“Where are you?”
He sounds suspicious, rightfully so. We both are.
“I’ll let you know when I get there. Right now, I need funds wired to me. Enough for a first-class ticket anywhere, and decent hotels.”
He’s probably counting through the loose cash in his pockets.
“I don’t like this mistrust,” he says. “You’re still in my employ. You don’t have the right to be demanding a ransom.”
“Yeah, well, I kind of went above-and-beyond for this thing, so think of it as a bonus. Besides, the way I see it, I’m pretty much fucked from this point on.”
I will never be returning to the States.
We talk but he never mentions Roland Park-White or what happened in Hong Kong, and I don’t ask him about either because I’m not expecting him to. He’s a big, powerful fish and I have him on a very thin length of fraying twine. I’m going to have to bring him in carefully.
After I receive the money, I fly to Helsinki and hole up for a few days. I’m still angry and hurt by what Mia’s done to me and Finland seems to be a good place to go though, for the life of me, I can’t remember why I thought this.
“McNeil.”
I swear in surprise, recognizing the voice right off.
“Hey! How you doing?”
Like I’m not busy trying to save my own ass from prison, or death — kicked back on the couch, drinking a beer, watching The Price is Right.
“What the hell are you doing?” Bouchard asks. “Where are you?”
“You don’t know? I’m still in Hong Kong.”
I’m in a dreary little hotel in the Kallio area of Helsinki, sitting on a bed that feels like it’s made from cinder blocks with my back to the wall and a bat across my thighs. I found the bat in an alleyway near the train station and thought it was a baseball bat but when I came in with it on my shoulder the girl at the front desk told me that it’s a bat for pesäpallo. I don’t know what the hell that is, but like our own American baseball, its equipment is adequate enough for shattering a knee or cracking a skull if necessary, so…Go Fins!
Anyway, he and Getting don’t need to know any of this.
Where is Bouchard in the scheme of things? What does he know? When I called Getting to set this up, it sounded like Bouchard wasn’t any of part of this.
So why’s he calling?
“I’m getting ready to go meet with Getting,” I tell him. “I have the reader.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this. You really should hold back and think things through.”
He actually sounds concerned, which is strange, so I ask him why and he tells me that Getting cannot be trusted, that he’ll burn me the first chance he gets, as if I don’t know this already. What am I going to say? Maybe this is Getting checking up on me, to see if I have any secret plans of my own. I thank Bouchard for his concern, for thinking about me, but I tell him that I’ll be okay.
I then ask him if he has any information on Mia, where she might be. He tells me that they’re looking for her but nothing has come up yet. I consider mentioning Anna and Iben, but then why would I want to fuck them over like that?
I still like them, even if their friend is a bitch.
I meet Bergey my first day in Keflavík, an odd little town near Iceland’s international airport, which isn’t in Reykjavik, some forty or fifty kilometers away. It’s made up of squat little houses that all seem to be of the same shape, same height, and one of three colors — white, red, or grey. A neat collection of small, quiet homes and, it also seems, hardly any people. I mean, my first impression is end-of-the-world scary shit.
But then I come across a Subway of all things, in the section that I guess is considered their downtown. This is surprising enough, spotting the familiar green-and-yellow sign over a narrow shop, but it’s Bergey who really makes it seem like I’ve entered the fucking Twilight Zone. (Dad can tell you which episode I’m in now.)
There was a U.S. military base in Keflavík, back during the Cold War, and Bergey is a product of those close relations. Her paternal biological donor was a black Tech Sergeant who transferred stateside without knowing that he had left something behind. (I can understand how that can happen.) Now, Bergey is the mixed-race eldest child in a otherwise homogeneous Icelandic family made up of her mother, her stepfather, and her two stepbrothers.
Sort of the Anti-McNeils, I guess. Or the Inverse-McNeils. Or the Photonegative-McNeils. Or something.
“Have you ever been to Paris?”
I’ve always wanted to go to Paris for some reason. I guess for the same reason that everyone else wants to go to Paris — because that’s where everyone goes. Except for Parisians, I guess. Where do they all want to go, in general, as a group? Anyway, I had planned to go there when I was stationed in Germany, but like about everyone else in the Army, I hardly left the base.
That’s the Armed Forces for you. Travel the world to see exotic U.S. military facilities.
“No, I haven’t.”
Bergey gives me a pouty expression to show me how seriously disappointed she is with me. This girl has a gift for making someone feel inadequate, so probably like every boyfriend she’s ever going to have, I quickly start talking to see if I can make her think better of me.
She’s sixteen. I’m forty-five. How pathetic am I?
I tell her that over the past month, I was in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Delhi — that I stayed at a villa on Malta (I tell her it’s an island in the Mediterranean, which she didn’t know — I feel a juvenile pride.), and had been to Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Brussels and Abu Dhabi. It’s terrible, really, what I’m doing. I’m teasing her with the things I’ve done, the places I’ve seen, all while leaving out the worst of it. Still, I wish someone had gotten me to dream big when I was her age. Like her, when I was sixteen, I believed I would be spending my entire life in Boston.
A customer comes in, the only other customer since I arrived there, and Bergey gives this guy a glance of indignation before sighing and quickly taking her place behind the counter. She speaks hurriedly, in what I guess is Icelandic, and becomes visibly peeved when the man can’t decide if he wants onions on his sandwich or not, or what kind of mustard — sweet or dark. When he leaves the shop, she follows him to the door as though she means to lock it behind him, but she instead looks both ways up the quiet street and then comes back to join me at the table.
She slips her legs up under her and leans across the surface so that she’s more on my side than her own. I’m playing with my fingers and she moves to take my hand but I quickly snatch them away and grab the edge of the bench I’m sitting on.
“So what do you do?” she whispers, playfully furtive. “Are you like a secret agent or something?”
I laugh.
“I used to be in the FBI and…”
“Like Jodie Foster? In Silence of the Lambs?”
All girls mention Jodie Foster when you tell them you’re with the Bureau.
“Not exactly like that.”
She’s so cute, her enthusiasm. And it’s strange. It’s as if I’m suddenly given the chance to speak with a younger, less disillusioned version of myself.
She asks if I will come home with her, after her shift ends. Bergey lives less than a kilometer away and she wants to take me home to meet her family, I guess to show me off, but I can imagine how well that would go over. I’m pretty sure that if I had brought home a forty-five-year old woman to meet my parents when I was sixteen, Mom would’ve at first greeted her cordially, then stepped forward and severed the woman’s carotid with a paring knife.
I tell her that I can’t. I have work to do.
“What? Are you on a case?”
“No,” I tell her, “but I am a fugitive now, trying to get myself out of a jam with billionaire financiers and international arms traffickers. I’d appreciate it, though, if you would keep that information to yourself.”
Her face breaks into a broad grin.
“I like you.”
She
sees the same people every day. Any form of deviation from normal is welcomed, no matter how strange.
I stop in to see Bergey a couple of times during the week. I figure if someone sees me, a black woman walking about town, they might also see me being friendly with the girl in the Subway shop and assume that she’s my daughter or niece. She’s happy for the company, grateful that I didn’t disappear after our first meeting because she’s embarrassed with how she feels she came across. I tell her not to worry about it, that I was much the same way when I was her age, and it seems to settle her. I guess it means to her that ebullient girls with silly daydreams can one day become undercover agents.
After my fifth day on the island, I tell Getting that he can meet me there, in Keflavík. That same morning, I make another call, check out of my hotel, and move myself into a hostel in Reykjavik. I catch the bus back and pass the rest of the morning watching for anything out of the ordinary.
Besides me, that is.
I meet Bergey as she comes around the corner of the building to begin her shift. She’s walking with her eyes turned to the ground, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her Icelandic Girl Pride bomber jacket, a faraway cast upon her face, but as she draws near, she senses my presence, looks up, and smiles when she sees it’s me. She hovers close, overly familiar, as she asks me about my day and it makes me uneasy.
I tell her that I’ll be leaving this afternoon and I have come to say good-bye. Her face immediately falls and it strikes me that there may be a scene brewing, a scene which might draw attention, so I motion her into the shop. Inside, her co-worker, a lump of a boy whose name I cannot pronounce and whose pants are always on the verge of falling to the floor, watches us as Bergey tells him that we’re going into the back. There’s a mixture of reservation and hopefulness in his eyes as we slip by.
“We won’t be kissing,” I tell him as I step past. He blushes.
I can say shit like that. I’m an adult. The concept of sex doesn’t embarrass me anymore.
A sea fog pushes its way in sometime after two in the afternoon and it’s stunning, the speed at which it settles over the place. It sweeps over the surface of the harbor and clambers onto the land before it rolls up the street in my direction, enveloping shops and homes like it’s devouring the town. When it hits me, I feel the mist as a damp cold on one side of my face and immediately I wish I had something warmer to wear. Within minutes, the frizzy springs of my hair lie limp, sticking uncomfortably to my head. I’m pretty sure I make a pathetic sight to the citizens of Keflavík.
My phone rings because I’m too stupid to I turn the damned ringer off. If they’re where they’re supposed to be, they might’ve just heard my phone coming from somewhere up the street, from somewhere within the fog. Hopefully they’re finding it all as creepy as I am.
“Where you at?” the voice asks. It’s not Getting, or Bouchard, but it’s oddly familiar.
“Where’re you?”
“Where we’re supposed to be,” the voice tells me, agitated. “In front of the boat.”
I give directions to a traffic circle, with a low fountain at its center, in the middle of town. The voice is not happy, but I didn’t want to put myself with my back to the water, giving a shooter too easy of a shot. I want to be in plain view of the public, surrounded by buildings that will echo gunfire and cause a commotion. I hadn’t counted on this crap mist, though.
At least if anyone is going to try to put a scope on me, they will have to be close enough that I can simply reach out and poke them in the eye.
After a few moments, the labored rattle of a diesel van moves through the fog. I’m standing in front of an appliance store and when I glance inside, I find the people in there watching me, though I don’t think they’re hoping I’m a customer.
Jesus, I really miss my badge and sidearm.
The van — a dark green Mercedes that reminds me of the ones we used in the Army — comes to a rolling, squealing stop as it approaches the roundabout, pauses, then proceeds around the fountain in a clockwise direction. It stops abruptly when someone in the back points me out. The driver puts on the emergency flashers, but I’m pretty certain that in this shit, it won’t be enough. The door on the far side slides open, the front passenger door as well. I come out to the edge of the paver sidewalk.
“Jesus,” I say. “This isn’t fucking Britain.”
There’s a harsh laugh in response, a laugh that puts a face to that familiar voice. I can’t fucking believe it.
“Only two muppets on the entire island, so fuck ya, we know one another.”
“Fuck, Kelvin, was that you in Busan?”
Kel’s decked out in black BDU pants, tactical boots, and a dark grey, long-sleeve Henley that barely conceals his vest. He always wears a vest.
“Now, baby girl, you know I’s not stupid enough to cop to some homicide, so I’s going to consider that a rhetorical question.” he says, grinning. His grins are not usually kind expressions — he grins when he’s hurting people — but he is truly pleased to see me.
He comes over while the others, none of whom look like they came out of L.A., space themselves around the van. I so badly want to glance over my shoulder, to see how the people in the appliance store are reacting to the scene right outside their window.
“Shit, you’s messed up,” he says as he comes close. He never had the chance to see what had happened to me at Angel’s. His words are strangely hurtful.
“Fuck you, Kel.”
“Sorry. Guess that was harsh,” he says. “Didn’t mean offense. If it makes you feel better, I wish it was me who did you. A fucking single bullet to the head, that’s all.”
The thing with Kelvin is that you believe him when he tells you shit like that.
“Fucking animals, them folks. I bet that spic wouldn’t’ve been so fucking crude if it was one of his own fucking mamacitas. They’re nothing but fucking racist.”
“Figots,” I say.
He laughs at the recollection.
Who would imagine Kelvin Watts and my Mom would see things eye-to-eye.
A car appears out of the mist from my left, almost slamming head-on with the van. The driver instinctively taps the horn, but she regrets it immediately. Kelvin turns and waves the driver of the van to wait up one of the streets, telling him to keep the motor running. The driver, facing pressure, tries to get the van started but it takes a couple of turns of the key and pumps of the gas. Kelvin glances back to me and shrugs Whaddya gonna do?
“I figured you’d be beyond this by now,” I say, trying to kill time, wondering where my help is. “I heard Byr’s now some JCS.”
“Yeah, don’t usually go boots on the ground anymore, but Byr wanted this handled personally, seeing it’s an international thing. You know, get out and arrange for some local help. Besides, who else ya gonna trust?”
The van jerks to life and then pulls away, disappearing into the mist before its brakes squeak and the engine slips into neutral. We can hear it but it’s unseen, it had gotten that bad.
“So,” Kelvin says, gesturing with a roll of his head. “Where’s your crew?”
I actually laugh, the question is so unexpected.
“Guess Byr didn’t mention that I’m currently freelancing. This is strictly a desperado play.”
“Well, we better get to business then, before we spend any more time reminiscing.”
He pulls a thick number 10 envelope from a cargo pocket and hands it over, which I rip open so I can flip through the small stack of European cashier’s checks. I then pull out the reader and hold it up by its tail in much the same manner as Roland Park-White had when he first showed it to me. My reaction was probably very much like the reaction I’m getting from Kel now.
“That’s it?” he laughs.
“This is what it’s all about. Only one in the world, so don’t lose it.” I drop it into his gloved hand. “You going to put me down now?”
He looks at me deadly serious for a moment, but can’t keep himsel
f from breaking into another grin as he waves my concern aside.
“Naw! There’s no need to worry yourself, baby girl. My orders are just to make the swap.” He turns the device over in his fingers and then peers up at me. “You mind holding tight while we check this thing out?”
I shrug my agreement and he turns, whistling loudly with his fingers, but even that falls flat in the fog.
“Hey!” he calls down the road. After a moment of non-response, Kel looks back at the others. “What the fuck is that fucker’s name?”
All three of the men call to the driver, each wanting to appear helpful. We wait, hearing the engine still idling, but then it cuts off.
“Fuck!” Kelvin says under his breath, almost as an apology to me for the unprofessional nature of our meeting. He points at the closest man and then jabs a finger in the direction of the van. “Go get that motherfucker.”
Before anyone can move, men in uniform and tactical gear emerge from the mist on all sides, machine pistols at the ready. These guys aren’t fucking around. Kelvin swears as he puts his hands up by his shoulders. He can’t even look at me, he’s so embarrassed. He shakes his head in dismay.
The Icelandic police come at each of us in pairs, one holding their weapon on target as the partner comes around to zip-tie wrists together. I let out out a heavy sigh, relieved that Nash didn’t fuck this up. He somehow managed to get the locals to play along, which is no mean feat, believe me.
Then one of the officers steps behind me and pulls my hands together.
“Hey! Wait! I’m the good guy here. Talk to Agent Collins.”
The man behind me says “You’ll see him in the U.S.,” then proceeds to strip my pockets of everything, including my phone. He also takes the envelope.
Fuck!
Kelvin seems to be amused with all this, until he’s turned around and he sees a handgun being lifted from one of his men.
“Oh, come off it, guys! I told you no fucking weapons!”
He looks over his shoulder at me as he’s being led away to join the others.
Zwerfster Chic Page 23