Mercy's Chase

by Jess Lourey

Salem realized she was freezing. God, she hoped no one had seen her mad dash in her swimsuit. She replayed her manic flight in her head, trying to remember if she’d passed any gawping faces. It was no use. The run was a blur. She showered in her room, changed, returned to the locker room to retrieve her phone, and made up her mind to quit.

  Bel would hate her for her weakness, but she had no choice.

  “Ready to go?”

  She spun. Charlie stood outside the locker room, an expectant smile on his face.

  Salem opened her mouth and closed it, opened it again. “Where?”

  “Parliament. The president arrives today.”

  Salem squared her shoulders. “I can’t.”

  “Oh.” His expression shifted to concern. “Are you well?”

  “I …” She’d intended to lie. Instead a concrete stream of truth poured out. “I’m a shitty analyst. I’m scared all the time. I don’t even like to go outside. I only pretend to be interested in fieldwork, swallowing just enough Ativan to get through the day. This isn’t me. I want to be at home, staring at a computer screen, working on Gaea and—”

  “—knowing what time breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be, eating the same thing for each meal so you can feel safe in your routine?”

  That wasn’t what she’d intended to say, but it was close enough. “Something like that.”

  “Me too.” He flashed a sad grin and pointed at the ceiling. “Same with everyone working in your lab now, my guess. It’s the curse of our kind. We are not people of action and espionage, but our talents land us here and so we learn the rest, reluctantly. I spent the first five years of my MI5 career feeling like a fraud.”

  Salem realized her shoulders were gathered up around her ears. She relaxed them. “How’d you cope?”

  “Drank too much, probably.” He chuckled. “If you want to drop out of this assignment, no one would fault you, I’ll even go with you to talk to Bench. And in fact, it’s a ridiculous shame they don’t have you on Gaea all the time. It’d be better for your country, you leaving the FBI to devote your full attention to quantum computing.”

  Relief hit Salem so hard that tears flooded her eyes. “Thank you.”

  He pursed his lips. She sensed he didn’t want to say the next part. “Yeah, but if you want my opinion? Wait until after the president leaves. Things aren’t looking good for her.”

  The small respite dried up. “What do you know?”

  “Not much more than everyone else.” He glanced over his shoulder, suggesting the opposite. “A female president is a tempting target is all, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Salem said, the world weighing heavy on her.

  “The driving really isn’t that bad.” Charlie disproved his words by running a red light, nearly hitting a boxy black cab, and shaving the whiskers off a startled pedestrian. The sky was gunmetal gray, brushing the top of the car. It could rain but probably wouldn’t, Charlie had informed her when they’d left the Campus. He’d brought an umbrella for her in any case. “You get used to it snap quick.”

  Salem gripped the interior door handle, a gurgling sound escaping her lips. She’d so far only ridden a bus or the Tube in London. This was her first car ride. The streets seemed impossibly narrow, the buildings squeezed together as tightly as teeth threatening to topple on their vulnerable car. Salem found herself nauseous if she concentrated on the road—driving on the opposite side had been fine in a bus but was puke-worthy in a car—so she studied the architecture, focusing on the Georgian terraces and Victorian mansions, few buildings taller than five stories or more modern than the late eighteenth century.

  She realized she was dressed far more casually than the people on the streets, the women wearing fashionable overcoats and heels, the men in hats and smart trench coats. People in Minneapolis never dressed that nice for anything short of a wedding or a funeral. Salem had worn comfortable slacks, a warm cardigan over a white peasant blouse, and thick socks with her boots. She wouldn’t have minded a pair of mittens even though it was technically still summer for a few more days. The damp of London was making her bones soggy.

  On Charlie’s advice, she’d amended her plan to quit the FBI. She would stay on the job while the president was in London—through the 24th. After, she would apologize to the FBI for the time and money that had been wasted training her. She would offer to continue the Gaea project as a private contractor, and then she would return home.

  Bel, Mercy, rules, structure.

  Familiar weather, food, bed, and house.

  Safety.

  They approached a second red light and Charlie slammed on the brakes, screeching to a stop with only a microscopic space separating his front bumper from another vehicle’s rear. He drummed the steering wheel as he waited for the light to change. “Have you visited Parliament before?”

  “No.” She tried breathing exercises to calm herself. Inhale through the mouth to the count of four, hold breath to the count of seven, exhale through the nose to the count of eight. When her pulse slowed, she concentrated on her surroundings. The Campus was housed in the cheap corner of Marylebone. They’d passed through the tony section and were now on to the retail. The buildings were still squat and ornate, each one an identical, scolding gray, but their bottom floors were well-lit and devoted to Nike, Topshop, and Tezeni among others, their pedestrians more diverse.

  “It’s quite something,” Charlie promised.

  The president was visiting Parliament purely for the optics. The accord would be signed there on the 23rd, three days from now, and Gina Hayes wanted photos of her there as a tourist to humanize her in advance of the grand event. Salem and Charlie were to meet with her today if there was time, stand around with their hands in their pockets if there wasn’t.

  The second option was the more likely scenario.

  For the duration of this assignment, Salem had been allotted a ball and chain, or B&C, the shorthand name for the FBI’s supposedly indestructible field computers. She was to be prepared to do her job wherever she was needed. Charlie was a good crypto, her SAC had promised in the too-short briefing she’d received when she picked up the computer, but that’s not the only reason he’d been assigned to her. He was an excellent shot, and he knew the city. Not a bad person to have on her team for the next week, though he was no Bel.

  The light changed.

  Charlie bumped forward, handling his vehicle like a bucking horse. While driving on the opposite side of the road was disorienting, Charlie would be a terrifying driver in any country. She chalked it up to one more reason she shouldn’t be here.

  They passed a King’s College sign trumpeting a Rosalind Franklin exhibit. Several plays were advertised on the side of double-decker buses. They were passing Russell Square when Charlie informed her they’d need to travel farther east than he’d like due to extra security for the presidential visit and road construction. “It’s a bit of a circle, but you’ll get to see the Tower of London, at least the outside. You haven’t been there, either?”

  Salem shook her head. “The Gherkin!” She pointed at the black and silver, pickle-shaped skyscraper, its exterior constructed entirely of diamond-shaped windows. She’s seen photos of it online.

  Charlie chuckled. “True enough. And up ahead is the Tower, though you won’t see much more than a gray stone wall. Tower Bridge up there is a bit more impressive. We’ll turn here and follow the Thames back to Parliament so we can enter the secure zone.”

  Salem craned her neck, pressing on the knot to keep the pain in check. From this angle, she could see the ornate suspension bridge spanning the Thames. She knew that some people confused Tower Bridge with London Bridge, a much plainer structure just up the river. Tower Bridge seemed straight out of Cinderella, the blue and white of its cables and the glass-bottomed tourist walkway teetering several stories above the actual bridge, giving the structure an aristocratic feel. The thought of b
eing up that high jellied her spleen.

  Honking snapped her attention back to the ground level. A sloe-eyed woman with thick black hair was staring at her from the edge of the sidewalk before disappearing into the pedestrian crowd. The woman’s glance had been fierce, personal, but she was a stranger.

  “Traffic is terrible, eh?”

  Salem shook off an unsettled feeling and glanced at the clogged road through the windshield. “I have a Google Maps hack I can run.”

  Charlie smiled and slapped the steering wheel. “Of course you do! I’d be delighted, love.”

  Her cheeks warmed. She snapped open the B&C and navigated to a blackout page she’d created. It connected two information sources—Google Maps and law enforcement routes—and ran them through a statistical analysis of past traffic patterns to estimate the best course for this time of day. The results popped up in ten seconds.

  “You’re already on the fastest route.” She hunched her shoulders, expecting him to be disappointed.

  He grinned at her, tapping his forehead with a knuckle. “Reassuring that the ol’ noggin can be as reliable as a computer.” He pointed toward a snarl of traffic ahead. “So, you haven’t yet visited Parliament or the Tower of London. You traveled to Ireland, but only for a pop to Blessington and back to the airport. Please tell me you’ve left the Campus other than that.”

  She didn’t know if it was the shame she felt at being exposed for the homebody she was—other than the Tube and then bus ride from Heathrow and the single trip to Ireland, she hadn’t left the Campus—or the fact that the mention of Blessington called to mind Mrs. Molony’s model, but the lie blurted out before she could stop it. “I’ve seen Stonehenge,” she said, cheeks tightening. She wanted to pull the words back in, but there they were, hanging in the air like big fat dummies.

  He cut his eyes at her. “Aye, that’s a magical place.” His voice turned authoritative. “Not built by Druids as many people believe.”

  “I’ve never been there,” she corrected. She wanted to hit herself. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  He tossed her a concerned look and then smiled. “I’m a fan of the old stones. You must have sensed that.” He continued his speech, one he’d clearly delivered before. “The site was a gathering place starting over ten thousand years ago, but the stones themselves weren’t brought in until much later. Did you know that? They’re fit together like huge Lego blocks. Nobody knows who brought them, or how. Each stone weighs about twenty-five tons, yeah? The bluestones, some of them, came from two hundred forty kilometers away.”

  “Hmm,” she said. She flipped open the B&C. She should have been working on Gaea the whole time rather than trying to socialize. Talk to computers, not people. Talk to computers, not people. The laptop screen lit up immediately. She clicked on Gaea’s nascent visual decoder, checking for glitches that her conversation with Bel would have exposed. The report waiting for her showed Gaea had recognized Mercy’s crayon drawing for the kid’s doodle it was, but the program was hung up on decoding what appeared to be a splash of spaghetti sauce on the refrigerator.

  Charlie continued without pause. “Archeologists and anthropologists think Stonehenge may have been a burial ground. There are certainly a lot of graves, human and animal. Many of the human skeletons are women, and quite wealthy ones, they say. What do you think of that?”

  “Wow,” Salem said, but only halfheartedly. She’d discovered the line of code that needed tweaking.

  “The Druids came two thousand years after the prime of Stonehenge. By then, the bluestones were already in place.”

  She couldn’t get away with another mumble. She had to do more for her end of the conversation. “You sure know a lot about stones.”

  His mood darkened immediately, his energy change so drastic that it jerked her out of her programming.

  “Parliament ahead,” he said curtly.

  What had she said?

  They veered past Big Ben then turned again after Charlie flashed his credentials to a guard. “And there’s your woman.” President Gina Hayes stood behind a phalanx of guards in Parliament Square Garden. The president was smiling and shaking hands. Her assistant, Matthew Clemens, held a black umbrella over her even though the sky was being civil.

  Charlie steered sharply to the right as a guard ushered them into an underground parking ramp. It wasn’t until they were in the dark cool of the garage that Salem processed the rest of what she’d just witnessed.

  Lucan Stone had been standing near Hayes. He’d had his back to Salem, but she’d recognized the outline of his sleek head and broad shoulders. But that’s not why her heart was echo-thumping.

  Little Mercy Mayfair had been standing next to Stone. And near her, Salem’s mother.

  Vida Wiley was in London.

  8

  Parliament, London

  Vida Wiley, world-famous history professor and controversial women’s rights activist, had been born in Iran. Her family moved to Iowa when she was five. She retained a lilt from her home country and from being shielded from the outside world by her parents. She still spoke fluent Persian and had taught Salem to do the same.

  She’d met Daniel, Salem’s father, when he recruited her and Bel’s mom for the Underground. Both women had been high school seniors at the time.

  Daniel Wiley, Irish born and Iowa bred, became Vida’s world from the day she met him.

  After his death, their house grayed.

  Salem had been twelve years old.

  Frozen dinners replaced home-cooked meals. Vida worked and slept, nothing else, never smiled unless Gracie was around. She treated Salem like an inconvenience. When Salem won the eighth-grade science fair blue ribbon for a weather-predicting computer program she’d back-rigged to break into any word processing program, Vida had been working late. Same with band concerts, parent-teacher conferences. Her mom had always been competent, distant, but after Daniel’s death, Salem grew up without her.

  Betrayal and her mother were braided together like strands of DNA, and the sting of that emotion hit Salem slapshock every time she laid eyes on Vida. Right now, the burn of duplicity was polluted with a sense of disorientation. What was Vida doing in London? And why was Mercy with her?

  The answer came to Salem as a guard escorted them from the parking garage to Parliament’s Robing Room, where they were to meet the president. Bel had all but given it away in this morning’s phone call: In honor of our unbreakable friendship bond, I should tell you that your mom has a surprise for you.

  Seeing her mom out of context knocked loose a memory Salem had long buried. Bel was eleven, Salem nine. They’d agreed to meet at the playground halfway between their childhood homes, just as they’d done countless times before. It was late October, the Minneapolis air crisp and apple-scented.

  They planned to practice the penny drop off the monkey bars. It was the middle-school rage, even more popular than striped Benetton rugby shirts and strap-off-the-shoulder overalls. A penny drop was simple: hook your legs over the bar. Swing, upside down, until you build enough momentum to pull your feet around and under you.

  Bel nailed it on her first try.

  “Boo-ya! It’s your turn.” She grinned at Salem, so sure of her friend’s abilities, always. The autumn light shaded her eyes so dark blue they edged toward violet.

  If Bel thought she could do it, Salem had to at least try, even though the physics didn’t match up in her mind. She grabbed the cool metal of the monkey bar and hoisted her legs over. Her jeans squeaked and the rip in one knee opened a little more. She stretched her hands, reaching toward the sand two feet beyond. Leaves skittered across the ground.

  She forced her upper body forward and then back. Forward and then back. By the third swing, she’d gained enough thrust to put her shoulders even with her knees. The fourth time would do it. She’d be high enough.

  “Now!” Bel yelled
.

  Salem flung her feet over the bar. She concentrated on pulling her head toward the clouds and pushing her feet toward the ground. She was parallel to the earth when she allowed herself to consider how unlikely it would be that she—dumpy, awkward Salem—could pull off this move. Her body froze and she dropped to her stomach, the gritty earth forcing her breath out of her.

  Unable to draw air, she wheezed.

  Bel flipped her over, wiping sand off Salem’s chin. “Are you okay?”

  Salem tried to nod.

  “Oh!” Bel pointed at Salem’s knee. “You scraped it. Let’s go to my house. We’ve got Band-Aids.”

  “No.” Salem forced herself to sit up. She didn’t want Bel to feel bad for her. “I’m fine. I think I’m just going to head home.”

  Bel squinted but didn’t challenge her.

  Salem scanned the playground. A group of kids from their school rode the swings, but they didn’t seem to have witnessed Salem’s belly flop. Her knee screamed when she stood. She forced a weak smile for Bel.

  Bel wasn’t buying it. “Call me when you get home?”

  Salem nodded. She walked as normally as she could, waiting to limp until a glance over her shoulder confirmed Bel was out of sight. She allowed a single tear to roll down her cheek. Sand clung to her fall jacket, shedding as she walked.

  By the time she reached her house, she had almost worked up to a full-on cry. It was a Saturday, her mom and dad home. Her dad would take care of her. He’d wash out the scrape, apply salve and a bandage, and make her feel good about trying a penny drop even though it had been scary.

  She’d probably find him out in his workshop. He was nearly to the varnishing stage with a table he’d been working on since the order arrived three weeks ago. It contained seven secret compartments, the most he’d ever incorporated into such a simple structure.

  She planned on hobbling through the house to find him, but she heard voices when she stepped inside the front door. Maybe he’d come in for lunch? Salem cocked her head. The sounds were coming from her parents’ bedroom.