Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

CHAPTER 3

He couldn’t sleep.

The thing was, he didn’t know what they’d ask him to do. All he knew was that a lot of people were going to get wet. Otherwise, what was the point? Still…

The night slowly drained toward dawn. At some point, he fell into a light, fitful sleep, the kind that leaves you tired. When he woke up, it seemed to Wilson that he’d just dozed off – and that it was now morning. But a glance at the clock told him it was noon.

He took a quick shower, called room service, and dressed quickly, putting on the clothes he’d bought the night before. Breakfast arrived on a trolley, looking like an African village on wheels, its chafing dishes gleaming like so many silvered huts. Bacon and eggs, toast and hash browns. Orange juice and coffee.

wait in room dont go out

He nibbled on a slice of raisin toast. It was all he could stomach. Except for the coffee. He drank a pot of it, slowly pacing from one end of the room to the other, saucer in one hand, cup in the other. Seeing the remote, he picked it up and, without thinking, touched the On button, then just as quickly snapped it off as a wave of applause hit him in the face.

Regis and Kelly. (Twelve to one.) He might as well have been looking at his watch.

In China, people could smell the time of day. There were coils of incense made with spices and herbs, and as the incense burned, the fragrance changed. Sandalwood, frankincense, lavender, patchouli. A procession of scents marked the hours.

The same thing was true in prison, except that instead of incense, there was television. A cascade of laugh tracks, sound tracks, and quiz shows created a background hum of ambient noise. After a while, you didn’t need a watch to tell the time. You could hear it.

Except in Supermax.

Supermax was different. He’d spent four years in the Feds’ Administrative Maximum Prison in Colorado, locked down twenty-three hours a day the first two years. And it was like doing Supertime. He lay on a concrete bunk in a concrete cage, watching a twelve-inch black-and-white monitor. The monitor was embedded in the wall, and permanently tuned to “spiritual programming” and lectures on anger management. High up on the wall, a four-by-forty-eight slit of a window offered a view of the sky. Fluorescent lights burned day and night.

Most days, the guards took you in shackles to a bigger cell that had a chin-up bar. This was the exercise room, and it was yours alone for an hour a day. The strange thing was, he looked forward to going there because, every so often, he’d cross paths with another prisoner. That crazy-looking English guy, the one with the bombs in his shoes, was one. And the Unabomber – Ted Kaczynski – he was another.

Seeing Kaczynski gave him hope that when they moved him from Level 1 to Level 2, there’d be someone to talk to. But it took him two years to make that trip and, in the end, Wilson never saw him again. Too bad. Because the two of them – they thought alike in a lot of ways.

wait in room don’t go out

With a growl, Wilson dropped into a chair beside a bank of windows overlooking the atrium. Eight stories below, the lobby was steeped in the false twilight that bad weather brings.

He waited. Watched. Dozed, thinking, What if it’s a setup? What then? What if – A soft knock rattled the door.

It took him by surprise because he hadn’t seen Bo enter the hotel, hadn’t seen him cross the lobby floor. Lifting himself from the chair, Wilson went to the door and pulled it open, only to be surprised a second time. No Bo. No friends of Bo. Just a young Latino guy standing beside a luggage trolley. On the trolley: a pair of suitcases, cocooned in shrink-wrap.

“I guess you’ve been waiting for these,” the bellman said.

Wilson blinked, did his best to conceal his surprise. Said, “Yeah. Yeah, I have!”

“Okay if I put them in the corner?”

“Yeah, sure. Wherever.”

The kid lifted the bags by their straps and, one at a time, stacked them on the luggage caddy next to the armoire with the TV and minibar. Wilson fumbled in his pockets for change, found a ten-dollar bill, and handed it to him.

“Hey, thanks!” the kid said. “You need something, you ask for Roberto, okay?”

When the door closed, Wilson sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the suitcases. They were carry-ons – black Travelpros with retractable handles and in-line wheels. Nice suitcases. And not particularly light. You could tell by the way the kid carried them, shoulders hunched and elbows tight against his sides. They probably weighed twenty pounds each.

He took a deep breath. This is it, he thought. The rest of my life. Shrink-wrapped. Crossing the room to the computer, he logged on to the Yahoo! address that he’d visited the night before, and clicked on the Draft folder. The connection was slow. It seemed as if the page would never load, but when it did, he found a single message with the Subject and To lines left blank.

Good meeting with contacs. You and me, we show good faith, they get it together for us. Okay? This means (you ready? here goes)

Remove shrinkwrap.

Do NOT pull out handels. Do not!

Take to terminel at Dulles.

Now, pull out handels.

Walk away.

You have 10 minutes.

I am in hourly parking lot 6 to 6:30.

Look for Jeep in Row 15.

No show? I go. But then you have a problem. Hope not.

Wilson parsed the words with a deepening frown. No question, the message was authentic. Draft mode was exquisitely private, and even though the words were unenciphered, he and Bo had agreed on a convention to authenticate the messages between them. The first sentence of every communiqué would contain four words. No more, no less. It was prehistorically simple, but it worked well enough.

Falling back in the chair, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. One target ought to be enough, he told himself. One person ought to be plenty. An undersecretary of something or other, or just a derelict. In fact, a derelict would be perfect because there wouldn’t be any publicity – and it would still make the point. Anything bigger was stupid. Anything bigger was overkill.

The more he thought about it, the more upset he became. How would he get away? Not just from the airport, but… all the way away? The feds would be looking all over the place. Unless… unless it was “a suicide bombing.”

Wilson thought about that. You have 10 minutes. Would he? Would he really? And what about Bo? Look for Jeep in Row 15. Okay. He’d look. But what if there was no Jeep?

The room felt uncomfortably warm. A bead of sweat zigzagged down his spine. His heart was revving like a motorcycle at a stoplight.

Get a grip.

The words fell from his lips in a whisper. “You have to make this work,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and, leaning forward, erased the message from Bo, letter by letter. When the box was empty, he typed

Please don’t be late.

and sat back, thinking, I’m gonna need things. Gloves. And a hat…

He thought a while longer.

And a sling…