“You saved our lives back there. That should do for a start.”
He looked down at the floor between his feet. There was no need to say what they both knew.
Kay eased herself farther into the sofa. She extended her legs, massaged one knee, and said, “I was born and raised in Oakland. The city’s basically a poor stepsister to San Francisco. Always undergoing one revitalization project or another, but nothing ever works. It’s got the naval yards and Berkeley and everything the rich San Francisco folks just refer to as East Bay. All the poor, tired working jerks who have to live on the other side of the bridge and spend their mornings and evenings stuck in the worst traffic you ever saw. My dad was a surgeon, which meant I was raised in Oakland Hills, nice house with a pretty view out over the bay. But when I go back, I like to spend time down in the low-rent areas. There’s a church down there I’ve been visiting for years. Keeps me in touch with the little people. You know what I mean?”
“I know.” Giving her what she wanted, which was a signal he heard her at all.
“I was elected to the state legislature right in the middle of the savings and loan debacle. Entered the Senate just as we were sweeping up the last of that mess. I watched as banks began gradually growing ever larger, claiming that size was necessary in order to compete. Only large financial institutions, they argued, could withstand the difficulties that had closed down most of our S and Ls, or allow them to compete on an international scale. Let’s be perfectly honest here. I had every reason to want to believe them. They were financing my campaigns in a big way, especially when I got myself appointed to a couple of key committees. But these little people down in that Oakland church, I tell you, it was hard to shut out what I was hearing and seeing on a Sunday morning. Like I was getting hammered by a message at my most vulnerable moment. Otherwise I’d have just turned away. Something every politician learns to do. Every
successful
politician, that is, who aims on getting reelected. The key to success in Washington is, choose your battles wisely.”
A veiled beam from the window cast Kay’s features into translucent depths. The bandage across her forehead gleamed with a color beyond white. Wynn clutched at her words and the moment with desperation.
“What those people down there in the valley showed me was the slow and steady demise of the local branch bank. So gradual it would be very easy to ignore the trend. But over time a lot of those branches were closing down. Traditionally, our local banks were there to
serve the community
. They maintained branches in lower income areas because their bank served as an anchor to the local businesses and tradespeople. Only now these branches were disappearing. Why? Because these huge mega-banks don’t care overmuch about the local community. They exist to serve their shareholders. And these small branches did not turn sufficient profit. The result was, the low-rent branches were shutting down, and their places taken by what I call the financial tapeworms. Credit unions, check-cashing offices, pawn shops, car equity loan offices, storefronts offering second mortgages. All of these have one thing in common; they live by usury. These newcomers, these
sharks
, charge higher interest rates than the credit card companies. They care nothing for who they consume. They destroy families. They destroy communities. And they exist because the banks are retreating, leaving a vacuum for these demons to fill.”
The outer door opened, and noise filtered in from outside. Wynn leaned in tight, not wanting anybody or anything to interfere.
Kay did the same, coming in close enough for him to see amber flecks in what he had previously thought were utterly dark eyes. “That’s when I met Graham. I started attending a Bible study on Capitol Hill. He was there. You learn pretty fast not to talk shop at one of these things. People get very prickly at the idea of being hit while their guard is down. I had to hunt him out.”
The figure hovering just beyond Wynn’s peripheral vision said, “Excuse me, Congressman.”
“Be right with you.”
“But sir, your—”
Wynn raised a single threatening finger. “Back off.” To Kay, “Go on.”
“Maybe it was just how I caught Graham, walking away from the group, telling him I’d heard he was involved in financial reform. But he refused to talk with me about it that day. It was like he could look inside me and see all the convoluted motives, all the internal conflicts of interest. You know what I mean?”
Wynn gave her a tight nod of understanding. He knew.
“So he tells me, and remember now, he’s talking to somebody on the appropriations committee, a senior senator with significant clout. Somebody who can really wind his clock, for good or bad. But what he says to me is, Your doubt is written all over your face and there’s nothing I can say that will convince you.”
“He said that?”
“He did indeed. He goes on, If this is your cross, the Lord will have to be the one to tell you. Not me. Then he just turned and walked away.”
The aide was almost dancing with nerves. “Congressman, please. Sir, the limo’s waiting and the police escort is downstairs and your flight to Washington leaves in just over an hour.”
Kay rose to her feet, waited for Wynn to stand, then hugged him fiercely. When she finally released him, she smiled and said, “Hard to argue with that, isn’t it?”
33
Friday
F
RIDAY EVENING WASHINGTON time, early Saturday morning Roman time, Jackie limped past the Dulles Airport customs barrier. Instantly she was enveloped by a jubilant Good Friday din. The religious among the waiting throng stood out like shiny new pennies. Young boys tugged futilely at the collars of their first suits and chased pink-frocked girls in patent leather shoes. Parents holding ribbon-bedecked flowers hugged and welcomed family with tears and words in two dozen different tongues. Jackie pushed her trolley with her ears still ringing from the bells that had awakened her that same morning in Rome. Thousands and thousands of bells, tolling continuously from the moment she woke until the taxi took her to the airport. She had slept her way across the Atlantic, dreaming of music that was a welcome for many but only a farewell for her.
Jackie’s previous morning had been spent in slumber and solitude. She had risen just after noon and felt the pain returning, but decided not to take another pill. Her room had been lost down some Trastevere alley, high enough to transform the street noise into a continuous clatter rising from a stone forest. The chamber was dingy and old, the walls yellow and cracked. The shutter would not open. Downstairs the church ran a soup kitchen, and the smells finally enticed her to endure the agony of dressing. Every motion had brought new throbs from her shoulder. She had descended the four flights by gripping the stair rail and timing each step to her breaths.
She took her place in the
menza
line with the poor and the homeless. Her shoulder and leg throbbed constantly, bowing her slightly, adding a shuffling gait to her walk. There were hundreds of people and she heard a rainbow of tongues. Volunteers brought food to the tables. Jackie spooned up pasta and broth, then ate every scrap of her roast chicken with peas. When she looked around, no one met her eyes. Even so, she felt a comfortable bond with this place and these people. Her pain might be better hidden, but she understood.
“Jackie, welcome.” Anna smiled to all the table as she touched Jackie’s good shoulder. “Everything hurts, yes? But while you slept the doctor came, she says all is fine.”
“This is some operation.”
“Sant’Egidio started here with this kitchen. Now we are all the world over. We study the Word of God, we pray for peace, we feed the poor, we speak for all who have no voice.”
“What about the conference in Washington, and the one now in Cairo?”
“Many conferences.” Anna found cheer in the words. “All are the same. We feed the poor and we pray for peace.”
After lunch, Jackie used her credit card and the phone in a neighboring café to call Esther. The older woman was suitably horrified by news of her moped attackers, and reluctantly agreed to try to pass on the warning to Wynn. Afterward Jackie found herself unwilling to return to her room and the slats of light and the imprisoning bed. Instead she walked to the church piazza. She moved slowly, favoring her wounded side. She sat on the waist-high bench shelf running along the piazza’s western wall, joined there by dozens of other homeless and lost. The shadows and the church bells were the only clock they needed, counting out just another empty day.
After a time she stretched out on the stone bench and dozed until shadows draped the square in coming dusk. Upon awakening she crossed to a neighboring alley market and bought an olive
ciabatta
, cheese, grapes, and bottled water. As she was finishing her meal, the church bells pealed their nightly invitation. She found herself joining the throngs approaching the church, her internal protests the meagerest of whines.
Anna stood just inside the doorway, smiling a welcome. “You are feeling better?”
“Not really.”
“Ah.” The smile gentled but did not fade. “Perhaps you are not just speaking of your outside wounds, yes?” Anna matched her own pace to Jackie’s shuffling gait. “Perhaps the question is not what you face, but what you choose to face
alone
. You understand?”
“Maybe.”
“Of course, life is possible without God. So many desperate people, they survive with nothing but themselves. But hope? Who can stand alone and still know this?”
Her smile was so infectious, Jackie found the response came easily. “I’m missing the connection here.”
Anna smiled her down the aisle. “You see? Already you know where you belong.”
Still more people kept pressing in behind her. Jackie spotted a pew near the front. The Bible reading started, each passage translated twice. An Arab woman sat to one side of her, a bulky man in a tight suit to the other. The singing began, a chant beyond time and space, one almost too soothing for her own good. The choir stood to her left, a few young people who chanted one line and then were echoed by the packed congregation. The responses were great wellsprings of music, free verses of gentle might. Jackie picked up the leaflet with the English words but was afraid to read them. The music alone was already too much.
Suddenly she was crying. She did not know why, or even for whom. There was no space for reason, scarcely any for breath.
A hand reached over and patted her shoulder. Roughly she shook her head. The hand retreated, then returned, but only to drop a tissue into her lap. Apparently tears were not new here, nor the desire for solitude in the midst of many. She had heard of tears that held a cleansing, a gladness. And always discounted such words as bitter fable.
Jackie straightened and used the tissue to wipe her face. She never cried. It was a luxury she could not afford. Which was why these easy tears frightened her so. She sought strength from the incense-laden air, rose, and headed for the door. For a moment she wished she had never heard of Rome.
J
ACKIE SEARCHED the overhead signs for the bus to Reagan National Airport and tried to ignore her throbbing wounds. The prospect of seeing Shane again kept her moving forward, glancing at her watch, calculating how much time she had before her connecting flight to Orlando. Which was why she did not see Esther until the woman stepped forward and said, “Let me have that, dear, and sit yourself down.”
Jackie did not want to meet the woman’s gaze. There was no place here for yet more tears, be they from weariness or pain or what lay ahead. She buried her head in Esther’s shoulder and gripped as hard as her wounded shoulder permitted.
“Are you exhausted?”
“Tired, yes. Sleepy, no. All I’ve done for two days now is doze.” She let the older woman ease her down into the wheelchair held by Carter Styles. She smiled at the carrot-headed man. “I really don’t need this.”
“Indulge me.” Esther took hold of her trolley and led them over to a relatively quiet corner, where she lowered herself into a seat. “Can we see to one other matter before we take you home?”
“The answer is yes, but I’m headed for Orlando.” She checked the concourse clock. “I’ve got just over three hours to make it to National. Everything leaving from here was full.”
“You’re not going anywhere. You can’t.”
“I have no choice, Esther.”
It was Carter who asked, “Hayek?”
“I might have a lead,” Jackie confirmed.
Esther rubbed hard at the lines compressed into her own forehead. Carter slipped into the seat beside Esther and leaned forward until his belly rested upon his thighs. “We’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
“I’m starved for the good.”
“Tell me. Okay. First, Graham is better. Not great, not even good. But back among the living.”
“Probably as good as he’ll ever get,” Esther added.
“Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.” Carter took hold of the older woman’s hand and said to Jackie, “And we instituted legal action against the newspaper, the one that ran the story about Graham. Our lawyer’s done some background research. Turns out the paper has a new minority shareholder. Some foreign bank.”
“Let me guess,” Jackie said. “Banque Royale of Liechtenstein.”
“Right first time.”
“They owned the plane that took Valerie Lawry down to see Hayek.”
Esther said, “You might as well tell her the rest.”
Carter took time to shape the words. “The Congressman and Senator Trilling were ambushed coming back from what we thought was a secret conference outside Cairo. They’re both okay, but Congressman Bryant’s sister was killed. And our friend Nabil was wounded.”
“They’re calling Wynn’s flight,” Esther said, using first the seat, then the back, and finally Carter’s shoulder to push herself upright. “You can tell her the rest on the way.”
W
HEN THEY STARTED back across the concourse, Jackie found she could not abide being seated in that wheelchair. No matter how nice it felt to rely on the strength of others, her skin crawled at how people carefully avoided looking down at her. She had spent a lifetime depending on no one but herself. “I’ll walk.”
Carter merely helped her up, then rolled the chair aside and matched his stride to her own. Esther continued to push her trolley. But when they came within sight of the international arrivals gate, Carter said, “Let’s stop right here.”
“What is it?”
“Cameras at ten o’clock. I don’t believe it. Look who’s pushing through to greet the Congressman.”
Jackie spotted the familiar face. “Is that Governor Wells?”
Carter offered, “There was a White House meeting of southern governors yesterday.”
“He couldn’t possibly be using this as a photo op,” Esther said. “He wouldn’t dare.”
Wynn emerged through the sliding doors like a man stumbling from his own tomb. Eyes wide but seeing nothing, he lurched forward on unsteady legs. When the first camera flashed, Wynn’s entire body recoiled.
Grant Wells stepped forward and hugged Wynn. In a flash of assimilation, Wynn took in the entire tableau. Instead of pushing himself away, however, he gripped Grant harder. But not in sorrow. His features stretched so taut the blood was squeezed out, turning his face into a feral mask. His lips drew back fully from his teeth, so that he appeared ready to bite Grant’s head off.
Jackie saw Grant’s muscles contract and realized the governor was trying to break away. Wynn held him fiercely in place and kept whispering into his ear, twisting slightly so that Grant’s head shielded his own from the cameras. The side of Grant’s face came into view. The governor looked ill. He heaved harder, a convulsive jerk, and broke free. Wynn ducked his head and shoved through the crowd. The governor stared after him, still cringing.
Jackie walked over so that she fell into step beside him. “Slow down a little. I can’t move that fast.”
Wynn looked as if he had aged fifty years. “They got you too?”
“Back and leg. I tried to call and warn you.” When he continued to barrel through the throng, she said, “I have information you need to hear.”
A reporter appeared at Wynn’s other side. “Congressman, could we please have a statement about—”
“Not now. Call my office.”
“Our embassy in Cairo claims it was the work of terrorists—”
“I said, not now.” Then he saw Esther and Carter. He found enough strength to snarl, “Don’t either of you come near me.”
Esther began, “I just wanted to say how sorry—”
“Save it.” To Jackie, “Come on.”
She took the trolley from Carter and tried to match Wynn’s pace, though his elongated steps stretched her leg until the wound shrieked. “I’ve got to catch a flight from National.”
“I’ll drop you off.” Wynn hurtled through the doors, not bothering to check for oncoming traffic, ignoring the indignant horn and squeal of brakes. He aimed for the line of limos like a man on a mission. Once there he talked a language they clearly understood, because one driver leaped forward. When Wynn pointed back at Jackie, the driver raced over to take her trolley.
When she slipped inside, however, the anger and the energy were gone, and she found instead a man who shrank away from her and the surrounding world. “I’m so sorry, Wynn.”
He waited until the driver had slid behind the wheel to say, “National Airport, then the Willard. And close the divider.”
Only when the glass panel had slid into place did he speak directly to her. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
His grief was enough to draw her close. She settled one arm behind him, took his hand, sat there. Let him absorb the fact that she was with him. In the here and now. Gradually the tension seeped away, until he was able to slide down and place his head upon her shoulder. Nestle in. Like he belonged. “I’m so tired.”
She stroked the fine dark head. “I know.”
They sat thus, not speaking, through the long ride until the first National sign swept overhead. Jackie pushed at his chest, a gentle nudge, and said, “I have news.”
Reluctantly he moved away, rubbed his face, and listened as she sped through the detective’s report, the message from the Boatman, the attack. She then went back to her earlier discussion with Esther, and concluded, “Everything is still pointing at Hayek having an agenda and a timetable. That’s the only reason I can think why he’d attack us. It’s not about some amendment. Something else is at work here.”
Wynn still had not spoken when the driver asked over the intercom, “Excuse me, which airline?”
“United.”
“Then we’ve arrived.”
They pulled to the curb and halted. Wynn gripped her hand. “Stay here.”
“I can’t.”
“I need you, Jackie.” The entreaty cost him dearly. “Please.”
Gently she released her hand from his. “Later maybe.” She moved for the door, fleeing temptation. “Right now I’ve got to catch this flight to Orlando.”
He craned over, asked through the open door, “What’s so critical about right now?”
She reached back in and touched his face. Gave him a sad, sad smile. “Tomorrow is visiting day.”