Jumper

by Steven Gould

  “Who’s Barry?”

  “The agent in my office. The one on the morning shift.”

  “Ah. Well, Barry went to the beach. Where did they put Millie Harrison?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  I pointed the gun at his head.

  “Jesus. Honest. I’ve never heard of her. Are you sure I’d have a reason? Remember who you’re dealing with. These guys don’t tell anybody anything, unless they absolutely have to.”

  I lowered the gun. “I would point out that someone with my talents is very hard to run from. If I find you’re jerking my string, you will hear about it.”

  “Honest. I’ve never heard of her. The only work I do has to do with the Middle East.”

  “Turn around.”

  “You’re going to shoot me?”

  “Not unless you make me. Turn around.”

  He moved slowly. I grabbed him and jumped him to the airport terminal in Ankara, Turkey, and left him.

  I hoped he had his American Express card.

  When I checked back at Millie’s, they’d reduced the number of agents in the complex. Two men stood outside, half hidden at the corners of the building. I saw one take a radio out from under his overcoat and talk into it.

  I left him at the airport in Bonn, waving his harpoon gun and trying to talk on the radio again. Airport security was closing in fast.

  I don’t think his radio had intercontinental capacity.

  The other guard I jumped to Orly Airport outside Paris. He managed to plant an elbow in my ribs, very hard, but I held on tight and left him next to a bunch of Japanese tourists clustered around the information desk.

  I handled those inside the apartment with the Lexan cylinder, drawing their fire, then jumping them away to airports in Cyprus, Italy, and Saudi Arabia.

  Dad, apparently, was at work. At least the car was gone. There were only three agents in the house and I scattered them to Tunis, Rabat, and Lahore. In the process, I earned another bruised rib and a stamped instep.

  I considered using the iron rod in the future, but I didn’t want to risk killing someone. I was ready to take that risk when an entire planeload was at stake, but Americans?

  They’re terrorists in their own way.

  I shivered, remembering Millie’s warning. I didn’t want to become like them. Even worse, I didn’t want to become like my dad.

  It was dark in Washington, heavy clouds blocking the setting sun, the wind cold out of the east. I went into the train station and called Perston-Smythe’s number. I figured he was still in Turkey, unless he’d had his passport with him, but it was Cox I wanted to talk to.

  A male voice, neutral, not Perston-Smythe, answered the phone. I said, “This is David Rice. I want to talk to Brian Cox.”

  There was a hesitation on the other end of the line.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked. “Besides starting the trace, that is.”

  “Mr. Cox is on another line. Can you hold a moment?”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “Honestly—he’s talking to the ambassador in Bonn. You caused the problem, after all.”

  Ah—the harpoon gun in the airport. I smiled.

  “I’ll call back.”

  I took the crowded rush-hour subway five stops down. The clean, fresh-smelling stations amazed me, so different from New York. On the platform I used another pay phone. Cox himself answered the phone.

  “You’ve caused a great deal of trouble,” he said angrily.

  His tone of voice reminded me of Dad. For just an instant I felt like I’d done something wrong, horribly shameful. I was speechless, first with shock, then with anger.

  I hung up the phone and screamed out loud, an inarticulate burst of rage. Rush-hour commuters turned and stared at me, surprised, a little afraid. A tobacco-chewing marine in uniform said, “Bad news?”

  “Fuck you!” I said, and jumped to my cliff dwelling in Texas. I hoped he choked on his cud.

  I screamed again, angry, furious. The man had kidnapped Millie. He had people shooting at me with sharp pieces of barbed steel and he had the nerve to say I was a lot of trouble? I dropped to my knees on my bed and began pounding the mattress.

  God, I was frightened.

  Dad arrived home from work escorted by two agents, one in the front passenger seat, one in the back. I watched from the kitchen window as he pulled the car into the driveway. I was surprised that he was driving. Considering that the NSA had been around my father now for a couple of weeks, they must know about his alcoholism. I wouldn’t get into a car he was driving.

  Only one of the agents carried a harpoon gun. He held it inside his coat as they walked to the house, but it was dark out, and he didn’t bother to close the coat.

  I jumped him to the airport in Seville just after he entered the house. The other guard I jumped to Cairo. When I came back, Dad was running across the lawn to his car.

  When he reached the door, I jumped to the driver’s seat and stared out at him through the window. At the same time the car alarm went off. He yelled, pushed away from the car, and ran awkwardly up the street. I let him go and jumped back to Washington, D.C.

  This time he just said, “I’m listening.”

  “Where is Millie Harrison?”

  “In a safe place.”

  “Where?”

  “Why should we tell you?”

  I stared at the phone in my hand, then remembered to check the approaches to the booth. I was standing outside a convenience store in Alexandria. “You should do a lot more than tell me. There are much more unpleasant places your men could end up than airports. It would’ve been just as easy to drop them from high places. Very high places. And it doesn’t have to be just your men that I take on my little trips. What would the president say if I jumped him to Colombia for a little chat? I don’t think he’s too popular there with certain special-interest groups. Or Cuba? It would be quite a coup: President goes on fact-finding mission. Whirlwind tour. Surprises even Secret Service.”

  Cox was silent for a moment. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Try me.”

  “I don’t have to. We have your girlfriend and you don’t know where she is. You wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her.”

  “Why not? You’re willing to jeopardize the president.”

  “I don’t think I’m risking anything. Come talk to us. Help us figure out how you do what you do. We can help you. You have the right idea with this antiterrorist thing. We can get you Rashid Matar—”

  I hung up the phone.

  The next morning there were more guards at Millie’s apartment. I jumped them to Knossos, Muscat, and Zurich. I was getting to be quite the little travel agency. I hoped it cost the NSA plenty to fly them home.

  When I checked Dad’s place it was empty, locked up.

  The subway took me within two blocks of the Pierce Building. A government building across the street had no security and I accessed its roof with no trouble. There was a view of the side of the Pierce Building and its back entrance, the one that led to the parking lot.

  The parking lot itself was fenced, with a guard at the gate. Another guard was in a glass booth at the building door. Using the binoculars, I watched both guards examine credentials. The one in the glass booth had to push a button before the building entrance would open.

  Mounted closed-circuit television cameras surveyed the parking lot, all sides of the building, and even the roof.

  I jumped back to Union Station and used the phone.

  “Let me talk to Cox.”

  There was the sound of papers rustling.

  “Hello.”

  “Let’s meet.”

  “Good. You can come to my office.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Where, then.”

  “Go to the Capitol reflecting pool. Walk up the middle of the grass toward the Washington Monument. Alone.”

  “Who’s being stupid now?”

  I didn’t care how many peopl
e he had with him. I just wanted him to think I intended to make the meeting.

  “Well, you can bring one other, but leave your weapons behind. No long coats—nothing that could hide those nasty harpoon guns. He walks behind you.”

  We settled for two guards.

  “When,” he asked.

  “Right now. As you know, I’ll be there before you, so play it straight. It’s pretty empty on the Mall right now. I’ll be able to tell if you bring any ringers in.”

  I heard him swallow.

  “All right. It will take us ten minutes.”

  I hung up the phone, jumped back to the rooftop, and took up the binoculars.

  He came out of the building with six other men. Some of them carried the harpoon guns. Four of the men got into a car and the other two, wearing heavy sweaters but no coats, walked toward a different car, Cox trailing, careless, expecting the real confrontation to happen at the Mall.

  One of the men opened and held the back door for Cox. That’s when I took him.

  Cox was big and heavy, but by now I’d perfected the art of tipping them off balance and jumping. Just before I disappeared from the parking lot, I heard the agent holding the door start to yell, the sound cut off in its earliest stages by my transition to Texas, fifty feet above the cold, hard water of the pit.

  I jumped to the island to watch him hit.

  Water geysered from the surface, drops of spray dotting my coat. He’d tipped forward after I released him and his impact, though feet-first, was followed by his front slapping down, stomach and chest. I heard him grunt as the air was forced out of him.

  It took him a few seconds to claw his way back to the surface and even longer to draw breath.

  I hoped it hurt.

  He didn’t seem as shaken up, though, as some of the others who’d made that drop. He sidestroked to the island and actually walked out of the water.

  I pointed Barry’s gun at him.

  “If I’m not heard from fairly soon, things are going to get very unpleasant for your girlfriend.”

  I turned the gun slightly to the side and fired past him, at the water. The slug skipped off the surface of the water and chipped rock from the cliff face. The noise was deafening, a palpable shock, but I’d seen explosives go off in here. I knew what to expect. Even so, I flinched slightly.

  Cox jerked and his eyes narrowed.

  “Take off your clothes. Quickly.” I moved the gun back in line with his body.

  He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  I felt frustration etching at my calm expression. I fired the pistol again, this time to the other side.

  Again he flinched, but he gritted his teeth and shook his head.

  More and more he reminded me of Dad. Why not. He took away a woman I loved. I lifted the pistol over my head and jumped, bringing it down on the back of Cox’s head from behind, very hard.

  He fell forward like a tree.

  I took a very sharp knife from my pocket and cut his clothes off. He carried two guns, but what I was looking for was strapped to his thigh, one of the silver tubes with the antenna running all the way down to his sock. It didn’t have the barbed point, but it was dangerous for all that.

  I jumped forty miles south, to where the Rio Grande cuts through rock between the U.S. and Mexico, and threw the tube into the foaming waters. It barely floated and I could see it bobbing along, headed for Del Rio, via Big Bend National Park.

  Back on the little island I finished cutting the rest of Cox’s clothes off of him, and jumped them to Central Park in New York City where I left them in a trash can by the Sheep Meadow. The guns I put in the cliff dwelling.

  There are enough guns in New York City already.

  Back in the pit, I rolled Cox over and checked his pupils, holding his eyelids open. They seemed to be the same size and both reacted to the light. His body was covered with goose bumps but his breathing seemed all right. The sun was shining into the pit and the temperature was in the sixties. Cox was probably better off without his wet clothes on, anyway.

  I jumped to K Mart in Stillwater, Oklahoma, bought a sleeping bag, and returned. It zipped all the way open. I spread it on the ground beside Cox, rolled him onto one half, then zipped it back up, around him.

  There was a swelling on the back of Cox’s head that seeped a slight amount of blood. It reminded me of my mugging, when I’d first got to New York.

  Again, I hoped it hurt him, but the mean thought made me feel bad. It made me feel petty. It made me feel like him.

  Shit. It made me feel like Dad.

  Chapter 18

  Cox awoke to find the chemical toilet beside him and a sign that said, DON’T POLLUTE THE POND, IT’S YOUR DRINKING WATER. I also left a bottle of ibuprofen and a large glass of water. I watched him from the center of the island, lying on the ground under the mesquite bushes, and peering through the grass. I didn’t want to be around him when he woke up.

  Then why are you watching?

  It reminded me of Sunday mornings at home. Dad would wake up with a hangover and I would walk on eggshells until he got his first two cups of coffee down. But I would hang around the house, because he needed me then. Needed me to fix his coffee, needed me to fix him breakfast. When he was hung over, there wasn’t any danger of violence.

  That would come later.

  Cox was having trouble focusing on the note. He kept moving it closer and farther away. Finally, though, he put it down and took the ibuprofen. He moved very carefully, occasionally twisting his neck to one side, like it was stiff.

  I jumped to D.C., to the subway stop at Union Station. I was going to call the NSA and start bargaining for Millie, but when I was dropping the quarter in the phone I saw a man reading a newspaper and waiting for the train. My first thought was that he might be an NSA agent, one of many scattered around the city, but then I saw the headline facing me.

  “Shiite Extremists Hijack Cruise Ship.” Below was a distant shot of a gleaming white ship. Side by side with that photo was a picture of Rashid Matar.

  I jumped to New York and called MMM.

  The operator said, “Ah, Mr. Ross, we have a lot of material for you. There’s been a hijacking of a ship.”

  “I just saw a paper. Where?”

  “It’s off of Alexandria, in Egypt.”

  I gritted my teeth. I’d never flown into the little airport there. “There was a picture of Rashid Matar in the paper. Is he involved?”

  “That is the Reuters report.”

  “Ah. Any numbers? How many passengers, how many terrorists?”

  “At least five terrorists. One hundred and thirty passengers. One hundred and five crew.”

  “Why so many crew?”

  “The Argos is a large luxury yacht. The cruise was booked by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, here in New York. It’s mostly wealthy benefactors of the museum. Nearly all of them are American. There’s one English couple. The crew is Greek.”

  “How far offshore are they?”

  I heard the rustling of paper. “None of these say. The video of the ship was taken by a helicopter, but it didn’t show the shore.”

  “Do you know where the media are? Where they’re covering this from?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  I jumped to London. I had to change some money before I could use a public call box to dial the Reuters number on Corseau’s card. A voice with a British accent said, “Middle East Desk.”

  I spoke quickly. “I have some urgent information for Jean-Paul Corseau. Do you know where I can reach him?”

  “We can pass a message to him.”

  “This is for his ears only.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s really not our policy to give out our reporters’ whereabouts. If you give me a number, perhaps I can have him call you?”

  “No.” I paused. “I gave him a lift to Cairo recently. Does that mean anything to you?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “That wild story? He was nearly fired. So you’r
e the chap who stops hijackings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not come chat with us? We’d love to do a story.”

  “Jean-Paul Corseau. Now.”

  “How do I really know you’re the one?”

  “I’m hanging up. Three... two... one—”

  “Okay, okay. He’s staying at the Metropole in Alexandria, but the media is covering the story from Fort Qait Bey on the eastern harbor.”

  “Thanks.”

  In Cairo the airport terminal swarmed with men who wanted to change my money at very favorable rates and children who followed me crying, “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” At the information desk I asked when the next commuter flight to El Iskandariya was. The woman said the daily flight had already left but that the train was very comfortable in first class, only six hours from the Cairo railway station near Ramses Square.

  From what I’d read, it could take over an hour to get to the train station in bad traffic and, in Cairo, there was no other kind.

  A half hour later and three thousand dollars poorer, I was airborne in a Bell helicopter, traveling northwest at four thousand feet. I’d promised the pilot a bonus if we reached the eastern harbor in under an hour.

  “That’s Heliopolis,” he said, pointing to a section just west of the airport and, to me, indistinguishable from the rest of Cairo’s sprawl. “We’re flying over Heliopolis in my helicopter.”

  George, the pilot, was Egyptian, but he was proud of his overprecise English. I pushed the talk button on my headset and said, “Heliopolis. Helicopter. Very witty.” Idiot. I wasn’t feeling very jolly.

  While they’d fueled the helicopter George told me his usual passengers were oil executives heading east to the Sinai or very rich tourists who wanted to see Giza without risking Cairo’s traffic.

  The helicopter swung west and George said, “Abu Rawash.” He pointed down on his side of the helicopter. I found it on the map spread across my knees. He was pointing at a pyramid, but I couldn’t see it from my side.

  “Why so far west?”

  He pointed again, this time straight ahead at a thin dark line that stretched across desert. “We follow the pipeline. Direct route, very fast.”