by Leon, Judith
Her gut felt an unpleasant jolt: a sudden craving for exercise was quite out of character. “Then we will exercise.”
When she came out of the shower he caught her and held her close. His hands moved over her buttocks, dug in tight. His tongue took her mouth possessively. In spite of everything, she felt a warmth spread deep inside her. Then, before he let her go he said, “Never, ever, doubt that I love you.”
Nova loved horses and had ridden since childhood, but the stables were outside the Compound’s west wall. They would be completely isolated. Five horses stood in the paddock, two already saddled. A black gelding with white stockings reminded her of the pony her father had given her and she strolled toward it.
“Not that one, miss,” the lone stable hand called after her in urgent, awkward English. Lean, maybe eighteen, the boy was dressed American Western, in cowboy boots, Levi’s and hat. He rushed to her. “Mittenacht hates women. You ride Mädchen.”
“I’m an experienced rider.”
He shook his head. “You ride Mädchen.”
She looked to Jean Paul, expecting him to support her on her choice of a mount.
“We ought to do as he suggests,” he said. “He works here.”
She doubted either of them rode much better than she, but making a scene was pointless so she strolled to Sweetheart’s left side. The stable boy gave her a hand up.
Jean Paul mounted the misogynist Midnight. While adjusting their stirrups, the boy gave them general directions. “You can’t get lost. Just look at the mountain.”
They rode the horses at a walk across the meadow that stretched northward from the Compound wall to the first stand of sycamore, oak and beech trees. The blue sky lifted the spirit, the pristine-seeming landscape seduced the eye.
She patted Sweetheart, a leggy chestnut. A shallow, rock-strewn stream curled down the meadow’s middle. They crossed, their horses shod hoofs crunching and clinking on the rocks. On the other side Jean Paul said, “We can run here. Want to?”
“Let’s do it.”
Jean Paul led. She tightened her knees and her grip on the reins and kicked Sweetheart twice. The filly took off, eager to let out her muscles. They cantered the distance from the stream to the stand of trees and passed into the forest, Jean Paul still leading on the ten-foot-wide trail.
Nova’s saddle slipped a few inches left. Her horrified thought: the boy hadn’t properly tightened the cinch.
On purpose?
Panicked, she leaned forward, clutched Sweetheart’s mane. The horse took it as a signal to redouble her efforts. The saddle turned farther, slipped down the horse’s side.
“Jean Paul,” she yelled.
The boy had insisted that she ride Sweetheart. Jean Paul had agreed.
The saddle slipped again. Her right foot twisted in the stirrup. She caught a glimpse of Jean Paul looking back over his shoulder just before she upended, her right foot still caught. Pain slashed through her ankle, her head hit the ground and she curled her belly and wrapped her arms around her face as the filly continued her run.
Blinding pain streaked between her temples. He’s going to kill me and make it look an accident!
Sweetheart slowed but didn’t stop. Nova’s hands flailed. Trees flashed by in an upside-down world. She tightened the muscles in her abdomen to pull herself up to grab the saddle. Again breath-stealing pain shot through her ankle. She let go, hung down the horse’s side, hands protecting her head.
Suddenly, Sweetheart jerked to a stop and four black-stockinged legs danced in front of Nova’s eyes. “Halt! Halt!” Jean Paul kept saying as Sweetheart reared.
Nova dangled helplessly.
“Hang on,” Jean Paul shouted.
He ran around Sweetheart’s head and Nova glimpsed his hands. Would he have a weapon? He didn’t.
He slid his arms under her armpits and lifted her. Her weight came off her ankle. She twisted free of the stirrup and Sweetheart reared again.
The second Nova’s feet hit the ground she whirled and threw a punch at Jean Paul’s larynx. Her ankle gave. Shuddering, she collapsed, unable to rise, her blow having harmlessly hit his chest. Jean Paul fell on his knees beside her and at the same moment Nova saw the filly’s front hoofs descending.
“Nein,” Jean Paul yelled, throwing himself over Nova. “Aa-hh” he exhaled as a hoof grazed his shoulder.
The filly moved off.
“Liebchen,” Jean Paul whispered.
She gasped for air. “I thought—I thought…you—” She shuddered, horrified by what she’d thought.
A warm, strong hand stroked her cheek. “What, liebchen?”
She shook her head. Then, as her shudder subsided, whispered, “I thought you would leave me.”
His arms tightened around her again. With her head pressed to his chest she could feel his warmth, hear his thudding heart. “Never, liebchen. Never. How could you think such a thing? Leave you?”
She remembered his shouted no. Saw him throw his body over hers.
In a great rising wave, certitude floated her off the ground. Pain vanished. Doubt disintegrated. She was certain of Jean Paul’s love.
Wherever his fingers touched, her skin responded with fire. “You saved me,” she whispered to him. For the first time in so many years she could hold nothing back. Cracks in a great wall of ice around her heart opened and widened, and then the wall crumbled. Past and future melted, too. There was just now and this rush of freedom.
She responded to his caresses with a tender kiss. There was nothing to feign now. No desire to keep control. Or play. Or lie. Or protect herself. This was not Candido. Not a man who wanted to use her. From the beginning, Jean Paul had asked nothing from her but that she love him and let him love her. He would never hurt her.
But as they began the return ride to the Compound, reality hit her. With chest-crushing force. She was completely compromised.
She couldn’t even begin to sort out let alone face the moral implications of falling in love with Jean Paul. But the practical implications were horrendous. Joe depended on her. Innocent lives depended on her. Could she trust herself to do “whatever, absolutely whatever, is necessary?”
Nova and Jean Paul approached the Compound’s front entrance. Nova listened to Sweetheart’s hoofs clopping a steady rhythm. Her thoughts were a hopeless jumble. I’ve completely lost control. She should tell Joe how shook up she was, shouldn’t she? Cupid would expect to be informed. Gall loomed only three days away.
A gauntlet of six protesters stood just outside the gate, three on each side of the road. Weird.
The activists called out in German. Jean Paul translated. “‘Stop producing chemical defoliants. Stop killing children.’” In spite of their yelling, they smiled cheerfully enough at him. The moment’s irony struck her: crusaders resolved to fight evil smiled agreeably when real evil passed by them.
Jean Paul was evil, wasn’t he? God. She couldn’t think one straight thought.
The stable boy’s apology was profuse. He begged Jean Paul not to report him. “It’s my fault,” the boy said. “They told me Sweetheart hates a tight cinch and holds her breath. You have to make her blow out before you tighten it. I forgot. If you report me, I’ll lose the job.”
“What do you want to do?” Jean Paul asked Nova.
She didn’t believe the boy. But whatever had happened, for whatever reason, it didn’t matter since nothing could be done about it. “There’s no permanent damage. Only a sprained ankle and bump on the head. Let’s just drop it.”
By four-thirty she and Jean Paul sat soaking in the tub. A hoof-shaped bruise flamed on his shoulder. Her ankle was propped on the rim and packed in ice, a gin and tonic was in her hand. Her heart was in much worse shape than her leg. I could love him. But I could never have him. I would destroy him.
Even if he weren’t a monster. Even if he were the passionate leader and visionary he seemed to be. Her murder conviction would make her a crippling liability for any great leader, if the truth were
discovered.
But it didn’t matter—he was a monster.
At six, he ordered dinner, to be delivered at seven-thirty. By seven-fifteen she’d changed into her green robe, he into the black terry, and dinner arrived. The strain of waiting to do what she had to was shredding her nerves. She wanted to hurry through the salad, hurry through the roast, hurry through the fruit and cheese. Hurry and get it over.
At last, it was time for her cappuccino. Her ankle felt better. She made sure she beat Jean Paul to the coffee machine. “Let’s watch TV,” she said. “See if you can find something that’s mostly action so I don’t need to understand the words.”
Her imagination was clamoring now to see what lay behind the steel doors into the mountain. With a steady hand she added the knockout drops to Jean Paul’s cup. Smith, in Technical, had assured her Jean Paul would have no telltale morning-after hangover, and that if she put him in bed, it would be easy to convince him he’d gone there himself. She knew from personal experience the drops left no after-effects, but she’d have to take Smith’s word that she could convince Jean Paul he’d spent a perfectly normal evening with her.
She curled up next to him on the sofa and handed him the cappuccino.
He said, “It’s an old Charles Bronson movie. Telepfon.”
“Perfect. I’ve seen it. I forget how it ends, but I’ll be able to follow the story.”
Charles Bronson was clueing Lee Remick in on how evil mind-manipulators had programmed people to go out and kill on command. The dubbed German voice doing Bronson was all wrong: too gruff and macho, no trace of his soft sibilants. In no time at all, Jean Paul’s head fell back against the couch. His breathing deepened.
She hurried to the phone, rang Joe once and hung up. In less then half a minute she heard a single light knock. Together they wrangled Jean Paul out of his robe.
They agreed to leave him nude since that was the way he usually slept after making love to her. Joe grasped Jean Paul under the arms and, using a fireman’s lift, hauled him to the bed, scowling.
She covered Jean Paul to his waist and checked his breathing. Joe tossed her a pillow-size brown package he’d set next to the door. He had told her he’d bring slacks, shirt and shoes for the search. Always conscious of bugs, he handed her a note.
Put on some jogging stuff. We’ll change into these when we get to where I’ve stashed supplies.
She threw on a dark jogging outfit, racing against time to find out what Hass was hiding in his mountain.
Chapter 25
10:30 p.m.
An almost supernatural darkness cloaked the Compound. The moon wouldn’t rise for hours, and since on the hump’s far side the Compound lights were hidden, nothing eased the blackness surrounding Joe. Nevertheless, tiny flashlight in hand, he readily led Nova to the packages wrapped in plastic and stuffed under a ground-hugging bush.
Five trips he’d made from the Mercedes to this hiding place, carrying one or two items at a time under his jogging suit—climbing equipment, radio and guns. To look as though he were just out for strenuous exercise, he made a circuit around the lake each time before heading up and around the hump.
“How’s the ankle holding up?” he asked.
“Hurts. But it’s not slowing me down.”
They changed clothes and he tried to avoid any glimpses of Nova who was changing right next to him. She appeared completely oblivious to him. Then again, she had a lot on her mind and sex sure wasn’t likely one of them.
“By the way,” he said, “I forgot to tell you something Cupid said today. I’m not sure why he hadn’t mentioned it before. It’s weird, as if things here could be any weirder. Braunwin Hass is not only Hass’s wife, she’s his half sister. Same father. Her mother was the father’s mistress.”
“Why doesn’t it even surprise me?”
Cupid had packed two 9 mm Sig-Sauers with shoulder holsters. He and Nova loaded, shrugged into the holsters and stuck an extra clip each into one of their clothing’s many pockets. He showed her how to attach her headband to the tiny but powerful light that would illuminate their spelunking through the ventilation ducts.
“Which shaft?” she asked.
“I picked one that’s horizontal. With luck, we may be able to reach a corridor without having to do a vertical climb.”
The shaft’s entrance lay roughly three-fifths the way down the hump’s backside. He’d brought three sockets for the special wrench. His first choice fit snugly. Two minutes later he wrestled the cover off. Blood pounded in his ears as he stared into a black hole that looked like the gullet of eternity.
After securing her knee pads and checking that the Sig-Sauer had a bullet in the chamber, Nova motioned to Joe and said, “I’ll go first.”
“I will, if you want.”
“No,” she insisted. She was team leader, she’d put herself at risk first. “I’ll go first.”
Joe paused, then said, “Fine. I’ll bring a line along in case we find a place where we need to go vertical.”
Nova crawled headfirst into the hump and Joe followed close behind. Her light wagged up and down, back and forth on the narrow wall in front of her. Their soft clothes made a swishing sound along the metal duct. She wished they were making no sound at all; to her ears, their slight noises sounded like water running over a tin roof.
After roughly a hundred feet, she stopped. She turned off her headlamp and Joe quickly doused his. Light from a corridor rose through a metal ventilation cover. She plastered her back against the smooth metal of the shaft ceiling and dug into a breast pocket for the gadget that unscrewed things from the inside. In less than a minute she’d unscrewed the ventilation cover, let it down slightly while holding it with a magnet, then twisted and fished it into the shaft with them. They would replace it when they came out.
Next she removed her headlamp and the elbow and kneepads. After setting them aside, she edged her face through the opening. Nothing. She pulled back in. “It’s clear,” she whispered. “And I don’t see any security camera, either, but keep an eye out.”
She crawled over the hole, backed her legs through, eased down as far as her waist, then dropped to the floor, her hands catching the edge of the hole to break her fall. Joe was quickly beside her.
It was eleven-twenty at night and the corridor was fully lit. She felt like a black beetle plunked down inside some scientist’s off-white maze. They were screwed if the scientist showed up. The great liar Br’er Rabbit himself couldn’t think up a plausible explanation for their being here. Her ears burned with the effort to pick up sounds.
“I don’t like the light,” she said. “We stay together. Either this conservation organization isn’t really very conservation-minded or there are people in here.”
The corridor looked like those in the other four research buildings except for the absence of windows and the fact that the floors were of brushed concrete, not tile. She began to construct a mental map of their position. They were on the west side of the hump, headed due east.
The slit between the door and the floor of the first room they encountered was dark. She pressed her ear to listen, then nodded. Her heart hammered against her ribs as it had when she’d checked under her bed for monsters as a child. She closed her eyes and took a deep, silent breath, then turned the knob.
Darkness. The unmistakable stink of urine. Soft skittering sounds. She fumbled along the wall, found a switch, flicked on the light. Rows of small-animal cages filled the room and a hurried survey revealed mostly mice, some guinea pigs, some rabbits.
A storage room came next: paper towels, soap, plastic Baggies, test tubes. The darkness in the third room was humming. Light revealed ventilation machinery and switches, junction boxes and circuit breakers, all neatly labeled for the laboratories’ electronics, lights, sprinklers and phones. She moved with Joe deeper into the maze, her eyes darting back and forth.
The passage intersected a north-south corridor. It ran a short sixty feet or so before ending in a stainless-stee
l double door. Beside the door were a solid-red security patch and an identification-scan panel. The corridor section leading south was so long and featureless it had the look of a lighted tunnel. “Still no security cameras,” she said. “It’s a good sign that the slimeballs feel totally secure inside their mini-fortress.”
“Maybe. Let’s go straight ahead. Cover all the east/west rooms first.”
She nodded and pointed to a painted, six-inch blue stripe a foot above the floor that ran the length of the north-south corridor, then pointed to a brown stripe running down the east-west hall. Without windows, orientation in the hallways was probably a problem.
When they glanced into the next room, she had to catch her breath from surprise. “There’s enough explosive stored in here to blow up the Empire State Building,” she said as they retreated into the hall.
The next door stood open and led into a fully lit room. Automatically she and Joe plastered themselves against the wall outside the room. A flush of adrenaline tightened the skin over her shoulders and throat. Tomblike silence, that was all she could hear.
She bent low and slipped around the jamb and into the room. Within seconds she found something that brought a grim smile to her lips.
She returned to Joe. “No one’s home. Come take a look.”
Joe followed Nova into the large lab. He noticed two free-standing lab benches running toward the room’s opposite end—each maybe fifty feet long—that sat parallel to each other. A six-foot aisle stretched between them and similar-size aisles between the benches and the walls. Cluttered wall counters held exotic-looking instruments and glass-fronted cases attached to the walls were filled with glassware and reagent bottles. The ceiling rose an impressive twenty-five feet, and hanging suspended halfway down from the ceiling, above the center of each lab counter, were long fluorescent fixtures. A three-shelf, see-through partition stretched down the midsection of each lab counter. The shelves held beakers, racks of test tubes, reagent bottles and other stuff he couldn’t identify.
