She couldn’t see the plates on the car.
Jimmy’s daughter appeared at the end of the road, pushing the pram. Her husband had gone to England for work, and stopped sending money, and hadn’t come back. She always put on smart clothes for the short walk to her Dad’s place, shoulders back, forcing the tiredness out of her face. The nine-year-old girl walked by her side, chatting. She was a solemn child, small for her age. Probably the sick one. The two toddlers, boys, ran ahead of their mother, racing each other to their grandfather’s house.
Aoife looked at the car again. The spotty young man was still staring away from her. But now he had something bunched on his lap. A blanket. It was a hot August day.
Jimmy’s daughter reached the front door of the house, unlocked it, let in a stampede of kids.
Aoife went into the hallway, leaving the door on the latch. Halfway down the emergency stairs was a landing with a window. From there, she could see the Ford’s registration. She went back to the apartment and called it in.
Passing the kitchen door, she heard the hiss and tick of the kettle, halfway to the boil.
The door of number eleven opened and the children spilled out again. The toddlers had a football. The nine-year-old was reading a book. Jimmy’s daughter appeared and sat on the doorstep, holding the baby, watching the kids.
The traffic department called back. The registration didn’t match the car.
Aoife looked down again. The plump man’s neck was shiny with sweat. He had opened his window, shifted the blanket. There was something grey underneath it. The long lens on the camera showed her a gun.
Chekov’s Law, first corollary. That’s what McDonnell called it. They never risk being caught with a weapon unless they really mean to use it.
She called McDonnell on his mobile. As his phone rang, she heard the kettle whistle in the kitchen. It would have to wait.
There’s two men sitting in a car with stolen plates outside
Jimmy’s. One of them has a short.
Where’s Jimmy?
At the bookies. He should be back in five or ten minutes.
We can be there in fifteen.
They’re going to kill him, aren’t they?
We’ll catch them before they get away. There’s enough time for the cops to put up an outer cordon.
His grandchildren are there in front of the house. And his daughter. They’ll see it. Maybe worse.
Stay out of it, Aoife. You’re alone. And you’re not trained for this.
We can’t let this happen.
Yes we can, Aoife. Consider the alternative.
Aoife hung up. She looked around the room. The kettle was screaming now, demanding attention. She tried to block out its sound while she grabbed at ideas.
There was a cheap sofa in the corner, already falling apart. Its cushions hid a German sub-machine gun. The housekeeping gun, Cass had called it. Aoife had qualified on that type of weapon in basic training, with one of the highest scores in her year. She had her concealed carry pistol as well, the tiny semi-automatic that McDonnell had issued her. But it was one thing to shoot at a four-foot paper target, another to aim at a living person and pull the trigger. She couldn’t see herself doing that. Nor did she want to be shot at herself. Anyway, those kids on the street had no place in a gunfight.
Consider the alternative . . . McDonnell always said that . . . Non-lethal weapons. Tasers. Tear gas. Clubs. She had nothing like that, and they wouldn’t work, anyway. All she had was boiling water, for what little that was worth.
Did she even have that? The kettle was no longer whistling.
The meter had cut off the gas . . .
The elevator was down in the lobby. She couldn’t wait for it to come up. She went down the stairs three at a time.
Aoife approached the Ford from behind. She hoped they’d see her coming. It would be a bad idea to startle them.
Excuse me, she called from a distance. Could I borrow your phone?
The passenger turned to stare at her. His face was spotty too. Seen up close, he was very young, little more than a teenager. He was in a flop-sweat, terrified, ready to puke.
He hasn’t done this sort of thing before, thought Aoife. He’s being pushed into this. This is meant to be his first.
She hadn’t done this sort of thing either.
She could see the driver now. He was older, thinner, with a hard, bar-tanned face.
Fuck away off now, he told her. We’re busy.
Please, I just need to borrow a mobile. It’s an emergency. There’s a gas leak in the flats.
Use your own phone.
I couldn’t find it. I had to get out in a hurry. I got in from the night shift – she waved at her scrubs – and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke the place was stinking of gas.
We don’t have a mobile. Leave us alone.
Either they were smart enough not to bring a phone in the first place, or half-smart enough not to make any calls from what would soon be a crime scene. But they weren’t smart enough to give up and drive away, now that someone was talking to them, face to face.
Aoife could see through the car to where the children were playing.
Come on, lads. Please. Everyone has a mobile now. There are kids across the street. There could be an explosion.
I fucking told you. We don’t have a phone . . . Why not use that one?
What one?
That payphone. The one over there.
She straightened, looked. There was a phone box twenty feet away.
In all the hours she had spent staring out that window, she must have looked right through it a thousand times and never once noticed it.
Of course the driver would have seen it. Irish gunmen are traditionalists. They like to use payphones for warnings and boasts.
Oh . . . I never noticed that before.
Away off and use it. Don’t be bothering us.
She held the door of the box open as she dialled 999. When the call was answered she spoke loudly, as if the phone was on the blink.
I need the gas board. There’s a really strong smell of gas in my building . . . No, I don’t have their number. Can’t you connect me?
She gave the gas board the address, looked back at the car. The two men were watching her. Their windows were open. They still didn’t get it. Time to spell it out for them.
And please – she was shouting now – send the police too. They have to get everyone out of the building before someone gets hurt.
There was a short pause, then a muffled commotion inside the Ford. Its engine started and it drove to the entrance of the estate, turned right, picked up speed. A few moments later, Jimmy appeared on the opposite corner. He leaned against a garden wall. She heard his desperate cough.
Across the road, the two little boys were fighting for the football.
Aoife walked back to the apartment and sat on the step in the sun.
McDonnell was first to arrive, with Cass, in their Vauxhall. Armoured Land Rovers followed. Uniformed constables flooded the street.
Aoife stood, stretched, walked to the curb. She liked the loose, cool feel of the scrubs against her skin. It had been a fine summer, and she’d spent too much of it behind the blinds.
What happened?
They’ve gone, she said.
McDonnell gestured down the street towards Jimmy, who, seeing what he must have assumed was a raid on his house, was going back the way he’d come, as fast as he could manage.
He’ll know that we’re watching his house now. So will the lads who wanted to do him. This operation is blown.
Aoife shook her head.
I just reported a gas leak in the flats. If you get the constables here to evacuate the building, and tell the people and the press it’s because of a gas leak, no one but us will ever know any different.
&
nbsp; Cass and McDonnell looked at each other, then Cass went to talk to the inspector in charge. McDonnell turned back to Aoife.
Have you ever thought about a change of employer?
The C-130 landed in the early hours to refuel and load freight at Scott Field, Illinois. It took off again and climbed into the dawn. Aoife, who didn’t have a phone or a watch, and didn’t know what time it was, or even which time zone, felt suspended in the light that streamed through the portholes. Below her was a grid of fields and highways, and the spider web of survey lines, stamped on the earth, ramrod straight, but warped here and there to conform with the enduring facts of hills and creeks and valleys. She could see the shadows of the land’s contours in the low slanting sun. You could tame the land and cut the forests, but the drainage never lies.
The plane, and the sun, climbed higher. The perspective foreshortened, shadows declined, until the world through the window, now crusted with snow, seemed flat as a computer screen, nowhere to hide. Towse, across from her, had taken out a laptop to work on, offline. Michael, too, had woken, and was looking down at the landscape.
I’m the one in the air, thought Aoife. I’m the one who moves past while the world tries to sleep.
She took out Roadside Picnic and found her page. Stalker. She liked that. She was in that line herself.
It was morning when the plane touched down at Maguire–Fort Dix in New Jersey. Towse, who seemed to have VIP status, was allowed to get off before them. The loadmaster stood over Michael, swinging her baton from one hand to the other, while Aoife switched the cuff’s bracelet from the bench to her own wrist.
Take good care of him, sir, said the loadmaster. I’m looking forward to reading about the trial.
They emerged into daylight at the end of the ramp. Crossing the apron, Aoife stumbled, leaned against Michael. It took him a moment to realise that the handcuffs were gone.
Congratulations, she said. The charges were dropped.
He looked at her sourly, rubbing his wrist.
On what grounds?
On the grounds that you’ll be someone else when we walk into that terminal.
So who will I be?
No one will care. If there is any talking, leave it to me.
There wasn’t any talking. They passed uninterrupted through the long, high hall of the terminal, past benches of hopeful Space-A passengers, into the cold day beyond.
The gate of the base was a short walk to the north. Nobody checked them on the way out.
Towse waited in a bus shelter on the tree-lined highway at the edge of the base. The bench had room for three people, divided into separate seats by raised metal bars, designed to prevent drunks or homeless people from stealing a few minutes sleep. Unshaven, sweaty, in his rumpled suit and tie, Towse looked Chaplinesque to Aoife, a proper tramp, one from the old days, before homeless people let themselves go.
She sat at the opposite end of the bench. Michael paused, looked at them both, kept walking.
Towse turned to Aoife.
Can you go after him?
He’s no use to us. Can’t we just let him go?
No.
Then what do I tell him?
Just enough to make him stay.
Which is all that you ever tell me.
Tell him, if he tries to go it alone, Fess’s people will get him.
We told him that the last time. It’s not stopping him now.
Then tell him one word. Tell him ‘Alice.’
She got to her feet again. Michael, she noticed, was going the wrong way.
The number three-one-seven New Jersey Transit bus is a two-hour ride from Fort Dix to Philadelphia. The driver was rude, the bus decrepit. Their feet stuck to the floor as they made their way to the back, where the muffler leaked fumes into the last rows of seats. But the noise from this broken exhaust was a bonus. It meant they could talk freely.
Towse sat in the middle of the back seat. Michael and Aoife were in the next row, on opposite sides of the aisle, turning to face him. This way, they could watch his face as he talked, to try to see if he was lying. Towse couldn’t smoke on the bus, or walk around either. For the other two, this was a plus.
Alice, prompted Michael.
She worked with me.
Alice worked for the US government?
I didn’t say that. I said she worked with me. I have my own interests. She was keeping an eye on Campbell Fess for us.
Aoife remembered boozy singalongs in country pubs, back home in Ireland. Who the fuck is Alice? She would save that question for a better time.
Michael spoke again.
So it was your fault that Alice started working for Fess.
No. At first, she needed the money. And then she had other ideas. She wanted to adapt Fess’s systems for her own use. Turn his own weapons against him. It was her dream project. Yoyodime, she called it. A network for private cash transfers, off grid. Although that would have been just the start of it. It would have gone much deeper than that. She must have told you about it?
Michael looked out the window. Towse watched him, then continued:
So Alice started working for Fess on the OmniCent project. But then she noticed something very strange, and she contacted me about it. I started investigating. But I let Fess think I was working for him. That’s always the best way to play it.
Michael looked out the window, buffering. They were passing through the outskirts of Pemberton, New Jersey. It could have been anywhere. Fast-food outlets, signs.
He turned back to Towse.
You’re trying to tell me that Alice was the mole at Inscape.
Yes.
But that doesn’t make sense. Alice is gone. So who stole the laptop?
Fess. He’s trying to cover up what Alice found out. So he staged the theft of that laptop and pinned it on us, to smear me with the agencies.
He must have found out that I was working against him, so he needs to destroy me. You were collateral damage.
What did she find that could cause all this trouble?
Funny money. That’s all I can tell you, for now. We’re here in New Jersey to find out more.
How are we going to do that? asked Aoife.
The usual way. By stealing information.
Michael spoke up.
Why should I believe you, Towse? I lived with Alice for four years and she never once mentioned you.
We didn’t have that kind of friendship . . . I only met her once, face to face . . . It was on the day she died.
Towse saw her under the trees, chaining her bicycle. When he knocked on the window, beads formed in its moisture, racing the rain drops on the other side. Alice pushed back her hair, wet from the rain, and looked for the source of the noise. When she saw him she didn’t smile.
She bypassed the counter, where a school tour was buying cookies and sodas, and sat down across from him. The rain had run off her waterproof jacket, soaking her jeans and her sneakers. She sat on the edge of her chair, one knee extended towards the exit, as if she might take flight at any moment. He thought, We shouldn’t be sitting here, in this window, where anyone can see us and we can’t see them, out there in the rain and the trees.
Why this museum? he asked. It’s a long bike ride from town. Are you into anthropology?
You said pick somewhere quiet to meet in an emergency. I like it here, so I picked it. And judging from the card that you left at my house, there’s an emergency.
Yes.
Fess knows about me?
He’s about to find out. So I’m going to tell him myself, before he does. It will buy me some trust. I can use that against him.
Alice considered that, shrugged.
OK . . . You came to Vancouver to tell me that in person?
I thought we should meet face to face, after all that you’ve done for us.
Well, now you’ve met me.
Her eyes, he noticed, were red.
I can get you out of here, he said. You and your boyfriend.
A server took Towse’s empty cup. When he was gone, Alice spoke again.
I can’t take Michael with me. I don’t have the right to hijack his life.
If you leave him behind, he’s in danger.
I said, I can’t ask him to come with me . . . Not anymore. It wouldn’t be fair. But he’ll be OK. I have a plan. He doesn’t know anything. Once I’m out of the picture, they’ll leave him alone.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
Then I want you to look after him.
What?
Promise me you’ll take care of him.
OK . . . I promise I’ll take care of him.
And try and teach him something different. He’s a hider. That won’t always be enough.
Teach him what?
I’ll leave that to you. I never managed it.
I’ll see what I can do.
How can I trust you?
I often tell lies, but I always keep promises. And I already promised you, I’ll take care of Michael.
Good . . .
She stood, leaning her weight for a moment on the table, eyes closed.
You look tired, he said. Wherever you’re going now, I hope you’ll be safe.
She smiled at some private joke, one that wasn’t very funny.
I will definitely be out of danger. That’s for sure.
He reached into his bag, took out a shoebox sealed with Scotch tape.
I brought something for you.
What’s that?
It’s money. Real money. Canadian and US, small and large bills, non-sequential numbers. And a few rolls of quarters, for payphones and bus fares.
Again, her quantum smile.
I won’t need those where I’m going.
Towse watched her gather strength, push herself away from the table.
One last thing, he said. If I need to find you, down the line, there’s a system I use. A fallback. It’s untraceable. What it is, there’s a radio show—
Don’t worry about it, she interrupted, turning to go. If I ever need you, I’ll know how to find you.
This Eden Page 10
