Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers (25 page)

And perhaps he was way off base. Maybe the human mind was incapable of making any sense of the forces in play here.

He did know he was a pawn—but a willing, enthusiastic pawn. If he had to be part of this game, he preferred to know the score than be an unwitting puppet.

The door chimed. Jolliff stepped to the monitors and checked the front door camera. He pressed the unlock button and smiled as he looked up.

"It's Miller."

Miller stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"Sorry I'm late. Didn't get the message till a few minutes ago."

Probably with one of his hookers, Cal thought, knowing Miller alternated between two favorites.

More power to him. A night of heavy sex usually left him mellow. Well, relatively so. Cal sensed that a truly mellow Miller might violate some law of nature.

The Oculus gave him a quick rundown of the Alarm.

That done, Cal looked around at his fellow yeniçeri.

"All right. You've heard the Oculus. The Ally wants this woman gone. Does anybody want the job? If not, we draw straws."

Miller said, "Maybe we should give Zeklos another chance." Then he smirked. "Not."

This earned a few laughs.

Then Miller said, "I'll take it."

Cal wasn't often thankful for Miller's heart of stone, but this was one of those times. He was about to hand him the job when the O interrupted him.

"The Alarm showed you at the wheel."

At first Cal thought the O was simply confirming the obvious choice, but then noticed that he was looking at him.

His stomach plummeted.

"Me?"

The O nodded.

"You don't look so hot, Davis," Miller said with what passed for a grin. "What's the matter? Getting a case of Zeklositis?"

Members of his little faction yukked it up as Zeklos reddened. Shaking his head the little man turned toward the door, raising his middle finger over his shoulder as he left.

Cal watched him go, then forced his face into a neutral expression. Inside, he wanted to run from the room.

Why me when Miller gets off on this kind of thing?

His tongue felt like tortoise hide as he spoke. "All right. I'm in the hot seat. So be it."

"Put me down for pickup duty," Miller said. "That way, if Davis misses, I'll close the deal."

Cal glanced at his watch—10:25—then at the yeniçeri.

"We've got three hours to steal a truck and the cars and put everything in place. Let's move it."

He half hoped a car would hit him as he crossed the street outside. He'd take the pain if it meant he'd be spared what was to come.

10

"Gia?" Jack said as he stepped into her front foyer.

He'd made good time from A.C. and had rushed across town to Sutton Square. When she hadn't answered his ring, he'd let himself in.

The old townhouse felt empty but he did a quick search of all floors—even the never-used fourth—and found no one and nothing out of place. Nothing suspicious. No sign of a struggle. Her winter coat and her handbag were missing from the front closet.

What he did find, however, was Gia's cell phone in its charging cradle in the kitchen.

So, only one conclusion he could make: She'd gone out and forgotten her cell phone. Wouldn't be the first time. No sign of foul play, so why this vague feeling of dread?

Jack headed for the door. He'd catch up to her later. This cyanide-tipped Starfire was burning a hole in his pocket. He needed a little yeniçeri info, and knew just the man to provide it.

11

The Oculus called Davis aside as Miller and the rest prepared to debark.

Of all the yeniçeri, he felt closest to Davis. He trusted them all, knew each was ready to die protecting him, but the yeniçeri life had hardened many of them. Inevitable, he supposed. Not every Alarm involved violence and death, but the vast majority did. Which meant that these men were, in many ways, contract killers with one client: the Ally.

Difficult for anyone to retain his humanity under those circumstances, but the rest of their quotidian existence—no family, no permanent ties to people outside their MV unit—exacerbated the situation.

They were weapons—the Ally's spears. And spears had no branches.

The Oculi were insulated from the violence. They didn't order it, merely passed on the content of the Ally's Alarms. And they had children. Nothing was so grounding as a child. He cherished his relationship with his daughter. Diana was his jewel. Just as the yeniçeri would die for him, so he would die for her.

But Davis, despite everything, had managed to maintain more of his human core. He had a hard shell, but traces of warmth and compassion remained in the heart beating within it.

"I'm sorry it had to be you," he said when Davis came to his side.

"We do what we have to do. It's all for the greater good, a cause bigger than any one person—or any three persons, right?"

The Oculus sensed that this must be the soul-saving mantra Davis would be repeating over and over to get him through this.

"We must trust the Ally."

Davis's expression was bleak. "Yeah. Trust the Ally."

"You have the vehicles?"

Davis nodded. "Snatched from the LaGuardia long-term lot. Doubtful they'll be missed too soon."

"Very well. When you return, come to my office—come alone—and we'll talk."

He had a feeling Davis would need a sympathetic ear after this ordeal was over.

The Oculus saw them off, then trudged up to his office. For what, he didn't know. He didn't want to sit and brood. Better to spend the time with Diana, drilling her on her studies. At least that would take his mind off what was about to happen.

12

"I
neeeed
this one Mom look at the cover isn't it neat can I have it please-please-please?"

Gia looked and saw Vicky holding up a copy of
Science Verse
.

She'd had a bit of a hassle taking her out of school. Seemed she wasn't the only parent who wanted to keep her child close today. But after a careful ID check and confirmation from Vicky that this woman was indeed her mother, they'd let her go.

The question then was what to do? She didn't want to take her out of school just to lock her in the house. Since Vicky had outgrown most of her spring clothes, the obvious choice was to shop. But that presented potential problems too.

Gia had decided that if they stayed away from the iconic stores—she couldn't afford Saks, Gucci, or Bergdorf's anyway—and avoided Fifth Avenue, they'd be safe.

Gia didn't expect anything to happen, but she felt more in control with Vicky at her side on Madison Avenue. Plenty of great stores for kids on Madison. They came upon a bookstore called The Tattered Page. Vicky loved books and this one sold both new and used. Who could resist?

"You want a book about science?"

Vicky's tastes usually ran to fantasy and funny wordplay. Nobody liked puns more.

"But he wrote
The Stinky Cheese Man!"

"Oh, well, in that case, we'll take it."

"Neeeat!"

Gia watched as she opened the book and began reading, watched her smile, watched her eyes dance. She had her father's hair…

The thought brought back memories of Richard Westphalen. A rich, handsome, suave Englishman whose sparkling wit had swept her off her feet when she'd first come to New York. If only she'd known the man within. They'd married and she'd looked forward to a happy future. She'd been overjoyed when she learned she was pregnant, but not Richard. He revealed his true nature—"a bounder and a cad," according to his aunt Nellie—by virtually walking out on her. He hadn't wanted to be a father and told her flat out that he'd married her for the tax breaks he'd receive by becoming an American citizen.

He was out with one of his bimbos the night Gia went into labor. Her folks were back in Iowa, she had no close friends, and she still remembered that cab ride to the hospital as the lowest, loneliest moment of her life.

But when the pain was over and she'd cuddled her daughter, the loneliness vanished and the world became a wonderful place.

God, she'd loved that little girl then and loved her more now. In fact she loved being a mother, plain and simple. Even loved being pregnant.

She tried to imagine what it would be like having two children, and wondered for the zillionth time what the new baby would be like. If she—and she couldn't think of her any way but as a
she
—had only half of Vicky's intelligence and joie de vivre, she'd still be a joy.

The baby gave her a good kick, then another. She'd been pretty active for the past hour or so. Maybe she sensed that her mother was hungry. Gia looked at her watch: 12:30 already.

"Ready for some lunch?"

Vicky looked up from the book. 'This is so funny!"

"Hungry?"

"Yeah. I'm starving. Can we go to Burger King? Pleeeeease?"

"Not today." The thought of burnt meat—blech. "How about Kosher Nosh?"

"But we were there yesterdaaaaay."

Vicky was in full whine mode.

"You can have that hummus and pita platter. You liked it last time."

"Can't I have a cheeseburger?"

"They don't make cheeseburgers there. Remember the hummus? You said it was the best you've ever had."

"Oh, okay. But can I get a big pickle too?"

"You can have two big pickles if you want."

Vicky headed for the cash register. "Let's go!"

Gia followed her with a kicking baby and a watering mouth. Not for the pickles. For herring… pickled herring in sour cream. Yum. She could almost taste it.

13

Cal stepped into the Kosher Nosh and looked around.

The O had described the woman and the child and had said they'd be crossing the street shortly after leaving the deli. Cal just wanted to make sure they were where they were supposed to be.

"To eat in or to go?" said the bearded man behind the counter.

Eat? With his stomach feeling like it did? Out of the question.

"Just looking for a friend."

"Look away."

The place was three-quarters full, but he spotted her short blond hair almost immediately. Couldn't tell from here if she was pregnant, but she was sitting with a dark-haired little girl that fit the Oculus's description. The kid was reading to her from a book and they both were laughing.

Cal felt the room sway around him. Mother and daughter—had to be. Out together and enjoying each other.

His legs felt unsteady as he saw what might have been. He grabbed a chair and dropped into it.

That woman… that child… had things been different, had his parents not left him to die in a cold squatter's building, the Twins wouldn't have had to rescue him. He might have had a normal childhood, might have married a woman like that and had a child like that.

This wasn't the first time he'd thought of this, but most times he could lock it away—dreaming about might-have-beens was a form of self-torture. Useless. Destructive.

But today, now, at this moment, he could not sweep them under the rug. He was going to destroy a family.

"Find your friend?" the bearded man said.

Cal shook his head. "No."

He could say no more. He turned and staggered back to the sidewalk.

Miller stood on the corner, waiting.

"They in there?"

Cal nodded. "They're there, but 1 can't do it."

"What?"

"1 can't. I just… can't."

"Shit." Miller spit into the gutter. "You're turning into a real pussy, you know that?"

Cal didn't care what Miller or anyone else—including the Ally—thought, he wasn't getting behind the wheel of that truck.

"Let's just call it off, okay?"

"Call it off? We can't call it off! It was an Alarm, an order straight from the top."

"You sure about that?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, it doesn't feel right. Something's wrong, Miller. It felt wrong when she got the bull's-eye put on her the first time, and it feels even more wrong now. And December—I don't even want to think about December."

Miller's features hardened. "We're soldiers, Davis. We've sworn to follow orders."

"Which means we'd make good little Nazis, right?"

"Don't try that hot-button shit on me."

"Well, why don't we grab her, take her to one of the safe houses, and grill her about her connection to the Otherness?"

"Did the O see us grilling her? No, he saw us offing her. So that's what we're gonna do."

"What if there's been a mistake?"