Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle (29 page)

“When we were in Rome you had that idea about body armor that wasn’t so intrusive, so here you go.” Ian laid a sleek black jacket on the table. “Looks like leather, doesn’t it? This is a new slant to the military fragmentation vest–should stop anything lower than .45 caliber.
And
you can wear it in the rain.” Next he pointed to a cardboard box. “Those are all the grenades you get for this trip, unless we open the caches in London. You know what to do with these.” He removed one of the smallish black disks. “Same as last year. Basic polymer adhesive on this side; should stick to anything but human flesh. Three flash-bang and three incendiary.

“Don’t mix them up.”

Steve set a phone next to Jack’s gun. “Everybody’s batteries are all charged, boss. I re-keyed the scrambler, too, just to be on the safe side. Remember everybody, in England its 999 for emergencies, not 911. Major,” he handed a phone and a tiny earbud to Griffin. “This is set for a conference-type call with all our phones, but just in case I programmed all the individual phone numbers in as well–oh, and this little guy’s set so he doesn’t ring, he vibrates for about thirty seconds, so, ah, put this where you’ll feel it.” Steve blushed. “Also, Jack, this is new.” He set a tiny green square on the table.

“Looks like a chicklet.” said Jack.

“Fireproof, waterproof, shockproof. We’ve all got them now, just give it a good hard press if you’re in over your head and I or Alonzo will find you.”

Jack pocketed the tiny device. “Anything else for this trip?”

While the men about her busied themselves for their arrival at Waterloo Station, Major Griffin watched. They were turning out to be much more than she anticipated. Consultants was not exactly the appropriate word for what they were planning to do.

They decided to proceed directly to Raines’ corporate headquarters, on the chance that they were making a mistake they didn’t particularly want to share with the London police. If the princess was indeed there, the major would place a call to D-11, the section of London’s Metropolitan Police outfitted for counterterrorism, then call King William directly. Major Griffin would stay close to Steve, helping him set up an information hub–or ‘crow’s nest,’ as he’d termed it–somewhere that would give him a chance to crack into the building’s security and other automated systems.

Just then Alonzo appeared, lugging a massive black case, almost a trunk. He dropped it in the aisle next to Jack and looked at him expectantly.

Jack came close to a smirk. “Is this what I think it is?”

“The makeup is a year old, but it should still be good, right?” Alonzo smiled. “You said next job I’d get a disguise too, remember?”

Alonzo had finally revealed his background, that he’d joined the military soon after graduating high school and spent a tour of duty in Asia and then in the Gulf and as a Naval Flight Officer, a helicopter pilot, of all things. “Yankin’ and bankin’, Major,” as he described it.

Major Griffin sniffed derisively.

“Was that a snort, ma’am?” The small man raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head. Flynn and his friend seemed to be changing by the moment, coming alive with animation and barely-contained exuberance. “I was just wondering about the two of you. Have either of you ever been normal?”

Jack seemed to consider her question seriously for a moment. “Once, I think. I’m pretty sure. The summer I was seventeen.” He eyed Alonzo. “My associate here is a different matter. Al used to own several sets of red satin underwear. Hideous. Had ‘Home of the Whopper’ printed on ‘em.”

Behind him, his friend snickered and pulled up the waistband of his undershorts to confirm that, yes, it was indeed red. His other hand held a magazine. “Our cabin attendant wants to know if you’ll autograph this.” It was a copy of a recent Entertainment Weekly.

Jack’s mouth twitched. “Not like I wrote anything in there. They just used my headshot.” He looked at the Major as he signed. “This is what passes for normal, these days. Don’t know why they need my signature.”

Major Griffin considered her words carefully. “Perhaps she wants proof that you are a real person, more than just ink on a page.”

Things were quiet for a few minutes. Alonzo flipped through the magazine, then dropped it on the table. After a long look at the Major, he fixed Jack with his gaze and said, “So what happened next?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That night, at the pool, when there was a break in, and you thought it might be the maniac that killed Cecilia Montgomery. A girl in our class,” he added for the Major’s benefit.

Jack shuddered. “Remember how it felt when we saw the—when we were running to school that day?”

Alonzo’s hand went to the back of his neck, and he huddled into himself.

Breaking Her Fall

The two boys slowly walked the rest of the way to school shunted into a mute, impotent daze. Their world had suddenly filled with madmen perversely intent on chaos; the last few years had twisted into a barrage of howling senselessness, but that was T.V. That was CNN. Surely evil could not wander far enough off the beaten track to show up in Forge, Idaho. Surely.

Forge

3AM

Jack felt a dim stirring of that anger now as he rose to his feet in the lifeguard’s lounge. Grimacing, he grabbed up a metal folding chair and leaped into the doorway, clumsily brushing at the wall with his shoulder where he knew the light switch would be.

Mercedes started laughing even before the cold fluorescent light came on. “Jack! You should
see
your face!” she said. She raised her hand to her stomach, panting. “Ow, that hurts!” Then she doubled over again in another fit of laughter.

Jack mentally went down the list of swear words he knew as he let the chair fall the length of his arms. He needed the right weapon! He dropped the chair with a clatter and snatched up a purple featherduster that was poking out of Kate’s locker. “Why, you—” he began as he beat her over the head with the bright feathers.

Still laughing, Mercedes looked up long enough to push back her hair and cover her head in the same motion, then she came in for a clinch, shoving her shoulder into Jack’s ribs hard enough to push him backward, down the single step into the lounge.

He staggered, surprised. “Hey, you Swedi—whoa?” The back of his knee hit the edge of a sofa and folded, dropping Jack down hard into the cushions with the girl on top of him. Mercedes’ ponytail hit him in the eyes. Mmm. She smelled great–some kind of apple-pear sort of shampoo, maybe. He cudgeled her a few more times with the feathers, but she’d tucked her head down–then he was in serious trouble, as her thumbs dug into his sides right above his first rib. Jack yelped and convulsed with laughter. “Stop it!” he choked. “Quit! I’ll, --yaah!” She was merciless. Jack threw the featherduster up in the air. “I give, I give, you win, stop, pla--hah! Please!”

Finally she raised her head. “Thanks for breaking my fall.” She pushed off him and stood up, grinning. “Mercedes one, Jack: zip.” She was flushed. “Whew! Got anything to drink in here?”

“Check the . . .fridge.” He could breathe evenly again, but man! “Just to the left of where you assaulted me.” He was weak. Nobody had tickled Jack in years. He’d almost forgotten about that spot on his sides—his particular Achilles heel.

She returned with an unopened bottle of water. “Is it okay if I drink this?”

He nodded. She was even more beautiful, if that was possible, than she had been that afternoon. Her hair was mostly pulled back, but a few pale chestnut locks–dislodged during their struggle--fell across her face. She was wearing a green collarless men’s shirt tucked into a pair of faded jeans, and the same denim jacket as the night before. No makeup, but wow anyway.

“How’d you know to tickle me there, hunh?”

She lowered the clear plastic bottle, and leaned against the doorway. “‘Cause that’s where I’m most ticklish. Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that!” She eyed Jack, who was still reclining. “You’ll forget I said that, right?”

“No way,” he said, and sat up. “But thanks to you I’m a little too gone to do anything about it right now. Sheeze, what time is it, anyway?”

Mercedes looked at her watch. “Just past four.” She kept her other hand on her stomach. “So do you sleep here or something?”

Jack blinked. “Sometimes. Could I have some of that water?” She handed it over. He eyed the bottle’s opening before drinking. “You don’t have any weird disease or anything, do you?”

Even her sneer was pretty. Watch yourself, Jack, he thought, taking a sip from her bottle. This is a little crazy. Common sense goes to bed at midnight, and all that. He handed the bottle back. “How about you? Couldn’t sleep again?”

She shook her head. “Must have been all those snails for lunch. Plus, you promised me a tour of the town, remember?”

Now it was his turn to laugh. “That should take all of ten minutes.” He stood. “Want to go now?”

“What, right now, at four in the morning? I wasn’t serious.”

“Not a whole lot of difference traffic-wise between now and rush hour.”

She finished the water and sat on the edge of a nearby desk. “Are you sure? Look, I’m really sorry for waking you up and all.” Jack raised his hands to ward off the apology, but she was already looking down at his pile of books. “What are you reading? Hey, Italian, cool!” She smiled lopsidedly. “Learn any so far?”

“I can ask where the bathroom is. Is this right? ‘Lei e molto bella.’”

Her eyes twinkled. “Thanks. I was expecting you to say something corny like, ‘spaghetti,’ or ‘bread sticks.’

Jack laughed, leaning into the door jamb near the desk. He brushed his hair away from his eyes. There were all number of ways to simply get physically closer to her. New territory. It was a bit surreal. “This is getting a little weird. You want to go?”

He pulled a cotton shirt from his basket and shouldered into it, leaving the buttons undone over his T-shirt. “How’d you manage to get in here, anyway, city girl? Pick the lock?”

Mercedes held up his keys. Jangled them in front of his face. “You left ‘em in my car.”

*

Jack and Mercedes walked down from the pool through the park, threading their way between the trees to the main thoroughfare. Michigan Avenue ran the length of Forge, from the small end of the valley to where Oro Fino Creek spilled into the Clearwater River. As Jack had said, the road was all but abandoned, leaving the sodium vapor lamps to cast a grainy amber veil over the striped macadam and the dark, inanimate houses to either side. They walked southwest, toward the river and the city center about eight blocks away. Jack figured they could walk to the gas station near the interstate, then maybe buy some ice cream or hot chocolate, whatever Mercedes felt like.

He seriously considered trying to hold her hand–should have done that back in the lightless park before the road, you dope, he thought. Maybe he
was
still partially asleep. That would go a long way to explain his lightheadedness and the disconcerting urge he felt to laugh like a buffoon at every little thing she said. He couldn’t believe he was actually walking down the main drag of his home town in the still of night with a girl who seemed more fantasy than real. Hopefully he’d be able to make sense of how he felt when he looked back on the night as memory.

Yet for the peculiarity of the moment, there was something exceedingly precious in these seconds flickering into the past. Life and time had taken from him most of the things that were supposed to be eternal, but at that moment Jack found himself grateful for whatever power or fate provided that he could be walking down Michigan Avenue at four in the morning with a girl as bright, as beautiful, as—
unexpected
as Mercedes. He looked at her arm, a few inches away from his, and stuck his hand firmly into his pock–but his cotton shorts didn’t have pockets. Man, this was awkward. He walked more slowly.

After a few blocks they drifted to the center of the empty road. Jack pointed out the local landmarks to Mercedes: the elementary school made from the same red brick as every other elementary in America, the theater, the twin flashing ruby lights on the ridge above the town that marked the local radio station. Most of the buildings they passed were residential homes, so when they spoke they whispered, heads together. Jack was proud of the neatness and order of the sleepy streets. Four blocks of neat, one- and two-story homes lay between Michigan Avenue and the steep slopes marking the edge of relative civilization.

For her part, Mercedes was impressed with all the trees. Elm and ash, and occasionally an oak spread their boughs over the streets, obscuring the streetlights and sinking the sidestreets into soft green shadows. “I can sure see why my grandparents wanted to move back here,” she said. “This place is like living on a golf course, only more trees.”

Jack could only nod at that. He’d run out of interesting things to say, and didn’t really trust himself all that much to wax extemporaneous about the little town. He had a premonition of himself articulating the finer points of the architecture of the VFW building, and shuddered mentally.

Mercedes squeezed his arm and then passed her hand through the crook of his elbow. “Jack, you’ve known my cousin Irene for awhile, right?”

“Sure, we’ve had a couple classes together. We’ll graduate next spring.” She was close enough for him to smell her hair again.

“Um, how long has she been going with Kyle Dremel?”

Jack felt her uneasiness behind the question. He thought a moment, then answered. “Oh, it’s got to be like half a year. I think the first time we all noticed was at the New Year’s Eve dance, when he spilled beer all over her.”

Mercedes wrinkled her nose. “He really bugs me.” She was silent a moment. “I hope you don’t think I—what I mean is, yesterday—I don’t usually yell at people like I did. He just made me sick, you know? His hands all over her–eew! And you know what else?” She stopped and thumped Jack dead center in the chest. “When I took her and Diane home after there were already three messages on their machine. Creepy.” They started walking again, Mercedes hugging even closer. “What do you think?”

“About what? Kyle, or the two of them together?” They were nearing the junior high, where an asbestos tile from the ceiling had once fallen during an English class and missed Jack by mere inches. He’d been saving that story for this particular moment in the tour, actually, but he sensed Mercedes’ need to know about the older boy.

“Kyle’s always been a jerk, but he’s not that bad.”

Mercedes gave him a look that could have laid a frost over oil.

“–Compared to the rest of his family,” Jack was quick to amend. “His older brothers were worse, believe me.” Jack didn’t want to go into detail. From what he knew of her already, Mercedes would understand. Every town, every school has its bullies. “They’re pretty typical, I guess. They all kind of run wild. The family’s lived in Forge forever, and their parents don’t care what they do.” (And are buzzed-out alcoholics, he silently added). They own a logging company; live on a farm. Kyle’s the youngest. The next oldest, Merrick, he’s always hated me–well, you don’t want to hear this, do you?” He looked at Mercedes.

She returned his gaze. “This guy is pretty much stalking my cousin, so, yeah; if you want to tell me. Secret’s safe,” she raised her hand.

“Okay, but let’s sit down first.” They’d reached a spot in front of the town library where a squat wooden bench had been set under a willow tree. Jack normally tried to avoid even thinking about Merrick Dremel, but if Mercedes wanted to know . . .

“He’s got a way with people, especially adults. Everybody loves him—the total opposite of Kyle—but Merrick’s—dark. He’s a psycho. I mean, when I was littler, you know, just a little kid, he was always slapping me around, chasing me. He’s the kind of guy who makes childhood a miserable experience if you’re a boy. He’d round us all up before school even started. Forget about guarding your lunch money. Merrick’d just go straight for the lunch. He’d really torment all of us. Be glad you’re a girl,” he added.

“But you learned to take care of yourself, right? You got bigger and stronger than him, and stood up for yourself, didn’t you, Jack?” She patted his biceps absently.

Jack chuffed and cleared his throat. “I was a lot fatter back then, and he was always huge. That whole family must have an extra chromosome or something.” He looked askance at Mercedes. “Mostly I stayed out of his way. ‘Sides, all the grownups liked him a lot by the time he got into high school. Three years in a row we took State in all four sports because of the guy.”

“So what happened to him?”

Jack made a wry expression. “Pride of the town. Full ride scholarship a couple of years ago to the university. Good riddance.” He gripped the bench’s seat and leaned forward. “Yeah, Mercedes, Kyle’s a lightweight compared to his psycho brothers. You really think he’s a problem for Diane?”

She looked surprised. “Of course! What would you call a guy who leaves three messages on the phone within five minutes, just so he could play through some sick black metal song? What would you say about a guy who buys a girl underwear on their second date, then, that time she was going to break up with him, he sent her a picture of herself with the eyes all sliced up? Jack, he’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Irene says he talks about guns and things all the time. He even got her a cell phone so he could keep tabs on her.”

“Wow. I didn’t know all that stuff. I thought he was just being persistent. You know, to prove himself.”

Mercedes shook her head urgently. “Jack, the only thing that persistence proves is persistence. Not love. Not even close.” She shuddered, shrugging and grimacing into herself, prompting Jack to place a steadying hand on her back. “I talked to her about it all day, even though maybe it’s none of my business. Then, know what? When we got back home he was waiting outside their house! She can’t seem to shake him off. He’s so gross!

“I swear, sometimes it’s like you guys just don’t understand how nuts it is when a girl says no and you just keep on going. It’s like that old movie, you know, where Dustin Hoffman keeps proposing to Katherine Ross and she keeps telling him ‘no,’ then right after she’s married some other guy he breaks into the church, beats everybody up with a cross, and carries her off. She doesn’t get much say now, does she? Stupid show. What was it called?”