Homeland

Chapter 15

Chapel Hill is one of those perfect college towns, full of smart startups, principled academics, and excited (and excitable) students. Where you have a great college town, you get great independent bookstores, and Flyleaf Books is one of those great stores. I stopped there in 2010 on the For the Win tour and they were so kind to me, I never forgot it. Then, the UNC iBiblio people took me out for a barbecue lunch that was so unbelievably amazing that I forgot everything else. 

Flyleaf Books: 752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd (Historic Airport Rd.), Chapel Hill, NC 27514, +1 919 942-7373

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I was nearly convinced I had the wrong alley. I waited ten minutes, then fifteen, then I walked off. I got to the end of the block and I turned around and walked back. I looked down the alleyway. It wasn't much of an alleyway -- just a narrow space between two buildings, wide enough for the fire exits and trash cans. The fifteen minutes I'd spent standing in the alley had been enough time for me to memorize every single feature of the place, from the ancient, mossy urine streaks on the wall to the dents in the trash cans. And now I could see that something was different. Hadn't that trash can been over there? It had been. I took a cautious step into the alleyway and my palms slicked with sweat, because I could tell, somehow, that there was someone in there with me. I took another step.

"Back here," a voice said from behind the trash cans. I tried to peek over them, but couldn't quite see, so I went deeper in and came around them.

Masha was sitting with her back against the wall. She looked like she was on her way to the gym, in track pants and a loose T-shirt, her hair in a pink scrunchie, a gym bag beside her. Her hair was mousy no-color brown, and she was wearing big fake designer shades. She could have been rich or poor, teenaged or in her late twenties. I wouldn't have given her a second look if I'd sat next to her on BART. I wasn't sure it was her, until she lowered her shades on her nose and skewered me on her glare.

"Have a seat," she said, and gestured at the space next to her behind the trash cans. She'd put down a piece of new cardboard there, which was a nice touch and made me think this wasn't the first time she'd done this. I lowered myself into a cross-legged position.

"Nice to see you," I said. "A bit unexpected."

"Yeah," she said. "Zeb and I walked out of there a few days ago, but it's been busy."

"Walked out of there."

"Those Zyz people, they're mostly meatheads that couldn't cut it in the DHS, so they went private sector, tripled their pay, and set out on their own. They have a lot of faith in their systems. Like, say, if a vendor says a CCTV is secure, they believe it. Same with electronic door locks, tracking ankle cuffs, and perimeter sensors."

"Oh," I said. I'd always known that Masha was a million times more badass than I was, but in all this business about saving her, I'd somehow come to think of her as a damsel in distress. "Did you have to come far?"

"Are you asking where I was held?"

I shrugged.