Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
Jack stared down at Waxman. “How many?”
Waxman stared back. “How many what?”
Jack pushed the needle in farther.
“Six,” Waxman said. “I have six men.”
Alli snorted. “In addition to that shit, Herr.”
Jack turned to her. “What?”
“Yeah, the fucker who abducted me, who you sent out the motel window, has a twin brother.”
Waxman kicked out, the toe of his shoe connecting with the Stop button. The elevator lurched into motion and, before Jack could reach it, they had descended to the first floor. The doors slid open, revealing two of Waxman’s men, handguns drawn.
* * *
G
RIGORI
B
ATCHUK
was breathing like a bellows. The taste of bile was so bitter he turned his head and spat. Staring down at Caroline Carson’s inert body brought waves of the past crashing against the ragged shore of his conscious mind. In the space of thirty seconds, he relived his entire affair with her, spanning both years and continents. His red-rimmed eyes saw her not as she was now, but as she had been the first moment he had seen her, walking down the rocky shingle, the pale froth of Nice’s waterfront hotels behind her. Her hair had come undone, was fluttering in the sea breeze like a bird’s wing. Her slim limbs were toasty-tanned. The sun was in her eyes. In that moment, his heart escaped the prison of his chest and took flight, arriving in her hand as she bent to lift a small oval stone, running the pad of her thumb back and forth over its water-smoothed surface.
Without another thought, he had gone up to her and introduced himself. She had gazed into his face for a moment, then, without a word, turned on her heel and picked her way back up to the pedestrian corniche. He stood, shoes and socks in one hand, his trousers rolled up to his calves, his toes squidging into the farthest edge of the water. He remembered putting his free hand up to shade his eyes, for he hadn’t had the foresight to purchase either sunglasses or a hat. He watched her as she leaned against the iron railing while she stared at something—what, he couldn’t tell—higher up in the city’s streets. Then, again without warning, she turned, elbows on the rail, and stared down at him with what seemed to him the hint of a smile, an enigmatic expression.
After a moment of indecision, he went to her. The rocks hurt the soles of his bare feet, but he scarcely noticed. He watched her face come closer and closer, though, in fact, it was he who was drawing closer.
“You came,” she said, when he had arrived beside her. “How nice.”
That had been the beginning. He refocused his eyes on her body, draped across his lap like a Madonna.
Is this how it ends,
he wondered,
with my hands around your throat, squeezing the life out of you? What happened to my love for you? In what terrible fire did it burn? Where did the acid hatred, the wellspring of violence, come from? How did the murder happen? How have I landed here?
When she stirred, coughing and gasping, he literally jumped. Then someone pounded on the window. Slowly and reluctantly, as in a dream, he tore his eyes away from Caro, thinking,
This can’t be happening
. The pounding came again, Caro’s arm fluttered like the wing of a bird. Her chest shuddered, her severely reddened neck pulsed. Her eyes opened, focusing on him. The hint of an enigmatic smile, that curious expression from the Nice waterfront, reappeared, annihilating time and space.
The smoked glass cracked inward, held together only by the thin sheet of anti-shatter film. Then even that was staved in by another titanic blow, and he was looking into the fierce, beefy faces of two uniformed cops. Their eyes darkened as they surveyed the scene. They drew their service pistols.
“You,” one of them ordered. “Get your ass the fuck out of there!”
* * *
J
ACK SHOVED
the gurney at the two men, and Alli shot one in the chest. The other ducked away and Jack went after him, but he slithered under the gurney and, grabbing Alli, threw her against the wall. She cried out, clutched her left shoulder with her gun hand. Jack leapt at the man, but he turned and fired.
Alli looked up to see Reggie Herr pounding full speed down the hall. She raised her good arm and squeezed off a shot, but she was in pain and shock—her aim was off. Reggie kept on coming.
“Jack!” she cried. “Behind you!”
Jack’s gaze shifted, but the gunman slammed his fist into the side of Jack’s head. They grappled at close quarters, Jack holding the gun at bay while the man pummeled him over and over. Glancing at Reggie, the man broke off his assault, rose off Jack, and began to run in the opposite direction. Jack shook himself, got to hands and knees, and then he was up, running after the man.
Alli had just enough time to spot Reggie pushing Waxman on the gurney into the elevator when the front door burst inward and a squad of heavily armed Marines in flak jackets thundered into the warehouse.
“D
ON’T TOUCH
anything,” Nona said as she guided Vera away from the bodies. She knew she should get the girl out of there, but she couldn’t bear to leave Alan alone.
Vera nodded numbly.
“Who do you need protection from?” Nona asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“As of now,” Nona said, looking into Alan’s thousand-yard stare, “I’ve got nothing but time.” She wondered what his last thought had been.
Vera felt out of time, drained of bravado, wanting now only shelter from the storm of violence that had been raging around her ever since she had spied on Alli’s abduction. She heard the oncoming sirens, then stood silently by as the men and women piled into the shop. A pair of detectives spoke to Nona in lowered voices, nodding as they snapped on gloves and made their way to the bodies, along with the forensics people. Nona waited until the photos had been taken, everything bagged and tagged, and Alan was put on a gurney.
Then she took Vera outside onto the street. A pair of patrol cars, an unmarked car, two ambulances, and the crime scene forensics van were pulled up to the curb. The uniforms had secured the crime scene, keeping the gathering crowd at a safe distance. Now the police had begun to canvass the closest people to determine if anyone had seen someone running from the rear of the building.
Nona sent one of the uniforms to scare up a couple of Cokes and some chips. Then she led Vera to her car, where they sat with the doors open because both of them needed the fresh air.
They sat in silence, which wasn’t what Nona wanted, but the specter of Alan’s death clung to her like cordite. She could not believe he was gone, and tears sprang to her eyes, others following, and would not leave no matter how hard she squeezed her eyes shut.
As a distraction, she tried Paull again, and this time got him. She told him in broad strokes what had happened.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Fine,” she lied. And to get him off the subject, “I’m with Vera Bard, taking down her statement.”
“Bring her to the eighth floor of Bethesda when you’re through. I’ve had the entire floor sealed off and secured.” There was a pause. “Nona, I’m deeply sorry for your loss.”
Nona could not speak, and broke the connection. She sat for a moment, rocking gently back and forth, as if to console herself.
An officer arrived, ducking his head and speaking softly. They all knew she had lost her boss. She thanked him, and handed a Coke to Vera.
Some time passed before she found her voice. “Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Start at the beginning and don’t stop until you’ve reached the end.”
“Shit,” Vera said, sipping her Coke, “don’t I feel like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.”
Nona pulled open a chip bag and held it out to Vera. “How so?”
“Nothing makes any sense.” Vera, guzzling down the soda, felt the caffeine kick in, and she crunched down on the chips, the salt cutting the sugar in her mouth.
“So we’ll try to do something about that.”
Nona, trying her best not to think about Alan, flipped open her pad and, as Vera began to talk, first slowly and haltingly, then in a gush of filthy memories, took down notes as fast as she could.
* * *
R
ADOMIL STARED
into Annika’s eyes. “There is only one way you can help me, and I know you will not do it.”
“Try me.”
His smile was both knife-edged and weary. “Your grandfather holds the key. Only he knows where it is.”
Annika looked puzzled. “Where what is?”
Radomil’s smile turned mocking. “You mean he hasn’t told you?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Sister, I don’t believe you.”
“You mean his cache of secrets.”
Radomil gave a soundless laugh. “That! My father told me what a lie that was.” He grabbed her shoulders. “Listen, Annika, if that’s what your
dyadya
has been telling you, it’s a lie.”
“I don’t—”
He turned her so that she was looking through the café window to where Gourdjiev sat, drinking and talking on a mobile phone. “Oh, he’s got a secret, all right. And a goddamned big one it is, too. He knows where the Gaddafi family fortune has been stored. That’s billions, Annika. Billions. He knows where it is and how to get to it. My father wanted it and so does Three-thirteen. You’ve heard of Three-thirteen?”
“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “I’ve heard of them.”
“Then you know about Acacia.”
“I know what happened to the original team. It was sent to find the Gaddafi fortune, ostensibly as a last attempt to bring him down. Without his fortune—”
“Three-thirteen couldn’t care less about Gaddafi. In fact, it has investments with him all around Africa—hotels, casinos, seaside resorts. No, it’s greed, pure and simple. When it comes to politics, Three-thirteen is totally agnostic.”
He let her go, an expression of disgust on his face. “I know that look. You don’t believe a word I’m saying, and why should you? Why should you believe that your beloved
dyadya
, who brought you up, would lie to you? After all, he came and saved you from Father, didn’t he?”
“He was an angel, my savior.”
He shook his head. “An angel with devil’s wings. He didn’t have the political strength to oppose Father openly, so he skulked around like a thief in the night.” He puffed out his cheeks. “So. What did he actually do? He introduced a beautiful, highly desirable woman to Father, knowing full well the monster Father was. He sacrificed my mother in order to get you back, like a package of gold or diamonds stolen from him. He didn’t want you, he wanted to win.
“And he did. Father couldn’t have you around, couldn’t afford to have Mother asking questions about you. Poor little orphan sister. No one wanted you.”
“You can’t manipulate human emotions like that. Love is chemical, not the result of intrigue.”
“No? Isn’t that what your kindly grandfather did with you and Jack McClure?”
“That’s different.”
“In what way?” He spread his hands. “Please tell me, I’d like to know.”
“As I said, it’s chemical. Sometimes you have no control whatsoever.” Annika laughed uneasily. “In any event, I’ve heard your lies about your mother.”
“From who? Your beloved Dyadya
,
doubtless.”
“Marion loved Oriel, despite his cruelty and willfulness.” She turned away from him. “I’ve had my fill. You disgust me.”
“Annika, my dear sister, you haven’t heard the whole story.”
“More lies?” She whipped around to face him. “Go peddle them elsewhere. I’m not in the least bit interested.”
“You’re not interested in the fact that your grandfather recruited a foreigner named Marion Oldham, that he trained her, knowing as only he could all the intimate details that fired Father’s erotic imagination?”
Annika was at once shaking and scarcely breathing.
“And when he was finished training her, he sent her out, just as he did you, to accomplish her mission and, in the process, be utterly destroyed.”
* * *
W
HEN
H
ENRY
Holt Carson entered his hunting lodge in Virginia, he knew he wasn’t alone. Stepping to a side table in the foyer, he reached under it and drew out a 9mm Glock. Double-checking that it was loaded, he went carefully from room to room until he came upon the two men sitting in his library.
He dropped his gun hand to his side and walked in. “You look like you’ve been through the mill,” he said to Waxman.
“Sit down, Hank,” Waxman said darkly. “We need to talk.”
“Really?” Carson seemed skeptical as he went over to a sideboard and poured himself a stiff single-batch bourbon and water. “Did you use your trainee to break in here?”
“It wasn’t so difficult as all that.” Waxman ignored the look Reggie shot him.
Carson returned to where the two were sitting without offering either of them a drink. “I don’t like uninvited guests. Explain yourself.”
A brief flush reddened Waxman’s face, fading as slowly as a summer sunset. “I can no longer tolerate your intransigence.”
Carson paused his hand in midair. “Meaning?”
“It is imperative that we deploy Acacia now.”
Now Carson put the glass to his lips and took a sip, savoring the slightly sweet liquor. “A setback, Werner. You’ve suffered a setback.”
“We’re all in this together,” Reggie growled.
Carson rounded on him. “Shut your mouth. Monkeys are seen, not heard.”
Herr’s black eyes smoldered and his fingers gripped the arms of his seat.
“If you score the leather, you’ll pay for a new chair,” Carson pointed out.
“This isn’t about either Reggie or your precious chair,” Waxman said.
Carson ignored him. He continued to stare at Herr.
Waxman sighed. “Reggie, please.”
Herr rose. When he was on the other side of the room, Carson turned to Waxman. “Okay, Waxman, how did you fuck up this time?”
There was a small, deadly silence. Then Waxman stirred. “There’s a problem with McClure.”
Carson grunted. “There’s always a problem with McClure.” Finishing his drink, he turned and, at the sideboard, took his time pouring himself another. “And now you need me to haul your ass out of the crapper.”