Chapter 10

When he woke up, Bolden’s head felt heavier than it had after the drinking bout at the hotel. He turned sluggishly on one side and tried to pick out the outlines of the room in the semidarkness. He was lying on a black sofa that smelled of recently processed leather and someone had place a small pillow under his head. They hadn’t taken his shoes off, but someone had covered him with a blanket, and he’d been sweating profusely beneath it

He didn’t hear a sound, but he perceived the variations of light in the room. Colonel Folder was already seated comfortably next to him, in a leather armchair the same color as the sofa. In front of the sofa, a muted flat-screen was broadcasting the news.

“Take this,” the colonel said, passing him a small plastic cup with a pill in it. “It’ll cut through that headache pretty fast.” Bolden took the pill, then accepted the cup of water Folder passed him to chase it down.

“What have you done to me?” he asked as he set the cup down and settled back into the sofa. “Where am I?”

He wanted to lash at the colonel, but felt much too exhausted. And the questions ... he had shouted them in his mind, but the words came out like an anemic whirr. Bolden winced as he sat up, blinking away the fog.

The colonel watched with a patronizing smile.

“This is a Guardian Angel safe house,” he said. “And as soon as that tranquilizer wears off, you’re free to go. We’ll even provide the car and driver.”

Bolden’s mind struggled to focus.

“What happened back there in Queens?”

“We rescued you,” Folder said quietly. “Your last freebie.”

“Rescued me? What are you talking about?”

Folder took the remote control from the arm of his chair and unmuted the audio. For the next ten minutes, Bolden watched in horror as news reports recounted the fate of the airliner he’d been rushing to catch.

Not only was everyone on board believed to be dead, but the crash had obliterated the larger part of a dense neighborhood in Far Rockaway, Queens. Scenes from the ground were chaotic, but the discovery of Serious Boy’s video stream had injected a terrifying new element of fascination into the news mix.

Bolden had been watching for several minutes before his tranq-addled brain was able to form the question that had been nagging him. Danielle was supposed to meet him at the airport. Danielle was going to wait for him at the gate.

“Was Danielle on that plane?” he asked.

The colonel averted his eyes and nodded grimly.

The answer struck him like a falling stone.

His life, his perfect life until recently, seemed over. It wasn’t the thought of losing the woman with whom he had spent the previous two years that made him cry, but the realization that his innocent normalcy had died in the crash with her. He was no longer the spoiled man who received every good thing in life as a personal entitlement. He had become an animal, hunted by relentless fate.

He swiped at the tears on his face with his sleeve.

“You could have saved her,” he said. “You could have saved all of them. Hundreds of people. You just let them die.”

The colonel leaned in toward him.

“We’re not God,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. “We saved you, and just that rescue alone taxed our resources to the brink. Danielle wasn’t under our observation.”

“You should have known. We were both about to board the same plane.”

“That’s hindsight.”

“It’s common sense!”

“Listen to me: we’re not responsible for her, or for any of those people,” he said, pointing at the television. “We did our jobs, and because we did them well, you’re still here. But people die, Ian. That’s the way it is.”

Bolden clenched his jaw.

“That Device with two dials. You said one of the needles indicates my probability of dying and the other one refers to the people around me. If the thing works at all, it should have indicated a catastrophe of this magnitude, which means you had to see this coming. So did you let them die to make your sales pitch more convincing?”

He spoke without emotion or reproach. The reasoning seemed logical enough.

“If you need to blame someone besides that terrorist for what just happened, call your own name,” Folder said. “You still don’t get it, do you? You’re the one who caused the deaths of all those people, Ian. The events generated by the forces that are trying to restore the natural balance we’ve disturbed always get more violent over time.”

“You hold it right there!” Bolden yelled. “I … you …”

“You’re free to voice your objections, but we’re finished here,” Folder said, standing to go. “The maximum time limit for your free protection expired an hour ago, which means that for the first time in decades, you’re no longer my concern.”

Bolden gaped at him like a beached fish.

“So stay here until you get your bearings, and you’ll find a car and driver waiting for you on your way out. But that will be the end of your dealings with The Guardian Angel. Have a nice life.”

Folder turned to leave, picking up his leather briefcase from beside the armchair.

Panic spiked in Bolden’s gut.

“Stop! I want to see that contract!”

The words came out involuntarily, more ancient survival instinct than reason.

The colonel stopped and turned around slowly. Bolden expected to see a triumphant smile, but Folder’s face was expressionless, inscrutable. He returned to the armchair, deliberately placed the briefcase on his knees, opened it, retrieved a leather portfolio from inside and handed it to Bolden.

“I’m authorized to give you an additional twenty-four hours, starting now ...” he said, checking his watch, “to study the contract. You’re free to consult your attorneys and financial advisers, but they will also confirm that this is nothing more than a standard security contract with a conditional payment clause. It’s just an unusually expensive one.”

Bolden’s eyes scanned the document. “Good. I’ll have my people review this and we’ll get back to you with an appropriate counter-offer.”

“No, you won’t,” Folder said, closing his briefcase sharply and preparing to leave. “The contract terms are non-negotiable. You either sign it or you don’t.”

“Wait!” Bolden said. “Are you saying it is effective right away? Where do I have to sign?”

The colonel let his hands rest on the briefcase.

“Read it first. The contract requires an immediate payment of $100 million dollars to cover our previous expenses, plus to begin our preparations for your protection at the next level – which, given recent events, is likely to be wildly expensive.”

“I can handle that,” Bolden said.

“After that, there are weekly payments of $10 million. Payment is due at the end of each week. For each level you advance based on your survival of fatal events, the price increases.

“Finally, there’s your inheritance: You assign 95 percent of your estate to The Guardian Angel and we file a copy of your will. The rest is yours to distribute as you please.”

Bolden leafed through the contract casually.

“What’s this about a thousand dollars for an ounce of gold?”

“It is an exchange-rate clause that protects us from inflation,” Folder said, shrugging his shoulders. “We have lawyers too.”

“Inflation is the least of my worries. At $10 million a week, I’ll run out of cash pretty damn soon,” Bolden protested.

“Money isn’t going to be an issue,” Folder said. “We’ve reviewed your finances and run our own projections against them, and there’s essentially no risk of you running out of money.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Here’s why it does. Someone in the company noticed a trend several years ago: as our clients advanced in threat level, their income and quality of life seemed to increase proportionally. We can’t explain the correlation, but we can absolutely prove its existence. It’s as if the same force that increases the threat against your life also turns up the dial that governs how much success you can experience.”

“So the more cosmic attempts on my life I survive, the more profitable I become?”

“Something like that. Have you checked your portfolio lately? Stock in Green Clean is at a historical high. Space Elevator administrators now say they’ll reach lift projected capacity well before deadline.”

Bolden put the thin stack of papers on the edge of the couch.

“So I become increasingly richer as I get closer to getting killed. It is not a fair trade, at least not for me. But so long as I pay you the weekly fee, you’ll guarantee I stay alive?”

The colonel flashed a discreet smile. He took the contract, turned a few pages until he found what he was searching for, and pointed to the passage he wanted Bolden to read.

“It is provided for here. We guarantee that we will do everything in our power, with experts and resources, to keep you alive. Nothing more. Nothing more would be possible. Like I said earlier. We’re not God.”

Bolden read the passage several times.

“You mean you take my money anyway, whether I live or die. I don’t think so.”

“Read carefully. You only pay at the end of the week. Never in advance. Don’t like the service we gave you? Terminate the contract. At any time.”

Bolden had the feeling he was missing something.

“Every day, many people face close encounters with death and survive. A freak wave sweeps them out to sea, but a life guard pulls them out of the water. A distracted jaywalker steps in front of a moving car, only to be saved by the driver’s alert reaction. And after that they live happily ever after without any incidents. What about them? Who saves them?”

Folder sat back, rubbing his chin with his forefinger. “This is a subtle point, but listen carefully, because it’s important now that you understand.

“I’m all ears,” Bolden replied.

“We all live with chance, and what you’ve described are encounters with chance. The important thing is, the people in your example didn’t die, and that’s because they were never in actual danger of losing their lives, not even for a moment. The proof of that is their survival, even if they were seriously injured in the event.”

“So you’re telling me that your machine, this Device, separates the events that lead to someone’s death from those that, in the end, turn out to be nothing more than false alarms?”

Folder reached over to pick up a glass from the adjoining table, then slowly poured himself some water. He waited until he was done drinking before answering.

“Correct. The Device perceives chance, but given enough data it can clearly distinguish between random events and events that are intended deliberately to kill you.”

“So the Calvinists were right. There is such a thing as predestination. Out of pure curiosity, how do you distinguish between the trivial, non-dangerous accidents and the truly lethal ones?”

The colonel sighed.

“The patterns seem identical to my eye. Only the Device is able to separate the two, and I can’t explain how or why because I just don’t know the answer. I just see that the correlation between what the Device says and what happens is astounding. As for predestination, I suggest you consult a theologian.”

“All right,” Bolden said, defeated. “Got a pen?”

“It’s a formality more than anything else,” Folder said, handing him a golden one. “The beauty of our business is that both parties are so powerfully motivated to uphold this contract.”

Bolden scribbled his name and initials on the blocks indicated and then handed back both pen and contract to the colonel, who signed and dated the necessary witness statements. When he was done he blew lightly on the ink to dry it and then slipped the document back into his briefcase.

“You’re not an easy man to convince,” he said. “I feel like I should be buying you a drink, now that we’re finally official.”

Bolden shrugged his shoulders slightly, betraying a certain sense of defeat.

“You’re shrewd, you know,” the colonel said. “You were right about our opportunity to prevent the attack on that airplane. We spotted the implications, although that’s a rare occurrence. But I have to tell you, I don’t know what we could have done, exactly, that would have prevented that attack. And more importantly, I don’t know whether stopping it would have been a good thing for anyone.”

“All those dead passengers wouldn’t be dead,” Bolden said.

“For the moment, no. Look, I’ve heard about other Guardian Angel cases where case officers like me made the decision to intervene beyond the parameters of simply protecting their client. And they were wrong.

“You understand how a lighting rod works? You’ve got this potential energy, this electrical imbalance that exists between the charge in the cloud and the ground. An imbalance like that can’t continue forever in nature, so the energy must be discharged, which means there has to be a lightning strike.

“A lightning rod doesn’t prevent lightning strikes, or keep them away from your house. It just gives lightning – that incredibly violent re-balancing of natural equilibrium – a path of least resistance. Electricity follows the rod directly to the ground, where it is absorbed.

“Take away the rod, and you don’t know where the house will be hit. And a house offers resistance. It gets blown to pieces or burned to the ground because it stands in the way of that natural discharge.

“If I had prevented that plane from taking off yesterday, it would have been as if I’d removed a lightning rod from a house right before an enormous thunderstorm. The natural imbalance would still exist. The disequilibrium would still need to be violently discharged. But my ability to channel it harmlessly away from you would be eliminated. People would still die, but the difference is, you would almost certainly be one of them.”

“So yes, an airplane full of people, your girlfriend among, crashed. And theoretically, I might have been able to prevent it. Because I did not, they are dead and you are still alive.

“The question is, do you have a problem with that?”

Folder looked him straight in the eye. Bolden held his gaze for a while, then sighed and turned away. He shook his head, conceding the truth.

“No,” he said. “No problem.”

The colonel breathed a sigh of relief and resumed.

“Now that we’ve dispensed with the formalities, let’s get to work. We have prepared a Calming Zone for you. You’ll see what that means right away, but it’s easier for me to show you. We’ll need to perform a complete set of medical tests,” he raised his hand to stifle Bolden’s protests. “Yes, I know you go for regular medical examinations. Trust me, those are a joke compared to what we’ve got in store for you. You’ll bet fitted for several devices, giving us the ability to monitor all your biometrics: heart, urine, blood, stool, your tone of your voice, everything. By the way, those cigars you like …”

“What about them?”

“Forget about it. Smoking is out of the question.”

Bolden attempted a protest, but Folder waved it off.

“From here on out, we’re a daily part of your life, like the Secret Service agents who protect the President. We become your security staff. We run your medical care, your calendar, you name it. If you plan to meet someone for coffee, one of my agents checks out the route and the venue in advance. And so on.”

Bolden stopped him, covering his ears. He realized that his safe and comfortable universe, filled with luxury items and rich people who, like him, were traveling in private jets and leisure yachts, who never got into cars cheaper than half a million dollars, was on the verge of breaking into a thousand pieces. He could see the outline of his future, and it was a grim perspective – the perspective of a life in which he would be permanently hounded by guards, obsessed with paranoid fears for his safety, most of them imaginary.

Bolden looked at the colonel and saw him clearly with new eyes. He was still the same crisp, fit and elderly man, but he didn’t look like a superhero anymore. He wanted to tell him that, but instead something utterly different came out of his mouth.

“So you’re going to search through my shit and I have to ask you for permission every time I want to flush? Everything I do is subject to your approval and permission? And for this privilege I’m to pay you piles of money? What kind of a life is that?”

The colonel stopped smiling. He looked at him gravely.

“It’s life. As opposed to death.”