“Private joke,” said Mee to Bob’s silent question, then snatched up the phone excitedly. “It’s a message from Seb.” Bob got up and came around to her side of the table to read the words on the screen:
Sorry to panic you. Change of plan. Going to lie low for a few weeks. I need to figure some of this out on my own. Give me some time. Sorry. Seb x KWPTOW
“KWPT what?” said Bob.
“Keep Walking Past The Open Windows,” said Mee. “It’s from a book we both love.”
“So it’s from Seb?” said Bob. “I mean, no one else would know that, right?”
“It’s definitely Seb,” she said.
“So what now,” said Bob. “Shit, I was ready for a fight. Where the hell’s all this adrenaline gonna go?”
“Well, cowboy,” said Mee, standing up and grabbing her jacket, “how about taking it to Union Station for starters?”
“That where he is?”
“According to my iPhone,” said Mee.
“But he wants to figure this out for himself,” said Bob. “So we should back off. I mean, it’s his decision, right?”
“Right,” said Mee, opening the door, “but that doesn’t stop me being pissed with him. At the very least, I want to find him so I can tell him that. You coming?”
Bob gulped down the rest of his coffee and followed her out.
Union station was busy - it was evening now and the last of the commuters were heading home, joined by tourists and a fair amount of people who, judging by their bags, were heading further afield. The brick walls rang out with the echoed reflections of a thousand footsteps on the tiled floor. As Mee hurried forward to look at the departures board, Bob caught up with her and grabbed her arm.
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“Don’t like what?” said Mee. Bob scanned the area then leaned in close and spoke in an undertone.
“The guy with the news paper at ten o’clock, plus the guy on the phone at two o’clock,” he said. “They’re not here to catch a train.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Mee, “this isn’t a spy movie. Just tell me where they are.”
Bob nodded toward the men he had spotted. Sure enough, the thickset guy holding the LA Times looked like he found reading a challenge, as he kept returning to the same paragraph over and over, spending more of his time scanning the faces of passengers. His colleague on the other side of the hall was holding a cell phone up to his ear but seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to speak occasionally as he watched the stream of faces go by. Mee jumped when he looked straight at her, but quickly reminded herself that—if these guys were the ones from that morning—they’d be looking for Seb, not her. She took out her cell phone and consulted the screen.
“He’s on a platform in that direction,” she said, “so if those bruisers are looking out for him, they’re not doing a great job. Come on.” Mee walked away. Bob took another quick look around before hurrying after her.
On the first platform she tried, the Amtrak train was pulling out of the station, due to arrive in Chicago forty-five hours later. Meera checked her phone again as the last car followed the curve of the rails and pulled out of sight, the evening sun winking from the windows.
“Bugger,” said Mee. “Bugger! His cell’s disappeared again.”
Bob looked at the platform screen.
“Chicago?” he said.
“Or any of the stops on the way,” said Mee. “If he’s on it at all. Dammit.”
“Come on,” said Bob. “It’s been a long day. I’ll buy you a coffee.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll join you.” The voice came from behind them. Bob and Mee turned to see the tall man they’d seen standing over Seb’s body that morning. He was flanked by the two heavies they’d already spotted.
Five minutes later, Mee and Bob were sitting opposite the man Seb was running from. He was stirring a third sugar into a large black coffee. One of the heavies sat next to him, the other blocked Bob and Mee’s exit.
“My only vice,” he said, spooning in even more sugar.
“Who are you?” said Mee, her arms folded across her chest.
“My name is Westlake,” he said, holding out his hand. Mee just glared at him, but Bob shook it, figuring they’d better not show too much animosity toward the man. He had no idea they’d seen the events unfold that morning, so acting like they hated the guy might come across as a little over-hostile. He nudged Mee but she just snorted.
“Bob Geller,” said Bob, wincing a little at Westlake’s iron grip.
Westlake raised an eyebrow at Mee but she just stared him out, despite Bob kicking her under the table.
“Well, that’s the pleasantries out of the way,” said Westlake. “Here’s my ID”.
He slid an open wallet across the table. Underneath his photograph it stated ‘Field Director. United States Of America Secret Service.’ Mee snorted again. Bob coughed discreetly.
“Ok, you claim to be working for the President. Impressive. But my friend and I would like a little more proof than a plastic card from someone who is threatening us,” said Bob, nodding toward the heavies.
Westlake tapped the number on his ID. “I’m on the White House roster. They’re used to people checking up. Go ahead, call.”
Mee took out her phone and brought up the browser.
“Think I’d rather find the number myself,” she said. Westlake said nothing. She clicked on the number and waited.
“Hi,” she said. “I’ve got someone with me who claims to work for the Secret Service, who do I need to speak to? Thank you.” She looked directly at Westlake as her call was transferred. “Yes, hi, He says he works for the Secret Service. He’s ugly, arrogant and rude so I’m inclined to believe him but it’s always best to check. His number? Yes, I have it here.” Mee read the number aloud while Westlake sat impassively. “No, thank you, ma’am.”
“Satisfied?” said Westlake.
“Rarely,” said Mee.
Westlake took his wallet back. “I need to ask some questions,” he said. “At this point you are under no obligation to answer them. However, with a little inconvenience for me and a great deal for you, I can have you taken somewhere where you will be so obliged. Do you understand?”
“Are you—,” began Mee.
“Yes,” said Bob, giving Mee a look which she tried to snort at but changed her mind halfway through, ending up trying to cover it by blowing her nose. “We understand. But we don’t know what you could possibly want with us.”
“You’re here looking for Sebastian Varden,” said Westlake. “Why?”
“What are you talking about?” said Mee. “We were just planning a trip together.”
Westlake said nothing, just held out his hand. The heavy on his left gave him a tablet. He tapped the screen and scanned it quickly, his eyes flicking from left to right.
“Bob Geller, fifty-eight, retired Marine, most likely contact with Sebastian Varden his early morning hikes in the Verdugo Mountains.” Westlake’s eyes flicked up, but Bob showed no reaction.
“Meera Patel,” said Westlake, “singer, regular marijuana user. Dual nationality - British father and American mother. Stage name Mee Jane.”
Bob raised an eyebrow and turned slightly toward Mee.
“As in ‘you Tarzan, me Jane’,” she said.
“Ah,” said Bob. “Funny.”
Westlake continued reading information on the screen.
“On-off relationship with Mr. Varden. Played together in the band ‘Clockwatchers’ for three years.”
Westlake passed the screen back to the impassive heavy.
“Now,” he said, “let me just clarify your position. You have had close contact with someone suspected of having links to certain terrorist organizations.”
“That’s utter bollocks and you know it,” shouted Mee, standing up and pointing a finger at Westlake’s chest. Several heads turned at neighboring tables.
“Sit down, Ms. Patel,” said Westlake.
“Or what?” she said. Westlake leaned forward and looked at Mee’s pointing finger. It was shaking slightly.
“The last person to touch me without my consent spent six months in the hospital,” he said.
“Are you threatening me?” said Mee, her voice rising slightly.
“Absolutely,” said Westlake. “The report said you were intelligent - it’s good to see our information is accurate.” His voice dropped slightly but he made sure every word was clear.
“Over the last five years, I have personally killed fourteen enemies of the state. Five of them were women. I have no misguided sense of chivalry, Ms. Patel. My job is to pursue those who threaten the security of our nation. Now sit down.”
Mee sat, her hand automatically going to the pocket where her next ready-rolled joint was waiting. Suddenly, she just wanted to go home.
“Although your mother is American,” said Westlake, “ you spent all of your formative years in Europe. I wonder where your loyalties lie, especially when you are associated with a known terrorist.”
“Known terrorist?” said Bob. “Two minutes ago he was only accused of having links with terrorist organizations.”
“Mr. Geller,” said Westlake. “You’re a soldier. You understand the chain of command. I am not here to share information with you. I am here to get information from you. Where is Sebastian Varden?”
“I don’t know,” said Bob. Westlake turned to Mee. She shrugged.
“Give me your phone,” he said.
“What?” said Mee. “No.” Westlake nodded to the heavy at her side. With a turn of speed surprising for someone with the frame of a heavyweight boxer, he grabbed her wrist, simultaneously reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out her cell phone.
“Ow!” said Mee, rubbing her wrist. The heavy handed the phone to Westlake, who checked the list of outgoing calls.
“Hmm,” he said, “maybe you are telling the truth. A lot of unanswered calls here.” He flicked back to the home screen and clicked on Messages.
“Ah,” he said. “A message from Mr. Varden. Apparently, he’s lying low for a few weeks. Any idea where that might be, Ms. Patel?”
She shook her head sullenly.
“I thought not,” he said. “Mr. Geller?”
“Nope,” said Bob.
“So why come here?” asked Westlake, staring straight at her. Meera stared back and hoped the twitch that had just developed in her eye wasn’t noticeable.
“We had to start looking for him somewhere,” she said. There was a long silence.
Finally Westlake nodded and put the phone onto the table. Mee grabbed it, stuffing it into her jacket pocket.
“Here’s how this is going to play out,” he said. “You two are free to go, but know this. You are now under observation. Every call you make, every email you send, anyone you talk to, I’m going to know about it. Until Mr. Varden has been found, you won’t be able to take a crap without a report about it landing on my desk. If he gets in touch, we’ll know. If he asks to meet, say yes. We’ll be there. If you try to warn him, I’ll make sure you spend at least ten years in a federal institution. This is not a game. Do we understand each other?”
Bob sighed and leaned back. He looked at Mee. She was doing a pretty good job of looking defiant, but he could see she was terrified.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “We understand.”
Dismissed by Westlake, a subdued Mee and a quietly angry Bob made their way out of the station. As they left, Mee saw one of Westlake’s men jump down to the train tracks, grab something and pass it up to a colleague. It was an iPhone.
“Oh, Seb, how am I going to find you now?” she muttered. She turned and hurried out of the station, Bob jogging to keep up. A few seconds later, an anonymous sedan started up and cruised slowly behind them. Unseen by Bob, Meera, or Westlake’s men, a small figure emerged from the shadows, pulled a hood over her head and followed.
10
Nine months previously
Sydney, Australia
Byron stood in the middle of the darkened stage, walking slowly backward while making small mystical gestures with his hands. He had worked on those gestures for hours; first in front of a mirror, then filming himself on his phone in his front room while his show music—mostly mid-80s synth pop—played through his stereo. At first his movements had been self-consciously theatrical, but he’d quickly admitted how ridiculous they made him look. He was, after all, in his fifties, not his twenties, and his body was hardly athletic or graceful. ‘Portly’ was the term journalists seemed to have settled on. He knew they meant fat but he didn’t care.
His favorite gesture, a dismissive flick of the wrist, was delivered by his left hand over his right shoulder while facing the audience. He was doing it now. He loved this bit because what was about to happen was utterly impossible, and, at some primal level, the audience knew it. Yes, they’d paid good money to see ‘Byron: Twenty-first Century Wizard’ (the national tour sold out within an hour), so they expected him to be good. In fact, they expected him to be great. But no one was ever really prepared for what he delivered night after night, up and down the country.
The audience gasped. Every last one of them in perfect unison. From his vantage point downstage, Byron looked carefully at the individual faces, his eyes darting around the room. Every single mouth hanging open, eyes popping in disbelief. He allowed himself a small smile. He remembered the first time he had consciously attempted this trick. It wasn’t on stage, it was in his bathroom. It wasn’t a huge cloth made of parachute silk, it was a hand towel. And the animal that had appeared under the towel had been a hedgehog, rather than an elephant. Then again, he was just plain Brian then. Byron thought bigger.
The sounds of admiration turned to sudden screams of panic as the huge beast on stage which had just risen up from the floor draped in silk, apparently became enraged and broke away from its handlers. Byron stepped nimbly aside as the huge shape charged. As it reached the edge of the stage, it leapt the footlights and sailed toward the audience, trumpeting at ear-splitting volume. The screams reached new levels of panic, as people started to climb over each other in their hopeless attempt to avoid the acrobatic pachyderm.
Byron blinked at the flying elephant. It turned into a million pieces of glitter which fluttered slowly down on the front five rows of the audience. There was a shocked silence. Then a long pause. Byron counted silently, still with that small smile on his face.
“One elephant, two elephant, three elephant, four elephant, five elephant, six ele-,”
The place went berserk. Every man, woman and child flew out of their seat, clapping, cheering, whistling, shouting, screaming, whooping, fist-pumping. The roar of 2,500 people screaming themselves hoarse began to find a rhythm, becoming a pulse, a chant; incoherent at first, then clearer and clearer.
“Byron, Byron, Byron, Byron BYRON, BYRON, BYRON, BYRON, BYRON!”
Byron blew a little kiss and walked into the wings. The calls for an encore would go on for ten to fifteen minutes. They always did. But not giving encores was one of Byron’s little rules. Along with not appearing on TV. Or giving any interviews. Col, his manager, thought he was crazy. Had almost decided not to represent him after all. Then Byron gave him a demonstration and he changed his mind. “Just do that for every newspaper editor,” he said, “ and they’ll give you all the publicity you’ll ever want. And then some.”
Col was waiting in his dressing room. “Fantastic, Byron, as always. Now look, I’ve had another call from America. They’ve doubled the offer.”
Byron dabbed at his face with a towel, the brown makeup staining the white cotton.
“You know my answer, Col,” he said. No shows outside Australia was another little rule.
That last rule was the one Byron knew he would never dare break. He could make a pretty good living touring his native Australia, without venturing abroad. He had always wanted to travel, so it was ironic that the very secret that had made him such a massive
success also tied him to his home country. And not just his country. He couldn’t even go more than a day’s travel away from his little house near Sydney. Not without losing all his magic, he couldn’t.
The tiny two-bed house on the edge of a new development had been all Byron could afford after his divorce. Marjorie had left him for a juggler. All that time moaning about him being a magician and she’d left him for a freaking juggler. It had hit him hard at first and his life had settled into a pattern of late-night solitary drinking and ignoring the bills piling up on his mat. For a while, it looked like he would end up losing even the pokey little house he’d spent his last bit of money buying.
Then, after one particularly heavy night with a bottle of vodka, he’d crawled out of bed around noon, grabbed a beer, put on his sunglasses and decided to take a seat in the yard. He had lived in the house for nearly three months, but this was the first time since viewing it with the realtor that he’d actually stepped into the yard. He dragged a chair from the kitchen, planted it in the middle of the paved space, facing back at the house. He sat there, sipping the beer, looking at the only thing he could call his own after 27 years of marriage. He decided he wouldn’t be performing at the children’s party booked for that afternoon. He just had a very strong feeling that, assuming the damn kids didn’t pass out purely from the toxicity of his breath, he might finally give in to the urge to strangle the little bastards with his balloon animals. Better to stay home. Better yet, stay home and drink some more beers.
He got up to take a leak, but hesitated. Something seemed to be gently pulling at his consciousness, like an invisible thread pulling a playing card out of a deck. He turned and squinted into the corner of his yard. For some reason, he very much wanted to go and stand there. He squinted a little more, making his headache pulse more insistently. He really needed another beer. But this pull was hard to resist, despite it leading him to nothing more than a square foot of dirt with a few tufts of coarse grass trying to push through. He belched and walked over to the corner of the yard. With every step, things changed. He felt better. He felt happier. He felt…right.
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 7