No Way Back (36 page)

His house is a mirror image of mine – with his living room to the left of the foyer instead of to the right; and beyond it, a staircase spiralling up to the bedrooms.

I glance past the velociraptor. He seems tentative, maybe even afraid. I stare into his living room. I can’t believe what I see.

In my version of the house – the one across the street, where I live – the living room is cluttered with: a couch, an entertainment centre, a TV, a grandfather clock in the corner,
and a coffee table where I sometimes rest my can of Sprite and a crossword puzzle.

In this mirror-image house, the one owned by my neighbour who looks feral and carnivorous, the living room is filled with: audio visual equipment.

Just audio visual equipment.

Rows of it – electronics and machines – enough to fill a small recording studio. Because that is exactly what I am looking at. A recording studio. Consoles run along the edge of the
room. Twelve large television monitors line the walls, all high-definition screens displaying different images.

‘What the fuck—’ I start, but don’t get very far, because I stop speaking the instant I see the images on the screens.

They are images of me. And of Libby. And of our house.

Frozen on one monitor, paused perhaps so that it can be enjoyed, is the picture of Libby on her knees, giving me a blow job. I recall the night that happened – it was weeks ago – the
strangeness of those events, the way the sex turned violent and mechanical, not at all erotic. On other monitors I see more recent images: a close-up of me – which I recognize as taken from
the point of view of the grandfather clock, just minutes ago, right before I smashed it. On another screen, a running video, with a time-stamp ticking off seconds in the lower-right corner:
infrared video of me searching our bedroom, from an hour before. On- screen, my ghostly green blur rummages through Libby’s underwear drawer, then walks to the closet to continue the
search.

I turn to the velociraptor, who is looking at me now with a strange expression, one of amused anticipation, as if he sincerely is interested in what my reaction to all this will be.

‘Who are you?’ I say. ‘Are you Ghol Gedrosian?’

He laughs. ‘Mr Thane, please. You have it all wrong. I can explain everything.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Explain everything. Start by explaining this.’ I wave my hand to indicate the screens. I grip the heavy brass bookend in my palm and step towards him. He
doesn’t flinch. He stares at me, very still, watchful but unafraid.

I hear something outside, through the open door. A bang, then a woman’s scream. It’s Libby. ‘Jimmy, help!’ she yells.

I run back into the foyer and out through the front door.

Behind me, the Russian is following, calmly saying, ‘Mr Thane, please listen. This is all a very funny misunderstanding. I want to explain it to you before you get the wrong
idea.’

I run from his porch, into the rain. Across the street, in my driveway, a set of high-beams cuts through the gloom. I see two dark figures pushing someone into a car. A muffled scream tells me
it’s Libby. I run across my neighbour’s yard, towards my own house. At the edge of the yard, my shoe slips in the mud, and I slam down on my ass. Pain wracks my ribs. I sink deep into
the wet dirt, and lie there, catching my breath. A rivulet of water sluices past, washing over my hands and legs. I scramble to my feet just as the tyres in my driveway spin, kicking out gravel,
and then the car pulls away. I run towards it – an anonymous black sedan – but it speeds off, past me, just an arm’s length away – and down the street.

‘Stop!’ I yell after the car. But it disappears into the rain.

‘Mr Thane, please, come back inside,’ the voice behind me calls. I turn to see the velociraptor. He’s standing on his porch. I notice he’s dressed now in a waterproof
navy windbreaker. His right hand rests in the jacket pocket. ‘There’s been a terrible misunderstanding,’ he calls, over the rain. ‘And I would like to take the opportunity
to explain exactly what is happening.’

He edges towards me as he speaks. He does so slowly, almost imperceptibly.

I look to my own house. The door is open, and the light from the foyer – yellow and welcoming – spills onto the porch. The velociraptor is coming closer, walking slowly down his
stairs, into his yard. ‘This is all very interesting, you see,’ he says, ‘I would like to explain it to you over a hot cup of coffee, yes? As neighbours, yes? Would you join me
for some coffee, please?’ His hand is in his windbreaker, but now he’s close enough for me to see that there is too much bulk in that pocket to be explained by a hand alone.

I turn and run, across the street, my feet splashing ankle-high water, which is overflowing from storm sewers; then I run up the incline of my own yard. I glance over my shoulder, and I see the
Russian break into a run after me. So much for conversation over coffee. I slip on the wet grass, hydroplaning, losing my footing. I am about to flip onto my ass for the second time. But at the
last moment, I regain my balance, and keep stumbling forward. I run up the wooden steps of the porch, and into the house. I slam the door behind me, just as the Russian, racing after, reaches for
it.

I bolt the lock. I lean my back against the door, catch my breath, then remember the bulky thing in the man’s pocket. I edge away from the centre of the door.

But the knock, when it comes, is gentle – almost neighbourly. The man shouts through the wood, ‘Mr Thane, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you, OK? You have my
word as a gentleman.’

I look around the foyer. Libby’s wet car keys lie on the side table. I pick them up and slide them into my pocket.

‘Mr Thane,’ comes the voice through the door. ‘Let’s sit down and have a drink together, yes?’

‘Go away,’ I shout through the door. ‘I don’t want a drink. Just leave me alone.’

I know that I am safe as long as the Russian is on the other side of this thick door, and as long as I can hear his voice, and as long as I know exactly where he is.

‘Just go away!’ I shout again.

No answer this time.

I step to the door and look through the peephole. The porch is empty. The Russian is gone.

I take a quick inventory of the downstairs. In the kitchen, I see windows, securely closed and locked. But in the living room, the patio door is slightly ajar. I make a dash for it, across the
foyer, into the living room, and past the couch. I grab the door handle and shove it closed. The tiny lock clicks. Outside, a flash of lightning illuminates the sky, and lights up the Russian,
standing just inches from me, on the other side of the glass. His fingers are on the door handle. He tugs at it. ‘Please, Mr Thane,’ he says, his voice muffled by the glass, ‘let
me in.’

I see another shadowy figure moving around in the vegetable garden. And there’s a third man, on the other side of the house, marching past the kitchen window. At least three of them
– maybe more – only moments away from swarming into the lower floor of the house.

I run back to the foyer. As I pass the front door, I see the knob jiggling. I race up the stairs and into the bedroom and slam the door. My fingers flit across the knob, searching for the lock.
But there is no lock.

Voices in the foyer below. ‘He’s upstairs,’ someone says. ‘In the bedroom.’

How the hell did they know that so fast, I wonder. I look around the room. The ceiling fan has been smashed and probably no longer works, but I see at least two other suspicious objects. The
clock radio on Libby’s nightstand – weirdly bulky, with a Chinese-sounding brand name I am unfamiliar with. A bookshelf, filled with books – any of which could house a camera, or
a microphone. I grab the telephone from the cradle on the bureau. My fingers, wet with rain, jam the keypad. I bang out 9-1-1.

On the line, there’s a ring, a click, and a voice. Male. With a Russian accent. ‘Mr Thane, please listen to us. We’re coming into the room now. We don’t want you to get
hurt—’

I slam the phone and back away, as if the Russians might reach through the receiver to grab me. But it turns out that there is no need for this bit of magic, because they can do it the
old-fashioned way. Like this: the doorknob is turning, and the bedroom door is opening.

I run to the veranda door and tug the sliding glass. The door is heavy, and sticks in the track, and I open it just enough to squeeze through. On the patio, in the rain, I pull the door closed.
I peer through the rain-slicked glass into the bedroom. Two men trudge past the bed, looking around.

The veranda on which I stand is tiny – just space enough for two sun loungers and a small glass table. Twenty feet below are flagstones and the pool. No escape.

‘Over here,’ one of the Russians says, and I see him on the other side of the glass, pointing calmly at me, as if he’s talking to a colleague about a Manila folder he misplaced
on his desk.

The Russians start towards me. They’re both large, muscular, bursting out of wet jeans and T-shirts. The bigger one slides the patio door open three inches, puts his fingers through the
opening, and wraps them around the edge of the door.

‘Mr Thane—’ he starts.

With all my strength, I grab the door and wrench it shut. The heavy frame slams on his fingers, and I hear a sickening wet crunch, and he screams.

I scramble up onto the balustrade, my shoes scuffing wet cement – slippery from rain – and I stand straight, precariously balancing on the edge, twenty inches above the patio behind
me, and twenty feet above the flagstones in front. Rain falls from the sky, and the water blurs my vision, and I can barely see what I am about to do. Which is probably for the best.

I dive.

A long, graceful dive, arms extended, feet rising above my head – beautiful, probably.

A splash, and chlorine floods my nose, burning; and my fingers scrape concrete, and I jam my knuckles into the pool floor so hard that maybe I’ve broken my hand, but then I come up for
air, and stand up straight, quite alive and not crippled.

I bound along the pool floor, my clothes weighing me down like armour, and I vault over the edge of the pool and onto the patio.

‘He’s down there,’ a voice above me shouts. I look up to see a Russian leaning over the balustrade, daintily. He’s muscular, and wily, and physically fit – a
natural predator. But he’s not suicidal. He merely bends over the railing, looking down. ‘Alexi!’ he calls out – probably to the velociraptor, still somewhere on the ground
floor nearby – ‘He’s in the back, near the pool!’

I scamper through the gate, to the side of the house, and towards Libby’s Mercedes, its convertible roof open, welcoming the rain.

‘I see him!’ a voice shouts behind me. I hear footsteps clomping on wet gravel, and heavy breathing, and grunts.

I run. My wet clothes and saturated shoes slow me down, and my ribs hurt, and it feels as if I’m running through molasses. It’s like something from a nightmare – running as
hard as I can, but slowly nevertheless – and behind me, I hear ragged breathing and heavy footsteps, getting closer. Closer.

I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder, someone grabbing my wet shirt, whipping me down to the ground. I wrench the Mercedes door open, heave my body into the seat, shove the key into the
ignition, and turn it.

I have never loved Germans so much as I do at this moment. All that unpleasantness between 1914 and 1945? – I am willing to overlook that now. No nation is perfect, and, damn, can they
build a car. It starts with a purr, despite the fact that the seats, and dashboard, and carpets are soaked, and despite the fact that the floor sits beneath an inch of water, like some exotic
aquarium in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel.

The engine roars to life, and I press the gas, and the tyres spin, and the car shoots back down the driveway just as the Russian reaches for my car door. I look down to see the
velociraptor’s big hand resting on the door frame, mere inches from my shoulder. It’s a moment of strange frozen intimacy – that instant before he lifts his hand and I speed away.
But during this moment, I look down at his fingers, and see something odd – that he is missing the last joint of his pinky. It’s a red stub, just like mine.

The Russian lifts his palm, and he raises his hand and shouts after me, ‘Wait, wait, Mr Thane! Please come here!’ – ludicrously, as if I might stop the car, and turn around,
and say, ‘Oh, did you want to talk to me about something?’

A second Russian runs towards the first, and stops short beside him. There the two of them stand, next to each other, staring after me. My car bangs down into the street, metal scraping asphalt.
I wrench the wheel, put it into drive, and floor it. The tyres spin, and I ease off, and then the rubber catches, and the car speeds down the road.

Even though no one follows, I keep going, merging from one rain-slicked suburban road to another, and then onto the highway. I refuse to slow down. I refuse to stop. I just keep going, convinced
that motion, any motion, is safer than standing still.

Something is wrong.

It takes ten minutes for the adrenaline buzz to fade. Then another five to understand what bothers me.

No one is following. No one even tried.

They just watched me careen out of the driveway, and I saw them in the rearview mirror, two big Russians standing in the rain, very still, next to each other, staring after my tail lights
– like a married couple watching their youngest son drive off to college for the first time.

Now, with time and distance between us, I understand why that image of two Russians standing motionless and merely watching me go feels so wrong.

These are men who bugged my house, who inserted listening devices into my office, who spied on my phone calls, who put cameras in my bedroom. Would they allow me to drive away without bothering
to pursue?

No. They do not follow me because they do not need to. They have no fear of losing track of me. They know exactly where I am. Even now, they watch me. Perhaps I am a green dot flashing on a
computer map, or a phosphorescent arrow blinking on a GPS.