Beloved Enemy (31 page)

A beautiful raven-haired young woman in a short, skintight black dress that showed off the tops of her breasts and her long, powerful legs appeared from the back of the gallery, smiling warmly at him.

“I’m Noemie,” she said. “May I help you?”

“Just looking around,” Jack said.

Noemie nodded. “Take your time, but if there’s an artist you’re particularly looking for, ask. Not everything is on display.”

Jack thanked her, watched her walk away before he turned to the pieces, moving slowly, his eyes on the paint splashes, but his mind far away. It seemed to him that from the moment Dennis Paull had summoned him to his house in the middle of the night he had been falling down a well of unknown depth. The farther he fell, the darker his surroundings became. Mysteries multiplied like images in opposing mirrors, and he felt no closer to solving any of them.

And yet, he had been given clues: Leroy Connaston’s involvement with the Syrian, Pyotr Legere’s odd parentage. Romy’s perplexing revelation that Annika had been monitoring his progress ever since he fled Washington. How had she done it? How could she have known where he was going?

Unless …

Jack put his head in his hands. Unless she was behind everything. Annika had aligned herself with the Syrian, as, apparently, had her grandfather. Jack thought back to his time with Dyadya Gourdjiev, but nothing came to mind that might make sense of that partnership. In fact, just the opposite. It seemed inconceivable to him that either of them would have anything to do with the terrorist.

If he was right, then something else was in play, something he had not yet seen. All at once, he recalled the conversation he’d had with Gourdjiev in the Moscow hospital where the old man had been taken following his heart attack.

“Jack, do you trust me?”

“I think the question is, Do you trust me?”

Dyadya Gourdjiev had smiled.
“You wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t. Now, come, answer me.”

“Trust. That depends on what you mean,”
Jack had said truthfully.
“You’ve lied to me in the past.”

“Did things turn out badly?”

“No.”

“And it’s always turned out for the best, no?”

“That doesn’t stop me from feeling used.”

The old man had taken a moment to digest this.
“Do you trust me to do no harm?”

“It depends on your point of view. I’m never certain whose side you’re on.”

“Do you trust me to protect Annika, whatever the cost?”

Jack’s alarm had escalated exponentially.
“Protect her from whom?”

He had never gotten an answer, but what if Gourdjiev meant the Syrian?

“You love my granddaughter, yes?”
the old man had asked, almost plaintively.

Jack had never heard him sound like that, vulnerable.

“Yes,”
he had said.

“Because she loves you. This is my beacon in the dark, the only thing I pay attention to now. This is the depth of my trust in you, Jack. Words—words mean nothing, an actor’s lines. I want you to remember that. No matter what may occur, you must remember that you love each other, that that love will never change, that it is your true strength, your only salvation.”

Gourdjiev had looked deep into Jack’s eyes.
“You don’t understand this now, but I have faith that one day you will.”

Now, standing in the Zurich art gallery, Jack wondered if that day had come.
“I can’t go with you, Jack,”
Annika had said, before leaving him.
Words mean nothing, an actor’s lines.
Had Annika been acting, had her words meant nothing? Did she, indeed, still love him? But how could she, betraying him time and time again.

This is what Annika did to him: his feelings for her muddied the waters, making his usually agile mind lose its way. In this sense, she was like a poison he had ingested and couldn’t get out of his system. It kept recirculating in his brain, blurring the edges of right and wrong, good and evil, the means and the end.

He turned away from the headache-inducing artwork and made his way to the rear of the gallery, where Noemie sat behind a sleek black marble desk, listening to someone on her mobile phone. Her head rose at his approach. She said something indistinguishable into the mobile and cut the connection.

“Have you found something?”

“I have,” Jack said. “I’m looking for you.”

*   *   *

Alix was in her office just after 9:30, late for her, but the POTUS hadn’t asked for her, thank God. There were six calls she had to return, but when, forty minutes later, she had put those to bed, she was, for the moment, at least, free.

Jonatha had been on her mind ever since Jonatha had parted from her in Rock Creek Park. Alix’s cheeks were still burning with the humiliation of that shocking encounter. The fact that she had been willing to prostitute herself, to trade intel she clearly did not have for a return of Jonatha’s affection was almost too pathetic to bear.

Without another thought, she put her head down on her desk and wept hot, bitter tears. Her phone rang; she ignored it. Finally, it stopped ringing and, a moment later, when she picked her head up, she saw her voicemail light was blinking. She snatched up the phone, dialed in, hoping against hope that it was Jonatha who had left the message. It wasn’t. She put down the phone, no longer interested in who had called or what they wanted from her.

Everyone wanted something from her; everyone except Jonatha.

As she dried her eyes an idea came to her. She knew it was a terrible thing to do, but wasn’t what Jonatha had done to her terrible? An eye for an eye. That was all that was left her.

For the next three hours, she worked diligently without so much as a coffee break, and when she was done, she printed out her findings, stuffed them in her briefcase, grabbed her coat, and left the office, on her way to Langley.

*   *   *

“How do you know Ripley?” Noemie asked.

Jack shook his head. “Who?”

Noemie looked alarmed. She had taken him into the back room, a large open space with monstrous wooden racks between which the artwork was stored. In the rear were massive doors. Now Jack understood how the Kehinde Wiley had entered the gallery. Noemie, who had been standing beside one of these racks, slipped a slim hand into a niche. When she withdrew it, she aimed a small, silver-plated .25 caliber pistol at his head.

“You don’t know Ripley. Who the hell are you?”

*   *   *

The moment Jack McClure walked past him on Heinrichstrasse, Redbird turned away from the cop Gensler had given him. Their desultory conversation had rapidly become intolerable. With the cop at his heels Redbird followed McClure, careful to keep at least four or five pedestrians between them. With the kind of irony that only happened in his line of field work, McClure’s interference had proved the death of Pyotr Legere, leaving Redbird a clear field to concentrate on McClure. It seemed curious to him that death followed in McClure’s wake just as it did his own.

It occurred to Redbird that when he killed McClure it might be like killing himself, a notion not unknown to him. It was like living in a hall of mirrors, where reflections took on the solidity and power of their real-life counterparts.

Several blocks later, he watched McClure enter an art gallery. Moving a little to change his angle only brought slight streaks across the large plate-glass window to the right of the door. In any event, he could see nothing beyond the large canvas that dominated the window. Redbird couldn’t decide whether the painting was offensive or incomprehensible, two mutually exclusive descriptions that existed only in the world of contemporary art.
Give me Caravaggio’s
The Entombment of Christ
over this slop,
he thought.

He waited for McClure to come out. After ten minutes, his senses began to tingle. At once, he turned to his cop. “Go get your vehicle,” he said.

*   *   *

“Listen to me, Noemie, Caro gave me your name and address,” Jack said as calmly as he was able. “Caroline Simpson.” He used the surname of Helene Simpson, the alias Caro had been using last year, knowing she wouldn’t be using Carson, her real family name.

The concern leached off Noemie’s face, leaving it clear again. “Her hacker moniker is Ripley.” She put the pistol away. “You didn’t know?”

“She never told me. When we were together I knew her only as Caro.”

Noemie’s eyes narrowed. “You mean you’ve actually
met
Ripley?”

Jack nodded. “I helped her out of some trouble.”

Noemie’s eyes narrowed further and she took a step toward Jack. “When was this?”

“About a year ago. We were in Washington, D.C.”

“Well, she isn’t there now.”

“No? Where did she go?”

Noemie shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. It’s too dangerous.”

So Caro was still under threat from the Syrian. That she hadn’t mentioned it when they spoke was typical of her, Jack thought. She kept everything inside, especially her fears. Her terror at appearing vulnerable was always palpable.

“The reason I’m here,” he said now, “is there’s been an incident nearby, and I need a way to get out of Zurich as quickly and invisibly as possible.”

“Where will you be going?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I haven’t had time to consider a destination. Somewhere, anywhere. What’s easiest for you to effect?”

“It’s not a question of what’s easiest.” In her skyscraper-heeled Christian Louboutin pumps, Noemie crossed to a long, thick wooden framing table, on one end of which was a tray with three bottles of liquor, a frosted ice bucket, and several fresh lemons, along with a paring knife, and a selection of cut-crystal bar glasses. “We have vodka, scotch, and tequila. What can I get you?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

She turned, putting her back against the table. “I see you
are
in a hurry.” She nodded decisively. “All right, then.”

Picking up an iPad, she brought up a map of Switzerland on Google Earth while he came over to stand beside her.

“Here’s where we are.” She pointed to Zürich. “And, here—” her fingertips moved the map east, moving ever closer to the Alps that lay to the west of Geneva “—here is Méribel, a rich man’s hideaway, filled with luxe ski chalets.”

Thinking he had caught her drift, Jack said, “You have clients who spend winters there.”

“I do,” Noemie said, “and as I think you have guessed I have access to a number of chalets that are used infrequently, if at all. But that’s not the only reason you’re going there.”

Jack regarded her inquisitively.

“Méribel is where my most special client now lives full time.”

“You’re sending me to his chalet.”

“Ah, if only it were that simple.” An enigmatic smile wreathed Noemi’s face. “No, you’ll be using the chalet of a couple who are in Ibiza at the moment. But you
will
be within walking distance of Giles Legere’s home.”

N
INETEEN

A
LIX
R
OSS
sat in her car, stewing in her own whirl of thoughts. If only, she thought, the world was black and white, if only it wasn’t filled with shadows all too eager to lead you down the wrong path. But the world she chose to live in was all shadows, some deeper and darker, some mysterious and toxic. The trick was figuring out which ones could help you and which ones would signal your demise.

She turned off the ignition and sat staring out the windshield at the opaque blandness of CIA headquarters. Nothing in its skin would ever lead you to believe what went on inside, which was precisely the point. A house built on lies was never what it seemed; on the other hand, it could appear to be all things to all people.

Gathering her courage, she stepped out, went into the echoing lobby, with its immense CIA emblem embedded in the center of the floor.

“Alix Ross to see Director Krofft,” she announced.

The receptionist dialed an extension, spoke softly into the microphone of her headset. Then she looked at Alix. “The director is in a meeting. Is he expecting you?”

“Just tell him the POTUS’s press secretary has something for him.”

The receptionist whispered through the headset again. “Please have a seat, Ms. Ross. The director will be with you shortly.”

“Shortly” turned out to be an hour, by which point, Alix supposed, Krofft had ground his superior position into her face. Yes, she was little people. Let’s get on with it.

She stood before a computer camera to have her photo taken, then was issued a laminated plastic badge, which she held up for the various security guards stationed at each stage of her ascent to the director’s office. She was placed in an outer office for another fifteen minutes.
Like seeing my doctor
, she thought wryly. But Jonatha had already humiliated her beyond her limit. There wasn’t anything this man could do to her to make her feel worse about herself than she already did.

But when she was ushered into his office, Krofft rose from behind his desk and, smiling broadly, strode across the carpet, hand outstretched.

“Ms. Ross—”

“Alix. Please.”

“All right. Alix, it’s a pleasure to see you. To what do I owe this visit?”

“Atlas,” she said.

Krofft’s smile faded and his eyes grew hooded. “Shall we make ourselves comfortable?”

He directed her to a sofa on which they both sat.

“Now,” he said. “What is this about Atlas?”

Alix, her briefcase on her thighs, dug out the papers she had prepared. Without a word, she handed them over.

Krofft looked hard at her before glancing down at the top sheet. Then, more and more engrossed, he read the material through to the end.

Finally, he looked up at her. “Where did you get this?”

Her smile was both thin and sly. “The POTUS has any number of files he never bothers to look at. They’re updated all the time, but—” she shrugged “—he’s an extraordinarily busy man.” Her smile broadened. “You know how that is, Director.”