The Coil (4 page)

They had arrived in Paris the night before and checked into her cousin's favorite hotel. Her cousin, who was joining them for just three days, had postponed her arrival until tomorrow. Neither Sarah nor Asher was the type to wait around. They had gone sight-seeing, visiting the Louvre and other traditional tourist places for which they had never had time, and returned to change for dinner.

The night
portier
caught sight of them through the glass lobby door. He pulled it open and bowed. “Mademoiselle Sansborough,” he greeted her. “A pleasant surprise. I did not realize you were staying with us again.”

Sarah shot him a smile as she headed out under the awning. “Sorry, but I'm not Liz Sansborough. She was delayed.”

Astonished, the doorman hesitated as if expecting the woman to laugh at her own joke. He quickly touched the brim of his cap. “Apologies, madame. Please forgive.” He noted the gold wedding band on her ring finger.

“Don't worry about it,” Asher Flores said genially as he followed. “They're cousins, and they look so much alike everybody gets them confused.”

Sarah suddenly shook her head. “Oh, damn. I left my purse in the room. Do you have your credit cards, Asher?”

“A passel of 'em,” Asher assured her. Then to the doorman: “Think it's going to rain? It's been threatening all afternoon.” He stepped out from beneath the awning to check the sky. Layers of cumulonimbus clouds were roiling black and brown. Raindrops splattered down, and the metallic scent of ozone filled the air. “Well, that answers that.” He jumped back under the awning's shelter.

“Allow me, sir.” The doorman reached behind the door and produced a large umbrella. He popped it open and presented it to Asher.

Under its shelter, Sarah put her arm through Asher's, and they walked off jauntily just as the heavens opened and sheets of chilly rain pounded down. Drivers turned on their windshield wipers and headlights, while pedestrians ducked under awnings.

Sarah laughed. “So much for an easy, relaxing time in the Gallic sun.”

“Do you think this is punishment because we haven't been back here together before this?”

“You wish. We're not that important to the gods.”

“We are to me.” As traffic rushed past and the rain made a noisy tattoo on the umbrella, he impulsively pulled her close and kissed her.

Laughing, she threw her arms around his neck. Parisian horns saluted loudly.

Sarah had been reluctant to return to this city where so many ugly things had happened to them, but Langley had finally guaranteed Asher a month of uninterrupted vacation, and it was time to exorcise her demons. They needed to go away together, to renew themselves in each other, and what better place for romance than the two-thousand-year-old City of Light—and love?

She kissed him back eagerly, sinking into him, feeling warm and happy and carefree as they lingered in their private cocoon beneath the umbrella.

When he released her finally, she smiled into his eyes and said, “Let's find that bistro and have some dinner. I'm hungry.”

Other pedestrians had disappeared into shops and stores, escaping the rising storm, and Sarah and Asher were alone on the sidewalk as they hurried onward. Thunder boomed, shaking the earth. Drivers continued at an insane speed, tires spouting dirty waves onto the sidewalk.

“Only one more block,” Asher announced as they crossed a street. Their clothes were soaked.

“We can make it. I'm not totally miserable yet.”

They jumped over a fast-moving stream, landed on the deserted sidewalk again, and increased their pace. The sky turned black. The cold rain pelted so fiercely that it slammed back up from the pavement. They dodged and rushed, growing chilled and stiff. At last, Asher spotted the bistro's sign:
ROUGET DE LISLE
. It was at the end of the block. He was gesturing at it, about to tell Sarah, when a black van suddenly screeched to a halt beside them, hiding them from traffic.

Before its wheels stopped, Asher's internal alarm sounded. His alert gaze slashed from the van across the empty sidewalk to the dark alley on their other side. Two men wearing ski masks and armed with handguns jumped out from where they had been pressed against the wall, hiding. Asher hurled the open umbrella at them.

They ducked, and he gave Sarah a violent shove to get her safely past. He whipped out the small pistol strapped to his ankle just as the van's door slammed open.

As he swung his gun to aim, Sarah spun back to look for him. Her water-streaked face froze in horror as she took in the well-coordinated attack.

As he opened his mouth to bellow at Sarah to run, there was the muffled
pop-pop
of silenced gunfire. A bullet crashed into Asher's chest. Out of nowhere, a giant seemed to grab him roughly and hurl him backward. He landed hard. His arms and legs sprawled and his head hit the sidewalk. His gun flew from his hand. His eyes closed.

Sarah screamed, “Get away from me!”

Her voice barely penetrated his pain-filled mind.

“Asher!” she called frantically. “Are you all right? Asher! Let me go to him!”

There were the scuffling sounds of struggle.

“
Merde!
” one of the men swore.

“She's a tiger,” another agreed in French.

Asher tried to open his eyes, to roll over, to get to his feet. Fight.
Save Sarah.
A massive cauldron burned in his chest. He raged helplessly, inwardly.

“Get Walker into the van!” one of the men shouted. “Hurry!”

“Asher!” Her longing cry stabbed his heart.

In a frenzy, Asher struggled harder. Felt himself move. His palms dug into the wet pavement.

Before he could push himself up, powerful hands smashed his shoulders back down. Someone cried out in pain. Him?

A voice spoke harshly into his ear: “If you want to see your wife alive again, Flores, get us the Carnivore's files. You and Langley have four days. No more.
The Carnivore's files.
Say it.” This man's words were English, the accent American.

Asher tried to move his lips. He pushed out air. “Carnivore,” he managed. “Four days.” The Carnivore's files?
What
files? “
Impossible!
”

But the hands were gone. Car doors banged shut and wheels shrieked.

Wild with fear, he roared, “Sarah!”

There was no answer. The rain was unrelenting, pummeling his face, filling his ears as he struggled to get up. Falling back, he choked and coughed and grew icy cold. He pictured Sarah in his mind, went over each detail of her face, heard her melodic voice, felt her lips brush his cheek. Aching for her, terrified about what they would do to her, he felt weakness sweep over him, then darkness.

Santa Barbara, California

Liz stopped on the lawn outside the psychology building to stretch. As she pulled one ankle and then the other behind and balanced freestanding, she admired the July sky and savored the soft ocean air against her skin. The temperature had been hovering in the low seventies, perfect, while the Weather Channel reported an oxygen-sucking heat wave blanketing New York and Washington. Moving to the West Coast had been one of her smarter decisions.

Her life was far different from that dark time when she had discovered her parents were assassins. She figured she was as happy now as she would ever be, and she had Grey Mellencamp to thank, because he had been right all those years ago. It was a pity he had died so soon after delivering his fatherly advice. She would have liked to tell him how much he had helped her.

As soon as she ended her stretches, she speed-walked toward the university's Marine Science Institute, feeling light and powerful, as if she were about to begin a match. Her other sport was karate-d
, one of the few leftovers from her previous life in intelligence. She gazed around, passing the usual sports cars with their tops down, the trash cans topped off with foam cups from the Mesa Coffee, and the students in their eye patch–size swimsuits, sitting out on dormitory patios, enthusiastically risking melanoma. Few palm trees decorated the campus. Instead, sycamores, magnolias, and exotic eucalypti stood here and there, country-club elegant.

When she spotted the squat marine lab building, she broke into a trot, running downhill past it onto a spit of sand that edged the university's big lagoon. She saw no one on the rocky cliff that towered ahead, which was just the way she liked it. Beginning to sweat, she loped up a sandy ridge to the dirt path that cut along the cliff's narrow top. The breeze whispered through her hair. Her quad muscles rippled.

Savoring the clean salty air, she looked right, where wild grasses and scrub trees and bushes welded the soil to the rolling slope that spread down to a blue lagoon so protected from the elements that hardly a wave showed. On the far side lay the campus, where a few students were visible. They disappeared into buildings, late for classes. Abruptly, the university was deserted—a perfect still life of simple modern buildings and manicured trees from some architectural photographer's prized album.

As she settled into her usual slow, steady gait, she gazed left at the ocean, which extended in a blaze of turquoise out to the Channel Islands some twenty miles away. Here on the ocean side, the vegetation was far different, not thick and upright and hardy as it was on the lagoon's slope, but sparse and gnarled from fighting to grow out of rock crevices where it was exposed to harsh sea winds. She could hear the roar of the surf far below—at least fifty feet—but she could not see it from the trail.

The cliff continued along the campus for miles. Every year, a handful of people died from falling off it during drunken parties or while bicycling, hiking, or running. The media would cover the tragedy, and people would be careful for a while. But as time passed, the sense of danger faded. They resumed old habits. Became careless. Until someone else was killed.

She tried to shake off a sudden feeling of uneasiness. There were still occasional moments when she felt as if her past were catching up with her, and she was overcome with despair. But that seldom happened out here, where the peaceful lagoon spread on one side and the timeless ocean on the other. Where the clear sky and the warm sun and the joyful calls of seagulls reminded her how good life was. She usually ran this high trail between the two bodies of water as if she were invincible.

But not today. She was nervy, wary. She did not understand it. Ahead, the path was empty, but she heard people behind. She glanced back, mindful of the rutted trail. There was another runner, tall and muscular, dressed in sunglasses, a baseball cap, and jogging clothes. Ordinary-looking. Behind him was a bicyclist, crouching low over his handlebars as he sped toward them, adjusting gears.

She listened to the rhythm of her feet, felt the measured beat of her heart, tested all her senses while she reminded herself to stay composed.

Soon the bicyclist whizzed past on her right, through the wild grasses on the lagoon side, off-trail. Relieved, she slowed to avoid breathing the billows of dust from his tires as he hurtled back onto the dirt track and roared onward. Next, she felt the movement of air that told her the runner was about to pass, too. She moved politely left to give him room. He did not move to the right.

Instead, he stayed directly behind, his speed increasing, his footsteps closing in. A chill shot up her spine, followed by anger. What in hell was he thinking! And then she knew. From the back of her mind, from a time and place she had worked hard to forget, she understood that she had been monitoring him all along, because he had been pacing her. He did not pass because he wanted something else.

She burst ahead, escaping. Her feet were light, her speed explosive. Her muscles sang. Vegetation passed in a blur, but his pounding gait told her he was fast, too. She dared not look back. She might trip, fall off the cliff.

She leaped off the beaten trail, risking tangled grass and loose rocks, aiming toward the gentle slope down to the lagoon. But with a suddenness that sent fear rushing through her, she felt his hard, hot exhalations on the back of her neck. Desperately, she tried to accelerate again, but she had nothing left. This was her top speed. She would have to fight.

As she started to turn, he slammed his arms around her waist, wrenched her off her feet, and swung her around toward the cliff's ocean side.

Above her, the sky tilted. Panting, she rammed her right elbow back. He grunted in pain. She had connected with his pectorals, muscular and resilient, but she had not hit him hard enough to really hurt. He was taller and far stronger. She twisted from side to side and briefly saw his face with her peripheral vision. Heavy jaw, hollow cheekbones, thick, short nose. Ray-Ban sunglasses. His lips were a thin, neutral line.

Frantic, she slashed her other elbow into his shoulder and punched a fist back over her shoulder at his throat. Too little, too late. Like a big, bored child, he flung her from his arms and staggered back to safety.

Her balance utterly gone, she sailed helplessly through the air. Her mouth opened, her arms windmilled, and a primordial scream erupted from somewhere deep in her belly. She did not recognize the sound, and then it was gone, lost in the roar of the surf pounding far below.

She landed at the cliff's edge. Unable to stop, she plunged feet-first into a terrifying void of bottomless space. She jerked frantically around and grabbed clumps of pampas grass, which held for a moment on the sheer cliff and then pulled away, roots and all. But they slowed her inexorable slide, and she was not in free fall. Not yet.

Head spinning, terror threatening to paralyze her, she clutched at outcroppings and scrub while her feet scrambled for something to brake on. Nothing she grasped held for long, and sharp rocks jutting from the cliff's face ripped her T-shirt and shorts as her slide continued. Hundreds of cuts, scrapes, and puncture wounds riddled her hands, arms, chest, belly, and legs. The more she sweated, the more they hurt and burned, distracting her.

She almost missed it: a spindly tree battling to grow from a crevice. As her feet, legs, and waist rushed down past, she seized it with both hands. Miraculously, the tree held. She dangled there, trying to press into the rocks. There was nothing beneath her feet. The breeze was icy against her wet skin.

Time froze. She was in pain, discouraged, exhausted, and vividly aware that one misstep, one long, smooth stretch of cliff without handhold or toehold, or one second of inattention could lead to her death.

As she tried to fight the fear, to summon the energy to go on, a voice sounded in her mind:
You can do this.
She repeated the words, and then she knew: Yes, there was one problem she could do something about—herself. She needed to focus.

Her feverish nerves quieted. Concentrating, she dismissed her aches and bruises. She craned to look up but could not see the top of the cliff. There was no way she could climb back up anyway.

The tree gave an ominous creak, its roots loosening.

She forced herself to remain calm and gazed down. It was a straight drop, some thirty feet now, and there was no one down there on the beach to call to for help. The surf was heavy, but at least there was sand directly beneath, not boulders.

She searched for a toehold and finally spotted a shallow lip about ten feet below. Focusing, she bent the scraggly tree over and patiently worked her fingers along the trunk as she lowered herself.

Finally, the toe of one running shoe found the narrow shelf. Almost immediately, the roots broke free in a shower of sand and rock.

She released the tree. As it fell, she swayed, caught her balance, and flattened into the sheer face, suddenly overwhelmed by pain. She hurt everywhere. Breathing deeply, she blocked it from her mind again.

There was another little ledge lower. Carefully, she eased her way down from outcropping to spindly bush to clump of grass. Progress came in inches. When she reached the ledge, she collected herself and saw a third place below where she could put both feet. With small goals, the impossible was achievable.

When she reached that ledge, she looked down again. Fifteen feet remained. A towering wave rolled in and crashed onto the sand, sending spray up against the cliff, almost reaching her. She decided that was too good a sign of a doable distance to ignore. She analyzed the drop, bent her knees, flexed her body, and stepped away from the cliff.

Heart pounding, she plummeted straight down through the ocean air and landed in a crouch in the sand, sending seabirds aloft in flight. Their sharp cries of complaint rose and disappeared. She stayed there, fingers dug into the sand, motionless, panting.

Finally, as glossy white surf spent itself near her feet, she wiped an arm across her hot face and forced herself to think. It was illogical, impossible, that she had been a target of opportunity for some random madman. No, that bastard had been following her. He had tried to kill
her
—and had come very close to succeeding. But why here? Why now?

She shuddered, feeling again his steely grip around her waist, her helplessness at his well-planned attack. At last, she stood up, brushed the sand from her hands, and began walking back. Soon she was overcome by restlessness. Then a fiery bolt of outrage shot through her. Furious, she ran. Had the past caught up with her at last?