They made their way through the field, apprehension replacing excitement. Before they stepped onto the road, Rennie looked back one last time at the woods, looming dark and gothic, like a great beast.
Martin Garrison was tired. Exhausted to his very core and had been for a long time. Before this business with Jonathan came up, he"d been thinking of stepping back and settling into the inevitable desk job. He knew he would never leave the CIA, move on to politics or any of the other natural transitions. No, the Agency was so tightly knit into the fibers of his consciousness, he knew he would be lost without it. Even the idea of retirement caused him to feel himself instantly diminished, shrinking before the thought of day after day of nothing.
And now. His final "mission." Terrorizing a colleague. His 0.
heart wasn"t in it and he knew he was unwilling to do what was necessary to extract the information he needed from her. If she even knew anything. And he was running out of time.
Garrison reached over and snapped on the light. The woman had begun to shake again. The two of them had been sitting in darkness for over an hour. He wasn"t going to get anything from her unless he stepped up the pressure. And that meant hurting her or making her believe that he would.
He couldn"t do it. Not even for his son. But he would scare her. "Stand up."
She stood slowly, bracing herself against the wall, weak from the stress of the moment. Still holding the gun against her, he ran his free hand over the length of her body, hidden under the soft folds of her dress. He pulled a cell phone off her waist and lay it on the bed next to the newspaper he had slipped from the back of his pants. He hadn"t looked at it yet except for the cursory glance at the headlines above the fold when he bought it in the bookshop.
But now, the Guardian lay so that the paper was exposed below the fold and his eye lit upon the headline, Iranian Terrorist Ahmad Armin a.s.sa.s.sinated. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Kneel. Hands against the wall."
Garrison kept the silencer trained on the woman and picked up the paper and laid it on his knees. He quickly scanned the article. Armin had been shot and killed during some sort of celebration, by an Iranian countryman who had subsequently been captured and had confessed.
Unlikely.
Garrison figured an American special forces unit was responsible for the shooting and had picked up Armin"s messengers and the doc.u.ment containing Garrison"s location and the information on his son"s whereabouts.
Christ.
That meant that more agents were on the way, knowing this was their best chance to capture him. He had to move.
Garrison lay the paper back on the bed and scrolled through 0.
the menus of the woman"s cell phone until he found her incoming calls. The phone was set to silent and had rung three minutes earlier. A London exchange. No message.
London. Jonathan.
It seemed a likely place for him to be and if they had the doc.u.ment from Armin"s couriers, they knew where Jonathan was.
But had they captured him yet?
"Stay. Hands against the wall. Don"t move a centimeter."
Garrison stood and brought the wooden armchair from the other side of the bed and positioned it in the corner. He slipped his knife from the sheath strapped to his calf under his pants.
He threw back the stained bedcover, pulled the sheet from the mattress and cut it into strips.
"Stand. Slowly. And sit in the chair."
He bound the woman"s arms and legs tightly to the chair, stuffing a strip of the sheet into her mouth and securing it with another strip around her head. She looked into his eyes, trying to maintain her composure. She was attractive. Blond. Her age laying lightly across her features. He wondered if she was regretting her career choice.
Garrison turned and showed her the knife, holding it delicately between his thumb and middle finger as if he were offering it up for auction. He detected the motion of the agent"s windpipe as she swallowed hard. Garrison had chosen the knife for its effect. It was a narrow, tapered, double-edged boot knife that came to a very wicked point. The contoured handle was made from Grenadille, a beautiful African blackwood. He always enjoyed the reaction it produced. He smiled and shook his head.
He had the ability to find amus.e.m.e.nt in almost any situationit sickened him.
Garrison moved aside the large scarf that was draped around the woman"s shoulders. Underneath she wore the traditional sleeveless shirt, cut a little lower than usual. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell beneath the delicate fabric as her breathing increased. He lifted the knife and drew the tip lightly along the outline of the shirt. She controlled her breathing. Short breaths through the 0.
nose. No chest motion. Then he took the knife up along her breastbone until the sharp point rested under her chin. Her composure failed. Her mouth tensed, her nostrils flared, her brow crumpled. Always interesting, Garrison thought.
"Where is my son?"
Her eyebrows drew together in anger. Garrison knew his tactics weren"t going to work. It would take too much time. But one last try wouldn"t hurt.
Garrison brought the knife down again to the outline of the shirt at the point where her cleavage rose. Again, he ran the point of the knife along the line, then he turned his wrist and the blade broke the skin. The cut wasn"t deep and the blood only beaded in a broken line. Garrison watched her face. Anger looked as if it might cede to rage. This would definitely take too much time.
When Garrison was a young agent he believed women to be unsuited for the life of a spy. Long experience had proven him wrong. He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket and absorbed the blood before it dripped, applying pressure to the slight wound.
"Okay."
He tucked the edge of his handkerchief into her shirt. He closed and fastened his suitcase, the Guardian safe inside, leaving the agent"s gun on the bed, slipping her cell phone into his pocket.
Before he opened the door he laid the knife, wiped clean of his fingerprints, on the floor next to it.
"Best of luck."
He opened the door and stepped into the dim hallway.
Hannah knew the walk along the road would be mercifully brief, though a part of her wished it would never end. She worried what they would find in the village. This was what she got for allowing herself to feel safe. She always fought against fatalism, that particular strain of neurosis carried down from a people who never seemed to catch a break. But Hannah trusted Rennie.
Trusted in a way she never had before. She had to believe they would get through this last snag.
0.
Snag.
She laughed to herself. Another habit she inherited from her parents. Exaggeration and understatement. An inability to express things just as they were. Fortunately, most people thought it was funny. Except when they thought it was cruel. It all depended on the tone. But whenever Hannah heard it emerging from her mouth without forethought, she questioned, What are you running from?
She looked up, pulling herself away from thoughts that seemed to form in the contours of the deeply rutted road. She could see the dark low shapes of buildings just ahead. Rennie had broken down her weapon and stowed it in the pack before they crossed onto the road, though she kept her pistol tucked in the waistband under her shirt. They"d abandoned Hannah"s AK-47 in the field since they couldn"t hide it. Hannah had carried it for so long she missed the pull of the strap on her shoulder, its deadly comfort.
"It won"t be far to the boarding house once we pa.s.s into the village."
"Then what?"
"We"ll have to see." She paused. "I"ll keep you safe, you know?"
"I know," Hannah said. "You, too, I hope."
"Yes."
They pa.s.sed the final few hundred yards quietly. They came to a house sitting alone, like a sentinel, before the village proper began. It was a rough low house made of stone and mud with a half-hearted attempt at style. There was a niche in the house wall, three or four feet deep, an abandoned entrance to the house, an old door, now sealed with mud and straw and rock. Rennie turned to Hannah with a strange look, a mixture of intensity and ambivalence. She took Hannah"s hand and pulled her into the doorway, pressing her into the corner. Hannah felt the stone rough against her back. There were no preliminaries. Rennie leaned in, moving her body along the length of Hannah"s, and kissed her, long and hard. Their tongues met and lingered, just 0.
for a moment, and then Rennie pulled away, looking intently into Hannah"s eyes.
"Soon."
"Yes."
Hannah, finding strength in her weary limbs, drew Rennie in again and their lips met for the second time and for a moment she wasn"t standing in the doorway of a crumbling house in a Third World country, a loaded automatic pressing against her hipboneshe was in a city, after a fine dinner and an even finer bottle of Chilean wine, standing in the darkened doorway of a boutique kissing Rennie, and it was absolute perfectionthen the moment was broken as Rennie pulled away again.
"We have a few more things to do."
Hannah nodded taking Rennie"s hand, strong and sure, as she led her back to the path.
Soon the dirt path became gravel and then something approximating pavement. Houses and shops rose up around them. They walked in silence, keeping close to the structures on the right of the street. There were signs in Russian. They walked several blocks until Rennie stopped at a corner. The entire town seemed to be in slumber.
"This is it, but I want to approach it from another direction."
They doubled back and took the first left down a narrow street where houses fronted directly onto the pavement. They turned again at the next corner and Rennie slowed her pace.
"It"s just ahead. We"ll go directly in if it"s unlocked and find a place for you to hide while I check things out."
Hannah was afraid and it showed. Rennie took her by the shoulders.
"Everything will be fine. But just in case. Take this."
Rennie handed her the satellite phone, having her commit to memory the direct line to her FBI handler. They crossed the street heading for the doorway of the house on the corner. Rennie tried the latch and the door opened silently. The boarding house was stifling. A few feet ahead of Hannah, Rennie turned and put 0.
a finger to her lips, motioning her to stay.
The entryway was narrow and Hannah could see the proprietor asleep in a room no larger than a closet. He was snoring low and unevenly, several days growth of beard covering his cheeks and neck. Rennie crept to the doorway and peeked in, craning to see around the corner. She reached in and silently lifted a key off a board on the wall and then motioned Hannah to follow her. The key to Room 15, the room indicated on the map, wasn"t on its hook.
They moved up the stairs, a few steps emitting a creak that seemed to scream out in the silence. At the first landing, Hannah followed Rennie down the hall until she stopped in front of Room 3. She fitted the key in the lock and they were in. Rennie switched on the light and set her pack on the narrow bed.
"Okay. Garrison"s key wasn"t on the board, so he may still be here."
Rennie checked her automatic and took two extra clips from the pack. Hannah wanted to say something, she wasn"t sure what, but Rennie already had a hand on the doork.n.o.b.
"Lock the door and don"t open it for anyone but me." She laid her hand on Hannah"s cheek. "Hopefully I won"t be long."
At the top of the stairs, Rennie pulled the automatic from her waistband and switched off the safety. She inched down the darkened hallway, thinking she heard voices and wondering if it was her imagination. There was a thin light creeping under the door of Room 15. She pa.s.sed the door and stood on the opposite side. She pressed her ear to the wall, trying to pick up any sound from the room. She could hear movement. He was in there. She moved farther back, into the dark corner, pressing her body against the wall, bracing herself for whatever might come. She knew she was exhausted, but her fatigue was unable to penetrate the ever-thickening sh.e.l.l of her adrenaline. Realizing she was gripping the automatic so tightly her hand was becoming numb, she switched it to her left hand, and was shaking out her right when the light from under the door suddenly evaporated.
0.
She heard the sound of the doork.n.o.b turning slowly. She readied her weapon, her body tense with antic.i.p.ation. Her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness when the door edged open.
Martin Garrison stepped into the hallway, ghostlike, seemingly insubstantial. Form emerged out of shadow and she could see that he was carrying a slim suitcase. His head turned, he glanced toward the corner. She stopped breathing. Not seeing her, his eyes still filled with the light from the room, he turned away. For the moment she had the advantage.
"FBI. Set down the case and put your hands on your head."
Garrison froze, turning only his head toward her as she stepped out of the shadows.
"Do it. Or you"re a dead man."
"FBI? Hmm. That"s interesting."
Garrison began to turn toward her. Rennie wondered how accessible his weapon wa.s.she knew it would be close.
"Stop. Set down the case and put your hands on your head.
Cooperate and you"ll live to see your son," she said, using the only leverage she had.
"Yes, ma"am." His voice was light and beguiling, as if Rennie were only a minor inconvenience, but she heard a thread of tension beneath it.
Then he moved, lightning fast, turning and swinging the suitcase in a wide arc. It seemed to materialize out of the darkness in slow motion. Rennie ducked, feeling a disturbance in the air as it pa.s.sed overhead. Her instinct was to fire her weapon. Double squeeze and then again. She could hear the retort in her mind, see his body crumple and fall. But she didn"t want to shoot this man.
Death had pervaded everything for so long and she didn"t want any more of it. As the suitcase crashed against the wall, Rennie kicked out hard, catching Garrison in the ribs. She felt them give and his body arched wildly backward from the impact. She moved to slam the b.u.t.t of her pistol into the back of his head, but he somehow recovered, doubling over and ducking as she made her swing at him and then coming at her with al his weight.
He crashed into her, lifting her off her feet. And then they 0.
both went down, Rennie slamming hard onto the floor. She felt her breath rush out of her with the impact and all she knew was that she couldn"t breathe. She heard herself wheeze, desperate for air.
Calm, calm, calm. Do not panic, it will be the end of you. This will only last a moment.
Rennie became aware of a sharp pain in her hand. Garrison had her by the wrist and was slamming her hand against the floor to loosen her grip on her gun. Finally her lungs filled as the gun popped from her hand, unable to withstand the a.s.sault any longer. It clattered across the floor. In a moment he would have his weapon or hers in hand and she would be done for. He was heavy on top of her and she felt his beard rough against her cheek. He wouldn"t be able to get to his gun without letting go of her. And then he made his move, pushing off her and reaching under his arm as he still straddled her. Rennie brought her leg up quickly and caught him between his legs. Garrison doubled up in pain as Rennie leapt up and her fist connected with his head at the temple. He flew backward and she followed him, taking him down. Grabbing him by the beard and the hair, she slammed his head against the floor. Again and again until she felt his body slacken under her. Quickly, she rolled him over, pulling the cuffsher only pairfrom her pocket. In a second his left wrist was shackled to his right ankle.
Rennie sat back on her heels, breathing heavily. Garrison lay motionless in his contorted position. She leaned over and laid her hand along his neck. His pulse was strong. She reached into his jacket and removed his gun. She completed a pa.s.s over his body and found no other weapons, only an empty sheath at his calf. Thank G.o.d. It"s done, it"s done. Let this be the end.
"Are you okay?"
Rennie jumped at the sound, raising Garrison"s weapon. She could barely see Hannah standing tentatively at the end of the hall. How long had she been standing there?
"You shouldn"t be here," she said, lowering the pistol.
0.
"I"m sorry." She edged slowly down the hall. "I was worried. I heard banging." She stood as still as an animal caught by a bright and sudden light. "I was worried," she said again.
"Stay there. Don"t move."
"Okay."
"You should have stayed in the room."
Rennie could see her taking in the scene. Rennie looking beaten, a man still and twisted before her. Rennie felt like she had been caught at something sordid. And maybe she had. She was so tired she wanted to just lie down next to Garrison and sleep. She looked again at Hannah, her expression unreadable in the darkened hallway.
Rennie retrieved her automatic from the corner where it had flown and stood with difficulty. Never had she felt more like an old woman, her muscles stiff, drawn tight against the bone with exhaustion. Garrison began to stir, a low groan emitting from his throat.
Rennie eased open the door to his room and switched on the light. A knife lay on the floor just inside the door and a gun was on the stripped bed. A blond woman dressed as a Tajik sat in the corner of the room, gagged and bound to a chair. A bloodied handkerchief was stuffed into the fabric of the dress above her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Margot Day.
"Are you okay?"