The Traveler Read online

  "It's the Hotel Kampa," she said in English. "Is there a problem?" "No problem," the driver answered and pulled out into the street.

  The Hotel Kampa was a large four-story building, solid and respectable, with green window awnings. It was placed on a cobblestone side street near the Charles Bridge. Maya paid the driver, but when she tried to open the car door it was locked.

  "Open the bloody door."

  "I'm sorry, madam." The troll pushed a button and the lock clicked open. Smiling, he watched Maya get out of his cab.

  She let the doorman carry her luggage into the hotel. Going to see her father, she had felt the need to carry the usual weapons; they were concealed in a camera tripod. Her appearance didn't suggest a particular nationality and the doorman spoke to her in French and English. For the trip to Prague she had discarded her colorful London clothes and wore half boots, a black pullover, and loose gray pants. There was a Harlequin style of clothing that emphasized dark, expensive fabrics and custom tailoring. Nothing tight or flashy. Nothing that would slow you down in combat.

  Club chairs and little tables were in the lobby. A faded tapestry hung on the wall. In a side dining area, a group of elderly women were drinking tea and cooing over a tray of pastries. At the front desk, the hotel clerk glanced at the tripod and the video camera case and appeared satisfied. It was a Harlequin rule that you must always have an explanation for who you are and why you're at a particular location. The video equipment was a typical prop. The doorman and the clerk probably thought she was some kind of filmmaker.

  Her hotel room was a suite on the third floor, dark and filled with fake Victorian lamps and overstuffed furniture. One window faced the street and another overlooked the hotel's outdoor garden restaurant. It was still raining; the restaurant was closed. The striped table umbrellas were sodden with water and the restaurant chairs leaned like tired soldiers against the round tables. Maya glanced under the bed and found a little welcoming present from her father—a grappling hook and fifty meters of climbing rope. If the wrong sort of person knocked on the door, she could be out the window and away from the hotel in about ten seconds.

  She took off her coat, splashed some water on her face, then placed the tripod on the bed. When she passed through the airport security checks, people always wasted a great deal of time inspecting the video camera and its various lenses. The real weapons were hidden in the tripod. There were two knives in one leg—a weighted throwing knife and a stiletto for stabbing. She placed them in their sheaths and slipped them beneath elastic bandages on her fore-arms. Carefully, she rolled down the sleeves of the sweater and checked herself in the mirror. The sweater was loose enough that both weapons were completely concealed. Maya crossed her wrists, moved her arms quickly, and a knife appeared in her right hand.

  The sword blade was in the second leg of the tripod. The third leg concealed the sword's hilt and guard piece. Maya attached them to the blade. The guard piece was on a pivot that could be pushed sideways. When she carried the sword on the street, the guard piece was parallel to the blade so that the entire weapon became one straight line. When it was necessary to fight, the guard snapped into its proper position.

  Along with the tripod and the camera, she had brought a four-foot-long metal tube with a shoulder strap. The tube looked vaguely technical, like something that an artist would bring to her studio. It was used as a sword carrier when walking around the city. Maya could get the sword out of the tube in two seconds, and it took one more second to attack. Her father had taught her how to use the weapon when she was a teenager and she had developed her technique in a kendo class with a Japanese instructor.

  Harlequins were also trained to use handguns and assault rifles. Maya's favorite weapon was a combat shotgun, preferably a twelve gauge with a pistol grip and folding stock. The use of an old-fashioned sword along with modern weapons was accepted—and valued—as part of the Harlequin style. Guns were a necessary evil, but swords existed outside of the modern age, free of the control and compromise of the Vast Machine. Training with a sword taught balance, strategy, and ruthlessness. Like a Sikh's kirpan, a Harlequin's sword connected each fighter with both a spiritual obligation and a warrior tradition.

  Thorn also believed there were practical reasons for swords. Concealed within equipment like the tripod, they could pass through airport security systems. A sword was silent and so unexpected that there was a shock value when using it on an unsuspecting enemy. Maya visualized an attack. Fake to the head of your opponent, then down low to the side of the knee. A little resistance. The crack of bone and cartilage. And you've cut off someone's leg.

  A brown envelope lay within the coils of the escape rope. Maya ripped it open and read the address and time for her meeting. Seven o'clock. The Betlémské námésti quarter in the Old Town. She placed the sword on her lap, turned off all the lights, and tried to meditate.

  Images floated through her brain, memories of the only time she had fought alone as a Harlequin. She was seventeen then and her father had brought her over to Brussels to protect a Zen monk who was visiting Europe. The monk was a Pathfinder, one of the spiritual teachers who could show a potential Traveler how to cross over to another realm. Although the Harlequins weren't sworn to protect Pathfinders, they helped them whenever possible. The monk was a great teacher—and he was on the Tabula death list.

  That night in Brussels, Maya's father and his French friend Linden were upstairs near the monk's hotel suite. Maya was told to guard the entrance to the service elevator in the basement. When two Tabula mercenaries arrived, there was no one there to help her. She shot one man in the throat with an automatic and hacked the other merc to death with her sword. Blood splattered over her gray maid's uniform, covering her arms and hands. Maya was crying hysterically when Linden found her.

  Two years later, the monk died in a car accident. All that blood and pain were useless. Calm down, she told herself. Find some private mantra. Our Travelers who art in Heaven. Damn them all.

  ***

  IT STOPPED RAINING around six and she decided to walk to Thorn's apartment. Leaving the hotel, she found Mostecká Street

  and followed it to the Charles Bridge. The stone Gothic bridge was wide and lit with colored lights that illuminated a long line of statues. A backpacker played his guitar in front of a hat while a street artist used charcoal to draw a sketch of an elderly female tourist. A statue of a Czech martyr saint was placed halfway across the bridge, and she remembered hearing that it was a good luck charm. There was no such thing as luck, but she touched the bronze plaque below the statue and whispered to herself: "May someone love me and may I love him in return."

  Ashamed of this display of weakness, she walked a little faster and continued across the bridge to Old Town. Stores and churches and cellar nightclubs were squeezed together like passengers on a crowded train. The young Czechs and foreign backpackers stood outside the pubs, looking bored and smoking marijuana.

  Thorn lived on Konviktská Street

  one block north of the secret prison on Bartolomejská. During the Cold War, the security police had taken over a convent and used it for their holding cells and torture chambers. Now the Sisters of Mercy were back in charge and the police had moved into other buildings nearby. As Maya walked around the quarter, she realized why Thorn had settled here. Prague still had a medieval appearance, and most Harlequins hated anything that appeared new. The city had decent medical care, good transportation, and Internet communications. A third factor was even more important: the Czech police had learned their ethics in the communist era. If Thorn bribed the right people he could get access to police files and passports.

  ***

  MAYA ONCE MET a Gypsy in Barcelona who explained to her why he had the right to pick pockets and rob tourist hotels. When the Romans crucified Jesus, they prepared a golden nail to hammer into the Savior's heart. A Gypsy—apparently there were Gypsies in ancient Jerusalem—had taken the nail, and therefore God gave them permission to steal un
til the end of time. Harlequins weren't Gypsies, but Maya decided that the mindset was pretty much the same. Her father and his friends had a highly developed sense of honor and their own private morality. They were disciplined and loyal to each other, but they were contemptuous of any citizen-made law. Harlequins believed they had the right to kill and destroy because of their vow to protect the Travelers.

  ***

  SHE STROLLED PAST the Church of the Holy Rood, then glanced across the street to number 18 Konviktská. It was a red doorway wedged between a plumbing-parts store and a lingerie shop where the window mannequin wore a garter belt and a pair of sequined stockings. There were two other floors above the street and all the upper windows were either shuttered or tinted a hazy gray. Harlequins had at least three exits in their houses, and one of them was always secret. This building had the red door and a second door in the back alley. There was probably a secret passageway that led downstairs to the lingerie shop.

  She flicked open the top of the sword carrier and tilted it slightly forward so that the sword handle slid out a few inches. Back in London, the summons had come the usual way: an unmarked manila envelope shoved under her door. She had no idea whether or not Thorn was still alive and waiting in this building. If the Tabula had found out that she was involved in the hotel killings nine years ago, it was easier to lure her out of England and execute her in a foreign city.

  Crossing the street, Maya stopped in front of the lingerie shop and looked at the display window. She searched for a traditional Harlequin sign such as a mask or a-piece of clothing with a diamond pattern, anything to calm her growing tension. It was seven o'clock. Slowly she moved down the sidewalk and saw a chalk mark on the concrete. It was an oval shape and three straight lines: an abstract suggestion of a Harlequin's lute. If the Tabula had done this, they would have taken more care and made the drawing resemble the instrument. Instead, the mark was casual and scuffed—as if a bored child had placed it there.

  She pressed the doorbell, heard a whirring sound, and saw that a surveillance camera was hidden inside the metal canopy above the door frame. The door lock clicked open and she stepped inside. Maya was standing in a small foyer leading to a steep metal staircase. The door behind her glided. shut and a three-inch bolt slid into a lock. Trapped. She drew her sword, snapped the hilt into position, and started upstairs. At the top of the stairs was another steel door and a second doorbell. She pushed the button and an electronic voice came out of the little speaker.

  "Voice print please."

  "Go to hell."

  A computer analyzed her voice and three seconds later the second door clicked open. Maya entered a large white room with a polished wood floor. Her father's apartment was spare and clean. There was nothing plastic, nothing false or shrill. A half wall defined the entryway and living room. The area contained a leather chair and a glass coffee table with a single yellow orchid in a vase.

  Two framed posters hung on the wall. One advertised an exhibit of Japanese samurai swords at the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts in Tokyo. Way of the sword. Life of the warrior. The second poster showed a 1914 assemblage called Three Standard Stoppages by Marcel Duchamp. The Frenchman had dropped three meter-long strings on a Prussian blue canvas and then had traced their outlines. Like any Harlequin, Duchamp didn't fight against randomness and uncertainty: he had used it to create his art.

  She heard bare feet moving across the floor, then a young man with a shaved head came around the corner holding a German-made submachine gun. The man was smiling and his gun was tilted downward at a forty-five-degree angle. If he were foolish enough to raise the weapon, she decided to step to the left and slash open his face with her sword.

  "Welcome to Prague," he said in English with a Russian accent. 'Your father will be with you in a minute."

  The young man wore drawstring pants and a sleeveless T-shirt with Japanese characters stenciled on the fabric. Maya could see that his arms and neck were decorated with numerous tattoos. Snakes. Demons. A vision of Hell. She didn't have to see him naked to know that he was a walking epic of some kind. Harlequins always seemed to collect misfits and freaks to serve them.

  Maya replaced the sword in the carrying case. "What's your name?"

  "Alexi."

  "How long have you worked for Thorn?"

  "It isn't work." The young man looked very pleased with himself. "I help your father and he helps me. I'm training to be a master of the martial arts."

  "And he's doing very well," her father said. She heard the voice first and then Thom came rolling around the corner in an electric wheelchair. His Harlequin sword was in a scabbard attached to an armrest. Thorn, had grown a beard in the last two years. His arms and upper chest were still powerful and it almost made you forget his shriveled, useless legs.

  Thorn stopped moving and smiled at his daughter. "Good evening, Maya."

  The last time she had seen her father was in Peshawar the night that Linden had brought him down from the mountains of the North-West Frontier. Thorn was unconscious and Linden's clothes were covered with blood.

  Using faked newspaper articles, the Tabula had lured Thorn, Linden, a Chinese Harlequin named Willow, and an Australian Harlequin named Libra to a tribal area in Pakistan. Thorn was convinced that two children—a twelve-year-old boy and his ten-year-old sister—were Travelers who were in danger from a fanatical religious leader. The four Harlequins and their allies were ambushed at a mountain pass by Tabula mercenaries. Willow and Libra were killed: Thorn's spinal cord was hit by a chunk of shrapnel and he was paralyzed from the waist down.

  Two years later her father was living in a Prague apartment with a tattooed freak for a servant and everything was wonderful—let's forget about the past and move on. At that moment, Maya was almost glad that her father was a paraplegic. If he hadn't been injured, he would have denied that the ambush had occurred.

  "So how are you, Maya?" Thorn turned to the Russian. "I haven't seen my daughter for some time."

  The fact that he used the word "daughter" made her furious. It meant that he had brought her to Prague to ask for a favor. "More than two years," she said.

  "Two years?" Alexi smiled. "I think you have much to talk about."

  Thom gestured with his hand and the Russian picked up a scanner from a side table. The scanner looked like a small airport security wand, but it was designed to detect the tracer beads used by the Tabula. The beads were the size of pearls and gave off a signal that could be tracked by GPS satellites. There were radio tracer beads and special ones that gave off infrared signals.

  "Don't waste your time looking for a bead. The Tabula aren't interested in me."

  "Just being careful."

  "I'm not a Harlequin and they know it."

  The scanner didn't beep. Alexi retreated from the room and Thom motioned to the chair. Maya knew that her father had mentally rehearsed the conversation. He had probably spent a few hours thinking about his clothing and where to put the furniture. To hell with it. She was going to catch him by surprise.

  "Nice servant you got there." She sat down on the chair as Thorn rolled over to her. "Very colorful."

  Normally, in private conversations, they would speak to each other in German. Thorn was making a concession to his daughter. Maya had passports for several different nationalities, but these days she considered herself British. "Yes, the ink work." Her father smiled. "Alexi has a tattoo artist creating a picture of the First Realm on his body. Not very pleasant, but that's his choice." 'Yes. We all have free choice. Even Harlequins."

  "You don't seem happy to see me, Maya."

  She had planned to be controlled and disciplined, but the words began spilling out. "I got you out of Pakistan—basically bribed or threatened half the officials in the country to get you on that plane. And then we're in Dublin and Mother Blessing takes charge and that's okay—it's her territory. I call her satellite phone number the next day and she tells me, Your father is paralyzed from the waist down. He'll never walk again.' A
nd then she hangs up on me and immediately cancels her phone line. That's it. Bang. All over. I don't hear from you for two years."

  "We were protecting you, Maya. It's very dangerous these days."

  "Tell that to tattoo boy. I've watched you use danger and security as excuses for everything, but that doesn't work anymore. There are no more battles. No more Harlequins, really-just a handful like you and Linden and Mother Blessing."

  "Shepherd is living in California."

  "Three or four people can't change anything. The war is over. Don't you realize that? The Tabula won. We lost. Wir haben verloren."

  The German words seemed to touch him a little deeper than her English. Thorn pushed the hand control on his wheelchair and turned away slightly so that she couldn't see his eyes.

  "You're also a Harlequin, Maya. That's your true self. Your past and your future."

  "I'm not a Harlequin and I'm not like you. You should know that by now."

  "We need your help. It's important."

  "It's always important."

  "I need you to go to America. We'll pay for everything. Make all the arrangements.''

  "America is Shepherd's territory. Let him handle it."

  Her father used the full power of his voice. "Shepherd has en-countered an unusual situation. He doesn't know what to do."

  "I have a real life now. I'm not part of this anymore."

  Moving the control stick, Thorn made a graceful figure eight around the room. "Ahhh, yes. A citizen life in the Vast Machine. So pleasant and distracting. Tell me all about it."

  "You've never asked before."

  "Don't you work in some kind of office?"

  "I'm an industrial designer. I work with a team developing product containers for different companies. Last week I created a new perfume bottle."

  "Sounds challenging. I'm sure you're very successful. And what about the rest of your world? Any boyfriends I should know about?" "No."