Twinmaker

28

CLAIR PUT THE handset back in its cradle and hurried back to the living room. Zep was waiting for her, looking

rumpled and rubbing his chafed wrists, but at least he was free. Jesse had gone reluctantly with Gemma, Big-Ears, and Arabelle to the back of the house. Only Ray remained, back at his post by the front door.

Zep limped across the room and took Clair into his arms.

“My hero,” he said.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Me too, frankly.”

Her laugh was choked, but she told herself that was because he stank of stale sweat and tension. She leaned into him, grateful for his solidity and unafraid for once if anyone saw it. What happens behind a Faraday shield, she thought, stays behind a Faraday shield.

“You haven’t hit on me once today,” she said.

“I’m not the one with the gun in my pocket, in case you’d forgotten.”

She laughed and held him more tightly still.

“Don’t tell me you’re disappointed,” he said.

“Can I be honest?” she said. “I’ve been chased around the world and shot at. My parents were threatened. Libby might have brain damage. You’re hurt. I can’t even think about anything else at the moment.”

“Maybe when this is over—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Why not? I mean it.”

He brushed an errant curl from her forehead. She kept her cheek pressed against his chest, suppressing a sudden gulp of emotion.

“I just don’t get you, Zep. Why would you ever choose me over Libby?”

“Are you really asking that?”

She shrugged, not sure what she wanted him to say.

“Libby could never do what you just did,” he said. “You faced up to a pack of terrorists and got them to do what you wanted. You know how to figure things out. You can handle yourself. And you know what’s right, too, or else we’d have had this conversation weeks ago.”

She looked up at him, not sure she’d heard him correctly. “Really?”

He rolled his eyes. “Hell yes. You’re fine as limes, girl. Too good for me, if you really want to know the truth. Look at how I sat there like a useless lump while you did all the negotiating.”

“Don’t,” she said, not wanting to hear him put himself down.

“See? You’re always saying that.”

She pulled out of his arms, although doing so betrayed every muscle in her body.

The phone shrilled once more, then went silent.

“That’s the signal,” said Ray, joining them. “Come on.”

They followed him up the hallway.

“Just tell me,” said Zep, “who is this friend of yours who keeps on calling? None of your usual troop could hack their way out of a paper bag. Well, maybe Ronnie, but—”

“Quiet,” said Gemma. She was peering through the curtains at the rear of the house.

Big-Ears had his hand on the latch of the door that led out into the yard.

“I’ll tell you later, Zep,” Clair whispered to him. Of the rest, she asked, “What are you waiting for?”

“Our ride,” Gemma said.

Clair couldn’t see anything remotely mobile past Gemma’s head. The yard was long and narrow. It was crowded with ornamental fruit trees and flower beds, creating an irregular canopy through which a redbrick path meandered. The path terminated in a gate. Beyond the gate was a lane of some kind—a relic of the original urban layout, back when there were roads for cars to drive on.

The phone rang a second time, and Big-Ears opened the door.

Now Clair could see it, after a fashion. There was something in the lane, hulking low and silent. Whatever it was, the starlight didn’t seem to touch it. It had edges but no visible sides, just an outline. It wasn’t even a silhouette. On the other side of the lane was a tree, and Clair could clearly see its trunk though the thing that stood between it and her.

Big-Ears edged out into the yard, followed by Gemma. Ray indicated that Clair, Zep, and Jesse should go next, with him and Arabelle bringing up the rear. Clair lined up with the rest, glad that someone else was making the decisions. Jesse didn’t protest, perhaps feeling the same way.

The air was fresh and lively, scented with the sea and late-flowering plants. The only sound was the whining of Arabelle’s chair and the rustling of leaves. It was so dark under the arbor that Clair could barely see Gemma’s back. Patches winked to life in her lenses, but she had more important things to concentrate on just then, such as putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping over the edge of a loose brick.

The shots took her completely by surprise.

The first dropped Big-Ears like something had reached up from the shadowy ground and pulled him down. One moment he was in the lead, waving with a cupped hand for them to hurry, the next he was gone.

The second shot might have been an echo but for the way Gemma jerked. The bullet struck her right shoulder and buried deep, gifting her with all its considerable momentum. She spun 180 degrees to face Clair, fumbled for something at her waist, and then she, too, fell to the ground.

Clair was already ducking into the shadows and raising the pistol she didn’t know how to use. People were shouting. She didn’t hear the words. Two more shots cracked the night, and this time she saw the muzzle flashes, bright-yellow flames that came and went faster than lightning. The shooter was on the roof of the safe house, aiming down along the yard. A bullet whizzed over her head; then Zep was on her, pushing her down, under cover.

Ray was returning fire from her right. Clair rolled over under Zep’s protective weight, planted her elbows on the ground, and braced the pistol in both hands. She had seen plenty of movies. Aim and pull the trigger—what could be easier?

Chances were, she told herself, that she wouldn’t hit anyone anyway. But she had to try before someone else was shot.

More muzzle flashes from above. The shooter had moved. She adjusted her aim and pulled the trigger. The pistol boomed much louder than she had expected, and the kick was like catching a ball from a great height, hard on both her wrists. She fired a second time, and then red crosshairs appeared in her vision with an arrow pointing left. She shifted the pistol and the arrow shifted with it. When it was centered on the crosshairs, she fired again and kept firing until the magazine was exhausted and her hands had lost all feeling.

Ringing silence fell. Ray darted out of the shadows and scrambled onto the fence and from there to the roof. No one fired at him. A spotlight flared behind her, casting the scene into crisp black-and-white relief.

There was a body sprawled against the gutter; it had slid there and gotten stuck, leaving a red smear in its wake. Ray approached warily and shoved it with the sole of his boot.

The body tumbled off the roof, hit the ground, and sprawled faceup in the glare. The shooter had been hit in the stomach and throat. His flesh was ripped and bruised.

Did I do that? It seemed incredible to Clair. Out of panic and darkness had come this unexpected reality, sickening her to the stomach.

There was worse to come. It was Dylan Linwood’s battered face that stared back at her, a single bloodred eye gaping like something from an Edgar Allan Poe story. She knew that it would haunt her dreams forever.

The cry Jesse emitted was all pain and surprise. Even through Clair’s gunshot-deadened ears, she could hear the depths of his hurt. Ray dropped down next to the body and did his best to keep him away.

“We have to move,” Arabelle was saying. “Clair, you have to get up. Don’t freeze on us now.”

Why would she freeze on them? Because she might have killed Dylan Linwood? Clair didn’t know who should take credit for that—“q” most likely had guided her hand, via the gun’s sights. Anyway, the reason she wasn’t moving had nothing to do with Dylan Linwood.

“Move, you big lug,” she said to Zep, elbowing him in the belly. “It’s over.”

He didn’t move. She rolled half over and looked away too late.

The bullet that had narrowly missed her had caught him under the left ear, entering just behind his jaw and tearing a violent path through the base of his skull, destroying the top of his spinal column and sending fragments of bone and metal all through his brain. His right eye bulged as though someone had pushed at it from behind. His expression was one of absolute bewilderment.

Clair was covered in his blood and hadn’t even noticed.

“Come on,” said Gemma over the roaring in her ears, “or we’re leaving you behind.”