nHigh levels of saturated fat and trans fats raise the 'bad' LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol and put you at risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. We over-consume this type of fat instead of keeping it low. So limit your intake of butter, cream, sausages and fatty meats, deli meats and heavy sauces. And think twice about pies, pastries, confectionery and cakes.\n\nEat smart carbohydrates\n\nChoose foods like wholemeal and multigrain breads, brown rice, oats, barley, fibre-enriched or wholegrain cereals and legumes that offer higher concentrations of fibre, vitamins and minerals. These generally have a lower glycaemic index (GI). This means they are absorbed more slowly \u2013 your body is doing all the work not the food factory. Low-GI carbohydrates can help with weight control and managing your blood glucose levels, vital if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes.\n\nEat less refined carbohydrates and kilojoule-dense foods \u2013 save them for when you eat out or as an occasional treat. Limit how much white bread, white rice and pre-sweetened cereals you eat, along with cakes and biscuits.\n\nWatch the sugar\n\nFeeding that sweet tooth? Too much sugar adds unwanted kilojoules and supplies no fibre, vitamins or minerals, so it makes no contribution to your nutrition intake. A spread of jam on your toast or sugar in yoghurt or flavoured milk is okay, but limit your consumption of sugary soft drinks, juices, lollies, chocolate, cakes, pastries and ice creams.\n\nWatch the salt\n\nWe eat twice as much salt as we should. Stop sprinkling salt over your food and start buying reduced-salt products when you shop. The ones to focus on are salt-reduced stock, soy sauce and cheese as these can make a big difference quickly without your noticing the drop in salt. Don't forget to boost the flavour of meals with fresh herbs, garlic, chilli and citrus zest \u2013 we show you in our recipes how these salt-free ingredients can make all the difference to the final taste.\n\nDon't overdo the alcohol\n\nModerate-to-heavy intake of alcohol is associated with cirrhosis, high blood pressure and cancers of the digestive system. Too much alcohol can also put weight on easily. Gram for gram, alcohol has almost twice the kilojoules of either carbohydrate or protein.\n\n**_Glycaemic Index (GI)_**\n\nThe Glycaemic Index (or GI) is a ranking of foods from 0 to 100 that tells us whether a carbohydrate food will raise blood sugar (glucose) levels dramatically (high GI), moderately (medium GI) or just a little (low GI).\n\nHigh GI = 70 or more\n\nMedium GI = 56\u201369\n\nLow GI = 55 or less\n\n_**Healthy eating in a nutshell**_\n\n\u2022 Avoid saturated fat.\n\n\u2022 Choose fewer refined carbohydrates and more slow carbohydrates (low-GI), wholegrains and high-fibre foods.\n\n\u2022 Protein is essential, whether from animal or plant sources \u2013 just keep it lean.\n\n\u2022 Bone up on calcium-rich foods.\n\n\u2022 Make sure you get your two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables every day.\n\n\u2022 Moderate your consumption of sugar and sweet foods.\n\n\u2022 Cut back on salt.\n\n\u2022 Limit alcohol.\n\n\u2022 Drink plenty of water.\n\nOn the positive side, a modest amount of alcohol is good for your heart and red wine with its grape antioxidants can keep your arteries from becoming clogged. But it really is a case of less is best!\n\nAim for balance\n\nEating well involves getting the balance right. If 90 per cent of all your foods are nutritious, then the remaining 10 per cent can be a treat or indulgence.\n\nVariety\n\nVariety doesn't mean having ten different cereal packs in your cupboard, but rather eating a variety of botanically different foods. Pasta, bread, puffed wheat and couscous all look and taste different but are all derived from the one basic but versatile grain (wheat). So they all provide similar nutrients.\n\nSubstituting other grains like oats, barley, corn or rye for some wheat adds diversity to your diet and ensures a variety of different vitamins and antioxidants, each of which has a different function in the body. Eating a wider range of foods ensures that the nutrients you miss from one food you can gain from another.\n\nSo be adventurous. Try to introduce new foods or experiment with a new dish occasionally \u2013 it will broaden your horizons, both gastronomically and nutritionally.\n\nBe positive\n\nRather than longing for foods you shouldn't eat, try to focus on all the delicious enjoyable foods you can eat. After all, what can beat a ripe luscious mango, a crisp green salad or a perfectly grilled fillet of fish?\n\n**_Remember, what you eat today walks and talks tomorrow!_**\nWhat's to drink?\n\nOne of our key guidelines is to moderate your intake of sugar and sweet foods. That includes what you drink. These days, beverages contribute a lot of kilojoules (between 15 and 20 per cent) of your average day's intake.\n\nResearch is now linking what we drink to the obesity epidemic. It seems that drinks are less filling than solid food and don't register with our brain's appetite control centre. So it's easy to gulp down large amounts of juice or soft drink, which together supply over half of all the sugar we consume. Here are our guidelines for what's good and what's not-so-good to drink.\n\nThe best drinks\n\nWater\n\nWater has no kilojoules and no extra sugar or sodium. An inexpensive water filter jug removes the taints and off-flavours without taking out the 'good for your teeth' fluoride \u2013 it really does make water taste better.\n\nChill your water or serve it with a slice of lime or lemon.\n\n_**Which water?**_|   \n---|---  \n_Tap water_|  Okay taste in most places. Check whether fluoride is present. Tank rainwater won't contain fluoride; bore water may.   \n_Filtered tap water_|  Pleasant taste. A filter removes taints and that strong chlorine smell. Charcoal filters are inexpensive and retain fluoride in the water. Undersink reverse osmosis filters remove both fluoride and harmful bacteria like _cryptosporidium._  \n _Bottled water_|  Clean neutral taste. Lacks fluoride so don't allow your children to drink this all the time.   \n_Still mineral water_|  Pleasant taste. Certain spring waters can be high in minerals (sodium carbonate, sodium chloride and salts of calcium, magnesium, iron and sometimes hydrogen sulphide) depending on the source.   \n_Sparkling mineral water_|  Fizzy so more thirst-quenching than still water. Some are naturally aerated with carbon dioxide. Taste varies from brand to brand.   \n_Flavoured mineral water_|  Sounds healthy, but has only a little less sugar content than soft drink. Think of it as another sweetened drink with kilojoules to count.\n\nWeak green or black tea (or iced tea)\n\nTea is a major source of flavonoid antioxidants, natural compounds that can keep your heart healthy and may even slow the ageing process. It also contains L-theanine, an amino acid unique to tea that keeps you alert yet relaxed. It's a pick-me-up that's different from caffeine. Tea does contain caffeine but only at around half the level found in coffee \u2013 so it's a healthier choice. Enjoy two or three cups a day, with milk if you prefer.\n\nHerb and floral teas\n\nThese infusions add zero kilojoules (unless you sweeten them). Some have medicinal properties \u2013 camomile before bed to induce sleepiness, peppermint or ginger as a natural 'stimulant', and so on.\n\nFruit juice\n\nLimit juice consumption to one small glass of unsweetened juice a day \u2013 it's healthy but it's fruit in concentrated form without the fibre. We recommend you dilute juice 50:50 with water or ice-blocks. This way, it's still refreshing but lower in kilojoule density. Check the label \u2013 don't buy 'fruit juice drinks' or 'fruit drinks', which contain a lot of sugar and only a small percentage of real fruit juice.\n\nJuice bars have made juice trendy \u2013 you can get vitamin-packed orange and carrot juice with a shot of wheat grass, or apple, celery and ginger in minutes. But the serve sizes are supersized. Even a standard foam cup of juice packs in 1040 kilojoules (250 calories). Order the smallest size or share with a friend. And remember you still need to get two serves of whole fruit each day as well for fibre.\n\nLow-fat milks\n\nMost of these milks are enriched with extra calcium so you get half the fat yet 30 per cent more calcium per glass. They're good value. You don't need to use skimmed (very low-fat or no-fat) versions unless you're being super-strict on fat intake, or love drinking milk but are on a weight-loss diet. Low-fat milks suit families with kids over the age of two. Children need four serves of dairy foods a day, which can come from milk as well as yoghurt and cheese.\n\nLow-fat calcium-enriched soy drinks\n\nMake sure the soy drink is fortified with calcium (most are) otherwise you'll short-change yourself on calcium.\n\nFruity frapp\u00e9s and smoothies\n\nSmoothies made with low-fat milk, yoghurt or ice cream (or soy alternatives) plus fruit and perhaps some wheatgerm, provide an excellent source of bone-building calcium. They'll also provide long-lasting energy, as they are usually low-GI. But they're supersized, so regard them as a complete meal, not just a snack or thirst quencher.\n\nThings to drink occasionally\n\nSports drinks\n\nSports drinks are useful if you're an endurance athlete exercising hard for more than an hour straight. The rest of us weekend warriors will do fine on plain water. However if you need to replenish lost sweat quickly, sports drinks do a good job with their formulation of lower sugar content (at 5\u20136 per cent which is half that of soft drinks) plus added sodium and potassium.\n\nSports waters\n\nAt only 1\u20132 per cent sugar, sports waters are like drinking water with a splash of sugar and flavouring. You'll find these more refreshing than plain water, yet they are lightly sweetened. Forget the claims about added B vitamins \u2013 often what's added is just enough to make an enticing claim on the label, rather than a difference to your life.\n\nIced tea drinks\n\nLightly sweetened (4\u20135 per cent) and low on carbonation, commercial iced teas are great thirst quenchers. Make your own using cold brewed black tea, a little sugar, lemon slices and mint leaves.\n\nNot-so-good things to drink\n\nSoft drinks\n\nOnce reserved for parties and special occasions, fizzy sugary drinks are now everyday staples in super sizes. The small 200 ml Coke 'waist' bottle of the 1950s has been superseded by 375 ml cans, large 600 ml Coke 'buddies' or even 900 ml fast food cartons to go.\n\nYet soft drinks give us no nutrients apart from water and load us up with kilojoules \u2013 a 375 ml can will hit you with around 10 teaspoons or 41 grams of sugar and 655 kilojoules (155 calories).\n\nDiet or zero-sugar versions that are sweetened with aspartame, acesulphame K or sucralose are handy if you want to cut back on your sugar intake, but they too can erode enamel and dentine. And you don't want to be on a high intake of sweeteners of any sort \u2013 despite their safety record to date. Stick to one or two diet drinks a day.\n\nEnergy drinks\n\nThese sound as if they're doing you good, crammed with healthful sounding ingredients like B vitamins, taurine, amino acids and guarana. But the truth is they're really just a fizzy drink with added caffeine (guarana is actually another plant that contains caffeine). The combination of caffeine with alcohol (say when you sip a Vodka Red Bull) is not a good one \u2013 one picks you up while the other settles you down! Steer clear of these.\n\nCoffee\n\nCoffee-to-go is a real trap. Gourmet coffee chains such as Starbucks, Jamaica Blue and Gloria Jeans offer the tempting combination of supersize sofas, supersize serves and killer kilojoule syrups. A jumbo latte with caramel syrup plus whipped cream packs in a hefty 1000 kilojoules (240 calories) and 10 grams of fat, not forgetting almost 8 teaspoons of sugar (31 grams). It's rather like drinking the equivalent of a regular size Mars Bar.\n\nIf you are a regular milky coffee drinker, it's a good idea to opt for a 'skinny' latte or cappuccino. A full-cream version of these has 4 grams of sugar, 2 grams of fat and 190 kilojoules (45 calories), whereas a skinny latte has the same sugar content but almost no fat and only 115 kilojoules (27 calories).\n\n**_Not teeth friendly_**\n\nOver the past 20 years, soft drinks have gradually replaced milk as the main drink of teenagers. Apart from the fact that soft drinks lack calcium, they are not bone-friendly for another reason \u2013 it seems the phosphoric acid they contain interferes with calcium absorption. And this also makes them overly acidic which, together with their high sugar level, is a harmful combination for teeth.\n\nCoffee is fine in moderation \u2013 there are even early reports that caffeine may help reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease \u2013 but too much can leave you sleepless, jittery and with an upset stomach. Limit yourself to no more than two real coffees (this means a capuccino or short black made from espresso) or four instant coffees each day.\n\nHot chocolate\n\nIf you choose to drink a hot chocolate with whipped cream you get a whopping 10 teaspoons of sugar (41 grams) and 24 grams of fat. This is not a mere beverage \u2013 this is equivalent to a mini-meal!\n\nWe recommend you drink\n\nWith meals\n\n\u2022 water \u2013 tap or bottled\n\n\u2022 milk \u2013 for children with meals (full-fat up to the age of two and then reduced-fat or light after that)\n\n\u2022 juice, unsweetened and diluted with water \u2013 a small glass\n\n\u2022 wine \u2013 1 small glass (100 ml).\n\nIn between meals\n\n\u2022 tea or herbal infusions\n\n\u2022 milk \u2013 reduced-fat, plain or flavoured.\n\n_**How much to drink over the day?**_|   \n---|---  \n_Water_|  4\u20138 glasses   \n_Milk_|  1 glass   \n_Teas_|  2\u20133 cups   \n_Unsweetened juice, diluted_|  1 small glass (optional)   \n_Other_|  1 glass\/cup (optional)   \n_Wine_|  1 small glass (optional)\n\nSugar in drinks\n\nBecause drinks come in a range of sizes, we have listed the sugar content as a percentage so you can compare. All hot beverages below were made with full-fat milk. The sugar content won't vary much if made with low-fat milk \u2013 only the fat content drops. If you like your tea or coffee with a heaped teaspoon of sugar, add another 8 grams of sugar to the figures below. We have indicated the drinks that will also be high in saturated fat with an asterisk *.\n\n**_Beverage_**|  _ **Sugar % or g per 100g**_  \n---|---  \nBlack tea, unsweetened | 0   \nEspresso, unsweetened | 0   \nTea with milk, unsweetened | 1   \nTomato juice | 2   \nFlat white coffee, unsweetened | 2   \nCappuccino, unsweetened | 4   \nStarbucks Caf\u00e9 Latte | 4   \nSports drink (Gatorade\/Powerade) | 6   \nMilkshake | 6   \nLipton Iced Tea, Green | 7   \nGloria Jeans Chai Tea | 7   \nSmoothie | 7   \n**_Beverage cont._**|  _ **Sugar % or g per 100g**_  \n---|---  \nGloria Jeans Caf\u00e9 Latte |  8   \nOrange juice, no added sugar |  8   \nStarbucks Hot Chocolate (with whipped cream) | 8\u20139 *   \nFlavoured milk, strawberry |  9   \nStarbucks Frappuccino |  9 *   \nGloria Jeans Creamy Hot Cocoa |  10 *   \nCordial, made up |  10   \nStarbucks Iced Coffee |  11   \nApple juice, no added sugar |  11   \nCola drink |  11   \nBoost Juice Dairy Banana Buzz Smoothie |  12 * \n[Portion sizes \u2013 downsize,   \ndon't supersize](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2105)\n\nPortion sizes have been getting bigger and bigger over the past 20 years. It's now clear that they've been a major contributor to the obesity problem. There's even a name for it \u2013 'portion creep'. The problem is that the bigger the portion in front of you, the more you tend to eat.\n\nUS researchers have tracked this upward trend in serve sizes. They report that in the past ten years the size of juices increased by 30 per cent, wine and soft drink by 50 per cent, while beer rose a whopping 200 per cent.\n\nWhat used to be considered a family-sized block of chocolate is now the standard size. Fizzy drinks come in huge 1.5 litre bottles (25 per cent more for free; but you also get to keep the sugar and the extra kilojoules). Movie popcorn is sold in buckets, muffins balloon out of their paper cases and fresh juice comes in a 650 ml cup \u2013 equal to 6 or 7 pieces of whole fruit.\n\nFast food operators have led the way with upsizing. Supersized serves and 'two-for-one' meal deals (for a fraction more money) may be great value \u2013 but it's a bargain that our waistlines don't need.\n\nTips for preventing portion creep\n\nEating out\n\n\u2022 Only eat what you need. Listen to your stomach and stop when it says 'I'm full'.\n\n\u2022 If there's a choice, opt for the smaller size.\n\n\u2022 Share large portions with a friend.\n\n\u2022 Ask for a 'doggie bag' to take leftovers home for later.\n\n\u2022 If you do buy two-for-one offers, don't eat it all at one sitting.\n\n\u2022 When it comes to treats, be satisfied with less. A small indulgence of the real thing is often enough to satisfy.\n\n_**How much protein, carbohydrate and vegies should you put on each plate?**_\n\nHere's an easy way to think about balancing your meal: fill half the plate with salad or non-starchy green vegetables such as zucchini, green beans or broccoli; then fill quarter of the plate with meat or fish (protein); and the final quarter with pasta, rice or potatoes (starchy carbohydrates). These proportions will create a balanced meal that's filling and nutritious.\n\nAt home\n\n\u2022 Watch how much you serve up \u2013 you can always save leftovers for the next day.\n\n\u2022 Keep your portions moderate.\n\n\u2022 Don't go back for seconds.\n\n\u2022 Women generally need smaller portions than men. If you eat together as a couple, don't eat the same sized serves.\n\n\u2022 Serve meals on smaller plates in the kitchen rather than helping yourself at the table.\n\n\u2022 You don't have to clean your plate \u2013 stop when you feel full.\n\n\u2022 With main meals, make sure that half the plate is green or salad vegetables (this does not include starchy ones like potatoes).\n\nDanger zone\n\nDrinks\n\n_**How big should those glasses really be?**_|   \n---|---  \nWine | 1 small glass (100 ml)*   \nBeer | 1 glass (250 ml)*   \nBourbon, vodka or other spirits | 1 nip (30 ml)*   \nSoft drink or juice | 1 glass (200 ml)\n\n* The drinks marked with an asterisk provide 10 grams of alcohol, which is used as the standard measure of alcoholic drinks.\n\nSnacks and confectionery\n\nMost popular snacks are more than a quick bite \u2013 they're really a mini-meal.\n\nTake doughnuts for instance: at 20 grams of fat and more than 2000 kilojoules (475 calories), two cinnamon doughnuts pile on one-third of the day's recommended intake of fat and kilojoules for a sedentary woman. Most of this fat is saturated, the type that clogs arteries and thickens waistlines. Ditto for pastries, a bucket of hot chips or a large slice of banana bread. So watch those portions and think small!\nWhat is a standard serve size?\n\nVegetables\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 \u00bd cup cooked vegetables (such as broccoli, beans, peas)\n\n\u2022 1 tomato\n\n\u2022 1 cup salad leaves\n\nFruit\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 1 medium apple, banana, orange or pear\n\n\u2022 2 plums, apricots or kiwi fruit\n\n\u2022 1 cup fruit salad or canned fruit\n\n\u2022 2 tablespoons sultanas\n\n\u2022 4 dried apricot halves\n\nLegumes\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 \u00bd cup (75 g) cooked or canned beans or lentils\n\n\u2022 1 small can (100 g) baked beans\n\nLean meat, fish, chicken or eggs\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 125 g meat (cooked) \u2013 2 slices roast meat, 2 medium chops, 1 small steak, \u00be cup mince\n\n\u2022 150 g fish or seafood (cooked) \u2013 1 large fish fillet or 120 g can tuna or salmon\n\n\u2022 125 g chicken (cooked) \u2013 1 small chicken breast, 2\u20133 drumsticks\n\n\u2022 2 eggs\n\nNote: 150 grams raw weight becomes around 125 grams when cooked. 175 grams raw weight trims down to 150 grams.\n\nDairy\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 1 cup (250 ml) low-fat milk\n\n\u2022 1 tub (200 g) low-fat yoghurt\n\n\u2022 2 slices (40 g) reduced-fat cheese\n\nNuts and seeds\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 a small handful (30 g) almonds, walnuts, cashews, macadamias, pecans, peanuts\n\n\u2022 2 tablespoons (50 g) peanut butter or tahini\n\nWhole grains and cereals\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 1 thick slice bread\n\n\u2022 \u00bd bread roll\n\n\u2022 \u00bc cup (90 g) cooked rice\n\n\u2022 \u00bd cup (90 g) cooked pasta or noodles\n\n\u2022 \u00be cup (30\u201340 g) breakfast cereal\n\n\u2022 \u00bd cup (140 g) cooked porridge\n\n\u2022 \u00bc cup (30 g) muesli\n\nFats\n\nOne serve is:\n\n\u2022 1 tablespoon (20 g) of any oil\n\n\u2022 2 tablespoons (40 g) light margarine (also called low-fat spread)\n\n\u2022 \u00bd avocado\n\n**_Your daily nutrition goals: How much to eat each day \u2013 the minimum for good health_**\n\n_Vegetables_|  5+ serves   \n---|---  \n_Whole grains_|  4+ serves   \n_Dairy, low-fat_|  4 serves   \n_Fruit_|  2+ serves   \n_Legumes_|  2+ serves a week   \n_Lean meat (includes fish, chicken and eggs)_|  1\u20132 serves   \n_Fats_|  2\u20133 serves   \n_Nuts and seeds_|  1 serve (a small handful, about 30 g)   \n_Salt_|  Shake the habit   \n_Sugar_|  Go easy\n\nHow much should you be eating?\n\nHow many kilojoules you should eat each day will depend on your age, level of physical activity, body size (larger bodies require more), sex and stage of life. Children and teens need more kilojoules, due to the demands of growth, as do women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. The following levels are only approximate but serve as a general guide.\n\n**_Women_**  \n---  \n _Moderately active adult_|  9000 kJ   \n_for weight maintenance_|  (2100 cal)   \n_Sedentary adult for_|  7000 kJ   \n_weight maintenance_|  (1700 cal)   \n_Fat loss_|  6000 kJ   \n| (1400 cal)   \n_**Men**_  \n---  \n _Moderately active adult_|  10,000 kJ   \n_for weight maintenance_|  (2400 cal)   \n_Sedentary adult for_|  9000 kJ   \n_weight maintenance_|  (2100 cal)   \n_Fat loss_|  7000 kJ   \n|  (1700 cal)\n\n_**Daily intakes**_\n\nUse these suggested daily kilojoule intakes to give you an idea of what you should be eating over a whole day.\n\nThese daily intake figures are based on a standard diet ratio of:\n\n\u2022 50 per cent of kilojoules from carbohydrate (10 per cent from sugars)\n\n\u2022 30 per cent of kilojoules from fat (10 per cent from saturated fat)\n\n\u2022 20 per cent of kilojoules from protein \n[Nutrition for Life  \nsuperfoods](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2155)\n\nFoods are not created equal. Some are packed with more nutrients than others or have therapeutic effects beyond nutrition. Take fruit, for instance. While all fruit is nutritious, different types vary enormously in the nutrients they offer.\n\nPut simply, an orange is not equivalent to an apple. An orange has ten times more vitamin C and beta-carotene, four times more thiamin and a huge 40 times more folate (a B vitamin that prevents birth defects).\n\nBroccoli is nutritionally superior to beans or zucchini (and so are its relatives cauliflower, cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts). Garlic lords it over leeks, onions, eschalots and chives, even though they are cousins in the plant kingdom.\n\nSo overwhelming is this difference that US researchers have gone so far as to call them 'powerhouse' foods and call for them to replace the others we now consume. For instance, when you shop for fruit and vegetables, the most popular choices are apples, bananas, iceberg lettuce, potatoes and corn. The researchers say these should be replaced with these powerhouse ones.\n\nSuperfoods help you make every kilojoule count\n\nAt a time of global obesity, it pays to make each kilojoule count. Use this concept of nutrient density to get the maximum vitamins, minerals and protein without overloading your system with kilojoules.\n\nHere's our pick of the superstar foods to include in your diet.\n\nFruit\n\nAll fruit is a nutritionist's delight, but here are the leaders:\n\n\u2022 citrus (orange, grapefruit, mandarin, lemon, lime, tangelo) \u2013 a nutrition all-rounder for vitamin C, minerals, as well as B1 and folate. Even the peel contains nutritional 'goodies' that lower cholesterol and ward off cancer\n\n\u2022 kiwi fruit \u2013 low in kilojoules and high in vitamin C, folate and fibre; rich in lutein, a phytochemical that's good for the eyes\n\n\u2022 berries (blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries) \u2013 bursting with vitamin C, potassium, fibre and folate; their blue-red pigments are powerful antioxidants that can neutralise 'bad' bacteria and fight off cancer.\n\nVegetables\n\nVegetables are a nutritionist's delight too, but these are the superstars:\n\n\u2022 spinach, silverbeet, Asian greens \u2013 packed with vitamin C, folate, antioxidants and fibre for almost no kilojoules\n\n\u2022 dark-green lettuces (mignonette, rocket, baby spinach leaves) \u2013 a nutrient-rich addition to any meal, big on volume but small on kilojoules\n\n\u2022 cruciferous (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, rape, turnips) \u2013 contain cancer-fighting sulphur compounds, lots of fibre, beta-carotene, a host of minerals, a little iron and calcium\n\n\u2022 avocados \u2013 for the good fats that lower your LDL-cholesterol\n\n\u2022 tomatoes \u2013 high in lycopene, vitamin C and fibre.\n\n**_Superstar spinach_**\n\nTry to eat spinach or silverbeet three times a week, if not in salads, then add a handful of leaves to a stir-fry, risotto or a curry. They soften in the heat of the finished dish.\n\n_**Superstar salad dressing**_\n\nIf you want to make your salads and vegetables interesting (and have everyone eat them), drizzle over this dressing. It's also doing your heart a big favour. In a screwtop jar, place 3\/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, the juice of one lemon (around \u00bc cup), 2\u20133 teaspoons Dijon mustard, 1\u20132 cloves crushed garlic, and a little ground black pepper. Shake well to combine. Makes about 1 cup of dressing.\n\n**_Superstar green salad_**\n\nMix together a 200 g bag of baby spinach leaves with a bunch of rocket (discard the stalks). You can also throw in 100 grams of lightly blanched sugar snap peas for more crunch.\n\nLegumes\n\nAll legumes such as beans, split peas, chickpeas and lentils are good for fibre, protein for vegetarians, B vitamins and low GI. The star-players are:\n\n\u2022 soy beans \u2013 for phyto-oestrogens, fibre, excellent protein quality, good quality oil\n\n\u2022 chickpeas \u2013 a good dose of B vitamins, protein and significant fibre content\n\n\u2022 lentils \u2013 quick and easy to cook, no pre-soaking; for protein, a little iron, zinc, potassium and fibre.\n\nProteins\n\nFor maximum protein, iron, vitamin B12 , folate, potassium and omega-3s. Winning proteins are:\n\n\u2022 eggs \u2013 a compact package of nutrition, giving you every vitamin except vitamin C, plenty of protein and a host of essential minerals including vitamin B12\n\n\u2022 pink salmon \u2013 omega-3s, heart-healthy, protein, minerals from the ocean such as magnesium and potassium\n\n\u2022 lean lamb \u2013 high-quality protein; minerals iron, zinc and potassium; and a range of B vitamins including thiamin, niacin, vitamins B6 and B12\n\n\u2022 liver \u2013 packed with iron, protein, B vitamins and vitamin A\n\n\u2022 tofu \u2013 low in fat and a key source of protein and B vitamins in many Asian diets.\n\nDairy\n\nYou'll get lots of calcium, protein and riboflavin here:\n\n\u2022 low-fat milk \u2013 lots of calcium, protein and riboflavin\n\n\u2022 low-fat yoghurt (choose a probiotic one with friendly bacteria) \u2013 calcium, protein, B vitamins, probiotic.\n\nHerbs and spices\n\nAll green leafy herbs are nutrient-rich for almost no kilojoules but here's our pick:\n\n\u2022 basil, rosemary, oregano \u2013 rich in vitamin C and antioxidants\n\n\u2022 chillies \u2013 packed with antioxidants and beta-carotene\n\n\u2022 cinnamon \u2013 may help lower blood sugar in diabetes\n\n\u2022 garlic \u2013 good for the heart, anti-bacterial\n\n\u2022 turmeric \u2013 its vibrant yellow pigment curcumin can inhibit the formation of cancer and reduce inflammation.\n\nNuts and seeds\n\nAll nuts are full of 'healthy fats' that keep your heart in top shape. But you'll also max out on vitamin E, fibre and many minerals. Choose:\n\n\u2022 almonds \u2013 important for vitamin E and arginine for a healthy heart, monounsaturated fats that can lower the bad LDL-cholesterol; high in fibre and minerals including a little calcium\n\n\u2022 walnuts \u2013 a source of fibre and vitamin E as well as the minerals potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper and selenium\n\n\u2022 linseeds (flaxseeds) \u2013 a storehouse of plant omega-3s, healthy fats and lignans (a type of plant oestrogen).\n\n_**Superstar sprinkle**_\n\nTop cereal or yoghurt with a couple of tablespoons of this easy sprinkle \u2013 it's a great way to take in the good fats from nuts and seeds. Place 1 cup of almonds (whole or pieces) in the bowl of a food processor along with \u00bd cup of walnuts and \u00bd cup of linseeds (flaxseeds). Process until finely ground and then store in a jar in the refrigerator to keep fresh. Use within a month. You can also grind these up in a coffee grinder but you'll have to do it in batches. Makes about 1 cup.\n\nGrains\n\nThink wholegrain or high-fibre. You get the most B vitamins, vitamin E, lignan antioxidant and fibre. Choose:\n\n\u2022 brown rice, wild rice \u2013 gluten-free grains packed with B vitamins and fibre\n\n\u2022 wholegrain bread \u2013 B vitamins, nutrient-rich\n\n\u2022 oats \u2013 lower LDL-cholesterol, soluble beta-glucan fibre, low-GI\n\n\u2022 wholegrain breakfast cereals \u2013 convenient and nutritious; buy these in preference to refined cereals\n\n\u2022 barley \u2013 good for soluble fibre, low-GI\n\n\u2022 wheatgerm \u2013 chock-full of B vitamins and good fats; sprinkle it over your usual cereal\n\n\u2022 gluten-free grains \u2013 rice, maize\/corn, buckwheat, amaranth, millet, quinoa.\n\n**_Superstar mega-muesli_**\n\nStart with any natural muesli of your choice from the supermarket. Tip it into a large bowl and toss in \u00bd or 1 cup of linseeds (flaxseeds), slivered almonds or walnuts, pumpkin seeds, wheatgerm or lecithin. If you need to watch your cholesterol, finish off with \u00bd cup psyllium husks. If you need help to stay regular, add in 1 cup of bran breakfast cereal as well. Makes it crunchy and slows down your rate of eating. It's also low-GI so will keep you powering along full speed until lunchtime.\n\nFats and oils\n\nChoose the good fats:\n\n\u2022 extra-virgin olive oil \u2013 healthy monounsaturated fats, squalene, polyphenol antioxidants\n\n\u2022 any other oil, cold-pressed if possible.\n\n_**Recipes using rice**_\n\nTo help you reduce the GI of your overall diet, we've used a low-GI rice such as Doongara or Moolgiri in all our recipes that call for white rice. Some recipes use brown rice, which has a medium GI but gives you the extra nutrients from a whole grain.\n\nDrinks\n\nIt's vital to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. Here are some healthy benefits of other drinks:\n\n\u2022 tea \u2013 antioxidants, good for the heart\n\n\u2022 red wine \u2013 high in polyphenols, good for keeping the blood thin and free-flowing.\n\n**_Herbal tea recharger_**\n\nIn a tea mug, dangle a green tea bag and add a 2 cm chunk of ginger (no need to peel) plus a slice of lemon. Pour boiling water over and leave to steep for 2\u20133 minutes. Remove tea bag, ginger and lemon. Add a little honey if you like. This really gives you a lift!\n[Cooking \u2013 the quicker  \nthe better](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2205)\n\nHealthy cooking doesn't mean that you have to become a gourmet chef or invest in expensive cookware. Here we show you 12 basic cooking methods for preparing foods in healthy ways without adding excessive amounts of fat or salt.\n\nCooking for good health has three main aims. It aims to:\n\n\u2022 retain the most vitamins and minerals\n\n\u2022 remove saturated fat from meats and chicken\n\n\u2022 make recipes taste good without adding salt or sugar.\n\nNo matter how careful you are, all forms of cooking deplete nutrients to some extent \u2013 heat inactivates three heat-sensitive vitamins (vitamin C, thiamin or vitamin B1 , and folate, another B vitamin) while water leaches out minerals. The trick is to minimise the loss, and some cooking methods are better at this than others.\n\nAs a rule of thumb, the quicker the cooking time and the less water used, the better your nutrition will be. On the other hand, cooking improves the digestibility of fibre and proteins. It also increases the availability of lycopene and other fat-soluble nutrients. Mineral levels such as zinc or magnesium are not affected by cooking.\n\n_**Tips to preserve the goodness of your vegetables**_\n\n\u2022 Dice or slice vegetables about the same size so they all cook evenly.\n\n\u2022 Cook vegetables in a small quantity of water for as short a time as possible. Cook until just tender but still crunchy.\n\n\u2022 Don't leave cooked vegetables standing for long periods.\n\n\u2022 Try not to peel vegetables thickly as the nutrients are generally concentrated near the skin.\n\n\u2022 Avoid buying vegetables that look 'tired' or wilted. Try to use fresh produce soon after buying.\n\n12 ways to cook for your health\n\nSteaming\n\nWhether you opt for a double-boiler or a foldable metal basket that fits into a pot, steaming ranks at the top of the cooking methods. It minimises loss of vitamins, cooks quickly and needs no fat. It's the ideal way to cook vegetables rather than boiling, where nutrients are leached out into the cooking water. Steam ovens rate highly too. They inject steam into a cooking chamber and cook food quickly without discoloration or softening, while retaining good flavour.\n\nMicrowaving\n\nMicrowaving cooks fastest and needs little or no water and no salt. Forget the rumours about microwaves destroying the goodness in food. Like radio waves, microwaves are a form of electromagnectic energy. Microwave cooking works by vibrating the water molecules within the food so they heat up. It is as safe as cooking on a conventional stovetop. It is simply a way of heating.\n\nIt's best to use containers that have been specially designed for microwave heating \u2013 or stick to glass, ceramic or paper. Don't use plastic containers which are high in polyvinyl chloride (PVC), such as margarine or ice-cream containers. The plastic molecules may pass into the food.\n\nPoaching\n\nTo poach foods, gently simmer ingredients in water or a liquid such as broth, wine or juice until they're cooked through and tender. The food retains its shape during cooking. For stovetop poaching, choose a covered pan that best fits the size and shape of the food. You want to just cover the food with the poaching liquid.\n\nGrilling\n\nGrilling on a slotted tray or barbecue plate allows any fat to drip away from food and also creates its own unique flavour. An electric health grill is a great idea for quick steaks or melts when space is limited. Some grills cook from the top and bottom at the same time, so your meat cooks faster. You can use them for toasted sandwiches too.\n\nFast boiling\n\nShort rapid boiling is better than long simmering for vegetables. The more water and the longer the cooking time, the more nutrients you lose. Ideally bring the water to the boil first, then add your vegetables and cover the pan (this speeds up the cooking time). Bring back to the boil and cook until just tender. Drain. Use the cooking water in stocks, sauces and soups.\n\nStir-frying\n\nStir-frying delivers a lot more heat than a conventional pan so your food cooks faster and doesn't 'stew' in its own juices. Go for a nonstick surface to minimise sticking so you don't have to use a lot of oil \u2013 you can even stir-fry with just a spray of oil or a little stock or water. Remember to dice or slice your ingredients to a uniform size so they cook at the same rate. Cook food in order of cooking time \u2013 the foods that take the longest to cook go in first.\n\nSaut\u00e9ing\n\nFrying in oil piles on the fat \u2013 in fact, half the kilojoules in a fried chicken breast come from the oil it is cooked in. Additionally, the high frying temperatures are quite destructive of nutrients. But saut\u00e9ing \u2013 cooking quickly over high heat in a little oil and tossing frequently \u2013 is fine. Use a little oil, or brush or spray the pan first. You shouldn't have any oil left over, so use just enough to do the job.\n\nRoasting\n\nRoasting uses dry heat at high temperature to cook the food. For poultry and meat, make sure you place a rack inside the roasting pan so that the fat can drip away during cooking.\n\nOven bags\n\nThese work like a mini-slow cooker so you 'steam' your meat in an individually sealed bag in the oven. Best of all, you simply throw the bag out once you've finished.\n\nBarbecuing\n\nThis high-heat method needs to be controlled so you minimise how much you char (burn) the food. It's not just meat you need to be careful with, this applies to poultry and char-grilled vegetables too. When fat drips onto hot coals (or other source of heat), potentially dangerous compounds are then deposited on the food from the rising smoke and flames. It tastes delicious but it does set the scene for cancer possibly later in life. So to minimise the risk, our recipes suggest you:\n\n\u2022 buy lean meats or trim away all fat to reduce fat-flares\n\n\u2022 marinate meats before barbecuing\n\n\u2022 don't cook directly over the coals\n\n\u2022 wait for the fire to die down a little before you cook so it's not smoking\n\n\u2022 cut away any charred bits.\n\nIf you use the barbecue hotplate, watch the amount of oil you add or you'll end up frying the food in fat, not barbecuing it.\n\nSlow cookers\n\nWhen the weather gets cold, it's time to bring out the electric slow cooker or a heavy-based casserole that you leave on low in the oven or over a gentle heat. The direct heat from the pot, lengthy cooking and steam created within the tightly covered container combine to destroy bacteria and make the slow cooker a safe process for cooking. Always defrost meat or poultry completely before putting it into a slow cooker.\n\nWrap and cook routines\n\nWe're big fans of wrapping fish fillets or single chicken breasts in baking paper \u2013 or even bamboo, banana leaves, fig leaves, grape leaves, corn husks, spinach leaves or cabbage leaves \u2013 along with lots of fresh herbs and baking in the oven or on the barbecue. Although you don't get any browning with this method, it seals in the flavour and works wonders with lean, fat-free cuts.\n\n**_Cooking with wine_**\n\nWine, vermouth, sherry, madeira and port make wonderful marinades or sauces. They impart a mellow flavour and zing and then are evaporated during cooking. Just how much is removed will depends on cooking time \u2013 the longer you cook it and the higher the temperature, the greater the evaporation and the less alcohol is retained in the final dish. If you add it towards the end of your cooking, the resulting dish will have a much higher alcohol content (in some cases as much as 85 per cent of the alcohol can remain) than if you add the alcohol at the beginning and heat it for an hour or so.\n\nWhat to use instead of alcohol:\n\n\u2022 savoury dishes \u2013 use stock with garlic and chopped fresh herbs, soy sauce, or Worcestershire sauce\n\n\u2022 sweet dishes \u2013 use orange juice with grated orange zest, dark grape juice, apple juice or a light sugar syrup with a dash of bitters and good lime cordial.\n[Cooking lighter  \nand healthier](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2255)\n\nUse our food preparation tips and tricks to make your cooking lighter and healthier. They will save you time and money too.\n\nInvest in a non-stick fryingpan and simply brush or spray with a little oil for browning. Often an inexpensive pan works as well as a more costly one and you can replace it when it gets too 'used' on the surface.\n\nGrill, roast on a rack, steam, barbecue or cook in a microwave. Don't fry meat or chicken in oil, margarine, butter or ghee. Try wrapping in baking paper before baking or wrapping in foil for the barbecue.\n\nTrim off any visible fat from meat. At the supermarket or butchers, look for lean meat with the least amount of fat or marbling.\n\nTrim the fat and remove the skin from chicken pieces before cooking. The skin carries most of the chicken fat.\n\nBrush filo pastry with a little oil or water to achieve crisp golden results. If you love pastry, go for a one-crust pie at the top or bottom. Use sheets of frozen puff pastry.\n\nDrizzle a little oil into the wok when you cook a stir-fry \u2013 just enough to stop the food sticking. Or you can brush or spray a film of oil over the bottom of the wok. Alternatively stir-fry in stock for a change.\n\nReduce the fat of soups, casseroles and curries by cooking one day ahead and then refrigerating. Any fat will rise to the surface and can be easily skimmed off once it solidifies.\n\nMarinate lean cuts of meat and chicken in wine, fat-free sauces, garlic, mustard or even salad dressings. This tenderises lean meats and imparts a richer flavour.\n\nToss your peeled and diced vegetables in a plastic bag with a tablespoon of oil. This makes it really easy to get a nice even coating of oil on each piece. Or you can brush your vegetables with a little oil before roasting.\n[Making the most   \nof your freezer](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2315)\n\nFrozen food, if stored correctly (at \u201318\u00baC\/0\u00baF for no more than 6 months), is the most nutritious and efficient way to preserve food. Make sure you label and date any foods or meals you freeze yourself.\n\nCompared with canned or dried food, frozen food retains a lot more of the important nutrients (particularly vitamin C, thiamin and folate which are heat-sensitive) and has a better texture. Fibre and minerals such as potassium and calcium are not affected by freezing. And there's little additional salt, a big drawback with canned vegetables.\n\nA freezer can help you eat more healthily \u2013 a frozen dinner thawed and heated with the addition of your own vegetables or fresh herbs makes for a more balanced meal than just cheese on toast or re-heating food that's been hanging around in the fridge for days.\n\nA freezer saves you time too. You can make up a large pot of soup at the weekend and freeze portions to heat during the week when you're pressed for time, adding a handful of fresh parsley or baby spinach leaves before you serve. Curries, casseroles and 'wet' dishes are ideal to freeze. And you can pack diced lamb, chicken breasts, steaks and salmon cutlets in family-friendly portions.\n\nHow long to freeze for?\n\n**_At-a-glance freezing times_**\n\n_Meat_|  Sausages | 1 month   \n---|---|---  \nOther raw cuts | 4\u20136 months |   \n_Poultry_|  Raw cuts | 6 months   \n_Seafood_|  Raw fatty fish (tuna, salmon) | 3 months   \n| Lean fish (whiting, snapper) | 4\u20136 months   \n| Cooked and shelled prawns | 3 months   \n_Fruit and vegetables_| |  3\u20136 months   \n_Cakes, biscuits, muffins_|  Sponge cake | 6 months   \n| Muffins and biscuits | 8 months   \n| Pancakes | 2 months\n\n_**Don't re-freeze**_\n\nDon't re-freeze meals once they've thawed out (it's okay to put them back if they're still frozen and firm to touch). If you're using the microwave, make sure you heat them thoroughly. If liquid, they must come to the boil.\n[Modifying your recipes  \nfor health and wellbeing](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2365)\n\nMost of your existing recipes can be given a healthy makeover \u2013 you can cut the butter or oil, use plenty of garlic, ginger, lemon zest and fresh herbs instead of so much salt, trim the fat from meat or add chickpeas or soy beans for more fibre.\n\nMost (but not all) recipes work well with less butter, margarine or oil. Hang on to those family treasures and bake them on special occasions. For the rest, see how we give these recipes a makeover so they're better for you.\n\n**_Where your recipe has:_**|  _ **Try the following options instead:**_  \n---|---  \n _Cream_|  Use canned evaporated low-fat milk mixed with cornflour   \n_Sour cream_|  Try yoghurt mixed with a little cornflour or arrowroot   \n_Oil_|  \u2022 Halve the quantity   \n| \u2022 Cook in a non-stick wok or pan   \n| \u2022 Use cooking spray or brush on oil sparingly rather than pouring it in   \n**_Melted cheese topping_**|  \u2022 Halve the quantity of cheese and mix with breadcrumbs, rolled oats or crushed cornflakes   \n| \u2022 Use less of a strongly flavoured cheese like parmesan   \n_Pastry such as shortcrust or puff_|  Substitute filo, and spray lightly with oil between every second sheet (brushing with orange juice, skim milk or water instead of oil also works well)   \n_Lots of meat in casseroles or curries_|  \u2022 Halve meat quantity, replace with drained canned beans   \n| \u2022 Serve smaller portions of pasta, noodles, couscous or basmati rice   \n_Salt_|  \u2022 Omit, especially if the dish already contains salty ingredients like soy sauce, stock powder or bacon   \n| \u2022 Use fresh herbs, chilli, garlic, lemon zest, ginger and curry powder to add flavour   \n_Bread_|  Use low-GI varieties, such as soy and linseed or mixed grain   \n_White rice or potato_|  Use brown rice, pasta, bulghur wheat for low GI or use whole grain types   \n_Salad_ _dressings_|  Use vinegar or lemon juice (their acidity helps to slow down the digestion of carbohydrate) mixed with extra-virgin olive oil \nRecipe makeovers\n\nHow our recipes will boost your health and energy\n\nOur _Zest_ recipes will give you a healthy balance of the essential nutrients you need without overloading you with excess kilojoules. They are suitable for people with diabetes or high cholesterol or anyone who needs to lose a few kilos. You can check how each recipe stacks up by checking the nutrition analysis we have calculated. You'll see the quantity of kilojoules, total fat, saturated fat, fibre and sodium. In addition, we've highlighted those recipes that are especially low in fat, high in fibre, low in salt, or are low GI or gluten-free.\n\nThe recipe analyses are based on the listed ingredients in each recipe. We tell you how much of the rice or bread accompaniments are included in the analysis. Where a range of serve sizes is given (such as serves 4\u20136), the analysis has been done on the midpoint (that is, 5 serves).\n\n**_Recipe symbols_**\n\nThe recipes in this book use five special symbols to show at a glance which recipes are especially:\n\nKilojoules\n\nEach recipe shows its kilojoule (kJ) count. As most of us need to lose or maintain weight, try to eat foods that give you a low kilojoule-density. Plenty of salads, soups, vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy and water will help you with that.\n\nIf you still think in calories, divide the kilojoule figure by 4.2.\n\nFat\n\nNot all fat is bad! Our bodies need a small amount of fat for good health and vitality. But it's got to be the good fats from foods such as oils, spreads, nuts, avocados and seeds. These foods will also boost your unsaturated fats and add valuable heart protectors.\n\nDon't drop below a minimum of 40 grams of fat a day. Around 50\u201380 grams of fat a day is advisable for women, 70\u2013100 grams for men.\n\nWe have classified recipes as low-fat if they have less than 15 grams of fat per serve for main meals, and less than 10 grams of fat per serve for light meals and desserts.\n\n_**Gluten-free recipes**_\n\nWe have highlighted those recipes that we are confident will contain no gluten. Many more recipes however can easily be made gluten-free by simply substituting gluten-free accompaniments (gluten-free bread, gluten-free pasta, rice noodles, rice, mash) for those listed. In addition, if you shop carefully, checking the label of sauces, pastes, stocks, mustard, yoghurt, ice cream and custard, you can make almost all our recipes suitable. Recipes with flour and pastry need special flour blends \u2013 you're better off buying gluten-free baking mixes and using the recipes they provide.\n\nSaturated fat\n\nLess than one-third of the total fat should be derived from saturated fat which translates to somewhere between 15 grams and 25 grams of saturated fat a day, depending on your total fat intake.\n\nAll the recipes concentrate on keeping saturated fat low, generally under 4 grams a serve, by minimising butter, cream, coconut and cheese. However it is impossible to avoid saturated fat entirely as it is found in all foods even those classified as 'monounsaturated' or 'polyunsaturated'.\n\nFibre\n\nAt least 30 grams of fibre a day is a good idea for adults. But as most people barely manage to take in just over 20 grams of fibre, this means that all of us would do well to increase our fibre intake from vegetables, legumes, whole grains, wholemeal bread, fruits and nuts. Our recipes make it easy to take in enough fibre, which will help keep your digestive tract working smoothly, lower your cholesterol and make weight control easier (high-fibre foods are usually filling and satisfying).\n\nFor children, a handy rule of thumb to working out how much fibre they should have is their age plus 5. So a 10-year-old should aim for 15 grams a day, being 10 + 5.\n\nWe have classified recipes as high fibre if they have 3 or more grams of fibre per serve.\n\nSodium\n\nA maximum of 1600 milligrams of sodium a day is recommended but most of us consume over twice this amount. We don't add salt to the recipes, but some salt will come from ready-made sauces, stock, mustard, cheese, bread and ham. Asian-based recipes with their reliance on soy, fish or oyster sauces tend to be high in salt too. We've used the salt-reduced versions, but go easy with these, as they are still quite high in salt. Wherever possible, we suggest you buy salt-reduced or no-added-salt versions. And remember, too, that it's easy to make your own salt-free stock.\n\nIf you are on a low-salt diet, you can consider main meal recipes with under 400 mg per serve as being low sodium. Breakfasts, light meals and desserts need to come in under 300 milligrams per serve.\n\nProtein\n\nA higher protein intake \u2013 without going to the extreme of an Atkins' diet \u2013 is a good idea if you're trying to shed weight or have high triglycerides or the metabolic syndrome. Protein is satiating (filling) and may boost your metabolism.\n\nThere's no need to count protein so we haven't listed any figures in the recipe analyses. It's more important to keep an eye on how much fat, saturated fat, fibre and kilojoules you eat. Most of us get enough protein without having to work at it.\n\nCarbohydrate\n\nWe've incorporated the 'good' carbohydrates into our recipes, which are those that are a whole grain (like brown rice) or low-GI (like chickpeas, kidney beans, traditional oats or grainy bread) and high in fibre (like wholemeal bread or sultanas). Like protein, there's no need to count carbohydrates unless you're on a strict Atkins' diet \u2013 which we don't recommend. So no carbohydrate figures appear in the recipe analyses. It's better to choose the 'good' carbohydrates than worry over how much of them you take in.\n\nSugar is a carbohydrate too! We haven't cut out all sugar, but in line with recommendations we use it moderately to enhance the flavour of a low-fat dessert or high-fibre loaf. You won't be consuming more than 10 per cent of your intake as added sugar this way, which we feel is still quite compatible with good health. A little sugar makes the good things go down better!\n\nWe also don't see the value of sugar-free cakes and desserts. Some sugar is needed for the flour and fat to work together and produce a nicely browned, well-risen baked product. When we make muffins or slices, we want them to work. But we don't want anyone to eat a lot of these!\n\n[Seven-day summer and  \nwinter meal plans](Plum_9781742734859_epub_c5_r1.html#d7e2445)\n\nTime to get started with the Nutrition for Life way of eating with plenty of healthy protein foods, all the right carbs, the right fats and an abundance of fruit and vegies to keep you and your family functioning at top speed \u2013 whatever your respective ages and stages of life!\n\nIn this section we have created two special weekly meal plans, one for easy summer eating and one for winter's cooler days when you'll feel more like hearty and warm 'comfort' foods.\n\nFor each day of the week we've put together meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snacks in between. You'll find plenty of suggestions about how to achieve the right balance at mealtimes \u2013 and how to get those two servings of fruit and five of vegetables every day.\n\nKeep in mind that our meal plans are a guide only to help you get started \u2013 they can be as flexible as you are creative. Simply substitute your favourite recipes from the book if you wish. Don't wait for Monday to get started \u2013 join the plan any day of the week that suits. We think that Monday is a good day for new beginnings, however, because you can take a little time over the previous weekend to stock the pantry.\n\nWhen you reach the end of your seven-day set meal plan, use the ideas we've provided to devise your own meal plans \u2013 or simply repeat the program if you enjoyed it.\nSummer\n\nMonday\n\nThe first healthy eating tip for your new way of eating is a simple reminder that it's all about balance.\n\nIt's important to eat a wide variety of foods. Make sure each week that you have a couple of meals with legumes, a couple of meals based on fish, and the rest based around lean meat, chicken, eggs or tofu.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  2\u20133 wholegrain breakfast biscuits such as Weet-Bix or Vita Brits with low-fat milk, topped with a sliced banana and a handful of sultanas\n\nSnack\n\n  Handful (30 g) of unsalted almonds or walnuts or a nut bar low in grains such as Be Natural\n\nLunch\n\n  Chicken, tabbouleh and salad wrap: use a thin mountain bread wholemeal wrap (or \u00bd a large wholemeal pitta pocket) and fill with sliced chicken breast, lots of tabbouleh, lettuce, tomato slices, onion rings and a smear of hummus. (Most delis and sandwich shops have tabbouleh, but if you want to make your own, see our recipe)\n\nSnack\n\n  Glass of chilled low-fat milk with a spoon of Milo or low-fat iced coffee\n\n  2 digestive biscuits such as Shredded Wheatmeal\n\nDinner\n\n  Fillet Steak with Pawpaw Salsa (opposite), served with steamed potatoes and a large mixed salad (made with mesclun, cucumber, capsicum and tiny tomatoes) tossed in an olive oil and lemon juice vinaigrette\n\n  Low-fat berry yoghurt topped with fresh blueberries and strawberries\n\n**_Energy tip: Put on your walking shoes..._**\n\nJust ten minutes of brisk walking can boost your mood and energy for 1\u20132 hours. So put on your walking shoes and stride out each day. Set a brisk pace \u2013 fast enough for you to be puffing slightly but still able to have a conversation. Try to include a few hills to improve your cardiac output.\n**Fillet steak with pawpaw salsa**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nMarinating time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   8 minutes\n\n4 x 100 g eye fillet steaks (or scotch fillet)\n\n\u00bd cup red wine\n\n1 tablespoon Dijon mustard\n\n1 tablespoon honey\n\n4 garlic cloves, crushed\n\nPawpaw salsa\n\n\u00bd pawpaw (papaya), chopped\n\n1 small red onion, finely chopped\n\n1 tablespoon chopped mint\n\n1 tablespoon chopped coriander\n\n1 teaspoon chopped chilli\n\njuice of \u00bd lime\n\nPlace the steaks in a shallow dish. Combine the wine, mustard, honey and garlic in a small bowl, mix well then pour over the steaks, coating thoroughly. Marinate for at least 20 minutes \u2013 in the refrigerator if the weather is very warm.\n\nTo make the pawpaw salsa, combine the chopped pawpaw, onion, mint, coriander and chilli in a bowl with the lime juice. Mix well, cover and set aside.\n\nPreheat the barbecue plate or char-grill on high. Cook the steaks for 3\u20134 minutes each side until cooked to taste.\n\nServe with the salsa, steamed potatoes and a large mixed salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 3 potatoes and a generous serve of salad) = 1430 kJ, 9 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 125 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Pawpaw\/papaya_**\n\nPawpaw packs in two key vitamins \u2013 vitamin A (thanks to generous levels of beta-carotene which gives pawpaw its lovely golden-orange colour) and vitamin C \u2013 present at a concentration as high as in oranges. There's fibre as well as potassium and magnesium. One-quarter of a medium pawpaw supplies only 160 kJ (40 cal).\nTuesday\n\nStress, tension, rushing and eating on the run all take their toll on your digestion and health. When you sit down to eat, take a long deep breath and take the time to appreciate the food in front of you. Try to avoid mindless eating with the television on or the day's newspaper grabbing your attention! Focusing on your food will increase your enjoyment, help your digestion, and let you learn to stop eating when your stomach registers 'comfortably full' \u2013 a technique recommended as a way to help people lose weight.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Large bowl of fresh fruit salad topped with low-fat vanilla yoghurt and toasted flaked almonds\n\n  Blackcurrant tea\n\nSnack\n\n  Carrot and celery sticks with hummus or tomato salsa\n\nLunch\n\n  Make up a thick wholegrain sandwich filled with thin slices of cold meat (rare roast beef is delicious), ripe tomato and fresh basil leaves. Add a small tub of coleslaw for extra fibre if you're a big eater\n\n  Sparkling mineral water\n\nSnack\n\n  Bunch of grapes with reduced-fat cheese and 3\u20134 wholegrain crackers\n\nDinner\n\n  Sang Choy Bow (opposite, crisp lettuce cups filled with a spicy mixture of chicken mince, sprouts, onions, coriander leaves, ginger and chilli), served with steamed low-GI rice\n\n  Jasmine tea or iced tea\n\n  Wedge of rockmelon topped with the pulp of one passionfruit. Add a scoop of low-fat vanilla ice cream if you like\n\n_**Energy tip: Work out with a friend**_\n\nIf you commit to meeting up with a friend for a walk or a work-out on a regular basis, you get to keep in touch while keeping fit. Find a friend or neighbour and make them your 'walking buddy'. Just one walk or swim a week with your buddy can make a difference.\n**Sang choy bow**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon peanut oil\n\n1 red onion, chopped\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon grated ginger\n\n500 g chicken mince\n\n\u00bc cup sweet chilli sauce\n\n1 tablespoon oyster sauce\n\n1 tablespoon salt-reduced soy sauce\n\n1 cup bean sprouts, plus extra for serving\n\n4 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\n2 tablespoons coriander leaves\n\n1 small red chilli, chopped\n\n8 lettuce cups (preferably iceberg or butter lettuce)\n\nHeat the oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Stir-fry the onion, garlic and ginger for 1\u20132 minutes until the onion is tender.\n\nAdd the mince and stir-fry for 3\u20134 minutes, browning well and breaking the meat up as it cooks.\n\nCombine the sweet chilli, oyster and soy sauces and blend in. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 4\u20135 minutes.\n\nJust before serving, stir in the sprouts, green onions, coriander and chilli. Toss over the heat for 1\u20132 minutes to quickly warm through.\n\nDivide the mixture evenly between the lettuce cups. Top with extra bean sprouts and serve immediately, accompanied by steamed low-GI rice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup rice) = 1600 kJ, 16 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 860 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Chillies_**\n\nChillies pack a punch. They are concentrated in vitamin C \u2013 around 2\u20133 times greater than citrus fruit, weight for weight \u2013 and are high in fibre, minerals and the B vitamins, particularly riboflavin and niacin. Chillies can raise your metabolic rate, and thus give dieters the edge, as a body with a 'super-speed engine' burns fuel faster.\nWednesday\n\nBeing organised will help you avoid the temptation to grab takeaway food, or to skip a meal altogether. It may seem like a chore to start with, but when you think of the return on your investment, then it's a small price to pay. Keep a shopping list. Make sure you always have the basics on hand in the kitchen \u2013 like pasta, rice, tuna, herbs, frozen vegetables, frozen meat, eggs and grated cheese \u2013 which make it easy to whip up last-minute meals. Don't buy chocolate, crisps and other junk food if you know you can't resist them.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Spoon some low-fat ricotta or cottage cheese into a bowl and top with whatever fresh fruit you have on hand \u2013 diced rockmelon or sliced banana with a handful of blueberries are both nice. Add a drizzle of honey if you like. Serve with a thick slice of good quality toasted fruit loaf\n\nSnack\n\n  Peach or nectarine\n\nLunch\n\n  Open sandwich of ham, mustard and salad: smear 2 thick slices of chewy wholegrain bread with a little spread and Dijon mustard, then add shaved ham and top with lettuce, cucumber, tomato and artichoke halves\n\nSnack\n\n  Low-fat honey yoghurt \u2013 or top a low-fat natural yoghurt with a dollop of honey if you prefer\n\n  A handful of mixed nuts\n\nDinner\n\n  Fusilli with Salmon and Baby Spinach (opposite), served with a large tossed leaf salad with an oil\u2013vinegar dressing (or try our No-oil Vinaigrette)\n\n  Scoop of lemon gelato\n\n_**Energy tip: Watch your alcohol**_\n\nAlcohol drains your energy. While a drink or two can help you relax and unwind, any more than that acts as a depressant. Worst of all, alcohol uses up the body's stores of B vitamins, especially thiamin (vitamin B1) and folate. We need B vitamins to release energy from carbohydrates. So moderate your drinking.\n**Fusilli with salmon and baby spinach**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n500 g fusilli, or another pasta of choice\n\nspray oil\n\n250 g punnet cherry tomatoes, halved\n\n2 garlic cloves, sliced\n\n210 g can red or pink salmon, drained and flaked\n\n\u00bd cup extra-light cream or light evaporated milk\n\njuice 1 lemon\n\n60 g baby spinach leaves\n\nchopped chives and grated parmesan cheese to serve\n\nCook the pasta in plenty of boiling water, following packet instructions. Drain the pasta well and set aside, keeping warm.\n\nHeat a large frying pan on high. Spray with oil. Saut\u00e9 the tomatoes and garlic for a minute then stir in the salmon, cream and lemon juice. Lower the heat and simmer gently for 2\u20133 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the mixture has thickened slightly.\n\nToss the sauce through the hot pasta with the spinach leaves. Serve topped with chives and a little parmesan. Accompany with salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 2550 kJ, 13 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 8 g fibre, 295 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Canned salmon_**\n\nLow in saturated fat, rich in zinc and a great source of omega-3s \u2013 there are plenty of reasons to eat canned salmon. It is also high in protein and full of iodine, potassium and zinc. Make sure you eat the small edible bones, one 100 g can provides 200\u2013230 mg of calcium \u2013 20 per cent of the recommended daily intake.\nThursday\n\nMake your fridge friendly. Don't fill it up with tempting high-kilojoule food that other family members can eat but you can't. You won't be able to stay that strong and committed every time you open the door! Instead, fill your fridge with food to make healthy eating easy \u2013 low-fat milk, low-fat yoghurt, vegetables, salad ingredients, tomatoes, chilled water, tomato juice, cold meats, hard-boiled eggs. These all add bulk for few kilojoules. Store leftover cooked vegies in small containers \u2013 they make nice nibbles.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Banana smoothie made with low-fat milk, banana and honey\n\n  Or try our Banana and Berry Breakfast Smoothie\n\nSnack\n\n  1 Rhubarb Muffin\n\nLunch\n\n  Toss together a large pasta salad: start with cooked penne or macaroni and add hard-boiled eggs, diced celery and eschalots and half an avocado. Stir in a light creamy dressing (don't drown it \u2013 just enough to coat everything) or try our No-oil Creamy Dressing, and finish with a sprinkle of toasted pine nuts\n\nSnack\n\n  Fresh strawberries with low-fat yoghurt, sprinkled with flaked almonds\n\nDinner\n\n  Stir-fry Prawn Salad (opposite) on a bed of rocket, served with a slice of sourdough bread\n\n  Half a mango topped with the pulp of 1 passionfruit\n\n_**Energy tip: Fit exercise in around your day**_\n\nCan't get the closest spot in the car park? No hassles. View the extra walk as something healthy that can invigorate you. Or take the stairs (two at a time if you like) instead of the escalator; walk to work or the shops; stretch as you wait for your emails to download; jog on the spot while you wait for the microwave.\n**Stir-fry prawn salad**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   5 minutes\n\n500 g green prawns, peeled, de-veined and tails intact\n\n\u00bc cup lemon juice\n\n1 tablespoon thinly sliced lemongrass\n\n1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce\n\n2 teaspoons salt-reduced soy sauce\n\n2 teaspoons fish sauce\n\n2 teaspoons peanut oil\n\n1 Lebanese cucumber, seeded and sliced\n\n60 g snow peas, trimmed and halved diagonally\n\n1 red onion, finely sliced\n\n\u00bc cup chopped mint\n\n\u00bc cup coriander leaves\n\n3 green onions (shallots), sliced baby rocket leaves\n\nCombine the prawns, lemon juice, lemongrass and sweet chilli, soy and fish sauces with the oil in a large bowl.\n\nHeat a wok or a large frying pan on high. Add the prawns with the marinade, tossing well. Stir-fry for 2\u20133 minutes until the prawns change colour.\n\nTip the prawns and sauce back into the same cleaned bowl. Add the cucumber, snow peas, onion, herbs and green onion, tossing to combine. Serve immediately on a bed of baby rocket with a slice of sourdough bread.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 955 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 935 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Prawns_**\n\nPrawns are rich in protein, a number of B vitamins and many essential minerals like zinc, iron and potassium. They have little fat \u2013 and what fat there is gives you a bonus of omega-3 fatty acids. Their cholesterol once took prawns off the okay list, but now dietitians recognise that their saturated fat is so low, that this overrides the cholesterol.\nFriday\n\nPlan and shop ahead so you have ingredients on hand in your freezer or your cupboard to make healthy dinners when you're tired at night. That way, you avoid the temptation to grab takeaway meals, which are almost always higher in fat, salt and sugar than a healthy home-cooked meal. Cook double the quantity and freeze portions for later.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Bowl of natural muesli with low-fat milk topped with low-fat yoghurt and fresh or canned apricots\n\n  If you like to make your own muesli, try our recipe for Superstar Mega-Muesli or Home-made Muesli\n\nSnack\n\n  Small pack of pretzels\n\nLunch\n\n  For a quick-and-easy portable office lunch, grab a can of tuna in spring water and a can of 3-bean mix. Drain both and mix together, leaving the tuna chunky. Make or buy a takeaway mixed salad. Top the salad with the tuna-bean mix and enjoy with 3\u20134 rye crispbreads\n\nSnack\n\n  Toasted wholegrain English muffin with low-fat cottage cheese and tomato slices\n\nDinner\n\n  Spinach and Cheese Filo Pie (opposite) with a Greek salad (made with chopped tomatoes, sliced cucumber, cubed or crumbled fetta cheese, sliced red onion and black olives. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar)\n\n  A nectarine or slices of fresh pineapple\n\n_**Energy tip: Sleep well, recharge your batteries**_\n\nHere's how to beat insomnia.\n\n\u2022 Forget caffeine (coffee or hot chocolate) after 4 pm.\n\n\u2022 Sip warm low-fat milk and honey before bedtime. Milk contains the amino acid tryptophan, which increases levels of serotonin in the brain. This induces a more restful state.\n\n\u2022 No spice. Chilli and pepper raise the body's temperature and metabolic rate, which can have a stimulating effect.\n**Spinach and cheese filo pie**\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil\n\n1 bunch fresh silverbeet, trimmed and chopped, or 500 g frozen spinach, thawed and well drained\n\n6 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\n1 onion, chopped\n\n4 eggs, lightly beaten\n\n125 g fetta cheese, crumbled\n\n125 g ricotta cheese\n\n\u00bc cup grated parmesan\n\n\u00bc cup chopped parsley\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n12 sheets filo pastry\n\nspray oil\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Lightly grease a 20 cm springform pan, or a round or square casserole dish.\n\nHeat the oil in a frying pan on high. Saut\u00e9 the spinach and onions for 4\u20135 minutes until the spinach has wilted. Press the mixture into a strainer to remove as much excess liquid as possible and allow it to cool slightly.\n\nTip the spinach mixture into a large bowl and blend in the beaten eggs, cheeses, parsley and nutmeg. Mix well.\n\nFold 6 sheets of filo into halves. Spray the surface of each folded piece with oil and layer them in the base of the prepared pan. Spoon in the filling and spread evenly. Fold the remaining sheets of filo in half and spray with oil.\n\nLayer on top of filling to cover.\n\nBake for 20\u201325 minutes until crisp, set and golden. Cut into portions and serve hot or warm with a Greek salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1740 kJ, 24 g fat (includes 7 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 735 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Spinach_**\n\nSpinach is an excellent source of vitamin C, folate, beta-carotene as well as vitamin E. It also contains a number of antioxidants, particularly lutein and zeaxanthin, which help keep macular degeneration (a leading cause of blindness in older people) at bay. Try to include it (cooked or as a salad of baby spinach leaves) in your meals at least twice a week.\nSaturday\n\nThis is the weekend \u2013 a chance to relax and fit in some serious exercise. It's also an opportunity to cook something special for family or friends. When dinner is served, take your time. Before beginning to eat, try the 'one-minute pause'. Relax, breathe out deeply and concentrate on yourself and your inner feelings of hunger. Check mentally just how hungry you really are and eat to your appetite.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  2 eggs (poached or scrambled) on wholegrain toast with grilled tomato and mushrooms\n\n  Or try our Big Healthy Breakfast with Baked Beans\n\nSnack\n\n  3\u20134 rice cakes or crispbreads topped with reduced-fat cheese and tomato slices\n\nLunch\n\n  Lunch pack of small sushi rolls or 2\u20133 California rolls\n\nSnack\n\n  Low-fat passionfruit yoghurt\n\n  Slice of Banana and Nut Loaf\n\nDinner\n\n  Barbecued Greek Lamb with Minted Couscous (opposite), served with a large mixed salad (made with mesclun, cucumber, capsicum and tiny tomatoes) tossed in an olive oil and lemon juice vinaigrette (or try our No-oil Vinaigrette). This meal is ideal for entertaining. Serve with a slice of crusty wholemeal or multigrain bread\n\n  Never-fail Berry Fool\n\n_**Energy tip: Exercise gives you so much**_\n\nExercise burns off fat, helps raise the 'good' HDL-cholesterol, keeps your bones strong (if it's weight bearing) and leaves you feeling good about life. If you are desk-bound, exercise will clear your mind and improve your mood. Aim for 30 minutes of vigorous exercise a couple of times a week \u2013 vigorous enough that you are a little out of breath but not exhausted.\n**Barbecued Greek lamb with minted couscous**\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\nMarinating time   20 minutes\n\n1.5 kg boned lamb leg, all visible fat trimmed\n\n\u00bc cup olive oil\n\ngrated zest and juice of 2 lemons\n\n4 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n2 tablespoons chopped parsley\n\n\u00bc cup honey (optional)\n\nlow-fat natural yoghurt to serve\n\nMinted couscous\n\n1 cup boiling water\n\n\u00be cup couscous\n\n\u00bc cup sliced pitted black olives\n\n\u00bc cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes\n\n\u00bc cup chopped mint\n\n1 green onion (shallot), chopped\n\nPlace the lamb in a shallow dish. Combine the olive oil, lemon zest and juice, garlic and parsley in a small bowl. Mix well then pour over the lamb, turning it over to make sure it is well coated in the marinade. Cover and set aside in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 20 minutes.\n\nPreheat a barbecue plate to high. Barbecue the lamb, basting it occasionally, for 8\u201310 minutes each side or until cooked to your liking. Drizzle the honey over the lamb if desired.\n\nTo make the minted couscous, combine the water and couscous in a bowl, cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes until all liquid has been absorbed. Fluff the couscous with a fork then stir in the olives, sun-dried tomatoes, mint and green onion.\n\nSlice the lamb thinly and serve with the minted couscous and yoghurt, and a mixed salad and crusty wholemeal or multigrain bread.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup couscous, a dollop of yoghurt, 1 slice bread and a generous serve of salad) = 2810 kJ, 26 g fat (includes 8 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 420 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Lamb_**\n\nLean lamb offers high-quality protein plus iron, zinc and potassium and a range of B vitamins. Like all red meat, it's a good source of haem iron, the type most easily absorbed by the body. Most women don't eat nearly enough iron-rich foods to meet their body's daily needs, but recipes like this provide a delicious way to get that vital 18 milligrams a day!\n\nSunday\n\nFor Sunday night we have opted for a fast and friendly meal. Burgers are one of the best fast-food choices when eating out. They're easy to make at home too \u2013 and the kids will love them! The combination of meat pattie with bread and salad makes a hamburger a healthy choice. It's lightly pan fried, so there's less fat, less kilojoules and less 'bad' saturated fat. While little kids usually tuck into them plain with tomato sauce, teens and parents can pile on beetroot, onion, tomato, cheese or chilli sauce \u2013 whatever takes your fancy.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Thick slice of a good quality fruit loaf, toasted and topped with ricotta, slices of pear and chopped walnuts\n\nSnack\n\n  Slices of fresh plum or peach mixed into low-fat fruit yoghurt\n\nLunch\n\n  1\u20132 burritos with kidney beans, lettuce, tomato and diced avocado\n\nSnack\n\n  Handful of dried apricots and unsalted walnuts\n\nDinner\n\n  Homeburger with the Lot (opposite), served with baked potato wedges\n\n  Or try making burgers using Tofu and Cannellini Bean Patties\n\n  Scoop of low-fat ice cream topped with fresh fruit salad\n\n_**Energy tip: Don't skip breakfast**_\n\nPower through your day on a proper breakfast. It:\n\n\u2022 fuels your body and lifts its metabolic rate, helping you burn more kilojoules\n\n\u2022 boosts your mental performance (memory, concentration) for the day\n\n\u2022 means you're less likely to be tempted by fattening snacks later on.\n**Homeburger with the lot**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n400 g trim beef or lamb mince\n\n1 onion, finely chopped\n\n2 tablespoons chopped parsley\n\n1 tablespoon tomato sauce\n\nspray oil\n\n2 slices prosciutto, halved\n\n2 onions, sliced\n\n2 slices reduced-fat tasty cheese, halved\n\n4 eggs (optional)\n\n4 wholegrain rolls, split\n\n60 g mixed lettuce leaves\n\n2 tomatoes, sliced\n\n4 slices beetroot, drained\n\ntomato sauce and mustard pickles to serve\n\nCombine the mince, onion, parsley and tomato sauce in a large bowl until well mixed and form into 4 even-sized, flattened patties.\n\nSpray a large non-stick frying pan with oil and heat on high. Cook the patties for 4\u20135 minutes each side until well browned and cooked through. Add the prosciutto to same pan and cook for 1\u20132 minutes until crisp.\n\nMeanwhile, spray a separate non-stick pan with oil and saut\u00e9 the onion on medium heat for 5\u20138 minutes until soft and golden. Keep warm.\n\nTop each pattie with a slice of cheese and continue cooking until the cheese has melted. If you are having the eggs, now's the time to break the eggs into the pan and cook to your liking.\n\nWhen ready to serve, toast the rolls and arrange them on each plate. Layer lettuce, tomato, beetroot and a homeburger pattie on one half of each roll. Top with the onion, egg and prosciutto, sauce and pickles and finish with the top half of the roll. Serve immediately with baked potato wedges.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 4 wedges of potato) = 2565 kJ, 21 g fat (includes 6 g saturated fat), 11 g fibre, 780 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Parsley_**\n\nParsley is incredibly rich in vitamin C, folate, beta-carotene and fibre, with generous quantities of potassium and magnesium. It's also a top source of antioxidants which help prevent damage to our body's cells and so lessen the risk of cancer and eye damage as we age. So be generous with the parsley and make these flavoursome greens a regular part of your cooking.\nWinter\n\nMonday\n\nWatch those 'low-fat snacks'. Most snackfoods labelled 'low-fat' or '97% fat-free' should be eaten only occasionally. You can't eat twice as much just because they're labelled 'fat-free'. Most of these foods have similar kilojoule counts to their full-fat cousins, because the fat is replaced with enough sugar or starch to make up for the missing fat.\n\nFor instance, a regular, medium-size banana muffin contains 8 grams of fat and 710 kilojoules (170 calories). In its low-fat form, it has a tiny 1 gram of fat but still hits 675 kilojoules \u2013 hardly a huge saving for your waistline or hips. Keep in mind as well, that many 'lite' biscuits, muesli bars and cereals are also sold in smaller serve sizes (20 grams for a low-fat biscuit compared to 40 grams for the regular version) so the kilojoule savings appear sizeable simply because you're eating less food.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Baked beans on a thick slice of toasted wholegrain English muffin\n\nSnack\n\n  A nut or seed bar (look for one with mostly nuts or seeds and few grains)\n\nLunch\n\n  Toasted wholegrain sandwich filled with roasted Italian vegetables and a dollop of pesto (try our delicious pesto recipes)\n\nSnack\n\n  Hot chocolate made with low-fat milk\n\n  2 date slices or Full-o-Fruit biscuits\n\nDinner\n\n  Veal Goulash with Fettucine (opposite), served with a spoonful of low-fat natural yoghurt and lightly steamed broccolini or a side salad\n\n  Low-fat ice cream topped with canned plums or peaches\n\n_**Energy tip: Do it in the morning**_\n\nIf you can, slot in your exercise first thing in the morning. This keeps your metabolism 'revving' high over the day. And there's evidence suggesting a morning jog or walk is more effective than an afternoon or evening one. Your body stores of glycogen are at their lowest after the night's sleep, so you tend to turn burn fat more readily.\n**Veal goulash with fettucine**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   1\u00be hours\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n750 g diced veal\n\n1 onion, chopped\n\n1 carrot, diced\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 tablespoon sweet paprika\n\n2 tablespoons tomato paste\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes\n\n1 cup salt-reduced beef stock or water\n\n300 g egg fettucine\n\nlow-fat natural yoghurt to serve\n\nHeat half the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan on medium. Brown the veal in two batches for 3\u20134 minutes then transfer to a plate.\n\nReduce the heat and add the remaining oil to the pan. Saut\u00e9 the onion, carrot and garlic for 5 minutes until soft and lightly golden.\n\nBlend in the paprika and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in the tomato paste followed by the tomatoes, stock and browned veal. Simmer, covered, over a low heat for 1\u00bd hours, until the meat is very tender. Uncover for last 15 minutes to allow the sauce to thicken slightly.\n\nCook the fettucine according to the packet instructions. Drain well. Serve the goulash with fettucine and a dollop of yoghurt and accompany with lightly steamed broccolini spears or a side salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup fettuccine and a generous serve of broccolini) = 2545 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 205 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Veal_**\n\nVeal is a dieter's best friend. It is one of the leanest meats with a mere 1 per cent fat and a low kilojoule count. It's light yet filling. And you'll still get a good serve of protein and the B group vitamins. It falls midway between red and white meat, so you get iron and zinc, although not as much as from red meat.\nTuesday\n\nDon't forget to keep up your fluid intake. The human body is largely made up of water and every day you need to drink enough fluid to prevent dehydration. If you are dehydrated, you may experience symptoms such as headache, fatigue, heat intolerance, loss of appetite, flushed skin and muscle cramps. Over the years, not drinking enough fluid has been linked with a greater chance of kidney stones, urinary tract infections and bladder cancer.\n\nNutritionists recommend that women drink at least 8 glasses and men 12 glasses of fluid a day \u2013 more in hot weather or if you are sweating through work or exercise. Water is the best way to quench your thirst but other fluids such as fruit juices, mineral waters, tea, herbal teas and clear soups can count towards your total fluid intake.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Porridge made with low-fat milk and topped with sliced banana and raisins\n\nSnack\n\n  1 piece of fruit toast topped with low-fat ricotta and drizzled with a little honey\n\nLunch\n\n  Noodle stir-fry with chicken and vegetables bought from an Asian food bar\n\nSnack\n\n  3\u20134 wholegrain crackers with reduced-fat cheese slices\n\nDinner\n\n  Potato, Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry (opposite), served with steamed low-GI rice and pappadams (these only take 1 minute each in the microwave)\n\n  Poached pears with low-fat vanilla yoghurt or custard\n\n_**Energy tip: Keep up the exercise**_\n\nWhen it's too cold or rainy to go walking, bring your work-out indoors. Invest in a few pieces of home gym equipment like a stationary bike, a mini-trampoline or just a skipping rope and some weights. Or buy one of the many home-exercise videos available and follow the routines every day or every other day.\n**Potato, cauliflower and chickpea curry**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n1 onion, roughly chopped\n\n2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n2 tablespoons Madras curry powder\n\n1 teaspoon ground coriander\n\n1 teaspoon ground cumin\n\n2 potatoes, peeled and cubed\n\n\u00bc cauliflower, cut into florets\n\n400 g can chickpeas, drained\n\n4 roma tomatoes, chopped (or 400g can diced tomatoes)\n\n1 cup water\n\n200 g green beans, trimmed and chopped into 4 cm lengths\n\n\u00bd cup frozen peas\n\n\u00bd cup roughly chopped toasted cashews\n\n\u00bc cup chopped coriander\n\nHeat a large heavy-based saucepan on medium. Spray with oil and saut\u00e9 the onion, ginger and garlic for 2 minutes until the onion is soft.\n\nStir in the curry powder, coriander and cumin. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes until it is aromatic.\n\nAdd the potatoes, cauliflower, chickpeas, tomatoes and water. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.\n\nStir through the beans and peas and simmer for a further 5 minutes until the potatoes are tender.\n\nAdd cashews and coriander and serve with steamed low-GI rice and pappadams.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup rice and 2 pappadams) = 1885 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 15 g fibre, 660 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Chickpeas_**\n\nWith their low GI, chickpeas also offer substantial amounts of protein \u2013 which makes them very useful to vegetarians \u2013 as well as a good dose of B vitamins and significant fibre content. Their fibre is of the soluble type, which researchers have found helps remove cholesterol from the body (in a similar way to oat bran).\nWednesday\n\nSit down to eat, even if you're only having a cup of tea or an apple. This forces you to think twice about stopping to eat (are you really that hungry?) and you may find you cannot be bothered to stop. It also helps you to register that you're actually eating. Most overeating is thoughtless: snacking while you walk, picking at food while cooking, nibbling in front of television. Concentrate on the meal in front of you and enjoy every mouthful.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Scrambled eggs with fresh herbs on wholegrain toast\n\nSnack\n\n  Handful of unsalted mixed nuts\n\nLunch\n\n  Bowl of vegetable soup and a wholegrain roll\n\nSnack\n\n  Low-fat blueberry muffin\n\nDinner\n\n  Slow-roasted Salmon with Teriyaki Sauce (opposite), served on a bed of steamed spinach with buckwheat (soba) noodles\n\n  Low-fat vanilla yoghurt and slices of kiwi fruit\n\n_**Energy tip: Incidental exercise**_\n\nIt's vital that you move more in your day-to-day life. This incidental exercise (climbing the stairs, walking to the bank or post office) is a key to weight control. Researchers have shown that people who maintain their weight over the years \u2013 even if they aren't doing a formal sport or going to the gym \u2013 are the ones who move more in the course of their day.\n**Slow-roasted salmon with teriyaki sauce**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce, plus extra to serve\n\n1 tablespoon rice vinegar\n\ngrated zest and juice of \u00bd lime\n\n1 teaspoon sesame oil\n\n1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger\n\n1 garlic clove, chopped\n\n4 salmon fillets, bones removed\n\n1 bunch spinach, trimmed and lightly steamed\n\nPreheat the oven to very slow, 120\u00baC (250\u00baF). Lightly spray a baking pan with oil.\n\nIn a small bowl, combine the teriyaki sauce, vinegar, lime zest and juice, oil, ginger and garlic.\n\nPlace the salmon in the prepared baking pan and brush liberally with the marinade.\n\nBake the fish for 25\u201330 minutes, basting occasionally, until the flesh flakes easily when tested with a fork (it will still be pink).\n\nServe the fish on a bed of steamed spinach drizzled with extra teriyaki sauce and accompany with buckwheat (soba) noodles.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup noodles and a generous serve of spinach) = 1670 kJ, 13 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 210 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Limes_**\n\nLimes like other citrus fruit are nutritional all-rounders, packed with vitamin C, which enhances iron absorption, speeds up wound healing and reduces the risk of a heart attack. They also provide small amounts of minerals and some B vitamins. Don't just juice them. There are plenty of nutritional goodies in the skin too. So bring out the zester.\nThursday\n\nBe fat-smart, not fat-obsessed. A small amount of fat is crucial for good health, vitality, clear skin and shiny hair. Your body needs essential fatty acids to absorb certain vitamins and antioxidants like beta-carotene and lycopene. The trick is to choose the 'good' monounsaturated and polyunsaturated types, and cut back on the 'bad' saturated fats found in butter and cream, deli meats, fatty meats, sausages, pies, pastries, and cakes.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Cinnamon, Pear and Date Porridge\n\nSnack\n\n  3\u20134 rye crispbreads topped with avocado\n\nLunch\n\n  Takeaway burger with lettuce, tomato and onion. Ask for a wholegrain bun or bread\n\nSnack\n\n  Raisin and walnut snack-pack\n\nDinner\n\n  Tofu with Mixed Vegetables (opposite), served with steamed basmati rice or Asian (such as hokkein) noodles\n\n  Rice Custard\n\n_**Energy tip: Get your spine flat**_\n\nLie down flat on your back for 10 minutes each day, especially in the afternoon when the mid-afternoon energy slump sets in. This is a good thing to do if you're working at the computer all day. Lying down takes the pressure off the spine and allows the discs to decompress. So it helps you stay alert and overcome drowsiness.\n**Tofu with mixed vegetables**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   8 minutes\n\n300 g firm tofu\n\n\u00bc cup seasoned plain flour\n\n1 tablespoon oil\n\n1 red capsicum, seeded and sliced\n\n1 onion, sliced\n\n1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 bunch broccolini, trimmed\n\n1 bunch baby bok choy, quartered\n\n1 bunch choy sum, sliced\n\n\u00bc cup salt-reduced vegetable stock or water\n\n2 tablespoons salt-reduced soy sauce\n\n1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce\n\n1 teaspoon sesame oil\n\nCut the tofu into slices. Place the flour and tofu in a plastic bag and shake to coat well. Shake off any excess flour and reserve the tofu.\n\nHeat the oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Stir-fry the tofu in batches for 2\u20133 minutes until golden, then drain on paper towels. Add the capsicum, onion, ginger and garlic to the wok and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the broccolini, bok choy and choy sum and stir-fry for 2 minutes.\n\nCombine the stock, soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce and sesame oil in a jug. Pour the mixture over the vegetables and stir-fry for 1 minute. Return the tofu to the wok and toss gently until heated through. Serve immediately with basmati rice or hokkein noodles.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup rice or noodles) = 1305 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 470 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Tofu_**\n\nTofu is a key source of protein and B vitamins and also contains a number of minerals. Tofu has less than 5 per cent fat, no cholesterol and is virtually free of sodium (salt). If the setting agent used is calcium sulphate (sometimes it's nigari, which is potassium sulphate), it will be high in calcium, making it a well-rounded superfood.\nFriday\n\nDid your mother or grandmother insist you eat three different-coloured vegetables at every meal? Nutritionists now confirm that 'eating by the rainbow' makes good nutrition sense because it increases the variety of vegetables you're consuming and ensures you eat the ones richest in the beneficial antioxidants. For instance, yellow-orange vegetables give us beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A. Red vegetables like tomatoes are rich in lycopene, an antioxidant that can help protect the prostate. Green vegetables have lots of chlorophyll, which is high in magnesium.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  2 slices of raisin toast with light margarine\n\nSnack\n\n  Low-fat strawberry yoghurt\n\nLunch\n\n  Bowl of penne pasta with green peas, ricotta and crispy pancetta\n\nSnack\n\n  2 mandarins or 1 orange\n\nDinner\n\n  Hearty Chowder (opposite), served with crusty wholegrain bread\n\n  Baked apple with a dollop of low-fat yoghurt and a sprinkle of chopped walnuts\n\n  Or try Chunky Apple Bake\n\n_**Energy tip: Beat the cold with exercise and sun**_\n\nWhatever exercise you choose, aim to spend at least 10 minutes a day outdoors during winter months. The pineal gland, located at the base of the brain, is 'switched off' by lack of light. It appears to control the mechanisms for weight gain, depression, lack of energy and poor sleep during these grey months, so it makes sense to keep it functioning.\n**Hearty chowder**\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n1 rasher shortcut bacon, finely chopped\n\n2 stalks celery, finely chopped\n\n1 onion, finely chopped\n\n1 large potato, peeled and diced\n\n2 cups water\n\n2 tablespoons plain flour\n\n2 cups low-fat milk\n\n300 g can corn kernels, drained\n\n200 g smoked cod, skinned and chopped\n\n\u00bd cup frozen peas\n\n1 tablespoon chopped celery leaves\n\nHeat a large saucepan on high. When the pan is warm, add the bacon, celery and onion. Saut\u00e9 for 2\u20133 minutes until the onion is tender.\n\nAdd the potato and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in the water and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.\n\nBlend the flour with a little of the milk to form a smooth paste. Add to the pan with the remaining milk, and blend in well. Stir constantly until the chowder comes to a gentle boil and thickens a little.\n\nStir in the corn, smoked cod and peas. Simmer for 5 minutes until heated through. Serve sprinkled with celery leaves. Serve with crusty wholegrain bread.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1155 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 750 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Corn_**\n\nCorn has the virtues of both a vegetable and a grain. It gives you some vitamin C and folate but also offers those key grain nutrients such as the B group vitamins, fibre, a little potassium and iron. It has a low GI making it ideal to serve as a snack, light meal or side dish to help you keep those blood glucose levels low. Just hold the salt and butter.\nSaturday\n\nToday's main meal was inspired by Mediterranean cuisine. Just count the long list of nutritional blessings from Italian, Greek or Moroccan cuisines, the best-known examples of Mediterranean cuisines, all of which have been thoroughly studied.\n\nHere's what you get:\n\n\u2022 vegetables, salads and herbs, which are rich in antioxidants, fibre and folate\n\n\u2022 seafood (calamari, sardines, prawns and fish), which is a top source of omega-3 fatty acids\n\n\u2022 tomatoes, noted for their lycopene, a powerful antioxidant and prostate-protector\n\n\u2022 nuts, which supply arginine, a blood vessel 'relaxant', and vitamin E, another antioxidant\n\n\u2022 garlic and onions, which both contribute sulphur compounds, good for the blood\n\n\u2022 pasta and bread, which are rich in B vitamins, of which niacin and folate actively help the heart\n\n\u2022 red wine, which adds polyphenol antioxidants.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Muesli with low-fat milk topped with low-fat yoghurt and canned apricots\n\nSnack\n\n  A pear or an apple\n\nLunch\n\n  Reduced-fat cheese, ham and tomato melt on wholegrain bread\n\nSnack\n\n  3\u20134 rice cakes spread with peanut butter\n\nDinner\n\n  Chicken Tagine with Olives and Couscous (opposite), served with a green vegetable such as lightly steamed green beans, asparagus or spinach\n\n  Dried Fruit Compote\n\n_**Energy tip: Time away to recharge**_\n\nTreat yourself to a short break or weekend away. A change of scene (and time off) gives you a new perspective on things and 'recharges your batteries'. It's a good idea to occasionally 'escape' from home, with its constant reminders of things waiting to be done.\n**Chicken tagine with olives and couscous**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   50 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nsize 18 chicken (1.8 kg), segmented, skin and fat removed\n\n1 onion, finely sliced\n\n3 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon ground cumin\n\n1 teaspoon ground paprika\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground chilli\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground ginger\n\n1 cup salt-reduced chicken stock\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\npinch saffron threads\n\n\u00bc cup green stuffed olives\n\n  cup chopped coriander leaves\n\nCouscous\n\n1\u00bc cups water\n\n1 cup couscous\n\n2 tablespoons chopped dates (optional)\n\n\u00bc cup toasted flaked almonds\n\nHeat the oil in a large heavy-based pan on high. Cook the chicken pieces in 2 batches for 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Transfer to a plate.\n\nSaut\u00e9 the onion and garlic in the pan for 4\u20135 minutes, until tender. Add the cumin, paprika, chilli and ginger and stir for 1 minute until aromatic.\n\nReturn the chicken pieces to the pan with the stock, water and saffron and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Stir in the olives and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes until the liquid has reduced slightly.\n\nMeanwhile, prepare the couscous by bringing the water to the boil in a small saucepan. Add the couscous and stir. Remove from the heat and stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, and use your fingers to rub out any small lumps. Add the chopped dates, if you're using them, and top with the toasted almonds.\n\nStir the coriander leaves through the chicken tagine. Serve with couscous and a green vegetable such as steamed green beans, asparagus or spinach.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup couscous and a generous serve of green beans) = 2415 kJ, 23 g fat (includes 6 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 505 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Coriander_**\n\nCoriander is packed with minerals like potassium and magnesium, with smaller amounts of iron and calcium. It's not short on vitamins either. Its seeds and roots have been used medicinally for centuries in Asia to treat digestive upsets and ease stiff joints.\nSunday\n\nDon't rush. Eat slowly, enjoying each mouthful. Chew each mouthful well and aim to be the last person to finish, not the first. Try to stretch out your meal to 15 minutes so that your stomach can send the signal to your brain's appetite centre that it's full (known as the 'eye\u2013mouth gap'). This will help ensure you leave the table feeling satisfied but not bloated.\n\nBreakfast\n\n  Poached eggs on wholegrain toast with grilled tomato and mushrooms\n\nSnack\n\n  Handful of dried apricots and almonds\n\nLunch\n\n  Bowl of pea and ham soup and a thick slice of rye toast\n\nSnack\n\n  Toasted wholegrain English muffin with tomato and reduced-fat cheese\n\nDinner\n\n  Slow-cooked Lamb Shanks (opposite), served with mashed potato and green vegetables or a green salad of your choice\n\n  Almond wafer biscuits with fresh pears\n\n_**Energy tip: Laughter the best medicine**_\n\nLaughter is a great stress buster too! A good laugh improves your outlook and wellbeing. Research shows a really serious belly-laugh can trigger the release of endorphins, the body's natural pain-killers, which also produce a feeling of exhilaration or wellbeing. So enjoy a laugh more often and you'll feel brighter.\n**Slow-cooked lamb shanks**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   2 hours 40 minutes\n\n6 lamb shanks, all fat and sinews scraped from bones\n\n2 tablespoons flour\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n2 onions, finely chopped\n\n2 carrots, sliced\n\n1 stalk celery, sliced\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes\n\n1 cup red wine, beef stock or water\n\n1 tablespoon chopped rosemary\n\nPreheat the oven to moderately slow, 160\u00baC (325\u00baF). Dust the shanks lightly with flour, shaking off excess.\n\nHeat the oil in a large heavy-based frying pan on high. Cook the shanks for 3\u20134 minutes, turning, until browned all over. Transfer to an ovenproof casserole dish.\n\nAdd the onion, carrot and celery to the frying pan and saut\u00e9 for 5 minutes, until the onion is golden and tender. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Blend with the tomatoes, wine and rosemary and transfer to a casserole dish.\n\nBake, covered, for 2\u20132\u00bd hours, until the meat is very tender and virtually falling off the bone. Serve with mashed potato and vegetables or salad of your choice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup mash and a generous serve of green vegetables or salad) = 2690 kJ, 25 g fat (includes 10 g saturated fat), 8 g fibre, 260 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Rosemary_**\n\nRosemary is one of the most powerful of culinary herbs. Just a tablespoon or two of chopped fresh rosemary can significantly boost your intake of polyphenol antioxidants, which work to neutralise damaging free-radicals and cut the risk of heart disease. It's said to aid memory and is being trialled in a treatment for patients with Alzheimer's disease.\n\nRecipes with zest\n\nWhat you eat can really boost your zest for life. Our recipes for busy morning breakfasts, lazy brunches, meals or snacks in minutes, dinners for families or for entertaining, scrumptious desserts and tasty treats are rich in slow carbohydrates, lean protein, the good fats and lots of fibre.\n\nSo get cooking and boost your zest for life!\nBreakfast and brunch\n\nYou've heard it many times before, but it's worth repeating. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.\n\nBreakfast literally 'breaks the fast' after the night's sleep. It refuels the brain and body for the day ahead, so you can concentrate and have better problem-solving abilities, it 'switches on' your metabolism to help you burn kilojoules faster and it stops those mid-morning hunger pangs that entice you to grab a doughnut or pastry.\n\nChildren who skip breakfast are more likely to suffer fatigue or irritability and don't fare as well at morning lessons. As a minimum, a child should eat a banana (or another piece of fresh fruit) and drink a glass of milk before setting off to school.\n\nUnless you have a physically demanding job or play a lot of sport, a light cereal-and-toast style of breakfast is perfectly adequate and will meet your morning nutrition needs. Here's a checklist of the best foods to eat:\n\n\u2022 fruit, eaten whole or cut up over cereal. Fruit juice is a quick alternative with the same valuable vitamin C, but it has virtually no fibre\n\n\u2022 wholegrain cereal, muesli, high-fibre bran cereals (especially for anyone who needs extra fibre), or porridge sweetened with a little sugar or honey and moistened with skim milk or juice\n\n\u2022 milk or yoghurt, or milk and yoghurt whipped up with fruit into a simple smoothie\n\n\u2022 wholemeal or mixed grain bread, toast or muffins topped with Vegemite, peanut butter, ricotta and honey, cottage cheese with slices of pear and chopped walnuts, baked beans, mushrooms etc.\n\n\u2022 egg (boiled, poached or microwaved) with wholemeal or wholegrain toast and baked beans or grilled tomatoes (optional)\n\n\u2022 milk, juice, tea or coffee.\n\nNone of us has much time to spare in the morning. That's why our suggestions in this chapter are very quick and easy to prepare \u2013 even a delicious cooked brekkie can be on the table in 30 minutes.\n**Dried fruit compote**\n\n_If you are short of time, microwave the tea and fruit mixture on high (100%) power for 5 minutes to speed up the re-hydration process._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nStanding time   5 minutes and overnight\n\n\u00bd cup dried apricots\n\n\u00bd cup pitted prunes\n\n\u00bd cup dried peaches\n\n\u00bd cup dried pears\n\n\u00bd cup dried apple slices\n\n6 dried figs\n\n6 cloves\n\n2 cinnamon sticks\n\n4 strips orange peel\n\n4 tea bags, your choice of flavour\n\n\u00bc cup caster sugar\n\n3 cups boiling water\n\nno-fat vanilla yoghurt and chopped pistachio nuts to serve\n\nIn a large bowl, combine the apricots, prunes, peaches, pears, apple slices and figs with the cloves, cinnamon sticks and orange peel.\n\nPlace the tea bags and caster sugar in a heat-proof bowl and pour on the boiling water. Stir to combine and dissolve the sugar then allow the mixture to infuse for 5 minutes.\n\nDiscard the tea bags and pour the liquid over the dried fruit. Mix everything together well, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill overnight.\n\nServe the compote topped with a dollop of yoghurt, and sprinkled with pistachio nuts. If you wish, add some fresh apple slices, orange segments or berries before serving.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a dollop of yoghurt and pistachio nuts) = 1725 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 13 g fibre, 40 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Tea_**\n\nBoth green tea and regular (black) tea are rich in powerful antioxidants known as catechins, which can lower your risk of heart disease and help to keep cancer at bay. Best of all, if you take your tea black, with no milk or sugar, it has no kilojoules and has the ability to both relax and revive you.\n**Home-made muesli**\n\n_This crunchy muesli will sustain you right through the morning until lunchtime. Stored in an airtight container, the mix will keep well for 2\u20133 weeks._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\n1\u00bc cups rolled oats\n\n1 cup oat bran\n\n1 cup dried fruit medley\n\n\u00bd cup sultanas\n\n\u00bc cup shredded coconut\n\n\u00bc cup slivered almonds\n\n1 tablespoon sunflower seeds\n\n1 tablespoon psyllium\n\nnatural low-fat yoghurt and maple syrup or honey to serve\n\nCombine all the ingredients in a large bowl and toss well.\n\nServe \u00bd cup muesli per person, topped with yoghurt and drizzled with maple syrup. Add fresh fruit and low-fat milk if you like.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  If you prefer toasted muesli, spread the mixture onto a baking tray and bake at 180\u00baC (350\u00baF) for 10\u201315 minutes until golden. There's no need to add any extra oil.\n\n  Add your favourite dried fruit, nuts and seeds, as well as (or instead of) the ones we suggest.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup yoghurt and a tablespoon of honey or maple syrup) = 1385 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 95 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Oats_**\n\nThe humble oat is a winner among grains. Traditional rolled oats oats have a low GI, which means that the carbohydrate is slowly absorbed into your system, keeping you satisfied for hours after eating. Oats are rich in the soluble type of fibre that can lower your cholesterol. They contain small amounts of 'good' fats \u2013 more than either wheat or rice. And they are nutritious, giving you B vitamins and vitamin E as well as protein and minerals.\n**Cinnamon, pear and date porridge**\n\n_Perfect porridge is about getting the right consistency for you and your family. For a 'runnier' texture, just add extra milk or water during cooking as required._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\n1 litre low-fat milk, plus extra to serve\n\n4 pears, cored, unpeeled and sliced, or canned pears, drained and chopped\n\n1\u00bd cups rolled oats\n\n1 cup chopped pitted dates (or prunes)\n\n1 tablespoon cinnamon sugar\n\nmaple syrup to serve (optional)\n\nIn a saucepan, combine the milk, pears, oats and dates and bring to the boil over a low heat, stirring constantly.\n\nSimmer the porridge for 10\u201315 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pears are tender. Remove from the heat.\n\nSpoon the porridge into 4 serving bowls, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and serve with extra milk and maple syrup, if desired. A sprinkle of chopped walnuts before serving adds a lovely crunch.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 2105 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 11 g fibre, 155 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Cinnamon_**\n\nIf you only have room for one spice in your kitchen, cinnamon is it! Research has revealed that small amounts of cinnamon, (around half a teaspoon or 3 grams), taken each day may lower blood sugar levels in diabetes. So be generous with the cinnamon; it goes beautifully in many desserts, such as creamy rice, baked custard, apple crumble, apple strudel and stewed pears.\n\n**Banana and berry breakfast smoothie**\n\n_This is the ideal 'whip up and serve in an instant' breakfast. For a thicker smoothie, double the amount of oat bran or breakfast biscuit. Feel free to experiment with other favourite fruits as well. Frozen mixed berries work particularly well in this smoothie._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   3 minutes\n\n1 litre vanilla soy milk, chilled\n\n2 ripe bananas, peeled and cut into chunks\n\n250 g strawberries (or mixed berries of choice)\n\n1 breakfast biscuit such as Weet-Bix or\n\nVita Brits, crumbled, or 1\/4 cup oat bran\n\nice to serve (optional)\n\nPlace all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth.\n\nServe immediately, over ice if you like.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1075 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 185 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Soy milk_**\n\nFoods made from soy beans are nutritional 'all-rounders'. Soy has twice as much protein as other beans \u2013 and it's the best quality protein the plant kingdom has to offer, including the 8 essential amino acids normally found in animal protein. Soy milk is enriched with calcium, to the same level as in milk. And it's an easy way to obtain soy's phyto-oestrogens, natural plant hormones known as isoflavones, that may help women through the menopause. Additionally, soy milk contains polyunsaturated oil, some omega-3 essential fatty acids and a number of B vitamins.\n**Buckwheat pancakes with mixed summer berries**\n\n_Here's a tip for cooking perfect pancakes if you haven't made them before. After you've poured the batter into the pan, wait for the bubbles that form on the surface to begin to break before turning them._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\nStanding time   30 minutes\n\n\u00bd cup self-raising flour\n\n\u00bd cup buckwheat flour\n\n1 tablespoon caster sugar\n\n1\u00bc cups buttermilk\n\n1 egg\n\n250 g strawberries, hulled and quartered\n\n150 g raspberries\n\n150 g blueberries\n\n1 tablespoon icing sugar\n\nspray oil\n\nlow-fat vanilla yoghurt to serve\n\nSift the self-raising flour into a bowl, then stir in the buckwheat flour, followed by the sugar, and make a well in the centre.\n\nWhisk the buttermilk and egg together in a jug. Pour into the dry ingredients, then mix slowly, drawing in the flour to make a smooth batter. Cover and allow to stand for 30 minutes.\n\nIn another bowl, combine the berries and icing sugar and set aside.\n\nHeat a non-stick frying pan (large enough to cook 2 pancakes at a time), on medium. Spray with a little oil.\n\nPour \u00bc cup of batter into the pan for each pancake, making sure they are well spaced. Cook for 1\u20132 minutes until bubbles form on the surface. Turn the pancakes and cook the other side for a further 1 minute until just golden. Transfer to a plate, cover with a tea towel and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining batter to make 8 pancakes.\n\nTo serve, place 2 warm pancakes on each plate. If they go cold, you can reheat them in the microwave on high (100%) power for 20 seconds. Top with a spoonful of berries and a dollop of yoghurt.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nBlend together 200 g low-fat ricotta, \u00bd cup low-fat vanilla yoghurt and \u00bc teaspoon ground cinnamon. Use as a topping to dollop on top of the berries. Drizzle with honey or maple syrup.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a dollop of yoghurt) = 1130 kJ, 2 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 210 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Buckwheat_**\n\nBuckwheat is a good source of protein, two of the B group vitamins (thiamin and niacin) as well as magnesium and iron. It's a handy flour to use if you want to reduce your reliance on wheat. Buckwheat is derived from the seed of a grass and is not technically a cereal grain, but it's used in similar ways to bulgur wheat or wheat flour. It's free of gluten and has a low GI. It's also high in soluble fibre and contains several interesting phyto-chemicals such as rutin.\n\n**Rhubarb muffins**\n\n_Ever wondered how to get muffins to rise evenly? Simply drop the batter into the muffin pan in one go and don't top up with extra batter later. Topping up is what causes uneven rising. Don't worry about a few lumps of flour in the batter \u2013 they help create that characteristic crumbly appearance._\n\nMakes 12\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n2\u00bd cups self-raising flour\n\n1 teaspoon mixed spice\n\n1 cup brown sugar\n\n1 cup buttermilk\n\n125 g light margarine, melted\n\n1 egg\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n2 cups chopped fresh rhubarb (use frozen if fresh is unavailable)\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray a 12-hole muffin pan lightly with oil, or line with paper patty cases.\n\nSift the flour and spice together into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar.\n\nIn a jug, whisk together the buttermilk, melted margarine, egg and vanilla.\n\nMake a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour in the buttermilk mixture all at once and stir until just combined \u2013 about 16 strokes is all you need.\n\nCarefully fold in the rhubarb. Spoon the mixture in even quantities into the muffin pan, until each mould is two-thirds full.\n\nBake for 25\u201330 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nTry making a pear and streusel muffin for a delicious change. Replace the rhubarb with 2 ripe pears (peeled, cored and chopped), and \u00bc cup chopped glac\u00e9 ginger. To make the streusel topping, rub 30 g light margarine into   cup brown sugar, then add 2 tablespoons plain flour and \u00bc teaspoon ground ginger and rub to a fine crumb consistency. Sprinkle over each muffin before baking.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 925 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 265 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Rhubarb_**\n\nRhubarb has little fat, little sodium and is low in kilojoules, even with the addition of a little sugar for sweetness. It contributes fibre, about the same as celery, another stringy vegetable \u2013 remember technically rhubarb is a vegetable, but we eat it as a fruit! Its strong flavour is good to include if you're on a diet \u2013 it is surprisingly satisfying without overloading you with sugar or kilojoules.\n**Banana and nut loaf**\n\n_Buttermilk is great for baking. It not only adds flavour, but its acid content reacts with raising agents and can give baked products a lighter texture. If you don't have any to hand in your fridge, use the same amount of orange juice or low-fat milk instead._\n\nMakes 1 cake\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour\n\n125 g light margarine\n\n1 cup brown sugar\n\n3 eggs\n\n1\u00bd cups wholemeal self-raising flour\n\n1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)\n\n\u00bd cup desiccated coconut\n\n\u00bd cup buttermilk\n\n  cup chopped mixed nuts of choice\n\n  cup chopped dried apricots\n\n\u00bd teaspoon mixed spice\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Lightly grease a 10 x 20 cm loaf pan.\n\nPlace the margarine and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until the mixture is pale brown and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. If you don't have an electric mixer, cream the ingredients together with a wooden spoon.\n\nLightly fold in the flour, bananas, coconut, buttermilk, nuts, apricots and spice, until well combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.\n\nBake for 50\u201360 minutes until cooked when tested with a skewer. Do this by inserting the skewer into the centre of the loaf. If it comes out clean and dry the loaf is cooked. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Serve sliced plain or toasted.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1115 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 200 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Buttermilk_**\n\nButtermilk with its thick, slightly acidic flavour is similar in food value to skim milk. It's low in fat, a good source of protein and high in the minerals calcium and phosphorus. Traditionally it was the liquid drained from the churn as butter was being made. Today it is made by culturing skim milk and is more akin to yoghurt \u2013 and it's pre-digested so it easier to digest for those with digestive troubles.\n**Baked eggs with tomato and spinach**\n\n_If you don't have prosciutto, you can make these baked eggs with slices of light ham._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n\u00bd cup baby spinach leaves\n\nspray oil\n\n1 small red onion, finely chopped\n\n2 slices prosciutto, finely chopped\n\n125 g cherry tomatoes, halved\n\n8 eggs\n\n  cup grated reduced-fat tasty cheese\n\n2 tablespoons finely chopped chives\n\nwholegrain toast fingers to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderately slow, 160\u00baC (325\u00baF). Lightly grease four 1\u00bd cup ramekins and arrange them on a baking tray.\n\nDivide the spinach leaves evenly between the ramekin dishes.\n\nHeat a medium frying pan on high. Spray with oil. Saut\u00e9 the onion and prosciutto for 3\u20134 minutes until the onion is tender. Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.\n\nTransfer the onion mixture to a bowl. Whisk with half the eggs, half the cheese and all the chives. Spoon the mixture evenly into the prepared ramekins.\n\nBreak the remaining eggs, one at a time, carefully into each ramekin. Sprinkle each with an even amount of the remaining cheese. Bake for 20\u201325 minutes until the egg yolks are just set. Serve with wholegrain toast fingers.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nTo reduce the quantity of eggs by half, don't add them to the saut\u00e9ed onion mixture. Just use 1 egg per ramekin \u2013 spoon it onto the top of the onion mixture as described above.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1215 kJ, 16 g fat (including 6 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 585 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Eggs_**\n\nAn egg is a compact package of nutrition. For a very modest 355 kilojoules (85 calories), it gives you every vitamin except vitamin C, plenty of protein and a host of essential minerals. Particularly worth mentioning is vitamin B12, which is hard to obtain on vegetarian diets, and folate, a B vitamin which can help minimise birth defects. Eggs are a surprising source of two carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, natural compounds related to the beta-carotene in carrots and usually found only in vegetables and fruits. These two anti-oxidants are now under study for their role in preventing macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness as we age.\n**Big healthy breakfast with baked beans**\n\n_To help the eggs 'set' faster, splash some hot water over them during cooking. And if you like your eggs 'hollandaise style', top the eggs with a little low-fat whole egg mayonnaise._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\n4 flat mushrooms, trimmed\n\nspray oil\n\n4 slices prosciutto\n\n1 bunch asparagus, trimmed\n\n1 tablespoon water\n\n1 tablespoon vinegar\n\n4 eggs\n\n420 g can baked beans\n\n4 wholemeal English muffins, halved and toasted\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nArrange the mushrooms in a baking tray. Spray with oil and bake for 10\u201315 minutes until tender.\n\nPlace the prosciutto on another baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 3\u20135 minutes until crisp.\n\nPlace the asparagus in a microwave-safe dish with the water. Cover with plastic wrap and cook, on high (100%) power for 1\u20131\u00bd minutes. Stand for 3 minutes.\n\nMeanwhile, bring a frying pan of water to a gentle simmer and add the vinegar (this helps the eggs to set). Poach the eggs one at a time by breaking each egg onto a saucer, and sliding it gently into the water. Bring the water back to a simmer and poach until it is cooked to your liking.\n\nWhile the eggs are poaching, heat the baked beans in a saucepan or in the microwave, according to the instructions on the can.\n\nTo serve, arrange the toasted muffins on serving plates. Top each with a spoonful of baked beans, an egg, and accompany with a mushroom, a few asparagus spears and crispy prosciutto.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1350 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 9 g fibre, 820 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Baked beans_**\n\nThe humble can of baked beans is a nutritional package of protein, fibre, slowly digested carbohydrate and a host of vitamins and minerals. They are a much better choice than canned spaghetti. If you're trying to cut back on salt, look for salt-reduced varieties at your supermarket. Keep a couple of cans in your cupboard to have on multigrain toast for a satisfying light meal when you don't feel like cooking.\n\n**Celeriac rosti**\n\n_If you haven't prepared celeriac before, here's a tip. Squeeze the grated celeriac very thoroughly (and the potato too), to remove any excess liquid before combining them with the other ingredients. Rosti make a delicious accompaniment to many meals._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\n500 g celeriac, peeled and grated\n\n500 g potato, peeled and grated\n\n2 eggs\n\n2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard\n\n1 teaspoon chilli flakes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil (or spray oil)\n\ncrispy prosciutto and baby spinach to serve\n\nIn a large bowl, combine the celeriac, potato, eggs, mustard and chilli flakes.\n\nHeat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan on medium.\n\nDivide the rosti mixture into 12 patties. Add to the frying pan in batches of 6, pressing down firmly with a spatula to form an even disc.\n\nCook for 4\u20135 minutes on each side until golden brown. Spray the pan with oil between batches, as required.\n\nDrain the rosti on a paper towel and keep warm in a preheated oven until ready to serve. Serve with prosciutto and baby spinach.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 790 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 220 mg sodium\n\n**_Superfood: Celeriac_**\n\nThis large round root, with its celery-like flavour, makes a nice change from the blander potato in winter months. You can serve it boiled, mashed or roasted and it's a wonderful addition to soup. The French even grate it and add to salad with a little vinaigrette dressing or mayonnaise. It adds lots of fibre and potassium plus a little vitamin C if you eat it raw. It has little starch and is low in kilojoules.\n**Corn fritters**\n\n_If you are using fresh corn, simply remove the kernels by slicing along the cob with a sharp knife. You can also replace the wholemeal flour with the same amount of plain white, buckwheat or rice flour._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n1 cup wholemeal plain flour\n\n1 teaspoon baking powder\n\n\u00bd cup reduced-fat grated cheddar cheese\n\n2 tablespoons chopped chives\n\n2 tablespoons chopped coriander\n\n1 cup low-fat milk\n\n2 eggs\n\n420 g can corn kernels, drained spray oil\n\nsweet chilli sauce, smoked salmon or crisp prosciutto, and chives to serve\n\nSift the flour and baking powder together into a large bowl, returning the husks left in the sieve to the bowl. Stir in the cheese, chives and coriander. Mix well.\n\nIn a jug, whisk the milk and eggs lightly to combine. Add to the dry ingredients with the corn, and beat the mixture with a wooden spoon to thoroughly combine.\n\nHeat a large non-stick frying pan on medium. Spray with a little oil. Drop 2 generous tablespoons of mixture into the pan for each fritter and cook for 2\u20133 minutes on each side until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining batter (this mixture makes about 12 fritters).\n\nServe with sweet chilli sauce, smoked salmon or crisp prosciutto. Fritters are best eaten immediately, but you can reheat them in the microwave for a few seconds if necessary.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a slice of smoked salmon or prosciutto and a dollop of sweet chilli sauce) = 1150 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 945 mg sodium\n\n**Mushrooms and tomatoes on toast**\n\n_To prepare the mushrooms, simply trim the stems and wipe the mushrooms with a damp piece of paper towel to remove any dirt._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   40 minutes\n\n8 roma tomatoes, halved (or use round tomatoes, quartered)\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\n30 g light margarine\n\n400 g button mushrooms, quartered\n\n1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley, plus leaves to garnish\n\n8 slices seeded bread, toasted\n\nPreheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF). Arrange the tomatoes in a single layer in a large baking tray, cut-side up. Drizzle with oil and top with a good grinding of black pepper.\n\nBake for 25\u201330 minutes until the tomatoes begin to collapse.\n\nMeanwhile, melt the margarine in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Saut\u00e9 the mushrooms for 5\u20136 minutes, until golden brown. Stir in the chopped parsley.\n\nServe hot toast topped with the tomatoes and mushrooms. Sprinkle with extra parsley leaves.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Instead of roma tomatoes, try sweet cherry tomatoes for a change. You'll only need to bake them for 15\u201320 minutes.\n\n  For a great taste of summer, try sprinkling the tomatoes with finely shredded basil before baking.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 2 slices bread) = 1415 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 8 g fibre, 480 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Mushrooms_**\n\nMushrooms impart loads of flavour with very little fat or kilojoules. They are often under-rated in nutritional value \u2013 they are actually an excellent source of many of the B group vitamins. For example, 100 grams of mushrooms provides over 50 per cent of our daily requirement of niacin, which is equal to a small lean steak. Mushrooms are also a source of vitamin D.\n**Cheese and herb omelette**\n\n_To cook the omelette evenly (and faster), tilt the pan a little during cooking. This allows the uncooked mixture to come into contact with the hot surface of the pan. Add saut\u00e9ed sliced mushrooms to the omelette as well, if you like._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\n8 eggs\n\n  cup water\n\n\u00bc cup chopped mixed herbs (parsley, basil, chives)\n\nspray oil\n\n  cup reduced-fat grated tasty cheese\n\n2 tomatoes, chopped\n\n\u00bd cup chopped light ham\n\nwholegrain toast to serve\n\nIn a jug, whisk together the eggs, water and herbs until well combined.\n\nHeat an omelette pan on medium. Spray with oil. Pour in quarter of the egg mixture \u2013 it should begin to set around the edge of the pan almost immediately.\n\nUse a spatula to pull the edge of the omelette in from the side of the pan, allowing the uncooked mixture to heat and cook.\n\nWhen the egg mixture no longer runs freely and the surface looks creamy, sprinkle on a quarter of the cheese, tomatoes and ham.\n\nFold the omelette in half to cover the filling and gently slide onto a plate and serve immediately with hot wholegrain toast. Repeat with the remaining egg mixture and filling to make 4 omelettes.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1350 kJ, 13 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 785 mg sodium\n\n_**Super ingredient: Green herbs**_\n\nThe culinary herbs that grace our meals can make a sizeable contribution to our nutrition intake \u2013 if we eat enough of them.\n\n\u2022 Basil, parsley and mint are high in mono-terpenes, which are thought to have cancer-delaying properties, especially with mammary tumours.\n\n\u2022 Rosemary, thyme and oregano have been found to be high in polyphenols, a class of antioxidant that may cut the risk of heart disease.\n\n\u2022 Parsley is also high in coumarins, noted for their anti-coagulant and anti-bacterial effects, while extracts of rosemary are being tested to see if they can be used as a natural food-grade preservative.\n\nMost fresh green herbs are also a rich source of potassium and magnesium, with smaller amounts of iron and calcium \u2013 as well as being high in vitamin C, folate, vitamin B1 and vitamin K.\nLight meals and snacks\n\nHow often have you wanted something light to eat but not felt like a huge meal? We've gathered together our favourite sandwiches, soups and salads for you, and we've created some healthier, lighter versions of other favourites, such as quiche, p\u00e2t\u00e9, risotto and pizza. There's even a light laksa to try!\n\nMany of these light dishes can be prepared for lunch, which these days, sadly, is almost in danger of disappearing. Everyone knows that it's important to eat a good breakfast to provide fuel for the morning ahead, and dinner is a nice way to wind down at the end of a hectic day. But lunch is often missed out, either because we get too busy to stop or because we're grazing on other snacks throughout the day to keep us going. We think this is a bad idea!\n\nLunch helps you maintain momentum during the day and avoid that mid-afternoon slump called the '3 pm low'. Generally speaking, this slump occurs either because you've eaten an inadequate lunch, or because you've skipped it altogether. As a result, you end up feeling drained of energy, unable to concentrate and you are much less efficient.\n\nDesktop dining is not conducive to working well. If you can, take a 10-minute break and change location to eat a healthy lunch, such as a sandwich made with wholegrain bread and lots of salad filling. And if you have access to a microwave at work, bring in leftovers from dinner to reheat for lunch the next day. Or bring frozen soup, which can thaw during the morning and be reheated in the microwave. Both of these options make a great change from salad and sandwiches, and are especially good in the winter months.\n\nIf you eat out at lunchtime, try not to order a huge meal that will put you to sleep. Heavy meals prime you for a nap rather than a productive afternoon's work.\n\nMaking interesting school lunches for kids is always a challenge, particularly if refrigeration is not possible and the food needs to be appealing several hours after it is made. The trick is to keep it simple, especially for younger kids. Peanut butter and cheese make perfectly adequate sandwich fillings \u2013 even if you get sick of them! Save fillings such as ham or chicken for when the weather is cooler and there is little potential risk of food poisoning.\n**Spicy salmon p\u00e2t\u00e9**\n\n_This is delicious as part of a colourful antipasto platter. Serve it with crudit\u00e9s, dips, lean ham slices, artichoke hearts, reduced-fat cheeses, gherkins and olives \u2013 black and green._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\n200 g can pink or red salmon, drained and flaked\n\n100 g low-fat ricotta (fresh from the deli, or a supermarket tub)\n\n2 green onions (shallots), finely chopped\n\n1 tablespoon chopped parsley\n\n2 teaspoons sweet chilli sauce\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\ncrispbread, wholegrain toast or rolls to serve\n\nPlace the salmon, ricotta, green onion, parsley, chilli sauce and lemon juice in a medium-sized bowl. Blend until smooth.\n\nServe as a dip, or spread onto crispbread, wholegrain toast or rolls.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nIf you like, stir through half a chopped avocado, but this will increase the fat content of the p\u00e2t\u00e9.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 755 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 310 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Ricotta_**\n\nRicotta \u2013 the low-fat type \u2013 is one of the most useful ingredients in your kitchen. It has less than 5 per cent fat, very little cholesterol, no added salt and adds protein and B vitamins. Made from whey it has around half the calcium of cheddar cheese, but is still a significant source. Research has found that whey protein can help muscles recover after a bout of exercise. It is quickly digested by the body and provides an ideal mix of high-quality amino acids. Best of all, ricotta is a great substitute for high-fat cream cheese or sour cream in dips and p\u00e2t\u00e9s, as in this recipe.\n**Cucumber dip**\n\n_Make this dip up to 2 hours before serving (just cover and keep chilled) and serve with crudit\u00e9s \u2013 sliced mixed raw mushrooms, carrots, celery, capsicum, radishes, green beans and cherry tomatoes are all delicious accompaniments._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n200 g tub low-fat natural yoghurt\n\n1 Lebanese cucumber, finely chopped\n\n2 green onions (shallots), thinly sliced\n\n2 tablespoons chopped mixed herbs (flat-leaf parsley, oregano, basil)\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n\u00bc teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)\n\nmixed raw vegetables (crudit\u00e9s) to serve\n\nPlace all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir well to combine, then spoon into a serving bowl.\n\nServe with mixed raw vegetables (crudit\u00e9s).\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Char-grill or roast assorted vegetables to use for dipping.\n\n  Toast Turkish bread fingers, sliced pitta or sliced lavosh until golden and crisp to use for dipping.\n\n  Pan-fry, char-grill or barbecue chicken, lamb, prawns or fish and serve topped with the dip and steamed vegetables for a complete meal.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup crudit\u00e9s) = 170 kJ, negligible fat, negligible saturated fat, 2 g fibre, 55 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Yoghurt_**\n\nPacked with calcium, protein and B vitamins (especially riboflavin, which is needed for healthy skin and eyes), yoghurt offers the nutrients of milk but in a more concentrated form. It's more easily digested than milk, and suitable for people with lactose intolerance. Studies show the protein, fat and lactose it contains are better absorbed and the calcium is more available. Additionally, it is low GI \u2013 the perfect snack for people with diabetes.\n\n**Beef and bean burritos**\n\n_To keep the remaining avocado half to use another day, just brush the flesh with a little lemon juice, wrap it in plastic wrap and store in the fridge. If possible keep the half with the stone still attached._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   12 minutes spray oil\n\n400 g rump steak, trimmed and sliced thinly\n\n1 red onion, halved and sliced\n\n420 g can of four bean mix, rinsed and drained\n\n1 cup water\n\n50 g packet reduced-salt burrito seasoning\n\n8 burrito tortillas\n\n\u00bd ripe avocado, lightly mashed\n\n8 lettuce leaves, shredded\n\n\u00bd cup grated reduced-fat mozzarella cheese\n\nHeat a large frying pan on high. Spray with oil. Cook the beef and onion in batches for 4\u20135 minutes until well browned.\n\nStir in the beans, water and burrito seasoning. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously. Then lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.\n\nMeanwhile, warm the tortillas according to the packet instructions. Spread each with a little mashed avocado.\n\nTop each burrito with lettuce and a spoonful of the beef and bean mixture.\n\nSprinkle with cheese, roll up securely and serve straight away.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  You can also use chicken strips or chicken or beef mince for these, or add some diced tomato.\n\n  For a vegetarian version, replace the beef with an additional can of beans of your choice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1800 kJ, 18 g fat (includes 7 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 995 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Four bean mix_**\n\nBeans \u2013 whether kidney, soy, haricot, cannellini, broad beans or chickpeas \u2013 are one of our best friends. They have almost no fat and are packed with fibre, protein (important for vegetarians), B vitamins and minerals. Their GI of around 30, is one of the lowest of any carbohydrate \u2013 so they fill you up and keep hunger pangs away.\n**Steak sandwich**\n\n_For a great look and an extra flavour boost for a sandwich with a difference, cook the steak and the bread on a char-grill._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n2 onions, sliced\n\n\u00bc cup vinegar\n\n2 tablespoons brown sugar\n\n4 beef minute steaks or veal steaks\n\n4 wholegrain or rye rolls, split\n\n1 tablespoon Dijon mustard\n\n1 bunch rocket, trimmed\n\nHeat oil in a large frying pan on medium. Add the onions to the pan and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Blend in the vinegar and sugar and simmer, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes.\n\nSpoon the onions into a mixing bowl and return the frying pan to a high heat. Add the steaks and cook for 1\u20132 minutes on each side.\n\nToast the rolls and spread each one with mustard. Serve topped with a generous mound of rocket, a piece of steak and a spoonful of onions. Add the top half of the roll and serve straight away.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  If preferred, use thick slices of wholemeal bread instead of rolls.\n\n  Roasted tomatoes and sliced beetroot make delicious additions.\n\n  For a change, try using thin slices of chicken breast instead of steak.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1495 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 425 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Rocket_**\n\nRocket (also known as arugula) rates highly among the salad leaves. It is exceedingly rich in many vitamins (such as beta-carotene and vitamin C), minerals and antioxidants. It has a unique peppery, mustardy flavour, showing that it belongs to the cabbage family that are such nutrition stars. Best of all, it's low in kilojoules (calories) with virtually no fat or sodium. Eat up!\n**Our favourite wrap**\n\n_We made our wrap in a sandwich press, if you don't have one, cook the wrap in a lightly oiled frying pan over medium heat and turn once or twice._\n\nServes 1\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   2 minutes\n\n1 wholemeal pitta bread, mountain bread or lavosh\n\n1 tablespoon light mayonnaise\n\n\u00bd cup sliced poached chicken breast, or skinless barbecued chicken\n\n\u00bc avocado, thinly sliced\n\n\u00bc bunch rocket\n\nPreheat a sandwich press.\n\nSpread your choice of bread with the mayonnaise and top with chicken, avocado and rocket.\n\nRoll up and toast lightly in sandwich press for 1\u20132 minutes. Serve immediately.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nTry low-fat ham, tomato, bocconcini, mustard and spinach as an alternative filling.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 2240 kJ, 24 g fat (includes 5 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 640 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Avocados_**\n\nAvocados are in a class of their own. At 23 per cent fat, they are rich and filling \u2013 but it is largely monounsaturated, one of the healthiest fats around. Avocados are also rich in niacin, vitamin E and potassium. Contrary to what was long believed, avocados contain no cholesterol and Australian research reveals that an avocado-enriched diet is actually quite effective at lowering blood cholesterol \u2013 more effective, in fact, than a standard low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.\n**Emma's sandwich**\n\n_Sandwiches make a great snack or light meal in minutes. But they do taste better made with fresh bread. Keep a loaf in the freezer and simply defrost as many slices as you need each time. This salad combo is a great favourite with Jennene's daughter._\n\nServes 1\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\n2 slices wholegrain bread\n\n4 slices tomato\n\n4 slices cucumber\n\n2 slices beetroot\n\n\u00bc cup alfalfa sprouts\n\n\u00bc cup grated carrot\n\n1 slice reduced-fat fetta cheese\n\n1 tablespoon chopped black olives\n\nTop one slice of bread with toppings. Finish with second slice of bread. Halve and serve.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nThese are numerous, of course, but we also particularly like using reduced-fat tasty cheese and lettuce or rocket in place of alfalfa.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1215 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 945 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Alfalfa sprouts_**\n\nIn food value, sprouts rate midway between a dry seed and a green vegetable. Compared to the dry seed from which they grow, sprouts have 3\u20135 times more vitamin C. However, because sprouts have 8 times more water than a dry seed, their other nutrients are diluted, making them less concentrated in B vitamins. Crunchy, light and tasty, they are nutritious \u2013 but not as impressively as is often claimed.\n**Tuna salad ni\u00e7oise**\n\nFor deliciously crisp, al dente vegies, blanch them by plunging into boiling water for 1 minute and then refreshing in cold water to stop the cooking process. This salad is also delicious when all the ingredients are warm.\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n350 g chat potatoes, quartered\n\n4 eggs\n\n1 oak leaf lettuce, leaves separated, washed and dried\n\n425 g can tuna in olive oil, drained and flaked\n\n250 g cherry tomatoes, halved\n\n125 g green beans, trimmed and blanched\n\n\u00bc cup pitted kalamata olives\n\ncrusty sourdough bread to serve\n\nDressing\n\n2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon white wine vinegar\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice\n\n1 tablespoon Dijon mustard\n\nCook the potatoes in a saucepan of boiling water for 8\u201310 minutes until tender. Drain well and set aside to cool.\n\nMeanwhile, place the eggs in a saucepan of cold water and bring it to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 3\u20134 minutes. Cool under cold running water. When cool enough to handle, peel the eggs and cut them into quarters.\n\nIn a large bowl, combine the potatoes with the lettuce leaves, tuna, tomatoes and beans.\n\nTo make the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a jug and whisk them together well.\n\nPour the dressing over the salad and toss well. Serve topped with the quartered eggs and olives, and with crusty bread.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  For a more traditional ni\u00e7oise salad, add some chopped anchovies.\n\n  And for a delicious change, try using fresh tuna, char-grilled and broken into rough flakes.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1905 kJ, 24 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 635 mg sodium\n\n**Prawn laksa**\n\n_Overcooked seafood becomes tough. Prawns are cooked when they are opaque and orangey pink \u2013 they cook very quickly \u2013 2\u20133 minutes for small prawns and about 5 for larger ones._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   5 minutes\n\n\u00bc cup Thai red curry paste (or laksa paste)\n\n2 x 375 ml creamy coconut flavoured light evaporated milk\n\n2 cups water\n\n1 cup low-salt chicken stock\n\n500 g green prawns, peeled and de-veined, tails intact\n\n250 g rice stick noodles\n\n1 cup bean sprouts\n\n2 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\nsliced chilli, coriander leaves and lime wedges to serve\n\nHeat a large saucepan on high. Cook the curry paste, stirring, for 1 minute until fragrant. Stir in the coconut milk, water and stock. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes.\n\nAdd the prawns and noodles and simmer gently for 2\u20133 minutes, stirring occasionally.\n\nDivide the noodles, sprouts and prawns between 4 bowls. Pour on the soup.\n\nServe topped with the green onion, sliced chilli and coriander leaves and a lime wedge on the side.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Add other Asian greens of your choice.\n\n  This laksa can also be made with sliced chicken, mixed seafood or tofu.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1725 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 865 mg sodium\n\n**_What's in a name?_**\n\nOften confused, here are descriptions to help you work out which onion is which:   \n**Green onion:** an immature onion with an unformed bulb, milder in flavour than a spring onion. Used in soups, salads and stir-fries. These onions are sometimes referred to as 'shallots'.   \n**Spring onion:** an immature onion with a semi-developed bulb (about the size of a small pickling onion). Can be used as the green onion, but is stronger in flavour.   \n**Eschalot:** this is a mild onion, about the size of a large garlic bulb, with brown skin and purplish flesh. It has a refined flavour and is used in both French and Asian cooking in particular to infuse sauces such as b\u00e9arnaise.\n\n**Pumpkin and red lentil soup**\n\n_Croutons always seem to make soup extra-special. It's easy to make simple ones by just cutting thick slices of toast into cubes. Otherwise cut thick slices of wholegrain bread into cubes and bake them in a moderate oven (180\u00b0C \/350\u00b0F) for 5\u201310 minutes, or until golden brown._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n2 onions, chopped, or 1 leek, thinly sliced\n\n1 rasher rindless bacon, chopped (optional)\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n2 teaspoons curry powder\n\n700 g pumpkin, peeled, seeded and chopped\n\n1 carrot, cut into chunks\n\n1 potato, cut into chunks\n\n\u00bd cup red lentils\n\n6 cups water or low-salt vegetable stock\n\n2 cups low-fat milk\n\nchopped parsley, croutons and crusty bread to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large saucepan on high. Saut\u00e9 the onion, bacon, garlic and curry powder for 2\u20133 minutes until the onion has softened.\n\nAdd the pumpkin, carrot, potato and lentils to the pan and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Pour on the water or stock and bring to the boil.\n\nLower the heat and simmer, covered, for 25\u201330 minutes until the vegetables are very tender.\n\nPur\u00e9e the mixture using a hand blender or food processor. Stir in the milk.\n\nWhen ready to serve, reheat the soup gently and serve sprinkled with parsley and a few croutons. Accompany with crusty bread.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nThis soup is also delicious made with sweet potato. Replace the potato and carrot with 4 sweet potatoes and add a little brown sugar to the pan as they are saut\u00e9ing.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1325 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 345 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Pumpkin_**\n\nA versatile and nutritious vegetable, the pumpkin is a rich source of beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the body. Beta-carotene is needed for eyesight and is currently being studied for its role as an antioxidant. It helps fight off dangerous free radicals that would otherwise damage cell membranes and DNA genetic material.\n**Chicken and sweetcorn soup**\n\n_Chicken and sweetcorn soup is often served with 'egg flowers'. Whisk an egg lightly and stir it quickly through the soup just before serving._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n2 cups low-salt chicken stock\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00bc cup sherry\n\n1 tablespoon grated ginger\n\n3 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 chicken breast fillet, thinly sliced\n\n400 g creamed corn\n\n50 g baby corn, halved lengthwise\n\n\u00bd bunch choy sum, sliced\n\n6 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\nsalt-reduced soy sauce to serve (optional)\n\ncrusty bread to serve\n\nIn a large saucepan combine the stock, water, sherry, ginger and garlic. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer for 3 minutes.\n\nStir in the chicken and corn and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the choy sum and green onions and simmer for another minute.\n\nLadle the soup into bowls and serve immediately with a drizzle of soy sauce if desired. Accompany with crusty bread.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  125 g of thinly sliced button mushrooms can be added to the soup.\n\n  Add some sliced chilli for added bite.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1215 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 815 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Choy sum_**\n\nChoy sum, like other Asian greens, is rich in beta-carotene, fibre, vitamin C and folate, as well as being an important source of calcium and iron. Because of their lower levels of oxalic acid (a compound that interferes with mineral absorption), the iron and calcium in Asian greens is more readily absorbed than from the traditional Western leafy greens such as spinach and silver beet.\n\n**Roasted tomato and capsicum soup with pesto**\n\n_For a lovely vibrant pesto, make it just before serving to prevent discoloration. This soup can also be made using just tomatoes or just capsicum._\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour 10 minutes\n\n8 large ripe tomatoes, halved\n\n12 garlic cloves, skin on\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil\n\n4 large red capsicums, seeded and quartered\n\n4 cups low-salt vegetable stock or water\n\ncrusty sourdough bread to serve\n\nPesto\n\n  cup basil leaves\n\n\u00bc cup olive oil\n\n2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts\n\n2 tablespoons grated parmesan\n\nPreheat oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nPlace the tomato halves and garlic cloves on a large baking tray and drizzle with olive oil. Place the capsicums on another baking tray, skin-side up.\n\nRoast both trays of vegetables for 50\u201360 minutes until the tomatoes collapse and the capsicum blisters and blackens. Cover the capsicum with plastic wrap and leave it to steam for 5 minutes. Carefully peel away the skin and any membranes.\n\nWhen the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze out the flesh and discard the skins.\n\nPlace the capsicums, tomatoes, garlic and half the stock into a food processor or blender. Process until smooth.\n\nTransfer the mixture to a large saucepan and stir in the remaining stock. Heat on medium, stirring occasionally, for 3\u20134 minutes, until the soup is hot. If it is very thick, you can thin it with a little more water.\n\nTo make the pesto, place all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process. Add a little stock if you like a smoother-textured pesto.\n\nServe the soup with a big dollop of pesto and some good crusty bread.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a dollop of pesto and 1 slice bread) = 1300 kJ, 19 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 935 mg sodium\n\n**Mango and chicken salad**\n\n_Although fresh is best, mango is not always available. Out of season, you can substitute canned or thawed frozen mango for fresh in this recipe. You can also use \u00bd sliced pawpaw instead of the mango \u2013 or use some of each._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\n1 small, hot barbecued chicken\n\n100 g mixed salad leaves\n\n50 g watercress\n\n1 mango, seed removed, peeled and cubed\n\n1 red onion, thinly sliced\n\n60 g reduced-fat fetta cheese, crumbled\n\n8 black olives\n\ncrusty sourdough bread to serve\n\nDressing\n\n\u00bd cup orange juice\n\n2 tablespoons red wine vinegar\n\n2 teaspoons grain mustard\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\nRemove all the skin and bones from the chicken. Break the meat into smallish pieces and place in a shallow dish.\n\nTo make the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a jug and whisk together well.\n\nPour over the chicken and leave to marinate for at least 15 minutes, basting occasionally.\n\nIn a large serving bowl, toss together the mixed leaves, watercress, mango, onion, fetta and olives.\n\nJust before serving, add the chicken with dressing to the salad and toss everything together well. Serve with crusty sourdough bread.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  You can also add \u00bd sliced avocado to the salad, but remember it will add to the fat content of the dish.\n\n  Instead of chicken, use cooked prawns, smoked salmon or trout (you won't need to marinate them).\n\n  A few sliced strawberries make a lovely summery addition to this salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1600 kJ, 15 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 555 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Mango_**\n\nMango is blessed with a nutritional bounty. High in beta-carotene and related carotenoids, this fruit is loaded with protective antioxidants. Mangoes are also a great source of vitamin C, the B vitamin folate and essential minerals such as potassium.\n\n**Chickpea salad with roasted vegetables**\n\n_We used olive oil to roast the vegetables, but if you would like to make a lighter version, you can simply spray the vegetables with oil before baking._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n500 g pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cubed\n\n2 zucchini, sliced\n\n1 red capsicum, seeded and sliced\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n420 g cans chickpeas, drained\n\n50 g baby spinach leaves\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped semi-dried tomatoes\n\nwholemeal pitta bread to serve (optional)\n\nDressing\n\n2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon red wine vinegar\n\n2 teaspoons chopped tarragon\n\n1 teaspoon Dijon mustard\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nScatter the pumpkin, zucchini and capsicum onto a baking dish and toss with the olive oil so they are evenly coated. Bake for 20\u201325 minutes until golden and tender.\n\nTo make the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a jug and whisk them together well.\n\nTransfer the roasted vegetables to a large serving bowl and add the chickpeas, spinach and tomatoes. Toss with the dressing and serve warm with pitta bread, if you like.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nFor a slightly lighter salad, replace 1 can of beans with some fluffy couscous. Pour 1 cup of couscous into a large bowl with 1 cup of boiling stock, water or white wine. Stir briefly, then leave to stand until all the liquid has been absorbed. Fluff with a fork to separate grains and toss through the salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd round of pitta) = 1565 kJ, 17 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 8 g fibre, 440 mg sodium\n\n**Spanish omelette with spinach and pancetta**\n\n_This omelette is easily adapted to a delicious vegetarian version by omitting the pancetta._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n3 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced, or sweet potato\n\n1 onion, thinly sliced\n\n4 slices pancetta, chopped\n\n6 eggs, lightly beaten\n\n30 g baby spinach, chopped plus extra leaves to serve\n\nspray oil\n\nextra baby spinach and wholegrain toast to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large non-stick frying pan on medium. Add the potatoes. Cook, covered, for 10\u201315 minutes, turning occasionally, until the potatoes are tender but not browned.\n\nAdd the onion and pancetta to the pan and cook, covered, for 4\u20135 minutes, until the onion is tender. Spoon the mixture into a large bowl. Wipe out the frying pan with a paper towel.\n\nAdd the eggs and chopped spinach to the potato mixture in the bowl and mix everything together well. Preheat the grill to high.\n\nHeat the frying pan on medium and spray with oil. Pour the omelette mixture into the pan and cook for 5\u20136 minutes until lightly browned on the bottom and almost set.\n\nPlace the frying pan under the grill and cook the top surface for 2\u20133 minutes until lightly browned and firm.\n\nCut the omelette into wedges and serve with extra baby spinach leaves and hot toast.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Why not add some roasted tomatoes to the mix? Place quartered roma tomatoes on a baking tray, drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil and bake at 180\u00baC (350\u00baF) for 15\u201320 minutes until they start to collapse. Once cool, chop them coarsely.\n\n  Vary the mix with roasted pumpkin, zucchini and fetta cheese, peas and mint or capsicum, mushroom and caramelised onion.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread) = 1425 kJ, 15 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 435 mg sodium\n\n**Fish cakes**\n\n_Instead of baking the fish cakes as we have done, you can cook them in a non-stick frying pan with 1 tablespoon of oil. They'll need about 3\u20134 minutes on each side for the perfect golden-brown crust._\n\nMakes about 10\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n500 g boneless fish fillets (red fish, ling), chopped\n\n4 green onions (shallots), chopped\n\n1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce\n\n1 tablespoon red curry paste\n\ngrated zest and juice of \u00bd lime\n\n1 teaspoon fish sauce (optional)\n\n\u00bd cup finely chopped snake beans (or green beans)\n\n2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves\n\nsweet chilli sauce and lime wedges to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Line a baking tray with foil and spray with oil.\n\nPlace the fish, green onions, chilli sauce, curry paste, lime zest and juice and fish sauce into a food processer or blender. Process to a uniform, fine paste.\n\nTransfer to a large mixing bowl and fold through beans and coriander leaves. Form into 10 even-sized patties and arrange on the prepared baking tray.\n\nSpray the patties lightly with oil and bake for 20\u201325 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with sweet chilli sauce and lime wedges.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nUse the mixture to make Asian-inspired dumplings. Spoon into wonton wrappers, form into dumplings and steam until cooked through.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 670 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 1 g fibre, 480 mg sodium\n\n**Light salmon quiche**\n\n_Here's a simple tip when using filo pastry: cover the sheets with a clean tea towel while you work, to help prevent them drying out. You can also wrap any leftover sheets and freeze them to use later \u2013 do not refreeze more than once as they will break up._\n\nMakes 8\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n8 sheets filo pastry\n\n200 g can red or pink salmon, drained and flaked\n\n1 cup reduced-fat grated tasty cheese\n\n30 g reduced-fat brie or camembert, chopped\n\n\u00bd cup roughly chopped baby spinach\n\n4 green onions (shallots), finely sliced\n\n1 tablespoon pine nuts\n\n1\u00bd cups low-fat milk\n\n5 eggs\n\nsalad to serve\n\nPreheat oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350 \u00baF). Spray eight 10 cm quiche pans with a little oil.\n\nSpray half the sheets of filo pastry with oil and layer them together. Cut into 4 even-sized squares. Press into 4 of the tins. Repeat with the remaining sheets of pastry, so you have a total of 8 quiche pans lined with filo.\n\nDivide the salmon, cheeses, spinach, onions and pine nuts evenly between the pans. Arrange on a baking tray.\n\nIn a bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs until combined. Pour evenly into each pan and bake for 20\u201325 minutes until golden and firm.\n\nServe hot with salad.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Saut\u00e9ed mushrooms and leeks or caramelised onions make a delicious alternative filling.\n\n  Instead of filo, make your own pastry if you have the time. Try our crisp, flaky wholemeal pastry.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 950 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 320 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Pine nuts_**\n\nPine nuts are incredibly nutritious. They contain around 54 per cent fat, a nice mix of both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated types, as well as thiamin, niacin, vitamin E and a little iron. Surprisingly they have one of the highest protein counts of all nuts.\n\n**Smoked trout pizza**\n\n_Kids love pizza and if you use a good-quality purchased pizza base it makes a quick-and-easy dinner. Pizzas also provide a great opportunity to snack on 'healthy' ingredients like vegies (see our variation below)._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n1 good-quality plain pizza base\n\n\u00bd cup low-fat ricotta cheese\n\n2 teaspoons horseradish\n\n1 teaspoon chopped capers\n\nfinely grated zest \u00bd lemon\n\n100 g smoked trout slices\n\n50 g watercress\n\ngreen salad to serve\n\nDressing\n\n1 teaspoon lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil\n\n\u00bd teaspoon Dijon mustard\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\nPreheat the oven to very hot, 220\u00baC (430\u00baF). Spray a pizza tray with oil.\n\nPlace the pizza base onto the prepared tray and bake for 10\u201315 minutes until golden.\n\nMeanwhile, place the ricotta, horseradish, capers and zest in a mixing bowl and blend well. Spread over the hot pizza base. Top with slices of smoked trout.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk all ingredients together in a jug. Toss the watercress with the dressing in a bowl. Pile on top of the pizza to serve.\n\nServe with salad.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Make your own pizza base \u2013 it's a great way to get the whole family involved in some hands-on cooking.\n\n  Replace the smoked trout with a selection of sliced vegetables: zucchini, capsicum, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, eggplant \u2013 or whatever you have on hand. Top with bocconcini or shavings of parmesan, scatter with fresh herbs and drizzle on a little olive oil.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1045 kJ, 10 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 290 mg sodium\n\n**Salmon and chive risotto**\n\n_For that wonderfully creamy, tender, slightly al dente risotto texture, it is essential to use hot stock and to stir constantly. Add some halved cherry tomatoes with the salmon, chives and capers for extra flavour._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n2 cups salt-reduced fish stock\n\n2 cups water\n\nfinely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\n1 onion, finely chopped\n\n2 cups arborio rice\n\n\u00bd cup white wine\n\n200 g can pink or red salmon, drained and flaked, or canned tuna\n\n2 tablespoons finely chopped chives\n\n1 tablespoon capers\n\ngrated parmesan cheese and green salad to serve\n\nCombine the stock, lemon zest and juice in a large sauce pan. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and keep at a low simmer.\n\nHeat the oil in another large saucepan on medium. Add the onion and saut\u00e9 for 1\u20132 minutes. Stir in the rice and cook for 1 minute.\n\nStir in the white wine, stirring frequently for 2 minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed. Continue adding hot stock, 1 cup at a time, until all of the liquid has been used and the rice is tender and creamy (about 15\u201320 minutes). You'll need to keep stirring the risotto frequently, as this helps break down the starch to create that lovely creamy consistency.\n\nTowards the end of the cooking time, stir in the salmon, chives and capers. Serve topped with parmesan, and accompanied by a green salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 2260 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 650 mg sodium\n\nMain meals\n\nFor most of us, dinner means time to wind down. The day is coming to a close and we can relax and enjoy the evening meal. Whether it's a barbecue outdoors or a spicy stir-fry in the wok, the evening meal is the perfect time for protein foods with vegetables or salad plus a carbohydrate.\n\nHere you'll find some of our favourite recipes. These are the ones that we cook for our families, and we'd love to share them with you.You'll find a healthy mix of recipes for fish and seafood, lean red meat, chicken, pork and veal. If you're vegetarian, we have recipes for you too. And we also give suggestions for how to substitute tofu, lentils or chickpeas \u2013 those key vegetarian protein foods \u2013 for meat.\n\nSitting around the table and unloading after a long day is good for the stomach and the soul. If you have kids, try to have a sit-down dinner with them as often as you can, or at least three times a week. A shared family meal is the best way to strengthen family ties and keep track of your children's lives. So turn off the television, make conversation, exchange ideas and ask them about their day.\n\nResearch shows that frequent family meals can actually lead to better nutritional intake \u2013 more fruits and vegetables and fewer snack foods \u2013 compared with that of children who eat alone or in front of the TV. Now isn't that what your grandmother would have told you?\n\nDon't forget that your kids watch and mimic your behaviour. If they see you eating and enjoying a balanced meal, they will want to copy that too \u2013 even if it's a few years down the track. Here are a few things to remember:\n\n\u2022 Serve sensible portion sizes.\n\n\u2022 Don't always salt your food.\n\n\u2022 Try new foods and new recipes occasionally, and offer the kids a taste as you cook.\n\n\u2022 Encourage your kids to help prepare meals, set the table and help with dishes.\n\nFinally, everyone loves to eat out, but the truth is that when you cook at home you have more control over the nutritional value of that meal. You can serve a larger portion of beans, carrots and other vegetables (you often have to pay extra for vegetables at restaurants). You can go easy on the butter, cream or oil when you cook.You can hold back on the salt if you need to. All things you have no control over when a chef cooks for you.\n\nSo here's to enjoyable, delicious dinners!\n**Mexican rice stuffed capsicums**\n\n_This classic Mexican 'beans 'n' rice' combination is also delicious stuffed into golden nugget pumpkins. Remove the tops, scrape out the seeds and partially cook each pumpkin in the microwave oven on high (100%) power for 5 minutes. You will also need to increase the total cooking time to 30 minutes._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\n2 cups cooked low-GI rice, such as Doongara or Moolgiri, or \u00be cup raw rice, cooked\n\n400 g can mixed beans or Mexican\n\nbeans, drained and rinsed\n\n2 zucchini, chopped\n\n1 tomato, chopped\n\n1 corn cob, kernels removed\n\n\u00bc cup sweet chilli sauce\n\n4 red capsicums\n\n\u00bd cup reduced-fat grated tasty cheese\n\n2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts\n\n2 tablespoons chopped parsley or coriander, plus extra to serve\n\nsalad and salsa of choice to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Line a baking tray with baking paper.\n\nCombine the rice, beans, zucchini, tomato, corn and chilli sauce in a large mixing bowl and toss together well.\n\nSlice the top off each capsicum and remove all seeds and white membrane. Arrange the capsicums on the prepared tray and spoon the rice filling into each one. Sprinkle with the cheese, nuts and parsley.\n\nBake for 15\u201320 minutes until the capsicums are tender. Serve topped with parsley or coriander and with salad and a spicy salsa of your choice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1715 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 12 g fibre, 535 mg sodium\n\n**Polenta wedges with mushroom sauce**\n\n_We love to serve this with roasted tomatoes. Cut them into quarters and toss in 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Sprinkle on a few twists of freshly ground black pepper and a little fresh oregano and bake in a preheated oven (200\u02daC\/400\u02daF) for 5\u201310 minutes._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\n3 cups water\n\n\u00bd cup polenta\n\n\u00bc cup semolina\n\n\u00bc cup grated parmesan\n\nspray oil\n\n4 roma tomatoes, quartered and roasted to serve\n\ngreen salad to serve\n\nMushroom sauce\n\n30 g light margarine\n\n2 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n500 g mushrooms, quartered\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice\n\n1 tablespoon chopped basil\n\n30 g ricotta, crumbled\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\nPour the water into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Mix the polenta and semolina together and add them gradually to the pan, whisking vigorously.\n\nReduce the heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 15\u201320 minutes until thick and smooth. Stir in the parmesan and pour the polenta into a 20 cm square baking tray. Flatten the top. Chill until firm.\n\nTo make the mushroom sauce, melt the light margarine in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Saut\u00e9 the onions and garlic for 1 minute then add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, for 5\u20138 minutes until tender. Stir in the lemon juice, basil and a good grinding of pepper. Keep warm.\n\nPreheat a char-grill or barbecue on high. Cut the cold polenta into 8 wedges, spray with oil and cook for 2\u20133 minutes on each side until golden.\n\nServe the hot polenta wedges with the mushroom sauce sprinkled with ricotta and roast tomatoes on the side. Accompany with a green salad.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Add chopped fresh herbs of your choice to polenta to vary the flavours.\n\n  Serve polenta wedges with a salsa of choice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1130 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 160 mg sodium\n\n**Tofu and cannellini bean patties**\n\n_We love leftovers \u2013 they are great to take to the office for lunch. Wrap any leftover patties well in plastic wrap and freeze for the future or store in the fridge for a day or two._\n\nMakes 8\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   6 minutes\n\n300 g can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained\n\n300 g firm tofu\n\n\u00be cup fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs\n\n\u00bd cup dry breadcrumbs\n\n  cup plain flour\n\n3 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\n1 egg, beaten\n\n1 tablespoon chopped mint\n\n1 tablespoon chopped basil\n\n1 tablespoon chopped coriander\n\n1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce\n\n1 tablespoon lime juice\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nsweet chilli or teriyaki sauce and salad or steamed vegetables to serve\n\nPlace all the ingredients except the oil in a food processor or blender and process to a smooth, even consistency. Refrigerate until firm enough to handle.\n\nShape into 8 even-sized, flattened patties. Heat a non-stick frying pan on high and brush with a little oil.\n\nCook the patties in 2 batches for 2\u20133 minutes each side until golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels. Serve with sweet chilli or teriyaki sauce and salad or steamed vegetables.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nFor a delicious wrap, try serving these patties stuffed into wholemeal pitta bread with snow pea sprouts and bean sprouts.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 475 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 80 mg sodium\n\n_**Super ingredient: Cannellini beans**_\n\nPopular in Italian cuisine, the creamy white cannellini bean is fairly large \u2013 about the same size as a kidney bean. Like other legumes, it has little fat and is high in fibre and vitamin B1. Its carbohydrate is the 'slow- digesting' type with a low GI, so it's filling and satisfying. Because it maintains its shape well when cooked and has a mellow flavour, the cannellini bean is excellent in many braised dishes, and can be used interchangeably with other white beans in many recipes.\n**Spiced barbecued prawns**\n\n_Bamboo skewers need to be soaked in warm water for 30 minutes before use otherwise they will char and burn on your barbecue. You might also like to wear disposable gloves when handling the marinated prawns as turmeric's vivid yellow can stain your hands._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   5 minutes\n\n1 small onion, finely chopped\n\n1 tablespoon rice bran oil\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice\n\n1 tablespoon chopped basil\n\n1 tablespoon chopped coriander\n\n2 teaspoons ground cumin\n\n\u00bd teaspoon turmeric\n\n\u00bd teaspoon paprika\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon grated ginger\n\n1 kg green prawns, peeled and de-veined, tails intact\n\nspray oil\n\nmixed salad and steamed low-GI rice to serve\n\nCombine the chopped onion, oil, lemon juice, fresh herbs, spices, garlic and ginger in a large mixing bowl.\n\nAdd the prawns, tossing to coat well. Thread about 5 prawns onto each of 6 pre-soaked bamboo skewers.\n\nPreheat your barbecue or char-grill to medium. Spray with a little oil and cook the skewers for 1\u20132 minutes on each side until cooked through.\n\nServe straight from the barbecue with a mixed salad and steamed rice.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nYou can also turn this dish into a simple stir-fry. Cook the herbs, spices and aromatics in a wok until aromatic, then add the prawns, a splash of stock and some Asian greens of your choice. Serve with steamed rice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup rice and a generous serve of salad) =1240 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 375 mg sodium\n\n**Broad bean and prawn pilau**\n\n_We leave the skin on the tomatoes for this dish, but if you prefer removing them, it's easy to do. Pierce the skin in a few places with a sharp knife or skewer, cover in boiling water and leave to stand for 30\u201360 seconds. Drain, refresh in cold water and peel. The skins will slip off easily._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n1 onion, chopped\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon ground cumin\n\n\u00bc teaspoon turmeric\n\n1 cup low-GI rice, such as Doongara or Moolgiri\n\n2 cups low-salt vegetable or fish stock\n\n\u00be cup water\n\n250 g fresh or frozen broad beans, blanched and peeled\n\n250 g green prawns, peeled, or cubes of firm white fish\n\n2 roma tomatoes, chopped\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\n2 tablespoons chopped coriander\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\ngreen salad to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large saucepan on high. Saut\u00e9 the onion, garlic, cumin and turmeric for 2\u20133 minutes until the onion is tender and mixture is aromatic.\n\nAdd the rice and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in the stock and water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 12\u201315 minutes, until the rice is just tender, adding more stock if required.\n\nStir in the broad beans, prawns, tomatoes and lemon juice. Cook, uncovered, for 3\u20135 minutes until all the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the coriander and a good grinding of pepper just before serving and accompany with a green salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1470 kJ, 9 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 475 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Turmeric_**\n\nRelated to ginger, turmeric has an active ingredient, curcumin, whose pigment gives curries the familiar vivid yellow. It is also an approved natural food colour (additive No. 100). Many studies have discovered that curcumin has a number of health benefits. It can destroy viruses and possibly cancer cells, reduce inflammation, heal wounds, and inhibit the oxidation of the 'bad' LDL-cholesterol. It acts as an antioxidant as well. Definitely a spice to use liberally!\n\n**Curried mussels**\n\n_We have also made this dish with prawns (shelled, de-veined and tails left intact), and with a mixed seafood combination. Remember, only cook seafood until it turns opaque._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   8 minutes\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\n6 eschalots, sliced\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon curry paste\n\n1 kg mussels, scrubbed and beards removed\n\n1 cup light evaporated milk\n\n\u00bd cup white wine\n\n2 small red chillies, sliced\n\ncoriander leaves, lemon wedges, wholegrain toast and mixed salad to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large heavy-based saucepan on high. Saut\u00e9 the eschalots, garlic and curry paste for 1\u20132 minutes until the eschalots are tender.\n\nAdd the mussels, evaporated milk, wine and chilli to the pan and bring to the boil. Cover the pan and cook for 4\u20135 minutes, shaking occasionally, until the mussels open. Discard any unopened mussels.\n\nServe in deep bowls, sprinkled with coriander. Accompany with lemon wedges, toast and salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread and a generous serve of salad) = 1200 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 760 mg sodium\n\n**Seafood stew**\n\n_There's a simple trick to remember when buying mussels in the shell. Tap any opened ones and discard them if they do not close. To remove the beard, pinch it firmly between your forefinger and thumb and pull it away from the mussel shell. You can add a little chopped chilli to the stew if you like your food spicy._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n1 leek, finely sliced, or 1 fennel bulb, finely sliced\n\n3 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes\n\n1 cup water\n\ngrated zest 1 lemon\n\n300 g firm white fish fillets (ling,\n\nblue eye), cut into chunks\n\n1 cleaned squid hood, cut into rings\n\n8 medium green prawns, peeled and de-veined, tails intact\n\n8 mussels, scrubbed and beards removed\n\n  cup flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped\n\ncrusty sourdough bread and green salad to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large heavy-based saucepan on high. Saut\u00e9 the leek and garlic for 4\u20135 minutes, until tender.\n\nStir in the tomatoes, water and lemon zest and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 10\u201315 minutes.\n\nAdd the seafood to the pan and simmer for 4\u20135 minutes. Discard any unopened mussels. Sprinkle with parsley, and serve with a crusty sourdough and salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread and a generous serve of salad) = 1490 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 685 mg sodium\n\n**Fish, vegetable and peanut stir-fry**\n\n_Use any firm-fleshed white fish for this stir-fry \u2013 blue eye, ling or snapper all work well. With a mild chilli buzz and crunchy vegetables and peanuts, this is sure to become a family favourite._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   11 minutes\n\n2 teaspoons peanut oil\n\n500 g boneless fish fillets, sliced\n\n1 bunch choy sum, roughly chopped\n\n150 g sugar snap peas, trimmed\n\n4 green onions (shallots), sliced\n\n250 g hokkein noodles (or noodles of choice)\n\n\u00bd cup bean sprouts\n\n2 tablespoons chilli sauce\n\n2 tablespoons hoi sin sauce\n\n1 tablespoon salt-reduced soy sauce\n\nroughly chopped toasted peanuts and chopped coriander to serve\n\nHeat oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Stir-fry the fish in 2 batches for 2\u20133 minutes or until just cooked through. Remove to a plate.\n\nAdd the choy sum, sugar snap peas and green onions to the wok. Stir-fry for 2\u20133 minutes until just beginning to wilt.\n\nCook the noodles according to the packet instructions. Drain well. Add the noodles to the wok with the bean sprouts and sauces. Toss well and stir-fry for 1\u20132 minutes to heat through.\n\nServe immediately sprinkled with peanuts and coriander.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1575 kJ, 10 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 690 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Bean sprouts_**\n\nSprouts are germinated seeds that have sent out a baby shoot and root. As they absorb water and grow, they convert some of the stored carbohydrate and protein in the seed to energy, new growth and vitamins. The bean sprouts available from fresh produce stores are either mung, lentil or pea seeds. They are more a 'texture' than a vegetable, adding crunch to a sandwich and interest to a stir-fry. They are tasty, light and nutritious.\n**Fish, leek and potato pies**\n\n_Everyone loves pie \u2013 kids especially \u2013 so try something different with this recipe and make it with chicken sometimes. You'll need to replace the fish stock with chicken stock._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 cm cubes\n\n2 leeks, trimmed, washed thoroughly and sliced\n\n  cup plain flour\n\n1 cup low-fat milk\n\n\u00be cup fish stock\n\n750 g firm white fish fillets (blue eye, ling etc), cubed\n\n\u00bc cup chopped parsley\n\n4 sheets filo pastry\n\nmixed salad to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nHeat a heavy-based frying pan on high. Spray with oil and saut\u00e9 the potato and leek for 3\u20134 minutes until the leek is tender. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.\n\nRemove the frying pan from the heat. Stir in the milk and stock then return to the heat and cook, stirring, until the sauce boils and thickens. Reduce the heat and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir in the pieces of fish and the parsley.\n\nSpoon the filling into four 1 cup ramekin dishes.\n\nSpray each sheet of filo with a little oil. Scrunch up roughly and use to top the pies.\n\nBake for 15\u201320 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden. Serve with salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1850 kJ, 10 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 470 mg sodium\n\n**Fish parcels**\n\n_Fish wrapped in parcels like this should cook in a preheated oven in 15\u201320 minutes, but it will depend on the thickness of the fish. Check after 15 minutes \u2013 the fish is cooked when it flakes easily when tested with a fork._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\n4 boneless fish fillets (snapper, blue eye)\n\n1 red capsicum, seeded and finely sliced\n\n1 red onion, finely sliced\n\n1 lemon, thinly sliced\n\n\u00bd cup dill sprigs\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\nsteamed vegetables or salad and extra dill to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Cut 4 large squares of baking paper.\n\nPlace a fish fillet in the centre of each piece of baking paper. Top each fillet with an even amount of the capsicum, onion, lemon and dill. Sprinkle with a good grinding of black pepper.\n\nWrap up, folding in the ends to form a parcel. Place seam-side up (tuck ends under) in a baking tray. Bake for 15\u201320 minutes until cooked when tested.\n\nUnwrap the parcel and serve the fish with extra dill and salad or steamed vegetables of choice.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nWhiting fillets, with their delicate texture and flavour are also delicious cooked in this way \u2013 but you will need two of these per serve as they are quite small.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 potato and a generous serve of green beans) = 1315 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 150 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Dill_**\n\nDill's soft ferny leaves and slight aniseed flavour are used to flavour many fish and potato dishes and smoked salmon. The seeds are also used to flavour pickles. Dill must be used fresh, as it rapidly loses its flavour once dried. Like many other fresh green herbs, dill is a source of potassium and magnesium, with smaller amounts of iron and calcium \u2013 as well as being high in vitamin C, folate, vitamin B1 and vitamin K.\n**Country chicken and vegetables**\n\n_We used a whole chicken for this all-in-one-dish roast, but you may prefer to buy your favourite chicken pieces so there's no fighting over who gets the drumsticks. Cooking time will be a little shorter with chicken pieces._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour\n\n500 g chat potatoes, halved\n\n300 g sweet potato, peeled and chopped\n\n2 leeks, trimmed, thoroughly washed and sliced\n\n1 knob garlic, separated and unpeeled\n\n1 bunch thyme\n\n1.8 kg chicken, cleaned, dried, quartered and skin removed\n\n1 cup white wine or water\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\n4 cup mushrooms, trimmed\n\n2 roma tomatoes, quartered\n\n2 zucchini, quartered\n\n2 baby eggplants, quartered\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nArrange the potatoes, leek, garlic and thyme in a large baking tray.\n\nPlace the chicken portions on top of the vegetables and pour over the wine or water. Sprinkle with a good grinding of black pepper. Bake for 30 minutes.\n\nAdd the mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant to the baking tray. Bake for a further 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 2185 kJ, 22 g fat (includes 7 g saturated fat), 9 g fibre, 150 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Thyme_**\n\nThanks to its aromatic oils, thyme imparts a wonderful savoury flavour to your cooking and goes well with any meat, soup or slow-cooked casserole. Like rosemary and oregano, it is high in polyphenols, a class of antioxidant that may cut the risk of heart disease. Thyme is easy to grow and is wonderful to have on hand so you can add a sprig of fresh thyme when you need it.\n\n**Chicken chilli con carne**\n\n**_This makes a good change from the usual beef chilli. It is lower in fat and has a lighter flavour. If you prefer to be traditional, simply replace the chicken with 500 g of beef mince._**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour\n\n1 tablespoon canola oil\n\n500 g chicken mince\n\n1 large onion, chopped\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n2 teaspoons plain flour\n\n2 teaspoons ground cumin\n\n1 teaspoon ground coriander\n\n1 teaspoon ground chilli\n\n1 cup salt-reduced beef stock\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes\n\n1 teaspoon dried oregano\n\n400 g can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained\n\nchopped coriander, steamed low-GI rice and green salad to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large heavy-based saucepan on high. Brown the mince for 3\u20134 minutes. Transfer to a plate.\n\nReduce the heat to medium and saut\u00e9 the onion and garlic for 3\u20134 minutes until tender. Add the flour, cumin, coriander and chilli and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.\n\nMix in the stock gradually, stirring to scrape up the sediment from the base of pan. Return the browned mince to the pan with the tomatoes and oregano and stir well.\n\nBring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 30 minutes. Uncover and simmer for a further 15 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly.\n\nStir in the kidney beans and heat gently for 2\u20133 minutes. Sprinkle with coriander and serve on a bed of rice with salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup rice and a generous serve of salad) = 2680 kJ, 18 g fat (includes 5 g saturated fat), 10 g fibre, 575 mg sodium\n\n_**Super ingredient: Kidney beans**_\n\nLike all legumes, kidney beans fill you up and rank among the lowest foods for GI \u2013 kidney beans have a GI of 28. This means they take a long time to be digested, and the glucose enters your bloodstream more slowly than almost any other carbohydrate \u2013 even multigrain bread or porridge. If you can swap some of your potatoes or rice for beans, you're way ahead in the filling-power stakes. Kidney beans are an excellent source of protein for vegetarians. And for meat eaters they 'extend' the protein value of a meal \u2013 when you add a can of kidney beans to a recipe, you save on cost yet still have a nutritious high-protein dinner.\n**Glazed pork fillet**\n\n_We cooked our pork and potato slices on a char-grill for that lovely smoky flavour and attractive griddle markings, but if you prefer, simply arrange the potatoes in a single layer on a baking tray and bake them at 180\u02daC (350\u02daF) for 10\u201315 minutes. As an alternative to grilled potatoes, you can serve mashed or baked jacket potatoes._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n500 g pork fillets, trimmed\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\n4 potatoes, peeled, thickly sliced\n\nspray oil\n\nradicchio and green salad with low-fat dressing to serve\n\nDressing\n\n\u00bc cup balsamic vinegar\n\n\u00bc cup maple syrup\n\n1 tablespoon roughly chopped oregano\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\nPreheat a char-grill pan to medium. Brush the pork fillets with oil and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper.\n\nChar-grill the pork for 8\u201310 minutes on each side until cooked through. Rest, covered, for 5 minutes.\n\nSpray the potato slices with a little oil. Cook on the char-grill for 4\u20135 minutes each side until golden and crisp.\n\nTo make the dressing combine the vinegar, maple syrup, oregano and garlic in a small jug and whisk together well.\n\nTo serve, slice the pork fillets thickly and arrange on plates with the grilled potatoes and salad. Drizzle over the dressing and eat straight away.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1505 kJ, 10 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 100 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Radicchio_**\n\nRadicchio, a red-leafed Italian chicory, has a bitter taste that works well with strong flavours like duck or venison. Its blue-purple colour comes from anthocyanins, natural plant antioxidants that can kill off harmful bacteria. Anthocyanins are also found in red grapes, blueberries, cranberries and beetroot. Like all lettuces, you'll get plenty of vitamin C, folate and vitamin B1, three heat-sensitive vitamins, which are hard to get.\n\n**Pork and Asian greens stir-fry**\n\n_The secret to stir-frying is the heat. You need a really high heat to cook the ingredients quickly and prevent them stewing in their own juices. That way your stir-fries will always be fresh and crisp, not limp and soggy._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   11 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon rice bran oil\n\n500 g pork fillet or skinless chicken breast, trimmed and sliced\n\n1 onion, sliced\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon grated ginger\n\n2 bunches baby bok choy, quartered\n\n1 bunch broccolini\n\n100 g snow peas, trimmed\n\n\u00bc cup sweet chilli sauce\n\n\u00bc cup lime or lemon juice\n\n2 tablespoons salt-reduced soy sauce\n\ncoriander leaves and steamed rice or noodles to serve\n\nHeat oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Stir-fry the pork in 2 batches for 2\u20133 minutes. Remove to a plate.\n\nAdd the onion, garlic and ginger to the wok and stir-fry for 1\u20132 minutes until just tender.\n\nReturn the pork to the wok with the baby bok choy, broccolini, peas, sweet chilli sauce, citrus juice and soy sauce. Stir-fry for 2\u20133 minutes until greens are just beginning to wilt.\n\nSprinkle with coriander and serve immediately with steamed rice or noodles.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup rice or noodles) = 1385 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 555 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Asian greens_**\n\nAsian leafy greens such as bok choy, choy sum, on choy and gai lum are tops for nutrition, being rich in vitamin C, beta-carotene, fibre and many B vitamins. Surprisingly they can also contribute a lot of calcium and iron. Best of all, they are low in kilojoules with almost no fat. All good reasons to tuck into them!\n**Honey-rosemary rack of lamb**\n\n_Lamb cutlets can be high in saturated fat. That's why we like to buy a 'frenched' rack of lamb \u2013 all the fat has been trimmed off and the bones scraped clean for a neat presentation._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   40 minutes\n\n500 g chat potatoes, halved\n\n2 x 6 racks lamb, frenched\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\nrosemary sprigs\n\n4 field mushrooms, stalks trimmed\n\n2 roma tomatoes, halved\n\n\u00bc cup honey\n\n1 bunch asparagus, trimmed\n\ngreen salad to serve (optional)\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nArrange the potatoes in a baking dish. Rub the lamb racks with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary. Place them on top of the potatoes and roast for 20 minutes.\n\nAdd the mushrooms and tomatoes to the baking dish and continue roasting for 5\u201310 minutes until the lamb is cooked to your liking.\n\nRemove the lamb racks from the oven, drizzle with honey and rest, covered with foil, for 10 minutes. Return the vegetables to the oven until ready to serve.\n\nArrange the asparagus in a microwave-safe dish with a sprinkling of water. Cover with plastic wrap and cook on high (100%) power for 1\u20132 minutes until just tender.\n\nTo serve, place a roast mushroom in the centre of each plate. Cut each lamb rack in half and arrange on top of the mushrooms. Serve with the roast potatoes and asparagus. If you like you can also serve with a green salad.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nSweet, smoky maple syrup makes a great change from honey if you have any in the fridge.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of salad) = 1945 kJ, 18 g fat (includes 6 g saturated fat), 6 g fibre, 135 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Honey_**\n\nHoney's anti-bacterial properties have been well known for over 80 years and it is considered effective in the treatment for wounds, ulcers and burns. Being 'natural', honey is often considered a healthy sweetener. In fact, honey has fractionally less sugar than processed sugars, so use judiciously. It has tiny quantities of B vitamins and minerals like potassium and magnesium, and some phytochemicals and antioxidants.\n**Easy biryani**\n\n_Coconut-flavoured light evaporated milk is a wonderful product \u2013 it gives you all the flavour and creaminess you love, without the high saturated fat of coconut milk. Choose a variety of rice with a low GI for this carb-rich dish._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n2 onions, sliced\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon grated ginger\n\n1 teaspoon ground coriander\n\n\u00bc teaspoon paprika\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground cumin\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground turmeric\n\n500 g lamb backstraps or fillet, cubed\n\n1 cup low-GI rice, such as Doongara or Moolgiri\n\n2 cups low-salt chicken stock or water\n\n\u00bd cup coconut flavoured light evaporated milk\n\n1 tablespoon chopped coriander\n\n1 teaspoon caraway seeds\n\nsteamed green vegetables to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large frying pan on medium. Saut\u00e9 the onions, garlic and ginger for 2\u20133 minutes until the onion is tender.\n\nStir in the spices and cook for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add the lamb and cook, stirring, for 4\u20135 minutes until browned.\n\nAdd the rice and stock or water and stir well. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 15\u201320 minutes until the rice is tender, adding more liquid if required.\n\nStir in the coconut-flavoured milk and heat gently. Just before serving blend in the coriander and caraway seeds. Accompany with steamed green vegetables.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  If you like, add some sultanas and garnish with a dollop of natural yoghurt and cashews.\n\n  Use cubed pork fillet or chicken as a change from lamb.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of green vegetables) = 1895 kJ, 10 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 435 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Caraway seeds_**\n\nThese tiny crescent-shaped brown seeds add a wonderful aromatic flavour to any dish. Since Roman times, they have been taken to aid the flow of digestive juices (such as saliva and bile) and to prevent flatulence. Their characteristic flavour comes from two terpenes called carvone and limonene. These are natural plant chemicals now being studied for their role in blocking the development of cancer tumours in animals. Terpenes are also found in lemon, ginger and cumin seeds.\n**Dead-simple Mediterranean veal**\n\n_Here's our favourite quick-and-easy recipe. It's made in minutes and will have family and friends asking for it time and again. You can vary this dish by adding thin slices of eggplant or replacing the grated mozzarella with slices of baby bocconcini._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n4 veal schnitzels (or veal steaks), pounded lightly\n\n  cup passata sauce\n\n  cup grated reduced-fat mozzarella cheese\n\n\u00bd cup basil (or baby spinach) leaves\n\nsalad and vegetables of choice to serve\n\nHeat a non-stick frying pan on high. Spray with oil and cook the veal for 1\u20132 minutes on each side. Transfer to a foil-lined baking tray.\n\nSpread each piece of veal with about a tablespoon of sauce. Sprinkle each evenly with cheese.\n\nPreheat the grill to high. Grill the veal for 3\u20135 minutes until the cheese melts and the topping is bubbly. Top with basil leaves.\n\nServe with salad or vegetables of choice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 potato and a generous serve of salad) = 1235 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 205 mg sodium\n\n**Osso bucco**\n\n_The secret ingredient in a successful osso bucco is the marrow inside the bone. That's why it is important when making this dish to ensure that the marrow is exposed on both sides._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour 40 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n6\u20138 pieces veal osso bucco (sliced veal shank)\n\n2 onions, sliced\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n2 new potatoes, cut into chunks\n\n2 carrots, sliced\n\n2 stalks celery, chopped\n\n400 g can crushed tomatoes\n\n1 cup white wine\n\n1 cup water\n\n1 bay leaf\n\nsweet potato mash, crusty sourdough bread and steamed green vegetables to serve\n\nHeat oil in a large saucepan on high. Brown the meat well on all sides for 5\u20136 minutes and transfer to a plate.\n\nAdd the onions and garlic to the same pan and saut\u00e9 until the onion is tender.\n\nStir in the potatoes, carrots and celery and saut\u00e9 for 2 minutes more. Blend in the tomatoes, wine, water and bay leaf and stir well.\n\nBring to the boil and return the meat to the pan. Reduce the heat and simmer gently, uncovered, for 1\u00bc \u20131\u00bd hours until the meat is very tender. Remove the bay leaf. Serve immediately with sweet potato mash, crusty sourdough bread and steamed green vegetables.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nServe this dish sprinkled with the traditional gremolata. Mix together \u00bc cup chopped parsley, 2 finely chopped garlic cloves and the grated zest of 1 lemon.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup mash, 1 slice bread and a generous serve of green vegetables) = 2115 kJ, 10 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 10 g fibre, 345 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Onions_**\n\nA close cousin of garlic, onions are high in the phytochemical quercetin, an antioxidant that helps to protect us from cancer-causing agents as well as keeping our arteries unclogged and free-flowing. Onions are also a good source of vitamin C.\n**Fillet steak with chilli jam**\n\n_We like our steak on the pinkish side. If you prefer it more well done, turn the steak and cook for a further 2\u20134 minutes each side._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   40 minutes\n\n4 tomatoes, halved\n\n2 zucchini, cut into chunks\n\n2 red capsicums, seeded and quartered\n\n2 red onions, halved\n\n1 fennel bulb, thickly sliced\n\n1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks\n\nspray oil\n\n4 fillet steaks, trimmed\n\ngreen salad to serve\n\nChilli jam\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes\n\n\u00bd cup white wine vinegar\n\n\u00bd cup brown sugar\n\n1 onion, chopped\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n2 teaspoons chopped chilli\n\n1 teaspoon chopped ginger\n\nPreheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF).\n\nArrange the vegetables in a baking tray. Spray with oil and bake for 20 minutes. Toss well and bake for a further 20 minutes.\n\nWhile the vegetables are roasting, make the chilli jam. Place all the ingredients into a heavy-based saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20\u201325 minutes until thick and jam-like. Set aside.\n\nHeat a non-stick frying pan on high. Spray with oil and cook the steaks for 3\u20135 minutes each side for medium-rare, or until cooked to taste.\n\nServe the steaks with a spoonful of chilli jam, the mixed roast vegetables and a green salad of choice.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nThe roast vegetables and chilli jam work equally well with chicken, lamb or pork.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a generous serve of green salad) = 1640 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 11 g fibre, 110 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Red meat_**\n\nLean red meat is a vital source of B vitamins, zinc and easily-absorbed iron. Iron is important for healthy blood, the development of our brain and for improved work performance. Zinc aids the functioning of our immune system. The CSIRO Diet showed how lean meat can be a great diet food. It's filling and satisfying so you don't look for a snack between meals. Remember to trim all visible fat from meat. When shopping for meat, look for cuts with the least fat and marbling.\n**Beef in red wine**\n\n_When making sauces, always blend a cold liquid into a hot roux off the heat to prevent lumps from forming. For a perfectly smooth sauce, stir constantly over a medium heat until the sauce comes to the boil and thickens._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour 10 minutes\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil\n\n30 g light margarine\n\n2 rashers shortcut bacon, sliced\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n750 g round steak, trimmed and cubed\n\n12 pickling onions, peeled\n\n250 g button mushrooms, trimmed\n\n\u00bc cup plain flour\n\n\u00bc cup tomato paste\n\n2 cups water\n\n1 cup red wine\n\nmashed potatoes and steamed green vegetables to serve\n\nHeat oil and light margarine in a large frying pan on medium-high. Add the bacon and garlic and saut\u00e9 for 1\u20132 minutes. Transfer to a plate.\n\nAdd the steak to the same pan in 2 batches, browning well for 3\u20134 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with onions and mushrooms, transferring each to a plate once they're browned.\n\nAdd the flour to the pan and cook, stirring vigorously, to scrape up any sediment. Cook until golden brown. Add the tomato paste, and stir in well.\n\nRemove the frying pan from the heat. Gradually blend in the water and wine until smooth. Return to the heat and cook, stirring continuously, until the sauce boils and thickens.\n\nLower the heat and return the bacon, steak, onions and mushrooms to the pan. Simmer for 50\u201360 minutes until the meat is tender, adding more water if required. Serve with mash and vegetables.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 potato and a generous serve of green vegetables) = 2190 kJ, 19 g fat (includes 5 g saturated fat), 8 g fibre, 430 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Red wine_**\n\nRed wine has been suggested as the answer to the so-called 'French paradox' \u2013 why the French have the second lowest rate of heart disease in the world (after Japan), despite their love of rich cholesterol-laden food. In modest amounts, red wine is good for your heart. Red wine (and grapes) contain more than 50 phenolic compounds known as flavonoids; they act as antioxidants, reduce thickening of the arteries and keep the blood 'thin' and smooth flowing. Red wine has 9\u201310 times more of these natural chemicals than white wine.\n**Sweet soy beef with cabbage**\n\n_For a vibrant green dish, add a handful of spinach leaves and some sliced Asian greens to the pan with the shredded cabbage._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes (plus marinating time)\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n\u00bc cup sake\n\n2 tablespoons light soy sauce\n\n1 tablespoon sugar\n\n1 tablespoon grated ginger\n\n1 teaspoon sesame oil\n\n500 g beef, thinly sliced\n\n1 tablespoon rice bran oil\n\n\u00bc Chinese cabbage, thickly sliced\n\n1 tablespoon sesame seeds\n\nudon noodles (cooked according to packet instructions) to serve\n\nCombine the sake, soy, sugar, ginger and sesame oil in a large mixing bowl. Add the beef and toss well. Leave to marinate for 15 minutes.\n\nHeat oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Remove the beef from the marinade and reserve the marinade.\n\nStir-fry the beef for 4\u20135 minutes, then add the cabbage, reserved marinade and sesame seeds. Stir-fry for 2\u20133 minutes until the cabbage begins to wilt. Serve straight away with udon noodles.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nUse minced steak in place of beef strips. Omit the marinating step and simply stir-fry the mince in all the marinade ingredients before adding cabbage and sesame seeds.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including \u00bd cup noodles) = 1430 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 365 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Cabbage_**\n\nKids turn their noses up at it, but studies show that those of us who eat large helpings of cabbage (and its fellow brassicas, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts) show a reduced risk of several cancers. Their active ingredients \u2013 sulphur compounds known as indoles and isothiocyanates \u2013 activate cancer-fighting enzymes. As well, they rate tops for fibre (hence their reputation for flatulence), beta-carotene, vitamin C and folate \u2013 and have very few kilojoules.\n\n**Tagliatelle with chilli meatballs**\n\n_We used tagliatelle \u2013 long strips of egg pasta \u2013 for this dish, but you could use any egg pasta such as fettuccine or the wider pappardelle \u2013 or even spaghetti if that's the family favourite. Or for added health benefits use wholemeal pasta._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   35 minutes\n\n500 g lamb or beef mince\n\n\u00bd cup fresh breadcrumbs\n\n1 egg, lightly beaten\n\n1 onion, finely chopped\n\n1 tablespoon pine nuts\n\n2 teaspoons chopped oregano\n\n1 long red chilli, chopped\n\n1 teaspoon grated lemon zest\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n375 g tagliatelle or other pasta of choice, cooked and drained\n\noregano leaves, grated fresh parmesan, crusty bread and green salad to serve\n\nRich tomato sauce\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n1 onion, chopped\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes\n\n\u00bd cup white wine\n\n\u00bd cup salt-reduced chicken stock\n\n\u00bc cup semi-dried tomatoes\n\n1 tablespoon tomato paste\n\n1 teaspoon brown sugar\n\nPlace all the ingredients except the oil and pasta into a large mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly and form into walnut-sized balls. You should make around 24 meatballs from the mixture.\n\nHeat a large non-stick frying pan on high. Add the oil and cook the meatballs in 2 batches for 4\u20135 minutes, turning until evenly browned. Drain on a paper towel.\n\nTo make the sauce, heat oil in a heavy-based saucepan on high. Saut\u00e9 the onion and garlic until tender. Stir in the tomatoes, wine, stock, semi-dried tomatoes, paste and sugar. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.\n\nAdd the meatballs to the sauce and simmer for 10\u201315 minutes until cooked through (add a little more liquid to the sauce if it becomes too thick).\n\nToss the sauce through the hot pasta and serve immediately, sprinkled with a few oregano leaves and a little grated parmesan. Serve with crusty bread and green salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread and a generous serve of salad) = 2900 kJ, 23 g fat (includes 5 g saturated fat), 8 g fibre, 380 mg sodium\n\n**Pasta with tuna and capers**\n\n_To prevent pasta from sticking together when cooking, add a splash of olive oil to the boiling water, then stir for a few minutes after you add the pasta to the water._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n400 g shell pasta or other pasta of choice\n\n400 g can tuna in brine, drained\n\n125 g reduced-fat fetta cheese, crumbled\n\n\u00bc cup chopped parsley\n\n2 tablespoons baby capers\n\nfinely grated zest and juice 1 lemon\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\nsalad and crusty bread to serve\n\nCook the pasta in plenty of boiling water following the packet instructions for timing. Drain well and transfer to a large mixing bowl.\n\nToss all the remaining ingredients through the hot pasta. Serve with salad and crusty bread.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nToss through some sliced char-grilled capsicum and some blanched peas or sugar snaps for a heartier sauce.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 slice bread and a generous serve of salad) = 2570 kJ, 13 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 600 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Pasta_**\n\nOf all the starchy carbohydrates, pasta is the one nutritionists love. It's low in fat, has little salt and is low GI. Compared with potato and many varieties of rice, the carbohydrate in al dente pasta is slowly digested and absorbed. This makes it a great advantage for people with diabetes and for endurance athletes. Pasta is also blessed with protein, B vitamins (notably vitamin B1 needed to release energy from food) plus a little iron and calcium. Use wholemeal pasta for added health benefits.\n**Pad Thai**\n\n_The trick with stir-fries is to make sure you have everything ready before you start to cook. Making preparation a team effort saves you a little time and can be a lot of fun._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\n250 g rice stick noodles\n\n2 tablespoons canola oil\n\n125 g firm tofu, cubed\n\n1 red onion, sliced\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 chicken breast fillet, sliced\n\n8 green prawns, shelled and de-veined, tails intact\n\n2 eggs, beaten\n\n\u00bc cup lime or lemon juice\n\n\u00bc cup basil leaves\n\n2 tablespoons coriander leaves, plus extra to serve\n\n2 tablespoons palm sugar or brown sugar\n\n2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce\n\n1 tablespoon fish sauce\n\n2 small red chillies, chopped\n\ncrushed roasted peanuts to serve\n\nSoak and cook the rice stick noodles following the packet instructions. Drain well and set aside.\n\nHeat oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Add the tofu in batches for 1\u20132 minutes. Drain on a paper towel.\n\nAdd the onion and garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute. Toss through the chicken and prawns and stir-fry for a further 3\u20134 minutes.\n\nPush the mixture to one side of the pan and pour in the beaten egg. Stir briefly in the pan until scrambled and mix through the chicken mixture.\n\nAdd the citrus juice, herbs, sugar, sauces and chillies with the noodles and tofu, tossing well. Stir-fry for 2 more minutes then serve immediately topped with crushed peanuts and some extra coriander leaves.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 2560 kJ, 22 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 840 mg sodium \nAccompaniments\n\nVegetables and salads can turn a basic meal into a balanced dinner. Meat and potatoes alone are not enough! For energy and glowing good health we need to include vegetables or a salad to supply those all-important nutrients.\n\nVegetables\n\nUse our wonderful recipe ideas to pile your plate high with vegetables. Aim for half your plate to be filled with vegetables, with the remaining half comprising lean protein and starchy carbohydrates (this includes starchy vegetables such as potato, and rice, lentils or pasta) (see our diagram). Nutritionists suggest you eat five serves of vegetables every day and we hope our recipes will inspire you to achieve this. We team them with grains and legumes so some of them are a complete nutritious package. For added zest, we also include plenty of fresh herbs, chilli and a splash of good oil.\n\nNutritionists confirm that 'eating by the rainbow' makes good nutrition sense. So let colour be your guide. The more colour you put on your plate, the better your intake of antioxidants from colourful vegetables and fruit. Think of carrots, beetroot, spinach, red carrots, purple onions, yellow capsicum, mint leaves \u2013 they are all brightly coloured and all so good for you.\n\nSalads\n\nWe like to say that 'a salad a day keeps the doctor away'. Not only are salads healthy in their own right, they are also an easy way to make any meal \u2013 even pizza or fish and chips \u2013 more balanced.\n\nEating vegetables raw means that you maximise your intake of heat-sensitive vitamins such as vitamin C, B1 and folate that often get destroyed during cooking.\n\nSalads are also a good source of phyto-chemicals, natural plant compounds that act as antioxidants to protect the body and slow the ageing process. For the highest antioxidant value, choose lettuces with darker leaves (such as dark oak leaf, mignonette, radicchio or coral), baby spinach leaves or rocket \u2013 the darker the leaves, the better.\n\nDon't say 'No' to a little dressing either. Research shows the oil from a dressing or mayonnaise improves the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins and antioxidants in the salad itself \u2013 and also means you enjoy it more!\n\n**Parmesan and olive damper**\n\n_This damper is delicious with Roasted Tomato and Capsicum Soup. It freezes very well \u2013 wrap in foil, thaw at room temperature and re-heat at 180\u02daC (350\u02daF) for 5\u201310 minutes._\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   50 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n3 cups self-raising flour\n\n45 g light margarine\n\n\u00bd cup grated parmesan\n\n\u00bc cup sliced pitted olives\n\n\u00bc cup snipped chives\n\n1\u00bc cups low-fat milk\n\n2 teaspoons sesame or sunflower seeds\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray a small baking tray with oil.\n\nSift the flour into a large bowl. Rub in the light margarine gently, using your fingertips. Stir in the parmesan, olives and chives.\n\nMake a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Pour in milk all at once. Using a bread and butter knife, mix quickly to a soft, sticky dough. Do not over-mix.\n\nTurn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently and form into a round. Place on the prepared tray. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds.\n\nBake for 45\u201350 minutes until the loaf is golden, firm and sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  You can increase the fibre in this loaf by using wholemeal flour and adding some oat bran. You may need to increase the liquid slightly.\n\n  Experiment with other flavour combinations such as garlic and pine nuts, grated zucchini and tasty cheese, sun-dried tomato and basil.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1260 kJ, 8 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 605 mg sodium\n\n**Vietnamese salad**\n\nThis salad is a fresh and zesty accompaniment to Tofu and Cannellini Bean Patties.\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\n2 cups finely shredded Chinese cabbage\n\n2 Lebanese cucumbers, cut into matchsticks\n\n1 small turnip, peeled and cut into matchsticks\n\n1 carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks\n\n1 bunch mint leaves, picked\n\n1 bunch chives, cut into 2 cm lengths\n\n1 small red chilli, finely sliced\n\n1 tablespoon chopped peanuts\n\nDressing\n\n\u00bc cup white vinegar\n\n2 tablespoons sugar\n\n2 teaspoons fish sauce\n\nPlace all the ingredients, except the peanuts, into a large mixing bowl.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk together all ingredients until the sugar dissolves.\n\nJust before serving, pour on the dressing and toss well. Serve sprinkled with chopped peanuts.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 215 kJ, 1 g fat (includes negligible saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 150 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Mint_**\n\nPeppermint contains menthol, a powerful therapeutic ingredient, that can give relief from indigestion and increase the flow of digestive juices. Clinical trials have shown peppermint oil can relieve symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Peppermint tea is one of the most popular herbal infusions as it's naturally reviving. Try it instead of coffee when you need a quick lift. Make fresh peppermint tea by pouring boiled water over fresh mint leaves. Steep for 2 minutes, strain and add a teaspoon of honey, to taste.\n\n**Asparagus and bamboo shoot salad**\n\n_This Asian-inspired salad is full of wonderful crunchy ingredients. Dress it at the last minute so it doesn't go soggy._\n\nServes 6\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n2 bunches asparagus, trimmed, blanched and halved\n\n1 cup canned shredded bamboo shoots, drained\n\n1 cup bean sprouts, trimmed\n\n1 cup thinly sliced radish\n\n1 cup coriander leaves\n\n3 green onions (shallots), sliced diagonally\n\nzest of 2 limes\n\nDressing\n\njuice of 1 lime\n\n1 tablespoon honey\n\n1 teaspoon sesame oil\n\n\u00bd teaspoon chilli flakes\n\nCombine all salad ingredients in a bowl.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk all the ingredients together. Just before serving pour the dressing over the salad and toss well.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 185 kJ, 1 g fat (includes negligible saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 10 mg sodium\n\n**Bean and spinach salad**\n\n_Turn this salad into a meal by adding some smoked trout or canned tuna, a few black olives, cherry tomatoes and some shaved parmesan._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   2 minutes\n\n200 g baby spinach leaves\n\n200 g green beans, trimmed, blanched\n\n100 g sugar snap peas, blanched\n\n2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered\n\n1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted\n\nLemon-mustard dressing\n\n2 tablespoons flaxseed oil\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon grated lemon zest\n\n1 teaspoon Dijon mustard\n\nCombine the spinach, beans and peas in a large bowl.\n\nMake the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together.\n\nWhen ready to serve, pour on the dressing and toss gently. Top with the hard-boiled eggs and toasted pine nuts.\n\n**COOK'S TIP**\n\nTo blanch beans and peas place them in a saucepan of boiling water. Simmer for 30\u201360 seconds, drain well, refresh under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 740 kJ, 14 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 55 mg sodium\n\n**Carrot salad**\n\n_Try this yummy salad wrapped in lavosh with sliced cold meat or chicken, or use it to accompany your favourite roast. For a change, try this with roasted pepitas._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\n500 g carrots, cut into matchsticks and blanched\n\n\u00bc cup chopped coriander leaves\n\n2 tablespoons currants or chopped raisins\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon roasted cumin seeds, crushed\n\n2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon lemon or orange juice\n\n1 tablespoon pepitas (peeled pumpkin seeds)\n\nCombine the carrot, coriander, currants, garlic and cumin in a large mixing bowl.\n\nPour on the oil and lemon juice and toss together well. Serve topped with pepitas.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 655 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 60 mg sodium\n\n**Fattoush**\n\nThis traditional Arabic salad is often made more substantial by adding torn pieces of toasted pitta bread through the salad with the dressing.\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n4 roma tomatoes, cut into chunks\n\n2 Lebanese cucumbers, quartered and thickly sliced\n\n2 stalks celery, thinly sliced on diagonal\n\n1 small red onion, sliced\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped parsley\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped mint\n\ntoasted pitta bread to serve\n\nDressing\n\nfinely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon\n\n1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\nCombine the tomatoes, cucumber, celery, onion and herbs in a large mixing bowl.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk the lemon zest and juice with the oil and garlic. Toss through the salad. Serve with toasted Lebanese bread on the side or tossed through the salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 230 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 30 mg sodium\n\n**Couscous and chickpea salad**\n\n_This salad is great with our Fish Parcels (page 145) or Country Chicken (page 146) \u2013 simply roast the chicken without the potatoes. If you like, add some sliced roasted capsicum or sliced black olives._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes (plus standing time)\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\n1 cup couscous\n\nfinely grated zest and juice 1 lemon\n\n1 cup boiling water or low-salt stock\n\n400 g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed\n\n1 Lebanese cucumber, sliced\n\n\u00bd cup shredded mint\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nMix the couscous and lemon zest in a mixing bowl. Pour over boiling water and stir briefly. Cover and leave to stand for 5 minutes, or until all the liquid has been absorbed.\n\nFluff the couscous with a fork and stir through the chickpeas, cucumber, mint, lemon juice and oil.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1250 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 160 mg sodium\n\n**Tabbouleh**\n\n_A fabulous accompaniment to any grilled, barbecued or roasted meat, chicken or fish. Or try with Our Favourite Wrap (page 107) or on our Steak Sandwich (page 106)._\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes (plus standing time)\n\n\u00bd cup burghul (cracked wheat)\n\nboiling water\n\n1 cup roughly chopped parsley\n\n1 cup roughly chopped mint\n\n2 roma tomatoes, diced\n\n3 green onions (shallots), finely sliced diagonally\n\n\u00bc cup lemon juice\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil\n\nfinely grated zest 1 lemon\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\nPlace the burghul in a large bowl and add enough boiling water to cover. Allow to stand for 15 minutes.\n\nDrain the burghul if necessary and return it to the bowl. Stir through the remaining ingredients, tossing well.\n\nChill, covered, until required.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 395 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 10 mg sodium\n\n**Fennel and lima bean salad**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\n1 fennel bulb, trimmed, thinly sliced\n\n400 g can lima beans, drained and rinsed\n\n100 g snow peas, trimmed and blanched\n\n1 small red onion, thinly sliced\n\n\u00bd red capsicum, seeded and thinly sliced\n\n\u00bd cup basil leaves\n\n\u00bc cup capers\n\n1 teaspoon celery seeds\n\nDressing\n\n2 tablespoons red wine vinegar\n\n1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon Dijon mustard\n\nCombine all the ingredients, except the celery seeds, in a large mixing bowl.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk all the ingredients together.\n\nJust before serving pour on the dressing and toss the salad well. Sprinkle with celery seeds.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 555 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 350 mg sodium\n\n**Mixed bean salad with haloumi cheese**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   5 minutes\n\n400 g can three bean mix, drained and rinsed\n\n50 g green beans, trimmed, blanched\n\n1 small red onion, sliced\n\n\u00bc cup semi-dried tomatoes\n\n2 tablespoons sliced pitted green olives\n\n1 tablespoon chopped basil\n\n50 g haloumi cheese, sliced thinly\n\n2 tablespoons seasoned flour\n\nspray oil\n\nDressing\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\nCombine the bean mix, green beans, onion, tomatoes, olives and basil in a large bowl.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk together the oil and juice and toss through the bean mixture.\n\nPat the cheese slices dry with paper towels and dust in flour, shaking off any excess.\n\nHeat a non-stick frying pan on medium. Spray with oil and cook the cheese slices for 1\u20132 minutes on each side until golden. Drain briefly on paper towels and scatter into the salad.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 740 kJ, 9 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 480 mg sodium\n\n**Brown rice salad**\n\n_Wonderful as an accompaniment to Honey-rosemary Rack of Lamb \u2013 just make the lamb without the potatoes. We've used brown rice for this salad, which has a lovely nutty flavour and is so good for you. It does take a bit longer to cook though, and if you prefer you can use a low-GI rice, such as Doongara or Moolgiri._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   35 minutes\n\n1  cups long-grain brown rice\n\n2 sweetcorn cobs\n\nspray oil\n\n2 finger eggplants, sliced\n\n1 Lebanese cucumber, finely chopped\n\n1 red onion, sliced\n\n2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley\n\nDressing\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice or balsamic vinegar\n\npinch sugar\n\nCook the rice in a large saucepan of boiling water for 25\u201330 minutes, or until tender. Drain well and set aside to cool.\n\nMeanwhile, microwave or boil the sweetcorn cobs for 4 minutes until tender. Set aside to cool. Use a sharp knife to cut all the corn from the cobs.\n\nHeat a non-stick frying pan on medium. Spray with oil and cook the eggplant for 1\u20132 minutes on each side.\n\nCombine the cooled rice, sweetcorn, eggplant, cucumber, onion and parsley in a large mixing bowl.\n\nMake the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together. Pour over the salad and toss well.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1410 kJ, 9 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 10 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Brown rice_**\n\nBrown rice is a starchy carbohydrate and a surprisingly good source of high-quality protein. It has three times as much fibre as white rice and gives you plenty of B vitamins and minerals. Like all grains, it has no cholesterol, only 2\u20133 per cent fat and very little sodium. At 350 kilojoules (or 85 calories) per half-cup serve, it has a place on any weight-loss diet. Being gluten-free and relatively non-allergenic it is also useful for anyone battling allergies or food intolerance. Rice is often used as the basis of a 'rice diet' to lower blood pressure.\n**Roasted sweet potato, eschalot and asparagus salad**\n\n_This salad can make a wonderful light meal on its own. For a really colourful salad, roast baby beetroot and fennel and add these too. Roasted pistachio nuts also make a delicious addition, but if you do add them, remember the fat content of the salad will increase._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n500 g sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks\n\n8 eschalots, peeled and halved\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped oregano\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n2 bunches asparagus, cut into 5 cm lengths\n\n50 g haloumi cheese, cubed\n\n1 bunch watercress, sprigs picked\n\nDressing\n\n1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon honey\n\n1 tablespoon white wine vinegar\n\nPreheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF).\n\nArrange the sweet potato and eschalots in a baking dish. Toss through the oregano and olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes then add the asparagus and cheese and bake for a further 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly.\n\nTo make the dressing, whisk all the ingredients together.\n\nWhen ready to serve, arrange the roasted vegetables and watercress in a large serving bowl, pour on the dressing and toss gently.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1115 kJ, 13 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 225 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Extra-virgin olive oil_**\n\nExtra-virgin olive oil is one of the healthiest oils for us. It has a high content of natural squalene and plant sterols, which lower cholesterol levels. Polyphenols, the compounds responsible for its deep greenish colour and strong flavour, also help thin the blood and keep it free-flowing. As extra-virgin oil is cold-pressed, it doesn't lose heat-sensitive vitamins or antioxidants. It aids the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, and best of all, it makes vegetables and salads taste delicious.\n**Mixed vegetable couscous**\n\n_Try serving this salad with a roast in place of the traditional roast vegetables._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n2 cups cubed pumpkin or sweet potato (about 500 g)\n\n250 g punnet grape tomatoes\n\n2 zucchini, chopped\n\n1 capsicum, seeded and chopped\n\n1 red onion, chopped\n\n1 cup couscous\n\n1 cup boiling water or low-salt stock\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\n\u00bc cup low-fat natural yoghurt (optional)\n\nPreheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF). Spray a baking dish with oil. Arrange the vegetables in the dish and spray with a little more oil. Bake for 25\u201330 minutes until tender and golden then remove from the oven and keep warm.\n\nMeanwhile, measure the couscous into a mixing bowl. Pour over the boiling water and stir briefly. Cover and leave to stand for 5 minutes, or until all the liquid has been absorbed.\n\nFluff with a fork and stir through the roasted vegetables. Top with a dollop of yoghurt.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1095 kJ, 2 g fat (includes negligible saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 25 mg sodium\n\n**Barley risotto with chickpeas**\n\n_This has a nuttier, chewier texture than traditional risotto made with rice, and makes a delicious accompaniment, a light lunch or supper dish with a green salad on the side \u2014 or try with a little grated parmesan and a rocket salad._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   45 minutes\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\n2 red onions, finely chopped\n\n1 cup pearl barley\n\n3 cups hot salt-reduced chicken stock\n\n2 cups hot water\n\n400 g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed\n\n2 red capsicums, char-grilled, peeled, seeded and finely sliced\n\n2 zucchini, finely chopped\n\nHeat oil in a heavy-based saucepan on medium. Saut\u00e9 the onion for 2\u20133 minutes until it starts to colour. Add the barley and cook for 2 minutes until toasted.\n\nAdd the combined hot stock and water, one ladle at a time, stirring after each addition, until absorbed. Repeat until all stock has been used and the barley is cooked until just tender (al dente), about 40 minutes. Add the capsicum and zucchini with the last ladle.\n\nUse a fork to separate the grains, then stir through the chickpeas and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring continually.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1220 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 10 g fibre, 630 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Barley_**\n\nBarley is an ancient grain with three great virtues over wheat and rice. It is rich in beta-glucan fibre, which can 'sweep' cholesterol out of the body. It contains tocotrienols, vitamin E-related compounds, and has a low GI of 25, so its carbohydrate is slowly absorbed, making it useful for staving off hunger pangs and steadying blood sugar levels. Like flax seeds, it contains lignans which are plant oestrogens that can benefit menopausal women. Barley is low in fat and packed with energy-giving carbohydrates.\n\n**Spinach and split pea dahl**\n\n_This is a perfect accompaniment to Spiced Barbecued Prawns._\n\nServes 4\n\nSoaking time   1 hour\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00bd cup split peas\n\n\u00bc teaspoon turmeric\n\n1 bunch spinach, chopped\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon ginger\n\n3 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon garam masala\n\n\u00bd teaspoon cayenne\n\njuice of \u00bd lemon\n\nCombine the water and split peas in a large saucepan and stir well. Leave to soak for at least 1 hour.\n\nStir in the turmeric and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the spinach and continue to simmer for 10\u201312 minutes until almost all liquid has been absorbed and the peas are tender.\n\nMeanwhile, heat oil in a non-stick frying pan on high. Saut\u00e9 the ginger, garlic, garam masala and cayenne for 2\u20133 minutes until aromatic. Stir into dahl with lemon juice.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 605 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 20 mg sodium\n\n**Warm lentil salad**\n\n_This is a fabulous accompaniment to Easy Biryani._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   2 minutes\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n400 g can brown lentils, drained\n\n2 medium tomatoes, diced\n\n50 g baby spinach leaves, shredded\n\njuice of 1 lemon\n\nHeat oil in a frying pan on medium. Add the lentils and cook, stirring, for 1\u20132 minutes to warm through.\n\nStir in the tomatoes, spinach and lemon juice, and cook for 1 minute until the spinach has wilted.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 390 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 180 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Lentils_**\n\nOne of the oldest legumes and integral to the cuisines of the Middle East, India and Eastern Europe, lentils are important for their protein, iron, zinc, potassium and fibre. Lentils are a source of phyto-oestrogens \u2013 natural plant chemicals which help protect against cancer and heart disease and can minimise the unpleasant side effects of menopause. Lentils are often combined with rice to make a complete and satisfying meal.\n**Lentil dahl**\n\n_This dahl is delicious as a meal or try it with Curried Mussels._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n3\u00bd cups water\n\n400 g can diced tomatoes (or 4 fresh tomatoes, skinned and chopped)\n\n1 cup red lentils (or mixed dahl)\n\n2 potatoes, peeled and cubed\n\n1 teaspoon ground cumin\n\n1 teaspoon ground coriander\n\n\u00bd teaspoon turmeric\n\n\u00bd teaspoon chilli powder\n\n1 tablespoon canola oil\n\n1 onion, finely chopped\n\n4 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 teaspoon mustard seeds\n\n\u00bd teaspoon cumin seeds\n\n1 teaspoon garam masala\n\nCombine the water, tomatoes, lentils, potatoes, cumin, coriander, turmeric and chilli in a large saucepan.\n\nBring to the boil over a high heat, stirring. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15\u201320 minutes until the potatoes are tender.\n\nMeanwhile, heat oil in a frying pan on high. Saut\u00e9 the onion, garlic and seeds for 3\u20134 minutes until the onion is tender and golden. Stir in the garam masala.\n\nBlend the onion mixture into the lentils and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 850 kJ, 5 g fat (includes negligible saturated fat), 7 g fibre, 10 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Garlic_**\n\nOften called 'nature's penicillin', fresh garlic can slow the growth of bacteria and fungi and has a long medicinal history. It was used by the ancient Egyptians, Vikings and Chinese to ward off illness. Use with abundance in your cooking! Fresh garlic is always the best choice for anti-bacterial or anti-viral qualities. Both fresh and dried garlic have been shown to lower LDL-cholesterol, lower high blood pressure and help dissolve blood clots, although not all studies agree. The dose required is quite large for most of us \u2013 10 to 20 grams of fresh garlic (2 to 4 cloves) a day or 600\u2013900 milligrams of powder garlic. Garlic's pungent odour comes from its active agents, allicin and other sulphur compounds. Odourless garlic tablets are not as effective.\n**Saut\u00e9ed red cabbage**\n\n_Serve this cabbage hot, warm or even cold, with roast pork or grilled meats._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   6 minutes\n\n2 teaspoons olive oil\n\n2 teaspoons fennel seeds\n\n\u00bc red cabbage, finely shredded\n\n2 tablespoons chilli jam (or redcurrant or cranberry jelly)\n\n1 tablespoon currants\n\n1 tablespoon red wine vinegar\n\nHeat oil in a frying pan on medium. Saut\u00e9 the fennel seeds for 30 seconds.\n\nStir in the cabbage and saut\u00e9 for 3\u20134 minutes until it begins to wilt.\n\nAdd the chilli jam, currants and vinegar and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 265 kJ, 2 g fat (includes negligible saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 10 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Red cabbage_**\n\nRed cabbage is a wonderful winter vegetable. When cooked briefly it retains much of its vitamins \u2013 especially vitamin C of which it's a rich source. There's also vitamin B1, vitamin K, folate, potassium and a good dose of fibre. Its colour comes from anthocyanins, flavonoids that function as antioxidants and keep you looking youthful and in top health.\n**Herbed crisp potatoes**\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   40 minutes\n\n4 potatoes, unpeeled, quartered\n\n8 whole unpeeled garlic cloves\n\nspray oil\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped thyme\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped rosemary\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped oregano\n\nfreshly ground black pepper\n\nPreheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF).\n\nPlace potatoes in a baking pan, skin-side down. Scatter on the garlic cloves and spray with oil.\n\nSprinkle with the herbs and pepper. Bake for 35\u201340 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through, golden brown and crisp.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 505 kJ, 1 g fat (includes negligible saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 5 mg sodium\n\n**Roasted fennel, tomato and garlic**\n\n_Try this dish as an accompaniment to Fish, Leek and Potato Pies (page 143) or Glazed Pork Fillet (page 149)._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   35 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n2 fennel bulbs, trimmed, sliced (or cut into wedges)\n\n1 leek, trimmed, washed, sliced\n\n2 roma tomatoes, chopped\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n\u00bd cup white wine or salt-reduced chicken stock\n\n1 cup fresh wholegrain breadcrumbs\n\n\u00bd cup grated parmesan\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray a 2 litre casserole dish with oil.\n\nArrange the fennel, leek, tomatoes and garlic in the prepared dish, tossing to combine.\n\nPour the wine over the vegetables. Mix breadcrumbs with the parmesan and sprinkle over the top.\n\nBake for 30\u201335 minutes until tender and golden.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 630 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 5 g fibre, 295 mg sodium\n\n**Celeriac gratin**\n\n_This dish is a great alternative to potato and makes a delicious accompaniment to many meals._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   45 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n500 g celeriac, peeled and thinly sliced\n\n500 g potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced\n\n1\u00bd cups grated reduced-fat tasty cheese\n\n1 cup salt-reduced vegetable stock\n\n2 slices prosciutto, chopped\n\n1 tablespoon chopped rosemary leaves\n\nPreheat the oven to moderately hot, 190\u00baC (375\u00baF). Spray a 3 litre casserole dish with oil. Layer in the celeriac, potato and \u00be of the cheese.\n\nPour on the stock and sprinkle with the remaining cheese, prosciutto and rosemary.\n\nBake, uncovered, for 40\u201345 minutes until tender and golden.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 850 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 760 mg sodium\n\n**Cherry tomato and zucchini bake**\n\n_This delicious combination of flavours is perfect to accompany many meals, but we love it with Honey-rosemary Rack of Lamb \u2013 simply make the lamb without the tomatoes. If you don't have cherry tomatoes, use 500 g of roughly chopped tomatoes. Sliced leek makes a delicious addition to this dish._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   45 minutes\n\n2 x 250 g punnets cherry tomatoes, halved\n\n2 zucchini, thinly sliced\n\n1 tablespoon oil\n\n1 cup fresh wholegrain breadcrumbs\n\n\u00bd cup grated reduced-fat tasty cheese\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Lightly grease a 1\u00bc litre ovenproof dish.\n\nPlace the tomatoes and zucchini in a mixing bowl and toss with the oil. Spoon into the ovenproof dish.\n\nMix the breadcrumbs with the cheese and sprinkle over the vegetables.\n\nBake for 40\u201345 minutes, until golden and bubbly.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 540 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 175 mg sodium\n\nDesserts and sweet treats\n\nIf you have a sweet tooth, you'll enjoy the light and healthy sweet endings we have created here. They'll help to satisfy that desire for sweetness without blowing your total kilojoule intake or burdening you with unwanted fat and sugar.\n\nAs you'd expect, many of our desserts start with fruit. You'll find berry strudels, pears poached in wine, spiced peaches, banana br\u00fbl\u00e9e, date and butterscotch pudding, easy mango crumble \u2013 and of course the ultimate fruit salad. Fruit is naturally sweet, refreshes and cleanses the mouth, is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and is low in fat. And if you don't have time to prepare a dessert, simply finish off with fresh fruit in season.\n\nIn our recipes, we haven't cut out all the sugar, but we've added only the minimum to give a balance of flavour and function. Sugar has indispensable properties in baking and browning which we've used to our advantage. Similarly with fat: we've included some 'good' fat when it's needed, but not in huge amounts.\n\nAnd what to use as topping? We believe you don't need thickened cream or high-fat premium ice cream. Instead, we've suggested different and equally delicious ideas, such as thick natural yoghurt with a sprinkle of cinnamon, low-fat custard, low-fat ricotta mixed with a little honey and grated lemon zest or low-fat vanilla ice cream.\n\nAnd remember, you can always add a sponge finger biscuit, thin almond wafer or a biscotti for crunch with minimum fat.\n\nWhen you're dining out and feel that it's impossible to resist that delicious dessert, keep these tips in mind.\n\n\u2022 Ask for a small portion \u2013 just enough to satisfy, without overloading yourself.\n\n\u2022 Share a dessert between two.\n\n\u2022 Eat just a few mouthfuls, then push your plate away.\n\n\u2022 If you order a tart or slice, eat the filling only, leaving the crumb base or pie crust.\n\n\u2022 And ask the waiter to hold the cream!\n**Pears poached in red wine**\n\n_To make sure that the pears are tender, try gently inserting a skewer \u2013 it will be easily removed if the fruit is ready. Use the same technique for testing other poached fruit such as peaches, nectarines, plums etc._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   45 minutes\n\n2 cups water\n\n2 cups sugar\n\n1 cup red wine\n\n2 strips orange peel\n\n1 cinnamon stick\n\n1 vanilla pod, split and scraped\n\n4 pears, peeled and cored, but left whole\n\nlow-fat custard or Fr\u00fbche to serve (optional)\n\nCombine the water, sugar, wine, orange peel, cinnamon, vanilla pod and seeds in a large saucepan. Stir over a low heat for 2\u20133 minutes until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat until the syrup comes to a boil \u2013 do not stir.\n\nAdd the pears to the saucepan and return to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 15\u201320 minutes, until the pears are just tender.\n\nRemove the pears from the syrup with a slotted spoon and set aside. Remove the aromatics from the syrup and bring it back to the boil. Simmer for 15\u201320 minutes until reduced by half. Serve the pears drizzled with the syrup and top with custard or Fr\u00fbche.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a dollop of custard or Fr\u00fbche) = 2280 kJ, negligible fat, negligible saturated fat, 3 g fibre, 25 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Pears_**\n\nPears have one of the highest fibre contents of all the fruits, supply lots of potassium and magnesium, have few kilojoules and no fat. If you have any type of food intolerance, you will find them indispensable, as they are the least allergenic of all the fruits. They also make an ideal first food for babies. No wonder they are one of the world's most loved fruits. As is usually the case with fruit, fresh is best. If buying canned pears, look for the ones in natural juice, rather than syrup.\n\n**Walnut and spice baked peach halves**\n\n_If you can, buy slip-stone (sometimes called free-stone) peaches. With these varieties it is very easy to remove the stone without bruising the peach. Of course if fresh peaches aren't available, you can use drained, canned peach halves. And pecans can be used instead of walnuts or use a combination of your favourite nuts._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n2 tablespoons wholemeal plain flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground cinnamon\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n20 g light margarine\n\n  cup coarsely chopped walnuts\n\n2 tablespoons rolled oats\n\n2 tablespoons brown sugar\n\n6 peaches, halved and stone removed\n\nlow-fat vanilla ice cream and honey to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF). Spray a deep muffin tray with oil.\n\nIn a small bowl combine the flour and spices. Rub in the margarine using your fingertips, then stir in the walnuts, oats and sugar.\n\nPlace the peach halves, cut-side up into the muffin tray. Divide the nut mixture evenly among the peaches. Bake for 15\u201320 minutes until golden and tender.\n\nServe the peaches warm with ice cream and drizzled with honey.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream and a tablespoon of honey) = 965 kJ, 9 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 4 g fibre, 35 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Walnuts_**\n\nA source of omega-3 polyunsaturated fats, associated with reduced blood cholesterol and blood pressure \u2013 walnuts are a must for a healthy heart. Like all nuts, they are also a source of fibre and vitamin E as well as the minerals potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper and selenium. A serving is a tiny handful \u2013 about 30 grams.\n**Chunky apple bake**\n\n_To make this chunky, crunchy bake look really professional, try to keep the bread and apple cubes the same size. If you want to be creative and use a combination of apple and pears for a change, the same applies._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n3 green apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks\n\n2 slices wholegrain bread, crusts removed and cubed\n\n\u00bd cup low-fat cottage cheese\n\n2 tablespoons brown sugar, plus extra to sprinkle (optional)\n\n200 ml low-fat milk\n\n1 tablespoon lecithin\n\nlow-fat custard or ice cream to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to very hot, 220\u00baC (430\u00baF).\n\nCombine the apples, bread, cottage cheese and sugar in a large mixing bowl and toss them together well.\n\nStir in the milk then spoon the mixture into a shallow ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with lecithin and some extra brown sugar if you want an extra-crunchy topping.\n\nBake for 20\u201325 minutes until bubbling and golden. Serve hot from the oven with low-fat custard or ice cream.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a dollop of custard) = 725 kJ, 3 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 125 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Apples_**\n\nRich in flavonoid antioxidants and the soluble fibre pectin (both renowned for their heart protective capabilities), is it any wonder that an apple a day keeps the doctor away? Fat-free and low in kilojoules, an average apple has only a modest 315 kilojoules (75 calories), making it a good between-meal snack or a crisp, sweet finish to a meal. Their carbohydrate (mostly fructose) is low GI and is digested slowly, keeping blood sugar levels steady. Apples are packed with essential minerals like potassium and magnesium.\n\n**Baked fruit medley**\n\n_In this baked medley you can use the softer type of dried figs, called 'dessert figs', or even fresh figs if you prefer. If you do opt for fresh figs in season, add them during the last 10 minutes of cooking time._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\n\u00bc cup pure maple syrup\n\n30 g light margarine\n\n1 tablespoon brown sugar\n\n1 teaspoon ground cinnamon\n\n3 green apples, quartered (retain skin and core)\n\n3 pears, quartered (retain skin and core)\n\n200 g dried figs\n\n3 stalks rhubarb, trimmed and sliced\n\nlow-fat ice cream or custard to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nCombine the maple syrup, margarine, sugar and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Heat gently, stirring, until melted and well combined.\n\nArrange the apples, pears and figs in a baking dish. Pour in the syrup and toss gently so the fruit is evenly coated.\n\nBake for 15 minutes. Add the rhubarb to the dish, stirring in gently so it is coated with syrup.\n\nBake for a further 10\u201315 minutes until the fruit is tender. Serve warm with low-fat ice cream or custard.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nTry making this with fresh stone fruit: top a selection of peaches, nectarines, apricots or plums with flaked almonds and bake for 15\u201320 minutes.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream) = 1325 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 11 g fibre, 65 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Figs_**\n\nOne of the oldest known fruits, figs add a marvellous flavour and texture to any dessert. Like all fruit, they have almost no fat or sodium but their tiny seeds are what sets them apart. These are a great source of protein as well as minerals such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron. They also have mild laxative properties (handy if you're troubled by constipation). Dried figs are concentrated with around half their weight being fruit sugars.\n**Fruit salad with cinnamon yoghurt**\n\n_This is one of those recipes where you can be as creative as you like. Try any colourful combination of ripe fruit that are in season. For a simpler dessert, serve chunks of chilled honeydew or rockmelon with a dollop of low-fat Greek-style natural yoghurt, a sprinkling of sugar or sweetener and a scattering of chopped pistachios._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n150 g (1 punnet) blueberries\n\n\u00bd small pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced\n\n\u00bc rockmelon, seeds removed and sliced\n\n2 tablespoons shredded mint\n\n1 tablespoon chopped glac\u00e9 ginger\n\nCinnamon yoghurt\n\n200 g tub low-fat natural yoghurt\n\n1 tablespoon honey\n\n\u00bc teaspoon cinnamon\n\nCombine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and toss gently to combine. Chill until required.\n\nTo make the cinnamon yoghurt, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix together well.\n\nServe the fruit salad with a generous dollop of cinnamon yoghurt.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including cinnamon yoghurt) = 395 kJ, negligible fat, negligible saturated fat, 2 g fibre, 35 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Rockmelons_**\n\nRefreshingly sweet and juicy, rockmelons have no fat and a mere 140 kilojoules (33 calories) a serve. They are equally delicious as a light summer dessert, a fresh-tasting breakfast, or a quick, healthy snack. Half a small rockmelon (around 1 cup of diced melon) will provide one-and-a-half times your daily requirement of vitamin C and up to 20 times more beta-carotene than either honeydew or watermelon. It also gives you around 1.5 grams of fibre, as much as a slice of wholemeal bread.\n\n**Mixed berry and ricotta strudels**\n\n_This recipe can readily be adapted for other fruits including sliced plums, pears, apples or rhubarb, on their own or combined. Apple and rhubarb makes a delicious combo._\n\nServes 6\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n8 sheets filo pastry\n\n300 g fresh ricotta\n\n2 tablespoons brown sugar\n\n150 g punnet blueberries\n\n125 g (\u00bd punnet) strawberries, hulled and chopped\n\n120 g (1 punnet) raspberries (or frozen)\n\n1 teaspoon caster sugar\n\nicing sugar and low-fat ice cream to serve\n\nPreheat oven to very hot, 220\u00baC (430\u00baF). Spray 2 baking trays with oil and line them with baking paper.\n\nWorking with one sheet of filo pastry at time, place it flat on a clean, dry surface. Spray lightly with oil. Top with a second sheet of filo and spray with oil. Repeat this process until you have 4 layers.\n\nMake a second stack with the remaining 4 sheets of filo pastry, following the same procedure. Cut each stack crosswise into 3 even strips.\n\nIn a small bowl, combine the ricotta with the brown sugar, blending well. Place an equal amount onto the centre of each filo strip, leaving a 2 cm border. Distribute the berries evenly between the filo strips, mounding them onto the ricotta.\n\nFold the long sides in, then roll up to enclose the filling, forming a parcel shape. Arrange seam-side down on prepared trays.\n\nSpray with oil and sprinkle with the caster sugar. Bake for 10\u201315 minutes until golden brown. Serve immediately dusted with icing sugar and accompany with ice cream.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream) = 830 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 245 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Strawberries_**\n\nStrawberries are packed with vitamin C, potassium, fibre and folate. They boast a number of phyto-chemicals, naturally occurring plant compounds that are now being researched for their medicinal properties. One of these is ellagic acid, a substance that appears to 'neutralise' carcinogens in the intestines and so reduces damage to DNA and other genetic material. Best of all, strawberries have a low GI and a punnet of strawberries (125 grams) supplies a mere 100 kilojoules (24 calories).\n**Vanilla pannacotta with strawberry salsa**\n\n_If you don't use gelatine very often in your cooking, remember to let it cool to the same temperature as the yoghurt mix. This minimises the risk of lumps forming and ensures you achieve that desirable creamy smoothness._\n\nServes 6\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   5 minutes (plus chilling time)\n\n2 x 200 g tubs no-fat vanilla yoghurt\n\n2 tablespoons honey\n\n\u00bd teaspoon vanilla paste\n\n2 teaspoons gelatine\n\n\u00bc cup just boiled water\n\nStrawberry salsa\n\n250 g (1 punnet) strawberries, hulled and chopped\n\n1 tablespoon icing sugar\n\n1 tablespoon Grand Marnier\n\nChill six 60 ml moulds. Combine the yoghurt, honey and vanilla in a large mixing bowl.\n\nDissolve the gelatine by whisking vigorously in hot water in a small jug. Allow to cool slightly.\n\nBeat a little of the yoghurt mixture into the gelatine to equalise the temperature, then whisk this back into the yoghurt mixture until well combined.\n\nPour into the prepared moulds and chill until almost set. Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight.\n\nTo make the strawberry salsa, combine the strawberries, icing sugar and Grand Marnier in a mixing bowl and toss together gently. Cover and chill until required.\n\nTo unmould the pannacottas, carefully run a blunt knife around the rim of each mould and then dip them into hot water for a few seconds. Invert onto serving plates and shake firmly. Carefully lift away the moulds.\n\nServe the pannacottas with a spoonful of strawberry salsa.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 435 kJ, negligible fat, negligible saturated fat, 1 g fibre, 60 mg sodium\n\n**Never-fail berry fool**\n\n_This is such a simple dessert you'll want to whip it up time and again. It's also an easy one to vary \u2013 instead of berries you can use chopped mangoes, bananas or passionfruit._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\n3 egg whites\n\n\u00bc cup caster sugar\n\n2 cups low-fat pouring custard\n\n2 cups mixed berries of choice\n\ntoasted slivered almonds to serve\n\nIn a clean, dry bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric beater until soft peaks form. Take care not to over-beat them, though, or they will collapse and cannot be used.\n\nGradually add the sugar, beating constantly, until thick and glossy.\n\nGently fold in the custard and berries and spoon into serving glasses. Chill until required. Serve topped with almonds.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 810 kJ, 3 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 100 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Berries_**\n\nNutritionally, berries are in a class of their own. They are all good-to-excellent sources of vitamin C and dietary fibre and supply lesser amounts of many essential minerals, like potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium and phosphorus. The purple and red pigments (anthocyanins) in berries function as antioxidants, minimising the effects of ageing. Eaten fresh, they're a top supplier of two key B vitamins including folate (essential for younger women as it helps prevent birth defects in babies) and niacin (which releases energy from food). And they won't pile on the weight either \u2013 half a punnet of strawberries (125 grams) supplies a mere 100 kilojoules (24 calories).\n**Fruity ricotta cakes**\n\n_Although fresh and tub ricotta are often interchangeable, for this recipe you really need to use fresh ricotta; the tub version is a little bit too soft. You can use other dried fruit of your choice for variety._\n\nMakes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n250 g fresh low-fat ricotta cheese\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla paste\n\n  cup sultanas\n\n\u00bc cup chopped dried apricots\n\n2 tablespoons honey\n\nfinely grated zest of 1 orange\n\nlow-fat ice cream, custard or yoghurt to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray four 120 ml ramekin dishes with oil.\n\nCombine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix until well combined. Spoon into the prepared ramekin dishes and arrange on a baking tray.\n\nBake for 15\u201320 minutes until firm. Serve warm or cold with low-fat ice cream, custard or yoghurt.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream) = 885 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 4 g saturated fat), 1 g fibre, 140 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Dried apricots_**\n\nDried apricots pack more of a punch than fresh as they are more concentrated. They boast 5 times as much beta-carotene (an antioxidant that's converted to vitamin A), which is great for healthy skin and eyes. They also have around twice the fibre and 4 times the amount of iron as fresh apricots. But you only need a few \u2013 5\u20136 halves is the equivalent of a serving.\n**Yoghurt and caramel ice cream**\n\n_If the caramel is a little bit too gooey, you can thin it down slightly by adding a little warm water. If you find caramel a bit sweet, try chocolate topping instead. For something a little fruitier, add a cup of your favourite berry pur\u00e9e._\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\nFreezing time   overnight\n\n2 x 500 g tubs low-fat vanilla yoghurt\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla paste\n\n2 eggs\n\n\u00be cup icing sugar, sifted\n\n\u00bc cup pistachio nuts\n\n\u00bd cup caramel topping, beaten until runny\n\nCombine the yoghurt and vanilla paste in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until smooth.\n\nWhisk the eggs and sugar in a heat-resistant bowl. Place over a saucepan of gently simmering water and continue whisking until pale and mousse-like (it will take 10\u201315 minutes). Fold into the yoghurt.\n\nPour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions. When the ice cream is semi-frozen add the nuts and allow it to churn for a few more moments. If you don't have an ice-cream machine, freeze the mixture until semi-frozen then beat vigorously or pulse in a food processor for a few seconds before folding in the nuts.\n\nTip half the ice cream into a 10 x 20 cm loaf pan and swirl through half the caramel. Repeat with another layer and freeze overnight.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 1090 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 1 g fibre, 140 mg sodium\n\n**Watermelon sorbet**\n\n_For that delectably smooth sorbet texture, you need to add egg white \u2013 it helps to prevent ice crystals forming._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   10 minutes\n\nFreezing time   overnight\n\n4 cups chopped seedless watermelon flesh (around 900 g)\n\njuice 1 lemon\n\n1\u00bd cups water\n\n1 cup sugar\n\n1 egg white\n\nfresh fruit to serve (optional)\n\nPlace the watermelon and lemon juice in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Push through a strainer.\n\nCombine the water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes without stirring.\n\nRemove from the heat and allow to cool before stirring in the watermelon pur\u00e9e. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions until semi-frozen. If you don't have an ice cream machine, freeze the mixture until semi-frozen then beat vigorously or pulse in a food processor for a few seconds.\n\nWhile the sorbet is churning place the egg white into a clean bowl and whisk until frothy. Fold through the semi-frozen sorbet then pour into an 18 x 28 cm tray. Freeze overnight.\n\nServe in scoops on its own or with fresh fruit.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nThere is no limit to the variety of delicious fruit sorbets you can try: replace the watermelon with 4 cups of pur\u00e9ed stone fruit, or 8 kiwi fruit, 1 cup of lemon juice and the finely grated zest of 2 lemons, or the pur\u00e9ed flesh of 4 mangoes.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 825 kJ, negligible fat, negligible saturated fat, 1 g fibre, 15 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Watermelon_**\n\nWith its high water content, watermelon is a refreshing fruit for the hot summer months. A good source of vitamin C, watermelon is also a source of lycopene so it can top up your levels of cancer-protective antioxidants. And all for a tiny 274 kilojoules (65 calories) for a cool, sweet thick slice! Buy the seedless varieties for a fuss-free thirst-quencher.\n\n**Banana br\u00fbl\u00e9e**\n\n_A combination of two favourite desserts: br\u00fbl\u00e9e and banana custard! We love the layer of caramelised fruit on top of this br\u00fbl\u00e9e, and it works just as well with strawberries, mangoes or other fruits in season. Or be traditional, and omit the fruit altogether._\n\nServes 4\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes (plus chilling time)\n\nCooking time   8 minutes\n\n2 cups low-fat milk\n\n\u00bc cup skimmed milk powder\n\n\u00bc cup caster sugar\n\n2 tablespoons cornflour\n\n2 eggs, beaten\n\n1 banana, sliced\n\nsponge fingers or biscotti to serve\n\nCombine the milk, milk powder and 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a heavy-based saucepan. Blend a little of the liquid into the cornflour, mixing until smooth. Tip this back into the saucepan and add the beaten eggs.\n\nBring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and simmer for 3 minutes to cook the flour. Spoon into 4 ramekin dishes and chill overnight.\n\nPreheat the grill to its highest setting. Just before serving, top each ramekin with an even layer of banana slices. Sprinkle with the remaining sugar, coating the bananas evenly. Grill for 2\u20134 minutes until the sugar caramelises.\n\nServe with sponge fingers or biscotti.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 sponge finger biscuit) = 1045 kJ, 5 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 1 g fibre, 160 mg sodium\n\n**Rice custard**\n\n_A baked custard is such a wonderful dessert, and so different from the kind from the packet or dairy cabinet in the supermarket. As with cakes, you need to test to make sure it's done. Simply insert the point of a knife into the centre of the custard. If it comes out clean it is cooked._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   35 minutes\n\n1 cup cooked rice (use a low-GI rice, such as Doongara or Moolgiri)\n\n\u00bd cup sultanas, raisins or dried fruit medley\n\n4 eggs\n\n  cup sugar\n\n600 ml low-fat milk\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground cinnamon\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\nlow-fat ice cream to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nSpread the rice over the base of a 1\u00bd litre casserole dish. Sprinkle over the sultanas.\n\nWhisk the eggs with the sugar until well combined. Beat in the milk then pour the custard mixture over the rice and fruit. Dust with cinnamon and nutmeg.\n\nPlace the casserole dish into a large baking dish and pour in enough warm water to come halfway up the sides of the casserole dish.\n\nBake for 30\u201335 minutes until cooked through. Serve with low-fat ice cream.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream) = 1220 kJ, 7 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 1 g fibre, 145 mg sodium\n\n**Easy mango crumble**\n\n_Don't think you have to wait for summer to enjoy this crumble. It works just as well with canned and frozen mangoes. In fact it works with all sorts of fruit and nuts, such as peaches and pears topped with macadamias or pistachios._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n100 g almond bread or biscotti\n\n\u00bd cup rolled oats\n\n2 tablespoons brown sugar\n\n1 tablespoon wheatgerm\n\n2 x 400 g cans mango slices in syrup, drained (reserve 2 tablespoons of the syrup) or 8 frozen or fresh mango cheeks\n\n1 tablespoon chopped pistachio nuts\n\n200 g natural yoghurt\n\n2 tablespoons maple syrup\n\nlow-fat vanilla yoghurt or Fr\u00fbche and maple syrup to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF).\n\nPlace the almond bread or biscotti in a sealed plastic bag and crush it with a rolling pin to coarse crumbs. Alternatively, use a food processor, but be careful not to process too finely \u2013 you need the pieces to be quite chunky.\n\nPour the crushed almond bread into a large mixing bowl with the oats, sugar, wheatgerm and 2 tablespoons of reserved syrup. (If using frozen or fresh mango, use orange juice in place of the syrup.)\n\nCut the mangoes into chunks and arrange in a shallow ovenproof dish. Scatter on the crumble topping and bake for 20\u201325 minutes until crisp and golden.\n\nServe with yoghurt and a drizzle of maple syrup.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including yoghurt and maple syrup) = 1110 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 25 mg sodium\n\n**_Super ingredient: Wheatgerm_**\n\nIf you feel tired and run down, wheatgerm is the natural way to top up your tank. It'll boost your B vitamins, protein, 'good' fats, vitamin E and fibre, and give you a healthy dose of the antioxidants and minerals that too much alcohol and refined carbohydrates drain out of the body. Wheatgerm is especially rich in the B vitamins that your body needs to release energy from food, particularly carbohydrates.\n**Butterscotch and date pudding**\n\n_Don't feel you have to rush out and buy vanilla paste \u2013 although it's a lovely ingredient to have on hand. For this recipe vanilla extract or even vanilla essence will do just as well._\n\nServes 6\u20138\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes (plus cooling time)\n\nCooking time   45 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n1\u00bc cups chopped dates\n\n1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda\n\n1\u00bd cups boiling water\n\n90 g light margarine\n\n\u00bd cup firmly packed brown sugar\n\n2 eggs\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla paste\n\n1\u00bd cups self-raising flour, sifted\n\nLight vanilla custard\n\n3 egg yolks\n\n\u00bc cup caster sugar\n\n1\u00bd cups low-fat milk, scalded\n\n1\u00bd teaspoon vanilla paste\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Lightly spray a 20 cm square cake pan or casserole dish with oil.\n\nCombine the dates and bicarbonate of soda in a small saucepan. Add the water and bring to the boil, stirring well. Remove from heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes.\n\nCombine the margarine and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla.\n\nFold half the flour into the creamed mixture with half the dates and liquid. Repeat and mix lightly until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40\u201345 minutes until cooked. Test by inserting a skewer into the centre; if it comes out clean, it's cooked.\n\nTo make the custard, beat the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Gradually whisk in the warm milk and vanilla paste. Transfer to a saucepan. Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, for 3\u20134 minutes, until the custard thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Serve the custard warm or chilled with the warm pudding.\n\nWrap any leftovers well and keep frozen or in the fridge. The custard will keep for 2 days in the fridge and can be gently warmed through before serving, if desired.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  For extra crunch, add \u00bc cup chopped pecans to the pudding mixture.\n\n  To make an even lower-fat custard, make it with custard powder and low-fat milk, following the packet instructions.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including custard) = 1795 kJ, 12 g fat (includes 3 g saturated fat), 4g fibre, 320 mg sodium\n\n**Panforte**\n\n_Here's a tip for mess-free chocolate melting. Place the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on medium power for 1 minute bursts. Stir after each minute until the chocolate has melted evenly. Don't use a wooden spoon for stirring \u2013 it can retain moisture that could make the chocolate seize and become unusable._\n\nMakes about 16 slices\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   45 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n\u00be cup macadamia nuts\n\n\u00be cup hazelnuts, almonds or pecans\n\n\u00bd cup dried fruit medley\n\n\u00bc cup mixed glac\u00e9 fruit\n\n\u00bc cup mixed peel\n\n  cup plain flour\n\n1 tablespoon cocoa\n\n\u00bd cup golden syrup or honey\n\n  cup caster sugar\n\n60 g dark chocolate, melted\n\nicing sugar\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate,180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray a 20 cm square or round cake pan with oil and line with baking paper.\n\nSpread all the nuts onto a baking tray. Bake for 4\u20135 minutes until lightly toasted. Chop them roughly and transfer to a large mixing bowl.\n\nReduce the heat to moderately slow, 160\u00baC (325\u00baF). Add the fruit and peel to the chopped nuts then sift in the flour and cocoa. Mix together well.\n\nCombine the syrup and sugar in a small saucepan. Heat on low, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to a simmer, then cook, without stirring, for 4\u20135 minutes until a small amount dropped into a glass of water forms a ball.\n\nPour the syrup mixture and the melted chocolate into the dry ingredients. Mix well.\n\nPour the panforte mixture into the prepared pan, pressing it in well. Bake for 30\u201335 minutes until the panforte is firm to the touch. Cool completely in the pan.\n\nWhen cold, remove from the pan, wrap in foil and leave overnight. To serve, cut into squares or wedges and dust with icing sugar.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Use all glac\u00e9 fruit instead of dried fruit if preferred.\n\n  Sprinkle with a few sesame seeds before baking.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 835 kJ, 11 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 20 mg sodium\n\n**Mixed berry friands**\n\n_When making friands, there's a technique for beating the egg whites so they are easy to incorporate into the mixture. Don't beat them to a thick foam, just whisk them until frothy bubbles begin to appear._\n\nMakes 12\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n1\u00bd cups icing sugar, sifted\n\n1 cup dry breadcrumbs\n\n\u00bd cup plain flour\n\n90 g light margarine, melted\n\n100 ml low-fat milk\n\n6 egg whites\n\n1 cup frozen mixed berries\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray a 12-hole muffin or friand pan with oil.\n\nCombine the icing sugar, breadcrumbs and flour in a large mixing bowl. Blend in the melted margarine and milk, stirring gently until just combined.\n\nIn a clean bowl, lightly whisk the egg whites until frothy. Using a metal spoon, lightly fold the egg whites through the breadcrumb mixture. Gently fold in the berries.\n\nSpoon the mixture evenly into the friand pan. Bake for 25\u201330 minutes until cooked when a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  If you prefer, use wholemeal breadcrumbs. It's easy to make your own using a few slices of stale wholemeal bread \u2013 simply process in a food processor or blender to the right fine consistency.\n\n  Replace the mixed berries with the same amount of chopped apple, pear, dried fruit, fruit and nuts \u2013 or whatever takes your fancy.\n\n  For an interesting flavour variation, replace the milk with a flavoured tea.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream) = 890 kJ, 6 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 1 g fibre, 150 mg sodium\n\n**Date, prune and craisin brownie slice**\n\n_The dried fruit makes this brownie slice lusciously sticky and moist, and the craisins (dried cranberries) add a tang that cuts through the richness. Remember to let it cool after baking: just-cooked brownies often have a soft gooey centre which firms on cooling._\n\nMakes 16\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   25 minutes\n\n\u00bd cup chopped pitted dates\n\n1 cup self-raising flour\n\n  cup cocoa\n\n\u00bd teaspoon bicarbonate of soda\n\n\u00bd cup brown sugar\n\n\u00bd cup chopped pitted prunes\n\n\u00bd cup craisins or raisins\n\n\u00bd cup chopped pecans (or mixture macadamias and pecans)\n\n1 cup low-fat milk\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n3 egg whites\n\nIcing\n\n1 cup icing sugar\n\n1 tablespoon cocoa\n\n1 teaspoon light margarine\n\n1\u20132 tablespoons hot water\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Lightly grease a 20 cm square cake pan and line the base with baking paper.\n\nPlace the dates in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to soak for 15 minutes. Drain well.\n\nSift the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda together into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar, prunes, craisins and nuts.\n\nMake a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour in the milk and vanilla and stir in well.\n\nIn a clean bowl, using an electric beater, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold into the chocolate mixture.\n\nPour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake for 20\u201325 minutes until cooked when tested. Turn onto a wire rack to cool. Ice the brownies when completely cold.\n\nTo make the icing, combine the icing sugar, cocoa and margarine, and enough water to make a spreadable consistency. Drizzle over the brownies. Cut into squares to serve. Store in an airtight container.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve = 725 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 2 g fibre, 90 mg sodium\n\n**Carrot and zucchini cake**\n\n_Cakes freeze well. Allow the cake to cool completely before wrapping firmly, whole or in serving portions, in plastic wrap or place in a freezer bag. Seal (making sure all the air is expelled), label and freeze. Your cake will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months._\n\nServes about 12\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes\n\nCooking time   50 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n1\u00bc cups self-raising flour\n\n1\u00bc cups wholemeal self-raising flour\n\n2 teaspoons mixed spice\n\n\u00bd teaspoon bicarbonate of soda\n\n1 carrot, grated (around \u00bd cup)\n\n1 zucchini, grated (around \u00bd cup)\n\n\u00bd cup sultanas\n\n\u00bc cup chopped pecans\n\n1 cup low-fat milk\n\n\u00bd cup orange juice\n\n2 eggs\n\nlow-fat vanilla ice cream to serve (optional)\n\nOrange icing\n\n1\u00bd cups icing sugar, sifted\n\n2 tablespoons orange juice\n\nzest of 1 orange\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Spray a 10 x 20 cm loaf pan with oil and dust with flour, shaking out any excess.\n\nSift the flours, spice and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl, returning any husks into the mix. Add the grated carrot and zucchini, the sultanas and pecans, and stir until well combined.\n\nWhisk together the milk, orange juice and eggs and gently fold them into the dry ingredients. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.\n\nBake for 45\u201350 minutes until cooked when tested. Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.\n\nTo make the orange icing, combine the icing sugar and orange juice in a large mixing bowl and stir well until smooth. Spread over the cooled cake. Use a zester or very sharp knife to cut a long ribbon of orange peel, taking care not to include any of the bitter white pith. Cut into fine shreds and use to garnish the cake.\n\nServe on its own or with ice cream. You can store this cake in an airtight container after cooling \u2013 it also freezes well.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Use lemon instead of orange for a delicious lemon cake.\n\n  This cake could also become a berry and nut cake by replacing the zucchini and carrot with 1 cup of frozen mixed berries.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including 1 scoop ice cream) = 1115 kJ, 4 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat), 3 g fibre, 245 mg sodium\n\n**Peach and banana clafoutis**\n\n_This delicious dessert is like a fruit flan and is traditionally made with black cherries. You can also try making it with rhubarb, plums or berries. It puffs on cooking and will sink slightly as it cools \u2013 when set it should still wobble slightly._\n\nServes 4\u20136\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   30 minutes\n\nspray oil\n\n425 g can sliced peaches, drained\n\n1 large banana, peeled and sliced\n\n2 eggs\n\n2 tablespoons caster sugar\n\n\u00bc cup plain flour\n\n2 cups low-fat milk\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla paste\n\n1 tablespoon brown sugar\n\nicing sugar and low-fat custard to serve\n\nPreheat the oven to moderately hot, 190\u00baC (375\u00baF). Lightly spray a 20 cm round casserole dish with oil.\n\nArrange the peaches and banana over the base of the prepared dish.\n\nIn a bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until pale. Gradually blend in the flour, then the milk and vanilla until smooth.\n\nPour this mixture over the fruit and sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake for 25\u201330 minutes until set. Serve dusted with icing sugar and drizzled with custard.\n\nNUTRITION ANALYSIS 1 serve (including a dollop of custard) = 900 kJ, 4g fat (includes 2g saturated fat), 2g fibre, 105mg sodium\n\nBasics\n\nWe have put together a selection of basic recipes to make your life healthier and easier! Healthier, because our dressings and sauces really add zing to salad or vegetables without overloading you with unwanted fat, salt or kilojoules; and easier, because they're also a very simple way to add extra flavour and colour to your meals.\n\nSome of the recipes here are modified versions of old favourites; others we have created especially to fit in with the Nutrition for Life way of eating. All of them are versatile and you'll soon be using them freely with all your favourite meals.\n\nDon't think of dressings as just for salads, for instance! Use them, as well as the sauces, to liven up everything from a plain grilled fish fillet to a bowl of broad beans. In traditional Mediterranean cooking, vegetables always have something added \u2013 a splash of good virgin olive oil or a dollop of fresh basil pesto. We think it's the secret to making vegetables more attractive \u2013 and your kids will want to tuck into them with relish. And do please try our collection of simple flavoursome pestos, which do double duty as either dips or as toppings for pasta or fish.\n\nIf you're following a special diet, these recipes are definitely for you. You can make up a batch of salad dressing without any fat, or simmer a pot of stock without adding salt and use your home-made versions in other recipes. When you have to cut out things like salt, sugar or fat (or you have a food allergy or intolerance), it's always easier if you cook from scratch. That way, you know exactly what's in your food. And you don't have to worry about additive numbers or hidden salt or fat.\n**Basil and pine nut pesto**\n\nMakes about 1 cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n2 cups basil leaves\n\n  cup grated parmesan or pecorino\n\n\u00bc cup toasted pine nuts\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n\u00bc cup salt-reduced vegetable stock\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nCombine the basil, parmesan, pine nuts and garlic in a food processor or blender and process until finely chopped.\n\nWith the motor running, gradually drizzle in the stock and oil until a paste-like consistency is achieved.\n\nStore, chilled, in an airtight container for about 1 week.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  If you like, make the pesto with 1 cup of basil leaves and 1 cup of flat-leaf parsley leaves.\n\n  For a change of flavour, replace the basil with coriander or parsley \u2013 or combine all three.\n\n  All the pestos can be stored in an airtight jar in the refrigerator where they will keep happily for up to a week. The ingredients may separate into layers, but you simply give them a stir before using.\n**Spinach and cashew pesto**\n\nMakes about 1 cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n2 cups baby spinach leaves\n\n  cup grated parmesan\n\n\u00bc cup toasted unsalted cashew nuts\n\n1 tablespoon sunflower seeds\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n  cup salt-reduced vegetable stock\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nCombine the spinach, parmesan, cashews, sunflower seeds and garlic in a food processor or blender and process until finely chopped.\n\nWith the motor running, gradually drizzle in the stock and oil until a paste-like consistency is achieved.\n\nThis pesto is best served as soon as it's made \u2013 try tossing it through hot pasta. Although it will keep, chilled, in an airtight container for about 1 week.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nYou can also replace the cashew nuts with walnuts or pecans.\n\nClockwise from top: Fetta, Garlic, Basil and Lemon Pesto; Spinach and Cashew Pesto ; and Char-grilled Capsicum and Ricotta Pesto.\n\n**Semi-dried tomatoes, basil and pecan pesto**\n\nMakes about \u00be cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n\u00bd cup low-fat, semi-dried tomatoes, halved\n\n\u00bd cup basil leaves\n\n\u00bc cup grated parmesan or pecorino cheese\n\n2 tablespoons chopped pecans\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n\u00bd teaspoon chopped chilli\n\n  cup salt-reduced vegetable stock\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\nCombine the tomatoes, basil, parmesan, pecans, garlic and chilli in a food processor or blender and process until finely chopped.\n\nWith the motor running, gradually drizzle in the stock and oil until a paste-like consistency is achieved.\n\nStore, chilled, in airtight container for about 1 week.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nFor a change in flavour, try using flat-leaf parsley leaves instead of basil and char-grilled capsicum instead of tomatoes.\n**Fetta, garlic, basil and lemon pesto**\n\nMakes about   cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\nCooking time   20 minutes\n\n1 head garlic\n\n125 g creamy fetta cheese, Greek or Danish are both good\n\n\u00bc cup basil leaves\n\n\u00bc cup toasted pine nuts\n\n1 tablespoon salt-reduced\n\nvegetable stock\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\nfew drops Tabasco sauce\n\nPreheat the oven to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF). Bake the garlic for 20 minutes.\n\nCombine the remaining ingredients in a food processor or blender. Cut the end off the head of garlic and squeeze the softened garlic into mixture.\n\nProcess until a paste-like consistency is achieved. Use to toss through hot pasta for a delicious creamy sauce.\n\nStore, chilled, in an airtight container for about 1 week.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nFor an extra zing, add some chopped chilli, to taste.\n**Asian-style pesto**\n\nMakes about   cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n\u00bd cup basil leaves\n\n\u00bd cup coriander leaves\n\n\u00bc cup unsalted peanuts\n\n2 tablespoons tamari (or light soy)\n\n1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger\n\n1 tablespoon red wine vinegar\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 long red chilli, seeded and chopped\n\n1 teaspoon water\n\nCombine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until a paste-like consistency is achieved.\n\nThis pesto is particularly good tossed through hot Asian noodles, instead of through Italian pasta.\n\nStore, chilled, in an airtight container for about 1 week.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nUse as a flavour base for Asian stir-fries \u2013 it is equally delicious with chicken, fish, meat and vegetables.\n**Char-grilled capsicum and ricotta pesto**\n\nMakes about 1 cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n1 red capsicum\n\n250 g low-fat ricotta cheese\n\n\u00bd cup sliced basil leaves\n\n2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts\n\n1 tablespoon grated parmesan\n\n2 garlic cloves, crushed\n\nChar-grill the capsicum in a moderate oven, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF), or place it directly over the gas flame on your stove. It needs to be black and blistered all over. Place in a plastic bag, seal and allow to steam for a few minutes before carefully peeling off the skin and removing the membrane and seeds. Leave to cool then chop.\n\nPlace the capsicum into a large mixing bowl with all the remaining ingredients and mix everything together thoroughly.\n\nTo serve, toss through hot pasta, steamed vegetables or use as a dip. It can be stored, chilled, in an airtight container for about 1 week.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Try using toasted, chopped flaked almonds in place of the pine nuts.\n\n  \u00bd cup chopped semi-dried tomatoes can be used in place of the capsicum.\n\n**Celeriac remoulade**\n\nMakes about 2 cups\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes (plus standing time)\n\n500 g celeriac, peeled and finely grated\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\n  cup low-fat whole egg mayonnaise\n\n2 teaspoons Dijon mustard\n\nCombine the celeriac and lemon juice in a bowl. Mix thoroughly so that the celeriac is well coated with the lemon juice and leave to stand for 20 minutes. Drain well, squeezing out any excess liquid.\n\nReturn the celeriac to the same bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Toss together well and serve with fish or meat.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nAdd some freshly cracked black pepper, a spoonful of capers, some chopped dill pickles and fresh dill to make a tangier, chunkier remoulade.\n**Rouille**\n\nMakes about 1\u00bd cups\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n2 char-grilled red capsicum, chopped (for method)\n\n\u00bd cup fresh wholegrain breadcrumbs\n\n4 garlic cloves, crushed\n\n1 red chilli, seeds removed, chopped\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil\n\njuice \u00bd lemon\n\nCombine the capsicum, breadcrumbs, garlic and chilli in a food processor or blender and process until smooth.\n\nWith the motor running, gradually add the oil and lemon juice.\n\nRouille is traditionally served with seafood dishes, such as bouillabaisse. Spread it onto toasted bread or croutons or dollop straight into soup as you serve it.\n\nStore in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 1 month.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nFor a simpler version, blend the garlic, chilli and lemon juice directly into \u00bd cup of low-fat, whole egg mayonnaise.\n\nClockwise from top: No-oil Creamy Dressing; Rouille; No-oil Vinaigrette.\n**No-oil creamy dressing**\n\nMakes about 1 cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n200 g tub no-fat natural yoghurt\n\n1 tablespoon chopped dill\n\n2 teaspoons lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon horseradish\n\nCombine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk together. Serve with your choice of salads. It is particularly good with potato salads and coleslaw.\n\nStore in an airtight container in the fridge, where it will keep well for up to 1 month.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  If you find the dressing a bit acidic, add a pinch of sugar.\n\n  Stir in a spoonful of grainy mustard for an extra zing.\n**No-oil vinaigrette**\n\nMakes about \u00bc cup\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\n2 tablespoons lemon juice\n\n1 tablespoon finely chopped mixed herbs (parsley and thyme)\n\n1 teaspoon red wine vinegar\n\n1 teaspoon seeded mustard\n\npinch of sugar\n\nWhisk all the ingredients together in a small jug. Serve with any salads of your choice.\n\nIt's worth making larger quantities of this vinaigrette and storing it in a screw-top jar in the refrigerator. It will keep well for up to 1 month.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Use your own choice of fresh herbs: parsley, basil, mint and dill are all delicious.\n\n  For a dressing with more depth, try adding a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to the dressing with the red wine vinegar. Or try one of the caramelised versions for a sweeter finish.\n**Low-fat white sauce**\n\nMakes 1 cup\n\nPreparation time   5 minutes\n\nCooking time   5 minutes\n\n30 g light margarine\n\n1 tablespoon plain flour\n\n1 cup low-fat milk\n\nPlace the margarine in a small saucepan and heat gently until it melts. Blend in the flour and cook over a medium heat, stirring, for 1 minute.\n\nRemove the pan from the heat and gradually blend in the milk until smooth. Return to the heat and cook, stirring, until the sauce boils and thickens. Lower the heat and simmer for 3 minutes to cook the flour thoroughly.\n\n**VARIATIONS**\n\n  Add reduced-fat cheese, chopped herbs, saut\u00e9ed mushrooms or green onions.\n\n  Use as the basis for a creamy fresh tomato soup.\n**Salsa verde**\n\nMakes about 1 cup\n\nPreparation time   10 minutes\n\n2 cups parsley leaves, finely chopped\n\n\u00bc cup roughly chopped dill pickles or gherkins\n\n2 tablespoons baby capers\n\n1 tablespoon olive oil\n\n1 tablespoon lemon juice\n\nfinely grated zest 1 lemon\n\n1 garlic clove, crushed\n\nCombine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and toss together thoroughly.\n\nServe this tangy salsa with fish or lamb. It is also delicious with chicken, tossed through steamed vegetables, spread on bruschetta or stirred into risotto.\n\nStore in an airtight container in the fridge for 2\u20133 days.\n\n**VARIATION**\n\nFor a slightly sweeter version, replace the lemon juice and zest with orange.\n**Healthy home-made vegetable stock**\n\n_Making vegetable stock is easy, and it's a great way to clear out the fridge and to use up all sorts of bits and pieces of vegies that might be past their best._\n\nMakes about 2 litres\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   1 hour\n\n2\u20133 carrots, chopped\n\n3\u20134 stalks celery\n\n1 large onion, chopped\n\nother vegetables of your choice, such as zucchini, mushrooms, peas, corn, green beans and capsicum\n\n6\u20138 garlic cloves\n\na few stalks of parsley\n\nother fresh herbs of your choice\n\n1\u20132 bay leaves\n\n1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns\n\nabout 2 litres water\n\nAssemble your selection of vegetables and fresh herbs. There is no need to peel the vegetables, just chop them roughly and place them in a large stock pot. Throw in the black peppercorns and a bay leaf or two for added flavour.\n\nCover your ingredients with water (a good rule of thumb is to have about half vegetables to water) and bring to the boil.\n\nReduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about an hour. Cool and strain.\n\nThat's all there is to it. You've just made vegetable stock. Store in containers in the freezer.\n**Healthy home-made chicken stock**\n\nMakes about 2 litres\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   2 hours\n\n2 kg chicken or turkey carcass or wings\n\n2\u20133 carrots, chopped\n\n3\u20134 stalks celery\n\n1 large onion, chopped\n\n6\u20138 garlic cloves\n\n1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns\n\na few sprigs of parsley\n\nabout 2 litres water\n\nPlace the chicken in a large stock pot with the carrots, celery, onion, garlic, peppercorns and parsley. Cover with water and bring to the boil.\n\nReduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about 2 hours. Periodically skim off the foam as it rises to the surface.\n\nStrain the stock and chill for a few hours. Any fat will rise to the surface and congeal where it can be easily skimmed off. Your stock is now ready for use or for the freezer.\n**Healthy home-made beef stock**\n\nMakes about 2 litres\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes\n\nCooking time   3 hours\n\n3\u20134 kg lean beef and bones\n\n4 large carrots, chopped\n\n4 stalks celery\n\n2 large tomatoes, chopped\n\n2 large onions, chopped\n\n1 garlic head, peeled and chopped\n\n4 bay leaves\n\n1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns\n\na few stalks of parsley\n\nabout 2 litres water\n\nFor a richer flavour, first roast the beef and bones in a hot oven (200\u00baC\/ 400\u00baF) for about 45 minutes.\n\nPlace the beef in a stock pot with the carrots, celery, tomatoes, onions, garlic, bay leaves, black peppercorns and parsley. Cover with water.\n\nBring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 3 hours.\n\nStrain the stock and chill for a few hours. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface. Your stock is now ready for use or for the freezer.\n**Pizza dough**\n\nMakes enough for 1 large pizza\n\nPreparation time   20 minutes (plus rising time)\n\n1 cup warm water\n\n8 g sachet dried yeast\n\n1 teaspoon caster sugar\n\n2\u00bd cups plain flour (wholegrain if liked)\n\n1 teaspoon salt\n\nCombine the water, yeast and sugar in a small jug. Stir well and leave to stand in a warm place for 10 minutes until the mixture is frothy.\n\nSift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the yeast mixture to form a soft, sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 5\u201310 minutes until smooth and elastic.\n\nPlace the dough in a large oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place for around an hour until the dough doubles in size. Knock down the dough to remove the air. Knead briefly into a smooth ball. Proceed with the toppings of your choice.\n**Wholemeal pastry**\n\nMakes enough for 23 cm tart pan\n\nPreparation time   15 minutes (plus resting time)\n\nCooking time   15 minutes\n\n2 cups wholemeal plain flour\n\n\u00bd cup wheatgerm\n\n125 g light margarine\n\n2 egg yolks\n\n2\u20133 tablespoons water\n\nWholemeal is a healthier option than plain flour being rich in B vitamins and fibre. However, some people find that wholemeal pastry is heavier and crumbly. This recipe will give you a smooth, light and crisp-textured pastry that you can use for both sweet and savoury dishes.\n\nSift the flour into a large bowl, returning the husks to the bowl. Stir through the wheatgerm then add the margarine and use fingertips to rub it in thoroughly.\n\nMix in the egg yolks and enough water to make a firm dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.\n\nRoll out the pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper. Use to line a 23 cm tart pan then rest in the refrigerator for a further 30 minutes.\n\nWhen ready to blind bake the pastry shell, preheat the oven to hot, 200\u00baC (400\u00baF). Line the pastry with baking paper and fill with dried beans or rice and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and bake for a further 5 minutes. If filling and cooking immediately, lower the oven temperature to moderate, 180\u00baC (350\u00baF), and proceed as directed.\n\nShopping with zest\n\nThere are many staple ingredients that we love and use all the time and recommend that you keep in your kitchen. They'll help you rustle up quick meals at the last minute and give you the basics for any recipe \u2013 you'll only have to 'top up' on your way home with some fresh herbs, fresh salad ingredients, fish or meat.\n\nSome tips to remember while you are shopping:\n\n\u2022 Always keep a shopping list in the kitchen to jot down items as you run out.\n\n\u2022 Group your shopping list into categories that mirror the aisles in the supermarket (such as dairy, freezer, meats, fresh produce, bakery, deli and general groceries) so you streamline your shopping and don't have to backtrack.\n\n\u2022 Skip that aisle! If you don't need food from a particular aisle in the supermarket (say the confectionery, snacks and soft drinks aisles), don't visit it. Don't be tempted into purchases that are 'nutritional extras'.\n\n\u2022 Buy your fruit and vegetables when it is in season. That way you'll get them at their lowest price, in peak quality and you can afford to buy up lots of different produce for better variety and nutrition.\nDairy and deli\n\nMilk (low-fat or no-fat, skim)\n\nButtermilk\n\nSoy alternatives (low-fat, calcium-enriched soy milk)\n\nLow-fat drinking yoghurt\n\nYoghurt (low-fat plain, low-fat fruit or vanilla)\n\nLow-fat dairy desserts (low-fat custard, Fr\u00fbche)\n\nReduced-fat cheeses (reduced-fat grated or sliced cheese, low-fat ricotta and cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, haloumi, reduced-fat fetta)\n\nMargarine (light olive, canola spread)\n\nTofu\n\nDips (hummus)\n\nPesto (you can make your own fresh pesto using our recipes)\n\nSemi-dried or sun-dried tomatoes\n\nOlives\n\nFreezer items\n\nFrozen vegetables (peas, corn cobs, beans, spinach, broad beans, mixed vegetables, cauliflower, stir-fry mix)\n\nOven-bake chips (8% fat or less)\n\nFish fillets\n\nVegetarian dinner options (soy burger, tofu)\n\nFrozen yoghurt or gelato\n\nIce cream (low-fat vanilla)\n\nFilo pastry\n\nFresh fruit, vegetables and herbs\n\nBasics\n\nChillies\n\nGarlic\n\nGinger\n\nLemons or limes\n\nOnions\n\nPotatoes\n\nFresh seasonal vegetables\n\nAsian greens (bok choy, on choy, Chinese broccoli)\n\nAsparagus\n\nBeans\n\nBroccoli or broccolini\n\nBrussels sprouts\n\nCabbage or Chinese cabbage\n\nCarrots\n\nCauliflower\n\nCeleriac\n\nCorn cobs\n\nEggplant\n\nFennel\n\nLeeks\n\nMushrooms\n\nPeas\n\nPumpkin\n\nSnowpeas\n\nSpinach or silverbeet\n\nSweet potato\n\nZucchini or squash\n\nSalad ingredients\n\nAvocado\n\nCapsicum\n\nCelery\n\nCucumber\n\nGreen onions and spring onions\n\nRed (Spanish) onions\n\nSalad leaves (lettuce varieties, baby spinach, rocket leaves, salad mix)\n\nSprouts (mung bean, snowpea, alfalfa, mixed)\n\nTomatoes\n\nFresh herbs\n\nBasil\n\nChives\n\nCoriander\n\nDill\n\nLemongrass\n\nMint\n\nParsley\n\nFresh fruit\n\nApples\n\nBananas\n\nBerries\n\nGrapes\n\nKiwi fruit\n\nMelon (rockmelon, watermelon)\n\nOranges, mandarins or grapefruit\n\nPeaches, nectarines or apricots\n\nPears\n\nPineapple, pawpaw, mango\n\nRhubarb\n\nMeat\n\nLamb (chops, backstraps, fillets, cutlets, mince)\n\nLean beef (steaks, mince, diced or in strips)\n\nChicken (skinless breast fillets, mince, strips)\n\nPork (strips, chops, fillets, mince)\n\nHam, pancetta or prosciutto\n\nFish\n\nFish fillets (cutlets or whole)\n\nPrawns\n\nMussels\n\nBread and bakery items\n\nBread or rolls (grainy, sourdough, rye)\n\nEnglish muffins\n\nPitta bread or wraps\n\nRaisin bread\n\nGrocery items\n\nEggs\n\nDried legumes (lentils, chickpeas, split peas, beans \u2013 all types are healthy)\n\nPasta\n\nRice (low-GI rice such as Doongara and Moolgiri; basmati or brown rice)\n\nNoodles (hokkien, rice sticks)\n\nBurghul (cracked wheat)\n\nPearl barley\n\nCouscous\n\nPolenta\n\nSemolina\n\nWholemeal breadcrumbs\n\nFlour\n\nBuckwheat flour\n\nLecithin\n\nWheatgerm\n\nOat bran\n\nOils (see box below)\n\nSpray oil\n\nVinegar (red and white wine, balsamic, cider, rice)\n\nStock (salt-reduced, or make your own using our recipes)\n\nNuts and seeds (unsalted varieties \u2013 almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds \u2013 all types are healthy)\n\nDried fruit (sultanas, apricots, raisins, prunes, apples, figs, dates)\n\nSpreads (honey, jams, marmalade, peanut butter)\n\nMaple syrup (100% pure)\n\nBeverages (tea leaves and bags, milk flavourings such as Ovaltine, Horlicks, Milo)\n\nJuices (no added sugar \u2013 orange, apple, pineapple, grapefruit, cranberry, breakfast blends. Dilute with water before drinking)\n\n**_Which oil is best?_**\n\nThere is no single perfect oil for all recipes or for good nutrition. All oils are low in saturated fats, which raise blood cholesterol levels. Oils can be high in either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat and are therefore a healthier choice than saturated fats such as butter and lard.\n\nChoose the oil that complements the dish you're cooking \u2013 olive is the essence of Italian and Greek cuisines; peanut and sesame add oomph to Asian dishes; rice bran, canola and grape seed are more neutral in flavour.\n\nRice bran and grape seed oils are light with a relatively high smoking point, which means they are suitable for high-heat pan-frying (the temperature at which they start to break down and burn is higher than some oils). They have little flavour so are useful for cooking subtly flavoured foods such as fish.\n\nFlaxseed oil is useful for anyone on a vegetarian diet as it is a good source of omega-3.\n\nOlive oil is one of our favourite oils and we use it often. Use 'pure' olive oil for cooking and reserve the more expensive virgin olive oil for splashing over vegetables or making into a salad dressing. We use sesame oil and peanut oil when we want a more pungent, spicy overtone.\n\nRemember that all oils are high in fat and therefore high in kilojoules, so make sure you use the smallest quantity you need for the job.\n\n_**Types of oil**_\n\n**_Monounsaturated oils_**\n\nOlive\n\nCanola\n\nPeanut\n\nSunola\/monosun\n\n_**Polyunsaturated oils**_\n\nSunflower\n\nGrape seed\n\nSoy bean\n\nMaize (corn)\n\nCottonseed\n\nWalnut\n\nSafflower\n\nFlaxseed\n\n**_A mix of poly- and monounsaturated_**\n\nSesame\n\nRice bran\n\nCanned goods\n\nBaked beans (salt-reduced)\n\nThree bean mix or chick peas (for salads)\n\nKidney or soy beans (to stretch out casseroles or meat dishes)\n\nLentils\n\nCorn kernels\n\nCreamed corn\n\nTomatoes, whole or diced\n\nTuna (in freshwater or in sachets, plain or flavoured)\n\nSalmon (pink or red)\n\nSoups (low-fat and salt-reduced)\n\nLight evaporated milk (plain and coconut-flavoured)\n\nSauces and dressings\n\nTomato pasta sauces\n\nTomato paste (no added salt)\n\nCurry paste, curry powder\n\nBottled pasta sauces\/dinner sauces (handy for quick meals \u2013 tomato-based ones are low fat and look for less than 5 grams of fat per 100 grams for others)\n\nAsian sauces (salt-reduced soy, fish, oyster, teriyaki, hoi sin \u2013 these are high in salt even if salt-reduced so use sparingly)\n\nSauces\/marinades (sweet chilli sauce, Tabasco, Worcestershire \u2013 can be high in salt but add flavour and make fat-trimmed meats and vegetables taste delicious!)\n\nSalad dressings (regular, no-oil, or make your own vinaigrette using our recipe)\n\nMayonnaise or creamy dressing (fat-free, low-fat, or make your own using our recipe)\n\nRelishes, condiments and spices\n\nRelishes and condiments (mustard (Dijon or grainy), fruit chutney, tomato relish, horseradish \u2013 add flavour to lean meats, fish and sandwiches)\n\nSpices and dried herbs (oregano, mixed herbs, Italian herbs, cumin, five spice, lemongrass, turmeric, tarragon, thyme, dill seeds, sage, fennel, bay leaves, paprika, cayenne, garam marsala, saffron, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla pod, vanilla paste, mixed spice; bottles of minced ginger, chilli, coriander; tubes of herb paste \u2013 can be high in salt so use sparingly) \nConversion tables\n\n_**Liquid measures**_|   \n---|---  \n**metric**|  **imperial**  \n30 ml | 1 fl oz   \n60 ml | 2 fl oz   \n100 ml | 3 fl oz   \n125 ml | 4 fl oz   \n150 ml | 5 fl oz (\u00bc pint)   \n190 ml | 6 fl oz   \n250 ml | 8 fl oz   \n300 ml | 10 fl oz (\u00bd pint)   \n500 ml | 16 fl oz   \n600 ml | 20 fl oz (1 pint)   \n1000 ml (1 litre) | 35 fl oz (1\u00be pints)   \n**_Dry measures_**|   \n---|---  \n**metric**|  **imperial**  \n15 g | \u00bd oz   \n30 g | 1 oz   \n60 g | 2 oz   \n90 g | 3 oz   \n125 g | 4 oz (\u00bc lb)   \n155 g | 5 oz   \n185 g | 6 oz   \n220 g | 7 oz   \n250 g | 8 oz   \n280 g | 9 oz   \n315 g | 10 oz   \n345 g | 11 oz   \n375 g | 12 oz (\u00be lb)   \n410 g | 13 oz   \n440 g | 14 oz   \n470 g | 15 oz   \n500 g | 16 oz (1 lb)   \n750 g | 24 oz (1\u00bd lb)   \n1 kg | 32 oz (2 lb)   \n_**Teaspoons, tablespoons and cups**_  \n---  \n1 Australian metric teaspoon = 5 ml   \n1 Australian metric tablespoon = 20 ml   \n1 Australian metric cup = 250 ml   \n**_Oven temperatures_**|  |   \n---|---|---  \n| **\u00b0Celsius**|  **\u00b0Fahrenheit**  \nvery slow | 120 | 250   \nslow | 150 | 300   \nmoderately slow | 160 | 325   \nmoderate | 180 | 350   \nmoderately hot | 190 | 375   \nhot | 200 | 400   \nvery hot | 220\u2013250 | 450\u2013500   \n_**Length**_|   \n---|---  \n**metric**|  **imperial**  \n5 mm | \u00bc in   \n1 cm | \u00bd in   \n2 cm | \u00be in   \n2.5 cm | 1 in   \n5 cm | 2 in   \n7.5 cm | 3 in   \n10 cm | 4 in   \n15 cm | 6 in   \n20 cm | 8 in   \n30 cm | 12 in \n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}