Gatekeeper

by Alison Levy

  The moment she did, she jolted. The face from the picture in her assignment file, the face attached to the elbow that had struck her in the head, was standing in Miss Morley’s doorway.

  “That’s him!” she blurted. “That’s my mark!”

  He was speaking now, his prematurely aged face grim with determination. Her heart in her throat, Rachel leapt to her feet and stood with her feet planted and her fists balled at her sides. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but from the way he was pointing emphatically at Miss Morley, she guessed that he was demanding his flash drive.

  Miss Morley, meanwhile, was standing, her purse slung over her shoulder, as if she had been about to leave when her uninvited visitor stopped her. She leaned forward, her shoulders squared and her hands planted firmly on the desk that separated her from the intruder. Then, with a grand gesture worthy of an imperial viceroy, she swept her arm in a wide arc, pointed at the door, and shouted a command while staring the man directly in the eye.

  The man’s nostrils flared and his lip curled. With the speed of a striking viper, he lunged across Miss Morley’s desk and grabbed for her arm.

  Rachel felt a bolt of adrenaline shoot through her veins. Not waiting for the inevitable struggle to begin, she sprang from her hiding place and sprinted for the nearest door.

  Breaching locked buildings was an area of training in which Rachel had excelled, and the lock on the back door of the museum was both antiquated and poorly fitted; it fell to pieces in seconds and the door swung open without a sound. Panting, Rachel sprinted through the building, trying to mentally hold the location of Miss Morley’s office as the focal point of her movement. She navigated the twists and turns of the hallways frantically but deliberately, and after what seemed like ages, she came to the hallway she had walked just hours earlier and spotted the light from Miss Morley’s room spilling through the open door. She dashed to the young woman’s office and stopped dead on the threshold. The room was empty.

  A shout came from around the hallway corner, a frightened but vicious cry. Rachel’s head snapped toward the sound. Leda Morley’s tone had shifted dramatically, from the polite and proper voice of a career woman to the spitfire tenor of a girl who was prepared to fight for her life.

  “Get your hands off me!” she screamed. “Help!”

  Rachel took only two steps in the direction of the shouting before a loud clap—the crack of skin on skin—silenced Leda. The sudden quiet engulfed Rachel and amplified every little step and creak of her joints. Rachel caught her breath and froze with her left foot several inches off the ground. Her well-toned muscles held the position with minimum strain, but her fear-struck heart forced blood through her veins too fast for her liking. She slowly, gently put one hand on the nearby wall and carefully lowered her foot to the ground while straining her ears over her thundering heart to hear around the corner for any hint of a coming attack. All she heard was a muffled groan, probably Miss Morley, and then a shuffling sound.

  Rachel listened as intently as her roaring heartbeat would allow and tried to identify the scrapes and thumps she was hearing.

  He’s going through her pockets, she finally realized. She’s unconscious and he’s rolling her over to reach all her pockets. He’s looking for the memory stick.

  The shuffling sound gave way to a muffled clatter, the sound of him riffling through her purse, as Rachel tried to inch her way closer to the corner. Her steps were small and painfully slow. Deep in her mind, the scratchy voice of an old instructor scolded her for every potential misstep she was making. She could picture him as he was years ago, gray and bent and heavily scarred, his one razor of an eye slicing into every student who crossed his path. “Being a collector,” she heard him telling her, “is to be one-part hunter, one-part con artist, and one-part burglar. If you can’t be all three, you’re not a whole collector.”

  Rachel kept his voice in her head with every step she took, with every motion of her arms, with every touch of her fingers. The corner was within reach when she came to a gradual stop and listened closely again.

  The noise had stopped, and in its place was a stark silence so thick it was like syrup in her ears. She held her breath and tilted her head. No sound at all. Then a chuckle exploded in the air, shattering the hush. She bit back a gasp.

  “Pretty,” said the man. She recognized the voice. It was the same voice that had called her a bitch earlier that day. “Damn shame to bust up her cheek like that.”

  There was a soft drumming sound. Rachel guessed he was tapping his fingers on something. He sighed and clucked his tongue while shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  What’s he doing? Rachel wondered. If he’s got what he came for, why isn’t he leaving?

  The man chuckled again. “What the hell,” he said pleasantly. “I’m done with the last one anyway.”

  Rachel’s brow furrowed and her face tightened in confusion. Last one? Done with? What does that mean?

  Her musing was cut short by a muted tussling, accompanied by another groan from Miss Morley. The man grunted a little and exhaled with a growl, and then his footsteps, conspicuously heavier than before, moved down the hallway, away from Rachel. Slowly, she slid to the corner and peered around the edge. She caught a glimpse of the man’s back as he opened the door to the stairwell. Her stomach dropped and every hair on her skin crackled with horror and alarm.

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  Leda Morley’s limp body was slung over his shoulder. The heavy door swung shut behind him with a metallic thud.

  12

  BASEMENT DOOR

  “You’re where?”

  “I’m following my human mark,” Rachel panted. “He’s in a car.”

  “And you’re on foot?”

  “Where else would I be?” she snapped. “I can’t wait on a bus and I can’t drive a car any more than you can!”

  She continued running with the cell phone clutched in her hand. Houses, bus stops, civilians, and yappy dogs on leashes blinked in and out of her vision as she raced along the avenue. People occasionally made little exclamations of surprise or indignation as she blew past them, but she knew she would be out of their thoughts within seconds of passing. That was the peculiar loneliness of this world: a distressed young woman running down the street as fast as she could go attracted only enough attention to annoy those in her path; no one thought to be alarmed or to check on her to be sure that she was okay. She was an oddity but also, as far as these people were concerned, no one’s business but her own. Willing isolation seemed to Rachel like a horrible way to live, but this cognitive dissonance made operating in the Nota simpler (it was easier to stay out of sight when no one wanted to see), and tonight, she was grateful for everyone’s inattention. If some well-meaning person tried to slow her down, she might lose sight of the gray sedan rolling its way through traffic.

  “What street?” asked the voice in her phone.

  “Fifth.”

  “Heading which way?”

  “East.”

  “And you’re still on his tail?”

  “The lights are against him,” she panted. “He keeps hitting reds.”

  “And he’s got a hostage? Who?”

  “Is that really important, Suarez? He’s got a hostage. End of discussion.”

  There was a short pause filled only by the patter of Rachel’s racing feet and the jagged sound of her breathing.

  The voice on the other end of the call mumbled something, half chuckling, in a humorless tone and said, “Eventually you’re going to tell me what kind of rules you’ve broken, right?”

  “Later,” she promised. “If I tell you now, you’ll be on the hook for it. If you don’t know, you won’t be in trouble.”

  “Appreciate it,” he said. “Could you call the Notan police? This sounds like something more in their line of interest than ours.”

  “Would you like to explain to the Central Office how my mark ended up in Notan custody?”

  There was a
beat of silence on the other end of the line that lasted just long enough for Rachel to picture Suarez tightening his square jaw and shaking his head.

  “No,” he admitted. “Okay. What is it you need from me? Backup?”

  “For starters. I also need a line to the office. Have you gotten through lately?”

  “No and that’s really bizarre.” There was an edge to Suarez’s voice, a seasoning of frustration and anger she’d heard from him before when things were not as he would have them be. “I talked to Benny just before you called, and he can’t reach them either. It’s like the whole system has gone down. That’s never happened before.”

  “I need their help!” she shouted. “If the office is locked down, where am I supposed to take this guy if I get him? If I actually catch up to him and he doesn’t kill me, there’s no way I can hold him for long!”

  “Okay.” Suarez sighed and hissed through his teeth, something he did when he was pulling his thoughts together. Hearing it stirred mixed emotions in Rachel. On the one hand, it meant the situation was serious. On the other hand, when Suarez put his focus into a problem, no situation was hopeless.

  “Okay,” he repeated. “I’ll call Benny, get him to hound the office until they respond. I’ll tell him to kick down the door if he has to. I’ll call Wu and the both of us will get on your heels. When your guy gets where he’s going, send me the address and I’ll pass it along. I’m on this, Wilde,” he assured her, his voice steady and confident. “I’m on it from this end, so you just concentrate on following him and getting us an address.”

  “Right.” Despite her desperation, his words calmed her a bit. Suarez often had that effect. “How long until you reach me?”

  “I’m leaving right now. I should get to you in . . . about an hour.”

  “An hour?” she shouted frantically. “An hour?”

  “The office is closed, Wilde,” he reminded her. “That means the cross-city passages are down. I gotta take the long way round. If we’re lucky, Wu will be closer, but an hour’s the best I can do.”

  “Shit! Okay, just hurry.”

  “I’m already moving.”

  An hour. Miss Morley would be a prisoner for an hour. And it’s my fault. If she wasn’t so busy running, Rachel was sure she would puke.

  AFTER LEAVING THE Rigaceen Museum, Rachel had followed the kidnapper at a distance, keeping out of his sight but maintaining him in hers, until they reached the dimly lit parking lot.

  Aside from a scattering of cars, it was deserted. Rachel watched her mark drop Miss Morley’s limp body into the trunk of his car—no, she realized, not just inside the trunk but inside a footlocker in the trunk. The man closed one lid and then the other, double-locking the curator’s assistant inside.

  Rachel watched all this happen from behind an empty minivan, all the time trying not to feel the acidic knot in her stomach as she wondered what this near-soulless criminal had meant by “the last one.” She didn’t dare attack him now, not while he had Miss Morley under his control. Getting her ass kicked yet again would not help the unconscious hostage escape.

  The man got into his car, humming cheerily, and drove away at a leisurely pace. You would think he does this every day, Rachel thought. There’s a woman in your trunk! Show a little hustle! The absurdity of her thought dawned on her twice: the first time immediately after thinking it and the second when she began her foot pursuit of his unhurried vehicle.

  Thanks to her mark’s casual driving, Rachel was able to keep up as the gray sedan rolled up and down the city streets en route to its destination. It made several turns (always accompanied by the appropriate turn signal) before arriving at a small brick house and pulling into the driveway.

  The house was one in a long row of single-family homes, all of them perched like square gargoyles above the narrow street on a short but steep hill. To access the front door, one had to climb a sharp flight of stairs that connected the sidewalk to the covered porch. The driveway, however, had been carved out of the hill like a square cave. After turning into it, the kidnapper’s car was swallowed up by the hillside until it was all but invisible to passersby—particularly those who, like most Notans, tried to avoid direct eye contact with strangers whenever possible.

  Rachel arrived just in time to see him unload his prisoner. He popped his trunk, lugged the footlocker over the edge, and let it thud to the ground with absolute confidence that his actions were either unnoticed or would be quickly forgotten— which, had Rachel not been there, would have been a perfectly reasonable expectation.

  She was so out of breath that she was flirting with a blackout, but she had marked her surroundings well and was able to confidently forward the address to Suarez. Her exhausted lungs burned like an oil fire and her overworked legs were shaking like mad, but she didn’t dare obey her body’s command to rest. Because of her, there was a woman in a psycho’s footlocker who needed help. She scanned the house, still panting, and immediately saw that only two lights were on in the entire building: the front porch light and the tiny light by the basement door, an arm’s reach from the parked car. Even as she noticed the basement door, her mark began to drag the footlocker in its direction.

  Of course he’s taking her in through there, she thought. Solid brick house built on a slope, basement half-buried in the hill, no sign of any windows—probably not much sound getting out through those walls. He can keep her down there as long as he wants, and no one will be the wiser.

  The cell phone in her hand buzzed, and she pressed her thumb to the screen to activate it. She saw a message from Suarez: Sit tight. I’ll be there in 30–40 minutes, Wu in 20. Do NOT rush in there. DO NOT.

  If she hadn’t been out of breath, she would have laughed. Of the four of them (Suarez, Wu, Benny, and herself), she had always been the impulsive one, and the others never let her forget it. Wu had been tickled to fits when, during their English training, he had learned what the word wild meant. “Wilde is wild!” he’d cried out, laughing.

  Though she was still something of a hothead, Rachel wasn’t nearly as brash as she once had been; repetitive training and years of active service had reined in her impulses. But the boys of her square—the group she had trained with— had long memories. They had all known each other at their greenest, and though the in-between years had been long ones, those early impressions had carried through. She would always be the impulsive one, just as Wu would always be the joker, Benny would always be the dreamer, and Suarez would always be the unofficial leader. Some things would never change.

  Right now was no exception.

  Sorry, Suarez, she thought. Can’t sit tight on this one. In twenty minutes, that woman could be dead, and it’ll be my fault. I can’t live with that.

  Still panting like a dog locked in a car, she trotted across the street and up the man’s driveway, taking great care to stay in the shadows. The basement door had no window, and, as she suspected, no sound leaked from the inside. A quick glance at the three industrial-strength deadbolts securing it in place told her this was not the smartest point of entry.

  The front door was illuminated by a porch light (too visible for her liking), but there might be a back door or a window she could try. Anyway, if he was in the basement with Miss Morley, it might be better to enter from the upper levels so he would be less likely to hear her. Maybe she would find him otherwise occupied long enough to grab Miss Morley and run without confronting him. Yeah, she thought bitterly, and maybe raccoons will tap dance out of my butt.

  She hugged her chest and forced her breathing and heart to slow. She wasn’t going to luck her way into a quick escape. Odds were she was going to have to fight, and odds were she was going to take a beating. But she had been taught to fight and taught to take a beating without suffering lethal damage, whereas Miss Morley had had no such training. Better that she keep the guy busy than let him spend this time alone with his victim. All she had to do was stay alive and keep him occupied long enough for her backup to arrive.

 
Rachel steeled herself, holding the image of her home and family in her mind, and moved to the back of the house. She could do this. She would do this.

  The back door was closed with a common deadbolt, the kind that Rachel had jimmied hundreds of times. She reached into her pocket for her favorite burglary tool, the lockpick her father had given to her as a birthday present two years earlier. As her fingers closed around it, she moved her other hand to drop her cell phone into the opposite pocket. But before she completed the motion, she heard a loud and peculiar crack. At the same moment, she felt a jolt, almost as if the ground under her feet had jerked, and her head bounced forward with great force.

  Rachel grabbed the doorframe and righted herself, but she knew at once that something was not right. While wondering where the sound had come from, she also began to wonder why her eyes weren’t focusing. Her mind felt like it was swimming against the current, disconnected from her body. She clutched at the tool in her pocket and dropped her cell phone. Instead of dropping into her pocket, it slid down the side of her coat and fell to the ground with a clank.

  Rachel swayed, bewildered, trying to pull herself together. She started to reach for the phone, and that’s when her lingering equilibrium snapped like an overtaxed elastic band. She toppled face-first onto the back steps. As her vision went incurably fuzzy, she continued to wonder vaguely and pointlessly what was wrong. At the last moment, she saw a pair of men’s shoes just inches from her face. Then her weary eyes closed and her confused mind slipped into oblivion.

  HE KNELT OVER the girl with the wood plank he had used to hit her still clutched in his hand. His hard eyes, capped by thick gray brows, took in every inch of her body, as if he was cataloging her various parts. He picked up her cell phone and tried unsuccessfully to turn it on. When the screen remained dark, he decided it had broken when she dropped it and flung the thing over the fence into his neighbor’s open trash can.