drove into the lot and past me as if nothing were amiss, parking a few rows down.
I held my throbbing head in my hands. Between the sorcerer’s curse and the Left-Handish voice, my skull was about to explode. I wouldn’t get to Virginia tonight. I’d find another way, with more appropriate transport, or maybe the surveillance would loosen up. Time to develop an alibi for this excursion. An out-of-place heavy metal club occupied one section of the mall. I’m just out for a drink.
I pulled into a parking space and shut off my car. A drumbeat of craft malice pulsed around me, red like blood. A sudden squeal of rubber. The tailing convertible pulled out of its space and out of the lot, nearly creaming a pedestrian. Something was wrong. Before I knew why, I grabbed the gun from the glove compartment.
My brain caught up: the agents must have been ordered away from me ASAP, meaning someone didn’t want them to witness what happened next. I tucked the gun into its holster built into my leather jacket. Again driven by instinct, I sprung from the T-Bird.
I spun around, searching for the next strike. Down the road, the Gideons’ sedan came barreling toward the mall. The pedestrian had moved on, and no other person stood close enough to see details. Good. If my own government was trying to kill me, then any witnesses would be at serious risk.
That was why I wasn’t going to drive home. If they had decided on my death, then termination in a speeding car would just lead to more collateral damage to innocents and my spirit.
Behind the mall was a wooded park area, which might even the odds a little. As good a place as any for a showdown. I ran for it, past the storefronts toward the edge of the mall building, where I would turn and enter the woods.
The Gideons’ sedan screamed to a stop, and two of them were already out the doors and in pursuit, fast as feral cats.
I reached the end of the building. A woman stepped out from the corner restaurant. I stepped to dodge her. I was going to yell a warning— Get inside, bad people are behind me!— then draw my gun.
But then, drawing breath to speak, the smell hit me, savory and dreadful. Cumin, nutmeg, cardamom, lamb, exhaust. The scents of a “Mediterranean” restaurant blended with the low stink of auto fumes.
I stumbled to a stop, my way blocked. Zee was standing in front of me. “You’ve been a bad boy, sir.”
I fell to my knees. All went blank, except for foreign gutturals from somewhere close. From my own mouth.
Then the woman from the restaurant was speaking low, angry and close, using the same Farsi-sounding syllables, and I could see again. The woman had bent down so that her perfect almond eyes and short gamine hair were only inches from my face. Her eyes seemed wide with surprise and outrage. Her right hand had gone straight into her purse, forearm tensed, probably packing a knife.
My limbs were lead, but I could move my neck. I looked over my shoulder, expecting a bullet or some unsubtle craft to blow my head clean off. But Sakakawea and Carson stood still, fifty feet away, weapons concealed. Tall and lean, Sakakawea held a hand out to her side, restraining her colleague, speaking low into her headset. Maybe they didn’t yet have authorization to act with witnesses. But they would get it soon.
“You need to get inside,” I said to the woman from the restaurant. I struggled to get up off my knees. No good.
She repeated the Farsi syllables with emphasis, as if I were a particularly thick child. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
She stared, incredulous. Beautiful too. More than a few of my kind had perished at the hands of terrible beauty. She asked, “Are you threatening me?”
“What was I saying?”
“The dogs will lick your blood.”
“Oh. Sorry. Wasn’t talking to you. Can we discuss this inside?”
“To whom were you speaking?” she asked, with unusual grammatical precision.
Someone higher up must have found the Gideons’
I held my throbbing head in my hands. Between the sorcerer’s curse and the Left-Handish voice, my skull was about to explode. I wouldn’t get to Virginia tonight. I’d find another way, with more appropriate transport, or maybe the surveillance would loosen up. Time to develop an alibi for this excursion. An out-of-place heavy metal club occupied one section of the mall. I’m just out for a drink.
I pulled into a parking space and shut off my car. A drumbeat of craft malice pulsed around me, red like blood. A sudden squeal of rubber. The tailing convertible pulled out of its space and out of the lot, nearly creaming a pedestrian. Something was wrong. Before I knew why, I grabbed the gun from the glove compartment.
My brain caught up: the agents must have been ordered away from me ASAP, meaning someone didn’t want them to witness what happened next. I tucked the gun into its holster built into my leather jacket. Again driven by instinct, I sprung from the T-Bird.
I spun around, searching for the next strike. Down the road, the Gideons’ sedan came barreling toward the mall. The pedestrian had moved on, and no other person stood close enough to see details. Good. If my own government was trying to kill me, then any witnesses would be at serious risk.
That was why I wasn’t going to drive home. If they had decided on my death, then termination in a speeding car would just lead to more collateral damage to innocents and my spirit.
Behind the mall was a wooded park area, which might even the odds a little. As good a place as any for a showdown. I ran for it, past the storefronts toward the edge of the mall building, where I would turn and enter the woods.
The Gideons’ sedan screamed to a stop, and two of them were already out the doors and in pursuit, fast as feral cats.
I reached the end of the building. A woman stepped out from the corner restaurant. I stepped to dodge her. I was going to yell a warning— Get inside, bad people are behind me!— then draw my gun.
But then, drawing breath to speak, the smell hit me, savory and dreadful. Cumin, nutmeg, cardamom, lamb, exhaust. The scents of a “Mediterranean” restaurant blended with the low stink of auto fumes.
I stumbled to a stop, my way blocked. Zee was standing in front of me. “You’ve been a bad boy, sir.”
I fell to my knees. All went blank, except for foreign gutturals from somewhere close. From my own mouth.
Then the woman from the restaurant was speaking low, angry and close, using the same Farsi-sounding syllables, and I could see again. The woman had bent down so that her perfect almond eyes and short gamine hair were only inches from my face. Her eyes seemed wide with surprise and outrage. Her right hand had gone straight into her purse, forearm tensed, probably packing a knife.
My limbs were lead, but I could move my neck. I looked over my shoulder, expecting a bullet or some unsubtle craft to blow my head clean off. But Sakakawea and Carson stood still, fifty feet away, weapons concealed. Tall and lean, Sakakawea held a hand out to her side, restraining her colleague, speaking low into her headset. Maybe they didn’t yet have authorization to act with witnesses. But they would get it soon.
“You need to get inside,” I said to the woman from the restaurant. I struggled to get up off my knees. No good.
She repeated the Farsi syllables with emphasis, as if I were a particularly thick child. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
She stared, incredulous. Beautiful too. More than a few of my kind had perished at the hands of terrible beauty. She asked, “Are you threatening me?”
“What was I saying?”
“The dogs will lick your blood.”
“Oh. Sorry. Wasn’t talking to you. Can we discuss this inside?”
“To whom were you speaking?” she asked, with unusual grammatical precision.
Someone higher up must have found the Gideons’
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