David Kessler - No Way Out

But was she right to fear for Martine’s safety?

Alex had no way of knowing that. But he knew that Manning had escaped. He had heard the news reports on the radio, so he knew that what Gene had said about Manning’s veiled threat was true. And he knew that there was a certain underlying logic to her theory that Martine was the intended target.

There was just nothing he could do about it until the traffic cleared ahead of him.

But what about Gene?

He phoned her and waited desperately for an answer.

“Hallo Ale-”

Gene’s voice was cut short abruptly.

Something had happened. It sounded like some kind of a struggle, albeit a very brief one. For the next thing he heard was a man’s voice.

“I’ve got your bitch here.”

Holding on with only one hand, Andi swept her hair back with a self-assured, almost arrogant gesture. Then she gripped the rail with both hands. The tears seemed to dry up in an instant her face grew in confidence. Even her posture and body language was different. This was no timid little girl anymore. This was a woman with attitude.

“You were pretty smart to figure it out Claymore.” The voice was deeper now. “How did you know?”

“Some of the things you said — she said.”

“Well that’s pretty smart of you for a nigger! You’re right too, I was the one who hacked the jury selection software. I mean I literally hacked it to pieces with two snips of my intellectual scissors. Two lines of code swapped round, two memory heaps expanded and that was it. I did it in five years back in the Big Apple. Actually it was very easy.

While she was talking, Claymore was surreptitiously taking off his jacket.

“The source code was on public record and all I had to do was get my hands on it, switch the object calls in the main object and recompile it. The hard part was slipping it into the system afterward. Most of the States have firewalls in place on the jury selection systems. But I beat them. I beat the bleeding heart liberal motherfuckers! I’m good at what I do Claymore, just as you were good in your chosen vocation.”

“Then I guess I deserve to die too.”

“Probably,” she said, with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders.

“Then maybe I’m the one who should jump.”

“It’s up to you.”

Seizing his opportunity, Claymore edged nearer and began climbing over the rail, making sure that none of his movements seemed too threatening.

Now, with the menacing waters far below them, they were facing each other on equal terms for the only time in their lives. But he still had to get through to her.

“Why did you frame Andi for the break-in at the DNA database. I mean I can understand why you did the break-in. That was to frame me. But why frame Andi?

“I should think that’s obvious. Andi was making trouble for me. I had to stop her.”

“But in the end that was what gave her the ammunition to save me.”

“Yes, she’s a smart girl, that Andi. But then again that’s not surprising. She’s got part of me in her. But none of that really matters because it’s the end of the line for both us.”

“Us?” he echoed nervously.

“Me and her.”

Claymore was desperately trying to think of something to say — something that would persuade the strong-willed “Lannosea” to reconsider.

“But she doesn’t deserve to suffer — and neither do you . I’m the one who hurt both of you. And I’m the one who should pay for it.”

“What are you saying Claymore? That you care about Andi? That you care about a weak white bitch whom you raped?”

“Yes,” he said, weakly. She still had the upper hand, and they both knew it.

“It looks like you’re pretty weak too.”

Claymore shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“It’s true. I am weak.”

“And you used to be so strong.”

“I guess I was strong then because I was driven by anger. Now I’m weak because I’m restrained by guilt.”

“But if you’re weak, you’re also vulnerable.”

“That’s true. But I’m the one who deserves to be punished… not Andi.”

“But it’s the form of your weakness that interests me. Your weakness is that you care for her.”

“Yes.”

“And so, ironically, now that you’ve learned to care about your victims, you’re more vulnerable to punishment than when they meant nothing to you.”

She was holding on with only one hand again, and starting to turn, as if ready to jump.

“Yes but why should she suffer for what I did?”

“Because she’s weak too. And because she sold out.”

“Andi!” he shrieked. “It wasn’t meant to be like this!”

She stopped turning and gripped the rail with both hands again.

“What do you mean ?”

She was whining again. Andi was back … possibly.

“ I thought all the suffering was over — for my victims as well as me! When I came back to America to serve out my sentence, I was a different man. I thought when I turned my life around I’d lost the capacity to inflict suffering on anyone. I thought from then on the pain would only diminish… I thought that in time all the pain and suffering I’d caused would fade away, maybe not completely, but at least enough to be bearable.”

Her eyes were welling up with tears again.

“You think the pain of your victims ebbs into oblivion just because you turned your life around!” She was whining, like a little girl having a tantrum. “You think it’s that easy ! Don’t you know that for the victims the pain never goes away! And sometimes it just keeps getting worse! That why it’s better to end it!”

She let go with both hands and turned.

“No!” screamed Claymore.

He grabbed her torso with his legs, clinging on desperately with his hands. He didn’t think he would have the strength to hold onto her if she struggled — or the strength in his upper body to hold onto the rail. But he surprised himself just as she surprised him. There was no struggling — and no cooperation either. As he looked down at her he noticed that she had lost consciousness.

It must have been the drink, he thought.

And in time with that, he realized that her body was limp. She had lost consciousness. And here he was holding on to an unconscious woman with a leg scissor lock, while supporting the weight of both of them by clinging on to the Golden Gate Bridge for his life with his hands.

“I can understand why you blame me,” said Gene, fighting back the tears. “But I don’t understand why you blame women in general so much, and your father so little.”

“I told you. In the animal kingdom there is no such thing as rape.”

“But we’re not animals. We don’t live by the law of the jungle. We live by the laws of civilization. And your father broke those laws.”

“Not the law of nature. Everything he did was strictly in accordance with the laws of nature. But you rebelled against a woman’s nature. A woman’s nature — a mother’s nature — is to nurture and protect her child, not give it away to strangers. You should have been proud to carry a child with strong genes like mine — even if my daddy did have to force you.”

“You don’t think that maybe the circumstances in which you were conceived made that unbearably painful for me?”

“Sex is always painful. All the physiological responses that go with sex are part of the pain mechanism. That’s true of men as much as women.”