Prologue Read Free

24-hour vigilant surveillance, but Lewis had assured him that was to scare people.

“The technology they’ve got in those is Soviet junk,” Ginter had scoffed. “And the people are worse. It’s all just one big freaking sight deterrent.”
DeVere paid for his coffee with cash, walked outside without looking at the booths, got back in his Ford, and checked the tracking sensor again. A slight beep, then nothing. He’d asked Lewis if the trackers could somehow detect the sensor.

“Haven’t yet,” Lewis had told him.
“But could they?” deVere had pressed.
“If they can, I don’t know about it, and I know 99% of what they’re capable of,” Ginter had assured him.
DeVere often wondered about that other one percent.
He left it on for thirty seconds until he was confident he wasn’t being tracked. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove the final few miles through the main square of Lexington . As he passed by, he glanced–as he did every time-at the town green. The monument had long since been removed but no marker was necessary. It was here, 251 years earlier, that the town’s colonists had mustered on a cold April morning. He stared at the stately homes that lined the common and wondered how many of the current residents would ever do so.
Outside town he stayed on Route 2A along what had once been called “ Battle Road .” It had long been renamed “ Hanscom Highway ” but to the locals it was still “ Battle Road .” The British had marched along this stretch between Lexington and Concord in those early morning hours. It was back along this road that they had fled later that day, as gathering militia had pursued, attacked, and harassed their retreat after turning them at the Concord Bridge .
The story held special significance. As a child he had often been teased about his name’s similarity to the midnight rider’s, and even as an adult, acquaintances would occasionally attempt a humorous crack, thinking themselves clever and their observation original.
In Concord , deVere turned right from the main square and headed toward the North Bridge . If he were going home he would have turned left. He only hoped that at this time of the day anyone tracking him by camera would have long since lost interest. He reached over to the glove box and pulled out a worn eight-track tape and shoved it into the Phaser’s tape deck. Almost immediately the Mama Cass version of “Dream a Little Dream” burst from the dashboard speakers.
Whenever he visited the Minuteman Monument at the bridge he felt compelled to play the ballad. Silly, of course. The version dated from the 1960s and had nothing to do with the American Revolution, but deVere always romanticized that it did.
Vodkaville had tried to remove The Minuteman too, of course. Three years ago. The stated rationale had been to preserve it in a museum. But on the day scheduled for its removal people from Concord and the surrounding towns had flocked to form a human shield. An editorial in the Globe had referred to the protesters as resurrected “fire-eaters,” and the term had since come to be applied generally to all anti-neo-Soviet activists. DeVere himself had heard about the happening while at home and had wanted to join but Valerie had discouraged him.

“Why?” she had asked. “Paul, think of your position at MIT. We can’t lose that. And what about your daughter? Have you thought about Grace?”
Reluctantly, Paul had stayed home.
Stars shining bright above you…
He turned left at the dirt entryway and coasted the short distance to the obelisk on the British side of the Concord Bridge . When his parents had brought him and his brother to visit the battle site as children there had been a visitor’s lot across the street where the drycleaners and convenience store now stood. He sat looking across the bridge at the stoic figure of the 18 th century militiaman, musket ready at his side.

“There’s a star above you alright,” Paul whispered as he