by Camilla Monk
“He’s not going to kill you,” I whispered.
The guy didn’t reply; he just stared up at the gun still resting in my hand, his gaze empty, almost fascinated, as if he believed his fate was mine to decide.
March squeezed my shoulder with a fleeting look of guilt and gestured to the now empty piloting post inside the cabin. “Do you think you can?”
I hoped so. Apparently, we had this new rule that every time he needed both his hands for carnage, I’d be expected to copilot. Our options were limited anyway. We were headed straight and fast toward the Lido—way too fast—and the white boat was still in pursuit. I balled my fists, stepped into the cabin, and grabbed the wheel.
“Don’t worry, I piloted a cruise liner in Ship Simulator Extremes!” I said, steering us away from the shore before we earned eternal damnation for crashing into the marble façade of Santa Maria Elisabetta Church.
March chose not to ask for details about my credentials, and I chose not to disclose that it was the Titanic, and that I had intentionally rammed it against the iceberg to perform a reconstitution. Over the droning of the engine, I heard a groan and some rustling in the cockpit. My eyes darted to the mirror. March stood on the deck. I glimpsed a flash of yellow and registered a splashing sound. The last guy had been granted the luxury of a lifejacket. March knelt over his magic suitcase to wipe his gloves with a wet towel and started rummaging in the compartments to assemble something. A sniper rifle.
The other speedboat was still gaining on us as we raced toward the entrance of the Grand Canal. Half of the buttons in front of me I didn’t know how to use, but I had at least approximate control of the wheel and speed lever. March was now positioned at the rear of the boat, leaning on the bench to stabilize his rifle, and ready to shoot another bunch of fake Italians.
Our trip to Venice was starting well, if you’re willing to overlook the fact that no version of Ship Simulator covered the topic of how to engage in a speedboat race on the Grand Canal. Forget about enjoying the surreal sight of renaissance buildings planted in water. Because of boats. Boats everywhere! Ochre, pink, red: a ribbon of colors flew past me as I swerved left and right, between water taxis and gondolas, barges and . . . a fricking canoe?
“Island!”
March’s shout had me spinning the wheel just in time. As the boat veered left, there was a loud scratching sound, and I saw a ream fly past us from the corner of my eye. The sudden change of direction sent us bulleting straight toward a restaurant terrace, and I thought, This is it. This is what they’ll say in my eulogy—that I died boat crashing into a pizzeria.
I didn’t, but it was a close call; a vigorous swing of the wheel sent us sailing away from the panicked screams of people who had seen themselves die too, only eating calzones. Once we were back in the middle of the canal, I checked the mirror. The canoe guy was being pulled out of the water by a gondolier. He looked sort of okay, although I doubted he’d ever try paddling down the Grand Canal again.
Behind us, the white boat was equally hindered. A departing vaporetto forced them to make a loop in the middle of the canal, under the insults of several water taxis. March kept watching them through his riflescope, but apparently they weren’t stupid enough to open fire while surrounded by tourists eating gelato.
“Are they after Dries?” I shouted from the cabin.
“An excellent question for Mr. Morgan—he looks very flustered!”
“What?”
It made sense. If Dries was still in Venice and the CIA was looking for him, then that’s where Alex would go. But I wished March hadn’t told me, because now I felt sick, and my hands were trembling as I pushed on the throttle lever. I didn’t think it would get worse, until I caught a flash of blue beyond the massive white arches of the Rialto Bridge. Did we want to race past another police boat while ours was possibly stolen, and there was blood all over the cockpit inside which March sat holding a rifle? Maybe not.
I didn’t have any plan; I steered all the way to the right and barreled into a narrow canal leading into the maze of old stones of the Castello district. The first gunshots crackling in the air reminded me that we were now away from prying eyes and that my ex-boyfriend was the clingy type. I buried my head in my shoulders and gripped the wheel harder. March replied with two consecutive shots. It was a dark epiphany to realize that I could tell when he was the one firing—not just because it sounded closer but because he seldom pressed the trigger twice unless he had to. An unpleasant pressure squeezed my lungs when I noticed in the mirror that the two men who had been visible on the deck of the white boat appeared to be gone. I hoped they were only wounded too . . . Could one of them be Alex?
“They’re faster than us; we need to lose them.”
I jumped out of my skin when March pulled me away from the controls. Desperately focused on not crashing into anything, I hadn’t heard him retreat into the cabin.
I reluctantly let go of the wheel, and I crouched a little to shield myself. Mossy walls and dinghies flew past us. It was the sight of an eighteenth-century building that sparked a light in my memories. I had been there before, with my mother. It’d been more than a decade, but I couldn’t forget that roman arch, flanked by a pair of unfortunately placed round windows. Just a little too high. The gondola ride had been a smoother and slower one, giving me ample time to stare and conclude that no one should ever build an entrance door that looked like the female reproductive system.
I grabbed March’s forearm. “Take a left; take a left now! There’s . . . a bridge, in that street!”
“Island—”
“Now!” I shouted.
To my amazement, he complied and swore under his breath right afterward. Too late to back out. I thought we’d make it through easily, but the pink bridge was even lower than in my memories. We bolted under the tiny arch. Something creaked and tore on the roof—the beacon light, judging by the blue shards of plastic raining into the cockpit. I was counting on the evil white boat to follow us, and boy, did it, in a terrible crash of plastic and metal. You see, the CIA was a generous mistress, one that provided bigger, faster, better crafts than those of the Venetian police. But mostly bigger.
March looked in the mirror at the pristine bow stuck under the bridge and the mess of floating parts surrounding it. Then his gaze fell on me. “The damage is superficial. And there’s a larger canal running parallel to this one; it won’t take them long to find us again.”
My features pinched at the same time that his relaxed a little. “I am, however, impressed,” he concluded with a wink.
I don’t think March had ever played Ship Simulator, but in his hands, the wheel barely moved, guided by his palms. Our boat glided straight and fast down the ironically named Canale della Misericordia until we reached the north side of the lagoon. There he moored on a deserted wooden pier. Behind us, an alley the size of a needle’s eye meandered back into the paved streets of the Cannaregio. We were already running away when I looked over my shoulder at the police boat secured to a red-and-white striped post. “Your suitcase, you forgot it in the cockpit!”
He hadn’t. In guise of answer, he squeezed my hand harder, pulling me toward him. A couple of pigeons took off ahead of us. I was distracted by the soft flapping of their wings, the flash of iridescent gray, almost black against the glare of the sun. Behind us, something blew up on the pier. I held my breath when the booming shock wave reached us. People were yelling. They sounded fine, but there was an undercurrent of stupor to their voices, like they couldn’t believe it. I could, because I had gotten used to the fact that things often exploded around March.
I kept looking back at the cloud of black smoke rising above the tiled roofs. March dragged me so I wouldn’t stop running. “I’m sorry for that. I prefer not to leave anything behind.”
Understandable, I thought, my breath short from the effort to keep up with him—Damn you, tall people! In the middle of it all, I made a mental note that my own suitcase had lasted all of twelve hours . . .
I had no idea where he was taking me. We turned left and right, our shoes clattering on the pavement as we raced past cracked walls and colorful shutters. I wondered if March knew—sensed—something: he’d sometimes pause briefly, hesitate between two streets, and always pick the darkest, less touristy one. We ran and ran, until flowers and light burst into view. Water trickled from a stone fountain in front of a small renaissance church. We’d reached a rather large place, and this time there would be nowhere to hide.
March stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes scanned the buildings, the tourists chatting in front of a gift shop. It always made me feel half blind when he did that, because there were so many things he saw that I would never have noticed. Like the guy in a worn leather jacket sitting with his back to us under an umbrella at the table of a trattoria.
I should have recognized him though. He turned to greet us. A warm, peaceful smile cracked under a week’s worth of dark stubble, and he had the softest cinnamon eyes.
Alex’s eyes.
10
Dead Ball
Christie caressed the soft swell of her belly with a despondent sigh. It had only only taken one night of devastating passion for Xander to score both in her heart and in her uterus.
Becky David, Under Penalty of Love
March’s eyes darted up to one of the windows above the trattoria. The shutters were slightly ajar, and he didn’t seem to like it much. Meanwhile, Alex crossed the place like any other tourist, his hands in his pockets, and that boyish je ne sais quoi on his features, which seldom left him. I glanced down. His pants were still damp, the only sign that he had just narrowly avoided dying at the age of twenty-eight, smashed like a pumpkin against a Venetian bridge.
He looked me straight in the eyes, and his lips curved down in the semblance of a compassionate frown. “Baby, are you okay?”
Before I could snap back something I’d regret, he turned his attention to March. “Quite a run you gave us, Mr. November. But working with you, I learned you’re not so good when you get drawn out of the shadows.” He gazed at the place around us. “I’ve got a team in place, and you left me half of the other one. I wouldn’t do anything rash if I were you.” He narrowed his eyes at me, just for a second, and there it was, the other Alex, the one I’d come to know on the side of a mountain road in Switzerland. “She’s slow. You’re dragging her, and you know it. Even if you could escape, I’d just make sure she gets shot and never walks again.”
He winked at me then, and two scenes flashed in my mind: March, severing the spine of a guy named Rislow, in part to settle an old score but mostly as punishment for having tried to dismember me on an operation table. And later, Dries threatening to do the same to me to reassert who was the boss in his evil lair. It was apparently one of the Lions’ favorite punishments, called a forty-five, and consisted of cutting between the fourth and fifth vertebrae, so the recipient could still breathe on his own but was left a quadriplegic. I wondered if Alex was aware he used the same kind of threat as the man he had sworn to kill.
March took a step back to stand behind me, shielding my spine with his own. I clenched my fists. Anything, anything but this. He returned Alex’s tranquil smile, as if they were just a couple of old friends about to meet for drinks. “Forgive me, I’m a little confused. I must say I’d been hoping for a romantic escapade in Venice, rather than, well”—he smacked his tongue—“enlighten me, Mr. Morgan. What is it that you have in mind?”
“Listen to me, asshole. You wounded five agents, nearly killed one. Whatever deal you had with the agency is off. Now you’re just another name on the long list of people I’m free to wipe out any way I want.”
“Yet I’m still standing,” March noted.
“I want Dries, and you’re going to help me find him.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t much I can do.”
The soft cinnamon gaze turned stone cold. “You’re gonna help me, because I’m your only chance to ever return to that shitty Good Samaritan life you tried to make for yourself. Give me what I want, I clean up your file”—Alex snapped his fingers—“just like that. Think about it. You can go back to your little business, chase cheating husbands and lost cats”—he flashed me his most convincing good-guy smile—“and fuck my spoils after dinner.”
I took a sharp breath. “Alex.”
“Yes, baby?”
Don’t. Call. Me. Baby.
“I hope Poppy never finds out what kind of turd you are.”
The nice smile distorted into a snarl. Alex didn’t like it when people brought up his dear little sister, who lived the carefree life of a sixteen-year-old in Washington’s suburbs, unaware that her brother traveled around the world killing people in the name of the greater good. Or just to satisfy a hunger I had yet to fully comprehend.
He shrugged. “She won’t. But you will if I don’t find Dries. You’re his accomplices. Him”—Alex jerked his chin at March—“he’ll escape, or get himself killed. But you . . . you’ll get life without parole in maximum security, so the good people get to see some justice.”
Neither March nor I reacted to these new threats. Whether intentionally or not, Alex had provided us with a considerable piece of intel. He knew Dries had contacted March. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so sure March and I were part of some evil terrorist plot. Which brought me back to the same question I’d been asking myself back in Cape Saint Francis: How? March had sort of hinted at the possibility that Lions occasionally make their plans known to the CIA. Or was it the opposite? But Alex made no secret of his beef with their (now former) vice commander, and he had burned Dries, badly. So why would the Lions want anything to do with him?
“Island, baby?”
I glared at Alex and took a cautious step back. He turned his head to a lone figure standing at the other end of the place in front of the church’s marble stairs. “Can I ask you to follow Agent Stiles without making a scene? Mr. November and I need to finish this conversation alone.”
I glanced over his shoulder. I recognized the loose-fitting suit concealing a brawny build, the blond buzz cut, and that perpetual air of innocence, even as he tried to look stern. A fleeting sense of relief eased the tension in my limbs. We were being marked by a bunch of invisible shooters waiting for Alex to give his go, and he wanted to use me against March to force him to talk. But in this dark hour, I had a Facebook friend.
Special Agent Joshua Stiles, forty years old, ten of which spent in the shadow of assholes like Alex at the CIA’s Directorate of Foreign Operations. Enjoyed Dukes of Hazzard reruns, pizza rolls, and . . . cats. He and I had met in New York during the investigation of the Ruby case. We’d barely spent fifteen minutes alone together in Bellevue hospital’s garage, while Alex and March were busy having yet another pissing contest over me. Short as our encounter might have been, it was bromance at first sight: Here was a man who wondered whether Guantanamo provided smaller orange pj’s for short people like me, and spent a considerable amount of time posting cat pics on Facebook during work hours.
He had sent me a friend invite, with the promise of the hottest videos I’d ever see online, and that’s how everything had begun. Our forbidden passion had been consummated during my trip from Vaduz to Cape Saint Francis, when I started liking said videos one after another in the plane. I didn’t know how to tell March about Stiles and his secret hobby without it sounding weird, or even dangerous, so I had kept this new relationship a secret.
I waved timidly at him. He didn’t wave back. Heartbreak and betrayal? So soon?
“Island . . .” Alex’s warning held the amusement of an adult scolding a child, but I could see no trace of humor in his eyes.
I moved away from March slowly, searching his face for any sign that he had a plan. He merely nodded once and watched me leave. Halfway across the place, I stopped.
Certain moments in life call for an organ solo. Such as the horrifying second of doubt you experience right before ripping out the band of wax you just placed on you
r armpit. Or when you’re being hunted in the streets of Venice by your creepy ex-boyfriend, and, in front of you, the heavy wooden doors of a church open to reveal a funeral procession. As if to remind you that yes, you are indeed that screwed.
A whiff of incense reached my nostrils at the same time that Stiles turned to check the newcomers. The procession was pretty standard, as far as burial ceremonies go: A dozen people of all ages and sizes dressed in black, a couple of old women sobbing. Four men carried a black coffin. I noticed that they were all wearing homemade yellow armbands bearing the emblem of the local soccer club, the Venezia F.C. In the same spirit, the spray of white and purple chrysanthemums sitting on top of the coffin had been arranged to form a shape reminiscent of a soccer ball.
A dedicated fan had left this world.
We all watched, for a moment suspended in time, as they walked down the smooth marble steps and crossed the place in quiet solemnity.
Until something shook, rolled, and clanked inside the coffin.
The men dropped it in panic. Under their black lace veils, the old ladies squeaked. March and Alex drew their weapons at once. Red dots appeared on the walls and started a hesitant waltz between the coffin, the mourners, my chest, March’s head, and even Alex’s, because I guess even the black ops have their twits. Combined horror and bewilderment took over me when the black lacquered wood emitted the faintest squeak.
I’m a woman of science, and up to a point, a rational person. But I also watched The Sixth Sense in the dark as a kid, and since then, I never really stopped worrying that the dead might actually be creeping all around us. So, when I saw the top of the coffin shake, the smoke seep out—straight from hell—I’d tell you that my blood chilled, but that’s not even close. Every square inch of my skin prickled in horror. My jaw started quivering, and I just couldn’t stop the chatter of my teeth.