SEVENTEEN

There was a great deal of debate over the video footage that showed me appearing on the 727's wing. Two different news organizations captured it, though, so some sort of conspiracy was implied. The views, video on extreme zoom, only showed my back. When the galvanized washtub showed up three days later, the debate intensified.

In explanation National Enquirer suggested UFOs, the ghost of Elvis, and a new Anti-Hijacking Diet.

Much was made of the American origin of the galvanized tub. Torture was claimed by some, but the Cypriot autopsy said death by explosion with subsequent immersion in fresh water.

The soaking-wet terrorists from the Air France hijacking were remembered. The interviews from that incident received more airtime, along with the largely incoherent interview with the Pan Am flight attendant.

I watched a little of the coverage, read a little, but the related memories depressed me. Again, I wondered if there were any other teleports out there, watching these stories.

On Saturday, a week after the hijacking, I jumped to the Dairy Queen in Stanville and had a dip cone, seventy-three cents, please, here's a napkin. I walked across the street to the town square and sat on one of the benches with the green flaking paint. There was old, dirty snow with footpaths carved across it, but there was no wind under the gray sky and the temperature was above freezing.

Men and women walked out of the Baptist church basement in clumps of two or three. A woman detached herself from the back of one of the clumps and walked toward me.

"I know you."

I tensed to jump; then I recognized her. It was Sue Kimmel, the woman who'd given the party—the one who'd taken me to her bedroom.

"I know you," I said. I felt embarrassed. "Uh, how's college?"

Sue laughed the kind of laugh that's edged with pain. "Well, college didn't work out. I'm going to try again in the summer."

"I'm sorry. What was the problem?" Too late I thought she probably didn't want to talk about it.

She sat on the end of the bench, not close, not far away, and stretched her feet out before her. Her hands were deep in her coat pockets. "Booze. The problem was booze."

I shifted, uncomfortable.

She jerked her chin at the church. "I just got out of an AA meeting. I've only been out of Red Pines a month." Red Pines was a substance-abuse treatment center on the edge of Stanville. She shivered. "It's harder than I thought it would be."

I thought about Dad and his bottles of scotch. "I hope it works out."

"It's got to," she said, smiling again. She looked at my cone, half eaten. "Boy that looks good. Care to join me for another one?"

"Well, I'll get coffee."

She looked back at the church. "I've had enough coffee. We're very big on coffee in AA."

We walked back to the DQ and I bought her a cone and myself a small coffee. We sat at the booth in the corner and I put my back to the wall.

"Your dad's an alcoholic, isn't he?"

I was surprised at the comment and even more surprised at my first reaction—to defend him. "Yeah... he sure is."

"He's come to two meetings in the last month, but he left each one before it even started. He looked terrible, like he had the shakes. Somebody saw him back at Gil's later, both times. An advanced alcoholic can kill themselves trying to detox by themselves. Did you know that?"

I shook my head. "I didn't."

Sue nodded. "Yeah, the aldehydes replace neurotransmitters and if you go off booze suddenly, you're left with no little messengers, no little chemical sparks. You can go into convulsions and die. Do you see your father much?"

I shook my head. "No. I don't."

"Well, he should get into treatment. I think he even knows it, he just can't get past that last bit, that rough edge."

I sipped my coffee and didn't say anything for a moment. Then I asked, "What caused you to seek help?"

Sue looked embarrassed. "Lots of things. Secret stashes of booze. Drinking in class. Hallucinations. Like when I hallucinated at that party you came to. Uh, you did come to my party, right?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, I had this weird waking dream where you flew out the window of my bathroom."

I stared at her.

"Don't look at me like that. I know it was crazy."

My ears started getting red.

"Anyway, I want to apologize for how I acted that night. I was pretty drunk. I've had a lot of apologies to make. We call it a ninth step."

I choked on the coffee. Ninth step?

When I was breathing normally again, I said, "My mom wasn't an alcoholic, but she said she was doing a ninth step with me before she left for Europe. Before she died."

She nodded. "Yeah, Alanon is based on the twelve-step program, just like AA. I was in treatment when your mom died, but my parents told me. I was sorry to hear about it."

"Uhm."

She sighed. "Hope I haven't talked too much. I tend to go on and on about it. It's like religion, you know, and I'm a new convert."

"I don't mind. Anytime."

We talked for a bit about common acquaintances and then she had to go.

"I'm glad I ran into you," she said.

"Me too," I said. I meant it.

After she left I stared into the empty cup. I wondered if Dad still had the NSA camping out at his house.

There was a pay phone by the bathrooms in the Dairy Queen, but I liked to come there. It was a pleasant part of my past. If I called from here, the NSA would camp out, hoping for my return. I went out back by the dumpster and jumped to the Stanville bus station.

The little waiting room with the vending machines seemed exactly the same as it had eighteen months previously, when I'd left to go to New York. Some of that time's fear and sadness seemed to permeate the place, coat the walls and drift in the air. I went inside and put a quarter in the pay phone.

The phone rang twice and Dad picked up the phone.

"Hello?" He sounded irritable and I knew he needed a drink.

"Hi, Dad."

The ordinary room noises that you don't normally notice went away and, with their absence, became prominent. I felt even sadder. "You don't have to cover the mouthpiece, Dad. They know to trace the call."

He stammered, "What are you talking about?"

"Go in for treatment, Dad. You've got insurance. Check into Red Pines."

"Hell, no! You know the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic?"

It was an old joke—the answer was "Drunks don't have to go to all those meetings." Before he could give the punch line I said, "Yeah. Drunks get worse until they die. Some alcoholics get better."

He said, "Fuck you."

"Get treatment."

He was silent for a moment. "Why are you running from these government men? Don't you have any respect for your country?"

I almost hung up then, angry. Then I took a deep breath and said, "I have more respect for the Bill of Rights than they do. I have more respect for the Constitution. I'm no threat to them, but they don't believe that. They probably can't believe that."

There was the squeal of a tire from the parking lot—nothing extreme. It was more like the sound of someone turning into a tight parking place just a little too fast, but I knew better.

"Get treatment, Dad. Before you die. Before you fuck up anybody else's life."

I dropped the phone to hang on its cord, then walked over to the hall leading to the rest rooms and stood just inside, in the slight shadow.

They hit both doors at once, four men, each carrying something that looked like a short-barreled rifle with a huge bore. Christ! What the hell is that? I swear there was something just visible, sticking out of the gun barrel, that gleamed in the station's fluorescent lighting. One of the men saw me then and jerked the gun to his shoulder.

I jumped.

I phoned Dr. Perston-Smythe from a phone booth on the street. I'd yet to explore much of Washington but I stayed away from the Mall. I didn't want them watching the Air and Space Museum before I had a chance to see it.

He answered his own phone and I wondered if he had an agent sitting in his office, one of those short-barreled rifles in his hand, or one of the dart guns they'd shot me with the first time, at Dad's place.

"What on earth are those nasty-looking rifles they're carrying around?"

He drew in breath sharply. "What do you want, Mr. Rice?"

"I want to be left alone. I'm not harming anyone, much less 'national security,' and you guys are going way overboard."

There was a click and someone else's voice came on the line. "Mr. Rice, please don't hang up. This is Brian Cox."

"Surely you aren't spending all your time in Dr. Perston-Smythe's office?"

"Well, no. We arranged to switch the call to me in the event you called. Dr. Perston-Smythe is no longer on the line."

"What do you want?"

"We want your services."

"No."

"All right, we want to know how you do it."

"No."

"You're already working for us. That was quite a job you did in Algiers and Larnaca. Especially Larnaca."

I felt my nose wrinkle. "Hardly. I didn't go after them for you."

He laughed quietly and I swiveled my head around, watching the streets. I wondered if he was trying to distract me deliberately, to let them sneak up. I wanted desperately to ask him if there were other teleports that they knew of, but I was sure he was capable of lying to me about that, to lure me in. I didn't want to hand him that obsession, that tool.

"Well, even if it was revenge for your mother, it works for us. We could give you Matar, you know."

Bastards. "In return for what?"

"Ah. A favor here and there. Nothing arduous, nothing unpleasant even. Certainly nothing worse than Larnaca."

I shouldn't have, but I told him, "He blew himself up. All I did was collect the pieces. Everyone on that flight would have died if I didn't."

"Oh." His voice was utterly neutral. I don't know if he believed me or not. "How can you be sure? For all you know he might have given himself up in the next five minutes. Are you sure you didn't endanger the passengers more? He might never have pushed the button if you hadn't interfered."

He was only verbalizing what I'd been saying to myself all week long.

A car was easing up the street, four men inside. Others walked the sidewalks. They were wearing long coats, the fronts open; each had one hand clamped against his side, holding something beneath the coat. They stopped fifty yards away in plain sight.

"I see your men, Cox."

"Well, they'll stay away while we talk."

"Why'd you bother? Do you think they can catch me? What is that nasty gun they're carrying around."

"Tranquilizer."

I thought he was lying. The bore was too big. "And if I'm allergic to the drug? I jump off someplace and die. You get zip."

"You should work with us. We protect the country. Is that a bad thing?"

"I'm going to puke."

"Do you want Matar?"

"I'll get him myself."

"We'll get you eventually, unless you want to stay in hiding forever."

"Aren't you afraid you'll drive me to work for the other side? Perestroika and all, I'm seeing less and less difference. They, at least, seem to be getting rid of their secret police. We still have you. Leave me alone."

"What about your father?"

"Do what you want to him," I said. "He deserves it."

I dropped the phone and jumped.

 

I spent eight hours in the air flying from DFW Airport to Honolulu. Japanese Red Army terrorists seized and held three hundred tourists outside of security at the Honolulu airport. By the time my plane arrived, it was all over.

An assault by a Pearl Harbor Navy Seal unit supported by Army Special Forces from Schofield Barracks freed most of the hostages. Casualties were "light," two tourists, one Navy Seal, and six of seven terrorists.

Honolulu was beautiful, the water incredibly blue, the mountains emerald green, but I left after acquiring a jump site, deeply depressed. One of the dead was a woman, Mom's age.

 

"You can't be everywhere."

I sat on a sheepskin rug, pushing sticks into the wood stove. I felt cold. Every since cleaning up the hijacker's body from the cold, dark water of the pit, I'd been unable to get warm. Even in balmy Hawaii the sweat on my skin was cold.

Millie sat beside me, her robe opened on bare skin, comfortable. I was still clothed, my coat draped across my shoulders.

"I know." I hugged my knees. The heat from the stove was almost painful on my skin, but it didn't touch my bones.

She wanted me to see a therapist, another painful echo of Mom. I didn't want to.

She shifted on the rug, leaning against me, laying her head on my shoulder. I turned my head and kissed her forehead. She spoke.

"You think that if you get Matar, you'll be done. That it will somehow make things right. I think you're wrong."

I shook my head, leaned closer to the fire.

She went on. "I think you'll find that it doesn't help at all. And I'm afraid you'll get killed finding this out. You can jump away from guns, knives, bombs, but until you can jump away from yourself, you won't get away from the pain. Not unless you face it and deal with it."

"Deal with it? How?"

"You should see a therapist."

"Not again!"

"A therapist isn't going to kill you... not like a hijacker. Why is it easier to get men to go to war than to see a counselor?"

"Should I just let things happen? Should I let them kill innocent people?"

She looked at the fire for a moment, then said, "There was an interview with a Palestinian on CNN today. He wanted to know why this mysterious antiterrorist didn't rescue Palestinian children from Israeli bullets."

"I can't be everywhere." I winced at what I'd said.

She smiled. "So where do you draw the line? You knew that the situation in Honolulu had nothing to do with Shiite extremists before you left. You knew Matar wouldn't be there."

We were back where we started. "Can I just stand by? When I could do something?"

"Go to work for a fire department. You could rescue more people with less danger. I'm afraid you'll end up like the NSA if you go this route. The more you associate with terrorists, the more terrorist your behavior."

I pulled away from her. "Have I really started acting that way?"

She shook her head and pulled me back. "I'm sorry. It's my fear. Perhaps if I constantly remind you of it, it won't happen."

I slumped into her arms, curling in on myself, my head on her shoulder. "I hope so."

 

Athens, start of so many hijackings, was the site of the next one. An Olympia Airlines DC-10 took off for Madrid and, ten minutes later, requested an emergency landing due to depressurization. At the same time they switched their flight transponder to 7500, the international sign for hijacking.

The plane had been back on the ground for two hours when I learned this from Manhattan Media Services.

Units of the Greek Army were in place, surrounding the plane, when I arrived in the terminal. I went looking for the press, first, because I figured they would know something about the number of hijackers, their arms, and the demands.

The Reuters reporter from Algiers was there. His eyes got very large when he saw me and he stepped back from his front-row position and cut me out from the group of newsmen.

"You're the one," he said in an excited whisper. "I thought it was you from the film." He kept looking around, anxious to scoop the others.

"What are you talking about?" I wondered if this was a disaster or if I could use it.

"Don't go away. Let me interview you!"

"Relax. You attract all of your colleagues and I'll leave."

He took a deep breath, lowered his shoulders. "I knew it!" he whispered. "Why don't we go someplace quiet?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" I said, nodding my head at the terminal window. The plane was at the end of the runway, about half a mile away.

He licked his lips. "After?"

"Depends. What's happening with the hijacking? What can you tell me?"

"So, if I tell you what I know—"

"I can ask them," I said, pointing at the rest of the press with my thumb.

"Okay. Okay, take my card." He handed me a white card with the Reuters masthead, his name, Jean-Paul Corseau, and a phone, fax, and telex number. "There's three of them. They have pistols. There was a plainclothes guard who wounded one of them, but the other two killed him. In the fight, a bullet went through a window in first class. They'd only reached eight thousand feet, so it wasn't too bad, but the pilot insisted on landing. They're demanding a new plane. They wouldn't let the pilot unblock the runway, either, so they're having to route traffic to the other runways."

"Any other demands? What nationality?"

"Nothing yet. They're ETA, Basque separatists. Most of the passengers are Spanish."

"Basques? Since when did Basques start hijacking? I thought they went in for bombings?"

He shrugged.

"Anything else? How badly wounded is the third hijacker?"

"We don't know."

"Okay, thanks. If it works out, I'll give you something after." I looked around. Nobody seemed to be watching us. "What's that over there?" I asked, pointing back at the press.

Corseau turned his head and I jumped.

 

One of them stood in the doorway, looking out, wearing a long leather coat and holding a pistol in his hands. The rear door was shut and all the window shades. One of them also stood in the cockpit, just visible. He was using the radio. That left one more, the wounded man.

On a DC-10 the front door is behind the first-class section, with a partition forward that's cut by the two aisles leading forward and back. A walk-through galley leads across the plane to the second aisle. I jumped to the middle of the galley, shielded from the front by the partition and the back by the galley.

I couldn't see anyone watching the man in the door, whose back was to me, but it was possible. I decided to risk it and jumped behind him, one hand around his waist, the other covering his mouth. I jumped him to the pit and dropped him, then jumped back to the galley. I listened. Nobody seemed to have noticed. I used the dentist's mirror to look forward.

A man in a rumpled suit leaned against the front bulkhead, a strange pistol in his right hand pointed in the general direction of the seated passengers. Blood soaked the left side of his jacket, low down, and he held that arm pressed tightly against it. His face was covered in sweat and he looked very pale. From where he stood, he could see down the aisle by the doorway.

At his feet I saw the head and arm of a still body, hand outstretched, fingers pointed up, half open, almost imploring.

I moved back to the other aisle and used the mirror to examine the cockpit door.

The door to the cockpit was open and I could see the last terrorist standing there, a radio headset on his head. He stood at the edge of the door, waving his gun to emphasize what he was saying.

From my angle the only crew I could see was the pilot, sitting still, head straight forward. He had a bald spot.

I took the steel rod out of my bag. I didn't see how I could jump the terrorist on the radio away, without the other one seeing me. I lifted the rod above my head and jumped.

I appeared at the cockpit door and the rod cracked into the back of the terrorist's head. I had the vague impression that he pitched forward, but I was twisting immediately, to bring the rod down on the wounded terrorist's gun hand. I heard bone crack and cringed.

The gun fell forward and the passenger in the front seat scooped it up. The terrorist slumped to the floor suddenly, cradling his wrist and his side. There was blood on the wall behind him.

I looked into the cockpit. The engineer and copilot pinned the unconscious terrorist to them while the pilot pried the gun from his fingers. He looked back at the door, fear and determination on his face.

"Don't shoot," I said, smiling. "I'm on your side." I backed up and walked down the aisle, past the galley, into coach. I heard the pilot scramble out of his seat and follow. Everything seemed all right. The flight attendants were standing at the very back of the plane.

"Where's the third one?" he asked.

"Oh. I, uh, put him on hold. I'll be back with him in a second."

I jumped away, to the cliff high above the pit.

The man in the long leather coat was on the island, shivering. He'd managed to hold on to his pistol and he was standing, arms crossed, hunched forward. Water dripped from the leather coat. He kept looking from side to side.

"Drop the gun," I shouted.

His head jerked up, water droplets gleaming in the last of the midday sun. He pointed the gun at me and shouted something back in a language I didn't know.

I jumped to the top of the wall on the other side, behind him. "Drop the gun," I shouted again.

He whirled, this time firing quickly. The bullet clipped stone several feet to my left.

I jumped behind him, on the island, and hit him on the head with the rod. He screamed and fell to his knees, both hands going to his head. I hit his gun hand and the gun fell. I picked it up quickly and stepped away from him.

The gun was plastic. I'd read about them, able to pass through airport metal detectors.

He held his head and said things that sounded like swearing, whatever the language was.

I motioned for him to lie facedown and he spat at me. I raised the rod meaningfully. He winced and lay down on his stomach. I put the gun in my pocket and secured his hands behind him with a cable tie; then I stood him up and jumped him back to Athens, to the galley on the DC-10.

The captain stood there, talking to one of the flight attendants in Greek. Both of them flinched away when my prisoner and I appeared.

"Excuse me," I said. "Here's the third hijacker."

The captain nodded slowly and I jumped away.

 

I stayed out of sight as the passengers streamed off the plane. Two of the terrorists came off on stretchers. The third one came off surrounded by police. Behind the crew and flight attendants came one last stretcher, covered. Sad, but it didn't bother me the way the tourists in Hawaii had.

When the official statement was read to the press, I tapped Corseau, the Reuters man, on his shoulder. He turned his tape recorder in my direction and I shook my head.

"All right," he said, turning it off. "Do I get an interview?"

I thought about it. "Where is your next assignment? Did you catch this one because you were here, in transit?"

"Yes. I was on my way to Cairo."

"Where is your luggage?"

"It's already there. I'd checked it and was about to board when this thing happened."

I smiled. "Good." I walked around behind him. He started to turn, but I said, "Hold still." I looked around—nobody was paying attention. I grabbed him by the belt and jumped him, camera bag, laptop computer, and all, to the Cairo airport terminal, on the sidewalk behind the taxi stand.

"Merde!" He nearly dropped his laptop computer and I steadied him.

"You recognize where you are?"

"Yes."

"Good," I said. I jumped.

 

Hawaii was five hours earlier than Oklahoma, so I figured I could pick up Millie at eleven, her time, and still have a nice evening in Honolulu. I jumped there from Cairo and took a cab to the airport.

It felt funny. Except for New York City, Hawaii was the only place I'd been in the U.S. that felt like a foreign city. Even though the signs were in English, the scenery didn't fit. But it was beautiful and for the first time in weeks, I felt warm.

I spent the afternoon walking around Waikiki. I bought a Hawaiian shirt for myself and a mu-mu for Millie, and picked out a restaurant at the Royal Hawaiian. The next day was Saturday and so she didn't have to get up early.

I felt like celebrating.

At eleven, Central Standard Time, I jumped to Millie's bedroom. I was dressed in white slacks and the turquoise Hawaiian shirt I'd bought. Her dress was waiting in Texas, but I carried an orchid lei with me, to put around her neck.

The bedside light, one of those gooseneck things with a metal shade, was pushed to one side, casting the bed in shadow. I took a step forward, thinking she'd fallen asleep, when something gleamed in the shadowed bed.

I twisted to the side and something struck me a glancing blow on my leg. Bang, I thought, and jumped to an alcove at Adams Cowley Shock Trauma in Baltimore.

I looked down at my leg. A silver tube, six inches long, one inch in diameter, hung from my leg. At one end, a wire-thin antenna projected. From the other, a stainless-steel rod, perhaps a quarter-inch thick, stuck in my pants, then out again, two inches later, ending in a barbed point, like a harpoon of some kind. There was a clear fluid accumulating at the tip and I bent forward. The point was hollow.

Well, Cox hadn't lied. It was a tranquilizer. But Christ, if that barbed point had struck straight on, it would be buried in my leg and I wouldn't be able to pull it out.

There was some blood, too, but it looked like it had just grazed me, snagging in the pants. And the antenna meant it was some kind of homing device.

The picture was chilling. The harpoon would bury itself in my leg and I would jump away. Before I could get the harpoon out, the tranquilizer would put me under. And the homing device would do the rest. Could they track it by satellite?

How long before they would get here? Also, did they develop this simply for me, or were they using an existing technology for an ongoing problem, i.e., were there more teleports that they'd hunted down?

I jumped to Central Park, dark, cold, inadequately dressed in my short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and sandals. My pocketknife cut the harpoon free. I considered smashing it.

What have they done with Millie?

I waited five minutes, then jumped again, to the truck stop in Minnesota. A large gravel truck, empty, was pulling out of the lot. I jumped across the gap and threw the harpoon into the back. I heard it clang hollowly; then the truck accelerated down the access road toward the on ramp.

I wondered where it was going.

 

It wasn't a pleasant night. What little sleep I got was punctuated by nightmares. Dawn found me curled before the wood stove breaking kindling I didn't need into smaller and smaller pieces.

Millie's apartment complex was lousy with NSA agents that morning, but if she was there, she didn't go to class. I watched from a rooftop, with binoculars. When I phoned, a woman answered the phone but it was neither her nor her roommate so I hung up without speaking.

 

In Topeka, Kansas, I phoned Millie's brother-in-law, the lawyer. I gave the receptionist a false name.

"Your sister-in-law, Millie Harrison, was kidnapped yesterday by agents of the National Security Agency."

"Who is this?"

"A friend of Millie's. They're all over her apartment complex and neither her or her roommate are at home."

"What's your name?"

"Please do what you can." I hung up.

 

An aquarium supplier in Manhattan sold me a two-thousand-dollar cylinder of three-eighths-inch clear Lexan plastic. It stood five and a half feet tall and was three feet in diameter. He wanted to sell me the gasketed steel bottom, with fittings for filter tubes, but I declined. I wasn't using it for an aquarium.

I jumped the tube to the cliff dwelling and promptly ruined it for holding fish by riveting two handles inside, halfway up its length. When I stood within the tube holding the handles, the tube went from my ankles to slightly over my head, shielding me all the way around.

I jumped to Perston-Smythe's office in D.C.

A harpoon hit the plastic shell and ricocheted off at an angle. Dr. Perston-Smythe wasn't in his office, but a man in the corner dropped the harpoon gun in his hand and dove at me, arms outstretched.

I jumped sideways four feet, next to the bookcase. The man passed through the space I vacated and slammed into the desk, hands trying to fend himself off at the last second. He failed and his head and left shoulder struck the edge of the desk. He fell to the floor, moaning.

I jumped out of the tube and listened at the door. There didn't seem to be anyone coming. I took the gun from his shoulder holster, then grabbed him by his belt and lifted. He began to struggle. I jumped him to the beach in Tigzirt, Algeria, and left him facedown in the sand.

I was behind Perston-Smythe's desk when he came back to his office. He was alone. I pointed the agent's gun at him and asked him to shut the door. Then, after frisking him, I jumped him to the desert, in the foothills of El Solitario.

He fell to his knees when I released him. I walked ten feet away from him and sat on a rock.

He was looking around, his eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. "How do you do that?"

If my mind hadn't been on Millie, I might have found his expression amusing. "Where's Brian Cox?"

"Huh? In his office, I suppose. Did you try him there?"

"Where is his office?"

He hesitated a moment. "Well, he's listed in the Government Directory. I guess I can tell you. He runs his own little show out of the Pierce Building, over by the State Department."

"He's not at Fort Meade?"

"No. NSA has offices all over the place. What did you do with Barry?"

"Who's Barry?"

"The agent in my office. The one on the morning shift."

"Ah. Well, Barry went to the beach. Where did they put Millie Harrison?"

"Never heard of her."

I pointed the gun at his head.

"Jesus. Honest. I've never heard of her. Are you sure I'd have a reason? Remember who you're dealing with. These guys don't tell anybody anything, unless they absolutely have to."

I lowered the gun. "I would point out that someone with my talents is very hard to run from. If I find you're jerking my string, you will hear about it."

"Honest. I've never heard of her. The only work I do has to do with the Middle East."

"Turn around."

"You're going to shoot me?"

"Not unless you make me. Turn around."

He moved slowly. I grabbed him and jumped him to the airport terminal in Ankara, Turkey, and left him.

I hoped he had his American Express card.

 

When I checked back at Millie's, they'd reduced the number of agents in the complex. Two men stood outside, half hidden at the corners of the building. I saw one take a radio out from under his overcoat and talk into it.

I left him at the airport in Bonn, waving his harpoon gun and trying to talk on the radio again. Airport security was closing in fast.

I don't think his radio had intercontinental capacity.

The other guard I jumped to Orly Airport outside Paris. He managed to plant an elbow in my ribs, very hard, but I held on tight and left him next to a bunch of Japanese tourists clustered around the information desk.

I handled those inside the apartment with the Lexan cylinder, drawing their fire, then jumping them away to airports in Cyprus, Italy, and Saudi Arabia.

 

Dad, apparently, was at work. At least the car was gone. There were only three agents in the house and I scattered them to Tunis, Rabat, and Lahore. In the process, I earned another bruised rib and a stamped instep.

I considered using the iron rod in the future, but I didn't want to risk killing someone. I was ready to take that risk when an entire planeload was at stake, but Americans?

They're terrorists in their own way.

I shivered, remembering Millie's warning. I didn't want to become like them. Even worse, I didn't want to become like my dad.

 

It was dark in Washington, heavy clouds blocking the setting sun, the wind cold out of the east. I went into the train station and called Perston-Smythe's number. I figured he was still in Turkey, unless he'd had his passport with him, but it was Cox I wanted to talk to.

A male voice, neutral, not Perston-Smythe, answered the phone. I said, "This is David Rice. I want to talk to Brian Cox."

There was a hesitation on the other end of the line.

"What's the problem?" I asked. "Besides starting the trace, that is."

"Mr. Cox is on another line. Can you hold a moment?"

"Don't give me that."

"Honestly—he's talking to the ambassador in Bonn. You caused the problem, after all."

Ah—the harpoon gun in the airport. I smiled.

"I'll call back."

I took the crowded rush-hour subway five stops down. The clean, fresh-smelling stations amazed me, so different from New York. On the platform I used another pay phone. Cox himself answered the phone.

"You've caused a great deal of trouble," he said angrily.

His tone of voice reminded me of Dad. For just an instant I felt like I'd done something wrong, horribly shameful. I was speechless, first with shock, then with anger.

I hung up the phone and screamed out loud, an inarticulate burst of rage. Rush-hour commuters turned and stared at me, surprised, a little afraid. A tobacco-chewing marine in uniform said, "Bad news?"

"Fuck you!" I said, and jumped to my cliff dwelling in Texas. I hoped he choked on his cud.

I screamed again, angry, furious. The man had kidnapped Millie. He had people shooting at me with sharp pieces of barbed steel and he had the nerve to say I was a lot of trouble? I dropped to my knees on my bed and began pounding the mattress.

God, I was frightened.

 

Dad arrived home from work escorted by two agents, one in the front passenger seat, one in the back. I watched from the kitchen window as he pulled the car into the driveway. I was surprised that he was driving. Considering that the NSA had been around my father now for a couple of weeks, they must know about his alcoholism. I wouldn't get into a car he was driving.

Only one of the agents carried a harpoon gun. He held it inside his coat as they walked to the house, but it was dark out, and he didn't bother to close the coat.

I jumped him to the airport in Seville just after he entered the house. The other guard I jumped to Cairo. When I came back, Dad was running across the lawn to his car.

When he reached the door, I jumped to the driver's seat and stared out at him through the window. At the same time the car alarm went off. He yelled, pushed away from the car, and ran awkwardly up the street. I let him go and jumped back to Washington, D.C.

 

This time he just said, "I'm listening."

"Where is Millie Harrison?"

"In a safe place."

"Where?"

"Why should we tell you?"

I stared at the phone in my hand, then remembered to check the approaches to the booth. I was standing outside a convenience store in Alexandria. "You should do a lot more than tell me. There are much more unpleasant places your men could end up than airports. It would've been just as easy to drop them from high places. Very high places. And it doesn't have to be just your men that I take on my little trips. What would the president say if I jumped him to Colombia for a little chat? I don't think he's too popular there with certain special-interest groups. Or Cuba? It would be quite a coup: President goes on fact-finding mission. Whirlwind tour. Surprises even Secret Service."

Cox was silent for a moment. "You wouldn't do that."

"Try me."

"I don't have to. We have your girlfriend and you don't know where she is. You wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her."

"Why not? You're willing to jeopardize the president."

"I don't think I'm risking anything. Come talk to us. Help us figure out how you do what you do. We can help you. You have the right idea with this antiterrorist thing. We can get you Rashid Matar—"

I hung up the phone.

 

The next morning there were more guards at Millie's apartment. I jumped them to Knossos, Muscat, and Zurich. I was getting to be quite the little travel agency. I hoped it cost the NSA plenty to fly them home.

When I checked Dad's place it was empty, locked up.

The subway took me within two blocks of the Pierce Building. A government building across the street had no security and I accessed its roof with no trouble. There was a view of the side of the Pierce Building and its back entrance, the one that led to the parking lot.

The parking lot itself was fenced, with a guard at the gate. Another guard was in a glass booth at the building door. Using the binoculars, I watched both guards examine credentials. The one in the glass booth had to push a button before the building entrance would open.

Mounted closed-circuit television cameras surveyed the parking lot, all sides of the building, and even the roof.

I jumped back to Union Station and used the phone.

"Let me talk to Cox."

There was the sound of papers rustling.

"Hello."

"Let's meet."

"Good. You can come to my office."

"Don't be stupid."

"Where, then."

"Go to the Capitol reflecting pool. Walk up the middle of the grass toward the Washington Monument. Alone."

"Who's being stupid now?"

I didn't care how many people he had with him. I just wanted him to think I intended to make the meeting.

"Well, you can bring one other, but leave your weapons behind. No long coats—nothing that could hide those nasty harpoon guns. He walks behind you."

We settled for two guards.

"When," he asked.

"Right now. As you know, I'll be there before you, so play it straight. It's pretty empty on the Mall right now. I'll be able to tell if you bring any ringers in."

I heard him swallow.

"All right. It will take us ten minutes."

I hung up the phone, jumped back to the rooftop, and took up the binoculars.

He came out of the building with six other men. Some of them carried the harpoon guns. Four of the men got into a car and the other two, wearing heavy sweaters but no coats, walked toward a different car, Cox trailing, careless, expecting the real confrontation to happen at the Mall.

One of the men opened and held the back door for Cox. That's when I took him.

Cox was big and heavy, but by now I'd perfected the art of tipping them off balance and jumping. Just before I disappeared from the parking lot, I heard the agent holding the door start to yell, the sound cut off in its earliest stages by my transition to Texas, fifty feet above the cold, hard water of the pit.

I jumped to the island to watch him hit.

Water geysered from the surface, drops of spray dotting my coat. He'd tipped forward after I released him and his impact, though feet-first, was followed by his front slapping down, stomach and chest. I heard him grunt as the air was forced out of him.

It took him a few seconds to claw his way back to the surface and even longer to draw breath.

I hoped it hurt.

He didn't seem as shaken up, though, as some of the others who'd made that drop. He sidestroked to the island and actually walked out of the water.

I pointed Barry's gun at him.

"If I'm not heard from fairly soon, things are going to get very unpleasant for your girlfriend."

I turned the gun slightly to the side and fired past him, at the water. The slug skipped off the surface of the water and chipped rock from the cliff face. The noise was deafening, a palpable shock, but I'd seen explosives go off in here. I knew what to expect. Even so, I flinched slightly.

Cox jerked and his eyes narrowed.

"Take off your clothes. Quickly." I moved the gun back in line with his body.

He shook his head. "No, thanks."

I felt frustration etching at my calm expression. I fired the pistol again, this time to the other side.

Again he flinched, but he gritted his teeth and shook his head.

More and more he reminded me of Dad. Why not. He took away a woman I loved. I lifted the pistol over my head and jumped, bringing it down on the back of Cox's head from behind, very hard.

He fell forward like a tree.

I took a very sharp knife from my pocket and cut his clothes off. He carried two guns, but what I was looking for was strapped to his thigh, one of the silver tubes with the antenna running all the way down to his sock. It didn't have the barbed point, but it was dangerous for all that.

I jumped forty miles south, to where the Rio Grande cuts through rock between the U.S. and Mexico, and threw the tube into the foaming waters. It barely floated and I could see it bobbing along, headed for Del Rio, via Big Bend National Park.

Back on the little island I finished cutting the rest of Cox's clothes off of him, and jumped them to Central Park in New York City where I left them in a trash can by the Sheep Meadow. The guns I put in the cliff dwelling.

There are enough guns in New York City already.

Back in the pit, I rolled Cox over and checked his pupils, holding his eyelids open. They seemed to be the same size and both reacted to the light. His body was covered with goose bumps but his breathing seemed all right. The sun was shining into the pit and the temperature was in the sixties. Cox was probably better off without his wet clothes on, anyway.

I jumped to K Mart in Stillwater, Oklahoma, bought a sleeping bag, and returned. It zipped all the way open. I spread it on the ground beside Cox, rolled him onto one half, then zipped it back up, around him.

There was a swelling on the back of Cox's head that seeped a slight amount of blood. It reminded me of my mugging, when I'd first got to New York.

Again, I hoped it hurt him, but the mean thought made me feel bad. It made me feel petty. It made me feel like him.

Shit. It made me feel like Dad.