Jonathan made a show of holstering his Colt. Boxers, by contrast, merely let his Beretta dangle at his side, muzzle to the floor.
“I’m here to take you to safety,” Jonathan said.
“To safety?” David said. “Who the hell are you?”
“You ask that as if you had options,” Boxers grumbled.
“You can call me Scorpion,” Jonathan said. “This is Big Guy. It seems that some people at the highest level of government want you dead. Others at that level want you protected. I’m on the protection side. Are you really inclined to debate?”
The kid raised his hands even higher. “Dude, I just want something to start making sense.”
“That makes you a member of a big club,” Jonathan said. “You have to believe me that I’m a friend. If you choose not to, and you instead produce a gun or a knife or a really ugly face, I promise you that I won’t hesitate to kill you. Big Guy really won’t hesitate to kill you. It’s extremely important that you understand this.”
David looked even more frightened. As if that were possible. “Dude, I just want this shit to stop.”
Jonathan laughed. “And the best way to do that was to poke a stick into the hornet’s nest?”
“I told you,” Becky said.
“Big Guy, get prints from the shooters. And a pulse if they have one.” Jonathan locked David’s and Becky’s attention with a glare and an aimed forefinger. “I’m here to be your best friend, but you can turn me into your worst enemy. Behave yourselves.”
“Scorpion, Mother Hen,” Jonathan heard in his ear piece. “Is everything stable there?”
“We’re stable,” Jonathan said, drawing a look from the young folks who no doubt thought that he was talking to himself. “We’ll be out of here in a few minutes. Get ready to receive fingerprints.”
Both of the bad guys were alive, and both had strong pulses. Neither of them moved, however, as Boxers dipped their hands into their own blood and pressed their fingertips against a stray envelope he found on the coffee table. There were higher-tech electronic means to do this, but neither Jonathan nor Boxers had planned for the day to go the way it was going.
While the Big Guy busied himself with fingers, Jonathan used his iPhone to take pictures of the gunmen’s faces — full face and profile — in order to do a more thorough database search. When the recordings were completed, Jonathan and Boxers handcuffed them to the old-fashioned radiators in what Jonathan called the elephant position, with their arms extended through their crotches, with the chain wrapped around the radiator’s water pipe.
Jonathan turned his attention back to David and Becky. They literally had not moved. “Are you two okay?”
They nodded in unison.
“Are you up for a little more adventure?”
Another choreographed nod.
“I assume you know that you can’t stay here,” Jonathan said. “And with some very bad people hunting for your head, you’re in desperate need of a friend.”
David said, “You’re that friend. Or so you keep telling me.”
“Yes,” Jonathan said. “And if that somehow doesn’t resonate for you, I suggest you look at who’s lying on the floor and who didn’t just get shot.”
“Where are you taking us?” Becky asked.
“Damned interesting question,” Boxers said.
“To a secure place,” Jonathan said.
Boxers scowled, waiting for the answer.
In his ear, Venice said, “Are you bringing them here? To the Cove?”
“Affirmative,” Jonathan said.
Boxers’ shoulders slumped. “Oh, shit. What about OpSec?” Operational security.
“It’s a chance we have to take,” Jonathan said. “I’m open to alternatives if you have them.”
“Who are you talking to?” David asked.
“Voices in my head,” Jonathan said. He was being deliberately provocative, and the look he got in return was more than worth the price of admission.
“We’ll put them in the mansion’s basement,” Venice said. The basement she referred to was more opulent than most college dorm rooms. Back in the day, those rooms had served as the servants’ quarters, the rooms in which Venice had spent her childhood.
“I’m switching off VOX,” Jonathan announced, and he reached behind his back and flipped the appropriate switch by feel. He was no longer broadcasting every word he said.
“Here’s the deal,” he said to his new charges. “You’re in a world of shit. David, you have stumbled into territory that is way beyond your abilities, and Becky, David has sucked you into his sucky world. We’ll work out all the finer points as we go along, but for the time being, you need to know that your friends in the world can be counted on one hand. Big Guy and I take up two whole fingers. Are you with me so far?”
They both just stared. The two-plus-twos of their worlds no longer equaled four.
“Bottom line, you can come with us and live, or you can stay and die. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s hard to sugarcoat binary choices.” He paused.
They stared.
He said, “Now would be a good time to say ‘okay.’”
They spoke in unison: “Okay.”
Something about the delivery, in the context of the facial expressions, made Jonathan laugh. “Guys, you’re not walking the Last Mile here. Don’t look so terrified.”
“You just killed two men in my apartment,” Becky said.
“They’re both still alive,” Jonathan said.
“But they’re sleeping very soundly,” Boxers added. “And when they wake up you’ll be able to light New York from the energy of their headaches.”
As so often was the case, Boxers’ attempt at humor landed like a turd.
Jonathan focused on Becky. “Young lady, my orders are to take David with me. I have no business with you. Under the circumstances, though, you’re welcome to come along. But you have to make your choice now.”
“Where are we going?”
“I can’t tell you that. And frankly, you don’t want to know if you’re not coming along.”
“Suppose I don’t want to come along?” David asked. Jonathan prayed that it was a rhetorical question.
“Trust me, kid,” Boxers said. “You’re coming along. The only variable for you is whether you’ll remember the trip.”
Becky’s head still hadn’t joined the game. “You come in here and beat up a couple of guys and I’m—”
“We saved your life,” Jonathan corrected. “At least get your facts straight.”
She searched for the right words, for the right thing to do. “But I need time. I have obligations. I can’t just leave.”
Jonathan acknowledged her with a brief, percussive nod. “Fine. Big Guy, David, let’s go.”
“Wait!” Becky said. “These men—”
“I’d give them a wide berth when they wake up,” Boxers said. “They’re gonna be cranky.”
“Becky, you can’t stay,” David said.
“Don’t you say anything,” she snapped. “You’re the reason I’m in this.”
“Pardon me for trying to—”
“No,” Jonathan said. “That shit stops now, before it begins. We’re not doing the boyfriend-girlfriend spat thing. Becky, make a decision.”
Pundits talk about the twelve stages of grieving, but you never hear about the stages of accepting the inevitable. You go through the denial and the anger, and whatever the hell else you go through, but sometimes, there’s only one correct decision. Jonathan saw it dawn on Becky’s face.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll come. But I need to gather a few things. I need, like, five minutes.”
“You can have two,” Jonathan said.
As Becky turned and headed toward the bedroom, Jonathan followed.
She stopped and turned. “Where are you going?”