Bravo

by Greg Rucka

  “I went to Africa to make arrangements for travel. Mostly, we sourced out of Guinea-Bissau.”

  “Sourced what?” Bell asks.

  “Everything,” Tohir says. “Drugs, weapons, people. Lots of people. Route from Europe or the rest of Africa or the Middle East, arrive as one man, leave as another.”

  “Zein started in Guinea-Bissau.”

  Tohir smirks. “Zein was created in Guinea-Bissau. So were Hawford, Dante, Verim, Ledor, and Alexander. All of them are now in this country, all of them are now on their way to their target.”

  “They’re all here now?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did they arrive?” Bell asks. “How long ago?”

  “Some of them? A couple of months. Zein was one of the last.”

  “This was planned before the California attack?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Why?”

  Tohir shrugs. “I don’t ask. He tells me what to do, I do it.”

  “What’s the target?”

  Tohir shakes his head. “Not yet.” He adjusts his glasses, spits again on the carpet, more blood. He leans forward on the table, bringing his face just that much closer to Nessuno’s. He’s feeling better about himself, feeling much more in control. “You know I loved you, Elisabet?”

  “You thought you loved me,” she says. “What’s the target, Vosil?”

  “Don’t you miss me?” He gestures at her, indicating her clothes. “You look like a matron dressed like that. You’re beautiful; why do you hide it? With me you never had to hide it. You took pride in it, the way I looked at you. The way you made other men look at you with desire, the women with envy. Everything you’ve given up. Don’t you miss it at all? Miss me, just the tiniest bit?”

  “Answer me first.”

  He inclines his head, and Nessuno is surprised to see what looks like the glimpse of a human being behind his eyes. The anger and hatred have gone.

  “It wasn’t all an act, was it? It wasn’t all a lie?”

  “No, Vosil. It wasn’t all a lie.”

  “Tell me you love me.”

  “She loves you,” Nessuno says. “I don’t.”

  Tohir sits back, jaw clenching, and Nessuno hears the lock behind her snap open, then the door. She doesn’t look away, leaving that to Bell. Tohir’s eyes flick away from hers, but his expression doesn’t change, and again he’s staring at her.

  Steelriver moves into view on her right, approaching Bell. He leans down, whispers in Bell’s ear. Nessuno thinks she hears the words brick yard.

  Bell pushes up from the chair. “The shop’s closing, Vosil. You don’t want to talk to me, fine, talk to her. We want the target and the timetable.”

  He leaves, the door latching after him once more. Steelriver moves to the vacated seat, but he doesn’t take it, remains standing.

  Tohir sets his palms on the table, looks at them, then at Nessuno. “I don’t know when. Soon, perhaps the next week or so, I should imagine on a weekend.”

  Weekend venue, Nessuno thinks. Tourist destination? Sporting event?

  “Where?” she asks.

  Tohir wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looks at the blood staining his skin. He exhales, straightens, and then the bullet rips through his head, the gunshot and the impact so near to instantaneous that it’s beyond Nessuno’s ability to perceive. Tohir’s eyes open and look into hers, the right side of his head breaking open. He holds for a fraction of a second that seems much longer before gravity remembers him, then pitches face-first to the table, a thin blob of blood spilling from his skull. Nessuno chokes on a cry, pushing back, sends her chair tumbling as she finds her feet, and Steelriver is holding his .45 in both hands, and now he’s pointing it at her.

  He’s a shooter and she isn’t; he has a gun and she doesn’t; there’s twelve feet between them. There’s nothing she can do. As she watches, his expression changes, moves from pained to placid.

  Outside, Nessuno can hear Bell shouting through the door. He’s working the keypad as fast as he can, and it isn’t fast enough.

  Steelriver puts the barrel of his gun beneath his jaw.

  “They’ve got my wife and my daughter,” he tells her.

  The door opens, and she hears Bell shout Steelriver’s name, hears him say, “Tom! Jesus Christ, don’t—”

  And the gun goes off.

  And Steelriver falls.

  And Nessuno feels like she’s falling, too.

  Chapter Twenty

  IT IS THE first time in years that the Architect has had to travel like this, and it makes him nervous. He relies on his programs to define and direct his movements, the programs that he created, programs that generate true randomness, stochastic systems entirely of his own design. He has kept faith with them for several years now. He knows they work, not because of their speed-of-light computation but because of the time and deliberation he put into their creation.

  He cannot use them now.

  His original destination had been Milan, and he disembarked there as planned, but only because he was required to change trains in order to continue to Rome. He purchased a new ticket for the high-speed express from one of the automated machines, boarded, and once under way returned to his laptop to begin the painfully slow process of planning his new route and matching that route to each ID he planned to use and then destroy upon completing each leg. This last part pained him, because despite his resources and his reach, these identities were precious and would be both time-consuming and aggravating to replace. This occupied him for most of the four-hour trip.

  At Roma Termini he disembarked and made his way through the station, again pausing at one of the automated machines before threading his way through the ticketing hall, beneath the glittering tesserae that decorated the ceiling. He did not look up. He had been through this station seventeen times in the last five years alone, and always he had made a point to appreciate the beauty of the mosaic ceiling. This time, his preoccupation and paranoia were such that overhead was the only direction in which he did not cast his eye. At track 25, he boarded the Leonardo Express with two minutes to spare, and thirty-three minutes later he was exiting his third train of the day at Fiumicino-Leonardo da Vinci International Airport.

  He checked in for his flight to Amsterdam, still using the DeMartino identity. He remained DeMartino all the way to Schiphol airport, flying coach, at which point he became Ronald Spencer, passenger 12B on KLM, now traveling business class to Montreal. He slept during much of the journey, spent the time he was awake staring out the window. The nervousness had decayed into boredom, then returned in a different form.

  It had been so long since he’d seen her. He doubted she could recognize him, hoped she would all the same.

  Five hours after clearing Canadian customs—the purpose of his visit: business; his profession: software design—the Architect is walking around the building in D.C.’s West End for a second time. He has his briefcase, but the rolling bag he left behind at his room at the Watergate, a room taken in the name of Willem Smart. It’s two in the afternoon here, and he’s aching for sleep, and despite the effects of the sunlight on his body clock, he doesn’t trust his judgment. He wants to circle the block a third time, but twice was one too many already. He sees nothing to give him alarm, but that doesn’t make him feel any more secure.

  He looks at the building, its facade, and it is everything he remembers. He can pick out the windows that belong to her, and if his Zoyenka has done everything he required, and if those she compelled did what was required of them, she should be back home by now. But the Architect sees only closed blinds and no sign that she is home.

  If it has gone wrong, he has lost her. The thought makes his stomach ache. Only the first of many things that will go wrong if he has miscalculated, he knows.

  Heading for the front door of her building, the Architect finds himself wondering if he should have brought flowers for her.

  He enters the lobby, glass and hardwoods, and a smartly
dressed young man at the concierge’s desk watches his approach, asks, “May I help you?” before the Architect has come to a stop.

  “Jordan Hayden,” the Architect says.

  “Miss Webber-Hayden, yes. She’s expecting you?”

  “She is not.” The Architect thinks his English sounds stiff, wishes he’d taken more time using it.

  The concierge reaches for the handset of the house phone. “And your name?”

  “Dorogoy.”

  “Russian?”

  “It’s a Russian name, yes.”

  The concierge nods, smiling slightly, puts the handset to his ear, but not before the Architect can hear it ring. He turns away to look out the wide windows at the street, at the traffic, but it’s an idle scan. He doesn’t want the concierge to see his smile as he hears her voice, unmistakable if faint, the glee.

  “You can head on up,” the concierge tells him. “You know the number?”

  “I do,” the Architect says.

  He knocks once, and before he can knock again, the door is open.

  “Jordan,” he says.

  She doesn’t move, so still for an instant. She looks tired, wearing just jeans and a sweatshirt, and her hair, he sees, is wet. He smells the last traces of soap or shampoo on her, lemon and ginger. She doesn’t smile.

  “Perhaps you’d like to come in?” she asks.

  “Very much.”

  She steps back, closes the door behind him, throws the locks, and when she turns back to him she says, “What is my name?”

  “Zoyenka,” the Architect says. “My little Zoya.”

  She plunges into him, throws her arms about him and her weight along with it, so forcefully he loses his briefcase and nearly his footing, stepping back, just managing to stay standing. She mashes her face against his breast, nose and mouth followed by her cheek, and he puts his arms around her, feels her shudder as she sobs.

  “It’s all right.” He speaks softly, resists the urge to switch to Russian. “It’s all right, I’m here now.”

  She shakes, sobs again, loudly, trying to muffle it against him. He can feel her tears leaking through his shirt. He runs his fingers through her still-wet hair, tightens his other arm around her.

  “I would do anything for you,” she says to him, and her voice is hoarse. “I would do anything for you, you know that, but please, dorogoy…please…”

  He strokes her back, her hair. “I know.”

  “Never ask that of me again.” She lifts her head, swipes at her nose. “Never ask me to do that again.”

  He brushes a tear along her cheek, erasing it with his thumb. He kisses her brow, then her nose, then her lips.

  “I won’t promise you that,” he says. “I won’t lie to you.”

  She blinks at her tears, and he feels her hands on him, fingers curling, nails biting at his skin. But her expression doesn’t change, pained, staring up at him, and he doesn’t look away, despite the urge to do just that, despite the urge to lie to her, to tell her anything that will make her anguish in this instant vanish.

  “No,” Zoya, who is Jordan Webber-Hayden, says. “No, you won’t lie to me. So when I ask why you came, why you are here right now, you will not tell me what I want to hear.”

  “You wish me to say that I wanted to see you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I always want to see you,” he says. “But that is not why I’m here.”

  “Tell me you missed me.”

  “In every moment.”

  “Tell me you want me.”

  “More than anyone I have ever imagined.”

  “Tell me you have been faithful, even if I have not.”

  “But you have been faithful. You give them your body, not your heart.”

  “And have you been faithful?”

  “Yes.”

  She brushes at her cheek with the back of her hand, snuffles a last time. The hint of a smile appears.

  “I like that,” she says. “I like that you have been faithful.”

  He kisses her brow again. “I will prove it to you later, I promise. But I need something first.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I want to meet the soldier,” the Architect says.

  Zoya, who is called Jordan Webber-Hayden, makes a call and leaves a message, and they wait together to hear back, curled on the couch. Even when she is on the phone, she refuses to not be touching him somehow, a hand on his arm or her foot against his calf, and the Architect reciprocates, so eager to learn her again.

  “How long does it normally take him?” he asks.

  “He calls within twenty minutes,” Zoya says. She puts her palms on his cheeks, fingertips tracing his cheekbones. “You changed your face.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I am getting used to it.” She grins. “Did you change anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” She kisses him, and he feels her smiling, feels her teeth pull at his bottom lip. Her hands unfasten his belt, unfasten his pants. “Undress me.”

  The Architect pulls the Georgetown sweatshirt up and over her head, reveals her bare chest. He kisses each breast, greeting them, and she sighs as his fingertips stroke their swell, slide along her ribs. He thinks the years have made her even more beautiful, and he tells her as much, and she kisses him again, sliding down his body, sliding his clothes down with her. She works her way slowly up again, and he finds his fingers have become clumsy, and she helps him tug her jeans and panties off her hips and down her thighs until she can shake them free, kick them away. There’s a fresh bruise on her thigh, above the knee, and when she moves to mount him he sees a line of scratches at her shoulder, but if she feels the pain, he can’t see it through their shared desire. She rides him on the couch, staring at him with terrible intensity, and he clutches her closer and closer, aching to be surrounded by her, and that is when the phone rings, and she doesn’t stop moving, just picks up the handset to answer.

  “When can you come?” she asks, and the Architect has to stifle his laugh between her breasts. “As soon as you can. I need to see you. No, I understand. I need to see you. Please.”

  She thumbs the phone off, drops it, and the Architect thrusts, relishes the quick intake of her breath in response. Her hands find his shoulders, grip tightening.

  “He says an hour,” she tells him. “Say you love me.”

  “I love you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  “Say it again.”

  He says it again, and again, feeling her tremble around him, says it again as she voices her climax. He shouts it against her neck in his own orgasm, murmurs it in her ear following, whispers it as a mantra as she lies against him, breathless, light-headed.

  “I believe you,” Zoya says.

  They are dressed when Brock arrives, and the Architect waits in the kitchen as Zoya goes to answer the door. The Architect wonders if he should have brought a gun for this part, but the plan, as of now, does not call for one. When he asked Zoya what she had done with hers, she told him it was in the Potomac.

  He hears her greet him, hears the man’s voice in response, hears the door close. Hears the moment of silence and stillness that tells him Brock has his hands on her, his mouth on her, and for the first time since sending Zoya away from him, sending her here, he feels a twinge of jealousy.

  He hears them moving, watches as Zoya leads Brock into the room. The soldier’s eyes are on her, and she’s pulling his vision away from the kitchen, and he turns to follow her as she moves toward the bedroom.

  “You needed to see me,” Brock says. “Why?”

  “I’ll be right back,” Zoya says. “Just a moment.”

  She disappears into the bedroom. The Architect watches as Brock stands there, back to him, looking after her. He’s changed out of uniform, he’s in a blue cloth windbreaker and khakis, and he looks uncomfortable in them. The Architect wonders if he showered before coming over.

  “You’re going to do som
ething for me,” the Architect says.

  To his credit, Brock doesn’t react as if surprised. He turns slowly, looks the Architect over. His hands go into the pockets of his jacket, and his chin drops a fraction, and the Architect imagines this demeanor must be very effective on those of inferior rank.

  “You’re him,” Brock says. “Holy fuck and angel choirs, you’re the Architect.”

  “Is that what you call me? I’m vaguely flattered.”

  “In lieu of some other things.”

  “That’s very generous, considering everything I’ve done on behalf of you and your partners. Considering everything you’ve failed to do.”

  “I gave you everything you asked for.”

  “No, you didn’t. As of twenty-four hours ago, Tohir was still alive, General Emmet Brock.”

  Brock’s brow creases. “You did him.”

  “No; you assumed I had. Our agreement was that you would take care of that, if you recall. Someone played us. Which brings me to what I need you to do.”

  The Architect can see Brock processing what he’s said, the ramifications. He starts to speak, but the Architect cuts him off.

  “I had to do what you failed to do, General. But I need it confirmed, and that is what I need you to do now. It shouldn’t take more than a phone call or two.”

  “Bullshit,” Brock says. “You’re playing games with me, you’re trying to get something more.”

  “You think this is about your contingency?” The Architect shakes his head. “It’s all set. It’s ready to go. Just a little over forty-eight hours away now. If I give the word.”

  “So you are playing a game.”

  “I suppose I am. Two phone calls. Make them, get me the answers I need. Do that, and we can discuss what happens next.”

  “I should take you down.”

  “You shouldn’t make idle threats.”