"Riley, I got him," the driver said, pointing at a radio. "He's all right. Notify Norton, over."

Norton. That word made him feel as if he had been stabbed directly in the brain. He noticed the blood pounding under the sutures of his face.

"OK, Nash. We're gonna receive you in Langley with fancy champagne and a buncha hookers. Over."

"I'll play surprised when I get there. Hey, tell Mike... wait... an unidentified vehicle is closing in. Have you sent any other patrols here? Over."

He turned his head to his left. Indeed, another convertible pickup was approaching on a diagonal line, driving past the rows of aircraft.

"You are the only operative in your position. Over."

"I got it on my nine. Maybe..."

A sudden gunshot cracked from the other car, and the driver pitched forward and hit his head on the horn, which roared stridently.

"Nash? Nash!" the radio hollered out between interference as the vehicle revved up and swerved towards the aircraft truss to the right. Despite the cuffs, he sprang to his feet to check the driver, whose blood had splattered across the steering wheel and windshield. He forgot about the shooter and acknowledged the nearest obstacle, the wheel of a troop transport, attempting unsuccessfully to translate the remaining distance between them and it into seconds before the collision. The driver's head still smashed into the blowing horn. The cuffs were all that kept him upright with the ascendant speed and the wind beating him in the face harder and harder. The second car stuck to his side, the driver pointing at him with his gun.

It's over. If he doesn't do me in, the crash will.

He would have liked to repent of his sins before entering Purgatory but, apparently, the amnesia would send him straight to hell. Probably because of the adrenaline boost, he distinguished with razor-sharp clarity the face of the assassin: a man in his thirties, eyes black as obsidian, grayish skin, stubble, and six inches of dyed hair debating between solar blond and onyx.

"Your hands! Stick 'em up!"

The driver gestured by lifting his hands from the steering wheel and holding them high and far apart from one another. Before any thought flashed through his mind, he found his hands raised and apart, as if trying to break the chain by brute force. The driver pointed his nickel-plated ASP handgun, but this time, he aimed for his hands. One eye squeezed shut, the other one in perfect line with the gun's rear and front sight, one wrist propped up on the other, the muzzle leaned slightly to the left to make up for the force of the wind and the speed of the other car, waiting till the last second. The stranger pulled the trigger, and the chains broke apart with surgical precision. He then realized that whoever that man was, he was a crack shot.

Good enough to want him alive.

Once again, his own body got ahead of him, and he pounced towards the steering wheel, slamming it over so the wheel of the cargo aircraft passed next to him, tearing off the right rear-view mirror and licking the plate paint. The body of the former driver slid down to crush him, causing a powerful stinging pain in his head. Although he was upside down, trapped in a passenger seat with a corpse on top of him and blindsided by a haze of pain in his mind, the cessation of the horn blowing allowed for a small mental break that he invested in reaching for the car key. When he pulled it out of the ignition, the all-terrain vehicle, careening like wet soap over burnished ice, slowed. Even with the still warm body holding him against the footwell in that bizarre position that prevented him from seeing beyond the gear stick, he savored with a frenzy the steady mechanical slackening down the blacktop as he felt the blood beating through his head, pricking his wound with each palpitation.

The headache didn't give up on him when the car had come to a complete halt. On the contrary, he was paralyzed by pain, zeroing all his energy on deep breaths to recalibrate his vital functions. The whining of the radio hanging from the outflung hand of that dead guy was a soundtrack. Nash, although it was no longer worth remembering the name.

As absorbed in his strain as a dying man in search of God's mercy, he found in that passenger seat a space for catharsis. The smell of the leather in the seats made its way up to the top of his palate, a smell deeply familiar that called back the memory of a trip with his mother. He knew it was his mother, even though he could not materialize that feeling in images and sounds. But he didn't understand. He couldn't come to terms with the idea that twice in less than ten minutes, he'd met death with no panic. With acceptance. With resignation. Maybe because that's what he wanted, because everything was impossible, because there were no more cards left to play, because all was already lost. And he didn't want, he didn't need to move from that seat.

Let the world keep spinning without me.

He heard clearly, as if it came from the hereafter, the clashing and twisting of the soles of shoes against concrete, coming closer and closer, until the rough and confident opening of the passenger door replaced that sound, shattering his mental microclimate as a bubble colliding with a train.

"Fucking idiot."

Two hands pulled him out of the car and got him standing with one tug.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

That action ruffled the circulation in his head and stomach enough to offer him a small gag.

I have no strength to blow chunks a second time.

In front of him was the man who had saved his life. The guy wore a red Hawaiian shirt with green and yellow floral patterns and jungle camouflage cargo pants, along with both an old and a digital watch on the same arm. Did he know him? It was better to keep his distance.

"I was about to bite the dust. Give me a fucking break."

"Your brother will sure put me down if I don't haul you out of here. C'mon, let's go. The plane's nearby. The name's Conan Seiber, by the way." He extended his hand, which was matched immediately in a handshake. "Codename's Tikaboo Peak."

He definitely didn't know him. Despite everything, his look of concern did not withhold a warm smile that shyly bloomed from his lips, etching out the corners of his eyes with those kind crow's feet inherent in those who don't stop smiling. It was just details. Two details that, as random as they were, inferred in his heart more confidence in that guy Seiber than anything he could say or do to earn it.

"I am..." Shit, who am I? "Well, you know."

Seiber smiled warmly and clapped him gently on his cheek, ignoring his wound.

"Of course I do. Atticus can't stop talking about you. I think at this point I know more about your life than you."

"I'm sure of that," he replied with an oddly non-ironic smile.

"I've been told you escaped an accident or something," Seiber commented, pointing at his wound. "You almost didn't make it back there."

"Yeah," he replied laconically, as though he was afraid of giving himself away.

"Any aftermath? Migraines or anything?"

He bided his time before answering. This could be the perfect time to level with Seiber and virtually start from the ground up. And yet, he couldn't help but think that doing so would put him in a clear state of incompetence in a situation yet to be laid out, and a priori too big for him to afford to show himself at a disadvantage.

"Just a bit of a headache. It's nothing."

Seiber clapped his hands once, marking a full stop to that line of conversation.

"All right, Skyler. We have antiseptics and medicine on the plane."

"Sky...Skyler?"

"That's your name, isn't it?" Seiber asked ironically.

"Su...sure," he answered with a flimsy forcefulness that barely masked his surprise.

"Nash? Nash! Talk to me!" the radio whined between interference from the tightened fingers of the corpse clinging obsessively to it. Seiber grabbed it and pulled it out of the dead man's hand in two jerks.

"Or should I call you by your last name?" Seiber asked.

"Uhm...As you like?"

Seiber mulled it over for a few seconds.

"Yeah, Landau sounds more presidential." He stretched his arm to hold the radio as far away as possible and pressed the talk button. "Oh shit, Landau's bleeding to death! What do I do? Over." Then he covered his nose and spoke in tones and sounds only a dog could make out. It didn't take long for Skyler to figure out Seiber was imitating the voice between interference from a hypothetical partner by radio. Once Seiber filled out the time of a regular reply, he answered himself. "No, driver's dead, Landau's the one who's injured." Seiber urged Landau to say anything with exaggerated facial gestures and a wave of his free hand.

"Mmm...Damn, how it hurts, I'm dying!" Can't remember any right now, but I guess there've been better interpretations. "Like that?" he whispered.

"Perfect." Seiber charged his whisper with sarcasm. "There's nothing I can do for him. I'm gonna put him down."

As soon as he said it, he took out his gun and shot at the clouds. He then removed his finger from the talk button and put the radio back between the dead's rigid fingers, a radio so engrossed with what it had heard that it couldn't speak again.

"I've always thought smart guys like you were on time for appointments and... well, don't let themselves get nicked by the feds." He looked at his wristwatches. "Seriously, we should've taken off three hours ago. Where were you? And where's Colt? He was supposed to bring you in an ambulance."

One of the two dead should be that man Colt, possibly the one behind the steering wheel.

"He didn't make it."

"Colt's dead?!"

"The ambulance crashed when I was knocked out. I only woke up recently, and then I came this far by myself. His body's still there."

"Oh, shit." Seiber groomed his hair nervously with both hands. "I guess you weren't aware, but he was our only link in the NSA to get you out of there. Guess he took the fall."

"The NSA?"

"Don't you know? They were watching you all the time. That's why your brother could never get you out. Until today's accident, that is, which Colt used to hide you from sight for a few minutes. But our head start's running out, so let's go. It's all gonna come down to the wire."

"And the missing corpse?" Skyler asked, pointing at the radio. "You're supposed to have shot me to put me out of my misery."

"It's under control." Seiber went to the trunk of his pickup and pulled out an inert body. He slung it over his shoulder, threw it in the CIA car trunk, and put the cuffs on its hands and around the same metal bar.

"Who is this?"

"A whistle-blower I had to get rid of. Looks a bit like you. He'll take one for the team." Seiber went back to his car and pulled out an immaculate metal bar. He approached the snitch with no apparent signs of life and beat the gray metal against his face several times, dying it garnet slowly. With no viciousness, just like a professional. Skyler stared at him in bewilderment but remained silent, afraid to bite the hand that fed him. He counted eight strokes, each one with a different sound. Each click of the steel against tissue and bone offered subtle variations he would never forget.

"Well, you're not that alike now." Seiber grabbed the body by its hair and rubbed its face in the back of the passenger seat. "Officially, you deformed your face by crashing into the seat during the chase. Now, let's go."

"This is the foolproof method for them to think I'm dead?"

"Of course not. It's just for the coroners so we can buy some time."

Skyler got in the car and sat next to Seiber, who pulled out his gun one last time from the driver's seat and snapped a bullet between the snitch's eyes. The tires then unspooled a blanket of dust that drifted away as the all-terrain screeched off between the wheels of the aircraft.

Skyler Landau, Atticus, the corpse, Nash, the radio, the hookers of Langley, the snitch, the clicks against the bone, Conan Seiber, the feds...the NSA?

Skyler's brain couldn't process all that information. He hadn't even taken the name of Skyler for himself, as if it belonged to an individual external to him. As if he were sitting in a dark theater, watching a play begin its second act. And he didn't know who his character was meant to be, nor where his character was meant to go. But he would see the whole thing through. Just out of feline curiosity. He had nothing to lose.

"We're here." Seiber slammed on the all-terrain brakes, but he didn't catch Skyler unaware. They were on the outskirts of the boneyard, a few yards away from a pearly-white long-fuselage private jet with the door open and stairs deployed. "Lockhart, turn on the engines. We've arrived. Over." Seiber was talking to a walkie-talkie, which did not take long to answer.

"Where the fuck was that fucking brat? Over," said the voice of a man with disproportionate agitation.

"He's listening. Over."

"Well, then have him listen to me. Even if he's Atticus's brother, he doesn't have the right to come here whenever he fucking wants and put us all in fucking danger! Over."

At that point, only Kafka would have been able to describe the location of Skyler's mind on the emotional spectrum.

"He's been passed out for a while. Tends to happen when one tries to run away with a traumatic brain injury without medical release. Over."

"Oh...too bad, dude. Over."

Seiber heaved a condescending sigh.

"Cedric, how much has it been? Over."

"What?"

"How much has it been this time?"

"Only half a gram, I swear. Out."

Seiber and Skyler looked at each other in disbelief.

"Should I ask?" What could Skyler say?

"Give it a try," Lockhart prompted him over the radio.

"No thanks. Out," Seiber said firmly, ending the conversation.

If these two are my brother's assistants, I might not even want to remember who my brother is. It'll be enough for me if he doesn't believe he's Napoleon.

They both got out of the vehicle with the same surreal seriousness with which they exchanged words for the first time. Skyler was not at all surprised to see Seiber pull several petrol cans out of the luggage compartment and douse the whole pickup with kerosene.

"It's best to erase any trace." Seiber struck a match against the back of the matchbox, which kicked off golden flames from the upholstery and the hood. "Or at least make it hard."

That smell. The smell of the bodywork, the paint, the tires, all burning in unison.

Why is this smell so familiar? Maybe...rubble burning? Within...a facility. A military facility. No! No, no, a civilian one. Maybe...

He lost the flow of his subconsciousness and went back to the real world to take a breath, where he found himself climbing the steps to the plane, listening to the sound of his shoes thudding with each metallic step. At the end of the stairs, on the threshold of the jet, was a man in his thirties, stout, dressed in military attire and sunglasses, with a shaved head covered by a backwards cap and a profuse and dark shipwrecked beard, chewing gum.

"Skyler, the prodigal brother!"

The boy extended his hand which, when the man reciprocated, he shook with such vehemence that Skyler feared for the integrity of the society between his phalanges and his radius and ulna.

"Lockhart, right?"

"Because of the voice?"

"No, because of the..." Skyler pointed his index finger to his nose as he directed his gaze toward the guy's mustache, tarnished with something like chalk. The man got the hint and wiped it off quickly with a black leather mitten as he took a single and energetic sniff.

"I'm going to...to the cockpit." Lockhart got inside the plane with a certain dose of discomfort, although not necessarily shame. "Codename's Freedom Ridge, by the way."

Skyler and Seiber shared a sympathetic look.

"You thought it was a joke?" Seiber asked, giving Skyler a condescending pat on the shoulder.

"I kinda didn't want to except for the fact that he's the pilot."

"This guy drugged, crippled, and cock-eyed is safer flying than the entire RAF. Had a rough childhood, then enlisted in the D.E.A.; had access to the seized goods; just picture the rest."

"I never knew my father and I've never gotten anything up my nose."

Where did that come from?

Skyler had said that with a clarity so regal, so unfettered, that he didn't doubt himself.

He looked back when he entered the jet. The powerful burst of white light from the outside hit his retinas and prevented him from accustoming to the darkness of the interior, which remained an ephemeral mystery. That polished vehicle that had brought them was devolving into a hodgepodge of amorphous irons under a black plume, staining the sky with its mourning to the sound of The Clash coming from inside the cockpit. Before Skyler could change his mind, Seiber docked the stairs and closed the door with a cold and compact sound that made him feel strangely safe. And it was there, just at that moment, before his retinas adapted, for one tenth of a second, he saw himself standing in the deepest darkness. A moment of solipsism that he instinctively took as the starting point for the rest of his life.

Here we go. Whatever the hell this is.