by Brad Meltzer
That was it. Fuse lit.
“Fine? You think this is fine? Or better yet—” Royall opened the fridge, pulled out the old tub of mayo—a massive price-club size that’d been sitting in the fridge for the better part of a year—and quickly unscrewed it, ramming the open tub toward Nola’s face.
Again, she recoiled at the smell.
“You think I’m a fucking moron? You did it on purpose, didn’t you!?” Royall asked, hitting his own next level. “You knew it was spoiled, and you served it!”
Nola shook her head, but it was true. She thought the mayo might’ve turned. It was a small victory, but she’d take it. Like when she’d spit in his pancake batter every Sunday.
“Okay, smart-ass—if it’s good enough for me, then it’s good enough for you!” Royall insisted. From the counter, he grabbed at a ceramic utensil holder, knocking it over and sending two whisks and a metal cheese grater flying across the counter.
From the utensil holder, he pulled out a wooden spoon, scraped it inside the tub, and pulled out a big dollop of mayo, like a runny scoop of ice cream. He rammed it at Nola’s face.
“C’mon, you think it’s so good, take a bite!”
Nola kept her head down, trying to sidestep him.
“Take a bite!”
Nola shoved his hand aside. “Get off!” she blurted, already regretting it.
In a blur, Royall slapped her across the face so hard, blood flew from her mouth. She knew that taste. The coppery tang of blood wasn’t new to her.
She was still getting her bearings.
He grabbed her by the throat.
“I said. Take. A. Bite,” he growled, tightening his grip around her neck and slowly moving the spoon of mayonnaise to her lips, like he was feeding a baby.
The cloud of mayo smelled foul, looking thicker and yellower than it should. Nola shook her head back and forth, her lips pressed together.
Royall held tight to her throat, and with a violent shove backward, half a dozen wooden spoons and the cheese grater fell to the floor. Royall lifted her up on her tiptoes. Nola couldn’t breathe. Her face was tomato red.
“Eat it,” he rumbled, his breath matching the smell of the lumpy glob of mayo that was now touching her lips.
Nola had no choice. She opened her mouth to gasp for breath. The sour mayonnaise passed her lips, and she felt it coat the front of her teeth, then the roof of her mouth. She swallowed hard, using her tongue to force it down. It was like eating a pudding of bad eggs.
“All of it,” Royall said, still gripping her throat.
She gagged on the first bite, then gagged again, her body violently jerking.
“Don’t you dare throw up.”
Too late.
A thick spray of Nola’s salami lunch spewed through the air. Royall stepped out of the way just in time. It landed in a thick Jackson Pollock splatter across the linoleum.
At the sight of it, Royall tightened his fists.
“You think you’re done?” he screamed.
She tried to run.
He grabbed her by the hair, then the back of her neck, her body bending backward, like a childhood game of limbo. She was off-balance and falling. Royall held tight, twisting her around, forcing her to her knees. He pushed her face toward the floor until her nose was inches from the vomit. “I said all of it.”
Nola pushed back, trying to raise her head.
Royall held her in place. Nola was shaking, the bile smell bringing tears to her eyes, mucus running from her nose.
“All of it. Lick it up!” Royall insisted.
And then Nola whispered the one thing that she’d never said in ten years.
“No.”
She muttered the word to herself. But Royall could feel it, could sense it, even if he couldn’t hear it.
“What’d you just s—?”
Royall never finished the question. Down on the ground, mucus dangling from her nose into the vomit, Nola reached for the nearby cheese grater. Gripping it in her fist, she swung backward with all her might. The metal grater caught Royall in the face. It tore open his bottom lip, taking with it a hunk of skin that ran down his jaw. He’d have this zigzag scar forever.
“Naaaaaah!” Royall screamed, Nola already all over him.
“You don’t get to touch me! You never get to touch me!” she howled, clawing at his face, at his throat, at his eyes, snot still raining from her nose. A flurry of punches spread the blood from Royall’s cheek, now covering her fists. She even kicked at his left knee, remembering when he twisted it a few years back. In a matter of seconds, a decade of rage erupted and overflowed. For a moment, she thought she’d won. But Nola had never been trained to fight—and as she wound up with another punch—
Royall planted his meaty fist directly into her left eye. The singular blow turned Nola’s world black, then bright with stars. She flew backward, crashing into the sink and tumbling to the floor. The cheese grater went flying. She couldn’t hear a thing. Royall had hit her before, but never with a ferocity like this.
“You’re dead! Y’hear me!?” he screamed, letting out a roar as spit flew from his lips. In a blur, he gripped her by the hair and dragged her to her feet. His eyes were dark, like she wasn’t even there.
Nola thought she’d seen all his levels. She’d never seen this one. He wasn’t cursing, wasn’t screaming, wasn’t even calling her his nigger. No. He was simply silent.
Gripping the back of her neck, Royall thrust her toward the back screen door, using her forehead to shove it open, tossing her outside. Her toes dragged through the grass as they headed for—
Of course.
A vicious kick sent the kiddie pool flying across the yard, but instead of shouting a time at Nola—fifteen minutes…twenty minutes…half an hour—Royall tossed her into the hole.
She landed on her side, her shoulder on fire, dislocated.
“Lay down.”
“Royall—”
“LAY DOWN!” he snarled, his voice booming through the backyard.
She did, well aware of what would happen if she didn’t. The blood was still pouring from his face.
“R-Royall, please, don’t do this!”
He already was, leaping in after her and grabbing the shovel.
“You move, and I’ll put this in your heart,” he said coldly, standing over her and pressing the point of the shovel into her chest. “You understand?”
She nodded, lying there on her back, her shoulder burning.
Climbing out of the hole, Royall slid the blade under a mound of fresh dirt that was at the foot of the shallow pit.
She wanted to scream, wanted to cry. No! Even he wouldn’t do this.
He lifted the shovelful of dirt into the air and didn’t pause. He dumped it on Nola.
As the dirt rained down, she was coughing, gasping, trying to shield her face. She could feel it sticking to the slurry of snot under her nose. The musky smell of dirt. It wouldn’t take much to cover her.
Royall loaded up again with another round of fresh dirt.
Nola looked up at him, pleading. He stared down, straight into her eyes, unblinking, like there was no one inside his head.
With a twist of his wrists, he dumped the dirt on her again. And again. And again.
Nola shut her eyes, spitting between each shovelful. Her legs were covered first, then her waist, the heavy blanket of dirt feeling like a thousand pounds.
She should run. Run now!
“Don’t you move,” he warned as she started to squirm.
He won’t go through with it. Even he wasn’t that nuts, Nola told herself. He was just making a point. But then she thought back all those years ago, to that first night of digging, in South Carolina. He said it from the start. She was digging her own grave.
A clump of dirt hit her chest as she covered her eyes. She cupped her hands together, trying to make a little air pocket for her face.
Another clump hit.
She was spitting, her breathing heavy now. Her lungs
were ready to burst. No… don’t hyperventilate…
A clump hit her in the waist. Then another in the neck.
Since they moved here, it took most of the year for her to dig this hole. It took Royall less than five minutes to fill it.
Nola was covered now, up to her neck.
Royall stomped the blade into the dirt, scooping out his final mounds.
Nola’s hands were still cupped over her face. She thought about praying, but learned long ago there’d be no answer. Instead, she went to a different place, tried to imagine a better place than this. It wasn’t hard. She could see it in her mind’s eye, saying the words for the first time. Mongol…Faber…Staedtler…Ticonderoga…Swan.
Another clump hit, right at her wrists.
Mongol…Faber…Staedtler…Ticonderoga…Swan.
And then…
The next clump of dirt never came.
Royall stood there.
“Had enough?” he asked.
Nola’s hands were shaking. She lifted them up, letting the light in. Spit again. Blinked away the dirt.
She could barely see Royall. He was standing there, at the foot of the hole. She lifted her head for a better look. Blood ran from his chin, his lower lip looking like it wasn’t attached.
Down in the hole, Nola was covered up to her neck, her head the only thing still free. Dirt was in her ears, in her nose, in her teeth, in her hair. Another good shovelful and she’d be completely under.
“You better learn your place,” Royall warned, his voice low and steady, sounding slurred from his cut lip. “You understand?”
Nola’s own lips were pursed. She was breathing heavily, short quick bursts to keep the dirt from her throat.
“You understand?” he repeated.
She nodded over and over and over. “I-I’m sorry…so sorry,” she gasped, meaning it.
With a flick of his wrists, Royall tossed a final shovelful of dirt onto her face. Not enough to cover her. Just to remind her of the consequences.
She spit out most of the dirt, her face still covered in mucus and saliva. By the time she looked up, Royall was headed back to the house.
“Let’s go!” he called out.
The dirt wasn’t packed tight. With a little effort, she sat up straight. Her eye was already swelled shut from where he punched her. The shovel was at her feet. She spit out more dirt, her head still ringing.
“How you feeling?” Royall asked.
She kept her head down, not answering as she used the shovel like a crutch, crawling up from the hole.
“You look like a zombie,” Royall teased, seeing all the mud and filth still stuck to her. “Don’t get that shit in the house,” he added, heading for the back door.
As Royall stepped inside, even from here, Nola could smell the acidic stench of salami vomit that was still sprayed across the kitchen floor. “What a hot damn mess,” he called out, nearly tripping over the tub of mayonnaise turned on its side, which spun like a top into the mayo-covered spoon he’d used to force-feed her.
Behind him, through the screen door, Nola was outside, taking off her clothes. She made sure he wasn’t peeking. For those few moments, he did the right thing, giving her some privacy.
Then, for no reason, he turned just slightly, glancing over his shoulder. Just a little peek. Just as Nola was winding up. “Nola, you better get in here and clean this shit u—”
Klang.
The side of the shovel hit Royall with a wallop as it smashed him in the temple.
Wielding the shovel like a baseball bat, Nola had swung with all her might. At the impact, Royall’s head twisted so hard, it looked like it was about to unscrew from his neck.
For Nola, the sound alone—a sickening bonecrack of metal against skin—was worth it.
Royall’s body corkscrewed, bouncing off the kitchen counter and crumpling to the floor. Nola wound up for another hit, but Royall was already slumped across the ground, unconscious.
That day, Nola ran nine miles, not stopping until she reached Ms. Sable’s house.
By the time the police arrived at Nola’s place, Royall was long gone.
It would be the last time Nola and Royall saw each other—until that frozen afternoon, out by the runway in Alaska.
82
M.K. Air Base—Constanta, Romania
Four months ago
Okay to sit?” asked the man with the long eyelashes and pale zigzag scar across his lip.
“Free country,” the man named Rowan replied. “At least I think it’s still free.” His fox-shaped face contorted as he took a bite of his steak sandwich.
The two of them sat in the PX food court, both of them eating over red plastic trays from Charley’s Steak Sandwiches—a little piece of home on this air force base in Romania.
“How’s the steak?”
“Crappy. And amazing,” Rowan said, barely looking up.
“So like all PX food?” the man with the scar joked, his voice like a woodchipper.
Rowan didn’t answer. He was eating faster now, trying to get out of here.
“That one of ours?” the man added, motioning with his chin toward the small computer case that sat next to Rowan’s red tray.
“Yeah. Why?”
The man took a bite of his own steak sandwich, grease and oil raining from the bottom. A few determined chews. Swallowed it quick. Licked his lips. “You’re the one they call Houdini—the paying agent, yeah? Usually they ship you around place to place, but they said you got assigned to Colonel Price’s unit. I hear you do amazing work. Can make all sorts of things disappear.”
Houdini sat up straight, his glare tightening on the man with the zigzag scar. No uniform. Green stripe across his ID. “You’re a contractor?”
“For Colonel Price’s unit. Welcome to Bluebook.”
“You been with them long?” Rowan asked.
The man nodded. “I get our people the right paperwork. It’s more important than you think. But I also make sure that no one tries to rip us off. And that’s what caught my eye here—you said that computer there is one of ours, but if it is, you should’ve filled out a hand receipt. But when I looked, I didn’t see a hand receipt from you. Which makes me wonder: Why is the new guy suddenly carrying a computer bag without a computer?”
“I use it for storage. I like the bag.”
“It’s a good bag. Probably holds…what?…about eleven pounds? That’s heavy. Equal to a big bag of sugar, a medium bowling ball…or if you use those bricks of cash we pay people in…eleven pounds is about five hundred thousand dollars. Give or take.” The man gripped his steak sandwich, squeezing the grease and oil from it.
“I should run,” Houdini said, starting to stand. “I got a flight to catch.”
“I noticed. I also noticed that everyone else in Bluebook is flying out of here first thing tomorrow morning. The colonel included. But for some reason, according to the manifest, you’re flying out in the next few hours. Why you rushing away from us?”
Houdini froze there a moment, midway between standing up and sitting. Then he sat down.
“I should probably get running myself,” the man added. “If a computer goes missing—or even a computer bag—it’s good to file a report. That way they can check everyone’s belongings before they fly out. You wouldn’t believe what people take from here.” He looked straight at Houdini, who looked straight back.
“What’d you say your name was again?” Houdini asked.
“I didn’t,” Royall replied as he went to get up. “Again, I should run.”
“Wait, wait, wait—before you go…” Houdini said. “Maybe we should have ourselves a talk.”
83
Deutsch Air Base
Copper Center, Alaska
Five days ago
Nola was staring at a hole in the ceiling when she made the decision. She didn’t remember what caused her to look up—a stray bird that swooped through the airplane hangar?—but there it was: a pinprick of light shining through the roof
.
She couldn’t help but wonder what caused it. A squirrel? Hail? No. A gun. In every army base on the planet—including this tiny outpost near the national park in Alaska—there was a roof with a stray bullet hole.
“Passengers, head to the aircraft. Prepare to board!” a young airman with droopy eyes called out. “And please don’t leave any trash in my terminal!”
A small group of passengers collected their belongings by the bench area, readying their boarding passes. At the front of the group was an older man in a wool winter coat. He was the VIP—Librarian of Congress Nelson Rookstool. Leading the pack, he headed quickly toward the tarmac and the Air Force tech sergeant gripping a clipboard.
Holding her own boarding card, Nola was about to join them—but right there, as she stared up at the hole in the roof, she turned the other way.
“Wait…you’re leaving?” a female voice called out.
Nola didn’t hear her. She was already at the exit, pushing her way through the clear plastic strips that covered the doorframe and kept the warmth from leaking out.
“Sergeant Brown! Sergeant Brown!” the woman added, barreling through the flaps, her breath making tiny clouds. “It’s me! It’s—”
Nola turned, eyeing the young woman with the flat nose and silver cuff earrings. Nola knew exactly who she was. Intimately. Nola painted her portrait yesterday, even let her keep the canvas when she started crying over how beautiful it made her look, a moment that Nola still couldn’t shake. Kamille.
“Sorry to bother you, Sergeant Brown, I just— On the flight… Are you going?”
Nola studied her, Kamille once again leading with her squinty eyes. At her neck hung a pair of aviator sunglasses.
“Why?” Nola asked.
“They gave me leave because of— Y’know…”
Nola just stood there.
“Anyway, I tried getting on this flight and they told me there were no more seats. But if you’re not gonna—” Kamille stopped, getting her first good look at Nola. “You okay, Sergeant Brown?”
Nola was looking to her left, toward the runway. Nearly a football field away, a snow-camouflaged Hummer was backed up toward the plane. A man in his mid-fifties loaded supplies. It was him. Most definitely him. Nola first spotted him yesterday. She was getting in a car; it was just for a split second. But she’d never forget his face. Royall was here. On base.
