Near Enemy

by Adam Sternbergh

  I stand in the heat of the minivan burning and look across the river at New York.

  Most of the lights of the city are out now.

  All the bridges and tunnels are closed.

  Cops and National Guard have sealed off every entrance and exit.

  Tanks turning back traffic. Gunboats patrolling the Hudson.

  So it’s all I can do, an hour later, to zip across the river and nab Nurse under cover of night.

  Meet her at a pier west of Chinatown.

  Just me and the outboard motor, still chugging, waiting in the black water.

  I take her hand as she steps her pristine white nurse shoes off the pier and into the boat.

  Mark’s still back at Mina’s, but he’s tapped into his own dream now. I’m not surprised, given he’d been in-body, trapped out here in the real-time world, for a week. Things he saw, up at the cabin, then in the train with Simon, he needs to drift in oblivion, or whatever chosen fantasy, for a while. I call Mina and tell her, let him drift, open-ended, I’ll cover the fees. She answers, don’t be silly, it’s on the house.

  And Mina’s watching Simon now.

  We still can’t bring him out and no one wants to move him. Mina swears she’ll take good care of him, despite their history. Sit vigil at his bedside until something happens. Wait and watch him, with her cross-shaped memento carved into her forehead. I’d rather leave Nurse but I need her with me now, and Nurse says there’s nothing she can do for Simon anyway. Simon’s motionless, in some kind of coma, neither here nor there, but worse. Boonce did something to him, but we don’t know what. Nothing Nurse has ever seen before.

  So for now we watch and wait.

  I haven’t told Persephone. Don’t know how to reach her even if I wanted to. Tried her phone again and it was dead.

  So we leave Simon in the limn.

  And who knows what Boonce is doing to him in there right now.

  Nurse and I skip across the water with New York shrinking behind us.

  Spray of the Hudson soaks us both as the gunboats circle, spotlights sweeping, but it’s not like I’ve never dodged a spotlight sweep before.

  I’d left Shaban at my apartment, told him I don’t have a TV, but he should feel free to entertain himself otherwise.

  Told her.

  Told her she should feel free.

  That’s going to take some getting used to.

  She was too absorbed in her handheld anyway, when I left, watching the scrolling newsfeed. Looking for word. Finding word. All the word was bad. Especially for her.

  —the fires on Atlantic Avenue now under control as police report they are confident the terrorists—

  —make no mistake those responsible for Commissioner Bellarmine’s death will be found and brought to—

  —a cell headed by known agitator Salem Bhukrat Shaban, now believed to have been killed in this morning’s counteractions—

  —continue the temporary lockdown as officials work to determine the extent—

  —Shaban, who it’s now believed may have played a role in the attack on Times Square—

  —go to our national correspondent live at the State Department, where officials are expected to answer questions as to how Shaban, a US citizen—

  —and police are asking all Islamic New Yorkers to report to their local precinct—

  —want to stress that this registration program is completely and entirely voluntary. However—

  —mayor continues to be confident that the measures will be temporary, though declined to speculate as to—

  —officials confirmed the election will be postponed indefinitely in light of these disturbing and tragic—

  —stopped short of describing it as martial law—

  —new reports of another tragic death, as law enforcement officials located the body of former NYPD security consultant Joseph Boonce—

  —being hailed as a hero, Lieutenant Boonce was apparently slain as part of a wider terrorist—

  —go live now to the mayor’s remarks—

  —this great malignant threat, living right in our midst, like a tumor in the body of our city, who’ve taken advantage time and again of our hospitality, but we can no longer—

  Shaban switches the handheld off.

  43.

  It takes us a couple days to get our hands on a bed.

  Slightly used, but in good shape, and relatively high-end. It’s a bit of a shady backdoor deal, but a good find on short notice for what we can afford with what little cash the three of us can scrape together.

  As for me, I’m dead broke. Left the last of my money roll on the front seat of that cab. Nurse lives in a nunnery, so she’s not much help. But thankfully, Shaban’s been amassing donations for a while. And had the foresight to amass them in cash.

  In the hours while we wait for delivery, we watch more of the news, and it’s nothing good. Turns out the two cops, from Boonce’s detail, the ones who assassinated Bellarmine, both left flagrant electronic trails of apparent Islamist sympathies. Google searches. Emails. Damning wire transfers that revealed their concocted pasts. All of it expertly forged and impossible to overlook. Most notably, their supposed ties to Salem Shaban. Even planted those brochures, the ones Shaban was mailing out, in their apartments for the cops to find.

  Shaban is now the city’s most wanted fugitive.

  Face all over the Post.

  Perfectly framed.

  We turn the TV off and then Shaban tells us not to worry about her. She tells us instead.

  Worry about Boonce.

  Then Shaban explains to me and Nurse what it means if Boonce is alive in there.

  If he’s loose in the limn.

  Not tethered to a body.

  Free to roam. Visit any dream.

  Build an empire.

  Spread panic.

  Spread chaos.

  Spread worse.

  The delivery guys arrive and assemble the bed in my livingroom while Shaban keeps out of sight, Nurse makes coffee, and I make small talk.

  Delivery guy jokes it’s a perfect time to start tapping in full-time.

  You know, what with—

  He gestures toward Manhattan. I nod, like we’re in total agreement. Say to him.

  Crazy times, right?

  Delivery guy nods.

  End times, my friend. Believe it. Between the ragheads and the lunatics? End times.

  Then the delivery guy mentions he saw the bullet holes down in the lobby. Denting the mailbox. Nowhere’s safe, he says with a sympathetic shrug.

  I shrug back. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice the bullet holes in my apartment. I spackled them.

  Delivery guy is one of those types who, once you get him going, he’ll just keep going, like a wind-up toy. Says to me, as he’s on one knee, hooking up hoses under the bed.

  I mean, I used to think it was safe over there in Manhattan. But it ain’t safe over there. Then I used to think it was safe over here. But it ain’t safe over here no more either. Nowhere’s safe.

  Nods to the bed. Pats it.

  Except maybe in there.

  I shrug again.

  We’ll see.

  Like I said. Small talk.

  He and his partner take another hour to set it up, run the tests, make sure we’re hooked in, signal’s strong, plugs us in to a quasi-legal patch-in, which will cost us an extra thousand, cash, just to thank him for looking the other way. Whole thing winds up running into five figures, assembly included, and that’s the bought-from-the-back-of-a-truck rate.

  Then we shake hands and he pats the bed and says.

  You’re ready to go.

  I thank him and hand him an overstuffed envelope, then give them whatever loose cash I have left in my pocket as a tip.

  It’s a few bills. He takes it happily.

  In any case, I won’t be needing the cash.

  Not where I’m going.

  Once the delivery guys leave, Shaban gives the bed a once-over. Makes a couple of adjustments. A few m
odifications. Fine-tunes. Then steps back. Says.

  This will do.

  I look at Shaban and Nurse and think, It’s funny that this is my support team. A Muslim fugitive hacker prodigy who found religion and swore off the limn, and a nurse who’s part of some secret sisterhood sworn to spread the holy truth of wakefulness. And me, a former tap-in junkie.

  A terrorist, a nurse, and a garbageman.

  I’ve never had a bed in my own home before. Never once. Not even close.

  Could never afford it, for starters, but I didn’t want one either. Not in my own home. I was always happy to head out and haunt Chinatown. Live that part of my life out there, try to live some other life back home.

  Back in the days when I was on the tap, daily.

  Back before my Stella died. Before Times Square. Back when I’d sneak off to deep-dive for an hour at a flop-shop, as just the easiest way to escape all the garbage in this world.

  And then after my Stella. After Times Square.

  When I’d go and just tap into nothing.

  One full hour.

  Start the clock.

  Oblivion.

  Nothingness.

  Bought my sessions in bulk.

  Until eventually I spent my money on a box-cutter instead and gave up the limn for good.

  I lie back.

  Still have that box-cutter.

  Stashed in my pants pocket.

  Just for luck.

  I figure it’s like how they used to put pennies on the eyes of dead men before they put them in the tomb.

  Just in case you might need it on the other side.

  Nurse looms over me.

  Holds the needle.

  All the sensors already attached.

  She’s about to slide it in, then she pauses. Says nothing.

  So I answer the questions I know she wants to ask but won’t ask.

  Yes, I’m sure. And yes, I’ll be back soon.

  The first part I am sure about. The second, not so much. But I make them both sound convincing, just for her.

  She smiles, but it’s a smile that has no acquaintance with happiness.

  Then she kisses my forehead.

  Then she slides the needle in.

  Boonce went looking for a secret he could steal. He thought the secret was a way to kill someone through the limn, but he was wrong.

  The secret was better.

  To live in the limn.

  And he stole it.

  Fucked with me. Chased away what passed for my family. Not to mention his part in Times Square.

  Took everything from me, then kept on taking.

  He did all that, then laughed about it, then loosed chaos in the real-time world.

  Then disappeared.

  All while I stood and watched him do it.

  Watched him slip away.

  Scot-free.

  Now Boonce could be anywhere.

  In there.

  In the limn.

  In any construct.

  Any dream.

  Even yours.

  As best I know, the rule still stands.

  First rule.

  You can’t kill someone in the limn.

  Cannot be broken.

  But then again, why not try?

  Because as someone once told me, there are no rules or laws in the limn. Not really.

  No rules.

  No laws.

  Just problems to be solved.

  Fair enough.

  Let’s find out.

  I tap in.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Only after you write a book do you understand just how many people it takes to make one. Thank you to my agent, David McCormick, to Molly Stern at Crown, and to my indispensable editor, Zachary Wagman, without whom there would be no second Spademan novel. Thank you to Sarah Bedingfield, Sarah Breivogel, Kayleigh George, Rachelle Mandik, and the team at Crown, without whom this book would not be in your hands. Thank you to Mark Leyner and Professor Peter Ohlin. Thank you to Megan Abbott, Toby Barlow, Lauren Beukes, Kelly Braffet, Austin Grossman, Lev Grossman, Nick Harkaway, Roger Hobbs, and Ian Rankin. Many books influenced this novel in many ways, but three should be mentioned by name: Securing the City by Christopher Dickey, God’s Jury by Cullen Murphy, and The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Thank you to my parents, again and always. And thank you to Julia, my treasured collaborator in all things, to whom I say: I confess. I’m biased. But best I can tell, she is the perfect child.

  Read the first book in Adam Sternbergh’s riveting, twisted, genre-busting Spademan series

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