“I don’t want my money back,” the voice said.
“What do you want?”
“Someone once told me, if you control time, you control everything.”
The dark form rose and approached.
Too terrified to turn around, René stayed locked in his chair facing the mirror.
A hand drifted forward into a fall of light. It clutched a syringe filled with a viscous clear fluid.
René’s mouth wobbled open as the needle slid into his neck.
Still the face remained lost to darkness.
René’s last thought before the thumb depressed the plunger was of the double-cylinder dead bolts on the front door, trapping him in.
And then time stopped moving, sealing him inside it like a bug in amber.
Her cell phone held at the ready, Candy leaned against the door to René’s condo, straining to listen for movement inside. A single text to Orphan M and Van Sciver would make it rain.
The neighboring door creaked open. Just as she realized that it might belong to a connected condo, a streak of movement flew at her. She braced herself for a strike, but it didn’t come. Instead she was wrapped up, her arms locked to her sides, and then unfurled, a swing dancer who’d lost her lead.
A face blurred by as he spun her. She recognized his eyes. For an instant she let him lead.
Not that she had a choice.
And then she was free, tumbling across the threshold of the adjacent condo, the door slamming shut behind her.
She slipped on something slick, slammed onto the floor, and came up sticky.
She knew that smell.
She lunged for the door but knew all too well what she’d find. The double-cylinder dead bolts had autolocked. And she didn’t have a key.
Her cell phone was missing, plucked cleanly from her hand. She thought of Orphan M below, waiting for her texted command.
There was little she could do now but brace for the drone missile.
Orphan M held his cell phone in one hand, the GPS unit in the other, staring from screen to screen. He did not allow his knee to bounce with impatience.
At last a text arrived.
HE’S LOOSE. I HAVE HIM PINNED ON GROUND FLOOR. JAM LOCK ON FRONT GATE + I’LL HERD HIM THERE.
Orphan M input the front-gate coordinates for the drone and then tossed the GPS unit on the seat, leapt from the Volkswagen, and Froggered across four lanes to the complex, dodging grilles and blaring horns.
He reached the tall metal gate, readying his pick set. He slid a slender diamond pick into the keyhole and snapped it off.
There’d be no getting through that gate now.
He sprinted back through traffic, nearly getting pancaked by a bus, and flung himself into the Passat before the next barrage of traffic swept by.
The GPS handheld unit rested on the dashboard, not where he’d left it on the seat. Puzzled, he picked it up, turned it over. The battery lid was slightly loose, one of the screws lifted a few millimeters from the plastic.
He stared at it uncomprehendingly even as the reality dawned on him.
The batteries had been taken out and put back in.
Which erased the previous coordinates.
And reset the unit to its own position.
His body went cold, and he realized that it wasn’t cold he was experiencing — it was a full-body panic sweat. His head lifted.
Standing motionless in the sea of movement on the sidewalk across the street was Orphan X. He touched the imaginary brim of his beanie cap, gave a little nod.
M had time only to lift his eyes to the roof of the car before the Volkswagen vaporized.
72
The Old Stories
Despi stepped out onto the balcony of her family apartment to water the tomato plants vining through the rails. Wherever her sister lived, she’d always insisted on growing her own tomatoes just like their mother did. Now only Despi was left to maintain the family tradition.
Sunset was heartbreaking here and lately even more so. Violets and oranges shimmering off the sparkling Mediterranean, another day finding its ultimate beauty as it was extinguished. Only a slice of the sea was visible between the surrounding apartments, but her father had always said that a slice was enough to feel blessed, to feel assured of your place in the world.
How she missed him. How she missed them all.
She stepped inside through the breeze-swept curtain and set down the watering can.
Evan stood in her living room.
Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
He removed a heavy-looking white envelope from his back pocket.
“What is that?”
“Pictures of the men who killed your family,” he said. “Who were watching you.”
“I was being watched?”
“You were.”
“What do the pictures … show?”
“Corpses,” he said.
She swallowed.
“Where did you … How did you find them?”
“I found their names in a condo in Zagreb,” he said. “Where I caught up to René.”
“He’s dead?” she asked.
“Worse.”
She noticed that she was wringing her hands in her dress, and she made herself stop. She gestured at the envelope. “What am I supposed to do with those?”
He said nothing.
“I don’t want those. I don’t want to see them.”
He stuffed the envelope back into his pocket. “I didn’t think you would. But I don’t always know what people want.”
She looked at the watering can. “I have nothing left. How am I supposed to rebuild a life?”
She’d seen him in a shock collar. She’d seen him beaten by men. She’d seen him on his knees. This was the first time she’d seen him powerless.
“I can’t help you with that,” he said.
“Right,” she said. “You’re only good at destroying things.”
She put her face in her hands and wept. When she looked back up, he was gone.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though there was no one to hear it.
No matter how many times Evan had been to the Parthenon, it never ceased to take his breath away. The rocky outcrop thrusting above Athens, the ruined temple thrusting up even above that. Veins of mica and pyrite running through the marble, lending it a golden tinge. The perfection of the design, as precise as anything designed by computer. The ancient Greeks had even slimmed the Doric columns at the tops, an optical illusion to make it look as though the heavy roof were bowing the supports.
Evan came around a block of scaffolding and spotted him from behind, sitting at a tiny café table in the shade of a food-stand umbrella, sipping from a demitasse.
Leave it to Jack to find espresso in an ancient citadel.
Perspiration spotted Jack’s shirt between the shoulder blades. Evan walked up from behind. As he drew near, Jack set down his demitasse.
“Evan,” he said without turning around.
Evan sank into the chair opposite him.
“Thanks for coming,” Evan said.
Jack nodded.
Two German kids ran by, tiny fists gripping bottles of Fanta Limon. Evan waited for their laughter to fade away and then said, “I thought maybe we could start over.”
“Okay,” Jack said.
“You said you don’t understand why I still do what I do after I left the Program. Why I didn’t just disappear, lie on a beach somewhere, sip umbrella drinks.”
“Not my precise phrasing.”
“But the gist.”
“Yes.”
Evan struggled to find the words. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been out in the cold, nose up to the glass, looking in. I may not get to come inside, Jack. But I’m sure as hell not gonna let the wolves in at everyone else. No. That’s one thing I’m good for.”