The Traveler

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 Thorn 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.”

Thorn 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 Thorn 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.”