Who I Was

DECEMBER 12, 1963

 

When looking up, there was nothing to see but stars and snow. Da Vinci felt the cold on his face and deep in the bones of his hands. Everything dawned on him at once. He jolted up as his stomach bottomed out. It was done. It had to be. He hadn’t even had a chance to try to stop what he knew would come. A stabbing pain pulsated on the right side of his skull. They’d knocked him out. It was likely the only reason he’d lived.

He stood now. He had to find them. He had to move what was left of them. There couldn’t be any bodies to find. First, Da Vinci went to where they’d killed Sergei, but the body was already gone. He then searched for the others. He found Tim first, who was crumpled over on himself and stiff. Da Vinci shut his partner’s eyes before dragging him to the waterfall and burying him along with Rigan. It was funny to think their bodies would be down there together forever, given the problems they’d had in life.

Da Vinci continued searching until he found the second KGB agent. Nikola was on the ground, curled up on just a few hundred yards away from the clearing where she and Diana fought. Blood stained the snow around her and a makeshift tourniquet was tied tightly on her broken leg. Her mouth hung open post-mortem and her lips were drained of any color.

Da Vinci stood over her for a second. He wanted to blame her for what happened, give himself a faceless villain to hate, but he couldn’t bring himself to despise her. She’d meant too much to Diana to be hated. He closed her eyes, too, feeling the coarseness of her skin on his fingertips. He brushed a hand over her face, then stood and pulled her along the same path he’d taken Tim. He dropped her in the river, as well. Rigan and his killer would be buried together. Da Vinci could feel his heart pounding and his system draining, but he had one more body to dispose of, one more tithe to pay.

He found Diana faceup, not too far from the ledge of a bluff. She’d been shot. Just like Da Vinci had seen it play out hundreds of times. Everything he’d been trying to stop led up to this moment. But when it came down to the wire, he was still alive and she was still dead. It was while standing over her that Da Vinci realized he’d been crying. He could feel the wetness of his face with his hands, but could not feel the tears as they ran over his cheeks. He slumped down and sat, then took her head in his lap. He closed her eyes and smoothed her hair. His breath shook. He’d seen this play out countless times. That moment when he’d find Diana dead, but in no scenario did it hurt this much. In no scenario did she look this dead. In no vision did he foresee his own will to live dying off with her. He collapsed, certain he’d rest there only for a few minutes.

He didn’t move till the sun was starting to rise and Roderick wrapped his hand around his shoulders. “Come on, mate. It’s time to go.”

In his hours sitting there, he had seen the fall of nations, the wrath of man, and of course the death of his own son. A vision that revisited him as often as he revisited it.

His gaze left Diana’s body for the first time in hours. “You lived.”

“Surprisingly.”

A silence fell over the two of them. In the break of dawn, they watched each other. “We don’t kill each other,” Da Vinci finally said. “Not now, not later.”

“She’s asking for you.” Roderick ignored Da Vinci’s proclamation. “She doesn’t know the others didn’t make it.”

Da Vinci glanced back to Diana’s corpse. He was once again being taken by visions of her healthy on the night they first kissed.

“I moved my partner’s body. The river is a smart choice.”

Da Vinci raised his brow in surprise. “How did you know?”

“We saw you bury the boy, but we waited till you were done to attack.”

Da Vinci closed his eyes and lingered in the dark. “I’m sorry about your friends.”

“I’m sorry about yours.”

Swallowing hard, Da Vinci stood and then grabbed Diana’s wrists. He went to drag her when Roderick stopped him.

“Here.” Roderick took her ankles and helped lift.

As they walked, Da Vinci talked. “How did they go out? I know they were both shot, but I never saw who pulled the trigger.”

“Huh,” Roderick grunted as the two maneuvered down a steep slope. “I thought you of all people would know. Hera killed Dresden. I’m assuming Nikola killed Hera. I wasn’t actually there to see it.”

Da Vinci stopped in his tracks. His palms sweated despite the intense chill in the air. “Hera killed Dresden?”

“I’m sorry.” Roderick and Da Vinci briefly traveled together until they came to the lip of the river at the bottom on where their allies now resided. They moved her body over the bank and released her. Diana vanished under the waves.

“I think I’ll be going now.” Roderick’s morale seemed to fall apart with the last of the bodies gone. “I’ll file a false-success report. That should buy you and the girl a few days. I’ll be gone by the time they realize what’s happened. It’s about time I leave this business.”

Da Vinci let out one short, sudden laugh. It was loud and filled with just a subtle suggestion of happiness that felt out of place next to a mass grave. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“What?” Roderick paused, giving Da Vinci a confused expression. Somewhere along the line, it must have dawned on him that Da Vinci saw all. Da Vinci knew all. “Ha. Guess not. That’s very typical of me.”

“Until we meet again, Roderick.” Da Vinci pulled his jacket in closer and then tightened his bandana. He wiped away the grime on his face with the back of his hands.

“You know my name. Guess it’s only fair. Right, Da Vinci?” Roderick laughed again, louder this time. “Guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Until then.” Roderick walked opposite Da Vinci, heading back to the west side of the mountain.

 

WHEN HE ARRIVED, Da Vinci could hear Ruby arguing with hospital staff from behind the doors of the elevator.

“Don’t call them yet,” Ruby shrieked.

The doctor was halfway through ordering a nurse to restrain her when Da Vinci knocked on the doorframe.

“What is going on in here?” Da Vinci would have shouted it, but his energy was zapped.

“You must be the girl’s father.” The doctor hurried over to him and began rattling off medical jargon and recommendations.

Da Vinci was quick to stop it. “If I could please just have a couple minutes alone with her?”

“As you see fit, Mr. Harrison.” The doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Please alert the nurses’ station when you’re ready to talk.”

The door clicked behind the staff.

“Ms. Robin Harrison,” Da Vinci started. “That’s something I never thought I’d hear. You gave your real name.”

“I wanted my folks to know if I was dead.” There was something so hollow about the way she said these things. “How do you know it’s my real name, anyway?”

“Keeping secrets was not one of Rigan’s strengths.” Da Vinci pulled up a chair next to the bed where Ruby lay, her leg propped up in a sling.

“The others…”

Da Vinci shook his head. “They knew they weren’t going to make it out of there. This is what they wanted.” He assured her with the little white lies he would tell himself on the harder nights.

“I’m happy you made it out okay.”

“Me, too.” Da Vinci patted the top of her hand before glancing at the clock above the doorframe. “We don’t have much time. I have someone I need to go meet.”

“The agent who saved me?”

“No.” Da Vinci shook his head. “Someone else, but you have to believe me when I say that I will come back. Not soon, but I will.”

“What?” Ruby widened her eyes and her heart rate spiked so quickly the monitor lagged behind it. “You’re leaving me, too?”

“I have to. For you to be safe and be able to live a normal life, I have to, Ruby. It isn’t safe for us to be in contact right now.”

“Da Vinci, you can’t.” Her mouth hung just open, her breathing shallow. “I…I…What if something happens? What if more agents come?”

“They won’t. I promise you they won’t, but you have to let me go for now.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I’m going to see my son.” It was such a pretty lie. “There’s a war coming, a big one. Lots of people are going to die and he’s going to be one of them.”

“More death.” Ruby stared at her lap. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll be all right, and so will you, okay?”

“I’m scared.” She teared up.

“Here.” Da Vinci took a pencil and notepad from the bedside table next to her. It was watermarked with the hospital’s logo. “Take this address and write to me. You remember the cipher Diana taught you?”

Ruby nodded in confirmation.

“Use it.” He then scribbled a number below it. “And call this number, but only in a serious emergency. Things are going to be rough at first, but you’ll grow back into your old life. You have to. This dark, horrible world I’m in, that Rigan was in, it doesn’t have to be yours, but you have to make that choice, Ruby. Contact me when you need me and know that I am looking out for you. We’ll see each other in due time.”

“I’ve spent nearly every day for the past three months with you all, and I’m just supposed to go on pretending nothing happened?”

Da Vinci smiled sadly. “For now. It’s the only way to guarantee your safety.”

She hesitated before speaking. “Do you know this because you’ve seen it? Or is this…uh…wishful thinking?”

Da Vinci moved his shoulders with exhausted exaggeration. “I know how you die, Ruby Starr, and it’s got nothing to do with spies.”

“Okay,” Ruby said. “And you have to go…in order to make that happen?”

“Yes.” A tear ran down Da Vinci’s cheek. “You don’t want to know how you die?”

“And torture myself like you? No, thanks.” She smiled through the pain. What was done, was done.

“Before I go, I need you to promise me three things.”

“Anything.”

“First, you steer clear of drugs. There’s a plague coming and I don’t want you in the middle of it. Second, you stay in the hospital long enough for your parents to come visit you.”

Ruby opened her mouth to protest, but Da Vinci quickly shut her down.

“I said come and visit. You don’t have to move back in.” He teased her with a melancholy kind of tone. “Give your folks some closure and peace of mind before you run off into the great beyond, kid.”

Her face relaxed as she listened to his third stipulation.

“And last—” He dug into his back pocket and fished from it an old, beaten compass. “I want you to take this.”

Ruby held it in her hands and ran her thumb across the scratched-up glass.

“It was mine, and then it was Rigan’s, and now it is yours. Whenever you start to doubt if any of it really happened, I want you to hold onto this, all right? It was real. We were real. We mattered.”

“I’m going to miss you, Da Vinci.” Ruby nodded tentatively, likely not understanding the gravity of his words.

“I’m gonna miss you, kid.” He leaned over the barricade of the bed and hugged her before standing. “I’m going to leave now, but I won’t be gone too long, all right? Just long enough.”

Ruby bit her lip and smiled, simple tears running down her face.

As Da Vinci left, he remembered the first time he’d seen all the day’s deaths unfold some months ago in the basement of the KGB facility. Da Vinci revisited this memory all too often. It was the last time he’d spoken to her before he knew. The last time he saw her before he saw her death. There was a careless optimism about his former self that he envied. But his wallowing was cut short by the wailing of a steam engine and the reappearance of three familiar faces.

The tall always-graceful Minerva stepped off the train first. Sleek, swooning Geronimo followed her, and behind them was Adams. Da Vinci stopped them all midstride.

“Niccolò.” Adams sounded surprised.

“You’re alive.” Geronimo smiled, wide. “Where are the others?”

Da Vinci maintained eye contact with Adams. “Top of the mountain by Hazel Creek. Nothing left but a remains recovery.”

“Shit.” Minerva balled her hands into fists.

Adams turned to his partners, then removed and cleaned his thin-framed glasses. “You two go. I’ll be there shortly.”

Geronimo turned and started off toward the end of the train terminal. Minerva stayed back only for a second before following.

“How’d she go?” Adams asked, then walked past Da Vinci and sat on a small, wooden bench close by.

“Nikola.” Da Vinci joined him on the bench.

Adams had an expression on that showed little surprise but great sadness. “Always knew that one would come back to haunt her…Marco and Dresden?”

“Both killed by Nikola,” Da Vinci assured him. “They died defending her.”

“What about Nikola’s team?”

“No team.” Da Vinci shook his head. “She’d gone rogue.”

They sat for a moment, staring out at the trains pulling away from the station, and the crowds of people hurrying by.

Eventually, Adams said, “I’m sorry about Marco.”

“I’m sorry about Hera.” Da Vinci ran his hands along his head, smoothing his bandana. “I don’t think I can do this anymore, Adams.”

“Give it time,” Adams hushed him. “We’ll go over your options later.”

Da Vinci sat, knowing he had only one option. He’d spend the rest of his life protecting Ruby Starr. She’d get to live. She’d get to be happy. They’d all died for her. In due time, he’d die for her, too. Da Vinci stood and followed Adams out of the station, back to the woods where he knew no bodies would be found.