20The Port
NEWT CAME TO, SLOWLY, in the passenger seat. The hum of the engine at first sounded like the transducer in his ear. The windshield wipers beat a fierce tattoo against the onslaught of rain, the kind of thunderless downpour that cannot last. There was a sickly sweet smell in his nose and mouth. He blinked slowly, dazed, and found that he could see, but one eye was out of focus. He blinked a few times—was it the transducer? Had it damaged his optical nerve?—and then realized the lens of his glasses had cracked.
It took another moment or two before he could move his head. He forced it to turn sideways.
“Where are you…?” he mumbled, the words slurring out.
He blinked a few more times, bringing the driver beside him into focus.
“Victor?”
The Vice Chief did not turn or acknowledge him.
“Where are we going?” he said again, more articulated this time. “What’s going on?”
Awareness was fluttering back to him with the swoop-swoop of the wipers. Newt’s hands wanted to move, but they couldn’t. He was handcuffed.
“You,” said Newt breathlessly. “You set me up. You’re Orpheus.”
A sneer gathered in the corner of Victor’s crooked lips, but still he said nothing.
“But—but that’s impossible.” Newt’s voice rose. “You hate moles. You hate the Russians. You would never work for them. You wouldn’t! What are you doing? Where are we going?”
The sneer transformed into a full-flown grimace.
“I’m not a mole, you bloody idiot,” Victor said finally, and his voice was icy calm. “I don’t work for them. I'm making a trade.”
“The trade? It’s tonight?” said Newt. A chill settled over him. “And you’re trading me?”
Victor did not reply. He flicked the windshield wipers, and they slowed to a calmer rate. Outside, the rolling storm was easing, revealing the dark, misty landscape. There was not a car or a house or a single light in sight anywhere in the velvety darkness.
Victor, Orpheus? It didn't make any sense—he wouldn't work with the Raz, he hated the Raz more than anyone. Destroying them was his life's work.
...Unless they had something he wanted. Something he wanted more than he wanted revenge.
“What are you trading me for?” asked Newt in a hushed voice.
“A prisoner,” said Victor, a strange, forced casualness strangling his words. He took one hand from the wheel and reached inside his breast pocket. He extracted a cigarette, and lit it with the car lighter as he spoke: “Originally, I was to exchange the American prototype and the blueprints in return. But you’ve made scheduling a bit complicated. I don’t have time to extract it from your head before our appointment, so I’m just giving you to Robert. They can pry it out of you in Moscow.”
Newt’s heartbeat quickened, sending the dashboard and windshield spinning away in vertigo.
The transducer. Victor thought he still had it.
And that was probably the only thing keeping him alive.
“Robert won’t mind,” Victor was saying. “He'll like you.”
“Who's the other prisoner?” Newt managed, voice slightly choked.
“Charles,” said Victor, exhaling smoke. “Rennie,” he added after a half-second pause.
Newt’s eyes widened. “You did know he was alive.”
Victor’s face creaked into a humorless grimace.
“And you...” Newt opened his mouth, trying to retrace Victor’s calculations. “He’s your...” Newt’s jaw slackened. “You think Bowen's holding him prisoner,” he murmured. “You think he’s a prisoner. You don’t think he’s a traitor. Victor—” His heart fluttered with trapped-bird panic, his words tumbled out on top of each other—“He was—he’s never—he was working with Bowen the whole time. He’s playing you. The Russians are playing you. It’s a trick. This is a trick! He's not going to be there! You can’t—you can’t seriously think—”
But his words fell on deaf ears. The simple truth was that Victor did not care.
Without thinking, Hermann took off running.
His run was lopsided and not fast. With every step his hip flexors seized tighter. His legs knew he had a better chance of hiding than outpacing, so he made for the garage nearest the house, less than 50 meters distance—nothing more than a floodlight and a gray shape in the torrent. The rain in his eyes nearly blinded him. The footsteps behind him grew louder apace, closer, spitting gravel. Rivulets of rainwater formed creekbeds in the gravel drive, and he heard his pursuer stumble into one, sending a splash and a curse.
Hermann’s free hand reached out and connected with the wooden doorframe. With a jerk he pulled himself up short, and then he yanked open the door and pulled himself inside.
He slammed the door shut behind him. It was dark. There was a toolbox on a heavy chair by the door—in a panic, he upended both in front of the door. His breath caught up with him and he gasped, staggering backwards, all his adrenaline and panic surging up his throat, and he thought he might be sick. His leg and hip were seizing. He couldn’t take another step.
A heavy, wet thump hit the door. But the chair kept it barricaded shut, and the intruder withdrew, making no second attempt. The shadow moved across the light around the door, and disappeared.
The rain roared on the wooden roof.
Hermann cast around the dark garage—barely any time to form a plan—he was taking inventory, object, object, object. Object = use. Breathing purposefully to keep his asthmatic lungs from wheezing, he inventoried, just as he’d been trained, all those years ago, on this very campus. Slowly, he twisted his leg, loosening his aching joints. When the garage double doors swung open less than twenty seconds later, he was already moving.
The noise and the floodlit curtain of rain rushed in. Hermann stepped from behind the car and swung the iron golf club, gripped in both hands, without mercy at his assailant’s shins. The man cried out and buckled, and Hermann dropped the club and came up with the flat edge of his hand straight into the man’s windpipe. His assailant choked and fell—only to his knees. His hand flew out and grabbed Hermann’s wrist with shocking strength, and Hermann registered that his attacker was lower to the ground than the towering Raleigh Becket should have been, and that his hair, slicked from the rain, was not blond, but dark. Then Hermann was jerked downward—he bent, locking his knees and straining to stay standing, but his leg was weak and the man had a vicious density. He pulled until Hermann buckled, slamming him onto the concrete and wrenching his shoulder. Victory slackened his assailant’s grip for a second and Hermann twisted his right hand, wrestling, a losing game but an engrossing one—while his left hand, unaccounted for, pawed the concrete floor—
Basic combat training taught them to aim for the eyes, the throat, and the groin. Division employees were not expected to get into scraps, and if they did, they were expected to be merciless, for in this business, if it came to a confrontation, it was life or death.
His attacker was making a horrible growling sound, as his free hand wrestled with Hermann’s convulsing shoulder and grappled for his throat. His tie was falling into Hermann’s eyes and all he could see of his face were snatches of bared teeth and skin creased in a grimace of hatred. Then with a gasp of satisfaction, a vindictive “Ha!” the attacker found his throat, and Hermann recognized his voice. It was the Vice Chief’s assistant, Preston Blair.
“No—” Hermann choked.
“Pathetic,” hissed Preston, pressing down on his throat.
Hermann’s lungs were pumping, and losing airflow had a quick, meaningful effect. He gasped and sputtered, his left hand spasming in its search, desperate, futile, as Preston leaned in, grimacing like Hermann was the man who had killed his mother and was going to pay at last—and then Hermann’s fingertips brushed against metal. He seized it—a heavy steel wrench, fallen from the toolbox—heaved it up, and slammed it into Preston’s face.
Someone cried out and there was a crack—it was probably his jaw, Hermann couldn’t tell, but the chokehold disappeared and blood was pouring onto Hermann’s face from Preston’s open mouth. Hermann flailed, his hands finding Preston’s face and shoving him away, and Preston fell on his side—stunned but groping for Hermann still. Hermann scrambled up and away into a painful sitting position. Black spots danced across his vision, and the floor pitched like a ship. He saw that his rusty pipe wrench had hit Preston full in the temple and jaw. Hermann's back hit a tire, and he used the car to pull himself up. There was a lot of blood in his mouth and he still wasn’t breathing correctly. He looked at the bloody wrench and realized, with a bloom of pain reaching his brain, that after hitting Preston, he'd dropped it on his own face. His nose was broken.
Hermann's back hit a tire, and he used the car to pull himself up. He tried to breathe deeply through his mouth, but the blood in his throat made him cough and choke.
Preston was on his hands and knees, leaving a trail of blood and saliva on the concrete. Hermann couldn't see the injured side of his face. He was making a wheezing noise like a rusty spring.
“They’re... long gone,” he hacked out. “You’ll never catch them.”
“Where?” rasped Hermann, throat clotted. “Where is he taking Newton?” he said again, when Preston didn’t answer.
Preston was trying to get up off his knees. It wasn't working. He made the rusty wheezing sound again. It was a laugh, Hermann realized.
“Why are you helping him?” Hermann asked.
“You’ll never make it,” said Preston from the floor. “You’re no threat at all.”
“Where are they going?” said Hermann, standing over him.
“The port,” croaked Preston.
“Why?” said Hermann.
Preston just laughed again. It was a horrible sound. He kept trying to get up, but something critical was damaged. He kept falling down.
Hermann turned away. He spat out blood, and found his cane. Then he staggered around the car to the last item from his inventory: Newton’s motorbike, parked by the doors, kickstand down, helmet hanging neatly from the handlebar.
“You’ll never—make it,” rasped Preston again from floor behind the car.
Hermann pretended not to hear him.
A light, steady rain fell as they entered the industrial port of Yarmouth. The entrance gate was raised, but the guard’s booth was empty. Low sheds rolled by, all deserted. Silent parked cars waited in the darkness between the sheds, raindrops glittering on their black windshields. It was empty, like it had been abandoned a decade ago.
Victor drove slowly. Newt couldn’t tell whether it was from certainty or controlled anxiety. At the end of an alley, the pavement turned to stone, and they turned abreast of the docks. The sea vista was blocked by boats, their portholes bobbing far overhead. There were parked cars here, too, and Newt imagined them all full of black-clad agents, tracking them with guns through invisible balistrariae. But there was no sign of life.
They stopped. Victor turned off the engine, locked the parking brake, then checked Newt’s handcuffs. He got out, opening an umbrella over his head. He left the keys on the dashboard, and Newt briefly considered lunging for them. When he unlocked the passenger door, Newt discovered that Victor was holding a second umbrella, which he helpfully opened and placed in Newt’s cuffed hands. Then he conducted Newt in front of him by the arm, leaving the driver’s door open and the headlights on.
They walked down the slick wooden quay, in the shadow of a shipping vessel’s massive, immobile hull. Newt, walking in front of his captor, not happy about being a human shield, strained to listen for some sound. But he heard nothing. No footsteps, no voices, no distant engines in hot pursuit. There was only the waves against the hulls of the empty ships, the hiss of the rain, and the ropes creaking in the wind.
They reached the stern of the cargo ship and stepped into a misty cone of light. Victor turned Newt right, onto a pier that jutted into the harbor. At that moment, Newt thought he heard something overhead—a creak or a door opening, far up in the cargo ship above them—but when he turned, he couldn’t see anything, and the rain flecked his glasses.
Victor jerked his arm, reorienting him on his path forward.
Moored beside the pier opposite the cargo ship there was a bright red fishing boat, medium size, bobbing gently on the waves. The light was coming from there, from a floodlight on its upper deck. In the rain and the light, Newt could make out three figures on the deck. Victor’s grip tightened on his arm.
The Vice Chief brought him to the foot of the gangway, which was a short slope up to the deck of the red fishing boat. The figures were standing in the lee of the searchlight, shadowed, and as Newt’s eyes adjusted, he made out the differences between them. Two were soldiers, in long, heavy coats, overdressed for the climate. One had a medal pinned to his collar. The other held a gun of implausible size. In between them stood a slimmer man, more smartly dressed. He had glasses and a receding hairline. His hands, gloved, were crossed at his waist.
“Where’s Robert?” said Victor, without preamble. His voice echoed strangely between the metal hulls.
“Good evening, Vice Chief,” said the man in civilian clothing, his Russian very slight. “You have brought a prisoner? I do not recall that part of our agreement.”
“We’ll get to that,” said Victor. “Let’s start with the blueprints.”
The Russian paused, then nodded once. “As you wish.”
He signaled slightly with his head, and one of the soldiers—the one without the massive gun—stepped smartly down the gangway.
“Don’t try running,” Victor murmured to Newt, unexpectedly close. Newt tensed as Victor released his grip. There was a shuffling behind him and then Victor produced a manila envelope. He handed it to the soldier.
The soldier took it and returned to his master.
“I’ll hold onto the device until I’ve seen the prisoner,” said Victor.
The Russian made no response, opening the envelope. He slid the papers out and examined them. The armed soldier produced a flashlight, and shone it over his shoulder so he could read.
“Where’s Bowen?” Victor said again. “My deal was with him. I want to see him.”
“We have your prisoner,” said the Russian, sliding the papers back into the envelope. He jerked his head at his guard, who flicked the torch off. “But your friend Boven is not here.”
Victor tensed next to Newt.
“I made my deal with him,” repeated Victor. For the first time that night, Newt detected a crack in the façade.
“No,” said the Russian. “Tovarish Boven does only a little consultation for us. He does not have the... clearance to handle an asset as valuable as yourself." Newt could almost hear Victor's teeth grinding for being called a Soviet asset. "We allowed you believe you were communicating with him, for the sake of a smoother conversation."
"Speaking to Robert was part of my deal," Victor maintained stubbornly.
Newt’s arms tensed around himself, his grip on his umbrella white-knuckled. They’re playing you, Victor, he thought, they’re taking you for a ride, and I’m the deer about to get hit along the way.
"You have not kept terms with our agreement either," the Russian pointed out. "You have not brought the device in its complete state. Perhaps you would like to re-negotiate?"
Victor fell silent.
“We needed someone keeping an eye, paving your way, making life a little easier for you," the Russian continued. "So Mr. Raleigh Becket, he kept us in the 'loop.' He told us that your theft-and-frame-up last week did not go quite as planned. But you are a skilled improviser. I trusted you would bring us what we asked for. And so?”
The Russian gestured at Newt, making eye contact with him for the first time.
“Dr. Geiszler, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s a pleasure.” He smiled a little, and Newt saw gold fillings flash.
Victor had re-clamped Newt’s arm, and Newt was trying to pull himself free again.
“The pleasure’s all yours,” said Newt, his bravado falling flat on delivery.
“An excellent choice for a patsy, from what I know of you. Who would trust an American, after all? Americans are... what is that charming expression you have in English? So wishy-washy.”
The Russian smiled, amused. Newt twisted his arm, trying to pull away.
“Let go of me,” he hissed at Victor.
“They’ll just shoot you if you run,” Victor replied in an undertone.
“So you have the device, then?” the Russian called down to Newt. “And you’re going to give it to us. Or are you coming with us instead?”
“I don’t have it,” Newt said. “I lost it.”
The Russian just chuckled.
“How unfortunate.”
“No, really,” said Newt, twisting his arm again. Victor held on like a vice. “I threw it away. I dropped in the toilet.”
“That is a shame,” said the Russian, amused by this lie. “Do you think you’d like to come with us nonetheless? From what I understand, your career with the British secret services is quite finished. And I’m sure we could find you some useful work in Moscow.”
Before Newt could respond, a sound came from inland. The whine of a motorcycle engine swung into hearing, like an approaching fighter jet.
Hermann tried to slow down as he wove between the sheds, but not much, because he had spent the last half hour in mortal fear of tipping over. He burst out from between the last stacks of crates and slammed on the brakes, because the sea was right there, and as he placed his foot down to catch himself, he saw the parked car, door open, dome light on. Gritting his teeth against the imbalance and the pain, he wrenched the handlebars to the left and gave it one last push of gas. He coasted to a stop just in front of the car and stopped the motorbike, at last.
He turned it off and pulled out the keys, whispering, “Never again,” as he staggered off. He pulled his cane from the side where it had laid under his knee, and righted himself on the cobblestone. His shoulder was on fire, and he couldn’t breathe from his broken nose. The pain of unbending his bad leg from the motorcycle, which he’d been dreading most of all, was worse than he’d been prepared for. He staggered for a moment as he unbuckled the helmet, and tried to step forward with his cane. Then he heard voices, coming from out on the dock.
He stumbled towards the dock. There was a light coming from the bow of the cargo ship. Up high on the deck, he saw someone, so he ducked closer to the hull, out of their sights.
The voices grew louder. He could hear Newton.
He burst into the light with no plan in mind. “Stop!” he shouted.
“Hermann!”
Victor wrenched Newt back behind himself.
Hermann stumbled down the dock.
“Look out!” Newt shouted, dropping his umbrella and shoving at his captor with his bound hands. “Stop, Hermann, stop!”
“Halt there,” said the Russian, not loud but still completely audible. “Now.”
Hermann stopped. The soldier on the deck was pointing his enormous gun at him. The other soldier had produced a pistol, and was pointing that at him as well.
“Stop now,” said the Russian, “and stay still. The adults are talking.”
He smiled his gold-clotted smile at Victor, who was holding the struggling Newt still. Hermann stood frozen, feet fixed, swaying in place.
“No more time to waste, Victor,” said the Russian. “Your people are coming, as you see. Hand him over.”
“Not until I see Charles,” said Victor.
“Is anyone going to ask this prisoner what he wants? Or has?” said Newt, in a shrill voice. “Because I’m not joking. I don’t have the transducer.”
Up the dock, Hermann inhaled. Charles. He was trading Newton for Rennie. Of course. Of course Victor knew Rennie was still alive.
And of course he didn't care that he had been a traitor. He was still trying to save him. Of course.
The Russian nodded to one of the soldiers, and he disappeared through a door, into the cabin.
There was a long pause. The waves splashed gently. The rain hissed on the water.
Then they heard footsteps, and the cabin door opened. A black umbrella emerged.
The soldier pushed a man out onto the deck. To Hermann's horrified vindication and Newt's absolute astonishment, out stumbled the bowed, bound figure of Charles Rennie.
He was hard to make out in the shadow of the umbrella. He had aged more than ten years—far more. His jaunty mustache was gone, and his clothes were thin and loose. His high, lined forehead shone with sweat.
On Newt’s arm, Victor’s grip slackened. Newt himself was too shocked to move.
The soldier brought him to the top of the gangway, and jerked him to a stop. Rennie’s eyes found Victor on the dock.
The hand gripping Newt let go completely.
The Russian, watching the proceedings intently, signaled to the soldier. The soldier pushed Rennie forward again, and both men moved down the gangway under the dark umbrella.
“Victor,” rasped Charles, eyes wide as they approached. His voice rose. “Victor—I'm sorry, I—”
“Charles, don’t.”
They were halfway down the gangway. The soldier’s eyes were on Newt. He was coming to take him.
Newt’s legs trembled, and started to tense, to run—they couldn’t, they wouldn’t take him—a wave of vertigo hit him—
Rennie stepped into the light. With a whoosh and a clatter behind Newt, Victor dropped his umbrella to the ground.
“I thought you were d—”
A bang rang out. The echo ricocheted between the hulls. Someone yelled, someone else shouted, Newt was pushed aside and falling down. Rennie crumpled. Victor dove.
Up on the deck of the red fishing boat, the heads of the soldier and his master vanished, and there was yelling in Russian. Newt crouched on the dock, arm covering his face. He could hear Hermann yelling too. It sounded like “op—op—op—” The engine of the red ship came to life. Victor was screaming and shouting. Two gunshots tore from the fishing boat.
Newt lowered his arm just enough to look up, up, squinting, in the direction the shot had come from. The shooter was standing up on the deck of the cargo ship. She was staring down over the railing in horror, still holding the pistol.
Their eyes locked.
“Cait?” Newt said. “Caitlin!” he screamed over the roar of the engine and the shouting and the splashing. “Caitlin, no!”
Lightcap watched the chaos unfold on the dock below her, frozen. She watched Hermann stagger towards Newt, watched the water churn around the fishing boat, watched Victor, clutching the corpse of Charles Rennie.
She said, “I thought it was him."
But Newt couldn’t hear her.
The Russian soldier on the dock had not retreated. Instead, crouching, he lunged for Newt. There was a second gunshot from above and the soldier cried out, falling back. Newt threw his arm up over his face and yelled “No!” The soldier dropped into the water with a splash.
The engine of the fishing boat was groaning, white water churning below it. Hermann finally reached Newt and dragged him backwards, up the pier, away from the commotion. Newt was yelling something unintelligible. The boat was trying to pull away, but the gangway was still lowered, and the ropes were still moored. Victor was prone on the ground over the body of Rennie. There was a dark hole in his head.
Hermann hauled Newt back to the quay, shielding his head, just as the boat, its engine straining, tore free of the gangway. With an explosion of wood and water and a horrible crack, the gangway shattered. Newt and Victor both cried out. The explosion echoed up and down the hulls and out across the water.
They had reached the stone shore. Newt was blubbering as they stumbled up the dark alley.
“We've got to get out of here,” Hermann was saying, dragging Newt into the shadows, behind the cargo ship, away from the screaming Vice Chief. “You've got to drive, Newton, I can’t, my leg—”
“You can’t, you can’t, stop, you can't—”
“Newton! What is it?”
“I saw her! I saw—Hermann, it was Lightcap—”
“No, that’s impossible—”
“Stop, I have to find her! Stop, listen to me!”
"—she couldn't have known where—"
"Listen!" Newt almost screamed, and burst into tears. Hermann stopped short. Newt had his fist clenched in Hermann's shirt as tightly as if he was trying to haul Hermann up from drowning. Newt squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to speak, to explain, to find some verbal footing so as to find some conceptual footing so as to drag them both out of the water of this unintelligible morass. But all that formed inside his head were images—Victor on his knees, Rennie with a hole in his face, the soldier falling back, Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin—
"What is it?" Hermann's voice, trembling with exhaustion but pressing forward with gentle attentiveness. His voice sounded odd—like his consonants were weighed down somehow.
Newt strangled another sob and opened his eyes, breathing heavily. "I—she shot him. She shot him from up there! I don't—I don't understand! Why? Why? Was she just trying to save me? How did she get here? Where did she get a gun? Wh—why? It doesn't—it doesn't—" He was trembling violently.
"I can explain, Newton," Hermann said pleadingly. "But we've got to run. We need to get out of here, now."
"V—Victor left his car," Newt said, pointing with a shaking arm. The black car floated, semi-fractured through his semi-fractured lens. He swallowed another sob, or possibly vomit.
"Come on."
"We have to take her, Hermann—we have to get her out of here too."
"All right. All right. Just—"
"We have to save her."
As they staggered along the quay, towards the car and the motorbike, they could hear engines and sirens nearing the port. In Hermann's mind, the only next step was to escape, but all Newt could think of was Lightcap: he had to find her, he had to make sure she was okay, he had to make her explain.
Then, in the cargo ship, a metal door slammed, and a figure flew down the metal gangway in the darkness.
“Cait—Cait!” Newt yelled. “Caitlin, stop!”
Lightcap stopped. She turned to look at them, some twenty meters away on the shadowy quay. Her clothes were dark and her hair was in disarray, and the pistol was still in her hand. Hermann stopped, gripping Newt for support.
Newt tried to catch his breath.
For once, no words came to him.
But she didn’t wait for him to speak. Without a word, Lightcap ran to the waiting car and started the engine.
“Wait! Stop! Cait!” Newt screamed, trying to run after her. Hermann held him back. “Stop, stop! Cait, stop!” He seemed to think that if she didn't stop, if she didn't answer him right then, she never would.
“Newton, we have to go—”
“Let go, let go!” He was sobbing again. “Let go of me! Let go!”
Hermann did not. The car engine revved, and she vanished alone into the night.
When the convoy of Division officers, internal security, Estate staff, CIA visitors, and U.S. Army arrived, they found a broken gangway, two dead bodies, and an insensible Vice Chief. Among the debris, two umbrellas floated upside-down in the water, filling with rain. When they questioned Victor about the bodies, he gave no coherent answers. Someone identified Rennie as a former agent, already presumed dead. Victor was taken into custody, and an inquiry was launched.
Though the inquiry was meant to be discreet, the story eventually leaked to the public. It was the CIA liaison Mr. Rosewater who, absolutely furious about the whole mess, reported it to the American press. From there, the story found its way back to Europe. The transatlantic intelligence partnership suffered another blow, as did national confidence in the British secret services. But the public never learned the true extent of the disaster.
They knew that it was a security breach. They knew that two low-level intelligence techs had been in clandestine contact with Russian agents via a British liaison, and shared confidential documents with them. They knew that the techs had stolen an American prototype for a highly classified piece of technology. They knew that the hand-off had been set for Great Yarmouth Port in June, and that violence had erupted there, somehow, killing the liaison and one Russian soldier; they knew that both techs were now missing, and presumed to have fled east.
The liaison, so the story went, was a British defector named Charles Rennie. At the hand-off, he had been shot. Details of Vice Chief Victor’s involvement were successfully kept out of the press, but he never saw the inside of his office again.
As for Rennie’s killer, the story said, the shooter was never identified or caught. And that, at least, was true.
On his motorbike, Newt pulled into an alley behind a warehouse. He and Hermann listened to the sirens reach their destination, and halt. The engines turned off and doors opened and slammed shut while voices barked orders. Tears were still rolling down Newt's cheeks. He was trying hard to stifle the convulsions still racking his chest. Hermann was behind him, arms wrapped tightly around his ribcage.
When the distant engines had turned off, they rolled the Bonneville slowly and quietly out of the industrial port, and glided onto the main road. They rode in a low gear to the edge of town, and then sped up, back onto the highway, and out into the countryside. The night air had cleared and cooled. The rain was not coming back.
Newton insisted that Hermann take the helmet, since he had probably suffered a concussion when his nose got broken. Newt drove, and Hermann sat behind, holding onto him. Newton was warm, back in his jacket. Closing his eyes, Hermann rested his forehead on the back of Newt’s neck. His ears were still ringing with the commotion—the bullets, the engines, the haunting cries of Victor. His nose and head ached fiercely, and he had to breathe through his mouth. The ordeal was over. New anxieties queued up promptly to take the places of the old.
As they accelerated down a long, flat stretch of road, Hermann felt a vibration where his arms were clasped around Newt. For a moment he thought Newt was crying again, but then Hermann realized that he was singing. Hermann tightened his grip and strained to hear, to make sense of something over the roaring of the engine and the scream of the wind.
I won't be running from the rain when I'm gone,
And I can't even suffer from the pain when I'm gone,
Can't say who's to praise and who's to blame when I'm gone...
Newt sang to keep himself grounded, and kept his eyes, still brimming with tears, fixed on the dark road ahead of them.