Jennifer Government: A Novel (18 page)

“Myself.”

“Right, right,” the man said, smiling. It took Buy a moment to catch the insinuation. “Something powerful but disposable. Right?”

“In the sense I only need it once, yes.”

He unlocked a cabinet between them and hoisted a pistol. “This is a Vektor Z88, nine millimeter. Powerful at close range, simple to operate, doesn’t make a lot of noise, and on the cheap side. This what you’re after?”

“I don’t care about the cost.”

The man made the Vektor disappear. “Then you should take a look at this baby right here.” He slapped a gun on the desk. It was sleeker and looked more powerful than the Vektor. Buy picked it up and weighed it in his hand. “A Colt .45, fully automatic. Extremely reliable, American-made, can make a man’s head disappear from two hundred feet.”

“I don’t need—”

“I know, you don’t need long-range. But if you want power and reliability, this baby has it in spades. The accuracy is a bonus.”

“How much?”

“For you, three thousand,” the man said. “And I’ll throw in a case of bullets and some cleaning solution.”

Buy handed over his AmEx. “Keep the solution.”

The man wrapped the Colt in white paper, then put it in a box. “And, in case you were wondering, this model has no serial number.” He winked.

“Just give me the gun,” Buy said.

H
e parked his Saab in the apartment block’s underground area and got out. Without thinking, he locked it; it only occurred to him in the elevator how pointless that was. He should have left it on the street with the motor running.

The apartment was neat and quiet: his cleaning service had been in. Buy dragged a huge leather armchair over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out at the city lights. They stared back at him. He began unwrapping his gun.

He was struck with the thought that the assassin—whoever had killed the girl, Hayley—must have done this, must have acquired a gun and loaded it with bullets. It didn’t seem right to Buy that it was so easy. He looked at the Colt, feeling disgusted. Then he put the barrel in his mouth.

There was a plane descending from the north, its red and white lights winking at him. Buy watched it until it disappeared behind the AT&T building, then pulled the trigger.

Jennifer’s finger was getting sore from holding down
V
, the key that told Billy NRA’s bug to vibrate. The signal went from her keyboard to her modem, through the telephone line to the Government Communications Center in Sydney, to a geosyncronous satellite, to the fake cigarette packet in Billy’s pocket. It was a lot of technology the Government was still paying off, and it was all useless thanks to the astounding stupidity of Billy NRA.

She had a plan: Billy would overpower Bill and get him to a Government station. This was clearly the man the NRA had confused Billy for. Why he was only now returning to New Zealand, Jennifer didn’t know, but that was just details. The important thing was that she’d been given this opportunity to arrest him and replace him with Billy, who could then gather evidence to link the whole mess back to John Nike. But Billy wasn’t picking up, Billy was en route to the NRA in blissful, moronic ignorance, and if he reported in alongside the man he was pretending to be, it was all over for Jennifer’s clever plan and probably all over for Billy, too.

“Mommy?” Kate said, coming into the study. “Can we go to the dog shelter now?”

“In a little while.” She picked up the phone, but it hissed and squealed at her. She’d forgotten about the modem. “Can you get my cellphone from the kitchen table, honey?”

“I thought we were going to
go.”

“Kate, Mommy’s very busy.”

“Then when can we—”

“After,”
she said. “When I’m done, all right? Please get my phone. It’s very important.”

Kate left. Jennifer waited, holding down the
V
key. Her head hurt.

“Is this it?”

“Thank you. I won’t be much longer, sweetie, maybe twenty minutes, okay?”

“That’s what you said an
hour
ago.”

“It was not an hour,” she said, but she looked at her watch and maybe it was. “Kate, please go and—find something to do.”

Kate left wordlessly. Jennifer swapped hands on the keyboard—she was about ready to dump this sling—and dialed with her free hand.

“Government Comms Center.”

“It’s Jennifer, Field Agent. I’m using that Marlboro bug and I need to get a message to the user.”

“You know that vibrate feature I told you about? If you go into the Transmit screen and press
V
—”

“I’m pressing the
V
right now. How else can I get a message to him?”

“Um…you could just try transmitting a message anyway.”

“He’ll hear that?”

“No, not unless he’s got the headphones in.”

“Why would he have the headphones in?”

“I dunno, I’m just saying—”

“Fuck!” she said.

“It’s designed to be unobtrusive,” he said, wounded. “An undercover agent doesn’t want his bug to start broadcasting, ‘Come back, Agent Grimes.’ Maybe your operative has a good reason for not responding.”

“My operative’s reason for not responding is that he’s an idiot. You’re telling me there’s no way—” Her cellphone beeped. She looked at it. It said: INCOMING CALL.

“Apart from vibrate? No, there’s not.”

“I’m going to put you on hold, and I want you to think of a way for me to contact my operative. All right?”

“I’m sorry, there’s no—”

She switched lines. “Hello?”

“Jen!” Calvin said. “How’s home life? I didn’t interrupt you in the middle of baking cookies, did I?”

“No,” she said. “Did you get John Nike?”

“Ah…no, not exactly.”

“No?”

“Before you get upset—”

“I’m upset!”

“He jumped a plane for Los Angeles.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“I’ve already contacted the L.A. office. They’re going to assign a couple of agents. They’ll take care of it.”

“No. They won’t. John isn’t going to be caught by a couple of agents looking for him in their spare time. Jesus!”

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to trust in their abilities,” Calvin said. “By the way, the other John is in a coma.”

“What?”

“There are two Johns, right? Vice-President John is in L.A. The other one is in a coma. They don’t know if he’ll ever recover.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right.” That was kind of good news.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I know this?”

“How do—”

“It’s a funny story,” Calvin said. “At Nike, I ran into this Georgia Saints-Nike. Nice woman. She told me all about working with you and John in your halcyon advertising days at Maher. At first I had trouble picturing you in a power skirt and heels, but now I think about it—”

“I have someone on hold,” she said. “Does this story have a point?”

“You lied to me. You said you never worked with him.”

“I said I never worked for Nike.”

“That’s sneaky, Jen. Very sneaky. What happened? John stole a juicy account from you? Pinched your ass at the office Christmas party?”

“I really hope you found some time to work on the case in between snooping into my past.”

“I’m starting to wonder if there’s any difference.”

“Look,” she said. “I’m Government. He’s a criminal. Does it matter if I used to know him?” In the living room, she heard the TV go on. “Kate!” she called. “Too loud!”

“If you’ve got a prior interest in John Nike, you’re not helping the Government by keeping it a secret. He could use that in his defense.”

“Calvin, please.” Her phone beeped, reminding her about the call on hold. “Nobody else knows what John is capable of. I’m
the
best
person to track him down. Because I used to work with him, I can’t be on this case? No. That’s stupid.”

“Jen—”

Her phone beeped again. “Hang on, I’ve got someone on the other line.” She put Calvin on hold, yelled, “Kate, turn the TV down!” and switched calls. “You still there?”

“Hello? Is…is that Jennifer Government?”

Jennifer blinked. This wasn’t her guy on hold: it was a new call. “Who is this?”

“It’s Buy Mitsui. You interviewed me on Tuesday?”

“Oh. Buy, sure. Look, can I call you back? I’m kind of—”

“I have a question.”

“Is it quick?”

“I think so. I have a…a Colt pistol, and I can’t get it to fire. There’s… some kind of lock, I guess.”

“There’s a safety just in front of the trigger,” she said. “Have you loaded the magazine?”

“Yes, I put some bullets in.”

“If the magazine’s not full, you have to chamber the first round. Did you do that?”

“Oh,” he said, and laughed. “No. Thank you.”

“No problem.” She was reaching for the button to cut him off when she realized what he was saying. “Wait a minute. What’s this for?”

“Um…I’d rather not say.”

“Please. Say.”

“Well,” Buy said. “Okay. I’m going to kill myself.”

“Bad day at the stock exchange?” He was silent, and Jennifer regretted the words. “Buy, I’m sorry. Give me one second. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She clicked her phone. “Any ideas?”

“You could try sending the vibrations in Morse code,” the Communications Center guy said. “Does your operative know Morse?”

She laughed before she could stop herself.

“Is that a no?”

“Thanks for your help.” She killed the call. “Calvin, I’m coming in tomorrow. See you at the office.”

“Jen! No!”

“Buy?”

“I’m here.”

“Where do you live?”

“That’s—really not necessary.” He sounded embarrassed. “Please—”

“This is about the girl. Hayley. Right? Tell me where you live.”

He told her. Jennifer took her finger off the
V
key to write down the address.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“I—okay. Okay.”

“Do you have wine?”

“Wine? Yes.”

“Good,” she said, and hung up. She looked at her computer screen, at the collection of technology that left her unable to speak to Billy NRA. Then she turned it off.

Kate was watching a television show about giant pandas. Jennifer squatted down in front of her. She looked up.

“That last baby-sitter, she was nice, wasn’t she?”

“No!
You said we’d go to the dog shelter!”

“Kate, I’m really sorry.” She sat down and put her arms around her. Kate was upset and resistant; it was like hugging a cat. “I know I said we could go today. But we can go tomorrow, and that’s still earlier than the weekend, right?” Kate didn’t respond. “Honey, I’m sorry. But sometimes you have to be brave and put your own needs on hold, to help someone else. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want you to go!”

“I know you don’t, sweetie. Look, you’re the most important person in the world to me. I’ve told you it’s important for me to
go. But if you really don’t want me to, I’ll stay. Okay? What do you say?”

“Stay!”

“Kate!” she said, exasperated. “I have to go!”

“I don’t want you to!”

“You didn’t mind me going out when you had those new videos to watch! You hardly noticed I was gone!”

“I
did
notice!”

“All right!” she shouted. “All right, all right! I’m a terrible mother! I’ve ruined your life! I’m sorry, but
I have to
go!” She ground the heel of her hand into her forehead. When she removed it, Kate was looking at her. “What?”

“You’re not a terrible mother, Mommy.”

“You…”she said. “Well, that’s nice of you to say.”

“Are you sure we can go to the dog shelter tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Jennifer said. “Honey, I promise. I’ll pick you up from school and we’ll go straight there. We’ll pick out the perfect dog.”

“Okay,” Kate said. “And… soon you won’t be so busy, right? When you’ve caught the bad guys.”

“That’s—that’s right. I wish I could spend all my time with you. I love you, Kate. Mommy is just under a lot of pressure right now.”

Kate nodded. “She was nice. The last baby-sitter.”

“Good girl.” Jennifer kissed her. She felt proud and tired.

The easier your job, the more you got paid. John had suspected this for many years, but here was the proof: pulling down five hundred bucks an hour to sit in the afternoon sun on top of an L.A. office tower. He was wearing a suit and shades, reclining on a deck chair while a light breeze blew in from the bay. John thought he might have found the perfect job.

“Hey,” he said to the foreman. “I’ve got an inventory sheet. None of this stuff had better go missing.”

The foreman looked at him. He was not so relaxed: he was getting paid much less than John and doing much harder work. “Nothing’s going to go missing.”

“It better not.” He closed his eyes, enjoying the sun. He was building a nice tan out here.

“Nothing’s going missing,” the foreman repeated. He hesitated. “I don’t know your business, but—you want these things pointing north, right?”

“So?”

“Well, north is downtown. You’re going to end up with a bunch of missiles pointing at other office towers. If you’re worried about security—”