by Orca Various
“It’s a way of fighting, taught by a guy named William Fairbairn long ago during the Second World War. It’s manipulating people’s spines, snapping bones, severing arteries, that sort of thing. Killing people without making a sound. They teach it to all the spies. I might even be able to do it, if push came to shove.”
I tried not to laugh. Or at least I held Bad Adam back.
“And I’ve learned how to assume the color of the wall.”
“Excuse me?”
“I can sneak up on people, be invisible. I can eavesdrop without people knowing. I follow Know sometimes. I listen to him when he talks to himself, which he loves to do.”
“What does he say?”
“Well, he talks about W.”
“How so?”
“He says stuff like, ‘W knows.’ And ‘W marked the spot.’ Sometimes he stares into his mirror and just says, ‘W.’”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s all pretty weird.”
“Is he referring to William Stephenson?”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so. It’s hard to guess what he’s feeling when he talks about W. He seems to enjoy talking about Dahl or Greene or MI6 or the CIA, but when he refers to Stephenson he gets very angry. He never says why—he never explains anything, which is how you know he either once was or is a spy.”
“Like Grandpa.”
She ignored that and went on. “W, whatever it is, isn’t a bad thing to Mr. Know. Or at least he’s conflicted about it. He isn’t just bitter about W…he both hates it and likes it…if that makes sense. But it means a lot to him. It sometimes seems like W is his whole life. It’s like a secret of some sort.”
It seemed to me that she was right. This letter obviously meant a lot to him. And it also seemed to me that if I could discover what W meant, I would uncover everything. I’d know why Grandpa did what he did, why he faked his own death and what he planned to do next.
An announcement came over the airport speakers. I jumped to my feet and looked up and down the terminal. I was terrified that Jim or John or Mr. Know—Grandpa himself, rolling forward in his wheelchair—were right there. But there was no sign of them.
The airport was simply announcing that boarding was about to begin for our flight to New York.
EIGHT
ADAM McLEAN IN NEW YORK
Angel was awfully nervous during boarding and even more so once we were on the plane. When the engine powered up, she gripped my hand. Bad Adam enjoyed that in a different way than I did. I was glad to help her out. It felt good to actually be the one doing the comforting on an airplane. She dug her nails right into me when we took off. I tried to talk to her, but she shook her head. It wasn’t as if she was totally frightened though. She seemed almost as excited as she was freaked out. She’d asked to sit in the window seat, and she pinned her head back against the headrest, eyes staring sideways out the window, as we went up. Once we had leveled off, she finally spoke.
“That’s quite a sensation.”
“You’ve never been on a plane, not once?”
“No.” She almost seemed ashamed.
“But I thought you said Know has lots of money and looks after you.”
“He does, but that doesn’t extend to letting me leave the island.”
“You’ve never been off Bermuda?”
“Only in my mind.” She smiled and stared out the window again. “I can’t wait to see New York!”
I had a sinking feeling that I’d been duped, that she’d used me to get off the island. Maybe that had been her job. Maybe I should still be back in Bermuda.
“You were right to leave the island, ” she said, doing that mind-reading thing again. “If you want to get to the truth about all of this, we need to be somewhere they can’t find us, at least for a while. That will give us a little time to talk about Mr. Know and about your grandfather. Maybe we can solve this. I can help you figure out what you need to know. Then you can either go home or come back to Bermuda and speak to your grandfather, and I’ll go back, too, after I’ve seen New York. Jim or John will be coming after us anyway.”
“They will?”
“Oh, yes. They’ll be along shortly.”
I thought of their gun holsters, their powerful builds, how angry they likely would be with me, the fact that my grandfather had ordered me dead, the Dahl building closing in on me, and I started to sweat.
“We really have to get away then, completely away. Maybe even out of New York. I can’t go home. They’ve seen my passport, so they have my address.” I was getting more and more frightened.
“I thought you wanted to figure this out, confront your grandfather.”
“That too.”
“Get away and confront them?”
We didn’t talk for a while after that. She kept looking out the window, fidgeting more and more, her excitement obviously growing. I wondered again if all she really wanted was to get off the island. I started going back over what I had seen in Bermuda. Had I missed anything? Were there any clues in the things my grandfather had said? Was he trying to signal me that he was being held against his will? Had he sent this girl to save me? Was he just trying to scare me into leaving? It seemed awfully convenient that Angel just happened to be there to get me out of the Dahl building and then convince me to leave Bermuda—and fast. I glanced over at her. She was still gazing out the window, looking about twelve years old.
“What’s up with the eye?” I asked her as a test.
She came out of her daze. “The eye?”
“The one on his desk—it’s the only thing he keeps there. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard him say a word about it.”
If she knew anything, she wasn’t saying. It was another dead end.
We had a W and we had a glass eye with a golden iris. And we had at least one deadly thug, maybe two, maybe two and their boss, in pursuit of us. Or so it seemed. The plane began its descent into New York.
I had been in New York a few times with Mom and Dad, and each time it had blown me away. It’s an amazing place. But for my companion, it was beyond that.
Angel Dahl was in heaven. She had her mouth open throughout the entire descent and kept it open through customs, the JFK terminal and even in the battered yellow New York cab we took to Manhattan. The much colder air didn’t seem to bother her. She was wrapped up in a thick, long, double-breasted coat with a hood that I had bought for her at the airport. She didn’t seem to want anything very trendy. She chose gray—her favorite color—and went for comfort rather than style. I still had my warm jacket in my bag.
I checked my texts as we zipped into the city. There was nothing from Shirley and a few from my cousins. I’d look at them later. But then I noticed that one was from Webb. I figured I should tend to that, help him out. He was on the trail of something mysterious, he said, but needed an Internet expert, a guy who could get him some obscure information and fast. I gave him Leon’s number. Q could help him.
“That’s where the Beatles played!” exclaimed Angel suddenly in my ear as the driver pointed out the Ed Sullivan Theater where David Letterman does his show. This girl is really stuck in the sixties, I thought. She wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and 30 Rock (they had satellite TV in Bermuda) and Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden—all of the Big Apple in a few bites. There were even some spy places she intended to check out, but 30 Rock—Rockefeller Center—was the place that most intrigued her. She said she’d always dreamed of going there, and not just because Stephenson had operated out of there during World War II. She said that it was actually a romantic place, with an outdoor skating rink and a gigantic Christmas tree at this time of year. People in love went there to skate. This talk about romance was surprising coming from her. She’s a chick, said Bad Adam inside my head. What do you expect? Actually, I thought it was kind of sweet. But I was having none of any sightseeing. I wanted to get to a hotel, a big one where we could blend in. I had lots
of money, so I could pick luxury accommodation, one with the added bonus of not being a place Know and his people would expect me to choose.
We went to the Hilton Midtown, where we booked two rooms, high up so Angel could have a view. I paid up front in cash, using assumed names, and added a bit for the clerk. That helped smooth everything out. (I had a credit card in my wallet that my parents had given me, only for absolute emergencies. I didn’t want to use it now, since it could be traced.)
Mom and Dad had taken me to a few nice hotels, but this one beat them all. When you stood outside and looked up, the main part of the building looked like it went up to the sky, like many New York buildings. The lobby was circular, with gleaming marble floors and a statue in the middle. (Angel tripped over the rug at the front desk as she gawked at everything.) And the rooms were amazing, with incredible views, the type of lodgings only millionaires would feel at home in. It kind of made me feel good, pretty grown up and manly, to book rooms for Angel and me at a New York Hilton, the New York Hilton. She was smiling at me as we went up in the elevator. Me seventeen, her eighteen. I was the man. I had to keep Bad Adam from getting too excited.
I suggested to Angel that we stay in our rooms and see the city from our windows, at least at first. We shouldn’t go out, I said, until we’d decided what to do next. I figured she’d go along with that, given the place we were in. But when we got together to talk, we got nowhere.
All through our room-service dinner in my room, we couldn’t come up with a plan. Though, I must say, the meal was awfully good, and maybe it was throwing us off. I ordered a three-inch steak, smothered in mushrooms and onions, with fries, the coolest, sweetest, biggest, curliest fries of all time—I think Bad Adam gave that order—and she had a $40 hamburger with the works and another mountain of those killer fries. We topped it all off with cake for dessert. Hers was a triple deluxe deep-chocolate mousse—maybe there was a Bad Angel behind that order. I loved the fact that the bellhop referred to me as “sir” all the time, and she grinned when he called her “madam.” I gave him a hefty tip.
But afterward, full as I could possibly be, I had no idea what to do. All we really knew was that Mr. Know seemed to be my grandfather, he talked about W all the time (W knows, W marked the spot), and he had a glass eye with a golden iris on his desk. I looked up the Cuban Missile Crisis on my phone. I learned a lot, but nothing that seemed to connect Bermuda or my grandfather to it—any such connection, to be honest, seemed kind of ridiculous. Angel told me everything she knew about Mr. Know, but that didn’t seem to help either. Again I wondered how much she really cared, or if all she wanted was this trip to New York, this food, this hotel, this great time. When I finally wished her goodnight, I couldn’t stop wondering: is she working for Grandpa?
I couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning, images of my grandfather’s face in front of me, condemning me to death. He couldn’t have really meant it. Perhaps John and Jim were supposed to just frighten me; maybe they were supposed to get me to go away or something, but they decided to really do it. Or maybe they were all working together, including Angel and the cab driver.
I was wide awake. I got up and went to the window and looked out. It was past midnight. New York, New York. The city that never sleeps. It was bustling down there, lights ablaze, people moving quickly along the sidewalks, yellow cabs still dominating the streets. The sky seemed lit up. America. My cousins hated it when I called it that. “It’s the USA,” they said, “the United States of America, NOT America. America is the whole continent, TWO friggin’ continents! Including us and Mexico and all of…” I smiled. They were awfully sensitive sorts. But in a way, New York didn’t really feel like part of America to me anyway; it was its own thing, very cool, very different. That’s what got me about the 9/11 attacks. Why did they attack New York? NYC represents everyone, all of us, all different colors and kinds of people, all religions and cultures, the whole globe in one city. It’s just a mind-blowing place. I wished I could go out with Angel and explore.
I like to sleep in my gotchies; they’re not “tighty-whities” nor are they boxers. I favor the ones that are pretty snug and go halfway down my thighs. I was moving around the room in them now. I caught a glimpse of myself in the wardrobe mirror, full length. Bad Adam immediately thought I looked pretty good. Then he thought of the Walther PPK.
I walked over to the bag and took it out. Wow, what a piece of machinery! It kind of made me feel guilty to think that, but I couldn’t help it. I could hear people in the hallway outside my room. It sounded like girls, young women, two of them. Here I was in my underwear, a gun in hand, with two young women right outside my door. Bad Adam thought that was pretty cool. He convinced me to strike a James Bond pose. I gripped the gun in my right hand, leaped onto the bed and pointed it straight at the mirror, crouched and ready for action, just like Daniel Craig and all the other Bonds, including Connery, in the opening sequences to the movies, music swelling. I could hear it now, a big orchestral sound, with lots of horns. At that very moment my door opened! Someone had jimmied it and entered!
I suppose I should have swung around and pointed the gun at the intruder. But I was so shocked that I only turned my head. I knew it was John or Jim. Either one would be able to take me out instantly.
But it was neither of them, most definitely not. It was the two young women.
Angel mustn’t have pulled the door all the way closed when she left.
“Oh!” said one of the women. “Oh my!” She looked about twenty, dressed to kill, wearing tight black leather pants, a nearly see-through white blouse and lots of makeup. She was blond and shapely and had some sort of accent—Swedish, maybe. I could smell her perfume instantly. Her scent was amazing.
“Oh my, yah,” said the other one, who wore a short red skirt that accentuated her long legs. Her shining auburn hair looked like she’d put sparkles in it. She had an accent too. German, I thought at first, or Russian. She pulled the door back and glanced at the number on the outside. “We thought this was our room!”
“So sorry,” giggled the blond. “We’re across the way.”
“Yes, sorry…sir.”
But they didn’t move. Remember, I can pass for twenty-one sometimes. They kept staring at me. It sounded like they were both a little tipsy.
“You, uh…look good,” said the blond in her deadly Swedish accent, smiling very wide and showing perfect white teeth that contrasted with her bright red lipstick.
“Ya, you do,” said the other, and they both burst out laughing and then left the room. I could hear them in the hallway, whispering. Then they were quiet.
After them, said Bad Adam. This is your James Bond moment! TWO Bond girls!
But I slumped down on the bed. I didn’t even make a move to get up and properly shut the door, which was still slightly open. What an idiot, I thought. I sat there for about a minute, looking out the window from the bed, feeling like a fool, wondering about my grandfather again.
Then there was another noise at the door.
This would be John or Jim! Maybe both!
I turned and trained the gun at my intruders, a nearly buck-naked James Bond ready to act. I didn’t have a single bullet, but they wouldn’t know that.
“Oh!” said the face that was peeking around the door. It looked a little shocked but equally intrigued.
It was the Swedish girl again. She’d let her hair down. It was glowing as if she’d brushed it about a million times. “Are you going to shoot me?” she asked. She didn’t sound afraid. She sounded interested. She stepped inside this time. “My name is Britt and this—” she turned to the door and it opened farther “—is Ursula.” The German girl made her entrance.
Bingo! said Bad Adam.
“May we come in?” asked Britt.
“Yes—no!”
“Yes?” asked Britt.
“No?” said Ursula and offered a sort of pout, her substantial lips, painted with even glossier red lipstick now, pursing together and her eyes g
rowing wide and innocent-looking.
I opened the wardrobe and pulled out the hotel housecoat and quickly put it on. I had made up my mind. But then I looked at them again. They were both gorgeous and very interested…in me.
“I have a girlfriend,” I said quickly, before anything else could come out. “You have to go.”
If Bad Adam could have punched me, he would have.
“What?” asked Ursula. She seemed a little shocked.
“No fun tonight?” said Britt in that Swedish accent.
“You have to leave. This isn’t your room. Go home.”
“James Bond wouldn’t say that,” said Britt, looking at the gun, which I’d thrown on the bed. It was her turn to pout, looking up at me with puppy-dog eyes.
“Well, I’m not him,” I said. “Guns are bad things.” I don’t know why I said that last bit. It didn’t make much sense (or maybe it did). But I said it, just blurted it out. They left, with real pouts on their faces.
Seconds after they went out the door, Angel came in.
“I heard some noise.” She glanced back at the women, fumbling with the key to their own room across the hall; they weren’t pleased. “Who are they?”
“Two ugly drunks.”
“They didn’t look ugly to me.”
“You must have left the door open. They came in by mistake. I asked them to leave.”
“You did?” She looked pretty surprised. Then she smiled.
“I have a girlfriend, Angel. I should have told you that too. You should go. We need some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning. And my name is not McLean. It’s just Adam Murphy.”
Her smile faded. She looked like she didn’t know what to do or say now, to admire me or be a little ticked off. But out the door she went.
“You’re a good guy,” she said over her shoulder as she left.
I looked into the mirror. You’re an idiot, said Bad Adam, right to my face.
I tried to sleep again. But it was hard. I forgot about the girls in seconds, but my grandfather kept coming to mind again and again. I got up and walked around the room. Then I went to the door and looked through the little spyhole. I like doing that in hotels. It seems so strange and quiet in the hallways at night, and you have a kind of a skewed, fish-eye view. Everything was quiet out there. But then I saw something. Angel. She had changed her clothes and was sneaking out of her room in perfect silence, rushing off down the hall toward the elevator with something under her arm.