Under the Knife(120)

He clung to a twisted length of railing with his good left arm. The mudslide had dragged much of the surrounding railing down with it, but this bit remained, partially buried in the mud. His legs were swinging in space. He could hear the crash of waves breaking far below.

Wu was clinging to him, her arms wrapped around his waist.

The railing was too slick.

He started to lose his grip.

Through gritted teeth he told her this, and told her to climb, using his body as a ladder. She did, gripping his clothes as handholds, using his torso as a ladder for her hands and feet. Thank Christ she didn’t weigh much.

His hand was slipping.

He cursed like he never had, a magnificent string of shits and goddamn mother fuckers. He prayed and begged Alfonso, wherever he might be, to help him.

And then she reached the railing, and grabbed it to pull herself up to firm ground. Now, with one arm wrapped around it, she reached back down toward him with the other. “Come on,” she implored, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling. Streams of running water ran over the side of the cliff and splashed in his face, and he sputtered and coughed.

He counted down—three, two, one—to prepare himself; and then, like a monkey on a tree branch, he swung his right arm, the one on the side with the broken ribs, up and grabbed a piece of railing.

Agony.

The pain in his right side left him with just enough breath to scream.

He reached up and snatched her outstretched hand. With the added weight, her grip on the railing faltered, and she began to slide across the slippery mud toward the edge.

It was her turn to scream.

He let go of her hand and grabbed another length of rail poking out of the mud.

There. This one was less slippery. She stopped sliding.

Between her pulling and his, they got him up to the top. They threw themselves down and lay in the mud, panting, until it occurred to him that more of the cliff might give way.





RITA


“Come on,” Sebastian gasped, dragging her up.

He pulled her to the grass. Across the park, beyond the fence, the construction site was a roaring blaze. She could feel its heat from here. She spotted distant figures around its perimeter. Spencer was lying where they’d left him, silhouetted against the firelight. He was waving his arms weakly toward the fire, up and down in unison, as if he was praying to it.

“I need to go help him,” she said.

“Yes.”

Sebastian limped over to his backpack a short distance away, pressing a hand to his side.

“You should come,” she called to him. “You need medical attention.”

“No. I’ll get by.” He pointed to the darkness past the twisted remains of the safety railing. “But I’d appreciate it if you told them I went over the side. With Finney.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He faced south and took a single step before stopping and turning his head, so that he was in profile. The firelight danced across his bloodied, swollen face. “I’m sorry, you know. I’m sorry about all of this.”

She smiled faintly. “I know.”

He nodded.

Clasping his right side, he disappeared into the black ink beyond the edge of the firelight.





SEBASTIAN


3 months later

February

Sebastian (no longer his name, he reminded himself) had needed to disappear for a while.

With his talents, and connections, and newly acquired assets, he could have done so anywhere. A sandy beach in Bora Bora. Carnival in Rio. Safari in Africa, a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, a volcanic plain in Iceland. He’d considered all of these, and more, and rejected them.

So it was that he’d found himself huddled against the cold drizzle of a February in Paris.

He’d never been to Paris. He took his time. He marveled at Notre Dame, and wandered along the banks of the Seine and the Canal Saint-Martin. Drank fine wines, ate fine food. He could afford to, after all.

The Louvre.

Christ, how he loved the Louvre. He didn’t know that much about art, but he couldn’t get enough of it. One full day spent there had stretched into a week, and one week into two as he’d gazed at masterpiece after masterpiece, humbled before humanity’s creativity.

Then one morning he stumbled across it. Just as Finney had described it.

The stele of Hammurabi.

He gazed up at its obsidian surface, clutching Alfonso’s dog tag through his shirt. With his other hand he scratched his nose, which was crooked from where Cameron had broken it. He could have had it fixed. But he didn’t. He wanted to remember. Plus, he thought it went well with his thick goatee and shaved head.

Tucked under one arm was a thick package containing all of his notes: everything he’d collected about Finney, and the device, and the events at Turner. He’d been a professional, and his notes were meticulous. He’d be mailing the package that afternoon to an acquaintance in Budapest, who’d then forward it through a string of contacts in various cities across the world.

And, eventually, into the hands of one Ms. Constance “Connie” Grant of the Wall Street Journal.

The package’s contents would, he knew, fill in all the gaps the authorities hadn’t been able to—or at least those that didn’t involve him. As far as the world was concerned, the man known as Sebastian was dead.