Greg Rucka - Critical Space

"All finished?" I asked.

"Yes. Agent Fowler is using the bathroom, I think all of the coffee caught up with him."

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm tired and my leg aches. I want to sleep."

Natalie got up, clearing the stairs, but Alena stopped before reaching them, at my side. She touched my elbow.

"What he and you are thinking of doing is very dangerous," she said. "I tried to explain that to him, but I'm not sure he understood."

"I'm sure he did, he's a smart guy," I said.

"I don't dispute his intelligence, Atticus. But I am worried that if too much pressure is put on Oxford's masters, Oxford himself will become even more unpredictable. It could make things worse, not better."

"I'll tell him you said so."

"Please do." She moved to the stairs, started painfully up them, Natalie and I watching, and after the fifth step it began to feel very awkward, and I wanted to help her. A shine of perspiration appeared on her forehead, and her hands on the crutches turned white from the strength of her grip.

When she reached the second floor she looked down at us.

"How long did it take me?" she demanded.

"Eighty seconds, about." Natalie sounded embarrassed.

"Eighty seconds. Tomorrow I'll do it in seventy."

Natalie went up shortly after to double-check that Alena had gotten settled, and I joined Scott in the kitchen where he was finishing his notes. My watch read three minutes past four when he capped his pen and stowed his pad, and I walked with him as he went to his car.

"She's a fucking gold mine, you know that?" he asked. "She practically gave me too much information, I'm not even sure where to begin. We can hit Gracey and Bowles tomorrow."

"Not yet," I said. "I want something more to hold over Oxford, not just his bosses."

"Like what?"

I didn't answer, and we continued along the path to where he had parked. The rain had stopped early in the evening, and everything smelled wet. It was cold enough outside, now, that a slight film of frost had covered the windshield of Scott's car. He wiped it off with a gloved hand. A few leaves blew across the lawn.

"Alena is afraid you're not aware of the danger here," I said. "She's afraid that if we pressure Gracey and Bowles, it could backfire."

"Everything I took down tonight I'm forwarding to the SAIC," Scott said. "He'll send it straight to Washington, you can bet on that."

"That may not be enough insurance."

"Can you think of anything else to do?"

"That's the problem. Oxford's going to keep coming until either he's dead, we're dead, or he's been called off. And I'm not so sure about that last one. That's why I want some insurance."

"And again I ask, like what?"

"His money."

He opened the door to the car, slipped behind the wheel, then started the engine and cranked the defroster to full. "I'll start sending faxes tomorrow morning, but I have to tell you, based on what she said, I don't think we're going to get very far. If Oxford's drawing government pay, they're in a very strong position to block any inquiry I make."

"Then don't inquire," I said. "Let me handle it."

"You asking me to sit on my hands?"

"I'm not saying that, I'm just saying don't go looking for his money. If you've got other avenues to pursue, do it. Oxford made some noise about cash moving between me and Havel, you could look into that, see how he managed it. But if you start trying to dig up stuff about his funds, that'll set off alarms."

"You just said we need to find his money."

"I'll handle it."

He blinked at me. "Jesus, you will, too, won't you?"

"I'm going to be gone for a week, maybe longer. If you need to contact me, go through Natalie."

"Do you have that much time?"

"Oxford was wounded when he left Bequia, and we've been careful since then. It'll take him time before he finds us again."

"Long enough for you to be gone a week or maybe longer?"

"I'm optimistic."

"That's fine as long as the optimism isn't foolish."

"I think I've got the time," I said.

Scott grunted and swung his legs into the car. I put a hand on his door, pushing it shut. He drove away, the gate opening automatically as he approached it. I watched the specter of his taillights disappear behind the trees.

He'd gone out of sight when I realized that I'd forgotten to tell him to be careful.

Alena was already up when I woke, and I joined her in her room for some yoga. We kept it short, and she took it easy, then went to take a shower in the master bathroom. I headed downstairs and put together some breakfast, coffee for Natalie, and some rather lumpy smoothies for myself and Alena. She came into the kitchen as I was finishing up, moving energetically on the crutches, and when she saw the bottles for all of the supplements I'd bought, she laughed.

I waited until she'd finished her drink and her vitamins before telling her what I was planning. Natalie came in as I was starting, but since the coffee didn't kick in until I was almost halfway through, I ended up repeating myself a lot. Alena listened intently, and after I'd finished she told me that the plan sounded solid enough, but that I should use Austria instead of Switzerland if everything worked out as I intended.

"You want a Sparbuch account," she told me. "It's a passbook account, but anonymous. You'll need to find a willing Austrian national to set it up."

I said that I didn't think it would be a problem, then went upstairs to shower and pack my bag. Dan arrived while I was getting dressed, the four guards he'd promised in tow, all of them smaller and younger-looking versions of himself. I immediately recognized two of the faces from the Brighton Beach restaurant, though it took a little longer before I could place the other two. They were the ones who had held me outside of Katrina's room at the brothel. All of them came armed, pistols and rifles, and all of them spoke fluent English, with accents ranging from almost negligible to nearly impenetrable. It made giving them their marching orders interesting. Natalie gave them the rundown of the location, broke them up into shifts, and put them to work guarding the house and the perimeter.

While she was briefing the guards, a car pulled up to the gate. The doctor Dan had located was in his early fifties with watery and bloodshot eyes, white and thin like a distance runner or a junkie. He never gave his name and never asked any of us for ours, and he brought two bags with him, and I searched them both before letting him into the house. Aside from medical tools he had a small pharmacy in one of the bags. The other held a variety of braces and equipment for making casts.

Alena had come to watch Natalie's briefing, and when I came in with the doctor, she moved to the guest room on the ground floor for his exam. I put Dan on the door and followed them in, watching while the doctor asked Alena to lie on the bed. She removed her pants and lay back, and the doctor pulled the gauze from her shin and began poking and prodding from her foot to about midway up her thigh. He asked her a few questions about range of motion and sensation. A couple of times his fingers dug into her skin, and she winced, but never made any sound.

After twenty minutes he was ready to diagnose, and it wasn't good.

"Without an X ray I can't be sure. You've shattered the two bones that run from your knee to your foot, and while the splinters have been removed, the bones aren't knitting. I don't know who the butcher was who practiced his needlepoint on your leg, darling, but if I were you I'd ask for my money back. Not even counting the tib-fib clusterfuck in there, the muscle damage is tremendous. That you've got any sensation in your left foot at all is surprising as hell, and that you're not screaming in constant agony is truly amazing. I've seen members of the New York Jets crying like babies with injuries less severe than this."