All Fall Down (17 page)

I
f the South Koreans are concerned the next morning, they don’t show it. There are no extra guards. No new cameras. Probably the trapdoor in the basement will be firmly sealed after my visit, but that doesn’t impact me at all. Not anymore. What I need isn’t inside their embassy. It’s around it. Somewhere.

I don’t know where I was
.

For at least an hour, I stand across the street, staring at the South Korean embassy. No one stares back, though, I’m happy to see. The guards don’t even glance in my direction. I am young, small. Inconsequential. The people who do happen to notice me see someone who isn’t a threat.

I don’t know where I was
.

The Scarred Man was meeting someone, but I don’t know who. I don’t know where. If I had just one piece of the puzzle then I might be able to figure out the rest. And then … what? Stop an assassination by an international hit man? Throw my body between the Scarred Man and another victim?

Keep it from happening again.

Yes. That is what I’m going to do. But I don’t stop to worry about how.
How
is tomorrow’s problem. Today my mission is simple.

I don’t know where I was
.

Today I have to fix that.

I push off the wall of the Egyptian embassy and start down the street that winds and climbs to the city center, all the time keeping my eyes glued to the stones beneath my feet, searching for any irregularities in the pattern, for the symbol that marked the entrance that I found last night.

Four hours later, I’ve seen three tunnel entrances, and I highly suspect I know about one more. The city is no doubt lousy with them, and they could lead anywhere. But I don’t care how many there are. I only know that if I can find enough of them then maybe I can figure out where else the passageway that opened into South Korea might go.

I don’t know where I was
.

In the bright daylight, I’m not afraid. Not anymore. I have a purpose, a cause. A mission.

A shadow.

“What do you want, Alexei?” I ask, spinning on the sidewalk.

The sun is high and Alexei squints against the glare, staring up at me. The sidewalks are steep here, climbing toward the palace, and I’m glad for it. I like being taller than him even if it is just temporary. An illusion.

He doesn’t even say hello.

“Are you okay?” he asks instead.

“I was fine until about thirty seconds ago,” I tell him.

“I heard about …” he starts, then trails off, probably because I’m so fragile. He thinks I don’t want to be reminded about what happened the night before. What I really want to do is push him down the hill. “Are you okay, Grace?”

“Yes! I’m fine. Do you hear me? I’m okay. Perfectly normal. Absolutely average. How do you say
hunky-dory
in Russian?”

“This isn’t a joke.”

I step closer, and now I can feel his chest against mine. I’m staring right into his eyes. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

“You break into one embassy, and then you show up in the basement of another? If you’re trying to start a war, you’re doing a good job.”

“I got lost, Alexei. I was out in the rain and I fell into one of the tunnels. It was an
accident
.”

As soon as I say the word, I want to gag on it. I’ve heard it too frequently and for far too long. I don’t want to say it now. Or ever. But I have to. So I say it again.

“It was an accident, Alexei. I’m fine.”

“Are you? Are you really?” The way Alexei is looking at me makes me want to run — not to my mother’s room or my grandfather’s embassy. Not to any place that anyone would ever think to look. I want to disappear and never, ever come back.

Alexei inches even closer. When he inhales, his chest brushes against mine. He stares at me with eyes that are bluer than the sea and reaches for my hand. “If you need me —”

“I don’t.”

“But if you do —”

“I don’t need you, Alexei. Okay?” I can’t take being so close to him. He has always been golden. Like the sun. His touch burns, so I jerk my hand away and retreat to higher ground. “Now you can go call Jamie and tell him that I’m fine. That you have done your duty and you can be released from your obligation or whatever blood oath the two of you have sworn. I’m fine. Do you hear me?”

I expect him to lash back. Or, worse, to laugh.

But he just shakes his head. “You think I care because you’re Jamie’s sister? Maybe I care about you, Gracie. Maybe I’m worried about
you
.”

It’s the worst possible thing he could tell me. Because now I have to lose what little respect I had for him. He really should know better.

I force out a laugh. “If I wanted to start a war, we’d be in one by now.”

This, at last, makes him smile. “That’s true.”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay, Grace. But I want you to be.”

When Alexei turns and goes back the way he came, I watch him walk away. I don’t let myself think about how easily the Scarred Man could have caught me last night, how no one would have found me — maybe ever. Rosie once said that the tunnels are full of skeletons, but I don’t let myself think about how easily I could have become one of them.

I woke up this morning intending to scour the streets around Embassy Row, the shops and alleys. I woke up intending to look for tunnel entrances and maybe use them to make a map and try to figure out where I’d been. To be smart. To be safe.

But Alexei has changed all that.

Smart and safe are the furthest things from my mind, and now there’s only one thing left to do. There’s only one place left to go.

And that place, I know, is down.

T
he tunnel looks different through the beam of a military-grade flashlight. I know I should be in a hurry, but I have to marvel at the walls, the ancient torches that are lined up by the entrance. This time I can shine a light up onto the clockwork gears and wheels that open and close the door that covers the shaft. It’s genius, really. Hundreds of years old and still working.

It’s enough to almost make me lose track of what century I’m in, so it takes a moment for me to remember to pull out the compass I’ve been carrying around all day. I turn the way the Scarred Man ran the night before. South, southwest. And then I start to follow.

At first it’s easy — the tunnels either don’t branch or else dusty cobwebs or ancient debris block the way, and there is no doubt whether or not I went that way the night before.

I go south, southwest for twenty minutes. Due east for another ten. But when the tunnel dead-ends at a pile of old, dusty wooden crates, I start to worry. I know I’ve made a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

Backtracking, I pay careful attention. The floor slopes and rises. At one point I realize the tunnels don’t just go left and right. They also go up and down. I may be right beneath the streets, or I could be a hundred feet deeper beneath the city — I have been walking for so long that it’s impossible to know.

I’m just about to give up when I hear the drip, drip, drip of water falling into a larger pool. Suddenly, the tunnel is warmer. I pull off my favorite cardigan. Even in a T-shirt and shorts I’m starting to sweat.

And then the strangest thing happens: The tunnel ends.

Instead of an entrance in the ceiling, I reach a door and stop. The sound of the dripping water is clearer now. I’m even hotter.

According to my compass I’m pretty sure I’m on the far-north end of Embassy Row.

Gently, I push. But before the door even opens, I know exactly where I am.

“Iran.”

The word is a whisper I barely dare to say aloud. But there’s no one around to hear me, and I make myself step slowly, cautiously inside.

The tile around the ornate swimming pool is slick with a dampness that seems to have taken up permanent residence in the embassy’s basement. My hair clings to the back of my neck as I walk toward the ornate pool and think about the story that my grandfather told me — about the hot springs that run underneath the palace and throughout the rest of the city. When I see steam rising from the water, I realize that the Iranians must have had their very own. Hot springs
and
beach access? No telling what Noah might say to the Israeli ambassador to try to convince him to arrange some kind of real estate swap now.

But Noah will never know —
can
never know — where I am. And why. It’s a mission for which I don’t even really trust myself.

Condensation gathers on the tile ceiling and then drops into the pool below in a steady, even beat. It’s almost soothing. If the chaise lounges around the pool weren’t covered with mildew, I might lie down and take a nap.

But then I hear a noise. The door starts to move. And I know that, once again, I am in the Iranian embassy.

And I am not alone.

Maybe the Scarred Man is coming. Or maybe it’s the man he’s been meeting. Somehow, neither option frightens me. I feel like maybe my life has been leading to this for years, and I’m grateful I no longer have to wait. To worry. To wonder. I’m ready to have it over.

The door is heavy and the hinges are rusty from the humidity and years of little use.

It catches. Stalls. And I know I should use the time to run upstairs and out through the loose piece of fence on the beach. Maybe I should hide somewhere inside the sprawling fortress.

In other words, I should save myself. It’s the smart thing to do. But the downside of spending most of your life having people tell you you’re acting stupid means that, eventually, you stop trying to do what is smart.

I inch toward the door.

I grab the arm that is reaching toward me.

I pull, daring whoever is on the other side to try to hurt me first.

T
he word that comes is loud and fast and (I’m pretty sure) dirty. It’s also in Portuguese.

Noah throws his hand to his chest then doubles over, breathing hard. “You scared me!”

“
I
scared
you
?” I say, slapping at his arm. “What are you doing down here?”

“Following you,” Rosie adds from behind him, entirely too cheerful. “Wow, I’ve never been down this way before.” She pushes Noah through the doorway, then steps into the basement herself. Her eyes go up to the ornate ceiling before turning to the lavish pool.

“Cool,” she says.

“Yeah. But why are you …” I trail off as my gaze settles onto Megan, who stands just on the other side of the door. Of course she’s here. I’m starting to learn that Megan is always around to see too much, hear too much. Know too much. And that makes something inside of me snap.

“Go!” I shout, pointing back to the tunnels. “Rosie, Noah, go home. Now. You, too, Megan.”

“We don’t even know where we are,” Noah says.

“No.” I shake my head. “I know where we are. And you need to go.”

“How do you know?” Megan asks.

“Because I’ve been here before.”

“You’ve been here before?” Noah asks. “So that means …” He looks like he’s doing math in his head. “That means this is —”

“Iran,” I say.

“Iran!” Noah finishes at the same time. He turns and reaches for Rosie’s hand. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

But Rosie pulls away. “Cool,” she says again, walking toward the water that is part pool, part hot springs.

Amazingly, Megan doesn’t run away either. Instead, she leans down and runs her hand through the water that is surprisingly clear. “Awesome.”

“Awesome? Are you three trying to kill me?” Noah shouts.

“Ooh, we should get in,” Megan says. “Next time I’ll bring my bikini.”

Noah stumbles back like he’s been shot. “You
are
trying to kill me.”

“Noah’s right,” I say. “The three of you should go. Get out of here before you —”

“Before
we
what?” Noah says. “What’s going to happen to the three of us that won’t happen to you?”

“This isn’t your fight, Noah,” I snap.

“Yeah, well, it became my fight the moment I …” He trails off and, suddenly, I’d give anything to know what he was going to say.

“The moment you
what
?”

“I …”

“The moment you met me?” I guess. “The moment you heard about the man with the scar?” That still isn’t it — I can tell. So I go back further. “Or was it the moment Ms. Chancellor asked you to keep me out of trouble? She didn’t just ask you to show me around, did she?”

Bingo.

Noah is busted, and he’s actually stumbling backward, trying to find a way out of the proverbial corner.

“Great. My brother got Alexei to spy on me. Grandpa and Ms. Chancellor have you. I am
covered
!”

“Grace, don’t —” Noah reaches for my arm, but I push him away.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

“We followed you,” Rosie says, matter-of-fact.

“No.” I shake my head. “Not good enough. I’ve been wandering these tunnels for hours.
I
wasn’t even sure where I was, so
how did you find me
?”

I look from Noah to Rosie and then, finally, I let my gaze settle on Megan.

“We might have put a tracker on you,” she says.

“You might have
what
?”

Megan holds up a tiny device. “GPS location receiver. I put a transmitter in your sweater.” She eyes the ratty cardigan that I’ve been taking with me everywhere these days. “You really should clean that sometime, you know.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Well, for starters, there’s a stain on the sleeve that’s been there since —”

I cut Megan off. “Why were you following me?”

“Oh. That,” Megan says. For a moment, the three of them are silent.

“Well, see …” Noah starts slowly. “Last night, Megan called me.”

“And Noah called me,” Rosie interjects.

“We were sort of …” Noah is struggling for words.

“You’re freaking us out,” Megan says bluntly.

“
You’re
worried about
me
?” I ask.

“Well, yeah,” Noah says, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world.

“I don’t need your worry,” I snap. “And I don’t want your pity.”

I’m pushing through them, starting back toward the door and the tunnels and the answers I’m no closer to finding.

“Maybe not,” Megan yells. “But you need our help.”

I freeze. And then slowly — very slowly — I turn. “Well, maybe I don’t want it.”

There’s something that comes from being the girl who is always left behind. I could only watch Jamie and Alexei disappear without me so many times before I got really good at convincing myself that I was better off alone.

But I wasn’t left alone, I realize now.

I was left with Megan.

“He’s going to do it again,” Megan says. “That’s what you said last night, isn’t it? That the man who killed your mother is going to kill somebody else?”

“That’s none of your business,” I say, then glare at Noah so hard that he actually pulls Rosie in front of him, a human shield.

“You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost someone?” Megan snaps. There is ice in her voice. “Do you think you’re the only one who has ever wanted to make somebody pay?”

I’ve never heard her talk like this, seen her look like this. She is nothing like Lila now. And she’s nothing like the little girl who used to bring over her Barbies, either. It’s like everything else has been camouflage.
This
is the Megan she has spent her whole life hiding. And for the first time in all the years I’ve known her, I realize that I have never heard Megan talk about her dad.

“Besides,” she says flatly, “you do need us.”

“I don’t need you,” I say.

“Says the girl who has wasted an entire day wandering around in circles down here,” she says.

“I know these tunnels better than anyone.” Rosie sounds almost hurt. “Maybe if you’d asked me, I could have saved you a day.”

“I have the resources of two embassies behind me,” Noah says. “You really think you’re better off without me?”

I roll my eyes, look at Megan. “I’m a genius,” she says. Everyone turns to her. “Well, I am. No use trying to soft-pedal it. Plus, my mom’s a spy. Any of you pick up covert-operations training in summer camp? Yeah. I didn’t think so.”

She has a point and, genius that she is, I’m sure she already knows it.

“So are you going to tell us now?” Rosie asks. She’s looking up at me with those huge blue eyes. It’s like she’s asking me to tuck her into bed, tell her a story. “Grace, what happened last night?”

I’m looking at the three of them. They really are here. And they really aren’t going anywhere.

I could think of a dozen reasons to send them away — a hundred. It isn’t safe. It isn’t their fight. Their parents could lose their jobs if someone were to catch us. The reasons are bubbling up on my tongue. But I can’t bring myself to say them.

Instead I blurt, “I followed the Scarred Man.”

I wait for someone to object, but no one says a thing.

“You know when he disappeared the other day?” I ask Rosie. “Well, I figured out that he must have come down here. Into the tunnels.”

“Of course!” Rosie sounds so mad at herself. “I’ve only ever come in through the public entrances where they give tours and stuff. I never knew there were hidden entrances. I should have guessed. I’m sorry, Grace.”

“Don’t be,” I tell her. “So … yesterday. I was following him again when he came down here. We walked for a long time and then he went up into some building.”

“What building?” Megan asks.

“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been doing all day — trying to retrace our steps. But I can’t find it.”

“Why do you need to find it?” Noah asks. “What did you see?”

“I followed him inside. He was meeting someone. I couldn’t tell who, but they were talking about killing someone. He said — and I quote — ‘There are many perfectly adequate ways to die.’
And he just has to find one
.”

For a moment there is nothing in the basement but the echo of the Scarred Man’s words and the drip, drip, drip of the water into the pool. It’s like sand through an hourglass, a steady, constant reminder that I’m running out of time.

“And you don’t know what building you were in?” Megan asks.

“No,” I snap in frustration.

“What did it look like?” she asks.

“Like a building! Carpet. Doors. Lights.”

“Was it one of the embassies? Did you see any signs or books in any languages that you might have recognized?” Noah tries.

“I saw a door and a shadow and the man who killed my mother telling someone he has another assignment!”

“But if we knew —” Megan starts.

“I don’t know who. I don’t know when. I just know that he is going to kill again.”

“No, he’s not,” Rosie says. She gives a wide, defiant grin.

“Yeah,” Noah says. “Because we’re going to stop him.”

It’s the right thing to say — the perfect line. They’re trying so hard to sound convincing, but I’m not convinced. I know too much. I have seen too much. I have lost too much.

And now I look at the three faces that stare back at me, praying I don’t have to lose anyone else.

When we leave that night, Rosie claims that she can walk on her hands all the way from Iran to Italy. Megan stays beside her, counting her steps, watching her tiny feet as they stay freakishly steady and straight in the air, but Noah and I walk up ahead. For a moment, we are alone.

“So,” I say, “I hear you’re a football stud.”

Noah laughs. “You would be confusing me with my father,” he says, then reconsiders. “Except, wait. No one has
ever
confused me with my father, so never mind.”

“Are you good?” I ask.

Noah shrugs. “I’m okay.”

“Lila says you’re good. And Lila doesn’t strike me as the type to overestimate your virtues.”

“Lila wants me to be good because that would mean I could stop being … me.”

“With
you
being defined as …”

“Man about town. Man of mystery. Man of many talents. Really a James Bond type with a bevy of beautiful women all eager to help me stop an international incident.”

“A bevy, huh?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Noah says. “I’m dangerous, is what I’m saying, Grace.” He gives me an oh-so-serious stare. “I have a license to kill.”

“Good to know,” I say. Noah laughs.

“Of course I usually kill through general incompetence and family disappointment.”

“I know the feeling,” I say, and then it hits me: the enormity of what I’m asking — of the risk we’re taking. “Why are you doing this, Noah?” I ask before I even know the words are coming.

Noah looks at me, stunned. “What do you mean? I’m your friend. Friends help each other when they are … you know … going up against international hit men and stuff.”

“Maybe that’s a bad idea. Maybe you don’t want to be my friend,” I tell him, but Noah just smirks.

“Too late. Besides, I know you’d never leave me alone if I was going to do something stupid.”

“Maybe I would.”

“And you’d never lie to me.” He runs a hand through his black hair, pushing it back, making it even spikier than usual. “That’s why my parents broke up. Maybe it’s because of their jobs or whatever, but they always had to keep things from each other. There were so many secrets and lies. You have no idea how much I hate it when people lie to me.”

I should tell him
, I think. I should tell him about what I saw the night Mom died and what came after. About the Scarred Man and the Scarred Men. I should tell him not to trust me, not to like me, not to believe a word I say because there are moments late at night when I can’t even believe myself.

But I can’t say any of those things. I can’t bring myself to drive Noah away even though I know in my gut I probably should.

The marines are watching the street when we reach the US gates. I can see the light burning in my grandfather’s office. If he knows I’ve been gone all day, I doubt he cares. “Well, good night, Noah.”