The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [150]
chapter 51
10:30
Jerome Palmer glanced at a battered ormolu clock sitting above the fireplace when it produced a ratchet noise ending in a hollow clunk: ten-thirty. Eons ago, he’d helped his father castrate the clock by excising its bells. He’d been impossibly young, on short reprieve between sophomore semesters at Harvard. After polishing off a decanter of port—a vintage Sandeman, from which Mother accepted only a sip—Senator Leon Palmer had led a foraging party of two to a seldom-visited corner in the house’s cellar. Later, after much arguing over the respective merits of grape and grain, they had adjourned to the library, clutching a dusty bottle of cognac and two snifters.
After listening to his father’s preposterous tale of a defrocked bishop turned pimp—to cash in on his proselytizing savvy—and with the contents of the venerable bottle a memory, they had suffered in hazy stupor the racket of the clock as it chimed away at midnight. With the sudden enlightenment of the very drunk, they carried the clock to the garage and proceeded to strip its back and remove the bells to thwart future interruptions. Mother would never let anyone forget and would mutter, “That poor castrated clock,” every time the machine struggled to accomplish the task conceived by its creators.
The house had been silent for a long time.
Chelsea, his daughter, had left for work before seven with her husband. Regardless of their efforts at stealth, he’d heard the swift rush of their sedan’s motor and the crunch of gravel as they left. When by seven-thirty Mrs. Timmons, the housekeeper, failed to make an appearance—for the first time in ten years—he roused Timmy, supervised his toilette, and rustled up a breakfast of cereal and juice. Brad Hawkins, a lame ex-marine who refused to take a pension at forty-five, and who doubled as his driver and handyman, hadn’t turned up at the appointed time either to take Timmy to school. The situation abundantly clear, Palmer climbed the steps and marched to Timmy’s room.
“What are you reading, son?”
The little boy held up his large book.
“Let me see.” Palmer donned his reading glasses and leaned over Timmy’s shoulder. He scanned the picture of a lone officer in impeccable blue atop a small knoll, surrounded by a sea of feathered warriors. A caption underneath read: General Custer’s Last Stand.
“I don’t understand, Grandpa.”
“What is it you don’t understand?”
“Instead of stand, why didn’t General Custard attack?”
Palmer thought it over. “Beats me, but I’ll look into it.” Then he gently squeezed Timmy’s shoulder. “No school today. I have an assignment for you, soldier. Will you accept it?”
Timmy nodded his head enthusiastically.
“Good, here is what you must do. I am waiting for some people. Bad people. Probably there will be a woman. She’s a spy, a wicked spy. You’d better go to your tree house and keep me covered at all times. Now, soldier, this is important: Don’t come down, no matter what you see. Don’t come down until I call you. Promise?”
Timmy seemed to weigh his orders and then sprang to his feet, drawing a hand to his chest. “Cross my heart, sir!”
That had been over an hour ago.
The wide screen flashed an artificially colored thermal image showing a large red spot, another of smaller size, and a few tiny ones.
“The large blob is the senator, this is the boy, and the others are a few squirrels, a rabbit, and rats in the senator’s basement. There’s nothing else within a mile radius; no other heat signatures.”
Odelle peered at the screen. “And these?”
“One car with our men and the housekeeper at the intersection with the E 311, and another with the senator’s driver at the track