Reflex (34 page)

"The airport?"

Davy shook his head. "It's been seven years. I had no business there and since the coup attempts and the strikes, it's not been one of my, shall we say, pleasure destinations."

Simons waved his hand and said, "Surely you didn't take the boxes to a public metro station?"

"Close. The agent-in-place parked a moving van in a nearby alley. I jumped the boxes into the back of the truck. Then I closed the padlock on the door and left. They picked the truck up twenty minutes later. They never saw me. They don't know how the boxes were delivered. They weren't supposed to." He looked at Simons. "Neither were you."

Simons ignored the last. "Did you know what was in the boxes?"

"You don't?" Davy had known. He also knew roughly what its purpose was, else he wouldn't have moved it. But he didn't want to share that with Simons.

"I know. Paper."

Hyacinth frowned. "Documents? They used him for
FedEx?"

Simons shook his head. "Brightly colored paper. Venezuelan Bolivars. The price was falling even then. They sent several million."

"Why not dollars?"

"Traceability. They were setting up a network of informants on both sides."

Well, that's what they told me. Hope it wasn't another attempt to destabilize the government.
He didn't
think
it was. "Do you work for the NSA?" Davy said.

Simons laughed. "Of course not, silly boy. Like Roule, they have no idea of the relationship."

"You don't work for them," Davy said slowly. "But sometimes—"

"Exactly. Sometimes they work for me."

Davy shuddered. He couldn't help it. Visceral—that's what it was, and Simons watched with a faint smile on his face.

"So, your NSA file—and let me tell you, it was
very
difficult getting a copy—says you're the only known teleport. What other lies are in the file?"

Davy raised his eyebrows. "Oh stop it. Am I still beating my wife? Don't you have better things to do with your time? Who came up with this approach—Conley?"

"The facts dictated it." Simons crossed his legs and tilted his head to one side, continuing to watch Davy steadily.

Davy stared back. He narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying you've found another teleport?"

"I am."

"I don't believe it. I've been actively looking for ten years. Who is it? Where are they from?"

Simons shook his head. "You're very good. You haven't shown yourself capable of this level of deception before. You had us all fooled."

"You think I'm lying?" He shrugged. "Okay, feel that way. There are really twenty-seven other teleports. My gang, and when they catch up with you you'll wish you'd never been born."

Simons frowned. "Now see? You're so clearly lying when you say that, that your ability to dissemble about the other teleport surprises me. How is it done?"

"The lying? Or the teleporting?"

"Who was the first to teleport? Was it you or was it your wife? We know from the file that she was held by the NSA during your first 'interactions' with them, yet she didn't escape. Either she couldn't do it then, or it was very deep cover."

"My wife?" Davy laughed, but it died almost immediately as the implications settled in. "What on earth makes you think she can jump?" Davy couldn't help it—he found his voice rising. If they thought Millie could jump she'd be an even higher priority target for Simons. Not just as a way to control Davy but as a spare.

"She was trapped in a hotel room in Virginia. My people were in the hall, outside the window, and in both adjoining rooms. They were monitoring her movements acoustically through the wall. When the point man went through the front door, the monitor heard a splash from the tub. Her clothes were there—she was gone."

Davy's eyes widened. "No way. Your people are hosing you."
Or you are hosing me.

Simons had tilted his head to the other side. "Hmmm. We must consider the third possibility, I suppose."

Davy was there before him but he kept his mouth shut.

"That she couldn't jump before, but now she can."

What do they hope to gain with these lies?
"What was she doing in Virginia."

"Looking for you." Simons took another sheet of paper out of his folder and pushed it across to Davy. It was a poster with Davy's picture, a shot he recognized from their stay in Tahiti. It gave the rough time and place of his disappearance and asked for anyone who had information to call the number below. However, the number had been cut out of the paper with a razor blade or X-Acto knife.

His intake of breath was sudden, surprising. The picture was from the cliff house bedside table. He felt tears well to his eyes and he blinked them away. He tried to make his voice light, uncaring. "Ah. Well, it's not a milk carton."
She made it out of the cliff house.
The relief was painful, overwhelming, and he knew it showed in his face. So what—Millie was all right and she wasn't in
their
hands.

Why are they trying to convince me she can jump?
Maybe Millie had faked something. He'd seen magicians do some pretty convincing fakes in the past. "To the best of
my
knowledge, I'm the only jumper there is. You sure the NSA isn't spoofing you? Maybe your people were listening to a tape recorder?"

Simons's eyes narrowed for the barest second before his expression returned to its customary urbanity.

He isn't sure,
Davy realized.

Simons turned to Hyacinth. "Please fetch Miss Johnson."

Davy didn't recognize the name.

"Yes, sir." She left.

"You trouble me, Mr. Rice. Your field test in Nigeria was quite promising. It is my hope that you'll continue to make yourself useful, but, in the event you choose not to, I want to make absolutely clear that the consequences will be severe."

Davy tensed. Was he about to be punished for supposedly concealing Millie's ability to teleport?
Well, if they activate it, I'll aim for his very expensive suit.

When Hyacinth came back she held the door. His old friends Thug One and Thug Two came through the door, each holding the arm of a figure dressed in a short-sleeve, ill-fitting, dark green jump suit. The hands were cuffed in back and they had a black cloth sack over her head. Once the door was shut, Thug One pulled off the hood revealing the woman's face. She was a black woman who blinked rapidly in the sudden light and her lower lip was bleeding. She looked familiar to Davy. Then her eyes squeezed shut in a prolonged blink before reopening, and her tongue thrust wildly out of her mouth.

"Sojee?" It'd been over three months but the facial twitches were unmistakable. "What did they do to you?"

Sojee looked at him blankly, then smiled. "My angel!" Her face was transformed, bloody lip and all. She tried to step forward but her escorts pulled her back. Bitterly, she said, "They took my coat."

Thug Two, the redhead, was holding a bloody handkerchief to his beak-like nose.

Simons frowned. "What happened?" His voice was mild but both guards looked nervous.

Thug Two said nasally, "She head-butted me, sir. In the nose. I knocked her back, off of me."

Simons's voice was scathing. "You know what she did in D.C.! Did you underestimate her because she's a woman or black?" Simons looked at Davy. "I swim in a sea of incompetence. It's no wonder we haven't caught up with your wife."

Davy was watching Sojee. Besides the split lip she looked okay. Well, she looked like Sojee. Her facial spasms were as severe as ever and the way she stood there, her head tilted to one side, he suspected she was listening to voices. "What happened in D.C.?"

Sojee smiled again. "The Blue Lady and I whupped 'em when they came for us. I would've finished 'em 'cept the FBI pulled me off."

Davy looked back at Simons.

Simons closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Davy said, "Who is the Blue Lady, Sojee?"

Sojee frowned. "What? The Blue Lady! The one who comes from the sea to protect us." She pointed down at the poster on the table. "The lady who was handing out those. She
said
she was your wife."

"Millie?"

Sojee nodded.

"She
is
my wife. But why 'Blue Lady?' Was she sad or is it something else?"

"Yes and yes."

Davy shook his head, his mind racing. "How long have they had you? Are they mistreating you?"

"They lock me in a heated room with a shower and a toilet. They stick meals under the door on trays, three times a day. It's
horrible."

"Enough!" said Simons. "Take her back."

Sojee looked down at Davy's shackle, then at Simons. Her mouth made a silent
oh.
"I see." She jerked her head over toward Simons. "Satan's minion, the demon king."

Simons waved his hand and Thugs One and Two put the hood back over her head and pulled her back out through the door. When it had closed again, Simons said, "She may think her conditions are bad now, but I invite you to consider how much worse they could be."

Davy had a hard time not laughing in Simons's face. Sojee hadn't been
complaining
—she'd been boasting. Compared to the streets, the cell was like heaven... for now.

Simons continued, "They're idiots. Brutal idiots." He looked into Davy's eyes. "But for all that, they'll do exactly what I say. And, after the head-butting incident, they'll probably enjoy it."

Davy felt his stomach roiling. "You'll have to spell it out."

"You're right," said Simons. "There should be no chance of misunderstanding. It goes like this: when I said the consequences of non-cooperation would be severe, I was talking about more than just for you personally. Ms. Johnson will also face those consequences and Hyacinth will deliver the results to you one finger joint at a time. Do I make myself clear?"

Davy made his face go blank. "You do."

Simons stared at Davy for a moment, silent, considering. Finally he said, "Very well. Let's talk about Caracas."

They served him lunch in his room, but Conley didn't come back in with the key until the afternoon was almost gone. As he removed the padlock, Conley said, "I've thought up some experiments to try, but we'll have to wait until they've finished with you. Day after tomorrow, perhaps?"

"I suppose." Davy rubbed his ankle. "So, they haven't told you?"

Conley held up his hands. "Apparently it's not my concern, so I'm happier not knowing."

Davy gestured at the shackle. "I take it Simons hung around for a while?"

"Golf, I believe. He flew in to play golf. Now he's gone, though."

Davy shuddered. Busy day for Simons. Fly to Martha's Vineyard. Taunt prisoner. Threaten torture to innocent victim. Eighteen holes of golf. Fly back to wherever.
A minion's work is never done.
He gave his attention to Conley. "Umm. Well, what kind of experiments?"

"Thought we might try jumping back and forth between two different places, quick as you can, oscillating so to speak."

"More like vacillating. Like I can't make up my mind where I want to be."

"Yes. We know there's some persistence of the phenomenon, perhaps we can actually get the gate to stay open."

Davy thought about this. "How will you tell? How can you measure it?"

Conley frowned. "By what flows through, I suppose. I might put a weak radio transmitter by one location and a field strength meter at the other. If we can get the signal strength to stabilize—"

Davy nodded. "Got it." His felt his heart pounding and a rush of adrenaline coursed through him.
Got it!
He wondered if Conley had thought it through. The impulse to glance at the mirror was almost overwhelming but he mastered it.

Conley nodded back. "Well, we'll try it when you're back, unless you want to try something right now."

Davy shook his head. Simons told him they were waiting for the electronic keys to be flown from Nigeria to Caracas. Apparently the soonest the KLM flight could get to Venezuela was six o'clock but there was serious doubt as to whether they'd made the connection in Amsterdam. There was very little chance they'd need Davy before tomorrow but he wasn't going to tell Conley that. "They told me to hold myself ready."

He felt safe in this lie. They'd turned off the cameras and the microphones after all.
Or they said they did.
He didn't really doubt it, though—it wasn't as if they'd been trying to get Davy to say anything revealing or incriminating. Simons had been the one doing all the talking.

What, then, was the point? What topic of the briefing did they not want on tape?
Well, they did threaten to chop Sojee's fingers off joint by joint.
He remembered other things said and done in this room, ostensibly when the cameras and microphones
were
operating.
No, it's something about Caracas.

Conley was still looking at him, hefting the weight of the padlock in his hand. "You all right?"

Davy blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Just thinking about that stuff you said you didn't want to know about."

"I don't ask. Don't tell."

Davy exhaled. "You be nice to me or I'll start telling you everything I know. And, of course, I'll tell
them
I told you."

He'd meant it as a jest, something to get the conversation off of the notion of a gate, but Conley blanched and dropped the padlock to the floor. "Shit." He stooped to pick it up and when he stood again his eyes were wary.

Davy felt compelled to say, "Just kidding, man. Really."

Conley put the padlock on the dresser and said, "I'll go work on my notes. Later." He opened the door partway and sidled through.

That
was weird.

He turned his thoughts back to Sojee. He hadn't gotten any sense of another prisoner in the mansion. They'd told him he had the run of the public rooms when he was allowed out of his room but he'd been warned away from any locked door. He'd also been told specifically never to enter the room behind the mirror again on pain of confinement to the square.

He couldn't get into the attic—the door was steel and locked. He was looking down the steps into the basement when Hyacinth showed up, an amused look on her face. "Miss Crazy Face isn't in the building, Lover. She was well away from here even before lunch." She spread her hands. "We're not
stupid."