Spy Mom (32 page)

I briefly pause in my task of peeling back the wrapper from a cheese stick.

“So is the traveling circus trapeze artist a cover story?” I ask.

“Now, when I mention the CIA thing to most people, the usual response is ‘Wow, were you undercover? Did you ever have to kill anyone?'” He stops long enough to give me a chance to be impressed. I look at him over my cheese stick.

“But I'm guessing the reason you are telling me this is because you don't think I'm going to fall all over myself wanting to know about your life with the CIA, right?” I ask.

“I wasn't anything covert,” he says, “just an analyst dealing with the Soviets. But, you know, you hang around that sort of paranoid environment for long enough, you develop a sixth sense for when things are not quite as they seem. Wouldn't you agree?”

I respond with something between a nod and an involuntarily twitch of my head. The snack is out now. When Carter and Theo are happily munching away, we sit back down on the benches. I have to say something, anything. If I don't, the friendship that Sam and I share will die on the vine.

“Everyone has baggage,” I offer. I don't look at him. I scan the streets around the playground. “Some baggage is heavier than others.”

“Well,” Sam says, “if you ever feel inclined to put it down, I'd be happy to help.”

“Thank you,” I say, meaning it. “Someday it will be time. But not today.”

“Understood,” he replies. “And the circus story might be true. You never know, do you?”

I have to laugh. My new friends, these moms and dads and grandparents, they want to know me, and for the first time that idea is something I'm willing to entertain. But it is not without its discomforts.

Avery, Claire, and Belinda return from the bathroom. We go back to talking about inconsequential things, such as the front coming through promising to dump actual rain on us for the first time in many months. I keep scanning the playground perimeter, but see no signs of anyone who is not meant to be there.

Whenever I arrived somewhere new, a new country, a new city, I had the same routine. I'd drop my well-worn knapsack in some fleabag guesthouse and start to walk. I wouldn't take a map, preferring to use my senses to orient myself. I'd spend hours wandering in circles, stretching my legs and my tongue, getting it ready to pretend to be something it wasn't for as long as it took. I'd stop for food, asking the street vendor about the coming monsoon or the shop owner about his daughter's wedding. I'd find out where to go for a good drink or a good meal, ferreting out the highlights of the place as clues to its culture. It was like dating. The city would show me all her beauty and sparkle and I'd sit back and enjoy it. Eventually, I'd force her to show me her dirty underbelly, the places where bad and ugly things happened. But in the beginning, she was nothing but beautiful.

The long walks also served to clear my mind, to get me focused on the task at hand, whatever it was. I'd fully absorb all the intelligence I'd been force-fed before leaving Washington and the last few bits I'd tried to digest on the plane. I'd let it all swish around in my body and finally come together in some meaningful way. At some point during these walks, I'd find myself suddenly at a complete standstill. And that was the moment when I got it, when everything made sense and I had a plan to accomplish the thing I'd been sent to do.

This morning, Theo safely tucked away with Nanny Pauline, I find myself in Golden Gate Park, walking fast along a winding path toward the ocean. The air is cold and foggy and shows no signs of warming. I keep my hands deep in the pockets of my down vest. And this is the way I imagine it played out.

An Agent of the USAWMD, or the CIA or the FBI or the NSA, or any of those initial-laden government groups for that matter, would have access to a host of resources needed to find someone intent on being lost. Blackford calls in a few favors, maybe visits with the Old Timers. After drinking the sludge and buying them doughnuts, he asks for their help.

“He left me when I was quite young,” Blackford would say. The Old Timers would nod in unison. They already knew all this. They knew about his abandonment, the sad fact that his father took his books, his shirts, and his pots and pans, but left his child behind. They knew everything.

“I was always sure there was some sort of mistake, some misunderstanding, don't you think? I mean people do terrible things, that much we all know, but abandoning your own child in an empty house … well, even to me, that seems …” Blackford would be at a loss for words. The Old Timers would wait.

“It's wrong,” he'd say finally. “I want to find this man. I want to understand what happened. What really happened. Not only what I've already read in court documents.”

“We think,” Fatty would answer, “that you seek closure. Understandable.”

“However,” Baldy would add, “not always wise. Sometimes it is a good idea to leave well enough alone.”

Blackford would examine his coffee cup, swirling the thick coffee grounds around on the bottom.

“You know,” he would say, “I have considered that. But in this case, I can't let it go.”

The Old Timers would bend their heads together, muttering fiercely, while Blackford would await their judgment.

“We agree to help you locate your father,” Baldy would announce. “Give us a little time. We'll contact you when we have something useful.” And with that, a younger, less jaded Ian Blackford would be dismissed from the Old Timers' table of knowledge.

He waits patiently for several months. Eventually the Old Timers return, telling him they have come up blank. In truth, they have not. But to save Blackford from himself is their first responsibility. They believe, falsely, that he will let it go.

After defecting to the other side, Blackford begins to throw enormous sums of money at the mystery of who is his father. He hires lawyers and private investigators, and fans them out across the country. Eighteen months later, he hits pay dirt. A PI named Dewey faxes him a single sheet of information. On it is a name and a picture. Professor Albert Malcolm is a professor of Analytical Chemistry and lives on Walnut Street. Blackford makes the mistake of feeling joy at the revelation. He believes he will go to California, meet his father, and somehow the black hole in his chest will magically be plugged. He forgets that this man staring out at him is the same one who deserted him in a house with an empty refrigerator.

But Blackford is nothing if not a good spy. He knows not to give anything away for free. He checks out Malcolm and when he's satisfied that the information Dewey has given him is accurate, he makes a phone call. He asks Malcolm if he ever had a child. Malcolm vehemently denies this and grows hostile with the continued questioning. Finally, Blackford clicks the hang-up button on his phone. His ears are red and his eyes burn.

He's ashamed of himself for caring, oddly paralyzed by his need for this stranger to love him. After a few minutes, his heart slows and he stops sweating, comforted by his decision to ruin Albert Malcolm if it is the last thing he ever does. He wants a clear view of the old man's face when he realizes what is about to happen. He thinks it might heal him.

I'm stopped now, having made it all the way to the beach. The gray and violent ocean rolls in and out. The wind is icy. My nose runs.

“All this because your father didn't love you?” I ask. I know he is close enough now to hear.

“It was more than that.” Ian Blackford steps forward so we are now shoulder-to-shoulder, staring out at the raging ocean. “Big storm out there somewhere.”

“Just because your father left you doesn't make you a bad person,” I say. I don't add that, according to most, he really is a bad person anyway, fatherlessness aside. Blackford laughs.

“Do you know a thing or two about being left behind, Sally?” he asks. His voice is not kind. I can't answer.

“Anyway, nice psychoanalysis, but bad is something I perfected all on my own.”

“Was revenge the point all along?”

“Revenge can feed you when you've lost your appetite,” he says. “You have something of mine. I need it back.”

What?

“You'll take me back to your house, get it for me, and this will be over.”

He watches me for a reaction.

There is a move I learned from a man in China. It's complicated, and if you don't execute it fast enough, the person you intend to kill will have a fine opportunity to kill you first. I want to be fast enough. I want to be as good as I once was.

“Don't do it, Sally,” Blackford whispers.

But I can't help it. I've had enough. I step into the move at the exact moment Blackford does. But he is better. He has always been better. In about a second, I expect to hear my neck snap.

Instead, I see them out of the corner of my eye. Simon Still is not wearing his hat. Two agents dressed in dark jackets and gloves flank him. I find myself wondering what numbers they are. Forty-five? Twenty-seven? They are on us faster than I expect.

“Well, this is inconvenient,” Blackford says. He spins me around so my back is pressed to his chest. I feel the muzzle of his gun against my temple. I can't swallow; my tongue feels thick and dry in my mouth.

“You aren't going to kill her,” Simon shouts. “Sally is the last person in the world you would kill. Some say she is your only friend.” Simon and his crew take a few steps closer. Blackford and I take a few steps backward toward the ocean. A wave breaks, and the water sloshes around our ankles. It's like stepping into a bucket of melting ice cubes.

“You know me, Simon. What was your conclusion? Sociopathic tendencies? A lack of empathy or some such nonsense? So what would stop me from pulling Sally out into the water and drowning us both?”

Simon is thinking. One gun to my head, four guns on Blackford. What are the odds? The water hits my thighs as Blackford backs us deeper into the ocean.

I see Theo at that moment. I see him sleeping, his little blond head on a blue pillow, clutching his fuzzy blanket in both hands, hanging on for dear life. I can feel my lips on his cool forehead and see his tiny chest rise and fall in his striped tiger pajamas.

I start to struggle as if my life depends on it. But Blackford doesn't care. He simply tightens his grip.

“Don't,” he says in that voice. In the past, that voice would have caused me temporary paralysis due to pure terror. But I'm not that person anymore. Simon inches forward. Blackford is holding me so tightly now I'm losing circulation in my arms.

“There's nothing you can do, Simon. Like always, you are too late,” Blackford shouts above the wind. I see Simon nod ever so slightly to one of the agents. It's the signal, the one that means
take him out now, collateral damage be damned
. Except I am the collateral damage in this case. The men move quickly, but they are no match for Ian Blackford. He drags us both into the freezing ocean. It is up to my chest now. The salt water stings my eyes and skin. I can no longer feel my legs.

The waves crash overhead. I struggle for any air I can get, the water so cold I can't expand my lungs. Blackford still holds me tightly by the back of my vest as I try to bend my arms and wiggle out of it. But wet down is kind of like wearing bricks, and the vest acts like a sea anchor, dragging me toward the ocean floor.

A huge wave breaks over our heads, pushing us straight toward the sandy bottom. We are in the swirl of the wave's whitewater now, not sure which way is up. Suddenly, Blackford pulls me to the surface and we burst through at the same time, desperate for air, gasping, spitting. And because things can always get worse, suddenly I feel a riptide nipping at my legs, threatening to whip me into a frozen oblivion.

“Oh, God,” I whisper. “Don't do this.”

The rip snatches us both, greedy. I grab onto Blackford's jacket, wanting to use him as leverage to push myself out of the riptide's evil grip. But he has different ideas.

As if he is standing on solid ground, Blackford lifts me waist high out of the water and throws me forward, clear of the riptide's path.

“Go!” he shouts. “Swim, Sally!” The riptide takes him, and in an instant, he is gone, no longer visible in the thrashing gray ocean. I start to swim as hard as I've ever done anything. I strip off the vest, kick off my shoes, and haul my body toward the shore. The waves crash again and again over my head. Each one sends me on a death-defying spiral toward the bottom of the sea. I come up sputtering and gain a few more yards toward the beach.

I can see Simon Still standing on shore. The two agents are in the water up to their knees. Simon is shouting at them, but I can't hear his words. I pull closer. Another series of waves, and I feel solid ground beneath my feet. I try to stand up, but I'm too weak and cold. Instead, I fall to my knees and drag myself forward with the remaining strength in my arms. I'm out of the water. I collapse on the sand, my breath coming in spasms.

Simon runs down the beach toward me. I can't get up. I stay with my face in the sand. Simon tries to lift me by the arms, to pull me beyond the ocean water that is still lapping at my feet. I am dead weight. One of the agents steps in to help him.

“Get off me,” I gasp. “Let me go.”

“Come on, Sally. You are hypothermic. If we don't warm you up, you are going to feel really bad in a few minutes.” They lift me up. I dangle over the shoulder of the biggest guy like a sack of potatoes. I have no idea how long it takes, but soon I'm in the backseat of a minivan, under a heavy blanket, with Simon trying to force me to drink hot coffee.

“Take me home,” I say.

“We have to talk about this. I need to know what he said to you.”

“Listen, I did what you asked. I drew him out. And what do I get in return? You were going to shoot me! Now take me home before I strangle you right here in this shitty car.”