Clawback (38 page)

“This is the ass end of nowhere,” said Johnny.

“That’s the point.”

“You’ll be lost in two hundred yards, fall into a pitch black gulley, break both legs and die of exposure right before the bears eat you.”

“Me and D. B. Cooper.” I laughed—not much, but a real honest laugh. “Go make some money, Johnny. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” He hesitated. “Do you think…are you coming back, Silas?”

The serious questions always come at the end.

“Don’t know.”

I inhaled. Pine needles, rock, a bit of rain. It wasn’t a Central Asian desert or the jungly forests around Fort Bragg. Still less the clamorous asphalt and lights and crowds of Fifth Avenue. But it felt good.

Almost like home.

“This time was different,” I said slowly. “Too much. Too much killing, too much money. I’m having a little trouble getting straight about it all.”

“You will.”

“Maybe.”

“Look, it’s like this.” Johnny seemed to be trying to find the right words. “You know how long a security is held, on average? Buy to sell?”

“Twenty seconds.” I did know, in fact. “But it’s all those high-frequency millisecond trades.”

“Things change,” said Johnny. “Nothing lasts.”

Even Johnny’s philosophical metaphors come straight from the market screen. But the heart was there.

“Yeah,” I said. “I understand that. I’ll be all right.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Hope to see you, though. That’s all.”

“Thanks again.”

“You, too.” We shook hands, just like we were parting after a quick lunch at Delaney’s. He got back in the car, turned it around, and drove off without looking back.

In the silence I stood for a few moments, adapting to the solitude and the darkness. Then I found a place to sit, ten feet from the road, against a maple thickly grown over with soft, earthy moss.

The moon would be up in an hour. After that, I’d be able to see
clearly enough, and I’d start the night’s trek. The Canadian border was only four miles from here, following the long watershed of the Vossen River. I’d get wet once or twice, depending on how much rain had filled the forest streams recently. Then another twenty miles of woods and occasional farmland—abandoned and overgrown homesteads, for the most part—to Stanville-Ost in Quebec, with its clapboard-fronted main street, stone church and bus station. From there, I could go anywhere.

So long as I avoided the marijuana fields, back country meth labs, and—on the U.S. side—occasional gun-toting hermits, I’d be fine.

I’d hiked the entire distance twice and back, last year, keeping the landmarks and hazards clear in my memory. I was already anticipating the coffee at Stanville-Ost’s single breakfast diner. I’d sleep on the bus, the deep contented sleep of someone tired from honest exercise.

This wasn’t the only bolt-hole I’d prepared over the years. After picking up the emergency cash and ID from my Brownsville cache, I could have gone in any of six or seven different directions. I chose Canada because I liked autumn in the woods, and because the northern border was still fairly easy.

I had to disappear. Didn’t matter I was on the side of the angels. There were enough bodies and blown-up buildings and missing millions to keep a federal cross-jurisdictional task force in business for years—and vast teams of lawyers busy in civil court for another decade after that. I’d have to cut deals, submit to depositions, testify and bargain with prosecutors, police, clients and bagmen. I’d never get my life back.

Nor could I just keep a low profile until it all blew over. I’d told Clara not to perjure herself—even if she’d tried, she’d trip up eventually, and then they’d have us both. Not to mention Rondo and everyone else I’d run across in the last week. My life was going to be picked over and reported in the most mind-numbing bureaucratic detail imaginable.

I had no choice but to leave.

At seven-eighteen the moon appeared, glowing through skeletal, leafless tree branches to the east. I got to my feet, pulled on the pack and stepped away, deeper into the forest.

Silas Cade was gone. I was just a nameless accountant now, fading into the woods.

Greed, Guts and Glory—

Commentary from Clara Dawson

Final Payout for Turncoat Financier

C
ustoms at JFK was shabby and unimpressive, the walls of the holding pen stained, the floor scuffed, and the armorglass shields at the booths already scratched. But the officials were cheerful and efficient. Mine even smiled briefly as she banged an entry stamp into my passport and passed it back.

“Welcome home,” she said.

On the way to baggage claim I tucked the documents back into my jacket. I won’t say I was flooded with relief, but I felt good. Walter might have retired, but he was willing to do me a favor, and these papers were top class. When I’d picked them up at poste restante in Lisbon, I’d compared them millimeter by millimeter with the real thing, and I couldn’t find a single flaw.

Outside I found an express bus, paid the fifteen bucks, and sat for half an hour inside the vehicle, waiting, before it finally got under way. Sure, a taxi would have been faster, but the bus is the simplest path back into unrecorded anonymity. No cameras, no driver’s curiosity, no trip receipt. I had a new name now, and it was going to stay unknown as long as I could manage.

A new name.

My sixth, in fact.

There’s no Silas Cade in the Pentagon records. Or the SSN databases or anywhere in the vast Equifax-Acxiom credit-data archipelago. On a birth certificate, somewhere, yes—filed long after the date on it, backfilled by Walter’s magic. But “Silas” was as imaginary as any of my other identities, all assumed, used up and shucked over the years.

Sure, it’s a nuisance, recreating myself each time. But I operate without the long tail of official existence: no credit cards, no bank accounts, no W-2s, no tax filings, no property registration. No nothing. Most people need a four-drawer file cabinet to keep track of their paperbound lives. For me, a few memorized passwords and a safe deposit box are good enough. In that light, it’s not so hard to start over.

At Port Authority I exited the bus and walked down 42
nd
Street. Late March, and bright sunshine wasn’t having much effect against the cold air. I bought a hot pretzel from a vendor, eating it quickly before it cooled. Men went by in topcoats, women in fur. Young people walked briskly, glancing up occasionally from their smart-phones. Kids scuffled and laughed and poked each other, oblivious of any other pedestrian over the age of eighteen.

At Bryant Park I pulled out my new cellphone, purchased a day earlier in Copenhagen. I also had a store of fifteen fresh SIM cards. I chose one, snapped it into the phone, and clicked the on button, waiting for a signal.

Yes, I was still tied to disposable technology. But at least the chipcards were more compact than multiple handsets.

“Hello?”

I heard her voice for the first time in half a year. It was a moment before I could speak.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“Hey, Clara,” I said. “I’ve got a story for you.”