Beloved Enemy (37 page)

The smell of rising damp was overwhelming as she proceeded into the room. She had crouched down beside the body, identifying it only as male, when she heard the click, as of an electronic device turning on.

A moment later, with a great whoosh that blasted up the staircase, a wall of flames came leaping up from the ground floor with so much force and heat she knew the fire must have been started with an accelerant.

No time to ID the body. As smoke was injected into the room, she leapt over the corpse and, without a second thought, she crossed her arms in front of her face and hurled herself through the window.

Glass shattered, following her down like a spray of hail. She was out in the fresh air, tumbling. She knew how to fall. Relaxing her shoulders, she rolled herself into a ball. Still, she struck the street with a force that knocked all the breath out of her.

For some minutes, she lay on her back, her vision shaky, her thoughts scattered. Slowly, she regained the use of her limbs. Then, above her, a gout of flame burst out of the window through which she had escaped, and she roused herself. Picking herself up, she ignored the pains throughout her body and limped to her car.

Before driving away, she called 911, reporting the fire. On the road back to D.C., she dialed Deckard. When he answered, she said, “Take special care. Someone’s one step ahead of you.”

*   *   *

Jack had feigned unconsciousness. When he opened his eyes, he looked for the assassin. Not finding him, he expanded his field of vision. He had heard Radomil’s voice, but now there was no sign of him, either. He was, at least for the moment, alone in the bunker.

He saw the surrounding pine straw, the phalanx of tenacious weeds that had cracked open the concrete, infiltrating the bunker like a superior army host. Sunlight had pried open a thin rent in the ceiling. It seemed as if a bolt of lightning had frozen in the air and on the dirt floor, as if the interior of the bunker had slipped the bonds of time itself.

He smelled the remnants of fire, the dank, latrine odor, the scent of long dead animals, saw, here and there, the scattered bones of small mammals, the desiccated remnants of a lone bird, yellow-and-black beak and gray-and-brown feathers more prominent than its poor, hollow bones. One stained wall was tagged with the slogan “BEFRINAZIGULD,” a Danish phrase meaning “Release Nazi gold,” rendered in the splendid multi-scrolled artwork of a graffiti artist of the first rank. But there was no sign of the man who had attacked him.

He kicked out, starting a momentum that swung his body back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. He saw the vectors in three dimensions, calculated the angle at which he should jackknife his legs. Within seven swings he’d reached that point. Jackknifing his legs over his head, he grasped the rope between his ankles, hauled himself up until he could take hold of the rope with his hands.

Resting his chin against the top of the beam to which the rope was attached, he relaxed, collapsed his shoulder muscles, drew his shoulder blades together. Doubling his legs up to his chest, he passed his hands beneath them. Now, with his hands in front of him, he was able to free his ankles, then his wrists. He slid down the rope to the concrete floor.

He heard the sounds of tramping boots; the assassin was returning. Jack quickly headed for the deepest shadows of the bunker, where he found a length of iron pipe. He worried that the assassin had gone in search of Radomil and prayed he hadn’t found him.

The assassin entered the bunker. Jack used the instant of his shock at seeing the empty rope swaying gently from the rafter.

“Who are you working for?” Jack said, stepping out of the shadows.

Redbird whirled, gun in his hand. Jack slashed out with the iron pipe and the gun went flying.

Redbird, in a half-crouch, shook his head. “You caused the death of something precious to me. I was ordered to bring you back to Washington, but, fuck that, I promise I’m going to kill you.”

Jack swung the pipe around and around. “You’re in no position to promise anything.”

Redbird licked his lips, looked from Jack to the gun lying on the ground not three feet from where he stood.

“Come on,” Jack said. “Let’s see if you can shoot me before I crack your skull in two.”

A flicker of sunlight and shadow among the trees beyond the bunker appeared in Jack’s peripheral vision. Someone was coming—Radomil? But, no, this was someone smaller, fast, and lithe.

And then Jack’s nostrils dilated, and he knew.

Annika
.

Redbird, noting the minute flicker in Jack’s attention, leapt for the gun. His fingers had curled around the grips, his forefinger on the trigger, and he was bringing the gun to bear, when Jack let fly the pipe. Its side struck Redbird and he went down, but he did not lose his grip on the gun.

To Jack’s left, Annika emerged from the trees. Redbird saw her and got off a shot toward her before Jack stove in his forehead with the pipe.

“Jesus, I didn’t want to do that,” he said as she came up to him, clearly unharmed. “Now I’ll never know who sent him after me.”

“Does it matter? He’s dead.”

“Of course it matters,” Jack said. “Whoever he was working for will send someone else.”

“Not if you disappear.”

He eyed her warily. “You’ve been following my progress. Why?”

“I wanted to make sure you were safe.” Her whisper was like the slither of desert sand lifting and falling.

“No, you were tracking me for the Syrian. Did he hire this man?” But before she could answer, he shook his head. “No, he’s American—I know by his accent and his mannerisms. He belonged to someone in the American intelligence community.” He stared down at the corpse.

“That kind of man would never have revealed an iota of information.”

Jack felt anger climb in him, principally because he knew she was right. The only way to deal with people like this assassin was to kill them.

She looked at him with an expression of relief, but it held more than a grain of amusement as well. “We’ve come all this way to arrive at the place where we started.”

“We started in Moscow, you and I.” But he knew what she meant.

“You know I was watching you long before.”

“You were my first and only stalker.”

She laughed softly. When she touched the nape of his neck, he shivered.

“You see?” she whispered. “Nothing has changed.”

“I can’t just vanish,” he said. “With Paull’s death, I’ve become a liability to an elite group of people in my government. Most of them think I’m a murderer and traitor, and for at least one I know too much,” he said. “Plus, my connection to you cannot make anyone in D.C. happy.”

“Why? We’re friends.”

Jack laughed. “Is that what you think we are?”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts, levering them into even more prominence. “How do
you
see it?”

“We’re enemies, Annika.” He shifted uneasily. “You made that very clear when you chose to stay with the Syrian.”

“I told you—”

“I don’t care what you told me.” He knelt down, started going through Redbird’s pockets. “You lie more easily than you tell the truth.”

“That night in Rome, I ordered Radomil to save you.”

“So he said.”

She watched him as he methodically searched the assassin. He came up with a bankroll of euros and a car key.

“How did you find me here in the middle of the forest?” he asked.

She smiled. “That phony ambulance was like a beacon on a moonless night. I followed my nose until I saw the armed men and slipped between them. It wasn’t difficult.”

“Not for you, I imagine.” His fingertip found something hard, which he fished out of Redbird’s pocket. A mobile phone. He pressed the on button and the phone’s screen lit up. “Numbers,” he said with an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice. There was only one in the phone book, the same number that was the last incoming call.

Jack pressed the redial button. After two rings, he heard the telltale hollowness on the line and knew the call was being rerouted to a secure government line.

A moment later, Henry Dickinson said, “Redbird, talk to me.”

“Redbird is dead,” Jack replied.

There was a sharp intake of breath, followed by, “Who is this?”

“I’m coming for you, Dickinson,” Jack said. “You and all your kind.”

“Who the fuck is this?!” Dickinson screamed.

“Precisely who the fuck you think it is.”

Jack disconnected, then when the phone rang again, he dropped it to the ground and watched Redbird’s blood flood greedily into the back, destroying the battery and the SIM card.

“Nicely done,” Annika said.

“You,” Jack said. “Shut up.”

Jack squinted in the dappled sunlight. He breathed deeply of the piney, oxygen-rich air. “Radomil must be somewhere around here,” Jack said. “Redbird hit him in the ribs.”

“How badly was he hurt?” she said.

“I don’t know. We need to find him.”

She shook her head. “He’s a master at hiding; we could search for a week and never find him.”

“Still. You don’t want to try.”

“Iraj is waiting.”

“Fuck Iraj. Today will be the end of him.”

The trees were thick around them. The buzzing of flies rose and fell like the tide, as if they were approaching the ocean. Jack took several steps away from her as if to go on his own.

“Do you really hate me,” she said, “or is this an act?”

He stopped, turned back to her. “You’re married. Radomil told me. He told me the whole story.”

“Ah.” She came toward him, closing the distance.

“What the hell does that mean?” He turned his head to look at her, but they were too close. Her image blurred disconcertingly.

“It means nothing,” she said. “And everything.”

He felt her like a series of gentle electric shocks. He realized, to his shame, that if he acted on what his body was telling him, he’d take her this instant.

“There were so many times I wanted to tell you.”

“Don’t give me that.”

She nodded sadly, stoically. “You’re right. I never would have told you; I never wanted you to know.”

“You’re not divorced.”

“No.”

“Or separated.”

“I was separated from Rolan less than a year after we were married. We haven’t been together since.”

“I want to meet him.”

“No. You don’t.”

He thought about that for a moment. “You’re right. I never want to see him.”

They pressed on, through the thick stands of pines, whose tops bowed and spoke to the rushing wind. Here and there, high cumulus clouds could be seen through the gaps in the trees. Light fell like lances, striking the ground and seeming to sever it from itself.

Stopping them, she turned to him. She touched him in the intimate way only she could, and the core of him leapt like a flame ignited.

“Tell me you don’t love me,” she said. “Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll believe it.”

“I don’t love you.”

“I don’t believe you.” She leaned in and kissed him, her lips opening under his, in a way that made the two of them one. When she pulled away from him, she said, “I want to stop here.”

“Here? Why?”

“I want you to make love to me. I’ve been dreaming about it for months.”

“This place is full of death.”

She nodded. “Yes. Now we change that forever.”

He opened his mouth to say no, but, God help him, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to.

*   *   *

Radomil, palpating his side with extreme care, felt certain that a rib had been cracked, maybe two. He had run from the bunker in an asymmetric zigzag course no one would be able to follow.

He made his stealthy way out of the Oberforst. He did not look back over his shoulder, he did not think about the bunker. It was far too dangerous to go back there. Besides, his choice was now between Jack and his half-sister. He would press on to the chalet that had been Jack’s objective. Now Namazi was his target. Killing the Syrian was the only chance he’d ever have now of saving Annika from a life that was eating her alive.

The icy tinkle of an Alpine spring lured him. He knelt beside it and, like a child, scooped the bracingly cold water in his cupped hands, splashing it again and again onto his face, until all the caked blood was sluiced away and his superficial lacerations were numbed.

Near the eastern edge of the forest, he spied one of the men the assassin had left to hem in his prey. Creeping up behind him, Radomil clipped him over the ear with the butt of his gun. The man bellowed as he went down. Radomil struck him again for good measure, harder this time, with a good deal of anger, then relieved him of his Luger before he dragged him roughly into the deep shadow within the trees.

He saw his crumpled Audi and the ambulance as soon as he hit the tree line. The moment he broke cover, a shot whined past his shoulder. He spun, shouted in pain as his cracked rib shifted, saw a second gunman advancing toward him and shot him with the Luger. The gunman, arms splayed, crashed backward and lay still.

Radomil, ignoring the pain in his side, sprinted over to the vehicles. His car was useless, but the ambulance’s engine turned over just fine when he turned the ignition key the driver had left behind. Just as he was pulling out, the third gunman appeared. He aimed and fired. A bullet smashed through the windshield. Radomil ducked, trod hard on the accelerator. The ambulance leapt forward and struck the gunman full-on. Radomil felt the bump as the body was ploughed under first the front then the rear wheel.

Swinging around, he drove off, powerful engine thrumming, as he headed back onto the highway that would lead him to the posh ski resort of Méribel and Iraj Namazi.

*   *   *

The jagged shard of sunlight lanced through the trees.

Jack, whose heart had quickened even while his mind had slowed, was acutely aware of his body wresting control of his emotions, obliterating—or was it obscuring—past betrayals, desperately trying to fabricate a flimsy new present out of passion and what passed for love.

He watched her, drinking in her exquisite beauty—her large, wide-apart eyes that seemed to see him and only him, her half-parted lips, breath like honey and cloves, the press of her high breasts, her strong thighs, and the portal he knew so well between them. All these terrible, awesome, knee-weakening treasures he saw and smelled. He felt as if he and Annika were already both naked.