The Traveler (2 page)

Thorn lived on

one block north of the secret prison on Bartolomejská. During the Cold War, the security police had taken over a convent and used it for their holding cells and torture chambers. Now the Sisters of Mercy were back in charge and the police had moved into other buildings nearby. As Maya walked around the quarter, she realized why Thorn had settled here. Prague still had a medieval appearance, and most Harlequins hated anything that appeared new. The city had decent medical care, good transportation, and Internet communications. A third factor was even more important: the Czech police had learned their ethics in the communist era. If Thorn bribed the right people he could get access to police files and passports.

***

MAYA ONCE MET a Gypsy in Barcelona who explained to her why he had the right to pick pockets and rob tourist hotels. When the Romans crucified Jesus, they prepared a golden nail to hammer into the Savior's heart. A Gypsy—apparently there were Gypsies in ancient Jerusalem—had taken the nail, and therefore God gave them permission to steal until the end of time. Harlequins weren't Gypsies, but Maya decided that the mindset was pretty much the same. Her father and his friends had a highly developed sense of honor and their own private morality. They were disciplined and loyal to each other, but they were contemptuous of any citizen-made law. Harlequins believed they had the right to kill and destroy because of their vow to protect the Travelers.

***

SHE STROLLED PAST the Church of the Holy Rood, then glanced across the street to number 18 Konviktská. It was a red doorway wedged between a plumbing-parts store and a lingerie shop where the window mannequin wore a garter belt and a pair of sequined stockings. There were two other floors above the street and all the upper windows were either shuttered or tinted a hazy gray. Harlequins had at least three exits in their houses, and one of them was always secret. This building had the red door and a second door in the back alley. There was probably a secret passageway that led downstairs to the lingerie shop.

She flicked open the top of the sword carrier and tilted it slightly forward so that the sword handle slid out a few inches. Back in London, the summons had come the usual way: an unmarked manila envelope shoved under her door. She had no idea whether or not Thorn was still alive and waiting in this building. If the Tabula had found out that she was involved in the hotel killings nine years ago, it was easier to lure her out of England and execute her in a foreign city.

Crossing the street, Maya stopped in front of the lingerie shop and looked at the display window. She searched for a traditional Harlequin sign such as a mask or a-piece of clothing with a diamond pattern, anything to calm her growing tension. It was seven o'clock. Slowly she moved down the sidewalk and saw a chalk mark on the concrete. It was an oval shape and three straight lines: an abstract suggestion of a Harlequin's lute. If the Tabula had done this, they would have taken more care and made the drawing resemble the instrument. Instead, the mark was casual and scuffed—as if a bored child had placed it there.

She pressed the doorbell, heard a whirring sound, and saw that a surveillance camera was hidden inside the metal canopy above the door frame. The door lock clicked open and she stepped inside. Maya was standing in a small foyer leading to a steep metal staircase.
The door behind her glided.
shut
and a three-inch bolt slid into a lock.
Trapped.
She drew her sword, snapped the hilt into position, and started upstairs. At the top of the stairs
was
another steel door and a second doorbell. She pushed the button and an electronic voice came out of the little speaker.

"Voice print please."

"Go to hell."

A computer analyzed her voice and three seconds later the second door clicked open. Maya entered a large white room with a polished wood floor. Her father's apartment was spare and clean. There was nothing plastic, nothing false or shrill. A half wall defined the entryway and living room. The area contained a leather chair and a glass coffee table with a single yellow orchid in a vase.

Two framed posters hung on the wall. One advertised an exhibit of Japanese samurai swords at the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts in Tokyo. Way of the sword.
Life of the warrior.
The second poster showed a 1914 assemblage called
Three Standard Stoppages
by Marcel Duchamp. The Frenchman had dropped three meter-long strings on a Prussian blue canvas and then had traced their outlines. Like any Harlequin, Duchamp didn't fight against randomness and uncertainty: he had used it to create his art.

She heard bare feet moving across the floor, then a young man with a shaved head came around the corner holding a German-made submachine gun. The man was smiling and his gun was tilted downward at a forty-five-degree angle. If he were foolish enough to raise the weapon, she decided to step to the left and slash open his face with her sword.

"Welcome to Prague," he said in English with a Russian accent. 'Your father will be with you in a minute."

The young man wore drawstring pants and a sleeveless T-shirt with Japanese characters stenciled on the fabric. Maya could see that his arms and neck were decorated with numerous tattoos.
Snakes.
Demons.
A vision of Hell.
She didn't have to see him naked to know that he was a walking epic of some kind. Harlequins always seemed to collect misfits and freaks to serve them.

Maya replaced the sword in the carrying case. "What's your name?"

"Alexi."

"How long have you worked for Thorn?"

"It isn't work." The young man looked very pleased with himself. "I help your father and he helps me. I'm training to be a master of the martial arts."

"And he's doing very well," her father said. She heard the voice first and then Thom came rolling around the corner in an electric wheelchair. His Harlequin sword was in a scabbard attached to an armrest.
Thorn,
had grown a beard in the last two years. His arms and upper chest were still powerful and it almost made you forget his shriveled, useless legs.

Thorn stopped moving and smiled at his daughter. "Good evening, Maya."

The last time she had seen her father was in Peshawar the night that Linden had brought him down from the mountains of the North-West Frontier. Thorn was unconscious and Linden's clothes were covered with blood.

Using faked newspaper articles, the Tabula had lured Thorn, Linden, a Chinese Harlequin named Willow, and an Australian Harlequin named Libra to a tribal area in Pakistan. Thorn was convinced that two children—a twelve-year-old boy and his ten-year-old sister—were Travelers who were in danger from a fanatical religious leader. The four Harlequins and their allies were ambushed at a mountain pass by Tabula mercenaries. Willow and Libra were killed: Thorn's spinal cord was hit by a chunk of shrapnel and he was paralyzed from the waist down.

Two years later her father was living in a Prague apartment with a tattooed freak for a servant and everything was wonderful—let's
forget
about the past and move on. At that moment, Maya was almost glad that her father was a paraplegic. If he hadn't been injured, he would have denied that the ambush had occurred.

"So how are you, Maya?" Thorn turned to the Russian. "I haven't seen my daughter for some time."

The fact that he used the word "daughter" made her furious. It meant that he had brought her to Prague to ask for a favor. "More than two years," she said.

"Two years?" Alexi smiled. "I think you have much to talk about."

Thom gestured with his hand and the Russian picked up a scanner from a side table. The scanner looked like a small airport security wand, but it was designed to detect the tracer beads used by the Tabula. The beads were the size of pearls and gave off a signal that could be tracked by GPS satellites. There were radio tracer beads and special ones that gave off infrared signals.

"Don't waste your time looking for a bead. The Tabula aren't interested in me."

"Just being careful."

"I'm not a Harlequin and they know it."

The scanner didn't beep. Alexi retreated from the room and Thom motioned to the chair. Maya knew that her father had mentally rehearsed the conversation. He had probably spent a few hours thinking about his clothing and where to put the furniture.
To hell with it.
She was going to catch him by surprise.

"Nice servant you got there." She sat down on the chair as Thorn rolled over to her.
"Very colorful."

Normally, in private conversations, they would speak to each other in German. Thorn was making a concession to his daughter. Maya had passports for several different nationalities, but these days she considered herself British. "Yes, the
ink work
." Her father smiled. "Alexi has a tattoo artist creating a picture of the First Realm on his body. Not very pleasant, but that's his choice." 'Yes. We all have free choice.
Even Harlequins."

"You don't seem happy to see me, Maya."

She had planned to be controlled and disciplined, but the words began spilling out. "I got you out of Pakistan—basically bribed or threatened half the officials in the country to get you on that plane. And then we're in Dublin and Mother Blessing takes charge and that's okay—it's her territory. I call her satellite phone number the next day and she tells me,
Your
father is paralyzed from the waist down. He'll never walk again.' And then she hangs up on me and immediately cancels her phone line. That's it. Bang.
All over.
I don't hear from you for two years."

"We were protecting you, Maya. It's very dangerous these days."

"Tell that to tattoo boy. I've watched you use danger and security as excuses for everything, but that doesn't work anymore. There are no more battles. No more Harlequins, really-just
a handful like
you and Linden and Mother Blessing."

"Shepherd is living in California."

"Three or four people can't change anything. The war is over. Don't you realize that? The Tabula won. We lost.
Wir haben verloren."

The German words seemed to touch him a little deeper than her English. Thorn pushed the hand control on his wheelchair and turned away slightly so that she couldn't see his eyes.

"You're also a Harlequin, Maya. That's your true self.
Your past and your future."

"I'm not a Harlequin and I'm not like you. You should know that by now."

"We need your help. It's important."

"It's always important."

"I need you to go to America. We'll pay for everything. Make all the arrangements.''

"America is Shepherd's territory. Let him handle it."

Her father used the full power of his voice. "Shepherd has en-countered an unusual situation. He doesn't know what to do."

"I have a real life now. I'm not part of this anymore."

Moving the control stick, Thorn made a graceful figure eight around the room.
"Ahhh, yes.
A citizen life in the Vast Machine.
So pleasant and distracting.
Tell me all about it."

"You've never asked before."

"Don't you work in some kind of office?"

"I'm an industrial designer. I work with a team developing product containers for different companies. Last week I created a new perfume bottle."

"Sounds challenging.
I'm sure you're very successful.
And what about the rest of your world?
Any boyfriends I should know about?" "No."

"There was that barrister—what's his name?" Thorn knew, of course. But he pretended to search through his memory.
"Connor Ramsey.
Wealthy.
Good-looking.
Well-connected family.
And then he left you for that other woman. Apparently, he'd been seeing her the whole time he was with you."

Maya felt like Thorn had just slapped her. She should have guessed that he would use his London contacts to get information. He always seemed to know everything.

"That's not your concern."

"Don't waste your time worrying about Ramsey. Some mercs working for Mother Blessing blew up his car a few months ago. Now he believes that terrorists are after him. He's hired bodyguards.
Lives in fear.
And that's good. Isn't it? Mr. Ramsey needed to be punished for deceiving my little girl."

Thorn spun the wheelchair around and smiled at her. Maya knew that she should act outraged, but she couldn't. She thought about Connor embracing her on the pier in Brighton, then Connor sitting in a restaurant three weeks later announcing that she wasn't suitable for marriage. Maya had read about the car explosion in the papers, but hadn't connected her father to the attack.

"You didn't have to do that."

"But I did." Thorn moved back to the coffee table.

"Blowing up a car doesn't change anything. I'm still not going to America."

"Who mentioned America? We're just having a conversation."

Her Harlequin training told her that she should go on the attack. Like Thorn, she had prepared for the meeting. "Tell me something, Father.
Just one fact.
Do you love me?"

"You're my daughter, Maya."

"Answer the question."

"Since your mother died, you're the only precious thing in my life."

"All right.
Let's accept that statement for the moment." She leaned forward in the chair. "The Tabula and the Harlequins used to be fairly equal adversaries, but the Vast Machine changed the balance of power. As far as I know, there are no more Travelers and only a few Harlequins."

The Tabula can use face scanners, electronic surveillance, cooperation from government officials, and—"

"I don't want a reason. We're not talking about that.
Just facts and conclusions.
In Pakistan you were injured and two people were killed. I always liked Libra. He used to take me to the theater when he visited London. And Willow was a strong, graceful woman."