by Winona Kent
“The question is, Tree, what is this stuff they’ve given you—and will it ultimately be injurious to your health? How do you feel?”
“Wonderful,” Anthony replied, stretching the word out, savoring it.
Robin put the bottle on the table beside the bed.
“More,” his brother said, looking up at him with petulant eyes.
Robin shook his head. “You’ve had quite enough,” he replied, sternly. “Let me feel your pulse.” He picked up his brother’s arm. “I learned this from a nurse.”
“Ouch.”
Robin stopped. “What’s wrong?”
Anthony didn’t seem to want to answer—or wasn’t quite able to manage it on his meager vocabulary of one word every thirty seconds or so. Diligently, Robin hunted all over his hand and wrist for an injury—found nothing—then stood up, and, still grasping his arm, peered down the cuff of his shirt.
What he saw made him feel slightly sick.
“Tree,” he said, catching his breath.
He laid his brother’s arm out across the sheet and, very carefully, with tender fingers, rolled up his sleeve.
It was worse, uncovered and in the light. The deepest parts were charred, marked black by intricate curls. Whatever had put the wound there hadn’t quite made total contact with the surrounding flesh, and all the skin adjacent to it was red and puffy and blistered.
“Anthony,” Robin said.
His brother peeked at him. “Grasshopper,” he corrected.
Robin shook his head, not understanding.
“Grasshopper,” he repeated, with a diffident grin. He held up his left arm; his sleeve fell back to reveal the twin of the first burn. “Kung Fu.”
Gently, Robin took his wrist and laid the other arm out, so that he resembled a benevolent stone statue, toppled over onto its back by juvenile terrorists. “Who did this to you?” he whispered. “Why?”
Too many questions, all at once: Anthony’s mind couldn’t quite deal with the complexity it presented. “Um,” he said, thinking. “More pills.”
“No more pills.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Hurts,” he said, pouting.
Robin scratched his head. “All right,” he sighed, snapping the plastic cap off. “One more.”
Happily, Anthony opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue and Robin dispensed one of the bright green tablets. He went over to the sink in the corner of the room to fetch some water.
“Here,” he said, coming back, slipping his hand underneath his brother’s head. “Drink.”
“It’s OK,” Anthony answered. He showed off his green-stained tongue. “Swallowed it.”
Robin put the glass on the table, next to the pills. He kneeled on the floor beside the bed, resting his elbows on Anthony’s pillow. “Ant,” he said. “This is Dehra Dun, isn’t it?”
His brother nodded, gravely.
“Did the Shirda do that to you?”
“Mara,” he said, turning his head from side to side.
Mara. Robin remembered the conversation in the garage. And dinner, with Randy and his father. Mara. Lesley Towne.
“Why?”
“I was bad,” he replied, in what Robin thought was an incredibly serious and childish sort of voice. He angled his head up slightly and blinked at Robin. “Got caught.”
“Doing what?” his brother asked, confused.
Anthony didn’t say anything. His face was slowly dissolving into an expression of complete and utter desolation. Then, as Robin watched, a great big tear rolled out of one of his brother’s eyes and landed on the pillow. He sniffed, and a tear welled up in the other eye, too, and trickled down the side of his nose.
Robin touched his brother’s hand, and Anthony’s fingers curled themselves around his thumb, squeezing it tight.
“Yes,” Robin said softly, remembering the hospital. “I know all about this part.” He rubbed the back of Anthony’s hand. The fingers were slender—sensitive and expressive—not like his own, which he considered stubby and entirely too practical-looking.
“Tell me what happened,” he tried, again.
“Fell,” Anthony said. “Crash. Bang. Through the ceiling.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said, with an emphatic nod.
“What on earth were you doing up in the ceiling, Tree?”
“Spy-ing.” He made it into two distinct words.
“Don’t you think we should be leaving that kind of thing to the experts, Ant?”
“You,” Anthony said, looking at him.
Robin thought for a moment, then smiled. “No—not me.” He tried to get to his feet, but was held firmly in place by the hem of his robe, which he’d been kneeling on, and by Anthony, who wouldn’t let go.
“Stay?”
“I don’t know what’s happened to Evan, Ant. I’m really worried about him. I don’t know where he is.”
“Please?”
Robin grasped his brother’s hand between both of his own, his thumb still held prisoner inside Anthony’s fist.
“Please?”
“OK,” he said, nodding. “OK. For a little while.”
Anthony sighed contentedly, and then, quite unexpectedly, and very quickly, sat up and planted a huge wet kiss on the tip of his brother’s nose. He fell back to the pillow again, his lips spreading into an impish grin.
Robin made a face, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his robe. “Anthony.”
Ian pried the lid off the crate and peered inside, holding his flashlight high. He’d been molding little cones of DM12 around detonation wires and locating the resulting charges in strategic positions on the tops and sides of each box. He was curious about what this one contained.
He moved the straw packing aside with his hand. Uzis. Judging by what else he’d seen down here—81-mm mortars, RPGs, laser-aimed M-16s—there was going to be one very big explosion in a couple of hours’ time, when all that accompanying ammunition went up.
Digging underneath the straw, he located some balls of scrunched-up newspaper, separating the automatic weapons from one another. He pulled one of these up and unfolded it, interested because of what the fellows back in Vancouver had speculated concerning the source of all these weapons. The paper was the front page from a Middle East tabloid, and there was a photograph of the country’s esteemed totalitarian leader.
“Oh, no,” Ian said to himself. “Not him.”
There was a noise at the top of the staircase. Quickly, Ian tossed the newspaper inside the box, threw the Adidas bag full of plastic explosive on top, and lowered the lid. He flicked off the flashlight and pulled his gun out of the back of his rugby pants.
The door opened, and somebody poked her head inside. Ian could see her in silhouette—dark-haired, a knapsack slung over her shoulder. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Anthony’s friend? What had Giselle said her name was? Charlotte?
Oblivious to any sort of danger, she felt around the wall, discovered the light switch, and flicked it on. Ian blinked, but stayed where he was, arms extended, pistol ready. At the same time, seeing him, Charlotte swung her own Spy Squad Special up, and, with a clumsy gesture of bravado, tried to aim it down the stairs.
“Don’t shoot!” Ian warned, noting her inexperience. He stood up, very slowly. “Don’t shoot.”
Her hand slipped slightly on the black-painted handle. The gun was heavy, especially with the silencer attached. “Don’t you shoot me,” she said, warily.
“I won’t. Put it down.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Then you put your gun down too.”
Ian popped the clip out of his Beretta, ejected the unfired bullet from its chamber, slid it back into the top of the magazine, and replaced it in the handle. He slid the safety catch on. “OK?”
“OK.”
He tucked the gun under his sweater again. Charlotte hesitated, then lowered her own weapon. She zippered it inside her knapsack.
“You wouldn’t have.” She pulled the door shut and slouched down the stairs, one at a time.
“I would have,” Ian countered, leaning against a crate, folding his arms. “Where did you get that thing?”
“A friend gave it to me.”
“Does it work?”
“Why?” she asked, suspiciously.
Ian shrugged. “I don’t know—I thought it might be an antique. Vintage Second World War, looks like.”
Charlotte gave the shoulder strap of her knapsack a firm pull. “It’s a replica,” she replied. “From a TV show called Spy Squad.”
“I’d have guessed The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” Ian said, “but what do I know?” He looked at her. “You really shouldn’t go around pointing it at people, though. They might take you seriously.”
Which is exactly what I had in mind, she thought.
“I’m trying to find somebody,” she said. “I thought he might be down here, but he isn’t.” She spun away, meaning to march up the stairs again and leave this guy to his boxes.
“Anthony?” he guessed, aiming the question at her back. She stopped and turned around. He was still leaning against the crate, arms folded, legs crossed, a quizzical sort of smile on his face.
“How do you know?”
“I know everything,” he replied. “Anthony’s up in one of the dormitories. If you can hang on for a couple of minutes, I’ll take you with me. I have one small task to finish up down here first.”
Charlotte didn’t say anything. Ian interpreted her silence as consent; he lifted the lid of the crate again and withdrew one more block of the yellow plasticine material from his gym bag. He rolled it in his hands, warming it, making it pliable.
“What’s that?”
“Plastic explosive. German stuff.”
He finished molding the material, then briefly touched the concrete wall to ground himself and reached inside the bag for a detonator. He withdrew the small silver tube carefully, grasping it by its bottom end, between his fingers, and wiggling it into the mound of plastic.
“Why, exactly, are you doing this?” Charlotte asked.
Ian attached the wires. “I’m a spy,” he replied. “It’s my job.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes, skeptically. “On whose side?”
“Our side,” Ian said. “Whose do you think?” He hooked the wires up to the tiny electric timer assembly he’d wedged between the crates and the wall, then he lifted his bag out of the box, replaced the lid, and motioned her to follow him up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, as he paused to check the doorway, Charlotte peered over his shoulder. He smelled nice; it was the sort of scent that wafted out of the pages of GO, accompanied by pictures of seductively dark men who didn’t resemble anybody she thought she’d ever have the opportunity to meet. Obviously, the cologne makers had the wrong kind of fellow in mind: Spy-Guy, here, wasn’t seductively dark at all. Spy-Guy was a devastating redhead.
Thoughtfully, she studied his ears, the back of his neck, the way his hair brushed the top of the light-gray collar of his shirt.
“Let’s go,” he said, briefly, and she followed him out.
They walked along the short path that connected the community hall with its adjoining building, a brick structure with tall, narrow windows.
Charlotte stopped.
“Where did you say Anthony was?”
“Up in his room.”
“And we’re going there now?”
“Yes.” Ian smiled. “Don’t be so suspicious, Charlotte. I’m not one of the bad guys.”
“That’s exactly what she tried to tell me—that woman.”
“Her name’s Giselle. She’s my partner.”
“Another spy?”
“Yes—another spy.”
She started walking again. “Why are you here? What are you supposed to be doing—besides blowing up the basement of that building?”
“Well…” Ian considered his answer carefully. “There’s this fellow—and he wants to take over the world.”
Charlotte laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding. Larry Hamelin has this devious plan to take over the world, and Giselle and I are here to make sure he doesn’t succeed. I’m taking care of his collection of weapons. Giselle’s tackling his satellite dishes.”
Charlotte stopped. “Satellite dishes.”
Ian waited for her, arms folded.
“‘The Christopher Robin Caper,” she said. “In ‘The Christopher Robin Caper’ there’s this scientist. And he has this tracking station in the mountains, and he plans to take over the world by locking onto all the satellites in space.”
Ian didn’t say anything.
“Is that what’s happening here?” she asked.
“Sort of. Yes. Only in this instance the dishes are purely for propaganda purposes, once phase one of his plan is out of the way.”
A small crowd of dancing, yellow-robed followers burst forth from the hall, chanting and singing, gyrating, laughing. Ian and Charlotte stepped back, flattening themselves against the brick wall as the Dunners whirled down the concrete sidewalk.
They were a motley bunch, Ian thought, a mixture of ages, very old and very young, and quite a few in between. Many of them were not wearing yellow robes. Some were in designer jeans, sweats. There was one old guy who looked like a drubbie from the Granville Mall—the sort of fellow who set out a cap with a quarter and a nickel in it on the sidewalk and sang verses from the Scriptures in a grizzled, unfiltered cigarette kind of voice. He had long white hair and a ragged beard, and was dressed in a padded sleeveless vest, collarless shirt, baggy trousers, and work boots with no laces. He stopped abruptly in front of Ian, poking a dirty fingernail at his face.
“Hey,” he said, in precisely the sort of voice Ian imagined he would have. “Hey. You saved yet?”
“Yes,” Ian answered. “I’m saved. What about you?”
“I been saved six times,” the drubbie replied, with a grin. He was wearing gloves with no fingers. “This is the best savin’ yet. Got good food here. Good party.”
“Yes,” Ian said. “But stay away from the little green pills.”
“Eh?” The old man stuck his hand behind his ear.
“Stay away from the little green pills!” Ian shouted.
“Yah!” the old man hollered. “S’long, eh?”
“Yuk,” Charlotte said to Ian, as the old man swayed down the sidewalk to rejoin his troupe.
Ian shook his head. He was laughing. “Let’s go in here,” he said, steering her off the path.
“Why? I thought we were on our way to see Anthony.”
“I promised Giselle I’d check it out,” Ian said. “She thought there might be something suspicious up around the stage.” He pulled open the massive front door. “You stay out here and be my lookout, OK? I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”
“OK,” she said, a little disappointed. She slid her knapsack off her shoulders and leaned against the wall, wedging her foot inside the door to keep it open.
Ian took his gym bag and went inside. It was an auditorium—much like the auditorium in his old high school. The same wooden floor, stage with burgundy-red velvet curtains, and rows of plastic-and-chrome chairs.
Slinging the Adidas bag over his shoulder, Ian approached the stage. There was a container in the wings—the sort of crate used to ship freight on board jumbo jets. He climbed the steps and felt all around the sides of the box until he found the mechanism that opened it. The front wall fell away. Ian peered inside.
Computers.
A litter of them, nestled in their private crate like a collection of high-tech puppies. PCs. Keyboards. Cartons of diskettes. Disk drives, modems, instruction manuals—cables and cables and more cables.
He leaned against the box, imagining a latter-day Phant
om of the Opera sitting at his console, orchestrating the takeover of the world with keystrokes and menus and six million, four hundred and twenty-two thousand Ks of memory. It would be a simple thing to break into the world’s communication satellites: Max Headroom was alive and well and living in Dehra Dun.
Ian unzipped his bag.
“Are you finished yet?”
He spun around, startled. Charlotte was standing at the back of the auditorium, hands on her hips.
“I thought you were going to keep watch for me.”
She walked up the aisle. “It’s cold out there,” she replied. “And that old derelict guy came back. I didn’t like the looks of him.”
“He’s harmless.”
“Hamelin’s in the community hall. I saw him go by. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What about Mara?”
“Who?”
“The woman. Lesley Towne. You know—Mandy duck-before-I-deck-you Sterling.”
Charlotte looked at him. “I know about her,” she said. “It’s you I’m not all that sure about.”
Ian smiled and hooked the DM12 up to a timer. He dug around inside the crate, trying to locate a nice, unobtrusive place in which to drop the charge. Rule of thumb: insert the detonator and plant the plastic in the same direction you want the explosion to go. The question was: did he want it to go up or down or sideways—or in all three directions at once?
Charlotte plunked herself down on the top step, surveying the rows of chairs before her. “What about all those people in the community hall?” she said. “Your last bunch of explosions’ll go off right underneath them. They’ll be blasted into mush.”
“Hope not,” Ian answered, stuffing the plastic cone into the cavity a second disk drive would have taken up inside one of the PCs. “There’s a curfew—lights out at midnight. They should all be safe and sound in bed.”
He threw his wire cutters and leftover plastic into the gym bag and zippered it up, and was about to help Charlotte to her feet, when there was a click at the back of the auditorium, and the heavy door swung open.
Grabbing her arm, Ian dragged Charlotte in behind the crate, out of sight. He peeked around the corner, then pulled back quickly, yanking his gun out from under his sweater.