“I will,” he said cheerfully. “It’s what I do. I kick doors. Back at headquarters? Everybody calls me Door-Kicker Chip.”
“Well, Door-Kicker, one more kick like the last one, and we’ll have no hope of outrunning the bad guys, ’cause neither one of us will be able to walk.”
“Did I mention I’m a hell of a crawler? I hold the all-time FBI record for the hundred-meter crawl. Twenty-nine point three seconds.”
She snorted. “Stop, already. I’m trying to trust you, but the pathological lies don’t make it easy.”
“Oops. Bad strategy on my part, I now see.” Dawtry reached toward the desk and plucked a coin—a two-euro piece—from a saucer where O’Malley had dumped her pocket change the night before. “I like these,” he said. “The two-color effect? It’s like a penny wrapped in a quarter, inside a nickel.” He flipped the coin, caught it, and slapped it onto the desktop. “Call it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I need to know what I’m calling it for. What do I stand to win?”
He raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “No Country for Old Men—good job.” For a nerdy scientist, she knew a lot of movie lines. “You stand to win everything. Now call it.”
She lifted her chin, slightly but defiantly. “Heads.”
He uncovered the coin slowly. “Well done,” he said. “You get the mattress. I’ll take the floor.”
An hour later, another sigh wafted down toward the floor, accompanied by the militant rustle of sheets and blankets and shifting pillows. “Hey,” she said softly. “Are you awake?”
“Of course I’m awake. Who could sleep through all that racket you’re making up there?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I thought maybe you were. You’ve been so still and quiet. You haven’t moved once.”
“Not much point in thrashing on a tile floor. It’s already as comfortable as it’s ever gonna get.”
“This is stupid,” she said. “You might as well get in the bed.”
“No, no—I’m fine down here.” He paused. “I have friends who’ll argue the merits of carpet or linoleum or hardwood. But me? I’m a tile man from way back.”
“Oh good grief,” she said. “Just come on. If you were going to ravish me, you’d have done it already.”
“You’re a quick study, Megan; I don’t care what anybody says.”
“Shut up and get off the floor before I change my mind.” He hauled himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. “But don’t get any ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“You know very well what kind of ideas.”
He did, but he knew better than to go down that road. “I’m on duty here. No hanky-panky while on duty. FBI regs.”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely. Section 438, Part 17, Subsection B-3.”
“Bullshitter.”
“Okay, it might not be in B-3. It might be A-9. But no hanky-panky. We can hang a blanket from the ceiling, if it’ll ease your mind. Like Clark Gable did to protect Claudette Colbert’s virtue in that old road-trip comedy. I forget the name. She was a rich runaway bride. He was a tabloid journalist chasing a story.”
“Inconceivable,” she said. “It Happened One Night. He called the blanket ‘the walls of Jericho.’ I need you to tell me the truth. You aren’t really a federal agent, are you? You’re a movie critic.”
“Actuarially speaking,” he said, “I am a federal agent. You show me your telescope, I’ll show you my badge.”
“Stop.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smoothed the covers and stretched out on top of them, at the edge of the mattress, several respectful inches away from her. “Good night, ma’am.”
“Good night, John Boy.”
A sleepless hour later, he heard her turn toward him.
“Chip?”
“Yes, miss?”
“Are you awake?”
“No, miss. I talk in my sleep. Done it my whole life. Gets me into trouble sometimes.”
“Chip?”
“Yes, miss?”
“Where are your people?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “most of them are back at headquarters, trying to figure out what’s going on and who’s behind it. Some are headed this way, though. I hope.”
“Oh. Oh my. Well, that’s good to hear.” She was silent for a moment, but only a moment. “Chip?”
“Still right here, miss,” he said. “Ain’t much of any place else I could be.” If she caught the African Queen reference, she didn’t let on, and he felt irrationally disappointed by that.
“I didn’t mean your colleagues. I meant your family.”
“Ah. My mistake.” His eyes scanned the ceiling, as if it might be etched with a map and a family tree. “My parents live in Charleston. I’ve got a sister in Savannah. Two nephews in New York.” He hesitated.
“Didn’t you say you have an older brother, too?”
“Had. I had an older brother. In New York. He, uh . . . he died when the North Tower came down on 9/11.”
He heard a soft gasp and felt her hand on his arm. “My God, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too. They say . . .” He stopped, took a deep breath, blew it out. “They say he helped a lot of other people get out. He went back to look for stragglers, and then . . . He’s the reason I do what I do. He’s the reason I got out of the army and went into counterterrorism. He’s the reason I took you seriously.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his arm. She hesitated. “Anybody else? A wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?” She felt herself blushing at the nosy question.
He shook his head. “No, no, and no. I’ve had a couple close calls with marriage—one woman wanted me more than I wanted her, the other wanted me less than I wanted her—but nobody at the moment.”
She nodded, unreasonably relieved at this information. “Have you told your parents and sisters to get out? To go somewhere? You know, just in case the tsunami really does happen?”
“I can’t, Megan.”
She sat up and turned toward him, sitting cross-legged. She was wearing only a T-shirt, and he was grateful that her legs remained discreetly under the covers. “Why not?”
“I’d be disclosing national-security information.”
“But I know, and I don’t have a security clearance.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’ll have to reprogram your memory when we get back to the States.”
“I’m serious. You wouldn’t have to tell them why. Just tell them to go somewhere.”
“Oh, right. ‘Hi, Mom. Hi, Sis. I’ve been thinking—y’all need a vacation. Right now. In the Rockies. Until I decide you’ve relaxed enough.’ Something like that?”
“You wouldn’t have to be that obvious about it.”
“You don’t know my family,” he said. “Takes a two-by-four upside the head to get their attention. We don’t do subtle.” He waited a beat. “What about you? Where are your people?”
She didn’t answer.
“Megan?”
“I don’t have any people,” she said.
“Come on, everybody has people.”
“My parents were killed by a drunk driver when I was twelve. I spent my adolescence in foster homes.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it sucked. Still does. I was an only child, and I don’t have a child. I do have an ex-husband, which I guess counts for something, but he’s on the West Coast, so I don’t need to worry about him. So in this context, at least, I have no people.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to . . . I just was wondering who you might be worrying about.”
“You mean besides the fifty million people who might be killed by this thing?”
“Yeah, besides them. One death is a tragedy; fifty million is a statistic. Who said that? Hitler?”
“Stalin,” she said. “The twentieth century’s other great humanitarian.” He saw her turn toward the window, but the light was too faint to read her features. “Grace,” she said.
/> “Excuse me?”
“My friend Grace,” she said, still looking away. “She’s my people. My best friend. Gracie lives in Rehoboth Beach. She’s a teacher. A poet. She and her husband tried for ten years to get pregnant. Did the whole science-project thing—five rounds of IVF. Nothing. Finally, they gave up. Six months later, bam—she got pregnant. Her baby’s due in three weeks.” He heard her swallow. “They live in this little bungalow they restored. Three blocks off the beach. According to Boyd’s modeling, the wave would be twenty-six meters high when it hit Rehoboth Beach. Eighty feet.” She swiveled toward him. “There. Does that count—does Gracie count—as a tragedy?”
“Yes. Of course she does.”
“There’s also Herman, in Baltimore. The guy who got me excited about astronomy. If the wave hit on a clear evening, he’d be down at the harbor, showing people Saturn or Venus or Jupiter through his telescope. Just sharing his love of the night sky.” He heard her draw a deep, ragged breath. “I’m scared, Chip.”
“I know. You’d be crazy not to be.”
“Are you scared?”
“It’s against the regs,” he said. “And hell, yeah, I’m scared. Scared shitless.” He hesitated. “My sister has two kids. A boy and a girl. I’m . . .” He had to clear his throat. “I’m their . . . uh . . . godfather.”
He felt her hand tracing his arm, felt her fingers entwine with his. Then he felt her unfold and stretch out beside him, press against him, her head on his shoulder, her other hand on his chest.
Don’t move, he thought. Was the thought directed at himself or at her? After a moment he realized that he was holding his breath. Breathe, dumb-ass, he instructed himself. He forced himself to take slow, steady breaths, even though he had started slipping into oxygen debt. Little by little, breath by breath, he made up the debt, his chest rising and falling evenly. He had synched his breathing with hers, he realized, although he hadn’t done it on purpose. Once he noticed it, he liked it, and if she minded, she didn’t say so.
In fact, to his astonishment, she seemed to be falling asleep. She twitched, the way a napping dog sometimes does—the way Daisy, his golden retriever, had done when Dawtry was a kid—and he smiled in the darkness. Another twitch, and she began to snore: soft snores, dainty snores, which almost made him laugh out loud. And then she shifted, burrowing against him, wrapping herself around him as if he were one of those oversize body pillows. God help me, Dawtry thought, careful not to move so much as a nanometer.
He suspected it was going to be a long, sleepless night, and he wished he could use his phone—the Android chess app was surprisingly good, and he was halfway through a hard-fought match with Benny and long overdue in making his next move. But for a variety of reasons, he didn’t want to risk awakening O’Malley. For one thing, it had been a long time—too long—since he’d shared a bed, even chastely, with a woman, any woman, let alone one so smart, strong, sassy, fearless, and, frankly, sexy. There was another, more practical reason not to use his phone: even though he’d bought three spare PowerCores—external battery chargers—at the DC airport, he didn’t know how long he’d be here. No, best to lie still and conserve power.
She was no longer snoring. Now, her sleep sounds were more sporadic, more random, more vulnerable, somehow, and they reminded him of his sister’s children—his niece and nephew—when they were babies. She sighed. She made a faint cooing sound. She murmured a few garbled syllables into his chest.
A half-remembered poem from college found its way into Dawtry’s head somehow. It was by the Irish poet Yeats, one of his favorites, and he worked to retrieve it from his memory’s deep storage. Word by word, line by line, he gradually reconstructed the poem’s first two stanzas. When he felt confident of them, he recited the words aloud, or, rather, a-quiet: whispering the lines like some protective spell or intercessory prayer, one that might extend to his distant niece and nephew, yes, but might somehow shield this remarkable woman breathing upon his chest as well:
Once more the storm is howling, and half-hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on . . .
It was only when he reached the last line of the passage—as the words left his lips—that he was struck by the relevance of the final phrase. Stunned, he repeated it: “Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.”
He must have said it louder the second time, because O’Malley stirred against him. “Hmm?” she murmured drowsily.
“Sshh,” he soothed. “Sshh.”
Three hours later, he woke with a start, his alarm chiming. He made his usual move to sit up, but he found himself hampered by something. Hampered by . . . a woman sprawled across his chest. Her arm encircled his neck, and a bare, muscled thigh angled across his stomach. Holy cow, he thought, and set about untangling himself. But where to begin? The arm would be easier to remove, he reckoned . . . but what if she slept through that maneuver, only to awaken with his hand on her thigh? Danger, Will Robinson, he heard a robotic inner voice warning him. Awkward, but perhaps safest, to wake her without moving her.
“Uh . . . Megan?” No response. “Hey, Megan. Time to get up.” Still no response. A good sleeper, he thought approvingly—the woman he’d lived with once had been a restless, thrashy bedmate—but at the moment, O’Malley’s comatose state was a problem. He could shout into her ear, of course, but that struck him as wrong, rude, and frightening. There would be time aplenty for fear soon, he suspected.
Dawtry’s right arm lay just outside the arc of her embrace. Slowly he raised it, crooking his elbow. With exquisite care—These things must be done del-i-cately, he silently coached himself in a Wicked Witch of the West voice—he eased his index finger toward her head, then grazed the edge of her ear lightly. She twitched slightly, and he smiled, reminded of summer-camp shenanigans of a similar nature, although those generally involved filling the unsuspecting sleeper’s hand with shaving cream or worse things before starting to tickle. He brushed her ear again, and again she twitched—harder this time—and reached up to scratch her ear, her hand almost colliding with his as he pulled it away. Do I dare, and do I dare? he wondered. I do, I do. Third time’s a charm. This time, instead of the top of the ear, he touched the downy hairs just in front of it, wiggling his finger slightly. This time her whole body jerked, and Dawtry barely managed to return his arm to his side before she raised her head off his chest.
Dawtry feigned sleep. “Sweet Jesus, O’Malley,” he heard her whisper, then felt her easing away from him—the arm from around his neck, the leg from across his belly—as slowly and surreptitiously as he had conducted the wake-up maneuver. Dawtry’s alarm was still chiming, and he suspected he couldn’t play possum much longer. But before he could “awaken,” she got out of bed, fumbled with his phone, and silenced the alarm. Then he heard the bathroom door close, and he realized she might appreciate a minute more of privacy.
Soon the toilet flushed, the bathroom door opened with an exaggerated rattle of the knob, and O’Malley said, “Hey. Sleeping Beauty.”
He grunted and shifted—stirred but not shaken, he thought with an inward smile—but did not yet open his eyes.
“Yo,” she said, louder. “Hola. Buenos días, señor. Bonjour, monsieur. Guten Morgen, mein Herr—Achtung!” With that, she poked him in the ribs.
He jerked. “Huh?” He stared wildly around, then sat up. “I’m awake, I’m awake. What’s happening?”
“Some watchdog,” she said. “Is sleeping your superpower?”
He rubbed his face briskly with both hands. “One of them. Wow—what time is it? I guess I forgot to set my alarm.”
“No, you didn’t. I turned it off, since you didn’t show any inclination to.”
“Ah. Thanks.” He sat up, excused himself, and stepped into the bathroom. When he emerged, perhaps three minutes later, he was toweling his hair. O’Malley sniffed the air. “Did you just take the world’s fastest shower?”
“Third fastest,” he said. “I wasted preciou
s seconds brushing my teeth.”
“How did you brush your teeth? You always carry a toothbrush?”
“That’s not a toothbrush in my pocket. I’m just glad to see you.” She rolled her eyes and groaned. “No, of course I don’t carry a toothbrush. I used yours.”
“You what?”
“Kidding, kidding. But I did steal a dab of your toothpaste.” He swept his tongue behind his upper lip. “Don’t you hate it when your teeth start feeling all furry?”
“Ewww.”
“My sentiments exactly.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re burning daylight here—or we will be, once the sun actually comes up—so grab your stuff and let’s go take that big white bird.”
“Wait,” Dawtry said when O’Malley fished the key fob from her pocket.
“What do you mean ‘wait’?” She aimed the fob at the SUV, but he snatched the gizmo from her hand.
“I mean wait, as in ‘don’t do that,’” he said. He put the key in the lock of the driver’s door and twisted. “I don’t want the horn beeping and the lights flashing.”
“Aren’t you the considerate one,” she said. Was there a hint of sarcasm in her voice? More than a hint, he decided.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m the one who doesn’t want to call attention to us.” He opened the back door and set her suitcase on the seat, then closed the door with a soft click. O’Malley reached for the handle of the driver’s door. “I’ll drive,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said. “My ankle’s a lot better today.”
“I know, but why push it? Let me drive.”
“You’re not on the rental contract.”
“Excuse me? Not on the rental contract?”
“Exactly.”
“I drove yesterday, remember?”
“Yeah, but that was an emergency.”
“And this isn’t?” He held out his hands, exasperated and beseeching. “Let me get this straight. There are people trying to kill you—trying to kill us—and what you’re worried about is the fine print on the rental contract?” She shrugged but didn’t budge, so he barreled ahead. “You’re turning it in with no brakes and a missing mirror, and you’re concerned about an unauthorized driver?” He was on the brink of reminding her what had happened to her first rental car in the Canaries—she’d told him about its tumble into the sea—but the glint in her eyes and the set of her jaw muscles made him reconsider. Dawtry allowed himself a grunt of frustration. “You don’t make anything easy, do you, O’Malley? Look, I’m not being chivalrous or chauvinist or sexist or whatever other petty thing you think I’m being. What I’m being is careful. On the chance—the tiny, tiny chance—that somebody comes after us, I need to drive.” She glared. “Unless you’ve had training in tactical driving?”
Wave of Terror Page 17
