by Jeramy Gates
“What did Alexander do for Blackstar?”
“I think he was a lobbyist.”
Val drummed her fingers on the table. Carver stared at her. “What? Does that change something?”
“I’m not sure. It would make sense though, because he used to be a senator. The thing is, he’s dead.”
“Dead?” Carver tilted his head to the side, his good eye fixed on her. “Of natural causes?”
“Not exactly. Alexander called me last week and said the Collector was coming after him. By the time I caught up to him, it was too late. The Collector had tortured him for hours, and then cut out his eyes while he was still alive.”
“That’s not natural causes.”
“If you want to be technical, blood loss and organ failure are probably to blame. Maybe heart failure. There were no fatal wounds, but he was getting old, and that kind of stress…”
“It’s nice that you have a sense of humor about all this.”
“I don’t. But I’m not sure if I feel sorry for him, either.”
Carver gave her a sideways look. “So Alexander was your connection. He was your man on the inside?”
“In a manner of speaking. Every time he clued me in about the killer’s whereabouts, it was too little, too late. Every single time. At one point, I thought they might be working together.”
“And you had no idea who Alexander was?”
“Not a clue. I didn’t discover his true identity until a few days ago. Matt’s been helping put the pieces together, but he’s working on finals right now, so I’m in limbo-”
“Why would he do that?” Carver interrupted. “Why would Alexander tip you off like that? What purpose could it serve?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought of me as sort of an insurance policy. Maybe he thought I could actually stop the Collector.”
Carver gave her a dubious look.
“What?” she said. “You don’t think I could?”
Carver rolled his eye. “Look, no offense, but I don’t think you’d be anyone’s first pick as an assassin.”
“Oh, I see. I’m incapable.”
“I didn’t say that. But with his connections to Blackstar, I’m sure Alexander could find another way.”
“Like what?”
“Like hiring a contractor.”
It was Val’s turn to be skeptical. “Corporations don’t just hire assassins to kill American citizens… Do they?”
“No. Blackstar’s greedy and corrupt and soulless like every other corporation, but they’re not stupid. Doing something like that would be flat out asking to get caught. I’m just saying that if Alexander felt he was in danger, he could have hired someone he met at Blackstar.”
“But he didn’t. If he had, all of this never would have happened.”
“Maybe. Or maybe, it just didn’t work out.” Carver gave a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I’m just speaking hypothetically. It still doesn’t explain Alexander bringing you into this mess. Deeper than you already were, I mean.”
Val sighed. Carver was right. Nothing she had learned could explain the strange relationship she had with the Informant. He must have had a connection to the Collector, maybe through Blackstar Fusion. But how? Lately, it seemed everyone was connected to Blackstar in some way or another. Even Carver…
“Carver, are you an assassin?”
“Of course not.”
“You’ve never killed anyone for a paycheck?”
He hesitated. “That’s not the point. Besides, that’s not what I would call an assassin.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of the word.”
Lightning flashed outside, and a peal of thunder shook the trailer. It began to rain. The heavy drops pounded on the aluminum roof, the violent noise drowning out all other sound. Carver stared into Val’s face, and she stared back. For a minute, they just listened to the rumble and sipped their coffee. When it died down a little, Carver finally spoke:
“When you first showed up here,” he said, “I thought you might have been looking for something else.”
Valkyrie frowned. “Like what?”
He just smiled and shook his head. “Nothing.”
Val rose from her seat. She stood at the edge of the table, looking down into his face. She touched his cheek, feeling the hard scar tissue under his blond stubble, dragging the tip of her finger around the edge of that black eye patch. His hair was thick and wavy, but soft between her fingers.
She bent over to kiss him. The scent of his cologne washed over her. His whiskers scratched against her face, teasing her skin. She pulled away. The hardness of the kiss left her lips stinging, yearning for more. She looked deep into his eye, relishing the surprise she saw there.
“Was that it?” she said in a voice barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah, that was it.”
The next morning, Carver walked Valkyrie to her car. The storm had lasted most of the night, but despite that the ground remained hard and mostly dry. The air was cool and clean, and it smelled like rain and wild sage. Layers of huge white cumulus clouds littered the sky over the desert, beams of sunlight streaking down here and there in bright shafts.
“Nice ride,” Carver said as they approached the big black Escalade. “Where’d you get it?”
“It’s a loaner,” Val said with a mysterious smile.
“Government plates,” Carver observed with a slight narrowing of his good eye. “Does the owner know you borrowed it?”
Val’s smile remained fixed, but she didn’t answer.
“Uh-huh. You know these things have tracking devices in them, right?”
“Matt took care of it.”
“Of course he did.”
Carver opened the door for her, and Val tossed her cane onto the passenger seat. She lowered the window to say goodbye, but couldn’t quite bring herself to say the word. Carver smiled down at her, the patch over his left eye twisting with the movement of his cheeks. His gold whiskers glittered in the morning light in a way that seemed slightly more than human.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“I will. You do the same.”
“If you need anything, call me.”
Val started the engine and Carver stepped back as she put it in gear and spun the wheel. She glanced at him in the rear-view mirror as she drove down the dirt road towards the highway. For a moment, she almost wished she didn’t have to leave. His little trailer under the junipers wasn’t much, but it seemed somehow special. Safe maybe, if there was such a thing. She only knew that even though his tiny bed and thin mattress were just slightly more comfortable than the hard ground, she hadn’t slept that well in as long as she could remember.
But then the world opened up before her. The sun broke through the clouds, and Valkyrie caught a glimpse of damp asphalt shimmering in the distance. She felt the unfamiliar but still comforting weight of the Glock that Carver had loaned to her. It didn’t quite fit the holster the way it should, and it didn’t feel quite right in her hands. The weight was different, and the balance seemed off. But it held fifteen rounds of .45 caliber ammunition, and for now that was all that mattered.
Val reached out to touch the stereo screen, and it came to life with the sound of ringing guitar strings and thundering drums. Somehow, she’d landed on a classic rock station. Normally, she would have switched it to jazz in a heartbeat. For the moment, it just felt right.
Chapter 11
That morning, Valkyrie caught a flight out of Reno. She hated to do it. Every time she flew, Val came down with altitude sickness. The usual result was a day or two of dizziness and a headache that just wouldn’t quit. That was on top of the always predictable agony of back spasms from the ever-more-cramped seating. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much choice. It was a two-day drive to Matt’s place, and she needed to ditch the Escalade anyway.
After an hour in the TSA line and another spent sitting on the tarmac, the headache had already begun. As the plane taxied to the runway,
Val swallowed one of her pain pills. She doubted it would prevent the headache, but maybe it would lessen the symptoms. Regardless, her back would thank her. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and tried to ignore the roller-coaster sensation of takeoff.
It’s not natural, she thought as the plane leveled out at thirty-thousand feet. We’re not meant to be up here. It’s hard on our bodies. It’s not our natural environment…
The flight attendant appeared before her. “Would you like to order a drink?”
Yes, I would! But she said, “Just water please.” The last thing she needed to do was to mix alcohol with prescription pain medicine at thirty thousand feet. They’d have to strap her in to keep her from trying to climb out the windows, or opening the hatch. Val closed her eyes again and reminded herself to take slow, deep breaths.
There’s plenty of oxygen in here, she thought. It’s just a little thinner than usual…
Six hours later, Val touched down in Boston. A nice tailwind had cut the flight time by more than forty minutes. She landed at four-thirty, and left the plane feeling a little head-spinny and nauseous, but her back pain was minimal. So far, she had avoided the migraine. Only time would tell. She’d know for sure in the morning.
Outside the terminal, the weather was clear, cool, and windy. She hailed a cab, and when she gave the cabby an address, he gave her a cockeyed look. “You sure?”
“I think so… Why?”
He gave a shake of his head. “Nothin’ in that neighborhood but trouble.”
Val asked what that meant, but he declined to elaborate. It sounded ominous enough to make her wish she’d taken the gun out of the suitcase before putting it in the trunk. Unfortunately, that hadn’t really been an option. The risk of revealing a firearm to the cameras and security personnel at the airport had been too great. The last thing she needed was to get picked up on a weapons charge.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the address Matt had given her. It was located in a dreary industrial zone full of old brick warehouses and factories. Though she didn’t see any obvious criminals lurking about, Valkyrie still found the seediness of the neighborhood somewhat troubling. She double-checked the address she’d written down before paying the taxi driver. Unfortunately, this was the place. She knew Matt had recently moved out of the college dorms in search of less expensive housing, but this wasn’t what she had been expecting.
As the cab pulled away, Val drew her gaze up and down the grimy, littered street. The squat, multi-storied brick buildings served as wonderful tapestries for gang-affiliated artists. Someday, she thought, some of them would make great road signs in prison. Most of the structures had barred windows and heavy steel security doors, and Val spied numerous security cameras mounted to rooftops in the immediate vicinity.
A three-legged dog wandered out of the adjacent alley and disappeared around the corner. In the distance, she heard the echoing wail of a police siren. Other than that, she saw no signs of life. The neighborhood was like a post-apocalyptic ruin. She could almost imagine carloads of road warriors screaming down the streets in makeshift vehicles, firing their guns into the air, raping and pillaging their way to the next big haul of that most precious post-apocalyptic commodity: Water.
Until that moment, Valkyrie had been missing her car. Suddenly, she was glad the Packard wasn’t here, but rather stored safely in some police impound lot. Valkyrie circled the dumpster on the sidewalk, and approached the steel door at the front of the building with Matt’s address in block lettered paint on the corner of the second floor. She glanced up at the camera mounted high on the brick wall, and wondered if that was Matt’s doing or if it had been included in the rent. She pressed the buzzer and waited. About ten seconds later, the door made a clicking noise and swung open.
“Valkyrie!” Matt said as he appeared out of the darkness. “I had no idea you were coming.” He threw his arms around her, and Val returned the embrace.
“I thought I’d deliver the laptop in person instead of mailing it. I need to check out Blackstar’s headquarters anyway. Apparently, it’s less than an hour’s drive from here.”
“Sounds great. Let me get your bag.”
She stared at Matt as he took the bag off the sidewalk and led her inside. Val was amazed by how much he had changed. She saw a reflection of the child she’d known in the man who stood before her, but the resemblance was minimal. Gone were the freckles, the wild, unkempt hair, the thin gangly limbs. He had filled out. His chubby baby cheeks were now hollows under high cheekbones, and his smooth little-boy chin now sported a reddish-brown goatee. But his eyes remained the same. They still had that same bright, curious, wondering look about them, as if despite everything, he still found the world somehow new and astonishing.
“Come on,” Matt said. “I’ll show you my loft.”
The building’s interior was dark, lit only by rows of windows high on the wall. It was essentially a warehouse, a two-story concrete and steel structure that was almost entirely empty, save for a few pieces of machinery she couldn’t identify and a row of steel tables along one wall. Matt’s car was there -the almost new Charger she’d bought for him a few months ago- but it looked like it had hardly been driven. Clearly, he was taking good care of it.
Matt led her to an old-fashioned wrought-iron elevator near the center of the building. “Keep your hands inside the cage,” he warned as he ushered her in. Val didn’t bother explaining that she’d ridden in one like this before. She preferred not to invite speculation about her age when she could avoid it. Matt pulled a red-handled lever on the wall, and with a shake and a lurch, the elevator began to rise. It didn’t move very fast, and Val found her gaze drifting back and forth across the dark warehouse as they made their slow ascent.
“This is quite a place you’ve found,” she said.
“Yeah, it actually belongs to the parents of a friend. It used to be a shoe factory. After that, it was a body shop, and when the economy tanked a few years ago, they went out of business. Most of the buildings in this part of town are empty now. Except for the homeless people. The squatters, the heroin addicts, and of course, the pigeons.”
“Classy,” Val said, shooting him a sideways glance.
“Don’t judge me,” he said, grinning. “It’s practically free. And I have the whole place to myself.”
“If I was you, I’d use some of that money you’re saving to hire a security guard.”
“No need,” he said confidently. “Nobody comes near this place without me knowing about it.”
The atmosphere lightened considerably as the elevator passed into the upper story. Here, tall windows lined the room, offering views across the rooftops of the entire neighborhood, and a glimpse of the skyline in the distance.
“Better?” Matt said, watching Val’s face change.
“Much.” She turned, taking it all in. This section was again mostly empty, but toward the east end of the building, Matt had set up a studio apartment with a makeshift bedroom and an office with several desks and large computer monitors. At the very end of the building, a u-shaped leather sofa encircled a hardwood coffee table and faced a big-screen television.
“This is impressive,” Val said. “Now I see why you needed to save money.”
“It’s not like that,” Matt said. “Most of this stuff came from Goodwill. Jennifer bought me that couch. She found it on Craigslist.”
“Ah, the girlfriend,” she said, cocking her eyebrow.
“Yep,” he said, beaming with pride. “Unfortunately, she’s out of town this week or I’d introduce you.”
“And the computers?” Val said. “Did she buy those, too?”
Matt’s face reddened. “You got me there. It’s all state of the art. First class. But that’s sort of my thing.”
“Yes, it is. Good, I’m happy for you.”
“Don’t be. That section of the loft probably added ten years of payments to my student loans. I’ll have kids in college before it’s all paid off.”
/> “I doubt that,” Val said. “Somehow, I have a feeling your going to do just fine.”
“Speaking of,” he said, “where’s that computer?”
“Are you in a hurry?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting years for this!”
“It’s in my bag. The battery is still dead. I tried to use the adapter from my laptop, but it didn’t fit.”
“No worries. As long as it still has a hard drive, that’s all I care about.”
Val retrieved the laptop from her bag and handed it to Matt. He took it to one of the computer desks, where he dropped into a chair, produced an electric screwdriver from one of the drawers, and started disassembling it.
“You have to take it apart?” Val said, watching him work.
“I don’t have to, I prefer to,” he said. “One of the biggest security problems with this technology is that there really isn’t any way to stop someone from accessing a drive.”
“Oh?”
“See, if you start up a computer, it automatically starts running the software that keeps data secure. You have to log in with a password, or a security device. That’s where all the security comes from: the software.”
“And doing it this way bypasses the software?”
“Exactly. Instead of running this computer’s programs, I’m running mine. I’m treating the Informant’s computer like a storage device. I should be able to access all the files on it.”
“And there’s no way around that? No way to protect against it?”
“I didn’t say that,” Matt said, giving her a wicked grin. “If somebody ever tries this with one of my PCs, they’ll be in a world of trouble. Or yours, for that matter.”
“Good to know.”
Val settled into a chair and watched patiently as Matt separated the plastic bezel from the bottom of the chassis. Underneath, he had to remove a thin metal shield in order to expose the drive. From there, it only took a few seconds to remove the hard drive. He held up the thin, card-shaped rectangle of circuit boards and aluminum, displaying it proudly. He pushed the rest of the computer off to the side.
