by Steven Gould
I thanked her and walked back off the beach. I hadn’t removed my shoes and sand had sifted into them. There was a low wall that separated a garden from the street. I perched upon it and emptied my shoes.
I was leaning forward to tie my laces when I happened to glance down the street to where a man stood at the corner, perhaps a hundred yards away. He had a camera with a very large telephoto lens on it, and he was pointing it at me.
Some tourist, perhaps, taking a long perspective of the street? I didn’t think so. I stood and walked quickly around the corner, onto one of the narrow little streets that ran up the hill from the beach. Then I jumped to the terrace of the Mirzana Hotel.
It was directly up the hill from the fishing harbor and actually closer than the beach had been, a short downhill walk instead of the winding trek along the shore. I left the grounds of the hotel quickly, anxious to avoid the clerk who’d turned me in to the Darak al Watani. For all I knew, the police were still around as well.
The fuel dock was easy to find, the heavy smell of diesel was almost thick enough to see. The dock was a narrow finger sticking out into the harbor with a small building built onto the end. The tide seemed to be out, for the water was at least eight feet below the planking.
The two boys in attendance at the pumps didn’t have any English, but they fetched an older man from the building who wore a djellaba over his Western shirt and tie.
“Ah, the big boat, the Hadj, from Oman. Last night they leave. They come for the, ah, fuel, and leave.”
“Where were they going?” I pulled out a handful of dinars, casually, and let him see them.
He shrugged. “One moment,” he said, motioning for me to stay where I was. “I ask.” He went back to his office. Through the doorway I saw him pick up a phone and talk into it. Once he looked back over his shoulder at me, as if to see if I was still there. Then he put down the phone and walked slowly back.
“I talk with the port master. He no tell me, but I, ah, argue with him. He is deeficult.” He looked down at my hand, at the money.
I handed him five twenty-dinar bills. “Perhaps this will help? A gift. To show my thanks.”
He nodded, but instead of looking at the money, he kept looking back up the dock, toward the shore. I turned around and glanced back, but I didn’t see anything. “Where did the boat go?”
The man tugged thoughtfully at his tie and said, “They go to, ah, Sicily.” He didn’t sound very convincing and his eyes were on my face this time, almost fixedly. I turned around.
Coming up the dock were two uniformed police, the Darak al Watani. They were walking slowly, purposefully. The dock stuck out into the harbor and there was no other way off of it that they knew of.
I turned back to the fuel manager, angry. He started backing away from me, smiling, getting out of range. I jumped the five feet between us and jerked the money from his hand. He flinched away from me, the smirk on his face gone. I took another step toward him and he went over the edge of the dock, into the water. The two boys started laughing.
Serves him right.
There was the sound of feet pounding on the dock. I turned. The Darak al Watani were running now, doubtless to stop my continued violence. I stepped to the very end of the dock and dropped off the end. Before my feet touched the water, I jumped away, to my cliff dwelling in Texas.
Later that afternoon I jumped to Union Station in Washington, D.C., and used a pay phone to call Dr. Perston-Smythe. The department secretary answered his line after four rings, which surprised me. It was Christmas Eve, after all.
“Dr. Perston-Smythe’s phone.”
“Is he in?”
“He’s in the conference room with some visitors.”
“Oh. I’m at a phone booth so I can’t really leave a number. Is there a time I can reach him later?”
“I’ll stick my head in and ask him for a good time. What’s your name?”
“David Rice.”
“Hang on.”
She put me on hold. I spent the interval watching people go by the brightly decorated shops. The speakers were playing Christmas music.
An old man dressed in a plaid suit and a torn overcoat limped by. He wore filthy athletic shoes on his feet. His left foot was twisted inward, the sole of the foot facing his other leg instead of the floor, and his weight came down, instead, on the outer edge of his foot. No wonder he limped.
Behind him walked a woman dressed in a knee-length fur coat. She was staring fixedly ahead, eyes focused on infinity. When his halting pace obstructed her path, she stepped carefully around, one hand pulling the hem of her coat close to her, lest it brush against him. In her other hand she carried a large bag filled with wrapped Christmas presents.
The phone went off hold, but it was Dr. Perston-Smythe instead of the secretary.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Rice. She didn’t realize that you must be calling from Algeria.”
“Ah, I’m not. I’m in D.C.”
“Oh? Uh, would it be possible for you to come to my office?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
I heard him cover the phone with his hand and say something to somebody else. Then, “How soon could you be here?”
Immediately. The temptation to jump to his office was strong. “Oh, give me ten minutes.”
“Very good.”
I spent the next ten minutes jumping back to Texas for some cash, then finding the old man with the twisted foot. I gave him twenty thousand dollars and hoped someone wouldn’t kill him for it.
Eleven minutes after I’d hung up the phone at Union Station, I knocked on the door of Perston-Smythe’s office. He opened the door himself. “Come in, David.”
I started to walk through the doorway, then saw another man seated at Perston-Smythe’s desk. “Oh, I can wait out here until you’re done.”
The other man spoke. “No. Please come in. We were waiting for you.” His voice was deep and resonant, carefully modulated.
“This is Mr. Cox, David. Brian Cox.”
I nodded and reluctantly walked into the room. Perston-Smythe closed the door behind me and pointed at one of two chairs. The one he took was closest to the door.
This feels wrong. “Are you sure I’m not interrupting anything?”
“Positive,” said Cox. He was a tall man with a fleshy face and curly black hair cut very short on the sides. He looked like an ex-linebacker, big in the shoulder, like he could tear me in half. “What have you been doing in Algeria, Mr. Rice?”
I blinked. “What makes you think I was in Algeria?”
“Last Friday you went through Algerian customs. On Sunday you met with Basil Theodore from the British Embassy. Yesterday police pursued an American national from a Tigzirt hotel after he’d been turned in for currency violations. The American national looked a lot like you.”
“Are you with the university, Mr. Cox?” Somehow I didn’t think he was.
Cox pulled out a leather case and laid it open on the desk in front of him. The picture ID within identified Brian Cox as an agent of the National Security Agency.
Shit. “What do you want, Mr. Cox? If you’ve been talking to Dr. Perston-Smythe, you know that I’ve been looking for Rashid Matar. You also know why.”
“If you’d stayed in an ordinary hotel instead of disappearing from the airport washroom, I’d believe that. The embassy found no trace of you between the time you arrived and the time you had dinner with Theodore. Then there was no trace of you from that time until you showed up in Tigzirt. Who do you work for? Whose safe house did you stay in? You’re not one of ours. We’ve asked all the other agencies. Who are you?”
“I’m David Rice, an eighteen-year-old American male. And I don’t work for anybody.” I stood up and started for the door. I half expected Perston-Smythe to rise up out of his chair and try to stop me, but he just looked over his shoulder as I opened the door.
Three men stood outsid
e, dressed in suits. Two of them had their hands inside their jackets. The third was holding a pair of handcuffs. I shut the door.
“Am I under arrest?”
Cox ignored the question. He opened a manila folder on the desk and took out a photograph. “This picture was taken six hours ago in Tigzirt. It was developed, then transmitted by satellite to me an hour ago. That’s why I was here when you called.” He flipped it around so I could see it.
It was me, seated on a garden wall, tying my shoelaces. I was looking toward the camera with a suspicious look on my face. I was wearing the same lightweight suit in the picture that I was wearing now.
Cox’s voice increased in intensity and he slammed his hand down on the picture. “I want to know all the answers to the questions I’ve already asked, but most of all, I want to know how the hell you got from Algeria to Washington, D.C., in less than six hours!”
I flinched back from the noise. There was a light switch on the wall, but bright afternoon sunlight poured in through the window behind Cox. No way I could jump away without being seen. There was always this chance. You knew it from the start. Did these men know of other jumpers? Did they know my capabilities? My palms started sweating and my heart was pounding very hard. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”
“You’re not under arrest.”
“Then I’ll be leaving.”
Cox leaned forward. He almost smiled. “I don’t think so.” He raised his voice and said, “Harris!”
The door opened behind me.
I looked at Perston-Smythe. “Are you going to let them do this?”
Cox did smile then. “Dr. Perston-Smythe is a contracted employee of the agency. Who do you think notified us in the first place?”
I took a step toward the desk and had the small pleasure of seeing the smile drop from Cox’s face. Five witnesses. Better make it good. I smiled then. “I have just one thing to say, then. And I hope you’ll report it to your superiors, of whom there must be many.”
Cox narrowed his eyes. “Yes?”
“We mean no harm to your planet,” I said.
And jumped.
Chapter 15
Neither Millie nor her father answered the phone. I took that as a good sign. I felt sure that if the NSA had gotten there, they would answer the phone, to try and trap me.
I was able to move most of my belongings from the Stillwater apartment before they came in the door. The most important things, anyway—the video equipment and my library of jump sites, all of my clothes, all of the money, and most of my books.
They were quiet—I didn’t hear them on the stairs at all—but I’d piled pans against the front door and they came down with a crash. I jumped away, my arms half full of books.
I’d given Leo Silverstein the address of the apartment. I hoped they hadn’t hurt him to get it. The address on my passport application had been in his law office, but, if that hadn’t led them there, the funeral would have. Mr. Anderson from the State Department also knew Leo and he connected back through Perston-Smythe. Considering that they didn’t break in until midnight, it seemed probable that they’d had to break into Leo’s office to get the information.
I’d always suspected that the Bill of Rights occasionally had a “liberal” interpretation.
My one major concern was Millie. If they traced me back to New York and Sergeant Washburn, they might get Millie’s name and address out of them. It occurred to me almost immediately after I left Perston-Smythe’s office that I should have let them take me away, put me in a cell, or let me go to a bathroom, then jump away. Anything but let them see me jump.
Oh, God, I hope they don’t bother Millie.
From Will Rogers International I tried Millie again at her father’s place in Oklahoma City. Millie answered the phone.
“I love you,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something is wrong?” I cleared my throat before she said anything. “All right. Something’s wrong. Can you go out tonight?”
“It’s Christmas Eve. It’s bad enough that I’m going to my mother’s on Christmas Day. My stepmother is already bitching that I spend most of the Christmas vacation at my mother’s. After all, I’m going to pick you up tomorrow like we planned.”
I had no idea how fast they would move. Or if they had already moved.
“Do you remember where we stopped for supper the first night I visited you in Stillwater?”
“You mean the—”
“Don’t say it!”
The implications of my remark hit her. “Do you think this line is bugged?”
“It might be. I hope not.”
“Why would it be? What’s wrong?”
“Think about it.”
She took in a deep breath, then said, “Before the party, right?”
“Yeah.” The place I was talking about was a steak house off of I-35 on the north side of Oklahoma City. We’d stopped there for supper on our way from the airport to the party in Stillwater.
“When were you going to drive up to Stillwater?” I didn’t want to mention Wichita. If they were listening they might not know where she was going.
“I was going to leave at nine.”
“Meet me at the... at that place. I’ll be waiting. If you’re being followed, it should be apparent. There won’t be that much traffic on Christmas Day.”
I heard her swallow. “All right.”
“If it comes down to it, Millie, and they didn’t bug this phone, you broke up with me that time when the police called you. Okay?”
“We almost did.”
“Yeah. I love you.”
“I love you,” she said.
I hung up the phone.
A cabbie took me from the airport to the steak house at 7 A.M. the next morning. I’d been there, but I couldn’t remember the site well enough to jump to it. He didn’t want to leave me there—the place was closed for the holiday and a subfreezing north wind cut like a knife—but I insisted my ride was on the way.
I’d considered going to her father’s house instead, but it could have been under heavy surveillance. This seemed safer.
I jumped through the glass doors into the interior. The heat had been left on to keep the pipes from freezing. I memorized a jump site back by the kitchen, then jumped home to my cliff dwelling.
The night before, I’d used the bathroom at the Stanville Public Library before going to bed, but I deeply resented losing my bathtub/shower at the Stillwater apartment. Later, when I had time, I intended to rent a motel room, probably in Minnesota. There’d been a Western Inn near the truck stop that Topper Robbins frequented.
I set the alarm for 8:45 and tried to sleep. It didn’t work. My stomach was nervous and visions of white-coated scientists with scalpels and hemostats kept running through my head.
I remembered a scene from Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination in which scientists put a man in a sealed tank and try to drown him, in hopes that he would “jaunt,” i.e. teleport, away from danger. He did, but I couldn’t help extending the scene, to my white-coated friends putting Millie in the tank and filling it up. “It’s okay,” I imagined one telling another. “If she can teleport, she’ll be okay, and if she can’t we won’t have to waste any more time with her.” In front of them the water rose higher and higher.
The alarm went off and I shuddered awake, grateful to be out of that dream. I guess I’d been able to sleep after all, but I didn’t like it. I jumped to the library in Stanville and splashed water on my face in the rest room. Then I retrieved my binoculars from Texas and jumped to the interior of the steak house in Oklahoma.
Her father lived on the east side of town, but there was light traffic and it only took her twenty minutes to reach the steak house. Two other cars pulled off the same exit ramp. One drove past the restaurant and stopped on the access road; the other stopped before the restaurant’s driveway. I used the binoculars. There were four men in each car.
I looked through the b
inoculars, then, to look at Millie, as she pulled her car into a parking place in front of the restaurant. She was nervous and had obviously seen the cars following her. She was only fifty feet away from me, but the steak house’s windows were tinted and she couldn’t see inside. I crouched low, pictured the backseat of her car, and jumped.
“Don’t look around.”
She jumped, and turned her head halfway around before staring straight ahead.
“Don’t move your lips when you talk, either. Those bastards might have binoculars.”
“What iv they ‘ugged the car.”
I hadn’t thought of that. It wasn’t impossible. “Was it on the street last night?”
“No. Dad ‘ut it in the garage.”
“We’re going to have to risk it. I love you.”
“You ‘etter. Es’ecially with all this shit!”
I smiled. “Merry Christmas to you, too. Drive on north. Once we’re on the road you can stop doing your ventriloquist impression.”
She started the car again, then drove out onto the access road. I tensed as we passed one of the cars, flattening myself further onto the floor.
“What are they doing?”
“They’re looking at a map. It’s a very convincing impersonation of four lost guys—should be a band name. The other car just pulled up to the steak house. I think they’re going to search it. Ah, The Four Lost Guys just started up their car.”
I twisted, trying to get comfortable. Millie’s car had rear-wheel drive and, consequently, that hump down the floorboard for the drive shaft. I peered around the edge of the seat to the front of the car. The passenger seat and the floor in front of it were empty. I jumped to it, my legs and hips on the floor, my upper body leaning against the seat itself.
Millie started and the car swerved slightly.
“Sorry, it was uncomfortable back there.”
She reached over and touched my face. I put a hand on her thigh and squeezed.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“National Security Agency. One of their agents took a picture of me in Algeria. Six hours later, long before I could have gotten there by commercial airliner, another of their agents saw me in D.C. He had a transmitted copy of the picture. I was still wearing the same clothes. They were, uh, curious.”