The Zul Enigma (47 page)

‘Those of us left will
have to pick up the pieces and build a new future. That’s where I think I can
help. Setting up guidelines for planetary management…’

‘Planetary management…
the vision you described when we flew to DC?’ Carlos nodded. ‘I like that
term,’ Greg said, and he smiled. They had achieved so much and at last he was
experiencing the kind of gratification from his work he always imagined he
should. Who would have thought it would take Carlos and his aliens to make that
happen?

***

‘Hi, Erika,’

‘Drew! I was about to
call you.’

‘Listen, I want you to
know, I’ve made a decision. I’m accepting Joe’s offer.’

‘Oh…’

‘I’m moving to Vienna.’

‘Oh, Drew…’

‘Are you there?’

Erika wiped her eyes
with her free hand. ‘Sure. I… well… I didn’t think you’d take it.’

‘The redundancy package
NASA’s offering is bloody generous and there’ll be a glut in the market for us
guys if the budgets
are
cut and we’re all laid off. New jobs here will
be hard to come by. Joe’s offer is a good one. I’d be a fool not to take it.
But it’s not just that. Truth is, I want to be near you.’

CHAPTER 8

‘
Signore
Maiz! Where have you been a-hiding?’

‘I know. It’s been too
long.’

‘Your usual table?’

‘Not tonight – I’m
meeting a friend.’

Once seated with a
bottle of his favourite Chianti uncorked and breathing, Carlos gazed round at
the other diners.

Then he saw her.

She wore a black lacy
dress with sleeves to her wrists, the chasteness of which contrasted with the
low, scooped neckline. Her fair hair was swept on top of her head and stray
locks curled down against her neck. Three fine chains of gold, so long they
almost reached her collarbones, hung down from each ear. The links quivered and
shimmered with every movement of her head.

Luigi showed her to the
table and Carlos stood. He felt awkward shaking her hand but their relationship
so far had been based on business and he would have felt even more foolish
trying to kiss her cheek.

‘Rebecca,’ he said, ‘you
look beautiful.’

Luigi pushed in her
chair. Colouring at Carlos’s compliment, Rebecca dipped her head. Then looking
up from under her lashes she smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘You found the place
okay?’

‘Yes. I asked at the
hostel where I’m staying.’

‘Wine
signorina
?’
Luigi asked bottle poised by her glass.

She nodded and he poured
the ruby liquid into an over-sized balloon wine glass set at her place.

‘You’re staying at a
hostel. Why? I told you I have a spare room.’

‘Oh, Carlos, I’m only
here for a couple of nights… I left the UK in a hurry. To be honest, I couldn’t
get out of England quick enough.’

‘Why?’

She wrinkled her
forehead and sighed. ‘It’s not that I don’t
want
to tell you…’

‘This isn’t just about
quitting your job, is it?’

‘No,’ she said, and her
earrings glinted in the candlelight as she shook her head. ‘And it’s not that I
don’t want you to know. It’s just that I’m sick of thinking about it… of being
in the middle of it. I don’t want to talk about it now. The reason I’m here is
because I wanted to get away and leave all that bad stuff behind me.’ She
pushed a lock of hair off her face.

‘Boyfriend trouble?’
Carlos asked.

She bit her lip and her
eyes watered, darkening them to an even deeper brown.

‘Okay!’ Carlos said. ‘I
don’t want to make you cry five minutes after you get here.’

Rebecca blinked back the
tears. A little laugh escaped from her lips. ‘And I don’t want to cry,’ she
said picking up her glass. ‘I’ve done too much of that lately.’

They ordered tiramisu.

‘You haven’t mentioned
the new project. Is it still a big secret?’ Rebecca asked.

Carlos grinned. ‘Not any
more,’ and he told her all about his plans.

‘That’s brilliant. So
when do you inaugurate the campaign?’

‘In two months. We
launch it worldwide via satellite TV. We’ll show highlights of the Session and
follow up with a flood of infomercials, ads and editorials. So far, the
support’s been overwhelming.’

‘Because of the problem
with Russia?’ she asked.

‘That’s got a lot to do
with it in the western world. Although the crisis has eased over the past few
weeks, people are still worried. They’re used to reading about wars going on in
Asia or Africa, but when something could start up in their own backyard…’

The waiter brought the
desserts and they devoured them without another word.

‘And how about you?’
Carlos asked. ‘You said you’re only here for a couple of days?’

Rebecca nodded and her
expression became so grim he wished he hadn’t brought the subject up.

‘I wanted to go straight
to Hungary and visit my friend. I need a good friend right now. But she’s away
till Monday. So I came here first.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Budapest. I’ll stay
with her for a week before going back to the UK and tidying up my affairs. Then
I’ll return to Europe and volunteer. But I’ll definitely come here again. I
love Vienna.’

‘Use my place as your
base. It’s near the UN – it’s perfect.’

‘I really hardly know
you and…’

Carlos held up his
hands. ‘No strings, no problem and I hope there’s no argument.’

‘I feel it’s an
imposition…’

‘It’s not. I spend so
much time on this campaign, I’m hardly ever there anyhow.’

‘Okay,’ she smiled,
‘I’ll think about it.’

CHAPTER 9

A month later Erika was at the airport yelling, ‘Hey, over here!’ and waving
her arms in the air to get Drew’s attention as he strolled out of the customs
hall.

When he spotted her he
grinned and strode towards her. He dropped his bags on the floor and cupped her
face in his hands. ‘You look even more beautiful than I remember,’ he said and
bent over to kiss her.

She tipped up her face
and a low moan escaped her lips as she felt his warm soft mouth cover hers and
her body was flooded with a rush of desire. She caressed his face, all stubbly
after missing it’s morning shave and slid her arms round the back of his neck
pressing herself against him. Then she broke the kiss and looked deep into his
blue eyes.

‘Welcome to Vienna,’ she
whispered.

‘What’s all this?’ Drew said, flicking her hair.

It was getting on for
ten in the morning and the rush hour crush was easing as Erika drove him into
town.

‘I cut it,’ she replied
shaking her head. ‘What do you think?’

‘I like shaggy,’ he
said, ‘but what I don’t like is you choosing a flat for me that’s so far away
from your place.’

‘You need to be close to
your office.’

He grunted. ‘Where’s
Ashby and Josh?’

‘They’re at school.’

‘Shit! I must be
jet-lagged. Of course… it’s Monday.’

‘Talking of the boys
– there’s something I want to say. You see Drew, in the past I’ve always
kept any relationships I had quite separate from them. Of course they know I
date but I never wanted them to get close to any of my men friends, because I
never met anyone I thought I could be that serious with. But with you… because
you’ve known them all their lives… it’s different. You’re already a big part of
our family.’ She shrugged, ‘and if you’re serious about us…’

‘Of course, I’m
serious!’

‘Chill honey. It’s just
that I want us to take it slow. Very slow.’

‘You saying you don’t
trust me?’

Erika put her hand on
his thigh. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. But you’ve got to admit you do
have quite a history. Up till now it’s only ever been me and my boys… just the
three of us. It’s going to take a while for us to factor someone new into that
equation.’

‘We’ll do just fine.
Don’t you worry.’

Stopping at a red light,
she turned to him. ‘That’s why I wanted you to have your own place. And why
it’s best it’s not too close. Until they get used to you being more than just a
friend. They adore you… and you’re terrific with them. But I’m scared they
might start feeling… well… insecure when they realise you’re taking some of my
attention away; that our family’s gone from three to four; and that there’s
another permanent voice of authority around. I just want to handle things as
sensitively as I can.’

‘And that’s just one of
the things,’ Drew leaned over and kissed her cheek, ‘I love about you.’

***

Later the same day, Carlos was waiting outside the customs hall for Rebecca.
‘Carlos!’ she exclaimed when she saw him, ‘I didn’t expect you to meet me.’

He smiled at her
surprise. ‘It’s all part of the service,’ he said taking her suitcase and
walking in the direction of the car park.

‘Shouldn’t you be at
work?’

He looked round. ‘I left
early. In any case, I worked all weekend.’

‘How
is
the
campaign going?’

‘Fantastic,’ he replied,
laughing.

When they got to his flat he showed Rebecca into the guest room and went into
the kitchen to make coffee.

 
After a few minutes she joined him. ‘My
goodness, Carlos! This place is amazing. Look at that courtyard. It’s
beautiful. And inside it’s so modern. I love these skylights. It’s so bright.’

‘How do you take your
coffee?’ he asked.

‘With a splash of milk.
No sugar.’

‘Like me – that’s
easy to remember.’

He put some of his
favourite biscuits on a plate and they sat on stools at the kitchen counter.

‘So… how was Budapest?’

‘Lovely. It was great to
see my friend.’

‘And England?’

‘It was okay.’

‘You got everything
sorted out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to tell
me what happened?’ Rebecca looked up from under her lashes, biting her lip.
‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

‘I do want to,’ she
said, and took a sip of her coffee. ‘His name’s Stuart Morrison and I’ve known
him for six years. He was a real player. Then he started angling for me. I
wasn’t interested at first, but he persisted and ended up sweeping me off my
feet.

‘After a roller-coaster ride
for a year, as I found out about the web of other women he was involved with,
he told me he loved me and asked me to move in. I was ecstatic.

‘It was okay for a
while. Then as the months passed things started going downhill. He became
dismissive and moody. I was always afraid of making a wrong move or saying the
wrong thing and upsetting him. It was like walking on broken glass. More and
more often he’d call to say he had to work late or had to entertain business
people. Sometimes he wouldn’t call at all.

‘Then one morning,’ she
reached to pick up a biscuit, ‘I left some file I needed for work at home. When
I got back and went in the bedroom to get it I saw he’d made the bed –
something he
never
normally did. Then I noticed all my perfumes and
make-up and all the photos with me in them had disappeared. He’d hidden
everything in a drawer. It was obvious what he was planning and I felt like I’d
been kicked in the stomach. I couldn’t stop shaking. I went on to work plotting
how I could catch him red-handed with whoever she was. But in the end I decided
against it. Because by that time he’d started getting violent.’ She took a bite
of the biscuit.

‘
¡Hijo de puta!
’
Carlos shouted.

‘It started with a
cigarette burn on the back of my hand. Then it got worse. Slapping, kicking,
pulling hair – never anything bad enough to put me in hospital –
but I had loads of cuts and bruises and bald patches… and more than a couple of
black eyes. Of course, I never told anyone.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if I had,
they’d have said leave him. I mean, that’s what
you’d
say, right? But I
wasn’t ready. Not then.’ She ate the rest of the biscuit and Carlos topped up
their coffee.

‘How could you let him
treat you like that?’

She shrugged. ‘I loved
him. I knew he was troubled. I wanted to help. And when you’re in the middle of
something like that, after a while it seems normal. You don’t see how bad it is
until you get out. The more I puzzled how I could get through to him, to help
him, the more interested I became in how our minds work and why people behave
in such different ways. Then I met someone who was into meditation. They told
me that by following a meditation practice you can make yourself stronger…
realise your own potential.’

‘Hey!’