Hellbent

65 Not an Innocent

Joey stepped through the unlocked door of 21A and stared at the cavernous great room. All the lights were off, but the city shone through the giant windows, making the contours of the penthouse glimmer darkly.

A silhouette rose from one of the bar chairs at the kitchen island.

Evan.

He said, “I made up your bed.”

Joey stepped inside and shut the door behind her. “Thanks.”

“I’m not very good at it,” he said.

“What?”

He gestured from her to him. “This.”

“You’re better than you think.”

“I didn’t mean what I said on the phone. What you overheard.”

“I know.”

She came forward, and they stared at each other.

“I went to see that guy with the stupid hair,” she said. “From outside the safe house?”

Evan nodded.

“He’s a useless reprobate,” she said. “You were right.”

Evan said, “I don’t want to be right.”

She leaned into him stiffly, her forehead thunking against his chest, her arms at her sides. He hesitated a moment and then hugged her, one hand holding the back of her head, her thick, thick hair.

He said, “Rough night all around, huh?”

“Yeah.” Her voice rose an octave and cracked. “I think I’m done pretending.”

“Pretending what?”

“Acting like I didn’t need anything from anyone. I started after my maunt died, because… you know, I wasn’t gonna get it anyways.” She straightened up. “But I was lying. Now and then I still think about what mighta been. Someone to tuck me in, maybe. You know, ‘How was your day?’ Cute boy in homeroom. A soccer team. All that normal shit. Instead. Instead.” Her lips wobbled. “Do you think I ever could?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not too late?”

“No. Once we get Van Sciver, we’ll find what comes next for you. It doesn’t have to be this.”

She blinked, and a tear glided down her flawless brown cheek. “How ’bout you?”

“It’s not an option anymore for me. It’s different.”

She looked up at him. “Is it?”

He nodded.

“Even after you get Van Sciver?”

“There will always be Van Scivers.”

“But what about Mia? And the kid?”

“There will always be Van Scivers,” he said again.

She pursed her lips and studied him in the semidarkness. “I remember I was fourteen, bleeding from my ear. Van Sciver put me with a demolition breacher who let me get too close to a door charge. I thought it was a punctured eardrum. He took me back to town and dropped me at a park, you know, for pickup. Anyways, I was worse than anyone thought. I was stumbling along off the trail. And I came up behind a guy on a bench, rocking himself and murmuring. At first I thought he was injured, too. Or crazy. But then I saw he had a baby. His baby. And he was holding it so gently. I snuck up behind him in the bushes. And he was saying… he was saying, ‘You are safe. You are loved.’” Her eyes glimmered. “Can you imagine?”

Walking behind Jack in the woods, placing his feet in Jack’s footprints.

“Yes,” Evan said.

“Maybe that’s all anyone needs,” Joey said. “One person who feels that way about you. To keep you human.”

“It’s a gift,” Evan said. “It’s also a weakness.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a vulnerability they can exploit. Jack protecting me. Me protecting you. Us protecting David Smith. But we’re gonna stop all that now. Instead of letting them use it against us, we’re gonna start using it against them. The Ninth Commandment.”

“‘Always play offense,’” she said. “But how?”

“We have what they want.”

She stared at him, puzzled.

He said, “Us.”

Her eyes gleamed. “Use me as bait.”

Evan nodded. “And we know where to drop the line.”

They left at five in the morning, switched out Evan’s truck for a black Nissan Altima he kept at a safe house beneath an LAX flight path. Seven hours and four minutes later, they reached Phoenix. They did a few hours of recon and planning before pulling over in the shade of a coral gum tree. The car windows were cracked open, and the arid breeze tasted of dust.

The downtown skyline, such as it was, rose a few blocks away. They were on the fringe of suburbia here, two blocks north of the 10 Freeway, a handful more to the 17. A tall-wall ad on the side of a circular parking structure proclaimed ARIZONA’S URBAN HEART and featured a cubist rendering of a heart composed of high-rises.

Evan and Joey had worked out a dozen contingencies and then a dozen more, charting escape routes, meet points, emergency scenarios. Because they’d driven from Los Angeles and didn’t have to concern themselves with airport security, he’d brought a trunkful of gear and weaponry, a mission-essential loadout that left him prepared for virtually anything. But at the end of the day, when you went fishing, you never knew precisely what you’d get on the line.

As if reading his thoughts, Joey said, “Okay. So if they go to grab me. What do you do?”

“Grab them.”

She shifted the bouquet of irises in her lap. “And then what?”

“Make them talk.”

“How?”

Evan just looked at her.

“Right,” she said. “And if we’re not so lucky as to have that work out?”

“Don’t fall in love with Plan A.”

The sunlight shifted, and at the peak of the hill above, the arched sign over the wrought-iron gate came visible.

SHADY VALE CEMETERY.

This was where Jack had found Joey, visiting her maunt’s grave. As she’d said, he knew how her heart worked.

Van Sciver knew, too, though not from the inside out. He understood people from a scientific remove, learning where the soft spots were, which buttons to push, where to tap to elicit a reflex.

He had kept Joey for eleven months, had trained, analyzed, and assessed her. Evan was counting on the fact that Van Sciver was strategically sharp enough to surveil a location that held this kind of emotional importance to her. Whether that surveillance took the form of hidden cameras or freelancers on site, he wasn’t sure.

For Van Sciver vulnerability was little more than a precipitating factor in a chain reaction. Joey’s maunt would lead to Joey. Joey would lead to Evan.

Evan thought about the GPS unit Van Sciver had planted in David Smith’s arm and wondered how they’d plan to tag Joey if they caught her here.

He recalled the Secret Service background of at least two of the freelancers Van Sciver had hired. Van Sciver had never drawn operators from the Service before, and it was unlikely a random choice for him to do so now. Evan’s train of thought carried him into unpleasant terrain, where the possibilities congealed into something dark and toxic.

Joey screwed in her earpiece and started to get out of the black car. Evan put his hand on her forearm to halt her. A memory flash hit him — the image of himself at nineteen years old climbing out of Jack’s truck at Dulles International, ready to board a plane for his first mission. Jack had grabbed Evan’s arm the same way.

It was the first time Evan had ever seen him worried.

Evan reminded himself that he wasn’t worried now. Then he reminded himself again. Joey was looking at him in a way that indicated that his face wasn’t buying what he was telling himself.

“What?” she said.

“The Tenth Commandment,” Evan said. “‘Never let an innocent die.’” He paused. “This is a risk.”

“I’m not an innocent,” Joey said.

He nodded. For this mission she wasn’t.

“Plus, they need me to get to you,” Joey added. “Like you said, they want to snatch me, direct the action.”

“That’s our play, but it’s still a guess. With former Secret Service in the mix, we don’t know how far this reaches. But we know what they’re willing to do.”

“I’m fast,” she said. “I’ll stay in public, keep my head on a swivel.”

“If we do this…”

“What, Evan?”

“Don’t fuck up.”

“What does that mean?”

“After what happened to Jack, nothing will stop me from getting to Van Sciver. Nothing. And no one.” His throat was dry, whether from the dry desert air or the air-conditioning, he didn’t know. “Don’t put me in a position to make that choice.”

She read his meaning, gave a solemn nod, and climbed out of the car.