“You should have killed both of them,” Nine said, “just like the rules say. No witnesses. No loose threads. That would have been simpler for everyone.”
“And yet, it gets even more complicated!”
If I had to describe that new voice joining the conversation from afar, I would say it was cheerful and a bit crazy. All of us looked around in search of the person who was talking to us. We saw nothing at first. But I had identified the voice already. The woman appeared atop a ticket booth, jumped down, then walked toward the Parachute Jump. She had a gun, but she was not pointing it at anyone. She just waved it in the air as she talked.
“Hey, I’ve just been talking to your girlfriend. She was about to kill someone. Can you believe it?”
“Four,” I said. “I’m actually surprised.”
“What?” Pam reacted. “That’s not Four.”
“Never was,” she admitted, and started climbing up the ladder to join us. “Uff, I’m not in very good shape. Puff!” She wiped her hands in her blazer, then looked at all three of us alternatively. “Harmund. Lottie Harmund. Sorry. FBI agent Lottie Harmund. That’s more like it.” She appeared to ponder some issue for a few seconds, then continued: “Oh, you’re all under arrest.”
* * *
The look in Pam’s face was priceless, so priceless that I would have laughed if not for the fact that I must have looked as dumbfounded as her. The pieces started clicking in my head now –so the original Four had been lost already, shortly after starring in Pam’s sting which consisted of exactly three operatives: Four, Six, and Nine. It was true that Four had gone off the grid... but because she had been caught by the FBI, not because she had gone rogue.
“You’re an FBI agent?” I asked, stupidly. “You wanted me to turn Sadie into a finger.”
“Oh, no,” Lottie Harmund said. “I wanted you to go for her and lead me to Pam. You see, we could put a tracker on her cellphone, but we had no way to track you.”
“We talked in person. You could have arrested me.”
“And you would never have led us to Pam.”
She had a point, I had to admit it.
“Now,” she continued, “your girlfriend altered our plan a bit. We were keeping her in custody until you came for her. We had to keep her from knowing the truth so that she wouldn’t warn you. I figured that a nice girl like her would just keep quiet for a few hours. But she knocked down one of my guys, can you imagine? And then she went to Scott Poole’s house and pointed a gun at his face. Don’t tell me she doesn’t have it in her. She’s a finger in spirit. I mean I wouldn’t condone that, but—”
“Will you arrest us already?” Pam cut her off. “His girlfriend can visit him in prison and tell him everything.”
Three or four guys had come from around the park as we spoke at the base of the Parachute Jump. They all looked just like what they were: FBI agents. One of them, a chubby guy with a short beard, had a bad bruise on one side of his face. I guessed he was the one in charge of keeping Sadie quiet.
“Hey, Sixtus,” Lottie said, using my whole name for the first time. “You can get some lenience from the court. You brought us to the Scope’s head, after all. Also, you helped us uncover a plot to shatter the country’s political order. I can file that under voluntary cooperation, even though we know better.” She gave me a wink.
“So... for how long have you been after us?”
“Haven’t you asked yourself how I became Four? I’m so disappointed,” she scoffed. “We had been on her track for a while. We caught her stealing Scott Poole’s phone to place a call and hire the Scope to kill Mark Cross. It was all a ruse to make him seem guilty. When you went to do the job, she was there in the building. She shot at you in the parking lot when you failed to do it.”
“So where—?” I started to ask, but she cut me off, a little irritated.
“She actually stayed around for a bit and then followed you two when you did your little vehicle switch. She found you at a motel beside the road and snatched your phone’s electronic signature when you were buying coffee or some shit like that. Then she left. A few hours and miles later, we caught her.”
“So she told you everything?”
“Oh, no. A finger wouldn’t do that. But she told us enough. We had been looking for a way to get to the Scope for a couple of years already, and this was the best chance we got. So I took it from that point on. I became her. I think I did a good job.”
“So you’ve been following me all this time?”
“We followed your signature from cell tower to cell tower until you threw out your phone and came to New York. Then we had to improvise. I didn’t have a clue where Pam was or what she looked like and I had lost your track, so I went to the next best place: Sadie’s sister’s. I figured out you two would go there eventually. Maybe. We had time.”
“Where is Sadie now?”
“Close. You only have to come with me. We’ll meet the girl together. On your way to the station, I mean.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I objected.
She looked surprised. Or maybe amused. The seagulls sang their stupid song as she stared at me.
“You don’t? Why?”
“Because I have more guys.”
* * *
Lottie looked around. She saw nothing at first; then the shapes became visible. There was a guy pointing at her with his gun behind a ticket booth. Another man lying about the boardwalk had his sight locked on Pam. Atop the closed aquatic slide, a third guy waited, with Wendy in the crosshairs. An armed woman surveyed the scene from the bridge between the retrofuturistic elevated restrooms. None of them had been visible twenty seconds earlier, but now they were all in plain sight, ready to act as soon as it was necessary.
On the beach, a seagull started keowing angrily. The man who had been feeding her was walking slowly toward us, his chunky black-clad shape contrasting against the grey sky and sea. It took a while for him to get to the boardwalk and then to us. When he did, he was huffing and puffing. He was not so old as he had seemed; less than sixty, for sure.
“Damn, Sixtus,” he said when he reached us. “I am retired already. I was enjoying my new life in a fucking hut in Bali just a week ago. I come to New York to visit some friends and Pip sends me here. What the fuck did you do this time?”
“What I didn’t do, you mean,” I retorted. “I didn’t kill the next president of the United States.”
He whistled loudly. “Always getting in trouble, you piece of shit.”
“You know this was the first time. And she’s worth it.”
Jack Starr nodded. He knew some things about women who are worth it and women who are not. But that’s a story for another day.
“Ladies,” he said, “I’ve heard enough of this thing, and I must say it’s a pretty convoluted story.” He pointed at his ear so that Pam, Lottie and Wendy could see the partially concealed earphone. He addressed Lottie. “But I think we can sort it out. I have no problem with you arresting these two,” he said, waving at the others, “but I must take issue with this one. I’m taking him with me. Please tell your people to drop their weapons. They don’t stand a chance.”
Lottie had her lips pressed so tightly that they were almost white. The cold didn’t help, either.
“They won’t bother you, but they will keep their weapons, if you don’t mind, or these two will escape,” she said.
Jack nodded. “Fair enough.”
“You heard that, guys,” Lottie said. It was evident that she was suffering the intromission, but it couldn’t be helped. “Come here and get the girls. And say goodbye to our pretty friend.”
Her eyes lingered on me as I went down the ladder. Jack started to make a beeline to the boardwalk. I set myself in motion too.
“Wait.”
Lottie was coming down the ladder two. Atop the roof, only Pam and Nine remained.
“I got something for you.” She handed me an unmarked pendrive.
“What is it?”
“A gift. From me. But it actually comes from the real Four.”
“I... I don’t get it.”
She pointed at the pendrive. “Four recorded everything on video. Insurance, in case anything went awry. Which it did.”
She giggled as she watched me. I must have had a funny expression then, my eyes open as big as plates, my eyebrows so high it must have looked like they wanted to fly away, my mouth agape in shock. Suddenly the pendrive seemed to weigh a lot in my hand.
That was exactly the instant when everything went to shit.
* * *
Nine became a character in an anime.
Not literally, of course. But for a few seconds (of crucial seconds), it looked like some Japanese animator was drawing her. She jumped up and became a shadow. Her body rose gracefully as she started shooting her guns in slow motion. She had two guns, one in each hand. Once she was up in the air, she bent backwards, turning into an arc, and disappeared behind the booth in a quick descent. Only Pam remained upon the roof, standing there as if she didn’t understand what was happening, and it was very probably the case, since just two seconds had passed when I heard the thud of Nine’s body hitting the ground out of sight.
She kept firing her guns. I ran around one side of the building as Jack and Lottie propelled themselves around the other side. Two of Lottie’s guys were down already, with big red stains ruining their jackets. The other two were barely starting to turn around when Nine killed them too.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!!!” Lottie Harmund screamed, discharging her own gun against the shadow that Nine had become. Because she was just that, a blurry thing running away, jumping into a motorcycle that someone had put around the corner somehow. She had always been fast, but now she was the fastest, faster than everyone, an unstoppable killing machine. I took three shots, four, five, and missed. Jack Starr and Lottie Harmund were scattering bullets all around her, too. But once she put her foot on the pedal, she was gone.
Pam Overton was still standing on the roof, wobbling noticeably. She took a few steps, then stumbled and crumbled, and finally fell down over the side. She was already dead when she hit the ground, barely five steps away from me.
We all ran, but in different directions. Lottie reached her car and set after Nine’s bike, the tires screeching loudly as the made a U-turn. Jack jumped into his own bike and waited for me to jump behind. His men ran around on foot, trying to take a shot at Nine somehow, but she was already far away.
As Jack sped up around Coney Island, I assessed the situation. Nine was on the loose, but with Pam’s death, the Scope wasn’t after me anymore; there was no longer a Scope for the time being. Four was in prison or under custody. Seven was dead. I had avoided being arrested, but the most dangerous killer had come back from the dead and would come after me as soon as she could.
On the other hand, I had the pendrive, so I could give Sadie her life back. She, at least, would have her happy ending.
AS SEEN ON TV
SADIE
Seth Pryce’s political career was flailing already with the rumors about his involvement in the plan to assassinate Mark Cross, but it died altogether when he was arrested for it. Lottie Harmund and her guys had been recording everything in Coney Island, it turned out, and now there was a specific piece of evidence; the FBI would surely uncover more in the following days.
But I had my own piece of evidence too.
“This is your life back,” Six had said when he handed me the pendrive and I asked him what it was.
He was right.
My hands were sweating as I slid the pendrive into the laptop’s tiny bay. The virus scanner fired up automatically to check it, and for a few seconds I feared it would somehow wipe out the whole hard drive; but it was clean. Then I opened the folder with the pendrive’s contents. There was a single file, its name being a date and time stamp. The night my life had changed.
A video file.
I only watched it once, to check that everything was alright. The video had been taken from behind Six, with a camera mounted on the wall at the other end of the corridor, past the elevators and staircase. It zoomed through the door to show Mark standing behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder –the camera had been remotely controlled, as Four had surely been watching it live. When it zoomed out again, Six was already crouching on the corridor, a black stain over the blackness of the whole scene.
It all played out like I remembered. Mark Cross accosting me, then getting too close, too intimate, then corralling me against the window and telling me that I could do it. And me, saying please, please don’t. Oh yes, the video had sound. And then the shot, the glass shattering and disintegrating, Mark turning around in surprise, showing his face for a gloriously freeze-framed video moment, and then Six going down on him, knocking him out, taking me out of there. Saving me.
I was actually crying in joy when I uploaded the video to YouTube. Here it goes. This is my life coming back, I thought. And it was something else too: revenge. Mark Cross would get his true desserts.
One of the things that I kept from my old life as an aide to a senator, a million years ago, was a pretty juicy contact list. As soon as I checked that the video had been uploaded correctly, I fired up an email to every journalist I had ever talked to or received messages from. I explained the story and pointed them at the URL of the video to watch it for themselves. I explicitly authorized them to link to it in their articles and to republish it in their multimedia pages. I wanted it to become as public as possible.
And boy, would it go public.
* * *
“So it all turned out OK,” Six said. “I’m happy for you.”
I opened my eyes and saw him lying beside me, his green eye shining with the morning light, the other half of his face buried in the sheets and cover. The bed was a mess, which was natural after a long, steamy session of passionate sex.
“Huh?”
“I’m happy for you,” he repeated. “You’ve recovered your life.”
I didn’t like the sound of this.
“I have,” I said. “What— what do you mean exactly?”
“You’ll be back to your life, and I’ll be back to mine,” he said quietly. For the first time, I think, his voice broke slightly, revealing emotion. “I’m a fugitive, remember?”
Something weird happened to me then. I started crying instantly, like a little girl. One second my eyes were dry, and the next second I was crying copiously, wetting the sheets under my face, my mouth writhing in a painful rictus.
“No, you’re not,” I sobbed, absurdly, because I knew it wasn’t true. “You can’t go. You belong here with me.” I started punching him weakly, furious at him for saying such a horrible thing. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Why I do keep the secret from him? He has the right to know, I thought as the hot tears kept running down my face. I didn’t know. I just couldn’t. It was just... what if he didn’t survive? Then it would all be worse.
“Listen. There’s a way,” I told him. And then I repeated what Poole had said when I went to his house. Happiness was there, at arm’s reach. Why can’t he see it?
“There’s a way, yes,” he said. “Maybe. After I face Nine. She’s still after me. I still need to lay low, until I can put an end to this.”
“But everyone is after her. The FBI. The CIA. The police. Everyone. She can’t—”
I stopped. I knew it was nonsense. Six and I had been on the run for months and we got away with it. And Nine had been surrounded by FBI agents and guys from Little Vegas and she still had managed to escape somehow.
“I will protect you,” he said, putting his hand on my belly, and in that moment I realized he knew. “But I can’t promise I’ll stay with you. At least until it’s over.”
ELECTION DAY
SADIE
Present day
“So I’m supposed to stay here while you go and meet your ex?”
He gives me that look, then realizes I’m joking and laughs
heartily. He’s been waiting for a sign from Nine for weeks, and now that she’s made her move, he knows it will be the end of it, for better or for worse. It’s scary, but it’s also liberating, after several months of watching our backs all day. Being on the run is hell on earth.
“I’m gonna kill her. But I may fuck her first.”
I reach out to him, put a hand on his chest, and smile wickedly.
“Is that so, bad boy? Then I guess I need to show you something she can’t do. For comparison.”
“Are you sure? She’s really well vers—”
I shut him up with a kiss. I go directly for his throat, pushing my tongue inside as I let his mighty arms hold the weight of my body. He lets out something like a muffled gasp when I start exploring his mouth, entangling my tongue with his, then press my breasts against his rock-solid torso and start rubbing myself against him, up and down, up and down, undulating like a snake or a panther, making the most of the friction between our clothes, aching in desire already. I can perceive he’s aching too. His urgency grows quickly below his waist, as my hands take notice when I launch them on an exploration down there. His pants seem to be about to burst from the pressure. I lick my lips as I kiss him, so I lick his tongue and lips too, all the same motion, all the same shared moan...
... and then he’s holding me up in the air, walking around with me mounted on him, still kissing him, my legs encircling his abs and lower back, my ass resting on the nest of his hands, my pussy spreading open beneath the layers of fabric, already soaking wet and making a mess of it all.
I land on the kitchen aisle with a thud, and I can’t avoid whimpering in pain, ending our kiss unexpectedly. He goes at it again, though, assaulting my mouth and chewing on my soft, swollen, dripping lips. He’s hard and soft at the same time, just how I like it, making it slightly painful and incredibly arousing, as his teeth bite my soft flesh and retire only to attack again half a second later.
A Vote For Lust: A Bad Boy Political Romance Page 9
