Chapter 61
Pushing the Boulder Up to the Light
Evan was getting accustomed to luxury.
He was winging across the cloud-choked night somewhere above New Jersey. The red-eye flight would land him in Los Angeles Saturday morning.
The in-flight phone rang.
Aragón, of course: “Is everything to your liking?”
“Indeed.”
“Did you save the damsel in distress?”
“She saved herself. I just helped.”
“Did you kill the motherfucker?”
“Not this time.”
“Bah,” Aragón said. “Well, I suppose you can’t win them all.”
“Not even close.”
But Aragón had already hung up.
Evan settled back into the seat, let the foam receive him.
A thought wiggled its way into awareness.
He took out his RoamZone.
Stared at the blank screen for a moment.
Then he pulled up a picture of Joey.
He looked at it. Considered the faint movement occurring within his chest.
He called up another picture: Candy McClure, a surveillance shot he’d saved to her dossier.
The next one: Mia Hall.
And then Melinda Truong.
And then Naomi Templeton.
Quite a roguettes’ gallery.
He scrolled through them once more, faces shuffling by.
His heart rate was steady. Blood pressure low. Breathing even.
And yet.
His mouth had curled up ever so slightly at the edges.
Interesting data point.
Putting the phone away, he leaned back to sleep. Then he felt it, that twinge of the quadratus lumborum muscle in his left hip.
That’s what life was now. Pushing the boulder up to the light. And readying himself to do it again.
He unclipped the seat belt. Got down on the silk-cut pile carpet.
Private jets could be surprisingly roomy.
He did his asanas, working through the forms, loosening his body.
He ended up in good-morning stretch, toes pointing down, hands reaching the other way.
Then he cast his arms and legs jumping-jack wide and relaxed like that, belly breathing, pulling oxygen up into his lungs, filling his chest, a final resting pose.
Joints popped. Muscle released. Fascia stretched.
The power of the engines rumbled through the fuselage and into his bones.
The clock on the wall ticked to midnight.
February 14.
Not the first Valentine’s Day he’d spend alone. Wouldn’t be the last, either.
He was unsure where he was now, somewhere in the clouds above Pennsylvania, untethered from earth and whatever was above.
Soon he would be home, at least as close to home as he ever got.
Soon there would be another mission and then another and so it would go until he could not roll that boulder up the hill anymore.
Soaring along at forty thousand feet, each limb stretched toward a cardinal point, he held the resting pose.
A map and a bearing.
A signature and a destination.
In this suspended moment, a perfect X.