Revolution Read online

  “Did you maintain bio security protocols while in Moscow.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you only ever ate at sanctioned American restaurants?”

  “Yes.”

  Honestly, what is he expecting me to say? I’ve just seen two unarmed women shot dead in front of me. I’m hardly going to confess to sneaking a piece of Russian gingerbread from a Babushka standing on a street corner. I guess, theoretically, those little old ladies could be working for the FSB, but more than likely they’re struggling to make do in retirement and are just looking for a few extra rubles from tourists.

  “And your water?”

  “Always bottled,” I reply, as though I was reading from a script. “Being sure to hear the seal crack before drinking.”

  I'm pretty sure that's the phrase that's used in the infomercials they played before I landed in Moscow. Having been there five times in the last three years, I know the drill by heart.

  “And your teeth?”

  “Brushed using bottled water.”

  Seriously, does this guy know how expensive bottled water is in Russia? It would be cheaper to gargle the blood of virgins, but I know the pat answers he's looking for.

  The officer finally relaxes, sitting back in his seat and turning off his tablet. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says.

  “Tell me about it,” I say with a chuckle. It’s forced, but he doesn’t seem to notice and smiles in response.

  “I haven’t seen this place locked down like this since the Ebola-G scare a couple of years ago.”

  “What happened in there?” I ask, and he intuitively knows what I mean. We both know two women were shot and killed, but I'm asking why.

  “Russian separatists. They were trying to smuggle information into the US.”

  “Information?”

  “Yeah, bio tech is the latest means of covert dissemination.”

  “Of what?” I cannot imagine why two beautiful young women would risk and then lose their lives over a few bytes of data that could be sent over a wire. What fragment of information could be so important?

  “They were couriers. Spreading propaganda.”

  “Propaganda?” I ask. I'm skeptical that all this could be about suppressing a bunch of pamphlets. Hearing that word repeated back to him seems to highlight how preposterous the concept is when lives have been lost, and for a second, the officer appears to doubt himself, but he's quickly back singing the party line.

  “Ever wonder why your online banking requires two-factor encryption? It’s because these new quantum computers can crack the toughest algorithm in minutes. What used to take centuries of computing power to unlock can now be broken by brute-force in some dumb teenager's bedroom.”

  I’m vaguely aware of this, but I don't know how bio tech can be used to transport information.

  “Two-factor works, but only when no one can intercept both channels. It keeps criminals contained, but governments, well that’s a whole other story.”

  I nod, sipping at my coffee, which is still absurdly hot. A little milk wouldn’t have gone amiss.

  “So information, huh?” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. I'm not stupid. I know what the police officer is doing. The formal interview is over and he’s pretending to be my best friend, trying to get loose lips to sink this ship. It’s a good tactic, but I have nothing to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong.

  Or have I?

  Sveta and I kissed.

  And that’s when I realize. I’m a mule. What an idiot I've been. Sveta wasn’t coming on to me because she wanted me. All she wanted was a warm body to transfer a damn virus.

  “Knowledge is power, for better or for worse,” he says, his eyes looking for any response in my body language. “They tell me you can store a hundred terabytes of information in the junk DNA of a single human rhinovirus.”

  “Seems like a step back into the days of the Pony Express,” I say, trying to come up with something to cover my nerves. “I mean, it's got to be slow.”

  “No slower than the fastest airplane,” the officer replies, taking his hand from the table and resting it on his holster. “And it's completely invisible, completely secure, that is until the first symptoms appear.”

  I'm sweating. I want to wipe my forehead, but I don't want to look like I'm panicking. I smile, but I'm sure my smile looks awkward.

  “How are you feeling?” the officer asks.

  “Fine.”

  As before, my answers are curt, and I'm wondering if I should embellish a little. No, that would draw more attention to me. Best to answer his questions directly and get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

  “Did you have any contact with either of these women during the flight?”

  “Me? No.”

  “They're pretty, though, aren't they?”

  “No,” I reply, “I mean, yes.”

  A bead of sweat runs down the side of my temple, rolling gently down my cheek and along my jawline. I can feel it hanging there on my chin and fight the impulse to wipe it away. If the police officer has noticed, he hasn't said anything.

  What would they do? If the police knew I'd been infected, what protocol would they follow? Would they arrest me? Isolate me until whatever virus this is has run its course? Or would they simply get rid of the host? Less paperwork. They didn't appear too concerned about asking any questions of Sveta.

  My hands are shaking.

  “A stewardess mentioned she saw one of the women in the bathroom with a man flying business class.”

  “I was in economy,” I snap.

  “Is that a fact?”

  We both know I'm lying. I swallow the dry lump that's stuck in my throat. The police officer shifts slightly sideways in his seat. He's fingering the catch on his holster. I sip my drink, trying to hide behind my cup of scalding hot coffee for a second and compose myself.

  “That's him!” comes a cry from slightly behind me. I turn, and another police officer is standing some thirty feet away with the grumpy stewardess.

  My interrogator jumps to his feet, pulling his gun. I'm helpless. Without thinking, I react instinctively and throw my coffee in his face. The scalding hot coffee splashes across his mouth, nose and cheeks and runs down his neck as he screams in agony.

  I bolt for the outside door. There's another police officer there, but he's got his back to me. He's trying to keep prying eyes at bay and hasn't heard the scream over the sound of the storm howling outside. I can hear yelling and boots pounding on the marble floor behind me. The officer accompanying the stewardess is giving chase.

  The police officer near the door turns as I reach him. We collide and he goes flying. He slides along the slick floor as his handgun clatters across the marble.

  Bullets are fired.

  The officer behind me is firing while on the run.

  Again, the crack of each shot is deafening, followed by sullen thuds and tiny black marks appearing in the wall beside me.

  The automatic doors open and I duck through, running into the snowstorm outside. The sudden chill is shocking, but I'm running on adrenalin. These are the last few seconds of my life. I have to run. I have no choice. Run or die.

  I run across three lanes of traffic, barely giving any thought to the cars and vans honking their horns at me. A taxi cab swerves on the black ice in the outside lane. I slide into his fender and clamber to the front passenger door. As I climb in, I see the driver slumped over the steering wheel, blood seeping from a tiny hole behind his ear. For a second, I'm confused, and then another bullet sails past just inches from my nose, scattering fine glass throughout the cab of the taxi.

  The taxi is still sliding slowly to a stop on the ice. I unclip the driver's seatbelt and lean across him as two more bullets thump into his lifeless body. Pulling awkwardly on the door handle, I push him out the open door, watching as his body slumps into the dirty snow gathered on the medium strip.

  Clambering into the
driver's seat is difficult. I feel as though I have too many legs, but somehow I reach the accelerator and the taxi lurches forward, catching on a patch of rough ice.

  The police officer is running hard. He's caught up to the taxi and is pounding on the rear door as I pull away. He must be out of ammo as he's striking at the glass on the rear door with his gun. He's got ahold of the door handle, but I swerve to make an onramp and he loses his grip. My heart is pounding in my chest as I accelerate onto the freeway with my foot hard against the floor.

  I'm not thinking straight. I'm still in fight-or-flight mode and feel as though the whole world is out to get me. I have to escape. I drive like a mad man. I am a mad man. To hundreds on the freeway and hundreds of thousands watching a high-speed chase on television, I am possessed by the devil. I am a rabid dog that must be put down.

  With utter stupidity pushing me on, I race between cars, squeezing between lanes and then straddling the central barrier. I cut off dozens of other vehicles in my panic. All I can see out the windscreen is a haze of red brake lights and falling snow, but a glance in my rearview mirror reveals there's no one behind me.

  “Breathe. Breathe,” I tell myself.

  In the mirror I can just make out a pile of cars backing up in the distance. Their headlights are skewed, pointing at odd angles. They've collided, blocking the freeway. Someone's hurt, I'm sure of it. In this weather, it's going to take hours to clear the wreckage. Reality hits me. I'm a fugitive. I've injured people, perhaps maimed or killed them in my panic. I'm the bad guy. How did this happen?

  My foot eases off the accelerator. I'm in deep shit and the shit is only getting deeper. There's an offramp ahead, so I take it, not bothering to read the sign. It doesn't matter. Regardless of where I go, I'm a criminal, a terrorist. I'm the enemy. Fuck.

  I drive blindly for a few blocks feeling numb. There's a diner ahead. A waitress is opening up, I can see her taking chairs off the tables but the lights are still off so I pull into the parking lot and wait. There's a dumpster. I park the taxi on the far side out of sight. I sit there shivering in the cold for a while waiting for the lights to go on inside. Snow drifts idly through the air. My business shirt doesn't provide any warmth against the cold. As soon as the lights flicker on I head inside.

  I walk into the diner struggling to accept everything that's happened. Is this all just a bad dream?

  “You want coffee?” an overweight waitress asks holding a pot of black coffee.

  “Sure,” I say, taking a seat at the counter and rubbing my hands together to get warm. I pop a creamer into the coffee cup and add a little sugar. The coffee tastes stale, but it's not scalding hot.

  “Did you hear about the pile up on the freeway?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, sipping the coffee.

  She's got her back to me, watching the TV. Already, there's footage of paramedics pulling people from crumpled cars. The snow is awash with the flicker of red and blue emergency lights. Emergency services are everywhere—firemen, paramedics, state troopers.

  “What happened?” I ask innocently.

  “Dunno?” she replies. “Someone driving too fast for the conditions, I guess. Fender bender gone out of control. People have got to slow down in this weather. What's the rush?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, slipping my hands into my pocket and pulling out my wallet to pay for the coffee. A scrap of paper falls to the ground. Sveta.

  I pick up the paper, straighten it out and stare at it for a moment. It's hotel stationery from some place near central Moscow from what I can tell. The phone number is written in large numerals. Sveta hasn't written this, I'm sure of it. I can't explain why, but I'm sure someone wrote this number for her, and she gave it to me, but why?

  My mind casts back to the flight. We were delayed in Helsinki while they deiced the wings. What should have been a half-hour stop over in the international lounge turned into four hours. The turbulence out of Europe was rough. I thought the wings were going to fall off, and yet slowly it subsided and I fell asleep. Sveta was hot when we kissed. She was starting to develop a fever. She must have known she wouldn't make it through bio security, but why me? Damn, I was in the wrong place at the wrong damn time, leaning on the back of her seat and looking like a chump.

  “Are you looking for a phone?” the waitress asks, seeing me staring at the scrap of paper. Her soft tone snaps me back to the present.

  “Ah, yeah,” I say, handing her a ten dollar bill and adding, “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks,” she says, ringing up the till. “Around the corner, by the toilets.”

  I get up and she says, “You want something else? Breakfast?”

  I signal a polite no with a wave of my hand and walk around the corner. The phone is old, one of the few that still accepts paper money or credit cards. I straighten out a five dollar bill and slip it into the phone and dial the number.

  I have no idea who's going to answer or what I'm going to say, but I'm sure this isn't Sveta's home number. The phone rings and then clicks for a few seconds, then the phone rings again, but the tone is different, it sounds distant. Yet again, there's a series of clicks and the phone rings once more in an entirely different tone. I'm being passed between points. Finally, someone answers.

  “Sveta?”

  The voice is deep and masculine. There's a trace of an accent, but at a guess it's not Russian.

  “No, this is...”

  Who the hell is this? I mean, who am I supposed to be? I'm sure giving my real name is a dumb idea, so I say the first name that comes into my head.

  “Phil.”

  Sorry, Phil. No hard feelings. I hope you don't end up being water-boarded by the CIA or the NSA or whoever deals with this shit.

  There's silence on the end of the phone.

  “She kissed me,” I say impulsively, knowing he'll understand. “She's dead.”

  There's really not much more to say than that. Those five words are cold but they communicate with clarity.

  “Corner of Broadway and 5th in one hour.”

  “Wait,” I cry out, no longer talking in hushed tones. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Broadway and 5th. One hour.”

  “I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers,” I reply.

  “One hour, or you're dead.”

  Click.

  Fuck.

  I slam down the handset.

  “You OK, Honey?” the waitress asks, leaning around the corner.

  “Ah, yeah,” I say, feeling sheepish, knowing full well that within the next hour or so she's going to be answering dozens of questions to a bunch of cops hunting me down. “My wife. Ah, she walked out on me. Took the kids. Left in the middle of the night.”

  I am such a shitty liar.

  “You take care of yourself, Honey,” she replies, and I can already imagine her dialing 911 as I walk out of the restaurant. There's a vanity mirror beside the phone. As I pick up my wallet I catch a glimpse of my reflection. Bloodshot eyes stare back at me. My skin is pale and sickly. Cracks run over my dry lips. Perhaps my imagination is getting the better of me, but I look like a walking corpse. Maybe I am.

  “You sure you don't want a bite to eat?” the waitress asks, putting a bagel with cream cheese on the table opposite me. “On the house.”

  I'm tempted, but I'm standing near the swinging door leading to the kitchen and I hear the cook talking in muffled tones on the other side of the door.

  “She's trying.”

  “I'm fine,” I reply, striding confidently past her and out the door. Through the glass window, I can see the television: Terror strikes JFK. The screen goes blank as the waitress turns off the TV but not before I catch a glimpse of my passport photo beside a photogenic anchorman. The waitress turns and looks at me nervously as I walk across in front of the diner.

  There's a sign pointing to the left saying subway so I turn right. By turning away from the subway, I'm trying to throw my pursuers off my scent.

  Maybe I should take the
cab, but every cop in New York is going to be looking for those plates. No, if they find the cab abandoned near the subway they'll know where I've gone. Best to leave it here. Keep them guessing.

  As soon as I'm out of sight I break into a run. Within seconds, I'm sprinting. The bitter cold air stings my lungs, but I have to keep going. After a hundred yards, my run slows to a jog. I continue around the block, heading for the subway, but the last hundred yards are nothing more than a brisk walk as I struggle to catch my breath.

  I buy a ticket with cash and board the train as police sirens sound in the distance. There's a transit cop standing in the entrance of my car. He glances at me as I walk past. I must look like a hobo. Rather than hide, I try a bluff.

  “Officer, I've been mugged.”

  At least that explains the lack of a jacket.

  He eyes me carefully as I plead my case.

  “A homeless guy pulled a knife on me.”

  The look on his face tells me he doesn't believe me. I can see him trying to assess whether I am that homeless guy spinning him a yarn to waste his time. My shirt is torn and my pants stop just below one knee, but I try to look indifferent. That's what homeless people do. They don't give a shit what anyone thinks.

  “I was on my way to the station—”

  He cuts me off, saying, “You were on the street?”

  I nod.

  “You need to report that to Metro.”

  Ah, he's latched onto a technicality that avoids paperwork for him, realizing my obviously concocted story happened outside the station. I'm a problem he can avoid by palming me off to the real police. These guys must hate each other.

  I try to look dejected as I shuffle past him. The train shudders as it picks up speed, slipping occasionally on the ice as it accelerates. The trip downtown takes half an hour. Commuters come and go. No one sits beside the anemic looking hobo in the last seat, which is fine by me.