Changing of the Guard

Either Jay had lost a few steps, or the guy was a ghost.

And that wasn’t all that was wrong. Yeah, he’d overcome his fear of VR, jumped back in the pool, and was in control again, but being shot, that feeling he’d had of utter terror and helplessness in the moment before the gun went off, that was still nagging at him like a bad back. The memory kept replaying in his mind, popping up at odd times and places. Taking a bath and avoiding getting the bandage on his head wet, he saw it: The man stalking toward his car, the gun in his hand, the flash — he didn’t remember the sound of the shot, but he did remember the muzzle blast — and then nothingness.

He couldn’t really recall the man’s face. He had mentally filled it in, since they had the holographs of Natadze, but in the doing of the event, his features would not resolve. A faceless man with a gun. Death come to call.

In the middle of eating a sandwich at noon, the memory of being unable to run, to get away, had suddenly turned the bread and cheese into something he couldn’t stomach.

Lying in bed next to Saji, the shooter got him yet again.

Since he had awakened from the coma, it had been there, sometimes just outside his perception, ready to jump in and rattle him again and again.

He had been helpless. Paralyzed with fear. He hadn’t been able to run, to fight, to do anything. It was horrible. He felt guilty. He should have been able to do something, but he hadn’t. He had just sat there in a panic, a sparrow hypnotized by a cobra.

Buck up, Jay. This isn’t helping anything.

Maybe Thorn was having better luck looking.

“End scenario,” Jay said.

Washington, D.C.

Jay shucked the VR gear and sat staring at the wall.

Saji drifted past. “And are we having fun yet?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, no. It’s not like the earth swallowed this guy up, it’s like he never existed except for going to classical guitar concerts and music stores. If we hadn’t gotten those two accidental pictures, we’d never even have known that much.”

“So you just have the FBI watch all the music stores and stake out every classical guitar concert from now on,” she said, smiling to show it was a joke.

“You know, even if that was possible, it wouldn’t work. He knows we know about that. I’d bet a billion against a brick bat he won’t be hanging out at those places anytime soon, and if he wants to pick up a new axe, it won’t be under his name, or some place that has a security cam. The man is a phantom.”

“You found him once and you didn’t have anything. You’ll find him again. It just might take a while.”

“But I want him now,” Jay said. And as he did, he realized what that sounded like — a whine. But he had to get this guy. He had to.

“You will, Jay.”

Then he said, “I think maybe I need to go into work. Maybe something there that will help.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t already gone,” she said.

“It’s okay with you?”

“Go and be Jay Gridley. It’s what you do.”

He smiled again. Yeah. It was. At least it had been before he’d been shot.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too, Poppa.”

That statement brought mixed emotions. A child, his child. But — what kind of father would he be? What lessons could he teach a son or daughter when he had just sat and stared at a man who had simply walked up and shot him?

Work. He needed to get back to work. He would worry about this later. After he got the guy who did it.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Natadze drove five miles an hour over the speed limit as he headed north on the highway toward Harrisburg. He was nestled into a line of cars all moving at the same rate. The state cops would give you some leeway if you were speeding a hair in traffic, but if you were poking along at exactly the limit and cars were piling up behind you, that drew more attention.

Natadze did not want any official attention. He was driving a stolen Ford, his third car since leaving D.C., and even though the plates on it were also stolen, New Jersey plates from a freshly wrecked Ford of the same year, make, and color, which was not all that easy to do, he would not be able to stand close inspection. He had phony identification that would pass, but the registration numbers on the car would give him away if they stopped him and did a cross-check, and they might also have a picture of him. Not likely, but possible.

He wanted to keep his profile as low as possible.

Harrisburg was not the most direct route to New York City, but he had a safe deposit box in a bank there, in which were fresh identity papers, a sizeable amount of cash, and keys to a storage parking lot where a clean car was parked. There were similar caches in six other cities, established for just such emergencies.

He had worried at the problem considerably since he had run from his house in Washington. The authorities had been asking after him. Maybe it was no more than Homeland Security trying to chase down every foreigner as they sometimes did. Maybe it was unrelated to who he was. That was a possibility.

But he did not believe that, not for a second. That they knew who he was and where he lived was astounding. Those two pieces of information should not have been linked in any way. If they knew both, something was terribly wrong — for him.

Nobody but Cox knew where he lived.

Natadze shook his head against the disloyal thought. No, Cox would not give him up, there was nothing to be gained by that.

Perhaps his employer had somehow let the information slip? Someone close to him had picked it up and run with it?

That didn’t make a lot of sense, either, but at least it seemed more reasonable. Somebody had stumbled across the data, had wanted to make points with it, something like that.

But that was still a problem. If Cox had let something slip like that, something that led the authorities straight to Natadze, then he was slipping badly, to the point where he was becoming a liability — or at least a threat. Eduard could not have that. Cox knew too much about him — was, in fact, the only vulnerable spot in Natadze’s carefully crafted armor.

No, it almost didn’t matter whether Cox had given him up intentionally or accidentally. Natadze had to know if Cox had been behind it, and he had to know now, before he went to ground, before he went to any of his safe houses. Cox knew about all of them — all of the ones in this area, anyway — and if Cox was the weak link in this chain, then none of the safe houses were safe at all.

In the meantime, he needed to find out just how compromised he was. He would have someone check out his house in New York. If the federal authorities had that covered, then he would have to take more drastic steps. He could take a trip out of the country, to the place in Brazil, perhaps, have some plastic work done, a new identity built, and return as a new man. A different face, hair color, and style, colored contact lenses, voice lessons, maybe. There were many ways to change yourself. That was no problem.

His biggest regret was his guitar collection, but perhaps, once things had cooled, he could dispatch an agent to collect those. He still had three in his New York house, not his best, but quality instruments.

They could not watch the D.C. house forever. Six months, a year from now, the authorities could not afford to keep men there long. The house was paid for, taxes paid a year in advance, and if the water and power were turned off, that wouldn’t matter. They had no right to take his property, he had not been convicted of any crime. Perhaps a lawyer, hired anonymously, to make sure that his rights were protected.

While he was having the house in New York checked, he would get in touch with Cox. Five minutes with the man, face to face, would tell him everything he needed to know. Risky or not, not knowing the truth about his employer was riskier yet, by far.

His mind made up, he started looking for a good place to turn around and turned his thoughts back to his driving. It would not do to allow himself to make a simple, foolish mistake and be pulled over by a traffic policeman. He would have to kill the officer, and that would certainly draw more attention than he needed.