OLD LINGUINE.
Jeremy flies down the hallway at the Mandarin, past a cart, a housekeeper’s cart, pushed against the wall. Towels and soaps, and on top, a haphazardly balanced plate of half-eaten pasta. He hears footsteps behind him. Urgent whispers of his two stalkers: Andrea and a tall, thin woman, a shock but not a complete stranger. He saw her the night earlier at a café, then at a bar, then on the street.
Then in the car that tried to run him over.
Now at his heels.
“It’s pointless, Jeremy!”
He passes the housekeeping cart and swoops his arm around the edge, trying to push it behind him into the hallway. Slow the women. His aim is true; the cart topples behind him, giving him maybe an extra second.
His legs explode off the swirls of red and black on the carpet.
He hears a click. A click. A gun?
Finds the extra gear. Reaches the elevators, pauses, hears the women leaping over or crashing through the toppled cart. The elevators are a trap, a cage. He keeps running, toward the end of the hallway, a sign: exit. The stairs.
An urge strikes him to yell, what, “Fire”? Bring people out of their rooms, their dawn beds, create more chaos. Something prevents him, pride, maybe. He wants to confront, not run. At the stairs, he turns back, allows himself to look. They’re coming, Andrea and the woman, no longer sprinting, hustling, confidently. They’ve got Jeremy in their sights, a helpless gazelle.
He scans for a fire alarm; shouldn’t there be one right here on the wall? Not to be. He opens the stairwell doors.
Up.
Steps echo as he bounds. Two steps at a time, three. The twelfth floor, thirteenth, fourteenth, thighs burning, lungs tight, stairs looming endlessly. A cavern with a dead end.
One of the women says: “Take the elevator to the top.”
He keeps on, hearing the door open on one of the floors. They’re maybe two floors behind him, feet chasing sound. But now one of them has gone for the elevator bank, heading, where, presumably the top floor so she can come down. One will be behind him, the other in front. Unless he hurries. To the top, and then what?
“Jeremy!” Andrea is the one behind him.
He sees a sign: “Nineteenth Floor,” and, beneath it: “Roof Access.”
He reaches for the handle. He pushes down. It opens. He pauses. Andrea, alone, is beneath him. Surely he can blow past her, shove her out of the way, one-on-one, and were this Pamplona, he’d be the bull.
What’s he running from?
A gun? The unknown?
Do these women want to kill him?
He opens the door to the roof. As he does so, he sees the fire alarm. Reaches for it; not yet. He needs Andrea. She needs him, but he needs something from her, a truth, a story. An idea surfaces.
He shoves the door closed and spills onto the roof. Darkness, a twist of neon in the distance, from the side of a building. Coca-Cola. He feels frigid air, foggy drizzle, tarry gravel beneath his feet. He blinks, willing sight. Looking for a foe; has the other woman made it up here?
He sees no one. Just the expansive roof, scattered storage units, a rectangular cement room, probably for electrical equipment, Internet, locked off by a heavy metal door.
He hears the door open behind him. Looks back and sees both women, purposeful, but not sprinting. He starts walking to the side of the roof.
“I know,” he says.
“What do you know?” Andrea asks.
“About the attack. Why?”
She and the woman look at one another.
“It’s on here,” Jeremy says. “All of it. In here, my backpack. The future foretold, all the evidence.” He blinks. He’s trying to piece something together, anything. Trying to sound like he’s holding cards. “It has to do with the Russians, a rogue executive.” He pauses. “A missing bomb.”
The women step forward.
“Bomb?”
“Stop lying!”
“Jeremy, I can help you. You’re a brilliant man, brilliant. But you’re lost in an alternate reality.” Tiny pause. “You killed Harry.”
“No.”
“I saw the . . . I saw the stains. The blood. I’m only looking out for you.”
“You’re not telling me something.”
No answer.
“I can give you what you want.”
“Which is what?” Andrea looks at the woman. Something silent passes between them.
“But first you have to tell me what you know, Andrea.”
“I’m telling you. I am. Telling. You. The lieutenant colonel was missing.” She clears her throat. Her arms are crossed. She juts her chin toward the tall woman, the dangerous fawn with the gun.
“Okay.”
“What do you know about it, Jeremy?”
“So he’s no longer missing.”
“What?”
“You said he ‘was’ missing. So he’s no longer missing.”
“He’s dead, Jeremy.”
Jeremy takes it in. He watches the women circle. “I know.”
Andrea takes a deep breath. “You know who killed him.”
“You did.”
“Very funny.”
Jeremy looks at the taller woman, the mute gun toter, circling around to his left. She’s practically silhouetted by the darkness.
Jeremy says: “You tried to run me over in the car. Last night, outside the McDonald’s.”
Andrea: “She wasn’t trying to run you over. She was trying to scare you.”
“Why?”
“So you’d get into the car with me. So you’d help me. She’s with me, a trusted colleague.”
“She’s helping you to do what?”
“Figure out what’s going on. With Lavelle, the lieutenant colonel. He mentioned you. He warned me.”
Jeremy shakes his head.
“Before he disappeared. He was nervous. He mentioned you. You have a vendetta, Jeremy. You hate him, us, for ruining your dreams. It’s about you.”
“And Harry?”
Andrea shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“He was working with you too.”
“Yes, I told you.”
“Doing what?”
“I told you: helping us to understand the world, how conflict works. I showed you mine, Jeremy. Show me yours.”
“See for yourself,” he blurts out. He takes off his backpack. “If I show you, you’ll let me live.”
“Of course. Jeremy, I’m not a—”
“The future foretold.”
Jeremy throws the black backpack in the direction of the tall woman, roughly, more toward the corner of the roof. It spins, like a Frisbee, lands, and slips and slides toward the corner, the edge of the hotel. She starts loping toward it and as she makes her break, Jeremy makes his. He’s heading right for Andrea.
Within steps, he’s on her, then past. She reaches out an arm, but he shakes it. Steps later, he pulls open the door leading to the stairs. He ignores the sounds behind him. He knows they’ll be preoccupied, but for only the briefest second.
Minutes later, after an elevator ride, he’s sprinting down.
He feels the iPad and keyboard. They’re tucked awkwardly between his back and his shirt, which in turn is tucked into his pants. In his pocket, the tiny wireless mouse. Portable Jeremy. The women have doubtless realized now that they were left empty-handed. Wonders how they feel having discovered The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dating.
Why would they want the computer?
He feels relief, then a thrill. There’s the beat-up Toyota, on the corner. Inside it, Nik, the dutiful Nik; should Jeremy expect anything less?
He sprints to the car to discover his assistant mouth deep in a donut. A half-eaten dozen between the two front seats. Jeremy paws a maple-frosted and stuffs it into his mouth. The smell mixes with a sanitized odor of dog, Nik having done his best to spray away the scent of Rosa, his dog. On the floor of the passenger seat, Nik’s old leather bag, which Jeremy nudges aside as he climbs in.
Jeremy points ahead on the road and Nik puts the car in drive and accelerates.
“Youliedtome.” Jeremy’s words—You lied to me—get swallowed by a mouthful of donut.
Nik shakes his head: what? The corpulent assistant points to a coffee in the middle compartment.
Jeremy swallows a thick chunk of half-chewed donut, follows it with coffee.
I said: “Let’s go save the world.”
Nik looks at him, blinks. Is this sarcasm from his boss? Drama? Not the kind of thing that Jeremy ordinarily would say.
Jeremy tells Nik where to drive.