pocket, he passed the rental car desks and took a place in line for the number 5A Metrobus.
The last time Troy had put Dulles Airport into a rearview mirror on the eastbound Hirst-Brault Expressway, he was headed for a comfortable room at the Marriott Courtyard in Arlington. Today, he hoped they'd have a bed for him at the YMCA on Rhode Island Avenue in downtown Washington.
The last time Troy had glimpsed Firehawk Headquarters from the highway, his thoughts had turned to Jenna Munrough, and they turned that way today.
He had not seen her in the pictures of his funeral, and he wondered what she must have thought. Had she thought it an appropriate fate for the man who had shot down Hal Coughlin to die himself in an airplane crash? Had she thought about it much at all?
THE SUN WAS SETTING AS TROY CROSSED THE M Street bridge over Rock Creek Park. He had managed to get a cot at the YMCA and stashed his little duffel bag in a locker. He had time to kill, so he decided to take a walk.
Washington was not the Washington he remembered. A pall hung over the city, a pall of uncertainty. The Washington he remembered exuded a confidence, a confidence that came with knowing that all of the important institutions had lives of their own, lives that endured regardless of which party was in power, regardless of whether the president in power was up in the polls, or down in the gutter of a scandal. Today, a nervous apprehension prevailed.
The headlines in the news racks, like the chatter of the talking heads on the television screen back at the YMCA, debated among themselves, even as Congress debated a bill that would place the executive branch under the receivership of a nonpartisan, nongovernmental commission.
Raymond Harris was on nearly every front page — he and Layton Kynelty of Cernavoda Partners. The two PMCs were now negotiating to bring in their management expertise to run the executive branch and get a handle on the myriad crises that the United States was facing around the world. It would be, in the words of the blue folder at Cactus Flat, The Transition.
Troy learned that had he indeed decided to stop off at Firehawk this morning and call on Raymond Harris, he would not have found him. Harris was on Capitol Hill, talking to Congress and offering his able services to head up the management of the executive branch. The man currently charged with that task, President Fachearon, was also testifying — across the street at the U. S. Supreme Court. He argued that, even though his approval rating had sunk to single digits, he remained the president under the Constitution. Congress had never before impeached a president so that he could be replaced by outsourced management, but as Harris insisted, there was a first time for everything.
Troy had returned from the jungle to discover that ex-generals running clandestine experimental aircraft operations had approval ratings! It mystified and infuriated Troy, but there it was. Harris had an approval rating of nearly fifty percent. In a polarized era when approval ratings rarely exceeded forty percent, that was considered very good.
Mystified and infuriated, Troy walked across the bridge toward Georgetown and turned up Thirty-first Street. He walked anonymously, with the confident anonymity of a man who could move unnoticed in a world where he was already dead. The presence of Troy Loensch in this world and on this street would raise questions, but so far, nobody knew that Troy Loensch still existed. In a moment, he would cut a razor-thin slit in this veil of anonymity.
He recognized the cobalt-blue Porsche as it made the final turn, and he recognized the woman as she stepped out to get the mail before sliding into the underground parking garage beneath her building.
'Hey, Falcon Two,' he shouted as he crossed the street, wondering whether using the nickname was too cute.
Jenna spun at the sound of the voice, startled by the sound of that voice and of its choice of nickname.
Her expression was one of disbelief.
Who?
How?
'What are you…?' Jenna gasped.
'You mean why am I not dead?' Troy asked as he approached close enough to see the confused expression in her eyes in the growing darkness. She looked good, Troy thought, even with her hair a little unkempt and her makeup a little bit faded, as a woman's makeup usually is at the end of a long workday. She also looked very bewildered—'seen a ghost' bewildered.
'Who are you? Are you… are you Troy Loensch?' 'What?' Troy smiled. 'You obviously recognize me.' 'Who are you? Really,' she stammered.
'I took a chance that you'd be coming back to your apartment on time,' Troy explained, ignoring her question. 'I figured that you wouldn't be working late, since Harris is otherwise occupied up on the Hill.'
'You look different, Loensch,' she said, studying his face and the deep tan that he had picked up in Nicaragua. 'You look like you've been on a beach for a month.'
'Actually I've been in the mountains for several months… seems like a helluva lot longer… so much has happened since…'
'You can't be…'
'Is this the part where you tell me I'm supposed to be dead?'
'I was at the memorial…'
'Didn't see you in the pictures.'
'Then you didn't see very many pictures,' Jenna replied, regaining her composure. 'This is the part where I ask you what the hell happened.'
'And this is the part where I ask you whether you're gonna stand here with your Porsche burning through unleaded, or are you going to invite me in?'
Chapter 45
'Want a drink?' Jenna asked as she tossed her laptop and keys on the small table in her dining nook. 'As I recall, an Ozark girl like yourself usually has a little Wild Turkey in the cupboard.'
She poured two and nodded for him to take a seat as she flopped onto her couch and put her feet on a footstool.
'Obviously y'all weren't lost at sea like we thought,' she began. 'They searched a million square miles for a week. Never found a thing… where were you?'
'Storm blew in, blew the Shakuru back over land… I went down on a mountaintop. Just like Noah's ark. It was a couple of weeks before I figured out that I wasn't on an island somewhere.'
'Where were you?'
'Nicaragua… but I didn't know that until about two weeks ago.'
'How could…?'
'I broke my leg pretty bad… couldn't get around… it still hurts.'
'Couldn't you make contact with us?' Jenna asked, almost angry that he hadn't tried to phone.
'There are still places in the world without Wi-Fi access.' Troy smiled. 'Still places with no cell service… besides, I didn't have a cell phone.'
'How long have you been back?'
'Got to town this morning.'
'Have you been to Firehawk yet?'
'Nope.'
'I need to call them and let them know that you're—' Jenna said, reaching for her purse to get her phone.
'Please don't,' Troy said, his voice so stern that it surprised Jenna.
'Why?'
'Because your boss, your CEO, Raymond Harris… tried to kill me.'
