Critical Space (25 page)

"Walk forward, as if going to the water. "

I picked my way around the largest piles of junk. As I crossed out into the open, there was a rumble of thunder, and distant lightning jumped clouds. My heart was surprisingly steady in my chest, and my breathing was easy, and I wondered what I should make of that. Drama had to have line of sight on me, I had to be close to my principal, and I should have been very scared. But I wasn't.

"Stop. Turn left."

Looking past the scattered garbage, I could see the length of the shattered pier, all the way to the far fence on the north side. Beyond its edge, maybe half a mile away, a building sat just on the water, a road running between it and a sharp slope to the east. At the top of the slope I saw the nimbus of sodium lights, but not the lights themselves.

She had to be on the slope, on the high ground, and the odds were that I was looking right at her.

"There's an oil drum ahead of you, "
Drama said.
"She's inside."

I lowered the radio, saw the container, and walked toward it. As I approached I could see that the cover had been removed, but I was almost on top of it before I could look inside, and when I did I saw Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, shivering, bound, a black cloth bag over her head.

"Antonia," I said. "It's Atticus, I'm here."

She jerked at the sound of my voice, turning her head, trying to see me with her covered eyes. She made a noise, and I realized that she'd been gagged, too. The Motorola had a clip, and I hung the walkie-talkie from my belt before reaching for her.

"I'm going to touch you," I said. "I'm going to remove the hood."

She tried to nod, made another sound that would probably have been inaudible if not for the amplification from the metal that surrounded her. I touched her as gently as I could, knowing that she'd had unwelcome hands on her too much already, and got my fingers along the edge of the bag at her neck, feeling around until I found where it had been tied. The knot was easy, and I undid it, then pulled the bag off and threw it down.

The look in her eyes was desperate gratitude, but there were no tears. A ball-gag was in her mouth, but I decided that could wait, and reached in to take her beneath the arms. She tried to move to assist me, but there was nowhere for her to go, and in the end I had to almost fold my upper body in with her to get a grip. I pulled her up against the edge of the barrel where I was leaning, tipping it against my body, backing up a little at a time to ease her out. I had her mostly out when the barrel finally tipped all the way, and its hollow clang on the concrete was followed closely by another roll of thunder.

She couldn't stand, and I lowered her to the ground, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her hands and feet had been bound with cord, and again the knots weren't too difficult, and I freed her extremities, then removed the gag. When it came free she leaned forward, coughing dry heaves, and I crouched beside her, putting a hand on her back. She was choking and coughing and trying to speak all at once. I ran my hands over her body quickly, feeling for injuries. As far as I could tell, she wasn't hurt beyond the effects of having been held captive for almost thirty-six hours.

"Just breathe," I told her. "You're going to be fine, just breathe."

It took another minute before she could control herself enough to manage any speech at all.

"Get me the hell out of here," she rasped.

She needed most of ten minutes before she could compose herself, before she was willing to try to get to her feet. Drama remained silent the whole time, though I knew she was watching, and I knew the crosshairs were still resting on Her Ladyship. When Antonia finally was willing to stand, I had to help her to her feet, and when she tried her first steps, she almost fell, and I had to catch her.

"I'm all right." Antonia's voice was raw and disused. "I can do this."

"Take your time."

"No, I want to go now, I need to get out of here."

"All right," I said, and I gave her my arm and together we started to make our way to the fence.

"You're not going with her, "
Drama said softly.

The voice had an immediate effect on Lady Ainsley-Hunter, and despite her fatigue and her pain, she recoiled from me, looking frantically for the source of the sound. Her ankle glanced off a piece of broken pipe as she moved back, but I caught her before she tripped.

"Walkie-talkie," I explained, helping her upright once more, seeing her confusion, her near-panic. "It's all right, I won't let her hurt you."

"Where... where is she?"

"No idea." Still holding her with one hand, I took the Motorola off my belt and keyed the transmitter, saying, "I'm going to walk her to the car."

"No. "
She was stern, but her voice remained soft. A teacher instructing a rebellious student.
"Tell her where it is, give her the key. You're not going with her."

I moved Antonia around so that I stood between her and the distant slope.

"Atticus."

"I've done everything you've asked," I said. "You'll get what you want. But I want
this.
I need to see her to the car, I need to see her drive away. It's my job."

The Motorola went silent.

"You'll get nothing," I added.

"She goes, I'll get what I want?"

"You have my word."

More silence.

"One condition. You make her promise that she goes straight to your apartment, that she stops for no one, she contacts no one, until she's there. "

"Done."

"I want to hear her say it. "

I held the Motorola out for Antonia. "I need you to tell her you'll do exactly as she asks."

"You're not coming with me?"

"I'll follow later," I said.

"I don't understand."

"I need you to promise."

"I promise," Antonia said, and then repeated, to the radio, "I promise."

"Then go ahead, "
Drama said.

Halfway to the car there was a percussive clap of thunder and an almost instant flare of lightning, and the rain began to pour, hammering the ground with heavy drops that soaked us both, filling my new clothes with water. Antonia stayed on my arm, concentrating on putting one step in front of the other, and though I didn't ask her, she told me anyway.

"I remember the elevator and the lights going out and the noise. After that things get horribly disjointed. I remember waking up as she was binding me, and I tried to scream and she'd gagged me. I don't even know where I was half the time. She wouldn't tell me
anything,
Atticus, she wouldn't tell me
why.
She wouldn't tell me anything..."

By the time we made the turn back to the park she'd forced her way through the trauma, and her legs weren't all water anymore, and she was willing to try walking on her own. When we reached the car, I took the key from my pocket, unlocked the door, and helped her get behind the wheel. On the passenger seat, Drama had left an open Triple-A map, a route highlighted on the paper. Antonia dropped into the seat and stared over the dash for a couple of seconds, massaging her wrists one after the other, then noticed the map.

"Directions," I explained. "Back to my place."

"What do I say to them?" she asked. The rain pounding the roof of the car made it hard to hear her.

"I don't know," I said, because it was the truth.

Antonia searched my face. "She's going to kill you, isn't she?"

I didn't say anything. It seemed like Drama had gone through a lot of trouble just to put a bullet in my head, but I wasn't taking bets on how the night was going to end.

"Atticus -- come with me."

I pressed the car key into her palm. "You want to take the Holland Tunnel. You have to go now, Your Ladyship."

She looked at the piece of metal I'd put in her hand as if she'd never seen anything quite like it before, then put it in the ignition. The engine started, and I stepped back, one hand still on the door.

"Put your seat belt on," I said.

She tried to laugh, but all she managed was a wobbly smile. Once she'd snapped the belt into place, she said, "Thank you."

"For you, anytime," I said, and I shut the door, stepping back from the vehicle. Through the water streaming down the window, I thought I could see her giving me one last look, and then the headlights came on and she pulled away.

When the Escort had disappeared into the rain and the night, I turned and started making my way to the slope, to where Drama waited for me.

She met me in the parking lot just past the restaurant that sat on the water. The restaurant turned out to be named after Frank Sinatra, too, and I toyed with the idea that Drama was maybe a Sinatra fan herself, and that was why she'd picked the location. But I realized it wasn't; she'd picked it because farther north and a little east was the campus for the Stevens Institute, and from there she'd had a clear view of everything going on below.

It had taken me just over twelve minutes to make the walk, and the rain had begun to taper off, and now the thunder came in distant and irregular growls, and the lightning couldn't be seen at all. Her directions had been calm and quiet, and had given me no indication of how much farther I needed to go.

As I came around the north side of the restaurant, she ordered me to turn right and approach the Hudson and toss the Motorola into the water. I did, and when I turned back around, she was there, standing beneath the awning of the building, out of the shadow, and I realized I'd walked right past her and not even noticed.

I thought she would leave some kind of distance between us, but she just walked right up to me, stopping only long enough to toss her Motorola into the river after mine. Once she did that, her hands appeared empty.

Each time we'd been this close before, her face had been concealed. This time she hadn't bothered. Finally, the fear that had been absent on the dilapidated pier made itself known, and beneath my soaked shirt I swear I could feel my heartbeat trying to pound its way out. I closed and opened my hands, wishing they would stop shaking, and then I wished that I was someplace else, warm and dry and going to live.

She was almost as I remembered her, and that surprised me. After describing her so many times I'd begun to think I was fabricating details I'd never actually known. She was just under my height, slender, though her shoulders were a little broad, hinting at upper-body strength. The clothes she wore were ordinary, jeans and a shirt and a fabric jacket that was either blue or black. Her hair had been cut very short, and when she turned her head, I could see it was almost shaved at the back of her neck.

I waited for her to stop, but still she kept coming forward, and when she was close enough to touch me without needing to fully extend her arm, she did, pressing her left palm on my chest. Through the wet fabric, her touch seemed hot. The gesture itself was not hostile, but it terrified me, and I couldn't bring myself to move, to look away from her.

We stared at each other.

She had a full mouth, a narrow chin, a slender and small nose. Her eyes seemed large, and she didn't blink, and in the weak light I couldn't tell their color. Her ears were small, laid against the sides of her head, and she wore no jewelry. Her cheekbones were high, making all of the angles of her face that much sharper.

"My name is Alena Cizkova," she said.

I opened my mouth and heard my voice. I don't remember what I said.

There was a tiny, hot pain from my left thigh, and I forced myself to look down, saw her withdrawing the needle, saw her drop the syringe. It was a thin plastic one, disposable, and the plunger had fallen all the way, and I watched as it hit the pavement beneath us, making a little splash in a puddle as it landed.

I brought my eyes back up and said, "That's a stupid way to kill me."

She blinked. The corner of her mouth moved, and her lips parted, and she tilted her head back, and she started to laugh. My mouth was filling with foam, and I told her that it wasn't funny, and I tried to grab hold of her, grabbing at her arm where her hand was still on my chest. She stepped back, and I tried to move forward some more, to grab her again, and my left leg understood but my right wanted to stay exactly where it was, and I ended up on the wet asphalt on one knee, then both, then on my hands.

She laughed like my death was the funniest thing she'd ever seen.

There was a Doberman.

The dog was a he, and he didn't have a collar, and he weighed at least sixty pounds, and his eyes, soulful dog eyes, seemed to be telling me that the jury was still out, and until it came back, I'd better be on my best behavior. A puffy scar ran along his neck, width-wise all across the throat, white-pink flesh that would never grow for again. He put his muzzle beneath my left hand, nudging it with his wet nose, and when I moved my fingers he turned away, his nails clicking on a hard floor.

It was day and the sunlight was strange, washing out colors and already heavy with heat, and I tried to make some sense of my surroundings as best I could without my glasses. Mostly I was seeing hues, light green and blue, past the foot of the bed, broken by a rectangle that was an open door. To my right, the wall continued, though it was disrupted halfway along with a painting, a swirl of colors that blended together.

The sheet across me was white, and there was no blanket. I lifted it and saw that my left leg was intact, and felt an enormous relief, so great that I fell back and just lay still, staring at the ceiling, at the fixture positioned high above me, at the blades of the fan as they whirred in silent rotation. There had been hallucinations, and there had been many of them, filled with people I'd known or still knew; the boy who'd beaten me up every day after school when I was ten; the drill sergeant who'd given me a faceful of Mace in AIT, then ordered me to run the obstacle course; the teacher who had humiliated me when I couldn't conjugate my Latin fast enough. All those people, faces I hadn't seen in decades, tormenting me each in different ways.