WHAT LIES AHEAD IS ALREADY HERE …
America is a difficult place to live below the surface. But Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are trying to do just that. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by the stories that their father has told them about the world in which they live. After his mysterious disappearance, they have been living ‘off the grid’ – that is, invisible to the intrusive surveillance networks that monitor our modern lives.
But no-one is as invisible as they would like to believe. Nathan Boone, a mercenary, has been tasked to hunt down the brothers. The only person who stands between them and certain death is Maya, a tough young woman playing at leading a normal life. But her background is anything but normal. She has been trained to fight and survive at whatever cost. When she is summoned to protect the brothers, she must leave everything behind if she is to succeed …
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
About the Author
Copyright
MAYA REACHED OUT and took her father’s hand as they walked from the Underground to the light. Thorn didn’t push her away or tell Maya to concentrate on the position of her body. Smiling, he guided her up a narrow staircase to a long, sloping tunnel with white tile walls. The Underground authority had installed steel bars on one side of the tunnel and this barrier made the ordinary passageway look like part of an enormous prison. If she had been traveling alone, Maya might have felt trapped and uncomfortable, but there was nothing to worry about because Father was with her.
It’s the perfect day, she thought. Well, maybe it was the second most perfect day. She still remembered two years ago when Father had missed her birthday and Christmas only to show up on Boxing Day with a taxi full of presents for Maya and her mother. That morning was bright and full of surprises, but this Saturday seemed to promise a more durable happiness. Instead of the usual trip to the empty warehouse near Canary Wharf, where her father taught her how to kick and punch and use weapons, they had spent the day at the London Zoo, where he had told her different stories about each of the animals. Father had traveled all over the world and could describe Paraguay or Egypt as if he were a tour guide.
People had glanced at them as they strolled past the cages. Most Harlequins tried to blend into the crowd, but her father stood out in a group of ordinary citizens. He was German, with a strong nose, shoulder-length hair, and dark blue eyes. Thorn dressed in somber colors and wore a steel kara bracelet that looked like a broken shackle.
Maya had found a battered art history book in the closet of their rented flat in East London. Near the front of the book was a picture by Albrecht Dürer called Knight, Death, and the Devil. She liked to stare at the picture even though it made her feel strange. The armored knight was like her father, calm and brave, riding through the mountains as Death held up an hourglass and the Devil followed, pretending to be a squire. Thorn also carried a sword, but his was concealed inside a metal tube with a leather shoulder strap.
Although she was proud of Thorn, he also made her feel embarrassed and self-conscious. Sometimes she just wanted to be an ordinary girl with a pudgy father who worked in an office—a happy man who bought ice-cream cones and told jokes about kangaroos. The world around her, with its bright fashions and pop music and television shows, was a constant temptation. She wanted to fall into that warm water and let the current pull her away. It was exhausting to be Thorn’s daughter, always avoiding the surveillance of the Vast Machine, always watching for enemies, always aware of the angle of attack.
Maya was twelve years old, but still wasn’t strong enough to use a Harlequin sword. As a substitute, Father had taken a walking stick from the closet and given it to her before they left the flat that morning. Maya had Thorn’s white skin and strong features and her Sikh mother’s thick black hair. Her eyes were such a pale blue that from a certain angle they looked translucent. She hated it when well-meaning women approached her mother and complimented Maya’s appearance. In a few years, she’d be old enough to disguise herself and look as ordinary as possible.
They left the zoo and strolled through Regent’s Park. It was late April and young men were kicking footballs across the muddy lawn while parents pushed bundled-up babies in perambulators. The whole city seemed to be out enjoying the sunshine after three days of rain. Maya and her father took the Piccadilly line to the Arsenal station; it was getting dark when they reached the street-level exit. There was an Indian restaurant in Finsbury Park and Thorn had made reservations for an early supper. Maya heard noises—blaring air horns and shouting in the distance—and wondered if there was some kind of political demonstration. Then Father led her through the turnstile and out into a war.
Standing on the sidewalk, she saw a mob of people marching up Highbury Hill Road. There weren’t any protest signs and banners, and Maya realized that she was watching the end of a football match. The Arsenal stadium was straight down the road and a team with blue and white colors—that was Chelsea—had just played there. The Chelsea supporters were coming out of the visitors’ gate on the west end of the stadium and heading down a narrow street lined with row houses. Normally it was a quick walk to the station entrance, but now the North London street had turned into a gauntlet. The police were protecting Chelsea from Arsenal football thugs who were trying to attack them and start fights.
Policemen on the edges. Blue and white in the center. Red throwing bottles and trying to break through the line. Citizens caught in front of the crowd scrambled between parked cars and knocked over rubbish bins. Flowering hawthorns grew at the edge of the curb and their pink blossoms trembled whenever someone was shoved against a tree. Petals fluttered through the air and fell upon the surging mass.
The main crowd was approaching the Tube station, about one hundred meters away. Thorn could have gone to the left and headed up Gillespie Road, but he remained on the sidewalk and studied the people surrounding them. He smiled slightly, confident of his own power and amused by the pointless violence of the drones. Along with the sword, he was carrying at least one knife and a handgun obtained from contacts in America. If he wished, he could kill a great many of these people, but this was a public confrontation and the police were in the area. Maya glanced up at her father. We should run away, she thought. These people are completely mad. But Thorn glared at his daughter as if he had just sensed her fear and Maya stayed silent.
Everyone was shouting. The voices merged into one angry roar. Maya heard a high-pitched whistle. The wail of a police siren. A beer bottle sailed through the air and exploded into fragments a few feet away from where they were standing. Suddenly, a flying wedge of red shirts and scarves plowed through the police lines, and she saw men kicking and throwing punches. Blood streamed down a policeman’s face, but he raised his truncheon and fought back.
She squeezed Father’s hand. “They’re coming toward us,” she said. “We need to get out of the way.”
Thorn turned around and pulled his daughter back into the entrance of the Tube station as if to find refuge there. But now the police were driving the Chelsea supporters forward like a herd of cattle and she was surrounded by men wearing blue. Caught in the crowd, Maya and her father were pushed past the ticket booth where the elderly clerk cowered behind the thick glass.
Father vaulted over the turnstile and Maya followed. Now they were back in the long tunnel, heading down to the trains. It’s all right, she thought. We’re safe now. Then she realized that men wearing red had forced their way into the tunnel and were running beside them. One of the men was carrying a wool sock filled with something heavy—rocks, ball bearings—and he swung it like a club at the old man just in front of her, knocking off the man’s glasses and breaking his nose. A gang of Arsenal thugs slammed a Chelsea supporter against the steel bars on the left side of the tunnel. The man tried to get away as they kicked and beat him. More blood. And no police anywhere.
Thorn grabbed the back of Maya’s jacket and dragged her through the fighting. A man tried to attack them and Father stopped him instantly with a quick, snapping punch to the throat. Maya hurried down the tunnel, trying to reach the stairway. Before she could react, something like a rope came over her right shoulder and across her chest. Maya looked down and saw that Thorn had just tied a blue and white Chelsea scarf around her body.
In an instant she realized that the day at the zoo, the amusing stories, and the trip to the restaurant were all part of a plan. Father had known about the football game, had probably been here before and timed their arrival. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Thorn smile and nod as if he had just told her an amusing story. Then he turned and walked away.
Maya spun around as three Arsenal supporters ran forward, yelling at her. Don’t think. React. She jabbed the walking stick like a javelin and the steel tip hit the tallest man’s forehead with a crack. Blood spurted from his head and he began to fall, but she was already spinning around to trip the second man with the stick. As he stumbled backward, she jumped high and kicked his face. He spun around and hit the floor. Down. He’s down. She ran forward and kicked him again.
As she regained her balance, the third man caught her from behind and lifted her off the ground. He squeezed tightly, trying to break her ribs, but Maya dropped the stick, reached back with both hands, and grabbed his ears. The man screamed as she flipped him over her shoulder and onto the floor.
Maya reached the stairway, took the stairs two at a time, and saw Father standing on the platform next to the open doors of a train. He grabbed her with his right hand and used his left to force their way into the car. The doors moved back and forth and finally closed. Arsenal supporters ran up to the train, pounding on the glass with their fists, but the train lurched forward and headed down the tunnel.
People were packed together. She heard a woman weeping as the boy in front of her pressed a handkerchief against his mouth and nose. The car went around a curve and she fell against her father, burying her face in his wool overcoat. She hated him and loved him, wanted to attack him and embrace him—all at the same time. Don’t cry, she thought. He’s watching you. Harlequins don’t cry. And she bit her lower lip so hard that she broke the skin and tasted her own blood.
MAYA FLEW INTO Ruzyne Airport late in the afternoon and took the shuttle bus into Prague. Her choice of transportation was a minor act of rebellion. A Harlequin would have rented a car or found a taxicab. In a taxi, you could always cut the driver’s throat and take control. Airplanes and buses were dangerous choices, little traps with only a few ways to get out.
No one is going to kill me, she thought. No one cares. Travellers inherited their powers and so the Tabula tried to exterminate everyone in the same family. The Harlequins defended the Travellers and their Pathfinder teachers, but this was a voluntary decision. A Harlequin child could renounce the way of the sword, accept a citizen name, and find a place in the Vast Machine. If he stayed out of trouble, the Tabula would leave him alone.
A few years ago, Maya had visited John Mitchell Kramer, the only son of Greenman, a British Harlequin who was killed by a Tabula car bomb in Athens. Kramer had become a pig farmer in Yorkshire, and Maya watched him trudge through the muck with buckets of feed for his squealing animals. “As far as they know, you haven’t stepped over the line,” he told her. “It’s your choice, Maya. You can still walk away and have a normal life.”
Maya decided to become Judith Strand, a young woman who had taken a few courses in product design at the University of Salford in Manchester. She moved to London, started working as an assistant at a design firm, and was eventually offered a fulltime job. Her three years in the city had been a series of private challenges and small victories. Maya still remembered the first time she left her flat without carrying weapons. There was no protection from the Tabula and she felt weak and exposed. Every person on the street was watching her; everyone who approached was a possible assassin. She waited for the bullet or the knife, but nothing happened.
Gradually, she stayed out for longer periods of time and tested her new attitude toward the world. Maya didn’t glance at windows to see if she was being followed. When she ate in a restaurant with her new friends, she didn’t hide a gun in the alleyway and sit with her back to the wall.
In April, she violated a major Harlequin rule and started to see a psychiatrist. For five expensive sessions she sat in a book-lined room in Bloomsbury. She wanted to talk about her childhood and that first betrayal at the Arsenal Tube station, but it just wasn’t possible. Dr. Bennett was a tidy little man who knew a great deal about wine and antique porcelain. Maya still remembered his confusion when she called him a citizen.
“Well, of course I’m a citizen,” he said. “I was born and raised in Britain.”
“It’s just a label that my father uses. Ninety-nine percent of the population are either citizens or drones.”
Dr. Bennett took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished the lenses with a green flannel cloth. “Would you mind explaining this?”
“Citizens are people who think they understand what’s going on in the world.”
“I don’t understand everything, Judith. I never said that. But I’m well informed about current events. I watch the news every morning while I’m on my treadmill.”
Maya hesitated, and then decided to tell him the truth. “The facts you know are mostly an illusion. The real struggle of history is going on beneath the surface.”
Dr. Bennett gave her a condescending smile. “Tell me about the drones.”
“Drones are people who are so overwhelmed by the challenge of surviving that they’re unaware of anything outside of their day-to-day lives.”
“You mean poor people?”
“They can be poor or trapped in the Third World, but they’re still capable of transforming themselves. Father used to say, ‘Citizens ignore the truth. Drones are just too tired.’”
Dr. Bennett slipped his glasses back on and picked up his notepad. “Perhaps we should talk about your parents.”
Therapy ended with that question. What could she say about Thorn? Her father was a Harlequin who had survived five Tabula assassination attempts. He was proud and cruel and very brave. Maya’s mother was from a Sikh family that had been allies with the Harlequins for several generations. In honor of her mother, she wore a steel kara bracelet on her right wrist.
Late that summer she celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday and one of the women at the design firm took her on a tour of the boutiques in West London. Maya bought some stylish, brightly colored clothes. She began to watch television and tried to believe the news. At times she felt happy—almost happy—and welcomed the endless distractions of the Vast Machine. There was always some new fear to worry about or a new product that everyone wanted to buy.
Although Maya was no longer carrying weapons, she occasionally dropped by a kickboxing school in South London and sparred with the instructor. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she attended an advanced class at a kendo academy and fought with a bamboo shinai sword. Maya tried to pretend that she was just staying in shape, like the other people in her office who jogged or played tennis, but she knew that it was more than that. When you were fighting you were completely in the moment, focused on defending yourself and destroying your opponent. Nothing she did in civilian life could match that intensity.
Now she was in Prague to see her father, and all the familiar Harlequin paranoia came back with its full power. After buying the ticket at the airport kiosk, she got on the shuttle bus and sat near the back. This was a bad defensive position, but it wasn’t going to bother her. Maya watched an elderly couple and a group of German tourists climb onto the bus and arrange their luggage. She tried to distract herself by thinking about Thorn, but her body took control and forced her to choose another seat near the emergency exit. Defeated by her training and filled with rage, she clenched her hands and stared out the window.
It had started drizzling when they left the terminal and was raining heavily by the time they reached the downtown area. Prague was built on both sides of a river, but the narrow streets and gray stone buildings made her feel as if she were trapped in a hedge maze. Cathedrals and castles dotted the city, and their pointed towers jabbed at the sky.
At the bus stop, Maya was presented with more choices. She could walk to her hotel or wave down a cruising taxi. The legendary Japanese Harlequin, Sparrow, once wrote that true warriors should “cultivate randomness.” In a few words, he had suggested an entire philosophy. A Harlequin rejected mindless routines and comfortable habits. You lived a life of discipline, but you weren’t afraid of disorder.
It was raining. She was getting wet. The most predictable choice was to take the taxi waiting by the curb. Maya hesitated for a few seconds and then decided to act like a normal citizen. Clutching her bags with one hand, she yanked open the door and got into the backseat. The driver was a squat little man with a beard who looked like a troll. She gave him the name of her hotel, but he didn’t react.
“It’s the Hotel Kampa,” she said in English. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” the driver answered and pulled out into the street.
The Hotel Kampa was a large four-story building, solid and respectable, with green window awnings. It was placed on a cobblestone side street near the Charles Bridge. Maya paid the driver, but when she tried to open the car door it was locked.
“Open the bloody door.”
“I’m sorry, madam.” The troll pushed a button and the lock clicked open. Smiling, he watched Maya get out of his cab.
She let the doorman carry her luggage into the hotel. Going to see her father, she had felt the need to carry the usual weapons; they were concealed in a camera tripod. Her appearance didn’t suggest a particular nationality and the doorman spoke to her in French and English. For the trip to Prague she had discarded her colorful London clothes and wore half boots, a black pullover, and loose gray pants. There was a Harlequin style of clothing that emphasized dark, expensive fabrics and custom tailoring. Nothing tight or flashy. Nothing that would slow you down in combat.
Club chairs and little tables were in the lobby. A faded tapestry hung on the wall. In a side dining area, a group of elderly women were drinking tea and cooing over a tray of pastries. At the front desk, the hotel clerk glanced at the tripod and the video camera case and appeared satisfied. It was a Harlequin rule that you must always have an explanation for who you are and why you’re at a particular location. The video equipment was a typical prop. The doorman and the clerk probably thought she was some kind of filmmaker.
Her hotel room was a suite on the third floor, dark and filled with fake Victorian lamps and overstuffed furniture. One window faced the street and another overlooked the hotel’s outdoor garden restaurant. It was still raining; the restaurant was closed. The striped table umbrellas were sodden with water and the restaurant chairs leaned like tired soldiers against the round tables. Maya glanced under the bed and found a little welcoming present from her father—a grappling hook and fifty meters of climbing rope. If the wrong sort of person knocked on the door, she could be out the window and away from the hotel in about ten seconds.
She took off her coat, splashed some water on her face, then placed the tripod on the bed. When she passed through the airport security checks, people always wasted a great deal of time inspecting the video camera and its various lenses. The real weapons were hidden in the tripod. There were two knives in one leg—a weighted throwing knife and a stiletto for stabbing. She placed them in their sheaths and slipped them beneath elastic bandages on her forearms. Carefully, she rolled down the sleeves of the sweater and checked herself in the mirror. The sweater was loose enough that both weapons were completely concealed. Maya crossed her wrists, moved her arms quickly, and a knife appeared in her right hand.
The sword blade was in the second leg of the tripod. The third leg concealed the sword’s hilt and guard piece. Maya attached them to the blade. The guard piece was on a pivot that could be pushed sideways. When she carried the sword on the street, the guard piece was parallel to the blade so that the entire weapon became one straight line. When it was necessary to fight, the guard snapped into its proper position.
Along with the tripod and the camera, she had brought a four-foot-long metal tube with a shoulder strap. The tube looked vaguely technical, like something that an artist would bring to her studio. It was used as a sword carrier when walking around the city. Maya could get the sword out of the tube in two seconds, and it took one more second to attack. Her father had taught her how to use the weapon when she was a teenager and she had developed her technique in a kendo class with a Japanese instructor.
Harlequins were also trained to use handguns and assault rifles. Maya’s favorite weapon was a combat shotgun, preferably a twelve gauge with a pistol grip and folding stock. The use of an old-fashioned sword along with modern weapons was accepted—and valued—as part of the Harlequin style. Guns were a necessary evil, but swords existed outside of the modern age, free of the control and compromise of the Vast Machine. Training with a sword taught balance, strategy, and ruthlessness. Like a Sikh’s kirpan, a Harlequin’s sword connected each fighter with both a spiritual obligation and a warrior tradition.
Thorn also believed there were practical reasons for swords. Concealed within equipment like the tripod, they could pass through airport security systems. A sword was silent and so unexpected that there was a shock value when using it on an unsuspecting enemy. Maya visualized an attack. Fake to the head of your opponent, then down low to the side of the knee. A little resistance. The crack of bone and cartilage. And you’ve cut off someone’s leg.
A brown envelope lay within the coils of the escape rope. Maya ripped it open and read the address and time for her meeting. Seven o’clock. The Betlémské náměsti quarter in the Old Town. She placed the sword on her lap, turned off all the lights, and tried to meditate.
Images floated through her brain, memories of the only time she had fought alone as a Harlequin. She was seventeen then and her father had brought her over to Brussels to protect a Zen monk who was visiting Europe. The monk was a Pathfinder, one of the spiritual teachers who could show a potential Traveller how to cross over to another realm. Although the Harlequins weren’t sworn to protect Pathfinders, they helped them whenever possible. The monk was a great teacher—and he was on the Tabula death list.
That night in Brussels, Maya’s father and his French friend Linden were upstairs near the monk’s hotel suite. Maya was told to guard the entrance to the service elevator in the basement. When two Tabula mercenaries arrived, there was no one there to help her. She shot one man in the throat with an automatic and hacked the other merc to death with her sword. Blood splattered over her gray maid’s uniform, covering her arms and hands. Maya was crying hysterically when Linden found her.
Two years later, the monk died in a car accident. All that blood and pain were useless. Calm down, she told herself. Find some private mantra. Our Travellers who art in Heaven. Damn them all.
IT STOPPED RAINING around six and she decided to walk to Thorn’s apartment. Leaving the hotel, she found Mostecká Street and followed it to the Charles Bridge. The stone Gothic bridge was wide and lit with colored lights that illuminated a long line of statues. A backpacker played his guitar in front of a hat while a street artist used charcoal to draw a sketch of an elderly female tourist. A statue of a Czech martyr saint was placed halfway across the bridge, and she remembered hearing that it was a good luck charm. There was no such thing as luck, but she touched the bronze plaque below the statue and whispered to herself: “May someone love me and may I love him in return.”
Ashamed of this display of weakness, she walked a little faster and continued across the bridge to Old Town. Stores and churches and cellar nightclubs were squeezed together like passengers on a crowded train. The young Czechs and foreign backpackers stood outside the pubs, looking bored and smoking marijuana.
Thorn lived on Konviktská Street one block north of the secret prison on Bartolomějská. During the Cold War, the security police had taken over a convent and used it for their holding cells and torture chambers. Now the Sisters of Mercy were back in charge and the police had moved into other buildings nearby. As Maya walked around the quarter, she realized why Thorn had settled here. Prague still had a medieval appearance, and most Harlequins hated anything that appeared new. The city had decent medical care, good transportation, and Internet communications. A third factor was even more important: the Czech police had learned their ethics in the communist era. If Thorn bribed the right people he could get access to police files and passports.
MAYA ONCE MET a Gypsy in Barcelona who explained to her why he had the right to pick pockets and rob tourist hotels. When the Romans crucified Jesus, they prepared a golden nail to hammer into the Savior’s heart. A Gypsy—apparently there were Gypsies in ancient Jerusalem—had taken the nail, and therefore God gave them permission to steal until the end of time. Harlequins weren’t Gypsies, but Maya decided that the mindset was pretty much the same. Her father and his friends had a highly developed sense of honor and their own private morality. They were disciplined and loyal to each other, but they were contemptuous of any citizen-made law. Harlequins believed they had the right to kill and destroy because of their vow to protect the Travellers.
SHE STROLLED PAST the Church of the Holy Rood, then glanced across the street to number 18 Konviktská. It was a red doorway wedged between a plumbing-parts store and a lingerie shop where the window mannequin wore a garter belt and a pair of sequined stockings. There were two other floors above the street and all the upper windows were either shuttered or tinted a hazy gray. Harlequins had at least three exits in their houses, and one of them was always secret. This building had the red door and a second door in the back alley. There was probably a secret passageway that led downstairs to the lingerie shop.
She flicked open the top of the sword carrier and tilted it slightly forward so that the sword handle slid out a few inches. Back in London, the summons had come the usual way: an unmarked manila envelope shoved under her door. She had no idea whether or not Thorn was still alive and waiting in this building. If the Tabula had found out that she was involved in the hotel killings nine years ago, it was easier to lure her out of England and execute her in a foreign city.
Crossing the street, Maya stopped in front of the lingerie shop and looked at the display window. She searched for a traditional Harlequin sign such as a mask or a piece of clothing with a diamond pattern, anything to calm her growing tension. It was seven o’clock. Slowly she moved down the sidewalk and saw a chalk mark on the concrete. It was an oval shape and three straight lines: an abstract suggestion of a Harlequin’s lute. If the Tabula had done this, they would have taken more care and made the drawing resemble the instrument. Instead, the mark was casual and scuffed—as if a bored child had placed it there.
She pressed the doorbell, heard a whirring sound, and saw that a surveillance camera was hidden inside the metal canopy above the door frame. The door lock clicked open and she stepped inside. Maya was standing in a small foyer leading to a steep metal staircase. The door behind her glided shut and a three-inch bolt slid into a lock. Trapped. She drew her sword, snapped the hilt into position, and started upstairs. At the top of the stairs was another steel door and a second doorbell. She pushed the button and an electronic voice came out of the little speaker.
“Voice print please.”
“Go to hell.”
A computer analyzed her voice and three seconds later the second door clicked open. Maya entered a large white room with a polished wood floor. Her father’s apartment was spare and clean. There was nothing plastic, nothing false or shrill. A half wall defined the entryway and living room. The area contained a leather chair and a glass coffee table with a single yellow orchid in a vase.
Two framed posters hung on the wall. One advertised an exhibit of Japanese samurai swords at the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts in Tokyo. Way of the sword. Life of the warrior. The second poster showed a 1914 assemblage called Three Standard Stoppages by Marcel Duchamp. The Frenchman had dropped three meter-long strings on a Prussian blue canvas and then had traced their outlines. Like any Harlequin, Duchamp didn’t fight against randomness and uncertainty: he had used it to create his art.
She heard bare feet moving across the floor, then a young man with a shaved head came around the corner holding a German-made submachine gun. The man was smiling and his gun was tilted downward at a forty-five-degree angle. If he were foolish enough to raise the weapon, she decided to step to the left and slash open his face with her sword.
“Welcome to Prague,” he said in English with a Russian accent. “Your father will be with you in a minute.”
The young man wore drawstring pants and a sleeveless T-shirt with Japanese characters stenciled on the fabric. Maya could see that his arms and neck were decorated with numerous tattoos. Snakes. Demons. A vision of Hell. She didn’t have to see him naked to know that he was a walking epic of some kind. Harlequins always seemed to collect misfits and freaks to serve them.
Maya replaced the sword in the carrying case. “What’s your name?”
“Alexi.”
“How long have you worked for Thorn?”
“It isn’t work.” The young man looked very pleased with himself. “I help your father and he helps me. I’m training to be a master of the martial arts.”
“And he’s doing very well,” her father said. She heard the voice first and then Thorn came rolling around the corner in an electric wheelchair. His Harlequin sword was in a scabbard attached to an armrest. Thorn had grown a beard in the last two years. His arms and upper chest were still powerful and it almost made you forget his shriveled, useless legs.
Thorn stopped moving and smiled at his daughter. “Good evening, Maya.”
The last time she had seen her father was in Peshawar the night that Linden had brought him down from the mountains of the North-West Frontier. Thorn was unconscious and Linden’s clothes were covered with blood.
Using faked newspaper articles, the Tabula had lured Thorn, Linden, a Chinese Harlequin named Willow, and an Australian Harlequin named Libra to a tribal area in Pakistan. Thorn was convinced that two children—a twelve-year-old boy and his ten-year-old sister—were Travellers who were in danger from a fanatical religious leader. The four Harlequins and their allies were ambushed at a mountain pass by Tabula mercenaries. Willow and Libra were killed. Thorn’s spinal cord was hit by a chunk of shrapnel and he was paralyzed from the waist down.
Two years later her father was living in a Prague apartment with a tattooed freak for a servant and everything was wonderful—let’s forget about the past and move on. At that moment, Maya was almost glad that her father was a paraplegic. If he hadn’t been injured, he would have denied that the ambush had occurred.
“So how are you, Maya?” Thorn turned to the Russian. “I haven’t seen my daughter for some time.”
The fact that he used the word “daughter” made her furious. It meant that he had brought her to Prague to ask for a favor. “More than two years,” she said.
“Two years?” Alexi smiled. “I think you have much to talk about.”
Thorn gestured with his hand and the Russian picked up a scanner from a side table. The scanner looked like a small airport security wand, but it was designed to detect the tracer beads used by the Tabula. The beads were the size of pearls and gave off a signal that could be tracked by GPS satellites. There were radio tracer beads and special ones that gave off infrared signals.
“Don’t waste your time looking for a bead. The Tabula aren’t interested in me.”
“Just being careful.”
“I’m not a Harlequin and they know it.”
The scanner didn’t beep. Alexi retreated from the room and Thorn motioned to the chair. Maya knew that her father had mentally rehearsed the conversation. He had probably spent a few hours thinking about his clothing and where to put the furniture. To hell with it. She was going to catch him by surprise.
“Nice servant you got there.” She sat down on the chair as Thorn rolled over to her. “Very colorful.”
Normally, in private conversations, they would speak to each other in German. Thorn was making a concession to his daughter. Maya had passports for several different nationalities, but these days she considered herself British. “Yes, the ink work.” Her father smiled. “Alexi has a tattoo artist creating a picture of the First Realm on his body. Not very pleasant, but that’s his choice.”
“Yes. We all have free choice. Even Harlequins.”
“You don’t seem happy to see me, Maya.”
She had planned to be controlled and disciplined, but the words began spilling out. “I got you out of Pakistan—basically bribed or threatened half the officials in the country to get you on that plane. And then we’re in Dublin and Mother Blessing takes charge and that’s okay—it’s her territory. I call her satellite phone number the next day and she tells me, ‘Your father is paralyzed from the waist down. He’ll never walk again.’ And then she hangs up on me and immediately cancels her phone line. That’s it. Bang. All over. I don’t hear from you for two years.”
“We were protecting you, Maya. It’s very dangerous these days.”
“Tell that to tattoo boy. I’ve watched you use danger and security as excuses for everything, but that doesn’t work anymore. There are no more battles. No more Harlequins, really—just a handful like you and Linden and Mother Blessing.”
“Shepherd is living in California.”
“Three or four people can’t change anything. The war is over. Don’t you realize that? The Tabula won. We lost. Wir haben verloren.”
The German words seemed to touch him a little deeper than her English. Thorn pushed the hand control on his wheelchair and turned away slightly so that she couldn’t see his eyes.
“You’re also a Harlequin, Maya. That’s your true self. Your past and your future.”
“I’m not a Harlequin and I’m not like you. You should know that by now.”
“We need your help. It’s important.”
“It’s always important.”
“I need you to go to America. We’ll pay for everything. Make all the arrangements.”
“America is Shepherd’s territory. Let him handle it.”
Her father used the full power of his voice. “Shepherd has encountered an unusual situation. He doesn’t know what to do.”
“I have a real life now. I’m not part of this anymore.”
Moving the control stick, Thorn made a graceful figure eight around the room. “Ahhh, yes. A citizen life in the Vast Machine. So pleasant and distracting. Tell me all about it.”
“You’ve never asked before.”
“Don’t you work in some kind of office?”
“I’m an industrial designer. I work with a team developing product containers for different companies. Last week I created a new perfume bottle.”
“Sounds challenging. I’m sure you’re very successful. And what about the rest of your world? Any boyfriends I should know about?”
“No.”
“There was that barrister—what’s his name?” Thorn knew, of course. But he pretended to search through his memory. “Connor Ramsey. Wealthy. Good-looking. Well-connected family. And then he left you for that other woman. Apparently, he’d been seeing her the whole time he was with you.”
Maya felt like Thorn had just slapped her. She should have guessed that he would use his London contacts to get information. He always seemed to know everything.
“That’s not your concern.”
“Don’t waste your time worrying about Ramsey. Some mercs working for Mother Blessing blew up his car a few months ago. Now he believes that terrorists are after him. He’s hired bodyguards. Lives in fear. And that’s good. Isn’t it? Mr. Ramsey needed to be punished for deceiving my little girl.”
Thorn spun the wheelchair around and smiled at her. Maya knew that she should act outraged, but she couldn’t. She thought about Connor embracing her on the pier in Brighton, then Connor sitting in a restaurant three weeks later announcing that she wasn’t suitable for marriage. Maya had read about the car explosion in the papers, but hadn’t connected her father to the attack.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“But I did.” Thorn moved back to the coffee table.
“Blowing up a car doesn’t change anything. I’m still not going to America.”
“Who mentioned America? We’re just having a conversation.”
Her Harlequin training told her that she should go on the attack. Like Thorn, she had prepared for the meeting. “Tell me something, Father. Just one fact. Do you love me?”
“You’re my daughter, Maya.”
“Answer the question.”
“Since your mother died, you’re the only precious thing in my life.”
“All right. Let’s accept that statement for the moment.” She leaned forward in the chair. “The Tabula and the Harlequins used to be fairly equal adversaries, but the Vast Machine changed the balance of power. As far as I know, there are no more Travellers and only a few Harlequins.”
“The Tabula can use face scanners, electronic surveillance, cooperation from government officials, and—”
“I don’t want a reason. We’re not talking about that. Just facts and conclusions. In Pakistan you were injured and two people were killed. I always liked Libra. He used to take me to the theater when he visited London. And Willow was a strong, graceful woman.”
“Both fighters accepted the risk,” Thorn said. “They both had a Proud Death.”
“Yes, they’re dead. Set up and destroyed for nothing. And now you want me to die the same way.”
Thorn gripped the arms of the wheelchair and, for a moment, she thought he was going to force himself to stand up, an act of pure will. “Something extraordinary has happened,” he said. “For the first time, we have a spy on the other side. Linden is in contact with him.”
“It’s just another trap.”
“Perhaps. But all the information we’ve received has been accurate. A few weeks ago, we learned about two possible Travellers in the United States. They’re brothers. I protected their father, Matthew Corrigan, many years ago. Before he went underground, I gave him a talisman.”
“Do the Tabula know about these brothers?”
“Yes. They’re watching them twenty-four hours a day.”
“Why don’t the Tabula just kill them? That’s what they usually do.”
“All I know is that the Corrigans are in danger and we have to help them as soon as possible. Shepherd comes from a Harlequin family. His grandfather saved hundreds of lives. But an unborn Traveller wouldn’t trust him. Shepherd isn’t very organized or intelligent. He’s a—”
“A fool.”
“Exactly. You could handle everything, Maya. All you have to do is find the Corrigans and take them to a safe place.”
“Maybe they’re just ordinary citizens.”
“We don’t know that until we question them. You’re right about one thing, there aren’t any more Travellers. This might be our last chance.”
“You don’t need me. Just hire some mercs.”
“The Tabula have more money and power. Mercenaries always betray us.”
“Then do it yourself.”
“I’m crippled, Maya. Stuck here, in this apartment, in this wheelchair. You’re the only one who can lead.”
For a few seconds she actually wanted to draw the sword and charge into battle, and then she remembered the fight in the London Underground station. A father should protect his daughter. Instead, Thorn had destroyed her childhood.
She stood up and walked to the door. “I’m going back to London.”
“Don’t you remember what I taught you? Verdammt durch das Fleisch. Gerettet durch das Blut …”
Damned by the flesh. Saved by the blood. Maya had heard the Harlequin phrase—and hated it—since she was a little girl.
“Tell your slogans to your new Russian friend. They don’t work with me.”
“If there are no more Travellers, then the Tabula have finally conquered history. In one or two generations, the Fourth Realm will become a cold, sterile place where everyone is watched and controlled.”
“It’s that way already.”
“This is our obligation, Maya. It’s who we are.” Thorn’s voice was full of pain and regret. “I’ve often wished for a different life, wished that I was born ignorant and blind. But I could never turn away and deny the past, deny all those Harlequins who sacrificed themselves for such an important cause.”
“You gave me weapons and taught me how to kill. Now you’re sending me out to be destroyed.”
Thorn looked small and frail in the wheelchair. His voice was a harsh whisper. “I would die for you.”
“But I’m not dying for a cause that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Maya reached for Thorn’s shoulder. It was a farewell gesture, a chance to connect with him one last time—but his angry expression made her pull her hand away.
“Goodbye, Father.” She turned to the door and opened the latch. “I have one small chance to be happy. I can’t let you take it away from me.”
NATHAN BOONE SAT in a second-floor room of the warehouse across the street from the lingerie shop. Peering through a nightscope, he watched Maya leave Thorn’s building and head down the sidewalk. Boone had already photographed Thorn’s daughter arriving at the airport terminal, but he enjoyed seeing her again. So much of his work these days involved staring at a computer monitor, checking phone calls and credit card bills, reading medical reports and police bulletins from a dozen different countries. To see an actual Harlequin helped him reconnect with the reality of what he was doing. The enemy still existed—at least a few of them did—and it was his responsibility to eliminate them.
Two years ago, after the shoot-out in Pakistan, he found Maya living in London. Her public behavior indicated that she had rejected the violence of the Harlequins and had decided to have a normal life. The Brethren had considered executing Maya, but Boone sent them a lengthy e-mail recommending against it. He knew that she might lead him to Thorn, Linden, or Mother Blessing. All three Harlequins were still dangerous. They needed to be tracked down and destroyed.
Maya would have noticed anyone following her around London, so Boone sent a squad of technicians to her apartment and had them insert tracer beads in every piece of her luggage. After she obtained a job and started to live a public life, the Brethren’s computers constantly monitored her phone calls, e-mails, and credit card transactions. The first alert came after Maya sent an e-mail to her supervisor asking for time off to visit “a sick relative.” When she purchased a Thursday plane ticket to Prague, Boone decided that the city was a logical place for Thorn to hide. He had three days to fly to Europe and come up with a plan.
That morning one of Boone’s employees had read the note left in Maya’s hotel room by the young Russian who worked for Thorn. Now Boone knew the location of Thorn’s apartment, and it would be just a matter of minutes until he would be face-to-face with the Harlequin.
Boone heard Loutka’s voice come from his radio headset. “Now what?” Loutka asked. “Do we follow her?”
“That’s Halver’s job. He can handle it. Thorn is the primary target. We’ll deal with Maya later tonight.”
Loutka and the three technicians sat in the back of a delivery van parked near the corner. Loutka was a Czech police lieutenant and was supposed to handle the local authorities. The technicians were there to do their special jobs and go home.
With Loutka’s help, Boone had also hired two professional killers in Prague. The mercenaries sat on the floor behind him, waiting for orders. The Magyar was a big man who couldn’t speak English. His Serb friend, an ex-soldier, knew four languages and seemed intelligent, but Boone didn’t trust him. He was the kind of person who might run away if there was resistance.
It was cold in the room and Boone was wearing an all-weather parka and a knit cap. His military haircut and steel eyeglasses made him look disciplined and fit, like a chemical engineer who ran marathons on the weekend.
“Let’s go,” Loutka said.
“No.”
“Maya is walking back to her hotel. I don’t think that Thorn will get any more visitors tonight.”
“You don’t understand these people. I do. They deliberately do things that are unpredictable. Thorn may decide to leave the house. Maya may decide to return. Let’s give it five minutes and see what happens.”
Boone lowered the nightscope and continued to watch the street. For the last six years he had worked for the Brethren, a small group of men from different countries united by a particular vision of the future. The Brethren—who were called “the Tabula” by their enemies—were committed to the destruction of both the Harlequins and the Travellers.
Boone was a liaison between the Brethren and their mercenaries. He found it easy to deal with people like the Serb and Lieutenant Loutka. A mercenary always wanted money or some kind of favor. First you negotiated a price, then you decided if you were going to pay it.
Although Boone received a generous salary from the Brethren, he never felt that he was a mercenary. Two years ago, he was allowed to read a collection of books called The Knowledge that gave him a larger vision of the Brethren’s goals and philosophy. The Knowledge showed Boone that he was part of a historical battle against the forces of disorder. The Brethren and their allies were on the verge of establishing a perfectly controlled society, but this new system would not survive if Travellers were allowed to leave the system, then return to challenge the accepted view. Peace and prosperity were possible only if people stopped asking new questions and accepted the available answers.
The Travellers brought chaos into the world, but Boone didn’t hate them. A Traveller was born with the power to cross over; there was nothing they could do about their strange inheritance. The Harlequins were different. Although there were Harlequin families, each man or woman made a choice to protect the Travellers. Their deliberate randomness contradicted the rules that governed Boone’s life.
A few years earlier, Boone had traveled to Hong Kong to kill a Harlequin named Crow. Searching the man’s body, he found the usual weapons and false passports along with an electronic device called a random number generator. The RNG was a miniature computer that produced a mathematically random number whenever you pushed the button. Sometimes Harlequins used RNGs to make decisions. An odd number might mean yes, an even number no. Push a button and the RNG would tell you which door to enter.