The Echelon Vendetta (49 page)

monday, october 22 carmel highlands home pacific coast highway carmel, california

4 p.m. local time

alton drove slowly up the long curving driveway, through the wrought-iron gates, and into the cobblestoned courtyard, coming to a stop at the foot of a wide curving staircase. Dr. Cassel— a tall, white-haired woman with a high, clear forehead, sharp brown eyes, and a hawklike nose—stood at the top of the stairs, her pale-pink linen dress ruffling in the ocean wind. Behind her the carved Spanish doors stood open under a broad portico, the old mission-style hospital rising up behind, pink adobe walls and carved wooden window frames, balconies, vines climbing up, heavy with bright red and blue flowers.

As he climbed out of the car, she smiled and came down the steps to meet him, her slender hand out, heavy gold on her wrist. She folded him into her frail birdlike body and kissed him in the French manner, a touch of the lips on the left cheek, and then the right, while holding his shoulders with her surprisingly strong grip. She smelled the way the sea did, salt and cypress, flowers and the tangy

scent of cedar smoke.

“Micah, so wonderful to see you.”

Her expression altered as she looked up at him.

“You look terrible. Where have you been? No, no—I know you can’t tell me. Come upstairs, I have a table set on the veranda. Have you eaten? You really need to...”

She talked away at him, a stream of comforting trivial chatter while she walked him up the stairs and into the cool dark of the lobby, the floor of polished terra-cotta tiles gleaming in a shaft of sunlight coming in from the seaward sunroom, curved dark beams rising up into the darkness above, the smell of fresh flowers, coffee, a few patients staring down at them from the upper landings in that detached appraising way that the very sick or the very old have, the feeling of having stepped aside, of being raised above the bittersweet onrushing tide of everyday life. Dalton waved at the bent figure of an old man in a navy blue blazer and pressed gray slacks, a crisp white shirt. The old man may even have recognized Dalton—he lifted an empty pipe with a thick gold band and waved back to Dalton, smiling broadly.

Dr. Cassel walked him out through the greenhouse solarium and onto a wide flower-filled stone veranda encircled by thick pillars of pale pink marble.

Down the cliff and through the cypress trees, the broad Pacific boomed and roared, green waves curling up and crashing down against the cliffs, white spray flying, while beyond this the thunder and boom of the endless sea, rolling away to the uttermost ends of the world.

She sat him down at a green-painted wrought-iron table with a pink linen tablecloth and poured him a glass of wine from a dripping silver decanter, another for herself, and sat back to smile at him over the rim of her goblet.

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“I was so sorry to hear about Porter. He was a lovely man.” “He was.” “Will there be a funeral? I don’t mean to pry. I know how deli

cate these things are in ...in the company.”

“There isn’t, usually. But we’ve arranged a little ceremony in Cortona. That’s where the body is. The Carabinieri have been holding it for us. A Major Brancati, he has arranged for a mass at the church of San Nicolò—”

“I know it. That scruffy little hut, without a steeple, high up in the town. Why there, for all love?”

“It’s where Porter died,” said Dalton, pressing down the image that the words brought flowing into the top of his mind. Dr. Cassel saw the pain in his eyes and regretted the question.

“Well, that’s very lovely of the police there. Was Major Brancati

a friend?” “He became one. He was a great help in the investigation.” “When do you leave?” “The mass will take place on the Wednesday. The thirty-first. Then

I’ll fly back with Porter’s body on the first of November. There’ll be a ceremony inside Langley and he’ll go to his family’s vault in Alexandria.”

“So many deaths. His entire family?” “Yes. And too many others.” “But you . . . you found the man? The killer?” “We did.” There was a silence, and it drew out. They sat there together and

watched the Pacific churning, the soft light far out on the sea. Finally, Dr. Cassel spoke. “Micah, are you sure? About Laura?” He continued to look out at the ocean for a time, his face unread

able, thinking about Porter Naumann’s ghost, half-expecting to see him materialize in the shining ocean light that filled the broad sun-

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lit patio—perhaps a little disappointed—and then he reached for his

glass.

“I am. I’ve thought about nothing else for days.”

“It was a terrible, terrible thing. And so very much sadness...”

Her voice trailed away and Dalton let his mind follow hers. Racing through the front hall of his house in Quincy and out into the snowstorm, Laura’s white stricken face, her hands clutching at him as he brushed by her, the emerald green carriage, the bundle of bright green blanket, and the two-foot-long icicle, tapered and glittering, falling like a lance from the overhanging eaves.

The baby pierced right through, the bright red blood bubbling up. Then the police, the hospital. The heavy silence of the empty halls in the half-light of dawn. Then came the recriminations, the accusations and counteraccusations, the searing guilt.

And months after their separation, the long silence, the unanswered calls in the middle of the night, her last message to him— asking him to come home.

The sealed garage and the dusty Cadillac running ...running...

“Would you like to go and see her, Micah?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and then they got up and walked through the glass doors and back into the cool, dark interior. Up the curving stone stairs and down the long hall, their steps echoing, and into a bright sun-filled room, painted white, the gauzy curtains flaring inward on the warm wind off the sea, and Laura on her bed.

Pale, shrunken, turned on one side, in a pink-floral nightgown, her thin red hair brushed, her powdery white cheeks shining in the sunlight—the hiss and pump and chuff of the breathing tube, the machine in the stainless-steel shelving beside her, clicking and beeping and wheezing.

Dalton knelt down beside her and touched her cheek. Her lips were dry and cracked and the ventilator tube looked huge, obscene, where it punched through her throat. On the far side of the bed an

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IV rack dripped fluids into her, and another tube ran out from under the sheets, draining into a tall plastic bottle.

Her eyes were closed—they looked sewn shut, like a mummy’s, and the lids were pale blue.

“Shall I leave you for a while?” asked Dr. Cassel.

“Yes. For a while.”

“You know what to do, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and then left the room, closing the door softly behind her. Dalton touched Laura’s cheek and then sat down on the bedside chair, drawing in close. He leaned into her, near enough to breathe her in, folded his hands together between his knees, and began to speak to her, a low baritone whisper, like a father reading a bedtime story to a child on the edge of sleep. He spoke to her for a long, long time while the light slowly changed in the room, while a broad rectangle of sun slowly crawled across the wooden floor until it reached the wall, where it began to climb, changing as it did so from yellow to gold to purple.

There was a brief flaring of orange light as the sun went down, and then it was evening, and during all this time he talked to her, talked and talked to her, pouring his heart into her delicate pearl-colored ear, his breath on her cheek. He talked their whole life through, from Boston to Cortona to Quincy, remembered it all for both of them, remembered every single moment of it.

And through it all she lay there on her side with her small twiglike hands curled under her and her pale withered limbs contorted as if in pain. Feeling nothing. Dreaming nothing. Being nothing.

Finally, after a timeless interval during which he had no more words to speak and he was feeling far more than he could bear, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, stroked her cold damp forehead,

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reached over to the machine, and flicked it off. The silence that came into the room then was shattering in its intensity and he began to cry.

At some later point during the night—he had no sense of time— he felt a subtle and powerful change in her, a deeper stillness come over her, and he knew that if this was truly where his loving wife had been all these long years, abandoned and unforgiven in this sterile room, she was no longer present, she had gone away from him, and he was now completely alone in the living world.

IN THE MORNING,
as he was leaving, after Dr. Cassel had promised to make the necessary arrangements for Laura—she was to be buried where their baby had been laid down years ago, in Laura’s family crypt in Boston—he walked down the stairs toward a cool fresh morning, feeling as if he were made of lead and his blood was quicksilver. In a shadowed portico by the open door he saw the figure of a tall man sitting in a wicker peacock chair, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. It was Porter Naumann.

“Micah,” said Porter, “that was well done.”

Dalton came into the little portico and looked down at Naumann. He looked very good, for a dead man; he had changed his clothes. Now he was wearing a well-cut dark blue pinstripe suit, gleaming black wingtips, pale pink socks, and a matching pink shirt, open at the neck.

Dalton saw that Naumann had his Chopard back on his wrist.

“You got your watch?”

Naumann looked down at it, smiled up at Dalton. “No. Bought a new one.”

“Dante’s? Third circle?”

Naumann’s smile faded; his expression turned solemn.

“You have company, Micah. Out in the yard.”

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“I do?”

“Yes. Be careful. See you soon.”

Naumann’s image wavered, faded. There was nothing in the peacock chair but a faint trace of navy blue mist. A wind blew in from the open window, smelling of oranges, and swept it away. Dalton stepped out into the hard sunlight and saw Jack Stallworth leaning on the hood of a long black limousine.

The engine was idling, rocking the big car gently on its springs. The windows were tinted black and two Agency bulls were standing on either side of the stairs as he came down onto the stones of the courtyard, one blond and one black, both with their suit jackets open, both staring fixedly at him. Jack came forward with his hand out.

“Micah. I’m glad we caught you.”

“Where the hell have you been, Jack? You’ve been out of touch since October fourteen. Today’s the twenty-third.”

Jack’s face hardened up. “Company business, Micah. I don’t report to you.”

“I was running an investigation. You left Sally flat-footed.”

“I hear she did just fine.”

“Look. We’ll do this later. Have a nice day.”

“Micah, don’t walk away from this.”

“My wife died last night. This is not the time.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry, Micah. I really am. But this can’t wait. We need to talk.”

“Who’s in the hearse?”

“The Vicar.”

“I’m not getting in that limo, Jack.”

“I wish you would, Micah. It’s important.”

“Not to me.”

“Micah, he’s not just going to let you walk. See him now or see him later. You know how it is.”

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Dalton looked past Stallworth’s shoulder at the long black machine, idling gently, sunlight dappling the gleaming body. “I need to know a couple of things.”