Chapter 46
VANGUARD
In the morning, I tell Mia about Danny’s call.
We’re in the kitchen, Mia wrapped in her robe, at the table while I make coffee.
In the background, the laundry machine spins with her dirty clothes.
My Vanguard suit is dry but I dug around in the closets and found a pair of jeans that are a little too short and tight but comfortable enough, plus a cream cabled fisherman’s sweater where the sleeves go halfway up my forearms. I don’t want to put back on my uniform unless I have to.
She listens without interrupting, her face pale and drawn, and when I’m finished she’s quiet for a moment.
“What if Julia is alive?” she finally says.
I shrug. “I wouldn’t count on it. I think the whole company would collapse if they knew she was dead, they’re probably holding that information classified for now.”
“Then who is calling the shots?”
“I don’t know.”
She scrunches up her nose, though the movement looks like it pains her. “How can you not know? You’ve been with that company forever.”
“I only know Marsh, Julia, and few others that aren’t that important.
You know them, media people, specs people, IT people, other doctors, but none of them have the power that they did.
Shit, I only met Elron Masters once. I’m sure he’s about to appoint someone to come forward and lead but I have no idea who that could be. Honestly.”
Though as I say it, I can’t help but think of my dreams, those fragments of the doctor with the mustache, the one who told me he was sorry as I lay there on the operating table.
I still have no idea who that person was, but I no longer think he is a figment of my imagination the way that Julia wanted me to think.
How many lies was she keeping from me?
What else is there that I don’t know?
“Besides,” I say to Mia as I sip my coffee. It tastes like shit and there’s no cream but it will do. “You said she was dead.”
She has a sip of her black coffee and makes a face. “I did. I kissed her and she started reacting to it right away before she collapsed. It takes four minutes until they’re dead.” She glances at my face. “Sorry. I know…I know she….”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I tell her. “You did what you had to do. And if you say your kiss kills, I believe you. Julia Van Veen is dead, which means we have a little bit of time to figure out what to do next. First thing’s first though, I think we should see what they’re telling the public.”
We find a television in the living room—an old flatscreen, dusty from disuse—and I turn on the news while Mia curls up on the couch.
We watch for hours. At first we try Global Prime, which is Global Dynamix’s network, then various other networks, we even hold our noses and turn on the conservative ones for a moment before switching to local channels, then Al Jazeera, CBC, the BBC.
Nothing about Global Dynamix except a story here and there about new tech.
Nothing about Marsh or Van Veen. Nothing about a security breach at a facility in New Jersey.
There isn’t even anything about Vanguard, but I guess I haven’t really been newsworthy lately.
“They’re suppressing it,” Mia says.
“For now. They can’t keep it quiet forever. Dead bodies always rise to the surface, eventually.”
But by evening, there’s still nothing. We eat dinner in front of the television—more canned soup, crackers, the dregs of a box of stale cereal—and we watch the same stories cycle past. A late-season hurricane in Florida.
Political scandals in Washington. Celebrity gossip that feels like it’s from another planet.
Nothing about us.
Mia falls asleep on the couch around midnight. I carry her to bed, and lie beside her without touching, and I listen to the voice in my head whisper things I can’t quite make out.
The next morning, it’s everywhere.
“Breaking news this hour: Conrad Marsh, CEO of tech conglomerate Global Dynamix, has been found dead at a company facility in New Jersey. Details are scarce, but sources say Marsh was discovered early yesterday morning. Authorities are treating his death as an accident.”
I turn up the volume. Mia sits up beside me, her eyes fixed on the screen.
“—no official statement from Global Dynamix yet, though the company’s stock has plummeted in pre-market trading. Marsh, who took the helm of the defense giant in 2032, was a controversial figure known for his close ties to the previous administration—”
“They’re not mentioning you,” Mia says quietly.
She’s right. The report goes on for another five minutes—Marsh’s biography, his business dealings, speculation about who might succeed him, all people I haven’t heard of—but there’s no mention of Vanguard.
No mention of an attack on the facility, or that the death seemed suspicious, or even what kind of an accident it was.
No mention of a foreign operative or a manhunt.
And no mention of Julia.
“They know they’re losing control.” Mia pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
“If they announce that Marsh was killed, and it wasn’t an accident, then the stock plummets further.
If they mention Julia is also dead, the company might collapse.
And if they say what they really want to say, which is that Vanguard went rogue, killed the CEO, and CTO, and escaped with a British spy, it’s an absolute shitshow.
The entire stock market crashes, congressional investigations, everyone asking questions they don’t want answered.
But if it’s just a tragic death, a corporate mystery…
” She shrugs. “They can handle it internally. Hunt us down quietly. Keep the machine running.”
Which means pretty soon we’re going to have to start running.
But we can’t run until we know where we are going.
Winter has arrived.
I wake up the next day to find the world transformed by snow—just a light dusting, barely an inch, but enough to coat the deck and the dock and the trees along the lake in white.
The fall foliage was already spectacular, all reds and golds and deep burnt orange, and now it’s frosted like something out of a painting.
Mia is still asleep beside me. We’ve fallen into a pattern over the past days—her in the bed, me next to her but not touching, a careful distance maintained even in unconsciousness.
Every morning I wake up first and watch her breathe for a few minutes before I get up to make coffee. Once a creeper, always a creeper.
It’s domestic in a way that feels dangerous.
Like playing house in someone else’s life.
I mean, we are in someone else’s house. Actually, the Thompsons, according to some letters addressed to them.
I’m going to have to do something nice for them when we leave as a way of saying thanks for letting us use your house, though I’m at a loss as to what that could be.
I have more money than I know what to do with, but without that watch to pay for shit, I might as well be broke.
I’m going to have to go to a bank, with no ID, just the fact that I’m fucking Vanguard, and take out what I can in cash, which isn’t something I would normally do.
Barely anyone uses cash anymore and that’s going to look suspicious.
It reminds me of the system collapse that ushered in the Dark Decade, when the USD fell and cash became useless.
It’s risky, it will make the news, and Global will know where I am but, if I can do it right before we leave…
Mia stirs, rolls over and blinks up at me. The swelling on her one eye has gone down significantly, though the bruising has morphed to a spectacular yellow-green.
“Morning sunshine,” I say to her. “I have coffee for you.”
She carefully sits up and looks past my face to the window.
“It’s snowing,” she says brightly.
“Just a dusting. Probably melt by noon.”
“Well, I for one love snow. We don’t get enough of it in London.” She stretches, winces slightly—her ribs are still tender, will be for weeks—and then freezes when she sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She gives me a pointed look. “You don’t like snow, do you?”
I crack a smile at that. “You’ve got me there.”
“Come on, what is it?”
I let out a heavy exhale. “I’m just thinking about our next steps. I don’t have any cash and I know you don’t.”
“Yeah, Julia’s thugs grabbed my bag with everything in it,” she says, curling her lip into a sneer.
“And I don’t have my watch. We’re going to need money to survive, and I have a lot of it. I think if I flew into the nearest town and took out cash from the bank—”
“No,” she says, her eyes flashing. “Too risky.”
“I know, but it has to be done. I’ll do it right before we leave.” I pause, rubbing my lips together, thinking. “Of course, we don’t know where the fuck we’re going. You can hide anywhere, but can I?”
“About that,” she says, adjusting herself on the bed, causing the giant T-shirt she’s been wearing to sleep (compliments of the Thompsons) to slip off one shoulder. I don’t know what it is about me and her shoulders, but it shoots a hot spear of want inside me.
She catches me staring at her shoulder and I don’t even have the decency to look away.
She clears her throat and I meet her eyes. “I think I know where we can go.”
“Where? London? Believe it or not, people in your country actually like me.”
She raises a brow. “Are you basing that on the reception you had at Prince George’s gala?”
“Sure am. Everyone seemed to love me. Except you.”
I said it lightly, but her expression falls and she looks down, smoothing the duvet with her hands.
“So, tell me,” I say quickly, not wanting the moment to stretch. “Where can we go?”
She pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She looks young like this. Vulnerable.
“My father,” she says carefully. “As you know, he’s a scientist. What you don’t know is that he used to work for MI6.”
So it runs in the family.