price of making that phone call that got you out of the office. Edward thought I’d betrayed them, leaving you alive. A dead patsy is more valuable than a live one who can deny and possibly disprove the frame.”
“But you did frame me.”
“You were alive. I knew they might let you go, that there was a chance. Better prison than a grave.”
“Why wasn’t I enough? Wasn’t I a good husband?”
“You cannot possibly care about my opinion.”
I started to answer and she raised a hand. “No, you don’t care about me. I see through all this talk. This is about the baby.” She smiled and then the smile went away. “My trump card.”
“Don’t talk about Daniel that way.”
“I know. He’s a person. Who grew inside me for nine months.” She wiped a hand against her lip. “When we found out I was pregnant, do you remember…” It was a sign of her psychosis, I thought, that she even had to ask.
“I remember.” It had been right after dinner; she’d taken the test without telling me of her suspicions. And brought me the test, with its little affirmative plus, and I’d whooped and hollered and she’d worn a stunned smile on her face.
“Well, I thought, that’s that. I won’t work for Novem Soles any-more. I will walk away. I will cover my tracks and I will stop and no one will ever know that I ever sold bits and pieces of information. I will have this baby and I will love Sam and that will be my real life.” She rubbed at her lip and she dropped her gaze from mine. “But they don’t let you walk away. You don’t submit a letter of resignation. They told me they would kill you.”
I closed my eyes and felt a corner of my heart die. I could never know the truth of anything Lucy said. She had saved me in London; but why, I could never know. Maybe even she didn’t know. Love? Guilt? A more selfish reason, to use me in the future? It didn’t matter. She lied like other people breathed, so that when she told the truth you had no way to recognize it.
I said nothing.
“So. My choices were let you die and then be faced with a life I didn’t want, with a child, or to keep working for them and figure out a way to cut loose and to set you free.”
“You could have come and told us that you were in trouble. Cooperated with us. You’ve used me, you’ve used our kid.”
“I couldn’t come back after the bomb. I couldn’t do prison.”
“There are worse things than prison.”
“Is that a threat? You won’t hurt me.” A half smile played on her face. “You won’t. You’re the good guy. I’m the mother of your child.”
“Where did you have the baby?” I said. “You owe me this, Lucy. Tell me.”
“I owe you nothing. I saved your life. We’re square.”
“There is a Company airfield in Maine, near Damariscotta. If I tell the pilots to land there, they will.”
“I thought we were going to New York.”
“No. I think I should give you back to the Company.”
“Sam, we had a deal. You stop Edward, I walk.”
“But you don’t know where he is, you say. I’ll bet you’ll tell the Company. I bet they’ll make you talk.”
“But the guns-”
“My son takes precedence. Maybe these people haven’t even fixed their targets yet. Maybe the fifty people are just to see if they can encode a chip; they may not be targets at all, just DNA samples that they stole somehow.” I crossed my arms. “I can’t wait to see what Howell does when he gets his hands on you. Oh, I was just the warm-up, sweetheart. You’re the main course. You made him look very bad. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat screwed.”
“He’ll kill you, too.”
“No, I’ll get forgiven. He’ll say he authorized me in secret or some bull. He’ll be clean. He’ll have his traitor in his pocket.”
“The Company won’t let you land at their airfield,” she said.
I stood up. “I can be talking with Howell in five minutes. I’ll have clearance.”
“You weren’t always so stubborn.”
“Where did you have the baby? Tell me and we’ll keep going on to New York.”
She decided to believe me. “Strasbourg. A private clinic called Les Saintes. On the tenth of January. He was given the name of Julien Daniel Besson.”
“Who took him?”
“A woman.” I’d been told the broker was a woman.
“Who does Daniel look like?”
“Babies all look like Winston Churchill at first. But he has your eyes, Sam.”
“What is this baby broker’s name?”
“Edward didn’t tell me. I don’t know. That’s how they kept me in their pocket. It was insurance.”
“And they gave you money for my son?”
“Our-”
“You just lost the right to call him yours, Lucy. Don’t you ever call him yours again.”
“No, don’t say that.”
“You let them take him to sell him. Jesus.”
She stared at me and she knew the deal between us was dead, that I was never going to let her go without having my child.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she said.
“You tell me everything and then you tell the Company everything. I want my name cleared.”
“Your name is never, ever, going to be cleared. Sam, there will always be someone in power who believes you knew. That maybe you didn’t do anything wrong, but you knew what I was doing and you kept your mouth shut. Either hoping that I would stop, or I would never be caught. You’re a good husband. That made you a bad agent.”
“Then I’ll focus on being good at my job. Where is Edward delivering the gun chips? Where in New York? You cooperate with me and I’ll be your advocate with the Company.”
She considered this and for several long seconds there was only the whine of the engines. “At the new Yankee Stadium. Since Edward tried to kill me I’m assuming he thought that you were going to capture me and he wanted the plan protected. He won’t change it if he thinks I’m dead.”
“What time is this meeting?”
“At eight tonight. As the game starts. The season’s just begun.”
I stared at her. I thought of our last morning together, our lives so normal, our lives such a lie that it clenched the air in my lungs.
She said, very softly: “Do you remember once that I asked you, if we knew a day was our final day together, what you would say to me?”
I remembered. “I’d say anything but good-bye. I never wanted to say good-bye to you.”
She looked at me and I couldn’t tell if there were tears in her eyes or if it was the dim light of the cabin. “I think I’ll say my good-byes now, Sam.”
96
Lucy and I walked free of the private plane. Our papers had been stamped and the custom official waved us through. Thank you, Kenneth and flight crew. Borders. Do they even matter anymore?
We exited the airport and walked along the short service road. A car pulled up, and I pushed her into the backseat and then followed. I’d phoned ahead.
“Hello,” August Holdwine said.
“Mr. Nice Guy. You just committed professional suicide,” Lucy said, as he pulled the car away from the curb.
