Quantico

Chapter 1 Seattle The city was young. Unbelievably young. The moon rose sharp and silver-blue over a deck of soft gray clouds, and if you looked east, above the hills, where the sun would soon rise, you saw a brightness as yellow and real as natural butter. The city faced the coming day with dew cold and wet on new green grass, streaming down windows, beaded on railings, chill against swiping fingers. Waking up in the city, no one could know how young it was and fresh; all had activities to plan, living worries to blind them, and what would it take to finally smell the blessed, cool newness, but a whiff of something other? Everyone went about their business. The day passed into dusk. Hardly anyone noticed there was a difference. A hint of loss. With a shock that nearly made her cry out, Ginny thought she saw the old gray Mercedes in the wide side mirror of the Metro bus-stopped the next lane over, two car lengths behind, blocking traffic. The smoked rear windows, the crack in its mottled windshield-clearly visible. It's them-the man with the silver dollar, the woman with flames in her palms. The bus's front door opened, but Ginny stepped back into the aisle. All thoughts of getting out a stop early, of walking the next few blocks to stretch her legs and think, had vanished. The Metro driver-a plump black woman with ivory sclera and pale brown eyes, dark red lipstick, and diamonds on her incisors, still, after a day's hard work, lightly perfumed with My Sin-stared up at Ginny. "Someone following you, honey? I can call the cops." She tapped the bus's emergency button with a long pearly fingernail. Ginny shook her head. "Won't help. It's nothing." The driver sighed and closed the door, and the bus drove on. Ginny took her seat and rested her backpack in her lap-she missed the weight of her box, but for the moment, it was someplace safe. She glanced over her shoulder through the bus's rear window. The Mercedes dropped back and turned onto a side street. With her good hand, she felt in the pack's zippered side pocket for a piece of paper. While unwrapping the filthy bandage from her hand, the doctor at the clinic had spent half an hour gently redressing her burns, injecting a big dose of antibiotics, and asking too many questions. Ginny turned to the front of the bus and closed her eyes. Felt the passengers brush by, heard the front door and the middle door open and close with rubbery shushes, the air brakes chuffing and sighing. The doctor had told her about an eccentric but kind old man who lived alone in a warehouse filled with books. The old man needed an assistant. Could be long-term. Room and board, a safe place; all legit. The doctor had not asked Ginny to trust her. That would have been too much. Then, she had printed out a map. Because Ginny had no other place to go, she was following the doctor's directions. She unfolded the paper. Just a few more stops. First Avenue South-south of the two huge stadiums. It was getting dark-almost eight o'clock. Before boarding the bus-before seeing or imagining the gray Mercedes- Ginny had found an open pawnshop a block from the clinic. There, like Queequeg selling his shrunken head, she had hocked her box and the library stone within. It was Ginny's mother who had called it the library stone. Her father had called it a "sum-runner." Neither of the names had ever come with much of an explanation. The stone-a hooked, burned-looking, come-and- go thing in a lead-lined box about two inches on a side-was supposed to be the only valuable possession left to their nomadic family. Her mother and father hadn't told her where they had taken possession of it, or when. They probably didn't know or couldn't remember. The box always seemed to weigh the same, but when they slid open the grooved lid-a lid thaBear, Greg is the author of 'Quantico ', published 2008 under ISBN 9780345448392 and ISBN 0345448391.