Skinner (20 page)

“For you. Take it. Not a mousetrap. Take it. You will be so happy.”

The line shuffles, Skinner shuffles, stumbles, falls into the Russian, brings up his stick, clumsy, he brings it up across the Russian’s throat, more clumsy, his hand whisks in and out of the older man’s jacket, something in it. Balance regained, the stick withdrawn from the Russian’s throat, Skinner’s hand empty, something heavy in the side pocket of his jacket.

The Russian smiles, zipping his jacket.

“So happy.”

He tugs his cap into place.

“He told me to give it to you. Shiva did.”

The Russian’s smile, ancient bones of whales, decades of the cigarettes that took his lung.

“
Give it to the killer who comes,
he said. And you came.”

The Russian gone, into the tangled lines of people waiting to travel by water, the familiar land routes impassable in a city besieged by the young in revolt.

A crowded deck on the ferry. Neither of them talking. Skinner has his gun now. Jae doesn’t need to peek in his pocket to know that’s what the Russian had for him. Which Shiva, if the Russian is to be believed, told him to give Skinner.

“Your phone is ringing.”

She looks at Skinner and he nods at the zippered vest pocket at her waist where she keeps her phone.

“Ringing.”

She unzips and takes it out, looks at the screen, a blocked number. She answers anyway. More than slightly expecting to hear Terrence’s voice speaking from the beyond.

“Hello.”

“Yes, Jae, hello.”

She looks at Skinner, mouths
Cross.
Skinner cups her elbow with his hand and does that thing he does in crowds, forcing a way through without seeming to displace anyone, leading her toward the rail. Fewer ears.

“Jae, are you there?”

She cups one hand over her left ear, reducing the wind noise.

“I’m here.”

“Kiev.”

She draws a blank.

“Yes?”

“Kiev, Jae. Anything in Kiev?”

Remembering where it is they are meant to be.

“Ukrainians.”

A pause from Cross.

“Jae, is there some reason you can’t talk?”

“No.”

“Then, with respect to the fact that this is an open line, I’d like to know if you have anything in Kiev.”

She leans over the rail, watches the water churn along the hull of the ferry.

“No. Nothing.”

“Any details you can offer?”

“With respect to an open line, no.”

Something scuffs the connection, a few muffled words, Cross covering his phone’s pickup as he consults with someone, then back.

“Good. Nothing. Good. I want you out of Kiev. There are things happening in Stockholm. Have you seen the protests? Are they on TV there? We have an evolving situation, on the ground. A possible connection between the protests and your job. I want you to look at it in person.”

Jae is looking at the water again.

“I know about the protests.”

Another muffled word or two, and then the click of computer keys.

“One of the teams we had working on the worm, the code, they found a Stockholm connection. A physical address. Billing for hosting services. We had, with respect to an open line, we had intentions for the address, but Swedish security police are involved.”

“Säpo.”

The word out of her mouth before she can stop it.

A beat from Cross.

“Yes. Good, Jae, you must have already skimmed the edge of some information that will help you look into this more deeply. Säpo raid. Very recent. Active. Looking for a command cell, the protesters. Anarchists, Jae. Very promising for us.”

Skinner has his back against the rail, looking at the people on deck, giving every impression that he’s not the least bit concerned with her conversation. It’s for the best that he has no way to listen in. If they were both hearing this Jae doubts she could make eye contact with Skinner without laughing.

“Sounds promising.”

“Are the airports still open?”

Jae thinks about the time difference between Stockholm and Kiev, tries to remember how red-eye flights work going east to west. Then remembers that it doesn’t fucking matter.

“Sure. We can get to Stockholm. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

“Very good. The Swedish airports are still open. Arlanda. I don’t think they’ll close right away. The winds are blowing south.”

“Okay. Like I said, a few hours.”

More clicking from Cross’s end.

“We have you booked on the next flight out of Boryspil. They go direct. Skinner?”

Jae looks at Skinner, there is still a bit of cobweb in his hair. She wants to reach up and pluck it out. But doesn’t.

“You want to talk to him?”

“No.”

Something in his voice, that one syllable. Unmistakable. Fear.

“I just want to know if he’s working.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“So is he working?”

“It’s fine, Cross.”

And it is, she supposes. Skinner is working. But she is unwilling to discuss it with Cross.

“Good. Something has happened in the States. Nothing to be alarmed about. Tangential.”

“Tangential to what?”

“To you. We approached Maker Smith, through his booking agent. Another set of eyes on the worm, the code. But he’s gone to ground. Something happened at his place of business. There was, with respect to an open line, there was detritus. Three items of inert material. Material that belonged to Hann-Aoki.”

Jae thinks about the dead men in Oasis Two. The corpse on fire.

“
Detritus.”

“With respect to an open line, yes.”

Jae feels like the only fish in a very popular pond, hooks all around, twitching, baited lines. Just waiting for a nibble before being jerked taut, barbs in the mouth, pulled gasping into the air.

“But no Smith?”

“No sign. I got the impression from his agent that Smith is well but prefers to remain sequestered for the time being.”

“He’s a smart fucker.”

“Yes.”

Neither of them says anything.

Cross starts clicking again.

“So. Boryspil to Arlanda. Here soon.”

“A few hours.”

“A car will pick you up.”

A word Cross has been using, adverb, occasional noun, finally sticks to something in Jae’s brain and she stands up straight, away from the rail, drawing Skinner’s eyes for the first time since the conversation began.

Here.

Here?

“Cross?”

“Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“Here. I mean, I’m sorry, Stockholm.”

Jae looks around the deck of the ferry, her eyes searching for Cross, expecting him to be a few yards away, smiling at his own joke.
I’m right here. Got you!
But he’s not.

“Just a coincidence. I’m here for Bilderberg. My third year. And I have to get back. It’s not half as sinister as the protesters think it is, but probably more disturbing than they imagine. I’m meeting with someone from Gazprom, and a Chinese environmental minister to discuss overpopulation. We’ll do a presentation. Climate decline, rogue weather events, contraction strategies. Reminds me of college. Speech and debate. Academic Olympics. Moot court. That kind of thing. Sudden exchanges of ideas, intensely brief relationships formed, and the general sense that maybe those limeys from Cambridge aren’t such pricks after all. We’ll come away with a ton of new connections for Kestrel. America, we still do a handful of things better than anyone else. You can buy African mercenaries by the kilo, but US-trained contractors will carry a premium as long as military spending continues to dominate the budget. Enough shop talk. We’ll see you in a few hours. Things are moving very fast. There might be a bomb. European anarchists, Jae. If they’re the ones, that would open an entirely new market for us.”

Jae hangs up before he can say anything else.

Skinner leans on the rail, points. They’re rounding a tiny island, a larger one coming into view, small enclosed harbor and another ferry landing.

“That’s Djurgården. Parks. Museums. Back to the mainland next. Grand Hotel landing. Norrmalm.”

Jae slips her phone back in its pocket.

“Cross is here. Stockholm. He’s a Bilderberger. Doing presentations. Networking. Christ.”

Skinner contemplates the deck.

“That seems reasonable.”

She contemplates him.

“But you don’t care for it.”

He turns, leans his forearms on the rail, one hand slipping inside his jacket.

“An excess of coincidence. Or the appearance of such an excess. Serendipity. Synchronicity. No. I don’t care for it.”

His hand comes out holding the twisted steak knife from KGB and he drops it, lost in the water, broken tool.

“At Heathrow I saw Haven. He had someone with him. Someone dangerous, I assume.”

Jae rubs her hands together. A chilly day becoming cold as the sun sinks, wind on the water.

“Not a coincidence?”

Skinner leans his walking stick against the rail.

“Not a coincidence.”

Jae tucks her hands into her armpits.

“Something is happening. It’s.”

She closes her eyes.

“I have pieces. Lots of them. But not enough.”

Skinner puts a hand in his jacket pocket.

“I think we need to find Terrence.”

Jae licks her lips, the monster in her head bumps into something.

“Why?”

Skinner’s hand is moving in his pocket, where he dropped the gun the Russian gave him.

“This. In my pocket. This is a .380 Bersa Concealed Carry pistol. If I take it out someone might see it, and there could be a small panic. So I need you to believe me.”

Jae believes him. She is working to restrain her own small panic. Wondering if there is greater safety if she runs into the crowd or if she dives into the churning waters.

Skinner’s hand moves again.

“There is no serial number on this pistol. Absolute identification would be very difficult. But there is a scuff on the grip.”

He’s not looking at her, his head dropped back, eyes skyward.

“It is, I think, a weapon of some personal significance to me. If I am correct, I was carrying this exact pistol when Cross tried to kill me.”

He looks at her.

“And Terrence saved my life.”

And, with that, the lumbering Frankenstein monster in her head smashes loose, leaving a gaping hole in the laboratory door. Following it into the daylight, emerges the mad scientist who made this thing. Distracted air of the dean of some obscure area of study, white lab coat stained with bloody handprints of all those upon whom he has performed his experiments. Terrence.

Her hand touches her cheek, crawls of its own accord over her mouth, a cartoon expression of dismay on her face.

“Oh shit. Skinner. Terrence connected those anarchist kids with the Russian. He. The Money. Fucking. That acceleration of the protests. He facilitated everything for them. He. Terrence is all over this. Oh shit.”

He’s looking at her, eyes carrying a spark of sunlight reflected from the waters. Hand inside the pocket that holds his meaningful gun.

I miss him.

“Skinner.”

“Jae? Are you alright?”

“Skinner.”

He looks at her.

She thinks about her mom.

“Terrence is dead.”

He nods. His hand comes out of the pocket, empty, and he runs his fingers through his ruffled hair, looks out to the water, nods again, and looks at her.

“It’s cold. You must be cold.”

He takes his scarf from around his neck, places it around her neck, smooths it flat, flips the ends into a knot, eases it up under her chin, and there is no doubt at all in her mind that he wants to kiss her or that, if she were to lean just the slightest bit forward, it would happen. Nothing of her own doing, the kiss would just happen. She remembers what that was like, very young, the kiss is there, like the statue some sculptors say is already inside the uncarved block, waiting for you to chip away. Young, and finding the kiss that was always there waiting for you. Here it is, one of those.

His hands come away from the ends of the red scarf.

“Terrence is dead. Yes. I see that now.”

Jae doesn’t move. She doesn’t lean, not one millimeter.

Skinner points at her backpack.

“Let me show you something.”

They stand shoulder to shoulder on deck, backs to the rail, Skinner helping to support her laptop as she logs into the ferry’s Wi-Fi network. Europe is well ahead of America when it comes to wireless. Brazenly excited about the idea of being able to access the Internet from everywhere. Neither of them is certain what payment will mean. How specifically their location might be tracked by a credit card transaction to join a wireless network on board a moving ferry. Skinner opts for using one of his regular cards, one of those he travels on, a well established identity. He tells Jae that he doesn’t know if it’s a bad thing for Cross to know where they are. For him to know they are lying to him. He may not care. As long as the job is done. Too much to juggle. Jae just uses the damn card.

classicsteelbikes.com.

Skinner’s account. A question thread. Merckx frame geometries. Responses. A response from Terrence.

Skinner points at it, the date and time.

“When did he die?”

Jae has to think.

“I spoke to him the night before I met you at Creech. Cross and Haven told me at the hotel. Said he was killed. In Cologne.”

“Yes. I was in Cologne. Well. This reply was posted after Cologne.”

He looks at the reply from Terrence’s account. Jae knows the numbers in it are the message or that they point to the message.

“Book code?”

Skinner is still looking at the words and numbers. As if the answer they suggest is to some question he hasn’t asked. He makes a closing gesture with two fingers, snapping them down on an invisible bug that he finds irritating.

“Done.”

She logs out, clears the session from history. They’re already approaching the Norrmalm landing.

“Do you need to peek at your decoder ring?”

He scratches his right eyebrow.

“The numbers are coordinates. GPS.”

Jae still has the laptop open, her hand moves back to the trackpad.