Chapter 2

She had been so much younger then, so naive, and flattered that such a powerful and dangerous man found her attractive. She hadn’t realized until later that he had been recruiting her. Youth and beauty were an alluring bait, and the aura of celebrity allowed her to move unsuspected in the highest circles of power. She was merely useful. Yet, she had forgiven his deception, such was the power of desire.

When the kiss ended, she rested her head against his chest, and it was only then that she noticed the dark stain on his sleeve. One arm dangled uselessly at his side.

“Rick! You’re hurt!”

“S’nothing,” he said. “You have more important things to conshider right now. We both have to get out of town pronto! We can’t travel together, but I’ll be in touch. Go to Boston. Don’t take a plane. They will be watching the airports. You will be given a disk. Give the disk to an agent known as ‘Webber’. Then your job will be finished. Whatever you do, don’t let THEM get their hands on it.”

She didn’t ask what was on the disk. She knew that Rick wouldn’t ask her to risk leaving deep cover to run a simple errand. The future of the world, she suspected, probably depended on the files it contained.

“Will I see you in Boston?”

“Maybe—but I’ll be near. I won’t let anything happen to you while I’m alive.” He flashed one of his rare smiles. She saw the gleam of his teeth in the dim light. “If you have any trouble, just whishtle.”

He was trying to ease her mind. Neither of them ever spoke of danger, considering it bad luck. She squeezed his hand. He didn’t have to remind her that haste was necessary, but she never knew if she was seeing him for the last time and wanted every moment to linger.

“Don’t worry,” he said, addressing her unspoken fear.

“What we have is shpecial—the shtuff dreams are made of.”

He threw a quick glance around the darkened garden and turned away, fading silently into the foliage.

Alice knew that she had probably been followed to the party. Even now, someone was watching the French doors and waiting for her to return from the terrace. Her only hope of evading surveillance was taking a shortcut across the lawn and avoiding the house altogether.

It was starting to rain, an icy sleet that chilled her bare shoulder. Alice had abandoned her coat in her haste. Now she couldn’t risk going back for it. She slipped into a cab that was idling by the gate.

“Where to, lady?” asked the cabby.

“Boston,” she clipped.

He turned around and glared at her. The windshield wipers tocked softly. “Whaddaya drunk? Geddadahere!”

She reached into her secret pocket and produced a roll of hundreds, holding it aloft so that he could see it.

“Breakfast in Boston it is!” said the cabbie. He put the car in gear and roared away.

Alice risked a furtive glance through the rear window of the cab and was reassured when no car followed them. She slouched in the seat, hoping that no one had noticed her leaving. Just then, the cell phone on the seat beside her began to ring. She wondered how the phone came to be there, and if the call was for her. It might be THEM seeking her, or Rick. The ringing was too insistent to ignore. She reached for the phone-and knocked the alarm clock from her nightstand.

Alice lived deep inside of herself.

She had no husband or lover. Her father was dead. Her mother stared at the wallpaper in a nursing home night and day, talking endlessly to the ghosts of departed loved ones but deaf to the living.

It didn’t help that Alice was unattractive. Her hair was the color and texture of baling twine. She was thirty pounds overweight in a culture where obesity was considered a sin at the very least, and at worst, a contagious disease. She wore glasses, not pert and stylish ones, but heavy lenses like industrial safety goggles. She shuffled through a gray world with her eyes on the ground, wearing dresses that were as colorless and unflattering as shrouds. Alice was twenty eight years old.

Autographed posters covered the walls of her apartment. She had been unable to bring herself to take any of them down. When she had used all of the available wall space, she had climbed on a chair and used the ceiling then overlaid the posters with newer ones, a chronological strata of alluring celebrity portraits wishing the best of luck to a woman they had never met.

There were trails through her apartment, maze-like paths winding among mounds of old comics, discarded pizza boxes, scale models of spaceships, action figures, fiction paperbacks, fan magazines, CDs, DVDs, phonograph records, and magnetic tape. This wilderness was inhabited by electronic devices that chirped and clicked and hummed, tiny indicator lights blinking shyly through the coaxial thickets. Shining above it all was the glowing oval of her computer screen, a moon that never set.

Like spinsters of old who sat in dark rooms and watched the passing throng through a window, Alice was fascinated by the lives of others. The computer put her in touch with an otherwise indifferent world. Here were blogs and chatlines, fan sites, and newsgroups—the amazing uproar of the web. It was a realm where even lonely shut-ins could speak to billions, and total strangers revealed their most intimate selves.

She knew that there were predators out there, scam artists, deviates, even serial killers, but they were easily avoided by the wary; even though they appeared in the friendliest of disguises.