Beloved Enemy (35 page)

“He loves me, Iraj. That’s all that matters.”

The Syrian glanced over at Rolan, who was leaning against a wall, staring at the newly made crater as if it were a piece of art that consumed him. He seemed oblivious to them both.

Shaking his head, Iraj looked back to Annika. “Why would you do that, deliver him to me?”

Annika, prepared for this, said, “A year ago, at your villa outside Rome, I made a decision. You think it was a difficult one, but it wasn’t. I was never going to go with Jack; my place is here with you. That was my commitment to my grandfather while he was alive and it’s my commitment today.”

“Not even love will sway you?”

“His love for me? No.”

“I meant your love for him.”

“I don’t feel love, Iraj. You know that better than anyone.”

Now was the moment of truth, she knew. Either he’d acquiesce or he’d break with her, something he could ill afford to do. This was her power over him, the skill Dyadya Gourdjiev had taught her.

Something dark and unknown shifted behind his eyes. “Go ahead then,” he said. “Bring him to me.”

*   *   *

“Do you know who’s driving the BMW?” Radomil asked.

“Not for certain,” Jack said. “But I have a good idea. He’s been trying to kill me since I arrived in Bangkok.”

“Who is he?”

“Before I kill him,” Jack said, “I’m going to find out.”

Radomil shot him a quick glance. “It’s going to come to that?”

“The people who framed me for my friend’s death will go to any lengths to ensure I’m not cleared.”

“What’s their endgame?”

“Not
theirs, his
. There’s a mole in the upper echelons of the U.S. government. If I’m fingered as the mole, his real identity is safeguarded.”

Radomil was keeping one eye on the following BMW. “You know who’s running the mole?”

“I’ve been told it’s the Syrian,” Jack said. “I have no reason to doubt the intel, plus, since then, I’ve sorted the data in my head. I’ve come to the same conclusion.”

Radomil shook his head. “I had no idea.”

“But Annika must; she’s his partner.”

“I’d know if she did, believe me.” Radomil looked increasingly concerned. “This is very bad news. If Namazi is running something without her knowledge, then Annika’s lost control of him. That’s the last thing she wants or needs.”

“It was a grave mistake to partner with him in the first place.”

“She had no choice.”

“Now you’re making excuses for her.”

“Hey,” Radomil said, “no one knows better than I do what a prickly bitch she can be, but that’s just a facet; it’s not all of her, not by a long shot.”

“You and Noemie have to trust her.” Jack stared into the side mirror, where the silver BMW could be intermittently observed. “I’m not in that position.”

“You are if you want my help,” Radomil said. “I’m going to exit the A3. I’m not going to be able to lose this cocksucker while we’re on this straight and narrow.”

“Stay where you are.” Jack had spent no little time checking out the countryside, which was hilly but unforested. “I need a large swath of thick trees.”

Radomil nodded. “You see that spire there, across the river to the right? That’s Wettingen Abbey. In a few minutes, we’ll be passing through the northern end of Neuenhof. A couple of miles beyond is an enormous forested area.”

“Roads running through it?”

“Only a few paved ones,” Radomil said. “But this Audi can handle any of the earthen paths there.”

“Perfect,” Jack said. “Get us there as quickly as you can.”

*   *   *

Jonatha was lying on her bed, thinking about Lale, working to all hours on the paintings at the Corcoran, when her mobile rang. It was Marshall.

“I just heard about Alix Ross,” he said. “The POTUS just about shit a brick.”

Jonatha sat bolt upright. “What about Alix?”

“She’s dead. Found shot in a field in rural Virginia.”

“What the hell was she doing in rural Virginia?”

“One shot between the eyes,” Marshall said.

Holy Mother of God
, Jonatha thought. “A professional hit? How is that possible?”

“These days I’ve discovered that anything’s possible.” He paused. “Jonatha, are you all right?”

“Fine, yes. I’m fine.” But she wasn’t fine, not by a long shot. Why would Alix be murdered, shot to death by a hit man? Unless … Jonatha’s chest constricted. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Her heart hammered in the back of her throat. She thought of the last time she had spoken to Alix, that dreadful morning in Rock Creek Park.

“
I can help you
,” Alix had said at the last. “
I know what you’re working on. The POTUS has been briefed and so have I. There’s information that could be of use to you. I can provide it.
”

“
You have nothing of use to me
,” Jonatha had replied. It had been a complete dismissal. At the time, all she could think of was extricating herself from a liaison she had had no business entering into in the first place.

She had scarcely heard Alix say, “
Then I’ll get it.
”

But now those four words came back to her with the impact of a locomotive. What if Alix
had
found something? But she hadn’t come to Jonatha with it. Who would she have gone to? Not the POTUS, that’s for certain. Then who?

All at once, Jonatha knew, and she began to break out into a cold sweat.

Quickly, she ended the call, then lapsed into a deep, contemplative silence. She lay, arms folded across her breasts, like an Egyptian mummy. She stared up at the ceiling, as she had done in her childhood bedroom, turning cracks into rivers and their tributaries, tracing them to the sea, as if she were about to weigh anchor, embark on an epic journey through an unexplored continent. She imagined herself aboard the ship, a captain supervising the lading of provisions, watching the crew scuttling up and down the masts, hanging from the spars as they checked the rigging. She felt the wind in her hair, smelled the bracing tang of the open sea or the wide river.

This was a game she had made up when she was little, taking her away from the fixtures of the everyday world she hated and feared. Over the years it had become her singular pleasure of solace. But this evening she was reminded of why she was embarking on this trip, why she so desperately needed to get away. It wasn’t working. She could see Alix standing in front of her car, alone and forlorn, her teary eyes begging for the love Jonatha didn’t feel.

She thought of Roy, the white-haired Replicant, sitting on the rooftop in the Los Angeles of
Blade Runner
: “…
those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
”

No! It didn’t have to be like that.

She swung out of bed and, crossing to her closet, slammed all the clothes she thought she’d need into a weekend suitcase. “I’ve been a bad, bad girl. Please forgive me,” she scribbled on a piece of paper, which she left propped up on Lale’s pillow. Moments later, she was taking the elevator down to the lobby of her building.

She walked in a square pattern, two blocks on each side, standard procedure to see if she were being followed. When she was reasonably certain she was in the clear, she called for a taxi, stood in the deepest shadows of an art deco doorway that looked like the entrance to the Bat Cave. Six minutes later, when her taxi drew up, she stepped across the sidewalk, trying her best to keep out of the streetlights’ glow. The moment she ducked inside, she told the cabbie to take her to the north side of Dupont Circle.

The hour was late, the streets dark and eerily deserted. The monuments’ glow, as it often did, seemed to define the city of power.

In due course, she found herself outside the St. Giles’s Club. She went up the marble steps, used her key to open the immense door, and, stepping quickly inside, shut it, and the ills of the city, behind her.

The chandelier over the vestibule was turned down to its dimmest level. By its illumination, the wood wainscoting, the intricate marble floor, the pair of Louis XVI marquetry side chairs, the giant spray of lavender and roses in the oversized crystal vase all took on a certain verdigrised sheen, so that they appeared to have been transported intact from the nineteenth century.

Not surprisingly, no one was about. Without members milling, power brokers’ conversations, and the clinking of champagne flutes the house felt hollow, like an ancient tree before its fall. As she mounted the curving polished staircase, she heard the deep, barrel-chested British voice. “The city must have done you some hurt, for you to arrive so late in the evening on little cats’ feet.”

Only Sir Edward Enfield-Somerset would call midnight “evening.” As she raised her gaze, she couldn’t help but smile. He wore a purple smoking jacket, cashmere slippers with his family crest embroidered across the toe box, and, of course, in one hand he held a cut-crystal snifter of Napoleon brandy, his nightcap of choice.

“You looked peaked. Have you had supper? I’ll have Emmeline heat up some—”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You must be tired,” he said, waving her up, “but taking a few minutes to talk couldn’t hurt, eh?”

At the top of the stairs, she followed him into his private library, which existed en suite with his bedroom and enormous bath.

“Choose your poison,” he said crossing to the bar.

“Not tonight, thank you.” She almost sighed out loud as she collapsed into one of the huge upholstered wing-backed chairs.

Sir Edward shot her a jaundiced look. “No food, no drink. I don’t like this.”

“A woman I knew was shot to death.”

“You mean Alix Ross? I just heard. How well did you know her?” He waved his free hand. “No, no, never mind. The point is, surely that sort of thing doesn’t often happen, even in your line of work.”

“It
never
happens,” Jonatha said bleakly.

“Well, it’s happened now.” He padded across the priceless antique Isfahan and sat in the wing chair facing her. “No use crying over it.” They were so close their knees were almost touching.

“I’m not crying!” she fairly yelled.

“On the other hand, there’s no shame in having feelings. Rum business, all right.” He spent another moment settling himself. “There’s more than death to it, isn’t there?”

Jonatha nodded miserably. “This woman and I had sex—she fucked me, I fucked her…”

Sir Edward arched an eyebrow. “Were you ordered to do this as a function of your job?”

“No. I indulged in a selfish moment. I fucked up. I lost my head. I enjoyed it.”

Sir Edward shrugged. “All that proves is you’re human.”

Jonatha put her head in her hands. “I don’t know if Lale will forgive me.”

“Do you love Lale?”

“I do.”

“Does she love you?”

Jonatha nodded.

“That’s all that matters,” said Sir Edward.

“But what if it isn’t? What if she won’t forgive me?”

“Are you speaking of Lale now, or of yourself?” He took her hands in his. “You know, you have to begin this process by forgiving yourself.”

A long silence ensued, punctuated by Jonatha’s small, stifled sobs.

“So,” Sir Edward said at length, “have you come here tonight only seeking solace?”

Jonatha shook her head, looked up into his kindly eyes.

“I pushed Alix away and because of that she was killed.”

Sir Edward made a noise. “That’s a mighty harsh judgement. Are you certain of it?”

“I’m not certain of anything anymore.” She shook her head. “But it seems to me…”

“You’re in a serious line of work, Jonatha. Always a rough patch to get through.”

Jonatha’s eyes seemed to flare in the lamplight. “This is more than a rough patch,” she said. “I might not get out of it alive.”

Now real concern darkened Sir Edward’s face. “Jonatha, what in the name of St. Augustine is really going on?”

Jonatha looked at him bleakly. “I think I know who had her shot.”

Sir Edward reared back. “Someone you know?”

She nodded. “The man I work for.”

*   *   *

“We need a destination,” Jack said, as they neared the exit that would take them to the Oberforst, the forest preserve. “We need to make it seem like we’re meeting someone here.”

“I have just the place,” Radomil said.

Behind them, they heard the oncoming high-low siren of an ambulance. Radomil glanced in the rearview mirror, then moved to the right to get out of the speeding vehicle’s way. The exit came up and he took it. The ambulance, moving to its right, followed them down the ramp. Radomil was about to pull over to the curb, when the ambulance struck them from behind so powerfully that Radomil was catapulted through the windshield in a welter of safety-glass shards. Jack slammed out of the Audi and grabbed Radomil, whose face was scratched and bleeding.

Three men armed with Lugers poured out of the ambulance. Behind them, the BMW came rocketing down from the A3 and screeched to a stop. One of the armed men aimed at Jack as he was trying to steady a staggering Radomil. Jack shot him and he went down. The other two men took cover behind the ambulance’s open rear door.

As they began to fire, Jack dragged Radomil into the trees.

“Go left,” Radomil said, wiping his face on the sleeve of his jacket, smearing blood over his cheeks, nose, and mouth. “Left again, and in three hundred yards, go right.”

Jack could hear the men slashing through the undergrowth in their frantic pursuit. Then a commanding voice lifted over the noise, ordering the men back to a spread perimeter. The assassin he had encountered in Bangkok was mounting the pursuit alone, his men guarding the exits to what he hoped would be the killing field.

Following Radomil’s directions, Jack led them on a final turn to the right, heading ever deeper into the Oberforst. Looming pines crowded either side of the track, the tips of their graceful branches overhanging the path, occasionally brushing against their legs. Though the sky was still mostly clear, what little sunlight penetrated was tinged a poison green. Black shadows lay everywhere, like felled soldiers on a long-abandoned battlefield.

Several hundred yards further on, Radomil called a halt. “We’re very near now,” he said.