Spy Mom (68 page)

“What do they call you?” I ask her as we descend.

“Nanny Pauline,” she says, with some hostility. “Simon thought it fit.”

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“Hard to get taken seriously with a name like Nanny Pauline.”

Tell me about it.

The elevator doors open on a dark corridor. Simon Still stands in a circle of light thrown off by a single ceiling bulb. He looks at me with a half smile, his Magnum pointed right at my face.

“Sally,” he says.

“Simon.”

“The door?” he asks.

“I'm just that good,” I say. If I tell him about the kid on eBay he's likely to launch into a speech about the private sector versus the public sector and who's better suited to make really cool spy gear. From experience, I know it's a long speech and our schedule today is a bit too tight to allow for Simon's rambling.

“Admit it,” I say. “You're surprised to see me.”

“Sadly, nothing surprises me,” he says.

“Um, excuse me,” Nanny Pauline interrupts. “Are either of you going to kill me?” There's something about the question that makes me laugh. I'm aware I sound like a lunatic.

“No,” I say, trying to regain my composure. “I can't speak for your boss, though. He's pretty casual when it comes to other people's lives.”

“Pauline, stay calm,” Simon commands. “Everything will be fine.” I hold her against me, my personal human suit of armor. She's softer than I expected. I wonder if she's been to the Ranch yet.

“I wish you wouldn't say that, sir,” Pauline says quietly, “about things being fine.”

“Sally,” Simon says, looking resigned, “the United States government thanked you for your help in making that phone call and then asked you to please stay out of it. That's the way this works.”

“The United States government,” I ask, “or you personally? Are you really willing to sacrifice Gray just to find out what Yoder knows? Have you lost your mind or is the idea that a mere kid held out on you too much to handle?”

Simon grips his gun. The blood drains out of his fingers. It's the only evidence of how furious he is at what I said. If we were alone, I'd be dead by now.

“I think,” he says, “you just questioned my loyalty.”

“You want Yoder to tell you what's in the little black book and I want Yoder to save Gray. I think my reason is better.”

“You never learned the lesson that one person is less important than one million people.”

“I tried,” I say. “It didn't stick.”

“Rogue doesn't suit you,” Simon says.

Yes. This is something I've figured out all on my own.

“So now what?” I ask.

“How about I shoot you, you shoot me, and Pauline here goes somewhere hot and sandy to learn how to be a bit more aggressive,” he suggests.

Pauline hangs her head. I begin to move us closer to Simon, who holds his ground in the dim puddle of light.

“Maybe Yemen,” Simon continues. “You liked Yemen, didn't you Sally?” The only way you can tell he's not made of stone is one index finger tapping ever so gently against his thigh.

“Yemen was lovely,” I say, inching forward. “Gray came for me in Russia, you know, when I was just a baby, younger than Theo is now. I can remember the smell of his coat and the snow and how he seemed very tall. I can't let him die.”

“Sally, I will say it again, your affection for mere individuals is a weakness,” he says.

It's not a weakness. It's the only thing.

“I tried to teach it out of you,” he continues, “but apparently I failed.”

Simon's trigger finger is loose and that lack of tension will give me the split second I need to duck.

“I learned some lessons, Simon,” I say. My left leg shoots out like a bullet and catches Simon somewhere between the knees. His gun fires into the ceiling as he goes down hard. A shower of glass from the light above rains down on us. I land on Simon's stomach with my knee, pinning him to the ground. I still have Pauline around the neck.

“The scissor,” Simon groans. “Nice one.”

“I've been practicing,” I say, “on lawyers.”

A small trickle of blood runs from the back of his head and stains the concrete floor. I drag him a few feet and handcuff his one wrist to an exposed pipe. The handcuffs are covered in a fuzzy leopard print but sometimes a girl has got to make do with what's lying around, unused, in her bedroom.

“I didn't think you were the type,” Simon says, stroking the fuzzy handcuffs. Then his eyes close. I roll him over just a bit. The split on his head is small but head wounds bleed a lot, making a big cakey mess of your hair. It won't take Pauline long to break the silly furry handcuffs but a small head start is all I need.

“I know what's in the black book,” I whisper to Simon. “You're not going to like it. Someone in your organization is a rat.” But his eyes are already closed. My words fall on deaf ears. I notice Pauline is gagging.

“Sorry,” I say, releasing my grip on her throat so she can breathe. She sputters for a few seconds and the color returns to her cheeks.

“Have you been to the Ranch?” I ask. Pauline sits on the floor and rubs the red mark rising on her neck.

“The where?”

“When Simon wakes up, tell him two things. One, he has a rat, and two, you want to go to the Ranch. Trust me. It'll be fun.”

She looks at me skeptically. Okay, maybe fun isn't the right word but definitely useful. If she'd been to the Ranch, I never would have gotten this far.

“Lucy?” Pauline asks tentatively.

“Yes?”

“The last time, when I was babysitting Theo, when I went back to the Underground, no one there believed I'd met you. They thought I was crazy.”

“I'm in kind of a rush here,” I said, pulling the keys from Simon's pocket. “Gotta spring the prisoner and all.”

“Well, before you go, can I get a quick picture of us as proof, to show the guys back in D.C.?”

You have got to be kidding me.

As we step out into the daylight, Yoder does a solid imitation of a vampire and recoils as if he is at risk of bursting into flames. His wrists are red and raw from where the cuffs dug into his flesh. I hand him my sunglasses and a Clif Bar. Yoder murmurs a thank you.

The Prius is right where I left it. I shove Yoder into the passenger seat and slam the door. As we make our way toward the bay, the car is silent except for the deep rattle coming from Yoder's lungs. I find it hard to believe he contracted tuberculosis in the short time since I saw him last. More likely he has seasonal allergies or a cold. The mother in me wants to put him to bed with a dose of Tylenol and a bowl of chicken soup. The spy in me just wants to get this over with.

I park in the small lot on the north side of the San Francisco Ferry Building. The attendant explains in detail how I should go about getting my parking ticket validated but I don't think I'm going to have time to catch even a quick bite, and that makes me sad. There's a place here that makes the world's most amazing fish tacos. You can sit outside and eat them while gazing up at the wretched Bay Bridge traffic. It's the kind of experience that makes you grateful to be where you are rather than wishing you were somewhere else. Theo and I are regular customers although he prefers to stick with the chips.

While the Ferry Building is in fact a place where you can catch a ferry, that is really inconsequential. Its long main hallway and side corridors are a marketplace overflowing with every sort of culinary delight imaginable. From exotic mushrooms to the perfect cappuccino to avocado ice cream to Vietnamese food so good you'd sell your mother up the river for it in a heartbeat. It's also overflowing with tourists from all corners of the globe. And that's exactly what I want, a reliably dense crowd. Witnesses. The last time I made the mistake of setting up a meeting in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure this time is going to actually go any better but I'm proving I can learn from my mistakes. At least some of them.

I hold Yoder under his arm and drag him along with me. He's anxious, his eyes darting every which way. His skin seems to jump and twitch like a cat with a bad case of fleas. I get a whiff of anticipation off him that doesn't seem to fit the situation. If anything, he should be scanning for an opportunity to escape. As we maneuver through the tourists, my cell phone rings. It's Will.

“Hi,” he says. “I was just thinking about the interview this morning.”

I can barely remember the interview. It seems to have occurred a lifetime ago.

“I thought it went fine,” I say, scanning the crowd.

“Where are you?”

“Downtown,” I say. “I have a doctor's appointment later. Theo is with your folks.”

The silence is not to be ignored.

“They seemed really happy,” I go on. I hold Yoder around the waist as if we're lovers, me in the role of cradle-robber and him in the role of baby.

“Good for you, Lucy,” he says eventually, the shock of my revelation wearing off. “I'm glad you feel like you can trust them.”

Oh, I don't trust them. I'm just desperate and a desperate woman will do strange things. A man approaches us. He could be a tourist or he could be part of Chemical Claude's pack of wolves.

“I have to go,” I say. “If I'm running late, order pizza for dinner. You know how doctor's offices can be.”

“Sure,” he says. I hit End and stick the phone in my pocket with my car keys. In my other pocket is my gun and I make sure Yoder can feel it in his ribs. But he doesn't care. He stares at the man approaching us. I guess he's more of the wolf variety and less of the tourist.

The man blocks our way, grinning. The other visitors flow around him to both sides as if he were a boulder in the middle of a stream.

“You come with me,” he says.

“Where are we going?”

“We don't trade in here,” he says. “We trade out there.” He points to the piers.

“No,” I say.

“If we bring your guy in here, we all spend the night in the slammer.”

He has a point. Gray can't be looking his best right now.

“Let's go,” I say and follow the man out of the Ferry Building.

Moored to a pier south of where we stand is a gleaming white yacht with the name
Everest
painted on the side in enormous black letters. The “E” is designed to look like the mountain herself. A rubber-coated ramp runs from a floating dock to the deck above. Our guide gestures we're to board the vessel. This is just what I was hoping to avoid.

“Forget it,” I say. “We're staying right here.” Next to me, Yoder hums to himself. He seems oddly happy and relaxed all of a sudden. I wonder where Blackford is and why, if he insists on meddling in my life, he can't choose now to do it.

The man points to a turret on the yacht. Sticking out from a window on the turret is the barrel of a gun and it's aimed directly at me.

“Get on the boat.”

I have a number of choices here. The first is, I can scream for help. The second is, I can jump in the Bay and swim to Hawaii. The third is, I can do as they say and hope that everyone is still alive come dinnertime. I choose number three, cross my fingers, and board the boat.

The moment Yoder and I are on deck, the ramp comes up and the engines roar to life. The yacht backs smoothly away from the dock. I reconsider the option of swimming to Hawaii. This has all the telltale signs of a disaster in the making. And of course as soon as I think that, it gets worse.

Standing on deck above us is Chemical Claude himself. He wears a jaunty red beret and a thick matching scarf and looks as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

“Welcome aboard the
Everest
, Sally,” he booms. “In a way, I named her for you.”

Somehow the hat and the scarf and the name of the boat really make me want to kill him. I reach around to my pocket, pull out the Colt, and aim it at his head. Instantly, three machine gun barrels are pointing at mine.

“So emotional,” Chemical Claude says as he slides down a set of stairs and comes to a stop right in front of me. He taps me on the head with a gloved finger. “You should think before you act. But I know you have other talents. Languages you shouldn't know but somehow do because you're so very curious. Remember what happened to George when he was so curious? The difference is, you don't appear to have a man with a yellow hat to save you. Now give me the gun.”

I hand it to him and he tosses it overboard directly into the Bay. Well, there goes that.

Tucked into a leather shoulder holster, he carries a SIG P226 handgun. This particular gun bears a “Blackwater USA” logo on the slide.

“It's a nice gun,” he says. “A trophy. I won't tell you the details of how it came to be in my possession.”

“I didn't ask,” I say. “Where's Gray?” But I have lost Chemical Claude's attention. He has turned his eyes to Yoder, and they're hard eyes, dark little pieces of coal in a snowman head.

“You stayed too long in Vegas,” Claude says. “You probably lost all your money and came home with a case of herpes from that girl. That was not part of the plan.”

“Neither was my year with Simon Still,” Yoder spits back. He shakes with apparent fury, his thin fists balled up and ready to strike.

“Plan?”

“Yes,” Chemical Claude says to me. “The difference is I follow through. Richard here, he apparently likes to freelance. Lock her up until we get to the island.”

As Chemical Claude's henchmen drag me across the deck of the yacht, I remember something Simon once told me. The obvious answer, he said, is usually the right one. And the right one is usually the one directly in front of your face.

“We think people are so clever, coming up with complicated schemes and lies and plans,” Simon lectured as we walked the endless corridors to Director Gray's office. “But they're not. For the most part, they're hopeless, struggling to overcome the simplest complications. Imagine the harm they could do if they were thinking people. If they were smart. We owe the hopeless morons a huge debt of gratitude.”