The naked edge

13

The train arrived in Chicago ten minutes late. Slouching, Carl blended with the departing passengers on the damp, shadowy concourse. He carried his briefcase in his left hand while his right hand was primed to reach for a weapon. He had strips of a towel under his lips and inside his cheeks, altering his features. His ears had Kleenex wadded neatly into them.

Keeping in the thick of the crowd, he entered the brightly lit terminal, the din of which was muffled by the padding in his ears. He tensed when he saw two policemen studying everybody. They stopped a tall, thin man, who looked somewhat like Carl, and asked him questions.

Carl showed no reaction. Face blank, eyes forward, shoulders drooped, he kept moving, not breaking rhythm, just another zombie. Take it easy, he thought. You'll be fine. The "you" was deliberately chosen, a way of disassociating from the moment and keeping his emotions in check. If they really believed you were on a train that arrived here, there'd be a small army to welcome you, not a handful of cops, he tried to assure himself.

Approaching an exit, he glanced at a newsstand, then looked ahead, as if the newspapers meant nothing, even though a large photograph of him stared from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and USA Today.

Not a military photograph. Not him young and in uniform. This was a recent photograph of him among a crowd on a street. New Orleans. Taken by a security camera, it depicted him chasing somebody. Raoul. Digitally magnified and enhanced, alarmingly clear, the image showed Carl in profile. More than in profile. Three quarters of his features.

Silently cursing, he saw another policeman scanning the crowd and warned himself, Be cool. No one'll recognize you from that picture. It isn't a full face, and the angle's downward. Everything's going to be fine.

Yeah, sure, right. He could no longer objectify. Suddenly "you" became "I". I'm being hunted by the bastards who hired me and by every law-enforcement agency in the country. Every intelligence agency, also. I've got fifty rounds of ammunition and two thousand dollars. What the hell am I supposed to do?

Play the game.

For the rest of my life.

A policeman appeared at the exit ahead. Shielded by businessmen, Carl kept walking. The policeman straightened, paying attention to him. Immediately, Carl reached into a pants pocket and removed an object he'd taken from the briefcase. A small canister. As the policeman blurted something to a microphone attached to his shoulder, Carl pulled a pin from the canister and dropped it behind him. The canister clanked onto the floor and made several people turn to look.

The policeman drew his gun and stepped toward Carl, raising a hand to warn him to stop. Carl pretended not to notice.

The policeman shouted, "Stop right there!"

At once, the canister, a flash-bang, detonated. Having counting the seconds until it did, Carl knew when to close his eyes. Even then, and even though the flash was behind him, the searing brightness pushed through his eyelids. Anyone facing that direction, including the cop, would be blinded. The bang from the device was literally deafening, except for Carl, who'd used Kleenex to protect his eardrums.

The force of the two onslaughts stunned the policeman and shoved him backward. People screamed. They scrambled over each other.

"Terrorists!" Carl shouted. "A bomb!"

The panic worsened, everybody charging toward the exits. Carl moved with them. Instead of fighting their fierce momentum, he allowed it to take him. The next thing, he was outside, the stampede spreading into traffic while he blended with people charging along the sidewalk.