This usually happened when CODEX decided to fire someone.
But he wasn’t a bad operative. He just wanted out.
John’s hotel is a eight-storey tenement of sleaze and musky carpets. He checked himself in on a whim so there would be poor odds of anyone anticipating his moves—a trick he learned from his late associate. He insepcted the place nonetheless, and having convinced himself that he wasn’t followed, proceeded to set up his observation post.
Now he eats a boxed dinner broodingly and monitors the outer sensors. It is a chilly evening that augurs rain, and a north-easterly wind rattles the sliding windows on their rails. Almost twenty hours have passed since he had Landon’s home bugged. Nothing peculiar happened in the earlier part of the day and Landon mostly stayed home where he read and slept. The holographic screen on the dresser now shows Landon in the study, amid stacks of journals, tamping tobacco into an ivory pipe. The gardener lazes on the living room couch, watching a soap opera, arms flared over the backrests.
A status update arrives over a secured line and John checks the text.
This time there is no doubt about it. Landon Lock is the real deal.
In the wake of this revelation John has given up trying to make sense of his mission because it probably isn’t a mission in the first place. It is an order, and orders give you not a picture, but a pinhole that reveals only the point to which one has to go with the Chronie. Until this point Landon will live. Beyond it is anybody’s guess.
From the door comes soft, spiritless knocking.
The TV isn’t broken and John hasn’t ordered room service. Chambermaids enter only when the guest is out, and more often in the mornings than the evenings. John shuts the briefcase and stows his earpiece in a drawer. He steals over to the door and through the peephole he sees the made-up visage of a beautiful woman. The knocking grows louder. She must have detected his presence by the disturbance of light from the slit under the door.
He opens the door and leaves it latched. The woman wears her dark hair bundled above her nape in a chignon. Her eyes are soft but sad.
“Need company?” she asks. “A hundred for the night.”
“No, thank you.” John closes the door, though temptation beckons like the devil himself. The young lady wedges her heeled foot between the door and its frame.
“Eighty?” she offers. “I also charge by the hour.”
John inspects her through a narrow opening. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen.” She eases a knee through the door gap. “I’m legal.”
“You should be at home.”
“Fifty?” She tilts her head in a plea. “Please, I need the cash.”
If he were back as an active duty cop he would’ve arrested her there and then. “No, thank you.” He tries to close the door again but this time the young lady foils the attempt with her cheap sequin handbag.
“Twenty dollars till midnight.” Her voice quivers. “I’ll even throw in a massage.”
John pauses to think. The young lady takes notice and peddles her wares. John swings the door wide and wrestles her arm away. She staggers backwards, surprised and hurt.
“Wait here,” he says, and closes the door and latches it behind him.
A moment later he returns to find the young lady faithfully waiting, her eyes now glazed over with tears. He takes her hand and slaps two 50-dollar notes onto it. She stares incredulously at them.
“Go home and put your nose in your books,” says John. “You should be saving your passion for the one you’ll marry.” And then he shuts the door.
The door clicks shut. Clara finds her lower lip trembling and wonders if the emotion associated with her performance had been for real. With the back of her hand she swipes away her tears and most of her make-up. She calmly treads the carpet on her way out, her expression returning quickly to one of frigid apathy.
Back in the room John checks his equipment and finds Landon where he has left him. A reproduction of Landon’s first journal entry sits in a folder on the table, scarred in scribbles of red ink. The names Qara Budang Tabunai and Harriet are conspicuously circled. He sits at the edge of the bed and mulls over the mystery behind them.
A pulsing red light on his console signals an incoming call. He adjusts his earpiece and speaks. “Sunray.”
Thaddeus’ voice comes through the line. “Status just jumped another notch.”
“I got the message,” says John. “When’s Internment?”
“Any time now. They got an SX through.”
John’s stomach churns at the grim news. “For who?”
“Don’t know yet. Noticed anyone?”
John polishes his face in his hand. “No one’s following. I don’t think I left any trails that could be picked up.”
“There’s another thing. You remember that journal you brought in?”
John glances at the folder beside him. “What about it?”
“We ran a scan of it against the Ghost database. Turns out the only other operative that has it is Marco from Ops-B Division.”
“Shit… Marco…”
“He doesn’t play the administration thing.” Thaddeus’ voice cackled. “In a compromise he’ll just go for what’s convenient. This guy’s got a reputation for manipulating the SX protocol. If he sees you, you’re dead.”
“Yeah, I know how it works,” says John.
“They want you to bring your Chronie in,” says Thaddeus. “You think he’s worth it?”
“Don’t know.” John buries his face in his hands and wishes he could drift right off to sleep. “If we make the move the Other Side’s going to come down hard on us, and the worst part is, I don’t know who I’m up against.”
“I could get you some back-up,” says Thaddeus.
“I need another favour.”
“Go on.”
“If something happens to me, Ginn has the right to know.”
“For heaven’s sake, no names over the secured line. You of all should know this better than anyone else.” There is a pause before the earpiece cackles again. “If this leaks your entire family will be tracked. And even I can’t change that.”
“She has the right to know,” says John. “Take it as a part of my will. She has to hear it from you because you’re the only person I trust.”
A longer pause. Anticipation seizes John over the ringing silence of the receiver, then Thaddeus’ voice returns. “Let me think about it.”
“Don’t take too long. If things are as hot as they seem, I might not have much time.”
“I know,” says Thaddeus. “When are you bringing him in?”
“After one final probe,” John answers. “I want to know who the Tracker is.”
“It’s your call. Meanwhile keep yourself snug and safe.”
“Any idiot knows that. We better hang up now.”
28
AIR RAID SIREN
13th February 1942, Friday
My name is Anton. It’s two hours past midnight and I’m writing by candlelight. The air raid siren is moaning but I see no one taking shelter, perhaps for want of sleep.
It is such irony that the Jap bombers have to fly high to evade our very accurate ack-ack, and in doing so they have to bomb indiscriminately because they can’t fly low enough to drop their bombs accurately. A shophouse in the city and my house in the suburbs would stand equal chances of being hit.