by Julie Hyzy
Keeping my eyes on the pages before me, I nonchalantly tugged at my smock while I pretended to study my notes, hoping to convince them of my deep concentration. Mostly I hoped they didn’t notice me at all. How they couldn’t hear my pulse pound in my ears, or notice the heat that crept up from my chest, I didn’t know.
Even though I operated in stealth, even though there was absolutely no way for them to know what I was attempting, the awareness that I was stalking them in this way made me nervous. Perhaps I’d simply had one too many close calls in my life, but the fact that we had three fainting incidents and one death on our hands this past week made me leery.
Gav always encouraged me to trust my gut. Right about now it was ringing like a semaphore, warning of an oncoming freight train. The problem was that I couldn’t find my way off the tracks to safety. To say I was unsettled was an understatement.
I managed to find a reason to shift positions and work a little closer to the men. They’d relaxed quite a bit, or so I gathered from their casual gestures and the easy rhythm of their words. Yet, whatever they were discussing—in fits and starts—seemed to be of great importance to both. There were a few consonant-heavy syllables that they repeated again and again.
Marcel, Tibor, and Cleto returned to the main kitchen a bit later. We’d kept busy while they were gone, Bucky and I working in silence while Nate and Hector carried on like two buddies meeting for a beer after work.
Marcel fairly sailed into the room, using his good arm to gesture grandly behind him, toward Cleto and Tibor, who followed him in. “I present my prototype,” Marcel announced. “Tell me what you think.”
Cleto carried a small plant in his large hands. If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed it to be a real flower in a ceramic bowl. A spherical pot of bright blue housed a single, vivid orange bloom atop a delicate green stem adorned with diminutive leaves. Lifelike, and quivering with graceful elegance, its austere beauty took my breath away.
“Oh, Marcel,” I said. “You’ve outdone yourself.”
“It is merely a first attempt,” he said. Though he waved my praise away I could tell my reaction had pleased him. “I will admit that creating these prototypes was exceptionally difficult given my impairment.” He raised his casted arm, slightly. “Fortunately, however, my fingers remain unaffected.” He made a pincer motion with his index finger and thumb to demonstrate, then nodded at Cleto and Tibor. “Together with able assistance from these two gentlemen, I have managed what seemed impossible.” Marcel then picked up an empty tray, but clearly had no reason for doing so other than to make himself look busy and pretend to be utterly unmoved by our collective admiration. His eyes, however, expectant and bright, scanned our faces, eager for more.
The look of pure awe Cleto displayed made me smile because I knew precisely what he was feeling. “Marcel is a master,” he said in a soft voice. “I have never encountered such a beautiful dessert.” He turned to me. “Despite the fact that he created this work of art right before my eyes, I still am unable to believe it.”
Even the stubborn Tibor’s eyes shone with appreciation for Marcel’s talent, and perhaps, too, for his kind words. He said nothing, however, and turned away when I looked at him.
“We need to put the finishing touches on plans for Kerry Freiberg’s dinner,” I said once we’d all sufficiently cooed over Marcel’s lovely sugar poppy. “Time is running short. Bucky and I were thinking about walking over to Blair House later today, to get a feel for where we’ll be preparing your dinner. Would any of you care to join us?”
Nate looked over to Hector with a “How about it?” expression. Hector seemed to answer with, “Whatever.”
“We will accompany you,” Nate said. “We would like, very much, to see how the United States houses dignitaries.” His smile grew wide. “I cannot imagine the accommodations being more luxurious than what we have at our hotel, but your country continues to astonish me with what you have to offer.”
Tibor’s gaze flipped from me, to Hector and Nate, then to Cleto, then back to me. He didn’t say a word, but I could read scorn in his eyes. Why he was so opposed to this dinner, I couldn’t imagine. Even if Kerry Freiberg’s world views were different from his, Tibor had made it clear that he would do as he was told. The only thing that I could think of was that he didn’t support her as a candidate, and knew that his hair-trigger temper could get him into trouble.
“I’ll have to clear the visit with Peter Sargeant,” I said, “but I would imagine we could walk over when we’re finished for the day. I’ll be sure to keep you both informed.”
The matter settled, I started across the kitchen, through one if its narrowest sections, making my way to the computer to e-mail Sargeant with my request.
“I would like to accompany you to Blair House as well,” Marcel said. “Would that be agreeable to you, Olivia?”
I turned to answer, too late noticing that Marcel had taken that very moment to squeeze behind me. The two of us collided, but not before he had a split-second chance to swing his injured limb out of harm’s way. He lost his one-handed grip on the tray he was carrying and as it clattered to the floor, his cast slid up along the arm of my smock, bumping the bottom of the miniature tape recorder.
The rubber band broke, stinging as it snapped against my forearm.
I reacted instinctively, grabbing my arm with the opposite hand, doing my best to keep the tape recorder from springing from its perch. My fingers came up empty, save for a handful of sleeve. I could feel the solid mass tumble against my arm and I grasped again and missed, cognizant of the attention I was generating. I must have looked like a crazed person, fighting to free a bug from under her clothing.
In a surge of brilliance, I jerked my hand up, hoping gravity would drop the recorder into the elbow of my sleeve. The movement, however—centrifugal force at its finest—served to jettison the device out my cuff like a missile. It shot away from me, dropped to the floor, and broke into two pieces, one of which slid across the room like a hockey puck.
The entire episode took less than ten seconds, but by the time the tiny tape recorder was exposed, everyone in the room had his eyes on it. And me.
Thinking fast as I crouched to retrieve the device, I assumed the most nonchalant air I could muster. “I guess I won’t be listening to my favorite music anytime soon.”
My heart all but stopped in fear that I’d broken the thing, thereby losing whatever Saardiscan conversation I’d recorded, and panic that one of the visitors would recognize the slim gadget for what it was.
To my relief, the recorder’s back had simply separated from the body, but to my horror, Nate leaned down to help me pick the pieces up.
He beat me to the working half of the recorder as I wrapped my hand around the plastic backing. Nate turned the little machine over in his hand, then tightened his fist around it as he took a step closer. Metal cracked. Or was that terror splitting my gut? Bucky, Marcel, and the others waited, as though every single one of them understood what was at stake here. I knew Bucky did. I prayed the rest were oblivious.
“This is not from an iPod,” Nate said with a curious look on his face. “Even in Saardisca, we have iPods.” He reached for the rest of the recorder, still in my hand, but I pulled away. The look on his face read perplexed, but the gleam in his eye made my pulse shift into high gear.
“Thanks.” I reached to snatch the recorder from his hand, but he held tight.
“What is it?” he asked.
When he tilted his head just so, I knew he knew precisely what it was.
“Mine,” I said, because I couldn’t come up with a convincing lie fast enough. “For music. It’s old.” My brain ordered my mouth to stop explaining, but I blathered on. “Had it forever. I should probably invest in a new one.”
“One that doesn’t fall out of its hiding place so easily,” Nate said. “New ones are far better for that.” He squeezed tight, cracking it one more time before handing it back to me, pressing into my palm
with more force than necessary, and holding a moment too long. “You say this type of device is for music, yes? So you may play back everything later?” When he finally let go, he did so with a humorless smile. “You will find that your recordings are of poor quality. And perhaps this one is now broken for good.”
“Um, thank you,” I said.
But he wasn’t finished. “You would be better served to purchase downloads,” he said, “if it truly is music you’re after.”
Bucky had remained silent, but piped in now to help. “Ollie, Ollie,” he said in a high, chastising tone. “I’ve been after you to get a new player for years.” Turning toward Nate, he gave an exaggerated wink. I knew my assistant was trying to cover for me, but we were coming across like a clumsy scene from a bad B-movie. “With any luck this one is broken so you’ll be forced to buy a new version.”
“Yeah,” I said, agreeing weakly. “With any luck.”
* * *
Sargeant, unfortunately, was unable to arrange for our visit to Blair House that day. Part of me was sorely disappointed, part of me was relieved. After the incident with the recorder, I nearly shook with craving to get away from our Saardiscan guests.
When they finally left for the day, I watched them depart, making sure they were through the far doors and out of earshot before I turned to Bucky, exploding with the only thought that had occupied my mind for hours.
“Do you think they knew I was taping them?”
My assistant was drying a stainless steel bowl, using a cotton dish towel to wipe, dry, and wipe the utensil again and again. The fact that he clearly didn’t want to answer made my stomach squish. “Hard to say, really.” He pressed the towel into the bowl’s rim and ran his fingers along the edge.
“Hard to say?” I repeated. “Nate practically called me out on it in front of everyone.” I pointed to where the recorder had taken its tumble. “He had to know.” I began pacing the small area.
Bucky stopped his busy drying. “For all they know, you could be recording conversation so that you remember all the steps we took to prepare for this dinner.”
“That’s a good excuse,” I said. “I wish I’d thought of it at the time.”
He clanged the bowl onto the counter. “Seems to me that they have more to worry about than you do. Why would an innocent person care if he was being recorded?”
I gave him a look. “Really, Bucky? Did you seriously just say that?”
He gave a sheepish smile. “Fine. Recording private conversations feels wrong. Perhaps they have reason to be upset. But even if that’s the case, what can you do about it now? Erase it all?”
“I guess I’m not willing to go that far.”
“So you hurt some feelings,” Bucky went on. “They’ll get over it.”
I pulled out the recorder and tapped it against my palm. “The part that’s bugging me most of all—if you’ll pardon the pun—isn’t that we’re taping them without their knowledge. It’s that I’m the one who’s doing it. Like I’m stooping to a new low.”
“Didn’t you ask them to keep to English while they were working here?”
“Yes.”
“And did they?” Bucky asked.
“No.”
“And don’t you believe that they were testing Stephanie to see if she was listening?”
“I do.”
“I’ve known you for a few years now, Ollie,” he said. “If anyone chooses to take the high road, it’s you. You drive me up a wall sometimes with your insistence on doing what’s right, versus what’s easy.”
“So then—”
He didn’t let me interrupt. Pointing to the recorder, he said, “If that’s your greatest transgression, then you’re way ahead of most of the world. Your goal is to keep everyone here safe, right?”
“Right.”
“And, let’s say that when you listen to the recording, you find out that Hector and Nate have an illegal gambling operation they run back in Saardisca.”
“They can’t. They’re from different provinces.”
Bucky rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “I’m using that as an example. What I’m asking is this: If you discovered that the men were discussing a sensitive matter that didn’t threaten anyone’s life, would you alert the authorities?”
“Probably not.”
“And even if you wanted to, you couldn’t. These recordings wouldn’t hold up in court.”
I took in a deep breath. “I may not even have recordings to listen to. Nate sure did a number on this little thing.”
“Another reason to go with your gut.” Bucky tapped the recorder. “Your instincts tell you that something is amiss. And your instincts haven’t failed you yet, have they?”
CHAPTER 26
Instincts were on my mind later that evening, as I made my way to Stephanie’s house with the little machine tucked tightly in the front pocket of my slacks. When Nate had handed it back to me, I was afraid it had been irreparably broken. To my surprise, however, a few minutes of attention were all the device needed to get it up and running—or whirring—again. Its technology might be woefully behind the times, but this little gem was sturdy, having been manufactured before planned obsolescence became industry standard. I was delighted that it had survived both the fall and Nate’s attempt to crush it.
At this time of the day I could have taken either the Blue or Orange lines toward Largo Town Center, because extra trains ran for a few hours. On the return trip, however, I’d have only the Blue line option from Stephanie’s Maryland location. That was okay with me. Hopping on the Blue line meant no transfers to Crystal City. I was very much looking forward to being home tonight. I’d left Gav a message about my errand, in case he tried to call, but I knew he’d be in meetings until late.
Stephanie’s home was in a residential area, about six blocks from her Metro stop. Dusk was settling on the D.C. area earlier these days as the seasons shifted and crisp fall winds twisted crunchy leaves. It was unexpectedly chilly and I’d been caught in one of those between-season moments where outerwear chosen in the morning proved unsuitable by the end of the day.
Today’s jacket was a navy windbreaker, and although it fell to mid-thigh, it was far too light against the brisk wind. The air smelled of wet ground, molding leaves, and car exhaust.
I walked along the avenue that, according to online maps, would lead me directly to Stephanie’s street. As I pushed forward, head down, I had the notion that I should have waited to make the trip until someone could have come along. More for companionship than for protection, though the fact that I was on an investigative mission made me a little more skittish than usual.
Stephanie lived in a neighborhood that was neither upscale nor downtrodden. Homes here were older and lived-in—a few of them practically begged for upgrades. As I strode past, I questioned my motivation for making this trip. It wasn’t as though I suspected any of the men of intending to do President Hyden any harm. Our commander in chief had been in and out of the kitchen on occasion—granted, always with a Secret Service escort—and I’d detected no negative vibe, no undercurrent of anger.
Even though there was nothing that implicated the Saardiscans in Marcel’s injuries or Kilian’s death, I couldn’t shake the feeling that these men were hiding something from me. That was what I couldn’t tolerate. I was determined to find out what they didn’t want me to know.
As I trudged forward, blinking in the wind, it occurred to me that the Saardiscan men could very well have been discussing my leadership in less-than-glowing terms. Pulling my cross-body purse tight, I tucked my hands in my pockets and chuckled softly. Wouldn’t the joke then be on me?
I zigzagged along the uneven sidewalk, watching my footing without slowing down. I wasn’t fearful, exactly. Uneasy, perhaps.
Three roads converged at a quiet intersection. No cars, but plenty of scraggly leaves dancing along the curb. Stephanie’s house was down the small side street to my right. From my pre-planning on MapQuest I knew she was about four ho
uses down from her closest corner—the intersection after this one. The area was clear—desolate, even. No pedestrians, no noise, save the wind. Even though I couldn’t hear vehicles approaching on the wide avenue, I stopped at the corner and checked before I crossed, looking right, then left.
That’s when I noticed him.
The man hadn’t been there moments ago. I knew that for certain. He had either recently exited the Metro and happened to be going in my direction, or he’d just emerged from a house. I’d had so many run-ins with those intending me harm that I’d become hyper-vigilant about keeping mindful of my surroundings. People who didn’t know me could view my attentiveness as nothing short of paranoia, but I subscribed to the old axiom about being safe rather than sorry. Politeness flew out the window where my well-being was concerned.
The guy was about a hundred yards behind me and moving at a quick pace. He wore a dark jacket, dark pants, and a hat that reminded me of Indiana Jones’s, pulled low, covering his eyes. In the dusky evening I couldn’t get a good look at his face. The best I could manage was a sense of how he carried himself. His bearing struck a chord of familiarity, but I couldn’t determine why.
When he noticed me notice him, he stepped up his pace. Not a good sign. I hurried across the street—running now—at the same time trying to gauge how far down Stephanie’s house was, and calculating the odds of making it there before the guy caught up.
Maybe he wouldn’t follow me across the street. Maybe he was out for a jog, or rushing for some other legitimate reason. I wasn’t about to count on that, though. Pushing myself to move faster, I stole a glance behind me.
He’d broken into a full-out sprint.
I didn’t hesitate. Adrenaline and fear kicked in, giving me the boost I needed to speed faster than I ever had in my life. My chances of making it to Stephanie’s front door before he made it to me, however, were slim.
As I ran, my breath coming in short, panicked bursts, the calmer, logical portion of my brain sorted through my options: keep running, turn and fight, or start screaming for help.
