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“Get out,” he says. “Slowly.”
I don’t move. “What’s going on?”
“Right now!” he yells.
I’m cuffed; I don’t have a lot of choices. I slide out of the car. He pushes me around to the back and pops the trunk.
“Uh,” I say.
Then he undoes the top two buttons on my shirt, so that he can push the amulets against my skin. When he buttons everything up and tightens my tie, the charms are trapped underneath. Now I have no chance of shaking them off.
“Get in,” he says, indicating the trunk. There’s not much in there. A spare tire and a first aid kit. A length of rope.
I don’t even bother to tell him no, I just run. Even with my hands cuffed behind me, I think I can maybe make it.
I crash down the hill, sliding more than anything else. The dress shoes are awful, and my body is heavy and unfamiliar. I’m not used to the way it moves. I keep losing my balance, expecting my legs to be longer. I slip, and my suit pants slide on the muddy grass. Then I’m up again and heading for the trees.
I’m moving way too slow.
Jones comes down hard against my back, tackling me to the ground. I struggle, but it’s no use. I feel the cold muzzle of the gun against my temple and his knee against the hollow of my back.
“You’re as cowardly as a goddamn weasel. You know that? A weasel. That’s what you are.”
“You don’t know me,” I say, spitting blood onto the dirt. I can’t help it. I start to laugh. “And you obviously don’t know much about weasels, either.”
His fist slams into my side, and I nearly black out from the pain. Someday I am going to learn to keep my mouth shut.
“Get up.”
I do. We walk back to the car like that. I don’t crack any more jokes.
When we get there, he shoves me against the trunk.
“In,” he says. “Now.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Patton’s fine. He’s alive. Whatever you think I did—”
The gun clicks once, ominously close to my ear.
I let him shove me into the trunk. He takes rope and knots it around my legs, connecting that to the chain of the handcuffs in back—tight, so that I can barely move. No more running for me.
Then I hear the rip of duct tape and feel it wrap my hands in two separate sticky cocoons. He’s taping something against my palms, something heavy—stones. When he’s done, he rolls me over, so that I’m looking at him and the highway beyond. Every time a car barrels past, I think that maybe someone will stop, but no one does.
“I knew you were too much of a wild card when we brought you in. You’re too dangerous. You’ll never be loyal. I tried to tell Yulikova, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, a little desperate. “I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her you’re right. Just let her know where we are.”
He laughs. “Nope. But, then, you’re not Cassel Sharpe anymore, are you? You’re Governor Patton.”
“Okay,” I say, fear making me babble. “Agent Jones, you’re one of the good guys. You’re supposed to be better than this. You’re a federal agent. Look, I’ll go back. I’ll confess. You can lock me up.”
“You should have just let us frame you,” Jones says, cutting off a length of silvery duct tape with an army knife. “If no one has any control—if you’re out there, free to make deals with anyone—how’s that going to be? It’s only a matter of time before some foreign government or some corporation makes you a deal. And then you will be the dangerous weapon we let slip through our fingers. Better to just take you out of the equation.”
It barely registers that I was right, that they were setting me up.
“But I signed the—”
He brings the tape down over my mouth. I try to spit and turn my head, but he gets it on, tight across my lips. For a moment I forget I can breathe through my nose and I panic, trying to suck in air.
