Chapter 9: More Watching

Later, Sam Holland watched the news while dinner cooked, then he ate dinner, still watching the news, but it was all rehashes of things from earlier. He put everything in the dishwasher and then turned the machine on to do its thing. Go figure about that, too. He’d been a slob as kid, a slob as a teenager; his wife used to get on his case about dropping things wherever he’d felt like it at the time. Yet, now that he was living on his own for the first time in his life, he’d turned into Felix, the super-finicky housekeeper.

Sam turned on some tunes on his boom box, not too loud — there was nothing musical about a neighbor banging away on your floor, ceiling or walls, yelling at you to turn the damn music down. He took a book, another pleasure he’d never indulged in until after his divorce. He grinned, wondering what Miles Vorkosigan would do with a bunch of guys selling stolen phone cards? He chuckled at the obvious answer. Miles would do to them what he did to all bad guys: he’d make them pay in a truly inventive and unpleasant ways.

Thursday at the kiosk was a repeat of all of the earlier days. Dull, very dull. Still, each day was busier than the day before. The one thing different on Thursday was the same young woman showed up, earlier in the day this time. This time she was dressed more sedately in jeans and a nice blouse, having evidently come straight from school. Again, she exchanged a wad of cash for a wad of cards. Sam watched James, but James simply took the pictures, his teeth clenched, his Adam’s apple working, but without saying anything.

The big thing was the President was on TV at 6 PM Arizona time, with grave news. There had been a battle northeast of Hawaii earlier in the day, he reported. It had easily been the bloodiest battle the US Navy had ever fought — and the worst thing was there was no comment about enemy casualty counts — even if their enemies were creatures of the sea.

The President read the names of ships lost, including six nuclear submarines, a dozen surface vessels, up to and including two guided missile cruisers. Nearly fifteen thousand sailors had died in a hard day’s battle. There was no report on what ships had survived, but the President had been clear on one thing: “I want to assure you, my fellow Americans, that on this terrible day, our forces have prevailed. They achieved their mission and even now are retiring back to their bases.”

What that mission had been, the President didn’t say. As on 9/11 Sam was struck that there was a lot not being said that had to be taken into account.

Now, ships sunk were reported, but not the ships that had survived. The “mission” had been successful, but what the mission was, was omitted. There were more warnings, now covering all the countries of the Pacific Rim, about creatures in the sea. The local Fox affiliate that he routinely listened to announced that they were gathering the unit designations of reservists being recalled to active duty — but two hours later, Sam hadn’t heard the report.

There were some “man in the street” interviews done by the networks, but most people were like Sam: they had no clue what was going on. There was a general unease, although the news of the major battle had sobered people up like nothing in years. The casualty count from the day’s battle exceeded the total number of American casualties since Vietnam — and was the single largest number of causalities in a single day since World War Two ... and that hadn’t happened often.

Friday dawned as it did most days in Phoenix during the early spring — sunny and warm. There was no further news that hadn’t been chewed over by the various network talking heads a dozen times. Sam met James at the office, traded mystified shrugs and they went to back to work.

At roll call someone had asked about the news and the watch captain had laughed. “We’re not too worried about sea serpents here, Lowry. If any are reported in one of the canals, I’ll see that dispatch calls you first!”

There was laughter and a red face, but Sam wasn’t so sure that that had been the right approach.

After that, it was a very busy day, particularly after five in the afternoon, when everyone was out to start their weekend. Nearly three hundred people went through the kiosk without any change in the ritual. The three men arrived around 9:30 or 9:45 in the morning; usually Dog Boy was already there, waiting for the other two. They unlocked the kiosk, and the dog would go on a leash, and then was walked around the parking lot where the dog did his business, before being put in a cage in the back of the pickup. The Swede and Mustache would, in the mean time, have entered the kiosk, preparing it for business.

Around noon or so, Mustache walked over to the Subway restaurant and came back with his lunch, which he ate inside the kiosk, while the Swede ran the business. Along about two in the afternoon the Swede came come out and walked over to the supermarket and came back with two bottles of soda. At 6:30 they packed up for the night.