Anna shot me an unreadable expression. But instinct said I had made the right guess.
***
My session with Christo Bekker proved to be a much simpler affair. Bekker had come to the U.S. from South Africa on a scholarship. We’d talked five or six times since I joined Georgetown. I’d also observed him twice a day during rounds. He answered all the chief resident’s questions. When he presented for his cases, he was painfully thorough. And yet, and yet . . .
I made a note to myself about empathy as a necessary attribute for doctors and gave Bekker the same assignment I’d given Chong. He accepted it as he had accepted any other suggestion I had made to him these past two months. Polite. Always respecting those who outranked him. He had never questioned me the way Anna Chong did.
A few phrases from Rumi’s poetry came back to me. Something about betrayal and trust. Was that truth speaking in those verses? Angela Gray had betrayed me, or so I thought at the time. But perhaps I had betrayed her first, when I turned down all my offers and went off to the war.
Thoughts about Angela, about Chong and Bekker, cycled through my brain as I met my obligations to Georgetown University Hospital. Five more topics considered and discarded for that medical conference. Another OT session, during which Sydney’s cat and I growled at each other. Afternoon rounds.
By six thirty, I only wanted to drag my sorry self to the nearest cabstand, which would drop me off at 2809 Q. Why, oh goddamned why, had I insisted on taking back my career as a surgeon? I could only look forward to longer days, to weekends on call, to those dark moments when I knew a patient would die.
Why?
Because you care, my love, said a voice very much like Sara Holmes’s.
***
Seven P.M. I was in a cab—an elderly car with an even more elderly driver, Lilly Black, who had picked me up without any of the usual difficulties. She and her husband owned their own cab company, and she still liked to drive the streets. Said it kept her sassy.
The cab’s leather seats were thick and comfortable, and crisscrossed by scratches. The scent of cloves filled the air. Afropop, turned down low, came out of the radio speakers, interspersed with crackling news from the cab company dispatcher. If I were lucky, I’d make Q Street by eight P.M., what with the Friday night traffic.
Better than a goddamned dirt farm.
And far better than last year, that oh-my-god miserable year. The terror of Alton. My entire world smashed into bits. Working as a med tech at the VA Medical Center. Scratch that last one. The job had been tedious as hell, but I’d made . . . not friends, exactly, but a sort of temporary found family.
A buzz from my cell interrupted my thoughts. Or so I first thought, but the screen was blank, and there weren’t any notifications showing.
Huh? Oh. Right. Sara.
Long ago, Sara Holmes had slipped a texting device into the pocket of my cargo pants. I had tried more than once to return the device. Each time, Sara had refused. Lately, I’d taken to burying the damned thing underneath my laundry or in the far corner of my closet. No matter where I stowed it, the device always ended up in my bag or my coat pocket.
The thing buzzed again, louder. It was in my bag, then. Swearing softly, I pulled out the device, which immediately went silent, as if waiting for my next move.
I swiped a thumb over the surface. Nothing happened.
“Damn you, Sara Holmes,” I whispered to the screen.
The screen flickered. A stream of LOL emojis scrolled past. Laughing at me, was it?
“Fine,” I said. “If that’s how you feel, then see you tomorrow.”
NO!
The word flashed on the screen in giant yellow letters, then vanished, replaced by the words Let’s get trashed. —S
“What the hell?”
Oops. That came out louder than I meant. Lilly Black had glanced up to the rearview mirror, obviously startled. I smiled and waved the texting device, as though that were an explanation. She sucked her teeth in disapproval.
I pressed the device against my mouth and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
No, no, no. Nothing wrong. Opposite news. Good news.
The screen blanked for a moment, then . . .
Back in the saddle at the Old Farm. I want to celebrate. Meet me at the Quarter Glory Bar. 14th & U.
I knew the place. Quarter Glory was your typical upscale, gentrified bar, in what used to be a neighborhood where prostitutes hooked up with customers, back before the war. The prostitutes had drifted east and south, toward southern Prince George’s County. The customers had either followed or had paid higher fees to the ones who remained.
Lilly Black delivered me to my destination within half an hour. I offered her a double tip, which she first rejected, then took with an air that said I was not her favorite customer.
Once inside, I scanned the crowded room.
“Janet! Janet, my love!”
Sara waved at me from a booth in the corner.
I waved back uncertainly. The Sara of these past two, three months had been moody at best, dangerous at worst. I wasn’t sure if bright and cheerful was an improvement. As I slid into the booth opposite her, she hailed a waitress and ordered two whiskeys, and an extra-large portion of calamari. “Eat,” she told me, “for tomorrow we die.”
“How jolly you are.”
“My love, I would not wish to disappoint you.”
Her voice was low and rough, as always, but her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her whole being seemed contained. If I had not known Sara, I would have guessed she was already tipsy.
The waitress, with the name tag TIFFANY, arrived with our whiskeys. Our order of calamari would be ready within twenty minutes, she told us. Sara offered her a giddy smile. “That is perfect. And may I say that you are a credit to your profession?”
Tiffany made a hasty exit. I regarded Sara with some tolerance, and a great deal of dismay.
“You frightened her.”
“Not always a bad thing. Drink your whiskey, my love. We are celebrating my return into the fold.”
We drank. The bar was noisier than I had expected, even for a Friday night. One of the loudspeakers blared out grinding blues, so loud my blood seemed to thump in time with the music. Dozens of white women crowded around the bar, all of them dressed in crisp navy suits, hair pulled back into sleek French braids. Politicos, lobbyists, lawyers, and suchlike. They were matched by an equal number of men, dressed in dark gray pinstripes.
I leaned over the table. “So, what’s the news? This can’t be about your leave of absence. It’s about those terrorists, isn’t it?”
“Tsk, tsk. You are impatient. No, I have nothing to report. Not yet.”
She downed her whiskey and signaled to our waitress for another round. I settled back into my chair and resigned myself to a long circuitous conversation.
Two more whiskeys arrived, followed shortly by our calamari.
“You are a goddess of service,” Sara told the waitress.
Tiffany laughed, somewhat nervously. “Is there is anything else you need, ladies?”
Before Sara could speak, I hurriedly said, “Nothing right now. Thank you.”
“Spoilsport,” Sara said, after Tiffany had gone.
“Be nice. I know you can.”
Sara simply smirked.
We dropped into silence, concentrating on the calamari. I was hungrier than I had realized, and whatever else had changed in this neighborhood, or with this bar, the food was excellent. Maybe Sara couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me any details about her new assignment, and maybe we wouldn’t have our lovely apartment much longer, but one thing—one of the many things—I had learned from Faith Bellaume was to treasure the good moments as they happened, and to store them away in memory for later.
Meanwhile, Sara’s mood had turned quieter, less manic. She picked at her calamari with an absent air. Once or twice, she tilted her head. Listening to that constant stream of data that came through her implants, the stream she
had so obviously missed these past two months.
“Listen,” she said.
It was as though she had echoed my thoughts.
“What did you say?”
Sara took a delicate sip of whiskey. Then she reached across the table and clasped my right hand in both of hers. “Listen,” she said softly.
I started to pull back, but she gripped my hand tightly. A hard, round object pressed against my palm. Oh. I had the sudden image of spies passing secrets to one another.
Sara’s mouth tilted in a lazy smile and her gaze seemed unfocused. A stranger would have believed her drunk. The waitress would have confirmed that impression. But I knew this was yet another performance by the peerless Sara Holmes.
She released my hand and leaned back. I glanced down to see a single earbud in my hand. No wires, no plugs, just a smooth ivory disc with mesh on one side. As I studied it, the ivory color darkened until it matched the pale brown of my palm.
My fingers closed over the earbud, and I rubbed my forehead with my knuckles. Sara was scanning the bar through half-lidded eyes. Keeping watch, no doubt. Well, then. Let’s give this spy business a go.
I rested my head in both hands. Lazarus was cool and slick. My other hand was damp with nervousness. Then as casually as I could, I slid the bud into my ear.
At first, I couldn’t make out anything except a faint crackling. Then, abruptly, the channel cleared, and I heard the familiar voice of a reporter for a popular mainstream newsfeed, repeating the latest news from the capital. One voice replaced another and another in a continuous stream of bits and bites.
“. . . the actions of one extremist group are creating a speed bump for President Donnovan’s promised negotiations with the Oklahoma and Missouri government . . .”
“. . . senior representatives from the New Confederacy have distanced themselves from Richard Speiker and his associates, but others in the newly formed Confederate Council voiced support . . .”
“. . . perhaps the first crack in what until today was a unified front for the rebel states . . .”
“. . . more evidence that our nation cannot heal . . .”
The voices abruptly stopped. Once more the noise from the bar washed over me. Was this a taste of Sara’s implants? How could she track so many voices, feeds, yammering at her without pause?
The earbud buzzed and crackled in my ear. Then, a voice, barely audible, all too familiar, spoke. “We are the martyrs of civil rights,” said Richard Speiker. “Your dead, your blood will pay for ours. This is just the beginning.”
This time the bud went silent and stayed that way.
I opened my eyes to see Sara’s bright gaze across the table.
Oh. Now I knew what her new assignment was.
“That’s against the rules,” I said. “Even your rules.”
Not a question.
“My rules are subject to revision,” Sara said. “Besides, you deserved to know.”
She picked up her glass, which was empty, and signaled our waitress for another round.
4
By ten P.M. I’d had enough, and I said so. Sara grinned, unrepentant. Her eyes were glazed, her hand unsteady, but I knew it was all a performance.
“I’m tired,” I muttered.
“And I’m hungry,” Sara replied.
She called for a second plate of calamari, along with deep-fried zucchini chips, and two shots of ouzo. I wanted to protest, but the manic gleam in Sara’s eyes warned me off. If I argued, she’d only make more trouble. So I nibbled the calamari and zucchini, and sipped my whiskey. The ouzo I ignored.
Let’s get trashed, Sara’s message had read, but I noticed she wasn’t any more trashed than I was. Less, maybe. Still, you wouldn’t have believed it from the way she acted. Oh, she didn’t do or say anything really outrageous. Definitely nothing that would have had the management kick us out. But the Sara of tonight was a bright and giddy Sara, who laughed a bit too loud, and who chattered a bit too fast.
A pretend Sara. A lying Sara. What else was new?
I scowled, which only made her laugh louder. She tossed off that third—or was it fourth?—whiskey and launched into a series of dirty jokes. When she got to the one about the GOP senator, the lobbyist, and the Russian diplomat, I finally snorted a laugh.
Funny Sara. Drunk Sara. Sara who observed me through slitted eyes.
Devious Sara. This was all part of a play she’d written. So happy to be your supporting actress.
Around midnight, she called for the bill. Her treat, she told me. Well, I wasn’t going to argue. And I definitely wasn’t going to argue when she tipped Tiffany with a fifty-dollar bill. Poor woman probably felt as though a tractor-trailer had run over her.
If only you knew, I thought as Tiffany gathered up the bills and hurried away before Sara could change her mind.
We squeezed through the crowds and popped out the doors, onto the sidewalk. A cold wind blew down U Street. Crumpled sheets from newsfeed prints danced over the concrete pavement. In the alley next to the Quarter Glory, garbage piled up between the overflowing trash bins. DC’s trendy young rich might have reclaimed bits and pieces of this neighborhood, but the old nastiness still lurked in the corners.
“We are never going to find a cab,” I said. “Not at this hour.”
“Nemmermind,” Sara mumbled. “I wanna walk. Fresh air, yanno.”
She slung an arm around me. I staggered back into the ironwork fence outside the bar, caught the railing, and hauled us both upright.
“Damn you,” I whispered. “I should let you gut yourself. Didn’t you scold me once about walking around late at night?”
Sara pretended to nuzzle my ear. “Don’t worry. We have backup. But watch out for the watchers, my love.”
I managed not to react. Much.
Apparently, Sara had read my emotions far too well. She laughed and drew me into a close embrace. “My apologies,” she whispered. “I have a dreadful sense of humor, as you know all too well. Come, let us make tracks for home.”
Then she swung away from me, holding on to one hand.
Right, I thought. And when we get home, I’m going to ask you for some answers.
I linked my arm through hers and we set off for Q Street, somewhat unsteadily. A few bars on the block were still open, and their light spilled out into the winter night, but once past Waverly Place, we entered the old neighborhood.
This part of U Street hadn’t changed since the seventies. Tattered billboards decorated the buildings with ads for spiced rum, cheap auto insurance. The upscale bars were replaced by kitchens that doubled as blues joints, and the air stank of garbage and weed.
I tried to steer us down Sixteenth. Sara resisted and pointed ahead.
“Let’s take the long way home,” she said, and giggled.
I sighed. “You have a reason for this, of course.”
“Of course. An entire collection of them.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Is this one of our questions?”
Months ago, after we signed the lease to our apartment, Sara had cajoled me into having dinner with her. The lure she used was a promise to answer three questions honestly. I had used up two questions that night but kept the third for another day. The habit of frugality learned in childhood? A doctor’s natural caution?
“It’s not,” I said, “but you’ll answer me anyway. Because I deserve to know.”
“So you do.” We walked in silence a few moments. Overhead the skies were like a burnished arc of steel, pricked with stars. Our breath, frosted with cold, escaped in wisps and curls. I had the sense that Sara was sifting through all the details for those reasons, choosing the least dangerous of them.
Too late. Anything you tell me is dangerous.
“It comes from our adventure of last year,” she said finally. “An issue of trust, my chief tells me. I am on probation. I have my implants back. Mostly. But I cannot romp freely through the data streams as I once did. Also, I—we—no longer control
the privacy of our apartment.”
I digested the implications of this.
“So, your people have us under surveillance. What about those other watchers? Do they have a name?”
“Names are so dangerous, my love. Even here, away from all ears, electronic or otherwise, I would not speak of them, lest they vanish like brownies when you thank them.”
I snorted.
Sara’s smile gleamed bright in the lamplight. “Very like my own reaction. But to continue. I am no longer resting. At the same time, I am. One case overlaps the other. One set of friends might include several from the other. So, we act our parts for whoever watches, to confirm what you are to me, and what I am to the world. However . . .”
Her voice dropped even lower, but softer.
“I have another month or two in DC while I investigate how the Brotherhood of Redemption smuggled those drones into the city and past all our security. Such an operation required any number of traitors—people on the inside, people at the border. This so-called fringe group spent a great deal of money, only to fail. Donnovan lives. The negotiations, whatever the newsfeeds say, will take place by summer.”
“But . . .”
We were whispering, heads close together, like lovers. Or spies.
“But they didn’t fail,” I said. “People are afraid.”
Sara was silent awhile. The only sound was the ring of our boots over the pavement.
“It’s possible,” she said slowly. “One of the many permutations of possibilities on my list. The bombing arranged by extremists from our own—yes, they exist—to prevent any compromise with the Confederacy. The Brotherhood, used as pawns on the chessboard of politics, to make our president even more eager for peace. In fact . . .”
Her voice died away. Her head tilted, as though an invisible someone had addressed her. Listening to her news streams, I suspected. Those news streams she had missed so badly these past two months.
I still wore the earbud—and only now did it occur to me to ask how or where she had acquired such a device if her chief no longer trusted her completely—but it had told me nothing since the one burst of news. Just as Sara told me nothing now.
The Hound of Justice Page 5
