Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
“Are you all right?”
He shook his head. “Must’ve been something I ate for lunch.” He put some bills on the table. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“I still have some work to do.” She needed to report what she had overheard.
“I say you don’t.” He tugged at her. “Not that kind, anyway.”
As they left, Nona wondered how many more kinds of prison she would be in until she was free.
* * *
F
RAINE SAW
the empty grease-stained pizza box outside the door to their room and went inside.
“Thanks for saving me a slice,” he said as he sat down beside the kid.
“Dude, I was starving!”
“Tell me what you’ve got.”
Leopard’s forefinger stabbed at the computer screen. “This dude Milton P. Stirwith doesn’t exist.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Leopard hit a key and the screen showed some documents. “It’s not the
name
that’s so interesting. It’s the docs that are being used to bring him to life.”
“His legend.”
“Hah, yeah, dude. His legend is
amazing
. I mean, look at the work.” He zoomed in. “The detailing is absofuckingtastic!”
“How does that help us?”
Leopard hit more keys and other files popped up. “Here’s a whole slew of docs—legends—with the same meticulous attention to detailing. You see the borders here on Milton P. Stirwith’s driver’s license—and here, the metallic holography on
this
one.”
“Okay,” Fraine said dully. Studying the minutiae of these docs that so excited the kid, all his initial enthusiasm had drained away. His lack of sleep and sustenance finally caught up with him. He’d been running on coffee and adrenaline for too long. He needed a break—a good hot meal—not fast food—and a solid night’s sleep. Even a nap would help. “So what?”
“So
this
.” Leopard’s finger stabbed out again. “
These
legends were created by a group of ex-Nazis right after World War Two. They were brought over by the OSS and given the job of creating legends for agents who were then inserted inside the USSR. They called themselves the Norns, the weavers of fate from Wagner’s Ring Cycle opera.”
“How do you know all this?”
“The Internet, dude. How else?”
“There’s all kinds of bogus shit on the Net,” Fraine said. “I don’t believe a tenth of what’s flying around there.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to know the right sites, dude.” Leopard’s face was pink with excitement. “I had read about the Norns before, but I had my doubts about them being real—until you gave me Milton P. Stirwith.”
“Even if what you say is true, how could a bunch of ex-Nazis still be alive and working at their highly specialized trade more than sixty years later?”
“Ah, that’s the bone in the throat, dude. But, see, I think I’ve got the answer, or at least part of it.” Midway through a new set of keystrokes, his fingers faltered, his face went from pink to red, and he began to choke.
“Kid—hey, kid.” Fraine grabbed him before he could topple off his chair. Picking him up, he carried him to the bed and laid him down. Leopard’s eyes were nearly popping out of his head and his hands were clawing at his throat. Clearly he couldn’t breathe. Fraine pried open his jaws. The kid’s tongue was swollen to three times its size.
Fraine was calling 911 when the kid spasmed off the bed, as if his body were trying to levitate. He made a terrible noise that sounded eerily like “Mercy,” then his body went limp, his eyes out of focus. Bending over him, Fraine checked the pulse at the side of his neck, but there was none. He smelled garlic and tomato sauce.
The pizza!
he thought, and ran for the door.
* * *
W
HEN THE
lights came on, they did so slowly and stopped long before they could blind her. The door clanged open and Herr entered.
“You stink,” Herr said.
“I need a shower.” So close to the food on the floor, her mouth continued to water.
Leaning forward, he sniffed her like an animal. “I like it.”
Herr crouched down beside her, watching her with an evil stare.
Almost out of defensiveness, she said, “I’ll tell you more about Morgan.”
The evil stare blossomed into an evil smile. “You already played that card.”
“Waxman is lying,” she said, with more desperation than she intended. “That’s all he knows how to do.”
“Not interested.”
“Then why did you come in here?”
Herr leaned in close and grabbed her. Alli cried out.
“You want to know what I’ve been doing in the hallway?” Herr’s eyes darkened. “I’ve been daydreaming about the ways to cause you pain.”
Herr leaned even closer, ran his hands roughly over her, exploring all her secret parts. Alli closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Bound to the chair, there was nothing she could do to stop him.
“Open your eyes!” Herr commanded. “Open your eyes!”
When she refused to comply, he ripped off the straps, hauled her up, and batted her down onto the floor. He stood over her for a moment before he dropped onto her like a leopard from a tree branch. At the same time, his hand, worming its way between their bodies, pulled down her trousers and underpants. Alli squirmed beneath him, trying to find a way to free one of her arms or legs, but he’d pinned them with a combination of his free hand and his weight. When his mouth came down on hers, she bit his lower lip right through. He ignored the pain, the blood flowing, concentrating on freeing himself from his trousers. He was so hard he was near to bursting. When her teeth snapped at him again, he pulled his head away, rendering her helpless.
He was beginning to push himself into her when he suddenly arched his back and rolled off her, obviously in pain. Waxman’s blood-darkened face loomed over them both.
“What did I tell you, Reggie? Not until I’m finished with her.”
As Waxman aimed his walking stick at his navel, Herr batted it away, scrambling to his feet. The two men stood facing each other. Alli, panting like a steam engine, wriggled into her pants, then sat with her arms girdling her drawn-up knees. She kept her breathing slow in order to cut down on her shivering. She looked from one to the other, calculating the strategic advantages their enmity might provide.
Herr’s eyes were as red as a demon’s.
Waxman flicked the tip of his walking stick. “Do you know how absurd you looked lying on your back with a tent in your trousers?”
Herr glared at him. “There are times when you go too far. There’s a line, and when you cross it—”
“What? What will happen, Reggie? You’ll run away?” Waxman’s laugh was ugly. “Where would you go? Who would take you?”
“Anyone in need of my skills. I could—”
“That’s enough!”
The two men were locked again in a kind of kinetic stasis—their utter stillness inadequately masking the swirls of emotion coming off them.
What exactly is their relationship?
Alli asked herself. Somehow, she could sense the importance of the answer.
“You’re bleeding,” Waxman said finally. “Go get your lip seen to.”
Herr hesitated, standing his ground. Then he swiped at his lip, saw the amount of blood, and realized Waxman wasn’t giving him an order, but rather attempting to calm the waters between them. He took a step backward, then another and another. When he was at the door, he hesitated. He found it difficult staring past Waxman, but when he did, he impaled Alli with his eyes.
Herr turned on his heel and left.
When Waxman returned to where Alli sat, she said, “He’s far more difficult than his brother.”
“Thank you so much for your expert psychological assessment.” For the first time, he showed an upsurge of actual emotion.
Noting this, Alli rose; she’d had enough of him looming over her. “You’ll never get what you want from me.”
“Is that so?” Waxman limped to the door. As he was about to close it behind him, he turned and, grinning unpleasantly, said, “But, my dear, I already have it.”
A
NNIKA, HAVING
piloted the Antonov An-2 across the border into Finland, guided them to a safe landing at Lappeenranta Airport. Jack’s jet was waiting for them on the tarmac, having flown in from Tallinn.
They climbed down from the biplane, Jack helping Gourdjiev, while ground personnel jammed the wheels with chocks to keep the biplane from moving. The pilot from Jack’s plane greeted him and then went off to inform the immigration people of the trio’s diplomatic status.
As Jack turned back, he said, “We should board my plane as soon as possible. The fewer people who know we were here, the better.”
The lowering sun was in Annika’s eyes, turning their carnelian color luminous. “I can’t go with you.”
“Alli needs us,” Jack said.
Annika smiled sadly. “She needs you. My grandfather needs me.”
Jack looked around the airfield. The winter-shortened afternoon was clear, with a high blue sky that was almost purple at its apex. Even with little or no wind it was very cold.
“I don’t like the idea of us splitting up. Not now, not after all that’s happened.”
“I wouldn’t have it this way, either,” she said. “But neither of us has a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice.” These were the first words Dyadya Gourdjiev had uttered since the Antonov had lifted away from the smoking pyre in which Katya had died. “You always have a choice.”
Annika kissed him tenderly on both cheeks. “You of all people, Dyadya, so Russian, so stalwart, you know that duty obliterates choice. My heart may be with Jack, but my duty is clear.”
The old man nodded. He knew better than to argue. He turned to Jack. “You’ve done me a great service, young man. A service I won’t forget.”
“You asked me to help you get out of Russia. But Katya—”
“Which you have done, most ably.” Gourdjiev squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “The rest is up to me.”
They saw Jack’s pilot returning across the tarmac. He gave a thumbs-up before climbing up into the jet.
“Almost time for you to go,” the old man said. “Take these last moments together.”
Jack watched him walk away, as precisely as any foot soldier, as confident as any commander. For a time, there was an uncomfortable silence.
At last, Jack said, “Why must it always be beginning and ending for us, nothing in between?”
“It is our fate,” Annika said. “And our choice.”
“Our choice? Really?”
She slid her hand along his chest. “We both carry pasts that make our present difficult.”
“Is there to be no hope for us, then?”
Tears glittered in her eyes. “We are always together, Jack.”
“Even when we’re apart?”
“Especially then.” Pressing herself against him, she whispered in his ear, “Think of Emma.”
“Emma is dead.” He tried to pull away, but she held him fiercely to her.
Her lips brushed his ear. “To some, perhaps. But not to you.”
An inarticulate noise was all the sound he could make.
“We carry those we love inside us, always.”
“And those we hate.”
“I have let my father go.”
“And everything he did to you?”
“A scar is a scar, Jack.” She pushed him back now, so that their eyes locked. Her voice turned bitter. “You know that better than most.”
“Emma’s message is to let go—of hate, of guilt, of regret.”
“And yet we can’t, Jack, because we’re human. We hate, we feel guilt, and we regret. We remember because sometimes memory is all we have.”
“I don’t believe that, Annika.” He felt lost within her carnelian eyes. “It frightens me that you do.”
She smiled. “I love that you’re frightened for me, but there’s no need.”
“Truly?”
She nodded. “Truly.”
Those were the last words she said to him. They kissed, and then she was walking away from him, sliding her arm through her grandfather’s as they crossed the tarmac. He had neglected to ask where they were going.
Just as well,
he thought as he climbed aboard Paull’s jet. She wouldn’t have told him the truth, anyway.
The door swung shut, he walked down the aisle, and, taking a seat, strapped himself in. He peered out the Perspex window, but he could no longer see her. She and Gourdjiev had vanished as completely as if they had never existed.
The engines ramped up, their roaring filling the cabin, filling his mind, blotting out even their good-bye.
Then the jet sprang forward, hurtling down the runway, faster, faster, until, with a breathless rush, it lifted into the purple sky, on its long journey home to Washington.
* * *
V
ERA APPEARED
at Carson’s front door in a black Lurex dress that could have passed for a man’s shirt. The hem ran straight across her thighs two inches below her pubis. She wore black Louboutins with four-inch heels and a splash of lipstick red on the part of the soles that rose up to the heel. Her lips were the same shade of red. Her coat was draped over her shoulders.
“What’s happened to Alli? Where has she gone?” Her father drank in every luscious inch of her.
“Yes, I will come in, thank you.” As she brushed by him, she pressed a thigh against his, and he leapt back as if poked with a cattle prod.
“Vera, answer me! There’s very little time. I have company.”
“Don’t lie to me, Daddy. It’s dead sad. You’re all alone in this big house.” Her shucked coat curled on the carpet like an animal. “And now that Alli has run off, I’m alone, too.”
He stiffened. “So you know something about her disappearance.”
She moved into the living room.
“Tell me!” He stalked after her, drowning in her silence. “You’re supposed to keep track of her. If you haven’t, of what use are you?”
As she settled herself on the deep leather sofa her dress rode up, revealing the apex of her triangle of hair.
Carson, cheeks flaming, tried to turn away, but the sight riveted him. “What a wanton. I ought to turn you over my knee and—”
“Oh, please, Daddy. Please.”
Carson reddened all the more. “What about Alli?”
“I have no idea where she is or what’s happened to her.”