Labyrinth (29 page)

Dogan held the P-9 steady, calculating how many bullets he had left. He stayed there for several long seconds, the exact number he didn't know or care. The children were still screaming. The boy Juan was moaning softly on the floor, a neat red splotch widening on the rag he wore for a shirt, mixing with the dirt. Dogan started to move for him.

The woman crashed through the hole in the wall and fired before her aim was clear. The bullet whistled by Dogan's hair. She was tumbling, spinning on the floor, a blur before his eyes. Dogan might have been able to take her out easily if he hadn't chosen instead to move sideways to shield the boy's body with his own. He got off one shot, a hit but a poor one, and before he could get off another the woman had grabbed the oldest girl and shrank down behind her, using her thin body as a shield.

Dogan raised his gun. The woman raised hers. A stalemate. He could see where she was wounded. Left shoulder, just a nick but she was losing lots of blood.

She backed up toward the hole in the wall, yanking the girl with her.

“You won't get away,” she growled.

“You're the last one who can stop me,” Dogan said, still trying to figure out who had sent her and the others. Was it the Committee or SAS-Ultra? “Tell me who sent you and I'll let you live.”

The woman's response was to squeeze her pistol against her hostage's head. “You're in no position to issue ultimatums.”

“The Committee or Masvidal?”

The woman just looked at him, breathing heavily.

“It was the Committee, wasn't it? SAS-Ultra couldn't possibly have known I was here and they wouldn't have reason to—” And then Dogan realized. “Wait a minute, you didn't come here to kill me, you came to kill the children!
You fucking bastards!
”

“More children than these will die,” the woman said with strange calm, blood and sweat staining her face. “All the world's children if that's what it takes.”

“The Committee wouldn't have much of a world to own then.”

Her eyes flickered. “The Committee is changing and there is nothing you can do to stop it. It's too late. You can't fool me with your words. I know they sent you.”

Pistol hand trembling, the woman kept inching toward the window, lowering herself even further behind the girl, free hand draped over the child's neck, obviously confident that if the man was going to chance a shot, he would have done so already.

“It's as good as over,” she taunted.

“Absolutely,” Dogan muttered, and fired the P-9 from his hip.

The bullet ripped into the woman's neck and tore most of it away, pitching her backward through the remnants of the wall. The child she'd been holding cowered screaming on the floor.

Dogan moved back for the boy but his eyes strayed to Marna's corpse first and he felt the tears welling in his eyes.

He was Grendel, named for the monster who ate human flesh.

And he was crying, the rest of the world be damned… .

The boy was whimpering now and Dogan hurried over, lifted him gently from the floor into his arms. There was a lot of blood but he judged that the wound had missed all vital organs. The boy might live.

“It hurts! Don't leave me! Don't leave me!”

“I'm here,” Dogan soothed, cradling the boy close and wishing he could have been there for Marna as well. “I'm here.”

But only for now, he thought to himself. The words of the woman he had just killed fluttered through his consciousness. What did they mean? He was in no condition to figure it out now but there would be plenty of time later. Yes, plenty. Much traveling lay ahead of him. There were scores to be settled, a vent to be found for the anger and rage that swelled within him. Violence would be met with violence.

Death with death.

Part Seven:
Rome and London, Wednesday Morning

Chapter 23

LOCKE BARELY SLEPT
all night. The doctor set the cracked bones as best he could and used layers of adhesive tape and a pair of Ace bandages to hold his work in place. Without proper hospital treatment, which Chris refused, the doctor said he could not guarantee the fingers would ever work properly again. Locke shrugged him off. He did accept painkillers, but they made little dent in the constant ache that gave way to a blast of pain whenever he moved the hand wrong or put any pressure on it.

He stared at the ceiling in the dark room, flirting with sleep but never quite passing over.

After his fateful call to Burgess's contact exchange, Chris had dialed his home number in Silver Spring. Precautions were clearly useless now. The opposition had Greg. Burgess's protective arm had not been long enough. Chris felt the knots of anxiety tighten in his stomach more with each of the three rings it took before the phone was answered.

“Hello,” said a male voice he didn't recognize.

He pressed the receiver closer to his ear.

“Hello?” the voice repeated.

Locke hung up the phone struggling for breath. A stranger had answered his family's phone, a stranger with an American accent. If it wasn't one of Burgess's men, then who was it? In that moment Chris wanted so much for this mess to be over so he could go back home again. But home would never be the same, not ever again. And now he had to consider the possibility that home didn't even exist anymore. The Committee could have his entire family by now. Greg's finger might have marked only the beginning of their madness. Whom could he turn to?

Uncle Colin has gone fishing
.

They had gotten to Burgess. The big Brit had proved no match for the power of the Committee. But the girl was still alive, which meant her house in Falmouth might still serve as a refuge for him. As of now, Locke had no other destination available. Once in Falmouth he would begin to make new arrangements. The American Embassy offered an alternative, and what other did he have? He'd make sure more than one man was present in the room when he told his story. Someone would listen, someone would act. The Committee couldn't possibly have gotten to everyone at the embassy, Chris thought, trying to convince himself.

His only other option was to stay in Rome and wait for Dogan. But that was out of the question with the dark man still lurking about. He had to leave the country as soon as possible and make contact with Dogan later, as Forenzo had suggested.

The hotel manager had obtained a return ticket on a charter to London and arranged for a car to take him to the airport in time for its departure the next morning. Forenzo had also given him an American passport with a picture that didn't even resemble his face. It was just something to hand cursorily over to Customs officials in Rome. London would be another matter.

Locke reached the airport with his single bag in tow. The condition of his left hand had made taking a shower a difficult task and shaving not much easier. Accordingly, Chris felt grimy, and the tension that might have unwound in his neck and shoulders beneath the hot needle spray had stiffened into steel bands under his flesh.

He moved rapidly through the international terminal toward the charter's departure gate, as planned with little time to spare. That meant little time to be spotted. But still he was alone, a single man with a bandaged hand easy to pick out of a crowd. En route to the gate he fell in stride with a number of other passengers who apparently were heading for the same flight. Locke tried to mix with them, doing his best to appear part of their conversations without drawing too much attention.

A girl in jeans up ahead was carting too many bags, and one slipped from her hand. Its contents spilled all over the floor, souvenirs by the look of it.

“Damn.” She moaned, dropping the rest of her bags in frustration.

She had started to gather up her spilled belongings when Locke drew up even with her.

“Need some help?” he offered, trying to make a much-needed friend for the moments ahead.

“Sure.” The girl glanced up. She looked to be in her mid-twenties with sandy hair that danced about her shoulders. She had radiant blue eyes and was stunningly attractive. Chris felt himself taken aback.

He did the best he could at retrieving her souvenirs of Italy with his one good hand.

“Hey, what did you do to yourself?”

“Fell down some stairs,” Locke explained, trying to look embarrassed.

“We got insurance for that kind of stuff. It says so in the brochure.” She started to reach inside her handbag. “I've got one here somewhere.”

“Don't bother, please. It's already been taken care of. Right now the only thing I want to do is get home to my own doctor.”

He dropped the last of the souvenirs back into the bag.

“Home sounds like it's America for you too,” the girl told him.

“Yes.”

“I'm sorry I ever left,” she said somberly. And Chris realized he had fallen in quite naturally with her step as she moved for the gate. “Europe sucks. Boring as hell, if you ask me.” They had almost reached the perfunctory Customs station. “Hey, what's your name?”

“Chris.”

The girl stuck out her right hand and the bag of souvenirs almost went tumbling again. “Chris, I'm Nikki. Got anyone to sit next to on the flight?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” Locke said, blessing his luck as he took her hand warmly.

“Glad to hear it.” Nikki squeezed her features into a tight mask. “I didn't mean that. What I mean is that since you're not with anyone, we can sit together.”

“I'd like that,” Chris said.

They passed through the Customs station where a woman was casually checking passports. Locke reached into his pocket for the one Forenzo had obtained for him, along with his ticket.

“Where did I put the damn thing?” Nikki was asking herself, letting all her bags slide to the ground. She gave up on the handbag and tried a pocket in the jeans jacket that was faded the same color as her pants. “Here's the damn thing. God, can you imagine leaving it in the hotel or something?” she asked Locke.

“I've done that,” he told her, handing both passports to the Customs woman, “a couple of times.”

Boarding came ten minutes later right on schedule, and Chris carried one of Nikki's bags onto the plane as well as his own. Her presence was a godsend to him. A couple, or what seemed to be a couple, traveling together aroused almost no attention whatsoever. If the Committee had people looking for him, their task would be more difficult now.

Once they had taken their seats, Chris's attitude toward her changed. She had served her purpose and he wished now only to be left alone for the duration of the flight. He made himself smile through her constant chatter, occasionally responding just to assure her he was paying attention. It went on like that for some time before his words became terse and impatient. Finally he snapped at her after the drinks were served, and hurt, she became silent and lost herself between the standard set of earphones deposited on each seat.

Chris dozed briefly, awakening suddenly to a horrible thought. What if Nikki had been sent by the enemy? What if the plan was to have her kill him in midflight? Certainly for people capable of using a wine cork as a murder weapon, the means would come easy. He watched her stealthily through partially opened eyes, resolved to keep his vigil for the entire flight. And a weapon, he needed a weapon on the chance that—

No! No!

Locke shuddered inwardly. What was he becoming? Had he changed so much in order to stay alive? No, people couldn't change that fast … unless they had it in them to begin with. Burgess had said he was right for the job because it was in his blood, part of the legacy his mother had left him. Maybe the big Brit was right.

And what of his son? Chris wondered what he could do to save Greg, if the boy was still alive. Just considering the problem, though, formed a knot in his stomach. He didn't even know where to start. Even his mother's legacy did not include sufficient resourcefulness for that.

Locke shrank down in his seat. The effect of the painkiller was wearing off and he didn't want to be dull-witted when he reached London. Greg was beyond his reach, just as so much in his life had been. Barring a miracle, he would have to carry his son's death on his conscience for the rest of his life. Chris wondered about Brian Charney's conscience. How many similar burdens had
he
carried? Not that they prevented him from taking on a few more.

Locke thought of Lubeck dying alone in a godforsaken South American town and of Charney spilling his blood on a thick carpet inside the Dorchester Hotel. They died as they had lived, Chris realized: empty, alone, a vacuum where their morality had once been. They too had been running, afraid to look back, just as he was. So he wasn't alone there, wasn't the only man to suffer through such a crisis. Maybe all men did. Some were just better at the running—and the dodging—than others. You could fool the others but you couldn't fool yourself. The Luber had resisted being retired, because then the running would have to stop and all that lay behind—the truths—would catch up. So he had run to San Sebastian and died there and maybe it was better that way. And Locke had run to London, Liechtenstein, Italy, and now back to London again.

But dying wouldn't be better.

Because he had something Lubeck never had and Charney had lost: a family. His marriage was no better or worse than anyone else's; it just was and he had been a prima donna to believe otherwise. And what kids these days didn't want to break from their parents at younger and younger ages?

Locke felt chilled suddenly as his thoughts came back to Greg. Was running to the American Embassy the best way to arrange for a rescue? Or would the Committee keep Greg alive only as long as Chris kept his mouth shut? If he was still alive. There were no answers, only decisions to be weighed and a chance taken either way. No black or white, just gray. Men like Dogan were used to the gray. For Locke it was a new shade.