Spy Mom (37 page)

“Nice move,” Blackford says. “Budapest?”

I nod. “You?” I ask.

“Yes. You messed it up as usual,” he says.

“I'm good at that.”

I turn to the Blind Monk, who now has Theo in front of him, his oversize gun casually pointed at my child's chest. Theo's eyes are wide, brimming with tears.

Enough is enough. My blood is racing, hot. I start to sing “Baby Beluga” while I calculate the shots in my head. One, two. One, two. One, two. Can I do it? Am I still good enough? It doesn't matter if I am. They have Theo. And that isn't working for me.

Suddenly, there is a loud pop. I swear I can feel wind from the bullet as it passes by my left ear. In my mind, I see my hand darting out and snatching it in midair, interrupting its intended flight path toward my child. But even I am not that fast. I force my eyes to stay open, to watch what terrible thing is going to happen next.

On the other side of the bridge, ten steps in front of me, the Blind Monk collapses, an explosion of red from his chest. He starts to take Theo down with him but Pauline grabs Theo and, with my flailing son in her arms, starts to run back toward the tunnel. Theo screams but she doesn't stop. Good girl.

I look at the Magnum. Did I fire the shot? I look at Blackford.

“Turns out everyone was right, Sally,” he says. “You are my only liability.” He reaches his free hand around my waist and pulls me toward him, closing whatever space was between us. “And I do so wish it wasn't the case.”

A second later, he shoves me away as if I am as toxic as the Blind Monk suggested. I stumble, regain my footing, and run for land. Time is speeding up again, and I'm running flat-out toward Pauline. I grab Theo from her arms and clutch him to me. I bury my face in his hair.

“Mommy, Mommy,” he says over and over, clinging to my neck. I hear sirens in the distance. Time to go. I stuff Theo into his car seat and fire up the Prius. I don't want to be anywhere near this place when the police arrive. There will be too many questions I don't want to answer.

“You're bleeding,” Pauline points out as we pass two CHP cruisers hauling ass in the opposite direction. I wipe my nose, and my hand comes away smeared with red.

“Shit.” My face hurts, my body hurts. My heart aches. Pauline passes me an old spare diaper stashed in the glove box. I wipe my face and hand it back to her. I can see Theo in the rearview mirror.

“Are you okay, baby?” I ask as brightly as I can manage. He nods, thoughtfully.

“Yes, Mama. It was the man who won't play trucks.”

“It was. Yes.”

“I don't like them. I like my friends.”

“I like your friends too.”

“Okay,” Theo agrees and looks out the window. I don't like to think about what I have done to my child in the course of a single day. I make a deal with myself to confront the guilt later, after I've had a shower and maybe a cocktail or seven.

Pauline sits quietly next to me, folding and unfolding the bloody diaper. I know what she is thinking.

“Was he dead?” she whispers finally. I assume she's talking about Simon, but who knows?

“No. It would take a lot more than that to knock off Simon Still.”

“Doesn't matter. I left him down. I'm done.”

I pat her on the thigh. “Don't worry,” I say. “You did the right thing. And sometimes it works out in the end.” I see a long cold Russian winter in her future, but I don't tell her that.

I also don't tell her that Simon will be in the back of some minivan with tinted windows right now on the way to San Francisco International Airport. There, he will enter a secure waiting area and will be tended to by a doctor who will not even ask his name. After he's patched up, he will board a private plane to Washington, D.C. Once back in the office, it will be business as usual. No one will ever ask him to explain what happened out here. He will simply keep chasing.

“And Blackford? Will they catch him?” Pauline sounds worried.

“He was wearing a climbing harness,” I point out. “The police will find a rope attached to the bridge and not much more. Blackford is probably halfway to Japan by now.” But I'm lying. He has unfinished business. And I will not be able to stop him.

“Your nose is bleeding again,” Pauline says, handing me back the diaper. We ride the rest of the way home in silence.

Theo is sound asleep when I pull into the garage. I pry him out of his seat, and he snuggles into my shoulder, squirming and mumbling. Pauline follows me up the stairs and unlocks the door. Standing in the middle of the foyer is none other than my husband, looking pale. Which is a little unexpected.

“The last time I asked you to pick up something at the dry cleaners,” Will says, “you told me to fuck off. You said that you would raise my child, cook my meals, do my laundry, and make my bed, but you were never going to pick up my dry cleaning come hell or nuclear holocaust. Those were your exact words. Believe me, I remember. So why don't you tell me what is going on?” I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I squeeze Theo a little tighter. Pauline is behind me, completely still. I feel a small trickle of blood run from my nose.

“My God, Lucy. You're bleeding. What the hell is going on?” Will clenches his fists. The muscles along his arms ripple under his shirt.

From here, it could go like this.

I could stand up as tall as possible, fill my lungs like I'm in a yoga class, and on the exhale tell Will that I was a spy for the United States Agency for Weapons of Mass Destruction for nine years. I could tell him my real name, the one I have not heard since I walked through the doors of the USAWMD underground. I could tell him other things, too, things like how it feels to run for your life or to kill someone. I could tell him that the only two people worth living for are right here in this room, and I would do anything to protect them. And I do mean anything.

My confession would most likely be followed by a dark silence. A small, strange smile would flicker across Will's face, one that I have seen before. His eyes would dance and jump, unable to meet mine.

In that pause, that silence, my life would slip away. There would be nothing left but the wreckage.

But it doesn't go like that. Not today anyway. Instead, it goes something like this.

“We went to the playground after I talked to you,” I say finally, wiping the blood on my sleeve. “I took one of those metal swings right on the bridge of my nose. Pauline here was kind enough to drive us home. I was a little dizzy.” Pauline nods vigorously in agreement.

Will looks at me and I force myself to meet his gaze. It's not easy. He knows I am lying, but I don't avert my eyes. Neither of us move. The only sound comes from Theo's muffled snores.

“Well, then,” Will says, dropping his eyes, surrendering the round, “why don't you give me the boy and get some ice for your nose? Pauline, it was nice meeting you.”

Will takes Theo from my arms and sweeps by both of us toward the stairs. I can feel the chill trailing him as he moves away.

Pauline puts her arm on my shoulder. I shrug it off. I don't need sympathy. These have all been my choices.

“It will never end,” I whisper, not necessarily to Pauline.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“I'll get you an ice pack.”

Maybe the icy fist closing around my heart is enough.

I have been sitting on the steps since midnight, wearing the same clothes I almost died in earlier, the blood on my sleeve now brown like dirt. It's a dark night but clear, and I can see the stars twinkling overhead. I pull my down jacket tighter around me and I wait.

A black Mercedes sedan the size of a city block pulls up to the curb. A liveried driver slides from behind the wheel and opens the rear passenger door. Like royalty, Blackford steps out.

“You're waiting,” he says.

“I thought you might decide to double-check whether or not it was the real lily,” I say. “It was.” We both understand the magnitude of what happened on the bridge. The muscles in his face tighten almost imperceptibly. The lily is gone.

“I'm glad you got out of the spy thing, Sally,” he says finally, giving me a cynical smile. “You still have so much hope for humanity.”

And the way he says it, it's like a slap in the face.

“The professor?” I ask.

“His job was to synthesize the lily in the lab,” Blackford says, his voice flat. “He failed. I no longer needed him.”

I close my eyes. Malcolm is dead. I will spend the next week combing the papers for the story, but there will be nothing more than a single line in the missing persons section.

“Before I go, a parting gift,” Blackford says, reaching into his jacket pocket and producing a white envelope, unsealed, which he hands to me. I don't want to take it, but in the end I can't help myself. I pull it open, enough to see a single faded Polaroid and a sheet of paper. There are three people in the photo. Two men and a woman, arms wrapped around each other, laughing at some unknown joke. It is summertime and they are wearing shorts and T-shirts and tennis shoes with no socks. The photograph is yellowed and worn but they still seem to glow with the power of possibility, of an unwritten future.

It is easy to pick out my parents, although I cannot remember ever seeing them so carefree. They are frozen in time, their shine not yet tarnished by the hard work of living.

The third person stoops down beside them, his bony knees bent to ensure his head isn't chopped off in the picture. Without his heavy overcoat covered in new snow, I barely recognize the man at the door, the one I was not supposed to talk to. But as he comes into focus, the pieces start to fall around me like hail. How could I have been so blind? The tall man is Director Gray.

And suddenly I understand that Blackford is not here to kill me because this, what he has just done, is so much more fun.

“Maybe we are not so different after all,” he says, watching my face, waiting to see what it will reveal. But I give him nothing. He will get no satisfaction from my shock.

“Good-bye,” Blackford says. “For now.” As he disappears into the darkness of the car, he murmurs my real name, the one I was born with, over and over like a prayer. I want to shout after him. I want to understand him, but in the end he is simply shades of gray.

And, anyway, it is time for me to go back inside.

There are so many people who contribute to the creation of a book, directly and indirectly, that it seems an impossible task to thank them all. But I'm going to try anyway.

First, thank you to my agent, Leigh Feldman, for reading this manuscript instead of watching the Super Bowl, and agreeing to take it on. Everything flows from that.

A profound thank you to my editor, Barbara Jones, at Hyperion, for her carefully considered ideas and suggestions, all of which made this book infinitely better. I'm indebted to the team at Hyperion for their enthusiasm, experience, and overall brilliance. They have made this process a pleasure on so many levels.

This book never would have seen the light of day without the four degrees of separation of Sheri Belafsky and Emily Birenbaum, and for that I am eternally grateful. I also owe a big thank you to my first readers, Debbie Anderson, Sheri Belafsky, and Peter Belafsky, for being kind and not telling me to go out and get a real job.

Thank you to my parents, Henry and Eva Von Ancken, for a love of storytelling in all its forms, and to my brother, David Von Ancken, for always going first and making the scenes of mayhem far more realistic.

I also have to acknowledge the folks at Peet's Coffee for letting me stay longer than I should and never looking at me like I was crazy for swatting at the flies with my flip-flop.

And of course, thank you to Max and Katie for keeping my feet on the ground and reminding me that a book deal, while very cool, does not excuse me from making lunch and playing Legos. And to Mike, without whom there would be no book and no point. Let's just keep walking through this world and see what happens.

Finally, to my readers out there, I have had so much fun living in this world. I hope you have fun here, too, because in the end that is what it is all about.

To my parents,

Henry and Eva Von Ancken

The memory is framed in the fog of dreams, as if it has no true beginning and no end. I want to reach out and grab her, the little girl with the long hair, snarled and knotted, and the bright blue eyes. I want to make her safe but I can't close the distance. For now, I can do nothing but watch.

She wears a hand-me-down parka that was probably red in its prime but has turned the color of dishwater. It is many sizes too big and her three-year-old body almost disappears in the folds of fabric. In her lap she holds a brown paper sack containing the most important of her worldly possessions.