Amanda's Eyes (11 page)

Sadie gazed at me thoughtfully
before turning back to Jack.  “Okay, they’ve got to think they put the fear of
God into her.  So maybe the situation isn’t that serious.”

“That’s what I keep telling him.”

He gave me the laser eyes.  “And I
keep telling you it’s serious enough to be careful.  You know the drill:  If
anybody asks, you’re still recovering, you don’t remember the accident, and
you’re here for a few weeks R&R.  Right now, it looks like the Ferrymen aren’t
in any particular hurry to finish what they started.  Don’t give them any
reason to change their minds, okay?”

“Okay.”

I went along because the truth would
have been messier.  No telling what Eagan would do if I announced my intention to
give the Ferrymen as many reasons as it took
to
change their minds, but
it wouldn’t be pleasant.  Much tidier to tell him what he wanted to hear and
remain a free agent.  Meanwhile, if I played my cards right, the Ferrymen
would
elevate me to the number one spot on their hit parade in no time.

The tricky part would be surviving the
upgrade.

The truth breaks over me in an icy wave,
and my gaze flies to the van.  It’s a setup!  Gotta warn Cuey and Michaels!

I fling myself toward the mouth of
the alley, but my feet have turned to cement; I can barely lift them. Straining
every nerve and muscle, I manage a Quasimodo lope, heart hammering wildly as I
lurch down the wet pavement.  I try to scream a warning, but nothing comes
out.  I try again, the veins in my neck bulge with the effort, but the best I can
do is a guttural, “Unnnhhh!”

The alley telescopes ahead of me, the
dimly lit entrance receding until it’s a faint pinpoint.  I push on, push
harder, push myself to the breaking point, but the distance between me and the
street grows with each lumbering step.  The warning shrieks in my skull, and I
try again to force it out, straining so hard my head feels ready to explode. 
Finally, my lips part on a high, thin, wordless wail.

Too little.  Too late.

The van erupts.

Space-time collapses, and suddenly,
I’m a step and a heartbeat away from the onrushing holocaust.  The fireball
engulfs me, incinerating my eyes as the pressure wave slams me against
unforgiving concrete, catapulting me headlong into oblivion.

My eyes popped open.  I stared at
the creamy expanse overhead and fought to get my bearings. 
Not the alley, n
ot
the alley, not the alley
, looped desperately through my brain.

Not the alley.  Sadie’s
boardinghouse
.

I relaxed my white-knuckled grip on
the comforter as the unbearable tension started to ebb.  I sat up, folded my
legs, and tucked my chin.  Stayed that way for a couple minutes then tunneled
my fingers through my hair, running my hands over the crown of my head and down
the back of my neck.  Palms clasped over my nape, chin resting on my chest, I
waited for the dream to release me.  When it finally did, I unbent with a sigh
and stuffed two pillows behind my back, leaning against the sleigh bed’s gently
curved headboard, letting my gaze wander the room that was a world away from
the alley of my dreams.

Two tall windows were set in the
wall to the left of the bed, French doors to the right.  Diffuse sunlight edged
between heavy bronze drapes, fanning thin rays across golden-oak flooring,
French-walnut furniture, and walls painted a delicate spring green.  On the
nightstand next to the bed, a colorful mix of mums filled the mouth of a squat
glass vase.  The arched mirror on the bow-front dresser against the far wall
reflected the print hung over the bed.  I tipped back my head and studied Chagall’s
I and the Village
, a whimsical portrait-in-profile of a green,
white-lipped man nose-to-nose with a smiling, doe-eyed sheep.  Or maybe it was
a goat.  If only the world were that happy and innocent.  Just me and my nonspecific
farm animal trading sappy smiles and goo-goo eyes.

Of course, if the world
were
that happy and innocent, I would be out of a job.

Feeling calmer, I allowed my mind to
circle back to the nightmare.  Not being able to prevent or change what
happened that night was the worst part.  Watching Cuey and Michaels die over
and over again left me feeling battered and haunted by failure.

Now, I realize good versus evil
isn’t a popular concept these days.  Ninety-nine percent of us consider
ourselves too sophisticated, educated, nonjudgmental, and scientifically
advanced to believe in moral absolutes.  We’ve grown comfortable living in the
gray areas, where we never have to point a finger and say, “That is wrong.”

Problem is, those gray areas exist mostly
in our heads.  Talk to the victim of a brutal gang rape or a child who has been
beaten, starved, and locked in a closet for years on end, and you’re faced with
the truth.  You can’t hide behind moral ambiguities.  You have to come down on
one side or the other, because unadulterated, unrepentant evil does exist, and
it eats away at mankind like a cancer.

My nightmare was a vivid reminder
that two good men had died battling that malignancy.  At least dreaming their
sacrifice over and over again kept my determination to carry on their fight
honed to a razor’s edge.  I ached to even the score.  An eye for an eye? 
Maybe, but I preferred to think of it as answering a cry for justice.  And no
time like now to start.

Stretching my arms over my head, I flipped
off the comforter and climbed out of bed.  Padding across a square area rug
veined with shades of green, I entered the elegant bathroom and leaned across
the marble vanity to check my reflection in the mirror—a mistake that prompted
a pained grimace.  During my timeout at Mount Zion, the hair I usually wear
pixie-short with a moderately spiky crown had grown into a bantam black busby. 
Granted, I’m not one-tenth as fashion-conscious as Mom, but even I draw the
line at helmet hair.  A trip to the nearest salon was definitely in order.

I whipped off the 2-X gray jersey that
doubles as my bathing suit cover-up and sleep shirt, let it puddle on the floor,
and stepped into the tiled overhead shower.  Dialing up a hot, gentle stream, I
tipped back my head and closed my eyes.  Holy kamaole, but the water felt good! 
I would have stood under it until my fingertips pruned, but my stomach rumbled
a demand for breakfast.

Or would that be lunch?

On a normal day, my feet hit the
floor at around five a.m., so I can get my morning run in before work.  But the
legs were still short of al dente, and yesterday’s breakout had sucked the
oomph right out of me .  Add it up, and you had one late-rising newshound who wasn’t
sure how long she had slept and hadn’t thought to check the clock on the nightstand
when she got up.  Had I missed the eight o’clock breakfast cutoff?

Newly motivated, I hopped out of the
shower, brushed my teeth, and broke out the makeup.  (In a perfect world, I
wouldn’t waste my time, but I’ve gotten into the habit, because I never know
when I’ll have to do an impromptu standup, and even I like to look decent on
camera.)  I was about to apply my usual drive-by swipe of taupe eye shadow, when
I paused to peer at my reflection, searching my new eyes for some telltale
difference in color or maybe a scar or two.  Nada.  Same indigo blue I had
inherited from Mom, same baby crow’s feet earned from too much fun in the sun
and way too many late nights on the job.  I shrugged, slapped on the shadow and
wrapped up my toilette with a half-hearted dab of lip gloss.  Thank God I’ve
never needed mascara.  You could lose an eye.

That chore taken care of, I climbed
into my jeans, pulled on a pale-blue cashmere sweater, and shoved my feet into
a pair of well-worn, black ostrich-skin cowboy boots, silently thanking Mom for
packing all the right gear.  She even sent my lucky Naval Academy baseball cap,
that scruffy excuse for a fashion accessory she detests but tolerates, because
years ago it had been a Christmas present from Dickson.

By the time I slicked back my wet
hair and covered it with the faded cotton hat, the bedside clock showed ten
minutes past breakfast.  Chewing my lower lip, I toyed with the idea of playing
the convalescent card with Sadie, but nixed the ploy for two reasons.  One, I’d
had enough sympathy in the past two months to last me a lifetime.  Two, my new
landlady was too sharp to fall for it.  Resigned to finding the nearest
restaurant, I slung my black leather jacket over my shoulder and headed for the
door, remembering my glasses at the last second.

My third-story room was situated at
the end of a narrow carpeted hallway running down the back of the house.  I shut
the door and checked to make sure it was locked.  Passing the closed door to
Sadie’s personal apartment across the hall, I came to the stairs and started
down, fingers skimming the polished wood banister.  Pausing on the second-floor
landing, I peeked down the hall, counting four rooms between me and the tall
window set in the end wall.  Having gotten the lay of the land, I continued
down to the first floor.

The clatter of dishes drew me to the
dining room tucked between the parlor and the kitchen.  Sadie had her back to
me as she cleared the long, dark-chestnut table, so I hovered in the doorway,
wistfully eying the generous remains of what had obviously been a five-star
breakfast.  I was fixated on a three-bite cloud of scrambled eggs liberally
flecked with spinach and tomato, when Cosmo announced his presence by way of a
gentle head butt to my right hip.

I grinned down at him.  “Hey,
Cosmo.”

He acknowledged my greeting with a
chin lift.  It was like,
Yo.

Without turning Sadie said, “I wondered
if you were going to speak up or stand there lusting after my eggs all day.” 
She turned to face me.  I laid my right hand over my heart and gave her a
moi?
lift of the eyebrows.  “
Mm-hmm,
you.  I guess you’re hungry.”

“I could go for a bite.”  My stomach
seconded the motion with a feed-me groan that prompted a chuckle from my
landlady.

“All right, I’ll make allowances,
this being your first day and all.  But you’re gonna have to earn it.”  She hefted
a tray loaded with silverware.  “Help me clear away, and I’ll fix you a plate
in the kitchen.”

“Deal,” I agreed instantly, slinging
my jacket over the back of a shaker chair and reaching for the closest platter.

In record time I was perched on a
tall stool at the breakfast bar in the roomy kitchen.  Cosmo sat at attention
on the floor next to me, his armed-and-dangerous squint riveted on the plate
Sadie was loading with eggs, apple bacon, and hash browns.  She slid the dish
across the counter, then added a homemade oat muffin and a small bowl of melon
chunks mixed with red grapes.

“Eat,” she ordered.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

When the eggs hit my tongue, my taste
buds sat up and sang the “Hallelujah Chorus.”  “
Mmm
.”  I swallowed and
said, “These are great, Sadie!  Is that feta I taste?”

Obviously pleased, she nodded.  “Elise’s
recipe.  Jack likes ‘em, too.  Ate three big helpings this morning.  You want
some coffee?” she asked, as I dug into the hash browns with gusto.

“I’m not much of a coffee drinker,”
I admitted, after another swallow, “but I’ll take some tea, if you have it.  Speaking
of Jack,” I said, as she scooped loose leaves from a ceramic canister into a
stainless steel tea ball, “did he get off on schedule?”

“Oh-six-hundred on the dot.  Honey,
that man is
punc-tu-al
.”  She poured hot water into the cup and set it
in front of me, then crossed the kitchen to lift a deep purple apron off a peg mounted
on the wall next to the back door.  She pulled the bib strap over her head and
tied the strings around her waist.  “Said to tell you he would be in touch,”
she added as she pushed up the sleeves of her burnt-orange turtleneck and
started to load an under-counter dishwasher.

“Glad to hear it, but what if I need
to reach him before he contacts me?  I don’t have my UpLink.  He confiscated it.”

“Girl, this is Jack Eagan we’re
talking about.  The man who thinks of everything?”  She wiped her hands on the
apron and pulled a silver UpLink out of her jeans’ pocket.  “He left this for
you.  Transmits on a secure Sat-Net frequency with end-to-end quantum encryption. 
His number and mine are the only ones programmed in, and you can’t program in
any of your own.”

“You saying he doesn’t trust me?”

“Not one-eighth of an inch.”

I smothered a smile as I pushed up
my left sleeve and slipped the device onto my wrist.  Once it had self-adjusted,
I tugged the sleeve back into place, making a mental note to get downtown as
soon as possible to pick up a throwaway, so I could call whomever I wanted to
and slip into the Cloud on the sly.  I picked up a slice of bacon and started
to take a bite, when Cosmo shifted.  I looked at him.  He looked at me, then stared
pointedly at my bacon, then looked back at me.  I broke the bacon in half and
gave him his share.

“Have you known Jack long?” I asked
Sadie.

“About ten years, I guess.”

“I take it you were on the Teams
together?”

She bent to transfer a fistful of
silverware to the machine’s cutlery tray.  “Oh, I wasn’t on the Teams.”  Her
lips curved as she glanced over at me.  “I was what you might call a consultant.”

I ran my tongue around the inside of
my cheek.  “Consultant, huh?”  Spook-speak for a CIIS field operative attached
to the unit.  Unless I missed my guess.

“Mm-hmm.”

“But you
did
work with Jack.”

“I knew him in a professional
capacity, yes.”  Dishes loaded, she started to wipe down the gold-brown granite
countertops.

Like trying to nail fog to a tree,
I mused. 
My kind of challenge.

“So why did he quit the Teams to
join CIIS?”  I ate a bite-sized chunk of melon.

Again with the smile.  “You would
have to ask Jack about that.”

Okay, what we had here was your
typical irresistible force—i.e., my overdeveloped professional
curiosity—meeting an immovable object—i.e. again, the professional spook’s
penchant for stonewalling.  Did Sadie
know
she was tossing down a
gauntlet?  Based on the twinkle in her eye, I would say, yeah.  She probably
did.