“You tanked and conked the back of your head on the edge here,” Paul said. I must have asked it aloud. He was seated above me, pale and jacketless, shoulder tightly bandaged. He pointed where I had conked my head. I examined the spot and found nothing particularly enlightening.
Propping myself up on the elbows, I looked around. Iris was behind me by the window, a black cashmere jacket over her shoulders. “You okay?” I asked. She nodded and smiled.
I sat up. From my vantage point I could only see the uninterrupted blue of the sky outside. It felt like we hovered in place.
“How long was out?” I asked Paul. “Wait, don’t tell me. Three seconds?”
“Almost ten minutes,” Iris answered for him. Paul attempted to grin, but it came out one-sided and distorted his face. Giving him a glance, I crawled into an empty seat.
“Did I miss anything?” even as I asked it, I felt how still the air was inside the cabin.
Iris smiled again, but didn’t answer. Instead, she sort of half-shrugged and looked out of the window. I followed her gaze and there was the lake, brilliant in the sun. To the right, downtown rose to meet us like a huge castle built by a race of pacifistic artisans, all towers and no walls. Agent Brome guided the helicopter up, over the first buildings.
“Might not be over yet,” he suddenly said, pointing to the right. Approximately three hundred feet in that direction a military plane appeared and assumed parallel course. On the left, another fell in formation.
“They won’t let us leave the city,” Brome said. “Quiet now.” He flipped a switch.
“Brighton, this is Brome. Do you read?”
“Like a book,” a dry voice replied. “About time you decided to tune in.”
“What’s with the boys on my wings?”
“A formality. They’ll escort you straight to HQ. The welcoming committee here is anxious to see what you’re bringing.”
“You’ll see soon enough. ETA two minutes.” With that he turned the radio off.
“You’re dropping us off at the FBI?” I inquired politely, as soon as he did.
He thought about it.
“Seemed like a safe enough place, but now I have a bad feeling about it,” he finally said. “Call it a hunch. Don’t know what else to do, though. I really didn’t think they’d call in fighters. If you have a plan, let’s hear it within the next thirty seconds.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. Whatever it was they were acting weird about would have to wait. But how was I, having just woken up, supposed to come up with…?
I opened my eyes and saw it.
“There,” I shouted, pointing.
“What?”
“There, land us right there.”
Iris looked at me with a curious expression on her face. Even Paul was stretching his neck to see what I was pointing at. Neither of them understood, but Brome did.
“You sure?” he asked, turning to face me.
“Let’s do it,” I confirmed. He studied my face for a brief moment, nodded and turned away. Taking a sharp left-sided dip, the helicopter plunged towards the white “H” painted on the roof of a 90-story, double-horned skyscraper.
Chapter Forty-Three
Christie Lane had seen her share of weird. Like that new security guard down in the garage who kept staring at her eyes. Or like when they killed Malcolm Tenner on that episode of “Barlow and Warden.” Or the couple of days of weirdness, when Luke Whales was a fugitive from justice.
But even though it was barely ten in the morning, today had already swept the awards for the weirdest ever. And it was a Wednesday, of all things.
It started with the Pope on TV, creeping the cakes out of her with the Antichrist talk. If ever there was a good time to start censoring the news, she had said to herself, it was now. Then, as if the Antichrist wasn’t enough for the ratings, Luke Whales went and drove a car full of explosives into some place, with himself still in it. Where the first news caused like a massive depressive murmury gloom over the studio, the part about Whales sent people running back and forth through her waiting room, and James Cornwell rushed out all red and ran up to her and stood there, panting and squeezing her shoulder and shaking his head. She cried a little and eventually he went back to his office, but then, to top it all off, Whales himself walked in an hour later!
Since no one was getting any work done, anyway, she was absorbed by the News Special, on which Jack Moore followed Whales’s progress, as it was masterfully reconstructed from clues, offering commentary in his rumbling voice. The black car marked “LW” just reached the Freedom Corp facility on the map. The fateful spot was the end of the itinerary, which had started at Whales’s downtown condo at around four in the morning, passed through some doctor’s office across the river and took the audience to the scene of a break-in at Whales’s ex-wife’s suburban home, where, thankfully, no one was hurt. Jack Moore watched in silence as the black car on the map reached the imaginary gateway and turned into a ball of orange digital fire. The image spoke for itself. The map zoomed in and the horrific footage of the explosion started to play.
At that moment the door opened, and Whales strolled right in, dressed like a mortuary assistant, or an angel without wings, and carrying a huge pistol.
“Hey, Christie,” he said, despite being repeatedly blown up on the screen. “Is Jimbo in?”
Without waiting for an answer — which wasn’t coming any time soon, anyway — he went into Mr. Cornwell’s office. Christie was so impressed that it never occurred to her to dial police or some other agency that dealt with… that. About two seconds later Whales and Mr. Cornwell both reappeared in the waiting room, Mr. Cornwell, seeing his friend resurrected, even redder than before. Whales pointed a gun at her, inviting her to join them.
“For Christ’s sake, Luke,” Mr. Cornwell was mumbling.
Christie stood up from her chair, straightening, placing one hand on the chair’s back and tossing a curl off her forehead with the other. “Are you going to kill us, Luke? Is that it?” she asked indignantly.
“Of course not,” he replied with a grin. “You know I always liked you, baby.” And Christie began to cry, because he was lying. He had always hated her. He would definitely kill her. Probably on TV.
“For Christ’s sake, old sport.”
The ghost ushered them to the set, where the rest of the staff had already been herded together and seated. Two men with guns watched the crowd from the darkened rear. Instructing Christie to join the others, Whales took Mr. Cornwell to the middle of the room. The murmurs hushed.
“Hi guys!” Whales said cheerfully. “Good to see you. I even missed some of you. As we all know, there’s been a little misunderstanding this morning. I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by and set things straight. For that I’ll need a camera, sound and lighting crews. It won’t take long. The rest of you will just watch from here until we’re done. You can’t get out, because we jammed the elevators and barricaded the stairs. But there’s nothing for you to worry about, I promise. Besides, Jim says it’s OK for you to help me out. Right, Jim?”
Mr. Cornwell gave the slightest nod.
“All right, folks. Let’s get moving.”
No one even thought of resisting. The technicians went to workstations without hesitation. Some of them grinned as they passed beyond Mr. Cornwell’s sight; not a few of those grins dropped when they saw her looking, though. Several staffers openly went to shake Whales’s hand or slap his shoulder, probably to make sure he remembered they were his friends. Tiffany from Make-Up had the audacity to flirt, chirping something about being offended he didn’t need her services.
“I wish I had more time,” he told her and she flittered away like a perfect little butterfly.