by Greg Rucka
It had been at their second face-to-face meeting when she finally learned his name. Another hotel, the Dukes, in London, and Tohir had invited her to meet him there at the bar. She’d been staying at the Athenaeum when the invitation came, and she knew then that he had been having her watched, which was just what she and Heath had expected. Tohir had thanked her for her help, bought her a drink that was very, very strong, and then invited her upstairs. They had sex for the first time in a room overlooking the street, the curtains open, sunlight painting them as they collapsed together atop the bed.
Nessuno passes a television in the lobby, shrill punditry talking about WilsonVille and terrorism right here at home. Stories about what happened in California still live above the fold on the complimentary copies of USA Today. There were American flags flying everywhere during the cab ride here. When Nessuno had passed the warning to Heath, she hadn’t known much, just that something was planned; likely target, a theme park. The intelligence had seemed pitiful to her even then, and it seems somewhat miraculous to her now that it was of any use at all. When she looks at the flags, listens to the news, she thinks she should feel something more than what she does. The part of her that is trying so hard to remember Petra Nessuno feels only a distant sadness, a disconnect. Elisabetta Villanova feels nothing but scorn.
Her new cell phone says it’s eleven minutes past seven in the morning when she reaches her room, and the clock on the nightstand disagrees by only two minutes. Nessuno hates the room even more than she hates the hotel, cheap furniture and art on the wall that’s bought by the yard. She checks the bed, and the bottom sheet is not fitted and does not cover the end of the mattress. She thinks about changing into workout clothes and trying to sweat out the rest of the drunk with a run or weights, starts to get changed to do just that, and then finds herself sitting on the floor in her underwear.
Here it comes, she thinks.
The tears are sudden and fat. She sits there, just like that, until she’s run dry, and for a little while longer, too. She cries silently, trying to purge a toxic mix of self-loathing and self-pity and relief and anxiety, stored over twenty-eight months filled with every striation and nuance of fear. Feeling the rough carpet beneath her skin, clawing at it with her fingernails until she’s pulling threads.
When it’s over, she rises, goes to the bathroom and washes her face and drinks more water, watching her reflection as she does so. Her face, hers alone, and that is how she feels at this moment: very alone. She wonders if that wasn’t why Heath was so insistent that she get laid. Or maybe it’s Heath’s way of telling her to take her body back. Or maybe Heath just thinks sex is the answer to everything. Right now, Nessuno can’t see sex as anything other than just another tool in the toolbox.
She leaves the bathroom, opens the door to the hall long enough to hang the DO NOT DISTURB, then closes the door and locks it. She pulls the blackout curtains until only one line of sunlight stabs the darkness, then strips off the rest of her clothes and climbs into the bed. She tells herself that when she wakes up, she won’t have to be afraid, or confused, or adrift, or anything. She tells herself that these are the bends, and they will pass.
She tells herself that when she wakes up, she’ll be alone, and safe, and Elisabetta Villanova will be a memory.
Harrington uses the device that isn’t a View-Master to scan and check her retinas against their records. It’s a HIIDE, a type of handheld interagency identity detection equipment, and Nessuno has seen—even used—one before, but never a model like this. One more thing that’s gotten an upgrade while she’s away. Harrington presses a couple of buttons on the monitor side, then shows the results to Danso, who nods. He sets the unit down and smiles at her for the first time, sliding the cardboard box across to her.
“You’re all clear, Chief,” Harrington says. “Your RP.”
She lifts the lid off her reintegration pack, the box in which she sealed her life away more than two years ago, takes a moment to look before removing the items one by one. Her CAC, the common access card that serves as her military ID, that says she is Petra Nessuno, CW2. Her wallet, with credit cards, her driver’s license, all of them agreeing with the name on her CAC, all of them kept current courtesy of Heath and others in BI. There’s three hundred and eleven dollars in the wallet. Her Saint Nicholas medal on its gold chain. Her cell phone, battery long, long dead, and now looking antiquated as hell, all the more so in comparison to the latest-generation smartphone Elisabetta Villanova left behind in Tohir’s bedroom. Her knife, a Mel Pardue folding stiletto, silver fittings and fluted mother-of-pearl scales with a pearl-inlay thumb stud. She puts the Saint Nicholas medal around her neck first.
“We have your orders, Chief,” Danso says. “Report Fort Belvoir, building one-oh-eight, room three hundred, thirteen hundred hours tomorrow for debrief by Captain Heath. Transport at your discretion.”
“Fort Belvoir, building one-oh-eight, room three hundred, thirteen hundred,” Nessuno repeats, now stowing her wallet, her knife, in her pockets. She doesn’t know what to do with the cell phone, finds herself holding it in one hand. She’ll need a new one. Danso and Harrington have already cleaned up the photographs and papers, the HIIDE back in its case, and they’re on their feet. She rises reflexively with them. Both men offer her a hand, one after the other.
“Welcome back to the world,” Harrington says.
They leave, Danso exchanging a nod and a grin with Warlock, and Nessuno finds herself just standing there, dead cell phone in her hand.
“Not the homecoming you imagined?” Warlock asks.
“No.”
“It never is.” He gives her an easy smile, and then, he, too, offers her his hand. “I’m Jad. Nice to meet you, Petra.”
The phone wakes her, not the one on the nightstand but the secured mobile that Heath gave her after the debriefing at Belvoir. It doesn’t ring so much as whine, and the sound lances her dreams and jolts her awake in a guilty panic. She was dreaming of Tohir, and that only compounds the disorientation, the darkness of the room, the sheets in a tangle around her. She is in Tashkent, certain she’s been blown, that Tohir is holding her down and that every one of her fears has come to pass.
The phone cries for her attention again, and that’s what brings her back. She frees an arm, fumbles for the device, puts it to her ear as she thumbs the connection. It takes another moment before she can remember which name she should use.
“Nessuno, go,” she says. Her voice sounds like something crawled into her mouth and expired in her larynx.
“Get showered, get dressed, get down to the lobby,” Heath says. “I’m taking you to the house.”
“You said—”
“I fucking know what I said, all right? Your presence is required at the house. They want you listening in.”
Nessuno is sitting up now. The air conditioner has been running all along, and it turns the sweat on her skin cold.
“Why?”
“Fuck.” Heath leans on the f, an expression of her frustration. “They’ve got a million whys, Chief. They want to verify what he’s saying. They want an expert present. They want the operator who was next to him for a year and knows him better than anyone to listen to his bullshit and if it comes to it to look him in the eye and call him a liar. It doesn’t matter why. I said no, they said fuck you, Captain, this comes from the shiny on-high, and now I’m on my way to your hotel and you will be in the lobby and waiting for me when I arrive.”
Nessuno closes her eyes.
“Understood.”
She’s expecting Heath to kill the connection then and there, but there’s a pause.
“I’m sorry, Chief,” Heath says. “I tried.”
“Understood.”
The call ends.
Nessuno throws the phone across the room, into the mirror over the desk. The mirror shatters, and she appreciates the weak satisfaction that provides. She takes another moment, pushes hair off her forehead, then untangles herself from the sheets. The Sai
nt Nicholas medal bounces against her chest as she moves, and she puts the fingertips of one hand to it as she heads for the bathroom, the shower, and what will come next.
Praying for Saint Nicholas to protect Elisabetta Villanova and Petra Nessuno both from Vosil Tohir.
Chapter Eight
THE HOUSE IS outside of Leesburg, some thirty miles west of D.C., twenty from Gaithersburg. The driveway drops from the county road abruptly, past a screen of trees and around a slow bend that Bell knows is crammed with surveillance, human and electronic both, despite the fact that he doesn’t see anyone or anything. Four cars parked out front, two of them nose out, and both of those are big Ford Expeditions, black. Nose in is another Ford, a Taurus, painted the kind of tan that anyone who has ever changed a diaper can recognize immediately—and anyone who works in government can recognize it, too, but for entirely different reasons. The last car is a new Honda Civic, black, parked a few yards off to the side, as if intimidated by the presence of so much Detroit steel. It’s the only vehicle that would look inconspicuous, except for the company it’s keeping.
Bell thinks that there are too many fucking cars parked out front for a place full of people trying to keep a secret.
He swings his ride around, parks farther off to the side, nose also pointed out. He’s been given the keys to a Mustang convertible, but he’s driven top up, despite the glorious Virginia summer’s day. When he exits the car, he bashes his head against the door frame. He rubs the bump and uses that as an excuse to eyeball the area for a second time. The trees provide a nice screen from the road, but closer to the house they’ve been cut back, clearing the sight lines. The house itself is at least one hundred years old, beaten red clapboard and capped redbrick chimney, the curtains drawn in almost every window he can see. He’s not seeing motion or cameras, and he thinks the place looks like exactly what it is. The difference between hiding in plain sight in Hailey and hiding in plain sight here is almost painful to behold.
He makes his way over gravel that crunches beneath his sneakers to the door. He’s knocked once and is about to knock again when it’s opened by a wrinkle-faced old man with hair that’s passed silver and graduated straight to white. Bell, who stands over six feet, positively towers above the face looking up at him. The old man has both hands out of sight, and only one is on the doorknob, Bell knows.
“Steve send you?” the man says. The challenge phrase comes out with a smoker’s rasp.
“Sorry I’m running late,” Bell says. “Had to change a flat.”
The old man eyeballs him, weighing the confirmation, then grunts and steps back, and Bell steps forward into an entry hall where two men are lowering their weapons, one an MP7A1, the other a Benelli shotgun. Both are dressed plainclothes, T-shirts and blue jeans and hair long enough for Bell to know they’ve been at undercover work at least six months. One starts a muted conversation over his earpiece, never taking his eyes off Bell. The white-haired old man ignores everything and everyone, resumes his post on a wooden stool near the door. A small black-and-white video monitor rests at his elbow, showing a split view of the approach to the house, covering the exit from the county road and the drive. There’s another shotgun in easy reach.
The one on the earpiece asks, “Carrying?”
“Yeah.”
“No weapons in with him.”
“He try anything?” Bell asks.
He gets two shrugs in response, and the other guard points down the hall. “You go that way.”
Bell goes that way until he finds himself in a kitchen not that different from the one where his ex-wife served him iced tea less than seventy-two hours earlier. Another three men and the guns that go with them are here, the men in variants of the undercover garb he’s already seen in the hall, mostly running to jeans and tees, all of them Caucasian, and not a face that looks over thirty. Bell gets nods of acknowledgment rather than greeting, feels them sizing him up and evaluating. He doesn’t know them, and it’s anyone’s guess where they’re from, but Bell thinks probably DSS or the like rather than FBI or CIA. If a special deputy AG has been assigned to Tohir’s case they could even be federal marshals.
“There’s coffee,” one of them says, using his chin to indicate the coffeemaker on the counter. “It’s not entirely horrible.”
Bell laughs, goes to the sink and finds a dirty mug, which he proceeds to wash, then fill. There’s a window, and through it he can see yet another undercover, this one female, pretending to play with a German shepherd in the backyard. He wonders how far out the bubble stretches, just how dug in the defenses actually are. Inconspicuous or not, if anybody comes for Vosil Tohir, they’re going to have one hell of a time reaching him.
“Jad.”
He looks, and Steelriver is standing in the doorway off to his right, the entry to a hall running perpendicular to the one where Bell entered.
“Hey, Tom.”
Steelriver motions for Bell to follow him. Bell finishes his not-entirely-awful coffee before setting the mug back in the sink. They start back down the hall.
“Brought me in to give the play-by-play on the capture,” Steelriver says.
“They put you in the room?”
“Nah, but I got to watch the first couple rounds via the monitors. He’s not going down easily.”
“Who’s lead?”
“Some guy from the Company,” Steelriver says. “At least, he’s got the ball today. Name’s Wallford. That’s if you believe it when someone from CIA gives you a name.”
“I may know him.”
“Which would explain why he wants you in there.”
“He try anything?”
“Heatdish? Not yet, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He wasn’t out from surgery and recovered enough to start talking in earnest until yesterday afternoon, and he’s been restless ever since. Like he’s putting himself through his own physical therapy.”
“But he is talking?”
“Oh, he’s talking, but whether he’s saying anything, that’s something else entirely.”
They make a turn, passing another undercover, armed like all the rest, then they come to a stop at the end of the hall, a closed door. Bell takes the moment to pull the keys to his rental out of his pocket and drop them into Steelriver’s hand, who jangles them once in his palm.
“You got me a Mustang.”
“It was nothing.”
“The classic ones are better. This ain’t bad, though.” Steelriver jangles the keys once more, then claps Bell on his shoulder. “Keep your eye on that motherfucker. He’s going to try something.”
Bell knocks twice on the door, then opens it into what was once a spacious living or sitting room and is now the command-and-control for the safe house. Monitors have bred and multiplied in the space, including three flat-screen displays mounted on the far wall and easily another dozen of varying shapes and sizes elsewhere in the room. Images of the house’s exterior, the approaches; some of the cameras static, some of them scanning; all the pictures relayed in high def. He can see Tohir on one of the small screens, in what looks like a bedroom. Another monitor appears to be dedicated to radio traffic, and the whole apparatus is staffed by three more of the ubiquitous undercover agents, and all of them brimming with youth. Bell is starting to feel old.
The three on the monitors don’t spare him a glance, but the remaining three, standing in a cluster at the center of the room, watch him enter. Of them, Bell recognizes Wallford, but it’s the presence of Petra Nessuno that surprises him. He hadn’t thought he’d see her again, ever, and the fact that she’s here throws him for a moment.
“Chief,” he says.
She looks at him with those dark eyes that betray nothing. “Master Sergeant.”
The other one’s a woman, blond, with gravel-gray eyes, who gives him an eyeball and a slight nod before going back to the black three-ring binder she’s got balanced, open, in one hand. Nessuno’s gaze holds on Bell for a second longer, and then she, too, turns her attention to the pape
rwork. The room has the peculiar funk that comes from too many electronics and too many bodies and not enough fresh air. There are two empty pizza boxes open and discarded on the floor, and the trash can on this side of the monitor table is overflowing with empty bottles of water and Mountain Dew.
“Jad, nice catch.” Jerome Wallford is offering his hand, and Bell takes it. “Good to see you again. Thanks for coming in. So I understand you’ve met the chief. This is Captain Heath.”
The blonde grunts. “Hey.”
“Captain.”
“You know why you’re here?” Wallford asks. He’s got a young, pleasant face, a whip-lean body that makes the suit he’s wearing seem sized wrong, too long at the sleeves, too short at the cuffs. The same grin that Bell remembers from when they last met. It’s the grin that comes with an in joke, and every time Bell sees it, he thinks that Wallford’s the only one who gets the punch line.
“California.”
“That’s where it starts.” Wallford spreads his hands. “This is the line, right? Lee Jamieson, now, sadly, deceased, paid a lot of money to someone to finance a terrorist attack on American soil, i.e., the WilsonVille assault. There are a thousand questions still unanswered, and some of them are damn frightening. We know Heatdish was involved, but if he wasn’t the mastermind behind it all, we need to know who is. That’s just for starters.”
Nessuno looks up from the binder at the two of them. “I’m not sure he knows.”
“He’s not top of the chain?” Bell asks.
“No, though I think he was very close to it. We never got an ID, anything, not even a nickname for the one at the top. We ended up giving him the code-name Echo.”
“How high up was he?”
“Tohir? I can’t say. Criminal enterprise and terrorism blur here. I mean, Tohir was a criminal; it was only ever about the money to him, never politics. He ran everything on a cell structure, like he was running agents. And I’m certain we were being run the same way, from higher up.”
