All the Queen's Men (25 page)

Then he gently restored the shirt to her shoulder and moved around to take the chair across from her. When his back was turned she saw the thin, four-inch scar on his left shoulder blade. Even knowing it wasn't real, she couldn't tell how it was applied. It certainly looked genuine.

Then he sat down facing her, and she blinked in astonishment at the small diamond stud in his left ear. His ear wasn't pierced; she would have noticed before if it had been. And he hadn't been wearing an earring last night. Well, if the scar was fake, the pierced ear could be, too; he probably had the stud glued on. And the altered hairline looked real. All these small identifying characteristics were fake; with them removed, he would never be identified as Joseph Temple, despite having the same face. As long as there were no dental records tying them together, or DNA samples to compare, he was unidentifiable.

A waiter in black shorts and white shirt approached. "May I serve you anything from the bar?"

"We'd like to order lunch," John said, his French perfect.

"Of course, sir."

He ordered puff pastries filled with chicken in cream sauce for appetizers, potato soup, and a cheese and fruit tray afterward. Thankful she wouldn't be expected to choke down a full meal, including a meat course, Niema looked around at the beautifully landscaped courtyard. It was becoming more crowded now as others elected to have their lunch by the pool rather than inside. The murmur of conversation, punctuated by splashes, laughter, and the dink of silverware, made it reasonable that they would lean together over the small round table.

John adjusted the umbrella shading them to protect her from the sun, and also to partially block anyone's view of them from the house. Before he sat down he plucked his shirt from the chaise beside him and pulled it on over his head. She almost mourned as those pecs and abs disappeared from view, but admitted to herself that at least now she'd be able to concentrate better.

"I've been in Ronsard's office," he said, pitching his voice so that only she could hear. "I have the door code and got a good look at his security system. What's on the agenda for tonight?"

"It's fancy dress every night. Buffet dinner, dancing, just like last night."

"Good. People will be moving around, so it'll be difficult to keep track of us. We're going to dance every dance-"

"Not in high heels, I'm not. I'd be crippled."

"Then don't wear heels."

She gave him a dirty look, though of course he couldn't tell since she was still wearing the sunglasses. "You're the one who provided the wardrobe. Heels are the only suitable shoes I have with me."

"Okay, we'll dance a few dances." He looked in danger of smiling again. "I'm going to be making it pretty obvious we're together, putting some strong moves on you, so don't panic."

"Why the strong moves?" Her throat had gone dry. She wished the waiter would hurry up with the mineral water John had ordered.

"So, if anyone notices us going off together, they'll just think we're looking for someplace more private- such as your room."

And instead they would be going through files. "What about Ronsard? And Cara?"

"I'll take care of her. Ronsard's a bit trickier. We may have to take our chances and hope he'll be too occupied to come to his office." He paused. "Here comes the waiter." He leaned over and took her hand, thumb rubbing lightly across the backs of her fingers. "Walk with me after lunch," he was murmuring when the waiter set down the crystal goblets of mineral water.

She drew back and picked up a goblet, sending a shaky smile in the waiter's direction.

"How much time do you need to plant the bug?" he asked when they were alone again.

"I'd like to have half an hour." She could probably do it in less time than that, but she wanted to be very, very careful with this one, because she was going to have to get into the wiring in the walls and she didn't want to leave any telltale marks. "What about the computer files? How long will it take on those?"

"Depends," he said helpfully.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Information."

He fought another smile. "I don't know what system he uses, if it's password protected or encrypted- though I'd be very surprised if he doesn't at least have a password. I have to get the password-"

"How on earth can you do that?"

"People usually write it down somewhere handy. Or it's something obvious, like their mother's name, or their kids-"

"Ronsard has a daughter," Niema said. "Laure."
"A daughter
? That wasn't in our information," John murmured.

"She's an invalid. He adores her, and is very protective of her privacy. For security reasons, very few people know she exists. She's so ill, she may not live long." A lump rose in her throat as she remembered Laure's skeletal face, with those dark blue eyes so like her father's, and her mischievous, practical spirit.

"Then he'd take very seriously any incident involving her," John mused.

Niema sat up straight, and snatched her sunglasses off so he could get a good look at how furious she was. "Don't you dare," she said between clenched teeth. "If you involve that child I'll-I'll..." She couldn't think of anything bad enough, but her eyes promised severe retribution.

"I'll do whatever's necessary," he softly replied. "You know that. I don't put limitations on what I'm willing to do to get a job done."

"Yes, I heard that about you," she said just as softly, rage boiling through her veins with a suddenness that took her off guard. "They say you even killed your own wife, so why would you worry about upsetting a little girl?"

Leaden silence fell between them. John's face was absolutely expressionless, his eyes so cold and empty they looked dead. "Her name was Venetia," he finally said, the words a mere rustle of sound. "Why don't you ask me if I did it? How do you think it happened? Did I shoot her, or break her neck, or cut her throat? Maybe I just tossed her out a thirty-story window. I've heard all those scenarios. Which do you think is most likely?"

She couldn't breathe. She had wanted to hit him, say something that would make an impression on him, and she had evidently succeeded beyond anything she could have expected. She hadn't believed those wild stories, hadn't really believed he had ever even been married.
To
know that he had, to know that his wife's name was Venetia and she had existed, was to suddenly think that those stories could be true.

"Did you?" she managed to say, barely able to force the words out through her constricted throat. "Did you kill her?"

"Yes," he said and leaned back as the waiter approached with their meal.

She strolled with him across the lush, manicured lawn. She hadn't had a chance to recover, to ask him any more questions, after he dropped that bombshell at lunch. First the waiter had been there, setting out their lunch, refilling their water glasses, asking if they needed anything else, and by the time he left, Ronsard "happened" to walk by and stayed to chat.

Niema had scarcely been able to talk; she had managed a few short answers to Ronsard's questions, but her lips were numb and she kept seeking refuge in her water glass. She remembered eating a few bites of lunch, but she had no idea how it had tasted.

After lunch, John put his trousers on over his dry swim trunks, then took her hand and led her out here. The hot sun beat down on her, bringing welcome warmth to her cold skin. She felt as if her heart were breaking. Innocence was an invisible fortress, keeping one safe, and oblivious to some things that were too horrible to contemplate. But now she no longer had that innocence, that obliviousness; she was aware of the pain, the horror, the cost. What must it be like for him, to have lived through it?

"John, I'm so sorry," she whispered.

She saw his surprise. Evidently he had expected her to be repelled by who he was, what he had done, maybe even frightened of him. She searched for the right words. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I hadn't believed the stories, or I never would have brought it up."

"Hurt me?" He sounded almost disinterested. She couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses, and she wanted to snatch them off his face. "The truth is the truth."

His hand was so warm and so strong, wrapped around hers, but the strength in his fingers was controlled so he wouldn't hurt her. He had never hurt her, she realized. Even when faced with her distrust and hostility in Iran, he had taken care of her, saved her life, held her in his arms while she grieved.

"Sometimes the truth is the truth, but sometimes it's something else. What really happened? Was she a double agent, the way I've heard?"

He made a noncommital sound. Growing exasperated, she squeezed his hand. "Tell me."

He stopped and turned to face her. "Or what?"

"Or nothing. Just tell me."

For a minute, she didn't think he would. Then he shrugged. "Yes, she was a double agent. She did it for the money. There weren't any extenuating circumstances; she didn't have family in the Soviet Union, or in East Germany, that was being threatened. All her family was American, and they weren't involved at all. She simply wanted the money."

So there was no excuse he could give his wife; he'd had to face the truth that she was, simply, a traitor.

That would have been devastating for almost anyone; what had it been like for him, after he had dedicated his entire life to the service of his country?

"How did you find out?"

He began walking again. "There wasn't any one big moment of truth, just a lot of little things that began adding up and made me suspicious. I set a trap for her, and she walked right into it."

"She didn't know you suspected?"

"Of course she did. She was good. But I baited the trap with something she couldn't resist: the names of our two highest-placed moles in the Kremlin. Aldrich Ames never came close to this information, it was so restricted." His lips were a thin line. "I was almost too late springing the trap. This was during the height of the Cold War, and this information was so crucial, so valuable, that she decided not to route it by the usual method. She picked up the phone and called the Soviet embassy. She asked to be brought in, because she knew I'd be after her, and she started to give them the names right there over the phone."

He took a long, controlled breath. "I shot her," he finally said, staring off at the massive wall that surrounded the estate. "I could have wounded her, but I didn't. What she knew was too important for me to take the chance, the moles too important to be brought in. They had to be left in place. She had already told her handler that she had the names; they would have moved heaven and earth to get to her, no matter what prison we put her in, no matter what security we put around her. So I killed her."

They walked in silence for a while, going from flower bed to flower bed like bees, ostensibly admiring the landscaping. Niema still clung to his hand while she tried to come to grips with the internal strength of this man. He had been forced to do something almost unthinkable, and he didn't make excuses for himself, didn't try to whitewash it or blur the facts. He lived with the burden of that day, and still he went on doing what he had to do.

Some people would think he was a monster. They wouldn't be able to get beyond the surface fact that he had deliberately killed his wife, or they would say that no information, no matter how crucial, was that important. Those who lived on the front lines knew better. Dallas had given his own life for his country, in a different battle of the same war.

John had saved untold lives by his actions, not just of the two moles but of the ensuing events to which they had been critical. The Soviet Union had broken up, the Berlin Wall had come down, and for a while the world had been safer. He was still on the front lines, putting himself in the cannon's mouth, perhaps trying to balance his own internal scales of justice.

"Why didn't she sell you out?" Niema asked. ""You're worth a pretty penny, you know."

"Thank you," he said dryly. "But I wasn't worth that much back then. I had high-level security clearance, so I was of some use to her, but she had her own clearance and access to a lot of classified documents."

"I can't imagine what it must have been like for you." Ineffable sadness was in her voice. She squeezed his hand again, trying to tell him without words how sorry she was for ever opening that particular can of worms.

He glanced down at her, then his head tilted up and he looked beyond her. He drew her closer to a huge flowering shrub, as if he were trying to shield them from view. "Brace yourself," he warned and bent his head.

His mouth settled on hers, his lips opening, molding, fusing. She put her hands on his shoulders and clung to him, her pulse pounding in her ears, her heart racing. Her entire body quickened with painful urgency, and she stifled a moan. His tongue was doing a slow, erotic dance in her mouth, advancing and retreating. He put his hands on her hips and drew her to him, lifting her, holding her so that they were groin to groin. She felt him getting erect, and she shivered with pleasure even while her inner alarm began clanging insistently. She fought to keep her legs under her and not sag against him like a limp noodle, which
he
definitely wasn't.

He lifted his mouth, holding it poised over hers. She stared up at him, dazed, and wished he wasn't wearing sunglasses so she could see his eyes. Still clinging to him she whispered, "Who's there?"

This time he did smile, his mouth curling upward. "Nobody. I just wanted to kiss you for being so damn sweet."

Violently she shoved away from him. "Sneak!" She stood with her lungs heaving, glaring at him. She really, really wanted to punch him, but instead she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

"Guilty as charged." Taking her hand again, he resumed their walk across the lawn. "But what did you expect? I tell you something that proves I'm the ruthless bastard everyone says I am, and you apologize to me. Of course I had to kiss you."

"I thought it was for the job."

"Not always," he said, not looking at her. "Not everything."

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Chapter Twenty-One