Authors: Dorian Paul
"Perhaps we might clean him up first, if you don't mind waiting?"
"No. I want to see him as he is."
He led her to three draped bodies on plywood slabs. Two were side by side in close proximity. The third was separate, as though special. And David was special. The most special man in the world. The man she loved.
"We'll begin with these two."
The attendant pulled the cover from the first corpse, a man she hadn't seen before. The driver? Expecting the next body to be that of Aziz Bouchta, she steeled herself . . . but still gagged at the sight of his fragmented head and staggered backwards. Could this be the ebullient Moroccan whose expressive face she'd last seen on the Sunday videoconference? How could anyone do this to him? And if the third body was even more mutilated – what must David look like?
The attendant asked if she wanted to stop the identification process. She did, but David would expect her to be strong; he admired and respected her strength. There would be time enough to mourn him with tears later . . . the rest of her life. For now she needed to honor the principled man he was . . . loyal patriot, stalwart friend, devoted son, considerate cousin, passionate and tender lover. And so many more things. She gathered her strength, ready to say her final goodbye with the dignity he deserved.
The attendant fingered the edge of the sheet. She couldn't put it off any longer. She took a few deep breaths to center herself.
"I'm ready to see him now."
Chapter 46
"Varat?" James asked. "You're certain?"
"Of course I'm certain." How could he doubt she'd recognize Varat, accomplice of her nightmare companion Omar Messina?
"And his body has been mutilated?"
"Slashed and hacked to death. You can't imagine . . . I . . . I –"
"Calm yourself, my dear."
"James, he's got gashes and cuts everywhere." And worse. A desecration so awful it was impossible to fathom. But she'd seen it with her own eyes, and had to accept David might've inflicted the atrocities. "Do you have any news about David?"
"We're doing our best to locate him."
"You must find him."
"I assure you, discovering the whereabouts of David is among our top priorities."
And it should be. But of course the search for David wasn't the only hunt underway. The seventh canister of Tivaz TB was still missing. Maybe she should be ashamed to imagine her lover as the center of the universe, but she was beyond shame.
***
"Who are you?" the guard demanded.
"I'm David Ruskin, a British agent working with the Governor to protect the King's family. I have papers –"
"Papers can be forged."
"It is urgent I see the Governor."
The guards black eyes registered suspicion and his rifle's muzzle remained trained on David's chest. "Place your bag on the table."
He slid Varat's soft leather sack off his shoulder carefully, certain the guard would shoot him otherwise. He was tattered, bloody and demanding access to the Governor.
The guard spilled the beautiful khanjar atop the table's nicked wooden surface, and asked with growing suspicion, "Where did you get these?"
"From a man I killed. One who wished to harm your country."
The guard inspected the blood-caked knives, taking his time.
"I must warn the Governor," David insisted.
"No one whose name is not on my list may enter the mansion. Today is a special event."
Precisely why he must gain entry. The King's children were inside, along with Aziz Bouchta's daughters. "Tell the Governor Tiger is outside, friend to Aziz Bouchta. Let him decide if I can be trusted."
The guard slipped the safety off his gun, his trigger finger at the ready. "Where is Aziz Bouchta?"
"Dead. I was with him when he was killed."
Impossible to tell from the guard's impassive face whether or not this was news. In any event, he didn't make a move to contact the Governor.
"Look, the King's family is in danger unless the Governor receives my message." The guard, standing sentry at the edge of a heavily fortified compound, did not appear excessively concerned. So David tried another tack. "Fine. If you prevent me from speaking to the Governor and the royal family is harmed, you are the one who will hang for it."
Self-interested fear did get the man's attention, and at last he placed the call. But waiting for a response gave David too much time to replay how things ended with Varat. He'd been at a disadvantage, his enemy's knife boring in toward his throat. But the tables turned the moment he saw Varat's love for the beauty of his grandfather's watered steel blade. A love so great it drew Varat's strength away from his hold on David's knife hand, and allowed him to free his own blade and stab up at his foe's heart.
If he stopped with that mortal blow, it would have been supportable. But Varat's eyes gleamed as if David had given him the supreme charity of sending him on his way.
Charity? After everything . . . after Jeremy, after Claire . . . he could not allow Varat to die hailing him as his deliverer. He brought his blade to Varat's throat and slashed through windpipe and carotids to scrape against the stubborn vertebrae in his neck. Then he took his khanjar, the one with a stone cold mother carved on its grip, and thrust its tip through one ruthless eye. Plunging the curved blade through Varat's sinus, he broke free and stirred the foul gray matter of a brain capable of devising the delivery of such terror to others.
These cruelties he followed by chopping blows into Varat's chest. He'd left a maimed body behind on that field, but defiling Varat hadn't brought the catharsis he'd sought. Instead, he recoiled at what he'd become, a killing machine, not an intelligence officer. When he came to his senses and laid Bouchta to rest, it was the invitation peeking from Bouchta's torn pocket, a clue to the whereabouts of the King's children and possibly the seventh canister, which gave him a chance to redeem his soul.
But might Varat and Messina have set other plots in motion? If he'd managed to save himself and not slaughter Varat, might he have learned more about other potential attacks? Shouldn't he have tried?
***
"Tiger. I was led to believe you died with Aziz."
"I regret I was unable to save him."
"Allah permits me to welcome you to my house," a subdued Governor said as a barefoot servant approached to extend a tray with two glasses of sweet mint tea. "But why do you come to see me soaked in blood?"
"I come because the King's children, and Bouchta's daughters, are here in honor of your son's birthday."
The Governor bowed his head. "Yes. Today was meant to be a day of celebration."
"Has the party been cancelled, then?"
"No. Why should the children suffer as I do? This is their time to be happy. They will know the grief of life soon enough."
"With all due respect, sir, you must be aware Omar Messina remains a threat. And with the King's children present –"
"Mr. Tiger, no one inside this house is unknown to us."
Had the killing of Varat completely destroyed his instincts? His arduous walk to the Governor's mansion may have been folly, and at this moment he wanted more than anything to lean against the courtyard wall. And yet . . . "Tell me about the party," he insisted. "Has your staff prepared the food?"
"Yes, most definitely. Sweets the children don't need."
"And entertainment?"
"Of course." The small curl of the Governor's lips showed a growing impatience. "Games, a clown, balloons . . ."
Damn, this North African sun was hot.
"Mr. Tiger?"
The guards rushed him as he reached for the Governor's outstretched hand. But his real fear was that he might lose consciousness before uttering his thoughts.
"Do not let the children near the clown. Tivaz TB . . . mixed with the helium to blow up the balloons . . ."
***
He heard and felt himself groan. Still alive . . . though Claire wasn't. He attempted to lift his hand to his forehead, but the tug of an IV line held it back and his eyes opened to a roomful of blurry men. "Am I still at the Governor's?"
"Yes," someone said. "Your wounds have been dressed and you've been given blood."
"What about the clown? The children?"
"Conserve your energy."
Was that the Governor speaking?
"I have news from your office."
Yes, the voice belonged to the Governor. "No, please tell me first – was the clown Messina?"
"Mr. Tiger –"
"Was it Messina?" he thundered. North African etiquette be damned. "Was it he?"
"Praise Allah you are not hunting me. Yes. Omar Messina was the clown."
He slumped back and closed his eyes. "The balloons?"
"He had yet to fill them. We have the canister."
"Send it to Cl –" He caught himself before saying her name aloud. "To our lab in London."
"Already I have spoken to James Warner and Bobby Keane."
"Messina. Where is he?"
"In our custody."
"We must find out if anything else is planned today."
"The interrogation is underway."
And with the King's children the target of the plot, there was no doubt Messina would be interrogated to the full extent.
"We shall discover what can be learned from Messina."
"Scientists must debrief him also." If Claire were alive, that's what she'd want. "I insist upon it."
"All in due time."
It was as much as he could expect from a sovereign nation, and as good as he would get. Everything else, James and Bobby could handle. He was down to the one thing he alone must do in Morocco, retrieve the body of his loved one and take her home. "Can you provide me with a car?"
"Of course, but you must permit me to convey the news from your office."
Right, news of his father. When he returned to London he would move forward to assume the responsibilities of the family estate as he had promised. But only after he brought Claire's body home.
"He survived?"
"Amazing."
So the miracle of Western medicine might appear to the Governor, but the odds were in his father's favor. Stents were routine these days and his father relatively young and fit.
"Yes, she has survived."
She? The Governor's English was too accomplished to confuse pronouns. Still he refused to give voice to his hope. "You refer to my father?"
"No. To your colleague Dr. Ashe."
Chapter 47
He must be hallucinating. Still dizzy, he forced himself to focus on the Governor's face. "Claire is alive," he said to reaffirm he'd heard properly.
"Yes, Mr. Tiger. She is alive and well."
Then somehow she'd survived the plant explosion. He had to see her, to tell her he loved her. He started to rise, but the IV line tangled.
The doctor pressed his shoulders down. "It is necessary for you to rest."
"I must go to her."
He tried to leave his bed once more, and this time the Governor held him down as well. "The doctor is correct. You've lost much blood."
"It matters not. I must go to her."
"But I will have a phone brought so you can speak to her."
It wouldn't do. What if she were still angry with him? "Not a phone. I require a car."
"That is unwise."
"Then I shall walk." And not stop until he met her face-to-face and spoke the words he'd kept to himself far too long.
***
"I am in top form," his father reported.
"A relief to hear it, sir." He glanced out the window of the Governor's limo, hoping he'd find Claire in equally good spirits, most especially once she saw him.
"The stent averted a heart attack. Absolutely not necessary for you to rush back on my account."
"I would have thought your solicitor waited bedside with papers for me to sign," he said, only half-joking.
"I assure you, dear boy, I did not stage this event to capture your attention."
But his father had done exactly that. And now he wondered if he were as prepared to shoulder family responsibilities in penance for Jeremy and Claire's believed death as he imagined earlier. And if he asked Claire to join him in that family life and she refused – what then?
"However, an event such as this affords an opportunity for me to contemplate the brevity of life, David. There's much to be gained from sowing wild oats whilst young."
Now he truly had to be hallucinating. "Sir?"
"I am not unacquainted with the impulse to kick up one's heels. I was a bit of a hellion in my own day."
Was his father offering him a way out?
"The crisis here is ended, son. Tend to your duties. Mr. Hitchens can be dealt with as your schedule permits."
"I have every intention of –"
"We shall discuss this in future, when next we see one another."
***
Claire could scarcely believe David was alive and coming to her. She should eat, but hungered only for the sight of him. She made herself useful to the rescue workers, but it didn't bring him any sooner. She called Roscoe and Don again and they told her that bactericidal nanomolecule production was increasing at a rapid pace. Funny how before today nothing seemed more important than whether those nanomolecules – her strategy to defeat Tivaz TB – would work. Now, with the seventh canister found and Omar Messina captured, all that mattered to her was seeing David.
Finally the loudspeaker boomed her name and she rushed to the command center. They directed her to a small area screened off for privacy where she discovered a petite woman, covered in black from head to toe, weeping quietly. Clearly a mistake had been made. All too aware she'd soon embrace her lover while this poor woman grieved for a lost one, she moved away to grant the woman privacy. But the woman looked up and asked, "Dr. Ashe?"
How does she know who I am?
"I'm Mrs. Bouchta."
Aziz's wife. The widow's silent tears quickly gave way to raw sobs when Claire hugged her and she thanked God again that none of the maimed bodies she'd seen earlier belonged to David. "Is there anything I can do for you?"