“Yours too.”
The words were banal but both our voices were throbbing with emotion.
“They say you’re OK,” she said. “Do you feel OK?”
“Yeah. My feet, I don’t know, I haven’t tried walking yet. But otherwise yeah. I probably look like hell though.”
“You do,” Lisa assured me. I gave her a mock-hurt look. “Sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”
“Who’s that?” Sophie asked, as Lisa departed.
“Lisa. Agent Reyes. She was with me, did they tell you the story?”
“Mostly. You know they sent me back here and wouldn’t let me come see you?”
“Yeah.”
An odd and uncomfortable silence fell. I wondered if Sophie had known we might be attacked in Colombia, courtesy of the secrets she had kept from me.
“I was sick with worry,” Sophie said. “Literally sick. I couldn’t sleep. I’m just, I’m so glad you’re all right, I can’t even express it. I miss you so much already. Come home as soon as you can, OK?”
“They say it might be tomorrow.”
“Good. Good.”
I remembered why we had come to Colombia in the first place. “Did you get anything out of that drone?”
“Yeah. I got away with the control module.”
“And?”
“It’s an Axon.” The brand name Sophie had bestowed upon the neural networks she had invented. “Based on my designs. No doubt.”
I almost said Jesse, then realized that this was a government phone, and we should probably construct our strategy in private first. “Well, we can talk about it when I get back.”
“Yeah.”
Another awkward silence that I didn’t really understand. But then it was a strange situation. Just then I didn’t feel like I understood anything, except maybe, courtesy of the ordeal I had just survived, just how fragile and fleeting and precious life was. Compared to that, Sophie’s secrets suddenly didn’t seem so important – but then, neither did our relationship. It was suddenly strangely easy to imagine life without her.
“OK. I’ll call you when I know when I’m arriving, OK?” I asked, forcing a bright tone.
“Sounds good. Talk to you then.” She hesitated, and then blurted out, as if the words were escaping from her against her will, “I love you, James.”
“I love you too,” I said.
But for the first time in years, I wondered what exactly I meant by that.
Chapter 19
“Well?” Lisa asked.
I took an experimental step. “You know what, it’s not bad.”
I had watched with trepidation while the brusquely efficient Colombian doctor removed the bandages on my feet, but three days of healing and medicine had left them only a little raw. Swathed with second skin, and enclosed in supportive orthopedic shoes which made me look like I had gorilla feet, they only felt a little bruised.
“Blisters heal fast,” she assured me. “You’ll be running again in a week.”
“Like hell. I am going to spend the next month imitating the offspring of a sloth and a snail.”
She smiled. “Want to go shopping first?”
“Seriously?”
She shrugged. “Flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow, we’ve got all day to kill, Doctor says you’re fine to go out. I thought you might like real food and civilization.”
“Yes, please.”
A battered taxi took us from the hospital’s shabby and crowded entrance through busy streets, some clean and lined with villas, some of them rotting slums, to the monumental El Prado mall. Inside all was gleaming order and shiny neon brands. Stylish shoppers drifted in packs. I couldn’t believe I was in the same country as the jungle we had barely survived. It felt like some kind of fantasy-novel parallel retail dimension.
“There’s supposed to be a good restaurant not far from here,” she said after I finished buying new clothes with money from the ATM card that had miraculously survived our jungle ordeal. “A place where Gabriel Garcia Marquez used to hang out when he lived here.”
“Screw that. I’ve had enough cultural authenticity to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.” I pointed to the food court. “I want McDonald’s and ice cream, and I want it now.”
I was just finishing my mint-chip cone when Lisa’s phone warbled.
Whatever she heard turned her expression serious in a hurry. She listened for a minute, then said, tersely, “Yes, sir. We’re on our way.”
She hung up and stood up, all business again, alert and ready for action.
“On our way where?” I asked.
“Washington.”
“What? Why?”
Lisa said, “About ninety minutes ago the head of the DEA was assassinated in his home not a mile from the White House. By a drone.”
Part 2. Hispaniola
Chapter 20
We didn’t even go through immigration. Two men in dark suits met us at the gate and hustled us through
When she saw me she rushed over, grabbed me and gave me a long, deep kiss, heedless of our officious audience. I held her so tightly I had to ease off after a second for fear of cracking a rib.
“Hey, you,” she whispered, brushing tears from her eyes as I smiled through my own. “Good to see you.”
I murmured, “You too.”
Sophie turned to Lisa and said, heartfelt, “Thank you.”
Lisa’s smile seemed uncomfortable. “Any time.”
“Terry Clark.” The short man stood to shake my hand. His grip was powerful, and his smile seemed to have too many teeth in it, like a shark’s. “So you’re the civilian who aced our improvised jungle survival course. And you’re Agent Reyes. Well done. I’ve already put you in for a commendation. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“You too, sir. Thank you very much.” Lisa seemed starstruck, as if in the presence of royalty; she all but curtsied and saluted after shaking his hand.
Clark turned back to Sophie and I. “Welcome to the alphabet soup. We’ve got quite a task force assembled here. DEA, FBI, CIA, NSA, there’s even an ATF guy, don’t ask me why, plus Homeland Security, State Department, Pentagon, Secret Service, and probably a dogcatcher who fixes kitchen sinks. I have the dubious honour of being the ringmaster of this clusterfuck circus, and I have called you two here to ask you a favour on behalf of your
