Double Deal

by John M. Green

  ‘It does, yes, but I never had any doubts,’ said Axel. ‘Ron, you?’

  Silence.

  Axel pressed. ‘You do agree, Ron?’

  Tori adored Axel.

  ‘Ron?’

  ‘Er, right, sure.’ He took so long to say it that Tori was imagining Axel had roused him from a daydream where he was enjoying himself by ripping the wings off angels.

  ‘You’re positive, Ron. About Tori?’

  ‘Positive. Yes, absolutely.’

  She loved Axel.

  The waiter came over, this time bringing dessert and decent drinks. The server put the peppermint tea in front of Tori, the café solo before Frank and, between them, the crema Catalana to share. After he left, Frank swapped the cups. Tori sniffed at the dessert. It looked like a crème brûlée but the nose was more lemon and cinnamon than the French version’s vanilla. ‘Axel, can you give us a minute? We need to take in some fuel.’

  Tori cracked her spoon though the top crust of caramelised sugar, took a scoop of the dessert and dolloped it onto her tongue. Heaven.

  Frank did the same and gave one of those ethereal eyes-closed, deep-inhaling grins that universally translated as bliss. ‘Did Einstein have a formula for this, too?’ he whispered.

  She took another mouthful.

  ‘We’re good to continue,’ said Frank, taking his second portion.

  Axel ran through what he lightly tossed off as ‘a few random ideas’, typical Axel-speak for an exhaustively thought-through inventory of next steps. In Tori’s experience, Axel and random were never in the same room.

  One key question he raised was who should go to the police, since no one was the perfect choice. Frank shut down Axel’s first idea, that it should be Thatcher, before Tori could get the spoon out of her mouth.

  Ron suggested Tori. As he would, she thought. Frank was shaking his head and was about to say ‘no’ when Axel himself vetoed it, ‘Believed to be armed and dangerous … that’s what the news report said, Ron. If a police officer sees Tori and doesn’t shoot her, it will be 50,000 volts of taser with questions later, next decade probably. If she’s lucky.’

  To Tori it seemed Axel had articulated the precise reason why Mada had suggested her in the first place.

  The only viable choice was Frank, even if the police would be sceptical of a man who’d slipped away from the hotel against their wishes. Plus, he could take them the bloodied polka dot dress that Tori had swiped from Bar Canona. It was still in her bag, wrapped in plastic together, she hoped, with some of Fake Tori’s DNA.

  The plan was to divide and, hopefully, rule. Which meant that once Thatcher had packaged up the evidence, Axel and Ron would run the Greenlanders through it and Frank would take it to police headquarters.

  Tori’s role, said Axel, was to lay low.

  ‘That’s the one thing I can’t do,’ she said, her voice flat.

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’ Frank spluttered.

  ‘Why can’t you, Tori?’ asked Axel.

  Frank looked at her, horror all over his face. ‘Axel, she’s planning to track down the perpetrator herself. The Voice. Tori, he almost killed you in that explosion, and he came pretty close at the car show. He might not fail next time.’

  She was toying with a sachet of sugar.

  ‘Third time lucky,’ said Mada ambiguously, though Tori knew what he really meant.

  87

  Axel was insistent. ‘It’s the job of the police, not you, to go after The Voice, and they will surely do that once Francis enlightens them.’

  Tori was not so confident. ‘How long will it take before someone high enough in the chain of command has the guts to clear me? Me, the person every set of eyeballs in this city saw committing unmentionable acts. Will the cops take hours? What if it’s days? Or weeks?’

  For Tori, this was about more than clearing her name. Part of it was justice – to see the bastard who’d done all this behind bars. Another part, one that Axel and Frank might not understand, was retribution. Not just for the murders, though there was certainly that, but for making Tori doubt herself, for mind-fucking her into thinking she might actually have committed those terrible acts of evil.

  It was also about how Tori would live the rest of her life. If he escaped whatever net the police eventually got around to throwing out, he could do it again. She’d never feel safe. Every street she walked down, she’d be peering over her shoulder. In a supermarket aisle, in an airport, a train station. She’d constantly be worried he was the guy in the black hoodie ducking behind that red car, the shady-looking driver with the five o’clock shadow behind the wheel of the yellow cab, or the dad in the Chicago Bulls number 23 sweater taking off his glasses to check the use-by date on the milk carton, or the old lady with the pink hair and green blouse standing behind her in the line at Grand Central while she was buying a train ticket to Greenwich, Connecticut. Until The Voice chose his time to strike, he’d be everywhere and nowhere.

  Tori knew she could not afford to rely on the police, so she went in with her killer punch, which, to satisfy Axel, had to be about business. ‘Axel, with the proof Thatcher’s given us, plus the polka dot dress, you should be able to convince Greenland’s new leadership either to stick with the deal or wait for the counteroffers we were hoping for—’

  ‘Absolutely, Tori.’

  ‘But that’s not enough. If The Voice did all this, not just to push China out but so that his friends or clients could come in, it means that one of the countries who makes a counteroffer might be the one who was behind all of this. The very party who paid for the assassination of our client’s prime minister. So if we don’t track down who that is, Axel, you could find yourself asking Greenland to tie itself forever to the people responsible for—’

  Ron Mada cut in. ‘Except we don’t know that, can’t know that. If it is the truth and it comes out later, we can simply say we just did our job with the facts we had at the time.’

  ‘Ron,’ said Axel, ‘the truth always comes out, eventually. It might take years but when it does, if it is indeed the scenario that Tori is painting, SIS’s reputation would be—’

  ‘Trashed,’ said Tori.

  ‘Exactly, but even so, Tori,’ Axel continued, ‘I cannot for one moment abide you risking your life any further.’

  The phone vibrated. Tori feared for a second it was The Voice until she saw the caller ID: Bearer of Truth. ‘Axel, Thatcher’s calling. We’ll phone you back.’

  ‘Tori, before you go, listen to me. If you’re not willing to get that idea out of your head, at least wait. With Francis peeling off to take the proof to the police, give me time to get you some backup. We have contacts we can trust in Barcelona. Let me—’

  ‘We’ll talk soon.’

  When she picked up, Thatcher was shouting down the line. ‘Tori, take this phone and go outside the cafe. Walk up and down the pavement. Then go across the street to that market and recross. Frank, you wait at the table with the other phones.’

  ‘Thatch, you sound kind of crazy. What’s this all—’

  ‘Do what Thatcher says. Now! Tori, stand up and go outside!’

  She got up so fast her chair fell backwards and the earbuds pulled out of both her and Frank’s ears. She put her bud back in and went outside, leaving Frank to deal with the chair. ‘Thatcher, what’s happening?’ she said as she pushed through the door into the street.

  ‘Too many competing phone signals in that place. Thatcher couldn’t be sure if he saw what he thinks he saw. Go left, good, keep walking … more … more … stop. Turn around … walk … more … more … Okay, if it’s safe to cross the street, do it now. Thatcher’s hacked into the local cell tower and he’s plotting you and that phone against the street map. No … No, no, no.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got a GPS tracker on you. It’s not the phone. Thatcher’s run a check on that. Maybe The Voice sewed it into an item of your clothing—’

  ‘Impossible. Nothing that I’m wearing is mine.’r />
  ‘When you woke up this morning, did you have any mosquito bites, cuts, anything new like—?’

  ‘One in the crook of my arm where I think he drugged me.’ She felt the spot, pressed it, pinched it. ‘There’s nothing under the skin, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘You’ve definitely got a tracker on you. You’ve got to find it. That bastard has been laughing at us all damn day. He’s known your every move. Go back to Frank. Your backpack. What about that? Get Frank to check over your body and your bag. Go now!’

  She ran back into the cafe with Thatcher screeching into her ear, ‘Cut the thing out, wherever it is but, Tori, do not damage it. Clean it up and—’

  She understood. ‘Slip it into a bag, someone leaving the cafe – a decoy.’

  Tori put her hand up to her head as she approached Frank, feigning she was sick in case any of the other patrons lifted their eyes off their screens, which they didn’t. ‘I’m going to throw up.’ She winked at him. ‘Take me to the restroom. Fast.’ She scurried off. ‘And bring my bag.’

  88

  Tori explained as they went down the stairs and, midway, Frank ran back up and approached the waiter. ‘First-aid kit? For my friend. Sh—He has a cut …’

  The waiter looked worried, like Frank was about to accuse the cafe of being responsible. Frank tried to reassure him. ‘He tripped in the street, just now, fell onto some glass.’ The waiter wasn’t getting it so Frank grabbed his leg and made a slashing motion. ‘Glass. Cut. I need first-aid kit,’ and he drew a box in the air with his fingers and paint-brushed a cross over the top.

  ‘Si.’ The waiter reached under the counter and pulled out a red box with a white cross on it. ‘Bring to me back when finish.’

  ‘Bite on this,’ said Frank handing her a roll of white bandage he’d got from the kit, which he’d left open at his feet. The nick he’d found in Tori’s skin, just below her left shoulder blade, was small and neat, almost invisible. There was no redness or even pain when he pressed on it. ‘I’d say he jabbed you with a local anaesthetic, an antibiotic too.’ He wiped the small silver tweezers with a sterilising pad. ‘Okay, here goes. Bite hard.’

  Once they were done and Tori was dressed again, they took to the stairs. She left her backpack in the bathroom, her money and other valuables stuffed in her pockets, the polka dot dress in the plastic bag shoved down the back of Frank’s pants. ‘I’ll miss that backpack,’ she said, thinking more of its defensive qualities than its design or storage capacity.

  She went back to their table, limping slightly for the benefit of the waiter, while Frank headed to the counter to return the emergency kit. She sat quietly fuming. The Voice had outplayed her again. No way was she going to let the bastard get away with it. Not now, no matter what Axel said.

  Frank was waiting in line behind Harry Potter’s mother, her little wizard burbling in the stroller. As she turned to go, Frank leant over the kid and slipped the tracker into a shopping bag the woman had hung off the handlebar. ‘Cute baby,’ he said as she wheeled out of the cafe.

  ‘You friend, he okay?’ the waiter asked, glancing at the man with dreadlocks.

  ‘Si, thank … gràcies.’ Frank handed him the kit and returned to the table, where they watched the woman leave with her baby and the tracker.

  ‘I hope nothing—’

  ‘If The Voice puts eyes on her,’ said Frank, ‘he can’t possibly mistake her for you. She’s tiny, barely taller than her stroller, and three shades browner than me.’

  The phone vibrated again and they reinserted their earbuds. ‘Good work, team. Elvis is definitely leaving the building,’ said Thatcher, obviously feeling pleased with himself, again. ‘But you can’t stay there. He’ll work out what we’ve done soon enough and when he retraces the signal’s path you need to be gone.’

  Tori suddenly knew what she had to do, and she didn’t have time to wait for Axel’s backup, and she couldn’t tell Frank. He’d try to stop her. She leant back and ‘accidentally’ pulled the earbud out of Frank’s ear and, turning her head as if she was stretching, asked Thatcher in a whisper if he knew where the tracker was transmitting its signal to.

  ‘Just a mo … Yep. Got the GPS coordinates. It’s in Barcelona, no surprise there. Wait, the street address … Got it. Thatcher has texted it to you. Hang on, Tori, why do you want it? You’re not planning to go there? Tori? … Tori?’

  The text came through. She hung up and switched the phone off. ‘Frank,’ she said as she got out of her chair, ‘show me those other phones.’

  He pulled them out. ‘Why?’

  ‘I need them.’ She took them, checked they were switched off too, and put all of them in her jacket pocket. ‘When you get a new phone, call me.’ She turned to leave.

  He pushed his chair back. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I need to buy a new wig,’ she lied, walking off. ‘This one scratches the hell out of my scalp.’

  Close by the door she spun her head back, her dreadlocks flicking out like whips. ‘No woman, no cry,’ she called out in her best baritone voice, leaving him to pay the bill before he could chase after her.

  89

  Local police had cordoned off a tic-tac-toe-shaped grid of nine city blocks, with the iconic basilica of La Sagrada Familia at its centre.

  President Casals clicked over to the street-cams inside the cordon where, thankfully, he could see the crowds were placid. So much so that some of the riot police were occupying themselves playing cards on makeshift tables.

  While it was a different story outside the cordon, his strategy seemed to be working. At one police barricade, he watched the troublemakers being charmed by Montse-loving members of the public wielding armfuls of flowers. As far as he’d heard, not a single canister of tear gas had been fired so far, no water hoses unfurled, no batons brandished.

  Mounted police were going up and down the streets in a classic four-beat walk, the crowds opening and closing around their horses like hugs, the animals getting more kisses than a bridal couple on a wedding day.

  The atmosphere was mostly festive, apart from two locations. One was close by the modern art museum, where Uri watched police arrest a handful of militants brandishing Molotov cocktails, handcuffing them before they’d had a chance to set their missiles alight. ‘Art critics,’ said Maria, coming up behind him. ‘Who’d blame them wanting to throw bombs? The current exhibition in there is total shit.’ She reached forwards and took the remote control for the TV on his wall, turning up the volume.

  The extraordinary spirit of peace, love and fellowship being felt all through Barcelona today rivals San Francisco’s legendary Summer of Love. The president of Catalonia is being hailed as a modern-day Allen Ginsberg.

  For those who didn’t know, which was virtually all of Barcelona, the commentator explained that when Ginsberg, an American beat poet, coined the term ‘flower power’ in 1965, he planted the seeds for a political movement that became famous for passive, non-violent protest.

  President Casals’ bounty of beautiful golden flowers all over the city has defused what looked set to be an explosive situation after the dangerous fiasco at his driverless car show this morning.

  It’s an outcome that augurs well for him in the upcoming election campaign.

  Uri couldn’t afford to let the good news make him complacent. He switched the sound to mute and focused back on the street-cams, this time the one at the Arco de Triunfo, where riot police were lined up on one side of the street, their shields locked. Opposite them, twenty black-masked radicals armed with crowbars and baseball bats stood behind a pile of tyres and tree branches, one of their number brandishing a flaming torch.

  When a group of aged nuns in serene white habits filed out of a nearby alleyway and paraded right between the opposing forces, turning to face the agitators, Casals feared the situation was going to explode. Holding his breath, he watched the sisters kneel and raise their pasty, wrinkled hands in prayer as their mouths began to move. He turned the sound back up. T
hey were singing, All we are saying … and he began to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ said Maria. ‘It’s a John Lennon classic. Everyone loves “Give Peace a Chance”.’

  ‘They love the chorus. But if those nuns knew the actual verses, about bishops and fishops and masturbation and flagellation, they’d end up spending their afternoon waiting for absolution in a long line outside the confessional.’

  An hour later, police had made only sixteen arrests citywide and there were no reports of injuries. Maria had been sceptical of Uri’s plan from the get-go but, as usual, he’d picked the public mood perfectly. His speech, the flowers and badges, the nine-block cordon, they were actually working. No wonder, she reminded herself, that he was the politician and she was the chief of staff.

  As she carried in the plate of biscuits for him, a reward of sorts, she mentally reviewed the list of protocols he’d personally designed.

  The only people permitted inside the grid, apart from officials and police, were residents and other locals who’d submitted to strict ID screening and body scans and wore colour-coded photo ID lanyards around their necks. And flowers, too, which was a typical Uri touch.

  The only vehicles allowed on the grid’s streets were police blue-and-whites, emergency rescue vans and transport for mourners who had official access passes into the church. Any cars that had still been parked inside the grid at 6 am were towed away.

  Maria, already nibbling one of the carquinyolis, pointed to Uri’s TV, which was showing a squadron of the Spanish Army’s Tigre attack helicopters circling above the basilica on high alert. ‘I think it’s safe to let the choppers go back to base, don’t you?’

  He took one of the thin, crunchy biscuits and broke it in half. Like her, he loved hearing them snap. He popped one half into his mouth and held the other half to his nose. Maria smiled. He’d noticed that this batch had something extra, topping off the traditional aroma of almonds. He sniffed at it, smelling the anise, just a hint of it. Crumbs flew out of his mouth. ‘You say it’s safe?’