Liars' Legacy

by Taylor Stevens

  He took cash from the wallet, took the security badge, and scurried out.

  Anna stayed where she’d stopped, jaw slack, arms at her sides.

  The only part of her that moved was her eyes, and they tracked him relentlessly.

  He reached for her hand, tugged gently, tugged harder until she took a step, and then pulled her along, out the front, into a small courtyard with limited parking, blocked off from whatever lay beyond the high surrounding wall by a metal gate. Cold, deep night air tinged with hints of diesel fumes indicated a nearby road.

  He spun back for a glimpse of the building, old and factory-like, a single-story structure that looked like it had been gutted by fire and was under renovation. The updates included modernization, not least of which was the security pad to access the front door. Not a secure facility, a temporarily abandoned one.

  He crossed the courtyard with Anna in tow, found the access pad for the gate, and tapped one of the four badges against it. Gears whirred, mechanics groaned, and metal pulled sideways. Jack slipped through the widening gap, and Anna followed onto the shouldered edge of a dark and quiet two-lane road that ran between mom-and-pop businesses and houses and industrial buildings similar to this. The area was more open, less tightly packed than the city proper, but urban all the same.

  He paused, trying to get compass bearings.

  Anna pointed right. “That way,” she said.

  He followed her finger to near-distance signage, which he couldn’t quite make out, but he understood. They were past midnight, when the last of the restaurants and cafés shut down, but bars sometimes stayed open until the early morning hours.

  “Go,” he said, and she walked, and he followed.

  He knew even before they reached the place that it still hummed.

  If he could guarantee Anna would find her way to safety alone, he’d leave her there, but abandoning her, only to find her grabbed again, wasn’t worth the risk. He said, “Do you have a friend with a car? Someone you can call to come get you, to help you?”

  “Help only me?” she said.

  “Only you.”

  “I can call. Ask. What happens next, I don’t know.”

  “Try,” he said.

  She moved toward the door.

  He pointed to her hair. “You have to fix that first.”

  She ran her fingers through the tangled strands, smoothing, if not straightening them, turned for the door and, realizing he wasn’t coming, stopped.

  “It’s better if I wait outside,” he said.

  Less attention, fewer people to get a good look at his face—and with the condition she was in, they would look—and fewer chances of being picked up on CCTV.

  He said, “I’m not leaving. I’m right here.”

  She studied him for a long second. Unspoken accusations and unasked questions filled the silence, and she sighed and opened the door. Music, noise, and light spilled out onto the sidewalk, and she stepped out of sight.

  A minute or two dragged into five.

  Five minutes dragged into ten.

  He leaned against the wall, gaze toward the pavement, fighting against impatience and the unknown, and was debating the need to follow her in when the door opened and Anna stepped out, alone. He couldn’t tell if she’d succeeded or not.

  She joined him against the wall.

  “Maybe twenty minutes,” she said. “My friend will come.”

  “This is someone you trust? With your life?”

  Her expression, incredulous, said there was no possible way someone willing to come help her in the dead of night could screw up her life any more than he already had.

  He said, “This wasn’t meant to happen. I’m sorry.”

  She sniffed, effectively calling him a liar.

  She said, “I thought first, maybe this was big mistake, or maybe something with mafia or drugs that goes bad. But I see how you move. You kill like execution, and a man who moves like this, who kills like this, who asks stranger to be girlfriend for a day, maybe this man does not intend, but he knows this is all possibility.”

  She was right, of course, and nicer, kinder than he deserved.

  He’d known they’d be grabbed. Just hadn’t expected the rough treatment.

  Denying it would only make him a bigger dick.

  He said, “Is there anywhere you can go? To leave Prague for a month?”

  She studied the pavement, took a moment to answer and, voice soft, said, “There is going, and there is paying for the going.”

  It’d have been easy to interpret her statement the way his sister would have intended it, as a passive-aggressive, guilt-inducing shakedown that said no matter how well he’d paid her to accompany him to that meeting, it didn’t come close to touching the damage he’d done, and that he owed her. But this wasn’t that. Even if she had a place she could go, even if she worked her own hours and didn’t have to worry about losing a job, there were still costs associated with keeping a roof over her head and perhaps homing a pet. Even the semi-transient couldn’t uproot as easily as he could.

  He said, “You’re not safe here.”

  “One month is enough?”

  He nodded. “Should be enough.”

  Her face filled with doubt. He couldn’t explain how he knew, or why, and it’d be ludicrous after all this to ask her to trust him, so he said nothing.

  Headlamps rounded the distant curve, lighting what had otherwise been a traffic-free stretch of road. Anna leaned forward for a better view, a position that drew attention and ensured anyone who knew her or was looking for her would recognize her without help. He put a hand on her arm and held her back.

  She jerked loose and glared.

  He said, “It’s only been fifteen minutes.”

  The vehicle slowed, approaching too directly to be random.

  They were targets against a wall, waiting for a firing squad.

  Jack reached for the small of his back. Gripped the handgun.

  Anna said, “That is him, my friend.”

  Jack said, “Just wait. Give it time.”

  An old beige Opel hatchback ran its tires up onto the sidewalk and stopped a meter away. Anna moved to take a step forward. Jack, gripping her arm, held her in place. The passenger window rolled down.

  Anna tugged and, forcefully this time, said, “It is my friend.”

  Jack walked with her, put himself between her and the passenger door, leaned down, scanned the interior, confirmed the backseat was empty, and loosened his grip. “Don’t go home,” he said. “You know Petín?”

  She answered with a confused shrug.

  Of course she knew. Everyone knew.

  Petín was a hill near the center of Prague, a popular recreational area for the locals and a destination for tourists, who sought out its Eiffel-like lookout tower for the views. “Go there,” he said. “Go to the statue of Mácha. Search in the trees behind it. You’ll find a brown paint mark. Upturn the largest stone near that tree. There’s money. It will get you what you need for clothes and shoes and personal items. It’ll get you a ticket out of town.” He pulled the stolen euros and koruny from his pocket, shoved it in her hand. “So you don’t run out of petrol along the way.”

  She took the money, squeezed his biceps, leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek. She said, “Maybe this bad thing is intended, or maybe you know is only a possibility, but you care enough to come get me and make me free. So. Thank you.”

  He opened the door for her. Nudged her inside. Closed it behind her.

  “Go to Petín,” he said. “Leave Prague.”

  The window rolled up, the tires pulled off the curb, and the Opel hung a U-turn. He watched the taillights until they faded, stashed the pistol behind his back, and weight dropped off his shoulders, lifted off his chest.

  He’d warned her, and provided the money she’d need to run. He’d done what he could, but more than that, she’d forgiven him and absolved him.

  The absolution mattered.

  He shoved hands in
to pockets and began a long, slow stroll back the way he’d come. The gate was closed when he reached it. The security badge opened it for a second time, and the badge got him past the glass and into the drab reception room.

  He detoured for the security desk, rifled through drawers that offered paper and pens and standard office fare, and studied the monitors. The feeds came from cameras that pointed outward, presumably to protect the building from vandals and thieves and record the comings and goings at the front.

  There’d be footage of him somewhere, of him and Anna strolling out and, an hour or so later, of his solo return. His face would be grainy because of the dark, and difficult to enhance because keeping his head down was second nature, and if the footage existed, someone somewhere would try to make use of it, and he wished them luck with that.

  He left the security badges on the desk.

  The love seat was exactly where he’d shoved it, to the inch.

  He pushed it back across the room, righted it into place.

  And he returned to the hub and headed for his bed, conscious of the way silence and solitude amplified each step. Other than Vadik, whom he’d left shackled in Anna’s place, he was alone in this building. He wiped down the PYa Grach, and returned it to the hand of the sentry to whom it belonged. He did the same with the knife and grabbed the shoulders of the body lying across the threshold, lamp metal still protruding from beneath the chin, dragged it into the hall, and propped it up. And he returned to the room, to his bed, slipped off his shoes, lay back, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.

  They’d promised him freedom and brought him here instead.

  They hadn’t let him see Anna.

  He didn’t respond well to force or threats—he’d said so plainly—but those most used to giving orders were often deafest to warnings.

  Some people needed shouting.

  “Sleep,” the man in the suit had said. “We talk in the morning.”

  Indeed they would.

  CHAPTER 25

  Wien Hauptbahnhof

  Vienna, Austria

  KARA

  SHE WOVE PAST SLEEK SIGNAGE AND MODERN DEPARTURE BOARDS, head down, fists clenched, into the main concourse, where translucent panels and recessed lights played contrast against the folded lines and open spaces of the tracks. Vienna station was an architectural playground, but all she saw was shoes and floor.

  She needed to get in, get to a phone, get out.

  That was the mantra cycling through her brain.

  This call was an obligation, a duty that now fell on her.

  Failing to follow through would invite questions and suspicions and make her a scapegoat for the fiasco in Prague.

  Making the call portended the same outcome.

  Vienna had never been part of the plan.

  She’d made a judgment call and taken what was left of her team off-line. She’d expected to have to fight Aaron and his bickering the whole way, but he’d followed her lead without protest. He’d been docile enough, really, that under other circumstances she’d have fast-tracked his way to a psych appointment.

  Struggling to hold her own shit together, as she was, she didn’t have the bandwidth for his mental health, too, so the ride out of Prague had been five hours of silence: silent pain, silent questions, silently buying tickets and finding tracks and seats and, upon arriving, silently finding a place to sit tight. She’d gotten him settled in the food court, and waited until he’d begun to pick at his meal before telling him she was going for answers. He’d put a hand on her arm and stopped her.

  He’d pushed a plate in her direction. Voice breaking, he’d said, “You need to eat. You need to take care of yourself, too.”

  The concern—from him, of all people—had threatened to rupture the membrane that contained the flood. She’d squeezed his hand and hurried away before what was left of her spilled all over the floor, which was how she’d gotten to where she was now, striding beneath skylights under a dark sky, call card in hand, fighting back tears on her way to the public phones. Their own equipment was in a Prague luggage locker, left behind for the same reason she’d gone to ground, and the same reason she already had tickets in hand for the next train to Bratislava. She didn’t know what the hell had gone down in Republic Square, but she damn sure knew headquarters had withheld information and that withholding it had gotten half her team killed. She wasn’t willing to bet against a cleanup crew coming for the two that got away.

  She’d chosen Wien for its flexibility.

  This new central station had turned Vienna into a major artery on the European rail lines, which meant quick access to trains in any cardinal direction, and the station wasn’t far from both international airport and highway, and Austria itself was small, which meant nearby land borders, all of which mattered if she was forced to run.

  But first, she had to make this call.

  She reached the phone bank, chose the handset with the best view of the concourse and, using the number Nick had given her for emergencies, bypassed Liv Wilson for Steven Hayes, the man at the apex of whatever headquarters was.

  She’d met him just once at a briefing, a handshake the extent of their interaction. He was smart, short, balding, and buzzed with the low hum of a burned-out fluorescent bulb, which she’d chalked up to a decade of substituting neurotropics and edible caffeine for sleep. Calling him directly was a breach of protocol that would get someone far more important shitcanned, but she was beyond caring.

  She was loyal to Nick, loyal to family and to country, and she’d saluted enough men and women undeserving of the uniform to mistake loyalty for obedience.

  Hayes answered with a clipped hello.

  She said, “Novak calling on behalf of Carson.”

  “Novak,” he said.

  The repeat wasn’t a statement, wasn’t a question, and wasn’t a greeting.

  It was information for someone else’s benefit, and in her mind’s eye, she saw him snapping for attention, circling fingers, summoning the desk jockeys to get a real-time trace. He said, “Are you secure?”

  “Not the line,” she said.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  She checked her surroundings, scanned the concourse.

  “Carson and Marino, KIA. I’ll have IRR and analysis within twenty-four hours. I’m resigning position and requesting a return to station.”

  Hayes said, “We’re still working on building the complete timeline. I’d like to bring you in, have you fill in the gaps on what we’re missing. Let’s discuss exit options in person after you’re finished.”

  Kara parsed his words, struggling to read implied meaning between lines she’d never been good at seeing in the first place.

  There was threat, and maybe warning.

  She hadn’t been naive enough to assume this would be easy.

  People like her didn’t just walk away, and any possibility she had of a smooth transition had died with Nick. Without Hayes’s blessing, best case might find her facing a dishonorable discharge, and worst case, she’d be dead within the month. The only protection she had was what she knew, and she wasn’t ready to give that up just yet.

  “Unable to exfil at this time, sir,” she said. “It’ll all be in the report.”

  The clock in her head said a minute since the line had connected.

  Nearest embassy was seventeen minutes door-to-door. Thirteen if operatives were on standby and traffic and traffic lights were inconsequential. Zero if the war room had pinged her departure out of Prague and already had a team on-site.

  In her head she counted down.

  Hayes said, “Give me a second.”

  The need to hurry intensified, amplifying the mental chatter inside her head, making it hard to focus. In her ear, the ambient noise changed, as if Hayes had stepped somewhere quiet and shut the door behind him.

  The sense of privacy brought a change in tone.

  His language slipped from formal to casual, and exhaustion bled through, and that was all an illusion,
because the call was recorded anyway.

  “I’m sorry to hear about Carson,” he said. “It’s never easy losing a partner, but when you’re tight like the two of you were, the gut punch wrecks you to the core.”

  She struggled for a response, knew one was required.

  Logic protested, questioning why the grieving party owed anything.

  She stayed silent.

  Hayes said, “I’ve been reading your op reports and requisitions. You’ve got a good head for abstract connections and a keen eye for detail. It’s fair to want out, but target is still at large and remains high priority, and we can’t afford to lose you until the team closes out. I want you to take lead.”

  Kara fought for words, fought to breathe.

  She didn’t want this, wasn’t cut out for fieldwork.

  She was an analyst, not an operative and not a leader.

  Her thoughts scattered. She struggled to bring them back to the concourse.

  No sign of field officers yet.

  Didn’t mean they weren’t coming. Just meant they hadn’t already been on-site. Her mind bolted again, jumping over probabilities, racing through possibilities.

  She was screwed no matter what she did.

  She said, “You may feel differently after you receive the report.”

  He said, “You can speak frankly.”

  Five minutes. She could do this in five minutes.

  This was suicide. Or this was rescue.

  At least she’d know one way or the other.

  She said, “I’m an analyst, sir. I can only do my job if I’m given all available data, and with all due respect, to ask me to continue against an advanced, persistent threat without allowing me all-source access is asking me to continue the losses. I’ll pull that pin and fall on that grenade, sir, if that’s what you’re looking for, but I’d still be more effective with access to all the data.”

  Hayes stayed silent for a few seconds, and she struggled to gauge what the silence meant but was too far in now to change course, so she, too, kept quiet.