The City of Mirrors

He sensed someone coming up behind him: Lore.

“Nice morning,” she said.

“Looks like rain.”

She shrugged, looking over the water. “Still nice, though.”

She meant, How many more mornings will we have? How many dawns to watch? Let’s enjoy it while we can.

“How are things in the pilothouse?” Michael asked.

She blew out a breath.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get it.”

A bit of pink was in the clouds now. Gulls swooped low over the water. It really was a fine morning, Michael thought. He felt suddenly proud. Proud of his ship, his Bergensfjord. She had traveled halfway around the world to test his worthiness. She had given them a chance and said, Take it if you can.

A glow of light appeared on the causeway.

“There’s Greer,” he said. “I better go.”

Michael made his way up the quay and met the first tanker truck just as Greer stepped down from the cab.

“That’s the last of it,” Greer said. “We tapped out at nineteen tankers, so we left the last one behind.”

“Any problems?”

“A patrol eyeballed us south of the barracks at Rosenberg. I guess they just assumed we were on the way to Kerrville. I thought they’d be onto us by now, but apparently they’re not.”

Michael glanced over Greer’s shoulder and signaled to Rand. “You got this one?”

Men were swarming over the tankers. Rand gave him a thumbs-up.

Michael looked at Greer again. The man was obviously worn out. His face had thinned to skull-like proportions: cheekbones ridged like knives, eyes red-rimmed and sunk into their pockets, skin waxy and damp. A frost of white stubble covered his cheeks and throat; his breath was sour.

“Let’s get something to eat,” Michael said.

“I could go for some shut-eye.”

“Have breakfast with me first.”

They’d erected a tent on the quay with a commissary and cots for resting. Michael and Greer filled their bowls with watery porridge and sat at a table. A few other men were hunched over their breakfasts, robotically shoveling the gruel into their mouths, faces slack with exhaustion. Nobody was talking.

“Everything else good to go?” Greer asked.

Michael shrugged. More or less.

“When do you want us to flood the dock?”

Michael took a spoon of the porridge. “She should be ready in a day or two. Lore wants to inspect the hull herself.”

“Careful woman, our Lore.”

Patch appeared on the far side of the tent. Eyes unfocused, he shambled across the space, lifted the lid on the pot, decided against it, and took one of the cots instead, not so much lying down as succumbing, like a man felled by a bullet.

“You should catch a few winks yourself,” Greer said.

Michael gave a painful laugh. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

They finished breakfast and walked to the loading area, where Michael’s pickup was parked. Two of the tankers were already drained and standing off to the side. An idea took shape in Michael’s mind.

“Let’s leave one tanker full and move it to the end of the causeway. Do we have any of those sulfur igniters left?”

“We should.”

No further explanation was necessary. “I’ll let you see to it.”

Michael got in the pickup and placed his Beretta in the bracket under the steering wheel; a short-barreled shotgun with a pistol grip and a sidesaddle of extra shells was clamped between the seats. His rucksack rested on the passenger seat: more rounds, a change of clothes, matches, a first-aid kit, a pry bar, a bottle of ether and a rag, and a cardboard folder sealed with twine.

Michael started the engine. “You know, I’ve never been in jail before. What’s it like?”

Greer grinned through the open window. “The food’s better than it is here. The naps are sensational.”

“So, something to look forward to.”

Greer’s expression sobered. “He can’t know about her, Michael. Or about Carter.”

“You’re not making my job any easier, you know.”

“It’s how she wants it.”

Michael regarded his friend for another few seconds. The man really did look terrible. “Go sleep,” he said.

“I’ll add it to my to-do list.”

The two men shook. Michael put the truck in gear.

* * *

41

“Everybody, settle down!”

The auditorium was packed, all the seats taken, with more people crowded into the back and along the aisles. The room stank of fear and unwashed skin. At the front of the room, the mayor, red-faced and sweating, pointlessly banged his gavel on the podium, yelling for silence, while behind him, the members of the Freestate Council—as ineffective a group of individuals as Eustace had ever laid eyes on—found papers to shuffle and buttons to adjust, guiltily averting their gazes like a group of students caught cheating on a test.