Page 53 of The Circle

CHAPTER TWENTY

THEN.

As promised, the doctor was waiting for us at our suite when we arrived back at the hotel. I think we all expected some guy in a white coat with an old-school doctor’s bag and a pencil mustache. What we got was a tall, slender, pretty Irish woman carrying all of her doctor shit in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar Hermes Birkin handbag.

She fixed up Alec’s shoulder, noting that it was “barely a scrape,” before winking at all of us in what I thought was an overly flirty way for a doctor and leaving.

We took off for London straight away the next morning. We would have left that night, but it had already been a long, long fucking day and dragging it out even more just didn’t seem like the best idea. Even though none of us really slept, thoughts and questions spinning through our minds. Me trying to get Christine to remember more to no avail. Alec pacing and looking out of the peephole in the door over and over again as if he was expecting someone to show up and take us out right there. I don’t know if Eliza slept in her room down the hall, but I can’t imagine she would.

Regardless, everyone met by the service elevator first thing when the sun came up.

The car was right where they said it would be. Diplomatic plates and all. Interestingly, the provenance of the plates suggested that we were, in fact, presenting to the world as Russian dignitaries. Seeing the Russian emblem gave me, Christine, and Alec pause, to say the least. Impossible to know, but if the people behind all this are actually Russian, then…

Well, when coupled with Christine’s spotty memory letting her in on little clues like “diamond” and the fact that we’re being told that what we’re entering into is an “exchange…” It doesn’t leave us with a fuck ton of warm fuzzies.

The hotel’s concierge was waiting beside the Mercedes, keys in hand. He handed them over and said, “I hope you all had a pleasant stay,” just like he’d say it to anyone. Like this was just any normal check-out and we were any normal group of guests, as opposed to the murdering international jewel thief underworld crime stars we are.

It’s only about a seven-hour drive from Belfast to London. Christine drove, Alec sat in the passenger seat, and Eliza and I sat in the back. Not sure why we chose that configuration, other than it seemed the least likely to result in anyone speaking at all. It worked. We barely exchanged a word the whole way.

And now… we’re here. Pulling up to Victoria Station just as the sun is starting to set.

No. Wait. What? Victoria Station?

“Hold on.” I say. “This is how we’re getting there?”

“This is where the text they sent said to go,” Alec responds.

“Why aren’t we flying?”

“Danny, I don’t fokken know. You may have noticed I’m not the one dictating the process this time.” There’s an extra hint of agitation in his voice. Alec van den Berg does not like not being the one dictating anything.

We all get out of the car, unsure of where we’re supposed to go next. Then we hear… “Excuse me? Are you the van den Berg party?”

The guy asking the question has a classic, plummy British accent. He’s also wearing a crisp, blue uniform with brass buttons, a train conductor’s cap, and white gloves. White fucking gloves. Did we not only drive from Belfast to London but also back to 1920? Do these assholes control time? What’s happening right now?

“Uh,” Alec answers, “yeah. That’s us.”

“Very good. I was told to expect you. Do you have any luggage I can assist with?”

“Um… no, bru. We’re traveling light.”

“Excellent. Will you follow then, please?”

This is super fucking weird. No, that’s an understatement. It’s epically fucking weird. Monumentally. Generationally. A once-in-five-lifetimes kind of weird.

The train conductor guy—who didn’t introduce himself, so I’m just gonna call him Nigel—leads us through the station and past people scurrying here and there, going to wherever, coming from wherever, living their regular, normal lives, completely unaware of the killers in their midst.

Although, since I don’t know any of them either, it’s presumptuous of me to make those kinds of claims. They could all be stone-cold psychopaths. All off to do their own kind of crazy psycho shit.

Looking at us, you might just think we’re four old friends going on holiday somewhere. Eliza and I could almost be siblings. We have the same hair and coloring. Maybe we just look like a brother, sister, and our two better halves all off on a sweet fuckin’ family vacay.

You never know who people really are. Not by looking at them anyway.

Nigel leads us to an arched stone entryway that looks like some Harry Potter shit and extends his gloved hand, directing us to pass through. “This way, please.”

Alec goes first, followed by Christine, Eliza, and then me. Walking through the arch, I take one last glance to make sure we aren’t being followed. Not that we would be, given all the ceremony and the fact that we got here safely as promised, but old habits die hard.

Because I’m looking over my shoulder, I don’t notice that all three have stopped dead in front of me and are gawking at something, so I smack right into them.

“What the fu—?” I start. But then I also stop dead and feel my jaw drop open too.

Sitting on the train track in front of us is… well, it’s something.

Rich, navy blue with polished bronze trim. Elegant, sophisticated lines. Classic engineering from the wheels to the chimney. Oh, yeah. There’s a chimney. And it’s huffing out white smoke into the tunnel.

The windows are all lit by soft, warm light and the shades are pulled halfway down, allowing a glance at only the tiniest sliver of what awaits us inside. And what that appears to be is… opulence. Like, the classical, early-twentieth-century kind. Oak. Mahogany. Tufted leather. Linen tablecloths. Winston Churchill shit.

And suddenly I remember something… Back when Christine and I were on the boat, when it was just the two of us and we were sailing to find Alec, I had a thought. Not a profound or necessarily even a serious one. Just a random, passing thought that darted into and out of my brain like so many thousands of thoughts I have in a day.

I thought: Next time we run away I think we should do it by train.

Fuck me. Can these people—whoever they are—readminds too?

What in the hell are we walking into?

I don’t know, but I get a very literal response to that last pondering when Nigel comes around to stand in front of the four of us, extends his arms out wide, and says…

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome aboard the Orient Express!”