Greg Rucka - Critical Space

That was what I thought at first.

Sometime in the afternoon, though, I started wondering if maybe it had been more than simple radio trouble that had made me lose contact with everyone but Bridgett. Until I'd met Dan, I was relatively confident that Drama was working solo, and in that case she couldn't have been in two places at once, which meant she couldn't have been in position at the cemetery and have been in position to do harm to Moore, Dale, and Corry. But Dan's presence meant that she knew people, was willing to work with them, and consequently it was possible that she'd had someone take my friends out, in one fashion or another.

It wasn't a thought that made sitting on the couch, watching yet another overproduced and underlit music video, easy to take. I got up and started to pace around the room. I opened the armoire, looked inside for something that might fit me. Not only was there nothing I could put on without splitting, there was nothing appropriate to my gender. I contemplated trying to leave the room, but had a strong suspicion that I'd just end up in a lot of pain, or worse, unconscious. I didn't want that; I didn't want to miss anything.

Just as I thought I was going to go well and truly stir-crazy, the door opened and Dan returned, carrying a paper sack from The Gap.

"Clothes," he informed me, throwing the bag on the bed. "Put them on quickly, please, we have to go."

He turned to Katrina and the two began talking as I dumped out the contents. None of my original clothes were there; everything was new. There was a set of replacement underwear still in its wrapping, and a box of Nike sneakers. The pants were black with cargo pockets, and the shirt was a simple white T-shirt with a pocket over the left breast. There was even a belt.

Everything fit, and I was dressed before Dan and Katrina had stopped talking.

"Where's my watch?" I asked.

"Sorry."

"My father gave me that watch for my thirtieth birthday. I want it back."

"You talk to 'Tasha about the watch, okay?"

"Am I going to see her?"

"Soon now, very soon." He studied me with something like approval. "Katrina says you didn't touch her."

"She's lying. We broke the bed."

He laughed. "Sure you did, sure, okay. Now we go, you follow me."

"I follow you," I said, and I did, right out the door and into the two men I'd seen downstairs when I'd first arrived.

It was my own fault, I'd let my guard down and I walked right into it, and as each of the men grabbed my arms, Dan turned around and nailed me in the solar plexus. I lost my breath and most of my balance and before I'd begun to recover either, he'd taken my glasses and pocketed them. From another pocket he produced a black cloth bag, and he had it over my head, had it tied, before I could protest, yet alone resist.

"Sorry," he said. "Saves time."

Then something hit me on the back of the head, and instead of just seeing black because my head was in a bag, I saw a whole different darkness.

He used ammonia to bring me back, waving the broken ampoule under my nose until the shock and pain charging through my sinuses forced my eyes open. The disorientation was instant and, for seconds, total, and my first instinct was to fight, so I tried swinging at the man who was causing me pain. The punch connected with his jaw and he grunted, dropped the ammonia, and grabbed my arms. It took another couple of seconds with him shouting at me before I understood what it was he was trying to tell me.

"You're to meet her!" Dan was saying. "Now, you're going now, Mr. Kodiak! Stop fighting me, you're going now!"

I stopped struggling, trying to recognize the face in front of me. I was on my back, on something hard, and when I tried to sit up, Dan shoved me back down. He was hard to see, and the space past him was utterly dark, and I knew I'd lost my glasses again.

"You're done, yes? No more fighting?"

"No more fighting," I agreed.

He let me go, moving back on his haunches, his head down. From his jacket pocket he produced my glasses. I put them on, realized I was in the back of a delivery van of some kind. As I sat up the ammonia still lingering in my sinuses made me sneeze, and my head hurt so badly I wanted to weep.

"You going to puke?" Dan asked.

"No." I massaged my forehead, trying to soothe the pain. "You didn't have to knock me out."

Again, he sounded apologetic. " 'Tasha's orders. We had to take you back to the street, long drive, she didn't want you making talk, you understand."

"You could have gagged me."

"She said knock you out, I do what she says."

He reached past me and pushed open the doors at the back of the van, climbed out, and offered me a hand. I ignored it, swung my legs around slowly, and got out.

It was night, though how late I couldn't tell, and at some point while I'd been out it had rained, because everything around us glistened with reflected light. The humid air stank of feces and rotten food, and I looked around and saw water and then the length of Manhattan in the distance, and I realized I was smelling the Hudson. A sign at the corner of the street said we were at Frank Sinatra Park.

"Hoboken."

"Hoboken," Dan confirmed cheerfully, slamming the rear doors. Then he came around to where I stood, handed me a paper lunch bag, and then passed me and climbed behind the wheel.

"Wait," I said.

"No. No more waiting," he replied, starting the engine with one hand and slamming the door with the other. He leaned out the open window. "Good to meet you, Mr. Kodiak."

For some reason, I shook his hand when he offered it. Maybe it was my expression or my grip, but it gave him a last laugh, and then he put the van in gear and pulled out. I watched as the taillights went down the block, then slipped around a distant corner.

There didn't seem to be anyone else around. A couple of boats were out on the Hudson, moving lazily on the water, and I saw the lights of a helicopter as it lifted off from the heliport on Thirty-fourth Street. Seconds later, the sound of the rotors reached me, then faded. From Hoboken I could hear traffic, automobiles on the main roads, but there didn't seem to be a lot of them, and I thought it had to be past midnight, if not later. To the north, over the river, I could see the lights spanning the GW Bridge. A couple cars were parked along the curb nearby, though there was no sign of any of the owners. One of them was a Ford Escort, and I looked at the license plate and confirmed that it was the same one I'd driven from the cemetery.

I remembered that I had a paper bag in my hand and decided now would be the best time to open it. Inside was a key, another cheap Motorola walkie-talkie – this one blue – and my watch. The key went with the Escort.

I put the watch on my wrist, the key in my pocket, and dumped the bag in a trash can at the edge of the park before switching on the walkie-talkie. Then I pressed the transmit button.

"I'm here," I said.

"I know, " Drama said. "How's your head? "

"It hurts. Are we almost finished? It's been a long day."

"For us both. If you 're asking if I'm ready to return her, the answer is yes. Shall I tell you how this will work? "

"Please."

"I am sitting behind an Accuracy International AWM, which is pointed at your principal's head. As long as you do as I say, sighting her will be all that I do. However… "

"I understand."

"I never doubted that you would. You will keep the radio on and I will direct you to her location. Begin by turning to your left and proceeding to the corner. Stay to the sidewalk. At the corner, turn right and keep walking. I'll let you know where to stop. "

Turning left meant leaving the park and walking down Third Street about twenty yards, putting my back to the Hudson. On my right, a chain-link fence stood about eight feet high, topped with barbed wire. Beyond it, in the darkness, I could see what had once been space for piers and warehouses, but was now nothing more than an enormous expanse of broken pavement, scattered with rusting pieces of scaffolding and some very determined weeds that had managed to push through the cracks in the concrete.