Severance Package (23 page)

The conference room door slammed open. Amy Felton staggered inside and dropped to her knees.

“Where is she?”

“Amy?” Nichole said, lowering her pistol. “Where were
you?”

Jamie was just as surprised. For a moment, he forgot about his throbbing hand and considered this new development. Good God—Amy was still alive. Had anyone else made it, too? Like Ethan?

“Where is she?”
Amy repeated, and this time it was a bit of a shriek.

“Who?”

“That bitch.”

“She got to you, too, huh?”

“We need to kill her.
Now.
”

Amy was pale and trembling, but also looking like she could tear a person in half—the long way. She leaned against the conference room wall and allowed herself to ease down it, gently touching down and placing her palms against the floor. Her fingers clutched at the carpet.

Nichole left David and, pistol still in hand, approached Amy.

“We need to show our cards,” Nichole said. “We all know what this place is, but I’m not sure whose side we’re playing on.”

“You know who we work for,” Amy said.

“No,” Nichole said, then swallowed. “I’m CIA.”

If Nichole was expecting a look of surprise, she didn’t get it.

“Well,” Amy said, “I’m not.”

“I know. You’re CI-6.”

“There is no CI-6.”

“You’re right,” Nichole said. “After today.”

“Look, forget this for now. What we have is a homicidal she-bitch out there, trying to kill us all.”

“One of yours, no doubt,” Nichole said.

“There are only two sides here. Hers and ours. Help me take care of her, we’ll sort this out later.”

“Either you’re against the terrorist, or you’re with her.”

“That’s funny.”

Nichole thought it over. “What do you have in mind?”

“There are at least two guns in here, right?”

“Three. David’s, Molly’s, and my own.”

“Ammo?”

“Mine’s almost spent. I used two bullets on David’s hand. But Molly only used one, as far as I can tell.”

“Then we go out there, flank her, then kill her. Jamie here can guard David.”

Jamie, who had been listening to this exchange and trying to exact a single shred of sense from it, cleared his throat. “You know, um, this Jamie guy? He’s still in the room.”

Nichole ignored him, and asked Amy, “Is he one of yours, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“He claims to be a civilian. Is he?”

Amy looked at Jamie. “Yes. As far as I know.”

“Wonderful.”

On the floor, David started to place another food order. Burger King this time.
Two Whoppers, extra onions, plenty of pickles, along with fries.
He started murmuring about Burger King allegedly cooking the best-tasting fries of all the fast food chains, but that was bull, because none could hold a salt shaker to McDonald’s.

“What’s wrong with him?” Amy asked.

“You were there when he was shot in the head, weren’t you?”

“I didn’t know that made you hungry.”

Amy and Nichole eyed each other. They looked like two college students stuck in a group project who both clearly hated group projects.

“I’m not sure about you and a gun,” Nichole said.

“There’s two of us. One of her. It’s simple.”

“You don’t understand. About thirty minutes ago, I fired six shots at her, point-blank, and they went through her like she was a ghost.”

“She’s flesh and blood. She can be killed.”

“Hey,” Jamie said. “You don’t need to kill anybody.”

Nichole ignored him.

“You even field-rated?” she asked Amy.

“I can shoot.”

“Hey!” Jamie shouted. “She’s our co-worker. She’s confused. She needs help. You can’t just go and kill her!”

Had everyone gone insane? Why weren’t they even responding to him?

Nichole sighed.

“I can do this,” Amy said. “I
have
to do this. Even if I die doing it.”

“Fine. We do this, we come back here for answers. If you cross me, you
will
die.”

Amy knew death.

Hanging upside down, it was easy to spot death.

It was right there. Thirty-six stories below.

Death was a city sidewalk.

Or maybe death was the space between. Even after the fact, it was hard to decide.

Obsessed with heights, Amy had read about the jumpers at the World Trade Center. Oh, so many hours fixed on the image of the infamous “Falling Man”—the anonymous human being who had leapt from one of the burning floors and had been captured by a photographer at a particular moment in time: 9:41:15
A.M.
on September 11, 2001. In that moment, all looked
strangely ordered, composed. The lines of the building, the lines of his body. One leg, tucked up slightly. The Falling Man looked like he was floating. Frozen in space, as if he were in complete control.
If I just spread my arms and will it, I will stop falling.
This, of course, wasn’t the truth.

The more Amy read, the more she understood the true horror. The photograph, which appeared on the front pages of a dozen newspapers on the morning of September 12, 2001, was a piece of freak luck. Photographers were trained to look for symmetry, shapes. At that moment, the Falling Man was in perfect harmony with his surroundings. But the outtakes from the same sequence—snapped almost robotically—reveal the truth. There’s nothing symmetrical about falling to your death from a height like the 105th floor of the North Tower. It is a fast and horrific and chaotic death—death at 9.8 meters per second.

That’s what death looked like.

That’s what Amy Felton stared at for the better part of an hour.

No, that wasn’t quite true. She had passed out for much of it.

What brought her back was Ethan.

He was alive in this building. She had no doubt about that. He was smart—so smart. He saw this coming somehow. Showed up to work, just like her, put his bag down, fired up his computer, but noticed something off. A little detail. Which was just like Ethan.

Hanging upside down, she remembered going to the door before being distracted by Molly. Calling out to see if anyone (Ethan?) was there.

It was Ethan behind that door. She knew it now.

And she left him behind.

Yes, death was there. Thirty-six floors below. But it wasn’t up here with her. Not yet.

She was closer to Ethan than to death.

Amy sucked in warm air and prepared to sit up, that’s it, just think of sitting up, just once, and grabbing hold of the window frame. You only have to grab it once. Pull yourself inside. Kill that murderous cunt. Find Ethan.

Now, standing in the hallway with a gun in her hands, she was ready for the next part.

Down the hall,
Amy saw a blur of motion. No. Not a blur.

Molly.

Amy squeezed the trigger. There was a spray of wood trim and drywall. Molly spun with the blast and bounced off the wall behind her, then dropped out of sight.

“Get down!” Amy cried.

They fell to the floor, guns pointed away from each other.

“Think I got her.”

“You sure?”

“We need to look.”

“I’ll do it,” Nichole said.

She crawled on her hands and knees to the edge of the hallway. Glanced around the corner, then ducked her head back in.

“I see legs.”

“Molly?”

“I think so. The woman up there is not wearing shoes. When I encountered Molly an hour ago, she didn’t have any shoes.”

“That’s her, then.”

“Whoever it is, I’m going to cripple her. A bullet in the ankle will slow her down. We stand up, flank her, it’s over.”

“We need to kill her.”

“No,” Nichole warned. “She has to answer for this.”

Amy gave her a crooked smile. “You’re the CIA agent.” She said it in a tone that sounded more like,
You’re the idiot.

“That’s right,” Nichole said. “I am.”

Nichole held up her gun, then flung herself into the hallway. Arm extended, lining up a shot. Looking for that leg. Looking for that piece of ankle.

Instead of firing, she cursed.

“What?” Amy whispered.

Nichole pushed herself off the carpet and back to her original position. Amy didn’t need her to say anything, really. She knew what had happened.

The legs were gone.

Ania was lucky in a way. The bullet had passed straight through skin and muscle of her left shoulder. No bone. No joints. No place that couldn’t be endured, and later, repaired.

But she was spectacularly unlucky in that the bullet spun her and smashed her against the wall. Muscles that had already been in extremis now refused to function. She lay on the teal blue carpet, partially writhing in agony—this bullet hurt—and unable to execute a simple bodily command, such as:
You must crawl away from this hallway—NOW.

Someone out there in the hallway had a gun.

Her guess was Amy.

Oh, how she’d underestimated that woman.

Amy Felton was a database warrior, an operations center soldier. There was no evidence she’d actually ever
handled
a gun before.

But it was entirely possible she’d had years of field experience, under a different name, before taking a job with Murphy, Knox. In which case, Ania’s job became considerably more difficult.

Flipped over on her belly, Ania was able to use her elbows and knees to clear the hallway in a matter of seconds. She rolled over into the assistants’ area, nudged the door closed as quietly as she could.

This bought her a little time.

Ania hated the assistants’ area. It was a multipurpose part of the office meant for transcribers, researchers, and other assorted temps. David hired based on a tit-to-hip ratio, as well as eyes. Men rarely set foot in the assistants’ area; the domain belonged to women David could conceivably fall into bed with easily and without future entanglement.

Not that David ever did. Far as Ania could discern, he kept his office alliances limited, seeking release elsewhere in the city—usually from personal ads in the back of local alternative newsweeklies. She’d once found a ripped-out square of newspaper tucked in his DayMinder: “Let me swallow your Tastee Throat Yogurt.” There was a number printed on the ad. Someone—presumably David—had underlined it twice.

Ania was glad she would be killing David later.

But now it was Amy’s turn.

The assistants’ area was utterly devoid of weapons. Used PCs sat on top of Formica cubicle desks. Roll-out chairs. Plastic wastebaskets. Ceramic coffee mugs emblazoned with
MURPHY, KNOX: PROUD TO CALL THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE HOME …
5
YEARS RUNNING
! Black plastic in-boxes. A wall of cork, painted pale blue, with pushpins grouped in one corner. A paper trimmer.

A paper trimmer.

Ania quickly examined the handle, the blade, the joint.

Her left arm was useless for the moment.

But her right …

She flipped open a compartment on her wrist bracelet and produced a mini Phillips-head screwdriver. She immediately set to work.

She could hear someone approaching.

Nichole motioned to Amy:
the assistants’ area.
Amy nodded. There were two ways into the assistants’ area: the entrance closest to David’s office and another entrance near the central cubicles. Amy took the one near David’s office. Nichole covered the other.

A thin trail of blood led to the door closest to Nichole.

Molly was shot.

Molly was bleeding.

Molly was trapped.

Molly was
screwed.

Ania loosened the fourth screw and flicked it away. The blade was heavy in her hands, the edge sharp. It would take effort to swing the blade with only one arm. But the exertion would be worth it: The weight of the steel would drive the edge even farther into whatever it encountered.

Maybe a human neck.

A face.

They didn’t plan it, but Amy and Nichole opened both doors at the same time.

First thing that moved, Amy decided, was getting shot to hell. Even though she had precious few bullets in her gun. But all she
needed was one. One shot could flush out her quarry. And once she showed herself, Amy would wrap her hands around the bitch’s neck and squeeze and spit in her face until she …

Ania heard footsteps to her left.

And to her right.

The ones to the left sounded closer.

She held the heavy blade high.

Stared at the carpet. Waited for a shadow to appear.

Nichole used the classic two-hand stance, gun out in front, ready to blast away at anything hostile. This morning, Molly Lewis certainly qualified.

She’d ducked away once before. She wouldn’t this time.

Nichole was thinking about a particular button on Molly’s perfect white blouse. It gave her a target. The button that rested a few inches to the left of her heart. Aim for the button, drift right, then blast away. She fixated on that button.