He kept on. Talking her down, talking a good line. Helping her feel okay. Leading her to safety and comfort and the certainty that even if they did something hard, they were doing the right thing.
Dawn. Moses perched atop his warehouse, looking out across the city. The sun, breaking through the jagged horizon of the city, its rays bathing him in golden heat and light, a balm and comfort, caressing his face, sinking into his bones. Warmth and renewal. Despite the night without sleep, he almost felt good. In this moment, with the sun warming him, and the first sounds of the city starting to grind and beep and come alive, he could almost relax. The night had been a frenzy, but now, settled in his home, his muscles were unknotting. Everything was finally arranged. And in the clean and pristine environs of Haverport, the Banks household was surely already awake, after the shock of Alix’s escape the day before.
He’d watched the feeds with Kook, enjoying the blow-by-blow of the Williams & Crowe people meeting with the frustrated parents after Alix escaped. He’d listened as Simon Banks reamed out his killer dogs. Watched the man dress down Lisa Price, hammering her again and again as they stood in his living room, unaware that Moses and Kook were silently watching from behind the steady eye of Jonah’s Xbox.
“How could a couple of kids fool you?” Banks shouted.
The Price woman didn’t give an inch. “That’s an interesting question. I was under the impression that you’d convinced your daughter of the seriousness of her situation.”
“That woman freaks me out,” Moses muttered to Kook.
“Death Barbie, for reals” Kook agreed. “I put some tabs on her. She basically doesn’t have a life. All that woman does is work out, do target practice, and clock hours for Williams & Crowe. She’s a top dog there.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah, Williams & Crowe sent their best for this gig.”
“Good to know we’re so important.”
“Well, Banks and his clients are important, anyway.”
Death Barbie wasn’t backing down from Simon Banks. “My job was to guard your daughter, not to keep her from planning an escape.”
“I hired you to protect her!”
Lisa looked at him coldly. “I’ll remind you, once, that you aren’t the only person who’s unhappy that you’ve become a target. We’re doing our best to locate Alix now. She should be back under our care soon.”
“You wish.” Kook snorted.
Moses had to restrain himself from shushing her. They were so close to the action that he instinctually worried that Death Barbie would hear them. The technology Kook had assembled was astounding.
“Can you imagine how much easier this would have been if we just could have bugged his offices in DC?” he murmured.
Kook scowled. “You going to bring that up again?”
“That wasn’t what I meant. We tried. It’s no one’s fault.”
“Well, it definitely wasn’t my fault,” Kook said. “My stuff was all set. You’re the one who couldn’t break in.”
“I wasn’t expecting Fort Knox.”
“Yeah, the house was way easier.”
“Thanks to Cynthia.”
“Access helps. She got just about every room.”
Banks and his killer dogs had lapsed into wary detente. Williams & Crowe people were putting out calls for assistance with the local PD. Moses listened as they debated the seriousness of the situation. Debated whether Alix was actually in danger and how long they should wait before calling in more help.
Moses was glad to know they hadn’t put all the pieces together and were continuing to fumble around. Some of them still even insisted 2.0 was a group of animal rights activists. Trying to peg the blame to PETA or some such.
“Those rats really screwed with their heads,” Kook commented.
Moses couldn’t help chuckling. “Who knew people were so suspicious about animal lovers?”
“One of the top domestic terrorism threats, according to the FBI.”
“No wonder they latched onto that for so long.”
Moses watched them, considering the possibilities. It wasn’t a kidnapping yet. Not to them. It was just one willful girl, pushing back against her parents. They weren’t calling the feds, yet.
He guessed they’d have at least another day before it escalated. Williams & Crowe would work the case a little longer, hoping for a local police lead. By then, they’d probably find Cynthia’s car, and the note Alix had left, and that would drag the time line out a little more….
And then?
And then Simon Banks, who had looked so smart and quiet and in control in the back of the courtroom, with his shiny, ever-present iPad, would discover there were some things he couldn’t control.
Moses remembered the man from the trial. Monitoring everything for his clients, smug, knowing that he had already won. He remembered watching George Saamsi getting up to testify on the science of the drugs that had killed Moses’s father. Remembered the man testifying that the drug was proved safe. Remembered Banks, in the back of the courtroom, so calm and in control as he orchestrated witnesses on behalf of his client.
Now, though, Simon Banks would finally understand everything. He’d finally understand that Moses didn’t give a damn about the man’s clients or the testing of rats. He cared that Banks was always at the trials. The fixer. Always present: An asbestos lawsuit. At the Azicort safety hearings in DC, with handpicked witnesses all demonstrating that there was no reason to believe Azicort caused comas. At a Food and Drug Administration hearing about bisphenol A… Banks was always there. The master puppeteer, pulling all the strings.
Now we get to see how you like it when someone’s pulling your strings, Moses thought. Let’s see you dance, sucker.
The sky in the east was lightening. Moses could just make out the ocean, and the sun beyond it, rising. He closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the sun seep into him.
He was tired, but it was a good tired, the tired that told him he’d been pushing hard. Adrenaline still ticked in him from their near failure to hang onto Alix and all the final setup work they’d had to do after the grab, but now it was giving way to exhaustion. Still, he’d moved the plan forward. Taken another step closer to his goal.
Day by day, his dad used to say.
“You add up each little, small step, put each little step together, and you get down the road. Little farther down the road each time… Little steps. You just put your mind on the short steps.”
Moses remembered his father’s hands, huge, as he sat with Moses, working a jigsaw puzzle. Moses remembered how much patience the man had when Moses wanted to scream with frustration at the task.
“Just keep testing the pieces. Don’t worry about the whole puzzle. Just keep working these little pieces,” his dad had said. “If you work all the little pieces, one by one, well, pretty soon, all those pieces come together, and then all those pieces add up to something bigger.
“At the end, you got yourself a masterpiece.”
Piece by piece. Moses was working the pieces, all right.
And in tranquil, sleepy Haverport, Simon Banks was working his pieces as well. Trying to put together a puzzle he didn’t understand, trying to find the shape of a world that Moses was constructing for him.
Moses closed his eyes and breathed deeply. His uncle had taught him to relax in the face of almost unbearable tension. “Let everything go. Let all the fear and worry go. Just commit, and smile, and don’t let anything rattle you. When you’re right where you’re at, feeling cool and comfortable in your own shoes, well then, people can’t help but go along with your program. You’re so friendly, so well-spoken, they got no problem with you at all. They love that they can trust you. They want to trust you. They want to know they’re open-minded…”