Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  “You’d only been divorced, what, a few months? You weren’t ready for that—for a child, a new family, with a woman like me.” Briefly she cocked her head self-mockingly. “Clarity, remember? That’s my gift. I’m a badass, and don’t you forget it. I made my choices, and we have to live with them. I left you and married Tim.”

  Her eyes broke from the screen.

  “Oklahoma man and Texas girl, it would have been a disaster. But I want you to know that you’re the one.” She looked back. “Tim gave me a chance at a stable life, much as you object to him and his line of work. But you were the one. You always were, Phil.”

  I closed my eyes. When I opened them she was still there, gazing with longing and regret across a distance she couldn’t span, speaking words to a man who couldn’t hear them.

  Jesse touched my arm and held out the passport that had been in the manila envelope. I saw Georgie’s photo, and the name.

  Georgia Delaney.

  Jax raised a hand as if in benediction. “Good-bye.”

  The screen went gray.

  For a long minute I sat silent. Jesse’s hand rested on my arm. I felt as though I’d been given a weight I didn’t know how to carry. A chain I needed to reel in, to rescue Georgia and then to haul even further and find my father.

  “Jax wants to get Georgie to the U.S.,” I said.

  “Evan?”

  “Let me think.” I glanced at my watch. It was ten a.m. I tried to put that in terms of Pacific time and couldn’t manage it. “What time is it at home?”

  “Two in the morning. Ev, are you okay?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, counting. “I think it’s been fifty-six hours since Rio called and demanded the videos. That leaves sixteen to get to Dad.”

  An hour to get to Heathrow, check in, eleven in flight to Los Angeles, delivering the Riverbend file to Rio, then getting to Dad before time ran out. It left no time for sitting around.

  “I think we can do it. Christian doesn’t know that Rio was involved in his father’s death. We can use that.”

  I rubbed a hand over my face. “I’ll wait to call the London police and give them a statement about what happened on the tube until I’m back in California.” I felt a pang. “I know it’s all a mess. I have to turn myself in sooner or later.”

  I might lose my law license. I might go to jail.

  Sixteen hours: Hold those thoughts for sixteen hours. Get Dad, and let the chips fall where they may. I could cope with it all, if I could just get my father home safely. I picked up the passport Jax had placed in the envelope.

  “If I fly under my own passport, nobody will question Georgie flying with me. Same last name, it will be fine.”

  Jesse took the passport from me, set it on the desk, and wrapped his hands tightly around mine. I felt my resistance, the denials, fall from my shoulders. My head dropped low.

  “My sister,” I said.

  Of course. The shadow of the girl I saw her growing into—restless, longing to soar, and fast: She reminded me of everybody else in my family. I saw my brother, Brian, and his drive to raise the roof off the sky. I saw Dad’s searching looks and ice-cool confidence.

  A girl bred from warriors and spies, from people who were dangerous and fierce. And loyal and courageous and cool, sometimes crazy with love and longing, difficult and infuriating and everything to me.

  For years I had wondered why Jakarta Rivera crept around the corners of my life like some malign guardian angel. And I had wondered why my father never remarried after he and my mother divorced. He never even seemed to talk about other women in his life.

  I didn’t even begin to know how to handle this. How to tell Georgie. How to face my dad.

  I looked at Jesse. “You knew? Dad told you?”

  He kept his face neutral. Right. Lawyer-client confidentiality.

  “What am I going to do?” I said.

  “Get home with Georgie. And get your dad back.”

  “I don’t think I should tell her yet.”

  “Yeah. Let one of her parents do that.”

  I leaned my forehead against his fists, grateful for that expression of belief. Sixteen hours left. I could do it. Then I could let go and face whatever came afterward. Releasing his hands, I stood up, yanked out the flash drive, and shut off my computer.

  “I’m going to get him,” I said.

  When he didn’t reply, I gave him a look.

  “You doubt me?” I said.

  “Not for one moment. I’m just trying to figure out how to do that.”

  “You have something in mind?”

  He had that look in his eye, the one I loved, the predatory look. He handed me the document Jax had called an insurance policy. I read for a minute and glanced up sharply.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” he said.

  When we stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, P.J. and Georgie were slouched low on the leather sofa. They each wore one earphone from Georgie’s music player, heads bent together, fiddling with the controls.

  I tried smiling at Georgie. “We’re out of here.”

  P.J. sat up straight. “Coolness. Where to?”

  “The airport.” I extended a hand to Georgie, wanting to hold tight when I told her I was wrenching her away from her world. “We’re going to California.”

  Her eyes widened. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  P.J.’s mouth dropped open. “We’ve been here three hours.”

  I nodded to Jesse. “You guys go on. We’ll be right behind you.”

  He went ahead of us and opened the door. “Oh, look, they left a take-out menu under the wipers.”

  P.J. followed him out into the cold sunshine. “Three hours. This is ludicrous.” He gestured toward the Aston. “How come I get wheel clamped but you only get a ticket?”

  Under my grasp Georgie’s hand felt thin, small, and strong. She looked both thrilled and apprehensive.

  “What about Mum?”

  “I’m going to check on that right now.”

  We stepped outside the door and I dialed Jax’s number. I got voice mail. I left a vague message, on the chance that Jax might not have possession of the phone.

  “We’re fine. Call when you get a chance.”

  Georgie looked fraught. I got her phone, replaced the battery, and turned it on. It immediately began beeping with voice and text messages. Lots of them. I gazed, astonished, as she bent over it, thumbing the controls like mad.

  “Anything from your mom?”

  She shook her head. As gently as I could, I took the phone from her again.

  “No contact with anybody else for now.” I was already shaking my head, seeing her disbelief. “Code Black.”

  She sagged with disappointment, but nodded. She plainly trusted me, even through her fear. I worked to keep from breaking down. Georgia, my sister.

  She was looking at me for assurance. “Is my mum okay?”

  “I hope so. She can take care of herself.”

  “Then where is she? Why hasn’t she called?”

  My heart went out to her. No mom. No school. I was blocking her from talking to her friends. She must feel as though everything had been ripped out from under her.

  “We’re going to find out where she is. But first we do what she wants, which is to get you out of here.”

  “I don’t want to go without her.”

  “I know, honey.”

  Her chin began quivering. Putting a hand around her shoulder, I led her toward the car. Her voice went small.

  “My mum doesn’t really work for an NGO, does she?”

  Oh, Jax. Bitches without Borders. “No.”

  “She’s a spy, isn’t she?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s one of those things. Your parents tell you stuff that doesn’t make sense, and then you figure it out later. Like why they hide so much from you.”

  “I hear you, kid,” I said. “I hear you.”

  We left the DB9 parked in the passen
ger-loading zone outside the terminal. P.J. humped their bags, which we had retrieved from their dented, clamped rental car, onto a luggage cart and pushed it toward the building.

  “Not even fish and chips,” he said. “I can’t believe this.”

  The airline didn’t bat an eye at our ragtag group. They were happy to take Jesse’s corporate credit card and charge our tickets to Sanchez Marks. We would soon enough reimburse the firm, but this way nothing would flash on an AmEx screen about somebody named Blackburn or Delaney purchasing transatlantic airline tickets. The check-in agent didn’t blink twice at either my passport or Georgie’s. Jesse kept her distracted arranging wheelchair access to the plane.

  In the glitzy shopping mall of a terminal, I bought Georgie some new clothes to augment the few items she had in her backpack. Jesse took my computer to a mobile hot spot where he could log on. I let Georgie browse in a music store with P.J. He was exhausted and pissy, but he had the solid instincts to stick close to a kid who was feeling lost and uncertain.

  When they were out of range, I sat down and called Sister Cillian.

  “Is everything all right at the school?” I said.

  “Fine, except that a false alarm brought out the fire brigade and police. Would you know anything about that?”

  “Keep an eye out for strangers.”

  “I always do.”

  I didn’t know how to ask about Jax. “Anything else?”

  “The back gate was open. Is there a reason you and Mrs. Rivera left via that route instead of taking your taxi?”

  You and Mrs. Rivera. So Jax wasn’t there. Nor her body.

  The nun’s voice was arid. “I do hope Mrs. Rivera recovers fully from her car accident, and that she and Georgia have a pleasant holiday.”

  “Yes, Sister.” I hung up, realizing my hand was trembling.

  Above me a television was turned to a news channel. I saw a view of Oxford Circus, the double-decker bus and a red banner headline: SECURITY INCIDENT. The reporter described the scene with clipped precision. If this had been a Los Angeles channel, a news chopper would be hovering overhead, speculating that this involved a busload of porn stars or escaped convicts or even both, hopefully wearing cheerleader uniforms. But this reporter said Central Line train and two sugars in my tea and my goodness, I’ve set my trousers alight, all in the same dry tone.

  Stiff upper lip. Fourteen hours, I could do it.

  We boarded the plane first. Georgie and P.J. watched intently when Jesse transferred onto the airline’s skinny wheelchair, more like a freight dolly, that fit between the aisles of the airliner. The Heathrow staffer held out his hand and got the word help halfway out of his mouth before Jesse said, “I got it, thanks.” Georgie retreated behind P.J., staring from behind his back, as though she didn’t want anyone to see her as part of this event.

  On board, Jesse hiked himself into his seat. When I sat down beside him he handed me a sheet of notes he had written down.

  “Got this online back in the terminal.”

  Myelodysplastic syndrome. Bone marrow disorder, can transform into acute myelogenous leukemia. Symptoms—anemia, fatigue, chest pain, chills, infection, bleeding. Sixty percent mortality from bleeding or infection. Supportive therapy—antibiotics, growth factors (EPO to stimulate red blood cell production). No known drugs can cure the disease, only bone marrow transplant.

  Georgie was sitting across the aisle next to P.J. I lowered my voice.

  “The Sangers think she can provide the transplant.” With my extreme fatigue, jitters, and a headache knocking at the back of my head, the thought made me feel that I was going to retch. I didn’t even know whether a half sibling would make a likely donor. But the Sangers were desperate.

  “I don’t suppose they’d believe us if we told them they’re out of luck,” I said.

  No. They wanted her. And when they learned she was not Christian’s half sister, they would still want her. The blood feud would get carried out one way or another.

  Jesse got out his phone. “You sure you want me to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  He dialed. The sun wasn’t even up yet in California, but that couldn’t be helped. While I listened to him, I got the papers Christian Sanger had left in his rented Jaguar. He was a good little customer, giving his credit card number and name and address, making sure he would get extra air miles for renting a premium vehicle.

  He had also given work and cell phone numbers, both in Los Angeles.

  I called the work number. Around me, other passengers were boarding, pouring down the aisles with carry-on baggage, bumping seat backs along the way. Across the aisle, P.J. and Georgie were going over the movie listings for the flight.

  The phone rang. A woman answered, sounding peeved but wide awake. “Yes?”

  “Give me Rio Sanger.”

  A moment later a new voice came on the line. “Rio.”

  Slutty, slaggy, thick, warm, smoky, the voice seemed like a dirty river sliding through throbbing greenery, full of authority and the power to drown.

  “I have the Riverbend file. Christian and Shiver didn’t get it.”

  There was a long pause, and when she spoke her voice was metallic. “Good for you. But I did not say you needed to get it. I said you had seventy-two hours to get it to me. You are nowhere close to that.”

  “Shiver is dead. Christian’s injured. You’ve been double-crossing me from the get-go, trying to steal the information from me. How’s that working?”

  Quiet again.

  “You get nothing from me until you tell me where my father is.”

  “That is not going to—”

  “That’s exactly what’s going to happen.” I lowered my voice. “You don’t want to answer me now? I’ll give you some time to think it over.”

  “You? You? Who do you think you are talking to?”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  I hung up. My heart was pounding. Jesse took my hand.

  “You did good,” he said.

  I turned off the phone. “I need a shower. I may need a new skin.”

  He squeezed my hand. I let my head fall back against the headrest.

  After a moment he said, “Something’s bothering me. Rio’s not a native-born American. How’d she get naturalized?”

  “Hank Sanger? She married him?” No, I realized. Jax had said they were common law. “But she’s operating in Southern California with impunity. Nobody hassles her.” I looked at him.

  “What do you know about her relationship with the U.S. government?”

  “What Tim and Jax told me. She sold information to U.S. intelligence agencies. And she has the dirt on plenty of people.”

  “So she has both contacts and dirt on people in positions of power. Don’t you think?”

  “Hell. She has protection.”

  I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over my forehead. There wasn’t much I could do about that right now.

  He held on to my hand. “What do you need me to do?”

  Pray. Beam my father to safety. Get me the beverage cart and line ’em up for the next eleven hours.

  But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. I felt his hand on mine.

  Ever since Dad had disappeared, and for a long time before that, since the awful events that caused me to lose the baby, I had felt that my world was tearing apart. And it was—as if a scythe had cut the supports out from under it. But I was not going to fall.

  Jesse had been there all along to catch me.

  I turned to him. In his blue eyes I saw his concern, his resolve, his determination to pull all of us through this if he had to fight or crawl or bleed to do it. What did I need him to do?

  “Let me be your wife,” I said.

  He gave me a look. “That was my plan when I bought the ring.”

  “This weekend.”

  His eyes widened, and he saw that I was serious. “Better or worse. Till death. This Saturday.”

  “Yeah.”

  He held my gaze, a
s though expecting me to explode, or the pod person to erupt out of my head.

  “Phil’s going to walk you down the aisle,” he said.

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  He smiled. “Forget ‘I do.’ You just wrote our vows.”

  For a second he looked wry. Then he sobered. “I’m signing up for the clinical trial.”

  I gripped his hand. He looked worn and torn far beyond the jet lag. I felt a pain in my chest. I knew the risk he was taking, daring to put his hope in something that might only lead to crushing disappointment.

  “You’re not saying anything,” he noted.

  “I don’t need you to do this. You know that, right? Don’t do it for me, because it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m not. I want it, bad as all hell.”

  Don’t cry. I was done crying, no matter how difficult the situation was. I squeezed his hand.

  “It may not help,” he said. “But even if it doesn’t, it’s worth trying for a chance to run up a hill with our kids.”

  Oh, you did not just say that. I shook my head.

  “What?” he said.

  I put a hand over my eyes. “I hate it when you do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Say something brave and worthy.”

  He glanced across the aisle at his brother. “You weren’t with me earlier, when P.J. declared that I was Lucifer.”

  People continued crowding past us. The plane was filling up, flight attendants squeezing around them. He looked perplexed.

  “Ev, I thought this would make you happy. Never say die. As long as you’re breathing, you have to look for another chance, another way to solve the problem. You taught me that.”

  And he had taught me about loss. How close it was, and how quickly things can change—how tragedy is always there, an inch and a breath away from grabbing you. It made him pragmatic and cynical. And it made him build meaning out of the chaos: Grab hold of those you love. Don’t waste time. Do what counts.

  “If it doesn’t work out . . .” I said.

  “That’s life.”

  Except that it isn’t always. Sometimes it’s death.

  32

  The sun hit me in the eyes. Clouds streamed by overhead, pink in a California sky that was clearing to blue after a rainstorm. A vast parade of American cars and trucks rolled past, headlights shining on the wet roadway in the afternoon light. The softness in the air, the faint brown tinge and slightest taste of smog, the very fact that traffic was driving on the right side of the road, felt surprising and foreign and familiar all at once. Not quite three days since I’d lifted off this shore, and now I was back with a sister at my side, an arrest warrant hanging over my head and a few sands left in the hourglass.