The Takedown

Chapter 16

16

What have you done?” is Gail’s first question.

I’m speeding back home in the Prius, hoping to find Calla there. The phone’s cradled between my shoulder and my ear, and a spike of anxiety has settled somewhere in the region of my entire body. “Wish you’d called me last night. Or this morning. Or any other time, Gail. This isn’t really a good time.”

“Oh, when would be a better time for you, then, going forward? When should I pencil you in for a nice chitchat?” The other end of the line crackles. It sounds like Gail is in traffic somewhere, the hum rushing by. “Because I think we should probably talk about what just happened at the ice-skating rink. What did you say to Calla?”

I make a tight left onto Main Street, heart palpitating. “Is it customary for the FBI to tail their own agents?”

“I wouldn’t call it a tail.”

“Do anything interesting lately, then? Go on any boats?”

“You can say what you want about the party, but I was in the area—and our last conversation had left me feeling unsettled.”

“You just happened to be in rural, seaside Maine.”

“Exactly.”

“Just like you happened to be on vacation in Finland,” I snort out, carving a right into my neighborhood.

“Well, that was true.” She blares her horn at someone, the sound ringing in my ear. “And it’s not a crime to worry about the people under my command. You were acting more roguishly than I would’ve liked, so I came to see how you were getting on, yes. How are you getting on, Sydney?”

In response, I skid mildly on a patch of black ice, nearly taking out a mailbox wreath, and then I’m home. Back home. The Escalade isn’t parked in the driveway. No tire marks. Only fresh snow. Where the hell is Calla? She could’ve texted Johnny by now. Could’ve called him. Or potentially, worse, she’s leaving him two days before the wedding, when I’ve yet to gather enough ironclad evidence against him, which means that Johnny can track her uninhibitedly. Outside of prison. Hunt her down. I think I might... Yep, a dry heave racks my belly. I retch.

“Did you tell your sister?” Gail asks.

Retch.

“Sydney, did you tell your sister ?”

Double retch.

“That was not the protocol!” Gail warns on the other end. “That was expressly against everything I told you. I have worked too hard and too long for everything to go up in flames like this. If she tips off Johnny, it’s all over . Do you understand me? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money. You might as well have thrown all that cash in an incinerator. Years and years of work, gone. Not to mention the residual effects, the pain you’re inevitably causing to every further person who Johnny’s thugs hold up at gunpoint. I was calling to tell you that your intel paid off. We rooted out the mole, Vinny’s FBI contact, and he’s given us everything: They’re planning on attacking an armored vehicle carrying over seven million dollars’ worth of untraceable bills, much like the Loomis Fargo Heist of 1997.”

That comes out of nowhere. “And you... believe this guy?” I breathe.

“It all fits,” Gail says with a clipped edge. “The gift shop Johnny called, it’s within a mile of the armored vehicle’s path, and the vehicle will be cruising by at ten a.m. on Christmas Day. We haven’t been able to locate the getaway car—the van Johnny spoke about—but clearly that’s where they’ll load all the cash. We’ve informed the bank and will stock phony bills in the armored vehicle; the drivers will be federal agents. But... Jesus Christ , Sydney. If Calla tips them off, then I wouldn’t be surprised if the Joneses pull back on the whole endeavor. We’ll lose them. We will lose them, and—”

“What about the C4?” I interject, shaky. This doesn’t... this doesn’t fully fit. “Where would they use that?”

“Pisgah River Bridge, on the north side of the gift shop. That’s what we’re thinking. There’s a police station right by the bridge, so law enforcement wouldn’t be able to access the site of the crime. Not immediately. Harder to give chase.”

“But fifty pounds of C4? That could blow up twelve bridges.”

There’s a quick pause as Gail regroups, and I fish out a napkin from one of the cup holders, wiping the sweat from my forehead. “Sydney, just... did Calla give any indication of what she might do next?”

“She said...” Close to hyperventilation, I take an unsteady sip from a day-old can of cold brew. “She said she was going to try and prove me wrong.”

“Well, that’s perfect. That is just perfect. Obviously, she’s still going to be loyal to Johnny. You don’t get engaged to someone and drop your feelings for them two minutes and a Christmas cookie later. Honestly, Sydney, how did you see that playing out in your mind?”

“Better,” I choke out, backing up the Prius again. Where might Calla have gone, if not our house? Where did she use to run off to when we were kids? “Gail, have you tracked the Escalade yet? Flagged any outgoing calls from Calla’s cell phone?”

“I will,” Gail says, stern, like a tough mother. “But you’re off the case, Sydney.”

Unsurprising. This is unsurprising. My throat constricts anyway. I still have this horrible, nagging feeling that we’re missing something. “Gail, please , don’t—”

“In a way, this is all my fault. I never should’ve placed you in a situation where your judgment was going to be tainted. This was almost inevitable. It was too much.”

Another dry heave threatens to build as I tear out of my neighborhood again. “I promise, once I find Calla—”

“Once you find her, what? Hmm? What happens then? Turn around, pack up your things, I’ll email you a plane ticket back to DC. Domestic flight. Keep up the charade. I know it’s two days before Christmas, but I’m sure there’s something available in coach if we—”

“You think I’m just going to leave her?” I spit out. “Just shoot that information at her and peace out two days before Christmas, right before she gets implicated in the Joneses’ worst attack yet?”

Gail seems to consider this heavily. “I think, Sydney, that if you truly cared about your sister as much as you say you do, you would probably have known she was getting married in the first place.”

Speechless, I jam on my brakes at the stoplight.

“Plane ticket,” Gail repeats. “Promise me you’ll get on the flight before you do any more damage.”

Head shaking. “No.”

“Sydney.”

“I’m staying. You can kick me off the mission, but you can’t kick me out of my family.”

I almost hear Gail purse her lips, deliberating. Wondering if she should argue with that logic. “Well, it’s your holiday,” she grunts out, making the last word sound like funeral .

—

I call Calla’s cell phone. It goes directly to voice mail. Eight times in a row. On the final call, I leave a message, circling around the parking lot of the saltwater taffy store where Calla and I used to buy candy after school; we both had a big sweet tooth. “Cal?” my voice croaks over the line. “It’s me. Sydney. Obviously... I know I just dropped a lot on you. The most on you. Ever. But please call me back as soon as you can and let me know where you are. I can come get you, and you don’t have to speak to me. You don’t have to speak to me ever again if you don’t want to, even though that would kill me, but I just need to know that you’re safe, and you’re going to be all right...”

I disconnect the call, shout “ Fuck! ” and slam my hands against the steering wheel. A trio of holiday shoppers, traipsing out of the saltwater taffy store, give me the eye. Deservedly. At this point, I’m twelve taffies short of a box, and I’m running out of places in town to check for Calla’s rental car. Could be that she’s left Cape Hathaway entirely. When I tried the “Find My Friends” phone option, I discovered that she’d disabled that function. Because of me? Because of Johnny? Did she go back to Boston? Leave the state?

What’s going through your mind, Calla?

Besides the one hundred obvious things, like, My sister Sydney is a traitor . The worst of the worst. Just like Dad. How could I have been just like Dad?

The Prius accelerates once I hit the road by the beach, waves rising, almost crashing against the sidewalk. All the motel owners have decorated their roofs with strings of lights, half-battered by the storm, still glinting under sliding heaps of snow, and I wonder if Calla’s checked herself in somewhere. My neck cranes, glancing into all the driveways, looking for the shadowy vehicle tucked into one of the bays. Nothing. No car at the grocery store, either. No car at the gas station or the lobster pound or the nail salon or the lobster-pound-nail-salon. I haven’t even begun to process what this means for my career. My career is insignificant.

By now, my CIA handler will know.

His boss will know.

His boss’s boss will know.

And I’m thinking about that Swedish night train, less than a week ago, how I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered if I was happy. Happy people rarely ask themselves if they’re happy. If I’m honest—truly, truly honest with myself —I think this career is killing me. I think I wanted to hide, wanted to protect myself in all the secrecy, but my god, is this how I pictured my life? Speeding down a side road two days before Christmas, searching for my AWOL sister, while I’m personally trying to put her fiancé behind bars?

And before that. Even before that. The all-night sessions poring over the computer, kicking myself, telling myself that if I miss a single shred of intelligence , people will die. And it will be my fault. Your fault, Sydney . All the meeting assets in shitty bars, coming home alone to an empty apartment, spending weekends in solitude if I get a weekend at all. What would it have been like? To come home this Christmas for me . To buy seven different types of goat cheese at the grocery store and watch Die Hard —at least twice—with my sister. For the last two years, I’ve been fantasizing about it. Leaving the CIA. Undoing my choice. Rolling off an assignment and just...

Just what?

When I pictured the future before this holiday, it was suspiciously blank. Now little glimpses of it are forming. Tiny fragments. I could adopt a dog. Walk my dog. Call my sister on the phone. Maybe call Nick on the phone. Be available. Visit my family, who I’ve missed... and shit , now I’m crying. My throat clogs up, hot tears streaming down the sides of my cheeks as I wrench up the phone again, swerving into a space in the lighthouse parking lot. The South Harbor Light glows in the background, a beacon, a warning, green Christmas garland wrapped all around it.

Dad used to take me here to watch the boats come in, come back home.

I dial Calla’s number one last time.

“Hey,” I say after her automated voice. My teeth are almost chattering. “Me again. I should have said... I should have said a lot of things, and done almost everything differently, but I need you to know that I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry, Calla. I thought I wasn’t like Dad at all, and I can’t believe that I didn’t really see that, because it was right in front of me... Just like you were right in front of me, and I put my own grief first. You deserved more of me.” Here, my voice cracks, a split right down my throat. “From here on out, I promise to be completely honest with you. No secrets. I’ll tell you everything. Okay? That’s it. I know your voice mail is probably going to fill up, so I won’t leave you a million messages, but I just... I just need you to know how much I love you, Calla Lilly. That will never, ever—”

Another spike of pain in my throat.

“Change,” I finish, dropping the phone.

—

By the time I return home, it’s dark, just after 4 p.m., the sky a purple bruise. No one has plugged in the window reindeer, so there’s no slightly risqué jig to greet me. Even the reindeer doesn’t feel like dancing. One of the strings of Christmas lights has fallen, dangling off the roof like a villain at the end of the movie. Once again, the Escalade isn’t in the driveway. Inside, it’s even quieter. No Christmas music. No Squirrel Nut Zippers holiday album blaring from the record player.

Where’s Grandma Ruby? Nick?

Johnny answers my unspoken questions. He’s perched on the kitchen countertop, by the fridge, his legs swinging down. “They went to pick up some lobster,” he says, and I half jump out of my skin. Only the kitchen island lights are on, the rest of the house plunged into darkness. Has he been waiting for me? That’s my first thought. Johnny has been waiting for me to come home. That’s why he’s hung back.

In the laundry room, I slowly unzip my parka, clunking the snow off my boots—then tiptoe forward, closer. “And Sweetie Pie?”

“Went along for the ride,” Johnny says, his voice totally light. So airy and smooth. “Thought I’d stay here and see if you came back with Calla... but it looks like she isn’t with you?”

Breathe, Sydney. Breathe normally . “No, she actually said something about going to the spa. Before the wedding. To unwind. Get a massage.”

“The spa,” Johnny says, unblinking, neutral. Why is he sitting on the countertop? He looks like a twelve-year-old boy playing at being a crime lord.

“I was encouraging her,” I roll on, hanging my parka over the breakfast table chair. Wetness drips to the tile floor, and I un-puddle it with my sock, a quick swipe of my foot. Casual. “There’s a really good one just over the state line. Wentworth by the Sea? Facials, manicures, everything bridal. You said she should get her nails done.”

“And you didn’t go with her?”

Keep lying. Dig in . “I’m not really a manicure type of person.”

Johnny curls his fingertips over the edge of the countertop, gripping. “Any idea when she’ll be back? Because I’ve been calling her. She isn’t answering her phone.”

“They make you turn your phone off. Phones aren’t relaxing.” Speaking of not relaxing, the vibe between us has immeasurably soured. Some might call it downright menacing. In fact, if I wasn’t a trained CIA officer—just a sister, home for Christmas—I would be heart-poundingly afraid of him. A darkness has cascaded over his face, pupils blacking out his eyes. The smart thing would be to make another excuse and shuffle right out of the house. Wait for my grandma in the driveway. Tell her to run. But my wheels are turning. Nick said he’s bugged my room. If I can get Johnny to threaten me on tape, if I can get him to admit that he’s threatened people, like FBI officers, for his “business” before...

Split-second decision.

I take off in the direction of the stairs. A full-out, suspicious sprint.

“What the—?” I hear Johnny mutter as he slides down from the countertop, bootsteps pounding after me. My hand barely trails over the garland-wrapped banister, flecks of blood-red glitter rubbing off on my fingertips, my other arm pumping. “Sydney!”

To my room. My old bedroom. Closed-off space. Let him corner me. Let him think I’m powerless. Whipping inside, nearly slipping on the hallway rug, I jam the door shut, pretending to fiddle with the handle, as if it won’t lock, dammit! Right on schedule, Johnny’s shoulder slams against the door, thrusting it open, and I stagger back. Baiting him. Breathing hard.

“I don’t think we were finished with that conversation,” Johnny grunts, chest close to heaving. “Do you?” One hand behind him, he clicks the door shut, locks it. So that’s how you lock a door! Takes a man to do it. “I just think it’s really funny how, moments after I see you and Calla having an argument where I’m reading your lips and see the word Johnny , she just... disappears!” He laughs dryly at this, advancing, his fingers running over the back of one of my ceramic dog figurines; he picks up the Doberman with the broken paw, examining it, as if he’s about to smash it against the dresser.

“I told you,” I say, backing up even farther, until my spine is flat against the bookshelves. A miniature elf rests somewhere near my ear, one of his eyes replaced with the tiniest recording device, and it doesn’t take much acting to sound nervous. I am. Not nervous that he’ll hurt me. If he tries anything, I think that’ll turn out very badly for him. But I’m trying to lead us down exactly the right conversational path. “She’s a little stressed about the wedding, and as her maid of honor, I thought—”

Another laugh from Johnny. “You thought it’d be better if she spent some time away from me, is that it? Haven’t exactly warmed to me, have you, Sydney?” Harmlessly, he sets the Doberman back on the dresser, other paws intact—but he still takes another few steps closer to me, the muted sound of his boots stamping across the hardwood. “I thought we had an understanding, you and I.”

“An understanding?” That actually confuses me.

“First night. Over drinks,” Johnny clarifies. “When Calla was telling the story of how we met. Funky Pete’s. Throwing clay. And you—” He wags his finger at me. “You didn’t say it was a good story. You just... sat there. I’m a very perceptive person. I thought, if she stays out of my way, I’ll stay out of hers. Even got Nick to keep an eye on you to make sure you didn’t fuck this up.”

I stop the gulp in my throat. It’s painful. It burns. “You told Nick to watch me?”

Johnny smirks, and it is not the smirk of a man who sings Mariah Carey Christmas karaoke, or a man who gleefully admits how much he loves mashed potatoes. He flips like a switch. Or, I guess, like a switchblade . “Why do you think he’s been following you around like a sentimental asshole? That’s not Nick.”

I bite out words. “Are you sure?”

“You’ve known him for how long? Three days?”

Johnny’s enjoying this, toying with me. As I wanted him to. But I didn’t think we’d go in this direction. I didn’t think we’d be here. Nick. Sentimental asshole. Following me around . Maybe my grandmother didn’t tell Nick to keep an eye on me, like he said that first night; maybe it was always Johnny. That doesn’t really matter, though. We’re past that.

“Doesn’t matter,” I say, underlining the words in my head.

A sharp little laugh from Johnny. “Doesn’t it? Because that’s Nick to a T . Picks out some girl at a bar, tells her she’s special, tells her he’s special.” A tendon ticks in his jaw, like he’s about to reach out and bite me. Go in for the kill. “Did Nick feed you that line about CSIS?”

Panic wooshes past my ears. Suddenly, the ocean’s in there. Humming. Crashing against me. What did he just say?

Johnny licks the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. “Yeah, it always works. ‘I’ll protect you like I protect my country.’ All that bullshit. Takes out his badge and women lap it up.”

What the... What in the...?

I shake my head, not processing, swimming, drowning—but still gripping on to my cover. “Wait, I don’t... what’s CSIS?”

Johnny gives me a slapable smirk. “Oh, so Nick didn’t use that line on you? That’s too bad. Guess he only pulls that one out when he wants to close the deal. Maybe you were easy.”

Scorching heat travels through my belly, a sloshing feeling invades my brain, and I... I don’t... I don’t want to believe it, but...

Oh fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.

Betrayal feels like this. It feels like being sixteen years old and waiting in a driveway; it feels like standing alone but barely standing. At The Farm, you learn how to crash through a barrier at one hundred miles an hour, vehicle smashing through concrete. You pick the weakest spot. You pick the middle, the heart, the point where the concrete bows, the space that’s already cracked. And you drive right there, strike there. That’s what Nick’s done, hasn’t he?

He has, hasn’t he.

Because there are only two possibilities here. Either Nick isn’t affiliated with the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service—and, oh god , never has been—or he’s Johnny’s man on the inside. That’s a double cross, no matter how you spin it. And I... how could I have been so fucking stupid? My mouth dries as I think about all the questions I never asked. All the assumptions I made. Things like... Nick’s badge. Christ, the badge . Why the fuck would he carry that on an undercover mission? How was that even remotely believable? And he... he said he took the GPS tracker off Johnny’s car. I thought that was to protect me, to avoid suspicion, but what if it was to avoid tracking ? He literally got himself stabbed for the man! And the wire. Nick didn’t want me to wear a wire to the bachelorette party. Of course he didn’t. Of course he didn’t!

Gail’s words come back and pierce my skin: Don’t fall for the target. The target could lie to you. The target could manipulate you. The target could fuck you against a dresser, and say, You’re not unknowable, Sydney , and you would be so far gone, so—

Johnny sniffs. “Nick is more loyal to me than anyone. If I asked him to shoot someone in the middle of the street, he would.”

“You do that often?” I manage to grit out, jaw clamping. I feel like if I clench myself together enough, I won’t completely fall apart—but I’m the concrete barrier. I’m the concrete. And Nick has found my weakest spot.

I told him. I told him about my dad. I told him about everything, and I let him in.

At my words, Johnny quirks his head to the side, moonlight streaming through my window blinds. A shard of it slashes over his five o’clock shadow, the whitish-blond bristles along the edge of his face. Coming one last step closer to me, he pauses, raising a hand above my head and placing it on the bookshelf. It’s a stomach-churning movement. A power pose. I stand my ground as he breathes into my face. Cinnamon chewing gum lolls around his mouth. “Now why would you ask a thing like that?”

My response is immediate, cold, even though I’m thinking Nick, Nick, Sidekick Nick . Everything he told me. Everything. All the lies. “Why would you say a thing like that?”

Johnny’s eyes flit over my face, probably deliberating. “You should know,” he says, acid in his voice. “This is a mutually assured destruction type deal. You take me out of the picture, and I take you down harder. I grind you into the floor.”

It’s so quiet, you could hear a snowflake drop between us, but just then, bells jingle downstairs—Grandma Ruby traipsing inside. Nick, chuckling.

God. Nick. The sound of his voice is a sledgehammer.

“Sydney?” my grandma calls up the stairs, her tone merry and bright. “You here? Come help us unpack! We bought more charcuterie!”

Johnny drops his hand with a gruff, humorless laugh. “That’s your cue, Sydney Bean. Let me know if your sister calls, yeah?”