Page 65 of Emerald

The metal stairs creak and sway the higher up we get. The staircase is barely connected to the bricks up at the top because of the hole that’s been blown in the wall.

I have to boost Sloane the last five or six feet up to the fourth floor. She helps pull me up after her.

Then we’re standing in her kitchen, or what’s left of it. A few items remain miraculously untouched: a single porcelain mug up on a distant shelf. A magazine thrown to the far corner of the room, only singed a bit on one corner.

The rest of the kitchen looks like a war zone. Shattered dishes, torn-up flooring, the twisted remains of the stove.

It gives me a sick feeling, knowing that Sloane was here when it happened.

“Don’t worry,” she says, laying her hand on my forearm. “It was a pretty shitty apartment even before the grenade.”

“I can see why you preferred the cell,” I reply.

As we pick our way around the massive hole in the floor, Sloane leads me into her living room.

Here, too, most everything has been burned up or blown to pieces, though this room was farthest from the blast. Sloane heads straight back to the white brick fireplace, which is mostly in one piece.

She pulls out one of the bricks from the left-hand side of the mantle. In the gap behind the brick sits a little metal box.

“Fireproof,” Sloane says with satisfaction.

She tucks the box in her pocket, and we head out of the apartment once more, this time though the front door.

“Remizov must have a copy of whatever’s on there,” I tell Sloane.

“Oh yeah? What makes you say that?”

“Because he didn’t care if it got blown up in your apartment.”

Sloane nods, seeing the logic in that.

“Probably,” she agrees. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.”

Once we get back to the van, I drive us a few blocks away to a more deserted part of town, while Sloane pulls the tape off Zima’s mouth. I noticed he didn’t even try to wriggle out of his bonds while we were gone. He’s lying in the exact same position and seems entirely resigned to being a captive.

Once he can speak again, he says, “Can we stop at Teremok or something? I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”

“It’s ten o’clock at night,” Sloane says.

“I’m a night owl,” Zima says with a shrug.

I can tell Sloane is debating how best to motivate Zima. In the end, she decides on the carrot over the stick.

“I’ll get you some food,” she agrees. “But first I want you to decode this drive.”

“I can’t work on an empty stomach,” Zima whines.

“Can you work with a broken ankle?” I growl from the front seat.

Sloane holds up her hand to me.

“Flash drive first, then food,” she says to Zima firmly.

Zima groans and rolls over so he can squirm himself up into a sitting position.

“Fine,” he says. “But I’ll need my hands.”

Sloane cuts his bonds. He makes a big show of rubbing his wrists, which are barely red. Then he sits cross-legged, opens the laptop on his lap, and inserts the flash drive.

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