by Declan Finn
“It doesn’t hurt that I don’t like alcohol,” he answered.
Angela smiled, then looked over at the stranger. “Wayne, are you engaged?”
“What is this? First Dad, now you, and it’s no.”
“You haven’t seen either of us for about six years, so that had to be the only thing that could drag you out here.”
Catherine laughed. “It’s a long story, Mrs. Williams.”
“Well, we can discuss it over dinner.”
Wayne smiled. “Not ‘tea’?” he asked in an exaggerated British accent.
“I simply can’t get used to the English idea of five meals a day. So, what are you here for?”
* * * *
Jennifer Lane wasn’t obviously intimidating with her height, but her bright green glare bore into Doctor Scuro’s skull.
“How fast can you move him?”
Scuro arched a thin gray brow. “You are joking, I presume?” he said in a clipped, Basil Rathbone–like voice.
“I only joke when I’m smiling or having sex. At the moment, I’m not smiling and we both have our clothes on. When can he move under his own power?”
He folded his hands in front of him. This five-foot-two Fed sitting across from him didn’t seem like she’d change her mind anytime soon.
“Technically… now, I suppose.”
Her eyelids became one with her brow, much to his amusement. “He’s been shot in the back, how can he move so fast?”
He smiled, chagrined. “There, you see, that was our fault, Agent Lane. It seems that our EMTs acted hastily—admittedly, so did we. He was never shot in the back. In fact, he was never shot at all.”
Her mouth hung slightly ajar. “But there were supposed to be two bullet holes in his chair back. He flat-lined on the table.”
He nodded. “Yes. But he wore his bulletproof vest last night—I guess he didn’t take it off after he returned home from work. Luckily, we detected the loose connection to the EKG—the heart monitor—before we shocked him to death with the defibrillators.”
“And all the tubes I saw running out of him?”
“A little internal bleeding, plus a bit of shock. Luckily, between the padding in the backrest and his vest, your Agent Lansing only wound up with a bruised set of ribs.” Dr. Scuro bowed his head slightly when he added, “And a mild case of burns on his chest. The chest hairs will grow back, but it’s not like there were many there to begin with.”
“I sure know that,” Jennifer muttered under her breath. “Are you the doctor who worked on him?”
Scuro smiled now. “No, but the man who did work on him will be sufficiently disciplined, I can tell you that much.”
Lane nodded. “With over fifty thousand cases of medical malpractice a year, I’m glad to see that this one went to the patient’s benefit. In that case, make sure he can walk within the hour. I have a phone call to make.”
* * * *
“Intriguing,” Commander Angela Williams commented as she listened to her son’s tale over a glass of sherry. She pushed back a thread of auburn hair tinged with gray. “So, without Benny the discreet developer, what are you going to do?”
Wayne pushed his dinner plate away, having cleared away the last of his carrots. “I guess we’re going to have to go to Vatican City. After that, we’ll go with the flow.”
“Hmm…” Angela pressed her lips together in thought, deliberating over the problem. At last, she gave up and shrugged. “Oh well, I guess you two can spend the night here before you move on.”
Catherine, sitting next to Wayne, interjected with, “No, we couldn’t possibly impose—”
“Wayne’s our son,” Captain Williams answered from his wife’s side.
“All right, in that case, I couldn’t possibly impose.”
“Don’t be silly,” the Commander answered. “It’ll take at least twelve hours for Wayne—The Captain—to secure that gun you requested—”
“Wayne requested,” Catherine corrected her. “But where—”
“I’d suggest surrender now,” Wayne replied. “I lose fights with her all the time. I’ve given up trying.”
Catherine turned to him and jokingly said, “Quitter.” She sighed. “All right, I’ll submit.” She took a sip of Bailey’s from the Waterford crystal snifter before her.
“That’s nice,” Angela said. “By the way, Catherine, what do you do for a living?”
“What do I do for a living?” Strongbow hesitated, then smiled. “I kill local street muggers, only they own million-dollar armies and speak Arabic. I shoot the neighborhood gunrunner; only he has a multi-billion dollar international industry with fancier toys. I take out godfathers with Russian accents who have the bad tendency to sell military surplus to people who really shouldn’t have it.” She sipped a little Bailey’s.
Angela thought about this a minute and asked, “You mean, you don’t kill any street corner drug dealers?”
Catherine took the glass from her lips and gave a thoughtful pout. “I’ve been to Columbia.”
“Really?” Mrs. Williams asked. “Kill anyone we know?”
Wayne choked on his water. Strongbow hit him firmly on the back. “Everything all right?”
“Just fine,” he said hoarsely. “Everything’s just perfect.”
Wayne straightened up and waved away any concerns. He merely sat back in his chair and stared at the unfolding discussion. I don’t…well, I do believe this. He glanced at his mother and father in turn. I just don’t get them. It’s not like they have cold-blooded killers over every night for dinner. Do they?
Then again, Dad does work with the British.
* * * *
“I have a question for you, Agent Lane,” came the restrained voice of Winston Scofield through gritted teeth. “Do you like your job?”
“Very much so, sir,” she calmly stated over her cell phone.
“Then I recommend that if you want to keep it, you explain yourself—right—now!” he roared.
“Sir, I cannot tell you where I’m moving Agent Lansing because someone knew where he was. You told me only a few people knew that. Guess what, whoever these people were, they knew where he was. This line might not even be secure.”
“Lane! This is my own private line! It’s secure!”
“If I’m still alive when this is over, sir, you can fire me all you want. Until then, I’m going to take Lansing to a safe house I know.”
“A safe house! If you think they know so much about us now, what makes you think that a safe house will be any good?”
“Sorry, sir, poor choice of words. I’ll be taking him to a friend’s house. It’s safe. I’ll talk to you later, sir.”
At which point she hung up on the director of the FBI, then walked back into Blaine Lansing’s room. There, he slowly put his pants on. She smiled.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you do this,” Jennifer said from the doorway.
Blaine smiled and looked up. “Hey, Jen. What’s up?”
She walked over and helped him with his pants. “I’m taking you out of here. There are some nasty people out there who want you dead. Again.”
“Me? I’m a freaking computer geek at the ITF. I’m not in Operations. I’m not important enough to kill…not a second time, at least.”
She looped the leather through the buckle. “Someone thinks you are, and I’m not going to disagree with them now. Someone tried to kill you again while you were asleep.”
He observed her movements with some interest. “You know, there was a time when you couldn’t wait to actually get my pants off… How things have changed.”
She left it for him to tighten, feigning annoyance. But she couldn’t help but smile. “Listen, bucko, unless you want your main attraction hanging from someone’s wall, I recommend you hurry up and get moving before whoever wants you nailed figures out that his boys aren’t coming back.”
Blaine gave a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.”
* * * *
Wayne stood outside the bedroom door still in his suit and tie. The hallway was twenty meters long, and barely wide enough for two people to walk down side-by-side—maybe not even that many. The light bulbs were hooked and lined the hall, looking almost like the gas-lit lamps before the light bulb crossed the Atlantic. The carpet was a navy blue, and the walls were deep rich wood.
I guess Dad never got around to jury-rigging upstairs yet.
Angela came up after a long talk with Captain Williams in the living room after dinner. What they had to talk about was anybody’s guess. They had spent most of the post-dinner conversation on what they’d been doing over the past six years. Funny enough, they didn’t once ask him what he’d been doing in the New Orleans office. He didn’t really have anything to tell them about it, since nothing had really happened. But he felt almost sad that they didn’t even ask.
Commander Williams asked, “She locked you out while she changes for bed?”
Wayne let the book down and shook his head. “No, I locked myself out. You know how, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were never ashamed of being naked, and that everyone afterwards was?”
Angela smiled. “My dear, I had to deal with nuns. Trust me, I’ve heard this story.”
Wayne smiled sheepishly. “To put it politely, she doesn’t have that problem.”
“Ah.” Her smile faded away as realization hit her. “Oh. I’m sorry, I thought you two were…” Wayne just stared at his mother. “You don’t think I would’ve given you both the same room if I knew you weren’t, well…” She shrugged. “It was just a thought. If you want, I could move her onto the living room couch.”
Wayne shook his head. “I’ll take it.”
“With your back? Nonsense. I’ll just—”
Wayne interrupted with a heavy sigh. “Forget it, I’ll make do somehow.”
Commander Williams smiled. “I’m sure you will. Good night.” She kissed her son on the cheek and slipped into her bedroom.
Wayne opened a book and muttered, “What’s the matter with everybody around here lately?”
Chapter 26
Jennifer loaded Blaine Lansing into her car. His ribs ached like hell, but he’d live. She circled round to the driver’s side of the car and got in. She locked the door behind her and looked over at her old boyfriend.
Blaine took her hand in his and kissed it furiously. “Thank you, Jen. God, we did it!”
“You’re welcome, Blaine. You know, if the two gunsels hadn’t shown up, I would’ve thought you were going Mulder on me.”
“But I’m right. They’re damn good at what they do. I’m just glad I woke up and sent you that email last night; otherwise, I’m sure I’d be in the middle of my own autopsy by now. Will your uncle get in great trouble for almost ‘killing’ me, or whatever it was my rigged medical chart said he did?”
“Nah,” she said as she gunned the engine, “they can’t do a thing to him. His retirement party is next week. Besides, he likes you for some reason.”
“So does the rest of your family. I’m just glad he’s your mother’s brother, so he doesn’t have the same last name. Do you think we fooled the bugs planted in the ICU?”
“You’re assuming there were any.”
“At the moment, Jen, I don’t trust anyone…except you, of course.”
“That’s a good question,” she noted, pulling out of the parking spot, “why do you trust me? Of all the Feds in the District, I’d figure your ex-girlfriend would be the last one you’d ask to have your records doctored and have you proclaimed dead a half-dozen times on the operating table.”
“I still like you Jen, fuck that we work in the same office. When I get out in a few years and make several hundred thousand a year as a programmer, I fully intend to pick up where we left off, no matter where you’re working.”
“That’s sweet, Blaine, but until one of us leaves the Bureau or Scofield dies, let’s just leave off where we left off, ’kay?”
* * * *
Williams was on the next chapter when the door behind him creaked open. “It’s safe to come in, Wayne,” Catherine announced from the bedroom.
Phoenix didn’t turn around. “In a minute. You can take the sheets, I barely use them anyway,” he lied.
“On a November night in London? You must be kidding me,” she said with concern. “You’re not in New Orleans anymore.” Strongbow wrapped a hand around his arm. “Get inside.”
Wayne looked down at her hand, and noticed a little tinge of blue at the wrist. He let his eyes trail up her arm, and found her dressed in a blue sweat suit. He let out a small sigh of relief and smiled. “Okay. I’ll come quietly.”
She gave a small giggle as she let him in the accommodating bedroom with a double-wide bed and thin white curtains. “Were you worried I sleep the way I do Tai Chi?”
“I’m not putting anything past you, my dear Captain.”
“Smart man. Now shouldn’t you get out of that suit? You’ve been wearing it since one this morning. And you slept in it too, remember.”
“I’ll change tomorrow,” he answered as he approached the bed, slipping his shoes off along the way. “For the moment, rest is foremost on my mind.”
“Why? I thought you could go on two hours’ sleep. You had plenty after you were knocked out on the bridge.”
“I can,” he replied as he sat on the foot of the bed. “But I don’t like doing it, and I can only do it for so long before I burn out. They didn’t mention that in my CIA file?”
She sat beside him. “I don’t think you were with the Company trainers long enough for them to notice. We don’t usually do much follow up on our people once they go on to bigger and better things.”
“Especially when they were never on your payroll in the first place,” Wayne added, loosening his tie and undoing the top button.
“Bingo.”
“Yeah, I thought as much.” He just let himself relax for a moment. “So, what do you think of my parents?”
“They seem to be pretty decent people.”
“Frankly I think they’ve become more bizarre since I last saw them, or maybe they’ve always been that way and I’ve just never noticed.”
“What do you mean?”
“No offense, but I don’t think many people—even military people—are used to eating with an assassin.”
“You seemed to handle the news well enough when you heard it,” Catherine reminded him.
“I nearly choked on my ice water,” he corrected her. “Neither one even flinched when you told them over dinner.” He rubbed his eyes. “Oh well, I guess it doesn’t really matter.” His hands fell away and he looked directly at the assassin. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“I don’t see why not, if I could ask you one.”
“Quid pro quo, eh? All right. I’m game. You can go first.”
“Thank you. Back at the guard post, before I came in, I thought you were rather…”
“Flip? Joking as they leveled some heavy artillery at me?” Wayne shrugged. “I’ve always been like that. Could be worse, could be my father’s sense of humor.”
“Good enough. Your turn.”
“Okay, this is going to sound awkward, but—I haven’t seen…well, all of you. But of what I have, well…face it, you’re almost a super model. A little uglier, you could be on the cover of Vogue. You’re more talented than half of the actresses in the movies. Why kill people for a living? I know your guardian was a Company man. But you could’ve been an analyst. I still don’t even know how you went from college Olympiad to the army.”
Catherine’s fiery eyes dimmed to glowing embers. “Did you know that I have a double-major in history and chemistry, with a minor in philosophy?”
“I only learned your real name this morning, so I guess the answer would have to be no… Why history and chemistry? They don’t seem to be related in any way, and somehow I can’t seem to see you as a history teacher.”
Catherine gave a sad smi
le. “I wanted to be a writer once, long ago. History had lots of good story ideas: Masada, the revolutions, the rebellions, and the wars. All of the stuff that could be adapted in wonderful new ways.”
“And chemistry would teach you cool ways to blow stuff up,” Wayne added.
“Exactly. I would’ve graduated when I was twenty—advanced grades, schools way more advanced than any state requirements, college courses in junior year of high school, the sort of grades you’d expect of people living in their parents’ basement. I had college Olympiad on top of it, so I was going to graduate maybe a year later. I joined the ROTC to supplement my scholarship,” she told him, pronouncing it “Rot-C.” “It wasn’t much, just like any other course. I even had a boyfriend, totally in love, all that romantic stuff you see in bad Danielle Steele novels.”
“This boyfriend didn’t happen to look anything like me, did he?” Wayne asked. Hopefully, the answer to that will be no.
She reached up and touched her fingertips to his cheek, gently tracing the contours of his face, smiling. “No.” The probing fingers fell away. “He was a tough, brawny Italian man, un bello ragazzo molto grande,” she announced proudly. Her face lit up with joy at the memory, then fell as she remembered the rest of the story. “Only problem was that he believed he had to protect my honor and his, he got so terminally”—she choked on the word choice—“…he got terminally macho at the damnedest moments,” she continued, softer now. “One night we were coming back from a party in Greenwich Village. Some guy jumped us with a gun. Before he could even ask for our money, Giacomo rushed him…”
Catherine closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. “I had to burn that dress, couldn’t get the brain stains out of those damned sequins.”
Wayne was struck dumb. He couldn’t bring himself to say anymore than “My God.” Then he pushed himself and forced out the words: “Did the police get him?”
“No,” she whispered. Strongbow opened her eyes and they glowed now, like reinforced steel. “I’d been looking him straight in the face when he blew Giacomo away. He turned the gun on me. And I broke his wrist. Then his nose. Then his ribs. Then his neck.” The assassin’s eyes met Williams’. “Do you know what I found?”