The Stone War Read Online Free PDF Page B

around—”
    Tietjen heard the subtle emphasis on I, stressing his less-favored status. The warmth he’d felt a moment before flushed out of him and he was left only with Irene’s common sense. It was a good project, a plum, regardless of the site, which wasn’t Siberia. And it wouldn’t be forever, wherever it was.
    In late November he took the first of several trips to Whittendale. Construction wouldn’t start until late spring, but there were always reasons why he was needed in Massachusetts. RaiCo’s CFO liked him, said he was a “no-bullshit kinda guy,” which meant Tietjen was sometimes sent where the design team might otherwise have gone. He got to know the route—rail to Providence to copter to Whittendale field to car to the site—and the inside of the Red Lantern Motor Inn, the nearest motel to the construction site, and the inside of RaiCo’s conference rooms and company cafeteria. The trees and mechanically perfect landscaping around the old plant made no impression on him, except he noted that winter was setting in. The people were pleasant, hospitable even, inviting Tietjen to Thanksgiving parties and, on the next trip, New Year’s brunches. Tietjen made the right responses, went out for beer at the end of the day, put in his time at planning sessions that went on too late into the night. He enjoyed the work. The people were friendly. He just wanted to be home again.
    Each time he got back to the city it was as if he could breathe again. He never said that to anyone except Maia, who drank the coffee he brought her and nodded as if what he was saying made all the sense in the world. At work, the partners smiled on him: the reports from RaiCo were good. When a new meeting was scheduled in Massachusetts, there was some edged humor in the office about how tough John had it, going off for another long weekend in the country.
    Each time he merely smiled and shrugged and went home to pack a bag.
    But on the fourth trip, something felt wrong. He sat, staring out the window of a MetroRail club car, drinking gin and flat tonic, watching rooftops as featureless as cobblestones ripple past. They’d sent a man named Westley with him this time, a nervous, talkative, good-humored guy from Systems. There was nothing wrong with that, Tietjen thought. Nothing wrong with anything, only he had felt a vague sense of risk or threat all day, something that gnawed at him unassignably. What was threatened? What was endangered? He washed the taste of anxiety away with gin. Below, the city ebbed and receded into the dusk.
    “Goddamn hellhole. Doesn’t look so bad from up here, does it?” Westley began. Tietjen cut him off. He hated conversational gambits that depended on New York’s bad character. He sipped his drink absently and stared out across the complicated pattern of park and highway, the elegant silhouettes of the skyscrapers. A ragged strip of sunset above the Hudson caught fire in the mirrored spire of an East Side tower. Four days, Tietjen thought. A week at most. There is nothing to worry about. He took another sip of his drink, watching out the MetroRail window until distance and dusk closed off his last view. Then he closed his eyes.
    He dreamed and woke with a start, sweating and shaking. Passengers in the seats around him eyed him with a detached curiosity but kept a safe distance. At the end of the club car the steward, his arms akimbo and one hand resting lightly on the handle of a billy-club, was watching Tietjen. After a moment the steward relaxed. Tietjen rose to his feet feeling frail and off-balance; his stomach still churned, his heart was still pounding as he staggered toward the bar. What in God’s name had he been dreaming of? Disaster. The end of the world.
    He ordered another gin and tonic and found his seat again. There, grasping the glass as if it could hold him up, he peered into the car window at his own reflection. Westley said nothing, watching Tietjen curiously. Tietjen did not permit