“So, of course, Nona had added the members of the forensic accounting team auditing Middle Bay’s books to the list of the bank’s personnel.”
Jack was dizzy with the sudden swirl of calculations. “Let’s have them all, Chief Fraine.”
“There are five individuals on the team.” He named them. Nothing. “And then there’s the team leader. His name is, let me see, ah yes, John Pawnhill.”
Annika had said, “We’re all soldiers in the night, and because of this, like it or not, we’re pawns.” And at that moment, two disparate things collided in Jack’s head, and the unknown part of the name equation he’d been trying to solve at last swam into focus. Thatë’s nickname was Grasi—fat. But his real name—Thatë—meant skinny. The kid was neither fat nor skinny, so how was he given the nickname? Jack had been looking at the equation through the wrong end of a telescope. Mbreti wasn’t the unknown in the equation, it was the key. Mbreti meant king. And what was the opposite of king on a chessboard? Pawn.
John Pawnhill was Mbreti!
TWENTY-EIGHT
“VERA, YOU’RE a chip off the old block.”
“A heart like black ice.” Vera crossed one leg over the other. “Like my new shoes?”
Carson didn’t bother looking; he knew his daughter’s tastes all too well. “Tell me about today.”
Vera’s smirk widened. “Let’s see, what happened? Oh, yes, my lover, Andy Gunn, recruited me to help him terminate two lowlifes.”
“Names, Vera, names.”
“Willowicz—though Gunn referred to him as Blunt—and O’Banion.”
Carson wet his lips. “They’re both dead? You’re sure?”
“Could not be deader.” Vera watched his profile, which was vexingly noncommittal. “Why?”
“I’m wondering why he killed them and why now.”
“He was very focused, I can tell you that. Like he’d been given a deadline.”
“Odds are he had been. He’s taking orders from someone other than me.”
“But you knew that already.”
“Yes, but not who he’s playing both sides with.” Carson seemed to be staring at nothing and everything at once. “I had him followed, but he slipped the tail. He must have gone to meet with the person who gave him today’s marching orders.”
“Any ideas who it might be?”
“That’s something you’re going to find out for me.”
Vera closed her eyes for a moment. “Listen, you fixed me up at Fearington so I’d become Alli Carson’s roommate. Alli knew Caroline. You thought Alli might know where she is; she doesn’t. No one knows where that bitch has got to.”
“Don’t call your half sister that,” Carson said sharply. “You haven’t earned the right.”
“She left, just like that. We shared so many things, and then poof she was gone. And after that she never contacted me.”
“She never contacted anyone.”
Vera clenched her fists. “This is all your fault, you shithead.”
“Down, girl. You should see a doctor about that overabundance of testosterone.”
“Ha ha.” There was little mirth in Vera’s voice. “Only if you come with me to see about your satyriasis.”
“Now who’s the bitch.”
“Neither of us can help it, that’s the way you made us.”
Carson made a derisive sound. “Oh, yes, blame it all on Daddy.”
She turned to him, draped one leg over his lap, snuggled up to him, and said in a little-girl-porn voice, “Oh, Daddy, I’m just worried about you, is all. I don’t want you to go into cardiac arrest while you’re plowing away.”
“Vera.” His tone held an unmistakable note of warning.
“So many furrows, so little time.” Her fingers traced the whorls of his ear. “I know, Daddy, time is running out, soon enough you won’t be able to get it up at all.”
“Godammit, Vera!” He pushed her roughly away from him. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Nothing a little parental love wouldn’t cure.” She gave him a mock-pout from her corner of the seat.
“Bullshit. You wouldn’t know what to do with parental love.”
“Good thing,” she said, “because you don’t know how to show it.”
This exchange was followed by an oppressive silence.
Finally, she said, “You asked me to get close to Andy. We both knew what that meant, so when you think about it, you’ve been pimping me out.”
“I’m doing what any good spymaster would do, keeping an eye on my people.”
“If you give yourself any more credit I’ll throw up.”
“Don’t get superior. I’m not the whore in this scenario.”
“That’s really how you see me, isn’t it?”
He turned away, but remained silent.
Vera spent several minutes fantasizing about punching him in the face. “Why are you expending so much energy on trying to find Caro, anyway?”
“Why do you think? She’s my daughter.”
“Now who’s bullshitting, Daddy? Caro’s a thing. She ran away from you, so you couldn’t have her.”
“Oh, please!”
“As opposed to me, who ran right back into your arms.” The vulpine smirk returned to Vera’s face. “Caro is someone neither your wealth nor your influence can affect. That’s something you simply can’t tolerate, Daddy.”
“Not true.”
“Of course it’s true. You think I don’t know you. You’re so fucking defended a fucking termite couldn’t get in, that’s what you think, isn’t it? You don’t fool me, you old bastard. You stand naked in front of me, I see you for what you are.”
He continued to stare ahead. “I made myself what I am today; I didn’t have anyone’s help. Not that I didn’t take favors when they were offered or exchanged for others. Only an idiot would have refused. But I’m my own man, Vera, always have been. That’s the one thing I’m most proud of. So when you … I’m not interested in anyone’s opinions of me—especially yours.”
“Why would you? You’re the center of the world.”
“That’s the spirit, honey!”
She chuckled. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so transparent, and d’you know why? Because you’re such a shitty parent. Having kids was never your thing. Your wanting Caro back has nothing whatsoever to do with her being your daughter.”
“Your attempts at psychoanalyzing me are laughable.”
She ignored his jibe. “It’s about you, Daddy. Everything’s all about you. Caro ran away from you and that’s what you can’t tolerate.”
“That’s nonsense and you know it.”
She shook her head, moving out from her corner to close with him again. “You keep trying to undercut me, but I’m the only one whose opinion matters to you.”
Carson stared out the window at the blur of the passing cityscape. “Eddy’s opinion mattered to me.”
“But your brother is dead, Daddy.” She slid farther toward him. “And that’s the crux of it. You never got over your brother. He was younger than you and yet he was elected president of the United States.”
“Not without my help!”
In the small silence, Vera said, “You see? It’s all laid out like the grid of a landing strip. If only you could see it.”
Carson’s voice was bleak. He seemed suddenly lost in time. “See what?”
“How much Edward meant to you, how much you loved him.” She stared at her father for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice had softened considerably. “Did he love you back, Daddy?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Sure you know. You must know.”
“He accepted my help. He was grateful. He—”
“Fuck it, Daddy! Would you for once tell the truth?”
“It would be easier if he hadn’t thanked me.”
“But he did.”
“Oh, yes. Thanking people was always one of Eddy’s strong suits.”
“You say that like it’s a
congenital defect.”
“It made him less sincere,” Carson said, “in my opinion.”
“Uh-huh, too nice for you, was he?” She nodded. “I can see how you’d view that as a defect.”
Carson’s lips moved without him saying a word out loud. Then he pinched the bridge of his patrician nose. “The trouble was, I never knew where I stood with Eddy.”
Vera threw back her head and laughed, causing him to whip around as he glared at her.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“Your brother made you insecure. God, I didn’t think anyone could do that to you.”
“You never knew Eddy.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Well…” Carson stared at his hands. “There was no way I could let you meet him. You understand that.”
“I understand that you had to keep your Main Line connections intact until you acquired enough power on your own.”
He shot her a sharp look. “That’s a pretty cynical way of looking at it.”
“Ours is a cynical world, Daddy.”
He nodded, almost, she thought, ruefully.
“Damn if it isn’t.”
* * *
THEY MET Annika in an open field near the airstrip. The wind was blowing, dragging her hair sideways across her face. Her hands were dug deep in the pockets of her trench coat, a stance like Humphrey Bogart’s in Casablanca.
Jack came halfway toward her, then abruptly stopped. Alli, at his side, broke away and ran pell-mell toward her. Just before she reached her, Annika took her hands out of her pockets. Jack automatically tensed. This was a weird moment. He was half expecting her to have a Sig Sauer in one hand.
Instead, Annika threw her arms wide and enfolded Alli, hugging her tight.
“I can’t believe it,” Alli said. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Annika kissed the top of her head. “Honey, honey, honey,” she crooned.
Then she looked past Alli to where Jack stood. The most peculiar smile broke out across her face, part solemn, part impish, but altogether tentative.
All this time, Thatë, present under Jack’s sufferance, stayed back at the periphery of the field. It was difficult to know what he was looking at, impossible to know what he was thinking.
Alli, though reluctant, knew it was time to walk away. That left Jack and Annika. They were standing twenty feet from each other.
“I was too late with Arjeta and with Billy.” With one hand, she drew her hair off her face. “I found him before the cops did, but there was nothing I could do.”
“You could have called me.”
Her smile changed shape slightly. “And how far would that have gotten me?”
She was right, of course. At that point, he never would have listened to her. He came toward her, aware that his heart was beating painfully hard. He felt a roaring in his ears.
“I’ve seen Edon’s back.”
“Yes, well, where you were, I imagined that might happen. Thank you for saving her and all the rest of them.”
“Why are these three girls so important?”
“They know a secret.”
“Edon doesn’t.”
“No. But Arjeta told Liridona. I went to Washington to find Arjeta, to save her, but I was too late.”
“You want to know the secret.”
“I care about these girls. Deeply.”
“But the secret—”
“Jack, please recall what I told you. Secrets are our only weapon against the forces that seek to manipulate us.”
Jack believed her. No matter that he wanted to believe her, that, like Alli, he needed to believe her. He kept walking until he was just a handsbreadth away from her. He could smell her then, and his heart melted a little bit more.
“Before we go any further…”
“Yes, Jack?”
“I need to know about Senator Berns. I need the whole truth.”
“And nothing but the truth, so help me God?” Her tone was mocking.
He didn’t laugh. “You don’t believe in God.”
“Not after what’s happened to me.”
The sun was shining in her eyes, and he knew that he had dreamed about them. He’d only known that he’d woken in the morning drenched in sweat, sad beyond bearing. He’d put every emotion he possessed on hold, throwing himself into tending to Alli and to his job, which kept changing shape like a chimera. Now he understood his sorrow, and his paralysis. Somewhere inside him, he’d been waiting for this moment; somewhere inside him, he knew it would happen.
“Senator Berns wasn’t one of the good guys, Jack.”
“Meaning?”
“He was dealing with a very nasty element here in Eastern Europe.”
“Enemies of your grandfather.”
“Enemies of mine,” she said. “And now enemies of yours.”
Jack was shocked. “Arian Xhafa?”
“Berns was facilitating the arms deals with Xhafa. Cutting-edge stuff, just off the DARPA assembly line.” She cocked her head. “Evil comes in all flavors and guises, Jack. It’s a sad fact of life.” Her smile turned rueful. “You don’t believe me. Berns was chairman of the Senate Military Appropriations Committee, which includes DARPA. Check for yourself.”
Jack didn’t have to; he’d already discovered this fact for himself. And now he was angry. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this last year?”
“You weren’t ready to hear it.”
“Damnit, Annika, how could you know that?”
“I made a reasonable assumption. Was I wrong?”
“Stop, for pity’s sake, making decisions for me!”
Her extraordinary eyes watched him closely. “This is what you do with Alli, no?”
Yes, it certainly was, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of admitting it. “That’s different.”
“I disagree. You and Alli are both adults.”
“The analogy is spurious. I have far more experience.”
“And that means you know what’s best for her.”
“Yes.”
“At all times.”
He clamped his mouth shut.
“Jack, consider how you bridled when I told you you weren’t ready to hear the whole truth about Senator Berns.”
She was as maddening as ever. Somewhere inside him was a burst of laughter because this maddening trait was one of the things that caused him to fall in love with her with a passion that turned him inside out.
Taking a deep breath to center himself, he said, “What happened after you killed Berns? Xhafa’s still getting armaments—even faster and in more bulk.”
“It’s the devil-you-know theory. The person who stepped into the vacuum is worse than Berns. Far worse.”
“Who is it?”
In the last failing glimmers of sunlight, Annika’s carnelian eyes seemed so lucid it was possible to believe he could see clear through them into her soul. This was one of the unique assets with which God and her mother had blessed her.
“Tell me, Jack, have you ever heard of the Syrian?”
* * *
“ANNIKA DEMENTIEVA has entered Albania.”
The Syrian, listening to this news, found that his knuckles had gone white where they gripped his satellite phone. Involuntarily, he moved farther away from Arian Xhafa, who was embroiled with Caroline in another of their religio-political-postfeminist debates. The Syrian found them amusing, but Xhafa, true to his nature, took them as deadly serious.
“Where in Albania?” he said, when he’d gone outside.
“Vlorë.”
Then she must know, the Syrian said to himself. He heard the snuffling of the dogs as they scented him, saw the deep bowl of the sky, indigo at its apex. A gaudy sunset began to show itself. Tree frogs and crickets started up.
To the man on the other end of the line, he said, “Do you have a specific fix on her?”
“She’s been shadowed from the moment she flew in.”
The Syrian made an inst
ant decision. “Then take care of the situation at once. I don’t want Xhafa getting wind that she’s nearby. Take her to the safehouse. You know which one.”
There was an instant’s hesitation. “She isn’t alone.”
The Syrian closed his eyes. “How many?”
“Three. A man, a girl, and a boy.”
Not so many, he thought. “I want her alive. Terminate the rest of them.”
“Your will, my hand.”
The Syrian put away the sat phone. He spent about fifteen seconds wondering what Annika was doing with a girl and a boy, but soon a landslide of business matters dismissed the thought from his mind, and it did not resurface until much later.
* * *
“I THINK we ought to move to a more secure location,” Annika said. She gestured. “I have a car waiting.”
“I promised Alli I’d let her talk to you about Liridona.”
Annika looked around. “In the car.”
“Why did you want to meet in such an open space?”
“Trust,” Annika said. “I wanted you to feel perfectly comfortable.”
He nodded, but said nothing. Gesturing to Alli and Thatë, he walked with Annika into the deep shadow of a thin line of trees within which an enormous car was waiting, its engine thrumming in a deep register.
“I should introduce the kid,” he said, as Alli and Thatë came up to them.
“No need.” Annika grinned at Thatë. “He works for me.”
Thatë and Alli got in the front seat with the driver, leaving Jack and Annika standing beside the open rear door.
“One of these days,” Jack said, “you’re going to give me a heart attack with your surprises.”
“God forbid!”
She placed a hand on his arm. It was a spontaneous gesture and yet it set off a fireworks display inside him. She must have somehow felt the ripple because she smiled.
“Oh, Jack, I never want to hurt you again.”
“But you will.”
“Not deliberately, this I swear to you.”
She leaned in and the kiss she gave him was as tentative as that first enigmatic smile. She drew back, but he caught her behind her neck, pulled her to him, and kissed her as he’d dreamed of kissing her in a reality he’d never thought could exist again.
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