“Where did you meet Francis?” Mike asked.
Reginald considered the question. He lit his pipe and gave Mike a long, thoughtful look. “In a bomb shelter in Lebanon.”
“You were his boss, weren’t you? He calls you ‘Colonel’.”
“I recruited him. He was a second lieutenant back then, nineteen years old. His three best friends died in the embassy bombing.”
“Recruited him into what?”
Reginald took a long drag on his pipe and sat down in the rocking chair. “A little side project over at the Pentagon.”
“You assassinated people,” Mike said.
Reginald looked at him in surprise. “He told you that?”
“He told me he killed a woman once,” Mike said. “A pregnant woman.”
Reginald raised his eyebrows and put the pipe down. “Did he mention he was told she was a left-wing radical plotting to kill a Supreme Court Justice?”
“No. He said she was innocent.”
“She was. But he didn’t know that until much later. It’s why he left. One of the reasons, anyway. God knows there turned out to be plenty.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mike said. “You turned him into fucking Jason Bourne.”
“If you’re suggesting he was brain washed, I can assure you he wasn’t. Well, not chemically anyway.”
“So how did he get out?” Mike said. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of job you just quit.”
“He killed himself,” Reginald said and shook his head in wonder.
Mike just looked at him, frowning.
“He staged his own death. Right here in Florida. Fooled us all.”
“You thought he was dead when we showed up here?”
“As a doornail.”
Mike laughed and turned his eyes up. “It makes me wonder if the Bureau really knows anything about what goes on in this country.”
Reginald didn’t answer. He stood up and held out his hand. “What do you say we take a look at that disc.”
Aurora
Saturday 22 July 2006
1100 EEST
Mitch woke to the smell of frying bacon. He was lying on a king size bed in a lavishly decorated room that appeared to have been imported from the 1950s.
“Hello?” he said.
There was no answer.
He lifted the blanket and saw he was naked. On the chair beside the bed there was a pair of socks and underwear sitting on top of a neatly folded dark blue jumpsuit. He got out of bed and stood up, felt the world swim away, and sat back down. When the feeling passed he tried again.
To his surprise the jumpsuit was a perfect fit.
“Hello?” he said again.
The smell of bacon grew stronger as he neared the door. The hall outside ended on a large open-plan kitchen, every bit as Art Deco as the bedroom. A woman was standing at the stove with her back to him. Her long, blonde hair was tied into a ponytail that ran almost to her waist. She, too, was wearing a jumpsuit, but hers was white.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully, turning to face him. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Where the hell am I?” Mitch asked.
She regarded him with a kind of eerie intensity, as if what she saw would have some bearing on the answer to his question. Then she smiled and said, “I’m not really supposed to answer that. I’m just here to make sure you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“The chief wants to see you.”
“The chief of what?”
She turned back to the stove without answering the question and scooped several slices of bacon onto a plate.
“Do you have a name?” Mitch asked.
The question seemed to make her blush. She closed her eyes and stood thinking for a moment, as if trying to remember what it was. Then she walked up to him, put out her hand and said, “I’m Sarah, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
To his amusement she then asked, “Was that proper?”
“It was fine. My name’s –”
“You’re Mitchell Stuart Rainey,” she said proudly. “From Phoenix in Arizona.”
Mitch was too bemused by this to know what to say.
When she offered him the plate, Mitch didn’t think he would be able to eat. But that turned out not to be the case. Sarah sat watching him as if it were the first time she had seen anyone eat. When he was done she leaned her elbows on the table, put her chin in her hands and said, “You have the most beautiful eyes. They’re so green.”
Mitch almost choked on his orange juice and began to blush. This seemed to amuse her further. She twisted her head slightly and said, “What’s it like? Arizona, I mean. Have you been to the Grand Canyon?”
“More times than I care to remember,” Mitch said, “Where are
you
from?”
The question seemed to confuse her.
“From here,” she said, as if this were obvious.
“Is this your place?” he asked.
“Of course not, silly. It’s yours.”
“Mine? I don’t think so. For one, I would remember. And even if I didn’t, I’m not that into the whole retro thing.”
“Come see,” she said.
She took his hand and led him to the front door. It opened onto a narrow white hallway. Directly across the hall there was an identical door with a brass plaque on it that said: 45 – Sarah. The sign on his own door said 46 – Mitch.
“This is yours,” she said matter-of-factly. “And that’s mine.”
Mitch couldn’t take his eyes off the plaque. His sanity seemed to be under assault from several different directions at once. Part of it was just disorientation, he knew. But it was also more than that. His conscious mind insisted it would pass, and it probably would have. But then the door at the end of the hall opened and in walked the chief.
The irrational conviction that stole over Mitch as the man approached them was that he, Mitch, had died and woken up on the set of Last Tango in Paris, so uncanny was the resemblance of the man to a middle-aged Marlon Brando.
The chief was roughly Mitch’s height, but twice his size. His coveralls were olive drab, pressed to perfection. The toecaps of his boots had been polished into orbs of black glass and his graying hair was cut in a flattop so flat it looked like a stage prop. When he spoke, the accent was pure Louisiana drawl, the kind where “lion,” “lying,” and “line” all came out sounding exactly the same.
The chief acknowledged Sarah with a slight nod of the head and turned his attention to Mitch. “Mr. Rainey, come with me please.”
Mitch looked at Sarah, who only offered him a sympathetic smile. Then he followed the chief, noting with some trepidation how the man walked with one thumb propped on the butt of the revolver at his waist.
“I’m Chief Lancaster,” the chief said without turning to look at Mitch. “I might as well tell you now that you were brought here against my better judgment.”
They walked up two flights of stairs and down another narrow hallway with several unmarked doors. When they reached the door at the end the chief took a blank plastic card from his pocket and held it to the plate just above the handle.
Mitch felt another one of those ripples in the fabric of reality as he stepped from the nondescript hall into the chief’s office.
Like the apartment, the place had an unmistakable motif, although this room looked more like the Pentagon circa 1980 than 1950s Hollywood. The desk facing the door was at least eight feet wide and made of gray painted steel. With the exception of a black leather blotter and a Montblanc pen in a brass stand, it was empty. The walls on either side of the desk were a montage of picture frames in a variety of colors and sizes, but they all had one thing in common: each had a clear military undertone. Most were of people in uniform, either posing for the shot or shaking hands with the chief, who appeared to be in uniform in every single picture. Mitch thought he recognized one of these as the late Ho Chi Min.
The chief beckoned to one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Have a seat.”
“I’d like to know where I am.” Mitch said.
The chief pulled a flat silver tin from one of the drawers, snapped it open and took out a small cigar, then spent several seconds lighting it with an old brass Zippo. He sat back and regarded Mitch with eerie gray eyes. “Where you are is not important. Why you are here is. Do you know why you are here, Mr. Rainey?”
“I’m guessing it has something to do with Bruce Jessops?” Mitch said.
The chief was shaking his head. “Wrong. You were brought here because you broke the law. You were brought here because you violated your own code of conduct and went looking at things that didn’t concern you.”
“I’m pretty sure tapping the private phone line of a US Citizen is also against the law,” Mitch said.
The chief took an ashtray from his desk and flicked the end of his cigar into it. “Son, I’ve been dealing with smart-asses all my life, so you can quit while you’re ahead. One bad turn deserves another, Mr. Rainey. That was true long before Jesus felt the need to point it out. Whatever you think you’re entitled to know, the fact remains that you broke the law. And in doing so, you have put us in a very awkward position.”
“Us?” Mitch said.
The chief stood and stubbed out the cigar. “It has been decided that you will not be confined for the time you are here. Again, not my choice. However, if you venture out of your assigned quarters, it is to be in the company of either Miss Breland, who will continue to act as your host, or another member of staff. If these conditions are violated, I will see to it that you lose that privilege.”
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Mitch said. “But I don’t even know where
here
is. If it’s not too much to ask, I think I’m at least entitled to know that much.”
The chief turned to the wall behind his desk and pushed a button below a large watercolor painting depicting an enormous herd of buffalo racing across the great American plains. The picture began to rise inside the frame.
As Mitch approached the opening window, the confusion he had felt, the anger, all the questions, evaporated as his mouth fell open and his eyes grew wide.
“Welcome to Aurora,” the chief said.
Merritt Island, Florida
Saturday 22 July 2006
0600 EDT
The plane landed at seven. Francis sat behind the wheel of the Cobalt and watched the sleek aircraft glide to a halt outside the hangar doors. When the airlock opened a man in jeans and a white cowboy hat stepped out. He said something to the waiting crewman, who nodded and left. Francis met him halfway and held out the envelope. “Bob sends his regards.”
George took the envelope and tucked it under one arm, then removed the stub of a cigar from his breast pocket and lit it.
“Tell him it’s been a pleasure,” George said. “I mean that.”
“How did you get on with the cargo?” Francis asked.
“Like a house on fire. Real sweet kids, those two. I don’t even want to know what they’ve gotten themselves mixed up in.”
“I take it you don’t follow the news.”
“Only Bloomberg. And the FT, if I’m desperate.”
“You might not be able to avoid this one,” Francis said. “It’s going to make headlines.”
George went back to the plane and emerged a minute later with two people Francis hardly recognized. Jesse looked pale and unsteady on his feet. There was a cannula in his left hand and he was holding an empty IV bag. Amanda looked much better, despite her attire and tangled hair. She smiled when she saw him and gave him a little wave. It filled him with an enormous sense of guilt. They came down the steps together, Jesse leaning on Amanda for support. When they reached the tarmac she surprised Francis by giving him a hug.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Francis said.
Jesse moved the IV bag to his right hand and held out his left.
“I think we owe you a thank you,” he said.
Francis took his hand and squeezed it gently, shaking his head. “I’m the one who should be thanking
you
.”
“I guess we did all right,” Jesse said.
“I don’t know
what
you did,” Francis said. “But whatever it was, it was a hell of a lot more than all right. When you’re up to it, I’d like to hear everything.”
George came back down the steps holding their backpack and handed it to Francis, who slung it over his shoulder.
“Don’t mean to be rude,” George said. “But I need to refuel and be on my way.”
Amanda turned around and gave him a hug. “You’re an all right kind of guy, George.”
They said their goodbyes; George walked back up the steps and vanished behind the closing door. A moment later the plane taxied away. Francis offered to help Jesse to the car, but he insisted on walking by himself. A smile crept onto Francis’s face as he led them across the floor of the hangar. The boy was no longer a boy, and his pride had taken a compensatory leap.
They headed back along State Road 528. Jesse sat up front. Another point to be proven, Francis thought. When they passed the tollbooth Jesse said, “I don’t think the man who came after us was human.”
Francis looked at him with raised eyebrows, “What makes you say that?”
Jesse recounted the entire event. Francis looked at him a couple of times with something that was maybe astonishment and maybe even a little trepidation. When Jesse was finished Francis shook his head in wonder.
“And to think I told you not to touch the grenades,” he said.
“I always thought of fear as something that paralyzes you,” Jesse said. “But I felt the opposite. It was like my mind focused more sharply than ever and then I wasn’t scared at all, just angry.”
Francis knew exactly what he meant. One of the first things Reginald had taught him was that fear couldn’t be eliminated, but it could be conquered and used. It had taken him over a year of training under some of the most grueling conditions imaginable to fully understand what that had actually meant. It made what Jesse had described all the more incredible.
They had sent one man to find them, and that man would have been expecting Francis, not the boy. He would also have been the best they had. The speed with which he’d discovered their whereabouts left no doubt of that in Francis’s mind. Luck and surprise had played their part, but such things always did. Francis would have died many times over by now if he hadn’t had plenty of both over the years. But while he, Francis, would have been able to make the best use of every advantage, Jesse had been acting on pure instinct in a state of near terror. He was both in awe of Jesse and a little ashamed for thinking of him in terms of his own experiences. The last thing he wanted was for Jesse to emulate him and become someone who could never quite give up the idea of killing a man as an entirely bad one. That road ended in a slow death of the conscience.