Flee Read online

  LOKI

  You may not believe this, Tom, but I’m rather pleased that you’ve eluded capture thus far. I’m certain by now that you’ve even discovered my whereabouts. I’m impressed with your tenacity, your skill. I welcome it, in fact. It makes the game between us a little more challenging. There is no glory in an easy victory.

  As you well know, I’ve been dealing with weaker opponents all my life. No one else can match me in terms of mettle and cunning. True, there is a certain pleasure in working with a person’s mind— especially a strong one, like the mind of this college student who made the mistake of getting too close to Gaia—and over time, bending it to meet your needs. Of playing fear against fear and betrayal against betrayal until it is stripped of everything, until it becomes a vessel to be filled. Until it can changeotherminds. A domino effect ofbrainwashing. Although I prefer to think of it as persuasion.

  Especially in Gaia’s case.

  Sam Moon will persuade her to come to me. And I will persuade her of her destiny.

  Make no mistake, though. You cannot stop me from succeeding. Even in the unlikely event of my death, my plan will reach its inevitable conclusion. I’ve arranged it that way, for this operation is far greater than any one man’s life—even my own.

  And where does that leave us, Tom? As you can see, I am not beyond admiring you. We do share the same DNA, after all. But you, Tom, have squandered your natural gifts, never fully realized your potential. This makes you a hypocrite. A coward. In fact, when you are stripped of your various skills and moral posturing, you are nothing more than a common thief.

  I have never been a thief. A killer, yes, but never a thief.But you have stolen from me: first Katia, then Gaia. You took what was destined to be mine.

  Thankfully, I can now right the wrongs of the past.

  new hangout

  He saw the truth in all of its ugly simplicity: he had no power left over his own life.

  Hidden Chamber

  “GOTTA UPDATE YOU ON A COUPLE of things, Sammy,” Josh announced as he burst into Sam’s dorm room. He had the usual grin plastered to his face, but Sam could see effort there. Josh looked frightened. Sam felt a flash of pleasure. If Josh was afraid, then maybe he and Sam were in the same boat.Maybe Josh had failed Oliver in some way. Maybe he was a marked man as well.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Sam mumbled. He slipped on a rumpled blazer and glanced in the mirror. “I know what to say to Gaia.”

  That was no lie. Sam planned on telling Gaia everything: what he’d been made to do for Oliver and what Oliver wanted him to do next. He knew he was ensuring his own execution by doing so. But he was at peace with the decision. In fact, he was eerily calm. Maybe he was experiencing the same emotion that condemned prisoners felt on their way to a lethal injection.

  “We’ve got a short time frame here,” Josh continued. “You’ll be escorting Gaia to her uncle’s place by ten tonight.”

  Sam turned and scowled at him. “Your boss didn’t say anything about that. He said that I had to—”

  “Change of orders,” Josh snapped. The smilevanished, only this time it didn’t return. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “You’ll be taking her to him tonight. Now repeat back to me what you’re going to tell her. I want to hear you say it.”

  “Some other time. I’m going to be late.” He pushed past Josh and headed through the door into the suite’s common area.

  Josh’s hand clamped down on Sam’s shoulder—hard.

  “Not so fast,” he growled.

  Sam saw red. He spun and drove his fist straight for Josh’s face. Josh turned, but not fast enough. Sam’s knuckle connected with jawbone, then slid into the wood of the door. An agonizing tingle shot through the bones of his hand, and he recoiled in pain. And then he couldn’t breathe. Josh had him in a choke hold. Sam snatched at the door handle with his hand. One of the knuckles was split and oozing a trickle of blood. White spots danced in front of his eyes. But he was going to get out of that dorm room—

  “Let him go,” a voice commanded behind them.

  Abruptly Josh released Sam’s neck. Choking for breath, Sam turned and found himself face-to-face with a stocky young man in a black turtleneck and leather jacket. He was brandishing a pistol. His face was scarred, cold.

  ”Now,” the man said blankly. “Let’s hear what you’re going to say to Gaia.”

  Sam took a long, deep breath. He couldn’t stop staring at the gun.Sooner or later, a bullet was going to find him.But he couldn’t dwell on that now.Just do what they ask and get out of here. It’s your only chance.

  “Your uncle loves you,” he said mechanically. “He came to talk to me because he knows we’re close, and. . . .”

  He went on and on, but he was no longer even listening to himself. The fabrications were accompanied by a strange sense of dislocation. His lips moved, but his brain had separated from the words. It was as if his inner self— the part of him that was still Sam—had sealed itself off in a chamber no one could find.And in that chamber he saw Gaia.He saw her hands, her lips, her hips. He felt her kiss. The image sent shooting pains through his heart, far more acute than the wounds on his bloodied hand. But there was no use in being morbid, hopeless, defeated. No use in thinking in the past tense. Loki didn’t own Sam. Josh didn’t own him. Only Gaia owned any part of him at all, and he would keep that part safe and alive until she learned the truth. . . .

  “Good enough?” Sam demanded.

  Josh looked pensive for a moment. He and the gunman exchanged a glance. Then he shifted into oldstyle-Josh mode and slapped Sam on the back. “Go get ’em, tiger!” he joked, giving Sam a light push toward the door.

  As Sam exited the suite, he felt hollow. But hecouldn’t let the emptiness consume him.He had to galvanize his inner optimist.He still had free will. He still had power. The very fact that Oliver needed him so badly was proof of that power. He was a player; he was on the board; they hadn’t yet knocked him off.

  He could still save Gaia.

  But the more Sam told himself these things, the less he believed it. And as he left the dorm, the final shreds of illusion melted away. He saw the truth in all of its ugly simplicity: he had no power left over his own life. Nor any power left over Gaia’s. Once he was dead, Gaia was sure to follow. It would only be a matter of time. With each step he took, he drew closer and closer to the end. Like walking the plank.

  An Addiction

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’RE STILL not sure?” Tom barked at the ticket agent. “Don’t you have meteorologists in this country?”

  “Sir.” The woman offered Tom a pacifying, sympathetic smile that aggravated him even more. “I’ve told you. We don’thave a departure time for your flight. When we do, I will announce it over the PA system.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Tom growled. “For Christ’s sake, this is the Concorde.”

  The woman’s smile remained unchanged, as if it had been simply stamped on her face. “All flights are affected by the weather, sir.”

  Tom ran his hand through his hair. Maybe he should give a call to one of his contacts in the British Secret Service, see if he could get a line on a military transport.Somepilot could fly in this weather. This was a life-or-death situation. He had no time for canned music, recycled coffee, and the condescending, lipsticked smiles of British Airways staff members. He glanced at the phones again. He hesitated, then shook his head.No.Calling the British Secret Service would take a while; even with Loki as a potential prize, nobody would authorize use of a military aircraft just so Tom could hurry to the States.

  “Please have a seat, sir,” the woman encouraged. “We’re trying our very best.”

  “I know, I know,” he muttered impatiently. He didn’t mean to take out his frustration on this poor woman, but he was beyond putting a lid on his emotions. Loki had outplayed him, outsmarted him, and outstrategized him. And the one chance he had to level the playing field had been thwarted byrain.Rain!

  Tom knew then why he was so enrag
ed. It was thelack of control. The feeling of powerlessness. The need for control was an addiction both he and his twin shared. It was what bound their lives together.

  “This storm looks pretty bad,” the woman murmured, breaking into Tom’s thoughts. “The bottom line is that we don’t risk lives. I can’t say when you’ll get out of here, sir, but you will. Not in the next three hours, but sometime thereafter. If you’re lucky, you’ll leave tonight. But it could be tomorrow.”

  “I. . . see.” Tom nodded. At this point all he could do was pray. Too bad he wasn’t a religious man. Not many obsessive control freaks were.

  Well-Stocked Minibar

  LOKI SMILED AS THE BLACK MERCEDES limo glided to a stop in front of him. He opened the back door, gesturing to his bodyguard to sit up front. The man complied, rolling his massive bulk into the front passenger seat. A strong man, Viggo. Not intellectually overburdened, but his intellect wasn’t what Loki needed tonight.

  “Did you replenish the minibar?” he asked thechauffeur as his eyes settled on the wood-paneled compartment running perpendicular to the plush leather seats in back.

  The driver said nothing but pressed a button, and the compartment slid open. Oliver’s smile widened. A full arsenal of weapons—knives, grenades, a machine gun, automatic and semiautomatic pistols—gleamed back at him from the storage space.

  “Well done,” he pronounced, caressing a mediumsized but exceptionally light 9mm Glock. It felt smooth to the touch. He gingerly removed it from its holster and tucked it into his breast pocket. The compartment door slid shut. “One can never be too careful. Now where to?”

  “Tribeca, sir,” Josh Kendall answered as he maneuvered the car onto Ninth Avenue. “Traffic’s light. We’ll be right on time.”

  A Bitch

  GAIA RARELY VENTURED INTO TRIBECA. But as she emerged from the Franklin Street subway stop—which, for some reason, was much cleaner and better kept than almost any subway stop she’d ever seen—she came to an abrupt, impulsive decision.Thisneighborhood was going to be her new hangout.Yeah, it was a perfect change from themishmash of sleaze and chess freaks and college kids that was Washington Square Park.Unlittered streets. Expensive lofts. No traffic. Hardly a soul in sight, except a few rich young yuppies walking their dogs.

  Hey, maybe she could even walk dogs for some extra cash. Maybe she could do it for a living. Why not? Dog walking was a pretty common job in New York City, second probably only to waitressing and drug dealing. What a life: Live uptown in a fabulous West Side apartment and commute to another fabulous neighborhood to hang out with canines. That was perfection. That was bliss.

  She smiled as she strolled around the corner onto West Broadway. She wouldn’t have believed it possible, but she actually felt halfway decent. Her life was changing—and in many ways, for the better. Sam was a part of some other era. Maybe there was a place for him in this new phase, but in some different role, some newfound incarnation. One that was a lot less complicated and painful.

  The Bubble Lounge shed a reddish glow onto the street. Gaia could see dark shapes moving inside. She heard laughter. Always a good sign.Relax,she ordered herself, pushing through the heavy door into the restaurant. Mrs. Moss’s words drifted through her mind: “. . . remember, if you stick with something longenough, the bumps smooth themselves out in the end.”Right.Smooth like butter.But as she scanned the room for Sam, looking for those familiar tufts of light brown hair among the slick, gelled crew cuts and George-Clooney-style Caesars, her heart began pumping a hip-hop rhythm against her rib cage.Saying good-bye was a bitch.No matter how you sliced it. She knew that better than anyone—

  There he is.

  He was sitting on a couch at the back of the restaurant, absently sipping a soda. His eyes were dark and sad and brooding—and the sight of them instantly transported her back to that first rainy day in the park, when so much had passed between them in silence. She swallowed, feeling the room swirl around her and recede into nothingness. Everything had been encapsulated in that first chess game; it set the tone for their entire relationship.They’d tortured themselves by playing in the rain, not wanting to leave, not wanting to sever the cord of tension and attraction.And they’d carried that pattern of masochism all through their relationship until the cord had inevitably snapped.

  It went wrong because it could never go right.

  He waved, tentatively, his jacket sleeve falling loosely about his wrist.

  She nodded.

  And as she had in the park that first day, she felt anameless urge to turn and bolt. The lyrics of a new Fearless song pulsed through the restaurant and seemed to vibrate through Gaia’s body: “Still bending my mind, warping my will / you hypnotize with your lying eyes. . . .”

  Sam let his hand drop in slow motion, a frame or two behind real time.

  But maybe there was some tension left in the cord after all. She didn’t need to get ahead of herself. Why plan for the future? Planning had never gotten her very far. Maybe tonight wasn’t about official goodbyes. Maybe it about her and Sam simply being together.Playing it by ear. Talking and listening.Maybe tonight was just dinner. She was hungry, after all. She could use a little sustenance.

  invisible sniper

  Of all the bizarre scenarios she’d envisioned for this evening—ascreaming fight, a tearful embrace, a passionate kiss— she would never have conceived ofthis.

  Phony Edge

  FINALLY.Tom expelled a heavy sigh as the Concorde slowly rolled back from the gate. He’d gotten a lucky break. Maybe the British Airways staff didn’t want to hear any more complaining; maybe there had just been some unforeseen change in the weather, a brief window of opportunity. Whatever the reason, the passengers had suddenly been rushed onto the plane only an hour later than the original scheduled departure.

  It was still pouring, harder than before. Rain pounded the fuselage. Tom peered out the window, seeing only his reflection in the blackness.

  “Champagne?”

  A pretty young flight attendant was hovering over him, her blue eyes twinkling as she held out a tray of champagne flutes.

  Tom shook his head. Alcohol was the last thing he needed. He glanced down at his watch. 2:00A.M.Greenwich mean time. 9:00P.M.eastern standard time. . . His mind began calculating possibilities. He could be on the streets of New York by midnight. That was the beauty of the Concorde; one could take off later than one landed—by traveling west, across time zones in reverse. And even if the fact of “going back in time” was merely psychological, Tom welcomed the phony edge it gave him. A phony edge was better than no edge at all.

  His fingers drummed the briefcase on his lap. Inside was the disk—the disk that held a secret so vile that nobody could possibly believe it. No, CLOFAZE had to be experienced firsthand, and even then it tested the limits of plausibility. That was why Tom had yet to alert George or anyone else at the Agency as to its existence. If he tried explaining it over the phone, they would simply think he’d cracked. His behavior had been erratic enough over the past few months. They’d send somebody out to rein him in or terminate him—most likely the latter.

  “Good evening, passengers,” an amiable British voice announced over the plane’s speaker system.

  Tom tuned out the pilot as he introduced himself on the intercom, apologizing for the delay.Refocus.It was hard to concentrate when he was in such a passive position, at the mercy of pilots and the weather control. But as the Concorde’s powerful engines rumbled to life, he tried to exorcise the doubt gnawing away at his insides. Briefly it worked, until the Concorde turned onto the runway and paused. With a mighty roar the plane began to gather speed—faster and faster.

  This plane was a lot like his twin.

  Loki was fast, too. And powerful. And seductive.

  And he was in the same city as Gaia.

  Tom gripped the armrests of his chair. He couldn’t give in to desperation. He couldn’t give in to the big black hole of negative thinking. He breathed deeply,evenly, consciously—employing a
style of meditation he’d taught Gaia long ago, when he’d first started training her in kung fu. And as he breathed, Tom concentrated all of his energies into a silent speech to his daughter: Don’t allow yourself to be deceived. Stay strong.

  Slippery Fish

  SAM STARED AT THE MEAL IN FRONT of him: medium-rare steak with sweet potato fries and creamed spinach. It turned his stomach. There was no way he could eat. But he had to look at the food. It was either that or look at Gaia.

  How could he evensithere— across from her, perpetrating this fraud? He’d seen the emotional exhaustion in her clear blue eyes.It was like looking into a mirror.He couldn’t even define his feelings anymore. His thoughts were slippery fish; if he tried to grab one, it would wriggle from his grasp.Oliver. Gaia. Josh. Tom.Maybe, despite his sick methods, Oliver reallydidhave Gaia’s best interests at heart. Oliver certainly seemed to be a lot more focused on Gaia than her father. Sam swallowed, feeling eyes on him—eyes that might or might not even have existed. A high-power rifle could be aimed at hishead right now. Even here. Even in the calm of this restaurant. A hidden microphone could be listening to every word.

  He pushed a piece of meat around his plate with his fork. He was a prisoner. And there was only one way to escape.

  “So.” Gaia put down her fork. It clanged loudly on the plate, a not-so-subtle signal that she was tired of silence. Sam was forced to lift his gaze. “You said you wanted to talk. Let’s talk.”

  “Do you mind if we wait a little?” Sam murmured. He stared at a spot just below her lips. His head had begun to throb. He touched the side of his temple gingerly.