Reflex (42 page)

She jumped back to the Aerie and stripped the tee-shirt mask off of her head. By the time she'd left, the air was positively cold, but her neck was wet with sweat.

She wanted to go straight back, to enter the house, but it was too early. The residents would be active, dealing with dinner and its aftermath. When she'd seen the servants leaving the night before, it had been after nine. She would wait a good hour after that before she went further.

She stripped off the dark clothes and hung them, to air, then drank deeply from the cistern. She stepped outside, onto the ledge. Here, two time zones to the west, the sun was still up, though blocked from Millie by the ridge above her. The sky was still crystalline blue, with a contrail drawn across the expanse far above like a knife slash. Her skin cooled immediately and a breeze went through her hair like a caress. Oblivious, the moment before, she became acutely aware that she was standing outside in just panties and a bra.

So? There's no one to see.

And that was the trouble.

She shivered and went back in, wrapping herself in a robe. She left the door open and lit a fire in the stove, enjoying the combination of cool air and warm radiance. She kept her eye on the counter. It was nearing six in his time zone but, like a watched pot, Davy neither appeared or boiled.

At nine-thirty she put the dark outfit on again, wrapped the tee-shirt around her head in the ninja mask, and put on the fanny pack with the atropine autoinjectors and pepper foam.

The belt's pressure made her aware of her bladder. She used the composting toilet in its closet at the end of the dwelling. As she came out again there was a flickering near the counter, and for a moment she thought she'd seen someone but there was no one there.

Wishful thinking.

When she went to get the night vision goggles off the shelf, there were footprints in the talc. Two prints, left and right, bare. Facing away from her sign, dammit!

She had seen him. Had he seen her, coming out of the bathroom? Had he run from her?

She waited another forty minutes, staring at the spot before the counter, then, swearing, snatched up the night vision goggles.

She called Becca's cell from a pay phone in Crystal City, the night vision goggles tucked under one arm, the mask pulled down around her neck like a rumpled scarf.

"Martingale."

"I'm going in."

"Call me after?"

"Yes."

The roof creaked when she appeared back on it, in the shadow of the gable. She held her breath and froze, staring up, ears listening for an approaching guard. The cold stars glittered down like distant, uncaring eyes.

When she did move, she thought,
Like glaciers creeping. Imperceptible in the short term, covering distance over time.
Far better to err on the side of caution. There would be no second chances.

It took her half an hour to move the four feet to the edge of the dormer windows. She never moved more than an inch at a time and she rested and listened between each movement. It was cold and a sharp breeze had sprung up as the sun went down but she was sweating.

The floodlights on the grounds below cast the shadow of the gutter across the window, lighting the peak of the dormer above and the very top of the window frame but not the glass panes themselves. The room within was dark. She lowered the night vision goggles over her eyes and, shielding the lenses from the glare with her hands, peered through the glass.

Blinds. Closed.

She examined the window itself, an old-fashioned sash. When she tugged at it, it didn't budge.

There were perhaps three feet of slanting shingles between the window and the edge of the roof. She eyed the lip and decided to go around, instead, moving up the slant of the roof, over the top of the dormer, and then down again, to the next window. She even turned to do it but stopped herself.

Idiot! You can teleport, remember?

She studied the next window and jumped across the twelve-foot gap. This window was also tightly closed but the blinds had been raised. The room was unlit but a thin line of light coming under the door was like the noonday sun for the night vision goggles, letting her see into a small garret bedroom. There was a twin bed beneath the window, a desk on one wall, a freestanding wardrobe opposite, and a dresser with a television next to the door opposite. The bed, though made, had a crease on it, as if someone had been lying atop the covers.

They could come back at any minute.

She jumped within and pressed her ear to the door. She heard nothing, no footsteps, no voices, just a slight hum from the central heat. She checked the wardrobe. Women's clothes, mostly semi-casual, with several maid's uniforms—gray dresses with white aprons. The top drawer of the dresser held bras, panties, hose, nightgowns, and two clips for a 9-mm automatic pistol.

Turn down the beds and shoot out the lights.

She took out her dental mirror, flipped up the night vision goggles, and eased the door to the hallway open.

Davy was on his bed in a tee-shirt and pajama bottoms, ignoring a DVD, when his throat tingled and he found himself standing "in the box."

It was late at night and Hyacinth entered without knocking. She held the door for Thug One and Thug Two as they each carried in a large aluminum case. Both of the cases were dented and battered and the olive-drab anodized coating was scratched. They were clearly heavy, for both men leaned to counteract the weight. Clear of the door, they lowered them to the floor as if they were made of glass.

Hyacinth turned off the TV without speaking. She jerked her head toward the door and Thug One and Thug Two left. Davy thought they looked relieved at the dismissal.

"I hope that's not your trousseau," Davy said.

She looked at him in silence for a moment before saying, "It's just a quick delivery. Two quick trips to the embassy in Caracas." She took a handkerchief from her pants pocket and wiped the handles carefully, then polished the top of the case.

Davy looked down at the tips of his own fingers. "What's in them?"

Hyacinth shook her head. "No need for you to know. Just leave them in the bathroom and our contact will collect them."

Davy felt a chill.
You knew this time would come.
He leaned out of the box to peer at the cases. They were padlocked shut. A large pink Post-it note was stuck to each with the word FIRST on one and LAST on the other. There was a line of lettering on a metallized label and when he squinted he saw lines of Arabic.

"Should I dress? Do I take you to the embassy first?" he asked, testing.

She shook her head. "Not necessary. Just leave them in the bathroom and... come right back." Her eye contact broke.

"Open them," he said.

"Are you deaf?"

"You're not going to open them?"

"Hell, no!"

"Right." He'd gone as far as he could. More specifically, as far as he
would.
He dropped down onto the floor, cross-legged. "Deliver them yourself."

Hyacinth's hands clenched into fists. "Mr. Simons told you what would happen if you didn't cooperate. Is it time to bring Ms. Johnson over from—" She shut her mouth with a click. "Let me rephrase. Is it time to bring Ms. Johnson up here... one piece at a time?"

It would be so easy to break your neck.
Davy visualized the act, jumping behind her, grasping her chin, and jumping sideways without letting go. He felt a stir of arousal. He wanted his hands on her, all right.
For what?
His stomach heaved but it wasn't the implant.

"Are they on a timer or are you going to radio-detonate them?"

Her posture shifted subtly, less forward, slightly smaller, and she unclenched her hands. "What on earth do you mean?"

He licked his lips. Might as well be as clear as possible. "Well, it's not drugs, not with Colombia next door. That would be like taking sand to the Sahara. It could be money, like I carried for the NSA, but if so, why not show me? Unless you know it's something I won't touch."

Hyacinth waved her hand. "Why would we want to take a bomb into Caracas? That's like your sand and Sahara thing. Plenty of bombs. Fifteen explosions in the last two years."

Davy crossed his legs. "On the streets of Caracas, yes. But inside the security cordon of the U.S. Embassy?"

Hyacinth didn't move for a moment. Then, "Why on earth would we do something like that?"

"Can you say 'regime change?' I don't know if you guys want the oil, or want to keep this administration in office with a timely little foreign adventure, or if you want to give them a reason to go directly after drugs in Colombia or, hell, perhaps it's an excuse to go someplace else. I can't read Arabic. Does anything else in that case point to a particular country? Say, Syria? Iran? For all I know, you guys are heavily invested in the defense industries and just want another war." He steepled his fingers. "Syrian bomb blows up U.S. Embassy in Venezuela. U.S. sends troops? Crashes stock market? Street price of cocaine skyrockets? Maybe you've stockpiled against a shortage."

"That's ridiculous." Her affect was flat, eyes watchful.

"Indeed." Davy's lips went tight. "Which scenario?"

"All of them!" She half-turned to the door. "I'll just go get Ms. Johnson, then? Is that what you want?"

He felt cold inside. "I can do the math. Ms. Johnson dies. Perhaps I die, too. But how many people die in the explosion? How many die in the subsequent military actions?"

"It's
not
a bomb, so none of that will happen. Except Ms. Johnson will die and you'll wish you'd never been born."

He watched her, his tongue on his lips. The last time they'd talked about Caracas, the cameras and microphones had been disconnected. And she'd just sent the two Thugs out, as well, as if they weren't to hear this conversation.
So the cameras are probably
off
now.

He said, "When you're lying in the dark, trying to get to sleep, do they visit you? The people you've killed and hurt?"

She wrinkled her nose and said, "I sleep like a baby."

He exhaled sharply through his nose. "With colic?"

She turned toward the door. "I'll be back with some part of Ms. Johnson."

Davy tilted his head forward and narrowed his eyes. "I don't think so."

His knee struck her in the stomach before she'd had time to react to his disappearance from the square. As she doubled over he kneed her once more in the same place and then was back in the box in time to watch her drop to the floor, unable to breathe, her nervous system temporarily overloaded.

He was bent over himself, trying to avoid tossing dinner. He gasped out, "You turned off the cameras, didn't you, dear? Lest you leave any evidence of this plot." He jumped again, took her by the collar, and jumped back into the square. Each excursion out of the square hit him with a jolt.

Hyacinth thrashed, striking out with her elbow, but he avoided it easily. She was making little half-choking, half-gasping noises, still unable to draw a breath. Davy switched his grasp to her arms, lifted them over her head, then lowered them. The first gasping intake of air rushed through her vocal chords in a protracted moan. To Davy it sounded like a caricature of sexual pleasure.

You're sick, kiddo.

"You should've left me chained," he said.

He grabbed her shirt collar again, and jumped her to the midnight darkness of the pit, fifty feet above the water, and released her. Unlike times past, he was unable to stay, to see or, in this case, hear her impact the surface. He'd taken too long.

He doubled over, back in the square, first vomiting, then coughing, then vomiting again. A part of him watched, detached.
Been here, done this.
He wondered if Hyacinth was too weak to make it to the shore of the island.

The smell and sight of his earlier night's dinner kept him gagging. He turned away from the lumpy puddle and drew deep breaths though his mouth. His throat burned.
I am so tired of this.
He eyed the two cases, halfway to the door, and wondered what would happen if he threw them against the wall.

How long before they check on Hyacinth?
And what could he do with the period of unobserved time?

He thought about moving the cases to the island in the pit.
Make them
her
problem
but, for all he knew, they'd already put them on a timer. He looked at the Post-it notes again. Why was it important to take one before the other?

He presumed both contained explosives. Perhaps the second one contained the detonation device.

But why would it matter?

He thought about knocking the locks off and opening them.
What if they've boobytrapped them?
What if opening them set them off?

From the size of the things, and their apparent weight, he felt sure they didn't expect him to carry both cases at once. So, they wanted to make sure one was in place before the other got there. Again, why?

The answer chilled him.

Because it's designed to go off once it's been moved?

He shook his head. If they did that, how could they re-use him?

Maybe they've decided they don't want to re-use him.
Maybe their concern is, how can they let me
live,
if I know who arranged for the bomb to be put there in the first place?

That had to be it. How could they possibly risk his revealing the guilty? It would undo anything they hoped to accomplish.

So, move one case, then, when the second one was moved, it would go off, blowing the first case in sympathetic detonation. And, incidentally, silencing Davy. At ground zero, there probably wouldn't be much left of him.

And what would set it off?

Obviously movement wasn't the thing. Thug One had brought it in, after all. What about some sort of GPS receiver? Perhaps it was programmed to go off when it found itself in the right location?

He thought about that and rejected it. He'd used GPS receivers and it usually took them some time to reacquire enough satellites to determine position after he jumped. If they were counting on GPS, he'd be long gone before the detonation and their delivery order wouldn't matter.