“I wanted him to be proud of me. Not now, I knew it couldn’t be now, but one day.” Andrew turned to face her. He had always been lean, but now, in his grief, his cheeks were so hollow she could see the shape of the bones underneath. “Do you think that would’ve ever happened? That Father would’ve been proud of me, eventually?”
Jane knew the truth, but she answered, “Yes.”
He looked back into the street. He told her, “There’s Paula.”
Jane felt the fine hairs on her arms and neck stand on end.
Paula Evans, dressed in her usual combat boots, dirty shift and fingerless gloves, fit in perfectly with the scenery. Her curly hair was frizzed wild. Her lips were bright red. For reasons unknown, she’d blackened under her eyes with a charcoal pencil. She saw the Porsche and flipped them off with both hands. Instead of heading toward the car, she stomped toward the warehouse.
Jane told Andrew, “She scares me. There’s something wrong with her.”
“Nick trusts her. She would do anything he asked.”
“That’s what scares me.” Jane shuddered as she watched Paula disappear into the warehouse. If Nick was playing Russian roulette with their futures, Paula was the single bullet in the gun.
Jane got out of the car. The air had a greasy stench that reminded her of East Berlin. She left the metal box on the seat so she could slide on her jacket. She found her leather gloves and her scarf in her purse.
Andrew tucked the box under his arm as he locked the car. He told Jane, “Stay close.”
They walked into the warehouse, but only to get through to the back. Jane hadn’t been here for three months, but she knew the route by heart. They all did, because Nick had made them study diagrams, run up and down alleys, dart into backyards and even slide behind sewer grates.
Which had felt unhinged until now.
Paranoia seized Jane as she made her way down the familiar path. An alley took them through to the next street over. They blended in here, despite their expensive clothes. Thrift stores and dilapidated apartments were filled with students from nearby San Francisco State. Wadded-up newspapers had been shoved into broken windows. Trash cans overflowed with debris. Jane could smell the sickly-sweet odor of a thousand joints being lit to welcome the new morning.
The safe house was on 17th and Valencia, a block from Mission. At some point, it had been a single-family Victorian, but now it was chopped up into five one-bedroom apartments that appeared to be inhabited by a drug dealer, a group of strippers and a young couple with AIDS who had lost everything but each other. As with a lot of structures in this area, the house had been condemned. As with a lot of structures in the area, the inhabitants did not care.
They both climbed the wobbly front steps to the front door. For the hundredth time, Andrew glanced over his shoulder before going in. The front hall was narrow enough that he had to turn his shoulders sideways to walk through to the open kitchen door. The backyard contained an old shed-like structure that had been converted into living space. An orange extension cord that draped from the house to the shed served as electrical service. There was no plumbing. The top floor balanced precariously on what was originally meant to be a storage area. Music throbbed against the closed windows. Pink Floyd’s screechy “Bring the Boys Back Home.”
Andrew looked up at the second floor, then looked back over his shoulder yet again. He knocked twice on the door. He paused. He knocked one last time and the door flew open.
“Idiots!” Paula grabbed Andrew by his shirt and yanked him inside. “What the fuck were you thinking? We all said dye packs. Who put that fucking gun in the bag?”
Andrew straightened his shirt. The metal box had fallen to the floor. He tried, “Paula, we—”
The air went cold.
Paula said, “What did you call me?”
Andrew didn’t respond for a moment. In the silence, all Jane could hear was the record playing upstairs. She dropped her purse on the floor in case she had to help her brother. Paula’s fists were clenched. Nick had told them only to use their code names, and as with everything else that came out of his mouth, Paula had taken his order as gospel.
“Sorry,” Andrew said. “I meant Penny. As in, Penny, we can talk about this later?”
Paula did not back down. “Are you in charge now?”
“Penny,” Jane said. “Stop this.”
Paula reeled on her. “Don’t you—”
Quarter cleared his throat.
Jane startled at the noise. She hadn’t seen him when they’d walked in. He was sitting at the table. A red apple was in his hand. He lifted his chin toward Jane, then Andrew, by way of solidarity. He told Paula, “What’s done is done.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Paula’s hands went to her hips. “This is murder, you fucking idiots. Do you know that? We’re all part of a conspiracy to commit murder.”
“In Norway,” Quarter said. “Even if they manage to extradite us, we’ll get seven years, tops.”
Paula snorted in disgust. “You think the United States government is going to let us stand trial in a foreign country? It was you, wasn’t it?” Paula was pointing her finger at Jane. “You put the gun in the bag, you dumb bitch.”
Jane refused to be bullied by this festering asshole. “Are you pissed at me because Nick didn’t tell you about the gun or because Nick is fucking me instead of you?”
Quarter chuckled.
Andrew sighed as he leaned down to pick up the metal box. Then he froze.
They all froze.
Someone was outside. Jane heard feet stamping. She held her breath as she waited for the secret knock—twice, then a pause, then another knock.
Nick?
Jane felt her heart leap at the possibility, but still, she was racked with anxiety until she opened the door and saw the smile on his face.
“Hello, gang.” Nick gave Jane a kiss on the cheek. His mouth was at her ear. He whispered, “Switzerland.”
Jane felt a rush of love for him.
Switzerland.
Their dreamed-about little flat in Basel, surrounded by students in a country that had no formal extradition treaty with the United States. Nick had talked about Switzerland that same Christmas night that he had revealed the plan. Jane had been shocked that he’d been able to focus so acutely not just on the mayhem they would cause, but on how they would extricate themselves from the fallout.
My darling, he had whispered in her ear. Don’t you know I’ve thought of everything?
“Now.” Nick clapped together his hands. He addressed the group. “All right, troops? How are we doing?”
Quarter pointed to Paula. “This one was freaking out.”
“I was not,” Paula insisted. “Nick, what happened in Norway was—”
“Exceptional!” He grabbed her by the arms, his excitement flowing through the room like a ray of light. “It was tremendous! Absolutely the single most important thing that has happened to an American in this century!”
Paula blinked, and Jane could see her mind instantly shift to Nick’s way of thinking.
Nick clearly noted the change, too. He said, “Oh, Penny, if only you had been there to witness the act. The room was shocked. Laura pulled the revolver right as Martin was waxing poetic about the costs of floor cleaner. Then”—he made a gun of his fingers and thumb—“Pow. A gunshot heard around the world. Because of us.” He winked at Jane, then expanded his arms to include the group. “My God, troops. What we’ve done, what we are about to do, is nothing short of heroic.”
“He’s right.” As usual, Andrew rushed in to back him up. “Laura had a choice. We all had a choice. She decided to do what she did. We decided to do what we’re doing. Right?”
“Right,” Paula said, eager to be the first to agree. “We all knew what we were getting into.”
Nick looked at Jane, waited for her to nod.
Quarter grunted, but his loyalty was never in question. He asked Nick, “What’s going on with the pigs?”
Jane tried, “Agent Danberry—”
“It’s not just the pigs,” Nick interrupted. “It’s every federal agency in the country. And Interpol.” He seemed delighted by the last part. “It’s what we wanted, gang. The eyes of the world are upon us. What we’re doing now—in New York, Chicago, Stanford, what’s already happened in Oslo—we’re going to change the world.”