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PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, FEB 20

S afe. The word kept rolling around in Felicity Ward’s head. Safe. Safe. Safe. The word seemed odd when she repeated it over and over. Like a sound with no meaning, an incantation. Like the word itself, really. Safe didn’t exist. It never had for her.

But her friend Lauren had used it so often lately. And it sounded like, after being abducted by a crazy guy for money and saved by her lover, a former Navy SEAL—well, it sounded like Lauren was more or less as safe as you could be in this dangerous world.

Felicity Ward, aka Alina Darin, aka Katrin Valk knew all about the world being dangerous. Her father, Nikolai Darin, a world famous Soviet nuclear physicist, defected to the United States before she was born. He’d defected the night he’d won the Nobel Prize for Physics and the CIA had orchestrated a fake car crash. He’d planned it under the nose of the FSB, the successor to the KGB. If the FSB had suspected his defection, they’d have sent a wet team.

Ironically, her parents really had died in a car crash, only nineteen years later, in America.

Which just went to show that though most dangers came from other human beings, there were also natural dangers like accidents and fire and snowstorms. Like the one raging now.

The sky outside the enormous airport skylights was unnaturally dark and snow flurries swirled against the 100 foot-high window panes.

She needed to get to the taxi cab stand fast. Her flight from Burlingham, Vermont via Chicago and Denver had been one of the last to land. If the snowstorm continued like this the roads would close down. She didn’t want to be stuck overnight in this airport, however pretty it was.

But it was hard to move fast when she was so distracted.

Felicity spent most of her time—well, all of her time—indoors in her apartment. The colors and sounds and smells of the airport nearly overwhelmed her. Shop after shop after shop of bright things—clothes and shoes and electronics and make up. Felicity never went to shopping malls, she ordered everything online and this was so distracting and enticing. So much to see.

And the people! When was the last time she’d been in a space with so many people? They were fascinating. You could make up stories about them forever. That was one of the things she did for a living—inventing online and paper personas for people on the run. The crowd milling around the airport wasn’t on the run but you could read their stories in their faces, in their bodies.

That man there, in the expensive rumpled suit, frowning and checking his wrist watch for the third time in a minute. Maybe he’d just got off a flight from Hong Kong and was waiting for his driver to take him to the meeting he was late for.

And that woman over there in a luxury store, fingering a beautiful cashmere shawl. She had a very sad look on her face. Was she expecting someone who wasn’t coming?

But that girl emerging from the exit gates Felicity had just come from—she had someone waiting. Tall and lanky with a huge grin on his face and a bouquet of wilted daisies in his hand.

Fascinating.

She felt like a puppy that had been let out in the garden after a winter indoors. All these colors and shapes and sounds…

And purses! She walked by an upscale purse shop that made her think wryly of her own beige five year-old canvas bag. For this trip she’d just put documents and keys and lipstick and flash drives in her laptop backpack, not even bothering with her canvas bag. Why didn’t she buy herself new purses? Just look at them in the window!

She stopped and all but pressed her nose against the shop window. Such pretty pastel colors—had pastels just come in or had they been in for years and she hadn’t noticed? Soft leather, exquisitely fashioned details, shiny brass studs. She sidestepped and stood in front of the open door. A shop assistant in the back who’d been putting away a stack of scarves in every color of the rainbow looked up and smiled. Felicity made an I’m just looking gesture and the shop assistant nodded.

She pulled in a deep, delighted breath and smelled leather and newness and style, if style had a smell. Portland was bound to have purse shops. Oh man, she was going to hit every single one and spend some money. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have any. She had plenty, she just never spent it.

Maybe Lauren would go shopping with her. That would be…fun. Shopping with a girlfriend. Something she'd never done before. Her parents had discouraged friendships throughout her school years and at MIT her friends had mostly been men and they barely washed, let alone shopped.

So many things she’d never done. Why hadn’t she done them? That was about to change, big time.

This crazy trip to Portland was sort of a test. A test to see if she could live a normal life. Go out like other people did. Take trips, go to the movies instead of watching Netflix on her 98” screen. Go shopping in RealSpace, eat out instead of ordering in. Everyone else did, why shouldn’t she?

So this was going to be her new life. Maybe. With luck.

Travelling to see friends, because when you went out you made friends. That was the way it worked, right?

Right next door to the purse shop was a cosmetics shop and heavenly smells came from it. Perfumes and lotions and lipsticks and creams. Another deep breath to pull it all in, then on to the next shop.

Shoes! Oh yes! Just look at those soft ankle boots, a fabulous shade of purple, she’d have to pull up the Pantone scale to discover the exact name, but it was gorgeous . Would it hurt to walk in for a few minutes? A glance out the windows told her that the weather?—

“Don’t move,” a voice said. Low, male, vicious. A hard thump on the back made her stagger. One big strong hand held her shoulder, another pushed something sharp against her side, at the edge of her laptop backpack straps. "Don't turn around, don’t fucking breathe,” the voice said. “You feel this?”

This was a knife, sharp-pointed. It had cut through her coat and sweater and the point was pressed against her skin. Any move she made would result in the knife slashing her side.

“Yes.” Felicity tried to keep her voice even. She scanned the hall but there was no help coming. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, hurrying this way and that and not one paying her the slightest bit of attention. What would they see, anyway? A woman with a man at her back. He could be her husband, her boyfriend, her brother. “I feel it.”

“Good. Now this is how it’s going to work. We’re going to walk toward the exit. Exit F which is about thirty meters to your left. You’re going to walk in a straight line and you are not going to attract anyone’s attention because by the time you have caught someone’s attention, I’ll have sliced you open. Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

“Say it!”

“I understand.”

He spoke English well with a slight British accent and something underneath that. An accent very similar to her mother’s, only better English than her mother had ever learned. Russian? Ukrainian? And he calculated in meters. Lots of people did, though, including the million and a half members of the US military plus the eight hundred thousand in the reserves. But what did she know? Linguistics wasn’t her forte. Computers were.

Computers had saved her life, were her life. Maybe…

Another hard thump from behind to propel her forward, the man’s hand painfully gripping her shoulder. Felicity started walking as slowly as she dared.

Because in here, in the bustle of the crowd, there was safety in numbers. Once they had exited the airport, once he’d herded her away from the crowd, any hope of rescue would be gone. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was dark. The weather outside would make everybody walk around in a little cocoon of self preservation, eyes slitted against the snow, watching their feet, not noticing anyone else.

If she could make an escape it would have to be here, inside. Outside the doors of the airport, she’d be lost. Whatever this man wanted from her, he’d get. Whatever this was, it might end with her body dumped by the side of the road.

She slowed down slightly, head bowed, dejection in every line of her body. She watched people moving, some fast, some slow, calculated trajectories. A watch and sunglasses kiosk with standalone revolving displays was coming up on her right hand side.

Felicity lunged and a line of fire sliced down her side. She was cut, maybe badly, but she was free of the heavy hand on her shoulder, of the knife held in the man’s other hand. However badly she was hurt, she’d be in worse shape if he caught her again.

He’d wanted quiet, he wanted to grab her without any fuss, so he wouldn’t shout out.

If he had help—if there were other men around as backup—she was in trouble. There was no way of knowing, she could only implement the crazy plan that had blossomed between the shoe store and the watch kiosk.

The line of fire, as if someone had pressed a hot piece of steel down her side, turned to pain. Hot, searing pain that made her gasp.

Passing the watch and sunglasses kiosk she shoved really hard at the two displays, happy they tumbled, scattering watches and sunglasses everywhere. She grabbed a ball cap.

Felicity didn’t dare look around, see where he was. All she could do was run. She took off, dragging her carryon and realized instantly it would slow her down in the crowd. She abandoned it. She had the only thing she really needed in her backpack—her specially designed laptop, worth over $50,000 and now worth her life. She barreled forward, pushing and tripping people, leaving as much confusion behind as possible.

Ten feet away was a pillar. Scrambling behind it, she looked back. It was a risk, but she had to know what the situation was like behind her and she had to know what her assailant looked like.

She’d left chaos in her wake, colorful watches and sunglasses littering the floor, several women kneeling on the floor, a couple of college-age students picking up watches with a smile, a couple of crying kids and…there he was! Medium height, dirty blond hair barely visible beneath a wide brimmed hat, well built, well dressed, cold flat eyes. And—yes—he was holding something in his right hand that was dripping blood. Her blood. He put the knife away almost immediately.

She was dripping, too. She put a hand to her side and it came away wet and red. It was a serious wound. It was fiercely painful and impeded movement. She had to do something quick. Another slash like that and she wouldn’t survive.

Well, she’d lived with danger all her life and was built for this. A fully formed plan had consolidated in her mind and it gave her strength. Ducking and weaving, using every inch of cover available, she headed straight for the bathrooms on the other side of the huge concours.

Something on the floor caught her eye. She looked down and froze. Bright red drops. A blood trail, a huge arrow that would lead him straight to her once order was established. Whoever this man was, he would be more than capable of following a blood trail.

A couple passed by with a baby in a stroller, both parents burdened with huge amounts of kid paraphernalia, including a blue baby blanket. She grabbed the blanket, pressed it to her side under the coat, then ran to the bathrooms, checking to see that she didn’t leave bloody footprints.

A small atrium before getting to the doors of the men’s and women’s rooms at the back gave her a moment’s shelter. She stopped, panting, and peeked around the corner, grimacing with pain. She swayed and propped herself up using a knuckle, since her palms were slick with blood.

The man was in profile, scanning straight ahead. The god of nerds was smiling on her because a huge knot of people, most of them young like her, moved across the concourse, perpendicular to the flow of people. Her attacker moved forward like he’d been sprung out of a cage. The knot of people was exactly the kind of crowd she’d try to hide in and like a bloodhound scenting prey, he shot across the floor, head swiveling to catch a glimpse of her.

But she was behind him now, ducking into the ladies’, which was—thank God!—empty. In the handicapped stall, she locked the door and sat cross legged on the toilet lid, pulling out her cellphone and her laptop. She took the battery out of her cell, so she couldn’t be tracked and opened her laptop. It was very special and could run for 200 hours without recharging. A prototype, given to her by China’s top hacker while he’d been a Black Hat. It turned on immediately. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. The laptop was very fast and powerful and had a lot of programs it shouldn’t have. With the help of one she accessed the airport’s security system and initiated a bomb alert. A siren sounded immediately.

Then she hacked into the airport loudspeaker system, overrode the regular announcements and used an app she’d designed to disguise her voice. It turned her natural soprano into a male basso profundo that sounded like God Himself.

“Attention, attention, we have just received a bomb alert. We ask all passengers and personnel to please make for the exits in an orderly fashion. This is not a drill. Attention, attention?—"

She put the announcement on a loop.

As if on cue, sounds of screams came from the concours outside the toilets, the flooring shivering with the vibrations of thousands of feet running.

The laptop screen went out of focus for an instant and Felicity grabbed the stability bar for the handicapped, grateful that she’d chosen this stall. She held it, white-knuckled, until her head cleared. Almost afraid, she glanced down at her side and saw that the blanket which she’d wrapped around herself was soaked with blood. Soon she was going to faint and then she’d really be prey. Her attacker wouldn’t find her outside and would come back inside and check the place thoroughly. If he found her unconscious on the floor of the bathroom stall, she was done for.

One last thing to do.

Like all large airports, the Portland airport had an ambulance service on duty 24/7 in case of an airplane crashing. Though the letters danced on the screen, she found the emergency service and directed the ambulances to come around to the front of the arrivals level.

Someone would have ordered them out anyway, eventually, but she needed an ambulance now .

Hitching her laptop backpack higher up on her shoulders, she planted a bloody hand against the pristine white walls of the stall, realizing that she was leaving DNA and fingerprints. She should go into the outer room, grab some towels, soak them with water and soap and wipe it down.

But she didn’t have the strength and anyway, whoever was after her knew she was here in the airport. Pressing the last dry part of the baby blanket against her side, she walked out into utter chaos.

Good. Chaos was good.

Her disguised voice kept booming over the loudspeakers, a deep top note over the screams and cries of the passengers. “Attention, attention?—”

People were pushing and shouting to get out through the revolving door exits, creating bottlenecks so that the exits looked like one huge writhing organism made up of arms and legs instead of terrified travelers desperately trying to get out.

She felt a thump at her back and her adrenaline spiked, cutting off her breath. It wasn’t her attacker, though, it was a woman in a knot of people rushing for the exits. She was caught in the middle and carried forward, her feet barely touching the floor. A strident alarm signal started up, like an air raid siren. She hadn’t done that, it must have been an automated system. But it served to increase the frenzy of the passengers in the terminal. Only half had made it outside, the others were mostly clustered at the chokepoints of the exits.

The knot of people propelling her forward dissipated like a clump of dirt hitting water as they made it out through the revolving doors and she dropped to her hands and knees, head down between her arms, observing running feet rushing by. Sneakers, pumps, tiny kids’ shoes, polished men’s shoes, high heels…they all streamed by while she held herself up on trembling arms. A few drops of blood stained the concrete pavement. She’d bled right through the blanket.

The screams, the alarm, the voice booming attention, attention —they all melded into a background blur then faded. She blacked out for a second but came to immediately when a sneakered foot crushed her hand. The pain woke her before she could slump to the ground. Grateful that it had been a sneaker and not a stiletto, she rose on one knee, then the other, then rose up on her feet, trembling and weak.

Someone else bumped into her from behind. You don’t stand still in a stream of panicking people. Stumbling forward, she tried to scan for her attacker but there was darkness at the edge of her vision.

Stumbling and bleeding, she made her way through without attracting attention. People were fighting to get away, eyes straight ahead. No one noticed a young woman, even if she was bleeding, half dead on her feet. Panic was excellent camouflage.

The alarm was still whooping and now a thousand people were outside the airport, blinking in the snow, children crying, men shouting. Some had been injured in the stampede and Felicity could see a woman cradling her arm, but it didn’t look broken. She hated the thought of causing injuries, but she’d had no choice.

Her attacker was at the other end of the sidewalk, head turning, pushing people out of his way. He was heading toward her, systematically checking faces. Felicity ducked behind a big planter. Moving as fast as she could despite the searing pain in her side she turned and made her way to the far end where ambulances were driving up, sirens wailing. Soldiers with machine guns were trying to establish order, funneling people out toward the car parks.

Felicity staggered when she got to the first ambulance, stopping a medic with a blood-stained hand.

“Ma’am?” he said, frowning, looking at her hand then down her side. She pulled back her coat, lifted the blanket from the wound and looked at him. She didn’t have to play act anything.

“I need help.” She wanted to spin a story about how she’d fallen and cut herself but she didn’t have the strength. She could barely stand and only those stark words came out in a whisper.

“Right,” the medic said, signaling the driver. A gloved hand probed the wound. She gasped in pain, then bit her lips. No crying out, no calling attention to herself. She’d lost track of her attacker but he was out there somewhere.

“Let’s get you into the van and start a saline and plasma drip right away,” the medic said.

It got hazy after that. The sounds of a gurney being unfolded, gentle but strong hands helping her onto it, the gurney loaded into the back of the ambulance, the probing as the medic found a vein and started an IV line of something…

She drifted in and out of consciousness, the siren wailing, the IV bag swaying, the medic holding her wrist, a finger on the pulse. The radio on the dashboard would crackle and someone at a central dispatch imparted orders but none of the words made any kind of sense. She lost all sense of time and even of where she was. Her consciousness was reduced to a pinprick of awareness, no past and no future, just an endless now with pain and noise.

The ambulance went up a ramp, fast, and braked to a halt.

The medic and driver were smooth and efficient. She was out of the ambulance and into A & E as fast as possible, the medic giving the nurses a run down of her condition, so quickly she couldn’t follow. Maybe it was better that way.

“…the airport?” one of the nurses asked and the medic shook his head.

“Lots of confusion, we should be ready for minor injuries. Lucky that bomb didn’t go off.”

“Yet. Though they are saying that maybe it was a false alarm,” the nurse said. The nurse was standing at the top of the gurney so Felicity couldn’t see her face. The nurse came around, probed at the wound, and Felicity blacked out again, just for a second. It was as if her life were being conducted under strobe lights, at every pulse of light she was in a different position, something else going on.

One good thing—in one of the IVs was a painkiller. The lancing pain—almost electric in its intensity—started to abate, became some dim far off thing, not really connected to her own body. Her head, too, took a trip toward the ceiling.

She was still in receiving, passengers from the airport starting to stream in. Cuts, lacerations, one woman limping. Nothing really serious but the influx of panicked passengers created a swirl of chaos. Felicity watched it somewhat dreamily from her gurney, sorry she’d created the chaos, happy she’d escaped her attacker.

Now that she was safely in the hospital she should tell the doctor she’d been attacked. He didn’t have to know she pulled the alarm, she’d just glide over the fortuitous fact that right after being knifed, the airport announced a bomb alert.

She had solid heavy-duty medical insurance. She could probably have two liver transplants and a nose job while here. When they asked, she had everything in her backpack.

If she needed surgery, no problem, though she hated the thought of being unconscious with her attacker out there somewhere. But she was in a hospital, with guards and nurses and doctors all around her. Her attacker wouldn’t…

Felicity froze, her heart suddenly beating painfully hard behind her breastbone. There he was! Oh God, at the entrance, scanning the organized chaos of the receiving room, looking for her. She was partially covered by a green curtain, a privacy screen, and he’d have to go down a long line to see if she was on one of the gurneys. Surely he wouldn’t…

Yes, he would. Thorough bastard. Oh God she was trapped! She didn’t have the strength to get up from the gurney and rush to a hiding place. What could she do? Her mind was usually quick but now it was sluggish, thoughts slow and unclear. She might as well be dead if she had to think fast.