No Shelter (19 page)

The boy has already disappeared down into the station entrance.
 

I’m moving before I even know it. Tires screech. Horns blare. People shout. I barely notice as I sprint across the street toward the circle, toward the metro entrance. I can see Nova on the other side, doing the very same thing.
 

“I’m headed after the second target,” I say to no one in particular, because I’m certain right now all three cars are speeding toward this location right this instant.
 

I have to fight past people coming up the steps. I reach into my pocket for the few Euros Philippe provided me. I feed them into the machine and get my ticket. I hurry through the turnstile without even glancing back to see if Nova is keeping up.
 

The platforms are packed. People everywhere, but I can’t see the boy in the red cap. I hurry as inconspicuously as I can, weaving in and out of people, looking for him.
 

In my ear Nova says, “
Holly, do you see him?
”
 

I don’t answer. I just keep walking, keep looking. Thinking that maybe he’s hiding somewhere. Thinking that maybe he’s passed the briefcase off to somebody else.
 

Then I spot him.
 

Standing thirty yards away, right on the edge of the platform for the M6 train. Holding the briefcase in his hand like it belongs to him. Just standing there, waiting along with everyone else. He’s tapping his shoe, bouncing his head, and it’s not until I get closer do I see he’s wearing earphones.
 

“I’ve got him,” I say, just as somewhere down the tunnel is the sound of the approaching train.
 

Philippe: “
Do not lose him.
”
 

No shit, I think but don’t say. Instead I turn toward the platform, waiting for the train. Keeping a visual of the boy from the corner of my eye.
 

The train arrives. The doors open and people pile out, then the crowd on the platform piles in. I pause to make sure the boy heads into this train—he’s two cars down—and he does. I consider heading in that direction, maybe slipping into his car in case there’s someone waiting there for him, but then there’s a ding and an electronic voice speaks in French and I hurry into the car in front of me.
 

The doors shut. The train starts to move.
 

A crackle sounds in my ear, probably Philippe, but because of the thick concrete all I hear is static.
 

The train makes a stop at Nationale. I get off along with everyone else, keeping an eye out in case the boy appears. He doesn’t, so I slip into the next car.
 

As the doors close and the train starts moving again, Nova speaks.
 

“
You still have him?
”
 

This car is full of people. I don’t want to look like a complete whack, so I turn away and say yes into my shoulder, hoping it’s enough for Nova to hear.
 

“
Holly, do you still have him?
”
 

I decide to ignore him and wait for the train to stop again. This time it’s at Chevaleret.
 

I get out along with a few other people, keeping an eye on the boy’s car. He doesn’t appear. A sinking feeling hits me and I start to take a step toward it when someone grabs my shoulder. I turn back around, already reaching for my weapon, but stop when I see it’s Nova.
 

“Where’s the boy?” he says.
 

I turn away from him and hurry to the next car. I make it in time before the doors close. Nova doesn’t. He smacks the glass as the train pulls away. I turn around and take a deep breath, like I just ran to catch it in time. Nobody looks at me. Not even the boy, sitting over in the corner of the car, the briefcase between his legs. He’s still bouncing his head to the music, completely oblivious. He doesn’t even seem to know anybody’s around him until the train starts to slow again and then he stands up and starts toward the door.
 

He leaves the briefcase.
 

This stop is the Quai de la Gare. Almost everyone gets off, including the boy. He just walks right past me, bouncing his head, lost in the music. I consider grabbing him but then realize it’s just me and that the main objective here is the briefcase.
 

I let him go untouched, then turn around. Stare at the briefcase. Maybe it’s left for someone else here on this train. Maybe someone will be coming on the next stop to pick it up. But that doesn’t make sense, because right now it’s open game and anybody can take it.
 

Shit, I think, I’m anybody, so I start over to where he was sitting. I sit down. I look around, see nobody watching me. I lean forward, pick up the briefcase.
 

Thinking good, finally, the code is secure.
 

Then thinking, shit, what if it’s a bomb?
 

What I should do is wait for the next stop, get off the train, go to the surface, and try to hail Philippe.
 

What I should do is leave the briefcase alone until everyone else is there.
 

I consider it, I really do, but then I set the briefcase down on my lap. I undo the clasps. Then, as the train streaks through the tunnel toward yet another station, I open the case to see what’s inside.
 

36

A flash drive.
 

This is what is inside the briefcase, protected by foam padding. Just like the one Roland Delano had hanging around his neck, only this is silver.
 

Philippe asks, “Shall we see what secrets this holds?”
 

We’re all standing in the main living area, everyone except Boris who is still on the rooftop watching the mansion. Apparently after leaving Place d’Italie Alayna Gramont returned home with her guards. She hasn’t left since.
 

Philippe takes the flash drive from the briefcase and carries it into the bedroom with the tables and computers. He sits down at one of the computers. He takes off the flash drive’s cap, reaches behind the computer. It takes him a couple seconds, but then he has the flash drive inserted.
 

And like that, the screen starts to flicker.
 

Nova steps forward. “What the hell?”
 

The flickering gets worse.
 

“Pull it out,” I say.
 

The flickering is a hodgepodge of a million scattered pixels swirling about.
 

“Pull it out!”
 

Philippe reaches behind the computer, jerks the flash drive out. But it’s already too late. Whatever virus installed on the flash drive has already stormed its way into the computer, conquering data boards and chips and whatever else, corrupting everything. And on the screen the flickering scattered pixels begin pausing in place, dots filling black, until an image starts to form.
 

Seconds later the image is complete.
 

A security camera shot taken from the Bellagio, showing me in my schoolgirl outfit. The image is a little fuzzy because of the angle and my body movement—I must have been running at that point—but still there is a good shot of my face.
 

A couple seconds of silence passes. Philippe still has the flash drive in his hand. He looks down at it. Looks at the screen. Looks up at me.
 

Suddenly my image fades away, replaced by another image: a gigantic mushroom cloud, frozen in time as it works to rise higher and higher into the sky.
 

Still more silence.
 

Then, materializing over the mushroom cloud, these four words:
 

THE CLOCK IS TICKING.
 

37

Because Nova and I are responsible for Roland Delano’s demise, Philippe, Reed, and Boylan take turns buying us drinks.
 

We sit in the back corner of some bar in the southern part of the city. It’s what Philippe calls a “safe place.”
 

When the fourth round comes, Philippe holds up his beer and says, “To Holly and Nova!”
 

Reed and Boylan repeat and we all clink glasses, take large gulps of the beer. I’m feeling a little toasty but that’s okay. The soonest Walter can get us out of Paris is at ten o’clock tonight. When he learned we’d gotten the runaround, he decided to stop wasting our time and bring us back home. Our flight is another cargo jet leaving from the same airstrip in which I entered the country. I’m not looking forward to it but at least now I know what to expect.
 

Nova had asked me earlier if I feel okay about what was on the flash drive—which did in fact destroy the entire hard drive of the computer. I had just shrugged and told him I felt fine. But it was a lie. I do feel uneasy. Not that my image appeared on the screen along with that frozen mushroom cloud and those words, but the fact that Alayna Gramont or whoever else made the virus knew that I would be involved and would see the message. After all, it was a message for me, wasn’t it?
 

Then again, maybe I’m over-thinking it. Maybe I’m being paranoid. Yes, they included my image, but that’s simply because I was responsible for eliminating Delano. There was no possible way Gramont or whoever knew I would be involved in the surveillance of the code buy. Right?
 

“Holly?”
 

I blink, look up to see Reed smiling back at me. Both he and Boylan have definitely relaxed over the past six or seven hours. No longer the uptight agents who never smile, now alcohol has done its magic and helped them loosen up.
 

“What’s that?” I ask.
 

“Can you tell us about it? How you took out Roland?”
 

For Friday evening at eight o’clock this bar is surprisingly empty. Only a few people lined up on stools at the bar, a few other people scattered around the tables. Nobody close enough to overhear us, not if we keep our voices down, and besides, the music pulsing from the speakers is a healthy rock beat and will help drown out my voice.
 

Still, I wonder, should I tell them?
 

I glance at Nova. He’s watching me. His look is almost cautious. He has his large hand wrapped around his beer glass and is rubbing his thumb up and down the side. It’s such a small thing I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it.
 

I know I shouldn’t. My work is classified, even if it is non-sanctioned. But nobody has ever asked me to tell stories before. Sure, I’ve described things to Nova and Scooter, even Walter, but that was more or less a simple debriefing of the events. Not storytelling simply for amusement.
 

“Well?” Boylan says. His eyebrows are raised, his lips curled in a smile. I notice he’s wearing a wedding band now—he hadn’t earlier during the surveillance—and I wonder about his family. Whether he has any children, and if so, how he treats them when he’s home. About what he tells his wife when he comes home from work, what he might say to her on the telephone if he hasn’t seen her in weeks.
 

I glance at Nova one more time, see the caution still in his eyes, and then I lean forward and say, “Delano was having a party at this casino ...”
 

The story doesn’t take long to tell. Five, maybe ten minutes pass. When I’m done I finish off my beer and sit back and cross my arms. I can’t stop smiling. I don’t know why, exactly, but the look on the guys’ faces, the one of complete awe, is something I’ve never had aimed at me before.
 

Beside me, Nova takes a sip of his beer, looks away. He doesn’t say anything.
 

Finally Reed says, “And then what happened? You just ... went home?”
 

I told up to the part where I returned to the garage. Where Nova and Scooter confronted me about Rosalina. Where Rosalina told me about the ranch.
 

I lower my eyes, thinking now about Scooter. Remembering how he saved me even though I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
 

I think about him chewing his Bazooka Joe bubblegum. About him aiming his Blackberry, ready to take a picture of me in the schoolgirl outfit.
 

He’s gone now, having died in my arms, and today may have been my very last mission.
 

“Yeah,” I say, my voice soft, “then I went home.”
 

Nova glances at me, glances back down at his glass. His hand is still wrapped around it and his thumb keeps rubbing the side.
 

“Did you say anything to him?” Boylan asks.
 

“Who?”
 

“Delano. Before you shot him. Did you say anything?”
 

I find it a strange question, an unlikely question, in fact, coming from a guy like Boylan. As far as I can tell, he’s a professional agent. And saying something to the target before you kill him, that’s just too ... Hollywood.
 

“No,” I say, shaking my head.
 

“That’s a pity.” Something dark enters Boylan’s eyes. “If it had been me, I would have said something.”
 

“Like what?”
 

“I would have reminded him about Abraham and Kenneth. Made him think about their deaths in the instant before he died.”
 

The mood has shifted. The music continues around the bar, people talk and laugh, but it’s like a glass partition has suddenly inserted itself, cutting us off from the rest of the world.
 

Boylan has gone silent, now staring down into his beer. Reed glances at him, then glances at Philippe. Finally he looks at me.