Louis Collins: A Post-American Odyssey

Gladice stood with one hand on the back of her chair. Her mouth still held the shape of a smile, but there was no amusement in it.

“Well,” she said. “That is one hell of a way to announce a wedding.”

Angelique kept looking at the closed door. She had not moved since Theodore left.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “He means it.”

“Yes,” Louis said.

Gladice pulled out her chair and sat down again.

“Of course he means it,” she said. “That’s why he announced it at breakfast. Men like that don’t make idle threats. They say what they mean, do what they say, and expect everyone else to fall in line. It’s what makes them feel safe.” She picked up her coffee cup and sipped.

“Sounds like my father,” Louis said. “Except he isn’t a psychotic theocrat.”

“No.” Gladice set the cup down. “Your father is a psychotic technocrat. The principle is the same.”

Louis smiled before he could stop himself. “You think he would laugh at the comparison?”

“Oh, absolutely.” This time, Gladice smiled. “I think he would find Hargrove’s concept of order charmingly quaint. Like an antique cash register.”

“Would you stop?” Angelique said.

Both of them looked at her. Her voice was low and tight. She stared at the table with her hands clasped together.

“You think this is a joke?” she asked. “They are going to make us do this. They are going to dress me up like a doll, put me in front of people, and force us to—” Her voice broke. She drew a breath before continuing. “And I will be dragged through it. And you are making jokes.”

Gladice’s smile disappeared. “Angel. It’s how I stay alive.”

“Then be quiet.”

Gladice sighed. “Alright.”

Louis used the table to lower himself back into his chair. His right knee burned beneath the clean bandage as he bent it. Across from him, Angelique sat too. She stared at the table.

Louis said, “We’re not just going to sit here and let it happen. We need to do something.”

Gladice looked at him. “And what exactly do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.” He hated the sound of that. “Find a working phone? Steal a car? Get a message out—” He stopped. “If my father knows where we are, he will send help.”

“Assuming,” Gladice said, “that Hargrove’s people haven’t already considered that. And that they haven’t turned every outgoing line in this house into a tripwire. And that there are any cars here with keys left in them. And that you can walk far enough to reach any of those things before someone notices.”

He looked at her. “You have a better idea?”

“Yes. Get through the wedding tomorrow. Survive it. And wait.”

Angelique stared at her. “Wait for what?”

“Wait until they think they have won. Until they think we have been folded in. Until we are no longer locked in a box and guarded like prisoners. Then, once they trust us to be the thing they have decided we are—” Gladice’s smile returned. “Then we make them regret it.”

Angelique shook her head. “You are talking about months.”

“Yes,” Gladice said flatly. “I am. Because that is how long it will take to get out of here alive. Besides, it’s just a ceremony. You two say the words, sign the paper, and then you are still yourselves, exactly as you were before. Unless you believe there is magic in the ink, I’m not sure what difference it makes.”

“Then you don’t understand what he’s doing.” Angelique looked at her. “This is not just a wedding but an act of possession. He is making a point to the world and to us. We will be paraded in front of his people, made to stand under his god, and made to declare that we belong together in the way he wants us seen. He is turning us into a story that serves him.”

“No, he couldn’t possibly broadcast it to the world.” Gladice answered immediately. “Not without exposing himself as the man who kidnapped us. This is a private circus. A show for his inner circle. His men, his clergy, the ones who already think he hung the moon. It is theater, not strategy.”

“Maybe,” Louis said, watching Angelique. “But theater can become strategy.”

She met his eyes then. Gladice sighed again.

“Look. I’m not saying it won’t be humiliating. I’m saying humiliation is not fatal. You want to fight them? Fight them when you have a real chance of winning. Right now we are three people in a house full of men with guns, in a country that is very good at making people disappear. Unless you have a plan that involves walking out of here in the next hour, I suggest we play their game long enough to change the rules.”

Louis took a sip of coffee. It was cold by then.

“You say that like it’s simple.”

“It’s not simple.” Gladice grabbed another biscuit and bit into it. “It’s just less stupid than suicide.”

The door opened, and all three turned. Mrs. Harlan entered with another woman in gray behind her.

“Good. You have finished.” She looked at Angelique and Gladice. “The dressmaker is waiting upstairs. There are undergarments, shoes, and alterations to be handled before tomorrow. You will come with me.”

Gladice wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I suppose we have a choice?”

Mrs. Harlan looked at her. “You do not.”

She turned instead toward Louis.

“Mr. Collins will be seen by Doctor Vale first. After that, he will attend the fitting room for his own preparation.” She looked at the cane beside his chair, then at Louis. “You are not to wander.”

Louis stared at her. “If you think I can wander anywhere on this leg, you haven’t seen me try.”

“The doctor will be in the east parlor. Follow Mr. Wells.”

Angelique and Gladice exchanged a glance, then stood. Mrs. Harlan led them out. The other woman came forward and held the door open, waiting for Louis to stand. Louis planted the cane and tested his right leg before putting his full weight on it. He limped toward the door.

Mr. Wells was waiting outside. He had a plain face Louis doubted he would remember. Wells inclined his head as Louis emerged.

“Sir.”

Louis nodded and followed. They went down a side corridor, turned twice, and passed a gallery. Wells opened the door to the east parlor without knocking, then closed it behind Louis from outside. The room had once been made for quiet company with tall windows and pale walls. What Louis noticed first, though, was the black corded office phone on the desk, its wire running into the wall.

Doctor Vale stood by the window with a coffee cup in one hand. He glanced at the cane and pointed to the chaise.

“Sit.”

Louis sat, but kept watching the desk. The phone was three yards away. Vale set down his coffee, knelt beside the chaise, and began undoing the outer wrap with gloved hands.

“This was field work,” he said.

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“Some medic called Marlow.”

Vale nodded and pressed along the swelling. Louis flinched as Vale pushed his knee outward, turning him toward the desk. From this angle he could see the typed labels beside the line keys, though not yet the words on them. The doctor bent the joint farther than Louis would have chosen. Louis hissed.

“Mm,” Vale said. “Not broken. Sprain, strain, probable meniscus involvement.”

Louis nodded, still thinking about the phone. He heard Vale well enough to answer, but most of his attention was on the room. He began measuring it instead: the distance from the chaise to the desk, the door, the cabinet, whether Wells was still in the hall, and how long it would take him to cross three yards on his injured leg.

The phone gave a low electronic chirp. Louis turned toward the sound so fast that Vale looked up.

“Too much?” the doctor asked.

Louis forced himself to look back at Vale. “No.”

Vale had already risen and crossed to the desk. He lifted the handset.

“Yes.”

His voice became brisk.

“No, not yet. Another twenty minutes.” He listened. “Then to fitting, yes.” He listened again. “No, he’s ambulatory.” He listened once more. “Very good.”

Louis watched Vale replace the receiver. His pulse quickened. The phone worked. Vale removed the splint and brought over antiseptic and a hinged knee brace.

“Mrs. Harlan?” Louis asked, trying to keep Vale talking.

“No.”

Vale cleaned the cuts on Louis’s face and hands, checking each one for dirt before moving on. Louis answered when spoken to, moved when told, and checked the desk whenever Vale looked down.

“Have you worked here long?” he asked.

“Since the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

Vale tightened one strap. “Stand.”

Louis stood.

“Walk.”

He did. The brace supported the knee but kept it from bending freely. He crossed the room while Vale watched, made an awkward turn, and started back. On the way, he glanced at the desk and read the labels beside the line keys.

House

Chapel

Security

Kitchen

There were only four labels, all handwritten. He sat again and began working through what they implied. Four labeled lines did not mean there were only four lines. If outside calls passed through an exchange, someone inside the house would hear him first. The first words would matter more than anything he said afterward.

“It will stiffen if you favor it too much,” Vale said. “Keep weight off it where possible. Pain tablets every six hours. No unnecessary movement.”

He wrote something on the chart, tore off a note, and shook two pills onto the desk beside a glass of water. Louis took them. His hand was steady. He made the movement look more difficult than it was. Vale opened the cabinet near the door, checked one of the shelves, and frowned.

“Wait here,” he said.

He stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him. As soon as it closed, Louis left the cane against the chaise and crossed to the desk on his injured leg. He lifted the handset to his ear. A woman answered immediately.

“House exchange.”

Louis kept his voice level. He had known for years that the trick, in rooms built on obedience, was never to sound like a man asking permission.

“Supreme Executive Council. Immediate.”

The line stayed silent long enough for Louis to think the call had failed. Then the operator answered.

“Supreme Covenant Council, sir?”

His pulse jumped in his throat, but his answer stayed level.

“Yes. Put me through.”

A click sounded, followed by a thin electronic hum. Then a man answered.

“Council office.”

Louis nearly said too much. He wanted to explain and justify everything before the line was cut. He stopped himself. Men at the top of governments did not move for panic. They moved for names, locations, breaches of order. He reduced everything to the driest official language he knew, the kind rival governments could act on without explanation.

“This is Louis Collins. I am being held hostage at Secretary Theodore Hargrove’s private residence in Montgomery, Alabama. Angelique Bourbon and Gladice Simington are with me. This detention is unauthorized.”

The man on the other end was silent. Louis waited, holding the receiver steady and listening for any sign that the line had gone dead.

“Please hold, sir. I will connect you.”

A thin hum remained on the line. Louis stood with the handset pressed to his ear. He heard only the hum and his own pulse. For the first time since the train, he felt a sense of hope. He wouldn’t expect a rescue, of course. But it was enough to believe the message had reached someone outside the house.

Then the line clicked and went dead. Louis lowered the handset carefully back. His hand was still shaking as he moved away from the desk. The door suddenly opened. Vale came back in with a clean elastic wrap and a strip of adhesive in one hand. He stopped in the doorway and glanced at the desk before crossing back to Louis. He could not tell whether Vale had noticed. The doctor said nothing. Louis was grateful for his silence and afraid of what it might mean.

“You’re up,” Vale said. “Good. Sit again.”

Louis crossed back to the chaise with the cane and lowered himself into it. The movement cost more than he wanted to show. Vale resumed adjusting the brace. He tightened the straps, checked the hinge, and rewrapped the outer support. Then he pressed around the knee and checked the joint again.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Vale looked up at him. “You’re pale.”

“It hurts.”

“Mmm.” Vale smoothed the wrap flat with one gloved hand. “Pain does that.”

Louis said nothing.

Vale finished the wrap, stood, and added another note to the chart. “You’ll manage.”

He opened the door. Wells stepped forward.

“Mr. Collins,” he said, “you’re wanted in the library.”

“By whom?”

Wells held the door open. “Secretary Hargrove.”

Louis stared at Wells. He took up the cane and stepped into the corridor. The call might not have gone through. The consequence certainly had.

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