The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel (12 page)

She spotted him against the far wall, one leg kicked back for support, arms crossed, as if he had all the time needed to discover the world and no plans to do so. Beside him was a luggage dolly carrying two oversize lockers that functioned as trunks, an oversize carry-on, and a computer bag. He scanned the room with that disinterested look of his, which so belied the focus with which he observed all.

He met her eyes as she found his, and a beautiful smile transformed his face. He greeted her with a hug and then a kiss atop her forehead.

“You okay?” he said.

The question, so clean in its simplicity, so strong in sincerity, held so many complexities that Munroe simply nodded and returned his smile.

“How was the trip?” she asked. “Tired?”

“I slept,” he said. “I’m ready to roll.”

“Did you get the list?”

“Whatever I couldn’t bring, I can get here,” he said. “I’ve got connections in the area—I’m owed and have already started pulling favors.”

Munroe nodded, and as they walked to the exit where the cab sat idling, she hooked her arm in his. Though it was strange to have Bradford as an on-site partner, knowing he had her back felt good.

In the cab, Bradford briefed her on Logan’s call, she updated him on what she knew of the Havens, and between them remained the unspoken issue of whether or not she’d slept.

Bradford pulled an envelope from his computer bag and handed it to her. “It’s what I have on New York,” he said. “It’s not much, but I’ve got my ear to the ground, and it’ll eventually come.”

Munroe stared ahead, eyes on the road, thin envelope limp on her lap.

Bradford put a hand on hers, his touch cautious, gentle. He said, “The killing was justified, Michael. You did the only thing to be done, let it go.”

This was that conversation for another time. Munroe inclined her head against the seat, turned to the side so that half of Bradford’s face filled her focus, and studied him as he watched the passing traffic. The way he spoke, that mixture of concern and respect, love and equality, was very rare and came from an intimacy grounded in complete acceptance and understanding of who she truly was.

From the airport, the taxi took them into Palermo, the vibrant
northeast corner of the city just beyond the wealth-filled stretches of Recoleta. Munroe had originally come here simply to be across town from Logan and lessen the chances of accidentally running into him, but the hotel, large for the area with nearly thirty rooms stacked upon nine floors, and with a restaurant and wireless Internet, had all that she needed for a command center for the rescue—or kidnapping, depending on the point of view.

The room was on the fourth floor, and together they lugged the trunks inside. The local décor, as clean-lined and modular as any that Munroe had seen in Europe, added a variant to what would otherwise globally be considered a standard hotel room: two beds, a bathroom, a windowed balcony, corner chairs, a TV, and a desk against one wall.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the balcony window and the heater took the chill out of the air. Munroe and Bradford rearranged furniture and cleared a wall upon which they taped a large sheet of paper that would double for a whiteboard.

But for brief questions or the occasional sigh or exclamation, Munroe and Bradford set up shop in silence, pulling matériel from among the clothing, assembling one piece after the other until the small desk was covered with machines and wires that overflowed and bled to the floor.

When Munroe had done all that she could, knew that she’d reached the stage of helpfulness that bordered on inconvenience, she left Bradford on his own and turned to the door.

“I’ll be back by dark,” she said.

Preferring to work alone as she did, an assignment rarely called for this level of assistance, but what she’d always had and currently lacked was time. The information on Hannah’s location was now over two weeks old, and with The Chosen—particularly Hannah—relocating often, Munroe couldn’t risk losing her before they’d even found her.

She needed a lot of information as quickly as possible, and even in a city the size of Buenos Aires, getting it without alerting The Chosen of their presence meant depending heavily on electronics and on the wallet.

In the hallway, Munroe slipped a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door handle, and as a way to ward off curious eyes and unwanted visitors who might take a special interest in the electronic assembly upstairs, she let the front desk know that housekeeping wouldn’t be necessary.

With daylight hours fading, she returned to Nueva Pompeya, the neighborhood on the south side of the city where stood the midsize grocery store whose owner Gideon had so badly wanted to speak with the day before.

The grocery was on a narrow street, fronted by and set between a variety of smaller mom-and-pop shops. For this, the location was perfect. Far down the block, Munroe exited the cab and, zipping her jacket against the cold, walked toward the grocery, taking in the area and confirming what she had noticed on yesterday’s first pass.

A portion of storefront matched what she had seen in the blurry background of two pictures nestled among the many pages of documents and internal memoranda given her by Logan.

Gideon was correct that the owner of the store, a close friend of The Chosen, was probably still here, but Gideon’s urge to go to the source, while logical to the inexperienced, had great potential for ruin.

The photos were a dot-to-dot, pointing out who to avoid.

Unless she was able to move faster than the target—something she could only do once she was certain of where Hannah was located—to come so close had the potential to cause The Chosen to spook and scatter.

Munroe shoved her hands into pockets, crossed the street, and entered the shop opposite the grocery’s sliding doors. From the outside, the shoe store had appeared to fit what Munroe was looking for, but a cursory glance around the interior told her otherwise. A nod to the proprietor and she returned to the street and moved on to the clothing boutique next door.

But for the girl seated behind the counter, the shop was empty, and judging from the merchandise, it was probably often empty. The clerk was young, late teens, possibly twenties, and she sat bored and disinterested, her eyes glued to her hands and what Munroe assumed
was a cell phone. From her position behind the counter, the girl had a nearly perfect view through the display window and across the street.

Munroe surveyed the room and glanced at the clerk once more. Here, although she could get what she wanted as a female, instinct said that the girl would be more eager to help a boy. Experience had taught her that dressed as she was—no makeup, neutral gender hair, and neutral gender clothing—unless she assumed the role of one gender over the other, people inevitably projected whatever made them most comfortable.

What most never realized was that masculinity and femininity were never so much about looks as attitude, and to create the roles and slip between them, one gender to the next, was a tool of the trade that Munroe had utilized for so long that it had become as natural as blinking.

Munroe moved through the store casually, slowly, holding up the occasional garment, and by all appearances completely out of her element. She lingered an appropriate time, held two shirts side by side, dropped her voice an octave, and requested advice from the girl, who until now had barely taken notice of her presence.

“
Che, ¿te gusta esta remera para mi hermana
?” she said. “I need to buy a birthday gift for her and don’t know where to start.”

The clerk placed her phone on the counter and stepped beyond the glass to the small floor space. Munroe smiled bashfully, and the girl returned the grin.

“I’m Michael,” Munroe said, “and thank you.”

“Bianca,” the girl said, “and how old is your sister?”

The banter between them was casual and friendly, a gentle rebound about the choices at hand, and personal conversation that veered just shy of flirtation. And then, with a decision made, Munroe stood at the counter and glanced beyond the window. She wondered out loud how boring it must be to spend the day watching the comings and goings of the street.

Bianca sighed and nodded.

“So you’ve noticed the van, then,” Munroe said, “the one with the children?”

“The children don’t come every week,” Bianca replied.

“But the van does,” Munroe said, and she leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper, “the same day every week.”

The Chosen’s propensity toward multipassenger vehicles had been evident in the photos scattered throughout the documents, but other than that one fact, everything else Munroe said was based on guesswork. Right or wrong, it made no difference. Bianca, adhering to human nature, would contradict or fill in the blanks, whatever the case might be.

As if on cue, the girl added, “And always at the same time.”

“The van is gray, no?”

“White,” Bianca said.

“Yes, white.” Munroe grinned, this time blatantly flirtatious. “But I’m not color-blind.”

Bianca blushed, and then, either through embarrassment at the attention or from a desire to prolong the conversation, continued. She was an eager gossip, and Munroe plied the desire to share, questions intermingled with further flirtation and bashful smiles.

The van came weekly, always Tuesday around midmorning, and nearly always the same driver. He and his companion—usually a woman—would go inside for twenty or thirty minutes and then return with several filled crates. Bianca rattled off other details, but at this point they were superfluous. With a gasp at the time and a parting wave, Munroe left the shop for the hotel.

To pinpoint one Haven meant, with time and patience, locating all three said to be in or around Buenos Aires. When tomorrow rolled around, she would be ready. The magnet had served its purpose, and she’d soon have the needle.

M
unroe sat beside the bed with her back to the wall and two sets of documents on the floor in front of her. It was after midnight, and Bradford, having claimed the bed closest to the window, had already crashed, his gentle snores assurance that he was either sleeping or doing a stellar job of pretending that he was.

Trying to keep ambient light to a minimum, Munroe had pulled the desk lamp down and settled it in the space between the wall and the bed. She had yet to go through the last set of documents that Logan had handed her, and they sat beside the envelope that contained information on the New York killing.

Munroe ran her forefinger between the two, a repetitive pattern of long internal debate until the documents were separated by a perfect line of tile. In a slow, drawn-out movement, she twisted her palms so that they faced her and gazed at the invisible stain of blood that marked them, urging away the tarnish, knowing full well that removal was impossible.

She was a predator, a hunter, hating the bloodlust that lurked always just beneath the surface, disgusted by how easy it was to kill and how good it felt when it was done.

Did it really matter that she killed in self-defense or that her dead were evildoers? Every kill had been a son or brother, father or lover to someone else. Death was death, killing was killing, and the urge to
draw blood and the satisfaction it brought was as fierce as any addiction. For this reason Munroe didn’t begrudge the nightmares or the guilt she carried; these provided a form of proof that in spite of the euphoric rush of the kill, she did have a conscience, that she was yet human and alive.

On the flip side, concern that Logan’s assignment would add to the body count had gone down considerably with the realization that for the most part, The Chosen were pacifists. Unlike Jonestown, The Chosen disavowed mass suicide, and unlike the Branch Davidians, they didn’t stockpile weapons in preparation for Judgment Day—although they did believe that as the End Days approached, they would acquire X-Men-type superpowers.

The physical danger came not from The Chosen but from their Sponsors—connected individuals that The Chosen sought out and courted for protection and financial gain—military, police, or powerful local families. The details varied from country to country, city to city, and sometimes even Haven to Haven within a city and weren’t worth troubling over until the local situation became clearer.

The most immediate concern was not violence but being discovered by The Chosen and watching helplessly as the Havens scattered and Hannah vanished again, like fog between fingers.

Munroe pushed the New York envelope aside. Miles was right. She had acted in the only way that she could have. To brood over it now would only interfere with bringing Logan’s daughter home, and here in Buenos Aires, as long as it was merely the violence of the supernatural that she had to deal with, things would be okay.

Munroe picked up Logan’s folder and pulled out the pages, and as she began to read, rage, like a fire in her belly that could only be quenched by blood, began a slow burn upward.

The cause of the seething came not only from the details but also from the impunity with which they were published, promoted, and documented: The Prophet, with his divine revelation proclaiming freedom from the laws of the Bible, said that to the pure, all was pure, and for The Chosen only one law mattered, that anything was allowed if
done in love. The Prophet reiterated that love was the criteria, not age, or familial relations, or marital status. Taboos were removed, safeguards erased, and the innocence and bodies of the children violated, and these violations were shown and written about in graphic detail.

The Prophet’s doctrine was Saint Augustine saying, “Love, and do as you will”; it was Aleister Crowley’s dictum “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”; it was Saint Paul’s “All things are lawful unto me”; it was The Prophet saying that there was no reason young children couldn’t be fully involved sexual beings if love was the motivation.

The children didn’t scream or protest; they had been taught to submit, to obey, to never question. They had no power, no place but to serve, and when the pedophiles came calling, who had they to turn to for safety? Their parents, those who should have stood between the children and harm, had abdicated responsibility in order to follow The Prophet and remain a part of The Chosen, and these acts against the innocent, no matter how extreme, were, after all, done in love.