Enemy Closer, page 14
I was jolted awake by two giddy little voices preceding their owners up the stairs to the guest room. Emma was filling her little sister, Ellie, in on the previous night’s events. I feigned sleep, and at the top of the stairs their voices dropped to conspiratorial whispers. Thankfully, the darkness of the room hid my body shaking with laughter at their whispered conversation.
“—and that really big dog outside is hers, and he knows lots of swear words and can see in the dark, and Anta has brown hair now like yours, but a lot longer.”
“I want to play with the dog—”
“You can’t, he’ll eat you.”
“Can I ride him?”
“Probably, if you ask real nice. Hey Anta… Anta?”
I flinched as a tiny finger poked me in the cheek.
“Can you wake up now? Meemaw made breakfast and Ellie wants to play with your dog.”
That she was still whispering, even while trying wake me up, was too much. I opened my eyes, laughing, and peered at them in the semi-darkness. “Who are you two? Where am I?”
That got me a nervous giggle from Emma, though Ellie was trapped in some kind of awed silence.
“You know who we are!” Emma insisted.
“Hm… it might be coming back to me… but I need some coffee to be sure.”
I earned myself few minutes of peace as both girls dashed downstairs to secure the requested beverage. By the time they’d convinced my mother to let them carry a full cup of hot coffee up the stairs, I was on the way down. I rescued the cup from Emma in time to prevent a tragedy of spilled coffee and ceramic shards on the stairs.
“Thanks, you two. Man, you’ve gotten big. What are you, like sixteen and eighteen now?”
Ellie started to correct me, but Emma retorted, “Yep, Ellie’s taking her driving test tomorrow. Everyone in town is terrified.”
I stared at her, bewildered at her quick wit. I could see what my mom meant: A mere seven years on this earth were enough to make it clear Emma was going to be a handful and a half. I loved her, but I did not envy my parents.
My mom had breakfast ready and waiting when we all arrived in the kitchen. She dismissed my offer of help and ordered me to the table, where I was presented with a huge portion of breakfast casserole. I was several bites in before I realized something.
“Doesn’t this have to sit overnight?” I asked her as she sat down to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
“Always has,” she breezed.
“When the—when did you do this?”
“Last night, after you went to bed.”
“Since when are you such a night owl?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep after I put Emma to bed. The coffee, I guess. Sorry they woke you. I couldn’t keep them at bay any longer.”
“I was already awake,” I lied. “They—er—they really want to see Dude.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the back door, where both girls were standing at attention and waiting for the all-clear to go outside. They were almost vibrating with excitement.
“You’re sure he won’t hurt them?”
“Positive.”
She seemed convinced but insisted they eat breakfast first. I watched in unwilling admiration as she wrangled them to the table, coaxed them both through a bowl of cereal apiece, and managed to foist a second helping of breakfast casserole on me. She hardly broke a sweat.
Half an hour later, while they were dutifully washing their hands, I said, “Damn you’re good at this.”
“Annie, don’t cuss.”
“They can’t hear me.”
“I can.”
“All right, your house, your rules. You wouldn’t happen to have a swear jar, would you?”
“I’ll make one,” she offered, and she wasn’t kidding.
I went outside first to calm Dude down and show my mom, who was watching through the window with the girls, how well behaved he was. After a few tricks that had the girls laughing so loudly I could hear them from outside, she allowed them to dash outside.
We were sitting on the front porch, nursing our second cups of coffee and watching Dude play with the girls, when the phone in the kitchen rang. My mom went to get it and came back a few seconds later, announcing in a low voice to the exclusion of Emma and Ellie, “It’s for you.”
“Sorry—what?”
“An Agent Camposanto of the FBI. I’m assuming that’s your boss, Jim?”
“Yes. Balls.”
“Annie.”
“Sorry.”
I went inside to answer it, making sure my mother wasn’t listening at the door before I picked up the receiver. “What.”
“When did you get to Manchester?” The voice on the other end was tight, cluing me in that I might have fucked up somehow.
“Last night.”
“And you didn’t think to maybe let me know?”
“I mean, obviously I didn’t. You didn’t tell me to.”
I bit back a smile as a long, slow sigh preceded his answer.
“I would think, given the circumstances of your departure, you could easily infer I would want to know you arrived safely.”
“… I arrived safely.”
“And your parents?”
“Mom’s cool with it, Dad’s not here.”
“How much do they know?”
“Jim, you fucking know how much they know, why are you wasting my time?”
He paused for several seconds, most likely composing himself. Jim had a confoundingly even temper, and I was rarely able to resist the impulse to test it. In my defense, I was desperately trying to get fired. His voice was a study in serenity when he finally answered.
“I have to ask these things. You know that.”
“I know.”
“We need to talk about Colorado, and I need to give you an update on you-know-who. It has to be in person. Meet me at the Choctaw Casino in two hours. I’m in room fifteen twelve.”
Before I could assemble a response, he hung up.
* * *
The casino was less than an hour away across the border, which allowed me plenty of time to argue with my mom about why I was leaving again so suddenly, convince her Dude wouldn’t snap and turn into a killing machine the moment I drove away, and finally take a shower and make myself more or less presentable.
Had I bothered to take a guess as to how crowded a casino would be on a Tuesday morning in Oklahoma, I would have been wrong. Apparently this was the place to be for anyone within a hundred miles who wasn’t at work, and I had trouble finding a parking space. It was only about half the size of the casino in Albuquerque, lacking that establishment’s ineffable touch of vitality, and a painful reminder of one Luke Jackson’s abrupt and troubling exit from my life in the wee hours of Monday morning. Again I struggled to accept how little time had passed since then; I was already in a totally different world here.
I found Jim’s room and hesitated at the door, checking my watch. Three more minutes would make it exactly two hours from when he’d hung up the phone. I waited, watching the second hand on my watch. Quiet footsteps on the carpet behind me broke my concentration.
“Can I help you?”
I turned to see Jim, his expression shifting from wariness to recognition to irritation. He was wearing swim trucks, flip flops, and a towel draped over his neck.
“Oh, it’s you. What’s with the wig?”
Having donned my previously unused, electric blue wig for the occasion, I grinned. “Like it? I bought it in Durango. Didn’t get a chance to deploy it.”
“Are you actually in disguise, or are you just fucking around?” he demanded, letting us both into the room.
“Can it be both?”
“With you, that’s almost a guarantee.”
I waited by the door while he extracted a t-shirt from his suitcase and thew it on.
“Why the casino?” I asked, just to make sounds.
“Closest hotel to your parents’ house.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Closest one with a pool where I can get a drink at ten in the morning.”
“Wow, a few hours in Oklahoma and you’re already descending into unapologetic hedonism.”
He laughed appreciatively, looking me up and down. “That wig… I thought you were a prostitute or something.”
“Gross.”
Since I was planted against the wall by the door, he came back to me, standing too close. I looked up at him, glaring a warning. “Don’t you fucking start,” I snarled.
He tugged at the wig experimentally, felt how loose it was, and pulled it off. The wig cap came next, allowing my hair to tumble free, while I stared at the wall behind him. His hand twisted into my hair.
“Jim, for God’s sake. You have been drinking, haven’t you?”
“You smell so good.”
“You said you needed to talk to me about Philip.”
“I do.”
“You said it had to be in person.”
“It does.”
“So…?”
“Give me a second to catch my breath, kiddo.”
“Please don’t call me that. It’s so demeaning.”
“Sorry.” He ran his thumb across my lips. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
I finally met his eyes. “Can we please not do this? Just pretend you’re sober, and a professional.”
He took a deep breath, nodding. “Right. Okay. Fine.”
As he retreated, I unstuck myself from the wall and followed him into the room, muscling past a vague sense of disappointment that he’d given up so easily. It was for the best, I told myself. This partnership was already strained and dysfunctional enough.
“What’s going on with Philip?” I asked.
“He took a personal day yesterday, and now he’s back at work. He’s re-focused the search for Jackson on the Four Corners area, but he’s back to overseeing everything from Washington.”
“Has he told anyone I was there?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Did you intercept my voicemail?”
His blank look was answer enough. “What voicemail?”
“Dammit… I called his office phone from the Perkinses’ cabin. I thought you were checking that shit.”
“The warrant expired a week ago.”
“Fuck.”
“What did you say?”
“Just where I was, and that I was answering his email. I thought maybe it would give you cause to start monitoring his emails. Seemed like a solid plan.”
“Time continued to pass while you were in Colorado.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning.”
“Like… nineteen eighty-seven?”
“Anna, I swear to God…”
“All right, all right.”
I launched into a detailed description of everything that happened in Colorado, beginning with finding Luke’s cabin and ending with his departure from the casino. Of primary interest to Jim were Philip’s surprise arrival at the cabin and our brief conversation a few days later when he showed up at Ernest and Doreen’s cabin.
“He told you he tracked Jackson there?” Jim asked eagerly.
“Uh huh.”
“Did he say how?”
“No.”
“So he could still get to Jackson before we do.”
“Easily.”
“Did you get anything out of Jackson at all?”
“I’d barely gotten him to tell me his real name before Philip fucked everything up.”
“How did you do that?”
“Take a wild guess.”
Except for a brief narrowing of the eyes, he hardly reacted to this, asking, “Did he suspect you?”
“Yes. Otherwise he would’ve told me where he was going so I could find him again.”
Luke’s last words flitted through my head, unbidden: “By Christmas, I’ll either be dead or in London.” I asked myself for perhaps the thousandth time why I wasn’t telling Jim. For the thousandth time, I had no answer.
“And he never told you what’s supposed to happen on August thirty-first?”
“Nope.”
“I’ve got to say, Anna… not your best work.”
I flared up at once, spitting, “Will you give me a break? You were supposed to keep Philip off my back, and that lasted, what, a week?”
He grinned, unimpressed by my fury. “You’re devolving before my eyes.”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Can you not hear yourself? Your accent is thick enough to slice with a knife.”
I crossed my arms, fuming, robotically articulating my next words. “Well excuse the shit out of me. It gets worse when I’m stressed.”
“It didn’t use to. You used to have ice in your veins.”
“Yeah, well… it’s fucking hot in Houston.”
For a moment he almost looked abashed, but he recovered quickly. “We’ll know when Philip starts zeroing in on Jackson again. I won’t be able to give you much notice, so keep the essentials packed and be ready to go when you hear from me. How soon can you get to DFW Airport from your parents’ house?”
“Depends on the traffic. Two and a half, three hours maybe. Why?”
“We got a tip he may be leaving the country. I’m working on getting Abigail Breckenridge a passport and some more cash. How much do you have left?”
I hesitated, provoking his suspicion immediately.
“How much?”
“About a thousand.”
“How the fuck…?”
I shrugged defensively. “Stuff’s expensive in Colorado.”
Plus I gave five hundred dollars to Luke, but Jim didn’t need to know that yet. Misappropriation of government funds would be the least of my worries.
“Whatever, fine. I’ll try to get you five thousand, but you better learn to live on ramen and hot dogs just in case.”
“I can live on less than that.”
He eyeballed me in a way I definitely didn’t like. “You are taking care of yourself, right?”
“What do you call learning Jiu Jitsu?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Ugh. Don’t go all mother hen on me, Jim. I already have a mom.”
“Is she as hot as you?”
I clenched my fists, turning away from him. “You’re trying to provoke me. It’s not gonna work.”
“So you can dish it out, but you can’t take it, huh?” When I offered no response other than to glower at him, he left off to fish something out of his suitcase. He tossed me a new phone. “Try not to break that one, please.”
July to September, 2020
Manchester, Texas
My passport arrived by courier three weeks after my meeting with Jim. The courier, who bafflingly chose to buzz the gate at eight thirty at night, refused to allow my mom or dad to sign for it and demanded I come to the gate personally, which my mom waspishly informed me of while I was taking a bath. I threw on a bathrobe and signed for the package, then returned to my room to inspect its contents.
Ellie had been moved into Emma’s room so I could occupy the room that had once been mine, and so my dad could have his office back. I found myself anachronistically surrounded by the trappings of a carefree, cripplingly naïve, and hilariously gawky teenage me: Cheap prints of Renaissance paintings were still meticulously pasted over forbidden posters of Good Charlotte, Weezer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the like. Volleyball trophies crowded out older artefacts from art class and Bible school on my bookshelf.
The only items that appeared to have been touched were my small VHS library, where I found an empty box that should have contained a Sailor Moon movie, and my little jewelry collection, which now belonged to Queen Emma and Princess Ellie and was routinely disgorged onto the carpet for dress up.
Ellie didn’t seem to mind being displaced, though she did occasionally “forget” she’d been moved and sneak into my room in the middle of the night to snuggle up next to me. Just in case she decided to go for it while I was reviewing the contents of my Eyes Only GSA Approved container, I locked the bedroom door behind me.
Inside was a U.S. passport issued to Abigail Breckenridge, whose picture bore one striking difference from my actual appearance that goaded me into calling Jim.
“Hello?” he answered, his guarded tone catching me by surprise.
“Did you not save this number in your phone?” I asked.
“Oh—Anna. Did you get the passport and the cash?”
“I did, yes, thanks, but… quick question. Why is Abigail blonde?”
“Because redheads stand out.”
“So do blondes. That’s why we dyed my hair brown.”
“Which Philip has already seen.”
“You could have given me some advance notice, you know. It takes time to go blonde, especially after dying your hair.”
“Wow, am I glad I didn’t know that.”
“I’m not taking shit for not being this blonde in time to leave the country, if that even happens.”
“Anna, when have you taken any shit ever?”
“I’m serious.”
“It’s not that big a deal. Besides, think how sexy you’ll look as a blonde. I know I am.”
“You’re just loving having this much control over my life, aren’t you?”
“I don’t hate it.”
“… Any news?”
“Nada.”
“Are you back in DC?”
“Yep. How’s Texas?”
“Hot. I’m starting to hope he turns up in Siberia.”
“Well, keep your fingers crossed. I’ll call you if anything comes up. Just enjoy the break.”
That was easy for him to say. Every other conversation with my parents was either a wild bid for information about my job, which I couldn’t give, or a rapid-fire barrage of questions about my plans for the future, which I didn’t have.
Having mostly gotten over my sudden appearance at his house demanding room and board, my dad was descending back into disgruntlement with each conversation that ended in, “I can’t tell you.” Occasionally I required him to save me from one of the spiders that regularly came out of the woodwork to scare the shit out of me, which always gave him a laugh, so at least his mood wasn’t entirely sour.
