Not all the cars from the prison were behind them now—some had, no doubt, assessed the competition, calculated the long odds, and decided that dead was too high a price to pay for Merrick’s scalp. Part of Lea wished that she’d been one of those, because judging by what she saw out the rear window, more than enough remained to see the job through. Didn’t the hearse lead the way in a funeral procession? That’s what this felt like—Charles Merrick’s funeral. Because whenever they got to where they were going, the cars trailing behind planned on burying him.
Lea sat squeezed in between two men. To her left, a fearsome, heavily bearded white man made all the more intimidating by the military chest rig and combat rifle wedged between his legs. He had the kind of beard that food disappeared into, never to be seen again until the ants retrieved it. The man hadn’t spoken or acknowledged anyone, his attention absorbed by the chatter coming in over his headset. To her right, a pensive black man with a troubled expression fidgeted with a cell phone, checking the time every few seconds. Lea feared he might see the Walther holstered between her legs; she crossed her legs away from him.
Her parents, on the other hand, sat comfortably side by side at the back of the limo and appeared entirely oblivious to the situation. They carried on as though this were Central Park and heavy traffic on the Sixty-Fifth Street Transverse were keeping them from the Metropolitan Opera. Lea squinted into the fading sun and studied the former husband and wife. Charles Merrick certainly didn’t look like a man just out of prison, and eight years had done nothing to dull his shine. The years had been less kind to her mother, and it angered Lea to see her alongside him. She had always been a slight woman, but now she verged on a sinewy, self-inflicted gauntness. Her features had gone from sharp to severe, the tautness of her skin no longer a sign of youth but of will. Veronica Merrick had never lacked for that.
Lea also found it disquieting how familiar this all felt: riding in a limo while her parents bickered without ever quite fighting. Separated eight years, they’d resumed the tense cold war that had defined their marriage without missing a beat. It left Lea with a terrible feeling of emotional déjà vu that made it impossible to keep up her ruse that she was the sweet, na?ve daughter just happy to be reunited with her father. She felt the pantomimed smile plastered to her face slipping.
“Is she all right?” her father asked her mother.
“She’s upset,” Veronica said.
“Oh, do you think?” Merrick said dryly. “Poor girl is obviously in shock. We should have told her a long time ago.”
“Told me what?” Lea interrupted to no effect.
“You know we couldn’t.”
“Where has she been all this time?” Charles asked.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“Tell me what?” demanded Lea.
She’d have bet money on all four Beatles reuniting before seeing her parents partnered up in any manner. Charles and Veronica Merrick despised each other. That was the bedrock on which Lea had anchored her worldview. The basis for all her decisions. Her parents’ divorce had scorched the earth and laid ruin to any pretense of civility between them. Her father had betrayed his wife, humiliated his family, and left them all destitute. That was indisputable—the reason Lea had come to Niobe. To avenge her mother. To set things right and see her father punished. Yet here they were, discussing her as though she weren’t there. A terrible thought occurred to her.
“Are you two . . . together?”
Her parents stared at her as though she’d just appeared through a wormhole. Her mother’s face crinkled into one of her patronizing smiles that passed for laughter.
“Oh, darling, no. Absolutely not. Your father is still a disgrace.”
“Thank you, Veronica,” Charles said and turned to Lea. “Your mother and I have an arrangement.”
“What arrangement? And who are these men?”
“Oh, where are my manners? This gentleman is a mercenary. I’m not sure of his name. Excuse me.”
The beard looked in Merrick’s direction.
“Yes. What is your name?”
“Smith.”
“His name is Smith,” Merrick said. “He’s part of the detail I’ve contracted to escort us out of the country.”
“You contracted?” Veronica asked, eyebrow arched.
“Well, I am paying, aren’t I?”
Veronica allowed the point to stand.
Merrick gestured to the pensive man with the phone fetish. “And this is Damon Ogden of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
For the first time, the mercenary took an interest in the conversation and looked Ogden up and down.
Damon Ogden glared at Charles Merrick. “Are you out of your goddamned mind?”
“What? She’s my daughter.”
“This is, without doubt, the most bizarre family reunion of all time.” Ogden leaned across Lea to speak to Smith. “How much longer to the airfield?”
“Two mikes,” Smith replied.
“What is he doing here?” Lea asked, indicating Ogden.
“Ah, well, Damon is central to our arrangement. He’s sort of an impartial observer . . . in an unofficial capacity. I can’t really say more than that, I’m afraid.”
Lea didn’t understand. “You made a deal with the CIA?”
“It’s complicated.”
“This is why we couldn’t tell her,” Veronica said. “She has no nuance.”
“What does that even mean?” Charles asked.
“Nothing.”
“Thirty seconds,” said the mercenary.
“No. What does that mean?” Merrick continued, undeterred.
The man from the CIA cleared his throat and told them both, in no uncertain terms, to shut the hell up. Under other circumstances, Lea would have savored her parents’ astonishment at being spoken to so rudely, but she was distracted by Smith’s hand sliding nonchalantly down to his rifle’s trigger guard. Such a small thing, but it brought the stakes into focus. Out the window, night had fallen; a wooden sign whipped by announcing “Dule Tree Airfield.” They took the turn hard, limo barely slowing as it left the main road, and then Lea felt the punch of acceleration throwing her forward in her seat. They caromed up the unlit dirt road for a mile or two, climbing the entire time until, finally, the road leveled off and they passed through an open gate and the airfield spread out before them.
It didn’t look like much—the airfield—just an open space on a wide, flat hilltop carved out of the forest. It consisted of a single runway, a clapboard office, and an open hangar where a handful of single props—Pipers and Cessnas—were parked behind a chain-link fence. Lea didn’t see anything that resembled a tower, or a single light on in either of the buildings. Everyone had gone home for the day. The only light she saw came from a pair of aircraft parked side by side at the end of the runway. The limo left the roadway and made a beeline for them. Lea recognized them as Gulfstream G450s, the same model that had once ferried her parents around the world back at the height of their power.
“Why are there two jets?” Lea asked.
“One for each of us,” her mother answered. “Once we’ve conducted our business, of course.”