Jumper_ Griffin's Story Part 15

"My mother's jewelry, up on the closet shelf. The rosewood box."

"And then?"

"The photo alb.u.msyou know, in the living room."

I took a deep breath and jumped to her room. The closet door was already open from before, and I stood on tiptoe and snagged the box. As it dropped into my hand, I jumped back.

"Here," I said, pus.h.i.+ng the box into her hands. I pictured the living room and then we both flinched at the flash of light and the horribly loud, flat crack that shook us, and then the tile roof of her house rose up and scattered like confetti in smoke.

I jumped her and the box away as the first fragments began to fall around us.

Chapter Ten.

Turning the Corner I killed them." Alejandra had been crying for about a half hour, lying on my bed. I'd tried patting her back, but I couldn't keep still. I'd tried pacing, then I'd jumped away, to the makiwara makiwara in the Empty Quarter, and hit them, hit them, hit them until my knuckles split, bleeding, and the pain was finally enough to cut through the other pain. in the Empty Quarter, and hit them, hit them, hit them until my knuckles split, bleeding, and the pain was finally enough to cut through the other pain.

I was sitting by the cave pool, soaking my hand in the icy cold water, when I said it.

Alejandra, lying on her side, staring into the dark corner of the cave, lifted her head. "What?"

"I killed Sam and Consuelo."

I'd told her the circ.u.mstances alreadythe INS and the helicopter and the phone calls. The way I'd found them.

A look of understanding came over her face and that was more painful than anything.

"I killed them like I killed my parents. Like I killed that policeman in San Diego." My voice was ragged; my breathing cut through the cave like a coa.r.s.etooth saw. "Okay, I didn't hold the knives, but I might as well have."

I looked at her and away. "And I've probably killed you."

"Callete!" she said. "Stop it." she said. "Stop it."

I took another ragged breath and held it. She got up and came over. "Hay caramba! "Hay caramba! What did you do to your hand?" She took it out of the water. The bleeding had slowed. "Did you hit someone? Mateo?" What did you do to your hand?" She took it out of the water. The bleeding had slowed. "Did you hit someone? Mateo?"

"Mateo? Oh, Christ!"

I jumped.

Mateo wasn't on the island. It was a fairly short swim to the mainland, or he could've flagged down one of the dive boats and gotten a ride. I'd kicked him pretty hard, though, and his head did bang against the sidewalk.

So maybe he drowned in the strait.

I resented it either way, because I really wanted to hit someone.

When I appeared back in the Hole, Alejandra said, "Never do that again!" Her voice was strident and I flinched.

"Do what?"

She gestured sharply around. "You said there's no exit. What do I do when they kill you?" you?"

"I'm sorry," I said, but that phrase was like a can opener. "I'm sorry! Oh, G.o.d, I'm so sorry!"

She put me on the bed and held me while the sobs wracked me over and over again. Sometimes she cried, too; eventually we slept.

She stayed with me five days. With meI never left her in the Hole if I wasn't there, even if it was just fetching food from p.h.u.ket or the West End. We'd take turns with the solar shower in the jungle near Bahfa Chacacual, the other waiting down the hill (though I peeked once. Oh. My. I was uncomfortable for hours).

I'd sleep on my side, away from her, aware of her every motion.

On the sixth day, we shoppedHarrods in Knightsbridge clothes and luggage. Back in the Hole we took the store tags off everything and packed them away in the two bags. I put fifty thousand dollars in the bottom of her main case without telling her. In London I'd already changed a thousand dollars to francs at Barclays.

"Don't flash it," I said.

"No, I'm not too too stupid." stupid."

The corners of my mouth turned down and she laughed. " jSolo estaba bromeando!" " jSolo estaba bromeando!" She pulled me to her and kissed my forehead, without bending. "Ai." She pulled me to her and kissed my forehead, without bending. "Ai."

We jumped to Rennes and waited for them them but apparently it wasn't the sort of place but apparently it wasn't the sort of place they they were monitoring. I started to buy the ticket for her but she stopped me. "Sweet, but I must do for myself now, eh?" were monitoring. I started to buy the ticket for her but she stopped me. "Sweet, but I must do for myself now, eh?"

The clerk delighted in helping her with the transaction and came out of his booth to direct her to the right platform for the Paris express. I bought a southbound ticket for SaintNazaire on the Bay of Biscay.

I had this picture of me standing on the platform, watching her train pull away, but I wasn't paying enough attention when I purchased my ticketmine left first. She walked me to my platform, held me for a moment, hard, as if to take an impression with her flesh, an indented memory. Then she kissed me, on the mouth, a grownup kiss that brought the blood rus.h.i.+ng.

"Be carefulsois prudent!" And then she was walking away, her shoulder bag slung, her large suitcase trailing behind on its wheels. And then she was walking away, her shoulder bag slung, her large suitcase trailing behind on its wheels.

I rode the train as far south as Redon and jumped away, from the s.p.a.ce between the cars.

The papers said the helicopter was abandoned in Mexico, just over the border near Highway 2, the route to Tijuana.

There were no cars reported hijacked but there was also no sign of the fugitives.

Apparently the police theory was drugs. Drug smugglers killed the INS agents and Sam Coulton and Consuelo MonJarraz y Romera. And they fled back into Mexico.

Sam's funeral was in El Centra, Consuelo's in La Crucecita. I didn't go to either. What could result but more death?

And not the right victims.

I tried to jump to p.h.u.ket, not my usual place out on Ko Bon island, but an alley near the market in Chalong, but I couldn't recall it well enough.

I jumped my dinghy to the island instead and sailed over, and, when I got there, I spent fifteen minutes sketching the spot.

My plywood wall of sketches began having another purpose. If I wanted to return regularly to a place, I'd record it. Maybe photographs would've worked but when you sketch a place, you really look look at it. at it.

And I tried to sketch Mum. Then Dad.

Couldn't.

It wasn't memorytheir faces were as clear as the day theywell, they were clear. But I couldn't see through the tears and my hands shook. It's hard to draw when your hands want to make fists.

It was the same with Sam and Consuelo, though I managed a head and shoulders portrait of Alejandra.

I tried another drawing of Mateo, as I'd last seen him, half in the water, half out, on the beach at Isla la Montosa. That I managed with some degree of accuracy.

I knew it was accurateI had his driver's license. I also had his bag, which had held a gunan odd gun.

I'd fired it in the desert, at a limestone outcropping, and it put two spikes into the stone with a cable taut between them. When I touched the cable it shocked the s.h.i.+t out of me, numbing my entire arm.

There were five more cartridges in the bag, all identical. The gun folded open at the breech, like an oldfas.h.i.+oned shotgun. I fired one more and it, too, shot out cable and two spikes. I didn't touch it this time. I put the bag back in my Hole.

I tried to relax, to do nothing, but when I did, I found myself wandering down to the end of the cave and turning on the flood that lit my villains' gallery. There were only four sketches. I thought there should be more.

I knew they were in Londonthey'd tried for me twice there, so I figured that was the place for the experiment. I bought two cheap video cameras and placed them on tree limbs in the corner of Hyde Park near the Tube station. I started them recording, walked out in the middle of the green, and jumped home to the Hole.

I returned in five minutes and left again. At ten minutes I returned, and stayed.

There were two of them, you could tell, their car came to a screeching halt in the bus lane on Kensington Road . They spread out, one coming up the main path from Queen Elizabeth's Gate and the other one cut around west, past the Boy and Dophin Fountain. They hadn't spotted me yetI was standing next to the Rose Gardenand so it wasn't that obvious when I jumped.

I waited until they'd pa.s.sed my cameras, then jumped away, west up the park toward Knightsbridge Station. They should've felt it, I hoped.

I walked across the street and into the station. After five minutes, a westbound train came through and I stepped aboard but got off, next stop, back at Hyde Park.

I strolled back casually, my eyes open for the two guys in green overcoats, but I didn't see them. I picked up the cameras and then jumped away, from the same spot I'd used before, by the Rose Garden.

One of them was blond with a receding hairline and a bald spot in back. He had almost no eyebrows and he looked familiar, but only vaguely, and I thought that perhaps he was the one who had attacked me on the stairs at the Elephant and Castle Tube stop.

I froze them on the little television screen at various points and sketched them.

His companion shaved his head, but he had dark stubble and bushy dark eyebrows and ran to fatkind of jowly. Either of them could've been the one who'd tried at Embankment Station, when they'd snagged the two women insteaddidn't see them that time. They both were Sensitives. They'd snapped their heads around the minute I'd jumped. You could see it on the tape clearly.

Must be a thankless job when your quarry can just jump away in an instant.

Then I remembered the circ.u.mstances of my first encounter. Maybe it's not so hard, when your quarry is an inexperienced child. Maybe it's not so hard, when your quarry is an inexperienced child. Maybe they didn't have to hunt adult jumpers. Maybe the spent their time killing nineyearolds instead. Or younger. Maybe they didn't have to hunt adult jumpers. Maybe the spent their time killing nineyearolds instead. Or younger.

Now that that would make it easier. would make it easier.

I had no sympathy.

I was irritated with the London police and with myself a bit, too. I should've stayed longeras it was, the tape showed that when I jumped, the two guys had dashed back to their car to speed up Kensington after me. Not only did they not get towed or clamped, they didn't even get a ticket.

Their sketches went up on the board as London Blond and London Baldy, along with Post.i.ts for the city and notes about where I'd seen them.

It was weird, but after I'd done this, I was able to draw a brief sketch of Sam, leaning forward, like he did on the edge of his living room couch.

Huh.

I wanted to see Alejandra, very much, but I'd insisted she just disappear, on her own, so I wouldn't know. So I couldn't betray her accidentally. Hopefully she'd discovered that she had enough money to buy a new ident.i.tythat was my hope.

I'd warned her about using her own pa.s.sporttold her what happened to me in Portsmouth. She said she understood. She said not to worry. I pulled out the big gun. I told her, "Consuelo would be very angry with you if you were to come to harm."

I took a train south from Rennes, first to Bayonne, then on to Hendaye, across the Rio Bidasoa from Spanish Hondarribia. I skipped the border, using my binoculars to see across the river, then jumping to a walkway on the far bank.

Bienvenido a Espana.

The locals wouldn't mind my travelthey considered both sides Basquebut they probably would disagree with the "Welcome to Spain." I sat in the old quarter and sketched the wall and the castle. When the place had seeped into my bones, I walked to the train station and purchased a ticket for Madrid for the next day.

I jumped to the Hole from one of the narrow alleys.

I was exhausted but I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about Alejandra. After tossing and turning, I got up and took a fresh sketchbook over to the table, turned the lights on, and drew her.

I drew her nude, as I'd seen her under the shower in the jungle above Bahia Chacacual. I sketched for two hours. The memory was better than the sketch, but it was still the best drawing I'd ever done.

Then I was able to sleep.

The next day I talked a lot, on the train, finding interesting variations in the accent and once getting in trouble when using taco, taco, which apparently means "swear word" in Spain. So much for lunch. which apparently means "swear word" in Spain. So much for lunch.

Because of a service problem on a train in front of us, it took six hours to get to Madrid. When I looked at the map, it surprised me that it took only that long, but going back to the scale, I realized Spain was smaller than the state of Texas.

I was still exhausted, though, from the travel and the talking and the pretending to smilethat was the most tiring. I jumped away as soon as I'd made a quick sketch of the platform itself, with the city skyline prominent.

To whom it may concern: My name is Griffin O'Conner. I am the child of Robert and Hannah O'Conner, murdered on October 3rd,19, in San Diego, Ca.

The accompanying sketch Is of one of the three men (and one woman) involved in their murder. He was also seen in La Crucecita, Oaxca, Mexico, on November 13th, 19, and near the Russell square tube stop in London, England, March 3rd, 200. On March 16th, 200, he was involved with the murder of Sam Coulton and Consuelo MonJarraz y Romera and six INS agents in southcentral San DiegoCounty, California. His name is "Kemp" and he has a p.r.o.nounced english (Bristol area) accent.

Sincerely, Griffin O'Conner O'Conner March 29th, 200 .

CC:.

San Diego police department police department FBI, San Diego field office San Diego CountySheriff's Dept. CountySheriff's Dept.

New Scotland Yard .

I reduced the sketch to half a pageI'd drawn a fullface and profile view to go with itand put a nice inky thumbprint beside my signature, so they'd be able to prove it was really me.

I made five copies, four to send, one to put up on the board, and posted the three in San Diego, at the downtown post office on HortonPlaza, and the other in a post box outside the Epping Tube station, the very last stop on the Central line.

I went back to MontSaintMichel at sunrise, jumping to the causeway, then sat and waited. If they were watching Cousin Harold they might feel me arrive; I doubted they were. But if they had had stationed someone here, well then, they'd probably be along directly. stationed someone here, well then, they'd probably be along directly.

I just wanted to know.

I wasn't tiredI'd been s.h.i.+fting my operating time more to Greenwich zero. When you wake up in a sealed cave, it doesn't matter what the local sunlight is doing. I did tend to use the Kinko's in San Diego a lot but that didn't really matter, most of them were open twentyfour hours a day.

When no one arrived desperately looking for a jumper, I walked the rest of the way across the causeway to the island.