No Shelter (Holly Lin, No. 1)

by Robert Swartwood

  About two weeks later learning I was pregnant.

  About knowing I couldn’t keep it.

  About taking myself to the abortion clinic and then driving myself home.

  About nobody ever knowing, not even Tina.

  About Karen, saying in her deep southern accent, Can you keep a secret?

  And about how sometimes when I’m in total silence, in the dark void, my unborn child is with me and we curl up together to keep ourselves warm and then just float there, mother and child, safe from evil itself.

  22

  “Holly, Holly, look at that elephant!”

  “David,” I say reproachfully, giving him a look.

  His smile fades a moment as he works the translation in his mind. Then, in a slow, stunted voice, he says, “Regardez ... l’éléphant?”

  “Très bon,” I say with a nod.

  Casey tugs at my shorts. “Can we go see the sea lions?”

  She doesn’t ask the question in French and before I have the chance to give her the same reproach I just gave her brother, David points and says, “Hey, that’s not fair!”

  I place a hand to my forehead, try strangling this migraine before it grows any stronger. Another night of little sleep and I didn’t do any running, any exercises, which I know I should have done this morning but which I put off anyway and now here I am with the kids in the Smithsonian’s National Zoo even though the sky is overcast and threatening rain.

  “Holly,” David says, stressing my name in two syllables, “how come I have to speak stupid French and she doesn’t?”

  One of my few nannily duties is teaching the kids French, Spanish, and Japanese. Tuesday we try to speak French as much as possible; Wednesday it’s Spanish; Thursday, Japanese. As can be expected Casey and David have never been thrilled with the task, but they do pretty well, especially Casey who seems to be picking up the languages very quickly.

  But today I don’t feel like fighting with them.

  David starts to whine again but I turn and lean down and extend my finger so it’s right in his face.

  “I’m not in the mood right now, David,” I say, my voice low and hard.

  His face goes serious. He nods slowly.

  “If you two don’t want to speak French today, then I don’t care. It’s for your benefit anyway.”

  I stand up straight and turn away. I start walking toward the Seals and Sea Lion exhibit. I don’t bother glancing back to see if the kids are following me; I know they are because I can hear the scuff of their sneakers on the macadam.

  We’ve been to this zoo enough times that I practically have the entire layout memorized. At least once a month, if not twice, we take the metro up to the zoo. Today their vote was to come up here even though they’re calling for rain—and as can be expected the place is pretty much deserted. Still it’s summer and there are families here who drove from out of state, even day campers, and a few adults walking around with cameras and brochures.

  By the time we get to the Seals and Sea Lion exhibit, David and Casey have caught up and are matching my pace. Casey reaches up and takes my hand; David just walks beside me, his arms swinging.

  We’re quiet for a long time as we watch the sea lions. A brown pelican walks around behind the thick glass, opening and closing its massive beak.

  After awhile I clear my throat and speak.

  “David, I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. I’ve just ... it’s been a bad couple days.”

  “Is it because Jenny is getting married and you aren’t?”

  Jenny is Blondie.

  “No, kiddo, it’s not that.”

  “But you don’t have a boyfriend or anything.”

  I look down at him and grin. “What are you saying—you want to be my boyfriend?”

  “Yuck,” he says, crinkling up his nose. “Girls are gross.”

  Casey says, “We are not!”

  “Guys,” I say.

  “You are too!”

  “Enough,” I say, my voice so loud it causes the pelican to stop its walking, for a couple of the sea lions to glance our way, not to mention a handful of people standing around us. “If you two keep it up you’ll be speaking French all day.”

  Both stay quiet.

  My cell phone rings.

  I dig it out of my purse, see it’s my sister calling.

  “Yeah, Tina, what’s up?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, one o’clock sharp. You’ll be meeting with Sandra Price. She’ll want your resume and a filled-out application, but the application is just for their records, so don’t sweat it. Do you know what you’re going to wear?”

  I’m quiet a moment, not having any idea what the hell it is she’s talking about.

  Then it hits me and I say, “I’m watching the kids all day tomorrow.”

  “I know that,” Tina says. “David and Casey have played with the twins before. I figured I’ll take them to a movie during the interview. They won’t even know you’re gone.”

  I glance down at David and Casey, both who are looking up at me.

  “I don’t know what I have to wear,” I say.

  “I’ll help you with that.”

  “I don’t even have a resume.”

  Tina says she’ll stop over at my apartment later with the twins to raid my closets. Later they’ll take me back to their house where she’ll make dinner and Ryan will help me with my resume and walk me through what is expected of me at an interview.

  The kids are still watching me, so I say, “Sounds good, Tina, I’ll see you then,” and end the call.

  I must be smiling, because David says, “Guess the week’s looking better, huh?”

  23

  It’s already raining by the time we make it back to the house. I park beside Walter’s car and David throws off his seatbelt, opens his door and bolts toward the back porch. By then I’m already getting out of the car, shouting at him, “Thanks for being a gentleman and waiting,” and then hurry around the car and open up the door for Casey who has already unclipped her seatbelt. On the drive there had been lightning, and Casey hates lightning, absolutely hates it, and for this reason alone she wants me to carry her.

  “Thanks, Holly,” Casey says simply, kicking her feet so I will let her down once we’re inside.

  I set her down and she scampers away, the lightning suddenly forgotten. The only evidence that David has been through here is his wet sneakers lying askew on the floor.

  I enter the kitchen to find Sylvia cooking something on the stove. Baron lies off in the corner, watching me, his tail thumping.

  “Smells good.”

  Sylvia smiles at me. “Why look at you, Miss Holly—completely soaked.”

  Now that the kids are home I don’t have to worry about them anymore. They’ll sit themselves in front of the TV for the next hour or so until Marilyn comes home.

  I grab some paper towels by the sink, start drying my hair.

  Sylvia has two large pots going at once. She stirs one of them, stirs the other, then turns to me and says, “Mr. Hadden told me he’d like to see you when you came in.”

  “Was he in a good mood or a bad mood?”

  “Child, that man only has one mood: Serious.”

  On the way to Walter’s study I check in on the kids. They’re both on the couch, their attentions glued to a rerun of Blue’s Clues. That works for me. I continue on and then stand outside the study door. I still have the paper towels in hand, now damp, and I stare at them thinking about what I should say to Walter, whether I should tell him about my job interview tomorrow and how very soon I will no longer be watching his children. Then I wonder whether I’m being selfish, that Casey and David are innocents in this, and that it has been my job for the past two years to watch over and protect them, and that so far I’ve done a good job and they’ve come to like me a lot, even love me, just as much as I love them, and now I’m just going to turn my back on them and leave them forever?

  I knock once and then enter the study. As usual he has h
ardly any lights on, just the small desk lamp that throws a soft yellow glow on the clutter of papers beside the laptop.

  He tells me to shut the door and I shut the door. He tells me to take a seat and I take a seat. Then he sorts through the clutter of papers and comes away with a large surveillance photograph and hands it to me asking if I know who that is.

  I look at it only for a moment before I say, “That’s Roland Delano’s assistant.”

  The snapshot is one Nova must have taken last week, because it shows her and Delano coming out of the Luxor.

  “That’s right,” Walter says, nodding slowly. Today must not have been a Pentagon day, because he’s wearing khakis and a dress shirt, the top two buttons undone. “Do you remember her name?”

  “Alayna Something.”

  “Alayna Gramont.”

  “Right. So what about her?”

  “We’ve just gotten word that she is continuing with Delano’s work. In three days she will be selling Delano’s code.”

  “His what?”

  Walter opens his mouth but thinks twice and shuts it. He glances down at the clutter of papers, takes a breath, then looks back up at me.

  “Remember Delano’s flash drive?”

  I nod.

  “Well it’s impossible for us—for anyone—to open it without a code. That’s the way Delano designed it. The encryption is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

  “So nobody knows what’s on it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who says there’s anything important on it at all? Could be the guy’s grocery list.”

  “Could be,” Walter says. “But for practical purpose let’s stay with the idea that it’s not.”

  “Okay. For practical purposes what’s on that flash drive is a matter of national security.”

  “No, no”—Walter holds up a finger, shaking his head—“a matter of global security.”

  “Fine. A matter of global security. And nobody can open the information on that flash drive without a code.”

  “Yes.”

  “A code that this Alayna Gramont is going to sell in three days.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Why would anyone want to buy the code for something they don’t even have?”

  “That,” Walter says, “is a very good question.”

  For a moment neither one of us speaks as the rain outside continues, unabated.

  I think of something and lean forward in my seat. “Be honest with me here. Is the U.S. one of the buyers?”

  Walter’s face stays impassive. He gives a quick shake of his head and says, “No, it isn’t. From our intel the buyers appear to be the same buyers Delano was meeting in Vegas.”

  “So even though they don’t have the flash drive, they want to buy the code.”

  “It appears that way.”

  “And why are you telling me this?”

  Walter doesn’t answer, at least not verbally. He rests his elbow on the desktop, folds his hands together, puts his lips to the intertwined fingers and continues to stare back me.

  “But I thought you said I was done.”

  “I say a lot of things.”

  “You said I’ve been on a gradual decline.”

  “You have been. But unfortunately all I have right now are you and Nova, and I can’t send Nova into it by himself.”

  “Where?”

  “Paris.”

  Another moment of silence passes, the two of us staring back at one another.

  “Don’t send me,” I say finally.

  “Why not?”

  “You were right before. I’ve become ... reckless. Irresponsible. I can’t be trusted.”

  “This doesn’t sound like the Holly Lin I know.”

  “The Holly Lin you know has changed.”

  “Has she?”

  “I’m through with it, Walter. I’m getting out.”

  He stares at me another moment, his dark eyes intense. Then he leans back in his chair, starts sorting through the clutter of papers again. Not looking at me he says, “Fine. You want out, you’re out. But at least do me this one favor first.”

  “Walter—”

  “Do you still blame yourself for Scooter?” He glances up at me. “Do you? Because as far as I’m concerned, as far as the United States of America is concerned, as far as Scooter’s memory is concerned, the Vegas job is unfinished. The only way to finish it is go to Paris and stop the buy.”

  “You want me to take out this Alayna Gramont?”

  “If you have to. But at this moment she isn’t a threat in and of herself. The code, though, the code is a threat.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know. But that code cannot fall into the wrong hands.”

  “What does it matter if it does? They can’t do anything without the flash drive.”

  “At this point we’re not taking the risk.”

  “But—”

  “Tomorrow night you’ll fly to Paris. Nova will already be there. You will meet up with a team of foreign agents who have been watching Delano for the past five years. They already have surveillance on Gramont. The task here is to wait to see who the buyers are, then take them out if need be and secure the code. Understand?”

  “How do you know there aren’t copies of this stuff? Whatever Delano had on that flash drive he probably has on one of his computers. The same with the code.”

  “Tomorrow night, Holly. You want out, you’re out. But first this mission.”

  I stare back at him, this aging man with his firm face and intense eyes. Always so calm, always so in control. Always giving orders, never taking any.

  I wonder for an instant what things might have been like had I turned down Walter’s offer five years ago, when he walked into my prison cell in his uniform and his two general stars flashing gold in the light.

  What my life would be like had I said no.

  What I would be doing right this instant had I told him to go fuck himself.

  24

  After a delightful dinner of chicken and steak kabobs, the twins are excused to the living room and Tina starts to clear the table. I stand to help her but she shakes her head and tilts her chin toward Ryan.

  “You’re going with him.”

  Ryan leads me into his den, which is nothing more than a spare bedroom filled with bookcases and filing cabinets and a desk with a computer on top. He pulls up a chair beside the one already behind the desk, tells me to sit down.

  “Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asks as he moves the cursor around on the screen and brings up a program.

  “No,” I tell him, but I don’t think I’m very convincing.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine. Just be relaxed and be yourself.”

  That easy for you to say, I think. At least you know who you are.

  “Okay,” Ryan says, sitting back and exposing the beginnings of a gut. I’ve teased Tina about this growing gut, saying how her husband is getting fat. Now for some reason I wish I could go back and keep my mouth shut, instead tell Tina just how lucky she is to have a guy like Ryan in her life. “This right here is an outline of your basic resume. All we need to do is fill in the information. Like here”—he starts typing—“your full name and address and phone number.”

  He gets the address and phone number wrong—both off by a couple numbers—so I tell him and he corrects it.

  “Now,” he says, “we do the objective.”

  “What’s the objective?”

  “That you’re interested in an entry-level position at a thriving and up-and-coming city law firm.”

  “Thriving and up-and-coming?”

  He smiles as he types a paraphrase of what he just said and then he sits back again, folds his hands back over his gut as he gives me a long look.

  “Next are your qualifications for the job.”

  I take a moment to think it over, a very long moment,
then say, “I know how to type.”

  “Do you know how to type well?”

  “I can get by.”

  “They’re going to be expecting at least sixty words a minute. Preferably more.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can do that.”

  “What about ten key?”

  “What the hell is ten key?”

  He nods once, takes a breath. “That’s what I was afraid of. Look on the keyboard here—see the square of number keys? That’s called the ten key. They’ll probably test you on that too.”

  “I’m going to be tested?”

  Ryan gives me another long look. After a moment he says, “Holly, are you sure this is what you really want to do?”

  Of course it’s not what I really want to do. It’s the very last thing in the world I want to do. But still I nod and tell him yes.

  He keeps the stare going for another moment, then leans forward and places his fingers on the keyboard. He doesn’t type anything but just keeps his fingers there, the tips grazing the tops of the keys.

  “Qualifications,” he says, staring at the computer screen, and it takes me a couple seconds to realize he’s waiting for me to list them. I even open my mouth, wanting to start listing off one qualification after another, but the resume I would make is one Ryan is not prepared to see. Nobody in my family would be prepared to see a resume that lists hand-to-hand combat and weapons training and expert driving, let alone knowledge in explosives and poisons and how to hotwire a car and how to break into a safe.

  “I have a good personality,” I say.

  “Let’s skip this for the time being and go to education.”

  “You mean all the schools I’ve attended, even in elementary?”

  As my dad was moved from army base to army base, I’d been in at least a dozen schools before finally settling down just outside of Washington, D.C.

  “High school and college is sufficient.”

  “You know I never want to college.”

  “Your high school then. We’ll even add your four years in the Army. It’ll look good.”

  Right after high school I’d joined the Army and stayed for only four years. Or at least that’s what my family believes.