by Greg Rucka
The list of aliases attributed to her numbered seventeen, and of them, I recognized only two. One of them was "Natasha." Nowhere was the name "Alena."
Under contacts was listed Danilov "Dan" Korckeva.
The list of murders was presented by date, from earliest attributed to most recent. It stretched back a little over ten years, and racked up thirty-three bodies. Seven of them had been killed in the last three years, which pretty much threw that section of the file into question. I'd been with her night and day for the last three years, and if she'd murdered anybody during that time, I'd like to think I would have noticed. Of the murders she was accused of committing prior to our association, only two of the crimes matched what she herself had told me, and, in the main, I was more inclined to believe her than anything Matthew Bowles put in front of me.
The analysis, at the end, concluded that Drama was still considered to be active, and had taken on a partner. There was a hyperlink embedded in the document, to a new entry on "Patriot."
"Oh, c'mon," Bowles said. "You know you want to."
The link jumped the file to a new page, with a new heading and a new photo. The photo was of me, excellent quality, though a little small, and, as with Alena's, nearly four years out-of-date. My entry followed the same format as hers, though this time many of the lines had been filled in, most of the time correctly. My distinguishing characteristics included the thin scar along my left cheek, and the fact that I required the use of corrective lenses.
According to the file, I'd done a lot of traveling in the last three years. I'd visited Sao Paulo and Jakarta and Tokyo and Glasgow. I'd been in Vienna and Stockholm and Brussels and Cairo. I'd apparently stopped briefly in Quito. According to the file, I'd never stayed long in any of the locations.
Just long enough each time to commit a murder, before moving on. "They call you Patriot because you're one of the only members of The Ten they've actually pulled a full bio on," Bowles told me. "Date of birth and education and, of course, your military service. The honorable discharge, that was the thing that did it. That's why they call you Patriot."
"I don't know that anyone is calling me anything," I said.
"Sure you do. You're on the list, Atticus. You're one of The Ten. Congratulations."
I stared at him, trying to find the angle. There was no reason to believe that the document was legitimate. It could have easily been manufactured by Bowles, or more likely, by someone working for Bowles. Just a tool to put me off balance, prepared solely to be used in this interrogation, to provide him with a psychological edge.
It was also just barely possible that the document was legitimate. That, through one machination or another, Atticus Kodiak had been presented to Interpol as an assassin-for-hire. I had no doubt that the crimes listed had actually occurred, and in that case, it would have been a small matter to manufacture the evidence that linked me to these murders. We were talking about The Ten, after all; we were talking about people like Alena and Oxford. When they did their work, they left little behind in the way of evidence. For them, supposition and rumor were often all that existed to tie their presence to the crime.
Bowles arched his left eyebrow in amusement. "You think I made this up?"
"No," I said.
"Good."
"I think you're too busy being someone else's errand boy," I said. "You probably had a lackey do it back at the White House."
"I'm in the private sector now, Atticus."
"You weren't when you recruited Illya."
"Having trouble recalling that name, actually."
"So who are you working for?" I asked. "Who is it who's pulling your strings, giving you your orders? Someone in the administration? Someone connected to it?"
He rocked back in his chair in mock surprise. "You've got questions?"
"Bushels of them. I want to know who, and I want to know where, and I might even go after the why, if I feel like it."
"Why?"
"Cold Spring." I looked past Bowles, to Sean, still seated on the couch. If he'd moved at all, I couldn't tell. "Why this guy and his gun-buddies Grant and Mark tried to kill me. Why the second team went after the safe house. Questions like that. After the thing with Oxford, it was supposed to be finished, Matt. You'd pulled the plug. You said that was that."
At the mention of the gunfight, Sean's right hand moved slightly, started up towards his shoulder. He arrested it, dropped it back into his lap. The eyefuck that had been at an eleven stayed steady and straight, and it struck me that it was his act, his part in these proceedings. Whether or not he actually hated my guts for shooting him, I couldn't tell, but I wouldn't have blamed him if he did.
"Does it ache?" I asked him. "Because of the cold?"
"There was a lot of blood on the ground," Sean remarked. "Some of it was yours."
"Some of it was. But none of it was because of you."
Bowles moved his right hand, waving it slightly back in Sean's direction, keeping him from retorting. He needn't have bothered. Sean didn't seem at all inclined to take the bait.
"You've got so many questions," Bowles told me. "I have only one: Where is she?"
I creased my brow. "Drama?"
"Yes. Where is she, Patriot?"
"Fuck if I know," I said. "Haven't seen her since that clusterfuck of yours three years ago."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Not really, no."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know," I said, and it sounded honest because it was honest.
"We need to talk to her," Bowles said. "You bring her in, we can do a deal for the two of you."
"A deal?"
Bowles nodded.
"I'm trying to guess what that would be," I said. "All I can come up with is two head shots for the price of one."
"What happened in Cold Spring was a mistake. Let's move past that. It was fallout from Oxford, that's all it was. An overzealous mistake. Orders got confused, wires got crossed. It was a mistake."
"You're right," I agreed. "It was."
He missed my meaning entirely, continuing. "We're trying to correct that. We've been trying to correct that for the last few years, here. But you and Drama, the two of you up and vanished. How were we going to make it right when we couldn't even find you guys to do it?"
"So you make it right by beating me, cuffing me, and then dragging me into the middle of the woods to ask some questions?"
"If I'd just come knocking on your door back in Whitefish all alone, you'd have been happy to talk? With you blaming me for what happened in Cold Spring, like you just said?"
"I put in the passport application for a reason."
"You wanted us to find you, I get that. What you don't seem to get is that you're one of The Ten, Atticus. You're one of the motherfucking Ten, you're one of the most lethal, most dangerous, most skilled professional assassins working in the world today. You're Oxford, Atticus. You're Drama. You've become the person that-back when your head was on straight and you protected people for a living instead of whacking them-scared you so bad you would pee yourself."
"Flatterer," I said.
"So you can understand why I might be suspicious of your motives, how I might think going to meet you by myself would be a good way to end up quickly dead."
"I put the application in for a reason," I repeated.
"Because you have questions."
I moved my cuffed hands up and touched my nose with an index finger.
"Back where we started," Bowles said. "Where is Drama?"
"I told you, I don't know. Who wants us dead? Who was it who put Sean here and his Soldier of Fortune buddies on us?"
Bowles shook his head, growing aggravated. "Not going to work like that."
"If it's someone in the current administration, it's someone pretty high up but not high-profile. Someone with enough influence to shut down any media attention about what happened that morning in Cold Spring, at the least. How many dead? Two at the Citgo and another six or so at t
he safe house? That really should have made the news, don't you think? Someone had to dance pretty damn quick to hush it all up."
Bowles shook his head again. "Where is she, Atticus?"
"You want something for nothing," I said. "You've got me cuffed and beaten here, you think I'm going to just give up the only bargaining chip I have?"
"Yes," he said. "I think you will."
Sean and his buddy on the couch got to their feet.
"You're not going to beat it out of me," I told Bowles.
"You are an arrogant son of a bitch," he snapped, suddenly furious. "You're standing on nothing, you realize that? You're standing on fucking thin air, you're the goddamn coyote in those cartoons the second before he realizes he's off the cliff, you're just too damn stupid or stubborn to realize that gravity's got you by the balls. You cannot beat this thing, don't you get it? You're one of The Ten, now, you've got no friends, you've got nothing. I make one call, every cop in five hundred miles comes hunting for you. I make a second one, the FBI joins the chase."
The one who wasn't Sean moved to the hall, called out a "hey." Almost instantly, the two he'd been speaking with when he went to fetch the water emerged from the kitchen. Like the others, they were Caucasians, mid-to-late thirties, wearing more denim and flannel. The one who wasn't Sean motioned them to join us.
Bowles got out of his chair, closing the lid of his laptop. "You're going to give her up. You can save yourself a lot of discomfort if you do it now."
"Who gave the order?" I asked. "Who sent you here?"
"Take him outside," Bowles told Sean.
"A name," I told him. "Just give me the name, I'll give you what you want."
Bowles shot a glance at me, ripe with disgust.
"Even if I gave it to you, Atticus, you wouldn't be able to do a damn thing with it," Matthew Bowles said.
CHAPTER
THREE
When he said, "Take him outside," what Bowles actually meant was take him outside, strip him down, and then beat the living shit out of him, preferably by knocking him down in the snow over and over again. It meant don't speak to him, and it meant don't do anything that will keep him from talking when he eventually decides to, and it meant take your time, because the cold is frankly more effective than your feet or your fists will be, but all three in concert, that should do the trick quite nicely.
It meant that bringing a bucket of water from the bathroom and throwing it on him might also be a good idea, just to help things along. When they moved to grab me, I went for Bowles's laptop and broke the nose of the guy who'd brought me water with it. Then I tried to kill one of the others by ramming the corner of the computer into his trachea. He moved, and I missed, and hit him high on the sternum instead, and since I was having to deal with the three others at the same time, I don't fault myself for failing. I got a kick into the side of someone's knee, and had the gratification of hearing him cry out before Sean tackled me, and then I lost the laptop.
There followed a dog-pile, and it took all four of them to lift me up and get me out into the night and the cold and the snow, and they dropped me twice because, unlike back in Whitefish, I felt no need to be nice about it. I got a glimpse of thick trees and a clear, star-filled sky when they finally hauled me outside, and there wasn't a hint of light pollution, and wherever we were, I knew I could make a lot of noise and no one who cared would hear it.
I hoped to God that Alena knew where I was, that she was out there, somewhere, armed and ready and waiting and with a plan that could pit her against seven and bring her out on top. It was the walking patrol she'd have to worry about first; once she targeted the house, she wouldn't want anyone at her back.
Sean and the others pinned me in the snow, knees on my neck and back, forcing me facedown. The snow was deep, maybe three to four feet in places, and it stole the heat out of me immediately. One of the heavies had demonstrated the foresight to bring some clothing shears, and they used those to cut my shirt and pants off me. It was better than using a knife, at least, and they didn't break any skin. They left me my underwear, that was all. Adrenaline and fear notwithstanding, I was shivering before they actually started in to work.
Then they used the bucket, and the bastards filled it with hot water before dumping it on me, which made the cold all the worse. The water in it probably hadn't been that hot, but it didn't need to be. It felt scalding all the same.
They worked me over one at a time. They stayed away from my face for the most part, not out of concern for my rakish good looks, but more out of desire to protect their hands, even though they all wore gloves. When I tried to stand they were quick to put me down again, on my back or my knees or my face. Mostly, they used their fists, though the one who wasn't Sean threw a couple of kicks at the start, one of which caught me hard on the hip, almost exactly where I'd been shot. Remembered pain lanced my middle and down my legs, and the one who did it liked the reaction he got so much, he got ready to do it again, but Sean put a stop to that. I couldn't tell if that was because Sean was playing the good cop in this routine, or because he was afraid a kick would do too much damage and might keep me from talking, or because he had less of a taste for the affair than the others.
Whatever the reason, it didn't keep him from delivering a savage jab to my kidneys when his turn came. What they did to me hurt.
It hurt a lot, and in many different ways.
It made me angry, and it humiliated me, and it was, of course, just plain old painful as hell.
None of that was the worst thing.
The worst thing was the doubt that began to creep in as the beating seemed to go on and on, as the time stretched and contracted all at once. As their gloved fists beat me again and again, as my skin, raw with cold, stung and split and broke.
She wasn't coming.
Either she couldn't or she wouldn't, and it was the wouldn't that had the hooks, that dug into my mind and my thoughts, tangling itself until I couldn't silence it or ignore it. Nothing else had weight in its face, nothing else mattered; not everything we had between us, not all of the things we had shared and said. I was seeing the display on Bowles's laptop, the file less than five months old, telling me all the things I'd been a fool to let myself forget.
She was a professional, she was one of The Ten, she was Drama, and couldn't it have been an act all along? Why should she care about what happened to me? Why would she care about what had happened to a woman who was my friend, not hers?
Why would she risk her life and her liberty for these things?
She had warned me. She had tried to convince me not to do this, not to draw them out, not to give myself to them. She wasn't coming, that was what she'd been trying to tell me. I was on my own.
She wasn't coming.
They made me doubt her.
For that, I hated them more than anything else. After a while, I don't know how long, they quit, and Bowles emerged from the house with a cup of something that steamed invitingly in his hands. He'd put his overcoat and his gloves back on, as if to demonstrate all the more to me that he was warm and I was not. He crunched through the disturbed snow to where I was shivering and bleeding, dropped down to his haunches, and waited for me to meet his eyes. It took some will to do it, because mostly I was considering passing out, but also because I was having a hard time focusing. The ambient light had turned the snow a blue that seemed to rise up around where I rested. Where my blood had spilled it had turned black.
"Where is she, Atticus?"
My teeth were chattering so much it was hard to say the words.
"Who gave the order?" I asked.
He shook his head sadly, then poured out half of his hot coffee on my still-bound hands. The heat exploded through the numbness, sent sparks and shards into the bone, and I screamed, tried to lunge for him. He'd expected it, backing up, and I went down face-first, my hands still burning with the cold, with the heat.
I lifted my head from the snow, seeing him standing a foot away, seeing the four ot
hers gathered outside the front door of the cabin, the warm light spilling from within.
Bowles moved his mug so that he held it over my head, tilted it slightly, as if readying to dump the remaining contents onto my neck and back.
"In a few more minutes, we're going to take you back inside," he told me. "We're going to let you warm up. We're going to clean you up. We might even let you nod off, go unconscious.
"Then we're going to take you back out here, and we'll do all of this again. Except this time, I won't bring a mug of coffee. I'll bring a fucking kettle hot off the stove, do you understand me, you stupid piece of shit?"
My chattering teeth wouldn't let me respond, so I nodded.
"You tell me right now, you tell me where Drama is, where I can find her, and this is over, it's finished, we'll be done. That's all you have to do, Atticus, that's all you have to tell me. Where is she?"
"Why?" I asked. It took effort just to get that much out.
He looked honestly disgusted by the question.
I shook my head, realizing he'd misunderstood me. They needed us both, yes, I'd gotten that much, I understood that much. It was why they'd hit the safe house at the same time they'd ambushed me. They were trying to kill us, that wasn't news, not to him, not to me.
It was harder to say it the second time. "Why us?"
Bowles wavered in my vision, then shook his head, declining to answer. This time, I was sure he'd understood what I was asking, but even now, he wasn't willing to give me the motive. Whatever crime Alena or I or we together had committed, whatever the threat was that either of us alone or together might pose, he wasn't about to explain it.
He moved the mug, let another dribble of his coffee spatter out onto my back. I heard a scream, and I thought that it might be mine.
Then I heard it a second time, and I knew it wasn't.
It rolled out of the trees and the darkness from somewhere behind me, awful with fear and pain. Bowles, Sean, all of them froze in place.
