Endgame Novella #2 (12 page)

Maccabee has never seen her like this.

She's trained him to master all fear, but he's never been so afraid. He's spent his life trying not to cross her, but even when he has, she's not been like this.

This is different, he realizes, because this isn't a question of disobedience. This is a question of
character
.

Is he the son she raised him to be? Or is he a stranger?

He's afraid of her, but even more, he's afraid of himself. Of how easy it would be to set fire to his life.

Just imagine if he said:
Yes, I care about this woman. No, I am not the son you raised. Yes, you've gambled and lost.
Imagine if she walked out of this crap restaurant and took everything with her. The money. The power. His destiny. She could pull the right strings, have him removed from his position, choose a new Player to mold and control.

She could leave him behind and never look back. He knows that.

If he says those words.

If he says anything but what she wants to hear, he will never see her again.

He takes the second thumb drive out of his pocket and lays it on the filthy table between them. “I was only asking for details because I wanted to know whether this would come in handy,” he says.

“And what is that supposed to be?”

“A little extra insurance.” He raises an eyebrow, and she smiles.

“Ah.” She knows exactly what that means, and it pleases her. She makes both thumb drives disappear, then bows her head briefly. “I'm sorry for misjudging you, my Player. You've done well.”

She's never apologized before.

She's never told him that he did well.

Maccabee tries not to think about the images on the drive, about what the camera captured in its unblinking eye, about what it will do to Serena, knowing the record exists, watching him on-screen betraying her with every touch. She is, after all, a stranger. Just a tool to be used to get what he wants, or what Ekaterina wants.

He focuses on Ekaterina instead, and how she is pleased.

She drops a handful of Swiss francs on the table and rises to her feet.

“Wait!” he says. “Where are you going?”

“Now that our business is concluded, I have a flight to catch.”

“Oh.”

“What is it, my Player?” she asks. “Is there something more I should know?”

He shakes his head, but she returns to her seat, peering intently at him.

She is his mother; she knows.

“It's only . . .” He hates the way his voice sounds, tentative and needy. “I suppose I thought that since you've come all the way here, we could spend some time together.”

Ekaterina laughs in his face.

“What did you think this was?” she says. “Have you been impersonating one of these children long enough that you've forgotten who you are? Who I am? Did you expect me to bow and scrape for your teachers and curtsy for the dean? Meet your
friends
? Come poke around your dorm room and check your underwear drawer for condoms? Have a nice mother-son
brunch
where we chat about your
homework
?” She doesn't sound angry this time, simply amused. “What do you
want
, Maccabee?”

What does he want?

Not that, he assures himself.

But also . . . not this.

She checks the time. “Well?” she says, impatiently. “I have a flight to catch, so if you have something to say to me, you might want to spit it out.”

“I understand you have important business elsewhere,” Maccabee says, an idea suddenly occurring to him. “And surely I can be of more help to you on that than I can be here. Take me with you!”

“Out of the question.”

“But—”

“I know this isn't where you want to be, my Player, but you must trust me that right now: this is the best use of your time.”

“I'm the Player, Ekaterina. The entire fate of the Nabataean line rests on my shoulders, and you've got me twiddling my thumbs and pretending I don't know how to do basic multivariable calculus? How can that be the best use of my time?”

“Either you trust me or you don't,” she says. “And if it's the latter, better I know now.”

“Of course I trust you, Ekaterina.”

“Then trust that, for the moment, you're more useful to me here.”

“Is that all I am to you? Useful?” The words are out before he realizes it, and then there's no taking it back.

He steels himself, but this time there's no anger.

Instead Ekaterina flags the waitress.

Maccabee can't help noticing that the woman only has seven teeth. It doesn't stop her from grinning widely when Ekaterina orders a slice of krem
nita, with two forks.

“You expect me to eat the food here?” Maccabee says, once the waitress has set down the vanilla and custard cream cake between them and scuttled back into the shadows. He notes a spot of brown crud on the fork's tines.

“Don't be so finicky,” Ekaterina says cheerfully, digging in.

“I'm not finicky,” he says hotly. He's eaten monkey brains, fish intestines, cockroaches dug from the ground and roasted live on a gasoline fire, when circumstances demanded; his training dictates that he do whatever necessary to survive. He can
endure
filth—that doesn't mean he prefers to.

But now, circumstances demand. He picks up the dirty fork and breaks off a piece of krem
nita. It's too runny and overwhelmingly sweet—but also somehow delicious. He takes another. “I thought you had important business,” he tells Ekaterina.

“This is important,” she says. “You asked me if that's all you are to me.
Useful.
You need an answer.”

He spreads his arms wide:
Go ahead.

He doesn't expect her to make a stirring speech of maternal love. It's not her way. But in the long pause that follows, he assumes she's mustering her strength to offer an uncharacteristic show of affection. She will tell him that
of course
he's not just a tool for her to use, a weapon for her to wield. Of course she values his usefulness to the cause, but he's so much more than that.

He's her son.

She loves him.

She loves him above and beyond whether he succeeds as the Player, whether he lives up to her expectations, whether he disobeys her or rebels against his future or simply makes one choice, any choice, of his own.

She loves him no matter what.

She's his mother, so he knows this must be true—but maybe now, after 16 years of waiting, he's finally going to hear her say it.

“I'm your mother, and I love you,” Ekaterina says, “
because
you are useful to me. I made you—I created you from nothing, gave you life, and I did so to fulfill a specific purpose. I wanted a son who would be a Player. Who would bring glory and victory to our line. I love you for fulfilling that purpose. I love you for proving your worth to me, for carrying out my demands, for continuing to be good enough. But make no mistake, Maccabee, my love is conditional. That detestable greeting-card nonsense, unconditional motherly love? The ridiculous idea that simply because I carried you in my womb I should be bound to you for life, regardless of your performance? You and I are beyond that, my Player. That kind of foolishness is for the weak; that kind of love is only pity. I raised you to be strong, didn't I?”

Maccabee can only nod.

“I thought so,” she says. “This is the greatest gift I can give you. A love that must be earned,
always
earned. A love contingent on your choices, your behavior. Serve my purposes, serve our line, and you will earn my love. Prove yourself useless, and you will prove yourself unworthy of a mother like me. Are you inclined to test me on that?”

He shakes his head.

“I thought not,” she says. “I thought all this had been made clear long ago, but I can see the risk I've taken, leaving you here among the plebeians. Beware camouflage, Maccabee—never let yourself believe you are that which you pretend to be. Are we clear?”

Maccabee is clearer than he's ever been.

He has been weak; he has been confused. He has done exactly as she has said, and forgotten who he really is—who both of them really are. No more. He will allow himself no more weakness, no more pathetic indulgence of this sorry sitcom fantasy of family. He will be the Player his line needs him to be, ruthless and useful and alone.

He will be his mother's son.

She's given him no other choice.

“We are, Ekaterina.”

She takes the final bite of krem
nita and brushes the crumbs off her lap, then stands up again.

“I'll contact you when I need you,” she says.

“Understood,” he says, and finally, it is. When she turns to leave, he lets her go.

One week later, Serena Porter is arrested on charges of embezzlement and racketeering. Federal agents storm into her office and handcuff her, load her into a police van like a common criminal. Maccabee watches it on the news, trying to get a glimpse of her expression, but the cameras never get close enough.

She claims to be innocent.

She claims that she's been set up.

She claims that someone must have gained access to her secret passwords, to her files, must have inserted the incriminating data.

But she has no evidence to offer in her defense. In return for a light prison sentence, she makes a deal. Her husband files for divorce, spirits himself and several million of her dollars away to an island with no extradition treaty with the United States.

The rest of the money is confiscated by the government; Jason is withdrawn from school, and Maccabee finally has the room to himself.

Intellex files for bankruptcy and is acquired by its main competitor, which itself is owned by a shadowy holding company whose primary interests are controlled by the Nabataean line.

The job is done.

Maccabee forces himself not to wonder whether it will be hard for Serena, living behind bars in a prison-issued jumpsuit. Whether she'll enjoy the irony of it, that her schedule will finally be free enough to spend time with her children, to be the mother she always wanted to be—but she can only see them during visitation hours. He certainly won't think about the way Jason, the 'roided-up hockey-playing thug,
burst into tears when news broke of his mother's arrest, and had to be sedated until he could be escorted off campus and flown home—coach.

None of this is relevant.

He's helped his line; he's helped his mother. He's been of use.

After the arrest, he receives an anonymous text, terse but clear:
You've done well.

He knows who it's from—and he knows that this is her way of saying she loves him. That he's made her proud.

That's what matters. All that matters.

It's nice, having his own room. Especially now that he's acquired a new girl—it proves much easier to persuade her to do as he wants when there's no mouth-breathing meathead spying on them from the opposite bed. The girl is the daughter of a German diplomat, or at least that's what she believes—Maccabee is certain her father is a spy, and knows that could come in handy. She's a mousy girl, quiet and nervous and thrown off balance by the thought that someone like
him
might want someone like
her
. He's certain she'll be useful to him, and—despite her oversized nose and undersized cleavage—he'll keep her around as long as she is. He'll cultivate her, and offer her up to his mother as a gift, next time Ekaterina comes to town.