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Winding up a case was in some respects, though not the fun ones, like ending a party. With Harsányi at last in custody, the local officers had congregated into clumps. Raines could overhear those low desultory conversations that develop when everyone wants it said, but no one wants to say, that maybe the time is ripe to head for home. He made polite sounds in a few barely listening ears; detached himself; and walked back into the main arena.
“Arena”, as often in the context of not exactly high-end competitive sports gatherings on the Continent, was a glam description for a warehouse. Even before the unexpected wrap-up to the contest, the organizers of “Iron Path: Budapest – 2023” had not anticipated taking down the equipment until the next morning. Raines threaded his way between the hanging ropes; the bars; the benches; the free weights.
There was a slight uncanniness about all that fitness gear, chiselling shadows on the floor in the last light of a Central European sunset, with no one left for ministry. Divorced from its human context, the plastic and steel looked heavy, burdened with lost intent. Menhirs raised in praise of dead, forgotten gods. Raines snorted, and moved on. Hungary will forge from you a poet or a drunk, someone at Quantico had told him. Raines meant to dodge both of those bullets.
He reached the far end of the room; made out where a lithe form sat hunched on a bench; and approached.
“Hey,” he said.
Vo looked up at him for a moment, before dropping her head again. “Hey.”
“Mind if I join?”
Vo gestured at the echoing hall. “If you can find the room.”
“Cool.” Raines sat on the bench beside her, and stretched his legs. “It’s a wrap. Harsányi is being processed. Most of the Fly Team have split. Forrester left me to… Forrester left me to wrap up.”
“Uh-huh,” said Vo. She was once more gazing at the ground. Light from the high windows was painting a bloody bar across the wall. Raines pressed on:
“He’s going to commend you in the report. Not just because you eyeballed Harsányi when his sister was on the podium, but because you kept your cover intact by not joining the chase. As far as the Budapest athletics scene is concerned, ‘Emily Bennet’ was just a competitor like all the others. We can use you as her again, if the need arises.”
“Forrester’s putting that in the report?” Vo had raised her head, sharply.
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s a kind boss. Kinder than I deserve.” Vo looked away. “He shouldn’t feel he needs to lie for me.”
“That’s not a lie.”
“Get real, Andre.” Vo wrapped her arms around herself. “We both know that I messed up. Rookie mistake – letting the cover trump the mission. That last round…” She tailed off for a moment “… that last round of the contest broke me. I burnt out, trying to compete; the strain… the strain was just too much. By the time I eyeballed Harsányi at the podium, the world was spinning like a Ferris wheel. Forrester knows I was too groggy to join that chase. It took everything I had to stand without passing out.”
“Cam…”
“I bombed as an athlete, and then I bombed as an Agent. Too spent to be there for the Fly Team when you all needed me.” Vo’s lips twisted. “And before that, despite everything I put in, I was still the kid who came last in the sack race.”
***
“Are your legs working now?” Raines asked.
Vo bristled. “Of course.”
“The fact that you’ve been sitting alone in an empty warehouse on the same bench for half an hour might suggest otherwise.”
Vo glared, and stood. Sweat glinted in the dying sun on her flanks, between the black sports bra and shorts that had been her uniform for the contest. Almost immediately, she listed; and made what was obviously a studied effort not to steady herself against the wall. Raines looked on in concern.
“You can lean on me, you know.”
“I’m not a child,” Vo said, through gritted teeth.
“You literally just described yourself as the kid who came last in the sack race.”
“Don’t pull high school debating moves on me, now, Raines; I don’t have enough left to face them.”
“Kind of my point.” Raines held out his hand. “Come on, Cam. You’re beat, and you know you could use the help.”
Vo was silent, for a moment. Then she nodded, and leaned in. Raines put his arm around her shoulders. The two set off slowly back through the body of the warehouse.
“That should have been secured,” Vo said suddenly, about half-way across the arena floor.
“Huh?”
“That.” Vo pointed. One of the massive medicine balls from an earlier round of Iron Path lay in their way. Sisyphus was MIA.
Raines shrugged. “The organizers can handle it in the morning.”
Vo shook her head. “The ball’s a hazard. I’ll shift it.”
“Let me jus…”
“I’ll shift it.” Vo gently but insistently pushed Raines’ arm from her shoulders, and approached the ball.
Raines opened his mouth to speak, but reconsidered. There was always, he knew, a certain… focus to Vo and the way she thought; at its best, a laser intensity; at its worst, a fixation on minutiae beyond even the bailiwick of a coder like himself. In the usual run of things, she could diplomatically conceal this trait; as she tired, its jagged edges emerged, like a shipwreck disclosed to shiver in the air by the receding waters of a placid sea. Raines had never seen Vo as tired as she was now.
He closed his mouth, and watched.
Vo dropped fluidly to her haunches, and wrapped her arms around the ball. She bowed her head over it. Nothing happened. Vo closed her eyes; her brows drew together. Raines saw the taut muscles of her midriff clench. Still nothing.
Vo swayed. A harsh gasp broke from her, as she unbent. Raines knew (having watched this goddamned pointless exercise reiterated through a camera feed too many times over the course of a long day) that the move should end with the ball on her shoulder; knew too that, exhausted, she couldn’t find the power to bring it home. Vo tottered forward, maybe half a dozen paces, before the ball spilt from her trembling arms. It rolled and came to rest almost beside the wall. Vo stared at the gap between the ball and the wall, between where it was, and where she had intended it, as though that were the fief that held all her failures.
“So puny,” she muttered. “So pussy weak.”
***
The car ride back to central Budapest took maybe half an hour, this time of night. Twice, Raines felt, rather than saw, Vo arch against the passenger-seat, clenching her jaw as muscle spasms wracked her. Raines kept his eyes on the road.
“You didn’t,” he said, when he was sure that the cramps had passed, and Vo’s breathing was again quiet and steady.
“Didn’t what?”
“Mess up.” Raines glanced sideways to meet her eyes. “Your assignment was to stay in the game until you could ID Harsányi. We knew he’d show his face if Veronika made the podium…”
“Even bad men love their kid sisters.”
“… and that you couldn’t coast. In case you’ve forgotten, Cam – you weren’t last. Six of your competition didn’t finish. Two retired injured; three fell so far behind they were disqualified; and one literally passed out.”
“That was earlier in the day. By the end, Emily Bennet was the weakest woman in that room. Even Giannopoulou, the other newbie, beat me.”
“The babe who was basically wearing a stretchy flag?”
Vo slumped. “I forgot you were all watching on the feeds.”
Raines thought back. Giannopoulou was a long, lean Greek woman. Patriotic blue and white, sabled with sweat, clung to a physique that mirrored Vo’s. Raines remembered her and Vo squaring off, dark eyes locked into each other’s as the free weights flashed.
“You two were neck and neck, almost all the way. That was quite the duel.”
“I kept thinking: ‘Stay strong, Emily. Preserve your form. She’s hurting as bad as you. She’ll give first.’” Vo sighed. “Not so.”
“You were duking it out with athletes, all at least your size, in disciplines you hadn’t even heard of a month ago. A lesser woman would be in hospital, now, on a drip. Hell, I think that I would be, too. You didn’t have to win; you didn’t have to be there when we took Harsányi down. Emily Bennet did all the op demanded; she went the distance.” Raines took his foot off the gas, as familiar streets began to disclose themselves. “No one needs you to be Superwoman, Cam. Except maybe you.”
“In the comics, Superwoman is usually a bad guy.”
“Now, see, we’re gonna explore some day, at so much length, the embarrassing truth behind how you know that.” Raines was relieved to see Vo crack a smile. “But seriously, Cam. What was going on back there? Why did it burn you so much to come… not quite last?”
The smile disappeared. “Here’s my block.”
***
Vo usually claimed at the office that her apartment building had “rustic charm”. Raines had already suspected that this was a polite way of saying the facilities didn’t work. He was confirmed in that suspicion when he followed Vo into the foyer, slipping Emily Bennet’s small sports bag from his shoulders, and found her inspecting a sign that said the elevator was out of order.
“Problem?”
“Not at all,” Vo turned, hoisting a bright smile. “Thanks for escorting me home, Andre; you’ve been the perfect gentleman.”
“Sure I can’t see you to your door?”
“I… I… no.” Vo pulled at the bag, her head down. “Here… here’s fine.”
“Cam…”
“What?”
“How can you be such a great undercover operative, and such a lousy liar? I saw your face when you found out the elevator was bust. The ascent to your apartment might as well be Everest for you, right now. And you’d rather sit in this foyer, once you’d sent me off, like you did at that warehouse, hoping that some time in the next few hours you’d regain the strength you needed for the climb, than swallow your pride and ask a friend for help.” The dark head was still bowed above the bag. “Ream me for a liar if that ain’t so.”
“West Point. Quantico.” Vo finally looked up. “And now I lose to stairs.”
Raines reached a decision, and spread his arms. “OK. Hop on.”
“Huh?”
“You once said a girl would be crazy not to hold on to me with both hands. Now’s your chance.”
Vo stared. “You’re not serious.”
“Does this look to you like the friend-carrying stance of an unserious man?”
“That’s… very gallant. But today’s already found me out as a runt, Raines. I can’t end it as a damsel.”
“You aren’t either. Can you think of a better plan?”
Vo shook her head. Wearing a look of trepidation, she shuffled forward.
“I guess this is a day,” Raines said, as she hopped uncertainly into his arms, “when we all have to lift.”
***
It wasn’t an effortless carry, by any means, even though Raines considered himself in good shape. Vo was willowy, but tall; what bulk she had, as the op had shown, was mostly muscle. Muscle that still hurt like hell, to judge from how she was trying not to wince.
The mechanics were awkward. The ergonomic choice would have been a fireman’s lift. But that looked kinda serial killer when the joint wasn’t manifestly burning down around you, and would have meant Vo being obliged to ogle his ass.
Raines opted for a bridal carry. Vo stiffened, for the first flight of stairs. After that, Raines felt her slowly relax, as far as her strained sinews would allow.
When he staggered up to her front door, and ground to a halt, Vo’s cheek stayed warm against his chest. He wondered whether she had fallen asleep. At last, she stirred. Raines gently set her on her feet.
“Thank you – so much.” Vo fished for her key in the pocket of her shorts. “You were right. I couldn’t have made that climb alone – not now.”
“My pleasure.” Raines stretched his back. “I’ll run downstairs and grab the bag.”
When he returned, the door was a little ajar. He pushed at it, and walked in.
***
Raines had never been inside Vo’s apartment. Its aspect was almost, but not quite, as he would have guessed: the domain of a neat-freak who spent too much time at her job. All the same, the grace-notes surprised. A framed poster for Charade hung above the fireplace. A dog-eared paperback, with a title in a language Raines didn’t speak ( Ostře sledované vlaky) lay splayed on a side-table.
Vo sat on a chair by the side-table, her legs curled under her. A sparkling glass of mineral water beside her flirted with the light from a table-lamp. Steam rose from a cup beside another chair.
“Coffee,” she said, following Raines’ gaze as he sat down. “I figured that my new concierge had earned it.”
“That hits the spot.” Raines swallowed a gulp gratefully, and leaned back against the cushions. “None for you?”
“Just water. Caffeine might straight-up kill me now.”
“Wise.” Raines took another sip, considering. Vo already looked more rested. As good a time as any. “Cam…”
“Uh-huh?”
“Down in the street, I asked you a question. You didn’t answer. Why did… not performing as well as you had hoped in that dumb contest hurt so much?”
Vo froze. Raines persisted:
“I know you’re a perfectionist. I know you hate to lose. Which, by the way, means you are going to be so bummed when I make Director before you…”
Vo snorted. “Dream on, asshole.”
“… but I just don’t get why you were so invested in a competition that’s, basically, what would happen if televangelists ran gym-class. Who cares if you didn’t immediately excel at CrossFit’s slightly more hipster cousin?”
“Iron Path isn’t much like CrossFit.” Emily Bennet, Okie ex-pat, businesswoman, and weekend athlete, was talking now. Vo inhabited covers like a family home; maybe, Raines reflected, because an army brat like her had never had one. “The moves are different. It rewards a longer body-type…”
“You’re evading.”
Vo sagged. “Yeah. I am.”
“The way you’ve talked about yourself today. ‘A runt’. ‘The kid who came last in the sack race.’ ‘The weakest woman in that room.’ There’s a heft to all that, a bitterness. We don’t need to address it, if you don’t want to. But, as your friend, I’m happy if you do.”
Vo was silent for a long time. Outside the window, Raines could hear the first intimations of Budapest’s nightly wassail. At last, she spoke.
“I had a happy childhood. My parents loved me; I had my music. We went to so many interesting places. I need you to know that.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“But we never stayed in one place for long. And back then… I was in a lot of schools. A tiny not-white girl who played piano. You can do the math on how I fared.”
“I can. How did you make all of that change?”
“How do you know I did?”
“I’m talking to Cameron Vo, aren’t I?”
Vo smiled. “Kickboxing classes. And, well…” she paused, and blushed, “… there may have been a growth spurt.”
“From where I’m sitting, more like a growth fountain.” Vo’s blush deepened; she tucked the long legs even more firmly beneath her. “I’m guessing that today took you back – and not in a good way?”
Vo nodded. “Almost all those women had serious inches and pounds on me. I’d forgotten what it was like, to feel so weak, so small. Memory Lane isn’t the kind of street you want to rent in. If I’m challenged like that – my mind in a bad place, my body buckling at its limits – I fall back on a mantra. When everything is breaking against you, you have a plan. You don’t let anything distract you from that plan. You keep your head down; you do the work.”
“Words to live by.”
“Usually. But tuning out distraction… I learnt today that that can give me tunnel vision. Blind me to the bigger picture. The goal of the op was to apprehend Harsányi, not for me to prove something to myself. And as for even that narrow plan I locked myself into… when my prep’s insufficient, my muscle outmatched, will and focus alone won’t always be enough. I learnt a lesson.” Vo looked steadily at Raines, from under lowered brows. “But, whatever Forrester says, I still let you down.”
***
“Hmm.” Raines rolled the last of the coffee around his tongue. “You weren’t there when we took Harsányi in…”
Vo grimaced. “That’s been the signature tune, this evening…”
“Sorry. Not the point I’m trying to make. Would you like to guess the first question that he asked?”
“Did he want to lawyer up?”
“No. Well, yeah, but that came later. The first question Harsányi asked was whether the disturbance at the podium would invalidate the contest. When he heard that it wouldn’t… I’ve never seen a man look so relieved. Guy was worrying about how the evening would pan out for his sister, even when he was looking at a long stretch of prison time. Like he knew that that was more important.”
“We’re taking lessons in work-life balance from gangsters, now?”
“This is Hungary. Wisdom surprises you in odd places.” Raines heard the discreet taps of rain against the window. The dark Danube would be dimpling, out there in the night. “Sounds like the weather’s turning; I should go.” He stood. “You good?”
“I will be.” Vo gingerly levered herself to her feet. “A bath – a long bath – and an early bed.” She frowned; Raines knew that, even after all the candour of the evening, confessions of weakness still stung. “I… I may not be in the office first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Not a problem.” Raines headed for the door. “If we put you under again next year, though, I’m expecting you to kick Giannopoulou’s ass in the rematch.”
Vo smiled. “Count on it.” She hugged him in the doorway. “Thank you again, Andre – for everything. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Raines sat in his car for a while, after leaving the apartment building, without putting it into gear. Several sodden revellers lurched past, but without dinging the bumper. Budapest nightlife displayed its own uncertain grace.
This afternoon, he had been thinking about Vo the agent. He had seen her bring the mission to the finish-line – whatever the mistakes for which she still castigated herself, whatever the cost to her waning strength. This evening, he had been thinking about Vo the friend. He’d seen her in several kinds of pain, and done his best – as a bestie – to see her through that. All well and good.
Now, as Budapest swirled the wet night dramatically around him, like a waltz partner, Raines was finding it hard not to think of Vo as… something else. The dark, resolute eyes. The long glory of those spare limbs, still taut from the Amazon effort of the day. Beyond all, that ardour of spirit. Sometimes battered, often misplaced. Always there.
It had been nice to carry her, to hug her. More than nice.
Raines shook his head. He edged out into the sparse nighttime traffic. Side-streets passed; Andrássy út unfolded, luminous, before him. He forgot, for a while, the question of whether tunnel vision was contagious.
FINIS