Jane, Unlimited

  Jane rubs Jasper’s side, not responding.

  “He’s too honest,” says Kiran, then rolls her eyes as Ravi stoops and whispers something into the ear of one of the FBI agents. “And he’d blow a fuse about the art. He’d never forgive Vanny. I mean literally, never.”

  “What about you, Kiran?” says Jane. “Are you going to join them?”

  Kiran is capable of an impressive range of unpleasant smiles. “It depends on whether I can do so without ever having to talk to Patrick.”

  “Did you know that this work killed his parents?”

  Kiran is stunned. A wave of something—comprehension, horror—passes across her face before she’s able to build her wall back up again. “No,” she says. “I did not know that.”

  “Ivy told me.”

  Ravi appears suddenly, pushes between Jane and Kiran and wraps an arm around each of them. “Hello, beautiful darlings,” he says. “Having fun?”

  “Not like the fun you’re having,” Kiran says dryly.

  “I’m going for a walk,” Ravi says. “You’ll have to stay here and be the representative Thrash.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” Kiran says, slurring her words ever so slightly. “I’ll go with you if that’s what I want to do. You can’t boss me around. Where are you going?”

  “Bratty twin sister,” Ravi says fondly, kissing her on the forehead. “To the bay in the ramble. The lovely FBI special agents have been asking me about alternate places for boats to dock. They want to see if someone could’ve snuck the art off the island that way.”

  Instantly, Jane’s weariness flares to panic. Ivy! Grace and Christopher! They’re waiting for their pickup at that bay. “Kiran?” she squeaks, but Kiran talks over her.

  “Both of the FBI agents, Ravi?” she says. “Seriously? Do they know what you’re up to? Or do they actually think you guys are going to look for clues in the dark? Do you have a preference between them?”

  Kiran is just barely swaying against her brother’s chest. Kiran, Jane realizes, is pretending to be drunk.

  “The answer to all your questions is, I don’t know yet,” says Ravi, grinning. “Not knowing is part of the fun.”

  “I’m going with you,” says Kiran.

  “Like hell you are,” says Ravi.

  “I am,” says Kiran. “It’s fun to ruin your things.”

  Ravi kisses her forehead again, chuckling. “No more Pimm’s for you,” he says. Then he releases them both and goes off to find his FBI special agents.

  Kiran wraps her hand over Jane’s arm and is walking calmly with her toward the banquet hall before Ravi has even taken three steps. “You understand that we need to warn someone,” she says, “right?”

  “Of course,” Jane says, “but how?”

  “I know how to get to the bay through the ramble,” Kiran says, pulling Jane past the long table in the banquet hall, “so I’ll go that way. I’ll go after them and try to stall them. You need to find Mrs. Vanders and tell her to warn Ivy and Patrick.” She’s pulled Jane into the kitchen now. Jane realizes that Kiran intends to send her up to the attics in the dumbwaiter.

  She’s hardly aware of climbing in. She has a vague sense that Kiran has stuffed her into it like a jack-in-the-box. On the floor, Jasper is hopping and yipping, distressed not to be joining her.

  “Good luck,” Kiran says, then shuts the door.

  The dumbwaiter starts ascending, slowly. The sounds, from inside the carriage, are a cavernous underwater music. Too slow, Jane thinks. Move faster! How do the cameras work? Will Mrs. Vanders know who’s arriving in the dumbwaiter? As the carriage comes to a halt, Jane calls out, “It’s me! It’s me! Don’t shoot!”

  Someone yanks the door open and Jane is astonished to find herself staring into the face of Ji-hoon, the South Korean “cleaner.”

  “All right,” says Phoebe’s voice. “Now get back.”

  Ji-hoon backs away with his hands raised.

  “What’s going on?” Jane squeaks. “Don’t shoot me!”

  “I’m not going to shoot you, Janie,” says Phoebe’s voice, sounding amused. “What the hell do you want?”

  “I need to tell Mrs. Vanders something,” Jane says, then sticks her head cautiously into the room. Phoebe is holding Ji-hoon at gunpoint.

  “Is Ji-hoon a South Korean spy?” Jane asks, then, with a small shock, “Is he a North Korean spy?”

  “Ji-hoon’s as American as you are. He’s the Panzavecchias’ research director at the CIA,” says Phoebe flatly. “The new one, obviously, not the dead one.”

  “Oh! What are you going to do with him?”

  “Nothing at all,” says Phoebe. “Ji-hoon and I are going to stand like this in friendly meditation until various things happen elsewhere, at which point I’m going to escort him from the island.”

  “Okay,” Jane says. “I need Mrs. Vanders. It’s urgent.”

  “I believe she’s in a meeting in the wine cellars,” says Phoebe. “Ji-hoon will send you down, won’t you, Ji-hoon? Go on, move along, and make sure I can see your hands.”

  Ji-hoon glides carefully to Jane again and reaches for the dumbwaiter door. His eyes bore into hers. “I’m not the bad guy here, you know,” he says. “I’m just as committed to protecting those children as any of the rest of you, and without breaking the law.”

  “Hurry up,” says Phoebe, bored.

  Ji-hoon shoves the door shut with his elbow and a moment later Jane is slowly descending through darkness and a smell of metal and dust and cold. The smell changes to something like wet wood that’s been lying in a pond for a long time. Sweet and sour. Jane recognizes the wine cellars, even though she’s never been in a wine cellar before. When the dumbwaiter stops, she fumbles for the door handle and propels the door open. Mr. Vanders is standing ten feet away aiming a pistol at her.

  “Don’t shoot me!” Jane squeaks again, but he’s already returned the gun to the holster at his hip. He comes up to Jane and glares at her.

  “Why are you here?” he demands.

  “Ravi is bringing the FBI agents to the bay through the ramble,” says Jane. “Someone needs to warn Ivy right away.”

  “Hm,” says Mr. Vanders, pursing his lips, thinking this over.

  “Call her!” Jane says, frustrated with him for wasting time. “On her walkie-talkie!”

  “She doesn’t have it,” he says, jutting his chin at a nearby table, where the walkie-talkie sits. “She’d left by the time it arrived.”

  “Call her phone!”

  “Phones don’t work at the other end of the island,” he says. “Mrs. V is in a meeting and I’m with a patient. Phoebe’s watching Ji-hoon—not that we could ask any more of the Brits at this point—and Ivy, Patrick, and Cook are already at the bay. I’ll have to cancel my session and go myself.”

  “No,” Jane says. “Let me go.”

  “Absolutely not,” says Mr. Vanders. “You are a novice and a civilian.”

  “I’m not a child,” Jane says, pushing herself out of the dumbwaiter one leg at a time. “I can carry a message. I have common sense. I’m my aunt’s niece,” she says.

  Mr. Vanders’s eyebrows rise the tiniest smidge.

  “Please,” Jane says, standing tall to face him. “It’s my fault the FBI is here, and there’s no time for this. Please, please, let me go.”

  Mr. Vanders lets out a sigh that’s almost a growl. “Come on,” he says, grabbing Jane and pulling her down an aisle of wines so abruptly that she almost falls. He eyes her outfit. “Those look like sensible boots. Can you run in them?”

  “Yes.”

  He rounds a corner and launches down another aisle, towing Jane with him, shoving a flashlight at her. He’s very strong for a man who seems old. “The door at the bay looks like a rock, but it’s got a leather handle on the left that opens toward you,” he says, turni
ng another corner. “Turn off the flashlight before you open the door, and open it slowly. Step out slowly and call Ivy’s name quietly until you get her attention. She’ll still be on lookout while Patrick deals with the kids and the cargo. The water can be noisy but she’ll be close. Are you getting all this?”

  “Yes.”

  He reaches for his holster. “Have you ever shot a gun?”

  “No!” Jane says. “I don’t want it! I wouldn’t even know who to shoot!”

  “Calm down,” says Mr. Vanders. “No one’s going to shoot anybody.”

  “It’s not reasonable to assume that when everyone has a gun! I’m not taking it.”

  Mr. Vanders draws his bushy eyebrows into a fierce V. “You sound like your aunt,” he says. Then he moves to a shadowy place where a rug is pushed back and there seems to be a square gap in the brick floor. It’s barely big enough to fit a human form.

  “There are four steps,” Mr. Vanders tells her, “then a pole you’ll slide down. Don’t miss the pole; the floor beneath is stone. Wrap your legs around the pole as soon as the steps disappear.”

  Jane stares at him incredulously.

  “Come now, do we have time for gawking?” he cries impatiently, taking the flashlight from her and hooking it somehow to the belt of her sweater dress so that it’s bumping against her hip. Then he grabs her arm and yanks her toward the opening.

  “I’m scared,” Jane says.

  “That’s very sensible of you,” he says. “Now go.”

  It’s the stupidest design Jane has ever encountered for the entrance to anything. The four “steps” are impossibly narrow and very deep and wound in a circle, so that she feels as if she’s screwing herself into the hole as she clumsily descends them, bending and twisting. Beyond the fourth step is empty space and—yes, she can touch it with her boot—a pole. She hooks her ankle around it, grabs on with her hands, and pushes off the steps with her other foot.

  There’s a moment of utter lack of control and a scream, then rock comes barreling upward and crashes into her. She tastes blood in her mouth.

  Mr. Vanders’s voice comes down the hole. “You okay?”

  “Just dandy,” she says, lying in a heap.

  The steps shift; the hole closes. Jane is left in darkness.

  Patting around at her middle, she finds the flashlight and flicks the switch. A narrow stone passage stretches before her. It leads downhill and is reasonably straight.

  Aching in every bone, hands smarting and bleeding from scrapes, and one of her ankles not feeling entirely trustworthy, Jane pushes herself to her feet and begins to run.

  * * *

  It’s just as Mr. Vanders said. The passage ends abruptly at what seems like an impassable boulder, but Jane finds a handle and pulls. With a groan, the enormous heavy door swings open. There’s so much noise—the voice of a wailing child, waves crashing, shouts, then the roar of an engine—that she’s certain she’s too late, the FBI has found the children, Grace will be tortured, and Ivy and Patrick will spend the rest of their lives in jail for treason and kidnapping.

  Then there’s a disturbance in the scrub brush to one side, followed by a small, moving circle of light. Ivy shoves her way through branches to Jane, her balaclava pushed back above her glasses so that Jane can see her face.

  “Hi,” she says calmly. “I heard the door. Is something wrong?”

  “Ravi’s bringing FBI agents to look at the bay,” Jane says, gasping.

  Ivy’s face sharpens. “When?”

  “Now.”

  Reaching behind Jane, Ivy hauls the door shut. Then she pushes out of the scrub. Jane follows her into a spitting rain, squinting, adjusting to the dim darkness. They’re at the edge of a tiny, crescent-shaped patch of beach. In the water bobs a small, wooden boat, attached by a rope to a half-submerged post, its engine running. Patrick stands in the water beside the boat. An adult, presumably Cook, sits in the boat, as does Grace, who’s holding Christopher, who’s screaming to wake the dead. Ivy’s flashlight washes over them irregularly several times and Jane reads the boat’s name on the stern: The Ivy.

  What Ivy’s done with the flashlight must be a signal to the people at the boat, because several things happen at once. The boat engine cuts out; Patrick reaches to Christopher and Christopher stops crying; Grace yells something in outrage and Patrick yells something back; then Patrick wades out of the water and begins to run across the sand toward Jane and Ivy.

  “I have to go,” Ivy says to Jane, grabbing on to her hand roughly. “I’m sorry. I’ll be gone at least a week. Will you still be here when I get back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mrs. Vanders tell you the rest of what we know about your aunt’s death?”

  “Her death? What about it?”

  “Ask Patrick,” says Ivy, tugging on her hand. “Promise me you’ll ask Patrick.”

  “I promise,” Jane says, her breath ragged, almost full of tears.

  Ivy pulls her close suddenly, holds her tight, smashes her lips against Jane’s. Then in an instant she’s gone, flying across the sand. At the water, she unhitches the rope from the post, climbs into the rocking boat. She sits beside Cook and says something to Grace that makes Grace scramble to the floor of the boat with Christopher in her arms, hiding both of them from sight. There’s a clatter of wood on wood and Cook has produced oars. He passes one to Ivy and steadily they begin to row the boat toward the open sea.

  Patrick grabs Jane’s arm and pulls her back into the brush. He pulls her down so that the two of them are crouching with their backs to the rock door. His pants and the bottom of his coat are soaked and the rain is spitting harder. Jane, coatless and bare-legged, shivers violently.

  “I’d give you my coat,” Patrick whispers, “but it wouldn’t warm you.”

  “It’s okay,” Jane whispers. “I’m okay.”

  “What’s happening?” Patrick says. “Who’s coming?”

  “Ravi’s bringing FBI agents to look at the bay,” Jane says. “Kiran’s going to try to stall them.”

  Somewhere in the ramble, Kiran is shrieking with laughter. A moment later, arcs of light swoop across the sky, then Jane hears the voices of the others. Ravi, quiet, chuckling, and a woman’s voice Jane doesn’t recognize. A second man shouting in laughter; Kiran, giggling, still emitting the occasional high shriek. Twigs break and leaves rustle as they slide down from the ramble onto the beach. Jane can’t see them, but someone is practically putting on a light show with a flashlight.

  “What are we looking for, anyway?” Kiran calls. “Footprints? Fin prints! Brancusi fish fin prints!” she yells, then giggles at her own comedy. The FBI man chuckles too, then says something indistinct but cheerful. He sounds drunk.

  “We’re not likely to find anything at all,” says the FBI lady in obvious annoyance, “with you running around in figure eights and trampling everything.”

  “Ouch! Or shining the light in our eyes!” says Ravi. “Watch it, Kir! I can’t see a thing.”

  “This is not the walk I’d envisioned,” says the FBI lady.

  “True,” says Ravi, “but I like seeing my sister laugh.”

  “She’s drunk,” the FBI lady says sharply. “Would you please take that flashlight from her? I’m going blind.”

  “Kiran,” Ravi begins. Whatever he intends to say is drowned out by Kiran’s screeches of delight, then splashing sounds as she apparently runs headlong into the water. She turns the light back to shore and shines it deliberately on her companions. Jane can see the brightness swishing back and forth, she can hear Ravi and the FBI man laughing, the FBI lady cursing, and she understands what Kiran is doing. Kiran’s making it impossible for them to isolate the silhouette of the rowboat on the water behind her. She’s good at this, isn’t she?

  “Your sister is a child,” the female agent says in a scathing voice. “An absolute pol
lywog. And it’s raining.”

  Ravi’s voice is hearty. “Kiran,” he shouts, “we’re going back now.”

  “Did I mess up your fun?” Kiran shouts back.

  “Yes!”

  “I win!” Kiran shouts.

  “Congratulations, you pain in the ass!” yells Ravi.

  A few more splashes and flashes of light. Then the sound of cracking twigs and shifting leaves as the four of them climb back into the ramble.

  Finally, only the roar of the ocean, coming, going, and the patters of rain.

  Jane’s senses are full of Ivy’s kiss. Ivy’s mouth was soft, her gun halter palpable through her coat. Nothing is quite how Jane imagined it would be. And it’s possible she’s never been so tired.

  “What now?” she says.

  “Now we wait for Cook to come back in the boat with Philip Okada,” Patrick says.

  “Philip Okada?”

  “When the lady who’s helping us picks Ivy and the kids up,” Patrick says, “she’s dropping Philip off. We owe you, you know. Maybe we would’ve seen Kiran’s light in time—well, we probably would’ve seen Kiran’s light in time,” Patrick amends, “because Kiran was very smart about it.” He stops, looking vague and miserable.

  “So you don’t owe me after all?”

  “Sorry,” he says. “No, we do owe you, because even if we’d been able to get the boat away, we wouldn’t have gotten Ivy to it in time. I’d probably have had to go in her place, which would’ve been inconvenient for me, and really inconvenient for Ivy. After she delivers the kids to their parents she’s expected in Geneva. Breaking things off with HQ is a long procedure.”

  “Is it like she’s retiring?”

  “Yeah,” Patrick says, “pretty much, except she’ll be in possession of some sensitive secrets when she retires. HQ needs to put her through the wringer about that before they’ll let her go. She needs to prove she’s trustworthy.”

  “Will they really let her go?”

  “I’m not worried,” he says. “You shouldn’t worry.”