Beloved Enemy (24 page)

At some point he became aware of someone bending over him. He smelled perfume, a female presence. Instinctively, he flicked open the gravity knife, sure it was Hanna, but when he opened his eyes he saw it was Dr. Scheiwold’s patient, Fraulein Kirsch, her whippet’s body curved as a comma. She reached for him and he flinched away.

“Don’t,” he heard her say. “It’s all right.”

Nothing was all right, he thought, as he felt her hands under his arms. He was certain she couldn’t pull him to his feet without his own help, but she was far stronger than he had imagined.

He leaned against the wall, breathing hard. He felt as if a pair of fire-breathing dragons had taken up residence in his lungs. Her outlines moved in and out of focus. Even squinting, he couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to be beckoning to him. He watched her with suspicion, but this only seemed to make her impatient.

“Hurry!” she said in a low, urgent voice. “This way, Herr McClure.”

F
IFTEEN

T
HE
S
T.
Giles’s Club occupied a stupendous limestone structure of palatial cake-box beaux arts style on the posh northern curve of Dupont Circle. It was originally the home of Stanley James Fortune, a tycoon in the truest sense of the word, who began in railroads, then segued into minerals, most notably diamond mines in the Belgian Congo. Fortune died prematurely of dementia praecox, after which his home was handed down to his son. Subsequently, his great-grandsons commenced a thirty-year war with one another, which led to the building being sold to the St. Giles’s Club of Kensington, London. Its directors had been looking for a suitable venue for their foray into the colonies, as they only half-jokingly referred to America. The price had been high, but the directors had made up their minds, and for them money was no object. The deal was quickly consummated, after which they began a tedious three years of renovations, following which they deemed their colonies’ outpost ready to open its doors.

Of course it was expensive to be a member, but in accordance with their credo, the directors’ eighteenth-century criteria had more to do with your station in life than how much money you were worth. As an adjunct, it was also whom you knew, for you had to be nominated in order to be considered for membership.

For Jonatha, whose net worth would impress no one, membership in St. Giles’s was nevertheless a snap. She knew Sir Edward Enfield-Somerset, a London director, who had been anointed director of the St. Giles’s Club in the States. Sir Edward was a big bear of a man, six-foot-six, with the rough, reddened skin of the inveterate outdoorsman and drinker of fine single malts and other powerful spirits.

Jonatha had met him through a mutual friend. To say that Sir Edward was taken with her would be to do his emotions a grave disservice. He was bedazzled by her—not only by her physical appearance but by her intellect, which he took advantage of every chance he got. In return, he named her a member of the St. Giles’s Club in perpetuity. In short, she had the run of the place. The one time she had paid for dinner, he had been so upset she never did it again, though having someone else pay her freight was against her principles.

“You’re the daughter I never had,”
he had told her.
“You must consider St. Giles’s your home.”

She appeared at the club precisely at eight and found Henry Dickinson waiting for her in the marble, gilt, and crystal entryway. Dickinson had obviously gone home and changed his clothes. He wore a dark suit, rather than the bland gray one from earlier in the day. This one fit him better, and his shirt and tie were first-rate and freshly pressed.

His face split in a wide smile as the doorman ushered her inside. The evening had brought a slight mist, and her hair seemed to be sheathed in tiny diamonds glittering in the light splashing down from the immense Victorian chandelier Sir Edward had imported from a London antiques dealer.

After the manager greeted Jonatha by name, he escorted her and her guest to a private nook of the library, where a liveried waiter, as ancient as the chandelier, took their drinks order while leaving them with a pair of oversized menus, hand-written in flowing purple script.

“We order here while enjoying our drinks,” Jonatha explained. “Philippe, our waiter, will come for us when our first course is ready in the dining room.”

“Thank you for inviting me here,” Dickinson said, craning his neck.

Like all the club’s spaces, the octagonal library was a dazzler. The walnut panels were over a hundred years old, as were many of the first-edition books that lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves. Every major philosopher and scientist and a majority of the minor ones were represented. Several antique library ladders that could be rolled on brass rails were in evidence beyond the groupings of high-backed wing chairs, standing lamps, and small round tables.

Jonatha clandestinely studied Dickinson as he sipped his bourbon while perusing the menu.

Philippe appeared—slender, elegant, a gorgeous Burmese man in his late twenties, with long, agile fingers, perfect skin, and dusky, heavy-lidded eyes. Dickinson looked up and ordered the Caesar and a club steak. Jonatha chose fois gras and the bone-in rib eye with bone marrow.

“Very good,” Philippe said, gathered their menus, and departed.

“You must know,” Dickinson said, after a time seeming to listen to the muted buzz of conversations around them, “Dennis Paull’s death wasn’t due to negligence.”

Jonatha, instantly interested, said, “I don’t remember anyone saying it was.”

“Kinkaid Marshall said as much,” Dickinson acknowledged, “in our first briefing.”

“Marshall’s the head of DCS,” Jonatha said. “He’s like a Marine DI.” She scanned the room, as she always did periodically. “According to him, everything is negligence.”

Dickinson grunted. “I’m under no illusions. Your boss agrees with him.”

Jonatha looked up. “And what’s your opinion?”

“Mine?”

“Yours is as valid as anyone else’s—probably more. You knew Director Paull and Jack McClure better than any of us.”

“Dennis was a friend.”

“And McClure?”

“I don’t know.” He sipped his drink, then shook his head. “A closed book, maybe. I’m not sure even Dennis knew him well enough.”

“Then why did he trust him?” Jonatha said.

“The billion-dollar question,” Dickinson admitted. “But to answer your question, I followed protocol all the way down the line. Paull had our two best men protecting him that night. The meeting with McClure was completely unscheduled—it wasn’t on any time sheet.”

“Someone wanted it that way. Paull or McClure?”

“Only McClure had enough juice with Dennis to request an off-sheet meeting.”

“Everything was meticulously planned.”

“That’s McClure to a T.”

“Do you know where McClure is hiding out?”

“He was seen passing through immigration in Bangkok on his way to Zurich.” Dickinson allowed a small smile to curl his lips. “I’ve got my best field operative on his tail. He’ll soon run him to ground. Bringing McClure back here for interrogation will vindicate me, even with Marshall and Krofft.”

At that point, Philippe reappeared at Jonatha’s elbow, bent down, and whispered in her ear. Her eyes opened wide, then she nodded, “We’re ready anytime.”

“What is it?” Dickinson said when Philippe had departed the library.

Jonatha drained her glass. “It seems the POTUS is dining here tonight. Philippe will show us in to dinner as soon as the Secret Service finishes its usual security protocol.”

“More power flexing.” Dickinson leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Jonatha laughed softly. “My life is constructed of secrets, what’s one more?”

“I don’t much like power flexing.”

“Neither do I.”

For a long moment, Jonatha looked at him, wondering what they were really talking about.

*   *   *

“How do you know my name, Fraulein Kirsch?”

“Kirsch,” the whippet-woman said. “I despise that name. Don’t you despise that name?”

“Fraulein Cherry.”

“You can imagine the jokes at my expense.” Her lips twitched in an ironic smile. “Call me Romy. Please.”

“All right. How do you know my name, Romy?”

They were in her suite at the hotel, which, she had told him as she had taken him upstairs via the service elevator, was the safest place for him.

“The moment Hanna discovers you’re gone, they’ll be looking for you all over Zurich.”

“Okay, let’s start with who ‘they’ are,” Jack said.

He sat on a chair in the kitchenette while Romy mixed up a poultice of baking soda, water, and one of the wound-healing creams Dr. Scheiwold had prescribed for her after-surgery regimen. She had made him take off his shirt, and now she bustled around him applying the cooling poultice on his face, ears, neck and hands.

“They,” she said, as she worked, “are Legere’s people. Zurich, along with Paris, is Legere’s home territory.”

“I thought he was based in Moscow.”

“Oh, you mean Pyotr,” she said. “I was speaking of his father, Giles Legere.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said, turning to get a good look at her expression. “I thought Pyotr’s father was dead.”

“So do a lot of other people.” Romy continued slathering on the paste. “That’s the way the Legeres—
Vater und Sohn
—want it. Giles has moved into the background, but Pyotr does what the old man tells him to do.” She went to the refrigerator, poured a tall glass of water. “Not that the son likes that arrangement. There’s a certain strain between them that we have been working to increase.”

“We?”

“Yes.” She smiled at him as she handed him the water. “We who work for Dyadya Gourdjiev.”

“Gourdjiev is dead.”

“Regrettably. But everything that surrounded him, everything he built is still very much alive.”

Though in his heart he knew the answer, Jack couldn’t help asking the question: “Who is running the show now? Who is Gourdjiev’s designated successor?”

“I think you know, Herr McClure,” Romy said. “His granddaughter, Annika Dementieva.”

*   *   *

“Look who’s at the POTUS’s table,” Dickinson said as Philippe escorted them into the dining room. The president’s Secret Service contingent was deployed at strategic points around the glittering room, and all the surrounding tables had been cordoned off, isolating the president’s party, which included Senator Herren, Director Krofft, and Alix Ross, the president’s press secretary.

“I have no doubt Herren and Krofft are pitching a way to spin the triple murder away from the senator and his dead aide,” Jonatha said as they sat down at a table set with sparkling crystal, silver service atop snow-white linen.

Dickinson shook his head. “Your boss has a way of insinuating himself into every nook and cranny.”

Jonatha laughed softly. “He was born for his position; it’s all he knows.”

“That sounds sad.”

“Yes,” Jonatha said, as Philippe set their first course in front of them, “doesn’t it?”

“But then the world we live in is sad.”

“Is it?”

“How could it not be, surrounded as we are by suspicion, betrayal, and death?”

Jonatha forked a cube of fois gras into her mouth. She thought of Lale’s past. Her eliding over it was a betrayal, a secret she had kept hidden. A dark, angry part of her didn’t want to see Lale now, let alone confront her.

“I can hear you thinking,” Dickinson said.

“I was wondering whether you’re right, whether we need to be suspicious of even the people closest to us.”

“It’s been my experience that we do.”

She did not need to be clairvoyant to pick up on the rueful tone of his voice. “What happened to you, Henry?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “So we’re done with ‘Dicky’?”

“I’ll leave that to Krofft and Marshall.” She bit into his fois gras with her even white teeth. “As for myself, I never much cared for it.”

Something seemed to clear across his face. “My wife left me three years ago.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“It was with my best friend.”

“And now you don’t trust anyone.”

“I can’t afford to.”

She nodded. At that moment, she saw Alix Ross leave the president’s table. She found her eyes following Alix all the way into the corridor that led to the toilets. Without allowing herself another thought, she excused herself.

As she passed the president’s table, she saw Krofft and Senator Herren pleading their case. The president looked tired, like a fox who’d been harried all day by a pack of hounds. In the corridor, she pushed open the door to the women’s toilet. She was as familiar with this room as she was with every other in the building. There was a line of three stalls to the left, to the right, two sinks over which hung a long mirror with the superior lighting women required to reapply their makeup.

She stood by one sink, alternately staring at herself and the single closed stall. She was reapplying her lipstick when the toilet flushed and Alix emerged. She was wearing a plum-and-cream striped dress. She was tall and athletically slender. Jonatha knew she jogged four times a week in Rock Creek Park before she arrived at the West Wing; she had passed her several times on the same winding path during her own runs. Jonatha had long admired her square shoulders and long neck. In the artificial light, her hazel eyes looked more tan than green.

“Hey,” Alix said. She wore her thick, dark hair at shoulder length in a sexy retro-sixties style.

“Looks like Herren has roped in my boss to hammer at you and the POTUS.”

“Hammer and tongs,” Alix said as she stepped up to the sink next to Jonatha and began to wash her hands. “Why on earth do you work for the man? He’s relentless.”

Jonatha smiled at Alix in the mirror. “That’s precisely why I work for him.”

Alix shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“There are very few men in this town who really understand me. Robby is one of them.”

“Oh, Robby, is it?” Alix said with a mock-smirk.

“Not what you think.”

“No? Your Robby has a certain behind-closed-doors rep with the women.” Alix’s gaze moved up and down Jonatha’s body. “I seriously doubt he could resist you.”