Last Days of the Condor

  Faye said: “You work at the Library of Congress?”

  “Wow,” said Merle. “Gun on your hip, door locked against whoever, you still ask the inescapable Washington question: ‘What do you do?’

  “Funny,” said Merle. “No one picked me as a library type twenty years ago. Now I could retire. Sit locked in here with what little is left of my little life.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t usually let myself get that way, but …

  “Yes, I work at the Library of Congress. The Motion Picture Archives. I watch old black-and-white movies. Catalog them, rank them in the line of movies waiting to be digitalized for whatever survives the apocalypse, artistic worth plus print quality plus …

  “You don’t care.” Merle shrugged. “I spend my days watching other people’s ideas play out on a small white screen in a dark room. I watch what I’m not.”

  Condor said: “Like most of us.”

  Merle looked at him.

  Turned to Faye. “So how are you going to negotiate your way out of here and into where you’ll get what you want? Or at least not dead.”

  “Not a lot of negotiation happening,” said Faye.

  “Bullshit,” said Merle, as shocked as her captors by her own force, her candor. “This town is all one interlocked negotiation. You do what you gotta do to convince whoever’s got the power to let you get what you can.”

  “More to it than that,” said Condor.

  “Don’t tell me about more,” said Merle. “I spent twelve years on the Hill, Congressman’s office, Senator’s office manager. Come to find out, it’s all about power and what you can get from the power that is.”

  “We’re not there yet,” said Faye.

  Merle nodded toward the silver-haired man slumped on a stool in her kitchen. “You think he’s going to get you somewhere?”

  “He,” said Condor, “might surprise you.”

  “So far,” said Merle, “yes.

  “But I’m going to call you Vin,” she added. “Not Condor.”

  Faye saw him smile, but with effort, exhaustion.

  “Man, do you need to clean up!” Merle told Vin, who reeked of sweat, of gunpowder, who had sticky smears of brown on his face, his wrist.

  “We need to sleep more than anything,” said Faye. “So do you.”

  Merle gave her back to the spies as she put their dirty dishes in her sink.

  Faye told their captive’s back: “Here are the options.”

  Options: such muted honesty.

  “Best one,” said Faye, “toss him in the shower, pop him full of pills he’s got—”

  “Right here,” said Condor. “I’m still right here.”

  “And we want you to stay,” said Faye. “But if you don’t get real sleep …

  “The bed is our option,” continued Faye. “Best is him in it like it is designed. Next best is us making up the mattress for him out here on the floor. I’ll take the couch, not big enough for him to stretch comfortably and if he cramps…”

  Merle turned: “What about me?”

  “You’re in your bedroom,” said Faye. “Don’t want to deprive you of that.”

  “Plus I’ll be another door away from getting out.”

  “Safer.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Merle shrugged. “Keep the bed like it is for him. I can sleep on the floor or … Or beside him.”

  “I’ll be out, I’ll never know,” said Condor.

  “Okay, whatever,” said Faye. “Condor—Vin: leave your gun out here with me.”

  “Just in case?” said Merle. “In case of what? Or who? Me?”

  Faye helped Condor unclip the holstered .45 from his belt. Merle watched Faye ask him what pills he should take after his shower, put them in a cup she handed to him, put the glass of water in his other hand.

  “Do you have something he can sleep in?” Faye asked.

  Merle shrugged. “Something.”

  Condor said: “Have we said thank you yet?”

  Before Merle could answer, he shook his head: “Thank you’s not enough.”

  Condor shuffled into the bedroom.

  Faye stopped Merle from following him with a touch on her arm.

  She didn’t jump, didn’t resist, but …

  Waiting, sensing, not trained, just … smart.

  Faye said: “Somehow he’s the key to our way out of here. All of our way. So we need to keep him going as best as he can be. I’m asking you to keep an eye on him. If he fades more, if he starts to decompensate—”

  “Decompensate? What is he compensating for?”

  “You do what you can, make sure I know what’s going on with him.”

  “And don’t touch his gun, right?” Merle smiled. “Oh, that’s right: you took it.”

  Faye saw the fierceness caught by the photo of her on the steps of the Capitol flash in those blue eyes, if only for a moment, if only like a memory of what used to be.

  Merle walked into the bedroom, pulled the white door closed behind her, clunk.

  Before Faye went to call it sleep on the black couch positioned so she’d bolt awake facing the front door, her Glock and Condor’s .45 a grab away on the glass coffee table, she used the living room’s half bath, and from its medicine cabinet took dental floss, tied a taut line between the knob of the closed bedroom door and a tall drinking glass on the kitchen counter. Faye pushed one of the living room’s black swivel chairs against the front door, knew it would only slow a SWAT breach by a second, maybe two.

  But a second, maybe two …

  In the second, maybe two after she snapped the kitchen into darkness but before she flipped off the light switch in the living room, she stared at the bedroom’s white door, that closed white door.

  17

  Be my pillow.

  —Jesse Colin Young, “Darkness, Darkness”

  This is how her bedroom smells. Warm cotton sheets whiffed with musk. Vanilla wisps. Or maybe not vanilla. Some other bath & beautify lotion. Plus cirrus clouds of Ben-Gay or another sore-muscles liniment, something practical. But her. Here.

  Night spinning tired everything aches skin so yuck clammy!

  Behind him, Merle said: “Are you seeing ghosts?”

  She’s standing there. You turned around and there she was. Looking at you.

  Saying again: “Ghosts? Are you seeing ghosts?”

  Tell her: “No. Yes.”

  She blinked, blushed. “Let’s pretend you’re a poet and not a killer, a crazy.”

  “I’ll be who you need.”

  “What about want?”

  “Can’t promise that.”

  “Who can.” She frowned.

  Took the cup of pills from his hand.

  “You’re holding on by your fingernails,” she told him. “Gotta hurt.”

  “You can’t ever make the hurt stop.”

  “Maybe, but you can back it off, get some peace. Like it or not, that’s your best choice now. You can pass out where you stand, or if you got enough left in you, you can take a shower—and man, do I recommend that. Then your pills, then bed.

  “The bed’s just for sleep.” Her blue eyes burned. “You don’t have a gun.”

  “I couldn’t use it like that. I wouldn’t.”

  Nodding, agreeing with him to convince herself.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said.

  And he did.

  Gave its blue wrinkle to her.

  She tossed it on a chair by the door, the closed white door.

  He didn’t wait to be told what she wanted.

  Kicked off his shoes.

  Took off his black jeans.

  She held those pants out from her. Felt the weight of whatever was in his pockets, of the ammo mags in their pouch on his belt. Tossed the black jeans onto the chair.

  “What are you wearing?” she said, staring at his revealed second skin.

  “Thermal underwear,” he said. “I didn’t know how cold it would be out there.”

  A slow-motion movie walked her
to a brown cardboard box in the far corner of the room. All of her moved when any of her changed. Her blond & gray hair undulated in soft waves on her shoulder, her strong back. Her arms floated with purpose. The roundness of her hips, taut for any age in her blue jeans, rolled from step to step, then he saw them rise out as she bent over, pulled things from that brown cardboard box.

  She carried a ragged black sweatshirt and thin gray sweatpants to him.

  “Here,” she said.

  Could have thrown the sweats, but she chose to hand them to you.

  “At the Fifty Plus class I teach, people leave gear and clothes, books, water. I wash the clothes, take the Lost & Found box to class, but if nobody claims them … Every few weeks, there’s some charity pickup.”

  He held up the black sweatshirt to read its gold logo: LUX ET VERITAS. Whatever that meant, what meant a universe more was what else he read emblazoned gold on black.

  “Montana,” he said. “How did you know?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just a sweatshirt I found.”

  “Nothing cosmic. Not a clong.”

  “A what? Why? Is that where you’re from? Montana?”

  “That’s where I found out I was me.”

  “You’re a spy,” she said. “A killer. Not a poet.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go shower,” she said. “There’s a blue towel on the shelf. You’re not a conditioner kind of guy, but one of the bottles in the tub is shampoo. And on a shelf under the sink, there’s an unopened toothbrush: the big-box store makes you buy five.”

  “I have my own. I think. Out there,” he said, pointing to the closed white door.

  “We’re here, don’t go drifting back or we’ll never get you where you’re going.”

  She pointed to the bathroom.

  In there, slump, your back pressing against the door, your socks gripping tiny white tiles, close your eyes, she’s not there, she can’t see you, you can let go, let go.

  Like inhales shift to exhales, his mind billowed back and forth between clarity and confusion. What kept him conscious in that bright bathroom was the scent of where he was, the pine ammonia of cleanliness, the vanillas of rejuvenation, the damp metal and porcelain hardness of here and now and real.

  Fighting off the thermal top was almost more than he could do. He worked it up his chest, both hands inside it as he pulled the shirt over his face—Stuck!—staggered around the bathroom, bumped his right shin on the toilet, suffocating, arms pinned crossed over his head inside the clinging—

  Off, face clear, dropping the top onto the floor, staring down at his minor victory.

  Take what you can get.

  He peeled down the long underwear pants, worked them and his socks off. Collapsed more than sat on the toilet, did what he had to do and didn’t let his eyes close.

  Next thing he knew, he’s in the shower, hot water pounding down on him as he reaches back to pull the plastic shower curtain closed—

  Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock movie, Janet Leigh showering behind a plastic curtain, not seeing Anthony Perkins come into her bathroom with a butcher knife.

  Maronick jerks from bullets you shot into his bathroom stall.

  Condor left the shower curtain open.

  The water, oh the water pounding down on his skull, his face, his closed eyes, steam opening his sinuses, his pores. Ribbons of brown swirled down the drain. He found the shampoo bottle, a bar of soap, used both two or three times, lost count.

  His arms burned as he used the blue softness and toweled himself dry, pulled on the gray sweatpants—way too big, barely held up by the frayed drawstring. He struggled into the black sweatshirt. LUX ET VERITAS pointed toward the steamed-over mirror. The sleeve he wore wiped the wet fog off that glass.

  There you are. Here you are.

  “Wow,” whispered Condor.

  The toothbrush he found under her sink was red. Her toothpaste was minty fresh.

  Merle stood up from sitting on the bed as he opened the bathroom door.

  She wore tightly tied green yoga pants. A bulky blue sweatshirt. With no buttons up its front. The woman held the cup of his pills out to him.

  Said: “I put in an extra painkiller. Generic. Over the counter. Works.”

  Handed him an aluminum drinking bottle, its top screwed off.

  “I make up a bunch of these for class use,” she said. “With paper cups, or that would defeat the purpose. Store-bought low-cal lemonade with concentrated Vitamin C I dissolve in it. Stopping colds in my class helps me as much as them.”

  Lemonade. Cool, tangy.

  He swallowed the pills. She took the cup, the now-empty aluminum bottle.

  “You should sleep on the side of the bed near the bathroom. Get in, I’ll be back.”

  She went into the bathroom. Closed that door.

  He heard her brushing her teeth. The flush of the toilet. Sink water.

  Then she’s out, leaving the bathroom door open, snapping off that light.

  Condor sank under covers into warmth he hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever.

  She circled around the foot of the bed.

  Watch the ceiling, look up, look at heaven not her.

  The bed sagged, the covers fluttered. He felt the heat of her in there with him.

  “Forgot,” said Merle.

  Condor turned his head to the right.

  Saw her blue-sweatshirt-with-no-buttons form bent over her side of the bed.

  Sitting up straight, she put an aluminum bottle on her bedstand, turned toward him, a second aluminum bottle in her hand and she’s reaching, leaning across …

  Over me.

  He lay beneath her as her blue sweatshirt blocked out the lamplit white ceiling. He saw only that blue sweatshirt. Believed in the sway, the sway of her breasts.

  Clunk went the metal bottle on the bedstand beside him, for him.

  She turned out his lamp.

  Pulled herself back across him—

  Gone, she’s gone, pressure heat smell still—

  Merle snapped out her lamp, dropped them, this room, this bed, into darkness.

  He felt her stretch under the covers. Close enough to reach out and touch.

  Falling through soreness and pain …

  Not yet! Not yet!

  Merle whispered: “Why me?

  “You said I wasn’t in your plan,” she told the man lying beside her. “You said ‘personal.’ You’ve been … eyeing me for months. To ‘work up your guts.’ Why me?”

  Nothing left but true: “You’re gravity I can’t escape.”

  His sore heart labored beats in the darkness.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?” she said.

  “What you can,” he said. “What you want.”

  She whispered his last name.

  Said: “You’re the only Vin on the Library of Congress’s Web site of staff passes.”

  Said: “The photo’s not that good.”

  Warm, so warm under here.

  Merle let the word come out again: “Vin.”

  Then whispered: “Condor.”

  Swirling warm blackness going g—

  18

  Say your life broke down.

  —Richard Hugo, “Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg”

  What have I done?

  Faye lay on the black sofa in someone else’s dark apartment. She lay absolutely still, as if that would stop time, as if her stillness could make the last two days disappear.

  Lay still and do not, DO NOT tremble or shake or vomit or cry.

  Or cry.

  A drinking glass stood sentry on the kitchen counter. The door’s peephole was an eye of distorted light above the chair pushed against that locked portal to buy a second, maybe two for her to not get killed, not get machine-gunned as she tried to rise from this black leather couch of darkness.

  Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter David Wood later that year would report that the most common medical trauma immediately suffered by American troops who survived com
bat in Iraq and Afghanistan translated into plain English as “deep sorrow.”

  What did I do? What did we do?

  Hostiles. The Opposition. A wet team targeting her and Condor.

  That’s who they were in the subway battle.

  Not our guys doing their job, my job, doing their duty, their righteous duty.

  Playback:

  Nobody shouts “Police!” or “Federal agents!” or “Freeze!” Ambush or oversight?

  The woman on the escalator shot Condor first—but with a Taser, nonlethal.

  Not a classic hit. A snatch move? The first-choice neutralization?

  Condor shoots her, and I …

  The black man draws, shoots at me … with a silencer-rigged pistol.

  You don’t use a silencer to take prisoners.

  Shot him dropped him he didn’t die. Not from me.

  The team at the top of the escalator stairs threw bullets at us, not selecting who they hit, friendly fire killing their own team member. They didn’t care about containing and covering everything as an Eyes Only secret. Taking us out had—has—a higher priority than the cost of any casualties or chaos.

  The gunner the train hit.

  The man I shot on the red-tile platform.

  Monkey Man blasted back into a subway car, roared away dead or alive.

  Sami said he’d pull our people—No: said he’d do what he could. He’s the man, the guru, the go-to guy, so if he could, he would, he trusts—trusted me that much.

  So if not Sami … It’s them. Whoever they are.

  And if then it was or if now it’s become Sami … We are so fucked. Dead.

  What happened to my life, when did the fall-apart start: Paris?

  Or with Chris?

  When you let yourself have something to lose, you do.

  Faye stared at the bedroom holding Condor and Merle behind a closed door.

  Bring him in safe, yes, call it an objective, but the mission, her mission was to nail who killed her partner, who was trying to kill her, who made her kill.

  What’s worth all this?

  My life. What I pledge it to by what I do.

  A deep breath flowed into her, pushed her breasts against the bulletproof vest and suddenly she felt like an anaconda was squeezing her ribs, the giant snake crushing her and breathe, just breathe, got to—

  Faye stopped her hyperventilating.