Cost of Life (15 page)

Once again, Xana found herself awkwardly sitting alone in the anteroom of her former workplace. She considered asking Lizzie Dreyfus for a magazine, but decided against it. This was sobriety, then, the party-pooper that sapped all the fun out of antagonizing a pregnant receptionist.

Frankly, though, a magazine would have helped protect Xana from the siren's call of her own troubled thoughts. She had been honest with Hayley—more or less—insofar as she didn't regret the methodology she employed to extract Yuri's information—but as she sat there in that leather chair with nothing but her party-pooper mind as company, she couldn't help but wonder if there could have been another way.

Today her conscience spoke with Madeline's sensational, silk-steady voice. Of course it did. No one had ever been able to slice open the sack of Xana's ego like her.

“Face it,” Madeline intoned. “You wanted to punch someone.”

No. Not true.

“You always want to punch someone.”

Maybe. But she hadn't been the instigator. Not this time.

“Who are you kidding? You went to Yuri because you knew he'd be a dick and force you to color outside the lines. You might as well have baited him.”

Who else had there been to approach? It wasn't as if the city of Atlanta was swarming with operatives connected to the old Russian guard.

“It's the twenty-first century, doll. Ever heard of a phone?”

And call who?

“For starters? Me.”

Xana paused in her recriminations. Madeline did work for a multinational private military contractor. It was conceivable that she knew somebody who knew somebody who could have provided the names. Yes, Xana didn't have Madeline's contact information on hand, but how difficult would it have been to borrow Hayley's cell phone and do a Google search?

“Maybe it didn't occur to you because it would require asking for help, and that would require putting your pride in check, and that, doll, for you, would require a personality transplant.”

Maybe.

Xana's stomach grumbled. She checked the clock on the wall: 11:42
A.M.
Almost noontime. And then the hijackers' “experiment” would begin.

Except she'd relinquished any leverage she'd had when she gave the names to Hayley and since the leader of the hijackers apparently spoke the Queen's English, nobody needed her around anymore to translate Chechen.

“Better get comfortable, doll. You might be sitting here awhile. But you know what might pass the time…?”

Yes.

Memory was most connected to scent, and she could feel the tang of Yuri's three-hundred-dollar vodka tickling up her nostrils. There was a package store half a mile up the road. They didn't sell Kauffman, but Xana had never been the kind of woman who only drank from the top shelf. In a fix, box wine worked as well as bourbon and was cheaper too—and that had to be a consideration. Paying for the repairs on the house she'd trashed had forced her to max out her credit cards, and the lack of a steady income the past few months simply encouraged those bills to compound.

For a little while, the debt collectors would leave messages on her phone. Then her phone got turned off. That solved that problem.

One day in March, she used her fifteen allotted minutes on one of the rehab facility's slow-as-shit computers to contact a drinking buddy who also happened to be a realtor—and who also happened to be a bad realtor, unloading the handsome house in Vinings—which Xana had drained her inheritance from her father to pay for full in cash—for pennies.

The debt collectors took the pennies, leaving Xana, on the day she was discharged from rehab, with a sum total of $132. And she'd already spent 10 percent of it on cigarettes.

She tried to moisten her lips but her tongue was dry. She glanced over at Lizzie Dreyfus. She glanced over at the clock. She glanced over at a bare space on the mahogany wall.

“Get one of those tiny bottles,” murmured Madeline, “something cheap and peach-flavored.”

There it was. The disease. The trickster.

Hello, trickster.

The trickster had polluted her conscience as surely as it had polluted her instincts. This she knew. So what. Self-awareness was a far cry from salvation.

Until the nineteenth century, the word
alcoholism
hadn't even existed.

Oh, Xana had learned a lot of trivia in rehab.

Hello, trickster.

“Maybe if you took a walk,” suggested the trickster-as-Madeline. “Maybe that would help.”

Sure. Yes. A walk.

A walk to the package store.

Ha.

Fuck.

“Xana?”

Lizzie pointed over the divide at the door to the interview room.

“He's ready for you.”

She buzzed the lock on the door.

Xana didn't move. The finality of the moment froze her joints. Maybe if she didn't proceed, then she wouldn't get browbeaten by Angelo for her reckless behavior and tossed out on her ass. Sure, she'd been on the receiving end of a million admonishments, but the ground beneath her had been steady then—and if it ever wobbled, she always could rely on a bottle of whiskey to steady her balance.

And once this final admonishment was finished and she was shown the door, what excuse would she have not to take that half-mile walk?

“Xana? I said you can go in.”

Yes. She got up. She reached for the door's metal handle. She entered the room.

Except it wasn't Angelo's sour puss on the other side of the magic glass.

“Hey, Xana,” said Jim Christie. “Have a seat.”

Xana sat.

She was entirely unsure whether to be grateful to see him or mortified. No, she was sure. She wanted to give the big man a hug. She wanted him to hug her back.

“You look good,” she lied.

“So do you.”

She didn't have a follow-up. His sincerity always left her a bit disarmed.

“So I just got done talking with Hayley.”

Oh no. “Oh yeah?”

“Bright kid, don't you think?”

“She would have made an excellent agent.”

Jim paused. Was he formulating some kind of double-layered comment about wasted potential? Xana couldn't shake the sensation she was a delinquent in the principal's office.

“So, Jim, I…before we get into the debrief, I just wanted to…thank you for visiting me. It meant a lot.”

He looked away, bobbed his shoulders, and absently waved a hand in the air. Apparently her sincerity could be disarming too.

“But yeah, Hayley is terrific. I'm glad I got to spend time with her.”

“Well, she's a fan of yours too. You should have heard her go on about the way you acquired those names…great work on that, by the way…”

“Thank you…” replied Xana, waiting for the bottom to fall out from beneath her.

“No, really. You've no idea how behind the ball we are with this thing. That piece of intelligence could be our Hail Mary. Your government is very appreciative. And the way you got Yuri to hand over those names is, I got to admit, pure genius.”

Pure genius? Was he baiting her? What had Hayley told him?

“I'm just saying, given how uncooperative he's been with us in the past, appealing to him with
that
…I don't think I ever would have thought of it.”

Xana wasn't sure what to say. His praise
seemed
genuine.

“I mean, here's a guy who is all about the quid pro quo,” Jim continued, “and here he's got this piece of absolutely vital intel, and he could probably have asked for anything, and you come up with the one thing he actually needs. I mean, the man's, like, two hundred years old. If he doesn't have hospital bills now, he's going to have them eventually…and you offered to cover them. Genius.”

Xana again didn't reply, but only because she was so caught up in appreciating Hayley's absolutely clever lie. She still wasn't sure why the girl had lied, but oh my, what a believable lie it was.

So believable, in fact, that Xana wondered if maybe this was a tactic she should have tried. Only it had never occurred to her.

Jim said, “Really commendable work.”

“It was Hayley's idea.”

“Oh, now you're being modest.”

“No. Really. It was. Like you said, she's a really bright kid.”

Jim nodded.

Xana smiled.

Jim stopped nodding.

Xana stopped smiling.

“Seriously?” he said.

“Hm?”

“You think I wouldn't get a call from the hospital? You think they wouldn't tell me about his injuries?”

Shit.

“I leave you alone with this girl, my perfect prodigy, for a few hours and you turn her into someone who lies to a federal agent. Tells lies right to his face. She's even writing them down for the official report. How does that make you feel, Xana?”

“I…”

“Oh for fuck's sake, it was a rhetorical question. You think I care right now how you
feel
? Christ. And it doesn't even matter that you've exposed us to a lawsuit—I mean, it matters, but right now we've got more immediate concerns, you know what I mean? I gave you a chance and you threw it back in my face like you always do. I used to think you were self-destructive because you were an alcoholic but really, you're an alcoholic because you're self-destructive.”

“Jim…”

“You obtained the names illegally! Don't you understand that? Don't you realize how, no matter which way this shakes down, that's going to come back to bite us in the ass? So tell me, Xana, and this time I'm really asking: What am I supposed to do with you now?”

Coincidentally, Madeline Wright's carefree, fun-loving id, when it spoke to her, spoke with Xana's voice, and right now it was telling her to forget about the cramp in her right calf and hike another five hundred vertical feet to the wooded top of Jefferson Hill. The sun was warm, the air was clean, and the view promised to be outstanding. She might be able to see the marble monuments around the National Mall from up there and even Bellum Vellum's tall brownstone on K Street. After all, the District was only twenty miles away and really, what else did she have to do on this beautiful Fourth of July? Who else did she have to do it with?

The copse where Madeline had stopped to catch her breath and consider her options was halfway up the purple trail, the trail reserved for the most hard-core hikers. The slope was the steepest and least forgiving. Thus, despite her well-selected boots, despite her habitual Pilates and Bikram Yoga, despite having climbed mountains since she was thirteen years old, the cramp at the back of her calf.

Madeline massaged at the muscle knot. In a pocket of her shorts, she had a brace of aspirin just for this occasion and plenty of water left in the twenty-five-ounce silver cylinder she had tucked in a hip holster. She sipped some of the cold water but denied herself the painkillers. Drugs were for emergencies only.

She inhaled a lungful of uncontaminated, unpolluted, unblemished air. The pine trees smelled like childhood. A small sign carved out of wood and posted into the earth informed her she was at the midpoint of the purple path. Although the peak was a mere five hundred more feet up from the copse, the path's winding tangle stretched the hike to a little over a mile. Certainly she wasn't going to let a little muscle pain literally bring her down.

Yes. Yes, she was.

Madeline tucked her water bottle back into its holster and ambled the reverse path toward the hill's base. Truth be told, she'd made her decision the moment she'd heard Xana's voice in her head. Whenever her inner demon offered advice, she knew to go the other way.

For that, she was grateful.

On the trip back to her car, she thought quite a bit about Xana. She knew her ex was out of rehab. She'd had the date of Xana's release programmed into her calendar. She had no intention of contacting her—especially after their brief, ugly encounter a few months ago—but it never hurt to know these things.

Madeline was not ever going to contact Xana again.

Of that she was almost positive.

Her Porsche 911 Carrera RS was where she left it, covered under a silver polyester tarp that she tugged off and tucked into the sports car's tiny trunk. The car's red sheen, which she had waxed once a week, lit up in the sunlight like a demon's eye. She yoga-stretched her ligaments and then folded herself into the driver's bucket seat. The leather crinkled hello.

Her satellite radio was set to New Orleans jazz. She had no idea what was going on in the world and no real inclination to find out. This was her day off. She was going to head home, make herself a Greek salad with ingredients she'd bought the day before at the Woodrow Wilson Plaza farmer's market, and take a long, long shower.

On her way home, she detoured through the tidewater village of Garland, Virginia. They'd had their annual Fourth of July parade earlier in the morning and about now everyone would be at the annual Fourth of July fair set up in the evergreen football field behind Garland High. The top of the fair's Ferris wheel towered over the tallest of Garland's buildings, and Madeline used it as her lighthouse to help navigate toward the festivities.

Even though downtown Garland was closed today, every window still bore an American flag. The main street was littered with tinsel and poppers from the parade. A banner stretched above it all, spanning from streetlight to streetlight, declaring in red, white, and blue letters:
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Some might have labeled such an uncynical display of affection as kitsch. Madeline wiped at her tears. When she retired—which could not come soon enough—she was going to retire to Garland, Virginia, yes, indeed.

She parked her Porsche in the high school lot, not far from the long colorful trailers belonging to the company that set up the fair, and had only stepped out in the breeze—which already smelled of popcorn and cotton candy—when the right pocket of her shorts vibrated. She checked the screen. She considered ignoring the caller. This was her day off, goddamn it. She shut her car door and leaned against it and pressed
TALK.

“Hey, Coleman, what's up?”

“You need to come in.”

From here, she could see the whole fair. In addition to the Ferris wheel, there was a roller coaster that would have felt right at home snaking along Jefferson Hill's twisty purple trail. The midway was lined with booths and the booths were lined with stuffed animals. A merry-go-round circled near the tall arch that served as the fairground's entrance/exit. Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet Home Alabama” echoed out from the merry-go-round's speakers. And everywhere she looked, Madeline saw happy faces.

But Coleman wouldn't have asked her to come in unless it was a legitimate emergency.

“I can be there in fifteen,” she said, and hung up.

The aroma of cotton candy teased at her stomach. If churches could smell like that, she mused, the world would be filled with Christians. She got back into her car and peeled out of the parking lot. The way she figured: The faster she left Garland, the sooner she'd stop longing for it.

As if that were the way regret worked.

The drive to Foggy Bottom was decidedly less relaxed. Not even Louis Armstrong's witty trumpeting, coming through in crystalline sound from the Porsche's state-of-the-art speakers, helped. But at least the trip didn't take too long. Madeline parked in one of the blessedly available spots in front of the Truman Building's limestone-pillared east entrance, hung her special permit from her rearview mirror, and proceeded at double-speed toward the tall glass doors. By the time she reached the guards inside, she already had her security badge clipped to her tank top.

Her final destination was Meeting Room 5E, located down the corridor from an executive office suite that budget cuts had rendered unpopulated for months now. Madeline wasn't sympathetic to the loss; public budget cuts meant heavier government reliance on private contractors like Bellum Vellum to pick up the slack.

Before joining the rest in 5E, Madeline stopped in her office, drew the blinds, and changed into a spare pantsuit she always stored on the back of her door. Appearances, after all, were everything, especially at the State Department.

At her post, Madeline worked closely with the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security; the undersecretary's executive assistant, Barrett Coleman, had been the one to call her, and his was the only face to offer a pleasant nod when, freshly attired, she finally entered Meeting Room 5E. Truth be told, the other seven people in the room had their eyes glued to the man on the screen, the secretary of state himself, appearing via videoconference from, if Madeline remembered correctly, a diplomatic layover in Brussels. The other seven people were a nondescript bunch. Two were black, one was Latino, but each and every one wore a bland suit over a plus-sized physique. Each and every one wore a watch. Each and every one was a man.

Madeline took a seat beside Coleman. He passed her a briefing memo. When she reached a line item near the bottom of the page, she knew why her presence had been requested. Based on the fuel remaining in the airplane, analysts had come up with a list of potential airstrips that Flight 816 could reach if it were to take off again. One locale in particular was underlined: José Martí International Airport, Havana.

Of course, all those predictions could be rendered moot by a line item at the middle of the page outlining authorized intervention. If said authorized intervention kept to the listed timetable, they would be securing the perimeter around the barn in—Madeline checked her Rolex—now, actually. She might get to spend time at the fair after all.