if you don’t play along with us. We want to know things. We want to know about the current operational capabilities of Area 51. We want to know why you’re so keen on the missing book. We want to know the intel behind the Caracas Event. We want to know what’s coming down the lane. In short, we want a window into your world, Mr. DeCorso.”
DeCorso hardly reacted. All they got was, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
The man with the glasses took them off for a handkerchief polish. “We’re prepared to fight your immunity claim. We’re prepared to publicly leak your role in the arson attack, which will embarrass your government and inconvenience your career, I should think. On the other hand, if you come over the wall and work with us, you will find yourself greatly enriched, the proud owner of a Swiss bank account. We want to buy you, Mr. DeCorso.”
DeCorso shook his head in disbelief and fell out of stony-faced character to exclaim, “You want me to work for MI6?”
“It’s called the SIS now. This isn’t a Bond movie.”
DeCorso huffed out a laugh. “I’m going to say this one more time: I’m claiming diplomatic immunity.”
There was a sharp metallic knock, and the door opened. One of the senior Met officers barged in and declared to the man with glasses, “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there are gentlemen to see you.”
“Tell them to wait.”
“It’s the US ambassador and the Foreign Secretary.”
“You mean their people?”
“No, it’s them. In person!”
DeCorso stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and smiled. “Can I have my shoelaces back?”
Will and Nancy sat in the back of a taxi heading up the Henry Hudson Parkway toward White Plains. Nancy clutched Phillip to her chest and didn’t speak. He could tell she was still absorbing the details he’d laid on her back at their apartment when Moonflower handed over the baby and left them alone.
He had told her the bare-bones facts; there wasn’t time for embellishments: he’d found clues to the origin of the library at Cantwell Hall. Monk savants. Calvin. Nostradamus. Shakespeare. Somehow the watchers had gotten onto him. They had torched the house, killed the Cantwells. He feared they’d come after them next. They had to leave New York immediately. He omitted the Finis Dierum revelation: now was not the time. And he omitted being a lying, cheating scumbag: there might never be a time for that.
Nancy’s first reaction was been a return to anger. How could he compromise Philly’s safety? If she could see these problems coming, why couldn’t he? What were they supposed to do now? Go underground? Leave the grid? Hide out in Will’s fancy new bus? The watchers were ruthless. So what if the three of them were BTH? That didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be a price to be paid.
Will absorbed the body blows without fighting back. She was right-he’d come to the same conclusion.
They frantically packed a couple of bags and threw in some of Phillip’s favorite toys, their service pistols and a few boxes of cartridges.
But before they left, Nancy flew around the apartment, making sure things were turned off, the milk was thrown down the sink. She finished and looked at Will, who was sitting on the sofa, bouncing Philly on his knee, lost in his son’s laughs and gurgles. Her demeanor shifted. Her face softened.
“Hey,” she said to him softly.
He looked up. She had a small smile. “Hey.”
“We’re a family,” she said. “We’re got to fight to keep this.”
The taxi ride to Westchester gave them an opportunity to work the angles and try to come up with the semblance of a plan. They’d spend the night at her parents’ house. They’d tell them their apartment was being fumigated or some such BS. Will would call his old college roommate and lawyer, Jim Zeckendorf, to see if they could use his house up in New Hampshire for a few days. That’s as far as they took it. Maybe the biting winds off the lake would bring them some inspiration on where to go from there.
Mary and Joseph Lipinski said they were happy to have Philly drop out of the sky into their home for the night but seemed concerned that something was up with the kids. Nancy helped her mother bake a pie while Will brooded in the living room, waiting for his new cell phone to ring. Joseph was upstairs with the baby, listening to the radio and reading the papers.
Finally, Zeckendorf returned Will’s call.
“Hey, buddy, I didn’t recognize this number,” he started, his usual upbeat self.
“New phone,” Will said.
Zeckendorf was Will’s oldest friend, one of his freshman roommates at Harvard in a quad that had included Mark Shackleton. Shackleton evoked nothing but contempt and pity. He’d ruined Will’s life by sucking him into the Doomsday plot and linking him forever with Area 51.
But Zeckendorf was completely different. The man was a prince, and Will considered him to be something of a guardian angel. As Will’s lawyer, he had watched Will’s back his entire life. Every time Will had a lease, a mortgage, a personnel problem at work, a divorce, or, more lately, an FBI severance agreement, Zeck was there with unlimited free advice. As Phillip’s godfather, he promptly set up a college account for the boy. He’d always admired Will’s law-enforcement career and considered it a noble thing to be his benefactor.
More recently, he was also his lifeline. When Will escaped from the watchers with Shackleton’s Area 51 database, Zeckendorf was the anointed recipient of a hastily written and sealed letter, with instructions to open it in the event Will ever disappeared.
It was Will’s insurance policy.
Will had told the watchers he’d put a dead man’s switch in place with the location of the stashed memory stick. They had no choice but to believe him. As it happened, Will’s monthly check-in calls to Zeck were an excuse for the two old friends to keep in touch.
“Always delighted to speak with you, but didn’t we just talk?” Zeck asked.
“Something’s come up.”
“What’s the matter? You don’t sound so good.”
Will had never told Zeck any of the details. They both preferred it that way. The lawyer had pieced a few events together. He knew Will’s sealed letter had something to do with Doomsday and what had happened to Mark Shackleton. He knew it played into Will’s early retirement, but that was the extent of it. He understood Will was in some danger and that the letter was, in a way, protective.
He’d always been able to offer Will a perfect blend of lawyerly concern and an ex-roommate’s ribbing. Will could imagine the worried expression of Zeck’s smooth face, and knew he was probably compulsively straightening out his crazy-kinky hair with his hand, something he’d always done when he was nervous.
“I’ve done something stupid.”
“So what else is new?”
“You know my secrecy agreement with the government?”
“Yeah?”
“I kind of stepped all over it.”
Zeck cut him short, transitioning into professional mode. “Look, say no more. We should meet to talk about it.”
“I was wondering if we could stay at your place in New Hampshire for a couple of days if you guys aren’t using it.”
“Of course you can.” Then he paused. “Will, is this line safe?”
“It’s a clean phone. I’ve got one for you too-I’ll send it.”
Zeck could hear the tension in Will’s voice. “Okay. You keep Nancy and my godson safe, asshole.”
“I will.”
Will and Nancy had arrived in White Plains with little warning, so the Lipinskis insisted they go out to dinner rather than assembling a meal of leftovers. An apple pie was cooling by an open window and would be ready when they returned. Up in Nancy’s old bedroom, which she and Will used as their guest room, Nancy brushed on makeup in the mirror of her childhood vanity table. In the reflection she saw Will sitting on the bed, tying his shoes, looking tired and miserable.
“You okay?”
“I feel like shit.”
“I can see that.”
