“Where these scrubs at?” he asked Emmanuel. “Can’t sit here forever.”
“Pierre said as soon as the parade reaches us. Then we roll.”
Jean-Jacques grunted in response. Duty, he told himself. She beckons.
* * *
They were still waiting and watching twenty minutes later when Jean-Jacques looked across the avenue and saw the hostage kid who’d been following Pete around like a bootlicker arguing with a uniformed police. He tried to ignore them but found himself captivated by what was happening: the hostage red-faced, gesturing wildly with his hands, while the babylon listened with absolute indifference, arms folded across his chest. Passersby began to stop, interested in whatever the hostage was going on about, and then the babylon shook his head, telling them no.
“Back in a minute,” he told Emmanuel, shutting the ambulance door behind him before his cousin could object. He reached the group just as the front of the parade appeared down the avenue, the marine band in the lead with big, brassy horns. To the north, toward the library, he heard the grumble of a microphone. The general was beginning her speech.
“Dash!” the hostage said before Jean-Jacques could make the shush sign. “Thank Christ you’re here.”
“Take a breath, hostage. Speak clear.”
“I was trying to tell this goon”—Sebastian closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose—“Jonah Gray. He’s here.” Then he started talking about a tall, trim man in dress blues with a maroon beret who made Sebastian feel a memory that hadn’t even happened, but he’d been transported, into his own head and away from it, too, and before he’d figured out how, the man was gone, walking toward the library and the parade stage.
Jean-Jacques’s chest seized up. The policeman was laughing, shaking his head. Jean-Jacques bowed his head and tried to think. The Mayday veterans were indeed just a distraction. But why? The Chaplain was smart; everyone thought he’d be with the dirty warfighters when he’d gone clean as could be. What would Pete do? he asked himself. He’d stop this, he knew, or at least try. Jean-Jacques looked around the maze of rooftops surrounding them. It was a sniper’s dream, a fantasyland for any professional with a rifle.
The marine band was now steps away, playing “Rally ’Round the Flag.” The hostage asked Jean-Jacques something but the horns drowned it out. Then the hostage pointed across the street. He looked over. Bodies had begun swarming from the ambulance like ants.
They were ragged, lean and hollow-eyed, mostly men but some women, too, all swathed in a jumble of urban and desert camo jackets. One began whooping like a hostile and the others answered him with the same cry. In five seconds there were a dozen in their rank; ten seconds later, three times that. And they kept coming. The police radioed in their presence but made no move toward them. He seemed to know a losing fight when he saw one.
Whether they were all real Vietnam Victors seemed beside the point to Jean-Jacques. They looked the part. A deep horn sounded. Jean-Jacques first thought it came from the marine band but instead he found a five-ton truck moving onto Fifth Avenue, cutting straight through the band. Big, round Lamar Pierre sat in the driver’s seat, wearing a faded army cap, the truck’s open bed bunched full with colony Victors too broken to walk. A collection of crutches lay in the truck’s corner, stacked like firewood. A long white banner hung from the truck’s side, carrying the message THE HONOR IS OURS. These veterans were jeering obscenities, screaming and shaking their fists at the dismayed citizens. Jean-Jacques waved up to the five-ton, toward a man in a boonie cap with black pins for eyes. The man smiled and promptly flipped off Jean-Jacques with both hands. The five-ton began moving up the avenue, toward the library, ambling like a war elephant. The Mayday veterans on the ground whooped even louder.
Through the mess of noise and chaos came the soft droning of speakers still projecting a speech. “Get those VIPs off the stage,” he said, pointing to the police’s radio. “Now.”
“Maroon beret?” he asked Sebastian, who nodded. That meant paratrooper, which would at least narrow a desperate search through a crowd. “You’ve done your part,” he told the hostage. Then he ran north, toward the library, as fast as any human being had ever moved upon earth.
Hundreds of grateful American citizens packed the street and library steps, facing the stage, forcing Jean-Jacques to throttle down. There were too many people for him to maneuver freely. This is fucked, he thought, knowing that finding the Chaplain in this mass of humanity would be like finding one particular grain of sand in a desert. Still, he hopped up onto the base of a traffic signal for higher vantage.
He scanned and scanned while General Collins talked and talked. He had no idea why she was still up there, why the VIPs hadn’t yet been evacuated. The audio from the speech began to clash in the air against the hard chants marching up the avenue. “May-day! May-day! MAY-DAY!” The horn of the five-ton blared over and over and people in the crowd started turning that way, to see what the bother was.
Then he caught it, just a glimpse of paratrooper maroon but enough: on the stage itself, rows behind Pete Swenson and the dignitaries. He hopped off the traffic signal and began moving through the messy, faceless horde of citizens. The general kept speaking and speaking.
Precious seconds dripped away under a gray sun. Jean-Jacques zoomed through the bodies with as much exactness and precision as he could. He spun around a child, hurdled a person in a wheelchair. The general kept speaking. Then, from a deep, hidden cave of the mind, the Chaplain’s voice found him: “They’ll get theirs.” He stopped running.
This lady general and her Council of Victors? They’d played Pete for a chump. They’d used him and probably used us all, Jean-Jacques thought, somewhere along the way. They used the broken fucknuts in Mayday, too, who, despite everything, were still warfighters. Lamar Pierre was a good person. The pantry manager was a good person. They deserved better than this. They’ve used us, Jean-Jacques decided. They’ve used us all, now and always. Sending us to kill and conquer over there so they can control here.
Fuck them. Fuck the power.
Jean-Jacques knew the way forward. Detaining Jonah Gray for the federals meant the Legion, meant freedom for himself and the Volunteers, too. And I’ll do that, he thought. Just as soon as my man up there finishes his blood crusade.
Jean-Jacques began moving again, but not at super-speed. He didn’t run, he didn’t even hurry. He walked like any regular person would through a crowd, navigating his way to the front with empty apologies and sharp elbows. He’d almost reached the library steps as General Collins finished her speech: “America’s the greatest nation this world has ever known. And I’m here to say: let’s make it even better.”
A fat beat of silence was swallowed up by the day as those words echoed through speakers and into the crowd. Then, behind him, in the thin sliver of time before applause, came a shout, strident and clear: “Thus Ever to Tyrants!”
Everyone but Jean-Jacques turned to that voice. Everyone but Jean-Jacques turned to the Victor with long, salty hair in a ponytail who belonged to that voice. Everyone but Jean-Jacques saw that man holding his hands out and above him, making it clear he held no weapon but walking like he was, perhaps, strapped to one. Everyone but Jean-Jacques didn’t see that man for what he was: one last misdirection.