was ironic that that was the word news broadcasters always used to refer to the bad guys—insurgents. Dan often wondered what people back home in the U.S. thought that word meant. They probably figured a group of “insurgents” would be made up of hardened old soldiers, believers in the old ways, who would rather die than vote in a free election.
Not true. This one, the guy materializing like a ghost out of the smoke and dust with an AK-47 in his hands, wasn’t old at all. He was a kid—eleven or twelve at most. Whoever had planted the bomb had left this little shit behind, armed to the teeth and lying in wait hoping to ambush anyone who managed to stagger out of the burning wreckage.
Both in real life and in the dream, things slowed down at that point. Corporal Daniel Pardee was faced with two impossible choices. Should he reach inside and try to rescue poor Justin Clifford, or should he leave the other man to die and reach for his M16?
Before he had a chance to do either one, Bozo decided for them both. He slammed into the gun-toting kid from one side, blindsiding him and hitting him with more than a hundred pounds of biting, snapping fury. The kid was knocked to the ground, screeching, while the gun, now useless, went spinning away out of reach.
The whole thing took only a moment. With the kid and his gun out of the equation, Dan turned his full attention back on Clifford. With almost superhuman strength he had managed to haul the injured driver to relative safety. By then, other troops from the convoy were hurrying forward to offer assistance. It took three of them to haul Bozo off the kid and keep the dog from killing him.
When Dan finally got back to the dog, both in the dream and in real life, he was sitting there, panting and grinning that stupid grin of his, except by then the dog’s happy grin didn’t seem nearly so stupid. Dan had stumbled over to him and gratefully buried his face and hands in Bozo’s dusty, smoky fur. It was only when the hand came away bloodied that Dan realized the dog—his dog—had been cut by shrapnel from the explosion, by flying bits of burning metal and shattered glass. Later on Dan figured out that he’d been cut and burned, too. Both of them had been treated for relatively minor injuries, but Dan knew full well that if it hadn’t been for Bozo— that wonderfully zany Bozo—Justin Clifford would have died that day in Mosul.
At that moment, as if on cue, Dan’s dream ended the same way the firefight had ended—with Bozo. The dog scrambled up onto the bed, whining and licking Dan’s face.
“Go away,” Dan ordered. “Leave me alone.”
From the moment the bomb went off, Bozo was transformed. When it came time to go on patrol, he was dead serious. He paid attention. He obeyed orders. And he seemed to develop almost a sixth sense about the possibility of danger. Twice he had alerted Dan in time for the two of them to dive for cover before bombs exploded rather than after. And if Bozo said someplace was a no-go, Dan paid attention and didn’t go there.
But right now, the dog and the man weren’t working. They were in bed. Bozo immediately understood that his master didn’t mean it, that his order to go away was one that could be disobeyed. As a consequence, he paid no attention and didn’t let up.
The recurring dream came to Dan night after night, or, as now when he was working the night shift, day after day. The nightmare always left him shaken and anxious and drenched in sweat. He wondered if maybe he had cried out in his sleep and that was what caused Bozo to come running.
Dan tried unsuccessfully to dodge away from Bozo by pulling the sweat-soaked covers over his head and turning the other way, but Bozo was relentless. Thumping his tail happily, the dog scrambled to Dan’s other side and burrowed under the covers to join him. After all, it was time for breakfast. According to Bozo’s time calculations, Dan needed to drag his lazy butt out of bed and get moving.
“All right, all right,” Dan grumbled, giving the dog a fond whack on his empty-sounding head. “I’m up. Are you happy?”
In truth the dog was happy, slobbery grin and all.
Tucson, Arizona
Saturday, June 6, 2009, 1:15 P.M.
93º Fahrenheit
Abby turned the key in the ignition and listened as the powerful V-8 engine roared to life. There was maybe the tiniest squeal, as though a fan belt might be slipping a bit, but the motor settled into a steady hum and the air-conditioning came on full blast—blazingly hot at first, but then cooling. While Abby waited a few moments for the steering wheel to be cool enough to touch, she picked up her cell.
Still careful with her newly applied polish, she hit the green send button twice and called Tohono Chul for the first time that afternoon but for the seventh time that day. She wasn’t surprised when she was put on hold. Abby, of all people, understood what Shirley Folgum was up against. Trying to ride herd on that evening’s party was a complicated proposition.
In Tohono Chul’s annual calendar, the celebration of the night-blooming cereus was an enormous undertaking. On that night alone, as many as two thousand people would show up at the park for the festivities, arriving well after dark and not leaving until early the next morning. All of that would have been complicated enough, if it could have been handled in the established way.
Most big recurring nonprofit-style events come with certain unvarying logistics. Worker bees needed to be organized. Invitations have to be issued. Potential attendees need to be given “Save the date” information. Contracts for entertainment and catering need to be arranged. All of those things held true for the night-blooming cereus party. The big difference—and the big complication—came with the reality that no one ever knew exactly when the party would take place. Not until the very last minute.
Despite years of patient analysis and study by any number of very talented botanists, despite countless computer models examining weather data—daytime temperatures, nighttime temperatures, dew points, barometric pressures, and all points in between—no one had yet been able to crack the code as to when exactly the Queen of the Night would deign to make her annual appearance. Scientific study suggested it would happen sometime between the end of May and the middle of July. As a result of this uncertainty, all preparations had to be ironed out well in advance and then put in abeyance but ready for immediate last-minute execution.
It turned out that was how Abby Tennant herself had stumbled into the event for the first time—at the last minute.
Toward the end of her first June in Tucson, Abby had been dreadfully homesick for her friends and relations back home in Ohio. For one thing, the appalling June heat was nothing short of debilitating. She had almost decided to give up and go back home when a new neighbor, Mildred Harrison, had called.
“There’s going to be a special party at Tohono Chul tomorrow night,” Mildred had said. “Would you like to come along as my guest?”
Abby’s new town house in what was billed as an “active adult community” on Tucson’s far northwest side was just down the street from the botanical garden. She had driven past the rock wall entrance numerous times, but she hadn’t ever considered stopping in. Somehow she had never guessed that one of the world’s ten best botanical gardens would be right there, hiding out in the middle of Tucson.
What interesting plants could possibly grow in the desert? Abby had wondered in all her midwestern arrogance. From what she personally had observed, there seemed to be precious few plants of any kind in this desolate outpost of civilization where, even in May, the heat had been more than Abby could tolerate.
“I suppose they’re holding it at night because it’s
