Chapter 16

A blinding moment of panic, then Faye mentally smacked herself. Not now. No hysteria. Not an option.. As she clamored for alternatives, the answer came resounding, echoing in her skull.

What would Xena do?

Instantaneously, she bit down as hard as she could on her assailant's hand. She tasted leather and smelled the scent of nervous sweat, not her own. The bite was not deep or hard, but it was enough to put the mysterious figure slightly off balance. Faye saw her opportunity and stomped down on his foot, spun around and forced her knee up into his groin. As the figure fell to the ground, she snapped on the light.

Her eyes, dazzled by the unaccustomed light, narrowed to a squint. She peered at the figure in disbelief, trying to make out his features through clouds of myopia.

"You?" she gasped. "What the f---?"

Mike lay on the floor, doubled over. Waves of nausea rolled over him as spasms shot from his groin up through the pit of his stomach and all the way to his shoulders. Hell, he even felt it in his scalp. Damn, he thought, absent-mindedly, That was a good one.

He looked up at Faye. Her small frame towered over him, floating in and out as the residual pains shot through him. Slowly, she came into focus. The disbelieving glower. The ragged t-shirt over baggy sweats. The battered pair of scissors grasped in her left hand. Just behind her, he spotted a framed photo of Xena, Warrior Princess. "Every Man's Fantasy. Every Enemy's Nightmare," the promotional caption screamed. And how, Mike thought.

"Mike, what are you doing?" she demanded.

He unclenched one fist and held up his open palm, silently requesting a few more minutes.

Her face shifted from anger to puzzled uncertainty. "Sorry," she interjected, only half-apologetically, "But you had it coming."

Finally, he pulled himself up and tried to stand. Faye pulled back instinctively, scissors still in hand.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you, but I didn’t know you were home. I thought it might be . . . someone else."

"Who the hell else would it be? I’m the only one here. My roommates went to Milwaukee," she blurted out, immediately regretting it. Xena never gave away vital information. A mental smack. "I was supposed to go with them, but I got a bad chicken sandwich at lunch." She grimaced.

"It’s just as well that they left. You should’ve too. This is not a good place to be right now." He paced to her bedroom window and ever-so-carefully peered out. "Will and Laura left town, right?"

"Yes," Faye nodded, relaxing a bit. "They left this afternoon, just before Christine and Holly took off." She put the scissors down. "But why are you here? And why did you break in?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Like I said, I didn’t think you would be here; and I didn't want to be seen coming in. I couldn't call ahead. This house is not secure."

"Secure? What do you mean secure? I know our wicked slum-lady comes and goes as she pleases when we're not here, but I think you’re being a little melodramatic."

Mike paused for a moment as if making a decision. His eyes shifted away, and then locked on her. "You’re under surveillance, alright? That's all I can say . . . "

Faye started to protest as Mike’s body suddenly tensed. His head snapped quickly to the side; his hand shot up to silence her. Without a word, he circled his arm about her waist and pulled her across the hall into the bathroom. Reaching back to snap off the light in the bedroom, he put his fingers to his lips. She nodded, confused but compliant.

He slipped quickly back into the bathroom and noiselessly slid back the shower curtain. Pulling her in, he crouched low down and gently pressed his fingers on her lips. She understood.

Moments later, they heard the sound of feet ascending the stairs, accompanied by a raspy, high-pitched stream of coquettish chatter. Faye felt Mike’s questioning look and leaned in close to his ear. "Mrs. K," she whispered. "Evil slum-lady. Lives downstairs."

Faye jumped involuntarily as she heard a key click into the lock. The front door slid open, and the stream of chatter became louder, the words distinct.

"I never do know what those girls are up to! It’s so unnerving. When you have strangers living about you, you just can’t be too careful. And they’re so quiet. That’s the worst of it. I can never tell what’s going on. How am I supposed to protect myself when I have strangers, practically living under my roof, and I can’t even tell what they are up to. . .?"

Leaning in conspiratorially, she batted her lashes at the stranger. "Well, I hope you find what you need. Those girls can be so difficult. And it’s hard when you’re a poor old lady, all alone. You’d think that some young people would be helpful, but not those girls. But you seem like a nice young man." She fluttered her lashes again and settled in for a renewed chatter.

"You’ve been very helpful." A deep baritone. A tone of finality. Mrs. K took a breath as if to start in again, but stopped abruptly. There was something in his looks. Those cold blue eyes. That chiseled profile. That pale, unearthly fair hair. A chill shot through her and she turned to go.

"You be sure to let me know if you . . ." His eyes went blank, and Mrs. K felt an odd shudder run through her. She trailed off and quickly scurried down the stairs.

Faye and Mike froze as they heard the quiet rustle of the landlady’s foot on the stair, punctuated by the door shutting at the bottom of the staircase. "O.K. let’s move," a deep unseen voice commanded.

Faye stifled a scream as hasty footsteps hammered throughout the flat. Mike leaned in close to Faye, protectively hovering around her. "There’s three of them," he whispered to her. "They’ve split up."

Faye cocked her head and understood. One headed to the living room at the front of the flat. She heard drawers slamming, wood cracking. Another whooshed past the bathroom door to the kitchen. She heard a crash of glass in the pantry, separated from the shower by one thin wall. The third turned into her bedroom. No!, she screamed inwardly, but only sighed.

*********

His car had long since skidded to a halt. The passengers trapped in the overturned car needed his help. He couldn’t pause. He had to act.

He couldn’t.

When he first saw the accident, the blaze of headlight rushing past him, David Nimoy had jammed on his brakes. His car skidded and slid to a stop, threatening the same catastrophe he had just witnessed. It spun around on the icy road, once, twice, only barely missing the mileage marker at the side of the road.

As it finally came to a rest, David’s hand instinctively went to the door handle. He pulled it and swung his long, thin legs out of the cramped economy vehicle, and hurtled his lanky frame to the overturned car. Then the realization dawned on him. He couldn’t. He couldn’t help. Horror washed over him.

He raced back to the middle of the road and scanned the horizon in all directions. The sky, impenetrably black, melted imperceptibly into earth. No lights. No towns. No help. He checked his watch. The face glowed out, 10:00pm. Way past bedtime out in the sticks. There would be no help.

Frozen immobile in the middle of the deserted highway, David scanned the sky. It had started to snow, tiny dust-like flakes, the sign of cold weather, and colder weather to come. It would only get worse.

David clasped his arms around himself and shook gently in the cold. How did he get here? How did this happen? And how could he get out?

David met Will a little over a year ago. It was at the after-party for one of Waterbury’s Halloween extravaganzas. Assuming the costume of the Phantom of the Opera, Waterbury swept through the multi-leveled confines of Transylvania Station, terrorizing and entertaining his guests, the finest of New York’s glitterati.

Will had worked at the theme restaurant since his arrival in New York one year before. He had expected to have moved on by then, or at least to have landed a role in some small but prestigious off-Broadway production. After twelve months of auditioning, mailing out photos and resumes and enacting the sensual horror of Count Dracula (while serving food and beverages), Will’s career was in a rut. He was disheartened, disillusioned and, worst of all, bored. Dangerously bored. He had hoped that working Waterbury’s party would at least serve as a pleasant distraction. And the double-overtime pay was welcome as well.

Thankfully, he had been given front-door duty. He hated waiting tables, and truth to tell, he wasn’t very good at it. But he was charming. Gregarious. Entertaining. The old ladies of the blue-haired set loved his enchanting old-world manners; the young children of the yuppie tourists cowered and giggled at his thrillingly evil laugh; and the beautiful boys from the village returned again and again to flirt and be flirted with. He had become a premier attraction. Management realized his talents were wasted on table duty. Put the charmer front and center. Money in the bank.

So that’s where Will was on All Hallows’ Eve, meeting and greeting, assuring the newcomers and latecomers that there was still ample room, that the party had only just begun. His usual spiel.

Then he saw him. The tall, impossibly young-looking man, hanging back from the crowd with an air of shy detachment. Slim and aristocratic, boyish and sweet, all at once. He had magnetic eyes, shy and evasive, light brown almost bordering on green, almost bordering on yellow. Impossible to describe. He held a small notebook in his hand and jotted some simple notes with long, thin, elegant fingers. Will felt like Basil Hallward gazing upon Dorian for the first time.

The crowd at the door swelled in, leaving him alone on the sidewalk with the young man. Will was mesmerized and unthinkingly held his breath.

David looked up from his notes and his eyes locked on Will’s. He quickly scanned left and right and then shyly moved toward him. "I don’t suppose," he started in, a twinkle of shy good humor dancing in his eerily lovely eyes, "I don’t suppose that one could find a way into this party without an invitation?"

Will tried to speak but the words logjammed at the back of his throat. He stepped aside and waved the young man in. With a quick glance to the street, he followed and shut the ornate gothic doors.

As he would later assure Will, David was entirely unaware of the immediate, gut-wrenching effect he had on his new lover. All he knew was that he needed to get into that party. As a free-lance journalist trying to get a foothold into an impossibly competitive field, he had to have an inside scoop. And the inside scoop on an exclusive, invitation-only Waterbury affair would certainly do the trick. David would later salve Will’s bruised ego by noting that he was, after all, in costume, and Dracula was never his type.

But the imbalance in attraction was very real, and ultimately, devastating. At least, that was how Will would have glossed it. David was never quite sure. Did Will really feel such an all-consuming passion for him, or did he simply enjoy believing he did? Even Will couldn’t say. All he knew was the power of the feeling, the desire, his concerted, focused attention on that all-consuming urge.

David, on the other hand, never felt such unalloyed feelings. Emotions, to him, were flickers, ephemeral and untrustworthy. He sometimes indulged in great waves of impulse, only later to find that he didn’t even know the person who felt them. He used to keep a journal. He would record the intense waves as they rolled over him. It was disconcerting later to go back and re-read these entries, as unrecognizable as alien excerpts inscribed by some foreign hand. He hated his own vacillation, his own uncertainty--his inevitable capacity to kill any strong emotion with analysis. When the wave of gut emotion had rolled past, he was left uncertain that it had happened at all. And the written record in his journal was all the more alarming, because it proved that the emotion had indeed existed. Eventually, he set aside the journal, and never picked it up again.

Six months they had. Six months Will pursued, David shyly acquiesced. He never gushed, he never affirmed. He merely . . . collaborated. He permitted worship, and unconsciously pushed every one of Will’s buttons that would assure that adoration continued. At odd moments, he became shockingly aware of the game, shockingly aware of his own half-unwitting, sadistic manipulation of circumstances--but only in retrospect. It was as if some unseen intelligence overtook him and dictated his almost heartless playing of Will--Will, whose own desires were entirely transparent, entirely visible to even the most casual of observers.

It hurt David to realize this. It hurt him to recognize and acknowledge his own ruthlessness, his own pettiness. He knew it would hurt Will to leave him, but that to stay with him was far, far crueler. So he knew he had to leave. Cruel to be kind, he ruefully told himself, sadly amused by his own banality.

That was six months ago. He disappeared into the cavernous anonymity of New York City, never to be seen again. He avoided Will’s usual haunts. He swore off romance, keenly aware of his own potential for destruction. Maybe it was only with Will that he wielded this terrible power, maybe not. It simply wasn’t worth the risk.

And he managed to stay away--until he heard from Vesper Shillington. Apparently, Vesper had been tracking his career. She had caught his feature on Waterbury’s Halloween fête. Waterbury’s PR department was enraged; Vesper was intrigued. Any young journalist who managed to talk his way past the door guard must be a man of considerable talents and ingenuity. She kept his name on file. And when she needed him, she had Shilah give him a call.

She knew nothing of his personal past with Will Gilbert, and David felt it prudent to keep that little detail in the dark. He accepted the assignment of covering Will’s and Laura’s sojourn because it was too lucrative and too important to turn down, and because it never entered his mind that he would have to face Will. He produced his articles under a pseudonym. He spied from afar. Once, just once, at the send-off party, Will had caught a glimpse of him, but not since. His cover hadn’t been blown. And it couldn’t be, if he was to complete his assignment.

So here he was, in the middle of a cold and desolate country highway, caught in his usual pose of vacillation. He couldn’t leave Will and Laura stranded, pinned in an overturned car. But he couldn’t destroy his career by revealing himself. Rock. Hard place. As usual.

In a fog of indecision, David paced back to his car. He stopped short before it and simply stared at the car, now turned toward the direction from which he had come, turned back on the journey. It would be all to easy to go where the car pointed, to abandon Will and Laura to their fate. As far as anyone knew, he didn’t exist. He didn’t know where the two had gone. He could turn back, as the car had already turned back.

As he stood by the side of the car, the snow continued to fall. The wind picked up, and the air grew perceptibly colder. David took a deep breath and made a decision. He knew there was no turning back. Only moving forward.

He entered his car, pulled a flashlight and first-aid kit from the glovebox, and ran to the overturned omega beside the road.

*************

Beads of sweat formed on Chad’s bare brow and rolled down the side of his face. Again. And again. And again. When he came to, Vesper was long gone. His head throbbed. The Gideon’s Bible still lay where she dropped it. Chad recalled the earlier events and began to pant harder and harder. He felt his skin go clammy, alternating with flashes of heat.

Just as hyperventilation was beginning to set in, he was jarred from his panic by a loud crack. The door of the hotel room burst inward, kicked in by some unseen foot. Chad squealed uncontrollably.

A bull-necked man strode into the room. "Shut up!" he hollered coarsely at Chad, brutally tossing a chair aside. "I said SHUT UP!!!"

Chad whimpered and bit down on his lip to stop the sound. He sized up the man. Coarse, brutal, powerful. And oddly . . . familiar. But from where?

"Untie him," Bull-neck barked.

A man in Armani languidly sauntered to the bed and insinuated himself on the edge. He smiled sardonically at Chad. As he reached to untie him, a diamond pinkie ring flashed from his left hand. Chad winced automatically. "Well, this is quite a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, isn’t it." He giggled.

Bull-neck glared at Armani, whose face immediately shifted to neutral. He finished untying Chad.

Chad sat upright and pulled the sheet around himself. He rubbed his wrists and looked questioningly from one man to the other. Armani had moved to the window and was keeping an eye on the street. Bull-neck stood between him and the door. No way out.

"So, Mr. Bismarck. Do you even have the least idea why this happened to you?" Bull-neck asked, legs spread and arms akimbo.

Chad opened his mouth to speak, but Bull-neck cut him off. "You were sloppy. Shillington doesn’t like sloppy. Do you think you can avoid being sloppy in the future?"

Chad started to speak and thought better of it. He nodded, open-mouthed and slack-jawed.

"Good," Bull-neck said impassively as Armani snickered. Bull-neck shot him a look and Armani’s face went slack once again. "Maybe you can work with us then. Would you like that?"

Chad nodded again, silent.

"Good. Let’s start with . . . Takamoto."

*********

Mike and Faye remained huddled in the shower as the marauders continued their sweep. Sounds of destruction filled the air as fabric ripped and furniture was overturned. With each crash, Faye burrowed in closer to Mike. Thank God he was here. Thank God she was not alone.

But, she mused, why was he here? He never really answered her questions. This ain’t no geologist, she told herself, That’s for damn sure. But Faye was not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth. And, to echo back Will’s earlier assessment, Agent M had saved her bacon. No questioning that.

A blinding flash, and Faye’s eyes dazzled. Someone had switched on the bathroom light. She caught her breath with a sharp intake of air, just short of a gasp. She felt Agent’s M’s grip in her arm tighten. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she began to make out his slow, deliberate movement. He free hand slowly, almost unperceptibly, crept downward to his hip. What has he got? Faye wondered. A gun? She shivered at the thought of a shoot-out gone wrong. She couldn’t breathe.

A crash followed, tumbling glassware, the splash of tonics and mouthwash. A clean, minty scent, oddly refreshing through the terror. He’s searching the shelves, Faye thought.

"Wait," a voice boomed, so close to her ear Faye almost screamed. "Get a look at this!" The pounding of feet responded, and Faye felt the bathroom fill with the unseen intruders. "What the hell is this doing in the bathroom?" Mike shot a questioning look at Faye; she shrugged a response.

"I mean, it’s a bathroom for Christ’s sake. Why would you decorate with a movie poster. Flowers, I could see. Tasteful prints. But ‘Rebel Without a Cause’? That’s just weird."

A moment of silence, and then a muffled thud. "Ooof," an inarticulate cry. "Focus! We don’t have time" was the laser-sharp rejoinder, followed by the tattoo of footsteps on tile then the dulled tread of feet on carpet.

Faye slowly released her breath, noiselessly, as some unseen hand continued to scour the small bathroom. Just as her muscles began to untense, she watched Mike tighten to rigidity, his eyes snapped upward.

Three fingers, black-gloved, had slid into the crack between the shower curtain and the tiled wall. Slowly they began to grasp the rubberized fabric. The curtain slid a few millimeters. It’s over, Faye thought.

Suddenly, a voice broke through and halted the fingers. It came from her bedroom.

"In here!" the voice proclaimed. "It’s here."

Faye felt Mike pull away from her and lean forward on his knees. They heard the staccato of footsteps from opposite ends of the flat.

"Here’s the file." There followed some muttered questions, accompanied by the rustle of paper.

"Are you sure?"

"The place is clean otherwise. And the package has left the building. Time to rendezvous with red delta leader. He may have an additional carry-on bag."

"Agreed."

Silence, and then a thunder of feet on thick carpet, followed by the slam of the front door. Faye stirred to move, but Mike held her in place, and as if on cue, the front door opened again. One set of footsteps, halting abruptly before the bathroom door. Suddenly, the bathroom light switched off. Faye and Mike were left darkling.

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