“There is nothing you could ever do to make me give up that boy,” Jack said. “He’s the best part of me.”
The cameraman winced, clearly catching an earful from Van Sciver over the headset, then squared to Jack with renewed focus. “I’d suggest you reconsider. We’re at sixteen thousand feet, and you’re the only one up here without a parachute on.”
Jack smiled. “And you’re dumb enough to think that puts you at an advantage.”
He bulled forward, grabbed the cameraman’s rip-cord handle between his teeth, and flung his head back.
There was a moment of perfect stunned silence as the parachute hit the cabin floor.
The wind lifted the nylon gently at first, like a caress.
And then the canopy exploded open, knocking over the men in the cabin. The cameraman was sucked sideways out the open door. The Black Hawk lurched violently as first the chute and then the cameraman gummed into the tail rotor.
The Black Hawk wheeled into a violent 360. Jack gave a parting nod to the sprawled men and stepped off into the open air. On his way out, he saw the powerful ripstop nylon wrapping around the bent metal blades.
By instinct Jack snapped into an approximation of the skydiver’s stable position, flattening out, hips low, legs spread and slightly bent. His hands were cuffed, but he pulled his shoulders back, broadening his chest, keeping his hanging point above his center of gravity. The wind riffled his hair. He watched the sparse house lights wobble below, like trembling candles holding strong in a wind. He figured he’d have hit 125 miles per hour by now, terminal velocity for a human in free fall.
He’d always loved flying.
Jack thought of the malnourished twelve-year-old kid who’d climbed into his car all those years ago, blood crusted on the side of his neck. He thought about their silent hikes through the dappled light of an oak forest outside a Virginia farmhouse, how the boy would lag a few paces so he could walk in the footprints Jack left shoved into the earth. He thought about the way his stomach had roiled when he’d driven that boy, then nineteen years old, to the airport for his first mission. Jack had been more scared than Evan was. I will always be there, Jack had told him. The voice on the other end of the phone.
The ground was coming up fast.
I will always be there.
Jack shifted his legs and flipped over, now staring up at the night sky, letting gravity take his tired bones. The stars were robust tonight, impossibly sharp, the moon crisp enough that the craters stood out like smudges from a little boy’s hand. Against that glorious canopy, the Black Hawk spun and spun.
He saw it disintegrate, a final satisfaction before he hit the ground.
*
Evan stood in the darkness of the Vault, breathing the dank air, watching the live feed with horror.
The dizzying POV of the camera flying haphazardly around the cabin, banging off tether straps, jump seats, screaming men. And then airborne, free of the cabin, spinning off into the black void. The only sound now was the violence of the wind.
Evan’s brain was still stuck thirty seconds back when Jack had walked out the cabin door as calmly as if he were stepping off a diving board.
The virtual ground came up and hit Evan in the face.
Static.
Evan’s last panicked text to Van Sciver remained below: NO WIAIT STOP I’LL TELL YOU WHEREWW I AM
His next exhalation carried with it a noise he didn’t recognize.
The cursor blinked.
Van Sciver’s response finally arrived: TOO LATE.
Evan removed his contact lens and fingernails and put them back in the case.
He walked out of the Vault, through his bedroom, down the hall, and across the condo to the kitchen area.
The glass of vodka waited on the island.
He picked it up with a trembling hand.
He drank it.
5
Common Interests Are Important
For the first time in memory, Evan slept in. “Slept” wasn’t quite right, as he was awake at five. But he lay in bed until nine, staring at the ceiling, his mind re-forming around what he had witnessed, like a starfish digesting prey.
At one point he sat up and tried to meditate, but every breath was punctuated not with mindfulness but a red flare of rage.
Finally he went and took a shower. He soaped his right hand and ran it up and down the tile, leaning his weight into the arm to stretch his shoulder. It had been recently injured, and he didn’t want the tendons and ligaments to freeze up.
Afterward he got dressed. Each bureau drawer held stacks of identical items of clothing: dark jeans, gray V-necked Tshirts, black sweatshirts. This morning in particular, it was a relief to move on autopilot, to not make any decisions. Clipping a Victorinox watch fob to his belt loop, he padded down the hall into the kitchen.
The refrigerator held a jar of cocktail olives, a stick of butter, and two vials of Epogen, an anemia med that stimulated the produc tion of red blood cells in the event of a bad bleed. Three contingency saline bags stared back at him from the meat drawer.
His stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in almost a day. His brain reminded him to make a sweep of his various safe houses scattered across L.A. County to take in the mail, change the automated lighting, alter the curtain and blind positions.
He had never wanted to leave his condo less.
There is nothing you could ever do to make me give up that boy.
Behind his front door, he took a deep breath, preparing himself to transition modes. Here at Castle Heights, he was Evan Smoak, importer of industrial cleaning products. Boring by design. He was fit but not noticeably muscular. Neither tall nor short. Just an average guy, not too handsome.
The only person who knew that he was not who he seemed was Mia Hall, the single mother in 12B. She had a light scattering of freckles across her nose and a birthmark on her temple that looked like it had been applied by a Renaissance painter. Because all that wasn’t complicated enough, she was also a district attorney. When it came to Evan’s work, they had settled on an unspoken and uncomfortable policy of don’t ask, don’t tell.
He pressed his forehead to the door, summoning greater resolve.
He’s the best part of me.
He stepped out into the hall, got on the elevator.
On the way down, the car stopped and Lorilee Smithson, 3F, swept in. “Evan. It’s been a while.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Always so formal.”
The third wife to an affluent older gentleman who had recently left her, Lorilee was a vigorous practitioner of cosmetic surgery and body sculpting. She’d been beautiful once, that much was clear, but it was increasingly unnerving how her forehead remained frozen in an approximation of surprise no matter what the rest of her features were doing. She was fifty years old. Or seventy.
She wove her arm through Evan’s and gave it a girlfriendy shake. “There’s a craft class right now—scrapbooking. You should really come. Preserve those childhood memories.”
He looked at her. She had three new lines radiating out from her eyes, faint wrinkles in the shiny skin. They looked pretty. They made her face look lived in. Next week they’d be gone, her face ratcheted even tighter, a tomato about to burst.
He contemplated the least number of syllables he could make that would get her to stop talking.
He said, “I’m not really a big scrapbooker.”
She squeezed his arm in hers. “C’mon. You have to try new things. At least that’s what I’m doing. I’m going through a transition right now, as you might have heard.”
Evan had heard but had absolutely no idea how to reply to her. Was this one of those times that people said, “I’m sorry”? Wasn’t that a stupid thing to tell someone whose asshole husband had left her? “It’ll get easier” sounded equally platitudinous.
Fortunately, Lorilee wasn’t much for silences. “I’m getting out there again, you know? Been seeing a new guy—a wedding photographer. But it’s hard to tell if he really likes me for me or if he just likes my money.”