“Van Sciver’s hunting down those of us who got out. Those of us who were deemed higher risk.”
“He’s hunting some more than others,” Jack said pointedly.
“They’re neutralizing us.”
“I know,” Jack said. “I been working sub rosa, helping the ones who need it most.”
“You always knew. Even way back when, before you met me in that parking structure. You sent me the fake assignment to kill Van Sciver because you knew I’d refuse and go to ground. You knew I’d never kill one of my own. It was a play.”
Jack broke the mannequin standoff, rubbing his eyes. “It was more complicated than that. Van Sciver was tasked with killing you. If you’d found out, you would’ve destroyed everyone in your path.”
“Yes.”
“The directive came from the highest level. You would have tried to kill your way right up the chain.”
“Yes.”
“You would have died. Even you, Evan.”
“I would have died for the truth instead of running from a lie. That’s what you did to me. Eight years I’ve been running from that goddamned parking lot—”
“Eight years you’ve been alive.”
“That’s all that matters to you?”
“Yes!” Jack brought his fist down on the table, making the bowl jump. “That’s all that matters to me.”
“I thought I killed you. I forced you to break cover to meet me.”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault. I told you it was my choice to meet you. I told you—”
“It doesn’t matter what you said. It matters what happened.”
“I knew you’d never run. Not as long as you thought I was alive. At some point you’d stick your head up, make contact with me, and they would get you.”
“Like you did now?”
“I found out you were in trouble. And I moved heaven and earth to get to you. You’re still a son to me. Look at me. You’re still my son.”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve lived with?”
“How about what I bear?” Jack said. “Taking you from that foster home. Stripping you of … human warmth. Putting you in harm’s way to do harm. I dragged you into all this. I wanted you to get out. I wanted you to have a chance.”
“At what?”
“At a life!” Jack flared a hand angrily around the cabin. “That isn’t this. A wife. Maybe even kids. I tried to free you. I didn’t think you’d scurry right back to it, Assassin for the People.” He tapped his palm on the table, a judge’s gavel. “That is what you do now, isn’t it? Freelance jobs? For others, people who can’t—”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
“From afar,” Jack said. “I couldn’t let you go. I could never let you go. I know you can’t see it this way right now, but it was a sacrifice, what I did.”
“A sacrifice.”
Jack firmed at Evan’s tone. “You’ve never been a father.”
Evan felt the pulse fluttering his neck. “A father? You weren’t my father. I wasn’t a son to you. I was a weapon. You shaped me into what you needed and used me until I was used up.”
Jack stiffened. The skin around his eyes shifted, and for an awful moment Evan thought he might cry.
Jack cleared his throat. “You know that’s not true. However angry you are, you know that’s not true.”
“I have been paying penance,” Evan said. “For the blood on my hands. Including yours.”
Jack sagged back in his chair. “I couldn’t risk losing you, Evan. Not after I lost Clara.”
“You swore. You swore you’d never lie to me. It was the one thing I could count on. The one solid thing I could trust in the world. You don’t know what my first twelve years were like. In that home — in all the homes. You … you were the one thing I could ever count on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck you.” Evan stood and stuffed the stack of printouts inside his jacket. He grabbed the cash and the fake license and walked out.
For a long time, Jack sat in his chair, staring at the empty seat across from him.
His breathing grew harder.
He raised a hand and pressed it over his mouth. Tears forded his knuckles, spotting the rough wood of the table.
He did not make a sound.
62
That Gnawing Feeling
The boy’s phone number, a 301 area code, was branded on Evan’s brain. It had guttered across the cracked screen of the RoamZone only a few times, but he’d committed it to memory. He turned the ten digits over now in his head. As familiar as a remnant from a dream.
Bouncing along the bitter interstate in the passenger seat of the semi he’d hitched a ride with, he snatched a pen from the cup holder and jotted down the number on the back of his hand. He stared at the scrawled digits. That same feeling gnawed at him again, that he’d seen the number before.
“You all right, bud?” the trucker asked, exhaling the smell of Red Man tobacco.
“Fine, thanks.”
“Where do you want I should drop you?”
A sign flashed overhead as they crossed Baltimore city limits.
“Anywhere’s fine.”
“You from around here?”
“I guess I am.”
“Well,” the trucker said, “welcome home.”
Evan hopped out at the next gas station. He found a pay phone at the side, right between the bathrooms.
He called the only person left on the planet he could trust to deliver what he needed.
It rang three times before the gruff voice answered. “Crazy Daisy’s Flowers. Something for every occasion.”
Evan said, “I need a backpack cutting torch, an H&K MP5SD, a compressed-air grappling hook strong enough to take the weight of a jungle penetrator, and a skiff with two hundred-and-fifty-horsepower engines to meet me in Daytona Beach by tomorrow at noon. I’ll tell you a location. I don’t want to see any faces. Just the stuff waiting at a pier.”
There was a long pause.
“This,” Tommy Stojack said, “can be arranged.”
“Good.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Evan smirked. “Advil.”
“You going full Somali pirate on me?”
“I assure you,” Evan said, “it’s for a good cause.”
“Good cause or not, you’re gonna have sticker shock. I have to work it cross-country. Plus, you know, discretion. I got a hook at Camp Blanding, he’s our people. Something like this, I can’t just use some clown-for-hire. After all, you never know who’s who in the zoo.”
“Just tell me the price. And I’ll pay it.”
Evan hung up.
Now, on to the boy.
He hauled up the tattered Yellow Pages dangling from a security cord and searched out the nearest cybercafé. There was one a few miles away—$4/hr! Terminals clean-wiped after every logout! We accept Bitcoin! Cabs were scarce, so he hoofed it, walking fast enough to stave off the cold. The chill crept into his shoulder, and he had to remind himself not to hunch to favor it. The tendon, muscles, and skin had to stretch in order to heal properly.
At last he stepped into the java-scented shop, peeled a hundred off the roll Jack had set aside for him, and requested a workstation and a universal phone charger. He plugged the RoamZone into a desktop outlet, fired up the computer, and ran a quick search.
Reverse-phone-number directories proliferated. He found a free one and keyed in the kid’s number. Sandwiched between various pop-up ads was the result:
No record of this number exists.
Evan stared at the screen, his discomfort growing.
One workstation over, two teenage girls laughed at a YouTube video, all gleaming white teeth and vanilla-scented hair spray.