The Travelers (28 page)

“As soon as you can manage.”

BOSTON

When the train pulls out of the station, her phone starts to ring again, or rather to vibrate, illuminated, an insistent plea for attention. Will is calling again.

Chloe hits Ignore again. She doesn’t want to talk to her husband, to listen to him beg,
Please believe me, it’s the truth, please.

Chloe is furious, and she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, not until she figures out exactly what she’s going to do about it. Her options are limited.

She doesn’t want to be reachable, doesn’t want to be findable, and that’s not so easy. It was only fifteen years ago when people used to go on vacations and weren’t heard from for a week or two, in Guatemala or Tanzania or New Zealand, or not even so exotic, just a weeklong rental in Rehoboth, camping in the Poconos. They didn’t post pictures on social media, they didn’t answer calls or emails or text messages. Vacation meant you were just not around. Perhaps you were missed or needed or wanted, perhaps not, but either way, everyone dealt with it.

Chloe rises from her seat, walks down the aisle, holding seatbacks for balance, the train rocking back and forth, hurtling into New Hampshire. She slides the restroom door open, bolts the lock. Her phone rings again, Malcolm this time, that shit-heel.

They had a deal, and it was straightforward: Chloe would leave the staff, and would instead take responsibility for the important freelance work that
Travelers
needed—probably just one or two assignments per year, but done carefully, perfectly. In return, Malcolm would leave Will completely out of it. This deal was struck in a conversation that wasn’t opaque, not open to interpretation or misunderstanding. Chloe had made sure of that.

She had been given only one assignment so far. It had been the most difficult thing she’d ever done in her life, by far. But she’d done it well. She was living up to her end. Malcolm obviously wasn’t.

She drops her vibrating phone to the floor, and raises her foot to stomp on it, to stop the harassment. She’s going to hammer the SIM card with the cracked-up phone, then throw all the little bits of plastic off the train, one by one.

But no. She may very well need this phone. So instead of destroying it, she’ll do what Will did when Chloe was following him to his illicit meeting. She kneels down and picks up this lifeline, this tracking device we all carry with us, wherever we go. She disables it.

FALLS CHURCH

“Here is what is odd,” Raji says. “This woman, this Chloe Rhodes, she took a taxi to the New York airport, which she paid for with a credit card. She checked into her flight—no bags—then used this same plastic in the airport to buy stuff. Look.”

Brock leans forward, plants his palm on Raji’s desk, flexing the muscles on his forearm, sending the
SEMPER FI
tattoo into ripples. Brock never misses an opportunity to flex his muscles, nor to remind people that he was a marine.

Raji plays two video clips of surveillance footage from two different airport-security cameras, a woman buying a boxed salad and a drink from one vendor, then chewing gum and a couple of magazines from another.

“And here she is, boarding.” From a third camera, the woman hands a pass to a gate agent, then disappears down a gangway.

“Here she is at the other end, at immigration.” Click. “And exiting the terminal.”

“She’s hot.”

“Yes. There are two strange things about this trip. First, when she boarded the return flight to New York, she didn’t reenter this terminal.”

There’s a pause while Brock considers what Raji means. “You sure?”

“Not one hundred percent, but yes. So she must’ve returned to the terminal via another flight, from somewhere else. I still haven’t found any footage of her deplaning another flight, and her name doesn’t appear on any other manifests, but I’ll continue to look. She
must
have returned to the terminal somehow, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She flew all the way to Europe for a few days,
and
took another round-trip flight somewhere else. That’s a tremendous amount of flying.”

“You’re right about that, Raj-man.”

“And the second strange thing is this: she doesn’t use that credit card anywhere nearby—not in Turkey, not in Greece, not in Bulgaria. What’s even stranger, she doesn’t use
any other
card. She’s over there for three days, getting on some other flight, and she doesn’t swipe any bank card, anywhere. Not once.”

“Huh.”

“Not for a taxi, not a hotel, not a restaurant. She begins this trip using a credit card in New York, but then doesn’t use plastic for a single purchase of any sort. She also doesn’t use any bank card—or at least none I’ve been able to ID—to withdraw any cash.”

“Is it possible that she went over there holding sufficient Turkish, um…”

“Lira.”

“…lira to keep her alive for three days?”

“Sure, that’s possible. But wouldn’t it be very strange?”

“I guess so. Do you have a theory, Raj-man?”

“Yes. Either someone else was paying for everything she did, while she was there.”

“That’s plausible. Or?”

“Or her destination was not Istanbul.”

NEW YORK CITY

Sunday night, Will is still alone, hoping to not be, expecting that Chloe will come home in time to go to work tomorrow. She’s not the type who calls in sick, and he doesn’t think she’s willing to be a no-show. So she’ll be back. Tonight.

When Will was single, he hated Sunday nights. On weeknights he never felt bad being alone—going to sleep alone, waking up alone, that felt like part of work, part of his work ethic. And then Fridays and Saturdays, there’d be parties, or dates. But Sunday mornings he’d usually wake up alone, tired, possibly hungover. He’d sometimes spend the entire day alone, taking care of errands, laundry, groceries, cleaning, exercising. By bedtime he’d be depressed. Which he is now.

He should get out of here, this broken home of his. He should go get a drink, is what he should do. And he should do it at Ebbets Field.

Then another idea occurs to him, something else he can look for at Dean’s bar.

Dean is in a conspiratorial huddle with the bartender, their heads inches apart, when he notices Will. “Mr. William Rhodes, always a pleasure. Please have a seat. How’s that hot wife of yours?”

“I’m not bad. She’s, um, she’s not bad either.”

“I’ve been wondering, Will, what’s up with Gabriella Rivera?”

“Not sure what you’re asking.”

“Did you ever, y’know…”

“Uh, no.”

“What’s her story? She single?”

“She’s a widow, Dean. Remember Terry Sanders? That was her husband.”

“Oh shit, really?”

“Really. But listen, Dean, can I ask a favor?”

Dean has always been widely known as a man who can procure all sorts of things while daring the world to either catch him or reward him. Mostly it has been the latter.

“Always.”

Will looks around, assessing their privacy. Marlon the ultraserious barkeep is at the far end, in deep conversation with a shady-looking character. No one else is in earshot, not above the background music.

“This is going to sound strange.”

“Already does.”

“I’d like to buy a fake passport.”

Dean smiles broadly. “What are you
up
to, Will Rhodes?”

“This is just an insurance policy.”

“Insurance? Against what?”

“What’s insurance ever against, Dean? Bad things happening.”

The following night Will finds himself in another bar, a divier bar, in a dicier neighborhood, fewer brownstone townhouses and more mechanics’ garages, less reliable access to taxis, to fresh produce, to responsive police. He shakes hands with a toothpick-wielding guy who takes his rock-and-roll cred very seriously, painted-on black jeans and Doc Martens, tats and piercings and studded leather jacket, a Ramones tee shirt. It’s always the Ramones. Except when it’s the Clash.

“It’s five thousand for Canadian, ten thousand for American.”

“Okay,” Will says, “I’ll take the Canadian.”

The toothpick dances around. “Yeah, Canadian’s good for getting out of the States. Might be a problem getting back in, though.”

Maybe, but that wouldn’t be Will’s problem. He’d be coming back under his own name, or he wouldn’t be coming back at all. He looks down at the Canadian passport, turns the pages, fingers the paper, examines the details. The name is Douglas Davis.

“Who’s this?”

“You care?”

“Not in an existential way. But in a practical way, yeah.”

“Some meth-head who lives near Hamilton, Ontario. Sold this with the guarantee that he wouldn’t report it missing till, um”—the guy checks a notebook—“next April.”

“What if he reports it earlier?”

“Then I’ll tell the guy I bought it from, and he’ll go break the motherfucker’s legs.”

“But meanwhile I’ll be in jail.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely a risk.” The look on his face asks, what do you want me to tell you? Will doesn’t have any idea what sort of remedy he would have expected.

“You’ll take care of changing the picture?”

“Of course. The book can be ready for you tomorrow. You brought the cash?”

Will looks around the dumpy room populated by an untrustworthy crowd. “No, I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

“Okay, that’s cool.”

Will feels the need to assert himself here, indicate that he isn’t anyone’s sucker. He’s putting himself in a bad position, needing to trust a stranger, and not just any stranger but a criminal stranger, at a significant level of trust.

“And,” Will says, trying his best to look tough, “we’ll meet somewhere else.”

“No problem.” The man is surprisingly easygoing. Too easygoing? “Also, for an extra thousand, you want the guy’s driver’s license?”

On Monday Will managed to avoid everyone, spending most of the day hiding in the archives, grunting monosyllables at Stonely Rodriguez, lunching on a pint of soup at the little table, crumbled-up saltines, a fine dusting of crumbs that he swept away with his hand. After work he paid for his fake passport with his CIA-informant cash, then sat home, sulking about this new life of his.

Tuesday, he can’t hide. He has a status meeting with Gabriella, an art meeting with Jean, a sidebar to revise, on tight deadline.

Then Malcolm stops by. “You okay, Rhodes? You look like shit.”

A weekend has come and gone, the workweek has restarted, and Chloe still hasn’t responded to any of Will’s calls, or texts, or emails. She hasn’t gone back to work, and it doesn’t seem like she’s coming home anytime soon.

Will doesn’t particularly want to discuss this with Malcolm, or with anyone. It’s humiliating, it’s uncomfortable. And telling the truth will require inventing yet more lies, a whole new layer of deception, lying about the lying.

But Chloe’s absence isn’t a secret he can keep forever. The longer he waits to tell Malcolm, the more insulted Malcolm is going to end up being that Will didn’t say something sooner. They’re close friends. It might as well be now.

“I think Chloe left me.”

“What?”
Malcolm walks into the office, sits down.

“We’ve been bickering, more and more, about everything.” This sounds credible. Universal, even. “And she just decided to leave. To go stay with her mother.”

“When?”

“Late last week.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“She’s not answering my calls.”

“Holy shit, that’s awful. Did something happen? A big blowup?”

“No. I think it was a combination of all the little fights. Or honestly I don’t know what the fuck it was, Mal. What it
is
. I really don’t know.”

“Do you think there’s someone else?”

Will is not surprised that this is Malcolm’s theory. For Malcolm, everything is about sex.

“It’s possible, I guess. But then I don’t know why she’d go to Maine.” It’s not until he says this aloud that he considers the possibility that she hasn’t gone to Maine. Could Chloe’s departure have been instigated by something other than Will’s behavior? Now he has a whole new set of worries to keep him up at night.

In the late afternoon, he does manage to get Chloe’s mom on the phone. “Come on, Connie,” he says. “I know she’s there.”

“Oh, Will, I’m sorry but she’s just not going to speak to you. She won’t tell me why. What did you do?”

He doesn’t have a good answer for her, not something he can explain in a sentence or two. So he doesn’t.

“Please tell her I love her.”

Malcolm dials the number from memory, but the call goes immediately to voice mail.

“Hi,” he says. “Listen, I hear you left your husband. I can’t help but think this has something to do with our, um, arrangement.”

Malcolm doesn’t know who’s going to pick up this voice mail, listen to this call. He has to be careful, but he also has to be credible. He doesn’t want to sound like someone who’s trying to keep the secret he’s trying to keep. He’d rather sound like someone who’s trying to keep a completely different sort of secret.

“But I really need to talk to you.” He leaves his number, as if she doesn’t know it. Then he hangs up, stares at the phone, tries to puzzle through what could be going on. Things are out of control.

Will decides to walk home. It’ll be about six miles, two hours. It’s perfect weather, warm but dry and cloudless, a nice breeze.

Maybe he’ll walk but not go home. Maybe instead he’ll stroll into some singles bar, hit on nose-ringed young women, hey, wanna-get-outta-here? Become the cheating son of a bitch his wife already thinks he is. Elle will have become his gateway drug to a debauched life.

Will marches down the busy avenues, lost in his head, past Bryant Park and Herald Square, Madison Square and the Flatiron Building, through Union Square and Washington Square Park, people everywhere. His feet begin to hurt in SoHo, but he keeps going through Chinatown, into the Civic Center, past all the classical architecture, the columns and porticoes and broad-minded expanses of limestone.

He turns onto the Brooklyn Bridge, walks up into the sky. The sun is beginning to set, the spectacular view glowing in the gloaming, the harbor and lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, the Manhattan Bridge and the Midtown skyscrapers.

Near the far side of the river, he stops dead in his tracks.

“What do you want?” he asks.

Elle is standing in the middle of the wide-planked wooden walkway. Bicycles are flying by one side of her, pedestrians marching up the other. In front of her is the borough where Will works; behind her is where he lives. Elle is in the way.

“I’ve been calling you.”

“You sure have.” Four times in the past three days, one summons after another, meetings to which Will did not show, again and again. He resumes walking, fast, and she races to catch up. “What do you want?” he asks.

“I want you to answer your goddamned phone.”

“My phone?” He digs it out of his pocket, holds it up. “This phone?”

Elle doesn’t answer.

Will nods, then tosses the phone down onto the roadway, where it bounces twice before getting flattened by a beat-up van. He keeps walking, even faster on the downhill slope.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, that’s a good question,” he says. “What
am
I doing? I’ve been working for you for five months—”

“You’re not working
for
me, like a personal assistant.”

“Oh, whatever. I’ve been reporting every step I take, for a half-year. Lying to everyone around me. Doing a shitty job of my job, a shittier job of being a husband. And you know what? She left me.”

“Chloe? When?”

“So if you want to track her down, and show her our little X-rated video, be my guest. You’ve already ruined my life. Well done. I hope you’re proud.”

Underfoot, the soft pliable wooden planks give way to sturdy unforgiving concrete.

“I’m finished,” he says. “I quit.”

“
Quit?
” She laughs. “This isn’t Denny’s. What makes you think you can
quit
?”

Will didn’t intend to do this; this isn’t what he planned for this evening, or planned at all. It’s just happening, as if beyond his control.

“Will, come on. Stop.”

He feels a hand wrap around his arm from behind.

“Go to hell,” he says, and wrests his arm away. The end of the bridge comes on suddenly. He descends the dark stairs that lead to the street.

“Stop.”

“Or what?” He spins around. Here under the bridge’s ramp, it’s nighttime, streetlights on, headlights. “What are you going to do? Shoot me?” He holds his hands open high and wide, go ahead.

“No, Will. I’m going to tell you the truth.”

“Okay. Start talking.”

“Not here.” They’re standing on a dark sidewalk, under the pulsating thrum of the traffic on the bridge overhead; down here the sounds of the traffic are loud and echoing, bouncing off the stone and concrete.

“Why not?”

“You’re not an idiot, Will. Don’t act like one. We can’t talk in public.”

“Why not? National security?” He snorts. “I don’t even believe you’re
in
the CIA.”

She glares at him.

“Why haven’t I met your boss?”

“Because he has other things to do. He’s not at your beck and call. Come on.” She holds out her hand, like a mother beckoning her toddler to climb out of the sandbox. “Let’s go.”