“No problem,” Arleigh said. “Give me five seconds. Four… three… two… one…”
Harry grabbed Arleigh’s hand as he finished the count. “One… zero!”
The world turned black, then reassembled itself as the sidewalk north of Fenway Park. Harry recognized the bar on the corner and offices across the street. A short distance away, a police patrol car was coming to a stop in front of the main entrance to the stadium.
“This way,” Harry said, tugging on Arleigh’s arm. He hurried across the street and down an alleyway. They emerged in front of a parking lot, between two cars parked haphazardly amidst the piles of blackened snow.
“We should get back to the motel,” Arleigh said. “My laptop’s still in your room.”
Harry looked around cautiously, then beckoned his friend to follow him. A few minutes later, they had materialized back in the room at the Howard Johnson’s.
They barely had time to catch their breath and stash the transit device in the rik-sack when there was a knock on the door, and Harry’s heart leaped into his throat once again.
He switched on the television and dialed up the hall monitor. The image on the screen showed three men who could easily have been on loan from the New England Patriots offensive line standing outside his room.
He and Arleigh scrambled and nearly bumped heads trying to pull the transit device out of the sack. Arleigh was first to succeed, and he went on-line while Harry tiptoed to the door and slipped the bolt, chain, and safety latch into place. The last of those snapped shut with a loud click that sounded like a gun going off.
The knocking was replaced with pounding. Then, after a pause, came a tremendous crash. Harry saw on the TV that the heavyweights were throwing themselves at the door.
He ran back to Arleigh, who was now finished with his work. He looked up in time to see the door frame turn to splinters where the bolt, chain, and safety latch had been anchored. The door itself flew open and the three men came tumbling over each other into the cramped room.
Then the world turned black one more time as they fled the motel…
The store above Harvard Square was stuffed with rows of shelves and the shelves with rows of hardcover books, paperbacks, CD-ROMs, and old magazines, filling the air with a musty smell of age that reminded Harry of his grandmother s basement.
A few posters hung from the walls, their edges tattered and their corners cracked. The man behind the counter had a face that still looked young, but his hair had started to turn gray around the edges.
The bookshop sat on the second floor, and from the window in the front Harry could easily see most of the square.
He pretended to be studying the books, but he was really studying the street. He’d been here for more than half an hour now, watching for the three thugs who’d chased him out of the motel—or others like them.
After a long time of seeing nothing unusual down below, he spotted Victoria Dickinson walking across the street. He scanned the square quickly, trying to find the musclebound crew in the crowd. They wouldn’t be hard to pick out—if they were there.
But he couldn’t find them, and Victoria disappeared into the restaurant downstairs from the bookstore. She was right on time.
Harry knew that sooner or later he would have to talk to Victoria—or to her father. He couldn’t run forever. The motel room was quickly draining his cash reserves. And he wasn’t going to be left alone.
It was just that he was reluctant to turn over the transit device to a power-hungry greed-monster like Victoria’s father.
And the more the gap between him and Victoria grew, the more he realized just how hungry she and her father could be.
So he’d resorted to old-fashioned means, leaving a message on Victoria’s voice-mail, telling her where and when they could meet.
He waited for another ten minutes to see if the dropouts from the Patriots offensive line were going to show up fashionably late, then he went downstairs to meet her.
The restaurant was a German place, all dark wooden paneling with photographs on the walls of Jack Dempsey, some unidentified cardinal, and dozens of anonymous dinner parties. A plastic grape arbor ran along the shelf over the bar beneath rows of large mugs with faces on them.
Once upon a time, it had been a popular place with Cambridge students. But that was when Germany was still a strange and exotic land. The definition of exotic had changed significantly since then, and as a result the place was nearly empty.
Harry went through the archway on the left and into a private bar where Victoria waited for him. She was wearing a black coat with fur trim, high white boots, and her nastiest sneer.
“Don’t start with me, Victoria,” Harry said before she could open her mouth. “First of all, we’re through, you and me. Take that as given. I don’t like being used. And I don’t like being chased or threatened.”
“Darling, using people is what it’s all about,” she replied, turning the sneer into a smile that under other circumstances—and from a different woman—might have been endearing. “Did you expect anything else? I used you, you used me. Quid pro quo.”
Harry refused to be angered by her easy-handed treatment of him.
“Except that there was never any quid for this quo,” he said. “Just those three dinosaurs coming after me at the hotel.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Victoria asked. “Who’s been threatening you? All I ever asked was a favor from you—one you were perfectly willing to do for me a few days ago.”
“Are you saying you don’t know anything about the thugs who came after me today?”
“Thugs? I don’t know any thugs. Although it would serve you right if they did come after you. You have something of mine, and I don’t think much of your holding onto it.”
“Something of yours? That’s a matter of opinion.”
“And in your opinion—”
“In my opinion, it’s stolen property. Salvage goods. Whoever has it is the rightful owner by possession.”
Victoria frowned. She turned away from him, looked down into her coffee.
“So where is it?” she asked, breaking the long silence between them.
“Somewhere safe.”
“That’s just like you. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I haven’t decided yet. I don’t even know what my choices are.”
“Then let me tell you what they are. You don’t realize what you’re up against. This is bigger than you or me. This is bigger even than my father. He’s just another player in this game, but he’s a big one. He enjoys being double-crossed even less than I do. And he doesn’t like you as much as I do.”
Which was a mixed blessing, Harry noted silently. “And that means?”
“That means that sooner or later, his men will catch up with you. They’ll make you tell them where you put the package. While they’re at it, they’ll make you tell them a lot of things you never even dreamed you knew. I’m not just saying this to scare you, Harry—though it wouldn’t hurt you to be a little scared. I really don’t want to see anything bad happen to you. Not anything truly bad.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“It’s not too late, Harry. I’ll still take you back, you know. It can be just the same as it was before all this.”
Harry smiled and shook his head softly. He didn’t think she might be sincere—not even for an instant. He knew what Victoria was and what she represented—she and her father.
People had come up with a number of ways to deal with the changes that the Rik had brought to the world in the last few years. One approach was to adapt to each change in turn, preserving as much as was necessary of the old before incorporating the new. The other was to grab whatever advantage you could and exploit it for all it was worth while there was still time left.