World Without End (49 page)

"To save me," Conway repeated.

"Raymond has more friends like Cole. If you stay here, I won't be able to protect you."

"Where's Dixon?"

"With us. He's safe. We protect our own, Stephen."

We protect our own. The words summoned the scene from the Tobin Bridge, and the words Angel Eyes had said: Right now, the suit is a one-of-a-kind item. It isn't a mass-produced weapon of destruction yet.

Angel Eyes mass-produced the laser rifle. What's to keep him from doing the same with the suit? He has Dixon.

Conway thought about the Palm Pilot in his pocket.

You have to destroy the suit, a voice said.

I end up killing her.

Then he recalled Angel Eyes that morning at the Holocaust Memorial, the way the man had his bare hand pressed against the glass. No grief on his face, no regret, no look of mourning, it was almost like… rapture.

Wearing that suit, you would be a god. A man would go to great lengths to have that kind of power. You said those words to Bouchard, remember?

Conway looked into her eyes and remembered them making love that last morning in Austin.

"I'll be watching you," Pasha whispered, her words sounding like a low, drowsy hum against his ear.

"i'll keep you safe, Stephen. I'll always be here for you. I promise."

The woman in that moment and the woman standing before him with the gun were two different people.

Pasha made her decision and now you have to make yours.

The Blackhawk had landed near the back corner of the roof.

"Come with me and meet the man," Pasha said.

"Give him a chance to explain."

"And if I don't like what he has to say, he's going to, what, just let me walkaway?"

"I want you to be a part of my life. That's why I came back for you.

Give this a chance." Pasha stared at him.

"Please."

Conway placed his hands in his pockets. He felt the Palm Pilot.

Pasha's eyes were on his hands.

"What's your decision, Stephen?"

I don't like the path the world has taken, Angel Eyes had said. I often wonder what it would be like if the whole planet started over. I think it could happen. If the right person came into power.

"Lead the way," Conway said.

The face shield on Pasha's helmet slid down and covered her eyes. She stepped out of the alcove first; the wind was strong and almost knocked her down. His heart heavy with the finality of his choice, Conway stepped out of the alcove and jogged toward the helicopter, his eyes on the opened bay door.

I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the right thing.

Conway could see the face of the man in the lighted cockpit. The Austin Detective, Lenny Rombardo.

Another man who worked for Angel Eyes.

The wind blowing around him, Conway stepped up into the dark bay, Pasha still several feet behind him. Rombardo couldn't see him. Conway removed the Palm Pilot from his pocket. The program was already loaded. A two-minute countdown. All he had to do was press the button.

May God forgive me. Conway pressed the button and the timer started ticking down. He slid the Palm across the floor toward Rombardo and then turned around. Pasha was about to step up into the chopper. She still had the gun aimed at him.

"I've changed my mind," he yelled over the wind.

"I'm not going."

Pasha's voice boomed over the helmet's speakers.

"This is your last chance, Stephen. I'm not going to ask you again."

"I've made my decision and you've made yours. Good-bye, Pasha. Please forgive me."

Conway jogged away from her. When he turned around, he saw that she had climbed in beside Rombardo. She had taken off her helmet. Her eyes were locked on Conway's as the Blackhawk lifted into the air. The searchlight clicked off.

You did the right thing, Stephen. Whatever happens after this, know you did the right thing.

The Blackhawk had just sailed past the roof when the bomb went off. The attack chopper turned around and kept spinning. Conway ran toward the edge of the roof, not knowing why. The cockpit was still lit. Blood was on the glass. He saw Pasha. She was alive. She had blood on her face and was trying to take control of the Blackhawk. Rombardo's dead body, broken and twisted, was still buckled in his seat. But the chopper kept spinning, out of control now, sinking, the bomb having destroyed the navigation system. A final pass and Pasha looked at him, frightened.

Forgive me, Pasha.

The Blackhawk sank below the roof and Pasha was gone.

If you have been kicked around by life at an early age, or if your upbringing is defined by being bounced around foster homes and group homes for the troubled and unwanted and the forgettable, you learn the importance of not placing roots because nothing in life is permanent.

The pleasing sight of a backyard pool from your bedroom window, or the thrill you get from playing baseball with a group of boys at a favorite playground are temporary at best, special moments that can be taken away from you as quick and as easy as blinking your eyes.

Steve Conway had lived with Booker that first month. To escape when the media attention got bad, he would run an errand for Book but didn't want to work full time. What he wanted was some stillness, some time alone to reflect and process everything that had happened. Silly, childish demands when you're the dead center of a media storm.

But all storms pass, and when it did, life got real quiet. Conway rented an apartment on Hancock Street in Beacon Hill, a five-minute walk from Booker's place and just around the corner from where Riley used to live. Used to. The word was like a haunted echo in his heart.

John Riley used to live here. John Riley used to be alive. Conway used to work for the CIA. He used to be in love with a woman named Pasha Romanov. She was dead now and so was John Riley. Life moved on.

It seemed easier to confront the truth here in the city, during early spring, surrounded by people. The weather was warm for April, and the college students at Suffolk were wrapping up their courses for the year. He would walk among them on the streets, see them in the coffee shops bump into them at the bars at night, and sometimes would listen in on their conversations about their problems, feel their ridiculous, almost childish angst and anger at why the world behaved the way it did. Sometimes he would talk with them. Mainly he just wanted to be near them, to soak up their innocence and youth.

In the dreams he would be out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, the night sky painted black above him, and whispered in the wind he would hear Pasha's voice calling out to him to come closer, come closer Stephen, I have so much to tell you. So many secrets to share.

Sometimes he would wake up. Sometimes he would stay with the dream and keep searching for her. All he ever heard was her voice. Other times he would get up and walk through Beacon Hill's dark, cool streets until he found Riley's condo. Standing across the street, he would lean his back against the cool brick and stare at the dark window where John Riley used to live.

I did the right thing, right?

Answer: Yes, you did.

I did the right thing, right?

Answer: Yes, you did.

Knowing the truth offered little comfort. The truth required a high price and left a bitter taste in his mouth and a cavernous feeling in the pit of his stomach. The truth, he had found, did not have a place in the day-to-day business of life.

At night, Pasha kept calling out for him.

One vital lesson he had learned early and learned hard in his education in the group homes is that you don't take people at their word; you cannot count on others or their promises. If you decide to ignore these facts and invest emotionally in the truth, if you decide to believe in the illusory comfort of a safe and warm home or, more recently, the whispered promises of a woman who loved you deeply then you have only yourself to blame when it all comes crashing down.

Five years? Was that how long he had been with her? Inch-by-inch he had given himself to love and blind trust in another person, and within the span of a few seconds, she robbed him of every thought and emotion he had for her, wrapped it up neatly inside a balloon and sent it sailing away.

All this time both enemies had been so close to his skin.

All this time and he couldn't see it.

He had been used twice.

Betrayed twice.

Angel Eyes was right. Conway had been nothing more than a means to an end.

At night, alone in the darkness of his bedroom, he would listen to the sounds of the city. A Swiss clock, a housewarming gift from Booker's wife, ticked in the darkness. Time moving forward. The world owes you nothing. Time moves forward and you have to fight to find the ways in which to heal.

Summer arrived on the first Saturday in May. Before the sun had risen, Conway went out for a long run in the Boston Common. Drenched in sweat, he trotted up the flight of stairs, and then showered, changed into jeans and a white T-shirt. Coffee in hand, he walked out onto the roof deck that overlooked the city.

The sun had just started to rise. He watched the neighborhood come alive and in the air felt the springtime magic of hope and the promise of good things to come. He wanted to freeze this moment, to store it in a vial, use it when the next wave of anger and grief hit him.

Inside the apartment, the phone rang.

It's Booker, calling to check up on me again. Booker had assumed the role of big brother; he called early in the morning on the weekends to check in and chat, see what was happening, but what he really wanted was to get a sense of when Conway was going to come to work. He went back inside and picked up the cordless phone in the living room.

"Hello, Stephen."

It had been months since Conway had last heard the cold, monotone voice. He glanced down at his watch, his eyes tracking the second hand.

"I won't be on long enough for your few remaining friends at the CIA to track me," Angel Eyes said.

"I don't work for the CIA anymore." Conway moved back outside and stared down from the roof. The streets below him were quiet, empty.

"I was told the Director wasn't happy about your media stunt. Nobody likes their secrets played on television."

It was true. Conway had placed the truth before the needs of the Agency and had exposed the slick underbelly of an enterprise that thrived on keeping secrets. Add that to the fact that he had been in the national spotlight, his face too well known for any undercover work, and he was looking at a desk job. No thank you. Conway took his severance package and, with a few conditions, went home.

"I was also told that as part of your departure you agreed to have your phone tapped in case I called," Angel Eyes said.

"I understand I'm a wanted man now."

"Where's Dixon?" Major Dixon's body had not turned up.

"I assure you that the Major is quite alive and quite safe. He's made a remarkable recovery, Stephen. Doesn't hold any ill will toward you.

I wish I could say the same about your other friend." Angel Eyes laughed quietly.

Raymond Bouchard had disappeared. Conway had not thought of the man and didn't want to think about the man now. Or ever.

"Would you like to know about Raymond?" Angel Eyes asked.

"No."

"I rescued Pasha when she was a young girl. So full of venom. Not that I blame her feelings. After the horror she endured at the hands of Misha inside her father's kitchen, I was often surprised by her transformation. All things are possible if you have the right guide."

Conway stared out at the rooftops, the hum of traffic in the distance.

"You're the first man she loved deeply," Angel Eyes said.

Conway said nothing. His heart felt like it was beating inside his throat, stuck, struggling to break free.

"Pasha didn't have to die, Stephen. You could have come with her could have become a part of us and lived that vision that struggles inside your breast."

"And if I didn't, you would kill me."

"I would never hurt you, Stephen."

"I saw you that day at the Holocaust Memorial. I saw your hand pressed against the glass, your eyes closed." Conway thought he heard a moan coming from the other end.

"That's why you wanted the suit. You needed it to carry out your secret wish, the one you hid away from Gunther and Pasha because if they had ever found out, they would have left you."

"I'd love to chat, Stephen, but I'm afraid I'm pressed for time.

Remember to mind your place."

"That sounds like a threat."

"Be sure to make use of the gift I left for you on your doorstep." As gentle as a whisper, Angel Eyes hung up.

Conway ran down the stairs and opened the front door. A brown-wrapped, 8-by-ll envelope leaned against the stairs. He picked it up, felt it.

No name and no postage; it had the weight of a stack of papers. A bomb? He didn't feel a watch battery.

I would never burn you, Stephen.

Back on the patio roof, Conway sat down in his chair and opened the package. Attached to the front of the file folder was a neatly written note:

Dear Stephen, We dedicate much of our life wondering why we've been treated unfairly; why we've been victimized and used; discarded; passed by. It is on our deathbeds, about to draw in our last breath, that we finally come to the realization of how much time we've wasted on these petty transgressions that in their collective sum are worthless; how we took for granted the gifts that had always lain beneath our feet or next to our hearts, or how we failed to see the joy and beauty and splendor that offer themselves to our eyes every day.

Claire Arlington, like yourself, is a survivor. A cunning warrior. I won't tell you much here; it will spoil the wonder of the discovery.