But she knew that would just make things difficult. She would have to trust that Daniel could handle Kevin for now. She eased herself into the chair.
Daniel had started with the ankle and it was going slowly--he was keeping one hand on his blanket.
"Just give it to me, I'll do it," Kevin said.
"Be patient."
Kevin huffed loudly.
The key turned and Kevin was immediately on his feet, crouching beside his tethered arm. He snatched the key from Daniel's hand and had his wrist free in less than a second. He stood tall, stretching his neck and rolling his back muscles. The torso pieces of his Batsuit hung down like an avant-garde skirt. The dog kept still at his feet. Kevin turned to Alex.
"Where are my guns?"
"Backseat of the car."
Kevin stalked out of the tent without another word, the dog at his heels.
"Don't open any doors or windows!" she called after him. "Everything's armed again."
"Is the car booby-trapped?" he called back.
"No."
A second later. "Where are the magazines? Hey, where are the firing pins?!"
"Pins in the fridge, bullets in the toilet."
"Oh, come on!"
"Sorry."
"I want my SIG Sauer back."
She frowned and didn't answer. She got up stiffly. She might as well disarm the traps. It was time to go.
Daniel was standing in the middle of the tent, staring down at the silver table; he had one hand wrapped around the IV pole as if for support. He seemed to be in a daze. She went hesitantly to stand beside him.
"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.
"I have no idea. I can't understand what I'm supposed to do next."
"Your brother will have a plan. He's been living somewhere, he'll have a place for you."
He looked down at her. "Is it hard?"
"What?"
"Running? Hiding?"
She opened her mouth to say something soothing, then thought better of it. "Yeah, it's pretty hard. You get used to it. The worst part is the loneliness, and you won't have to deal with that. So that's one minor plus." She kept to herself the thought that loneliness might be a better companion than Kevin Beach.
"Are you lonely a lot?"
She tried to laugh it off. "Only when I'm not scared. So, no, not too often."
"Have you decided yet what you're going to do next?"
"No... The face is a problem. I can't walk around like this. People will remember me, and that's not safe. I'll have to hide somewhere until the swelling goes down and the bruises fade enough to cover with makeup."
"Where do you hide? I don't understand how this works."
"I may have to camp out for a while. I've got a bunch of subsistence food and plenty of water--by the way, don't drink the water in the fridge without checking with me first, the left side is poisoned. Anyway, I may just find someplace remote and sleep in the car until I've recuperated enough."
He blinked a couple of times, probably thrown by the poison thing.
"Maybe we can do something about your problem with conspicuousness," she said more lightly, touching his blanket with one finger. "I think there might be some clothes up at the house. I doubt they'll fit you, but they're better than what you've got."
A wave of relief passed over his face. "I know it's a small thing, but I think that would actually help quite a bit."
"Okay. Let me go turn off the lethal-gas trap."
*
IN THE END, she did surrender the SIG Sauer, although with some regret. She liked its weight. She'd have to find her own.
The farmhouse owners' belongings were stashed in the attic, in a set of dressers from six or seven decades back. The man was obviously a lot shorter and wider than Daniel. She left Daniel to sort that out while she went back to the barn to pack up the car.
Kevin was there when she entered, tightly rolling a big swath of black fabric into a manageable armload; it took her a moment to realize the fabric was a parachute. She kept her distance as he worked, but the truce felt solid. For some reason, Daniel had put himself between her and his brother's animosity. Neither she nor Kevin understood why he was doing it, but Kevin cared too much about Daniel to violate his trust today. Not when he was still reeling over years of lies.
Or that's what she told herself to muster up the courage needed to walk past the dog to her car.
She was an old hand at packing, and it didn't take her very long. When she'd come out to meet Carston, she'd stowed her things and dismantled the security at the rental house, just in case she didn't make it back. (One of her nightmares was that the department would get her while she was out, and then some innocent, unsuspecting landlord would enter the premises and die.) She'd stashed everything outside DC, then come back for it when she'd started setting up for Project Interrogate the Schoolteacher. Now she fitted it all into the worn black duffels--the pressurized canisters, the miles of lead wires, the battery packs, the rubber-encased vials of components, the syringes, the goggles, the heavy gloves, her pillow, and her sleeping bag. She packed her props and some of the new things she'd picked up. The restraints were a good find, and the cot was decently comfortable and folded down into a small rectangle. She put her computer in its case, grabbed the little black box that was just a red herring, like her locket, pulled down the long cables, and rolled up the extension cords. She was going to have to leave the lights, which was a bummer. They hadn't been cheap. She dismantled the tent, leaving just a pile of meaningless foam and PVC pipe, and shoved the table back to where she'd found it. There wasn't anything to do about the holes she'd drilled.
She could only hope that she'd obfuscated things enough that the owners would only be confused and angry at the destruction rather than suspicious that something nefarious had happened here. There was a chance they'd report their destructive tenant to the authorities, but local police wouldn't be able to construe anything from the mess either. As long as certain words didn't go into the report, there was no reason for anyone in the government to notice. She was sure there were Airbnb stories of destruction much more interesting than this one.
She shook her head at the door to the bunk room. The dog had chewed or clawed a hole two feet high and a foot wide right through the center of the solid wood door. At least it had only jumped over the car rather than eating it on its way out.
She was finished loading the trunk when Daniel came back in.
"Nice capris," Kevin commented, winding the cable of his grappling hook into a neat coil. Alex wondered if he'd climbed back up onto the roof to retrieve it and, if he had, how she'd missed that.
It was true that Daniel's pants made it only halfway down his shins. The cotton shirt was a few sizes wide, and the sleeves were probably too short as well--he had them rolled to the elbows.
"If only I had half a wet suit." Daniel sighed. "Then I would feel ready to face the world."
Kevin grunted. "I'd have a whole wet suit if the psycho wasn't such a perv."
"Don't flatter yourself, I was looking for weapons."
Daniel watched her close the trunk.
"Are you leaving?"
"Yes. I need to get somewhere safe so I can sleep." She imagined she looked haggard enough that the explanation was a little redundant.
"I was thinking..." Daniel said, and then hesitated.
Kevin looked up from his rifle, alerted by Daniel's tone.
"What were you thinking?" Kevin asked suspiciously.
"Well, I was thinking about the scorpions in the jar. Alex said there were only two outcomes--one kills the other, or both die. And I imagine that the people who wanted to kill you thought the same thing."
"So?" Kevin said.
"So, there was a third option," she said, guessing the direction Daniel was headed. "The scorpions walk away. They won't be expecting that. That's what will make you safe, Daniel."
"But there's a fourth option, too," Daniel answered. "That's what I've been thinking about."
/>
Kevin cocked his head. He clearly didn't get it. She did, just before Daniel said the words out loud.
"What if the scorpions joined forces?"
She pursed her lips, then relaxed them when that pulled at the split.
Kevin groaned. "Stop messing around, Danny."
"I'm serious. They'd never expect that. And then we're twice as safe, because we've got both dangerous creatures on the same team."
"Not happening."
She walked closer to him. "It's a clever idea, Daniel, but I think some of the personnel issues might be too big to overcome."
"Kev's not so bad. You'll get used to him."
"I'm not bad?" Kevin snorted, peering through his sights.
Daniel looked straight at her. "You're thinking about going back, aren't you? What you said about visiting the pantry."
Insightful for a civilian.
"I'm considering it."
Kevin was giving them his full attention now. "Counterstrike?"
"It might work," she said. "There's a pattern... and after looking at it, I think that maybe not so many people know about me. That's why they're going to such lengths to have a fifty-fifty chance at taking me out. I think I'm a secret, so if I can get rid of the people in on that secret... well, then nobody's looking for me anymore."
"Does that hold true for me?" Kevin wanted to know. "If they're relying on this to get to me, do you think I might be a secret, too?"
"It's logical."
"How will you know who's in on it?"
"If I could be in DC when I send my little note to Carston, I could watch to see who he goes running to. If it's really a secret, they won't be able to do it in the office."
"They'll know you're close--the IP will give you away."
"Maybe we could work together in a limited way. One of you could send the e-mail for me from a distance."
"What's your experience in surveillance?" Kevin demanded abruptly.
"Er... I've had a lot of practice in the last few years--"
"Do you have any formal training?"
"I'm a scientist, not a field agent."
He nodded. "I'll do it."
She shook her head. "You're dead again, remember? You and Daniel get to disappear now. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
"That's a stupid saying. If the Trojans had looked in the horse's mouth, they might have won that war."
"Forget the saying. I'm trying to make things up to Daniel."
Daniel was quietly watching the back-and-forth again.
"Look, Oleander, I have had training. A lot. No one is going to catch me watching and I will see more than you will. I have a place to stash Daniel where he'll be totally safe, so that's not an issue. And if you're right, and this Carston guy goes running to his coconspirators, he'll show me who in the Agency thought this up. I'll see who put Danny in danger to get to me. Then I can clean up my problem and you can clean up yours."
She thought it through, trying to be objective. It was hard to keep her dislike for Daniel's brother from coloring her analysis. That dislike wasn't fair. Wouldn't she have felt the same way as Kevin if it were her sibling shackled to a table? Done the same things, insofar as she was capable?
But she still really wished she could inject him with something agonizing, just once.
"First of all, don't call me Oleander," she said.
He smirked.
"Second, I see what you're saying. But how do we coordinate? I've got to go under for a while." She pointed to her face.
"You owe her for that," Daniel said. "If you have a safe place for me, maybe she should go there, too. At least until her injuries have healed."
"I don't owe her anything--except maybe another punch in the face," Kevin growled. Daniel bridled and took a step toward his brother; Kevin held up his hands in an I surrender motion and sighed. "But we're going to want to move quick, so that might be the easiest arrangement. Besides, then she can give us a ride. The plane's a loss--I had to bail out on the way down. I had us hiking out of here."
Daniel opened his eyes wide in disbelief. Kevin laughed at his expression, then turned to her with a smile. He looked at the dog, then back to her, and his smile got bigger. "I think I might enjoy having you at the ranch, Oleander."
She gritted her teeth. If Kevin had a safe house, that would solve a lot of her problems. And she could spike his food with a violent laxative before she left.
"Her name is Alex," Daniel corrected. "I mean, I know it's not, but that's what she goes by." He looked at her. "Alex is okay, right?"
"It's as good as any other name. I'll stick with it for now." She looked at Kevin. "You and the dog are in the back."
CHAPTER 11
Once upon a time, when she was a young girl named Juliana, Alex used to fantasize about family road trips.
She and her mother had always flown on the few vacations they took--if duty visits to ancient grandparents in Little Rock actually qualified as vacations. Her mother, Judy, didn't like to drive long distances; it made her nervous. Judy had often said that far more people were killed in car accidents than in plane crashes, though she was a white-knuckle flyer, too. Juliana had grown up unfazed by the dangers associated with travel, or germs, or rodents, or tight spaces, or any of the many other things that upset Judy. By default, she had to be the levelheaded one.
Like most only children, Juliana thought siblings would be the cure to the loneliness of her long afternoons doing homework at the kitchen table while she waited for Judy to get home from the dentist's office she managed. Juliana looked forward to college and dormitories and roommates as a dream of companionship. Except, when she got there, she found that her life of relative solitude and adult responsibility had rendered her unsuited to cohabitation with normal eighteen-year-olds. So the sibling fantasy took a beating, and by her junior year she had her own small studio apartment.
The fantasy about a big, warm family road trip, however, had survived. Until today.
To be fair, she would probably have been in a better mood if her entire body hadn't felt like one huge, throbbing bruise. Also, she had instigated the first argument, though quite unintentionally.
When she drove across the county line, she'd rolled the window down and tossed out the small tracker she'd removed from Daniel's leg. She hadn't wanted to carry it with her for long, just in case, but she also didn't want to leave it right in the middle of her last base of operations. She thought she'd removed most of the evidence, but one could never be sure. Whenever she could muddy the trail, she took the time to do so.
In the rearview mirror, she saw Kevin sit forward.
He'd been able to retrieve a backpack he'd thrown from the plane when he jumped; now he and Daniel looked fairly normal in jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts--one black, one gray--and Kevin had two new handguns.
"What was that?" Kevin asked.
"Daniel's tracker."
"What?" Kevin and Daniel said together.
They spoke over each other.
"I did have a tracker?" Daniel asked.
"What did you do that for?" Kevin demanded.
The dog looked up at Kevin's tone but then seemed to decide everything was fine and stuck his face out the window again.
She turned to Daniel first, looking up at him from under the ball cap that was supposed to be keeping her mangled face in shadow. "How did you think your brother found you?"
"He tracked me? But... where was it?"
"Sore spot on your inner right thigh. Keep the incision clean, try not to let it get infected."
"Do you know what a pain it was to get that in place?" Kevin grumbled.
"If you can track it, so can someone else. I didn't want to take chances with our position."
Daniel turned around in the passenger seat to stare at his brother. "How did you... How could I not know about this?"
"Do you remember, about two years after the tramp left you, a hot leggy blonde at that bar you go to when you're depressed, what's it called..."
/>
"Lou's. How do you even know about that? I never told you... wait, did you have me followed?"
"I was worried about you after the tramp--"
"Her name is Lainey."
"Whatever. I never liked her for you."
"When did you ever like a girl for me? As far as I can recall, you only ever liked girls who wanted you. You took it as an insult if someone preferred me."
"The point is, you weren't yourself. But having you followed was unrelated to the--"
"Who followed me?"
"It was just for a few months."
"Who?"
"Some buddies of mine--not in the Agency. A few cops I had a relationship with, a PI for a little while."
"What were they looking for?"
"Just making sure you were okay, that you weren't going to jump off a bridge or anything."
"I can't believe you. Of all the--wait a minute. The blonde? You mean that girl, what was her name, Kate? The one who bought me a drink and... she was a spy?"
She saw Kevin grinning in the rearview mirror.
"No, she was actually a hooker. Kate isn't her real name."
"Apparently no one on the entire planet besides me uses his or her real name. I am living in a world of lies. I don't even know Alex's given name."
"Juliana," she said at the same time Kevin did. They cast irritated looks at each other.
"He knew?" Daniel asked her, offended.
"It came up while you were unconscious. It's the name I was given at birth, but it's really not me anymore. It doesn't mean much to me. I'm Alex for now."
Daniel frowned, not entirely mollified.
"Anyway," Kevin went on in the tone of someone who was telling a joke he really enjoyed, "the blonde was supposed to get you back to your place, but you told her that your divorce wasn't finalized yet and it didn't feel right." Kevin laughed raucously. "I couldn't believe it when I heard. But it was so you. I don't even know why I was surprised."
"Hilarious. But I don't see how that little exchange got a tracking device into my leg."
"It didn't. I just really like that story. Anyway, that's what was such a pain. The hooker was easy to set up. And if you'd taken her home, having the tracker placed would have been enjoyable for you, at least. Getting you into your GP's office was a lot more work. But eventually I got a temp in the front office to call you in for checkup. When you got there, you saw one of the new partners. A guy you'd never seen before."
Daniel's mouth popped open in disbelief. "He told me I had a tumor!"
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