50
Making His Preparations
Night.
Evan crouched at the side of the bed in the surveillance camera’s blind spot, making his preparations. He folded the plastic trash-can liner over itself again and again, forming a one-inch band of polyethylene. This time it would have to fit perfectly beneath the shock collar, hidden from view. He slid it between the contact points of the inner rim and his skin, then used his fingertips to tuck it in. If the slightest edge peeked up into view, his chance would be blown.
And he’d wind up crucified or skinned or razor-bladed to pieces.
And Alison Siegler would be delivered to the man who had purchased her from Hector Contrell like a piece of exercise equipment.
And the boy who’d called Evan would languish in his own private hell, trying the RoamZone again and again. And again and again getting no answer.
Still crouching, Evan retrieved the piano wire from where he’d stashed it beneath the boot insole and crossed to the distressed leather chair that was bolted to the floor.
He removed his socks and used them to wrap his hands, then slid the wire around one of the chair’s wooden legs. He coiled either end of the wire around his padded hands and started sawing.
Even through the cotton, the wire bit into his palms, but he kept at it. After about five minutes, he’d made a few centimeters of progress. But it was enough to give him some leverage.
Firming his grip around the wire, he jammed it deep into the tiny notch and yanked down. It took three tries but at last a wedge of wood chipped off the leg.
He stopped to catch his breath and flex his aching hands. His feet were freezing, so he slid his socks back on.
Then he picked up the wedge of wood. Eight inches long, two wide, a few centimeters thick.
With some force he was able to break it in half over his knee.
Now he had two pieces that fit snugly in his fists when he curled his fingers around them.
Handles.
He looped either end of the piano wire around a chunk of wood, twisting it tight, testing it and testing it again until there was no give.
A garrote.
He wrapped it up tightly, slid it into his sock, and pulled down the leg of his jeans to cover the bulge.
Then he pulled the spare pair of high-top hiking boots into his lap, tugged free the laces, and fashioned them into a double-strand noose. This he stuffed in his front pocket on top of the RoamZone.
He’d have one shot at this and one shot only. If a single thing went wrong, he’d spend his last agonizing minutes staring into the face of Charles Van Sciver. But for now there was nothing more he could do.
He dressed for morning and lay back on the bed. He let go of the grueling events of the day, tuned out his fears for tomorrow. There was only the present moment, his body on the soft, soft mattress, the faint sigh of his breath. If this proved to be his last night, then he wanted to enjoy every second.
This time when the gas came, he welcomed it.
51
A Shout into the Abyss
For once it was nice not to pretend. Candy didn’t have to act like Ben Jaggers’s wife or his whore or his partner in photojournalism. It was all out in the open. They were two deadly trained operatives, here to reclaim a government asset. And to permanently decommission him.
Unfortunately, she still had to share a room with Jaggers.
In other circumstances it might’ve been romantic. Crackling fireplace, homey quilts thrown over matching queen beds, snowflakes clinging to the windows — it was like a friggin’ Viagra commercial.
She let her dress fall around her stiletto boots and stepped clear of it. Bending over, she unzipped her boots and tugged them off. She put on a pair of silk pajamas, the fabric a salve against her throbbing back.
Not surprisingly, Jaggers didn’t bother to turn around. He sat on the bed facing the sliding glass door. From behind he looked frail and weak. His shoulders seemed bird-thin, and there was a slight hunch to his spine. He was the unlikeliest Orphan she’d ever encountered.
“What’s your story?” she said.
He still did not turn around. “What story?”
“How did you get here? Become an Orphan?”
“That information is classified. You know this.”
“No shit. But it’s me and you in a snowed-in chalet in the middle of Godknowswhereistan, and we can’t fuck because you’re lacking the requisite hardware. So I figure a little conversation might help us while away the hours.”
At last he turned, but only enough to give her his profile. That drippy nose, the runny chin. He was a sight. “If you continue to break protocol,” he said, “I’ll report you to Orphan Y.”
“Van Sciver,” she said, “has bigger concerns.”
Now Jaggers faced her fully. Sitting on the mattress, he drew his knees to his chest. He looked scrawny, an embryonic vulture. And yet those eyes held his power. Flat and hard like river-smoothed stones, the eyes of a shark gliding effortlessly through the depths in search of prey. Those eyes told the truth, and the truth was that there was no story, no background to make sense of, because men like Ben Jaggers didn’t make sense. They just were.
“As do we,” he said. “We can’t underestimate this man René. He’s impressive.”
“You admire him.”
“I admire what he did in that ballroom, how he took the winning cards right out of our hands. It was an intel failure on our part. We should have known what the man values and does not value.”
“Maybe,” Candy said, “he valued it all. He just valued some things over others.”
She studied his face, but it was like studying a dinner plate. She thought of him in that alley behind the old Crimean cannery, how when the girl had approached, he’d managed to shape his features into something human, into something requiring neighborly aid. We could use a hand with the trunk. I think it got warped in the crash. Candy pictured the girl’s one-shouldered shrug. Jaggers’s clawlike hand slapped over her mouth, the slim silver pen jabbing at her neck. The wet thrashing against the closed trunk. She’d been beautiful, that girl, and it was a sin to destroy something beautiful.
It struck Candy now that Jaggers had killed her not because it was prudent as he’d claimed but because he resented her beauty. He envied it. And he admired René not for the chess move of killing his young friend but for the ruthlessness of the act. To destroy something you cannot be is to embrace your darkest heart, to yield to an ungodly desire. It is to be hijacked by what you aren’t rather than nourished by what you are.
Because what you are is nothing.
Van Sciver’s mantra played in her head: It is what it is, and that’s all that it is. She heard it differently this time, not as a hard-boiled directive but as a shout into the abyss. Maybe ultimately that’s all they were, her and M and Y, untethered souls, parentless and brotherless, stripped of their humanity, forever echoing in the chasm.
What had she seen in Orphan X’s eyes when she’d revealed her mutilated back? Remorse? Whatever it was, it was not what she’d expected. She’d devoted every waking minute to tracking him down, hellbent on staring him in the face. Whatever she’d been hoping for, it certainly hadn’t been the glimmer of empathy she’d spied in his eyes. She hated him all the more for it. Didn’t she?
Or had she seen in X a reflection of what she herself had felt since her flesh had been defaced? The weakness of human emotion.
Orphan M had said something.
Candy blinked. “What?”
He glanced at his watch. “I said it’s time to make contact.”
Clearing her throat, she went into the bathroom, where she removed a contact-lens case from her toiletries bag. Leaning close to the mirror, she fingertipped a lens onto her right eyeball.