"No, I don"t. I will be the same, just the same inside. You must trust me, Anne."
Now here she was-here they both were-on the other side. This was the moment of truth, when she would discover what changes had been wrought in him by those eleven months. She did trust him, she did. Yet the fear she"d been living with now unleashed itself, slithered in her lower belly. She was about to enter the great unknown. There was no precedent, and she was genuinely frightened that she would find him so altered, he would no longer be her Lover.
With a low growl of self-disgust, she turned the bra.s.s k.n.o.b of the door and pushed it open. He"d left it unlatched for her. Walking into the entryway, she felt like a Hindu, as if her path had been set for her long ago and she lived in the grip of a destiny that outstripped her, that outstripped even him. How far she was from the privileged upbringing her parents had foisted upon her. She had her Lover to thank for that. She had come partway, it was true, but her rebelliousness had been reckless. He had tamed that, turned it into a focused beam of light. She had nothing to fear.
She was about to call out when she heard his voice, the ululating song she had come to know so well floating to her as if on a personal current of air. She found him in the master bedroom on one of Lindros"s carpets because of course he could not carry one of his own.
He was on his knees, feet bare, head covered with a white skullcap, his torso bent over so that his forehead pressed against the low nap of the carpet. He was facing toward Mecca, praying.
She stood very still, as if any movement would disturb him, and let the Arabic flow over her like a gentle rain. She was fluent in the language-in a number of the many dialects, a fact that had intrigued him when they"d first met.
At length, the prayer came to an end. He rose and, seeing her, smiled with Martin Lindros"s face.
"I know what you want to see first," he said softly in Arabic, pulling his shirt over his head.
"Yes, show me all of it," she answered in the same language.
There was the body she knew so well. Her eyes took in his abdomen, his chest. Traveling up, they met his eyes-his altered right eye with its new retina. Martin Lindros"s face, complete with Lindros"s right retina. It was she who had provided the photos and retinal scans that had made the transformation possible. Now she studied the face in a way she hadn"t been able to at work on those two occasions when he"d pa.s.sed by her on his way in and out of the Old Man"s office. Then they had acknowledged each other with a brief nod, exchanging h.e.l.los, as she would have done with the real Martin Lindros.
She marveled. The face was perfect-Dr. Andursky had done a magnificent job. The transformation was everything he"d promised, and then some.
He put his hands up to his face, laughing softly as he touched the bruises, abrasions, and cuts. He was very pleased with himself. "You see, the "rough treatment" I received from my "captors" was calculated to conceal what little remains of the scars Andursky"s scalpel made."
"Jamil," she whispered.
His name was Karim al-Jamil ibn Hamid ibn Ashraf al-Wahhib. Karim al-Jamil meant "Karim the beautiful." He allowed Anne to call him Jamil because it gave her so much pleasure. No one else would even think of such a thing, let alone dare to say it.
Without ever taking her eyes off his face, she shrugged off her coat and jacket, unb.u.t.toned her shirt, unzipped her skirt. In the same slow, deliberate manner, she unhooked her bra, rolled down her underpants. She stood in high heels, shimmering stockings, lacy garter belt, her heart thrilling to see his eyes drinking her in.
She stepped out of the soft puddle her clothes made and walked toward him.
"I"ve missed you," he said.
She came into his arms, fit her bare flesh against him, moaned low in her throat as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s flattened against his chest. She ran the palms of her hands along the largest of his muscles, her fingertips tracing the small hillocks and hollows she had memorized the first night they"d spent together in London. She was a long time at it. He didn"t rush her, knowing she was like a blind person a.s.suring herself that she had entered familiar territory.
"Tell me what happened. What did it feel like?"
Karim al-Jamil closed his eyes. "For six weeks it was terribly painful. Dr. Andursky"s biggest fear was infection while the grafted skin and muscles healed. No one could see me, except him and his team. They wore rubber gloves, a mask over their mouths and noses. They fed me one antibiotic after another.
"After the retinal replacement, I couldn"t open my right eye for many days. A cotton ball was taped over the lowered lid, and then a patch over that. I was immobilized for a day, my movements severely limited for ten days after that. I couldn"t sleep, so they had to sedate me. I lost track of time. No matter what they injected into my veins, the pain wouldn"t stop. It was like a second heart, beating with mine. My face felt like it was on fire. Behind my right eye was an ice pick I couldn"t remove.
"That"s what happened. That"s what it felt like."
She was already climbing him, as if he were a tree. His hands came down to grasp her b.u.t.tocks. He backed her against the wall, pressing her against it, her legs wrapped tightly, resting on his hipbones. Fumbling at his belt, he pushed down his pants. He was so hard it hurt. She cried out as he bit her, cried out again as his pelvis tilted, thrust upward.
In the kitchen, Anne, her bare skin pleasantly raised in goose b.u.mps, poured champagne into a pair of crystal flutes. Then she dropped a strawberry into each, watching the drizzle of fizz as they bobbed. The kitchen was on the western side of the building. Its windows looked out onto a courtyard between buildings.
She handed him one of the flutes. "I can still see your mother in the coloring of your skin."
"Allah be praised. Without her English blood I would never have been able to pa.s.s for Martin Lindros. His great-grandfather came from a town in Cornwall not eighty kilometers from my mother"s family estate."
Anne laughed. "Now, that"s irony." It felt as if, so long deprived of the feel of his flesh, her hands could caress him for all eternity. Putting her flute on the granite counter, she grabbed him, pushed him playfully backward until he was against the window. "I can"t believe we"re both here together. I can"t believe you"re safe."
Karim al-Jamil kissed her forehead. "You had doubts about my plan."
"You know I did. Doubts and fears. It seemed to be so... reckless, so difficult to pull off."
"It"s all a matter or perception. You must think of it as a clock. A clock performs a simple function, measuring off the seconds and minutes. And when the hour strikes, it lets forth a chime. Simple, yet reliable. That"s because inside are a set of carefully conceived parts, honed and polished, so that when they are set in motion, they mesh perfectly."
It was at this moment that he saw her gaze shift beyond him. A terrible light came into her eyes.
He turned, stared out the window at the parking lot between the buildings. Two late-model American cars were side by side, headed in opposite directions. The north-facing car was idling. Both drivers" windows were rolled down. It was clear two men were talking.
"What is it?"
"The two cars," she whispered. "That"s a cop formation."
"Or any two drivers who want to chat."
"No, there"s something-"
Anne bit off her words. One of the men was leaning out of the window enough for her to recognize him.
"That"s Matthew Lerner. Dammit!" She shivered. "I haven"t had a chance to tell you, but he broke into my house, went through it, and left a noose in my closet strangling a pair of my underpants."
Karim al-Jamil choked off a bitter laugh. "He"s got a sense of humor, I"ll give him that. Does he suspect?"
"No. He would have gone to the DCI if he had even an inkling. What he wants is me out of the way. I strongly suspect it"s so he can take an uncontested shot at the Old Man"s job."
Down in the parking lot, whatever had needed to be said between the two men was finished. Lerner, in the north-facing car, drove away, leaving the other man sitting behind the wheel of his vehicle. He made no move to turn on his engine. Instead, he lit a cigarette.
Karim al-Jamil said, "In either case, he"s having you followed. Our security has been compromised." He turned away from the window. "Get dressed. We have work to do."
The moment the sailboat pulled into the yacht club, police jumped aboard and, as was typical of them, began to swarm. The captain and mates, including Abbud ibn Aziz, looking suitably cowed, produced their ident.i.ty doc.u.ments for the officious lieutenant. Then he turned to Fadi.
Without a word, without looking in the least bit intimidated, Fadi handed over the doc.u.ments Abbud ibn Aziz had given him. They identified him as Major General Viktor Leonidovich Romanchenko, counterintelligence SBU. His orders, attached, were signed by Colonel General Igor P. Smeshko, chief of SBU.
It amused Fadi to see this smug police lieutenant come so smartly to attention, all the blood draining from his face. It was an instant transformation: The overlord had become the servant.
"I"m here to track down a murderer, a high-priority fugitive from justice," Fadi said, repossessing his cunningly forged papers. "The four men on the sideline were murdered by him, so you see for yourself how dangerous, how highly skilled he is."
"I am Lieutenant Kove. We are at your full command, Major General."
Fadi led the lieutenant and his men off the sailboat at a fast trot. "A word of caution," he said over his shoulder. "I will personally execute anyone who kills the fugitive. Inform all your men. This criminal is mine."
Detective Bill Overton sat in his car, smoking. He was relaxed, happier than he"d been in a year. This off-the-books job he"d taken on for Lerner had been a G.o.dsend. When it was over, Lerner had guaranteed him he"d have that position in Homeland Security he so desperately wanted. Overton knew Lerner wasn"t yanking his chain. This was a man of devious power. He said what he meant and he meant what he said. All that the detective had to do was whatever Lerner ordered without asking the whys and wherefores. Easy for him; he didn"t give a rat"s a.s.s what Lerner was up to. He cared only that the man was his ticket to HS.
Overton chewed on his cigarette. HS meant everything to him. What else did he have? A wife he was indifferent to, a mother with Alzheimer"s, an ex-wife he hated, and a couple of kids poisoned by her into disrespecting him. If he didn"t have his work, he had nothing of value.
Which, he supposed, was the way it worked best in law enforcement.
He might be smoking and musing, but he hadn"t forgotten his training. He had been checking the environment every fifteen seconds like clockwork. He was positioned so that he had a clear view of the building"s hallway through the reinforced gla.s.s-and-wood rear door, all the way to the front entrance. It was a beautiful setup, which he"d exploited to the max.
Now he saw Anne Held coming out of the elevator. She turned, heading down the hall toward the rear door. She was hurrying, a frown of concern on her face. He watched as she swept out of the rear door. She looked as if she"d been crying. As she neared, he noticed that her face was red and puffy looking. What had happened to her?
Not that it mattered to him. His mandate was to follow her wherever she went, at some point give her a scare-sideswiping her car, a quick mugging on an otherwise deserted street. Something she wouldn"t soon forget, Lerner had told him. Cold b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Overton thought. He admired that.
As Anne strode past, he got out of his car, ditched his cigarette, and with hands jammed into the pockets of his overcoat followed her at a safe distance. Between the buildings, there was no one about. Just the woman and him. He couldn"t possibly lose her.
Up ahead, his target had reached the end of the area between the buildings. She turned the corner onto Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue NW, and Overton lengthened his stride so as not to lose her.
Just then something knocked him sideways so hard he was taken off his feet. His head slammed into the brick wall of the neighboring building. He saw stars. Even so, instinct made him reach for his service revolver. But his right wrist was struck with such a blow that the hand was rendered useless. Blood covered one side of his face. One ear was half torn off. He turned, saw a male figure looming over him. On hands and knees, he tried to reach his revolver. But a powerful kick to his ribs turned him over like a tortoise in the dust.
"What... what... ?"
It was all a blur. An instant later his a.s.sailant was pointing a gun, affixed with an air-baffled silencer.
"No." He blinked up into the pitiless face of his killer. He was ashamed to discover he wasn"t above begging. "No, please."
A sound filled his ears, as if his head had been submerged in water. To anyone else it was as soft as a discreet cough; to him it was loud enough to make him believe that the world had been torn apart. Then the bullet entered his brain and there was nothing but a terrible, all-encompa.s.sing silence.
"The problem now," Soraya said as she and Bourne fit the grille back into place, "is how to get you to a doctor."
On the beach, they could hear the shouts of the policemen. There were more of them now. Possibly the police launches had tied up at the yacht club so their personnel could join in the hunt. Powerful searchlights crisscrossed the area visible to them through the grille. In that rather poor illumination, Soraya took her first close look at the wound.
"It"s deep, but seems clean enough," she told him. "Clearly, it hasn"t punctured an organ. Otherwise you"d be flat on your back." The question that plagued her, that she couldn"t answer, was how much blood he had lost, therefore how much his stamina might be affected. On the other hand, she"d seen him go full-out for thirty-six hours with a bullet lodged in his shoulder.
"It was Fadi," he said.
"What? He"s here?"
"Fadi was the one who stabbed me. The boxer-"
"Oleksandr." At the sound of his name, the dog"s ears p.r.i.c.ked up.
"Fadi was the one you sicced him on."
They were alone, isolated in a hostile environment, Soraya thought. Not only was the beach crawling with Ukrainian police, but now Fadi was stalking them as well. "What is Fadi doing here?"
"He said something about revenge. For what, I don"t know. He didn"t believe me when I told him I couldn"t remember."
Bourne was white-faced and sweating. But she had witnessed the depth of his inner strength, his determination not only to survive but to succeed at all costs. She gathered strength from him, leading him away from the grille. With only the fast-diminishing cone of pale moonlight to guide them, they hurried, stumbling down the tunnel.
The air was gritty. It smelled as lifeless as a snake"s shed skin. All around them were little creaks and moans, as if spirits in distress were trying to make themselves heard. Packed earth filled in spots where the sandstone had been partially quarried or had split beneath the crushing weight from above. Ma.s.sive six-by-six rough-hewn beams, bound with iron, black with mold, here and there sporting a dark reddish crust, rose at intervals, bolted to joists and headers. The pa.s.sageways smelled of rot and decomposition, as if the earth through which they wound were in the process of slowly dying.
Soraya"s stomach clenched painfully. What had the police found? What had she forgotten? Dear G.o.d, let it be nothing. Odessa was the site of her worst mistake, a nightmare that had haunted her day and night. Now fate had put her and Bourne here together again. She was bound and determined to make up for what had gone before.
Oleksandr roamed ahead of them, muzzle to the ground, as if following his nose. Bourne followed without complaint. His entire torso felt as if it had burst into flame. He had to reach back for his training, maintain slow deep breaths even when it seemed most painful. He had a.s.sumed Soraya had found an outlet of the city"s sewer, but there was neither the stench nor the seepage a.s.sociated with such a system. Besides, they were moving steeply downward. Then he remembered that much of Odessa had been built with blocks of the underlying sandstone, resulting in an immense network of catacombs. During World War II, partisans used the catacombs as a base when launching guerrilla raids against the invading German and Romanian armies.
Soraya had come prepared: She now switched on a strong battery-powered xenon light strapped to her wrist. Bourne was not rea.s.sured at what he saw. The catacombs were very old. Worse, they were in disrepair, in desperate need of shoring up. Here and there, the two of them were obliged to climb over a fall of rock and debris, which slowed their progress considerably.
From behind them they heard a grinding sound of metal against metal, as if an enormous rusted wheel was being forced into use. They stopped in their tracks, half turned.
"They"ve found the grate," Soraya whispered. "There was no way to replace the screws that fastened it in place. The police are in the tunnel."
"He"s a cop." Karim al-Jamil was holding Overton"s open wallet in his hand. "A detective, no less, in the Metro Police."
Anne had driven Overton"s car to where he lay slumped against the wall of the building. The pallid brick was discolored with his blood.
"Clearly he was on Lerner"s payroll," she said. "He might"ve been the one who broke into my house." She regarded his crude, horsey face. "I"ll bet he got off on it."
"The question we need to answer," Karim al-Jamil said as he rose, "is how many more individuals does Matthew Lerner have on his payroll?"
He gestured with his head, and Anne popped the trunk. Stooping down, Karim al-Jamil picked Overton up, grunting. "Too many doughnuts and Big Macs."
"Like all Americans," Anne said, watching him dump the body into the trunk, slam down the lid. She slid out from behind the wheel, went over to the garden hose on its reel bolted to the brick. Turning on the spigot, she played the stream of water over the wall, sluicing it free of Overton"s blood. She had felt no remorse at his death. On the contrary, the spilling of his blood made her feel inside her chest the beating of a second heart, filled with hatred for Western society: the waste, the selfishness of the moneyed, the privileged, the American celebristocracy so self-involved in reproducing themselves they were deaf, dumb, and blind to the world"s poorest. This feeling, she supposed, had always been with her. Her mother had, after all, been first a model, then an editor for Town & Country. Her father had been born into money and aristocracy. No surprise that Anne had been embedded in a life filled with chauffeurs, butlers, personal a.s.sistants, private jets, skiing in Chamonix, clubbing in Ibiza, all within the boundaries set by her parents" bodyguards. Someone to do everything for you that you ought to be doing for yourself. It was all so artificial, so out of touch with reality. Life as a prison she couldn"t wait to flee. Her pointed rebelliousness had been her way of expressing that hatred. But it had taken Jamil to make her brain understand what her emotions had been telling her. The clothes she wore here-expensive designer fashions-were part of her cover. Inside them, her skin itched as if she were covered in fire ants. At night, she threw them off as quickly as she could, never looked at them again until she donned them in the morning.
With these thoughts boiling in her head, she got back into the car. Karim al-Jamil slid in beside her. Without hesitation, she pulled out onto Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue.
"Where to?" she asked.
"You ought to go back to CI," Karim al-Jamil said.
"So should you," she pointed out. Then she looked him in the eye. "Jamil, when you recruited me I was no starry-eyed idealist, wanting to wage war on inequality and injustice. That"s what you thought of me at first, I know. I doubt you realized then that I had a brain that could think for itself. Now I hope you know better."
"You have doubts."
"Jamil, orthodox Islam works against women. Men like you are brought up believing that woman should cover their heads, their faces. That they shouldn"t be educated, shouldn"t think for themselves, and Allah help them if they begin to think of themselves as independent."
"I wasn"t brought up that way."
"Thank your mother, Jamil. I mean it. It was she who saved you from believing that it was all right to stone a woman to death for imagined sins."
"The sin of adultery is not imagined."
"It is for men."
He was silent, and she laughed softly. But it was a sad laugh, tinged with disappointments and disillusionment dredged up from the core of her. "There is more than a continent that separates us, Jamil. Is it any wonder I"m terrified when the two of us are apart?"
Karim al-Jamil eyed her judiciously. For some reason he found it impossible to be angry with her. "This is not the first time we"ve had this discussion."
"And it won"t be the last."
"Yet you say you love me."
"I do love you."
"Despite what you see as my sins."