Metro
Page 28
“Very smart thugs and murderers.”
“We’re smart too.”
“Jollie . . . you know that getting out of this town the way you have it set up, it’s gonna be really . . .”
“I know.”
“They’re hunting for us right now. They might be watching the airport too. If they took out the Senator to send a message, that definitely means they know your name and your face.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re still ready to roll those bones?”
“Mark, what choice do we have? They’ll kill us just as surely on the open road, won’t they? And I won’t go back to sleep, just to save our own skins. I just won’t.”
“You know . . . the Dictator saw this coming.”
“Who’s that?”
“You never met him. Dictator Ken. He was in charge of the safe house I brought you to. He said some things that were really scary. And then he pulled a gun and tried to kill me.”
“Is that what started all that?”
“Some of it.”
“What did he say, Mark?”
“He knew we’d escape somehow. That we’d kill our way to the truth, no matter what it took. He knew I would go home. He knew that the only way to protect his own life, and maybe even your life too . . . was to kill us.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Sure it does. From a certain point of view.”
She laughs bitterly, thinking about Star Wars again.
And he looks her right in the eye.
“Yes, Jollie. I’m with you. Let’s do what that bastard Ken was afraid of. Let’s find them and tear them all down. I’ll do it for you. And for Jackie.”
Poor little Jackie . . .
She wants to hate Mark still, wants to be afraid of him still. But she can’t back out now. This is too big.
“Okay,” she says.
And then they make their plans, way into the night.
• • •
The next afternoon, the FedEx letter arrives at the front desk of the Hilton. Jollie tears into the package. Finds three perfectly forged Philadelphia ID cards, with their faces on the plastic and everything, plus a Visa with several thousand in credit wired to Catherine Tanner’s ghost. She uses it to check into their room.
Perfect. Let the bastards figure that one out.
Andy sleeps most of the day—big surprise—on the giant, luxurious bed. This place is the Love Boat compared to that crack house they were in last night. The bathroom is like something out of a spy movie. Jollie cuts her hair at the sink and dyes it blonde. Mark stands next to her and hacks his hair off too, but doesn’t dye it. He’s reminded of Johnny and Ponyboy in The Outsiders. They hardly speak as they count the hours till sundown. They look at each other in the mirror. Strangers.
Then they get ready for their flight.
• • •
Mark and Jollie go back into the bedroom suite and wake up Andy. Mark says they need to see the package contained in the carry-on.
Unzips the bag and shows it to them both.
Andy cat whistles when he sees the white stuff, still halfway asleep. Jollie gets real nervous, and Mark explains again that the carry-on is something invented by METRO, all full of super-advanced software scramblers and silicone plating that fools the most sophisticated machines currently in place at airport security stations. He’s used it a bunch of times on jobs. Gotten on planes and gone all over the world, right under everyone’s noses. So long as the transit cops don’t search the bag, they’ll be fine.
Everybody got that?
• • •
“I’m still worried,” Jollie says. “Andy’s injuries might still bring trouble at the terminal—the bandages and stuff will make him look odd, never mind your wound and sutures.”
“That’s a risk, Jollie. But I’ve been thinking about this. If they really are watching the airport, they won’t have any idea what to look for. We all should have died once at the Kingdom, then twice in that big explosion at the lake. And Darian wouldn’t have reported anything until he had the package secure. That means we’re all supposed to be dead.”
“But if any of us did survive that explosion, we’d look just like Andy, wouldn’t we?”
“That’s why it’s still a risk. But November is cold this year. Hats and scarves are in. We’ll get through, Jollie. I know it.”
“You don’t know. You just hope.”
“It’s the only way. At an airport there’s only a few sets of eyes to fool. On the road, there’s millions. You said it yourself.”
“Yeah. I did. Didn’t I?”
She shivers, staring into the eyes of a stranger.
• • •
And so it goes. A big fuzzy secondhand Beastie Boys cap covers Andy’s head. Mark wears a wide-collar work shirt and a muffler. The rest is done with makeup. A fake mustache and beard for Mark from the costume shop. Jollie touches them up for a good hour before they leave. Finally, she raises one eyebrow, getting a thought. Goes into her pocket and gets Mark’s ring. Slips it on. Holds up her hand and makes a silly face in the mirror, carefully checking out her new look.
Disguises in place, ready now.
Mark smiles and says one last thing to her: “Just like Bruce and Madeleine.”
It’s a movie reference, of course, but she doesn’t get it, because she never saw 12 Monkeys. That’s a good thing too.
Bruce Willis bought it big time at the metal detector in that film.
• • •
They leave the hotel at exactly 11:30 pm. A porter brings the Ferrari Spider around, and she tips the guy something nice and forgettable. They pull away and she feels the eyes of the world on her.
“Happy almost birthday,” she finally says, remembering today’s date. In just thirty minutes, Mark will be forty-one years old.
He smiles. Andy smiles too. It’s almost like old times, but not really. November 11 is already over, most everywhere else in the world.
• • •
It’s not very crowded at Austin-Bergstrom at 11:50.
They park the car in the long-term garage and head next door, into the main front lobby. It’s a small airport, but it sounds big, like they all do. Echoes off echoes, vague hints of music, voices tumbling away into the marble canyons. Mark smirks, thinking about Bruce Willis again. Jollie uses the ghost of Catherine Tanner to get their tickets at an automated kiosk near the section of the front desk area dedicated to American Airlines. No baggage to check. Just one carry-on. The Visa card slides and the ghost pays. The tickets spit out one at a time. Nonstop boarding passes for Joe and Cathy Tanner and Rand Nichols. Disco.
“Home free,” she says, almost smiling.
“When we are very far from here,” Mark tells her, not smiling at all.
• • •
The line at security is not long but these guys are always real serious. The woman at the first checkpoint is an almost-ugly Barbie in G.I. Joe clothes who looks at the fake Philadelphia IDs with more than a second glance, comparing the faces with the photos. Looks at Andy especially seriously.
“What happened to your face?” she says almost causally.
Mark looks back at Andy, almost to the rolling belt of the luggage scanner, and sees that the Boy Prince is saying something under his breath, pointing at his ear. Jollie looks back too, but keeps moving forward. She is relieved when the lady doesn’t ask Andy to take off his Beastie Boys cap. G.I. Barbie hands him back his ticket and ID.
Now for the main event.
They all show their papers again, just before being allowed to approach the big machine. They put their shoes and Jollie’s duffel bag in those gray plastic tubs and send them on the conveyer belt. Andy still doesn’t take his cap off and nobody tells him to. Mark leaves his muffler on and they don’t mind that either.
Jollie follows him and gets the same happy beep.
Andy next.
Mark’s carry-on bag slides through the machine alongside them. The machine sees shoes and shirts and socks and a book by Stephen King. The screen only flickers once and the guy operating it hardly notices the software glitch.
Andy moves into the X-ray coffin and it’s not as happy with him.
• • •
He is pulled aside as they emerge from the big booth.
Two TSA guys who look like cops, taking him by either arm.
Jollie and Mark are already ahead of Andy, through the coffin at the other end of the rolling belt. They look back and try not to act nervous. Jollie hides it pretty well, considering. Mark is a robot.
One of the big TSA guys holds a hand on Andy and tells him to take off his cap while the other one runs a metal scanner across his body.
Andy does as he’s told and the TSA with the metal scanner gets nothing. Asks him about the pants he’s wearing and if there’s anything metal in his pockets.
The other TSA sees the bandages on his ear and winces, then grabs Andy’s left hand and winces some more, seeing the well-wrapped stump where his thumb should be.
Andy shrugs like a wounded kid and says: “Car accident. I’m going home to my parents.”
Jollie hears him and she almost swears out loud.
Mark nudges her to get her gray plastic tub from the belt.
The TSA fiddles with Andy’s ear bandage and asks if he’s on any medication.
Andy says no.
“Please empty your pockets,” says the other one.
They both look real serious about this.
• • •
Mark and Jollie sit and put on their shoes, watching in horror.
Jollie feels like a million eyes are watching them and she’s right.
Mark knows that’s what she’s thinking, and as he ties his shoes, he leans over to her and gently whispers, patting the left front pocket of his cargo pants: “The eyes are blind. Just stay cool.”
Any minute now, this whole thing is going to turn into the ending of 12 Monkeys.
• • •
The TSA with the metal scanner watches Andy as he pulls his pants pockets inside out. Nothing to show them. The TSA waves the metal scanner over his crotch. Nothing there either. They send him back through the coffin.
The beep is happy this time.
They hand him his cap without a word.
Random search, Mark thinks, watching Andy get his shoes from the belt. Or just some suspicious-looking Beastie Boy.
• • •
Andy gets dressed again, sitting next to Jollie and Mark on the bench just past security, and a lot of people are checking them out now. Everyone wants to get that all-important first smartphone photo of the terrorists. The sounds of the airport are stronger here, as the concourse splits off in two directions. It’s just one simple row of terminals—not like in other airports, which go on for miles and blocks. A BookPeople store near them. A line of mini-restaurant stalls in a tiny food court. Amy’s Ice Creams and Schlotzsky’s sandwiches, horribly overpriced for the jet set.
The carry-on bag full of dope and cash is right next to Mark. Right under their noses. He’s brought it through here a million times.
But.
• • •
Mark measures his heartbeat well, as he senses the men coming toward them. Walnut heels on polished marble.
Is this the showdown, Rico?
He looks up and sees them—four guys in black suits.
Tenses.
Ready to be Bruce.
• • •
Pilots, walking down the main concourse. That’s all they are.
But he can almost swear he sees one of them looking back at him, doing something with a cell phone, as he laughs with his buddies.
The cavernous echoes of the airport swirl and swallow.
They get up—the three of them—and head for Gate 7.
Mark can’t believe it, and neither can Jollie. Their journey to the plane is entirely without incident.
• • •
The flight is less than half-full. It’s a big 747 and entire sections are empty. Jollie thinks that’s kind of strange, but maybe not really. Mark opens the overhead luggage compartment and slides the carry-on in there, next to Jollie’s duffel bag. Closes the latch.
And that’s it.
They sit together in coach and wait to be in the air. Andy’s in the aisle seat, Jollie against the window, Mark in the middle, feeling lost.
Jollie hasn’t spoken a word in twenty minutes.
• • •
Takeoff is smooth.
Mark fixes on that terrible image of Bruce Willis falling in slow motion at the metal detectors. Shot up and doomed to die. Doomed from the start.
We are not doomed, after all. We’re fucking making it out.
Suddenly, Jollie sighs and then she almost laughs, looking at him, remembering like a good princess of the Kingdom: “When we are very far from here. You were quoting Ronald Lacey from Raiders of the Lost Ark, weren’t you?”
He winks back: “Of course I was.”
• • •
She asks for a glass of water two hours into the flight and the attendant brings it to her with a big smile. The attendant is short and blonde, not very attractive, wrapped in a gaudy blouse-and-vest uniform with a big bow under her chin. Another attendant who looks just like her is rolling the beverage cart down the aisle, asking if the scattered few passengers want something. Coffee, tea, milk? Diet soda? Jollie brings the water to her lips and smiles, thinking about loud, obnoxious Coke commercials from the 1980s.
Neither Mark nor Andy gets anything from the cart.
Jollie sets down the drink and leans against the window, looking absently at the plastic ring on her finger. A promise of something. Mark’s promise to her. She decides to keep it on. For now.
Then falls asleep, deeply and blackly, without dreams.
Until . . .
• • •
They are together, the three of them, in a forest glade near a riverbank. The wind blows in her hair and the tingling on her skin is like raindrops and dew, but the sun shines also. It’s like summer and fall, rain and shine, all in one. Like her cake, which sits on the picnic blanket, ready to be eaten—but she can have the beauty of it also, have it both ways. Like her two beautiful men, on either side of her, almost faceless in the dream, but smiling and reassuring. Telling her she’s come through it all and that love is all you need.
The cake spells her name in beautiful red icing.
The cake says NOVEMBER 12 in lovely blue icing.
Red and blue, yin and yang.
Mark and Jollie. And Andy too. Just like always.
The cake draws an intricate map to the future, like the diagram of a city, or a country or a building that contains her darkest secrets and her greatest challenges and her most painful love.
And she is swimming now . . .
Swimming on the shore, swimming in the water, swimming in place.
This is what you’ve always done, Mark tells her, and his voice is so far away and so close. Andy laughs and says it’s true. Says she will always be swimming, no matter where you are, but to swim is to know truth . . . and it is enough to aim at the moon, Jollie. Enough to have something you can call yours, no matter what shore you wash up on. Good to have something that feels like home, even if it’s busted beyond repair.
Yes, Jollie. No matter what happens, we will always be your home.
Andy says that to her.
And then she sees his face peek through the darkness that hides him, his eyes shining t
hrough and the smile breaking like sun rays . . . and it’s horribly familiar.
Darian’s smile.
This is the false house you come to, Jollie. This is the lie you’ve lived in all your life. Live in it now.
No . . . no you bastard . . .
She struggles because this has all turned bad somehow, all of it so wrong and icy, dirty and evil. She reaches for a shore she knows is not there. She plunges down, deeper and deeper, Andy’s hands slipping away, Mark long gone. And there is no Dana, only Zuul. There is no truth, only the maze. There is no way out . . .
Except through it.
• • •
Another hour and fifteen minutes into the flight, just after the captain comes over the speakers and announces that Philly is really close now and thanks for flying American Airlines, Andy asks the attendant if they have champagne. She says yes with a cheery smile and brings it to them a few minutes later—three silly plastic cups, and three single serving bottles. It costs them thirty dollars in cash, which Mark forks over with a smile. Andy pops the cork on his bottle and Mark does the same with his. They pour the booze and it sparkles in the cups. It’s like being at a birthday at work, or some low-rent office cocktail party. They leave Jollie alone because she’s sleeping. She can celebrate when she’s awake. Always so deep under, when she finally goes. Mark loves that about her.
“She’s one in a million, isn’t she?” the Boy Prince says, raising his cup.
“Yeah. I hope she always will be.”
“Some things never change.”
Mark raises his cup and toasts his friend.
“Hey, buddy,” Andy says. “Guess we made it, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess we did.”
And they both drink, smiling at each other.
This is the last time Mark Jones will ever smile about anything.
19
countdown to extinction, revisited
Jollie feels herself spiraling deeper, and somewhere in the stream of thought that floats by in every direction—shades of everything in her life, names and faces, facts and figures, blood and thunder—she realizes she’s been deceived. It breaks over her like a wave of weird elastic lava, and she feels stupid because of it, like she’s been tricked by dumb people.