5 MINUTES LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 5:15 PM MST. MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2025.
James was surprised
that he wasn’t panting as he squatted next to Debbie. “We’ll
intercept them about five blocks further on,” she breathed, “but we
have to wait till Arnie gets turned away, and then see which way he
goes. The guy in the blanket over there still hasn’t seen
us.”
“How did you know
he’d be there?”
“I didn’t know he
would. I knew it would be possible.”
“And the other guys
didn’t spot him?”
“He probably got here
after they did. Dan’s inside, probably with Leslie, which is where
you have to be to guard someone that close, so Dan hasn’t seen
blanket man. Roger’s going to be a damned fine agent in about five
years, but he’s got no instincts right now; he’s watching for Arnie
because Arnie’s the only thing he’s been told to watch for.” The
slim woman squatted beside him. “If I have to move fast, I will. If
it comes to a fight, don’t get all fussy and worry about catching
them alive. It’ll be more than enough if we just stop them.” She
stretched, as if preparing to sprint. “Once I’m in striking range
of Arnie I’m going to follow him and his little shadow from a
distance, and see how much I can hear and see before I have to
move, but when it’s time to move, I’ll move, and you catch up then.
Till then, hang two blocks back, try to stay in the shadows, and
make no noise. Now let’s—there.”
James didn’t see what
she saw, but he saw where she went, and sprinted after her along
the shadowed side of a high wall, through an alley, and through an
overgrown public park along the brick pathways. The next ten
minutes were an obstacle course of alleys, schoolyards, passages
between boarded houses, and underpasses, between rows of abandoned
cars and around piles of junk, until, as they squeezed between
Dumpsters and garbage piles toward the mouth of an alley, Debbie
pointed at the ground. He hoped that meant “wait here” and that her
pointing down the street meant “watch me go this way,” because that
was what he did. He peeked around the corner.
Debbie ran silently,
at top speed, seemingly touching nothing. As she passed a point he
judged to be two blocks away, James ran after, trying to breathe
quietly enough, trying not to think about having old, less-flexible
ankles, making occasional scuffing noises but not many and not
close together.
At a recessed
storefront, Debbie caught him by the shoulder, and told James,
“Look ahead. See Arnie? See where his little shadow went into that
doorway?”
“The guy that just
slipped into the bushes by that house?”
“You got talent. Get
ready, any sec now—”
As they watched,
Arnie slowed, dragged his feet, as if some invisible cord were
pulling him backward. “Okay, James, throw your distraction, and
make it loud.”
James emerged from
the alley, waving his pistol, and yelled “Yang, you son of a bitch,
your fucking Daybreak hippie friend killed Leslie!” Keeping his gun
leveled (I hope it’s too far away for him to
see I haven’t cocked it), he walked slowly toward Arnie, who
stood paralyzed in the street, the gun leveled at him. “He killed
Leslie!” he repeated. “I’m gonna shoot your worthless ass!” He kept
walking toward the slender figure of Arnie Yang. Oh, man, let him just have those knives he carries, this
would be totally the worst time ever to
get shot, he thought, and tried not to smile at his mental
imitation of Leslie.
Debbie said, “It’s
done,” firmly and loudly.
The corpse of Arnie’s
watcher plunged out from the bushes and lay still. Arnie made a
strange noise and pelted away as if his feet had a will of their
own; Debbie shouted “Shit!” and ran after.
Not sure what to do,
and having run about as much as he could already, James walked
after. He paused to look at the corpse. Debbie’s wire garrote was
sunk deep into the flesh of the thin young man’s neck, and his eyes
bulged and tongue protruded. His hands were at his throat, where
he’d made a futile try, probably, to dig the wire out. He wore
several layers of shabby old clothing, a full beard, and long curly
hair.
James looked up to
see Deb returning, with Arnie in a hammerlock-and-nelson, bent
backward brutally.
“Well,” James said,
“I guess one of us needs to go get Heather, and she’ll want to
bring along—”
“One meal ticket,” a
voice said, behind him. He turned and saw Patrick, who was
grinning. “For one meal ticket I will go find anybody you like and
send them here.”
“How the
hell—”
“Hey, Mister Hendrix,
it is not my fault if you’re way more
interesting when you’re not teaching us to read Great Expectations.” Patrick was bursting with
pride. “I saw you guys following Doctor Yang and followed you here,
’cause I knew you’d both got those special messages.”
Debbie winked at
James, and said, “See what happens when you don’t look for things?
How’s this guy doing with Dickens?”
“Top of the
class.”
“I’m glad to hear
it,” she said. “Any agent I’m going to train can’t have enough
Dickens.”
Between them, James
and Debbie figured out who Patrick needed to bring, and he went on
his way with “a slightly swollen wallet and a slightly swollen
head,” James said. “And hey, why does a spy need
Dickens?”
“Because you’re
making me read it in the adult class, and if I have to, so does any
poor bastard I train. Same principle as fraternity hazing, if I
went through it, so does everyone.”
The sun descended
slowly, the shadows lengthened, and it was the better part of two
hours before everything was sorted out, but at the end of it,
people were where they belonged: Aaron was on his way to the
morgue, Arnie was in Leslie’s cell (and the guards had been
carefully coached by James about the four different ways someone
could get in, and fixed them), and everyone else, including Leo,
was at James’s house. “Even Wonder,” Leslie said, her face buried
in the big dog’s fur.
“Well, he’s been
living here.”
“I can tell,” she
said, thumping the big dog’s sides. “Too much good food and not
enough exercise, you lazy old goof, you’re gonna be running your
ass off for a couple months. And you too, Wonder.”
“That was an
evening,” Heather said. “I guess I’ve never been happier to miss
out on meat lumps and noodles.”
Leslie looked up from
Wonder, and said, “James, it’s Monday night, still,” and pausing
only to consider that he had enough in the larder, James said,
“There’re three big jugs of wine in the lower drawer in the living
room hutch, and glasses on the top two shelves. Everybody grab a
glass and fill it, and then sit down and stay out of the way—I’m
about to cook.”