The woman appeared to be processing the same details that the Rhino had tried to draw to her attention. The abandoned supplies and refuse. The tactical documents. Even a couple of cheap, soiled foam mattresses. It was then that Jules had a moment of clarity about what she had seen as they emerged from the fire exit at a rush. The remains of the Disappeared had all been pushed up against the walls as though they'd been swept there.
The Rhino was right. This place had been used recently.
'Ma'am, I hope you don't think me too forward,' he said, smiling but being very careful to keep his hands in place behind his oversized noggin. 'But the name is Rhino A. Ross. Formerly of the United States Coast Guard. Now more of a freelance operator in the way of legitimate salvage and-'
'Shut up, tubby, or I'll demonstrate the radical weight-loss benefits to be had from a close-up discharge of a Mossberg 500 shotgun. You look to me like you could do with some trimming down.'
'Goddamn but you've got some spunk there, woman,' he shot back, practically beaming and apparently not at all put out at having his ample frame so cruelly traduced. 'Really, where you from? You AFSOC? CIA-'
'It's the NIA now, you fucking wanker,' Jules corrected him. 'I already told you that.'
The black-clad commando kept her gun on them while she gathered a couple of pieces of paper from a nearby desk, giving them a cursory once-over.
'No,' the woman said. 'None of those. I'm the person who took out the five hitters from the Guerrero cartel while you were up here building your little kiddy fort. So let's proceed on the assumption that you owe me, since I have the gun and I saved you both from a life-changing episode of humiliating ass fuckage by a bunch of sombrero-wearing gaucho dipshits. So, introductions. Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you doing here? And what do you know about the people who were using this place before you?'
'Goddamn,' the Rhino marveled. 'You have to be CIA. Old-school, too. What were you, like, hunting bin Laden up in the Tora Bora when the Wave hit? Did I mention, ma'am, that I served my full hitch in the U.S. Coast Guard? Makes us almost colleagues, don't you think? So perhaps I could get up off my knees now, which trouble me more than they used to, what with me being an aging Rhino these days and-'
'No,' she said. 'You can stay right where you are for the moment. And you, lady, what's your name and backstory? Judging by your accent, I'm guessing some kind of desperado from Tatler magazine.'
'Oh, please,' said Jules. 'Don't make me roll my eyes. My family were murdering Frenchies at Agincourt under their own heraldic banners when most of those arriviste try-hards were still gathering dog turds at tuppence a ton for the local fucking tannery.'
The woman grinned at that, just the ghost of a smile.
'So you'd be smugglers, zone runners, something like that?' she said.
'Something like that,' Jules admitted. 'But not so that we'd have any reason for bragging about it. I'm afraid, well, it's a little embarrassing…'
The Rhino spoke up again, relieving Jules of the need.
'We were hired, or so we thought, by a man called Rubin, a businessman back in Seattle, who told us he had papers here in New York that would prove a claim he had to an oil field off California. He hired us to retrieve the papers.'
'Go on,' said the woman.
'Well, of course it was all bullshit, wasn't it?' said Jules, picking up the story. 'There was no Rubin, probably no papers. For all I know there may be no bloody oil field. The whole thing was a setup by a man called Cesky. I did him a bad turn in Acapulco just after the Wave, and I suppose this was his way of repaying the favor. So thanks very much for the helping hand. Very glad not to be murdered right now. But my colleague and I should probably be on our way.'
'Okay,' their captor said. 'You can get up and move out of the line of fire from that stairwell if you want. Don't bother with the P90s. And you still haven't told me what you know about the men who were here before you.'
Jules climbed slowly and painfully up off her knees. They creaked and ached terribly, and her shoulder was throbbing something awful. She was dizzy from blood loss and needed to patch up that flesh wound. She really just wanted to sink into a hot bath with a stiff gin and forget about this entire fucking disaster.
'The reason we haven't told you anything is that we don't know anything,' she said. 'We took shelter in here, in this building, after we were fired on outside. End of story. If the men you're looking for-I assume you're looking for them-had still been here, I imagine we'd already be dead.'
The woman continued to cover them with her carbine, but she was losing interest. The documents the Rhino had discovered were beginning to take more of her attention. Not that Jules had any ideas about trying to make a grab for her gun or escape. Everything about this woman suggested practiced lethality: her minimal movements, her conservation of energy, the impression she gave of being aware of everything around her whether it was the focus of her attention or not. Jules had known any number of ruthless people long before family misfortune had tipped her into the smuggling game. And then afterward, of course. But no one she had ever encountered had emanated such a chilling aura of clear and present danger. She had no doubt that were she foolish enough to try anything, her brains would be running down the wall before her body hit the floor.
'If you want my opinion, ma'am,' said the Rhino, 'what you have here is an intelligence bonanza.'
'No,' she said. 'What I have here is a cold trail and two fucking chancers I couldn't trust as far as I could throw them, which in your case, buddy, is a fucking vanishingly small distance indeed.'
'So you're looking for these guys?' Jules asked.
'No, I'm looking for one guy in particular. The one in charge.'
'Ha!' said the Rhino. 'I knew it.'
'Well, look, I don't know if it helps,' Jules said, 'but we saw a bunch of those guys come charging out of Saks on Fifth Avenue and tearing off downtown like a greyhound with chili pepper stuck in its arse.'
For the first time since she'd snuck up on them, the woman regarded Jules as something other than a potential target. 'You,' she said, pointing at the Rhino. 'You can make yourself useful gathering up every bit of paper and documentation in this place.'
'Yes, ma'am,' he said. 'As you say.'
Jules noted that the woman shifted her stance slightly to be able to track the Rhino with a small movement of her automatic rifle. Who was this chick? She knew the Americans were so pressed for manpower these days that they'd opened up a lot of their combat roles to women. But this woman was no grunt.
'Go on,' she said. 'What did you see at Saks?'
Jules tried to recall the memory with as much detail as possible.
'We were tucked away in the rubble of St. Patrick's, I think it was. Dozens of these characters suddenly emerged from the department store and took off downtown in groups of five and six. It was noticeable because there were a lot of other fighters heading into Rockefeller Center in even greater numbers. They're holing up there, I think.'
'I know. Were many of them wearing headscarves? Keffiyehs? You know, like you used to see on the Palestinians on television?'
'I have been to Palestine, you know.'
'Why am I not surprised?' said the woman. 'Did you see anyone near Saks who looked like they might have been part of the leadership group, somebody who could have been in charge?'
'Of the beardy nutters, you mean?' Jules asked. 'No, I'm sorry. We didn't. We were just checking out the ground. Making sure we didn't get caught up in somebody's turf war.'
The Rhino confirmed her story with a shake of the head that nearly tipped off his helmet. 'Sorry, ma'am. But no, we didn't see anyone like that.' He approached her carefully, holding out a massive paw full of papers. She gestured for him to put them down on a nearby table.
'Okay, then. I'm gonna go. And so are you. You need to get yourself uptown and bunkered down, and you need to go now. There's nothing here for you anymore.'
'You don't need to tell me that,' said Jules.
'What about those documents?' the Rhino said. 'You're not going to have time to deliver them to anyone. And they're important. They need analyzing.'
'I can't believe I'm being lectured by a busted-ass smuggler without the fucking sense to do some basic research before he takes on a job. So what, Coast Guard, are you offering to come on board for the big win now? You going to carry these precious documents back through Injun country, are you? Because that would mean I'd have to give them to you first, which would make me a bigger fucking idiot than you.'
