INTERLUDE X

For the first time in a long, long time, he was walking in daylight, right on the sidewalks of his hometown. His back felt exposed, as though at any moment, he might receive a punch back there, or a gunshot square in the spine. He had on a suit and tie, and it had been years since he had worn anything so fancy, and the clothing itched something awful.

In daylight, Portsmouth looked nice enough, but there were too few people and too many cops and National Guardsmen, and men in suits and snap-brim hats with a hard-edged look about them.

A uniformed National Guardsman wearing a round campaign hat and a holstered pistol and Sam Browne belt stepped from a doorway, joined by a man in a dark brown suit. The civilian said, “Afternoon, sir, just doing a routine check. Can you show me some identification, please?”

He paused, put his hand slowly inside his coat jacket, pulled out a thin leather wallet, passed it over, thinking, Well, we’re going to see real shortly how good our people are.

The civilian opened the wallet, glanced inside, looked up, and passed it back. “Sorry to bother you, sir. Go right ahead.”

He smiled back, thinking, Yep, our people are pretty good, especially that newspaper photographer, and he kept on walking to the target building, saw a couple of cops and three National Guardsmen, and damn, one of the cops waved at him. What to do? Dammit, what to do?

He waved back, walked into the building as if he owned the place, and in a few more minutes, he was where he wanted to be, where he had to be. The floor was wooden and one of the planks seemed loose. He pried the plank up with his pocketknife, found a blanket-wrapped shape underneath. He pulled the blanket away, exposing a long cardboard box.

Fresh Flowers, the label on the box said in script. He undid the twine and paper, counted out the cartridges, picked up the rifle, and loaded it for the day ahead. He took the battery-operated radio out and dropped the wooden plank back in place. He switched the radio on, and after the tubes warmed up, he turned down the volume and listened to the day’s news, knowing that if it all went well, his news would be the biggest of the day, week, month, decade.