No Shelter (13 page)

Now that the kids are home I don’t have to worry about them anymore. They’ll sit themselves in front of the TV for the next hour or so until Marilyn comes home.
 

I grab some paper towels by the sink, start drying my hair.
 

Sylvia has two large pots going at once. She stirs one of them, stirs the other, then turns to me and says, “Mr. Hadden told me he’d like to see you when you came in.”
 

“Was he in a good mood or a bad mood?”
 

“Child, that man only has one mood: Serious.”
 

On the way to Walter’s study I check in on the kids. They’re both on the couch, their attentions glued to a rerun of
Blue’s Clues
. That works for me. I continue on and then stand outside the study door. I still have the paper towels in hand, now damp, and I stare at them thinking about what I should say to Walter, whether I should tell him about my job interview tomorrow and how very soon I will no longer be watching his children. Then I wonder whether I’m being selfish, that Casey and David are innocents in this, and that it has been my job for the past two years to watch over and protect them, and that so far I’ve done a good job and they’ve come to like me a lot, even love me, just as much as I love them, and now I’m just going to turn my back on them and leave them forever?
 

I knock once and then enter the study. As usual he has hardly any lights on, just the small desk lamp that throws a soft yellow glow on the clutter of papers beside the laptop.
 

He tells me to shut the door and I shut the door. He tells me to take a seat and I take a seat. Then he sorts through the clutter of papers and comes away with a large surveillance photograph and hands it to me asking if I know who that is.
 

I look at it only for a moment before I say, “That’s Roland Delano’s assistant.”
 

The snapshot is one Nova must have taken last week, because it shows her and Delano coming out of the Luxor.
 

“That’s right,” Walter says, nodding slowly. Today must not have been a Pentagon day, because he’s wearing khakis and a dress shirt, the top two buttons undone. “Do you remember her name?”
 

“Alayna Something.”
 

“Alayna Gramont.”
 

“Right. So what about her?”
 

“We’ve just gotten word that she is continuing with Delano’s work. In three days she will be selling Delano’s code.”
 

“His what?”
 

Walter opens his mouth but thinks twice and shuts it. He glances down at the clutter of papers, takes a breath, then looks back up at me.
 

“Remember Delano’s flash drive?”
 

I nod.
 

“Well it’s impossible for us—for anyone—to open it without a code. That’s the way Delano designed it. The encryption is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
 

“So nobody knows what’s on it.”
 

“That’s right.”
 

“Who says there’s anything important on it at all? Could be the guy’s grocery list.”
 

“Could be,” Walter says. “But for practical purpose let’s stay with the idea that it’s not.”
 

“Okay. For practical purposes what’s on that flash drive is a matter of national security.”
 

“No, no”—Walter holds up a finger, shaking his head—“a matter of global security.”
 

“Fine. A matter of global security. And nobody can open the information on that flash drive without a code.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“A code that this Alayna Gramont is going to sell in three days.”
 

“That’s right.”
 

“But that doesn’t make sense.”
 

“No, it doesn’t.”
 

“Why would anyone want to buy the code for something they don’t even have?”
 

“That,” Walter says, “is a very good question.”
 

For a moment neither one of us speaks as the rain outside continues, unabated.
 

I think of something and lean forward in my seat. “Be honest with me here. Is the U.S. one of the buyers?”
 

Walter’s face stays impassive. He gives a quick shake of his head and says, “No, it isn’t. From our intel the buyers appear to be the same buyers Delano was meeting in Vegas.”
 

“So even though they don’t have the flash drive, they want to buy the code.”
 

“It appears that way.”
 

“And why are you telling me this?”
 

Walter doesn’t answer, at least not verbally. He rests his elbow on the desktop, folds his hands together, puts his lips to the intertwined fingers and continues to stare back me.
 

“But I thought you said I was done.”
 

“I say a lot of things.”
 

“You said I’ve been on a gradual decline.”
 

“You have been. But unfortunately all I have right now are you and Nova, and I can’t send Nova into it by himself.”
 

“Where?”
 

“Paris.”
 

Another moment of silence passes, the two of us staring back at one another.
 

“Don’t send me,” I say finally.
 

“Why not?”
 

“You were right before. I’ve become ... reckless. Irresponsible. I can’t be trusted.”
 

“This doesn’t sound like the Holly Lin I know.”
 

“The Holly Lin you know has changed.”
 

“Has she?”
 

“I’m through with it, Walter. I’m getting out.”
 

He stares at me another moment, his dark eyes intense. Then he leans back in his chair, starts sorting through the clutter of papers again. Not looking at me he says, “Fine. You want out, you’re out. But at least do me this one favor first.”
 

“Walter—”
 

“Do you still blame yourself for Scooter?” He glances up at me. “Do you? Because as far as I’m concerned, as far as the United States of America is concerned, as far as Scooter’s memory is concerned, the Vegas job is unfinished. The only way to finish it is go to Paris and stop the buy.”
 

“You want me to take out this Alayna Gramont?”
 

“If you have to. But at this moment she isn’t a threat in and of herself. The code, though, the code is a threat.”
 

“How so?”
 

“I don’t know. But that code cannot fall into the wrong hands.”
 

“What does it matter if it does? They can’t do anything without the flash drive.”
 

“At this point we’re not taking the risk.”
 

“But—”
 

“Tomorrow night you’ll fly to Paris. Nova will already be there. You will meet up with a team of foreign agents who have been watching Delano for the past five years. They already have surveillance on Gramont. The task here is to wait to see who the buyers are, then take them out if need be and secure the code. Understand?”
 

“How do you know there aren’t copies of this stuff? Whatever Delano had on that flash drive he probably has on one of his computers. The same with the code.”
 

“Tomorrow night, Holly. You want out, you’re out. But first this mission.”
 

I stare back at him, this aging man with his firm face and intense eyes. Always so calm, always so in control. Always giving orders, never taking any.
 

I wonder for an instant what things might have been like had I turned down Walter’s offer five years ago, when he walked into my prison cell in his uniform and his two general stars flashing gold in the light.
 

What my life would be like had I said no.
 

What I would be doing right this instant had I told him to go fuck himself.
 

24

After a delightful dinner of chicken and steak kabobs, the twins are excused to the living room and Tina starts to clear the table. I stand to help her but she shakes her head and tilts her chin toward Ryan.
 

“You’re going with him.”
 

Ryan leads me into his den, which is nothing more than a spare bedroom filled with bookcases and filing cabinets and a desk with a computer on top. He pulls up a chair beside the one already behind the desk, tells me to sit down.
 

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asks as he moves the cursor around on the screen and brings up a program.
 

“No,” I tell him, but I don’t think I’m very convincing.
 

“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine. Just be relaxed and be yourself.”
 

That easy for you to say
, I think.
At least you know who you are.
 

“Okay,” Ryan says, sitting back and exposing the beginnings of a gut. I’ve teased Tina about this growing gut, saying how her husband is getting fat. Now for some reason I wish I could go back and keep my mouth shut, instead tell Tina just how lucky she is to have a guy like Ryan in her life. “This right here is an outline of your basic resume. All we need to do is fill in the information. Like here”—he starts typing—“your full name and address and phone number.”
 

He gets the address and phone number wrong—both off by a couple numbers—so I tell him and he corrects it.
 

“Now,” he says, “we do the objective.”
 

“What’s the objective?”
 

“That you’re interested in an entry-level position at a thriving and up-and-coming city law firm.”
 

“Thriving and up-and-coming?”
 

He smiles as he types a paraphrase of what he just said and then he sits back again, folds his hands back over his gut as he gives me a long look.
 

“Next are your qualifications for the job.”
 

I take a moment to think it over, a very long moment, then say, “I know how to type.”
 

“Do you know how to type well?”
 

“I can get by.”
 

“They’re going to be expecting at least sixty words a minute. Preferably more.”
 

“I’m pretty sure I can do that.”
 

“What about ten key?”
 

“What the hell is ten key?”
 

He nods once, takes a breath. “That’s what I was afraid of. Look on the keyboard here—see the square of number keys? That’s called the ten key. They’ll probably test you on that too.”
 

“I’m going to be
tested
?”
 

Ryan gives me another long look. After a moment he says, “Holly, are you sure this is what you really want to do?”
 

Of course it’s not what I really want to do. It’s the very last thing in the world I want to do. But still I nod and tell him yes.
 

He keeps the stare going for another moment, then leans forward and places his fingers on the keyboard. He doesn’t type anything but just keeps his fingers there, the tips grazing the tops of the keys.
 

“Qualifications,” he says, staring at the computer screen, and it takes me a couple seconds to realize he’s waiting for me to list them. I even open my mouth, wanting to start listing off one qualification after another, but the resume I would make is one Ryan is not prepared to see. Nobody in my family would be prepared to see a resume that lists hand-to-hand combat and weapons training and expert driving, let alone knowledge in explosives and poisons and how to hotwire a car and how to break into a safe.
 

“I have a good personality,” I say.
 

“Let’s skip this for the time being and go to education.”
 

“You mean all the schools I’ve attended, even in elementary?”
 

As my dad was moved from army base to army base, I’d been in at least a dozen schools before finally settling down just outside of Washington, D.C.
 

“High school and college is sufficient.”
 

“You know I never want to college.”
 

“Your high school then. We’ll even add your four years in the Army. It’ll look good.”
 

Right after high school I’d joined the Army and stayed for only four years. Or at least that’s what my family believes.
 

I tell him the name and he types it into the form, then asks me about any clubs or extracurricular activities I’d been involved in.
 

“None.”
 

He glances at me, almost warily, then says, “Okay. How about relevant experience?”
 

“Ryan, you don’t have to do this.”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“This is a waste of time.”
 

“No it isn’t.”
 

But as I stare at the computer screen and the very little typed there I can see it is. As far as everyone else in the world is concerned, those few words sum up my life. Not how many languages I speak, how many countries I’ve been to, how many missions I’ve gone on, or how many people I’ve killed and hopefully saved. All that matters in the real world are objectives and qualifications and education and experience, and in the real world I have none.
 

Ryan doesn’t move from his place in his chair. He keeps the tips of his fingers on the keys of the keyboard and stares at the screen. I know he’s waiting for me but I don’t have anything to say so I glance away, up at one of the bookcases that contains a few of his trophies. In high school and college he had played lacrosse, which has always been hard for me to picture, but apparently he had been pretty good and had constantly been in training. Now years have passed and he is married with two children and working a nine-to-five. He has let his body go, so much so that the gut he now tries to hide will someday double and then maybe triple and every time he will look at those trophies he’ll think about the days when he had his entire future open in front of him. Now after just another dinner with his wife and children he sits in his den with his sister-in-law and tries to help her find work.