Flashback

There were no clouds visible from the roof of the former mall. Sixty-some miles to the south, Pikes Peak caught the low, sharp morning sunlight. The dragonfly ’copter came in from the west, circled, and set down lightly. Nick tossed his duffel in the open back door and ignored Sato’s offered hand as he clambered up and in by himself.

The oversized bag was heavy. Besides the Glock 9 he had holstered on his belt, the duffel held full police body dragon armor that he’d bought on the black market after losing his job (much more serious stuff than yesterday’s K-Plus undies), a sheathed KA-BAR fighting knife, an M4A1 assault rifle that had belonged to the Old Man, an M209 grenade launcher that Nick had bought to attach to the old M4A1, a box of M406 HE grenades in their egg crates, a Negev-Galil flechette sweeper, and a compact Springfield Armory EMP 1911-A1 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Nick had also brought an S&W Model 625 .45-caliber revolver that he’d used to good effect in DPD shooting competitions—firing six shots, reloading with a moon clip or other speedloader, and firing six more in just over three seconds—and, finally, boxes of appropriate ammunition for everything that required ammunition.

“Be careful with the duffel,” he said to Sato as he took his fold-down webbed seat against the aft bulkhead and dragged the heavy bag under it.

“Ah, you brought your toys along, Bottom-san?” said Sato. There was almost no engine or rotor noise, but as the dragonfly ’copter rose, leveled off, and headed south, the roar of air through the open doors was loud enough that Sato handed Nick a set of earphones and shouted the number of the private channel they should use.

They were flying steadily at about three thousand feet of altitude. Nick looked out the open door as the southern suburbs of Denver melded into the northern suburbs of Castle Rock.

It was cooler this morning, the first really cool morning of this September, and the sunlight fell on buildings and cars that seemed clean and normal, a product of a sane world. Even the abandoned, rusting windmills running along the Continental Divide to their right looked pretty and clean in this rich morning light. The high peaks themselves, save for the looming Pikes Peak, seemed to be receding westward as the dragonfly continued to fly due south above I-25.

Nick almost grinned. He knew he should be ashamed of the relief that he’d felt since Sato’s call about the dragonfly, but there was far more relief in him than guilt. He just really hadn’t wanted to make that all-day drive to Santa Fe in the treacherous daylight.

“What made you change your mind?” he asked Sato over their private intercom.

“Change mind about what, Bottom-san?” The security chief looked sleepy this morning. Either that or he’d been meditating in the square of sunlight falling on their seats and the rear bulkhead.

“About flying to Santa Fe rather than driving.”

Sato shook his head in that awkward, Oddjobby way. “Ah, no. We take the Sasayaki- tonbo only as far as Raton Pass and the state line. From there we take two trucks into New Mexico the rest of the way to Santa Fe. Getting to the vehicles was faster this way.”

Nick managed to limit his reaction to a nod. He turned his face away from Sato and concentrated on watching the abandoned ranches and subdivisions between cities and the little-used highway passing beneath them. They’d passed over Colorado Springs, and the Pikes Peak massif, already with some snow on its broad summit eleven thousand feet higher than the helicopter, was falling behind to their right.

“Nick, why don’t we try that new drug, F-two?” asks Dara.

They’re lying together in their bedroom on a sunny Saturday in January just ten days before Dara is to die. They’ve just made love in that slow, undramatic, but wonderful way that sometimes happens to married couples who’ve found the next level of intimacy.

For nearly six years, Nick has avoided flashing on these last months before Dara’s death, even the nicest memories, since the sense of impending doom overwhelms the pleasure of being with his beloved. But he’s made an exception this time because the half-remembered conversation from that January Saturday from five and a half years ago may be relevant to his new investigation.

Val is ten years old and away at a birthday party under Laura McGilvrey’s supervision all this long, slow afternoon.

“Seriously,” says Dara, stretching out naked against him. “You won’t try regular flashback with me, but why don’t we try this Flash-two everyone’s talking about? I hear it only allows happy thoughts.”

Nick grunts. He’s given up smoking but at this particular postcoital-glow moment he’s very aware of a hidden pack on the shelf in the closet just a few paces away. “Flash-two isn’t real,” he says. “It’s an urban myth. Sorry to break it to you, kid.”

“Well, heck and spit,” says Dara. “I assumed that this was just the official line but that you’d really busted F- two users and had vials and vials of the stuff in your evidence room.”

“Nope,” says Nick and draws his finger up the curve of her bare side. He enjoys watching the goose bumps break out. “Pure nonsense. No such drug. But why the hell would you want to use it if it were real? We’ve never even tried regular flashback.”

“Because you wouldn’t let us if I wanted to,” fake-pouted his young wife. This was an old joke, her wanting to use various illicit substances, this oh-so-daring child bride of his who thinks that an extra glass of wine with dinner is a sin.

He takes her head in his large hands and shakes it gently. “What’s bothering you? Something is.”

She rolls over and props herself on her elbows so she can look at him. “I so wish we could talk, Nick. We can’t talk.”

Knowing that it’s the worst possible thing to do in this sort of marital conversation, Nick still has to laugh.

Dara moves a few inches farther away from him and pulls up a pillow to hide her lovely breasts.

“Sorry,” says Nick. And he is. He knows he’s hurt her feelings. And he’s sad that she’s covering herself in front of him. “It’s just that we talk all the time, kiddo.”

“When you’re home.”

“And when you’re home,” he retorts. “You’ve been coming home late and traveling weekends as much or more than I have.” And again he’s sorry he said anything.

“Our jobs…,” she whispers.

Hovering above the conversation, listening in on his own thoughts from then as well as to his and Dara’s dialogue from that day more than five years ago, Nick is close to deciding that his hunch was wrong… she hadn’t said anything pertinent that day.

“I thought we liked our jobs,” Nick-then says. Idiot. Dolt, thinks Nick-now.

“We do. I did. But they keep us from talking about… well, work things.”

The then-Nick thinks he understands. There’s a lot about the Keigo Nakamura investigation that he hasn’t been free to talk to Dara about since she works for District Attorney Mannie Ortega. The then-Nick thinks that she resents his silence.

“I’m sorry, Dara. There are just things that I haven’t been able to talk about and…”

Amazingly, she balls her hand into a fist and hits him on his chest. It isn’t a joke-punch; she strikes hard enough to make a red mark.

“You idiot,” she says and he’s even more startled to see tears in her eyes. “Does it ever occur to you that there are things about my job that I can’t talk to you about but would like to? Need to?”

He’s smart enough—for a change—not to admit this, but in truth this possibility hasn’t really occurred to Nick. Since Dara is head researcher for one of the assistant district attorneys, old Harvey Cohen, with whom Nick has never been that impressed, he can’t imagine much in her work life that she couldn’t talk to Nick about if she wanted to. As far as he knows, the DA’s office, much less Harvey, doesn’t have any cases pending that Nick has been involved in or would have to go to court to testify about.

“It’s not right,” says Dara, putting her flushed face into the pillow. “But I guess it doesn’t matter… it’s almost over… just a few more days, maybe a week, Mannie says…”

“Mannie Ortega?” says Nick. He’s never liked the ambitious, shrewd, but not very bright DA. “What the hell has he got to do with anything?”

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” says Dara and rolls over on her side, facing away from him now and still hugging