A/N: Thank you so much for the comments, guys! Here is the next chapter.
To Isee: Thanks for the suggestion about the paragraphs, I try to keep it in mind but sometimes I just don't find it possible from context point of view.
Chapter 2: Ecce diabolus
Keeping the speed limit, trying not to run red lights. No honking, no sudden changing lanes. Filing in and running the twenty-minute distance in patience-taxing twenty-six minutes. Always blend in: one of the golden rules; it had never been so annoying, so nerve-racking. The Miami early afternoon traffic played polka on his taut nerves.
Rippner changed gears and took a right turn. The old piece of shit he had hot-wired at the FBI building coughed beneath him.
Three streets.
Two streets to go.
He took a quick glance at the passenger seat, and gripped the wheel harder. Of all people at that freaking FBI he had to run into Lisa Reisert. For a very tempting minute he had just wanted to lift his arm and crush her to death with one single blow. Then by being that thickheaded everyday superhero, she appointed herself to be his random sidekick of sort. What a retaliation – it was just as much a punishment for him as for her. If it wasn't for his own safety, he would simply open the door and kick her out of the car without slowing down. What slowing, he would even speed up…
She had been visibly shaken by his reappearance in her life, vulnerable in the sudden turn of events she couldn't follow, and two months ago it would have drawn a satisfied smile on his face, a smirk of utter control but he knew it better now. He could learn from his mistakes. The more lost and desperate she seemed the more dangerous, unpredictable and wacky she was likely to turn. Everyone had their limits, though, that was a fact. He would find hers. No time for playing around, no time for regulating her. It wasn't revenge; he didn't have either time or motivation for it. Though pulling her down with him, forcing her to tag along had definitely a sweet taste of vengeance – an enticing smack that would linger long in his mouth.
She was coming around. A flutter of eyelashes. He braced himself for a full-force tantrum. Good thing they were nearly there. She wouldn't hesitate to attack him during driving, and ending up against a lamp post was one of the last things on his priority list right now.
Lisa opened her eyes, closed it against the sunlight, the moving, running, jumping buildings beyond the glass, too fast and vivid for her sensitive eyes right now, and breathed in deeply. Then out. She could feel Rippner watching her. The headache came only third in the row.
Touching her forehead tentatively, she moaned, "Ugh, you jerk!"
"You can have aspirin when we get there."
"Get where?"
Rippner shot her a withering glance she failed to see. She was at it again. The questions. "You'll see soon. Now shut up, and if you so much as budge, I'll knock you out again."
"What do you want from me?"
"Quit the questions."
Lisa looked out the window. The surrounding streets were vaguely familiar, she had a faint idea which part of the city they were in. With that came the realization that no one else knew. With her heart beating against her ribs she unbuckled her seatbelt.
"I want to get out."
One lamp post. Two. Three. Four. A whole world of restraint was being collected. Maybe it wasn't such a smart idea to bring her along, Rippner pondered.
"If I were you I wouldn't piss me off because I get furious and we both know what happens then."
"You get, um, professional and I beat the crap out of you?" Lisa quipped boldly.
Rippner's hand jerked. Lisa saw it just a fraction of a second before it lashed out but he was quicker, grabbed the hair at the back of her head and pulled her closer: "You are in deep shit without a smart mouth, so shut up already!"
He held her in place for a minute before letting her go with a rough pull at her hair. Whirled the wheel and stepped on the brake, he parked the car at the curb. Lisa looked at him expectantly.
"Get out."
Rippner was out and on the curb before her. Not remotely out of courtesy- they were both aware of that- he held the door for her. He seized her arm just above the elbow and started to stroll toward a row of six-storey apartment buildings.
At a gate he stopped abruptly, pulled her against it while he fumbled with a sign hanging from the wire fence. Two long pieces of wire, he tore them off and pocketed.
Right before they reached the entrance of the next building, reality finally delivered her a mental wake-up kick and Lisa tore her arm out of his grip. It was over though, before she could even think of a direction to bolt. He yanked her in the building like she was a rag doll.
A staircase, poorly lit, no windows, was behind the front door, deserted at this time of the day.
The blood was drumming in her ear almost deafeningly. Through the waves of headache Lisa tried to assess the situation. Rippner was on the run after attacking Keefe again and fleeing custody, and she had no idea how she fit in with any of this except for being the object of his payback. That she surely didn't want to be.
Rippner held her at arm length. She had a hard time to keep her eyes locked with his, not when she was so uncertain and in fear. She'd never planned to associate this word with him again but the exterior he was showing now was raw and without any attempt to conceal it with deceptive empathy or stoicism she had seen on his face back on the plane. He was frightening in his complete lack of mannerism.
"If you behave, you will live. Simple enough?" The patronizing tone returned to his voice.
She glared at him, trying to figure out if he knew how much it flared her temper, the tone, the glance. He wouldn't possibly wish to make her angry again, would he? Both of them were aware of the consequences of that, though she was sure he deemed her victory a one-hit wonder, and probably it really was, but it was safe to state if he had been cautious with her on the plane, he was twice as much now; and still, couldn't deny himself the obvious pleasure of lowering her.
He started up the stairs, wisely not waiting for a reply. She made his task troublesome by not channeling an ounce of momentum into her movements.
On the landing he shook her, somewhere near the end of his patience he tried not to reach. "Come on, Leese, don't want me to drag you because I swear I will."
Lisa only gave him a wry smile.
One more floor up. And another. The second door to the right, in a niche. Rippner kneeled down and pulled her with him – if she fled, she wouldn't start from a better position.
Lisa pushed up against the wall, as far from him as she could and he would let. His mere proximity rinsed her forehead with beads of cold sweat.
"What do you want from me? I'm not part of your plan, am I?" He was acting on impulse, she could tell it. The almost nonexistent impatience toward her had to emerge from the lack of control over the situation: he was concentrating on other things to solve, restraining her was on the edge of his focus.
Rippner stared at her, scrutinizing for a moment, then nodded. "You really weren't. You pretty much are now, though."
He retrieved the two five-inch long wires, bending them a few times with smooth, well-practiced movements. Lisa stared at him suspiciously.
"Whose place is it?"
"Mine."
Half-amused, she asked: "You pick the lock to your own apartment?"
"You know, I have the key with me but old habits die hard." His eyes not more than two sardonic slits.
She easily matched him with her own cynical retort. "No spare key under the doormat?"
Rippner simply ignored her. Finally a click and he smiled emptily. "Does it qualify breaking and entering?"
He stepped in first, took a long, expert look around and let her in, closing the door firmly behind her. The security system panel next to the entrance showed an empty display. Splendid; it had obviously been switched off. The flat, quite a mess, nothing the way he had left it two months earlier. The police had surely searched the flat, not once, but since their questioning was all along of those feeling about in the dark, they presumably weren't able to find anything useful. At a guess, and it was a safe guess, after all he knew the process very well, he assumed the Company had preceded them and cleared the place before the police and the Feds got here.
He remembered how he left the apartment, and considering the Cleaner had seen that state was embarrassing enough. He could recall every detail, every note and picture and post-it and fly paper of the Keefe folder (Reisert folder, more of that actually), how they littered every single square meter in the flat, little reminders, or more than that, some of them surely more than that – he ignored this fact completely now. Usually he wasn't so untidy; in fact, on the contrary, he prided himself on being overly discreet and collected in every aspect of his life and work.
That assignment had been meant to be shot to hell even before he flew off to Texas (where he had followed her even to the funeral, for crying out loud, like some goddamn Peeping Tom watching her weep and pour soil on the casket; what was it if not fucking amateurish) to catch the red eye; destined to crumble sometime around when he had started reasoning with himself, making up excuses why he should follow her even when it wasn't necessary for the job, why it was sensible to park with his car outside her flat when she inside, without doubt, was sleeping. Should have ended it about the time when he still was sober and rational enough to realize he was in big trouble, somewhere beyond a psychic overdose (overdose of folly, for sure, for he had disregarded his own code of conduct), but even then he wasn't worried enough about himself to abandon the whole damn assignment. There was a word, a name for this symptom but he was reluctant to attach it to himself. For someone who was an undeniably expert in anatomizing others' thoughts, instincts, reactions even before they would become conscious of them, pulling their personality apart with cold objectivity, dissecting them with accurate scalpel-cuts, it was pathetically ironic to be so blind about himself.
Though the pictures of her weren't littering the place anymore, and he was more than glad for that at the moment, she was, flesh and blood, and it was surreal: there where he'd been planning his scheme and thinking of her for so many long boring weeks. Thinking of her, assessing her, measuring, gauging, evaluating. Constructing an image of her- from professional and not so professional point of view- that later turned out to be fatally false. Who had failed him in the end was hard to tell: she or he? Probably both of them. Out of all people he ever had come across, worked with or surveilled, this ostensibly irksome, colorless woman had to be a fucking enigma. He glanced over at her, standing there and looking, feeling- he could see it- terribly out-of-place; she could have so much as sprung out of the portfolio of the photo series the Cleaner had removed. She looked the same, he looked the same. And neither of them was.
He shook himself out of the reverie; it was time to find out what the police and the Cleaner discovered and took. By her arm he pulled her with him along the hallway, yanking her to the middle of the bedroom.
"You stay there."
Lisa stared after him. Her instincts were in sleep mode. Something had glaciated inside her, froze into thick, cubicle obstacles she couldn't by-pass. Her eyes were searching for an appropriate weapon, but her mind wasn't on it. The faint chemical and dusty, stale smell of the flat, its general impersonality yet here and there spilled with not so neutral objects obviously his, the tones, the fact of being in his apartment, all got to her head. He had surely been staying here while following her – that thought made every single hair on her arms stand on end.
Rippner was back before she knew it. A glass of water and a bottle of aspirin; he hadn't forgotten about her headache. She tried to hide her gratefulness; all things considered, it was ridiculous: the headache, the out-of-body sensation, the tension, they were all his fault. Manipulation again? Very likely.
Rippner stepped to the closet, tore up the doors and stood on tiptoes.
"Don't take the full bottle in your despair," voice drenched in sarcasm, as he glimpsed at her over his shoulder.
She gulped down the full glass of water with the pills. "You're not worth it."
He started rummaging on the upper shelf, pushing boxes to the floor. A fine string of curse as he realized: no weapons were left there. Someone had been very thorough.
Startled by the empty thuds of the boxes, his apparent strain that rippled under the surface like a current and wired his muscles, Lisa took an involuntary step back, hitting the side of his bed. For some reason the mere sight of it- the mattress, the metal headboard, the neglected wrinkled covers and sheets-, was unnerving; or rather, what they implied. The image, the fact. He would touch those blankets, sleep in there.
She shuddered, not really able to unravel what exactly disturbed her.
On the nightstand there was a book, and she, against her own will, so to say, eased closer. American psycho?, she guessed to entertain herself. That one would suit him. Squinting, she assessed it from inch to inch as if had never seen a book before. White block letters, faded orange cover, the one third of a single toothpick wrapped in the red-black promo pack of some café or restaurant sticking out from between the pages, serving as a bookmark - for the same purpose, as a rule she would use those little sugar packets that accompanied her usual cappuccino. The book: A clockwork orange. Suddenly she realized what she was feeling: disconnection. She closed her eyes. Something deep under the surface failed to click in place, something she still couldn't quite grasp. And this very something made her head spin. An old memory emerged: when she was a child, her brother had bet her one day that she wouldn't dare climb over the fence and swim in their neighbor's pool; she had won the bet, eventually, but the detached feeling, the slight dizziness reigning her movements made her heart tremble with anticipation; she'd felt as though someone else, an identical twin she was in mental connection with was trespassing. The sensation was the same now. She was somewhere she shouldn't have been, a place which was definitely outside her comfort zone.
When he strolled over to check the underside of the bed, Lisa stepped to the closet, keeping the distance she very much craved for now. They were moving around as if dancing along an orbital course. She leered in the dimness of the closet, contemplating: Could I defeat him with a hanger? Her grip tightened around the bottle of pills. She might need another two to snap her out of this numb state, to clear her hazy mind.
Neatly stacked rows of suits, pants, jackets, sport coats and shirts; American style, Italian style. She glared at them, the labels, the exquisite fabrics, the pastel tones, grays, browns, blacks. Hickey Freeman, Canali, Coppley. If it wasn't for the seriousness of her situation, she would have laughed at the obviously cherished Brioni's – if they were suitable for Britain's most famous super agent, they might be appropriate enough for super manager Jackson Rippner; uber-secretive tough guys seemed to share the same preference in clothing. If anything, he had an excellent taste, she had to give that to him.
On a nearby dresser she found a Longines watch, exactly the model her father received from his company as a retirement gift- how rude and tactless was that: giving watch to a retired man. Wouldn't it imply: time is ticking away?-, and the mere chance of it made her head reel. Out of nowhere Rippner grasped it out of her hand and clasped it around his wrist. He was seething with pent-up tension, she could see it clearly; it wasn't directed entirely at her, she saw that too.
Rippner rushed her out in the kitchen. "Stay here."
He kept a little package of survival kits here: a notebook, weapons, cell phone, credit cards, ID cards hidden even from the Company. Always have a Plan B; don't trust anyone: so far that philosophy kept him alive.
Lisa cautiously eyed him rushing over to one of the over-the-counter cupboards, ripping up the door and sweeping everything inside it on the floor. Boxes of cereals, ground coffee and tea pods landed on the floor, and she couldn't help but stare at them. And there, towering over a pile of food, the realization, the reason for the disconnection hanging from her shoulders ever since she'd stepped in this flat, finally became clear as a question fought its way to the front of her mind. Does he really eat all these mundane things like other people? Normal, real people? She struggled to create the mental image of him spooning a bowl of cereal but failed. Somehow she thought he would feed on power and the glee of manipulating others. Discovering he had a human side with its physical limits and weakness, a seemingly normal life, sharing innocent habits with the rest of the human race, something less shady behind the intimidating and impersonal display of a relentless terrorist appeared to be too huge a bite to swallow.
With a swift movement he had hopped on the counter, and was now kneeling on it, prying off the back of the cupboard wall. Her gaze fell on the wire cutlery basket near the sink, at the black handle of a Wenger boning knife. She only had to take one step to the side and reach out with her arm. Another feeble attempt; she moved to the right, keeping an eye on his back, and was startled out of her skin when suddenly he jumped off the counter and whirled towards her.
"That was stupid. You know, I don't have time for your little games."
He had to have a third eye on the back of his head to see it coming. A sixth sense. Seventh, even. She refused the possibility that she was so easy to read.
She fought him all the way, numb from fear that he was about to kill her she delivered a good kick at his ankle while he was dragging her roughly to a door but eventually Rippner pushed her through it.
A click; the lock was turned.
Lisa panicked; it was dark and small, crowded in there. Involuntarily, as she tried to find her footing, she trashed around, thinking of all the items Rippner could be keeping there, incriminating things, chopped off body parts, knives- that thought, and a metal clink from somewhere behind made her cease all movements- guns? The last thing she wanted was accidentally tripping on one and shooting herself. Feeling around the door, beside it she finally found the switch. The light bulb illuminated a very ordinary looking closet, stuffed with cardboard boxes, empty suitcases and plastic bottles. Dread was quickly replaced by enflaming humiliation: Rippner had closed her among cleansing supplies.
For a minute, all thoughts went racing out of her mind. It was hard to decide which prospect was more frightening: if he would leave her here, locked in a closet, or if he would resume dragging her after him. For now, the latter held more appeal.
Pounding on the door angrily: "Rippner, let me out!"
No reaction. Not that she'd expected any.
Just when she was about to search for a flacon of bleach or hydrochloric acid to splash it in his face, the door opened. He was standing there with a designer leather bag on his shoulder and a laptop-size one in his left hand. With his right he reached in and grasped her by the arm.
"Time's up."
He had changed his clothes; black corduroy jeans, steel blue polo shirt under a sports coat, sneakers, sunglasses pushed over his forehead – for a minute it seemed like a costume, something he was hiding behind.
Out in the staircase, running down the flight of steps she struggled against his grip in a sudden surge of panic. "I won't go anywhere with you. Forget it."
He stopped, grasped her shoulder with his free hand, pushing her up against the rail with the weight of his body.
"If you don't stop whining, I have to kill you and I'll do it gladly."
"Really? Fine. Then kill me right now because I'm not going."
Rippner stared at her, pondering, seriously doing so, and pushing her backward.
"You know what? I'll just do it."
This time there was no mask, only the pure rage and hatred, he knew it, he let it leak through his normally indifferent expression so she would see what she had awakened two months ago. Just keep it up, Leese, keep it up, keep it up-
A mantra. A silent wish.
Give me a reason.
One little shove; maybe the poisonous sticky mass within him would be shoved into the depth with her too; the failure, the bitterness, the fact that nothing was the same anymore. The fact that he had been a bloody unprofessional idiot. She made him that, reduced him into something he hadn't been for many, many years; if he had ever. And she was doing it again.
Lisa grabbed for the rail, frantically and in terror, bent over the depth and however she wanted to prevent, the little sound of a whimper escaped her throat. He had once thrown her off the stairs, a vivid memory and a discharge summary about a minor concussion in a drawer at home as a proof, she could see it in his eyes that he was just as much ready for a rerun now. Only his hipbones prevented her from flipping over the rail, and his right hand, more pushing than pulling it was, though. The fall would surely break my neck. My skull.
Meekly, she stared at him. Pride glued her lips together.
In the very last minute before her balance tripped, he pulled her back. "Had enough?"
She hated even her own nod, the consent, submissive, in it. For now, yes, she had enough. For now.
He led her down to the parking level. He halted briefly at a black Audi, taking a peak at the interior, the shiny hubcaps, the headlamps; seemingly cursory scrutiny of a passer-by, the glance was though, Lisa could easily tell, that of someone concerned.
"It's yours?"
"Yeah," he shrugged dismissively, and proceeded with the walk-drag towards the back of the garage. "We can't take it. Everyone knows about it."
Lisa chose to ignore the 'we'.
"There's no time to stop by your flat."
"Of course there isn't," she remarked sulkily, whatever it meant, his statement, it surely was bad news.
His smirk told the same. "You either gotta wear my clothes or this one all along."
Now she chose to ignore the 'all along' in the remark and instead went with the outrageous part, and gaped at him. "I rather wear this until it rots off of me than yours. You can't expect me to run around in menswear, anyway."
He let out a humorless, devastating laugh. "I've seen what you wear at home, Leese. You don't seem that picky about it. Kind of disillusioning by the way."
Lisa seethed, glaring at him. The nonchalance wherewith she was reminded of the fact he had been spying on her boiled her blood just as much as the humiliating analysis of a personal detail of her life.
"Relax. When we have time, you can indulge in your shopaholic kick and get what you need," he beeped open a gray Bentley Continental, hauled his luggage onto the back seat. "Right now get in the car."
She frowned, not budging. "Whose car is it?"
"It belongs to a certain Cole Thornton."
"Who's that?"
"A law-abiding citizen, apparently a fan of good cars." He whirled the key around his index finger, looking overly smug, and added: "You're just talking to him."
"Is that your real name?"
He only stared at her, slightly as though she had been talking to him in Chinese.
Ever the persistent, Lisa dared: "Are you really called Jackson Rippner?"
This time it earned her an incredulous eye roll and an impatient jerk of hand toward the car. She lingered by the passenger side door.
"Where do we go? Why do I need to buy clothes? What time frame 'all along' refers to?"
"Get. In."
She hesitated. Looked up to check for security cameras or someone to magically appear in the garage.
Rippner, calmly but deceptively so, inquired with an air of utter arrogance: "Which part of the sentence was not clear enough for you?"
A step closer she took. He did the same on the other side of the car. Lisa gripped the handle. Stood by it, fingering the edge, pulling at it. A hollow tick as the lock clicked open. She was waiting for him to get in. Rippner, obviously, was waiting for the same.
A moment of standstill; sweating out. Eventually, it was Rippner who lost it.
"Lisa, I said get in the fucking car!" He slammed his fist against the roof, startling her. "I really don't have time for this. You run away and I run you over with the car merrily."
She opened the door fully and when he bent to sit in, she bolted. By the fourth car away from the Bentley, he caught up with her easily.
"It was lame. You couldn't possibly believe you could escape, right? Or you simply love pushing my buttons?"
Lisa simply laughed in his face defiantly. "I thought I was gonna be run down."
"Is it a complaint?"
"Yeah, please, go back and do it," she spat haughtily. "I won't go anywhere."
Rippner, somewhat exasperated, released her arms.
A clack, as he unclasped his belt. She stared at him, the effortless yank as he pulled it loose. A wolfish grin crept over his features, allusion tinting it. It was obvious what he was referring to: the utmost subjugation a man could master over a woman, sly, disgusting insinuation, especially considering her past; she knew though- due to the lack of time; hence the urgency flexing his muscles-, there was nothing behind the threat – not right now, at least. She let him know with a single glance how low she deemed it; deemed him.
As a reply, he turned her around, forcing her wrists behind her back. His movements far from being gentle, Lisa hissed sharply.
"Ow, sorry, it hurt?" he cooed in her ear.
She could feel the fake pout in his voice, and with a forceful yank he pulled the belt tighter. Lisa pressed her lips together, and bit back a whimper. She wouldn't give him the pleasure he was surely counting on.
"The gift's wrapped," he probed the knot by tugging at it.
She stumbled a bit, and with the continuation of the momentum took a deliberate step backwards, her high-heel boring into his right foot. He let out a half-muffled cry.
"Ow, sorry, it hurt?" high on adrenaline and anger, she mimicked his tone and even his facial expression, and drilled the heel deeper in his flesh. Rippner pushed her against a car. "I'm glad you're having fun. As long as you still can."
He guided her back to the Bentley, shoved her in; Lisa almost recoiled as he leaned across her seat and fastened her seatbelt, fumbling with it deliberately long. She knew he was pretty much conscious of how she hated when someone invaded her personal space- actually, right now it was more like intimate space, she thought as she stared at his sideburn, the five-o'clock shadow on his jaw from a mere half foot-, so she steeled herself, commanding her body to stay motionless. His scent, intrusive and characteristic, utterly male and his, she remembered it all too vividly, almost gagged her.
Rippner straightened and gently shut the door – the gentleness was addressed to the car, not to her. He got in; the engine hummed to life, and soon they were squinting against the mild late October sunshine of Miami. In a few minutes straight lanes of palm trees escorted them along the way as Rippner guided the car through the afternoon traffic of the city.
"Did you kill Keefe?" glaring at him, Lisa pressed her lips together in trembling worry.
"No."
"No fatal injuries either?" She was surprised, even suspicious that he might be lying; forget his lofty moral speech of lies not serving his purposes. Yeah, right, a murderous criminal with ethics, how ridiculous it was. How absurd.
A sigh, he rubbed the skin under his right eye. "No, Lisa. I didn't even try to."
"So what is this all about?"
Dismissively, he reached out and turned on the radio.
Neither of them spoke. Lisa was biding her time till she deemed him ready to answer her questions. The frown between his brows, the steely concentration on his face prevented her from bothering him; there was no way he would answer her now, and she didn't exactly want to rush into another unconsciousness.
When Rippner merged onto Florida Turnpike, she absently remarked:
"Cole Thornton. El Dorado?"
He cast a barely concealed surprised glance at her. "I forgot you were a movie freak."
"I used to watch westerns with my father. He loves-" she stopped abruptly. It was the most surreal thing to do, bizarre thing, talking about her father to him of all people. The same father whose life he had threatened her with not so long ago. Nothing concerning her father was his business. Nothing concerning her, either.
Whether the unfinished sentence was lost on him or he only chose to disregard the change in her mood, he offhandedly shrugged: "Me too. As a kid."
Lisa turned away, keen on not making a comment. If she could, she would have simply erased the previous ten seconds from her memory. She wanted to know nothing, nothing at all about him, no personal details whatsoever. Nothing that differed from what she knew he was. She never even pondered if he too had been a child once; somehow, laughably, it seemed hard to imagine. A papier-mâché villain, it was convenient, without dimension or depth or personality: she wanted to maintain this image, for her sanity maybe or to keep her mental black-and-white shooting range dummy target intact.
To return to a safe topic, she asked: "If you have aliases, why did you use your real name… if it is your real name?"
Rippner shrugged again, and as always, gave an evading answer. Her question was nothing if not transparent anyway. "Sometimes I do."
He used the authoritative tone that indicated he considered the topic exhausted. After all these weeks he still felt ashamed that he'd wanted her, maybe not consciously, to call him on his name- what the hell he was thinking, hoping for-, it was one of the many mistakes he did during that assignment.
The 3 pm news informed them about an attack on the FBI Field Office in Miami and the escape of a criminal.
"According to authorities, he is presumably trying to make an escape on water, thus the security and control at all Florida ports are being doubled and restricted…"
"Good boy," Rippner chimed in with satisfaction. Lisa regarded him curiously, wondering who he was referring to, since the anchor was a woman.
Watching the landscape change, she tried to unravel the events. Of course, the authorities must have been misinformed by a false lead. She was sure the good boy was Rippner's man who had to lure the police as far from Rippner he could. Wonderful, she squeezed her eyes shut, suppressing the panic churning her guts. She was on her own again.
For long minutes, nothing but the music from the radio they were both oblivious to could be heard.
Lisa was squirming in her seat, and Rippner knew before she even opened her mouth what she would ask. "Later," he barked, cutting her short in a peremptory manner.
: :
"Could we stop at the next gas station? I need to go."
They had been on the road for endless, silent hours. The sun had just descended behind the horizon, tinting the sky with indigo and neon orange. The clock on the dashboard indicated it was already 6.49 pm. Her arms felt disjoined from her body, the slouched, contorted posture made breathing increasingly difficult and shallow. And she really had to go to the toilet.
"Oh, great. My favorite part. The restroom scene." Rippner's irises blinked in the headlights of an approaching car in the next lane, implying mild disapproval and crude amusement. A memory-tinted smirk grazed his lips. "You're planning something cute again?"
"Yeah. It is called peeing."
He acknowledged it with a half-sniffled snort, and that was all his reaction. Ten minutes later though, he pulled the car unasked into a stop in the parking lot of a gas station.
"I don't have to remind you to behave, right?" Briefly, he touched the waistband of his pants through the polo shirt, and she quickly understood he was concealing a weapon, most probably a knife there. She down-heartedly nodded. He motioned her to turn around and freed her hands without further instructions.
Lisa stumbled out of the car, limbs numb and aching. It felt wonderful to stretch her legs, and obviously Rippner thought the same as he took a few tentatively energetic steps, rotated his shoulders. He looked tense, muscles, senses on the edge, that of a predator ready to jump, fight or escape. Always ready to kill.
Rippner led her to the adjoining building that housed the restrooms while she was massaging her wrists. To her clear dismay, he entered the Ladies' with her. She was patiently waiting while he was checking the four stalls, all empty, searching for possible weapons: except for the toilet brush, nothing had potentiality in that matter; there was only one window right under the ceiling with bars fencing it. Satisfied, he nodded to himself; though there was no real reason to succumb to the idea sullying his mind, no reason other than tormenting her, he submitted to it.
"Alright, go then," gesturing casually toward the farthest stall from the entrance, he remained there, arms folded, next to the hand dryer.
Lisa hesitated, eying him warily. "You… you're not going to stay while…?"
"I guess I will. You know, bad experiences," he sneered. His smirk widened a degree at the sight of her flustered face, and when she didn't budge, he goaded her by adding: "I thought you had to go. So go before your time is up."
Lisa shut the door, and immediately realized she just couldn't do it. Not with him standing a few feet away. It was too… intimate. She could relieve herself anytime with other women, strange women, friends, colleagues, in the restroom but with this man – it was a level of intimacy, maybe even vulnerability in a strange way, she couldn't make herself to step on. He had pried into too many personal details in her life already, this one was too much. She discerned somewhere on the periphery of her consciousness that she was being ridiculous, after all, it was something everyone did, but him eavesdropping on her made her whole being shudder. It was too long time she had been living alone.
Shuffling, steps back and forth, sounded from where he was staying. "Are you having some problem, Leese? Need help?"
Defiantly, she pushed down her slacks and panties, sighing inwardly, she tried to be as quiet as possible. It wasn't without much effort.
Suddenly, there was more shuffling, pattering of soles against tiles, the click of a lock and the telltale sound of someone taking a leak. She stopped in the middle of her act, holding her breath. If someone came in, Rippner had no other choice but to leave, and then she could-
"Don't get all worked up, Leese, it's just me."
"But-?"
"I needed to piss too. Have a problem with that?"
She gulped, trying hard not to attach mental images to that statement. A deep breath in, chasing back the urge to throw up, she finished quickly now, wishing to be over with the whole increasingly embarrassing scene but he was done before her. She exited the stall, knowing all too well a blush had risen to her face and she cursed herself mentally for being so immature, so inhibited. Without a glance at him or the mirror, she washed her hands and turned to leave.
He was gauging her from his previous spot by the entrance. "Wipe off the blood on your neck."
Lisa stared at her reflection. There was a dried, narrow trickle of blood running from under her jawline down to the collarbone; she had long forgotten he had pierced her with a glass splinter back at the FBI what seemed like eons ago.
When they got back to the Bentley, he surprised her by not binding her hands back again. "I hope you appreciate it," he noted tautly, the warning apparent behind it.
: :
An hour and a few feeble attempts later to cajole answers out of Rippner, she informed him with a deliberately annoying and conclusive tone, her only weapon to miff him: "I'm hungry."
"Any other bodily wants I should supply?"
If there was any heinous implications behind his remark, Lisa ignored it. "Yeah. Let me go."
This time it was Rippner who ignored her.
They were already on I-75, heading north, and had already passed the boarder to Georgia. Outside, the night was turning pitch black, and suddenly Lisa felt terribly tired as weariness seeped into her limbs seemingly radiating from the very fact she was shut within the depressingly cramped confines of a car with Rippner.
After some time he made a right turn off the interstate and parked in the line at a McDonald's drive-thru. Ten minutes and they were back on the highway again.
Rippner opened the paper bag with one hand, eyes fixed on the road. As the smell steaming out of it hit his nostrils, he moaned. "I hate junk food."
"So do I," Lisa consented gloomily but dug in nonetheless.
"Except for McFlurry with M&M's. And don't even try to deny it," he waved her off with a plastic fork when she opened her mouth to protest. "But since I don't trust you enough to go to a diner with you, that's the best we can get."
"You make it sound like this whole situation is my fault."
He feigned contemplation. "Actually, now you mention it, it is."
She didn't even comment it.
They ate in silence and half-darkness, gaining light only from the headlights of passing cars and the faint colorful lamps of the dashboard.
Lisa rested her head against the cold glass, trying to dissolve the increasingly painful knot in her stomach by straining her eyes to make out her surroundings in the dark, reading the road-signs and counting cars. Simple acts like that could numb her mind into a state where her body would follow suit.
Rippner was in an awful, almost disturbed silence, she could see his mind working on something relentlessly, his forehead constantly easing in and out of a frown. She refrained from peering at him; the bluish hue cast on his face gave a resemblance to the face in her memories from two months before, and just like then, in the confined plane cabin she could see only the right side of his head, and the similarity of the situation sent a wave of terror through her. She didn't want to remember the anguish she'd had to go through back then. If that was what was waiting for her, she really didn't know if she could endure a rematch. Right now even the mere thought tired her.
"Care to enlighten me already?" she asked harshly, losing patience, tired of his inattentiveness about her. She watched only the reflection of his profile in her window.
For a very long minute, so long that she began to think he wouldn't even answer, he said: "Soon I'll call it a day. When we arrive, I'll brief you if you don't run away. Otherwise I have to resort to violence and we both wouldn't want that," his tone expressed the exact opposite, and underneath the empathic expression she knew he, in a way, very much wanted her to disobey.
Lisa wondered where exactly they were heading but the prospect of getting some information out of him was appealing enough to intermit the questioning.
It was after eleven o'clock when he finally exited the highway again and after a minute's drive, parked the car at a roadside motel. Most of the windows were unlit and only a few cars parked in the adjoining lot. Suddenly, Lisa was dreaded. So far she hadn't imagined how the sleeping arrangement would look like, or if there were any sleeping at all, and now she realized what he had on his mind.
"I won't be staying in the same room with you, Rippner. I'm dead serious."
Her voice, commanding, wavering only with anger, brought the annoyance back to his face. Rippner ceased his activity of fishing for something on the backseat and tossed his head toward her. Giving her a withering, scornful stare, he remarked. "Last time I checked, you didn't have a choice whatsoever. You either come or come. Think you can make the decision?"
"I opt for the third," she insisted without the slightest humor or irony.
Rippner took his time by retrieving the laptop-size bag. "I see the question was beyond your emotion-ruled mind."
He turned, shooting her another belittling look, and with that he provided a perfect surface for her wrath. With a deft swing of her arm, she punched him, aiming at his nose. Only his well-practiced, sharp reflexes saved him from breaking it as he snapped his head to the side, exposing his cheekbone to her. She had a bony fist. He felt the skin snap open under his left eye.
"That was stupid," he grabbed her hair and pulled her head closer to him angrily.
Lisa gritted her teeth, even from the awkward angle fixing the wound gleefully. "Yeah, but felt damn good!"
Rippner let her go, wiped off the blood with an impatient flicker of his hand. "Alright. Listen now, and listen well. If you behave well and do as I say, I will not hurt you in any way and you can take my word for that. Good enough deal? I hope so because that's the best I can offer right now."
Cold gleam of handcuffs, he was dangling them for her to emphasize his words.
"Ripp-!"
He was faster in acting than Lisa in shouting. A forceful shove, a click; she found herself cuffed to the door.
"Now I'm gonna check in. I'll be right back, till then you sit here in silence, understood? Inside, we'll talk."
He opened the door. A cool gush of air rushed in, making Lisa shiver. Rippner grabbed the keys, and looked back with a stern look on his face.
"Don't want me to knock you out again."
Lisa watched him wipe at his face again before disappearing behind the main door to the reception, and peered around to find something she could use either against him or to free herself. On the backseat, the floor, in the narrow space between her and Rippner's seat and the glove-compartment, there was nothing, not even a paperclip for her help.
Rippner was back within five minutes, room key in hand.
Lisa was relieved to discover he booked a twin bedroom for them. It was quite small with only a table and a small TV set apart from the two single beds beyond which she could peek in the tiny bathroom through the half-open door. Rippner threw his luggage on the bed closer to the entrance, checked the room quickly.
"You want some time in the bathroom?" he asked after acknowledging with gratitude the grating in front of the bathroom window.
"No, I'm fine," she shook her head. Right now, there were no bodily needs, only questions rambling in her. Indicating it, she sank on her bed and faced him expectantly.
Rippner took his time with switching on the TV, turning the volume down. Then he followed her suit, and sat on his bed, fingers laced. "It's about finishing the job," he said after a beat, then pausing again, gauging her reaction.
Lisa had already prepared herself for everything he would have to say, the forced command to stay calm effectively immobilized her body; all she did was raising an eyebrow.
"This time it is Keefe who wants to end it. He plans to find the customer who ordered his assassination."
She stared at the angry red wound under his eye, her handiwork. A malicious glee in her eyes as she gloated. "And he wanted to torture it out of you?"
"I don't know the answer, Leese."
"So you vanished," she concluded, not hiding the contempt she felt.
Rippner sighed exaggeratedly, making a show of taking offence by her attitude. "So he let me go."
"What…?" for a heartbeat Lisa thought she misheard him but the self-satisfied smirk on his face was equal to a refutation. "You are crazy if you think-"
"Have you heard about the term 'plea bargain'?" he cut in sarcastically, talking as though she'd been living in a cave for the past decade.
The world seemed to tilt. She blinked, her face flushed as if his words had been a real slap against her cheek, not only a non-physical blow in her stomach. "No, no… it, no…"
"No? You haven't?" mockingly, Rippner was watching her, relishing in her misery and disbelief. "Would have never thought of your hero Keefe that he was willing to make a deal with me of all people?"
"I don't-" she shook her head, swallowed, the inconvenient truth in his words still stuck in her throat, but steeled herself. "Tell me about that deal."
"He sets me free, I deliver him Mr.-slash-Ms. Shadowy Customer, I'm free to go and live happily ever after with the benefit of witness protection. Isn't it just nifty?" behind the singsong voice his tone hid a hint of bitter sarcasm like it wasn't to his liking. "I agreed. I wasn't too keen on spending my best years in a damn Max Security… So much for your heroics, right?" he added, morphing the reborn rage the memories evoked in him into a backlash of condescension.
She ignored him. "Then what was the detonation?"
"Set-up. By Keefe. He made it look like the FBI was attacked by some independent operatives group that had been hired by me to get me out of there. He actually rounded them up and paid them for not making the job. They were just a cover if my Comp-" he swallowed forcefully, jaw clenching as he corrected himself: "my former Company happened to snoop around a bit. Which they, in fact, did. They offered the group twice as much to accidentally kill me in the rescue. Anyway, they didn't have to move a finger, just give their name to the action, take the blame; everything was done by Keefe and a small group of agents he trusts."
"So you are saying they blew themselves up?"
"Yeah, kind of. But that was a fake attack with the minimum possibility for severe injuries. Those were mostly smoke bombs."
"But there is a warrant on you now."
"Of course, there is," Rippner looked annoyed. "Apart from the dozen agents and Keefe, everyone thinks I really fled. So now the whole police and FBI are after me. Not to mention my Company."
"And how do you plan to find the customer if your buddies are out to kill you?"
"Well, you just got straight to the heart of the problem," the twitch of his eyebrow betrayed his frustration. For a long second he contemplated the answer. "Persuasion. I can be very convincing," he commented with grave innuendo.
Lisa didn't miss a beat. "Now can you?" After a deliberate pause: "So what does it have to do with me?"
Rippner only shrugged. "You are an anomaly."
When he didn't appear to be willing to elaborate, she urged him on edgily. "More precisely?"
"I… well, took the liberty to make changes to the plan, so to say."
"By kidnapping me."
"Why, isn't that a harsh expression!"
"Rippner, don't play with me!"
Instead of any kind of answer, he turned up the volume on the TV. It was the midnight news. The video images of the FBI building veiled by smoke and surrounded by a flock of white-blue Crown Vics, Chevrolet Impalas and fire engines; Lisa stared at it and suddenly found it hard to believe just a few hours ago she was there and inside and a participant in the events. It was just as much surreal as entering the lobby of the Lux and finding wreckage in place of the over-polished marble tiles and plush cushions.
"… ambush carried out by a still unidentified group. According to the authorities' assumption, the attack wasn't either coincidence or random, the escape of the captive under interrogation at the FBI office and the strike can very likely be linked together. The police are leading an extended search for Rippner who has been seen in Key Largo and is supposedly trying to escape the state on water. He is said to be dangerous and most probably armed. Should anyone see him, on the screen here is the emergency number the police opened for this case where his appearance should be reported. Rippner was arrested two months ago in connection with…"
As the newscaster went into the details of the attack on the Lux Atlantic, the image of a man flashed on the screen. Lisa gaped at it and for a full minute just searched speechlessly the features of a scruffy looking, bearded stranger. Questioningly, she turned to Rippner who seemed to be somewhat amused and slightly relieved at the developments.
"Is that even you in the picture?"
"I'm not always in good trim," he smirked contentedly but the touch of the smile quickly deformed into a half-tamed snarl. "I was just released from the hospital that day. I didn't quite spend my days there with beautifying myself."
"But… even your own mother wouldn't recognize you here. I don't believe they couldn't find a… more fitting image."
"You still don't understand, do you? Or just don't want to understand. This exactly was their purpose. That no one would recognize me; a vantage point in the chase. Just as Keefe's false lead with the ports."
Lisa dropped onto the bed, not even realizing that at a point she had stood up in utter indignation, and held her face in trembling hands. She needed a week at best to digest it. To believe it, actually. It was, at the very least, a nonsense.
Of the cavalcade of emotions assaulting her, the strongest was betrayal. She had done everything to get this man arrested and now she found herself not only fired by the Lux but annihilated through her vain efforts as though she were the real public enemy. A deal, as if they were bargaining in a bazaar, and someone who should have rotten in prison till eternity had the chance to live like nothing had happened.
Life could be incredibly unfair.