“Yes.”
“How did you know she had the drive?” Amanda asked.
“Her husband was a friend of mine. He’d given it to her.”
“Because the people looking for it knew he had it?” Jesse asked.
“That’s right.”
“Where did he get it?” Amanda asked.
Francis hesitated. “I gave it to him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Amanda said.
“He was going to look at it for me. See if he could find out what was on it.”
“So you got her killed,” Amanda said.
“Yes, I got her killed,” Francis said. “For what it’s worth, I had no idea they were in any danger when I gave it to her husband.”
Jesse was about to ask another question when they heard the distant sound of an engine behind them.
“Don’t turn around,” Francis said. “If it stops, we’ll accept the ride. If not, we keep walking.”
They heard the car slow down. When it passed them they saw it was a pickup truck. It moved onto the side of the road and stopped.
“Jump on and wave to the driver,” Francis said. “If he says anything, I’ll do the talking.”
They climbed in. Jesse and Amanda both gave the driver a wave. He waved back without looking around and pulled back onto the road. Fifteen minutes later they crossed a bridge and entered the town of Trois-Rivieres. Five minutes after that Francis leaned back and tapped the roof of the cab twice. The man pulled to the side of the road and stopped.
“Jump off and give him another wave,” Francis said.
They did and the man waved back, no more interested in who they were than he had been when he picked them up.
“That was a bit of luck,” Amanda said.
“Not as lucky as you’d think. This is rural Quebec, not Los Angeles. People in this part of the world are wired differently.”
“You’ve been here before?” Amanda asked.
“Once or twice.”
Francis led them down the road for another half-mile and stopped outside a fenced-in compound full of vehicles. There were several pickup trucks, a couple of vans and two flatbed trucks parked neatly in two rows. All were light green and had the provincial seal of Quebec decaled on the doors.
“This is the park warden’s station,” Francis said as they approached the gate. He pushed a button on the intercom and said something in French. Someone answered in the same language. A moment later a man stepped through the door of a small brick building in the corner of the lot. He wore green pants tucked into brown leather knee-high boots and a matching jacket with a furry collar. A crop of dark gray hair sprung from the rim of his baseball cap, and he had a short trimmed beard of the same color. As he approached he lifted a hand and waved.
“Bonjour, Maurice! Comment allez-vous?” the man said, smiling at Jesse and Amanda.
Francis replied in what sounded like fluent French and the two men chatted for a minute. Amanda turned to Jesse and whispered, “Maurice?”
Jesse shrugged. “The man with a hundred names. One for every place he visits, probably.”
When they were done talking the man turned and walked back to the building.
“So, Maurice, what’s the plan?” Amanda said.
Francis laughed and adjusted an invisible beret on his head. The gesture looked so stupid that even Jesse couldn’t help laughing with him, despite his glum mood.
“Valerie is going to take us to Lake Commissaires. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour ride, so you’ll be able to get some more sleep if you need it.”
“And who exactly is Valerie?” Amanda asked, looking amused.
“An old friend.”
“And when we get to this lake, will your Mountie friends take us the rest of the way on horseback?” she asked.
“Very funny,” Francis said.
“Just asking, Maurice.” Amanda teased.
“I’ve told Valerie you’re a niece and nephew of mine from the States. It would make things much easier if you played along.”
“No problem, Maurice. Anything you say,” Amanda said, unable to let it go.
Valerie returned behind the wheel of a passenger van and motioned for Jesse and Amanda to get into the back. Francis got in beside Valerie and said something that made his friend laugh and look back. Amanda stuck her tongue out at Francis and said, “I took a little French in high school, so don’t think you two can sit there making fun of us.”
“Perhaps you tell me a joke en Français?” Valerie said in heavily accented English.
“Maybe later,” Amanda said and turned to look out the window, pretending to be more offended than she was.
Valerie turned out of the compound onto Route 155 and headed north. Amanda and Jesse, still exhausted, both fell asleep again within minutes. Francis, seemingly impervious to the effects of sleep deprivation, stayed awake and kept his friend company. As they drove, the towns along the route grew smaller and farther apart. For the first hundred miles the road followed the Sainte Maurice River, then veered northeast through the town of La Tuque toward Lake Saint Jean.
When they reached Lake Commissaires, Valerie pulled off the road about a mile from the small town of the same name and onto a dirt track that led to the lake’s eastern shore. Francis had woken Jesse and Amanda fifteen minutes earlier and they had been gaping out at the wilderness, unable to take in the sheer size of the place. With the exception of the winding road, there were no signs out here that man had ever existed. No matter where you looked, all you could see were trees against the clear blue backdrop of endless sky.
“What’s the opposite of claustrophobia?” Amanda asked.
“This!” Jesse said.
“Welcome to ze middel of nowhere,” Valerie said. “Just bear and elk and beaucoup d’arbres.”
“Don’t let him scare you,” Francis said. “This is one of the most beautiful places you’ll ever see. Trust me.”
They watched Valerie drive back to the road and turn left toward the town. When he was gone, Francis pulled his backpack over one shoulder and set off in the direction of the lake. “You guys coming?”
“Are we going to swim across?” Amanda asked.
“No need. I’ve got a boat.”
Amanda thought he was kidding at first, but when they saw the small wooden shed nestled on the bank, her heart sank.
Jesse looked at Francis. “Amanda’s not really a boat person. Are you, Mandy?”
“There’s no really about it. I’m not a boat person, period. And you can thank this guy for that,” she said pointing at Jesse.
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t have any holes in it,” Jesse said.
“You better.”
“I’m sure–” Jesse said, then paused, trying to remember what Francis had suggested they call him. “I’m sure Eddie has taken good care of it.”
“Don’t you mean Maurice?” Amanda asked.
“I’m sure Maurice has taken good care of it,” Jesse corrected.
“Seriously, that’s starting to get a little old,” Francis said. “Now give me a hand getting this thing into the water.”
When he finished mounting the small outboard motor, Francis stood up, leaned forward and yanked back the pull-start cord. The engine fired up immediately and spat out a thick cloud of black smoke.
When they reached the south side of the lake, Francis steered the boat to starboard, followed the shoreline for another hundred yards, then aimed it straight at the sandy bank and tilted back the outboard just as the bow scraped the bottom.
“Anyone up for spaghetti?” Francis said.
Jesse and Amanda climbed out and walked up the beach to the tree line.
“You going back to town to find a Pizza Hut?” Jesse asked.
“I was thinking more like Heinz,” Francis said. “But you’ll have to give me a hand with the boat first.”
They pulled it out of the water and dragged it up the beach. Francis reached into a storage compartment in the bow,
took out an old green tarpaulin and covered it.
“Follow me,” Francis said.
Five minutes later they reached the cabin. It was about ten yards wide and made of dark gray stone, covered in patches of thick moss. There was a small window to either side of the wooden door. The roof was covered in grass and the wall on the right extended up into a narrow chimney.
“Welcome to Canada,” Francis said.
“This is your place?” Jesse said.
“Built it myself.”
“I don’t suppose you built a toilet around here while you were at it, did you?” Amanda said.
Francis pointed at the trees. “Toilet’s out there somewhere. The ground if you need a pee and a shovel if you need to move your bowels.”
“Move my bowels?” Amanda said.
“Take a shit,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, I know what it means, Jesse,” she said. “I just don’t like the idea of doing it with the woodchucks watching.”
The cabin was a single room about fifteen by twenty-five feet. In the wall to the right of the door there was a quaint little fireplace. Against the opposite wall there was a crudely built single bed made of rough boards. In the center of the room, a table and a single chair completed the cabin’s inventory of furniture.
“Kill me now,” Amanda said, looking around. But her tone suggested she was more intrigued than disappointed.
“Come on. It could be worse,” Jesse said.
“Yeah,” Amanda said, smiling, “it could have been a tipi.”
Francis picked up three dry logs and stacked them inside the fireplace. There was a rusty tin of lighter fluid and a box of long wooden matches on the narrow stone mantelpiece. He sprayed the logs, struck a match and threw it in. There was a whooshing sound as the fluid ignited and the logs began to burn.
“That’s not how they showed us to do it in the Scouts,” Jesse said.
“Some of that wood’s ten years old,” Francis said. “It would probably ignite if you rubbed your hands together and touched it.”
They stood there for a moment in front of the fireplace, silently preoccupied with that most ancient of human pastimes.
“So,” Amanda finally said. “Where’s the kitchen? Now that we’re back in the Stone Age, I’m guessing that’s where you’ll want me. Or maybe you have some pelts that need scraping.”
“Is she always this charming?” Francis asked Jesse.
“No. This is her on a good day,” he said, smiling at her.
“I’m just tired and hungry,” Amanda said, leaning on Jesse. She yawned and stretched her arms. “Tired, hungry and still in denial.”
Francis pulled the table to one side and pushed the chair out of the way. “I can help you with the first two,” he said kneeling down. “The third should come in time. I’m feeling a little weirded-out myself, if it’s any comfort.”
Francis knelt and brushed aside some of the dust on the floor, exposing the rough wooden boards beneath, then went outside and came back a minute later carrying a crowbar. The nails screeched as he pried one of the boards free, making all of them cringe. He pulled up four more and stacked them to one side.
“Holy shit!” Jesse said and motioned for Amanda to come over.
“My god, I think he really is a walrus,” she said.
Francis looked up, puzzled.
“She means seal,” Jesse said. “As in Navy SEAL.”
For a moment Francis looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“You are, aren’t you?” Jesse said.
“I’m what?” Francis said.
“A SEAL, or Force Recon, or one of those Special Forces outfits.”
“You’ve been playing too many video games, kid,” Francis said.
“Yeah, I’ve played a few. I still think that’s what you are, though. Why else would you have a damn arsenal under the floorboards?”
“They’re for hunting.”
“Really? Because I have a hunting rifle and it doesn’t look anything like those. That one there? I know that’s an M16 of some kind. What do you hunt with an M16?”
“Look, kid,” Francis said. “Don’t try growing up too fast. Let’s just say I’m a guy who likes guns and leave it at that.”
“Gun worship is the second biggest religion in the United States,” Amanda said. “After fast food.”
She stepped forward and held out her hands. “We need some spaghetti in this Western. Give me the Heinz and I’ll see what I can rustle up. No beans, mind. This place is way too small for beans.”
Francis looked up at Jesse and saw the topic was not going to be dropped that easily. He reached down and pulled a plastic sheet back to reveal a sizable selection of canned goods. He passed six cans of Heinz spaghetti to Amanda, then reached down and picked up a gallon-size milk jug full of water and held it out to Jesse. “Can you give me a hand with this?”
“Sure. Whatever,” Jesse said.
Francis produced a Swiss army knife from his pocket, opened the cans and passed them to Amanda who lined them up next to the fire. Jesse was sitting on the bed and devoting his attention to a hole in the knee of his jeans. Amanda walked over to him and held out her hands. “What do you say, Bill? You want to join Calamity Jane and the gunslinger for a bite to eat?”
They sat and ate in a semicircle around the fireplace with Amanda in the middle. When she was done she turned and grinned at Francis. “Maurice the Seal! I like it, it’s cute.”
Jesse couldn’t help laughing. Francis looked over at him, stone-faced for a moment, then caught the bug and joined in, which set Amanda off too.
They sat that way for a long time, caught in the grip of infectious laughter. And for a little while they weren’t running for their lives but just three people enjoying the company of others. Outside, the thunderclouds were rolling in, painting the still surface of the lake a deep, ominous black.
Chapter 24
New York, New York
Tuesday 18 July 2006
1500 EDT
Jack took the hotdog and handed the street vendor a five-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, pal.”
He crossed Central Park West at 108th Street and found an empty bench along one of the footpaths leading into the park. He was acutely aware that stress was beginning to chip away at some fundamental part of the machinery between his ears. Thinking, something he had been managing perfectly well a few days ago, was beginning to get harder. He found himself having trouble remembering half the things he had told Marius. And he had a headache. Not the dull throb behind the forehead or temples that a couple of Excedrin would take care of, but a steady, piercing drumbeat behind his eyes, as if something with sharp teeth were chewing on his optic nerves.
On a good day he might have spotted them. But Jack hardly noticed the two men that approached the bench from opposite sides. Nor did he look up when a black Chevy van pulled to a stop not twenty yards away.
“Jack Fielding?”
Jack looked up. The man standing in front of him looked like he’d just walked off a construction site. He had a hard hat under one arm and a tool belt slung over his right shoulder. The man who stopped on the path several yards away was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.
“Who wants to know?” Jack said, looking around for the best direction to run.
“There’s someone who’d like to meet you,” the construction worker said, pointing at the van. “Right over there.”
“Who?” Jack asked.
The man didn’t answer.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Jack said, “I’m quite happy where I am.”
“It’s not,” the man said. “And don’t bother running.”
Jack looked back toward Central Park West and saw two more men casually admiring the traffic.
Suit-man looked over at the van and nodded. The side door slid open.
“What do you say, buddy?” construction man said, “you going to give us a minute or do we have to ta
ke it?”
Jack stood up. “I guess I can spare a minute.”
“Wise choice.”
When Jack got in, suit-man closed the door and tapped on it twice. There were no windows inside, only a small light in the roof. Jack tried the door, more out of reflex than any hope that it might be unlocked. He braced himself as the van began to move, accelerating and braking with the busy afternoon traffic.
It felt like they’d been driving for at least half an hour but it had probably been less. At this time of day that would still put them downtown somewhere, he figured. Jack squinted instinctively when the door opened, only to find it was just as dark outside. The man standing in the door was Asian. Japanese or maybe Korean, Jack thought.
“This way,” the man said.
They were in an abandoned factory of some kind. Several rusting machines that looked like metal presses had been pushed against the wall at the back of the large room. Jack followed the man past these and up a flight of stairs that led to a small, elevated office overlooking the shop floor.
“Wait here,” the man said.
Jack waited.
When he heard the sound of an approaching engine, he walked to the window and saw a white seven-series BMW pull up alongside the van. The man who got out looked well past retirement age. He had a thick beard and wore a brown suit with elbow patches.
When he entered the office a minute later the man sat down and nodded at the chair across the table. “Please, take a seat.”
Jack did.
“You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Fielding. Or should I say Albrecht? That is your given name, isn’t it? Markus Albrecht?”
Jack couldn’t quite hide his surprise, but didn’t answer.
Norton Weaver sat down and opened the file in his hand. He took a pair of reading glasses from his inner coat pocket and perched them on the end of his nose. “Markus Albrecht. Born six August 1963 in Prenzlau. Your mother crossed the border in ‘66 and settled in Bonn. Father unknown. Have I missed anything so far?”
When Jack still made no reply, Norton went on. “Recruited out of the State Investigation Bureau in ‘93 by GMM Propulsion in Frankfurt. You changed your name to Jack Fielding a year later. Now a resident alien and the head of corporate security for Skyline Defense. Sound about right?”
Origin - Season One Page 10
