by James Phelan
“What?” Fox asked. “Didn’t know what?”
“Babich. I thought I was doing this for Russia,” he said. “I’m … a professional.”
“Yeah,” Fox said. He looked across at Babich, motionless on the roof. “I’ve met a few of them today. None of them played nice.”
“Please Lachlan, I’m not an officer … I’m just an agent—I’ve been working as a vet in Paris—”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Fox said. Truth was, there was no way this guy would live long enough to receive medical care.
Malevich smiled. He got it. He knew this was the end. For whatever reason, he wanted to be remembered in the right light. He was on his back, panting hard, sweating; in shock. There was bright red blood everywhere.
Fox had seen a femoral artery wound before—a US soldier who’d copped shrapnel from an explosive in a convoy outside Baghdad’s Green Zone. Luckily, there’d been a Black Hawk on the next block bugging a squad out of contact with insurgents.
That soldier was in surgery within fifteen minutes. He’d lived. Malevich wouldn’t.
“Lots of blood, hey.”
Fox nodded. “Hang in there—”
“It is okay,” Malevich said.
Fox’s eyes showed that he knew it, too.
“I can try and slow it,” Fox said, applying pressure higher up in the pelvis area where the artery originated. “I could try and clamp it—but I can’t see it. You’d have to take the pressure off the wound, means you’d bleed out even quicker.”
Malevich shook his head, his face pale and damp. He looked up at Fox.
“No,” Malevich’s breaths were shallow and his pulse was low. “This is it, hey.”
Fox nodded. Matter of fact. It had been for Renard, too. Fact was, death was something of a leveller, wasn’t it? Even the enemy looks the same when reduced to this.
“See … See what they made me do for them,” Malevich said, bringing his hand up to Fox’s, shaking. “I—I never knew it was for that man.”
“Yeah, I know,” Fox said, looking over to Babich, seeing that Zoe was bending over him now. She signalled he didn’t quite seem dead, but like Malevich he wouldn’t have long.
“Listen, Lachlan…” Malevich said. “I have a sister, Alina. In Valetta, Malta … There’s money, an account, enough for life … Make sure she knows about me.”
What could he say? Might be him in this position one day, pleading for a final showing of empathy.
“I will.”
“Make sure she’s okay.”
“I will.” Fox squeezed the Russian’s hand. “I’ll check on her, I promise. She’ll be fine.”
Malevich smiled, he seemed more peaceful. Fox applied pressure to the wound and immediately felt it lessen, the blood slippery on his hand as it flowed through his fingers.
“Malevich, I can try and buy you time,” Fox said. “I…”
Too late. He was gone. Fox pulled his hand from Malevich and felt his neck—pulse was just there, so faint, almost nothing.
He took his other hand from the wound; the blood still flowed, but it was a trickle now. He plunged his fingers inside, felt around the metal spike … No artery … He fished up into the thigh, thought maybe he felt something … It was too late.
Fox inched back, the red puddle of blood slowing its spread. His senses filled with the familiar smell of copper and the sticky feel of warm blood. He knew the sensation too well; he’d had enough of it.
He stood, wiped his hands on his pants, pulled out Malevich’s wallet. There was a picture in there, his sister Fox guessed. He pocketed it. Picked up the protocol, the cylinder flattened and dented, turned around—
Zoe was there, standing above the unconscious form of Babich. Fox looked from her eyes to her hands. She held the MP5 steady, pointed straight at him.
110
SHANGHAI
“Lachlan,” Zoe said. “I can’t just let you hand that to the Americans.”
Fox stopped moving, Zoe had her finger on the trigger, the business end pointed square at his chest. He looked up from the gun—so steady in her hand—to her face, to those eyes he’d spent so much of the day looking into.
“Zoe…” he said, thinking about all they’d been through. “Oh Zoe…”
He was beat. Couldn’t hide his heartbreak any longer. Everything that had happened today with Kate was coming to the surface now. He’d had enough.
“Please, Lachlan. Give me the cylinder.”
“So you can give it to your politicians to trade it with Russia—for what? Cheaper energy? Military pacts?”
“This is not your game, Lachlan. It’s mine. You write your stories, I play the game.”
“Oh, come on Zoe,” he sighed, and his voice held all the pain of the day. Fox remembered when his grandmother had died and his grandfather, who’d served in World War II, hadn’t shed a tear. “Real men don’t cry,” he’d told Fox at her funeral. A few months later, a tree in his grandparents’ backyard came down, a big old thing that they’d planted when they’d bought that house and they’d started a family. His grandfather had cried that day. He’d cried all day long and said her name over and over. In a way it had scared Fox from love. Kept him moving, kept him driven towards discovery, to help paint the bigger picture. Now he realised he wanted to be some place he could call home, that it would be better to have a quiet life last a lifetime and not to lose it until an old age.
“It’s been a long day…” Fox said, deflated. The Chinese security would be along soon, probably kill them both without blinking. Her own French guys might be here soon, too. All this for nothing … All that he’d done. His radio earpiece crackled.
“Lachlan, do you have any idea of the consequences of what you have there?” Zoe’s eyes pleaded. “I mean, have you really thought about the possibilities?”
Fox eyed the gun in her hand, brought his gaze up to meet her eyes.
“I have to take this to my political leaders,” Zoe said. “They have the right to decide what to do with the treaty protocol.”
“So they can give it over to the Russian leadership for some kind of extra security in their future energy deals?” Fox repeated. “So that they can share in the plunder of the resources under the Arctic Sea? So you can keep your job?”
“You’d rather the Americans had it? So that it can be buried and—”
“They’re a good voice to have in that region—you can’t just have Russia calling the shots in the Arctic, you need another large country—”
“What, is this an ‘us and them’ thing now?” Zoe shook her head. “Lachlan, don’t make me take it from you. Hand it over.”
Fox edged backwards half a step.
“We’re entering a new era of superpowers, Russia is getting stronger,” Zoe said. “There’s a lot of anger about a lot of things. It’s not easily resolved. That’s what wars are about.”
“Wars are about prejudice and fear. Hit first before you get hit. Believe me, I know. This has global consequences!” Fox rasped. “The Poles are the last places on Earth we haven’t fully destroyed and you want to return this to your guys to hand to Russia? You know what they’ll do with it—they’ll exploit it all!”
“I’m sorry Lachlan, I really am,” she said, gun pointed up at him. “But my country’s future is much more entwined with Russia’s than America’s. The US century has come and gone.”
“And you think it’s France’s turn?”
“No, but it won’t be America. Russia, the EU … We have to look after ourselves,” she said. “I have a job to do, a country to serve as I see best…”
Suddenly it twigged.
“You knew all along what this document was!” Fox shouted. “The diary, this protocol, you knew—you used us all!”
“I did what I had to do,” Zoe admitted.
“You lied to me!”
“I told you what you needed to know.”
“You can’t do
this…” He inched further backwards, towards the edge of the building, glanced at the reflection of the neighbouring tower.
“We all have to choose sides some time in our lives. I choose a long life for France. What’s your choice?”
Fox looked at the cylinder in his hand. Such a little thing to bring about so much death. But then what it represented wasn’t little, was it? If the Russians got it, if they used it to ‘smash ’n’ grab’ undersea resources in the Arctic, who knew what type of long-term consequences there would be?
“You’ll have to kill me for this, Zoe,” Fox said, pointing to his heart. He moved his arm out to the side, over the edge, and held the secret protocol there. “I’m sick of fighting everyone else’s war. You want this so bad, kill me. Take the shot.”
She glanced at the cylinder and then back to him. Her gun lowered a little, she walked to him. He reached for her gun and she snapped to attention, but now he had a hand on the gun too. He moved in close to her so that their bodies were touching and he brought his arm with the protocol cylinder down to his side, her gun arm went a little slack and they locked eyes. Like they were seeing each other for the first time.
Fox looked down off the edge, a hundred storeys below them the city was a sea of lights. If you’re afraid to fall, you fall because you are afraid. He hadn’t been afraid to fall for quite a while now … Maybe meeting Kate had done that.
“Zoe, my idea of what the world should be is too far removed from the one we live in, ’ he said. He thought of Kate, of what he thought was right, of a cause for a greater good. A sacrifice of love and of self—for what? He had given more of himself than he could have imagined. Everything he’d held so dear had fallen apart. He’d turned into something he was not. He’d moved from antipathy to apathy, to a place where he just couldn’t care anymore. He looked Zoe in the eyes—her eyes were searching his.
“Sorry,” he said, and turned and jumped off the building.
111
WASHINGTON, DC
McCorkell was watching the real-time footage on the big main screen.
He could see Fox and Zoe on the roof, talking, close. The French security force was moments away. He’d heard that Delta were trapped just under the blown-out floor—they were making their way across a lower level to another fire exit, but it would probably be too late.
It appeared as though the French cop had the weapon now, pointed at Fox.
And then Fox jumped off the roof … The whole room gasped.
Why would he do that?
112
SHANGHAI
Fox flew through the air, arms out ahead, like he was reaching for something.
The V-22 Osprey came up, its rear cargo ramp down, but it was not close enough—nowhere near close enough.
Fox shot past it—flying towards the ground.
And was wrenched from the sky.
He dangled in the air, his arm burning from the strain. He looked up—
Gammaldi, both strong arms had Fox’s in a vice-like wristlock. He was hanging out the back of the Osprey, the crew safety cable around his waist like an umbilical cord keeping him attached.
Fox couldn’t believe it. Below, his legs dangled a hundred storeys above the lights of Shanghai as they evacuated out towards the sea.
He looked up to see Gammaldi’s strained face crack into a big cheesy grin—he yelled something over his shoulder, they were hauled up.
Several Marines dragged Gammaldi and Fox back into the cargo area, while another sprayed the M240’s fire-tracer rounds like a laser across the roof, sending showers of sparks and everyone on the exposed area ducking for cover. Fox could make out Zoe and a few armed guys—her French security team. That was close.
The Osprey ducked down and headed out of the area, fast.
Gammaldi was catching his breath—Fox too, propped back against the cabin wall, where he slid down, bloody and smashed to shit, beat.
A Navy corps man started attending to him.
Kate and her guy were there, shell-shocked, huddled together.
Fox looked back out the closing cargo ramp to the glow of Shanghai. Hutchinson bumped in next to him, clapped a hand on his shoulder. It was over.
Gammaldi smiled from across the cargo hold, still catching his breath. He broke into another grin and shook his head, then yelled over the engines, “You don’t see that shit every day.”
113
WASHINGTON, DC
“We got them!” Hutchinson’s voice came over the speaker at Umbra Task Force HQ and the room erupted. McCorkell and Valerie hugged it out. High-fives all around.
“Babich?” Bowden asked.
“Alive, barely. Chinese federal police just arrived at the roof,” Hutchinson replied. “They’ve got him in custody and are transferring him to a secret location outside Beijing—if he lives, they’re gonna let him rot in a cell there and bleed him for intel about Umbra.”
“That’ll do, I guess,” Bowden said. “How about the treaty?”
“Don’t know, have to ask Fox, he’s in pretty bad shape,” he answered. “We’re about to touch down on the New York, talk in detail soon. Out.”
Everyone whooped and started shutting down their tasks.
McCorkell could see that Bowden looked vindicated—and was reminded that maybe there was room for men like him in rooms like this. He came over, shook McCorkell’s hand, and went to the bathroom for the first time that day.
Valerie stood in front of McCorkell as he packed his briefcase.
“What do you think Hutchinson said to him to make him leave Fox alone—from the laser strike?” she asked.
“I can only guess,” McCorkell replied. “Whatever works, though, right?”
“Yeah … What now—back to your cubby-hole at the EEOB?”
He smiled.
“Only got a few days left,” he replied. “Better not call in sick tomorrow, I guess.”
“Then what are you going to do?” she asked, walking him to the door. He paused, looked back at the room and all the fine men and women who’d come together to do a good job.
“Well, I’m certainly not just gonna sit at home, feeling miserable about being out of the game and reading Politico all day,” McCorkell said. He looked around, made sure no one else was in earshot. “I’ve got a new thing going at the UN. Putting a team together. You ever get tired of the Bureau, look me up.”
She smiled, proud. “Thanks.”
He left the room, walked outside. The car park was mostly empty. The sun was bright and hot. He checked his watch—time to quickly go by his office, see what else needed fixing in the world today.
He got in his car and headed towards town. He’d go out of his government job the way he’d gone in, the way he’d always done it—putting in the hard yards and then some. There was a certain symmetry to it, only instead of the knee-deep snow on the ground and dark skies when he’d started with the Cold War in full flight, there was sunshine all around and hope in the White House.
114
EAST CHINA SEA
Fox was glad to be rid of the secret protocol. It had propelled the day to a strange place, ultimately serving not just to set Kate and Jacob free, but Fox, too. He watched the little torn-up pieces float away in the sea.
“You know,” Gammaldi said, “you could have just done that at the Elysée Palace.”
“What?”
“Destroyed it. Burned it.”
“Okay, well next time, you’re in charge.”
“Cool.”
They sat on the edge of the flight deck of the New York, the sound of the waves breaking against its mighty hull. They were both silent. The medic who’d patched Fox up brought them a thermos of coffee, and passed over a small bottle of Scotch. It was a moonlit night and Fox felt as awake as he ever had. They sat on the deck, blankets over their shoulders. The liquored-up coffee was good.
The Osprey was being fuelled to take them to Japan
, where they’d be flown back to the States. Hutchinson was on his mobile phone, leaning against the bridge structure.
Kate and Jacob sat huddled together, catching up on six months of being apart. Fox watched how they were with each other, thought about how she had been with him, and realised that he’d never truly had her. Their love somehow just always was—had always seemed—an ephemeral thing, there and gone again.
They locked eyes for a moment—an intense moment that said a lot about how they still felt about each other. Maybe. Let her walk away. That much he knew. He had to let her go.
She came over and asked him to walk with her. They stood over at the starboard edge of the large flight deck.
For a while, neither said anything.
“I knew there was something that I couldn’t explain,” Fox said. “The way you’ve been … Ah, hell. What about the flight to Shanghai—during the flight, you knew—you knew then that it was goodbye? That was goodbye for you?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. Maybe she said goodbye back at the farmhouse. Maybe what happened on the flight was just to make sure.
“I coudn’t see it then, but I knew … I guess I knew…” Fox said, watching the water below. “What is essential is invisible to the eye, I guess. You can only see true with the heart, so trust it, whatever it says. I respect that.”
She started to cry.
“Lachlan…”
“What about—?” he faced her. “What about last night? What about the past few months?”
“That was a memory,” she said, between tears. “That was … It was so nice … You have to understand.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?”
“I tried to tell you.” she said.
They looked over to Jacob, his back to them.
“Well, good luck to him.” Fox said. “It’ll be like me all over again, you’ll keep doing this.”
