A/N: Sorry for the long break between chapters. Lots of work-related travel.
The Light of the World
Chapter Eleven: Tick-Tock
Tick, tick, tick, tock, tick...
The grandfather clock standing by the wall and the clock in my head keep ticking in unison.
Time weighs heavy on me, externally and internally.
Chuck's only been in the private room for two or three minutes, but it seems an age.
I'm panicky, crazy nervous. I tremble.
My panic measures how much of my heart I have lost, or rather given away — and how quickly.
I stare at the small window, divided into smaller squares by the wire internal to it but I can't see either Chuck or Blickensderfer.
Frau Apfel steps into my stare, like a rock into a pond. I start but manage to hide it. She shoves a cup and saucer at me, the cup full of steaming coffee that sloshes out into the saucer.
"Sorry," she says but she's not.
I didn't notice the coffee arrive. My situational awareness, always dependable and super-sensitive, keeps switching off and on, like a Christmas light on a Christmas tree. I need to take myself in hand and calm myself, or I'll be no help to my partner — no, not partner, my love.
Making that distinction makes my panic worse, not better.
I lift the cup from the saucer and, holding it up, slurp the spilled coffee from the saucer, making my slurp loud to grate on Frau Apfel.
She doesn't like that I'm younger and more attractive than she is and Blickensderfer noticed it and she's determined to register her displeasure as well as she can without any outright display. She should know I'm taken — but there's a kind of woman who can't see straight where the man she loves is concerned.
Am I one of them now?
I stare back through the window. I see Blickensderfer pass by it but can't tell what he's doing, he passes by the window too quickly.
Five minutes now.
I sip my coffee and finish it.
Ten minutes.
Tick, tick, tick…
I cross my legs, aware of the grivory knives strapped to my calves, the steel hair pins holding my hair.
Frau Apfel gives me a sour look when she thinks I won't notice, as I glance again at the clock.
The phone on her desk buzzes and we both jump.
She answers and glances toward the private room a second after she does.
It's Blickensderfer calling from inside. I know it.
She listens, eyes down, although they flick up to look at me a couple of times as she involuntarily nods her head.
After hanging up the phone she turns to her computer and begins to type rapidly. I stand up. Her computer's turned ninety degrees from me, so I walk toward the clock, hoping to steal a look at what she's doing.
"This is a beautiful clock. How old is it?"
She has stopped typing and I turn and take a quick look past her shoulder. She's called up a document and is reading it.
I can't tell much about it from where I stand but it looks like a set of instructions, bullet points.
Is it the une fiche Chuck was worried about? If it is, that means Chuck fooled the graphological scanner. That's good news.
But the une fiche itself may be bad news.
Maybe really bad.
Apfel turns in her chair to face me, carefully stationing herself between me and her computer.
"Yes, It's ancient. It was the first clock of the bank and it used to stand in the lobby but they eventually moved it up here. The bank president spends a lot of money to keep it running."
From one life to another, downstairs to upstairs.
She turns back to her computer and punches one key and the Credit Suisse screen saver replaces the document.
Standing quickly, her eyes shifting to her phone for a moment, then she gives me a fake smile.
"I'm going to step out to the toilet. Would you like me to order more coffee?" There's malice in the order of that comment and question.
I say yes only to give her another task, maybe extend her absence. She's going to make a call, I'm sure of that — and one she doesn't want me to overhear.
The une fiche, assuming that's what I saw, must have had instructions to make a call. A phone number.
She walks out of the room unable to disguise her hurry.
When the door closes behind her, I race to her computer and punch the button she punched earlier. The screen changes but only to another Credit Suisse page that asks for a password. I have no idea — that's Chuck's thing — so I leave the desk and walk nearer to the private room. I manage a peek inside. Chuck's filling out paperwork at a long desk. There's a metal box on the table, closed. Blickensderfer checks his watch and then looks to see if Chuck noticed.
I can't tell if Chuck did or not.
I move out of sight quickly as I see Blikkensderfer turn toward the window. I reach down and remove the knife from my right calf and I shove it quickly into my purse. Closer to my hand.
Apfel re-enters the office and she looks at me without really focusing on me (I'm seated again by the time she opens the door) and then she looks with a new focus at the grandfather clock.
A timetable — there's a timetable. Hurry, Chuck!
Now both Apfel and I are watching the clock but each of us tries to hide it from the other. I'm far better at that than she is. She's not only watching the clock, her foot is tapping beneath her desk. I can hear it and see the movement but she's unaware.
After a couple of more minutes, she adds the door to the private room to the grandfather clock as an object of watchfulness.
Finally, thirty minutes later, the door opens and Blickensderfer comes out, leading Chuck. Chuck's got his backpack on his shoulder. Blickensderfer gives Apfel a questioning look and she nods.
Chuck does not notice that because he's looking at me. He knows something's up and he's making that clear to me.
"Well, Mr. Black, I see your wife has had coffee. Let me order you a cup."
Apfel jumps in. "Yes, I ordered another cup for Mrs. Black and I took the liberty of ordering one for you too, Mr. Black." Apfel's eyes slide from Chuck to the clock. The coffee's a delaying tactic, a way of keeping us inside Credit Suisse.
Chuck knows. He assumes an easy smile (impressive in the circumstances) but shakes his head. "No, as I mentioned, we have a lunchtime appointment. We need to be on our way. Thanks to you both."
Blickensderfer's face betrays unease bordering on panic. "No, no. At least wait until I receive confirmation of your transfers of funds; there should be no problem, but…"
"I'm sure there's no problem. You are Credit Suisse, the bank of banks. Other banks happily do your bidding. I'm not worried."
Chuck moves his smile to me — and I see it become real, changing character. I thrill at that smile, even with all that's happening, despite my premonition of danger.
He loves me too. He does.
I smile back at him, a mirroring smile.
And then his eyes harden and I know we need to go. There's urgency in his expression but shown only to me. I grab my purse and my coat, put the coat on with an assist from Chuck, and join him as he starts toward the door.
The door opens as we step toward it and I plunge my hand into my purse — but it's a woman with a tray of coffee cups and saucers and an urn of coffee. There are pastries too.
The woman's older and she moves slowly. I don't know if she brought my coffee earlier. I can't believe I missed that. But she's now effectively blocking our path from the three-zero office. An ill-timed comedy routine. It takes her an everlasting moment to push the cart out of the doorway and Chuck steps past her when she does, reaching back for my hand. I take his.
"Wait, at least let me show you out," Blickensderfer protests and he follows us.
Chuck does not wait. He walks fast to the elevator and pushes the button, calling it. Blickensderfer looks at us helplessly, and then sneaks a glance down at his watch, turning his wrist to make it visible but not bending his arm.
The elevator arrives and the narrow door opens. I worry that this is a narrow gate that leads not to life but to destruction. We step on and Chuck does not protest when Blickesnderfer joins us.
We ride in tense silence down to the lobby. Blickensderfer produces a handkerchief from a pocket and dabs at his forehead.
When the doors open, Blickensderfer steps out and stands in our way.
"Please, let me take you to lunch. Couldn't you cancel your other plans? You are important clients." He's at a loss, grasping at straws.
Chuck is no longer smiling at the man. "No, we have to go."
Chuck pushes past him and I follow. Blickensderfer's mouth works but he can think of nothing to say.
As we approach the doors, I peer outside through them.
Christmas Eve has crowded the Bahnhofstrasse. People are moving in every direction, celebratory chaos making it hard to single anyone out. Holiday lights blink and flash. Falling snow obscures the distances.
But then I notice a man, tall and slim, wearing a black hat pulled low on his forehead, one hand in his coat pocket, one out and ungloved.
He is moving straight toward the bank, toward the entrance, but the way he moves makes it clear that he is neither a Christmas reveler nor a businessman.
His hard eyes zero in on the Credit Suisse doors like he's sighting them through a rifle scope.
I notice another man walking parallel to the first but separate from him. The second man has a crew cut and no hat but he moves as the first moves.
I recognize the style of movement because it is mine too. Catlike and lithe, deadly.
They're both killers.
They're here for us.
I grab Chuck's arm but he sees them too and wheels us around. His eyes vacate for a second and his face goes slack and — it's the Intersect. He's using it.
"This way," he whispers as he re-inhabits his eyes, and his facial expression returns.
Blickensderfer has followed half-heartedly behind us; now he steps in our path. "Mr. Black…"
Chuck leans toward him and growls low so that only Blickensderfer and I can hear.
"Get out of my way, fat man, or I will return one day and tell Frau Blickensderfer all about Frau Apfel, about what you two do in the private room when there are no clients. Three-zero is right."
Chuck knew too. Blickensderfer pales to the shade of a snowflake and the hand he holds up is shaking. "Please. I'm just following orders. I'm a businessman."
"You're an apparatchik, not the same damn thing."
Chuck gives Blickensderfer a subtle shove and we are around him. He's looking out the front doors as we leave him. The men are still outside.
"How'd you know about him and Apfel?" I ask as we hurry from the lobby and down a long corridor. Chuck walks without hesitation.
"I saw how she looked at you when he looked at you. And then, he seemed overfond of that long table in the private room. I have a guess about how it keeps its shine."
I laugh, crazy as that seems and we hurry to the end of the corridor and then through double doors at its end. We go down a flight of stairs.
"This takes us to a rear door," Chuck says, talking fast. "The back of the bank is lower than the front. With any luck, they won't have the manpower to cover every exit."
"Who are they, Chuck?"
"I don't know," he says, shrugging. "Professional killers, that much was clear, right?"
"Yes," I say with self-consciousness.
A moment later, at the bottom of the stairs, Chuck stops us and puts a key in my hand.
"Once we're out, we've got to cover the distance to the car. This exit puts us closer but we're still going to be exposed. Once there, you drive. Your file makes it clear that you're a gifted driver."
He grins at me and I lose my self-consciousness. I slip the key into my coat pocket and then grab the grivory knife from my purse, slipping the blade up my sleeve and holding the handle, ready for immediate use.
"Ready?"
I nod and Chuck opens the door in one hard push and we spring into the snowy daylight.
The Credit Suisse building sits more or less by itself on a Zurich city block.
It's a massive building. That fact had not exactly escaped my attention but I had not focused on it. I had been more focused on parts — the doors, Blickensderfer — than on the whole. But as we spring into the day and the snow, I have a sudden sense of the umbrageous presence of the building itself, looming gargantuan over us, as if curious about our fate, a giant taking amused notice of ants.
The crowd is here too but less thick than on the Bahnhofstrasse itself. This is a side street. I look both ways and see no one who looks like the two men outside the front door.
"Look," Chuck whispers, nodding to a woman standing just across the street, standing between two parked cars. Her black hair hangs wild around her thin face. She sees us and she reaches into her pocket, pulling out a walkie-talkie with her right hand.
She's not far from us. I take two quick steps across the sidewalk and into a spot between two cars on this side, almost exactly opposite her
I throw my knife as she puts the walkie-talkie to her ear. Reinforcements, the men at the front door. I do not risk an overhand throw (it would draw too much attention) so I toss the knife the way you might toss a frisbee, but much harder, bending my arm horizontally in front of me and generating force with my elbow and a violent snap of my wrist.
I aim for her thigh but she ducks.
The knife buries itself in the woman's abdomen and her face shows shock and disbelief as she crumbles to the street, knees first to the pavement, then her face.
I somehow hear the grivory blade break beneath her, a sharp crack. The crack is followed by her awful, soft moan.
I turn to Chuck, to see his reaction, but he shows none.
His head is on the swivel, checking up the street.
A brown sedan's engine roars and it vaults forward, coming toward us.
The attacking car has one good effect: it momentarily keeps anyone from noticing the woman I've knifed. We start to run and I'm leading the way.
I can hear the car behind but I'm scanning ahead, trying to locate other threats on foot, down the street.
I see a man, small, in a yellow coat, hood up. He emerges from the line of cars beside the sidewalk, ahead of us. He has a gun in his hand.
The car is gaining on us, weaving in and out of slower traffic. I speed walk toward the man without changing pace, banking on his confusion.
He's surveying the other side of the street. He missed what happened to the woman, his partner. I put my hands up as I approach him, smiling, the gesture and expression accompanied by a quickening of my pace.
As he starts to speak, I take one of the hairpins from my hair — the actual point of raising my hands, and I leap at him.
I gauge him correctly. He expected being male and being armed to subdue me, make me submit. My leap completely surprises him and I plant the hairpin deep in his gun shoulder, feeling the tip scrape bone. The gun sinks and he uses his other hand to swat at the hairpin as if it were a giant mosquito. His eyes glaze.
As he falls onto his back, I scream loud, deliberately.
"Help, this man. Heart attack!" I yell in German, repeating 'heart attack' several times.
Herzinfarkt! Herzinfarkt!
The crowd splits, most avoiding the man and me, a few rushing toward us. The car behind us has to slow as people rush across the street.
We have a chance. I grab Chuck's hand and we start running. We're not far from the car, we just need to make it with enough time to get inside and start it.
I glance over my shoulder at Chuck. His face is white and drained. I instantly fear that it's his reaction to me, to what I've done, knife and hairpin. But then I see him look back and I realize it's not me.
"What is it, Chuck?"
"The driver of that car. It's Ryker!"
Reckoning.
I never believed Ryker and I were done.
The last time he chased me, I had a baby in my arms. This time, I have Chuck's hand in mine.
Anytime I'm near to innocence, Ryker appears, the skeleton at my feast.
I'm so close to freedom, so close to a new life. A life I have tasted and know is good.
And now the darkest, most hateful shadow of my old life is behind me, gaining on me.
The snow falls all around and too slowly as if mocking the speed of our movement, our urgency.
I hear Ryker's engine roar again.
He's past the folks who ran to help the man or from the man, the man in the yellow coat, who I now know was one of Ryker's stooges, like the woman. Ryker's gaining, gaining.
I can see our car ahead of us, the silver Skoda. I grab the key as we run. We narrowly miss being hit by a panel truck that emerges from an alleyway and lurches onto the street.
It's the chance we need.
The truck has blocked Ryker's car. We reach ours and I run around the rear to the driver's door, opening it. Chuck jumps into the passenger seat. I throw myself inside and jam the key in the ignition and turn it and the engine comes to life.
Life.
I want no more death.
No more.
No more shadows.
I want to live.
I want a life.
I want light.
Chuck twists in the seat, looking behind. "The truck's moving. Go, Sarah! Go!"
I whip the wheel and kick the accelerator and the car bounds from the parking spot and into the street. I whip the wheel the other way to straighten our course. Cars are stopped ahead of us, so I swing the Skoda into another alleyway, hoping Ryker might miss us.
Chuck reaches into the backseat and grabs the briefcase, tugs it forward into the front and opens it. He's looking back all the while. He grabs my gun first and puts it, safety off, in my lap. I nod at him, acknowledging what he has done.
"Shit, he's still behind us, just turning into the alley," Chuck says.
I stomp the accelerator as hard as I can.
For the wages of sin is death…
The words snake darkly into my head from who knows where or from what forgotten moment.
My sins won't let me go. My past wants to claim my future, yesterday a constrictor wrapped around tomorrow, squeezing out its life. Ryker keeps coming.
I spin the wheel again, vaulting from the alley, and plunging into traffic. Cars slam their brakes, and horns scream. Metal crunches metal as cars collide.
And then we're on another street. We blow past carolers standing on the sidewalk, singing, but we are unable to hear their song.
"Which way, Chuck?"
His eyes vacate and his face blanks and then he answers.
"The second right. That'll take us to a less populous part of town. Emptier streets. Maybe we can find a way to finish Ryker."
Finish Ryker.
I should have known.
That's the toll for my exit from the Company, the coin demanded by the Ferryman.
A/N: Expect another chapter soon. I won't leave you hanging for long.