The Guardian (35 page)

‘I wouldn’t have any interest in you if you didn’t,’ Ainsworth said. ‘You and Jack need to stay out of sight for a little while anyway. Think about it. We can talk
later.’ He turned to Saunders. ‘Jack, my boy, thank you again.’ He gestured to the box under his arm. ‘This will have more of an impact than even you know.’

‘I hope so,’ Saunders said.

Ainsworth put his hand out and Jack shook it. Then he turned and started walking around Fort Independence, toward the parking lot. They watched him go.

‘He cares about you,’ Cianna said.

‘Maybe.’ Saunders shrugged. ‘It’s a hard business in which to let yourself care about anyone.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But he does. I can see it in his eyes.’

They went to breakfast at a diner not too far from Fort Independence, down on Columbia Avenue, only a mile or so from where they’d stood watching Akhtar’s car
explode over the tree-line. She ate well, he noticed. An order of blueberry pancakes and bacon, with a side of hash browns. For dessert she had a small plate of scrambled eggs.

He had coffee.

‘You want waffles with that?’ he said, as she dug into her eggs.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

‘No apology needed,’ he replied. ‘I just hope there’s enough left in Boston for the school breakfasts when you’re done.’

‘I haven’t eaten since before . . .’ She hesitated as the realization hit her. ‘Since before they took Charlie,’ she finished. ‘He got us Chinese food. He was
so full of hope. Just before Sirus kicked the door in, he was nervous, but it was the closest I’ve seen him to being happy since when we were kids.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There was nothing you could have done. You know that.’

‘In the last two days? Probably not. I’m wondering more about the first nineteen years. I could have done a better job back then. I was so focused on myself sometimes, I’d
forget that he was a little kid, and he had no one.’

‘He had you.’

‘Sometimes. When I could give him the time. I used to think of myself as his mother – like I’d done such a great job of raising him. I used to actually take pride in that. Now
I’m not so sure. I mean, I tried to make sure he was getting food to eat, and that he had a warm place to sleep, but I don’t think I ever really spent the time I needed to listening to
him. I think I let him be lonely because I didn’t know how to deal with it sometimes.’

‘You were a kid,’ he pointed out.

‘I was older than he was. He was my responsibility.’

‘You’re being a little hard on yourself.’

She ate another mouthful of eggs, her eyes down on the plate, an expression of exhaustion on her face. ‘I think it still hasn’t hit me fully. The fact that he’s really
gone.’

‘That’s natural,’ Saunders said. ‘It takes time.’

‘Time when I’m not running for my life,’ she added. ‘This is the first moment we’ve had to breathe since this all began.’

‘We were breathing last night.’

Looking up at him, she thought of giving him a smile. She knew that was what he wanted, and maybe it was what she needed, but she was still thinking about Charlie, and she just couldn’t
bring herself to grin. Instead she reached out and put her hand on top of his. ‘Last night was important to me,’ she said.

‘But . . .?’

‘No buts.’

He took his hand off the table. ‘What did you think about what Lawrence said?’ he asked.

She looked away from him, not wanting him to see her eyes. ‘About working with the Agency?’ she said, choking out a half-laugh. ‘It’s not going to happen. I’m an
ex-con. You really think that’s going to wash with the CIA brass?’

‘If they understand the context of your conviction, maybe,’ Saunders said. ‘Hell, you’d be surprised at what Lawrence Ainsworth can accomplish when he puts his mind to
it. He may even be able to get your record expunged. It would be like the conviction never happened. Like you never spent a day in prison.’

She shook her head. ‘It will never be like I didn’t go to prison. That will be with me no matter what I do or where I go. It’s a part of me.’

‘I understand, but it doesn’t have to be a part of your record. If the brass at the Agency sign off on it, and you can get the record expunged, you should consider it. You’ve
got the skills, there’s no question about that. You’d be a natural.’

‘Maybe,’ she said.

She looked up and through the window. Outside, a young girl passed by the door. She couldn’t have been more than three, and she had greasy blond hair and an angelic, dirt-smudged face. She
turned to smile at someone behind her, calling out ‘Mamma!’ excitedly.

The little girl’s mother came into view a moment later, and Cianna recognized Jenny, from the Old Colonial Projects – the girl she and Milo had saved from a drug-crazed rape-train in
that dreary apartment two days before. She looked healthier, somehow. She was still skinny, but there was color in her face, and she was smiling. She had a nice smile, Cianna thought. Far nicer
than she would have suspected.

‘I don’t know,’ Cianna said. ‘Sometimes I think I can do more good in the world right here in this little neighborhood.’

She looked up again. Jenny and her little girl were passing out of view, but just before she lost sight of her, Cianna noticed Jenny looking behind her, giving a smile to someone behind them.
Cianna’s heart sank, and a moment later, as she knew he would, Vin passed into view. He had two black eyes and a bandage on the nose she had broken with the butt of his gun. ‘I’ll
think about it,’ she said with a heavy sigh.

‘That’s all I’m asking.’

She lowered her head as the weight of the past two days came crashing down upon her. ‘Right now, I just want to rest.’

Cianna turned her face to the sun on the walk back to her apartment. The air was crisp and clean, the way autumn gets in New England, when it seems like you could see forever
out on the water if only you could get up high enough on the hills of South Boston. Notwithstanding what the calendars said, the fall always felt like the beginning of the year to Cianna. Children
hurried off to school, excited to meet their new teachers and test the new kids; a fresh wave of college freshmen descended on the most over-Universitied city on the face of the planet; people came
back from vacations tanned, rested, and ready to pick up their jobs with renewed vigor. For Cianna, an autumn day like this one usually held the promise of opportunity. Today, though, all she felt
was loss.

They walked along Columbia Avenue all the way around Pleasure Bay, down toward the southwesternmost end of South Boston, where the housing projects blended over into Dorchester, a town that had
become even more renowned for its grit than Southie.

They cut up Old Harbor Street and over a block to her apartment house. In days long ago it might have been referred to as a tenement house. Laundry hung from clotheslines sticking out from
several windows, and the stairs creaked as they made their way up. She hadn’t asked Saunders to come to her apartment, at least not specifically, but Lawrence Ainsworth had instructed them to
make themselves scarce for a few days. She assumed that meant together. Saunders clearly had the same notion.

She wondered whether they would make love again. It had certainly been the most alive she’d felt in years when they’d been together the night before. But that was when the adrenaline
was still flowing, and before the enormity of the events of the past days had truly set in. She decided she would let herself be carried along by whatever happened between the two of them for the
moment. She no longer had the energy to try to direct events.

The sound of the lock turning as she opened the door brought some comfort. It was familiar, and that was what she needed right now. She was desperate for a quiet moment to start digesting all
that had happened.

She took two steps into the apartment before she realized that something was wrong. An old wing-backed chair at the far side of the room was turned around at an awkward angle so that it was
looking out onto the street, rather than back toward the rest of the room. She could see a head just over the top of the chair. She turned to warn Saunders, but never got the chance.

A gun was pointed directly at her face.

A man grabbed her and threw her against the wall, pulling her hands up high, palms down; kicking her legs out and apart as he frisked her. He seemed to be taking his time with it.

She looked to her left briefly and saw that Saunders was getting the same treatment. A hand slapped at her face. ‘Eyes forward!’ a voice ordered.

As the searching continued, the man sitting in the chair spoke. ‘Be careful with both of them. They are both exceptionally well-trained.’ The hands kept moving over her body. They
found the gun tucked in her pocket and pulled it out. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that they had taken Saunders’s gun and knife as well. After a moment the man was done and he
stepped back. She remained facing the wall.

‘You may turn around,’ the voice from the chair said.

She and Saunders turned slowly, keeping their backs to the wall. There were two men standing in front of them. They were both tall and powerfully built, with short hair and thin lips that looked
like they would tear if a smile was forced onto them.

The man in the chair stood up, still facing away. ‘You two are in a lot of trouble,’ he said. He turned. ‘And I am the only hope you have to make things right.’

She didn’t recognize the man, but Saunders clearly did. His expression telegraphed his hatred. ‘Toney,’ he said. ‘I should have known.’

The man nodded. ‘Yes, Jack. You should have.’

Saunders’s mind was racing. The men with Toney were too big to be overpowered, and he had little doubt they had been warned to watch Saunders very closely. They never let
their eyes leave his face.

‘Where is it?’ Toney asked.

‘What’s the matter? Government work not paying enough?’ Perhaps he could goad the man into making a mistake, Saunders thought.

‘The government pays me exactly what I need,’ Toney said, calmly. He walked over to Cianna. ‘I’m being rude,’ he said. ‘Ms Phelan, I presume? My name is Bill
Toney. I am the Director of the National Security Agency.’

‘Wow,’ Cianna said flatly.

‘Indeed. I need to know where the Cloak of Mohammed is, and I need to know now. Do you understand?’

‘I’m not sure what you are talking about,’ Cianna replied.

He stepped toward her, so close that she had to push her head back against the wall to prevent him from touching her. He was taller than her by several inches and he loomed over her, bending his
neck so that his face was right in hers. ‘I don’t have time for these games,’ he said in a slow, menacing voice. ‘I need to know where it is, now.’

‘How much is Fasil paying you?’ Saunders asked. ‘Whatever it is, is it worth betraying your country for?’

Toney kept staring at Cianna, though an angry smile crossed his lips. ‘You truly don’t understand anything that is happening here, do you Jack? It’s amazing that someone with
your reputation for field skills could be this clueless.’ He still hadn’t looked directly at Saunders. ‘You see, Ms Phelan, while Mr Saunders may be charming, he is operating with
less than perfect information. I am not the traitor, he is.’ Finally, Toney turned his head and looked at Saunders. ‘He just doesn’t know it yet.’

The room was silent for a moment, and Saunders could hear a huge fly, sleepy from the gathering cold, banging off a window pane out in the tiny living room. ‘You’re lying,’
Cianna said. Saunders was glad she had said it before he’d had to. ‘He’s not working with Fasil. They have been trying to kill each other for the past two days.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ Toney said. ‘He is not working with Fasil. But he is a traitor, nonetheless.’

Saunders said nothing. He knew that Toney was trying to draw him out; trying to get a reaction out of him so that he could move him off balance. That’s when an interrogation subject gives
up useful information. Saunders wouldn’t give Toney that satisfaction.

‘How is he a traitor, then?’ Cianna demanded. Saunders shot her a look, trying to signal her to stop talking; it was exactly what Toney was looking for.

‘Someone who works with a traitor is a traitor,’ Toney said. ‘Even if he doesn’t know it.’

‘Jack works with the CIA,’ Cianna said.

Toney shook his head. ‘He was suspended two days ago. Didn’t he tell you?’ He looked back at her, and Saunders could see the shock in Cianna’s face. Toney laughed.
‘Of course not,’ he said.

‘He’s still working with them, though,’ she protested. Her voice was thin now, though. ‘I know he is, I met his boss.’

Toney’s expression went deadly serious. ‘Ainsworth?’ he demanded. ‘You met him? He was here?’

‘Yes,’ Cianna said quietly.

‘When?’

‘This morning.’ It was clear from her tone that she had lost all confidence. She looked over at Saunders and he could see the doubt in her eyes. ‘We gave him the Cloak,’
she said.

The reaction was instantaneous. Toney whirled on Saunders, grabbing him by his shirt and pushing him up against the wall. Saunders was surprised at the man’s strength. He was taller than
Saunders, but Saunders expected him to be skin and bones and ego, and nothing more. But Toney had real power in his body. ‘You fool!’ he yelled. ‘You gave the Cloak to
Ainsworth?’

Saunders kept his silence.

‘Where did he take it?’

In spite of himself and all his training, Saunders couldn’t help responding. ‘He’s taking it back to its rightful owners. He’s taking it back to the mosque where it
belongs, and to the people who have guarded it for hundreds of years.’

Toney was shaking his head violently. ‘No, he’s not,’ he said. ‘He’s going to give the Cloak to Fasil. Don’t you understand that?’

Saunders shook his head reflexively. ‘No, he’s not. Lawrence isn’t working with Fasil,’ Saunders said. ‘You are.’

‘No, I’m not, you fool!’ Toney said. ‘Ainsworth is working with Fasil. And if we don’t figure out a way to stop him, he will give the Cloak to the enemies of
Afghanistan.’