by L. T. Ryan
The statement hadn’t seemed odd at the time. But now—
Oh, Haeli. What are you up to now?
41
Sweat streamed down Blake’s glazed forehead. It dripped from his nose and chin onto the conveyor belt below his feet. Under the wig, his hair was drenched. But from an onlooker’s perspective, his seventies quaff was bone dry. The only outward explanation, a rare forehead-sweating condition known as ‘Get-this-crap-off-me’ disease.
At seventy-seven degrees, it was a typical June day in Paris. But clad in two layers of heavy clothing and a half-pound of someone else’s hair, even the mild French climate became sweltering.
But it wouldn’t be long before he would have to ditch the getup, anyway. In order to use their passports to clear security, they were going to have to look like their pictures. In other words, they were going to have to look like their fugitive-selves.
First, he would have to find Haeli. Then, before pulling the trigger, they would make sure the coast was clear. It would be a calculated risk, only to be acted upon at the last possible second.
Of course, all of this was assuming Haeli hadn’t run into any trouble in the city. She had set the time and place of their meeting before sneaking off. He figured it meant she knew what she was doing. Or at least that she had every intention of showing up.
Still, Blake hated the idea of her being out there alone. He couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why she’d run off with no explanation. Was she still trying to protect him? Limit his exposure? Or was there more to the story than she was letting on? Whatever the case, she must have had her reasons.
For the moment, he operated under the most hopeful premise. That she believed they would both be safer if they travelled separately. If he stretched it, he could almost justify the thinking. Having already been spotted together twice, the authorities would be looking for a couple. And she probably knew he would have shot down the idea as soon as she suggested it.
Having left the train station, she’d have to rely on buses or taxis to get to the airport. After their experience in Zurich, he hoped she’d avoid the taxi at all costs.
For him, there hadn’t been any issues. After searching every corner of Gare de Lyon, without being further accosted by law enforcement, he felt confident staying within the commuter train system. He hopped on the A line to Chatelet Les Halles, where he was then able to transfer to the B line, a direct route to Charles de Gaulle Airport, Terminal 2.
Once on site, it was a short jump on the light rail to Terminal 1 where, if all went well, he would meet Haeli at the Lufthansa ticketing counter.
Now, as he rode the escalator from the shopping level to the departure level, he had a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the terminal. Through tall split-panel windows surrounding him, he scanned the floors for a blonde bombshell. There were a few candidates, but none of them were Haeli.
The architecture of the terminal was bold. An enormous ring, the concentric floors looked out into the open air core, crisscrossed by belt-escalators wrapped in glass tubes. From the perimeter, it looked like a giant hamster cage. From inside one of the tubes, it was like being inside a giant jet turbine. Which, he figured, was the intended effect.
More than anything, the design meant exposure. Any given point, visible from every other. Until they were past security and at the gate, they would be in the constant public eye.
When the escalator dumped him off onto level three, he circled around until he saw the familiar Lufthansa logos on the wall behind the counter. A line of people carting rolling suitcases and small children snaked through a maze of nylon straps. But no Haeli.
He checked his watch. Ten minutes to four.
Pacing the length of the Lufthansa section, he turned his focus to the wall of windows. He watched the hordes of people being pushed through the hamster tubes. He checked each floor for a flash of blonde hair and a tight blue dress. When he was done, he started over again.
Nine minutes to four.
There was a good chance she was already there. Like he had done, she was probably getting the lay of the land. Watching from a distance until she was sure the meeting spot was safe. He made himself visible in hopes she’d see him waiting there.
Eight minutes to four.
Seven.
Six.
Then, across the expanse and on the same level, he saw a woman. A blonde woman in a blue dress with her back to the glass. He stopped pacing and pressed his forehead against the window.
“Turn around.”
As if she could sense him, she turned.
Haeli.
Blake gave an inconspicuous wave. She didn’t see him.
Her head swayed back and forth as if she were scanning each floor, the same way he had been. He stood firm. Eventually, she’d see him.
Her expression changed. Emoted recognition. Only it wasn’t one of delight, like he had expected. And it wasn’t directed at him.
He followed her gaze up to the fourth floor, a quarter of the way around the circumference. There, he saw two men. One with a walkie talkie to his mouth, the other pointing down toward Haeli.
Blake squinted. He knew this man. Even from a distance, it was unmistakable.
Levi Farr.
He wanted to yell out. To warn her. “It’s a trap, Haeli. Run.” But she wouldn’t have heard him. And based off the look on her face and the fact that she had vanished from her original spot, she already knew.
By the time Blake found her again, she was pushing her way into the escalator tube. Packed with travelers, the conveyer slowly moved her toward the second level.
“No, Haeli. Turn around,” he said to himself out loud.
What she likely couldn’t see from her vantage point were the uniformed men converging around the bottom of the tube. The moving belt was bringing her right to them.
He banged on the glass. “Turn around!” But there was no way she would hear him.
The suspended escalators couldn’t have been the only way to get between floors. There must be emergency stairwells. He looked around. Nothing stood out.
She was halfway there.
At the top, several more men gathered. Some uniformed, some in plain clothes. They talked amongst themselves.
She was pinned. Trapped in a hamster tube with no avenue of escape.
Above, Levi Farr looked on. He was still nodding and pointing. His finger following Haeli’s path.
With no time or means to get to her, there was nothing Blake could do but watch the scene unfold below. If she could just see them waiting for her. If she would just turn around and come back to the third, he could get to her.
He watched as she neared the bottom. He willed her to be ready.
Then her head jerked. She glanced up toward the departure level. Toward the Lufthansa ticket counter. Toward Blake.
Blake waved his arms above his head.
She looked down, then back up. Their eyes connected.
“Go back up.” He mouthed the words while swinging his arms and pointing. “Go. Back. Up.”
Haeli looked away again. Then she turned and started moving.
“Good. Good. Yes. Go.”
She fought against the motion of the belt, pushing people out of the way as she inched her way back toward the third level.
Blake took off and began sprinting around the perimeter. If he could reach the top of the ramp before she did, he could create a diversion. He could try to overwhelm their forces. Give her a chance to escape.
Haeli moved faster as the density of the people thinned.
Blake’s legs burned. He wasn’t going to make it.
As the windowpanes blurred by, he could see her reaching the top of the tube.
Hang on. Almost there.
The silent movie played out beyond the glass, each frame flickering at an increasing speed. A nickelodeon, cranked by a turbocharged engine.
The men pounced. Arms and legs flailed.
No!
Blake rounded the corner
and froze.
Ten men and women had descended on her. More were coming out of the woodwork. Fifteen. Twenty.
She was on her stomach. Three knees jammed into her back. Her arms were wrenched high behind her and her cheek was glued to the floor.
One of the men, wearing a suit with a laminated card dangling from a lanyard around his neck, had snatched her purse and was rummaging through it.
His mind swirled. He would fight. All of them if he had to.
No, he would take the blame. Confess to the bombing. Trade himself for her.
He had to do something, and fast.
Pushing against the weight of the men piled on top of her, Haeli managed to turn her face to the other cheek.
She looked at Blake. Past the bushy mustache and the sweaty tweed suit, her eyes connected with his soul. Barely perceptible, she shook her head and mouthed a word. “No.”
His stomach cramped and his eyes welled. He knew what she was saying. And worse, he knew she was right.
There was nothing he could do to help. Not then. Fighting was as futile as falling on the sword. The most he could hope from a confession was to include himself as an accomplice. But that wouldn’t help her. It wouldn’t help anyone.
He nodded. A flood of emotion came over him. He would die for her. But dying wouldn’t free her. If he were to be of any use, if he were to somehow fix it, he’d need to walk away. He’d need to leave her to the wolves. He knew it, and she knew it, too.
Looking her dead in the eyes, he sent his thoughts to her. “Be strong. I will come for you.” He put his hand over his heart.
She smiled.
Blake swallowed hard, struggling to keep his emotions contained.
Then, conjuring every last bit of strength, he backed away. Slowly melding into the curious crowd of onlookers until their locked gaze was broken.
He lowered his head and made his way to the opposite side of the loop, fighting and losing against the compulsion to glance back at her.
From the Lufthansa ticket counter, he watched as they lifted Haeli off the ground and escorted her down the escalator.
A floor above, Levi Farr was gone.
He must have seen the news. Offered his help. Maybe even his resources. He knew her better than anyone. He had anticipated her movements. Personally picked her out of the crowd.
Blake imagined his smug self-satisfaction. It disgusted him. And it wouldn’t stand.
He wished he could touch her. Smell her. Kiss her. Hear her laugh.
Why? Why did she have to do it? If she had never touched the diamonds in the first place, she would be with him. She would be free.
In the end, it had all been for nothing. The diamonds were gone. She was gone.
And he was alone.
On top of everything else, there was still a task at hand. He needed to get out. To see the plan through. For Haeli’s sake.
Blake made his way to the restroom. At the sink, he wet a paper towel and wiped the coating of sweat from his face. He waited for the man next to him to dry his hands and leave.
Peeling the mustache from his lip, he stared at himself in the mirror.
This isn’t over.
From this day forward, he wouldn’t waste one single second. Haeli would be free. And Levi Farr would pay.
If it was the last thing he ever did.
42
“If this is a joke. It’s a bad one,” Fezz said.
“I wish it were.” Blake hadn’t been smiling. In fact, at this point, he wasn’t even capable of it.
“I thought we were coming here to have a few drinks and a couple of laughs,” Khat said. “Ya know, to celebrate a successful mission. Then you show up and tell us Haeli’s been arrested and is gonna spend her life in prison?”
“No. I’m telling you I need your help to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Fezz rubbed his cheeks. “How do you figure we’re gonna do that, huh? This is bad, Mick. You know she’ll be charged with terrorism. Not to mention a couple counts of murder. Khat’s right. She’s probably looking at life, if not worse.”
“Not necessarily,” Griff chimed in. “Switzerland’s criminal justice is super lenient. Served concurrently, she could be out in fifteen or twenty years.”
Blake drove his fist into the table. The empty glasses clattered. “I’m not leaving her rotting in prison for the next twenty years.”
“Calm down, Mick.” Fezz said. “You know we’ll do whatever we can.”
“I just can’t wrap my head around why she stole the guy’s diamonds.” Griff directed his attention toward peeling the label away from the bottle of Miller Light. “And then to risk so much to keep them. Why not just walk away? Never pegged her as the greedy type.”
“There was no walking away, Griff. And she wasn’t being greedy. She did it for us. The team. She believed in the idea. Going private. Off the grid. Helping people who had nowhere else to turn. She was so excited to tell you guys you could put in your papers. I think she was just proud to be the one to make it possible.”
“It’s a damn good thing we didn’t,” Khat said. “We’d be screwed right now. I don’t think the Swiss government’s too eager to share the proceeds.”
“That’s not the point. Her heart was in the right place. And to make matters worse, if the diamonds hadn’t been seized, we would have had the resources to get her out. One way or the other. I’ve got a couple million in investments, and I’ll use every last penny of it if I have to. But I don’t think it’s gonna cut it.”
Fezz wrapped his hand around the back of Blake’s neck. “Look, Mick. I know where her head was. And we appreciate it, we do. We’ve been talkin’ about it a lot, and we all agree, we’d jump ship as soon as it’s possible. We believe in the idea as much as she does. But we’ve gotta be smart about it. We’ve all gotta live.”
“I know.” Blake held out his fists and squeezed. “But it was right there. Within reach. We were going to start fresh. And I was going to propose—”
“Wait, you were gonna what?” Griff scoffed. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious, Griff. She’s the one, I know she is.”
“Don’t listen to Griff,” Fezz said. “I think it’s great. Congratulations.”
Congratulations.
A ridiculous notion. The woman he loves, ripped away from him. His home compromised. His life’s work, destroyed. And then, there was Levi Farr.
“I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”
“Who, Sokolov?” Fezz asked.
“No. Levi. I’m a fool for thinking he was just gonna go away. He’s the reason Haeli was captured. He was there, in Paris. He made it a point to be there in person.”
Fezz shook his head. “I don’t mean to be a jerk but—”
“Another round, gentlemen.” Arty leaned the tray against the table and offloaded his payload. “This one’s on the house. Happy to see you all back in one piece.”
“Maybe we should make this a new tradition,” Khat said. “Before and after, then you’ll get to look at our ugly mugs twice as much.”
“Good with me.” Arty shook the tray, letting the residual liquid spill to the floor to be sopped up by the layer of peanut shell dust, and headed back behind the bar.
“Such a good dude,” Griff said. “We really should come here more.”
“What were you gonna say, Fezz?”
“I was gonna say, as much as I hate Levi Farr, we can’t really put this on him. Yeah, he went out of his way to stick it to you, but it’s part of the game. We always know the risks. Look at Vegas. How we’re not all in prison, I’ll never figure out. Haeli knew the risk when she detonated that bomb. She decided to accept the risk. Don’t take that away from her.”
Blake let the words sit for a moment. Fezz was right, he wouldn’t make her into a victim. She was strong, and she knew what she was doing. He could see it in her eyes, right there on the floor of Terminal 2. She was at peace with the consequences.
It wa
s funny, really. He had this drive to protect her. But it was the other way around. She pushed him to be better. She put herself in harm’s way to keep him out of it. And in the end, she had separated herself from him to protect him. She sacrificed herself.
“So what’s the first step, Mick?” Griff said.
“Research. And I’m gonna need your help with that part. I had to hit the button.”
“The button?”
“Yep. It’s all gone. Starting over from scratch. Which is going to make this a whole lot harder.”
“You’ll rebuild, Mick,” Griff said. “Bigger and better.”
“I will. But not here. I put the house on the market.”
“You’re leaving?” Fezz asked. “The bombshells keep comin’. Where you goin’? Switzerland?”
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing Switzerland again soon, but no. I’m looking at the Newport area. Rhode Island. Been thinking about it for a while. Just need to get away from D.C. I can look in on Lucy occasionally. Regroup, recenter, that kinda thing.”
“Man, you really liked it up there,” Khat said. “I’m gonna have to go check this place out.”
“It’s like a different world. Ya know, the funny part is, when it looked like we had the resources, I had this vision of going to Rhode Island and building a base of operations. There’s this house out on a peninsula, near a lighthouse. It was a military installation, some kind of communication command, but it was built to blend in. It got me thinking. What if we built a state of the art facility with the same concept? Just another waterfront estate, from the outside. Right? We could have lived in the lap of luxury but have everything we’d need to operate. It’d be perfect. Underground bunkers, high tech security, boat access. Hidden in plain sight.”
“Damn.” Khat laughed. “Wayne freakin’ manor. Count me in. I’ll go to Switzerland and get the diamonds back myself.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that,” Blake said.
Fezz raised his glass. “How about this? A toast. To things that could have been.”
Blake raised his glass, but he didn’t know why. A lot of things could have been, but weren’t.
“How about, to bringing Haeli home?” Blake said.