The man walks away from Mark, careful not to turn his back on him. I see now he’s heading toward a black canvas bag left at the clearing’s edge. He bends. He pulls out a slim silver laptop.
With the laptop open in the crook of his arm, he inserts the flash drive. Both men stand silent in the woods as the sun rises and they wait for the USB to load.
The tall man finally looks up.
“You opened it, I see? But you didn’t decrypt it. Very wise. That makes things easier, right?” He smiles at Mark, a smile devoid of humor.
Mark smirks. So he’d lied to me about that too. He didn’t decrypt it either. He just guessed. He has no more idea than I do what is on the USB. He just knows it’s worth two million euros.
“None of my business. I’d rather not know,” Mark answers.
The other man seems momentarily distracted; he’s focusing on his computer. I wonder what he sees flashing up on that screen. I wonder what secrets worth two million euros look like. I suppose I’ll never know now.
“Happy?” Mark asks. The transaction feels like it’s coming to a close.
“Yes, happy.” The man places the laptop and USB safely back in his bag.
And it’s at this point I realize I’m never going to see Mark again. I’ll never get to touch him, kiss him; I’ll never fall asleep beside him ever again. We’ll never watch our children grow up; we’ll never move to the countryside and get a big dog; we’ll never see a film together or go for a drink. And we’ll never grow old together. Every good thing I’ve ever felt was a lie. And now there is no recourse. He took all of our life together from me. And now he’ll take the rest of it too. Not that it matters now really, but he has access to the Swiss account too. I haven’t checked it for days. He could have syphoned off all the money already, sent it to another account somewhere. That might be where he’s just had the two million euros sent.
And what was he doing in New York yesterday? He can’t have been planning to make an exchange with the Russians, because he didn’t take the USB with him. Maybe he was just trying to find somewhere to live? Maybe that’s where his new life will be? I wonder what he’s really been doing for the past three weeks.
Questions I can’t answer. I should have paid more attention. I should have been less trusting. Too late now.
Mark will disappear and I’ll be left alone, with nothing but an empty house I can’t afford.
Or maybe he will come for me. Maybe he’ll want to clear up the loose ends.
How long has he been planning this?
“I just need the other coordinates now.”
An awkward silence.
A bird screeches in the distance.
“What coordinates?” Mark is frowning.
Ha. Mark has no idea what the guy is talking about. I want to laugh. Schadenfreude. He doesn’t know the tall man needs the plane coordinates too. That last voicemail, the one I got yesterday morning—only I listened to it. Mark only knows about the USB exchange. He has no idea what coordinates the other man is talking about.
“The crash coordinates,” the older man replies. He watches Mark expectantly.
Mark doesn’t know the coordinates. He wrote them down originally, but I was the one who memorized them, in case we ever needed to go back. It had seemed important at the time, in case someone cared for those people. I burned that information the day I burned everything in connection with the Swiss account in our fire pit. I am the only person in the world who knows where that plane is, where those dead passengers lie.
Mark’s made a mistake. He doesn’t know what to say now, so he’ll fake it, he’ll bluff, I know it. I know him.
The silence lengthens. The tall man is beginning to realize something is not quite right. Mark has created a problem.
I hold my breath. Even now, after everything, my heart wants me to shout out and help, but my head screams, Shut the fuck up.
“The plane coordinates. I asked you for the coordinates of the plane. Where did you find this drive? Where is the plane fuselage? We want the location, you understand?”
The situation has shifted up a gear. There’s a sense in the air that things are about to go bad. Very bad.
Mark has no other hand to play. He doesn’t know where the plane is. He must bluff or fold.
He tries doing both.
“I don’t have the coordinates. I don’t have them anymore. But I can give you a rough idea of the—”
“Stop,” the man barks. “Stop talking.”
Mark obeys.
“In your message you said you had the coordinates, and now you don’t. Please explain to me why? Unless you plan to sell the coordinates elsewhere? I hope you understand that this money is for the flash drive and the plane location. You don’t get to pick and choose, I’m afraid. You give me the location or we are going to have a very serious problem.” He holds Mark’s gaze. He’s called his bluff.
They stand in silence, the tension building toward something inevitable.
In the blink of an eye the older man’s hand dips into his pocket and pulls out a gun. That’s not a surprise; I think we all knew it was there. The surprise is how swiftly things have escalated. He levels it squarely at Mark. Mark stands frozen, bewildered by this ugly turn of events.
With all my heart, I wish for my gun. But I have no gun. Patrick has it. Wherever Patrick is.
Instinctively I glance behind me but there’s no one there. When I look back at the scene, Mark has moved. His body has turned sideways, and in his hand now is a gun. My gun. I see the silver duct tape. Somehow, he’s got my Glock from Patrick. Oh my God. Mark sent Patrick. That’s how Mark took care of me. That’s why I wouldn’t be a problem: he sent Patrick to take care of me. A small wood pigeon suddenly bursts up into the air behind them. And then a lot of things happen all at once.
Mark jolts at the unexpected movement. He must have slid his finger into the trigger bed of the gun, because as he jerks in surprise it discharges, sending a thunderous crack of recoil echoing through the woods. I told you: Glocks don’t have safeties.
The tall man fires almost instantaneously. What he will no doubt later regard as self-defense. As far as he is concerned, Mark’s bullet barely missed him and he fired to protect himself.
A red bloom opens in Mark’s chest. It happens so fast and I try to tell myself I didn’t see it. Mark stumbles, one arm flailing out, grasping at a tree. He leans his whole weight into it but his knees buckle. In a heartbeat Mark is on the ground. The two gunshots still echoing in my ears.
The tall man scans the trees around the clearing before approaching Mark’s hand, which now lies outstretched on the mud of the clearing floor. The man bends. Mark is groaning, his breath rasping in and out, frosting in the cold air.
The man pockets the Glock. My Glock. I have to clench every muscle in my body as hard as I can to stop myself from screaming.
He takes a moment to stare down at Mark. He fires one more time, down into Mark’s body. It jerks awkwardly against the leaves.
I have stopped breathing. I can’t remember when I stopped breathing. Next to me a dribble of fresh blood trails down my wrist from my balled-up fist. My nails have dug in so hard they’ve broken my skin. I stay as still as I can. I will not cry. I will not call out. I will not die for Mark.
He wouldn’t have died for me.
I let myself sink down farther into the leaves, squeeze my eyes shut and pray for this to be over.
I hear rustling in the clearing as the man wanders about collecting his things. I press my cheek into the musky earth. And then I hear the slow recession of his footsteps, away through the woods, over dead leaves and broken twigs. And then silence.