Note: Thank you for all the encouraging reviews! Yes, Agent Snoopy is around, but I haven't decided how much he'll be involved. Has anyone else wondered what happens to a Number after he/she is rescued from a horrifying situation? Reese, the CIA badass that he is, can shake off near-death experiences like water, but what about a more ordinary person?
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One Year and Ten Months Prior
The staff bathroom at the 94th street library was a cramped little space, maybe five feet by six. It was lit by a single incandescent light bulb and the ancient silver ventilation fan rattled like an old car engine. I was sure that the yellow tiled floor hadn't been cleaned in years and the faucet dripped, dripped, dripped consistently enough to tell time. Long tendrils of rust and copper stains grew from the drain in the center of the sink.
No one in their right mind would've stayed in that room for any longer than absolutely necessary to do their business, but it was the only place in the building where I could be assured of privacy when I needed a break.
I sat on the toilet lid. My body trembled. My knees were together and my face was cupped in my hands. I felt exhausted, so very exhausted; I wanted to melt down into the floor, never mind the filth that had collected between the tiles over the years. Wanted to curl up into a little ball and sleep forever. I hadn't slept well in days. Weeks. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. Sometimes I was too frightened to fall back asleep, so I powered on my computers and programmed in my pajamas until I collapsed at the keyboard. Other times, I managed to lull myself back to sleep by reading a good book, preferably one without anyone being kidnapped and left for dead.
I hadn't slept longer than three hours at a time since that harrowing day in the cargo container.
I couldn't recall a single time in my life when I had ever been as helpless as I had been during those horrifying fourteen hours. Not as an adult, not as an adolescent, not even as a child. I'd been stripped of my clothing, my dignity, and my control, left in a dark metal container to die a slow and agonizing death by dehydration or heat stroke, pick whichever one came first—and nothing I could've done would've prevented my own demise. I would've been aware of my helplessness right up until the end.
You just don't rebound from something like that very quickly.
I stood and walked to the sink. The faucet creaked when I opened it and the flowing water smelled like metal and dust. But the water was shockingly cold against my face, and that's what I needed: a distraction, a jolt, anything to keep me going. I breathed slowly, deeply, willing myself to go back out to the front desk, to face the chaos of the library.
Deep breaths. Center yourself. Let the energy flow from the earth into your body, and all that other nonsense my highschool Taiji instructor had pushed on my class for a whole year—
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
"Ellie?" came Noom's gentle voice, barely audible over the fan. "There's someone for you at the front desk."
"I'll be right there," I said. "Give me a minute."
"Okay."
I dried my face, then my hands. Took another deep breath. I felt awake enough to drag myself through another few hours. Opening the door, I clicked off the fan, then the light, and headed down the hall towards the front of the library.
And when I saw just who was leaning on the counter, looking like he owned the place, I very nearly fainted.
"John?" I said, gasping.
"Hello, Elizabeth," he said in his deep near-whisper.
"Oh my god. You're really here." It was difficult to comprehend: the man who had rescued me, who had given me a second chance at life, was here. In the flesh.
For the past few weeks I had been wondering if John Reese had merely been a exaggerated hallucination, some sort of peculiar coping mechanism generated by my mind; the one happy constant in an otherwise dark series of endless dreams. Because he had just appeared, suddenly, like a summer hailstorm. He had swooped into my life to rescue me from the maws of Death and then just hours thereafter had disappeared without a trace.
"How are you holding up, Elizabeth?" he asked. Concern shone in those eyes—such intense blue eyes.
"I'm surviving," I said, shrugging. "Can't really ask for more."
"Surviving is good," John said. "Surviving with tea is better." He set a steaming paper cup on the counter between us. "Black Pearl. One honey."
I gasped, smiled. "You didn't come here just to bring me a cup of my favorite tea," I said, but I accepted the cup anyway, grateful and touched and a little suspicious—how had he known how I preferred my tea? I sipped it—perfect, just perfect. Not too much honey. I hoped the tea would keep me awake. Maybe now I wouldn't be tempted to curl up in one of the soft chairs and sleep the afternoon away.
"I was in the neighborhood," John said. "And I wanted to ask you a question."
"Shoot," I said.
John lowered his voice. "Look casual. Forty degrees off to your left, over in the corner. Black T-shirt, jeans, buzz cut. Ruggidized silver IFT laptop. Is he a regular?"
I pretended to glance at the book check-out terminal, but let my eyes slide just a little too far to the left. A glance told me all I needed to know.
"Never seen him before," I said. "Why, is he in a bind like I was?"
"Not exactly," John said. "But he may be about to cause a violent crime."
"Oh," I said, not sure what to say. "Are you going to go stop him?"
"I don't know what he's doing. I may be wrong. I need more information on him." Reese nodded towards the check-out terminal. "Can you search the library database for a Benoît Raphael? Browsing history, checked out books—"
For an instant, I froze, not sure what to do. I mean, there was no doubt that I could search the library's computer systems. But I wasn't supposed to share any information about the library patrons.
Then I remembered that I would've been dead had it not been for the man across the counter. I glanced around, making sure Noom and the other library workers weren't anywhere nearby.
"Yeah, give me a second," I said, logging in to the checkout terminal. I took another sip of tea, loaded the master library application—truly a horrendous piece of software—and typed in a query.
"I don't see him in the database," I said, chewing my lip.
"I tried sniffing his wifi traffic with my phone. But—"
I nearly spilled tea onto the keyboard. "You what?" I said, just a little too loudly. Several nearby patrons looked our way, but the man in the corner continued to tap away at his laptop.
John grinned; a little teasing ghost of a smile. "It didn't work. The network here encrypts everything."
"Yeah, I know, I installed the system. We use Landis firmware on our access points. Only someone with access to the private encryption key can decrypt the wireless data for each client." It took me a moment to comprehend what I had just said. "Ahh," I said, slowly. "You want me to peek at his network traffic."
John shrugged. "I did bring you tea, Elizabeth."
I chewed the inside of my lip and did my best to glare, but couldn't keep the tiny smile off my face as I brought up a command window. I established a secure connection to the network monitor in the makeshift server room I had set up at the back of the library. I had less qualms about doing this than I did searching the database—after all, users agreed to certain terms and conditions when they connected to the library network, and part of those terms and conditions was a disclaimer that mentioned that the network was monitored at all times by the network administrator. In this case, the network administrator was me.
It wasn't like I didn't occasionally peek at the encrypted wireless traffic to amuse myself.
"Any idea what his laptop's hostname is?" I asked.
"No."
"Hmm...there's only seven active clients. Only two of them on the access point near that corner. One of them is using a lot of bandwidth, the other, not so much." I glanced again at the corner. Sure enough, a table or two away from Mr. Shiny IFT Laptop was a young blond-haired man, crouched over a sleek black laptop that was roughly the size of a small boat anchor. His fingers mashed furiously on an innocent wireless mouse and every once in awhile his entire body twitched. He appeared to be talking to himself.
"I bet I can figure out who is using which laptop," I whispered.
I selected one of the clients—the one that was using a truly astonishing amount of bandwidth—and added it to the firewall's "DROP" list. John looked like he was about to open his mouth. I held up a finger to shush him. He tilted his head but said nothing.
We waited. I watched the laptop users out of the corner of my eye.
The blond-haired man twitched again, then froze. Clicked the mouse tentatively, twice, then slammed it against the table. The peace of the library was shattered by a wavering, high-pitched shout, followed immediately by a chorus of shushes.
"NononononononononooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO! I had him! Fucking computer."
Reese raised his eyebrows. Smirking, I removed the firewall rule. "That is the impotent rage of someone who was disconnected while playing Team Castle 3 online, while simultaneously torrenting movies and downloading six files in a web browser. He's been using more bandwidth in the past...two hours...than most of our patrons do in a month. Now, the other guy..."
I loaded the list of websites he had visited in the past few hours, scrolled through the list, did a double-take, read some of the URLs more carefully—
Oh my God, I thought. Oh my God. I glanced up at John, wondering just how in the hell he had known that this guy was up to no good, before dragging my eyes back down to the screen. Speechless, I turned the monitor to face John. He glanced through the list, took a picture with his cell phone, and nodded.
"Thank you, Elizabeth. Enjoy your tea." He turned and began to walk away.
"Wait!" I called, then lowered my voice when John neared again. "Shouldn't we call the police?"
"And what happens then, Elizabeth? They might arrest him. Might not. He'll lawyer up; the lawyer will say that it's not illegal to visit those websites. It's not even illegal to search for information on how to make bodies disappear. He'll walk out of the police station tomorrow morning and then he'll find another way to kill his wife. Maybe he'll hire someone else to do it. The police won't stop him, Elizabeth, but I will. His wife is in danger. I can protect her. This is what I do, remember?"
My heart thudded against my chest. I whispered, "This is a hell of a lot different than rescuing someone from a cargo container, John!"
John glanced over towards the corner. The guy with the crew-cut was packing up his laptop, preparing to leave. "If I don't stop what he's planning, someone will be dead by the end of the day. Doesn't sound very different to me. Will you trust me, Elizabeth?"
Even as I considered the question, I knew there was no other answer but yes. John had saved my life. It was only reasonable that I trusted his methods.
I nodded quickly. "Yes," I said. My voice shook. "Yes, of course, John."
"Gotta go," John said. "Stay strong, Elizabeth." He turned and ambled for the front doors. A few moments later, the mysterious man from the corner passed the front counter, toting his laptop. He didn't look my way, but I still felt like he knew somehow what I had just done, and I couldn't help but feel the slightest bit afraid.
Shaking, I took a long, sweet draft of tea. I hoped to hell that John really knew what he was doing...
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The incident—and the tea—energized me. My exhaustion was quickly forgotten. Frantic thoughts buzzed in my head throughout the afternoon—my God, the man with the laptop was planning to murder his wife. And then hide the body, make it look like an accident. He'd looked like such a normal, well-adjusted, unlikely-to-murder-someone type of person!
Then again, I myself had learned the hard way that people were not always as innocent as they appeared...
What was John going to do? Rescuing someone from a sweltering cargo container and nursing them back to health—that was simple. Stopping a murder? Preventing the would-be murderer from trying to murder again? How was John going to pull that off? What if the crew-cut guy had a gun? John looked like he could defend himself if he had to, but I doubted he was immune to bullets.
Several times that afternoon, my eyes wandered to the battered front desk phone and refused to look away. I stared at the dark gray phone. Noticed all the little details. The little chip missing from the speaker grill. The worn transfer button. The steady red power light. The simple, bold IFT logo on the top bezel.
You should call the police, I thought to myself. John may be your Superman, but he's mortal, just like you. The guy with the laptop is dangerous. He might hurt John. John might die. The man might kill his own wife. You have all the evidence you need on the computer. You should call the police...
It would've been the wise and logical thing to do.
But would it really help? It sounded like John was well experienced in handling this kind of matter. Would calling the police do any good? Would it save Mr. Crew-Cut's wife? Would it stop Mr. Crew-Cut himself from hurting anyone?
If someone had given a key piece of information to the police instead of to John, would it have saved my life when I had been left for dead? A piece of information that revealed suspicious but not necessarily illegal behavior?
In the end, each time I was tempted to call, I forced myself to take a walk around the library, putting distance between me and the phone. I turned off my cell phone and hid it in my lunchbox in the staff room. I would not call. I trusted John.
The tea and the excitement both wore off around the time I clocked out, leaving behind a feeling of sick anticipation. I drove home through a haze of fatigue, riding on reflexes, navigating by rote. Unlocked my apartment door, slipped inside, locked the door again. I was far too exhausted to fix myself dinner, so I grabbed a cookie from on top of the refrigerator and all but collapsed on the couch, drawing a blanket around my body more for comfort than for warmth.
Nibbling on the oatmeal cookie, I clicked on the television just in time to catch a news broadcast.
"...received an anonymous tip that the alleged suspect, Benoît Raphael, was planning to murder his wife, Augustine Raphael. Police arrived on scene to find Mrs. Raphael shaken but unhurt."
My jaw fell to the floor and so did the cookie.
No. Way.
"According to Mrs. Raphael, her husband was attempting to strangle her in their home when a, quote, 'concerned third party' intervened."
The camera cut to show a woman, perhaps thirty years old, with jet-black hair and swarthy skin and a little too much makeup. "He came out of nowhere," she said, in a voice just slightly tinged by a French accent. "This guy, in a three-piece suit. He pulled—he pulled that monster off me. Saved my life. I don't even know who he is. If you're out there, watching this, whoever you are—thank you. Just—t-thank you."
They cut back to the news anchor. "Benoît Raphael was found restrained in another room of the home. So far, there has been no sign of the suited Good Samaritan. Now let's check in with Dolan at the weather station—"
Fingers trembling on the remote, I changed the channel to another news station and waited impatiently for them to get the top story (Llama escaped from New York City Zoo, still at large) out of the way. My patience was rewarded when a picture of Mr. Crew-Cut was shown on screen again.
"A man named Benoît Raphael was arrested this afternoon for allegedly attempting to murder his wife..."
I clicked off the television.
My God, I thought. John did it. He really did it. He saved her. And then a moment later, my brain whispered, And you helped. It was a strange thought. I had helped save someone's life. I'd never done anything that affected someone else on such a fundamental level. Sure, the encryption algorithms I wrote for Landis were used by millions of people every day, but that was different; what I had done today had played a small part in keeping another person alive. Living. Breathing.
I hadn't done much. I had barely done anything at all, really. If I hadn't been working at the library that day, or if Mr. Crew-Cut had gone to a different library, John probably would've been able to follow him around and kick his ass just the same when he tried to attack his wife.
But still...I had helped. That was pretty damn amazing.
For the first time since John had rescued me, I felt like I had managed to do something—a trivial, insignificant something, but a something nonetheless—to pay back a small portion of the debt I owed John and the universe at large. I had made the world's smallest down payment on the loan for my second chance at life.
And it felt good. I wondered if John would give me the chance to do it again...
Sighing happily, I reached down to the floor and felt around for the cookie I had dropped. It was covered in hair and little bits of carpet. Even I wasn't willing to eat that. Chuckling, I stood and padded into the kitchen, tossed the cookie in the garbage can beneath the sink, and reached for another one from the tin on top of the refrigerator. I deserved another cookie. I had helped save someone's life...
I slept a little better that night.
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