Simple Simon (27 page)

“Simon follows Art.” Art was his friend. He would follow a friend.

Downfall

Art and Simon emerged onto the roof with little trouble, and Art could see that Kimura had likely spent some of the time before ambushing them opening doors that would let out to the helipad.

And as Art stepped into the wind that slid across the roof like an endless, invisible Tsunami, he suddenly wondered if the helicopter he could see sitting a dozen yards away, its rotors turning, three men jumping from it and running his way, might not be there for her. If it was, he had just fought a losing battle.

He was both right and wrong.

A youngish man, blonde hair whipping in the tumult, came close to Art, and the first thing that was obvious was that he carried no weapon.

“Jefferson?!” the man yelled.

Art nodded, his arms held awkwardly against his body.

“Pritchard sent me!”

“Who are you?!” Art asked.

“That’s not important!”

“It is to him!” Art said.

The man looked to Simon, who huddled behind Art, something in his hands. “My name is Sean!”

Art turned to face Simon and crouched. “Simon, this is Sean. He’s a friend!”

A friend. Art was telling Simon that Sean was a friend. A friend could tell you who was a friend. Simon took the pen clipped to his cards and flipped to the proper spot. Beneath
POOKS UNDRHILL
he wrote
SHON
.

“What’s that mean?!” Sean asked.

“It means he trusts you!” Art answered.

Sean stood from his crouch, as did Art. “Where’s Kimura?!”

“Dead!”

“Where?!” Sean pressed.

“In the Skydeck! By the elevators! Why?!”

Sean waved the two men with him past. They disappeared into the building.

“What’s that about?!” Art asked.

“Listen, Jefferson… You’ve got to trust us!”

“I’m giving Simon to you, dammit! What more do you want?!”

“It wouldn’t have worked any other way!”

Art grimaced at Sean. “What are you talking about?!”

The two men returned, carrying Kimura’s lifeless body and her weapons. They took it to the helicopter and strapped it into a passenger seat in the back, sitting up, as if pretending to be alive.

“Jefferson, believe that he’ll be all right! No matter what you see!”

“What?!” Art asked, confused, something in Sean’s eyes making him understand just a little.
If Kimura is found, they’ll know she didn’t get him. This way there might be a chance people would believe that she got him…and they wouldn’t need to look.
That comforted Art, but only briefly.
But when she doesn’t turn up, won’t people start…

“We’ve got to go!” Sean said.

Art nudged Simon so he would come around to his front, and when he did he felt the slender body press against his. He knew. He knew what was happening. At least some of it.

“Simon, I want you to go with Sean! He’s your friend! Right?!”

“Right,” Simon said, his voice barely audible in the turbulence.

Sean put his hand out, and Simon put his in it. They began to walk toward the helicopter. Art stepped forward, pulled by the departure, and said as loud as he could, “I love you, Simon!”

Simon paused, pulling on Sean’s hand, and his head swung back toward Art, the green eyes sweeping up until they met the big brown eyes for the briefest instant. But in that instant, Art knew that Simon understood.

A minute later, the helicopter lifted off into the horrid wind, the pilot fighting it until he had his bird heading out toward Lake Michigan.

*  *  *

The phone in the puzzle center did not make Pedanski jump this time. It was an expected call on a normal line.

“Pedanski.”

“You found the envelope I left for you?” Brad Folger inquired.

“I did.”

“Start faxing it now,” Folger instructed him. “To Senator Grant first, and work down the Intelligence Committee from him. Then the rest.”

“Okay. Are you—”

“I’m across the street right now,” Folger said.

“You’ll be all right.”

“I can’t be any worse,” Folger said, then hung up.

Five minutes later, fax machines in dozens of Senate and House offices began spitting identical pages. The first words were:
By the time you read this, G. Nicholas Kudrow, Deputy Director, COMSEC-Z of the National Security Agency, will be the focus of a federal investigation into violations of wiretap statutes, extortion, tampering with evidence of a felony, and assorted other crimes.

*  *  *

Over water now, Sean began to get himself and Simon into harnesses, as did the other crew members. Keiko Kimura was left alone.

“Do you like to fly, Simon?” Sean asked.

Fly. Like the birds. Way up. “UP! UP!”

Sean nodded. “Yeah. You got it.”

*  *  *

The desk sergeant of the evening shift looked up when the well dressed man approached with a woman by his side. “Can I help you folks?”

Brad Folger nodded and took a breath. “Yes. Some time back there was an accident…”

*  *  *

The lights were barely lights anymore, Art thought, and he wondered if it was distance or blood loss that was making the strobe of the helicopter go faint. But in the next instant he had no trouble seeing what happened.

Far over the water, about where he thought the helicopter was fading, a brilliant flash lit the mist below, and then a trail of yellow orange spun wildly against the dark sky before trailing off into the fog, pulling a ribbon of fire with it.

Art ran against the wind to the edge of the helipad, and was about to scream to God above to not let it be true when what Sean had said just minutes before struck him and completed the picture.
Trust us… Believe he’ll be all right. No matter what you see…

And he understood. Nothing could be expected of the dead. Nothing but silence. The dead were truly the only ones who could rest.

It was too far off and too windy to hear, but Art could imagine the remains of the helicopter slamming into the water, pieces coming apart. The Lake had swallowed larger things. Some it still kept.

*  *  *

“What was that?” Anne asked Lomax, staring through the patchy fog out over the lake. “It looked like fire.”

“I don’t know,” Lomax said, but then he didn’t really care, either. He had only one thing on his mind. Get to the Tower. Get to his number two.

*  *  *

First they had to get the elevators working again. Then Lomax had to get through a gauntlet of Chicago PD intent on keeping everyone below 103. Once they were persuaded to get a move on and clear the building up to the roof, he escorted Anne to the helipad where Art had been found huddled in the stairwell.

“Oh, God,” Anne said as she knelt next to him.

“Paramedics are on the way,” a cop said.

“Art! Art!” Lomax said loud and right in Art’s face.

“Babe. Do you hear me?” Anne prodded.

Art half opened his eyes. “I tried. I tried. But they got him. And the helicopter went…went…”

Anne put her hands on either side of his face as his eyes slid shut. “ART!”

*  *  *

At home, in his study, with a fire glowing warm across the room, G. Nicholas Kudrow sat at his desk after his wife went to bed and picked up the phone. It was late, but there were calls he had to make.

“Hello?” a somewhat gruff and groggy voice said.

Kudrow smiled before speaking. He was not conscious of doing so. “Senator Grant. Kudrow here. I need to speak to you about—”

The abrupt click and return of the dial tone unnerved Kudrow, but he told himself that there were those in any position of power who were prone to fits of weakness.

He simply moved on, going to the next number in his book.

“Yes?” an equally disturbed voice answered.

“Senator Franklin. Kudrow here. I—”

The hang up came quicker this time. And in the next call about the same. And in the one after that even quicker.

After the sixth silent rebuff, Kudrow walked over to the fire and slid his book of names and numbers through the mesh spark screen and into the flames. He watched it become embers, changed from what it had been to something very different.

His life was over. He knew that. Not over as in the end of breathing or waking each morning, but simply over as he had known it. That he accepted quickly, the best way to accept anything that was bound to be difficult.

And this would be difficult. He would have to give up much. His wife. His family. His home. His career. Almost everything.

Except his freedom. That he could retain. Of course he would have to lose himself, become a new person, find a place where he could live unaccosted, free from fear of arrest. There were places that would offer him that because he could offer them something. Much was locked away in the only vault no one could ever search.

But to do all this he would need something. Something to get him places, to trade for favors, to sustain him. And he would need it now. Cash. Total liquidity.

He did not have it in his home, and he could not chance a large withdrawal at the bank. He had no great sum of money available for immediate use. But he knew where he could get some.

Stars

It was amazing what one week, a few stitches, and two and a half pints of blood could do to restore the vigor to one’s step. And though Art Jefferson would not be throwing curve balls for some time to come, he was alive, and with his wife, and fulfilling a promise he had made to himself before all hell broke loose.

This, he knew, was for Anne.

“Take a left up ahead,” Art said from the unfamiliar spot of the passenger seat. Behind the wheel, Anne followed his directions perfectly, her eyes focused on the country road ahead, the gleam he’d come to love not yet back. She was still grieving.

“Where are you taking me?” Anne asked.

Art, both Arms in casts and practically laced across his chest in slings, kept his expression serious. He hoped to God she would understand.

“A nice place I used to visit,” Art answered as convincingly as he could. This was not hard. The funeral had been hard, seeing an empty casket lowered into the earth next to those of his parents. Art had really started asking himself if this was right just about then.

But it was right. For Simon.

“What brought you out here?”

He looked out the window, at the trees and the green fields, and the old barns teetering on the edge of collapse but obstinately defying the elements and physical laws to remain upright. It had been years since he had been here, to this place in the country, but he loved it.

It was the right place for this to happen.

“Turn again,” Art said. “Left. It’s a kind of dirt road.”

The Volvo lurched as Anne steered it off pavement and onto the mix of gravel and dry earth. “Really?”

“It’s worth the drive,” Art said.

The lane wove through a field, with split rail fences on either side, and swung right past a gathering of old buildings that looked as though the next winter would do them in. A minivan was parked behind the tallest of the structures, a barn with more angles to its roof than Anne could count, and standing outside the vehicle was…

Anne slammed on the brakes, the skidding tires drawing a dust cloud from the earth and throwing forward of the Volvo.

“Simon!” she yelled, fingers wrapped so tight on the steering wheel that Art could imagine her snapping fist-size pieces off at any second.

“Well? Are you going to stay here, or go see him?”

Anne looked at Art, her eyes at first severe, then quizzical, then disappointed, then they simply melted into two big brown puddles and she jumped out of the car and ran to Simon.

Art had to use the tip of his shoe to unlock the door, and then he got out. As he reached the front of the Volvo, watching Anne embrace Simon nearer the other vehicle, Mr. Pritchard walked over to greet him.

“Agent Jefferson,” Pritchard said, the blue of his suit far too formal for the setting. “This was your condition, correct?”

Art nodded and leaned on the warm hood of the Volvo. The night sky above was clear, unburdened by clouds. One could see for miles and miles. “They found Kimura’s body two days ago. The fish got to most of her. I saw the pictures.”

“They’re raising the rest of the wreckage tomorrow, I understand,” Pritchard commented.

“How did you pull it off?”

A snicker slipped from Pritchard’s mouth. “I used to be Airborne, Agent Jefferson.”

“Parachutes?” Art asked with quiet incredulity. “Simon?”

“A tandem rig,” Pritchard explained. “It’s used commercially all the time to give the experience of a jump to those who can’t make one on their own.”

“Sean?” Art wondered aloud.

“An extremely experienced man at leaving perfectly good aircraft in mid-flight.”

So that explained that, but not everything. Not how Kimura had found him. Art wasn’t sure he wanted, or needed, to know more than he did. “I’m not going to ask you what I could ask you.”

“I never intended…” Pritchard began, staring briefly at the casts on the man’s arms, before looking back toward Simon.

“Retirement was looming in a few years anyway,” Art said. There would be some loss of motor abilities in each arm. Not enough to matter much, but enough to bring his career with the Bureau to an end. “Have you found a place for him?”

“With a wonderful family in another country,” Pritchard said, adding, “It’s best you don’t know more than that.”

“Believe me, I understand.”

Pritchard smiled. “You know, if ever you are looking for some part time work.”

“I have your number,” Art said. He knew he’d never call.

“Well, it’s best we be going,” Pritchard said. “His new family is anxious to meet him.”

Art nodded and watched Pritchard walk away, watched Anne take Simon into her arms for the last time. He could have gone to him and stolen his own time, but they had had their moment together on the top of the world, as he liked to think of it.