Mercy's Chase

by Jess Lourey

  Charlie had seen it as soon as she’d pointed it out.

  Neolithic humans had sent them a message in the most ancient of codes.

  He’d whooped then run off to secure them this private room, some administrator’s cloistered office with a desktop computer he could use while Salem field-tested Gaea for the second time that day.

  “I need you to find all the various iterations of the monument,” Salem said, unaware she was taking the lead. Her fingers were a blur of typing. “Include all possible variables: the Heel Stone, the wooden posts that could have been here, counting the trilithons as a single stone as well as three, everything.”

  “I’ll send them to you when I get them.” Charlie was already firing up the desktop, circumventing the administrator’s password as easily as if it were a tissue paper wall. His cheeks were flushed. The excitement in the room was ionized.

  “No!” Salem said, pausing. “Put it on this jump drive. We don’t have time to encrypt it, and I don’t want it accessible in the ether.”

  “Of course. How foolish of me.”

  Salem nodded and dug back into her work. She’d been disappointed to not have the time to expand on her quantum computing breakthrough, now more than ever. Every computer system running used the same binary system as the first computer invented. Quantum computing, once a reality, would be based in qubits, which were the 1s and 0s of the binary system on steroids. They operated as a 1 or a 0, but through the quantum physics principles of entanglement and superposition, those 1s and 0s could swap their identity. They could also do more than be on or off. They could be up, down, in, out.

  If Salem had access to quantum hardware, she could quickly create a sophisticated algorithm that could access any document ever uploaded that contained the word Stonehenge, collate all visual and written records of the stones throughout the millennia, and look for any patterns that would break the binary keytext of Stonehenge.

  It would take less than a second with a fully realized quantum computer. Salem could only guess at how long the B&C would take.

  Charlie ran the jump drive to her. “They’re all here.”

  “Good work! That was quick.” She plugged it into her USB port, feeding Charlie’s data to baby Gaea.

  They peered at the screen, not unlike how ancient people must have stared at their campfires.

  The administrator’s wall clock ticked audibly. How did she get any work done with such a loud noise?

  “Is Gaea up for the task?” Charlie asked.

  A rose bloomed on Salem’s screen by way of answer, hitching her chest. She really would have to come up with a better image. “That means she’s ready.”

  Charlie glanced at his wristwatch. “Thirty-four seconds. Pretty goddamned impressive.”

  “We’ll see.” Salem bit her lip. She tapped the enter button. “I asked her to run your Stonehenge data against any she found on the internet—sorry, she’s fast—and collate it into all possible binary constructions and then translate that into the languages most likely spoken by the Neolithic people, and then translate any recognizable words from that into English. She may come up with several possibilities.”

  A single word appeared on the screen, centered, 12-point Arial typeface.

  second

  Charlie and Salem tipped their heads to the left, identical quizzical expressions on their faces.

  “Well, fuck me.”

  Salem glanced over at Charlie, whose arms were crossed. “Yeah,” she said.

  “There must be more.”

  She keyed in some commands. This result took half the time but was identical.

  second

  “What’s that mean?” Charlie asked. “Second?”

  Panic was brushing the edge of Salem’s view. She would not give into it. “I don’t know. But I know someone who might.”

  24

  Stonehenge

  “Gaea confirmed that the language of Stonehenge was Proto-Indo-European, which is what Agent Curson told me,” Salem said.

  They’d packed up their evidence and hoofed it to the car, buzzed from their discovery.

  “Makes sense.” Charlie opened the trunk for her.

  She tossed the B&C inside and opened the passenger door. “Blessington’s a long shot.”

  He slammed the trunk closed and offered her a lopsided smile. “It’s all we’ve got. Besides, it’s a nice day to fly to Ireland.”

  Salem nodded, but something was bothering her. A faint but persistent prickling at the base of her neck, her instincts telling her to do something that seemed unnecessary. “Hey, I have to run back to the bathroom. Is there time?”

  He’d already slid into the driver’s seat. He nodded, completely involved with his phone. She assumed he was calling in favors to book a flight.

  She did need to use the bathroom, but that’s not why she ran back. She dashed into the gift shop and grabbed the first envelope and greeting card she saw, featuring a photo of the sun setting across Stonehenge. The line took forever, packed with sticky children and exhausted travelers. She wrote her name and the Campus as the return address as she inched forward, sneaking furtive glances toward the parking lot. She’d been gone too long. Charlie would worry.

  Finally, she was at the front. She threw down her cash and walked away, not waiting for the change. She slid the jump drive inside the envelope, the one she’d made as backup while Gaea ran the Stonehenge numbers. She was licking the envelope when she remembered she didn’t have any stamps. Her eyes and cheeks grew hot. She couldn’t wait in line again. There wasn’t time.

  She budged to the front, feeling like the worst human being ever. She looked away from the scowls. “I’m sorry,” she said to the cashier. “I just bought this card but forgot stamps.”

  “Sorry, love,” the woman said. “We don’t sell postage.”

  Salem’s body grew heavy. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Charlie. A scientist always backed up her research, that was all. She didn’t know what second meant, but she knew it was too big to die with her should something happen to her and Charlie. But who could she trust? Even if she had postage, she couldn’t send this to her mom, or the president, and it was too risky to send it overseas to Bel.

  “Hey, you’re still here! Any better luck?”

  Salem squeaked, she was so startled. She turned to the security guard who’d recommended they check out the visitor center.

  “Not really,” Salem said, feeling bad about the lie. The woman’s face was so lovely and open. So much so that it gave Salem an idea. “You said you’re taking the train back to London?”

  “Yep! All the way to Piccadilly Station.”

  Salem dug in her purse and yanked out a twenty-pound note. “I have a favor to ask. Can you drop this off at Parliament for me?” She scribbled a name on the front. “They’ll know who to get it to.”

  The woman smiled at her, puzzled. “Stamps wouldn’t cost you as much.”

  “They don’t sell them here.”

  “Ah.” The woman didn’t take the bill, but did take the envelope. “I was going to eat near Parliament tonight anyways.”

  Salem knew the woman was being kind. She’d seen only one restaurant near Parliament, and it catered to tourists. “Thank you,” she said, gratitude etched on her face.

  “It’s not a thing. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” The guard pointed over Salem’s shoulder. “Oh, and here’s your chap coming back.”

  Salem swiveled just in time to witness Charlie walking toward the glass wall of the gift shop. Her chest tightened. She’d need to tell another lie. She thanked the guard one more time and charged out to him.

  They left immediately.

  They were ten minutes from Stonehenge when Salem realized she still had to go to the bathroom.

  25

  Dublin Airport

  Clancy
pretended to read the spy novel, which is what he had legitimately been doing moments earlier. The book was pure crap. It made an agent’s life seem glamorous when in fact it was mostly being on stakeout, pissing into a jar, holding your shit until it went wherever a shit went when you did not take it, and if you were super unlucky, fucking up an assassination bad enough that you had to spend the rest of your life in exile.

  But maybe it wasn’t bad luck. Maybe it was a self-destructive streak.

  There was no other explanation for why he was sitting in the Dublin airport when Vit Linder had been clear that Clancy was to stay in London until the assassination was complete, and that the killings must happen on the 23rd, right before Hayes signed the accord. Striking her down then would send a warning about what would happen to those who opposed industry. It would terrorize the leaders and send a righteous message to the masses already bored with the topic of climate change and who wanted cheap gas and inexpensive clothes without the guilt. The timing of the assassinations was meant for them. A war won in the mind was much cheaper than one fought on land.

  The timing was important to the Order, and it was why they wanted him to stay in London, close to the action, poised to pivot if necessary. If they knew he was in Dublin, they’d have him finished off, no question.

  But here was a truth he couldn’t dodge any longer: they were going to kill him no matter what. He’d hung onto that Caribbean escape fantasy for as long as he could, longer than he should have. It tasted so good. But under the imaginary sombrero, he was a sensible man. Once he’d taken out the president and vice president, there was not a single reason to let him live and ten good ones to off him.

  So, he figured, might as well sate his curiosity.

  Specifically, he wanted to know what Salem Wiley was up to.

  That kid.

  When he’d first tailed her in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, he’d pegged her as either the kind to break and shatter on impact, a grenade taking down those near her, or one of those rare birds who had steel hidden below the feathers. Damn if he hadn’t discovered she was composed of pure metal, brain and body, although the way she carried herself made it difficult to see.

  She must know by now that the Order had kidnapped Mercy Mayfair, a move that Clancy did not truck with. It shouldn’t have mattered because it wasn’t his fight, but still.

  The curiosity.

  It wasn’t so much Clancy’s fault. Linder was the one who’d dropped Wiley’s name in his single phone call with Clancy. He’d done it “by accident,” trying to gauge what reaction it would evoke from Clancy, that much had been clear.

  The Grimalkin has been assigned to Salem Wiley … oh! Wrong file.

  The guy was a Jerry Lewis pratfall of a human being. Clancy knew that before Linder’s phone call. The man had a reputation and a nickname in the intelligence community. In fact, it’d been all Clancy could do to bite back those three words when the Speaker of the House introduced himself: You mean One-ball?

  Clancy had read Linder’s file, as he assumed most FBI and CIA agents at the upper levels had. Anybody who was a leader, or rich, or famous had a similar collection of intelligence gathered on them. What made Linder’s file stand out, at least in water cooler discussions, was the video of Linder in his room at the Moscow Four Seasons twelve years earlier. Linder’s recorded behavior fell more on the Newt Gingrich than the Fatty Arbuckle side of the sexual impropriety scale. In fact, it would not have stood out if not for his diaper fetish. Watch a video of a man born with one testicle begging to get his nappy changed by a Russian thug he’d paid to call daddy, and it stuck with you.

  Nothing illegal, but damn memorable just the same.

  It was safe to assume that the Russians possessed a similar tape. The Kremlin collected Kompromat like fish breathed water. When Linder, to everyone’s surprise, was elected to the House, and then, slap my ass and call me granny, became the Speaker of the House, that tape was trotted out again. At least by the FBI. Clancy had last watched it maybe four years ago, recent enough for it to immediately come to mind when Linder called him on the Order’s dedicated phone.

  Tell me you love me, daddy!

  Clancy wondered if the video could be leaked online. He’d been wondering about a lot of things since talking to Linder, because despite his apparent buffoonery, Linder’s ploy had worked, in a way. He’d gotten into Clancy’s head. Besides Wiley, Clancy couldn’t stop thinking about the Grimalkin, who, if half the legends were true, made Satan look like a middle-aged cruise director. And once Clancy had Wiley on his mind, he’d wanted to see her. And not like he’d seen her walking into Parliament from his perch in that ridiculous Ferris wheel.

  No, he wanted to know what she was up to.

  Wherever that kid went, it was sure to be interesting.

  He’d gone to her mom’s hotel—talk about another piece of work, that woman—and scoped it. That’s how he’d seen Jason leave with the girl. Turned his stomach. Next, Clancy motored over to the Campus, where he spotted Wiley leave with the MI5 guy, looking like she’d been forced to eat her own stomach with a knife and a spoon. Clancy had tailed their car until it was clear they were going to Stonehenge.

  He’d turned off to avoid detection. No telling how good the MI5 agent was, not this early in the tail. An hour later he located their empty car in the private lot, picked the lock, and dropped in a bug.

  Next stop? The airport for some shut-eye. It was a guess, but a smart one because it put him ahead of them if they were leaving the country and near them if they were returning to London. When his bug caught them discussing that they were going to Blessington, he chartered a puddle jumper to the Dublin airport, and voila, here he was.

  They’d landed twelve minutes ago, walked in front of him six minutes after that.

  He’d let them go.

  It was a hunch, and one that played out.

  Ho-leee shit. He hadn’t planned for this. Lucan Stone was striding across the Dublin airport. No way could he have flown in the same plane as Salem and the Brit. He appeared to have been waiting for them, which was interesting. They hadn’t called their destination in to the London Bureau, at least not after they’d returned to the car.

  Clancy guessed Lucan would only go as far as the airport’s front doors. A black man blended in rural Ireland like coal in snow. Shame, that. Unfair for a gifted agent to be cobbled by something he couldn’t change, but that was life.

  Stone walked out of sight, a few women turning to watch him go. He was a handsome man, no doubt. Probably a double agent, too, but Clancy wasn’t in a position to judge.

  He’d been about to return to his book when Jason separated from the magazine rack across the way. Clancy recognized the man’s eyes even though the shape of his face had changed. He’d lost sleep thinking about those eyes. Worse than being so close to him was the fact that Jason made Clancy immediately. His gaze connected with Clancy’s, flashing neither hope or threat, only icy recognition.

  Clancy peed himself a little bit.

  He’d told himself since Rome that he’d commit hara-kiri if it ever got to the point that he needed adult diapers, but decided on the spot that he would not count Jason-based incidents.

  His ears buzzed as a happy thought occurred to him. If as Linder had said the Grimalkin was on Wiley, and both Jason and Wiley had just passed through this airport, then the Grimalkin must be working with Jason.

  The Grimalkin was here.

  Hot damn, Clancy might be the first agent to positively ID the legendary assassin. He squinted into the crowds; preternaturally relaxed Irish in their pointy-toed shoes blended with harried, moon-faced tourists and suited business travelers. He needed to pick out someone not quite right, a person whose gaze lingered too long, a man who appeared to be following Jason.

  He kept it up for nearly ten minutes. For nine minutes and fifty-seconds of that, he knew it was a fool’s erran
d. Someone of the Grimalkin’s caliber would not be made so easily.

  Clancy put his book back up to his face.

  Bullshit spy novel.

  26

  The Road to Blessington, Ireland

  They’d navigated the hectic area around the Dublin airport and were entering the more scenic countryside. Salem’s skin felt tight, her heartbeat light and fast in a way the Ativan hadn’t been able to soothe, but the near gray of the clouds comforted her like a blanket. There was relief in returning to Ireland’s close skies, its smell of wet woodsmoke, the fairyland green of the hills unfurling toward her like a welcome mat.

  She flipped the B&C open, tethering it as she’d done on the journey to Stonehenge.

  Charlie was wiggling in his seat. “The historical implications of this discovery are staggering. How will this affect the field of cryptography? Archeology? Anthropology?” He’d started to talk about Stonehenge a dozen times on the plane ride, stopping himself as he realized they could be overheard. He’d swallowed each question before fully offering it to Salem; let them gurgle in his belly as they walked through the airport, coughing to keep from burping them as they filled out the car rental paperwork.

  They spewed forth once they slipped inside the Lilliputian Nissan Versa.

  “Who’ll believe Bronze Age builders created a binary code that withstood the ravages of time?”

  Salem was only half listening. Questions drove research, but she had plenty of her own. She needed answers. The WiFi signal came through immediately. All four bars. Salem pulled up a search engine, fighting against the contagion of Charlie’s childlike enthusiasm. For all her fears for Mercy, she felt a thrill growing. Solving a puzzle had always done that for her. “You and me, for starters, and that’s all I’m worried about right now.”

  He bent his head toward her screen. “What’re you after?”

  Such a good question. When she blinked, the whole of the internet unfurled itself against the back of her eyelids: loops and swirls, locked doors, long hallways, data that could reach to the moon and back a thousand times over, answers to questions she’d never even thought to ask, mysteries created and solved in black holes that collapsed on themselves. “Anything. Everything. There must be more to this than what we’re seeing. There is no way Stonehenge is nothing more than the world’s largest, sturdiest Post-it note, you know?”