Neeley turned to look at Hannah. It was a question she had only answered for Gant. She thought about it for a few moments, and then spoke. "My earliest memories are of my mother locked up in her room whenever my dad was gone. He was some kind of low-level Department of Defense spook and he was gone a lot. That's the way it was; dinner would stop, she would stop, our lives would come to a standstill while she waited for him to come home. He was gone for months at a time.
"I swore I'd never be like that, so dependent on another human being, but I followed in her footsteps like I'd been in training my whole life. His name was Jean-Philippe.
"He was a boy I knew in Strasbourg. My mother was French — my father met her when he was stationed in Germany — and every summer I went to my grandparents. You had John, I had my Jean-Philippe. I'd spend those weeks exploring the city with him and bettering my French. Every year he was taller and more beautiful and every year it was harder for me to leave.”
Someone knocked on the locked door. “Cleaning,” Neeley yelled. The person went away and Neeley resumed her story as she heated the blade. "Finally, after high school, I moved there to go to college and Jean-Philippe and I became lovers. By then he was involved in a lot of weird businesses I barely understood. I really didn't even pay attention. I just loved the image of it. Me and my handsome French lover with his friends in a smoky café. Jean-Philippe was making money, a lot of money, and hanging with other people with a lot of money. For a nineteen year old it was pretty wild.”
Neeley checked the blade, and put it back under the water.
"It was an exciting, wonderful time. My own studies were suffering, but that was all right because Jean-Philippe seemed to want me close all the time. As he was drawn further into his business, people appeared in our lives that should have frightened me.
"Today I know those people are the machine: they are the probes and tentacles that slither around from the main body and search for souls to feed it.” She looked at the other woman. “They are not a particular cause, Hannah. They have no fixed values in their heart but just want to make money and don’t care what they have to do in order to achieve that goal.”
Neeley pulled the scalpel out of the water and came closer to Hannah. "Are you ready?"
Hannah nodded.
Neeley continued talking as she carefully pushed the blade into the cut. "I was so far in with Jean-Philippe, so dependent on him, that I didn’t see the reality. Then some really dangerous people found us and nothing would ever be the same. They sensed our immaturity and used us. At the time it seemed like fate. Today I know you make your own fate. When you're empty and weak, other people give you your fate."
Hannah glanced at Neeley and seemed about to say something, but didn't.
"Jean-Philippe and I left France and spent the next two years working for those people in various places, particularly Berlin. I learned to worship values that weren't my own and in the end I lost the only thing I ever loved."
Hannah finally spoke. "You lost Jean-Philippe."
"No." Neeley looked up from the blood. "I lost myself.
"When the final betrayal came, I was little more than a robot, an emotionless thing following him. One day Jean-Philippe forgot his love for me because he was told to by someone who probably paid him a lot of money, which I know now was more important to him than any person. That was the end for me. I wasn't human any more, just another tentacle of the machine."
Hannah leaned back against the bathroom wall, not looking at what Neeley's hands were doing. "And who was this Gant guy?"
Neeley smiled something that was a cross between pure pleasure and immeasurable grief. "He was the man who saved me." She reached with her free hand and pushed a finger into the wound she had widened. "There's something in here."
She pulled out fingers dripping blood and grabbed the tweezers. She pushed them into the cut flesh, ignoring Hannah's hiss of pain and clamped down. She pulled out a small piece of metal, half the size of the nail on her pinkie. "That's it."
Neeley placed it down on the counter top and took a small spray bottle of antiseptic out of the aid kit. "This will sting."
"Like what you just finished doing felt good," Hannah said.
Neeley squirted the wound, soaking it. Then she used gauze and tape to bind it. "You need to walk on it."
"Excuse me?" Hannah said.
"You need to keep the muscle from tightening up on you."
"I thought we were flying west, not walking," Hannah said as she carefully hopped down from the counter.
"We are, but you need to be ready."
"You sound like a girl scout troop leader," Hannah complained, but she was gingerly walking about, testing the thigh. "It's not too bad."
"That's the second time today you've impressed me," Neeley said.
Hannah paused. "Don't try to boost my ego with false flattery. You would probably be running a half-marathon with this injury. If you want me to believe you, then talk to me honestly, not like a child."
Neeley slowly nodded. "All right. That's the second time today you've impressed me." She looked at her watch. "We have to get rid of this guy who had you stuck with this."
Neeley dropped the bug in her pocket. Then she reached down and put John's briefcase on the counter. Hannah walked over and silently watched as Neeley flipped open the latches. She swung the lid up and both women stared at the contents.
A stack of papers and plans were inside. Neeley picked them and thumbed through. “Plans for two pipelines in Afghanistan like John said. Contracts.”
Hannah took some of the papers and they spent several minutes reading.
“I don’t get it,” Neeley finally said. “Yeah, these papers implicate Senator Collins and Cintgo in a deal with the Taliban to build these pipeline but these are dated 1993.”
Hannah ran a hand across her chin in thought. “According to John, Collins tried to tie up all loose ends on this deal back then in ’93. He failed and because Gant had the video and John these papers, they were able to hold things in a status quo. But something’s missing.”
“What do you mean?” Neeley asked.
“Didn’t you say Gant told you there were three pieces?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the third?” Hannah didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s the critical thing. The video — if it shows Collins in the same screen with Bin Laden will certainly be damaging, but at the time it wasn’t. And these papers appear to be legitimate business documents. We’re missing the critical piece.”
“In his note Gant said I needed the who, what and why,” Neeley said. “We know who — Senator Collins and Bin Laden; we know what — the Afghanistan pipelines; but we don’t know why. We still haven’t seen the video, so maybe that will give it to us. But I agree with you — I think the third piece, whatever it is, is critical.”
Neeley took the papers and slid them back into the case and shut the lid. "We have to think fast before this guy chasing us is on top of us. Let's go." She didn’t mention her surprise at Hannah’s observations.
They were back on the sidewalk. Neeley fed more quarters into the parking meter and looked for Hannah. Hannah was staring at a store across the street and the beginning of a very slight smile was curling her pale lips. "I say we take the upper hand and use our advantages for a change."
Neeley looked at the store and grimaced. "No way."
Hannah pulled her arm. "Please, just this once let's do it my way. Bring the bug with you so our Prince Charming can find us."
Neeley did as she was told and followed Hannah across the street. "OK, but we're not buying anything."