Exile Hunter (58 page)

He swapped the disc for
another and selected a track.

“Okay, now, I want
you to listen to the first thirty seconds of this and see if you can
keep your feet from moving.”

It was the big-band
Latin dance number, “A Bailar Meringue” by the great 1950s Cuban
bandleader, Xavier Cugat. After a few bars of understated percussion
to set the beat, the brass and woodwinds blared out a driving dance
rhythm, with the male chorus joining in soon after. Linder stood
facing Caroline and asked her to watch and imitate as he bent his
knees slightly and dipped his hips from left to right in a sinuous
movement.

“Now, imagine being
feather-light on your feet while feeling the beat in your hips,” he
directed.

Once she had mastered
the basic meringue step, he led her sideways across the floor while
remaining opposite her, then circled her in small steps. Before long,
she was doing the same, and then they moved into a closed position,
with Linder extending his right hand to Caroline’s waist while
taking her right hand with his left and holding it at shoulder level.
And from there, Linder led her into a series of complex turns without
releasing her hand so that, before long, their arms became twisted
like pretzels.

As they danced, Linder
sensed the syncopated rhythm penetrating stiffened muscles and sinews
that had known beatings, hard labor and frostbite, and had carried
him on a trek of nearly two thousand miles to this place. He felt his
limbs relax to a degree not enjoyed since his youth, when he had
danced to the same music with a dark-haired girl not much older than
Caroline. It was as if his spirit had left his body and cast aside
the hardened shell of reserve he had accumulated over more than a
decade of undercover work for the CIA and the DSS.

Suddenly Linder noticed
Caroline was out of step and had turned her gaze toward the kitchen,
where her mother stood in the doorway with an amused look that slowly
faded into a dull stare. To Linder’s surprise, Patricia had changed
from her sweatshirt and jeans into a sleeveless floral dress with a
hem several inches above the knees that displayed her tanned limbs to
stunning advantage. The transformation left him momentarily
speechless.

Linder stopped the
music and noticed a cowed look on Caroline’s face before he turned
to address her mother.

“Can you recall any
of the steps?” he asked Patricia, offering her his hand. “I
remember how the rumba and the meringue came so naturally to you.”

“Heavens, no. It’s
been far too long,” she replied without moving toward him. “But
you certainly haven’t forgotten,” she added almost wistfully.

“It’s been just as
long for me,” he answered. “Are you sure you won’t give it a
try?”

Patricia shook her head
and Linder wondered what lay behind her hesitation. Since she
appeared to have noticed the dance’s remarkable effects on him,
might she fear its possible effect on her? She was, after all, a
married woman with a young daughter, which required keeping up
appearances in a traditional town like Coalville, where the locals
preferred things and people to stay in their proper place.

But Patricia was also a
strong-willed woman in the prime of life, whose ailing husband had
been condemned to a long sentence in a labor camp system from which
few prisoners emerged whole. And in front of her was a reasonably
attractive man of her own age, who once had feelings for her and
might harbor them still. If the music had indeed sparked the same
glow in her that it had in him, how might she have interpreted it?
Under his expectant gaze, a smile came to her lips but her eyes did
not join in.

Linder, still flushed
from dancing, spoke now to Caroline as if he might be addressing her
mother at the same time.

“Don’t think that
you’ll be stuck in Coalville for the rest of your life,” he told
her. “Somewhere out there, in the night clubs of London, Beirut,
and Havana, it’s after dark and people are dancing their hearts out
to a live band. Make up your mind that you’ll dance in one of those
clubs someday while you’re still young. Find a way. There’s
nothing else like it on earth.”

“Do you have a
favorite club? Tell me what it’s like,” Caroline urged,
apparently no longer inhibited by her mother’s presence.

But Linder shook his
head.

“To describe how it
feels to dance to a great dance orchestra in a top-notch night club
is, well, it’s like trying to capture a brilliant sunset by drawing
in the sand with a stick. You just have to be there.”

Caroline gave a final
glance at Patricia before returning to her chair to gather her CDs.

“I guess I’d better
pack if I’m going to be on time for the sleepover at Ella’s
house,” she said as she turned to leave. “Thanks for showing me
those steps, Tom.”

“Don’t mention it,”
he replied, following her with his eyes until she left the room.

Without speaking,
Patricia led Linder back to the kitchen, where, to Linder’s
surprise, the lights were dim and the table was set for two. On a
hunch, he had carried the portable CD player with him and set it on
the kitchen counter before taking his seat. Surveying the table
before him, he noted at once that to the right of each place setting
was a full water glass and an empty wine glass, and in place of wine,
a pitcher of lemonade lay at the table’s center. Since his primary
reason for arranging a visit was to check on Patricia’s state of
mind after learning that Roger was trapped at Kamas and to see if her
drinking was under control, Patricia’s buoyant spirits and her
teetotaling put him in a jovial mood.

Over a dinner of lamb
curry and stir-fried vegetables, Patricia opened up in a way he could
never have anticipated. From the moment they sat at the table, she
evoked shared memories of Cleveland and dance class, then launched
into a rambling monologue about growing up in a prominent family and
being sent off to boarding school soon after the death of her mother.

“I was so skinny and
shy and self-conscious in those days,” she recalled. “I worried
constantly about what other people thought about me, whether I had
the right friends and was invited to the right parties. I cringe at
how I used to turn up my nose at perfectly nice boys in favor of boys
from the right families who weren’t nice to me at all. In college,
I found myself liking men from backgrounds that were more ordinary,
but I feared losing status if I were seen with them. I’ll never
forget how enraged I was in my sophomore year at Penn when my uncle
predicted that I would end up marrying someone who attended my coming
out party. I hated him for saying that. And yet, that’s exactly
what I did.”

Patricia reached for
her water glass and took a long draught as if craving something
stronger.

“How did that
happen?” Linder inquired.

“I was fresh out of
Wharton and had just begun the Citibank training program. I went home
for the Christmas holidays and met Charles at a party. He was a few
years older than I was and had gone back to Cleveland to work in the
bank that his relatives founded.

“I don’t know how
to describe it,” she continued, pausing to take another sip. “One
day I was an ambitious career woman in New York and a few days later
all I wanted was a big Tudor house in East Cleveland with an
up-to-date kitchen, three or four kids, and enough charity work to
keep me out of the house a few mornings a week. I really can’t
explain it, except maybe as a reaction to my own mother’s total
lack of maternal instinct.”

“I remember seeing
the wedding announcement,” Linder commented. “You both looked
very happy. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a very enjoyable period for
me.”

“Oh?” Patricia
replied with a puzzled look. “And why was that?”

“It was right after
the Crash of 2008,” Linder explained, “and I was one of those
newly minted MBAs whose hopes of a lucrative Wall Street career
vaporized on contact with the global financial crisis. As it turned
out, the only job I could find before graduation was in
pharmaceutical sales and I hated every minute of it.”

“I can imagine,”
she agreed. “But what I remember hearing about you then was that
you had some mysterious job overseas in the Middle East. We used to
joke that you had joined the CIA.”

“You heard that I
left sales to join the government?” Linder asked, taken aback.

“I met some people
who knew you from Exeter and Columbia. They told me.”

“And here I thought
that you had completely forgotten about me,” he teased, happy that
she had not.

“And did you ever
marry?” she asked, toying with her water glass.

“No,” he replied,
waiting for her to look up. “And I regret that.”

Patricia blushed.
“Don’t,” she answered firmly. “You spared yourself a world of
pain. When Charles died in the riots after the Battle of Cleveland, I
truly wished I had died with him. Suddenly my entire life was turned
upside down. Because my father was suspected of helping the rebels,
Caroline and I had to flee for our lives with nothing more than a
small backpack for each of us.”

“Those were terrible
times for Cleveland,” Linder acknowledged without disclosing that
he had been present then. “I remember thinking of you then and
wondering whether you were safe. How did you manage to get out?”

“We hid in the cargo
hold of a freighter for days while it made its way through the St.
Lawrence Seaway into the North Atlantic,” Patricia answered. “And
even after we arrived in London and my father took us in, none of us
dared mix with strangers for fear of being kidnapped by the Unionists
and spirited back to the U.S. for one of their show trials. If I
hadn’t met Roger then, I don’t know how I would have stayed sane.
Poor Roger, if I had only known then how unhappy his life would
become, I might have spared him the anguish.”

Patricia refilled her
water glass reflexively, drank most of it, and cradled the half-empty
glass in both hands.

“And have you had any
news from Roger?” he asked, aware that the question might upset
her.

Patricia eyed him
warily.

“Would you have asked
if you didn’t already know the answer?” she said.

“I heard about an
envelope. I don’t know what was in it,” Linder lied.

“A postcard was
inside. Roger wrote that he had been sick and was back at Kamas to be
processed out on parole. Except that now, with the revolt, that seems
like a cruel joke. People say the government is going to move in with
tanks and level the place. I’m told they want to set an example to
the other camps.”

She looked up as hoping
that Linder would deny it.

“I expect they will,”
Linder replied.

“But what about the
prisoners who didn’t join in?”

“Once it starts,
they’ll all be treated the same,” he predicted, “There will be
no place to hide.” Linder gave his response without thinking of how
insensitive it must sound, especially when Roger’s death might be
seen as in his interest. But he knew the DSS mentality, and he knew
there was no other possibility if the prisoners did not surrender
without preconditions.

Patricia shook her head
in distress.

“I just can’t
believe that the DSS would let Roger die at Kamas when they seemed so
intent on using us to get to my father’s money. I’m sure that’s
why they released Caroline and me and I have to believe they’ll
find a way to release Roger, too. You see, before we left Lebanon,
the people at the embassy made us sign papers turning father’s
Lebanese assets over to the federal government. I think the
government still needs our help to pursue its claims there.”

“Did your
interrogators actually tell you that?” Linder pressed. “If they
needed your help that badly, I wouldn’t think they’d want you to
know it.”

“They didn’t say it
in so many words,” Patricia explained. “But my impression was
that, once father died, their reason for holding the rest of us was
only about the money.”

As she uttered the
words, Patricia looked distracted, as if recalling a distant memory.

“You know, something
just came back to me,” she continued. “At the embassy, the
interrogator also seemed very interested in Warren Linder. In fact,
he seemed to know quite a lot about you already. Why would that be?
You and I hadn’t seen each other in nearly twenty years.”

“Do you remember
anything about him?” Linder asked, evading her question.

“He was tall and
blond and called himself Dennis,” Patricia replied.

“Did he participate
in the entire interrogation or only one or two sessions?”

“I remember seeing
him every day in Beirut but only once in Virginia. He kept on asking
when I had seen you last and wasn’t satisfied when I insisted that

I hadn’t seen you
since we were teenagers. I hope they didn’t hurt you because of
anything I told them...” Patricia’s dark eyes glistened as she
spoke.

“Not at all,”
Linder assured her. “I remember them asking me about you, too, and
about your father, but I just repeated back to them what they already
knew. The things they asked about were all ancient history and didn’t
really make much sense.”

“Oh, yes, my father,”
she interrupted. Then suddenly she fell silent and her face lost all
expression. “They grilled me for hours about my father’s support
for the insurgency and then about how much money he had hidden away
in foreign bank accounts. Except that I knew nothing about that,
because my father was always very private about money. All his life,
he avoided conspicuous displays of wealth and taught us not to act
like we were rich, or people would value us only for our money.”

“It must have been
tough growing up in Cleveland with a last name like Eaton,” Linder
observed.

“That’s why he
insisted that I apply to boarding schools in Boston,” she replied.
“And why he was so happy when I moved to New York when I finished
graduate school. There, the Eaton name meant nothing and I would have
to sink or swim on my own.”