‘Look, Dom,’ Jones persisted. ‘Surely you can get my stuff to me somehow? You’re a man of initiative, aren’t you?’
Jones heard the Dominator give a derisory snort. That’s what it sounded like, anyway.
‘OK, I’ll ask Gaynor,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to call you back. Give me ten minutes.’
‘Right. And Dom, you will tell Connie I want her to come with me, won’t you? I want her to have the chance to get out of this country before she gets hurt again.’
‘OK,’ said the Dominator again. ‘Although how the hell we’d ever do that thing, only the Lord God Almighty knows.’
Jones suspected the big man was probably right about that too. She ended the call and glanced at her watch. It was nearly twenty past eleven.
After almost exactly ten minutes Dom called again.
‘Gaynor will meet you with your bag in an hour and a half,’ Dom instructed. ‘In the financial district, by the Stock Exchange, on Wall Street. Know it?’
Jones affirmed that she knew it. Dom gave a precise cross street.
Jones checked the time. ‘That’s about one o’clock then,’ she said. ‘Why Wall Street?’
‘It’s near where she works.’
‘What does she do at that time of night, for Chrissake?’
‘Just make sure you’re there,’ replied the big man. ‘She can’t hang about.’
He hadn’t answered Jones’s question. Jones didn’t really care. She just wanted to get away. With or without Connie. Maybe Dom was right. Maybe she was running.
She returned to Ed, climbing into the borrowed car alongside him. She gave him a brief version of her conversation with Dom, and the details of the planned meeting with Gaynor, suggesting he follow her Ford in his car.
‘I think we should stick together, but, if possible, not be seen together,’ she said. ‘There’s no hurry though, we’ve got a bit of time to kill.’
They passed a few minutes discussing what might be the safest way to leave the States.
‘I’ve got some cash, enough for us both to travel to the UK without using credit cards, I reckon,’ said Jones. ‘But anyway, nobody’s looking for you yet, we hope. And I’m banking on the bastards just wanting to see the back of me.’
She reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and removed a business card.
‘Just in case something happens, and we get separated, these are all my contact details at home and I’ll write the number of the burner on the back. Emergency use only.’
Jones rummaged further in her pocket.
‘You got a pen?’ she enquired.
Ed nodded, and produced a smart black and gold customized roller-ball, with his name inscribed along the side, which he handed to her. As she wrote Jones issued further instructions.
‘Just don’t let this card fall into the wrong hands. Also, I still don’t know whether I absolutely trust Gaynor and Dom. Keep a fair ways behind me and park up so as she can’t see you, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
Gaynor was already at the appointed meeting place when Jones arrived, with Ed following at a distance as directed. Parking wasn’t difficult. The financial district was deserted. At night this part of New York, which was so busy during the day, was eerily empty. Like a ghost town. A column of steam fountained steadily from a nearby manhole. Ed drove past Jones when he pulled to a halt at the appointed spot, and, just as he’d suggested, continued slowly on, turning left into a side street at the next junction.
Gaynor got out of her car as soon as she saw Jones arrive, and began to walk towards her, already carrying Jones’s bag which she held out with one hand.
‘Here you are.’
‘Thanks,’ Jones said, reaching to take it.
Gaynor was wearing a tan jacket over jeans and tooled cowboy boots. She looked every bit as stylish as she had when Jones had first met her. She also looked remarkably alert for very nearly the middle of the night.
‘I have a message from Connie,’ she said. ‘She says there is no way she can go with you, but she wishes you luck.’
‘Is that all?’
‘What are you looking for? Absolution? You’re running out on her, aren’t you?’
Jones said nothing. She had no intention of trying to explain herself to Gaynor. In any case she had her own doubts about her motivation. She turned to go. Gaynor called after her.
‘Wait. She asked me to give you this.’
Jones swung round to face Gaynor again, and took from her the small flat circular object she was holding out between one thumb and forefinger. Jones laid it in the palm of her right hand. A host of half-forgotten memories returned again as she looked down at an enamelled button badge that had originally been predominantly blue. The edges were badly chipped and much of the enamel had worn off. The message was still clear enough though.
Jones re-read the familiar words. ‘Subvert the Dominant Paradigm’. It was a badge just like the one Connie had given her on her first visit to RECAP. Jones hadn’t seen her old badge for years, and had absolutely no idea where it was, or indeed if she still had it. Conversely it was just like Connie, twenty-five years later and under such extraordinary circumstances, to be able to produce one of the badges from nowhere. Or more likely from that cloth shoulder bag which was always with her.
Jones felt her eyes well up. This was not the time to be emotional. She had a journey to make which was not going to be easy. Then she had work to do. Important work. She owed that to Connie. Connie had sent her a message in the form of that badge. A message which she reckoned told her exactly what her job was now. To subvert the dominant paradigm. That had always been Connie Pike’s predominate aim in life. Jones had never quite had the courage. Not so far, anyway.
She looked up at Gaynor.
‘How’s Marion?’ she asked.
‘The same. Still critical. Still alive though. And that’s a result.’
Jones nodded. ‘I know. I saw what happened to her. Remember?’
‘I remember,’ said Gaynor.
Jones was going to say more. The sound of the radio from Gaynor’s car, the driver’s door of which stood open, stopped her in her tracks. She registered at once that this was no ordinary radio.
It sounded like a police radio.
Gaynor looked over her shoulder, took a step back towards the car, then turned to Jones again. Jones felt as if she had been punched in the face. Stark realization flooded over her.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ she asked through clenched teeth.
‘I’m Dom’s girl, Connie’s friend, and your friend too. That’s all you have to know.’
‘Oh no it’s damned well not!’ Jones took a step forwards, and rather to her own surprise, reached out and grabbed hold of Gaynor by both shoulders. Her hold-all fell to the ground with a thud. Jones ignored it. Instead she began to shake Gaynor backwards and forwards, the anger and fear pouring out of her.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ she yelled.
‘All right. Take your hands off me or, so help me God, I’ll break your fucking neck.’
Gaynor’s eyes were hard and narrow. Even in her state of near hysteria Jones believed that Gaynor was quite capable of doing what she had promised. Jones didn’t remove her hands from Gaynor’s shoulders, however. Instead she froze. Not for the first time recently.
The next thing she was aware of was searing pain as Gaynor delivered a smart karate chop, smashing the edge of her hands against Jones’s lower arms in order to bounce them away from her. In more or less one fluid movement, she freed herself from Jones’s grasp and turned her around, holding on to her left arm which she then forced upwards at a quite impossible angle behind Jones’s back.