Critical Space ak-5 Read online

  The track forked and I turned us south, following it another quarter of a mile before breaking direction and cutting down a hillside to the road that ran along the west side of the island. When I got to the bottom I put in the clutch and stopped, craning my head to look back and around.

  There was a lens flare from the trees, sunlight hitting glass.

  "Fuck," I said.

  "We should double back, try to flank him."

  I gave it a couple seconds of thought before I said, "If it's him and he's trying to kill you, the worst thing we can do is split up here out in the open."

  "If it's him."

  "We're going back to the house." I put the bike into gear and opened the throttle, heading down the road. The acceleration was sudden enough that she tightened her grip around my waist, and I felt her lean back.

  "Anything?" I asked.

  "Nothing. No one following." She had to shout, and then I felt her turn, put her mouth closer to my ear. "Could have been a false alarm. Did you see anyone in Port Elizabeth?"

  "Aside from the cop, no one suspicious."

  "That was just your paranoia, the cop was honest. He's been here since before I arrived."

  "You could have told me that," I said.

  "I wanted for you to feel useful."

  I nodded and put on more speed, making for the house, hoping that she was right, that it was just my paranoia.

  ***

  Miata greeted us when we got back, and Alena took the bags into the kitchen while I headed to the basement to check the monitors and the laptop. No breaches had been recorded anywhere, and everything on the system was still running as it had been designed to. Electronic assurance notwithstanding, I took a pair of binoculars and headed upstairs to the veranda, where I spent the next half an hour surveying the surrounding terrain all along the hillside and out onto the water.

  I had just finished the full three hundred and sixty degrees when I felt her at my elbow. She took the binoculars from me without comment, handing over the envelope we'd collected in Port Elizabeth. While she made her own survey of the area, I moved back inside to the bed, and dumped the contents.

  There were three complete sets of papers, two U.S. and one Canadian. All gave me a driver's license, a passport, and various other sundry bits of identity and detail – library cards, Social Security cards for the U.S. identities. The Canadian I.D. also included a membership card in the Ducatti Rider Program, and I noted that all of the licenses had motorcycle endorsements. The U.S. papers contained membership cards to Blockbuster Video.

  The work was excellent, and on close examination I couldn't see any flaws. The documents were so good, in fact, that I was pretty certain they weren't strictly forgeries. In all likelihood, the crew of the good ship Lutra had a connection somewhere to get blanks of everything they needed. The first U.S. set said my name was Dennis Murphy, from Gahanna, Ohio, married, thirty years old. The other U.S. said I was Alex Klein, and that I lived in New York City, single, also thirty. The Canadian said my name was Paul Lieberg, from Vancouver, British Columbia, also single, but this time I was thirty-two. I appreciated the fact that none of the identities required my needing fluency in a second language.

  Alena had finished her survey, was lowering the binos. "Nothing."

  I stowed the papers in the envelope, and we headed back downstairs. I put the binoculars and the papers away. We grilled some fish for lunch, and after we had done the dishes, Alena said that maybe it was time that I assembled a go-bag.

  "We'll be leaving in a hurry?"

  "Good tradecraft demands you always be ready to go," she replied. "Now that you have the papers, we should not waste more time."

  It was hard logic to argue with, even if I'd been inclined to, which I wasn't. She gave me a leather gym bag, and together we loaded it with a change of clothes for me, extra underwear and some basic toiletries. From the weapons locker in the hard room she took a little over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash, most of it in dollars, the rest in French francs, Swiss francs, and deutsche marks. I laid the money at the bottom of the bag. I put the Gahanna I.D. in one of the outside pockets, the Vancouver in the other. The New York I.D. we put in a FedEx envelope, and after some thought, I addressed it to Moore, adding a note asking him to hold it for Mr. Klein. I signed it, dropped it into the envelope, and sealed the whole thing up. The envelope went into the bag along with everything else, to be sent if and when we ever had to hoof it.

  Alena took my bag and set it in the front closet beside her own. Then we headed back to the basement and watched a download of the Bolshoi performing Swan Lake.

  There were no sounds from her room during the night, but the next morning, while we were working at the barre, Alena caught my eyes in the mirror's reflection and said, "I have nightmares."

  "It happens," I said.

  She had one hand on the barre, her left out in a curve, her left leg extended and raised behind her almost one hundred and twenty degrees. Her eyes stayed on me, steady.

  "I have them often. Sometimes I cry out. It's not something I can help."

  She was still watching me in the mirror, as if expecting a judgment.

  "Sounds bad," I said lamely.

  She brought her leg down, switched to the right, extending and raising it. "You're not curious?"

  "You mean do I want to know what your nightmares are about?"

  "Yes."

  "No."

  She considered that, then turned her attention back to her reflection. We finished our warm-ups, moving to the center, and I started working on a series of leaps that I'd watched the night before. The problem was I kept pulling my upper body out of line when I went into the air, so instead of making the move elegant or at least somewhat graceful, I felt that I was instead doing a rather convincing impersonation of an ox that had just been shoved from a passing plane. I spent a good twenty minutes trying to get the leap down, and finally I surprised myself by actually pulling it off, and then I really surprised myself by being able to do it again.

  When I came down the second time I looked over to Alena, hoping that she'd seen my success, and was somewhat disappointed to find that she hadn't, engrossed in a problem of her own. She was launching a series of pirouettes, and at first it looked to me like she was doing fine – certainly a world better than my own sad attempts at dancing – turning around and around in demi-pointe, three, then four, then five times. It took me another minute of watching to realize that she was trying to push it to six, and that she was growing frustrated, or at the least, annoyed.

  I waited for her to try again, and when she started spinning, opening her arms to second position, I moved in to spot her, putting my hands to her hips. She turned from the fifth to the sixth easily, and I thought she would stop, but she kept going another two times around before stopping.

  "Try it again," she said, and I let her go, stepping back.

  She put her weight on her working leg, swung the other up and into the turn, her arms again opening to second position, and again I moved in. She gave me some of her weight, spinning in my hands and then, at the sixth pirouette, coming out of it, pausing, and then going into a leap. I brought her up, set her down again, assisting as she went into a low arabesque. Her arms swept forward and up, and I guided her as she rose, her torso straightening as her right leg stayed extended behind her. I brought her against me, my hands on her hips, and when she was upright, the leg perfectly perpendicular to us, I lifted and turned. She spun fast, putting distance between us. I moved, trying the first of the leaps I'd been practicing, and I wasn't an ox, and when I turned back, the length of the floor was between us. She paused, then launched a grand jete. I tried one of my own, and we ended an arm's length apart. She took my hand, and spun back into me, her arms raised, her body arched back against mine, my hands on each side of her chest. After another moment, she let her arms descend.

  Neither of us moved.

  We had ended facing the mirror, and I saw her reflected, her eyes
closed. Beneath my palms I could feel her breathing, her heart pounding. Mine was doing the same; we were both out of breath.

  Her eyes opened and she watched me in the mirror. She gave me more of her weight to hold.

  "That was dancing." She was still out of breath, and perhaps even surprised.

  I managed a nod, still focused on our reflections.

  I wasn't sure I liked what I was seeing.

  I wasn't sure I didn't, either.

  I thought about the fact that I needed to let go of her, and that after almost four months of contact between the two of us, of rubdowns and massages and teaching, her body and my own had become simply tools. Intimate though the knowledge of them was, they had become almost abstractions.

  Now they seemed very real.

  She turned her head from the reflection.

  "Have you thought about it?" she asked, looking directly at me.

  "I have." I let go, backing off a step, moving my eyes from her reflection to her person. "We shouldn't. We can't."

  "No." Her voice was low. "We can't."

  After a second, she moved to the post and began fighting her invisible foes.

  The laptop on the counter began screaming for attention.

  She beat me to the computer. The P7 was on the counter by one of the monitors, and I took it up as she checked the screen.

  "Perimeter, someone on the driveway," she said. "One vehicle, coming to the house."

  "Stay here," I said. As I hit the stairs she called something after me and I shouted back, "I mean it! Stay there!"

  I didn't hear her answer, taking the steps two at a time to find Miata waiting for me at the top. With the gun in my right, I glanced around the corner into the living room, and seeing it clear, moved through to the back. I stopped and checked again, this time looking outside, and I saw no one. I doubled back across the space, sweeping the gun around with my survey. Alena stood at the top of the stairs, holding the Neostead shotgun from the weapons locker. I glared at her.

  "It's not him," she told me.

  I intensified my glare and gestured to her to back off. She shrugged and fell back to the stairs, backing up them and out of sight. There was a knock on the door, heavy and rapid and hard. I made my way to it, Miata at my heels.

  There was another pounding at the door, and I thought that if it wasn't Oxford, whoever was outside was either forward, foolish, or insane. Using the wall to cover my back, I edged to the window that looked out to the front porch, taking a quick peek.

  She'd been right. It wasn't him.

  It was Chris Havel.

  And Bridgett was with her, holding a gun, and looking like she meant to use it.

  Chapter 6

  The only thing I could think to say as I opened the door was, "It's not what you think."

  She had the gun up to my face before I'd finished the sentence, was starting forward with a snarl.

  "Fuck you, where is she, you sack of…" Bridgett said, and then she stopped, the barrel of her SIG perhaps an inch from my nose, and for the first time since I'd known her, she looked like she couldn't think of a thing to say. In my peripheral vision, I could see Miata hesitating, looking up at Bridgett, and then he lowered his head and headed out the open door, brushing past her bare legs.

  Bridgett didn't even notice, didn't move at all, the gun still in my face.

  "Hi, Chris," I said. I didn't look at her.

  "Atticus," Chris said. "What happened to the glasses?"

  "Contacts."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Yeah. Soft lenses, Bausch and Lomb."

  "Those are nice. The Vandyke doesn't really suit you, though."

  "It's temporary. I'm hoping to shave soon."

  "Sure," Havel said. "You going to invite us in?"

  "I'd like Bridgett to lower her weapon first."

  Havel waited. I waited. Bridgett held the gun on me a moment longer, then lowered it. She left the hammer up. Her expression had frozen, but now it was starting to crack. Bridgett doesn't hide her feelings well, and I was reading a long string of emotions that started with shock, touched on relief, switched to rage, and now was mostly suspicion. After another second's silence she looked past my shoulder, into the house.

  "Where is she?" Bridgett demanded.

  "Why?"

  She tightened her jaw, pushed past me, bringing the gun up again. I gestured for Chris to follow her through, then checked outside. An old Army Jeep, painted a combination of rust and blue, was parked in the drive. I didn't see anyone else. I closed and locked the door.

  They had made it into the living room, each of them reacting very differently to the space. Havel had the same leather book-bag hanging from her shoulder as the last time I'd seen her, and was reaching into one of the pockets while taking in her surroundings. She was grinning, and when her hand came out of the bag, she'd produced a pad and a pen. If she'd been a six-year-old about to meet Mickey Mouse, I don't think she could have looked more delighted.

  Bridgett, on the other hand, was scanning the room as if searching for someone to shoot, which I suspect was just what she wanted to do. When I came back to join them, she stopped long enough to glare at me, her rage once again naked and in control.

  "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

  "It's complicated."

  "Fuck you, uncomplicate it, uncomplicate it now. You look like an asshole, you look like you've gone fucking diesel on me, here, as well as crazy. Jesus Christ, what have you been doing?"

  Havel, who had started taking notes, stopped long enough to glance up at me. "You look really good. Except for the Vandyke. You lose weight?"

  "Some," I said.

  "Where is she?" Bridgett asked. "Is she here?"

  "She's here," I said.

  "I'm going to kill her."

  "Why?"

  She looked at me much as she had just moments earlier over the barrel of the gun. "How about she's a motherfucking professional killer to start with? How about she tried to shoot me through the head? How about she fucking kidnapped you and apparently has turned you into the poster goddamn child for Stockholm fucking Syndrome?"

  "It's not Stockholm Syndrome," I said. "I'm here because I want to be."

  "You and Patty Hearst."

  Chris had moved to the bookshelves, was examining the titles there. "She a Beatles fan?"

  "Yeah."

  "Let me guess," Bridgett said. "Revolver."

  "Help!" I said.

  Bridgett laughed, and it wasn't amusement. "Oh, is that it? She needs somebody?"

  I hadn't actually considered that, but I said, "Pretty much."

  She stepped closer to me, holding the gun against her thigh, the hammer still up. I'd never noticed the way she carried her weight before, how much of it rested in her lower back and her knees. She poked me in the chest with the index finger of her empty hand.

  "You know what we've been through the last few months?" she hissed. "You know what Erika's been through? Not to mention Scott and Dale and Corry? Not to mention your family, who saw in the paper that you had disappeared?"

  "I've an idea."

  "You've an idea. That's good. Does that mean your incredible selfishness has some sort of justification?"

  "I'm a bodyguard," I said.

  "What is that, is that an answer?"

  "She's my principal."

  Havel stopped thumbing through the titles on the shelf to look at me. If I'd introduced her to Mickey before, now I'd presented her with a lifetime pass to the Magic Kingdom.

  "Brilliant," she said.

  Bridgett didn't think so. For a moment I thought she was going to pistol-whip me. "I want to see her, I want to talk to this bitch."

  "Give me the gun," I said.

  "Fuck off."

  "I can take it from you."

  "You can try."

  The P7 was in my right hand, so I used my left, grabbing the SIG and twisting it from her grip in one motion. I had it before she could resist. Before she could fi
nd words I'd turned the pistol in my hand and lowered the hammer, then tossed it onto one of the empty chairs.

  "You son of a bitch," Bridgett said, and she tried to punch me in the face, but I moved out of it and she bruised only air, and that just made her angrier. "You son of a bitch."

  "You need to calm down."

  She turned, moving to the chair where I'd sent her pistol.

  "Don't," I said.

  Havel was watching us, her delight long gone. She wasn't even taking notes any longer.

  Bridgett stopped but didn't turn. Her voice was tight, coming from high in her chest.

  "You going to shoot me, Atticus?" she asked. "Has she got you so wound up you'd shoot me in the back?"

  "It's complicated," I said. "And if you go at her with a gun, one of you will end up dead."

  "God dammit, Atticus. I've been looking for you for three months. I thought you needed help, I thought you might be dead." Her shoulders dropped, and she turned to look at me again, and she even managed a crooked smile. "Sound familiar?"

  "It does," I said. "Look, you're here, both of you are here, now's not the time to hash this out. You want to meet her?"

  "Yeah, I do."

  "As long as you don't try to kill her, that'll be fine," I said. "Wait here."

  Bridgett nodded, and Havel resumed scribbling madly in her pad. I went around the corner, out of the living room, to the foot of the stairs, thinking it would be better for me to head up and talk to Alena first rather than to just call her name and ask her to come on down. I doubted getting her to relinquish the shotgun would be as difficult as it had been getting Bridgett to give up the SIG, but I was sure some talk was going to be required, whatever the case.

  I never got the chance to find out.

  Chapter 7

  She was lying at the foot of the stairs, in a heap, and the shock stopped me cold, and before I could think to look away from her body, I felt the metal chill of a barrel pressing against my neck.

  "Gun," a man said in a friendly whisper. He sounded very calm. "Unload it quietly. Then set it on the ground. Do it right or your head comes off."