Rush snorts. "Not sure if you're jokin' or not, mate."
Alexander shrugs. "Why take the chance?" He shuts down the various machines. "Sit tight. We're moving."
"Moving?" I ask.
"Yeah, well, this is your last known location, right? Letting you get out and walk away from here is rank idiocy, and none of us are rookies. So yeah, sit tight and I'll drop you guys off somewhere else."
He squeezes through a narrow gap to the driver's seat and then we're moving. There are no windows back here, but we make roughly a hundred and twenty different turns, so I'm guessing we take another long, circuitous route across the city.
"Fancy bit of work, that," Rush says, indicating me with a jut of his chin.
"If he's a friend of Uncle Lear's, then that's probably child's play for him," I say.
Eventually, Alexander pulls over, parks the van, but leaves it idling. He wiggles back to us. "Either of you have a cell on you?"
Rush digs the burner we just bought out of his hip pocket. "Cheapo burner we just bought here in Lisbon."
Alexander takes it, shakes his head, and produces a Faraday bag from a drawer. “Trackable." He rummages in a cabinet and comes back with a different Faraday bag, which has a newer model smartphone inside it. "This is not. I wiped the software completely and programmed a totally bespoke operating system. End-to-end messaging encryption for SMS and email. And it doesn't use towers for cellular connection—I, um, sort of hijacked a telecom satellite and slaved it for my own purposes, namely, this. Absolutely no one on the planet can intercept your calls with this, or learn your location from it. I've programmed in Lear's direct number as he has a similar device. You'll only contact him from here on out, okay? Any communications to your parents or anyone else must go through him or you risk detection."
"I understand," I say. "Thank you, Alexander. I, um, I hope my family has arranged payment for you."
Alexander snorts. "I'll pretend you didn't just ask me that. I owe Lear my life several times over. I'd do anything for him."
"Well, thank you, regardless."
He nods. "My pleasure." He gestures at the doors. “I’ve brought you to the train station. Get away from Lisbon before making any plans with your family, or even contacting them. I'm familiar with Pugli, and the worst thing you could do is underestimate both his vindictiveness and his resourcefulness."
"That ain't a word of a lie," Rush says. “You stay off his radar, too, mate. I know the evil bastard all too well myself, and I know he ain't kind to those who help his enemies."
Alexander grins. "Oh, I’ll be halfway across Europe before he knows what happened to the two of you, but thanks for the word of warning. Be safe, you two. And tell Lear I said I still owe him."
A few hours later, we're on a train rocking back across Europe, cutting across Spain, again because it was the first train going anywhere.
I feel like I've crossed Europe several times over the last…well, you know, I don't even know how long it's been? Three days? Four? Feels like a lifetime ago that I was innocently skiing the Matterhorn with Killy and Cal.
Slowly, the rocking of the train lulls me to sleep, my head on Rush's solid shoulder, his hand on my thigh.
12
12: DADDY’S ON THE JOB
I spend the long train ride dozing and thinking. Reflecting, really—something I generally make a concerted effort to avoid doing.
I've never had anyone stick by me like Bryn has. I mean, my mates in the service, obviously, but that's different. We trained to be a team. We had no choice but to learn to trust each other. We killed and bled side by side, suffered the hell of war together. This whole experience with Bryn…it's all new. I don't run from fights, typically. If this was just me on the lam from that festering pustule Roberto Pugli, I’d go after him. Invade his fucking house and burn it down around him. Kill as many of his goons as I could before they put a round in the old brainpan. I've never much cared whether I lived or died. In a way, it's probably what made me such an effective operator. I was willing to take risks that other blokes might not, simply because there's never been a single soul on this godforsaken planet who would mourn me if I ate a bullet. Even my mates in the service would look at it as just another soldier dead in the line of duty—they'd be sad a bit, maybe tip a pint in my memory once a year. I'm not reckless, mind you. I like being alive. I like life. I like sex and good booze and a good eight hours’ sleep. I like a scalding shower in the morning. I like a basket of fish and chips from my favorite chippie. I like a long morning run along the Thames.
But when I'm out there, on mission downrange, all of that vanishes. My focus becomes singular. Accomplishing the objective is the only thing that matters.
This ain't that. Bryn ain't another lad from the service. She is the objective. But she's also someone who sees me. Hears me. Understands me. Even though it's been a matter of days, she sees my fucking soul in a way no one else ever has. And it's freaky. Disconcerting.
She forgives me. It might be an overstatement to call what I did the ultimate betrayal, but not by much. And she just…let it go. Got mad and let me know it. But she still heard me out. Demanded the truth from me, and when I gave it to her, she listened. She understood.
She forgave me. She doesn't seem to hold it against me, either. I mean, in my experience, it's still likely she'll trot it out when she's cross with me. But she don't seem the type for that. Hopefully not, at least.
I don't deserve her.
Not after all the shit I've done, not with all the blood on my hands and the skeletons I've got jam-packed in every closet, cabinet, and nook, and cranny of my rotten soul.
She stirs, and slowly slumps lower and lower until she finally gives a wordless, grumbling snurk and topples down to lay her head on my lap.
