David Kessler - Mercy

“You can’t get away. They won’t let you. But you can fight it through the system. Do it the smart way.”

“I need to think.”

“It’s too late for that, you must — ”

“Look, shut up !”

Alex knew when not to push the point.

He let the silence settle between them. In a way he was grateful for this opportunity. It could be the last.

“So what happened when you went to England?”

Nat took a deep breath.

“Well first of all, I sold a diamond ring to raise some cash to open a bank account. Then I sold the rest of the jewelry to other jewelers and dealers in London and got the money paid into my bank account. So now I had a bank account and I could function, but at the same time there was no trace of the money being transferred from my US account so there was no trail for the FBI or anyone else to follow. They didn’t know if I was dead or missing, but as far as they knew I could have been either. Turn left at Highway 1.”

Alex complied, trying to ignore the helicopter overhead and the police cars on their tail. He prayed that the cops wouldn’t challenge them on this narrow two-lane road. It wasn’t that he feared death. It was just that he wanted — needed — to know the rest.

“And what about the medical center? I mean the abortion and the…”

For some reason he found it hard to say the words.

“Well I was able to have the abortion immediately. They just needed to get me assessed by two doctors, and they were able to do that in one day. But the gender re-assignment was more complicated because it has various major legal requirements. One of the formalities is that you have to live for a year in the new gender role to make sure that you’re comfortable with it and really want to go through with it. It’s part of the assessment process.”

“So you waited a year just for the procedure?”

Nat looked uncomfortable with the question.

“Not exactly. I was desperate to escape from the woman’s body that I was trapped in. So I convinced the Chief Administrator to alter the records to make it look as if I’d been living as a man in America. That way I was able to shorten the waiting time for the start of the procedure to seven months.”

“When you say you convinced him…”

“As in, greased his palm.”

“That would explain the large sums of money going out of Dorothy’s — of your — account.”

“Actually, no. Most of that money was for the procedure. Hell, it’s an expensive procedure any way you look at it.”

“So how did they do it? I mean, how did they fiddle the paperwork?”

“Basically they exploited the fact that January can be written as J-A-N and June as J-U-N. And we also took advantage of the different date formats when they use numbers. In England they put the day first, instead of the month. They wrote 06-01-98 instead of 01-06-98. That made it look as if I’d been living as a man since January 6, 1998 instead of June first. If anyone had caught it, they would have hidden behind the excuse that there was a mix-up about the dates.”

Alex thought about this. That would explain why the medical center had been so reticent about confirming Dorothy’s stay there: it might open a whole can of worms regarding their breach of protocol, not to mention the law.

“And in all that time since you came back, you never once contacted Jonathan?”

“I couldn’t afford to. Turn left! All it needed was for one message to be traced.”

“You thought he was being watched?”

“No, of course not. But I didn’t know what had happened at Edgar’s place. I knew they thought it was suicide. But I didn’t know why. To me it was like a time bomb that could explode any time.”

“They’re sticking to CA-1!” said the helicopter observer to his ground controller, watching the white moving rectangle in the heads-up display.

“That means they’re probably headed for tree cover.”

“Affirmative, Joe,” said the observer. “But they’ve still got a couple of miles before that. Any chance of CHIPS taking them out with Stop Sticks?”

Nowadays, most California Highway Patrol units were equipped with devices that stop fleeing vehicles with spikes that puncture the tires. The devices were designed in such a way as to cause the tires to deflate gradually rather than suddenly — thus avoiding the danger of a blow-out at high speed. The problem was that at this time of year, California roads got so hot that tires could blow out at the slightest stimulus.

However, it was now night time and, despite the heat wave, the roads had cooled somewhat.

“That’s a negative, Larry — at least not till they come out the other side of Tamalpais.”

“But if they make it to the Valley then he can ditch the car and run for tree cover.”

“Come off it, Larry, people show up on thermal imaging better than cars. He won’t get far.”

“Okay, but I haven’t enough fuel to stay up here all night.”

The ground controller seemed to ponder this for a few seconds.

“He probably knows we’ve got thermal imaging. My guess is he’s trying to make it to the coastline.”

Larry laughed.

“You think he’s gonna try and swim the Pacific Ocean?”

“I don’t know what he’s gonna do. I don’t think he’s really too sure either. My best guess is he’s going to try and make it to Stinson Beach or Bolinas and then blend in with the locals at dawn.”

“So why not get CHIPS to stop him?”

“We can’t set up the Stop Sticks in time. Not before Muir Beach. We haven’t got a unit close enough.”

“Okay, well try and stop him at Muir Beach, ‘cause if he makes it to Stinson or Bolinas he might take other hostages.”

“Ten-four.”

“And let’s pray he doesn’t get out on foot at Tamalpais.”

“If he does, it’ll mean he’s killed the hostage. Either that or abandoned him. He won’t take him at gunpoint if he’s hiding in the trees.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“It means we can send in a SWAT team and take the bastard out.”

“Okay, so you had hormone treatment to change your features and genital reconstruction?”

“Yes. And I had my breasts removed.”

Nat was more relaxed now, and Alex knew that if he could keep him talking, there was a chance that they could end this peacefully. He could see the cops in the rearview mirror. And the ever-present humming of the helicopter’s rotor blades still rumbled in the night sky overhead.

“So how come they let you keep the breast tissue?” Alex prompted. “That’s kind of unusual, isn’t it?”

“One of the good things about having the Chief Administrator in your pocket is that you can get away with things that you wouldn’t normally. I told them I wanted it and they gave it to me — in a refrigerated bag. You have to remember that they were kind of vulnerable. They’d broken the law by doing the gender re-assignment. I hadn’t broken any law by having it done.”

“And then you used the breast tissue to frame Burrow.”

“That’s right. I went back to his place, broke in easily enough and planted the breast tissue at the back of the freezer. You know people never look in the back of their own freezer. They leave stuff there for years.”

“But once in a while they clean it out.”

“But not very often — especially trailer trash like Burrow.”

“And what about the panties and the knife?

“I’d kept the panties from the rape because I was originally considering going to the police.”

“And the blood on the knife?”

“It’s no big deal to get a small amount of one’s own blood.”