Two weeks later I’m back on that jungle path jogging with Merl and our dogs. The sunlight is dappled, the flashes of sky between the leaves bright sapphire. My feet pound against the same soft earth scented of life and death and all the fragrant stages in between. On this day, however, all is calm.
The drones that had seemed so threatening belonged to a timber company, which according to its internal records was surveying the area for possible acquisition. That could be total bullshit, of course, but the timber company isn’t an obvious front. It didn’t open its doors a few weeks ago; there are years of records. It looks like a legitimate business, and it might be.
But our land is not for sale—we own hundreds of acres surrounding our compound, and we’ve given no indication of wanting to part with it. As far as paperwork is concerned, we are a private community happily settled in the middle of our jungle acreage.
To be fair, it wouldn’t be crazy to think of us as weird and culty—so maybe the executives at Costa Lignum Enterprises figure we’re bound to implode and there will be a lot of trees available for cutting.
Sure. Maybe.
Could also be that the executives, or even just a manager at Costa Lignum Enterprises, is doing a favor for any number of people and organizations who’d like a lidar 3D map of the forest canopy and the ground below.
The US intelligence community knows the location of our training camp. They may be updating their files on the landscape.
This is where Consuela Sanchez—at the time a Homeland Security officer—arrested me. Where we struck a deal and began our shared mission to bring down Robert Maxim. A man I have had every opportunity to kill, but never the fortitude. Not even when all it would take is my indifference. I can’t even muster not giving a fuck about that man.
If only he was pure evil. Why does Robert Maxim have to be the only person who understands a certain monstrous part of me? Fuck.
So let’s assume a US intelligence agency is taking a renewed interest in our location. And we know what they know because we’re better at this spy shit than them. The best hackers in the world are key members of our organization, and it’s hard to beat that in this modern world. Which is at once wildly different than the past and also a carbon copy of it—the details updated but the structures the same.
“Why does history repeat itself?” I ask Merl as we jog side by side, each of us followed by our three dogs. The path is only wide enough to run two by two, with thick jungle foliage lining either side. We make quite the procession.
First, Merl and me—dark hair next to blonde. Then Lucy and Blue, slick black Doberman next to a long-haired white, brown, and black mutt. Followed by Nila and Michael, Nila’s pure white coat a stark contrast to Michael’s obsidian sheen. Frank and Chula complete the train; Frank’s taller and broader than Chula, and they are both fresh out of puppyhood, both falling into step with the pack easily, their heads level, bodies relaxed by the group exercise. I feel the same.
Merl laughs. “Why not just ask what the meaning of life is?”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously though, why is history doomed to repeat?”
“Are we talking about your personal history or broader human history? Or are you thinking about the universal—why do stars keep forming, burning, and imploding?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “I will accept answers to them all.”
“Well, let’s start with the micro, you.”
“Okay.”
“You have lessons to learn.”
I swallow a ball of fear. “That everyone I love dies so I should stop loving.”
Merl nods. “Yeah, that’s it. You got it.”
He picks up his speed, sneakers striking the soft path harder as he extends his stride. Merl is taller than me and faster but he’s not running away, just fucking with me.
I catch up with him and meet his faster pace. “Okay, if not that, then what’s the lesson?” Layers of green whip past us as we run.
“Sydney, if I could just tell you, it wouldn’t count.” Merl’s breath is still totally even.
“Oh really?” The humid air seems to be getting thicker the faster we run. The white T-shirt I’m wearing sticks to my skin, and the blue moisture-wicking shorts I’m wearing are not living up to their promise.
Merl’s corded arms and molded shoulders catch the diamonds of light that flash through the thick jungle canopy—his skin as slick with sweat as mine. “Yes, really,” Merl says, answering my sarcasm. “We can’t be told life lessons. That’s not how it works. But the fact that people you love die, Sydney, that’s life. Everybody loses loved ones.”
“Not as many as me,” I mumble, guilt churning my stomach.
“That’s ridiculous. Have you heard of the Spanish flu, the plague? Entire families died during those pandemics. And let’s not get started on World War II.”
“I think it’s pretty different, Merl. If I’d quit my job the moment I saw that dead body in New York, my brother would still be alive.” So many people would still be alive.
“Or he would have gotten hit by a car. You have no idea. It’s not your fault. Even if it was, I thought you were done torturing yourself over it.”
“Never.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud and I wince when the word dances off my tongue.
Merl stops short and it takes me a few strides to slow my own pace and turn back to him. Frank knocks into Nila and she nips him, a warning to watch where his clumsy ass is going. Frank yips as though she’s taken a chunk of his flesh. “What’s wrong?” I ask Merl.
“You’re never going to forgive yourself?” Merl’s brown eyes, framed by those pitch black lashes, narrow.
I cringe, dropping my gaze to the ground. The earth is the same dark brown as Merl’s eyes. “A part of me won’t,” I admit. “I wish I could, but I just can’t. There is too much evidence that it’s my fault. It would be delusional to pretend I don’t carry the blame.”
“So Kurt Jessup’s role in your brother’s death, what’s that? The man who actually killed him. How much blame does he get?”
I cross my arms over my chest and lift my chin, meeting his eyes again. “I’m not saying I did it. I’m saying it was my stupid, blind, I don’t even know what.” My chest is suddenly tight, explaining how naive I was harder than sprinting through the humid jungle. “It was my fault that Kurt even knew James existed. He never would have gone after him if it weren’t for me.”
“So the consequences of you seeking justice are your fault?”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve told me more than once that life isn’t fair. I should have just left it alone.”
“And now.” Merl takes a step toward me, his eyes searching my face. “What will you do now? Have you given up on justice?”
“I tried to.” I let out a weird laugh—releasing some of the pressure in my chest. “I tried to give it up.”
“And what happened?” There is no humor in Merl’s tone—weird or otherwise.
“It didn’t work.” The pressure redoubles and suddenly the jungle feels like it’s getting closer, the air even denser.
“And why not?” Merl takes another step toward me. We’re so close now I can feel the heat coming off him.
“I put my trust in the wrong person.” Again.
“Wasn’t he the only person to trust in the moment?” Merl asks, and it feels like he shoves me through time and space. That moment rushes into the present, the scent of blood and smoke choking me, the feel of the knife in my hand, the brown eyes that met mine and promised to help.
“I could have killed him and gone on my own,” I say, barely seeing Merl through the haze of my memories. “It would have been hard, but I could have done it.” I was prepared to do it. The knife in my hand didn’t scare me. Being alone with my son didn’t scare me—even though it should have. But I was willing to kill the man I knew as Peter Drunfeld and go on with my life. He meant almost nothing to me. Why didn’t I keep it that way? Why did I let him lie his way into my heart?
“You could have killed the man who delivered your child?” Merl asks, and there isn’t judgment in his voice, just a low note of disbelief.
I take in a stuttering breath, Peter’s eyes coming into focus in my mind’s eye, doing that thing they always did—anchoring me. When I was giving birth to James he met my gaze and told me I could do it. That he was there and I was powerful and that’s all that mattered. The wreckage of our airplane burning in the trees, the smoke choking the air, the ocean lapping at the shore, none of that mattered. All that mattered was bringing my son into this world, and Peter knew I could do it.
“If he’d refused to help me run I would have killed him.” My body and heart were ripped open, torn from one reality into another. The instinct to protect my son overrode any sentimental attachment I might have had to the man who helped bring him into the world.
I didn’t feel desperation, I felt confident that I was doing the right thing. Go. Dan told me to flee the tsunami-ravaged Pacific island where Joyful Justice had its other main base because he knew Robert wouldn’t give up. He knew I could hide. He didn’t know Peter would betray me. Or that I’d betray myself by falling for him. Falling for another lie. “If I’d known what he would do…” I bite my lip, the memory of his deception, his lies, trying to tear their way through my chest and make me bleed all over the jungle floor.
“You’re obsessed with knowing what will happen. Looking back and trying to fix your mistakes.” Merl holds his hands up, putting bunny-ear quotation marks around mistakes.
“I hardly think getting my brother killed, or trusting a man who so thoroughly betrayed me, are mistakes.” I make my own bunny ears, except mine are aggressive bunny ears, mine are mad bunny ears.
“It’s a shitty attitude.”
I bark a laugh. “It’s some shitty shit.”
Merl laughs back this time, humor loosening the bands around my breasts.
“Shitty shit,” Merl says, grinning. “You are eloquent, I’ll give you that.”
A bird squawks loudly, and I jerk in the direction of the sound. All I can see is thick wet foliage—wide shining leaves, moss-covered trunks, and vines strung between them. “Jesus,” I say.
“Don’t think he can help.”
“Or would help a sinner like me.”
Merl doesn’t respond, just starts to jog again. I stare into the jungle for another long moment, watching the way that it moves. It almost looks like it’s breathing, like the jungle itself is a living being.
Blue’s nose brushes my hip, urging me on. I follow Merl, my footsteps quiet on the soft path. Our surroundings become a blur, my mind grows calm, empty. It’s just me, my breath, and my body thrumming along with the wilderness.
“Do you want to rejoin the council?” Merl’s question pulls me from my trance. Do I want to be on the governing board of Joyful Justice again?
“Yes,” I say without even thinking about it. The answer just leaps out of me from that settled part of myself.
Merl glances over, eyebrows raising at my quick response. His eyes narrow a fraction, squinting at my face, as if he’s trying to see into the distance—into the depths of me.
“Good,” he says with a nod. “That’s really good.” He turns forward again, and my focus returns to my feet and the path just before them. “I’ll get a packet of information together to catch you up. We have a meeting tomorrow, you should join.”
“Okay. But I won’t have read the packet.”
Merl huffs a laugh. The path exits the jungle and we pass by the open field where Joyful Justice members are practicing tai chi. Someone calls to Merl and he slows to a stop, holding up a hand to gesture he will be there in one minute before turning to me. “Declan Doyle is in Costa Rica, he’s vacationing in Santa Teresa.”
“Seriously?” I say. “Way to bury the lead.” Merl offers a noncommittal shrug. “There is no way that’s a coincidence.”
“I agree.”
“He wants to talk,” I guess.
“Or he’s trying to get you to come out of hiding so he can grab you,” Merl says with another casual shrug as though we’re not talking about having my life locked away at some black ops location.
I shake my head. “I’m his confidential informant. He wants information, not justice.”
Merl nods. He knows about the deal Declan struck with Consuela Sanchez to keep me free. “Rebecca has evidence linking Richard Chiles to Senator Jackson’s death. Coded emails between him and a fixer who goes by the name Scythe.”
Senator Eunice Jackson’s assassination comes back to me in vivid color—the red desert behind her, the glint of a scope in the desert, the crack of gunfire…she died in an instant. So much power, so much purpose. Gone.
I shudder at the memory. “Jesus, Merl. We’ve been jogging for an hour and you’re just mentioning all this now.”
I’d suspected Senator Richard Chiles in the assassination of Senator Jackson—she was working with Consuela in attempt to bring his benefactor, Robert Maxim, to justice. But Rebecca, Joyful Justice’s chief intelligence gatherer since Dan’s arrest, appears to have proof. Emails between Richard and a broker named Scythe plotting her murder could do a lot of damage in the hands of a Homeland Security agent like Declan Doyle…if he was willing to use them.
Merl’s smile is crooked. “Always better to talk business after your brain is flooded with endorphins.”
I shake my head, now as filled with thoughts as endorphins. “So Declan Doyle is in Santa Teresa and has evidence Richard Chiles was involved in the assassination of Eunice Jackson.”
Merl nods.
“I guess I’m going to the beach,” I say, a smile pulling at my lips.
Merl flashes his gap-toothed grin at me before turning to join the training in the field.