“Chernov?”
Vy looked over, her body language heavy and tired. “My bodyguard, assistant, you met him back at the club?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Vy said. “I should have taken this all more seriously than I did.”
“It’s okay. They have me staying in your room.…”
“That was a mistake,” Vy said gently. “They should have given you your own room.”
Anika swallowed. “Tempo, and the others. Why did they do that for me?”
“Fight back?” Vy put a hand on her shoulder. “They’re tough people in a tough place. They don’t take well to being pushed around. It wasn’t for you, it’s how we all handle security. They all know crowd control. Most of them take personal defense classes, most of them practice target shooting. Some of them … have had rough experiences. We all have. I know you have, too.”
“This is a lot of bad shit, Vy.”
Vy pulled her closer into a tight hug. “Don’t worry about where things stand, okay? We need to go talk to Roo, right now, and figure out what we’re all going to do next.”
“Why are you helping me?” Anika whispered into her shoulder.
“You’re not the only person who knew Tom. You two came in to The Greenhouse a couple times, when he was showing you around. Tom and I went back a ways. I asked him about you the second time you two came in. I saw you flirting with one of the bartenders.”
“Tom knew little about me then,” Anika said.
“He knew enough. You were quiet, kept your head down. Worked hard. Family was important to you. And Tom swore you had his back, no matter what. I don’t give friendship easily, but after hearing him and other people from your base talk, I liked you. Tom trusted you completely. Even with his life.”
“And look where that got him,” Anika said. She kept holding on, though. The hug was real. It was contact. It felt better than a down bed and a hot shower and a pillow and oxycodone all rolled into one.
“What would you think about yourself if you knew you had let a nuclear device through your hands?” Vy asked. Anika let go, and Vy looked at her and nodded. “I thought so. Tom was a friend. You’re a friend. I’m helping. We’ve got this whole ‘different worlds’ thing going, but right now, you should stop asking why. Unless you want to hang all this up and go back.”
“I’m not going back,” Anika said.
“Me either.” Vy took her arm. “Someone has a motherfucking nuclear device. And chances are, they’re going to use it. If we can figure out how to stop them, we should. Basic fucking morality, right? Now let’s go talk to our pet secret agent.”
“Roo?”
“Yes. The other secret agent is hardly a pet. We’ll deal with him soon.”
“We have here,” Roo said, turning his laptop to face them, “a chance to make some serious serious money off Gabriel. Or, get us all some real favors.”
“I have money,” Vy said.
“Favors it is then, girl.” He swiveled the laptop back around and started typing furiously. “Everyone’s combing for information about that nuclear weapon. We have a solid lead. Anything we can get out of this-here mysterious Mr. Gabriel, that’ll be worth a lot. And it’s for sure he knows something. So the question: how do we make that man talk?”
Vy cleared her throat. Her voice was suddenly chilly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do anything like that, Prudence.”
“Then maybe he tells us everything he knows because he a nice guy, right?” Roo folded his arms.
Vy looked downward. “If we have to.”
Anika had been following the exchange. She was pretty sure they were talking about torture. She didn’t like where this was going and stepped in. “Did he come with luggage, or a briefcase?”
Roo looked at her. “Yeah, a briefcase.”
“Then maybe it won’t come to whatever it is you’re thinking,” she said, while wondering, once again, who Vy really was. What had she been through that she’d been forced to do something like that?
Upstairs in the kitchen, Anika cracked the familiar briefcase open. Vy and Roo moved Gabriel to a chair and tied him to it while Anika looked at the cluster of leads, trying to remember what attached to what.
Chest leads, both sides of the ribs, ankles. Cap on the hair.
She turned the machine on, looking at the various screens slowly drawing the brain map. She’d been distracted and scared when it had been used on her. But she’d paid enough attention.
“Would you like to skip all this and just tell us what you know about the nuclear device?” Anika asked their captive.
Gabriel looked at her, lips pressed firmly together, betraying no emotion at all. The lead wires trailed down the front of his body to the machine, rustling slightly on his shirt as he moved.
“Okay,” Anika said. She had a feeling that would be his response. “Is your name really Gabriel?”
She saw Roo smile briefly out of the corner of her eye.
Gabriel cleared his throat and spoke softly, as if each word were something he was compelled to say. “Anika, this will not be that easy. I am not going to say yes or no to anything you ask me. At all. Do you understand?”
“Gabriel…” Anika said.
“I have my convictions,” he said. “Do you have yours?”
“Damn it, Gabriel, there’s a nuclear weapon free out here.”
He leaned forward, straining against the rope binding him to the chair. “It’s not going to be simple, Anika. Or easy.” He looked around at Vy and Roo. “They understand.”
Anika leaned back and looked over at Roo, who shook his head. Anika looked over at Vy. “Vy?”
Vy had a hand in her pocket. “Fuck it,” she said.
Then she drew out a pair of brass knuckles and threw a punch against the side of Gabriel’s head. Skin split, blood flew, and Gabriel rocked back in the chair.
30
Roo dragged Anika out of the kitchen. He was, as she remembered, surprisingly strong. She tried to twist free, and he moved with her, fluidly, easily, and redirected her movement so that she spun all the way back around and kept walking out with him.
“This is
Inside the kitchen, a loud smack dribbled out through the doors. Anika flinched.
“There was a girl, once, running weed up and down the Alaska corridor. She made good money, right?” Roo said, holding Anika back by the shoulders. “But one day, off the Bering Coast, she was picked up by Russian Coast Guard. And she disappeared into the prison systems. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I got her out a year later,” Roo said. “By then … she’d learned some things. Like when she started out in Baffin, a short, blond woman dealer would have to be tougher, more brutal, than a man, or people wouldn’t listen closely. It took a while for things to settle.”
“No.” Anika tried to push past Roo, but he held her. “Roo!” She shouted that loud enough everyone openly stared.
“Anika, let her do it.”
Anika held her hands up. “No. We won’t leave her to do it alone. So let me go, and quit trying to be protective. You are my friend, let go of me.”
Roo did, and Anika marched back into the kitchen. She ran into Vy with her shoulder, shoving her aside, and
