Page 3 of Code 6
“Thus always to tyrants.”
Squealing brakes brought the Metro train to a gradual stop, and the mechanical voice announced Kate’s arrival at Tysons Corner station. Kate exited to the elevated outdoor platform, converging with dozens of other late-afternoon commuters, a human funnel that emptied into the downward escalator. Kate pushed through the turnstile at the station exit. The sidewalk was still wet from a summer shower that had passed through earlier. September was the tail end of the hot and muggy season in northern Virginia, but a late-afternoon or early-evening shower was still common. A limo was waiting for her at the pickup circle, beaded raindrops glistening in the twilight. Kate could see her parents’ penthouse apartment from the station. It was less than a half mile away. Kate enjoyed long walks, and she’d told her mother not to send the driver. But Kate knew she wouldn’t listen; she never did. As the family counselor often reminded her, “No point arguing over the small stuff.”
The mother-daughter arguments had been epic, starting with the time Kate had bravely called her out on a daily routine that was poisoning her body. Her mother started each morning at the club around 11:00 a.m., when her tennis friends came off the court for a round of Bloody Marys. The server was under a standing orderto bring Kate’s mother a double. After the tennis players left, the first wave of golfers rolled in from the ninth tee around noon, which meant wine with lunch, lunch optional. Some of her friends played eighteen holes, slightly more serious about golf than chardonnay, and Mrs. Gamble met them for afternoon cocktails until it was time for happy hour. On rainy days she’d settle for the card room, an older group of women who were generally so lit up by lunchtime that it didn’t matter who actually knew how to play. Through it all, she managed to remain in total control of her daughter, if not her own faculties.
At least Cooper was happy to see her. “Coop,” as Kate called him, had been the family driver as long as she could remember. He hopped out of the car and hobbled around to the passenger side as quickly as his seventy-year-old bones would carry him.
“Looking lovely as always, Miss Kate,” said Cooper as he opened the door for her.
Twilight was quickly fading to darkness, and Kate felt a raindrop. Another band of showers was passing. Maybe her mother had been right, after all, about not walking from the station, though Uber would have been just fine.
“Thanks, Coop,” she said, as she climbed into the backseat.
“There’s bottled water in the beverage bin, if you like.”
Cooper was ever loyal to Kate’s mother. It was his way of saying, “Go ahead, check. You won’t find any vodka in that bin. Your mother has changed.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” said Kate, and the car pulled away from the station.
Tysons Corner was regarded by many city planners as the quintessential “edge city,” a term popularized by aWashington Postreporter to describe the transformation of what was once the quiet suburbs into a more intense concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown. Technically speaking, Tysons Corner was a “census-designated place”—more research for the cutting roomfloor—situated along the Capital Beltway in Fairfax County. The tech industry fueled much of the growth, and Kate’s father had been years ahead of the trend by picking up his family when Kate was a little girl and moving the headquarters of Buck Technologies from Silicon Valley. One of Kate’s earliest memories of her new hometown was waiting in line with friends for the opening of the world’s first Apple store at Tysons Corner Center, one of two superregional malls that were the city’s retail crown jewels.
“Looks like we got ourselves a bit of a traffic jam,” said Cooper, as the limo came to a complete stop.
They were in the center lane of a busy three-lane boulevard. For the next several minutes, they didn’t move an inch. Cars to either side of them were frozen in place. Kate peered ahead, through the windshield at the long line of red taillights. No sign of movement. Not even a flashing brake light. Hundreds of vehicles all seemed to be stuck inpark.
“I think I’m going to walk,” she said.
The wipers squeaked across the windshield. The accumulation had been growing steadily with each sweep of the intermittent cycle, as if to forecast the imminent transition from sprinkles to downpour. Cooper handed her the umbrella he kept in the front seat.
“Be careful, Miss Kate.”
She promised she would and popped the umbrella as she climbed out and shut the door behind her. Thepop-pop-popof raindrops bounced off the Buck Technologies logo as she wended her way between stopped vehicles to the sidewalk.
Up ahead, the red and orange swirl of emergency beacons caught her eye. Two ambulances were on the scene. A line of squad cars stretched across the east- and westbound lanes, stopping traffic on both sides of the long, skinny island of grass, trees, and flowers that bisected the boulevard. Kate walked faster and stopped at the yellow police tape that closed off the street and crosswalk. She was still two blocks from the flashing emergency vehicles. A pair of perimeter-control officers stood on the business side of the tape, their orange rain ponchos soaked and glistening beneath the glowing streetlights.
“What’s going on?” asked Kate.
“Street’s blocked,” said the officer, stating the obvious.
“I’m trying to get to Tysons Tower,” she said, indicating the high-rise building straight ahead.
“The detour starts here. Follow the crowd.”
“Was there an accident?” asked Kate.
The officer didn’t respond. Several bystanders had joined Kate at the police tape. An older man spoke up. “I’m told a pedestrian got run over. A woman.”
“Please,” said the officer, “everyone just move along.”
A local television news team came up quickly behind Kate. A cameraman nudged her out of the way, gently at first, and then not so gently, as if it were imperative that he have her exact spot on the sidewalk. The reporter began pleading her case for closer access, but the perimeter control officers were not budging. Kate turned away and followed the line of pedestrians up the cross street, dialing her mother’s cellphone as she continued on the detour. The rain was falling harder, which made the unanswered rings sound even lonelier. The call went to voicemail. Kate left a message.
“Mom, I’m in a huge traffic jam. I’ll be there in five minutes. Call me if you get this message.”
The detour curved around the public park to the north, which was generally in the direction of Tysons Tower. Kate was trying not to worry, but she wished the old man at the intersection had not volunteered that the pedestrian was “a woman.” Kate would never forget that night during her junior year of high school, the night of the biggest argument she’d ever seen between her parents, when her mother had announced that she was leaving, that she would rather sleep in the park than sleep in the same bed as “that man.” A speeding van had come within six inches of killing her as she’d staggered across the street in her nightgown.
Kate dialed building security at the front desk. “Hi, it’s Kate. Did my mother leave the building anytime recently?”
“Not since I came on at two. Everything okay, Miss Gamble?”