Exit Strategy

by Charlton Pettus

  “God, no, Simon. I’m the one who’s behaved badly. I had no right to drag you into this. There just wasn’t anyone else. I should have gone to the police, probably.”

  “I think if you had you’d be dead already,” Simon said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know. None of it makes sense, but I had no right to involve you. And, of course, you’re right. Stop messing with this. We know enough to know that.” She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “We probably shouldn’t speak for a while. The kids go on spring break next week. I’ll take them somewhere.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down.

  “No, I am. You have been a hero, you know.” She squeezed his hand and slid out of the booth. “Goodbye, Si.”

  “It was rabbit, by the way,” he said. She stopped with a quizzical look.

  “The foreign protein in the sample, it was rabbit.” He didn’t look up as she left the diner.

  * * *

  Jordan woke in total darkness. At first he thought he was back in the capsule in Tokyo. Colder, though, and the floor was harder and curved. Then he remembered. Ghedi’s family was huddled together on the other side of the pipe. They had been gathered around a smoldering coal fire. Jordan had tried to explain the danger—the gases would collect in the pipe with no way out, driving the air out and killing them all, and indeed the fire seemed to struggle in the oxygen-poor atmosphere—but the Eritreans spoke no English at all and had only smiled warmly at everything he said.

  He heard one of the babies stir and the mother murmured to it. There was a rustle of movement and then all was still again. The thick iron of the pipe seemed to muffle sound within as well as blocking all sound from outside. He stared at the spot where he knew a simple sheet of cardboard covered the hole that served as the front door. He couldn’t see a trace of light so it must still be dark outside. He should try to sleep. He’d need it. He focused on his breathing and tried to slow the beating of his heart.

  * * *

  In the dream he was running, pounding down metal stairs that descended into the darkness. He was being chased, no shock there. And then he was awake but the ringing footsteps went on. He rubbed his eyes. It was day. The pipe was empty. Diffuse light shone up through the hole in the floor. Someone was tapping. He slid closer to the opening. He heard a voice, Feda, calling, “Mr. Jordan, Mr. Jordan.” He scrabbled along the floor. It was too low to stand, and he’d struck his head hard the night before, misjudging his crouch in the gloom. He lowered himself feetfirst through the hole and dropped to the ground, blinking in the glare of the day.

  Feda had a stick in his hand. Jordan assumed that was what he’d been hitting the pipe with. Next to him was a box and a little bundle. “I brought what you asked for,” he said, looking quite pleased with himself.

  “Perfect,” Jordan said, peering into the box. The rat was as big as a cat, fat with a sleek clumpy gray coat. Its eyes gleamed with malicious intelligence. A survivor. “You’re sure they swim?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Feda said as if the question was ridiculous.

  “Good.” He closed the box. Feda had poked several holes in the top and he could see the rat twist around inside as he set it down. It was surprisingly heavy. “And the knife?”

  Feda handed him a knife wrapped in a filthy cloth. It had a thin blade, almost a stiletto.

  Jordan ran it over his thumbnail; a translucent shaving curled up effortlessly. “Good. Needle and thread?”

  “That was difficult. This was all I could find. I think the needle is for mending shoes.” That sounded right, Jordan thought. The needle was thick and curved. It would have to do.

  “Did you eat?”

  “Last night. Ghedi’s family was very generous.”

  “Here.” Feda handed him a chunk of day-old baguette and an apple.

  Jordan sat down on the ground to eat. He tore off little bits of the bread and poked them through the holes for the rat. When the bread was gone he took a bite of the apple. It was a little mealy but sweet. He opened the lid of the box. The rat blinked up at him, sniffing the air. Jordan held out a little piece and the rat took it delicately with his teeth, then sat back and held the chunk of fruit between his paws as he nibbled around it.

  “What are you going to do, Mr. Jordan?” Feda asked.

  Jordan smiled. “If I tell you, you won’t want to help me and I’m going to need help.”

  “I won’t harm anyone,” Feda said firmly.

  “I’d never ask you to. I think me and Ben here are the only ones at risk.”

  “Ben?”

  Jordan laughed. “Stupid joke. Bad movie. Doesn’t matter. Let’s go, get it over with.” He shut the lid on the rat’s box and stood up.

  Feda gave him a scarf to wrap around his head. “Perhaps you should keep your head down.”

  * * *

  “Is it done?”

  “No, not yet,” Dennis said. “He is there. Someone is helping him. But Zar Wali says it’s just a matter of a day or two.”

  67

  THE BOG

  Jordan tore one of the T-shirts into strips. He used the other to wipe down the long trough urinal. Then he balled it up and plugged the drain. He opened the spigot all the way. Looked like it would take ten to fifteen minutes to fill. He checked to make sure the door was locked, then let the rat out of its box. He let it wander the floor freely as he bit little pieces off the apple and arranged them around himself on the floor. He watched the rat as it first circumnavigated the latrine, hugging the cement wall and sniffing the air.

  After a couple minutes the rat came back to where Jordan and Feda sat on the dirt floor. It took a piece of apple and ate it. It was remarkably unconcerned, Jordan thought. The sound of the water running into the trough had changed as the bottom became completely submerged. It had lost its percussive quality and become more of a constant drone. Jordan offered a piece of apple from his hand and the rat took it. As it chewed, Jordan reached out and touched his back. The rat pulled back with a scrabbling of claws on dirt but didn’t go far and momentarily returned to take another piece of fruit.

  Jordan tried a new tack. He held out a piece of apple, but when the rat tried to take it he held on so the rodent was obliged to eat out of his hand. Then he touched it again while it ate. It flinched but allowed the contact. Jordan stroked the back of its head and then ran a finger down its back. The rat’s fur felt oily and thick and there was a spongy layer of fat above the muscle and bone.

  “Check the water level,” he asked Feda.

  Feda slowly stood, keeping a wary eye on the rat. “It’s about this deep,” he said, holding his hands about six inches apart.

  “Okay, almost there. Are you ready? I’m going to need a little help in a minute.” Feda nodded uncertainly, his eyes wide.

  “Don’t worry,” Jordan said, keeping his voice low and even. “It’s going to be all right.”

  He laid out several strips of the torn T-shirt on the ground like stripes on a flag and gently led the rat over them. When he was satisfied with the rat’s position he slowly lowered his right hand onto its back, talking all the while in gentle reassuring tones, and then, without warning, he slammed the hand down, pinning the animal against the floor. The rat twisted its neck around, frantically trying to bite, its eyes rolled back in fear and fury, tail lashing and twisting around Jordan’s forearm. He used his first two fingers to prevent the head from lifting.

  “Quickly, tie him to my hand,” Jordan said through clenched teeth. He hadn’t been prepared for the ferocity of the rat’s response. It took all of his strength to keep the creature pinned down. He could tell if it got its legs under it again, he’d lose it.

  Feda, pale but determined, tied the strips of T-shirt tightly around the back of Jordan’s hand. When five strips were tied, pressing the rat’s back into his palm, Jordan felt it suddenly go limp
. He could feel the animal’s heart pounding, its sides heaving.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. He was panting, too, and his forehead shone with sweat. With some effort he slowed his breathing and blinked the sweat out of his eyes.

  “Turn off the water,” he said. Feda did. It was suddenly deathly quiet. Jordan’s breathing seemed to reverberate off the cement and he could hear a ratcheting sound, almost like a cat’s purr, from the rat, and the odd drip of water into the trough.

  “Knife.” Feda handed it to him. Fear, awe and confusion fought for the upper hand on his face. Jordan looked at the rat’s hind leg. The fleshiest part was high up, almost on its back, a round soft-looking ball of muscle. He took one more deep breath to steady himself, whispering, “Here we go,” under his breath, and cut.

  The cut was about an inch long and almost as deep. He made it with the point of the blade in one quick stroke. The rat screamed. It sounded like a small child. The shrieks echoed in the close space. Jordan stood up. With its legs no longer pinned to the ground the frantic animal twisted and flailed, trying to turn its body over so it could get a purchase on Jordan’s arm. He plunged his hand into the trough. Blood bloomed from the rat’s hind leg like crimson smoke in the water. He pressed the rat against the bottom, the claws grated over the metal. He pushed down hard to keep the hand still. With the tip of the knife he lightly traced the scar from where the Angel had been put in and then he cut it open.

  Searing pain shot up his whole arm. He almost blacked out. He leaned against the side of the trough, blinking himself back, breathing fast and loud through his nose. He heard Feda cry out in Pashtun, seemingly from far away. So much blood. His hand disappeared behind thick billows. He dragged the rat up the trough to the clear water. He had to work fast. With the end of the knife he tried to dig the tracer out. He could feel it hard against the tip but he couldn’t get any purchase on it.

  The knife scraped against a tendon and Jordan cried out, a deep guttural involuntary groan. “Feda,” he cried, “you have to help me.”

  The boy was sitting on the ground with his arms wrapped around his knees, tears running down his expressionless face, shaking his head.

  Jordan dropped the knife. It hit the bottom of the trough with a ping. He couldn’t see it through the water now tinted red to the point of utter opacity. Screwing his eyes shut, he slid his thumb between the rat’s thrashing body and his palm. He pushed up with the thumb as hard as he could and shoved his ring finger into the fresh wound. He felt the glass chip, hard and smooth, unnatural. The middle finger of his right hand jerked spasmodically as he pushed against nerves and tendons. He got under the Angel with his fingernail and with a little sucking release it was free. He couldn’t see anything; the blood flow from his hand had redoubled and the efforts of the drowning rat were making a pink froth of the water.

  For a second he had it as it floated free. Then it was gone. Frantically his left hand swished through the water. Nothing. The rat’s struggles had subsided. Just twitches of the forepaws.

  Everything was quiet. Slow drips from the faucet. Jordan’s head sagged forward. The water sloshed gently down the trough in red waves. Then he felt it, something small and smooth brushed against his thumb as it rested on the bottom, clutching the rat. He swept the free hand in and there it was. Glass scraped against metal. He pinched the chip between his thumb and middle finger and swiftly slid it into the incision on the rat’s haunch, pushing it as deep as he could into the muscle. He ripped the rat out of the water. It was deadweight. The waterlogged carcass hung off his hand, heavy and dripping. It reminded Jordan of the dead squirrel he’d found in his gutter one year during the annual cleanout. He had been throwing handfuls of sodden dead leaves up onto the roof when the little body had rolled out, swollen and bloated.

  “No,” he croaked. His voice was gone. He’d gotten this far. Not like this. He pressed the rat against the ground and pushed down sharply, compressing the rib cage. After the third compression a flood of pink water ran out of the rat’s mouth and it sputtered. Its tail snapped from side to side. “Quickly, Feda, needle and thread. You have to do this.”

  The boy nodded grimly. Jordan showed him where to start stitching up the rat’s leg. “What about your hand?” Thick blood was pumping steadily out of the wound and running in rivulets down the side of his thumb and into the rat’s coat.

  “Later. The rat.”

  “What was in your hand, Amerikaayi?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Jordan heaved a great sigh of relief when, halfway through the stitching up, the rat seemed to come back to himself and succeeded in twisting around and biting Jordan’s finger and raking his forearm with the claws of its uninjured hind leg. The pain was nothing to the relief that the rat would apparently survive.

  He pulled his hand out of the bloody harness and succeeded in getting the struggling rat back in the box. He wrapped a strip of shirt around his hand to slow the pulsing flow of thick blood. There was the sound of raised voices from outside and someone pulled on the locked door. Feda looked fearfully at Jordan and said, “We must hurry.” He pulled the balled shirt out of the trough and the bloody water started to twist down the drain with a metallic sucking sound. He put the wet T-shirt and the discarded strips in the box with the panting rat.

  “Please put the kafiyah back on,” the boy said. Jordan loosely wrapped the scarf around his head with his good hand and Feda tugged the front of it down so it hid most of his face. Someone banged angrily on the door and Feda yelled something in Pashtun.

  “Come, walk like you are sick,” he hissed. He opened the door and Jordan followed him outside, bent over with his bloody hand pressed to his belly. Two Arab men were arguing outside. One shot Jordan and Feda a filthy look and walked into the latrine. The other was a man from Feda’s tribe. He took Jordan’s elbow and guided him into the woods as Feda spoke to him quickly under his breath.

  68

  GO WITH GOD

  The widow came out of the diner and turned left. Her shoulders were hunched up, hands jammed in her coat pockets. She didn’t look at Prenn parked across the street, slouched low in the seat of the black A6. As soon as she rounded the corner he got out and quickly crossed to the diner. What were they up to? Herron thought. Tag teaming somebody? Then the answer hit him—the widow had another guy in play. Maybe a double cross, or just a simple love triangle; throw in the hooker, make it a square, or what the hell, stepmom makes a pentagon or a pentagram, whatever you call it. This was good. He would love to be a fly on the wall in there but Prenn would make him in a second. He opted to settle for a look through the window; if he could tag the third wheel, maybe he’d lead somewhere.

  Prenn was in a booth with his back to the window. He was sitting across from a skinny black guy in a Red Sox cap and jacket. They seemed to be having a friendly enough conversation. They clearly knew each other. Herron went back to his car and waited.

  Prenn came out alone, crossed to his car and drove off. Herron waited for Red Sox. He came out a couple minutes later and walked right by the cop’s window. Herron got out and fell in behind him, following him down the stairs of the Kendall Square T station. He took the Alewife train two stops to Harvard Square and, Herron trailing half a block behind, continued up Mass. Ave. to Cambridge Street. He walked past the science center and took the walkway to Oxford Street. A couple of blocks up he turned into the Engineering Sciences Lab, a gray cement anachronism of ’70s modern amid the dominant Georgian brick.

  Herron pretended to study the directory as Red Sox nervously paced by the elevators. The elevator arrived with a discomfiting thunk and a muted chime. Herron put his arm in as the doors were sliding shut. He re-pressed the already illuminated button for three and gave Sox a curt nod before watching the numbers climb. Herron walked ahead down the hallway, but when he heard a door open behind him he waited a beat and glanced over his shoulder. Suite 322.

 
Back in the lobby his finger ran quickly up the directory—322: Gene Lab. Dr. Simon Perry.

  Nice to meetcha, Doc.

  * * *

  Stephanie was late for class. She was digging through the disarray on her desk and didn’t hear Alex come in. He cleared his throat and she jumped. “Jesus, Alex. You scared me.” She did look pale.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said with a smile, leaning against the doorframe.

  She forced a matching smile as she stuffed the whole pile of papers into her briefcase. “Sorry. It’s just end of term insanity. We go on spring break next week and it’s all a little crazy right now.”

  She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and squeezed past him. “Walk with me,” she said over her shoulder. “I have to get to class.” Her heart was pounding in her chest.

  “I came by earlier,” he said casually. “You weren’t around.”

  “I wish I’d known you were coming. I had a meeting,” she said.

  “Ah,” he said. “I figured you’d gone out to lunch or something.”

  “No such luck. Just a student.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  He walked with her across the courtyard and held the door. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said.

  “I won’t, I—I’ll call you,” she stammered and awkwardly kissed his cheek. “Promise.”

  He watched her walk down the hallway with a thoughtful expression.

  * * *

  Sam unfolded the fax again. Pretty low-res, no way they made an ID unless they already knew who they were looking for. He remembered the day he had gone over to Prenn’s. How did security footage from Prenn’s building end up in DC, bumping into locked doors and disturbing sleeping dogs? He traced the curve of his lower lip with a fingertip.

  He pulled out his phone. “Good morning, Dennis. I need you to take care of something else.”

  * * *

  “There is a truck,” Feda was saying. “It is heading to Marseille—vegetables from England, all in cardboard boxes. Your friend Ben will be fat and happy.” Jordan nodded. Feda handed the box with the rat to another Pashtun boy, who tucked it under his arm and headed off down the path.