“She wanted her to spy on Xhafa. If she did, Annika said, she’d make sure Arjeta would be free of Xhafa forever.”
And now Arjeta was, Jack thought, though not in the way Annika must have meant. And all at once, another possible piece slipped into place and he excused himself, went off alone, took out the cell phone Alli had taken from the locked drawer in Henry Holt Carson’s desk, and fired it up. Only two numbers in the directory, one marked A, the other D. Neither were U.S. numbers.
Could it be? he wondered. He pressed the key to dial the number attributed to A. After what seemed like an eternity, the connection went through and he heard it ring three, four, five times. No voice mail was engaged.
He was about to hang up when he heard her voice, and with his heart in his throat, said, “Hello, Annika.”
* * *
THE MOMENT Gunn left, Willowicz contacted O’Banion. He had finished brewing the coffee. It looked like sludge, but with six teaspoons of sugar, it tasted fine.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting laid,” O’Banion barked. “What the fuck d’you want?”
“Gunn.” He gulped down the coffee, savoring the intense sweetness along with the acid bite. “We have a job.”
“I told you.” O’Banion let out a series of rhythmic grunts. “I’m busy.”
Willowicz put the mug in the stainless-steel sink. The incriminating substances that had gone down its drain, he thought. “Triple our usual fee.”
“That should’ve been your lead.” O’Banion was breathing hard. “I’m in.”
“And now you need to get out.”
O’Banion wheezed a laugh, then let out a long, drawn-out groan. Willowicz heard a loud noise, then nothing.
“O’Banion?”
After a moment: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I dropped the fucking phone.”
“That good, huh?”
“Meet?”
Willowicz gave him his instructions. “One hour,” he concluded. “Don’t be late.”
“When am I ever?”
Willowicz cut the connection, grabbed the paraphernalia he’d need, jammed it into the voluminous inside pockets of his custom-made overcoat, and went out into the hallway. As he pressed the call button for the elevator he thought about his partnership with O’Banion. It went back many years. Sometimes it seemed as if they had plowed through every shithole backwater of the Middle East, had climbed every dust-strewn mountain, stuck their necks out in every cave, and blown up half the Taliban. And still they came, like cockroaches overrunning an open box of sugar. He and O’Banion shared everything, there were no secrets in the mountains of Afghanistan and Western Pakistan where they had plied their bloody trade. They were closer than brothers; there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for each other.
But all bloody things come to an abrupt end. At some point, he and O’Banion had said fuck it. They had salted away enough money and they were tired of offing ignorant fanatics. Time for a change of scene. Which was when they’d come home, and almost immediately had hooked up with Gunn. He had shit for brains, just like all the ex-Marines who were now milking the government for millions. What they were doing wasn’t exactly rocket science. All you needed to do was produce torture and death, no questions asked, and the money showered down like manna. Oh, yeah, you needed the one thing he and O’Banion didn’t have—political connections. Gunn had them in spades, example in point: Henry Holt Carson’s patronage. On the other hand, as shit-for-brains bosses went, they could’ve done a lot worse than Gunn. At least he paid them top dollar, and he’d always been straight with them.
The elevator was still on the top floor. Cursing under his breath, he turned to the stairs door, pulled it open, and started down. Swinging around the landing, he saw a woman on the floor below. She was bending over, after having cracked off a heel of her lace-up boots. She was wearing a breathtakingly short skirt under which he could see that she was wearing nothing at all. Immediately, his second brain—the tiny, reptilian thing low down in his body—was activated. He felt a stirring in his trousers and, licking his lips, he strolled down the stairs.
She heard him coming and whipped upright. As she turned around to face him, he saw that her cheeks were flaming. She was hot—dark and exotic-looking. He thought she might be Eurasian.
“Good Lord,” she said, “how long have you been there?”
“Don’t worry.” He grinned. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
At which her cheeks continued to redden, which inflamed him all the more.
“Can I help you?” he asked before she could reply.
“Damn five-inch heels.” She held out the one that had broken off.
“I think you’d better take off your boots,” he said. And then with a wry smile, “Or I could carry you down.”
“That’s all right,” she said hastily. And, unlacing the boots, she handed them to him. “Would you be a gentleman?”
The moment he took them from her, the door to the hallway opened, Gunn came silently through, armed with a handgun fitted with a noise suppressor. Maybe Willowicz saw something in Vera’s eyes, but he was too besotted with her, and his reflexes failed him. He was in the process of turning when Gunn shot him twice; once in the back, once in the head.
Vera’s fuck-me boots clattered to the raw concrete. Stepping over the corpse, she picked them up. As she brushed past Gunn, she said, “You owe me a new pair of Louboutins.”
* * *
SOMETHING, PERHAPS his reptilian brain, remained alive after the girl and his murderer had left. His heart was barely beating and he lacked any sense of where he was. Nevertheless, the organism knew it was dying. This is, in the end, what separates man from beast. The foreknowledge of death.
Blunt or Willowicz or whatever his name really was became dimly aware of his cell phone lying against his cheek. It must have dropped out of his pocket when he fell. The shot to his back had severed major nerves. His legs felt paralyzed. He could scarcely move a muscle, yet he had just enough life left in him to move one finger. Trembling, it struck the side of the phone. As if on its own, it moved a fraction to the left and hit the autodial key.
The call went through and O’Banion’s voice echoed in the staircase.
“Willowicz? Hello? Willowicz?”
Blunt’s lips moved, forming pink bubbles that looked like membranes. Three times he tried to speak and failed. Then, at last, as the light began to fade, as even he lost his desperate hold on life, he managed two agonized words.
“He’s coming.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“WHAT ARE you doing with this phone, Jack?”
“Calling you, apparently. I assume the other number on it will connect me with Dyadya Gourdjiev.”
Annika sighed in his ear. “It would have, yes. Unfortunately, my grandfather is in the hospital.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said, “the old boy’s too tough to die.”
There was a small silence, during which Jack saw Alli watching him like a hawk. He tried to smile, but it came out a grimace, which only amped her obvious anxiety.
As if divining the direction of his thoughts, Annika said, “How is Alli?”
“I think you know as well as I do.”
“I miss her.”
“I doubt that.”
“Now you’re being peevish. I’ve never made a secret how I feel about her.”
“Annika, you’re keeping one secret after another.”
Her laugh sounded forced, a small explosion of mixed emotions. “It’s true.”
Jack felt tongue-tied. He had been certain he’d never see or speak to Annika again, and here he was on the phone with her.
“Don’t come after me, you wrote me,” he said, “don’t try to find me.”
“And now I’ve found you. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Jack?”
He wasn’t able to reply.
“Did Emma warn you I would come back into your life?”
Jack’s heart turned over. He recalled
his conversation with Emma, her telling him that she wasn’t a seer. And yet, she had spoken of his continuing connection with Annika.
“Something like that.”
“She’s a smart girl.”
He was gripped by a sudden selfish impulse to sever the connection, but instead squeezed his eyes shut.
“What do you want, Annika?”
“What I’ve always wanted, Jack. To win.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, but you do. I need you, Jack. I need you and Alli.”
His eyes snapped open and he looked at Alli, who was standing not twenty feet away. She was staring at him, her head cocked to one side. At that moment, she looked so small, infinitely fragile. Damaged. Just like Annika was damaged. And for the first time, the thought hit him: Was Alli on her way to becoming another Annika? God forgive him, if that were true.
“Jack, I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating now. We’re all soldiers in the night, and because of this, like it or not, we’re pawns. No matter how strong we are, no matter how powerful our mentors and friends, there are always forces that wield more power. The more powerful they are, the deeper their cover. So on the surface this shadow war we wage seems impossible to win. We’ll always be defeated by those deeply hidden forces, no? But you and I know there is a path to beating them, because we know that the deeper these forces are buried the more secrets they hold. We only need one of those secrets to defeat them, yes?”
Jack, still staring at Alli, said, “That’s right, Annika.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said at length.
“What question?”
“How did you get this phone?”
“You mean Henry Holt Carson’s phone?”
Silence.
“What do you and Carson have going?” Jack said.
“It seems we both have questions that need answers.”
“Yes, we do.”
“So, then, we are agreed,” Annika said. “It’s time we met.”
* * *
“HOW CAN you rely on a…”
“On a woman?” the Syrian said to Arian Xhafa.
“And look at how she’s dressed!”
The Syrian chuckled. “Indecent, isn’t it?”
They were sitting in the garden at the rear of the walled compound. It was large, planted with citrus and fig trees that were burlaped in the winter in order to protect them from frost. There was also an enormous oak whose sturdy branches spread cooling shade. Benches were strewn around at strategic locations to capture the sunlight and shade, depending on the season. The two men sat on one, a bowl of fresh fruit between them. The rain had ceased and one of the guards had dutifully wiped down the bench, making it ready for them. Other guards armed with AK-47s were stationed at each corner, backs against the concrete walls, but they were too far away to overhear the conversation, which was, in any event, conducted in hushed tones.
“You are a good Muslim, I myself have seen examples of this more than once,” Xhafa said. “And yet you allow a woman—a Western infidel at that!—such license and power. It is, frankly, a mystery I cannot comprehend.”
Overhead, the low clouds were being stripped away by a westerly wind, revealing tatters of pearlescent blue sky.
“Caroline is a closely held secret, that much is true.” The Syrian picked out a fig, popped it into his mouth, and chewed reflectively. “Listen to me, Xhafa, because I will only say this once. At first blush, it may sound like heresy, so if you repeat it to anyone I’ll deny it.” He paused, allowing the small silence to indicate the other consequence for Xhafa. “There is a fundamental flaw in Islam and it is this: Unlike the other major religions of the world, Islam can find no place for itself in the modern world. It is hidebound, Xhafa, bent on turning back a clock that cannot be tampered with. No matter how many infidels we kill, no matter how many terrorist attacks we launch, we cannot return the world to the way it was centuries ago. We cannot destroy modern culture any more than we can destroy time. To continue to do so is to become Don Quixote, tilting at Western windmills. Defeat and madness are the only possible results.”
Xhafa was silent. Not daring to meet the Syrian’s eyes, he stared fixedly at the bowl of fruit, which now seemed to him to be seeping a dark, viscous poison. He watched, almost paralyzed, as the Syrian’s hand dipped into the bowl.
“Here is a blood orange,” the Syrian said, holding the fruit on his fingertips. “Shall we bite into it now? Of course not. The bitter skin will spoil the sweet meat inside. However—” Here he began to peel the skin off. “—if we are insightful enough to pare away the bitter coat, see what delight awaits us.” He broke off two sections, offered one to Xhafa, then took the other between his lips, chewed, and swallowed.
“Now think of Caroline Carson as this blood orange. If I had insisted she cover herself up in the strict Islamic tradition, I would never have found the delightful skills awaiting me.” He peeled off another segment and ate it. “And just as this orange is a metaphor for Caro, so, too, is Caro a metaphor for modern Western culture. It isn’t evil, it does not want to destroy us. This is the argument used by the fanatics among us—and believe me, Xhafa, when I tell you that fanatics are the same the world over. They cannot cope with reality, so they retreat to their mountain lairs and strike out at everyone and everything that had cast them out.”
Another segment disappeared into his mouth, while Xhafa still held his as if it might come alive and bite him.
“But there is evil in the world—plenty of it. Correctly identifying it is the real trick. There are individuals who are evil, individuals who want to destroy us, and it is here that we can make our mark, it is here where we can do some good, it is here we will find success.”
His eyes lowered to the piece of blood orange Xhafa still held. “So here’s what I say to you, Xhafa. Either you believe me, or you don’t. Either you eat that, or I will.”
Xhafa did not move, did not utter a sound. But when the Syrian tried to pluck the blood orange from his fingers, he resisted.
The Syrian’s frightening gaze was insistent, pitiless. “Now is the time, Xhafa. There will be no other.”
* * *
BEFORE MAJOR General Peter Conover Hains designed the Tidal Basin, and it was installed, Washington’s drainage problems were so monumental that on certain dog days, when the air was still and leaden, the stench from the marshes on which the city was built was overwhelming. The major general died in 1921, but his name lives on in Hains Point, a spit of land at the confluence of the Potomac River and the Washington Channel. The point is actually at the southern tip of East Potomac Park. Quite fittingly, it overlooks both Fort McNair and the National War College, which are across the channel on the eastern shore.
It was to Hains Point that Gunn had directed Willowicz and O’Banion.
Who has more fun than I do? Vera Bard thought as she drove into East Potomac Park. Gunn was curled inside the trunk of the Saab. He’d very cleverly rigged a cord that would keep the trunk from popping open yet afford him enough fresh air.
She drove slowly and carefully while her mind turned over the sequence of events and her part in them as Gunn had outlined them to her. She only had to be told once; she was an instant study. This ability would have vaulted her to the top of her class at Fearington were it not for Alli Carson. No matter what she tried her hand at, Alli always did her one better. Though they were roommates and Vera made certain that they became friends, she deeply and irrevocably envied Alli. And, with Vera’s psyche, it didn’t take long for envy to curdle into hate. Of course, she told all this to Gunn, and, at some point—she could not now recall precisely when—he had taken more than a passing interest in her roommate. Then, a week ago, he’d asked her if she’d like an assignment. Intrigued, she’d said yes. That was how Alli’s fingerprints had gotten onto the vial of roofies, the contents of which Vera had taken herself.
Not a problem. She was used to self-abuse, having spent her prepubescent yea
rs cutting herself on her inner thighs so as not to be caught. She had had constant weight problems, and self-image discrepancies. When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw a fat clown, or worse, a misshapen reflection in a funhouse mirror. She used to have nightmares about the awkwardness of her physicality. Her sleeping mind constructed a haunted house so vast it became an entire world. It was festooned with staircases that went sideways as well as up and down, contained rooms that changed shape and content each time she entered them, foiled her at every turn. She came back time after time. Sometimes it was a school, at other times a hotel, an office, or apartment building, though from the outside it always looked like Norman Bates’s Victorian house in Psycho.
When she was seven, she had spied on her father fucking his protégé in the master bedroom, though neither of them ever knew. All she could think of that night was the woman leaving her intimate spoor on the sheets for Vera’s mother to lie in. She got sick twice. Once she made it to the toilet in time, once she didn’t.
Understandably, then, she cleaved to her mother. When her father complained to his wife of his daughter’s coldness, she replied that it was only natural for daughters to bond with their mothers. To which he’d replied, I wish we’d had a son.
Time passed, but Vera’s nausea at life did not. On the contrary, it grew like an infestation, infecting her with its poison until she had only her mother in whom she could find comfort. Understandably, she hated boys, and she found the girls at school shallow. Friendships with them were, in her opinion, senseless.
Inevitably, she got into trouble, mostly fistfights with girls in her class who teased her, but occasionally boys, too. After her first bloody nose, she befriended a Thai girl who was a kickboxer. Her mother was surprised when Vera brought home the Thai girl, even more so when her daughter asked to take kickboxing lessons. She happily gave her money and her blessing. Six months later, Vera sought out the boy who’d bloodied her nose. She let him pick a fight with her, then nearly stove in the side of his head with her first kick.
That little stunt got her suspended for thirty days and a visit to the school shrink, but it was worth it. No one ever bothered her again. Better still, she got an insight into how to turn her loathing of males to her advantage. She now evoked in them fear and awe, vulnerabilities she quickly learned to exploit. As she began to manipulate the boys in her class—and, increasingly, older ones—her self-image reversed itself. Now she could look at herself in the mirror and instead of cringing see what she was really made of. She was a beautiful girl, but not in that icky girl-next-door way. She exuded sex appeal; it oozed through her pores like attar. And the boys were drawn to her like bees to a just-opened flower.
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