by James Frey
“But you play for us. For the survival of our line. Not to impress some gringa.” He looks Sarah up and down. “At least she’s pretty.”
“Shut up, fat man, or I’ll show you my Endgame,” Sarah threatens.
Renzo chuckles. “Feisty, too. That’s good. Don’t worry, Sarah Alopay, I have no interest in dishonoring you. Players kill Players, that’s what our line says. Pudgy ex-Players, we just offer support when called on. Come along.” He walks away, leads them to a yellow pickup truck. In a couple of minutes they’re navigating the crowded streets of Mosul. Sarah sits in the backseat, Jago in the passenger seat next to Renzo. The streets are loud, and Renzo has his radio blaring. Jago leans in close to Renzo, not wanting Sarah to hear.
“Do not question me in front of her, understand?” Jago hisses.
Renzo flashes a jovial grin, but it quickly fades when he sees Jago’s expression. “I’m sorry, Jago. It won’t happen again.”
“Good,” Jago says, leaning back, satisfied. Renzo isn’t frightened of Jago so much as he’s frightened of Jago’s parents. It was a generous “scholarship” from the Tlaloc fund that put Renzo through engineering school, allowing him to set up shop here, just in time to become a fixer for the American military during the war and amass a small fortune. What the Tlalocs have given, they can take away. Even for an ex-Player. Renzo knows this.
Of course, since Endgame has begun, that doesn’t much matter anymore.
Sarah leans forward, shouting to be heard. “What’re you guys talking about?”
“I was telling Renzo we need new passports and visas,” Jago answers. “If someone’s tracking us, we should start fresh.”
“Good idea,” Sarah says.
Renzo nods enthusiastically. “Don’t worry! Renzo’s got it all.” And he isn’t exaggerating. This becomes obvious as he pulls their car into a large, air-conditioned garage, his base of operations. He has everything Jago and Sarah will need and more: new phones, laptops, power converters, SIM cards, all manner of scramblers. He has a stash of fresh visas for over 40 countries. He has traveler’s checks and money and fake passports. He has medical equipment and clothing and gloves and armor. He has trackers and receivers. He has Browning pistols and M4 machine guns with underbarrel M203 grenade launchers. He even has two very special pistols made entirely of ceramic and plastic that are completely undetectable to any kind of imaging equipment. What he had to do to get those from the US Special Forces is a story unto itself, he tells them.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Renzo,” Jago says, examining one of the strange guns. “I’ll tell my parents it was money well spent.”
“This is amazing,” Sarah agrees, looking around. She’s impressed; there aren’t any former Cahokian Players with arsenals set up in disparate parts of the world. She made a wise decision pairing up with Jago.
“I haven’t even shown you the best part,” Renzo says.
Apparently, the best part is a piece-of-crap-looking 2003 Peugeot 307 hatchback. It’s painted baby blue and has a large flower stenciled on the hood. Hippy trinkets and talismans hang from the rearview mirror. It rides low to the ground and the upholstery is torn. There is a big dent in the front right fender. Part of the hood is beginning to rust. The rear window sports a hand-sized spiderweb of cracked glass.
“You drive this thing in Mosul?” Jago asks incredulously. “With the flower?”
Renzo rubs his hand lovingly across the hood. “The flower works like a charm. It makes people think, ‘There goes a man too stupid to have anything to hide.’”
“I can see that,” Sarah says, smirking at Renzo.
“So what’s the big deal? It looks like a piece of shit,” Jago says.
“I’ve been working on this baby for months,” Renzo replies, affronted. “It’s no piece of shit.”
The dents, Renzo explains, are all cosmetic. The chassis is rebuilt, better than new. The engine packs 487 horses instead of the standard 108. The entire exterior of the car is bulletproof. A blast shield coats the underside. It has 15 smuggling compartments, one large enough for a person. Its license plates are coated with a special kind of e-ink and can change on command. There are presets for Iraq, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Lichtenstein, Austria, France, and Israel. The flower is also e-ink and can be changed to a star and crescent, or a peace sign, or a turtle, or made simply to disappear. The vehicle has a high-speed computer with carbon nanoswitches and encrypted satellite uplinks that controls all of its systems.
“I’m almost done with the windshield,” Renzo says, out of breath from listing the car’s features. “When I am, it’ll have a digital HUD. Show you maps, traffic info, whatever you want. Oh, and night vision. I forgot to mention the night vision.”
“And this is for me?” Jago asks, sounding like he can’t believe his luck. He glances over at Sarah. “For us?”
Renzo nods. “I’m not happy about this Endgame business. I hoped I’d be dead before it came. I’m rich. Life is good.” Renzo sighs dramatically, and Sarah almost laughs. “This car, it’s the least I can do for the Player of my line. You keep Renzo alive. I’m proud to give it to you.”
Jago clasps Renzo’s hand. “I’m proud to accept it, brother.”
Dinner that night is grilled lamb with mint leaves over rice. They have succulent figs drizzled with sweet syrup for dessert. They have tea. They discuss how they are going to get to Italy—overland in the 307, crossing Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. It is a 2,341.74-mile-long drive.
After dinner, they do what they can to relax. Renzo is in the passenger seat of the 307, running diagnostics. Jago is watching Al Jazeera with the sound muted, his body stretched across one of Renzo’s leather couches. Sarah is standing over a large map of the world.
She is placing little silver hex nuts on the map at various locations. Some are very random: a dot in southwestern Siberia, a little point near the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, a speck on the southern coast of South Africa. Others are so predictable as to be cliché: the pyramids at Giza, Machu Picchu, Stonehenge. And then there is one that is somewhere in between random and predictable, with the added bonus of being nearby.
Sarah leans over the map.
She punches some numbers into Google on a small laptop.
The results come up quickly.
“Either of you ever heard of Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey?” Sarah asks. The word gobekli is familiar to Sarah, it’s Old Cahokian for “round-topped hill,” and usually refers to ancient burial mounds. But what this word means in connection to some random place in southern Turkey, she has no idea.
“No,” Jago says from the couch.
“Gobekli Tepe? Of course!” Renzo says from the 307.
“What is it?”
“Ancient archeological site in Turkey. Not too far from here. No one knows who made it or how it was made. It’s turned a lot of assumptions on their ear. Like when humans started making cities, when they started worshipping in temples, and why and who they were worshipping. Little things like that.”
Jago perks up. “Endgame things.”
Renzo pulls himself from the car. “That’s right.”
Sarah puts her elbows on the table. She stares at the tan earth around the hex nut.
“You think we should go there?” Jago asks.
Sarah considers this. Renzo wipes his hands on a rag and wanders closer to the TV. “I don’t know,” Sarah finally says. “More than anything, we need to see that Musterion guy in Italy.”
Jago nods. “Agreed.”
Renzo points at the newscast. “Can you unmute it?” Jago picks up the remote and pushes a button. Renzo moves closer to the TV and translates from the Arabic, “A plane crash. Commercial flight. Qatar Airways 832 from Changzhou to Dubai.”
“Where’d it go down?” Sarah asks.
“Arabian Sea.”
“Survivors?” Jago wonders.
“Possibly. Authorities are picking up a transponder signal. An Omani rescue team is en route. No other contact. They won’t know
the full situation until they get to the site.”
“Changzhou,” Sarah says slowly.
“You think some of the others were on that flight?”
“It’s possible. Could even be why it crashed,” Sarah muses. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we lost some Players, would it?”
“No,” Jago says. “It wouldn’t.” He mutes the TV again.
Renzo goes back to the car and resumes his work. “Only a couple more days and this baby will be ready to roll,” he says.
And just then, Sarah’s sat phone rings. She fishes the phone from her pack, recognizes the number as being from another sat phone, and turns it off. Part of her hopes it was Christopher. She hasn’t answered any of his calls—refuses to go down that road—but she likes knowing that he’s out there. Maybe it’s selfish, but she likes that he’s still thinking about her.
“Who was it?” Jago asks.
“Don’t know,” Sarah says. “But it could have been An tracking us. We’ve got to get rid of this thing, Feo.”
“Leave it here,” Renzo offers. “I’ll wipe it and set up untraceable call forwarding to your new phones, if you like.”
Sarah goes back to the map. “Thanks, that would be great.”
Jago falls back into the couch, starts to drift off.
Renzo tinkers with some wire couplers.
Sarah glances at Jago. He looks good, stretched out that way. Peaceful. She has the sudden urge to lie down next to him. She doesn’t want to be alone. Not while there’s still a chance to connect, while the world still seems normal, even if it isn’t.
She smiles, to herself, for herself, and returns to the map. After a couple more minutes she looks over. He still looks good, peaceful, and she still wants to join him. She decides what the hell. Steps over and lies down, the heat from Jago’s body immediately warming her.
It feels good. So good.
No one on Earth knows for certain:
Pyramids at Giza.
Nazca lines.
Moai.
Stonehenge.
Sphinx.
Machu Picchu.
Gobekli Tepe.
Carnac.
Aramu Muru.
Ziggurat of Ur.
Teotihuacan.
Angkor Wat.
Pumapunku.
Terracotta Warriors.
Pyramids of Meroe.
Sacsayhuamán.
Anta Grande do Zambujeiro.
No one on Earth knows.
But someone, something, somewhere does. . . .
CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP, KALA MOZAMI
Raft, Indian Ocean, ~120 km off the Coast of Oman
Christopher huddles in the corner of the raft. The mother and her daughter are asleep. Kala is asleep. The sea is calm. The sky is clear and dark and punctured with stars. He has never seen so many stars, not even camping in Nebraska.
He looks at his watch. The plane sank 4.5 hours ago. The transponder is on. Kala refused to use the sat phone to call for help. She said that if there was no rescue by sunup they could make a call. Until then, the transponder would be their best bet. Now that the plane is gone, he can’t stop thinking of the crash. When it was happening it didn’t seem that bad, but now that it’s over it feels crippling and overwhelming.
He survived a plane crash.
A horrible fucking plane crash.
He wants to see Sarah. Needs to see her. Wants to touch her. Needs to touch her. He turns his head. Kala’s bag with the phone is in arm’s reach. He looks at Kala. The girl who jumped out of a building and flew to the ground. The girl who somehow disarmed the sky marshal sent to arrest her. Christopher saw the dead officer’s face as he left the plane. A gunshot wound. That was what had killed the man. A gunshot to the eye at point-blank range.
Therefore, Kala has a gun.
She sleeps soundly, easily, as if nothing happened, as if she didn’t kill a man and let dozens of others die after the crash. When Sarah told him about Endgame, and the Players, and the training she’d received, it all seemed unreal. Now that he knows what it is, and has seen what the Players can do, it is all too real. Would Sarah have shot that air marshal in the face? Would she have detached the raft before other survivors had a chance to get on? Christopher doesn’t think so.
He needs to hear Sarah’s voice.
Talk to her.
Make sure she’s okay.
He reaches for Kala’s bag and slides it along the rubber floor. He slowly unzips it, gets the phone. He pushes the power switch and smothers it with his chest while it comes on. He waits, looks; the green light of the display glows. He mutes the number pad, dials; the line rings, once, twice, three times; voice mail.
Beep.
He whispers, “Sarah. Sarah, it’s me. I don’t know what to say. . . . I . . . I followed you. It was stupid but I did it. I love you, Sarah. I went to the pagoda and didn’t see you and followed this other person, another Player. Kala something. God, she’s . . . I don’t know what she is. . . . She’s not like you.”
The line cracks and the connection fails. Christopher peeks at the keypad. Should he redial? Maybe she would pick up? But if Kala caught him it wouldn’t be good. No. He pushes the power button again and the phone shuts down. Quietly, he puts it back in Kala’s bag. He rolls onto his back and exhales. He can feel the ocean under his spine and shoulders and butt. It’s like a water bed, but alive.
There are so many stars. So many.
A fucking plane crash.
So many stars.
So much death.
The crash . . . the ocean . . . the gun . . . Sarah . . . stars.
Sleep.
He jolts awake. It is still dark and the stars twinkle like tinsel. His side hurts. Kala stands over him.
Christopher rubs his eyes. “Why did you kick me?”
He struggles to sit as she demands, “Why did you call her?” She brandishes the sat phone like a weapon.
Christopher peers around Kala’s legs and hips. Moves quickly to the other side and squints.
They’re not there.
Gone.
He looks at Kala’s face, concealed in shadow. “Where’re the others?” His voice betrays his fear.
“I let them go.”
“W-what?”
“They’re not here.”
“You killed them?”
“Forget them. They were ghosts. All of you are. Mention them again—to anyone—and you will join them in hell.”
“You killed them?” he repeats.
Kala drops and is in Christopher’s face in a split second, her thumb and index finger pinching his Adam’s apple. “I mean it, Christopher Vanderkamp.” She has rendered him speechless. His eyes go wide. “I looked at your passport. Omaha. Like the Cahokian. Now tell me why you called her. And remember—do not mention the others.”
She releases his throat and stands. Christopher coughs. Why did she kill them? How? Did she drown them? Break their necks? Smother them? Did she do the mother first or the daughter?
His stomach turns. It is all he can do to hold it in.
“The Cahokian!” Kala barks.
“I . . . I’m . . . her boyfriend.”
Kala laughs and throws her head to the side. Christopher sees the gun in her hand. Did she shoot them? No. He would have heard.
He becomes suddenly aware of the faint thump thump of distant helicopter blades. Rescue is on the way.
“An amazing love story, told at the end of the world,” Kala exclaims, her eyes gleaming. “How pathetic. And your name! ‘Bearer of Christ.’ What a joke.” The sound of the rescue chopper grows louder. Kala gazes across the horizon but can’t see it yet. “Listen carefully, Christopher. You are my companion. My name is Jane Mathews.” As she says the words, her accent changes, becoming completely American and slightly southern, like maybe she’s from Oklahoma or western Arkansas. “There will be some problems, because my name will not be on the passenger manifest. But the men on the helicopter will not know that. You are t
o vouch for me. We met three days ago in Xi’an. We fell for each other. Since we met, we have spent every minute together. Every minute. Like so many other people around the world, we have become obsessed with the meteors. We are going to Al Ain to see the crater there. I have a birthmark shaped like a shark’s fin on my left buttock. Do you have any birthmarks?”
“I have a mole behind my knee.”
“Which one?”
“Left.”
“If you’re lying, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m not.”
“Excellent. We will end up in Dubai, as planned. And once we are free from the authorities, we will continue our trip to Turkey.”
A searchlight flashes over the water in the west.
“Can you repeat that to me?”
He does. She corrects him about which buttock the birthmark is on.
“What about the plane crash?” he asks.
“What about it? It happened. We are the sole survivors. We were both thrown to the back of the plane. We were not unconscious; everyone else was. We escaped. It sank.”
“And the gun?”
Kala throws it in the water. “I don’t need a gun to kill you, Christopher.” He considers tackling her overboard, but he’s seen how quick she is. “Don’t try me. My hands are faster than your brain,” Kala says, as if reading his mind. “Remember, Jane Mathews. We’re together. We’re in love. Al Ain. Shark’s fin birthmark.”
“Yeah, I got—”
But before he can finish, faster than any cornerback on a sneak blitz, she’s on him. Two quick shots to the jaw, and he’s out.
CHIYOKO TAKEDA
Bus from Kayseri to Urfa, E90 Highway, Turkey
Chiyoko is headed southeast in a tourist bus from Kayseri to Urfa. She did not have any desire to go to Iraq, and she presumed that Sarah and Jago would be there for only a short while.
It has been a little longer than she expected.
The computerized blip imbedded in the scar in Jago Tlaloc’s neck has barely moved for 48 hours. Still, he has moved. He is alive. Or, if he’s dead, his body has been carried around.
She decides that if they’re not on the move within 48 hours, she will steal a car and go to the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing and wait. And if they are not on the move within another 12 hours, she’ll go into Iraq and find them.