Shadow Knight's Mate (13 page)

Why would you say such a thing, if you were such a loner? How did you even notice?

That was my mutant power,
Jack said. It was the first thing like a joke he had said in this interview, but his voice remained flat.
I couldn't stop it. I just knew what people were feeling. I overheard conversations even if I didn't try. And I couldn't stop myself from trying to make someone feel better. I couldn't not say something. Sometimes it worked, sometimes Sally would smile secretly for the rest of the day. Sometimes she or someone like her would just stare at me like I was a freak. But my teacher noticed. A gamester with dual-track thinking and underground social skills caught the attention of my fifth-grade teacher, who happened to be one of us. Or actually Them, at the time. She pulled some strings and I was sent to Bruton Hall, a prep school. That's where my real education took place. I suppose Bruton's been destroyed too?

Yes,
the interviewer said flatly. Then she wrote in her notebook. Jack coughed slightly and looked away, though he remained expressionless otherwise.

Of course the Chair had been right. Jack couldn't get rid of Arden. So he grudgingly accepted her company, or appeared to do so. They took her blue Continental, and Jack caught a lightly-travelled state highway, heading southeast. After a couple of miles Arden said, “You probably didn't hear her, but Granny suggested you head due east. And I believe the nearest large airport is southwest, in Albuquerque.”

Jack didn't answer. After another mile Arden said, “I can understand why you'd do the opposite of what she says, just because she said it. Maybe that's what she intended, you know?”

“Yes I do.” In the rear-view mirror was a slowly-gathering, beautiful sunset. Jack kept looking back at it, making Arden turn to stare, until he finally stopped the car on the side of the road. They stood there not speaking for ten minutes, until the last brilliant colors suddenly fell out of the sky, then Jack kept driving.

By the time they reached Texas by then, and the night grew black and glittery, until a streak of stars was blotted out as something flew overhead, not very high above them, but so fast they couldn't follow it. Jack stopped the car again and stared, but there was nothing to be seen. Arden stood beside him. “Rocket?”

Jack was thinking about diverting to New Mexico. The Circle maintained a lab near Roswell, and Jack knew they must be working on the possibility that these flights were of extraterrestrial origin. Maybe they'd made contact years ago, maybe the aliens were already among us.

That would explain Arden.

“What?” she asked about his smile, and Jack was glad to know he'd had a thought she hadn't read.

From the airport in Lubbock, Texas, he called home. Arden stood close enough that she could hear both sides of the
conversation on his cell phone.

“Hi, Mom. Just called to see how you're doing. Happy Mother's Day.”

“Mother's Day is six months away, Jack.”

“Well, I'll probably forget it when it comes, so I wanted to say it while I was thinking of it.”

“Thank you, son. And happy Earth Day to you.”

Arden could hear Jack's own tones in his mother's light, lilting voice, and wondered if he could.

“Are you by yourself, Jack? Have you met a nice girl yet?”

Jack glanced at Arden. “No, not any
nice
girls. Besides, Mom, I've been telling you for years. I'm gay.”

“Oh, Jack, if only I could believe that. If I thought there was a chance of you settling down with some nice young man, you don't know the peace of mind that would bring me.”

“All right, I'll bring him by the next time I come home. Listen, Mom, he's Thai, is that okay?”

“Jack, I'm so proud. Because I brought you up to love everyone and have no prejudices. Except of course against the Portugese. Not one of them can be trusted.”

“And I've never forgotten that,” he said.

Then Jack walked a few steps away from Arden. She gave him the privacy, but noted from his shoulders and head that the conversation with his mother grew more serious. He turned back toward her as he said goodbye, and put his phone away.

Neither of them said anything until they stood in front of a board announcing departing flights. This was a small, regional airport, their choices were limited. “Dallas or Houston?” Arden asked, as if they were about the same.

Jack stood lost in thought for a moment, as if doing a math problem in his head, then led the way to a ticket-dispensing machine and bought two tickets to Houston. The flight was without incident, but Jack's mind was filled with that plane, or rocket, that he hadn't quite seen, so fast it could have been created by imagination. It remained that way in his thoughts: just ahead, eluding even his mental vision, until it dropped over the horizon.

“I wonder where it landed,” Arden said. “I wonder what it dropped.”

Jack was wondering something else. “If the President is doing what they demanded, why are they launching another attack?”

Houston Intercontinental Airport is vast, a city. Jack got lucky. The airport lived up to its name: there was one flight to London leaving in two hours. A late flight, overnight, which left them walking the airport for only half an hour or so.

Arden asked questions about their destination, and Jack answered evasively or not at all, until she stopped. The Chair had known what she was doing, and Jack had known what she was doing too. These attacks on him might be unrelated to the larger problem, but they had to be resolved. He needed to be away from the Circle until they figured out who was trying to kill him.

Also, of course, Gladys Leaphorn didn't trust him. Not only had Jack been attacked, he had been seen in places he had no explanation for being, countries where he had denied setting foot in recent times. Maybe the Chair believed him, maybe she didn't, but she wanted him gone. With Arden watching him.

At some point he would have to ditch Arden, but he couldn't do that too soon. When it was time for Jack to bolt it would be full-out, and he wasn't ready to do that yet.

At a concourse intersection in the terminal was an old New England pub, authentic in no details. Jack and Arden sat at a table just inside its doors, eating limp salads and watching people go by, when suddenly Jack bolted upright. The next moment he was gone. Arden barely had time to grab her purse and catch up to him. Jack was moving fast but not calling attention to himself, glancing at his watch like a man late for a plane. But then he ducked behind a pillar and looked out. Arden just stood in the terminal, staring in the same direction but seeing nothing to alarm her. Jack pulled her back.

“See that man? The one at the water fountain. Now he's turning. Look.”

She looked. Then she stared. Across the
way
was a man in rumpled,
faded
denim and matching jacket. He wore an elaborate
wristwatch and a cell phone holster. His light brown hair appeared on both his head and his cheeks, which were stubbled, perhaps deliberately, perhaps from long travel. The man looked around the terminal sleepily.

It was Jack.

That is, it could have been Jack. It could have been his brother. “Do you have—?” Arden began.

“One brother, but he doesn't look like that.”

Jack stared quickly around the terminal. If this man was here to replace him, he would have to be part of a team. His partners would have to capture Jack, or kill him, while Denim Man stepped into his shoes.

“First of all, I wouldn't dress like that,” Jack said, watching the imposter critically. “Well, maybe unless I was going to a convention. But I'd never wear a watch like that.”

“Unless you had to stay in touch with your entourage,” Arden said, then shook her head, cutting herself off. She put her hand on Jack's arm. “Could we be coming down with a touch of paranoia, love? It's been going around lately.”

“Yes, it tried to kill me in Reno, remember? Two paranoias, with weapons. And I've supposedly been seen in places I swear to you I was not.” He stared around. “How did they know I'd be here? Did they have a GPS tracker on your car? But we left your car.” He suddenly stared at Arden with obvious suspicion.

She shook off his look. “All roads lead to Houston,” she said. “This is one of the busiest airports in the world. It makes sense that you'd come here. Or maybe they just have a double for you stationed in—” She stopped herself again. “This is ridiculous. Look how many people pass through this place. There's bound to be one who looks a little like—”

“Yeah, point out your evil twin.” As he said it, Jack thought that Arden herself was the evil double. Maybe her innocent twin was somewhere here, waiting innocently to be replaced.

“I'm going to talk to him,” she said suddenly.

As she walked out the set of her shoulders told Jack that she expected him to call her back in an urgent whisper, but he didn't.

He just watched. He didn't watch Arden, except from the corners of his eyes. Even with those limited glimpses he took in her act: walking distractedly across the busy terminal, glancing up at the departures sign, a woman obviously killing time before a flight. Then she saw the man in denim, registered surprise, and rushed up to him. No subterfuge, meet-cute opening line, no time for him to prepare a defense.

Jack was concentrating on everyone else in the terminal: who seemed to be watching the little scene, what men were too hard-eyed to be travelers, who was too little encumbered with carry-on luggage. He didn't spot anyone, became suddenly afraid that they were observing him, with better covers than he had, and skulked back deeper into the crowd.

He still couldn't pick out any half-concealed watchers, which kicked his paranoia into such powerful overdrive it was like a heavy coat hanging around his shoulders. Then abruptly Jack shrugged it off and was moving quickly across his side of the terminal. He ducked into a line of departing passengers, which started a minor ruckus, until he stepped out again on the other side, making an angry gesture as if he'd been ejected.

Meanwhile, forty yards away, Arden had captured Denim Man's attention. He was following her on a parallel course with Jack's, the man talking and trying to keep up with Arden, who danced just ahead of him but looking back and smiling, leading him on. And she had managed to give Jack a little signal at the same time that he interpreted as her needing his help.

There are all kinds of little niches in an airport. Empty courtesy counters, lounges from which a plane isn't due to depart for hours, empty kiosks, a shoeshine stand. This late at night, many of these things were abandoned, and there weren't nearly as many passengers as there would have been earlier in the day. Maintenance people and security guards were tired and less observant, too. Arden and her prey didn't seem to draw anyone's attention as they slipped into a darkened alcove. Jack stood looking all around, waiting for someone else to follow them in. When no one did, he slipped across the terminal, again looking at his watch—this time
for real—and stood just outside the alcove. He heard a smooth voice with rough edges say, “What flight are you on, babe? Do you belong to the mile-high club?”

“It's been so long I think my membership's lapsed,” Arden answered flirtatiously. “Where are you headed?”

“Miami. Land of—”

“No!” Arden squealed, like a teenager spotting a TV idol. “That's too lucky. What flight number? Let me see.”

Jack heard sounds of a small scuffle that involved more than an exchange of papers, then Arden's voice came much more urgently. “Jack!”

“Yeah, that's my name, luv. How'd you—” the smooth, edgy voice was saying as Jack rushed into the alcove. The man looked up quickly: hair more blond than Jack's, probably streaked, more wrinkles around the eyes, unless Jack hadn't studied a mirror closely enough lately, but definitely his face, Jack's face. It would fool anyone outside his immediate circle, meaning it would fool almost anyone.