Island of Time, page 7
Krys said, ‘You didn’t tell me anything about that.’
‘At the time, Luca just called it a discharge. And we had other things to—’
‘Later,’ Luca snapped. ‘Describe what you see!’
‘It’s moving fast. Staying low to the water, mostly. But the pillars are tall, several hundred feet, maybe higher. And they’re …’
‘Tell me.’
Krys said, ‘It looks like they’re walking.’
Luca sighed. Jackson glanced over. The man’s face was illumin-ated by the headlights frozen along the lakefront road. He could have been in agony or ecstasy; Jackson could not tell.
Krys asked, ‘Is it alive?’
‘We retain very few remnants of the Ancients. But from what I have gleaned, this is not life as we know it,’ Luca replied. ‘We witness a final release of primeval force.’
‘The pillars are drawing together,’ Jackson said.
‘You must tell me exactly where this happens,’ Luca said.
‘OK, the fog has completely covered the lake. The lightning or whatever is streaking the entire length, end to end.’
Krys said, ‘The obelisk is glowing.’
Jackson felt the heat build beneath his fingers. But he kept his eyes on the lake. The sight was mesmerizing. ‘It isn’t lightning. It’s more like …’
‘What?’
‘Rivers of fire. They come and gather and then they vanish.’
‘Gather how?’
‘Like a lot of little streams joining together. At first, the juncture was pointing at Geneva, where the Rhone flows out. Now it’s angled … OK, the force is shifting towards where the pillars are combining.’
As they congregated, the pillars elongated into a parody of the Geneva fountain. Jackson found that astonishing. He had wondered for years where the idea for that fountain came from. Nowadays it served as a symbol for the city, this man-made geyser that continuously blew a spout of water four hundred and twenty-two feet in the air. But no one could ever tell him why it had been built in the first place. When he had asked about it, people had treated his question as silly, an uncertainty raised by a detective who did not know when to turn off his investigative mind. And now before him was the answer. The massive column was filled with a constantly flowing, shifting fire. Jackson had no way of measuring it, but he suspected it was precisely the same height as the city’s waterspout. To the centimeter.
Then it vanished. The fog, the river of fire, the pillar, gone.
But Luca kept them exactly where they were, with just the one word: ‘Wait.’
The fire reformed, in the same position as the vanished column, a bundle of energy that grew out of the lake and took on form …
‘It’s an island,’ Jackson said.
Luca groaned, an involuntary noise. He swallowed hard and said, ‘Is there a bridge?’
‘Is there … Yes! Three humps, maybe two hundred meters in length total.’
‘Where does it touch land?’
‘It’s hard to see.’ The light was almost blinding in its brilliance. The island was tiny, less than fifty feet across and shaped like a camel’s back. At its heart was an obelisk, identical to the one he touched. ‘It looks like it connects to the eastern side of the Rhone’s mouth. But I can’t be certain … Wait! There’s somebody on the island!’
A man became fashioned by the same fire that formed the island and the bridge. He reached out a hand toward the obelisk. At least, Jackson thought it was a man.
The night exploded.
The roar was deafening, a massive rush of force that blasted all three of them off their stone perch. Jackson fell into the fountain’s icy water, then reached up to catch Luca. ‘Krys!’
She came up sputtering. ‘I’m OK.’
‘Luca?’
The man gripped his wet sleeve and muttered, ‘I was right. I was right.’
Jackson looked out at the lake. The waters were moonlit silver, the air calm. Below him, the traffic flowed in a sibilant nighttime rush.
SEVENTEEN
Jackson slept nine hours and woke up sore from head to foot. He showered and stretched and sat at the kitchen counter for over an hour, allowing himself to ease into the day. His apartment was under the eaves in a centuries-old structure above Geneva’s medieval center. The studio was cramped and cluttered, and the heating tended to break down in the middle of frigid winter nights. There was scarcely enough room for a single bed, his weights and workout bench, and his desk. When he wanted to watch the wall-mounted television, which was seldom, Jackson swiveled around his office chair. The place was ridiculously cramped for a man who topped out at six-three. But Jackson had arrived in Geneva with the sole aim of shrinking his life down, retreating into a cave of his own making, and trying to reknit the tattered remnants. The few leftovers from his marriage that Jackson had been unable to discard were locked in Sylvie’s favorite case, a vintage Hermès, that was hidden in the back of his closet. On nights when sleep was demolished by dreams, Jackson often crouched in the doorway and stroked the case. Sometimes Sylvie felt close enough to whisper comfort.
An hour later, Jackson left his building and drove to a cemetery midway between Geneva and Lausanne. Jackson climbed the slope behind the village and opened the wrought-iron gate. The graveyard contained five centuries of Sylvie’s family. Jackson had once considered her burial site a bitter irony, since her family had disowned Sylvie when she left Switzerland to study magic. Now he could look back and almost thank the family that had wanted nothing to do with this amazing woman. Their cold rejection had only knitted the two of them more intimately together. The Talent and the Interpol agent. Not even the Institutes’ perpetual rage at her choice of spouse could touch them.
He visited her grave once or twice each season. Here was his one safe island, where he could revisit their three wonderful years together. Jackson knelt and removed the dry stalks from the stone urn and replaced them with a new bouquet. Sylvie had always loved wildflowers. She had specialized in Europe’s natural herbs, binding and enforcing their qualities with her special brand of healing magic. Talents could not use their force directly to heal the human body. But those gifted in the related arts could magnify the curative powers of herbs and other natural remedies. Sylvie could walk through a meadow of springtime blossoms and name the therapeutic qualities with each indrawn breath.
Jackson had often wondered how such a gifted and ambitious Talent could damage her career by marrying an Interpol agent. He had asked her only twice, however, because both times she had responded with an almost tragic sorrow. As though his questions released tightly repressed emotions, those for which she had no ready answer save love. But he could ask the silent meadow now, and listen to the wind’s vague murmurs, and wonder if perhaps Sylvie’s love for him had been anchored in the same defiance and internal conflicts that had forced her to flee her family and her homeland.
The cemetery occupied a saddle of land reached via granite steps bowed and weathered by the centuries. Jackson turned around and stared past the village roofs, out to where the lake glistened in the afternoon breeze. It was as fine a resting place as he could ever imagine.
Jackson had been with Interpol for twenty-nine months when they met, fresh from a successful career with the Magic Squad of the Denver police. His own superiors had also frowned upon their relationship. But Jackson had defied them and married her, and his career had thrived despite this down-check. He was a good agent. He knew that. But his primary target had been the very same Institutes of Magic that had licensed his wife. The Institutes’ Directors never let Sylvie forget her crime of loving the wrong man.
Jackson patted the headstone and started back down to the parking lot. They had known some wonderful days, he and Sylvie. Nights of wild passion, days of wine and laughter, and hopes bigger than the forces aligned against them.
But as he opened his car door and slipped behind the wheel, he cast a final glance back up the slope and wondered if he would ever find an answer to the question that plagued him still: Did the Institutes have a hand in Sylvie’s demise?
When he was ready, he checked his messages. There were three from the station chief and four from Luca. Jackson was disappointed that Simeon had not been in touch, but not surprised. His first call was to Krys. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m okay, I guess … Where are you?’
‘Finishing up an errand. How are you doing, Krys?’
‘Coping.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I want to try, but not now. I’m in the bullpen.’
‘Has anyone asked for me?’
‘The chief called before I got in. She didn’t leave any message except for you to get in touch.’ She went quiet, then, ‘Luca phoned me.’
Jackson nodded to the glistening lake. ‘For us to move forward, you and Luca have to work together.’ When Krys did not respond, he added, ‘Luca’s been involved in this investigation for years. We don’t have time to relearn the basics. The scrolls are already out there. You understand what I’m saying?’
She paced out each word very carefully, her voice muffled from cupping the phone. ‘I don’t think I can ever forgive him for what he did to me.’
‘That’s your decision. But it doesn’t change what I said.’ Jackson started to add that a measure of distrust might actually be healthy. Then he decided that he probably didn’t need to add to her smoldering cauldron.
Krys asked, ‘Are you coming in?’
‘Later. Call me if something comes up.’ Jackson cut the connection and sat staring out over the rooftops. When he was ready, he placed the call to the station chief. The instant she answered, he jumped in with, ‘This is Jackson. Are you certain you are genuinely safe?’
The question was part of their tradecraft. It was intended to break the flow, alert the other party to potential incoming fire. Chief Meyer hesitated only a second, then said, ‘I’m on the train. Wait one moment.’
There was the sound of rustling, then a low steady drumming came through the speaker. Jackson knew she had stepped into the passageway. Meyer said, ‘I couldn’t fly. There’s been some bad weather down your way.’
‘It wasn’t weather,’ Jackson replied. ‘Not like you think, anyway.’
This time her pause lasted longer. ‘Perhaps we should delay this conversation.’
‘I definitely agree.’
‘You think Swiss laws have been broken?’
‘I know it,’ Jackson replied. ‘I witnessed it. Repeatedly.’
The Geneva station chief asked carefully, ‘Are there potential repercussions I need to discuss with Brussels?’
‘Most definitely yes.’
‘Can it wait?’
‘I think it has to. A couple of hours one way or the other won’t matter.’
‘Very well.’
‘I need to ask you one question now,’ Jackson went on. ‘What specifically was the duty you gave me earlier?’
The train’s rumbling marked time’s passage. Meyer finally replied, ‘We are speaking of the scrolls.’
Jackson watched a gull soar past his window. ‘So we are not dealing with a multiple homicide.’
‘Not that I am aware.’
‘No fire at a private Geneva residence. No suspicious events of any kind.’
‘I’m not clear on what you mean by that statement,’ Meyer replied. ‘You have evidence that connects Interpol’s hunt to some local crime?’
He nodded to the gull’s passage. Her response was a clear tell. Meyer did not know what she had told him about the previous night. ‘I’m going to write up two reports before I head into the office.’
Meyer repeated, ‘Two reports.’
‘Right. One for the official records. The other you may want to read in complete privacy, then send it by courier to Barker. Marked “eyes only”.’
Zoe Meyer might have been headed for retirement, but she retained a lifetime’s experience of reading between the lines. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you dropped both your reports by my home.’
‘That was my thinking. Also, I’m going to need a partner on this. The case is growing, and time has become an issue.’
‘Do you have someone in mind?’
‘Krys Duprey.’
‘Jackson … There are some questions being raised over Agent Duprey’s future with Interpol.’
‘I think she’s the right agent for this. Maybe essential.’
Meyer’s voice dropped. ‘She told you what happened?’
‘She did.’
‘Did she also—’
‘Describe how she restrained the assailant. Yes.’
‘“Restrained” is hardly the word I would use. And he is not officially considered an assailant.’
‘The guy should be the one brought up on charges,’ Jackson said. ‘And you know it.’
‘It would be extremely inappropriate of me to agree, even off the record. Very well. I’ll try and clear this with Brussels. Make sure Krys understands this assignment is provisional, pending final approval.’
Jackson cut the connection, rose to his feet, and saluted the day with, ‘Well, all right.’
EIGHTEEN
Writing the two reports took Jackson into the early afternoon. He knew Chief Meyer assumed he was working on them at home because the reports contained highly sensitive material. And this was at least partly true. But more importantly, Jackson needed time to prepare his next steps.
Every now and then, Jackson found himself mentally repeating the word Luca had used. Quest. He thought it was probably the right term for where he suspected they were headed. But he was just not ready yet to make the sort of commitment that word signified. He was a case officer. He investigated. Such definitions might seem trifling to an outsider. But Jackson was gradually coming to terms with the fact that he was returning to full-action status. Words mattered. They shaped boundaries. They helped keep him alert to incoming danger, both seen and unseen.
When the two reports were completed, he ate a late lunch standing at his stubby kitchen counter, then phoned Luca, who complained, ‘Being out of touch like this is dangerous.’
‘I needed to get something done. Have you heard from Simeon?’
‘Nothing.’
Jackson grimaced. Simeon’s continued support was essential to his plan. ‘I have an idea I want to run by you. Not in the office. And Krys needs to be there.’
‘My home is the upper floor of the Julius Brothers Bank. You know it?’
‘Of course.’ The building was a dark steel monolith that shadowed the lakefront. The local Genevoise hated it worse than winter. They called it the Giant Wart.
‘My entrance is between the café and the newsstand.’
‘I’ll be there in an hour.’ Jackson phoned Krys and asked her to meet him in the café, then drove to the chief’s home and slipped both reports into her mailbox.
Krys was seated at one of the café’s outside tables when he arrived. Jackson remained in the car, studying her from the vantage point of being unseen. Without shifting his gaze, Jackson reached for his phone. He could put off the call no longer.
Simeon answered with, ‘I was wondering when I would hear from you.’
Jackson felt the fear he had carried all day ease slightly. ‘Does this mean …’
‘I am wearing the watch. For now.’
Jackson leaned his head back and shut his eyes. ‘You don’t know, you can’t imagine, how much that means.’
‘Which is exactly what my wife said when I told her of my dilemma. That I could not leave you out there alone.’
‘Your wife,’ Jackson said, ‘is a saint.’
‘She is indeed.’
‘And I am in her debt.’
‘Careful. Such a conversation may result in your taking custody of a certain delinquent son.’
‘I don’t owe her that much.’
‘I will not take an active role in your investigation, Jackson. You understand me, my friend? I cannot abandon you. I will continue to offer all the support I possibly can. But only within the boundaries of my nation’s laws and constitution.’
‘That is more than enough,’ Jackson assured him. ‘I have an idea.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Actually, it’s only the first part of an idea.’ Jackson ran through what he had in mind.
Simeon replied, ‘This could work.’
‘I need your help.’
‘Of course you do. Let me make a couple of calls.’
‘Simeon, thank you.’
‘You are welcome, and my delinquent son will be ready to move in with you tomorrow.’
Jackson cut the connection, rose from the car, crossed the street, and slipped into the chair opposite Krys. He said, ‘I want to run something by you. This is not a demand. It’s a request. And a choice.’
Explaining what he had in mind took fifteen minutes. The waitress came, took his order, returned with a double espresso, left, and Krys neither spoke nor shifted her gaze one inch from his face. He liked the intensity of her gaze. He felt as though it was the first time she had ever seen him without the filter of past mistakes.
When he was done, she responded with, ‘It’s a good plan, Jackson.’
‘You think?’
‘I do. Excellent, in fact.’
‘But there’s a risk.’
‘Of course there is.’
‘I mean, personal. To you.’
‘I understand that.’
But Jackson said it aloud anyway, just to be totally clear. ‘This is basically forcing Brussels’ hand. For you to achieve this assignment, they have to move past whatever pressure they’re facing to dismiss you. They might decide it’s not worth it. If we wait, you can still participate in a secondary—’
‘No. I want in. I want in now.’ She rapped the table with her knuckles. ‘Two nights ago, I decided I couldn’t take it. They had already won. I was going to resign. Do you see, Jackson? Either they let me back into the action or I’m done. I have nothing to lose anymore.’
He saw how much the confession cost her, how bitter her regret. ‘Interpol would be losing their second-best agent.’
Fans of the Julius Brothers Bank building, and there were some, insisted that the structure represented the new concept of living art. They called it unique, bold, and distinctive. And it certainly was all of that.
‘At the time, Luca just called it a discharge. And we had other things to—’
‘Later,’ Luca snapped. ‘Describe what you see!’
‘It’s moving fast. Staying low to the water, mostly. But the pillars are tall, several hundred feet, maybe higher. And they’re …’
‘Tell me.’
Krys said, ‘It looks like they’re walking.’
Luca sighed. Jackson glanced over. The man’s face was illumin-ated by the headlights frozen along the lakefront road. He could have been in agony or ecstasy; Jackson could not tell.
Krys asked, ‘Is it alive?’
‘We retain very few remnants of the Ancients. But from what I have gleaned, this is not life as we know it,’ Luca replied. ‘We witness a final release of primeval force.’
‘The pillars are drawing together,’ Jackson said.
‘You must tell me exactly where this happens,’ Luca said.
‘OK, the fog has completely covered the lake. The lightning or whatever is streaking the entire length, end to end.’
Krys said, ‘The obelisk is glowing.’
Jackson felt the heat build beneath his fingers. But he kept his eyes on the lake. The sight was mesmerizing. ‘It isn’t lightning. It’s more like …’
‘What?’
‘Rivers of fire. They come and gather and then they vanish.’
‘Gather how?’
‘Like a lot of little streams joining together. At first, the juncture was pointing at Geneva, where the Rhone flows out. Now it’s angled … OK, the force is shifting towards where the pillars are combining.’
As they congregated, the pillars elongated into a parody of the Geneva fountain. Jackson found that astonishing. He had wondered for years where the idea for that fountain came from. Nowadays it served as a symbol for the city, this man-made geyser that continuously blew a spout of water four hundred and twenty-two feet in the air. But no one could ever tell him why it had been built in the first place. When he had asked about it, people had treated his question as silly, an uncertainty raised by a detective who did not know when to turn off his investigative mind. And now before him was the answer. The massive column was filled with a constantly flowing, shifting fire. Jackson had no way of measuring it, but he suspected it was precisely the same height as the city’s waterspout. To the centimeter.
Then it vanished. The fog, the river of fire, the pillar, gone.
But Luca kept them exactly where they were, with just the one word: ‘Wait.’
The fire reformed, in the same position as the vanished column, a bundle of energy that grew out of the lake and took on form …
‘It’s an island,’ Jackson said.
Luca groaned, an involuntary noise. He swallowed hard and said, ‘Is there a bridge?’
‘Is there … Yes! Three humps, maybe two hundred meters in length total.’
‘Where does it touch land?’
‘It’s hard to see.’ The light was almost blinding in its brilliance. The island was tiny, less than fifty feet across and shaped like a camel’s back. At its heart was an obelisk, identical to the one he touched. ‘It looks like it connects to the eastern side of the Rhone’s mouth. But I can’t be certain … Wait! There’s somebody on the island!’
A man became fashioned by the same fire that formed the island and the bridge. He reached out a hand toward the obelisk. At least, Jackson thought it was a man.
The night exploded.
The roar was deafening, a massive rush of force that blasted all three of them off their stone perch. Jackson fell into the fountain’s icy water, then reached up to catch Luca. ‘Krys!’
She came up sputtering. ‘I’m OK.’
‘Luca?’
The man gripped his wet sleeve and muttered, ‘I was right. I was right.’
Jackson looked out at the lake. The waters were moonlit silver, the air calm. Below him, the traffic flowed in a sibilant nighttime rush.
SEVENTEEN
Jackson slept nine hours and woke up sore from head to foot. He showered and stretched and sat at the kitchen counter for over an hour, allowing himself to ease into the day. His apartment was under the eaves in a centuries-old structure above Geneva’s medieval center. The studio was cramped and cluttered, and the heating tended to break down in the middle of frigid winter nights. There was scarcely enough room for a single bed, his weights and workout bench, and his desk. When he wanted to watch the wall-mounted television, which was seldom, Jackson swiveled around his office chair. The place was ridiculously cramped for a man who topped out at six-three. But Jackson had arrived in Geneva with the sole aim of shrinking his life down, retreating into a cave of his own making, and trying to reknit the tattered remnants. The few leftovers from his marriage that Jackson had been unable to discard were locked in Sylvie’s favorite case, a vintage Hermès, that was hidden in the back of his closet. On nights when sleep was demolished by dreams, Jackson often crouched in the doorway and stroked the case. Sometimes Sylvie felt close enough to whisper comfort.
An hour later, Jackson left his building and drove to a cemetery midway between Geneva and Lausanne. Jackson climbed the slope behind the village and opened the wrought-iron gate. The graveyard contained five centuries of Sylvie’s family. Jackson had once considered her burial site a bitter irony, since her family had disowned Sylvie when she left Switzerland to study magic. Now he could look back and almost thank the family that had wanted nothing to do with this amazing woman. Their cold rejection had only knitted the two of them more intimately together. The Talent and the Interpol agent. Not even the Institutes’ perpetual rage at her choice of spouse could touch them.
He visited her grave once or twice each season. Here was his one safe island, where he could revisit their three wonderful years together. Jackson knelt and removed the dry stalks from the stone urn and replaced them with a new bouquet. Sylvie had always loved wildflowers. She had specialized in Europe’s natural herbs, binding and enforcing their qualities with her special brand of healing magic. Talents could not use their force directly to heal the human body. But those gifted in the related arts could magnify the curative powers of herbs and other natural remedies. Sylvie could walk through a meadow of springtime blossoms and name the therapeutic qualities with each indrawn breath.
Jackson had often wondered how such a gifted and ambitious Talent could damage her career by marrying an Interpol agent. He had asked her only twice, however, because both times she had responded with an almost tragic sorrow. As though his questions released tightly repressed emotions, those for which she had no ready answer save love. But he could ask the silent meadow now, and listen to the wind’s vague murmurs, and wonder if perhaps Sylvie’s love for him had been anchored in the same defiance and internal conflicts that had forced her to flee her family and her homeland.
The cemetery occupied a saddle of land reached via granite steps bowed and weathered by the centuries. Jackson turned around and stared past the village roofs, out to where the lake glistened in the afternoon breeze. It was as fine a resting place as he could ever imagine.
Jackson had been with Interpol for twenty-nine months when they met, fresh from a successful career with the Magic Squad of the Denver police. His own superiors had also frowned upon their relationship. But Jackson had defied them and married her, and his career had thrived despite this down-check. He was a good agent. He knew that. But his primary target had been the very same Institutes of Magic that had licensed his wife. The Institutes’ Directors never let Sylvie forget her crime of loving the wrong man.
Jackson patted the headstone and started back down to the parking lot. They had known some wonderful days, he and Sylvie. Nights of wild passion, days of wine and laughter, and hopes bigger than the forces aligned against them.
But as he opened his car door and slipped behind the wheel, he cast a final glance back up the slope and wondered if he would ever find an answer to the question that plagued him still: Did the Institutes have a hand in Sylvie’s demise?
When he was ready, he checked his messages. There were three from the station chief and four from Luca. Jackson was disappointed that Simeon had not been in touch, but not surprised. His first call was to Krys. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m okay, I guess … Where are you?’
‘Finishing up an errand. How are you doing, Krys?’
‘Coping.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I want to try, but not now. I’m in the bullpen.’
‘Has anyone asked for me?’
‘The chief called before I got in. She didn’t leave any message except for you to get in touch.’ She went quiet, then, ‘Luca phoned me.’
Jackson nodded to the glistening lake. ‘For us to move forward, you and Luca have to work together.’ When Krys did not respond, he added, ‘Luca’s been involved in this investigation for years. We don’t have time to relearn the basics. The scrolls are already out there. You understand what I’m saying?’
She paced out each word very carefully, her voice muffled from cupping the phone. ‘I don’t think I can ever forgive him for what he did to me.’
‘That’s your decision. But it doesn’t change what I said.’ Jackson started to add that a measure of distrust might actually be healthy. Then he decided that he probably didn’t need to add to her smoldering cauldron.
Krys asked, ‘Are you coming in?’
‘Later. Call me if something comes up.’ Jackson cut the connection and sat staring out over the rooftops. When he was ready, he placed the call to the station chief. The instant she answered, he jumped in with, ‘This is Jackson. Are you certain you are genuinely safe?’
The question was part of their tradecraft. It was intended to break the flow, alert the other party to potential incoming fire. Chief Meyer hesitated only a second, then said, ‘I’m on the train. Wait one moment.’
There was the sound of rustling, then a low steady drumming came through the speaker. Jackson knew she had stepped into the passageway. Meyer said, ‘I couldn’t fly. There’s been some bad weather down your way.’
‘It wasn’t weather,’ Jackson replied. ‘Not like you think, anyway.’
This time her pause lasted longer. ‘Perhaps we should delay this conversation.’
‘I definitely agree.’
‘You think Swiss laws have been broken?’
‘I know it,’ Jackson replied. ‘I witnessed it. Repeatedly.’
The Geneva station chief asked carefully, ‘Are there potential repercussions I need to discuss with Brussels?’
‘Most definitely yes.’
‘Can it wait?’
‘I think it has to. A couple of hours one way or the other won’t matter.’
‘Very well.’
‘I need to ask you one question now,’ Jackson went on. ‘What specifically was the duty you gave me earlier?’
The train’s rumbling marked time’s passage. Meyer finally replied, ‘We are speaking of the scrolls.’
Jackson watched a gull soar past his window. ‘So we are not dealing with a multiple homicide.’
‘Not that I am aware.’
‘No fire at a private Geneva residence. No suspicious events of any kind.’
‘I’m not clear on what you mean by that statement,’ Meyer replied. ‘You have evidence that connects Interpol’s hunt to some local crime?’
He nodded to the gull’s passage. Her response was a clear tell. Meyer did not know what she had told him about the previous night. ‘I’m going to write up two reports before I head into the office.’
Meyer repeated, ‘Two reports.’
‘Right. One for the official records. The other you may want to read in complete privacy, then send it by courier to Barker. Marked “eyes only”.’
Zoe Meyer might have been headed for retirement, but she retained a lifetime’s experience of reading between the lines. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you dropped both your reports by my home.’
‘That was my thinking. Also, I’m going to need a partner on this. The case is growing, and time has become an issue.’
‘Do you have someone in mind?’
‘Krys Duprey.’
‘Jackson … There are some questions being raised over Agent Duprey’s future with Interpol.’
‘I think she’s the right agent for this. Maybe essential.’
Meyer’s voice dropped. ‘She told you what happened?’
‘She did.’
‘Did she also—’
‘Describe how she restrained the assailant. Yes.’
‘“Restrained” is hardly the word I would use. And he is not officially considered an assailant.’
‘The guy should be the one brought up on charges,’ Jackson said. ‘And you know it.’
‘It would be extremely inappropriate of me to agree, even off the record. Very well. I’ll try and clear this with Brussels. Make sure Krys understands this assignment is provisional, pending final approval.’
Jackson cut the connection, rose to his feet, and saluted the day with, ‘Well, all right.’
EIGHTEEN
Writing the two reports took Jackson into the early afternoon. He knew Chief Meyer assumed he was working on them at home because the reports contained highly sensitive material. And this was at least partly true. But more importantly, Jackson needed time to prepare his next steps.
Every now and then, Jackson found himself mentally repeating the word Luca had used. Quest. He thought it was probably the right term for where he suspected they were headed. But he was just not ready yet to make the sort of commitment that word signified. He was a case officer. He investigated. Such definitions might seem trifling to an outsider. But Jackson was gradually coming to terms with the fact that he was returning to full-action status. Words mattered. They shaped boundaries. They helped keep him alert to incoming danger, both seen and unseen.
When the two reports were completed, he ate a late lunch standing at his stubby kitchen counter, then phoned Luca, who complained, ‘Being out of touch like this is dangerous.’
‘I needed to get something done. Have you heard from Simeon?’
‘Nothing.’
Jackson grimaced. Simeon’s continued support was essential to his plan. ‘I have an idea I want to run by you. Not in the office. And Krys needs to be there.’
‘My home is the upper floor of the Julius Brothers Bank. You know it?’
‘Of course.’ The building was a dark steel monolith that shadowed the lakefront. The local Genevoise hated it worse than winter. They called it the Giant Wart.
‘My entrance is between the café and the newsstand.’
‘I’ll be there in an hour.’ Jackson phoned Krys and asked her to meet him in the café, then drove to the chief’s home and slipped both reports into her mailbox.
Krys was seated at one of the café’s outside tables when he arrived. Jackson remained in the car, studying her from the vantage point of being unseen. Without shifting his gaze, Jackson reached for his phone. He could put off the call no longer.
Simeon answered with, ‘I was wondering when I would hear from you.’
Jackson felt the fear he had carried all day ease slightly. ‘Does this mean …’
‘I am wearing the watch. For now.’
Jackson leaned his head back and shut his eyes. ‘You don’t know, you can’t imagine, how much that means.’
‘Which is exactly what my wife said when I told her of my dilemma. That I could not leave you out there alone.’
‘Your wife,’ Jackson said, ‘is a saint.’
‘She is indeed.’
‘And I am in her debt.’
‘Careful. Such a conversation may result in your taking custody of a certain delinquent son.’
‘I don’t owe her that much.’
‘I will not take an active role in your investigation, Jackson. You understand me, my friend? I cannot abandon you. I will continue to offer all the support I possibly can. But only within the boundaries of my nation’s laws and constitution.’
‘That is more than enough,’ Jackson assured him. ‘I have an idea.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Actually, it’s only the first part of an idea.’ Jackson ran through what he had in mind.
Simeon replied, ‘This could work.’
‘I need your help.’
‘Of course you do. Let me make a couple of calls.’
‘Simeon, thank you.’
‘You are welcome, and my delinquent son will be ready to move in with you tomorrow.’
Jackson cut the connection, rose from the car, crossed the street, and slipped into the chair opposite Krys. He said, ‘I want to run something by you. This is not a demand. It’s a request. And a choice.’
Explaining what he had in mind took fifteen minutes. The waitress came, took his order, returned with a double espresso, left, and Krys neither spoke nor shifted her gaze one inch from his face. He liked the intensity of her gaze. He felt as though it was the first time she had ever seen him without the filter of past mistakes.
When he was done, she responded with, ‘It’s a good plan, Jackson.’
‘You think?’
‘I do. Excellent, in fact.’
‘But there’s a risk.’
‘Of course there is.’
‘I mean, personal. To you.’
‘I understand that.’
But Jackson said it aloud anyway, just to be totally clear. ‘This is basically forcing Brussels’ hand. For you to achieve this assignment, they have to move past whatever pressure they’re facing to dismiss you. They might decide it’s not worth it. If we wait, you can still participate in a secondary—’
‘No. I want in. I want in now.’ She rapped the table with her knuckles. ‘Two nights ago, I decided I couldn’t take it. They had already won. I was going to resign. Do you see, Jackson? Either they let me back into the action or I’m done. I have nothing to lose anymore.’
He saw how much the confession cost her, how bitter her regret. ‘Interpol would be losing their second-best agent.’
Fans of the Julius Brothers Bank building, and there were some, insisted that the structure represented the new concept of living art. They called it unique, bold, and distinctive. And it certainly was all of that.
