Spy Mom (69 page)

Simon didn't care if I answered. My job on that day was to walk with him so he didn't end up talking to himself all the way to Gray's office, thus appearing totally batshit. Once we arrived at the office, I would turn around and trudge back to the Underground. I was merely the inbound entertainment.

“So if all the evidence points to party A having just purchased a pile of nuclear componentry then …” He turned to me to fill in the rest of the sentence.

“Then they're probably going to build a weapon?”

“Yes! You're a genius, Sally. You'll go far.” These exchanges always served to remind me that I wasn't necessarily one of the morons Simon was talking about but I was damn close. Yet every once in a while, Simon had a point.

“Oh, no,” I say. My wrists are bound and I'm locked in a cabin down below deck. It's so obvious it's almost impossible to believe. “How could I have missed this? What was I doing?” The answer is easy. I was busy playing LEGOs.

It's the code, stupid. Chemical Claude is after me.

Setting up Yoder to be taken in by the Americans, kidnapping Gray, forcing me to show myself in order to get him back, it's all part of a much more complicated plan that has been in the works for some time now, probably since the Louvre, when Claude found out I was still alive and pretending to be a civilian. It makes me shudder to imagine what he went through in an attempt to find me after that, my only protection being that the United States hides people better than anyone. In retrospect, I should have drowned that Frenchwoman in the toilet and enjoyed the Degas.

Blackford's revelation that Director Gray could be used to motivate me was the last piece of the puzzle. Chemical Claude finally had a way to flush me from my hiding place.

Chemical Claude's goal is simple. He wants me to translate the code in his little black book. I am his Rosetta stone.

Through the tiny porthole, Angel Island looms off our bow, shrouded in wispy fog. The largest of the Bay Area islands, on a cold and windy day such as today, Angel Island is likely to be an empty and isolated 740 acres in the middle of a metropolitan region with seven million people. At this hour of the day, with the last ferry already departed, it'll be me and the lunatics. Why does this keep happening to me? Am I being punished for being a warlord or an independent voter in a former life?

As the yacht swings around, I catch a glimpse of what's most certainly our destination. Right on the shore of the island sits a three-story, faded red warehouse. The water laps practically to its door. A partially collapsed wooden pier looms in the shadows directly in front of it. All the windows are boarded up. What a perfect place to perpetrate a crime. I hear an anchor splash down.

The door to my cabin pushes open and the barrel of a gun attached to a very large man pokes through. There's a grunt I interpret to mean “Please follow me topside. Thank you.”

Seated in a rubber raft bobbing next to the
Everest
is Chemical Claude. He has a fleece blanket draped over his shoulders and an odd grin on his face. Next to him sits Yoder, looking peevish.

“I BASE jump the KL Tower in Kuala Lumpur each year,” Claude says as I climb down into the raft. Yoder rolls his eyes.

“Not this story again,” he says.

“You shut up,” Chemical Claude says to him, turning to me. “It's a thrill to jump, the rush of the wind in your ears, the cold on your face. Such bodily freedom seems almost divine.”

“That's nice,” I say.

“I want you to know that it's awesome. But I anticipate I'm going to enjoy this, too.”

Why is it these villain types can't seek out reasonable entertainment like the rest of us? See a movie, have dinner at a fancy restaurant, go fishing? Why do they act as if we're all still living in ancient Rome?

We're completely enveloped in the fog. A few seagulls bob in the water beside us. All sound is muffled.

“I can't believe I thought you deserved a second chance,” I say to Yoder. “I even took you to a play-off game and bought you popcorn.” He keeps his eyes forward but I see a tremor at the corner of his mouth.

Chemical Claude gazes across the water at the lonely warehouse. A person stands on the narrow stretch of beach out front, legs planted firmly. Her pants are rolled up to her ankles and her dark hair blows in the wind. She's been waiting on our arrival. The little raft bounces through the waves and gradually evens out as we enter the protective zone of shore.

“She has a son,” Yoder says, out of the blue. Chemical Claude sits up straighter and actually looks surprised. His eyebrows shoot directly up toward his hairline before he can regain control of them. I wait to see what will happen next.

“Didn't know, did you?” Yoder continues, sticking the needle in a little deeper and wiggling it around just for fun. “Your pal Blackford knew but he didn't tell you. That's gotta chafe. The kid is actually kind of cute, if a little bit spoiled.”

My eyelid twitches furiously. Is it because Yoder just outed me as a mom or because he obviously thinks I lack discipline as a parent? Whatever the reason, I have lost control of the eyelid. I rest a finger on it to calm the madness, keenly aware of the shotgun pointed at my chest. Chemical Claude's lips form a tight little line.

“You paid Blackford all that money for information and he held out on you,” Yoder says. “I told you, you can't trust a man like that, but do you listen to me? No. She knows the code. If she won't do it, just snatch the kid.” I want to leap across the boat and squeeze the life out of Yoder with my hands but before I can get too far along in that fantasy, the raft runs aground on the beach. Chemical Claude and Yoder each grab an arm and toss me out of the boat and onto the sand where I land, face first, right at the feet of Ayushi, all grown up.

For a moment, I think I might be dreaming, that maybe the stress has finally overwhelmed my resources and all the circuits in my brain have gone haywire, leaving me to live out my life as a blithering idiot. As a blithering idiot, I would certainly not have to contemplate how it is I came to be here, facedown in the sand on an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, looking up at Ayushi, whom I'd assumed died at the hands of Chemical Claude many years ago.

Chemical Claude watches me closely, curious about the effect seeing her will have. With an air of ownership, he slides an arm around Ayushi's waist and pulls her toward him. He kisses her long and hard and from my position on the ground I cannot tell if this makes her happy or not. What it does to me defies description.

Ayushi is tall and willowy with miles of dark hair blowing in a tornado around her lovely face. The little girl who saved my life in Nepal is no longer.

“Ayushi,” I say. It's the first time I've said her name out loud since I fell in the river and was swept away from her. It comes out as a grateful prayer. Ayushi stares down at me with a curious expression, the same one she wore while sitting on my bed in the Hotel Kathmandu.

“She has worked out very well for me and I have you to thank for that,” Chemical Claude says, pulling me to my feet by the back of my jacket. “Now, let's go and see your father, shall we?”

The building is old and concrete, a relic from the days when this was a military fort guarding San Francisco from Confederate invaders. There's no glass in the windows and an icy wind blows through with impunity. There are several folding chairs scattered across the vast open space but little else. In a far corner, guarded by two husky men with guns, sits Director Gray, loosely tied to a chair with nylon rope. His chin rests on his chest, which rises and falls ever so slightly. He wears a torn button-down shirt that was once white but is now stained with streaks of blood, dried to the color of rust. His ripped suit trousers expose a deep wound on his right thigh that will make it difficult for him to walk. His feet are bare. From across the great empty room, he's nothing more than a beaten old man, and if he was ever a master of the free world, those days are now just a memory. I feel something break off inside of me and float freely in my bloodstream. It's a stripped-down version of what I feel for Theo but with jagged, unfinished edges.

“Don't do it, Sally,” Gray says, without raising his head. “No matter what happens.”

That's easy enough for him to say, but they kind of have me over a barrel here. I don't translate for them and they kill Gray. I don't translate for them and they kill Theo. I don't translate for them and they kill me. The order in which they choose to proceed doesn't matter, as the results will be the same. Dead, dead, and dead.

“This sucks,” I say.

“Sit,” Chemical Claude commands, pulling the small black notebook that has caused all these problems from his inside pocket and shoving me onto a metal folding chair. “You translate and everyone walks away. I'm a man of my word.”

“No, you're not,” I say.

“Well, I could be if I choose to,” he says with a sniff.

“That's reassuring,” I say. “Thanks.”

Claude grabs me by the neck. His strong fingers dig deep into my windpipe. I see funny little stars swirling around his head, as if he wears a halo.

“You'll read now,” he says. Not seeing an alternative, I nod in agreement and he releases me. I gasp. Claude slams the book into my hands. On the upper right-hand corner is engraved the number 17. He's been filling these little black books for quite some time, waiting for me to show up and read them to him.

I flip open the book. Inside is page after page of code, recorded in pencil, revealing the secret workings of the USAWMD.

It's not complete; big sections are missing but I'm shocked at how current it is. The latest entry is from a mere two days ago, which confirms Simon has a sewer-sized rat in his organization.

Chemical Claude circles me, running his gun along my cheek and through my hair. The barrel is cold and I shudder despite my best efforts not to.

“Finally, the means to bring you down,” he says, half to me and half to Gray, “to put an end to your ridiculous crusade to save the world. If any of you paid closer attention, you'd discover the world doesn't want to be saved.”

“I don't think it wants to be blown up, either,” I say. In response, he whacks me on the head with the butt of his gun. I see a brief flash of light and colors and my eyes water.

If I had a gun, which I don't, could I even kill all these people? Claude, the two men guarding Gray, Yoder. Wait a minute. Where is Yoder? Not one minute before he was standing behind Ayushi, but now he's gone and no one else seems to have noticed.

“It's all useless, you know,” mumbles Gray. “That code is false. The real code never gets recorded.” Gray looks worse up close. His parchment skin is papery and blueish, as if the blood in his body is sticking close to his heart. I notice his long toes and I gasp in horror. Those are my feet, my ugly awkward feet. Finally someone to blame.

“It was created to mislead people like you,” Gray continues. “People who aren't too smart.”

Chemical Claude doesn't like Gray's commentary. He backhands him across the face but Gray barely winces.

“You lie, old man,” Chemical Claude snarls.

“Just because you believe it,” Gray says, “doesn't make it true.” Chemical Claude hits him again.

“Wait a minute,” I interrupt, hoping to draw Claude's wrath in my direction. “If world domination is what you're after, and I think we're all in agreement on that point, why don't you just have him translate the code?” I say, gesturing to Gray. “He's the one who wrote it, after all.”

“Do you think us fools?” Chemical Claude shrieks. “Gray and I are enemies, yes, but we're both from an age of respectability, when a man giving his word stood for something.” I have no idea where he's going with this but as long as he prattles on about old-school techniques and respectability, he isn't killing anyone.

“You kids think you can do anything you want and get away with it,” he says, standing over me. “Just change your minds when it suits you, change sides like you change your socks. It's reprehensible.” He walks over to Gray and places a hand lightly on his bruised shoulder.

“It's clear this man would die before revealing the code. There's nothing he cares about more than his country.” For a second, I think he might give Gray a big wet kiss on the lips but instead he turns back to me and says, “You are not that man. You won't be able to hold out while watching your father scream for his life. You'll translate the code. Girls are like that.”

“He won't scream,” I correct. “He might sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner' but he won't scream. And you, Claude Chevalier, are nothing like him.”

“Well,” Claude says, leaning down to whisper directly into my ear, “I imagine your son will scream if your father won't. Now read.”

My blood pressure surges and it takes every ounce of my willpower not to reach out and strangle Claude, consequences be damned. The only thing that stops me is a gentle pressure on my shoulder, a small hand holding me in place.

Ayushi stands very close to me. The smell of her laundry detergent is familiar and I'm suddenly overcome by a sharp longing for home. I want to be sitting at my kitchen table, building wampa snow creatures out of LEGOs with Theo.

The pressure I feel against my shoulder turns out not to be Ayushi holding me in my seat. Rather, it is the butt of a SIG P226, barely visible peeking out from the long sleeve of her oversized down jacket. She must have lifted it off him when he hugged her on the beach. Quickly, as Claude fumbles with a recording device, I take the gun and slide it into the pocket of my fleece jacket. Ayushi gives me a small smile and squeezes my shoulder.

“Sally,” she whispers. “Sally.”

In all my time at the Agency, I never knew if I was good enough. No one ever slapped me on the back and said, “Nice work.” I never got a gold star on my report card or a year-end bonus based on outstanding performance. But eventually, you have to grow up and judge yourself. And today, right now in fact, I decide I might just be okay. Maybe not the best there ever was but good enough.